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starshipsofstarlord · 3 years

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God is With You, Even as You’re Sinning

Pairing | Sam Winchester x reader

Summary | it was your first time not killing a monster, and in its place, taking the life of one of your own. Guilt entraps you, and it is up to Sam to break you out of your pitiful hypnosis.

Warnings | mentions of death, blood, angst, guilt, some smut, oral sex (fem receiving), penetrative unprotected sex, fingering, swearing, mentions of murder

Requested ✖️

Quick link to my masterlist, if you’re interested in reading more of my crap 😬

Fuck God. This was all his fault, everything was to be fair. He had left the world to continue on its own accord, the apocalypse threatening to spill over the planet and destroy it and all beauty that was lingering through the existence of humans.

They killed each other, and the creator of all could care less. It was his smallest problem, he didn’t mind that the murderer was succumbed to guilt, or how many restless nights that he or she endured. God was cruel, even if he held up a facade of being your ally, and trying his hardest as he supposed, to be your friend.

Your hands shook as you remembered the entailment of your mistake. It was a slip up, a vast and surreal experience that people usually learned from. But what were you supposed to do, not kill a human again? Yeah you had gotten that, after all, the initial deed had not at all been intentional.

There was the victim’s blood dried upon the outer layer of your skin, casting you in the perfect image of murderous intent. However, you had no thirst to kill, instead, your hunting of monsters, alike to many others partaking in a similar lifestyle, executed the mythical beasts to protect the human population.

It pained you truly, to know that you had killed a person. You hadn’t even spared the familiar body a second glance, and out of panic, you fled the scene, leaving the body of the city cleaner in the gutter, laying in the remnants of his friends’ and family’s waste, burying him in their crude excrement.

The thought alone, and the sight that was engrained in the peripheral of your mind had you feeling sick. Slowly, you plodded down the steps of the bunker’s entrance, surely leaving footprints trademarked in all kinds of grotesque evidence.

Without much care for what lay heavily inside, you dropped your duffel from your shoulder, allowing it to fall on the ground with a disgruntled clatter. Nothing meant anything anymore, not if you were indeed a real killer. Whilst some monsters had weaselled their way into society, ending their pathetic attempts at normality was different than taking away the life of an innocent and mortal bystander.

Often, with the darker and crueler species, there were reasons as to why they pretended to be of human birth. Mostly, it was so that they could feed from the naive flock, or kill for their own amusement. Either way, none of their reasons were good.

But now, you thought of yourself as no different than them. A creature that needed to be put down for their crimes. Filing, you breathed in, only inhaling the various moulds of putridity that was weaved into your hair, and stuck to your skin like a face mask.

“Should I call you Cassie now?” At the joke, a laugh from the speaker was triggered. He was quite amused with the sight of you, and thus, you sneered at the tall man, hating him a little bit more than usual.

“Your pop culture references aren’t appreciated Winchester, it’s more Dean’s street.” Shoving past him, his high shoulder floundered back at the harsh and ignorant impact, an expression of offence covering his stupid face. Like a fawn, he tumbled after you, watching as you walked sullenly into the kitchen, yanking the door to the fridge open, and extracting one of his brother’s store bought beers.

“I’m going to guess the hunt went bad.” Sam speculated, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, and staring expectedly down at where you popped the cap off the bottle recklessly with your teeth. He almost winced at the sight, but he wished to keep this arrogant demeanour up with you, it was a natural desire to piss you off, and he’d be pissed at himself if he let it slip out of simple pity.

“Guess correct. Well done, you’ve won a trip to Hawaii.” You waved your free hand mockingly in the air, as the other raised the liquor to your mouth, allowing you to wilfully gulp the bitter liquid down. At his presence that remained nursing over you, you cocked a brow, leaning forwards as you expectedly looked back at the moose. “Just leave me alone Sam, I’m not in the mood for putting up with your bullshit.”

He, however, seemed not to be phased by you wanting to be left alone, and instead, quickly snatched the poison out of your hand, leaving you throughly prepared to keep him right in the balls. “What the fuck?” You all but screamed at the not so jolly giant. In turn, he crossed his arms across his chest, placing the bottle down on the island.

“I could ask you the same y/n.” His tone was dominantly serious, causing you to cower back into your shroud of guilty conscience. “Tell me what happened on that hunt, of which i told you that you shouldn’t have went on alone, since you wouldn’t have been able to handle it solo.”

You felt demeaned by his words, they sparked an anger out from the firm pit of your stomach. But you knew deep down, he was getting through to you, which was something that you had not managed to even do by yourself. Air heavily passed through and out of your nostrils, as acidic tears pooled in your eyes; a crack was falling down your walls, and out of all people, it was Sam Winchester whom had caused it.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have gone alone, but you know what, I thought of what a Winchester would do. And then I remembered, I am sure as hell not a Winchester and I don’t have a brother anymore! Not now, he didn’t even know who I was earlier, didn’t even recognise a single genetically identical hair on my head as he watched me parade through the town, the very one that I ran away from when he was a baby and I was seven, wanting to hunt a monster. Yet, i didn’t kill a damn monster Sam, I murdered my brother because you’ve been right all along, I’m not fit for this job. I am a mess, so congratulations, you finally have got me to admit the one thing that you keep reminding me of.”

“Y/n...” Sam wasn’t sure how to respond, he felt the waves of shock ripple through his body. Never so freely had you been vulnerable around him, and here you were now, with very visible tears cascading down your utterly torn face. He understood it was an accident, and the times that he and Dean had tried to kill each other under supernatural circumstances had him wondering what if.

Shaking your grime tethered head at the sound of his cracked voice, you stormed past him, and immediately raced towards the shower room, finding to your luck, which had been non existent during the rest of the day, the halls were barren of life. Walking through the door, you tore your ruined clothes off, chucking them upon the floor without much acknowledgement, before you went under the warm spray of the shower head, trying to calm yourself.

To rid your skin of its evidential accessories, you had to scrub your skin until it was immediately raw. Everything within you ached, as you flicked back to the memory of the clueless expression that had been worn by your blood brother. It was probably a good thing that he didn’t know who you were, or else, he’d have known that his own sister murdered him due to her incompetence to listen to others.

Now, you were not even sure what were your tears, and what droplets of water belonged to the shower itself. For over an hour, you basked int eh warmth that seemed unable to cure your cold blooded system, turning the spritz off, and covering your body in a fluffy towel, that you were sure belonged to someone else, but right now, you could care less about who owned what.

As you reached the door to your bedroom, you found it to be preached slightly open, and as you pushed it the rest of the way, you saw Sam sat on the corner of your bed. You held your arms around yourself, insecure on the fact that beneath the stolen towel, you were nothing more than you. A wolf in sheep’s skin.

“Can I help you?” You bitterly asked, your eyes still burning from your own faulted loss. Sam breathed in, his eyes trailing up to your face, that was naked from any gruesome cosmetics or make up. The bareness to your completion illustrated an aura of innocence, and evidence that you were the same as him - human.

“That’s my towel.” The male hunter laughed, in hopes of changing the previous and well wounded subjected to ensure that you felt better. But what was he kidding, nothing could fill the void that you had dug in your own heart, nothing was closer than the bond between siblings, even if you were considered as strangers.

“Take it back then.” Too exhausted from your gruelling day, you dropped the material, your confident action making his eyes go wide, as he tried to look away from your exposed skin to respect your boundaries. It was impossible though not to allow his hazel hues to slip up the trunks of your thighs, up to- no, that was wrong, very wrong.

You had just lost your brother, not to mention, by your own hand, and he was prone to checking out your freelancing body, taking in every curve and twisted scar that was prominent to his speculating eyes. His eyes dropped to the discarded towel, which he had purposely left on the heating rail for later use, and then, they switched back towards you.

He stood, walking behind you as you looked through comfort clothes within your dresser. A light touch of his hand brushed your hair away from your neck, as he breathed a sweet hoax of hot air upon your scare. Sam was relieved that you didn’t reject the contact, and instead, pressed his lips upon the flesh, finding succession whence you hummed deliriously to yourself.

This interaction had been inevitable for a long time, but now no longer were the suspected intentions for such an exchange to be to release well endorsed frustrations. No, he was going to clear your mind for some sensual moments, and make your pretty little head forget for a moment that you had pained yourself in the worst of ways.

Turning, you laced your hands through his chocolate locks, massaging his scalp as you pulled him closer so that your lips could endure a rougher clasp against his. There was no passion, behind each contribution there was a spur of hunger, he grasped your ass cheeks, pulling you up to be sat upon the top of your heavy dresser.

Obliging his command, you spread your legs so that he could stand between their partition, his hands now running up the windows of your thighs. For a while, the pair of you did nothing more than make out, and cup a feel here and there, but soon after, Sam dropped to his lanky knees, leaving kisses in the wake of his descent.

His thumb and forefinger spread your fluttering folds, watching as your slit squirmed for attention. Sam licked his lips at the sight, running his middle finger up the expanse, until he came to your yearning entrance. Slowly, after making sure you were wet enough, Sam slipped his digit inside, you wiggling your hips to adjust to the thrust of his one finger.

To add to the sensations that were overriding your body, he moved his mouth to closer proximity, smelling the divine aroma that pulsed out of you. It was far too addictive to not get a taste, and thus,he pulled his finger out, sucking off your juices contently.

But that small sample just wasn’t enough, which encouraged him to dive face first into your pussy - literally. His long tongue teased your folds, slurping at the lips, and then switching to your clit to heighten the stimulation. He kept up a rhythm, using it as a pattern to push you closer to that edge, and he was surely certain that you were enjoying his oral work as you ground your face against him, moaning at his succulent administrations.

“Sam.” Oh god, was it pleasant to hear his own name fall out your mouth in such an erotic manner. It was far different from the way that you usually used it to snide at him, though, the thought of your regular treatment of him aided only to spur his lustful actions on. He wanted you to cum, for your juices to run down his face in waterfalls, looking as though someone had tried to drown him.

His work would not be complete until you found it difficult to even pronounce his short name. Digging his tongue in the hood of your clit, tracing around the protective area, his fingers returned to their earlier placement, and he quickened their pace until he could hear a satisfying squelch in the air.

Rapid sounds of parted moans raked from your mouth, your chest sticking out as you breasts heaved with your heavy breathing. It was noticeable that you were close, not just from that, but you were squeezing the circulation out of his fingers. “Fuck.” Left you in the form of a squeal, as you pussy wept its juices.

Sam was quick to lap everything that left you up, once more, tasting those that clung to his fingers. He went back in for another taste, but you tightly grouped his hair, pulling him away from your sopping cunt. “Need you to fuck me Sam, now.”

In an instant, the hunter stood, working precariously on undoing the buckle of his belt, and pushing all material that covered his lower half to the bottom of his thighs. He read already hard, and oozing precum. You swept your finger across the tip of his dick, bringing it to your lips to taste his foreshadowing seed.

Sam huffed at the sight,picking his prick up in one hand, and jerking himself a couple of times. And then, he aligned himself with you, rubbing his cock around your wet crevice a couple of times, slapping his tip teasingly against your puffy clit.

“Want my cock baby?” He asked, smirking as he watched you nod your head repeatedly. With that being all the confirmation that he needed, he pushed into you,feeling even more turned on as he heard you mewl, and watched the ecstatic expression cross your face as his dick fit inside of you all the way.

He grasped your hips, pulling out once before pushing in again. He repeated the action, his own eyes rolling to the back of his head at how tight you were. This would make you forget the cruel method of god, his story was not as epic as he though, for his characters were screwing against his will, basking in a distraction rather than the regretful pain that seethed in your trodden heart.

Another thrust had your nails clasping onto Sam’s covered back, biting onto his shoulder through the plaid, as you held back the tears that were trying to creep out of your blissful eyes. A few grunts left Sam, as his pace increased, and with every thrust, which only served to fuel him further, the dresser smashed into the wall behind it, most likely leaving a decent dent within the historical architecture.

“Gonna cum.” You told him, dragging him in for another tongue filled kiss as your cunt pooled around him, coating his cock in the honey from your delicious pot. He soon followed after, and for a moment, he remained against you, allowing you to bask in the comfort of his strange presence.

And then he pulled out, watching as his distraction dripped from your entrance, trailing down your thigh in a white streak. An orgasm smile was pulled onto your face, but it was certain to not last long for when you returned to the reality that laid waiting for you to return.

Sam stepped closer again, moving his fingers towards your cunt, and pushed his seed back inside of you, watching as your puffy pussy lips swallows any part of him that it could get. He would distract you for as long as he could, and then, deal with the inevitable.

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demonslayedher · 3 years

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How was Sumiyoshi able to mimic the exact breath of the sun (forms and breathing techniques) from watching Yoriichi once, whilst other skilled swordsmen including Kokushibo did not.

Easy answer: Kimetsu Logic! (ﾟ∇ﾟ)

Or at least that is what a friend and I have always used when something just doesn't quite make sense or have a clear reason besides moving the plot. But, as a lot of the fun of this series is diving into what might had been the thought process behind a lot of plot points, I have my scuba gear on and am ready to take a guess.

I started going into this a little on this Yoriichi Ask, as I think Yoriichi was born with an ideal Zen state of mind, at least in his swordsmanship and relation to the natural world. I've gone into it a bit on this Genya Ask, how Breaths seem pretty closely tied to meditative technique, which not everyone takes to very easily. Even in this Mitsuri Meta, I've made the assumption that with Sun Breathing as a natural base from which all other Breaths are derivatives, it takes some natural aptitude to hit at the core of what Breath technique is in the first place, and the better one's natural aptitude, the closer it may lead them back to Sun Breathing.

So if I were to package this into a theory, I'm going to first explain a samurai ideal called "no-mindedness," a state in which your ability is so engrained that it does not require thought (if we put it in simpliest terms, anyway, actual samurai and their translators are much more eloquent). A comparison in KnY is Tanjuro being as mild as a tree even when fighting a bear, he acts in truth and righteousness without needing to spare it any thought, or have any fighting spirit in battle. It's not mindlessness, or letting your body do the thinking, it's more like oneness with your craft that does not require mindfully breaking down of steps, or powering oneself or distracting oneself with one's feelings. Another way to think of it may be "flow," although I'd argue getting lost in a task is a form of mental captivation, and not a freeing Zen ideal.

Breath is Gotouge's choice of power source, tying it to how it powers every cell throughout the body. Not just any breath, but breath that requires Total Concentration. Clearly, the Pillars who maintain it all day do not think about each Breath they take; they have attained a state of not needing to be so mindful of it because of their oneness with the technique. Breath is a key element in meditation techniques the world over, and you'd think we'd all be good at it with how much practice we get, but most people pick up bad habits like poor posture or tension, which inhibits breath. A line I've often heard is that babies breath naturally from their stomachs, and we should seek to breath like babies.

Or like Yoriichi, to whom Breath technique comes completely naturally, he was practically born in no-minded oneness with it.

I think it was primarily a mental barrier that kept Michikatsu and other swordsmen from attaining the full power of the technique; they cannot help complicating it with their backgrounds in swordsmanship, even if Sun Breathing and swordsmanship go hand in hand. It's like how even if we practice breathing or other meditative techniques, we can always stand to improve.

Sumiyoshi, though, may simply have had aptitude. Without any background to complicate it, he was able to fully accept the techniques without preconceived notions or poor habits. Even if he couldn't perform them with the skill of Yoriichi, he at least had a clear eye for detail and accuracy, and a keen memory.

As Sun Breathing is associated with a great ball of fire in the sky, Sumiyoshi's work tending to fire in his charcoal production might also had given him an intuitive sense for things like air flow, timing, and heat. Comparatively, the Rengoku family already had a series of flame-inspired sword techniques, but they may have interpreted elements like force and passion as something to drive into their steel blade with practice, instead of a calm oneness with nature like the steady presence of the sun.

For other examples of some people just being more or less adept, classic kung fu tends to be full of examples, like in Condor Hero when a very clever martial artist is unable to grasp a technique that requires her hands to fight like they have two minds of their own, whereas it clicks pretty easily for another character (and she wasn't dumb, just different). For Sumiyoshi, even though he never had Yoriichi's level of innate skill, something in Sun Breathing clicked for him.

Tl;dr: A natural intuition for it, keen observation skills unclouded by his own notions of how to apply it to swordsmanship.

#kny fandom theories and meta #kny nerdery #for more on no-mindedness I recommend Yagyu Muneyori's writings #there's a really good translation out there of the Heiho Kaden sho #and go figure the Yagyu clan is tied to the site of the unofficial KnY holy site Ittouseki #i cannot stress enough what a hood nerd village Yagyu is #especially as they've become a holy site for cosplayers of all sorts too #but I digress #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #tsugikuni yoriichi #kamado sumiyoshi

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a-secret-bolton-vampire · 3 years

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Daenerys Stormborn, Part 2: Wake the Dragon

Oh hey, I have part 2 already! Guess my brain is really focused on Dany now. In part 1, I talked about Dany's arcs from AGOT to ASOS, exploring the narrative and thematic purpose of her journey. However, the most important part of her journey occurs in ADWD, and sets the stage for some incredibly exciting developments to come in TWOW. For part 2, I'll be talking about the gradual transformation of Daenerys into a slightly different, darker character for the future.

Breaker of Chains & Mhysa

Slavery has been an important background element throughout Dany's time in Essos, even in AGOT, but it becomes front and centre in ASOS. She accepted the Dothraki, a society that uses slaves for many things, and wasn't too perturbed at the use of slaves in Qarth. However, it is in Astapor where she finally realizes just how bad the institution is, as she tells Xaro:

"Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?" I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened."

As mentioned last time, ASOS is when she begins to take control of her destiny, and she does so by beginning a revolution to free the slaves of Slaver's Bay. She believe she has a greater destiny lying ahead of her, that there is a reason for her dragons, the red comet. She also has great empathy for people and sees this disturbing injustice being played out with nobody to stop it. But she has the power to do so, and thus she begins by going fire and blood at Astapor, killing the Good Masters and freeing all the slaves. Afterwards, she leaves the city with a ruling council of a priest, a scholar, and a healer and moves to Yunkai.

She does a different approach with Yunkai, negotiating with the Wise Masters to surrender their slaves and to leave them in peace. And then when she arrives at Meereen, she decides to stay and rule as its queen. This is where things begin to get difficult for Daenerys. The ruling council of Astapor is overthrown by a butcher named Cleon, who said the council was conspiring to bring back slavery, who declares himself King of Astapor, enslaves the children of the former Good Masters to make new Unsullied, and tries to ally with Daenerys against Yunkai, who has resumed slavery.

Daenerys is not interested in any war with Yunkai. The reason she stays in Meereen is exactly because she learned what happened when she left Astapor. The fire and blood approach didn't work. You can't just dismantle such a deeply engrained system so easily. So instead she opts to rule, and protect the people she can. While a lot of readers view Dany's actions in Meereen as pointless, the whims of a naive girl, and poor leadership, I actually think it's the opposite.

For starters, Dany realized that she can't simply burn the slavers to end slavery, but she needs to stay and instill changes. While King Cleon repeatedly begs for Daenerys to join the war against Yunkai, she refuses, and warns Cleon to not do such a thing. She turns out to be horribly right, as Cleon is killed, Astapor is sieged, before being slaughtered, burned, and sacked, to be reinstated as a slave city once more. Likewise, the Yunkish siege Meereen, first by creating a blockade in the bay with ships, and then by having armies amassed outside the city walls.

In addition, refugees from Astapor begin to pile up outside the city, and a deadly plague called the pale mare (for the horse from Astapor that arrives at Meereen) begins to sweep the starving Astapori freedmen, who begin to resort to cannibalism to survive. Dany blames herself for leaving Astapor a mess, but does not wish to have the same thing happen in Meereen. She wants to protect the people she's freed, not just from the Yunkish, but herself as well.

When a sheepherder brings the burned bones of his daughter, Hazzea, who was killed by her dragons, Dany has Rhaegal and Viserion chained in the dungeons below the Great Pyramid to prevent them from causing any more harm. However, Drogon is still loose, unable to be found. In addition, when the sons of the harpy, a terrorist group opposed to the emancipation of Meereen, begin massacring freedmen, Dany decides to raise a tax on the Great Masters and have all families of suspect loyalty send a child to serve as a hostage and cupbearers. Yet, as the killings continue, she has grown close to the children and decides not to have them killed.

Now, some of you may notice that I am taking a lot from the Meereenese Blot essays written by Adam Feldman. That's not only because they are really well written essays, but ones that GRRM himself has approved of.

"I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."

So I am retreading some of the ground Feldman has laid, but it's important to do so if I am to build up to what I think is going to happen in the future of Dany's story.

As Feldman notes, Dany's own actions (or in the case of the cupbearers, inaction) actually made a peace possible, because the Yunkish saw that she was someone who is capable of mercy and not a (in their eye) violent mass murderer. Knowing what happened with Astapor, and seeing what happens when her dragons are unleashed with Hazzea, Dany decides to make peace with the Yunkish and marry Hizdahr.

Under the peace, Meereen itself would remain a free city, but the Yunkish would continue to sell slaves. They even sell them in markets outside the walls of Meereen, which displeases Daenerys extremely. In addition, slaveowners could bring their slaves into Meereen without fear of them being freed, and the Yunkish promised to respect the rights of the freedmen in Meereen. Yet, despite the peace and the progress made, she feels as though this is a defeat.

This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?

The thing is, Daenerys has had to sacrifice so much of herself and her morals to get to this point. Yes there is peace, even if it is tentative, Meereen would not be sacked by the Yunkish, but slavery is still going on, and she thinks that she has let herself and other people down by agreeing to peace and allowing the Yunkish to continue slavery. She has agreed to peace to people she loathes and thinks are despicable, she has married a man she does not love and does not love her, she has chained her dragons in the pit below, she has allowed the fighting pits to reopen. This comes to ahead at Daznak's Pit when she is at the height of her discomfort.

The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

And then Drogon arrives, and in the chaos of him attacking the boar and being attacked by the soldiers in the pit, Dany tries to calm him, but he spits fire at her, and she tries to tame him by whipping him into submission. Here, Dany is quite literally fighting herself. She herself in this moment represents the Queen of Meereen, someone who desires for peace. Meanwhile, Drogon represents the dragon inside her, who wants to unleash blood and fire on her enemies. In the end, Dany climbs onto Drogon and they fly away together, which foreshadows and symbolizes Dany's later decision to choose being the dragon.

Despite her frustrations in Meereen, the peace was a good first step. Not to say that it solved every issue, it didn't, but that doesn't need to be the end of it. Daenerys could forge new peaces, new agreements, and if she stayed in Meereen, she could implement great changes throughout Slaver's Bay. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone. The peace that was forged is now gone. Next comes war.

The House with the Red Door

Before we move on to Dany's final chapter and what that means for the future, we must take a look at a very important part of her backstory which is one of the main elements of her own story. Sure, destiny, greatness, prophecy, power, and identity are themes with Daenerys, but at the center of it all is the desire for home. Dany was born on Dragonstone, but was whisked away to Braavos, and there she lived in the house with the red door, with Viserys, Ser Willem Darry, and their servants.

To Dany, the house with the red door was the only place in her life she called home, and she has very fond memories of it, of Willem, or the lemon tree. But after Willem died, they were kicked out and forced to become beggars on the streets, selling off their possessions and travelling the Free Cities. The red door was closed and gone forever after, but the dream of having a home hasn't.

Daenerys has a desire for home, for love, for family. Throughout her childhood, Viserys would tell Dany all about Westeros, how they need to take back the Iron Throne, that the Seven Kingdoms were the most beautiful lands in the world. And sure enough, soon, Westeros represents the idea for home and belonging to Dany.

"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it. Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi." But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

Although she takes on the mantle as the new head of House Targaryen and carries on Viserys's dream of taking back the Iron Throne out of a sense of duty, she also does so for desire to belong in a place she can call home. It's a nostalgic feeling she gets of the old days, that she wants to relive again.

But then other ambitions get in her way. She frees the slaves of Slaver's Bay, and decides to stay in Meereen to try to ensure that her revolution succeeds. Thus, her quest for home is put on hold. Throughout ADWD, she gives up parts of herself, to try to become one with the Meereenese; marrying Hizdahr, reopening the fighting pits, chaining her dragons, dressing in the Ghiscari fashion, and making peace. But in the Dothraki sea, hundreds of miles outside Meereen, she finds that she wasn't being her true self, that she can never be the Queen of Meereen, or become a true Meereenese.

I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home. Except it wouldn't, not truly. Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

The series is all about the human heart in conflict with itself, and Daenerys in ADWD is one of the best examples of that. She was struggling with her two competing titles of Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, but in the end she was not comfortable with being the Breaker of Chains. This final transformation she undergoes in the Dothraki sea really sets the tone for what she will do in the future, and how she will change as a person and character.

Mother of Dragons

Daenerys X is one of the more bizarre chapters in the series, since it follows only one character alone with her thoughts, but it works extremely well as a character study, and the development over the course of the chapter is one of my favourites in the whole series. Through all the hallucinations and visions and dreams Daenerys has during this chapter, it's important to remember that they all (apart from possibly Quaithe) are her, so the discussions she has are with her own internal thoughts directly.

The topic of Targaryen madness reoccurs throughout the series, but it's ADWD where it is brought up the most. Now, the topic of Targaryen madness will be another post i will do in the far future and won't discuss in depth today, but the matter is that Dany is aware of some of it, even if she hasn't fully accepted the truth of her father. She fears that she is succumbing to the madness at points.

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.

Later, she implies this fear again to Barristan.

I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now." "And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?" "I am only a foolish young girl." Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer."

But in an early version of Daenerys III, the answer Daenerys gave was "myself". She fears what would happen if she "woke the dragon", as Viserys put it. She's afraid of succumbing to the madness that consumed her father and probably was consuming Viserys. She's afraid of what would happen if she unleashed her dragons, how many innocents they would kill. But in the Dothraki sea, she begins to question her decisions, starting when she woke up after finding blood between her thighs:

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.

The importance of this quote cannot go unnoticed. She thinks about Hazzea all the time throughout the book, feeling deeply guilty about what Drogon did to her. But here, at the end, she cannot remember her name. The in world explanation is that, of course, she is delirious from being in the wilderness eating berries and being sick, but thematically this is her slowly turning away from the people she freed. Next comes a dream with Viserys (long quote incoming):

She dreamt of her dead brother. Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes. "You are dead," Dany said. Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned. "I loved you once." Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed. "You hurt me. You frightened me." Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. "You sold me. You betrayed me." No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger. "You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited." I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me. "You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake." Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead. "You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …" I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.

The dream terrifies Daenerys, but once again, Viserys (really herself here) is telling her she is stalling in a place she doesn't belong, that she needs to go home, that she should embrace being a dragon. The climax of this comes right after she realizes Meereen would never be her home, where she argues with Jorah (again, herself):

Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. "I am dreaming," she said. "A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost." Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side. "You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold." For home. Home was all I ever wanted. "And me. You wanted me." Dany had seen it in his eyes. I did, the grass whispered, sadly. "You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me." I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen. "I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march." Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. "I had to take Meereen to feed my people." You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. "To be a queen." You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

And here is where everything changes. She has spent time trying to protect innocent lives, to make peace, not war, to be loved and accepted by Meereen. But here, she decides that it is time to do away with that. Meereen is not her home, Westeros is, and it's time to wake the dragon and burn Yunkai. No longer will she be burdened by the idea of a cost of innocent lives, no longer will she fear herself, and no longer will she linger. When the time comes, she will burn her enemies and leave for Westeros.

I need to make a few things clear here, however. For one, I don't think she's mad now, this is just her resolving her internal conflict. For another, I don't care what she does to the slavers. They deserve what's coming for them. She will still care about the innocent, but she's now going to go full-blooded Targaryen and burn cities to the ground, and this will mean massive collateral damage she will try to rationalize away.

Daenerys has now transformed into a different, much darker character, which I feel will continue to define her for the rest of the series. She is now the Mother of Dragons, in her entirety, and Essos is about to bleed and burn. I really appreciate how GRRM put this together, and that she didn't stay fire and blood after Astapor. His character development is realistic, and sometimes the development is not linear. In part 3, I will be discussing predictions about Daenerys's arc and story in TWOW, more specifically what she will do in Essos.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #asoiaf character arcs #daenerys targaryen #daenerys stormborn #mother of dragons #adwd #meereen

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sofwrites · 3 years

Text

He laughed, she shrieked; She yearned, he loved

Polin Week Day 2: Polin Songs

Type: Songfic that goes through Colin and Penelope's POVs from their first meeting to the end of RMB

Length: 4.7k

Read on ao3 or continue under the cut

“But something happened, I heard him laughing

I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent” - London Boy, Taylor Swift

Penelope Featherington’s life split into a new half on the sixth day of the fourth month of the year 1812.

It began like any other day when rare sunshine followed a week of springtime rain- the Featherington had been enjoying a walk in the park, and the matriarch had become too preoccupied to notice the exact whereabouts of her third daughter.

Which was why when Penelope felt the rumbling underneath her feet and heard the nearby stampeding, she had no trouble walking off to inspect for its source.

Was it possible that there were bandits in Hyde Park, she wondered. That scouring marauders had come to their little corner of the world?

Though equally horrifying, the idea filled young Penelope with giddy excitement as she ducked behind a large tree.

But when she peeked around the trunk, there were no bandits, no marauders, no ravagers, scoundrels, or miscreants.

No, there was none of that. Instead, there were two young men galloping on horses.

Until there was only one.

It seemed that the breeze had picked up and along with it, the girl’s bonnet (she’d secretly unsecured it while her mother wasn’t watching- a habit she would very soon retire). And before she realized what had happened, one of the gentlemen had fallen directly into a patch of mud.

And as Penelope watched, her heart leaped, then dropped, and then froze in her chest- because it was her fault that he had fallen in. And with wide, terrified eyes, she rushed forward to help.

“OhmyHeavens! Are you alright? Do you need me to get someone for you?” She was speaking far too quickly, she was sure of that, and her voice was definitely quite a few octaves too high for ordinary human communication. But she didn’t care about any of it in the current moment.

Though he was certainly awake, the man didn’t reply immediately, and Penelope felt her panic grow as her hands began to shake. There was no doubt that this stranger would grant her with anything less than contempt. And as he rose, she prepared herself, promising that she would not cry even if he roared the greatest criticism.

But she need not have worried herself - for Penelope had met a man who was exceptional to all the rest. One who would make sure that no other man could ever compare.

All her perfect gentleman did was laugh, and it was the loveliest sound that she had ever heard. And then he looked at her, and his eyes, the most vivid shade of green she had ever bore witness to, were filled with nothing but good humor.

And then he smiled at her. And nothing would ever be the same for Penelope Featherington, for she had fallen in love.

“Be young, be foolish, but be happy

Don’t let the rain get you down, it’s a waste of time” - Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy, The Tams

It all happened in a blur really. One minute, Colin was riding horseback alongside a friend, enjoying a cheerful sunny afternoon.

And the next, some flying object attacked him and caused him to tumble over and land squarely into a puddle of mud.

Then there was shrieking. Some high-pitched, panicky shrieking that quickly became more painful than the tender spot on his bum.

Pulling away his assailant (which appeared to be a bonnet), Colin was met with a girl whose expression matched the hysteria of her voice. She looked young- a bit less than him- likely around Eloise or Francesca’s age. And she looked…

Well, frankly, she looked bloody terrified.

Terrified. Terrified that he was going to scream or curse or do something even more unpleasant to her.

But even if it was her bonnet that was to blame, it hardly mattered. She couldn’t have possibly planned for her headwear to get whisked off of her head and directly onto his face. And judging by the giant brown eyes and quivering lip turned towards him, she surely felt guilty about it now.

And besides that, the whole situation was rather funny. Even if he was covered in mud, Colin Bridgerton always appreciated an amusing turn of events. There was no use fretting over such little things, not when one could find the humor in it.

So, he did the one thing he knew how to do: he laughed, just in the way his father used to do. His father, who told him that laughter could solve most anything. Colin had found that although it might not have solved everything, it was quite a useful little trick.

But he was proven correct that day when the girl’s horrified expression melted into one of pure relief.

Until she began hurriedly apologizing to him, and her widened eyes went from concerning to amusing. So amusing, in fact, that he smiled at her.

And Colin Bridgerton had no idea what he’d just done.

“I wonder if he knows he’s all I think about at night

He’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar” - Teardrops On My Guitar, Taylor Swift

If what Penelope felt when she first met Colin was love, then the year following had to embody some form of deep, deep admiration. He was more than just a fine sport and a good first impression- he was simply the nicest man she had ever met. And he grew lovelier with each passing meeting.

He looked at her and smiled, he spoke to her and listened - he was simply kind to her in a way that few people ever were. And her heart fluttered every time she gazed into those dazzling green eyes.

It made her first season, just a little over a year after their ill-fated meeting, rather unbearable. Not only had Penelope’s mother pushed her into coming out in society earlier than she would have liked, but everything seemed to be wrong. In an unfortunate circumstance, she hadn’t yet entered the realm of womanhood, and the reaction of the ton directly reflected such.

But although no bachelors had eyes for Penelope (not to her great surprise), she only truly cared about one.

And that was the reason that over the course of the season, Penelope’s heart broke more times than she would have ever cared to admit.

She knew whenever he was in the room, could feel his presence in the air. She could hear his voice even when it didn’t carry, simply because she had spent so much time engraining it into her memory.

And she often watched him as he accompanied other, more eligible ladies to the dance floor- watched how he laughed and smiled at them just as he did to her. The same way he did to her.

And even though he usually made sure to save her a dance as well, and they were often the greatest highlight of the evening for Penelope, the sting lasted well into the night. She pictured him with the other girls, the ones who were prettier and more popular and less shy than she was. Than she ever could be.

And sometimes, when she was alone and the day had been more difficult than usual, Penelope cried more tears than she could have ever counted.

“I just want to live while I’m alive

(It’s my life)

My heart is like an open highway” - It’s My Life, Bon Jovi

Colin didn’t enjoy balls.

The conversations were dull, the entertainment was lacking, and every dance he offered was met with some maddening assumption that he had plans to marry.

He was still so young for God’s sake, still had so much life to live before surrendering to the shackles of the marriage mart. He knew that it was just a matter of time before he was the oldest unattached Bridgerton, but he had no plans of hurrying. He simply wasn’t ready yet, and he didn’t see any problem with that.

His family, however, certainly did.

“Please, do remember to dance with Miss Merriweather.”

“Yes, mother.”

“And Miss Kensington.”

“Of course.”

“And Miss Jones.”

“ Right .”

“And best not to forget Miss Featherington as well.”

He looked at his mother, his signature half-smile plastered to his face. “Would that even be possible? I’m quite sure that you’ve stuffed the list into my pocket.”

Violet gave him an indulgent look, one that was more familiar than he would have liked. “It’s possible that I left it in your morning coat.” She smiled before her face grew a bit more serious and her voice softened. “Please, Colin, don’t forget. Especially not Miss Featherington.”

And Colin nodded, immediately making his way to the girl standing by the refreshments table because that was what he did.

He appeased his mother, wore a happy face, and left as soon as he was able.

“Mr. Never had to see me cry

Mr. Insincere apology so he doesn’t look like the bad guy” - Mr. Perfectly Fine, Taylor Swift

The worst moment of Penelope’s life happened in the middle of the sixth month of the year 1817.

He hadn’t meant to her to hear him, she knew that. And she knew that she didn’t deserve to feel angry with him, didn’t deserve to feel like he had purposefully trampled over her heart with no regard for her or her feelings.

But Penelope was just a human, and humans didn’t always react to situations with rationality.

So when Colin apologized for the second time (since the first was really more for shock than regret), Penelope wasn’t quite as forgiving inside as she was on the surface.

She didn’t blame him, per se, but the cut was just still too fresh to let go of the hurt. And when Colin approached her at the next ball, she wasn’t quite as... friendly as usual.

It was when she was staring at his hand, outstretched and waiting like everything was absolutely normal. Like there was nothing, simply nothing wrong between them. And then he gave her that same smile he always did, the one that she normally loved, but felt much more smug than charming that evening.

“Of course, Mr. Bridgerton ,” she answered, making a failed attempt to sound pleasant.

He was doing it to appease his mother, she was more than aware of the fact. Or just to absolve himself of his guilt. Perhaps that was why it hurt so much.

Or perhaps it was the simple fact that she’d loved and dreamed about him for years, meanwhile, he’d been announcing to the world that he was certainly not going to marry her.

And though it might not have been fair, Penelope’s heart wouldn’t allow herself to move forward quite yet.

“And I don't even need your love

But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough.” - Somebody that I used to know, Gotye

It had been a mistake. A stupid mistake that Colin hadn’t even known he was making until it had already been too late.

His brothers had been at him, knowing exactly what to say to push him to the edge. He didn’t want to discuss marriage or settling down, he just wanted to go away. Find something that was his and only his.

How could he have known that she’d been standing right there? How could he have known that the cruelest thing he’d ever said would blow up so magnificently in his face?

It wasn’t fair, not to him and certainly- definitely not to her.

Colin wasn’t in the business of hurting other people, especially not ones who were as kind and decent as Penelope Featherington.

He knew that laughter wouldn’t work this time. So, instead, he apologized. A true, sincere apology that Penelope accepted.

Or so she pretended to accept. Because although she claimed that she was fine and that there was nothing wrong, there was definitely something off. And it was bloody irritating.

Colin didn’t need Penelope’s friendship, if that’s what one would call their dynamic, but he didn’t want the girl to hate him or possibly worse- like a stranger.

He was Colin, and he just wanted to be as well-liked as he usually was. So, he did what he could to force pleasantries, to make sure that they got back to where they’d always been.

Until it ended up working a bit too well.

“You’re so gorgeous,

I can’t say anything to your face

‘Cause look at your face” - Gorgeous, Taylor Swift

It had taken Penelope Featherington just about a year to fully forgive Colin Bridgerton. He was the same Colin he always was- funny and charismatic, easily the kindest man she had ever known. And it was easy to fall back into old habits- easy to fall back under his spell.

How could she not? When he smiled at her with that same smile, when he looked at her with those same hypnotic eyes and gorgeous face? Her heart had no chance against him.

Falling in love with Colin was easy- too easy- almost like breathing.

It was the being in love with Colin that tore her apart.

“Ooh, and I wished that you would hurt me harder than I hurt you

Ooh, and I wish you wouldn't wait for me, but you always do” - Let Me Go, Alesso & Hailee Steinfield

It had taken Colin Bridgerton years to admit that Penelope Featherington viewed him as more than just a friendly acquaintance. As more than a friend. As more than anything he felt comfortable with.

And then he thought that it would go away. That it was a young girl’s infatuation that would dissolve with time. He especially never saw it coming after how much he’d hurt her.

But after he’d noticed, he’d really noticed.

Penelope’s eyes had hearts in them. Huge hearts that lit up her entire face and made him feel like the biggest ass on the planet.

He kept leaving, sometimes for entire years. And every time he returned and saw her, he thought that it might be over. That she might have found someone new to set her sights on. That a different man would swoop in and take her affections.

No one ever did, however. And Colin began to worry that he was at fault for it. That Penelope had spent so long waiting for him that she simply refused to allow herself to be carried away by anyone else.

But he pushed that worry away.

Perhaps he’d imagined it- the way she looked at him. He’d known her since before she was even of age and he’d never seen anything different in her. Perhaps that was just how Penelope was to everyone.

(It wasn’t, and deep inside he knew that.)

“I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve

Takes one to know one

You’re a cowboy like me” - Cowboy Like Me, Taylor Swift

She had no idea. Penelope had no idea that she could have possibly ever had something in common with Colin.

Colin. Colin. The one who was popular, and gorgeous, and had a way of easing everyone around him. The one who was very much the complete opposite of her.

Except that he wasn’t. Because he was a writer, just like she was. And he had his secrets, and his insecurities, just like she did.

She almost told him. Truly and really considered it as she sat across him in the drawing room of Number Five. She saw how his eyes lit up when she spoke of his writing- saw the secret passion in his work that he tried to hide. It was the same passion she felt, something of herself that she recognized in Colin of all people. It was absurd to see someone else understand what she felt. Absurd and shocking and thrilling.

So, she almost told him, almost let herself join them together in their secrets.

Almost.

Something stopped her. Whether it was the decade-long practice of hiding or a fear of rejection, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she and Colin were more in the same than she could have ever realized, and he had no idea.

“I might get to too much talking

I might have to tell you something

Damn, I like me better when I'm with you” - I Like Me Better, Lauv

He didn’t know when it had happened. Exactly what change in him (or her) had led to it. But there just came a point when Colin realized that Penelope was the one who he wanted in life- the one who he wanted by his side.

Maybe it was that very first night at his mother’s party- right when half of her pastry cream splattered onto the floor. Maybe it was when he caught her reading his journals and then she lectured him on the privilege in his life. Maybe it was when she had asked him to kiss her- and he realized that he never wanted to taste anyone else’s lips ever again.

Colin didn’t know when, or what, or how. But he knew that he never wanted to stop talking to her. That he never felt more like himself than when he was with Penelope. That he had never felt the need to mask himself from her, and that she accepted him as he was each time.

He liked Penelope. Cared for her in a way he’d never cared for anyone before. And he liked himself when he was with her, even the parts that were whinging and temperamental and insecure.

And he finally knew what he needed in his life. Who he needed.

He needed Penelope.

“My reputation’s never been worse, so

You must like me for me” - Delicate, Taylor Swift

Are you going to marry me or not?

The words were still running in her mind well into the night. The same question, over and over and over again.

The morning had been ludicrous.

Colin had followed her into the church.

Colin had found out that she was Lady Whistledown.

Colin had been furious with her.

Colin had kissed her in the carriage.

Penelope had kissed him back.

Colin had asked her to marry him (in a matter of words).

Penelope had said yes (in a matter of words).

Colin and Penelope had gotten engaged to be married.

And to be quite honest, she didn’t know what exactly had changed. She had no idea why or when he had become so adamant about being with her. He had followed her, and in that had found out her great big secret- the one that was both the very best and the very worst of her.

He hadn’t been happy about it, she knew that, but something had switched in him.

And even though he didn’t like her secret, he still liked her, still cherished her in the way that she’d always yearned for.

So, she said yes.

“Please, don't look at me with those eyes

Please, don't hint that you’re capable of lies” - First Date, Blink-182

It hurt. It hurt Colin so very much.

At some point, Penelope had become Colin’s world. And at the same time, she’d been given the power to break him in a way that no one else could.

If finding out that Penelope held secrets the first time was a betrayal, then finding out that she held secrets from him after they’d become betrothed was like a stab to the heart.

She hadn’t meant for it to happen at their engagement ball, of course not. But it still had. And she hadn’t warned him, hadn’t discussed it with him.

He wasn’t sure what he was the angriest about- her hidden truths, her carelessness, her stubbornness to be right, damn it all.

The way she didn’t trust him as much as he seemed to trust her.

He was furious. And hurt. And deceived.

And yet-

“I, I loved you in spite of

Deep fears that the world would divide us” - Dancing with Our Hands Tied, Taylor Swift

He loved her. He loved her for all of her faults and all of her virtues. He loved her even despite how much he couldn’t stand her at that present moment.

He was scared to death for what could happen to her- what would happen to her. He realized that Penelope- that love was more important than the rest of it all. Than the rest of the world.

And he didn’t hesitate to tell her- not even for a moment.

Penelope loved him in return. She’d loved him for years- or so she thought. She didn’t know what had truly been love and what had been infatuation- a dream about the man she’d built up in her head. But it was certainly real love now.

The man in front of her was not perfect, was not without his gripes and flaws. And that was somehow better than perfect.

Because he was real. Because he loved her just as much as she loved him.

Because it was them. Together. Standing side-by-side against the world.

“When I was down

I was your clown

“Right from the start

I gave you my heart” - Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John & Kiki Dee

Thirty seconds it had taken for Colin Bridgerton to take Penelope Featherington’s heart.

Five years it had taken for Colin Bridgerton to break Penelope Featherington’s heart.

A handful of days it had taken for Colin Bridgerton to give Penelope Featherington his heart.

And twelve years it had taken for Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington to truly see the other for who they were.

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

Bonus rap song section!! (Explicit)

“Go, go, go, go, go, go

Go Shorty, it’s your birthday” - In da Club , 50 Cent

Colin paced across the length of his drawing room, absentmindedly flicking his fingers as he did so.

She was meant to be down here.

He needed her down here.

Right at that very instant.

He simply couldn’t wait any longer.

Penelope needed to sweep down those steps wearing some gorgeous little number, race into the room, and-

“Colin, stop doing that. It’s incredibly irritating.”

He didn’t stop, but he did turn his head to send a scowl to his sister. “Pardon me, but I’m quite sure that you were meant to get her out of the house by four o’clock.” And with a pointed look to the clock, he added, “And it’s already a quarter past.”

Eloise crossed her arms as her eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t fathom how it has somehow become my fault that she’s late. Weren’t you meant to make sure that she’d be ready by now?”

At this, Colin didn’t meet her eye, instead sending a quick not-so-guilty glance to the sofa. He certainly had meant to make sure that she was dressed and proper in time for Eloise’s arrival, but he’d gotten… Side-tracked.

It wasn’t his fault that she’d decided to wear his favorite shade of pink that afternoon. He was just a man, and how could any man not charge her, grab her by the shoulders, and-

“Oh, ew!” Eloise exclaimed, jumping from her seat on the sofa. It seemed that she hadn’t missed Colin’s glance. “Honestly, one would think that you’re still newlyweds.”

Colin finally did stop his pacing to send his sister a half-smile that was far more cheeky and apologetic. With a small shrug, he leaned against the wall.

“Well, you know, sister, we-”

“We what?” Penelope interrupted as she strode into the room, sending him a teasingly accusing face. But before he could even consider answering, she went straight to Eloise and gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Maria insisted on this intricate hairstyle.” She motioned to the chignon sitting atop her head, which Colin thought was rather lovely on her.

“And you were tied up before then?” Eloise asked innocently, barely batting an eye when Penelope suddenly flushed.

There was a pause of silence, but Colin (who had been appreciating the sight of his wife from across the room), rushed towards them. “Alright, I think you’re late enough as is. Don’t want to make the Modiste angry, do we?”

Penelope frowned as she turned to him, her eyebrows furrowing in that magnificent way they always did. “I really think it will be-”

But he had already taken her by the arm and begun dragging her into the hallway, Eloise following closely in tow. “Darling, go, go, go, go, go, go. You mustn't be late.”

Her mouth hung open as he strode her towards the front door, helping her with the coat Dunwoody had handed him.

“Colin, what are you-”

“Go, Darling. It’s your birthday. Go have fun.”

And as if by magic, Penelope and Eloise were standing outside on the steps and Colin was shutting the door.

Penelope blinked several times, staring at the knocker on the door before she turned to her best friend. “What in the world was that about?”

Eloise snorted, tucking an arm through hers. “I do believe that when we get back later today, we might party like it’s your birthday.”

“I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring

Oh baby, I wanna get wit’cha” - Baby’s Got Back , Sir Mix-a-Lot

Penelope let out a sigh as her eyes trailed the ballroom of Bridgerton House, resting upon the back of her husband. And then her eyes trailed downwards, and she let out another sigh as her eyes traveled downwards, downwards, downwards…

“Penelope?”

He looked good.

Too good.

“Penelope? ”

So very, very goo-

A pair of fingers snapped a few inches from her face. “Penelope!”

She blinked, her head jerking to face Kate. “Oh, I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”

Kate and Sophie shared a glance before turning back to her, both looking equally suspicious. “We were discussing whether or not Lucy’s pregnant again,” Sophie answered after a moment, peeking at Penelope as she took a slow sip of champagne.

“Oh,” Penelope said, her eyes somehow again landing on her husband. “She is.”

“And what makes you so sure?” Kate asked. Or perhaps it was Sophie. Er- quite honestly, Penelope’s focus was far too drawn away to discern the difference.

“Oh, I just…” She swallowed, not taking any notice of the fact that her voice had trailed off.

One of her sisters-in-law giggled. “She can’t stop staring.”

“Hmm?” Penelope finally tore her gaze away to look at them, eyes widened in absolute innocence.

Kate bit back a smirk as she lifted her glass. “I do believe Colin’s old bedroom has been kept.”

Penelope didn’t even have the decency to blush as she nodded, sparing just a rather feeble wave as she navigated through the room, eyes glued to Colin’s form.

Although he was mid-way through a conversion with his brother-in-law, Geoffrey, Colin’s arm slithered around his wife’s waist the very moment her fingertips reached him. And when he glanced down, he recognized a very… Strange look in her eyes.

It seemed Geoffrey too had noticed, for he mumbled, “I think Felicity’s looking for me…” before disappearing into the crowd.

Colin grinned as he leaned down to give Penelope’s lips better access to his ear.

“I want to be with you,” she whispered, her hot breath leaving shivers down his back.

His eyebrow quirked upwards as he looked down at her. “Now?”

She grinned and nodded. “Now.”

“Wet-ass pussy

Make that pull-out game weak, woo (ah)” - WAP, Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion

There was screaming.

And growling.

And purring.

And scratching.

“Oh, my God!”

“Colin!”

“Penelope!”

She looked down at him, eyes wide and almost… frightened. “What happened?” There was water all over the floor, buckets knocked down, drops of blood…

And one very wet pussy cat hissing in her husband’s direction.

“Our dear ass-” ("Colin!” ) “Benjamin got it into his head to jump into my bath,” he muttered, grabbing a nearby robe. “And I think you can conclude how that ended.”

Penelope cringed, gingerly stepping over a puddle to soothe the cat. “And your valet?”

Colin glared at her as he tugged at the belt of his robe. “Had some difficulty pulling the cat out and had to go get some bandages.”

Benjamin purred as Penelope scratched behind his ear, doing her best not to laugh. “I hope you at least got to finish your washing.”

She could feel Colin’s glower in the quiet, the only sounds coming from their reasonably calmed (but still rather wet) pussy cat.

“Next time, I want a dog instead.”

#polin #bridgerton fic #my fic #polinweek #polinweek2021 #this is definitely a new style for me #hope the balance of songs vs fic is good #i actually really like it for some reason #and i will be posting a bonus comical part later today inspired by yesterday's selfie #but first i must attend an interview #have a good polin day guys!!!#also please let me know if you liked this #polin week's bringing out a lot of different styles and I've love to know what people like #also shout out to mr perfectly fine for being the literal inspiration for this fic

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nerdyfangirl67 · 4 years

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Please Don’t Leave - NCIS Reader Insert

Pairing: Gibbs x little girl (fatherly relationship), very slight reference to a McGee x reader relationship

Warnings: mentions of murder and breaking and entering, brief mentions of social services and foster families, Soft!Gibbs, broken rules

Word count: 1556

Requested by: @gibbsandpridegirl - go check her out! She’s awesome!

Gibbs discovers a little girl at a crime scene who is deaf, and upon learning more of her backstory, he begins to bond with her. The guardians she was staying with were killed in a break and enter, both her actual parents were killed while deployed.

A/N: okay you guys, this one is kinda in a weird format (mostly Gibbs point of view, but with a little McGee x reader insert of sorts at the end) but I couldn’t write it without the ending I gave it because for some reason it just felt right. So I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did writing it, once I finally started it 😬😆 As always, my requests are opeeen! 😊

He had been ready to go home hours ago, after the last crappy cup of coffee he’d had. The day was long and had been full of pointless, endless paperwork. But it seemed that a made for TV Western and a pan-fried steak was out of the cards.

The call had come in about a break and enter, with two victims, on the Naval Base just an hour before. Although the team had been at the office all day, they were called out to the scene to investigate.

He wasn’t particularly happy to be trudging out on a cold, wet night but that quickly changed when he realized that there weren’t just two victims.

After having a quick conversation with Ducky about the cause of death of the two victims, who, after McGee ran their prints, turned out to be a man and his wife in their late thirties, he had made his way through the rest of the house.

He had been following protocol, looking through the house for any evidence but upon reaching the bathroom, he was glad he had chosen to walk through the house, rather than have DiNozzo or McGee do it.

Huddled between the wall and the large clawfoot tub was a little girl, no older than seven. She had her head tucked into her arms and her knees drawn tight to her chest.

“Hi there.” He rumbled quietly, not wanting to scare the girl. She didn’t answer or even show that she had heard him.

He kneeled down in front of her, making sure he moved slowly so as to not startle her. “I’m Agent Gibbs with the NCIS.” He kept his voice low and quiet.

She still didn’t respond and he felt a wave of fear wash over him at the thought that maybe she wasn’t responding because she couldn’t. She hadn’t even shifted since he had found her and he was starting to worry.

On a whim he pounded his hands down three times on the floor, immediately causing the girl to lift her head and scramble back against the wall, squeezing herself tighter into the corner. When she got as far from him as she could, she turned her blazing brown eyes to his.

He watched her intently for a moment before beginning to sign to her.

I’m Agent Gibbs, I’m sort of like a policeman. He signed slowly, hoping the girl knew what he said. What’s your name?

She stared at him for a while longer before her hands began to move rapidly in response. My name is Anastasia. What happened to Paul and Gina?

He knew she was talking about the couple downstairs, who were, at this point, probably on their way back to Ducky’s lab for their autopsies. He opens and closes his mouth, at a loss for words. How would he tell a little girl that those she loved and those that had cared for her since her parents’ death were dead? How could he break her heart when she was already falling apart?

Anastasia, he signs slowly, partially trying to delay the inevitable and partially trying to memorize the look on the girl’s face before he destroys what was left of her family and her life. They are gone. The person who broke in hurt them. He hopes the little girl was smart enough to understand what he meant because, despite his hard exterior, he didn’t want to have to explain it to her in more detail. He didn’t want her to have this moment engrained in her memory for the rest of her life.

Tears started to bead in her dark brown eyes, which had lost the fire they had had only moments before. Like Mommy and Daddy? She signed hesitantly, as she worked to fight back the sobs bubbling in her chest.

He gave her a slight nod in response and it caused her to shuffle tighter in her corner as sobs wracked her little body. He saw this and before he could register what he was doing, she was pulled close to his chest as he rocked her back and forth. He tucked her head into his chest and hummed softly, hoping the vibrations in his chest would help calm her.

After a few minutes on the bathroom floor with the girl, he knew at this point Ducky and Palmer would be long gone from the crime scene, so he scooped up the girl in his arms and headed towards the first floor of the house. She clung tightly to his neck, keeping her head tucked to his chest as he carried her outside, making sure to wrap her in his jacket before moving out into the dark, wet night. He deposited her gently on the front seat of his Charger, making sure to recline the seat enough for her to be comfortable. He grabbed one of his old sweatshirts that was on the floor in the backseat and wrapped her up in that as he took back his jacket.

He went to shut the door of the car when she let out a hoarse, pleading, “Please, don’t leave.” He turned back to her, a soft smile on his lips as he rested a gentle hand on her head. He then signed, I’m going to be right outside the door here. I want you to stay warm.

She eyed him before cautiously nodding her head. He ran a gentle hand over her head one last time before softly closing the door to the car.

He stayed right beside the door, just as he promised her he would, and proceeded to call in a few favors as he tried to find if there the girl had any close family members.

Half an hour and six different phone calls later and he didn’t have a lead on anyone who was a close family member or friend.

He looked over his shoulder at the little girl, who was sleeping, nestled in the front seat, using his sweatshirt as a blanket. His heart ached at the thought of having to turn her over to social services.

As if the two had been reading his mind, McGee and Y/L/N walk up to him. McGee’s hair is tousled and he has dark bags under his eyes. Y/L/N looks about ready to pass out and she has her jacket wrapped tightly around her to fight off the growing chill in the air.

“How is she?” You asked gently, moving a tentative step forward to peer at the little girl in the car. Worry is etched into the features on her face as she looks at Anastasia.

He lets out a small huff before answering, “She’s deaf and has lost the last people who cared for her. And there are no living family or close family friends who will take her, which means social services will take her and put her with some foster home. He had nothing against foster homes, the good ones, but he knew all too well that many foster families weren’t as good as they made themselves out to be.

Y/N looks over at McGee, who had also been watching the girl. “Timothy, we could take her.” Your soft voice brings both he and McGee to attention, turning to look at you.

Y/N and McGee had been dating for over four years and just recently had gotten married. He hadn’t been too excited to have two team members who were in a relationship working together, but he hadn’t wanted to let go of either of you because in some weird way, the team was a family. So he had let the two of you break one of his rules, without any reprimanding (aside from some ribbing from DiNozzo).

But looking at the two of you now, he was glad he had chosen to let you both stay on the team, if only because it seemed that fate was allowing this little girl, who had so quickly stolen his heart, stay in his life, as well as yours.

-Five Years Later-

He grabbed the neatly wrapped gift off the front seat of his car before he headed towards the two-story colonial-style house on the quiet, uncrowded street. He knocked softly on the door before it was whipped open, revealing a tall, lanky twelve-year-old girl.

“Papa!” She shouted roughly as she embraced him tightly.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in a tight hug before gently ruffling her hair. Y/N padded into the entryway and leaned against the wall as she watched her daughter.

“It’s about time you showed. We were ready to eat the cake without you.” Y/N commented, moving to press a soft kiss to his cheek after her daughter let him go. “Shouldn’t you have a rule about being on time?”

Before he could answer, the girl was pulling him along towards the living room. “Look papa, dad got me a kitten.” She mumbled excitedly.

He turned to give Y/N a questioning look to which she shrugged and said, “Hey, that was all Timothy’s idea. He’s a sucker for her, just like you are by the way, and she’s been wanting a cat for a while now.”

He shook his head in disbelief but couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He had a family now and it was all because a little girl charmed her way into his heart.

#ncis #ncis fanfiction #ncis fandom #ncis imagine #gibbs #gibbs fanfiction #mcgee #mcgee x reader #leroy jethro gibbs

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lov3nerdstuff · 4 years

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Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.33}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 4.5k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

They arrived in front of Morgan's private rooms a few minutes later, and it instantly sobered Robin up from her feelings of happiness and comfort that she had been able to cling onto ever since setting foot into the office earlier. If only life could always be as easy as it had seemed minutes ago, just Snape and her, and their relentless curiosity for magic and adoration for each other… But it wasn't, and both of them seemed to remember that as they stood in front of Morgan's door in silence. If they didn't find out about Morgan's reasons, didn't find out what this entire thing was about, there would be no life for Robin to lead at all.

She looked up at Snape next to her for a silent moment of gathering her wits, and his gaze spoke volumes of the same story. They could do this. They would find the bloody portrait, and then they would take the next step and the next and the next until this stupid mess was over with, until Morgan was no threat anymore. Whatever that might take. Even if it meant having to make Dumbledore their friend or enemy.

Upon a silent agreement that time was of essence, Robin got started on opening the door at last. It was warded rather heavily as she found, but that didn't stop her in the least, and on the contrary made things rather easy in return. Quite like paint that was applied in thick layers, she could peel them back and remove them all at once, even as thickly plastered as they were. A few minutes of quietly murmured spells and some trial and error later, the door swung open with a little squeaking noise and opened up the view of a perfectly ordinary, even if slightly ostentatious bed- and living room.

"I have to ask…" Robin spoke up quietly, once they had closed the door behind themselves and were now looking around the dark room with a lumos each. "Are you actually bad at breaking into places, or did you just pretend to be? Earlier today, I mean."

"I successfully worked as a spy in one of the worst wars known to wizarding history, and even beyond that, you have seen the neighborhood I grew up in. What do you think?" He asked in return, easily and without reproach, while yet he kept his focus on searching the room around them.

"Honestly, I think you could probably break into Azkaban unnoticed and back out again as well if you wanted to."

"That's perhaps a bit exaggerated, but the general sentiment is close enough."

"Then why did you want me to do it?" A small frown creased Robin's brows, as her eyes darted over the various pieces of luxurious furniture. "I'm sure you're far better at opening doors than I am."

"To humour you." Again, his reply came easily and with an almost graspable not-smirk engrained in his tone, and Robin inevitably had to smile as well while he went on. "In very much the same way you always do when you ask me to grab an item from the top shelves for you. You know as well as I do that you wouldn't even have to use your wand to collect it yourself, but instead you keep asking me to help you. Because you know how much it pleases me."

The smile on Robin's lips broadened, and finally her eyes found Snape on the other side of the room. "I had a vague idea that you knew I was doing it on purpose by now. Did you see that in my mind?"

"No. I simply know you well enough to know how well you know me."

"That's as confusing as it is amazing." She sighed with the same smile, then went back to searching the room with her eyes fixed on the shadowy corners and places. "And thank you, for humouring me. I needed it today."

For another ten minutes they searched the admittedly small chambers in well practiced collaboration, checking even the adjunct bathroom and the wardrobes, but they still came up empty handed. Robin ran a hand through her unruly hair in frustration, then looked up at Snape who was standing next to her in the open space in equal irritation. "The bloody portrait has to be here. It wasn't in the classroom nor in the office, so it just needs to be here. There's no other possibility!"

"Considering how… frequented Morgan's quarters are by visitors of various kinds, it would only seem logical that he hid it well enough to not be found by guests on accident, but close enough to retrieve for his private moments."

"Ugh…" Robin shuddered while pulling a face. "It's not your fault, but any way to phrase it just sounds disgusting to me."

"I try to ignore that as best as possible. But the facts remain as they are, and I believe he hid it in close reach. The question remains as to where."

"Let's see… Perhaps we have to think like Morgan if we want to find the stupid thing." She suggested, and upon Snape's attentive yet expectant expression, she elaborated as silently demanded. "If I was Morgan, a wizard of thirty something years who is obsessed with a girl who is my student and who I happen to have a painting of… I would put it in a place where I often see it. I would be a lazy arse, but clever enough to still get my way; which means I would hide it somewhere where I don't have to move it, only conceal it."

"Sounds reasonable."

"And if I was Morgan, I would put it in a place where I can enjoy it while following my daily routine, since I would always be short of time and everything else would be too much of a hassle."

"Still reasonable."

"So… where in my chambers would I spend a lot of time?" Robin frowned to herself, then started sauntering through the room once more. "The desk, perhaps. I would always be working here instead of my office."

"But would you, as Morgan, not choose a place to display it that doesn't demand a constant split of attention? Having the portrait near the desk would pose a terrible distraction from your work. And as much as I hate the man, he always finishes his grading and other work neatly and in time." Snape commented in return, and Robin found herself nodding along as she trailed away from the desk again.

"True, I wouldn't be able to focus if I was constantly tempted to look at something I am obsessed with. And I would be terrible at controlling my own impulses. So… where else would I spend a lot of time by myself? What would I like doing in my free time?" She sauntered over to the small sitting area in the far corner, frowning to herself in contemplation. "Reading, perhaps?"

"You really don't have the slightest idea about what goes on in the mind of the average male, regardless of age, do you?"

Robin turned back around to Snape with a scoff, a half smirk and one raised eyebrow. "But you do? I can hardly imagine that."

"I was unfortunate enough to live with a hoard of them back in my school days." He scoffed at the memory, rolling his eyes to himself before he continued on in obvious disdain for what he was saying. "Perhaps Morgan was taking a literal approach with his words about looking at the painting each morning and each night. Perhaps, he hid it in the very place where he spends his every morning and night indeed."

"You don't mean-... No. No…"

"I wish I could hope I'm wrong." The gravity of Snape's tone made Robin shudder a little, or perhaps it simply was the idea he was so subtly presenting, but she took a deep breath anyway and walked over to the large four-poster bed in determination. That same model seemed to be a staple for all staff rooms, and if Morgan had hidden the portrait there, she would find it.

Indeed, after a moment of pushing through the queasy and awkward feeling of searching the vile man's bed, Robin finally found what she was looking for. Hidden under the roof of the canopy, concealed and fixated in place with some subtle charms work, was the portrait that she had last laid eyes upon in her fourth year. The almost perfect image of herself, the eerie similarity that now was almost absolute, hidden in such a place for only Morgan's eyes to devour at his fancy. Robin felt sick at the thought, her stomach churning, and even the last hairs in her neck were standing upright now. Morgan really hadn't been joking about his literal need for her… she suppressed the need to gag, which was only followed by another unpleasant shiver. This was worse than any amount of blood had ever made her feel.

"I, uh… I found the portrait." She finally managed to speak out loud without the bile rising in her throat, and after another few seconds of staring at the bloody thing that still looked just like she remembered, she added, "The… other me really doesn't have earrings, just as we thought, but otherwise she could be my mirror image. Well, if I had lived a couple hundred years ago, that is."

Her words faded, but even after multiple moments of silence she still received no answer, nor did she hear Snape coming any closer to look at her findings for himself. With a confused frown, Robin turned to look through the open room behind her only to find him lingering by the desk now, a deep frown plastered on his own face as he inspected a dark brown wooden box in front of him in silence. Again, as so often, his expression and body language spoke volumes, this time of weariness and caution.

"Sev? What's wrong?" Robin couldn't keep the concern out of her voice as she skipped over to the other side of the room to stand beside him in an instant. For a moment she followed his gaze to the intricately decorated box on the tabletop. It was an intriguingly unique piece, even if Snape seemed to be rather lost in thought than to be studying the object itself, and she finally looked back up at him with unease written all over her features when he still didn't reply. "Talk to me. Please."

"I believe to have seen this very object in the headmaster's office before… Years ago, when I was a student, and again and again when I started teaching, but not any time recently. In one of the shelves in the far back of the room where all the important artefacts are stored, far out of everyone's reach." He answered at last, obviously lost in thought and consideration, which didn't do much to calm Robin's uproaring nervousness. If Snape was concerned, she should be double as much.

"Do you know what's inside?" She finally dared to ask, and while she wasn't sure if she even wanted to know the answer, she suddenly was very certain that whatever the box held would bring them closer to solving the mystery around Morgan and the Portrait. It had to, everything else just wouldn't make sense. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

"I have no idea." He mused, seconds before casting a detection charm for curses and dark magic over the object, only to have it come back negative. "But we should certainly take a look. Out of all the bizarre objects in Morgan's room, this is perhaps the second most curious after the portrait."

"Why do you think that?"

"Have you ever in the entire castle seen an object that required a key and not magic to unlock it?" He finally turned to Robin, then motioned to the box once more while his eyes stayed on her though. Frowning to herself, Robin leaned down closer towards the box and held her wand so that she could properly study the object in question with sufficient light. Indeed, there was a keyhole on the lid. Something she hadn't seen in use in the longest time. For a few minutes she tried every spell to open the box she had at her disposal, then however gave up in the light of her company's greater knowledge of such spellwork.

"That really is curious." She said as she straightened her back once more. "Do you want to try?"

"I already have."

"And?"

"There is nothing to be done without the corresponding key. It seems to be entirely unaffected by magic in general. And knowing who the box belonged to, it likely wouldn't do to simply break it open either."

"Pity." Robin sighed, stemming her hands into her hips as she thought. If the box really had been among the important artefacts in the headmaster's office for at least ten years and had still been there when Snape started teaching, then it must have not been in Morgan's possession much longer than the portrait. But if-...

"I can feel you thinking, Robin." Snape interrupted her thoughts before she really could get going deeper. "And usually that results in some brilliant revelation. Enlighten me, yes?"

"Right…" She breathed, nodding both to him and herself. "I was just thinking, if the box was in the headmaster's office from possibly before the time you started school until roughly when you started teaching, then it can't belong to Morgan and also can't have been in his possession for long."

"The latter is obvious, but what brings you to assume the former?"

"Well, when you started school at the tender age of eleven, then Morgan must've been like what, sixteen? Seventeen?" She reasoned, more guessing than knowing, but the point stood nonetheless. "Either way, as you previously pointed out, he is quite the ordinary male with an ordinary mind."

"That we have yet to determine for certain."

"I'm not talking about him going crazy over me, that's another issue entirely so let's just ignore that for a second. What I mean is that at whatever age he was when you started school, he was still a teenager. And how likely is it that a normal teenager possesses artifacts that are important enough to make the headmaster's top shelf?"

"I see your point." Snape mused, frowning to himself again for a moment. "In that case Dumbledore must have given it to him deliberately, at a point in time after I started teaching even though there does not seem to be an apparent reason for that particular timing. Which in return makes it highly unlikely that the contents of this box don't correlate to the portrait in some way."

"Precisely my line of thought."

"That makes it all the more important to find a way to open this crude thing now." He grumbled to himself and went back to studying the box intently. "Obviously Morgan will possess the key, but I sincerely doubt that Dumbledore doesn't still have one as well. He wouldn't part from anything of relevance without precautions."

"Wait, so there can be more than one key?" Robin's mind came to a sudden halt, then toppled over some more and finally changed direction. "I was under the impression that Morgan would logically have the only one."

"I see no reason why there couldn't be more than one. Creating them certainly must be a difficult procedure, but not impossible to replicate over and over again if desired."

"Oh gods…" Her voice grew shallow as her heartbeat sped up in an instant, followed by a cold rush of adrenaline while she mentally chastised herself. They had a lock without a key. She had a key without a lock. How stupid could she be not to make that connection sooner?!

"Minerva's key. Of course…" He came to the same conclusion as her then, eyes widening every so slightly as he watched Robin fumbling with her locket with slightly shaking hands. She had too much adrenaline in her body for anything else, was too exhausted and anxious… But this had to be the reason why McGonagall had given her a key for her birthday, and why she'd been so insistent on it that Robin kept it a secret. She had another key to this box, a key that wasn't supposed to exist.

"Fingers crossed…" Robin said under her breath as she finally put the small piece of metal to good use at last. It fit into the lock easily, and with a weary look up at Snape, Robin finally twisted it in one swift move. It obliged without resistance, and she pulled her hand back as if burnt when not one metallic clicking was heard from inside the box, but multiple in a row. Oh gods, hopefully she hadn't just set off some trap or self destruction or anything of the likes… But after a few seconds, the sounds faded, and the box sat still and innocently as ever on the desk before them.

"Do you wish to open it or shall I?" Snape asked quietly, but even he didn't dare to take his eyes off the box now.

"I'll open it, and you make sure that nothing jumps at me. Like always, yes?" She propositioned, nodding to herself to perhaps shake some of the fear out of her head. This was a good idea… she just needed to make herself believe that now. "We've been in plenty of situations like this before, haven't we? I go off to inspect some potentially dangerous thing, and you make sure I survive it. Isn't that what we always do when we go hunting for ingredients?"

"It is similar enough, yes."

"Good…" She took a deep breath, then placed her hand on top of the lid and looked over at Snape once more for a confirmation of what she was about to do. He motioned for her to go ahead, and after another second of hesitation, Robin finally had enough of herself and flipped the stupid box open with a start.

Nothing jumped at her, nor did she seem to have set off any kind of follow-up spells. It simply was a box, admittedly larger on the inside than the outside, but Robin barely took notice of that any longer, seeing how most of her own boxes and bags were graced with the same magic. What did surprise her however were the contents the box in front of her held now, in all their striking unspectacularity. A look at Snape confirmed that he shared that sentiment to the fullest. They had expected anything at this point… but not just a gigantic stack of parchments, ranging from literally ancient to almost modern.

"Well, at least we have something to look into now…" Robin sighed to herself as she frowned down at the pile of paper in front of her. "There has to be some kind of important information written on these, or nobody would've bothered hiding them that well. They will either give us answers, or leverage on Dumbledore who in return can give us answers."

"Indeed… However this is hardly the time nor place to look through an epos of loose leaf parchments." Snape said in argument with circumstance, which made Robin look up at him again while raising her eyebrows.

"Do you really think we should just take the box? Morgan will notice for sure, and then it won't be hard to guess for him who took it."

"I think we should take the parchments." He returned easily, then motioned to the object in front of them once more. "The lid had a thin layer of dust on it already, which means that Morgan likely knows the contents of these papers at this point and therefore has no need to open the box again any time soon. If we leave the box where it is, and with a bit of luck, he won't notice the papers' absence until we long have the information we need. Until we are ready to face him on equal grounds."

"Clever." Robin replied with a half smile. "As always."

Snape merely rolled his eyes in that exaggerated manner that humour her so much, then they finally went to gather up the papers into a portable pile in his arms. Half a minute later, Robin locked the box back up with her key, then hid the latter back inside her locket.

"What about the portrait?" She asked as they made for the door at last, after having spent decidedly too much time in Morgan's quarters already. "It feels wrong to leave it here, in that place… I know we have to, but it makes me feel sick nonetheless."

"As much as it bothers me, I'm afraid we have to leave it where it is indeed." He answered, then his voice turned into more of a growl than the rich silk it usually was. "But don't believe for even a second that I wouldn't gladly end his pathetic existence for lusting after you like this."

"Because I'm yours and only yours?" She couldn't help asking with a small smile, while she peeked out through the door into the empty hallways first before opening it further for him as well.

"Because you deserve better than that."

"But also because I'm yours."

"Yes."

"You really can't deny that you are quite territorial, you know…"

"I would rather call it protective than territorial."

"Same thing."

"Does it bother you?" He inquired calmly but in seriousness, looking down at Robin over the papers in his arms expectantly.

"Rather on the contrary." She replied with a small but affectionate smile. "It makes me feel almost too giddy with pride and adoration. I just wish you could show a little more of that in public too; would certainly keep the right people from bothering me. Oh well… I wish."

"Believe me, so do I." He sighed in return, then took another look inside Morgan's room once they both stood in the hallway. "Let us hope he will be too drunk upon his return to notice the traces we left."

"Or… I could turn back the time inside the room to before we arrived?" Robin suggested more than asked with a hopeful and pointedly innocent expression. "You know I can freeze objects in time… And I'm actually quite sure that I can turn time back in a limited space just as easily, as long as there are no people inside. That's way more difficult, or rather impossible without a timeturner."

"You are aware that technically tampering with time is forbidden in any regard, yes?"

"So is breaking into a professor's private chambers and stealing his papers."

For half a second Snape seemed to freeze in his protest, then a not-smirk tugged on his lips and he shrugged as far as his arms full of parchments allowed. "I ran out of arguments. Go ahead."

A mirroring smirk played on Robin's lips for a moment, then she took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand. She'd read more about messing with time than she should probably admit, going through the entire restricted section of the library without anyone ever putting a stop to her efforts. Really, all the fun magic was in the restricted section anyway. Everything that was worth learning about. The part about potions and herbology she'd already finished years ago, then the dark arts had followed a long time prior as well, and now finally she had moved on to researching charms, also in regards to the still impending NEWTs.

It took two attempts to cast the difficult spell successfully, but then the room looked precisely how it had before they had entered. Even the layer of dust on the box was back in place and undisturbed by fingerprints. Content with her efforts, Robin finally closed the door and placed the same wards on it that she had removed upon their arrival.

"Do you know what truly is a shame?" Snape asked after a moment, while they quietly made their way back through the dark hallways and down a few stories.

"Quite many things, but please, do enlighten me."

"That neither Morgan nor Flitwick will ever know how ridiculously talented you are in their subjects."

Robin let out a humoured huff in replacement for a certainly too loud chuckle. "Oh, I think Morgan does know at this point. I managed to fend him and his best efforts off after all, even if just barely. Isn't that what defense class is about?"

"About fending off your crazy professor? I certainly hope not."

Now Robin did snort a little, even though the topic itself should have been rather depressing. "It's ironic that I have to defend myself against him with defenses that he himself has taught me. Or rather I would have to, if I hadn't read so much more about the dark arts in advance. What truly saved me today wasn't anything I learned in defense class… but rather the things I came up with myself, or what you showed me. Things Morgan didn't see coming."

"And therefore my point stands."

"How so?"

"Well, any idiot can learn the textbook by heart and master the school taught spells."

"Most idiots can't, in fact, as you very well know. They're far too narrow minded to even accomplish such a thing, and-..."

"Anyway…" He went on, in a manner that reminded Robin an awful lot of her own mannerisms, but she gave him that and let him go on. "What makes you such a brilliant witch and not just an outstanding student is that you don't even try to stay within the given boundaries. Most of the things you excel at are either straight out illegal for most people, or at least so far out of the school curriculum that your teachers will never know what you truly can do."

"I don't really mind." Robin shrugged in return. "It's a good thing that Morgan doesn't know me well enough to know what I can do. That's my only advantage over him."

"I certainly agree with that assessment. Perhaps once Morgan isn't an issue anymore we can see to it that you get the recognition you deserve."

"I just want to ace my NEWTs and move on to more interesting matters of study once and for all. I don't need anyone's recognition. The only person I ever actually tried to impress is you, and that seems to have worked out for me just fine." She replied with a small smirk, which earned her another of those lovely feignedly annoyed expressions in return. They both knew she was right though, she had impressed him so many times and likely always would, and it had indeed worked out in both their favour. And, almost needles to say at this point, Robin felt like they both were equally proud of that fact after all.

______________________________

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mc-critical · 3 years

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How do you think Şah Huban and Ibrahim's relationship really was? We've never been given insights about it and while I would have loved flashbacks, the way it is also fits well imo. Şah has an air of mystery around her, part of why I love her so, because I love unravelling ambiguous yet clear characters with hints but not insights to their backstory. I've always been drawn to them and Şah Huban is another one of them.

Personally, I can see why they would be drawn to each other at first. They are both shown as appreciative of art, very intelligent and pragmatic and have a similar personality, but in the long run I can't see them working as both prefer to be the dominant partner and Şah is very prideful and always maintains a power balance with those not from the family, whereas Ibrahim is quite insecure. They'd clash.

Even Hatice's reminder of his status hurt him so much that he started an affair with Nigar. According to him, it was a loss of innocence between them and for sure Hatice's innocence, purity, and nativity is what I think drew him to her, and I can see why. Among all the darkness of politics, power plays, his own insecurities and early loss of innocence, Hatice would have been the one ray of light to him..Their entire early interactions and love was so pure and free of darkness and I don't think he ever had that with Şah, who I don't think was ever innocent.

Şah also told Hürrem that Ibrahim is quite difficult to control and I thought that was maybe hinting at the past. It always seemed to me that she was the one who ended things with Ibrahim, judging by her and Ibrahim's interactions ( I really wish we had more of those ) and I have many theories why.

Also, my personal interpretation is that she did move on from Ibrahim and only had vestiges of her feelings for him, his memories to be more precise, left by the time we see her. Unlike many people, I don't think her unwillingness to be with Lütfi sexually or romantically has anything to do with Ibrahim. I just don't think she loves him or wants him and I can see why tbh. While he is a decent enough politician, he doesn't have much personality to be attracted to nor demeanor lmao. even the way he read her that piece of poetry was quite dry, and he is visibly much older than her.

What do you think?

{I also love Şah's character for much of the same reasons you do. Her lack of a backstory and more simplistic design that isn't put through a deconstruction for a character arc in the way Hatice's was during S02/3 bring us one of the most unique characters in the whole franchise. These aspects of her personality complement her motivation and I find her motivation to be the most fascinating element about her that makes for an interesting, contrasting duality in all her relationships. Revealing more backstory for her risks throwing all this out of the window, that's why I'm usually okay with that the show not delving deeper into her past.}

Still, in the case of Ibrahim, I agree that we could've seen a few more flashbacks. I feel Şah's distance and tiny resentment of Hatice stems from her previous feelings for Ibrahim and more flashbacks would put that distance and resentment into more context, which I don't think would harm her character all that much. It would actually help flesh out Şah's relationship with Hatice on a deeper level and that's always welcome for me, since I found their relationship to be the epitome of where Şah's character shines the most. All these delicious contrasts, the way her ambition goes with the care she has for the people she's closest to.... I love it! sorry for the blabbering

I also pretty much agree with your view on Şah and Ibrahim's relationship. They definetly wouldn't get on all that well - their ideals would clash right out of the gate and Şah isn't a person that would pull rank out of ignorance, it's not something she wants to detach from, no, she's living with her position and she's proud of it. Anytime Ibrahim would disagree with Şah, I feel she's going to pull rank instantly. And that's not something that Ibrahim would bear - Hatice did it one time and that one time was enough to make him doubt his whole relationship with her, I believe with Şah it's going to be an even more reccuring conflict and it's going to make things even worse.

I believe that in Manisa, in their past, Şah didn't have hopes for so long when it came to Ibrahim. Maybe she learned very quickly that he didn't have any feelings for her. Maybe Ibrahim didn't pay all that much attention to Şah and if she tried to give him subtle hints, he didn't catch on them at first. If Ibrahim and Hatice indeed had tiny crushes on each other that just hadn't had the chance to flourish yet in Manisa (as the flashback from E58 implied) and Şah became aware of this? All these factors could've contributed to Şah moving forward, along with her ambitious personality. Even her older self isn't a person who would fight what she views as a pointless battle (she didn't want to fight Mihrimah, she didn't get why Hürrem was such a problem at first, she could hold her part in the decisions SS made for Hatice off for so long) and her love for Hatice was apparently present even when they were kids (the whole horse situation), so these would be decent enough reasons for her to want to step out of it.

Her getting to know Ibrahim more personally after he could've gotten the hint is very likely, too. Her "he's difficult to control" line is definetly something to ruminate on: maybe she decided that they wouldn't get along despite of all, because yes, she would like to be on the more controlling side of the relationship. Not only is Ibrahim very insecure and wouldn't handle it when someone is pulling rank on him, this line could hint that a part of Ibrahim has had that ambitious side of him back in Manisa. Not as much in terms of power, but rather as in his sharp mind and dreams he had together with SS to conquer more than Alexander the Great and maybe Şah felt this aspect of his ambition whenever they've interacted. That means he could have exerted some amount of control in the relationship, and maybe Şah wouldn't be so okay. Both could be very dominating and that could very well show even earlier. There wouldn't be any innocence in their relationship, it would only result in clash of personalities and philosophies and probably both of them got aware of this. While with Hatice it was possible for both of them to get over their extremely idealistic delusions, because they both were able and willing to reason with one another deep down, you wouldn't get that with Şah. It's probable she would consider herself right and not realize what's wrong, especially in terms of pulling rank, because well, that's what the tradition and law stands on and for her, Ibrahim's only role is to fit the mold.

Yup, Şah definetly had some of her feelings for Ibrahim remaining, because that's what moved a lot of her conflict with Hatice. Maybe she felt some jealousy that Hatice succeeded to make this work and that could be also a part of why she wanted to stop Hatice from grieving and didn't tell her where Ibrahim's grave was, but on the other hand, she had accepted it to an extent, as seen by her reaction when she learned about the infidelity. One could argue that she got irritated because of her own feelings, but I feel she felt bad for Hatice, too, and was really surprised that he pulled something like this. Yet both circle back to her own feelings anyways. Another reason why I think she didn't get over her feelings for him completely is that (most of) what she does is driven by personal desire and attacks directed to her personal bonds and attachments. It's Hatice's suicide attempt that drove Şah to act against Hürrem, but it's also Ibrahim's death that made her at least think whether should she act, in my opinion, because of something so surprising happening to a personal attachment of hers, seemingly all of the sudden. (in E84, she also said in front of Ibrahim's grave that she wouldn't let his blood stay on the ground) Şah's actions are driven by feelings more than anything else, but she tries her best to mask these feelings and only use them as fuel to her more pragmatic plans, if that means letting go of them or discarding them completely. She puts mind over emotion not because she doesn't have emotion or vulnerability or feelings lingering from the past, it's more because she considers pragmatism and careful planning the better, more effective way to achieve her goals. Just like the dynastic views and the elitism, it's something engrained in her she's proud of, but in the case of her feelings, when she's alone or with Hatice she can open herself a bit more. But because she has gotten over Ibrahim, she would never admit outright she has something for him in front of him or L��tfi later.

I also don't think Ibrahim has ever had feelings for Şah to begin with. I don't think he forgot their experiences and memories completely (the "did your love turn into hate?" line) , but he has definitely left them behind him, even more than Şah herself.

While I think the love for another (Ibrahim) was a part of Şah's distaste for Lütfi, especially because the first hint of conflict between them, as far as I recall, was him sorta shading on Ibrahim in E82, it's definetly not the only factor. He just isn't a guy she could fall in love with, no matter how much he seemed to love her (more like tough love, but still), I'm sure she has gotten to know the more shadier aspects of his character, since they've lived together for so long. (even though the situation around the prostitute surprised her, since she hasn't ever seen such amount of disrespect, Şah may have seen other skeletons in his closet. He seemed to be very authoritarian in the relationship. She also said in E101 that the divorce was a long time coming and I don't think it all originated from the show, the situations there were simply the peak of previous issues.) It being a forced marriage made things even worse, no one would like a forced marriage. I actually admire Şah for keeping up with this marriage for so long and finding advantage in it, being as composed as possible. (when she is) Their daughter is most probably what kept them together all these years, on a personal level outside of Şah's ambition.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #sah sultan #ibrahim pasha #ask #illusorybeing #i know I detracted from the topic quite a bit more than usual here and I'm sorry #but Şah is just so interesting

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thejustmaiden · 4 years

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Unfortunately, if Sunrise makes Sessrin canon, it won't bring much issue to them, the japanese fans love this ship, and in Japan there's this whole lolicon culture, 10 year old idols and schoolgirl pin-ups which are also accepted there. I still can't believe Japan doesn't see any issue with child grooming and exploiting underage girls, and seeing the series that put a mark on my childhood going through the same direction, makes me sad and concerned.

Howdy, nonnie! Happy weekend. 😚

Even though there are many Japanese fans out there who are antis like you and me, I'm well aware of the fact that there's an overwhelming number of fans there who not only celebrate this ship but are quite fanatical about it, too.

Of course I acknowledge that culture plays a role in how people learn to perceive certain relationship dynamics as they grow up. Their fans appear to think we're naive on that matter, but obviously we're more than familiar with Japan's infatuation with lolicon. Why else would we be so enraged over this ship in the first place? Because of shipping wars?! How many times must we repeat that this goes beyond petty fandom squabbles. This is about real life, and this is about protecting our kids and their future. Tell me, what could be more important than that?

What some of their fans fail to realize is that culture shouldn't be the only deciding factor we take into account when determining right from wrong. Culture isn't the ultimate form of defense either, and it's unethical to use it as an excuse to justify glorifying the sexualization of underage girls. It's ridiculous to believe that culture is "above our morals" so to speak, as if past and present cultures haven't tried to pass off messed up ideologies as mere differences of opinion.

At first glance it may not appear to some like it's a serious issue because "it's just fiction," which must mean people putting this content out there can get away with it then, correct? Oh, well sure they can since they've already been doing so for the longest time! The thing is just because it's "acceptable" and has been around forever doesn't make it right.

I urge you Sessrin shippers to please reflect on that for a moment and try and imagine what the future holds for our children if we persist in normalizing these harmful tropes where girls continue to be placed in highly inappropriate sexual contexts. How do you think putting a positive and romantic spin on a relationship like that will bode for them if they were ever to encounter a situation resembling it in real life? I know it's not exactly the image any of us want to picture, but can't you at the very least admit it's a possibility that a child/teen may potentially mistake a predator's intent as romantic because of what they've been exposed to in the media? I'm not saying that's proof every single child will be susceptible. But truly consider this: isn't one child risky enough?

It's engrained in girls at an early age, especially in places like Japan, that we are but visual appreciations for men AKA what you may know as the "male gaze." It's supposedly natural for men to look upon us women so it should be expected and even sought out. Phenomena like lolicon only take it further by romanticizing it and in turn validating this kind of predatory behavior in society.

Fiction has the power to remove all the questionable and ambiguous areas and focus on the super unrealistic flowery parts instead. But guys, just because a particular culture has found a loophole to portraying a relationship synonymous to real life grooming in a positive light does not mean they can and should get away with it. And especially when we got literal children watching!

Please please please read this short meta on this subject I'm addressing now. I recommend you read the comments section too, because there you'll hear from so many people who can relate with their own personal experiences. It's quite harrowing to see how many of us are out there.

This just goes to prove that it's crucial everyone understands this because we gotta start calling out the people responsible for this content and holding them accountable. That includes the authors, the screenwriters, the animators- you name it! We can't allow these sexualized images of young or pre-pubescent girls to be the norm anymore. I don't care how much it's a part of your tradition, because bear in mind that many immoral things were once tradition.

Now that you've read this far I want you to ask yourself this: Why do you think Rin- a character we've only ever known as a young girl in this series, mind you- is automatically associated with sex right off the bat? I mean, how do we know that she'll even be married or want to be married? Or hell, that she even likes boys?? What if she grows up and likes only women or perhaps both?! Or maybe she's not attracted to either!!

The point I'm trying to make is that we have absolutely no information on adult Rin, and she does not exist as far as we know. I hope she's alive, but what I meant to say is that I don't believe it's been officially confirmed that she's in the sequel yet. (Please correct me if I'm wrong though!) So the real question we should be asking ourselves right now is why are we so concerned with her love life? Why is this ever the only subject of importance in Rin's future? It's not for Sesshomaru but why is it for Rin? Don't you think it's sad that the first thing we as an audience associate a young girl around an older male figure with is sex and romance; like that's all she's good for and as if there's no greater purpose for her to serve.

We really oughta stop perpetuating these demeaning and inaccurate beliefs of what a woman's life should amount to. This idea that Rin doesn't want anything more than to be with Sesshomaru wherever he is no matter what completely diminishes her character to nothing more than ironically enough that little girl he once traveled with. Essentially the only reason you're aging her up is so she can have sex with him, but you still expect her to have no agency and follow him around blindly. A child may do that but not a full grown woman. Nope, not even in feudal times.

What that basically tells me is that you believe her character growth is non-existent and she's only in this story to serve Sesshomaru's plot and never her own outside of him. He needed to learn to think of others besides himself? Rin did that! He needs romance now? Well, that's what Rin is there for!! To satisfy his every need. Because apparently his character development only extends to her and her character's significance doesn't go beyond him.

Wow, such an honor to be reduced to nothing more than some pretty little sex object. But as long as Sesshomaru is happy then I suppose that's all that matters, right?

I could go and on, but best I stop. Lol Thanks again for the ask, nonnie. Here's hoping one of our favorite childhood memories will be salvaged! 2020 has already been shitty enough as is. 😆

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #anti sessrin #anonymous asks #answered ask

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imagineredwood · 5 years

Photo

Request: Juice, instead of becoming a Rat, brings up what the Sheriff has on him in Church. When cornered with Chibs, he tells him to go to hell.

Warnings: Blackmail, anxiety, racist bylaw

Word count: 1.1k

***This was a weird one for me since I’m not great at third-person stories with no reader insert or OC but I hope whoever requested it likes it anyway ❤️***

Juice fiddling with his fingers as he waited for everyone to settle down, Opie being the last one to sit down at the table. Jax banged the gavel and church started but Juice wasn’t listening. His mind was far away, thinking about how drastically his life had changed over the last couple of weeks and how shitty of a person Roosevelt was. Juice had worked hard to get to where he was. He was a good Son, protected and held it down for his brothers, loved them as if they were his own blood. He would give his life for the MC and had some close to doing a few times. That was a part of the deal and he had accepted it gladly. He had always done everything right, always stayed loyal, never strayed, so that his position within this club and family was never jeopardized, and it never had been.

Until now.

Now something that wasn’t his fault, that wasn’t a mistake or failure on his part could cost him his club. He hadn’t done anything, the revelation something that was entirely out of his control. He couldn’t pick who his father was, never even knew the guy. Roosevelt had used that to his advantage and had dropped the bomb that his father was black. The information didn’t bother Juice himself. The color of his father was not something that would’ve made him love him any less, had he ever met him. It did complicate things though. The club had their bylaw and no matter how ignorant and outdated it may have been, it was still a bylaw that the club had. Juice hadn’t lied, many brothers knew that he didn’t know his dad, but he wasn’t sure if they would believe that he didn’t know he was black either. Roosevelt knew of the bylaw as well and had been hanging it over Juice’s head. Threatening him with the consequence of being exposed if he didn’t provide intel on the club as well as evidence of their illegal occupations.

Juice had turned it over and over in his head, weighing his options and concluded that even if they turned their back on him, he wouldn’t betray them. He wouldn’t bite the hand that had fed and loved him for so long. He finally decided that he would bring it up at the end of church. To lay it all out on the table and let the rest handle itself. No matter the outcome, at least he hadn’t ratted. However, now as church started coming to an end, Juice handing been daydreaming and caught up in his thoughts for the duration, he was now feeling the worry and anxiety. Depending on how they reacted, this very well may have been the last time he sat at the table with his brothers and his kutte. He was going to soak it up and engrain it in his memory in case he lost the right after today. Juice watched as Jax looked around the table, making sure that everyone was in agreement and Juice shot his hand out in the air. Jax looked at him and squinted in confusion, the brothers often speaking over each other, not waiting to request the floor. Jax gave him a nod and Juice cleared his throat, the others looking at him with as much curiosity as Jax.

“What’s up, brother?”

Juice stumbled for a moment, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to figure out the best delivery and with a deep breath, he opted for the easiest route. Just starting with the issue and explaining after.

“I found out who my dad is, and he’s black.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Juice walked around the garage feeling like a new man. His head was high, and there was a pep in his step, an untouchable feeling about him. He had come clean and it had paid off, his brothers wanting to smack him if only for the sheer foolishness of thinking that they wouldn’t want him anymore over something so insignificant. They were all in agreement that he was still just as much of their brother as he was before they knew who his father was, and they loved him just the same. They had all agreed that Roosevelt could kiss their ass and to bring it to the table if he tried to corner someone else in the future. It had all been discussed and smoothed over and now Juice felt like he could breathe.

Wiping his greasy hands on the rag, he looked up to find Chibs standing there, hand on one his as he eyes the younger Son, an unreadable look on his face. Juice offered a smile, which transformed into a frown when the Scotsman didn’t return it. Juice tossed the rag onto the hood of the car and stride over to Chibs, concern on his face.

“Everything cool, Chibby?”

The older Son simply sucked his teeth and motioned for Juice to follow him, turning away and starting to walk. Juice was twice as confused now but followed him anyway until they were alone and out of earshot of anyone else. Chibs questioned before Juice was able to start the conversation.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Juice hesitated, shaking his head.

“I didn’t know. I said that. I found out when he showed me a picture, I had no idea- “

“No, why didn’t you tell me when you found out? You said you’ve been knowing for weeks. That he’s been after you, harassing you.”

Juice simply shrugged.

“I didn’t want to bother you with it, and I didn’t want it getting out. I didn’t know what to do or how to address it and I wanted to see if he had anything else on me.”

Juice reasoned with Chibs who simply shook his head.

“I don’t see why it took you so long. That means in some way, you were contemplating taking his deal. You were weighing your options. Otherwise, you would’ve shot him down on the spot.”

Juice narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders.

“I knew I needed to think everything over clearly, make sure I wasn’t being played and that he actually had info. I never wanted to rat, and I never entertained it.”

“It wouldn’t have taken you 3 whole weeks to do what you did today if that were true.”

Juice gave a scoff and took a few steps back away from Chibs, angered by the implication. Shaking his head, he continued to walk backward and pointed a finger at the older man.

“Go to hell, Chibs. I did the right thing. End of story. Don’t doubt me.”

With that, he turned back around and made his way back to the garage to finish up on his client’s car and get back to working with the club that he loved more than anything.

#juice ortiz #sons of anarchy #SAMCRO #sons of anarchy imagine #chibs telford

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louiserandom · 4 years

Text

Choose Your Own Adventure - MadaTobi Soulmate AU Arc I

Heart’s Desire (Ice and Fire)

Rated: E

Summary: A touch is all it takes, to find one’s soulmate, to initiate an exchange of chakra natures and powers that would later intermingle and make both of them stronger. Madara craves this—or at least thinks he does, until he awakens one morning sans Sharingan, his chakra alien and freezing, and watches an angry Senju Tobirama crash into his room, glaring murder at Madara with what used to be his exclusive Mangekyō pattern.

Or, Soulmate Idiots in Love and you get to choose how these fools get to the love part

Read it on AO3 or under the cut :3

(just in case, all the survey comment replies will be on AO3)

Chapter 1

Madara went to bed in a begrudgingly pleasant mood following the ostentatious celebrations Hashirama had organized to mark the first anniversary of Konoha’s founding.

He wakes up feeling parched, freezing, muscles aching all over, like he’s been hit fist-first by a Susanoo or several.

And perfect eyesight.

Madara blinks.

No. No, that can’t be right.

There’s no familiar prickling pressure of the Sharingan’s chakra behind his eyes, so it should be impossible for him to see the world in such perfect clarity.

Except, he does. Madara looks at his hands, now trembling from the unrelenting cold. Fever, some kind of psychedelic poison, perhaps. He shuts his eyes for a few moments and reopens them, slowly. Every irksome scar on his palm, every little wrinkle on his blanket, almost every strand of wild bedhead hair is visible to Madara in a way nothing has been since his Mangekyo had awakened at sixteen.

He tries to activate it and fails. And that’s when it finally hits him.

Soulmate. He sighs with no small measure of relief. Right. No need to panic.

Just a harmless exchange of powers which would easily lead to Madara’s Chosen since they’d end up, presumably, with his dōjutsu and a very distinctive fire nature chakra. Another shiver runs through him. Oh, how he misses his chakra now.

Regardless, once he’s next to his soulmate, he should feel better. Presumably, they’re still in the confines of the village, the longer delay in the bond’s manifestation is an inconvenience of adult soulmate bonding that Madara will have to deal with.

The icepick jolts of pain in his muscles aren’t easy to ignore, but Madara stands all the same, rushing to the bathroom to make himself presentable, mentally running through the list of people he’d touched last evening. Unfortunately, a lot. Mostly handshakes, because he’ll never be quite as comfortable with casual touches as Izuna and Hashirama are, and it already takes a lot of his willpower to drop the gloves and expose the mess that is his fire-charred skin.

But this is what he’s been waiting for, dreaming about since the times he was a starry-eyed child first hearing about the concept of partners made perfect for each other, chosen by fate. There was no harm in a platonic soulmate, of course, but Madara has secretly been craving his bond to be a romantic one. If only to feel, to taste, to have the chance to cherish the intimate closeness everyone around him seems to enjoy, with or without a soulmate, while Madara struggles, miserably at that, to connect with anyone on a deeper level than a shallow fling. He’d never admit that this is the reason he’s suddenly become less averse to handshakes and touchy-feely attitudes, but there’s no point lying to himself, at least.

“Fuck.” The ache trickling through his veins gets so strong he has to pause mid-dressing and close his eyes to come down the force of it. What is…

“Godsdammit, Uchiha,” an unfortunately familiar voice bellows from within his house, for some inexplicable reason, “where are you?”

The world is spinning somewhat uncomfortably as Madara’s eyes fly open and he stumbles out of the bathroom to face the intruder—none other Senju Tobirama crashing into his room, glaring murder at Madara with what used to be his exclusive Mangekyō pattern.

“Senju?”

1) Maybe, Madara supposes, there is a tiny, infinitesimal advantage to self-deception.

“No,” he whispers, a shudder running through him from what he knows isn’t the nagging cold this time, “you can’t be my soulmate.”

2) Madara stares. Perhaps rudely, but he allows himself the indulgence as his brain scrambles to find a half-coherent answer to what the fuck is going on. “You’re my soulmate?”

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p.s. a sketch for this chapter based on a comment that cracked me up XD

Chapter 2

Madara stares. Perhaps rudely, but he allows himself the indulgence as his brain scrambles to find a half-coherent answer to what the fuck is going on. “You’re my soulmate?”

“Evidently, Uchiha, the gods have a strange sense of humor.” Tobirama narrows his eyes. “Now, care to explain why I’m suddenly near-blind?”

Ah, Madara’s brain supplies eloquently, right.

“It’s the,” Madara stutters, because how does one explain that one of the most powerful and useful dōjutsu in existence also leads to blindness? “It’s the effect of the Sharingan. It affects eyesight.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?” Tobirama takes a step forward. Madara realizes, acutely, that he can feel the waves of anger radiating from the man. “Are you a complete idiot?”

Madara crosses his arms. “It’s none of your business, Senju, what I do and don’t do,” he says, barely managing to refrain from shouting.

“It is, apparently, because we’re bonded now,” Tobirama says, voice dangerously low, “I can barely see anything without this accursed thing,” he points to easily the most revered dōjutsu in existence, “your pathetic excuse for a sensing ability doesn’t compensate for it in the slightest and this migraine won't go away.”

“Well, deactivate it, genius,” Madara says, remembering his own suffering through the ache this morning that’s still wracking through his body. “And my sensing abilities—”

“Are bullshit,” Tobirama cuts him off, “and how would I know how to turn this thing off?”

“Oh.” Again, a show of eloquence. The fact honestly throws Madara off, because he can’t imagine having the Sharingan and not being able to intrinsically control it. “Just—just relax!”

“I can’t, Uchiha,” Tobirama growls, “because any time I focus on these godsdamned eyes, the pain only grows worse. I’m haunted by visions I can’t seem to stop—or unsee—and you want me to fucking relax?”

That is a fair point. He looks beyond distraught, just as agitated and disheveled as Madara—only that’s a look Madara’s never seen on him. Tobirama’s eyes gleam with a more potent red now and the deadly pattern engrained on them makes him look more threatening than usual, his hair is sticking at odd angles and so are his hastily thrown on clothes, his shirt barely tied, sandals askew, his attire showing so much skin when it’s usually barely visible.

Also, Hashirama had warned Madara that being near Tobirama is ‘unsafe’ when he starts to swear. Regardless, Madara only crosses his arms tighter and huffs; he will not be intimidated.

“Yes,” he says, “I want you to calm down and act rationally like you claim you always do. Every second you use the Mangekyo, you’re only making it worse.”

“Worse?” Another thing Madara has never seen the Senju express: panic. He takes a step back just as Madara takes one forward, raising his arms in a pacifying gesture. Panic and a Mangekyo with an unpredictable special ability never mixed well. “What do you mean—why wasn’t it a problem for Tōka when she and Izuna exchanged powers?”

“Because his is different,” Madara says. “He uses it less.”

“Why would you abuse it to this level then?” Tobirama’s new eyes were starting to bleed around the edges. Oh, perfect. "Do you have no sense of self-preservation?

“Senju, you need to calm down." Madara takes another tentative step towards him. "And if you have trouble remembering, just a year ago we were at war. I needed to.”

“You’re almost blind,” Tobirama says, as if Madara didn’t hear him the first time.

“Why would you care? Those are my eyes and I will ultimately deal with the consequences,” Madara growls.

“Because the consequence is you going blind, you idiot!” Tobirama explodes, even as he gasps and takes a few staggering steps back. He must have noticed the blood clouding his vision. And to top that, Madara feels familiar erratic energy gathering in the room. “What is…"

How does Izuna always calm him down from his rages?

“Listen, Senju,” Madara tries, approaching him slowly, “I get it, you’re upset, blindness, that’s—that’s bad. But we’ll talk about it,” he promises, “I’ll explain everything, and I’ll help, but you have to calm the fuck down.”

“How?” Tobirama is breathing heavily, Sharingan flitting wildly, unfocused.

“Choose any object in the room and focus on it, or, or on me.” Madara winces. He really doesn’t have Izuna’s talent for this. “And just—Senju, you’re not listening.”

“I can’t, Madara.” More shocking than Tobirama’s use of his first name is the intense surge of Tobirama’s chakra rippling through the room. Surprisingly, that suddenly makes Madara’s pain die down to a low buzz. “Everything’s—”

“Red and blurry and painful, I know,” Madara tries to ground him. “Kneading chakra into it isn’t how you deal with it.”

“The visions—”

“Aren’t real,” Madara lies, knowing that Tobirama is probably seeing figments of his memories, most likely not the pleasant kind.

“Madara, I can’t do this!” Tobirama shouts, all but huddled against the corner now. He’s hyperventilating, desperately trying to wipe away the blood only flowing harder from his sockets, and it’s all Madara can do to hope he doesn’t attempt to claw them out. “It’s getting—it’s—I…”

Madara watches him in a bit of a stupor. This isn’t like their usual shouting matches or heated arguments during yet another meeting where their interests clash. Tobirama is never vulnerable. He shouldn’t be.

This isn’t right.

Part of Madara wants to touch him, knead their bonded chakra together and comfort him, while the other urges him to run away, to use the Hiraishin Tobirama so favors and escape this strange, unfamiliar mess.

Madara finds he has no idea what to do, and the intimate knowledge of just how dangerous his Mangekyō can be keeps him frozen in place.

Madara swears under his breath and, throwing caution and his own mounting panic to the wind, closes the distance between himself Tobirama, all but wrestling his trembling frame into a hug.

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Chapter 3

Tobirama tenses up at once, his breath hitching, but doesn’t do much else to break the hold. Madara doesn’t die instantly, which is good, all things considered. The world doesn’t distort and disappear and there’s no hint of his Sharingan’s ability spontaneously acting up.

“What—” Tobirama finds his voice.

“You’re okay, Senju. Just breathe.”

Tobirama shifts against him, muscles twitching in a half-hearted attempt to break free, but Madara doesn’t allow him, only drawing him closer and wrapping him tighter in his arms.

“You’re okay,” Madara says with as much conviction as he can muster. “Don’t mind those visions and try to ignore the pain. You’re going to be okay.” And that’s more of a truthful statement, because the way Tobirama keeps shaking as he tries and fails to catch his breath is more than a little unnerving.

He’s not supposed to be like this.

“You’re going to be okay,” he repeats, trying to calm the both of them, really, and to his surprise, it seems to be working, if just a little.

Tobirama doesn’t quite relax, but stays silent and doesn’t move, forcefully leveling out his breath as he squeezes his eyes shut and buries his head in the mess that is Madara’s unkempt hair. It’s a bit awkward, and Madara has no idea what to do with his hands, placing them stiffly on Tobirama’s shoulders. That makes their position more awkward and Madara settles for his lower back, trying for soothing motions that just end up being stilted pats of sorts. That has him giving up entirely and ending up completely still, staring at a single point in the wall and willing his mind stop repeating its incessant, panicked mantra of fuck.

A few still moments pass before Tobirama says, “Chakra.”

Madara blinks. “Chakra? What about it?”

To Madara’s steadily increasing surprise, Tobirama leans more into his embrace, willingly, and finally manages to take a deeper breath.

“Feels good,” he says simply, and it finally hits Madara that… something has changed.

Tobirama’s—well, Madara’s chakra now embedded in his coils—has spread out significantly, filling up the space around them like thick, almost tangible steam, feeling hot, familiar and comforting. So much so that, apparently, the last remnants of the ache bothering Madara since he’d woken up are gone.

Which is strange, considering how the pain spiked up after he had presumably sensed Tobirama approaching. Soulbonds do have the ability to calm and even heal soulmates in certain cases, but Madara had always assumed that soulmates had to have an accepted bond for that particular part of it to work.

Or at least be fond of one another. Not hate each other’s guts like he and Tobirama do.

Fuck.

It’s all a gigantic, confusing mess.

Madara closes his eyes, mimicking the pattern of Tobirama’s breathing. Just for the hell of it, he pushes out the alien chakra from his coils in a tentative attempt to further comfort Tobirama, and the effect is immediate. Both of them feel the intermingling of the energies—ice cold and molten hot. Usually clashing when they lose control during their fights, now merging instead into a force that makes Madara’s skin prickle in a surprisingly pleasant way. And judging by the feel of Tobirama finally relaxing into his hold, it seems to affect him similarly as well.

“Senju, do your sensing abilities cause you chronic pain unless you’re overwhelmed by a particularly strong chakra signature?”

Madara doesn’t know what compelled him to ruin an otherwise blessedly peaceful moment, but he does want to find out if Tobirama is being hypocritical when chastising him for keeping self-destructive secrets.

Tobirama draws away, staring at Madara in confusion, Sharingan still blazing, almost blending in with the inflamed blood vessels as thin trails of blood keep trickling from them.

“No?” he says. “Why, are you in pain?”

“Fuck. No. Shut up,” Madara says, mentally kicking himself, “never mind.”

He doesn’t break eye contact and moves his hands to grip Tobirama’s shoulders, still kneading chakra into the space around him to ground them both.

“Now, Senju, like I said. You need to focus on something—anything in the room. Can you do that for me?”

Tobirama nods, keeping his gaze where it is, dead set on Madara’s eyes.

“Me. Okay. Right.” Madara’s face grows a little hot, probably due to the rising temperature of the room from Tobirama slamming his stolen chakra around like an untrained amateur. “Focus on the little things you can see. It can be anything, any details. You can say them out loud if you want.”

Tobirama gives another nod. Takes a deep breath. Runs his eyes slowly over Madara’s face. He looks so strange like this, his expression lacking the usual frown, lips trembling slightly, hair in disarray, eyes bloodshot and full of fear. Madara would pity him, were he a better man.

(Maybe he is a better man.)

“I can see every little strand of your hair,” Tobirama says suddenly, with a hint of awe, “and every tangle. It’s half over your face, like it always, but… there’s more of it sticking everywhere.” He tilts his head to the side. “You look a little stupid.”

Madara bites his lip to hold back his retort and motions for Tobirama to continue.

“Eyelashes,” Tobirama says next. “They’re wet. Waterdrops and…” He frowns, gaze growing a little distant. “There’s so much—so many particles on them?”

“No, no, no, no.” Madara shakes him slightly by the shoulders. “Don’t go that deep, ignore the particles. Keep your attention on the droplets, on the bigger picture,” he stumbles through the words quickly, hoping he isn’t too late and won’t have to deal with the impending chakra depletion his eyes’ ability entails.

Tobirama seems to refocus, but still asks, “Why not? Does every Sharingan allow you to focus on the atomic level?”

Madara shakes his head.

“Only mine as far as I’m aware, and that’s a power you do not want to test out, believe me,” he says in lieu of a proper explanation. That mess can come later. “Go on.”

Tobirama scowls, clearly unsatisfied, but complies.

“Right. Droplets. Your whole face is wet, actually.” He frames Madara’s face with his hand, hovering, barely touching. “Your cheeks, your lips. I didn’t notice before that your cheeks were so… not chubby. Fuller, I guess?”

Madara wonders if drowning in Hashirama’s tears is a price he’s willing to pay to commit a very satisfying murder. It’s tempting.

“And there’s,” Tobirama lifts his fingers to brush against the side of Madara’s face, suddenly grinning, “toothpaste.”

Madara swats his hand away and hastily brushes it off.

“Calm enough now?” he snaps, rubbing at his other cheek for good measure.

“I think so,” Tobirama answers, blinking. “It’s still not gone, though.”

“You have to refocus on your eyes now,” Madara says, “but don’t channel chakra. Just feel how the Sharingan influences your eyesight, your perception, simply be aware of it. And then—let go.”

A few heartbeats later, the black dissipates from Tobirama’s eyes, leaving him with his usual dim red irises. They both heave sighs of relief.

“Finally!” Tobirama shoves past Madara and starts pacing around the room, wiping away the dried blood clinging to his eyelids.

“Yeah, finally,” Madara grumbles. “And what do you mean my cheeks are chubby?”

“That’s what you want to focus on?” Tobirama says, turning to glare at him. “Not the fact that you’re steadily going blind and haven’t told anyone about it? Does Hashirama know? Does Izuna?”

“Yes, no, no and yes,” Madara says, rolling his eyes.

“Not funny, Uchiha.”

“Not trying to be, Senju.” Madara pinches the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, now that they’re apart again, the low buzz of the ache in his joints has returned and is getting worse by the second. “It’s how the Mangekyō works. I didn’t make the rules.”

“Walk me through it,” Tobirama demands. “What exactly does this form of the Sharingan do and why is there no way to fix it?”

“There is,” Madara says. “The Mangekyō gradually destroys all the living cells in your eyes unless you get an eye transplant of another pair of Mangekyō, preferably a sibling’s.” He shifts his gaze from Tobirama’s horror-stricken face to an empty wall which suddenly looks so very mesmerizing. “Which is obviously something I refuse to do, and Izuna doesn’t want to, either.”

A few more beats of silence pass.

“And Izuna’s is better, you said.”

“Yes.” Madara chances a glance at him. Tobirama is frowning, eyes narrowed in his usual ‘thinking and analyzing’ expression Madara is used to seeing on their joint meetings. “I forbade him to use it unless absolutely necessary.”

“Hm. So that’s why he never used it when we fought.”

“Correct.”

“Pity.”

Madara almost chokes. “W-what?”

Tobirama shrugs. “I’ve always wanted to try going up against it. Anija always had so much fun with you, I felt like I was missing out a little.” It’s such a ridiculous admission, and Madara can’t seem to do anything but splutter harder. “I didn’t know it was causing you so much pain, though. That changes things.”

“Well—well, that doesn’t matter!” Madara throws up his hands. “Gods, Senju—people are terrified of this dōjutsu, you know!”

Tobirama hums, noncommittal, and Madara comes to the conclusion that Hashirama isn’t the only reckless idiot among the Senju after all. Before he can say anything else, though, Tobirama’s face lights up with the slightly manic expression he gets when he comes up with a new idea.

“You’ve tried transplanting both pairs of the Sharingan, of course?” he asks. “Just exchanging the eyes, I mean. What happened then?” He looks at Madara expectantly, only managing half a minute of silence. “Well? Madara?”

He still receives no answer.

“Please tell me,” Tobirama says slowly, voice pained, “that look means that my question is redundant, and you’ve obviously tried that before. Right?”

Madara doesn’t, in fact, know for sure if the Uchiha have attempted anything of the like.

But never let it be said he isn’t ready to defend his clan’s honor.

“Of course!” he says, flailing a little before forcing his arms to cross over his chest, a bit defensively. “Or, well, I think so. I’m sure,” he corrects himself, “I’m sure someone has done that and it evidently didn’t work, because then…” Madara thinks about the blind Uchiha he knows and had helped take care of, when he could. The hollow eyes of too many of his clanmates, haunted by tragedy and death. “Then decades of problems wouldn’t exist,” he finishes lamely.

Centuries, more like. Gods does Madara hope he’s right.

“Let’s hope so, Uchiha,” Tobirama growls, “or I’m going to have to assume everyone in your clan lacks basic logical thinking skills, not just you.”

“Keep your mouth shut about my clan, Senju!”

“How can I, when I’ve got this damnable keepsake from you?” Tobirama says, gesturing to his eyes, which, thankfully, don’t switch over to the Sharingan despite his very apparent ire.

Madara takes a deep, calming breath.

“I get that it isn’t exactly pleasant, Senju,” he says in the most level tone he can muster. “Your abilities seem to cause me pain too, if to a lesser degree,” he can’t help but complain. “But the fact is—we’re soulmates. You’ll have to deal with my eyesight for… a while, until both of us learn to control and give our powers back to each other. Then the Sharingan will be solely my concern once again. All right?”

Tobirama stares at him like he’s said something stupid. Again.

“No, Madara. The fact is that we’re soulmates, and from what I’ve gathered about a concept I care little about, we’re going to have to support one another.”

It’s so strange for Madara to hear someone say they care little about the concept of soulmates, one that’s so sacred to his clan. It’s baffling. Though fate has chosen one who seems to be the complete opposite of what Madara wants and needs, the fact itself has him wondering about the possibility of—something.

“Which means,” Tobirama goes on, “I will not leave this alone, whether you like it or not.”

Tobirama tone is both a promise and a threat, and Madara finds he has no idea what to think about it, how to feel. He wants to tell Tobirama off for butting into his personal affairs, but knows, of course, that Tobirama is right. There’s no ‘his’ affairs anymore—just ‘theirs,’ per the gods fickle, incomprehensible whims.

And of course, there’s one thing he has to know.

“Just because we’re bound by fate, Tobirama?” he asks, abandoning his carefully conscious use of Tobirama’s last name when they converse. “You won’t leave this alone just because you have to?”

That stops Tobirama short. His eyes never quite left Madara as they talked, but now he focuses on him fully, just like he had when his Sharingan had been activated.

“I need to think,” Tobirama says quietly, something shifting in his face, rending it cold and emotionless—Madara’s least favorite expression on him. He takes a few steps back towards the window. “I’ll find you later. Or you find me. Later,” he repeats firmly.

Madara feels rage starting to boil inside him.

“Now wait just one minute!”

Tobirama doesn’t pause and promptly leaps out of the window, flickering away, leaving Madara alone in an empty room with a brain buzzing with questions and a body prickling with renewed bouts of pain.

“What a fucking bastard,” he swears, “fucking impossible. Why couldn’t you be bonded to an asshole just like you are?!”

He knows screaming at empty space is a little weird and most likely very useless. No matter. There’s no one around but him to witness it anyway.

Only he turns out to be wrong about that, because apparently, their argument was loud enough to wake Izuna in his house across the street.

“Technically, nii-san, you’re kind of an asshole, too,” Izuna says with a yawn, shuffling into Madara’s room wrapped up in a blanket, eyes still sleep-heavy. “Hashirama and I are obviously the better brothers in our respective duos.” He grins, dodging the bedside table Madara throws at his head. “I think fate has chosen well.”

He doesn’t dodge the barrage of pillows, letting them land smack center onto his grinning face.

“Get the fuck out,” Madara growls, and Izuna moves to do just that. Madara scowls. “Wait.”

Izuna stops in his tracks, turning back to Madara with, shit-eating grin still in place. Madara sighs and comes over to him to wrap him into a particularly bone-crushing hug, ignoring the wheezing protests that follow.

“Channel your chakra, would you?” Madara asks. “Please?”

Izuna is a bit confused by the request but does as he’s told, thankfully silent this time, pushing Madara away for something more akin to a hug and not a suffocation attempt. The gentle crackle of his hearth-like signature soothes Madara’s nerves once more, numbing the pain to an extent, though not even close to the way Tobirama’s closeness had helped.

He will have to make do with this for now.

“You’re now my temporary personal painkiller,” Madara announces, “and I will not be accepting any complaints about this arrangement.”

“No idea what that’s supposed to mean, but I can’t wait to hear the whole account of your lovers spat, nii-san,” Izuna deadpans.

“Shut up, Izuna.”

“You’ll want me to give you advice, though,” Izuna says, tone teasing. “After all, I’m the one with the experience of being soulbound to a Senju.”

“Whatever. Shut up. Let me think.”

Izuna doesn’t in fact, let Madara think, because he is an incorrigible little shit and an utter menace.

“You know,” he says, “make-up sex is just the best way to—”

He gets cut off when Madara breaks away to grab one of the scattered pillows and starts attacking Izuna with it, unmindful of the feathers flying everywhere.

Izuna only laughs, arms himself in kind and gives as good as he gets.

The Uchiha are confusing, Tobirama decides as he finishes perusing what seems to be the thousandth text out of the documents he’s borrowed from the atrocious Uchiha Libraries. Plural because the clan has thousands upon tens of thousands of archived records. Atrocious because most of them are either redundant, incomplete (as if the record-keepers only wrote their accounts when inspiration struck and were prone to abandoning them half-way) or completely nonfactual, useless opinion pieces that Tobirama can’t base any of his theories on.

And gods, does he have a lot of theories in need of testing.

He takes a pain reliever as the Sharingan-induced migraine acts up again; he’d been careful not to activate it throughout the day, but the headache still lingered, making it a challenge to stay focused. Tobirama manages to, though, just barely, and there’s at least a little progress to show for it.

He’d left Madara early morning, obtained his free ticket into the Libraries almost immediately and has spent the whole day researching a dōjutsu that proved to be all the more incomprehensible with every piece of ‘research’ Tobirama got through. After hours of historical accounts (and thrice damned opinion pieces), Tobirama did stumble upon one instance of the Mangekyō having been exchanged between two Uchiha. The experiment failed, with both subjects ending up dead, was declared unholy and was never attempted again.

The sheer audacity of that made Tobirama’s eye twitch. Honestly, where would he have been if he had stopped at his first unsuccessful Edo Tensei attempt?

(Probably lacking in his brother’s occasional tearful, very annoying admonishments about desecrating the dead, but that isn’t the point.)

The attempt was done centuries ago, back when most of the shinobi clans were nothing more than nomad tribes wandering the then empty, nationless continents, trying to figure out how to use the Sage of Six Paths’ gift of chakra properly. With no established iryō jutsu practice at that time, of course the switch had a high chance of failing. For some reason, the Uchiha didn’t seem to take into account that an overwhelming majority of the simple eye transplants from the younger Uchiha brothers to their elders were unsuccessful, too. It really was an inexcusable abuse of the scientific principle to assume the worst after one godsdamned test.

It’s downright confusing, bordering on stupid, really. And even then, Tobirama can think of a dozen other ways to solve the Mangekyō problem without resorting to transplants and possible mutilation, most of them simple schemes of directed chakra manipulation and perhaps a little tinkering with DNA. But to do that—

Ah. He’s forgotten.

“Hikaku?” Tobirama says to the depths of his enormous lab. The size is suddenly an inconvenience, because he can’t really see anything that’s further than two feet away clearly—and sensing through Madara’s chakra is nothing but an exercise in futility.

“Right here.” Hikaku appears before him with a shunshin, holding a book on the latest discoveries in relativity—something Tobirama could be researching right now if he weren’t stuck with Madara’s problem.

Tobirama takes a deep breath, taking another pill for good measure to help him deal with the persistent headache. Not Madara’s. Theirs. He promised—they’re soulmates and that obliges him to have his partner’s back, no matter their evidently mutual dislike.

(Tobirama refuses to think about Madara’s question now, isn’t ready to contemplate impossible possibilities and delve through his complicated net of feelings for the person who annoys—and intrigues—him most. That can come later, because he’s otherwise preoccupied and definitely not running away.)

“You there, Tobirama?” Hikaku asks with an understanding smile, waving a hand in front of Tobirama’s face.

“Yes. Sorry. And—sorry I made you wait this long. I shouldn’t have invited and ignored you like that.” Tobirama sighs. “I got distracted again.”

“Don’t worry,” Hikaku says, inching a glass of water to Tobirama, always the one making sure Tobirama hydrates, his mother hen tendencies second only to Hashirama. “We only got here an hour ago. You know I adore your lab and I think Kagami’s busy with some of the chemicals you’ve labeled kid-friendly over there.”

As if in answer, the hiss of a chemical reaction and a triumphant whoop sounded from somewhere in the distance, making both of them smile.

“Right,” Tobirama says, “well, I’m ready now for the inspection. May I?” He stands, raising his hands. Hikaku gives an affirmative, and Tobirama pushes chakra into his palms, now glowing a faint green. “Activate your Sharingan, please.”

Hikaku does, without question, and Tobirama nears his hands towards his eyes, registering the feel, structure and movement of the distinct chakra, cataloguing the way cells behave more actively, how every one of them feels amplified by the Sharingan’s power.

“Now your Mangekyō.”

A swirly pattern replaces the tomoe, and the very essence of the chakra generated by the Sharingan seems to change. Tobirama frowns, making note of every little shifts, how the momentum of the chakra seems to increase exponentially, carrying with it potential for an enormous burst of power. The cells seem to be otherwise fine, expectantly.

“You have the Eternal Mangekyō, right?” Tobirama asks, tentative, remembering what Hikaku told him this morning.

“Yeah,” Hikaku says, averting his gaze. “Not a pretty story, but one I can tell if you’d like.”

Tobirama shakes his head. “No need. I have an idea of what must have happened and it’s not too relevant to my search for another solution.”

He pushes more chakra through one of his palms, gaining greater clarity, and reaches for ink and paper with the other to scribble down his findings.

“It’d be easier if you used your new Sharingan, you know,” Hikaku says, making Tobirama splutter, of all things, much like a certain Uchiha when caught by surprise. “You’d remember all you need in perfect detail.”

Tobirama stares.

“Hikaku,” he chokes out, “how did you—”

“We’re friends, Tobirama,” Hikaku says, rolling his eyes, “and I’m afraid I’m the more emotionally perceptive of the both of us.”

“Am I really that obvious?” Tobirama asks, frowning.

“Yep.” Hikaku grins. “It also helps that you radiate Madara’s very potent chakra like crazy. Seriously, I’m not even a sensor.” Tobirama scowls, shoving him away. “It’s good you’re not out and about or you’d be giving every sensory ninja in the village a massive migraine.”

“Ugh.” Tobirama groans, sinking back down into his chair. “Don’t remind me that I have his chakra to deal with now. I feel hot all the time. Are all the Uchiha this hot?”

“Depends on what definition of hot you’re using.”

“Hikaku!”

“Relax, Tobirama,” Hikaku says through laughter, hopping onto the table. “It’s a normal soulbond experience, it’s never painless. You’ll get a hang of it, eventually. And I’m sure our esteemed and very composed Clan Head isn’t faring much better.”

“No,” Tobirama says, crossing his arms. “He isn’t.”

Hikaku gives him an appraising look.

“Listen,” Hikaku starts, “I know you both… find it difficult… to communicate normally,” he awkwardly circumvents the word hate, “but it really isn’t healthy to be apart from your soulmate like this.”

“I know, Hikaku.” Tobirama buries his face in his hands. “I’ll talk to him, I promise.”

“And you’ll tell me about it.”

“I’d rather not.” Tobirama opens one eye to look at Hikaku through the space between his fingers. “It’ll probably end in disaster.”

“Tell me all the juicy details then,” Hikaku demands cheerfully. “Come on. You can’t bribe the Chief Record Keeper for an illegal pass into my clan’s secret archives and not provide something in return.”

“A month babysitting your son isn’t enough for you?” Tobirama says, tone sour even though they both know he’ll enjoy every minute of spare time spent with his first ever student.

“It is,” Hikaku agrees, “or, would be under any normal circumstances. As it stands, you owe me a bigger reward for making me break Clan Law.”

“Your Clan Law and its stupid restrictions are the reason you have this stupid problem with your Mangekyō Sharingan in the first place,” Tobirama mutters. “And I’m going to fix it.”

“For your soulmate,” Hikaku says with a pretensiously dreamy sigh.

“Not for him.” Tobirama sinks into his chair further. “Not just for him. So Kagami doesn’t have to deal with similar pain in the future, nor any other Uchiha child.”

And it’s true of course; Tobirama would be just as deep in research if he’d found out about this issue without the added hassle of being Madara's soulmate. Hikaku knows this, of course, because he’s just as much of a dear friend as Izuna is to Tobirama, if not more.

Inevitably, that train of thought leads him to question why he and Madara seem to be so completely at odds when the Uchiha’s general wariness of Tobirama (and vice versa) have all but disappeared. Perhaps they can become friends, if nothing else, if and when they figure out how to talk without losing their cool every single time. He’d wondered about that before, what it would feel like for Madara to smile at him with genuine care instead of the usual derision. It’s honestly a pity they aren’t platonic soulmates. Although—

Tobirama imagines the prospect of being trapped in Madara’s body for an indefinite amount of time and thinks, No. No, it’s good that we aren’t.

“By the way,” Hikaku says, thankfully distracting Tobirama from his thoughts again, “Kagami, come here for a bit?”

“Yes, Dad!” Kagami leaps towards them, light on his feet but still almost knocking down a vial with a moderately pesky virus that Tobirama makes a note to properly seal later. “Tobirama-sensei!” Kagami instantly focuses on him, eyes gleaming as he surveys all the notes Tobirama has piled up. “What were you working on all this time? Did you make any progress? Is it a new awesome jutsu? Will you teach it to me?”

“No, Kagami, it isn’t anything flashy this time,” Tobirama says, ruffling his student’s hair with a smile. “You’d probably find it boring. But we’ll work on your Grand Fireball Jutsu tomorrow, I promise.” Tobirama suddenly realizes he’ll have to spend tomorrow’s training session without his—well, Madara’s—chakra. What a pain.

“Awesome!” Kagami jumps up and down with his usual bouncy excitement. “I’m getting so great at fire jutsu—you’ll see tomorrow. I’ve got so many new tricks I can show you!”

“I hope you’re making as much progress in chakra theory, Kagami,” Tobirama chuckles as Kagami’s expression switches to one of horror. “Don’t forget your little test tomorrow.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. And so as not to keep you from studying,” Tobirama says, “before you leave, may I take a look at your Sharingan, Kagami? With a diagnostic iryō jutsu?”

Kagami gives him a curious look, glancing at Hikaku, then back at Tobirama again.

“Sure thing, sensei.”

As expected, Kagami’s Sharingan isn’t much different than Hikaku’s basic version, but much weaker in energy compared to it, despite all three of his tomoe being fully developed.

That’s an interesting detail compared to all the other data Tobirama has gathered. Hikaku had explained to him earlier that day that Kagami’s Sharingan awakened after a particularly traumatizing experience—his mother’s death—and was one of the strongest in the clan among children. If anything, that motivated Tobirama to work more, faster, better to find an adequate cure for the Mangekyō’s degenerative effect. Hopefully, Kagami won’t have to suffer enough to acquire it, but none of them know what the future holds, and Tobirama wants to squander the potential for tragedy before it manifests.

It's not long after that before Hikaku makes Tobirama swear on the periodic table of elements (“Because you lack any whatsoever respect for the gods, you heathen") to get proper sleep after they leave and continue his work tomorrow. And really, with the amount of chaos he's had to suffer through today, Tobirama is yearning to do just that.

If only…

Tobirama gets back to his empty, sterile home, barely lived in because he spends most of his time in the office, at Hashirama’s place, with his students or in his lab. He tries, unsuccessfully, to get himself to fall asleep. Sedatives have long since lost their effect on him and his body seems to have stopped registering painkillers, because despite all the pills in his system, the migraine and the dizziness that comes with it return full force just as he’s trying to will himself to sleep.

He can’t.

His thoughts unerringly stray to Madara again.

It’s annoying.

And now that Tobirama has no research or people around to distract him, he feels treacherous feelings of guilt encroaching as his mind supplies him with memories of their whole conversation.

There was something different in Madara’s tone, in his expression as he asked Tobirama the question that caught him completely unawares.

Just because we’re bound by fate, Tobirama?

No, Tobirama thinks, I would have helped anyway.

You won’t leave this alone just because you have to?

It wasn’t the hidden implications of the question that bothered him most. Not even the complete change in Madara’s demeanor as he asked it—a change to a softer, almost vulnerable side Tobirama had never seen before. It was the epiphany Tobirama had in that very moment, realizing that he was, for some reason, genuinely concerned about Madara’s wellbeing. This despite their long-standing status quo of mutual hostility and Tobirama’s self-proclaimed lack of care about the inherently irrational (and therefore irritating) idea of soulmates.

It’s unnerving.

He turns to bury himself in the pillows on his couch, closing his eyes, desperately begging for his mind to just stop. Stop analyzing, stop wondering and making dozens of possible predictions for the future, stop dissecting every one of his actions and feelings and impulses and just—rest.

Well.

Another impossibility, it seems.

And since rest is out of the question, he reasons he can safely break one promise he’d made to Hikaku and make good on the other. Stopping himself just before he reaches for the Hiraishin marker in the Uchiha district, Tobirama leaps through the window and sets out towards Madara’s house for a much-needed conversation.

Preparing himself for a long, sleepless night, Tobirama shifts onto his back and turns to stare out the wide window at the stars glimmering around the full moon. It’s much too soon to deal with this enormous mess, Tobirama decides, making up his mind to let Madara seek him out himself.

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Chapter 4

It's grating, being unable to properly sense his surroundings with his chakra all over the place, but Tobirama deals with it as best as he can, for the first time in his life relying solely on his sense of sight as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop. At least this simple chakra manipulation is manageable, though he does almost slip a few times—another novel experience—which leaves him all the more yearning for his former impeccable chakra control.

And eyesight.

He finds Madara in a similar state of sleeplessness, pacing next to the koi pond in the little garden adjacent to his house. Madara stops in his tracks and turns to look in the direction of Tobirama’s approach just before Tobirama jumps down to face him.

Madara looks downright exhausted, disheveled and cold, what with his slight trembling. He’s probably still in pain, Tobirama realizes with a tinge of irrational guilt—which immediately disappears when Madara flicks his hand and the water from the koi pond rises to form a giant wave that descends upon Tobirama, knocking him onto the ground and soaking him to the bone.

“What,” Tobirama growls, body and voice shaking as he blinks the wetness away, “the fuck do you think you’re doing, Uchiha?”

Even with his blurry vision, Tobirama can make out the bastard’s smirk—a crooked, self-satisfied thing. Madara clumsily redirects half of the water back into the pond and crosses his arms.

“Giving my soulmate a proper greeting, of course,” he drawls as Tobirama stands, trying his best to shake off the water that feels wrong, wet and annoying, not soothing and playfully mingling with his chakra like it usually would. “Most fitting for your dashing farewell, I’d say.”

To his credit, Tobirama doesn’t move to burn Madara to a crisp in answer for his glaring stupidity. Yet.

It’s tempting, though.

But there are safer ways to retaliate, he decides.

“Is this a bad time to mention,” Tobirama says, “that my chakra is exceptionally attuned to water?”

Madara rolls his eyes.

“I know you think others inferior to you in intelligence, Senju, and me most of all,” Tobirama nods as Madara says this, just to rile him up further, “but I am not going to fall for your idiotic taunts.”

“Oh, I’m not trying to taunt you, Madara, just to warn you,” Tobirama says, mock-concerned, “that if you go on using my chakra this carelessly, you might just accidentally end up manipulating the water inside a human body.”

It’s viscerally pleasing, seeing Madara’s smirk dissipate, replaced by a horrified scowl.

“WHAT?”

The way Madara shrieks will never stop being amusing, and it seems the absence of his explosive fiery chakra does little to quell his usual temper. He recoils from the pond, looks at his hands like he's considering cutting them off, looks at Tobirama with a look of such disgust that—well, isn’t exactly pleasant but still entertaining.

“Like blood?” Madara asks, voice strained.

“Blood is known to be partially made of water, Uchiha—”

“You idiot!” Madara shouts, starting to pace again, burrowing his hands in his sleeves. “That is not fucking funny!”

“It isn’t,” Tobirama agrees, “I’ve caused enough of people’s insides to accidentally rupture as a child that I find it far from a laughing matter.” He doesn’t mention that those accidents only ever amounted to two events and both victims were enemies; the rest were deliberate targets of Tobirama’s honed, precise chakra control.

“You mean—” Madara’s eyes grow wide with ever-growing terror. “You mean I could have—I spent the whole day with Izuna, you prick! Couldn’t you have warned me that I’m now a godsdamned spontaneous murder weapon?”

To be fair, you always have been, Tobirama wants to say, but that nagging spike of guilt raises its ugly head again, and he begrudgingly decides to go the pacifistic way. That’s what he came here for, after all—a conversation, not a fight.

“Kind of. But it would only happen if you’re truly angry, far more than you are now, or if you’re on the verge of death, as a defense mechanism,” Tobirama explains. “I’m just messing with you, Uchiha. Calm down.”

“Calm down when you’re around, you infuriating asshole?” The remaining water in the pond ripples in reaction to his anger and he takes another step back, eyeing it warily. “What the hell did you come here for anyway?”

“To talk.”

“Go to hell.” With the way Madara is glaring at him, Tobirama prepares himself for another splash of water, but the assault never comes. “I won’t speak with you on your terms.”

“What if I offer an apology?”

Madara raises an eyebrow. “Really? You? An apology. If I weren’t in such a foul mood that would warrant a laugh, Senju, good one.”

Tobirama counts from five to one before answering, finding it suddenly a convenience how his skin runs hot, how chakra crackles and burns around him, enough so that he’s almost dry and comforted, rather than annoyed by its warmth. Anija would approve, he thinks bitterly

“I’m sorry. My leaving you like that was neither polite nor called for. But I truly needed to think about…” He gestures vaguely in Madara’s direction. “All this.”

Madara is staring at him like he’s grown another head, and it’s somehow even more unnerving than his death glare.

“You—actually—” Madara shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “Huh.”

He crosses his arms again, and as often as Tobirama has seen that gesture on him, he finds himself suddenly curious why Madara likes it so much. Arms tightly locked and shoulders raised defensively, he looks somewhat like a petulant child. His posture is stiffer than usual, though, and Tobirama makes an effort to quell his chakra lashing out as much as possible to avoid causing unnecessary pain.

“Did a lot of thinking then, Senju?” Madara asks with a much more level tone, which is, Tobirama supposes, the only acknowledgement of his apology he’s going to get.

“No, actually.” Tobirama averts his gaze, biting his lip. “I got side-tracked. I spent the whole day researching your godsdamned dōjutsu.”

Madara frowns, confused.

“Why in the world would you be doing that?”

“I told you,” Tobirama says, “I’m not leaving this alone. There has to be another way to stop the Mangekyō from deteriorating your eyesight, and I’m going to find it.”

“Oh, so you think it’s going to be easy,” Madara asks, voice leaking skepticism, “fixing a centuries-old curse?”

“It’s not going to be that hard, considering that over all those centuries your good-for-nothing clan only had the idea to transplant two pairs of Mangekyō once, then gave up on that idea and didn’t even try any alternatives just blinding people left and right.” Tobirama is still avoiding Madara’s gaze, focusing on one the sakura trees in the garden. “I mean, good clan,” he amends, “you’re okay, I guess.”

“Drop the insolence, Senju,” Madara growls, narrowing his eyes. “And how would you even know that? That isn’t in any of the public libraries, did you—did you break into our archives?”

Ah, Tobirama belatedly realizes his mistake.

“I did,” he tries, although Hashirama’s been telling him since his earliest childhood that he’s a hopelessly terrible liar. He chances a glance at Madara, who’s fuming, making wavelets surge through the pond again.

“Hikaku,” Madara says, and Tobirama curses Hashirama for being right, as always. “That bastard. Should have known.” He sighs. “He was a good Uchiha. I’ll miss him.”

“The killing intent isn’t appreciated, Madara, and for the love of the gods, stop your theatrics.”

“When you stop your meddling.”

“I’m not going to stand by when innocent people are suffering because someone refuses to act and fix this!” Tobirama snaps, turning back to Madara and realizing his world is suddenly in perfect clarity again. “Dammit.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and blanks his mind, easing himself back into a calmer mindset. It doesn’t feel as painful as the Mangekyō did, so he deduces he only activated the base version of the Sharingan this time. Thankfully.

“I won’t let innocent people suffer,” Tobirama repeats, “let innocent children suffer, when I’m in a position to do something about it. I’m not doing this because you’re my soulmate. I’m going to help, whether you like it or not, just because I can. Because I want to.”

Tobirama reopens his eyes only to see Madara standing close—far too close—and reaching out with his hands as if to hug him, but Tobirama flinches and takes a nervous step back, strangely comforted by the world becoming blurred once more.

“Don’t,” he says, “I’m fine.”

Madara is staring at him again, shock painted on his face, eyes searching Tobirama’s expression for—something, and Tobirama struggles not to squirm at the scrutiny.

“Uchiha?” The man in question only blinks in reply. “Hello?”

“You’re insane,” Madara finally says with a slightly dazed smile, “you’re actually insane.”

“The insane one is you,” Tobirama snarls, “because if I had the idiotic notion of keeping my progressing blindness a secret, I would at least be actively doing something to fix it.” It’s Madara’s turn to avoid his eyes, it seems. “Is this how you feel every day? The migraines even without the Mangekyō activated? The pain, the random flashes in your eyes?”

“Yeah,” Madara mutters, “what of it?”

“You don’t just keep these things from people, Madara,” Tobirama raises his voice, losing the last of his tenuous grip on his patience, “especially from my brother who may well be able to reverse the damage, at least temporarily!”

“Why do you care so fucking much about that, Tobirama?”

The sound of his name slipping from Madara’s lips is a bit of a shock.

“I just told you, Madara.”

“No. I get wanting to help my clan, I’d get it even if you wanted to fix the Mangekyō just for the hell of it, like your raising the dead thing or whatever other fuckery you’re up to.” Madara scowls, probably remembering what Hashirama has dubbed the Graveyard Fiasco. “But keeping this a secret is—was my problem. I may have acted… unwisely, but why do you care?”

Tobirama shrugs. “We’re soulmates.”

“And you told me you don’t give a shit about the concept.”

“Care little about,” Tobirama corrects him, “which doesn’t erase the fact that soulmates exist, and I feel a responsibility to…” he trails off. It’s physically painful, being unable to express himself when he usually has no problem with eloquence.

“To help someone you hate?” Madara finishes for him. “You don’t exactly seem happy you’re stuck with me now.”

“Neither do you, judging by all your screaming,” Tobirama parries. “And that’s not the point.”

“What is, then?”

“I’m worried, and not just because of the bond,” Tobirama says, recalling the question they’d left off before, “but because even if we don’t get along, you’re still—” He gestures helplessly.

My brother’s best friend. My close friend’s brother. An admirable shinobi. The cornerstone of our village.

What comes out instead is, “I’m not as emotionless as you paint me out to be, Madara. That’s all.”

A strange look passes through Madara’s eyes.

“No,” he says, “you’re not.”

Annoyingly, he falls into silence once more, tilting his head to the side and watching Tobirama with an appraising look that makes shivers run down his spine for no particular reason. It’s a far cry from what he thought this conversation would turn out to be—a barely salvageable screaming match, an extremely tenuous quasi-truce, perhaps. A physical fight.

(What Tobirama wouldn’t give right now to be able to let out his frustration through kicks and punches. And preferably a Water Dragon Jutsu or several, but he supposes he’ll have to get used to working with fireballs from now on. A tragedy, really.)

“Well?” Tobirama asks after the few seconds of his shortened patience reserves run out. “Are you going to say anything else?”

Madara blinks, then smiles.

Tobirama feels like his heart skips a beat from the shock of it—seeing an actual smile on Madara’s face. Not a smirk or the murderous grins he so favors. A smile. It’s almost unsettling.

“Fine, Senju. Tobirama,” Madara draws out the syllables of his name, as if slowly tasting how it feels to say it. “That’s a satisfactory answer. But don’t think for one second I’m letting you attempt this on your own.”

A finger jabs Tobirama’s chest, making him go almost cross-eyed as he stares at it. Madara’s chakra spikes immediately, sending a wave of soothing pleasure throughout Tobirama’s body; Madara seems to feel the same, quickly drawing his hand away as he continues.

“You’re researching something that directly concerns me—and my clan. Again, despite whatever you may think, I have studied chakra theory and iryō jutsu. I may simply need a little brushing up,” Madara adds, quieter.

“Fair enough. I’m not averse to working together, and I’ll make an effort to put our differences aside if you are." Tobirama offers a tentative smile of his own. "And I’m told I’m a good teacher.”

Does Madara blush at that? Tobirama blinks. No, must be a trick of the light—or lack thereof in the dim moonlight.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make an effort to curb your insult for once," Madara grumbles.

Tobirama chuckles. The hypocrite.

“If you curb it with the drama," he says, "perhaps I'll make an effort."

“You of all people should know that Izuna is the more dramatic one out of us two. And you grew up with Hashirama, for gods’ sakes.”

“True, but Anija isn’t as loud,” Tobirama says, grinning wider. It’s a nice change, this light-hearted feel of their exchange. Comforting. “And Izuna swears he learned everything from you.”

“He’s lying."

“He does seem more persuading, Madara."

“You believe your precious friend more than you do your new soulmate, Tobirama?” Madara scoffs. “Fate disapproves.”

“Fate can go fuck itself.” That makes Madara chuckle. Tobirama doesn’t understand why that feels like some sort of victory, but it does. “And Izuna doesn’t greet me with a scowl every morning I show up at the Tower, at least.”

Madara sobers up, suddenly serious, and there’s that odd, contemplative look again, boring through Tobirama’s own eyes as if trying to find an answer to a question Madara has yet to voice.

“Tell me this, Tobirama,” he says, “you haven’t rejected our bond. We've reached some… semblance of an agreement. I wonder—what exactly would you like to get out of this bond, at this stage, at least?”

The question catches Tobirama by surprise, so much so that he feels the urge to run away once more. It’s stupid, he knows, and another irritating tendency of the day, since he’s prided himself in seldom—if ever—fleeing from uncomfortable situations.

“If you even think about leaving again, I will master that Water Dragon tehcnique of yours and drown you,” Madara threatens.

Tobirama rolls his eyes and promises nothing.

It’s frustrating, because he is somewhat sure of what he would like from this—whatever he and Madara have or will have. Something like his closeness with Izuna or Hikaku, perhaps. No outright aggression and no need to insult each other at every opportunity. Someone he can confide in and ask for advice. Someone who will listen to him and not mock Tobirama for his many oddities and obsessive ideas, like so many others have before.

He knows, though, that the sheer nature of the bond will never let it end there. The hint of something more hangs over his head even now like a sword waiting to strike. That’s what makes Tobirama yearn for escape, because he’s so painfully unsure of what to even think about the implication.

“Just friendship. For now,” Tobirama says, ignoring how his heart starts drumming faster against his ribcage.

“I don’t know, Madara. So I can’t give you an honest answer—yet,” Tobirama says, knowing, though, that it’ll be the cause of many restless nights to come. “What about you? What do you want to gain from this?”

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Chapter 5

“Such crude wording,” Madara chastises, a playful glint in his eyes. “I want to gain nothing, Tobirama, except what you’re willing to give me. Don’t mistake my annoyance at this constant fucking pain as displeasure at meeting my soulmate. Soulbonds are revered in my clan. Sacred. And I would gladly forge one with you—a bond that would make us both stronger together than when we are apart.”

Madara pauses, looking as if he’s about to say something else possibly even more outlandish, but instead there’s that soft, genuine smile again, which looks so alien on Madara’s face Tobirama feels like he’s been caught in a particularly unrealistic genjutsu.

“But only if you would wish to gift me such a bond, Tobirama.” Just like the smile, Madara’s tone has turned soft, unthreatening, almost tentative, and Tobirama feels—

Confused.

He knows the stories, of course, has read and heard enough about the Uchiha’s dedication to the ideal of soulbonds and love in general. Even today he’s seen more of the clan scholars’ philosophical treatises about how emotional attachment affects the Sharingan’s development instead of actual observation of the process itself.

Madara hasn’t exactly hinted at love or anything romantic per se, but the insinuation of it is evident. And, quite frankly, terrifying. It’s annoying that by evading Madara’s initial question, Tobirama still ends up feeling unsettled by Madara’s answer. It feels as if he’s exposing himself to something terrible, making himself vulnerable by merely thinking about the notion of opening himself up to the man he’s never even been on good terms with.

The reasons stem far back to his childhood, of course, when his only friends had been Anija and Tōka, while the rest of the clan had seen Tobirama as nothing but an asset, a dangerous and unpredictable one at that.

Then came Mito, almost unnoticeably turning from formidable sister-in-law Tobirama cautiously respected to a trusted partner in seal-developing sprees (or crime, Hashirama would argue) and random journeys together into the wild to study near-mythical creatures and underresearched phenomena. And that closeness had taken a good decade to cement—nearly half of Tobirama’s life.

It was smoother with Izuna, who’d shifted gears so quickly after peace was established that it felt as if Tobirama suddenly had another overly loud, clingy Anija stuck to him almost almost every hour of the day. More or less effortless with Hikaku, who’d approached Tobirama with nothing but kindness despite the years of war behind them. It seems safer, in the village they’ve built from childhood dreams, to extend his trust to others.

But Madara is different.

The problem with him is nothing like the fear he had of Mito monopolizing his brother’s love and attention when she and Hashirama had discovered their bond. Not his rivalry with Izuna, which resembled Madara and Hashirama’s almost playful standstill battles with each passing year of the war. It’s an inexplicable, irrational dislike he and Madara have for each other that makes them fight almost at every turn. Their poor excuses for conversations are never boring, Tobirama supposes, but amusement at Madara’s angry shrieking is far from a basis for friendship, much less something more.

Even so, steadfast determination burns in Madara’s eyes, the fire that hasn’t quite left him even though Tobirama’s chakra now runs through his coils. Seeing him open up like this, offering a truce, the possibility of something better—Tobirama can’t help but feel at least slightly curious.

“I’m willing to try,” Tobirama says, not bothering to apologize for his lengthy silence, “and see where this leads us.”

“Good.” Madara’s grin widens. “And, of course, another perk I’ve always wanted from a soulbond is a stable sex life, but we’ll see how that goes, yes?”

Tobirama clenches his fists. Runs through a few mental scenarios of strangling Madara with his mess of black hair and only then reminds himself of the ubiquitous taboo against the murder of one’s soulmate.

“Out of the two of you, Uchiha, your brother also clearly has the better sense of humor,” he manages a more or less polite reply.

Madara scoffs. “Bullshit. You’re talking about the idiot who still hasn’t outgrown potty humor.”

“Yes.” Tobirama glares. “I am.”

Annoyingly, it only makes Madara laugh more. Even more maddening is how pleasing it feels to see Madara enjoying himself, how it makes Tobirama want to smile, in turn. He keeps his face neutral, though, even as it becomes harder to curtail his amusement.

“Tell me this then, Tobirama,” Madara says as he calms down, “since you haven’t answered my previous question. You said you care little about soulmates. Why?”

Tobirama contemplates weaseling how way out of that one as well, but for fairness’ sake, he opts to tell the truth.

“I’ve always struggled to build connections with people,” he admits. “I only have a handful of friends and most of them are my family, anyway. People don’t usually connect to what I say or what I do.” Echoes of freak, ghost, demon, probably bondless surface somewhere in the back of his mind. Tobirama ignores them. “And the idea of soulmates always seemed strange to me. Two people chosen by the gods to be together for life? Perfect lovers, perfect friends—it all seems like badly written fairy tale. One that I never thought I’d be a part of.”

“You’ve befriended at least two people from my clan easily enough,” Madara points out.

“I know. Things change. It’s…” Tobirama sighs. “Not as hard as it used to be. But I will need some space. And lots of time.”

“You can have those if your promise not to break spacetime again,” Madara says wryly, “like with the Monster Portal Debacle last month.”

“I closed it and all of the yōkai that came out of it were killed,” Tobirama says, sick of the unceasing complaints—and of people invoking his brother’s tasteless monikers for his lab incidents.

“Ridiculous man," Madara says, the sheer hypocrisy of his statement going right over his head, as always. “But to quell your worries, as I’ve said, I won’t push you into anything you’re uncomfortable with. No need to be intimidated.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Uchiha,” Tobirama snaps to hide the relief flooding through him at the words. “I’m not intimidated by you.”

“Oh?” Madara raises an eyebrow, giving Tobirama a skeptical onceover. “I’d say you are.”

“Am not.”

“Don’t lie to me. Soulmates are supposed to be honest with each other,” Madara says in a sickly-sweet tone.

“Well, if we are being honest, you weren’t all that intimidating when you had this thing,” Tobirama points to his eyes, “either. Now you’re just a puff of smoke compared to that Majestic Destroyer Flame you’re so partial to.”

Tobirama can’t help the grin as Madara, predictably, growls a heartfelt curse and tries to soak Tobirama again. Following the motion of his hand, the koi water ripples, rises slightly, then sinks back to the ground as Madara gives up, staring at the pond like it’s offended him on a personal level.

“Not angry enough, Uchiha,” Tobirama teases, squinting to check on the poor koi fish, thankfully still living.

“Oh, it’s funny when I’m angry is it,” Madara hisses.

“Extremely.”

“Fuck you, Senju,” Madara glowers. Tobirama could swear his spiky hair actually bristles in irritation, just like a cat's. “And we should really start getting a hang of our powers.”

“Are you only saying this so you can learn my Water Dragon Jutsu and attempt to terrorize me with it?” Tobirama asks, feigning suspicion.

“There’ll be no attempting about it. I will have my revenge for every single insult.”

Tobirama huffs out a laugh. “We’ll see who has the upper hand, Uchiha. I suggest we meet tomorrow then. After my training session with my students.”

Madara nods. “Fine.” He’s picked up Kagami from his lessons often enough, whenever Hikaku was too busy with village and clan bureaucracy, to have memorized Tobirama’s training schedule.

At that thought, Tobirama realizes there’s one thing he unambiguously likes about his new soulmate—Madara’s begrudging love for children.

That’s one thing in common, at least.

Madara shivers and crosses his arms—again—and Tobirama suddenly realizes, now that he’s looking at Madara more closely, what’s been throwing him off about the gesture today. Madara doesn’t just seem uncomfortable; there are miniscule twitches in his muscles, the near-constant grimace marring his face, as well as rigidity and tension that speak of pain rather than cold or embarrassment.

“Tell me,” Tobirama says, finally approaching Madara of his own accord. “How much does it hurt?”

Madara flinches as Tobirama touches his shoulder, then immediately relaxes under the touch, letting out a deep breath.

“It’s fine. It’s manageable. I’ve had the whole day to meditate on it and it’s crazy. Like every fucking living thing flinging its chakra at my senses tenfold, and it hurts,” Madara complains, slightly leaning into Tobirama’s touch.

“It’s only ever been overwhelming for me, maybe a bit dizzying,” Tobirama says, frowning. “It’s probably the added burden of a chakra affinity completely opposite yours.”

Tobirama reminds himself, forcefully, of the inherent irrationality of fear and, before he can think better of it, wraps his arms around Madara’s shoulders, returning his favor from this morning. Madara sags against him after a moment of shocked stillness, letting out a drawn-out sigh of relief as he uncrosses his arms and returns the hug, tentative, gentle, as if expecting Tobirama to withdraw at any moment.

And there’s the guilt again. Tobirama can barely remember the last time he’d felt it nag him so many times in the span of a single day.

“What’s changed?” he prompts, breathing in the soft, slightly sweet scent of Madara's hair.

Madara lifts his head and stares at him for the few moments it takes for him to figure it out.

“Oh. I don’t know,” Madara says, dropping his forehead on Tobirama’s shoulder once more. “All I feel is your chakra when we touch. Well, mine. It’s familiar. Helps me focus and ignore all the others, to an extent. But I can’t focus on one signature at a distance.”

“Hm. Neither can I.” Tobirama remembers something. “Did you spend all day hugging Izuna then?”

“Carried him piggyback style.”

“Can’t imagine he was happy about that.”

“I didn’t give him much of a choice,” Madara says, smirk evident in his tone. “He escaped my clutches just an hour ago to go whining to Tōka.”

Tobirama snorts. What a world it would be if he could embed such moments for blackmail in an image without resorting to drawing from memory. Perhaps using a lens that could gather light and concentrate it… but that’s an experiment for later.

His current experiment is to determine which one of them gives in first and ends the embrace, which is steadily getting more awkward with each moment they stay like this. There’s not much Tobirama can do, and he’s not about to throw Madara back into the pit of chronic pain just because he feels uncomfortable—and even that is questionable, at best. He, too, finds himself focusing on the raging ocean where there was a sizzling fire before, and Tobirama would be lying if he said it didn’t feel good.

(A little too good, if he were being completely honest, but it’s probably the stupid bond affecting his perception.)

Madara pulls away first after a few long minutes, taking a step back but not quite letting go of Tobirama’s shoulders, touch light and lingering. He mutters his thanks but otherwise stays silent, contemplating Tobirama with an almost imploring gaze.

Tobirama reaches to gently pry Madara’s hands off his shoulders.

“I’d better get going.” Before this gets any stranger, Tobirama finishes in his mind. “I’ll figure out a way to fix this for you. I promise. It’s just a matter of refining chakra control, but I have an idea for a seal as a short-term solution,” he says with what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

He is, of course, compelled to offer to help but he hates how vulnerable it makes him feel. Madara still hasn’t uttered a word, though, and seems intent on continuing to suffer in solitude. That’s something Tobirama will not—cannot—allow. “Should I… May I stay?” Tobirama flinches at his crooked phrasing. “To help with the pain?”

“Sleep with me,” Madara blurts out and immediately slaps his palms over his mouth, shaking his head and mumbling what Tobirama supposes is a much-needed clarification. He realizes the inherent stupidity of that action soon enough, drops his hands and shouts, “That’s not what I meant, godsdammit!”

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Chapter 6

“May I—” Tobirama starts.

It takes every ounce of Tobirama’s self-restraint to keep himself from smiling and instead give Madara his most unimpressed stare.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Madara shrieks, all but vibrating with fury. “Shut up!”

“I have yet to say anything,” Tobirama says, “while you’re the one waking up your neighbors.” And Izuna, probably, Tobirama supposes, dreading the moment he’ll have to endure his friend’s reaction to this mess.

“You’re talking now,” Madara growls, then manages to take one full breath and hopefully gather his thoughts before speaking, for once.

“What I meant—” Madara tries to clarify, at the same moment Tobirama decides he might as well get another laugh out of this, and says, “You want a stable sex life, yes, and we’ve established that it’s a little too soon for that, have we not?”

“Godsdamn you, Senju!”

This time, Madara is definitely pissed off enough to disturb the koi again and launch hurl another stream of water Tobirama’s way. This time, though, Tobirama shifts to dodge it easily enough.

The water trickles back into the pond as Madara glares murder at him, and Tobirama doesn’t bother to hide his grin.

“I couldn’t resist.” Really, it’s immensely satisfying to watch Madara make a fool of himself, soulmate or not. But because Tobirama doesn’t consider himself a complete lost cause when it comes to politeness, he says, “I’m sorry. What did you mean to say?”

“See if I tell you now, dumbass.”

Tobirama doesn’t avoid the unnecessarily hard punch to his arm, chuckling as Madara huffs and stalks off towards his house, shoulders stiff and head held high.

Tobirama waits.

He’s seen enough of such petulance from Hashirama to know what’s going to happen next. He’s fairly sure he can even time it.

Predictably, Madara stops in his tracks before he barrages through the front door. He slowly turns back to Tobirama, frown and pout in place, looking much like a disappointed child.

“You’re not leaving?”

“Not without giving my soulmate a proper goodbye, of course,” Tobirama teases, echoing Madara’s words from before, and—well. Madara definitely blushes this time. That’s an intriguing point to keep in mind.

“You are so fucking infuriating, Senju,” Madara snarls. “Idiot.” He runs a hand through his hair, releasing another put-upon sigh before gritting out his poor excuse for a response. “I meant that you could…” Madara runs a hand through the hair shrouding his face, managing to only make it messier. “If you want—like, fuck… you know.”

He makes a quick, incomprehensible gesture with his hands and falls silent.

What a disaster.

“I don’t, in fact, know,” Tobirama prods.

He takes the few steps towards where Madara is shuffling on his porch and still blushing furiously, staring intently at the ground. Tobirama does actually have an idea of what Madara is getting at, but he’d like to hear it from the man himself.

After all, if Madara is supposed to be his soulmate, he’d better get a grip of his eloquence at some point, because Tobirama is not willing to spend the rest of his life stuck with a literal child.

“If you,” Madara continues, fidgeting with his hands now, “wanted to—stay and help with—because the pain and I—and you feel okay when we—touch—hugging. Ugh. Whatever.”

“What you mean to ask,” Tobirama finally takes pity on him, “is whether I’ll stay for… a sleepover? So I can help with the pain you’re feeling?”

Madara’s whole body droops in a perfect imitation of Hashirama’s ‘depressive’ episodes. “Yes.”

He’s bent his head so far down all Tobirama sees in front of him is the spiky black mess that is his hair. It looks coarse and tangled, but Tobirama remembers how soft it felt, a part of him wishing he could touch it again.

Tobirama shakes his head at the strange thought. Another side effect of the bond, probably.

“I’d like that,” Tobirama says, softening his smile as Madara’s eyes snap to his.

“You would?” he asks in a high-pitched voice. “I mean. Okay. Oh. Right. I mean of course you would.” Madara flinches. “I didn’t mean to say that last part either. Shut up.”

“Do you have no filter whatsoever,” Tobirama asks, incredulous, “between what you think and what comes out of your mouth?”

“Shut. Up.”

Tobirama huffs out a laugh and raises his hands in surrender.

Without another word (but with enough jumbled grumbling under his breath about ‘stupid Senjus’ to make himself resemble a cranky elder) Madara grabs Tobirama by the collar and hauls him into his house, waving his hand at the space in lieu of a welcome.

It’s a much more lived in home compared to Tobirama’s, hints of a clumsy presence all over the place. What Tobirama can see of the kitchen from here is an ungodly mess, and he glimpses a grand fireplace in the living room he’d have loved to curl up to, normally, if not for the sweltering heat of his current chakra. The walls are covered with paintings of Izuna and people who are probably the rest of Madara’s family, of landscapes familiar to Tobirama only from his brief and rare forays onto the Uchiha’s former territory. He wonders if the paintings are Madara’s own, and a love for art is another thing they share in common.

Tobirama would ask now, if the silence they’d found themselves in wasn’t beyond awkward.

“So.” Madara fidgets again, staring at Tobirama expectantly. “Get ready for bed?”

Tobirama shrugs. “That is what you invited me for.”

Madara gives him an annoyed look for some reason; Tobirama supposes he’ll have to get used to those. He has a fleeting urge to mention that he’d wanted to propose the same arrangement for the night, to make Madara more at ease—but the admission feels too vulnerable, frightening even, and so he stays silent, watching Madara flit about bringing him extra clothes and a toothbrush.

Another amusing tendency of Madara’s is his pushy attitude when he’s nervous; he practically shoves Tobirama into the bathroom, ordering him to get ready. Tobirama reins in his teasing this time but can’t help but groan as he unfolds the sleeping yukata Madara’s offered him, the all too familiar uchiwa sown onto its back.

“Don’t you have any clothes without this accursed thing?” he asks, wondering if it’s really worth changing from his rumpled attire.

“Nope,” Madara answers cheerfully. “Deal with it, Senju.”

Tobirama makes a note to ask Mito, when she comes back from her travels, how to deal with a soulmate who’s a constant pain in the ass.

Large amounts of ice-cold water do nothing to quell the scorching fire in his coils, so Tobirama gives up soon enough. Stalling is another thing he isn’t used to but catches himself doing quite a lot of it in hopes of derailing the moment he has to get into bed next to—Madara.

Madara Uchiha.

His soulmate.

It still seems like something out of a lurid dream, if not a nightmare.

They find themselves lying down shoulder to shoulder, staring silently at the ceiling, neither of them willing to break the awkward silence or fall asleep.

Tobirama sighs.

“I have an idea for a seal that can help you deal with the pain while you’re learning to control my chakra.” He intended to say something completely different, like comment on the fact that they’ve ended up lying on top of the covers even though Madara obviously feels cold, but his own nervousness gets the better of him. “A matrix that’s a bit challenging, but if I use the same principles used for chakra masking, only to tune it down to a more comfortable—”

“Senju.”

“Hm?”

Tobirama glances to the side to see Madara frowning at him, seeming genuinely concerned.

“I’ve been in pain all day, but you, too, look like death warmed over,” he says, moving to lie on his side and curling his hand over Tobirama’s forearm. “Think about it tomorrow.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow.”

Tobirama rolls his eyes but relents, allowing himself to relax as much as he can, still lying on his back as Madara curls next to him. He casts his usual jutsu to adjust his dreams for the night, then carefully, slowly channels some of his chakra outward, hopefully enough to keep Madara warm, and judging by his contented sigh, it does the job.

It’s a testament to how exhausted Tobirama feels that sleep overtakes him almost instantly after he closes his eyes, the soft, pleasant thrum of their intertwining chakra a comforting, grounding force.

He doesn’t know if he imagines the soft ‘Thank you’ whispered so quietly he can barely hear it, but regardless, he falls asleep with a smile on his face.

End of Arc I: Truce

Arc II on tumblr

#madatobi #choose your own adventure #madara uchiha #tobirama senju #soulmate au #lou writes

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megabadbunny · 5 years

Text

Cartography and Ritual Observation

In all the time that she plotted and worked and strove for a happy ending, Rose realizes, she had planned for all manner of contingencies and failures. She never actually figured out what she would do if she succeeded. (She never actually planned to be happy.)

* lemon-free version on fanfiction.net *

***

She never expected to see the Doctor in her universe, in her living room, in her flat. Yet, here he is.

(Here they both are.)

The Doctor is eager to inspect everything the moment they get in from Norway, peeking inside Rose’s bedrooms and her bath, opening the refrigerator and cabinet doors, inspecting the light fixtures, overturning the few knickknacks she has accumulated in her time here. His fingers glide over everything; impossibly, Rose has almost forgotten how much he sees with his hands. He listens to her house tour with rapt attention and she can see him filing every detail of her home away.

Rose doesn’t keep much food in the cottage, so she orders some takeaway and pretends to eat it while the Doctor tucks in. She’s too unsettled to eat properly, for reasons she can’t quite explain. She turns on the telly and they watch it for a bit—it’s a “documentary” on aliens, naturally—and Rose tries not to think about the weirdness of this situation, the mundane bizarreness or strange normalcy of it all, while she plucks out and eats all of the shrimp in her fried rice. The Doctor keeps up a running commentary on the film’s inaccuracies and Rose smiles, remembering how they used to do this on the TARDIS just a few years ago.

It’s almost disturbing, how easy it is for Rose to pretend that everything’s all right—except it isn’t pretend at all, is it? Everything is all right, just not the sort of all right she’d imagined, not the kind she’d planned and worked and hoped for. But her dislike of having decisions made on her behalf (yet again) notwithstanding, she can’t deny that she ended up with a pretty good deal. A fantastic deal, even; she got everything she wanted, and more besides—the Doctor, with her, and her family and her friends and her home, and the promise of adventures in the TARDIS once more, all in the same universe again. Which, as brilliant as it is, still doesn’t answer the question niggling in the background-noise of her consciousness, growing ever-louder by the minute:

What now?

For the first time in four years, the next step is completely unknown. It’s as if, upon arriving at her destination, someone ripped the guidebook out of Rose’s hands and set it on fire right in front of her. There’s no longer any map, no itinerary, no plan. And how the fuck is Rose supposed to deal with that?

Rose’s hands long to fidget, but she forces them still, locks her leg to keep her foot from tapping impatiently. She’s doing a magnificent job, she thinks, of looking like a normal person, one who isn’t about to vibrate right out of her skin with the utter need to just get up and complete the next step of the plan already. Whatever that next step may be.

Glancing sidelong at the Doctor, Rose wonders what, besides factual inaccuracies about aliens, might be going through his head right now. If he feels Rose’s gaze heavy on him, he doesn’t say, too busy glowering at the images of the Great Pyramid of Giza flashing across the telly because according to the documentary, humans only could have built the Pyramid with the help of aliens, but according to the alien in the room, that’s a bunch of hogwash, and all that business was 100% ancient Egypt, 100% of the time; I didn’t offer so much as a tidbit of advice on the construction, only popped by long enough to nab a snack from Khufu’s coronation, you can’t beat a pomegranate grown in the cradle of the Nile. At any rate, he doesn’t look worried about plans or the future, or indeed, anything that happened fewer than 4500 years ago. Rose wonders if she should snuggle up to him, for the simple comfort of it and also just because she can, just like she used to. She remembers when she would tuck in close on the settee in the TARDIS library under the feeble pretense of being cold; the Doctor would tut at her cold hands and feet and snag her a blanket, toss it over her. But he wouldn’t make her move. He’d still wrap an arm around her shoulders, wouldn’t budge if she nestled against his side.

(She had always wondered, then, how long the sense of normalcy would last if she had leaned up to press a kiss to his throat or his cheek or his mouth, if she had tried something more. She never found out. She never did try.)

They watch another film after that, and another, and finally, just when Rose is starting to wonder if he won’t need sleep to speak of in this body either, the Doctor stretches and lets out a yawn.

“I’m a bit knackered,” he announces. “But I suppose a metacrisis-regeneration will do that to you.”

After the two of them wash up for the night, there’s a brief, awkward question of which bedroom he’ll sleep in. But before Rose has to make a decision—put him in the spare room, or offer to share hers? Would offering the spare room make her seem cold and aloof, would offering her room make him feel claustrophobic?—the Doctor opens the door of the guest bed, deciding for her.

“Well,” says Rose, only a little awkwardly. But before she can say Good night, the Doctor surprises her by reaching out and pulling her in for a kiss.

It’s a very short kiss, but Rose’s brain still goes fuzzy and she’s warm everywhere he touches her, heat blossoming from his mouth, from his fingers on her shoulders, sliding down into her belly. He pulls her in close, her chest against his, and he’s so much warmer than before, so warm she can feel the heat of him even through both of their shirts. His lips part in millimeters and she can taste peppermint on his breath, the not-unpleasant reminders of toothpaste mingling with his own oh-so-human traces, working in gentle countermeasure to the softness of his lips, and the peppermint and the hormones and the warmth of him flood her mind like a pleasant buzzing fog. It’s a short kiss, yes, but her toes curl anyway and her heart races in her chest. She tells herself that it’s probably only because it’s been a while since anyone’s kissed her quite like this.

(She won’t admit that no one’s ever kissed her quite like this.)

Afterward, the Doctor pulls her into a hug. A proper hug. Arms wrapping around her body, bringing her toward him like gravity. Holding her snug and tight. Her own arms encircle him before she can even think to stop. It’s an automatic process. Touching the Doctor is still so engrained in her system, it’s right up there with breathing and blinking.

“Sorry,” he exhales into her hair, and he sounds almost out of breath—that’s a first. “It’s just—I’ve wanted to do that for ages.”

Rose can feel his heart hammering against hers. Fluttering like a creature in a cage. (A cage built for two.)

Should she invite him into her room? Is that what he wants? Is that what she wants? Is this part of the plan, now?

(What do they do, now?)

“Rose?” asks the Doctor. “Are you all right?”

Rose hesitates. She isn’t totally sure of the answer, and even if she was, she doesn’t know if she feels levelheaded enough to deliver it right now. But she can see that, despite his casual and placid demeanor all evening, now the Doctor is incredibly tense, concerned, even; she can spot it in the purse of his lips and the furrow of his brow, feel it in the rigidity of his hands on her arms.

Something eases up a little in her shoulders. He’s better at hiding it, but he’s just as nervous as she is, isn’t he? And probably feels just as lost, too.

“This isn’t really what either of us had in mind, is it?” Rose realizes aloud.

The Doctor frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...it’s not like either of us woke up the other day deciding to come back to this universe. And I can’t imagine you planned for your metacrisis-thing to happen.”

“That last one’s true enough,” says the Doctor, scratching his neck uncomfortably. “But, erm. As for the former. I had already made a decision about where I’d end up, regardless of what the other me decided.”

“You wanted to come back here?”

“Given the circumstances, yes.”

When Rose doesn’t reply, just furrows her brow in confusion, the Doctor averts his gaze. “I wasn’t so concerned about the specific location,” he says, slowly. He swallows hard. “All I knew—all I know—is that where you are, that’s where I want to be. Knew it from the second I woke up in this body. I just want to be with you.”

Rose stares at him, mouth parted in surprise.

“Only—only if that’s what you want too,” the Doctor stutters, cheeks flushing pink.

“I do,” says Rose, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as something goes fluttery in her stomach and warmth suffuses her from head to toe. “Of course I do. But I—it’s been a long few years, right? So I might need a minute, to get my thoughts and feelings and everything in order. Okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” the Doctor replies quickly. “Naturally. Makes sense. Completely.” Suddenly jittery, he steps back, hands fluttering about frantically in search of something to do before depositing themselves firmly in his pockets. “Totally understandable, imminently relatable. Molto bene. Hunky-dory. Bleh, not hunky-dory, never hunky-dory, what a dreadful-sounding phrase, please feel free to erase it from your memory immediately. But of course, take all the time you need, Rose, however long you need, I’ve got all the time in the world—well, I’ve got a good sixty years—well, could be fifty, with the way Donna’s cholesterol is going, and thanks for that, Donna—but then again, could be longer, depends on how things go with the baby TARDIS and whether anyone or anyplace in this universe has got any Werinian lipid stabilizers—but please, yeah, take whatever time you need, Rose, that’s fine by me, absolutely top-notch, spiffy, even—”

“Doctor, wait,” blurts out Rose, grabbing the Doctor by the elbow before he can sprint off to goodness-knows-where. “You don’t have to swan off.”

“I was not,” says the Doctor, who looks very much like he may bolt into the next dimension at any second, “going to swan off. Or duck off. Or goose off. Or any-other-sort-of-waterfowl-off, for that matter.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Rose teases him, smiling weakly.

“I was merely adhering to my promise of, you know. Being considerate and giving you what you need, and all that.”

“Yeah, except I asked for time,” says Rose. Her smile deepens. “Not space.”

“Right,” says the Doctor.

“An important distinction, don’t you think?”

Something about him seems to loosen just a little bit. “Very important.”

Rose grabs his hand, squeezing it reassuringly, just to make absolutely certain he knows where she stands, and feels immensely relieved when he squeezes her fingers in response. But not half a moment passes before Rose has to stifle a yawn of her own.

“All right, then,” she says quietly, almost shyly. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft.

“Good night, Doctor.”

He beams down at her. “Good night, Rose.”

***

Tomorrow, of course, ends up being something of a loose concept, because tomorrow is full of exciting things like Rose sleeping in (until past noon, somehow), Jackie and Tony bursting into the cottage (because it’s after noon, Rose, you haven’t stayed in that late in ages, are you dead?), Tony being so terribly excited to meet the Doctor that he wets himself just a little bit (The Oncoming Storm meets The Oncoming Piddle), and Jackie announcing that it’s time for a trip to the shops (they need to buy the Doctor things now that he’s human and here and forever).

“All right, but let’s keep it a short trip,” Rose tells her mum as the four of them head out the door. “Just for the basics.”

“Oh, of course,” Jackie replies, waving her hand dismissively. “Only the essentials.”

“One hour,” Rose says.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Jackie calls over her shoulder.

Naturally, one hour becomes two becomes five.

It’s about as weird as Rose anticipated, or rather, as weird as Rose would have anticipated, if she’d ever thought of such a thing. She half-expects the Doctor to bound away at any moment, impatient with the quaint little Earth shops and their decidedly terrestrial wares, but he seems content to poke around, to good-naturedly ignore all of Jackie’s fashion suggestions, to answer all of Tony’s many strange four-year-old’s questions. Rose keeps to herself for the most part—it’s only sort-of on-purpose, there are all sorts of feelings crawling around under her skin and she isn’t sure what to do with them—and she trails behind the rest of the group, hanging back, watching.

Her mum, Tony, the Doctor. In the same universe. In a shop together. Picking out socks and deodorant and hair gel. Years of dimension-hopping and traveling all of time and space have somehow failed to prepare Rose for how very weird this is.

Not bad, of course. But weird. Probably weird for him, too, Rose reminds herself.

“Awful quiet,” Jackie remarks at an upscale suit shop, her voice low so that only Rose can hear. She rifles through a clothing rack and pulls out a suit jacket (in blue, not brown; she’s cottoned on quickly).

“How d’you mean?” Rose asks.

Tilting her head, Jackie holds the jacket out at arm’s length, surveying the garment and the Doctor in the same glance. The jacket’s skinny, but not as skinny as he is. “Thought you’d be bouncing off the walls, the both of you,” Jackie explains. “That, or tangled up in the bedsheets.”

Rose groans. “Oh my god, Mum.”

“Don’t give me that. I know how it is. Lose the man you love, spend years pining after him, finally find a parallel version of him in an alternate universe. Bound to be some celebratory shagging, isn’t there?” Jackie replaces the jacket on the rack and grabs a different one. “Especially when he keeps wearing those tight trousers. You buying what he’s selling, or what?”

Rose closes her eyes and prays for mercy. “Mum, I’m pretty sure he can hear us.”

Both of them glance across the store to check, but the Doctor seems absorbed in the necktie display, smiling when Tony points to a tie in a shade of nearly-TARDIS-blue.

“Nah,” Jackie sniffs. “Even his hearing isn’t that good, I reckon.”

As soon as she turns away, the Doctor looks up at Rose with a wink.

(Is she imagining things, or did it suddenly get a few degrees warmer in the shop?)

***

Days pass and he hasn’t kissed her again since that first night. But to be fair, she hasn’t kissed him again, either. Rose knows it’s only because they’re each trying to respect each other’s space or personal boundaries or sensitivities or whatever, which is quite frankly silly, given that in their time together before, neither of them seemed to really know what boundaries were, much less how to respect or enforce them.

Well, that isn’t quite true, she supposes. There were plenty of boundaries that they never crossed. It just didn’t feel so obvious before.

Take, for example, nighttime habits. On the TARDIS, each night they weren’t assisting some planetside uprising (or stewing in an alien prison for assisting in said planetside uprising), there was a distinct ritual: Rose would plop down on the jumpseat or the library settee or a pallet of cushions on the engine-room floor, reading a book or trashy mag or painting her nails or simply lounging about while the Doctor researched or tinkered or plotted. Rose would often have a snack with her as well, which the Doctor would insist he wasn’t interested in, but would ultimately eat half of. Lulled into relaxation by the TARDIS’ gentle hum, Rose would eventually doze off, at which time the Doctor would quietly rouse her and remind her to go to bed. After a bout of protesting that she wasn’t really that tired (punctuated with a deep and satisfying yawn that made the Doctor raise an eyebrow in amusement), Rose would then sleepily stumble-shuffle down to the hall to her room, scrub her face and brush her teeth, and go to bed. Neither of them would see the other until the morning (or sometimes the very early morning, on days where the Doctor excitedly burst into her room without warning and subsequently had a pillow chucked at his head), and that was it. That was the ritual, with all of its implicit steps and rules and boundaries. Hands could be held, food could be shared, cuddles could be had, but certain things were not discussed, other certain things were overlooked, and each night Rose went to bed alone. It didn’t need to be spoken or thought about; it just fell into place, a river following its own daily flow. It’s much the same, now, except there’s no hand-holding and no cuddling and no touching at all, just daily business, time together in the evenings, and then separate beds in separate rooms. This is the new ritual, it seems; this is the new plan.

This explains how a whole week passes before Rose decides she has to do something about the Doctor’s nightmares.

Wrenched awake by the sounds of shouting (again, same as the previous six nights), Rose waits just long enough for her heart to stop pounding before she throws off her duvet and pads down the hall, to the spare room where the Doctor sleeps. She presses her ear to the door, listening for any additional signs of agitation, and only spares half a thought for boundaries when he cries out again in the dark and suddenly she’s pushing the door open and climbing into the bed, time and space and rules be damned. Slipping beneath the bedclothes, Rose snuggles up behind the Doctor as he hyperventilates in his sleep, snaking a hand over his stomach and ribs and chest, pulling them both close. He awakens with a jolt and a gasp, grabbing Rose’s hand with a grip like a vice.

Rose freezes, feeling the Doctor tense to stone beneath her hand and arm. She wonders if he’s angry at her, if he’s embarrassed, if she did the wrong thing, if she should have waited to come up with a better plan.

“Rose?” asks the Doctor quietly, his voice rough.

“Yeah, Doctor,” she replies in a whisper. “I’m here.”

A few moments pass in thick silence before the Doctor relaxes, sinking back down into the mattress. He loosens his death-grip on Rose’s hand, but doesn’t let go entirely; instead he tugs, just a little, until Rose snuggles in closer, cushioning herself to him completely and eliminating even the thought of space between them. Her cheek pressed against his shoulderblades, her chest to his spine, Rose can feel the precise moment he slips back into sleep, his breaths expanding and evening out into liquid slow smoothness.

He doesn’t move her hand from his chest, and it’s a long time before he lets her hand go.

Probably they should just start going to bed together, but this all becomes part of the new ritual—go about their daily business (together), stay up late (together), wash up (at the same time), go to bed (separate beds, in separate rooms), awaken at the sound of nightmares ripping the calm night air (from down the hall), climb into his bed and go to sleep (next to him), wake up (alone). It’s another rule they both follow; the Doctor may need more sleep now, but he still needs less sleep than Rose does, overall, so she isn’t too surprised that each morning she awakes in it, his bed is empty. Until one morning it isn’t.

Honey-warm light drips in lazily through the gap between drapes and Rose realizes, her eyes slowly sliding open, that for once, she isn’t entangled in a mess of bedsheets, but rather, she seems to be intertwined with rather a solid fellow-human-shaped thing. One may even go so far as to say that she is, in fact, tangled up in the limbs of a fellow human. Probably she should slip out before he wakes, do what she can to preserve this boundary she’s drawn, but she hesitates, her breath warm and trapped between her face and the Doctor’s chest. Her legs are twined with his and her arms are wrapped around his torso and one hand, the cheeky little thing, has snuck up the back of his sleep-shirt, so her palm is pressed flat against warm, pliant skin.

It’s nice, all cuddled and close like this, pressed together in their blanket-cocoon. It’s very nice. But Rose suspects it’s breaking the rules; she asked for time, so that means she’s got no right to be touching him now, like this. Besides, there’s no indication that he’s interested in anything beyond hugging, or holding hands, or the occasional wayward kiss. He could very well be totally asexual, for all Rose knows. And if that’s the case, she doesn’t want him to feel pushed, or pressured. So she pulls her hand down, hoping that a slow, gentle motion won’t disturb him, but that’s almost worse than if she’d just whipped her hand out straightaway, because now it probably feels like she’s stroking him, which, not that she minds, but what if he does? Nevermind that when she glances down (oh, that’s a mistake) she can see that his shirt has ridden up in the night to expose an entire agonizing expanse of rarely-before-seen skin, stretched thin over his hipbone and smooth over his stomach and smattered with a sparse scattering of hair leading southward, and warmth blossoms between Rose’s legs at the thought of her fingertips tracing a line down, down, down, over his flank and his hip and straight to his—

His breathing has gone shallow. He’s awake now. With Rose’s face pressed to his chest, her lips right over his heart, and her hand still half up his shirt. And with one of his legs sandwiched between hers, there’s no way he can’t feel the heat of her.

Fuck.

“Sorry,” Rose whispers anyway, because she feels like she should. She shifts in a halfhearted attempt to extricate herself from the Doctor. “I’m sorry, I just woke up like this—I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, you’re fine,” the Doctor stutters. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Rose laughs. “I was afraid I was making you uncomfortable.”

“Well, I appreciate the consideration, but I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about.”

Brow pinched in confusion, Rose shifts in the bed, extricating herself from the Doctor just enough that she can scoot up to his eye level. “Really?” she says.

He nods. “Really.”

“Oh,” says Rose, suddenly breathless, thinking of the Doctor’s wink in the shop the other day. Her hand has stilled on his lower back, near the waistband of his pyjama-bottoms and she can’t decide if she should keep moving away or if she should slip a finger beneath the elastic and see what happens next, sod the rules.

“I’m not in any particular rush,” the Doctor says, as if he can hear what she’s thinking. Or maybe it’s just that evident on her face. “I said I’d give you time, and I meant it. For whatever you need.”

Rose smiles at him. “You know just what to say to a girl, don’t you?”

“Well, it helps to have one buzzing about in your DNA.”

Rose abandons his waistband in favor of fisting her hand in the back of his shirt, squeezing him in a hug as she buries her face against his chest.

“Thank you,” she says.

He doesn’t say anything, but hugs her tightly in reply.

***

It’s Tony’s birthday party—hard to believe he’s five years old, now, feels like just yesterday that Rose was visiting him and her mum in the maternity ward and marveling over the downy-softness of his sweet little baby head—and he has decided, with all the solemnity a small child can muster, that he wants a proper garden party, something fancy and grown-up, all suits and ties and dresses and pumps. (Rose has a sneaking suspicion about the correlation of this interest in suits and the sudden arrival of the Doctor in this universe; she keeps it to herself, but can’t hide her smile when she asks Tony what he’d like for his birthday, and his immediate response includes a pair of his own red Chucks.) Of course, once the day arrives, after the cake and biscuits and presents and fancy-proper-adult-party have worn out their novelty, Tony decides he wants to play a game of hide-and-go-seek. And naturally, he starts by tagging the biggest child present.

“You’re it!” he shouts, slapping the Doctor on the leg before he and the other children run off laughing and screaming.

The Doctor glances up at Rose in question, a half-eaten treat in one hand. “I’m what?” he asks incredulously around a mouthful of biscuit.

“You’re it,” Rose laughs. When the Doctor just raises an eyebrow, confused, Rose laughs even more. “You know. You’re the one that finds all the children hiding. Haven’t you ever played hide-and-go-seek before?”

“Well, of course I have, but it’s called different things in different places, isn’t it? Not to mention it’s been several centuries and just a few planets since then.”

“At least you look good for your age,” Rose teases.

“I do, don’t I?”

“Oh, yeah. Barely have any wrinkles or grey hair or anything.”

The Doctor mock-glowers at her. “Rose Tyler. I most assuredly do not have any ‘wrinkles, or grey hair, or anything’ anywhere on my person.”

“What about the freckles?”

“Those are hardly indicative of old age. And besides, everyone knows freckles are charming. Like a bunch of little kisses from the sun, just kissing you all over.”

“Has the sun been kissing you all over, then?” asks Rose, her tongue peeking out playfully between her teeth. “Should I be jealous?”

The Doctor’s eyebrows pique with surprise as Rose registers the implications of what she just said. She begs herself not to blush.

“Just to clarify: for this particular hypothetical, are you asking if you should be jealous of me,” the Doctor asks slowly, a grin playing across his lips—and a smug grin, at that!—“or if you should be jealous of the sun?”

Huh. It’s been a little while, but Rose is fairly certain she’s being flirted-with.

“You’re a smart lad,” she says, grabbing the biscuit out of his hand. “You’ll figure it out,” she tells him, offering her own smug grin as she eats her stolen treat.

“Mr. Doctor!” shouts Tony from across the garden, drawing Rose and the Doctor’s attention to where he has decided to hide in a very obvious spot. “Come find us!”

Turning back to Rose, the Doctor clears his throat. “So I should, erm,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder toward where all the children ran off, and have the tips of his ears gone pink? “Probably go put the seek in hide-and-go-seek, right?”

“Right,” Rose says. “They’re not gonna find themselves, after all.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they’ve got me, then, isn’t it?”

“A very good thing,” says Rose, smiling.

The Doctor beams at her for just a second before darting off in search of all the children, pretending to carefully examine every nook and cranny in the garden, even those that children couldn’t possibly ever hide in, ignoring the titters of laughter that float his way from all of the poorly-hiding five-and-six-year-olds.

(He catches Rose watching him a few moments later and shoots her another wink across the garden. Cheeky bastard.)

An hour or so later, as the sun is setting and the sky darkening, the party has begun to wind down, and the staff has begun cleaning the mess away. (It still feels surreal, the staff, and the mansion and the money and the not-having-to-worry-about-every-penny, but it’s a good sort of surreal after twenty years of scraping by, and the staff are very well paid.) As Jackie and Pete start the goodbye negotiations with other sets of attending parents, Rose sets off in search of Tony and the Doctor, to lure them back to the mansion with the promise of dinner. She pokes around the poolside and the trees and the flowerbed, and has just come round the old shed when something seizes her by the shoulder and tries to pull.

With a blink Rose’s UNIT-honed instincts take over and she grabs her assailant’s hand and arm and lunges to the ground, yanking him bodily over her shoulder. He hits the grass in front of her with a solid thwack and Rose springs back, hands held defensively between her and the Doctor, just in case he—

Oh. Ah. The Doctor.

“What the hell was that?” Rose demands.

“What the hell was that?” he hisses back at her, staring up at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rose splutters. “Are you—”

She doesn’t have a chance to say Okay because the Doctor has already scrambled up from the ground to grab her once again (by the hand, from the front, this time, where she can see him coming) and he’s pulling her up to the shed with him, throwing open the doors so he can draw them both inside. It’s a tight squeeze, the two of them in there with all the old tools and tarps and equipment, but the Doctor closes the doors behind them anyway. Rose starts to ask what on earth’s gotten into him but the Doctor cuts her off with a finger held to his lips.

“Rose?” asks Tony’s voice, a few meters off to their right somewhere. “Mr. Doctor?”

Rose rolls her eyes. She opens her mouth to say that playtime is over now, ta, but before she can say anything, the Doctor switches his hand from his mouth to hers, putting his finger to her lips and stoppering her words. Normally, Rose might bat him away or grimace in irritation at him hushing her up like this, but right now, with these invisible lines drawn between them, heightening every touch to something near-electric, all Rose can think about is his finger against her mouth and his other hand still grasping hers. And as close as they’re standing, Rose notices (just like she used to back then) just how good the Doctor smells. It isn’t quite the same as before; there’s the slightest tang of sweat that never used to be there, but not in a bad way. He still smells like him, and he still smells good. (Christ, he smells good.)

The pitter-patter of little feet in the grass nearby isn’t quite enough to pull Rose out of her thoughts, though she knows it means Tony is close, and therefore close to finding them. But even if the stakes are so different now (no physical danger here, not unless the Doctor decides to surprise-attack her again), she can’t help but recall all the other times like this, the two of them holding close in a dangerous situation, before. Rose thinks of hiding from palace guards and harrowing space station escapes and prison breaks with held hands and held breaths and pounding hearts and god, she wants to kiss the Doctor so badly, she really, really does. So maybe she should, Rose thinks as the Doctor’s gaze drops from her eyes to her mouth, where his finger rests. Maybe she should just pull his hand away and push up onto the balls of her feet and press her lips against his and kiss him. Maybe it doesn’t matter that they still haven’t properly talked yet. Maybe it doesn’t matter that this dirty dingy old shed is possibly the least romantic setting she could have chosen. Maybe she should snog the everloving daylights out of him regardless. Maybe—

“Rose,” says the Doctor, his voice low, his eyes locked on hers. He leans forward, and Rose’s pulse races in her throat as his lips brush against her ear.

“Run for your life,” he whispers.

“Found you!” Tony shrieks, tossing open the shed doors. Shouting in mock-fear, the Doctor cinches his grasp on Rose’s hand and yanks her out of the shed before Tony can tag either one of them, pulling her along in a run. Rose stumbles at first, taken by surprise, not to mention that she’s still wearing her pumps. But the Doctor is laughing like a madman, pulling her along as he sprints with seemingly no effort whatsoever, and it feels just utterly glorious to be running again after weeks without and soon Rose is kicking off her pumps to better keep up with him, relishing the stretch and burn in her lungs and calves and thighs. Tony giggles and yells behind them and the Doctor laughs and whoops next to her and he’s still clutching her hand and the wind whips her hair and air expands her lungs and happiness swells in her chest and spreads to her head until she feels giddy with the rush of it and it’s been weeks since Rose grinned this hard or felt this good, it’s been months, it’s been years.

“Run for your life!” the Doctor shouts, and Rose laughs.

***

Rose may not have foreseen the Doctor returning to this universe with her, and thus may not have been able to plan for such an event, but some things still just make sense and fall into place naturally, and the Doctor working with UNIT is one such thing. (Working with, mind, not for; it’s an important distinction, he insists, and Rose rolls her eyes but plays along.) Thus it’s in the breakroom for the Applied Sciences department that Rose finds the Doctor late one night, dozing on the couch after a long day of research and alien negotiations.

Biting her lip, Rose watches him, taking a moment to appreciate this rare unguarded view. The Doctor has always looked youthful with this face, but right now, he looks young, downright vulnerable, head bowed and specs slipping down his nose and lips parted ever so slightly as he sleeps. Pale blue light from the breakroom telly bathes his face in ghostly hues, reflecting in his glasses, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Something warm swells almost uncomfortably in Rose’s chest; this may not be exactly what she was working for all these years, but damn it, he’s wonderful, and he’s beautiful, and he’s here. With her. The enormity of such a massive thought in such a quiet moment is enough to make her head spin.

Biting her lip, Rose checks the clock. It’s nearly midnight. She’s more than ready to go home, but she sort of hates to disturb the Doctor right now. There are a few more things she can do, she decides, before she rouses him and they go home. Let him sleep for a few minutes longer, she thinks.

Rose has just turned to leave the breakroom when his hand reaches out to wrap around hers.

“’Lo,” murmurs the Doctor, his voice thick with sleep. “Time to head out?”

Rose smiles. “In a minute. You can close your eyes again.”

“Nah, I’m not tired,” says the Doctor, sitting up with a great yawn.

Rose piques an eyebrow in suspicion, her smile deepening. It is immensely gratifying to be on the opposite end of this conversation for once.

“…maybe I’m a little bit tired,” the Doctor admits.

“Just a little bit,” Rose teases.

“Only the littlest of bits,” says the Doctor, yawning again. With his free hand he reaches up beneath his specs, rubbing at his eyes. “Just give me a moment and I’ll be good to go. Yeah?”

“All right,” says Rose, moving to leave.

He still hasn’t let go of her.

“Did you want me to wait?” Rose asks.

“Only if you like,” he says casually—a little too casually, Rose thinks—so she nods, plunking down in the break room’s old comfy armchair, her fingers still twined with the Doctor’s. While they’re waiting, Rose figures she might as well watch some telly, but whatever the Doctor’s got playing looks dreadfully boring, not to mention so quiet she can barely hear it. So Rose reaches for the remote, only for the Doctor to pull it away at the last second.

Rose’s lips twitch. “Do you mind?” she asks.

“Do I mind what?” he asks, eyes trained forward on the telly.

“Do you mind if I change the channel?”

The Doctor shrugs. “Have at it.”

Maybe it was a misunderstanding, Rose reasons. He was asleep just a moment ago, after all. Probably he’s just not thinking. She reaches for the remote again.

He pulls it out of her reach again.

Rose’s eyes narrow. Her fingers drum on her thigh. Tap-tap-tap.

(Is he messing with her?)

She pretends to settle back in the chair, wriggling her bum comfortably into the cushions. He places the remote on the sofa arm between them. He rests his hand mere centimeters away. After a moment, Rose can tell he’s relaxed a little, sees the tension easing from his arm and neck.

After another moment, Rose pounces.

She dives across the furniture and naturally he’s too quick for her once again, snatching up the remote just as Rose’s fingertips glance against it.

(He is messing with her.)

(This, of course, means war.)

Rose pushes up on her knees and reaches one arm out as far as it will go, holding on first to the chair-arm and then the Doctor’s shoulder for balance, and he holds the remote just out of reach. His arms are longer than hers and he knows it and he’s using it to his advantage, the bastard. He just sits there with a slowly-spreading smug grin on his face, pretending to watch the telly even with Rose’s arm waving madly in front of his face. With every swipe of her hand, he just holds the remote further and further away, until his arm is fully extended and Rose is practically falling out of her chair. And when Rose jumps up, thinking she’ll just catch him from the other side, he switches hands, chuckling quietly to himself.

The urge to laugh bubbles up in Rose’s gut, but she pushes it down. She doesn’t have time for laughter. She only has time for vengeance.

With a quiet hmmph! she sits back down, trapping the Doctor between her body and the sofa-arm. The Doctor opens his mouth to protest and Rose takes full advantage of his tiny slip in concentration, throwing one leg over his lap in a deep lunge while her hand strains toward her prize.

Close—! She can practically feel her fingernails scraping the plastic casing, she’s so close—

—until the Doctor’s free hand grabs her by the waist and pulls her back, hard.

Rose can’t help laughing now, and he’s laughing too, both at her and with her, while she struggles against him, pushing at him with her chest pressed into his shoulder and thigh slung across his lap. (Damn, but he’s stronger than he looks; of course, so is she, but she has no desire to prove herself by harming him. The other day was a close enough call.) Writhing in his grip, Rose makes one last valiant effort, her hand straining desperately to close itself around his wrist or his shirtsleeve, maybe yank his arm closer, before he finally manages to pull her away, and she falls back with a solid thump.

“You unbelievable ass,” Rose laughs, pushing her hair away from her face.

“Me?” the Doctor asks innocently. “I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when I was assaulted—”

“I’ll show you ‘assaulted’,” Rose mutters under her breath, but she’s still grinning.

“—and then you decided to crawl all over my body like it’s some kind of sentient obstacle course!”

“Oi,” Rose chuckles, moving to stand up, “It’s not my fault you’re all arms and legs and—”

Her thigh brushes over his lap as she moves, and she freezes. Over the last few years she hasn’t had much chance to accrue what one would label a wealth of experience in the matter, but she’s fairly certain she just accidentally touched something that was neither a hand nor a leg nor a part that’s traditionally considered public touching material. And she might not be an expert, but she doesn’t think it’s typically quite that, well, hard, either.

Oh. Oh.

Rose feels like she should flush with embarrassment, or jump back and pretend nothing’s happening (observe the ritual, adhere to the boundaries, stick to the plan), but she can’t seem to move, stuck in partial suspension above the Doctor. His face is eye level with her chest, which he seems adamantly unfocused on, eyelashes fluttering just a little too rapidly, and oh my, but she’s suddenly noticing just how warm they both are, how short her skirt is, how his thighs are bracketed by hers, just how much they’ve been touching each other this whole time.

The Doctor swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the force of it. “Yes, erm,” he says quietly, and is he blushing? “I see you found my mobile,” he lies, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Your mobile,” Rose repeats.

“Yep. My mobile.”

“Right,” Rose nods. She points at the coffee table behind her, at the Doctor’s phone lying there. “That mobile?”

The Doctor closes his eyes. Rose can almost hear him silently cursing himself. “Yep. That’d be the one.”

“Of course,” Rose laughs. “So, you don’t feel anything when I…?”

“Nope,” the Doctor rushes.

Rose arches an eyebrow at him.

He sighs in frustration. “I used to have much better control over this sort of thing, you know,” he complains. “Now it’s all…misfiring synapses and…signals shooting all over the place willy-nilly, and, and, quite frankly ridiculous hormones.”

“Tell me about it,” Rose teases.

The Doctor chuckles under his breath, unable to meet her eyes. His hand is still snug against her waist, hasn’t left its spot where he pulled her down, and she can feel the warmth of him through her shirt, feel his fingers curling against her. Rose wonders if he’s even aware of doing it, and he must be, because a second later, his hand moves, spasming like he burned it. His hand settles awkwardly on the sofa next to him and Rose watches as he determinedly looks at anything but her.

God. He must be mortified.

She knows she should back away. She should. And yet…well, she notices he’s not exactly trying to get away, either.

“Do you want me to move?” she asks anyway, because she should.

The Doctor thinks about it for a second. “Interesting choice of words, move,” he says slowly. “Sort of…different connotations, aren’t there? Multi-layered word. Several different meanings.”

Rose grins. “Which one do you mean?”

He swallows again. He still can’t meet her eyes. “Erm,” he says. Followed by, “Well.” He looks like he’s thinking about it. Trying to decide. Rose thinks maybe she should help him with the process. (She’s never been afraid to cheat just a little.)

Rose eases forward until she’s straddling him, bookending his hips with her knees. She’s careful to leave some space between their bodies, just in case he changes his mind, just in case this isn’t what he wants. She can tell by the rise and fall of his chest that his breathing has sped up. She feels his thighs tense beneath her.

It never occurred to her that she could affect him quite like this. The prospect of it all is giving her a rush, hormones fizzing together in her head like a potent cocktail. Like a drug.

(They still need to talk about all these things, Rose knows.

So. She’ll talk.)

“Which one did you mean?” she asks again, conversationally, like none of it means anything. Like she isn’t sitting in his lap, feeling the faint predictions of arousal in her own body now, stirring somewhere low in her abdomen. She’s so sure she knows, almost entirely certain she can predict what he wants, but she needs to hear it. Needs to make sure she’s not taking advantage of him, that this isn’t just his fresh new human body reacting without his permission.

His fingers nervously tap the cushions next to him. He starts to ask her something, stops, glances over at the breakroom door. It’s still open, Rose realizes, and anyone in the lab could hear them. Well, it’s only Ripley in the lab, this late at night, and it’s doubtful he’s heard anything up to this point, but if their volume increases at all, he’s going to get an earful.

Rose reaches for the remote control, pulls it easily out of the Doctor’s hand.

“Was this all part of the game, then?” the Doctor asks, amusement bleeding through his nervousness.

Smiling, Rose turns around and aims the remote at the telly, turning up the volume just loud enough to mask any suspicious noises that may arise out of the room. When she turns back to the Doctor, he’s finally looking up at her face, making proper eye contact now. He doesn’t look away this time.

He looks so open and wide-eyed and pretty and god, Rose just really wants to fuck him.

“Do you want me to move,” Rose starts, sliding forward in his lap until their hips meet, her skirt rucking up around her hips until her legs are almost entirely exposed, “like this?”

Their faces are quite close now, close enough that they could kiss, if they wanted. And Rose does want. So that’s the next step of the plan. Rose does exactly that, leaning forward to press a kiss next to his lips, on his jaw, near his ear. She arches her hips into his and hears a soft breath escape him, watches in her peripheral vision as his eyes shutter closed. She does it again, until she can feel him pressing into her through her pants. His hands fly up to her hips but he doesn’t move against her.

“Doctor,” Rose breathes, her lips grazing the shell of his ear, “you need to tell me if you want me to keep going, or if you want me to stop.”

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs. “Please.”

“All right, since you asked so nicely.”

The Doctor lets out a half-laugh at that, but the sound ends in a hum when Rose starts rolling her hips against him again. She sets up a slow and steady rhythm that she knows is going to drive them both mad, even with all of these layers between them. Rose wants to look at his face, wants to see his guard slipping, but he ducks his head. He plants feather-light kisses while they move, dotting her neck and throat and collarbone with a touch that’s so faint, it simultaneously makes Rose want to squirm away and squirm closer for more. She opts for the latter, pressing into him until their chests touch and she can feel his heart hammering against her stomach. She can feel the exact size and shape of him through her pants, hot and hard and just begging for release. He still doesn’t meet her thrusts, but his hands settle on her hips, fingers skirting the edge of her waistband.

It’s been quite some time since anyone has touched Rose like this, anyone that wasn’t her anyway, and even taking that into account, it’s been a while; it doesn’t take long for her body to start crying out for more. His hold on her hips is too gentle, his kisses too light, his movements too careful. She can’t tell if he’s afraid of chasing her away or if he genuinely just doesn’t feel the same urgency she does. It feels like every single fiber of her existence is straining for him and a needy ache is growing between her thighs and she just really wants friction and heat and more and now.

“I’m heading out,” Ripley’s voice calls from the lab, startling them both. The Doctor gives a jump beneath Rose. She claps her hand over his mouth before he can make any noise. Both of them freeze, adrenaline pumping through their veins. Rose waits with bated breath for the sounds of Ripley approaching.

“Have a good night!” Ripley shouts, still in the lab.

“Thanks, you too!” Rose replies. She is supremely pleased with how normal and not at all out-of-breath she sounds.

The lights in the lab go dim, clicking out one-by-one. The breakroom plunges into darkness. Only the telly remains on, casting shadow-shapes that flicker gently over the room, voices and music shockingly loud in the quiet. Rose listens closely for the sounds of the lab door closing and locking after.

Once Ripley is well and truly gone, the Doctor relaxes a little. He heaves a sigh of relief, his breath warm against Rose’s palm. He looks up at Rose like he’s asking her what happens next.

She moves her hand out of the way and replaces it with a kiss.

The Doctor is surprised, but he warms up to the idea quickly, his lips moving against hers. He almost seems perfectly content with the close-lipped kiss, languorous and slow as it is, but his grip on her hips tightens just a little bit and he arches into her just a fraction. The sensation makes Rose’s head swim and her body flush with anticipation and want.

But it isn’t enough. Rose doesn’t need him calm and slow. She needs to see him out-of-control—needs to see him wanting her. Needs him to know how badly she wants him.

She hits the “off” button on the remote, cutting off the noise from the telly, and she scoots back just far enough that her fingers have space to unbutton the Doctor’s trousers.

“Close your eyes,” she says, brushing her lips against his jaw. “And keep them closed.”

The Doctor opens his mouth like he might protest, but he doesn’t. He licks his lips, nods, and complies.

Once Rose is certain his eyes are properly closed, no movement beneath to indicate that he’s peeking, she kisses him again, a little harder this time, and she unzips his fly, as quickly as she can without getting him caught. She strokes him through his pants, watches his brow furrow and his teeth flash as he bites his lower lip. His breaths leave his mouth with a ragged edge to them; he’s trying to breathe evenly, possibly trying to engage a bypass system he no longer has while he tries desperately not to thrust into her hand.

Good. Better.

Still not enough.

Rose hooks her fingers over the edge of his waistband and pulls it down, carefully. She edges back as she goes until she can extend one leg behind her, then the other, lowering herself to her knees on the floor.

The Doctor, eyes still closed, frowns. “Rose...?”

She leans forward and takes his cock in her mouth.

A strangled gasp tears out of him and his entire body goes stiff. Rose quickly pins down his hips with her hands and takes him in as far as she can, hollowing her cheeks. She swirls her tongue around him, applying as much pressure as she can muster. She can tell he wants to thrust, can feel it in the way he trembles; she rubs circles against his exposed hips, urging him to relax as much as he can. She moves her head up and down, slowly at first, torturing him just a little bit before she picks up speed, moving one hand to stroke whatever expanse isn’t covered by her mouth.

His hands fist helplessly in the cushions beside him. Rose looks up to find his head thrown back, teeth biting into his plump lower lip hard enough that it’s gone white. She redoubles her efforts. She hums around him, pressing her tongue firmly over where he’s most sensitive. At that, he starts panting, his stomach muscles pumping overtime with the effort of it.

Rose has never seen him like this before, never watched all the rules slip away like this, and the sight of him, gasping and desperate and so, so close to breaking, is enough to make her grow ridiculously wet and needy. She rubs her thighs together for any shred of friction she can get. A series of strained noises escapes him and that only makes it worse, so she tightens her lips around him, tightens and swallows.

“Rose,” the Doctor gasps, “Rose—ah. Stop. Stop. Let me—please—”

She ceases moving the moment the message reaches her brain and she releases him with a wet pop, sits up straight to ask him what he wants, and he leans over and shows her: framing her face in both hands, he presses his lips to hers in a punishing kiss. He urges her mouth open and his tongue slides over hers, and there it is, there’s that sense of urgency she was looking for. As his tongue explores her mouth, she wonders what he tastes there, what’s more overwhelming, the bare traces of him or the taste of her arousal—whatever it is, it stirs a moan deep in his throat and suddenly he’s pulling her up and back into his lap.

He’s still hard beneath her and in the midst of her increasingly intoxicating head-fog, Rose thinks that must be terribly uncomfortable. Rose moves to help him, to finish what she started, but he stops her. His grip on her wrist is surprisingly firm. “Not yet, please,” he says hoarsely between kisses. He holds her close with one hand while the other snakes up under her skirt, skating over her inner thigh on its way to her pants. Fingers press into her through warm, soaked cotton.

“Ah,” the Doctor mutters to himself, as if he’s just now realizing something. “Yes, that’s very—you’re really quite—”

His words fade to a satisfied hum as his fingers explore the edge of her pants, slipping under, gliding over slick skin. His strokes, gentle at first, grow firmer. Rose’s eyes fall closed at the sensation. She presses into his hand, hips tilting forward and drawing back in time with the motions of his fingers, and she lets out a whimper when he grazes over her clit. The pressure sends pleasure spiraling through her and she chases after that feeling, rocking her hips and fucking his hand until she’s so wet she thinks she might explode from need. He slips a finger inside her and she bites down on a moan.

She can feel the Doctor’s gaze on her face, gauging her reactions. A delicious thrill shivers through her but no, that won’t do, that won’t do at all, not when she’s still desperate to see him come undone.

Pulling herself up by the back of the sofa, she tries to sit up on her knees, starts to push down at her knickers. She lets out a surprised little yelp when the Doctor stops her, grabbing her hip with his free hand. At first she worries that maybe this isn’t what he wants after all, maybe he doesn’t want things to progress any further, but when he pushes her knickers to the side, she realizes that’s not true at all—he just doesn’t want her to move away from him, not even to take off her pants. He doesn’t want to wait. Which is brilliant, because Rose doesn’t want to wait anymore, either. She slides back down until she can feel the tip of his cock nudging at her, and, shifting her hips just so, she sinks down onto him, slickly, taking him in as far as she can.

The Doctor grits out a groan, his eyes losing focus, lips parting just the tiniest bit. Rose can’t help the grin that spreads across her face at that. (Can’t help the gasp that leaves her when she pushes down just a little bit more, taking him further in, the two of them sliding together deliciously.) She takes advantage of the breach in his defenses, leaning forward for another kiss and slipping her tongue along the seam of his mouth. She tilts her hips back and forth, drawing up and pushing down and pushing just a little further each time until he’s fully sheathed inside her, easing the swollen ache between her legs. When her muscles clench around his cock, she feels him tense beneath her, his legs and stomach going rigid while his brow furrows in concentration.

“Just relax,” Rose murmurs against his lips.

“Seems unlikely at this juncture,” the Doctor laughs weakly.

Grinning, Rose clutches at the Doctor’s back, nails digging into his shirts and his skin as she increases her pace and pressure, rocking her hips up and down and just losing herself in the heat and the wet and the friction of it all. For a bloke who has almost certainly never had sex—not in this fresh new body with all its sensitive new nerve endings—he is holding out magnificently, lasting far longer than Rose would have imagined. She thinks, maybe, as she feels her climax building, as the warm-tickle-yes-yes-yes builds low in her belly, that he must have held onto some truly extraordinary Time Lord willpower. Or, the thought dawns on her…

She slows her movement, hips grinding almost to a still. “Have you been practicing?” she whispers in his ear.

“What?” he asks, distracted, his voice strained and ridiculously breathy.

Rose sinks back down inch-by-inch and feels rather than hears the groan rumbling in the Doctor’s chest. “You’re holding out remarkably well, especially for the circumstances,” she says. “Have you been practicing? Touching yourself?”

When he doesn’t answer, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously, Rose nips at the pulse point beneath his ear, her tongue darting out to taste his salty-sweet skin. She slides a hand between them and rubs at where they’re joined. As her fingers ring the base of his cock, stroking him, the Doctor’s head lolls back on the couch, his eyes slamming shut.

“Yes,” he gasps out, like the admission pains him.

Rose rewards him by sliding her hips up and down, her movements agonizingly slow as she torments them both. “What do you think about?”

“What do you think?” the Doctor asks with another strained laugh. When Rose stops moving, his eyes open again and his gaze meets hers.

“You,” he confesses, panting. “Just you.”

Rose smiles and presses a hard kiss to his mouth the instant the words leave him. One of his hands flies up to grasp her by the jaw, suddenly possessive, claiming, and Rose’s lips part without hesitation as he plunders her mouth with his tongue and finally (finally) starts to move, arching up into her. She rocks against him and he meets her measure-for-measure, thrust-for-thrust. No longer content as a passive player, the Doctor slips his hands under Rose’s shirt and pushes it up over her breasts, planting kisses on every inch of skin he can reach. His thumbs circle and tease her nipples until they’re peaked and straining through the thin fabric of her bra.

Her climax quickly begins to build up again, warmth blooming through her; she’s close, she’s close, she’s so close, dancing right on the edge, pleasure rippling through her body in waves. She slides her hand back between them again, teasing her clit with fingers slippery with sweat and sex. As her muscles flutter desperately, clenching tight around him once more, the Doctor pumps his hips harder, his breaths leaving with a moan. He grasps her by the back of the head and pulls her down for one more kiss, his fingers tangling in her hair. When he bites her lower lip, flooding her with pain and warmth, Rose shudders and breaks around him and he swallows her cries. She strokes him and fucks him through her own climax into his, where he breaks the kiss in favor of burying his face in the join of her neck and shoulder, shouting as he spasms and empties into her.

Their movements slow and still until they’re both motionless, panting in the quiet dark. The Doctor winds his arms around Rose in a lazy embrace, his face still buried against her shoulder. His specs are digging into her almost uncomfortably but she doesn’t say anything, hugs him about the neck and idly strokes his sweat-dampened hair instead.

Her brain is mostly empty except for a very pleasant hazy hum. She hopes the same is true for him. Still, there’s that nagging little thought cropping up, quieter than usual, but still there, as always: What’s next?

“Are you, erm,” she tries to ask amidst shuddering breaths. “How are you doing?”

“Dunno yet,” is the muffled reply. “I’ll tell you when my legs stop feeling like jelly.”

Rose chuckles and kisses the side of his head.

They end up taking the train home, or as close to home as they can get, anyway. It’s the first time Rose has been on a train in years; she decides this is to blame for why her legs are so much wibblier than usual, why she has to shift her stance and cling to the pole so much harder than before. It’s certainly got nothing to do with the pleasantly warm soreness throbbing between her legs, certainly nothing to do with the source of said soreness.

Of course, the Doctor doesn’t seem to be having any trouble staying upright at all, jelly-leg comments notwithstanding. Of course he doesn’t.

“So,” Rose says, casually. “Not a fan of blow jobs, hm?”

It is incredibly satisfying to see him wavering just a little, his grasp tightening on the pole. “Huh?” he asks, very intelligently.

“You stopped me, earlier. You know. When I had you in my mouth.”

“Erm, well,” says the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck while flushing as brilliant a carnation-pink as Rose has ever seen. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Why?”

The Doctor glances down at the floor, as if he finds it suddenly fascinating. “Just wanted to hold you, is all,” he murmurs.

Something in Rose’s stomach feels almost unbearably fluttery and tender at that, but before she has a chance to reply, the train gives a lurch, jostling her. She braces herself against the Doctor, one hand on the pole while the other snakes beneath his jacket, grabbing a fistful of shirt. Strictly for balance reasons, of course. It’s got nothing to do with what he just said, or the fact that she’s so very glad to be on this train with him, or how very much she loves him, or the fact that she’s planning to kiss him again.

(It’s a good plan. Very good. The best she’s ever had, possibly.)

Rose pushes onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to the Doctor’s cheek. He’s warm, beneath her lips; warm from blushing, and other things too, maybe. She kisses him again, lower, and again, on the corner of his mouth, and this time he turns his head to catch her lips with his. It’s slower than the other kisses they’ve shared, and softer. Rose has to hide her face against his chest, after, to counteract the overwhelming sweetness swelling between her lungs.

There are still things they need to discuss, of course. Big things. Big, important things. But they can wait a little while longer.

Well, most of them can, anyway.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Rose says quietly, to the Doctor’s chest.

He rests his head against hers, exhaling slowly. “Me, too.”

***

#ficandchips #tentoo x rose #tentoorose #tentoo/rose #anti turning of the tide #rose tyler #metacrisis doctor #tentoo #warning: here be lemons #here there be lemons what i wrote LITERAL YEARS AGO #poor lemons have been moldering for like FOUR YEARS????#??????????#because originally this was part of a super duper angsty post-JE fic i was working on off and on for a long time #but as much as i really liked some parts of it--it was ultimately too draining to write #because even though i likes me some angst as much as the next salty mean bitch #i do ultimately want these two idiots to get together #i can handle a fair amount of angst with rose and tenth doctor mach i but after an initial bout of angst #i'm ready for her and metacrisis doc to be happy together #even if they've got external shit to deal with -- i want them to be happy together #so instead i've just been reappropriating my favorite bits here and there--incorporating them into other works #a big chunk of it was incorporated into/transformed into 'something of the wolf'#other bits and pieces have been incorporated into the rewriting of 'in lovers meeting' (formerly 'hitchhiker's map')#and other bits have been retooled and expanded-upon to present this here fic #i'm just happy some of this writing is finally seeing the light of day dammit #:D #mbb fic

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