#meant to (who probably don’t have any unfinished business to begin with) or ghosts who have broken some afterlife law like fineas has don’t | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

supergraphicultramoderngirl · 3 years

Text

sweet like the thunder on my tongue

pairing: willex

word count: 2786

tw for light swearing

It tumbles out of his mouth before he could even think about it: “But I don’t have any powers.”

Caleb smirks. “And who told you that?”

or, in which willie realizes his true strength.

taglist is in the reblogs, fic is under the cut!

—————

“Willie?”

The skater’s head pops up, cutting off the conversation he was having to look over at his boss.

“Can I see you for a moment? In my office?” Caleb gestures toward the stairwell.

Wordlessly, Willie follows him, only growing concerned when they walk right past the office and towards another room at the end of the hall which he’d never paid any mind to before. Was that door even there before? “Caleb, what’s going on?”

Caleb opened the door to the room and ushered him inside-- well, more shoved, but who is Willie to talk back to him right now-- while all Willie could do was look around and wait for Caleb to say something. The room was dark-- pitch black, actually, and he couldn’t see anything inside. He could now barely see his own hands, if not for the single hanging light above Caleb’s head as he stood in the hallway still, blocking the doorframe. With a wave of his fingers, Caleb pushed Willie down into some kind of, apparently, vantablack chair, metal clamps fastening around his wrists as soon as he reached the seat. Caleb leaned against the doorframe, seemingly inspecting his nails. “You’ve betrayed me, William.”

Willie steels himself, squeezing his eyelids shut, and replies, “I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His efforts to cover his tracks were pitiful, to be completely honest. He wasn’t sure how much energy he had left at that point; before he’d met the band— before he’d met Alex— he thought that the best thing about the afterlife was that he could do what he wanted for as long as he wanted, day in and day out, as long as he came back to the club to do the shows. But now, his entire perspective has been shaken up, and he’s honestly gotten sick of doing the same things every single day. Why should he go see the same sights he’s seen since 1983 when he could be screaming in a museum, or stealing an entire fucking bus, or anything that can actually make a connection between him and another person?

Except, now he can’t even do that anymore. His connections are gone. They all crossed over (except for Julie, who never saw him in the first place), and he was left to his own devices, again. Willie isn’t sure what else there is for him to do, and in all transparency, if he hasn’t figured out his unfinished business yet, he doubts he ever will. Caleb putting him out of his misery now would probably just save him a lot of trouble.

“Don’t be coy,” Caleb jabs at him, standing up straight. “After all I’ve done for you? I gave you a place to stay, food to eat, things to do, and this is how you repay me? You help my recruits escape?”

Willie sighs, the helplessness beginning to overwhelm him. “What does it matter, anyway? They’ve crossed over, you don’t have competition anymore, right?”

“William, the boys are still out there. And they’ve lost their stamps.” Willie freezes. They lost their stamps? Alex is alive— or, at least, as alive as he can be? “Regardless, I have never been worried about competition. Those boys have power, power that could rival my own. I can’t just have that out there in the world, where it could fall into the wrong hands, now, can I?” Caleb sneers, a sickenly sweet smirk on his face.

Furrowing his brows, Willie rushes out in reply, “They’re playing in a pop rock band, they’re practically harmless, what could they even—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Caleb interrupts, his icy eyes boring into Willie’s own.

Willie shuts his mouth and swallows his nerves. And maybe his pride.

Caleb leans forward, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. “I can’t have anyone’s power rival my own. That would steal away my precious audience, my empire that I’ve built over the last hundred years. Every ghost in my club would otherwise be a threat to me, had they not signed away their powers when they sold me their souls. With their powers under my possession, I have full reign over any paranormal capabilities that this world could possibly hold.” He stands back up. “I’ve kept my enemies close, you could say.”

It tumbles out of his mouth before he could even think about it: “But I don’t have any powers.”

Caleb smirks. “And who told you that?”

Willie was looking right at him. He feels no need to answer, and even if he wanted to, his mouth is going dry and there’s a lump in his throat preventing him from doing anything other than remaining still.

“Don’t get your hopes up about the boys still being here, William,” Caleb says after a moment. “They won’t be when you get out.” He slams the door, leaving Willie in the room, with nothing but dark, dark, dark, alone.

***

“Alright, where’s our first stop?” Luke asks as Julie shrugs her backpack over her shoulder and takes a sip from her water bottle. She and the boys were walking down Sunset Boulevard, her with Airpods in so she could talk to the boys without getting odd looks from others. Julie was planning a sleepover with Flynn for the following night, and the boys jumped at the chance to help her run errands, since hanging out in the studio was getting a little boring.

“Can we stop for pizza? I know we can’t eat it, but at least I can smell it!” Reggie pleads, using his puppy dog eyes.

“Reg, that face only works on Luke and Alex. You can smell it tomorrow night when she’s over, yeah?” Julie jokes. “I was thinking—”

A dark, purple smoke appears in front of them, causing them to stumble and still themselves, the boys’ faces all paling once they realize who’s in front of them.

Caleb smiles, sickeningly sweet. “Hello, boys. And you must be Julie.”

***

He has powers.

Willie has powers, and he hadn’t known this entire fucking time.

This guy, who was supposed to be Willie’s mentor for the past, who knows, thirty-ish years now, who he had once looked up to, who had taken him in has his own, who had given him a way to keep track of time again, who somehow knew he had powers that he couldn’t manage on his own, did all of it for his own advantage. He used him to gain more power and control, while making Willie think he cared. Thirty fucking years.

Right now, he’s trapped in this room, yeah, but Willie feels more suffocated by the hurt and confusion surrounding him more than anything else. He can’t stand that Alex and the boys are probably out there right now, about to be destroyed by Caleb, because of him, again. He hates that nearly all of his afterlife has just been a giant fucking lie. And with these stupid new-but-not-really powers, he doesn’t even know where to start. So, he does what he knows best.

Willie screams.

He cries a bit too, but mostly he screams until his voice grows hoarse.

Ever since he passed away, he’s always loved the feeling that grows in his chest when he screams, knowing that he can just take up so much space without anyone (or at least, anyone important) hearing. It hurts sometimes, obviously, but really it just feels like lightning forming in his veins, sparking against his the walls of his skin, ready to burst through.

He doesn’t notice until he takes a gasp for air that this time, it actually has.

Willie gasps again, this time in shock. It’s a bright, brilliant green, wires of light darting across his fingertips and palms. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

Willie squeezes his eyes shut and makes two fists, willing the stinging of the lightning to go away by distracting himself with the stinging of his own fingernails. He realizes then that he’s created light, that he’s given himself a way out, so he reopens his hands and holds them out, looking for the door that Caleb had previously slammed. He spots it and moves to get up, almost forgetting about his arm braces. He curses under his breath, and begins to rack his brain for a way out of them, the green still dancing around his arms.

He screams again.

***

They’d been cornered into an alleyway, which was probably best for any bystander’s sanity, anyway, but it meant that they were trapped by Caleb. Again.

“What do you want with us?” Luke had asked when Caleb first appeared, walking in front of Julie with a guarding arm.

Caleb had sighed in reply, taking a step forward, “Oh, I’ve decided I don’t need you three anymore. You’re not of any use to me, not without your lifer by your side. Without a life source, you’re about as powerful as any other regular ghost. I just need her.”

Luke stood fully in front of Julie then, Reggie and Alex flanking him to protect her. “You will never get to her,” Alex had chimed in, ice in his tone.

“Bold statement from someone who still chooses to hide behind his friends.” Alex had looked down at his shoes in shame, face turning red. “Oh, don’t worry, we all know you’re not brave enough to take me on by yourself,” Caleb chuckled to himself. “Besides, you boys seem to have forgotten how powerful I am— or can we do without the reminder?” Caleb added, lifting his hand as a wisp of purple smoke curled around it.

Now, after putting up a decent fight, they stand against the building as dark purple webs tangle over them, effectively pinning them down. Julie strains against them as they burn into her skin, pointedly not looking at Caleb who is inches away. Caleb puts a finger to her chin, causing her to look into his eyes. Julie sucks on her teeth, willing herself not to cry any more than she already has. “Quite a shame that such talent, such heart has to go to waste,” Caleb says, before his hand begins to glow in a manner that Julie knows could only lead to her demise.

He’s interrupted, however, by a slew of car alarms going off. Caleb swivels his head to look over at the main road, now realizing that it’s… empty?

Almost moving to walk over, Caleb hesitates just enough for the webs’ strength to weaken, and the boys poof out of their hold. They immediately begin trying to pull the web of magic off of Julie, succeeding in doing so once they notice that Caleb’s attention is no longer on them. He’s in the road now, staring down the horizon line.

“He’s distracted now, let’s poof to the studio to buy some time,” Reggie says, but Luke quickly counters, “Julie can’t poof. We would have to go back down the road, anyway.”

While Luke and Reggie are trying to figure out what to do, Julie’s eyes stray over to Alex, who is now peering around the corner of the building, eyebrows furrowed. He suddenly runs over to the road, and Julie calls after him. The three run to catch up to Alex and stand in terror just a few feet behind Caleb, who is still seemingly frozen in place.

They feel it before they can see it.

The hair on their arms and the backs of their necks begin to stand on end, a quiet humming in the atmosphere causing an adrenaline rush kind of energy around them. The humming thrums into a pulse, concentrating around what Caleb must’ve been looking at; a sharp, sparking green light floating in the air down the road. It grows bigger and bigger, until a silhouette suddenly appears in its place, looking at the ground. “Hey, Caleb!”

Alex’s heart stops when he realizes who it is.

Willie looks up from the ground and begins to make his way over, thunderous step by thunderous step. His eyes shine fully in bright green, almost like the lightning inside of him was leaking out. He reaches forward and a beam of crackling light shoots forward, splitting and clasping itself around Caleb’s wrists in constraint. With rumbling intensity, Willie continues, “You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me my entire afterlife, pretending to care. Every time you stamped someone, you told me it was because they would be dangerous otherwise, that you were just ‘protecting the ghost world’, and then you turn and do it to my friends. You’ve hurt me, you’ve hurt the people I care about, and it doesn’t even matter to you. I don’t even want to know the number of other ghosts you’ve screwed over like you have us.” Willie heaves in a breath, his arm beginning to shake as Caleb tries to overpower him with his own powers. “I can’t let you do this anymore.”

Caleb grits through his teeth, “You don’t get much of a say, William, I own you.”

“Not anymore.” Willie screams again, causing the beam shooting out of his palm to reinforce itself, the sparks around Caleb’s wrists slowly crawling around his skin until it looked like his veins were filled with light. “You aren’t strong enough to beat me, William, I know you more than you know yourself. You can’t do this,” Caleb tries, but Willie just screams louder, drowning him out.

The screams nearly shake the air, causing Julie to lean on Luke for support, with Reggie resting a hand on her shoulder. Alex wants to reach out, to do something, but he knows there’s nothing he really can do to help. He knew Willie was one of a kind, it was obvious from every interaction they’d had up to that point, but he never expected him to be that powerful. It was terrifying, if he was being honest. And Alex didn’t want to be scared of him, especially while he was literally putting his life on the line for them, but it was almost as if Willie was losing control.

Wait.

A small, dwindling purple smoke emits from Caleb’s palms, encircling the cuffs on his wrists, and the green light inside of him dims. Willie is panting in between his screams, running out of energy. Inhaling sharply, Alex doesn’t think twice before bolting over to him, ignoring the protests from his friends.

Alex stands behind him and grips his hands onto Willie’s shoulders, focusing all of his energy into his fingertips, just like he had on that day in the museum. And, just like that day, he screams with Willie, hoping and praying to a god he no longer believes in that it helps, that it works.

It does.

The lightning bursts out at a rapid speed, nearly enveloping Caleb, almost as if it was tearing him apart, atom by atom. It grows brighter, and brighter, and brighter, until—

He’s gone. Small ashes lie in the spot where Caleb once stood, now dissipated into thin air.

Willie collapses to the ground in exhaustion and Alex grasps onto him, as if he’ll disappear himself if he lets go. After a brief moment, Willie takes a sharp breath, wincing in a burning, stinging type of pain, and lets out a breath of relief once it goes away. He knows exactly what that was, he could feel it; his soul was finally back in his body.

Willie looks down at his wrist. The familiar stamp from the Hollywood Ghost Club is still there, however it no longer has its signature purple sheen. It’s black and faded now, like a thirty-year-old tattoo he’s come to regret.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, pulling away, his face the picture of worry. Willie notices then that Julie, Luke, and Reggie are knelt next to him, too, their own expressions almost as bad as Alex’s.

Willie smiles a sad smile. It’s a weak thing, but it’s genuine. “You’re still here.”

Recognition washes over Alex’s face, and he softly lifts his hand to Willie’s chin. “Of course I am. I told you, I’d follow you anywhere, yeah?”

Willie chuckles and ducks his head. “Yeah, well, somehow, you did.”

Alex lightly pulls on his chin so he can look him in the eye, a burning intensity present there that Willie hasn’t seen in, well, thirty years. “We can explain that later, okay? I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Willie does a small nod. “I will be.”

Alex pulls him back into a tight hug, and Willie sinks into his arms. He knows they’ll both ask questions later; all that matters right now is that they’re there, that they’ve got each other.

And now, they always will.

#sweet like the thunder on my tongue fic #mari writes #willex #willie jatp #alex mercer #jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex fic #jatp fic

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cyclogenesis · 3 years

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i have to tell you that the second i saw cal and ash on that mountain getaway a couple weeks ago, i thought about how desperately i would love a sequel to your turks & caicos fic set during that trip. (this is not a request, i promise, i just wanted to tell you bc that is one of my fav fics of all time)

Aw anon!! 🥺 Gosh I hadn't even thought about that when I was in my feelings about the mountain getaway pictures, which is wild because I am just remembering now that I started a fic after the honeymoon comment initially happened (like, very soon after, because @elliebirdthings was at that show and told me about it and we were freaking out haha), before we knew that they went to Turks & Caicos, and I had them taking that trip to a cabin in Maine.

Just for kicks, because this message made me smile and I love you for that, here's the beginning of that fic. It's unfinished obviously (not even any kissing!), but there's some nice stuff in there I think. This fic was going to be titled A whole fucking lifetime of this after the American Pleasure Club album which was a title I should have kept, goddammit. Also randomly in here I have them driving to the cabin while listening to My Bloody Valentine, who Ashton later called out as one of his main influences for Superbloom.

1600 words of unfinished Cashton under the cut! 😘

The day after the last meeting about the promo schedule the dressing room conversation turns, as it does, to plans for the break. It’s a month out, but they’ve to a man developed a fetish for planning their free time carefully as soon as the schedule’s set. Planning things makes Ashton feel like a grown-up. He likes renting cars. Sometimes he scrolls through AirBnB for hours just to see what’s out there.

“I’m going straight back, we got Dodgers tickets,” Michael says.

“I remember when you used to say ‘we’ and it meant you and me,” Calum says. He wiggles a little from where he’s snuggled against Michael on the couch like he wants to get away, but of course Michael doesn’t let him. Ashton thinks he probably wasn’t really trying.

“Aw, you’ll always be my first love,” Michael tells him, squeezing Calum to him more tightly. “You wanna make out just for old times sake?”

“I do not,” says Calum, but he lets Michael give him a big kiss on the forehead, his face squinching up happily.

“I just wanna get away for a bit, no work or social media or anything,” says Ashton, ignoring their tomfoolery. “A little cabin by a lake somewhere.”

“Oh yeah?” Luke says. “Where are you and Cal going this time?”

“Maine,” Calum says, at the same time as Ashton says, “Why would you assume we’re going somewhere together?”

A small silence falls over the room.

With dignity, Ashton says, “Calum and I are going to Maine.”

“Just get out in front of it this time,” Michael advises. “Let everyone know it’s another honeymoon. Take control of the narrative.”

“How many times can you go on a honeymoon before you have to acknowledge that you’re married?” Luke asks nobody in particular.

“It’s a bro trip,” Ashton says firmly. “For bros.”

“It’s very bromantic,” Luke says. “It’s okay, I’m not hurt I wasn’t invited. I love going back to LA and jerking off alone.”

“It’s nice that we’ve all got plans,” Calum says. He’s settled peacefully back against Michael, Michael absently petting his hair.

“It’s not a honeymoon,” Ashton insists.

Whatever, Ashton called it what he called it, okay? Might as well control the narrative.

Over drinks at the bar after their last show Calum asks, “Where would you want to go on your honeymoon, anyway? Somewhere new?”

Ashton pokes at the ice in his cocktail with his straw. Aren’t they supposed to not be using straws anymore because of the ocean or whatever? Ashton loves the ocean, it’s very important to him. Also this cocktail sucks. “Can I try your drink?” he asks. “I don’t love mine.” Calum has something with ginger in it, and bubbles. Calum slides his obligingly over, and Ashton passes his own over to be fair.

“I like yours better,” Calum says after a sip. “You wanna trade?”

Sometimes Ashton does believe in soulmates. “Yes, thank you.” He takes a long drink. “It would be nice to spend more time in Italy. Not one of the tourist-y parts though, somewhere quiet. Up north, maybe, one of the smaller towns.” He tries to picture what it would be like: olive groves, blue skies, stone churches. An old villa with lemon trees and a view of the hills. He’s so used to traveling with the band or just with Calum that it’s hard to picture anyone else there with him. They’re all as prone as anyone to get swept up with girls to the exclusion of most everything else, but Ashton can’t really imagine a future without seeing Calum all the time, without talking to him every day. Maybe he and Calum could just get married around the same time and they could all go on a honeymoon together.

“Yeah, that’d be pretty nice,” Calum says, looking wistful. Ashton wants to take a picture of him, capture the way a curl rests against his temple, how the blue neon lights behind the bar hit the glitter he let Ashton smear on his cheekbones before the show. They made a no social media pledge for this trip but Ashton’s bringing his camera anyway. He has to keep in practice, doesn’t he? Anyway, it’s important to capture these memories.

“Maybe we should just go,” Ashton tells him. “Why not? Who knows how long it could take for me to fool someone into living with this forever?” He sucks down the last of his drink, feeling sorry for himself now. What if he falls in love and she moves in and Calum stops coming over in the morning to walk to their favorite coffee shop together, and stops picking Ashton up so they can go hike Runyon, and stops bringing Duke over like he owns the damn place and doesn’t care about the dog hair that Ashton has to hoover off his couch pillows? That would be terrible. Worst of all, what if it was Ashton that suddenly wanted those things to stop?

“I’ll live with you forever,” Calum says, too busy flagging down the bartender to intuit Ashton’s emotional crisis. He gestures to Ashton’s empty drink. “Another one of those, right?” His own is still half full. Maybe he didn’t really like Ashton’s better after all.

“Yeah, thanks man,” Ashton sighs.

Calum bumps his knee against Ashton’s, the barstool squeaking beneath him. “Ash, you’re gonna find somebody if that’s what you want. Anyone would be the luckiest person alive to be with you. Maybe we could do Italy after the tour wraps, we’ll finish in Spain so it won’t be far.”

The thought cheers Ashton a bit; that’s a decent amount of time to get on AirBnB and see what he can find that’s available. It’ll be nice to have something to look forward to, Italian sunshine and limoncello and the quiet.

“Mike and Luke will definitely give us shit though about planning another honeymoon while we’re still on this one,” Calum says.

“Let ‘em,” says Ashton.

It’s not a long flight but it’s a bit of a drive from there to get to the cabin. But Calum said he wanted something remote and quiet, so it’s worth the wait, the drive in the dark. There’s moonlight, anyway, and Calum took the wheel, getting them the rest of the way there in their little silver Prius rental. He puts on My Bloody Valentine and sings along, low and comforting to listen to after so many days straight of playing, of promo. Halfway through the trip Ashton thinks he sees a shooting star, maybe thought he dreamed it until he felt Calum’s soft nudge of knuckles against his arm, heard his quiet, “You see that, bro?”

The way gets bumpy, thick with trees, dark and hard to navigate once they turn off the main road. At the end of it all there’s the cabin, looming in the dark, lights left on for them and the key exactly where it’s supposed to be. It’s past one a.m. but they still give the place a wander, stopping at the largest bedroom facing the lake. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Ashton sees trees, darkness, the black glitter of water under starlight. Calum asks, “You want this one?”

Ashton looks further and just sees more darkness. “It’s kind of unnerving at night,” he says. “Anyone could be out there.” The other bedroom has smaller windows, but the point stands. “Do you wanna just watch TV or something in here and then decide?”

“If we get axe murdered here I hope our ghosts come back and leave a one star review,” Calum says, but he’s already shrugging his duffel off his shoulders and kicking off his shoes.

The host left them a bottle of pinot grigio so Ashton pours up a few glasses while Calum strips down to his boxers and gets in bed. The boxers have cartoon pugs all over them. “I can’t believe that’s the lingerie you’re wearing for our honeymoon,” Ashton says, handing him a glass. “I also can’t believe those boxers even exist.”

Calum raises it to him in a salute and takes a sip. “These boxers are fantastic, but I guess if you want me to take them off…” he trails off, eyebrow raised, thumb hooked in the waistband pushing them down past his hipbone, then further until Ashton can see the crease of his thigh.

“No, no,” Ashton says hurriedly, “I’m just saying, what’s wrong with a nice pair of footie pajamas? Keeps you warm. Keeps you modest.” Nevertheless he shucks his own clothes except for his own (very grown-up, perfectly normal, in a flattering shade of dark green) boxers and joins Calum in bed. Calum’s already stopped paying attention to him, too busy trying to figure out how to work the remote. He finally gets the screen to flash on, and Ashton stays quiet, sipping his wine while Calum flips channels, finally landing on something in black and white. Cary Grant comes on screen but Ashton still isn’t sure what movie it is; Calum seems interested enough, setting the remote down between them, so he doesn’t complain. The wine goes down easy and Ashton does too after not too long.

He rolls onto his side and sees that Calum’s eyes are already closed. It doesn’t look like he’s asleep yet; it always takes him a bit, leaving him in a dozy stage for about ten minutes during which he might respond crankily to any communication or with adorable mumbling affection. Ashton turns the sound down and says, as quietly as he can, “TV off?” Calum’s eyes don’t open, but he nods a little. “Okay. You want me to go sleep in the other room?”

Calum moves then, a sleepy shift of his body, fumbling a hand up and blindly patting the sheet until he makes contact with Ashton’s hand on the remote and squeezes it, links their fingers together like he can’t quite figure out how to make it work. It feels nice. “’S’okay,” he murmurs. “Stay here.”

Ashton didn’t feel like getting up anyway.

#asks #anonymous #cashton #my fic #5sos #extremely hurtful btw to look at my 5sos unfinished fic folder #1k of lashton living together #2k of cashton h/c #2k of ot4 #4k of mashton that was going to become ot4 #6k of calum/ashton/luke which is the one i'm probably most mad about it bc there's so much good stuff in there #rip my sweet children you were fun while you lasted #OH MY GOD and the almost 5k of michael/luke in an au where 5sos were a queercore band #i am sorry stories!! i wanted better for all of you!!!!!

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caitlinsnicket · 4 years

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What about it? What about us?

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Summary: When Lee left one year ago, he thought he would never see you again. He also thought he wouldn’t miss you, or feel hurt. Turns out, both of these assumptions were wrong. Is it too late to fix his mistakes? Or there’s still something left?

Characters: Lee Scoresby, Hester, Y/N, D/N, OC’s.

Warnings: Angst, some curse words, suggestive commentary and suggestive scene (nothing graphic, just a make-out scene and flirting passive-agressivily).

A/N: HI I’M ALIVE. So, this was requested by a friend and at first it was supposed to be a one-shot, but now it’s going to be a series. This is the begining, and I have no idea when the next chapter will come out.

The city name was created by a random name generator I found online. Flashbacks are in italic. D/N stands for Daemon’s name.

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves. Feel free to like, reblog, or leave a comment! Requests are still closed, but I hope by next month I will be able to open it.

If Lee knew where his next job would be, he wouldn’t have accepted it. Hester kept snorting at him and suggesting just canceling it. But truth be told?

Lee actually wanted to go there.

In his balloon, heading to the town he left one year ago, Lee tried to think of what to say. A simple “hi” wouldn’t be enough. Explaining things would probably make it worse. And pretending nothing happened would destroy any chance of reconciliation. Did he want a reconciliation? Lee looked over to where Hester was sat at, looking for help.

“You deal with this yourself. We both know how we felt before leaving, and you did it anyway. Don’t come to me now that you want an answer when you ignored everything I said before”.

She was sorrowful, and he couldn’t blame her, because he felt the same, both because of the situation and because of himself. But he knew she also felt his fear and his regret, she was just trying to make him feel guilty for the decision in a moment of fear.

But fear of what exactly?

When he was offered this job, delivering the payment from a stupid rich man to a gang member (or something along these lines, he wasn’t paying much attention), he was confident. He could get shot, he could lose the money, he could die, literally anything could happen. Still, he felt at ease through all the explanations. But at the moment the man said that the name of the city was Urchase...

He almost fell from his chair. It couldn’t be right, right? But it was, and as he started to see the sights of the city through the clouds, he felt a mixture of fear and excitement. He was less scared of a gunfight than he was to see her. The balloon started to lose height, and Hester jumped around nervously.

The next minutes passed like a blur, until the moment he hopped off of the balloon and sat foot in the ground.

“If you don’t calm yourself down I’m going to start squeaking very loudly and I’m going to embarrass both of us”.

He didn’t realize his heart was beating that loud, or that his hands were sweating that much, and he felt a shudder running through his body as he took in the sight of the city. It hadn’t changed a bit: the houses had the same old and cozy aspect, the small stores not too full nor too empty and people passing by to do their chores.

And the alley where Y/N and he had encountered each other a few times before things got serious.

He felt himself drifting off to a daydream that tasted like a memory, and he swore he still could feel her warmth against his hands.

Y/N chuckled darkly as Lee kissed her neck, his hands holding her hips in place. Y/N also had her hands buried in the dark hair at the back of his head, pulling lightly in some moments. Their daemons were in the ground.

“What are you laughing about sweetheart?” He asked, lifting her skirt slightly.

“I just think it’s funny that you said you ‘meant no business’ with me” Y/N mumbled, engulfed in his embrace but also trying to make an impression of him. She pulled him back to her eyesight, biting her lip slightly. “But now your hands are trying to get under my skirt”.

Lee had never seen a woman look so wild and beautiful like that before. It was like she was going to eat him alive, and honestly, he would let her. He would let her do anything to him, she just had to ask-

“So, what do you want?”.

He still hated himself for what he said after.

That conversation, that indeed evolved into a night of great fun, defined their whole relationship, and he was entirely responsible for that. Sometimes, he wishes he had just kissed her one more time, and leave it at that.

But no. He had to open his smart mouth.

“We have to go see her. You know that. They’ll kill you if you just show up saying that you have their payment. A local will guarantee our safety. And you need to grow some balls” Hester said, going slightly to that direction, but not too far.

“You mean we. We have to grow some balls. You are a part of me, remember?” Lee said, following her too slowly for her liking.

“I’m the smart part of you. The part that is aware of its own feelings. The part that-”.

Before she could finish, he almost ran to that direction, and she cursed under her breath as she followed him. She knew he could listen, so she made sure to curse as clearly in her mind as she could.

That direction meant the place where she worked, a pharmacy that sold a little of everything. She and her co-workers were probably the most known people in the city, so she was the logical choice.

Nothing to do with their unfinished matters, of course not.

And there he was, in front of the once yellow store, trying to see something through the windows: a glimpse of your hair, your clothes or D/N, your daemon. But the lights inside the pharmacy weren’t bright enough, and the windows were too dusty to make sense of any shapes from the inside.

He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t shaking. He tried to convince Hester as well.

“If you’re so calm, let’s get inside already” the hare mumbled loudly enough for him to hear.

He took a deep breath. Fuck it. Whatever happens, will be closure. It will be good for everybody.

So, he walked up to the door and opened it.

Besides her, only two other people were inside the store. But he couldn’t pay attention to them, because she was practically glowing.

Y/N had always been a beautiful creature, and she was one of the only women who had made him tremble with only one look. Her H/C hair was framing her face, the most beautiful face he’d ever seen. Her hands, quick as always, worked in whatever she was doing, and he remembered kissing those fingertips. He remembered her lips, her neck, her eyes glowing back at him.

And then she looked up.

At first, she had a slight smile in her face, that smile that came easily and that he loved provoking. Her laugh was also the prettiest song he’d ever heard. But then, her smile died. She was serious, then concentrated, angry, then relieved. She came from behind the counter, and slowly walked up to him, D/N behind her.

She seemed to be struggling with something but said nothing as she stood in front of him, looking at him like he was a ghost. He decided to speak first, to at least break the ice.

“Y/N, it’s good to see-”

And then, she punched him.

#His Dark Materials #his dark materials imagine #lee scoresby #lee scoresby imagine #lee scoresby x reader #lee scoresby x y/n

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divineluce · 3 years

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A Spirited Discussion || Jasmine & Luce

Timing: Backdated to Early December

Location: The Vural Residence

Tagging: @halequeenjas & @divineluce

Description: Back when Jas was staying at the Vural House, Luce had some questions about ghosts. Who better to ask than someone she’s despised since middle school?

It was entirely unsurprising to Jasmine that Beatrice opened up her home to her. Bea had always kind of been the mom friend and she loved that about her. In a lot of ways, it brought her back to a simpler time. A time where late-night secrets were whispered and hushed laughter was shared. Having lost Bea before, it made those small moments seem that much more precious. It almost completely made up for the fact she was missing her bed and luxury sheets. Almost. She had no appointments this morning, so she found herself alone in the kitchen with coffee Bea had made earlier that morning. She had made herself cozy at the table with her coffee and a muffin when she heard footsteps. She assumed it was Nellie, but was surprised to see Luce joining her at the table. She feigned shock and joked, “What have I done for the ever-elusive Luce to join me for a cup of coffee on this fine Saturday morning?” She thought of throwing in she’d have to add it to her calendar as the anniversary of the day Luce willingly spent some time with her, but she wasn’t going to push her luck.

Luce felt like shit. That had been the vibe for most of her days as of late, so she shouldn’t have been too surprised by it. It only made sense, right? You get talked into killing someone by an angry teenager, you fucking light a bitch up in a back alley and then… you feel like shit. Every night, she was haunted by what she’d done that day, the image of Lydia’s melting skin, wreathed in her fire seared into her mind. Some nights, she stayed awake for as long as she could, trying to put off the nightmares as much as possible. Running a charcoal smeared hand through her hair, Luce tossed the pencil back on her desk. She could smell coffee wafting from the kitchen and she let out a sigh. Maybe that would help her feel less like this. Leaving the mess of swirls and jagged lines, she made her way out to the kitchen and her eyes narrowed when she saw Jasmine. Sitting. In her spot. “Just make yourself at fucking home, I guess.” She muttered under her breath as she grabbed a mug from the cupboard. “Just here for the coffee. You’re an unexpected addition, just like most of the people who wind up sitting here in the morning. ” Luce replied, filling the mug nearly to the brim, with just enough space for a splash of milk. Adam, he’d apparently stayed here for a bit. And Blanche had been here too, Winston a few times, before they’d left town entirely. They were just a fucking pitstop of half the town, weren’t they

Had she been a less secure person, Luce’s disdain toward her might have bothered her. However, Jasmine just had an amused look on her face as she sipped on the coffee. She smirked as she retorted, “Well, Bea did tell me to make myself at home.” With a shrug, she glanced back down at the book she had been reading with her breakfast. She’d still been looking into more powerful destruction exorcisms for Larry Bob. It still made little sense to her that the previous one hadn’t worked. She flipped the book shut and decided she’d rather annoy Luce than herself. “You mean, you’re not here for the delightful company I provide,” she joked with a feigned sense of hurt. Maybe she should let Luce actually get some coffee in her before pissing her off, but where was the fun in that? “I’m kidding, I know for whatever reason you can’t stand me… which rude, but my feelings aren’t hurt. I’d still whack a ghost for you… Vampire shows up you’re on your own though.”

“Yeah, that’s just shit people say when they’re being polite. You’ve shown enough houses, you should know that by now.” Luce said over the rim of her coffee mug and took a sip. Bea had made the coffee, she could tell. There was something about the way that she brewed it that was just different-- she couldn’t put her thumb on what it was, but it reminded her that this place was home. Grabbing a couple slices of bread from the cabinet, she stuck them in the toaster and pressed the lever down. She’d just make some breakfast and then fuck off back to her room. Luce glanced over at the other woman with an arched eyebrow. “Uh huh, for whatever reason.” She said, reminded of Jas’ continuous presence around their family home when they were growing up. But, her annoyed expression was broken when she heard the other woman’s words. Casting a sidelong look at the book that sat shut on the table, Luce tilted her chin to it. “What’s that? And… what do you mean, whacking a ghost for me?” She asked, cautious.

“I think Bea and I are far past politeness and faux niceties,” Jasmine chided before she took another bite from her muffin that Bea had been all too excited to make. Even the coffee tasted better somehow. It was something she always relished during their monthly brunch dates. Though a small smirk was present on her face, she shook her head. “I said what I said. Not that I’m too bothered, I don’t require anyone’s approval but my own.” She watched the annoyed expression fade from Luce’s face. Was it a surprise there? Did Luce not realize she was an exorcist? Sure, they didn’t talk to each other much, but she assumed Bea or Nell had at least mentioned it before. “You know, like--” she made a whacking motion with her arms like she was hitting a ghost with one of her iron rods. Her features scrunched up with confusion. “Did you not know I’m an exorcist? Who do you think put the wards up here?”

“You sure fucking don’t.” Luce muttered over her mug, taking a long drink as she waited for the toaster to do it’s thing. If her magic was behaving normally, she’d just take the bread back to her room and toast it there, but… with how it’d be haved when she’d helped Adam dispel the Mortasheen from the beach. She had a feeling that she’d have better lucky shining a magnifying glass to the pieces of bread. No, better to suffer through Jas’ company and leave. As Jas made a swinging gesture, Luce rolled her eyes. “No shit I know you’re an exorcist. I just didn’t think that by exorcising ghosts you were straight up murdering them. I thought it was like… I don’t know, you getting your Jennifer Love Hewitt on.” She said shifting uncomfortably. Was Nadia a ghost? Could she be killed like this? Double killed or whatever?

Jasmine was confused now. Why would Luce think she murdered ghosts? Not that you could really kill what was dead, but she supposed sometimes she did have to actually destroy a soul. “Wait, what do you mean? I don’t murder ghosts. I meant whack is in like literal whacking. With an iron rod to get them to fuck off. Sometimes you’re not always ready for an impromptu exorcism in the middle of a Chili’s or whatever.” She mused further holding her coffee mug close to her, “I guess technically for poltergeists or demons I destroy their souls though one can argue there’s little left of their soul at that point-- For the most part, it’s just forcing ghosts to move on or you know, not hijack someone else’s body.”

“I don’t know how ghost shit works!” Luce said defensively. Because she really fucking didn’t. She’d read the books that Rio had given her-- which, she realized, were still sitting in her room. She should probably give those back to him. That would be one hell of an awkward conversation. “Uh huh, you, in a Chilis. That seems a lot less likely to happen than you double killing a ghost.” She said with a grimace. “Is there any way to get rid of ghosts for good? Or, if someone had been possessed before, does that make them like… extra enticing for poltergeists and shit to get back at them?” She asked. “Like, with the whole hijacking situation, will they just keep coming back to someone they’ve possessed?”

“Yeah, but you know me and should be able to deduce after all these years I’m not a murderer… Though given this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had, I can’t be all that shocked,” Jasmine said with a hint of edge in her voice. Most of the time, Luce’s annoyance with her was amusing, but she didn’t quite like the remark that she was murdering ghosts. They were literally already dead for one. Aside from that, they needed to move on for their own good. If her mug hadn’t been in her hand, her arms would have haughtily crossed over her chest. Instead, she shot Luce a glare to get the point across. “It’s not killing ghosts,” she reiterated before her brows furrowed. Was Luce asking her honest to god questions? There had to be something up. She set her mug down and channeled all the patience she could muster. “Yes, that’s like 90% of what I do. Most people who remain on this plane after they died, died a traumatic death. They have unfinished business that honestly more often than not, has no way of being resolved. That’s where I come in. I get them to move on… albeit with a little bit of exorcism, but unless it’s a destruction exorcism, they move on. Find some peace.” She thought over her answer in reply to possession. Usually those who had a spirit or demon exorcised from them would have some sort of protective measures. “I think a lot of that can vary from person to person. There’s not a hard and fast rule for possession. I think the more strong willed a person is, the more difficult it can be to possess them, but that’s really something that’s only theorized in accounts at best. If someone has had a spirit or demon exorcised from them, typically they learn some protective measures to take. Some ghosts can become very set on a single person I suppose.” She knew Larry Bob continuously had his sights set on her demise. It could make sense if it was a vengeance thing she supposed. The why behind Luce was asking to begin with concerned her. Her gaze softened and she asked, “What’s going on Luce? If you have some sort of ghost problem, I can help.”

Lips pressing together into a tight line, Luce stared down at her coffee mug for a moment. Maybe Jas didn’t seem like a murderer. But, she’d never thought she was one either. Or that Bea or Nell would be killers either. When push came to shove though, they’d chosen one another over the lives of others. And she’d done worse than that, she’d killed without… any real reason. Lifting the mug to her lips, Luce took a long sip as Jas explained what exorcism was, what happened to people who went through it, all of it things that Luce had never heard of. Reading the books from the Scribary, they’d really only given her information from the perspective of hunters, and they deferred to exorcists when it came to ghosts. Outside of a few wards that she’d tried to draw, they hadn’t provided much in the way of help. At Jas’s question, Luce spoke up slowly, “I don’t have a ghost problem. Not me personally.” She paused, hands pressed against the warm ceramic of the mug. “Someone I... care about does. Some bitch took over her body years ago but she got rid of her for a while. But now the ghost is back and she pushed her out of her body. They were both there for a while, but she got… shoved out. I didn’t even know that sort of thing was possible.”

As much as Jasmine had tried to bond with Luce over the years, seeing her features filled with anything but snark or disdain brought a sense of worry over here. She knew Luce would hate Jasmine of all people worrying for her and would probably say something about not needing her. It didn’t change the fact she would anyway. They didn’t have to get along swimmingly for her to give a crap about her overall wellbeing. She nodded slowly and set her mug down on the table, “Even if it’s not you personally, I’m still concerned.” So she listened and connected the pieces. How many ghosts in town could there be that were pushing people out of their bodies? Realization showed across her face in the way her eyes narrowed slightly and she let out a soft sigh. “Do you mean Nadia or is there more than one body hijacking ghost pushing people out of their body?” She really, really hoped there was only the one. That was going to be a complicated ritual to perform once let alone twice. Blanche had mentioned there was a lead on it, but her own reading wasn’t promising. She answered gently, “To answer your question, it’s not common. I’ve been researching though the broken arm had me out of commission for a bit. It sounds like this ghost has learned how to wield her power and is very determined to take over that body. It’s possible to get her out and for your friend to repossess her body, but multiple exorcisms like that-- they’re rough on the body. Especially if the ghost is fighting… which if they’re a poltergeist is very likely. So it's fixable, it's just very delicate.”

At the sound of Nadia’s name, Luce shoulders stiffened. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Jas would know, but still. Hearing someone else say her name who knew exactly what was going on with Nadia, it was… as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Only to be replaced by a sharp wave of fear over what Jas’ knowledge of the situation meant. Luce moved to take another sip from her coffee but froze when she heard that body. “It’s not that body. It’s Nadia’s.” Luce said sharply, anger flaring her tone before she could catch herself. Grimacing, the witch set her mug down and stared at the pool of brown liquid for a moment. “So, it can be fixed. That’s,” She paused, trying to process that news. “Something.” It could be fixed. But, delicate? That meant it wasn’t a situation that could be fixed by anything that Luce could do. On a good day, she was about as delicate as a hand grenade. And with her magic as it was right now? Luce stared at the tattooed skin of her knuckles and grimaced. “How do you know about her? Are you trying to help get Nadia back in her body?” I want to help, those were the words she wanted to say. But how could she?

Jasmine noticed the way Luce tensed up. It answered her question before she even said anything though as much only made her more worried about the situation. Though she wouldn’t show it. Luce, for once, needed to have confidence in her. Of course, Luce was already getting snippy and she folded her hands together on the table as if it would hold her together. “Well, you hadn’t confirmed if I was right about the who, so I was trying to be vague. This may come as a shock to you, but seeing as I help people with possession, I’m kind of big on the whole bodily autonomy thing, too.” She saw Luce making an effort to relax herself and almost felt bad for being equally as snappy. Given their usually dynamic, it was more difficult than she would have likely to show patience. She let out a breath and answered, “Yes, it can be fixed. As I said, it’s still a delicate situation. That poltergeist isn’t going to give up her body easily and can cause damage on the way out.” It was true. There was also the risk of the poltergeist completely wrecking Nadia’s body on the way out. Even if that wasn’t the case, she may still be weakened. “I’ve met Nadia’s ghost and we talked for a bit. I also ended up meeting the exorcist who originally tried to get the ghost out of her body. He’s young-- bit off more than he could chew there. I wish I met him sooner so I could have taken the wheel, but that’s not how things work. So now, I’m doing a ton of research to ensure the ritual doesn’t kill Nadia. Though someone else mentioned there was another lead, but didn’t get any information, so I’m not sure if someone else is working on it.”

Gritting her teeth together, Luce ran a hand through her hair, pulling her fingers through a few of the tangles. She’d never liked Jas. Never liked any of Bea’s friends, never really wanted to get to know them, never really cared to play nice with them. Which made this conversation all the more difficult. It was hard enough knowing that Jas was usually a smug bitch, but the fact that Jas was literally the only person she knew who could deal with this was something else. Blanche might be able to see ghosts, but the kid wasn’t an exorcist. And she was just that, a kid. Luce had already asked too much of her when Bea had died. She didn’t need to put more on her plate. Taking a steadying breath, Luce nodded “Sorry.” It was a word she rarely offered, but she needed Jas’ help. “You’ve met her? Y-you’ve--” Luce’s words caught in the back of her throat and she took the moment to take another deep drink from her mug. Fuck. Jas was trying to help. She was trying to fix things. “Who else knows about this? I want to help. If I can. I don’t know how much I can do but… If I can, I want to.”

Hearing “sorry” come from Luce was a shock in and of itself. Jasmine had always thought she’d be much more satisfied when this moment came. Given the circumstances, she could hardly be too smug about it. Someone Luce cared about was in an awful situation. There was no relishing in that. Not with any sort of good conscience anyway. She let out a soft sigh and softened her features. Brows no longer scrunched together and eyes offering more in the way of understanding. “It’s fine,” she said softly in a way that felt so foreign to her normal conversations with Luce. “I have, yes. Entirely on accident, but she seemed as okay as she could be given the circumstances.” It felt important to let Luce know that. It was even more of a surprise she was offering her help. “If you’re up for some reading, I could use some help getting through the books. I ultimately want to minimize the risk of the ritual taking a potentially fatal toll on her body.”

Luce’s shoulders had squared slightly, prepared to face some kind of gloating comment. But, it never came and instead, Jas was reassuring her. She hated this. She hated feeling like Jas was pitying her, like she was weak. But, Luce was weak. This wasn’t her element and she had no real power to do anything in this situation. And even if she had power, had her flame fully at her disposal to channel around her, what then? She couldn’t burn a ghost out of a body. Her magic was destruction and little more than that. Staring at the counter top, Luce took in the other woman’s words mutely. The relief she felt at her words, though, it washed over her in a calming wave. It confirmed what she’d heard from Nadia that night, when she’d seen her in the mirror of her scrying mirror. That the other woman was out of immediate danger. At least for now. Head jerking up at Jas’ offer, Luce blinked. “Reading? I-- sure. Yeah, I can do that.” A fatal toll. Luce didn’t want to think about that possibility, as though even the act of thinking about it would bring it into reality. “I can help.” She could help. If Luce could help bring Nadia back safely into her body, maybe there was hope for her. Maybe there was more to her than just… ruin. She had to try.

#p: asd #p: jasmine hale #chatzy #wickedswriting

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canonicallysoulmates · 4 years

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Supernatural 15.05

I don't care for this episode. I’m not mad at it, and I can understand why some would like it I just don’t care for it.

This episode was written by Steve Yockey and it's his last work for spn, I feel like once you know this the rushed pace make sense.

I found myself surprisingly dissapointed considering it's about the brothers like this was a brothers only, angel-free episode for all intents and purposes I should be happy as a clam with it but I just can't get over the bad pacing, sloppy writing, just ok fight scene, and - no offense to Richard - uninspiring directing. Ok, those last two things are nitpicks, but the first two are a real problem.

I hate the pacing of this episode so much that no joke it can be considered the #1 reason I probably won’t be rewatching this episode in the near future, maybe ever; it's like the whole epi is on fast forward to the point where an entire spn epi happens in the first half hour, that's not a lie, the boys get a case, go undercover, find out what it is, go to the motel, save the girl, confront the monsters, all in the first 30mins of the show.

The first half of this epi could be it's own episode!

Then unsurprisingly, and I say unsurprisingly cause it's all written and played out so weird that there's no other explanation other than something else going on, it's revealed something else is going on- is it really a reveal if you saw it coming? I think confirmation is more fitting, it's confirmed something else is going on.

Which is when the second biggest problem I have with this episode appears: Lilith.

Lilith....Lilith really took away any fucks I was giving; Chuck apparently brought Lilith back from the empty, don't know how thought he couldn't bring back from the empty but i don't care enough to question it right now just like i'm not gonna question why he would bring back Lilith when surely the empty is full of more interesting, powerful monsters he could have brought back like maybe Zachariah idk I think he would have made more sense but whatever, point is Lilith is back and now working for Chuck I guess but she apparently doesn't like it but she still does what he ordered her to when she could have just idk joined forces with the boys told them what she knew about Chuck and let them kill her or something, I guess she hates the boys more than Chuck....whatever i don’t care enough 🤷‍♀️

Bringing this character back is in my opinion pointless and unnecessary and I'm going to tell you why; Lilith had a complete arc from beginning to end and she had a definite end that fit perfectly into the plot of the first 5 seasons. When a character has such a closed ending there's really no reason to bring them back imo, it can actually be a mistake sometimes; Lilith had no unfinished business, her being back doesn't add anything to the story unless they use her to bring back Sam's powers which I doubt they'll do and it would be kind of insulting to her character to bring her back just for Sam to regain his powers and then discard her. And you and I both know Dabb & co. are probably not going to use this character, they brought her back because well a. bringing back characters from the dead is their shtick, it's minimum effort that gets them praised and lets them sucker fans by saying stuff like 'an old fan favorite is coming back. somebody that hasn't been seen in years’ and b. s15 is Dabb’s version of s5 and Lilith was a big piece on the board to getting s5 rolling.

I don't care for the actress that played her, I'm sure she was trying her hardest but I don't think she's a good actress and I found her portrayal of Lilith annoying but to be fair it is probably in part due to the script she was given; same with the werewolf brothers, I'm sure the actors were trying their best but they weren't that good and that's probably once again in part due to the script.

Speaking of the werewolf brothers real quick they were a parallel to Sam and Dean and let me just say if the ending comes down to one of the brothers shooting the other they better do what the wolf brothers did cause I’m ok with both brothers dead, I am not ok with only one dead and the other living and I’m sure as hell not ok with one shooting the other then continuing on with their life that to me would be completely out of character for these two.

Back to what I was saying...

I feel like I'm alone on this but I found the interactions between Dean and Lilith when he thought she was a civilian weird. It came across as - and I mean no offense to those who write this content - but their interactions came across as a badly written Dean x reader fic with the whole instant connection thing, which i found very OOC of Dean like I guess you could make the argument that it was Lilith controlling/manipulating Dean but honestly if she had that power she could have just gotten him to give her the gun. And i think the whole connection was meant to be in a fatherly type of way but sometimes it came across as something else and....it was just done very weird. Like where were you going with this show? It's like they couldn't decide what they wanted that whole thing to come across as; I don't know the way it was executed was just weird to me.

I also didn't like that this episode puts it as if Lilith died because she let Sam kill her (you killed me because i let you), to me that takes away from Sam's story, yes he was manipulated into killing her but he killed her because of the strength of his powers, he became a demon blood addict so he could kill her that's basically the whole plot of s4. So implying that he killed her because she let him is pretty much saying he went through all the manipulation, the addiction, the pain for nothing because she could have just let him kill her at any moment. And you could argue she meant she let Sam kill her because of the manipulation but that's not how it comes across especially considering that she said she let Sam kill her as response to Sam saying he had already killed her once.

I hope the writer didn't mean for this episode to be full of surprise reveals cause if he did he failed.

The fact that it’s not a normal hunt and something was going on was made obvious from the start.

Sam and Chuck being connected because of the bullet wound has been suspected/known since the season premiere, this episode just confirmed it.

Sam's dreams being glimpses into possible endings has been speculated about since last week (perhaps earlier but last week is when i saw it).

The gun being destroyed is par for the course cause item that can help the boys always gets lost, destroyed or stolen.

By the end of this epi I was so done, not even the final scene made me feel something, I should be feeling for the boys and their situation, for Sam when he asks how they fight God but instead of feeling his pain I'm just thinking:

How do you fight God? I don’t know Sam maybe:

See if Death!Billie can help.

See if you can bring back regular Death.

Try to contact Amara.

You are surrounded by books of lore Sam!

Use the connection you have to Chuck to gain the upper hand.

You've gone up against Pagan gods and won you can deal with the Christian one.

(As a sidenote how cool would it be if they brought back Death, and I mean original Death to reap God)

I won’t deny, there are good things in this episode, I of course like that it’s just the brothers and j2's acting is great as always. The ghost pepper jerky scene was really funny (tip! water won't actually help if you do eat something super spicy it might make it worse actually, instead drink milk or consume another creamy dairy product back to the post:), Sam and Dean look cute dressed as Fish and Wildlife, I loved Dean pleading asking Lilith not to kill/hurt Sam cause I'm a sucker for that shit, I'm glad Sam finally told Dean about his dreams, Sam still looks hot af in a white suit so there were a lot of little things and moments through out the episode that I actually did enjoy and were good but there were no true highlights, it's just little moments that are scattered throughout this mediocre episode.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I don’t hate this epi, I’m not mad at it, in this season alone - and keep in mind we’re only on episode 5 - we have gotten way, way worse epis, if you liked it that’s great, I just don’t care for it and as much as I like the little moments scattered through out they’re not enough for me to consider the overall of this episode anything other than bland and mediocre.

#spn negative #spn critical #spn spoilers #spn 15.05 #spns15 #opinion on supernatural #mine #this is as cohesive as i'm gonna get my thoughts on this epi #anti castiel #this is one case where i'll take the little moments and just forget about the rest #still better than epi filled with extras so 🤷‍♀️

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greyskywrites · 4 years

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Wolf’s Price

[First] [Previous] [AO3] [ko-fi]

XVIII. Remade

5.2k

I hadn’t written to anyone since winter set in and we stopped sending couriers. Whatever was going to happen to us in the spring, I decided that it was time to write to my sister.

I had three brothers, two older and one younger, and a sister on either side of me. Eva was the older, born just a little over two years before me. She told me I was stupid, when I enlisted. “You don’t know when to shut your mouth. If you’re captured, the Sarenns will cut your tongue out before the day is over.”

I made some joke then, about how I’d rather lose my tongue than my head. She punched me in the arm, then, left me with a bruise for near a week. “Don’t joke about that! You know what Sarenns are like—they worship wolf devils and leave unwanted babies out in the snow as sacrifices. If they get your hands on you, they’ll probably cut your throat over an altar and sacrifice you to one of their animal gods.”

“I’ll be careful then,” I told her. “After all, all I have to do is be smarter than a Sarenn, right?”

“It’ll be a challenge for you, I know.”

I had written to Eva a little bit about Lya, not sharing any of Muras’ suspicions with her, of course. Eva hadn’t thought much of either of us, bringing some unknown Sarenn woman into our home when she was a near total stranger to us. She didn’t think much of the fact that she had previously lived with Heita, either. I’m sure even you don’t think it’s entirely a good idea to pick up a new mistress from Emiran’s old lover.

I didn’t know, when I sat down, what I wanted to say to Eva, but I supposed if there was a possibility that I was going to die, she would at least want to know why.

I imagine that by the time you get this, I wrote, I’ll already have been declared a traitor. Once I started it was hard to stop. I had never cared much for keeping secrets, and whether or not Eva would be sympathetic when she read my letter didn’t matter. Like as not, I would never see her again. It would hit our father quite hard, I supposed, and no doubt my brothers would be quick to distance themselves from me. I didn’t know what our mother would do.

I knew at least that, if nothing else, Eva would read the letter to the end.

We were sent here to be killed, so I can’t say I feel much remorse about actually committing the treason that the prince is so afraid of. Kressos has always been very good at making its own enemies.

I spent a long time writing that letter. Cutting whole sections from it, rewriting them. Muras was always a better writer than I was, but then, I’d never poured the kind of effort into it that he did.

Lya was out most of the day with Veland, and she must have washed his hair, because she came back to the room to comb through his hair in front of the fire until it was dry, singing quietly to him in Sarenn. Veland was picking up on it, singing parts with her, and mumble-mouthing others. Lya parted his hair and began to braid it, smooth and tight.

I watched them for a while, because it was easier than staring at my unfinished letter. When she was done, Lya kissed the top of his head, and Veland ran off to play with the other children. Lya rubbed her belly, and stretched her feet out in front of the fire with a sigh.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tired.” She let her head fall back on her shoulders. “Little one was kicking my ribs all night.” She closed her eyes. “What are you writing?”

“A letter to my sister.”

“Are you close?”

“Used to be closer.” I gazed at her another moment, the weariness in her shoulders. “Why did you come to Kressos, after all that?”

Lya opened her eyes slowly. “If you were looking for the woman that I was,” she said, “would you ever think to look for her in a Kressosi household?”

“Not as a maid,” I admitted, “not as Kaspar Heita’s clerk, that’s for damn sure.”

Lya nodded, and looked back to the fire. “Nor would anyone think to look for her in the bed of the man who killed her king.” She rubbed her belly again. “Every choice I’ve ever made since I left this place had a reason.” She laughed softly, shook her head. “If I’d known then that Kaspar knew the both of you…”

“He knows Muras. He tolerates me.” I shuffled the pages of my letter together, turned them over on the desk. I scrubbed over my face with both hands, put my elbows on the desk. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

Lya was quiet a long time. “I love you, too,” she murmured. “It would be so gods-damned much easier if I didn’t.”

She pulled herself up out of the chair, and came over to the desk. She put her hand on the back of my neck, and kissed my temple. I wrapped an arm around her, and pressed a hand over her middle. “I’m sorry I’m not a better man.”

I half expected Lya to ask what had got into me, that I was so morose, but she didn’t. She just ran her fingers over my hair, and let me lean into her side.

“I have to go,” she murmured, “I have things I need to do in town today.”

“Keep warm,” I said, “and keep safe.”

“I’ll do my best.” She tied a scarf over her head, over her ears. She touched my arm as she left, and whatever unspoken thing passed between us, I knew one thing for sure. She meant to leave us soon, and I didn’t know to where, or what end.

I thought hot water might clear my head, or at least make me better at pretending I was the same as ever. I took my time scrubbing from head to toe, and wiping a mirror clear enough that I could shave. It was a tempting thought, to let my hair grow long and a beard start on my face, just so I wouldn’t stand out so damned much whenever I walked through the town. I was one of the only Kressosi men not in a uniform, and among the first words of Sarenn I had learned was beardless. Not a kind word, that.

I had asked Lya about it once, why the beards were so important. She had scoffed and said, “Growing a beard is important because Kressosi men shave them off as much as it is any other reason.” The hair seemed to be the really important thing, as she had explained it to me. A braid told anyone who looked at you just how important you were. The higher it began on the head, the more complex it was—the greater the wealth and power of the person wearing it.

I had seen enough of that when we took Morhall. The princesses with their hair braided as intricately as lace, with colored ribbons and wire and glass beads, the braid beginning just behind their hairlines. All the servants had worn their braids at the nape of their necks, much simpler plaits with only one ribbon, or beads that were made of bone. A code of status that was only unfamiliar to us because it was in their hair, not just their clothes.

Some Sarenn lords had started to shave their beards, since the war had ended—but I knew of not a single one who had cut his hair. That, I supposed, was much too sacred.

I wasn’t sure I really understood what ‘sacred’ meant. I had never been the pious type, and if I’m honest, I was even less so after my brother became a priest. To me, worship always represented something I couldn’t feel, some other way in which I had failed my parents.

But I had seen ghosts. I had seen Lya call up wolves with a horn.

The Sarenn believed in fate, and if there was anything to it, I supposed there must have been a reason for us to all come north again. There was a reason that Lya had found her way to us, that we had been the ones to bring her back here. What it was, I couldn’t have pretended I knew.

I dressed warmly, and decided to go for a ride. I was growing used to elk, and their particular ways. The cow I took was a good tempered creature, not giving me any trouble in putting on blanket and saddle. She snuffled at my pockets, looking for grain.

The wind was bitter cold, but there was something else: it was snowing again. Funnily enough, the return of the snow signaled the coming spring, that the worst of winter was over. Before that, the air was too cold and dry for snow to fall. Snow falling again after midwinter meant that the world was beginning to warm.

I made my way out of town, down along the fields. I didn’t dare go out to the trees alone, not even in the middle of the day. The trees hid wolves and snow lions and bear dens, and I wanted to be able to see all of those things coming.

I remembered why I didn’t like spending much time alone as I rode. It gave me far too much room to think, to wonder and to worry. I stopped the elk under a fringe of old maples, listening to the quiet as the snow fell around us both. The cow’s breath steamed on the air.

“Have a busy mind, don’t you?”

I jerked the reins in surprise, and the cow snorted and shifted. I hadn’t seen the beggar who now stood under the trees, his back against the biggest and oldest. His feet were bare in the snow, and he leaned heavily on a staff to keep his weight from a club foot.

He raised a hand to the elk. “Easy,” he murmured. “You know who I am.”

The cow pressed her nose against his palm, and I felt her relax.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

The beggar was old, scarred. His beard was scraggly and almost to his waist, and he wore a hood over his braid. He gave me a smirk that I didn’t like in the slightest. “Some say that winter is the season of death,” he said, “but men like you know that it’s spring that’s the season for war.” He reached under his old and worn coat, producing a flask. He took a drink, and offered it to me. I stared back at him until he shrugged and put it away. “You Kressosi aren’t much for hospitality, are you?”

“Who are you?” I demanded again.

“An old friend of the she-wolf you sleep beside,” he said, leaning on his staff. “You know what’s coming, don’t you? The inevitable, the caged wild animal having enough and finally going for the killing bite.”

Everything in me rebelled at this old man’s proximity, the kind of fear that’s beaten out of you in soldier’s training. Even if my eyes couldn’t see what was so dangerous about him, something else in me knew. I pulled the elk away, drawing distant. The old beggar smiled. He patted a hand on the gnarled old trunk of the maple. “The corpses of men were once hung in these trees before a war,” he said. “As sacrifice. A great many years ago, when there was no Saren, and its people fought each other. Then your folk came along, and such hangings moved south, and they only happened once a war had already begun.”

I had seen the trees he spoke of, once. Kressosi soldiers beaten to death and strung up to rot. I had seen, too, the swaying of cut ropes when the Sarenn had known we were coming, and cut down the dead before we could find them. I heard it said that they chose maple trees because the maples were too benevolent to allow the ghosts of the dead men to haunt them afterward. Their souls would be kept at bay by the same branches that had held their corpses. The same maples that were tapped for syrup at the earliest blush of spring. I had always wondered if they had a story for that, too—this tree that bled for them, that they fed with blood.

“You’ve a fighter’s spirit, I can smell it on you,” the old man said. “You’re not the kind to lay down and die.”

“What do you want?” I asked, scanning the trees for anyone else I might not have seen, regretting that I had come alone, and with only a pistol.

“I want the fight,” the old beggar said, “I want the blood. Deep down in your gut, you want it, too. You know there’s no honor in a quiet murder.”

I stared at him, said nothing. The old beggar smiled, and nodded his head, raising his flask to me as if in a toast. “Every wolf needs its pack. You could content yourself with being a dog, or you could grow into your teeth. The decision is yours.” He began to whistle a tune to himself, and limped off along the edge of the fields, dragging his club foot behind him.

“What’s your name?” I called after him.

“I have many,” he called back. “Ask the she-wolf.”

There was a brawl at a tavern, in which a young Sarenn man was killed. Muras found the soldiers who had been there, and lashed them all, regardless of whether or not they had started the fight. He didn’t care, and he told them so. Peace was a fragile thing, and they could not rely on might to maintain it. He had them lashed publicly, to settle the Sarenn discontent, and after that, no soldier was allowed outside of Morhall after dark.

The men resented the curfew, but it helped me breathe a little easier. I knew Lya still went out at night. I knew that Muras hadn’t asked her to stop.

We were waiting up for her, when she came back to our rooms after midnight. She looked at us a moment, and took the scarf from her hair. There were beads in her hair that I hadn’t seen her wear before, I was reasonably confident they were made from ivory or bone. “You didn’t have to stay up on my account,” she said, beginning to take off her coat.

Muras couldn’t bring himself to look at her, and I watched the wariness grow on her face. “I need to tell you something,” Muras said, staring at the fire.

Lya held onto her coat, as if it might be a shield. “Tell me what?”

Muras drew in and let out a breath. “When I first saw you in Jasos,” he said, “I thought—I’ve seen her before.”

Lya was still, did not move.

“I wasn’t sure where, at first,” Muras said. “But I knew I’d seen your face. You were too familiar. I wondered if maybe it was just that I had been in Kaspar’s circles, once, but you said you had only come to Jasos a few years before, so I knew it couldn’t be that.”

Lya looked at me, and I looked away. I couldn’t face her either, knowing that we had kept this from her for so long.

“As I talked to you, as you told me a little about where you were from—I started to piece it together.”

“Stop,” Lya said, her voice tight.

“I knew I had to keep you close, until I was sure,” Muras said. “I couldn’t take the chance that I was just imagining things—”

Lya took a step back and stood against the door. Her voice was deathly quiet. “You knew.”

Muras was quiet, not looking at her.

“You knew. This whole time.” Lya moved before either of us could react, grabbing her wolf mask off the wall and throwing it at him. “You son of a bitch, you knew!”

The mask struck Muras in the shoulder as he tried to move away, hitting the floor with a thud. Lya shook with rage. “The entire time you knew and you let me hide it from you! You let me be afraid!” She looked to me, and grabbed the next thing she could reach—my sword in its sheath. She hit me with it, hard enough to bruise. “You let me think he didn’t know! That you didn’t know!”

“Lya—” I started.

“Shut up!” Her face was flush with rage. “You bastard! You—” She let out a stream of Sarenn obscenities that I understood maybe a quarter of, hitting me again and again with the sheathed sword until I wrestled it out of her hands. Muras tried to intervene and she slapped him, her nails scratching an arc across his face. Red blood welled up in dark beads. “You let me bring my son here,” she snarled. “And you knew.”

Muras held onto her wrist, gazing back at her. “He is Corasin’s son, isn’t he?” Muras asked, soft.

Lya spit in his face, and called him a Sarenn word that I was pretty sure impugned more than just his honor. “He is my son,” Lya said, “he has no father but the Wolf.” She jerked free of Muras’ grip, and gave us that same burned-eyed look I had seen in her before. “You knew what I was, and you made me come back to this place. To this tomb.”

“Lya,” I said, drawing her furious gaze. “I’m sorry.”

She looked like she wanted to kill me for saying it. “It is far too late for that.”

I reached for her, and she slapped my hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I want to help you,” I said, “you have to get away from this place.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.” She took her coat, and the scarf, and fled.

I couldn’t find Lya anywhere that I looked for her, nor Veland. It was difficult to search without raising the alarm—though I knew she could not have gone far, as Bili was still in the stables.

Muras had not said anything since she left, but I could see in his eyes that he was maybe a breath away from panic. “I’ll check the lodge,” I said, “if she’s gone into town, that’s where she’ll be.” I knew even then it probably wasn’t a good idea to be going about alone at night, but I was more concerned about Lya and Veland. Perhaps I really was the fool that Eva made me out to be.

I took the same cow elk I had ridden when I encountered the strange old beggar. The snow was falling heavily, fat flakes that muffled everything. I scanned every head in the street, looking for the red flash of Lya’s scarf. Something felt off, as I drew nearer to the lodge. It took me a moment, as I tied the elk to the post. There was no smoke coming from the chimneys.

I opened the door to an empty hall. Dark, still. I stared at the empty lodge, uncomprehending. I knew they had been there the day before—the lodgekeepers, the sick, the dying. Where the hell could that many people have gone?

The ashes in the hearths were cold. Where had Lya been all night, if not here?

“You won’t find her here, pup.”

I whirled, hand on my pistol. The beggar from before stood in the door, but he was—different. Younger, somehow. “If you know where she is,” I said, “tell me.”

The beggar shook his head, shrugged. “She doesn’t want to be found. She’s gotten very good at passing unseen.”

“It’s too dangerous for her to be on her own.”

“Who said she was alone?” the beggar asked. “And who said being with you was safer?” He laughed, picking under his nails with the point of his knife. “You’ll have to run quick if you mean to catch up to her.”

“If you know where she’s going—” I started

“You already know, pup,” the beggar said. “She already told you.”

Home. She was going to Arborhall. It wasn’t spring yet, but what did that matter to her? She had left this place through a snowstorm that should have killed her. Why should she have to wait for the thaw?

I raced back to Morhall, the elk flinging up snow behind us. The stablemaster swore up and down that no one had been out since I left, even when I put a pistol under his chin. “Are you drunk or blind?” I demanded. “That goddamn bull is gone!”

Bili was gone from the stables, as was another elk. Lya’s things were missing, and Tyna’s room had been stripped bare. No one had seen them leave.

I didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. How could they vanish, just like that? Two women, one of them heavily pregnant, a seven year old boy, an entire lodge full of people—gone.

She had to have been planning this. Since she spoke to Spider, if not earlier. How long had she been planning to disappear on us?

Muras stood over the fire, staring into the coals. “Gone to Arborhall… how long, do you think, it will take her to get there?”

“Here’s a better question,” I said, “how long do you think it will take us to get there?”

“That’s madness,” Muras said.

“What about this winter hasn’t been mad?” I demanded. “What about us finding Lya like we did wasn’t mad?” I threw his coat at him, tired of taking no for an answer. “If you don’t get up,” I said, “you’re never going to know if you have a son or a daughter.”

Muras held his coat a moment, and said, “I can only die once.”

“What?”

“Something Tyna said,” he murmured. “For all the deaths we caused here, I can only die once. That it’s a pittance.” He looked at me, a new light in his eyes, or rather an old one that I had missed, and stood. “Everyone knows she’s missing, so it will look odd if only we go out looking for her. But we can’t have a party with us, either.”

I almost smiled with relief. This was the Muras I knew, his mind turning over a puzzle, the Muras who knew that he was lucky. “We can send a party off on a wild goose chase, with a promise to join them later, cutting out the way we mean to go.”

Muras nodded, and said, “We can only take so much supplies.”

“If anyone can get the two of us out of here alive, it’s you.”

“Yes, well, we’re damned lucky you’re a good hunter.” Muras pulled on his coat. “We’ll send them into the forest to look. Some rumor about the wolf cult headed that way, with orders to camp when night falls, and that we’ll join them then. At sundown, we’ll take our elk, and when it’s too dark for us to be seen from here, we’ll turn south.”

And hope that our rifles were enough to keep wolves and snow lions away from us until we found a place to sleep. The sky had been a moody dark grey that promised snow. If we were lucky, if there was snow falling when we left, it would hide our trail from anyone who might try to track us.

Muras picked up his sword, held it a moment in his hands, the polished dark sheath gleaming in the low light. “We’ll never know anything but war, will we?” “I don’t know,” I said, “maybe when they make you a soldier, that’s the only way you can look at the world.”

Muras shook his head. “I can’t accept that.” He looked at me, let out a breath. “We will live long enough to see peace,” he said, “long enough that we’ll no longer be soldiers.”

I laughed a little, and Muras looked at me curiously. “Nothing,” I said, “it’s just good to have you back.”

We orchestrated it like theater, pulling together search parties. The commander’s pregnant mistress and child had gone missing, along with his personal physician, it was natural that Morhall would be in an uproar over it. Muras spun a beautiful tale about believing that the wolf worshipers had spirited them away into the woods, sending three groups in different directions. We would meet up with those headed northeast by sundown, he told them, once he had put someone in place to keep Morhall running in the meantime.

Muras was no fool there, either. There was an ambitious young major who we both knew was aching for a command post like this one. Muras sent him out searching, and found instead the near-incompetent young man we both knew was only there because his uncle was quite wealthy. Such a young man could be trusted to survive until spring, when someone came looking for us and found us long since missing, but wasn’t useful for much else. He certainly would have no idea what to do when we didn’t return, except carry on as acting commander.

We put together enough food to carry us a few days, no more, so as not to risk suspicion from the kitchens. After that, we would have to be damned lucky to get out of the north alive.

I left my letter to Eva deep in the pile of letters that would go out in the spring. I saw that Muras had written several to Tomlin. I wondered if any of them were like mine, explaining the choice we were about to make.

Two young and fit gelding elk would have to carry us. I didn’t dare load them heavy—we needed to be swift, and we couldn’t be seen taking all of our worldly possessions, either. So, I was careful in what I chose. Our warmest clothes, our best boots. A few things that I believed we could not do without or could not bear to leave behind. Everything else, we could afford to lose.

Theater, all of it, and the best damn show we ever put on.

Muras poured over a map, trying to guess which way Lya would have gone, and where we might catch up to her. She had told us enough of Hasi routes, and they would be on their way northward now, following the thawing plains. Reaching the Hasi would give her a chance to hide among their numbers for a time, even as she headed in the opposite direction. She spoke their trade language, she knew them as friends who had helped her before. Through Veland, they were a sort of kin to her.

Our biggest obstacle would be convincing any Hasi we encountered that we were friendly.

In the stables, I watched Muras secure a particular pouch in his saddlebags that I knew well. The one gift his mother ever gave him. He noticed me, and paused. “I suppose it seems foolish,” he said, “after all these years.”

“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. Not after everything we’ve survived.” Maybe his mother was a witch, maybe it was all in his head, I didn’t know—but I wasn’t about to go questioning whatever had kept him alive all this time. I had too many questions about everything else to worry too much about that.

The sun was going down as we set out, though you could hardly tell, the clouds were so dense. We started out north, carrying our lanterns, and as the city grew smaller behind us, snow began to fall.

I threw my lantern into the snow, to prove to whoever came looking that we had set out in that direction, and we arced southwest, swinging wide around the city. Our tracks would be gone by morning, leaving no trace of what direction we had gone. Muras and I rode close together, a rope thrown between us, so we could not lose the other. It reminded me of that march, being out in the dark and the snow. The wind picked up at our backs as we rode, pushing us south. No one would be able to look for us until morning, and even then, only if the weather allowed.

Across the dark fields, past the maples where I had met the old beggar, down the sloping hills and along, only Muras’ lantern to light the way, a fragile flame protected by a pane of glass he had to wipe the snow from every few minutes. I don’t know how long we rode, the wind at our backs, but I knew we were both thinking the same thing—that to stop in the open was to invite the cold to steal our breaths.

We found the beginnings of trees, a few blown down. Muras paused, scanning the dark landscape. The wind was sharp and cold, and I could hear it howling in the distance. Really, I couldn’t be sure if it was the wind, or a pack of wolves, but I wanted it to be the wind, so that was the only possibility I allowed.

We found the first edges of forest, and hunkered down behind an old log big enough to shelter both us and our elk, which we huddled against to sleep. We couldn’t have built a fire even if we dared to, so I wrapped a blanket around me and Muras both, my chin tucked against his shoulder. Muras let out a breath, listening to the wind over us. “Strange,” he said, “it doesn’t feel as monumental as I thought it would.”

“What doesn’t?”

“The leaving. Becoming a traitor.” Muras shifted, touching my arm. “It didn’t feel monumental when I killed Corasin, either, but I thought that was just—the context of everything else. How could I celebrate when we had done what we did?” He paused, sighed. “But maybe it’s just that the stuff that makes the story of one’s life never feels momentous when you’re doing it.”

The elk grunted quietly and stirred, one of the geldings bringing his head around to rest on my back. “Of course it doesn’t. When you’re doing it, it’s just the choice you made to stay alive. It only becomes significant later, when you have to fit it in with everything that’s happened since.” I closed my eyes, held Muras close. “I’m glad you chose this.”

Muras ran his fingers across my sleeve, head resting on the side of the elk. “I’m sorry it took me so long.” He was quiet a while, long enough for me to almost fall asleep. “What if we’ve lost her? If this time, she stays hidden?”

I shifted, and thought of the beggar with his club foot. I want the fight. “I don’t think she will.” I watched the snow piling up around us. “I think she’s just looking for a good place to dig her heels in, call home again.” I pulled the blanket higher over us. “Seems to me our priority—after surviving, of course—is figuring out what it’ll take to make us Sarenn.”

#original fiction #prose #wolf's price

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violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

Appetence [3/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn’t expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #incubus (sort of) #paranormal investigator

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): Bit of a shorter chapter today because I have stuff to do later so I'm updating early.

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

It’s another two hours before Jason returns to the East End. It had taken all of his concentration to keep Cole’s ghost focussed on him and his stories, instead of whatever unnamed force might tempt him back to gravesite. After the boy vanishes in the gradual, whispering way spirits do when their unfinished business if met, Jason doubled over at the sudden migraine.

He much prefers when unfinished business can be completed in one place instead of having to carry a phantom passenger with him.

Being tired—and now that he thinks about it, hungry—does not help his bad mood.

Another kid. Another victim of the fucking Joker.

Just how many more kids was the nutcase going to take out? How many more Robins? Because Jason’s seen pictures of the new kid—blurry and imprecise as anything to be found in a Gotham tabloid, but enough for someone with an eye for it to judge some facts—and he’s fucking tiny. It doesn’t matter that the girls in the Bowery where Jason lives say he’s meaner and more dangerous than any of the others. He’s smaller than Jason’s replacement—smaller than that girl even. What the hell is Bruce thinking?

Again, the temptation rises within him to hightail it over to the manor without warning and rip Bruce a series of new ones while he’s too busy gaping in shock to defend himself.

He doesn’t, though.

Knowing Bruce, he’d think it was a trick and beat the snot out of Jason, then stick him in a cell somewhere until he could confirm his identity. Jason’s been behind the door of enough cells to last him a lifetime, and that alone holds him back.

And who’s to say he doesn’t blame me for getting myself killed in the first place?

He knows that’s not likely, somewhere deeply buried inside, but it’s hard to shake the idea. Old insecurities return in full, memories of pity and concern and frustration, and his final moment waiting for his dad to save him and being disappointed.

And then being disappointed again when his wits returned to him and he discovered the Joker was still breathing. That Bruce didn’t deal with it—didn’t kill the fucker that killed Jason and shot Barbara.

He remembers that horrible week, wondering if she was going to live or die, and then being told she’d never walk again. Vibrant, ass-kicking and beautiful Batgirl with her wings forever clipped. In a way, he thinks he’s angrier about Barbara than himself. As Robin, he was always going to be a direct target of the Joker; Barbara wasn’t shot and tortured because she was Batgirl—she was shot and tortured because she was Commissioner Gordon’s daughter.

And after all that, Bruce just put the bastard back in Arkham, where he could have a taxpayer-paid vacation then break himself out again whenever he felt like it.

Something needs to be done about him, and B’s sure as fuck not going to do it.

With every step, Jason finds himself getting a little angrier. It’s a cool rage, different from the volatile mess of hormones and emotions he was as a kid, but it’s still there. Say what you want for the brain damage, but he was so out of it that it’s probably why John’s meditation techniques took when Bruce’s didn’t, tempering him.

He’s still prone to rash action, of course, but for something like this—something as serious as the Joker—he’s going to have to think it through. Somehow, he doubts it’s just going to be as easy as walking into the asylum and shivving the guy. And Jason’s not exactly keen on getting arrested, not after he worked his ass off to set himself up with an identity and a job and everything here in Gotham.

It bears thinking about, and he can’t do anything immediate about it now, so he’ll sleep on it. Something will come to him.

Jason turns the corner, intending to do just that as he heads for his apartment.

Well, it’s not really an apartment. It’s more office space over a bar on the border of Crime Alley and the Bowery. It’s just cheaper to rent an office than an apartment these days; with housing costs soaring, even property in the worst parts of Gotham are wildly out of his price range.

(He’s not a billionaire’s son anymore.)

Might stay out of my price range for a while. PIs don’t make much, to begin with, and my niche is kind of…specific.

Mediumship isn’t exactly a lucrative business, nor is paranormal investigation. Both jobs attract the crazies, but he knows from experience the ones who are legit will pay good money for his services.

Still, the whole set-up isn’t so bad.

He’s been getting his food from the local bodegas and the bar downstairs, and he’s sure after a bit of saving he’ll even be able to go out to the occasional sit-down restaurant when he gets a craving for something gourmet-ish (He doesn’t think about how Alfred could whip up a do that would put the cordon bleu to shame).

Jason sprung for a decent quality sleeper sofa, so it’s not like he’s kipping on the floor and the office even has a bathroom with a shower, which was a big plus when his landlady, Trista, showed it to him. The ambulance chaser who occupied the space before him said he used to work a lot and needed to be able to shower between jobs. He’d also said if he hadn’t been so keyed into his job, he’d have noticed his life falling apart around him and not shot himself three months ago.

Yeah, that was a fun one…

Since helping the previous owner move on and then taking up residence in the cramped office space, Jason’s made a point of warding the entire office against any other wandering spirits.

I happen to have very strict office hours, ta very much.

He pauses on the street leading to his place, his stomach growling again, and decides he’ll head into the bar for a pick-me-up beforehand. Trista, who also owns that place, doesn’t offer a lot in the way of food, but what she does is pretty good. Hers is the only place he’s been so far that can make decent fish and chips.

As he heads in that direction, he notices a familiar face standing on the corner across the street. He decides to make a quick detour.

“Rhonda,” he says with a grin, “you’re lookin’ especially gorgeous tonight.”

“Boy, I don’t need you to tell me shit I already know,” the woman tells him with a sniff. “And if you’re cruisin’ for a lay, I’ll tell you what I always tell you—you too young.”

“You’ve been tellin’ me that since I was twelve,” he grins.

Rhonda is the only person here in Gotham that knows he’s back, and that’s only because recognized him one night while he was heading back from a job. When he first landed himself on the streets as a kid, Rhonda was one of the girls who looked out for him and whatever other orphan was wandering around here at the time. After he was adopted by Bruce, he made a point of checking up on her as Robin, chasing off johns that tried to get over her time (even though she was already pretty good at managing that herself) and buying her food whenever he could. He never expected her to still be here when he got back, but she’d taken one look at him and cursed.

“I knew that story about you bein’ dead was bullshit,” she informed him as she took a drag of a cigarette. “What you do, run off on the rich man or some shit? He been tellin’ everyone you’re dead for years now.”

“To him, I am dead,” he’d replied, not wanting to go into it. “And everyone else better keep thinkin’ that too.”

“Ain’t gonna hear it from me,” she’d shrugged. “But why the fuck did you come back to this shithole?”

“Home’s home,” he had shrugged, and she’d nodded because she knew exactly what he was talking about.

Now, she sizes him up and considers his face. “Rough night, it looks like. You gettin’ in trouble again?”

“Nah, just exorcisin’ some…personal demons. Quiet night for you?”

“Mostly. There was a cape around couple minutes ago, though, so keep an eye out.”

She knows he tends to avoid them.

Jason raises an eyebrow. “Which one?”

Christ, I hope it wasn’t Batman or Robin. Don’t think I could take seeing either of them tonight.

“It was Red. Came through to ask some questions.”

It takes him a moment to connect the name to the roster of vigilante’s he made himself memorize before coming back here. Red Robin is the one he suspects used to be his replacement, probably got graduated or replaced himself when the newest brat was put in the boots.

“He came here?” Jason asks. “Why?”

“Usual mask thing, comin’ down here to talk to the little people who might’ve seen somethin’.”

Jason makes a thoughtful noise, a bit impressed. He was always the only one who bothered coming down here; even Bruce avoided the minor crooks of the Alley after he started getting more invested in Gotham’s rogues.

“Red’s good people,” Rhonda says then, looking like she’s considering something. “He’s the only one that tries with us. Pays good money, buys food—sorta like Robin used to. And you know he’s doin’ it on purpose, ‘cause when he’s around the city, he usually sticks to Chinatown or Tricorner. That’s what the news say, anyway.”

Jason is again surprised. “Definitely goin’ out of his way then.”

“Hm.”

He thinks about it a further minute and then shrugs. “Anything else interesting happening tonight? You need anything?”

“Yeah, for you to get off my corner so I can get to work,” Rhonda retorts. “Unlike you, I don’t like livin’ off bar food. Gotta be careful what you put in the temple, you know?”

“I dunno, give me a chili dog any day…”

Jason chuckles as she shoes him away, and then continues on his way to the bar. Maybe he’ll pick up something to go—

Just as he’s about to step into Trista’s bar, the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and he feels a minor flicker of vertigo.

Something’s off.

Turning back to the street, he casts his eyes about, looking for anything out of ordinary to explain the sudden unease. Something nags at him, something that feels…hungry almost.

Since his senses are only attuned to the spirit of the dead, a hungry presence is never a good sign. Ghosts can sometimes become so enraged over their deaths, so tied to the mortal realm, that they become psychic vampires, attaching themselves to the living and feeding off of them like a parasite until they drop from exhaustion.

Fuck. Can’t leave one of those wandering around, if that’s what this is.

He gives an irritated groan and walks away from the bar, turning his focus on tracking the sensation. It’s not exactly calling out to him personally, but it’s still present enough for him to notice.

Jason digs into his pocket, winding his prayer beads around his wrist and checking if he’s still got any iron on him. Nothing big enough to make much difference, but for distraction if it comes to it.

As he reaches the end of the block, Jason catches sight of the cape first.

Damn, I don’t miss the days of having to wear gear like that.

Because that cowl thing the vigilante is sporting is almost as much a tragedy as the green leotard Jason used to sport (they weren’t panties, fuck you very much, they just looked that way—as if Alfred would allow someone to go outside the house in just their underwear). And the cape is so thick it gives him no idea as to the stature or body behind it.

At least this Red Robin guy is smart enough to have a full body-armor suit instead of pixie-boots and a t-shirt.

Might be the only thing he’s smart about, judging by his company.

The too-perfect-looking young man that beckons the vigilante to follow him into the alleyway is all cold blue eyes, sharp smile, and sleek movement. And even if Jason couldn’t read the malevolent aura emanating from the direction of the two men (and that’s a doozy, especially if it’s coming from only one individual), he’s seen that look before in eyes just as cold.

He knows the tactics of an incubus seeking its next meal, and this one seems to have decided it has a taste for vigilante tonight.

This isn’t really Jason’s thing—incubi are low-level demons, more John’s area of expertise than his. Getting involved would mean willingly crossing paths with one of Gotham’s masks, which he’s been taking pains not to do since returning.

But he’s also not allowing any kind of unrestrained feeding and killing to happen on his turf. And these darkest, dingiest parts of Gotham have always been his. Even when he was trailing after the big Bat.

Plus, this guy is Red Robin.

Jason hasn’t had any particular interest in the growing number of masks cropping up in Gotham over the years, but this guy’s obviously a bird. Which means Jason has a kind of personal connection to him. Call it brothers-in-arms or something poetic like that, even if they’ve never met.

Also, the way incubi feed…no one deserves to have that happen to them, especially in a filthy alley like this one. Jason’s always had concern over consent issues, and with incubi, the way they get that consent literally straddles the line far too closely for his taste. This Red Robin might be Bat-trained, but unless he’s taken a master class in the occult (doubtful, considering Bruce’s distrust of anything resembling magic), he’s being led away like a lamb to the slaughter.

Probably he’s already been ensnared by the thing’s powers and doesn’t even realize it. Like a baby bird in front of a snake.

Jason sighs in defeat and rolls his shoulders in preparation for what he knows is going to be an unpleasant interlude.

“Time to be a hero,” he mutters to himself and stalks toward the shadowy alley where the two figures have disappeared.

⁂

Next Chapter

#jaytimweek2019 #jaytimweek #jaytimbingo2019 #JayTim #fanfic #jaytim fic #jason todd #tim drake #original characters #prompt: supernatural #drama #mystery #angst #incubus #paranormal investigator

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worryinglyinnocent · 7 years

Text

Fic: A Helping Hand From Beyond (16/16)

Posting earlier than usual due to lack of laptop.

Summary: “You know, sometimes the deceased stay with us, waiting until they’re sure we’ve moved on before they can move on themselves. Giving us a helping hand from beyond, as it were.”

When Gloria Rush and Rum Gold meet one cold October morning, they quickly come to the realisation that they share a common goal – to help those they left behind in life to move on and find happiness again. Using what little means available to them, the two lost souls team up to ensure their widows’ future, and find their own peace.

Rumbelle, Rushbelle, Gloria/Nick, and an epic Gold&Gloria bromance.

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[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [Fourteen] [Fifteen] [AO3]

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Sixteen

The Beginning

Time to move on.

Despite the fact Belle’s flight was delayed and she spent most of the journey listening to an elderly couple in the seats next to her bicker almost constantly about everything from child support payments to the price of cheese, she’s surprisingly chipper as Nicholas walks her home from their dinner date. It was nothing special, a little hole in the wall diner he’d introduced her to during one of their many little coffee dates, but that’s what she likes about him. There’s no pressure with Nicholas, there’s no real need to impress him. It’s an easy relationship, a slow one. That’s not to say it’s not as good as the first explosive throes of new love, but at her time of life, and having gone through everything that she’s gone through, it’s what Belle needs. No pressure, just the knowledge that things will happen in their own time.

This date has definitely been a Date, even if a somewhat impromptu one. Something’s changed a bit, a something that’s been changing for the past week or so ever since that evening in her apartment. They haven’t moved any further in their relationship since then, but Belle thinks that tonight might be the night they actually decide to take that step, to seal their romance with a kiss. No pressure. Just her and Nicholas.

They reach her building and Belle chances to take his hand, squeezing a little, and Nicholas returns it with a smile.

“Thank you for suggesting that. I don’t think I’d have been in the right frame of mind to eat anything proper if I’d been on my own. I’d probably just have scarfed an entire box of pop tarts.”

Nicholas snorts and looks her up and down. “I don’t think that an entire box of pop tarts would fit inside you.”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises, believe me.”

It’s cold out, but Belle doesn’t want to go inside just yet. She wants to stay in this moment a little longer.

“Nicholas,” she begins, since he shows no sign of wanting to let go of her hand. “I think I’d like to kiss you.”

A small, shy smile, almost schoolboy-ish, quirks the corner of Nicholas’s mouth.

“I think I’d like that too,” he replies, and Belle takes her chance, leaning up as he leans down, her lips meeting his in the middle.

He’s soft and warm and a little tentative, but so is she, and although their noses bump and Belle giggles, kissing isn’t really a skill that’s forgotten, just honed to new partners over time. She brings her other hand up to his cheek, his stubbly beard rough against her fingers. She enjoys the texture, and for the briefest of moments wonders what it might be like to feel it in other places, but those thoughts are chased away by the present. No, it’s not exactly the shooting stars and fireworks moment described in so many romance novels, but it’s still sweet in its own way.

She breaks away, grinning, and Nicholas is smiling too.

“That was nice,” she says.

“Yes, it was,” he agrees. “I think we should definitely do it again.”

“Right now, or at some indeterminate point in the future?” Belle asks.

“Well, the future’s pretty big.”

Belle nods. “Infinite, one might say.”

“Maybe we could try it now, just in case?”

“I’m on board with that.”

There’s less hesitation this time, but they still can’t seem to get their noses in the right place. It’ll come with time.

This time, as she breaks away, something catches the corner of her eye, and Belle turns.

For the briefest of moments, just a flicker before it fades, she sees Rum. He’s just standing there, watching her and Nicholas, and he smiles and nods. Belle blinks, and he’s gone. Just a fancy? Idle imagination? Hallucination? She thinks back to what she and Emma and Neal were talking about over Thanksgiving, the idea of her being Rum’s unfinished business. Maybe she’s just imagining it, her brain trying to provide her with a final piece of closure, knowing that Rum’s given her new relationship his seal of approval, but she’s not so sure. Not now she thinks about it, because Rum hadn’t been alone. There had been another figure beside him, a blonde woman in rose pink and grey whom Belle now recognises from a photo seen once in Nicholas’s office.

Hallucinating Rum she could understand, but hallucinating Gloria as well?

For a long time, Nicholas can’t say anything, he can only stare at the empty space that for a split second had been occupied with Gloria and Rum.

“Belle,” he begins, because he really needs to check he’s not going mad but at the same time he can’t think of a way to approach the subject without it sounding like he’s going mad. “Did you, erm, see that?”

Belle gives a slow nod. “Yes. I saw…”

“Gloria and Rum?”

“Yes.” She looks over at him. Well, at least they’re both going mad together if that’s the case.

“What do you think it means?”

Belle just smiles. “I think it means that this is what’s meant to happen. Us. This. I think it means we’re on the right track.”

“How…” For someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts or any kind of afterlife, Nicholas is having some trouble processing what they’ve just seen.

“You know, sometimes the deceased stay with us, waiting until they’re sure we’ve moved on before they can move on themselves. Giving us a helping hand from beyond, as it were.” Belle doesn’t seem at all phased by the idea, and he can see how it can be comforting and explain what he just saw.

Gloria looked happy. Whether that’s because she truly is happy (was happy - grammar rules and ghostly apparitions don’t go together) or because that’s how Nicholas likes to remember her, he doesn’t know, but either way, he’s going to take it as a good sign, and he holds Belle’s hand a little tighter. It’s time to move on, for all of them.

“Did they just see us?” Rum asks, still watching Belle and Nicholas as they stare straight through him and Gloria, who nods.

“Yes, I think they did.”

“I thought no-one could see us?”

“Well, evidently they could just then.” Gloria just smiles, and Gold looks frantically from her to Belle and Nicholas and back again.

“Is this going to be a problem? Have we just set them back three months again?”

Gloria raises an eyebrow. “Did you always worry this much when you were alive?”

“Frequently. The calm, composed landlord to whom no emotional plea could ever get through was actually a nervous wreck on the inside most of the time. Especially when Belle and Neal were involved.”

“Well, do you think we’ve set them back three months?” Gloria asks.

Gold looks across to Belle and Nicholas again. They’re still holding hands, still close. They haven’t moved from the position that they had been in only a few moments before, and they show no signs of being at all perturbed by the sudden momentary appearance of those long dead. Perhaps a little confused and pondering, certainly, but not like they’re particularly worried about it.

“No,” he admits to Gloria. “No, it looks like they’re set for the duration.”

“Then I don’t think we need to worry about setting them back,” Gloria says calmly. “They’ve both made that choice now, the choice to move on. It’s taken them a long time, but they’ve done it, and with a conviction that means very little will waver them. You said it yourself after Belle took her rings off, that any more nightmares would just be nightmares and she wouldn’t be discouraged. This is the same. Sort of.”

Gold gives a snort of laughter. “So what does this mean?”

“I think it means that it’s time for us to go,” Gloria says. There’s the slightest hint of sadness in her eyes and she gives a long sigh.

“Do you want to stay?” Gold asks gently. She shakes her head.

“No. Well, perhaps a little. All the time we’ve been here, we’ve been here with the express purpose of helping them to move on, and now they have done. There’s no reason for us to remain. But now that they have moved on, part of me wants to stay and see how it all works out for them. We were with them during their lowest time, through the worst of their grief and indecision, and we saw them through it, through to happiness. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, but now I can’t help feeling a little bit like we’re being cheated out of seeing the happy ending.” She gives a little laugh and moves away from Belle and Nicholas, turning her back on them and picking her way down the darkened street. Gold follows her, and as he moves, he can feel that time is running out, that the final tenuous grip on this world that he had is being broken. Things are fading around him.

“I know it’s silly,” Gloria says. “In films we never see the happy ending. The hero and heroine kiss and true love is declared and what-not, and then the credits roll and we’re just left with our imaginations.”

“True,” Gold says. “And if you think about it, nine times out of ten when they make a sequel that does show us the happy ending, it’s nowhere near as good as the original.”

“It’s not going to be completely happy all the time,” Gloria agrees. “And I wouldn’t want to have this moment ruined by the realities of life. Best to just let the credits roll and use our imaginations.”

Gold nods. “I agree entirely.”

He looks back over his shoulder towards Belle and Nicholas.

“Goodbye, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I love you so much, but now it’s time to go. So you go on and have your happy ending after the credits roll.”

There’s silence for a long time, and he feels himself fading, detaching from the world. He looks around himself, at the world he used to be a part of but that now feels so very alien and far away, and at Gloria still beside him.

“Now what do we do?”

They’re fading, Gloria can tell. Whilst she never had any idea what would come next after Nicholas had moved on and she by proxy also moved on, and she never had any desire to know, she knows that this is it, that she’s finally leaving this world behind for good. Aside from feeling a little cheated out of a happy ending, she’s pleased to be going. There’s nothing more that this world can do for her or she for it. All the same, she can’t help wondering what happens now.

“I think we just keep moving,” she says to Gold. “We just keep moving forward.”

Right now she can’t tell if the she’s fading out of the world or if the world is fading out around her. Everything feels more indistinct. Turning to glance over her shoulder, she sees Belle and Nicholas still standing together outside the apartment building, and she smiles. Enough now. No more thinking of the past and the future she has no part in. Time to think about her own future.

“Right.” Gold sounds somewhat unsure. “We just… keep walking into the light, that kind of thing? I thought you weren’t supposed to go towards the light?”

“That’s if you’re not already dead,” Gloria points out. “I think it’s a bit late for us not to go towards the light.” She pauses. “What light?”

“This light.”

Gold indicates the path ahead of them. Gloria will admit that she had been expecting some kind of glowing portal, but really it just looks more like a gentle sunrise which might be why she hadn’t really noticed it, even though logically she knows that it’s nowhere near sunrise time. The thought reassures her, that this is going to be a nice natural transition, nothing sudden or frightening.

Gold stops in his tracks and turns to her.

“Well, I guess that this is goodbye, Gloria. It’s been an honour to get to know you and work with you.”

Gloria nods. “Likewise, Rum.” She looks towards the dawn as it continues to creep. “Although, it does look like we’re going in the same direction. This doesn’t necessarily need to mean goodbye.”

“True,” Gold concedes. “And I think I’d feel far less trepidation about taking that step into the unknown with a friend by my side. I… I can consider you a friend, can’t I?”

Gloria nods. “Yes, you can.” She indicates the approaching dawn. “Shall we, Mr Gold?”

“I’d be delighted, Mrs Rush.”

Gold offers her his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman and Gloria laughs as she takes it and they move on confidently into the unknown.

#rushbelle #rushbelle fic #rumbelle fic #Belle French #Dr Nicholas Rush

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heartofgolduria · 5 years

Text

Magnimar, Varisia

Aviyah didn’t think she would ever get used to staying in noble houses. The Kaijitsu Villa was probably one of the more opulent buildings in the Naos District when it was in full repair. In its current state, though, the neighbors’ tongues were wagging about how the building should just be sold to someone who would actually be around to care for it. Aviyah could not say she disagreed the day they arrived. The servants--what few had been there--had made haste and left the property the moment the adventurers stepped through the door with little to no warning. Inside, it was clear that the absence of their employer had made them a little lazy. The home was still beautiful and would have only taken a day or two and some elbow grease to bring back to glory but the floors were dusty and things were out of place. Dishes were piled in the kitchen sink, unwashed from many nights of servants-only dinners and laundry remained in baskets in the washroom, untouched.

Iesha had immediately taken it upon herself to pick up the slack in her free time while the adventurers were sleeping over the past few days--much to the disdain of the neighbors, who had complained to the guard about the noise--and as they stepped back into the villa, it felt like a home again.

“Vivi! Vivian?!” They called uselessly through the house together, checking doors and hoping desperately for any sign that their friend had returned home while they were away.

“She’s not in any of the bedrooms,” Aviyah sighed, reconvening with Akane in the hallway. “And I checked the library and the study and she’s not there, either.”

“Not in the kitchen or the baths either,” Akane lamented, scrubbing a hand through her hair. Aviyah was so unused to seeing her without her hat on.

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon,” the rogue offered, “but why don’t you get cleaned up and I’ll start tea. We can go over all the new evidence while we wait.”

Before she even turned the corner, she could hear the shuffling that meant their ghostly companion had already begun busying herself in the kitchen. Aviyah watched as she floated jars and little boxes off the shelves, inspecting their labels and tossing them back in when she didn’t find what she was looking for.

“You would think a woman who runs an inn for a living would have a better selection,” Iesha grumbled, setting down a sack of salt on the countertop and turning back to whatever was already bubbling on the stove. She sighed heavily and added, “I miss the kitchen in the townhouse. Aldern was a fool but he had good taste.” Aviyah hoisted herself up onto the counter opposite Iesha to watch her work.

“Well, he did choose you, so I’d have to agree,” she joked, balancing a butterknife idly on one finger. Iesha spun around to cross her arms pointedly at the other girl as she rolled her eyes.

“I meant food,” she chided. Still, she smiled at Aviyah and drifted back to her place in front of the stove, moving her hands deliberately, her face stern as she attempted to stir the pot on the left and place the kettle on the right. The kettle clipped the edge of the stove, sending water flying across the tile. Iesha cursed under her breath and placed her hands over her face. “I swear I am never going to get the hang of this.”

“Hey, now,” Aviyah hopped down and picked up the kettle, refilling it with water and placing it on the stove. “You’ve only been a ghost for, what? A week, maybe. I’d say you’re doing very well so far.” She yanked the towel hanging from the handle of the oven to mop up the water with one foot, tossing it in the bin next to the basin with the other kitchen towels. Iesha was sitting at the table with her head tucked into her arms.

“I miss my hands,” she groaned pitifully. She glanced up to meet the amusement on Aviyah’s face with a pointed glare. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

“It is decidedly not funny,” she conceded, stirring idly at Iesha’s project on the stove. There were bits of various vegetables churning in the bubbling pot that smelled like vinegar and garlic and something else that she couldn’t identify. She scrunched up her nose and poked at it for a moment before the wooden spoon was forcibly yanked from her hands and Iesha was suddenly beside her, looking more irritated than before.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it,” she groused, turning her focus to moving the spoon back over the pot. Her fingers twitched as she worked it into a steady circular rhythm. Aviyah observed the careful concentration that crossed her features, the small wrinkle that had formed between her eyebrows, the way her eyes narrowed and she caught part of her lower lip between her teeth. Iesha’s eyes met hers for a moment as she realized she was being watched and her concentration faltered. The spoon stopped and fell onto the stovetop and Iesha crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. Why don’t you just let me--” Aviyah picked up the spoon and set back to work stirring where Iesha had left off in an uneven pattern that caused some of the strange contents to slosh up over the edge and sizzle on the grate below.

“Ah! No, not--ugh. Here!” Aviyah felt the cold pressure start in her fingers and reach its way up her forearm and when she looked down again, she was being pushed in a soft, rhythmic pattern. “Who taught you how to use a stove?”

“Trick question,” Aviyah answered, watching the swirling liquid intently. “Papa taught me a lot of things. I can tie a sail and I can navigate by the stars, but gods was he a lousy chef.” She chuckled a little at the memory and added, “My brother used to sneak away and grab us pastries from the market and we’d hide them in our packs so we’d have something to eat after Papa went to sleep. We never wanted to hurt his feelings. He tried so hard.” She hadn’t even noticed as she’d been talking that Iesha had let go of her hand.

“Well, while I’m still with you we’ll just have to make the most of it,” she was grinning over Aviyah’s shoulder. “Grab me that salt, would you?”

_____________

By the time Akane joined them, the girls in the kitchen had managed to make a passable sour vegetable soup. Aviyah was surprised by how good it was, despite her aversion to the smell, and after a long day they’d spent sneaking around and fighting for their lives, a warm fire and a full stomach went a long way. They spread out the papers on the large table and talked about their next move but they collectively agreed that to go forward without Vivi would be foolish at best. The guards still had not seen her when they checked in on the way back to the villa and they were beginning to worry in earnest. It was decided they would keep looking in the morning. They bid each other goodnight and headed to their own rooms for the evening.

While the majority of the villa had been constructed in a more traditional Varisian style, the guest rooms had been designed with a reflection of the owners’ Tian Xia heritage in mind. Aviyah’s guest room was on the second floor of the house on the western side of the hall. The furniture was all made of the same polished cherry wood with delicate mother of pearl inlays. A large window on the west wall painted the room in a dim white glow from the moon, filtered by the gauzy curtains hanging from ornamental rods above. Above the low bed, a round tapestry bound in a wooden frame hung on the wall depicting a peaceful, mountainous landscape.

After a long bath and a last cup of tea, Aviyah lit the candles by the bedside, settled into the soft mattress, her back to the padded headboard, and pulled a carefully folded bundle of unfinished cloth from her pack.

The first day’s work had been tedious as she tried to remember the simple patterns the sweet tiefling girl had taught her at the Merchant’s Fortune but after several days of trial and error, the thread slipped back and forth across the fabric easily. Her work was still not as clean as the tiefling’s or as beautiful as her mother’s, but Aviyah stifled some pride at how the pattern was coming together under her hands. Over the past couple of days, the little project had become a sort of meditation to put her mind at ease when she could not go to sleep. There was some satisfaction she drew from the repetition. She took the moments of peace when she did not have to focus to reflect on the day and sometimes she prayed, mostly to Desna but occasionally to Iomedae, too.

A knock on the door startled her from her work. The house had been quiet, the only sound a light scratching on the window from a tree just outside. She hastily shoved all of the fabric with all its new stitching into her back and answered, “Come in!”

The door did not open, but Iesha’s shimmery form phased through the heavy wood and out the other side gracefully and she settled herself on the edge of the bed in an awkward half-sit that did not look entirely natural.

“I’m sorry for knocking so late,” she said, glancing around the room at the various knick knacks and paintings that adorned the walls. “I was just concerned. I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave a candle burning or something--there was light under the door.”

“Ah, yeah. Sorry I worried you, I was just having trouble sleeping,” Aviyah lied. Iesha glanced down at the pack on the floor and her brow furrowed a little.

“I miss sleeping,” she said, flopping backwards onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. “If I were you, I’d be sleeping all the time. And I miss being able to change my hair. If I had known this is what I would look like when I was a ghost I might I have taken more care to look presentable.”

“You look fine,” Aviyah chuckled and Iesha rolled her eyes a little in response.

“Ah, yes,” she countered sarcastically. “Because all I ever wanted in life was to look fine. ‘Here lies Iesha, daughter of the most beautiful woman in Varisia. She looked fine, I guess’ is exactly how I want my eulogy read. You should make a note of that.” Aviyah blushed a little and shook her head, grinning.

“Now you’re telling me that you are your own daughter?” she joked. “No one at the funeral is gonna believe that.” Iesha looked away and broke into a fit of nervous giggles. She regained her composure and sighed heavily.

“Thank you,” she said more seriously. “I know I’ve only been dead for three months but it’s been a lot longer since the last time someone made me laugh.” Her eyes slipped closed and she shuddered a little, her outline flickering slightly. “Is it terrible that sometimes I miss him?”

Aviyah laid down on her back next to the other girl and traced the beams above with her eyes, thinking hard before answering, “No. I don’t think it’s terrible.” They laid there in silence for a moment.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Iesha continued softly. “But he wasn’t always that..whatever he was. That was the strangest thing about those monsters back at the townhouse. It was like staring back in time. I know it wasn’t really him but they got everything right.”

“Not everything,” Aviyah interjected before she could stop herself. “She didn’t smile like you do. Your smile tilts up more on one side. Hers didn’t.” Iesha turned and opened her mouth to object but decided better of it.

“I think,” she said after a moment. “I just miss people. I was never alone. I grew up with siblings and cousins and friends and when Aldern and I got married there were parties and visitors and all that but then I...stayed in my room and then he took me away to the manor and out of town. Darren was the only friend I had there and he just…” She took an unnecessary, shuddering breath. “I’m just tired of being alone. All those hours awake, alone in the dark just feel like when he... I have too much time to think.” Not for the first time, Aviyah wished she could reach out for her.

“I know what you mean,” she said instead, closing her eyes. “Living with the girls was always so closely packed. We did everything together when we weren’t working. I didn’t necessarily care for their company but it was company. And then I escaped and, well, this is the most time I’ve spent with other people since. Is it terrible to miss them?”

“I miss my family,” Iesha choked out. Her visage faded in and out as her energy wavered.

For the first time since she left the Merchant’s Fortune, Aviyah let herself say it out loud. “Me too.” They sat like that together, listening to the tap, tap, tap on the window and watching the shadows dance along the beams that held up the ceiling. Aviyah felt the chill in her fingers and curled them up around the invisible hand she knew would be there if she just had the courage to look.

“I know you can’t sleep,” she said finally. “But you can stay here with me. Read or draw or whatever ghosts do at night. If you want to. I don’t mind.”

“I think I’d like that.”

#aviyah #Pathfinder OC #dungeons and dragons oc #dndoc #journal

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