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c-e-d-dreamer · 1 year

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I Was Enchanted To Meet You: Part Two

A/N: Fluffy Disney shenanigans continue for these two lovely idiots in honor of @elucienweekofficial ;) Also, I just need everyone to pretend that Nesta and Elain aren't technically sisters, okay? Just for the sake of this fic! Nothing to see here.... anyways! Hope everyone enjoys :)

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Elain

The sun’s rays spill in around Elain and gently tug her away from sleep’s warm embrace. Slowly but surely, she blinks her eyes open, stretching her arms above her head until she feels that satisfying pull in her muscles and shoulders. She smacks her lips together and sits up, but it takes her a few moments to fully recognize where she is.

She half expects to wake up in her bed back in her cottage, for Pip and her other forest friends to greet her before they enjoy a nice breakfast together, but then it all comes flooding back to her. The old woman. The wishing well. Climbing out of the hole in the ground into this strange world. The memories flash across Elain’s mind until her chest starts to constrict and heave, until her stomach flips over itself and she has to squeeze her eyes shut against the onslaught.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Elain exhales out all of those memories, all of those negative thoughts. She simply doesn’t have time for that. Cassian is coming to rescue her, to take her back home to Andalasia, so there’s simply no point. It’s important to focus on the positive instead. Like the very nice family that showed her kindness last night and allowed her to sleep in their lovely home.

Well, mostly lovely.

Elain can’t help but wrinkle her nose as she eyes the space around her, the empty food cartons, the crumbs, the dirty dishes she can spy piled up in the kitchen. This place most definitely needs a good thorough scrub, and she supposes the least she can do as a guest here is help with that. It will be the perfect way for her to pay the Vanserras back for their kindness.

With a decided nod, Elain pushes up from the sofa and stands up. She steps over to the window, having to put a bit of force behind it before it slides up and opens. With a satisfied hum, Elain leans out, cupping a hand to her mouth and singing a tune that floats away on the morning breeze. When the echo of her voice finally fades, she steps back and waits, excited to see what forest friends this strange world has that can help her.

That excitement morphs into pure bewilderment, though, when the creatures that answer her call arrive. Rats. Pigeons. Raccoons. Bugs. They’re certainly not the types of friends Elain is used to back in her forest, and it takes all her willpower to keep her face neutral, not to give away the bile that’s started to tickle the back of her throat.

“I suppose it’s always good to make new friends,” Elain forces herself to say aloud, but now that she’s said it, she lets the truth of those words fill her with new found determination. She lifts the skirts of her dress up and ties them off so they’ll be out of her way and claps her hands together. “Right. Let’s get to work and make this place sparkle as it should.”

As Elain starts to sing her favorite happy, working song, all of her new friends get to work. They start to gather up the trash and sweep up the crumbs in the living room, clearly having everything under control, so Elain skips into the kitchen. She fills the sink with warm, soapy water and digs out a pair of bright yellow gloves from the cabinet beneath. While she continues to hum and sing, she gives each dish a thorough scrub until she can practically see her own smiling reflection blinking back at her in the porcelain.

“And here we are,” Elain says, handing each dish to a raccoon to wipe dry before one of the pigeons flies the dishes to the correct cupboard to be put away.

When the dishes are finished, Elain leaves her friends to finish wiping down the countertops and mopping the floor, and instead, she picks up a feather duster and heads back into the living room, the floor thankfully now visible. She dusts off each of the lamps on the side tables and continues toward the mantle, but her movements pause as she takes in the neat line of picture frames.

The first photo appears to be Willow as a baby, perhaps even just a few days old. She’s swaddled tightly in a bundle of white blankets, just her face and rounded pink cheeks peeking out. Lucien has her cradled in his arms and close to his chest, his smile wide as he peers down at his daughter rather than the camera. Even though she can’t fully see his eyes in the photo, Elain can still see the joy, the love glimmering in that captured gaze, the emotions frozen forever in time.

The second photo seems to have been taken at some sort of beach. Willow is a few years older than in the first, perched happily on her father’s shoulders. Her smile is wide, showing off a mismatched smile of growing teeth. A pair of sunglasses hides Lucien’s eyes from view, but Elain can’t help but notice that his smile seems a bit softer in this photo, almost more cautious.

The third photo is just Willow, proudly holding a small chalkboard, colorful looping letters declaring it her first day of school. But the final photo seems to be the most recent. It appears to be some sort of formal affair, judging by the attire of the both of them. Like the previous two photos, Willow’s face is bright and happy, but it’s Lucien’s face that really draws Elain’s attention. He looks almost… reserved. Resigned. Even as he smiles softly with his daughter in his arms, there’s something almost sad about it.

It both warms her heart and leaves her chest aching to stare at all these photos. To see such a happy, little family, and yet, at the same time, seeing a man close himself off through the years and through the photos. Seeing a man who clearly no longer sees all the beauty and wonder and love that the world has to offer. Even this strange one.

An alarmed squeak to her right finally pulls Elain away from the photos. She looks over to find that one of the rat’s tails has been sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. Elain lets out a quiet gasp, and sets her feather duster down, rushing to the small creature's aid.

“Here, let me help you,” Elain exclaims, reaching down to gently pull the rat’s tail free. “There. Much better, huh?”

The rat gives another squeak, this one a happy confirmation, and then it goes scampering off to continue cleaning. Elain smiles as she glances around the room, watching as the rats continue to wipe down the windows with their tails until they shine, as the pigeons finish straightening out the books and magazines on the coffee table.

“This place is already looking so much better,” Elain praises her new friends as she stands up, earning a cacophony of cheers and chirps.

With the pigeons’ encouragement at her back, Elain is guided into another room in the apartment, a large bath taking up most of the space in the center of the room. One of the raccoons scampers forward and turns the nobs until water spills from above the bath, the heat of it filling the whole room with steam.

For a moment, Elain is completely enraptured by this completely new and strange contraception of this world, but then the pigeons begin to tug the pins and ties from her hair, carefully pulling apart her updo with their beaks. Elain reaches her own hands up to help, her fingers making quick work of the tangles until her hair falls down along her shoulders and back.

Her friends help her with the buttons and stays of her dress next, until it falls away in a bundle of white fabric at her feet. Elain steps fully out of the dress and toward the spray of water, holding her hand out tentatively. A sigh of delight pulls its way from deep within her chest at the warmth that spills across her fingers, and humming to herself, Elain steps gingerly into the white basin and under the spray of water, allowing that steady stream to work out every knot, to wash away everything from the previous day.

~ * * * ~

Lucien

“Daddy! Daddy, wake up!”

Lucien groans softly and buries his face deeper into his pillow. His alarm for the day hasn’t gone off just yet, which means he still has a few more moments of blissful sleep. A few more moments to cling to that sleepy relaxation blanketing his limbs and sinking down to his bones. A few more moments to keep grasp of the dream he was having, even as the tendrils of it slip through his fingers like smoke.

“Daddy, come on. You have to see this.”

Slowly, Lucien opens his eyes. He reaches a hand up to push his hair out of the way and comes face to face with another head of bright, red hair. Willow blinks down at him, her eyes wide, and still clad in her pajamas from the night before. Her little hands are pressed to his shoulder, fingers digging into the tee he wore to bed, and when he doesn’t move fast enough, she gives him another shake.

“What is it?” Lucien asks, his voice mumbled and still sleep addled, as he sits up in the bed.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Willow offers vaguely, grabbing onto Lucien’s arm and tugging. “You’re just going to have to see for yourself.”

Lucien allows his daughter to tug him up, and he clambers off of the bed. Still clasping his hand tightly in hers, Willow leads them out of his bedroom and down the hallway of their apartment. When they finally reach the living room, Lucien swears he must still be dreaming. He has to be. Because there is simply no other explanation for the sight before him.

Rats. Pigeons. Raccoons. His entire apartment is covered in vermin. They run across the hardwood floors, climb up over the coffee table, and if Lucien peers into the kitchen, he can even see them on the countertops. He feels like he’s going to be sick. The sight has bile swirling ominously in his gut, and it takes all of Lucien’s willpower to swallow down his gag. How did they even get inside? Is the whole floor infested or just their apartment?

“What do we do?” Willow asks, tearing Lucien away from his spiraling thoughts.

“We’ve got to get them out of here,” Lucien declares, jumping into action.

He stretches his arms out wide as he moves through the living room, trying to herd the pigeons toward the open windows as best he can. Most of the birds squawk but fly away in the direction he intends, but for those that don’t, Lucien merely grabs them with his hands and all but flings them out the window.

“What should I do with these?”

Lucien looks over at the question only to find Willow holding the tails of four rats in her hands. The sight has his stomach turning even more than it already has. He doesn’t even want to begin to think about all the potential germs his daughter could get from that simple touch. He’s going to have to scrub them both down thoroughly after this.

“Don’t touch them,” Lucien chastises her, rushing forward to yank open their front door. “Just throw them out. Throw them outside.”

Thankfully, Willow does as he requests, practically tossing the rats out of their apartment and into the hallway. He instructs Willow to stay by the door while he moves back into the living room. He crouches down and waves his hands low to the ground, pushing all the remaining critters into a large clump and encouraging them toward the door.

When the last of the vermin is over the threshold, Lucien slams the front door closed, daring to slide the lock into place for extra good measure. He leans against the wood and lets out a relieved sigh, his heart rate finally slowing back down to a normal rate, as his eyes scan across the space, double checking no other creatures are hiding anywhere.

“Come on,” Lucien says to Willow leading her into the kitchen.

He grabs the little stool they keep there for her and sets it down in front of the sink. He then turns on the water as hot as he can stand, encouraging Willow to hold her hands under the spray when she climbs up onto her stool. He squeezes a generous amount of soap into both their hands, scrubbing hard until Lucien is sure he can no longer feel the remnants of holding those pigeons or touching those rats.

“What a crazy morning,” Willow giggles, shaking the water from her hands.

“Crazy is an understatement,” Lucien mutters, shaking his head.

He still can’t quite wrap his mind around the way his world has turned upside down in less than twenty four hours. One night and it’s as if the rug has been pulled clean from beneath his feet, leaving him stumbling and confused. Before, he had felt so comfortable in his routine. He woke up, got Willow ready for school. He went to work and trudged through his case files. And on the weekends, he would get a babysitter, so he and Nesta could have a date night.

It was easy. It was steady. And sure, Vassa would tease him relentlessly for being boring, for already being an eighty year old man, for lacking in the wonders of romance as she said, but if there’s one thing that Lucien knows first hand, it’s that romance is a load of bullshit. It’s nothing like the books or the movies. There’s nothing whirlwind or worthwhile about it. All it leads to is disappointment and heartbreak.

And he was perfectly okay with that, to be without it, with the quiet reliability of his life.

And now he’s catching crazy women who fall off billboards? And letting them stay the night? And waking up to an infested apartment? It’s madness.

Lucien's swirling thoughts do bring him crashing back to the one thing currently missing in action for this strange morning: Elain. While he and Willow dry their hands, Lucien’s eyes dance back toward the living room, but there’s no sign of her. Even the blanket that Lucien had draped over her the previous night is now neatly folded away.

Lucien starts to half wonder if he actually imagined the whole previous night, but the sound of humming drifts through the apartment, prickling his ears. Leaving Willow in the kitchen, he goes investigating through the apartment. He follows that lilting, gentle melody, like a siren song leading him blindingly but willingly, until he reaches the bathroom. The door is closed, but over the sound of that humming, Lucien thinks he can hear the shower running.

“Elain?” Lucien calls out, knocking on the door before tentatively pushing it open.

Just as Lucien steps inside the bathroom, the shower curtain is yanked back, Elain stepping out like some sort of goddess of steam. The honeyed strands of her hair now hang loose around her shoulders and down her back, the light spilling into the bathroom sparking against the curls until they look almost like spun gold. The heat of the shower has left her skin dappled in pink, the constellation of freckles across the apples of her cheeks more prominent beneath the color, and especially when Elain smiles widely in greeting.

“Good morning, Lucien,” Elain offers brightly, stepping out of the shower and accepting the towel that two pigeons wrap around her. “I was just enjoying your magic waterfall room.”

“My… magic wat…” Lucien splutters, letting out a sigh and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Mother, help me.”

“Where does the water come from?”

Lucien lets out a near hysterical laugh, dropping his hand back to his side and settling Elain with a bland look. “The pipes.”

“And where do the pipes get it from?” Elain asks earnestly, like she didn’t pick up on or didn’t care for Lucien’s dry tone or sarcasm.

“You can’t be serious,” Lucien mutters, more to himself than to Elain.

Completely unperturbed and unbothered, Elain steps over to the bathroom sink. The remnants of the shower steam still cover the mirror hanging above it, blocking the view, and she tilts her head and frowns at it, even as her hands still reach up to fiddle with her hair.

“Here,” Lucien offers, stepping to the other side of the bathroom to grab an extra towel.

“Oh, don’t worry. My new friends can take care of it.”

Elain cups a hand to her mouth and starts to sing just as Lucien sidles up beside her, reaching up to wipe the towel against the mirror and clear the steam away. Seemingly in response, more pigeons come flying into the room, knocking into Lucien’s arm and the back of his head. As if that’s not enough, more rats go scurrying across the bathroom floor and over Lucien’s feet.

Lucien lets out a shout in alarm, stumbling backwards in a desperate attempt to get away from the vermin now invading his bathroom. His arms flail with the movement, accidentally knocking into Elain and throwing her equally off balance. Lucien curls his arms around her waist, hoping to at least keep her from a disastrous spill, but it just sends them both spinning out of the bathroom and tumbling to the floor of the hallway.

A pained grunt pulls its way free from Lucien’s chest as he lands hard on his back, his elbows and tailbone already flaring in protest at the harsh landing. Elain lands right on top of him with a quiet squeak, still clad in just a towel. Even through the sleep pants and tee that Lucien is wearing, he can feel everywhere her body is pressed against his, and Lucien closes his eyes and sighs, praying to the Mother, the Cauldron, and any other deity that might be listening to give him strength.

“Are you kidding me?”

Lucien freezes at the sound of that voice, his whole body locking up with tension until he swears he can hear his blood pounding in his ears. His eyes snap open, and he turns his head, his worst fears confirmed when he sees Nesta standing in the doorway of their front door. Her blue gray eyes spark with icy rage, that narrowed gaze flitting between Lucien and Elain like she’s unsure whom to direct all her wrath at.

“Nesta, it’s not what it looks—”

“It’s not?” Nesta cuts him off, her tone clipped and cold. “Then who’s this?”

“I’m Elain,” Elain answers for him, clambering up to her feet and stepping toward Nesta with her hand outstretched in greeting. “I stayed the night last night.”

Nesta scoffs, turning her ire back on Lucien. “Did she, now? Wow. And here I thought you were such a great guy that I never stayed the night. I thought it’s so sweet that he cares so much about his daughter. Didn’t realize this was the real reason.”

“Nesta, please,” Lucien protests, pushing forward past Elain and to the door, to Nesta. “It’s really not like that. It’s just that last night, we were—”

“I don’t care, Lucien,” Nesta snaps. She shakes her head and adjusts the strap of her bag on her shoulder, turning away from the apartment, but Lucien catches her wrist before she can leave.

“Please don’t leave. You were going to take Willow to school, remember? So, the two of you can have grown up girl bonding time.”

“Why? So you can have grown up girl bonding time?” Nesta pulls her arm free from his grasp, lowering her voice to a whisper, so Willow doesn’t overhear. “Fuck you.”

With that, Nesta stalks away down the hallway and toward the elevators, leaving Lucien gaping like a fish after her. He lets out a frustrated groan, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. This is truly the worst morning he thinks he’s had in years. How could this happen? How could everything just be crumbling chaos all around him? He glances back to Willow and Elain, both still standing in the front entryway awkwardly, and hesitates for only a moment before rushing out the door. He runs down the hallway, hoping beyond hope that he’ll get lucky.

“Nesta, wait!” Lucien calls out, when he reaches the elevators, just in time to watch the doors close on Nesta’s still annoyed face.

Lucien stares at the elevator doors, at the numbers above as they tick down and down. He’s not sure if this is meant to be a sign, if the Fates are just laughing in his face at this point, but if there’s one thing Lucien does know, it’s that he’s never helping a random stranger ever again. No matter how pretty they are.

—

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @lifeisntafantasy @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @unlikelypersonalknight1 @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo @jmoonjones @burningsnowleopard @whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk @ofduskanddreams @rarephloxes @thelovelymadone

#elucien #elucienweek2023 #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #acotar #pro elucien #elucien fanfic #elucien fic #elain x lucien #elain and lucien #enchanted au #my fic

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whentherewerebicycles · 8 months

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gooood morning. I got up at 6:15, finished a book, and then cuddled aggressively with pip (who very grumpily permitted this behavior). I also signed him up for an advanced agility class that starts in a couple weeks… might be his last one for a while! ruthie was unavailable for cuddling as she has made a nest of blankets for herself in the linen cupboard and now spends all her time there 😂 mmm let’s see the morning is mine and then liz and I are embarking on some kind of afternoon adventure tbd followed by dinner with A (and maybe my sister if she’s free). I feel less restless than yesterday perhaps because I have plans for later. it’s gloomy out as per usual but we might still go for an early long walk just to get it out of the way. hmm!!!!! but first: breakfast.

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downthetubes · 4 months

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Zoinks!! by John Freeman, Tuesday 4th June 2024. “The Guinness Book of Records say my four hour wait in A&E may just be pipped to the post by the man who spent two weeks recovering in an NHS storage cupboard…”

#zoinks #john freeman #nhs

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arthyritis · 10 months

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A Wonderful World (Welcome Home/Puppet Friends AU) - Chapter Six

Pip stepped outside of his house, showcasing a calm, warm demeanour that was so much acting that it was all he could focus on as he traversed the path around the neighbourhood. So focused that he didn't even notice the pink puppet with blonde hair who jumped in his way, causing both of them to topple over into a pile of limbs on the grass. His head hit the ground lightly.

Immediately, Pip's hands felt to make sure his hearing aids were still attached and not broken, and when that was cleared, he looked to see who he'd run into.

She was already sitting up, eyes spinning dizzily as she held her head with a smile. "Woah, that was quite a tumble we took!" Her eyes stopped spinning and she looked at Pip. "Oh, hey, you're the new neighbour! Pleased to meet you." She held her hand out. "Name's Julie!"

He grabbed her hand back. "Pip. Or Puppet," he introduced, considering she'd addressed him as 'new neighbour' and not by name. It seemed not everyone had gotten the memo, still. "Are you okay?"

"Peachy!" she smiled wide, two little horns twitching atop her head. She stood, still grasping his hand and pulled him up. "Are you?"

"I'm fine. Just... really clumsy, apparently." A bashful blush took up his face as she laughed.

"Aren't we all!"

Pip took its sweet time separating their hands, and the little monster puppet seemed to have no problem with that, continuing to smile at it while it stared at their intertwined hands. She looked down and her eyes lit up as she pulled away. "Oh! I'm sorry, I got caught up, did you have somewhere to be right now?"

"No. Nowhere. I was just going to wander the neighbourhood until I found something to do." Secretly, it hoped Julie wasn't busy right now so that the puppet, who was slightly taller than Wally, could play with it.

"You can play with me!"

It was slightly ironic that Wally had just been talking about this puppet and her family this morning and now Pip had the opportunity to hang out with her. Julie ran off to grab something and came back with a jump rope and chalk. "I have lots of fun little games I play, you've probably never played them since I made them up, so I'll tell you the rules! If you want to play with me, that is."

Pip realised it'd become quiet and forced itself to talk. "Yeah, absolutely!" It smiled.

"Great!" Julie smiled back. "So, this one's called--"

Pip and Julie played for quite a while, and even just drew on the ground some. Little colourful chalk flowers decorated the path and sidewalk directly in front of her pretty little house. Pip forced itself to focus on the games and drawings over the intrusive thoughts trying to invade its mind from the conversation this morning, and it worked for some time until Julie reminded it that they should probably eat lunch.

They headed inside her house together and Pip admired the interior. A lot of the things were decorated with drawings, and it reminded Pip of the inside of his own house--oh, so Julie must have been the one to do all of the pretty decorating. It would have to remember to thank her.

"Let's see... I've just stocked up on some of my favourite foods, so what would you like? We can make candy pizza, candy sushi, candy burgers--ooh, or macaroni and cheese!"

Pip laughed a little. "I'll go with macaroni and cheese."

"Coming right up!" Julie replied, raiding her cupboards for ingredients. "It shouldn't take too long. You can help me if you'd like! We can even invite Eddie over; mac and cheese is his favourite, too. Frank's not so much, but they're busy today, anyway. Butterfly catching, it's an all-day thing, apparently."

She rolled her eyes playfully, and Pip vaguely remembered being told that she and Frank were good friends.

"Their butterfly collection is really cool," it said gently, button eyes wide. "They mentioned Eddie as well. I haven't met him, but he's the mailman, right?"

"The mailman and Frank's husband, yes." Pip's eyes widened further. "They've been married a very long time, as long as I've lived here, anyway, and that's been a while! I haven't seen any of my siblings in almost as long, too."

Suddenly, Julie's happy demeanour which had been all she'd portrayed so far was ruined, replaced by melancholy. It didn't really know what to say, deciding to wait the mood out, if possible. In the time they'd chatted, Julie had gotten out everything they needed to make the macaroni and cheese and also put a pot of water on the stove to boil, which it had, quickly.

As Pip poured some noodles into the boiling, popping water, it simply said, "I'm sorry to hear that."

And then Julie was back to her happy, hyper self as she stirred the noodles to make sure they wouldn't stick to the bottom of the pot. "Oh, that's okay. I don't even think about it that much, honestly! It just hits randomly, you know?"

"Not really," Pip admitted, a bit startled but trying not to show it. "I haven't stopped thinking about my family since I've gotten here..."

Julie shrugged. "You get used to it."

Pip really didn't like the sound of that.

The pink puppet had left to call Eddie while the macaroni was in the oven, leaving Pip alone with his thoughts as the breadcrumb and cheese topping cooked over. It was hard to imagine his friends back home were doing anything other than looking for him everywhere. Phoebe was out of school for the summer, but only for a couple more weeks. If time was passing the same there as it was here, he'd already been gone for three days, and he was sure no one was handling that well.

Especially considering how he'd left. No one had noticed his parting as they were all engrossed in that stupid cartoon, the same one he was currently living inside of. He wondered, vaguely, if he would appear on any of the tapes they had there, but that was just a ridiculous thought that was bound to send him spiralling. He didn't travel back in time, he couldn't have, could he?

A knock on the door shattered his train of thought head-on and he stood to open it up. An orange puppet wearing a uniform of sorts stood in front of him, about the same height as Frank. He tipped his blue hat with a wide grin, "Howdy, Pip! Oh, boy, that mac and cheese sure smells good!"

He smelled the air and gravitated toward it, making Pip smile as Julie came down the stairs and ran right past him. "Hiya, Eddie! Hand me those oven mitts, would ya?"

As the two who already knew each other fixed up lunch, Pip sat at the table, alone. But this time its thoughts didn't go so wild. It simply watched as Julie and Eddie worked together, wondering if it could ever get to that point with the neighbours. All of his own friends were forgotten for just a moment.

Phoebe sat at the table, picking at her food. She wasn't really hungry, but she was terribly tired, having stayed up most of the night designing posters to put around her block and more. The puppets, even though they slept, looked just as sluggish as she felt, and they all felt bad, one not looking at the other.

The human girl's parents were slowly realising something was very wrong, but their daughter who usually opened up to them about anything and everything, was suddenly shut off. They had, however, seen the posters when they'd gone in to wake her up, so they could piece it together. They didn't speak on it. The little magical beings in their house were plenty capable of taking care of themselves, it was their daughter that was worrying them. Then again, these were her best friends sitting on the edges of the table looking so glum, with a space left for the last.

When Phoebe finally finished her cold porridge and left the table, her parents exchanged knowing looks. It had been only a day, but they needed to do something about all of this. They needed to get her happy again.

They gathered the posters their daughter had made and got Phoebe and her twin baby brothers ready to go outside, the tots walking next to them and enjoying the warm weather, while Phoebe rolled around, the remaining puppets in a backpack situated on her lap. Her dog, Scout, led the way slightly on a lead.

She stapled the posters to anything she could, low because of her wheelchair, but hopefully, they would catch the eyes of children, at least. If Pip had been found by a child, surely they'd do the right thing and return it.

Sweetie sighed, sitting on the bottom of the backpack and just letting the bumps of the wheelchair keep her grounded. She hadn't yet told anyone about the waste paper bin, too caught up in their sulking.

"Yay?" she called, watching the chipmunk flop down next to her dramatically with their ever-permanent smile. Their eyes glistened sadly and it made her feel worse as she continued, "I feel like this is our fault."

"Maybe," Yay agreed all too quickly, and Sweetie frowned. "But, he wouldn't hold it against us, and he especially wouldn't have run away because of it."

That eased the fox's worries just a little bit, but not enough to stop her arms clenching around her dress and legs. "Well, no, maybe not--"

"I don't think this is the right move, either, Sweetie," Yay-Yay continued. "But we looked everywhere at home, didn't we?" they asked, and there was Sweetie's guilt building, building, building.

"Maybe not everywhere..." she whispered, so quietly that if Pip was here right now, his hearing aids wouldn't have picked it up. But Yay's ears worked fine, and they cocked their head in questioning. Sweetie sighed. "I think he fell into the waste paper basket. It was all messed up when I looked last night."

Yay's ears twitched, what would be their eyebrows going up in wonder. "That's odd. He wasn't in there when Phoebe looked."

"No, he must have gotten out." Yay nodded, but they could feel the apprehension in her tone.

"But...?"

Sweetie's chest rose and she looked up at the sky, Phoebe's braids swinging in and out of her view. "But what if he somehow didn't? Like those stories the kids used to tell. Magical portals."

Yay's eyes darted away. "I can't say I hadn't thought of that, too. It's a long shot, though."

"We'll figure it out, though, right?" Sweetie spoke softly still.

"Right."

The backpack was filled with nothing but silence for the rest of the ride around the neighbourhood.

#welcome home fanfic #Puppet Friends #grey does writing

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mariana-oconnor · 2 years

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The Five Orange Pips pt 3

It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.

I mourn the loss of the storm descriptions, but this is still lovely.

I also have 'I can see clearly now the rain has gone' playing in my head.

As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to my heart. "Holmes," I cried, "you are too late."

Once again Watson reading the paper is important. Does Holmes just miss out on major events when Watson isn't here? Does he turn up to meetings only to find the person he was meeting with is dead? Does he have other people read the newspapers for him? Does he... do it himself? *shudder*

This is a really tragic story, even allowing for the fact that Elias Openshaw was a tremendous dick and his death was the opposite of a tragedy. Holmes and Watson's inability to save anyone is just... This isn't something you would see in modern detective fiction, except in very extreme examples. I'm not convinced that any of the Openshaws were exactly good people (hanging out with racist former terrorists will do that) but there is still tragedy in this. They all died. The last two for no reason. It's such senseless death. Holmes was too late. Everything was just too late. Even if they weren't good people, their deaths are just... so pointless.

In real life, I don't tend to think anyone deserves death. In fiction, a satisfying death is... well, satisfying. These offer no satisfaction or pathos or purpose. So yeah, tragic.

"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water.

I love how they record the name of the officer in the paper. It's more like an incident report than a news story. Good old Police-Constable Cook. I hope he got a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham.

If this were a modern mystery it absolutely would not be John Openshaw. That's a terrible way to identify a body. I know there's no DNA and no fingerprinting, and also his entire family has been murdered by racist terrorists, but still. Sometimes I have letters to other people in my pockets. Sometimes I have loyalty cards etc. belonging to other people in my pockets because I am borrowing them. But I am not my father... I kind of want it to not be him. He's faked his own death and is living in Tahiti and the person in the river is the guy who tried to kill him. Good for John.

The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident

Vengeful ghost. Vengeful ghost!

calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages.

Well, at least some good has come of this adventure. I'm all for improving health and safety.

"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before."

Police-Constable Cook has had enough excitement for one day. Best if he gets some rest.

But now shit's personal. They made him angry.

All day I was engaged in my professional work

I mean, I know Watson has a day job, but it's strangely jarring to have this 'we failed' revelation and then Watson goes off and listens to people cough for 8 hours or something. 😂🤣😂

"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!" "What do you mean?" He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote "S. H. for J. 0."

Sherlock is petty af and I am here for it.

"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers and files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in '83."

I also appreciate that Holmes is shown here doing the tedious legwork. It's not all sudden sparks of inspiration and instant feats of deduction. Sometimes you have to go down to a room full of records and read until your eyes bleed.

We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of the boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star.

Another set of criminals lost at sea. Not sure why that happened this time when they could have been caught another way, but... I guess they... got their comeuppance? ACD really liked 'storms blow everybody dies' endings, I guess.

Return of the 'equinoctial gales' though! Glad they got a callback after being such main characters throughout. Does that count as foreshadowing?

#Letters from Watson #Sherlock Holmes #The Five Orange Pips #Apparently I'm doing liveblogs of these now #sorry?#I almost wrote the five orange popes both in the title of this and in the tags #that would be a different story

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nocturnalrorobin · 4 months

Text

Howl

Chapter 2: Two Truths And One Lie

cw: language

Wc: ~ 1900

MDNI

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ro nervously trotted back to the kitchen, the thought of living and working with those huge, sexy men is making him nervous and self conscious. As he entered the Kitchen he felt all eyes on him. All had questions for him, most of all why he believed he was a beta, but that was for another time.

“Before we do anything, I just want to clarify that the cellar and the barn further in the forest are off limits for you pip squeak!” Kidd grunted and pushed past him, hitting his shoulder in the process. He disappeared downstairs without another word.

‘Such a charmer!’ Ro rolled his eyes. “So is he just not a morning person or did someone piss in his coffee?” The three of them just burst into laughter, although Killer only moved his shoulders up and down and then he just commented.

“Ignore it. It’s worse if you react to it, trust me on this.”

He didn’t really know how to respond to this, as he usually tends to ignore comments like this, but something about Kidd seems to rile him up. “Well I'm the opposite of him though I dont bark much, if you push me too far though, I will bite and that’s that.” The second he finished that statement the air in the kitchen shifted and suddenly Killers and Wires eyes were glowing golden and it sounded like they were growling. Heat, who is quite sensitive for an Alpha, even though he too was affected by what Ro said, thought it best to deescalate the situation so he quickly got up and took him out of the kitchen and back into their shared room. “Did I do something wrong?” Ro wondered, nervously fiddling with the strings of his sweatshirt.

“No. Don’t worry about it!” Heat just curtly replied, but his eyes too were glowing golden even if he tried to hide it, Ro saw it and made him really insecure.

Back in the room Heat tried his best to calm himself down, how does he even explain this to him? Could he even? Fact is he didn’t do anything wrong, he just gave all the Alphas a nice mental image of a feisty Omega who will bite back during sex.

“Are you sure everything is alright?” He asked one more time, and Heat saw on his face how anxious he was. He gently smiled, in fact it was one of the warmest smiles Ro has ever seen and came close to him to pet his head.

“As I said, don’t worry. Everything is alright. I promise I will tell you if you do something wrong!” Heat added and for a second Ro could feel himself leaning into that big hand of Heat until it hit him that it literally had just been hours he had known him, maybe even less, but there was just something about him. “Let me just quickly change into work clothes then we can go down too. Oh do you need work clothing? We usually only wear old stuff that can get dirty, but if you need anything I’m sure we can give you something.” Heat advised and Ro also switched into some old clothes.

“Did Killer show you the garage earlier?” Heat contemplated while they were making their way downstairs.

“No, he took me upstairs immediately.” Ro quickly replied.

As they arrived downstairs Heat turned to him “This garage is all in all not very big, but we can have up to four cars. Two in repairs and two in tuning.”

He led him into a small side room in which Killer worked, but seeing how orderly and clean it was, there were only computer cupboards in there. “So Killer is the secretary?” Ro asked.

“Nah, I’m just making sure we all get our money. I’m more proficient with that than the others, believe it or not.” Killer replied. The office was small; it was barely enough for one desk and the cupboard, but good enough for what it was, therefore the wall was painted gray and on the floor was a white carpet. The desk was black and made out of metal and it was one of those where you could switch between sitting and standing. Ro noticed a picture on the wall of the four of them together.

“Just how long have you known each other?” He suddenly blurted out loud. He didn’t mean to ask, but seeing that picture stirred something in him.

“We grew up together.” Killer said and looked him deep in the eye. Those bright blue eyes, although hidden between his bangs, still shone through and stared right into his soul.

He couldn’t look away no matter how hard he tried, they mesmerized him. Eventually his cheeks started to turn red and he quickly pulled Heat out of there, before it got too much, but his heart was racing. After this Heat showed him the reception and the two workrooms. For the rest of the day he helped Heat and Wire as best as he could with the tuning. Both of them took him under their wing and decided to teach him, whenever they had time, which wasn’t all that often.

After work Ro took a long bath, he was way over tired since his jetlag was hitting him hard, but he somehow made it through the day. However he still contemplated that incident in the kitchen from the morning, not necessarily about their reaction, but more about why he himself reacted to them. With a deep sigh he got out of the tub and realized he forgot to take in clothes, his tired mind was all over the place. He placed an ear on the bathroom door to listen if maybe Heat was in the room, when he didn't hear anything in their room, he carefully opened the door and peaked out to find an empty room.

Ro quickly grabbed his pajamas and wanted to go back in the bathroom when the bedroom door opened behind him and Heat and Killer walked in. ‘No! No way this is happening right now. Why is this my life?’ Ro cursed in his thoughts. Killer released a deep, heavy sigh and excused himself. Heat grabbed his comfy blanket that laid on the chair next to the door and walked over to him to hang it over his shoulders.

“Sorry we should have knocked. We usually just walk into each other's rooms so we didn’t think. Are you ok?” Heat rubbed the back of his neck nervously, not quite sure what else to say.

Ro quickly went to the bathroom to get dressed, but Heat noticed the blush that spread down to Ro’s neck and a sweet smell. It was very faint, barely noticeable but it was there.

“It was my fault too, I forgot to bring my clothes. Did you want anything?” Ro returned from the bathroom and sat down on the big bed. Heat gulped, his Omega was right there in the bed.”Yes actually. Do you want to come hang out with us in the living room and get to know us? We can order some food!” Heat replied, smiling warmly at him.

“That sounds great and I really want to get to know you, but I’m really tired today so not too long today. Ok?” Ro replied shyly, looking up at him.

“No, of course we can keep it short!” Heat petted his head one more time and left the room. He didn’t know why, but usually when someone's hand came close to his head his first response was to flinch and cover his face, but with Heat that reflex never set in.

After Heat left and Ro switched into some comfy clothes, he heard a wolf howl somewhere in the forest, it didn’t shock him considering he saw one in the morning. Their living room was in the attic, it was huge.

“They have a jukebox? Darts? Billiards too? Not that I should be surprised. Thank god, a giant couch which is needed with these mountains of men.” Ro mumbled to himself.

“Oi. Get over here, pipsqueak!” Kidd roared and grinned. Ro knew immediately that he was up to something. Walking over he sat down next to Heat, it just felt right. After ten more minutes Killer came back with four different Pizzas and was covered in sweat. “Why don’t we play two truths and one lie? If you guess it wrong you have to drink.” Kidd suggested handing everyone beer. Ro took it, but knew that since he never drank alcohol he would be drunk immediately. “Why don’t you start pipsqueak?” Kidd stared you down.

“Ah… Ok.” He shyly scratched the back of his neck “I have never been in love before. I want to see the world. I can bend my legs behind my head.” Heat, who was eating a slice of Pizza Hawaii, was coughing at the last sentence, because his imagination got the better of him. ‘Maybe that was too simple?’ He thought to himself as he isn’t used to being included in anything really.

“Please tell me number three is true! I say number one is a lie.” Kidd sat there with an open mouth. Ro looked up and now that he looked at all of them he saw that they all had a flustered expression, especially Heat. He couldn’t quite understand why though.

“I say number three is a lie. Stop being a pervert Kidd” Huffed Killer and glared at the red head who sat opposite to him.

“Tsk whatever.” grumbled Kidd as he took a note from Wire. “Wire says number three is a lie and that's pretty obvious and I should get my brain out of the gutter!” He huffed angrily grumbling the note and tossed it. All that was left was Heat. Ro turned his head looking at him expectantly.

“Uhm. I also hope number three is true, but I’m fairly certain it's a lie.” He said sheepishly and his cheeks were slightly covered with a faint blush. It stirred something within Ro and suddenly he lifted his hand to caress Heats cheek. Kidd just burst into laughter seeing that awkward display of affection between the two of you and he immediately pulled his hand away.

“N-Number three was a lie.” He said quietly, wanting to just vanish. Heat handed Ro a slice of hawaii. He hoped he loved Pineapple on pizza as much as he did. Ro did, it was one of his favorite toppings. When he finished the piece and leaned back into the couch his eyes started to feel heavy.

Meanwhile Kidd was thinking what to say. “We are all shapeshifters. We are all Alphas. We all want to mate with you.” Kidd knew that Killer would kill him for this, but he wanted it out in the open.

“Hmmm shapeshifters as in monsters? But I know you hate me Kidd so clearly number three is a lie. I wouldn’t mind though. I have no place to return to or call my….” Ro mumbled at first and then fell silent as he collapsed onto Heats shoulders.

“I’ll bring him to bed. Good night everyone.” Heat picked him up and carried him into the room. He tugged him in gently on the right side of the bed as he himself prefers the left side.

At some point during the night he felt himself engulfed in a warm scent. It reminded him of being in a forest while sitting at a campfire. In fact his entire body felt warm like he was embraced and unconsciously he just nuzzled more and more into it.

#Ro is so awkward #a/b/o dynamics #eventual smut #one piece fanfiction #Oc is ftm #eustass kid x reader #killer x reader #heat x reader #wire x reader

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volunteerfelinedetectives · 1 year

Text

Wrote this chaotic little piece for @cherrycokeisnice, basically everyone gets snowed in together. Cleo/Jake, all the friendships, and Moxie/Ellington if you choose to read it that way. Huge thanks to @asouefanworkevent for organising the exchange

The first day went off without a hitch. Moxie and Kellar were of course the first to arrive, Moxie bright and eager as always as she stepped out of the Bellerophon taxi, typewriter for once not in her hand.

Instead she was helping Pip and Squeak carry in all the admittedly rather surprising stuff Cleo had sent them out to find over the previous week, blankets and houseplants and cooking utensils and lamps and absolutely anything colourful, to match with Cleo’s rebellious addition of more and more bright clothes to her wardrobe. Kellar had somehow obtained an enormous antique metal umbrella stand which he was trying, without much luck, to haul up the front steps. Ornette Lost and Lizzie Haines arrived last together, Ornette dragging a sledge loaded with wallpaper and paint through the quickly falling snow and Lizzie staggering under the weight of a heap of curtains and canopies in a rainbow of colours and fabrics.

“Is that everyone?” asked a slightly exasperated Jake, his clothes covered in flour from a mishap involving Moxie, an overfilled storage cupboard and an enormous high-tech blender they were trying to carry.

“Not quite,” replied Cleo calmly once the entirely responsible journalist was out of sight, reaching up a slender hand to brush some additional flour from Jake’s cheek. “I have an associate coming to live with us for a while. In fact, I need to go and meet her in the library now.” And with that she grabbed her coat and bolted out the door, leaving her sweetheart bewildered and suspicious in her wake. Jake shrugged, and went to help Moxie out in the kitchen.

The morning was a blur of constant activity and almost as constant accidents, and by the time everyone settled down to lunch (stuffed mushrooms involving more herbs and spices that anyone in the group apart from Jake could even name) they were all regretting not arriving in more casual clothes. The source of all the chaos was not incompetence on the part of any of them, indeed the living room was looking far more beautiful than it ever had from the work of endless interior designers hired by Ignatius Knight. Instead the problem was, bizarrely, that the place was overrun with stray cats. Yes, you read that correctly: glassware was crashing to the ground everywhere, wallpaper had been scratched down as soon as put up, and a particularly large ginger moggy seemed to have decided Moxie’s typewriter was a bed. This was the last straw. Moxie had her suspicions about who was behind this, and fortunately one of the troublemakers had left a convenient trail of painted paw prints for her to follow. She grinned to herself as she trailed them up the stairs and along the corridor to the study door; mysteries were almost never this easy to solve.

The door to the study was slightly ajar, and it the creak it let out as she pushed it open was loud enough to make her jump back before tentatively making her way in. All four walls were lined with huge and heavy-looking books, and at the back of the room a leather-cushioned chair faced a massive desk carved from a disturbingly familiar dark wood. Slowly, the chair begun to swivel round, and Moxie’s heart threw itself against her chest as she saw who was sitting there. Hair so dark it made the blackest of ink look grey, eyes almost luminescently green. She wore a long, luxurious black silk dress Moxie was pretty sure was Cleo’s, and her long fingers were resting on the head of a white Persian cat with electric blue eyes, which bared its teeth at Moxie as she tentatively approached.

“Hello, Moxie,” Ellington greeted in a slow, honeyed voice, smiling a smile that might have meant anything.

Out of all the people Cleo could have been inviting over? (She had overheard, of course). Ellington?

Moxie did her best to disguise a grimace as she looked the older girl in the eyes. She cut straight to the chase.

“What are you planning this time?” Ellington’s smile faded and her brows furrowed as she began to slowly steer the chair away from Moxie. “I don’t know what you mean. I needed a place to hide from the police, that’s all.”

“You’ve completely flooded the house with every stray cat in town, Ellington.”

She grimaced at the interruption, but carried on speaking.

“I was looking after all of them when I was living in Black Cat Coffee and I don’t know where else they could go. Cleo invited all of them here with me, she told me we’d be safe.”

“After everything that happened? She still trusts you?”

“Listen, Moxie. I’m not another story to be told or case to be unravelled. I’m not here to hurt anyone or sabotage anything. I’m just trying to live, like we all are. The only difference is that I don’t want to simply forget it all.” To Moxie’s horror, there were tears welling up in Ellington’s eyes.

“Wait!” Moxie called out, but she simply pushed past her and ran out of the room, feline draped round her shoulders like a living, breathing fur collar. Moxie wanted to be here, she really did, but she was still uncertain of Ellington and whether she really did mean well. She drifted towards the window and watched the snow that had begun to fall outside, concealing all of Stain’d-by-the-sea’s secrets and dangers beneath an unassuming canopy of white. Part of her imagined that once the snow melted away the town would be rewritten, all of its dark history washed away as it emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon. She knew that made no sense, but what was it that Lemony had once said? ‘There’s nothing wrong with occasionally staring out of a window and thinking nonsense, as long as the nonsense is yours.” Something like that, at least.

She was startled out of her meditation by Cleo’s voice calling her up to the guest bedrooms, sounding more than a little exasperated. She found Cleo sitting just outside a huge, empty room, furniture cluttering the hallway around her.

“I’m sorry if I worried you, I just need someone strong to help me get all this stuff in here. “

Moxie nodded, ready for the task. She was used to carrying things, and any opportunity to spend more time with Cleo was an opportunity she was willing to take. They were in reality very distant cousins, but Cleo seemed like a sister to her nonetheless. They got to work, Moxie carrying or pushing the furniture to the right place and Cleo stringing up fairy lights and heaping blankets and pillows onto the bed, chatting all the while about their universally agreed favourite subject, literature.

“You need to read Fahrenheit 451 if you haven’t, it’s a masterpiece of dystopian fiction,” Cleo was saying as she attached a hanging basket of ferns to a hook at the top of the wardrobe.

“I have,” Moxie replied, bending down to tighten a loose screw on the desk. “I know it’s unfair to compare two completely different writers but when it comes to classic dystopia I’ll always prefer 1984.”

“Much as I love 1984 as well, Fahrenheit 451 feels so much more real to me, like that’s slowly becoming our world.“

A good natured argument does indeed firm up a friendship, and this particular one became so engaging that Moxie completely forgot to ask who the room was being prepared for until dinner that evening. Crab linguine, to be precise. Moxie spent a long while thanking Jake for preparing the food, as well as helping to lay the table, so by the time she could sit down there was only one remaining seat between Kellar and Ellington. She reluctantly took it, avoiding the older girl’s gaze until she felt a tap on the shoulder.

“Thank you for helping with my room,” Ellington whispered, twirling the pasta absentmindedly round her fork.

“That was yours?” Moxie asked, a little too loud for her liking. She wasn’t too keen on the fact that she’d unwittingly done a large favour for Ellington, but thought that perhaps at least appearing to trust her would be the best way of finding out what she was planning. So she lowered her voice, leaned in and said, “Look. I’m sorry about accusing you of doing something bad earlier, I just find it hard not to question everything after all that business with— with your father.”

Ellington shivered; actually trembled despite the warm fire burning in the hearth, and for a moment Moxie was afraid she’d said the wrong thing entirely. But then Ellington turned to her and their eyes locked together as she replied.

“I know exactly how you feel. I spend most of my time afraid I’ll never be able to trust anyone ever again. If even the kindest man I knew was capable of such treacherous things…,” She didn’t finish her sentence, but the second clause hung in the air between them like an echo. …then there is no telling what anyone will do.

They ate the rest of the meal in an amiable silence, trying to keep track of the others’ conversations but finding that they faded in and out, the mingling voices unable to compete with the endless questions and contradictions swimming through their minds. The plan was for everyone to stay the night, and they did, but for reasons unique to each person nobody went upstairs to bed. Instead those who managed to sleep at all did so on couches and chairs in the lounge, books still open on chests that rose and fell like an untroubled sea.

“It’s… 5 o’clock in the morning…” Jake blearily checked his watch then turned to face Pecuchet ‘Squeak’ Bellerophon, who had been vigorously shaking his shoulders for the past three minutes.

“It’s the snow!” Squeak exclaimed without so much as an apology or a ‘good morning’. “It’s too thick and the doors won’t open. We’re snowed in!”

Jake grimaced as he pulled himself up to look; he was hoping to tend to the garden that day, but it seemed like that would be impossible. Sure enough, the snow outside was several feet deep, and so dense it was impossible to even open the door to shovel a path. He tried the other doors and found it exactly the same. They were well and truly trapped. He sighed and went to get the others up from the numerous pieces of furniture they were draped over, with the exception of Cleo who hadn’t slept a wink that night and was now standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in one hand, slathering concealer over the dark circles beneath her eyes. She headed for the door the moment she saw him, not even giving him the chance to say good morning before she disappeared up the stairs. No doubt she was extremely busy with something, he thought; he’d get her a bit of breakfast, something to keep her going during the day. He brought the omelette up to the study and poked his head round the door; she was writing furiously in a black notebook and seemingly didn’t even see him as he placed the food on the desk and a kiss on her cheek. Cleo worked so unbelievably hard; he acknowledged that fact with that rare, perfectly balanced mix of admiration and dread.

“105…106…107…” Cleo wasn’t the only one already going stir-crazy from being stuck inside. Ornette had seen potential in the endless scraps of wastepaper left behind from the previous day’s activities and was now attempting the age-old tradition of folding a thousand origami cranes. Once they were done, she decided, she would string them together into a huge canopy of folded paper birds, her most ambitious project yet and a symbol of all the hopes and wishes she had for her re-emerging town. Already there were birds made from every possible type of paper in every nook and cranny of the house, and Kellar Haines, who had been watching with eager curiosity and gathering the creations together for her, could see that she wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon.

And Moxie was sitting at her desk in the guest room that had been specially set up for her, just writing and writing and writing. Getting everything from the day before down in great detail before typing out an impulsive opinion piece on Lemony Snicket, which had very few good things to say. She was right in the middle of a particularly scathing paragraph when she heard a knock on the door connecting her room to Ellington’s. Ellington herself breezed in without waiting for Moxie to answer, brushing a stack of books carelessly aside as she perched herself on the end of the desk. Moxie wished she could be annoyed at the way Ellington treated the world like she owned it, but the truth was that everything in her vicinity did seem to suddenly revolve around her like the Earth’s gravity pulling meteors into orbit.

“Sorry to intrude,” Ellington said after an awkwardly long period of Moxie looking up at her in silence. “But window in my bedroom is tiny and I needed somewhere well-lit to read without going downstairs and waking anyone up.”

Despite it being seven in the morning, everyone was already awake, although Ellington had no way of knowing that.

“What are you reading?” Moxie asked, eager to strengthen the bond that was growing between them. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But was she an enemy? Whatever she was reading, it was obviously good, as she didn’t seem to hear what Moxie had said. So she moved her typewriter onto the bed, keen not to disturb her for some reason she couldn’t possibly understand.

The Associates were quieter than they had ever been in one another’s company, as if the snow had buried all their memories, their shared aspirations and dreams. But one thing that couldn’t be buried was how safe they felt around each other, the knowledge that they could make mistakes without everything they had built together falling apart. Which was why Jake hadn’t bothered Cleo in her study at all that day, however much he yearned for her company. He understood her need to always be working hard, always striving to compensate for everything her parents did. But sometimes she forgot that she too was worth something, and when 4 o’clock in the afternoon struck and she still hadn’t come out or said a word to anyone, he decided to finally knock on the door. She opened it and her hands were deathly pale and trembling, exhaustion in her icy blue eyes which she had been trying to fight with the five or six now empty coffee cups scattered around the room. She pulled him inside and kissed him almost desperately, and he leaned into her, keen to give her the support and affection she clearly needed so much. Cleo was on one side of him and the study wall was on the other, and in the moment the whole world seemed that small, that perfect. She pulled away, a rare sheepish smile creeping up her face. “Sorry, sorry, I just— I really needed that,” she whispered breathlessly, running a hand through Jake’s hair as she pulled him down onto an ottoman in the corner of the room.

“Don’t worry,” he replied equally breathlessly. “You don’t have to apologise for anything with me, I’m here when you need me, here because you need me here.” Cleo was chaotic sometimes, troubled and secretive, but Jake knew he could never love anyone else as much as he loved her.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he murmured, resting his head on Cleo’s shoulder as she picked up a book from a nearby table, taking the break she needed at last.

While the two of them sat together in silence and Kellar was still trying to gather the folded paper birds scattered all over the building, something rather exciting had been unearthed in a suitcase upstairs.

“You have what?” Ornette shouted, gazing at Ellington bug-eyed. “You could sell that for enough money to get you safely out of the country for the rest of your life!”

“Well, maybe I love these songs too much to do that. It’s nice to have music almost nobody else has heard, something I’ll only share with the right people.”

“She’s right,” Lizzie chimed in. “If everything can be bought or sold or invested then it loses its original purpose entirely. Auction that CD off and it’ll never be played again, just sold off to richer and richer people at higher and higher prices.”

Ellington reached out a long fingernail to press the button on the CD player, and placed the iridescent disc in its slot, and Ornette was overcome with a rush of endorphins as she heard a familiar voice sing new melodies, new words.

“Hold on, I know someone else who might want to hear this,” Ornette interrupted, moving towards the telephone, picking it up and dialling a number.

“Moxie, come up here! You won’t believe what Ellington has! No, not a weapon, not anything even remotely sinister. Illegal, yes, but purely noble in its intentions. Yep, a pirated CD containing Melanie Martinez songs that were never officially released and might not be found anywhere else in the world. Yes, I’m serious.” Ornette hung up the phone and spun to face Ellington and Lizzie with a thrilled expression.

“She’s coming!”

“So his name actually was Lemony?”

“I couldn’t believe it either until his sister told me. It always sounded made-up, like the kind of name you’d tell a company to avoid getting newsletters.”

She was always going to mess this up, Moxie thought to herself. The plan was to keep a close eye on Ellington and prevent her from getting into any mischief, and it wasn’t supposed to involve sitting cross-legged on Ellington’s bed with her hands temporarily incapacitated by the black varnish drying on her nails, courtesy of Ellington. It definitely wasn’t supposed to involve Moxie having the time of her life hanging out with her. Maybe it was just the excitement of her first proper sleepover, but she was finding Ellington surprisingly fun to be around when they weren’t directly in the midst of intrigue. The evening so far had been a blur of music and games and conversation, over the course of which they had all ended up with completely new hairstyles. Ellington’s hair had been plaited and wound into a spiral at the back of her head, Moxie’s straightened into a chin-length bob, Lizzie had a new fringe which cast her eyes in shadow and Ornette’s was let down from its usual yellow scrunchie and pulled into row upon row of tight braids decorated with colourful beads. Moxie thought they all looked transformed, shifting rapidly from the uncertain girls they were six months ago to the wilder, freer ones they were becoming. The connection she felt to them was new, unfamiliar and exciting, and even though she still had her doubts about Ellington her bed was so comfy and she was tired…

The rays of the sunrise shone through the curtains over the East Window, waking her up the next morning to see Ellington bringing over a tray on which were two steaming cups of coffee. Really, Moxie? Falling asleep in Ellington’s bed?

“Sorry I didn’t wake you up,” she said gently, brushing a lock of hair out of Moxie’s face. “You just looked so cosy there and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Don’t worry, I think the couch in here is even more comfortable than the bed!”

Moxie reluctantly took a sip of the coffee Ellington had handed her, and discovered with reluctant gratitude that she had prepared it with milk, sugar and cinnamon, adding a delightful mild sweetness to a normally bitter drink. The coffee reminded her somewhat of Ellington herself that morning, everything dark and sinister had somehow melted away and she seemed kinder and less villainous than she ever had before.

Meanwhile, Cleo awoke to the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, something that would be comforting to most people but made Cleo’s heartbeat quicken and her breathing stop. Here she was, in her bedroom in the family home, the familiar smell of cinnamon rolls that were never for her wafting up at her from the kitchen. Had she only dreamed all the friendships she had made over the past six months, or that she was free from her parents at last? Without stopping to get slippers or a dressing gown, she bolted down the stairs to the kitchen where she was greeted by a rather bemused Jake.

“Are you ok, sweetheart?” he enquired with a nervous smile. “I made you breakfast.” Cleo managed an equally nervous smile back as she hoisted herself onto the kitchen counter and pulled Jake closer to her, kissing him softly on the forehead.

“Everything’s alright, Jake,” her voice tapered off ever so slightly. “It’s just that I’ve never actually had a cinnamon roll before. Zada and Zora always made them, but my parents had me on this ridiculous diet. I wasn’t even allowed a slice of cake on my birthday.”

“That’s dreadful, Cleo! We need to fix that, right now.” With mock solemnity, he fetched the tray from the other end of the room and handed her one of the warm pastries, oozing with cinnamon and cream cheese frosting. She bit in, and in that moment she could have sworn she had never tasted anything quite as heavenly.

“I can make them for you more often if you’d like,” Jake told her, grabbing one for himself from the tray. And this, she always said, was the moment the full extent of her newfound freedom hit her. It was also the moment she ran to the window and discovered the snow had melted just enough for them to go outside again.

Back upstairs, Moxie and Ellington had almost finished their coffee.

“You know,” Ellington declared suddenly, “I might actually try and sneak out today given the snow’s melted.”

“It has?”

“Not completely, but enough for us to leave the building.”

Ellington pulled on a black trench coat that was draped over a chair in the corner, and half-ran, half-leaped down the main stairs in the centre of the building, landing in the hallway with cat-like precision and gliding towards the door.

She knew that this was a rather silly idea, but she was never the kind of girl to allow herself to be contained for long. The world, or at least Stain’d-by-the-sea, was beckoning. As she turned the handle on the door she felt Moxie come up behind her.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked, and Ellington smiled deviously to herself.

“Of course you can, a walk is almost never any fun when you’re alone,” Ellington replied, doing her best to sound casual. “But I’m not carrying that typewriter.”

Moxie laughed, flinging open the door with her typical enthusiasm and taking off running down the path towards the town while Ellington lingered behind, bunching up snow in her gloved hands.

The snowball hit Moxie on the back of the head, almost knocking her hat off. She rapidly turned around.

“What was that for?” she shouted.

“What was what for?” Ellington replied innocently, hurling another snowball in Moxie’s direction. To Ellington’s utter astonishment she caught it and threw it right back, hitting Ellington before she had time to recover from the surprise and dodge it. Of course, there was now no way of deescalating the situation, and of course, like with most snowball fights, others began to join in. Namely, Pip and Squeak, who had observed the action from a window and had jumped at the opportunity to cause mischief. Much to Ellington’s chagrin they were fighting firmly on Moxie’s side, and she didn’t stand a chance until Ornette dashed in front of her out of nowhere, carrying a small arsenal of snowballs she had been surreptitiously preparing in the yard. Soon everyone was involved; Jake and Kellar joining Moxie’s side and Cleo and Lizzie teaming up with Ellington. It was the first snowball fight any of them had had in years, and it was wonderful just to play like the children who they’d never been allowed to be, all system of teams and sides quickly forgotten as they ran shouting and laughing down the slightly less empty streets, much further than Ellington was technically supposed to go from her hiding place in Cleo’s home. Many years later, Moxie and Ellington would always say this was the moment that any trace of a rivalry between them disappeared, and they were just two girls on a winter morning, holding hands as they ran to catch up with the others by the sea.

Cleo drew her coat around her as she sat down on the pier overlooking the restored sea, the dams holding it back from the town’s edge having been long since destroyed. She shook the remaining snow from her hair, accidentally elbowing Jake who had come to sit down next to her. He rested his head on her shoulder and took her hand in his. “You’ve done so much more for the world this year than most people do in their lifetimes, and you’re still just sixteen. Look around at what you’ve made, Cleo,” She turned and saw Ellington smiling shyly, drenched through from the still-raging snowball fight, and Moxie draping a coat over her shoulders, their faces illuminated by the golden dawn. She saw the cobbled road cutting through the houses to the town square, and the empty pedestal awaiting the planned memorial to a great sub-librarian they once knew. And she saw the pen-shaped building she once looked upon with shame rising high above the town, no longer looking like it intended to cross it out, but instead poised ready to write a new beginning. “We’ve got whole lives ahead of us. Let’s go live them.”

#asoue #lemony snicket #a series of unfortunate events #all the wrong questions #atwq #ellington feint #jake hix #cleo knight #ornette lost #kellar haines #pip bellerophon #squeak bellerophon #lizzie haines #wicked way exchange

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