#a lighting strike that makes him lose nine months of his life (where his family very dramatically did move on without him) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oldjane · 3 years

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So this friend of mine, whose tumblr handle I don’t even know, so Imma link to their ao3 profile instead, was going feral about some movie they saw, and about a JoeNicky AU for it, and I haven’t seen the movie, don’t even remember the name of it, but well.

Here is... Some AU (unedited).

“We have to get out of here!”

Nile’s panicked voice spurs him on. He is running to the dock, hoping the emergency pods are not too badly damaged by the ravage going on around them. Joe is half a step in front of him.

Nicky doesn’t know where everybody else is – most of the inhabitants got evacuated late yesterday afternoon, but there will still be dozens of people who didn’t make it onto the evac shuttles. Nobody expected disaster to strike quite so soon. Nicky knows pods have been leaving all day, but they thought they had at least two more days. There will be people trapped, families who are desperately trying to make it to the pods –

Nicky stops, tries to turn around, but Joe notices and grabs his wrist.

“Nicky, no! We need to go, now!”

“But there might be others, we should –”

“No!” Joe’s voice is sharp, and he tugs at Nicky’s arm desperately. “There is no time!”

His eyes are huge, and his curls stick to his sweaty temple. His shirt is dirty and there is a gash on his arm. It is a far cry from the cool and calm engineer who arrived almost three years ago, introducing himself to Nicky with a wink. But he is still the most handsome man Nicky ever saw.

He fell in love with Joe at that first wink, and somehow, Joe didn’t seem to mind Nicky being painfully shy and blushing fervently as he awkwardly managed to introduce himself. Over the next two months, Joe simultaneously managed to draw Nicky out of his shell and make himself a fixture in Nicky’s comfort zone. They’ve been the best of friends and Nicky kept his feelings firmly under lock, afraid of losing Joe completely.

“Come on, Nicky, please!”

Nicky throws one last look over his shoulder, and Joe almost dislocates Nicky’s shoulder, he is yanking his arm so wildly.

There is nothing Nicky can do, and so he follows Joe. He would follow Joe everywhere.

The dock is in complete disarray. A lot of the stations are empty, and Nicky is glad that so many people got out. The far side of the dock is completely destroyed, and some of the remaining pods seem too damaged to risk the journey.

Nile yells at them to hurry. They run to where she found a pod in a good state.

“I don’t know – I never used these things –”

She is trying to enter the correct code with hands that tremble terribly, and Nicky looks at Joe. Joe nods, and he covers Nile’s hand with his own.

“It’s really easy,” he shushes, and he turns her towards him while Nicky makes quick work of unlocking the pod and firing up the systems. He hears Joe talk to Nile, explain to her how the pods work, what will happen. His voice is soft and calm, and Nile sniffs away her tears as she nods.

Nicky’s heart could explode. Here is Joe, taking care of one of their friends, as if this is just another day and they are not minutes away from being completely wiped away.

Nile steps into the pod, and without hesitation, Nicky and Joe strap her in, as if they have done this a thousand times. Their hands brush. Nicky feels the usual combo of heart flutters and a sense of belonging whenever he and Joe touch, but there is no time for that. He keeps running the procedures, and Joe keeps talking to Nile.

“You will get to the surface, and we will be right behind you, okay? I promise we won’t leave you alone. A beacon signal will alert home base, it will be no longer than thirty minutes before the chopper picks us up. You can open the hatch as soon as this light comes on, okay?” He points to the clear indicator. “The systems are all working perfectly,” he continues, when Nicky reaches the final check. “Tell me what you have to do.”

“Enter my personal code and the take-off code – seven-nine-four, enter, three-nine-three. Then the green button. Close the hatch.” she says, sounding almost normal, ticking it off on her fingers. “When I get up, this light will come on and I open the hatch. You will be right behind me. The chopper will be there not long after.”

“Good,” Joe replies fondly. “You’ll be fine, Nile. Keep your eyes on the screen, the counter will start as soon as you take off. We will see you up there in fifteen minutes.”

As Joe reassures Nile one last time, Nicky scans the stations. They can’t go back to the main section anymore, they need to find undamaged pods here and they need to be fast. The warning signs for critically low oxygen levels have been blasting for at least twenty minutes now. They could run out any minute. But most stations are empty, and the pods that are still here are broken and rusty.

There. Nicky sees one, and as soon as Nile closes the hatch, he pulls Joe along.

He opens the pod, and he breathes out in relief when it reacts immediately. It seems to be functional, and he pushes Joe in, entering the launch key.

Joe goes along, strapping himself in.

“Leave it, Nicky, I can do this myself, get to a pod –”

Nicky knows exactly when Joe notices what Nicky already knew. He starts unstrapping, but Nicky is faster. He locks Joe’s chair in place, keeps working on the take-off checklist.

“Nicky, stop, we can find you one further along –”

“There is no time, Joe,” Nicky says calmly. “We will run out of oxygen in seconds.”

“Come in, then, I won’t leave you –”

“There is not enough oxygen for two, Joe, you know that.”

“We will breathe as little as possible, hold our breath, something! Nicky, they never even tested that stuff, we could –”

“We are not risking it, Joe. One of us has to make it up there alive for Nile. You promised her.”

Joe is frantic now.

“Not without you, Nicky, stop, please!”

He reaches for the touch screen, trying to override Nicky’s commands. Nicky slaps him full in the face, and Joe falls back in the chair, stunned. It gives Nicky just the seconds he needs to complete the final procedure. He knows Joe’s code, of course, they’ve been friends for years, and he doesn’t make a mistake. Then the same numbers Joe told Nile, seven-nine-four, enter, three-nine-three.

“Nicky, no,” Joe begs, and –

Nicky presses the green button, not looking at Joe, not listening to his pleas.

Nicky will die here. He will die, within the next minute, while Joe is travelling up, and –

Nicky grabs Joe’s face between his large hands. One cheek feels hot where Nicky slapped him, but he doesn’t pay attention to that.

He stares into Joe’s beautiful, beloved eyes, and he bends closer to press his lips on Joe’s.

It is too short, too chaste for three years of pining, but there is no time – a crash, close by, vibrates through the structure, and Nicky pulls back. Joe starts saying something, but Nicky shakes his head and closes the hatch, gently but determinedly.

He hears Joe’s voice, calling out for him, but then the pod is sealed hermetically. It takes off smoothly, and Nicky’s knees buckle.

***

The fifteen minutes before Joe reaches the surface are the longest and the shortest of his life.

He screams himself hoarse in fifteen minutes, he bangs his fists on the inside walls of the pod until his knuckles burst, and then he touches his lips, where Nicky’s were but the blink of an eye ago.

Almost three years of dreaming about Nicky’s kiss, and –

And now –

He curses himself. He should have known Nicky would make sure everybody else got out before him. He should have seen right through him, should have forced him to go first –

He should have told Nicky he was in love with him three years ago. He should have kissed that man every chance he got, because now he will not ever get to again.

He is too distracted to pay attention to the screen or the indicators, and only when a robotic voice announces he needs to open the hatch because oxygen is low, he mechanically unstraps and enters the correct code.

Nile is floating right by his side.

“Oh, thank God!” she says as soon as he stands up. “Your pod arrived but you didn’t open the hatch, I was freaking out here, I didn’t know if there was a problem or – wait.” She takes a look at Joe, and she cuts herself off.

Joe doesn’t know how he looks – his eyes feel puffy and tears are streaming over his cheeks and his hands are bloodied.

“Wait,” Nile says again, unsteady. “Your pod arrived at least five minutes ago. Why isn’t – where is Nicky?”

Joe can’t help himself. A fresh wave of tears springs to his eyes, and he screams to the heavens.

He wants to dive back into the water, swim down, every meter a meter closer to Nicky, until he drowns as close to Nicky as he’ll ever be again.

Nile gasps.

“Joe, Nicky – Nicky made it out, right?”

He doesn’t answer, just sobs, his lungs burning, his throat choked up.

Nile reaches her arms out for him in a futile gesture, since they are both confined to their pods, and anyway, hers are not the arms Joe wants around him right now.

“I am sorry,” he hears Nile whisper, but it doesn’t help either. It feels like nothing will ever help.

If you asked him two days ago, he would have said feeling the sun on his skin again would make him the happiest man ever – it would have been a lie, of course. Kissing Nicky would make him the happiest man ever, and he got to do that, and the sun is reflecting from the water, but nothing will ever make him happy again.

The water has exactly the same colour as Nicky’s eyes.

He should say something to Nile, praise her for making it up here, assure her they would be picked up any minute now, tell her he loves Nicky with all his heart – though she might have some inkling of that by now – but he cannot bring himself to do any of it.

Then he hears the rhythmic sounds of the helicopter blades, and he will be brought to home base, and he will be further away from Nicky than he ever has been since they met, and –

Nile is winched up first, and then Joe. Somebody is interrogating Nile when he is pulled into the chopper.

“Anybody else coming?” a rough voice asks, and Joe curls in upon himself on the floor as he shakes his head.

“We were the last people at the dock,” Nile says hesitantly, “The two of us and – and Nicky – but we were out of oxygen –”

“So we are still waiting for this Nicky then?” the pilot asks, and Nile looks at Joe.

Joe doesn’t answer, can’t speak, wants to get to the base and be left alone for a week – a month – maybe a lifetime.

“I – I don’t think so,” Nile says. “There were not many pods left, and most were damaged, and – and we’ve been up for ten minutes, and –”

She doesn’t finish, but everybody knows what she’s not saying. There was not enough oxygen left for ten minutes. Nicky isn’t coming.

“Sorry,” the first speaker says. “Let’s go, then,” he directs the pilot, and they swerve off. Joe stares to the window, to their floating pods. A boat will come by later, tomorrow or the day after, to retrieve the pods. Somewhere, miles below, is Nicky.

Did he suffer? Did he regret kissing Joe as he died all alone?

Another sobs wrecks through him, and Nile does pull him closer this time, and Joe buries his face against her shoulder as he cries his heart out.

And then suddenly a harsh beeping fills the cabin.

“What the –” the pilot mutters, and the other guy’s voice is hard.

“You said there was nobody else!”

Joe’s heart leaps into his throat.

Nile speaks up.

“We thought – we didn’t know –”

“Could be something else too,” the pilot mutters. “Let’s check.”

The chopper swerves again, and two dots appear as they get closer, but no –

There is a third pod there, and the beacon signal gets louder, almost deafening Joe.

“Joe – Joe, look,” Nile says, and Joe does.

The pod is battered and cracked, an older model by the looks of things. It’s a miracle it made it, any of these fractures look like they could tear the thing in two any second, and –

Nothing.

The hatch doesn’t open, and Joe dies a second time that day. Is it just an empty pod that managed to launch itself somehow?

They get closer, and still no sign of life. The diver is winched down, and he pries open the hatch so agonizingly slowly.

Then they hear his voice through his comms system.

“There is someone in here. Male, unconscious. Twenty-five, thirty, maybe. Brown hair.”

“That your friend?” the pilot asks.

“Yes, maybe,” Nile says, hope dripping from every syllable.

“Older model pod,” the diver continues. “Takes longer to come up. Amazed it even got here, seems to have not been maintained in years.”

The winching up is silent, and it seems to take so much longer than when it was Joe hanging there. Every second is a lifetime.

“He has a mole on his chin,” the diver then says, and Joe doesn’t believe his ears, asks Nile to repeat, but she just hugs him, laughing and crying at the same time.

“It’s Nicky, Joe! It’s him! He made it.”

And then the diver is pulling him in, and it’s Nicky, and he is breathing, and Joe is sobbing again, from joy this time.

The diver puts an oxygen mask on Nicky, and Joe crawls over, cradles Nicky close, kisses his jaw, his hair, his hand.

He’s gonna do that for a long time, if Nicky allows him to. As soon as Nicky wakes up, he will tell him he has loved him since he first saw him, competently bandaging up somebody who had fallen off a ladder, setting a broken bone and wrapping up a deep wound on their temple. He had been talking softly the whole time, reassuring the woman it would be fine, distracting her from the pain, and at the same time managing to keep the woman’s young child calm. He’d been so effortlessly competent and kind and so damn attractive. Joe had introduced himself and Nicky had been adorably shy, and Joe had been hopelessly lost.

And then he’d wasted three years.

And he’ll be damned if he wastes another second.

Nicky opens his eyes, and blinks. Joe smiles, but he must look a freight. And yet, Nicky pulls off the mask, and he mouths Joe’s name, though no sound comes out.

“Nicky,” Joe stutters, and then he decides talking is overrated.

He softly, gently lays his hands on Nicky’s face. He stares into Nicky’s beautiful, beloved eyes, and he bends closer to press his lips on Nicky’s.

There is nothing short about it. They have three years to make up for, and the rest of their life to do it.

#I write things #The Old Guard #JoeNicky #Kaysanova #fanfic

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cowboyified · 3 years

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Below are some WIPs I’m releasing into the wild. They were all written at different times over the past two years so any mistakes/cliches you can blame on past June, I don’t know them.

Go, be free.

This first one I think is the one I’m most fond of. I had such a vision for it; bottlecaps in trees, river swimming, making out against the fridge, all that good stuff you get with weecest.

The summer Sam is seventeen they stay in one place for long enough Dean starts referring to it as ‘home’.

It’s an old farmhouse, miles from any other structure, bar an outhouse and hay shed. There’s a porch running the length of the front and back, the wooden boards pulled up from their nails, wavy with the weather. Weatherboard paint peeling, wallpaper inside torn and missing in most places.

They’re squatting, technically. The property owned by a family saved by hunters once, friends of friends of Bobby’s, too distraught by what they’d witnessed to raise their kids on cursed land. Dean had told Sam that Dad had been told by Bobby that had been told by Pastor Jim that it was chupacabras. A whole pack of ‘em, feeding off the lambs in the back paddock, tried to take a bite out of the baby girl and Sam had said, “As if man, those things are tiny, I’ve seen pictures, you could kick one and it would limp away like a fucking chihuaha, you scared of chihuahas, huh, Dean?” But Sam still hikes his sheet up under his chin when he hears scuffling under their window between sleep.

There’s remnants of the house’s past inhabitants still scattered around the place. Sam had stood and slid two inches on the wheels of a tiny replica car that had been jammed under the couch the second day they arrived, piffed it at his brother’s head, who’d caught it, exclaimed that it was Camero, dude, treat her with some respect and had sat it on top of the fridge.

The bookshelf in the corner of their shared bedroom holds mostly dust and tattered occult books stolen from libraries from all over the country, left by hunters who have found what they’ve needed and moved on. There are a few of the worst Stephen King novels shoved haphazardly on the top shelf and Sam finds something funny in that, the irony in enjoying bad horror when the real deal lurks behind the screen door.

Dean gives him a look when Sam pulls down and cracks open a copy of The Tommyknockers, snorts, “Haven’t you read that one already?�� and Sam says, tucking himself into bed, “Yeah, it fucking sucks, King was royally off his head while writing it, that’s why it’s so good.” Sam finishes three quarters of it in one sitting while listening to Dean’s quiet snores from the other side of the room.

It’s a ten minute drive to the closest town, an off the highway, invisible to the outside world, kind of one-street community. No reason to take the exit if you don’t already know it’s there, one store, one gas station, one bar in an old brick post office building, unfitting, the carpet pulled up at the corners but home to the best fries Sam has ever had in his life.

Sam follows Dean out to the courtyard, neither of them are legally old enough to drink but there’s nothing else to do but to get respectably drunk in a place like this, anyone that has lived long enough in the true country is some kind of functioning alcoholic, so Dean orders a beer and isn’t asked for ID. In a town small enough for everyone to know every intricate detail in the threads of dirty laundry, they are foreigners. No one knows where they’re from or where they’re going and Sam knows that Dean likes it that way.

It’s never been a secret that Sam prefers to feel like he has a part in everyday normalcy. Dean thrives under anonymity, gets a kick out of it because it makes him feel dangerous. He had stopped accompanying Sam to school two states ago, a silent agreement with their father when Dean had come home early and helped John cut splits into the tips of bullets instead. Like hell I’m signing up for compulsory extra curricular activities. What’s the point in making friends with people whose biggest concerns are the answers to whatever bullshit test and who fucked who last Friday?

Finding comfort in a nine-to-five kind of community is a flaw Sam’s been burdened to deal with.

It’s early afternoon, the courtyard is empty and the table they chose rocks on its legs every time Dean slides his drink over for Sam to share. It’s bitter and Sam hasn’t had enough beer in his life to know if it’s supposed to be like that or if it has just soured from the long journey it took to get from the brewery to their glass. He drinks it and doesn’t grimace because his brother is looking at him through the rays of warm country sun.

“Tastes like piss, huh,” Dean says, leaning forward out of the light so Sam can see him clearly again. He takes back the glass.

“S’not that bad,” Sam replies, rubbing the leftover condensation into his hand, doesn’t look at Dean, finds it hard these days, twists in his gut all wrong. Sam knows why.

His brother hums, “There’s gotta be something else to do around here.”

Sam thinks, Dad’s left the car, we can go wherever we want, but doesn’t say it because his brother is loyal to a disastrous fault.

That’s a recurring thought. Sam in the shotgun seat, his brother behind the wheel, driving away. Just away, to someplace else and they’d be okay because they’d have each other and all Sam ever needs is his brother, like water. But John will be back in two weeks, term starts again in a month and he needs his father to sign the enrollment forms. Two more years.

“You see the old dredge outside of town?” Sam asks, remembers passing it when they arrived, all twisted, rusting metal, the bones of it against the setting sun.

“What did I tell you about respecting your elders?”

“You told me that they all smell like porridge and are easily susceptible to sleight of hand. No, Dean, Dredge,” Sam stresses. “Big rusty old machine that pulls minerals out of water.”

“Looking to strike big, Sammy?”

“Yeah, you see, my family is poor, brother at home too dumb to get a job. Our father went to get milk and never came back,” Sam sniffs for effect. “I can’t go home empty handed again, sir.”

“Ah, a real sob story,” Dean nods in understanding, tips his head back and finishes the beer. “Let’s get out there then, sonny. We shan't let that simpleton, downright fool of a brother go hungry.” Dean jabs Sam in the ribs when he stands, hard enough for him to gasp, gets Sam’s head under his arm before he can recover. Sam claws embarrassingly at his brother’s torso, face pressed warm into the side of Dean’s waist.

“I will pray for us young Samuel, for I too, dream of riches,” his brother is exclaiming, tripping them out and onto the street. “I only ask that we share whatever bounty dredged as I saw the most exquisite pony a few miles back and I simply must have it.”

And Sam thinks - with his flushed cheek hard against Dean’s skin through the thin sweaty fabric of his shirt, heart beating too fast against his ribs in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion - you can have it all.

---

Sam’s brother’s perpetual state of being is ten miles over the speed limit; this can be applied to almost every aspect of him. Dean goes and goes and rarely stops. They’re pushing double that out of town, north of their property, into the forever stretch of flat land and Sam loses himself in it. That idea of away, of going and going and that Dean could take him because he’s an expert in the field.

The Impala blasts Born To Be Wild and Sam imagines the lyrics spreading out over the dry grass. He rolls the window down and throws his head out, trying his best to keep his eyes open against the road’s wind. The sun beats down, warmth soaking through and into his bones and Sam laughs as the cattle turn to catch a glimpse of them soaring.

Dean pulls him in, tugs at the back of his shirt, says something along the lines of, what are you, a dog? Should get you a shock collar for all the times you’re a little bitch, but Sam can’t hear him over the roaring of the open window and the look of transparent glee on Dean’s face, it’s loud and assaulting and Sam has to turn away because seeing Dean like that wobbles him dangerously from the nonchalant facade he has going on in relation to how he feels about his brother. But mostly his face hurts from smiling too wide.

Used as a warm up last year. Boyking!Sam

He thinks he’s in Louisiana, maybe. That he got here in the tray of a pickup and that he couldn’t feel the wind in his hair like maybe he should. The driver had stopped for a piss-break and Sam had snapped his neck without his hands.

He rubs them together now, tries to feel guilty but there’s nothing to feel guilty about because his hands are clean; he doesn’t have to use them anymore.

Sam thinks he’s in Louisiana because he stepped out of the truck and into a wet kind of heat. There’s a church with thick greenery growing over the roof and white wood that’s been mold-blackened by the humidity. He laughs to the darkness because it's very funny to him that he’s driven himself subconsciously to a place of grace.

He skips up the steps, two at a time, gleefully. The smell of the bayou and rotting wood has put him in a good mood. The lock snaps when he blinks, the chain unraveling and snaking into a coil at his feet. The doors open for him and maybe he did that with his mind too, or maybe they were just expecting him.

The church has been used recently, its interior better kept than the outside, bibles tucked neatly in the backs of pews, ribbons tied into plaits. The white of the moon falls in blankets through the windows, shadows of leaves moving over the floor like rippling water and the bust of Mother Mary prays for him at the altar.

Sam spreads his arms and addresses her, says to the room at large, “Shall I repent for my sins, oh Lord?” and it echoes, gives him goosebumps, a current under his skin. He has an audience here because God is omnipresent, this is a place of worship and Sam has always been good at that.

A church in Louisiana, standing before a plaster of his mother’s namesake in a church for a God he used to think could have some defying factor in a destiny that was always going to be concrete. It’s funny, blatantly. Sam puts his hands gently to Mary’s cold face, kisses her on her lips before crushing her head, spraying ceramic.

Sam stands behind the lectern, hands red with his own blood now, sticking the pages of the Good Book. He’s read it before anyway.

“Am I to be forgiven?”

Last is a casefic I had planned out in 2019. I didn’t get very far into the actual writing part of it, but I still think the setting is cool, less so the plot I had in mind.

Just outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut there’s a community built on a sandbar. A small secluded semi-island, connected to the mainland by a mile-long beachfront. A town of forty to fifty now abandoned, vandalised residences.

The police find the bodies of the boys there, bleeding out and into the sand, each other’s skin caught under their fingernails.

Sam watches as his brother pulls the sheet back from one of the corpses, laying blue on the steel morgue tray. He’s a kid, a boy, not even eighteen. Hairless, lanky, multiple stab wounds puckered around his belly and Sam thinks he does not look peaceful for someone who is meant to be at rest.

Dean is quieter than usual, his body language stiff. They’ve seen their fair share of dead kids but Sam thinks that this one might look a little too much like an adolescent version of himself. Shaggy brown hair, too long limbs, college on the horizon. Sam blankets the sheet back over the boy’s face and hears his brother exhale in what he thinks might be relief.

The coroner tells them that the other two are the same, besides the youngest one. He’d been blinded, thumbs pushed through his eyes until they popped like grapes. He asks if they want to see him too and Sam says no, thank you, we’ve got what we need.

Which is a whole lot of nothing, but they’ve only just arrived and there’s evidence that doesn’t involve corpses that needs to be checked.

“Pussied out in there huh, Sammy?” Dean says as they’re walking down the funeral home’s front steps, past the manicured roses and trimmed lawn. You see these perfect hedges? We’ll treat your dead mother with the same detailed care!

Sam pulls at his tie and scoffs because he knows he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable standing in the morgue; cases that involve kids always rub them both wrong.

#wip dump #wincest #my words

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arty-e · 4 years

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Alfonso’s Story Part 1

TW: Child death, Death, Disease, Plague + Blood

Alfonso was the adoptive son of Princess Matilda Espadas and Lady Iris Romero ( daughter of Three of Spades). His mothers had been banished from Matilda’s family’s court after they had eloped against Matilda’s parents wishes who had already arranged a marriage for her. Alfonso was adopted by the two after his biological grandmother had passed away when he was four. She had been a servant working for the banished couple. The three of them lived contently in their banishment until Alfonso was nine, Matilda’s parents requested for her and her family to return to their court as they wanted to meet their grandson and have Matilda as their heir once again (they only had one child and they always knew they’d call her back and be their heir). Alfonso was quickly thrown into Royal life and high expectations were suddenly pushed upon him something his mothers had never really pushed upon him:

Spades, in recent centuries, had shut itself from the rest of Cards in order to protect themselves and the knowledge they had collected over the many millennia (they had the largest archive in all of Cards). However the Isolationism had lead to the kingdom to breaking apart as it was stuck with itself and it’s issues. Matilda’s parents suffered with rebellion after rebellion through out their reign and it did not let up during her and Iris’s. Matilda was not merciful on those who took arms against her and hers, unlike her parents who tried to strike deals and be merciful for those who rose up against them. Most of the rebellions during Matilda’s reign were dealt with swiftly and quickly and squashed faster than her parents. She was rarely merciful and often had the majority of those who rose up against her executed:

A few years into Matilda’s reign, in the Spades of Five region a clearly growing rebel force began to build up it’s forces however the Five of Spades refused to ‘sort them out’ as the family felt ignored by the Royals and weren’t being given the same respect as the other Nobles. Matilda was prepared to treat the Fives the same as the rebels however Iris convinced her to take a more pragmatic and peaceful approach. They sent Alfonso to talk to the Five of Spades and convince them to sort out the rebels. While there Alfonso met the Five of Spades daughter, Isabella:

Alfonso and Isabella took a shine to one another in an instance. During Alfonso’s time at the Five of Spades home he took every opportunity to talk with Isabella which convinced her family enough to sort out the rebels. Alfonso returned to capital of Spades (Mooreport) but he stayed in contact with her, writing to her constantly and sending her gifts. Finally Alfonso requested for his mothers’ permission to marry Isabella which they agreed to though Matilda was somewhat against it as she was still annoyed with the Five of Spades ignoring their duties, Iris however was very happy for their son and encouraged him to go after Isabella. Alfonso and Isabella were married:

Isabella and Alfonso soon had their first child, Alfonso, or Alfie as they liked to call him. While Alfonso was happy with his new family Spades had been suffering with an outbreak of the Snowflake disease that had ravaged the kingdom for many years. However late into Matilda and Iris’ reign a big surge occurred and it began to kill off a lot of the Spade population; including Consort Iris. Her death had been a huge blow to Matilda who struggled to accept her wife was gone:

As Matilda grieved Alfonso did his best to keep his last remaining parent afloat but she made it very difficult for him as she stopped taking care of herself and trying to be the King of Spades. She soon followed Iris to the grave and Alfonso and Isabella were made the King and Queen of Spades. Alfonso was heartbroken from losing both his mothers to the same disease within a year of each other:

A few years after Matilda’s death Alfonso and Isabella had their second child, Michael who they adored just as much as they adored their eldest. Alfonso spent as much time as he could playing with them. Alfonso did his best to stop the spread of Snowflake disease, more than his mother or any of his predecessors ever did. But it still didn’t stop his children from getting it. When Alfie was 5 and Michael was 1 they caught the Snowflake disease. Alfonso and Isabella did everything hey could to help their sons, calling for doctors and healers from all over Spades anybody who could save them. The young princes died a few months after catching the disease leaving both Isabella and Alfonso destroyed:

Alfonso did his best to preoccupy his mind from his grief by focusing his mind on his kingdom and how to improve it. Though the rebellions were less frequent in his reign thanks to his mother’s scaring most of their people into submission, they were still about and the people of Spades were clearly unhappy. He addressed all the immediate problems that he could deal with at the time. He heavily focused on limiting the spread of the Snowflake disease and he succeeded after several years of trying. He also opened up the boarders to spades feeling that the isolationism that Spades had put itself in went against their ideology of learning, he felt it prevented them from learning and hoped that the other kingdoms would know more about solving the problems his kingdom faced. He began to communicate with the other Royals of Cards. One of the first kingdoms he open up to was Diamonds. Queen Opal XXI was who he contacted the most and the two came up with a deal that benefited both kingdoms which helped Alfonso improve the state of Spades:

Isabella was still struggling of the loss of their sons during this time and there was little Alfonso could do to comfort her. After fives years with the grief the two had a beautiful little girl they named Joanna. She was light of their lives and they were both very careful with her making sure she was safe and wouldn’t sick like her brothers had. However one day the young princess wandered away from her nursery leading to her fall down a flight of stairs in the palace. Alfonso and Isabella were struck by the heart wrenching grief once again. Alfonso could see Isabella mental health take a terrible decline that scared Alfonso, as he could barely recognise the woman he loved:

Though Alfonso wanted to focus on his grief he poured all his attention on their youngest child and son Henry. He had been born prematurely and sickly and both were told that he wasn’t expected to live long. Isabella still hurting from her previous children’s deaths distanced herself from her youngest scared if she even touched him she’d kill him by accident. Alfonso looked after Henry the whole time making sure what little time his son had would be pleasant and peaceful. The last of their children died at the age of four. He lived longer than anyone expected but it still hurt nonetheless for the two to lose him.

Isabella’s mental health began to spiral out of control blaming herself for their children’s death when no one to blame for any of them. Alfonso was just so tired from the grief and sad at how broken his darling wife was. He did his best to help her but he knew he was little help to her. With the aid of doctors and psychologist he set up the Asylum, a place where he hoped that people could go to to heal their minds. He prayed Itzcoatl that it would help save his beloved wife:

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"King Cregan Stark would rule many long years in the North, and would aid House Targaryen in binding up the wounds inflicted upon the realm during the Dance of Dragons. He would outlive Aegon III, whom he had fostered for five years at Winterfell, and would go on to see Aegon's sons and even his brother, Viserys, succeed him. First came King Daeron I, soon to be remembered as the Young Dragon, who sought to finish his ancestors' work of conquering Dorne for House Targaryen. Wisely, he didn't attempt to wholly follow in his forebears' foot-steps, as he remained in good relations with the Kingdom of the North, at least at first. When Daeron asked for the North to aid him in his campaign, Cregan plainly refused the boy of fourteen, seeing little reason to involve House Stark in affairs that were so far removed from the North. Indeed, he forewarned Daeron that Dorne could not be conquered by force of arms, as even Aegon the Conqueror had failed to do so, when House Targaryen still had dragons. Daeron, perhaps feeling insulted, mocked Cregan as a craven, and instead stated perhaps the Spartan would surly aid in the cause of uniting the South, to which Cregan had reportedly guffawed so hard that his maester had to treat him for chest pains. Once more, Cregan kept the North out of the South's intrigues, and while his more eager sons chaffed at being denied the chance to go to war, once more it would prove to be the wiser choice. Daeron's conquest of Dorne would quickly prove to be a disaster, with Daeron losing ten thousand men to claim it, fifty-thousand more to hold it, and then his own life of eighteen years when Dornishmen ambushed and murdered him under a banner of peace.

When Baelor I ascended the throne after his brother, it seemed a more amiable return to the norm of peace for Westeros. Baelor was a man of peace and piety, who was beloved by the people for his benevolence. But the latter years of his reign would be seen as the start of a long embitterment between the North and the South--an embitterment which would become so terrible that thrice the continent would nearly go to war. Cregan at first believed Baelor a somewhat zealous yet ultimately harmless ruler, and continued to maintain good relations with the South for a time. But Baelor's very piety towards the Seven caused him to alienate himself from the Starks, whom were devoted to the Old Gods of the First Men. Soon, Baelor was repeatedly and incessantly attempting to convert the Starks towards the Faith through many means, sending a great number of septons to the North to turn the First Men towards the Seven Pointed Star. It would ultimately culminate when Prince Rickon, Cregan's eldest son and heir--sent was on a diplomatic mission to King's Landing to secure a marriage to one of Baelor's sisters in the hopes of binding the two realms together--was seized by Baelor's Kingsguard, and forcibly made to kneel before the statues of the Seven against his will. When he refused to convert to the Faith upon Baelor's instruction, he was purportedly stripped of his cloths, made to wear the garb of a begging brother, and confined to Baelor's recently finished Great Sept, made to do menial work as any common septon.

This incensed the now two-and-seventy King Cregan to such an extent, he sent ravens to call for his banners, before sending another to King's Landing, demanding the release of his son and an official apology from Baelor for the insult, or that he would drive out all septons of the Faith from his lands by force, march on King's Landing himself to free his son, claim a daughter of House Targaryen to wed into House Stark as retribution, and to have Baelor beg his forgiveness to him in person and on his knees. When this ultimatum came to Baelor, he began a fast which would end in his, perhaps arguably, unfortunate demise. His uncle and successor to the Iron Throne, King Viserys II, was swift in undoing the damage of his nephew's ill-begotten zealotry, immediately releasing Prince Rickon. As he had been fostered alongside his brother at Winterfell, Viserys knew Cregan well, having arguably learned the best between them in the Starks' court, and had likely contributed to his adeptness in his years as Hand of the King. When Viserys extended the proverbial olive branch to him, Cregan's anger softened, as he had often corresponded with Viserys over the years through ravens, having been both a mentor and a sort of father figure to him as he was with Viserys' brother, Aegon III. The two kings readily agreed to put an end to the bad blood between them, and to seal this reconciliation, Prince Rickon would wed Princess Rhaena, daughter of Aegon III and Viserys' niece. This marriage pact would be remembered as the Second Pact of Ice and Fire, which Cregan had, as history so ironically recalls, rejected so many years before. While this brought peace to the realm, Cregan and Viserys both would meet most untimely and much mourned deaths within a year of this auspicious union, after both had striven so long to ensure that their two realms would prosper together. Rickon and his Targaryen bride would be crowned as the King and Queen in the North, whilst Viserys' son Aegon VI and his sister-wife Naerys would ascend the Iron Throne, and the enmity between Rickon the Cold and Aegon the Unworthy would threaten to undo everything their fathers had accomplished.

Rickon and Rhaena's relationship was strained in their first years of marriage, primarily due to their differing religious beliefs. Rickon was a steadfast believer in the Old Gods, and his disgrace at the hands of Baelor had in no great way endeared the Faith of the Seven to him. Inversely, Rhaena was nearly as pious as her brother had been, and had shared his belief that all should come to worship the Seven-Pointed Star. For the sake of the realm, they did their utmost to make the marriage work, but when Rhaena purportedly wept on their wedding night, Rickon could not bring himself to consummate the marriage. It was only a few years later, when her husband lay feverish and half-delirious from wounds taken in his suppressing of a rebellion on the Isle of Skagos, that Rhaena finally gave her maiden-head to him. Their marriage was happier after that night, and made only happier when she fell pregnant shortly afterwards, and bore him a son, Prince Jon Stark, nine months later. She would go on to give Rickon sixteen more children, all of whom would be raised in equal faith to both the Old Gods as well as the New.

But of all of Rickon and Rhaena's children, it would be their second child--and eldest daughter--that would by far have the most intriguing of lives. Not but a few days before her birth, a most peculiar event had taken place in the Dawntown. The Spartan, in the utter breaking of his tradition of emerging only when a Stark called upon him to save the North from peril, came out of the Forward Unto Dawn of his own accord, shocking the whole of the North. The Aglow Lady was with him as well, though some claim something seemed amiss--her glowing form, said to be of a tranquil, comforting celestial blue, seemed to shudder and flash an eerie red, and her kind voice seemed to suddenly speak in a disturbing tone, ominous words escaping her lips. What the Spartan did or what befell the Maiden of Light remains an utter mystery to this very day; only that the Spartan flew with some great haste southward, and months later, traders from Dorne would report he had flown into the most inhospitable part of the Red Mountains, in a place where even Balerion the Black Dread was said to have not dared fly near. It would be the last the world would see of the Algow Lady, for she never appeared after that unsettling day, and none dared to inquire the Spartan afterwords of what had occurred. All that was known was that the Spartan had returned to Winterfell the very night Queen Rhaena gave birth. It is speculated he came at Rickon's behest, as Rhaena's birthing of their second child was reportedly an arduous one, and that the Spartan had helped ensure that both babe and mother survived the delivery. What words passed between them afterwards is entirely unknown, but some witnesses claim that the Spartan seemed somehow smaller when he departed that next morning, and when the royal family had come to see him off, he lingered to look down at the newborn girl, before he whispered some mystery to the sleeping baby, and then slowly--almost reluctantly, some would claim--he departed in silence, returning at once to his slumber within the Dawn.

That princess's name would be Cortana Stark, and the day of her birth in the hundredth and sixty-ninth year after the Conquest would not be the last she would see of the Spartan.

The princess was born with the dark hair of House Stark, though her beauty seemed certainly to have been from her mother--by the time she had come of age, men said that no fairer maiden lived in all of Westeros in her day, and many songs praised her countenance. Of all her features, the most striking were the vibrant blue eyes which seemed too vivid and lively for mere mortals, seemingly alive with a celestial blue light only the Aglow Lady could match. It was an oddity as to why the princess possessed such eyes, when neither the Starks nor Targaryens were known to carry them, but by the very word of her parents, when the Spartan had helped deliver her into the world, he had lain a blessing upon the child with his otherworldly healing, which her eyes' otherworldly beauty was a consequence of. Some even claimed that, as she ripened into a woman grown, Princess Cortana seemed of the very likeness of the Maiden of Light, which only reinforced the notion, and would only be further added to as she grew. From the accounts of Winterfell's maesters, the princess never once came down with infirmity or aliment, and indeed was reported to be the healthiest of all the Stark children. And from her earliest years, she would display an exceptional intelligence, quickly outpacing her siblings in their learning. She delighted in books and study, and absorbed knowledge at a unrivaled pace, with many accounts from Winterfell claiming that she could memorized great manuscripts and histories in a single day if she was not caught in the night and sent to bed. So clever and intelligent she became, that by the age of two-and-ten, she sat on her father's council, and advised him in sundry affairs of state and law. She also loved the arts and music, and became a harpist and singer so haunting in melody that she could reduce even the most stony of warriors to tears, or bring cheer to even the most downtrodden of souls. She was also known to greatly cherish the lives of even the common people, and would daily walk out into the streets to sing to the smallfolk of Winterfell, and see to the needs of everyone she met. For her kindness, charm, and wit, she was soon so beloved by all the North that she was hailed 'The Joy of Winter'. Many suitors came, from Sunspear to Last Hearth and even from the Free Cities, to beg her hand in marriage, some offering lavish sums of gold, others great swaths of land, rare gifts of exotic origins, and even promises to conquer cities in her name--all of which were refused.

But for all the knowledge, fame, and love she received, Princess Cortana held from her earliest days an insatiable curiosity of the Spartan, and of the Aglow Lady, and of the mythical Forward Unto Dawn; always eager to hear tales from her father of the great deeds and epic legends which concerned them. So great was her desire to learn of him, that upon turning thirteen years of age, she asked her father bid her leave to enter the Dawn and speak to the Spartan. While it was not a strictly brazen request, her father told her the Spartan would likely not answer, as he was meant to be called only in great times of need, and not before, and warned her further still that the Spartan had endured a great loss when last he had gone to sleep, and would thus be even less like enough to answer. Nevertheless, he could not deny his beloved daughter, and so bade her enter the hallowed halls of the Forward Unto Dawn.

But to the stunned shock of the realm, the Spartan did indeed come out of the Dawn beside her. To this day, it is unknown as to why the Spartan awoke to the whims of a princess. Some claimed it was her great beauty and spirit which compelled him, causing the hero to be enchanted by her as so many other men had. But many a maiden had desired the Spartan, more than a few being Stark princesses before Cortana, and all had been rejected. Indeed, the Spartan never professed any romantic love for the princess, though the actions he would take on her behalf nevertheless indicated an astounding care which he held her with. Others stated that he was drawn to her intelligence, and that he had found a kindred spirit whom shared in his ideas and machinations. Regardless, the Spartan would return with her to Winterfell, where he was received as a guest of the utmost honor. King Rickon offered the Spartan a place in the great fortress-palace, but the Spartan contented himself with a small abode within the city, as humble and unassuming as legends say. For almost a year, he would remain there, and would display a most unusual compliance to the wishes of Princess Cortana, teaching her of the history and wonders of his people, and familiarizing her with the mysteries of his technology, to which she displayed a miraculous adeptness to understanding and comprehending. And each night, she would regale her younger siblings with fantastical tales and stories she had learned from the Master Chief's culture. And for the first time in the North's history, the Master Chief had not come out of necessity to end some war or deliver the people from some dire peril, and now walked among the people in peace longer than he had even been recorded to do. There was a great excitement in King Rickon's court, chiefly over the widely-speculated relationship between the Spartan and Princess Cortana. While there was no indication that it was anything more than a close partnership, perhaps even a friendship, it nevertheless filled the people with thoughts that the Spartan would wed the princess, and from their union would bring a golden age for all, as the Starks would join their house with the North's fabled champion of yore and form a doubtlessly matchless alliance. Some even whispered that the princess would soon be great with child by the Spartan, and that she would give birth to demigods and heroes by his holy blood, and that Rickon should pass over his own sons and name the Spartan as the future King of the North. All of these, however, were firmly rejected by both the Starks as well as the Spartan, whom were swift to publicly denounce the rumors. Nevertheless, many could not deny the way Princess Cortana smiled whenever she was in the Spartan's presence, nor could they ignore the way the Spartan seemed more at ease when he was in hers. Accounts left behind by her own writing indicate the princess had intentions of releasing new innovations to medicine and science, breakthroughs which would doubtlessly help to further the advancement of the Kingdom in the North, perhaps all of Westeros and beyond--but sadly, fate was not so kind as to permit it before events in the South would halt her efforts.

Aside from an attempted invasion of the North by the King Beyond the Wall, Raymond Redbeard--which was swiftly averted when the Spartan met with the freefolk king and negotiated his army's disbandment in exchange for an increase in the settlement of freefolk around the Dawntown--the Starks continued to enjoy the peace that had lasted for generations. And with the Spartan aiding them, and with him the promise of newer innovations and technologies to further advance civilization, a new day was seemingly on the horizon. But in the South, it was decadence, not prosperity, that was the watchword of the ruling court. Aegon the VI, later known as the Unworthy, had proven himself one of the worst Targaryen kings. While he was handsome and charming in his youth, he was a man ruled by his desires, and proved to be a depraved, glutenous, and lustful man. He was infamous for very publicly taking many a mistress to his bed, and of siring many a bastard between them; all of this, to the shame and disgrace of his sister-wife, Queen Naerys, and the outrage of his younger brother, the famous Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Lord Commander of Aegon's Kingsguard. He filled his courts with sycophants, granting titles and fortunes to men who could satiate his lusts, and soon the court became as bloated and corrupt as Aegon had become. He also attempted to start an unprovoked war with Dorne, though his two attempts both ending in humiliating disasters for him. Rumors even circulated that he had dreams of conquering the North, though this was never confirmed. The news of the Spartan's return would have doubtlessly scattered such follies to the wind in any case. Nevertheless, soon enough, King Aegon caught wind of Princerss Cortana's now-famed beauty, and many believe he came to lust after her as he had so many other women of noble birth. He invited the Stark princess to his court, allegedly to hear her harp music and to share the knowledge she had learned from the Spartan with the South--though King Rickon feared this was little more than a veiled attempt for Aegon to try and ensnare his daughter, as he had heard of the Targaryen's debauchery. But Princess Cortana herself swayed him to allow her to leave, for the sake of sustaining good relations with the Iron Throne, under the condition the Spartan would go with her as a deterrent to any possible advances on King Aegon's part. The Spartan did agree to this, and in the year 183 After the Conquest, when Princess Cortana was but a few days away from her fourteenth nameday, the two arrived in the Spartan's great Steel Eagle at King's Landing, and the Spartan landed in the derelict Dragonpit--where, in the days of the Dance of Dragons, he had cleared away the roof to land his flying machine in as he oversaw the city's protection. Whilst their arrival was abrupt, they were nevertheless received with great ceremony, as there still lived men from the days when the Spartan had brought an end to the Dance of Dragons.

Their time in King's Landing would be remembered by many to be of impeccable timing, for not a week after they had landed in the Dragonpit, an assassination attempt was made on King Aegon's life. Whilst in hindsight it would not have been any loss to the realm had he died there, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight nobly defended his king despite the defamation and insults he had suffered at the hands of his brother over the years. There, he would have died, had it not been for the Spartan's timely intervention and his summary use of his advanced healing arts to heal Aemon's otherwise fatal wounds. Thereafter, Aemon and the Spartan would be known to practice and train together, and many accounts wrote of how the two formed a deep respect for each another, perhaps out of a shared sense of martial honor and nobility. A year later, Princess Cortana would aid in the delivery of Naerys' youngest child, and while she did ensure the queen survived the birthing, she could not save the child, who died days later. Despite this, Naerys would maintain good relations with Cortana, and the two shared a love of the harp. It was no surprise that afterwards they, as well as Naerys' son, future King Daeron II, shared a great rapport between all five of them.

But, true to King Rickon's fears, Aegon the Unworthy was not content to keep the princess as a guest in his court. Indeed, it is likely only the Spartan's presence at her side that deterred the king from attempting to seduce her. Unfortunately, an opportunity arose for him when disaster struck the city. In an event which seemed all too convenient for Aegon's interests to be considered coincidence, the Alchemists' Guild reported that a grave error had been made. They had been commissioned by an unknown employer to produce a great cache of wildfire, and that some hapless apprentice had allowed some to burn. The Wisdoms allegedly warned that such a vast concentration of wildfire would lay King's Landing low in one fell moment unless someone could stop it. The Spartan, ever courageous and selfless, opted to enter the breached chambers himself, bidding no man to follow him in--but not before he advised Prince Aemon to evacuate and burn the surrounding houses around the Guild. It would prove to potentially save the city from great destruction, as the entire guild would minutes later erupt with such intense force, it shook all of the capitol. But as the surrounding buildings had already been put to the torch, the wildfire had nothing to feed upon, and soon died out. The city was saved... but of the Spartan, there was no trace, and many people, noble and commoner alike, mourned deeply--believing that the Spartan had given his life to save the city. Princess Cortana had tried to go out and search for him, but was barred from leaving the Red Keep by Aegon's Kingsguard. That very night, she was escorted from her room, summoned by the king, even as Prince Aemon and his men tried to assess the damage done upon the city, and searching for any sign of the Spartan. Taken to his bedchambers and locked inside, it is widely believed Aegon attempted to seduce, or possibly even rape her--but the guards outside burst in when they heard King Aegon's screaming. Inside, she was found clutching a dagger close to her, her garments half-ripped, and the king was found writhing on the floor in agony, with blood seeping out between his legs; King Aegon was so fat that they could not see it at first, but it was later confirmed by the Grand Maester that he had been emasculated in his entirety.

King Aegon had the Stark princess immediately arrested for attacking his royal person, and thrown into the Black Cells, much to the protests of Queen Naerys, Prince Aemon, and Prince Daeron. While they did prevent him from summarily executing her, and instead have her put on trial, they found the trial to be entirely in Aegon's favor--later it would be confirmed that Aegon had rigged it so she was assuredly found guilty--and he summarily sentenced her to be burned at the stake. When Daeron warned his father that it would result in an inevitable war with the North, the king allegedly replied, 'Then let me see them to the flame with her and their precious champion.' This only further supported the suspicion that Aegon had in fact orchestrated events to see the Spartan eliminated. The next day, Princess Cortana was led before the Great Sept of Baelor, where Daeron, Aemon, and Naerys could only watch as she was tied to the stake. When she was given a chance to publicly confess her guilt, Cortana instead defiantly stated the king had wrongfully attempted to rape her, and that she had simply tried to defend herself. When her protests fell on deaf ears, she only furthered her defiance by proclaiming that Aegon would not succeed, for the Spartan would emerge to stop him. Even as the King's Justice neared the pyre with his torch, the confidence in her eyes did not falter, though men claimed to have nevertheless seen tears running down her cheeks.

But before King Aegon could have his vengeance against Princess Cortana, a great clamor arose in the city--and what would follow would be the subject of a thousand songs, stories, and mummers' shows. For on the lips of the smallfolk soon chanted a single word--the same word that they had shouted when they opened the gates of the city in the Dance of the Dragons, the same name they had proclaimed their savior when he had ended the tyranny of Maegor the Cruel--'SPARTAN! SPARTAN! SPARTAN!' And lo, the crowds parted, and to the shock of all gathered, came the Master Chief himself, miraculously alive in his seemingly untouched battle armor and holding his fearsome thunder weapon, the Battle Rifle. Charging forward with the swiftness of the north wind and the force of a thunderous storm, he charged forward to rescue Princess Cortana. Aegon ordered that the Spartan be stopped, and commanded his men to kill him before he reached the princess. It would avail them nothing, as all who dared to stand in the Spartan's way were shot down and smitten by his legendary armament. Those who somehow managed to evade the Battle Rifle's fire were received the Spartan's fists and kicks, each so powerful they sent men flying through the air or crushed them within their own armor. So did Aegon the Unworthy's men die by the score, turning the yard before the Great Sept red with blood. Countless numbers assailed him from all sides, and he felled them all with otherworldly might, and allegedly he killed more than a hundred men that day. The King's Justice, in an effort to spite the Spartan, set the pyre alight, hoping that the princess be engulfed in flames before the Master Chief could reach her. This, too, failed, as the Spartan leaped into the air so high that he was at her side within the blink of an eye. Tearing her bonds with his own hands, he picked her up in the crook of his arm, and rescued Cortana Stark before the flames could reach her.

King Aegon seethed and trembled with rage at this, causing his morbidly obese body to quake with a hideous quiver. He shouted for his men to slay the Spartan, but none who remained dared approach, and indeed many fled screaming for their lives, so struck with terror at the Spartan's massacring of their comrades. Seeing this, Aegon commanded his brother Aemon to attack the Spartan, which Aemon refused, as he claimed the Spartan's slaying of so many men left him duty-bound to protect his king above all else. Aegon then shouted that there would be war between them, and that as long as he lived, he would not rest until both the Spartan and Cortana Stark were dead. But that would prove a fatal mistake, as the Spartan wordlessly raised his thunder weapon until it was level with Aegon--then opened fire. The shots fired so quickly that Aemon had no time to try and shield his brother, and before the entire court and the onlooking smallfolk, the king was riddled with an entire volley of the Spartan's lightening-quick missiles, ripping through him with ease. As he lay dying, however, he gave one last command, even as blood came from his mouth--and in one fell swoop led to generations of conflict--and used his last moments of life to legitimize all of his bastards, before he expired. So passed Aegon the Unworthy--the third Targaryen king to fall at the Spartan's hand. To ensure a riot did not break out among the already-riled smallfolk, Prince Daeron instantly ordered his father's men to stand down and assail the Spartan no further, stating that his father had indeed been in the wrong by trying to have Princess Cortana executed for simply defending herself from his advances. He summarily pardoned Cortana of all charges put against her, and received both her and the Spartan back to the Red Keep and seeing that both were treated for any possible injury. It was only after restoring order to the city that Daeron allowed himself to he crowned, and immediately set about to righting his father's mistakes. While he set about to reform his father's court and ridding it of it's corruption, the Spartan and Princess Cortana furiously flew back and forth between King's Landing and Winterfell, and ensuring that Aegon the Unworthy's foolish actions did not lead to war between the Starks and the Targaryens.

But for all this, many still saw the Spartan's actions, however heroic, as a blatant insult upon the Iron Throne's honor to allow him to so handily dispatch their king without retaliation. Many of Aegon's former court, especially among them Aegon's bastards--lead by Daemon Blackfyre--demanded that honor had to be satisfied and that the Spartan face some form of justice for slaying King Aegon. Further, King Rickon was furious at the travesties which his daughter suffered, and the whole of the North was in an uproar over what many believed was the attempted murder of their hero. To resolve the issue, the Spartan plainly asked if there was any who wished to face him in a trial by battle to satisfy the honor of both parties. And to this in turn, Aemon the Dragonknight accepted, though many believed it was only his honor as a knight of Kingsguard that moved him to do so, having failed to protect his king--not on account of any affection held for Aegon.

They met on the morrow, at midday, and the duel that would ensue would be the stuff of legends; with both King Daeron and King Rickon bearing witness, histories say the two champions struggled against each other for more than an hour with the sun blazing upon them, with Aemon's armor of whited steel and gold glistening in the sun, while the Spartan's legendary blade, Lightbringer, shone with the brilliance of a living star. Again did Dark Sister find itself facing the Spartan, for Aemon had wielded it with honor in his years as a knight, and this time, it would face the Spartan's great might. Each time Lightbringer and Dark Sister clashed, the roar of thunder and the shriek of steel filled the air and made a most terrifying noise. Though the Spartan seemed the better of the two, for even Aemon the Dragonknight admitted he could not hope of defeating the Spartan in combat, the latter was reported to have held back the greater part of his strength that day, out of respect for Aemon and to make the duel a fair one--he even removed his famed gold-visor helm and for the first time revealed his face to the public, stating that he would concede victory to Aemon were he to so much as scratch him. Aemon, out of honor, did likewise, and the two battled long and hard with the utmost conduct of chivalry. The duel only ended when Aemon, in a stunning display, caught the Spartan unawares for a single moment, and thrust Dark Sister forward. The crowd was struck silent, stunned as they watched Aemon the Dragonknight triumph where the likes of Maegor the Cruel, even Aegon the Conqueror himself and the countless armies that had faced the Spartan before had failed--he had wounded the invincible Master Chief. It was little more than a graze to his cheek, and only a small trickle of blood seeped from it, but it was that scratch by which the Spartan conceded defeat, which Aemon accepted, his honor as a Kingsguard satisfied. The crowds cheered with great uproar, and the two champions left the ring with a mutual feeling of the highest respect for one another. The realm was once more brought back from the brink of war, thanks to the efforts of the Spartan, Princess Cortana, and King Daeron. The Spartan would return Princess Cortana to Winterfell, where he was once more received as a hero. He would not remain even the night he brought Princess Cortana back, however, opting instead to return to his slumber. But before he did, he made her a simple promise, the same one that he had, as legend has it, made to Bran the Builder in ages past: 'Wake me, when you need me.'

These words must have had some effect on the young princess, for after that day, she was reported to have rarely smiled, a strange sadness in her ethereal eyes, and would longingly gaze out her balcony west-by-southwest, to the Forward Unto Dawn, and composed songs of somberness and sorrow, in which she lamented the loneliness of the Spartan's sleep. For seven years, she would remain in Winterfell, and her grace and beauty would only grow over the years--though she never married, and many believed she pined after the Spartan with such a sorrowful love that it inspired songs for years to come. Finally, on her nameday of one-and-twenty, her father bade her to follow her heart, and to go to the Spartan's side. She set out the next morning, and tearfully bade her family farewell, and all of the North wept as she left them. Arriving at the Dawntown, she entered the Forward Unto Dawn's hallowed halls alone, and found the Spartan's ancient resting place--a dark, cold room of glass and metal, where the Spartan slept in one of many icy coffins, which according to legend, halted the ravages of time upon the body and afforded those who slept therein a dreamless, ageless sleep. Entering the one beside his, she joined him in his slumber, content to be by his side throughout the ages. Many have come to accept her reasoning for this was that she had seen a great loneliness in the Spartan's solitude, and with the Aglow Lady gone, he would have to face the centuries alone--a fate she could not abide, and instead resolved herself to leave behind the family she loved and accompany the Spartan in both his time spent walking the earth, and in his death-like sleep.

Thus, to this day, she remains the oldest living Stark, counting in this two-hundred and ninety-five years since the Conquest a hundred and twenty-six years of life, being the oldest known person to live after the Spartan himself, and still having all the grace and beauty as the day she first chose to stand at the Spartan's side for all eternity."

--A History of the Spartan and House Stark, Part IV, by Maester Benjymen

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bittysvalentines · 4 years

Text

the other kind of upper crust

From: @whoacanada To: @ackermom

Summary: When the Zimmermann family throws a surprise engagement party, Eric finds himself overwhelmed by the guest list and thoroughly out of his depth. Jack takes the time to remind him he's right where he deserves to be.

Tags: Zimbits, Future Fic, light angst Happy Valentine's Day, ackermom! This is a concept I've been playing around with forever and I hope you love it because you might be seeing more of the party at a later date ;)

Not twenty four hours ago, Eric had been lounging in front of a fire in the den of the Zimmermann family lodge, getting drunk on Perrier-Jouët and watching the snow fall as he cuddled with his newly minted fiancé.

Now, Eric is navigating the same, now crowded room to snag a glass of champagne from one waiter and some kind of crab cake from another as he slowly realizes the annual Zimmermann Boxing Day celebration has become an impromptu engagement party.

“So you’re the little spitfire that dragged Jackie out of his shell? Congratulations!”

For the nine-billionth time this evening, Eric does not know who he’s speaking to and has to formally introduce himself.

“So it would seem! Eric Bittle, and you are?”

“Mark.” The man takes his hand, gives it a hard shake, and Eric is at a loss because he’s been given no last name. Again. Jesus. “You have a few? Tell me about Samwell, Bobby’s been talking that school up and down forever, you must have been a hell of a Captain to get those boys to a championship, especially without Jack, how the hell haven’t you been scouted?”

Southern hospitality will always reign supreme in Eric’s life, but he finds it difficult not to be overly candid as he’s already answered the same line of questioning with at least six retired pros.

“If I had to guess, it’d be the whole gay thing,” Eric taps his glass against Mark’s and winks, earning a boisterous laugh that seems to summon Eric’s soon-to-be father-in-law. Bob comes into view wearing a surprisingly elegant blue velvet suit jacket and a pair of light-up reindeer antlers that nearly take a tumble when he grabs Mark round the middle and gives him a good shake.

"This where you've been keeping Eric? Let the boy mingle, you old goat, it’s his party!”

“Which was news to me,” Eric laughs, hoping the stress he hears in his tone is only in his head. Regardless, Eric takes the opening and slips away, past another throng of well wishers, an actress he’s definitely seen on Netflix, and someone he really hopes isn’t Celiné Dion. He’d been expecting hockey legends — of which, yes, there are many — but the ratio of rich and famous is far more skewed than he’d been expecting if the pile of gifts near the bar is anything to go by.

Eric downs his champagne and slips out onto the patio to catch his breath, refusing to think about the optics of abandoning his own soiréee as he drops onto a bench overlooking the wooded backside of the property.

Eric can see the moon through the clouds and the snow flurries, watches the light distort through the vapor of his breath. He should probably go back inside and mingle, he’s starting to lose feeling in his fingers, but for the first time all evening, he’s enjoying himself. Someone opens the door behind him, spilling music and merriment out onto the porch and reminding Eric he really should go back in and enjoy his own party.

“There you are. What, you hiding?”

“Yes, I am.” Eric brushes some snow off the bench and waits for Jack to settles in, immediately leaning into the space Jack makes when he rests his arm over Eric's shoulders. Jack offers his mug, curls of steam warming Eric’s face as he takes a sip, detecting more than just spices and apple. “Did you spike this?"

"There might be some Crown in there. You feeling any better?"

"I'm in a tuxedo, surrounded by our loved ones and their famous friends, and your parents just gave me this," Eric shoots his cuff to reveal the gleaming silver watch. "I’m bona fide, Sugar. Top shelf, grade-A Zimmermann approved.”

Jack whistles, taking Eric's wrist gently to inspect it closer, brushing a thumb along the bezel, angling the face so the small silver moon beneath the hands catches the light. It’s a beautiful piece, the nicest thing Eric’s ever owned, and what can only be the start of a lifetime of extravagant gifts from his wealthy in-laws.

“Papa had a whole speech planned. I told him you needed a break. Also didn’t want his proposal to be nicer than mine. You feel how heavy that is?”

Eric bounces his wrist as Jack watches, a smile quirking at the corner of his lips.

“It’s steel.”

“It’s not steel.”

Oh, and isn't that just a lovely thought; receiving a gift that triples Eric's net worth in front of a sea of his betters on a night that’s already a panic-inducing celebration of Eric’s ability to weasel into the upper crust.

"Your mom filled me in on the championship tradition.” Eric rubs a hand over his chest, trying to ease the twinge of discomfort. "On the one hand, flattered, on the other, horribly embarrassed I'm not keeping myself together near as well as I’d hoped.”

“While it’s a relief not to be the one melting down in public, the good news is that people think you’re overwhelmed with joy.” Jack’s tone is just shy of apologetic. “Which is also what I was hoping, given the alternative is you’re freaking out because my parents went all out on an engagement party.”

“You told me this was a Christmas party,” Eric presses his face to Jack's chest, wishing he could drag himself out of his own head long enough to enjoy what has otherwise been a red letter evening.

“Boxing Day.” Jack corrects softly. “And it was supposed to be an intimate, pleasant surprise. Imagine my surprise at how badly we stressed you out. What is going on? You're usually so good with social stuff, and you’ve been looking forward to the non-engagement version of tonight for weeks.”

“Just unearthing some self-worth issues, you know how it is; get confronted with the realities of marrying into your famous boyfriend’s wealthy family and start to question your place in the world.”

“Is this about the watch. We can pretend it’s not platinum.”

Eric tries to play off the concern, but he's gotten something across, as Jack's hand comes to rest on the back of Eric's neck, fingers gently massaging muscles he hadn't realized were tense. He wants to cry. He just might.

"Lucky for you avoidance is where I shine," Jack gives Eric's knee a little shake, dropping his fingers a touch to tickle the underside of his leg. “What do you say we get some of this negative energy out. Go hide in the rink out back.“

“Still amazes me you have a rink here.”

“What, that doesn’t strike you as being on brand?”

Eric twists away to only give Jack more access to his ticklish spots. Jack is chanting 'skate, skate, skate' under his breath with an earnestness that forces a smile to Eric's lips.

"How is the solution to everything skating? Oh, my Lord, fine. Fine! Maybe it won't hurt to get a lap in."

Jack stands, stretching his arms high in celebration, making his suit jacket look two sizes too small before dropping them down again around Eric and hugging him tightly. "Lapin," Jack consoles, taking care to pepper kisses along Eric's hairline without mussing his coif. “I’ll get you something warm. You head to the shed. We'll call it checking practice."

"They'll think you're talking about sex,” Eric chides at Jack’s retreating back.

"Good thing we’re engaged, then, eh?"

Eric brushes the snowflakes from his slacks and follows the lighted path, staying on the shoveled walk but still managing to get snow in his dress shoes; knocking his foot against the mat, he notices a small plaque on the door, engraved 'Jack Laurent's Glacière - Est. 2009'. Eric scratches away a bit of frost to reveal 'Sin-Bin’ scrawled below the epitaph in Jack's familiar handwriting.

"Oh, hell's bells.” Eric breathes, putting together why the Zimmermanns would have gone to so much trouble to build a rink behind their winter home in 2009. As Eric gets the door open, he realizes it isn’t a ramshackle covered backyard pond, the ‘shed’ is a fully built private rink with boards, glass, and even a zamboni in the back corner.

And Eric’s insecurity is back in force.

He’s examining the ‘snack bar’, consisting of a small popcorn maker, a mini fridge, and a microwave, when Jack returns with a thermos shoved under one arm, two pairs of skates draped over his shoulder, one hockey, one figure — two of Eric’s many gifts from the Zimmerparents over the last few days.

“Hey. Feel like explaining why your vacation home has a nicer rink in it than the one I grew up training in?” Eric gestures around the rink at large wooden beams, the boards, the glass ceiling, a sanctuary built just for Jack. “Seeing as your name is on it.”

“Ha, well you get cool presents when you almost die and your parents think you’re suicidal.” Jack looks up and around, like he might find something new to inspect. “Was nice to get out of the city after rehab. I think we spent like eight months up here?”

Eric’s known Jack long enough now to recognize when he’s covering up his own pain, and this is not that. He’s genuinely joking.

“I’m really glad you didn’t die,” Eric offers, unsure of what else to say.

“Hey, no way, me too.” Jack smiles. “We have so much in common, maybe we should get married or something.”

Beside the door rests a rack of hockey sticks and shelf holding at least six pairs of skates in various states of disrepair. Jack brushes his fingers over a particularly ratty set of Bauer Supremes with ‘JZ’ in faded sharpie on the heel, nods, and grabs the pair.

“There’s no way those will still fit you,” Eric chides, lifting his own skates, the hockey set, from Jack’s shoulder to start loosening the laces. “But I really want to see you try.”

“Oh, they’ll fit. I was here before you got up this morning. I put new blades on every year and I’ll wear these until they fall apart.”

There’s a pleasant silence as they both sit to gear up, a far cry from the revelry a few short meters away.

“I’m terrified you’re going to wake up one day and realize you’ve made a mistake choosing me,” Eric relents, keeping pace. “What do I bring to the table? I can cook, sure, but I have a worthless degree, I’m unemployed, one day I’ll probably look like my father —”

"We aren't our hobbies, Bits." Jack pulls a hard stop to kick up some ice shavings before doubling back and doing the same on the opposite side of the rink, scarring the ice. "Or our jobs. You aren't your culinary skills, and I'm not defined by hockey. We're just guys who love each other, who are going to get married, and despite current concerns, are very excited about the prospect. Also, not to make it weird, your father isn’t a hideous guy. I’ve met your family, you’ve got good genes.”

“Well, your dad is hot, too, I guess,” Eric sighs, spinning in a lazy circle.

“Thank you, I’ll pass that along he’ll be thrilled you think so.”

Jack pulls to a stop, his black slacks covered in bits of ice, suit jacket abandoned, showing off the white dress shirt straining around his midseason bulk; a pair of black suspenders working overtime to keep his ass looking as spectacular as Eric has ever seen it.

"Bitty. Bits. Eric." Jack tugs off his gloves so he can take Eric's hands into his own. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Fuck, I loved you so much it circled around to hate and then back to love again."

"It's weird you'd mention that, like, right now," Eric's unable to keep himself from interrupting, and Jack's cheeks go pink from something other than cold. “While I'm already at critical emotional overload.”

“I love you. My parents love you. My parents’ friends love you. My teammates love you. You are very, very lovable.”

“Jack, I’m really not.” Eric’s voice wavers, but not because he’s lying. “And one day you’re going to figure it out and leave me.”

"Listen to me, Bits. I don’t know what you need to hear to make this okay, but there is no end date on us. No shoe to drop, no morning where we wake up and think about what could have been. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You can be scared," Jack circles around Eric, reaching for his hand. "Just, please, don't be scared of me.”

Eric finds himself squished against Jack’s chest, inhaling his partner’s familiar sweaty musk and the remnants of a cologne he probably borrowed from Bob. He wants this so badly, and he wants it forever.

“I can be a little scared, though?” Eric asks. “Just a tiny bit. For perspective.”

“Of course. Fuck, I’m a lot scared right now.”

“I love you, Jack.” Eric whispers, hiding his face. “I do. I’m sorry.”

“But, I don’t have any problem being scared of the future, as long as we’re freaked out together. Let’s be scared of real things. Like climate change. Baking using salt instead of sugar. Bears. The list goes on.”

“Keep talking about scary things,” Eric slides back, tugging Jack with him as he slips into an easy rhythm around the rink. “Keep talking. Make me feel better.”

Jack’s smile is broad and goofy, not his polished media smirk, the one he saves just for Eric. On the list of romantic gestures in their relationship, this one doesn’t rank very high at all, but it might be the most appreciated.

“I can do that, bud. As long as you need.”

#bittyjack #bv2020 #bitty's valentines #omgcp fandom #omg check please!

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mcfanely · 4 years

Text

Golem AU

For @razzle-zazzle‘s Golem AU, because I can’t get enough of it

Gaia Brookstone could do many things, She was a dancer first and foremost, something that had caught the eye of her now husband, Lou; she was creative, imaginative, and gifted with incredible powers passed down through her family lineage. The Earth seemed to bend to her guidance, shift and form under her steady hand. Maybe that was why ceramics and pottery came so easily to her? But faced with the inability to have her own biological child, she resorted to something only she would think was possible. A clay Golem, one with free will. Guided not by instructions, but by heart and soul, by magic. He would be her masterpiece, a worthy inheritor of her elemental powers. He would be her son, Cole.

Part 1: Spells and Sigils, 2477 words

Cole found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror again.

He would have thought that he was used to what he looked like, since not that much ever really changed about him on a day to day basis, yet sometimes he still caught himself staring.

Staring at the water dripping from his hair following the morning shower, carving a path that was crafted by the muscle on his shoulder and down his chest. Then it eventually met its routes end, dropping off, missing the towel he had wrapped around his waist and hitting the wooden floor of his bedroom in the monastery. More drops of water followed in its wake. Cole still stared.

It was probably because of the day. That was it, it was because of the day he was looking at himself in a different light that didn't make itself known on normal days.

It was only once a year, when this day came about. The anniversary of the day his mother had finished her magnum opus, a project that she'd put her life and talents and everything into. Something she'd crafted so lovingly, skilled hands moulding an immense amount of clay; painting perfect and exact amounts of glaze onto the visage of an adolescent male. Months and months of work coming to fruition in the form of something she'd always wanted but had always eluded her.

This was the day that she'd brought her son into the world.

The day that she had finally filled him with magic and life, the day she'd created an extremely unique being.

Well, with the elemental power of Earth along with an innate grasp of magic courtesy of her parents and pure talent for ceramics, it was no wonder that she'd managed to create something that had never been done before.

A clay Golem, this time guided by a soul. A Golem with elemental powers, one that wasn't controlled by instructions on a small piece of paper or stone tablet placed under the tongue every morning.

There was free will. The ability to speak, to walk around, to eat and enjoy food, to feel emotions and love. All due to a neat and flowing script of runes dutifully marked over his body.

Cole lifted his hand and slowly ran his fingers over the scripture situated above his left collarbone. The words were a deep black colour, easily mistaken for a tattoo; the colour had faded just a little from what it used to be but the glyphs were still clear.

'Speech' or 'The act of speaking', was the literal translation.

Everything he was, was held in these short symbols on his skin, and without them he was literally nothing but a soulless automation with nothing else. No emotion, no self-awareness, no thoughts -- he'd been there before. Twice, actually.

The first time was on the Dark Island, and a misplaced swing from a stone warrior had taken a good chunk of stone from his shoulder and rendered the speech rune useless.

Then there was Chen's island, where all of the runes had been blurred due to the loss of his elemental abilities and with them his soul. That hadn't been a fun experience, from what he could remember of it. He was lucky he'd been able to plan for the scenario.

But the runes were a part of him, always had been.

He was Cole Brookstone, son of Lou and Gaia Brookstone, and today marked the ninth year of being given life.

His birthday. Even though, technically, he wasn't born by conventional means.

Even though he wasn't even human.

Cole let out a small breath and went over to his bed to get ready for the day, pulling his gi over his still sodden hair. At least he didn't need to keep his lack of humanity a secret anymore, since a damaged rune and Misako with an in depth knowledge of old magic made keeping everything under wraps pretty hard.

Though he had been lucky in some respect, since if Misako hadn't been there to explain the situation and help fix the rune, then Cole would have found it very hard to guide his then very concerned family as to how to properly put a broken Golem back together when he literally had no words to use. No voice. Nothing.

Still, birthday or not, there was no rest from training; not when the resident electric chicken had some method of finding its way into anyone's room who wasn't awake and in the courtyard on time.

Cole shuddered at the notion and towelled off his hair as best he could, though his gi had definitely not been spared from the water.

Today was just a normal day. A regular day. Birthday celebrations were never his thing anyway.

If he could just have a relaxing day training, then he'd class that as a win..

Though that went out the window as he swung open the door to his room, and the blue blur that was Jay shot past without so much as a 'Look out!'.

"Hey, watch where you're going, Ozone Breath! Some of us are still waking up!" Cole shouted down the hallway as he stepped out, his hands absentmindedly tightening his belt a little. Something to fiddle with.

Jay turned back with a grin and a raised eyebrow, "Someone hasn't had his morning coffee!" He shouted back, then turned and made his way outside.

How he had any energy at that time in the morning, Cole wasn't entirely sure. But he could put it down to him staying up all night playing video games, and running on leftover adrenaline and fumes.

At least that meant training would be a breeze.

Cole walked outside.

Everyone else was already there, and in a mixed state of wakefulness. Zane, as per usual, was sitting down in a meditative position near the centre of the pavilion; Kai was swinging his sword randomly at a training dummy before a large yawn broke free from his mouth.

Cole liked to think he was awake enough for early morning training, but the fuzziness in his vision and his slightly dragging feet even after a good shower said otherwise.

One good thing about the day was that no one was the wiser to it's significance. They just got on with everything, and for that he was thankful.

"Ever think we should move training into the afternoon." came Lloyd's voice as he walked out into the courtyard, stretching his arms above his head. If Sensei Wu had been within ear shot, those words would have earned a sharp tap to the head with his bo-staff.

Jay sighed, "We tried that once, but Sensei said we were wasting the day."

"And what better time to get things done?" Cole raised an eyebrow, spreading his hands as he walked towards the general middle of the group. "Train in the morning, then we have the rest of the day to do whatever."

"Morning should start at nine, not at six."

He couldn't help the eye roll at Jay's remark. "You know, maybe if you went to sleep instead of playing games all night you might not feel like walking roadkill. It's not like we're doing it for no reason, being a ninja is a full-time job." Cole looked around the group, "And I don't want Sensei to start messing with us again."

There seemed to be a unanimous thought that ran through the team in a second, and acknowledgement that no one wanted to go through that experience again. Even Zane winced at the memory of a booby trapped monastery.

Cole clapped his hands once.

"Right, sooner we start, sooner we'll finish. Sparring with weapons today, no powers."

"Ha! Because Kai is always losing his!"

There was a growled, "Shut it, Jay!” then Kai turned to face Cole, “Anyway, who said you were deciding what we were doing?" The question was general, and expected.

"I don't see anyone else with any plans. Plus, we need to learn to not rely on our abilities. We've all lost them before at some point or another."

"Yeah, but when we lose our powers we don't become decor." Jay said.

Cole rolled his eyes. He was used to that, the teasing, it actually made him smile slightly. If you couldn't laugh at your flaws--

He went over to the weapons rack and hefted a hammer. Heavy, but balanced. Perfect.

"Jay, you're with me."

Jay spluttered, "What? But I was going to go against Zane!"

"You can go against Zane afterwards, as well, if you want." Cole gave a slight smile, resting the head of the hammer against the ground, "Don't want to fight me? Scared or something?"

There was a laugh from behind him, and it sounded like Lloyd.

That just seemed to spur Jay on, his voice growing an octave. "Me, scared of you? Not in a million years, dirt clod."

"Really? You know, you had me fooled. I thought I saw you shaking in your boots."

Arcs of lightning flickered briefly over the chain of Jay's nunchucks before they died down just as fast, "I'm not-- You know what, fine! Just don't cry when I put you on your ass."

"I don't cry."

There was a brief pause, "Is that like a Golem thing? Or--"

"No, no, it's a choice. I just do the exact opposite of what you do and I haven't cried in years."

Cole could see Jay getting riled and tightened his grip on his hammer, but otherwise didn't move a muscle.

"You can fight Zane. I get it, don't want to go against me. No shame in admitting that you're--"

The first strike came as fast as lightning, and he'd barely shifted out of the way before the second one descended.

This wasn't Jay using his powers, he was just scary fast. Which was why the choice of sparring partner was to both of their advantages. Jay was fast, Cole was strong. They both had contending qualities that they needed to learn to fight against.

On the third strike, he lifted his hammer, supporting it with two hands and received a reverberating clang of metal through his arms when both the weapons made contact.

Though the fight didn't stop there, it was only getting started.

Cole already felt wide awake.

He stepped forwards and swung his weapon, missing Jay by a hair breadth.

The next blows were traded sharply, fluidly. Moving from offence to defence in less than a second.

Cole would be lying if he said he didn't like sparing against Jay. He was a formidable opponent, especially when he stopped cracking jokes and focused. Which was rare enough.

"Come on, Sparky, you really think some fancy nunchuck spins are going to beat me?" He took a small step back to catch his breath. He didn't know what the rest of the team was doing, but with the amount of area they were using up for this spar, they were probably watching what was happening.

Then in the next second Jay was right in front of him, and the nunchucks connected with his cheek a millisecond later.

Cole's face snapped sideways, though he held his ground. His feet barely even moved from their position, if only for a minor step back. His eyes widened, though he opened and closed his jaw as if to check it was still working, and still connected to his face.

His reaction to the strike, or lack thereof, seemed to translate over to Jay.

Jay, who stood there, slack jawed and nunchucks held loosely in his grip. "You just--! What?" He shouted, "You didn't even move! Did you even feel that?"

Cole carefully ran his fingers over his cheek. If that hit had been any harder, or with a more formidable weapon, it could have caused a bit of damage. "I felt something." He admitted, then raised an eyebrow at Jay, "Definitely something."

"You-- what? Was that like--" Jay paused, his hands moving a mile a minute, as if he was trying to find the words. "That was a Golem thing, wasn't it? That better have been a Golem thing!"

"It was a Golem thing." Cole admitted, then rolled his shoulders. "Try harder next time, you might make me take two steps back."

Famous last words.

They traded blows for another minute before Jay got another solid hit in.

This time a direct downwards strike to his shoulder, and Cole's hand immediately shot up to the site of the impact with a pained grunt.

Jay, meanwhile, seemed elated he'd got another hit in.

"Ow." Cole mumbled, wincing as he fingering at a gash that was now sliced into his gi. It was just washed, fresh on that morning and now he'd either have to stitch it or bin it.

No, Jay was going to fix it, if he was so happy to have caused the damage in the first place.

Cole straightened himself up, lightly waving off an approaching Zane with a small smile, then he wheeled around to the blue ninja dancing about the courtyard.

The hit had hurt, and whilst they were no stranger to bumps and grazes from training, they didn't purposefully aim for injury.

Jay had. Whether he'd realised it or not, he'd gone in with the intent to make contact again. Maybe get a better reaction than the brick wall one he'd gotten beforehand.

If Cole had been any closer to human, that strike would have shattered bone.

"Jay, you i- i-" Cole faltered for a second, the word catching sharply in his throat. He gave a small cough to clear it, and dropped his hammer down onto the stone inlay.

"Y- you i-." Cole frowned. He knew what he wanted to say, he knew what word he wanted to use.

It just wasn't coming out.

"Cole?" He saw Kai walking over, his eyebrows furrowed. "Are you okay?"

"I- I'm f- f- fine." He ground out, then brought a hand up to quickly cover his mouth.

Cole looked around the group, at their analysing and confused expressions; one hand was still cradled tightly over his shoulder.

"Are you hurt?" came the question, though Kai had probably already established an answer for that.

Cole definitely had.

Yet physically he felt fine, sure his shoulder stung and his words were jamming in his throat, but he was fine…

He was--

His words.

He quickly felt over his shoulder, his fingers moving in a calculated motion, small circles. Down over his chest, up to his neck, over his collarbone--

Then they dipped into a prominent crevice that hadn't been there that morning. A crack, he didn’t even need to look to know that. He could feel it, the flaking clay, the rough edges and the fissure that marred once smooth skin.

A crack, over his collarbone.

Directly through the runes.

____

Cross-posted to AO3

Part 2 coming soon!

#Golum AU #cole brookstone #cole ninjago #cole #ninjago #lego ninjago #lego #zane #kai #jay #lloyd #cole's mother #mcfanely draws #mcfanely writes #mcfanely #razzle-zazzle #fanfiction

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thoughtfullyyoungduck · 4 years

Text

This is awkward

Summary: could u maybe do a reddie x daughter where she gets her period, but wants to hide it from richie and eddie bc they’re guys, so she steals richie’s phone and calls bev for help. but like as she goes over to bevs house (maybe they live close) richie and eddie think she’s missing or lost and they freak out? i just feel like that’s such a reddie situation lmao

warnings: period talks

In retrospect, she really should have seen it coming. All the signs they taught you about in health class presented themselves full force, from having abdominal pain and a bloating stomach after eating a cracker, to using the bathroom more than she usually has to.

Never the less, it remained a shock when she wakes up at five in the morning to searing throbbing in her lower abdomen that leaves her helplessly whriting. The clock strikes six am at the exact moment she groans, curling her body into a fetal position and covering her stomach with her arms.

She lays still for a while, tossing and turning in an effort to find a pose that won’t hurt, but nothing helps, and so she decides to go to the medicine cabinet and fish out medication to reduce the ache. In order to do that, she removes the heavy silk comforter off her body, and shivers as her temperature reduces from the added coldness that sticks in the room. It’s nearing summer time, so the sun is gleaming up every last detail of the room even at six o’clock, rendering the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling useless.

She gets up, and as soon as turns around to readjust the comforter out of the corner of her eye she spots a red blood stain, soaked into the covers of her one person bed. Ellie’s first instinct is, embracingly enough, to cry, the sight of blood leaving her squeamish and ready to do whatever it takes to get rid of it.

Her pain tolerance is high, but the second a blotch of blood presents itself anywhere near or on her, it needs to be removed point black.

It clicks in her mind what this situation means and what the logical explanation is, but she’s still in a daze that allows her to calmly rip the covers of the bed an paddle downstairs to the washing area, carefully avoiding to touch the blood itself, free of any panic or discomfort, beside the continues stabbing sneers. Only after disposing of the covers in the washing machine and shutting it with a small click, she sobers up and worries.

Ellie grabs a towel of a mountain of dry-cleaned clothes that Richie was ordered to organize room by room but forgot after a last minute stand up show the night before and wraps it around her middle. The towel specifically is her favorite, colored blue with the animations of winx club printed upon it, as a child her favorite cartoon show, with her name embroider on the top thanks to her uncle Mike. A trait she copied from Richie was that she lost stuff so much that Eddie got sick of it and started writing her name on article of clothes and shoes so that if someone found it they returned it to the right person, and because at the time Mike was practicing embroidery, he sowed her name in the towel as a gift.

The edges of the towel are worn out and frayed, but the texture is soft to the touch and smells like sunscreen, in a way tied to a few of Ellie’s preferred treasured memories. It’s the only at hand though, and time is of the essence, and she wants to wants desperately to avoid any more blood spillage.

Scanning the floor while hurrying to a bathroom Ellie cautions that she stays upright and doesn’t hit her toe against the doorframe like she idioticly does time and time again. She reaches the bathroom she unlocks the door from its hinches and opens it soundlessly, her parents lost in dreamland a door over. She feels weirdly docile about the whole thing, not at all trembling or making rash decision like she foresaw whenever she thought of this moment. The bathroom door shuts behind her, and she silently awaits for any sound to emerge from Eddie and Richie’s bedroom, but none materialize, thankfully.

At that point, there’s not much she can do. The house is empty of anything remotely resembling pads, with Richie and Eddie not needing them and Ellie hadn’t required them so far either.

Having two fathers is a blessing that Ellie is magnificently proud of, and most of the time she forgets that core families usually exist of one father and a mother. Richie and Eddie fill up any void that a mom could possibly leave behind, and so she is often oblivious that her home situations isn’t ‘normal’. There is nothing that a mother adds that Richie and Eddie don’t provide her, but maybe this is the one exception.

Ellie learned about menstrual cycles and how to deal with them via sex ed in school, but at home not a word was ushered about this. Unintentional no doubt, since Richie took it upon himself to bring up as much cringe-worthy conversations to shy her away from trying anything stupid. She never brought the topic up, and it must have slipped from Richie and Eddie’s mind too.

She debates waking up Richie and Eddie to drive her to the store, but it’s too early for that, the sops opens at nine, and there honestly sounds nothing worse but rousing her fathers for something like a period.

Richie will joke, and Eddie will research the whole thing down to the smallest details to aid her with all the knowledge found on the internet, but what she would really benefit from is a girl simply explaining the whole thing to her.

The solution literally falls in her lap, as Ellie accidentally knocks over the parfum Beverly left behind last time she visited. Aunt Bev and uncle Ben live two streets away, in a giant modern home they fosters pets in, at the edge of a forest.

They reside there any time they aren’t on their boat travelling around the world, but with Beverly six months into her pregnancy, they swore to not go on any outings up to the birth of their very first child.

Both Ben and Bev work every weekday, but if Bev is home, she’ll be happy to help, Ellie is certain. She should call first, to let Bev know she was on her way and to ensure Bev won’t contact the police on her, a figure appearing out of the blue early morning might not present well. The only problem with that is that Ellie’s phone was dropped in the water of a bath, cracking the phone’s screen from the hard landing and drenching it in water, causing all the phone’s functions to give out.

Calling aunt Bev is only an option if Ellie locates a phone, and her best bet on that is her pops.

Richie obsesses over his phone, and while he says that’s not the case, Eddie humorously hid it once and it send Richie in such a frenzy he explored the whole house top to bottom and discarded any and all cabinets to locate it.

Eddie chides the overexercise usage and resorts to conking Richie over the head if he dares to divided his attention to it for over ten minutes, but it’s all in a loving way, Eddie wouldn’t ever dream of hurting Richie.

A compromise was formed, Richie promising to leave his phone unattended on the bedside table at the end of the bed, and Eddie dialing down his complaints. The phone can’t ramify it’s toxic radiation from that far, but it’s close enough that the alarm clock rouses them up if necessary.

Invading Richie and Eddie’s bedroom is a dangerous game to play at, Eddie’s hearing out of this world with precision and picking up on the smallest, barely there clamor, but assisted with a tad of luck, Ellie might be able to evade waking them. After all, she’d rather get caught sneaking in, than having to provide a valid reason she ought to shop.

------

The clock strikes eight a.m. when Richie stirs awake, the light streaming through the window in such a way it glistens directly in Richie eyes, and in order to avoid it he swivels around on his stomach. His arm covers Eddie side, snoring loudly right net to his ear. Huffing out a laugh, Richie retracts his arm to cover his eyes from the sun that maliciously demands him to wake.

Eddie sniffles, his hand lifting in search for Richie and sighing happily when his fingertips bump against Richie’s shoulder, tugging his arm back in position.

‘Too early’, he grumbles, smacking his lips to rid himself of his dry mouth and burying his head further into his pillow. Richie laughs, kissing his husbands bare shoulder and readjusting Richie’s shirt he’s wearing after.

Weekends are a synonymous with rest and sleep, but Richie starts the day bright and fresh anyway, cooking a giant breakfast with Ellie to lure Eddie out of bed under the guise of food.

It strikes Richie as odd that Ellie’s not up and about it yet, he strains to hear any movement in the house but he comes up empty.

‘Aren’t you gonna make me breakfast, babe?’ Eddie asks his lips curled in a teasing smile, accustomed to their morning routine.

‘Sure thing Eds’, Richie says gooey, slobbering a kiss on the first part of Eddie he can reach, his temple, knowing that Eddie revolts the thought of kissing without brushing teeth first.

‘Wait I was kidding come back,’ Eddie whines, outstretching his arms to stop Richie from getting up but failing.

‘You’ll be so much happier when the food’s ready, trust me. I’m going to wake our munckin up too.’

He steps away from the bed, pulling his shirt, bunched up thanks to the wild gestures he performs in his sleep, down in the meanwhile and yawns so wide his jaw protests.

His limbs feel lose and relaxed of waking up not so soon ago, and they seem to be begging Richie to crawl back under the cover and cuddle with Eddie some more, but tour life stretched itself through all the aspects of Richie’s life these past months, and he really long for some time to spend with his daughter.

As he stumbles blindly, his hand scours the miniature table, but the only thing he can find are his glasses, neatly tucked away in what must have been Eddie’s doing after Richie zonked out.

At first he thinks he missed it, but then his glasses help him see clearly, and he notices that the phone is no longer there.

‘Hey, Eds?’

The only answer he receives is a grunt, muffled by the blankets Eddie hides under.

‘Did you hide my phone again?’ Richie asks, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Eddie shakes his head without looking up, napping on.

‘Huh’, Richie responds, deciding to let Eddie wake at his own terms. He probably ditched the phone somewhere and is drawing blank on where it could be, but it’ll be found again soon. With a deflated shrugs, Richie leaves the room to wake up his daughter, excited like a kid on Christmas to rope her into mischief.

Eddie huffs, forcing the blanket of off him and screwing his eyes open, scratching at a spot on his back that insistently itched all night.

Soon, Ellie will run in with coffee, with a meticulous steady head so none of it spills, and announce that breakfast is prepared. Some of it will be burned, other things will be so delicious Eddie will look forward to it every day of the week till he eats it again. Regardless of how good the food is, the most important thing is that it’s family time, and that no interruption or distractions occur but the laughter and unprovoqued leering both Richie, Ellie and Eddie gathered throughout the week.

Eddie smiles contently, resting his eyes a tad longer and imagining the inviting warm smell flowing up from downstairs. What he gets instead is frantic running up the stairs, loud thuds that rattle the foundation and follow each other quickly, subsequently followed by the bedroom door ricocheting of it’s hinges.

The urgency behind it spooks Eddie, who scrambles out of bed before Richie manages to utter a word.

‘Ellie’s not here.’

----

‘Thank you for helping me aunt Bev’, Ellie reinforces Bev, who brought out mint tea and joined her on the sofa to watch tv.

The movie provided background noise to the conversation they previously held, Ellie a little intimidated otherwise.

‘Any time honey you know this.’

Bev smiles brightly enough that her pearl white teeth show, her hair in a braid swiped over her shoulder, she radiates happiness to a degree Ellie has never seen.

‘I love dad and pops, I do, but you know how they get’, Ellie grimaced, his hands twisting nervously in the hem of the shirt she wormed herself in on the way here. A laugh bubbles out of Bev, already nodding her head.

‘They mean well but yes. I’m glad you confided in me.’ On instinct, Ellie dropped her hand down to pet the soft fur of Ben and Bev’s dog, a lifelong companion to them but also to her. She swiped nothing but air, Ben took the dog on a walk in the park, leaving the two girls to discuss thing among themselves. It was sad she didn’t get a chance to say hi to them, but she figures she’ll visit again later.

‘I really should get going,’ Ellie starts, her hand enclosing the plastic bag filled with supplies Bev landed her gracefully. ‘Pops and I love arranging breakfast, so I should really get home before they wake up to me not hanging around the house.’

Bev blinked innocently, surprise grazing her features. ‘Well, it is nine am, will they not be awake yet?’

‘It’s not that late yet is it?’ Bev’s phone rings loudly, startling Ellie out of her stupor. Even from her angle on the phone, she deciphers her pops names before Bev announce that it’s Richie.

‘Oops’, Ellie mutters, grimacing as the severity of the situation begins to down on her. She’s in big trouble now. Accepting the call, Bev puts in on speaker, a hand apologetically stroking Ellie’s arm conveying that yes, Bev’s sorry, but Ellie might get killed today.

‘Beverly’, Eddie distraught voice shakes through the microphone. A sinking stone weighs Ellie down, flushed with guilt, she hadn’t thought she’d be here so long, she only counted a five minute drop by.

‘Do you know where Ellie is? She’s not in her room or in the backyard either.’ In the background something smashes to the floor, in addition to cursing that sounds more like roaring, and Richie running out.

‘I really think she snatched my cellphone. Maybe she called someone to pick her up?’

Bev attempts to capture their attention goes unheard, the bickering between Eddie and Richie hardly begun.

‘I fucking told you Richie, dump the goddamn phone so much.’

‘How the fuck is that my fault? It has nothing do with that’, Richie argues frustrate, it’s obvious from the way he snapped back at Eddie he is equally as overwrought as Eddie.

‘You’re right, it’s mine. I’ve pushed her away by being to hands on. I should have given her more freedom to do what she wanted and I-‘

‘Eddie no. I honestly don’t think there’s anyone less strict as you. You remember when she was ten and she asked for two ice creams in a row and you just gave them to her because we were on a vacation?’

‘Stop dad. Pop’s right, I’m not running away for fuck sake’, Ellie yells out eventually, frustrated by the conversations taking place.

‘Ellie?’ A chair is pushed back and screeches across the floor, intending on the floor Eddie hammered on about being careful on.

‘Stay where you are, we’re on our way.’ Richie grounds out, seizing hold of his jacket and racing to the car. The connection then severs and dead silence is left in its wake.

‘Good luck with that.’

----

Though Bev, Ben, Eddie and Richie live nearby, Ellie is shocked by the fast response as the car halts not fully parked, Eddie and Richie jumping out in pajama’s.

Bev opened the door, so they waltz right on it without regarding Bev, seizing Ellie in a close knit hug both Richie and Eddie participate in.

‘Don’t you ever, ever scare us like that again. You hear me?’ Richie threatens, his words crackling with relief that his daughter is fine.

‘I’m sorry, I won’t. I honestly thought I would be back before you knew it.’

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ The family remains close, Eddie’s hand holding Ellie’s forearm loosely.

A blush shoots up her cheeks, coloring them bright red at the question.

‘Yeah about that, Is it not enough for me to promise to never do this again?‘

#reddie #reddie x daughter #this is so bad #I'm sorry #my writing #unfortunately #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrack #eddie as a parent #richie as a dad #reddie as parents

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sazzafraz · 3 years

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dropped a cup of coffee on myself at breakfast lets gooo

nodus tollens is my favourite chapter its not even close

like i actually LIKED writing it. i like writing in general but its about being someone represented with all the scary sword cards in tarot readings not actual fun. still annoyed i didn’t think of anything better than fucking HEMMINGWAY

A year and a half into working for Giri and Sasuke is sitting cross legged on top of a boulder looking out at a clear blue sky. They’re sitting by the edge of a huge cliff in Fire Country resting between assassinating some small time village leader and their next mission which promises to be heavy on full contact fighting. The sun is dipping towards the horizon, warm air ruffling their hair. Yumi is trying to throw Hiki off the cliff into the lake below, Haru is defleaing his dog and Sasuke is debating his next move in the long distance tactical game he’s playing with Juugo and Karin. It’s an Uzushio classic, like shogi but the board is made of three interlocked spirals and the movements of the pieces are based on the tides. Karin is slaughtering him.

fun fact: literally started designing that uzushio game because i’m a psychopath. it’s also the first of three references, two in the same chapter, of sasuke and his teams, and then one at the end where everyone gets together. to make fun of sasuke. as they should.

There are seven graves by the edge of the sea with a bright blooming flowers planted in the centre spilling over the cliff. Tall markers stand as high as three metres in the air wreathed with ribbons in the colours of dawn and day... Sasuke spares a look back as he enters and sees those graves and flowers. The flowers have colonised the side of the cliff, growing strong and sure halfway down the rocks, slipping into crevices and tangling around each other as they race towards the ocean. Huge blooms of colour, bright reds, light pinks and creamy yellows are knocked about by the waves crashing against the cliff.

if fuyuki even knew how much this colours sasukes opinion of her she’d beat the shit out of him. i think this was the second bit i wrote for her, after a few pieces of her and itachi. actually if she knew how much both of them are coloured by knowing her past she’d commit a crime. its pretty apparent to sasuke that these are memorials to children/those that died young and unfair. how would he know haha. i always intended the hashira and the uchiha as parallels. i think the lack of depth given to other clans sucks, especially when they have literally a thousand years of interaction. the only other one we have are the hyuuga which might have been an intended one but like. i’ve never bought it.

anyway, back to sasuke. dude loves kids. he doesn’t figure it out until he has nine of ‘em, but he has a view of children that’s incredibly sincere. i pretty much decided that on my own cause: a) its funny, b) he was fucking SWEET as a kid and i’ll kill you before i let you tell me that kid went away, c) he’s from a huge close knit family/community and liking kids is the only way to get through that,

oh. also fuyuki does cotton on to his emotional compromise and IMMEDIATELY lies so he likes her more. morals who?

“It seems,” Fuyuki says into the silence, “that Sunagakure has decided we have a problem. I sent Mamoru as a goodwill ambassador to Wind a few months ago. It went well, and as Suna is a largely neutral player in most conflicts I did not see the problem in allowing a small ambassadorial group into Oto to further the relationship. At the fourth meeting one of the Suna delegation proved themselves to be a puppet and assassinated Mamoru. They were in the process of trying to loot us when they were killed.”

haha oh my god gaara fucks himself so hard here. we’re gonna talk about it.

Now it’s leaving time and Sasuke is walking fast downtown, faces passing him as he’s bound for home base.

only two people ever commented on this. vip behaviour.

Shikamaru raises a hand and waves.

Sasuke waves back.

Shikamaru looks at him expectantly across the crowd. Distantly Sasuke notes that he’s the taller of the two. Head’s bob and weave around the marketplace, someone drops an avocado which is swept up a child and her friends, the scent of cooking spices drift down from the top of one of the buildings. Sasuke and Shikamaru stare at eachother.

i never wrote the short for this but this is shikamaru’s nightmare scenario. finding sasuke when naruto is not with you is the k12′s personal hell. because konoha and giri are tentative allies it would be poaching to bring him back and thats something people still take seriously. shikamaru goes and gets FUCKED UP so no one trusts his report and he can claim that it was ONLY MAYBE THE PRETTIEST MAN IN THE FLEA MARKET. naruto finds out like a decade later and is extremely pissed even if he gets it.

It’s a tale as old as the dust of the desert or the mountains that divide the nations. There is a boy who loses something. His honour, a cow, a sword. He has to leave his home to find it. He has to grow strong enough to do what has to be done. In the Son of Nobody the titular Son has to journey to the city to meet the princess and while he is away his family is murdered by a group of wandering bandits. Along the way he meets a beggar girl, the princess in disguise, and he allows her to tag along. There are many twists and turns, the Son becomes a noble shinobi protecting the princess and falls in love with the beggar. He finds the bandits that destroyed his home and avenges his family. But! Disaster strikes! The samurai have been told a lie about the princess and feel that their honour must be avenged. A group sneak into the princess’ room one night and defile her. One of the samurai is late to the scene and feeling so sick and ashamed of their actions kills them and ignites a real war between samurai and ninja. The disgraced samurai takes his own life in front of the princess as appeasement. When this doesn’t work the Son goes on to win the war and marry the girl.

this is just hatake sakumo. some creative liberty but its just the story of how he died embellished. i think some shinobi stories filter out and become like folk tales? like we’re gonna get to it. but there's no way they can have that kind of presence and no cultural impact.

‘Heart, liver, eyes ’ Kabuto says when he’s done, ‘and put the rest in the garbage.’

for sensible reasons kabuto is the scary one.

. Illuminated in the light of the lone flickering candle, bundled in odd cloth and grime, Kabuto looks faceless and formless. His skin has no color, his hair is limp, his eyes are turned completely inward searching himself for an some answer, some lodestone for the next leg of his journey. He looks like an orphaned version of himself. Sasuke has a brief moment of complete self-awareness. He stands above himself and looks down at the length of his hair, the uneven tan on his hands. His own eyes look at his boots, his non-descript travelling coat, the way he is never carrying more than enough money to carry him to the next town. He recognises nothing original, nothing remarkable. He’s as interchangeable as any soldier capable of swapping hands at a moment's notice. Many tools, many masks, many uses. He realises that that shifting formlessness is as much a part of him as his burning rage. It forms him just as fully.

i remember having a moment like this and it was so shocking it took me years to write about it. this nearly got cut, even though i now think its important. becoming ‘just a knife’ is important to sasuke’s development towards being just a guy. relating to kabuto is so personally disturbing that its sort of his turn towards leaving giri. kabuto actually disgusts him. unlike orochimaru.

“We called her the Fruit Eater after the foul seeds she planted in others which grew into giant poisonous fruit trees. When they’d plundered and destroyed the world enough for her foul tastes she’d eat the fruit from the trees and crush them to bone and blood under her feet. Her own children plucked out her organs one by one and cut them up into pieces. What they couldn’t eat they threw to the animals who turned into nine ravenous demons. They brought the demons together and sealed them into the form of a beautiful princess who was coveted by all.”

goddamn space aliens. i hate it less than most. i think i was still deciding if they’d show up at the end. either way i thought i’d just put them in in case i did. again, there SHOULD be a cultural footprint.

The problem is that the Uchiha are predisposed to have thick hair and the main branch, the one that descends directly from Madara’s betrayed brother Izuna, comes with a tendency for...unruliness that Sasuke has gotten threefold. At this length it seems to be largely growing up and out, gravity be damned.

aww my loving rendition of his stupid duck butt. i have unruly hair so his maintenance is essentially mine. its such a distinctive thing i think people should take more advantage of. i wrote in crashing tides that he’s just an awful fashionista and i think that holds true. he tries new hair oils ALL THE TIME.

#the author is present #part one part one

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aleksanderrs · 3 years

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introducing ; 𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒌𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒏 .

( herman tømmeraas , cismale , he/him , aquarius , 21 ) i just spotted aleksander ‘ aleks ’ thorsen at the beach today . don’t you know them ? they live down by the rocks and usually hang out with the stoners and outcasts cliques . from what i’ve heard , they can be impulsive , but they’re also honest . i always think of them when i hear hell is where i dreamt of u & woke up alone - blackbear and tend to associate them with bruises and scratches decorating pale white skin , a backpack filled with narcotics , flicking off the cops on the freeway with a smirk on your face .

note that this is a pretty triggering intro ! i’ve tried to put a tw before any bullet that mentions something triggering , but i may have missed something . if you do read this intro , read it with caution please , as i wouldn’t want to trigger anyone !

tws : foster care system , violence , injuries , drug and alcohol abuse , shooting resulting in death , suicidal thoughts

stats

full name : aleksander carter thorsen peters

nicknames : everyone calls him aleks , like …. everyone . some people call him sander and he’s fine with this one too , but usually just aleks tbh

gender : cis male

height : 5 ′ 10

age : 21

birthday : february 5 , 2000

zodiac : aquarius sun , aquarius moon , scorpio ascendant

right handed or left handed : right handed

eye color : hazel , shooting more towards green , but shifts colors with the lighting

hair color : naturally very light brown , nearing more towards dark blonde , but he always dyes it a super dark shade of dark brown or even black . you’ll never catch him with that light ass hair of his tbh lmfao

piercings and tattoos : he has a septum piercing he hides by flipping it upwards whenever he feels like it tbh , literally a fuck ton of tattoos ! he has a pretty decent stick and poke on his left ankle he did himself when he was like sixteen that says ‘ aurora ’ ( twin sisters’ name ) , he has one that reads ‘ murphy , 1961-2021 ′ on his inner right bicep ( will get into that later in his intro ) , he has these fingers tattoos on his left hand , this tattoo on his inner left bicep , ‘ livet er nå ’ on his left wrist ( which means life is now in norwegian ) , a little pitbull face tattoo to honor an old dog he loved so much named pawly , ‘ 2000 ′ ( year he was born ) in the middle of his left arm , ‘ oasis ’ diagonally on his right arm right above his wrist ( fave band there guys ! ) , an aquarius symbol on his right ring finger , honestly a bunch of random ass small aesthetic tattoos ? probably a little alien , a mini drum set tattoo , a random small thunder tattoo ? probably the word ‘ fuck ’ somewhere like .... idiot who gets a lot of random tattoos idk what to say , literally is probably a centimeter away from losing his shit and impulsively getting a face tattoo he really doesn’t give a fuck anymore tbh KJVNDVJFV

languages spoken : english , norwegian , basic spanish , but wants to learn it fluently

sexuality : bisexual / biromantic

place of birth : long beach , california

hometown : literally everywhere , no permanent hometown tbh

last four songs listened to : faint by linkin park , supersonic by oasis , mama by my chemical romance , torture me by red hot chili peppers

character inspo : a mix of chris miles and james cook from skins u.k , lip gallagher and mickey milkovich from shameless u.s , callie adams foster from the fosters , eli ‘ hawk ’ moskowitz from cobra kai ( season 2 hawk )

backstory

so aleksander , or aleks as he prefers to be called , was born six minutes after his twin sister aurora , to two norwegian parents ( julie and anders ) , both twins being the first american born in their family . his father was a no show from the start , and his mother was something else . him and aurora endured their mother’s heavy drug abuse , living in a crappy environment with an actual crackhead , until she was deemed unfit to take care of them and they were taken from her by child protective services when they were seven , instantly thrown into foster care . his mother didn’t care enough to ever even get them back , signing away her parental rights , and choosing drugs over her own two children . aleks hasn’t seen her since , and has no desire to ever see her again at all

as a kid , he was pretty soft . he didn’t like mean people and was fairly sensitive and highly emotional , two things that you literally cannot be if you’re a foster kid , which , unfortunately for aleks , was exactly what he was . basically exactly how you could picture a foster child’s life really . him and aurora managed to stay together for three years until they were separated from each other at ten years old

i guess you could say this is when things changed drastically for him . he assumed they might get reunited eventually but it never happened . he would cry himself to sleep every night because of how lonely he felt and he actually had no friends at all . if anything , the kids at his home would constantly make fun of him for being so sensitive and crying so easily . he was completely on his own , and really sad

he came to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t really survive if he continued letting his emotions get the better of him . by the time he was twelve , he altered his personality drastically and changed altogether . what really happened is that he let his anger and resentment get the better of him

he just became super fed up with how fucked up the system is , and how literally no one wanted to adopt a kid his age ? the lack of sympathy from his fellow foster ‘ siblings ’ , and a mixture of everything going on around him , he kind of gave up and turned into this version of himself that took shit from no one . he never stayed in a foster home for more than nine months regardless of whether he behaved or not because something always seemed to come up for some reason ? this of course , gave him no real stability .

he got thrown into a foster care family , the johnson’s , when he was fourteen , and for a while , it seemed like a pretty top notch foster home , definitely the best one he’s been in by far . i say for a while because shit went down hill pretty fast , literally in less than five months . aleks had an unlikely friendship with the foster parents’ son , kyle . kyle was four years older than him ( eighteen ) but it seemed to work at first since they shared the same room , until one day , they get into a pretty heated argument at school ( kyle is a senior , aleks is a freshman ) . to this day , aleks genuinely doesn’t even remember what the argument was even about , but this was the argument that flipped his life upside down more than it had already been flipped

! violence and injury tw for the next four bullets , read with caution or skip ahead if it will trigger you ! they’re outside getting into it , petty ass verbal argument tbh , when kyle strikes him right in the face . doesn’t really end there though because this grown ass eighteen year old man dead ass starts beating his ass . actual understatement , like , beating his ass like he’s getting paid for it type shit . he can hear people around them screaming out ‘ fight fight fight ! ’ but it’s really , really not a fight though ? like it’s just this eighteen year old beating the living shit out of a fourteen year old kid , a literal fucking child

eventually when it’s over , kyle threatens him . tells him that if he says anything at all , he’s going to make sure he gets sent to a group home or frame him for something he didn’t do to get him sent to juvie . aleks is seriously just laying on the floor , holding back the urge to cry , injured as hell , wondering where the fuck that came from . it was just so random ? he really thought he was friends with this guy and he just gets his ass beat over an actual fifth grade argument . he’s been picked on before , even shoved or had sour fights with people before , sure , but he’s never in his damn existence been beaten like that before . super low point in his life because it’s the first time he genuinely got his ass handed to him and then some , but definitely not the lowest point

when he gets back to his foster home , he tells his foster parents he was jumped . makes up this entire story from the crack of his ass . it actually makes him physically and emotionally sick to sleep in the same room as kyle , but he tells himself it is what it is . he doesn’t rest that entire night . the next day though , he waits until kyle is sound asleep to get up from his bed beside him and hover over at him , watching him snore soundly . a million and one thoughts run through this kids head , but it’s mostly just hurt , anger , disgust , and this sick need to get back at him . it’s this fight in his head , one voice telling him to let it go while the other voice screams at him to fuck him up . aleks momentarily decides on taking the higher road , knowing it could get him into huge trouble if he lays a hand on kyle , but that decision to take the higher road vanishes when he looks up above the fuckers bed and see’s the mirror that hangs on top . he stares at his reflection , spotting his bruises , the swollen bits of his face , the scrapes and cuts , how fucked up he looks , and he acts completely on impulse , his anger getting the better of him . aleks grabs kyle’s soccer trophy from on top of his bed stand , lifts it up above his head , and smacks him right across the face with it . this obviously wakes up kyle instantly , but aleks has the upper hand , since kyle is laying on his bed , half asleep , and without a weapon . aleks starts fucking him up with the thing , you can hear kyle’s screaming loud and clear , and it’s not long before kyle’s parents come rushing inside , obviously pulling aleks right off him , and well , you can kind of see where this is headed

moral of the story , aleks is considered a high risk foster child with that little stunt he pulled . his first actual offense , but it still gets him sent to juvie for three days , and that’s really just because the judge is being nice considering his situation ... i don’t even think i need to describe what juvie was like because like we see movies y’all we know JKFNDJF . he broke kyle’s nose , scratched his cornea , and left him with multiple injuries . kyle’s claims don’t help his story either . he tells everyone that aleks is psycho , that he’s wrong in the head , has some serious anger issues and ‘ attacked him out of nowhere when he was just trying to help him ’ , makes him out to be the biggest bad guy in the book , conveniently leaving out the part where he fucks him up with his fists at school . with the squeaky clean record kyle has , no one really cares for aleks’ side of the story at all , especially since he claimed his injuries were from getting jumped . from that point forward , he knows for a fact he’s never getting adopted , and , as sad as this may sound , he doesn’t even care anymore ! end of violence and injury tw !

actually hurting someone the way he did kind of ignited something inside him he didn’t even know was there . of course after a certain age , he grew a much tougher shell and stopped crying about everything , stopped being so damn sensitive , but he’s never laid his hands on anyone before until he met kyle . he wasn’t proud of what he did , it made him feel like shit inside , dirty in a way , and it didn’t give him any sense of accomplishment or bring him any joy , but .... it kind of awakened him to all these different ideas , a different mentality , gave him a feeling of power and superiority he’s never felt before . at that point on , he began thinking ‘ every man to himself ’ , very much katherine pierce from the vampire diaries mind . he does what he does to survive and he doesn’t care who he has to knock down . no one ever cared for him , he stopped caring for people – that’s that .

it took everything ( like dead ass everything ) , to convince the judge not to put aleks in a group home . he was , thankfully , placed in another foster home , but with much higher restrictions than his last . it was school and back , the doors were locked at 9 pm , bedroom doors included , windows sealed shut .... just bad , but it beat being in juvie , so again , he told himself ‘ it is what is it ’

began acting the fuck out . new home , new school , he became the bad kid your parents warned you about , begged you not to hang out with . skipping class , a nasty smoking habit , talking back to the teachers – he actually stopped giving a fuck , and his behavior just worsened as time went on . despite his own birth mother being a drug addict , he did the same shit . he turned to drugs , alcohol , and violence , mostly . hanging with the wrong crowd , slick ass mouth , not afraid to punch someone , on some illegal shit , but , he became very street smart and learned to keep his shit ‘ low key ’ as he called it , really .... just not getting caught . he was barely barely passing school , just enough so his ( current ) foster parents wouldn’t bug him about shit . eventually moved to another home without as many restrictions and decent living , really , really just tried to keep a low profile all while doing hood rat shit on the low #hannahmontanawho?

! drug abuse and drug mentions tw for the next three bullets ! he really , really began to rely heavily on drugs and alcohol . started off with weed , but escalated from there . adderall , xanax , oxy , coke , mdma , even ketamine ... really any drug you can think of , all tried by the time he was sixteen . his top three favorites quickly became coke , ketamine , and obviously weed . aleks thinks he has the whole situation under control , swears he’s become a master of deceit , but it’s only really a matter of time before shit catches up to you , right ?

he’s sixteen when him and a couple of his friends decide to drive to santa monica just for the fuck of it . they swear they’ll get him back in time , all with the idea to get really fucked up by the beach and go on an adventure . only problem is they get too fucked up and attract too much attention up to the point of getting caught . four teens running in different directions from the cops , high as fuck .... lovely tbh 🥴

again , you can kind of see where this is headed .... him and another guy were the unlucky ones , of course . aleks gets caught with only a joint on him , but tests positive for a bunch of drugs . it’s already his second offense too . he gets four days in juvie this time , drug counseling once he’s out . the only problem is no one really knows where he’s going to get placed after this , though he’s pretty sure it’ll be some high restriction group home , but very surprisingly , he’s wrong ! end of drug abuse and drug mentions tw !

the day he gets released from juvie is the day he meets a man named murphy peters , or my favorite person ever ( what aleks will soon come to think of him ) . murphy isn’t really too sure about taking him in until he gets told ‘ well if you don’t take him i guess i can just send him to a group home ’ . they just look at each other at that moment , aleks’ eyes filled with unshed tears , beat up and tired , and murphy turns back to the guy and legit says ‘ nah , don’t even bother . just a few weeks , right ? ’

he’s super shut down emotionally when arriving at his place . murphy is a single foster parent with an old , really friendly pitbull named pawly for company , no other foster kids in his apartment . being tossed around so much , aleks assumes it’ll only be a matter of time before he fucks up and gets sent somewhere else . that’s how it always seems to go down anyways , and he did only say a few weeks after all

but things take an unexpected turn for the better on the second day he’s there . three in the morning , he’s awake but the lights are turned off , pitch dark . he randomly hears murphy open the door and pretends to be asleep . a part of aleks feels like this might get dark very fast . after all , he lives alone . he’s a single foster parent , and aleks has lived through enough in the system to know how fucked up it is . the last thing he’s really expecting is for murphy to shake him roughly like ‘ wake up kid , wake up , i know you not really sleepin’ ! ’ so he kind of just sits up and turns on the light like um .... it’s like three am , and murphy is pacing back and forth around his room like ‘ aight , i figured it out , kid ! ’ and aleks is just like haha yeah cool ..... again , it’s three am

strangely enough , murphy starts telling him his life story , through and through and aleks can’t help but think how this old man he met two days ago figured all this shit out . it makes him angry that he’s apparently so transparent ( he’s really not , murphy is just next level ) . truth be told , he wants to swing at murphy , and he knows it’ll get him into deep shit , but he does it anyways . imagine his shock when this old man blocks his punch and manages to slam dunk him back onto his bed . he’s just like what the fuck aren’t you like eighty KVBFDJ

moral of the story is they get into an argument and aleks eventually tells him that the reason he’s so angry is because he ‘ can’t beat up everyone he hates , you included ’ ( half true , but definitely not the only reason he’s so pissed at the world ) , even more random when murphy is like ‘ i’m gonna teach you some healthy ways to let out that anger , be ready at ten am , kid ! ’ and aleks really thinks he’s making fun of him so he’s like ‘ yeah , okay .... fuck you old man ! ’ as murphy makes his way out

but ... he’s not talking shit ! ten am on the dot and he’s getting dragged to what he thinks is a gym , but it’s actually a dojo . he thinks murphy is talking out his ass when he tells him he’s going to teach him karate , and enroll him in boxing classes for the summer . he’s just wondering how this old solitary man is gonna even teach him good karate to begin with , but he soon learns that the old saying don’t judge a book by it’s cover is pretty much murphy to a t

he is right though . he starts boxing and karate and it does help him a lot ! he realizes how much doing these things gets his mind off everything . even though he’s basically ‘ fighting ’ it brings him a strange sense of peace , and surprisingly ? discipline too . he knows this whole thing is temporary but it still changes his mindset a lot . he mostly begins to focus on physical activity and becoming the best at what he’s doing rather than his old bad habits like drugs and alcohol , stealing , any type of petty crimes he used to commit . at the time he didn’t want to admit it , but murphy was definitely right . this was for sure helping him take out all the anger he has inside , all without doing things that could get him arrested

and him and murphy start to really bond too . they both like the same bands , they’re both aquarius’ , similar tastes in tv shows and movies , they both have nearly the same sense of humor , murphy was even a foster kid like him who out grew the system , but again , aleks really tries to not get attached because he knows he’s just being nice , but he really really starts to fuck with murphy . deep down in his head he’s like ‘ i kind of wish he was my dad ’ .... making me emo and shit smh

when school comes around , beginning of his junior year , he manages to convince everyone to let him drop out and get his ged . school really just isn’t for him and it never has been , being in a place with a bunch of other teens for like eight hours for five days a week gives him anxiety , just drains his social battery completely . he does drop out , but he’s pushed so roughly by murphy to get his ged , he manages to pass the test by late november , basically graduating over an entire year ahead of his actual class

and life seems to get better from there ! murphy eventually tells him he wants to make this a permanent thing . aleks gets so happy he actually bursts into tears 🥺

the entire process takes a lot longer than necessary though , especially with his record . in the beginning , they can’t find his actual birth certificate . his actual birth father , for some reason , refuses to sign away his parental rights at first ( aleks is like bro i literally hate you .... sign the fucking papers ) . kind of starts to seem like the whole universe is against him . every time the coast looks clear and it seems like they can go through with the adoption process , something happens and delays the entire thing . it actually takes him over a year until he finally gets legally adopted by murphy , when he’s seventeen . actually the happiest day of his life

things only seem to get even better from then on out . he gets his driver’s license , his tattoo artist license in california when he’s nineteen , starts working at an actual shop in venice beach when he’s almost twenty . he’s not the best at first , but not terrible . eventually , he becomes really really good though . he basically paints , listens to music and does a mixture of boxing and karate during his free time . he tattoos and pierces people for income , starts saving up because he really wants to drive down to mexico one day , with murphy in his rv . actually the road trip of his dreams !

but , remember when i said it kind of seems like the universe is against him ? 🥴

it’s february first of this year , four days before his twenty first birthday , and nine days before murphy’s , when him and murphy get into a fight . aleks can’t even recall what the fight was about , but he gets so angry , he takes murphy’s rv and drives to god knows where . he gets really drunk one night and starts doing a bunch of dumb shit , but his dumbest idea has to be stealing a backpack full of diamonds from these two guys . gets chased by them for a moment , but manages to get away , all while being told ‘ you’re gonna regret that shit so hard bro ! ’ . in his defense , he had no idea the backpack was filled with diamonds , he just liked the way it looked because it was a kipling ? he liked the little monkey keychain ? imagine his surprise when he opens the thing and see’s probably at least half a million dollars in diamonds . he’s just like wow that’s crazy .... i’m gonna drive back home right fucking now . four , almost five years of sobriety .... thrown down the toilet when he gets drunk , but he tells himself it was just a single slip up . that he’ll do better

he gets back home february sixth , the day after his birthday . spends his actual twenty first birthday passed out and hungover , asleep on the bed inside the rv . he tries walking past murphy as he’s outside wiping down his car , hoping he can just pass by him without being questioned , but of course he’s wrong . another fight in aleks’ eyes , but it’s really just murphy bitching and questioning him because he cares about him , because he’s obviously concerned that he’s been gone for the past five days , phone off and everything . it starts escalating until aleks eventually screams at him and tells him that he needs to ‘ stop pretending like he actually cares about him when all he feels towards him is pity ’ which , kind of just shows that he never really got over his trust issues and general trauma from being in the system . and there’s just a moment of silence before murphy is like ‘ i don’t know when you’re thick headed ass is gonna realize i’d take a bullet for you if it came down to it ’ and of course , aleks doesn’t believe him ! now fast forward to another half second of arguing until murphy’s words are actually put into action

! guns / shooting resulting in death and panic attack tw , please skip past this bullet if this triggers you ! they’re outside when a white van drives by , he can clearly hear an angry familiar voice shout ‘ i told you you were gonna regret this ! ’ , a gun pulling out from the window crack , and he gets so nervous he just freezes on the spot . he knows exactly who it is – it’s the guy he stole the backpack from like , two days ago . aleks knows what he’s going to do , but he can’t seem to move . he really thinks he’s going to die , until this man literally steps right in front of him , and , just like he stated not even a whole minute ago , actually takes a bullet for him . gets shot right in the chest , and by that time , all the neighbors are outside , calling the police . the area is too heated , so the van drives off quickly after missing the shot , no license plate or anything so it’ll be harder to identify who it was . you can imagine how traumatic this moment is for aleks , and the saddest part ? he really thinks murphy will somehow magically make it , like it’ll be some type of miracle all over the news and such – but he’s wrong . murphy bleeds out right in front of him , aleks doing everything in his power to try and stop his bleeding , but there’s really nothing else that can be done . the last two things murphy tells aleks is to ‘ please take care of all the clown paintings around the house ’ and ‘ never lose them , don’t let anyone take them , keep them no matter what ’ and he’s pretty much gone before he can tell aleks why . he gets so so nervous , he doesn’t know what it was at the time , but he starts having an actual panic attack . all his neighbors coming up to him like ‘ oh my god kid , are you okay ? ’ and trying to help the whole situation like ‘ help is coming right now ’ but it’s kind of like aleks can’t hear a word they’re saying ? like his heart is just beating so fast and he’s suddenly sweating so much and he can barely breathe . it’s like his body is there , but his soul , his mind ? gone , panicking , hyperventilating . everything from then on seems like a blur . getting told murphy’s dead in the hospital , which he definitely already knows . the police statement he gives , half there , half not . that day , it’s like a part of him vanished . he really was not the same ever since ! end of guns / shooting resulting in death and panic attack tw end !

he panics , hardcore . the first thing he does when he gets home is instantly take all his clothes , murphy’s computer , and general important things into the rv . he doesn’t know why murphy is so fixated on the clown paintings , but of course he grabs all twenty of them , he puts those in the rv as well , connects murphy’s car to the rv , and just starts to drive , far away from venice beach . like half a million dollars in diamonds inside a backpack on top of the passengers seat , too traumatized to stay in murphy’s apartment . he just starts to drive , with the intention of going to mexico , but then his dumb ass realizes he doesn’t have his passport on him . he keeps driving until he reaches san diego , and that’s the story of how he ends up in sunhollow

he genuinely doesn’t know what to do from that point on . he pawns the diamonds and purchases an rv site and gas /electric for nearly three years , so he doesn’t have to worry about about rent for a while . yes , he’s really just living in his damn rv because he doesn’t know what else to do and he terrified . he ends up in the rocks , the rougher part of sunhollow . for the first few days , he’s petrified , super afraid the guys who ended murphy are going to find him . thankfully , that doesn’t happen , but he’s still paranoid about it

he actually cries like a baby during murphy’s birthday on february tenth . if he was still here , he would be turning sixty . imagine how awful he feels , that his actual real last conversation with him was an argument .... he hates himself tbh

from that point on , all the progress he’s made gets flushed down the drain . the only positive thing about the whole thing is that he manages to get a job in this new city in half moon ink as a tattoo artist and piercer , with his prior experience . besides that , it’s all shit . he’s living in an rv , he doesn’t know what he’s doing or where he’s going with his life , he’s scared , and the worst part of all ? he starts abusing drugs and alcohol again , heavy this time . all his sobriety and hard work all these years ? completely gone

aleks really said ‘ fuck self love , we’re doing all the drugs ’ after murphy died . he’s just super not okay about it because he knows he’s gone because of him , because he couldn’t keep his damn sticky fingers to himself . he’s basically spiraling super hard now , and he knows wherever murphy is that he’s not happy with what he’s doing , but he can’t seem to stop . it’s like once he started using again , there was no going back

so he keeps doing hoodrat shit tbh ! his dumb ass ends up getting caught with resins of cocaine in a bag , on february twelve , literally on his birthday month . the offense wasn’t that bad because it was just coke residue , but it’s still basically a felony , and with his past record , he gets actual prison time . he was going to be in prison for a whole two months , originally three , but he got off lucky . however , with good behavior and community hours , he ends up in there for only a month , got out recently on march fifteenth . he’s doing community hours and getting drug tested by his p.o , he’s under house arrest too . he can be out between six am to six pm , but if he’s not right back in his trailer by six pm on the dot , well .... i think you can figure out what happens

he’s barely getting by really , known around town as trailer trash for obvious reasons , literally currently wearing a fucking ankle monitor . i don’t really think he cares about anything anymore ? like he’s just so done with it all . he didn’t even flinch when he got caught , didn’t try to run and willingly gave in ( which helped with his case but ) , like , that’s how done he is . genuinely didn’t care that he was going to actual prison . he just does not care . he’s barely living , one day at a time

i’m gonna end his backstory here , below are some headcanons !

headcanons

! drug abuse , suicidal and death thoughts tw ! this is kind of sad , but he’s reached a point in his life where he doesn’t really care if he lives or dies . in fact , he spends a lot of his time thinking about how he’s going to die , when , if it’ll be painful or not .... really really depressive and dark suicidal thoughts . the only thing is that despite everything he’s gone through , aleks doesn’t have it in him to actually commit suicide . he thinks about it constantly , thinks about getting run over by a car or drowning or shooting a damn bullet through his head , literally any type of death , but he would actually never pull through with it . he wants it to happen , but he doesn’t have it in him . this is a reason why he abuses drugs so much at this point . of course he likes the high , but in the back of his mind , he’s really really hoping he’ll take so much , it’ll kill him . that way if he dies , it won’t look intentional , just like your typical overdose . like , his heavy drug usage is literally a cry for help . he really doesn’t care if he takes it too far , he actually wants to take it too far always , but he never seems to overdose . he’s mixed a bunch of stuff before , but it just doesn’t happen ? in a way he feels he’s cursed , because he can’t even overdose and die properly . again , his idea of the universe being completely against him ! end of drug abuse , suicidal and death thoughts tw !

he actually .... doesn’t have a smart phone ! no bullshit , has some crap flip phone and a government phone he uses to speak to his p.o , that’s it . the only smart type of technology he really has is murphy’s 2018 mac book pro and a smart tv he has set in his rv . he rarely gets close to anyone , but on the rare occasion that he does , if they ask for his number , no bullshit , he gives them the number from pizza hut , has it memorized and all . you have to be really , really special for him to give you his number . the only people who really have his number are customers ( people he tattoos , and does piercings for ) like , that’s literally it . isn’t part of the gc ( the ic chat on discord ) , doesn’t have an instagram , twitter or any type of social media , actually old school as fuck , which is wild , considering he was born in 2000

he has a fuck ton of cds ! literally no one has cds anymore but he has so so so many . oasis , red hot chili peppers , my chemical romance , sleeping with sirens , arctic monkeys , yes , asking alexandria , the list goes on .... so many cds because this is really all he does in his rv . play a cd and start painting or sketching some tattoo ideas . he loves music a lot and considers it an escape , even though he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body and doesn’t play any type of instrument , but he just loves music so much , literally always listens to music no matter what he’s doing . his favorite band is oasis , murphy put him on that band . they’re favorite song was supersonic and they would listen to it together on repeat forever while driving , jamming to other oasis songs on the road as well . aleks listened to supersonic on repeat on the ride from venice beach to san diego . he cried the entire way .

he’s like ..... a kleptomaniac for real . he’ll walk into a clothing store with a large hoodie on , grab twenty different shirts , go into the dressing room , put on ten of those twenty shirts , slide his oversized hoodie on top , and walk right out . sometimes he won’t even have any real reason to steal stuff , he just does because he’s bored . will go into a store and take something he doesn’t even need , surprisingly has never been caught . very reckless of him considering his situation , but again , he just doesn’t care anymore . he spends a lot of his money on drugs , so he’ll steal basic necessities sometimes , like toilet paper , tooth paste , soap , shampoo and conditioner . the weirdest thing he steals hands down is like .... family pictures of people he doesn’t even know ? like it’s so weird , he’ll jack a wallet , take all the money , and realize there’s like a family picture in there , the wife , the husband , their kids , a dog . weird as fuck , but he takes the money and family picture and throws out the wallet ? again , super weird , but i think never really having a legit family and losing the one person he loved unconditionally who believed in him caused this ? he’s just like you know .... what let me live through the eyes of these people <3 super fucking strange , literally has a few pictures of random ass families he doesn’t even know at all just stuffed into his glove compartment , for no reason at all .... fucking weirdo tbh

another fun fact is he has hypermobile shoulders ( or double jointed shoulders ) . he realized this when getting handcuffed once , his arms behind his back . he thought to himself ‘ i feel i can bring my arms above my head to bring my handcuffs to the front without breaking my arms ’ surprise , surprise , he definitely could ! does that weird shit and brings his entire arms from the back to the front while holding them , he said undercover contortionist here !

this is a wild headcanon , but remember those twenty clown paintings murphy insisted aleks never get rid of ? entire story behind those things . so murphy ? actually won the powerball in 2015 . no lie , magically got all numbers right , won 238 million . with federal withholding and taxes and all ? still left murphy with a stacking 101 million dollars . he spent less than half , leaving him with exactly 64 million dollars . now you would expect him to start living a glamorous life after that right ? well wrong ! he remained humble as ever, bought an rv and the car he wanted , payed off his bills , donated some money to charity , but continued living in his hood ass apartment in venice beach , kept quiet about the entire thing , never told a single soul . he’s the type of old school guy that would rather keep his money under his mattress rather than in a bank , doesn’t trust banks , only had a debit card because it was absolutely necessary , and a credit card he never really used , really just to build decent credit . he knew he couldn’t empty his entire account in one go , so he emptied it , little by little , gradually with time , until he eventually had all 64 million dollars in cash , all one hundred dollar bills . he knew he couldn’t store the money in a duffel bag like an idiot , so what did this man do ? literally .... put the money inside the paintings . no lie , inside the paintings . he knew no one would ever wanna steal a hideous clown painting , he was smart about it . each painting is stored with 3.2 million dollars inside , all one hundred dollar bills , meaning each painting carries exactly 32,000 one hundred dollar bills inside , tightly packed together so they all fit , wrapped and all . now really , really stop to think about this ..... aleks ? actually has 64 million god damn dollars inside his rv , stored inside those hideous clown paintings , and the most wild part ? he has absolutely no idea at all . to him , they’re just ugly ass clown paintings that weigh a ton ( because they’re stuffed with money , aleks ! ) . crazy , right ? everyone in sunhollow thinking he’s dirt poor trailer trash , without a nickel to his name . shit , he thinks the same thing too ! positive he’s gonna die broke as fuck and alone , but little does he know ? man is carrying 64 million in his shitty rv , and he has absolutely no fucking clue at all . definitely going to accidentally find out one day ( but that calls for a future self para tbh )

murphy had no intentions of spending all the money on himself , planned to donate the other half and spend the rest living his final days in santo domingo , dominican republic ( literally .... that’s how humble this man is ) . around that time is when he started fostering aleks though , and after the first few months with him , he knew , right away , that he was going to give that money to him one day . didn’t tell him about it because he knew it would freak him out and he wouldn’t stop asking about it , but he knew all that money would be his . stored it all away in those terrible clown paintings , specifically because he knew no one would suspect a thing . wanted to tell him about it , but passed away before he could . aleks still doesn’t know what’s in those paintings , has them stacked away somewhere because he thinks they’re so ugly , but would never throw them away because it was murphy’s last wish . the day he finds out what they actually have inside though ? his life will do a whole 360 . again , i’m gonna work into that though

people just think he’s trailer trash tbh and he does nothing to prove them wrong . i think his reputation just follows him around . lots of people don’t bother to get to know him and he doesn’t really bother to get to know people . he’s a big ass loner , spends nearly every single day alone minus when he’s at the tattoo shop . lots of people are really intimidated by him , especially with all the rumors about him , and that fucking ankle monitor tbh , but he doesn’t care , doesn’t do anything to try and stop what people think . he’s like if people wanna think i’m trailer trash whatever i don’t care , and he really , really doesn’t

he’s actually kind of a low key hoe ? bisexual as fuck and will hook up with just about anyone . it’s wild though because he’ll fuck you and kind of just disappear ? half the time he doesn’t even do it on purpose , he’ll kind of just dip without giving you his phone number or even wait for you to wake up . like you’ll maybe wanna make breakfast for both you guys , but you look to the other side of your bed and he’s no longer there . no phone number , no way of contacting him , kind of just a ghost . he never let’s people come over to his place ever ( because .... rv tbh ) so it’s not like there’s any way you can really see him again if you wanted to . unless you randomly see him somewhere , but odds are he’ll disappear into the background before you even really get a chance to talk to him . gives him this asshole reputation , but the truth is he just doesn’t want people getting too close to him out of fear that they’ll abandon him . you’ll think you’re starting a lovely friendship with him or even just a great hook up and he’ll randomly just ghost for like six months 🥴 never see him again type shit

he actually .... doesn’t really like being touched at all ? it’s weird because he likes sex a lot and doesn’t mind being touched everywhere in that moment during the heat of it , but like let’s say afterwards maybe you wanna cuddle ? you wanna greet him with a hug ? a little kiss on the cheek ? he’s not comfortable with that . he doesn’t mean to be an ass about it , but he actually physically cringes when someone just greets him with a random hug without any type of warning . will literally push you away and be like ‘ please don’t touch me again ’ . maybe this has to due with his childhood in general but like .... do not greet him with a random hug or kiss on the cheek ever because he will literally disappear so fast , push you away so quickly . if he initiates it , sure , but if it’s just random from the other party , he’s not gucci with it . i think if he finds someone he actually really cares about and vibes with he would be okay with physical affection ( example , he let murphy hug him all the time ) , but like let’s say he just meets you and you wanna go in for a friendly hug ? he’s gonna take like three steps back . makes him look like an asshole , but he really can’t help it . he doesn’t like being thrown off guard like that , strangely feels like he doesn’t have control of the situation ? he’s super weird tbh . he’s fine with a fist bump , or a quick handshake though

he hates mind games ! hates them . he’s definitely not the type of guy you can give a million hints to and he’s fine just figuring them out and going along with it . he doesn’t like indirect people who say one thing but mean something else and say this with hopes that you ‘ catch on ’ , he hates that difficult shit . he will catch onto every single hint you send , know exactly what you want too , but he’s not going to do anything about it . he wants someone who can be blunt and upfront with him , someone who knows what they want and shouts it to the world , someone who will tell him what they want from the start , no sugar coating , no beating around the bush , no mind games or backwards flirting . he’s a very blunt person , will tell you what he wants right off the bat without even blinking , doesn’t believe in the will they/won’t they bullshit . you’re either upfront and straight up with him , or you can play those mindgames for like , fifteen minutes with him before he ghosts you quick as fuck . like you want him to be super unattracted to you ? play mind games with him , beat around the bush , and hint at stuff while never directly telling him what you want . watch you never hear from him ever again tbh

he actually did half the tattoos he has . he’s become a very skilled artist , really good at sketching , painting , anything involving art with his hands . it’s relaxing to him . he hasn’t done any type of boxing or karate since murphy died , but he can very easily pick up from where he left off . he has a black belt , very good at both things , but has been avoiding it since the whole thing with murphy went down

he actually has undiagnosed bipolar disorder and even ptsd , especially from that bullet . he doesn’t really know this , but even just the sound of a gun going off can trigger him , take him back to murphy’s backyard , blood everywhere . it’s never happened to him before thankfully , but it’s a possible idea for a future thread or even self para . he has ptsd over lots of things that happened in his childhood and teen years , but a gun shot would probably really trigger him . for his bipolar disorder , he has a mixture of both manic and depressive episodes , but mostly manic ones . he’ll be awake for an entire week and not even really feel tired , fake elevated happiness , but it’s hard for him to notice he even has a problem with how heavily he abuses drugs . being high all the time never gives his brain a moment to think

literally getting drug tested every other week , but he’s still doing drugs ? he’s currently barely smoking weed because he knows that stays in your system forever , but drugs that flush out in just a couple of days or don’t even show up ? he’s all for it ! catch him with niacin , cranberry pills and juice , and cleansing pills like , two days prior . he hasn’t failed a drug test yet but he’s still doing drugs . actual dumb ass criminal mastermind ? like .... the lengths he’ll go to get high but not get caught ..... go to fucking therapy and rehab aleks holy fuck

murphy’s old pitbull ended up dying at seventeen years old , in 2018 ! no one thought he would make it for so long , but little guy did . aleks still remembers the pitbull , has a little pitbull small tattoo somewhere on his right arm in honor of this dog . his name was pawly

despite the fact that he hasn’t spoken norwegian in over a decade ( last time with his sister ) , he still vividly remembers it , since it was basically his first language . like , he claims he doesn’t remember it anymore , claims he forgot , but if someone just randomly starts speaking norwegian , his brain would instantly put all the words together and he would start speaking back fluently . you can’t forget what you fully learned , aleks !

a part of him wants to reconnect with his sister . he hasn’t seen her in over a decade , has no clue where she’s at , if she ever got adopted or if she’s even alive at this point . he really wants to find her but doesn’t know where to start ? little does he know she’s literally living in sunhollow too ( shoutout to aurora thorsen sparks )

really , really wants to be a vegetarian , later on a vegan ! he loves animals so much , has seen so many documentaries where he knows fucking animal slaughterhouses and meat is like the number one cause of the green house effect ( especially slaughter houses , watch cowspiracy on netflix to get an idea ) , but he’s a broke ass bitch right now and just eats whatever , when he’s even hungry . he always tells himself that if he ever has money ( HAHAHA LITTLE DO YOU KNOW ALEKS ) that he’s definitely going to become a big ass vegan . loves cows so much , would dead ass go ‘ moo ’ if he were to ever meet one and would probably be upset if they don’t moo back at him 🤡

he has never left california , literally ever . he’s been nearly all around cali , but has never left , not even to another state – it’s legit all he knows . he really , really wants to travel , take a road trip down to mexico ( literally even knows some okay spanish from being friends with so many mexicans and central and south americans ) like , he just really wants to go anywhere . he’d like to visit his parents’ hometown , a little town in norway named stavanger . he wants to go all around south america , buenos aires , rio de janeiro , lima , he just wants to go places and see life from outside the shithole he’s been stuck in since forever , and one day he will do it ( when he finally finds that fucking money damn ) . if he could choose to live anywhere , he would probably wanna go to his family roots , in norway . he already speaks the language so it should be fairly easy ( kind of wild how he wants to do all this yet he wants to die at the same time .... sad boi hours tbh )

may not look like it , but he really can kick your ass if he wants to ( that karate / boxing in him be like 😜 ) . if you see him from far , he looks like a little soft angel ( baby face that will never go away ngl ) but don’t let his physical appearance fool you ! he will dead ass high kick someone in the face if he has to , no remorse . he isn’t as violent anymore compared to when he was a teen , but if he feels like he’s going to be attacked or feels like you genuinely want to physically hurt him , he won’t hesitate to fuck you up

even though he’s grown a tougher shell over the years , he’s very low key still a softy . deep down inside , he’s still that little kid that would cry whenever people were mean to him . he can be very sensitive and compassionate ..... but on the inside . obviously he no longer bursts into tears like he used to as a little kid , but contrary to popular belief , if you really get to know him , he’s soft . shows with how much he loves animals , and it’s weird because he doesn’t like being touched unexpectedly , looks like a bad ass and acts like one , but deep down ? soft ass heart , too soft for this world , needs to find the right person to actually connect with and cuddle gdi

he has the tiniest little scar , right below his right eye , where kyle decked him ( left handed punch ) . it’s really barely even noticeable , and lots of people who have short conversations with him won’t even realize . if you’re talking to him for a while , and really admire his face though , you’ll notice it . again , not a huge scar , not super prominent , really blends in with his skin , and usually something most people miss , but it’s there

i’m gonna end this here because this is long and i’m going to leave connections to brain storming , but below is his birthchart !

#hqclique.intro #foster care system tw #violence tw #injury tw #death tw #guns tw #shooting tw #suicidal thoughts tw #alcohol abuse tw #drug abuse tw #blood mention tw #i feel this deserves sooo many tws #lmk if i'm missing one!!#this took me an embarrassing amount of time tbh i'm so ashamed damn #( queuekachu ! )#mental illness tw

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imagine-mr-markus · 4 years

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Birthday Candles

I had to write sumn for my fave Dad on his birthday, but i got a teeeensy bit distracted watching Hellbenders so its a leedol late, sorry! But yes, here we have some tasty tasty fluff of my boys in honour of The Birthday. And not an all an apology for the fact that the next two I’m working on are just Angst of my Cyberlife Boys, absolutely not

Hank Anderson, at the ripe age of 53 and 364 days, fucking hated birthdays. Hated the smell of cake and frosting and the cheerful wishes of others. What he hated most about them, however, was the birthday candles. The smell of them, the sight of them, even the fucking mention of them was enough to sour his mood beyond recognition, no matter how good it had been before. It hadn't always been like that; in fact, it had only been like that for two years and three hundred and twenty-nine days. Twenty-five thousand, four hundred and sixteen hours. One million, five hundred and twenty-four thousand, nine hundred and sixty seconds. The calculations flash irritatingly behind his eyes like they always have, and he shakes his head as his mood dips. He knows exactly why he hates those brightly coloured little sticks of wax so vehemently.

They'd been Cole’s favourite.

It had been a kinda stupid tradition his own mother had started when he was a kid to wake him up at exactly midnight on his birthday with a cake. There would always be another cake later, one for the party and the guests, but at midnight, when the world was quiet and the lights were out, it was just for the two of them to sit and eat a slice after he'd eagerly blown out the candles. Melissa had thought it was the cutest shit to grace this earth and had insisted on carrying on the tradition after they started dating, and he could easily admit that it was appreciated. It'd been part of what kept them together in the long stretch of time when they'd nearly fallen apart after pregnancy test after pregnancy test came back negative. But no matter how bad the fight, every birthday was ushered in with birthday candles and cake at midnight. It had only gotten better after Cole was born, the joy of the new baby and their much firmer foundation on marriage making for a much more relaxed morning. As soon as Cole had seen birthday candles, he’d been enraptured in the way only a child could be, and the new tradition that Cole always helped blow out the candles was born. For a solid portion of his life, Hank’s favourite smell in the world was the smell of the sweet smoke from the vibrant little pillars of wax.

But not anymore. Not for one thousand and fifty-nine days.

In the time Connor had been living with him, two hundred and ninety-eight days, his brain helpfully supplies, he's gotten much better at dealing with problems without the use of alcohol. In fact, he hasn't had anything stronger than a beer in months. But tonight, tonight the bar looks more tempting than he'd ever care to admit. He tilts his head slightly as he eyes his keys, fingers itching to make a break for it before Connor gets home. He could do it. Could grab his keys and be out the door. Connor would be disappointed, but he'd understand. Connor was good like that. He could-

The sound of the door startles him out of his reverie, the excited tapping of big paws on the floor following soon after.

“We're home!”

Hank turns away from his keys abruptly, mustering a smile as he looks towards the Android stood in the doorway.

“Hey, Connor. How was your walk?”

The kid offers him a smile before he bends to undo Sumo’s leash.

“It was good! It's getting chilly out, but the leaves are starting to change! I like the orange ones best.”

Some of Hank’s misery eases at Connor’s easy enthusiasm, and his smile is more genuine.

“That's good. I like the orange ones too.”

He pauses a moment to gather himself, mentally flipping the bird at his cravings for booze before continuing.

“So, whaddaya want for dinner?”

Connor doesn't need to eat, but after the revolution Kamski whipped up some fancy ass robotics that allows him to if he wants. It's nice to sit and eat with somebody again, even if the kid is way too addicted to coffee now that he can taste it. Connor tilts his head as he moves towards the kitchen, an easy grin pulling at his mouth.

“Can we get Chinese?”

Hank shakes his head fondly at the kid. Another one of his favourites was Chinese takeaway, and they'd eaten it with fair regularity. Although, Hank is kinda grateful. The kid’s been trying to learn to cook, but his skills aren't…. incredibly tasty as he insists on doing it ‘the human way’. The familiarity of it all helps ease the weight on his lungs, helps pull some of the itch from his fingertips.

“Yeah, Con. We can get Chinese.”

_____________________________________________

“Hank, wake up!”

His eyes snap open at the sound of Connor’s voice, hand going for his gun as he searches for what made the kid wake him.

“What is it? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Happy birthday!”

He looks at Connor properly, taking in the sight of the kid grinning at him excitedly from beside his bed. He's dressed in Hank’s old clothes, a hoodie too big even for him swallowing the Android whole and pair of ratty flannel pants from Hank’s much younger days hanging off his frame. He's got flour down his front and a streak of bright blue frosting on his forehead, LED shining a bright, contented blue at his temple as his eyes sparkle with excitement in a warm, flickering light. And before he even looks down at what he's holding, Hank knows it's cake adorned with candles. He can smell it, the sugary sweetness clinging to the back of his throat and the scent of melting wax in his nose. A sharp pang of something ugly strikes at his chest, a deep hurt pulsing behind his ribs and a flare of an irrational fury between his lungs. He can feel his face twist with it, and he sees Connor’s expression fall as his LED spins yellow.

“Did…. did I do something wrong? I thought this is what family did on birthdays.”

The kid looks heartbroken at the thought that he fucked up, doe eyes falling to look at the cake as his mouth turns down like he's about to cry. The expression pulls at that softness in him he had kept buried for so long, the gentle instinct to comfort and console. It was an instinct he'd always had; part of the reason people had been surprised he'd taken the promotions from beat cop upwards when he was one of the few cops who could handle kids well. It was where he'd gotten the idea for kids of his own, and that feeling had only grown exponentially once he did have a kid. Melissa had been a great mother, but it had always been Hank who would roll out of bed whenever Cole cried in the night, and Cole had very clearly been Daddy’s Boy. Melissa used to joke that if they ever had another she had dibs, but the fact remains that Hank has always been better with kids because he's a fucking bleeding heart who can never turn down a crying child. And he may logically know that Connor is not a child, but that doesn't change the fact that with his lower lip stuck out slightly and his big brown eyes ready to fill with tears at any moment and drowning in clothes too big for him, he sure as hell looks like a little boy that's been scolded. And that sets off that tender heart of his hard enough he grimaces before what Melissa used to call the “Dad Spirit” switches on. His tone gentles out of reflex, and he adjusts himself on the bed to sit up properly as he sighs slightly. He softens his shoulders, looking at Connor earnestly with forgiveness and apology in his gaze.

“No, Connor, you didn't do anything wrong. I was upset, but not at you, alright?”

Connor blinks up at him hopefully.

“Really?”

Hank can't help the little curl of his mouth at Connor’s question, nodding a little. He's bracing himself for what comes next, but for just a second, it's alright.

“Really, kid. Now c’mere, lemme see it.”

As quick as it had gone, that unbridled excitement is shining out of the kid’s every goddamn pore as he eagerly presents the cake. Finally, Hank forced himself to look at it, and he nearly loses his goddamn mind right then and there. It's ugly, there's no getting around it, but endearingly so in that way that screams of love poured into the batter. The cake is uneven and lopsided, and smothered liberally in baby blue frosting. There are candles neatly sunk into it, and Hank knows without a doubt there are fifty-four of them arranged precisely in concentric circles. And there, in the middle, spelled out in neat lettering that he can recognise as Connor’s own personal font (though the frosting is wobbly and has been badly fixed) are the words “Happy Birthday, Dad!”. A shaky smiley face has been added beneath, and its obscenely cute. There's suddenly something in Hank’s throat. Connor has never called him Dad before, and it makes his own mouth wobble treacherously. He coughs a little before speaking, ignoring how thick his voice is.

“You make this yourself? I thought you didn't have any cooking protocols.”

Connor looks almost ridiculously proud of himself as he nods excitedly

“I did! I was tempted to download necessary coding, but I wanted to do it like a human, so I followed the recipe in the cookbook above the refrigerator! This one was labelled as your favourite!”

His mother’s cookbook. He hadn't touched it in years, and the only time Melissa had ever gone near it was for that specific recipe. The last time he'd used it, he'd been making Cole’s cake. Connor had found it, he'd made him his mother’s birthday cake, and Hank isn't crying, he isn't goddamnit-

“Hank? Are you alright?”

He clears his throat again and scrubs a hand over his face to wipe away any damning evidence.

“Yeah, Con. I'm alright, just got something in my eyes. C’mon, the candles are starting to drip onto the cake.”

He crosses his legs so there's room on the bed, and Connor moves easily to perch in front of him. It takes a second of him considering his own legs with a yellow LED before he crosses them like Hank’s, a pleased little grin turning his mouth. You wouldn't know it if you only saw him at work, but the kid was gangly and faintly awkward when it came to anything related to sitting. It had taken months for Hank to break his habit of sitting ramrod straight with his knees together and hands on his thighs. Now the kid would sprawl all over the couch, but he was still like a pubescent boy learning how to use his own limbs and how to arrange them, almost like a fawn learning to walk. It shouldn't have been as adorable as it was, but Hank has given up on trying to deny how fond he is of the kid. He shakes his head as Connor sets the cake down on the bedspread, and he stares at the cake for a long moment with a strange mixture of joy and grief and fondness and sadness in his chest like a bruise. He lets out a slow breath and looks up at Connor with a smile.

“Well? Are you gonna sing to me or not?”

Connor brightens and nods, but a brief show of yellow spins at his temple before he turns his head.

“Sumo! Come here!”

There’s a quiet boof from the living room before big paws thud towards the room, and the shaggy dog trots into the room to sit beside Connor expectantly. The kid gives the dog a fond pat before turning back towards Hank. His smile widens as he takes a deep breath, something he doesn't technically need, before he starts to sing, and Sumo awoos quietly with him in an odd harmony.

“Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday dear da-ad

Happy birthday to you!”

Ok, Hank is crying. He’ll admit it. It's one thing to see it written out in the cake, it's another to actually hear Connor call him Dad. And while it's not a surprise, he's thought of Connor as family for a while now, it brings a painful lump to his throat and a feeling filling his chest to hear someone refer to him as Dad and mean it. It's a feeling he hasn't had in one thousand and sixty days, and he had missed it dearly. He scrubs at his eyes again, sniffling a little.

“C'mere, kid. Help me blow out the candles.”

Connor gives him a brilliant grin and scrambles to sit next to him, carefully manoeuvring around the cake. He picks it up to settle it on their knees, Hank’s right knee supporting the left side of the plate and Connor’s left supporting the right.

“Ready, kid?”

“Ready, dad!”

That feeling clogs his throat again for a second before he offers Connor a nod. He bends closer to the cake, and Connor follows suit as they inhale. He blows out a good chunk of them, and Connor catches the rest with ease before laughing a little. It's not exactly a new sound, but Hank feels downright fucking blessed to hear it if he's honest with himself. Connor doesn't laugh too often, not outside the house, and it still feels special to hear the kid be so human. He's still fucking crying, but they’re good tears. Cathartic is the word, he thinks. A fork is offered to him, and he takes it gratefully. The hurt weighing on him hasn't gone away, he doesn’t think it ever will, but it's shifted, moved some, become lighter, and he rolls his shoulders back slightly as he sits up a little straighter. He's moving to take a bit of the cake when Connor gasps beside him, and he turns with a raised eyebrow.

“What is it?”

“I almost forgot!”

The kid plunges his hand into his pocket, pulling out a very familiar, very worn old Polaroid camera. Hank blinks at it, taken aback. He hadn't known he'd still had that around the house.

“The fuck you find that thing?”

Connor beams at him.

“In the boxes in the garage, along with the photo albums! They were shoved in the back, but I found them while I was cleaning over the summer. It's where I got the idea to make you cake!”

There's that funny rolling in his stomach again, like overwhelming happiness and sadness mixing like oil and water in a shaking bottle. But it's… it's good. Like the tears. Cathartic. He nods, gesturing with the fork.

“Alright, well let's get this show on the road. I wanna eat my cake.”

Connor laughs again, and Hank grins at him as he slings his own arm over the kid’s shoulder to bring him closer as he raised the camera.

“Sumo! Come get in the photo!”

The dog bounds easily up onto the bed, big head bumping at Connor’s forehead as he sniffles at the frosting there. Hank chuckles and shakes his head as he looks at the camera, making sure the text on the cake is visible as Connor presses the button. The flash is temporarily blinding, but he blinks it away as the camera spits out the sheet of thick film. Hank doesn't shake it like his mother used to, he knows better than that. He wants this one pristine if he can help it, especially because he's going to want copies of this shit. Eventually, maybe soon, maybe not, he'll stick it in the photo albums Connor found. The ones he hasn't had the guts to look at for years. But maybe…. maybe with Connor sitting next to him, he can focus on the good times as he tells him the stories about the photos. The kid is still pressed firmly into his side from Hank’s arm around his shoulders, and it's a good feeling, to sit beside someone. No, not just someone. His son. He knows Cole is never coming back, his little boy is gone, but maybe someday he'll see him again. And with any luck, he'll get to introduce him to his older brother. Well, younger brother? It's a comforting, if slightly confusing thought, and Hank grins as he transfers his fork to his other hand so he can keep Connor close while he digs into his birthday cake. The photo develops a little while later, and Hank loves it. You can see that he's been crying, but his smile is easy, and Connor has his nose scrunched up as Sumo licks his forehead, and the cake looks even uglier in the flash from the camera and it's absolutely perfect. He’s gonna need a copy for his wallet AND his desk, goddamnit, and he might even feel brave enough to put one of his pictures of Cole beside it. It's only right that both of his boys be present, really.

The smell of sweet candle smoke is heavy in the air, and he breathes it in. He can see Cole as he was the last time they celebrated together, green eyes sparkling and one of his front teeth missing from his broad smile as he shouted in the dark.

“Happy birthday, dad!”

Connor’s voice comes from beside him, and he turns to look at the kid as he smiles.

“Happy birthday, dad.”

He leans against Connor slightly, squeezing him gently.

“Thanks, son. I'm glad you decided to celebrate with me.”

And he means it.

___________________________________________________

At the age of fifty-four years and one hour, Hank Anderson loves birthdays. He loves the birthday cake that's lopsided and the too thick layer of frosting and the cheerful wishes of the Android beside him. And most of all, he loves his favourite scent in the world.

Birthday candles.

#Happy Birthday Hank you grimy bitch!!! ily #DBH #dbh hank #hank anderson #dbh connor #dbh Sumo

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alecmagnuslwb · 4 years

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New Year’s Eve: Chapter One

Read on AO3

One magical night, five intertwining love stories, all culminating at midnight with just maybe some confessions and kisses as the clock strikes.

So, you know those cheesy rom-coms about holidays, that’s exactly what this is. Over the next six days, six chapters each focusing on a duo of some sort will culminate on New Year’s Eve with the midnight chapter were it all comes together and there might be a few smooches :)

This chapter: Magnus & Alec, and here’s the thing Magnus loves Alec, Alec loves Magnus, but they’re currently broken up and being a little stubborn about those very blatant two facts.

***

11 a.m. New Year’s Eve

“Fine! I’ll do it!” Alec shouts into the phone as Aline rattles on to her literal forty-fifth reason why he should cater this event so last minute on New Year’s Eve. He’s already looking at the designated menu set up by the previous chef that Aline had emailed him around reason twenty-two and planning what changes he wants to make.

“There’s no need to shout,” she teases on the other end of the line. Alec hears the sounds of taxis and eager tourists around his friend, no doubt on her way to one of the at least ten events her family’s company is in charge of this evening.

“Pretty sure it’s the only way you’d stop talking,” Alec grins as he shuts his laptop forwarding the menu changes to his temporary staff for the evening. He moves from his kitchen to his bedroom to get dressed.

He had planned on doing absolutely nothing tonight, his restaurant is closed until the third so the staff can enjoy their holiday, which will allow him to let the New Year pass him by and the hellish past year he’s had get left in the dust, but now evidently he’ll be the head chef for Edom Records most exclusive party of the year. It’s a party he would usually avoid like the damn plague, but he knows for a fact a certain someone he used to date won’t be there. Last he checked he who shall not be named was in Ibiza for the New Year partying away a three month-long gap before his tour starts again. Not that Alec checks his ex’s Instagram every single morning or anything.

Aline huffs a laugh, “You’re a saint, Alec. An absolute saint to Sebastian Morgenstern’s devil.”

Alec scoffs, “His food sucks anyways and you know it.” Sebastian Morgenstern has been a thorn in Alec’s side since culinary school, his talent is subpar at best but daddy’s money and name in the entertainment industry has kept him working.

“Yeah, but people act like they love it cause it’s on trend,” Aline says the sound of a door slamming coming from her end as she seemingly slips into a cab. “Now that won’t matter cause the food will be genuinely good.”

Alec’s about to respond with a thanks, still in disbelief that people think he’s actually good at his job when another ringing comes from Aline’s end of the phone.

“Damn,” she says no doubt one of her five other phones ringing. “I’ve gotta go, I owe you big for this, be at the hotel within the hour and I’ll drop by this afternoon to check in before I have to be at Times Square.”

“See you,” he starts, but she’s already hung up on him. He shrugs completely unoffended by the act as he pulls his chef whites from the closet.

***

Catarina chuckles as she looks down at her phone from her seat beside Magnus in the limousine.

“What’s so amusing?” he asks idly and somewhat nervously twisting the silver arrow ring on his right ring finger that was a gift from the man he never should have let go. He still wears it every single day, even if it breaks his heart a little bit every time he slips it on.

“I just figured out why you insisted I accept the abysmal paycheck you’re getting for tonight’s performance twenty minutes after landing back in the city,” his manager and best friend smirks. Magnus feigns disinterest. He knew she’d figure him out, but he doesn’t have to acknowledge it just yet.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, it’s something fun to do,” he shrugs. “It’s not all about money.”

“Oh, that second thing is true, but you don’t give a damn about the fun of this performance and we both know it,” she says tilting her phone in his direction. On the screen is a mass email from Aline about the change in chef for the event tonight. He’s only received one text from Aline in the last nine months, her camp firmly on his ex’s side in the breakup. That text had been about twenty minutes ago.

Magnus huffs as he glances at the screen, “So, I don’t make all my decisions based around him.”

“No, you don’t,” she says kindly. “But, you’ve been a pining mess every moment you’re not on stage the last nine months regretting how you walked away the last time you saw him. So, this decision is decidedly based entirely around him.”

She’s right. Magnus can’t keep up a façade and act like she isn’t right. When Gretel, the original headliner for the party, came down with the flu he was ready to turn it down without question when Catarina got the call not even twenty minutes after he’d landed back in the city from what had been a decidedly unfun trip to Ibiza he’d chosen to cut short. But then a simple text from Aline came through.

Chef backed out last minute too, Alec’s his replacement. Try not to fuck it up this time.

His answer shifted immediately. Losing Alec, letting him go was the worst decision of his life. The tour hadn’t allowed him any opportunity to reach out face to face and this, this had to be his moment. Even if it all went up in flames.

“I have to try,” he replies practically whispering it scared if he says it too loud he’ll become too hopeful. The truth is he doesn’t know what Alec’s been up to the last nine months, he’s never been one for social media, only ever posting about his restaurant and aside from friendly contact with Alec’s mother and sister who never really talk about Alec he’s been all but marooned away from that once prominent portion of his life. For all he knows Alec’s moved on, has some new boyfriend that doesn’t cut and run when things get too serious. He’s terrified he well and truly blew it.

Catarina turns, grabbing his fidgety hands between hers, “I know you do, sweetheart. I know you do.” She says it in her most motherly voice, the one she always uses when Madzie needs to be uplifted. It makes him feel both seven years old and extremely comforted.

Magnus smiles squeezing her hands in thanks and changes the subject not wanting to dwell and just wanting to get on with it, heartbreak or heart healed.

“Did we sort out the band?”

“All your usual’s,” Catarina replies releasing his hands. “Except we’re short a backup singer, evidently Maureen dumped her latest boyfriend and has run away to California, possibly permanently.”

Magnus rolls his eyes, of course she has. “Call Isabelle,” he says without question.

Catarina lifts a brow, “You sure? If you’re attempts to woo her brother go amiss that might not go your way.”

Magnus shakes his head, “Whatever happens between me and Alec, she and I will still be on good terms professionally. She’s got a hell of a voice, call her.”

Catarina nods reaching for her phone distracted with scrolling through her contacts to find Isabelle as the limo driver knocks on the window signaling they’re about to arrive at their destination. It gives Magnus a moment to breathe a deep collecting breath and give himself a mini internal pep talk as they pull up outside of the hotel.

***

The kitchen is moving shockingly quite smoothly for having a different chef in charge of it not even three full hours ago. Alec knows a few of the cooks hired on for the night, so the shift to his new updated menu hasn’t been the tough transition he expected it to be. It’s already nearing two o’clock and the party will start to have guests arriving as early as 6:30. Things are on an easy track that means dinner will began at exactly 7:30. An hour and a half before the headliner takes the stage.

He rattles off a few instructions to the line with a smile before turning to see Aline standing just inside the kitchen door head tilted with a smile of her own.

“I knew you’d enjoy doing this,” she says all too smug. “No matter how much you complained this morning, I knew you’d enjoy it.”

“Shut up,” he says wiping his hands down on a towel before moving towards her.

“All going well?” she asks as Alec reaches out a hand pushing the door open behind her and sliding past her to walk out into the main hall where it’s quieter and they can talk. He nods opening his mouth to tell her everything is running smoothly when he stops dead in his tracks, Aline bumping into his back.

Across the room he sees him just walking in, Catarina right beside him. He hasn’t seen Magnus, the real Magnus not the one his social media team presents to the world, in nine months. He looks a little tired, a little bit like the light he always had in him has dimmed but no less handsome than he always had been.

Alec shakes his head of the thoughts. He shouldn’t care what Magnus looks like, shouldn’t be worried that he looks tired. Magnus left him. He should hate him. He wishes he could hate him.

“Ow,” Aline says rubbing her forehead that had likely bounced into his shoulder blade at his abrupt stop.

“Sorry,” he says a little distracted his eyes still trained on Magnus. Magnus hasn’t noticed him yet, if he turns around right now he can avoid this altogether. He turns to do just that when Magnus finally looks up and spots him, his eyes going soft and completely unreadable. Alec hates that, he used to always be able to read Magnus’ expressions.

“Nu, uh,” Aline says gripping his forearm tight as he tries to make his exit. “Talk to him.” She says it soft and encouraging and all too knowing.

“You knew?” he asks even though he’s fairly certain he already knows the answer. “When you asked me to fill in this morning, you already knew?”

Aline gives him a look that decidedly means she thinks he’s stupid.

“Of course I knew, dipshit,” she says as she loosens her grip, eyes moving over briefly to where Magnus is no doubt nearing closer to them. “You weren’t the only last-minute headliner replacement today.”

“Why would you, “Alec starts a gaze steely and probably harsher than deserved trained on Aline.

“Because you’ve been miserable, Alec,” she cuts him off. “And even without confirmation about it from Cat, it’s clear from the PR smoke show his team puts up on social media he has been too.”

Alec pauses turning his tough gaze away from his friend. Aline wouldn’t lie to him, and he begrudgingly admits she’s never wrong. But Magnus left, not Alec, if he has been so damn miserable these past nine months he’s the one who could have fixed it.

“Give him a chance, I know I was full team you in the breakup, but I think he just got scared and I think if you hear him out maybe there’s a chance to fix this,” Aline continues as if she can read his thoughts. “He wouldn’t have taken the job tonight if he didn’t want to try and fix this. He would have run away the second he saw your name like you’re trying to do right now.”

Alec lets her words sink in, a bit of the tension releasing from his shoulders. He has to concede that maybe she has point.

“Alexander,” an achingly familiar voice says from behind him. The tension he’d just released seeps right back in. Fuck, he can’t do this. Can’t hear his name said like that.

Aline jumps in first greeting Magnus and Catarina both with a hug as he finally turns to face his ex head on. Seeing Magnus up close makes this worse. Because if he looked beautiful and tired from across the room it’s like staring into the sun or being right beside a patch of brightly lit stars seeing him up close.

“Magnus,” he says no preamble being sure to keep any sort of emotion out of his voice. They just stare at one another only a few feet of distance between them that feels like miles from the physical and emotional gap that’s formed between them over the last nine months.

Catarina and Aline look between them and share a raised eyebrow before Cat jumps in the middle.

“Hey, Alec,” she says fondly reaching up to hug him. His tension falls a bit again, happily hugging her back.

“Hey, Cat. How are Madzie and Dot?” he asks. Because he can do this. He can have friendly conversation with Cat about her daughter and her wife and ignore the piercing gaze of Magnus’ deep brown eyes.

“They’re good,” she smiles fondly as she pulls back from his embrace. “Madzie’s growing like a damn tree every time I turn around. She misses you.”

And damn if that isn’t a punch to the gut. That’s the thing about breakups, you don’t just lose one person you lose a galaxy of people you’ve come to care about.

“I miss her too,” he says with a sad smile. “You all should come by the restaurant some night when I’m actually there, it’d be great to see her and Dot.”

He spends more of his time managing his restaurant than running its kitchen these days. It’s a nice way to figure out what he wants to do next, but he still loves getting in the kitchen when he can. And he’d be more than happy to do so if it meant making a meal for three people who he always had affection for and doesn’t get to see anymore.

She nods turning to Aline to talk a few party logistics that Alec decides to act like he cares about to ignore Magnus’ not so subtle attempts to get him to look his way.

“Well I should get going,” Aline says looking at Alec with a frustrated nudge of her elbow into his side. Alec just glares. She loops her arms through Cat’s pulling her along with her.

“We can talk and walk,” she says stepping away. “Good to see you Magnus!” She tosses a wave and another pointed look at Alec over her shoulder as she goes.

Alec turns to Magnus finally and really looks at him. His hair’s a little disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it nervously, his makeup is a little smudged. He’s beautiful and Alec wishes he wasn’t so damn affected by the fact. His arms are crossed protectively across his middle which Alec could almost laugh at; shouldn’t he be the one protecting himself from Magnus?

“I should get back to the kitchen,” he nods moving to do just that.

“Wait, Alexander,” Magnus says unfolding his arms reaching out to grab Alec but stopping at the last second. Alec takes a deep breath and stops, trying to do exactly what Aline said he should do.

“We should talk about what happened, that fight we had the last time we saw each other,” Magnus continues. Alec can’t help but let out a rough laugh at his words.

“That fight?”

He can’t do this. He can’t talk about this if Magnus really is just going to call it a fight. Like they argued about who’s turn it was to do the dishes, not the absolute shattering of their relationship when Magnus told him he couldn’t do this anymore. That what they had couldn’t survive his lifestyle.

Something shudders in Magnus at Alec’s harsh tone. This time he can read him, there’s a look in his eyes that says he knows that that choice of words wasn’t right.

“I’d call the complete shattering of our relationship when you left me and broke my damn heart a little more than a fight,” Alec says harshly letting his thoughts out in a short clipped tone.

Magnus squeezes his eyes shut and for a second Alec thinks there might be tears.

“That was the wrong choice of words, I know, I keep messing this up,” he starts he looks ready to keep going when a young woman with a few garment bags comes over and interrupts.

“We’re ready for you, Mr. Bane,” she says then looks at Alec.

“Yeah,” Magnus nods to her never breaking his eyes away from Alec. “Just give us a minute.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she says sheepishly.

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” Alec responds quickly. Feeling a little bad he’s just put this girl in between them. Magnus looks ready to protest, but Alec marches on. “Go ahead, we’re both here to do a job that’s it. I mean we never could survive your lifestyle, right?”

Magnus looks genuinely sorry for a moment, before he puts on the Magnus Bane pop star mask for the girl beside him who’s looking increasingly uncomfortable. Alec shuts off turning before Magnus can say anything else. He knows that throwing Magnus’ own words back in his face is a little petty and a lot angry, but he hasn’t gotten to be either of those things at Magnus. He’s felt them, like when he sold the leather jacket Magnus left behind that he knows is worth thousands of dollars to the most asinine waiter he’s ever hired for only eight bucks, but he’s never gotten to really express them towards Magnus. One day they were in love, the object of his tour looming over them, but a seeming non-issue and the next Magnus was gone.

Maybe it’s unfair, maybe it’s going exactly against the advice Aline tried to give him, but he needs to get it out. Because after months of silence and heartbreak maybe being angry at Magnus face to face has to come before he can even entertain the idea of hearing him out.

***

Alec barely even looks at him during the few minutes of their encounter and when he does he shuts off completely. It’s not the hazel gaze of love he grew so accustomed to seeing, it’s a stone-cold empty look purposefully shown to make him seem unaffected.

Magnus hates it.

Alec looks as gorgeous as ever in his chef whites. He still wears that damn silver band on his right pointer finger that Magnus fully believes serves no purpose other than to drive him crazy with how sexy the simple accessory always is and that cute eyebrow scar of his still stands out strikingly. His hairs a little longer than it had been curling at the edges and the beard Magnus had grown very fond of has been shaved. But he’s still beautiful even when he looks like he’d rather any other person on the planet was in the room with him than Magnus.

He tries his damndest to get Alec to stay to talk now instead of later, but he uses the interruption of wardrobe as an out, throwing some of the last words Magnus had ever said to him right back at him. It stings, but it’s nothing he doesn’t deserve. He is the one who called it quits with no warning, Alec has every right to be angry with him.

He glazes through the wardrobe talks. Catarina comes back in eventually and eyes him warily. She can clearly see things didn’t go well after she and Aline conspiratorially sauntered off. He picks an outfit that very purposefully will expose his collarbone and the tattoo that still rests there and makes a game plan with his hair and makeup team all the while thinking about how in one fumbled word choice he may have fucked up any chance of Alec hearing him out.

***

Alec aggressively cuts carrots on the counter to attempt to avoid thinking about Magnus, the entire staff wisely avoiding him as he does it. He’s so distracted he doesn’t even notice he’s cut every damn carrot in the kitchen while thinking about Magnus the entire time and tosses his knife down heavily. He silenced his phone as soon as he stepped back into the kitchen assuming every buzz was from Aline, Catarina or his sister who are no doubt in cahoots with this whole plan encouraging him.

He rubs absently at his collarbone where a tattoo reading ‘Aku Cinta Kamu,’ Indonesian for I love you, rests in simple script. He and Magnus had gotten them on a whim one night after a few too many shots of tequila as a reminder of their undying love. Some undying love he huffs to himself moving his hand away from the spot.

He never got it removed as a reminder that one should never get a matching tattoo with a boyfriend no matter how in love they may be. Or at least that’s what he tells himself. The reality is he’s both terrified of the concept of lasering it away and a deeper part of him is terrified of moving on. He’s pretty sure that Magnus is the love of his life and lasering away that tattoo would mean even the love of his life hadn’t lasted. He doesn’t want to move on, it’s why he’s been on exactly one tragic date in nine months, but it’s also why he doesn’t want to hear Magnus out right now, because he’s still so damn mad.

He knows that doesn’t add up logically, but logic isn’t really at the forefront for him right now.

He can’t focus on it all right now. On how, despite it being completely in his head, he feels a throbbing current under the tattoo all because of Magnus’ proximity. Can’t focus on wondering not nearly as absently as he’d like to if Magnus still has his in the same exact spot. He has a kitchen to run, a dinner to serve, that has to be his focus right now.

Aline said he should give Magnus a chance. And maybe she’s right, but he just can’t right now. He can’t get his heartbroken tonight, when he just barely survived it the last time.

***

Hours pass, literal painstaking hours and not once does Alec step out of the kitchen. Every time the door swing open he hopes to see an angry 6’3 chef who currently probably hates him, but he doesn’t. Waiters, other chefs and a million other people he doesn’t recognize come barreling out, but never the one person he wants to see.

Guests will be arriving soon, with dinner not even an hour away. He’s dressed and made up and rehearsing with his band, knowing his brain should be on the songs and the set list, but instead all he’s thinking about is a damn kitchen door.

“Alright, let’s take five,” Cat announces hopping on the stage and making a b-line for Magnus.

“Give him time,” she says pulling the mic to the side so it doesn’t pick up either of their voices.

Magnus shifts his gaze from the kitchen door to her.

“It’s been almost five hours,” Magnus says dejectedly.

Catarina huffs, “You know you could just go back there, right? Instead of staring at a door and missing lines of songs you’ve been singing for years when it so much as cracks opens.”

Magnus rolls his eyes at his best friend, “Yeah, not gonna happen. You didn’t stick around for the first conversation we’ve had in months, but if you had you’d know he very much does not want me going back in there to talk to him.”

“Magnus, I love you,” Cat says putting her hands on his shoulders.

“I love you too,” he says on instinct even though he knows from her posture he’s about to get an absolute talking to.

“And because I love you,” she says with a smile. “It is my job to tell you you’re being a complete dumbass.”

“Harsh.”

She gives him a pointed look, “Maybe, but it’s true. So, he doesn’t want to talk. Fine. Then find another way to communicate with him. You came here tonight to try and fix this, to make it right and stop moping around about losing the love of your life. So, don’t just stare at a door. The Magnus Bane I know is not a door starer he’s a doer. So, do something, if he’s not ready to hear you out on the big stuff yet, then find a way to start with the small stuff. He’s the only person you’ve ever been with that appreciated your cheesy, dorky ass side. So use that. Or hell spell out ‘I’m sorry’ in shrimp cocktails if that’s what it takes.”

Magnus laughs at that. The first genuine laughs he’s let out all day.

Catarina smiles squeezing his shoulders fondly before dropping her hands.

“Just don’t take all damn night to get there, because if you don’t do this tonight you might never get another chance to. Also, if you don’t do this by a reasonable hour I might never get to leave this damn venue and go home to my wife and daughter for the night, so get your shit together and sort it out so I can leave after dinner, please.”

Magnus rolls his eyes, “Ah, so this all about you getting to go home then?”

Catarina punches him in the shoulder, fondly, but a little harder than necessary.

“No, it’s about my best friend being happy again,” she says seriously before continuing on with a smirk. “And it’s about me getting to go home.”

“You’re the worst,” Magnus says with a smile feeling more confident than he had a moment ago. Cat’s pep talks aren’t always the most eloquent and definitely would be taken as abrasive by people who don’t know her, but they always do the trick.

“I’m the best and you know it,” she says turning and hopping off the stage. “He’s single by the way, I asked Aline earlier since I knew it would probably be a fear you had.” She says it knowingly relieving a little of the pressure in Magnus’ chest. “Evidently you’re not the only one who tried to go on a single disastrous date and realized it was all fruitless. Now figure out a plan that better start and have some modicum of success during dinner that allows me to feel comfortable enough to leave you here alone and go watch my seven-year-old fail miserably at staying awake until midnight.”

The band slowly makes their way back onstage to continue a few more songs for rehearsal. There’s one song he won’t be rehearsing that he decides in that moment can be a part of the plan Cat wants him to devise, his latest track which is a stripped-down acoustic number that he has never actually played for a crowd. It’s about Alec. It’s for Alec. It’s an apology and love song all wrapped into one and he knows for a fact Alec has never heard it.

It’s one of the few small tidbits of his life that Isabelle has allowed him to know about in recent months. Which reminds him.

“Hey, any word from Iz?” he asks pulling the mic back over to get Cat’s attention where she’s moved across the room. Despite her quick acceptance of the last-minute job word from Isabelle has been nothing but radio silent since which is a bit worrisome. In all the time he’s known her she’s never been late for a rehearsal. Alec may run like clockwork, but Isabelle is an actual clock, constantly punctual. She shakes her head looking down at her phone.

For a moment he considers saying fuck all to his plan and just busting into the kitchen to ask Alec if he’s heard from his sister when his phone buzzes in his back pocket three times in quick succession.

[6:39 p.m. -- from: Raphael]

Your backup singer is stuck in our elevator. She’s fine.

Meliorn’s working on getting her out in time for your performance.

God knows you don’t have the talent to carry it all by yourself :)

Magnus huffs at the last text. Glad Isabelle is safe and hopefully on her way, but constantly annoyed by his friend. He texts back a quick affirmative as he relays the information to Cat, assuring Raphael tells Isabelle they won’t start without her and reminding Raphael that that last text is why Cat is his best friend and not him.

Raphael responds with a completely mature middle finger emoji.

Magnus just laughs gesturing to his band and counting them in for one more run through confident Isabelle has sang with him enough times to be able to pick it up easily once she arrives. They run through a few of his poppy upbeat tracks and he feels himself enjoying this more than he thought he would. He hits every beat and every word all while planning how exactly he intends to get Alec’s attention during dinner.

***

Alec can’t hear Magnus’ voice as the band rehearses in the main room and he’s never been more grateful for something in his life. Magnus’ voice is gorgeous and his songs are incredible, but Alec hasn’t even dared to listen to a single one since their break up. Everything comes flooding back in high def when he does, so he’d just quit, saving himself the pain.

Magnus has released a brand new single since they last saw each other, Alec doesn’t even know the title. Doesn’t care. Or more so doesn’t want to find out if it’s a break up song he wrote about him. He really doesn’t need to know if he’s become yet another man on a list with every one of Taylor Swift’s exes.

He focuses on prep and every time he’s needed outside of the kitchen he insists someone comes to him and everything that needs to be signed for that requires him passing through the main room he pettily sends his line chef Underhill to do so allowing him to avoid Magnus at all cost.

That is until the President of the Record company asks to see him in the hotel bar on the lower level to personally thank him for his last-minute fill in.

“You sure you can’t just do it?” Alec asks feebly.

“I’m 100% sure he’ll notice that I’m not you,” Underhill replies with a dumbfounded look. Alec is desperate here can’t his sort of friend respect that.

“Fine,” Alec huffs pushing off of the counter where’s he’s leaning and heads towards the door. He opens it a crack halting when he hears a note of Magnus’ voice. “Ear plugs?” he says turning to look at Underhill. “You got any?”

“Do I have ear plugs in an active busy kitchen that requires a wealth of communication and listening skills to function properly?” Underhill responds clearly questioning his boss’s sanity.

Alec nods.

“I don’t,” he says hesitating for a moment. “I know it’s not really my place, but you could just talk to him.”

Alec rolls his eyes. He’s known Underhill a while now, worked with him a handful of times over the years and they’re sort of friends. To enough of an extent that he knows he and Magnus used to date, but not to enough of an extent to know what exactly went down between them.

Not that Alec has all that clear of a picture either.

“Or I could get some ear plugs,” he says stubborn as ever. “Anybody got some ear plugs I could borrow?” he yells across the bustling kitchen.

A spectacled waitress shoots her hand up from where she stands with a few other servers and bounds his way handing Alec a pair of glowing green ear plugs.

“I always bring a few pairs to events with music, just in case it gets too loud,” she says with a shrug. Alec thinks that it’s probably deeply inefficient for a server to wear ear plugs, but he’s not going to question it in the moment.

He nods to her in thanks shoving them in his ears with a very deliberate look in Underhill’s direction. Underhill just shrugs clearly not invested enough to interfere any further.

***

Magnus rests his voice not belting the closing lines of the track on stage when the kitchen door swings open and finally Alec is the one to step through. Magnus doesn’t freeze when they make eye contact for a brief second, just watches as Alec quickly turns away and walks through the room at a rapid pace.

For a second he debates jumping completely off key and right into the song he wrote about Alec when something catches Magnus’ attention when Alec’s head turns, a bright green something.

He wishes it was a ridiculous earring or something of the like, but he knows for a fact Alec let his once pierced ears with the small silver hoops he used to sport close up after an incident with one falling into a soufflé he’d made for them one evening. Magnus had found the incident hilarious; Alec had been distressed to such a level that he threw out every earring he owned.

No, that’s not an earring. It’s an ear plug. This stubborn pain in the ass has somehow found earplugs so he doesn’t have to hear Magnus sing.

It’s a completely Alec style petty type of thing to do. A thing that were it used to avoid anyone else Magnus would find endearing. He always loved Alec’s ability to petty someone to death when they deserved it, and while he understands the reasoning he doesn’t like being on the receiving end of it.

The realization puts a decidedly large wrench in part of Magnus’ plan. He idly wonders if there’s someone here he could hire to pickpocket those damn ear plugs away from Alec.

***

Alec passes through with his ear plugs one more time and it takes everything in Magnus to not just chase after him and knock the things out of his ears. He composes himself enough however to make it dinner where he enacts phase one of his get Alec’s attention plan.

While Catarina’s shrimp cocktail idea was a little outlandish, she had made a good point about Alec always appreciating his more ridiculous side. It’s a thing he intends to use to his favor tonight.

The first course comes out to their table. A delicious little appetizer that’s perfectly done just like everything Alec cooks. When their server returns to take their finished plates Magnus lays a gentle hand on his arm holding him there for a second.

“Give my compliments to the chef,” he says with a smile and the server nods ready to take his leave. “Hold on, it’s a specific compliment, you may want to write this down.”

“Sir?” the server questions not getting out a pad to write on.

“Alright,” Magnus says turning in his seat to look at the very confused dark-haired server. “But be sure to tell him verbatim, okay?”

“Okay?” the server says with a blatant question mark at the end that Magnus happily ignores.

“Perfect,” he says clapping his hands together. “My compliments to the chef are that the appetizer was to die for and so are those hazel eyes that one could get lost in if they stare for any longer than one breath.”

Magnus beams at the waiter who looks continually confused.

“Got it?” Magnus asks.

“I think so.”

“Fantastic!” Magnus says. “I’ll write the next one down for you ahead of time just in case. What’s your name? we’re probably going to talk to each other a lot over these next few courses so we should be on the first name basis, I’m Magnus,” He says holding out a hand.

“Raj,” the waiter says shaking his hand with his free one before turning back towards the kitchen. Magnus watches as the still very confused server leaves the table.

“Really, Magnus?” Cat asks from beside him. He turns in his seat to face her.

“I’m just taking your advice,” he says with a smile taking a sip of his drink.

“And you really think having our waiter give very specific compliments to Alec is going to work?”

Magnus shrugs, “You said it yourself, he always did appreciate my more ridiculous side. I’m not saying this will definitively win him back, that’s going to take a very important song and a real difficult conversation no doubt, but hopefully this will chisel away at the angry completely avoiding me exterior and give me an in.”

Catarina nods pursing her lips in thought.

“You two always were pretty dorky about your love, this does fall in line with that.”

Magnus chuckles, “Exactly.”

***

When the server comes back from the first course and tells Alec that Magnus Bane wanted to give his compliments to the chef. He assumed that was that. Compliment received; it was just Magnus’ way of reminding Alec he’s here. Not like Alec could exactly forget, but then the server had gotten more specific relaying a compliment specifically connected less to Alec’s food and more to Alec himself.

“He said that?” Alec asks squinting an eye as he dodges another server passing by him to get the soup course out.

“He did, or something to that affect. He did ask me if I wanted to write it down and I probably should have in hindsight, sorry about that,” the server says worried.

“It’s fine,” Alec says not really sure of what to make of whatever it is Magnus is trying to accomplish here. “Tell him I said thanks.” He guesses. He really doesn’t know how to respond. When they were together Magnus was constantly showering him in compliments about anything and everything, Alec did the same to Magnus to the point that prior to their breakup the biggest fight they’d ever had was more a compliment war.

It was a charming aspect of Magnus and of their relationship. The way they both made each other feel special with the silliest and simplest of words.

After the soup course the server brings another compliment this time written on the back of a blank meal ticket.

“While soup was never my thing you always made the kind that warmed me to my core this one is no different. Also, you’ve got killer hair, which I was glad to find no strands of in my bowl.”

Alec lets out a laugh asking the server his name and then sending him on his way with another thanks.

The salad course is simple and quick and yet somehow a compliment comes his way.

Raj just hands Alec the blank ticket, blushing brightly as he exits the kitchen.

‘You can toss me anytime.’ It reads and Alec’s just shakes his head, given no more time to process the ridiculousness of it as he’s called away.

During the course of the entrée, between drink refills and varying other requests Magnus manages to send Raj back with five very different ranging compliments.

“Send my compliments to the chef, he can have anything else he’d like while we’re at it.”

“Is that tarragon I taste in the sauce? Cause I’m sure tarra-gone for you.”

“Using such a bold parmesan was a risky choice that paid off, not a surprising bit of bravery from a man who has an unexpectedly attractive tramp stamp tattoo of a fork that he lets other people see.”

Alec’s eyes go wide at that one. His deeply questionable, and very small, barely noticeable unless you’re up close with his lower back, tattoo that’d he’d gotten on drunken college night with his brother Jace as a dare isn’t something his waitstaff for the evening needs to know about. He swears Raj to secrecy on it, ensuring he never utters what he’s been told to anyone.

“Chicky, chicky parm, you’ve got nice arms,” the server read this time from scribbled pen on his forearm.

Alec guffaws at the rhyme, incapable of holding back his laughter.

“Tell him he’s insane and ridiculously corny,” Alec says shooing the server out of the kitchen.

He assumes that ridiculous rhyme is the last. Outside he can already here people moving about and there’s a guitar tuning in the distant background. He sees Raj come through the door a few plates in hand and expects him to walk over and read some ridiculous thing except this time he holds the door open Catarina trailing in behind him.

“I’m afraid our complimentary portion of the evening has come to a close,” she reads from her phone in hand. “I’ve got plenty more where those came from if you’d like to hear them sometime. XO Magnus.”

She looks up smiling at Alec. “I added the xo for the record, he thought it would seem too forward. Hilarious considering the way more sexual innuendos I had to talk him out of writing down for that poor waiter of ours to give to you.”

Alec rolls his eyes, mentally making a note to send Raj a voucher for a free dinner for two at his restaurant for putting up with the nonsense tonight.

“Did he send you back here to convince me to talk to him?” he asks busying himself with wiping down a counter that doesn’t need it. His chefs are starting to disperse and breakdown the kitchen. Dishwashers are in the back and the servers on drink duty until dessert arrives in a little while.

“He did not, I was merely sent to pass along this last message and save poor Raj the effort,” she says moving closer to lean against the counter beside where he stands. “But, I mostly came back here to see if you had any extra of that lovely appetizer that you’d be willing to share with an old friend though.”

Alec smiles moving over to another table where a few extra made dishes sit under a heat lamp. He hands her the plate and fork.

“Should still be warm,” he says as she happily takes the dish and thanks him.

“For the record though, I do think you should talk to him,” she says staying in place as Alec moves back beside her. “I know it hurt you when he left, but I also know him and I know what he wants and that he knows when he’s screwed up. And while I’m not going to tell you anything that he has to say to you himself, I do know that you’ve been miserable.”

Alec gestures ready to defend to the contrary.

“Your sister, Aline and I talk far more often than either of you are aware don’t try to deny it,” she says shutting him down. “He’s been pretty damn miserable too, and I’m the one who has to put up with it all the time so, just listen to him tonight.”

She brushes a hand down his arm comfortingly in such a motherly way that it should be patronizing, but only feels reassuring before walking away and heading back out into party.

“I was listening,” Alec says before she gets out the door completely. “To the cheesy compliments at least.”

She smiles waving her fork in his direction, “That’s a good start.” And then she’s gone the door swinging closed as Alec twists around and falls back onto the counter.

Magnus’ compliments have softened his anger a bit. He’s a bit more clear headed now to know that Aline wouldn’t set him up for heartbreak and that Catarina would never send Magnus in to something she didn’t think was right. He wants to heed their advice and listen, but there’s this part of him that’s still a little scared of what he’ll hear.

***

While the simple thanks in return from his compliments weren’t much each one gave Magnus a little more hope. Especially the one where he was specifically called insane and corny. Which is why he had to send Cat back there, just to investigate if he was making any headway.

“What did he say?” Magnus asks eagerly as soon as Cat returns a second serving of the appetizer in her hands.

“Well nothing really, I did most of the talking,” she says taking a bite of the dish.

“Cat.”

She rolls her eyes at him, “Well he did say that he’s listening at least to the compliments and got a particularly bright blush on his cheeks when I told him about the very specifically sexual compliments I had to nearly pay you not to make that poor waiter reiterate.” Now, that’s not much Magnus can admit, but it is progress. “Now, this feels like a good spot to leave you to fend for your own.” Cat says finishing off the dish of food at an alarming rate. “I’m going home to my wife and child. Good luck, have a good performance, Happy New Year and please for the love of all things if you and Alec have sex somewhere in this building tonight don’t get caught on camera, I do not want to have to deal with damage control on New Year’s Day.”

“No promises,” Magnus beams turning to his band to get ready for their set as Catarina rolls her eyes sauntering away.

***

Isabelle rushes backstage just as they’re about to start their set immediately stepping beside Magnus.

“Cutting it a little close, my dear,” Magnus says stepping over to her. “Everything okay?”

Isabelle simply nods. She looks a little frazzled, her red lipstick a little smudged, a thing Magnus has never really seen from her. He worries for a moment, but shakes the feeling assuming being trapped in an elevator for hours is bound to leave one frazzled.

“Everything okay with you?” she says leadingly. She’s no fool, it’s no doubt that much in the same way it took Cat one mention of Alec’s name to know his real reason for being here tonight, Isabelle had pieced it together the second Cat called her. Hell, it’s possible they gossiped about it while Magnus was trying to work up the nerve to walk into the building earlier in the day. Of everyone Isabelle and Maryse had remained the most neutral in the breakup both unwilling to believe Magnus just wanted to walk away. While they don’t talk about Alec and tend to keep it professional, Isabelle has definitely nudged him to take action a time or two over the past nine months.

“I’m working on it,” he says with surety.

She nods, “Good. Don’t break his heart this time.”

Magnus goes to respond. To promise that if Alec gives him the chance he can swear he won’t but the music roars and the president of the companies’ voice rings out announcing Magnus and his band as they’re ushered onto the stage.

The performance feels good. It’s always a blast having Isabelle on stage with him and his band knows every beat. The audience is lively and excited, despite being roughly half filled with record executives. They all seem to be getting a little looser on the dance floor with every glass of champagne.

The entire time Magnus watches the kitchen door closely; every single chef pours out. Changed and ready to join the party or heading straight for the exit. Every single chef but Alec.

“We’ll close out with ‘It’s Always You’,” he says turning to his band who are switching up instruments for their next song. He usually tries to close out on something more upbeat, but tonight it has to be his slowest, most honest track.

“You sure, boss?” Bat asks pausing in pulling his guitar over his head. Magnus meets eyes with Isabelle who just smiles knowingly.

“Positive,” Magnus says turning back to the awaiting crowd. They perform a few more upbeat tracks, the kind that get people dancing and drinking. The kitchen door stays firmly closed so much so that Magnus starts to think Alec escaped out through a fire exit to avoid him.

He poses the concept to Isabelle during a quick change up between songs pulling her away from her mic for a second.

“He didn’t, he’s just hiding back there,” she leans over grabbing her phone off of the drum stand and shaking it. “I discreetly texted him during your solo bit on the last number and told him to get his ass out here.”

“And?”

Isabelle just shrugs. She’s clearly uncertain of what her brother may or may not do in this situation. Magnus wants him to hear the song. He knows Alec well enough to know he never listened to it, probably never even looked up the title of it, but he needs him to hear it. It’s not the only song he’s written about Alec, but it’s the only one he’s written that’s been polished and produced. He has notebooks full of one’s he’d written when they were together that maybe one day he can make into a whole album, but not unless he gets this right.

He’s wooed Alec all night with cheesy compliments, but there’s no way that’s enough. This song is his last-ditch effort at winning Alec back or at least winning the chance to explain himself to Alec. He needs him to hear it almost as much as he just plain needs Alec.

***

“Seelie Queen’s guy is here and refuses to sign over the boxes to anyone but you, said his boss insisted,” Underhill says coming in to let Alec know about his lack of success with Alec’s final gopher run request of the night as he hides out in the back hoping to wait out Magnus’ performance and possibly Magnus in general. He’s not really sure about the second one yet, especially after the compliments throughout dinner that definitely succeeded in charming him and after finally checking his phone to find Isabelle’s text a few songs ago basically threatening him with bodily harm if he didn’t stop hiding out in the kitchen.

Seelie Queen is the strangest woman Alec has ever met and he’s 100% certain that’s not her real name, but she makes the best cupcakes in the city and Alec has never been a master of desserts. So, there’s no one else in the city he’d hire to help him cater such an event and provide the pre-midnight dessert option. The fact she did it on such short notice is a miracle, luckily she quote on quote ‘doesn’t live by the mortal calendar of new years and passages of time,’ whatever that means.

“Dammit,” he says jumping down off the counter and patting his pockets. Somewhere over the course of the night he’s lost the ear plugs. Likely thrown into the trash by mistake with a wad of dinner tickets that had accumulated in his pockets. “Dammit,” he says again. “I’ll handle it.”

He gestures for Underhill to head back out into the party. The door opening and closing exposing him to the music for a bright second. He waits until the muffled music ends. A clear break in the songs to make his way out of the kitchen and cut through the crowd quickly and unnoticed.

Magnus has been sending him sweet compliments all night and it’s definitely softening him to the idea of hearing him out, but he’s still not ready to hear him sing again. Magnus’ voice is adored by millions, but by none more than Alec. He worries hearing one note will break any resolve he has left.

***

Magnus spots him as he takes a sip of water between songs. He’s certain at the pace he’s moving Alec didn’t want to be spotted, but Magnus sees him anyways, still attuned to looking for Alec in a crowded room. He spots the lack of bright green near his ears now, thanking whatever incident led to those ridiculous ear plugs being banished. The fact that Alec clearly waited until a break in between songs is still endlessly frustrating, but now when he comes back he’ll have to listen.

There are only two songs left on their set, a short track they can probably wrap up before Alec returns, at least Magnus hopes he’s returning and he hadn’t just witnessed his great escape.

If he times this right Alec will be forced to listen to the only song Magnus has really wanted him to hear all night. His hail Mary attempt at getting Alec to listen to him.

***

Seelie Queen’s guy takes forever confirming his identity and by the time he’s wheeling the many boxes of baked goods into the building he can hear the notes of music. Breaks over. There’s no avoiding hearing Magnus now.

Outside of the main room the music is even clearer. A line of servers waits for him ready to set out the cupcakes. He instructs them on what to do and begrudgingly opens the door holding it for them all to pass through with their trays of cupcakes.

The music has settled now just lone guitar strings.

“I’m gonna end on a slow note tonight, a rarity for me,” Magnus chuckles from the stage the audience laughing along with him. Alec keeps his eyes fixed on the door nodding his head at every server that passes through. “I dropped this song about seven months ago and I haven’t performed it live yet, mostly because I knew the person I most needed to hear it hadn’t. Maybe tonight he finally will.”

Alec looks up at that and finds Magnus already looking his way, the only one left on stage. Now not just looking in a passing glance like before Alec notices the stark tattoo that stands out where his shirt, most likely purposefully, exposes his collar bone and his breath betrays him and hitches just a bit.

There’s no double meaning in Magnus’ words or gestures. No façade. Those aren’t the words of Magnus Bane pop star, that’s not the voice he uses when meeting his fans and pleasing a crowd. It’s the soft voice he always used when he spoke to Alec, the soft voice that had sounded so exhausted and nearly cracked this morning when Alec had shot down his attempt to talk to him.

It's a voice meant for Alec. A voice that says, please hear me out.

The last server passes through the door and Alec lets it swing closed behind him. He doesn’t retreat to the kitchen he stays put and he finally decides to listen.

It’s probably the simplest song he’s ever heard Magnus sing in a professional setting. Sure, he’s heard him idly hum and sing dumb songs about doing the laundry while Alec fell in love with his voice and laughed at his quirkiness, but he’s never heard such a stripped-down track performed anywhere. It’s not that Magnus is dishonest in his music, but he’s guarded. He sings about the fun times, not the hard times. There are parts of him that aren’t for public consumption and he likes to keep it that way.

This song is the exact opposite of all that.

It’s a love song for all intents and purposes, but it’s tinged with regret and apologies. There’s mentions of hazel eyes, tattoos and arrow rings and a few dozen other little things that make it unbearably clear this song is about Alec, is about them. Casually, but with all the heart he can put into the lyrics Magnus calls Alec the love of his life without even saying his name.

Every line floors Alec a little more. In some ways he wishes he had listened to the song when it dropped, understands now why Isabelle had been so damned adamant that he had to hear it. But in other ways he’s glad he’s hearing it for the first time now, not online or on the radio but here and now live with Magnus looking right at him.

The notes fade and the light on Magnus dims. The audience erupts in quick cheers as Magnus thanks them bringing his band back out to receive their praise. The lights go back up to the party atmosphere a DJ in the far corner taking over likely until Magnus is expected to sing Auld Lang Syne at midnight and Alec finally drops his gaze from the stage.

He reaches up brushing a hand across his face to compose himself and feels a dampness under his eyes not knowing when the hell he started crying. He rubs at his eyes quickly. Grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing server and downing it before turning back to the door and into the hall needing a moment to breathe.

***

He doesn’t start talking until he sees Alec, ever the gentleman, holding open the door for all the servers to pass through with dessert trays. He never stops looking in Alec’s direction, relieved when Alec finally looks up at him. He sings every note, every line with everything he’s got hoping that Alec hears every word.

When the song ends he can’t be certain, but he thinks he sees a tear falling from Alec’s eye. He wants nothing more than to run to him instantly, but he has to give his thanks and bring out his band for their deserved praise as well. By the time he’s done that though he looks up and Alec’s gone again the door he’d been standing near still swinging open and closed like he’d rushed out abruptly. Magnus’ heart sinks.

“Go after him,” Isabelle says nudging his shoulder as they all step down from the back of the small stage. “You know how he likes to find his little pockets of quiet when he needs to think. He heard you, so, go after him.”

She smiles encouragingly nudging him again. He nods, smiling gratefully and turning away in search of Alec. He stops however, for a brief second turning back to Isabelle and pulling her into a tight hug.

“Thank you,” he says holding her tight.

“You can thank me by making my brother and yourself happy again,” she says with a laugh pushing Magnus back playfully and in the opposite direction. “Now, go.”

***

Alec sits on the softly lit stairs between the main room and the now closed down hotel bar twirling the ring on his pointer finger in thought.

He hadn’t expected to see Magnus tonight and he sure as hell hadn’t expected that song.

Mere minutes ago he’d been only warming up to the idea of maybe hearing Magnus out in the near future. Now, even though he still absolutely needs to hear an explanation from Magnus not in musical form, he’s halfway to forgiving him and a quarter of the way to walking back upstairs to that stage right now and kissing the beautiful, infuriating man senseless.

***

Magnus finds him in a stairwell. The fact doesn’t surprise him in the least. They met in a stairwell. Isabelle dragging her brother along to the first show she’d sung backup for him at a small venue he always loved to play in the city. Alec had clearly been a little overwhelmed by the crowded space at the after party and had slipped away. Magnus finding him nursing a half drank beer on the stairs near the back exit. It’s a lovely sort of déjà vu.

“I was worried you’d left,” Magnus says quietly as to not startle him.

Alec lets out a long breath as Magnus approaches moving to sit beside Alec near the bottom of the steps that lead into the hotel bar keeping a distant space between them on the step.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it numerous times today,” Alec laughs a little embarrassed. Magnus can’t blame him for that, Magnus had somewhat ambushed him. He’s about to say just that, but Alec beats him to the draw. “But not after that, I couldn’t just leave after that.” He says finally turning his head to look at Magnus, the dim light from the bar and the lamps along the stairwell catching in his hazel eyes.

“I meant every word,” Magnus says with as much heart and truth as he can.

Alec nods still holding his eyes. “I know. I know the difference between stage Magnus and the Magnus I got to know, the Magnus who speaks a little softer and makes food puns that somehow turn out complimentary and sexual simultaneously. That was definitely the latter up there tonight.”

Magnus allows himself a small smile, comforted by the fact Alec still understands him so well.

“I want to hear you out,” Alec says a few moments of quiet later. “I do. These last few months have been,” he pauses looking away seemingly trying to pluck the proper word from thin air. “Hell.” He settles on eyes fixed in front of him now. “But we were good one day, nearly on our one-year anniversary and the next day you just left, Magnus.”

He did. And now he has the chance to fix this. To get this right.

“I know,” he starts bracing and turning towards Alec as best he can. Alec looks up clearly giving him his full attention, giving the floor to him. “And not a day has gone by since that I haven’t regretted it. Calling these last few months hell might be an understatement darling.”

He takes a deep breath, already feeling like he’s going to cry and really wanting to hold it together at least long enough to air it all out.

“I never wanted to leave you, but I guess I just always assumed one day you’d leave me.”

Alec’s eyes go wide, mouth open to speak.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Magnus says before Alec can speak. “Or at least I know that now. I don’t think I totally did back then and it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you. It was because I didn’t trust myself.” He says spilling every truth he can in this stairwell. “We worked so well together from the very start and every single day we just got better and somewhere along the line I let every fucked-up relationship I’d had in the past get in my head and tell me that sooner or later the other shoe was going to drop.”

Somewhere around month nine when planning the tour had gotten underway, he’d started getting into his own head that sooner or later, even if Alec felt different, things would implode. That the tour, the distance, the life he lived that had been fairly quiet while strictly in studio working on a new album the entirety of their relationship would rear its ugly head and ruin them just like it had ruined every other relationship he’d ever had. He says all that.

“And it’s a shitty excuse, I know that, to say that I thought we couldn’t survive it all just because nothing ever had in the past,” he says. “I was so scared of losing you that I left you which is incredibly stupid when you really think about. And I’ve thought about it, a lot.”

“You could’ve told me all that, Magnus,” Alec says hand lifting like he’s considering reaching out but then pulling back at the last minute. “I knew you’d had some bad exes and you never really wanted to talk about it and I respected that, but you could have told me. I can promise you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

And there it is. The thing Magnus realized not but an hour after he’d left Alec. Alec wasn’t going anywhere, he’d never said it out loud in those exact words, but it was the case. And there Magnus was running away just in case he was wrong.

“I realized that, but it was too late, I was already on tour and suddenly everything just hit me,” Magnus says brushing away a tear he definitely didn’t give permission to fall. “I realized I let the love of my life go because I got scared and I was a million miles away and I figured you hated me so I wrote a song.” He shrugs at the time it had seemed like the only way he could possibly get a message out to Alec.

He takes a deep breath turning his eyes back up to Alec’s.

“So, here I am nine months later, telling you face to face that I’m sorry, that I never should have let you go, that I should have talked to you and not just ran because I was scared of losing you. To hope by some miracle you’ll give me another chance at this, because I’m going to be in love with you forever, but also I understand if this is all just too little too late and you hate me too much to ever trust me again.”

Alec takes a deep breath letting it out so heavily that his bangs blow up. It makes Magnus smile a small smile.

“I was really, really angry at you,” he starts and it’s nothing Magnus hadn’t expected to hear. “But the thing is I couldn’t hate you. I should have, but I couldn’t. Which was infuriating because you broke my heart and I was still in love you. Still wanted you to be okay and got annoyed with Aline when she took her damning the day you were born best friend support too far.” He huffs out a small laugh and Magnus does the same.

“I was never going to leave you,” he says quiet eyes locked on Magnus’ like he’s trying to sear the words into his brain. “I knew what I was signing up for when I first asked you out. I knew it wouldn’t always be easy and sooner or later we’d be cities apart for months at a time, but I knew we could survive it. Or at least I thought I did until the day you told me otherwise.”

He reaches out tangling his fingers with Magnus’ and his breath hitches. Magnus could never forget what Alec’s skin felt like against his, but after nine months of being touch-starved completely of the intimacy he’d only ever found truly peacefully in Alec’s hands he feels like this is the first time they’ve ever collided.

“I won’t act like I didn’t shatter when you left, but I do forgive you,” he says rubbing his thumb across Magnus’ knuckles soothingly. “You’re the love of my life too. Obviously, there’s gonna be some very much needed conversations in our future and we’re gonna have to work on communicating when things scary, but I’d be a fool to not give us another chance.”

Magnus could cry and judging from the way Alec reaches out his free hand and delicately wipes his thumb under his eye he actually is.

“Yeah?” Magnus says completely terrified, but filled with hope.

“Yeah,” Alec smiles dropping his hand. “I’m not going anywhere, hell, Magnus I want to marry you one day.”

Magnus doesn’t say a word just scoots a little closer to Alec so their knees can brush. Doesn’t point out the present tense use of ‘want’ in Alec’s words as he tilts his forehead to Alec’s.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into the space between.

“I know, you don’t have to keep saying it,” Alec says and Magnus shrugs. Maybe he doesn’t but he knows he’ll do it a few more times anyways. “I do trust you; I always did, it just got a little bumpy there for a while, but now that I know everything I know I can trust you again when you say it.”

“A little bumpy?” Magnus says incredulously pulling back from Alec.

Alec shrugs, “Okay, maybe a lot. The point is we’re here now and we’re gonna keep talking and we’re not gonna fall apart this time. Bumps averted, promise.”

“Promise,” Magnus says.

“I owe you an apology too,” Alec says and Magnus is about to shut that down, but Alec soldiers on. “Don’t say I don’t because I do, I was an ass tonight when you first showed up and way harsher than I needed to be when all you wanted was to talk. It wasn’t fair and I am sorry about that.”

“You’re forgiven,” Magnus says, meaning it.

“Look at us already communicating properly on both ends,” Alec smiles after a few beats and Magnus chuckles. Progress march on it seems.

He’s looking into Alec’s eyes now with a soft genuine smile and god he wants to kiss him. He’s about to do just that when an alarm blares in his pocket. Damn, his thirty minutes to midnight alert.

“I’m supposed to sing Auld Lang Syne after the balls drops,” he says pulling his phone from his pocket and silencing the alarm.

“Right,” Alec says pulling back. “It’s okay we’ve got time now.”

They do. Logically Magnus knows that, but that doesn’t change the fact that here and now he doesn’t want to leave Alec’s side. He wants to hold his hand and kiss him at midnight and tell him that he’s pretty damn keen on the idea of taking Alec home and doing so every night for the rest of their lives.

Alec jumps up from the step moving down to where the closed bar is clearly giving Magnus his out. Magnus stands, joining Alec putting them face to face with one another.

Alec raises an eyebrow in question at Magnus as he gets out his phone shooting a quick text off to Isabelle.

“Now we have even more time,” he smiles looking up at Alec as he pockets his phone.

“Magnus.”

He shrugs, “They’ll sort it out. I have full confidence in Isabelle’s ability to take my place and full confidence in myself knowing that I very much don’t want to be anywhere that’s not with you right now.”

He steps closer to Alec breaching most of the distance, but not touching. Leaving the next move completely up to Alec.

“So what now?” Alec asks as he steps a little closer to Magnus. His voice doesn’t sound desperate or pleading, but there’s an edge to it that screams ‘don’t break my heart this time.’ Even after all that’s just been laid out on the table he’s still a little scared it’ll be the same thing all over again. Magnus takes a deep breath and resolves to never, ever hurt or let this man’s heart go again.

#malec #malec fic #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #claia lukemaryse and heline coming your way soon :)#the first chapter got out of hand y'all #posting a little earlier than planned think of it as a christmas gift!#i'm not good at figuring out how to post/promote multi-chapters on here lol #shadowhunters fic

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thescribblerqueen · 4 years

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Fanfiction Project List

So I’m compiling a list of all the fanfics that I have ideas for/ currently working on. I just kind of want to get them written down so that I can focus. They’re most fics for The Flash, which I’m currently the most focused on, but there are some crossovers and like maybe one that’s not. I have lists for other fandoms but they aren’t active, or I currently not active with them but I’ll eventually come back to those. But in the meantime this is what I’m thinking about or working on.

Barry Allen: Agent of Shield

Fandom: The Flash

Status: Ongoing and Published, on Chapter 12 of 21 (As of 1/15/21)

Summary: Barry Allen has always searched for answers about the impossible to solve his mother's murder. Shield investigates the things that the world isn't ready for. On Earth-616, Barry gets recruited out of high school by Shield and hopes to find the answers that he's looking for as an Agent of Shield.

Series: This particular fic is part of a series I’m starting. I have 3 full outlines including this one. The other two currently outlined follow follow the time Barry is in a coma and shield falls, & season 1 of the flash, season 2 of agents of shield, phase 2 of MCU.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20279197/chapters/48071875

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A House is Not a Home

Fandom: Glee & Flash

Status: Being written, Chapter 4 is now Up (Update 5/7/21)

Tags: Kurtbastian, High school, mentions of psychological/emotional abuse, custody battle, Klaine break-up, Barry is Sebastian, PTSD, & Tags TBD.

Summary: Barry was removed from Joe's custody and adopted by the Smythe's. He was forced to change everything about himself and was barely holding it together until now. Then he broke down in front of Kurt Hummel at the Lima Bean and told him everything. Now the Hummel's are helping Barry fight to live with his foster family, meanwhile, his mother's case gets a new development.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224210/chapters/69163026

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Flash/Glee Sebklaine Fic

Status: Being written, not currently published

Tags: Sebklaine, klaine, Soulmate fic, Barry as Sebastian,unrequited soulmates, angst, maybe slow burn? Tags TBD

Summary: Barry has had Blaine’s name on his wrist his whole life, when he goes to Dalton he finds Blaine, but learns that he’s dating Kurt. He tries to tell Blaine who he really is but learns that only Kurt’s name is on his wrist. Soon after Kurt’s name appears on Barry’s wrist but neither of them have his name. He doesn’t tell them and moves on with his life, until they move to central city looking for their new soulmate and run into ‘Sebastian’.

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The Wrong Steps to the Right Place

Fandom: The Flash

Status: Ongoing, Chapter 7

Tags: Westhallen, Westhawne, polyamory relationship, A/B/O, omegaverse (slightly freestyle), Omega!Barry, Beta!Iris, Alpha!Eddie, Chronically Ill Barry, Drunk One Night Stand, MPreg, angst, unrequited love, bisexual barry, bisexual Eddie, mutual pining, near miscarriage, slow burn, smut TBD.

Summary: Barry accidentally has a drunk one night stand with Iris and Eddie. Neither of them remember but it changes how they feel about Barry and he’s trying to avoid getting his heartbroken if they remember. Barry also deals with a chronic illness, that is a result from being struck with lightning, that his speed-force can’t fix.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27111688

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You Should Have Lived

Fandom: The Flash & Arrowverse

Status: Chapter 1

Tags: Westhawne, Westhallen?, WestAllen (Two WestAllens? Barry/Iris & Joe/Henry), technical character deaths but not really, timetravel, sort of a fix it fic, mourning, angst. Tags TBD

Summary: A time remnant of Eobard Thawne gets a hold of a time relic called the Book of Alterations, allowing him to change the timeline in order to prevent his demise. Barry attempts to stop him but instead he ends up in a timeline where the Flash/Barry Allen was killed in the singularity. He knows that he has to fix things but his family and friends are desperate to keep him in this timeline in fear of the worst.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576458

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Flash/Glee (Ship TBD) Fic

Status: Not yet Written

Tags: Westhawne, Klaine, Brittana, Faberry, Niff, Barry’s ship is undecided, Barry is Sebastian, internalized homophobia, coming out, hate crimes, homophobia, wholesome platonic relationships, Henry Allen is alive but in a coma, replacing season 3, unintentional gas-lighting has psychological effects, Tags TBD.

Summary: Living as Sebastian for a short while makes Barry believe that he could never have the life he wants, no one believing him about his father’s innocence keeps him from coming out to his family. Iris is the only person he’s ever been close with which has some people convinced he loves her. He outed himself to Eddie so he wouldn’t breakup with her but since then he’s been trying to coax Barry into coming out but he won’t. He plans for it to stay that way until a influx of celebrities moving to central city means his friends from Dalton come back into his life.

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Water Under the Bridge

Fandom: Glee & Flash

Status: Chapter 1

Tags: Kurtbastian, Westhawne, Klaine had a mutual breakup, rivals to lovers, mentions of past bullying and suicidal thoughts, starts pre-canon, Barry is Sebastian, Tags TBD

Summary: Kurt moves to central city in order to breakaway from his on/off relationship with Blaine after their divorce. He doesn’t have the same love for NYC anymore and takes an opportunity for a role on a rising TV show being filmed in central 6 months before the particle accelerator explodes, running into Barry and learns the full truth about his past and they start a new friendship.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29524416

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Flash WestAllen Fic

Status: Not Written

Tags: WestAllen, Not sure about Westhawne, Iris is the Flash, Barry will still be the Flash but later, Barry is the Blogger, People start to believe Barry when all the weird shit starts happening, Iris and Joe fight over whether or not to tell Barry about meta-stuff, more realistic coma, Season 1 Wally West

Summary: Iris is indirectly affected by the lightning strike when Barry is struck. Iris recovers quickly and shows no signs of being of meta until Barry wakes from his coma. Iris learns she has powers, they suspect Barry does but he shows no signs. Iris becomes the flash to get proof about Nora Allen’s murder but doesn’t want Barry involved while he’s recovering, but that’s not stopping him from chasing the flash. The reverse flash is desperate to fix things before it alters the timeline and wipes him from existence.

________________________

Flash Westhallen Maybe #2 Fic

Status: Not Written

Tags: Westhallen? Westhawne, Past Barry Allen/Becky Cooper, single parent AU, mentions of date rape & sexual assault, teenage pregnancy, custody issues, PTSD, trauma survivor, & Tags TBD

Summary: When Barry was 16 his girlfriend Becky Cooper drugged his drink at a party and assaulted him, and let others take advantage of him. Nine months after the fact she drops their newborn at his doors and results in charges against her resulting in a slap on the wrist and primary custody over their daughter for him.How will he deal with this when he wakes up from his coma as the flash, now retaining full custody of their daughter.

__________________________

Flash (Similar Premise As Previous Fic)

Status: Not Written

Tags: Westhawne, Barry’s ship undecided, past Barry Allen/Becky Cooper, single teen parent, single parenting, platonic co parenting, hidden teenage pregnancy, character redemption, Henry Allen is Alive, abusive relationship, toxic parenting, Bisexual Barry Allen, Bisexual Becky Cooper

Summary: Barry runs into Becky Cooper for the first time in years and learns that she has a daughter that is nearly as old as the last time he saw Becky. Nine months prior to that they had been dating. Barry is trying to figure out how to be there for his daughter while Becky Cooper has just recently fled an abusive partner.

_____________________________

Flash/Glee (Ship TBD)

Status: Not Written

Tags: Brittana, Platonic Barry & Brittana, co-parenting, Barry as Sebastian, sperm donor! Barry, Sebtana friendship

Summary: Santana figured out Sebastian Smythe’s real identity and used it to befriend him. His friendship with Santana and Brittney leads him to helping them have a child.Things take a turn when he becomes the flash.

_____________________________

Flash Foster Parent Fic

Status: Not Written

Tags: Westthawne, Barry ship TBD, unrequited love, foster dad! Barry, meta foster kids,

Summary: Barry’s not sure what the next step to his life is going to be after letting go of his love of Iris, breaking up with Patty, and losing his dad. He didn’t think it would be becoming a foster parent to unwanted meta children.

______________________________

Flash/Agents of Shield/MCU #2 Fic

Status: Not Written

Tags: Barry Allen/Skye\Daisy Johnson, multiverse, Barry as an avenger

Summary: Barry was supposed to just be at a regular crime scene when an explosion occurs and he’s breached into the MCU. Despite his numerous attempts to use a inter-dimensional extrapolater to get back there seems to be something preventing his return to his earth. He decides in the meantime to work with Shield who is just learning how to deal with a bunch of super powered people and aliens.

____________________________

Reconciling the Differences

Fandom: Supergirl & Grey’s Anatomy

Status: Chapter 2 (As of 3/11/21)

Tags: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Past Grey’s Anatomy relationships for Lexi, Meredith Grey/Derek Shepherd, Arizona Robbins/Callie Torres, Mark Sloan/ ?, lot of undetermined ships right now, I’m make a joke about Maggie Sawyer and Maggie Pierce at some point, brainwashing, kidnapping, Derek & Mark lived, Arizona and Callie didn’t divorce, plane crash happened, Arizona still lost her leg, warning I’ve only watched up to season 13 episode 1, temporary Sanvers breakup

Summary: Maggie Sawyer after her breakup with Alex Danvers, comes across a missing person’s case for an Alexandra Grey, who looks suspiciously like her ex. She uncovers a kidnapping and brainwashing conspiracy at the DEO as a result. With the help of J’onn they uncover it and Alex realizes that her and Kara’s whole lives are a lie and is trying to cope with remembering and reuniting with her friends and family, while Kara is struggling with her relationship with Clark and how his abandonment of her allowed her to be brainwashed.

A03 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29504175/chapters/72485544

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oh1captain9my4captain2 · 5 years

Text

Chasing Time

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: Major Endgame spoilers

Words: 2,100 (I am so SO sorry! I went a little overboard with this chapter😬)

With time constantly ticking by, the reader decides it’s finally time to start a family. With or without a man. So she recruits one of the Avengers for assistance. But how exactly will that pan out for them? (Part 12 of my series - Chasing Time)

With Christopher finally under control you were able to have a little peace of mind. Having a baby in Stark Tower with Steve, and Natasha was the greatest experience in the world. Although you and Nat had your differences, you had still managed to coincide with one another for the sake of not going completely mad. Shortly after discovering Christopher’s powers, though, you’d all made the move to the compound. Tony had left after making the super suit for his godchild with the announcement that Pepper was expecting; assuring you that if anything went wrong you should give him a call. Your kids were going to be almost nine months apart, but, even so, it took five years for them to finally meet.

“Christopher! Your lunch is ready!” You shouted down the hall to your five year old son. He’d been in the living room playing with his toy action figures which was a change from what he usually did; messing with his powers. Most of them had dissipated with time, but one of them in particular had stuck around for good. His metallic ability was the first one to go, along with the telekinesis shortly after; which you couldn’t say you were mad about. The one that stayed; being able to light things on fire.

Steve had grown to calling him the “human torch” at three years old, and the nickname stuck. They would practice the safety of super powers outside on the front lawn; which generally ended in more than one thing catching on fire while Steve attempted to put it out with the fire extinguishers that were always on hand. It was considered a good day when only a few things managed to get singed, and, while he’d never been as buff as his father, he still wasn’t the smallest boy in his class. One thing that never changed in the slightest was his striking resemblance to Steve, and you questioned when someone might begin to notice, but no one ever did.

“Mom, someone’s at the front gate. He’s yelling something about ants,” your son said, confused.

“Well, where’s Steve?” You asked, wondering why he hadn’t opened the gate, or at least check to see who it was.

“Nat told me he was at another meeting,” Christopher explained, setting his Captain America action figure on the bar as he took a few bites of his dinosaur chicken nuggets.

Steve had been attending more and more meetings lately. While he’d managed to help a few of the people move on, there were still several that remained stuck in the past; just like him. What you didn’t know was that he still talked about you there, and how he had been fighting this battle for over five years of whether he should move on from Peggy, or keep her presence alive through him. Steve talked about your son, and how close they had become; not to mention the feelings he got when he saw the two of you together. Whether you were playing, talking, or relaxing on the couch with Christopher, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he might want something more.

Every time, the instructor always asked him the same question, sounding like a broken record. “What does your heart tell you?” That was the problem, even after all this time, it still wouldn’t give him a direct answer.

“What is that sound?” You heard Steve remark, coming into the kitchen and swiping a chicken nugget from off his son’s plate.

“Thought you were at another meeting?” You questioned, giving him the side eye for taking Christopher’s food.

“We finished early,” he corrected, listening even closer. “Am I hearing things, or does it sound like someone is yelling?”

“Must be your hearing, I read that it’s the first thing to go with age,” you joked, playfully, and he rolled his eyes.

“I told mommy some strange man has been yelling outside about ants,” Christopher shrugged, throwing his Captain America doll into the air as he pretended it could fly.

Steve’s expression shifted to curiosity before heading to the living room for Friday to pull up the front cameras for the house. On his way out of the kitchen, though, he turned around and pointed at his son. “Captain America doesn’t fly,” he corrected, smirking as he continued on his way.

“Friday, open the camera for the front gait,” Steve ordered, looking directly at a disheveled Scott Lang who was leaping up and down and shouting nonsense.

Natasha sat up from her seat behind him in shock. “What the hell?” She fumbled for the controls, zooming in on his face to confirm it was him.

“This is an old message, right?” Steve thought, trying to brush it off as some kind of coincidence, but what he hadn’t expected was for Natasha to shake her head no.

Immediately they opened the gate and let him in, freaking out when they learned how he had made it back. “Do you think we could get the others back the same way?” Steve considered as the excitement in the room began to build.

Scott went on about time travel, and later it was suggested that you all get the gang back together. What they had forgotten to remember was that Tony Stark was a father now, and so was Steve. Reversing the affects completely would still mean losing people you cared about. Which is why there would be no reversing it all; just bringing them all back to the present.

That’s exactly how you all ended up at Tony Stark’s cabin in the woods. You had to admit that the lake was beautiful, but the seclusion itself did not scream Stark Tower. No, it seemed as though starting a family had really caused him to change his ways.

To be honest, you hadn’t tagged along in the hopes of getting the opportunity to time travel. What you really wanted was to be able to see Tony again. Life had gotten in the way of you two, and, even though you were best friends, there still was never enough time for you and him to get together. He said he’d always be a phone call away, but you always told yourself that a phone goes two ways, and, if he didn’t want to talk to you, you would still be okay.

“Hey, tin-man, long time no see,” you snapped, smirking at him as you ran over to give Tony Stark a hug.

“What’s going on, guys?” He laughed, squeezing you tightly as he looked over at Natasha, Scott, Steve, and Christopher.

“We may have found a way to bring everyone back,” Steve informed him, using his authoritative tone. You had to admit, it’d been a long time since you’d heard him use his Captain America voice, but it was still just as hot as you’d remembered years ago.

“Sorry guys, I can’t. Anything else, anything, but not that,” Tony politely declined. Even after Scott’s in depth explanation, and how positively sure he was that it would work, Tony still refused to budge.

We left feeling less enthusiastic, but we had managed to convince Thor, Rocket, Banner, Nebula, Rhodey, and Clint to rejoin our team. Which brought us back to the compound where we were preparing our first jump.

Scott was the first to go back on his own which hadn’t ended as planned. First; we didn’t think we’d get him back, then he was a teenager, and an old man, and, finally, a baby. Until we‘d mastered it on the fifth try, and got the original Scott back.

After our first trial run with him we let Clint go back to guarantee our success. Which came back as our first official good leap, putting us in the clear to all go back together.

Not before Tony decided to make his grand appearance, though. I was expected to follow strict orders from Tony, and Steve. They wanted me to remain unseen since my past self wouldn’t have been with them after they’d captured Loki. I was basically just going to be there in the off chance that they needed me.

Christopher would be joining us in the jump, and, although his powers were dodgy at best, he still could come in handy. “Are you ready?” You had asked him as you took his hand. He shook his head excitedly, and gave Steve a smile before you all went back to the year 2012.

With the dispersal of everyone throughout the town, you and Christopher made your way to the lobby of Stark Tower. Tony said that it shouldn’t take him long and he would be down with the tesseract. As you waited there with your son, though, you began to question whether or not he was ever actually going to show. That was until he finally came down, and he still managed to let the tesseract fall into Loki’s hands so that he could get away.

“Well, that went better than I thought it would,” you admitted, sarcastically, as you rolled your eyes at him.

“Give me a break, I was trying my best. Where were you?” Tony remarked, giving you a side eye.

“Taking care of my son, and watching you, butterfingers,” you retaliated, annoyed.

“Looks like we’re gonna have to go with plan ‘B’,” Tony thought allowed as we met up with Steve and Scott.

“Tell me you got it?” Steve growled in his husky voice, already giving Tony a dirty look.

“Not exactly,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have a plan, though!”

Tony’s plan was for us to go back to the 1970’s, and you were anything but okay with that. You knew there was a chance that Steve would see Peggy, and you didn’t know if you could handle that kind of rejection taking place right in front of you. It was one thing to imagine it in your head, but seeing it with your own eyes would be the very thing that would break your heart.

Of course that meant Tony insisting you go with them; partially because he wanted you as back up, and because he wanted you there for Steve. You hesitated, but agreed, and Scott assured you that he’d take care of Christopher while you were gone.

Steve seemed to know his way around the 70’s, and when you followed him down an elevator and into a dark room you felt your heart drop to your stomach. Peggy was standing on the other side of the glass in the middle of a conversation with someone else. Your eyes drifted to Steve who was watching her intensely, but you couldn’t make out the expression on his face. Was he considering the idea of running in there?

You were pulled from your thoughts by Steve who was gesturing for you to follow him out, so that you could get back to Tony. The entire time you couldn’t shake the idea, though, that something had changed. He seemed to hold himself differently, and his dark, stern, voice made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

“You may be the star spangled man with a plan, but are you sure you know where you’re going?” You scoffed, following him down enough hallways that you were starting to get dizzy.

“Be quiet,” he ordered, making it down a long stretch before pushing open a door as the sunlight poured across your face.

“You know, you may be in charge of everyone else, but I don’t have to listen to you.” The words cut like knives as they slipped off your tongue, and you immediately regretted having said it.

“Then why exactly are you here? I’m trying to help you, and if people hear you talking like that then you’re gonna blow our cover.” His retaliation hadn’t been angry, but informing, which made you realize that he hadn’t been saying it to be rude. No, he was doing it to get the job done, and get out of here. What was it that ran through his head when he saw Peggy after all these years? Why was he so ready to go back to the present?

It was too late, Tony was back, and you were all standing together to prepare for the leap back to the future. You would just have to give it a little extra thought some other time because, right now, looking up at him, it didn’t feel like you were standing next to Captain America. It felt like you were with the person you’d fall in love with oh so long ago; Steve Rogers.

——————————————

@carebaredanvers @torntaltos @homecomlng @bluediamondsevie @vesta-ro @iron-sass

@marcelaverzani @mrspeacem1nusone

@myles-production @stevieboyharrington

@mariemrose @ncrediblelove

@captain-seriously-don-t @xchrisxevansx @marvelouspottering @stat89posts

@denzmallows @imafangirlofeverything

@humandasaster @sgtevanstan @americasarse @theroyalbrownbarbie

#captain america #chris evans #steve rogers #avengers #avengers age of ultron #avengers infinity war #avengers endgame #avengers endgame spoilers #endgame #captain america x reader #chris evans x reader #steve rogers x reader #captian america fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction #chris evans fanfiction #captain america the first avenger #captain america winter soldier #captain america civil war #gif not mine

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lordshaxxion · 5 years

Note

All for Vigil!!

all under a cut c:

Where were you rezzed?

“In a snow drift somewhere in a forest. Still don’t know exactly where, but I think it was somewhere deep in the EDZ. Warden won’t tell me, I think he knows exactly where but he refuses to tell. Either way, being born in a snow drift meant that I’m practically immune to the cold.”

How long ago was it?

“Oh, nearly two-thousand years ago now I think.”

Did you have anything in your pockets?

“Not that I can recall-”

“You had a photograph of a family in your pocket.”

“Ah, yes, now I remember. It was an old and worn photo of what I’m assuming was my family in my first life.”

What was your first week alive like?

“Hell. I spent much of it just trying to find a way out of the forest I was in. At least I was fortunate and didn’t succumb to the cold at any point, but starvation and exhaustion was a problem until I found the first village in days and for miles around.”

How did you react to your new role as a Guardian?

“The title of Guardian doesn’t mean anything to me, perhaps even less now than it did a century ago when it came about. I’m just here to do my duty and nothing less.”

Do you have any regrets?

“Too many to regale you with. I don’t think even a Guardian would live long enough to hear them all.”

How did you get your name?

“I believe my Ghost named me.”

“Nope, you named yourself in a way. Your determination to fight through the cold to civilisation, the way you protected every village you had to go to. I think at some point the people described your actions as nothing but vigilance, and you took it from that point.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You wouldn’t, this was within the first year of your life.”

Does your Ghost have a name?

“He’s called Warden.”

What is your Ghost like?

“He’s steadfast and very brave, keeps me focused often and always lets me know when I have meetings and such. I don’t know where I’d be without him.”

“Dead, probably.”

“He’s a smartass, too.”

How do you feel about the Last City and the Vanguard?

“The Last City is my home and I will protect it with everything I have at my disposal. The Vanguard... they’re something. It’s never been perfected, and fortunately never claimed to be, but even less after Cayde passed. They do their best, though. Always have.”

What’s your favourite place to go?

“Just for a stroll through the City, on the few days off I take. Or into the mountains or forests around the City.”

Do you participate in strikes or the Crucible?

“Crucible, but only on rare occasions and sometimes Crimson Days with my husband and partner. It’s quite amusing to hear Guardians freaking out at the Speaker and his bodyguard causing havoc in the Crucible.”

How do you celebrate the holidays?

“With my partners, Hakim and Null. Occasionally Guardian, when they come home to the Tower.”

Hakim, Null and Guardian belong to @autobotrose

Who is your favourite NPC and who is your least favourite?

“Well considering I’m married to him, the Speaker is my favourite. Osiris can go suck my-”

“AHEM.”

Where do you sleep/call home?

“My apartment in the Tower, of course.”

Do you have any pets or companions?

“Not particularly.”

Does anyone live with you?

“My partners. Vencel did, until a few years ago. Now Guardian comes and goes as they please.”

How do you unwind or comfort yourself?

“I prefer to sit myself in my armchair in the evenings and work on one of the many crochet projects I have going. Alternatively I’ll read, or just spend it cuddling Hakim and Null.”

What would truly break you?

“Losing all I love. Not being able to protect Hakim, like I’m supposed to do given it’s been my job for the past eight centuries - perhaps even longer.”

Most embarrassing moment?

“....”

“He won’t say it, so I will. The time he, Null and Hakim thought they were all hard-nails and tried to brave a haunted house together. Oh, and let’s not forget the time Vigil ran screaming through the Haunted Forest with Guardian and Null.”

“Hey that was a great time-”

“Vigil, you called the Nightmare a cunt.”

“Yes, yes I did do that.”

“You yeeted Guardian across the Forest.”

“That too.”

“And as good as picked Null and Guardian up and charged to the finish with them, only to fall through the floor.”

“Also that.”

Any cherished memories?

“The day I met Hakim, the day I met Null. When Vencel was born-”

“- he cried so hard that day-”

“-and when I asked Hakim and Null to marry me.”

What was your highest and/or lowest point?

“Our wedding day, of course. Lowest point was the Red War as a whole. I wasn’t myself during it, or even afterwards. It really got to me that I failed to protect the Speaker, that Ghaul had managed to kidnap him. Null can tell you just how much of a wreck I was around the Farm for the longest time.”

Views on the enemy races?

“They’re all a pain in the ass. The Fallen are the ones I perhaps feel most sorry for.”

Which enemy race is your most/least favourite?

“I can deal with the Fallen and I’ve ripped apart more than my fair share of Cabal, but Vex and Taken? Now the concepts of what they are, that’s beyond my intelligence.”

What’s your role in a fireteam? (Tank, support, buff/healer, comic relief? Or are you the dead weight?)

“Tank.”

“Seriously, the amount of walls he’s come crashing through is tremendous. Plus, my Guardian can take an inhuman amount of hits from enemy forces. I’m pretty sure he’s not human, outside of the whole Lightbearer thing.”

Do you have any mentors/mentees?

“No and no. While I train my Guard well, I do not consider them my mentees.”

What is your favourite weapon type/favourite weapon?

“Thunderlord.”

“Pfft, more like fists.”

“Thanks, Warden.”

Do you play Gambit?

“Absolutely not.”

How do you feel about the Drifter?

“I don’t trust him and if I were able to without causing my husband some distress, I would have yeeted his ass off the damn Tower by now. I don’t care for the sob-story he’s selling susceptible Guardians, he needs to be gone now.”

If you could be any class/subclass (not just your own), what would you be and why?

“... I’ve always envied how Hakim is able to float like he does...”

What are your thoughts on the Nine?

“I don’t know enough about them to make a fully accurate judgement, but I know that I don’t trust them.”

Any secret crushes or relationships we need to know about?

“I hardly make my relationship with Hakim and Null a secret.”

“Well you used to have a massive crush on Saint-”

“Shut up, Warden.”

Does your Ghost approve, or haven’t you told them?

“He approves, and gets along very well with Vega and Redwood. Even if all three of them like to swap embarrassing stories at times.”

You’re about to go off-planet on assignment, and will only be able to eat protein rations and food gel for a month. What’s your last meal?

“Anything Null or Hakim has made.”

If you could take over any NPC’s job, who would it be and why?

“I don’t know that there really is a job I’d like to take over, I’m content with being head of the Speaker’s Guard and his bodyguard.”

What is the most beautiful sight you’ve seen?

“Watching Hakim roll over in bed and scrunch his face up at the sunlight peeking through the blinds. When Ven was still a baby and would make little ‘ababah’ noises at everything and everyone. When Null showed us their Void form for the first time.”

Do you have a favourite colour?

“.... Neutral whites and greys. Blue is good.”

Show us your favourite outfit!

“I don’t have a fashion taste, let alone a favourite outfit. Hakim... practically picks everything out for me, my fashion taste is that nonexistent.”

What’s your favourite shader?

“I’m not sure yet. Like I said, no fashion taste and this extends to not knowing what colours go well together.”

If you could make a wish to an Ahamkara for anything - no strings attached - what would you wish for?

“To save those infants I failed to during the Dark Age. So many little motes of Light lost to mere illness...”

#long post #vigil #vigilance #the speaker's bodyguard #the speaker's guard #hakim #null #polyparents #guardian #guardian asks #seigephoenix

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thewildheroine · 5 years

Text

Fly Away |Part Thirty-One|

Warnings: Death, violence, minor gore (the big three hng.)

Word Count: 3K

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: After an extremely long time away I amazingly got motivated to continue Fly Away over my Spring Break. Even more amazing??? I FINISHED IT!!!!! I’m so happy and just.... you guys have no idea how happy I am. Or maybe you do since this story has been dragging on for more than a year now with my random month long hiatuses (sorry about that btw). All chapters up to 35 will be published today!!! I’m so excited for you guys to read it!

|Masterlist|

“What?”

The words are raspy, weak and most of all desperate. In all that desperation I feel something powerful though. Hope.

My mother grabs my shoulders and drags me away from the window. I follow her without asking any questions. We stop in a dark corner where the sun can’t quite reach. Her eyes are pulling in every detail of my face and I do the same. Scared eyes have turned into fearless ones in a matter of seconds and I see myself in them.

There’s a way for me to get back home.

“I can only help you for the first part of the plan,” she tells me in a low voice. “Then it’s up to you.” Joy fills my lungs, my heart. Every nerve in my body electrifies. Laughter bubbles up in my throat and I let it out. I can go home. “You just need to be willing to do anything, Y/N.”

“Of course,” I reply excitedly. Home. Peter. Strange. Tony. Natasha. Bruce. Steve. Clint. Thor. Bucky. “I’ll do anything if it means going home.”

I want to stay this happy but the frown that appears on my mom’s face tell me otherwise. She bites her lower lip and nods before replacing it with a soft smile. Then I see the thin layer of tears in her eyes.

“Mom?”

“You are going home,” she reinforces. “No matter what.”

I fall silent enough to hear the whistle of wind outside the windows. My mom swallows hard. Her throat bobs and I hear the near silent gasp for air that rises from her mouth. I narrow my eyes, realizing that whatever she’s crying about, it can’t be good.

“What’s the plan, mom?” She doesn’t answer at first. Instead, she shakes her head side to side and gazes out the window. “ Mom? ”

“The only way you’re going to beat your father and take his magic is if you have magic of your own.”

It only takes me a second to connect the dots.

“No.”

“Y/N—”

“I refuse,” I growl. “I wholeheartedly, eternally refuse.” Turning to leave, I remove my gaze from her. My mom is quick though and before I know it she has me back where I was. Any tears that I may have seen earlier are gone. Her eyes have hardened into that of a warrior’s and I finally see the Valkyrie that she used to be.

“Peter needs you,” she reminds me. The name is a bullet through my heart. Peter. “Your family needs you, Y/N. You cannot give up on yourself because that means giving up on them.” I’m ready for her to continue the lecture, but my mom pulls me into her chest instead. I bask in her warmth. Warmth that is meant to be a goodbye.

“The last time I killed someone I vomited,” I whisper.

“I know.” Her rough fingers brush through my hair. “Please try not to do that this time.” I laugh. Truly laugh, but it turns into a quick sob by the end and I push my nose into her hair. Marking each scent in my head I commit every detail of her to memory. Fire and rain and melted iron. I smell a million battles and a billion more tears. Somehow, I smell myself. Magic. Magic and sunrises and coffee shops next to dirty back alleys. I live inside of her. From the moment I existed I have been engraved in the fabric of her being.

After today she will live in me.

“I wish I could’ve been your mom,” she tells me. “I wish I could’ve dressed you for your first day of kindergarten. I wish I could’ve shown you how to braid your hair like I used to for battles. I wish I taught you how to fight back and use the Asgardian side of your magic properly. I wish I could’ve helped you get ready for your first date. I wish I could’ve been your mom.”

I’m sobbing silently, my tears smeering against her skin. I have to keep reminding myself of home. Home. You can go home.

But it requires sacrifice.

I move my right hand against the side of her ribcage so that I can hear the steady thumping of her heart. She is not scared. Just sad.

I pull just enough magic from inside of her. Enough to feel that familiar weight in my wrist.

She still holds me.

I nuzzle her neck and whisper, “You are my mom.”

The needle shoots out.

My mom goes limp in my arms.

She still holds me.

“I love you.”

I pray she hears me.

The weight slowly disappears from my arms. When I glance down at where my needle sliced through her heart I see only golden light. Pure, beautiful light crafted from a thousand burning suns.

I feel it surge into me. It is her; my mother, a woman forged in fires of pain and loss and hope. Her magic lives in me, and therefore so does she.

“Thank you.” I retract my needle so that it is snug beneath my skin again and turn towards the exit. A door opens and closes outside, there is the sound of footsteps and a presence of hateful magic I’d know anywhere.

My mom died so I might get home.

I will not let that sacrifice be in vain.

He does not notice me at first. He does not care to.

I never forgot what magic feels like thrumming through your veins. What it feels like when you’re angry, or sad, and excited and it fills up the tips of your fingers so they buzz. It feels like life. It feels like a first kiss or swimming with sharks. It feels like freedom. It feels like flying away.

“I’m going home,” I announce, startling him. He twirls around and the rage on his face is apparent. For the first time, I don’t flinch at the familiarity in that expression. I revel in what it reveals instead. Because there is fear in his eyes. Fear I never thought existed as he beat me mentally and physically, as he killed my best friend and abandoned me.

I am something to be feared, and for the first time, I don’t fear that.

“Excuse me?”

I smirk and tilt my head to the side. My black needle whispers as it slides out of my arm. His eyes dart to the dark weapon.

“Where’s your mother?”

A pang of guilt shoots through my chest but there is a reassuring warmth as well. It’s her. She wants me to end this.

I wonder, how afraid can I make him before though?

“I killed her,” I say plainly. It is partially true, though she was already dead in a way. All that remained was her soul. A soul she was willing to give me. “I needed her magic.”

Deep inside my heart, I hope to see something close to grief on my father’s face. That’s what one should feel when they lose someone they love. There is only that hot anger though.

“So this is what it comes down to?” he steps closer to me. There is the sound of wood twisting and metal singing. The lights above flicker. “A fight?” A crack appears in the wall next to me and splinters down to the floor. The ceiling growls.

“Let’s call it a battle just for theatrics,” I say, swing my needle through the air. It strikes the floor in a flurry of sparks. The marble splits beneath the edge and a puff of dust curls up. “We always did love those.”

He smirks. “That suggests that there has been a war.”

“Hasn’t there?” I smile cruelly. “A silent war and we’re almost to the final battle.” My dad shakes his head, his smirk fading until there is only a frown.

“I brought you here so we could be a family.” He swings his arms out to gesture to the whole house. “Now look what you’ve done.” The ceiling above me cracks and I only have a moment to jump away before I’m crushed. I cough out the rubble that found its way to my lungs and glare up.

“You brought me here so I could be controlled.” I use my needle to help my stand. “But I’m free now. There’s no more lies, no more excuses or explanations, there's no power that you hold that I will allow to hold me down.”

Without hesitation, I clench my fist and the rest of the house comes crumbling down. Amidst the chaos, I hear nothing but my own heartbeat. Now that I think about it, I don’t think it is that. It is my magic, my life that is humming in my ears, telling me what my next move needs to be. The dust, broken metal, and destroyed drywall around me rises. It floats behind my back, transforming until I feel that familiar weight on my back. I glare through the oblivion at my dad.

We make eye contact and I roll back my shoulders. I hear the snap of my wings pulling me off the ground. I see the blue in the corner of my eyes and raise and hand to my throat where the choker Tony gave me remains. I press my fingers against it and release the suit. The navy blue scales soon cover my entire body.

“Dad,” I say, “I was born with wings. It’s time for me to fly.”

His relic appears out of nowhere. My dad takes aim but I do not move away.

I fly forward.

Bolts of magic shoot towards me. Luckily for me, he is meaning to incapacitate me, but not kill. Luckily for me, I mean to do the opposite.

Before each of us realizes it, I’m crashing into him. We slam into the ground hard and my wings turn into a bright blue halo around me. I get onto my feet as quick as I can, but his hands have already found my throat and he’s yanking me to my feet. Shortening my needle, I stab him under his arm, barely missing my mark. He hisses and drops me. His attention is drawn to the blood running out of him long enough for me to gather myself.

“You’re a great disappointment,” he growls under his breath. He’s searching for whatever words might disarm me the most. “My greatest regret.”

My needle drops to its full length. “Yeah?” I pant. “I’m sure plenty of people feel that way about you.”

He lunges at me without warning. It’s so sudden that I don’t have time to prepare myself for his attack. His relic runs through my skin, scraping against the lower side of my hip before exit my body entirely. I gasp and swing desperately.

By his hiss of pain, I assume I must’ve hit something. It’s only when he falls to his knees, his arms still trapping me, that I realize it was his leg I hit.

He pushes me away from him. I roll backward, the sting of his relic making me disoriented as my fingers lose contact with my needle.

My magic whispers that it’s time to finish this and it doesn’t taking any persuading for me to agree. I clench my fist while I’m beginning to turn back over. A weapon forms in my hand. When I get back to my knees, I’m aiming a gun at my father’s head.

He glares at me as he pulls my needle out of his leg. It went through his calf. My weapon rings against the broken marble tiles.

“You know I’ve always hated guns,” he reminds me. “They’re so ineloquent.”

“I don’t care.” His expression falls and I finally see the entire truth of who the man before me is. A coward.

“Are you prepared for what happens after you kill me, Y/N?” I cock my head to the side. “Once you kill me, and if you manage to defeat Dormammu, what happens then? You’ve lived your whole life with us guiding you. Every step you’ve taken, every move you’ve mad and fight you’ve had, we were there pushing you to our end goal,” he explains. I furrow my brows and open my mouth to refute his statement, but it is the truth. They have been the invisible hand throughout my whole life. All my decisions were influenced by them.

“You think you will become a hero?” he laughs. “A civilian? Maybe even a villain one day?” I drop the gun just a bit, but it is enough to show that I actually might believe him. “Whatever you do, it will be influenced by me, by the experiences you’ve had because of me. You’ll never escape my hold. I’ll always be a nagging voice in your head, one that you will listen to. I’ll always be a part of you, Y/N. You can’t kill me in any way that matters.”

And he might be right, but then I remember the moments that prove he is wrong because it was never their intention for me to become friends with Heather. If it was they wouldn’t have gotten her out of the picture as soon as they realized. It was their divine interference that made me talk to Peter in class nor was it them that made me text him that same day. I might’ve stayed with the Avengers because of my father, but they became my family because I wanted that.

Maybe he did influence me, maybe he will continue you influencing me, but their have been decisions that I have made only because of myself. Because no one told me to make Heather my sister. No one told me to fall in love with Peter. No one told me to find a home with the Avengers. Those were my decisions.

You can’t kill me in any way that matters.

I raise the gun.

“I can try.”

My finger pulls back on the trigger and it clicks. There is no bullet but my father’s eyes become glassy, and at the center of his forehead his skin fades into golden light. It surges towards me and I accept it. His dirty magic. It is what I need to get back home.

Home. Peter. Strange. Tony. Natasha. Bruce. Steve. Clint.

I remind myself over and over again. Their names become a mantra.

Home. Peter. Strange. Tony. Natasha. Bruce. Steve. Clint. Home. Peter. Strange. Tony. Natasha. Bruce. Steve. Clint.

Peter. Peter.

I stare into my pocket where I put the dust Strange gave me. My lips curl upwards into a soft smile.

I’m proud of you… And I know you will do the right thing, even when I’m gone.

Strange always knew what I’d have to do. There’s no other way he’d no to give me this. I pull as much of the dust as I can out of my pocket. With my other hand, I open my palm of the substance and call upon magic that I still have yet to take back.

Y/N… Your magic is your soul, and as long as you’re alive your soul will want to come home.

All of the sudden green light appears around my fingers. The sigils swirl around. I watch, entirely awestruck as the dust recollects into its original form. Soon, the full weight of my sling ring is resting in my hands.

Home.

I turn my face towards the light and feel all the warmth it has to offer.

I’m going home.

My feet kick up rubble as I walk towards my needle that lays discarded between what used to be the kitchen table.

I’m taking back my home.

I hold out my hand and call it back to my arm where it will only have a moment to rest.

I’m going to kill Dormammu.

I raise one hand while making circles with the other. Magic sparks in front of me and I see a glimmer of Earth.

I’m going to be a hero.

I raise my head, look towards the New York skyline where the sun used to rise and step through the portal.

I’m coming home.

A/N: For anyone who would like to not wait for me to upload the rest, the other chapters are already on my Ao3. Thank you for taking the time to read. Please comment what you thought or reblog.

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