#brought to you by my vague memories of watching my older brothers try to get through myst

[incomingalbatross]

I don’t know a lot about video games so my headcanons are limited here, but I do think that after Point of Salvation Jacob gets Ezekiel into Myst by telling him how hard it is

...and then Cassandra gets pulled in by her own competitive instinct, and they’re all comparing progress on the puzzles and how long each one took them

(and Eve just has to endure the nerd-fest because she does not care about puzzles.)

#brought to you by my vague memories of watching my older brothers try to get through myst #i imagine jacob and ezekiel would both brag a lot about their skills in puzzle and puzzle-heavy games #i don't know whether jenkins would ignore them because Computers Bad or get sucked in himself because Ego #oh no WAIT #obviously he would deliberately and infuriatingly call all their little computer game things by the wrong names just to annoy them #Annoying the Children is his favorite pastime #a distraction of librarians

[whatgaviiformes]

For the cute asks- Rocking chair with wee!Tracys?

Characters: Gordon Tracy, Scott Tracy, Lucy's Dad Words: 850 Genre: Fluff (A/N - I like the idea that Gordon got it from somewhere)

*****

Their granddad had been right, Scott thought, as Thunderbird Four hit the water and over comms a whoop layered with laughter roared in his ear. It was a wince-worthy volume, but Scott couldn’t stop smiling. Gordon’s joy had that effect on people, and even Brains, focused on the incoming data from the machines, had a shine to his eyes, behind his large frames.

Plus, it reminded him of his own first voyage with One. Gordon’s marine technobabble wasn’t so different than his own language of aerodynamics and mathematics.

“Easy, Gords. I need my eardrums,” he teased, continuing to watch his own view of the monitors. “Take her down slow.”

“Scott! That was awesome! I mean, I’m not going to let that statement go, but first that was ahhhh-mazing! I can’t believe she’s done!”

“She’s in testing,” he reminded him, as he was supposed to be giving them feedback about her handling during her first foray into the seawater around Tracy Island.

“Yeah,” Gordon laughed. “But you can’t just gloss over a comment like that. What was Grandpa right about?”

“Oh!” Scott corrected himself, “Not Grandpa Tracy, but Grandad Tanner, on mom’s side. You probably don’t remember him that well. You were just a baby.”

“500 feet.” A quiet crackle. “Tell me more. I’ll admit my memories are vague. What was he right about?”

“Well, he always knew you were made for the water….”

.

.

. ~*~

The household was in a flurry of activity, with Jeff tackling the kids upstairs while Lucy briefed her father on the normal course of events for the evening.

“Are you sure you got this, Dad?”

Sharp green eyes watched his daughter check her purse three times and circle the kitchen for her husband’s keys. It was rare that she and Jeff managed to get a night out to themselves, and it showed. She seemed stressed about the opportunity to relax!

“Hmm,” the older man joked, hiking the sleeping baby a bit further up his chest where he rocked him on the rocking chair. Though his hair had gone completely white beneath the Irish wool cap, his beard still held speckles of its original red. “It’s like you don’t think I’ve ever changed a diaper.”

“But—”

“Luce. Go enjoy yourselves. They’re my grandkids too. I’ve got this.”

Scott half-listened to the exchange, focused more on the parts of his newest model plane spread over the table. He was only allowed to work on it there, because he needed to make sure the small parts wouldn’t end up on the floor where Gordy or Johnny could get them.

But when Granddad mentioned him and his brothers, he perked up to see what was going on, in time for him to toss him a wink while Mom and Dad brought the rest of the kids down and then left for their event. Scott grinned at that. Grandad always treated them like they all held some deep secret together.

Scott tried to focus on his plane, he really did, but there was too much to be distracted by with all the kids in the room, and Granddad’s humming.

“Scotty,” Granddad whispered, gesturing for him to come closer. “Wanna help me with Gordon?”

Of course, Scott was willing to help, but he had a different idea. “Can’t I help with Virgil or John? Gordon always cries for me.”

Granddad chuckled, deep from his belly, and the baby blinked, nuzzling his head closer to the vibrations. “This one just needs a rocking,” he encouraged. “I can show you.”

He sprang up to give Scott the opportunity to sit where he had been on the rocking chair, carefully placing Gordon in Scott’s arms and showing him the proper position for keeping him upright and safe. The baby fussed with the hand over, but just as Granddad said, he started to settle with the soft movements of the rocking chair, and Scott took good care not to swing too harshly.

After a few soft movements trying to mimic what Granddad had done, Scott glanced up.

“Like that?” he whispered.

“Just like that,” Granddad smiled down at him, proudly. “That boy’s going to be a sailor some day. Just like his ol’ granddad.”

“How do you know, Granddad?”  

He gestured to the chair. “It’s the lull of the sea. Your brother’s got the ocean in ‘im. And you,” he ruffled Scott’s hair, “you’re just like your father. You’ve got the sky in ya.”

That made Scott feel like he’d won all the candy from the arcade, being compared to his dad. He wanted to be just like him when he grew up.

“Grandad?” Scott asked as Gordon started wriggling again. “Can you tell me what you were singing?”

“Oh, that my boy was a shanty, from long ago - If you gave your best and your heart stayed true…” ~*~ .

.

.

“Keep Hauling, Keep Hauling,” Gordon sang as he reported in, and Scott recognized it as the same tune his Granddad had taught him long ago though it had been ages since he'd uttered it. “I know it. I don’t know how I do, but I do."

#Gavii Scribit #Ask Box Prompts #ficlets #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #Wee!Tracys

[absolutelyfizzing]

Sifu Hotman

zuko x water tribe sibling!reader

request - I want to request a Zuko x fem reader being Sokka and Katara's sister. She can be the older sister or sokka's twin sister. Also when they start dating Sokka and Katara can like threaten him by saying don't hurt my sister or else.

A/N - This is taking place after the war, I'm vaguely uncomfy writing for underage people (or like younger than 17) so I just went ahead and aged them up. I'm sorry if that's not what you were wanting! I'm also sort of ignoring the plot of the comics and stuff and we are ignoring Mai's existence. I don't feel like this was my best writing by any means but i tried and i thought it was a cute idea. There will probably be more zuko x reader coming soon

word count - 2000

MASTERLIST

You took a deep breath in, the warm air refreshing after having just spent the last month in the southern water tribe with your family besides Katara who was off saving lives with Aang. Your twin brother stood beside you, his hair grown out and tied into a ponytail. Your sister would be here in the fire nation in a week with Aang. It had been three years since the war, you had just been kids at the time. You and Sokka were 15 during the last battle and you had felt so old then. Now, looking back, you had been immature and childish but you had grown up. After the war ended you remained in the fire nation for a few months. You had wanted to get a little bit of quiet before you started going on more adventures with your brother.

You had been very close with Zuko while he was traveling with you and the gang. You didn't know why but you trusted him, maybe it was because you trusted Toph's judgement but either way you had accepted him quicker than the others. You remembered how cold the rest of the group had been to him and it almost was funny to you now considering that Katara had just told you a story in a recent letter about Toph, Aang, and Zuko getting into a bickering match about fire flakes that ended in Toph trapping both of the boys into a earth tent. It was also hard to comprehend that Zuko was the new Firelord and he ruled over a whole nation.

It had been 2 years since you saw Zuko in person. It wasn't on purpose but you kept getting pulled in different directions, none of them leading you into the fire nation. You were excited but also scared to see him, butterflies filling your stomach at the thought of seeing him. You'd had a bit of a crush on the new Firelord when you last saw him but you refused to tell either of your siblings, knowing that they would threaten him to high heaven before he even knew about it.

Your brother walking beside you calmed you a bit, his presence being comforting to you. He was much taller than you now and he was more confident than the kid he had been during the war. You knew that the same was true for Aang, though he never grew up in personality. As you approached the gates of the palace you wondered if Zuko had changed.

You realized that he had as the gates opened and he was stood on the steps up to the palace waiting for both of you. His hair was long and it was pulled into a messy bun. His scar was no longer shrouded in his bangs and he seemed more confident in his stance. His robes were long and elegant and you wondered if he wore them by choice of if they were required because of his position. Your brother jogged slightly to get to Zuko faster, having grown to hold a strong bond with the man. You walked calmly but there was a smile on your face as your brother and Zuko embraced. Once the released each other Zuko turned to you. You noticed him gulp a bit and a blush threatened to cover your cheeks. Your grin became wider the closer you got to him and soon you were wrapped in his embrace.

You noticed that his frame was larger. You leaned your head back from the hug to look at his face and he looked well. Like he was happy and maybe even getting enough sleep.

"Hey there, Sifu Hotman." You smiled and Zuko rolled his eyes as he released you from the hug.

"I see we haven't matured in 2 years?" He grunts but you can see the smile trying to creep onto his face. "Toph still calls me that too." He grumbled lowly and you started laughing.

"Where is the little demon?"

"She's away dealing with some prisoners for me. She should be back in a week or so." Zuko smiled. "She's taken up a pretty important role here. She's like my personal lie detector. She likes to sit in on council meetings and scare everyone."

"I think that's actually her dream job." You smiled and Zuko hummed in agreement. There was a bit of a silence as you and Zuko just gazed at each other. He seemed so sure now. You had missed him dearly.

"Okay! Let's get this show on the road, people!" Sokka yelled and you internally groaned that he had to ruin the moment. Before you all turned toward the palace, Zuko sent you a wink and you felt a blush cover your face. As you headed up the steps of the palace you felt a comforting hand on your lower back as the Fire Lord gently followed behind you, Sokka running ahead of you, likely to find the food in the kitchens that he was accostomed to spending all of his time in.

"Can I speak to you in private when we get a moment?" Zuko asks and again your heart rate picks up. You turn your head to look at him.

"Of course" You smiled and he smiles back at you, making your head spin a bit. You spent the next few hours meeting new advisors, getting a tour through new parts of the palace, and catching up with Zuko who seemed to be acting more clingy than you had ever remembered him to be.

"Y/N, would you mind coming with me?" Zuko asked and you turned to face him with a smile.

"Of course!" You chirped as he led you to a secluded hallway away from your brother who was discussing war strategy with an advisor of Zuko's.

When you reached a place where you were out of earshot of others Zuko gently took your hands.

"I have something to confess." He stated and you felt fire on your cheeks, you nodded for him to continue, "I'm in love with you. I have been for years and I've never acted on it because there was always something going on and I was so unsure but now-" he gazed into your eyes with sincerity, "I couldn't be more sure. I want to be with you. If you'd have me, that is." Instead of answering you jumped forward, pressing your lips onto Zuko's in a searing kiss. He groaned and pushed back, trapping you against a wall. He pulled away to press his forehead into yours and you closed your eyes for a moment before opening them again and gazing at the man in front of you.

"Katara is gonna kill you." You mumbled and Zuko smiled.

"You aren't worried about Sokka?"

"I just know that Sokka can't win in a fight against you. Katara on the other hand..." you trailed off and Zuko looked offended.

"That's pretty rude to say to the man who just confessed his love for you."

"I'm just being honest. Toph might have some words too."

Zuko shuddered at the thought of what they could do to him. Sokka would be upset but he could probably handle it. Aang would be happy for both of them he was sure, always the peacemaker and moderator. Aang would probably be the only reason that Katara wouldn't attack Zuko immediately.

Over the next week you snuck around with Zuko, taking alone time any chance that you got. Sokka rarely let you get any peace as he stayed with you nearly constantly. He was always a little on the defence with you and he would likely settle in and ease up over the coming weeks as he got used to the new environment. You were never a huge fighter, though you could hold your own. You also couldn't bend. You were the one of the group who took care of everyone, you were the smartest in strategy by far, and you were the only one who could reason with Toph. Because of this, Sokka had gotten used to just being near you in case anything happened, though it was rare that anything did. You appreciated it normally but now you wanted time alone so that you could spend it with Zuko as you got used to being in a relationship that was more than platonic. But today was the day that the rest of the gang was arriving, even Suki would be joining you so you hoped that would take some of the clingy-ness of Sokka away. You all stood at the front of the palace, much like Zuko had stood for you a week earlier, and watched as Appa approached in the distance. He flew gently in front of you and as soon as he landed in front of you he licked you with his giant tongue and you were covered in slobber. Despite this you couldn't be happier to see the giant animal and you embraced him. You were suddenly pulled away and brought into the arms of your little sister.

"I missed you, Y/N." She mumbled into your neck and you smiled into hers, it had been so long since you had seen her and you felt tears come to your eyes at the relief of having her near.

You spent the next hours catching up with Katara and Aang, who had grown to be taller than you since you last saw him. Toph and Suki arrived that night and you were all glad to be together again at last, old memories coming back and filling you all with joy. You and Zuko looked at each other and you took a deep breath. You had discussed that you would be revealing your relationship to the rest of the group when you were all together but you were nervous for their reactions.

"So... I have something I would like to tell you guys." You stated and all of the conversation died down, all eyes suddenly on you. "Me and Zuko are together." You rushed out and you only got blank stares for a moment before there was groaning from Toph and Sokka.

"You couldn't have waited another year? I didn't think you would have figured it out by now." Toph grumbled and pulled some coins out of her pocket, Sokka doing the same. Suki and Katara held out their hands and money got dropped into them, both with smug looks on their faces. Zuko looked over at you and had the same look of shock that you likely did.

"What?" You mumbled.

"We all knew you were going to get together of course, you've been pining after each other for years, but me and Suki said you would be getting together this month and Toph said in a year. Sokka actually said in 3 months so he was closer than Toph was." Katara stated simply and you still just stared at her, mouth agape. "We also talked about the fact that if he hurts you," Her gaze shifted to a nervous looking Zuko, "we would all be committing some crimes."

"I feel like I should clarify that those crimes include maiming and murder." Sokka glared at Zuko and he gulped.

"But I'm so happy for you two!" Katara exclaimed, her attitude shifting completely. You and Zuko stared at each other in shock and then you smiled at him. You were so happy to finally be together and to have your friends around you.

#zuko imagine #zuko #zuko x reader #zuko x reader imagine #x reader #imagine #fluff #fluffy #zuko fluff #katara #sokka #aang #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla x reader #atla imagine #avatar tlok #toph #sukki #zuko x Y/N

[robininthelabyrinth]

Initiative - aka NMJ and JYL get engaged - ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2

Jiang Yanli’s first engagement had been announced when she was three and a half years old – there had been a big party, festooned in color, exquisitely and meticulously planned out in advance, and she’d been obliged to stand on stage next to a baby in a cradle that had done nothing but cry and spit as all the adults around her congregated and congratulated each other on the excellent match.

She hadn’t enjoyed that at all.

Her second wedding announcement was simultaneously more casual and more noteworthy, and she enjoyed it tremendously. 

Madame Jin had sent several invitations to Jiang Yanli to come visit Lanling in advance of the hunt planned for Phoenix Mountain, speaking of how beautiful it was and how much she looked forward to seeing her good friend’s daughter – talking about she’d always regretted how Jiang Yanli had been obligated by circumstances to take shelter at the Unclean Realm rather than in Lanling City, although she’d been pleased to hear from her son that she was doing well – all the right sort of words. The words might have been more welcome if Jiang Yanli hadn’t known that Madame Jin was still intent on securing the marriage she had arranged.

If she hadn’t been engaged, she would have accepted the invitation, hoping to form an alliance for her sect through a close relationship with Madame Jin even if she didn’t have one with Jin Zixuan (no matter what Madame Jin hoped), but as she was, in fact, engaged to another – even if it hadn’t been formally announced – it would be inappropriate to go. So she instead played ignorant and responded graciously, protesting that she couldn’t possibly impose, that the rebuilding at the Lotus Pier needed her, but that she would of course be happy to attend the hunt alongside the rest of her sect.

She arrived at her brother’s side, smiling all the while.

Her second engagement was announced like this: Sect Leader Jin, using his newly legitimized son as his mouthpiece, had brought forward some ghastly ‘entertainment’ that involved shooting at helpless prisoners, tied up in chains. Jin Zixuan had complied, but Wei Wuxian had marched out and disrupted everything by showing off to a ridiculous extent – Nie Mingjue, who had been watching with a black face full of rage but unable to speak due to propriety, had started applauding very loudly and very enthusiastically – and Sect Leader Jin had ordered the prisoners taken away.

“Well, then,” he said, clapping as if he had impressed himself: as if they hadn’t just been subjected to a powerplay under the guise of hospitality, as if everyone would be over-awed by his might now that they had seen him abuse the helpless while they were all forced by the rules of etiquette to say nothing or else risk carrying the blame for trying to start another war. “Absent anything else, we should proceed to the hunt itself, where await you only the finest of prey and the sharpest competition among your peers.”

For the further display of the power of the Jin sect, he meant.

“Actually,” Nie Mingjue said, interjecting in a moment in which Sect Leader Jin had paused to take a breath so that it was technically not an interruption, “there is one thing. A request, in fact.”

Sect Leader Jin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he maintained his false smile. “Of course, Sect Leader Nie. What can I do for you?”

“I’m getting married,” Nie Mingjue said. “The bride is Young Mistress Jiang, of Yunmeng Jiang, and I would like –” He raised his voice to overcome the abrupt explosion of talk that had erupted. “– I would like to have her accompany my sect in today’s hunt. I hope that doesn’t interfere with your plans for a competition between the sects?”

There were those who said that Jiang Yanli’s chosen husband was bad at politics, and they might even be right. But it didn’t really matter in the end if he’d thought of the idea on a whim or if it’d been a prearranged plan by Nie Huaisang, who was cleverer than he liked to let on to people, Jiang Yanli’s future husband had still wiped away in a single sentence all memory of the farce they’d all just endured and of the hunt that was yet to come, ensuring that the only thing anyone would remember about today was the shocking news of the engagement of the leader of one Great Sect to the sister of another.

(And if everyone remembered that at the last celebration hosted by Sect Leader Jin, he had proposed to resurrect the marriage between Jiang Yanli and his own son, instead, forcing her to publicly demur on vague terms…well, that just made it all the more satisfying.)

Now it was Sect Leader Jin’s turn to scowl and glare, and Madame Jin’s expression looked no less thunderous, but in the end Jiang Yanli got to go with the Nie sect on the hunt.

“You know I’ll only slow you down,” she said to Nie Mingjue, who snorted.

“No more than Huaisang will,” he said, and if his face was stern and his voice gruff then she still thought she detected fondness and humor beneath it. “Besides, it’ll be a good opportunity to measure you.”

It turned out that he meant that more literally than she might have thought.

Jiang Yanli was promptly whisked away to the back of the Nie retinue by a small cadre of Nie disciples, men and women both. She was presented with a number of training sabers shaped out of wood and made to hold them in a variety of positions as they murmured things about stability and reach and balance as if they really, truly thought that she would actually use the saber they were preparing for her.

“This one,” Nie Jiahui, a steely older woman with silver in her hair and fierce eyes, eventually announced, and the practice saber Jiang Yanli had been waving around was taken away. She was then presented with one that was twice as heavy, for “practice”.

“Do you always practice with something heavier than the actual thing?” she asked, and Nie Jiahui nodded.

“Strengthens the shoulders,” she said, curt but not standoffish. “Have some candy.”

Jiang Yanli blinked, but smiled and accepted the offer. It was licorice, which she liked.

“Do you often carry candy with you on night-hunts?” she asked, listening to the sound of fighting from up ahead. Every so often, a disciple or two would trot by carrying the corpses of larger and larger creatures, slain in the fighting; it seemed that the Nie sect was not, in fact, being slowed down in the slightest by her presence.

Of course, she also wasn’t being tended to as if she were their chosen lady, either, as she might have otherwise expected – all pomp and flowery language, Nie Mingjue by her side at all times to show her around as if they were on a pleasure stroll – but in all honesty that would have been a little bewildering. It was very much not the Nie sect’s character, all practical and straightforward, and she found that she preferred it that way.

“It’s important to have something to replenish energy,” Nie Huaisang said, having dropped back to join them from the front. He looked tired and grumpy, but his saber appeared to have been put to some work; he immediately climbed up into the carriage that people were taking turns riding and started cleaning it. “And licorice candy clears the lungs.”

“Clears the lungs?” Jiang Yanli asked.

“It’s good for more than that,” Nie Jiahui said. “But that’s one of the uses, yes. Do you ever feel like your chest is too tight, especially when you move too much? Leading to coughing, shortness of breath, your lips turning blue?”

Jiang Yanli blinked. “Yes,” she said. “But that’s just because I was born with a weak body.”

Nie Jiahui scoffed and Nie Huaisang laughed. “Good luck with that,” he said cheerfully. “I was born with muscles that didn’t keep their tone: too flexible, incapable of gathering strength, requiring more energy to do less, making me twice as tired twice as fast – even sitting up straight can be a struggle in some extreme cases, though luckily not mine. And do you think that helped me one bit in getting out of saber training? It did not.”

“Early childhood intervention is best,” Nie Jiahui said. “But the next best is starting today. I’ll show you some low-impact exercises that you can start working on to strengthen your shoulders and stomach, as well as some balance movements to center yourself and improve your posture – that way, by the time your actual saber is ready, you’ll be able to take it through one of the basic routines.”

“I’m happy to learn whatever you have to teach,” Jiang Yanli said, ignoring Nie Huaisang’s dramatic cry of ‘And here I thought you’d be on my side!’ “I only regret troubling you.”

“Not at all,” Nie Jiahui said. “It’ll be good to have someone watching the Sect Leader’s back on night-hunts.”

Jiang Yanli felt a surge of terror and excitement in her belly. “He would trust me with that? You would trust me with that?”

“I did tell you that you’d need to keep up with him,” Nie Huaisang said mildly, and it was true, he had, only she’d assumed it was a bit more metaphorical. “You don’t have to fight or even walk too much, if it doesn’t suit you – my grandmother was lame in both her legs from a childhood illness, she rode everywhere, scariest woman I’ve ever met by far – but you do have to be there. Someone needs to be able to tell my brother to stop. Someone he’ll listen to.”

And wasn’t that something of a thrill to think of?

Jiang Yanli wasn’t someone anyone listened to – not her parents, not her brother, not her sect disciples. She’d always been the one who comforted them afterwards, who supported them; she made them food and tried to convince them to be kinder to each other, and sometimes they even tried for a while before getting into another tiff. They would kill for her if she so much as hinted at it, tear down the sky for her, but it was more in the nature of indulging her rather than actually allowing them to guide her.

Yet here was Chifeng-zun, a war hero and a sect leader, one of the most powerful men in the world, a man admired by men and sought after (even if only in their hearts) by women, and his family was telling her that he would listen to her.

“If you say so,” she demurred, but they insisted, and by the time the hunt was over Jiang Yanli was surprised to realize that she hadn’t needed to resort to sitting on the carriage more than twice the entire time.

“We’ll send Auntie Jiahui to the Lotus Pier after today’s hunt is done,” Nie Huaisang chattered cheerfully in her ear as they headed back towards Jinlin Tower. “She’ll work you through your paces, believe you me, and all the supplemental things, too – making sure you eat the right thing, take medicinal baths to improve your meridians, apply massages to loosen your joints…those parts are nice, actually. Take care of your body as you would your saber, take care of your saber as you would your wife! That’s how the saying goes. Trust me, you’ll be regretting the whole thing soon enough.”

Jiang Yanli didn’t think she would. “You seem very confident that A-Cheng will allow you to do as you please, even in the Lotus Pier.”

“I’ll tell him it concerns secret Nie sect marriage rituals,” Nie Jiahui interjected. “When two women are involved, men tend to run away when the words ‘marriage’ and ‘secret’ are combined.”

Sadly, she was probably right.

“Show me those exercises again,” she requested, and Nie Jiahui climbed up on to the carriage to show her the ones she could do even while sitting down.

Jiang Yanli might never have had the opportunity to strengthen herself before, and she was moderately certain that she wouldn’t have too much success now, as the various tricks Nie Jiahui had taught her were largely body refinement, barely reliant on qi, and her cultivation was still as low as ever.

But she was good at devoting herself to learning something when she wanted to, and as soon the hunt at Phoenix Mountain was over and they had shifted over to the various feasts and meetings that Lanling Jin had planned for the rest of the week, she began her efforts at self-improvement in earnest.

The weak body her mother had always despaired of might always be weak – Nie Jiahui had been quite blunt on that subject, making it clear that nothing she was suggesting was some sort of miracle pill, and furthermore that there was nothing wrong with being weak as long as she made an effort (Nie Huaisang had been the recipient of several pointed looks there) – but Jiang Yanli was determined to at least demonstrate that she was trying.

A gesture of good faith, perhaps. Some small show of initiative.

Nie Huaisang had said that Nie Mingjue appreciated her initiative.

“A-Xian,” she called one morning, only a few days later. “A-Xian, are you going out for a walk? Let me come with you.”

“You’ve gone on a lot of walks recently,” Wei Wuxian laughed, but allowed her to take his arm as they walked into the crowd. “Do you like Lanling City so much?”

“It’s the exercise I’m after,” she said, smiling at him. “The Nie sect is a martial sect, remember? I’ll be going on more night-hunts in the future, if all goes well, and I’ll need to keep up.”

“Oh, but surely they’ll bring a carriage..? I don’t know if you really need to go on night-hunts –”

“I want to! It’ll be nice. Don’t worry about me so much, A-Xian –”

Wei Wuxian was shaking his head, smiling, and he wasn’t looking where he was going; perhaps that was why he bumped into the young woman.

But then she looked up at him, and he looked down at her, and he froze.

“Wen Qing?”

#mdzs #jiang yanli #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #initiative #the untamed #includes my medical HCs for JYL and NHS #but no actual medical incidents

[velvetcloxds]

MEET THE MIKAELSONS| D.H.

Pairing: Derek x Fem! Reader, Teen Wolf x The Originals (requested) 

Word count: 1962 words

Warning: none, just fluff

Summary: Reader takes her friends and her boyfriend, Derek to visit her family home where they find out that she’s related to the infamous Mikaelson vampires.

“Just don’t touch anything,” I command calmly, Stiles pausing mid air as his hand hovers over one of Klaus’s paintings and everyone allows for a soft laugh, Derek kissing the side of my head as his hand remains inside my back pocket.

“This place is beautiful,” Lydia notes, looking around slowly as her eyes move over the various features of the compound.

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug, walking deeper into the compound as I mimic her actions, mentally comparing the way it looks to the pictures Rebekah sent me with her letters and I can’t help but smile when my eyes settle on the Mikaelson crest, fingers reaching out mindlessly as I trace the carved wall numbly.

“What does it stand for?” Derek asks, moving behind me where he wraps his hands around my waist, face resting on my shoulder. My smile grows due to the gesture, free hand finding one of his.

“Mikaelson,” I note softly, memories of our family suddenly speeding through my mind like a slideshow, things I’d told myself I’d forgotten completely proving to be embedded into my brain.

“Like the ancient vampire family?” Scott asks, having disappeared to the bathroom for a minute as soon as we got here.

“More vampires?” Stiles asks from behind me, and I nod.

“Yeah, they’re the first of their kind,” I explain, though my attention is far from this conversation, a feeling similar to the one I felt when I explained this to Derek, him being the only one knowing not only who I truly am and where I come from, but whom I was running from. “The Originals,” I add, and Derek gives me a slight squeeze, turning me around in his arms, probably picking up on my dazed state.

“Cool,” Is all Stiles offers as a reply, taking Lydia’s hand as Scott follows them to explore more of the house.

“You okay?” He whispers, leaning towards me. I nod in his hold, hands moving to his arms.

“Just a little weird being here, I guess.” I look up to him, smiling slightly when our eyes meet. “I thought that when I finally got to see this place in all its glory, they’d be here with me, waiting maybe,” Derek nods with understanding, smiling sympathetically.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” He loosens his grip, leaning back to get a better look at me. “We can leave if you’re not comfortable,” He offers sweetly and I shake my head with a smile, kissing his lips quickly.

“No,” I tell him though I can’t hide the slight rise in my tone, his brows furrowing as a result. “We need to let things cool down in Beacon Hills and no one will bother us here,” I pause, sighing softly as I move my hands over his bare arms. “Besides, there’s a literal coffin around here somewhere with my name on it.”

“Wait really?” Derek asks intrigued as he looks around the room pointlessly. I nod, not fighting against the smile on my lips.

“Yeah, a dagger too, but I doubt we’ll find that just laying around,” I pull away from him briefly, taking his hand in mine as I guide him towards the hallway by the staircase where Stiles’ is excitedly gesturing towards the wall.

“It’s her!” He announces loudly, eyes moving over the painting that Klaus painted of our family, and I subconsciously tighten my grip on Derek’s hand, his thumb moving up and down against my skin to soothe me.

“It’s not her,” Lydia argues with a roll of her eyes, arms folded as Scott simply watches the scene unfold. “It’s far more likely to be a relative that looks remarkably a lot like her,” She reasons and Derek bites back a grin at my side.

“She’s a vampire, right?” Stiles ask, looking to me for conformation and I nod, seeing no need for the question as he literally walked in on me sipping from a blood bag a few months ago. “And she’s been annoyingly vague about her family and her history, right?” He asks, question directed at Scott and Lydia this time, they both nod. “And she brought us to her family home, which has paintings of the Mikaelson family which Scott saw in the bestiary, where he also read that the Mikaelson family also have a long-lost hybrid sister who hasn’t been spotted in years…” Stiles nods eagerly as he waits for the pieces to fall together, Scott and Lydia looking to me as it does.

“Are you a Mikaelson?” Scott asks, hands in his pockets as he shifts on his feet, I release a shaky breath before offering a mere nod as reply, Stiles almost jumping up and down with the conformation of him being correct.

“Holy shit,” Stiles begins and turns to me, eyes sparkling with excitement. “That is so cool, like literally the coolest thing you’ve ever told us about yourself,” He informs me, and Derek shakes his head at my side, glaring at the boy as he continues to grow more excited.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Scott asks hesitantly, ignoring Stiles who is fiddling with his jacket sleeves as he takes a closer look at my specific painting. “Didn’t you trust us?” He adds as well, and I shake my head quickly.

“Of course I trust you,” I begin, and Derek squeezes my hand again, reminding me to breathe as I think of the best way to explain this. “I wanted to tell you all, truly I did, but our family has enemies around every corner, and I didn’t want to bring you guys into that,” I look over all of them quickly before turning to meet Derek’s gaze. “I love you all too much to create unnecessary collateral damage.“

“So why tell us now?” Lydia questions with a raised brow and I notice the added heartbeats filling the room behind us before I could fathom a reply, the gushing wind of their entrance still swirling around us.

“Because you’re in need of our assistance,” A familiar voice explains, and I close my eyes for a second in preparation before turning to face my older brother.

“Elijah,” I whisper in acknowledgement, the words barely leaving my lips before he’s picking me up into his arms, twirling me around in a welcoming hug that causes a childlike giggle to erupt from my lips. “I’ve missed you too,” I confirm, hands on his shoulders as he sets my feet back on the ground and I take a moment to center myself. “And you,” I say when my eyes meet with Rebekah’s, happy tears tugging at her eyes and I release myself from Elijah’s presence to pull her into my arms, her arms folding around my neck as she holds me close.

“It has been far too long, Y/n ,” She whispers, laughing lightly through her tears. She squeezes me tightly before pulling away, hands moving to comb back the hair that’s been ruffled through our hug and her hands still on my cheeks as she takes me in. “My little sister, even more beautiful than I remember,” She notes, which earns a scoff from both my lips and Elijah’s.

“I look exactly the same, Bekah and you know it,” I muse, taking the handkerchief from Elijah’s hands to hold it out for Rebekah . “Though, I’d never turn down the compliment from the beauty of the family.”

“Oh, I take great offense by your insinuation, love, ” Klaus announces, and everyone turns to the entrance, where he leans against the wall, watching the interaction. “Welcome home, Y/n,” He notes with a large smile, and I know as far as greeting go, that’s quite the scene from the hybrid.

“Thank you, Niklaus,” I offer in the same and my cheeks practically hurt form the pure excitement rushing through me at seeing them all again, the nerves and discomfort from earlier slipping away almost completely, until Klaus’ eyes meet Derek’s and suddenly reality sinks back in. I take a few steps back, smiling up at Derek before rejoining our hands, my other hand snaking around his upper arm to keep him close. “I should introduce everyone,” I note with a nervous smile and Derek simply nods reassuringly.

“I’d begin with the creature you’re so eagerly latching onto,” Klaus announces, happy tone from earlier replaced with the all so familiar big brother voice.

“Play nice, Niklaus,” Elijah instructs, accepting my grateful smile before silently commanding me to continue.

“This is my boyfriend, Derek,” I begin, looking up at the man as he extends a hand towards Elijah inducing the longest handshake I’ve ever had to endure until Rebekah clears her throat, the two men pulling away from each other. “Then there’s Lydia, Stiles and Scott,” I add, releasing a small huff of air as I gesture to each of them individually.

“It’s good to meet all of,” Rebekah speaks up, catching my gaze with a warm smile before she looks to my guests. “We’re the Mikaelsons,” She explains, and I nod lightly. “Elijah, Klaus and I’m Y/n’s personal favorite, Rebekah,” She declares simply, mimicking my gesture until everyone has extended an acknowledging nod.

“We should talk business,” Klaus commands suddenly, standing from his leaning position to walk towards us. “You bunch are here for a reason, aren’t you?” He muses with a slight wink my way and I roll my eyes at the remark, knowing that only he would take this opportunity to take a jab at my decision to leave them.

“Don’t start, Niklaus,” Elijah offers with a tight tone and I would’ve laughed if the room wasn’t so tense, a sense of familiarity filling me at the little group dynamic that’s remained the same through all these years.

“I’m not starting anything, Elijah,” Klaus replies, hurriedly pulling his leather jacket straight. “I’m simply trying to remind our dear sister that she is here on what she called a family favor and that we wouldn’t want to waste her precious time,” I’m too late to stop the soft laugh that escapes my lips, Klaus turning towards be in slight shock.

"Honestly Klaus, it has been centuries and you're telling me that no one has yet to remove that stick from your ass?” I mock and Elijah steps forward, fully prepared to stop the interaction when a smile traces the hybrids lips.

“Little sister,” He muses and then shakes his head, pointing at me. “You have booked yourself a long dinner,” He announces and pats Elijah on the shoulder to invite him to leave the room with him. Elijah spares me a brief smile before following.

“That went better than expected,” Rebekah notes and I smile at her, nodding with relief as Klaus and Elijah begin discussing the diner plans on their climb up the stairs. “Why don’t I show you three your rooms,” she says and motions for Scott, Stiles and Lydia to follow them, pausing to give me a quick kiss on the cheek before leading them away as well. I turn to Derek with a smile, his eyes already waiting for mine as I do.

“You did good, sweetheart,” he tells me, making my heart swell as I lean into him. “I’m very proud of you,” He adds, and I feel a blush creeps onto my cheeks.

“I couldn’t have done it without you at my side,” I say simply, resting my chin against his chest as I look up at him. He hums lightly, shaking his head as he lifts his free hand to gently push the hair behind my ear.

“You definitely could have,” He muses and gently kisses my forehead, sending a welcome rush of pure bliss through my veins, I smile as he lingers close. “My brave girl.”

Hi there, more of my work can be found on Wattpad.  Mxx.

Masterlist

#derek x reader #derekhale x reader #derek hale #derek hale imagines #derek hale one shot #teenwolf x reader #teen wolf #teen wolf fluff #the originals x reader #the originals #klaus mikaelson #elijah mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #the mikaelsons

[lily-drake]

Death

Death was nothing new in Marinette’s life.  In fact it played a large role.  Her friends and city had died a hundred times over.  Her brother.  Her funny, smart, loving, dramatic brother had died at the hands of a mad man.  She didn’t think it was wrong for her to use the horse miraculous to visit her brother's grave.  It was officially five years after all.  He would be 20, he would have loved to plan out her 16th birthday this year.  She sat down and read Pride and Prejudice out loud, only a few tears falling as she glanced at the grave every so often.  She had also brought a bouquet of white lilies, statices, red carnations, and white daisies.  Soft grass laid over the dirt, the sun gleamed above, and sometimes when she would lean against the grave it was almost like she could feel him.

Dark storm clouds began to cloud the sky, and she knew she would have to leave soon, though she didn’t want to.  Dad would be upset if he caught her, though considering how many weeds she had to remove from the grave and how abandoned it looked, she doubted anyone had visited any time soon.  Suddenly the rain began to pour down and it felt like the earth shook.  She felt a great imbalance, but where, and how?  She touched both of her ears and she could feel her miraculous still there, Tikki even poked her head out from her bag with a look of fear.  A shiver ran down Marinette’s spine as rain came pouring down soaking everything in sight.  She looked around, and she kept spinning searching for something, anything that could have caused or been affected by the imbalance.  She waited there for many minutes just waiting, when she felt the dirt beneath her feet begin to shift a little.  She quickly moved away and watched as the dirt slowly moved and shifted.  She felt sick, because the dirt moving was directly where Jason was lying in eternal rest.  This couldn’t be right, this must be some mistake!  Her brother had died, she had seen the body, it haunted her nightmares for so many nights.  He’s been gone for five years!  This can’t be possible without some type of wish.

The grass began to move and shift away, and a fleshy mud covered hand raised from the ground causing a scream to rip from her lungs.  Her body sprung into action before her mind caught up to her beginning to help dig up her brother's grave, and when she saw the jet black hair covered in dirt and mud she knew that it was him.  She heaved him out from the hole and stared in shocked horror as he just sat there staring at her.  His eyes were the same blue she remembered, but they were so clouded.  Fear, confusion, and nothing shown in his eyes, like he wasn’t even truly there.  This must be a dream, it has to be, no, a nightmare.  Her brother shouldn’t be back, he died, she saw his limp body in dad’s hands, even if Alfred and bluebird tried to stop her.  But the imbalance was real, she could tell, and he was affected by it.

Slowly she raised her hand and hesitantly placed a hand on his cheek.  He leaned into her hand, though his eyes were still clouded and void.  He may be alive, but he wasn’t fully…alive.  She tackled her older brother into a hug and began sobbing onto him, but just sat there, head leaning against hers.  Pressing her ear against his chest she could hear his gentle heartbeat, and just for a moment everything seemed like it would be ok.  Then she felt a sharp prick in her neck and the world faded to black.

________

Marinette awoke to darkness.  She tried to sit up and felt her hands held behind her back being held together by something cold and thick.  Memories flooded back into her mind and she snapped into awareness and looked around.  It was dark, though there was a small light coming from a window far above where she could not ever reach.  The walls seemed to be made of thick stones and there was a heavy iron door a few feet in front of her.  Jason wasn’t there though, he wasn’t in the room, she didn’t understand.  Suddenly the door opened and she looked up and saw her mother’s green eyes.  Her panic grew again, how did she get here, was she captured too?  She had visited her often in Paris.  She was very vague about her job, and she knew it was probably sketchy, but could it be bad enough to be captured?

“Marinette, My Darling.  I apologize for your treatment, I did not realize that you were part of this.”

Talia rushed towards her daughter and unlocked the chains.  She was pulled into a tight hug that Marinette quickly returned.  After a few moments she pulled away but held her shoulders gently.

“I must show you something, come.”

Talia quickly stood and helped her daughter to her feet and walked swiftly through the calls of Nanda Parabat.

“What is mom?”

Talia smiled at that, she had always loved when her daughter called her that.

“It’s a surprise, My Flower.”

A few more twists though hallways and they stopped in front of a thick wooden door.

“I want you to meet someone.”

The door was pushed open and there sat a small baby in a crip with dark black hair, tanned skin, and dark green eyes.  Marinette gasped and covered her mouth,

“Meet your brother, Damian.”

Marinette slowly walked over and stared at Damian through the top of the crib.  He silently watched and studied her without making a sound.

“He’s about 3 months old.”

Talia said, smiling happily as she watched her daughter run her fingers through Damian’s small tresses of hair.  With a snap of her finger one of her shadows stepped next to her.

“Bring Jason.”

And with that order they were gone returning a few minutes later with a boy who was alive physically, but was mentally gone.  She could fix that though, it would be the last resort if all else failed, but she could fix it.  Marinette looked up when she heard Jason’s footsteps and her bright smile fell slightly into a small sad one.

“Jay-Jay.”

She whispered softly as she took slow steps towards the boy.  She quickly ran and hugged him again.  He no longer smelled like mud and he wasn’t wearing his suit, and he was….he was alive again!  Tears fell down her cheeks, because she missed him so much.

________

Marinette stayed with her mom in what she learned was Nanda Parabat.  She trained with Jason, but he was catatonic, just going through the motions blankly.  It worried her, especially as she watched her mother grow more anxious.  She cared for her little brother, and wondered if her dad knew, or if he would even care.  She often looked at Paris news for when she needed to go for Akuma attacks, but if her host parents even realized she was gone.  They hadn’t, nor had any of her “friends” apparently as they hadn’t sent her a single thing from the weeks she’s been gone.

Marinette knew that Nada Parabat wasn’t a good place, knew that the people were bad, knew that her grandfather was the head of it.  He didn’t seem to care who she was, he just thought she was some nurse for Damian, and she was thankful for that.  She knew that the Lazarus Pits were here, what they did, how they were made, how her grandfather used them for selfish purposes.  She didn’t do anything though, she was mad at her father for sending her away, mad that he adopted a bee kid only a year after he sent her away, mad that he never talked to her, mad that Dick never fought for her or looked for her, mad that Jason was forced to wake up and climb his way out of his grave only to be practically brain dead, mad that her classmates believed lies over her, mad that her host parents believed them and treated her like dirt or an invisible object meant to seen and not heard, mad that Chat Noir would leave her during battles because she didn’t return his affections, and mad that no one cared that she was gone!  So she trained as hard as she could, made sure that she perfected everything her mother threw at her.  Took care of her family and made sure they knew how thankful she was for them and loved them.  Then when she finally got a text from someone it was insults for being a horrible person and hurting Lila when she hadn’t been there for weeks!

She threw her phone at the wall and the crack echoed around the room.  Her breathing was harsh and ragged and then the tears she had been holding back finally fell.  Sobs wracked her body as she bit her lip to keep silent.  She tried to take in deep shuddering breaths, but it was no use and the sobs came out.  Her knees felt weak and she crumpled to the ground.  The door burst open and she saw her mom there knife in hand looking around the room with swift deadly eyes.  When she didn’t see any visible threats she kneeled in front of her daughter and looked directly into her eyes.  Eyes a storming blue that flooded with tears and made her heart ache and her want to murder whoever made her precious daughter look so broken.

“My Flower, what’s wrong?”

“N-nobody cares ab-about me!  No one cares that I’m g-gone.  Everyb-body hates me, and I’m so tired of it!  I’ll n-never be enough for an-anybody and I’m t-trying so h-hard to do wh-what everyone needs or exp-ects me to be!”

Marinette stuttered out between sobs.  Talia glared at that and felt anger at Bruce.  She thought that he at least checked in with her every once in a while.  She had guessed wrong then.  She pulled her daughter into a hug and let her cry against her shoulder.

“Shh, shh.  It’s okay.  You are perfect the way you are Marinette.  You don’t have to prove anything to me.  You’re such a good sister, you train so hard, and you have so many amazing skills and talents.  You are enough, don’t let anyone say anything different.”

Marinette gripped onto her mom and they both just sat there in silence as Marinette finally just cried.  After who knows how long Marinette gently pushed away and looked her mom directly in the eyes with complete seriousness said,

“I want you to help me fake my death.  If everyone wants to pretend I’m gone or wants me to disappear, then fine.  I will.  I don’t want to be seen anymore.”

Talia stared at her daughter in shock for a moment then gave her a small smile.

“It will be done my dear, you will be free.”

“Thank you mom.”

Taglist:

@queenz-z @aespades @fandomsaremylifeline @stainedglassm @toodaloo-kangaroo @prettylittlebutterflie @trippingovermyfeet @liquid-luck-00 @unoriginalmess @buginetye @miraculouslydumb @laurcad123

#maribat #BDBWM2021 #marinette dupain cheng #marinette al ghul wayne #talia sugar #class salt #tom and sabine salt #day 13 #death #sibling au #sibling jasonette #sibling daminette #damian is a baby #angst #fluff

[redstoneverdict]

Ok so this is inspired by @petrichormeraki hermit tommy au, go check them out they both come up with great stuff.

Tommy has been living with the hermits for almost 2 and a half months now and honestly he can’t remember the last time he felt like he could just let himself breath. The first few weeks were rough, seeing that joe hills found him passed out and a few steps away from death door one day when he was out and about. Tommy didn’t think he would just be running for so long, trying to get as much distance between him and lmanburg as possible. But he should’ve know exustion would catch up to him eventually, especially having just narrowly escaping a group of pillagers.

It took them awhile to even get him to fully wake up again, and even after that he felt too weak to keep on running so grian offered to let him stay in his old hobbit hole. Tommy didn’t want to accept the mans pitty but he still couldn’t even lift up a sword much less build a temporary starter base so he caved in. It only took about another week of relaxation before he was able to fully run around again and took up helping grian around his base and his various projects as a sort of payment for letting him stay in his old base.

Tommy was surprised with how well they got along, but honestly it shouldn’t have been to much of a shock seeing as they both love red and tend to be more of the michivsious type. It probably helped that Grian reminded him so much of his older brother Wilbur, he almost asked one day if the two was related somehow but decided against it. Tommy doesn’t want another connection to the pass he is trying to leave behind.

Currently they where gathering materials for grians barge and had been at it for most of the day, and had started chatting away about various things like best ways to prank people and what is xisuma hideing under his helmet, before falling into a comfortable silence. Tommy used to not be able to stand the silence, having always filled with with whatever comes to mind, but during his exiled, and when he ran away, he started to become more quiet. Why talk when there was no one there to hear you anyway, well anyone that was actually alive and could remember the inside jokes you where attempting to make.

Tommy’s thoughts drift to his brother, Wilbur. He still sort of feels bad for leaving without even telling him, seeing as he was the only one besides dream who actively tried to help him and vist him back in logshire, but honestly he probably would’ve forgotten him too by now, just like every other bad memory. He feels a tap on his shoulder.

“-tommy are you even listening?” Grian ask, takeing a step back after seeing tommy jump in his skin and pull out his sword before realizing it’s just grian.

“Oh sorry” Tommy says sheepishly, “I was just cought in my own thoughts, what is it?” He ask puting his sword away.

“ I said we’ve been working for awhile, how about we take a break and eat something” grian says pointing over to a shady spot in the distance.

Tommy didn’t notice the ache in his arms untill grian mentioned it and agreed, packing up their shoker boxes and flying over there, he still wasn’t quite used to useing elytra but feeling the wind blowing pass him definitely helped ground him after having thought about the past.

The two sat and ate for awhile, laughing at a story about how mumbo really made a his demise bunkers door code 1,2,3,4 and then falling into silence as they ate some more.

“ ya know” grian said inbetween bites of a sandwich he had brought, “ we always say mumbos the youngest around here but I don’t think I ever cought your age” he puts the sandwich down, “ and I’d rather not assume since I look pretty young myself, but how old are you?”

Tommy pauses and think, how old is he? He hadn’t really thought about since leaving. “ Um, what day is it?” He ask.

“ April 13th” Grian replys, looking kinda worried.

“ oh”, Tommy pauses, had it really been that long since he ran away? He shrugs “ I guess I’m 17 now, my birthday was on the 4th”, he says nonchalantly, taking another bite out of his pork chop.

“REALLY?” Grian is shocked, he figured tommy was at least 18 but finding out he was just 16 when joe found him all beaten up and knocking on deaths door steps puts him back a bit. But he can’t really be one to judge seeing how his teenage years where, and he knows that if he had the chance he would’ve ran away from it all a lot sooner then he did. “ wow wish I knew sooner, we could’ve thrown you a party or something” he says giving tommy a playful nudge, but tommy goes still and a look crosses over his face.

“N-no” Tommy says, furrowing his eyebrows and looking away, “no it’s alright, I kinda don’t do parties anymore. The last one I tried to throw, no one even showed up, I mean dream did-“ Tommy whinces, saying his name “but he doesn’t really count”

“No one?” Grian ask, taking note of dreams name, it’s the first time tommy has said someone’s name from his past, and he’s surprised it’s someone he vaguely knows, but he keeps quiet about it for now.

“Nope, not my best friend, not even my own family” Tommy’s voice lowers on the last part, pain written all over his face, before he pushes himself up. “ But now of that really matters now, does it?”. Tommy’s whole demeanor changes as he goes back into his usual self. “ how about we load up your shit head back to the shopping district before it gets to late yeah? I got other things to do besides being your bitch”

Grian knows tommy has been trying to cut back on his swearing, and that he’s just trying to change and get away from the subject as fast as he could, but Grian wasn’t going to push the matter. He knows what it’s like to feel like you’re not wanted by anyone and he knows that tommy will talk about it when he’s ready.

“ hey watch your mouth before I make ya eat a spider eye again” grian gets up “ but yah you’re probably right, it is getting late and I’d rather not lost all my stuff over 3000 blocks out.” He puts his hand on the larger boys shoulder and looks up at him “ you go ahead and take off and I’ll pack up what whatever we might of left”

Tommy looks back at the smaller man, he knows Grian isn’t stupid, but is thankful he is letting it slide for now. “ thanks grian.” He says softly, for once not feeling like he has to make his voice boom in order to be heard

Grian smiles back reassuringly, “ no problem kiddo, now go on get out of here” he says shooing tommy off as he takes flight heading towards the shopping district.

Grian stares at his shrinking figure and thinks. He doesn’t know what has happened to Tommy, but it’s obvious it’s was something painful enough to make him run away into the wilderness at such a young age. Grian picks up their remaining supplies before putting the shoker into in inventory. In any case, was was going to talk to the other hermits and organize a surprise birthday party for Tommy. He may not have any fond memories at the moment but grian would be dammed if he didn’t try to help the boy form new ones. Ones where he knows that he is apreacited. 

#AHHHH idk how to tag #hermitcraft #tommyinnit #au #grian #dream smp #??? maybe #I’m so nervous posting this #I hope y’all like it #fan fiction #fan fic #hermit tommy au #hermit!tommy au #hc x dsmp

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Though I Can't Recall Your Face, I Still Got Love For You

Summary: Spencer’s always been ambivalent about his birthday, but self proclaimed lover of birthday’s Y/N attempts to change that.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Warnings: Spencer’s kind of a sad bitch. Question: Why do I like writing sad Spencer?

Word Count: 2.5 K- ish

Author’s Note: prompts come from here this one is 4,8,25 from @shemarmooresfedora !! please go check out her blog on here and on Ao3!! Also, I’m stilling taking requests for numbers. I’ll update for which ones have been taken 💕

Though I Can’t Recall Your Face, I Still Got Love for You

Birthdays were always hard when all you had to do is go home to an empty house. No sounds of friends crowding the dining room table, no laughter from family members, no well wishes or pats on the back. All there is, is the stillness of silence and the emptiness of solitude. Spencer thought that he was used to it. He remembers the way the sun felt on his face the morning he woke up on his 18th birthday. His first thought wasn’t it’s my day, but it’s the day I put my mom away. The day Spencer became a man, was the first day he really wished he was a little boy again.

Ever since then, birthdays have always been a sore spot for Spencer. They just bring up sour tasting memories of his mother refusing to get out of bed or his father staying late at work to avoid coming home to a wife who doesn’t remember her own husband or a son who he can’t seem to understand. Birthdays, for Spencer, have always been just another day. Or at least, that’s what Spencer tells himself on the long ride up the elevator to the 6th floor of the BAU.

The bullpen is dark when Spencer walks out from the elevator. Paperwork and manila folders clutter the desks. Even Spencer’s workspace seems to reflect himself: frozen in time. He sits at his desk, a photograph of him and his mother placed at the right corner smiles up at him. A newer photograph, one of him and Y/N, sits right next to the one with his mom. There’s one with Derek and Penelope, one with him and Gideon at his Academy graduation, and one with him and JJ, who’s holding Henry. One of him and Luke at a bar, Penelope in the background drunk and singing.

Spencer loves photographs, but recently he’s been obsessed with them. Ever since his mother’s diagnosis, the fear that would ever forget the faces that find a home in his heart paralyzes him. These pictures may very well one day tell a much more older, much more grayer Spencer the story of his life. Today, in his mind, is another day closer to his fate.

His birthday means he’s another day closer to forgetting the way Y/N eyes sparkle when she drinks too much rose, or Henry’s laugh at Spencer’s magic tricks, or feeling when Derek calls him his brother. No one, not even Y/N, knows that Spencer has a drawer filled up of photographs he’s collected over the years. He can’t deal with forgetting the principles of electromagnetism, but forgetting his family? Spencer wouldn’t have anything left, but the smiling faces of familiar strangers, whose names are just out of reach.

Spencer rubs his eyes with the ball of his palm. He knows he’s not going to get work done. Spencer spins in his swivel chair and he’s nearly startled out of his quiet thoughts when his phone rings.

“Dr. Spencer Reid,” he says, swallowing his emotions as he shuts the drawer on the shiny faces.

“You really need to start checking your caller ID, Spence,” Y/N says, with a chuckle. Spencer can practically feel the way she’s smiling. For some reason, her teasing never made him feel bad.

“Well, what do I owe this pleasure?” Spencer asks. He drums his fingers on his desk, waiting for Y/N to respond.

“It seems like we have a missing person case,” Y/N starts, “6’2 male, brown hair, some say his eyes are green and some say they’re brown, so we’ll go with hazel, and he’s like ridiculously smart, but also kind of dumb for avoiding his girlfriend on his birthday,”

Spencer sighs as he launches himself into a long spin in his chair. He’s not surprised that Y/N is calling him; she’s always loved birthdays. She’s always been someone to someone. It’s taken some time to adjust to the fact that Spencer is Y/N’s someone.

“Are you coming to rescue me?” Spencer asks sheepishly. He leans back in his chair, watching the elevator. Y/N might think she’s slick, but Spencer’s sure he knows her better than he knows geographical profiling.

“Maybe, can you tell me how fast elevators can travel up to the 6th floor?”

Spencer opens his mouth, ready to fire statistics on top of statistics, but is silenced by Y/N’s arrival. Spencer tries to remain neutral, remain ambivalent about this day being something more than any other day, but Y/N makes it difficult.

As soon as her feet leave the elevator she launches herself at Spencer, not caring that he’s less than capable of catching anything. In a tangle of arms and legs, Y/N manages to sit herself on Spencer’s lap. His hand snakes around her waist; he holds her so tight that it’s almost like he’s afraid she’s going to get blown out like birthday candles on a cake.

“I can’t believe you thought you could sneak out and come to work, on your birthday of all days,” Y/N says quietly, she threads her fingers through Spencer’s hair. She likes how long it’s gotten and his curl pattern is almost fully restored to their original health from before he went to prison.

“How’d you find me?” Spencer asks, thinking that birthdays might not be so bad if they all involve Y/N sitting in his lap and trying to braid his hair.

“Do you seriously have to ask that? Only the Oracle of Quantico,” Y/N teases and Spencer rolls his eyes, thinking he should have known that Garcia would be the one to track his location for Y/N.

“It’s vaguely illegal for a federal agent to tap into those databases, especially for a civilian,” Spencer counters. Y/N, smiling at him, dips her head down to press light kisses on his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose.

“So’s an ex-Army Ranger giving me his key card to sneak into the BAU,”

“Luke’s in on this too,” Spencer tries to sound upset, but his heart swells at the thought of Penelope, Luke, and Y/N all instigating for his birthday.

“Of course he is, I had to bring out the big guns for my Spencer’s birthday,” Y/N quips. Her fingers climb up Spencer’s sides, tickling him. She likes the kind of laugh that he lets out when she tickles him. It’s a laugh that’s unguarded and full of life. It’s a laugh that doesn’t hold anything back. It’s a laugh that relieves the pressure that festers deep inside him.

Y/N’s hands may make him laugh, but nothing makes him beam more than hearing Y/N call him “my Spencer”. She says it so simply, like my doesn’t even exist, like it’s an involuntary muscle being flexed. For Y/N, loving Spencer came as easy and effortless as breathing.

“You do love birthdays,” Spencer says, looking up at Y/N. He spins them around in his swivel chair, giggling as she lets out a gleeful squeal. Spencer grows dizzy, but he thinks he’s dizzier from Y/N’s love than from spinning in his chair.

“I love your birthday more than any other day, even my birthday,” Y/N says, getting up from Spencer’s lap to pick up the canvas grocery bags she brought with her.

“I was never one for birthdays,” Spencer says quietly. Y/N, more than anyone, knows Spencer’s challenging past. She knows his fears and she knows his dreams. She haunts his every waking moment; somehow a mercurial threat and a constant promise at the same time.

“I know, but I’m sure I’ll make you grow to love them,” Y/N says, “I wasn’t sure which flavor you wanted so I got all of them. Wawa has a surprisingly good selection of Turkey Hill,”

She takes out three gallon sized cartons of ice cream. One coffee with chocolate chips, one butter pecan, and one Moose Tracks. She hands Spencer a spoon and a napkin before sitting down on the floor and opening a carton of the ice cream.

“I do love dairy,” Spencer says, eyeing the ice cream, but considering the consequences of eating the creamy desert. Spencer shoves the statistics about the effects of dairy on a 40 year old with lactose intolerance down and takes his spot next to Y/N on the floor.

He goes to open his carton of ice cream, coffee with chocolate chips, but before he can dig his spoon into the tub, Y/N grabs his wrist.

“No! Spence, wait. Here, take these. And you need to light it,” she says, plopping a couple lactose pills in his hand and digging out a pack of candles and a lighter from her bag.

“Y/N are you out of your mind! We can’t light something in the BAU, god, Emily will kill me,” Spencer says nervously.

“Spence, do you really think Emily Prentiss is going to give me shit for lighting a candle for your birthday in the middle of the office. That woman lives on the edge,” Y/N waves him off and lights a single candle.

Spencer, staring at the lit candle, listens as Y/N sings “Happy Birthday” to him. Sitting criss cross on the floor of the BAU, he watches as the candle light illuminates Y/N’s face. She looks almost ghostly in the dark with the flickering light making her eyes glow. Y/N wishes the song and grasps his hand and squeezes hard.

“Make a wish, baby,” Y/N tells him. She really believes in wishes. Spencer wishes he could believe in wishes. He desperately wants to believe that Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are somehow tying knots in the places where his string has been cut.

But more than anything, Spencer can’t bear to forget the face of the women across from. He can’t bear to one day not recognize the way her hand feels in his. He can’t accept the possibility of Y/N being anything less than the person he knows best in this world. Spencer doesn’t particularly care for the metaphor of the light going out. But his fears are put at bay when Y/N leans over and pecks his cheek. He can feel her grinning against his skin and like some virus contracted through touch, it’s contagious. Y/N breaks apart from Spencer and motions for him to eat some ice cream. They sit, shoulder to shoulder, against the front of Spencer’s desk eating their ice cream.

“Thank you, for making my birthday special. It’s been a hard year,” Spencer says, letting the tension in the air speak for itself, “my mom didn’t remember me the other day. I hate seeing her like that,”

“I know, sweetheart. You’ve been through so much. That’s why you need to tell me these things,” She says, setting down her ice cream. Y/N places her hands on Spencer’s shoulders, guiding him to place his back against her chest. His head rests in the crook of her neck. Spencer can feel her steady heart beat against his back. It’s a constant, patterned drum amidst the chaos of his mind.

“Can we take a picture, you know, just to remember this day,” Spencer asks, his voice laced with trepidation. He can feel Y/N nod, and move to grab her phone from her pocket.

Spencer sits up and scoots over to open the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulls out an old camera, one where you have to wait for the picture to appear on the print out. He likes the charm in older things, you really have to work for it. He likes the effort that you have to put into getting the picture made.

“Going old school, I see,” Y/N teases as she catches sight of Spencer’s old camera. He returns to his spot, snuggled against her back. Their legs stick out on the floor, his much longer than Y/N’s. Her arms snake around his torso, holding him tight. Spencer holds the camera out, facing them to capture their faces in some archaic selfie style.

The light flashes before Spencer’s eyes, and Y/N’s kiss on the top of his head burns a hole that instantly leaves him craving more. He’d let her draw any pattern she desires, as long as her kisses are the medium and he is her canvas.

“Can you tell me what you wished for?” Y/N asks, her voice low.

Spencer, looking off into the distance, makes a disgruntled noise. He can feel Y/N’s fingers crawl up his sides and her arms encasing his body. She’s shielding him from his demons, but little does she know that the most menacing foe is his mind.

“You’re really not supposed to, but considering you’re my wish I think you have the right to know,” Spencer offers, “I wished that I’ll never forget you. Never forget this life we made together,” He feels his chest constrict. Mentioning his fear makes it seem more palpable; more real.

“Spencer, have you felt that way for a long time?,”

Spencer takes a deep breath, letting the floodgates open.

“I’ve felt like this my whole life, Y/N. I’m terrified to forget you. To forget our children that I haven’t even met yet. Forget who I am. I’m terrified that I’m going to leave you behind in a murky past that I can never remember,” Spencer says. He chokes back the pain. He doesn’t want Y/N memories of him to be marred by fear and darkness.

“This is about your mom, right. Spencer, listen to me. I’ll love you even if that comes true. I don’t need you to recall my face to know you still got love for me. And you're not leaving me behind. I won’t allow that. I’m not leaving you behind, baby,” Y/N says, her voice the most soothing cure.

She’s a power mixture of biochemicals and neurotransmitters. She heals him at an epigenetic level and restores him piece by piece. Her medicine is love.

Or maybe her love is his medicine.

“I’ve never been this scared of losing something, because I never had someone to lose,” Spencer mumbles, he twists his head so his breath is warm against Y/N’s neck. Somehow in this twisted position, Spencer has never felt safer.

“You can’t lose something that can’t be lost, my Spencer. I’m not going anywhere,”

“I love you to the moon and to Saturn,” Spencer says kissing along Y/N’s collarbones.

Like the pictures in the drawer, Spencer tucks away the fears of the future. He swallows the threat of forgetting everything because the promise of love swallows him whole. He craves a future with Y/N with the possibility of forgetting who she is over the life he’d live if he left her behind.

She said it best, even if one day he can’t recall her face, he’ll still have love for her.

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

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[writing-in-april]

My Date with the President’s Daughter

Spencer Reid x Female Reader (Spencer POV)

Summary: Spencer has a date with the President’s daughter, who he’s been dating for a while in partial secret. He hasn’t seen her in person for a while so he’s had to settle for another form of communication.

A/N: Ok just to get this out of the way— this is not a politically charged fic, I don’t express my own political beliefs in this fic nor do I express my opinion on the beliefs of others. The president in this fic is entirely made up and I just thought it would be cool to release it on Inauguration Day like the nerd I am. I do not want a political debate in the comments, this blog is not meant for that. This fic is for fun and to make people a little happier in these trying times. Please respect my wishes. This was a really fun way to write a twist on Spencer dating someone famous and- I wonder if anyone can spot the West Wing reference I used 🤔Thanks to @spencers-dria again for always helping me out with my fics 🥰This is also apart of my unlinked fic series called Spencer Reid & Letters! Requests are open and thank you for reading!

Warning: Vague political talk, References to keeping their relationship secret earlier, Avoiding the paparazzi- that should be it.

Main Masterlist Spencer Reid & Letters Word count: 1.6k

She didn’t have to put her short little letter to me on the back of a postcard, but she always did it this way. I remember when she first told me why she did it. We were sitting cuddled up on my couch at the early start of our relationship. I had asked her why she always insisted she send her letters on the back of a tiny card, she would’ve had so much more room if she got out a piece of paper.

She said she got into the habit of sending them to her father whenever he was away on business. Her handwriting had been horrible as a child according to her and her father had suggested she try to fit all of her thoughts onto a postcard. So, now she sent all of her letters neatly handwritten with the smallest of letters, so small you could almost barely read them, on the back of a postcard.

The postcard I had gotten late today, delivered by one of the last people on duty this late at night, was a picturesque view of the White House. The grass bright green and the outside covered in pure crisp white, a statuesque image of American democracy. Now, she didn’t send this to me because she wanted to express her political views and patriotism in a postcard, it just so happened to be where her father lived.

The fact that she was the President’s daughter used to intimidate me a lot when I first met her. I hadn’t immediately connected the dots in my head that she was the first daughter when we first met, though I could tell I had seen her somewhere before. Though, my first assumption was that maybe she had been a regular at my favorite coffee shop, not the daughter to the President of the United States. Literally my biggest boss.

First time I met him was also my first time in the east wing; she had some help from her secret service detail to sneak me in through the back. I only ever nervously stutter when I’m in intimidating or stressful situations and I’m pretty sure I barely got a sentence out the first ten minutes after I had met him. Luckily, he did seem to like me, though I’m not really sure why. Y/N told me once it was because he found my intelligence extraordinary and my constant willingness to share facts endearing. I always blush when I remember that, she was always so sweet to me and the fact that her family loved me as well caused my heart to swell exponentially. I stared at the captured view for a few seconds longer before the dots had fully connected in my head, I may have an eidetic memory, but sometimes it took me a minute to get her subtle hints. She didn’t actually live at the White House, she had her own house in D.C. But, this postcard meant one thing. She’s home.

Each postcard she sent me had a picture of wherever she was while she was traveling the world, it was a small gesture that made me feel closer to her, I always tried to imagine I was there with her at every location she sent. She had been out of the country for at least a month on business and even before that we hadn’t seen each other for a while, I had been stuck on a long case that kept me away from her for half a month.

A month and a half, that’s how long it's been since I’ve had her in my arms. I turned over the card expecting to see it filled with more words than most people would think could fit on the back of a postcard to let me know when I could see her, but this was not the case. Instead, the back of the card contained less words than normal. Only the words- meet me at 10pm at our usual spot.

My body moved faster than my brain, getting up to pack up all my things to rush to our usual spot. My watch sat over my cardigan sleeve on my wrist and it blinked up at me letting me know I only had 30 minutes till I had to get to the other side of town.I still had some paperwork left, but enough that I could push it off till the next day. Once I had gotten all my stuff together I scurried over to leave through the glass doors.

“Are you heading home, Spence?” A voice from inside the bullpen called out startling me out of my thoughts, I had thought everyone had left for the night. I turned around to look at the owner of the voice, JJ, who had come back from the break room to finish her large stack of paperwork that still remained.

“Actually no- I have a date.” A small shy smile made its way onto my face, I still felt very shy when I talked about my relationship with the team. When I had first told them after around 8 months into our relationship, they had thought I was pulling their legs. Once they did realize that I was in fact, not bullshitting them as Morgan had suspected, the questions had immediately come down on me. The ogling at my relationship never really ceased in the months after it had come out to the team, and the rest of the world. We mostly still tried to keep it under wraps, but the fact that the press now knew about me after some photos got leaked from a date only made the team ogle even more.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to who you go on dates with, it’s like something out of a movie.” JJ joked, then yawning again and leaning her face into her palms. “Well- I still have a lot of paperwork to do, you go enjoy your night, Spencer. I know you haven’t seen her in a while.”

My mind had already begun to shift away from JJ as soon as she brought her up, I was practically vibrating in anticipation, I couldn’t wait to see her.

—-

The rare book store on the east side of Quantico had been my favorite for years, ever since I had moved out here from Vegas actually. So much so that the owners, an older couple named Margaret and Dan, both knew me by name and knew almost exactly what books I wanted every time. The both of them had immediately jumped at the chance when I had hesitantly asked them to let the both of us meet up here, I had been desperately trying to find a place outside of my apartment where we could meet up.

When I entered the shop through the back it was already deserted just for us, she must have contacted Maggie and Dan to ask them if we could have the store for the night. The store was packed full of the rare books the owners had both acquired over the years, ranging from old tales and poems written by Edgar Allan Poe, the dark brother’s Grimm tales, to almost any old book that you could think of. It was almost to the point where I thought maybe Maggie and Dan should upgrade to a bigger shop.

“Long time no see.” A voice piped up from the mostly dark corner where she sat in a dark green armchair only partially illuminated by a standing lamp. Broad grins broke out on both of our faces before we both ran to each other, engulfing ourselves into an overwhelming bear hug.

“I missed you so much you don't even know.” Tears prickled at the edge of my eyes, though I wasn’t afraid to admit that us being apart for so long made me tear up.

“I've got a pretty good idea, I missed you so much as well.” She sniffed and then sighed into the crook of my neck. I moved my hand up to cradle her head to try and bring her as close as possible to me, even though there was already not even an inch of space between the two of us.

A nagging thought was dancing around in my brain, the card was so short and abrupt. It wasn’t like her to not be long winded whenever she wrote to me, she even had a tendency to be worse than I was sometimes.

“Why was the card so short? You feeling ok?”

“I just couldn’t wait to see you… It’s been so long since I’ve seen you...” Her tone of voice made me sad, it had been so lonely for me as well when we were apart.  “I never want to be away from you for that long ever again.”

“Move in with me.” The words blurted out of my mouth before I could really think about my words. I didn’t care whether it would be feasible or not, I just knew I never wanted us to be apart for so long ever again.

“Well-“ I cringed a little at her words sensing a rejection, I worried that I had just screwed it all up by asking. However, again she surprised me, “We might need to get a new place to settle my father’s worries about security.”

I breathed out a breathy laugh of relief at her words, enveloping her into a bruising kiss, my worry and anxiety immediately melting away. I couldn’t wait for the next chapter of my life with the President’s daughter.

—-

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[themaribatpit]

Jasonette July Day 12: Dare

Written by: The Maribat Pit  @jasonette-july-event Prompt: Dare Rated: T (Drink responsibly my friends) A/N: Maribat fangirl went to Uni in the UK. Most people thought they could outdrink the Americans, and that American beer tasted horrible.  DC fanboy isn’t much of a drinker. Also we planned this earlier, but I saw this blog post from @ritacrow-blogrequesting something similar a few days ago, so here you go.  I don’t know if you’re a fan of the in vino veritas/drunken confession trope, so feel free to skip it if you aren’t.

“So, why are we doing this again?” Tim asked hesitantly, as they gathered in the Wayne Manor lounge. “Because Pixie Pop here issued a challenge, and I don’t plan on letting her win”, Jason explained with a smirk. “All she said was ‘American drinking laws are bullshit’, and it’s not like you don’t know the name of every single bar in Gotham that doesn’t card.” Tim retorted.  “She also said American beer tastes gross, so I don’t know why you brought Budweiser of all things”.

“She dared us to try and drink her under the table, and I’m sure as hell not backing down.” Jason hissed, and Tim decided that it was pointless trying to argue.  The whole reason Tim and Steph were even involved was because they had just turned 18, which meant they were allowed to take part in this little drinking competition.  Alfred was in the corner of the room keeping score, someone had to, considering the night they were about to have.

After they all gathered in the lounge, it was time for the challenge to begin.  Barbara quietly sipped her glass of wine, curling into Dick’s side as she watched the movie playing on the TV.  Jason and Dick had downed a bottle of beer each, waiting for Marinette to finish her first glass of wine.  Marinette rested her back against Jason’s arm as she watched the movie play out, the night had just begun and she wasn’t about to let them win.  She wouldn’t be able to look any non-American person in the eye if they knew she got out drunk by them. Marinette took in the soft glow of the lounge, alternating between leaning on the sofa or Jason’s leather-clad shoulder.  It almost reminded her of her home city at night. She looked around at the people she had come to know, fairly certain she had the dopiest smile on her face at that moment.  

She had arrived in Gotham City not long ago, and she was surprised to find that some of them welcomed her with open arms.  Not all of them, obviously, some were a bit more welcoming than others.  Bruce didn’t really trust her as a magic user, and Damian usually kept to himself.  Preferring to be alone with his pets, Titus and Alfred (the cat). The others assured her not to take it too personally, that they are like that with everyone.  With Jason, it was hard to tell what he thought about her.  Dick was like an older brother to everyone, and in some ways reminded Marinette of Chat Noir, alot.  While Barbara, Steph and Cass were like the sisters Marinette didn’t have.  Tim was at least somewhat curious about her powers and how they worked, hard as he tried to fight it in the beginning.

With Jason, it was much harder to tell at times.  He wasn’t quite as closed off as Damian, though sometimes she found him in the Wayne Manor library reading by the window.  They had each other’s backs in a fight, and the fact that she was much smaller compared to him earned her the nickname “Pixie Pop”.   They worked well together on missions, and there was plenty of friendly banter between them.  There was almost a veneer of sarcasm and bravado.  

The only time it showed any sign of falling was when his pit madness took over.  Even then she was more focused on asking Plagg and Tikki for help, seeing as it was their magic causing this.  There was no fixing it, but they had managed to help get it under control.  Marinette was almost frustrated when he woke up to find her waiting at his bedside, after working around the clock to keep the madness at bay.  The sounds of him screaming and thrashing around were still ringing in her ear, and the most that he could muster was “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you there, Pixie.” he drawled.  

“Pixie, you there?” Jason gently poked her on the shoulder and she realised that she had been staring into her wine glass for a moment.  She took a large gulp before setting the glass down on the table, the night had just begun.  

As the night went on, Tim was not impressed with how beer tasted. “People actually drink this stuff for fun?” he muttered. He was starting to think Marinette might have a point about how American beer tasted. Sadly the old adage of “liquor before beer, you’re in the clear” meant that it was too late to try Steph’s approach.  Steph was nursing a Jack Daniels and coke as she watched the film, letting that light of the TV screen dance in front of them.

Later into the night, Tim was getting tipsy at that point. Considering this was his first time drinking, Marinette gave him a smile that said “you get points for trying”.  If Steph wasn’t drunk now, she was going to be feeling the effects very soon.  She mostly drank spirits chased down with soda and juice.  Barbara had already left after a couple of glasses of wine, deciding to leave the rest of them to this game.  Jason and Dick had beer bottles lined up in front of them, almost as if they were competing with each other first. Marinette continued to leisurely sipped her wine, knowing that she was their final boss at that moment.

In the end, only Marinette and Jason were left in the lounge.  Steph left had already left, and Tim followed not long after,  Alfred helped get Dick into bed after he nearly passed out on the coffee table.  “It’s you and me, Poxie Pip” Jason slurred, Alfred occasionally came in to check on them.  

Marinette, who at this point was slightly tipsy, leaned in close and whispered in his ear “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll lose?”

“There’s worse ways to go, Pixie, trust me.” he laughed, Marinette gave him a very sad smile.  He finished the last of his beer bottle before laying down on the sofa, resting his head on Marinette’s lap. Marinette was certain she could feel her face heating up, she could hear her heart pounding in her chest as she looked down at him.  

“Are you sure my teeny tiny legs can support your big head?” she joked. Great, now she was doing it too. she looked away in hopes that he couldn’t see the blush on her face.  She didn’t get Asian glow, but now she was really hoping she had that as an excuse.    

“I’ve seen you lift goons twice your size and throw them across rooms,” he laughed “besides, this feels kinda nice.” he mumbled.

“Yeah but that was me as Ladybug, it’s also what keeps me from tripping over air and landing on my face.” she explained.  She didn’t think her heart would be able to handle looking down to see one of the few times she saw him completely at peace.  She was used to people who preferred her as her alter ego anyhow.

“I guess you win this round,” he slurred, Marinette still hadn’t moved his head from her lap.  If anything, her free hand was working its way through his dark locks of hair.  He smiled, letting himself be lulled to sleep by the simple yet kind gesture.  “Serves me right,” he yawned, “getting drunk with a fairy princess.”

Marinette turned her attention back to the last of her wine, “there he goes again, making silly jokes like that.” she thought.  “Especially with one as pretty as you,” he laughed. Marinette was about to get up at that moment, now he was just being ridiculous.  “I like you...” were the last words he said before letting sleep take him.  

It was everything Marinette could do not to drop her wine class on the floor in shock.  Marinette thought she heard wrong.  She shook her head, what did it matter? I mean, she had called her friends pretty loads of times before, it’s not like he said he loved her or anything.  These were things that you said to friends all the time, right? At that moment, there was a knock on the door, Alfred came in and saw Jason asleep in Marinette’s lap.  “I was just about to leave could you maybe help Jason get back to his room? That would be great thanks Alfred.” she quickly spluttered before dashing out of the lounge and down the hallway in search of an empty guest room to sleep in.  

Jason tragically awoke the next morning with a hangover and a vague memory of what had happened the night before.  He thought this was probably the very reason why Bruce did not drink.  Alfred came in with a tray of chilli dogs and water, to nurse the hangover.  “Thanks Alfred,” Jason groaned, “do I even wanna know what happened last night?”

“If you must know Master Todd, you won second place in last night’s drinking competition.” He explained, Jason sighed, Marinette wasn’t going to let him live that down.  He still had to admit he was impressed with her. “Miss Dupain-Cheng seemed rather flustered after you compared the experience to  ‘getting drunk with a fairy princess’ and confessed your admiration and affection for her.”   It was all coming back to him now, and he was about to be sick.  He told her that he thought she was pretty and that he liked her. He wasn’t wrong, but it probably didn’t sound as romantic coming from someone who was probably very drunk.   He reached for the chilli dog, hoping that he would be able to keep it down.   “In vino veritas indeed, or in birro veritas in your case”, Alfred quoted.  Jason took a sip of water, still too stunned to speak.  “If you still hold such affection for Miss Dupain-Cheng, might I suggest telling her when you’ve sobered up?” he suggested, giving Jason a slight sympathetic smile.

“I’ll try, thanks Alfred” he replied as Alfred left the room, leaving him to his thoughts.  

A couple of days later, Marinette was sitting in her studio, drinking a warm mug of hot chocolate.  Jason hadn’t called her or spoken to her since the party, and she had hoped that he had just drunkenly forgotten his little drunken confession.  It wasn’t that Marinette didn’t reciprocate his feelings, it just felt like there was no point in putting stock in something he said while he was so very drunk.  It almost made Marinette laugh a little at the thought.  Her phone buzzed, it was a message from Jason:  “Hey, you busy today? I’ve got something to tell you.  Sober, this time”.  Marinette smiled, maybe this time there was truth in the foul tasting American beer.

 BONUS: The next morning in the Batcave... Tim: That tasted like actual vomit.  Dick: It's an acquired taste, Baby Bird. Tim: Which is to say you were peer pressured into liking it.

#jasonette #jasonettejuly2021 #ml x dc #maribat

[thosewickedlovelies]

Be the Girl You Wish to Meet in the Bar Bathroom

Pairing: Santiago Garcia x F!Reader

Summary: You make a new friend in the bar bathroom. She and her friends help you lure in the hottie she spots checking you out ;)

Rating: T for suggestive themes

Tags: Brief mention/implications of alcohol use.

Word Count: 3,359

A/N: This one goes out to all the drunk girls you've ever met and been uplifted by in bar bathrooms <3 Also for @nathan-bateman ❤

---

“Ugh, my feet are killing me,” your new friend groans as she lowers herself onto the toilet. “This always happens when my friends make me dance with them.” Still seated, she bends over to rub what she can reach of her heel.

Despite the thumping music and the din of bar conversation in the background, you can hear her perfectly fine, seeing as you’re sealed in the tiny bathroom together. You met her a moment ago in line, after you almost stumbled into her and she immediately proceeded to compliment your dress. Now you’re chatting like longtime pals.

A universal feminine experience, a distant part of your mind thinks, with a fuzzy sense of warmth.

“Yeah but you’re so lucky though,” you tell her earnestly, while washing your hands. “My boys hardly ever dance with me, they’re soo lame.” You make an exaggerated pouty face.

You only ever went out with your boys- Frankie, Will, Benny, and Santiago. You had other friends at work, but weren’t quite at the “let’s go out dancing together” stage with any of them yet. Benny and Santi actually did dance, but while you loved them to pieces, it wasn’t quite the same.

Tonight you had reunited at one of your usual spots- a basement bar that was a bit on the divey side, but just trendy enough to have designated space for a dance floor.

“Oh my gosh, you should totally come dance with me and my friends! Every girl needs a girl friend group to dance with.” She looks at looks at you with wide, serious eyes and all the sage certainty of a perfectly tipsy person.

“Oh my gosh, that’s so nice!” You’re genuinely touched at her invitation. “And so true,” you add a beat later, nodding with conviction. You shift away from the sink as she flushes the toilet.

“Yeah!” The brown-haired woman continues to rave about her friends while she washes her hands. “Ready?”

Arm in arm, you leave the bathroom together. You halt almost immediately, however, as the colored lights of the dance floor change abruptly, blinding you with white strobes. You both shriek and giggle as you throw your hands up in defense. You decide to remain where you are while you try to locate her friends.

She spies something else first. “Oooh, don’t look, but there is an absolute Adonis of a man checking you out right now at one of the tables.”

You don’t look, keeping your intrigue under wraps as you continue to scan the room. “Ooh, what does he look like?”

Santiago Garcia had been keeping an eye on the restrooms waiting for you to return, but his relief at your reappearance turns to curiosity as you exit with a woman he’s never seen before. His interest in her fades quickly, though, as the sweeping lights highlight your grinning face and that close-fitting dress. Everything else seems to fade to his peripheries.

He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s captivated by you tonight. Maybe it’s that you haven’t seen as much of each other lately, everyone busy with work and life. He thought he’d been elated at the prospect of a group get-together this evening, but when he kept finding himself frustrated at the guys stealing your attention from him, he wondered if it was just you he’d been excited to see.

Maybe it’s the fact that he can see every man in a ten-foot radius of you right now doing the same thing he is: checking you out. Sizing you up like nothing more than a trophy to add to their collection, as if any of them were good enough for you.

His fingers tighten around his beer as Santiago drags a dark gaze down you. Thinking of all the memories he has associated with you, all the things he’s seen your body do- a connection none of these other suckers can claim. In his brooding, he doesn’t notice the woman beside you noticing him.

“There they are!” Brown Hair squeals. She drags you around the edge of the dance floor to where several people are waving.

There’s a flurry of introduction, but you don’t catch any of their names over the music. A tall woman with noticeably muscled arms; another with deep brown skin and a halo of dense, tiny, blue-dyed curls; a third whose accented greeting you’re just able to catch as the music fades briefly.

Taking advantage of the quiet, Brown Hair speaks. “All right girls, now listen. There was an obscenely gorgeous man checking out our new friend a second ago, and I bet he still is. A few tables behind us, with the hair?”

With the hair? She and you are facing the dance floor, but her friends are facing the bar’s tables, one of which your future man is apparently sitting at. With outstanding coordination and nonchalance, they all manage to identify him over your shoulders, and whistle their approval.

The one who…?” You strain to hear Arm Muscle’s question, but it’s lost beneath a suddenly surging bassline.

Brown Hair darts a quick glance over shoulder and nods.

“That is some nice hair, and I would know,” the blue-afroed beauty smirks and winks at you, before grabbing your hand and tugging you slightly further onto the dance floor. Still close enough to the edge to be plenty visible to anyone seated at a table. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get you that man.”

“I haven’t even seen him!” You protest with a laugh, even as you follow her willingly.

“Girl, all you need to know is that he is insanely hot.” The one with the accent speaks from close behind you. “As your designated girl friend group for tonight, it’s our duty to help you lure him in.”

Conversation becomes impossible in the rhythm of the crowd. You follow their lead, let their hips and hands guide your movements, losing yourself in the uninhibited joy of moving your body to the thumping music. In the whirl of unself-conscious beings all around you, you momentarily forget what brought you out here in the first place.

Until, after some unknown amount of time, Brown Hair twirls to face you. “He’s on the move!” She waggles her eyebrows.

You remember then that you’re supposed to be dancing for some guy. You’re still facing away from the tables, but from in front of you Blue Hair has a clear view over your shoulder. “Mmm, look at his hunky blond friends,” she purrs. “Think he’ll bring them over too?”

Wait. Surely they couldn’t mean…? There had to be more than one table in here with two hunky blond men at it, right??

She spins you around, and you follow her pointing to where Benny and Santiago are standing at their table, the former clapping the latter on the back. Eyes widening, you’re nearly beside yourself wondering which of your boys the girls could possibly be referring to- until Santiago detaches himself from the group.

“Your man is coming!” Accent squeals.

“Wait, he was the one checking me out?” you hiss frantically.

“Undressing you with his eyes, babe,” Brown Hair nods knowingly. The others make sounds of confirmation.

Pope’s dark eyes pin you as makes his way across the room. He weaves through the tables like they aren’t even there, like you’re the only thing worth his attention. Your lips part in shock.

You’d always thought the vague chemistry between you and Santiago was merely a side effect of his natural sexual charisma. Like a power he could turn on and off at will, you’d seen it in action enough times to recognize it. Although...it had never occurred to you to wonder if the chemistry was not, in fact, a side effect, but rather an intended result. Had Santi been deliberately using his powers on you?

Watching him go, Benny chortles. His gaze slides past Santiago to the other women who are still blatantly eyeing their table. “Looks like you might be DD for just yourself tonight, Catfish.” He smirks devilishly and runs a hand through his hair. “Come on, brother.” Will doesn’t react to his sibling’s invitation as he saunters after Pope, only sipping his beer contemplatively.

Frankie snorts at the older brother’s obvious interest. “Get out of here man, they’re definitely checking you out, too. I’ll hang here for a little while longer.”

Will cracks a smile. Draining his glass, he unfurls himself from the table, bright blue eyes roving appreciatively over the women flanking you.

“You’re the man, Francisco.” The taller blond gives him a nod of thanks before following his brother.

Frankie only shakes his head, a faint smile on his lips as he observes the scene unfolding between you and Pope. Finally.

With the hair, indeed. That should have tipped you off straightaway. You’ve been encouraging Santi to grow out his gorgeous curls for probably as long as you’ve known him, but he rarely took leave for long enough to gain any measurable growth. Even short, however, his greying locks reflect the colors of the roaming spotlights as he approaches, making his beauty even more otherworldly.

Dumb with surprise, you don’t have time to plan any kind of reaction before Santiago is there, standing before you with one upturned hand outstretched. “Can I cut in?”

Cooing, your new friends part to allow him unhindered access to you. Although there’s a suave sort of expectancy on his face- he knows what the girls were doing- even in the dim, shifting light you can see the genuine question in his eyes.

You’re still unsure of what he’s playing at, but Santi has never let you down before. Your hand doesn’t waver as you place it in his.

His fingers curl around yours, warm and reassuring. He tears his gaze from you only to briefly address the girls: “My friends are single, by the way.”

As if on cue, you all become aware of Benny and Will sidling up in Santiago’s wake, like two blond, shameless, bad ideas.

Santi is wearing that big shit-eating grin when he turns back to you, and you can’t help but smile at his familiar antics. Laughing, you let him sweep you away, guiding you toward a more remote corner of the dance floor and into a sway that’s breathtakingly gentler than what you were expecting, given the moves with which you and the girls were taunting him.

(If his hold feels gentle, he makes sure it doesn’t look that way: flexing his arms where they rest around your waist and brushing his nose along your hairline, breathing you in and sending menacing glowers to anyone still looking at you.)

You’ve never been this lost for words around Santiago. You’ve danced with him before, technically; but it had never felt like this. You want to speak, but your tongue feels clumsy in your mouth, heavy with the energy between you. As your thoughts churn, his hold shifts, one arm wrapping all the way around your waist to draw you nearer, the other sliding up your spine, fingertips tracing the skin above the back of your dress.

It may have only been a song or two during which you held each other, but it felt like much longer. His light caress sets the blood fizzing in your veins, sparkling like drink mixers, sweet with the promise of bright memories to come.

Finally he speaks. “Is this okay?” Santi murmurs.

Hearing his warm voice in your ear, instead of making you more nervous, grounds you. That familiar, steady timbre, his quiet confidence and trust in you to answer him truthfully. Which you do, because you trust him, too.

“Very,” you profess into his neck. Your nose nearly tucks beneath the collar of his button-down. “Santi…” you hesitate, knowing you want to ask but unsure of what the question is.

He waits, his subtle swaying never faltering.

“Why tonight?” It’s a vague, possibly lame cop-out of a question, but it’s the only way you can think to phrase it. He’ll understand though. Santi can play the fool when he wants, but he knows you, and now isn’t the time.

For several heartbeats, the only response is the rasp of his stubble against your jaw. You swear you feel his lips brush your skin, but before you can properly register the sensation he’s withdrawing to answer.

“Mmm...Well, I don’t need to tell you what those dance moves of yours do to me.” He pinches your side in emphasis, but despite your squirm and flush, you scoff. Santi has seen you dance like that before- he’s been the one dancing with you like that before.

Santiago chuckles, the sound liquid dark. He knew you wouldn’t buy that. “Honestly, I don’t know. Seeing all these other assholes eyeing you up like they’d have a chance...I couldn’t stop myself. I’m just putting them out of their misery, really.”

You snort at his dismissive shrug, knowing his irreverence masks real emotion. You can read it in the lines of his face, each one as dear and familiar to you as the beauty marks on your own. Green and red lights stripe his skin as you study them.

He can’t quite meet your gaze, suddenly. “What are you staring at,” Santi grumbles, burying his face in your neck again.

You giggle at his gruffness, at his breath huffing on the sensitive skin.

“Just your pretty face, Santi,” you croon. You tighten your arms around his shoulders, deliberately wiggling closer so you’re pressed more firmly against him.

His sharp, surprised inhale juts into your chest. But any response he might have given is lost beneath the sudden blare of trumpets from the speakers.

The familiar melody makes you both pause. You lean back just far enough to meet Santiago’s eye; you know he’s anticipating the same thing you are and you both shout: “Shakira, Shakira!”

You squeal as Santi leaps back from you, grabbing your hands and twirling you in a familiar routine. ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ had become, thanks to Benny, Pope’s song, a claim he always pretended to roll his eyes at when the boys brought it up. But he secretly loved it, and rarely missed a chance to show off why.

Your muscles leap into action as he does just that, dancing you to the Latin beat. You’re breathless with laughter, sweat beading on your hairline.

I don’t, don’t really know what I’m doing, but you seem to have a plan...

The tripping guitar notes swirl around you, but Santiago doesn’t let you stumble. He guides you in time with the pounding percussion, his whole body undulating to the rhythm.

All the attraction, the tension...

His arms cross above your head as Santi spins you so your back is pressed to his chest. He holds you close, hands low on your hips, and you lean back into him, relishing the strength in the muscles shifting against your spine. Warmth radiates from him, all-encompassing. He hooks his chin over your shoulder and you turn your head to look at him.

His face is much closer than you were expecting; a thrill bursts in your chest. Curiosity kindles, however, as you take in his expression. You’re not sure if you recognize it. Happy, but searching- like he’s gauging your reaction, or seeing something he hasn’t before.

You don’t have time to dwell on it, though- the song is approaching Benny’s favorite line. You tip your head as if listening, raising your eyebrows at Santi expectantly.

His eyes widen, sparking with recognition at your signal. You jump away-

Let me see you move like you come from Columbia…

The saxophone trills its long, fluttering note and you whoop in admiration at the sight before you. Santiago loops his hips rapidly, letting them sling him in a circle, his elbows held square at chest level. His lips form an “o” of concentration in a spicy expression that would make anyone else look ridiculous. But Santi’s obvious skill and the self-assured confidence with which he always carries himself only makes the whole thing ridiculously sexy.

Santi’s movements cause his shirt to ride up, exposing a sliver of taut, tan skin. Shamelessly you appreciate the visible, flexing muscles in his arms and thighs. His butt in those jeans.

He is grinning and giddy when he faces you again, one corner of his smile crooking higher as he witnesses your glee. Laughing, Santi pulls you back into his arms.

“How many times have you seen me dance like that, cariño? And every time you have the same reaction.” His voice is breathless in your ear.

You bite your lip at the warmth of his broad hands, at what is definitely the kiss of his mouth on your skin.

“I like your dancing, Santi,” you say simply. His pulse thrums beneath your lips as you slowly skim them up his neck in return.

Into the line of his jaw you admit “...I like when you dance with me.”

Santiago brings one hand up to cradle your head, leaning back slightly to look at you. His brown eyes are full of affection. “I love dancing with you.” Creases fan out from his eyes as he smiles and he is so beautiful it makes your heart squeeze.

The moment hovers, both of you hardly daring to hope. Your gaze skips down to his lips despite your best efforts.

You know he sees it when his grasp tightens, his hold at the nape of your neck becoming more deliberate. His face is merely a breath away.

“Cariño?” he murmurs. You’re surprised to see the faintest trace of uncertainty, the question in his eyes. He’s asking if you’re sure.

One eyebrow quirks the tiniest bit. “Santi?” You are.

The uncertainty vanishes, and you kiss him.

He lets out a soft groan in the back of his throat. He hauls you as close as he possibly can, and you arch into him, trying to get closer.

You plunge your hands into his silvery curls with a sigh of satisfaction. You’ve touched his hair before, but never like this- never used it to hold his face to yours. The damp traces of sweat as you twist your fingers in it only add to the surreal euphoria of it all. The flashing lights leave colored impressions against your closed eyelids; the music is a muffled, fading pulse as your senses fill with him.

The sturdy press of Santiago’s body, the smell of him- lingering cologne and the musk of his earlier exertions. His mouth velvety hot, his tongue curling against your own in a way that makes heat expand low in your belly. Increasing desperation infects both of you as you realize you should have done this ages ago.

Dimly you become aware of raucous cheers coming from somewhere nearby. With a gasp you pull your mouth from Santi’s, chest heaving. His lust-blown eyes clear somewhat as you share a shy grin.

Then he looks up, toward where the Miller brothers and your girls are hooting at you. Benny cackles as Santiago gives them a one-fingered salute. You shrug helplessly at the girls, noticing with delight the way they’ve paired off: Benny with his arms around both Accent and Arm Muscles; next to them, Blue Hair’s beautiful brown skin contrasting with Will’s paler complexion.

Overcome with mischief, you duck your head into Santiago’s neck again. Placing your lips where it curves into his shoulder, you flutter your tongue delicately against the flesh before biting down with purpose, laving and nibbling to leave a mark.

Santi sucks in air and you feel a subtle shudder wrack his body. He is still facing your friends; scandalized oooohs sound from their direction, and you're impishly delighted to have made him react in some visible way.

His grip on your head shifts so that one thumb is pressed beneath your chin, guiding your head back up to look at him. He breathes your name, his expression dangerous- but questioning all the same.

Radiating innocence, you grin in answer. “Wanna get out of here, Santi?”

Relief quickly vanishes beneath the promising gleam in his eyes as he takes your hand.

#santiago garcia x reader #santiago pope garcia x reader #triple frontier fic #santiago garcia #oscar isaac #oscar isaac characters #if it sounds like a straight white girl wrote this...i write what i know 🤷🏻‍♀️💀

[red-jaebyrd]

My Brother’s Keeper

Ric hadn’t set out to make a new friend that day. In fact he hadn’t even expected to see the guy again once he had helped Ric push his busted cab to the side of the road.

Hardly anyone ever went out of their way to help others in Bludhaven. It surprised Ric when this guy, Jason just appeared as if out of nowhere to yell at honking drivers and help Ric get his cab out of the way of traffic. Ric had invited him to The Prodigal for a beer that night as a thank you. He wasn’t sure if Jason would even show up that night, but to his surprise he did.

“So what do you do when you're not swooping in to help complete strangers push their broken down cars out of rush hour traffic?” Ric asked.

Jason laughed. “Little bit of this, little bit of that, mostly free-lance stuff.”

It was a vague answer, but Ric let it slide. Everyone had their secrets, he couldn’t fault a guy he just met to have a few.

“Must be nice. Is it real lucrative?”

“The pay isn’t bad,” Jason shrugged. “I get to set my own hours and carry a gun.”

“Can’t argue with those perks,” Ric chuckled, taking a drink of his beer. “So did you grow up around here?”

“Nah, I grew up in Gotham, what about you?”

Ric tensed at hearing Gotham and gripped the handle of his beer mug tighter. He really hoped Jason wasn’t another one of Wayne’s associates trying to jog his memory and lure him back ‘home’. Maybe he should just play along.

“Same, seems everyone one I’ve run into lately is from Gotham.” Ric challenged.

“Well, to be fair Gotham is a pretty big place,” Jason replied causally. “So what brought you to Bludhaven?”

Ric shrugged allowing the tension to leave his shoulders. “Let’s just say I needed somewhere new to spread my wings.”

“And you chose Bludhaven?” Jason snorted. “Did you lose a bet?”

“Shut up.” Ric laughed, elbowing Jason in the arm. “Don’t knock it. You’re here too. What brought you to the ‘haven’?”

Jason ran a hand through his hair. His brow furrowed in thought before he answered. At first Ric thought that maybe he was prying too much into this guy’s life, or asking too many personal questions.  He couldn’t help it. He liked talking and Jason was the first person besides Bea that was actually interested in talking to him.

“Gotham wasn’t safe for us anymore, so my brothers and I bailed and came here.”

“Looks like you left just in time. I heard a lot of crazy shit with the Bat was happening in Gotham. Wait, did you say ‘brothers’?” Ric’s smiled wistfully.

Jason nodded. “I have four. One was staying with our sister the last time I checked in with him and the other two came here with me.”

Ric had always wondered what it would be like to be part of a big family.  He wondered if he had ever asked his parents for a brother or a sister. If they hadn’t died, would they have had more children? Would he have been a good big brother to them? Wayne did have a younger son, so Ric was technically a big brother, but he couldn’t remember his life with him. When it came to the Waynes, Ric was just a son and brother on paper.

“Where’s the other one? You said four brothers, but only mentioned three of them.”

He watched as Jason scratched along a groove in the wood of the bar, like he was trying to think of the right words to say. Ric’s stomach flipped as he started to speculate that maybe something serious did happen to Jason’s family. Or maybe Ric was just making Jason feel uncomfortable with all his questions. Ric did that sometimes when he got too excited talking to new people. Jason took a swig of his beer before answering Ric’s question.

“Our older brother...” Jason answered, running his fingers along the condensation of his mug. “…he went missing a few months ago. It’s been hard on the family, especially our father and my youngest brother.”

“I’m sorry. I can imagine it’s been difficult for everyone, especially you. It can’t be easy being the one that they depend on.”

Jason shook his head. “No, truthfully it sucks sometimes, but it has its moments. He was– I had a good role model and they’re good kids. They just miss him. I miss him too.”

“Well you got them somewhere safe,” Ric clapped a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Well…relatively safe. Any leads on his whereabouts?”

“Nothing but dead ends. Deep down I don’t really think he wants to found,” Jason shrugged. “But I’ll keep looking for him. So what about you, any siblings?”

Ric knew a dismissal when he heard it. He didn’t mind the change in subject. He couldn’t blame Jason for not elaborating. It had to be stressful for anyone looking for a missing family member. He assumed this question was bound to make its way onto him.

“No, I’m an only child. My parents died when I was eight.”

“Shit, sorry man. We can talk about something else.”

“It’s fine. You told me about your brother. I can talk about this. I did get taken into a good home, so I shouldn’t really complain,” Ric shrugged.

“But…”

Ric shook his head. “It’s just frustrating to have these people who are supposed to be my ‘family’ constantly telling me how I should be living my life.”

“Oh, I know how that is, trust me. It’s the worst.”

“Right? Why can’t I live my life how I want to? I’m an adult. They’re not even interested in getting to know me,” Ric ranted. “They just want their precious ‘Dick Grayson’ back. It’s my life now not his, let me live it how I want to.”

Shit. He went too far. He could see the look of surprise on Jason’s face. The lull of silence between them stretched and Ric couldn’t form a cohesive thought. Ric’s brain was scrambling for something else to say, anything to say, to fix the mess he just made but nothing was coming. Instead his mind started replaying all recent moments of disappointed people coming and going in his life claiming that they loved him, but not wanting to take the time get to know him.

Ric really hated his brain sometimes and how there was no filter between what he was thinking and what came out of his mouth. He needed to explain himself to Jason fast. Ric knew Jason had to have noticed the gnarly scar on the side of his head. Maybe the scar would give him a free pass at his unfiltered choice of words.

“Sorry, sorry, that uh kinda came out of nowhere. I…uh…had a bit of an accident…” Ric explained, pointing at his scar. “…I got shot a few months ago and well let’s just say my “family” or whatever they want to call themselves, didn’t take to my recovery well.”

“I’m sorry. Sometimes injuries that intense can either bring a family closer together or tear them apart.”

Ric shrugged his shoulders. It had been rough having to relearn how to do everyday tasks like eating, writing his name, and walking. His “family” and friends had been there at every therapy session encouraging him with their words and overall presence. But the worst of it had been their reactions to the news that his memories of them were gone.

“I couldn’t remember them,” Ric admitted, staring at his near empty beer mug.  “They were literal strangers to me the moment I opened my eyes from the coma, and it was something that they wouldn’t accept. In the end their concern for me and my recovery just felt conditional, so I left and came here.”

“Damn. Do they at least check up on you?” Jason asked.

“The old man used to, but I haven’t seen him in a while. A red-headed chick did too, but I told her not to bother anymore. Not if she’s going to keep looking at me searching for ‘him’ to come back. Apparently the other guy they really want was a real ‘Golden boy’, that’s not me.”

Jason snorted.

“What did I say?” Ric quirked a smile.

“Nothing,” Jason smirked, and took a drink of his beer.

“I’m doing just fine on my own. I don’t need them.”

“No you don’t. I know they’re family, but fuck them.” Jason clinked his beer mug against Ric’s.

Oh Ric really liked this guy.

 8888

The next few weeks Ric and Jason met up at The Prodigal for beers. Some nights all they did was talk and drink. Other nights they drank and played pool. Jason became one of Ric’s favorite drinking buddies.

Ric couldn’t legitimately remember ever having a feeling of kinship with anyone like Jason before in his life. It was nice and a bit scary at the same time letting someone new in his life. Still, instead of running away from this newfound friendship, Ric embraced it.

Friendship was a concept Ric wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to again. He didn’t have many friends in Bludhaven, well friends that he remembered. Dick’s old friends wanted nothing to do with him. They kept waiting and pushing for Dick to “come back”. When he finally snapped at them that Dick was gone and never coming back, they stopped visiting him. He did have Bea. She was the only one who had welcomed him with open arms and genuinely wanted to get to know him.

Jason had been the only other person he had run into that also didn’t have some hidden agenda to “bring Dick back”. With Jason there wasn’t any pressure or demand to be anyone other than himself. He could be Ric with no expectations thrust upon him. Jason empathized with Ric’s struggle to find his identity apart from the Waynes.

This was what made hanging out with Jason so easy. The anxiety of having to censor himself, afraid he might say or do something that was so inherently not Dick didn’t exist when he was around Jason. It was such a relief and a weight off Ric’s shoulders to just exist in a space with a friend and be himself.

Once Jason had opened up to Ric, he learned that there was a whole slew of shit that had happened to his friend in just a short amount of time. Aside from his brother going missing, Jason had a serious falling out with his dad that had caused a significant rift between them causing him to take his brothers and leave. However, the most devastating news had to be hearing that Jason’s best friend had been killed while staying at an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

“I wish I had some advice to give you, but something tells me you weren’t looking for any,” Ric said.

“No, not really, just a sympathetic ear, I guess.”

“I’m sorry about your best friend. That really sucks what happened to him.”

“Thanks, man. At least we got to work one last job together before he died. Anyway, that’s enough of my bullshit. What’s up with you? You look like my little brother after seven Red Bulls and 3 hours of sleep.”

Ric sighed. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I’ve been having these dreams lately of faceless people in weird costumes. In the dream I feel like I know them. I’m ready to say their name but I can’t talk. I wake up and by the time I try to recall the images I can’t remember them.”

“Do you think your memories are trying to come back?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know, maybe?” Ric shrugged.

“But…you don’t want them to come back, do you?”

It felt silly getting so worked up over something like lost memories resurfacing. Ric should be happy that parts of his lost past was trying to get through to him. He should be relieved that the 15 years of lost memories were finally starting to return, but he wasn’t happy or relieved. He was worried.

“What happens to me when I start remembering everything? Will I still be Ric when Dick’s memories come flooding back filling in the gaps? What if I don’t like the things I start to remember? What then?”

Jason turned in his stool to face Ric. “No matter what, you’ll still be Ric. You’ll still be the guy with the busted cab I had to push out of traffic. You’ll still be the guy that kicks my ass playing pool. You’ll still be the guy who insists on buying the first round and listening to all my bullshit. You’ll still be you, just with new memories.

“No matter what happens you are not obligated to go back to your old life or live your life by your old memories. You don’t owe those assholes in Gotham anything.”

Ric nodded allowing Jason’s words to sink in.

“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Jason clapped a hand on Ric’s shoulder. “Next round is on me.”

The anxiety slowly started to ebb away as Ric watched his friend leave their high top table and make his way to the bar to get another round of beers.

Ric couldn’t stop the new memories from coming. They were coming whether he wanted them to or not. And when they did come he was glad to have found such a great friend in Jason. The man was right, no matter what happened, he was not obligated to go back to his old life or live his life by his old memories.

Part 2: Somebody That I Used to Know

#Ric Grayson #Jason Todd #Batman #batfic #batbros #batbros bonding #Ric Grayson needs a hug #Protective Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #batfamily #Ric's not that bad once you get to know him #my fics

[chalkrevelations]

Back, finally, with Word of Honor, Episode 11, which involved a lot of waving my hands around over precious button Zhang Chengling and his concern about whatever ridiculous argument between his Murder Dads left his shifu in a snit and must be solved right this minute. I really think if he could’ve just pushed their heads together like two Ken dolls to make them kiss and make up, he would have. Didi, I could eat you up with a spoon, although not in the creepy way that Du Pusa threatens. I promise.

First, though, due diligence: Spoilers, possibly likely for the entire show, not just this ep, so scroll away and come back later if you are still, at this point in the game, trying to watch the whole 36.5 eps unspoiled. Also, this is hella long. Strap in. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

First thing I actually want to do is point out a couple of scenes that I found particularly striking for various reasons. The first one is not quite the opening scene - which is super-brief and involves Yueyang’s prep for the Heroes Conference, Gao Shan (AKA Chengling’s bully-in-chief) being smug about Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance (oh boy, are you in for a surprise, you little schmuck), and Gao Chong’s extreme weariness at the idea of Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance. Gao Chong is very tired, y’all. It’s been a long 20 years. There’s also a ginormous sword on display, like Yueyang is now having a dick-measuring contest with who they think is the disciple of the Changming Sword Immortal (and oh boy, are you guys in for another surprise. I’m not sure what part of “immortal” y’all don’t understand). But I digress - as I said, this is a very brief scene, and then we cut back to Luo Mansion, where we left Ghost Valley and Lunatic Wen at the end of the last ep. Everyone is gone except for Wen Kexing, who’s still plotting, Beauty Ghost, who’s trying to stay tf out of this current shitshow as much as possible (good luck with that), and Tragicomic Ghost, who is totally and completely Done With This Shit. She berates WKX for acting crazy, he gets snappy back – I feel like their relationship is maybe a little bit fraught at this point – and Beauty Ghost attempts to soothe the waters, leading to an eyeroll from Tragicomic Ghost with a directive to stand the hell up and stop being scared of this idiot child throwing his weight around. WKX dismisses Tragicomic Ghost so he can plan a Very Secret Mission for Beauty Ghost in secret. WKX is … he is super-tired at this point. Painfully, achingly tired. I would almost say weary. We can see it in Gong Jun’s face. It’s a nice subtle bit of acting, and it definitely says something about WKX’s relationship with these women that he’s willing and able to show it in front of them, even as he’s still throwing his weight around.

Anyway, Liu Qianqiao proves her smarts by showing her hand just enough for WKX and us to see that she’s seen through the Lunatic Wen act to the utility of chokin’ out a dude as a warning, to try keeping Changing Ghost in line (good luck with that), but she also assures all of us that she only wants to serve the Ghost Valley Master and has no agenda of her own. WKX assures her that he has everything under control (Uh … huh. OK, my dude) and tells her he has a task for her, before detouring into a quiz about her disguise technique (learned from Qin Huaizhang, Zhou Zishu’s shifu at Siji Manor, and this is probably a tipoff that the Very Secret Mission will involve disguising herself), about Siji Manor, and about why she never visited there. We get some interesting vague hints about her past, including the fact that she met Qin Huaizhang when she was “little” and he took pity on her “disfigurement,” according to both the Youku and Netflix English subs. @coralcoloratura pulled out 童年时 (tóngnián shí) from the Chinese subs for me, which does mean “childhood.” Given that the going story is Yu Qiufeng’s wife threw acid in LQQ’s face over their affair, this opens up some questions about how old LQQ actually was when all that happened. Viki subs, per @janedrewfinally, add that she says she treated Qin Huaizhang to a meal, so she couldn’t have been too young. But Qin Huaizhang dies when ZZS is just 16, and LQQ can’t be any older than ZZS, and is likely younger (good lord, I just checked actor ages, and Ke Naiyu is 7 years younger than ZZH, so that’s probably not a good age gap to port over to the show, because just. No.). All this leads me to place LQQ at somewhere between Zhang Chengling’s age and Gu Xiang’s age (at most) when this whole tragic backstory happened, which is still pretty freakin’ young, and I can see why she would consider herself a child, at least metaphorically, in terms of naïvete, if not literally. I don’t know how much exploration has been done about this, on the fannish side of things, but it seems like an area rich for exploration. Also, I CANNOT TELL YOU how much I now want to read the AU of WKX and LQQ both actually being brought to Siji Manor at various times by Qin Huaizhang and staying there. I suspect that with those two shidi backing him, ZZS might never have had to go to Prince Jin in the first place. (Clearly this makes some things problematic, including A-Xiang, but I keep thinking about ZZS, WKX and LQQ growing up together … And anyway, I’m ALSO willing to read the AU(s) where WKX’s storyline stays the same, but LQQ does come to Siji Manor – both the AU where she and ZZS together manage to save the sect, and the AU where she goes with them to Jin, and the kind of weapon she could be for ZZS there, as he runs Tian Chuang. Who’s writing all this? Anyone? Anyone?) Anyway, when WKX asks why she didn’t visit Siji Manor, LQQ tells WKX that she’s a ghost now and doesn’t want to think about the living world anymore, which is probably a way of saying she wishes she had gone there and doesn’t want to talk about her many and varied bad decisions back in the day; it also acts as an unknowing reinforcement of that bright line WKX is desperately trying to maintain for himself between the world of ghosts and the world of humans. Plus it gives him the chance to speak the very portentous line that “Yes, we’re ghosts, and ghosts disappear in the light,” pulling the theme of light back in, again and giving us all kinds of foreshadowing. Cut away as he leans in to whisper her mission to her.

The other really striking scene, for me, happens near the end of the ep, when Gao Chong visits the shrine room, with the memorial tablets of his various brothers and friends. This hit me not just because of Hei Zi’s acting (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but also because this is a scene that reflects both backward and forward in the show - back to ZZS in Ep 1 and forward to the two scenes that Zhao Jing will have in this same room – as well as giving us all sorts of subtle clues about relationships throughout the show. So first of all, we see, in a shot that will mean more the deeper we get into the show, tablets for Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao (or, “his wife,” as the Youku subs call her, and this is me, rolling my eyes), who were apparently close enough to Gao Chong that he keeps memorial tablets for them on his home altar - which helps explain why WKX is so incensed that none of these Five Lakes Alliance assholes helped his parents when they were turned out of the Healer’s Valley, although that’s not something we would have known yet on a first watch through the show. Gao Chong lights some incense and apologizes to the tablet of Zhang Yusen for letting Zhang Chengling get kidnapped. He talks about waiting 20 years to learn the truth – which is kind of cryptic, but probably means the truth about who poisoned his sword before the spar with Rong Xuan, which we hear about in a later scene this ep – and gets a little bit salty about the fact that it doesn’t matter if everyone else doesn’t believe him, but why didn’t Zhang Yusen believe him? Again, I’m assuming this is about Gao Chong’s protestations that he’s not the one who put poison on his sword. We also learn in this same ep – from Chengling – that Zhang Yusen’s break with the Five Lakes Alliance seems to have at least started that far back, and that Yusen would have been at Mount Qingya to stand with Rong Xuan against his other Alliance brothers, if Yusen’s shifu hadn’t broken his legs so that he couldn’t travel there. (Yusen clearly had some strong feelings about this, if that’s what it took to get him to sit still for it. Also, it makes me wonder how Ye Baiyi’s feelings about Chengling might change if he ever learned that Chengling’s father intended to defend and stand with a guy who Ye Baiyi considered his own child, as well as his disciple.)

Gao Chong then proceeds to have a little crisis of faith – he’s very tired, y’all, it’s been a long 20 years – and talks about how no one understands him, and he’s old, and everyone’s dead. He also yells at Rong Xuan’s tablet, calling Rong Xuan da-ge but also saying he’s sorry he ever met him, but then there’s this brief little moment after, when he seems a little bit shocked at himself for saying it out loud, which reminds me, honestly, of the moment in CQL (we’ve all seen The Untamed, right, I don’t have to put spoiler warnings for it, right?) when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are in the Yunmeng Jiang memorial hall and Wei Wuxian talks about Yu Ziyuan’s punishments back in the day, then pats his own mouth and says “My fault, my fault, my fault” before bowing to her tablet. Like, yes, their relationship was multiple levels of fucked-up, and his reaction is not out of place given some of his continuing neuroses, but also, this is just not a thing you do, speaking ill of the dead to their faces. I’m sure Gao Chong does regret ever meeting Rong Xuan, and the way that led to the building of the Armory and the Five Lakes Alliance to guard it, and the position that ultimately put Gao Chong in - not to mention that if he never met Rong Xuan he never would have accidentally killed him. But you can’t say things like that OUT LOUD to the MEMORIAL TABLET. Then contrast this to Zhao Jing, who literally takes a piss on the tablet in one of the later episodes. Because he’s the worst. And THEN, Gao Chong kneels and talks to the tablets of Zhang Yusen and Lu Taichong, his dead Five Lakes Alliance brothers, saying they must have met again in the netherworld, and that they’re probably swearing about him right now, and this is the point when I sit straight up and exclaim, out loud, “Fuck. Me. This is Zhou Zishu’s breakdown at the mirror in Episode 1.” When he talks to Jiuxiao about how Jiuxiao and Jing’An must have met again in the afterlife by now and are probably discussing what an awful shixiong ZZS is, right? And then Gao Chong even laughs bitterly like ZZS, and cries like ZZS, and I just. OK. FINE, show. I’ll try to go a little easier on Gao Chong, because you’re clearly linking him to ZZS, here, and I’m willing to forgive ZZS for anything. I suppose I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t try to extend just a little bit of the same grace to Gao Chong.

So, that’s a lot of verbiage, and I haven’t even gotten to Wenzhou yet, but trust me, I have some things to say about them. While WKX has been terrorizing the troops, ZZS left Han Ying’s place and immediately started drinking again, because that continues to be the best way – in combo with his Nails – he knows to kill himself by increments, but so sad, he’s run out of wine as he wanders the marketplace, alone and zhiji-less. Inside Yueyang, Chengling finds a note purporting to be from “Xu,” instructing him to meet at the North Gate that night, and like the little idiot they keep calling him (he really is too pure for this world), he takes it at face value. On his way that night, he runs into Gao Shan, who inadvertently almost saves him by interrupting his sneaking around to try to bully him back to his room. Something something food as bonding, because the lie Zhang Chengling comes up with is that he’s hungry (he’s not eating Yueyang’s food, and it’s not nourishing him), and he’s on his way to find something to eat (because he and his Murder Dads are in a mutually nourishing relationship, and that’s who he wants to be with). Also, no, he would prefer going to find something to eat for himself and not eating whatever Gao Shan will bring back to Chengling’s room. (A little bit, I’m sad there’s never any place to fit in some canon-complicit long-form enemies to failboats to lovers fic for these two. I have to admit, I would read it. Someone should do something with the tension between them, although I don’t really want it to be anything that will make Best Boy permanently sad.) Anyway, A-Xiang shows up just as Gao Shan is about to frog-march Chengling back to his room, and Gao Shan never sees her coming before he’s knocked out on the ground. A-Xiang is confused about the note but nevertheless helps Chengling get to where he’s supposed to meet “Xu,” whereupon she gets beat up and gets her didi took by the Scorpions. (There’s an interesting moment here where Pretty Arhat is fighting with A-Xiang and asks what her relationship is to Beauty Ghost, which whaaaaaat? THERE’S some backstory I need more on. I’m assuming this is based on A-Xiang’s hand-to-hand fighting style, which I think is the only thing Pretty Arhat has seen at this point, and exactly WHEN has she gotten so familiar with Beauty Ghost’s fighting style? Also, I like the apparent nod to Beauty Ghost’s influence in raising A-Xiang (and we’ll see more of this).) Meanwhile, ZZS has been inexorably drawn to the place he left his child disciple child and is moping right outside of Yueyang, so he sees Pretty Arhat fly away with Chengling. Murder Dad 1 springs into action.

Yueyang disciples run around like ants whose hill has been kicked over, looking for Chengling in town, and two of them encounter Wen Kexing, out for a midnight stroll in a fetching pastel blue and green combo. They ask him about seeing a guy. With a pipa. Or maybe without a pipa. So maybe just a guy. Wen Kexing correctly deduces they’re asking about Phantom Musician Qin Song, who covered Pretty Arhat��s getaway by incapacitating everyone with his magic music. YY disciples are excited and tell WKX yes, this dude was involved in kidnapping Zhang Chengling! Y’all. WKX’s face when he hears that. He is not happy. Almost immediately, he spots Qin Song on a rooftop. Murder Dad 2 springs into action.

So, WKX the Ghost Valley Master finds Qin Song, asks him where Chengling is, crushes his playing hand, threatens to break every single bone in his body one at a time (meanwhile dropping the tidbit that he learned the number of bones in the human body from his dad), and tells him a little story about a time when – apparently – he asked another guy the same question (about WHO? has A-Xiang been kidnapped in the past, because that’s about the only other person I can imagine him being like this about?) and only had to break 80 bones before he got an answer. Meanwhile, ZZS actually finds Chengling, in the Scorpion lair where Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat have variously been molesting him (srsly, I feel like I should probably say something to a trusted adult Murder Dad), torturing him with unpleasant magic pixie dust, smacking him around (he loses a tooth, y’all), and waterboarding him. During all this, Pretty Arhat says she’s yet to meet a man who can stand up to waterboarding, and I’m kind of reminded of WKX’s scene threatening Qin Song, and I don’t know if that’s on purpose or not. Chengling literally spits in her face and proclaims that he’s the son of Zhang Yusen, none of whose sons are cowards, and about then, ZZS busts down the door like he’s WKX (by throwing Monster Jiang through it), tells the Scorpions he’s their daddy, and gets into a big fucking fight with all three of them. He flags a little bit somewhere in here as he starts having some Nail pangs (which, yeah, it must be getting about midnight, which is when that’s supposed to happen) and spits some blood, but he reassures Chengling and then tells the Scorpions no one can stop him from killing who he wants and getting what he wants (OK, Wei Wuxian …). Then he shoots some projectiles from some little contraption up his sleeve that we get a quick look at that I did not remember AT ALL from my first watch of the show but is literally like the gun hanging over the mantel in the first act. Huh. Anyway, he kills Monster Jiang, and Du Pusa (who didn’t give a shit about Monster Jiang OR Qin Song earlier), wants to capture him alive, supposedly so she can get revenge for them by teaching him how it feels “to want to die more than live.” Joke’s on you, lady – too late! That’s literally his constant state of being!

About this time, Qin Song comes flying through the doors – or what’s left of them – gasping his last breath as WKX makes his dramatic entrance. Chengling not only calls him “Wen-shu” but also has already figured out exactly how to manipulate Murder Dad 2 and tells him that in addition to kidnapping him, they also hurt ZZS. WKX is predictably murderous, and Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat run away and hide behind the skirts of Xie Wang’s robes as the Zombie Drug Man Army approaches. WKX tells ZZS to take Chengling and leave, ZZS refuses, and Xie Wang LITERALLY SAYS “IN LIFE AND DEATH YOU WILL NEVER PART. WHAT A TOUCHING MOMENT.” and I am DYING. Also, this will not be the last time ZZS/WKX will exhibit what Xie’er wants from his Awful Yifu. Anyway, Xie’er calls ZZS “Leader Zhou,” then tells WKX that he’ll tell them who he (Xie Wang) is if WKX tells them all who he is first. ZZS is Very Done with all of this and smoke bombs the Scorpions to escape. Xie’er shows he actually does know who both of them are – even though each of them doesn’t know everything about the other’s identity yet, and won’t for a while – by telling Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat that they’re the leader of Tian Chuang and the leader of the Ghost Valley and wondering “How did these two devils end up together?” Like calls to like, I guess.

OK, this is getting super-long, so I’m going to attempt to wrap up with the actual Wenzhou material. We cut to Murder Dads and Chengling sitting in the forest, around a campfire, and Chengling is in heaven, back with his family. He’s super-emotional, and ZZS is all, come on, be a man, don’t cry (OK, crybaby). WKX gives some campfire-cooked rabbit? maybe? to ZZS, who starts a precedent by passing it to Chengling. Please, A-Xu. WKX wants to feed his laopo, will you eat something, ffs? Chengling, still emotional, tells them that he knows they’re the only ones who are sincerely kind to him, that Five Lakes Alliance has all kinds of agendas and none of them care about him, and nobody has asked him what he wants. (I know, bb, they were awful.) ZZS asks what he wants, and Chengling says he wants to learn martial arts, to get revenge, and to not be a useless child anymore. Oh god, the cut to WKX here. His face, y’all. He is not cool with the fact that Chengling thinks he can’t be a child anymore, and probably with whatever role he (WKX) had in it. He is so sad. It’s killing me. However, it’s not as if WKX has lost his edge, and he also pounces, asking Chengling if something happened that made him suspicious of the Alliance. Chengling spills that his dad already didn’t trust them and also told him not to trust anyone ever, but he trusts his Murder Dads! This kid, I tell you. He tells them that his dad hid the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor in his stomach and starts getting ready to cut it out for them before ZZS stops him. He tells them Yusen gave him a letter for the Changming Sword Immortal detailing Rong Xuan’s injury (and we get our first iteration of the story of the battle between the Five Lakes Alliance brothers and Rong Xuan, the poison on the sword, and how that turned Rong Xuan evil). Per Chengling, the original argument was about the Combined Six Cultivation Method. Also per Chengling, the Alliance bothers should have been responsible for Rong Xuan after that, but no one stood up for him – I mean, Zhang Yusen would have, but his legs were broken. We learn that the poisoned sword that injured Rong Xuan belonged to Gao Chong. ZZS looks taken aback, but this all just CONFIRMS WKX’s SUSPICIONS.

Cut away for another scene. Cut back. ZZS has suddenly remembered that he’s pissed off and that someone (else, not him) is sleeping on the couch tonight. Earlier, they were sat in order of Chengling, ZZS, WKX. Now Chengling has been put between them. WKX asks for wine, A-Xu is being passive-aggressive and ignoring him before finally handing the wine gourd to Chengling to pass to WKX. He won’t even look at WKX. It is hilarious, particularly as he only remembered he was mad after they’d all eaten dinner, which WKX cooked, and the pair of them made sure their child was OK. Chengling wants to know if they fought and tells them there’s nothing confidants can’t resolve. He’s in full puppy mode. He tells WKX to hurry up and comfort ZZS, because you know he looks tough on the surface but he’s got the softest heart! Didn’t you teach me that tough women can’t resist clingy men? ZZS’s indignant little face at this is a picture. Chengling offers to apologize for WKX. WKX’s face is all fondness for Chengling, except for the eyebrows, which are doing the Tragic Sadness Eyebrows at ZZS. ZZS is all, OK, fine, although he immediately changes the subject and starts talking about the kidnapping attempt. He tells Chengling that the world is dangerous right now, and the safest place for him is Yueyang Sect. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? Chengling sadly nods. My little dude, c’mon. ZZS’s Nails are bothering him and WKX takes the chance to feed him qi, which ZZS accepts – might I note - without complaint. WKX waxes rhapsodic about A-Xu’s shoulder blades, and says he once saw a dead body with beautiful shoulder blades. Smashcut to a flashback of two people who we don’t yet know are Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao dead on the ground. Although this takes place immediately after the scene of Gao Chong at the altar, when the first tablets we see are Zhen Ruyu’s and Gu Maiomiao’s, we also don’t know yet to connect those names to these bodies. Tricksy, show. We see Zhen Yan place his hand on Gu Miaomiao’s back, and WKX’s voiceover talks about how he could tell she was a beauty despite the blood everywhere. ZZS interrupts this morbid tale to say they should let the past stay in the past, and then tells WKX, “My condolences,” even though WKX hasn’t actually mentioned anywhere in the story about this dead body that it was even anyone he knew, let alone someone he was related to. Because A-Xu isn’t stupid. Immediately after this - after saying they should leave the past in the past - ZZS asks WKX who he is. WKX goes into his Philanthropist Wen evasion spiel. ZZS shakes his head, visibly steels himself, and apparently comes to the decision to model the behavior he’s trying to encourage by coming clean about his real name, his relationship to Siji Manor, all of his bad decisions, his choking guilt over the deaths of all the Siji Manor disciples, and his reign of state-sanctioned terror as founder and leader of Tian Chuang. Notably, the very first word Chengling speaks to ZZS after hearing this rundown of supposed and actual crimes is to call him “Shifu” again to get his attention before asking for more info about the Scorpions. THIS CHILD. MY HEART.

ZZS tells them both, “I spent half my life alone, doing things I didn’t want to do and killing people I didn’t want to kill,” and I literally want to reach into the screen and shake WKX, because OMG LAO WEN. You are reflections of each other, and he’s baring his soul, and you’re going to continue to be so afraid that he’s not going to accept every part of you that it’s going to be episodes and episodes before you open up, and even then, only after he figures it out on his own. :hands: To make things even more OBVIOUS, ZZS then asks Chengling if he still wants ZZS to be his shifu after learning all of this, and Chengling doesn’t even hesitate, he says “Of course,” and ZZS and I are both about to cry. UGH. Zhang Zhehan, your face. It’s killing me. This is a man seeing the hope of resurrection for the sect he was convinced he had ground into dust. ZZS and Chengling are both so busy being emotional at each other that WKX has to take matters into his own hands, encouraging Chengling to bow, and we get a real bow to shifu this time, in a scene that once again mirrors the later scene when Zhen Yan makes his bow to Qin Huaizhang to become a Siji Manor disciple.

ZZS tells Chengling, all right, then. You are the first disciple of the sixth generation. (SHIXIONG. NO PRESSURE.)

End ep.

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #beauty ghost #liu qianqiao #gao chong #gao shan #du pusa #pretty arhat #qin song #gu xiang #xie wang #tragicomic ghost #luo fumeng #qin huaizhang #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

[canon-notcanon-warriorcats]

Decatssi: A Warrior Cats Re-write Arc I

-dustpaw is mentored by tigerclaw and ravenpaw is mentored by redtail, both apprentices witness redtail being killed by tigerclaw, though ravenpaw wasn’t supposed to

-redtail and runningwind are sandpaw’s dads and she has a breakdown over her dad’s death

-sandpaw is still mentored by whitestorm, graypaw is mentored by mousefur, and ravenpaw is given to lionheart to finish his training, firepaw is juggled between all of them for a couple days but runningwind and bluestar end up dual mentoring him

-bluestar makes lionheart deputy as usual, ravenpaw is still scared of tigerclaw, but since he doesn’t have to be constantly around him and has the protection of lionheart and his friends, he doesn’t leave thunderclan and fake his death

-sandpaw gets close to firepaw before she’s a warrior because she realizes that dustpaw is a big jerk wad and firepaw isn’t even that bad and her dad is his mentor and he likes him and she knows that redtail would’ve liked him as well, so dustpaw, tigerclaw, darkstripe, and longtail are probably the wrong ones

-brokenstar was already the leader when firepaw joins and has been for like a year and now he’s ran out windclan and yellowfang

-firepaw finds yellowfang and instead of everyone being like “we should kill her” they actually have brain cells and are like “something’s not right, also yellowfang you can chill here, but firepaw you still have to take care of her because you brought her here” tigerclaw, darkstripe, and dustpaw are the only ones pissed at yellowfang existing in thunderclan

-brokenstar attacks thunderclan while most of the warriors are out on patrol (hmmm tigerclaw, lionheart, firepaw, ravenpaw, and runngingwind are the only cats trained and healthy enough to properly fight while this attack is going on, interesting) because they want more babies to make into murder machines, spottedleaf, who doesn’t have any weird feelings for firepaw and instead is sandpaw’s cool and wise aunt who she loves, is killed, rosetail is killed, thrushpelt is killed (he was an elder, he didn’t die yet before firepaw came to the forest) and lionheart are killed

-bluestar losing her girlfriend, boyfriend, medicine cat, AND deputy gets hit very hard and refuses to name a new deputy because she’s lost two in like a month and a half “if starclan keeps taking my deputies, then they can be the one to choose them!”

-she goes to the moonstone with all the apprentices, whitestorm, mousefur, and runningwind and gets killed by a rat but she’s better now and still has two lives so she’s fine

-ashkit and fernkit are now born to brindleface and their dad is darkstripe, but he wants nothing to do with them and is an asshole to brindleface for no reason, also it should be mentioned that darkstripe’s dad is thistleclaw who was killed by redtail and whitestorm when he was an apprentice and his mom is willowpelt, and now willowpelt and whitestorm are mates so now he has a grudge against both of them and is angry because his family is weird now (no one besides whitestorm and willowpelt know it was him and redtail who killed thistleclaw)

-snowkit is born to speckletail and unknown tom, she won’t say and no one cares, also oh no snowkit is deaf but speckletail’s sister, one-eye, who is going deaf, helps them learn a kind of sign language, and a bunch of thunderclan, including the kits, wanna learn too

-firepaw decides that windclan being chased out for almost 3 moons is too long so him, ravenpaw, graypaw, and sandpaw go save them, not dustpaw though because dustpaw said it was stupid and windclan should stay gone

-they succeed! and bluestar is so impressed she makes them into warriors: fireheart, graystripe, ravenpelt, and sandstorm, dustpaw gets pissed off that he isn’t made a warrior too, he’s older than graystripe and fireheart and his brother got made a warrior, but bluestar tells him to shut up, cats become warriors when they act like warriors, not when they become a certain age

-brokenstar attacks thunderclan again, but this time bluestar captures him and kills him once and also blinds him, everyone takes a moment to remember exactly why she was made leader

-everyone’s nervous that bluestar still hasn’t chosen a deputy yet, they all know it’s between whitestorm or tigerclaw, but bluestar’s still scared they’ll just die as soon as she makes one of them deputy, redtail had only been deputy fro a few moons (one-eye was her deputy before she retired) and lionheart had been deputy for like what, a month and a half before he was killed? also bramblekit and tawnykit are born to goldenflower and tigerclaw

-tigerclaw is weirdly close to brokenstar “theywere friends when they were apprentices and warriors together” everyone says, but is that really what’s happening

-shadowclan is glad to be rid of brokenstar and his followers and they choose nightpelt as their new leader, who actually does get eight lives and becomes nightstar, but they’re pissed that thunderclan is keeping brokenstar because if they had just killed him one last time by now nightstar could’ve had 9 lives

-bluestar makes brightpaw, cinderpaw, brackenpaw, and thornpaw apprentices and give them to sandstorm, fireheart, graystripe, and ravenpelt respectively, it’s been like a moon and dustpaw is still an apprentice because he’s a little turd head

-except graystripe has been going off on his own a lot lately and is like barely mentor, turns out he’s dating silverstream who saved his life while coming back from saving windclan, sandstorm gets angry because she’s had a crush on her for moons but i guess she didn’t like her back

-brokenstar’s rogues attack to free him, but they’re actually being led by tigerclaw now and in the flurry of battle, tigerclaw kills bluestar onces, but she beats him out of her den with the help of whitestorm and fireheart before he can take another one

-yellowfang feeds brokenstar deathberries as she tells him she’s his mom in the midst of battle so the rogues attacking only comes to his death

-what a surprise, tigerclaw had been conspiring with brokenstar and took over his rogues, bluestar banishes him and he’s chased out, but dustpaw follows him because he’s more loyal to tigerclaw than thunderclan and he’s pissed that bluestar didn’t make him a warrior, darkstripe stays to everyone’s surprised because he was tigerclaw’s first apprentice and they were super close, longtail is shocked and angry at tigerclaw and revokes any and all respect and loyalty he had towards him

-bluestar finally names whitestorm as her deputy and orders to keep a watch out for tigerclaw and dustpaw

approximate amount of time that passes during all of this: 5 moons

-graystripe is whitestorm and willowpelt’s son (kiiind of) and so darkstripe also has a super grudge against him, also graystripe gloats that his dad is the thunderclan deputy a LOT now, he also sometimes calls bluestar grandma

-it’s the beginning of leaf-bare now

-while out on a patrol-date, fireheart and sandstorm find old tigerclaw scent by twolegplace so they try to track where he’s been, but when they find a brown trabby it’s actually fireheart’s long lost sister princess!

-fireheart has vague memories of her, but she recognizes him immediately and is so excited and tries to get him to follow her to visit their mom, nutmeg, fireheart declines saying that thunderclan is his home now, sandstorm leaves them to catch up and hunt, tigerclaw’s sent was too old anyway

-they talk for quite a bit and princess tells fireheart that she’s afraid her twolegs will take away her 5 kits who are a moon old now and after fireheart has told her about the clans she wants one of them to come live with him

-fireheart is hesitant, but princess doesn’t really take no for an answer and brings out a white fluff ball she named cloud and really how can you say no to that

-fireheart brings fluffy back to camp and everyone’s kind pissed, but bluestar’s just like “you really like bringing cats outside of the clan to us don’t you” but she has a soft spot for white cats because her sister was white, her first apprentice, frostfur, was white, and her nephew-son-deputy is white, she also has a soft spot for fireheart so how can she say no, “okay, but you have to be his dad now”, brindleface offers to take him because her kits, ashkit and fernkit, are the closest in age to cloudkit, darkstripe gets extremely pissed off that his “mate” is nursing a kittypet and his son and daughter are now being raised with a kittypet, but brindleface puts him in his place and basically officially breaks up with him, if they were ever considered a couple in the first place

-a few days later a patrol of whitestorm, runningwind, fireheart, and cinderpaw are patroling the shadowclan border, suddenly there’s some rustling and it’s not until then that runningwind catches tigerclaw’s scent (he’s one of the best trackers in the clan, no one else could scent it yet over the stench of the thunderpath) tigerclaw jumps at whitestorm, but runningwind zooms between them, saving whitestorm and getting killed by tigerclaw instead, who runs across the thunderpath into shadowclan territory, his two rogues following behind him (they were fighting fireheart, whitestorm, and cinderpaw)

-cinderpaw goes after them even with her mentor and deputy yelling at her to not and she gets hit by a car, her left back leg being almost cleanly torn off from below the knee, whitestorm carries runningwind and fireheart carries his apprentice back to camp

-sandstorm has another breakdown because now both of her parents are dead and tigerclaw is the one that killed them both, runningwind’s parents halftail and one-eye, his sister, mousefur, his former mentor, bluestar, and his former apprentice, fireheart, all grieve immensely for him as well and sit vigil

-frostfur, thornpaw, brightpaw, and brackenpaw are all also terrified for cinderpaw, fireheart is caught between grief for both runningwind and his apprentice, but yellowfang removes cinderpaw’s barely hanging on leg and she miraculously survives, yellowfang thinks this is the first time in clan history a cat has lost a leg and survived

-a week later cinderpaw is back on her paws, or trying to be, she asks yellowfang if she’ll have to be a medicine cat, but yellowfang tells her that she’s too much of a fighter to be a medicine cat, she has to become a warrior, fireheart vows to train cinderpaw to be the best warrior she can be and so she can become a warrior alongside her littermates, all while also basically training brackenpaw because graystripe keeps sneaking away, and helping to raise cloudkit, this is when sandstorm falls in love with him, they had been friends kind of crushing before, but now it was evident that they were falling madly in love with each other

-a terrible sickness starts in shadowclan, it’s so bad nightstar has already lost two lives to it

-fireheart visits windclan with cinderpaw to get tips from the deputy, deadfoot, on hos to become a warrior with only three fully functioning legs

-at some point both yellowfang and tallstar call fireheart their son

-a rare thunderstorm happens during leaf-bare about a moon after cinderpaw’s accident and a fire starts close to thunderclan’s camp, they flee over the river and stay the night in the riverclan camp until the fire has stopped after being put out by the falling snow

-yellowfang and fireheart save bramblekit, but speckletail sadly dies from smoke inhalation while saving her son, snowkit, smallear reveals that he was snowkit’s father, goldenflower asks if he was also her’s and lionheart’s father, but he says no, their father had been sunstar, thunderclan’s leader before bluestar “why didn’t speckletail tell anyone” “because she was honorary and didn’t like other cats knowing her business, neither sunstar or me had ever actually been her loves anyway”

-bluestar talks to mistyfoot and stonefure a /lot/ and seems to take an interest in mistyfoots new kits, primrosekit, pikekit, perchkit, and reedkit

-graystripe does a terrible job at hiding him and silverstream being mates a secret and hangs out with her and mosspelt, who’s pregnant, a lot, silverstream reveals to everyone that she is ALSO PREGNANT but she refuses to tell who the father is

-thunderclan returns to their territory the next morning, the camp needs rebuilding, but luckily the fire didn’t damage an especially large amount of territory, darkstripe is fidgety

-also this is around the time littlecloud decides to become a medicine cat, him and cinderpaw become good friends at the first gathering she’s back and he gets inspired to take a path of healing, a path that brokenstar had refused him, he also has his boyfriend, whitethroat with him

-a couple nights later, goldenflower screams that her kits are missing and soon darkstripe comes back with them, saying they had tried escaping the camp and he had found them on his way back from getting some fresh air, he’s also weirdly taken interest in his own kits, like he wants to become an actual father to them

-willowpelt is pregnant with whitestorm’s second litter of kits!

-there’s dog scent by snakerocks, and also dead rabbits, what could be happening, better go to windclan and interrogate them

-tallstar denies any windclan activity in thunderclan territory, but they still haven’t SEEN any dogs at snakerocks and it might be too dangerous to check it out, even though it’s leaf-bare, adders could still come out of their dens

-brackenpaw is anxious that graystripe has hardly been around for his training and thinks that maybe graystripe doesn’t think he’s good enough to be a warrior, so he asks his littermates to help him fight off the dogs at snakerocks, if he does that graystripe will HAVE to recognize him as good enough, but only brightpaw agrees to come with him, and only because it’s a stupid idea and he shouldn’t go alone

-the next night they go to get rid of the dogs and brackenpaw and brutally murdered and brightpaw is found staying alive by a thread, without an eye and a torn ear

-frostfur is devistated, just after her one daughter was healing, her other daughter was barely alive and one of her sons was dead

-thornpaw tells fireheart, sandstorm, and ravenpelt why they went to drive out the dogs and they get justifiably angry at graystripe, who walks back into camp only after brackenpaw’s body was laying in the middle of the clearing

-sandstorm is so angry at him she swipes at his muzzle, cause droplets of blood to appear and graystripe, in fear, anger, and grief runs out of the camp again, fireheart and ravenpelt run after him, knowing exactly where he’s going, and when they reach sunningrocks they find silverstream giving birth far too early to her’s and graystripe’s kits

-yellowfang is too far away and will still be busy trying to save brightpaw, so, defying silverstream’s and graystripe’s wants, retrieves riverclan’s medicine cat, mudfur, but it’s sadly not enough as silverstream dies shortly after both of the kits are born and she barely utters names for them, featherkit and stormkit

-crookedstar, being by his daughter’s side as she died just as her own mother had died giving birth to her and her siblings, is extremely angered and upset at graystripe, but when graystripe asks to live in riverclan with his kits, crookedstar hesitantly allows him, ravenpelt and fireheart object, but graystripe tells them he’d do better with his kits in their mother’s clan than he’s been doing in thunderclan as a warrior, leaving with crookedstar and mudstar, mosspelt, who had just given birth to two kits, dawnkit and shinekit, two days earlier, turned out to have also been silverstreams mate, and those two kits had been surrogated by a tom for her and silverstream to raise together, graystripe knew this was happening and gladly agreed to mosspelt nursing his kits

approximate time that has passed between part 1 and now: 4 months

-with the news that graystripe has moved to riverclan to be with his kits bluestar and whitestorm just kind of quietly accept that their family can’t have a normal relationship ever

-frostfur is pissed because it seems like graystripe is running away from his actions causing his apprentice’s death, but she doesn’t want to be and tries to hold it in, hoping that the bigger reason why he left was because he wanted to be with his kits and if so she can respect that and makes her very slightly less angry

-with everything going on, bramblekit and tawnykit “sneak out” again and darkstripe “finds them” outside of camp /again/

-it takes brightpaw over a day to regain consciousness, but the bleeding has finally calmed down and she’s going to be okay

-bluestar wants to make thornpaw, cinderpaw, and brightpaw warriors now because thornpaw’s ready, cinderpaw has gracefully caught up and is doing really well adapting, and brightpaw will need help adapting to hunt and fight with only one eye but before this she was basically ready to become a warrior, but thornpaw and cinderpaw want to wait for their sister to be healed

-bluestar agrees, though she didn’t want almost as many apprentices as there are warriors, but it’s close to when ashkit, fernkit, snowkit, and cloudkit should be apprenticed

-bluestar wanted to give snowpaw to willowpelt but she’s gonna have kits any day now, so she gives him to frostfur instead, gives ashpaw to whitestorm, decides to finally trust longtail and gives him his first apprentice in fernpaw, and even though he’s technically still mentoring cinderpaw, bluestar gives cloudpaw to fireheart because who else could mentor this fluffy idiot

-darkstripe is overly mad that his son is being mentored by whitestorm

-willowpelt gives birth to sorrelkit, rainkit, and sootkit hooray

-a few days after silverstream gives birth, crookedstar loses his last life to greencough and leopardfur takes his place as leader and is now leopardstar and she names stonefur as her deputy, graystripe is afraid she’ll kick him out, but luckily she tells him that as long as he’s loyal, he may stay

-meanwhile, dead rabbits keep appearing closer and closer to the thunderclan camp, seriously, in THIS leaf-bare

-patchpelt just keels over and dies because of “stomach pain”

-in the midst of mourning and darkstripe going “at least we’ll get more food” because fuck you darkstripe, brindleface is found murdered close to camp, her scent is covered in rabbit scent and wet moss, everyone correctly guesses that tigerclaw must have killed her and is probably the one killing the rabbits and slowly training and leading the dogs to the camp, but he’s been hiding his scent so no one can tell it’s him, darkstripe says that that’s reach it couldn’t possibly be tigerclaw, but no one believes him and why isn’t he angry that the mother of his children has been brutally murdered and almost made into dog food

-”hey at least it wasn’t willowpelt” he says ominously

-everyone agrees that the dogs need to get out of their territory because they’ll know where their camp is now, so they make a plan to trick them into jumping off of the cliff over the riverclan waterfall

-ashpaw, fernpaw, and cloudpaw want to be in on it but since they’ve only been apprentices for like half a moon bluestar obviously says no, whitestorm also tells bluestar to not be a part of it because he doesn’t want her to die for the final time

-before they go bluestar names frostfur’s children warriors, naming cinderpaw cinderpelt, thornpaw thornclaw, and brightpaw, who’s been starting to leave the medicine cat den, brightheart, she also gives a naming ceremony for the dead brackenpaw, saying that she would have named him brackenfur after his mother

-a patrol of thornclaw, fireheart, sandstorm, whitestorm, and longtail take turns having the pack of dogs chase them through thunderclan territory until they reach the waterfall, but instead of slipping in they manage to stop

-bluestar had been hiding there the whole time and attacks the leader dog, both her and the dogs falling into the waterfall

-thornclaw and longtail run back to tell everyone else what happened while sandstorm, fireheart, and whitestorm run to help bluestar

-the dogs are dead, but they soon find stonefur and mistyfoot pulling bluestar onto sunningrocks

-mistyfoot presses onto bluestar’s chest and she coughs up water, looking up she’s extremely happy at how brave and talented her children are and she’s so glad they’re such great and respected warriors

-”wait you’re our real mom???” “wait they’re bluestar’s kits that disappeared???” whitestorm nods

-bluestar tells them that she wished she could’ve raised them, but she’s so glad they have a happy life in riverclan and she’s so thankful to graypool and oakheart for raising them and loving them, and she is glad that all her living kits, including whitestorm and fireheart, are all finally together with her, she whispers that she wished that they could’ve raised them all, together, before passing away for the final time,

-whitestorm elaborates through grief that bluestar had given up her kits so she could become leader instead of his father, thistleclaw, who was an evil and bloodthirsty cat who would’ve had thunderclan dive into an era of nothing but war and death, and that mosskit died on the journey to riverclan, bluestar had never fully forgiven herself, and that she wished that her, graypool, oakheart, and thrushpelt could have all raised them happily together

-mistyfoot and stonefur nod and are understanding, mistyfoot saying she had sometimes thought they were born in thunderclan because she had vague memories of the thunderclan camp even though she had thought she had never been there, and her and stonefur both felt like they had met mousefur and runningwind before they were apprentices, as it turns out they had once been den mates in the nursery

-they decline sitting vigil for bluestar though, as mistyfoot has to get back to her kits and see how her son, perchkit, is doing as he is very sick, along with many riverclan cats, crookedstar dying of greencough was only the beginning. and stonefur must get back to his duties as deputy

-everyone mourns greatly for bluestar and whitestorm realizes this means he is now leader of thunderclan, but he takes a full day to mourn for his adopted mom and aunt before leaving for the moonstone with yellowfang

-after him and yellowfang leave, sorrelkit secretly follows darkstripe as he sneaks bramblekit and tawnykit out of camp, she wants to go too “hey where are you going?” she squeaks, darkstripe tells her to come with him and roughly grabs her by the scruff, but bramblekit and tawnykit, being almost 6 moons old now yell at him to stop and goldenflower and willowpelt run to find their kits, darkstripe drops sorrelkit, dazing her and willowpelt scoops her up to get her away, goldenflower demands to know what was happening, fireheart, longtail, and sandstorm come to see what’s happening and everyone goes back into camp, darkstripe tells everyone that bramblekit and tawnykit were trying to go see their father because they want to see him again and they want to look up to him and be like him and they were trying to take sorrelkit with them, tawnykit calls his bullshit as well as goldenflower, saying that they’d never be anything like their father no matter what anyone says

-tawnykit and bramblekit tell everyone that darkstripe has taken them to see tigerclaw multiple times, always meeting in shadowclan territory, but they were told not to tell anyone, and darkstripe had been telling tigerclaw everything that was happening in thunderclan, sorrelkit mews that she had just wanted to see what they were doing and followed them

-everyone agrees to put a guard on darkstripe until whitestorm and yellowfang got back, mousefur and longtail offer to be the first guards and darkstripe is made to stay in the old elders den that got charred in the fire

-whitestorm, now whitestar, and yellowfang get back the next day, with bad news, they came across a patrol lead by deadfoot while in windclan and he said that shadowclan had been acting very weird for a long time, and many cats have apparently gotten sick and they believe nightstar might have recently died, and they don’t know who his new deputy was because the former deputy had died of the illness, and now they keep finding shadowclan scent on their territory, whitestar tells everyone they need to be on extra guard since shadowclan had been so secretive and barely attending gatherings since nightstar had been so sick

-goldenflower is the one to inform whitestar about what darkstripe did- and has been doing, whitestar is infuriated at his half brother and his first act as thunderclan’s leader is to banish him, he tells him that if he is still so loyal to tigerclaw that he can go join him, darkstripe is chased out, sandstorm and longtail chasing him off into twoleglace, surprisingly, but before he goes darkstripe admits that it was him and tigerclaw who set the camp on fire and that all of thunderclan will die as soon as tigerclaw gets his way

-after darkstripe is chased off, whitestar decides that before he names his deputy he must make bramblekit and tawnykit apprentices, he gives tawnykit to cinderpelt and is about to give bramblekit to thornclaw when bramblekit speaks up, he doesn’t want to become a warrior, he wants to become yellowfang’s apprentice and become a medicine cat, he’d wanted it ever since she and fireheart saved him from the fire, and he wanted there to be no way that he could follow in his father’s pawsteps and instead make up for what he’s done by healing

-yellowfang gruffly agrees that perhaps he will make a good medicine cat and comments that she needs an apprentice because she’s not getting any younger

-whitestar then names goldenflower as his deputy, everyone is shocked, including goldenflower, because they expected fireheart or sandstorm to be chosen, but goldenflower humbly accepts her new role, tawnypaw and bramblepaw are ecstatic that their mother is now deputy of their clan

-two nights later is the gathering, shadowclan and riverclan were the first to be there, because they came together, cats from both clans intertwined under the four great oaks, with tigerclaw, now tigerstar, sitting on top of the great rock, leopardstar and blackfoot sitting underneath where deputies usually sit, and darkstripe and dustpaw not too far away, along with brokenstar’s/tigerstar’s group of rogues, which had even more members now than ever before

-Thunderclan is immediately angry and windclan is very very confused, Whitestar refuses to jump onto the Great Rock because he will not share it with Tigerstar and what the heck did he do with RiverClan? Tallstar, seeing the tension and realizing something’s gone down jumps off as well, trying to get answers from Whitestar, who announces that Tigerstar killed Redtail, tried to kill Bluestar, killed two other ThunderClan warriors directly, set ThunderClan on fire, and tried to lead dogs to ThunderClan’s camp

-ShadowClan goes “nooo he was with US, he brought our warriors back and helped us get rid of the illness, he’s been making us strong again” they won’t believe tigerstar could do all that

-tigerstar continues to go on that he is now also strengthening riverclan by ridding them of their illness and joining them with shadowclan to make TIGERCLAN, the riverclan cats seem to shrink and be embarrassed, especially leopardstar, it is then that whitestar notices that riverclan’s deputy, stonefur, was not at the gathering,  nor was mistyfoot or graystripe or any of their kits, who would be new apprentices by now and should be attending their first gathering

-tigerstar continues that leopardstar’s and mistyfoot’s son, perchkit, died of the illness but since then the sickness had cleared after he isolated the half-clan cats in riverclan, including mistyfoot and her kits, stonefur, and the unloyal graystripe and his half-clan kits, the sickness had also killed graypool, who had tried to defend mistyfoot and stonefur from being imprisoned because she had raised them as her own when they were brought to riverclan (tigerstar actually killed her/had her killed and said it was the sickness that took her)

-tigerstar explains that it was the half-clan cats that had died from this illness because they were inherently weaker then pure blooded clan cats because their loyalty, and therefore their strength, was split no matter what they said or did, tigerstar says that the only way to get rid of this weakness in the clans is to become one clan, under him, to become as strong as they can be, riverclan already did it, and now he was proposing for windclan and thunderclan to join, even with their “difficult” past

-thunderclan and windclan obviously object and refuse, which tigerstar angrily retorts that then whoever doesn’t join tigerclan in the next three days will be killed by his clan and that windclan and thunderclan would be destroyed either way

-the gathering ends with windclan and thunderclan leaving first, when thunderclan gets back to camp they’re greeted by a half starved graystripe, who says that with less of tigerstar’s followers in camp he managed to escape, he trembles in fear, agony, and embarrasment as he begs for forgiveness and for help to save his kits and mosspelt, as well as mistyfoot and her kits and stonefur

-fireheart and ravenpelt immediately agree, as well as willowpelt who covers graystripe in licks and gives him a mouse to eat; sandstorm, taken aback by her cousin’s state, agrees that it would be wrong to not try to rescue his kits

-whitestar pretends to think on it for a moment, but then fully agrees that thunderclan will help in any way they can, and will take in graystripe’s kits, mosspelt, mistyfoot and her kits, and stonefur as refugees,  it would be wrong to not try to help any cat, especially since most of these cats were thunderclan’s kin (he pretended to think, but we all know he would have killed tigerclan himself to save his grandkits and his cousin-siblings and niece and nephew-cousins)

-a rescue party of graystripe, ravenpelt, fireheart, and sandstorm is sent to rescue the cats: graystripe to guide where they’re being held, ravenpelt because he’s small and sleek so he can hide easily and be sneaky, and fireheart and sandstorm because they’re fast and can hopefully fend anyone off just enough to escape. They roll in river mud to hide their scents and pelts, especially fireheart’s

-they hide in the bushes bordering the riverclan camp by the nursery where the cats are being held hostage and they’re met with the horrifying sight of blackclaw and dustclaw shoving graystripe’s kits, stormpaw and featherpaw, into the middle of the half-wrecked camp and mosspelt yowling in distress as two black and white toms (snake and ice) block her way of escaping through the nursery entance, stonefur is being held guard by darkstripe and blackfoot on the other side of camp as tigerstar growls that the new apprentices’ father cowarded away like the thunderclan cat he is to leave his kits to die without him and that they must pay for their father’s disloyalty and cowardice, while stonefur must prove his own loyalty to tigerclan by being the one to kill them, especially his own apprentice, stormfur, yowls of objection can be heard through the nursery by mistyfoot and her kits even though they can’t be seen

-leopardstar, looking miserable and defeated, looks up to tigerstar and asks him why stonefur must be so cruel, he’s already proven clan loyalty, he was her deputy, he was a brave, strong, and loyal cat even if he was half-clan, he shouldn’t have to murder to prove his strength, and the apprentices hadn’t had a chance to prove themselves yet, but they were crookedstar’s grandkits of course they would be strong and loyal to riverclan-

-tigerstar interrupts her there, hissing that their riverclan loyalty didn’t matter, that riverclan no longer existed, only tigerclan, and she had allowed graystripe  to stay even though she knew he was a disloyal thunderclan cat, and therefore she had no say and no power in this decision, which made her bristle and a glint of her old stubbornness returned to her gaze, but she said no more ase she glanced around at the glares of tigerstar’s cats and even a pawful of her own cats, who supposedly her own cats, like blackclaw who she had once seen as her brother since they were nursed and raised together

-ravenpelt presses graystripe to the ground as he almost let’s out a full growl in the bushes of the camp and sandstorm and fireheart start thinking of a plan, perhaps making a distraction and getting as many cats out as possible, graystripe and fireheart start vigorously digging a hole behind the nursery that maybe mistyfoot, her kits, mosspelt, and her own birth kit, dawnpaw who wouldn’t leave her foster littermates or her mother, could squeeze out of while ravenpelt slinked away to make some sort of distraction, sandstorm whispers into the nursery that they’re there to save them, mistyfoot says that she will not leave her brother, and mosspelt says that she will not leave stormpaw and feather, sandstorm says that once ravenpelt makes the distraction that she needs to call to stormpaw, featherpaw, and stonefur to run to the nursery as fast as possible

-blackfoot shoves stonefur forward to be in front of the young apprentices who look half starved like graystripe and trembling, stonefur bends down and quickly whispers something into stormpaw’s and featherpaw’s ears and touches his nose to stormpaw’s head and gives him a knowing nod before turning to tigerstar who’s hissing to “prove your loyalty already, no more soft heartedness” stonefur raises his head up high and proudly states that he would never kill an apprentice, especially not innocent ones who are also his clanmates and kin

-tigerstar growls “of course” and flicks his tail to darkstripe and blackfoot who immediately run toward the apprentices only to be blocked by stormfur’s body, still strong with being half starved, there’s no more time, the hole has to be big enough and ravenpelt’s yowl can be heard from the opposite side of the camp where he lays hidden several fox lengths away, mosspelt yells out to stormpaw and featherpaw to run back, and with cats running to go see what the howl was, the fight bloody fight between stonefur, darkstripe, and blackfoot, and mosspelt’s howl, ice and snake are confused enough to be pushed through by the apprentices, who even though are young and starved still have the bulk of their father to push through and daze their guards, dawnpaw slithers through the hole first, then featherpaw, stormpaw, and mosspelt after them. Mistyfoot shoves her kits toward the hole and is about to run through the entrance to help her brother until snake and ice crash through the entrance instead with growls and hisses “THE HALF CLAN CATS ARE GETTING AWAY” ice yells, but two of mistyfoot’s kits have already gotten out of the nursery and reedpaw is almost through, snake smacks mistyfoot down with giant paws, but as reedpaw escape sandstorm slips through and pounces on the black and white tom, knocking him over into his brother and she pushes mistyfoot towards the hole, yelling at her to leave now, but she leaves through the nursery entrance instead, where she’s met with blackfoot’s jaws snapped shut around stonefur’s neck, his blood covered body gone limp and his eyes glazed over with death as blackfoot drops his body like a piece of rotten prey

-tigerstar order his cats to catch the escapees, but there are only a few left that didn’t go after ravenpelt’s yowl and weren’t on patrol, leopardstar yells, begs, mistyfoot to run, which snaps her out of her daze and she turns around and dashes away, pushing through the walls of the camp, sandstorm slashes and kicks at the cats that try to get in her way and mistyfoot leaps into the river, where the rest of the escapees are farther ahead, because most of the cats following tigerstar can’t swim like riverclan cats, the only way they can follow them is one by one across the stepping stones, where whitestar planted a patrol of longtail, mousefur, thornclaw, and himself as back up, and trapping the tigerclan cats so they can only head back to riverclan or get clawed at with no where to escape

-blackclaw; however, was still raised riverclan and also now follows tigerstar, along with beetlenose, voleclaw, and sunfish and they swim after the escapees, sandstorm, graystripe, and fireheart reach sunningrocks and continue to run to meet them, dawnpaw, featherpaw, and stormpaw are the first to make it to shore where graystripe immediately warms them with licks, mosspelt and mistyfoot’s kits make it soon after, but blackclaw is almost caught up to mistyfoot and as she gets onto shore he hooks her back leg with a claw, but fireheart and sandstorm bat him away, and whitestar’s patrol joins them, fighting the former riverclan cats who flee, being outnumbered

-the 8 riverclan refugees are quickly taken to thunderclan camp and made nests, fed, and made warm, featherpaw, stormpaw, and dawnpaw sleep in the apprentices den, and with graystripe insisting that he stays with his kits it’s quite cramped but warm, reedpaw, primrosepaw, and pikepaw stay with their mother and mosspelt in the nursery

-that night the cats of both riverclan and thunderclan sit vigil for stonefur, graystripe, mistyfoot, mosspelt, whitestar, mousefur, and one-eye stay up all night to mourn him, graystripe and mosspelt thanking him for protecting and saving stormpaw and featherpaw, stormpaw stays up as long as he can to sit vigil with them, but is pressed by his sisters to come to sleep

-whitestar spends the whole night thinking about his lost cousin, hoping that him, mosskit, oakheart, and bluestar can finally be a family in starclan, and asks them to watch over and protect their kin and clans closely in the coming days

-Whitestar wakes up the next morning only being able to think about what the future of the clans was, what the future of his kits were, and also there was barely enough warriors in thunderclan to mentor all of these new apprentices, not to mention his own kits would be apprentices in just over a moon

-Goldenflower knocks sense into him saying that it’s more important to stop tigerstar and hopefully the riverclan cats would be able to go home soon enough, whitestar agrees and yellowfang mentions the prophecy that she and whitestar got at his leader ceremony “Fire alone will save the clan, but there needs to be proud wind and honorable thunder to summon the storms that will clear the shadows.”  and that means that thunderclan and windclan need to stand together to be able to defeat tigerstar and his “clan”

-whitestar agrees, but the only way to get to windclan would be through fourtrees and tigerstar definitely has patrols patrolling at all times, so it would be hard to get through without being noticed, and perhaps that was part of tigerstar’s plan, either way he decides that he’ll go to windclan and talk to tallstar and decide what to do, thornclaw asks what will happen if tallstar decided to join tigerstar but whitestar retorts that tallstar would never, mistyfoot approaches and says that she will go with him, and yellowfang says she will go as well, perhaps if they come with cats who were raised in all of the other clans then it will be easier to persuade windclan to fight together, whitestar chooses longtail and thornclaw to come with them as back up in case they ran into a tigerclan patrol

-once the patrol makes it to fourtrees, tense and nervous even in their own territory, dustclaw suddenly appears on top of the Great Rock from behind it, snidely welcoming them and ask them what they’re planning on doing there, blackclaw, sunfish, clawface, and jaggedtooth come out from behind the great rock

-yellowfang snarls at the two former shadowclan cats, telling them that she watched them grow up and she thought they’d be good shadowclan warriors and here they are now, jaggedtooth spits at her, saying that they were better warriors then she ever was and ever could be, and twice as loyal than she was to anything

-mistyfoot hisses at blackclaw and sunfish, blackclaw replies that even her hiss is weaker since she’s a half-clan cat and he threatens to claw her until she begs for mercy, mistyfoot retorts that he’d be dead before he could even touch her

-longtail tries to appeal to dustclaw, asking him what their parents, robinwing and fuzzypelt would think of him, and what would their four dead siblings would think of him, and if he came back now maybe he could be an honorable thunderclan warrior again

-dustclaw snarls at him saying that longtail’s become kittypet soft just like the rest of thunderclan and would never recognize his greatness or tigerstar’s and that’s why thunderclan must be destroyed, whitestar growls and tells dustclaw that he wouldn’t let him back into thunderclan anyway, and that thunderclan’s business was none of his own, clawface snears that they both have 5 cats, but one of the thunderclan patrol was an old medicine cat and another was a weakened and frail queen, yellowfang and mistyfoot hiss and sunfish and jaggedtooth visibly flinch

-just as the patrols were about to clash, a hiss is heard from windclan’s side of fourtrees and tallstar and a patrol of onewhisker, whitetail, and tornear appear and they run down to fourtrees and meet the thunderclan patrol, the tigerclan patrol have a moment of worry until dustclaw shakes it off and asks tallstar “oh, are you looking for a couple of your warriors tallstar? icetail, eaglefoot, and hedgepaw?” “no, i’m pretty positive of where they are, dustpaw, i know they joined tigerstar’s group of rogues!” dustclaw’s fur bushes up and he gets defensive “i am dustCLAW now, tigerstar named me a warrior as soon as he became leader because at least appreciates me as a warrior!” tallstar sniffs and replies “he’s using you like he uses all of his other rogues” dustclaw snarls and seems to be about to pounce until he realizes again that the two patrols together almost doubled his patrol, even with an old medicine cat and worn out warrior, and claims that they’ll have the chance to tear them apart in time, until then they had to go report to tigerstar. The warriors are about to attack as dustclaw leaps down from the great walk and strides off towards shadowclan territory with his patrol, but whitestar tells them to halt, they needed to conserve their fighting energy and couldn’t risk anyone getting hurt right now

-tallstar asks if the patrol was coming to visit thunderclan and whitestar nods, tallstar says that barkface received a prophecy from starclan and yellowfang says it’s the same one that she and whitestar received, whitestar asks if this means that thunderclan and windclan will fight side by side then, and tallstar says that of course they would. The leaders decide that the two clans will meet the next morning at fourtrees just after sun has peaked over the horizon so tigerclan won’t have time to attack individually, but two clans being at fourtrees will definitely grab their attention and they would take on tigerclan from there

-once the patrol gets back to thunderclan whitestar starts explaining the plan to everyone, he offers goldenflower to stay in camp to protect his kits and the elders (mostly because he knows it must be hard for her knowing they would be fighting her ex-mate), but goldenflower refuses saying that she must battle alongside her clanmates

-whitestar asks willowpelt if she wants to fight, to avenge redtail and brindleface, but willowpelt says she wants to stay and protect the camp, to protect their kits, frostfur steps forward and says that she will fight as well, for lionheart, for her sister brindleface and her son brackenpaw, as well as the injuries tigerstar had caused her daughters

-rainkit and sorrelkit star calling saying that they want to go fight too, they don’t need to be protected they’re NEARLY apprentices, whitestar adors his little kits but tells them that they need to stay in camp and maybe willowpelt will teach them some fighting moves, mosspelt steps up and says that she’ll stay in camp as well, featherpaw says that she wants to fight in the battle and stormpaw says that if she fights he wants to fight as well, but whitestar refuses them as they had just become apprentices the day before tigerstar took over riverclan and hadn’t gotten enough battle training, primrosepaw says that they had been apprentices for a quarter moon longer than them, so they had gotten some battle training, whitestar thinks and then tells them that they need to guard the kits and elders, dappletail then retorts that she and the rest of the elders would rather die protecting the clan than die needing to be protected, so if anything were to happen the elders would fight till the end, halftail, one-eye, and smallear all heartily agree. Whitestar thinks about how the last time the elders had to battle to protect their clan that rosetail and thrushpelt had been killed, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop them, and if it came to it they wouldn’t have a choice anyway.

-Whitestar is about to tell tawnypaw to stay behind too, but she insists on fighting, she won’t sit in camp while her father tries to destroy the clans and featherpaw insists again and her fighting as well, whitestar decides that tawnypaw can join, but stormpaw and featherpaw will not fight, he gives them to responsibility of being runners, fetching injured cats and bringing them to yellowfang and bramblepaw who will be just outside of fourtrees to attend the injured and they will assist the medicine cats as needed, ravenpelt offers to help them and make sure they don’t get hurt

-whitestar starts worrying about how brightheart or cinderpelt would do in battle, as well as snowpaw, he asks brightheart first, telling her he’s unsure if she��s ready to fight when she had just recovered for about a moon, cloudpaw interrupts and says that brightheart could fight anyone and beat them and she’s been working will hard to train, cinderpelt, sandstorm, and fireheart agree, saying they’ve all been training very hard together and brightheart or cinderpelt could fight just as well as anyone, whitestar asks cloudpaw to fetch snowpaw and he comes back with both snowpaw and fernpaw, whitestar, using sign language, asks snowpaw if he felt comfortable fighting or if he’d rath stay and protect camp, snowpaw shakes his head and signs for “fight” and points towards fourtrees and then signs for “speckle” and “tail”, meaning he wants to fight for his mother, who died saving him from the fire that tigerstar and darkstripe started in thunderclan, fernpaw agrees that snowpaw can and will fight, and she’ll be with him and they’ll protect each other, cloudpaw agrees that he won’t let anyone hurt his clanmates, ashpaw chimes in that he will fight to avenge their mother and whitestar says that he had no doubt his apprentice was ready to battle

-whitestar realizes just how wide tigerstar’s wrath had spread, everyone in the clan had been personally effected, and decides that willowpelt, mosspelt, mistyfoot’s kits, and the elders staying behind to protect the camp will have to be enough, he leads a hunting patrol of longtail, mousefur, cinderpelt, and tawnypaw, and besides that patrol they take the rest of the day to rest and prepare, though most of the clan was too restless to truly rest, yellowfang was teaching bramblepaw the different healing herbs and making leaf bundles that they and stormpaw and featherpaw would carry to the battle, the warrior apprentices trained together with thornclaw and brightheart, whitestar gives ashpaw some last minute battle tips

-before the sun had risen the clan silently pelts to fourtrees, the wind is sadly against their back and when they arrive they see two pelts slink into the bushes, one towards riverclan and one towards shadowclan, whitestar signals for his clan to fan out and they line out in front of the thunderclan border so it would be harder for anyone to try to run into thunderclan and attack the camp, whitestar is suddenly very relieved to have goldenflower standing beside him, strong, proud, and ready to fight, frostfur, mousefur, mistyfoot, and longtail stood beside her, on whitestar’s right flank was sandstorm, fireheart, graystripe, and ravenpelt beside her, thornclaw, brightheart, cinderpelt, and the apprentices created a second line of defense behind them, the apprentices close behind their mentors. Whitestar checked behind him for ashpaw, he could see fear in his eyes and his scent, but his stance was strong and confident

-pink started lining the horizon and whitestar was starting to fear that windclan wouldn’t get there in time, or maybe not at all, he knew tigerstar would be aware of thunderclan being at fourtrees by now, he must be preparing and even on his way, but as soon as he thought that the bushes on windclan’s side of fourtrees started rustling and tallstar sped down the slope into the clear, a stream of windclan cats followed him and lined up in front of their border like thunderclan. Tallstar walked forward to the middle of the clearing and whitestar joined him, they both bowed their heads respectfully to each other. “I’m sorry I couldn’t greet you as a leader for the first time in a better situation, Whitestar. I know your leadership has already been hard, but I am positive Bluestar chose the right cat, and I am sure she is very proud of you and her clan and will be protecting you all, just as the rest of StarClan will watch over us.”

-Whitestar suddenly felt on the spot and guilty that he didn’t know tallstar as well as he should, “I know your leadership has not been easy at all, especially the past few seasons, I’m honored to be a leader with, and to fight alongside you and your warriors. Do you have warriors staying in camp to protect your camp?”

-Deadfoot steps forward and goldenflower suddenly pelts forward to be besides whitestar again, they both nod to each other respectively and then bow to the other leader, “Ashfoot is with our kit, crowkit in the nursery, Webfoot is also heavily pregnant with his own kits, and Robinwing just gave birth to Tornear’s and her daughter, Nightkit, yesterday. They’re all in camp with the elders, Morningflower has also stayed behind to protect them. Tigerstar’s rogues killed her son, Gorsepaw a moon ago in a border scuffle, but she’d rather be there to defend the kits and queens just in case. Whitestar apologizes and asks where their other apprentices were, he only saw warriors in their battle formation and tallstar says that as they had learned yesterday, hedgepaw and two warriors had joined tigerstar and tigerclan, and their other two apprentices were staying back outside of fourtrees with barkface to assist him and to fetch injured cats. Whitestar nods saying that they had two apprentices to help Yellowfang and Bramblepaw as well as to assist injured cats. In big battles like this it was a standard practice, but Whitestar was still glad that the two leaders had made the same strategies.

-Whitestar dips his head to his fellow leader and raises his voice so the rest of the cats could hear him, “May our clans fight alongside each other and lookout for each other. And may StarClan guide us well.”

-As soon as he finishes speaking the wind suddenly changes and a rush of ShadowClan and RiverClan scent swamps the clearing and soon countless pawsteps can be heard and then bushes on RiverClan’s side of the border start to rustle and Blackfoot steps through, Leopardstar close behind him, with many cats, most riverclan but with several shadowclan cats and rogues, following them. Then the bushes on ShadowClan’s side start rustles, shadowclan, riverclan, and rogues streaming forward into the clearing, and then finally, Tigertstar strides out from within his group of cats, darkstripe and dustclaw close behind. The large dark tabby stares down the leaders, not even looking at his former mate, who’s green eyes are now narrowed and her fur bristling, her claws already unsheathed and she’s obviously keeping in a snarl. “So,” Tigerstar oddly purrs, “Have the great leaders of ThunderClan and WindClan made their decision on joining my clan?”

Finale

“We already told you our answer, Tigerstar, our answer is no,” Tallstar responded cooly. Whitestar quickly glanced over all sides of the clearing, almost all the cats of every clan were there, including all of Tigerstar’s rogues and even ShadowClan elders; ThunderClan and WindClan were greatly outnumbered. Whitestar realized that Tigerstar had fixed his gaze onto him.

“And you? Great ThunderClan leader, Whitestar, the one I considered to be like a brother,” his eyes widened to look innocent.

Whitestar’s pelt bristled, “You are no brother of mine! ThunderClan would never join you. WindClan and ThunderClan will defend ourselves until the last breath!”

Tigerstar’s amber eyes narrowed and his claws unsheathed as he growled, “Then die.”

Before Tigerstar could wave his tail to signal his warriors to attack, a yowl came from RiverClan’s side of Fourtrees.

“No!” It was Leopardstar, her eyes filled with anger, her pelt bristled, and claws unsheathed. Tigerstar paused to look over to her, his eyes like fire and his teeth bared.

“Leopardfur!”

“No!” she repeated, her teeth now bared as well, “I am Leopardstar, and I am the leader of RiverClan. We will no longer be a part of TigerClan, I never should have agreed to it in the first place. We will night fight with you Tigerstar! You killed my deputy and dear friend, you held my mate, kits, and clanmates hostage! You brought rogues into my camp! You’ve disrespected and harmed my clan. We will night fight with you, but we will fight against you!”

Shock flooded through the RiverClan cats, as well as several hisses from the rogues and a few warriors, but most of the RiverClan warriors seemed to stand taller and confidently behind their leader. Relief flooded over Whitestar even as snarls, hissing, and yowls erupted from Tigerstar’s followers and rogues, but to his surprise many ShadowClan cats were looking confused or disheartened.

Whitestar had to do something, “ShadowClan! You don’t have to fight with Tigerstar. You can fight for what you know is right and you will be even more of a loyal ShadowClan warrior for it!”

Tigerstar’s lips drew back in a snarl, “You do not tell my clan what to do! They follow my orders and my orders alone, that is the warrior code!”

“You don’t care what the warrior code is!” Sandstorm hissed. Agreement rang across the clearing.

“Enough!” Tigerstar yowled, “I will no longer be merciful, you will all die for your betrayal to StarClan’s wishes and to destiny! TigerClan, attack!”

In an uproar cats from ShadowClan and RiverClan’s sides erupted into the clearing, clashing into WindClan and ThunderClan. Whitestar tried to keep track of where Tigerstar was, but in the flurry of battle, he could no longer spot his dark pelt.

I’ve been in plenty of battles before, but none like this.

Suddenly Whitestar’s breath was struck out of his body as a dark gray body slammed into him and claws sank into his fur. While Whitestar was trying to assess the battle, Darkstripe had taken the opportunity to attack.

“Finally,” Darkstripe’s breath was hot on Whitestar’s muzzle as he struggled to turn towards the striped tom, “I get to do what I’ve been wanting to do for moons!” Darkstripe’s claws raked down Whitestar’s side and he hissed in pain. Whitestar was a pretty decent fighter, but the surprise attack and the fact that Darkstripe was his kin and a former clanmate was making Whitestar struggle to fight back as hard as he could. He swiped at Darkstripe’s muzzle and beads of blood appeared, but Darkstripe was ruthless bit down into Whitestar’s shoulder, but barely missing his neck as Whitestar dodged. Darkstripe sunk his teeth deeper into Whitestar’s shoulder, blood running down his white pelt. Darkstripe wasn’t letting go and instead started thrashing his head. Whitestar yowled in pain, hardly able to combat the tom’s dirty attack.

Suddenly Darkstripe’s teeth were relieved from Whitestar’s shoulder and another thick gray pelt was beside him, a single thick darker gray stripe running down the back. Graystripe had tackled Darkstripe away from Whitestar and was now battering him with heavy blows. Graystripe, being bigger and heavier than Darkstripe easily overwhelmed him with blows.

“Get away from my father!” he yowled. Darkstripe hissed and lunged for Graystripe’s throat, but instead Graystripe’s unsheathed claws landed on Darkstripe’s and in one heavy slash, Darkstripe’s throat was sliced open and he fell to the ground. With his yellow eyes wide, he desperately tried to push himself to his paws, but before he could stand he fumbled back to the ground, soaked in blood. His eyes glazed over, empty with death. Whitestar tensed as he recognized his father’s dying eyes in the gray tom. They were exactly the same.

Though Whitestar was relieved, he couldn’t help but grieve for his half brother. If only you could have been better than our father. Graystripe stood over Darkstripe’s body, blood and scratches on his pelt. Whitestar realized he had never seen his son so injured, no battle in his life had been this hard and suddenly his grief moved to his son, who had never killed another cat in his life and had already lost so much, to now have killed his own kin, his own half brother.

To save my life. He saved my life.

Whitestar flicked his tail down his son’s pelt, “You didn’t have to do that, I have more lives than you, you could’ve been hurt,” Whitestar hesitated, suddenly feeling warm pride in his son, “But you saved my life anyway. You were so brave, my son you are a great warrior.”

Graystripe let out a loud purr, “I could never stand by and watch someone kill you!”

“And I would give all my nine lives for you,” Whitestar purred back.

Graystripe’s whiskers twitched in gratitude, and maybe a little embarrassment, then turned around and rushed back into battle.

I need to find Tigerstar. Whitestar thought, refocusing back to the battle surrounding him. Featherpaw and Stormpaw were rushing a RiverClan cat to Yellowfang and Bramblepaw. Mistyfoot slashed and grappled with Blackfoot across the clearing. She raked Blackfoot’s ears with her claws then grabbed him by the throat and slammed him to the ground, mercilessly finishing him by ripping open his throat.

And as he deserves. Why should she show mercy when he didn’t when he killed her brother.

Leopardstar fought Blackclaw a few fox lengths away, slamming his shoulders into the ground. Suddenly Deadfoot was thrown a few tail lengths away from Whitestar; the ShadowClan warrior, Jaggedtooth, jumping to pin the older tom to the ground. Both cats were covered in blood, but Deadfoot was in much worse condition. Whitestar immediately threw himself at the ginger warrior, his search for Tigerstar would have to wait. Jaggedtooth stumbled away from the black tom as Whitestar’s weight knocked him aside. Whitestar hooked his claws into the tom’s shoulders, there were already wounds there and the ginger tom yowled in pain and tried to tear himself away. Whitestar slashed at his muzzle, Jaggedtooth went low to attack his underbelly, but Whitestar quickly spun around and kicked the tom directly in the skull. Dazed, heavily bleeding, and his jaw possibly broken, Jaggedtooth turned tail and fled from Whitestar and the battle.

Whitestar quickly turned his attention to the WindClan deputy, still heavily bleeding. He crouched down, trying to evaluate his wounds, “Don’t worry, old friend, the medicine cats will get you patched up,” Whitestar tried to gently purr and grazed his muzzle across Deadfoot’s. His one twisted paw seemed to be even more twisted than usual.

Deadfoot twitched his ears, “I know, I trust our medicine cats with my life. As well as StarClan,” he breathed heavily. Suddenly another black pelt, Ravenpelt, ran to Whitestar’s and Deadfoot’s side.

“Deadfoot!” Ravenpelt yelped and immediately started to move Deadfoot onto his back, “All the runners are already busy, I’ll take him to Barkface,” and with determination in his eyes, Ravenpelt dragged Deadfoot to the edge of the clearing. Whitestar felt such deeply imbedded pride in the young warrior who had once been the most timid kit he’d ever seen. Even though he still might not be in love with fighting, Ravenpelt was a truly courageous warrior of ThunderClan and Whitestar was extremely grateful to have him as his clanmate. He kept a watch to make sure no one attacked the two black cats before plunging back into the heat of battle.

Though things were simmering down; many bodies lay limp and lifeless on the floor of Fourtrees and very few of Tigerstar’s followers remained. A dark brown tabby pelt appeared at the top of the Great Rock. His amber eyes fiery and bright in the bright morning sun.

“Tigerstar!” Whitestar hissed, fury heated his pelt as he charged forward. No one got in his way as he halted in front of the Great Rock, “Tigerstar! Come down he and face the consequences of your war like a warrior!”

Tigerstar crouched down, almost as if he were bowing to his enemy, “As you wish, Whitestar,” and with a glisten in his eye he leapt off of the Great Rock and before Whitestar could realize-

The large tabby landed directly on Whitestar’s neck.

~~~

Whitestar awoke in a grassy field and immediately pushed himself to his paws. He anxiously looked around, expecting to see Fourtrees and countless cats fighting, but instead he was met with the starry figures of his late loved one: Bluestar and Snowfur stood in front of him, and Lionheart, Redtail, and Spottedleaf stood beside him.

Of course, he was in StarClan. Tigerstar had killed him, but Whitestar had a sudden rush of emotion and love seeing his mother, aunt, and friends once again.

“Mother! Bluestar!” Whitestar stepped forward and both of his mothers lovingly nuzzled him. He turned and Lionheart and Redtail both touched their noses to his, Spottedleaf licked his ear. Though he was overwhelmed with joy of seeing his loved ones, the feeling was soon washed away with anxiety, “I’m happy to see you again, but I need to go back. I still have eight lives, correct? Please, send me back, who knows what Tigerstar could be doing right now!”

“Please, Whitestar,” Snowfur mewed, “Your neck was just broken, please stay for just a few heartbeats as your body heals. I promise it will be okay, my love,” she began to lap at his ears as any mother would do to calm her kit.

His mother’s words calmed him a bit, as well as hit him with a wave of grief that he hadn’t been able to grow up with her to teach him and comfort him.

Bluestar nodded, “I know that it may feel like you’re here for a long time, but that’s only because you’re anxious, you know that when a leader loses a life they come back to life in just a few moments. No matter how long it feels here, in the living world you’ll only have been dead for a few heartbeats,” she purred.

Redtail twitched his whiskers, “You’re always patient for every cat except yourself!” he flicked his tail tip over Whitestar’s face, just as he’d done when they were warriors together and Redtail would tease him.

Whitestar jokingly cuffed his old friend’s ear, “But Redtail, you know better than anyone else how dangerous Tigerstar is!”

“Yes,” Lionheart answered, “but most of his followers are dead or have ran away, it is only him against all of the clan now,” he shared a playful and proud glance with Redtail, “You should know better than anyone else that your clanmates, and the other clans cats, are very capable and defending themselves.”

Redtail raised his head high, purring as Spottedleaf nodded and returned her gaze back to Whitestar, “You should be proud, Whitestar. You should be proud of everything you’ve accomplished, and everyone you’ve touched the hearts of,” she mewed.

“And not to mention you picked a great deputy!” Lionheart added triumphantly. Whitestar purred at Lionheart’s obvious affection and pride for his sister.

Redtail stepped closer to Whitestar again and touched his nose to his, his green gaze, which looked exactly like Sandstorm’s, now calmer and serious, but still full of affection, “Thank you, Whitestar,” he purred, “for everything you’ve done for me and my kin.”

As Redtail stepped away, Bluestar stepped forward and pressed her forehead to Whitestar’s, and Whitestar drew in her warm scent, just as it was when she was alive, “It’s time for you to go back Whitestar. Remember to trust your choices, to trust yourself and your clanmates. And remember that I named Sandstorm after you for a reason.”

~~~

When Whitestar opened his eyes his head and body pulsed with aches. He immediately stood and quickly took in the scene. What had he missed, how long was he in StarClan before he continued on his next life? Where was Tigerstar? But before he could get a clear focus his legs started to give. Goldenflower was quickly by his side and steadied him before returning a cold gaze down at her former mate.

Before Whitestar could give his deputy thanks, his vision finally cleared and he followed Goldenflower’s gaze. A few fox lengths away was Tigerstar. Fireheart’s claws were dug deep in his back and shoulders; the ginger tom’s green eyes were filled with more ferocity and anger than Whitestar had ever seen in them before. In front of Tigerstar was Sandstorm, fur risen, tail lashing, and her eyes full of hatred, spitting at Tigerstar. For a moment Tigerstar struggled to get out from Fireheart’s grip before seeming to give in, even though his expression still showed nothing but unwavering brutality. Howls, hissing, and growls filled the clearing. Cats closed in around the the fighting cats in a circle to get closer, some trying to get in their own swipe, but there wasn’t enough room.

“Kill him!”

“Slash his throat!”

“He’s a traitor among the clans!”

“And the warrior code!”

“Disgusting,” Tigerstar spat, “To be pinned by a kittypet and be guarded by a cat I once thought could be a fierce warrior. Allying yourself with the kittypet made you soft, Sandstorm. You can’t even kill me like a warrior can you? You’re just like your fathers! Weak, fragile, and too soft-hearted to be true warriors!”

Sandstorm bared her teeth, and with a yowl, reared onto her hind legs and slashed her unsheathed claws down Tigerstar’s eyes. Blood sprayed from his face as he let out a howl. Fireheart struggled to keep Tigerstar pinned down as he lurched upwards in pain.

“Don’t you ever talk about my fathers like that! They were better warriors than you could ever be in all your nine lives!” Sandstorm hissed.

Tigerstar snarled in her direction as he attempted to open his eyes, but there was nothing but blood, streaming down his eyes and face. He suddenly lurched to the side, tearing Fireheart’s claws off him and knocking him over with a roar. Sandstorm lunged for Tigerstar and snapped her jaws down directly on his throat. Tigerstar gagged as blood spilled onto the ground and down Sandstorm’s chin. Then she let go. Tigerstar’s body thumped onto the ground. Sandstorm stared down at his body. Her ferocity and hatred quickly faded into horror as she realized what she had just done.

Whitestar felt a wave of grief and sorrow. Not for the death of Tigerstar, but for his former apprentice. Sandstorm… You didn’t deserve any of this. This shouldn’t have been your burden to bear.

Whitestar glanced next to him at Goldenflower. He was steadier now so he took his weight off of her, but she didn’t move away. Her gaze was somber, but steady as she stared down at the ground in front of her paws. Whitestar knew that she didn’t want to look at her former mate’s dead body. And he also knew that she knew that it wasn’t over yet.

Fireheart rushed to Sandstorm’s side and Ravenpelt paced behind them. Sandstorm’s gaze cleared as she caught her breath and raised her head high.

“He’s dead!”

“StarClan couldn’t have possibly given someone like Tigerstar 9 lives, right?”

Leopardstar stepped forward from the crowd, her fur battered and bloody, matted onto her neck. She must have lost a life at some point during the battle.

“No. He was definitely given lives,” she addressed above the murmurs of the crowd, “I know because I killed him once. I took one of his lives trying to reclaim my clan,” She paused and gritted her, “His followers then took one of my own lives in revenge. And then when both Tigerstar and I came back he killed me again for his own personal revenge.”

Leopardstar stood strong against the eyes of the clans, but Whitestar heard the cracks in her voice. Some cats narrowed their eyes in suspicion, some murmured pity, and a couple growled or hissed in anger.

“How could StarClan give him lives!?” Bramblepaw’s yowl echoed across the clearing.

“Maybe he lost his last one, he hasn’t come back to life yet.”

“Yeah, Whitestar got back up almost instantly!” Ashpaw blurted, running up beside his mentor.

Runningnose pressed through the crowd. He looked older and sicker than usual. He stood beside Leopardstar and he opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Tigerstar’s pelt rippled. Cats gasped and Fireheart pressed himself in front of Sandstorm and snarled, his claws unsheathed and ready to defend his mate.

Tigerstar let out a cough and blood spat out of his mouth. He rose to his paws, some wounds healed, at least enough, but blood still dripped from his face and mouth. He gritted his teeth and snarled, snapping his head from side to side. He kept his torn up eyes closed. He was blind. Cats yowled and hissed, some trying to move forward to get to Tigerstar, but before anyone reached him Tigerstar turned to face Whitestar and opened his eyes.

“Whitestar!” Tigerstar charged and then leapt for the ThunderClan leader, giant, unsheathed claws outreached. Whitestar was taken by surprise, but instinctively met his former close friend with his own outstretched claws. As Tigerstar’s claws sank into Whitestar’s shoulders, Whitestar’s forepaw slammed into Tigerstar’s still-wounded neck. Whitestar felt the strength of the entire forest rush through his legs and paws as his claws sank into Tigerstar’s throat and he slammed his body onto the ground. He felt and heard a crack as Tigerstar choked. Then his amber eyes went dull and blank as Whitestar stood on top of him.

The cats stayed quiet as Whitestar caught his breath and stepped away from Tigerstar’s body. He looked to Goldenflower, her lips drawn back in a snarl and claws unsheathed. Her face showed nothing but anger looking down at Tigerstar. Tawnypaw ran up from the crowd to press herself against her mother; Bramblepaw followed behind her more cautiously.

“I’m sorry,” Runningnose sniffed shyly, “I should have spoken sooner…” The cats around murmured, some even twitching their whiskers in amusement at the old medicine cat. “But I have an explanation. And I know I should have told ShadowClan sooner, I should have told anyone sooner. But I don’t think Tigerstar received his lives from StarClan.”

“What!?”

“How does he have lives then?”

“Who gave him lives?”

Runningnose cleared his throat and tried to speak above the chatter while also repeatedly glancing over to Tigerstar’s body nervously, “We never made it to the Moonstone. Tigerstar said that the entrance to Mothermouth was far enough for him, I tried to persuade him, but he just got angry. He fell asleep, but I couldn’t sense the presence of StarClan at all! But he kept twitching and grunting in his sleep, sometimes hissing and snarling. I was hoping that he was just having a bad dream instead of getting lives, but he apparently did, and they definitely aren’t from StarClan.”

“He would have been almost completely healed if they were from StarClan!”

“And he was dead way longer!”

“Why wouldn’t you tell us immediately!”

“Why would you keep a secret like that from your clan!”

“Wasn’t Runningnose raised with Brokenstar? How can we trust him!”

“What kind of medicine cat would do that?”

Runningnose shrank back in guilt and shame and was about to slink back into the crowd when Littlecloud ran up and Flintfang stepped forward.

“Runningnose is a great medicine cat!” Littlecloud defended his mentor, “No one would’ve been able to do anything! If he had said something Tigerstar would have banished him or even had him killed!”

“Littlecloud is right,” Flintfang growled, “Nothing like this has happened in anyone’s memory. Runningnose has done as much as he can just to keep ShadowClan alive! No one one would’ve been able to do better than he has!”

The cats all started murmuring and chattering again as Yellowfang walked through the crowd to stand beside Whitestar and her former apprentice, “I’ve only heard stories of this when I was a kit and my old mentor had mentioned it maybe twice in passing. But there may be something other than StarClan; a place where the worst cats go where they die instead of StarClan. A place of no stars, where light can barely filter into the forest. I believe the elders called it the Dark Forest. It could be entirely possible that they have the power to give lives just like StarClan,” she looked down at Tigerstar, “but perhaps are not as good at healing.”

“I remember that name!”

“I’ve heard some stories about that, but isn’t it just a nursery tale?”

“That’s why he didn’t want to go to the Moonstone!”

In the din Tigerstar’s pelt rippled once again. His wounds were crusted over with dried blood as he struggled to return to his paws. He couldn’t open his eyes. Whitestar took a step back. How many more times do we have to do this? Six? Do we have to just keep killing him over and over? What if he has more than nine lives from the Dark Forest?

“I’m not afraid to die! I’ll come back again and again. I’ll outlast you, I’ll outlast your kits and your kits kits! The clans will never be rid of my claws!” Tigerstar roared.

Goldenflower nudged her kits backwards into the crowd and then stepped forward. She stood in front of Tigerstar, her expression unreadable. Whitestar wanted to tell her to get back, but he had never seen Goldenflower like this and the words seemed to get stuck in his throat.

Tigerstar faced his former mate; his ears and whiskers twitched, “Goldenflower,” he purred, “Have you decided to join me? To choose your mate over your clan? I saw Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw before too. I’m glad you’ve all come to your senses.”

Goldenflower stayed quiet, her green gaze burning into the dark tabby. The rest of the clans had fallen silent, no one was sure what was going on or what to do.

“I’d die before I joined you,” Goldenflower murmured, “I’d die before I let my kits be influenced by you,” her lips pulled back in a snarl, “And I’d die before I let you, my former mate, the one I used to love and respect so much, hurt my clan, or any clan again!” She lunged forward, tucking her head under Tigerstar’s chest and shoving him backwards. Before he fell onto his back, Goldenflower aimed her strike, hooking her claws into Tigerstar’s throat and slamming him to the ground with full force. Tigerstar’s scabbed eyes shot open in shock as he choked in pain, blood gurgling out of his throat. Goldenflower then swiftly raked her claws from his throat down his chest and exposed belly. She stumbled backwards, bloody fur stuck in her claws as blood spurted from Tigerstar’s belly. His eyes had already gone blank as blood continued to spill from his body.

No one spoke. The entirety of Fourtrees was frozen except for the pool of Tigerstar’s blood. Tawnypaw and Bramblepaw stared in shock from the crowd. Ashpaw coward behind Whitestar. Leopardstar, Littlecloud, and Runningnose stood shocked, but Leopardstar looked vaguely impressed. Fireheart, Sandstorm, and Ravenpelt pressed against one another. Whitestar could only glance at Goldenflower before staring at Tigerstar’s corpse. His amber eyes flashing back to life, his pelt rippling and mouth gasping and choking before growing dull and lifeless again. Over and over again. Until he finally lay still forever.

Epilogue: After The Battle

Death Count:

A bunch of Tigerstar’s rogue and former kittypet followers

ThunderClan:

-Tigerstar: killed by Sandstorm and Fireheart, Whitestar, and Goldenflower

-Darkstripe: killed by Graystripe

-Whitestar lost a life

WindClan:

-Hedgepaw: Killed by one of Tigerstar’s allies when he tried to run away

-Icetail: Killed by his sister, Whitetail, and Onewhisker

-Deadfoot: he made it back to WindClan’s camp but died shortly after

-Tallstar lost a life

RiverClan

-Blackclaw (Tigerstar’s ally): Killed by Leopardstar

-Sunfish (Tigerstar’s ally)

-Beetlenose (Tigerstar’s ally)

-Leopardstar lost a life

ShadowClan

-Blackfoot (Tigerstar’s ally): Killed by Mistyfoot

-Clawface (Tigerstar’s ally)

-Nightwhisper (Tigerstar’s ally)

-probably a couple elders since Tigerstar made them fight

-couple of other warriors i don’t feel like finding names for

~~~

-It’s not even sunhigh when the battle is over, Whitestar sees Onewhisker carrying Hedgepaw’s body to the group of WindClan cats and prays to StarClan that unless he truly had darkness in his heart to allow him to hunt with them in their hunting grounds because he was too young.

-Tallstar approaches Whitestar and tells him that WindClan will be returning to their territory now, he wants to see how Deadfoot is doing and that he wants to make sure any injured can be treated by Barkface, and that they were glad to have help, Whitestar apologizes to the WindClan leader for his clan’s loses today, but Tallstar replies by saying that it was an honor to fight for the sake of the clans and to be allies with him and ThunderClan, he turns around, gathers his warriors, and leaves.

-Whitestar sees Graystripe leave Darkstripe’s body and ask Leopardstar if he can take Darkstripe’s body back to ThunderClan, he wanted to tell Willowpelt himself what happened. Leopardstar agrees as long as Whitestar is okay with it, she glances over to him “But I don’t think there’s any doubt he’ll let you.” Graystripe bounds over to Whitestar and before he even asks, Whitestar says yes, he may, and offers to help him carry their half-brother’s body, which Graystripe answers with a nod.

-Goldenflower, Tawnypaw, and Bramblepaw are gathered around Tigerstar’s corpse. Whitestar is about to go to them when his apprentice, Ashpaw, speaks up “Who’s going to take his body?”  Whitestar says that ThunderClan will take Tigerstar’s body, as he was born and raised in ThunderClan, but he will be buried outside ThunderClan’s border. Flintfang steps forward and says that ShadowClan will take the bodies and bury them outside of their territory by Twoleg Place. Russetfur objects saying that he doesn’t have the right to make that decision for the clan and that there are almost as many dead rogues as there are ShadowClan cats. Flintfang says that they were technically ShadowClan cats at one point, so they will be taken away by ShadowClan. No one else objects

-Tawnypaw stands up from her father’s corpse and says that she wants to help ShadowClan bury the bodies, that she has decided that she wants to join them. Goldenflower is shocked and objects and Bramblepaw cries saying that he thought she wasn’t actually going to join ShadowClan like she once said she would in private. Tawnypaw looks to her mother and then to ShadowClan and she says that she felt like it was her duty as the daughter of Tigerstar to help heal ShadowClan and put her strength into them, helping them to be strong and become stronger.

-Russetfur and several others spit that they don’t want some ThunderClan brat joining them, that they don’t need ThunderClan’s help, ShadowClan was strong on its own. Littlecloud runs up and stands by Tawnypaw though, saying that any apprentice of Cinderpelt’s would be a strong and honorable warrior. Whitethroat agrees and Rowanpaw, from the back of the crowd, yells that if she joined that they could beat her up whenever they wanted to. Cinderpelt meets with Tawnypaw and Littlecloud and asks if this is really what she wanted to do and with grief in her eyes, Tawnypaw says yes. They all look to Whitestar and he says that she would basically have to start her training all over again, which Tawnypaw says that she knows and understands. Whitestar then says that if it’s truly what she wants then she doesn’t need his permission, it’s ShadowClan she needs to get the permission from.

-Flintfang hesitates, but then nods and agrees to take her in, and makes a remark, “And Russetfur, you can be her mentor; you know what it’s like being an outsider of ShadowClan coming in.” Whitestar thinks to himself that Flintfang would make a good and noble leader for ShadowClan. Several cats flinch, no one usually dares mention that Russetfur was once a kittypet that joined ShadowClan, but after a hiss at the gray tom, Russetfur only motions to Tawnypaw, “Fine, then earn your keep now and start helping to carry one of these bodies.” But before she runs off, Tawnypaw turns around and nuzzles her mother, brother, and now former mentor. She promises that they’ll see each other on patrols and at gatherings, and that maybe she’ll see Bramblepaw when he’s out gathering herbs by the ShadowClan border.

-Cinderpelt leans over to Littlecloud and asks him to please watch over Tawnypaw and thanks him, touching the tip of his ear with her nose and Littlecloud says of course, touching his nose to CInderpelt’s. ShadowClan, with all the bodies gathered, leaves for their own territory, the last thing that can be seen is Tawnypaw’s fluffed up, golden and brown tabby tail.

-Mistyfoot approaches Leopardstar, a wary awkwardness between them. Leopardstar’s eyes soften for a moment, a rare sight to see. Mistyfoot says that she’s going to fetch their kits and Mosspelt. Leopardstar’s eyes harden again, as if she’s suddenly aware that she had let herself soften and responds, “No. I want to fetch them,” them softens her tone, realizing that she started to harshly, “Mistyfoot, please take RiverClan back to camp for me.”

-Mistyfoot is shocked as well as the cats who were in earshot, but she nods and agrees, but then whispers to Leopardstar, “Only if they want to come back, Leopardstar.” Leopardstar shifts her paws and says of course.

-Stormpaw and Featherpaw say they want to come get them as well and Leopardstar hesitates and then agrees. Mistyfoot collects the RiverClan cats and they begin to leave as Leopardstar walks to Whitestars, slightly nods and tells him to take the lead. Whitestar says that Goldenflower can lead with Bramblepaw as they carry Tigerstar’s body and he and Graystripe will follow behind with Darkstripe’s. Leopardstar walks in step with him, Stormpaw and Featherpaw trotting behind their father. “Come, ThunderClan, we’re going home,” Whitestar says, he notices that Fireheart, Sandstorm, and Ravenpelt take the back, just behind Ashpaw, Fernpaw, Cloudpaw, and Snowpaw. Whitestar takes not on how brave all four of them had to be today, and notices with sadness that they all have blood on their pelts.

-On the way to camp, Leopardstar admits to Whitestar that she saw the cat, Sasha, running towards RiverClan territory, and that she expects she will be in their camp when she gets back. She says that she was Tigerstar’s mate and one of his closest cats, which Goldenflower, overhearing, visibly twitches her tail at. Bramblepaw’s fur raises. Whitestar asks her what she’ll do with Sasha if she is and Leopardstar replies that Sasha is a good cat and i snothing like Tigerstar, and that she believe she is expecting his kits, she would never turn away an expectant queen. Goldenflower is heard swallowing a growl and her ears are pinned back, while Bramble seems to shrink in his own fur.

-They reach camp and lay the two bodies in the clearing, the cats who stay behind swarm around the group of cats, Primrosepaw quickly asks where Mistyfoot is, fearfully. Leopardstar consoles them that their mother is fine and took RiverClan home and that everything should be back to normal soon. Or as normal as it can be. Pikepaw says he wants to go home right away, his siblings and Dawnpaw agreeing.

-Graystripe tells Willowpelt what happened with Darkstripe and then steps away to let her grieve over her older son. Whitestar can tell that he feels worried about something when Graystripe cautiously approaches him. They go under the Highrock and Graystripe asks Whitestar if he can rejoin ThunderClan. His kits are apprentices now and he trusts Mistyfoot, Mosspelt, and whoever will train Stormpaw next to take care of them. He says that he has never felt like a RiverClan cat and that every moment he’s in RiverClan he misses ThunderClan. It doesn’t feel like a home, he can’t be a good warrior there.

-Whitestar feels both pity, joy, and worry. He would take his son back in a heartbeat, but he looks over to Frostfur and her kits, then Sandstorm, and then back to Graystripe. Would they ever be able to forgive him for neglecting Brackenpaw and that leading to his death? If I show that I trust him, they will.

-Whitestar nods, but warns that he’ll have to work twice as hard to gain the rest of his clanmates’ trust back, but Graystripe gleefully says of course and then bounds over to Willowpelt and his younger brothers and sister to tell them, then, more solemnly heads towards the RiverClan cats.

-Stormpaw and Featherpaw are absolutely dejected. Mosspelt’s face turns hurt and sad and says that she had a feeling he would decide this. Leopardstar says that she knew he would decide this for moons now. There is hesitancy and side eyes from a few ThunderClan cats. Graystripe confronts his kits and tells them that they don’t need him anymore, they’re apprentices and are RiverClan through and through, if he were to stay in RiverClan he would just be a reminder that they’re half ThunderClan to their entire clan and he felt like they wouldn’t get the respect they deserve. He says that he’ll always be there for them if they need him though and that he’ll always be their father and that he loves them so much and he knows that so does their mother who will always watch over them in StarClan. Mosspelt rubs her muzzle to his and whisper to him that he’s a good cat and a good father, giving him a look with a glow of love in her eyes. Graystripe says thank you and then presses his muzzle against both of his kits and licks them both between the ears before turning back to Mosspelt and asks her to take care of them. They both say of course.

-The apprentices all say goodbye, Stormpaw and Featherpaw especially take a moment to say goodbye to Willowpelt and her kits. Leopardstar walks over to Whitestar and whispers her thanks for taking care of them all and tells him that he’s a good leader. Whitestar nods and says of course, and that she’s a good leader as well. Mosspelt says her thanks as well and then the RiverClan cats leave to return to their home.

-Fireheart and Ravenpelt pounce onto Graystripe in a welcome back. Sandstorm staying more to the side, but affection for the gray tom can be seen in her eyes and she nods to him. Rainkit and Sorrelkit jump onto Graystripe’s back for a badger ride. Graystripe can hardly stand up with both of the kits on his back.

-The elders, Willowpelt, Goldenflower, and Bramblepaw all take Tigerstar and Darkstripe to be buried just outside of ThunderClan’s border and Whitestar sends a patrol of Longtail, Mousefur, Thornclaw, and all four of the warrior apprentices to go hunting. After the burial patrol returns, the hunting patrol returns with jaws full of prey. Newleaf is surely almost here.

-After everyone eats their fill and Yellowfang and Bramblepaw were able to treat everyone’s injuries, Whitestar calls for a clan meeting. He tells everyone that he’s so proud of ThunderClan and all of the clans for their victory over Tigerstar and that he hopes that after this their can be peace in newleaf. He says that in celebration, their warrior apprentices are ready to become warriors. He calls on Ashpaw, Fernpaw, Snowpaw, and Cloudpaw. He says that they were all so brave during the battle and then to come home and almost immediately go out and bring back fresh-kill for their clan. They were true warriors. He turns to Ashpaw first and says that he was so proud to be his mentor, and names him Ashfur. Then asks Longtail if Fernpaw was ready to be a warrior and when he says yes, says that Fernpaw is graceful and compassionate and names her Ferncloud. Then he asks Frostfur if Snowpaw is ready to be a warrior and when she says he is Whitestar says, while also signing to Snowpaw, that he is patient and intelligent and from this moment forward he will be named Snowears. And then finally Whitestar asks Fireheart if Cloudpaw is ready to be a warrior and after Fireheart says yes Whitestar says that Cloudpaw is passionate and confident and from this moment forward he will be named Cloudtail.

-ThunderClan chants the new warriors’ names, and some even sign the names for Snowears.

-Whitestar apologized to Bramblepaw since he’ll be the only apprentice now, but then Sorrelkit announces that she and her brother can be apprentices with him, but Whitestar refuses, saying that they still have to wait about another moon.

-The sun sets on the clans. They are rid of the evil that was Tigerstar, and are full of promise for a happy future.

#warrior cats #warrior cats rewrite #my rewrite #decatssi #decatssi arc 1

[lillotte17]

Tomorrow

Got hooked watching Word of Honor and Zhou Zishu's Sad Face Journeys in episodes 33-34 came for my life, so I wrote a little scene set after the whole Heroes Conference Thing. ...And then Wen KeXing showed up and just...*gestures vaguely* I don't know what happened here. XD

~

Zhou Zishu sits quietly beside the bed, watching Wen KeXing's sleeping face with an ache in his chest that has nothing to do with his failing body, and everything to do with the fact that he is about to die.

When his shidi had made a miraculous reappearance at the Heroes Conference, his first reaction was gut-wrenching surprise. It felt as though the ground had suddenly dissolved beneath his feet. His heart leaping so high in his throat that he forgot how to breathe. Dizzy with the overwhelming rush of joy and confusion. Uncertain whether to laugh or cry.

But once the shock had subsided, the anger had been hot on its heels. And he wanted to be mad about it. Wanted to take Wen KeXing by the shoulders and shake him so hard that his teeth rattled around in his skull. Wanted to scream and sob and rail against the now inevitably fast-burning candle of his fate. At the unfairness of losing his life just as he had found something worth living for again. Someoneworth living for. For a few moments, the fury had burned so brightly in him he thought it might be enough to kill him then and there. That the fire between his lungs would simply burst his chest open and engulf everything around them in a sea of red.

But when they had caught each other’s gaze, he had seen the apology roiling in Wen KeXing’s dark eyes, raw and miserable, even without a word being said. The apology, and the fear. That same fear Zishu had seen flicker across his face every time he had tried to coax him into confessing that he was from Ghost Valley. The same fear he had seen in him the night Wen KeXing had snuck out of the Four Seasons Manor to intercept Ye BaiYi and tried to prevent him from reveling his identity. And yet again, when Han Ying had died, and he had nearly killed himself in a blind panic trying to fix it somehow. The fear whispered that death was preferable to his hatred. That his blade would be kinder than his revulsion. That Wen KeXing would sacrifice anything to avoid being abandoned once again.

Zhou Zishu was helpless in the face of it; as he always seems to be. The look that passed between them had been fast and fleeting, there and gone again with barely a blink, but it was enough to douse the flames of his anger with a tide of chilling and fathomless grief. The rest of the Heroes Conference passed before him in a daze. Vengeance, and justice, and pride. Wen KeXing blazing in the brightest and truest version of himself for all to see. Dazzling and mesmerizing and impossible to look away from. He does not know if he has ever loved him more, even as he felt his heart slowly sinking down into the pit of his stomach. The numbness of acceptance settling into his bones.

There will be no escape from death, this time.

He had been quiet on the way back to Jing BeiYuan’s Manor. Quiet enough to worry both Wen KeXing and ChengLing, who always seems to see more than he understands. He had listened to their reasons and excuses, and he had done his best to reassure them afterwards, but his own words sound hollow in his ears. The best he could do was to get Lao Wen hopelessly drunk, and pray that it made him less intuitive. The suffusion of elation and hope in the air had nearly been enough to choke him, though. He did not want to rob them of it, but he found he could take part in it either, no matter how much he wanted to. He could not bring himself to celebrate a future he can no longer share with them.

Zhou Zishu understands Wen KeXing. He understands that he is just as abysmal at properly conveying affection as he is himself, if not more so. The man only knows how to protect people he cares for by either sending them away from him or drowning them both in blood. It is how he had managed to survive all those years surrounded by madness and chaos and death. Zishu had done much the same, while he was working in the capital. Hiding all of their softer places far away from where the light could reach them. Playful banter has always passed easily between them, but tenderness is heavier, and vulnerabilities almost impossible to speak aloud. They are both trying to do better, struggling to pull their own humanity back into their hands where it can be shared freely, but Wen KeXing’s hurts are older and deeper. His path back to the world of the living inevitably more winding and complex. He still has not mastered the art of articulating his fears and concerns.

Zhou Zishu’s health was tenuous even before he had been kidnapped and tortured. As much as he hated to admit it, he had been in no fit state to fight an angry mob. Wen KeXing hid the truth from him because he knew that he would chafe at being told to stay out of harm’s way; that they would have argued about it until he was either allowed to participate in the scheme or he was spitting blood and passing out on the floor. Zishu cannot even say that this assessment of his character was a bad one, but it still stung to be kept in the dark, and the hurt was lingering. And yet, however deep the barb of this secret may have landed, however misplaced the caution may or may not have been, he knows without a shred of doubt that Wen KeXing’s deception was born of love, and he can hardly hold that against him.

Especially not now.

Wen KeXing turns his head slightly, mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like an extremely slurred version of his name. His expression is smooth and peaceful, his hair a dark fan across the bed behind him. The rosy glow of happiness and alcohol still pinking the apples of his cheeks.

Zishu smiles despite himself. It is much easier to find traces of the little boy his master had planned to take for his second disciple when he looks like this; safe and sleeping and completely at ease for the first time in who knows how long. He wishes he could recall those few precious days they had spent together as children with more clarity, but the memory of it is like a silk brocade left to sit too long in the sunshine, its delicate patterns fading as the colors wash away in a flood of light. Zhou Zishu had been too young to fully comprehend the weight of death when his master had returned from his trip to collect the Wen family without his shidi or his parents in tow. That his master had been sad about it was enough to impact him, but in the grand scheme of things, the wounds to his own heart had been minimal.

What would have happened if they had kept looking for Zhen Yan, he wonders. If he and Wen KeXing had grown up together as best friends and martial brothers and soulmates? Would their master have found a way to soothe Zhen Yan’s rage before it consumed him? Would Zhou Zishu have made the same mistakes with the Window of Heaven if Wen KeXing had been at his side? Perhaps they could have saved each other before things had reached the place they were now. Or perhaps Wen KeXing would have died under Zhou Zishu’s leadership with the rest of their sect, and his failures would have tasted that much more bitter.

He sighs quietly. There is no sense dwelling on things he cannot change. He had been a child, and just as powerless to save Wen KeXing from his fate as the boy himself had been. Feeling guilty about it was meaningless at this point. It was enough to have him here and now. Enough that they had had any time together at all. Enough that Wen KeXing had fallen off of that cliff and somehow still managed to walk back to him.

It has to be enough, because it is all they have. All they can have. Even if he wants more.

“Ah Xu?”

The voice is thick with sleep, but marginally less inebriated than before.

“Mn,” Zhou Zishu hums in acknowledgement, his gaze shifting slightly to watch Wen KeXing blink himself back into wakefulness.

“You didn’t go to bed?” he asks, bleary and swaying slightly as he attempts to sit up.

“There is someone in my bed.” Zishu points out archly.

Wen KeXing looks murderous for a few seconds until he realizes that the person in question is, in fact, himself. When the clouds break, his expression immediately shifts to one of insufferable satisfaction. He leans precariously off the side of the bed, robes and hair both hopelessly askew.

“I am always willing to share everything I have with Ah Xu,” he declares with feigned sweetness.

“How kind of Philanthropist Wen to make a present of what he stole from me,” Zhou Zishu snorts, “Your generosity knows no bounds.”

“Ah Xu!” Wen KeXing objects. “How is it stealing when you gave it to me freely? You think I would come to your bedroom with the intention of sleeping?”

“I’m sure I don’t know anything about your intentions.” The reply is given with a smirk, but his eyes dart away from him. “You asked me to drink with you, but the jar you brought was empty. Besides, I am thinking about giving it up. I have been told that it is bad for my health.”

“Aiya, first Ah Xu accuses me of being a thief, and now he tells me such scandalous falsehoods!” Wen KeXing shakes his head, attempting to seem wounded despite the grin on his face. “I already accepted your punishment earlier, there is no reason to be cruel.”

“Who is a liar here?” Zhou Zishu inquires laughingly, gesturing back and forth between them. “Which one of us is the most scandalous?”

“It’s me, it’s me,” Wen KeXing acknowledges, his head bobbing up and down in agreement, “But Ah Xu, you cannot expect me to ever believe that you would willingly give up drinking good wine with me? And as for not understanding my intentions, well…I believe that even less.”

“Was your intention to make sure I could not get any sleep?”

Wen KeXing only smiles at him widely.

“…I regret asking such a question,” Zhou Zishu chuckles, reaching out to lightly slap the side of Wen KeXing’s face in both fondness and chastisement. “Ask a shameless man a question and you are sure to get a shameless reply.”

Wen KeXing grabs hold of his hand before he can pull it away, leaning into it with a sigh.

“What is so shameless about it at this point?” he wonders, something soft and shining igniting within his gaze. “Living together. Dying together. Watching as our hair turns gray with old age. We’ve already promised to share these things, haven’t we? Why give me your bed when we could share that, too?”

Zhou Zishu takes a long look at him. At the dark hair spilling across his shoulder in disarray. The front of his robes just rumpled enough to expose the elegant line of his throat as well as part of his collar bones. The flush of his cheeks and the promise burning in his eyes.

He cannot deny that he wants it. Even knowing it might make things more painful later on. He wants to be selfish. He wants to be greedy while he still can. While he can still hear Lao Wen calling for him and feel his skin beneath his hands. His sense of taste and smell have gone already, but can still see him, and that could be enough. More than enough.

But will it be enough for Wen KeXing?

This is the last thing they have to give each other. The last pieces of themselves they have been holding back. Mostly because there simply had not been time for it amidst the chaos swirling around them. It always seemed as though either their lives were in danger or one of them was injured. Up until now, even Zishu had been optimistic enough to assume they would have time for it later, though. Time to use physical intimacy as an almost second meeting. To learn how they need each other in the quiet and the dark. To learn the ways they can be gentle, and the ways they can be fierce. To burn each other up in desperation and desire.

It seems too heartless to have it be a farewell instead.

Zhou Zishu lets out a long breath.

“…Not when you are drunk,” he says quietly.

Wen KeXing blinks at him in astonishment, eyes blown wide and round as saucers, clearly expecting a flat-out rejection.

A moment later, the blankets have been hastily flung aside, and he is staggering off of the bed has fast as he can. Which, as it turns out, is not very fast at all. Zhou Zishu easily catches him with one arm, lightly pushing him back into a seated position.

“Lao Wen, where do you think you are going?” he laughs.

“I need to sober up,” Wen KeXing explains, looking so serious about it that Zhou Zishu cannot help but reach out and pinch his cheek. Lao Wen slaps his hand away, his expression mulish.

“Don’t pout,” Zishu scolds, still chuckling, “It is too late to be staggering around someone else’s house. With my luck, you would drown yourself in the fish pond, and then BeiYuan and Wu Xi would be terribly put out.”

“But Ah Xu, if you won’t let me leave, and you won’t share the bed, just what do you want me to do?” Lao Wen complains. “Even if you don’t want to have sex, you should at least lay down and rest properly. I want you to get well as soon as possible.”

Zhou Zishu’s mouth stiffens slightly.

“I know.”

Wen KeXing’s brow furrows in concern. He reaches out a hand, long fingers hovering just above his heart, when Zhou Zishu catches them tightly in his own. He is not certain if Lao Wen could glean the truth about his condition from his pulse while still tipsy, but he is not about to run that risk tonight.

“Are the nails bothering you again?” Wen KeXing asks, doleful this time.

“No.”

It is not a lie.

“Then come to bed,” Lao Wen cajoles, using their joined hands to tug him closer, “I promise not to molest you unless you ask me to.”

Zhou Zishu makes a sound of grumbling disbelief, but still allows himself to be pulled down next to Wen KeXing. The bed is big enough for two, but only just. Lao Wen retrieves the formerly discarded blankets from whatever corner he had toss them and bundles them up together like two caterpillars in a single cocoon. His face is close beside him on the pillow, warm breath fanning the side of his neck. An arm drapes loosely about Zishu’s waist, and he turns his head slightly, intending to shoot a warning glare in the other man’s direction.

This is a mistake.

Wen KeXing’s eyes are dark and intense in the moonlight, half closed with either sleep or desire, it is hard to say. His lips part slightly as Zhou Zishu turns to him, and the hand draped around his waist clutches faintly at his robes as if on instinct. Both of them seem to have forgotten how to breathe.

“…Ah Xu, you can kiss me, if you like,” Lao Wen whispers finally, so soft it almost seems like a dream.

“What makes you think I want to kiss you?” he means it to sound teasing, but it comes out in almost a sigh.

“Because I want to kiss you,” Lao Wen replies matter-of-factly.

“I never thought of you as a pillar of self-restraint,” Zhou Zishu huffs.

“I promised to be a gentleman.”

Zishu closes his eyes and lets out a deep, soul-rattling sigh. He is almost glad he cannot smell the oils Wen KeXing uses in his hair or the trace of alcohol on his lips. The proximity is staggering enough all on its own.

“…It would not stop with a kiss,” he admits aloud to both of them.

He does not open his eyes again, but he can feel Wen KeXing’s body tremble slightly as he laughs, and that is almost as bad.

“Ah Xu, I would hardly complain,” he replies, testing his luck by shifting close enough so that their foreheads are lightly touching. “But you want to rest, and I want you rested, so it is no great loss, either way. You will still be here with me tomorrow, after all. There is no need to rush these things. Sometimes, a slow spring is sweeter.”

“Yes,” Zhou Zishu manages to reply around the lump lodged in his throat, “I will still be here tomorrow.”

#Word of Honor #Wenzhou #wen kexing #zhou zishu #fic #this was supposed to be all angsty #but they are SO EFFING FUNNY #it's so fun writing their banter #askdjghasdfgk #i am sorry #i have no idea what emotions this actually conveys at this point #i just work here

[romeulusroy]

Being Pollys Long Lost Child Would Include: (Part #1)

Showing up the Small Heath with nothing but a suitcase and a vague idea of where to go

You actually run into your cousins/brother before you even know who they are on the way there

Breaking through their group right down the middle, unaware of who the Peaky Blinders are

A few yell or tease, but you don't care, not when it's this important

Telling Michael to fuck off when he makes a comment about how rude you are, unaware he's actually your brother

Still, you won't let those assholes ruin your big day

Staring down the front door

What does someone say in a situation like this?

Sorry I didn't visit sooner, I never knew you existed? Did you ever give up a child so many years ago looks like you? Do you have any kids?

You barely knocked twice before the door swung open

You weren't sure who to picture. . . . the woman all those people described seemed like a million women. . . Sometimes she was a mastermind, other times a drunk, she could be feared or admired, smart or stupid. . .

Instead all you saw were her big brown eyes and look of distrust

"Yes?"

"Are you, uh. . . did you. . . I'm y/n, I think you might be my mother."

The statement comes out stuttered and flunky, but it's strikes her none of the less, leaving her quiet for a moment

Anna was dead, Michael had come home, but they never found her baby

She couldn't let herself get her hopes up, knowing anyone could have set you up to this now that business was growing and so was their list of enemies, but she couldn't deny you if it really was true

Against her own judgement, she let's you in before anyone sees you

She knew she shouldn't have, but when you're sitting there, before her, she can picture all the times you were a baby

How your features matched, though of course that had been a long time ago, maybe she was just making it up to match for her own good

She thought about you every day, about the life you could have lead, the person you would have become, it made her sad, but hopeful, the same way she felt when she thought about Anna

You let her look, and after a while, she spoke up

"What did you say your name was?"

It's not the name her baby had, but you were so young, she figured they could have renamed you the way Michael's parents had

You found yourself telling her everything, talking before you could stop yourself or even realize what you were saying, wanting to unveil something that would convince her you were hers

From your parents, to your siblings, your grades in school and all the detentions you'd gotten, the friends you made and the hobbies you had

You never told anyone about all the times you felt different, strange, like you didn't quite fit in, and yet you were telling a complete stranger all of it and more

It wasn't until you mentioned your baby blanket, the one you'd actually brought with you, did it catch her attention

That was one thing your parents neglected to change

Polly was the one to sew the holes in it, passing it down from your siblings to you, she recognized her own stitching

Suddenly you're in her arms, being called another name

You found her, you found your mother

If Polly could have kept you for herself, she would have, knowing the kind of world you were walking into, the dangers you would face by associating yourself with her

In return, she tells you about your brother and sister, stories about you as a baby, memories coming back before she can stop them

The time your sister dressed you up and pretended you were one of her dolls, when your brother thought he could trade you in for a puppy

Like Michael, you're thrown into the family before you know what's going on

The boys burst through the door, all of them talking at once, interrupting your time together

"What are you doing here?" You question, recognizing Michael

"Me? Who the fuck are you?" The two of you look to your mother and Polly knows, just by your fighting, you're her baby

Being introduced to an army of relatives all at once

Your cousins are welcoming, friendly, the oldest ones laughing, teasing about how chubby you were as a baby

Your attitude towards your brother doesn't change, he's a pain in the ass already, but you'd never had an older sibling before, you figured he wasn't the worst of the worst, right?

Besides, you barely know one another, you hope it'll get better the more you get to know one another

It doesn't take her long to explain the business

You're curious, and observant, two things that work in your favor and against your mothers

You're not naive either

Sure, you didn't grow up with any of this, and though your parents tried to shelter you, you always knew where to find trouble

The way they cling to one another, how the crowds disperse, the mere mention of your family name, the gleam from their caps, this was not the kind of business one would brag about being part of, at least not in the company of others

You weren't stupid

Still, Polly tries to keep you away, at a distance, as do the rest of your family

You're still a kid in their eyes, but you make that pretty hard

It becomes clear what your parents were trying to hide from you, protect you from, but you weren't scared like they were, you were fascinated

It also becomes clear how easy you fit into it all, becoming a shadow to your mother, your brother, anyone who will let you follow and watch until you show them just how much you've learned

This lifestyle was dangerous and addictive, and like the rest of your family, you understand the appeal, much to your mother's dismay

Eventually she lets you in, let's you practice shooting a gun with your brother, go to the bar with your cousins, sit in on family meetings

Her one rule is that you are never, under any circumstances, alone

You take to the lifestyle quite easy despite her fears

The feeling you've always had where you never could quite fit in with your family, your siblings, even the kids around you, it all went away

Being paired up with Finn a lot since you two are the youngest

You don't mind all the time though

He teaches you a lot of tricks with his brothers, the other blinders, ways to get people to listen to what he has to say, share all their secrets

You prove yourself not only worthy of the Gray name, but also your place in the business as well

You don't quite idolize Thomas as much as your brother does, and when you can't bite your tongue any longer, it can get you into trouble

Luckily, your mother is always ready to stick up for you

She catches herself calling you by the name she gave you, and though you're not quite ready to take it, you know she means well

"Fuck off, Michael."

"I'm telling mum you said that."

"Snitch."

Fighting with your brother becomes normal, not all out of hatred anymore, but a constant, dull annoyance

You begin to find your place here, in the job, the family, everything

Part of you hates to admit that you don't miss who you used to be, who you thought you were going to be

Your parents knew you were smart, but they always assumed you'd live a life like theirs, one of safety, predictability, a life that was boring

Here, you had a life of excitement, danger, one that kept you on your toes, where moving up in the world was something to work towards, not just dream of

Polly knew what you were leaving behind, and she wouldn't have stopped you or blamed you if you decided to turn back, but it was the happiest day of her life when you knocked on that door

You were giving her the second chance she always wanted

Your parents, on the other hand, are anything but happy

You call home a few times, assuring them you miss them, you're thinking of them, you might visit, and that you're happier than ever, but your parents know something is up

Word spreads quick in a small place like yours

Rumor spread you'd run off with a secret partner, skipped town after getting into trouble again, joined the circus

The more time that passed, the crazier they became

But your parents knew

They should have suspected you were lying from the beginning, that you were after the one thing you' d always asked about, that you figured out all along what they'd kept secret. . . . .

Now they regretted not seeing it before

It takes a little while for them to figure out where you went, where Polly ended up, but they found you again, and they were coming to bring you home once and for all

A/N: Ahhh okay I know I kinda left it on a cliffhanger!!! I hope this part was as good as the first!!! There might be a third idk yet :P

#headcanon #polly gray #polly gray headcanon #peaky blinders #peaky blinders headcanon #series #ennasfavorites