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#debated over what to do for a hot sec but happy with these choices

everybodyscupoftea · 4 years

Note

do you take requests for a girl watching football x rafe? like, let’s say rafe doubted her knowledge (like ur pinned fic) and she showed him who’s boss when it comes to her favorite sport? if not it’s chill

okay i’m not near as good at writing college rafe as my friend @sunnypogue but i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write rafe as an ole miss douchebag :)

in your defense, you were biased against him from the start. you were a senior at mississippi state and it was your last egg bowl. hell, you weren’t even sure who invited the group of ole miss frat boys to your tailgating tent, but you weren’t happy about it in the slightest.

it was pretty cold outside and you’d started drinking early. the parents had facetimed you that morning and eaten thanksgiving breakfast with you because you’d elected to stay in starkville for the game that year.

you were sitting in one of the few chairs set up, sleeves pulled over your hands, clutching the beer bottle you’d picked up when you got there. your sweater wasn’t doing much to keep you warm and you were kind of grumpy because the boots you normally wore to the game to sneak your flask in were missing.

all of a sudden a group of boys wearing blue and red fleece half zips walked up to the tent and started fist bumping a bunch of your friends. you rolled your eyes and scowled, not in the mood to deal with any of the dudebros from up the road.

you saw one of them eyeing the empty chair next to you, so you kicked your feet up and glared at him. he looked you over before smirking, “i’ll sit on them.”

“and i’ll shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll taste my shoes.”

the boy laughed and continued to stand, hands shoved in his pockets, “no need to be rude, sweetheart, we’re all friends here.”

you gave him a blank look and with a deadpan told him, “i’m not friends with a hotty toddy.”

he took it good naturedly, much to your annoyance, and wandered over to the food table. one of your friends eventually showed up with your boots and considerably cheered you up.

as the group was preparing to head to the stadium, you felt a tug on your bag. whirling around you saw that same guy from before and he poked at your cowbell, “you have one of those obnoxious things?”

the urge to take it out and ring it in his ear was overwhelming but you held it back. you switched your bag to your other shoulder, “and what of it?”

“it’s ugly.”

which, okay, it’s one thing for him to insult you, but your cowbell was a different story. over your years at state, you’d been collecting the stickers they gave out at home football games and sticking them on your cowbell. you were proud of it, and you weren’t about to listen to his slander.

“you’re calling my cowbell ugly while wearing those boat shoes? that’s bold.”

“i’m rafe.”

“good for you.”

you weren’t sure where rafe thought he was going, if he was going to try to sneak into the student section, or if he just had tickets and knew some of your friends, but at some point he disappeared. you were just glad that his cologne was no longer clouding the air around you, and by the time the game started, you were happily tipsy thanks to your boot flask.

a whole quarter passed and you’d pretty much forgotten about rafe. relishing the atmosphere that you’d soon be moving on from. you were debating the quarterback situation with one of your friends when rafe dropped down on the other side of you.

he hadn’t at all been part of the conversation, but he butted in, “i’d think the coach would know how to pick and use his players better than you.”

you turned around to look at him, “i think that you should consider the guy the coach keeps starting followed him here. mr. penn state can’t hang in the sec, and we keep getting fucked. like just start the freshman at this point, at least he’s not getting injured every time someone on the defensive line touches him.”

“the freshman isn’t ready, don’t want to crush his spirits in his first season,” rafe defended.

“against ole miss? you’re kidding right? y’all are on the verge of firing your own coach right now, plus you’re in hot water from that recruitment scandal. we’re gonna beat you guys tonight and there’s no better feeling than destroying a rival. let him play.”

rafe held his hands up, “hey, my bad, you know your shit. i like that.”

you scoffed, “yeah, that’s what i love to hear. male approval of my favorite hobby. what would i have ever done without it?”

“are you always this hostile?”

just as he asked, msu scored and the student section erupted. screams and ringing cowbells echoed around the stadium. rafe stayed still, arms crossed, while you chanted along with the fight song. at the end, you turned to face him for the last line, screaming almost in his face, “go to hell ole miss.”

rafe laughed again, much to your annoyance, and you weren’t sure if it was the alcohol or the serotonin from the game, but you actually found it cute.

he nudged you with his elbow, “can’t say we’re perfect, but at least we have more than one movie theater in oxford.”

your mouth fell open, “what does that have to do with anything? we’re talking about football.”

rafe shrugged, “it means you have a choice of which one you’d rather go to when i take you out.”

#rafe cameron #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron x reader #ole miss rafe #college rafe

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

Note

hi my love i’m hope not too late but i would like you to tell me about my loves jewish cake, anything you want to but specifically baker calum 🥰 thank you i love you

of course you aren’t too late!!! ESPECIALLY to talk about jewish cake oh my goodness meg i shall die for you i love you. alright let’s see what i can dig up

ha’ahava hazot shelanu + it’s so simple

a cut, per usual

so let’s start WITH:

ha’ahava hazot shelanu

jewish cake was a labor of love for myself. little known fact about me is that i am in fact jewish! :) and around christmas time i always get a little prickly about the surplus of christmas spirit and in this case the amount of fic for it. and i’d sort of had this hesitant idea to write a jewish fic in the back of my mind for a long time, but it felt like a really big divergence from the Cast of Characters that was for some reason a lot more dramatic than any other circumstances into which i could place them, so i’d basically been hesitating for several months. in november we had a brief conversation about it in the club which looked like this

but the idea still made me a little nervous and so i kind of talked myself out of writing it, as always. and THEN, middle of december, iba sent me this 1d fic out of nowhere with this accompanying message:

and i kinda lowkey almost cried!! it was such a jewish fic. i read the word kvetch and i almost lost it. the fic was just so unabashedly jewish. and i was like...well. that’s what ive been wanting to do. so now i have no reason not to do it.

in the ao3 notes i talked a little bit about my internal debate over How Jewish To Go with the fic because on the one hand i really do understand that it can feel alienating going into a fic with zero understanding of the culture but on the other hand since it was MY fic i wanted to make it jewish the way i’m jewish. which is like...............very. i don’t think i ended up striking a balance so much as just deciding to say fuck it and write it the way i would want to read it, but i definitely think that was the right decision for me.

there was actually one more motivator for writing this fic, especially the WAY i wrote it, in eight chapters, and that motivator was that i wanted to break 400k on ao3 before the year ended. i just wanted to have an even number and 400k was a good goal. which i did achieve thanks to jewish cake fic being the 13.6k beast that she is! so that was also part of it

NOW! as for the PROCESS. i created the doc on december 22 and i originally kind of thought it was a little bitchy to write a hanukkah fic after hanukkah had already ended but was reminded that most christmas fic is neither written nor posted on actual christmas which reassured me well enough. i had already had the idea to divide it into eight chapters for the eight nights of hanukkah and i thought that would be a nice way to showcase different aspects of the holiday (seeing family, playing dreidel, opening presents etc) and also in certain cases (like the third chapter where they do some baking) some days that weren’t necessarily hanukkah-driven but just a nice natural consequence of being on break for hanukkah. i wanted it to feel like hanukkah feels to me!! normally i don’t like people seeing the way my outlines look but this one i don’t mind sharing so here’s what i had at the top of the doc for reference while i was writing. not everything in that first list got included but most of it did !!!

i’m not really sure how this fic ended up being cake. i never used to default to cake but for some reason as i was diving into this one it just felt right. that’s all i can say about that. meg you have genuinely shifted my approach to fic i DO default to cake sometimes now and that’s on YOU.

the very first thing i ever wrote down for this fic was this part that ended up going in the summary:

“Happy Hanukkah,” Calum says, smiling at Luke as their fingers intertwine.

Luke murmurs, “Chag sameach, ahovi,” and Calum’s face is aglow in the candlelight.

that was The Moment for me. i didn’t even write the rest of that scene until later but i had those two lines written down straight out the gate and i knew they were gonna close out the first scene because it just Felt Right. and i was right! very cool and fun for me

now the nice convenient thing about having this fic separated into eight discrete scenes/nights/chapters was that i didn’t have to write it in order, and i didn’t. i DID write the first night/chapter first, but then over the course of maybe a week, i wrote (deep breath get ready): the first half of chapter 2 (hemmings family) > the beginning of chapter 5 (the dreidel game) > most of the scene in chapter 7 > the beginning of chapter 3 (where they bake) > finished writing chapters 2 & 3 > started chapter 4 and finished chapter 5 > finished chapter 4 and wrote the rest of chapter 7 > all of chapter 6 > all of chapter 8 aka the proposal. i deliberately saved the proposal for last because i don’t think i could have written it exactly right without knowing the events that came before it but everything else was all over the place as you can see.

a problem i ran into a lot, and i talked to my sounding board and fellow jew sam about this among many other things, was that i had a lot of trouble characterizing very obviously Not Jewish people in a way that made them Very Jewish. not even like, Jewish But You Can Ignore It. i wanted them to be front-and-center jewish like i am and that was hard for me to navigate because obviously my speech patterns and vocabulary as an american jew are extremely different from 5sos’s as australian goyim (non-jews) like i do use hebrew words in my day-to-day communication all the time and i somehow had to keep their mannerisms but also insert mine BUT not insert so many of mine that the fic became incomprehensible and it was just. a Challenge. here’s some insight into THAT crisis

and then again writing the other characters in other chapters

i sent sam the doc when i was mostly done writing it, mainly just to be reminded that at least one person was going to appreciate this fic, which worked out nicely because she very very much did. genuinely i cannot stress enough how insecure i was to write and share this fic. like i’m gonna be really straight up with you meg, i think part of the reason i had calum and luke baking sufganiyot was because to me that felt like a sort of bribe? i basically wrote what felt to me like the least appealing fic ever and then my mission from there was to add stuff in that would convince people to give it a shot anyway. i was trying to make it worth everyone’s while. the baking was my trade-off, i was like “well yeah it’s a jewish fic but maybe she’ll be happy enough that it’s cake and they’re baking that she’ll forgive it for being a jewish fic” yes i realize how kind of hilariously tragic this sounds but !!! you never get jewish fics!!! and you especially don’t get them in fanfiction for obviously non-jewish bands!!! anyway. we’re not gonna get into this whole thing but like. even though objectively i knew that i had been told again and again people would appreciate the fic i still had doubts and knowing something and feeling secure in it are very different things.

also, i didn’t remember this, but apparently i had a lot of problems with writing the proposal! here’s a sneak peek into that mental breakdown

don’t actually think the fic specifies (making life easier for myself) but they have already had dinner in that scene. so now you know.

i could choose to not get this elbows-deep in the details of Crises I Had While Writing This Fic but instead i am choosing to go all out. here’s another thing i had trouble with:

(i did end up using transliteration obviously but i DO think actual hebrew would have been a cool flex)

and as for the title, ha’ahava hazot shelanu is the name of an ivri lider song that i love, and it translates to “this love of ours” and i realize titling the fic in hebrew was a Choice but i did talk to sam about this as well and that went roughly like this

by the way here is the song, i absolutely love it and i cannot recommend it enough. also i’m not sure how glaringly obvious this is but the chapter titles on ao3 are just hebrew numbers. like the first chapter is echad which literally means one. and so on. are they the correct genders? i don’t know ! fuck gendered language.

one more thing and then ill move on but an unfortunate natural consequence of writing a hanukkah fic (at least the way i wrote this one) is that it necessitates presents. so i had to come up with presents for these dumb boys to give each other. and to be completely honest with you i don’t remember how i did!!! the ones calum got for luke were trickier because they were actual things. for some reason this luke was always a version of luke that just kinda like, wore makeup, so that was just a question of figuring out an eyeshadow palette that would be Nice but not obscenely schmancy (i did ask the club for help since i know nothing about makeup but as usual i ignored their replies). but that by itself didn’t feel like enough of a gift, and so i tried to think of something that would be more than just the gift of an object. like, something that would maybe enable luke to spend more time on something he loves. piano music made sense to me because it wasn’t just a thing by itself it was a thing that encouraged luke to play piano and even to improve at it and to learn songs that he could be excited about. so! that was that

the trip to israel gift was a little bit of a retcon situation i really liked the idea that luke had been planning to give that “gift” to calum for a hot sec that he’d have had it ready, but i’d already written the scene where he and mali talk about israel, so i went back to it and edited it a little to hint at the idea (luke plays it off very casually because he is a clever boy) but i thought there was something very romantic in the idea of the israel trip, of luke planning a future with calum and a trip to a place that means so much to him (to me yes maybe luke and i are the same blah blah) and getting to drag calum around to falafel places and teach him words in hebrew and it just seemed like the appropriate trip for these two cute jewish boys to plan so i rolled with it.

okay moving on slightly!! to baker calum <3 baker calum was more of a cameo in the hanukkah fic, in the chapter i wrote with you in mind, but i can talk about it’s so simple here as well because i fucking adore that fic.

it’s so simple

so the inspiration behind the fic came from the “kitchens are for lovers” rhetoric and the realization that that would be the perfect...sort of thesis to build on for a fic for you in specific, because you are, in my mind, a very kitchen-based person, given your baking habit. it actually just worked out pretty nicely for me honestly because i’ve been wanting to write a big Kitchen Romance type fic for a while and you just gave me the perfect opportunity. here’s what i had at the top of the doc for the fic for you

and then once i sort of landed on the idea for the fic, it just made a lot of sense to make it jewish cake because, well, im gonna be real w you, because i identify very strongly with jewish cake and the kitchen-romance aspect felt like a very bella thing in the same way that jewish cake felt like a bella thing. and so i wanted to be able to romanticize these kitchens to share the way that i, bella, feel about them, and that was easy to do when the characters were so similar to me. not to mention this cake already existed in my head as a very settled, domestic duo, and they had their own home and had already had a kitchen-romance scene in the hanukkah fic and the whole thing just fell together perfectly. i had this sentence in my head and it was: “Shabbat in Luke and Calum’s kitchen looks something like this.” the kind of thing you would read in a fic summary right? and especially having it take place on shabbat felt like an extra layer of domestic easy romance to me so that was kind of my guide

here was my "outline” for this:

Romance :)))

obviously calum was going to be the one doing most of the cooking/baking because he had been established as the Kitchen Boy between the two of them and maybe i realized in the course of writing it that while i was luke, you were very much calum. so the goal was then basically to romanticize (1) the kitchen and (2) luke as much as humanly possible for you (see: message sent to helen and ainslee)

unfortunately i was unable to do baker calum justice as much as i would have liked because i could not have him baking anything complex because i can’t bake anything complex and if i had tried to describe him baking something complex and then described it wrong i would have died of shame so that is why he is only baking brownies BUT they have chocolate chips which hopefully makes up for it. also i just stumbled across this which i think pretty well represents the crisis i had regarding baker calum

:)))

re: the soundtrack (so to speak), i wanted to include some songs that i associate with you meg but you see the situation is that some of those songs are 5sos/mali/atl songs and so i couldn’t include those, for obvious reasons, which did narrow down my choices somewhat. fortunately i think the mcfly worked pretty nicely i mean yeah it’s a little obvious that i was forcing mcfly into the story but they deserved to be there. i think i’ve mentioned this but i genuinely have a memory of listening to star girl on a loop in my kitchen at home and in my head the hood-hemmings kitchen looks like my kitchen because i have zero imagination so it felt to me like these songs just belonged in kitchens. and that they’d be inherently romantic. woah i think my brain is short-circuiting i’m not sure i’m making sense anymore. point being i hoped that you would appreciate it nonetheless.

a note about the short introduction, because it’s very unlike anything i’ve put in any other fic to my knowledge. i kind of wanted it to feel like the prologue to a fairytale, almost. i wanted it to feel like the beginning of a movie, when the camera is slowly, slowly zooming in from a Big Picture down to one house on one street and then through the window into the kitchen while the voiceover is very serenely describing the scene. i wanted it to feel like we were in the kitchen before even calum was and that we were standing against the fourth wall watching the fic unfold. and also, i wanted to make the fic romantic as fuck, from the get-go. there was to be no confusion: this fic was going to romanticize the living daylights out of the hood-hemmings kitchen.

(also you may have noticed that despite having “london” in the list of Meg Things at the top of the doc, the fic never actually specifies that they’re in london. that’s because this fic was really an exercise in “how much can i hint that they’re in london without outright saying it so i don’t establish a canon that i may later regret” which went as far as me asking helen what her kitchen floors and counters are made of. like. if you want it to be in london then hell yeah it’s in london but i didn’t wanna lock myself into that decision just in case so i never actually said it but i hope it kinda felt london-y anyway lmao)

so...............i THINK that’s all i have to say. “all” as if i havent just written an entire dissertation but at least it’s done now. i sure did say a lot! that was a lot!!! but also a very very fun and interesting dive into the ~process~ of writing these jewish cake fics. also, for what it’s worth, the way hanukkah fic was received basically calmed all my fears about writing jewish fic, which was a relief for me. so thank you for loving it, i don’t think you know how much that means to me!!!! i love YOU so very much

#kaleidoscopeminds #ask #answered #christ go off i guess????????#i honestly have Nothing to say in the tags because i said so fucking much in this answer #fgldkhgsdflj #here are some other questions i asked helen the resident london expert:#'you guys don't have saturday morning cartoons do you'#'what do you call french toast' to which i was informed that you (brits) don't HAVE french toast #and then i decided to ignore that information and include it anyway because jewish tradition trumps british absence of food #and french toast is jewish CULTURE #'do you guys say suck-up or is there a different thing you say'#i did NOT like the answer to that one #also 'do you guys have dishwashers'#'do you guys do april fools'#helen litearlly went and took a photograph of her counters so that i could see what they looked like. THATS love baby #the fact that i said i had nothign to say and then i continued to say things anyway #thats pretty on brand for me #meg #director's cut #okay im posting this now. FOR REAL #dunno what happened before that was very unsexy but this time for real

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hamilton-one-shots · 6 years

Text

Hamilton High School AU 22

Alexander popped the phone onto a charger and waited for the screen to light up. When it did, he saw that the lock screen was Lafayette and a few old friends in front of the Eiffel Tower. He looked happy. At least, he looked substantially happier than the last time Alexander saw him. He sighed and added Lafayette's new number before texting him. [Laf: hey, its alex. marta gavme ur old phon. can we tak l8r? its imprtnt.] Then he switched to texting John. [John: hey, marta gav me lafs old phon 4 now.]

Both were headed back to class after lunch, though Lafayette was more nervous to respond. [Yes, of course, but it will have to wait a while. I have drama and we're talking to John after that.]

[I'm glad to hear that. I missed you. : )]

Alexander opened his laptop to work on something for the debate society, cringing as Lafayette's text tone rang through. 'Salut! New message, Monsieur! Meow!' Even Lafayette now would be annoyed by it. [Laf: it ok. I jus wana tak. Hav fun in drama :)] He hoped he sounded friendly enough. The last thing he wanted to do was panic Lafayette. [John: i talked 2 marta a lot. I feel beter 4 it. Oh! Also took my meds] [...do u thnk Tomas gets angry spels?] [no, ignor tat. It's dum. Jus thinkin 2 much. Bored @ hoem.]

Lafayette was the first to respond with a simple [Thank you, I'll see you then.]

[I'm glad you feel better! Can't have my love feeling too bad ❤] [I'm also proud of you for taking your meds 💗] It was mushy, but it was John. He was usually like that. At least he was with Alexander. When the second set of messages came through, he frowned a bit. [Jefferson's just a stupid bully. I've known that for a while now, you know.] [Don't let him get to you.]

Alexander sighed. He couldn't blame John for thinking that way after what he did to him. [sry, just didnt tink ne1 cud b tat much of n ass w/out reson]

[I see where you're coming from, but Jefferson isn't like you. He doesn't care.]

John had a point, but... It was worth a shot. He logged into Facebook and pulled up his messages with Jefferson. [dnt b men to laf in drama]

[Anything for you <3 xx]

[dnt do tat. im tryin to b sivil]

[You just wanted to message me, didn't you? ;) xx]

[no.]

[Why? Besides, I'm meant to be working, boo <3 xx]

[4get it] Alexander dropped back to his pillow with a huff, holding the phone to his chest. This wasn't going anywhere. [jus bored. Go bck 2 studyin]

[Yes sir <3 xx] Thomas chuckled and strode into class with Lafayette and Hercules, where Alexander usually joined them, and sat beside the pair. "Smile, Mulligan. You use less muscle."

"When you drop, I will." He shot back.

"Now, now, I've been given specific instructions to be nice to Laf. I plan on following them." Thomas grinned.

Lafayette shifted to be a bit closer to Herc. He didn't feel like starting a fight with Thomas that day and didn't want Hercules to feel he had to. "If you really wanted to be nice to me, you'd kindly fuck off." He smiled, speaking low enough so that the teacher wouldn't hear, but loud enough for Thomas to hear him clearly.

Thomas nodded. "As you wish." And he... actually left?

"What's up with that?" Hercules asked.

"I don't know.. Maybe we should just enjoy this while it lasts."

[Laf asked me to move and I did. That's being kind, right? 😉 xx]

[i gess... thnx?].

[Don't mention it. See? I can be nice 💗 xx] [What am I going to get in return? Or do I move back to sitting next to them? xx]

Alexander froze, feeling his heart jump wildly in his chest. [wat do u meen...?]

[I mean xx] [Either we start 'getting along' if you catch my drift, I'll play nice. I'll be nice to Laf, I'll be nice to Herc; hell, I'll even be nice to your Johnny 💗 xx] [We've just got to spend some time together, that's all xx] [Or I can go find John now. He's probably in the library, right? xx]

[nO] [dnt do that] [pls] He panicked, typing back quickly, biting his lip.

[Then let's hang out. Sit with me in lunch tomorrow when you're back. Then come to mine after school. I'll even drive us. OR I'll get John. xx]

Poor Alexander whimpered in panic. This wasn't what he wanted. Not in the least. [ok] He looked back to his conversation with John. [John, u cnt come ovr 2day. im 2 sick.]

John furrowed his eyebrows and took a break from drawing. [What? Are you sure? I asked Martha earlier and she said it'd be fine if I went over and visited you...] [And Lafayette asked me to come over, probably to talk about what they know.]

Crap, that was right. Alexander almost forgot. [sry, just havn an episod. frekd out fr a sec] He curled up and whimpered. He was scared... And he needed John now more than ever, but he wasn't going to let Thomas come near him, not after what he'd done to him. He had to take care of this himself. He switched back to Facebook. [tomas, im not sure about this...]

[So you'd rather me go back to sitting next to him and start something? Ooh, I know, I could tell him how hot he looks in skinnies 😉 xx]

Alexander jumped up. [no dnt] [sorry jus] [pls dnt do nythin] [pls] [tomas?] [thomas] [anser] [o god] [dnt hve dne nything] [pls] [tomas!]

[Chill. Eacker was looking this way so I had to hide my phone xx] This was a lie. Thomas had waited a few minutes before responding purposefully to scare poor Alexander. [Good to hear you screaming my name tho xx]

[stop pls]

[How'd you manage to misspell my name when it's on the screen in front of you? 😜 xx]

[pannic]

[Aww... don't panic 💗 I'm gonna look after you, I promise xx] He looked over at Lafayette and Hercules and smiled.

Lafayette glared back at him. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this..."

"Please be carerful.." Hercules kissed his cheek.

After school, Lafayette took a chance and sat beside Thomas for drama. "Hello, Thomas."

Thomas raised an eyebrow at him. "Since when do you talk to me?"

"I just thought I could ask you for some advice. Do you have any tips for playing Veronica sawyer?"

This sparked his interest. "There's not much to it. She's a high school chick trying to fit in. Sort of a sassy girl next door."

"I see.." He nodded. "And I wanted to apologize for our prank last night. I remember how hard it was for John to have to raise his siblings."

"Forget about it. Lucy's a kid. These things happen." He pulled out his script. "So, are you okay with Dead Girl Walking? Because we're going to have to practice that scene at some point and I don't want it to be awkward when we do." As if he cared. He only had to be nice to Lafayette.

Laf couldn't help but shudder a bit ,though he was able to keep it to himself. "It's just acting. No harm done. I'm sure Herc won't mind."

Thomas nodded. "You're right. He shouldn't."

Before Lafayette could comment on what Jefferson was obviously trying to do, Eacker stumbled in, apologizing for being late once again before announcing their roles. Of course, Lafayette was Veronica Sawyer and Thomas Jefferson was Jason Dean.

"See? You know me. It won't be so bad."

Though, of course, it was the fact that Lafayette knew him that made it bad.

"What scene are you two talking about?" Eacker asked as he passed the pair.

"Dead Girl Walking. Just hoping it won't be too awkward."

Eacker smiled. "Well, nothing like breaking the ice."

Wait, what?

"We're all friends here. We were going to head on stage anyways to practice a few scenes. Why not this one?"

Oh, god, were they really doing this now? Lafayette stood up and took a deep breath before following everyone out to the auditorium. It's just acting.

Thomas was too busy texting to worry.

[i dnt like tis] [im scared] [pls dnt taek it owt on laf] [i jst dnt want 2 go hoem w/ u] [sorry sory sorry] [nything els, u got it] [jus dnt ruin drma 4 laf] [dnt go neer Jhon] [John*] [pls] [pls] [pls]

[No. We've got a deal, babe. I'll behave if you do as I say. Laf's acting now; y'sure you wanna go back on this nooooow? 😉 xx]

[nO] [pls] [leev hm aloen] [il b good] [its fien] [il go w/ yu] [srry]

[Good choice 💗 xx]

Alexander changed the password on the phone to some complicated pattern before putting it down on the bed... then beginning to tremble. He hopped up from the bed before practically sprinting across to Lafayette's room and launching himself at John. Poor Rosie barely had time to leap out of the way. She hissed disapprovingly as she knocked her paw before returning to her basket as Alexander buried his face in John's chest, shaking like a leaf. He kept his arms wrapped around John's waist in the same vice like fashion he had before when he was scared John would leave him.

John didn't ask any questions. He didn't have to ask what happened. He had a good feeling. He texted Jefferson to confirm his beliefs. [What did you do to Alex? Leave him alone. If you're doing this to hurt me, just come after me instead. If you're not, come after me anyways. Leave him out.]

Thomas chuckled. How cute. But he couldn't respond yet. He got on stage with Lafayette and watched him act as the song began.

"The demon queen of high school has decreed it. She says Monday, 8 am I will be deleted. They’ll hunt me down in Study Hall, stuff and mount me on the wall. Thirty hours to live. How shall I spend them? I don’t have to stay and die like cattle. I could change my name and drive up to Seattle. But I don’t own a motorbike. Wait, here’s an option that I like. Spend these thirty hours getting’ freaky! Yeah! I need it hard, I’m a dead girl walking! I’m in your yard, I’m a dead girl walking! Before they punch my clock, I’m snappin’ off your window lock. Got no time to knock, I’m a dead girl walking." As much as Lafayette dreaded the scene, he wasn't about to half ass it.

"V-veronica..? What are you doing in my room...?" It was... unclear if Thomas was acting or not. It was either excellent acting ability... or Lafayette had genuinely caught Thomas off guard and scared him half to death. Either way, it certainly fit the role.

"Shh!" Lafayette looked back at Thomas with a sultry expression, grabbing his shirt collar. "Sorry, but I really had to wake you. See, I’ve decided I must ride you ‘till I break you ‘cause Heather says I gotsta go. You’re my last meal on Death Row. Shut your mouth and lose them tighty whiteys! Come on! Tonight I’m yours! I’m your dead girl walking." He pushed him down to his knees, lost in the role. "Get on all fours, kiss this dead girl walking. Let’s go, you know the drill. I’m hot, and pissed and I'm on the pill. Bow down to the will of a dead girl walking." He kneeled down and held his face. "And you know, you know, you know, it’s cause you’re beautiful. You say you’re numb inside but I can’t agree. So the world’s not fair? Keep it locked out there. In here it’s beautiful! Let’s make this beautiful!"

Thomas felt his knees click as he dropped, but it was totally worth it. Lafayette looked an image of perfection and coupled with those lyrics... Thomas felt like he could take him there and then.

"Get on all fours, kiss this dead girl walking. Let’s go, you know the drill. I’m hot, and pissed and on the pill. Bow down to the will of a dead girl walking." He knelt down and held his face.

It took all of Thomas' restraint not to go back on his 'deal' with Alexander. Whether or not getting in Lafayette's pants was his focus, he was undeniably gorgeous.

"And you know, you know, you know, it’s cause you’re beautiful. You say you’re numb inside but I can’t agree. So the world’s not fair? Keep it locked out there. In here it’s beautiful! Let’s make this beautiful!"

"Th-that works for me!" He exasperated before yanking Lafayette into a kiss. It was rough and messy... but at least it fit the scene.

It was going to take the power of every god to wash that taste from Lafayette's mouth. It tasted like.. Like.. Jefferson. And he hated it. But he didn't act like it. He kissed back just as roughly because it wasn't Lafayette kissing Thomas, it was Veronica kissing JD. And it was too late to back out then, so he kissed back and continued the song afterwards. "Yeah! Full steam ahead! Take this dead girl walking!

"How'd you find my address?"

"Let’s break the bed! Rock this dead girl walking!"

"I think we tore my mattress!"

"No sleep tonight for you! Better chug that Mountain Dew!"

"Okay, okay.."

"Get your ass in gear! Make this whole town disappear!"

"Okay, Okay!"

"Slap me, pull my hair! Touch me there, there, and there!" Lafayette didn't know what was worse, the fact that Thomas' hands were all over him or the fact that he was the one guiding them. At least he got to slap him. "No more talking!"

"Woah!"

"Love this dead girl walking!"

"Woah, woah! Hey, hey! Yeah, yeah!"

"Love this dead girl walking!"

"Love this dead girl! Woah, woah! Hey, hey! Wait, wait!"

They finished out the song in sync. "Love this dead girl! Yeah, yeah, yeah!"

"Ouch!"

"YEAH!”

“YEAH!"

As soon as the song was over, Lafayette got off of Thomas and caught his breath, smiling at the class a bit. He knew they did amazing. And he hated it.

Thomas looked like a mess. His hair was sticking up all directions and his face was glowing crimson. Thomas was no virgin, but he hadn't expected Lafayette to carry out the scene so well, or convincingly. He pulled himself to his feet, joining the applause for Lafayette and himself before offering a hand to help pull Lafayette up from the floor.

"See? You're both fine. Nothing to worry about." Eacker chirped with praise. "It helps when it's a friend there, right?"

"Right." Thomas piped back before returning back to his seat with Lafayette. "...so do I owe you a cigarette or...?" He laughed lightly, attempting to tidy his hair.

Lafayette rolled his eyes, holding his arms that much closer against his chest.

When class drew to a close, Thomas put his script back into his rucksack and swung it over his shoulder. "You're a great actor, Laf. Really. I mean that. I'll catch you tomorrow.," he complimented before waving him off and leaving the room, finally texting John back. [/I've/ done nothing. I haven't seen him today. Besides, he's /your/ boyfriend. You fix him xxx]

As Lafayette followed behind him, surrounded by his classmates, he felt conflicted. He loved acting, but it felt wrong doing that scene with Jefferson.

When Lafayette came out of the classroom, surrounded by various other drama members full of praise and compliments, Hercules bit his lip. This was something Lafayette was 1. Obviously passionate about and 2. Very good at. Hercules's jealousy would have to step aside. Instead, he greeted Lafayette with a supportive smile, pretending he hadn't just seen that scene. "Hey you! Someone's popular!" He hummed. "John headed back to yours early to see Alex. Are you ready to go?"

He nodded and faked a smile. "Yes. Let's go." He kissed his cheek and walked home with him.

When John and Alexander heard the pair arriving, the latter froze up a bit. Not only did they have the talk to do, but he hadn't gotten around to apologizing to Lafayette and he believed him to still be mad.

They entered the room and mumbled a few greetings before sitting down, even Rosie leaving the room as she sensed the tense atmosphere.

John was the first to break the silence.

#hamilton #hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #john laurens #lafayette #hercules mulligan #thomas jefferson #lams #mullette #dead girl walking #22 #chapter 22

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burndownthehousetonight · 7 years

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((How long’s it been since I put up a compilation post for a @tinyredartist rp? Way too long, and this one was kind of a doozy ‘3′))

A few days had passed since they found a location on Leo's apartment. There were leads, sure, but they didn't seem to lead them anywhere, and the clues they found couldn't only lead to circumstantial theories at best. An despite a metric ton of wanted posters being hung everywhere from the castle outskirts to far off cities of the kingdom, there were no calls reporting the missing otter.

Basically, the investigation was screwed from the start, and Manic and his husband were dropped off the investigating team like a hot potato. They weren't even detectives, let alone anyone who dealt in investigating these kinds of disappearances. Everyone was feeling dejected, confused, concerned. Scared, to some degree. But at least they were scared together.

"We just gotta wait, I guess." Manic said in some vain attempt to calm down Aria. She didn't want to leave her bedroom that morning, so Manic came right on in to give some company.

"Talking about this is just gonna make it worse, ain't it?" There was that chuckle, that happy chuckle like nothing was wrong. "You can come out of here and have some fun, man, you're gonna be safe. Honest."

“Manic, I appreciate the help but… I’m getting really overwhelmed. There’s so much I’ve got to take in and I need to do it alone. I’m sorry.” She was upset, but rolled over, back towards him. Shutting out yet another green hedgehog and pulling the covers up over her head to block out noises.

She was mostly inconsolable by any party. The king tried. Castillo tried. Even Faolán and Fiona tried. But she turned them all away at the door. Terra had almost taken time off work, but Aria insisted she go in order to get out of the “depression bubble”.

Damian even tried to get in, but he was especially shut out. While most everyone got some kind of excuse as to why she didn’t want to see them, her brother only received a door to the face. He clearly was expecting that. But not the question she asked him from the other side.

“Don’t like being thrown out. Do ya?” It pretty much felt useless. What the hell was he supposed to do for someone who wasn't going to help themselves? "Bluuuuuuuh." He gave a long, exaggerated, and slightly silly groan while he sat down in a chair, far away from Aria's room. "I've gotta play somewhere tomorrow morning, too, but I don't wanna leave her hanging." "She ain't gonna open up to anyone," Castillo said bluntly. "When she needs help, she'll ask." "That doesn't mean I have to like it," Manic groaned. Even though they had to start driving back home for work, it almost felt like they didn't have a choice but to stay. And by the looks of it when he walked in, Damian didn't have any luck either. "She didn't give you a chance either?" Manic asked, knowing the answer. “She … Kind of threw something I did back in my face… And I deserved it so… No. No luck. She doesn’t even want to hold David or play with Faolán. I’ve got nothing.”

He flopped down in a chair and sighed, covering his face. “Mom would know what to do if she was here… Our older sister had moods like this sometimes and she always opened up to Mom.”

“I feel like that doesn’t apply here.” The king responded, giving Castillo and Manic a warp ring so they could get home faster if they wanted. They silently took the warp ring, knowing they didn't need to head back until that evening. "Maybe it's the kind of deal that'll only get figured out with time?" Manic said, spinning the ring around his finger as he thought. "Or maybe just like... she needs silent company, someone she can just sit with?" "Just time," Scourge added. "Give her space... and booze. Lots of booze." He didn't leave a pause for debate, immediately swerving the topic off course. "No one's seen nothing of him?" Scourge added. "Not under any of his names?" “Nothing. He’s switched names again. Aria gave me a written list of names to try, but none of them come up as having been used. The whole country is on edge looking for this asshole. If what we think actually happened, he could be really dangerous. There isn’t a cop in the city who could see him and not report back,” The king sat down and put his head in his hands, sighing. “ I just feel useless. She’s all alone and this is something that’s a major hit to the trauma. There’s nothing we can do but doing nothing feels awful.” They sat in silence for what felt like hours. Waiting for news or for Aria to come out of her room. The news came first via a younger detective, and that was a good thing. “Sire! One of the names on the list that you gave me is active. Someone using a credit card was flagged in the city. How likely is it that someone shares a name with anyone on this list?” “Highly unlikely,” Damian said, shifting on his chair, “Traditionally, names are based in our language. I’m the exception because I was a favor. I highly doubt there is anyone with the same name because Aria and I are the only two people who can speak it. Which name was it?” “Aquam Regis, sir.” The cadet said, and the hedgehog grew all sorts of emotions, none of them good “That sick bastard.” Scourge didn't know the first thing about languages, but Manic was at least a little aware of these words. On bottles and in random trivia, these terms had popped up from their original source. "Water god?" Manic said, not so much disgusted as disapproving. "I'd call him a lazy asshole for that name if he wasn't being such a smug asshole." The rush to get up and get information was broken momentarily from a crying sound. A young crying sound. Scourge paused, and for once, had more than one person he wanted to help out immediately. He owed Aria for everything he did to her, but Faolán wouldn't understand- He let out a grunt as Manic shoved him from behind. "Look after your kid, man, we'll tell you this stuff!" They rushed down the hall, Scourge still pausing before running with Manic's plan, like usual. "Alright, what's that name really mean?" Manic asked as they rushed to see this new information. "Cause it don't sound like you think he's just being smug." The cadet also explained that they had witnesses as the men rushed down the hall. The king looked to Aria's brother, waiting for an answer.

Damian was slowly growing more and more enraged. His jaw clenched, hands grew fidgety and the king pulled Manic back just in time to avoid the enraged hedgehogs punch to the nearest wall. The heave of his shoulders and flicks of his ears clearly showed that whatever the name meant, it wasn’t a good connotation

“Not… Not water god. King of the Water. And I swear on the land that this bastard tried to sell, if I ever see him I will rip his heart out.” When the hedgehog walked away, the king grabbed him by the arm, waiting for a proper explanation. With a sigh, the doctor relented.

“Aquam Regis is our Father. And I wanna go see those witnesses.” Was it a good idea to let someone this invested and enraged in a case talk to the witnesses? Manic sure didn't think so, but he knew he wouldn't take no for an answer. "Well, let's find him and punch his light out. Just... maybe let's wait a sec. You got any punching bags, Scourge?" He was going to need another qualifier for the king's name soon, because the other Scourge stumbled up to them after Damian had a chance to get out at least a little of his fury. "What's up, what was going on with Fao?" "Ari didn't want to play with him and wouldn't talk to him. And your kid tried teething on his arm." From behind Damian, Manic looked at Scourge and made a cutting motion across his neck to say, 'absolutely don't blame him for anything you stupid snot.' So he clammed up. Damian sighed and wiped his face with the hand that the king didn’t have an iron grip on. Seems like his son was, if anything, the only way to keep him calm.

“Sorry… For both of them. But we need to get this solved fast because I don’t want to see either of the kids upset. David was calling for her earlier today too… Maybe you should talk to her Scourge. You’ve been in that kind of mood, if I remember.” Damian suggested to the king, who shrugged and left, urging Manic to text him updates.

They all continued on their way and once the witnesses arrived they were all pleasantly surprised.

“Heyyy!” Dante said with a smile, all three members of the band recognizing their friend. “Long time no see!!” "You're the witnesses." Castillo said in almost a monotone. Manic wasn't half as monotone, happy for the distraction and high fiving the crocodile and cheetah. "What is UP!" "We got to be witness to a crime again." Detour said, half joking. "Again." His face was withering just a bit. He grimaced and held his face in his hand, remembering all the hijinks he'd had to pull them out of. "...Again. We... weren't involved for once." "We've gotta celebrate that!" Dante smarmed out in that smug tone, Drench pulling Detour closer in a friendly embrace. Instead of getting annoyed, he actually seemed to grin a bit. As much as he disliked babysitting them, their presence was too fun not to make him smile. “Hey, so I count most of the gang here, but where’s our favorite bartender and our Royal Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card?” Drench asked, looking around for the two he expected to see.

Damian, who had been brooding silently at this point, was not amused. If these were their witnesses, they were screwed. But judging by the way they talked about his sister and the king, he deciding texting them both saying that their friends were here might help.

Several minutes later, a showered but still depressed Aria shuffled into the warp room, blanket on her shoulders. The sight of the band made her crack the first smile in days. "Yooooo." Drench was the most vocal with his happiness. "How ya doing? Ain't seen you in a while, you look like hell! Nice blanket!" Despite the blunt few lines, Drench didn't seem mean spirited in the slightest. To him, it was more an excited blunt observation and a compliment on what was a very lovely blanket. "Hey, nice to see you." Detour joked as he patted Aria on the back. He could at least see that this was more serious than Drench was taking it. "You should have come with to that concert last month," Dante chuckled, "Drench got drunk before the second set and got arrested for trying to take off his clothes on stage!" Dante laughed the loudest at this, with Drench as a close second. Her smile was there, but it was small and weak and even the boys couldn’t get a laugh out of her. She nodded at Detour and just shook her head at Dante and Drench.

“You’re both idiots and you need much more alcohol than you consume,” she said, patting Detour on the shoulder. “I hate to be a party killer, but what are you guys even doing here? Judging by the fact that we are in the war room, I’m guessing you have something to tell us.”

She felt and looked like shit, but even then Damian stood behind her, ready to grab her in case she grew just as angry as he had earlier. And Aria didn’t have a soft spot like he did. Drench's eyes lit up. "Right, yeah! There were all those wanted posters, right? With the gold otter?" Certain details weren't disclosed to the public, and none of the three had any idea what the otter meant to her. "We were just at some pet store trying to get a fishbowl," Dante started, not bothering to explain why they would need a fishbowl. "We went to pay, and he was at the counter!" "He was just buying... a lot of plastic boxes. A LOT of them." It took a second for Detour to come up with a guess. "There must have been a dozen in his bags. I'm the fastest, I went to chase him, but-" He scratched the back of his head. "Even I couldn't catch him. He has some kind of super speed." “Hmmm… Well at least we know he’s in town.. And that he’s still got some magic left in him… Could this get any worse?”

When the cadet handed over the information they had gathered, Aria skimmed through it before they could stop her. She reacted to his name change much differently from her brother, and burst into tears. It wasn’t surprising, since she hadn’t cried over all of it while she had been moping, and so it was a sudden burst of emotion.

“That fucking asshole! After all he’s done he pulls this? Why can’t he just leave us alone?” She wailed, clinging to Damian as he hugged her to comfort her. "Trust me, when we're catching him, we're beating his face in." Manic promised, Scourge silently agreeing and standing like they were going to go out and punch him right there. The sudden burst of emotion left the band members uncertain of how they could respond. Dante was the one who finally stepped up to her, much more somber than usual. "Hey, uh... calm down, you'll be alright-" It was already too late. Castillo was on her other side, trying to move towards the door. "You can't handle this stuff yet," Scourge told her, "you should get outta here." “No, I wanna stay!” She whined, ducking out of everyone’s arms. The constant smothering was making her sick and she didn’t need to be enclosed in a small space at the moment. “Okay, you can stay. But if I notice you’re taking this too hard, I will carry you back to bed kicking and screaming, okay?” The king compromised, keeping his distance. Aria was acting like the nine year old she was when it all happened originally, and this time around her mood swings and sensitivities were lethal if pushed too far. Personal questions were going to have to be put aside for a while. They had to start digging into something less painful, something boring. "So like, what kinda boxes are we talking?" Manic asked the obvious question. "Alright, he was buying a ton of boxes, but what was in them? Like, was he just getting a bunch of pet food or something?" "No, they were empty." Dante added. "You know, the- the plastic boxes! They're square, with green tops. And a whole bunch of slits in them?" "Habitat!" Detour piped up. "They're bug habitats, he was buying bug habitats." “Bug habitats…. Unless he’s going the true evil route and training a giant lizard, why all the habitats?” Scourge asked, looking to Manic and Aria to see if wither had a clue.

Arias glance went to Castillo and she had a thought. “Wait! The bugs on our land, if he’s trying to get magic they would provide a decent amount, since they’re primary forces of decomposition… But that means he knows where they are. And he can get in, somehow.”

She knew it sounded far fetched but that had to be it! That’s why he was able to hold onto the magic for so long! "Maybe he's using his speed, or something?" Manic offered. "Maybe he's jetting off a tree or ramp or something and going over?" Manic didn't even need to ponder bringing in Sonic, knowing that it would be a bad idea... for some reason. And besides, he had another supersonic runner on his side, now cracking his knuckles. "Lemme at it," Castillo said with a grunt, "I'll break in somehow." "Maybe we should call in... I dunno, some of those endangered species people, whatever they're called? The guys who protect really rare animals and stuff?" Not exactly an elegant explanation, but at least some form of plan. "If that's where he's getting his powers, we just gotta stop him from getting them." “NO!” Both Damian and Aria were adamant against calling the services that helped endangered species. The king made the cutting motions across his throat, signalling a bad idea. No explanation was offered

“Besides, it's basic physics. If he’s going fast enough, he could easily clear it with a jump.” Aria considered. “We don’t need to test it. But maybe we should go for a visit just to check up on Mom and Dad.”

Aria rubbed at her arm and Damian rubbed at his shoulder blade. Both were clearly sensitive to the topic of the endangered species control unit. "Alright! Alright, we won't call anyone." Manic immediately backed off. "But we gotta have someone look at them! What if they're messed up, or a whole bunch are missing, or something? Is anyone gonna know a lot about these things?" Castillo could only grin smugly and ruffle Manic's fringe, getting an annoyed smile out of his husband. It was barely a minute later that Faolán rushed into the room, tail whapping against every surface he walked near. "Are we going back to the forest?!" Castillo silently motioned from behind him to Aria, showing off a holster. If his son was going to be their bug expert, he was going to make sure no one would get near him. She didn’t want to get him involved. But what choice did they have? The hedgie reluctantly warped the whole crew to the forest, bypassing security completely. By the time Damian stepped out, the place would be slightly hostile. The leaves would shake as they passed, the trees displeased.

They went the long way, avoiding her family. She let Fao play with the bugs and pointed out tracks to the rest of the men. Footprints. And a very agitated pine, who shook as well.

“The whole place is disturbed… But I don’t know if its because of all this, or because this is the first time someone has visited.” She almost sneered at her brother. Normally sunny skies were clouded over, and everything in the area felt worse. It almost felt as though the land had been traumatized. Trees shook in their presence, the chilled breeze blew against whichever way they walked. Everyone was on edge for some reason. The way Manic and Faolán rejoined them after going to visit the bugs wasn't about to help. "Daaaaad!" The little wolf rushed up to his father, sadness blatantly painted on his puffed eyes. "Th-the pointy bugs are gone! The ones who- the ones who liked chirping at me!" "He must've come already" Manic said quietly to the king while Fao was distracted. "Calm down kiddo, they're probably on an adventure or something." He squatted down to his son's level. "You ain't mentioned 'em before, what did they look like?" "They're..." A pay wiped away an escaped tear. "They're the gem bugs. The ones- the ones with the pointy crystals on their backs. They're almost all gone..." “Aria, what are you doing?” The king asked, watching Aria take photos of the tracks before walking in them.

Specifically, she lined up her shoeprints with the ones left behind, noting imprints near the river.

“He jumped across the river. He must have super speed or the jumping power from… I don’t know who.” She shrugged, kneeling at Faolán's level and offered her arms for a hug.

“I’m sorry I was mean earlier. That wasn’t fair of me.” He was still a bit of a stubborn kid, even if it was someone he trusted, and the snub from Aria still stung. But he definitely didn't reject the hug. It was always nice from Aria, and the sadness from all the missing bugs meant he needed a lot of comforting. "Hey, kid." Scourge said, ruffling his son's hair. "Let me check, maybe they're back now." Really just a thin excuse to get him away so the others would have space to talk. "So... How're we gonna catch this fool?" Manic said, stating the obvious. "We gonna put up sensors or cameras or summat above the fences? Or like, have someone fast camp out? Maybe one of you Scourges? I mean, my bro doesn't really like me, but he's always up for fighting evil." Aria wanted more hugs, but settled for holding herself. “Maybe not… But what if we attach something to some of the trees so they shake when he shows up?”

The system wasn’t a bad one. Many devices existed that would send off a signal with movement. But which trees would be marked?

“Capito.” both siblings said, once the king asked them.

“He’s the brother in between us. His power was super intelligence, so he would be a good place to start… Then the trees closest to the beetles, a few around the perimeter…” Damian suggested, until the smell of cherry blossoms filled the air, sickly sweet.

“Someone needs to go see mom.” Aria insisted. Manic turned his head. His husband wasn't there, but the other Scourge sure was, and that glare between them was riddled with dread. This was not good. Whatever it was that was about to happen, there was no way it was going to be good. They might not have been able to speak to the trees, but they knew they were angry at something with Damian's presence. "Uh... you guys gonna be alright?" Manic asked, knowing full well they absolutely weren't going to be alright on their own. "Like, maybe the king and me should just follow you guys? Or this something you gotta do alone?" “Well… You know how sometimes if you don’t call your mom she gets really mad? That’s what this is. Half of the forest is upset about the intruder and the other half are upset that this is the first time he’s been here since everything happened. He’s safe, mostly. *

The hedgehog sighed, rubbing his neck and walking back over to their family. Aria followed along, motioning for the boys, to follow once Castillo and Faolán returned. She had a feeling her nephew would be needed to soften the mood. Thankfully, the walk avoided the graveyard this time, but that didn't mean the trip wasn't unnerving. It felt like someone was going to jump out at them at any second, like they were always being watched. But the trees weren't deeply focused on any of them except for Damian. By the time they made it to the beach, the approached the same semicircle of trees. Sure enough, the prior damage Scourge did seemed like it never happened. Those intertwined trees even looked a little taller, a little brighter. A lot more fragrant, that was for sure. "Uh... hello." If Manic had tried, he still couldn't have sounded much more uncertain and awkward talking to a tree. The way the trees shook, it was like an earthquake. The eight already there were either excited or displeased with him. One of the saplings threw fruit.

“See? Just a good old fashioned family argument.” She showed them, and the angry rustling stopped as Manic was greeted by the eight before the “yelling” continued. Aria went to one tree in particular and started explaining what was going on. There was no "good old fashioned" kind of family fighting in Manic's mind. Not in Scourge's mind, either. Not even for the king. But Aria was taking the whole affair bizarrely blithely, and what were they supposed to do? Tell her to be more afraid? Family fights never ended well for most of the onlookers, and they could only hope this family wouldn't take the ugly turn it had for any of the others. Scourge could feel his heart stop for a second when he noticed that Faolán had snuck away and up to the trees while they were distracted. "Kid, get back here!" He yelled as he saw the child touch the shaking tree on the rightmost edge. The tree slowed down it's movements the moment it was touched, but that didn't stop Scourge from grabbing the child and rushing away like the tree golems were going to attack him next. "What are you doin', kid, they'd cream you!" Scourge had gotten annoyed at his son before, but this kind of yelling was new, and they could watch the little boy's heart get crushed. “Easy Castillo. They get that he’s still a kid. He’s the safest person here. But sweetie, please don’t touch the trees. They’re covered in moss and your mom wouldn’t want you to get dirty,” Aria insisted, while the trees behind them stopped shaking. Damian rejoined the group, rubbing the back of his neck.

“They’re done with the yelling-.” The doctor started, but his sentence died off when he saw the sniffling child. He shut his mouth.

“We’ve got all the information we can from here I think. Time to go home,” the king suggested. "Ah, kid- Kid, don't run up to shit that's flailing around!" Manic nudged Scourge to try and get him to watch his language near the child, but he didn't respond. They waited a few moments, but it was obvious the little wolf wasn't going to forget it that easily. "I'm not angry at you, squirt. Don't wanna see anything happen to you." He put aside all macho nonsense and just hugged the child to comfort him. The sniffles were dying down. things were looking better, and Manic was comfortable enough to ask. "So what's the plan? And what do y'all need from us?" “Well if Luci would STOP THROWING TWIGS AT ME THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” Damian turned to yell at a tree who merely rustled and threw at stick at his forehead, making Aria laugh.

“Lucett. Stop, he’s just being a baby again” Aria insisted and the tree would have crossed its arms if it could have. “Right now I need motion based signals we can attach to some trees… And a drink.”

She sighed at her siblings bickering. Even separated by plains of existence they still fought. The rustling of several other trees and Damian’s rusty switch into their native tongue would have been humorous if Aria couldn’t understand her brothers words and the tone that everyone else was communicating in. She covered her ears to block him out. The first time hearing the language spoken by someone else in years, in anger. It wasn’t helping. "Those'll be real easy to find, we can string up some signals easy." But what was he supposed to say to the fighting? She might have been playing it off as a simple family argument, but the way Aria's ears clutched to her head made it obvious this was anything but normal. "Uh... maybe we should go back without Damian, leave him a way to warp back?" He suggested sheepishly, hoping that wasn't the worst possible idea. The words were grim and uncomfortable. Their moods were grim and uncomfortable. Even Fao was scared and confused by everything. "You mind mixing us all drinks before we get back to work?"

Scourge tossed a warp ring to the doctor and he caught it. The king lead his friends into another clearing for aria to warp them back

“Yeah I can do that Manic” she insisted, scratching open a portal and scooping up Fao to snuggle with after they got to the castle.

“What do you guys want?” She asked, setting the kid down on a barstool and booping his nose gently as she rummaged around the bar.

The air felt more comfortable to the young child. Fiona had loosened his leash around Scourge - the king, not his father quite yet - and these were the situations he’d see them in most. Cozy, usually having something to eat or drink, pretty much always with his dads. He was calming down more, and Aria speaking the most was definitely helping. Scourge leaned forward to look at all the bottles. “You got Black Lashes back there…? Yeah, just some of that scotch, straight.” “Just a red russian.” Manic was caught up in patting the child’s back to try and comfort him, and barely even looked at Aria.. “You want a soda or something, buddy?” Those small eyes gazes at the brilliantly colored and labeled bottles he knew he couldn’t have, and thought on some things he might like to drink. “A r- a red russian?” “No,” Manic said firmly, “only I can order that. It’s law.” Another spot of thinking. “Can I get the lashes drink?” He just gave a sassy, if amused, look at him and ruffled his hair. “Ask when you’re a little older, buddy.”

Aria mixed the drinks they asked for, serving up the Red Russian, Black Lashes, and a Shirley temple for her “nephew”. She slid the king his usual wine and got herself a bottle of sugar vodka she drank from. It was quiet between them all. For once it was peaceful. Aria pet the child, scratching behind his ears idly with a soft smile.

“So munchkin. What’s new?” Fao was always a source of cuteness and purity, this time was no different. "The beetle people like all the photos," he said as he sipped away. "I put up more pictures and they all wanted to see more of the gold ones. A scientist told me she wanted to see if they were a new species! I told her to go away for you." At least he was thinking about Ari, regardless of how he was using that trust. His expression soon turned sour as he swirled the drink to mix in the bit of whipped cream on top. "But someone else had pictures of the jewel bugs, maybe they flew away and don't like me anymore..." Manic and Scourge took a moment to process those words. "Uh... what's he post about them?" Manic asked, trying to sound casual. "He asked for those gross organ pictures, I think he wants to hurt them. I told him I didn't have any, but he kept asking, so I told him to suck a lemon." “Gross organ pictures?” Aria looked a little confused up at her friends, and even more worried at her nephew. Kissing his forehead, she smiled.

“Well thank you sweetheart. That was very nice of you to tell all those people to go away. I’m sure the bugs are fine. Maybe they’re just visiting someone. I’m sure they’ll be back. But did you wanna show me the place you post these photos on? I wanna see something.”

When the phone was fetched, she looked through the conversations. Quite a lot of people were interested. One account stood out and Aria showed it to Manic.

“If this is his account, can you trace it?" She asked quietly while Fao finished the sweet drink. "Totally." Manic raised his glass like he was going for a toast, downed the last gulp left, and made his way over to his laptop bag. None of them could have been more concerned about that string of words, and Scourge was quick to snatch up that open page. A forum of some kind. "ILoveBeetleBugs" was clearly his son, just from the total lack of any kind of proper writing. As new as he was to literacy, he seemed to know plenty of terms in this specific area. At some point, his shoulders finally relaxed. "He wants to know the organs they've got. One of those anatomy diagrams with organs and crap." He turned back to the child and held down the phone to show a shot of the thread. "Don't tell these people anything. You don't know these assholes, might be someone bad." Faolán seemed confused by these words, staring up blankly at his dad. There was a good few seconds of silence. "O-okay." He said sheepishly. "Can I still look at-" "Look at whatever the hell you want, just don't tell anyone anything." Fao was surprised by a gentle punch to his stomach - judging by his giggle, some kind of ritual between them. "He ain't hurting any of 'em. Speaking of... he put up any pictures of them?" With a nod, he began going through the forums again, finding pictures of a few select beetles a few days old. The habitarium they were in was virtually empty, with some grass and leaves chucked in carelessly. Maybe there would be something in the background they could use? Aria hummed as she looked over the picture, displeased with their care obviously. Several people called him out on the poor treatment though, which made her feel better.

In the background was a window with the blinds half drawn over it. The only things they could see was part of a balcony, a part of another building and the sky turning orange, light spilling into the room he was in to illuminate the bugs glittering shells.

“Wait… Maybe we can use the view here… His balcony faces west… And maybe we can grab a shot of that building and see what we can find? Or am I delving too far into the unreasonable crime drama side of things?” "Sounds pretty alright to me," Castillo shrugged. "But hell, that'll be pretty convoluted, we ain't even got a city yet. Looks like some bland building, too, ain't too distinct..." "IIIII got a rough location!" Manic would eventually shout out, standing up and walking down the room. "Okay, like, you can't get TOO specific with an IP, but we're looking for some city called Greyling. But he ain't put up any emails or nothing, without something else, can't really hack into his stuff." When he would look up from the laptop, Scourge would be giving that overly smug toothy grin. "Y'all know something I don't?" “Greyling isn’t very big. I bet we could find the building with a quick web search and a map” the king suggested

Aria had left them to figuring it out, and happily scooped up the cub. “Whatcha doing there munchkin?” She asked, watching him play his video game. She enjoyed his joy at the device and the game. He was amazing for lightning the mood and she thought to take him out for ice cream when this was all over. It definitely wasn't a hard platformer, she could see that from a distance. Of course he didn't care, it was a fun, mindless distraction. Something all of them needed, frankly. The little orange bat flapping around was in some kind of an autumnal Halloween world, even if the date was months away. It was easy to see why the little boy would be attracted to a game detached from reality on such a simple level. "And you eat a bug and get- you change your power!" He was explaining things in detail Aria could ascertain from what was already happening, but no one particularly cared if it was redundant. Even though the work the three were doing was simple, it was hard to ignore the little boy as he spoke on and on. Eventually, Castillo would stand up, pat the king on the back as he left, and sit down near the child. "What'd you say about werewolves?" A fake question - he was fully aware of the enemies, he just wanted to make up with his son over his yelling. Go back to being the fun dad. And with as much as he dove back into his passionate explanations, it was clear he wasn't holding it too harshly against him. Aria and Castillo were just as interested in the he as the child was, but really they were just glad he was enjoying himself. She did wonder where Fiona had gotten off to, and asked Castillo quietly.

“She doing okay?” She asked, concerned about the fox. She WAS leaving her son alone with Castillo. That rarely happened. She wasn’t complaining though, but she knew it might be bothering the kid. "She ain't gonna trust me. Ever." Saying this while he watched his son innocently enjoying his game made him feel years older than he was. "She doesn't trust me. She trusts you and my clone usually. I know she saw that tabloid about me pummeling the king, she knows you'll fuck me up." Scourge had shown many trashier sides of himself. For a few moments, he was strangely somber, almost looking subtly terrified. "Used to be unstoppable, now I can't even fucking handle some kid getting sick..." When he straightened his back, he would be back to his normal posture and emotions. But in that moment, he seemed like a different person. Even like the king. “He’s not some kid. He’s your kid. Your own flesh and blood. Its not weak or unmanly to care and stress about someone’s well being, nor is it unreasonable considering the medical trouble he’s had to go through. Plus, in a no powers fight between us you would win, probably.”

She tried to joke, hoping that would help a bit. They fell into a soft silence, Aria looking back over at Fao.

“If it's any consolation, Faolán seems to like you and Manic much more than Scourge or me. And he should, you’re his father. I don’t know if Fi will ever trust you but… Maybe one day when he’s a little older he can convince his mom.” Scourge didn't respond. He seemed like he didn't even hear those words, even as they slapped him again and again. He didn't want to think about his weaknesses, his age, anything, just go back to sitting pretty and enjoying life. So when Aria was done, there was no rebuttal, only a longer, heavier silence. Even Faolán wasn't immune to the words, knowing just from their tones that they were talking about something depressing again. Was there going to be another fight stopping him from seeing his dad? "Hey, look, look!" That chipper voice could usually cheer them up no matter how stubborn Scourge was being. "It's one of the secret costumes!" Not a rare find at all, but if it got them to stop being so dour, it would work, right? Manic and the king were blissfully unaware of this conversation, instead rolling through pictures of the apartment buildings and hotels of Greyling. "Like, the Datura Suites has the right kinds of balconies too. I mean there are so many brown buildings, I dunno where to start, man. Aria gently nudged the hedgehog to go spend time with his son, while Aria joined manic and the king. With a paper map, setting it out, she placed pins in the places they thought he was in. Then with string, she connected each pin to another one off to the left, thinking. Tracking the sky.

The king shook his head. “I still think there’s something up with the blinds. It's too awkward, why not open them all the way? Maybe he’s hiding something.” "He's already a huge creep, ain't he?" Manic pondered. "He's gotta be looking out at something. Like yeah, maybe he's just giving the bugs light for the photos or whatever, but... I dunno, could he be spying on someone? Maybe it's not a random place and he's looking at someone? Or looking out for someone?" Where was there in town, and who might he have been worried about? "Doesn't seem like he's working with someone, I think he's probably solo. I dunno, is there- Like, you think he might be planning a theft or something to get weapons?" “No, not like that. Like maybe there’s something identifying behind the curtain. Like part of a sign or something. Do any of the buildings you see on the list have large signs on them?”

The king didn’t know the city well, but he remembered running through it once as seeing a lot of colors. A sign wouldn't be unusual, especially if he was living in an apartment rented by his employer. Manic turned back towards the map, noting the dozens of pins that had been put into the map after searching the town. "Uh... this is gonna take a minute." Address after address. Letter after letter. Manic kept a marker in one hand, marking each location one by one by the type of building. Not a casual comb through, either. "Alright, here are all the places," Manic said, looking at the map. "All these circled dudes have something really identifiable, or are painted some really bright color, y'know, identifiable stuff. Y'all can just forget about these Xes. And these dudes here," he said, motioning for the four circled buildings with blue pins instead of red, "these are all apartments and hotels." Aria pointed at one automatically, wits string tied and making the perfect angle with the building to make the shadows they saw.

“This one. And across the street it's got a major hotel chain. It's the only place that meets all the requirements.”

Scourge went to the computer and typed in the hotel, going to check the photos of the rooms they had up.

“Look. Balconies match. He’s in one of the king suites.” The king explained. Manic was just a little slower, just a little more cautious. "I've gotten really risky with other investigation stuff," he said, "and it ain't always ended well. We're kinda presuming a lot here, are you guys sure he's there? It makes sense, but... like, if we're wrong, we've pretty much lost him again, we've got to get this right." How could they prove it? The idea came to him in a second. "Maybe call up the front desk and ask if any of his pseudonyms are there?" They all looked to each other and Aria was surprisingly the first to put her finger on her nose and shout, “Not it!!”

The king chuckled, ruffling her hair and grabbing the phone to do it himself he thought she was just being cute or funny, but once he left to make the call, she excused herself and left the room. They wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t in the castle until the king would get off the phone to confirm that the otter was using her father's name as an alias.

She was tired and stressed, and so took refuge in the nook on the roof she always did. Only her wife knew of this safe spot. For now. Manic and both Scourges were going to be working on a plan to make sure he wouldn't escape, so Fao was brought up to the guest room he was using while the adult went back to work. As fun as his game was, he was still Scourge's son, and there was nothing he loved more than a little exploration. But what was next? He had already explored much of the castle, what was... left? He only had a small window to look out of, but he could see some kind of balcony walkway outside of the farmost guest room, turning around the castle to who knows where. Maybe there would be some kind of little secret or discovery out there? So like usual, he locked the room door to make it look like he was inside, crawled through the hidden door in the closet to the adjacent room, and rushed down the hall. There were always a few rooms he couldn't unlock, maybe this would be a way in? Whatever it was, he was quick to dash through the king's bedroom and onto what was hopefully the walkway to adventure. The walkway was well maintained, if not a little unused. Regular ivy had crawled along the walls, giving it charm.

It was a little known path that passed by windows that had no visible rooms beyond them. Several were completely blacked out, with no way in. A gentle sound played from the end of the walkway. A music box let out a sweet lullaby, and next to it, Aria relaxed in her little nook of solitude. Her mother’s things usually calmed her, but now they just made things worse. The ache for her family had never been greater. Sometimes, family was the only thing that could soothe her. Friends were fine. Company was great. But there was a pain there that only one thing could mend, and that one thing was long gone. Either she was going to need to conjure a family from nothing, or continue in her misery. The clinks and dings of the music box were soothing, gently, scratchy... scratchy? They had never sounded that way before. Because they weren't coming from the music box. The sound could be mistaken for a squirrel scratching at the glass, but down the walkway was Fao, scratching at some of the blacked out windows to try and peek in, but only realizing that he wouldn't be able to do anything. The music was going to have to sate his curiosity. When he stepped around, he knew he was intruding on a private moment with herself. But he didn't want to quite leave, either. Aria was never closed off about her emotions, but this was a more subtle kind of sadness. This was the sadness he would see when Scourge would hug him close and clench his teeth as hard as he could, or Fiona would when she was close to passing out on liquor and lounged across the couch, glaring at the skyline blankly. A pain that was nowhere as obvious, and yet many times more horrifying. He only sat at a distance, listening to a light melody and wondering what words were once there. She noticed him, but couldn’t find the energy to scold him. She was very tired. The private moment could be shared, and she motioned for him to come sit.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” she told him, more a statement than a scolding. She closed the delicate music box to stop the music, and beckoned for her nephew to come over and sit. Then when he had settled against her side, she opened the box again and the gentle melody resumed. He was just expecting an adventure, nothing like this. That didn't mean the moment wasn't welcomed, of course. Aria was always nice company, and she needed company herself. He sat quietly, Aria sat quietly. It was just the delicate strains of the music box looping and chiming for them. The air was chilly, and the moment awkward while they sat near each other. Faolán nipped both problems by standing up, and moving to sit on Aria's lap. This wasn't a normal hug for them, it was more of a comforting huddle than anything lighthearted. Something to cling to while they feared for whatever was going to happen next. The little wolf didn't know exactly what Aria was trying to fight through, or even if she was sad in the first place. Whatever his thoughts were, he certainly didn't realize the familial closeness they seemed to have in those few moments. She did though. Their curled up position reflected a photo taped inside the music box of her and her mother when Aria was just a baby. She let the irony ring out for her ears alone, he was too young to understand anyways. She shifted to wrap a blanket around his shoulders, keeping him warm and snuggling him close.

The box was meant to play a lullaby, so the child might have felt sleepy. Aria was too focused on her grief to feel much of anything else. She wondered if she should explain to him what was happening. She decided against it. That was Fiona’s talk, not hers. Fao didn't want an answer, he didn't want to make her worse, and Aria didn't want to give any answers. It was a good balance. "Mom wants to send me to a boarding school when summer's over," he said quietly. "I think she wants to get me away from dad." Heavy moods got both of them thinking heavy thoughts neither of them really wanted to keep thinking. "Are you hiding too?" “I don’t think she would do that. She would miss you too much… Besides, you’re too young for boarding school.”

She tried to remain calm. Fao was certainly not old enough to be in a place full of strangers! He was still developing his brain! Plus, he didn’t know how to take care of himself yet and Aria had very low faith in any teacher.

She nodded when he asked, curling up closer. “Something like that.” Knowing nothing of Aria's situation, he didn't really KNOW anything he could do. But at least he could try, right? "I know a lot of hiding places!" He said hopefully, still sounding a little mopey. "There are lots of rooms no one goes in anymore, you could always hide there, too." No, that didn't feel right. It didn't seem like she was hiding from people, maybe she was hiding from something more immaterial? That stare was always there when his mother was feeling like a terrible mother, or when his dad was feeling lonely. Whatever if was, he wanted her to be happy again. "Do you miss someone?" “Yes sweetie. I miss a lot of people. But right now, just one in particular.”

She was quite obviously trying not to cry. Her eyes had grown red and shiny, tears just in the corners of her eyes. He breath got shaky, but she held her ground as best he could. He was a child. He didn’t need to see her break down like the blubbering baby she was.

“I’m sorry… It's just very complicated and there’s a lot of drama and bad memories getting stirred up.” She apologized,wiping at her eyes. "It's alright, mom cries too." Maybe not the best words in that moment, but a fine sentiment. Very complicated... that meant there was a lot going on, right? He had seen this crying before, and if Scourge's sadness couldn't fully explain this, what else could? Maybe... his mother did cry, it could be bits of both wirling together. There were many times where he had walked in on his mother sobbing or thinking about horrible things that had happened in the past. Anger at herself for not being able to see what Scourge was going to do to her, anger at herself for not being able to stop harm from happening to her child... At this point, he was almost being crushed in Aria's arms, but she didn't seem to notice, and he didn't mind too much. "Are you mad at yourself?" She relaxed her grip once she noticed how tightly she was clinging to him. She brushed her hair out of her face, and looked at him quite surprised. “Not exactly sweetheart. But its odd that you would ask about that.”

She wouldn’t tell him not to worry, but she also wouldn’t admit to how empty she felt without her family around her. She had many people who cared for her, and a wife who loved her deeply, but nothing could replace her family. And how were you supposed to tell a child that you wished you had died? It was too mature a topic for him. At least for now.

She kissed him gently on the forehead. “It's not something you need to worry about pumpkin.” "But you're my friend!" He almost whined the words out, as nice as he meant them. "I want to make you happy!" How was he supposed to make her happy? He had no clue. Just being a friend, that's all he could try to do. "Don't cry, you're a nice person. You're happy, and you're friendly, and you have good jokes. You're a better mom than my mom is. Don't be sad, I don't want you to be sad." The sad thought he left buried in the mess didn't seem half as harsh to him as it should have. Because it wasn't a sad thought to him, it was a fact in his mind. "Do you wanna play my Batsy Bijou game?" Orange hands rummaged through his pockets until he found his well loved gaming device, offering it over. Once again the words from his gap toothed mouth surprised her, and she gently shifted him on her lap.

“Let’s talk about you for a second. It’ll make me feel better. What do you mean ‘you’re a better mom than my mom’?”

The thought appalled her. She was reaching much too far into Fao's life if she was becoming the preferred maternal figure. However, Fiona needed to step up her game as well. Aria knew if she didn’t give Fao the attention he needed that no one would. But still, the thought of preferring an “aunt” over a mother was, in her mind, concerning. He shrugged in much the same way his father would, but the words didn't come out immediately. Even he didn't quite know what to say. "Mom's not nice a lot," he started. "She's always sad and mad and stuff. She doesn't wanna see me go outside, or have fun, and- and she's always crying or yelling. She's always talkin' about how she doesn't know what to do. I don't think she likes me." These words weren't half as painful for him as they must have been for Aria to hear. "And she's never there, she's always at work." Ears were now drooping against his own head. "I wanna see mom more." Aria pet him gently, snuggling him close for comfort. “Poor pumpkin… I’m sorry that you feel that way… I can try talking to your mom and seeing what I can do. Have you tried telling her that you want to see her more?” She asked, reaching to close and put the music box away. She knew Fiona wasn’t the greatest mother but Fao sounded like he was being neglected.

She made up her mind to question the fox, and as a cold wind blew, she wrapped Faolán's blanket around him.

“Let’s got inside,” she insisted opening a portal and carrying him in. "It's not... something you need to worry about." Word for word, taken straight from Aria's mouth. Was this just something adults did? If he wasn't supposed to care about Aria, then she shouldn't have to care about his problems, right? Not thinking about them felt a lot better anyways. No, it felt worse to say that, and he could just tell Aria wasn't going to take that. "She's not fun anymore." He nuzzled into the blanket Aria was letting him use, accepting the pampering after how sad the conversation had turned. Thankfully the warp brought them straight to his room, and he wasn't going to have to give away his way of escaping. He wanted to offer to sit down and play his games with Aria, but she probably couldn't. Everyone was busy again. She kept snuggling him, knowing how much he loved it. He was probably a little touch starved, as was she most of the time. She pampered him with affection cause it made her feel good.

“Hey pumpkin. Don’t go out on that ledge again without me, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt. You’re very important to me and I want to keep you safe. So, anything new on the bug forum?”

Fiona was missing out on a great kid, if only she took the time to spend with him… Where was she anyways? None of them knew in that moment. And unfortunately, it seemed Fao was happy with things that way. He wanted the reprieve from everyone running around and being busy, no matter how brief it would end up being. It was going to be dashed soon enough, as everyone was getting done finishing preparations for a raid that was hopefully going to finally capture their prey. Maps were laid out, blueprints gathered... "I dunno, Ari should at least know that we're gonna be pulling this now, right?" Manic expressed his concerns out of nowhere as he tapped some drum pattern into the table with his fingers. "I know this is real hard for her, but... It's her battle, right? Shouldn't she know when it's starting?" “Yeah… She should. Castillo can you go get her? She’s probably with Fao.”

The father was sent up while the rest of the group plotted and planned the final details. Damian seemed very worried about something.

“Aria is not to be left alone with this guy. She will challenge him to a fight on our turf with old rules and our family fought to the death." It was a painful thought that lingered, and only got worse the more they thought. "This guy got sneaky, too, he don't fight for honor." Fighting a fair fight wasn't going to end well for Aria, not in the slightest. "We've gotta watch her and make sure she doesn't do anything." In that moment, there was someone watching Aria. Scourge was watching from outside the hall at first, but he could tell that Aria and Fao were both clinging to each other for some form of comfort. 'Fuck, I'm getting soft,' he thought to himself, sitting down in the hall out of eyeshot of the door. Aria had to know, sure. But she didn't have to know right then. And they didn't need to start right then, either. It wasn't too long before Fao yawned a little, his jaw stretching and making a light noise as he fumbled a little in his game. He was comfortable enough that he could fall asleep, which he was very tempted to do. She cooed at him gently, urging the child to save and get some rest. She pulled the music box out again, opening it so the gentle tune floated through the air.

“I’ll have to go back downstairs eventually… But why don’t you sleep for a little while pumpkin?” She insisted, allowing him to snuggle up and pulling the blanket over them. She could hear Castillo outside the door and was a little more affectionate, nuzzling him gently.

“Sweet dreams.” If the rest of their meetings didn't hit Scourge hard, those two words certainly did. Even Aria had more chances to make Fao happy than he did, and she wasn't even his parent! But he was happy and taking his nap, now wasn't the time to say anything and wake him up. When Aria would leave, the bittersweet glop of emotions would be blatant on his face. "Planning some stuff downstairs." The tone and style of his voice were normal, but he was much quieter. "Need you to come down." They would barely be out the door before the words were out. "Thanks." Not sarcastic, but still rather jealous of her. “Sorry… I’m not trying to elbow in on your parenting but he needed some affection and I needed some company… He’s a lot smarter than we give him credit for… I’ll be down in a second, I want to call Fiona.”

She pulled out her phone and dialed the fox’s number. Trying to keep the blood from boiling under her skin. She had heard the planning the boys had been doing through an open window while she was on the ledge. She figured she should tie up all her loose ends. The phone rang. Three times. Four. Five. "We're sorry, the caller you've requested is not available at this time. Please call again, or leave a message-" Her office number was called. Then her phone. Then her cell again. Every call failed to connect her to Fiona, wherever she was and whatever she was doing. Even from the guest room, Fao could hear her placing several phone calls in the hall, hear her stomping get slightly louder. Another angry adult. They just needed to calm down. He just nuzzled up to his oversized tail and tried to rest. Grown-up stuff was always boring and sad anyways. Finally, Aria walked away from Fao’s door and left a message, tucking herself into a side hallway away from everyone else.

“Fiona, it's Aria. They found the guy and we are going after him… I don’t… I don’t know if I’m going to come back from this. And I just want you to know exactly what you need to do. You need to stop trying to tear Fao from Scourge. He’s half his biology, he’s important to the kid. And don’t send Fao off either, he’s a child. Schools like that are horrible for kids, especially for Fao with his condition. You’re … You’re a really good friend Fiona, and you try really hard to give Fao the world, but all he really wants is to see you… Depending on how today goes, he’s gonna need you a lot more. I’ve got to go. But so help me, if I find you’ve sent him away, or emotionally hurt him any more than you already have, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

She hung up and went to quickly write a note to Terra, spilling her heart out onto the page. Promising the moon and the stars upon her return, or her eternal and undying love if she failed.

By the time she got downstairs, she was battle ready, at least mentally.

“Let’s do this.” Plans were being set into motion finally. He was cornered. At the very least, he was coming out of this in handcuffs, but no one knew what to expect from the fight itself. There was only one person who wasn't privy to the plans in that moment. Fiona was just getting away from some meetings regarding her casino when she finally had time to turn on her phone. Several messages as usual. Several messages from Aria was anything but usual, and she hit play. Not coming back from that? She wasn't saying she was going to die, was she? The longer the message went on, the more she wanted to block out the words Aria was saying, believe that she had been doing the right thing. But the brevity and strength of those few early words was enough to stop her from blocking it out. How had she missed this?! Every instinct told her to scream into the phone, tell Aria not to risk her life like that. And then she checked the time stamp. Three hours before. Whatever was being set in motion was almost certainly out of her control now. Aria was ready to go, looking up at the boys.

“So, how are we getting in? Warp inside or knock on the front door?” She asked them, pretending to joke. But the atmosphere was serious and Aria wasn’t smiling like she normally was when she was joking. She seemed to have made peace with herself, and all that was left was anger.

Her brother looked over, concerned but silent. Castillo and Manic were made to lead the way. The tall apartment building wasn't shabby, but wasn't breathtaking either. Simply a building. If it weren't for the circumstances, it would have felt totally nondescript. "The punk's real dangerous, some of kingy's men are checking it out. Should get a word when they've got him." This wasn't going to be long, the photo gave them a small range of rooms he could be in based on the view. Manic and Damien were staying close to Aria to try and make sure she wasn't going to be completely torn up. The Scourges, however, were a short distance away, trying to look like they were just talking plans for the raid. "And what if the kid runs, how're we gonna stop it?" Castillo asked, arms crossed. "There any rules to her family battles?" “Apparently. Damian gave me a brief overview. A challenge to a battle cannot be turned down for one. They have to get to their family land, and then he said there’s some ritual shit they gotta do. They seal off their magic and it… It becomes a fight to the death. Apparently there’s also a referee that can stop the fight, which would be Damian, but it only works in cases of cheating and natural disasters… The second she calls for one, we can’t interfere.”

A solider came in. “Sire! They’ve located the balconey! We are ready to go on your order!” "Then you make sure she doesn't say shit." The alternate told the king after the interruption. "She tries to say anything, stop her. Don't care what it takes." The otter seemed too cowardly to actually challenge himself, at least in Castillo's mind. If he was doing all this running, he probably wasn't going to want a fight to the death if he wasn't forced into it. "Yo, Ari!" He yelled, motioning for the hedgehog. "You let us clear it out first, don't know what traps he's got, we'll holler when it's ready." In essence, 'we absolutely are not calling for you.' She bristled with anger. “No. My family, my revenge, my mission. I’m coming in with you, and there’s no way you can stop me”

The king didn’t like it at all, but he knew that upsetting her wouldn’t help. “Easy Aria. He’s just trying to help. No one wants you to get hurt.”

She turned from the group, grabbing a few extra weapons from the table. Several knives and one handgun. Of course, Castillo took advantage of that moment to tug forward and give them a head start. He made a motion for Manic, trying to tell him to keep Aria back. They couldn't let her go through with that. No way. The balcony was zeroed in on, but the door hadn't been knocked. In fact, if someone hadn't seen the many cars parked out of eyeshot of that particular window, no one would even know that anything was happening. If he wasn't alerted, he couldn't be half as prepared to fight back. Slowly, an officer stepped forward to knock. "Duuuude, wait." Manic didn't need to act, stepping in front of her quite alarmed and blatantly stopping her. "Dude, we've gotta wait, we don't know what he's got in there! You don't wanna fall for a trap and lose a fight with someone that's not even there!" Aria followed after them, unamused by Manic trying to step in her way.

“I’m not going in first numbskull, I’m not an idiot. They can clear the place first, but I want my turn with this son of a bitch.”

She shoved past him and joined the boys, waiting patiently as the door was knocked. She was seething anger, and the king sandwiched her between himself and Castillo so they could control her somewhat.

The agent knocking was in plainclothes, trying to make it look like she were some random pedestrian through the peephole. Everyone stood further down the hall to stop them from being visible.

There was no reply. "Hello? Are you home? You left something downstairs."

From behind the door, the cover could be heard slipping off of the peephole. It would be a few more seconds before the sound happened again, and the door barely creaked open. "You can come in," a voice said, ringing through Aria's mind and deep into her memories. The agent swung the door open without giving her a chance to recover.

The explosion was deafening, and there was barely any time to curl and protect themselves from the shrapnel.

In a second, a good chunk of wall that used to be a doorway was now a crumbling hole, the explosion strong enough that holes in the floor and ceiling could show parts of the rooms and halls the floor was sandwiched between. The agent was curled in a ball against the wall, clutching her injuries but breathing and fighting the pain to reach for her gun. Through the hole was his lair - a strangely empty yet organized room with plenty of books on Chaos magic, dissection tools and a makeshift surgery table, charts and photos of bug anatomy. The walls were obsessively and neatly lined with the strange bugs that lived in Aria's forest, looking to have lost some of their luster. The dead bugs they didn't have the time to truly look at were totally luster-free, their magic somehow drained post mortem... or even antimortem. But they couldn't worry about his psychotics in the moment, an agent was down and the suspect was close by.

"Your majesty!" A voice bleated through the king's earpiece. "The suspect's leaped from the window, he's hopping between room balconies!"

“Roger that. I want the building surrounded and the upper floors evacuated!” He ordered everyone. In all the fuss, Aria was left unattended.

That was a mistake

She booked it for the hallway window, climbing out onto the fire escape and jumping to the next balcony. Judging by the weaponry aimed at the other side of the building, he was headed right for her. Perfect.

Damian was the first to notice she was gone, and alerted the trio of green hedgehogs. "Oh hell no...!" Scourge's growl couldn't have come fast enough. Him and Manic were already booking it down the hall, towards the window Aria had evacuated through. Manic was first out the balcony, trying to grab and restrain Aria. "Aria, get outta here, he's got other bombs planted out here!" It was a total lie, but that was what Manic knew best. The otter's running wasn't clumsy or calculated. The golden creature was running like a feral cat might, not landing anywhere but the hand holds to save time as he tried to improvise an escape path. When the flash of gold came into view, that's when they knew they had no choice, and Scourge reached for Aria's face, trying desperately to clamp her mouth shut as the otter searched for another window entrance. She was just barely out of reach, and tackled the otter, sending both tumbling to the ground. Damian forgot to breathe until Aria ripped open a portal and dragged the otter through it before they hit the ground.

They dropped behind the trio of green and her brother, Aria pinning him to the ground by his neck.

“Hello Leo. Its been a very long time and we have so much to catch up on. What do you say we go say hi to everybody? The forest is DYING to have you back,” she hinted, punching him across the face several times, since her weight was pinning him down.

“Get off me you crazy ass bitch!” He called out, only recognize her when she pressed her claws to his throat. He paled significantly, like he was seeing a ghost. In that moment, Damian realized that Aria was playing a game with him like a cat played with their food. Scourge simply wanted to stop her from making the call. Manic, however, was having flashbacks. This was the same cracked glare she'd given when she was being rescued. She was going to lose it, if she hadn't already. It was Manic who lunged forward, holding down the otter to make sure he wouldn't pull anything, but still not able to totally side with Aria. "Ari, zone jail'll give him hella worse punishment than this, that'd be quick and much less painful, you wanna-" "Don't talk like- like psychos, you moldy assflap-!" Was all Leo could say in response, getting a knee to the scalp from Manic himself. "Kingy, get this dude chained up. Now!" Castillo told the king as Manic tried to barter with the hedgehog. “That's not what I want! I want him to suffer! I want him to have every. Thing. He. Cares. About. Taken. Away!”

She pushed Manic back just enough to keep hitting the otter as hard as she physically could across the face. Bloodlust wasn’t a common feeling, but she felt it thrumming in her veins. She wouldn’t be sated until he was dead by her hands, and everyone in the room knew it. No one made any move to stop her.

Leo had other ideas, and once he realized that Aria and Manic combined didn’t weigh a while lot, he extended his claws and channeled his super strength to throw them off of him. “You wanna play like that then kid? Alright. Let’s play! I need to have you dead anyways. USQUE AD OS IN AGRIS!”

“NO!” Damian yelled, but the damage was done and Aria stood up, fire blazing in her eyes.

“As you wish. Those words will be the death of you. Scourge. Warp ring. Now.” She told the king, holding out her hand. Manic and Scourge were faltering. Scourge wasn't dumb to criminal shenanigans, he knew that stepping in could have cost Aria her life, but so could allowing this to happen! Manic knew that he was close enough to probably find something, ANYTHING to take him out with just then, but what would that truly entail in a culture as powerful as Aria's? This gave them just enough time. "Oh, allow me!" His voice, his posture, Leo was certain of everything he was doing. The ring was snatched from the king's belt in a blink of an eye, and judging by how fast his hand pressed the buttons, he knew the warp coordinates for Aria's homeland off the back of his hand. He wasn't just prepared. He was begging for this moment. "What does- what does this mean? What's gonna happen?" Manic poised the obvious question as the gold otter left through his warp. “That remains to be seen.” Was all Aria said, warping herself out as Damian shut the ring. After Aria left, his hands would start to shake, visibly tremor as he realized that if it all went down hill, he would have to bury the last of his family.

The king put a hand on his shoulder, to comfort.

“Through the warp. Now. And someone.. Someone call Terra. She’s.. She’s gonna wanna be here.” He lead Damian through the portal and jumped through himself.

They would end up in a field on her land, everyone knee deep in geraniums and poppies. Aria was trying not to show how upset she was. Damian was just a little confused. He didn’t remember the field.

“I know this isn’t the traditional venture, but an exception can be made.” Leo hummed, and Aria growled as Damian’s claws extended and he started craving circles into the ground around Aria and Leo. Aria explained to the others that since Damian was the only other adult, he was forced to be the referee and to set up the battle ground. "Why's there need to be a battle? Why you need a fucking referee?!" Out of everyone on the scene, Scourge had the least problems with any kind of ceremony. "What, you gonna give this asshole a fair chance? After everything, you wanna give him-?! Fuck him, Aria, just shoot him! I hold him down, you claw his eyes out, what the fuck are you doing?!" He wasn't seeing Aria die, not at all, and with no regard for the forest, the ceremony, anything at all, he rushed past the circles and Damian, heading straight for Leo. However, the completed circle created a forcefield around both of the fighters, and Castillo ran right into it.

“Oh! Castillo! Be careful!” She scolded, pressing on the forcefield from the inside, worried about how fast he had rammed into a solid surface.

“Please. You don’t understand why I have to do this but I do. Its important. Far more important than you realize.” She insisted, removing every gun and knife strapped to her.

“Leo, you remember the rules do you not? Any other weaponry on you is an automatic disqualification and certain death. As much as I would love to see you die, I would much rather do it myself,” she reminded, growling and setting herself in a fighting stance. "Hmph." The small huffing noise Leo made was just as smug and knowing as the rest of his actions. His pockets were empties, but the only things that came out were minor trinkets and mundane items. His wallet, a burner phone, nothing of note. "I don't need any extra help, Aria. I'm a lot more powerful than I used to be." The claws that came out of his paws were nothing like Arias or Damians. Theirs were slender, metallic, elegant. His were thick and blunt, more like daggers than the normal scythe shape. Moreover they didn't appear to be metal, instead a creamy white material that wasn't natural for the species. Almost like he made them for himself, another power just as unnatural as his others. Almost like they were made of... ...bone. Damian and Aria just looked… Confused. Not horrified at the state of his claws, but just curious.

“I thought his claws were gold?” Damian asked, leaning closer to his sister

“I remember them being gold? Fillings maybe?” She responded with a shrug, tossing her weaponry out of the bubble and sliding into a fighting stance. Under her breath, she whispered out a prayer to some unknown god before stepping up to the mark, and waiting for the male to do the same. “Castillo? If I don’t make it out of this, tell Fao and David I’m sorry that I won’t be there to watch them grow up.”

As the otter stepped up to the mark as well, the ground started to shake. Every tree in the forest had uprooted themselves to circle the group, everyone vying for a spot to watch. He wasn't going to be telling those kids anything, Scourge told himself. They didn't need to grow up without her, Fao didn't need to lose someone at such a young age. But from a distance, outside some strange bubble he couldn't enter, there was nothing he could do. Just watch with the rest of the peanut gallery and try not to break down in anger. "You like them?" Leo could see Arias curiosity in his claws, his hand now waving in front of him like he was admiring them as he explained. "I carved them myself... and fused them on. I don't like leaving whole bodies out in the open, so I just left most of them." The trees rustled, but whoever those bones were once a part of was lost to time. He was in position, his claws were bared, the ceremony was prepared. Most of all, Aria was terrified. "Tell Octavius his body's incredibly strong." A total bluff on his part, but he just needed Aria's face to go the right shade of pale before heading forward. "En garde." “Here’s an idea for you, bastard. TELL HIM YOURSELF!” she screamed, face flush with anger instead of pale with fear.

Aria slammed her foot down in position, and the fight began. Instantly she jumped at him claws out and scratching at his face as hard as she could, keeping a hand protectively over her stomach so he couldn’t get at her major organs. Most of her slashes were aimed at his brow bone and eyes, trying to blind him.

Terra ran in, having been warped in by the king. She almost screamed, but all that came out was a choked sob. The king wrapped an arm around her, to try and support her as they watched Aria fight. Metal clashed and scratched against sturdy marrow, and as strong as Aria's claws were, all she could do was scraped the claws. Leo wasn't concerned about going for a kill immediately, he just needed something, some little leaping point. All Aria had to do was falter for a second, but she was too consumed with rage in that moment to emotionally manipulate. His claws closed as Aria swung at a bad angle, clutching tight and leaving both their hands useless in the moment. Leo's claws couldn't swipe, but their blunt weight and stab damage more than made up. Hands unlatched, and those three claws held together in a bludgeon aimed straight for Aria's scalp. She dodged, his claws catching hair more than scalp. Using her chin to trap his hand, she bit at the arm as hard as possible, blood dripping from her jaws.

He wretched his arm away and Aria spat the blood at him. She tried again to go for the face, almost, but at the last second started aiming for his chest and neck. If she could time a strike just right, she could stab right between his ribs…

Damian was torn looking at the scene. The trees rustled at the sight of blood, and even Aria's mother shook with pride. Or concern. Hard to tell with trees. When clenched, his claws could form a pretty solid shield, and he did his best to back away as the swung at the guard. Oh, she was biting? as much as it hurt, this was only fueling his desire to sink his claws straight into those eye sockets. The blows were consistent, aiming for the same few ribs about, and her swings were alternating. If she didn't realize this, her own swings were creating a pattern, and he threw a plan together as she swung yet again in time. There was a rip. Trees stood still, too still, and everyone watching couldn't move for a split second. The flesh near the base of one of Aria's right claws was sliced straight open, one hand holding her arm and the other tugging and wrenching her thin metal claws between larger, sturdier bone marrow. He wasn't aiming to kill, he was going to tear apart Aria piece by piece, cutting and pressing harder into her flesh until the claw popped out in a bloody snap. The scream she let out could have been enough to deafen. Terra dropped to her knees, unable to handle the volume, or the thought of her mate being hurt. Even Leo winced a bit.

Aria clutched her hand to her side, switching her offensive and defensive positions and now leading with her left. Her claw hit the ground and on instinct she picked it up to prevent him from using it. Technically not a weapon. There was no contesting that.

She jumped at him again and managed to topple him, throwing punches as hard as she could, claws back in. She was beating his face as her heels dug into his biceps. Blood was everywhere. Leo's chuckling was only going to feed her bloodlust. "You stupid bitch," he grunted between slams to his face, finally grabbing her hand as it swung and simply holding it, looking at the unharmed hand. "You could've let those damn claws out right now and won." The tumble of the two struggling to try and pin down the other may have seemed desperate on both their parts, but every move of his was carefully planned to draw this fight out, just stop Aria from attacking for long enough to watch her go pale from bloodloss. At this point, Manic and Terra were clawing at the barrier, unable to breakthrough but desperate to find some way to help. Aria's size was both a help and a hindrance. She wasn’t able to pin him down for very long, but he was unable to pin her down because she kept slipping away. Playing dirty, she delivered a swift kick to his crotch, shin bone colliding with parts unmentionable. While he was distracted by the sudden pain, she flipped him off of her and retreated a bit to catch her breath. The blood loss was making her vision blurry.

The king looked over at Damian. “Can’t you intervene?!”

The doctor shook his head no. “Stopping the fight for no reason would kill whoever is ‘losing’ per say.”

And Aria was very much losing. Leo knew this, and brandished his claws, growling. “That’s enough playtime child.” The years he had spend building his powers off of these sacrifices, everything from the original people to the wildlife that thrived off of the power that ebbed through the homeland, this was all about to come to a conclusion. But what was perfect for this situation? He wanted Aria to suffer, a chance to... No... no, offing her with fire or strength would be too easy. Aria was scarcely breathing, he wanted to savor her consciousness, torture her for himself, and what was a better way to torture her than keep her from moving? Magic restraint was the way to go. It wasn't even a totally strong shove, but blood loss was leaving her weary. One hand rose, beginning to glow with an ethereal power.. Her limbs went stiff, body still, perfect for his gory plans. For just a moment. He drew closer as the king screamed for Damian to intervene. Damian responded by reminding him that his sister was losing, and that pausing the fight might kill her. Aria's breath was coming slower as invisible bonds constricted around her, gulping down air in deeper and deeper gasps as Leo came right up to her, planning to spend a few seconds savoring the look of fear in her eyes. But the look he craved wasn’t there. Instead, she gave a breathless laugh.

“You’re… An idiot… Forgot the biggest battle rule…” She mumbled, subtly sliding the broken off claw out of her pocket.

“Oh, and what was that?” The otter asked, barely an inch from her face.

In one swift motion Aria dropped her act, stabbing upward through his diaphragm with her solo claw, and then extending the other two. Blood gushed from the wound.

“No. Powers. Allowed!” Aria said in a taunting voice, pulling her claws out and stabbing him right through the heart. The gap created between her claws by removing one blade made it easy to slip through his ribs and cut the life sustaining organ. She braced her foot on his chest and kicked him off her claws, then knelt on his chest again and started punching and stabbing him.

“This is for my PEOPLE!” She screamed, beating him several times

“This is for my FAMILY,” this time she only threw eight punches , calling out her siblings and parents names

“And this? This is for me! VALE, ET FRAGMEN STERCORE!!

With no hesitation, she slit his throat and arterial spray coated the ‘walls’ of their shield. The circles and their shields disappeared. Aria was left kneeling over a corpse.

It was over

They won. This didn't stop the terror Manic or Terra were struggling with. The wall was the only thing stopping them, and the moment it was gone, the two rushed up to Aria, Terra to cling to her and just kno she was still there and Manic wanting to get her the hell out of there. Blood was everywhere, but they didn't care, sitting down and clutching to Aria just to know this was real, this was over. Manic's husband had dealt with plenty of blood on his part, and stepped forwards to start yelling commands. "Dami!" was all he yelled to get her brother's attention. "Just stop the blood. Kingy, get some OTHER doctors in here!" He couldn't be expected to do surgery on his own sister, after all. All that was left to deal with was the corpse. What was there...? They couldn't leave a corpse sitting in the middle of nowhere, so as the three sat and recovered, he hoised Leo's body over his shoulder and started the walk, aiming for deep within where those beetles could be found. “Castillo, wait. I’m not done.” Aria mentioned, getting out of the death grip her mate and friend had given her. The body was pulled off Castillo’s shoulders and Aria grimaced as she had to pull her snapped off claw out of the gaping hole in his rib cage. She handed it off to her brother, who also seemed disgusted.

“Don’t worry about the surgeons. I can fix her with magic.” Damian insisted, working on his sisters hand while she looked down at the body.

“I’m sorry about this you guys, I wasn’t up front about anything. I promise, I’ll try to be better about telling you how and why I’m doing things but.. It had to be done. Can someone warp back to the room and try to salvage some beetles? Maybe we can restore the population.” She asked, squeezing Terra’s hand with her other one, in a lot of pain as metal and flesh reformed.

The trees rumbled, moving back to their regular spots and leaving the land seemingly untouched. Aria slumped on her mates shoulder and the bat caught her, concerned. "Don't ever- It's over, right? There's no one else you wanna have a death battle with, right?" Manic was still trembling, voice sturdy but his body weak. Watching what was essentially a surgery wasn't helping his nerves. “It's over. We need at least three members of our people. Derek won’t be old enough for a long time and I won’t be fighting my brother. It's over. It's all over.” She insisted, patting the green hedgehogs cheek. She was physically exhausted, and some cuts still bled. She looked like crap but she was smiling through the tears threatening to fall. Enthusiastic. Overjoyed. "Kingy, c'mere." Castillo hoisted the corpse over his shoulders as he restarted his walk. Even at a glance, he wasn't totally normal. His fur was metallic - TOO metallic, just like those strange bugs his body was about to be fed to. He had spent years terrorizing Aria, killed countless people, and now he was just a thing dripping blood onto Scourge's jacket. Not an undeserved fate. "Aria's NEVER having a fight like that again without us kicking ass with her. I don' care if it's tradition or what, she looks like she's snapping. Feel like she's gonna go insane if we don't stop this crap from happening." They were commanded, not requested. Rattled off almost like a list. "What are we telling Fao? Let's get our lies straight." “It's over.” The king reminded. Looking back at his friend as Aria's sobs heaved, and she burst into tears. “Tell Fao that she got attacked? I certainly don’t know what to tell him. Ask Fiona what she thinks.” "Aria got attacked," Scourge said almost emotionless in tone. "The guy's in jail now. That's all he's hearing." The paths in the forest grew more and more laden with the insects, starting to pelt Scourge more the deeper he went into the trees and landing on the body. The trees almost seemed to encourage him, shifting slightly to make his path deeper into the woods easier to traverse, until he reached a small circle so shrouded in shadows and heavy foliage it would never see sunlight on any other day. And deep within the homelands he had destroyed, Leo's body was abandoned to be devoured by the creatures that he sought to kill, and now tightly encircled by trees making sure evidence of Aria's crime would never reach the light of day. "Come on- come on, we're getting you out of here." It was almost told to Aria like it wasn't an option. "Y'all, we're gonna get you- A huge dinner or like, a spa trip? A-a lot of therapy?" The last line was barely a joke at this point, what was he supposed to do for her? “I… I think I wanna go home… Get some sleep. I'm tired.” She whined, playfully almost. Even as the tears rolled down her cheeks, she still smiled, kissing Terra’s cheek. Her wife was cuddling her close, almost possessive. Terrified of someone trying to take her away.

The return to the castle was quiet. Fao was already tucked in for the night, and soon after Aria was sitting on the bar, while Damian and Terra patched her up and she poured everyone a strong glass of alcohol. Wondering where Fiona was, but assuming she was with Fao. It felt as though they had come back from a battle to the death, that was for sure. Aria might have been happy, but she had nearly died, that was impossible to avoid. Manic was laughing, trying to smile through it, but his fear was still hard to ignore. His husband simply said nothing and acted like he wasn't invested. Bored, even. As the sun just began it's descent past the horizon, they could hear the door open again, and everyone's breath was held in horror until those tiny, energized footsteps were heard checking room to room until he was at the door to the sitting room. The room felt brightened by his presence, and he couldn't quite tell yet how serious everyone was feeling. While he did sit happily next to his father, his concern seemed to be Aria's injuries. He just stared, eating some ice cream but not wanting to ask the question. The good news was, the remnants of some wiped-off face paint on him indicated a fun day out. The bad news was, he looked fitted for a little vest with a school emblem on it that he was now staining with his treat. "Is she- is she hurt?" He tried to be quiet and onyl ask his father, but the question was loud and clear in the quiet room. Aria caught sight of the uniform and her heart sank. Her own death was fine, she hadn’t expected to live through the fight. She had hoped that would convince Fiona to leave her son close to his father. She dry-heaved suddenly, covering her mouth more out of surprised than nausea. Damian and Terra didn’t seem too surprised and the bat helped her to the bathroom. The doctor put a hand on Manic's shoulder to calm him

“Its the stress. With magic healing, nausea is normal. Especially with the level I had to do. She’s okay,” he insisted, but could hear his sister’s curses in their native language between fits of vomiting. Both he and the king noticed the sweater, and only Scourge said something.

“Hey buddy, where’d the vest come from? A little to fancy for just a day out, isn’t it?” The king asked, moving closer to Castillo in order to check his alternates rage. He recognized the crest on the sweater. Fiona walked in with a shopping bag in hand, looking terrified at the sight. Or was she terrified that they saw Fao wearing his boarding school vest? Boarding school... Actually, the crest looked a tiny bit different. Wasn't that supposed to be a lantern, not a candle? And- Actually, none of it looked the same! As Fao happily ranted on about the day's events, a little introduction fair day for the new students, Fiona sat with Aria and showed her a brochure. "Green Ivy Academy. It's a private elementary school twenty minutes away." Her voice was quiet, pose suggesting silent fear of whatever she was going to say. "It's not a sleep away school, and it's in a very secure neighborhood, I didn't mean to startle-" Aria was forced to lay back on the couch as her brother checked her over, scolding his sister under his breath. Also cussing Fiona out for being dramatic. But she didn’t need to know there was any hidden meaning hidden in his tone. The hedgehog let him finish before answering Fiona.

“Good. Glad to know it took me almost dying to get you to listen.” She was slightly bitter, but clearly not mad. Arias silent and unchecked rage had been pulled out of her from her fight with Leo. For now, all the fox got was a hint of disappointment.

But when Aria looked up when Fao started talking, Castillo and Manic would catch the look of utter relief. Joy almost. With everything that was going on, she was glad her nephew of sorts was going to stay close to home. She looked back to his mother, hiding her utter glee. “What are we going to tell him about what happened today?” "You were attacked, but you will be fine. He doesn't need to know any more than that." Her idea may have gone the same direction as Scourge's thoughts, but the question wasn't even brought up by the child. Even when he was sitting down next to Aria, he seemed polite enough not to say a word directly to her. "And the yard there is really big!" He kept bringing up small details of what must have been an incredibly expensive school to attend. "There's this big fountain with fish in it! And there's a big field... ...!" Manic leaned close to speak quietly to Aria. "You sure you should drink that much? You lost a ton of blood, man." She looked at the clear liquid, then back at Manic, holding it up. “It’s Gatorade.”

She returned returned to listening to her nephew speak, asking him questions about the people and the campus. She loved his blatant excitement over everything. Everyone would agree that his cheerful personality and his ability to make Aria laugh lightened the mood.

The room settled slowly, couples drifting together to try and relax each other. Manic and Castillo were already sitting on a loveseat together. Aria and Terra had Fao squished between them, the little boy still raving about the school. Fiona had settled in a plush recliner, and subconsciously the king found himself moving to sit on the arm of the chair. Damian had bid his sibling adieu and left to go see his own family. All was peaceful. School would only start for the child in a few month as the summer reached its end, but for now, they didn't worry. Aria would have to find a lot of emotional support in the next few days even, and the healing wouldn't be completed for a long time. But at least for that one night, she had space to laugh, space to think. Space to recover. People would weave their ways out of the room at the time passed. Manic, Damian, Castillo, Scourge, Fiona and even Fao left, until it was only Aria and Terra alone in the room, nuzzling on the couch and enjoying the comfort of the moment. For a short while, the hedgehog would find a kind of peace she had scarcely felt before.

Terra leaned over to pull Arias music box out of her bag, opening it so they had some soothing sounds.

The night was quiet as all the castle lights got turned off one by one. First, the young child was tucked in by his fathers and mother, wished goodnight by all. The green couple left to spend their night in the van, as they usually did. They would sleep curled tightly together, dealing with their own stresses from the day.

The king and the mother were left, and in his private study they enjoyed a quiet nightcap of her favorite drink before turning their separate ways.

Even the lights in the main room would be turned off by a ghostly hand when the women fell asleep. All was dark. All was safe. All was perfect.

#TinyRedArtist #Show's Over #There's A Melody Playing #violence #gore #death

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

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Karamel Fic: Permission to Flourish (10/11)

Title: Permission to Flourish Author: gldngrl7 Date Started: February 12, 2017 Rating: T for Teen (I know! I can’t believe it either!)

Some of you may know I received hate comments on Ao3 about my story “A Favor Among Friends” (I'm sure there’s more to come). In honor of that hate, I am posting another chapter of THIS story today to give that hater a big fate middle finger. Fuck you. I’m still here. And I’m going no where. And the more hate you send me -- the dirtier my stories are going to get.

To be clear: THIS is not a dirty story. LOL

Author’s Notes:

This story is the sequel to Bulletproof. Please read that one-shot before diving into this one.

Comments are welcomed, flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

So many, many thanks to my those who’ve taken the time to comment: @lostin-the-desert, @anaveragegirl15, @threesilverthings88, @emarasmoak, @myfangirlinghq, @hermi1907

@hemusickat, -- Your low-key prompt inspired the last pages of this chapter. I hope it meets most of your desires.

Chances lost are hopes torn up pages Maybe this time Chances are we’ll be the combination Chances come and carry me Chances are waiting to be taken And I can see

--Five for Fighting – “Chances”

Chapter 10/11

Once in the apartment, Mike noted the collection of cleansers on the kitchen island and the combined smell of air freshener and wood polish. “Spring cleaning?” he chuckled nervously, hoping to break the tension.

“Clearing out the cobwebs…so to speak. Not that there were actual cobwebs. They were metaphorical cobwebs. Because I would never have spiders living in my loft to begin with…or bugs in general. I am a very clean person,” she babbled. Thank goodness Alex had come over this morning and kicked her butt into high gear, Kara realized. If she hadn’t, Mon-El might have arrived to find her loft a veritable pig-sty. How humiliating would that have been? And revealing.

Mike pointed at the smudge of dirt on cheek. “You have a little something on your face…just there.” He thought about cleaning her face, the way Mrs. Scheinbaum would do for him without a second thought, but decided against it. Such intimacies were too far beyond them at the moment.

Kara’s hand flew to her check, the wrong one, and wiped furiously.

“Wrong side,” he said, trying his damnedest not to find it humorous, and failing miserably.

Blushing furiously, she considered her escape options. “I’m just going to…back in a sec.” She super sped to the bathroom, nearly collapsing into a panic when she caught sight of her wrecked visage in the mirror. “Rao! I look horrible,” she said, fighting back her rising emotions.

Kara washed her hands thoroughly before scrubbing her face with a washcloth so hard she nearly shredded the thick, terry material. But when she was done, her skin was glowing again. Tearing her hair out of the ponytail holder, she ran a brush through it before replacing it with two small barrettes, one on each side of her head. She allowed the rest of her long- golden tresses to flow freely down to her mid-back.

She debated changing into something nicer, but decided that would seem like she was trying too hard. Justified by the fact that her clothes were filthy from cleaning, she changed into another clean pair of yoga pants and a short sleeved t-shirt with a deep v-neck. It was faded and soft and very…touchable.

Kara stepped out of the bathroom with all the nervousness of girl about to be seen by her prom date. She clasped her hands behind her back to hide the fact that there were trembling.

‘Shiny’, was the only word his dumbstruck mind could construct as he saw her emerge from her bathroom. Her cheeks rosy pink, her skin reflecting the crude light like the pearly inside of an oyster shell. She was beautiful before, dirt and all, but now she was luminescent.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” she said. She’d been gone no more than fifteen seconds, but it seemed like hours to her and even longer to him. Referring to her new attire, “I was filthy from….”

“Cobweb cleaning?” he filled in.

“Right. So…you came here to talk...?”

“I didn’t really plan this though,” he advised her, attempting a chuckle to mask his nervousness. Even though her fifteen second disappearance into the bathroom would have been considered a blink of the eye by human standards, to them it was long enough to have second thoughts. Long enough for his inner demon of anxiety to whisper in his ear about how she would only hurt him again if he let her back in. Mike gagged the inner demon and shoved it as far to the back of his mind as it would go. Sometimes, you have to do things because you fear them, not in spite of it. “I left the hospital and just sort of…flew here.”

Sensing something she could latch onto, a neutral ground upon which they could begin negotiations as it were, Kara stepped forward eagerly and hopefully. “How is she?” Kara asked. “Amelia.”

“The injury was critical, but the surgery was a success,” he explained, happy for the neutral ground as well. “The doctor wanted to keep her in a coma for a few days to facilitate healing.”

As he spoke, she retrieved clean plates, still hot from the dishwasher, and placed them on the island, while he opened the boxes. “That doesn’t sound…good.”

“It was terrifying,” he concurred. “But they took her off the sedation this morning and she woke up about two hours ago. She’s lucid and answering questions and recognizing people. All hopeful signs.”

“Well that is good news then,” Kara replied diplomatically.

Mike cleared his throat, watching her as she hunted through kitchen drawers for napkins. He noticed that her hands were shaking slightly, and suspected she invented the task to keep them busy, which made him feel a little more confident. “I hope you understand that I needed to see Amelia through this before I could even begin to tackle the reasons why you…found me.”

“Of course,” she agreed, nodding her head. “I would never put my desires over the well-being of a child.”

Mike pursed his lips thoughtfully and replied, tactfully—formally, “Thank you for your understanding. When I saw you….” No that wasn’t the right way to begin, he thought. “I want you to know that I heard what you said at the hospital,” he began again, “but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to hear it. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” she nodded, her brow crinkled with concern. “I know how important she is to you. And her mother.”

“That’s another thing,” Mike asserted, shaking his head as he leaned on the counter. “I’m not sure what you think you saw, but I believe you misinterpreted whatever it was. Belinda is a very nice, very strong single mother who had something terrible happen to her daughter on my watch. I was there to help support her through a difficult time. Nothing more.”

Kara had a hard time assimilating his words. She wanted to believe them but was afraid her ears were playing tricks on her, or that her mind was interpreting what she wanted to hear. “But I saw—“

“I think your mind was afraid of seeing something, so that’s what it showed you. You were wrong. She’s a beautiful woman but I don’t have those kinds of feelings for her. I’ve never been able to have those kinds of feelings for anyone…but you.”

Food forgotten, Kara’s head snapped up, her eyes drawn inexorably to his. “Really?” she asked, her voice a prayer.

“Not for lack of trying,” he answered, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “I’m still angry, Kara. Sometimes it…fuels me…the anger I feel inside. I’m man enough to admit that part of me is…afraid of letting go of that anger, because…I’m not sure who I am without it. It’s been a part of who I am for so long. Look…I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve the things you said to me that night in the bar. Except to love you. I know I wasn’t good at it or that I could ever deserve you. I knew all of that then, which is why I tried to keep it from you. It was a burden that didn’t need sharing.”

“But I forced you…manipulated you,” she acknowledged, guiltily, her lips forming into a self-contemptuous twist. “I made you feel like you had no choice because I said I couldn’t trust you.”

“Yes.”

“I wanted information and I didn’t even know what to do with it once I got it. So stupid,” she derided, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Sharing that information…my feelings for you…screwed everything up, and we can never get that back.”

It was everything she didn’t want to hear, wrapped up in a single soul shattering sentence.

“Being around me afterwards was clearly so awkward and painful for you. I know it was painful for me. I just wanted to give some sense of normalcy back to you by leaving. You were supposed to forget about me.”

“That was never going to happen, Mon—Mike,” she stumbled over his name again. “Forgetting you was impossible. You meant…mean…too much to me.”

“You need to understand…that’s not how it felt.” Mike stuffed his hands into the front pocket of his jeans, attempted to fight off the dark feelings that welled within him when he thought of those lonely days. It was important, he knew, that they were speaking these truths to one another, opening themselves up, but that made it no less painful.

“I know,” she replied, her voice thick with emotion. “That’s on me and I’m so, so sorry.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Mike said, shaking his head with a sigh. “Apologies. I’ve heard enough of them from you to last a lifetime. And read them. I read your emails the other night, after you took off from the hospital,” he confessed. “I guess something inside me…needed to know.”

“You never read them,” she surmised. All the time she spent composing her apologies and exposing her vulnerabilities in writing, and he’d never even read them. All this time she’d thought he’d simply been unmoved.

“I didn’t have the will, I guess. I figured if I read them, they’d make me want to come crawling back. And I couldn’t have that.”

“I meant them,” she confessed, a blush rising up her neck. “Every word.”

After a moment of silence between them, he continued. “They were beautiful, Kara, and they confirmed what I think I’ve just come to realize – what I wasn’t ready to see back then. That for you, loving someone means having one more thing to lose. And I was right…they would have made me want to return to National City, to you, but…then nothing would have changed. For either of us. I look back now, with the life I’ve made for myself…the life I’ve earned for myself…and think, ‘that was no life for me.’”

“You’ve done very well,” she agreed, wishing she could tell him how proud she was of him, but knowing how inappropriately proprietary that would sound. She’d had nothing to do with creating the man that stood before her now, and could say nothing that implied otherwise. So instead she said, “You’ve become a man to be proud of. Being with me only held you back. Leaving was the right thing.” Her throat tightened as she said the words, as though her body was fighting the truth. “I see that now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she nodded, her eyes welling with tears. “I failed you in every way. Broke every promise I ever made to you.”

“Some of the promises you made, weren’t yours to fulfill, Kara. And you didn’t fail me in every way. You were the first to believe me,” he reminded her, with gratitude. “The first to give me a chance. You inspired me with your goodness and your empathy for others. I hadn’t seen much of that in my life, quite frankly. All I had ever known was that caring about people had consequences. Deadly ones. Usually for the very people I cared about. You gave me a glimpse at another way and for that I’ll always be thankful.”

“I never really knew you, did I?” she pondered, intrigued by the mentions of his past. A past that sounded traumatic and not at all like the privileged life she had imagined a prince might lead. “Part of me was afraid to ask because I didn’t want to remind you of everything you’d lost. But that was just an excuse. The truth is, I wanted to take what I saw at face value. I didn’t want to look too deeply. It wasn’t until you left I realized it was another way that I failed you.”

“How mad were you when they told you who I really was?” he inquired. Mike couldn’t help but wonder how that had all played out. Turned out that she’d never mentioned it in her emails. “Did they…even tell you?”

Kara nodded. “I wasn’t angry. I was never angry, Mon-Mike,” she reassured him. “You would have told me the truth if I hadn’t made it impossible for you to do so. I believe that. You were in distress, remember? And I had some pretty scathing opinions on the Prince of Daxam. I’m glad I know the truth now.”

“That I was the Prince of Daxam,” he said, saying it aloud for the first time since the day he left National City. The words formed clumsily around his tongue as though they were a foreign language to him.

“That the Prince of Daxam wasn’t who they said he was. That he was a good man,” she corrected. “That’s the truth I’m glad I know.”

“He wasn’t a good man,” Mike contended. “Maybe once, he could’ve been, but the boy’s father made certain that wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t until meeting you that he found that part of himself again. The part that his father stole from him.”

Kara knew then that she wanted to know every last thing there was to know about the man standing before her. Not just Mike Matthews, but Mon-El of Daxam as well. It was an opportunity she took for granted from the moment he woke from that stasis sleep after his crash landing. She had once vowed that if given the chance she would ask, she would delve beneath the surface she hadn’t bothered to scratch the first time around.

“I don’t know about any of that,” she said, reaching out to take his hand, before thinking better of it and pulling hers back. “About your past on Daxam, I mean. But I want to. I want to know everything, if you’ll let me.” She wanted to learn him inside and out – wanted that so desperately. She wanted the chance to do that so desperately.

“After reading your emails the other night I finally accepted something I’d been fighting for a long time.”

“What was that?”

“That you’re inescapable,” he confessed with a shrug, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. “That you have me trapped, Kara Zor-El, like the moon orbits the Earth, and I will never get out of your gravity no matter how far I run. That I don’t even want to. I figure the sooner I accept that…the better off I’ll be.”

Kara’s heart took flight, but she yanked it back to her side with ruthless efficiency before it could get too far. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “I’m not…sure what that means,” she confessed, honestly. “I know what I want it to mean, but I’m…afraid to hope for more.”

“I’m not sure what it means either, to be honest. I just know that trying to pretend you don’t exist isn’t working. Trying to make you believe I never existed clearly isn’t working. Maybe what it should mean is that we…try again.”

“Try again?” she asked, the hope in her voice painfully evident.

“There would have to be rules,” he insisted. “I need to be certain that we’re not going to repeat the same mistakes we made the first time around.”

No amount of rules could prevent her from taking a chance at having him back in her life again. “Yeah, you’re definitely a grade school teacher…with the rules,” she said, game for whatever would bring this six-year long nightmare to an end. “Name them.”

“I’ve been doing my own superhero thing for a while now, Kara, and I’ve been trained by the best. All of the best. I’m not a newbie anymore. I need you to recognize that.”

“I do,” she nodded enthusiastically. Like a fangirl, Kara had two scrapbook clippings full of articles of him doing his ‘superhero thing’.

“I’m going to need you to listen to me now,” he said. “I have opinions and thoughts and experiences that are different from yours. Those experiences have no less merit than yours and should be treated accordingly. I can help you, Kara, but only if you let me.”

Kara nodded. His demands were no less than the kind of respect he should have been afforded in the first place. But she’d been too bossy and too flush with the power of mentorship to notice the damage she was doing to the person she was supposed to be guiding. “I understand,” she agreed.

“We need to find a way to get past this, Kara. We can’t be friends if we’re constantly reminding each other of where it all went wrong. Can you understand that?”

Her sister’s words from earlier in the day when they’d been curled up under the goose down together came back to her in a rush. “We need a do-over!” she exclaimed.

“A…do-over.”

“Yeah, it’s when you want—“

“I teach second grade,” he reminded her. “I’m familiar with the concept of a ‘do-over’. It’s like rule #4 in playground etiquette.”

“Oh, right.”

“But grown-ups don’t get do-overs,” he announced. Then, with a tilt of his head asked, “Do they?”

“Why shouldn’t they?” Kara asked, her hands raised palms up. “Who says we can’t?”

“Right,” Mike nodded, as though conspiring with her. “Who says we can’t? It’s not like there’s a ‘Do-over Council’.”

“Definitely not,” she confirmed, her eyes finally sparkling again.

“Okay…just so we’re clear. A do-over means no throwing our past back in each other’s faces. No matter how mad we get about something.”

“No using the differences in our experience level against one another,” she added with a nod, her fingers twisting nervously around each other.

“No…ignoring my perfectly valid opinions because you think you know better.” Mike’s eyes squinted suspiciously as he watched her absorb that one. It was, in his judgement, perhaps the most important of all his conditions.

Kara only nodded in agreement. There was nothing she could say to his statement. All in all, the implication had been nothing but truth, and in some ways it was a microcosm of how their entire relationship had played out. “Again, I am so—“

“And no more apologies,” he finished, succinctly. “They’re just a reminder and we don’t need any more of those.”

When they’d first met all those years ago, after he’d landed on this planet, he’d been a person who had taken few things seriously. With the exception of her health and well-being, Mon-El had seen little in the world worth fighting for or protecting. A single glance into his eyes told her that was no longer the case. She no longer knew who this man was, but she was excited about the prospect of finding out. The bones were still there to be sure—the DNA—but so many deviations had seeped in and filled the cracks her negligence had left behind.

“No more apologies,” she echoed on a whisper.

Mike swallowed heavily. “So…that’s that, I guess. A fresh start.”

“Not quite,” Kara shook her head. “Just one more thing.” She held out her hand to Mike and said, “Hi. My name is Kara Zor-El. I’m from Krypton and like you…I’m a refugee on this planet.”

A wide grin split his face, like the sun breaking through thick cloud cover, and he responded by grasping her offered hand. “Lar Gand, Prince of Daxam,” he replied. “But my friends call me Mon-El. Or just…Mike. I’m not particular.”

“Lar Gand,” she repeated, her brow crinkling between her eyebrows.

“Only my parents called me that. And then only during formal occasions,” he confessed.

‘There’s so much I don’t know about you,” she said, sadness in her tone. “That I never knew.”

“The good news is…now there’s time to learn,” he reminded her.

“Do you…do you have to go soon?” she asked, hesitantly. She wanted him to stay for days, weeks…forever. Casting about for an excuse to get him to stay, something to ease into their new agreement, she struck upon an idea.

“I can stay for a while.”

“Do you like ‘Exploration Force’?” she inquired, hopefully.

“Man, I love that show!” he replied. “I missed the last episode because of the Dominators though.”

Like a switch had been flipped, her energy level surged and then peaked. “I know, I know. Me too! Thank goodness for whoever invented the DVR. Do you want to…?” She gestured towards her television set, still set to pause from the earlier movie.

“That would be great,” he rejoined. “I’ll warm up the pizza.”

“I’ll get the plates. Red wine?”

“Sounds good.”

It didn’t take long for them to curl up on the sofa, not entirely like old friends, but near enough. Kara keyed the remote until their show was playing, and together they discussed the characters and plotlines they loved about a show they both enjoyed, but had never before watched together.

It wasn’t without awkward moments—at first—but those eased away over the next two hours, as the missed episode slid seamlessly into the most recent offering. Kara wasn’t truly interested in the show, she could watch it later when she was alone, as she usually did, but rather the man sitting next to her on the couch. Having him there, near enough to smell his cologne was something she’d dreamed of for a very long time and she didn’t want to take a single moment of it for granted.

Similarly, he too was distracted by her presence, by the way her skin glowed, the way her tiny barrettes could barely contain her luscious hair, and by the way her deep V-neck of her t-shirt gave him a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage. His fingers itched to tug the barrettes from her hair and card recklessly through her silky locks, kissing her until her mouth moaned into his, hot breath mingling as their tongues tangled together.

For the first time since—he can’t remember when—he felt his blood heat and his body stir with long-lost urgency. It was a relief to know they still could.

When the show ended, another similarly themed program began but neither of them cared nor paid attention. Instead, they left the television running for background noise as they chatted and sipped on their wine, nursing the bottle, because they both knew the night would be over when they reached the bottom.

“Will you…tell me about Daxam?” she asked.

After a moment’s pause he launched into his life story, explaining his birthright and the merciless manner of his upbringing. He had never been comfortable in that life, wearing it like an ill-fitting suit that was too tight in unpleasant places. Perhaps the discontentment of it explained his relatively rapid adjustment to a new life on Earth. Or perhaps, in part, the credit could partially be laid at her feet. She suggested that it would not have been a leap to conclude that both reasons might have played a part in his desire to quickly acclimate to this planet.

While his body felt as though it was awakening from a six year hibernation, by contrast her body felt as though it hadn’t slept in years; not since his departure. And now that he was here again, once more in her life where he belonged, her body let down all of its protective wards, the compounded weariness of the last few years catching quickly up to her. As the minutes stretched into hours, it became increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open, despite her curiosity in the things he said.

Kara fought the sleepiness until it overtook her. She fell asleep on the sofa, facing him, her knees pulled up to her chest, her head leaning against the back of the couch. Mike kept talking, even after he knew she was down for the count, unwilling to admit that the night had come to an end.

Kara sat right in front of him, sleeping as though not even an alien invasion on the street below could wake her. He wondered if she was a light sleeper. Allowing her to slumber, Mike cleaned their mess, throwing out the pizza and pot sticker boxes as well as rinsing their wine glasses and setting them out to dry. Throughout his movements, she stirred not one iota. Mike switched off the kitchen and living room lights, leaving on a small light on over the stove as a night light. Even turning off the television and plunging the room into sudden silence did nothing to disturb her.

Despite their solar-provided abilities, sleeping in that position would leave her with a stiff neck in the morning, and undoubtedly cursing his name for not waking her.

In her bedroom, Mike pulled back the covers of her bed and tossed the throw pillows onto a chair in the corner where, he suspected, they spent much of their time anyway. Kara didn’t struggle in the slightest when he slipped one arm under her knees and the other around her back. In fact, she snuggled right into his chest, as if she belonged there (and part of him thought she did).

“Mon-El,” she mumbled, grabbing tightly to his flannel shirt with one hand. He could hear the flannel fabric straining to withstand her grip.

“I’ve got you,” he replied, placing a kiss on her forehead. Her fingers loosened slightly at the contact of her lips against her skin. His lips hovering against the soft skin of her temple, he breathed in her scent before gently laying her on the bed and pulling the sheets over her to tuck her in. He unclipped her barrettes and gave into the wish fulfillment of running his fingers through her hair. Two years of working with small children had taught him the way around little girls’ hair accoutrements. He’d long ago lost count of how many barrettes he’d replaced or how many braids he’d re-plaited. Setting the clips on the bedside table, Mike reached up to flip the switch on the lamp.

“No,” she mumbled, reaching for his arm. Her strength tugged him down until he was forced to take a seat on the edge of the mattress.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Afraid,” she moaned, still more than half-asleep.

“Afraid of what, Kara?” he inquired, sweeping a lock of hair from her forehead.

“Dreaming?” Kara lifted her head, her eyes blinking several times to clear the cobwebs. “Stay?” she asked. She didn’t want the night to end any more than he did, and by maintaining contact she could keep it going for a while longer. Maybe even until morning. “Stay with me?” she asked again, this time begging.

Mike was no fool. He knew that crawling under the covers with Kara, waking up with her, would be a bad idea. An idea that would likely end some place for which they might not be ready– at least not while she was half asleep. In the end, he made a decision he thought they’d both be able to live with in the morning, and beyond.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he told her. “I’ll be here when you wake up in the morning.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he echoed. “I’ll even make breakfast.”

“Mmmmm…pancakes,” she sighed, happily, her fear melting away.

Her fingers loosened the grasp they had on his shirt and released him so that he could finished tucking her in. With a final glance at her face in the soft light, Mike twisted the switch on the lamp and plunged the room in darkness.

In the living room, Mike kicked off his boots and unfurled the throw blanket hanging over the back of the sofa. He didn’t want to face a long flight home without the prospect of seeing her again first thing in the morning, any more than she wanted to stare into the abyss of a solid eight hours without knowing it hadn’t all been a dream. He understood her and was feeling exactly what she was feeling.

At home in his own bed, he would have tossed and turned all night thinking of her, of being here with her. Instead, crammed onto a sofa with his feet dangling off the end, a throw pillow tucked under his head, he drifted off to sleep in the space of few breaths.

For the first time in six years, Mike Matthews slept the sleep of the innocent the whole night through.

TBC

****

#karamel #karamel fic #bulletproof verse

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oxmarble28-blog · 5 years

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Baked Donuts Filled with Jelly (VIDEO)

Baked Donuts filled with jelly are incredibly soft, airy and melt-in-you-mouth delicious. Just like our donut holes, this homemade donut recipe is easy and always gets rave reviews!

Donuts are the ultimate comfort food. The aroma from the oven and the little hint of jelly peeking out of the side make these irresistible. I am a sucker for classic home-baked treats like blueberry muffins or chocolate chip banana bread and these baked donuts do not disappoint!

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Baked Donut Recipe:

Baked donuts are cotton-candy soft and fluffy. I remember my Mother making apple piroshki (Russian fried doughnuts) after school and it is one of the food memories I will always treasure. Baked yeast donuts are even easier and is a tradition I’m continuing with my own family.

I’ll take one of these over a Krispy Kreme any day because they are way more satisfying – the perfect balance of fluffy center to sugar coated surface without the greasy mouth feel and my belly is always happier eating a homemade baked donut!

Is it Donuts or Doughnuts?

Which is the correct spelling? This is heated debate because donuts… mmm doughnuts! There’s even a National Donut Day and it’s the first Friday of June. It is the ultimate comfort food. The real question is – when were doughnuts invented? ‘Doughnut’ is the original old-school spelling but ‘donuts’ took off when Dunkin’ Donuts launched in 1950.

Most people will search for “donuts” online and it is the clear winner in popularity. The dictionary now recognizes ‘donut’ as a variant of doughnut so the word doughnut came first but both terms are technically correct.

Here’s our argument – old school doughnuts are deep fried, but these are new school baked donuts so we called them so.

Are Baked Donuts Healthy?

To put it delicately, baked donuts are the healthier option compared to traditional deep-fried donuts. They don’t leave you feeling as guilty about your choices. You only need 1 Tbsp of melted butter to coat all 12 donuts! Are donuts good for you? In the end, they are still sugar covered carbs… glorious carbs! Eat responsibly.

What is the Best Filling for Donuts?

We enjoy changing up the type of jelly in these baked donuts; strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, huckleberry,.. you name it! Whether you are using jam, preserves or jelly, pick one that is:

Thick – a thick jelly won’t run out of the donut as easily

Fairly Smooth – so the piping tip doesn’t get clogged

Your favorite flavor – these are, after all, for you!

How to Make Cream Filled Donuts:

For a cream filling, you will need a stable, thick cream that won’t ooze out. The pastry cream from our eclairs is easy and excellent. Let the cream cool then fill the pastry bag fitted with a sharp tip and generously pipe into each donut.

For Cinnamon Sugar Donuts:

If you choose to omit the jam inside, you can add more flavor with a cinnamon sugar coating. In a small bowl, stir together and roll hot buttered donuts in this mixture:

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Love Glazed Donuts?

We enjoy these without glaze but if you desire glazed donuts, you can skip brushing with butter and rolling in sugar. Once donuts are cool enough to handle, dip into this glaze mixture then place on racks until glaze hardens:

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk or water

1 tsp vanilla extract

More Classic Home-Baked Treats:

Baked Donut Video Tutorial:

Watch Natasha make this easy and super fluffy baked donut recipe. P.S. There’s a guest star in this episode!

Baked Donuts Filled with Jelly

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 11 minutes

Rising Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Total Time: 41 minutes

Baked Donuts are incredibly soft, airy and melt-in-you-mouth delicious. This homemade donut recipe is easy and always gets rave reviews! The little hint of jelly peeking out of the side makes them irresistible.

Author: natashaskitchen

Skill Level: Easy

Cost to Make: $5-$7

Keyword: baked donut recipe, baked donuts

Calories: 211 kcal

Servings: 12 donuts

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour divided, plus more for dusting

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp instant yeast quick acting, (1 packet = 7 grams)

2/3 cup warm milk 110˚F - microwave 35 sec.

4 Tbsp unsalted butter melted, divided

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup jelly or jam (no large fruit pieces)

1/3 cup granulated sugar to roll donuts

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 1 /4 tsp (1 packet) instant yeast and 1/4 tsp salt.

Add warm milk, 3 Tbsp melted butter, 2 egg yolks and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and whisk vigorously to combine well.

Cover with plastic wrap and rest at room temperature 10 minutes, until some bubbles form on the surface.

Add remaining 1 1/2 cups flour, adding just enough until dough holds together and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Knead in the bowl 5 minutes. If dough is really sticking to your hands, dust lightly with flour then continue kneading with clean dry hands. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a 100˚F oven for 45 min or at room temperature for 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 375˚F with rack in the center of the oven.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll the dough out to just under 1/2” thick. Cut circles using a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter. Re-roll scraps if needed to make 12 donuts total. Place donuts on prepared baking sheet, cover with a tea towel and let rise in a 100˚F oven for 20 min or at room temperature 45 min, or until puffed. Bake uncovered in the center of a preheated oven at 375˚F for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden on top.

Right out of the oven, brush a hot bun all over with remaining 1 Tbsp melted butter and roll in a bowl of sugar to coat lightly with sugar. Cut a deep slit in the side of each donut and pipe jam with a pastry bag into each one.

Nutrition Facts

Baked Donuts Filled with Jelly

Amount Per Serving

Calories 211 Calories from Fat 45

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 5g 8%

Saturated Fat 2g 10%

Cholesterol 43mg 14%

Sodium 60mg 3%

Potassium 63mg 2%

Total Carbohydrates 37g 12%

Dietary Fiber 1g 4%

Sugars 15g

Protein 3g 6%

Vitamin A 3.5%

Vitamin C 1%

Calcium 2.7%

Iron 7.5%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen

Enjoy your home-baked donuts and “Do-nut Worry, be Happy!” I couldn’t resist! 😉

Source: https://natashaskitchen.com/baked-donuts/

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