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mulderist · 4 years

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Wicked Game

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // read on AO3 // @today-in-fic

Washington, D.C - 1948. Fox Mulder is a detective on the top vice unit; scandal, corruption, and lies come with the territory. He is forced to investigate a fellow officer and finds the lies go much deeper than the truth.

CHAPTER 3

Arlington National Cemetery One week later 9:17 am

Leaves rustled in the trees overhead as the honor guard reloaded and repositioned their rifles. The sharp bang, like a hit on a snare drum, echoed through the eerie calm of the cemetery. I could feel it happening again. Everytime I thought I was past this nonsense it kept coming back. I wanted to close my eyes but it would have brought me back to the mud and rain of Wake Island. When you’ve been knee deep in death you never forget it. I could still smell the humid air, the burnt powder, the smoke.

I closed my eyes for a moment and balled my fist tighter as images clear as photographs flashed before me. Three years ago, I donned the dress blues and watched a soldier from my company laid to rest. It felt like I was having a heart attack as I listened to the twenty-one guns and the cries of his grieving widow. Fingers pressed hard creating a thick new line in my palm and my flashback dissolved.

Each shot up to this point was torture. My salute wavered with the final pop and I felt the elephant on my chest move aside, allowing me to breathe a little. A bead of sweat broke free from under my hatband and took a slow slide down my temple. The back of my neck prickled. I swallowed hard and moved to parade rest as the honor guard queued up and left the gravesite. My fingers slowly loosened their curl and I felt the circulation return to the tips. Once the ringing in my ears stopped I was able to appreciate the sound of silence.

It was a small group of mourners, mainly fellow Marines from Spender’s company and a few officers from the precinct. He had no wife, no kids, not sure if his mother was still alive. Seems that the only family representative was his father. Jeffrey had the distinction of a military funeral at Arlington due to his rank and heroics at Guadalcanal. At the drop of a hat he would tell the story about surviving hand-to-hand combat and rescuing a senior officer during a nighttime raid. I’m sure each time he retold it, that fish got a little bigger. At any rate, he’s now buried amongst other honorable men. His father was able to cut through any red tape like a hot knife through butter to make it happen. And almost as if on cue I spied the old man in his expensive dark striped suit accepting condolences. I recognized him through the smoke cloud that hung around like a bad party guest. I suppose he could feel my eyes on him because he headed my direction. He gestured to another older gentleman, who I assumed was his driver, and continued his approach. It was the first time I was able to truly observe him. He had all the obvious characteristics of old D.C. politics; dower demeanor, rigid walk, air of superiority.

“Sir, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said flatly as he approached. The scent of Morleys invaded my nose.

“Thank you, mister -?” He asked while offering a perfunctory handshake.

“Mulder,” I replied as I shook his hand then tugged at my uniform jacket.

“Ah yes,” he practically hissed, “You were Jeffrey’s partner in the vice unit. Keeping the city safe from crime and debauchery.” The cigarette smoking man took one more drag then let the stick hang on his lower lip. “My son had great potential. To be killed in the line of duty is a tragedy.”

I didn’t know what type of condolence to offer. I wasn’t great friends with his son in the first place, it was a professional relationship and not much more.

“The precinct lost a good detective,” I finally managed to say. Jesus, that felt bitter on my tongue. I licked my lips, hoping this conversation would soon be over; my pleasantries were skating on thin ice. The Smoking Man stubbed out his cigarette and rattled off something about his resources that could aid in our murder investigation. Apparently he and the commissioner were old chums and justice would be swift. Then he took the cue and left. I stole a deep breath and watched him head towards his driver then enter a large black Cadillac that was parked at the base of the knoll.

My feet hit the pathway just as I heard my name being called from over my shoulder. I paused and turned to see Captain Skinner walking my direction.

“Just had a conversation with Spender’s old man.” I said.

“Is that so?” He questioned as he removed his glasses.

“Turns out he has the district police in his pocket so my services might not be needed with this investigation,” I said sarcastically.

“Did he know your connection to the case?”

“He knows I was Spender’s partner, but not that I was at the scene.”

Skinner squared his jaw then continued to walk past me away from the thinning crowd. I followed.

“I’m awaiting the final report from the coroner. They found something of interest on the autopsy.”

“A different cause of death? Figured the gunshots were obvious,” I said.

“There was additional bloodwork. I’m not certain what the M.E. was looking for, which is why I want the final report.” He stopped and faced me. “Mulder, I don’t typically recommend this course of police action however this is a unique situation.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to use whatever channels you have available. Legal or -- otherwise. Use the boys in forensics to your advantage. See if you can get that report and keep this ‘eyes only.”

I raised an eyebrow at the request. It’s not everyday your boss asks you to operate in the gray. Then it clicked.

“You want to keep this hush-hush.”

“I want to keep the reputation of this precinct and my vice unit intact,” he replied cryptically. I could only nod and watch as he slowly left for his car. I took an opposite path. There was a humming in my head that I wanted to knock loose with a stroll.

Flanked by rows of white crosses on green hills I continued along the pathway and suddenly saw a familiar flash of red. She was standing at a simple headstone, adjusting a small arrangement of flowers. Out of respect I waited until she stepped away onto the path before I approached.

“Excuse me,” I called from behind with a casual wave of my hand. When she looked over her shoulder I knew it was her.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, miss,” I began but clammed up when I saw those pools of blue. In that instant, that split second, it’s like I forgot the damn English language. My feet kept moving and I tried to say something.

“It’s no bother,” she said, thankfully.

“Are you by chance a nurse at Washington General?” I finally sputtered as we stopped walking. She nodded then thought for a moment, her arms hugged her petite frame.

“You look familiar,” she said with a delicately pointed finger, “Have we met before?”

“We have,” I replied. She cautiously moved closer to size me up. She surveyed my uniform and I felt like I was back in the barracks.

“You were the -- detective, right? -- who worked on a last name basis?”

“That’s my calling card. The name’s Mulder,” I said, “Remind me yours?”

“Dana Scully,” she said with a hint of a polite smile.

Scully. There it was. The stray thread was pulled and unraveled the memory of her name, each and every letter. She continued,

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Almost back to my pitching prime.” I replied as I gave it a roll. I had to watch myself with this one. Memory like a steel trap. Her head tilted curiously to the side.

“You clean up nice.” There was a quick flush to her cheeks as she took a small step back, wishing that remark stayed to herself. I smiled and now it was my turn to shift gears.

“I saw you laying down some flowers.” I said, curiosity getting my proverbial cat. Her lips pressed together.

“My father,” she said, “He is - was - a captain in the Navy. It was six years ago; Midway. I like to keep his flowers fresh if I can.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied with the only thing I could muster. Her statement was simple but knocked the wind out of my sails. Scully dipped her head and nodded. She then asked,

“Do you have someone here?”

“I’ve got a couple guys from my company, though I don’t visit too often. But today was my partner.”

“Oh,” she said softly, “It’s a funny state of the world when you can have a conversation about who you lost as easy as asking ‘how’s the weather.’”

For a moment I had nothing to say. A thousand scenarios ran through my head. I wanted to know more, I wanted to know everything about her. There was a natural beauty of course but something about her mind reeled me in. I cleared my throat. This chat was on the verge of getting cozy but seemed out of place in the current setting.

“May I walk you to your car?”

“Thank you but I’ll be fine. My sister is waiting for me. Besides, we only just met.” A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth.”

Playing coy, I liked that.

“Well then, good day Miss Scully.”

“Good day Mr. Mulder.” She shook my hand and lingered for a moment. “If you’re ever in Georgetown look me up. Hopefully we can meet again.”

“I sincerely hope so,” I said. She turned heel and left me on the path. The curve of her pencil skirt, a flutter of the hem, the lines of her smart blouse made the goodbye feel less permanent. I listened to a breeze sweep through the tree line then I backtracked to where I was parked.

I needed to get out of this uniform.

-------

Hegal Place Alexandria, VA

My apartment felt stale. I forced open a window to let in some fresh air. In the wardrobe hung one clean, pressed dress shirt along with my police dress blues. Of course the only shirt remaining was the one I wore the night Spender was killed. The good thing about an old jaded dry cleaner is you get quality work and little questions. I sipped my coffee and remembered I might have a vacation shirt stashed away in a drawer. As I donned the new shirt I heard the phone ring. I was waiting for a call from the boys in forensics who were a little too eager to give me a hand.

“Mulder? It’s Frohike.”

“What have you found?”

“As you know, Langley and I were able to fish out a casing from the bathroom stall door, the back wall and a sneaky little devil in the bar. Turns out these paired nicely with the one lodged in Spender’s abdomen.”

“Who’d the weapon belong to?”

“Carlo Lodi.” Frohike asked. I scanned through the mugshot portfolio in my head. There he was. A hulking brute nicknamed The Titan who was quick with a fist and a trigger.

“Yeah. He’s one of Vincenti’s favorite enforcers.”

“We’ve seen his handiwork before,” Frohike continued, “He leaves a real pretty signature, although he’s usually a little more precise. Execution style seems to be his forté.”

“That’s what I thought when I was at the scene. I still don’t know if he intended to take me out as well.”

“Just like you to get in the way, Mulder.” There was a chuckle in the other end of the phone.

“Hey Frohike, has the final report come in from the M.E.?”

“Ah, funny you should mention that. I have a preliminary copy and it shows that there was heroin in his system.”

“Shit,” I stated after a pause.

“What is it?”

“It means Krycek was right.”

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #mulder pov #historical au

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danadeservesadrink · 4 years

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Do You Believe in Fate Chapter 4

So How’d It Go? Read on AO3 here

Angst warning!! This is an important chapter but damn was it hard to write! Tagging @today-in-fic . Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts!

“Dana Scully speaking”

“So how’d it go?”

“You know hello would have been nice Missy”

“Tell me! You can’t just leave the house on Thursday with that dress in your suitcase and expect me to not want details?”

“Did you go through my luggage?”

“I was looking for a top. But who was the guy? Was it David from work? Or Mark from that bar that one time?”

“And why should I tell you?”

“Dana this is the first time you’ve gone out in a year-”

“10 months.”

“Whatever. I just want to know who the lucky guy is.”

“His name is Mulder…”

“Mulder?”

“It’s his last name. He doesn’t like his first.”

“Mysterious. I like it. Go on.”

“He’s living in my old apartment”

“Wow Danes that seriously some rom com shit”

“I know, I know. He’s cute. Tall, far too confident, obviously brilliant…”

“Sounds like you’re already in love”

“But I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

“What, why? It was only the first date what could he have possibly done wrong”

“He works at the FBI. On unexplained cases of the supernatural variety. X files he called them.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know if I can see him again.”

“Does he know?”

“Did I tell him on our first and probably only date that if he looks hard enough he likely has a file in his office with my name in it? No, he doesn’t know.”

“Do you think he’s doing an undercover investigation on you?”

“Gee thanks Mis, because the only reason a guy would be interested in me would be because he’s on a secret case”

“I’m not saying that! But don’t you think it’s a little weird that the minute you moved out of your old apartment an FBI agent investigating the paranormal moves in to take your place?”

“I don’t know Missy. I don’t know, it's just too much to think about. I’m going to go to bed now.”

“Ok. You’re coming home on Monday right?”

“Yea. I’ll see you then.”

“Goodnight Danes.”

“Night Missy.”

It was her luck that something like this would happen. Hadn’t she already been through enough? She left Stanford with a medical degree and all the freedom in the world, moved to her favorite city, and started saving lives. She made the world a better place, worked her ass off day in and day out to help children, saving God’s little angels, and how does He repay her? By ripping her life into pieces and throwing them into the trash, and then lighting the trash can on fire. So she moves back home, stays with her family. She recovers, she fights to get the life she had back, and she finally develops some sense of normalcy, even getting confident enough to go back out with a guy. And he’s a fucking alien investigator at the FBI. Like she hadn’t dealt with enough G-men already. Now this man who had somehow captivated her mind for the last month was just another threat. And she really was so naive as to believe the world would throw a perfectly good man in her lap.

She certainly hadn’t been looking. When he had first called her all she wanted was for him to leave her alone. She didn’t trust men anymore, and certainly didn’t feel like putting in the effort to court one. But talking to him in her apartment made her feel those butterflies she hadn’t felt in a long time. He just had this air around him, an aura that projected both confidence and a pure wild energy, a mix that intoxicated her every time she drew near him. He grabbed her wrist and she hadn’t worn a bracelet for the next week. She could still feel the phantom grip of his fingers and the electricity that flowed through them, like a newly connected circuit powering up for the first time. He hadn’t left her head since. She tried to call him as soon as she got home the next day, but she had been so caught up with his floppy hair and lopsided smile that she had completely forgotten to save his number from her mother’s phone to hers. So she placed faith in the postal system and hoped he would be charmed by her antics. And it worked. She was going out on a date with a man who made her head spin, one who tried to pretend that he was unphased by probably the tightest dress she owned even though he didn’t close his mouth for a full minute when he first saw her.

The date was perfect until they had talked about jobs. And then he dropped the bomb and she tried to brush off the feeling in the pit of her stomach by making stupid jokes and he laughed but she couldn’t help but dwell.

“UFO’s, cryptids, anything from crop circles to spontaneous human combustion. If the FBI can’t solve it, they toss it in my pile”

Did he know? He couldn’t have. What kind of psychopath brings up the fact that he studies alien abductions to someone like her. And if he really was undercover he wouldn’t want her to know what his real job was would he? He would have lied.

Unless he was toying with her.

Unless this was another experiment on her, another way to keep tabs on her, make sure she didn’t talk, make sure she was doing her very best to forget everything that happened to her.

She got up from the bed abruptly and shut the blinds on the windows. They clacked together and then the room fell into deep silence again.

He didn’t talk about work for the whole rest of the dinner. He talked about baseball, about how he goes for runs in the park she used to walk through after a long day shift. He said “Behold, a man” when the waiter brought out her garlic and herb chicken. Mulder wouldn’t do that to her. Mulder was just a man with a job whose only interest in her life was whether she was free next Friday to go out again. He paid for the cab back to her hotel and opened the door for her to get in. He was a gentleman.

He’s trying to get her to trust him.

And suddenly everything clicked into place and the air left her lungs. She found herself stumbling to the bed, she knocked over the lamp but it was in her way and she just needed to be in bed. Her ears were ringing, she couldn’t hear, everything was going in and out of black.

He’s watching you. He’s with them. He’s trying to silence you. He’s going to follow you, gain your trust and then he’s going to kill you. He knows where you live, he can track you down, they’ve tried to take her before and he will try again. He’s with them, he’s with them, he’s going to kill you, they’re going to kill you.

Everything’s bright and she’s back in that place with needles and tubes in and out of her, and she knows she’s in a hotel in DC but as many times as she tries to wrap the blankets around her and tuck her feet under her she cannot become small enough to escape them. She feels tears hot down the sides of her cheeks and the sounds of drills in her ears and there's no escape. She hears pounding and wailing and hands grip her wrists and they burn, they burn, so she screams. She won’t let them take her again, she won’t.

“Scully, Scully it's me”

She fights it, and it’s him, it’s Mulder and he’s trying to take her, like she thought.

“Let go of me!” She shrieks, flailing about but she’s trapped, he’s got her trapped, in bed sheets tied around her wrists and feet. “Don’t take me!”

He lets go but she’s still trapped, still fighting.

“Scully no one’s going to take you.”

“Yes! Yes they’re going to take me! You’re going to take me!” He touches her hand and it doesn't burn but it makes a lump in her throat and her fist turns flat. He pulls a sheet off of her and she feels exposed.

“Scully look at me.”

She does. She looks through tears at a blurred man in her hotel room. He doesn’t look like a threat. He looks sad.

“How did you get in here.” He steps to the edge of the bed and she pushes herself back towards the headboard, away. He raises both hands and walks to the other side of the bed where he sits.

“You left your wallet in the taxi. He called me because I paid and I picked it up and brought it here. I made it to your room and I wasn’t going to come in but I heard the lamp crash. So I used the spare key in the wallet and let myself in.”

He seemed to be telling the truth, holding up the wallet as evidence. She hadn’t even realized it was gone.She unlocked the door with the key she kept in her purse. She started to take in her surroundings, the lamp crashed to the floor, the bedsheets thrown from the bed. She looked up at him and saw nothing but concern over his face.

Every emotion, shame, embarrassment, anger, sadness, all of it hit her at once and she sobbed.

He reached over to touch her but she shouted “No!”, like a wounded dog. Her voice didn’t sound real. “Please don’t touch me”.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

He watched as tears racked her body, never moving from his spot on the bed. She cried in a ball, hands covering her face, arms and knees tucked to her sides, protecting her from nothing. Then, she laid down, and cried until the tears had to be blinked down the sides of her face while she stared at the ceiling. She felt him get off the bed, and she bolted up, dizzying herself, but he nodded and only walked over to the minifridge to pull out a bottle of water. She sat up and he resumed his position at the end of the bed.

“Drink some water. Can you breathe again?”

She hated the way he talked to her, like she was a child. But he was right. She accepted the bottle and drank half, gulping down cold water as a welcomed change to the hot sheets.

“Yes. I’m sorry you had to see that. You can go now.”

“Don’t be sorry. I know panic attacks can be bad.”

“I’m ok now. You can go.” The crack in her voice made both of them wince. A different type of silence filled the room.

“You know I am a psychologist, but it doesn’t take an Oxford degree to diagnose PTSD.”

“I said I’m fine. You can go now Mulder.”

“What happened Dana.”

She sat and stared at him, sitting on her bed, asking her to spill her darkest secrets to him. Everything about telling him felt wrong but this is the first time anyone has offered to listen.

“About a year ago, a man broke into my apartment and abducted me. He drugged me and put me in the back of his truck and drove me to a cornfield in Virginia. I remember waking up and seeing the stars and trying to run but I was tied down. And then a bright light came and I-” She choked back another sob, but he shifted closer to her, eyes wide, and nodded for her to continue. “I don’t remember what happened. But my mother found me on her doorstep a month later in a hospital gown and…” her voice cut out. He again moved closer and when she didn’t pull back he slowly raised his hand and put it on her knee. He looked at her as if to ask “is this ok” and she nodded in response.

“I don’t remember anything except seeing my mother’s face again for the first time. She looked so… so terrified of me. Like I had grown another head or something. And then I looked down, and I was holding a baby”. She felt another tear run down her cheek.

“I was holding a baby and I didn’t know whose it was and I almost dropped it. Mom took it from me and my sister came and helped me inside, the whole time they were asking me where I’d been but I didn’t know. I didn’t remember anything. All of these people showed up at our house and asked me over and over again “where were you?” “what happened” and I just kept answering them I don’t know, I don’t know. They said I went on a bender. That I ran away from work and responsibilities, probably with some friends. They said I was pregnant and didn’t know it, and they tried to take the baby for testing but my mother wouldn’t let them. She didn’t believe them, she knew I wouldn’t do that. I don’t remember much of what happened next, but we packed up everything and moved out of my apartment… your apartment. They didn’t even open an investigation on the man that took me.”

“I can.” She had been staring at the lamp on the ground, she hadn’t noticed him staring at her with such intensity it made her shiver.

“You don’t get it. They didn’t open a case on me because there wasn’t enough evidence-”

“They didn’t open a case on you because you were abducted. The FBI has been trying to suppress alien abductions for years and you are just another victim. I could open a case on you, start an investigation, really stick it to them-”

“I am not a case that needs to be solved, Mulder.”

“But I can help you Scully. Do you remember anything from that night, anything at all?”

“Mulder!”

“I don’t understand, why would you not want to know what happened?”

“Because Mulder, because sometimes the weight of what happened is too much to bear. Because while you try to hunt down monsters they terrorize me in my sleep. Because there’s a baby in my house and I don’t know where it came from.” She realized she was yelling at him but she didn’t care. “Because frankly it’s none of your goddamn business what happened to me if I don’t want it to be. The men who you work for threatened to kill me and my family if I tried to find out what happened to me and for all I know you’re one of them.” Her voice was shrill and sharp like broken glass and it cut just where it needed to.

“I’m sorry.”

She met his eyes again and they were wide and sad.

“I want to help you Scully. I’ll do…” he took a breath, “anything. I’ll do anything to help you.”

“I need you to leave.”

“Ok.”

He got up and she remained on the bed, drained.

“Will I see you again?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ok. Goodbye Scully.”

“Goodbye Mulder.”

#the x files #txf fanfic #msr #msr fanfiction #Dana Scully #Fox Mulder #angst #txf au #msr au #sam writes #plz let me know if you like this!#also my appologies again for the angst

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aures-rose · 3 years

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Disclaimer: Very much and very little have happened since my last update. I broke my ankle last month and that’s kept me from really roleplaying and writing like I might normally in frequency, quality, and duration. Despite this, I have a lot to write since a lot of this happened before my incident. Anyways! To the entry!

Dear Diary,

So much has happened since my last entry! Where do I even start? I had my first practical potions lesson this year! Deputy Headmistress is teaching it, and she had a cauldron of a love potion called Amortentia. It smelled like firewood and the ocean and flowers, wisteria I think. Maybe lavender. Someone, I think it was Eve, said it smells like whatever you find the most attractive. So I guess I like campfires by the sea. Which makes sense actually, we always had that campfire under the pergola where Mother’s wisteria grew. Anyways, Eve and I brewed the Antidote to Common Poisons which seems like a useful thing to be able to brew. I didn’t even know I could brew, but I didn’t mess up!

After class, Eve and I went down to the campsite near Dumbledore’s grave and we hung out for a while. She told me how she and Marigold had talked about doing a group Halloween costume for the bash this year as plants that can be found in the forest. Eve really likes herbology you see and she got a book from her mum about different plants, I think she said they may have been Victorian plants, I can’t remember. She was talking about going as some kind of mushroom and I had the idea of being a rose, with a paper mache rose head on or something.

Later on I ran into Margo again. She was heading back to the common room and since I knew a shortcut through Lady Prudence, I showed it to Margo. I told her it really pays off to talk to the portraits in school and she said she’d have to talk to more of them. She invited me into the first year dorm where she was supposed to meet Venus- another first year. Venus was going to tell Margo a secret. Margo took me to their dorm and introduced me to Venus who seems really nice and likes plants. Her mum plays music too, piano I think she said. I promised to show her where the music room is sometime, a lot of first years seem to not know about it, I guess because we have no music professor this year. Venus and Margo both showed me their beds, Margo likes plants and Venus also likes stars! Then Venus told us she’d overheard a friend talking to a boy and she’d learned of a secret room through one of the portraits. She was supposed to show us the next day but I ended up being really busy. I’ll have to ask Margo to show me sometime. Also, I think I really like the name Venus. I know it’s a planet and a Roman Goddess, but I like it because how romantic it sounds.

Anyways, I had Herbology with Eve next. I really do hate Herbology. I mean, I like looking at flowers and plants but I just don’t get it. But in class we were collecting mushrooms from the edge of the forest. Venus asked me to partner with her but I’d already partnered with Eve so I had to tell her no. Eve and I talked about herbology for a while and mostly she picked all the mushrooms with these really nice scissors she had. After class, we sat in the courtyard and talked. We decided instead of going by the dock, we were going to sneak brooms and fly to a secret place on the castle which will become our secret place. We’ll bring supplies like blankets and stuff and we’ll hide out there for our sleepover.

We also talked about Ghoul Studies because it was going to be our next class. We talked about Professor Esper and how romantically he talks and also how he wears… a flower on his suit which Eve says represents mourning, or it did in Victorian times. I wonder if Professor Esper is mourning a long dead sweetheart from his days as a student. Wouldn’t that be romantic? In class the Head Boy, Elliott sat near us and we both told him we’d bet money on him with Nora for the TriWizard Cup. Professor Esper also had asked Eve to cast a spell and levitate all the homework to his desk but she couldn’t do it. She asked me for help and I was actually able to do it!

Then came DADA. Not the good DADA though. No. DADA with stupid Professor Vikander. Can you believe he took TWENTY POINTS from Gryffindor just because some boy’s spell backfired? That made me so mad! My blood actually started to boil, I swear! Actually, my hands did get really hot and so did my face and the edges of my eyes got real blurry like… I couldn’t help it and I ended up yelling at Professor Vikander. I… said some not nice things about how he didn’t care about his students and I wished I was a Hufflepuff because Professor Priaulx is better and actually cares. I can’t believe he let me get away with everything I said, really. Tom and Eve were trying really hard to calm me down and I think that’s the only reason I really left the class. It’s so embarrassing getting angry like that. I need to remember to take my calming drought always. Anyways, we were making our way down the tower and there was a crowd at the bottom. And in that crowd was the boy who’d lost us all those points. I couldn’t help myself! I tried to petrify him… from there it all went crazy. Everything happened so fast but Eve tackled me and my spell hit Talula I think. Elliott came down and pulled Eve off me and she explained she wasn’t attacking me, she was trying to stop me and then everything got even crazier!! I don’t remember everything that happened because Eve surprised me so bad and I started to feel really embarrassed and ended up crying. Eventually Professor Vikander came down and everything was still crazy but Talula gave me a calming drought bc the one in my backpack got shattered. Then Professor Vikander sent Eve and I to the Hospital Wing. I apologised to her there and she told me I had nothing to be sorry for and…. That Lex… Lex Ashworth had said something very cruel. He’d been talking to Aloy but he called her a fire flinging freak and… I mean… sure, he was mad at Aloy but… if that’s what Lex thinks of her… what about Talula? Or me? My family? I come from a line of fire flinging freaks even if I’ve never managed it myself…

After that, I kind of laid low for a while, avoiding everyone. Especially since… after that, my eye got even worse. I don’t know why but instead of two pupils, now there’s three. Am I doomed to just keep getting more and more? Will my other eye become freaky next? I don’t know what to do about it but I can’t keep ignoring it so I’ve been trying to do research on curses and what kind might have caused this. I plan on speaking to Professor Macauley about it as soon as possible and if he doesn’t have answers I’ll go to Professor Blightly and then O'Keeffe if she doesn’t. I have to figure this out and how to go back to normal or at least how to stop it.

Then it was announced there was going to be a fashion show. I don’t know anything about fashion and I don’t really care but Gwyn, my mentor, was running the meeting so I decided to go to support her. Somehow I ended up being chosen to represent our house in the casual category. I ended up wearing my red jumper dress with a white t-shirt, a red flower crown of flowers I don’t know what they’re called but they remind me of the Christmas flowers, red flags, my red backpack, and of course, my violin case. I also put stars on my face, because I like decorating myself. The fashion show was really scary honestly but Talula put some lipgloss on me and everyone was really supportive. It was scary walking on stage on front of everyone and I was afraid I’d like or fall off stage but I did it! And I never want to do it again! I’d watch it again though!

Talula also ran a club called Spark Club this month. Spark Club is where you can meet new friends or dates. I only wanted friends so I put that when I signed up. Somehow Talula pairs you with three people, I don’t know how, and you spend a few minutes talking and getting to know each other with the talk starter Tal gives you. My first pair was Bailey but I think he was late getting there so Margo and her match, Dana, who is a first year in our house talked to me for a little bit. Margo said I could be a model because of how tall I am but I definitely don’t want that. Eventually Bailey showed up and we talked about getting into trouble a little bit. My next pair was named Gage but he never showed up so I sat around and watched everyone else for a bit. Lastly, I was paired with Eve! Talula said we were too cute not to pair up and I told Eve it was destiny! She was talking to an older student named Romi Clementine. Romi is a fourth year I think and she’s really pretty, like a doll. She was even dressed like a doll in this frilly red dress. She said she liked charms and Homemaking Magic and that the Spark Club was a little too noisy for her which I totally get.

Oh, Eve also gave me a book at Spark Club. It’s called Coraline and she said she wanted us to choose characters from the book for our Halloween costumes instead. I’m going to start reading it tonight, just as soon as I finish writing in you. She said it was one of her favourite books and I think it’s nice to see what your friends like if you want to get close to them. She also said she’d like it if we all started a book club. So I’m going to read some of this and then maybe we can sit around and have a talk about it!

Oh! The Triwizard Tournament is closing in, I don’t remember if I told you but Hogwarts is hosting it this year. Saturday the other schools arrived. It was amazing. The Beauxbatons students are so elegant and graceful! They arrived in a blue flying carriage pulled by winged horses that were all golden! When their Headmistress stepped out she looked like an ice princess with all these feathers on her dress. Then the students came out with all this beautiful water magic and there were golden sparks and it was all amazing. The Durmstrang students were intimidating! It’s crazy to me to think that if Grandmother Banon had remained in Bulgaria, I could have been a Durmstrang student too. I couldn’t imagine that! They’re so serious and like… They arrived in a ship that came out of the lake, bursting through the ice alongside all these patronuses! The students came marching off the ship with these torches held over their heads and then the flames leapt from their torches and made this arc and the Deputy Headmistress came marching off. I don’t think anyone’s seen the Headmaster yet, apparently he wasn’t feeling well.

There was also a HUGE feast where Headmistress O’Keeffe explained all the rules of the tournament, apparently you can only participate if you’re 17. Then she revealed the Goblet of Fire! It’s got these blue flames and it was super cool to watch. There’s also these blue flames around the Goblet which apparently keeps anyone under 17 from trying to put their name in. I wonder who will be chosen from each school… I can’t imagine being chosen for Hogwarts… I hope though… I hope one day I can be in the Triwizard Tournament. Could you imagine? Aures Truegarden, Triwizard Tournament Champion. I’ve heard some students talk about trying to sneak their names into the Goblet but I’m not ready and I know that. I’m still just a kid. But one day!

That’s almost everything, I think. The only thing left is to tell you I’ve found a new project! I’m going to try to learn a musical piece called The Devil’s Trill. It’s by Tartini. I was reading a music book and I found a story about it and really wanted to learn it after that. This composer, Giuseppe Tartini was having a hard time making money as a violinist. He decided he wanted to die- that’s sad isn’t it?- but before he did, he wanted the chance to dream for one last night. That night he dreamed of the devil! Or is it, a devil? Anyways, he told his friend,some French astronomer that he dreamed the devil came and asked him to be his teacher. At the end of their lesson, Tartini gave the devil his violin and asked him to play, to see how good the Devil was. The devil played so amazingly that it took Tartini’s breath away. How I wish I could play that well. Anyways, Tartini woke up with a jolly and jumped out of bed, immediately writing down the sonata and trying to catch what he’d heard in his dream. The Sonata became super successful! Everyone said that you could hear bells and chimes during the performance and that it felt like the room was getting smaller and smaller but Tartini said it was nowhere near as perfect as what he heard in his dream. I want to learn to play The Devil’s Trill and make people feel something. Anyways, I should start this book but… goodnight diary! Thanks for always listening!</p>

#roleplay #harry potter roleplay #second life roleplay #veela #Gryffindor #mischief managed #second life

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greekowl87 · 5 years

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Fic: Weight of the World

A/N: I wrote this within a day with very little editing. I guess bad anxiety and insomnia make great muses for writing. Sorry for any typos. No beta as I rushed to write this. Post IWTB before the separation in season 10. P.S. Smutish if not smutlight. Just a heads up.

Scully was not one to let her anxiety or nerves show.

As a child, she kept her emotions inward and was a private person. In college and med school, she kept her head down to excel at the top of her class. At the FBI academy, she stood head to head with her male cohort and continued to excel with her own merits. At Quantico, no one questioned Dr. Scully. It wasn’t until Mulder that something changed in her. At first, she tried to show him that she was no spy and she was more than capable. But things evolved and shifted and she was his equal. She was simply Scully and she found her emotional armor chinked away over the years. She could finally be herself with him. Years in the field battling alien conspiracies, years on the run, and years living together had not changed them. So she thought.

Ever since Mulder regained his freedom after they helped the FBI, Scully began to see him less and less. A part of her was happy that he was no longer a prisoner but another part of her envied him. It was as if him being a fugitive was the only thing that kept him from running off and forgetting about her.

There it was. That feeling of being left behind. That anxiety that had been growing over the past month that she was struggling to keep hidden away. It gnawed at her and ached like an insufferable pain that could not be cured. She found herself waking more and more in the night. Mulder’s insomnia had somehow transmitted to her once he regained his freedom and she began to feel trapped. Work no longer held the same enjoyment it once did. She started to come back to an empty home with Mulder finally chasing down leads and meeting the contacts from his MUFON forums in person down in Richmond.

When Scully was first assigned to be his partner, it took months to keep him from running off without her. Now, sixteen years later, it was happening all over again.

Despite all this, everything imploded after tonight. She came home to an empty house that evening after a disastrous dinner at her mother’s house. Bill announced in anger over Tara shouting at him, Matthew trying to hush his younger siblings, that Bill was being transferred to Germany to get away from all the family BS. His words, not hers. Charlie and his wife were shouting right back. Maggie Scully caught hopelessly in the middle trying to placate her feuding sons. And that left Dana Scully, somehow silently caught up in the family fight, alone (because Mulder was elsewhere), listening to the random barb dropped in regards to her life choices. Her mother watched helplessly as her sons and their families left in a whirlwind and the sad smile Maggie Scully gave her remaining daughter, wishing her a good evening and not to worry. That night just made her feel even more alone.

By the time she drove back to Virginia, Mulder’s truck was still missing in the driveway. Their house was eerily silent. And that was what caused the dam to break. The ache in her chest, the anxiety that made her want to claw at her skin, came out with silent tears.

She climbed the old wooden steps, the third step from the top creaking loudly, as she ascended to disappear into their bedroom. She thought about maybe taking a bath but decided it was too much effort. Instead, she changed into a large t-shirt and soft cotton pajama pants and crawled into their bed. Scully pulled a frayed cotton quilt around her like a cocoon and just let herself cry.

A physician in the 18th century would have diagnosed her was pangs in the chest. Pangs. Suffering. To be sorrowful. Was she said.? Or was it the anxiety? She balled her fists, her nails digging into the palms of her hands, as she tried to force herself to breathe. This was not something Dana Scully did. Her rational mind recognized the signs of an anxiety attack but she was also angry and hurt. Why did she feel this way? What the hell was causing it? She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, her heart drumming in her ears, and counted silently to four. She tried to ease her breath out slowly but it came out too quickly.

She couldn’t breathe. In a last-ditch effort, she hugged a pillow to her chest and willed herself to steady her breath. This didn’t happen to her. She didn’t panic. She didn’t have anxiety. She was stronger than that.

When she opened her eyes, Scully didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard the downstairs door slam shut and Mulder’s voice calling for her. Did she fall asleep? How much time had passed? Was it already night?

Scully willed herself to move, to get out of bed, and pretend everything was a-okay. That’s what Mulder expected. That is what the rest of the world expected. But her body rebelled and she stayed right in bed. She could hear his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. That loud third step from the top sounded like an alarm.

Panic.

Fear.

Pretend you're asleep, she thought.

“Scully?” His voice was soft. “You awake?” She didn’t respond, trying to keep the ruse going. But something must’ve given it away. “Scully, have you been crying?” Another pause. “I know you aren’t asleep.”

“Fine,” she muttered, twisting her back to him.

“That doesn’t sound like your regular fine. How was your mother’s?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Typically that was enough and he would leave her alone but not this time. She felt the bed dip and he sat on his side so he could look at her. Scully huffed and turned her back to him so she faced the window. “You’re cute when you are angry but it’s painful to see you hurting.”

“I’m not hurting.”

“You know, once upon a time, I used to a profiler at the FBI and they used to pay me to do this work,” Mulder joked.

“Stop profiling me then.”

“It was a joke. Scully, look at me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Mulder traced her cheek and she closed her eyes, feeling fresh tears. He gently peeled back the blanket and traced her arm. “Nothing’s wrong.” She bawled her fist again in frustration. “Mulder, please. I’m fine.”

He ignored her and pried open her fist to take her hand. Like a small child, she tried to pull away. “This isn’t you,” he whispered. “Scully, what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”

She shook her head defiantly. He took a deep breath and curled up behind her and drew the old quilt she had been using around them. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” he whispered. “We can just lay here.”

At that moment, whether it was just the sensation of Mulder surrounding her, not being alone, or both, she cried harder. He pressed his hand to her chest over her heart. “I’m here. Scully, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me. What happened at your mother’s tonight? Is it work? Is it something else? More than once you pulled me together, let me return the favor, but I can’t if you don’t tell me.”

One of the longest minutes of her life passed before she answered. “No, I’m not okay, Mulder.”

“Tell me.”

“Work. My family. Us. Me. Everything.”

She wished the bed would open up to a hole to China so that she could fall into it. Maybe from China, she could travel to Australia and live a different life. “Everything,” he repeated.

“Everything.”

He took a deep breath and her anxiety dissipated slightly feeling him around her, safe and secure. “Well,” he sighed. “Let’s begin with your mother’s dinner.”

She laughed bitterly. “A clusterfuck. I don’t even remember what the argument was about. Charlie and his wife stormed off. Bill started yelling as Tara stood by terrified. He’s getting transferred to Germany. And me? It was like I didn’t even exist.”

He nuzzled behind her ear. “I don’t know about that but I’m sure it’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t think so,” she whispered.

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I don’t know anymore, Mulder.”

“Okay. What about work?”

She shrugged weakly. “Okay. The thing I have avoided: us.”

“It’s nothing, Mulder.”

“It’s something to cause whatever this is,” he whispered.

In the silence, they lay together. Scully closed her eyes trying to memorize the sensations of being held by him and just feeling safe for a moment. “Do you remember at the beginning of our partnership? When you tried to always run off without me?”

“I didn’t trust you then,” he whispered. “But yes, I remember.”

“It feels like that again.”

Scully’s confession striked him as odd. He rubbed her arms and kissed her again. “What do you mean?”

“It sounds selfish.”

“Try me.”

She shifted and turned to face him. “When you were home,” she started, “well, still a fugitive...I always knew you would be here. Maybe I am being selfish but I miss knowing you are going to be here when I get home. When I come home, the house is empty. Lonely. We talk but we don’t talk. Does that make sense? It feels like we are living two separate lives. You are running off without me.”

“I thought you wanted to keep the darkness out of our life.”

“Not at the expense of losing you, Mulder.”

He closed his eyes and bent his forehead to rest against hers. “If I could take away this anxiety and pain that you have, I would in a heartbeat. You aren’t going to lose me. It’s going to be okay. You have to trust me.”

“You know what I miss most of all, Mulder? This. Just this moment with us.” She sighed as if a great pain had been relieved as he began to run his hand up and down her arm, over her face, and then under her shirt. She closed her eyes. “At the end of the day, it’s just us against the world.”

“Hasn’t it always been like that, Scully?” He rolled her gently onto her back and kissed her gently. “You’re starting to relax.”

She closed her eyes despite herself. “You were always the best drug. But this feels like a band-aid at best. I’m still scared. I am worried.”

“Don’t be. We have a life together.”

“Do we?” She opened her eyes and blinked lazily. “Mulder?”

“It seems we both need a reminder.”

Scully relished his touch as he pulled her shirt above her head and began to kiss her breast bone. She relaxed into the pillows and closed her eyes praying that nothing would take him again from her. The anxiety she had festering for the past month vanished under his lips and she shivered. “Mulder,” she murmured.

Her fingers raked through his hair slowly as he found her lips again and, unrushed, enjoyed his ministrations. This was something that a couple did after many years of being together. Unrushed and unhurried, they relished their closeness. For once, their unspoken communication reigned supreme and she pushed against him. Scully felt her anxiety falling away.

“This isn’t a band-aid,” he whispered between kisses. “This is real.” His hand snaked downwards and she became jelly under him. “All this is real. If the world feels like it is shattering around us, we’ll still have us, Scully.”

Scully found it odd that her body felt so ready after so little. Her anxiety must've run her down to nothing. “Shirt off,” she ordered softly.

He arched his bag as she tore off his shirt with practiced ease. Skin against skin, they sighed in contentment. “All or nothing, Scully.”

What an odd turn of events, she thought. A simple reunion of their bodies and spirits and all was well. Was that how it worked? As she let her thoughts drift, Mulder stripped away the remains of their clothes. With a few quick strokes, he entered and joined her. Any doubt and anxiety Scully had left evaporated in a fiery death as she hugged him close and wrapped her legs around his waist. It did not take much as both cried out in unison and sheer emotion ebbed away. He held her close and continued to kiss her leisurely. “You don’t have to be Atlas, Scully. Let me be your Heracles and carry the weight of the world for a while.”

Scully smiled. She let her anxiety go and decided, yet again, to just enjoy the moment. It may be just a band-aid but Mulder was the best drug. “Love you,” she whispered sleepily.

“We’ll be okay, Scully. Just you see.”

Mulder’s voice was heavy with sleep. Emotionally exhausted, she let herself forget and sleep as he kissed her lovingly and whispered they were forever.

#xfiles #xf fic #txf fic #txf #msr #msr fic #mulder and scully #unremarkable house #angst #smut #smutlight #mulder #scully #scully gets anxiety #post iwtb #before season 10 #insomnia is a muse

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bamon4bamily · 5 years

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TVD 9x06 (part 1) Enjoy! =)

Cut to – freaky old mansion, Darius’s room. A portal closes; we see Bonnie laying on Darius’s bed, in a deep sleep, Danae still holding her hand.

DARIUS: Hello, sister.

DANAE: (Looking terrified) Darius…

DARIUS: Don’t look so frightened, Lish, I’m the one looking at a ghost. God, it’s crazy seeing you in the flesh… (he tries to touch her, she quickly steps aside in a panic).

DARIUS: Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you. You made me a promise (looks at Bonnie) and you kept it.

DANAE: I did, now let me go.

DARIUS: I’m sorry, sis, but I can’t do that.

DANAE: We had a deal…

DARIUS: And I will keep my word. I said I wouldn’t hurt you, and I won’t, pinky swear. But I’m sure you can understand why I can’t let you go; can’t have any loose ends…

DANAE: You bastard!

DARIUS: (Sarcastic laugh) I think we both know who the bastard is; mother was always such a flirt.

DANAE: Please, just let me go. I followed your instructions; I swear I’ll keep my mouth shut and disappear.

DARIUS: (Changing the subject) You know, it truly baffles me that you would think I wasn’t aware that you have been alive for all these years… Come on, Lish, I thought you were smarter than that… Do you really think all that tragedy came from karma? Granted it must’ve had a hand in it, but… really? You couldn’t figure it out? Guess the genius genes do come from my father’s side…

DANAE: You’ve known all this time?

DARIUS: Of course, I have. The only reason you are still alive is not because of your flawed immortality serum, which I’ve perfected, by the way, but because I’ve allowed you to… What can I say, I’m a sucker for family drama.

DANAE: You are insane…

DARIUS: We all go a little mad sometimes… (with sarcasm) Yet, I wasn’t the one locked up in an Asylum for years.

DANAE: It was you... You were the one that got me locked up…

DARIUS: Oh no, you did that all on your own; I only suggested the pertinent treatments.

DANAE: (In painful wrath) They put a needle through my eyeball, you crazy fuck!

DARIUS: Trial and error, sis, that’s the only way to verify a theory… just ask your “friend” Marie… Oh wait, you can’t…

DANAE: (Charges him) I’ll kill you!!!!

DARIUS: (Restrains her with his hands; Bonnie starts to move) Shhhhh… you are waking her up. It’s time for you to take a time out; I’ll take it from here. (Some freaky hooded people come in and take Danae away, Darius sits by the bedside, holds Bonnie’s hand).

DANAE: (As she is being taken away) She is going to destroy you, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!

DARIUS: (To the hooded people) Put her in the bunker.

Cut back to – The Mikaelson mansion, 12:05 am. It’s pitch dark. Everyone is passed out on the floor; after a few seconds, they start to react.

DAMON: (Confused) What the hell happened?

ALARIC: I have no idea, but… (before he can even finish his sentence, Damon vamps upstairs to check on Bonnie; she and Danae have vanished… Damon, desperately, vamps his way through every inch of the mansion looking for her, she’s nowhere to be found).

KLAUS: (Also searching) Damon, we have searched everywhere, they are gone.

DAMON: How? We were all by the door, there is no way…

KLAUS: Cloaking spell, who knows? You seem to forget how magic works, my friend, anything is possible. Now, let’s go get the others. (They regather with the group downstairs, Klaus lights some candles so that everyone can have some visibility).

ALARIC: What is going on?!

KLAUS: Bonnie and Danae are gone.

ALARIC: What!? How?

KLAUS: Enough with the how; we need to focus on the where and why.

TYLER: Uhm, guys, I think we have another problem (points to Katherine who is in a catatonic state, they try to snap her out of it, but she is unresponsive, completely lost in a daze).

LEXI: Can’t believe this is happening! I thought we had the perfect plan...

ALARIC: They must have figured it out, orchestrated some sort of stealth attack…

RADKA: All I remember was waiting by the door to attack upon arrival, then I saw an overwhelming light and blacked out.

KHUYANA: Me too…

ALARIC: I think we all did.

DAMON: Enough with the chit chat; we need to find Bonnie.

ALARIC: And we will, Damon, but we have to figure out what we are dealing with first.

DAMON: What is there to figure out, Ric? We know what we are dealing with; a lunatic mind-freak asshole, and his cult groupies. So, let’s skip the over rationalization, and get to the action. Plan is simple, find these bastards, kill these bastards, get Bonnie back.

KLAUS: I agree with Damon, for once.

CAROLINE: Me too.

ALARIC: I would like nothing more, but we don’t even know where these cult freaks are!

KHUYANA: I have a feeling someone might… Matt.

KLAUS: Well, love, that’s not very helpful given that your husband was a no show.

TYLER: My bet is that he’s at the Mayor house; Matt told me he was hosting a Halloween ball; and, for some fucked reason, Matt always seems to be wherever he is.

DAMON: So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!

CAROLINE: I’m game, but first we need to stop by the house and make sure everyone is okay. And leave this one (referring to Katherine) to someone’s care.

DAMON: We can’t waste any time, Care. Klaus, Tyler and I will go find Matt, you guys go back to the house. Once we find Donovan, we’ll drag his sneaky ass back and figure out our next move.

CAROLINE: Okay, just please, don’t do anything without us.

KLAUS: We won’t, love, I’ll make sure of it.

DAMON: Whatever; (to Klaus and Tyler) wolf-boys, let’s move.

Everyone leaves; as they are driving, they stare in disbelief at the scenery; the entire town seems to be having a total blackout; not a single light at sight.

Cut to – freaky old mansion. Darius takes Bonnie into a private section of the mansion. It’s a strange ballroom, set up as a worship haven, reminiscing of Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” scene…

DARIUS: My queen… behold your kingdom. (He takes her by the hand and leads her to the center of the altar, inside a Hecate symbol. All the guests, wearing hooded togas and masks, kneel upon her).

DARIUS: At last, the goddess has arrived! (They start chanting in her worship).

BONNIE: (Whispers to Darius) Darling, this is a bit much, don’t you think?

DARIUS: Nothing is too much when it comes to you. Bonnie Sheila Bennett, you are a goddess, you just need to believe it. You can do anything you set your mind to, no restrictions, no consequences. You are the alpha and the omega…

BONNIE: No restrictions... that does sound tempting…

DARIUS: Just let yourself be free, my love, embrace your destiny...

Bonnie, seduced by the feeling of absolute power, lets go of the last hold she has over who she is and embraces her power to the fullest. A huge energy field emerges from her, the biggest one yet...At this precise moment, a new Bonnie is born, a child of fire and desire, a purely instinctual creature with the power to create… and destroy.

youtube

Cut to- freaky bunker. Matt, sitting outside the heavily sealed door, which is now open. He is crying.

MATT: (To himself) What have I done… what have I done…

MILITARY MAN: General…

MATT: Don’t call me that! I’m not a General! I am the Sheriff of Mystic Falls, that is all…I don’t belong here...

MILITARY MAN: I’ll give you some space, Sir. (Walks away, approaches another military man) I think the General has lost his mind…

MILITARY MAN 2: Cut him some slack, he’s under a lot of stress. How would you react if that order had to come from you? That has to break a man...

MILITARY MAN: Do you think we are doing the right thing, here?

MILITARY MAN 2: Not sure if it’s the right thing but it’s the only thing we can do if we want to have a fighting chance.

Cut to – The Salvatore mansion. Stefan, Elena, and Sam are in the living room. The gang walks in. Caroline sees Stefan and runs to hug him.

CAROLINE: Oh, thank god, you are alright! The girls?

STEFAN: They are sleeping, they fine; we are all fine, it’s just a blackout.

CAROLINE: Oh, trust me, it’s much more than that.

ELENA: (To Caroline, looking quite pissed) Uhm, hello?!

CAROLINE: Elena! Oh my god, you are here! I totally forgot to…

ELENA: Oh, I know! Stefan put me up to do date… what the hell, Care!?

CAROLINE: I’m sorry, we thought you didn’t want to be involved in these things anymore. (To Sam) Hey, Sam…

SAM: Hey… (looking quite uncomfortable, given the situation).

ELENA: Where is Bonnie?

CAROLINE: We don’t know, something went wrong…

STEFAN: What happened?

CAROLINE: As soon as the clock stroke midnight, there was this huge light blast, then everyone passed out. When we woke up, Bonnie and Danae were gone.

STEFAN: Where is Damon?

CAROLINE: He went with Klaus and Tyler to look for Matt; we think he might know where Darius is.

STEFAN: (Looking at a catatonic Katherine) And what happened to her?

RADKA: We don’t know either… she won’t snap out it; she is physically fine, but…

CAROLINE: She’ll be okay, she is just in shock. (To Alaric) Let’s go check on the girls…

ALARIC: They are asleep, Care, we don’t want to wake them.

CAROLINE: We won’t; just as kiss so they know we are fine. (They go upstairs).

ELENA: Lexi, glad to see you made it back…

LEXI: (With a bit of disdain; still resentful for how she hurt Stefan) Well it was all thanks to my girl Bonnie… now that’s what I call I real woman.

STEFAN: So, Lex, can you tell us exactly what happened?

LEXI: I’ll try my best…

Cut to – The Mayor’s mansion. Damon, Klaus, and Tyler arrive.

DAMON: How come this is the only place that has electricity?

TYLER: Privileges of the elite…

KLAUS: Please, Lockwood, if that were the case, there be electricity at my house as well. (Tyler rolls his eyes; they ring the doorbell).

ANTHONY: Fashionably late, I see. Invitations, please.

DAMON: One vampire and two hybrids, how is that for an invitation?

ANTHONY: I’m afraid I don’t follow your sense of humor, Sir. So, once again, invitations, please.

KLAUS: What he means is that if you don’t invite us in, we will rip your insides out… how is that for a sense of humor?

ANTHONY: Gentlemen, I don’t want any trouble, but I cannot allow you inside without an invitation.

EDWARD: (Edward comes to the door, sensing something is up) Anthony, what is going on?

ANTHONY: Sir, I…

TYLER: Wow, you really went all out with your costume…

DAMON: (To himself) I freakin hate clowns…

EDWARD: What is the trouble here?

KLAUS: We are looking for Matt Donovan, we were told he might be around…

EDWARD: Well, you have been misinformed, the Sheriff is not here. Granted he was invited, but he declined. Feel free to come inside and see for yourselves.

ANTHONY: Sir…

EDWARD: It’ fine, Anthony. Come in; you are also welcome to indulge if you like.

Cut to back to – the old freaky mansion. Darius and Bonnie inside his illusion realm.

BONNIE: That kiss made me thrust, care to offer this lady a drink?

DARIUS: I would be delighted (holds her hand and takes her to the bar).

DARIUS: (To the bartender) Champagne for the lady.

BARTENDER: Coming right up, Sir.

BONNIE: Actually, I’m bourbon kinda a gal. (Mocking) I thought you knew me better...

DARIUS: Sorry, love, I assumed…

BONNIE: Well, you know what they say about assuming (winks, Darius looks confused). Just teasing, dear. (Gives him a peck on the cheek, then looks around). This is quite the party…

DARIUS: It’s all for you, my love.

BONNIE: You spoil me too much.

DARIUS: Anything for you…

BONNIE: You are making blush…

DARIUS: I love to see you blush.

BONNIE: Careful. I might not be able to control myself.

DARIUS: Neither will I…

(They kiss passionately, find themselves a private spot, and...)

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Cut back to – the Mayor’s mansion. Damon, Tyler, and Klaus are looking for Matt.

TYLER: (Looking at the decadence) Damn, and here I thought I had seen it all… These people are freaking insane…

DAMON: Concentrate, Lockwood! (Getting frustrated) Where the hell is Donovan!?

KLAUS: I think the clown was telling the truth...

EDWARD: (Who has snuck up on them) I told you...

DAMON: (Jumps in a fright) Jesus, holly shit hole!

EDWARD: I take it you don’t like clowns (smirks)? I’m sorry, gentlemen, but he is not here. And, now that I know he wasn’t with you either, I think I just might know where, or rather, who he is with. As much as it hurts that he would betray my trust, I’m almost certain that he is with a man called Darius.

KLAUS: You know Darius?

EDWARD: Unfortunately, I do. Has been the stone in my shoe for quite some time now.

DAMON: Where can we find him?

EDWARD: At a freaky old mansion… thing is, it’s not easy to find.

TYLER: What do you mean?

EDWARD: Well, it seems to appear and disappear; making it quite difficult to track.

DAMON: I’ve seen that trick before, we just need the location; we’ll figure it out from there.

EDWARD: You make it sound so simple. You are aware of who you are dealing with, correct? Darius is the master of illusion, capable of making you believe whatever he wants…

DAMON: (Getting pissed off) Can you tell us the location, or not!?

EDWARD: Temper, temper… Listen, Damon, is it? All I can tell you is that the last time I was able to locate the mansion it was at this address (shows them a location on his phone).

TYLER: That’s impossible; that’s where Matt’s old house is.

EDWARD: Well, that´s uncanny...

DAMON: (To Klaus and Tyler) Let’s go...

EDWARD: If you are thinking that the trick is a cloaking spell, I can assure it’s not. Like I said, Darius is an illusionist, the only way to see through his illusions is to find a loophole; and trust me, that is not an easy thing to do; especially if you don’t have the proper abilities. So, unless one of you is a psychic-witch, it’s pretty much useless.

DAMON: How were you able to find him before?

EDWARD: With a little help from my friends (points to a mystery lady, and a strange man).

KLAUS: (Completely taken with her) She is breathtaking... (stares in intrigue) seems so familiar...

EDWARD: Does she, now?

TYLER: What’s with the freaky glove?

EDWARD: Let’s just say, she has quite a peculiar taste.

DAMON: Can she help us find Darius?

EDWARD: She can, but I must warn you, with her, there is always a price to pay.

DAMON: I really don’t care, as long as she can lead us to Bonnie.

EDWARD: Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Come with me. (They approach the mystery lady) My dear, I’d like to introduce you to some friends of mine...

LADY: Pleasure to meet your acquaintance, gentleman.

youtube

TVD 9x06 (part 2) coming soon! Hope you stop by, read and enjoy! =)

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nbapprentice · 6 years

Photo

there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

#the arcana #the arcana game #julian devorak #count lucio #asra #HAHA HOO BOY

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squirrelly831 · 4 years

Text

Child Makes Mom Cry [Youngjae, Jongup, and Junhong]

I apologize for how long these turned out to be. That was not my intention. I just got carried away…

Enjoy~!

Youngjae

It all started when Allison’s and Youngjae’s daughter, Hayeong, asked to go over to her best friend’s, Iseul, house for a sleepover. Allison had no problem and agreed to it, so after packing a backpack, Hayeong walked the two blocks to Iseul’s house. Allison received a text from Iseul’s mother, Allison’s college friend Yuri, that said Hayeong made it to the house.

Allison laid out on the couch and watched a movie when her phone rang. “Hey girl hey!”

“Heyyy! I just got home. I’m so tired. I was calling because Issy left her medicine at the house. Should I bring it to you?”

Allison sat up and paused the movie, “What are you talking about? They’re sleeping at your place.”

“What?” Yuri asked. “That’s not what I was told. Issy told me they would be at your place. She called me on my work line, I misplaced my phone this morning.”

Allison was silent as she tried to figure out what was going on. A light bulb went off, “When was Yeonmi’s sleepover party?”

Yuri let out a growl, “Tonight.” She replied through her teeth. “Pick me up?”

“Yea” Allison said. Anger filled her voice, “I’ll be there in five minutes.” She hung up and stormed out of the house to her car. Neither Allison and Yuri agreed with their daughters wanting to go to a slumber party at Yeonmi’s home. Yeonmi’s mother was the last one they’d trust their daughters with. She cared more of being her daughter’s best friend than being her mother. Which Allison knew meant that this party was unsupervised and that wasn’t going to happen with her twelve year old daughter around.

Allison pulled up to the house and the two of them marched up to the door. They pounded on the door and when Yeonmi’s mother answered it in annoyance, Allison and Yuri walked past her ignoring her complaints.

They entered the living room and Iseul’s face paled. “Where’s Hayeong?” Yuri growled. Iseul pointed to the closet in fear. Yuri grabbed Iseul and yanked her out of the house as Allison swung open the closet.

Hayeong was pressed against the ground and a boy was nervously looking down at her. When they saw Allison, they jumped apart and Hayeong gulped, “mo–”

“Get up. Now. We’re going.” Hayeong didn’t protest as she ran out, grabbed hers and Iseul’s bags and ran out to the car.

During the drive home, Yuri let them both have it as Allison focused on the road. After they dropped off Yuri and Iseul, Allison marched into the house first and threw her bag on the sidetable. “So, not only did you lie about where you were, but you were in a closet with a boy! Have you LOST your mind?!” she hissed as she stood at the end of the hallway and waited for Hayeong to explain herself.

“It’s not that big of a deal, mom. We didn’t do anything thanks to you.”

Allison scoffed, “And of all places, Yeonmi’s house! You know I don’t like you over at that house! Her mother is irresponsible!”

“She’s not irresponsible! She just knows how to have fun unlike you. She’s actually a cool mom? She actually let’s us have fun and let’s us do what we want unlike you” Hayeong complained. “Why can’t Yeonmi’s mom be my mom? She’s so much cooler and better.”

Allison let the insult roll off, “I don’t care. I’m not here to be the cool mom. You’re grounded for a month.”

Hayeon let out a scream, “I hate you! I wish you weren’t my mom!”

Youngjae sat quietly in the living room as he listened into the conversation, but his silence broke when he heard Hayeong insults. He walked into the hallway still dressed from work and glared at Hayeong, “Your room. Now!” He growled. Hayeong ran to her bedroom in fear and Youngjae went over to Allison. “Are you okay, Jagiya?” He asked as he wiped a stray tear.

Allison gave him a small smile, “Yea, she’s just mad. I’ll try not to take it personally.” She was pulled into a hug and he pecked her lips, “Welcome home. I wish it was under better circumstances” she let out a small laugh.

Youngjae smiled, “I’m glad to be home.”

Jongup

Maddy’s high school twin daughters made it their mission to drive their mother off the wall. She didn’t understand why they attacked her the way they did, but it was obvious that they weren’t close to ending it. They broke curfew, texted in class and grades were slipping, and did not around the house.

Jongup knew of some of the problems, but Maddy was a stay at home mom and she refused to let Jongup get involve just yet. She didn’t want to feel like two high school girls were getting the better of her, but she had enough.

Maddy was out at the grocery store when she received a phone call from her daughters’ school for the umpteenth time, complaining about the twin’s behavior.

It may have been petty, but Maddy didn’t care anymore. When she got home, she threw the groceries on the counter before she looked for her small hammer and went to both of the girl’s bedrooms. She took apart the hinges and moved both of the doors into the storage room.

When the twins came home, they didn’t even bother to greet their mom which Maddy didn’t care about. She relaxed on the couch with a tea and book in hand.

“5, 4, 3,2…”

“MOM!” As if on queue the twins screamed in anger before they stomped down the hall.

Maddy put her tea down and shut her book, “Well hello to you too, girls. How was your day?”

“What the hell? Where’s our doors?” The oldest twin, Hana, screeched.

“Yea, and our laptops?” The youngest twin, Dana, cried.

Maddy stood up and shrugged, “They’re gone. You’ve lost those and also your phones. Put them on the coffee table.”

Hana let out a cold laugh, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Phones. You don’t need them.”

Dana held her phone close to her, “Like hell we don’t! How do we talk to our friends?”

“You don’t. It’s called being grounded. I’m sick of your antics. Failing class, breaking curfew, not helping out, and now YOU’RE BULLYING ANOTHER STUDENT! Who do you think you are?”

The girls rolled their eyes, “You’re not taking my damn phone! I don’t care who the hell you are. Mother or not, I’ll fight you if you take me phone from me.” Hana screamed.

The three were in a screaming match as the twins cursed at Maddy and Maddy snapped at them for their disrespectful behavior. Maddy was at her wits end. She was boiling in rage as a couple of tears fell.

Jongup came home early only to be greeted by the shouts. He was shocked to hear how disrespectful the twins were.

“Last time, put your phones on the coffee table and leave!”

“We.Are.Not–”

Jongup made a priority to slam the door to get his family’s attention. He didn’t have to say anything to the twins as he stormed up to them and held out his hand. They just handed over and he shooed them. Maddy stared in amazement as she had never seen their children flee so fast. He turned to her and kissed her cheek after he put the phones on the coffee table, “I’ll deal with this mess. Should I order us dinner?”

Maddy looked at him as tears fell and she laughed, “Have I told you how much I love you?” Jongup chuckled as he wiped her tears, “You need to teach me how to do that.” He pecked her lips before he sat down. They would talk about the severity of the consequence that the twins should receive for their actions.

Junhong

Kiara secretly hated one thing: When Junhong took an extended amount of time at the company to work on some music. This time it was two weeks. It’s not like he was that far, an hour and a half away by car and about half that by train. Junhong needed to focus on his music and Kiara swore up and down that she could handle their four child on her own for the two weeks. He told her to call if there was any problem, but she refused. She needed to prove to herself that she could handle their kids on her own.

But, Kiara learned after the fourth day that there was a high possibility she would cave in and break. The kids were out of control that first day. It was like they knew their punisher was away. The oldest, their fourteen year old daughter Grace, was sneaking in her no longer secretive boyfriend in the house when Kiara was away at work.

When Kiara found that out by her second child, ten year old Matthew, she immediately confronted her oldest. “You’re bringing your boyfriend to our home without our permission? What in the world are you thinking? Are you having sex?”

Her response was short, “We’re being safe” she shrugged it off.

Kiara fumed, “I don’t care if you’re safe, you’re fourteen! You’re not allowed to bring him over again nor can you go to his place! End of discussion.”

Kiara expected that to be the end of that until she woke up one night when Aaron, one of her seven year old fraternal twins, came to her room crying about creepy sounds. Kiara checked out the house only to find Grace was not in her room and her window was wide open, so Kiara waited in Grace’s room for her to sneak back in and that’s when Kiara grounded her and took her phone.

Of course that wasn’t the end of it. Matthew’s school called Kiara to tell her that he wasn’t doing his work and his grades slipped. Again, confronting her child, Matthew shrugged it off and said it was just boring and too tired.

Kiara hoped that the twins would be better than their older siblings, but she couldn’t expect much from two seven year old boys. They did nothing but argue with one another about everything from sharing toys to one accidentally hitting the other with an item. Kiara broke. With the one-way arguments with the oldest two each night or being the mediator between the two youngest, she couldn’t do it anymore.

She broke and called Junhong the morning all the kids were away at school. “I’m sorry, I know you’re busy, but I need your help” she cried. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I need you here, Junhong.”

Junhong heard how broken his wife sounded and he didn’t think twice on throwing his work to the side as he rushed home midday. When he got home, he found her in bed crying, “Baby… Come here.”

“I can’t do this… I’m sorry, Junhong. I can’t” she cried.

Junhong lay down beside her to comfort Kiara and kissed her. Once he calmed her down, he watched her sleep for a while before he went to get the twins. In a soft loving voice, he lectured them, not too harshly because they were only 7. Which of course he got two large grins from them as they promised to love each other. He put the twins on the bed with their sleeping mom and they instantly curled beside her and went to sleep.

Junhong waited downstairs for the older kids to get home. As he sat, he slowly began to get angry over what the oldest two pulled with his wife. He felt nothing but anger.

When the two walked in they greeted him with large grins, “I thought you’d be back later!” Grace laughed as she ran towards him.

“Why? So you could keep causing your mother stress? Really, bringing boys into the house without us knowing?”

The color drained from her face and Matthew laughed, “Busted.”

Junhong glared at him, “And you, bored with school, huh? Why don’t we just sign you up for a hagwon. You need some extra push. Maybe the twin’s daycare service can babysit a 14 year old and a 10 year old who want to act like they’re 4!” Matthew immediately became tight lipped as he swallowed hard.

Part I

Credit to gif owners

Written & revamped by Squirrelly831

♕ REQUEST

☮ B.A.P MASTERLIST

∞ ULTIMATE MASTERLIST

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video-killed-the-radio-host · 5 years

Text

Heartbeats on the Airwaves chapter 7

@acealex-blueiguana. Sorry I took so long Pez pequeño💜

----- -----

Cecil? I was thinking about the series of ongoing actions that we perceive as the present, and the amassing of memories that we treat as the living record of the past and the hopes and dreams and assumptions that we project as the future. I was thinking about time. And about how it means something to so many people, and about how it’s so finite, and also so infinite.

I was also thinking about space. About how it is nothing, and then, a point which is just a single spot within the nothing, and a line which separates the nothing into two nothings, and how a plane is a patch of nothing and an angle just where two nothings meet, but all those things combined, with an object of points, lines, planes, and angles, an object with length and width and depth that can take up actual space. Until that object becomes something made of nothing – within nothing.

An object can be a wall, a floor, a roof, a bed, a table, a dog, a door, a rug, a…a home.

And then, I thought about how a home is just a group of objects connected by a shared personal experience of time – our past, our present, our assumed future. A home is…I mean, uh, scientifically speaking, speaking form the point of view of mere facts and logic, and um…hmm. You know, what with science, and all…uhhh, I– I– I just thought it was…time for us to…make a home together.

Cecil looks down at the simple but elegant band on his finger. It was shiny and kept distracting him. Every time he saw it, he would smile widely. Dana told him he was a dork and he just shrugs, telling her she was likely the same way when she first got engaged.

“You said ‘neat’? Man, you really are a disaster, aren’t you?” Dana shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

Cecil crosses his arms in a mock pout. “You should be nice to me.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Dana snorts with a laugh.

“Because the best man shouldn’t bully the groom. It’s rude.” Cecil says with a smirk.

“Yeah well-wait, excuse me?” Dana blanches, turning back to look at him.

“If you want of course. I won’t force you to- “

“Cecil.” Dana interrupts his rambling.

“-I just doesn’t have many close friends and I figured that you were a natural choice and- “

“Cecil!” Dana says again. “Can you stop talking for like two seconds?”

“I make no promises.” Cecil answers and smiles.

Dana rolls her eyes but hugs him. “I’d be honored to be your best man.”

“You mean it?”

“No.” Dana says bluntly.

Cecil’s face fell. “Wh- “

“Yes, of course I mean it your big dope.”

“You need to work on how you accept stuff like that.” Cecil says, once she had let go and stepped back. “Because some people don’t get your sarcasm.”

“Only you dear.” Dana laughs and pats his shoulder. “Come on. Lauren wants you to go the park. An interview is waiting for you there. Apparently, whoever refused to give the story to anyone else.”

Cecil hummed and nodded. “Let’s get our people together then.” He says, setting the file he was holding in a drawer on his desk before closing it with his hip. “Before I get sent somewhere crazy again.” He makes a face and sighs a little.

“I wish you were here earlier when she got that call. She was fuming. I’ve never seen here that pissed.” Dana giggled. “Well except when you came back after getting shot but she’s just a bitch.”

“Careful. Talking about her summons her.” Another intern from across the room, named Alex says. “No one wants that.”

Cecil chuckles softly. “Yeah. True. Come on Dana. Now’s our chance to escape.”

They gather a camera crew and piled into a van before heading to the park. They made small talk, mostly teasing Cecil about his not so subtle giddiness. Cecil huffed in mock annoyance and parked the car.

“You people make me want to drink.”

“Cecil, you get drunk after like two drinks. That statement doesn’t really hold up.” One of the cameramen, Daniel, says.

“I don’t have to deal with this abuse!” Cecil throws his hands up and gets out.

“Aw Ceec, don’t be a prude.” Dana cackles.

“I am not a prude.” Cecil grumbled.

“So, who exactly are we meeting anyway?” Dana asks, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Daniel climbs out of the van and begins to set up his camera and equipment.

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t told- “

“Excuse me, are you Cecil? Carlos’ Cecil?” A young feminine voice asks, making Cecil turn.

The girl was young, no older than seventeen. She had strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

“I take it you are who I am meeting?”

“Yes sir. Carlos said you’d be best to speak with because he, and I quote, ‘the most honest, likeable man you will ever meet. With a voice you could drown in.’ Honestly, he’s a bit mushy but he’s adorable so I let it slide.”

Cecil blushes brightly and Dana just shakes her head.

“They are hopeless.” She says before letting out a loud sigh. The girl just laughs and holds out her hand.

“My name is Ami. Your, ah, I mean, Dr. Mendez told me you are the best person to tell my story to.”

“Let’s get started then, shall we?”

“Ask away.”

Cecil felt himself at easily relaxing. Ami was easy to talk to. She was full of energy and life and dreams. She reminded Cecil of himself when he was younger.

“I actually didn’t find out about the Foundation until two years ago and then I had to research it a bit. He made me realize that this world isn’t all bad. It’s…. nice. I think when I’m old enough, I want to get involved in the Foundation. I want to be a part of something amazing.” She had explained. “I want to be just like him. Carlos.” She finished.

“Thank you.” Cecil says, as his phone starts to go off. He knew that ringtone and decided to ignore it for now. “For sharing your story with me.”

“I think the world needs to know that women have options. That it’s okay to not know what to do. That there is help out there. They just need to know where to look.”

It was then that Dana joins them. “Hey, you do know that the Ice Queen is calling you right?”

“I do indeed.”

“Well now she’s calling me so answer her because I don’t want to deal with that.”

Cecil sighs and turns to Ami once more. “It was really nice to meet you Miss Storm. You have a bright future ahead of you. I hope to hear about it.”

“You as well Mr. Palmer. Be safe.”

“I’ll do my best.” That was an honest statement.

“Goodbye for now.” She waves and turns, heading towards the library.

Cecil groans aloud as his phone rings again. He pulls it out and answers it.

“Ma’am.” He said, careful to not portray any emotions.

“It’s about time.”

“I apologize. I was working.”

“You are to answer me when I call you.”

Cecil puffs his cheeks out to avoid shooting off at the mouth. “How can I help you Ms. Mallard?” He asked instead.

“There was a drug bust down town that I want you to go check out.”

Cecil hated downtown. He always felt unsafe there. It gave him bad vibes, and it didn’t help that it was pretty shady.

“But I- “

“Don’t argue Cecil.”

“Yes ma’am.” Cecil sighs. “Anything else?”

Watch out for guns. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

Cecil tightens his jaw, forcing back the panic attack that was rising. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Yes ma’am.”

There was a click at the end of the call and then silence. Cecil lowers the phone with shaking hands and leans against a tree, closing his eyes. He stays still for a good five minutes or so before opening his eyes.

“We have to go downtown.”

“Cecil you hate downtown.” Dana says with a confused expression.

“Duty calls dear.”

“That crazy bi- “

“Let’s just go so we can get home.” Cecil says, wrapping his arms around himself.

`````.`````

Khoshekh howling at the window let Carlos know that Cecil was home. He was later than usual and hadn’t called, and its worried Carlos a bit. He knew a thing or two about unpredictable schedules, but that didn’t keep him from worrying. He knew how dangerous Cecil’s job was. He makes his way from the study to the front door, unlocking it and opening it to greet the other man just to have his heart drop to his stomach. Cecil’s face was pale, and he had a red spot on his cheek His normally tidy clothes were wrinkled and untucked. Before Carlos could speak, Cecil collapsed into his arms, hugging him tightly.

“What happened to you Querido Corazon?” Carlos asked softly.

Cecil just tightens his hold on Carlos’ shirt, shaking like a chihuahua.

“I’m going to move you inside okay?” Carlos says. Cecil makes a noise of which Carlos assumes is agreement because he takes a step back but doesn’t let go of Carlos’ shirt. Carlos moves slowly inside, closing and locking the door once more before guiding Cecil to the couch and sitting him down.

“What happened?” Carlos asks again. “Are you hurt? Did Lauren do this?”

Cecil shakes his head. “I had…I had to do a report down town, a drug bust. But when I was leaving and making my way back to the car, I was….” He drew a sharp breath and his voice cracked. “They stole my ring.” He manages to get out before breaking down. “I tried to get it back. I did I promise! Please don’t be mad.” He brings his hands up, gripping his now undone hair and pulling at it.

Carlos feels his heart break at the scene in front of him. He puts his hands over Cecil’s. “Hey.” He whispers. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I promise. You did nothing wrong. I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I’ll pay you back! I promise. Please don’t leave me.” Cecil begs.

“Cecil, I promise I’m not going anywhere. I will never leave you.”

Cecil didn’t seem to be registering anything. His eyes clouded over. Shit. Carlos knew what that meant.

“Cecil. Look at me.” He begs. “Please.”

Cecil shrinks away. “What are you doing here Tyler? Where-where’s Carlos? I want Carlos. Leave me alone.”

“Cecil, Tyler can’t hurt you anymore. I promise.” He could hear the desperation in his own voice.

“Get away from me!”

“Hey.” Carlos says softly. “One look at you, my whole life falls in line. I prayed for you before I called you mine.” He sings softly. Cecil was still shaking now, but his breathing wasn’t as harsh anymore. Carlos goes on. “Oh, I can’t believe it’s true sometimes. Oh, I can’t believe it’s true. I get to love you. It’s the best thing that I’ll ever go. I get to love you. It’s a promise I’m making to you. Whatever may come, your heart I will choose- “

“Forever I’m yours, forever I do.” Came Cecil’s whisper. He was still clouded over but the response was a good sign.

“I get to love you. I get to love you. The way you love, it changes who I am. I am undone. I thank god once again.”

“Oh, I can’t believe it’s true sometimes….” Cecil takes a breath. “Carlos?”

“Yes, my love, my light?” Carlos meets Cecil’s eyes.

“I’m sorry. I did it, again didn’t I?”

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

Cecil is quiet for a minute. “He did this to me. He is the one that attacked me today. He said- “Cecil shudders. “That we still had a spark.”

Carlos tightens his jaw. Then his grip around Cecil tightens a little. “I’m so sorry.” He says, pressing a kiss just below Cecil’s right eye. “I should have been there.”

Cecil lets out a watery laugh. “You were at work your dork. And if you were there, I would get nothing done because I’d keep staring at you.”

“Maybe you should carry a sword.” Carlos teases.

Then came a howl from down the hall.

“I think someone demands attention.” Carlos chuckles.

“He can wait. Right now, I want you.” Cecil murmurs, looking up. “Take me to bed? Make me forget him.”

“I can do that.” Carlos says, standing and offering a hand to help Cecil up. He then slowly walks backwards, to their room, shutting Khoshekh out.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Who's Tyler? What did he do? Stay tuned to find out.

Next chapter you meet two new characters!!!

#wtnv #welcome to night vale #wtnv carlos #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist #wtnv cecil #cecilos #fanfiction #and cecilos content #au #fic wip #wip #hbotaw #lauren mallard #wtnv lauren #dana cardinal

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deepdisireslonging · 6 years

Text

Family Found Part 30: Challenge Accepted

Some of the last pieces for Clash of Champions are put into place. The Reader wants Dean to help her out with a little experiment she’s running.

Warnings/Promises: wrestling violence

Word Count: 2080

Total Word Count So Far: 89,730

Note: Or as I like to call this chapter, ‘poke the title week’! I do it way too much in this chapter, but I feel like it’s the best way to rile someone up. Who doesn’t dislike getting poked? And I have a total count for the chapters! There’s going to be 50, so we’re over half-way through! If you’ve been enjoying the series, please let me know with a comment or a message sent to my inbox. I’d greatly appreciate knowing your favorite bits. Have fun reading this chapter too!

Part 1: Welcome to the Team

Part 29: A Dangerous Road

Monday Night Raw – December 3, 2018

Balor Club welcomed their leader as he made his way to the ring. Finn made sure to lean deep on the ropes, showing off his red and gold championship. Then he stepped through the ropes and accepted a mic.

“Last week was… interrestin’.” He started. “And Seth, I bet you have to agree. So why don’t you get out here so we can talk about it?” Waiting patiently, he smiled as the crowd cheered ‘burn it down’ and may have joined them. Just a little bit.

Seth strutted into the ring with a smile. “What’s there to talk about, Finn? We were doing what we do best, fighting to be the best man, and then our, uh,” he rubbed the back of his head, “our partners decided to flip the play.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Finn said. “They tried us, then we continued to do what we do best, and be the workhorses of this company. The best men. The ones worthy of the gold we carry. ”

Smirking, Seth had to agree. “We did good. Heaven forbid we ever get the tag titles in our sights. Or, sorry Balor, hell forbid.” But he shook his head. “Don’t let last week go to your head. We may be friends, but come Clash of Champions, we will be opponents.”

“I wouldn’ want it any other way.”

They both paused, looking each other over. Somewhere, someone tried to start a ‘hug it out’ chant, but it didn’t have the chance to run as Finn raised his microphone to his lips.

“I would have beaten you.”

Seth shook his head. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“It’s not my sleep you should be worried about.” Finn circled him. “I have a feelin’ I’m not the one tossin’ and turnin’ because of how close some of those counts got. You may be the Intercontinental Champ ‘round here,” he stopped. Seth turned around to face him, flinching as Finn tapped the title on his shoulder, “but I’m the Universal Champ. The people’s champion. And I bet t’at just eats you up inside. Knowin’ I am more worthy of this title than you will ever be. T’at’s what I wanted to tell you. See ya at Clash of Champions.”

He nodded on last time, then stepped through the ropes, leaving Seth behind and not turning his back until he was up the ramp.

***

The next round of the women’s tag team tournament was the first official match of the night. Mickie and Alicia came out to the ring, ready to throw down and win their spot at Clash of Champions. Alexa Bliss came with them, dressed in a sharp suit to be their ring-side accompaniment. Bayley came out next. She laughed to see Alicia already mocking Rhonda’s punch-n’-bounce. But Rhonda Rousey music didn’t hit. Sasha Banks’s did.

“What!” Corey shouted. “How can Bayley trust her? After all the times Sasha has stabbed her in the back.”

Renee took over while he sputtered. “Maybe that’s why this could work. Bayley isn’t going to give second chances, and Sasha’s not going to be preoccupied with coming up with a back-stabbing plan. No plotting or looking over their shoulders. Just the goal at hand.” She hummed. “It might just work.”

They continued to debate the ability of Bayley and Sasha as their opponents did everything they could to break them apart. But the trio was so focused on distracting them, that they were distracted themselves. The friend-hate duo played into every trick, but in such a way that drained Alicia and Mickie. By the time the women realized it, Bayley had flipped Mickie out of the way with a Bayley to Belly, and Sasha had Alicia locked in a Bank Statement. Alexa couldn’t get into the ring in time to keep her from tapping.

Standing on either side of the ref while he raised their hands, they gave each other guarded smiles. The plan had worked… this time.

***

Backstage, Seth spoke to a techie, who pointed further down the hallway. “Thanks. Ambrose!” He quickened his steps to catch up to Dean. “Hey, man, do you know where your cousin is? She wasn’t in her office and I need to ask a favor.”

Dean finished off taping his hands. “She was coming back from a situation in catering.” He smirked. “Finn got under your skin again, didn’t he?”

“No.” Seth fiddled with his wrist straps. “Fine. Maybe. But I’m just as deserving of the Universal as he is and just as much of a people’s choice.”

“Alright, alright!” Dean held his hands up in defense, chuckling when Seth’s shoulders deflated.

“Sorry.” He looked Dean up and down. “What are your plans for Clash of Champions?”

He ran his tongue over his lips and tilted his head. “Dunno. Might just sit back and watch this one. Maybe I’ll text Renee notes on her commentary. Maybe… I’ll pay you and Finn a visit during your match. Haven’t held the Universal yet… and I’d love to have my Intercontinental back.”

Seth stepped back from Dean’s fingers ready to tap at the belt. “Don’t you dare,” he said with a grin. “We’d both kick your ass.”

“Ha, assuming I wouldn’t kick both of yours.” He shook his head. “But weren’t you looking for the other Ambrose?” He punched at Seth’s unoccupied shoulder, then twisted away, leaving Seth to once again stand alone.

***

As the runners-up for the guy’s tag team number one contenders, the B-Team had challenged the Revival. They wanted to prove that they could win on their own, and then take care of any distractions that might come up. The Revival was more than happy to answer the call, and they kept the B-Team on their toes. The longer the match went on, the more the Revival noticed something. If Curtis was in the ring, Bo was reaching for a tag. He was watching the ramp and the back of the ring. And vise versa.

Neither was paying much attention to their present opponents.

It cost them the match. Dash and Wilder rolled their victims out of the ring so they could have their arms raised in an empty ring.

***

Charly Caruso rounded a corner and almost bumped into her next interviewee. “Braun, sorry. Um, could you tell us why you’ve joined up with the man we used to know as Bray Wyatt? You’ve been a dominant figure here on Monday Night Raw. What do you gain by teaming up with Dr. M?” She held up her microphone, patiently waiting while he thought over his answer.

He gently took the mic from her so she didn’t have to reach. “For the past several months, my goals have been just out of my reach.” He crossed his arms, one giant elbow wrapped in a black bandage. “My best, my rage, it hasn’t been enough. Even though it got me so close. Now I’m a tag team champion.”

Charly nodded and moved to take her mic, but he held it up out of reach. She motioned for him to continue.

“Bray or Dr. M, he’s… healed whatever problems I’ve had focusing on how to get what I want. I’ve got another goal in mind. And I know he’s going to help me get that one to. In time.” He finally returned Charly’s equipment, then continued on his way.

***

“You want this.” Natalya watched herself on the Titontron standing toe to toe with Nia from last week. “And you know what, I want to see you try. Next week. I’ll see you there, and I’ll see you fail.” The video ended and Natalya focused her attention to the stage. “Well, Nia. I’m here. You want this?” She nudged her shoulder, raising the title. “Then come out here and get it.”

A minute later, Nia did just that. When the bell rang, they circled each other. They both froze as Ember Moon’s music sounded, and she walked out onto the stage. She made a show of walking just to the top of the ramp, then turning back towards the announce table and joining them. “Hey Corey, Cole, Renee. Thought I’d drop in and give my input on this match, if that’s alright?”

In the ring, the women went back to fighting each other. Nia had a height and strength advantage, but Natalya had the champion’s advantage. She dodged most of Nia’s attacks. And she rolled out of the ring, making the other woman fume and rage.

“Are you worried about this match at all,” Corey asked. “Nia’s got this opportunity because she and Tamina beat you and Dana last week.”

“Nope. Not one bit. “I may not have made it into the tag title match at Clash of Champions, but I am still going to have a title before the year is out. I don’t care if I have to beat Nia or Natalya for it.”

Natalya moved out of the way at the last second, making Nia run into a set of steel steps. She rolled back in the ring and motioned for the ref to count. By nine and a half, Nia was just getting to her feet. He made it to ten before she could reach for the ropes. They glared at each other as Natalya accepted her title from the ref.

As Nia went up the ramp to leave the arena, Ember passed by and gave her a little wave and a smile. Ember joined Natalya at the ropes, the champion not giving her the room to even enter the ring. No matter. She shrugged and lightly ran her fingers down the red and white belt.

“Clash of Champions. I’ll see you there.” Then she hopped off the apron and left with her head held high.

***

Dean bounced into your office and waited a second for you to finish an email. “Did Seth find you?”

“Yes he did, and I was able to help.” You shrugged. “And Jose found you, so I could talk to you too.”

He smiled, then clapped his hands so he could rub them together. “Who you got for me this week, Ladybug?”

“Well… are you okay with being a guinea pig?”

He stepped back and squinted at you, unsure. “Sure.”

“Great. You have a match with Drew McIntyre tonight.” Before your sentence was finished, Dean had cocked his head and leaned towards you.

“What’s the catch?”

With a deep breath, you bit back a grin. “I want you to push his buttons. Can you do that?”

Dean grinned for you. “Hell yeah, I can.”

“Win, and there’ll be a surprise for you next week.” You giggled as his eyebrows shot up.

“Oh?” He rolled his shoulders back and forth. Wiggling, even though he always said he doesn’t wiggle. “And what would that be?”

“I can’t tell you, or it wouldn’t be a surprise.” You scoffed, “don’t you trust me?”

“It comes and goes.” You both laughed. Dean patted your shoulder before heading out.

***

He did all that you needed and more. If there was one thing that Ambroses were the best at, it was poking the proverbial bear. Dean just had the fighting skill to back it up. And the forethought to do it when the ref wasn’t looking.

This bothered Drew McIntyre to no end. He tried moving faster, hitting harder. But each time, Dean got right back up and did it all over again like only he could. The ref had to pull the Scottish Psychopath away from the ropes where Dean had dodged out. Behind his back and right into Drew’s glare, Dean smirked.

“Not all that without Dolph doing the dirty work for ya, huh?” He rolled completely out of the ring before Drew could swing a punch. He ran as he was chased and slid back into the ring. Drew tried to follow, but Dean left again, circling the other way, much to the amusement of the crowd. But Drew didn’t take the hint and had a chair ready for him as Dean came around the corner.

Before the first hit even landed, the referee was calling for the disqualification and naming Dean the winner of the match. Once the bell had rung, Dean turned on his own dark side and beat Drew down to the mat surrounding the ring.

“How’s that for pushing buttons?” he asked, walking backward away from the ring.

Part 31: Sending a Message

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

Forever Tags: @blondekel77 @hallemichelles @laochbaineann @lavitabella87 @ramblingsofabourbondrinker @savmontreal @southsidebucky @tinyelfperson @zuni21798

WWE/Series Tags: @a-home-for-stray-stories @amballins-priestess @top-1-percent @mother-forker @neversatisfiedgirl @racheo91 @roman-reigns-princess @secretagentfangirl @thetherianthropydaily @wwe-smutfics @scuzmunkie @likeisaidwhatever @cait-kae @ramsaypants @sony-undead18 @brianaraydean @st4yingstrong @dopeybubbles @crystallizeme @jessica91073 @denise8691 @stalelight @kenyadakblalock @1dluver13xx @lauren-novak @lunatic-desert-child @littledeadrottinghood @livelifewondering

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dhades-diaferia · 6 years

Text

Wicked Witch

Want an evil MC? This MC is a super evil girl. Enjoy!

MC name: Denisse

(For some reason weird symbols appeared in this... I tries to edit as best as I can, but there’s always some that somehow managed to sneak past me. Tumblr, I guess... Please ignore those symbols! I’m so sorry! Thank You!)

__________

The moment Sid opened his eyes, he already had a bad feeling about this place. He moaned as he sat up. He remembered that Denisse gave him a drink, and once he drank it, he felt the taste was a little odd. He felt pain behind his head, and before he could call for help, he felt himself falling onto the floor, unable to move any part of his body. The last thing he saw was Denisse’s beautiful brown eye, turned to wicked, bright red, her brown hair turned to silver, and her beautiful smile turned to a smirk, appearing a set of fangs.

He swore to himself how that he had fallen to Denisse so quickly. Now he woke up in an unknown room, that he swore to God that no one had lived in this place for decades, except those unrest souls.

“Are you awake now, Mister?” An angelic voice nearly gave Sid a heart attack.

He quickly spun around, facing a beautiful woman, dressing nothing but white, that is nearly transparent. She looks so beautiful and innocent... like an angel.

He continued to stare at her, wanting to feel her soft skin, kissing her beautiful lips, and her delicate breasts...

_____________

”Master...” I heard a whimper, but I choose to ignore it. Then another whimper came, “Master, please...”

I sighed and put down the pawn chest piece onto the board. “Come out,” I commanded.

A young woman, with light blond hair and dark blue eyes, clad in white, stepped away from the dark opening and into the lowly lighted room.

”Ruby,” I smiled. “What is the problem?”

Ruby bit her lip and lowered her head. I raised my eyebrow, waiting for her response. After a few minutes, Ruby finally whispered,”May I, Master?”

I blinked, confused about what she was asking from me. Then I smiled, suddenly realizing of what she wants. “Oh, you want to gain some slaves, huh?”

Ruby slightly nodded, “Please, Master...”

I picked up a bishop and a rook and put them in place, “Go ahead, but-” I looked back at her. “I have to choose the person you’re taking as your slave.”

Ruby nodded and smiled slightly, “Thank you, Master.”

_____________

Albert wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword as he walked in the hallway. He has been walking in this mansion for hours and there was no sign of King Byron. King Byron was reported missed several weeks ago. When they gathered information, they learned that Byron was kidnapped and in this mansion.

Suddenly he heard a giggle, that nearly scared the life out of him. “Al, you look hilarious when you’re so serious like this.” Nico giggled.

Albert rolled his eyes. Why is this brat here?

This mansion is a maze. Albert thought to himself. Every door leads to a room that looks exactly like other rooms in the hallway.

“Hey, Al, do you think this is different?” Nico asked, pointing at the end of the hallway.

It different pattern at the end of the hallway. Delighted, he rushed to the end of the hallway, which is a door. He pushed the door open and peer inside. Then he gasped.

The room was filled with several more doors and a table in the middle. Nico looked around the room as Albert walked to the table, where a piece of paper was placed on the table, faced-down.

Picking up the paper, he scanned through the content.

Dearest Knights of Stein,

How honored that I have you in my mansion. I know so much about you. I know that you two are one of the right-hand men of King Byron. I also learned that you, Sir Albert, are a very close friend to King Byron. Sir Nico, I knew that you are half-brother with King Byron. Let me tell you more about me. I enjoy playing games. Especially games that can cause people to suffer, to give them fear.

So, you see around you that there is total of eight doors. Each door leads to a different hallway. Don’t bother to look into each door, the hallway is going to look exactly the same. Before you join my game, here are the rules. Once you enter one of the doors, there will be instructions. The rule is simple, you have to follow each instruction. If you dare you to disobey the instructions... Let’s just say that each time you disobey, the life of you dear King will be shortened, depending how much years I’m going to shorten.

Worry not about you King right now, Sir Albert. He is fine. For now. So, you better hurry, because I don’t think your King would last long.

Good Luck, because you will need it.

Alexander G. Johnson

Albert felt his blood drained from his face as he read the letter. As he raised his head from the letter, and look around the room, trying to decide which door to go. Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. He swirled around and found nothing. Then he felt someone breathing against his shoulder. He tensed as he felt a ghostly whisper, that sounded like a young man, clear and scary.

“Go quick, Sir Albert. Your King is waiting,” It whispered.

Albert gulped before asking, “Who are you?”

Nico looked back at Albert, “What?”

“Who are you? What do you need from me?” Albert asked again.

“Al? Are you-” Nico started when he felt a cold breath on his ear. “Your King is waiting,” It whispered.

Suddenly, a door swung open, revealing a hallway, just like the other hallways that they been through. Nico hesitated before he walked through the door.

“Nico!” Albert shouted, “You can’t be sure that isn’t a trap!”

Nico continued, ignoring Albert’s warning. Albert sighed, there’s no other way. He has to save King Byron. Without hesitation, Albert walked through the opened door.

_____________

I pulled out a knight and put it into place, and frowned. I felt something or someone behind me. Then my face lit up. Perfect.

I grabbed a pawn and set it down. “Alexander”. I breathed.

”Master...”I felt something like a hand on my shoulder. Then I felt another one around my waist. I rolled my eyes.

“You haven’t changed, have you, huh?” I stood up and walked across the ghostly figure.

Alexander chucked as he revealed himself. “Well, Master, you haven’t changed much either. Still smart as usual. And beautiful, like the beautiful full moon.”

I scowled, “Don’t ever compare me to that damn moon, you hear me.”

Alexander smiled, “My apologies, Master. But you have to admit, the moon is beautiful. Especially when it’s full.”

"Besides,” Alexander continued. “As your servant, part of my job is to compliment you, don’t you think?”

I grimaced, “Whatever. Just don’t compare me to that moon. Ever again.”

Alexander shrugged, “Whatever you say, Master.” Then he frowned. “You called me, for a reason, perhaps?” Alexander smiled, wider this time.

I rolled my eyes, “Yes, I did call you. But not what you’re thinking”

Alexander put a hand over his chest and pretended to look hurt, as I continued. “I want you to find those knights of Stein. I want you to capture him. Do whatever you want with them, but I want them alive. And in one piece.”

Alexander face lit up, “I can do whatever I want. That sounds great. I’ll do that.”

_____________

Cursing to himself, Giles walked along the spiral staircase. After he found out that the Princess had escaped the castle ground, he and group of knights, including Alyn are trying to track down the Princess. The information they found out was in this mansion, the same day, King Byron got kidnapped.

“Oi, Giles,” Alyn called from further down the stairs. “Mind if you got a bit faster? We’ll be stuck here forever if you continue to walk like that.”

“Stop pushing Giles,” Leo, standing next to Alyn, acknowledged. “He already knows-” Leo quickly shut his mouth after Alyn glared at him as if Alyn is going to strangle him.

Giles sighed. These two never change. Suddenly, he heard a slight whimper that sounds like from further down the stairs. Both Alyn and Giles got very quiet. Then Alyn break the silence, “Princess? Is that you?”

Then they heard another whimper, almost like an answer to Alyn’s question. Without hesitation, Alyn sprint down the stair, followed by several knights.

“Hey, Alyn!” Leo shouted as he chased after him. “Slow down! You’re going to trip and fell if you’re running like that!

Giles didn’t even bother to go downstairs. He felt like something was off. The whimper sounded more like an animal.

“Aren’t you going to go with him, “Giles heard a faint voice behind him. Giles tensed. He felt a shiver down his spine.

Giles slowly turned around. A young woman, with dark, wavy hair. Her skins are rich dark color. She looks like a goddess. Wearing nothing but black, from head to toe. Her eyes were covered from her bangs.

Giles gulped, “W-who are you?”

The young women pointed behind him. Giles turned around, finding nothing, and turned back to the young women, who was not there anymore.

“Come,”Giles heard the voice that belong to the young women, but instead down a little further down the stairs.

Giles blinked. He swore to god that she was behind him, now she’s somehow managed to pass him without him knowing.

“Who are you?” Giles asked in determination.

The women looked back at him, showing slight of her eyes, which is violet. “It doesn’t matter. This place is the last thing you’ll see.”

Giles gulped and stepped backward, until he bumped into something.

“It’s impolite to leave someone, especially if that person is a woman,” The young women whispered. “Follow me, and I’ll make sure you’ll live longer. But, this place is still going to be the last thing you’ll see.”

_____________

“Danielle,” I walked into my chamber.

Suddenly, a presence appeared not to far from me. “Master.”

I smiled, “I would like to change your job. And I want to make a deal with you.”

Danielle tensed up, as her hands clutched as a fists.. I smiled wider. Danae was my maid, and I know she doesn’t like to be a maid, especially working for me. I knew she would turn against me if she had a chance.

“Anything you ask, Master.”

I walked toward her as she tensed up. “If you do what I commanded, I’ll set you free. “Danae looked at me in surprise. “I want you to kill that Chamberlain. Make him suffer. Make him regret.” I grabbed her neck. “Make him regret that he dares to make me the princess. Make him regret to dare to command me to do what he wants me to do.” I snared.

Danielle whimpered as she gasped for air. Her eyes begged me to let her go.

“If you dare to betray me,” I warned. “I’ll kill you.”

I let go of her and walked out of my chamber and pulled a pawn out of my pocket and a bishop. I smiled. Now this is definitely something.

_____________

“Giles? Leo?” Alyn called. His voice echoed through the spiral staircase. After he heard a whimper on the bottom of the stair, he ran downstairs, only finding a dog, sitting at the corner, whimpering.

Alyn felt sudden furious toward the dog, tricking him into thinking it was the Princess. Instead of going back upstairs, he decide to wait for Giles and Leo. After a while, there was no sign of them.

Annoyed, Alyn called for Giles and his brother several time, but only answered by silence. Getting worried, he decide to go backstairs to find them.

Suddenly, the stairs vanished. “What the-!” Exclaimed Alyn. Instead of the stairs, it’s a hallway. The light only shown some part of the hallway, but Alyn couldn’t figure out how long is the hallway, since its so dark to see.

Out of nowhere, he saw two faint lights in the distance, which Alyn recognized it as eyes. Unsheathing his sword, he asked, “Who are you?”

The eyes seems to be moving toward him. Coming toward the light. Then, more eyes following behind the first pairs of eyes. Instead of a pair of eyes, it became thousand pairs of eyes.

As the owner of the eyes came into view, Alyn felt his blood drained from his face. The eyes belongs to tens of hundred of corpses. All of them groaned and moaned, limping toward Alyn.

On the back of his head, it screams to him to run, but his legs won’t corporate.

Suddenly, he heard something clicking, like a clock being turned on. Then a giant metal gate came down, separating Alyn and the corpses.

“Alyn, next time use your brain,” Alyn immediate recognize the voice belong to Leo’s.

Alyn scowled as Leo chucked.

I picked up the knight then when I’m about to place it where I want it to be, the board suddenly vanished. I blinked, then smiled. He’s here.

I called for James couple days ago to help me to get rid of someone. That knight Captain of Wysteria. I don’t really hate Alyn, but I just don’t want him alive, for no particular reason.

“My, my. Still beautiful as ever,” the voice whispered behind my ear.

Without hesitation, I grabbed his jaw as I slowly faced him. “I’m not going to joke around.”

“Of course, we can joke another time,” he winked.

I gripped his jaw hard, until he winced. “I’m going to make it simple,” I hissed. “Kill Sir Alyn, and I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

James opened his mouth to say something, but I immediately cut him off. “I’m not arguing or listening to your opinion, or whatever the bullshit you’re going to say. Kill him, then we can talk.”

I let go of his jaw and walked off without looking back.

“Why is she always like that,”I heard him talking to himself. Then he said, in a louder voice, “Hey, you still want you chess board?”

I stopped on my track, then looked back at him. “Definitely.”

_____________

Robert heard someone singing, but he could’t make out what it was singing. But the singer had such a beautiful music. He wanted to hear it everyday. Suddenly, the singer stopped singing, which caused Robert to opened his eyes. Why did she stop?

“Are you awake?” the singer asked. Even when she isn’t singing, her voice is very beautiful too.

Robert sat up, and looked at the singer. It was a women. A beautiful women. Both her voice and her appearance is beautiful... Robert could only see the head and the shoulder of the women. Robert stood up and walked toward the women, finding that she was in a pool.

Without warning, he heard a groan behind him. He turned around, only to find a man clad in black.

“King Byron?” Robert walked toward the man, then he gasped.

The King of Stein, that was kidnapped was now laying in front of him.

“King Byron!” Robert gathered the young king in his arm. Then he looked at the women. “What happened to him?” Robert demanded.

The women shrugged, “I don’t know, but he will be fine. I’m sure.”

Robert looked back at Byron, and gently shook him. “King Byron! Please open your eyes!” Robert plead.

Suddenly, the door creaked opened, and Robert hold his breath as he looked at the person who just walked in.

It was Rayvis, The archduke. Following him was Louis.

What is going on here? Robert wondered.

#midnight cinderella #byron wagner #nico meier #albert burckhardt #louis howard #rayvis harneit #robert branche #sid #giles christophe #alyn crawford #leo crawford #fanfiction #diaferiadhades

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albyoriordan-blog · 6 years

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Alby Quinn O’Riordan

Hey gang! I’m Len. I’m 26, and I prefer they/them pronouns. I used to play this dear, a while ago, in another RP, but I’d like to continue his story a few years after the events of that RP (with a few tweaks because it was a very specific themed RP). I look forward to getting to know y’all! ^^

(p.s. my ‘w’ and ‘t’ keys are giving me a bit of grief right now, so if you come across a missing one or a couple extras, I’m really sorry! I’m supposed to have my computer serviced ASAP

EDIT: It’s going in for a service tomorrow but I’ve been assured that it shouldn’t take too long because it should just be an issue with the keys. I’m hoping to take a quick hiatus and just waiting to hear back from the admins re. that as well, sorry!)

Alby Quinn O’Riordan was born on the 18th of January, 1983, to a young, single mother in Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland.

His mother, Rose, was born and raised in Cobh, County Cork, and was 16 when she fell pregnant with him to a local boy, her childhood friend. Her parents were devout Catholics, and her father couldn’t accept that his youngest child had betrayed him, so the young woman was turned out of house and home. She made her way north along the coast to the town of Dungarvan, where she was able to make a life for herself there.

When Alby was 5 years old, he and his mother immigrated to America, where his mother got work in an Irish Pub called ‘Murphy’s’ in New York City. The elderly couple who owned it had lost their only son at a young age and adopted the hardworking Rose and her young son as their own.

A year later, his father walked back into the lives of Rose and Alby for the first time in the young man's life. He hadn’t known Rose had been pregnant, only to learn about it after she had left town. Over the next few years, his parents would rebuild their relationship, giving him three siblings in the space of 30 years. With the last sibling, Dana Gwynn, born when Alby was 26.

Ten years later, Alby’s adoptive grandparents retired to Mrs. Murphy’s home city of Toronto and left the pub to their adopted daughter.

Alby grew up loving to dance and paint. From a young age, his mother had him in dance classes - with ballet being a particular favourite of his. It was here that he would meet his first love. Harry Park was a young Korean boy who had been born in the city to two immigrant parents, and the two immediately hit it off. They were inseparable and soon became a couple.

The two boys dated for almost two years before Harry was killed in an unprovoked attack on his 18th birthday. The teenaged couple had been walking back to the Park’s apartment, discussing their plans to move in together that summer for college, when they were jumped by four boys from their high school. They had been given a lot of shit in the past by these particular boys, with the hot-headed Alby getting into physical altercations a number of times. This time, however, they went for Harry and he didn’t make it out. Alby was left beaten and bloodied and scarred of love.

Fast forward almost 5 years, Alby would fall in love for the second time in his life. He was covering a shift at his mother’s pub the summer after he graduated college with a degree in High School Education when in walked Evan Sullivan, the man who would, in 14 short months, become his husband.

Friendship came easy to Evan and Alby, with the two men becoming fast friends. No friendship had ever been so easy for the Irishman, especially not after Tom. One of the things that made their relationship so easy was the fact that Evan was a straight man. Despite their friendship and their different sexual preferences, their friendship was riddled with sexual tension and attraction. Evan was everything Harry hadn’t been. Evan was strong and masculine, where Harry had been delicate and androgynous. Evan had blond-haired, blue eyes, and tanned skin, whereas Harry had had dark hair and eyes, and fair skin. Evan was loud and extroverted, whereas Harry had been quiet and reserved. Evan was a cop, but Harry had wanted to be a ballerino. The two did share, however, a wicked sense of humour.

Alby shouldn’t have wanted him, he was off-limits, but he wanted him desperately.

Six months into their friendship, after a boys night out, the two men shared their first kiss. It was hot and passionate and filled with promise. It was a drug and Alby was hooked. Evan reacted badly to the kiss, severing ties with Alby and sending the Irishman into a deep funk.

Their separation barely lasted a week, with Evan showing up to Alby’s apartment, looking just as wrecked as he felt. The blond explained that he’d been in the closet since he’d been a teen and feared his homophobic father’s wrath. The week he’d spent apart from Alby, however, had helped him to see that his relationship with the Irishman and being true to himself was more important than his fear of his father, but they decided to take things slow and started seeing each secretly.

The secret relationship soon became too much for Alby, who found himself falling in love with the blond and he came clean. He couldn’t understand why Evan was so desperate to keep their budding love hidden from the world when Alby only wanted to shout it from the rooftop. The two fought once more with horrible words spoken by both parties and they went their separate ways.

On his way home, however, Alby’s uber got into an accident, with his driver and one other driver dying on the scene. While Alby was badly hurt, he survived with a little memory loss - which soon healed - and a large scar down the left side of his face reaching from his brow to his jaw. Evan barely left his side the entire time he was in the hospital and not long after he was discharged, the two were engaged. Like their courtship, they had a whirlwind engagement and married quickly, the two settling easily into married life. After a scare as big as almost losing each other, they didn’t want to waste another moment apart. Evan’s father, Steven, disowned him, but his mother, Helen, supported them fully - even going as far as to leave Mark for how badly he had treated their son. Alby’s parents had always been supportive of their son and they soon fell into playing happy families, welcoming Helen as one of their own.

Not long after tying the knot, Alby left his job as a teacher. His heart had never really been in the job, and he much preferred working one-on-one or with small groups of kids. Unsure of what to do, he took over running the pub for his mother who had her hands full with a surprise pregnancy as a way to earn money and pass the time until the right job came along. He found the job came easy to him having grown up in that environment, often doing his homework at that very bar, and he enjoyed how busy it kept him. He found himself thriving in the position. It was the perfect job for someone as friendly and extroverted as himself. A year later, it was his.

After a year of marriage, Evan and Alby decided to begin the process to have a child. Alby’s maternal cousin, Katie offered to be their surrogate and they used Evan’s sperm. They went to therapy with Katie to make sure this was right and the process took them another year before they were ready to do the embryo transfer. Their first attempt not only took, but the embryo ended up splitting and almost 38 weeks later, their twin boys Asher Fionn and Felix Cole were born on the 1st of November, 2009.

Alby and Evan O’Riordan were married nine happy years before they were torn apart. Evan had been made a sergeant early in their marriage before progressing to dog squad, and rarely saw much active duty as their marriage progressed. He hadn’t even been on the job when his life had been cut short. He had taken their dogs (three German Shepards - two of which were retired police dogs both past partner’s of Evan’s, and the third being his current partner) for a jog when he was shot in a mugging gone wrong. Jess and Duke, were shot and killed trying to protect their master, while Skipper - their son - was badly injured trying to do the same. Alby had been distraught when he’d received the news and closed off once again. The only thing that kept him going where their boys, Tricks and Skipper.

On the day he buried Evan, Alby O’Riordan sold the pub and the flat they’d made their home above it. He’d initially tried to give it back to his mother, but she and his father had taken his younger sisters and moved to Toronto three years earlier, to be with her elderly adoptive parents, and they weren’t planning on ever moving back.

There was nothing keeping them in New York any longer. No matter where he went, he was reminded of his husband and the life they had shared together. With the money he made on the flat, he purchased an apartment just big enough for his family’s needs and moved his broken family to Toronto. He needed his parents. His boys needed their grandparents. He needed to heal.

Alby hadn’t planned on opening a new pub at all, let alone so soon after his loss, but he found one desperately in need of repair and threw himself into fixing it up. It was slow going, with Alby juggling family commitments and his mother trying to make him have a social life, but a year and a half after moving to Toronto, O’Riordan’s Irish Pub was open for business.

The Irishman is still very much in his own shell. He puts on a strong act for his family and a cheery expression at the pub, but he’s heard speculation over why his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s friendly and charming and always willing to lend an ear, but he never opens up beyond surface-level information. He doesn’t really let anyone close to him, though he knows he has to. Eventually, he’s going to have to let someone in. It isn’t healthy to keep such dark feelings and emotions bottled up. He has others relying on him after all. Alby's just not sure if he’s ready for that, but maybe one day.

#berwick:intro #tw; homopho #tw; homophobic violence & death #tw; car accident #tw; death #tw; gun violence #tw; police death #tw; loss of a loved one #tw; animal death #tw; dog killing #This is so long I am so sorry!

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frangipanidownunder · 6 years

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Fire and Ice: Part 5

Continuing my Canadian ice dance AU. Tagging @today-in-fic Read part one , part two, part three and part four.

The door closed behind him, shutting out the sanctuary of the rest of her home. He stood in the darkness, looking slightly past her. Perhaps he could see the garden through the slight gap in the curtains above her head. She bunched the blanket in her fist and he put his hands on his hips, eyes lowering to a spot on the floor beside her bed. There was a dark knot in the honey of her floorboards. It often caught her eye – it looked like a cat curled up, comfortable. He cleared his throat, wiped the underside of his nose, ran his hand through his bangs. His fringe flopped down again and she tucked her lower lip under her teeth to fight back the small laugh that bubbled in her chest.

“Where have you been?” he asked. The crack in his voice jolted through her. He was genuinely upset.

“Here,” she said. “Just here.”

“I thought…when you didn’t…I thought you’d…” He stepped out of the shadow and she saw the redness in his eyes, the dark smudges. Dirty stubble framed his face. “I was worried.”

The bed sunk under his weight and he reached for a loose thread on the blanket, pulling at it. She pulled the sheet higher under her arms. “I just needed a break.”

His gaze wandered from her face to the window again. “It’s snowing.” His smile grew wider, reminding her of how a child would watch the magical white flurries as they whipped around on the increasing wind. “Looks prettier here than the city. Like when I was younger.”

She could hear her mother downstairs, fussing around no doubt, finding a suitable mug for a coffee for Fox, a plate for a slice of cake for Fox, dusting down the chair so Fox could sit down. Her stomach fizzed with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. Part of her knew she’d come home to be looked after. Yet, that very care was now making her feel immature. She could see he could hear it too.

“Your mother seems sweet,” he said.

Nodding, she realised she knew little about his parents, his upbringing, other than the bare bones of the mystery of his sister. “What was your house like?”

“Bigger than this,” he said, without any arrogance. He looked at her then. “Big and empty. My sister, she…” Scully held her breath watching his brows furrow and his jaw tighten. “She just disappeared. One day she was winning awards all over the district. The next, she wasn’t there. She was eight.” His whole body sighed. “My parents gave up.”

“They never found a body?” she asked, her voice quiet as the snow outside.

He shook his head. “So there’s always hope, and that’s the real nightmare.” It must have been torture, she thought. And she knew then what drove him. “She would have been Olympic champion, Scully. Her talent was otherworldly.”

“I’m sorry, Fox,” she whispered, running a hand along his arm. He lifted his eyebrows in surprise at the use of his name but let it go. “You need to win for her, for Samantha.” The cruel face of Spender flashed in her mind. She gulped back the feeling of guilt that she should say something to Mulder about their unsettling meeting in the car park the other night. Open up.

He turned away. “I need to win for me, Scully. I’ve spent years in the shadow of a girl who will never lose, who will never let anyone down, who will always be the shining star. I loved her. She was a sweet girl, she was my sister, but my parents...” He stopped, looked directly at her. “They closed themselves off. I don’t think they could feel anything after, any emotion. I spent years doing anything to please them. I played ice hockey before, but after Samantha disappeared, I switched to figure skating, then discovered I had a talent for ice dancing. The skating fraternity is small. We all just danced with whomever our parents decided. They knew Spender. They knew the Fowleys. I was desperate for their attention. I can see that now.”

She squeezed his hand. “I think that was the normal response to what happened, Mulder. You were a child. You needed your parents’ support, their guidance, their love.”

“I was a horrible teenager. I even ran away for a few days. Gave my parents a heart attack. It was a dumb move.”

The flush of guilt coursed through her, hot and prickly. “I’m sorry, Mulder. I should have let you know I was coming here. I shouldn’t have run away.”

He stood up and pulled back the curtain behind her. She stepped out of bed too, wrapping her robe around her. The snow was furious, greying out the garden. “It’s okay. I understand, Scully. Sometimes I want to just walk away too. The pressure of school and skating, sometimes, it feels so overwhelming, doesn’t it?” His eyes softened as he smiled down at her. “I think I should get going soon.”

Disappointment caught in her throat. “You can’t come all this way and not enjoy some of my mother’s hospitality, Mulder. She’s probably baked a dozen varieties of cookies. She always tries to fatten me up when I get here.”

“You’ve got a great body, Scully.” His gaze wandered over her and her cheeks burned. “You’re fit and strong.”

She snuggled her chin into the collar of her robe and moved to the door. “I’ll just get dressed. You go downstairs.”

He nodded and padded to the door. “You are the best partner I’ve had Scully. We dance like we’ve always been together and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise that. If you need a break, I understand. I know how intense I can get. But I think you feel the same way. We can do this, Scully. We can win the Nationals and we can go further and higher. But you have to commit.”

The wind blasted the window pane and snow stuck to the glass.

He politely refused the third slice of orange and poppyseed cake and offered to do the washing up, stacking the plates by the sink.

Scully smothered the giggle that threatened as her mother shooed him away. The smile died when Maggie added, “go and spend time with Dana. You drove all this way to see her, not me.”

His grin was crooked with embarrassment as Scully led him to the lounge at the back of the house. He stood in the middle of the room, fingers twisting round each other.

“Your mother makes lovely cakes, Scully.”

“She is a good cook,” she agreed, “Mulder, I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m sorry again. I flipped out.”

He nodded. “I get it. I just needed to hear you tell me one way or the other.” His hands knotted and released.

She was mesmerised by the rhythm of his discomfort and hadn’t noticed his proximity to her. When she lifted her eyes, he was towering over her. His expression was strange, expectant almost. “Tell you what?”

“How you really feel.”

She knew from her studies how the body reacts to outside forces, leaves evidence that could be examined and processed. Her breathing caught in her throat and her shoulders bunched up. She blushed. She dug her nails into her palms. Words seemed impossibly out of reach.

“Dana,” he said, lifting her chin with a gentle finger. “I’m not good with this sort of thing, after Diana…I…”

The name sent shockwaves through Scully. She shook his finger away, remembering what she’d seen at the rink. That was the reason she’d run in the first place. To distance herself from him, from these…feelings. Feelings she couldn’t control, that she didn’t even want.

“Why did you come here, Mulder? To hedge your bets?”

He stepped back, face darkening. “I came here because you disappeared. I looked for you because our partnership is the most important thing to have happened to me in years. I thought…”

“You thought I would fall into your arms and you could play both of us?”

“What?” His hand ran through his hair, fringe staying back momentarily. “Who? Diana? You think I’m involved with her?”

“I saw you together.” Her voice wobbled but she managed to look him in the eye. “At the rink.”

Flames washed his cheeks and he walked past her, knocking her arm. He ripped open the door and she could see her mother, drying dishes, mouth dropping open.

As he stepped through the threshold into the wintry blast, he turned to look at her. “Don’t come back, Scully. You were right to run away.” He strode out into the thickening snow. She followed him to the end of the driveway, cold seeping through her thin slippers. He unlocked his car and as he slid in he gave her a last look and said, “I’m not worth it.”

The tail lights painted a red trail of misery through the whiteness and she shivered despite the hot tears flowing down her face.

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #todayinfic #canadian ice dance au #to be continued

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snickerl · 6 years

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The Return

XF Fanfiction

Now that season 11 is on hiatus, I hope the fandom is ready for a (sorry!) loooong background story about an almost unknown family member.

tagging @today-in-fic

He looks out the window and sees her sitting outside on the porch alone, deep in thought, her eyes fixated on something in the distance. She looks so lost and despite the still existing chasm between them, he feels the strong urge to console her. She said goodbye to her mother today, scattered her ashes to be reunited with her father's just as the last will stated, and he's utterly surprised about how deep the impact of all of this is on his own soul.

Charles Scully has been distant from his family for he doesn't know how long. Very long. The last time he had personal contact was when they were mourning another family member, his sister Melissa. She had been shot by a cold-blooded killer and the news had toppled the house of cards he'd been constructing so conscientiously around his family history and his reasons for cutting the ties. He had booked the next available flight out to become one of the mourners. Everyone, including him, was too shocked by how a young woman's flame of life had expired so very suddenly and randomly that nobody, including him, questioned his being there. And now he's in this house once again because of a funeral.

He'd spoken to his mother on the phone seconds before she drew her terminal breath. Bill had called him, informed him that she was in the hospital suffering from a heart attack and that she had asked for him before she had slipped into a coma. He had given him the number to Dana's cell phone and more or less commanded him to give her a call as if Charlie was one of his plebes from the Academy. It was a short, awkward, and one-sided conversation, reminding Charlie of the ones he used to have with his father before he turned his back to his family.

Being on the phone with Dana was different. She sounded so relieved when she realized it was him. Charlie could hear in her voice how desperate she was, how she was overwhelmed by the fear for her mother. She begged him to talk to her, didn’t order him like Bill. When her voice broke in the end, it touched a heartstring he already believed to be numb.

He can't remember what he said to his mother, something about why all of a sudden he was willing to reconnect probably, but he remembers the fuzz he overheard when his voice had obviously really caused her to open her eyes. He heard Dana's sharp intake of breath, he heard a man's voice asking his mother if she knew her name and where she was, he heard his mother say something but couldn't make anything of it. Then he heard Dana calling out to her in panic, the faint sound of the heart monitor indicating a flatline followed by his sister's heartbreaking sobs. Eventually, someone picked up the phone and talked to him. The words he heard only confirmed what he'd already suspected, feared even.

"Hello, Charles, this is Fox Mulder. We haven't met, I'm, uh...I'm a friend of Dana's." "I know who you are, Mr. Mulder." "Oh, okay, well...I'm very sorry but I have to tell you that your mother just passed away. My deepest condolences."

Charlie didn’t reply, he just killed the call without even saying goodbye, and when Dana called a few days later to inform him about the funeral arrangements, he didn’t want to attend at first. He talked himself into believing that he had paid his dues as a son by fulfilling his mother's last wish and that this was it for him, that he was through with his family for good now that both his parents were dead. Three sleepless nights and an earnest conversation with his better half later, he booked a flight to Washington.

And now he's here, in his mother's house, shaking hands with people he's been alienated from for a long time. The only person he feels slightly connected to is his sister who hugged him fiercely instead of clumsily holding out a hand like his brother. She thanked him for having talked to their mother, for having brought her back if even only for a split-second.

Dana's forlornness and grief don't leave Charlie cold, and so he opens the back door and joins her on the bench outside. He gets her attention by leaning to the side and nudging her shoulder. "You and Mulder are back together?" he asks to start the conversation.

"What makes you think we are?" Dana tosses over her shoulder without looking at him.

"He was at the hospital with you when mom died and today he's here, observing your every move like a bodyguard. He looks like he wants to wrap you in cotton wool. I'm surprised, that's all. The last thing I heard was that you'd left him."

His sister turns her head now and looks at him. "Heard from whom? I was under the impression you didn’t care to know anything about us."

"And yet, people have been telling me things."

"People?"

"Old high school friends. Navy acquaintances. Aunt Roberta calls once in while. You remember her? She's our father's half-sister's out-of-wedlock daughter. We met her once at a Scully family reunion out in Portland when we were kids. She was never really accepted as a member of the Scully clan but she has her sources when it comes to what happens in this family."

"Yes, I think I remember her. And she's telling you things about us? What things?"

"For example that Dana and her FBI agent with the funny name broke up."

"I have an FBI agent with a funny name?"

"At least Aunt Roberta thought so." Charlie chuckles when he thinks back to the more than peculiar conversation. He tries to imitate her Southern accent and her slight sigmatism which had amused them already when they were kids. "Charles, honey, have you heard about Dana and this FBI agent of hers? The one with that funny name I can't remember. It was some native flurry four-footed species with a bushy tail and pointed ears." His assumed voice makes Dana laugh and the unexpected joy he managed to bring to her urges him to continue. "She went through the whole list: lynx, coyote, raccoon...jackalope."

On the last one, her head turns slowly toward him and his ever-suspicious sister only needs to cock an eyebrow to make Charlie understand that she is questioning his story.

"Okay, I'm kidding on the jackalope, but I swear she mentioned the other three!"

"I wouldn't have thought, I bet if I browsed through the cabinet long enough I'd find an X-File involving someone named Jackalope," she retorts and her deadpan expression makes Charlie chuckle now.

The amusing twist their conversation has taken helps Charlie cover what he doesn't want to tell his sister about his telephone call with Aunt Roberta. For example, how troubled he was by the news of her failed marriage, partnership, romance, or whatever it was. The family had been discussing the state of her relationship to this man for years. Aunt Roberta once reported a 'friend of a friend' who was with the IRS had seen them file their income tax as a married couple. Those rumors coming from a questionable source were never confirmed and it didn't matter anyway if they were married or not, when a relationship fails it hurts, that much Charlie knew from experience. So when Aunt Roberta told him Dana and her FBI agent had separated, he felt an instant pit in his stomach. He later identified this as a mix of compassion and sympathy. He was sorry for his sister that she suffered from another setback in her life. He also doesn't want to tell Dana how conflicted he was when Aunt Roberta offered her new address, also obtained through rather murky means. He had declined and regretted it later on, because at that moment he had felt that one day, maybe, he would want to reach out for her.

Charlie doesn't fail to see that Dana isn't particularly generous with information about her relationship to Mulder, a trait which isn't new to him. When they were kids, she already hated being interrogated by her family about her teen romances, especially by her mistrustful father and concerned mother, but also by her siblings who, of course, teased her more than they really wanted to know what was going on in her heart.

Charlie wants to assert her now that they don't have to talk about Mulder if she doesn't want to, but then she picks up his initial question on her own accord and clarifies, "we didn't break up, at least not with finality. I moved out of our house about a year ago, but it was meant to be only a temporary separation. Mulder needed space to....ugh, well, it's too complicated to explain. We're both back at the FBI and have gotten closer again working alongside each other. Besides, he's still my best friend. I don't know how I would be able to survive all this without him."

"You call him by his last name too."

"I do."

He's heard the man his entire family has been gossiping about for years call his sister 'Scully' today a few times and at first, it bothered him a bit. Calling someone by their last name usually was a put-down, a means to create a distance. But the way he says it doesn't sound rude by any means, rather gentle, more like a term of endearment. And now he's just heard Dana call this man 'Mulder' for the first time as she hasn't spoken much during the service, and it also sounds so affectionate.

"A very special relationship you have there."

"Yeah," Dana huffs, "as if you knew anything about it."

"For someone to follow a convicted murderer underground, I'd say the relationship has to be very special. He's your son's father, I assume."

Her pinched mouth clearly indicates he's reached the limit now of what she's willing to share of her love life, and she doesn't hesitate to verbalize it either. "I don't want to talk about it. Besides, it's none of your business."

"Sure. Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. It's just good to know that you have someone who looks after you."

Dana's head whirls around to look at him so fast, he fears it might give her a whiplash. Her steel blue eyes pierce through him and an ice-cold draft wafts off of her. It gives Charlie an idea that what she's going to say won't be very pleasant for him to hear and the sharp undertone she spits the words out with strengthens the impression.

"Is it, Charlie? You worry about me all of a sudden? I haven't heard from you or seen you in ages. You didn’t care if someone looked after me after my abduction, when I had barely survived a gunshot wound to the abdomen, when I buried Mulder, or when I had my baby, your nephew. You didn't even care when I was dying of cancer."

There's going to be no warming up, he realizes with a start. No getting reacquainted first after so many years of separation, no holding back, no fence time. She throws the accusations right at him and every word feels like a slap across his face.

"I cared," he replies flatly, a bit shocked by the list of terrible things that happened to her. He's heard about all of them. Sometimes only years later, but he knows that she's been at death's door too many times in the line of duty, he knows he once had a nephew called William, and he's heard a lot about one Fox Mulder playing a decisive role in almost everything. He also was in the loop when she was ill with terminal brain cancer. His mother had told him, had left a message on his answering machine pleading with him to visit his sister at the hospital. It was the time she still tried to bring the lost sheep back to the herd. It was only after the umpteenth message he'd left unanswered that she gave up and left him alone. Probably to save herself from more hurting. Even a mother can only take so much rejection.

"Why didn’t you come to the hospital? I was waiting for you, Charlie! Day after day after day, I told myself that tomorrow you'd show up with a good explanation why you hadn't been able to make it earlier, until one day I realized you deliberately stayed away. I can't say it didn't make me sad."

"It would've been a sorrowful cause for a family reunion."

It's the only explanation he can think of this quickly, fully aware that it's a lame excuse. It's a pretext he tries to hide the real motives behind. It's not going to help him out of the confrontation lurking right in front of him, he figures. He sees the determination in his sister's eyes to get to the bottom of the matter and the bundle of questions she's been waiting so many years to ask him.

"I was dying, Charlie. It was your last chance to ever see me alive. Didn't this have any effect on you?"

"You didn't die."

Another useless remark. The fact that she didn't die doesn't lessen his wrongdoing in the slightest.

"No, I didn't, but nobody was able to foresee that at the time. My body was weeks away from shutting down, maybe only days."

He has nothing to say to this. Not even some senseless, placatory words. He's getting more and more uncomfortable. His pulse rate must have risen significantly, the lump in his throat is growing, and the air around him feels sticky. Beads of sweat start forming on his forehead, although the temperature is moderate and a light breeze is blowing in his face.

"Don't you have anything to say? Any explanation, any excuse?"

"There is no excuse," he admits meekly to his sister and actually the first time to himself, he realizes. Deep down at the bottom of his heart, he knew he was making a terrible, irrevocable mistake, but he never had the guts to concede this fact to himself.

"You're damn right there isn't! I don't get it, Charlie, your surviving sister being at death's door wouldn't bring you to put aside the family dispute for just once? Huh? Didn't it matter just a tiny little bit that I was diagnosed with a terminal illness?"

He sees the hurt in her eyes, the wound he caused that has never healed completely and still oozes.

How is he to make her understand that both Ahab's and Melissa's sudden deaths had paralyzed him? He felt strong and invincible having dissociated himself officially from his family, a family whose paternal structures of command and obey had suffocated him. But when his father had died unexpectedly from a heart attack, he felt deprived of the possibility to ever set things right. The family he had left was never going to be the same with its head being gone, the person Charlie had rubbed against the most. There seemed to be no way back to where he once had been. There had been no doubt that Bill would take over, moving upwards in the chain of command from being someone receiving orders to giving them. The friction that had existed between his older brother and himself would increase tenfold with their father gone, of that Charlie had been sure. And things got even more complicated for him when with Melissa another pillar of the family structure was eliminated without a warning. His place in the remaining mesh of relations was evermore undefined and Charles Nevin Scully, youngest branch of the pedigree, departed more and more from his family, even from the ones he never had a reason to be at odds with other than that they belonged to that particular family: his mother and living sister.

Charlie's sinister flashbacks leave him silent which leads Dana to voice her very own interpretation. Misinterpretation, that is. What else?

"You were of the same opinion as our older brother, weren't you? That it was all my fault. That only I was to blame for everything that happened to me because it had been my choice to join the FBI. A choice which killed our sister."

"Bill said that to you?"

"Yes."

"When you were in the hospital?"

"Yes."

"What an asshole!"

Dana narrows her eyes and furrows her brows. "That wasn't what you thought of me?" she asks, surprise evident in her voice.

"No. Never."

"Then I understand even less why you completely ignored my being ill. If a hospital bedside visit was too much to ask for, why didn't you call or at least write a few lines? Something. Anything. I was longing for a sign that you cared about me, Charlie."

He would like to tell her that he cared. He cared so much that he called the hospital every day to ask how she was doing. He had been able to convince a nurse that he was a family member authorized to get next of kin information. Her name was Estelle, and she reported to him every up and down of the course of his sister's illness. How she battled her way through the aggressive treatment, how the hopes everyone had pinned on chemo and radiation were disappointed, how she became a little less every day. He knew of the mysterious chip Dana's FBI partner had come up with even before his mother and brother heard about it. The last time he spoke with Estelle was when she called him the day the cancer had gone into remission to tell him about his sister's miracle cure. He cried when he put the receiver back into the cradle. A few days later, Dana was discharged and Estelle received a huge bouquet of flowers.

Why he can't tell his sister this, Charlie doesn't know. Instead, he gives her some other reason, one that is equally true though. "What good would it have done to rekindle, Dana? Tell me. Why get close to someone you're going to lose again?"

Her eyes wide and gasping for breath like a fish out of water, her indignant reply isn't long in coming. "Pardon, I'm not sure I got this right. Are you saying it wasn't any use? That it wasn't worth the effort because I would be gone soon after anyhow?"

Tears flood her incredulous eyes and Charlie hates how he is making things worse instead of better.

"No, that's not exactly what I meant."

"Then what did you mean, Charlie? I don't understand a word you're saying. I never really understood why we were estranged in the first place."

"We," he fidgets with his hand between them, "were never estranged, Danes."

"No? Then how come you didn't get on a plane and pay me a sick visit as long as you still could?"

Maybe it's time to finally be honest, his mind supplies, to finally explain his state of mind at the time. If it only wasn't so damn difficult to pour his heart out to someone he had taught himself to cut out of his life. But she is his sister, and back in the days as kids, they were like two peas in a pod. The two youngest Scullys were inseparable and always attached to one another. He owes her an explanation, she deserves to understand why his behavior as an adult differed so much from when he was a child.

He musters all his courage and clears his throat, then starts to explain, his powerless voice revealing how hard it is for him to speak the words. "I had already lost one sister, I wasn't ready to lose another. It had been hard for me not to be able to say goodbye to Melissa, but to watch you die, Dana, simply seemed impossible for me to handle. I thought that if I pretended that the family drama didn’t have anything to do with me, it would be easier for me to cope with the inevitable, which would be the...the, uhm..."

"My death," Dana supplies unmoved.

"The loss of my second sister."

It doesn't take her long to understand the essence of his profession. "So you're saying you ignored my medical condition to protect you from the pain my passing would eventually inflict on you."

"I know that was selfish of me."

"It was. Very selfish. Incredibly selfish." She hesitates a moment until she goes on, probably because it takes her a moment to grasp the whole concept, something that took him years to accept, and he sees it coming, she won't spare him his shortcoming. "All you saw was your loss and how you would have to deal with it. The situation I had to fight with at that very moment didn't even exist in your imagination. Do you want to know what I had to deal with, Charlie?" She doesn't wait for him to answer. "There was no hope for a cure but I underwent treatment anyway just to buy myself a bit of time. Chemotherapy made me vomit my insides out, radiation gave me gum sores and made it difficult for me to swallow. I suffered from constant fatigue and lost so much weight they gave me nutritional IVs so I wouldn't die from malnutrition. I was terrified, Charlie, I didn't want to die. I was too young to die, and I didn't deserve to die. I was so scared. I could've used you to help me through this, little brother."

Scanning his face, her eyes tell him how hard her struggle was, how it had taken every bit of strength she had within her tiny body. Charlie feels the same horror as all those years back when Estelle gave him the minutae medical reports of her ordeal, and he's employing the same whitewashing technique to justify his failure as a brother, only it was much easier back then to convince himself that he wasn't doing anything wrong than it is today.

"You had people taking care of you much better than I would've been able to. You had mom and Bill. Your partner."

He had heard from Estelle that there was an FBI agent who moved heaven and hell to be allowed to sit at his sister's bedside outside visiting hours, that he spent the nights either holding Dana's hand or in her bed spooning against her. Estelle had never witnessed so much compassion from a patient's work colleague before. Charlie didn’t have to be a psychic to be able to conclude that this man had to be the infamous Fox Mulder, of whom his mother had spoken so dearly during Dana's abduction, but his brother had called a joke figure unworthy of being in law enforcement.

"Mom's sad face only reminded me of how much fear and worry I had caused her since the day I joined the FBI. She tried to hide her tears from me, but there were days her eyes were so red and puffy, I knew she'd been crying until she stepped into my room. I was grateful to her for her love and care but sometimes the way she clung to me made it difficult. Mulder also tried to put on a show for me and acted as if there was nothing to worry about, but I knew him too well not to see the underlying fear. I noticed how he tried to keep a calm face as long as he was in my room but deep inside struggled with the idea of going on without me. I wanted a pledge from him that he would continue our work but he refused to even talk about it. He tried to keep from me that he was searching for a cure, breaking every FBI rule there was, but I looked right through him. He reminded me of a duck that floated serenely on the water but paddled frantically underneath. There were days I worried more about him than about myself. And Bill, well...you know him, he's not really good at displaying his soft, compassionate side, although he has one. When he said he wanted to come to terms with me, he just did not go so far as to add 'as long as you're still here'. He's never forgiven me my decision to join the Bureau. He's been more unforgiving in this than dad ever was. Mom told me that Ahab had eventually accepted my choice before he died."

Charlie isn't so sure about it. Their father could be very stubborn and unrelenting. He himself had been at the receiving end of the paternal pressure, they all had. Their mother had always been the balancing force and of course, she wanted Dana to believe that her beloved father had finally made his peace with her career choice. That Bill had taken over Ahab's role as her stern critic also fit into the mold of how he pictured the family dynamics from the distance he had been keeping so eagerly.

"I don't understand it, Charlie, we'd always been so close. I loved how you lived for the moment, how you looked at your life so differently from how I did. You were always so carefree and confident. I could've used your optimistic attitude to cheer me up, your inappropriate jokes to lift my spirits, your positive thinking to assure me that everything was going to be fine. I badly needed someone to distract me, to take me away from all these people with their worried faces and sinister forebodings."

He doubts he could've been this someone for her, given the worry and sinister forebodings he was hatching inside himself at the time, but he would never admit it. He's already told her so much more than he ever thought he would. There was something else though he needs her to understand.

"Danes, I may have been a selfish bastard...correction, I was a selfish bastard...but there's one thing you have to believe. There never was a time I did not care about you. You've always been my favorite sibling. I mean, Bill and I never had a lot in common. Being so much older than me, he always thought he could boss me around when dad was away. Melissa was fun and easy-going but too occupied with herself to pay a lot of attention to her baby brother. You, Dana, you were the only one who looked after me. Do you remember how you once intimidated some boys who bullied me in school?"

Dana shakes her head in disbelief as if his well-meant words don't make any sense to her, probably because they contradict his behavior during these past years, but he needs her to understand that he's always loved her dearly. The distance he put between them has only been physical, never emotional. The happy childhood they had shared wouldn't let him dissociate completely from his sister, even if he had tried.

"They were taller than me, and a lot taller than you, but you put your hands on your hips and told them to leave me alone if they didn't want you to give them a lesson of a girl's secret combat strategies. Your flaming red curls and fiery eyes put them to rout alright. You were my heroine then, today, and always."

"Your heroine?"

"Yes, my heroine. Geez, you never avoided a confrontation, never abandoned your beliefs. You were the only one of us who dared to argue with dad, and I adored you for that. Not even our older brother would've had the guts to do what you have done: choose a career against our father's explicit will. I asked myself if the Navy really was Bill's first choice or only dad's. You were the tiniest of us four but also the strongest and most courageous."

"Overpraise."

"Oh no, not at all. I couldn't have wished for a better big sister."

Charlie watches her with silent scrutiny and when his eyes find hers, a little smile sneaks from the edge of Dana's lips. Her voice becomes softer with every sentence of the childhood memory that leaves her lips.

"I was so happy when mom and dad told us we would have another brother or sister. I'd always wanted to be a big sister like Melissa. Mom told me years later that she had two miscarriages after me and didn't dare to try for a fourth child for quite a while. That's why the gap between you and me is somewhat larger than between us other three. When you were born and dad took us to the hospital to visit you and mom, I was allowed to hold you although I was the youngest. I remember that dad said it was Bill's right as the firstborn but mom insisted I should hold you, and of course, Bill didn't mind. He had his hands in his pockets the whole time to keep anyone from placing the fidgeting baby in his arms. Melissa was too occupied with the current book she was reading to bestow as much as a glance on you, so I held you the entire time. You looked at me with wide eyes, then fell asleep in my arms. Mom said that you'd been crying all day, that she'd thought you were never going to stop, and that from now on she would call me to help her soothe you whenever you were upset. I almost burst out of pride. I had fallen in love with my baby brother at that very moment and I felt that nothing and no one would ever come between me and him...until I was lying in a hospital bed, sick and scared, yearning for my brother to hold me for a change. And he didn't show up."

The way her voice breaks at the end is stealing Charlie's breath. "God, Dana," he groans. His stomach churns and he feels like he is being stabbed in the heart. It's not easy to be told so plainly how wrong he had been.

"I'm sorry, Charlie. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, it's alright. I deserve every word of it."

"Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I guess you had your reasons to distance yourself from the family. Seriously, how many fights did you have with dad about scholastic merits, majors, and fields of study? About the so-called serious sides of life?"

"He wanted me to become a second Bill Jr., one more son he could push into the Navy to follow his footsteps. Why did he never argue with Melissa like that? She wasn't exactly an industrious, determined student either, was she? When she told him she was going to move into this esoteric commune to learn how to free her spirit from the shackles of the performance society he only shook his head, shrugged and continued reading the paper. I didn’t get it. If it had been me, he would've given me an hour-long lecture."

Dana has to chuckle now. "She was a girl, Charlie. Dad probably thought she'd get married one day and left it to the future husband to put up with those silly ideas of hers."

"And he had you, of course. Bright, ambitious, A-student Dana at the onset of a career in either science or medicine. You raised the bar to unreachable heights for us ordinary mortals."

"That was never my intention. I just loved to study and I found joy in being the best possible in everything I did. I still do actually. Mulder can tell you a thing or two about it."

"I knew you didn't become daddy's pet on purpose, but you were, and at a certain point there just was no valid place for me to settle myself in. Bill was his golden Navy boy, you were the brainiac, Melissa had already taken the role of the black sheep, so what was I going to be?"

"Is that why you went away?"

"I couldn't do anything right by him, he was always on the lookout for mistakes he could blame me for. Mom always tried to make up for it but let's face it, dad wore the pants in that marriage. One day I realized I was happy and satisfied as long as he was away. The nearer his homecoming, the more uncomfortable I got. The family was thrilled about his return, whereas I dreaded it, and when you cried when he left us again, I had to feign being sad. At a certain point, it had become so obvious for me that I was an outsider in this family that I decided I would move out as soon as possible."

"And so you did," Dana states.

So he did. On the morning of his 18th birthday, he let his mother and siblings know over the birthday breakfast they had set up for him that he was going to move in with a friend. His father was at sea, luckily. Charlie wouldn't have had the guts to go through with it probably if Ahab had been sitting at the table with them. His mother was utterly aghast, his brother ridiculed him, the older of his two sisters babbled something about how one must pursue the path being offered, the younger cried, pleading with him to stay.

"Please believe me when I tell you that it wasn't you personally I needed to get away from, it was this family dynamic I couldn't cope with any longer."

"A dynamic I was a part of."

"Yeah," he sighs, "you were. It wasn't easy for me, especially in the beginning, but I needed a complete cut. It wouldn't have worked any other way for me."

"I hear you using 'I' and 'me' a lot, Charlie. Have you ever wasted a single thought about what your leaving did to us? Mom especially?"

He had. He thought a lot about his mother and it felt terrible to turn her down in her persistent attempts to reestablish contact. He can't explain what made him react to this last effort of hers. Maybe he'd realized that even if it was too late for him to reconcile with his mother, he didn't want to lose a third family member without even saying goodbye. Fate had been so courteous to him as to give him a second chance with Dana, it didn't offer him a second one with his mother, but at least he got to show her he still cared about her before she died.

"I did think of her, more than I would want, but, well...it's just that you can't make an omelet without breaking the eggs."

Dana cocks an eyebrow, a gesture Charlie is familiar with since early childhood. "Weird analogy here," she snorts. "It means you accepted you hurt her, I guess. "

"I'm afraid I have to say yes."

Dana presses her lips into a sharp line and nods slightly, processing his painfully honest words. "Well, thank you for taking the time to ease her heart at her last moments on earth." If she tried to prevent sounding sarcastic, she's not succeeding.

"Even at the risk of you not believing this, I'm glad I did. She was my mother, I owed it to her. I, uh...I did love her."

He's rendered his sister speechless for a moment with these last words. A tear escapes her eye when she finally says, "I believe you, I only wished she would've had more time with you."

Charlie swallows hard. His voice is small when he replies, "I'm sorry, Dana, I know I should've come back earlier. I should've been there for you, and for mom, when you needed me."

"You're here today, Charlie, and that's all that matters now."

They turn toward each other and after a moment of hesitance they hug, long and tight.

"Mmmm," Dana hums and the sound vibrates comfortably in Charlie's ear, "I'm so glad to have you back, little brother."

"It's good to be back, sis."

"You won't hide anymore?"

"No. I promise."

After a moment of significant silence they spend with Dana clutching Charlie as if her life depended on it, he breaks the embrace. To his dismay, the moment he lets go of her, his sister collapses. Her shoulders start trembling and when her chin falls to her chest, he hears the first sob escape her throat. He looks at her, not knowing exactly what she is crying about. She has so many reasons to cry. There were so many losses in her life she had to deal with, starting with a brother who vanished from her life without leaving a trace. Guilt crawls up his spine for having left her in the lurch for so long. He places himself right next to her, their thighs touching, and puts an arm around her shoulder. She instantly falls into him and the dam breaks. Her body is shaking from heavy sobs and soon Charlie feels his shirt getting wet from her tears. It's as if she's bottled up her sadness for too long that it now gushes out of her unchecked.

It takes Dana several minutes to recompose herself, minutes in which she's being rocked and comforted by her long-lost brother until the sobbing subsides eventually. She disentangles herself from him, pulls a tissue out of her pocket and blows her nose. Looking at him with red and blurry eyes, she manages a weak smile when she says, "seems you've returned the favor now."

"What favor?"

"To hold me until I stopped crying like I did when you were a newborn."

Charlie can't keep the sour chuckle down which is climbing up his throat. "Superb, it only took me 46 years. Well done, dude!"

Now Dana chuckles too, but hers is full of relief, not reproach. "Better late than never."

The sudden realization strikes him hard. How he wishes now that he'd been her rock also back then. Hell, how often had she stood up for him when their father had told him off, justifiably or not? How often had she covered for him, both in school and at home? She'd helped him out of more than one predicament, and he had only taken, taken, taken. He'd taken his unselfish, giving sister for granted and he'd never given her anything in return but his outright admiration and brotherly affection. As a kid, it had probably been all that could've expected from him, but as an adult in his mid-twenties, he should've had the decency and morality to swallow his personal sensitivities and shove his pitiful ass all the way from Fresno to her bedside in Washington to hold her hand.

"I'm so glad you got cured, Dana. I would've never been able to forgive myself."

In his state of harsh self-flagellation, Charlie fails to recognize that Dana's mood has already shifted from reproach to reconciliation. If he wasn't so self-centered once again, he would be able to read it in her face, in her open look and appeasing smile. She lays her hand on his forearm and squeezes it gently.

"Let's not talk about it anymore, Charlie. The cancer is gone, I'm fine. I've been cancer-free for years. We have all the time in the world to make up for the past years."

"What? That simple? You're forgiving me just like that as if I'm belatedly returning a book I borrowed from you? I failed you in the moment of your worst distress and you're saying 'let's forget it'?"

"If I learned anything during my illness, it has to be that it's no use trying to redo what's past. The past can't be changed, only the present and future. When I was still in the belief that my remaining days were numbered, I struggled with what I had missed doing in my past and it was hard to accept that there were some things I would never be able to catch up with. Then a miracle happened and I got cured. I was given a second chance and I swore to myself I wouldn't waste it with regretting the mistakes I'd made in the past."

"You got cured thanks to a...erm, somewhat alternative approach, so I heard."

Dana's hand goes to her neck, her fingertips reaching for the spot where an implant had first been taken out and later on another one put in. He heard the whole story.

"Mulder's chip, well...it certainly led to some discussion with mom and Bill. They thought I was being crazy to even try it, but I had nothing to lose. And I trusted Mulder."

"Are you still carrying it?"

"Yes, I am. It seems to have kept me in remission ever since."

"That's wonderful, Danes. How did Mulder know it would work?"

"He didn't, but he is a believer. And he taught me to believe."

"What a great partnership. How long have you been together now?"

"More than 20 years."

"Wow."

"Yeah, it's quite a time span. What kind of life are you living, Charlie? Do you have a significant other? Are you married?"

"Divorced. Twice."

"Children? Any nephews or nieces I don't know of?"

"No children, no. At least no biological ones. Carrie, my second wife, has two boys, and we get along pretty well. Once in a while, I take them to a football game or out for burgers. They're cool kids, but it seems I'm not made to be a family man. I'm not good at playing house. I definitely won't marry again. I'm living with someone though. Haley. She's 32, a free spirit, artist. She reminds me of Melissa at times. She's very open when it comes to addressing my flaws," he adds with a grin. "She's good for me."

"Sounds wonderful. It's good not to be alone."

"What about Mulder and you?"

"We're not living together at the moment."

"You already said that, but will you again? One day?"

"Maybe," she says, and with a little more emphasis, "probably."

"He seems like a good person. Quite different from what I've been told by Bill."

"How come Bill talked to you about Mulder?"

"Well, you're not going to like it, but uhm...he wanted me to help bring you to your senses. Back in the day. I think by now, he's given up on the endeavor to eliminate him from your life."

"Bill and Mulder have never really connected. Bill blamed him for dragging me into this dark world of his, into his quest of finding the truth. He completely neglected the fact that I was a grown woman who made her own choice when I decided to follow him. One day, his quest had become mine."

"And you had fallen in love," Charlie points out.

"It's a very long and very complicated story but yes, somewhere along the road we fell in love with each other. I think neither of us can pinpoint the exact moment when it happened, one day we simply found ourselves being in love. When you've found your perfect other, you don't let them walk out of your life just like that, even though not everything is always perfect."

"I like him."

"You do?"

"Yes, he seems kind and decent, and absolutely devoted to you. He guards you like a mother bear."

"He's always been very protective of me, unlike what Bill thinks."

"He was in the hospital with you. When mom died."

"He was. I received Bill's call at a crime scene and Mulder sent me to go see mom right away, saying he'd cover for me. He came to the hospital later. He knew I needed him. Apart from that, he liked mom and was worried about her. She liked him too. She liked him a lot. Her last words were to him. I guess she said them to both of us, but she was reaching out for Mulder and looked him in the eye when she said what she said."

"That she also had a son named William."

"Her last thoughts were of the two people that were lost to her - William and you. She loved you, Charlie, despite everything, and she needed to know you were alright before she was ready to go. As a mother, she never gave up on her child."

He's surprised about the warm feeling spreading inside. Maybe as a son, he also never gave up on his mother. Maybe even if the umbilical cord is cut there's an invisible bond between a mother and her child that never ceases to exist. He thought he had burnt all bridges behind him but that obviously wasn't true. He's glad he made that last phone call and talked to his mother. It not only gave her peace but also him. He missed the chance to make full amends with her, but maybe she'd known what their last-minute reconciliation would do for him. A mother always knows what's best for her child.

"But why did she tell you she also had a son named William? She should've known you were aware you had a brother with that name. It seems a little peculiar to me."

"I don’t think that was what she was trying to remind us of."

"Of what then?"

"That we, Mulder and I, have a son named William too."

"Huh? She thought you forgot that?"

"No. She knew we missed him every day of our lives. She wanted to tell us to never give up hope, to keep believing that we will reunite with him one day, just like she had reunited with you after so many years of separation."

"Well, reunited is probably too big a word. I spoke two sentences to her. She didn't even answer."

"She felt the connection re-established, Charlie. Your two sentences pulled her out of the coma. The fact that her prayer for you had been answered, that you had come, even if only through the speaker phone, gave her peace, and she wanted the same peace for us."

"Awesome. I never would've thought."

"It took me a while to figure it out myself. At first, I was confused and even a bit angry at her. I asked myself why she had to remind us of the child we had lost. What was the use of hurting us? Only days later I understood what she was trying to tell us."

"To look for him?"

"To always feel responsible for him. We are his parents, even though he's not living with us. Mulder and I created this life, and for as long as we live, our obligation is to assure he's safe and happy. If it means we have to stay away from him, so be it, that's what we have done the past 15 years, but maybe the day will come when we can dare to contact him. She told us to never stop hoping for this to finally happen."

"With saying she also had a son name William she put herself in your shoes."

"She acknowledged my motherhood, something I've had difficulties with since I gave him up. She always saw the mother in me, never the woman who gave her son away. I can't tell you what this means to me. Especially because she disapproved of my decision to give him up for adoption, and very strongly so. She loved William and didn't want to lose her grandson. I've been told many times by people who didn't know better that I would understand a certain situation better if only I was a mother. Working at the children's ward does that to you, it puts you in a situation where you have to talk to parents making tough choices for their sons and daughters. The choices I made for my children-"

Dana stops mid-sentence, takes a deep breath and bites her lower lip for a moment, then turns toward her brother. "Do you know that I had a daughter? A beautiful girl. Emily. Begotten with my ova, carried and given birth to by another woman."

Charlie nods. He has never fully understood the whole story of that girl's existence, but his mother, God bless her, had written him a letter back then giving him the news of how her first grandchild had entered her life so miraculously and then left it again within the blink of an eye. The letter even contained a picture of a little girl that looked so much like his sister it had taken his breath away, but he had been in a phase where a lot of things were going on in his own life, so he had never really allowed this story to get at him.

Dana's eyes become unfocused and she looks beyond her brother to an image only she can see. Charlie is aware that she hides the full depth of her pain. To her questioning look as how he'd come to the knowledge of that other child of hers, he only answers taciturnly "mom". A fleeting smile crosses Dana's face at the mentioning of her mother, then she takes on from where she left a moment ago. "I didn't know Emily existed until she was three years old. She was so terribly sick when I found her. There was no hope for a cure, and I decided to accompany her on her way of death instead of prolonging her suffering just to have her with me a little while longer." The last sentences come out in a staccato without drawing a single breath in between them as if this was the only way for her to be able to do it.

"Jesus, Dana, there's been so much suffering in your life, so much pain and loss."

His sister heaves a bitter chuckle. "Yeah, it seems that my adult life has been one long master class in death beginning with my choice to go into forensic pathology. Fate would've had it that I not only studied death but gathered a lot of personal experience to add to the scientific approach. God, there are so many deaths, one after another, it's almost difficult to put them in a chronological order." She squints her eyes for a second, then starts the morbid list. "Dad, Mulder's father, Melissa, Emily, Mulder's mother, Samantha, Mulder, the Gunmen, and almost myself now and then. Now I have to add mom to the list."

Some names don't make sense to Charlie, like Samantha and the Gunmen, and he asks himself how Mulder made it onto the list, but he won't dwell on it. There's no use in deepening the cuts in her heart. His sister is a textbook definition of a strong person but where is her breaking point? When would all this death be too much for her to take?

"Well, anyway," she shakes her head as if to push the thoughts about death out of her mind, "what I wanted to say was that the choices I made for my children left me at a point where I wasn't seeing myself as a mother anymore. All I felt I was, was being the biological origin of two human beings who lived, or had lived, their lives far away from me with other women raising them. Mom never saw it that way. Every Mother's Day she sent me two white lilies and a card, thanking me for the two grandchildren I gave her. In her eyes, I never ceased being a mother, and I'm so grateful she reminded me of it before she left us."

As a man, not even a father, Charlie can only try to imagine what it was like for his sister to lose two children, and, to make matters worse, under such unfortunate circumstances beyond her control. From the way she so fondly speaks of her emotions connected to her motherhood, he feels safe enough to ask her a question that has been on his mind for a while.

"How was he? My nephew?"

Dana's self-containment is gone for a moment. She sucks in her breath deeply through her nose while her eyes slide closed. Charlie already fears he's gone too far, but then a slight smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. When she opens her eyes, they are filled with tears, but they don't seem to be sad, rather dreamy.

"How was he? Let's see. Hmmm, he was such an easy baby. He didn't cry a lot, he was happy and satisfied most of the time. As difficult as the pregnancy and childbirth were, it didn't have any negative influence on him. He smiled mostly, ate and slept well. He would look at you with his big, curious eyes and melt your heart. He was a godsend for a first-time mother."

"Did he look a lot like you? Like a Scully? Bill's kids all looked so much like him when they were babies, I almost pitied them," Charlie deadpans.

"It's what nature intends. Fathers don't share a mother's certainty that a baby is theirs, so newborns resemble their fathers early on to assure men they invest their resources in their own offspring."

"So he resembled Mulder more than you?"

He can't stop himself from asking the trick question. So far, she has spoken of her partner's fatherhood only in casual half-sentences and Charlie wonders why. At this point, he's certain that no one else can be her son's father but Fox Mulder.

"Well, he had blue eyes like most babies have and only peach hair when he was born, but whenever I looked at his face I saw Mulder, especially after he had to leave us. William was all I had at a time I didn't even know if Mulder still lived." Leading her yet again to a sad chapter of her life story hadn't been his intention but she seems unfazed and Charlie doesn't even have to voice another question for her to continue and eventually answer his question. "When I picture him now, I see a mixture of the both of us: a lanky teenage boy with Mulder's brown unruly hair and my blue eyes. I hope he's been spared the red hair, I remember how Bill and you wrestled with the color of your hair as kids. And you're dying it now, I see." She rakes her fingers through her brother's hair with an amused smile on her face.

"I've tried more or less every single color, I can tell you as much. It was green for quite a while," he quips.

The information makes her laugh. It's a wholehearted laughter, taking a bit off the edges of their sad conversation. "Well, you were far away enough from home to be allowed to experiment. Imagine Bill with green hair. Dad would've been mad as hell."

Charlie joins in her laughter and they both can't hold it, they laugh until the tears stream down their cheeks. It's a good laughter which puts an end to the heavy talk and lets them both cherish their togetherness. This is how it used to be between them when they were kids, light and easy.

Dana and Charlie are both so absorbed that they startle when the back door opens with a creak and Mulder pops his head out.

"Sorry to interrupt but there's an Aunt Roberta on the phone who wants to pass on her condolences to you, Scully. She says she's a distant relative, the second daughter of your father's cousin or something like that. She asked me if I was the FBI agent with the funny name. What am I supposed to make of that?" Dana and Charlie look at each other and burst into hysterical laughter, much to Mulder's bewilderment. "Well, I'm glad to see you're having fun," he growls with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Sorry for that, Foxxx," Charlie says, stretching his name for emphasis and gritting his teeth at the same time in order to keep himself from laughing. He gets up and puts a hand on the taller man's shoulder. "I'll talk to her."

After Charlie has vanished into the house, Mulder takes the now empty spot next to his partner and mumbles under his breath, "agent with the funny name...moi?"

She also tries to suppress a grin but is only half successful. "There's obviously been some talking about us within my family and Aunt Roberta has been adding her own anecdotal details to the stories."

"Anecdotal details, I see. Well, as long as she calls me funny and not spooky, I shouldn't complain."

"I never thought you were spooky, Mulder."

"Not even when we first met and I showed you the slides to our first case?"

"No."

"I can't quite believe that, Scully. Everybody thought I was spooky."

"First of all, I'm not everybody...." Mulder smiles consentingly, "second, I thought you were nuts when we first met."

"Ouch." Mulder's face contorts in feigned hurt for a second before he shoots back, "and I thought you'd last a week maximum. I guess we've both changed our minds."

"Who said I have?" she deadpans.

"Funny. Very funny, Scully." Mulder's face is empty now, whereas Dana's lightens up upon their banter.

Inside the house, Charlie isn't listening very closely to what Aunt Roberta is saying. He tries to follow the interaction outside on the porch and strains his ears to get at least some of the conversation. Casually, he tells her now, "stop calling him that, Aunt Roberta. His name is Fox, and forget what you've been told about him, he's a good person." It only takes his aunt, who's probably a second or third cousin or actually not a real relative at all, a brief moment to process this new information before she showers Charlie with more questions he chooses to ignore. His attention is again directed outside when he hears Dana and Mulder resume their conversation after a few moments of silence. He takes the receiver away from his ear to be able to follow what's being said outside.

"Did you two have a good conversation?" Mulder asks

"Hmm, yes, we did. A long overdue conversation, but a good one. I lost my mother, but I got my brother back."

Charlie's heart swells.

"That's good, Scully. I'm happy for you. He seems like a nice guy."

"He said the same about you."

"Seriously? Should there really exist a male Scully on this planet who doesn't hate me?"

Instead of commenting, Dana places a gentle kiss on Mulder's cheek. It elicits a delighted smile from the man who in Charlie's head had been an ego-driven, reckless, unhinged sorry son of a bitch destroying his sister's career in his stubborn pursuit to find little green men until he was able to form a view of his own on the infamous Fox Mulder meeting him personally today for the first time.

"What was that for?" Mulder asks, obviously surprised by Dana's gesture of affection.

"For helping me through this, Mulder. For being my friend."

"Anytime, Scully."

"Yes, I know. That's what I mean."

Charlie watches his sister lean into her partner, and he can see that he is so much more than just an FBI partner - with or without a funny name. She puts her head on his shoulder and he pulls her closer with one of his long arms. What a cute couple, Charlie thinks. This is how she's been able to survive all this, with Mulder at her side. That she'd been taken care of by this man while he had been absent from her life makes it a little easier for Charlie to come to terms with what he'd done wrong. He smiles and puts his ear back to the receiver, his eyes still locked on the display of human compassion and love outside.

"Pardon, Aunt Roberta? The connection is a little wonky. What did you just say?"

He listens to her babbling some more and doesn't deem it worthy to interrupt her flood of words, but then she asks him something meaningful and he's happy to give her an honest answer.

"Yes, it definitely was the right decision to come back."

#dana scully #charles scully #fox mulder

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kdenbibi · 7 years

Text

Endless Chapter 2 Damian Wayne x reader (x various)

Summary: You just wanna relax but evidently, two costumed asshats have other plans- also you make a new friend!

Warnings: Cursing, Damian Wayne’s attitude

Authors note: I love Jon Kent with all my heart that is all bye. -Admin A

The rest of Monday was uneventful, after the fiasco at lunch, the principal deemed the attack good enough to warrant the rest of the week off. I originally planned to spend this newly obtained free time at Dana’s or get some extra hours in at the library but no, of course the one time we get any sort of off day the spandex junkies decide to pay me a visit.

After about an hour of reassuring my mom I was in fact alive and well, I managed to sneek away to my sacred place, I wrapped myself in a thick hoodie, hood up, with the strings pulled tight to trap in the maximum amount of warmth, sure I looked like a cone head but damn was I comfortable, I plopped myself on the chair I managed to get up there and cracked open the Dr.Pepper I snagged from my mom’s stash, I figured today more than ever I earned some relaxation time. Just as a sigh of contentment left my lips a cough caught my attention. There in the far corner of the roof stood a looming figure, cape flapping in the wind, the moon illuminating their figure in the most dramatic of fashion. “(Y/n) (L/n), we need to talk.” A mechanically altered voice called out raising every hair on my body. I let a moment of understanding pass before swallowing, standing straight up I nodded “Yeah okay, sure- mysterious stranger who knows my whole ass name, let’s settle down for a nice chat.” They slowly took a step closer seemingly satisfied with my response, they were still too hidden by shadows to properly identify but knowing who they were was far from a priority. “It’s come to my attention you seem to be enhanced, how’d you get your powers?” I mirrored their earlier action and took a step forward, “Oh hilarious story, see one day I was walking down the street and-” I interrupted myself throwing the soda can a hard as I could in the spot I imagined their face would be. With a satisfying ‘thunk’ I made a break for the door, my fingertips barely brushed the cold handle when a- well when a something whooshed through the air, before wrapping itself around my ankles. My body hit the floor with an ungraceful ‘oof’ and before I knew it heavy footsteps marched their way to my crumpled form. What I assume was a foot gently rolled me on my back before the figure leaned down. “Oh you’re definitely hiding something.” I tried to scoot away the figures face still shrouded in shadows making the experience all the more terrifying. I closed my eyes, trying to will the light to tell me what to do, after all I didn’t wanna die up here, when I reopened my eyes the person had changed positions, his face now somewhat illuminated, enough so I could see the iconic domino mask peering down on me. “Wait a sec- your that sparrow kid right?” He made a 'tsk’ noise “It’s Robin, and you don’t get to ask questions until you answer mine.” A glimmer caught my eye, the foot closest to me? 'oh come the fuck on I don’t wanna piss this guy off.’ I thought, this stupid light was trying to get me killed.

It seemed to grow brighter in response to my questioning, I rolled my eyes before grabbing his ankle and yanking as hard as I could, he hit the floor in surprise before rolling over, sitting on my stomach and pinning my hands with a growl. “At least by a girl some dinner before you get into the kinky stuff.” Without seeing his eyes I could feel the vicious eye roll he gave me, with a scoffing sound the pressure on my wrists increased. “You’re pissing me off, answer the question.” He demanded, I winced, trying to thrash from his hold but it was like iron- Jesus what did this kid do for fun? Lift cars? Bench press grown men?

I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of answering me, after all who the fuck sneaks on someones roof, and demands answers like they own the place, the longer I thought about the more angry I got, I tried to use the light again, but it just surrounded the strangers body, for once I was clueless on what to do, wiggling wasn’t helping the situation, and that was my only option. I groaned in frustration, I hated feeling helpless, I refused to be helpless. I panted relaxing my body as a warm feeling spread throughout my body. “What are you doing? Stop whatever that is- now!” Before I realized it the building pressure and heat released, like a cannonball his weight was suddenly gone. I opened my eyes just in time to see his body mid air before crashing into the fence opposite to me.

Okay so that was definitely new.

After the temporary shock I scrambled to untie my feet, I jumped up just in time to dodge something he without a doubt threw. “You’re coming with me, one way or another.” I jumped behind my beloved chair, and unable to stop my remark. “What kinda line was that you discount bond villain!” He smirked before pulling three more of the stupid projectiles from somewhere on his body. “This won’t kill you but it’s gonna hurt.” Almost in slow motion I watched them spin in the air, headed for different parts of my body, ready to make me a pincushion, when a body swooped- I kid you not, swopped in and blocked them. The dark figure rose- 'Jesus Joseph and Mary why is there another one?!’ This one was taller, decked out in a black body suit complete with a blue bird thing on his chest. 'What’s with these guys a birds?’ I thought peaking over my chair, the new guy casually strolled up to Robin, before giving him a good smack upside the head. “So this is where you disappeared to.” He spoke now leaning on the shorter male like he was a desk. Robin swatted the new male off his shoulder. “I’m investigating the possibility of a new meta. Go do something with yourself.” He tried to wave him off with a 'shoo’ motion.

The stranger made a 'hmm’ noise before swiping down and getting the fallen weapons. “Investigating huh, interesting way of getting your information.” Robin grumbled something under his breath snatching the weapons and putting them back wherever he found them. Blue boy shook his head, a sigh leaving his lips before he turned to me. “Hey there!” “Uhm, hello?” I asked, he made his way over, stopping close enough for me to make out a smile stretched across his face, but far away enough not to make me bolt which I very much wanted to do. “I’m real sorry about him, he’s new. I’m Nightwing, are you alright?” His voice was really calming, I tried to unravel the knots of adrenaline in my stomach before I answered.

“Oh yeah I’m peachy, I love being threatened by Gremlins- my favorite pastime really.” Nightwing snorted, comically scratching the back of his neck. “We’re definitely gonna have to work on that- look I know you’ve been through a- uh stressful evening so we won’t take up much more of your time.” I nodded waiting for him to continue. “You know how it’s our job to protect the public from any kinda danger right? Well it’s also it’s our job to investigate any potential threats, aka people who pop up with any interesting abilities.” I chewed the nail of my thumb out of habit. “I don’t- look all I wanna do is graduate with a high GPA and get into a college in a town that doesn’t get destroyed every few years. I don’t want-” I gestured to the two hero’s with a wave of my hand. “-whatever all that is. No offense but I think you guys got it all covered.” He nodded, still holding a smile on his face, “The world- the way things are, needs all the help it can get.” He finished his little speech with a tentative step towards me before reaching out his hand, a card with nothing but a number laid in his outstretched palm. 'where on earth was he hiding that?’ I shook away my useless thought and grabbed the card. “You’re a good kid, I’m not worried about you but just in case you change your mind.” I couldn’t help the snort that fell from my mouth. “Did you just- y'all have business cards now?” He laughed, and with a shrug made his way to the edge of the building where the Gremlin had been brooding our entire conversation. “I’ll see you soon kid.” He flipped over the edge with a wave, Robin waited a moment, making sure to send me a glare, I stuck my tongue out at him just as he disappeared from sight. I looked at the crisp card in my hand, I toyed with the edges with a small scoff. Thinking of the kinder man’s last words I shoved it in the pocket of my hoodie.

“Doubt it.”

I spent the next few free days thinking of what he offered and trying to move things around my room, for the life of me I couldn’t recreate what happened before with that bird boy. Usually the light only showed up when I was in trouble and told me what to do like a video game tutorial, it had never physically acted before, and I’m not weak but I sure as hell couldn’t have lifted that dude off of me let alone throw him half way across the roof. Another thing that bugged me was the fact that he knew, I kept this shit on lockdown, only a few people in my life actually knew what I could do, my mother (obviously), my Grandma and my best friend Dana, I could show up on any of their doorsteps with a body and they’d help me hide it no questions asked, they were loyal to a fault and I trusted them with my life, no way they blabbed to the bird duo, so someone had to have watched me, but I was always careful if I had to use it in public. I groaned, sliding a hand down my face, even my scared roof top couldn’t cure my frustrations, my eyes would always be drawn to the spot they stood, they knew things about me. Total strangers knew an uncomfortable amount of information about me, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Which lead me to now, it was Friday afternoon and work let out early giving me a free schedule for a few hours. Usually I’d bother Dana but she had tutoring today, so here I was wandering the streets not really sure what I was looking for. After two whole Spotify playlists had ended, I found myself up on the docks, the murky water bringing a sense of rest for my scrambled thoughts. I smiled letting the bitter smell of saltwater calm me, after a while of letting the crashing waves lull me into a state of relaxation, I began walking on the pier, occasionally passing the little binocular machines pointed at Metropolis. They costed about a quarter, and at first I couldn’t understand why you’d spend money to just look at a city but the longer I stood there and people watched I realized why they might be doing it, I could see why it be fun to look it was pretty funny how opposite the sister city’s were, Gotham- yeesh do I even have to describe it? Look at our city’s mascot, he’s fucking terrifying.

Metropolis on the other hand, man was that city golden, it seemed like nature divided the two areas completely, all blue skies there, and here? I looked up to see a pool of grays above me.

Yep, polar opposites.

I laughed popping a quarter in the binoculars, sure their city was golden and their hero was- well come on it was Superman, but still, I don’t think I could leave Gotham, this city had soul, the people- most of them for that matter- were wonderful, they’d been through hell and back and still helped pick each other up.

Gotham had character, an extra oompf ya know? Pulling away I noticed the ferry that traveled back and forth between the sister city’s arrive, I felt a familiar pull leading me to the boat, I’d never seen the golden city in person and I did have a free afternoon. With a smile I shot a quick text to my mom and bought myself a ticket.

After snagging a donut and grabbing a free seat, I peacefully sat listening to music, and before I knew it I was walking off the wobbly ramp and into the people packed streets of Metropolis. I realized quickly that I was dressed for Gotham weather and shrugged off my school hoodie throwing it in my bag, I thanked the stars I dressed okay instead of the usual joggers and oversized long sleeves. I walked in a random direction looking for an adventure. Alright that’s a lie I’m looking for food, problem was every restaurant I passed was either packed or had a line out the door and the chaos of people was the opposite of what I needed. I followed a random street till I stumbled in a hole in the wall ramen restaurant, there were very few people inside which only further drew my interest. I sat down at a booth, looking over the menu, problem with spontaneous food adventures was you never knew what to get. I stared at the worn down menu for what felt like hours when someone tapped my shoulder catching me off guard. Damnit that keeps happening. I peeked over the menu with an uneasy smile, I did not do well with attractive people my brain got all jumbled. “Yes?” “I’m sorry to bother you miss but you seemed to be struggling with the menu.” Heat instantaneously found its way up my neck. ’ I’m a whole ass idiot- oh no he thinks you’re stupid aHH-’ I cleared my throat pausing my mental panic before nodding. “Was it that obvious?” He smiled sympathetically, shaking his hand in a 'eh’ motion. “Maybe just a little.” I handed him the menu. “Alright mysterious stranger, what would you recommend?” “Miso is always a safe option! But depending on what you like you could add different flavors or toppings this place has the best ramen hands down.” He talked a mile a minute but damn was he cute when he did it. “This actually may take longer to explain than expected- may I?” He gestured to sit down, oddly hyped to explain the differences between broths and such, it was kind of adorable I gotta admit.

I nodded “I don’t see why not-help from a cute stranger doesn’t come along every day.” His face went red faster than I thought possible before he muttered a quiet “Oh my stars.” He cleared his throat and after a few minutes of his excited narrating he proceeded to help me narrow it down, if we’re being honest, I was too hungry to let him talk about food for another minute, so I picked a random number. “You sure know a lot about this place, do you work here?” “Oh no I’m just a regular.” After placing my order and buying a soda I was surprised to see he followed me back to my table. “Thanks for all the help, I woulda been here another hour trying to decide.” He smiled with a casual no problem, after a silent moment of staring he awkwardly laughed “I should probably stop standing here like some kinda creep- anyway have a good day miss.” For one reason or another I called out stopping him in his tracks. “I can’t properly thank my hero if I don’t know his name.” He smacked a hand against his forehead, nervously tugging on the strings of his jacket. “Gosh I’m sorry, it’s Jon! Jon Kent pleasure to meet you miss.” I laughed taking his outstretched hand, “You can drop the formalities kid I’m only seventeen, and my name’s (Y/n).” The grin had yet to leave his face. “So are you new to Metropolis? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here.” I sighed leaning against the table, lightly flicking the napkin dispenser a few inches away before replying. “Unfortunately I’m just visiting, I wanted to see what the hype was about. I’m from Gotham.” His smile got wider- somehow. He quickly slid back into his previous seat. All previous nerves seemingly evaporated. “No way! I’m actually moving there! Like soon! Really soon!” “Wait what? You’re leaving the golden city for the problem child city??” He leaned back tossing his hands behind his head. “Well yeah- I was actually born there! We moved here when I was like what, five?” He hummed drumming his fingers on the table. “This is actually my last day here, I wanted my favorite to celebrate.” He gestured to the small shop surrounding us. I nodded, his stupid little smile was contagious and I found myself grinning along. “Do you usually tell strangers your life story?” He leaned forward, puffing the dark hair from his eyes. “Well no, then again we’re not really strangers are we?.” I leaned closer, my brow raised “We’re not?” He shook his head with an almost offended look on his face. “Of course not, I helped you order ramen, that’s a bond for life.” He joked, I snorted into the can I was drinking before skeptically nodding. “Right- of course. How could I forget.” We shared a laugh before my food came, as soon as I laid eyes on the beautiful bowl I nearly forgot he was there, I chowed down, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. Fuck this is good. I came back into reality when he laughed, handing me a napkin. “Shit did I say that out loud?” He simply smiled in response. “Sorry I’ve been looking forward to this all day, I zone out when it comes to food.” “No harm done, this place is crazy good.” I inhaled a few more bites before the question popped up in my head. “Are you gonna attend Gotham academy by any chance?” His eyes perked up, “Yeah, how’d you know?” “Lucky guess.” He sat back, somewhat flabbergasted. “Wait do you go there??” “Indeed I do good man.” “Look at my luck, I’ll already have a friend- wait you wouldn’t mind hanging out at school would you? I mean I don’t wanna pressure you or anything-in fact let me shut up.” I couldn’t help the smile crawling on my face, the guy sure was cute when he rambled. “I don’t think you’ll have a hard time making friends- like at all, but fuck yeah dude we’re definitely hanging out. I can show you the best studying spots in the library- oh! And what extra classes are worth it.” After paying, our conversation continued, ranging from school to parents to what to expect living in Gotham. “By all means stay away from alleyways, avoid popular areas that usually where the bad guys like to commit their shenanigans uh- maybe carry some mace or something.” He laughed shaking his head. “Don’t worry about me I’ll be fine.” I flailed my arms in his general direction. “How can I not worry? I’ve known you a solid two hours and you’re pure, what’s the word I’m looking for- fluff.” His laugh was quickly becoming a fast favorite of mine. He raised a brow, questioningly mouthing the word 'fluff’ to himself.

“You’re a huge softie, they’ll eat you up if you’re not careful.” “I’m not too worried, especially with someone like you looking out for me.” He gently bumped my shoulders. “You are way too optimistic.” We laughed for a little while longer before my phone alerted me, the ferry was leaving soon so we headed in that direction, Jon refused to let me walk alone even though we both knew nothing would happen. As we made our way to the building we managed to swap numbers and I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. “What’s so funny?” He asked leaning against the railing as we waited for my boat. “It’s just pretty ironic, I came out here to laugh at how different from home Metropolis is and I ended up meeting Metropolis personified.” He tilted his head like a confused puppy. “I mean you’re all bright and happy and kinda beautiful in a totally not weird way.” He tried to look away, cheeks a'blazin. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack with all these compliments.” The sound of a unnecessarily loud boat horn stole out attention, shaking my head I made my way to the newly docked ferry boat. “Get used to it Kent!” I yelled over my shoulder with a wave.

He stared at the boat with a dreamy expression, his eyes following it until it was a tiny dot on a sea of blue. If he wasn’t sure before, the new friend he found seemed to confirm his thoughts.

'yeah, Gotham is gonna be great.’

#damian wayne #dc imagine #dc reader insert #poc reader #jon kent #superboy imagine #superboy #damian wayne x reader #poc imagine #dc #robin imagine #nightwing #dick grayson #endless

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greekowl87 · 6 years

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Ouch! list --> 10: panic attack 😉

10. Panic Attack

A/N: First off, sorry for getting to this so late. Hopefully, this turned out okay and a bit on the long side. It just kinda of kept…growing…and yeah. And inspired after the latest awesome MSR tidbit. Spooning is a thing. Sorry.

Mulder did not recall exactly when the panic attacks would occur. Most definitely after Samantha was taken. It plagued him as a teenager. He managed to redirect all his energy into his studies and swimming at Oxford before Phoebe Green came along. The panic attacks would only come in the dead of the night. After Quantico and during his stint in BSU, the panic attacks still came at night, not as often, but it also morphed into a weird insomnia that kept Mulder from completely losing himself to the monsters and the world he had to venture too. Diana was a reprieve, but she left too, and that was one of his worst panic attacks to memory. All he had was himself and his x-files down in his little dusty basement office where no one bothered him.

Until she came in.

Special Agent Doctor Dana Katherine Scully who rewrote Einstein as an undergrad and was determined to debunk him with her skeptical and scientific know how.

And that’s when, for the first time in his long memory, the panic attacks ceased. Until her abduction.

Full force. It struck him full force one night while he sat on the couch in his dark apartment when he had her files before him spread out on his coffee table. He clutched her gold cross that he now wore, pinching the small cross between his index finger and thumb, trying to imprint her on him somehow. He choked her name out in sorrow, as a lifeline, crying out for his partner and the woman he had unknowingly fallen in love with.

The darkness surrounded him, encroaching on the last light he had left in hope of her return, the panic attack growing like brewing storm ready to destroy what little sanity and hope he had left. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He kept his hand pressed to his chest, trying to imprint the cross against his upper sternum. The tears were threatening to appear, no, it was like a dam had broken and he was drowning, unable to breathe.

It was like that for weeks and then she was miraculously returned to him and her family. And the surprising thing? She did not leave. That’s when the frequency of the late-night-early-morning phone calls increased. She always answered. At first, he tried to keep it strictly work-related, but their calls began to grow more personal in nature.

And she was still there. With him

Then the Twin Cities. A death fetishist named Donnie Pfaster and his macabre obsessions. And his unfortunate partner, Scully, caught in his web.

Her petite five foot two partner is made of stronger stuff than he had ever seen. He helped her up from the corner, untying Scully’s ropes as she cast a wary eye as Pfaster was dragged away.

He needed to make sure she was in one piece. “Why don’t you sit down until someone can take a look at you?” he asked her softly.

Mulder’s heart ached as bleary blue eyes focus on a particular spot on his bedraggled tie.

“Mulder,” she began, taking a breath and slowly exhaling it. “I’m fine.”

Mulder recognized the tightness in her voice, the uncertainty that was ratching in her chest as her breathing became sharper and shallower. He knew what was coming. Hesitantly, as this was new territory, he crooked his finger and gently tilted her head upwards, bring her eyes to meet his.

Mulder knew the paralysis that the mind could wreak havoc, either from a panic attack or horrible trauma, which is what Scully experienced. Her control slipped and tears stream down her face. At a loss to do anything else, Scully had always been the strong one to chase away the demons. His panic attacks, with the exception of her abduction, had all but ceased. Mulder just simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. She kept her arms around her self at first, as if trying to keep everything physically inwards. Mulder kissed her hair, wordlessly urging her to open up, and as if answering his pleas, she coiled herself around Mulder’s tall form, burrowing beneath his large trench coat, and cried.

… .

“Mulder,” she said softly outside of her motel room. “I’m fine.”

“Scully,” he began, unable to find any other words.

He wanted to tell her how easily she fit into his arms. How she could feel safe with him. That is was okay to cry. That, in the coming hours, her shipwrecked emotions would show its ugly face again, and she would lose control. She would panic.

“Mulder, I’m fine,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, he thought.

“Scully, I just think–”

“I didn’t ask you, Mulder. Good night.”

Without another word, she shut the door in his face. He licked his lips and nodded to himself. He looked down at his feet and heard her click on the tv and start the shower beyond the locked door. He would leave their adjoining door open just in case, even cracking it. He would stay up for her, he would wait for forever if he had to.

… .

Scully saw the scrapes on her face and bright red-turning-purple bruises emerging over her pale skin on her back and side of her ribs as she tore. The adrenaline was finally wearing off and her brain was finally able to process the night. The fear. The uncertainty of her death. The fight or flight instinct kicking in. Mulder. At this point, her body was on autopilot and she had placed her self in the scalding water, as she absently began to scrub her skin roughly over the already injured skin, marking her pale body even worse in punishment (was it punishment?).

Scully stopped immediately. Her last thought was of Mulder. Him holding her. Protecting her. But Pfaster. Pfaster was there. Looming over her. He wasn’t a man. Wait. Demon. No wait. He was human. Pfaster was a human. He bleed. But he loomed over her, not a man, but something else. He was looming over her.

She was not in her bath in the seedy motel. No. She was back in that closest, trapped, and tied, her mouth gagged trying to scream.

The next thing she knew was that large, warm hands grabbed her flailing wrists, stilling her. “Scully! Scully!”

She looked wildly around the room and realized what was happening. The bright light of the bathroom blinded her and she focused on the warm, concerned hazel orbs of her partner’s eyes. “Mulder?” she whispered distantly. “What are you doing here?”

She looked wildly down, noticing her naked body. He immediately let her wrists go and turned his head, useless grabbing a towel and holding it out as he looked away. “Um, you were screaming.”

“I wasn’t. I would have remembered it.”

“You were.” He knew better than to recite spurting psychological analysis and profile her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her discretely stand and he winced when he glimpsed at the damage she took. “Um, I’m sorry. I’ll leave, Scully.”

She sighed, and wrapped the town around her small battered body and looked down at the draining water from the tub. When did she pull the plug? “No,” she sighed, “um, can you wait outside for me?”

“Sure. Do you, uh, want me to get you anything?”

She held the towel tightly around her and mumbled into it, “No thank you.”

“Just uh…”

“I’ll call your name.”

“Scully,” he paused, at the doorframe. “It’s okay to feel. I had…I had panic attacks for years after Sam was taken. It’s okay to feel.”

Scully kept her eyes closed, feeling tears, shattered into a million pieces completely abandoned. She imagined Mulder snaking his arms again around her, swallowing her whole, and shielding her from the evils of the world. And he did it all so selflessly. She raised her head and stared at the closed bathroom door.

Outside, in the bedroom, Mulder sat uncomfortably at the edge of the bed, flipping uselessly through the television as the antennas failed to provide any proper picture and instead gave the “ssssccchhhh” sound of garbled, empty air. Uselessly, he turned off the tv and saw Scully open the door wearing an oversized gray FBI tee shirt and loose sleeping pants. Her hair was damp, just like that first night in the graveyard. She watched him wearily as if she was debating on trusting him.

“I’m so used to keeping my emotions inwards,” she began softly. “You saw that when my father died. Your sympathy…” Scully caught herself. “You empathy…you genuinely cared for my well being.”

“Why wouldn’t I, Scully?”

She shrugged, keeping her arms around herself. She kicked at the stained red rug and walked cautiously towards him. “I’ve never…I’ve never been in a situation like that, Mulder. Completely helpless. Bound.” She shuddered and sat next to him at the far edge of the bed. “You said it was okay to feel. Did the panic attacks ever stop, Mulder?”

He leaned back on his hands thoughtfully. “Not until recently. There was a time about three months ago that they came back, worse than ever, but after about five weeks, they went away again.”

He gazed at the ceiling and then finally looked at her. She did the mental calculations and connected her abduction and return. The double-loaded meaning weighed heavily on her heart and she scooted closer to her partner. “What…uh…what happened?”

“A petite, arrogant doctor, proclaiming that science ruled all walked into the basement office and introduced herself with a handshake,” he said softly, letting the unsaid message linger between them.

Scully nodded. “Will you stay…just for tonight, of course?” She admitted after a long, painful pause.

“Just for tonight, of course. I’ll, uh, I’ll take the floor. Just let me grab a pillow and blanket from next door.” He moved to get up and she caught his hand and looked at her in surprise. “Scully?”

“Just…I want you close.”

“Whatever you want.”

Wordless, Mulder pulled back the blankets and she slipped in on the right side and Mulder laid down on the far edge of the left side of the bed. Quietly, she grabbed his hand and pulled his arm and body along like a blanket until he spooned quietly behind her. She sighed and turned out the light. The street lights danced in the shadows as he took a deep breath and kissed her temple. “Was it me, Mulder?”

“Yeah,” he confessed to the darkness, to her. “I don’t know why, but it was.”

Scully ‘hmmed’ and buried her face into the pillow. “Do you think I’ll heal, Mulder,” she asked in a rare moment of vulnerability.

“You’re the strongest person I know,” he whispered simply.

“Thank you,” she mumbled before drifting off to sleep.

#prompt #answered and asked #msr #xfiles #xf fanfic #msr fic #fox mulder #scully #msr ust #ust #txf #txf fic

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