#re: OLD old digital paintings for other fandoms that i still get notes for on here today | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

f00pyf00p · 3 years

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Art Crossed Lovers

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: Logan, Virgil, Janus, Roman, Patton Rating: Teen and Up Relationships: Romantic Analogical Warnings: Swearing, Robbery, Police, Guns, Gunshots, Injury, Major Character Death Word count: 4553 Summary: The sirens came at precisely 7:24 pm. They were a minute and 12 seconds late; exactly as Logan had predicted. Indeed, when Virgil glanced at him, he found his lover’s normally sharp expression tinted with smugness, especially as the flashing lights drove right past their hiding place. Other Notes: Analogical Week Day 2: Song/Stars @analogicalweek

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Song: Partners in Crime (Set It Off)

The sirens came at precisely 7:24 pm. They were a minute and 12 seconds late; exactly as Logan had predicted. Indeed, when Virgil glanced at him, he found his lover’s normally sharp expression tinted with smugness, especially as the flashing lights drove right past their hiding place.

Virgil still felt tight. So far they had been successful- the evidence of that lay behind him- but all it would take was one misstep. One dropped eyelash, one unexpected flash of a camera.

“We need to go,” he said urgently. He glanced down at the car’s ignition. At the moment, the key lay in it, unturned and silent. “They’ll double back.”

Logan’s face was impassive. “We move too early, we’ll be found.”

“It’s the same thing if we move too late,” Virgil countered.

He could tell Logan was weighing his words, but they didn’t have time to think: they had to move. Now.

“Trust me, L,” Virgil urged.

That seemed to do the trick. Logan’s hand fell to the ignition. His eyes narrowed and Virgil could practically see the gears in his head turning as he figured out how to get on the highway quickest, which roads he needed to take to blend in, and where they could ditch this car in turn for another one.

The key turned and the car roared to life.

It was loud. Loud enough that Virgil almost told Logan to turn the blasted thing off, but Logan’s foot had already hit the gas.

There was no turning back now.

Logan drove calmly. He stopped at the stop signs, slowed as the lights turned yellow, and stayed exactly five miles above the speed limit at all times. There was no sign that the car did anything but belong there. Nobody who looked at this average, law-obeying car would connect it with the million-dollar paintings stowed carefully in the back.

The highway ramp was in view. Something within him unfoiled as they made it onto that bridge and he relaxed further when it was confirmed that the highway had enough cars on it that they wouldn’t be inconspicuous.

Logan merged quite quickly. He pulled into the fast lane, behind a medium gray car that looked almost identical to the one they were in, and sat back.

“Good call,” Logan told Virgil gently.

“I always make good calls.”

Logan glanced off the road for a brief second, solely to raise his eyebrows before bringing his focus back to the cars around him.

“Ass.”

A quirk of Logan’s mouth was the only answer he gave.

Okay, so maybe over the years Virgil’s decisions hadn’t always been perfect. His anxiety was a double-edged sword; sometimes it made exactly the kind of cut Virgil needed to figure out all possible ways out of a dangerous situation. Other times it sliced his hands and Logan and Virgil were left to clean up the blood.

But right now, his fear had pushed them out of their hiding spot. If they had stayed a moment longer the red and blue lights they had so carefully avoided for years might’ve finally shone on them.

Logan drifted into the middle lane, leaving the twin of their car to pull ahead of them. Virgil watched it go silently and reminded himself that everything was going to plan.

They were ready for this.

“Logan!”

But Logan had already spotted it. Sitting in wait, just in view, was a police vehicle. Its lights were off but Virgil could easily imagine the white plump man behind the wheel, holding a speed gun and waiting for a car to make his life slightly more interesting.

Like the rest of the cars around him, Logan hit the breaks. His speed fell- 85, 76, 70- and Virgil gripped the sides of his seat until his hands turned white.

“If we get pulled over-”

“They won’t take us alive,” Logan said. The words, which should not have been comforting in any shape or form, helped Virgil to take a breath and remember the plan.

Because they had planned for this too. Being pulled over, being talked to, what to say and how to say it. And if things went so south the cops figured out just who they were….

Virgil’s hand fell to the gun straddled in his hip.

They wouldn’t separate them. When it came down to it, the only thing that would split up Virgil and Logan was death.

The police car was behind them now. His light remained off and the extremity of Virgil’s extra tension eased away as Logan and the car's speed around them re-picked up.

“Next exit,” Virgil reminded him.

Logan’s lips curved up in his not-a-smile but totally adorable way. “I’m plenty aware, Virgil, I assure you.”

His blinker flicked on and he slowly moved over to the merging lane. Their speed dropped slightly but the roar of the highway was just as deafening and centering as before.

Logan clicked his blinker on again and moved to get off. It was a fairly busy turning point; he wasn’t the only car getting off and they had to come to a stuttering halt before being allowed back on town roads again.

The stillness was awful, but it would’ve been worse to be alone. There was safety in numbers, Virgil reminded himself, even if numbers forced the damn car to stop when all he wanted to do was get to the stupid dropping point.

Logan turned them left, down roads wooded dark roads until they finally landed at a dark empty parking lot, picked solely for its lack of cameras. Plus, not five minutes away was a car dump- a very easy place to dump one car and pick up a brand new one.

7:58.

“We’re early,” Virgil whispered.

“We expected that.”

“I hate being early.”

“You hate being on time and late as well.”

Virgil glared at Logan. A heavy sigh made its way from his boyfriend and Logan let his hand fall on Virgil’s knee and stroke it in calming little circles with his thumb.

“My apologies, Love. I’m tense.” Logan looked over at the car’s digital clock, where the stubborn “58” remained. “I’d also prefer to not be early.”

Virgil’s heart melted a little at the admission. “Forgiven,” he promised, before leaning forward and planting a kiss on Logan’s left cheek.

Logan looked so adoringly at him, Virgil nearly shoved him away.

7:59. The moment the number turned, a tiny white car pulled into the parking lot. It parked right beside them, leaving just enough space for the man they had been contacted by to jump out and walk up to Virgil’s window.

Virgil rolled it down.

“How’d it go?” Janus asked curtly.

“Exactly as planned.” Virgil’s voice had fallen back into its harder “don’t-mess-with-me” tone he always got when dealing with clients. Behind him, Logan's eyes shone like a wildcat in the dark. “Can I assume you weren’t followed?”

Janus snorted. “Please.”

Logan and Virgil glanced at each other. After a brief moment, Virgil nodded and Logan hopped out of the car, leaving the engine roaring, and opened the back door.

There were five different paintings back there. All five had been stolen from the Samburu tribe of Northern Kenya. All five had traveled around the world for a bit, earned themselves a reputation and a large net worth, before finding their way to a famous art gallery.

A famous art gallery that now found itself five paintings short.

“We’ll check in with both you and the Samburu in about a week to ensure these ended up in the right spot.” Logan’s client voice wasn’t as rough or as nasty as Virgil’s; it was pure ice and it nipped whomever he turned it on.

The noise that came from Janus was practically a snarl. “You think I would steal from my own people?”

“I think we will be checking in with you and the Samburu in about a week.” The frost from earlier had turned into a blizzard. Logan turned his back on Janus and silently helped the man move everything from car to car. Once things were situated, he slipped back into the front seat and waited.

Janus dropped a bag through Virgil’s open window and into his lap. Virgil didn’t bother hiding how he opened it and slowly rifled through the bills.

It was all there. At an obscenely low rate considering the amount of effort they had gone through to get those paintings, but plenty for the two of them.

“Make sure you change license plates,” Virgil advised.

Janus had the wisdom to nod as Virgil rolled his window up. The two of them left first, as quietly and quickly as they could without being suspicious.

“Well, Logan,” Virgil said as he stowed their money into his black hoodie, “Shall we go?”

Logan pulled into the car dump, another one of his half-smiles dancing over his face. “Indeed.”

It took them no time at all to find the car they had stashed here, hidden beautifully amongst the rubble and broken vehicles. Virgil replaced the license plates with ones they had gotten earlier while Logan made it his business to completely destroy the ones they had driven the stolen paintings around in.

Then he set the car on fire.

By the time it was done burning out, Virgil had finished with the old one. They hopped into it, this time with Virgil at the wheel, and took off into the night.

It was time to lie low for a bit.

“In other news Art Museum The Centre of the Mind has recently been visited by the Art Crossed Lovers. They stole five paintings: “The Sunrise” worth 34 million, “Lifting Up” worth 65 million, “Gardens of Forever” worth 22 million, “Father of Life” worth 12 million, and finally, “Wretched Dream” worth 47 million. Unlike the previous heist, nobody was harmed in the taking of these paintings however-”

Virgil glanced over at Logan, who was gripping the frying pan a little harder than normal. Slowly, Virgil pushed from their kitchen table, leaving the radio to amuse itself, and slunk around Logan’s back. “Smells good, baby,” he breathed.

“Thank you.” Logan relaxed back into his hold. “The eggs should be done in a few minutes.”

“The Centre of the Mind was considered one of the hardest places to get into, with top-of-the-line cameras, motion detection, passive infrared sensors, as well as RFID tags put into the paintings to track them. However, while no technology seems to have been turned off or broken in any way, there is no evidence of anyone other than the guards being in the building at any point in time.”

Logan had taken on the more smug look of his.

“All RFID tags were found stuck to the wall where the painting had previously been. With no way to track the paintings, officials can’t be sure where they’re headed.”

“You can guess,” Virgil muttered.

Logan’s huff of a laugh was like music to Virgil’s ears, and he rewarded the noise with a gentle kiss to the neck.

“Previous experiences with The Art Crossed Lovers suggest that all five artworks will arrive with the Samburu people of Northern Kenya, where the artwork originated. Officials ask that museums be on their guard-

“Eggs are done.” Logan turned his head sideways to look at Virgil the best he could. “Would you like to let go of me now, Love, so we can eat?”

Virgil responded with a whine and buried his face into Logan’s neck.

“The eggs will get cold.”

“Fuck the stupid eggs.”

“Hmmm.” Logan’s voice was light, slightly teasing. “How about we make a deal?”

Virgil stayed silent.

“We’ll eat breakfast, as nutrients are important, and if I remember correctly-” he jerked his head towards the radio, still spreading what they had done last night. “We burned quite a number recently.”

“Don’t care.”

“In return, you may have cuddles.”

Virgil’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a thief.”

“Accurate.”

“I can just steal cuddles.”

“Virgil-”

“And eggs.”

“...What?”

“Put the food on a plate.”

Looking more amused than anything else, Logan reached up into one of their cupboards and removed a large white plate. He piled the scrambled eggs on it and then, with Virgil still locked around his waist, added to the buttered pieces of toast he had finished a moment before.

Virgil took over. He led Logan over to the couch, sat him down, and then instantly wrapped Logan’s arm around him.

“Cuddles and nutrients.”

Logan kissed the side of his head. “Indeed.”

They normally waited at least four months before even planning to resurface again. This time, however, Logan got a call from a group of indigenous people in Mexico only three months into their rest period claiming that seven paintings were stolen from them and currently residing in the art museum the Gallery of Dreams. They checked up on it and of course, the group was telling the truth.

“We should wait a little longer,” Virgil muttered. “This is too soon. The museums are still on high alert.”

“The museums have been on high alert since our first three,” Logan responded. “The paintings are culturally significant. They need them in a month.”

Virgil pursed his lips. “So much could go wrong.”

Logan’s hand covered his but when Virgil glanced over at him he found that his boyfriend wasn’t looking at him but at his laptop, filled to the brim with different notes about the museum, the people, the paintings, and who would be picking them up.

“The escape route is easy.” Logan clicked onto his tab with a map. “It's practically right next to a popular highway and from there we can head to Marieville-” his finger jabbed a town- “pick up a car, wash down the other one, and head through Bardsbury-” his finger pointed again- “where Remus can pick them up.”

“What about cameras?”

Logan paused. His fingers clicked across the keyboard rapidly. Virgil let his head fall on Logan’s shoulder as he worked, quietly taking in the websites before-

“Okay, not Marieville then. It looks like Hamtree has fewer cameras and if we switch and clean cars out in this dead spot, we’d be fine.”

“Logan?”

“Hmm?”

“How close is the police station to that dead spot?”

A string of curses came out of Logan’s mouth, and Virgil smiled rather faintly as Logan had to rework their exit again.

A smaller, louder part of him reminded him that planning the escape was usually easiest, and if they were having this much trouble with just that it didn’t bode well.

“Got it. We’re heading to Lumbire.”

Virgil glanced over his route. Cameras were accounted for. They’d drop off a clean car before the heist so they could switch out and head for Bardsbury. Police stations were all over 15 minutes away from all of their spots, except for the Museum. They’d blend in, get out, find a new vehicle, and get out again.

It was simple. Perfect. Something they had done 1000 times.

“Alright,” Virgil surrendered. “What do we go about that.” He jabbed the museum with a single finger before settling back into Logan’s side.

“We gather information,” Logan replied. An arm swung itself around Virgil. “I’m certain we can figure something out.”

They’d been hanging out next to the Museum for the past few weeks. It had been a quick move- neither Logan nor Virgil had much stuff- and since then, it had been nothing but work, work, play, and then some more work.

Especially since it was two days to the heist.

Virgil lounged across the couch, a cup of very bitter coffee in one hand, quietly going over the plan.

He had managed to grab them some police uniforms. Nothing that would fool an actual cop, but realistic-looking enough that when they buzz the security desk and tell him they were coming about a disturbance, nothing would be questioned.

There would be two security guards. It would be pretty easy to trick them out of the security room; people were pretty compliant once they saw the cop uniform, and then further compliant when they saw the gun. Both would be handcuffed and blindfolded.

Virgil took a sip of the coffee to try and calm his nerves.

Logan would enter the security room and hack into their technology. He had estimated it would take him under five minutes to make sure everything would come up blank for the time they were there. If the button to call the police had an easy-to-find wire, it would be cut.

Neither of them believed such a wire would exist.

From then on, it was just a race. Get to the paintings, load them into the car, and then get out of there. If things went really really well, the police wouldn’t even be alerted till morning.

Virgil pursed his lips and glanced over at the male sitting a couple of feet away from him. Logan was frowning- never a good sign- and looking rather blankly down at their notes.

“You good?”

Logan didn’t respond.

“L?”

His boyfriend blinked and turned to him. “Yes, Love?”

Virgil rolled his eyes and maneuvered around, placing his coffee on the table in front of the couch and dropping his head upon Logan’s lap. “You good?” he repeated.

Logan’s hand fell into his hair. “I was thinking about our escape route.”

“Yeah?”

“It might be smarter to avoid the highway since we’ll be moving in the early morning.”

Virgil paused. He went back over their plan silently, trying to piece what Logan said into it.

It wouldn’t be a big change. They’d still be going to the same towns, still have the same stopping points.

“We’d be on the road longer.”

“Indeed.” Logan gnawed on his bottom lip. “That’s why I haven’t brought it up with you yet. I’m not wholly convinced it's necessary, especially since the cops won’t be notified.”

They fell silent again. Virgil mulled it over.

“I’m for side roads.”

Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? You hate last-minute changes.”

Yeah, and the butterflies in Virgil’s stomach were not thanking him for deciding this. He swallowed and curled closer into the warmth of Logan’s lap and gently stroking of his hair.

“I know. But I think this is a good one.”

Logan licked his lips. “Alright then,” he decided. “We’ll go side roads.”

They parked as close to the Museum as they could get without it being straight in the front. Logan turned the key, turning the car off, but left the key in the ignition in case they had to go at a moment's notice. Both of them pulled hats down to cover their hair and Logan pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Ready, Love?”

“Ready, Baby.”

The two of them opened their respective car doors at the same time. Logan straightened the fake police badge on his shoulder and strode right up to a door off to the side and hit the buzzer.

A voice came over the intercom. “Hello?” It came out a little nervous, slightly shaky. “Can I help you?”

Virgil watched with some amusement as Logan took a breath and practically sunk into the person he was supposed to be embodying until it wasn’t his boyfriend the art thief that stood across from him.

It was just a cop.

“Yes, we’re here about a disturbance call,” Logan's voice was curt. “Do you mind if we just come up and poke around? It won’t take long.”

“I’m not supposed to allow-”

“We’ll be quite quick,” Virgil jumped in. He made his tone warmer than Logan’s, softer. He’d learned enough about this person to know they would appreciate it. “I’m sure it's nothing, but protocol, you know.”

Logan’s mouth quirked up.

“Al-Alright then, Yeah, I’ll buzz you in.”

Almost as he said it, there was a loud buzzing noise, and Logan opened the door. The two of them strode into the building and just before the door could close, Virgil stuck an old keycard in between the lock.

There was no need to worry about getting stuck indoors.

They padded their way up to the security guard. Both Logan and Virgil’s hands had come to rest on the small handguns on their waist. They had each only fired from it during a heist once- but during practice earlier, neither had missed a mark.

“Hi.” There was a 20-something-year-old sitting behind glass. They wore large oval glasses and stared out at the two of them with big brown innocent eyes.

They probably shouldn’t have taken a job as a guard.

“Do they… ” Logan looked the guard up and down and then over at Virgil. “Do they look like…?”

Virgil had to keep from smiling. God, his boyfriend was good.

“Are you Patton Lennon?” he asked. He tried to keep the warmth from earlier while adding a bit more roughness and suspicion.

The guard reacted exactly as Virgil wanted them to. They pulled back, away from the glass, away from the system- and away from the button that called the police.

“I- Yes, but why-”

“Come out.” Logan left no room for negotiation. “We have some questions for you, Mx. Lennon.”

It was almost too easy. Patton instantly left the security guard area. As the door opened, Logan caught it on one hand and pulled it the rest of the way open, as if he were holding it for them. Patton didn’t seem to find this strange, though Virgil watched their eyebrows knit together as Logan stepped into the room.

It was too late for them anyway. Virgil pulled the gun off of the guard's waistband and handcuffed him before Logan had even made it to the control panel.

“What are you…” Patton’s eyes widened. “You’re not cops! Are you…”

“Don’t fight and you won’t get hurt.” Any warmth had died in the chasm of terror eating Virgil from the inside out.

Logan's eyes flickered over the system. “This is garbage. You don’t even have RFID tags.”

Patton shrugged helplessly.

“Well, better news for us.” Logan's fingers flew across random buttons. “Alright Love, we have an hour before anything starts showing us in here. Shall we get started?”

Virgil nodded quietly.

Logan strode out of the security room and let the door fall closed. His lips pursed as he looked at it; apparently, there hadn’t been any wire to cut off the police button.

They would just have to be extra careful.

“Where’s the second guard?” Logan’s question was directed towards Patton, who gave the same helpless shrug from earlier. However, something in his eyes flickered and it made Virgil nervous. He looked around them.

“Baby-”

Bang!

The first thing Virgil felt wasn’t the pain but the pushback. The bullet had shot clean through his shoulder, whirling him against the wall behind him. It wasn’t until he had fully sunk to the floor did the pain hit and he remembered to pull out his own gun.

Logan was much more reactive than he was. Before Virgil had even registered the pushback, his boyfriend had whirled around and fired straight through the second security guard's forehead.

Patton screamed. “ROMAN!”

“You move, you die.” Logan’s voice was like nothing Virgil had ever heard before. It wasn’t ice; this was pure fire, pure fury, and the slightest amount of desperation. “Got it?”

Patton just sobbed out that guard's name. Roman, Roman, Roman.

Logan ripped off the police shirt and pressed it against the wound. Virgil whimpered as it hit him and despite his best efforts, tears pooled in his eyes. He closed them tightly, trying to breathe, even as each breath sent shockwaves through his body.

“I’ve got you, Love.” Both of Logan’s hands worked Virgil’s wound, using his blue tie to wrap around the police shirt and hold it there. “This is going to hurt.”

“Baby, I'm a little scared.” He was not at all happy with how pathetic his voice sounded, and how no matter what he tried he couldn’t pull the sobs back in.

“Now don't you quit on me.” Logan’s voice was soft, but not meek. “I’m going to tighten the tie. Okay?”

Virgil nodded. Sweat beaded down his forehead and he let his head drop back.

“3. 2. 1.”

Logan pulled and the tie forced the shirt tight around the bullet hole. Virgil let out a scream and he felt Logan shudder with it. When he opened his eyes, he found tears glistening on his boyfriend’s face- tears that Logan was quick to swipe away.

“I’m alright,” Virgil whispered. “Where’s…” His eyes widened. “Baby, Patton-”

It was far too late. The guard had already smacked that police button, having snuck into the security guard’s room while Logan tended to Virgil. Patton’s eyes went wide as they looked over at the pair of them, and they whimpered as Logan turned to them, face unreadable.

“Come here.”

Patton decided not to argue. The moment they were within distance, Logan’s arm came up, slamming the butt of his gun into Patton’s temple with more ferocity than Virgil had ever seen his boyfriend exhibit. The guard collapsed to the floor, unconscious, and Logan put handcuffs around his ankles before leaning over to Virgil.

“Come on Love. We’re going.”

Virgil wasn’t about to argue. He tried his best not to whimper as Logan lifted him up, but from the pained look on Logan’s face, he had failed miserably. Slowly, they made their way over to the door, the door that would lead to their car, and that would lead them out of here.

They could still make it.

Weee-ooowww Weee-ooowww…

Virgil’s heart fell. He glanced over at Logan, who pressed a firm kiss to his temple.

“They don’t take us alive,” Virgil told him.

A flicker of a smile appeared on Logan’s face. “Do you wish to go down in a blaze of glory, Love, or here?”

“Is that even a question baby?” Virgil faced the door, and the lights he knew lay beyond them. “Let’s make sure we’re remembered.”

It would be difficult for Virgil to fire a gun. His right arm wasn’t able to move, and the left was strung up and around Logan’s shoulder, to help his boyfriend to keep from dropping him. But Logan unclipped Virgil’s gun from around his waist and passed it to Virgil’s left hand, so the tip faced forward.

There wouldn’t be any aim, but Virgil was ready to cause a little chaos.

Logan swung the door open and stepped both of them through the frame. They looked out, over the sea of flashing police cars, and the policemen and women huddled behind them with their guns up in the air.

“This is the sheriff's police department! Come out with your hands up! We have the place surrounded!”

Virgil grinned. He could barely hear the calls of the police officer; it was blocked by the harsh pulse thumping in his ears, pounding in his wound.

“Put your weapons down!”

Logan cocked his gun.

“Put your weapons down!”

Logan and Virgil looked at each other. Eyes locked, Logan leaned forward and slammed their lips together. Just as they met, both Virgil and Logan pulled the triggers on their guns.

The Art Crossed Lovers were still kissing when the answering shots blew their brains out.

#analogical #analogicalweek #virgil sanders #logan sanders #sandersides #day2 #song #partners in crime #deathtw

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sermichels-blog · 5 years

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once bitten / twice shy (urie/higemaru)

Title: Once Bitten / Twice Shy Fandom: Tokyo Ghoul :Re Pairing: Urie Kuki/Higemaru Touma Rating: T Summary: “Listen … here’s what you should know.” A cold tone of voice, to match the thermostat setting. Urie fixes his gaze somewhere on the back wall of his bedroom. “I don’t do dating. I’m not going to be anyone’s boyfriend. (Love is out of the question.) So if you try this, you’re just going to be disappointed in the end.” A/N: TG:Re fandom needs more Urie/Higemaru. I feel like I can’t be the only one shipping it. Right? ... Anyway, cue 2,500+ words, in which there’s kissing and Urie acting like an emotionally constipated dumbass (because that’s who he is.)

(Read on AO3)

Perhaps somewhere in the procedural handbooks, there are rules and guidelines for professional working relationships within the CCG. And within those handbooks, Urie is sure there might be a note about the dangers of romantic or sexual relations with your direct superior (or a member of your squad, if you are the direct superior.)

But those aren’t the procedures committed to his memory. They’re not relevant to fieldwork, for one thing, and won’t help him effectively kill more ghoul scum, so there’s not much point reading and taking notes to the point where he can quote exact subsections. Especially for him, because romance and sex have perpetually been off the radar of his priorities.

At least –– they’re supposed to be.

They’re supposed to be.

They’re going to be. (He knows the cost of slipping up.)

It’s an unusual day that sees them flushing out Aogiri agents in the middle of the afternoon. Ghouls aren’t nocturnal, but it seems like darkness tends to embolden them to go creeping outside with their masks and shroud-like clothing. But the squad had a reliable tip-off, ambushing a group outside a hideout in the 12th Ward.

Complete annihilation before 6 p.m. is a reasonable accomplishment.

It makes for a strange evening, though. Urie’s stomach turns as he cuts up meat for their dinner (although it even churns at the smell of plain white rice). As usual, Yonebayashi is no help; he nearly trips over her as she hangs around the kitchen. Aura pisses him off by breathing, although he’s at least dutifully washing all the utensils Urie hands his way.

There isn’t room for everyone to be here helping, and the tally of the number of times Higemaru has accidentally brushed Urie’s hands, his biceps, his ass … it’s reached double digits. (Halfway there was already too much.)

Urie excuses himself as soon as he’s finished eating, leaving the rest of the washing up for the squad to complete. “I’m taking a shower,” he announces, and even though he means it as a deterrent, he can tell whose attention he’s piqued.

“Please relax and enjoy it, squad leader!” Higemaru flashes a smile.

In tandem, Urie and Hsiao roll their eyes.

But ultimately he ends up following that advice, even if it has nothing to do with Higemaru’s request. It’s actually his third shower today: one in the morning (customary); one after their mission (for removing sweat and blood from the afternoon’s operations). This time it’s just to turn the water up to the highest heat his skin can tolerate, and hope that it burns away some of the tension knotted deep into the muscles of his back and the base of his neck.

It helps.

For all that he appreciates buttoning himself into uniform and going to work, it is nice sometimes to slip on an old t-shirt, soft around the edges from a few dozen cycles in the washing machine, athletic pants rather than tailored slacks, and a navy blue sweatshirt that declares his affiliation to the CCG’s 7th Junior Academy. His hair falls into his eyes now when he doesn’t style and gel it, so that’s not ideal …

Urie is staring at his paints, mentally weighing up the advantages to spending a little time on one of his canvases before he attempts to sleep, when he hears a soft yet deliberate knock on his bedroom door. Saiko probably wouldn’t knock at all, and would simply let herself in, while Aura is too stupid to knock, so it leaves one of the other recruits as options. (It won’t be Mutsuki, either. He and Urie have a wordless and mutual understanding to stay out of one another’s private space.)

Rose hair and a hopeful smile greet Urie, which makes him reconsider his choice to answer. Higemaru is so …

So bright, sometimes. He’s wrapped into a sweater that’s clearly too big for him, which seems like a waste, given the prominent designer’s emblem stitched near the hem, but that gives him the effect of looking smaller than he is.

“Squad leader, are you busy?”

Urie hesitates long enough for it to be an obvious no. (He blames the fact that he’s tired.) “What’s this about?”

“I wanted to ask what I can do to improve,” Higemaru declares.

It’s hard to find fault with that question, admittedly (even if Urie is sure that his own bedroom isn’t the right setting for them to discuss it). The boy is far from perfect, and could really use some improvement –– physically, tactically ––

“Listen to instructions?” Urie suggests.

He steps away, but behind him, the door stays open. It’s as close as he gets to making straight up invitations.

Higemaru takes a few curious steps inside, pausing to look at the canvases lined up by the wall. Urie is glad none of them are in such a state of completion to reveal the subject matter; those are questions he doesn’t want to field right now. (Or ever.)

“I try.” Higemaru frowns as he skips ahead a few steps to get closer to Urie. “But–– you know how it is in the heat of the moment. Sometimes the instructions aren’t …” He flushes, and backtracks. “I don’t mean to say you’re wrong! It’s just that if the plan has to change, I don’t think I’m good at improvising. But you always seem to know how to adapt, Urie-senpai.”

He can say that, Urie thinks, because he didn’t see what it was like that time.

Something gnaws at the inside of him.

“You were a good student,” Urie says, surprised at the patience in his own voice. “You have to be so confident in your own knowledge that it becomes instinct. The heat of the moment doesn’t matter –– what you learned will keep you alive, if you can do it right.”

Higemaru’s eyes widen, and he nods. “That’s–– ”

(Don’t say it’s cool.)

“That’s why training your body is important,” Urie interrupts so Higemaru can’t finish the statement. “You can know everything there is to know, and it’s useless if you can’t keep up physically. The same goes in reverse. Being physically strong is useless without the tactical knowledge to back it up.”

There’s another nod. Urie isn’t sure if he likes the way Higemaru is looking at him now, with such wide-eyed admiration … it’s not like he doubts his own talent, but he’s aware enough of his own limitations to know when hero worship isn’t justified.

And besides, it reminds him just a little bit of how he used to be able to say absolutely anything (any bullshit) he wanted and Shira––

Urie places a hand on Higemaru’s shoulder, intending to guide him back towards the door and out to the hallway, where without saying so many words, he’ll make the message clear: goodnight, we’re done talking.

He sees Higemaru’s eyes flicker downwards as he does so. Urie’s eyes similarly flicker lower, and it’s stupid, because he can tell Hige is looking at his lips, which he obviously can’t see himself, but he can mirror it and see the younger boy’s pout. He can also glance up in time to see Hige meet his gaze, and it’s mostly an accident of timing that sends his head tilting left when they lean in.

For some reason, it still surprises Urie when their lips meet.

Higemaru is soft, and tastes like rosewater; he wonders if he’s put on some kind of lip balm, and if he did that because he was anticipating this. It’s slow, careful, and exploratory at first, while Urie’s mind races –– no, it’s more of a languid crawl, isn’t it? –– to catch up. He can hear the sound of their breaths, and open eyes catch Higemaru’s girlishly long eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. Even with his stupid wide-eyed expressions, he’s undeniably pretty, even if Urie is adamant about having no time for romance.

In fact, he’s usually the type to dodge the embraces his teammates try to throw his way, so Higemaru’s hand steadying itself on his waist while his own hand (he’s forgotten his gloves, he notes with a moment’s panic, and feels like he might as well be standing here naked) still balances on his shoulder is practically electric.

Deepen the kiss, he thinks.

It would be nice to ignore everything for a little while. The kiss feels nice, and Urie’s had so few fucking comforts lately. Less than once a week, he might take an extra hour in bed … but that’s it, that’s all that amounts to an indulgence while his life otherwise churns ahead at a grueling pace.

Higemaru’s hand tightens on his hoodie while the press of his lips gets insistent. Somehow trying to breathe through his nose no longer feels adequate, and Urie is forced to open his mouth and gasp for air, but that leaves an opening for his younger squad mate’s tongue to give a teasing flick.

The fact is, Urie can count on the fingers of one hand how many times he’s been kissed. Forgetting to breathe might be making his head spin, but something that’s more of a feeling than a coherent train of thought forces itself to the forefront.

It’s a feeling that whatever Higemaru is looking for, Urie won’t be able to give it to him (even if he wanted to, and that’s a separate issue, something that he’ll need time to pick over like a case file). A feeling that it’ll only allow him to grow more attached than he already is (bare minimum though he’s permitted himself).

A feeling that Higemaru in particular, with his reckless, stupid behavior on missions, is likely to end up bleeding and in pieces while Urie screams himself hoarse for it all to stop, stop, stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it

“I can’t,” Urie gasps as he pulls his head away and squeezes his eyes shut. The closed eyes are kind of an involuntary reaction, but he’s glad of it, even so; he doesn’t want to know what Higemaru’s expression looks like right now.

“I––squad leader, I’m sorry,” Higemaru stutters. He takes a step backwards. Urie keeps the thermostat low enough in the chateau that the air feels like a cold punch. “I just … knew I had to try?”

(Idiot; why does it sound like a question?)

“It’s not you,” Urie says, surprised at how nonchalant he can make it sound when his head feels like it’s ringing as loud as the emergency alarm systems in headquarters. “I don’t care…”

He doesn’t really mean it like that, but it’s effective. His eyes reluctantly open in time to see Hige’s expression fall.

“Listen … here’s what you should know.” A cold tone of voice, to match the thermostat setting. Urie fixes his gaze somewhere on the back wall of his bedroom. “I don’t do dating. I’m not going to be anyone’s boyfriend. (Love is out of the question.) So if you try this, you’re just going to be disappointed in the end.”

He knows it’s a jump, to go from one experimental kiss to considering dates and relationships, but what’s the point otherwise? What’s the fucking point of getting close to someone if there’s no goal in sight?

Higemaru is breathing too loudly (Urie has the sudden horrible realization that he might cry, and no, he’s not dealing with that right now!) and fluttering his eyelashes at a rate that would’ve made more sense before the kiss. But what he says somehow manages to cut like a scalpel.

“You’re afraid.”

Urie can see the pieces falling together, written in the expression on Hige’s face. With his bright colours and games and excited smiles, it’s easy to forget that he can claim one of the Academy’s sharpest intuitions, even though his rank is still low and untested. Still, Urie knows from his own experience that emotion is ignored, even suppressed in Academy lessons. It shouldn’t be that easy for the younger boy to pick up the depth of his fears. (Does that mean they’re obvious? Fuck that …)

Losing his father had ripped a hole in him, a hole that he’d only been able to stitch back together with perfect scores on exam papers and a vague notion of how to drag his way up the ranks into S3. So what if that was really as shallow as the others had accused? He’d been happy … right? It hadn’t been complicated, at least.

And then Shirazu Ginshi, with that rare talent of his, had managed to tear it all down. Stupid boy, good for wrecking things and not much else.

Shirazu hadn’t even been his close friend; Urie had been secretly hoping until a matter of minutes before his death to overcome him, to watch him fail and lose the leadership position he’d never been suited for. He’d planned to revel in that. Except then he had to go and die, and his death had still ripped into Urie, cutting through all the paper-thin walls he’d set up to try and protect himself. (And then Sasaki had lit the match and thrown it onto the ruins, cut the sinews of whatever dignity he’d been clinging to, and now here he is staggering along like his hamstrings have been severed.)

The problem isn’t that he can’t love. It’s that he can’t let himself. There aren’t any whole pieces to give away anymore, if there had been any to begin with. And anyway, it’s too much to worry about right now, after something as insignificant as a kiss.

But Higemaru has just drawn back the curtain and seen how pitiful he really is, and Urie hates him for it, with an intensity that surprises him. (Objectively thinking, Hige hasn’t done anything wrong, and it’s not his fault that his squad leader is a fucking mess of a person, but stress has a way of washing out Urie’s reasonable side.)

“ –– Get the fuck out of my sight,” he hisses.

His eyes are clenched shut by the time the sentence fully escapes his lips, so he misses the younger man’s response. It’ll be bad enough to have the image of his pitying expression from a few moments ago burned onto his eyelids, even without offence and betrayal tossed into the mix. The door doesn’t slam (Hige’s been brought up better than that) but a few seconds after it clicks shut, Urie allows himself to let out the breath he holds.

Fuck.

Being alone at least allows him to clear his head. For a few minutes, he sits staring down at his hands; without the leather of his gloves protecting them, he knows his fingernails would have gouged half-circles into the skin of his palm.

Saiko will be upset, he reflects. (It’s not her business anyway. She shouldn’t be encouraging Hige, and he knows she does.) Mutsuki would probably be disappointed by this display too, but maybe he would understand; they’ve found common ground before with their propensity for pushing others away, though Urie still isn’t ready to delve into the full irony of how that realization has brought the two of them closer.

He sighs, shoulders slumping as the ragged breath forces its way out.

What he should have protested about was the fact that Hige is good at kissing, which means he’s done this before. (With who?! He’s too young––)

(It’s not that Urie is jealous.)

(Ah … he’s fucked. He’s so, so fucked.)

#urie kuki #higemaru touma #quinx squad #tokyo ghoul :re #tokyo ghoul :re fic #uh do they. even have a ship name. i doubt it #fics by me #anyway uh leave comments so i know if this is worth continuing?

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ks-caster · 4 years

Text

A Story is Just a Lie You Fancy

Fandom: Once Upon a Time

Characters: Belle, Rumplestiltskin

Notes: I was real heckin’ disappointed when OUAT revealed who the writer was/how they characterized him (the original one) especially because I had thought from the start of that plotline that it would turn out to be Belle - it would explain her obsession with books and why, once in Storybrook, she never seemed to do anything to impact the plot. Below the cut is what I’d written so far for that idea.

Prologue: A New Dark One

The Beginning…

The Dark One was a problem; on that much, we could all agree.

Of course, none of us could agree whose problem, exactly, he was. Some said he ought to be left alone to wreak havoc in the world of his origin—we were record-keepers, not history-makers, and librarians don’t get to censor what they collect. Others reasoned that since his power came from us, to begin with, we had the responsibility to ensure that he didn’t misuse it more than he already had.

Most argued that at least whatever complete numbskull actually created him ought to be the one to deal with him, but unfortunately, no one had any idea who it was. It might’ve been someone from R&D, piloting a new concept, or else someone from the Character Stockpile going a little overboard. Maybe an Editor or someone from Graphic Design, trying prove that they, too, could do things and affect outcomes. No one knew for sure, and no one was fessing up, which put the whole discussion back to square one, and while we argued and argued and argued, the Dark One’s power grew exponentially stronger with each successive host.

Who are we, you might be wondering? We, who have the power to accidentally create a creature like the Dark One, but who spend so much time talking about how to handle him that he becomes un-handle-able right under our noses?

We’re authors, that’s who.

Various cultures in various realms have had different names for us throughout the ages; I’ve personally—to my face, I mean—been called a god, a spirit, a demon, an angel, a watcher and a world-bender, but there are thousands of others that people have tossed around. We call ourselves the Wordsmiths, if you care.

Back in the day—do I sound old or what? I’m in my youthful single-digit millions, I promise—each of us had a single job, working together as a team to shape culture and history throughout all the realms. Mine, for example, was to discover and define the concept of “home” for each successive place and people and individual. That might sound easy, but it was actually extremely complicated and time-consuming. For some, home was a location, for others, a people group or race; it could be a whole country, a house, a single room, a tiny bottle of soil… it varied. The sense of belonging that one can call “home” is impossible to truly standardize, but the whole point of humanity, in all its beautiful variety, is that very little can ever be truly standardized.

That’s why humans need Wordsmiths to help keep the balance. But I digress.

Back to the point, I was sifting through one world—the locals referred to it as The Enchanted Forest—and I came across a particular character. He had this completely unspellable name, and I freely admit to calling him “spinner guy” for the longest time. I encountered many, many characters, but this one stood out, because of his wholehearted, selfless, beautiful love for his son. It didn’t get him anywhere, sadly, but I remember thinking it was incredible—especially because it wasn’t something he was ever taught; no one had ever modeled it for him. Spinner Guy’s love for his son was this innate thing that he was just born with, and every attempt the world made to crush it out of him just made it stronger, more unshakable.

It was around that time that our lead story-boarders came up with this elaborate ritual to nullify the power of the Dark One. Unfortunately the Dark One at that time—guy by the name of Zoso—was way too far gone. His human willpower was almost completely nonexistent. If he had the autonomy to make one more good choice, then the only one he had left in him was probably to try and pass on the dagger’s power by dying himself. That meant we needed a new host, someone as far on the side of light as possible, someone who would take on the Dark One’s curse out of love, rather than a lust for power. Every Wordsmith, regardless of their department, dropped everything to search for the best possible candidate.

That was why I ultimately learned to spell Rumpelstiltskin’s name.

I presented him—his whole file, everything I could glean from every department—to the Story-Board. I pointed out his desperate situation; his failing marriage, financial difficulties, negative reputation, everything working against him. I pointed out his miraculous love for his son, and the way it allowed him to overcome every obstacle, no matter what the cost to him. This, I said, this is a man who would take up the Dark One’s curse to protect his son, and whose love would keep the blackness from reaching his heart before we could get it out of him.

They considered other candidates, but ultimately picked mine.

I descended into his world to make that happen. There was no fanfare, no lightning, no me-waving-my-hands-and-making-magical-stuff-fly-around, nothing like that. No, in real life, a Wordsmith interfering directly goes like this: I took on the image of a fairy, waited for Zoso to hit a low point (happened a few times a month, hardly a long wait) and when he did, I appeared, talked to him, and advised him to give his power to another. I gave him Rumpelstiltskin’s name, and the location of his village. Then I left, flying off into the sunset on my fake fairy wings.

Not a very interesting story, is it? But that was all it took. That’s how we work.

So, anyway, a new Dark One was born, and the Story-Boarders frantically started to work on the next step of the plan. I’m not on the Board—I’m sure that by now you’ve gathered that I’m not really important among my people—so I’m not totally sure how the spell worked. It involved some more getting-Rumpelstiltskin-to-make-decisions, something about getting him to the Base Rock, something about the blood of the purest love, a couple dozen other ingredients that everyone was scrambling to collect, and something about the one he loves most. It would take a little while to get everything ready, but in the meantime, our newest Dark One had Baelfire with him, and the boy could stall his father’s descent into darkness until we were ready to cure him of it.

Well, that was the idea.

That was before the kid got ahold of a previously extinct species of magic bean.

My real name doesn’t translate nicely into English, but you know me as Belle, and this is the story about how one simple thing I did—that one conversation with Zoso that was so boring I haven’t bothered to record it in full—broke the universe.

A Prisoner’s Memoir

A World Without Magic, between 1983 and 2011…

I didn’t use my powers while I was in prison—except twice, near the end.

It was desperately boring, spending 28 years in a padded cell in the hospital basement with not a single person to talk to, and no way to pass the time, other than to replay history in my mind like a macabre video. At first, it wasn’t so bad. The wards the Story-Boarders placed on my mind when I took my little human vacation evaporated when the Dark Curse hit, so instead of having my memories wiped, I had them restored. I had a few million years’ worth of stories memorized, so I lay back on my cot, closed my eyes, relaxed my body, and started to recall them.

That pastime got me through about half of my internment.

There were two reasons for this deficit of amusement. The first is that the speed of thought is incomprehensibly faster than the speed of reality. My eyes rolled back in my head as I witnessed day after day, remembering adventure after adventure, hero after hero, outcome after outcome, and months would pass in my mind while only a few minutes ticked painstakingly by in the world around me. Over time, I ran out, started over, began to sift through and only re-watch the best parts.

By the tenth year of my confinement, I’d reduced all of mortal history down to my hundred favorite stories. By the twelfth, I was down to my thirty favorite gifs. By the thirteenth, the thirty gifs had condensed to a series of images, and by the fourteenth year, I was left with a single, immobile collage. It burned itself into my head, tormented me by how sorrowfully limited it was. I’d arranged the images such that I could see the way one influenced another. History was the endless turning of a spinning wheel, creaking and squeaking and whirling and churning out thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after…

I think I was about twenty years in by the time I realized I really was going thoroughly crazy.

Spinning wheels reminded me of him, though, and that was sickeningly confusing. I still remembered being Belle, I still remembered loving him… no, that wasn’t true. I still loved him. I sort of loved him before I even met him, I think. That was why I’d volunteered to go down into the human world, powerless and defenseless, to slow his fall into darkness in the hopes that we could still find a way to save him…

Anyway, it was complicated, because I also resented him. I might’ve gotten him into the whole mess, but his choices had gotten me into quite the cauldron of hot water myself. Of course, spinning wheels also reminded me of him in a positive light, because that endless cycle, in the right hands, could spin pure gold from the humblest of straw. I didn’t know what to think, and I still had to wait a total of 255,312,967 endless, paint-drying-slow seconds before I had a prayer of seeing him again, to even try and figure out how I felt about him.

And what to do about it, if I ever figured it out.

After all, I wasn’t human. Wordsmiths can’t safely remain in human worlds for too long with our memories and powers in tact. I might sneeze and drop a continent into the ocean. I might have a nightmare and wish a whole retail chain and all its employees out of existence.

Focusing on the past was infinitely better than focusing on the future, but my collage was starting to bore me to tears. I had to break it down, go back to the individual stories, and linger on the details, and for focus like that, I needed a physical outlet. That was the first time I used my powers; I made a book-binder down the street lose count and create one blank book more than his inventory required. Then as he re-counted in confusion, I “reminded” him that he’d intended the book and a package of fine-point pens in thirty different colors as a gift for someone in the hospital. He wrapped them in brown paper, gave them to the desk-attendant, who gave them to an orderly, who gave them to Doctor Whale, who brought them to me, and then all four of them forgot the whole un-memorable affair.

Just because I couldn’t interfere in the world at present didn’t mean I couldn’t prepare to help those who would interfere with it. In eight years, the savior was going to show up, but I knew a thing or two about humans from Base Rock. While she might have been designed to be compassionate and to feel a pull surrounding this place, her natural magic telling her that this was home, she was going to need some serious help believing. It wouldn’t be in her nature to be tied down, and certainly not to strangers and nebulous magic. She’d need to learn their history somehow—that was where I came in.

I spent eight years carefully planning, writing and illustrating The Storybook. I only had one shot at it—if the hurricane-level storms surrounding my very subtle acquisition of the materials was anything to go by—so I had to do everything perfectly the first time. The pictures had to be lifelike, had to be evidence, not just embellishments. The stories had to be exact, I had to resist the urge—which was strong—to censor them a little, to show characters in this or that light. I had to rid it of bias as much as possible. The Book wasn’t neither a commendation nor a condemnation. It was simply the truth of the matter. The only thing I cut out—obviously—was my own involvement in the very beginning, although I did include myself as Belle, the innocent human who loved the Beast.

I wrote out every story in letters so uniform that anyone but another Wordsmith would swear that it was typed and printed. I had eight years to get it right, after all. I could go at a rate of one page per day, one drawing per week.

Then, when it was finished, I used my powers one last time, and after the earthquake that they unleashed, Mary Margaret Blanchard cleaned out the mess that the shifting ground had made in her closet, and what should she discover but my book. She gifted it to Henry, and within six months, Henry had hopped on a greyhound bus and run off to Boston to find his birth mother. To find the savoir. I lay back in my cell, studying my latest mental collage of human history. It was starting to look more and more like a spinning wheel, but perhaps that was because I had made this one out of memories of Rumpelstiltskin.

I hadn’t expected to enjoy being Belle, but I missed it—missed being her, and missed being with him. The only one of my powers that I retained back then was the uncanny ability to see the truth about people. Other than that, I was, for all intents and purposes, human, and that had been a remarkably calming state of being, now that I could look back on it objectively.

“I miss you, Rumpelstiltskin,” I whispered into the darkness after lights out.

Across town, as Emma Swan paid for a room at Granny’s, she introduced herself to one, Mr. Gold, bringing back his memories with her magic-infused name…

New Mission

Storybrook, as the curse’s power began to wane…

I’d had no contact from the Story-Board in over thirty years, between the curse and my time as Belle in the Enchanted forest. That wasn’t long, in the grand scheme of things—you remember the part where I said I was a few million years old, right?—but in the middle of a crisis situation where every minute counted, a three-decade communication blackout was a little concerning. The people monitoring me had to have noticed that I had my head back on straight, and dream communication was fairly safe, but no matter how many nights I spent there in my padded cell, I didn’t hear one word from my people.

As I felt the curse wearing off (breaking it was a weirdly long process, I thought, but I didn’t dare use even my Far-Sight to figure out what was going on) I had to make a decision about what I would do when it broke. I could use the magical backlash wave to cover one quick use of my power, so I could return to my Publishing House if I wanted, but I was beginning to wonder if the Board would let me come back down after the whole Belle idea had backfired so badly. What if they pulled me off the project all together because so far my ideas had ended in catastrophe? Would I ever see Rumpelstiltskin again?

But I couldn’t stay here on Base Rock, at least not in my current state. I gave myself a week of being out in the world, rubbing shoulders with people and their problems, before I’d succumb and try and use my powers to change things. That couldn’t happen, not with the universe in the shape it was in at the moment. I loved Rumple, but I couldn’t sacrifice the world just to be with him.

But… I could sacrifice my powers, I realized. I’d have one moment where I could safely use the full extent of my Author powers—and in that moment, I could seal them away again, make it so I couldn’t use them by accident. Leave myself with only the soul-reading that I’d had as Belle. Then if anyone from the Story-Board ever asked me what I was doing, I could truthfully say that in the absence of further instructions, I’d continued the mission as planned. Then I could stick with Rumple, keep his heart from going black, and when they eventually managed to collect all the ingredients for the spell to fix him, I’d have him ready.

I wouldn’t let myself entertain the thought that they might decide he wasn’t a fit candidate anymore, and kill him to transfer the power to someone with a better chance. I wouldn’t let them. After everything I’d done to make sure that this would work with him as the vessel, I would not allow them to sacrifice him, not when I knew he still had some light left in him. At the end of the day, this was my plan, he was my candidate, and I should be the one to make the call, since I was the one closest to the action.

Yeah, yeah, rationalization, denial… I know. Shut up.

I wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact moment the curse would break, but I could feel the magic building, getting ready to explode. I was ready.

Well, ready for the magic. I wasn’t ready for Jefferson to burst into my cell, telling me to go find Mr. Gold and tell him that Regina had locked me up. I wasn’t supposed to be around people until after the whole sealing thing, remember? But I was also supposed to play along with the story, not make waves and all that. And he was leaving the door open, telling me to go find my Rumpelstiltskin…

I stumbled out, pretending to be in a curse-and-drug-induced haze. It wasn’t difficult; solitary confinement had not been kind to me, and I was ridiculously out of shape. The cheap hospital shoes didn’t help either, and I was sorely tempted to kick them off, but I supposed a human wouldn’t run around a 21st Century town barefoot, so I shuffled awkwardly in the general direction of Gold’s shop. I didn’t bother pretending I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t have the patience to muddle around in the stupid shoes and stop to ask for directions.

The doorbell jingled faintly as I entered. The day was overcast, so my eyes didn’t have to go far to adjust to the dusty, golden light that Rumple seemed to favor in every world. In his castle, it had looked mysterious and timeless. In this one, it gave the shop an antique-y aura, like I was stepping into time itself...

#Beth's New Year's Cleaning Queue #free to a good home #Any and all parts available for general use with credit #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfiction ideas #ouat #once upon a time #belle #rumplestiltskin #writing #Unfinished fic

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