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ginoeh · 2 months

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This is the second part of three for my entry for @the-centennial-husbands-bigbang 2024! The awesome banners were done by @lalaithquetzallicaresi who is also on Deviant Art !

The story is available on AO3, where I will post chapters serialized!

To the Edge of Night

Explicit || Hob Gadling/Dream of the Endless || Part 2 of 3 || 14k

Part 1

Part 2

*** *** ***

Chapter Three

The reconstruction of the New Inn was coming along swimmingly. The tap room was nearly all done which was great, really, because that meant Hob was perfectly in time for the day of the planned grand opening. He’d set it, nostalgic fool that he was, for the 7th of June.

But on the other hand, there was this:

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to work behind the bar, Bobbie?”

Hob sighed and resisted rolling his eyes at Martin. The man understandably thought he was ‘Bobbie’s’ elder by several decades. But Hob could really do without his repeated attempts at motherhenning him into a healthier lifestyle. Which, according to Martin, included more friends and more social interaction.

Usually, Hob would agree. It was just… well, it was just that so far, his attempts at interaction had been met with mixed results. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want more friends apart from Emily and Oswin. The actual reality of that was turning out to be somewhat more difficult to achieve, though.

It was hard to be entirely genuine when he knew the fears and nightmares of every person he came across. He simply didn’t know how to work with that, yet. Maybe in time he’d get used to it all. So far, all he’d managed to do was inadvertently alienate a lot of people; his inborn sociable nature didn’t fare well when coupled with this new kind of knowledge.

Martin sighed as well but he wasn’t half as good as Hob when it came to hide annoyance and concern.

“Kiddo, you need to get out more. I kept telling the same to your uncle. Ya need friends and people to talk to! Bartending is exactly what you want right now.”

It wasn’t but Hob had to concede the point. He did need to get used to people.

“I can do the late shifts, if you absolutely insist.”

Hob made sure to sound as longsuffering as possible. Wouldn’t do to seem like he was giving in too easily, after all. Otherwise, next he turned around, Martin would try to ply him the sunday roast left-overs from his wife. It was very much enough that Emily kept trying to get him to eat.

Hob was perfectly aware that he didn’t necessarily need to eat, to stay alive. That didn’t mean that he enjoyed starving but the thing was, he simply didn’t. He wasn’t hungry because he didn’t need the food. He was not starving. He knew intimately how that felt, after all. Looking back, Hob was pretty sure it had started at the same time when his lucid dreams began to outnumber his normal nights, at the same time that he started seeing the shape of people’s fear in their eyes.

He wasn’t sure he liked the conclusions that could be drawn from this.

“The late shifts? That is a stupid idea if I ever heard one, Bobbie.”

Hob shrugged. He appreciated Martin, he really did, but he had to put his foot down somewhere. He wasn’t going to let the man dictate the schedule of his waking hours, after all, no matter if he’d usually find the caring nature endearing.

“That’s all I can offer right now. You do know that I have my coursework to do, right? If you say it would be good for me to get out more, then the late shifts it is.”

Martin levelled him with a dark glower that Hob was sure not to find too amusing, and set his empty glass of coke onto the table between them. For a guy in his seventies he sure had a lot of life in him yet.

“Three nights a week, tops.”

“Are we really haggling over this now, Martin? I’m still your boss.”

Martin crossed his arms on the table and kept his large hand on the signed papers that declared him manager of the New Inn.

“You want me in charge of the staff as well, Bobbie. And I take care of my staff, believe me. Three nights a week. Four during semester breaks.”

Hob smothered a laugh at the stubborn look his future manager shot him. Exactly that was why ‘Bobbie’ had insisted to employ Martin, his ‘uncle’s’ closest living friend.

“Okay okay. You win.”

Hob ginned and gamely shook Martin’s hand in agreement. There wasn’t really any reason to tell the other man that Hob hadn’t actually felt any real need for sleep in weeks - months maybe even - and therefore the late shifts wouldn’t impact him at all.

*** *** ***

The rise on which the forest ends slopes down gently into the valley. There is fog hanging around bare tree tops and over the houses and a pale sun lurks behind a thin white cloud cover. Hob becomes aware of the dream, or maybe steps into it might be a better descriptor at this point, at the edge of the forest, half lying between the tall stalks of damp, yellow winter grass. He appears to be wearing something like a cloak this time, its unadorned black fading away into wisps of smokey grey towards the frayed hem. Underneath, there might be just a normal jumper and trouser combo but Hob finds he’s entirely unable to concentrate his sleeping mind to look beyond the shadows of the ominous cloak.

It feels a bit like a game the dreamworld is playing with him and Hob is amused despite himself. He’s had the usual nightmares of being butt naked in the middle of the city so he’s a bit glad it’s not that.

The Gargoyle that he has glimpsed the last time gamboles around the shingled roofs and over a crooked chimney, dips playfully behind a barn and clips one wing on the branches of a massive oak tree before it rights itself midair and continues its dizzying game of hide and seek. Hob makes his way down, the nightmare Otter - and he thinks he should maybe find a name for it - contently lingering on his shoulders. It’s an unexpectedly reassuring weight even if it offers no warmth like a mortal creature might.

It’s when he draws closer to the two storeyed houses that a rather stately figure with carefully coiffed hair steps through one doorway. He’s in a three piece suit but bears an iron rake in one hand that gleams like polished steel knives.

Hob slows down when he approaches an old bridge that leads on into the yard between both houses. The man stands on its other end, one arm at his hip and the other tightly wound around the rake that he holds in front of him like a weapon.

“Who goes here.”

His voice is a nice baritone but it carries his mistrust as easily as his drawn brows do and Hob is, for once, thrown. This is the first time since entering this world of dreams that someone - or some-thing - isn’t naturally inclined to be friendly towards him.

It’s also the first time since his very first awakening that an inhabitant of his dreams speaks to him in an audible voice. This might be the chance he’s been waiting for to gain a bit more information about this strange strange world he’s in.

“I’m just… passing through,” he says and holds up both hands placatingly. In answer, the man grips the rake harder.

“To where.” It’s less a question and very much a demand.

“Um…I don’t know? On, I suppose?” Hob gestures vaguely into the direction of the valley behind the two houses, where he now knows a large part of the landscape centres around something like a palace.

The man frowns, annoyed, and levels Hob with a look that speaks volumes as to the intellect he thinks Hob possesses.

“So you come here, to the gateway of the Nightmare marshes, and you don’t know where you’re going? Are you mocking me?”

This is turning out to be one very unique dreaming experience, Hob realises. It’s not an unpleasant realisation at all. Hob is living for new experiences after all, and while he certainly loves the land he has for some reason been chosen to traverse in his dreams so far, this is a welcome interruption.

On his shoulders, the Otter lifts its head to lay a proprietary claw against Hob’s neck. The man startles at that and Hob looks a bit closer. There’s apprehension in his eyes, something that looks like anger but veers closely towards fear.

And quite suddenly, Hob has another epiphany. The strange mind-reading powers that he has gained while awake, the same thing that lets him feel his little nightmares intentions, work just as well on this different dream-creature. Because no matter how human he looks, Hob is pretty sure that the man before him is both less and more than simply a human man.

“Are you,” he starts and lifts one careful hand to cover the smile that threatens to break out on his face, “perhaps afraid of intruders?” Of old enemies, he wants to say, or rogue nightmares, because that is what he sees when he concentrates. But he’s not really looking to make the man more uncomfortable than he already is.

“I’m Hob,” he offers instead, when there is no answer, “And I think I’m on my way to… the palace.”

The man gears up to say something cutting, Hob can see the way his shoulders draw up and how his glower deepens when they are interrupted by a cheery yell.

“H-hey b-broth-ther! Is this a g-g-guest you’re holding u-uu-up there? Ca-can w-we inv-vite him in fo-fo-for t-tea?”

The man that turns around the corner of the leftmost house looks nearly exactly like the one barring Hob entrance - they are brothers, without a doubt, even if the way he eyes his much more personable sibling promises murder.

“Shut your jabbering gob, Abel. He’s a dreamer. He’s not supposed to be here. So no, we can not invite him for tea.”

The so-called Abel hurries closer, an amicable smile on his face for Hob and a fearful glance for his brother. In it, Hob sees flashes of blood and pain, shallow graves and wooden crosses. He winces. This is… not what he’d expected, really.

“B-b-but h-h-he’s a r-real my-my-my-mystery, r-r-right? Don-don-don’t y-you want to k-know it? Really?”

Despite his fear of violence and death by the hand of his brother, Abel rolls neatly past him and manages to make him lose his grip on the rake. He comes to stand in front of Hob, a hopeful smile on his face, and holds out a meaty hand.

“I-I’m Abel. And h-h-he’s C-cain. Welcome t-to- the H-house o-o-of Secrets! W-we have t-t-tea. An-and c-c-cookies.”

The vision of blood and murder flashes across Hob’s new sense again and Hob knows, intrinsically, that these are ‘the’ Cain and ‘the’ Abel. It’s all a bit much to swallow and he’s sure that if this weren’t a dream with all the ingrained suspension of disbelief he’s desperately been clinging on to since his journey started, he'd be much more pole-axed by this revelation. Instead, Hob shakes the hand of the first murder victim.

“And I have Earl Grey and digestives,” the biblical Cain, first murderer, interjects. He looks miffed but the threatening rake has been abandoned for now and he as well holds out his hand. “I welcome you to my house of Mystery. I’d be honoured to have you as my guest, dreamer. You can tell me all about how you came to be here.”

“B-but he was my guest f-f-first! A-and I can tell him nice s-s-secrets. Ma-maybe the o-o-one about th-th-the Thing in the b-b-b-basement!”

Hob does end up going with Cain first. He has the vague hope that it might avoid or at least postpone the clearly inevitable bloodshed that’s sure to be in Able’s future. There are a lot of crooked crosses and mounds of overturned earth that peek from the strip of land that borders the half-hidden backyard of the houses.

His nightmare, though, has no inclination of going with him. As soon as they reach the door, it nimbly hops off Hob’s shoulder. Cain casts it a long glance.

“If you don’t wish to come, you can visit Gregory. My soft-hearted fool of a brother insists that he’s getting lonely. You wouldn't owe me either way.”

The Otter bares its teeth in something that Hob thinks might be equal parts amusement and threat. Cain just scoffs and turns to step through the door.

The nightmare glances at Hob and if there were words they’d be a flippant ‘so long’ before it summarily abandons Hob for the first time since he’d arrived on these shores.

“Oh very well then,” he says gamely, “no one forces you to have tea, after all.”

Cain’s house is dark and warm and narrow. Everything is wood panelled, from the carved ceiling squares to the soft grey planks of spruce that make up the walls, and down to the unnaturally long and gleaming floorboards.

There aren’t many right angles in the house. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t seem to be built sturdy, quite the contrary even. But the angles are all just slightly off and despite the bookshelves, knick knacks and homely fireplace, there is something eerie to the place.

Cain is backlit by the glow of the fireplace where he takes a steaming pot of water from the hanger with a glowing poker.

“Gregory is the Gargoyle, I’m guessing?”

“Gregory the gargoyle, yes. He lives here.”

Hob thinks this is a paltry amount of information to give about an actual Gargoyle but then again, this is the land of dreams and nightmares. So maybe having a mythical creature as pet isn’t all that strange, all things considered.

“How did you come to be here,” Cain asks abruptly after they sit over sturdy mugs of tea.

“What do you mean, how?” Hob swallows around his digestives. They taste of nothing. Neither does the tea.

“You are a dreamer, a human one at that. You should not be able to traverse the Dreaming like you do.”

The firelight reflects eerily in Cain’s thin glasses. In the background the iron poker heats up in the open fire. This, Hob realises, is still a nightmare, after all.

“This is what the place is called, then? The Dreaming?”

“Don’t you know? These lands are the sleeping marches, the nightmare lands, where all dreams and nightmares dwell.”

Queen Mab’s country after all, after a fashion Hob thinks with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. No wonder his Otter had been so thrown by naming the offering he’d made. Hob’s wild guess had been close to the truth, after all. Though he’s reasonably sure that’s not all there is to it.

“Huh. I knew I was sleeping. Dreaming, as it were but - I didn’t know that there is a name attached to the place. Are you telling me that this isn’t just… in my mind, then?”

Cain stares at Hob and Hob can’t read his expression at all.

“Are you asking me if you made all of this,” he gestures around and to himself, “up in your sleeping mind?”

Hob has the grace to look chagrined. He’d been lucid dreaming for months now. Years if he wants to count the many times he’d been dragged into the sea of dreams and nightmares by the nightmare he now has as a travelling companion. He has developed strange insights while awake and he has had more than just a suspicion that these dreams hold more truth to them than mere figments of his imagination.

“No. No, not really, I guess,” he finally mutters. “I s’ppose this is as real as anything I experience when I’m awake.”

Cain looks at least marginally mollified.

“So you don’t know how or why you arrived here, I gather? That… is disappointing. Rarely do things like these happen without reason or will of our Lord.”

There are many things Hob wants to unpack here; so this isn’t the first time someone has gained access to the Dreaming in a way that resembles his; and there is a Lord - and not a queen - who holds the power of this place. He’d known that one already, considering that he’d been greeted once, so very long ago, by this Lord’s librarian.

“Who is this Lord,” he decides to ask, “and isn’t he… missing?”

Cain straightens and spears Hob with his glare.

“And how have you come by this information? Has your… nightmare blabbered? Talked about abandoning the realm?”

“Nothing of the sort,” though now Hob wonders; had many nightmares left the Dreaming? What then about those that he encountered? “When I first woke up - at that dock over the endless sea? - there was this woman, Lucienne. She told me.”

Cain doesn’t look convinced at all. He stands with narrowed eyes and leaves Hob at the table in favour of stoking the fire with the red-hot poker. Hob debates telling him about the neglected air of the places he’d travelled, about the feeling of bruised and yearning emptiness he'd seen in every world he’d rushed by on his mad dive through the nightmare sea. He decides not to, in the end. It feels… personal, somehow.

“Why would Lucienne travel all the way to the Dreaming Sea, just to greet a… dreamer. Now this is a mystery…”

Hob snorts. “Well, her greeting wasn’t all that enthusiastic. Was surprised to see that I wasn’t her Lord after all.”

It is silent for a while apart from the crackling fire. Hob discards the tea and digestives; he doesn’t know why he thought dream food would do anything for him, really. When he’s about decided to leave the brooding Cain to his own devices and instead go and try his luck with Abel, the man finally turns.

“Yes… there is something about you, dreamer. Hob. I thought for a moment at first, that you might be… but that was foolish, of course. You are nothing like Lord Morpheus, after all.”

“So that’s your missing Lord’s name?” It does have a bit of a ring to it, admittedly, even if it’s only due to Hob’s much longer memory of Morpheus the roman god of dreams that he doesn’t immediately think of the new movie that has just hit the cinemas. He doesn’t suppose Lord Morpheus looks quite like Laurence Fishburn in The Matrix.

“The Dreaming is the Realm of Dream of the Endless. Morpheus is one of many names he holds. And why he’s missing or where he’s gone - that is the greatest mystery of all, isn’t it?”

Hob leaves Cain’s house feeling not one jot more knowledgeable than when he entered it.

“The Dreaming is governed by Dream. Go figure.” He makes sure to keep his voice down but this one is a bit of a let down. At least he’s rather sure that Lucienne the palace librarian is something of a known entity. Which in turn promises the palace he’d glimpsed in the Ruby’s facets to be an actual place as well.

But this Lord… there is his missing Stranger in the waking world, there is a missing Lord on this side of dreams and between them, a deeply magical Ruby has found its way into his hands. Hob isn’t sure how much he believes in coincidences like that.

He’s nearly bowled over by a diving Gargoyle when he clears the awning of Cain’s house. Shingles shatter on the crooked pavement in his wake and a wildly gesticulating Abel rounds the corner.

“Gr-gregory, s-s-stop that!”

Abel hurries over on the beast's heels but doesn’t manage to deter him at all. The Gargoyle dances around Hob a few times, inspecting him, it seems like, before it comes to a stand squarely in front of him.

“Hello there,” Hob croons, enchanted.

Intelligent eyes consider him, before he bobs into the likeness of a shallow bow. Then, he buts up gently against Hob’s side.

“G-gregoy don’t bo-bo-bother our g-g-guest!”

When Hob’s hand comes into contact with Gregory’s rough scales, something like knowledge suddenly sparks between them.

“So you’re a nightmare, too.” Hob strokes Gregory’s scales behind the spikes on his head. “Or were, at any rate. You like this better now, don’t you?”

Gregory puffs hot breath across his neck in silent bliss.

“Have you met my- the nightmare I arrived with, yet?”

Hob gets the impression of sleek black fur rolling between moss and stone and grins.

“G-g-gregory c-can you p-p-please s-stop destroying m-my house!” Abel looks forlornly at the shards of mossy green shingles he’s swept into a sad little pile. “It’s ge-ge-getting worse a-and worse e-e-either w-way. N-no need to ma-ma-make it g-go f-f-faster.”

Gregory looks repentant but Hob gets the sense that the Gargoyle, however much he might want to try, can't really stop destroying things in his wake. It’s in his nature to be disruptive and playful.

“I can help,” he offers instead.

“Th-that’s t-t-terribly n-nnice b-but the r-repairs ne-ne-never stick anyway.” He pokes the pile with the tip of his shoe. It’s so pitiful that Hob feels like it’s a kicked puppy and not a grown man.

“Why don’t they, though? Mine alway do.”

He kneels at Abel’s side and takes a few fitting pieces out of the shard pile. They slot together easily.

“I've repaired a lot of things on my way here. My repairs always go well.”

He swipes over the shingle in his hand and some of the moss comes off, leaving it a faded, dusty red. The breaks are thin lines still, but it all holds together. He’s really gotten better at this.

Abel watches him, something guarded in his jovial face.

“N-no repair ha-has stayed wh-wh-whole, since o-o-our L-Lord le-le-left.”

Hob thinks of the dock that regained its sturdiness, or the little bridges in the moor that repaired themselves with barely any effort from him. Then he glances back at the forest that rises over the valley’s far side and takes in the lush dark green it has become in his wake, teeming with lively nightmares.

“I don’t know,” he says and smiles, “maybe you need to have a bit more faith in this whole thing. It works fine for me.”

He holds up the shingle for Abel’s inspection. It’s unbroken again.

“I think most things here know what they’re meant to be. It’s a dreamworld, after all. Just help them get back to that. That’s all. Do you have a ladder?”

Abel does have a ladder, though it’s a rickety thing when Hob starts ascending it. He’s pretty sure that on his way down it will be much sturdier. It is not hard work to set the roof to rights again, Hob has had much more strenuous jobs over the centuries. Though admittedly he’d never been a roofer before.

“H-hob?”

Abel calls him over where he’s taken off his shirt - it does after all exists under that terrible cloak - because the sun has decided to peek out behind the thin white cloud cover. It fits his mood well; he has a goal now and something like a plan.

“I w-want to t-tell you so-something. I-it’s a se-se-secret.”

“What is it?”

“A d-dreamer who rem-m-members h-himself ca-ca-can ch-change th-their d-d-d-dreams.”

Hob thinks he knows all about lucid dreaming by now and this seems spot on, even if it’s not really a secret. Abel and Cain both aren’t really very inclined to part with useful information, it seems like. It does pose an interesting question though.

“And you and Cain, you aren’t dreamers, are you? But then, how does the upkeep of this world work? Only by the Dreamlord’s will?”

Abel shrugs. “The D-dreaming sh-shapes itself o-o-only for th-those that l-l-love it. B-but a-a-a few ca-can do th-things, w-w-with His b-b-blessing.”

It sounds as mystical as impractical - and this power imbalance surely has its drawbacks, considering the state the Dreaming is in with its Lord’s disappearance.

“Maybe he should consider sharing a bit of his power then,” Hob mutters and slips into his shirt again. It’s time to go on, he thinks. There’s the palace waiting for him and possibly, hopefully, answers to his questions.

“L-lord Mo-mo-morpheus d-doesn’t share. He i-is the D-d-d-dreaming.”

The strange emphasis Abel puts on the last sentence perlocates in Hob’s mind, sleeping and waking, long after.

***

He leaves the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets behind without mentioning the magical Ruby or the Stranger that used to wear it. Neither does he mention anything about his immortality or the growing suspicion that the Dreamlord’s absence and Hob’s presence in the Dreaming are intrinsically connected.

Instead, he finally starts to tell his nightmare companion a bit about his life. He starts, of course, with the greatest reget he holds. It’s a nightmare after all, and probably much more interested in the things Hob has had nightmares about than in the general comings and goings of a human life.

“He could just as well have simply left me hanging to prove a point, you know,” he tells the Otter when the Houses of Mystery and Secrets behind them are swallowed into the last wisps of fog. “I mean I was a bit of a berk, all things considered. Not that I wanted to be, but you know how it goes, don’t you? Wanting something so much that you just… overreach. And by doing so destroy what you try to build.”

The Otter doesn’t answer, of course. But it does clamber up Hob’s truly terribly threadbare cloak and settles again on his shoulders.

“Thanks, my friend. I really appreciate that. I hope one day I can apologise and make it up to him. I mean it’s been a hundred and fifteen years now since that cursed meeting. Who knows what happened to him in the meantime…”

Hob thinks of the invisible weight of the Ruby at his chest and wonders how or why the Stranger had lost it. Because there is no way he had gotten rid of it on purpose. Not with the way it had been the main and centre piece of each of his statement outfits. It was important.

The muddy path underneath his feet stretches into the far distance, where the cloud cover isn’t quite as heavy any more. There is the pink light of a friendly sunset that beckons him on in a perfect reflection of his own tentative hope.

Maybe he’ll meet his Stranger again. Maybe he’ll find answers at the palace. All he needs to do is make his way there. He needs to find Lucienne.

*** *** ***

His dreams were occupying Hob’s quiet hours more and more. Sometimes, after waking, he thought the reflection in his bathroom mirror mocked him - there was red and black in his eyes where there should be the browns he was born with, the shadows he cast looked like writhing masses of nightmares and the deepest waters, his face the same one he had seen when he’d thrown the flower crown into the cursed pond. And then, within the blink of an eye the illusions were gone again.

The Ruby was warm, as always these days, when he took it out of the box. He’d bought a new chain to match its delicate gold casing and wondered if it was normal for a magical jewel to seem proprietary and unwilling to leave its owners hands. All the same, it looked entirely unchanged in all other respects and he knew that if he looked closer, there’d be the same pictures, the same views in its facets as the last time he’d done so.

There hadn’t been any more incidents of surprise souvenirs from his dreams after that first time. Instead, the phantom sensation of wearing the Ruby as a pendant underneath his clothes didn’t stop with his dreams.

But there were two other things that reluctantly joined Hob’s mental list of changes that were most likely connected to the jewel:

Emily had kept up pestering him about eating - it was the thing that had started their friendship two years ago. But by now, Hob was starting to become suspicious of his lack of need for food. Usually, he loved eating. Physical pleasures were part of the experience, after all, and food was one of the many things that changed constantly, to Hob’s neverending delight.

And the newest and most concerning thing: Hob didn’t remember the last time that he had felt truly tired.

The Ruby, even though he was never wearing it, rested like an unseen weight on his chest.

*** *** ***

As if the Houses are a gateway that Hob has passed, beyond them the Dreaming feels like a different world. He finds himself in an endless landscape that looks like it's been well tended and designed but with harrowing signs of neglect everywhere. There are skeletons of trees where a lush forest once grew, dry earth and cracked stone in place of meadows and rivers.

Hob doesn’t see any paths or streets as such, at first glance but he discovers fast that wherever he steps, paths try to form or emerge from the debris.

The Otter on his shoulders grows quiet - Hob hadn’t noticed actively because of course the little nightmare has never made so much as a sound at him; but there had been, for lack of a better description, a sort of humming at the back of Hob’s mind, a susurration of unheard whispers that conveyed laughter and wit, disdain and hope and all things the nightmare wanted Hob to know.

It’s never been as clear to Hob as now when it is entirely absent, how the Otter has indeed talked to him in its own way.

“This is wrong, somehow, isn’t it?” Hob hushes his voice down to fit the horrifyingly despondent mood of his surroundings. He’s equally as horrified if he’s being truthful. This is not how it’s supposed to look, he knows that much without needing it explained.

“Where do I even start setting this to rights again?”

He can’t see what most of the landscape was supposed to look like so he doesn’t know how to start fitting things back into place. There are no structure for him to mend, only barren landscape.

“You don’t, “ says a high-pitched voice at his back.

Hob swivels around and feels his Otter’s needle sharp claws prick through his clothing to keep its place. Behind him are two androgynous figures, holding hands. They look like children at first glance, if children were monocolored including skin and hair.

“You can’t,” says the second one, voice nearly identical with the first.

They sound like children as well.

“And… why can’t I?” Hob gentles his voice even though he knows that these are, of course, not actual children.

They feel like nightmares as much as his Otter does and as Gregory did. Where their hands touch, their skin is the oppressing colour-leached grey of foreboding twilight; otherwise, one is entirely white and the other, entirely black.

The first one, black as a moonless night, shrugs.

“The power here,” they start.

“It’s gone back to the palace,” the other finishes.

“It’s needed there,” the white one whispers.

“Because if that place vanishes…”

They look at each other and Hob can sense their fear. But that means that he can probably help more at the palace or close to it, where there is something left to draw from and form. Here, he only feels the hollow phantom pain of a missing limb when he tries to look and see what the ephemeral path he’s on wants to become.

His own capability of repairing the Dreaming seems to be dependent on the power of the Dreaming itself, at least in parts.

“Then what about the other part of the Dreaming? The ones I came through?” Hob gestures to the far away reaches of the Dreaming, where he woke.

Again they shrug in tandem.

“Oh that’s a bit different…”

“...it’s nightmare country, after all.”

“They’re wild.”

“And know how to take…

“...and take…”

“...what they need…”

“...from the dreamers.”

The Otter shifts on Hob’s shoulder and Hob finally finds that its quiet stream of thoughts and feelings are back. What it projects feels to Hob a lot like dissociation - a loss of identity and directed thought, of watching from the outside, going under and only remembering in short glimpses when breaching through the surface of confusion. It’s helplessness and impotence and a strange kernel of hope when the little nightmare looks at Hob.

“And it takes from the nightmares, too,” Hob realises out loud and for the first time, dares to run a hand over his nightmare’s slippery fur, “you were once… something bigger, weren’t you. The Nightmare of Drowning. Until the sea swallowed you up.”

The Otter presses into Hob’s careful fingers and he understands more. The sadness and rage of being diminished, the knowledge of going back to what it was before its creation, the hope when it found, in Hob’s dreams, persisting memories of itself and then clinging to them.

The twin nightmares share a glance but don’t contradict.

“That’s why the two of you are here. Instead of there.”

“We didn’t want to…”, they begin.

“...disassemble. We like…”

“...how we were made.”

“So we came here,” they finish in tandem.

“We could have left,” white mutters, discomfited and black squeezes their hand. “No. We’re not Arcana. We’re not strong enough to last long.”

“I travel to the palace. Do you want to come with me?” Hob has offered the same to the nightmares of the nightmare country after all.

They share another long glance, a communication that Hob feels but doesn’t yet understand. He thinks he might, one day if he keeps trying. He rubs his chest and thinks of the Ruby in his bedroom.

“For a part of the way,” they finally decide.

“We can’t go everywhere here.”

“Lead the way, dreamer.”

Hob turns, leaving both of them in his shadow and walks for a few short steps before he suddenly stops. He can’t help the delighted laugh. He’s been thoroughly had there.

“I know who you are now,” his grin is so broad that it rings in his voice.” I used to know you well when I was still young.”

“Yes you did,” they giggle.

“C’mon then, you terrible two. Let’s get going.”

He doesn’t need to turn to know they are following. After all, behind him walk the Nightmare of Being Chased Through Empty Streets and the Nightmare of Being Too Slow. Hob grins quietly to himself for the better part of this dream.

***

Sometimes, Hob thinks he hears the churning waves of the sea of nightmares and dreams from the shadows of this scorched landscape. It takes him a while to realise that what he hears is an echo of a place within himself. He doesn’t know how it works but he knows that he’s hollowed out a part of himself to make space for that which is the foundation of the Dreaming.

He’s not sure if he can ever make that undone. And he doesn’t know if he even wants to. He loves the place, after all.

Sometimes, they come acrossother nightmares. All of those who cross their path are small. They might have been bigger once and found sanctuary in this powerless stretch of the Dreaming out of fear of being swallowed back into the sea. He talks to them, the many-eyed and tooth-limbed and creeping-fears, even if they can’t answer back like the twins do. The way he’s learned to listen to his Otter works on them as well. So he listens when they in turn tell of themselves.

They meet only two more of the bigger nightmares; where the rest is, Hob doesn’t want to know. There is the Nightmare of Empty Houses that Should Be Lived In and the Nightmare of Gone Loved Ones - both of them Hob recognizes at first glance - but other than them, it is empty here. He wonders where all the dreams have gone.

“Closer to the palace,” the Nightmare of Gone Loved Ones answers.

“It has been empty here for a long time now,” the Nightmare of Empty Houses adds.

They don’t walk with him far, not like the twins who still follow in his shadow, but they do offer their help if Hob needs them.

***

Hob doesn’t know how many nights and dreams he has spent traversing this part of the Dreaming. He’s never counted any of them and anyway, he can’t decide if he should count nights in the waking spent sleeping or rather the progress of time as it flows in the Dreaming. They are not at all the same, after all.

Rather, he measures his progress by how far he feels he still has to go to reach the palace. And that is, despite all of Hob’s attempts to measure the distance any other way, the only manner to do it: by some vague compass in his chest - if he had to put money on it, he’d probably say that it is the Ruby and its strange connection to the Dreaming that helps him out.

During one visit, he comes across the most wretched sight he’s ever seen. Or not seen as it were. Before him is a stretch of land that simply - isn’t. A place that has once been somewhere, but now exists only in broad strokes of bareness - like an artist colour blocking the barest shapes of a background; the reverse of an actualized idea.

“I can’t go through there.”

The words barely make it past his lips and after they leave them, they seem to vanish in the vague emptiness. His head hurts from looking at the stretch of - of bloodless heart-tissue. His own heart hurts as well.

“You must, if it’s the way,” says black, unimpressed.

“You are the one deciding on the path,” adds white.

“Can’t I go around?”

He knows before he speaks that that’s impossible. He knows the way and to detour from it is not a good idea. There are places here that he might get lost in and never leave again.

A suggestion of darkness and soft fur swims into his mind’s eye.

“Do you think that will work?” he asks the Otter, “Don’t you think that I should see where I’m going?”

The equivalent of a mocking ‘are you an idiot?’ tickles his ears without sound.

Hob sighs. “No, of course I don’t. This is a dream after all. Why would I need my eyes to see, really.”

The Otter stretches, satisfied in Hob’s answer. The twins, though, remain silent.

“We won’t go through here,” black finally says.

“It’s not a place any more.”

“It hurts to go in…”

“What is it then? Or, what was it before it became - this?”

“It was Fiddler’s Green…”

“...the Heart of the Dreaming.”

Hob shudders and averts his eyes from the stretch of horrifying bareness. The place left behind when a dream leaves, when a heart is gone…The Ruby he’s not wearing beats a warm and calming rhythm against Hob’s skin. What does one put in the place left empty by a missing heart, Hob wonders. It’s probably not so surprising that the Dreaming is so receptive to Hob's attempts to help - he’s grown to love the place after all and a thing without its heart… Hob wonders if he’s reading much into it. ‘Heart of the Dreaming’ might be an entirely metaphorical name after all.

The Otter, impatient as his little nightmare is, clearly decides that it has had enough of Hob’s woolgathering and puts its tail firmly across Hob’s eyes. It is unexpectedly soft but doesn’t budge one bit when Hob tries to push it down again. Bossy little bugger his nightmare is. He feels the tickle of laughter at the back of his mind

“Thank you for keeping me company, you two,” he says and gives up trying to dislodge the tail.

“You are welcome.”

“We will wait here and listen…”

“Incase you need us.”

Hob smiles in the nightmares’ direction, or he hopes at least that it’s the right direction, and concludes that he definitely won’t call for them if travelling closer to the palace is something they’re uncomfortable with.

“Take care.”

In his mind’s eye, the Ruby glows. Beneath his feet, a street starts forming in the dark of his imagination. He hopes the Otter can see it too and won’t lead him astray.

*** *** ***

Hob’s shift at the bar is long over, the New Inn empty and dark. He’s moved into the freshly finished upstairs flat only a week ago and already it feels more like a home than the apartment he’s had for nearly five years ever did.

He hasn’t switched on the light after coming in. It’s not really necessary, after all. While the streetlights are more than enough for navigating the space, he feels comfortable in the darkened shadows. He can feel them, like an extension of the Dreaming or doors connecting into it. They are the home of many nightmares. Hob wonders how many of them he’s gotten to know during his travels through the Dreaming.

He perches at the edge of his bed and stares listlessly into the London summer night beyond his window. He’s not tired at all, but strangely hollowed out even here in the world of the waking hours, where he’s nothing more than a human with a magical jewel. The ebb and flow of the sea of nightmares and dreams thrums underneath his breastbones at all times, by now. Something is missing but he doesn’t what it is.

The bed sheets are nicely cool underneath Hob’s bare thighs when he finally decides to settle. He doesn’t really feel like he needs the rest but all the same he’ll dream as soon as he’ll have closed his eyes. There have only been the lucid dreams for him, for weeks now.

Next to him the ruby sits on the bedside table, sparkling invitingly. He’s given up keeping it in the metal box. When Hob closes his hands around it, it beats in time with his pulse. In the mirror on his new wardrobe he thinks for a moment that he can see into the Dreaming, a bird’s view of a ravaged landscape yearning for its Lord.

The ruby screams in his mind and Hob flinches.

And then he realises that whatever it is he is missing - love, life, his heart maybe - it has come alive in the ruby, has fed it and given it power.

*** *** ***

On the other side of the missing Fiddler's Green, the palace suddenly looms closer than ever. There is a cobblestone road stretching from where he stands and into a quaint assemblage of houses and huts. To his right there are steep hills with the obvious ambition of becoming mountains at one point. To his left, there are swaths of burnt and grey meadows and dried out rivers but between them, the remnants of flowers and fields still shimmer like fading dreams.

The sound of a hammer being swung rhythmically onto wood drifts from the village. With the sound comes the smell of tobacco and the low scratch of off-key singing.

Chapter 4. → chapter 6?

There is a man with a pumpkinhead trying to fix a bullock cart. Or maybe it’s a pumpkin that play-pretends to be a man. He - it - he wears a simple white shirt underneath a worker’s overall. There is a cheroot cigar clenched in his gaping black mouth and puffs of its stinking smoke spiral slowly out from beneath the cut out lid of the pumpkin’s stalk. He hums a terrible rendition of ‘In the Army Now’ that has Hob’s toes curl in sympathy with his ears.

“Hi there”, Hob tries.

The Pumpkin man doesn’t react.

“Hello, good sir,” Hob begins again, several decibels louder and takes a step closer.

“Fer fuck’s sake what -” The pumpkin whirls around, angry words dying on his lips when he sees Hob. The hammer falls and narrowly misses the wooden sticks that serve as his legs and feet.

“Who’re you then?” He squints at Hob who holds up his hands placatingly. “And watcha doin here. Huh!?”

He rudely points a wooden finger straight into Hob’s face and leans closer.

“If ye’re an intruder then ye’re shit outta luck, my man. Cause I’m gonna flatten yer ass and feed ya remains to the birds. Ya hear me?”

Hob does hear and that’s the only thing he gets from the pumpkin man except for his general presence as part of the Dreaming; there are no flashes of fears, no general sense of what he wants or feels. This, Hob concludes tentatively, is probably a dream.

“Okay,” Hob says, “then it’s a good thing I’m not an intruder. I‘m here to see Lucienne the Librarian. Do you know her?”

It’s likely, after all, this close to the frankly enormous palace that looms behind the little hamlet.

“Sure do. What’ch want with ’er?”

“I need to ask her something that I’m sure she can help me with. See, I might have come across something that originally belonged to the Dreaming.”

“Something from here? But ye’re a dreamer. Dreamstuff doesn’t live long in the Waking ‘s far as I know.”

Hob shrugs. “So you see that I do need to talk to her, right? I’m Hob Gadling, by the way. Pleasure to meet you. Can you tell me where I can find her?”

The pumpkin-man spits his cigar onto the dry ground and stomps one of his wooden stick feet on it. Hob wonders if he’s ever managed to set himself smouldering on accident.

“I can do ya one better. I’ll bring ya to her. You’ll need a guide into the palace of the dreamlord. Not just anyone can come and go as they please.”

He puffs out his chest.

“Mervyn is the name and I'm the facility manager of this dump.”

He gestures around himself grandly and kicks the offendingly rickety ox cart. One wheel tilts sadly sideways on its frayed hub.

***

Mervyn prattles on and on as they make their way around the outer reaches of the palace. It’s forebodingly large this close to it. The onion domes, turrets and minarets he’d seen from afar tower so high above him that they might as well belong to the clouds. It probably was once a gleaming white jewel but now, there are signs of decay everywhere.

They detour around fallen remains of grand arches, climb over broken pieces of beautifully carved balustrades and take a shortcut through something that might have once been a rose garden.

“We gotta go all th’ way round to the front. Used to be doors here too but they’ve all vanished - poof - a while after Lord Murphy left. There’s only the Bridge now ‘n’ the main gate.”

The bridge is magnificent. Was magnificent and Hob sees only the sad echo of something fantastically great. There are hands holding it up over a ridiculously broad moat but they are crumbling, missing whole fingers that lay broken and shattered in the dried out basin like the remains of some grand beast.

The dereliction makes Hob’s heart ache. He wishes he could make it go back to how it was before but this… he eyes the broken balustrade and the deep drop where part of the bridge has fallen. Beneath his skin, he feels the Ruby like a physical weight.

Could he? If he tried - if he threw everything he has into it - could he repair this?

“There ya are,” Mervyn says and stops them before a pair of grand doors that hang askew on their hinges. “Used ta quibble with tha gate guardians. The pegasus is a right uppity li’l shit if ya ask me. They stopped movin’ though. It’s just Lucienne holdin’ down the fort now.”

There’s sadness behind Mervyn’s gruff words.

“Great woman, tha’ Lady. Must’a been an incredible raven to his Lordship back in the days.”

Hob is too close to his goal now to ask after either the fantastical gatekeepers or how Lucienne was once a raven. The only thing he wants to know is what the Ruby is, and how his stranger is connected to the Dreaming. The palace calls for him, or something in it does. He can feel it better, now that he’s closer but it is the same thing that helped him navigate the dead parts of the Dreaming after leaving Cain and Abel. Or maybe, it calls for the Ruby.

“So we just go in?”

“Nah.” Mervyn cups his hands around his mouth. “LOOSH! LUCIENNE! YA GOT A GUEST!”

He clears his throat while Hob’s ears still ring and adds, a bit awkwardly, “I don’t like entering the palace anymore. Haven’t been in there in forever.”

They wait in silence.

Once, Hob thinks the Pegasus - no matter how uppity it might have been - blinks but he’s not entirely sure. He is sure, though, that the Griffin on the other side of the door has turned his head towards them.

It doesn’t take long until a figure emerges in a brisk pace from the darkness beyond the gate.

Lucienne looks exactly as Hob remembers her from his very first foray into the Dreaming, sharp suit and sharper eyes.

“Mervyn. What are you shouting about?”

***

She notices him right away, of course, before she’s stepped far enough into the entrance hall to be seen. There is a dreamer at Mervyn’s side and he’s very clearly lucid. He is also familiar.

Much more familiar than he has any right to be, even considering that she once found him, aware of himself, on the dock to the dreaming sea. He’d been a strange case back then already. His arrival in the Dreaming proper had been felt by her in a swell of power that swept through her entirely unexpectedly. For a few painfully hopeful moments she had thought that the surge might herald Lord Morpheus’ return. She’d hurried to where it had come from, taking every shortcut the Dreaming could still provide for its last keeper. But even on the way there, she’d felt the quick decline. Still, she continued to hope.

Instead, she’d found a dreamer on the dock. Yes, he’d reeked of remnants of Lord Morpheus’ power but it was fading fast, becoming nothing more than a quiet little hum until it finally vanished from her innate raven sense for Dream of the Endless completely.

It is back now though, steady and strong, like a thread woven through the dreamer’s own soul.

“Ya know the guy, Loosh?”

“We’ve met before,” is all she says to Mervyn, “thank you for bringing him.”

Mervyn squints suspiciously at the dreamer who looks entirely nonplussed - there’s even an amused smile at his lips if she’s reading him right.

“She’s right. And thanks Mervyn.”

“If ya say so Loosh…” He grumbles and turns to the human, “if ya so much as put a toe out of place, I’ll find ya and mince ya.”

He leaves with the threat, throwing occasional glances back at her and the dreamer until he vanishes behind the broken southern hand of the bridge. The dreamer stays, eyes focussed neither on her nor on Mervyn but on the solid statues of the former gate guards. Lucienne remembers the grim loneliness that had settled once the both of them had grown back into stone.

“I think the Griffin turned his head,” the human says and tilts his own.

“That is unlikely. They have not moved for a long time now.” Still, when she turns around and follows his gaze, the Griffin indeed looks different.

His whole head is turned towards the dreamer, inclined as if the lifeless statue had tried for a bow.

Impossible.

She’s unable to keep the hope and fear contained completely and she knows it shows through her next words. They aren’t as unaffected as she wants them to be.

“Usually I wouldn’t have to ask but since these are the most unusual circumstances I am without a choice: What is your name, dreamer?”

He finally ends his appraisal of the Griffin and gives her a most charming grin. There are dimples at his cheeks and his eyes nearly sparkle. He looks … warm, all around.

“I’m Hob Gadling, my Lady. And you are Lucienne, the Palace Librarian.” He says the name like the title it is. “A pleasure to finally meet you properly. I’d apologise for taking so long, but it was a while until I realised that this is where I have to go.”

Not an unknown entity after all, she thinks, slightly validated in finding him familiar.

There has been talk about Hob Gadling the Immortal in the Dreaming, once long ago; the only connection close to something like friendship their Lord has ever had. The emotions his meetings with the human could evoke in Lord Morpheus had been rivalled only by those he expended for his lovers and family.

Hob Gadling, as far as she is aware, is neither.

That setup had lent itself to both positive and negative outcomes. There’d been bouts of furious creativity, begetting dreams of hope and nightmares for healing, there was April weather, capricious and bewildering, and of course the oppressive tension of 1789 where even decades later there had still been gossipy wondering whether that had been budding anger or another tension all together.

The dreary and awful weather that had persisted for a good while after his meeting in 1889 had prompted her to seek out Jessamy in a bid to find out what had gone wrong. Her Lord had been - furious and upset. More upset than furious if she was being honest but she hadn’t gotten a good enough look on him afterwards to ascertain if the tears in his eyes had been of hurt or of anger. With Dream of the Endless, it was often both at once if someone did manage to get close enough to truly hurt him - the kind of privilege rarely afforded to anyone.

When Hob Gadling bows, half in jest and half serious court manners that she knows are the genuine learned thing of a noble, she notices that what she’d thought was an odd patch of uneven sable fur on the strange clothes he wears, can move and nimbly clambers down from his shoulders.

The human doesn't look surprised in the least.

“So you don’t want to come with me?” he crouches down and Lucienne can’t see what it is he does but then he says, “I see. Take care and - thanks for … bringing me here.”

This is a nightmare, Lucienne realises and watches in disbelief as the human continues to hold a conversation with it.

“I’m glad I could help. You don’t owe – okay then. Anyway, you were a great guide.”

The nightmare in the form of an Otter gives her a mocking half-bow and a leer and then slinks into the shadows along the edges of the bridge until it vanishes through a gap between several broken columns. Hob Gadling seems absolutely unfazed and the smile with which he follows the curious form of the nightmare is fond.

“Sorry about that. That was the Nightmare of Drowning. It… found me, I guess you could say, and stuck around.” He grins quickly and Lucienne is sure that he has no idea about the unlikeliness of what he has just said. Nightmares do not ‘stick around’ dreamers like that. Neither do they converse with them or share their names. This one nightmare in particular, if the human has the right of it, she had thought lost or dissolved back into raw dreamstuff decades ago.

It is… heartening, to see that it is not so. There is one more dreamthing left in the Dreaming when she had feared that their number had nearly reached zero.

“I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind? I think I … might have found something that came from here, originally. But I'm not sure. May I - come inside?” He gestures towards the shaded awning, and a bit of tension creeps into his shoulders. There might be something like a frown on his face as well.

“You are welcome,” she decides and hopes that this is not a mistake, “You may follow me.”

He crosses the threshold in front of her and then wavers. It’s a movement small enough that Lucienne nearly wouldn’t have noticed it if there hadn’t been at the same time a flash of red that ran across him and drawn her curiosity. Hob Gadling is half turned towards her and so she sees how he presses a hand against his chest where the light seems to gather for a short moment. The curious hum of Lord Morpheus’ power that seems to hang around him, grows stronger.

Before she can even blink the human straightens and keeps walking.

Lucienne hesitates too long then and before she can decide on a course of action - maybe it would have been better to bar Hob Gadling entrance after all - the man starts walking into the depth of the palace by himself, feet carrying him in a straight line towards the corridor that leads on the shortest route into its heart.

He could not have seen the corridor from where they stand, Lucienne is sure. Silently, she follows him. Maybe she should warn him about staying on the path - the palace isn’t any nicer about lost wanderers notwithstanding Lord Morpheus’ absence, after all.

She does not and stays behind him.

“You have come far since I last met you, Hob Gadling.”

“Just Hob is fine, Lady Lucienne. And yes, it was a long way. I suppose you took a shortcut to the palace?”

“Of course I did.”

She doesn’t offer him the same familiarity of using her given name and has no intention of using his but - Hob Gadling seems like the embodiment of friendliness, despite the strangeness of his presence.

He laughs. It’s a warm sound like the palace hasn’t heard in the longest time. Longer than the century Lord Morpheus was gone. She wants to believe that he is a sympathetic character. They walk in the dim light of the corridors, past junctions and up several stairs, around twisting bends - a spiralling, illogical maze that makes sense to exactly no one but Lord Morpheus and, at best, those that he allows to serve him in the palace.

It should be impossible for a dreamer to navigate it without following a clearly set path.

And yet… Hob Gadling does.

Lucienne takes care to stay just half a step behind him at all times, just to be entirely sure. He never hesitates, he never slows his steps or turns to Lucienne to take point. On the contrary, he seems entirely unaware that she is the one following, instead of him.

“Why did you seek out the heart of Lord Morpheus’ Realm?”

“I thought that title went to Fiddler’s Green?” The question sounds like idle small talk, not something Lucienne likes to indulge in normally, but it has been so long since things have been normal in the Dreaming.

“How do you know of Fiddler’s Green? Has the Drowning told you?”

“The Drow- oh yeah right,” he laughs sheepishly, “I suppose ‘The Nightmare of Drowning’ is a bit of a mouthful. And no, I met other nightmares on the way. A few of them fled to…”

He flounders for words for a moment and doesn’t seem to notice how the crumbling relief on the wall he musingly runs his fingers over while walking is glowing with a red sheen.

Everything about this human is ludicrously impossible.

“...hm that strip of scorched Dreaming that starts after you leave the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets in the direction of the palace? I don’t know what it’s called. It’s not the nightmares’ country any longer, though.”

There is no such thing as a direction in the Dreaming, least of all for dreamers.

The relief he has touched starts reassembling, stone chips and dust gently lifting from the floor he walks on and agglomerating in pristine shapes along the wall.

Absolutely, gallingly impossible.

She swallows a soft inhale and when her eyes start watering, she tries to tell herself that it is just the unexpected dust. This is a sort of power and care that she has last seen employed in the hands of Lord Morpheus.

“The Heart of the Dreaming - It is the title Lord Morpheus bestowed on one of his Arcana - Fiddler's Green, a long time ago,” she finally answers when she finds her voice again. “But this here, the palace, it is where Dream of the Endless resides. Without him, there is no Dreaming. It is all him.”

Hob Gadlings looks contemplative at that, as if the words remind him of something.

“…It empty though,” he finally says, some unnamable thing in his voice. “I know that Lord Morpheus is missing. You told me so already. But still it’s… empty.”

“So he does. I did not expect you to remember. Dreamers rarely do.”

They come to a stand in front of elegant double doors. And Lucienne realises that she hasn’t kept an eye on their path at all for a while now.

Despite this, Hob Gadling has unerringly brought them to the remains of the throne room.

***

There is power in every stone, every filament and tapestry. It suffuses what he breathes as air, and the hollow part in him that has been replaced with the Sea and the Ruby vibrates. It’s a high pitched humming at the back of his mind that nearly makes him want to scratch at the inside of his skull.

It’s hard to keep still, to not try and touch everything. It crackles under his fingertips, the power he associates with the Ruby, like the prelude to a storm. The palace is empty, yes, and it is yearning, screaming, pleading for its missing Lord. And Hob isn’t it; what it wants is not Hob and his power but it’s rightful ruler.

“What would happen if Lord Morpheus never returns?”

He’s curiously pushing at the double doors. They are finely wrought in carvings of illusive fairytale scenes and end in a pointed arch that makes him think of the gothic architecture of the Minster of York.

“The Dreaming would decay entirely. The waking world as you know it would descend into chaos.”

What is left in the absence of a dream; or Dream, in this case. Weren’t dreams and hopes two sides of the same coin?

“That sounds… awful, actually.”

“Very. Yes.” Lucienne steps up beside him. “So far, his absence has caused an ailment called Encephalitis Lethargica in the Waking. We still have dreamers here that have not left the realm in decades, and some who do not even reach us. I dare not imagine what would follow were the Realm to collapse entirely.”

Hob… can, actually. There were friends with him in the trenches that never woke up after falling asleep in 1916. He remembers the confusion and horror vividly. A new weapon of the Germans, they’d feared. More though, never found true rest again. They’d called it shellshock and yes, trauma was surely a large part of it but…The onset of the Sleepy Sickness was followed by the worst stretch of the First World War.

Nausea churns in his stomach. To imagine that the impact has already been felt in the Waking - it’s hard to swallow that a world of dreams might have such an influence on the Waking. What would the world look like if its access to respite and hope was - restricted; or gone entirely. He doesn’t want to remember the Second World War at all. If it got to be even worse…

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, right?” He hopes his grin isn’t as shaky as he feels.

Then, he finally pushed open the doors in front of him.

Lucienne slips past him, when he can’t manage to gather his wits fast enough in the face of what lies beyond. There’s something curious in the press of her lips, something between disapproval and naked hope.

“This is the throne room of Dream of the Endless, Hob Gadling. Will you not come in? You have led us here, after all.”

The room is grand.

Or rather, it was grand but the decay has not left even this innermost room of the palace untouched. The room stretches long before him, debris strewn in columns and shards up to the foot of winding stairs that rise unsupported towards three magnificent stained-glass windows.

The windows are unbroken, filtering colourful beams of ambient light into the cavernous room. It illuminates the remains of enormous arches that reach up high above him like the skeletal ribs of a slain beast. Beyond them, there is no ceiling. Glittering stars and nebulae make Hob feel as if he’s falling into space.

Hob doesn’t have a lot of time to take it all in.

The moment he has crossed into the room, a wave of power expands within him. It’s the nightmare sea’s full weight, it’s the ruby’s unfiltered heat and it drowns out every other sensation with him. He’s vaguely aware that he stumbles and manages to barely catch himself against the wall beside the entrance. His visions swims and he thinks he might lose consciousness if something like this was possible inside a dream

Under the hand he uses to support himself, marble carvings, once finely wrought like thinnest porcelain but now broken and chipped, regains their pristine edges and shapes. He hadn’t even meant to repair this.

He takes a deep breath and then another, trying in vain to pull the power back underneath his skin and into himself. It’s there to stay.

Lucienne, the only orderly thing inside the chaos of the throne room, observes him with sharp eyes.

When he finally manages to right himself and steps between the debris and shards of glass to join Lucienne, dust starts to swirl around his feet and the insistent pull of the ruby’s power has him stumbling like a newborn foal. He’s too small for it, not enough by far.

“Lady Lucienne? I think… I think we really need to talk about what I came here for, now.”

It’s hard to swallow around the words, his teeth and tongue are unwieldy.

“Indeed, we should.” Her voice is quiet and barely makes it above the insistent sound of crashing waves and static humming he hears. There is a careful hand on her shoulder and he finds himself led to the set of impossible stairs where he sits heavily.

“I found something in the Waking,” he forces out and does his best to calm the grip the ruby and the nightmare sea have on him. It’s… exhausting, and his stomach churns uneasily under the greedily pulling sensation.

“A jewel. I think. I think it might have come from here.”

“A jewel you say?”

“A… ruby. Or at least it looks like one. Since I found it, I have started this - this dreaming journey. It has… a strange power to it.”

Lucienne’s face is shuttered and her glasses make it hard for Hob to evaluate her ecpression. She’s taken a step back from him, tense and straight but her words are gentle.

“There are many magical stones and artefacts in the Waking, Hob Gadling. Some of them, in the right hands, might even allow you some measure of control over yourself in this realm. They must not necessarily have come from here, to let you dream lucidly as you do.”

That would explain the very beginning he guesses but nothing of the rest of it all.

“This here is not exactly the same as lucid dreaming, though, is it?” He makes sure that he’s as gentle as she is, that nothing of his fight to stay above the pull of the ruby gets out. “This is not really my dream at all, am I right? This is the place where dreams and nightmares dwell and I don’t think I should be able to perceive it like I do.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Before she unfolds her staunchly crossed arms.

“You are not wrong, Hob Gadling. There is a way to prove it, once and for all. If this jewel is truly of the Dreaming, then you should be able to take it with you when you come here. If it is of the Waking, it cannot cross into your dreams with you and retain its properties.”

“Just like that? I could have proven-”

Hob breaks off. There’s no need to make himself look even more foolish. If he’d just dared to wear the ruby after all…

“Yes. Just like that.” The small crinkle of her nose and eyes is silent laughter. There’s unexpected warmth to it.

Hob grins self-deprecatingly and braces himself for having to wait out his time in the Dreaming. He’ll have to leave the palace before long; he doesn’t think he can sustain himself against the power of the ruby very long any more. He feels as empty as the palace, hollowed out and scraped clean by the tides of the Dreaming Sea and the jewel. There’s not a lot left for him to give without getting something, anything really, in return. Otherwise there’ll be nothing left of him.

He shudders and makes to stand with trembling knees.

“I need to wait until I wake.” It goes without speaking, that in Dreaming time that could take a long long while, still.

There’s something considering in Lucienne’s gaze before she turns and walks towards the part of the wall he’d accidentally repaired when coming in. She runs a hand over the intricately carved wall cornice musingly and looks between him and the broken stairs to the throne.

“Try willing it,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“Try it. Tell yourself that this dream is over and will yourself awake.”

“I don’t think that’ll really work.”

It couldn’t be that easy, could it? He could just -

***

Hob opens his eyes in the dark of his bedroom and rears upright with his heart rabbiting against his ribcage. It did work; and it was truly that easy.

“Fuck.” He runs a hand over his face. He’s not sleepy but wide awake. Like always.

“What the actual -”

It worked. How has that worked? Granted, he’s never before tried to actively make himself wake up - why would he after all - but this was just… this was too easy and too real. The power he’d felt in the palace tingles in his fingertips like static. It’s not gone entirely but for now, in the Waking, it’s manageable.

He disentangles himself from his bedsheets and plants his feet squarely onto the cool floorboards. It doesn’t help much against the feeling of waves crashing against his insides.

The ruby glows where it sits innocuously on his bedside table, hypnotic as always. It resonates somewhere within Hob’s mind and makes his head ring faintly. It stays, no matter how hard Hob rubs his face.

“You’re the real thing then.”

Dread pulls at his stomach. This has terrible implications for his Stranger. If he even is a stranger any longer. Because if this ruby is of the Dreaming - what are the chances that his Stranger isn’t. There are many dreams and nightmares missing, as far as Hob has seen, but there is not a particularly large likelihood that someone who holds a power that belongs to the palace of Dream of the Endless is a mere dreamthing.

It’s… a staggering thought and Hob shies away from it. Waking up on purpose is not enough proof. He needs to bring the ruby back to Lucienne. It’s the only way to be absolutely certain about what he fears.

The gem is warm to the touch and slips around Hob's neck without second thought - as if it belongs there. It’s unexpectedly heavy and the fine gold chain he’d bought seems suddenly insufficient to carry its weight in the long run. The moment the stone settles on his skin the ringing in his head stops. So does the staticky feeling. Instead, it’s just the deeply thrumming growl of waves breaking against waves.

It fills him, every nook and cranny and pore of him until he feels he might burst with the sheer might that suddenly runs through his much too human body.

He’s too small, too tiny in the scope of things to hold this power without it changing him irrevocably.

He doesn’t know what is different this time; it's by far not the first time he touches the stone. But maybe it's not mere physical contact at all, he realises slowly, thoughts nearly sluggish under the weight of the Dreaming Sea and the ruby combined. He is now actively acknowledging its power, after all; for the first time he accepts it in a way he has never dared to before.

He’s always felt it reaching for him, surely. It’s only now that he is reaching back. He’s made space for the ruby and its power after all. It’s time to accept what it gives in return.

Hob only realises that he’s closed his eyes, when he finally deigns to open them again. He’s still sitting on the bed in his flat above the New Inn. It’s still the night hours of a new day. Around him, there is a spread of awareness that reaches out into the world. It starts small but he can feel it expanding with every heartbeat.

His neighbour is still sleeping, as is the old couple one floor up. Their visiting grandson teeters on the edge of waking. Across the street a man is in the last throes of a nightmare, its presence a brush of warm water to Hob’s cold black sea. Fears, old and new, linger in the wake of the shadows.

There is a shimmer to the world, a curtain behind which he glimpses the Waking in strands of truth and story and fears.

He becomes aware, mind reeled back into himself, at the window. London is sleeping and Hob can feel all those dreamers like little pebbles sinking through the Dreaming sea. And beyond the humans, beyond London and England - he snuffs the thought, suddenly nauseous, his unspooled awareness like the sting of a rubber band that has been stretched too far before snapping back.

Is this how his Stranger had felt when he’d worn the ruby? Because this is more than just a paltry bit of magical power. This is responsibility and duty. Hob could decide hold them all, those Dreamers, and guide them … or clench his hand mercilessly and -

This is inconceivable.

He falls heavily into his armchair. The ruby needs to go to Lucienne, as fast as possible. Natural sleep, though, feels a million miles out of his reach at the moment. On the other hand, he did will himself awake once already. Curiously, he prodds the veil that sits ephemeral somewhere at the back of his too small mind.

He might just as well try the reverse of waking up and will himself to sleep. Slowly he leans back and gets comfortable in the armchair.

“Sleep, Hobsie,” he mutters as he reaches into the power of the stone and pulls at the veil.

He doesn’t even have to close his eyes before he appears in the throne room between one heartbeat and the next, the ruby hanging heavily around his neck.

Beyond the palace, there's the raging sound of heavy rain and booming thunder.

***

Interlude

Dream cannot stop the shudder that runs through his crafted, cold body when it happens. He carefully unfolds his limbs until he is upright again and sitting in his temporary prison.

Where the warm flow of stories had settled underneath his skin, there is now the gentle hum of power. He cannot reach for it, not through the bindings of the circle but it is there nonetheless - the ebb and flow of his might and his realm as he hasn’t felt it in longer than a century.

It is the culmination of a development the true reason of which he can only speculate on. The warmth that had burrowed unbiddenly underneath Dream’s skin has persisted. No, not persisted. It has grown - steadily and unnoticeably at first until it flowed nearly like mortal blood though every part of him.

But it’s not only power and warmth he feels.

He has bent his whole focus on it, dissected its flow, its cause, its effect. What he has found is gentle care shown to the Dreaming that has grown into something more. So much more that it changes him even in his prison. He is the Dreaming, even here, even cut off from it.

There is endurance in his limbs where there was the strength of rage before. The colour of faith is a new blush on his cheeks and lips, a trickle of spring that contrasts the winter of his cell. He has - grown used to it, over the months. Cherished it. Awaited each increase.

This, now, is more than that. It is a surge, a rising wave that blazes through him without an inkling of remorse. He tilts his head up and smiles at the painted ceiling. A large part of his power has just been fully returned the Dreaming.

Someone has brought his ruby back and restored it to its primary purpose.

He wonders how long it will be until he finds an opportunity to leave. He wants to see for himself who serves him undaunted and bold like this.

***

It’s worse than wearing it in the Waking.

Much much worse.

The jewel is heavy, chain cutting deeply into his neck. It's bright, nearly too bright to look into and it hums with the voices of millions, billions of Dreamers all vying for Hob’s attention at once simply for being there. When Hob closes his eyes, he’s swimming in a dark, endless sea, lost in between all the beings that make up this realm.

Quickly he slams his eyes back open, panting as if he’d really been caught in the deep sea. For the longest moment he can’t differentiate between the thunder crashing around the palace and the booming waves of power pounding inside him.

There‘s too much in his head. His skin is wrong, his body is wrong.

In the many facets of the ruby, he can see his own face - thinner than he's used to, black-bleeding eyes staring back at him. There’s no trace of the brown he’s used to, only the same black he knows from the eyes of the nightmare of Drowning.

“I knew it,” he pants, out of breath simply from trying to hold on to his sense of self, “I knew it was from here.”

The grin he shoots at Lucienne is probably more a grimace.

She doesn’t return it anyway. She has a hand in front of her mouth and there are unmistakably tears running down her cheeks even if she’s quick in wiping away the evidence. She’s not looking at Hob at all, though. She’s entirely fixated on the ruby that lays heavily on his chest.

“Yes,” she breathes, voice thick, “this is a thing of the Dreaming. It is Lord Morpheus’ Dreamstone.”

She brushes new tears away before they fall. “He would never be parted from it of his own will. It is an extension of his power, a sign of his sovereignty.”

“Lord Morpheus’... Dreamstone.”

He’d known it, hadn’t he? At one point, he thinks, he must have realised the possibility that his Stranger and the missing Lord of the Dreaming were one and the same, right? He’d simply - decided to ignore it.

“Do you want to know why I kept it at all after I came across it? It wasn’t for any kind of power I felt from it. To be honest, I didn’t feel shit at first.”

Hob hears himself laugh but it’s an ugly, self-deprecating sound.

“I kept it because it reminded me of my Stranger. The one I met up with over the many centuries of life he gifted me with. One century, one meeting. I kept it because it reminded me of the stupidly large gemstone he would wear each century. Except he didn’t show up last time, did he? And I… missed him; miss him now even, more than a decade later.”

His eyes are hot and he doesnt think he could stop the tears if he tried. He doesn’t even know why he’s feeling so betrayed by this. He’d come here purely because he wanted to know about a magical stone. He was an idiot. An utter and complete fool.

“You’re telling me- What you’re telling me is, that the man - being - who I owe my immortality to, who is most likely missing in action, is your Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless.”

A foolish human meddling with forces beyond his imagination. Why is he so angry that this is the way he learns about his Stranger? It’s not as if it makes a lick of difference. Hob still misses him, still wishes he could have had a chance or a way to show him that he’s come to care for him.

“Yes, of course that is him.”

“What do you mean, of c- “ He breaks off at the curious expression she looks at him with. It’s nearly apprehension. It dawns on him at once “… You knew. You knew who I was the moment I said my name, am I right?”

“I did. There has been a lot of talk in the palace about you over the centuries, Hob Gadling.”

The storm outside howls against the stained glass windows and Lucienne frowns uneasily.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” But why should she have? Hob himself had given no inkling of recognizing her Lord’s name or station after all. He’d given her no reason - he’d only asked for advice.

“I… apologise,” she says, “I should not have held back the information.”

Again she throws a tense glance at the windows. She says more but Hob can't hear her over the howling inside his dreaming body and the winds battering the palace noisily. He’s angry - at himself mostly or at fate maybe. Why hadn’t he wanted to wear the ruby? If he had, would he have found out earlier? He hurts, everything hurts and bends and stretches in ways that are impossible even in his worst nightmares.

His Stranger hasn’t come to their meeting, Dream of the Endless doesn’t freely part with his Dreamstone, has been missing since 1916 if Lucienne is to be believed - something horrible must have happened. And Hob has squandered precious years by dithering, pitying himself, by being to much of a coward to-

He grips his arms with nails that are much too long to belong to him. They shimmer, black and shiny and sharp. He feels thin and hollow and angry. Something in him hungers. He hasn’t felt hunger in so long.

“Sir! Hob Gadling! Hob!” Lucienne’s hand on his too pale arm rips him out of his spiral.

“L-Lucienne. What is-”

“I apologise,” she says again, more softly this time and despite the howling in Hob’s ears he hears her easily, her touch on his skin a steady grounding point. “I should have been frank with you from the moment I recognized who you are.”

“It’s- it’s fine. I’m mostly angry at myself,” he grits out and then closes his mouth again. There is something wrong with his teeth.

“What is happening to me?”

“I do not know, Sir,” Lucienne's voice startles him despite having expected it. She’s much too close now, nearly hovering. “But whatever it is that the Dreaming is doing to you, it is trying to help you fulfil the purpose you set for yourself. It… is partial to you. Very much so, I fear.”

“It’s the ruby, though. Not the - not the Dreaming.”

“There’s no difference. None that matters at least,” she says, “The Dreamstones are as much a part of the Dreaming as they are a part of Lord Morpheus. Here, in his Realm, it is the Dreaming’s tool. Just as it is Lord Morpheus’ when he wields it.”

Hob's smile is a shaky thing as a long overdue realisation slowly takes shape.

“The purpose I set myself, huh… What I wanted…”

What had he wanted, at first? He’d wanted to see his stranger again when he first found the ruby, wanted to find him and apologise. Then, when he began his journey in the Dreaming, he'd been curious, and enchanted.

But after that, he'd just wanted to help - help those sadly decaying things of beauty he’d come across - full of teeming possibilities but slowly falling prey to hopeless dereliction - help that fantastical landscape who’s scorched bones screamed for something that had been ripped away.

And he’d wished to help that depthless sea that had hummed and whispered underneath his skin and in the shadows of the world he had so easily come to love the longer he had walked in it…

“I wanted to help this place,” he whispers, “because I've… grown to love it.”

The Dreaming and Dream of the Endless are the same, he remembers. He doesn’t think it makes any difference at all to disentangle which one he’s fallen in love with.

It’s okay, though, he thinks as he considers his nails and feels his teeth. He’d given freely of himself and he doesn’t begrudge the Dreaming for trying to give something back. It’s only fair. He’s not going to eschew the gift it offers in reciprocity.

#hob gadling #dream of the endless #dreamling #centennialhusbandsbigbang #centennial husbands big bang #ginoeh writes #lucienne the librarian

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plumbogs · 3 hours

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John Burb starts his day as usual by wanting to call everyone that isn't his own daughter. He had a very interesting and totally hypothetical conversation with Alexander that had something to do with 'coming up with an alibi' and 'breaking into the Simcity jail if things happened to go wrong'. What an eccentric goofball of a guy.

Meanwhile Jennifer slept in.

John went on a hike before work. He had a successful one. No bees this time.

And Darren was passing by and taking Daphne for a walk! Tartarus got to spend some time with his mom aww :)

Jennifer was awake and ready to face the day by now. She wanted to throw a party, which I decided was a good excuse to have her catch up with her late brother's children now that they're adults.

She also spent some time chatting with Desdemona, which considering the fact that she and Lucy are still engaged and it doesn't seem to be stopping, is a good plan. They get along very well.

She also sneaks in a few flirts with Florence upstairs. All according to plan.

However, disaster strikes and John runs into a comical situation at work. And then loses his job. Fortunately we didn't see a repeat of the Pleasants, because Jennifer had the good sense to not go beyond a few pickup lines before he got home.

Tybalt Capp started taking a shower at their house, which is pretty unhinged. And in the bathroom John was desperately trying to use. He managed to avoid a party accident on top of everything else going wrong in his life right now.

Meanwhile the party went swimmingly. Everyone watched sports, talked about normal things, ate some soup, and I don't think Dustin was even invited but he did show up at some point.

The party ended and Tartarus did what he always does: watch them sleep.

And at the very end of the round, Luna was born! John, despite lifetime-wanting 6 kids, didn't want to have a baby and so now he's even worse off than before. Hopefully he can recover from this whole situation.

#sims 2 gameplay #jennifer burb #john burb #florence delarosa #tybalt capp #luna burb #<- hate coming up with names. but it matches with lucy well enough

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shadowqueen402 · 1 year

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Roleswap Ruckus: The Truth Is Out

A fic for @kayssweetdreams based off of the Roleswap Ruckus fic I recommended for her. Hope you like it.

"Aria!" Reala called upon finding her in the prison that she was trapped in. He hated playing Loyal! NiGHTS's game, but he had no other option.

Aria's eyes lit up upon hearing Reala's voice. "Reala! Are you okay?" She asked, trying to stand up.

"I should be the one to ask you that," Reala said as he used the keys to break each lock. The prison was then destroyed, allowing Reala to fly over to Aria and untie her. "After all, you were the one that was tied up and transported here."

"I was shaken up," Aria said. "Especially since…I saw Cerberus. Did they hurt you? Loyal! NiGHTS and Negati! Balan."

"They tried to," Reala said, helping Aria up. "But I managed to outsmart them. Let's get you back to your Nightopia where you'll be safe." Suddenly, they heard the sound of slow-clapping from behind them. Emerging from the dark were none other than Loyal! NiGHTS and Negati! Balan. Reala quickly shielded Aria from the two.

"How touching," Loyal! NiGHTS taunted as she floated over to Reala. "The lovers are finally reunited. But you can cut the act now, my dear brother."

"NiGHTS, what trick are you playing now?" Reala seethed, glaring at her.

"According to your sister, you've played your part so swimmingly well," Negati! Balan said in a sadistically playful tone. "Thanks to you, the plan has been going swell."

"Played your part?" Aria furrowed her brows in confusion. "What part, Reala?"

"You may want to pay attention, Visitor." Loyal! NiGHTS sneered at Aria. She then grabbed ahold of Reala. "I'm talking about my brother's part in stealing your Ideya from you."

"Huh?" Aria was stunned and turned to Reala.

"No!" Reala demanded. "That's not true! I came to save you! Don't believe their lies, Aria!"

"Lies, you say? Does that sound familiar to you?" Negati! Balan smirked as he floated over to Reala. "Especially since…you were a part of the incident that involved the Fake Nightopia too."

"Fake Nightopia?" Aria was so confused.

"Yes, Visitor," Loyal! NiGHTS said, amused at Aria's reaction. "I'm afraid your knight in shining armor isn't what he seems. He was the one that caused the Fake Nightopia incident to happen."

"W-What?" Aria asked. "That-That can't be true! Reala saved me when it happened! He caught me when I was falling down! And he's been making sure that my Nightopia stays safe from you two. Don't you dare make up lies about him!"

Reala averted his eyes. Negati! Balan laughed as he approached Aria. "Do you really find that hard to believe?" He asked. "Is the truth really that difficult to perceive? Then let me ask you; do you recall seeing your worst fears come to life? Filling you with dread, misery, and strife?"

Aria then remembered when Lance released a hiccup near her, causing her to find herself in a cemetery, gazing at the tombstone of her late husband. She then gasped from the recognition, causing Negati! Balan to giggle.

"Lance's hiccups cause an individual's worst fears to become reality," Loyal! NiGHTS explained to Aria. "So while you and your friends were trying to find a way to cure him, your Prince Charming and our father saw this as an advantage to help Daddy get into the Awakening Dimension. With every hiccup Lance released, your friends would actually be trapped in their worst fears while, at the same time, would also stay in what we call a 'Fake Nightopia'." She let go of Reala and floated toward Aria. "Poor, poor Visitor. Heartbroken that her Nightmaren saviour had caused such trouble to the people she cared for…"

"N-No… It can't be…" Aria said, feeling tears fill up her eyes. She didn't want to believe this.

"Aria, I…" Reala started but closed his mouth. He couldn't believe Loyal! NiGHTS and Negati! Balan exposed his actions to her.

"Tell me, Visitor," Negati! Balan sneered, grabbing Aria's chin. "Do you still…love that Nightmaren General despite knowing he is an intimidating conquerer?" He pointed at Reala who couldn't bring himself to look at anyone.

Aria was silent for a bit. "Yes…" She said. "I'm not going to let the past affect me. I promised that I wouldn't, no matter how much it hurts…"

"But unfortunately, you have failed my game, Reala!" Loyal! NiGHTS growled. "I don't have any of the Ideya like I specifically told you to get! How dare you try to make a dupe out of your own sister! Let's see how strong your love for each other really is!" Then, Loyal! NiGHTS shouted into the air, "DADDY!!"

Suddenly, a building-sized being with six gigantic hands appeared. Each hand had a purple eye that stared right into anyone's soul and was filled with malice. Two of the hands looked down on Aria and Reala, the eyes boring a look that was both enraged and curious. "Oh? And what do we have here?"

Aria belongs to me.

#balan wonderworld #nights journey of dreams #reala #nights sega #balan #role switch #fanfic #ocs

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mikaharuka · 1 year

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My Plans - Prithvi, Indigo, and More

Oh hey! The writing is actually going along swimmingly without me falling asleep! The Horned God of the Forest finally showed his face! ...and Beau went mega-horny as expected. Even more than usual lol

So yeah! Things go along surprisingly well!

Well, I'm hoping to finally finish writing Prithvi-Chandra's raw draft by this weekend. Also hoping to get Prithvi-Surya edited and posted this Sunday or Monday. If I can do that, then I'll have one week to post Prithvi-Chandra, and two weeks to finish and post Prithvi-Nakshatra. Spacing out the three Prithvi chapter releases by a week.

Once that's finally up and out, then I can finally shift gears to Indigo. Overdue, but I really needed Prithvi out before Indigo, since Indigo (Apricity) has all the subscribers and bookmarks and I need a way to notify readers of Mahabhuta and the new WL series entries in general... so I needed all of this posted and set before Indigo went live. If everything goes according to plan (major if, knowing me and my capricious brain), then hopefully Indigo will go out before March ends. After all, if I can do 3 chapters in 2 months, surely, I can do 1 chapter in 3 weeks.

Unfortunately, this means not finishing Azure Allure in time for Femslash February... most likely (though I will still try for it). But even if that doesn't happen, I plan to get that up in March sometime.

But amidst all that, I do have grad school shenanigans too (like my PhD prelim report, research, and the stats class I teach), so we'll see...

#mizuka's status #mizuka irl #mizuka's rambles

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the-letter-horror-lover · 2 years

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The Fourth Wall by TheAuthor5263

Anime » Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Rated: T, English, Adventure & Romance, [Boruto U., Sarada U.] Mitsuki, Words: 16k+, Favs: 1, Follows: 1, Published: Aug 29 Updated: Sep 28

Chapter 1

One goal. One purpose. One mission. All they needed was to hook him on the prospects of their desire and the rest would go swimmingly. Or so they thought.

Using the cover of the shadows, the author spied into the window of the local burger shop from across the street. The dim glow of a laptop screen illuminated their face as they typed a line of text into a word document. Immediately, their appearance shifted to that of a Konoha local that seemed neither feminine nor masculine.

It wasn't their plan to involve themselves in the story, but rather, to watch and record as the mission they gave to the Hokage's son unfolded. The less details everyone else knew, the better.

According to the plotline of the anime, Boruto and his friends were in Kaminari Burger having a conversation. In approximately 4 minutes the episode would end, and Cho-Cho would enter. The plan needed to be enacted before her entrance, or the author would have to exit the world and start from scratch all over again.

Looking as casual as an introvert could, they entered into the restaurant and purchased a meal, sitting down at a nearby table to wait for the moment of truth.

"When are we going to go on an S-rank mission?" Boruto complained to his teammates.

"S-rank is reserved for Jonin. We won't be taking on something like that anytime soon. Especially not with someone who would use scientific ninja tools to cheat during the Chunin exams on our team. We're lucky they're still giving us missions at all," sighed Sarada. "How did I get lumped together with someone so irresponsible?"

Immediately pouting, Boruto retorted back a half-sarcastic, "sorry."

"Boruto," began Mitsuki, "let's do our best in the next Chunin exam. Then we can climb our way to Jonin status and take on s-rank missions."

"That's more like it! Now, to try the new limited-edition burger!"

The author glanced up as Boruto happily dug into the newest trend: the sweets burger. Almost immediately after swallowing, he stuck his tongue out.

"Sweet! But… actually pretty good!"

"Hmm," Sarada mused, "maybe I'll go buy one."

Mitsuki smiled. "How unlike you, Sarada."

"Hm?"

"You always make fun of Boruto for wanting to try every single burger here. Maybe you're starting to enjoy them after all?"

"I-I am not!" Sarada insisted, pushing up her glasses. "Besides, I like sweets anyways. Although, combining it with a burger does sound kind of repulsive… Maybe I won't try it..."

"Everyone should understand the amazingness of Kaminari Burger's limited-edition burgers," replied Boruto. With an aura of confidence about him, he stood to his feet and smiled. "If you like sweets, you'll like this, trust me!"

"Well, I did tell Cho-Cho I was going to the sweets shop with her tomorrow…" Sarada glumly rested her cheek on her fist. "I don't know if I have enough money left to afford both."

"Then I'll buy you one and make you admit that it's delicious," Boruto declared.

The author watched as he climbed out of the booth and headed towards the counter, leaving behind an unamused Sarada. Three minutes remaining.

"You two get along well, don't you?"

"That again," Sarada mused, slumping her head into her hand. "I don't understand what you see in that idiot, Mitsuki."

"Boruto has some surprisingly good points." Mitsuki smiled.

Sarada just rolled her eyes and averted her gaze.

"One limited-edition sweets burger," said Boruto proudly as he placed the tray in front of Sarada and took his seat next to Mitsuki. "Enjoy. You'd better eat the whole thing since I paid for it," he added with a sly smile.

Sarada narrowed her eyes. "If it's gross, I'm throwing it away."

"Come on, a deal is a deal!"

"I don't recall making a deal with you. You just went and bought this of your own free will."

"Oi, Mitsuki! Tell her she has to eat it."

"If she doesn't like it, why don't you eat it Boruto," said Mitsuki as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"But it has her germs on it!"

"You could cut off the part she bit off of," he replied, holding up a plastic knife.

"…Fair point. Now hurry up and try it and be amazed!"

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Sarada took a bite of the burger. Her eyes widened. They began to sparkle. "Sweet! But this is actually really good!"

Boruto smiled. "See? I told you. And now I've used up all my mission earnings… Hey Mitsuki, any word from Konohamaru on missions?"

"Not that I know of… Things have seemed rather slow lately."

Boruto sighed. "More low paying d-rank missions… Ah, I'm so tired of this."

The author decided it was now or never. Getting up from their spot at the table, they threw their trash away and headed towards the group. "You."

Boruto blinked up at the figure, taken slightly aback.

"You are shinobi, correct?"

"W-What if we are?"

"Come with me." The author turned and began to walk away.

Boruto stood up, facing their back. "Why should we follow you?"

"You wanted to take on an S-rank mission, did you not?"

Boruto's eyes began to sparkle. "S-rank… Finally!"

"Boruto, wait!" Sarada's hand came down like lightning on his shoulder.

"What?"

"We should only be taking missions from the mission board with the approval of Konohamaru-sensei. This isn't something you can decide on your own. S-class quests involve fighting high level threats."

The author stopped, turning towards the team once more. "This mission involves a higher level of secrecy than can be trusted to the woman running the mission board, but it isn't difficult to carry out. No fighting will be involved, and you don't have to leave the town."

Sarada narrowed her eyes. "How do we know it isn't a trap?"

"If you doubt my words, you don't have to take it. As for me, I have a request that must be fulfilled by your team. Why would I lead you into a trap?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

The author sighed. "You possess something unique to the Uchiha clan known as the sharingan, do you not?"

Sarada backed up. "How did you…"

"If you'd like, I'll take these two and brief them on the mission in an open area of your choosing. You can stand back and watch the area with your sharingan. If you still don't trust me, bring that friend of yours that can sense chakra, Inojin, to come along as well. But time is of the essence."

"If I remember right, Ino-shika-cho are out on a day mission right now… I don't know when they'll be back. Sarada, it wouldn't hurt to hear… I'm sorry, who are you?"

"If my identity could be made known so easily, I would not have to ask this request of you."

"And yet you came to an open place like Kaminari Burger to ask us," prodded Mitsuki.

The author lowered their head. "Fear not. I have already disguised my face."

Mitsuki eyed Boruto who only shrugged back. "Seems suspicious, but if Sarada's watching, it should be fine. The least we can do is hear them out. Come on, Mitsuki."

"Wait, Boruto!" Sarada put her hand on his shoulder. "This is still too dangerous. I don't approve."

"Then you don't have to come. We get to pick the location, right?"

"Yes."

"Hold on just a—"

"Sarada, let's use the training grounds behind your house."

"But—"

"Very well."

Boruto turned around, his hands casually folded behind his head. "Don't worry," he whispered, "Sasuke-san is home right now, isn't he? If anything happens, we'll be able to hold whatever it is off until he gets there."

Sarada sighed. "Fine. But just because we go doesn't mean we accept. And we're only there to hear them out!"

The author nodded and allowed Boruto and Mitsuki to lead the way to the training grounds. Sarada trailed behind, a look of discomfort on her face. After a short while, the author took out their laptop and began to write.

"Hm? Isn't that the same device Denki has?"

Boruto turned around and eyed the device in the author's hands. "You're right. What are you using that for?"

"It's to record the events of this mission," replied the author, typing a few lines of text into an open word document.

"Hmmm… Sounds like hard work."

A snake slithered out of the collar of Mitsuki's kimono to spy on the author from the front. The author just smiled and waved at the snake.

"By the way," said Boruto, "Sarada's dad is crazy strong. He's also my master. He'll be nearby when you explain, so if you do try anything funny, you're as good as dead."

The author sighed. "Still untrusting as ever, I see."

"You can't blame us," replied Mitsuki, "you haven't given us any reason to trust you."

"I can't argue with that," they replied, eyelids growing heavy as they walked. Typing a line of text into the laptop, they ridded themselves of the need to sleep and eat. Being inside a story was certainly convenient.

Long at last, a little clearing came into view. The author eyed Sarada's position from a tree. From that distance, she won't be able to hear… Good.

"So, what is this S-class mission?"

The author closed their laptop and held it behind their back. "It concerns the townspeople."

"The townspeople?" Mitsuki asked.

"Yes. They are all awaiting a certain something, some more so than the end of all evil."

Boruto flinched. "More than putting a stop to the Otsutsuki? More than their lives?"

"I never said they were living here."

"Then what's it got to do with us?"

"Not us," said the author, turning in Boruto's direction, "you."

Mitsuki stepped in front of Boruto, his eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"You are aware that Sasuke's rinnegan can open portals to different dimensions, yes?"

"How'd you already know about Sasuke-san?!"

The author sighed. "I am from another dimension, and I bring a message from my people that only you can fulfill. Some have been awaiting this moment for nearly eight years."

"Eight years?" Mitsuki asked. "Why haven't they acted already?"

"Because Boruto wasn't old enough yet," replied the author.

"So, what's the special mission?"

"The mission itself is quite simple," the author said, closing their laptop and holding it at their side. "Boruto, lend me your ear."

"…My ear?"

"It'd be better if you were the only one who knew what the mission was. It's yours to complete, and yours to accept."

"Then why did you call all of us out here?!"

"Because you would have trusted me even less if I called you out alone…"

Boruto eyed the author with suspicion. "Fine. I got it. Just tell me already," he said turning to the side. Mitsuki readied himself for battle as the author neared Boruto's ear and began to whisper the details of the mission.

A short sentence later, Boruto jerked backwards. "HUH?! I AM NOT DOING THAT! NO WAY!"

"Boruto!" A group of snakes came out from under Mitsuki's Kimono.

"Wait, Mitsuki…"

Mitsuki frowned. Boruto was hiding his face with his hair.

The author smiled. "Whether you chose to accept or not, I will not be returning home until the mission is completed. Which means, you can decline, but I'll be following you. Waiting. For the rest of my life." With that, the author took their laptop back out and began reading the writing on the screen.

"You're saying until I do that, you won't leave us alone? And people have been waiting for that since… Wait, since I was that young?! And how is this supposed to be an S-rank mission?!"

The author only continued to smile. "Because I am from another dimension, it would be bothersome if people like your father found out and tried to take me into custody. In fact, this whole world would essentially be ruined if I had to stop several people to achieve my goal… I am an all-powerful being, after all. It would start a war, my people versus yours. And this world would be obliterated. This mission is to be handled as though it were top secret. I trust you can complete it?"

Boruto's eyes narrowed. "You're joking. Sarada, go call Sasuke-san!"

"Hmm… I suppose I'll have to show you a bit of a demonstration." The author opened a separate word document and typed a few lines into their laptop. Moments later, Mitsuki disappeared.

"Mitsuki!" Boruto waved his hands around. "What did you do with Mitsuki?!"

"I just deleted him from existence." Of course, actually doing that would be a violation of the rules. They had merely put a soundproof black box around Mitsuki and made the box invisible to Boruto and Sarada. But they didn't need to know that.

"What do you… Give Mitsuki back!" Boruto threw a punch, but the moment his hand was within a foot of the device, it started to vaporize. He screamed, writhing in pain.

The author simply typed a few lines of text into their laptop, and within moments, Boruto's severed hand was fixed and Mitsuki stood in front of him.

Sarada looked on in horror. "It's the device," she said, throwing a kunai towards the laptop, but before it could reach, it vaporized. A few taps of the keyboard later, Sarada and Boruto was frozen.

"…Shadow paralysis jutsu...?" They struggled to move, but it was no use.

"I don't want to cause you any purposeful harm… In fact, I'd prefer to keep you alive." The author turned towards the struggling Sarada and Boruto. "I can heal you, and even revive you, if necessary. However… I would like to go home at some point. Boruto. Please give this mission some consideration."

"If you have so much power," began Mitsuki, "why did you coerce Boruto into accepting a mission from you? Couldn't you just force him to complete it?"

"My people have placed certain limitations on my existence. One of them being manipulating the emotions and thoughts of others."

"Hmm… I see…"

"I really do wish to interfere as little as possible. When and if Boruto decides to fulfill my request is entirely up to him… That being said, should I grow tired of waiting, I may try to hurry things along…"

"And how would you do that?"

"Well," said the author, typing away, "bringing s-class level threats into existence and starting a war are within my power. But a simple mission like this hardly worth such drastic measures. Instead, I might give you a rash, make a frog jump into your drink, put bugs in your food, turn the weather rainy… small things here and there as a reminder that I'm still waiting."

"Hmmm… Sounds rather unpleasant," replied Mitsuki, connecting his kimono sleeves. "And? If Boruto does complete this quest, does he get something as a reward?"

"The reward for completing the quest is the erasure of my existence from your world… And the satisfaction of completing it." With that, the author turned away. "And Boruto," they called, typing a new line of text into their laptop, "If you get punched after completion of the mission, it doesn't count."

Boruto pointed a finger in the author's direction. "T-That's just playing dirty! Come back here so I can fight you!"

A small flower sprouted at Boruto's feet and laughed up at him. Boruto stomped on the flower, but before his foot could make contact, it was gone.

"Flaunting your power to do anything… Gah! Why me?!"

Sarada put both hands on Boruto's shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. "Boruto."

He looked up at her, his face a mixture of embarrassment, anger, and confusion.

"What was the mission? I need you to tell me."

Cheeks pinkening, Boruto knocked her hands away, turning to the side to stalk off. "I'm not doing it. I refuse! Especially not… What kind of s-class mission is this?! The s-class mission to kill me?"

Mitsuki laughed. A snake slithered off of Boruto's shoulder and into his Kimono.

"Mitsuki…" Boruto watched as the tail of the snake disappeared into his sleeve. "Did you overhear…"

Mitsuki simply stood arm's length away, a smile on his innocent face. "Boruto, I think you should complete the mission. After all, all you have to do is—"

"Hold it right there Mitsuki." Boruto put his hands up palms out, his bangs shielding his eyes from the view of his onlookers. "Not another word."

Sarada put her hands on her hips. "What on earth is going on with you two?"

"Forget the mission. I'm going home."

"You're just going to let an s-class level threat walk away?! I don't want bugs in my food!" Sarada yelled after him.

"If I have an unlimited amount of time to complete it, I'm going to drag it out as long as possible. There's no reason for me to complete it like this," he whined, running his hands through his hair.

"You'd better complete it before that thing brings the apocalypse onto our village."

"I think we should give it a name," said Mitsuki with a smile.

"Mitsuki! You're not helping!"

"How about Hebi? It surprisingly reminds me of my parent."

"Hmm," Sarada mused, "that's not bad. It kind of reminds me of a snake, in a way. Ah, more importantly! Boruto! Tell me what the mission was!"

Boruto ran away. "I can't, ok? You heard that creep say that I wasn't allowed to tell anyone."

"Then why does Mitsuki get to know?"

"MITSUKI!" Boruto yelled, dashing back to where Mitsuki was. "Don't even think about telling her."

With a nod, Mitsuki looked towards Sarada. "Sorry. That's how it is. I have a feeling if I opened my mouth to tell you, my tongue might get vaporized. Don't worry, you'll find out what the mission is when Boruto completes it."

Sarada's hand reached up to rest on her chin. "So it involves me?"

"Don't think about it anymore," said Boruto, running up to Mitsuki and dragging him off. "I'm not doing it. Come on Mitsuki, we're going home!"

From the shadows, the author smirked. I expected him to rebel, but not quite to this extent. If he has no intention of completing it tomorrow either, I may have to pressure him… After all, I only have a week before the anime starts up and he loses his memory.

#Boruto #The fourth wall fanfiction

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quieteating · 2 years

Text

New Post has been published on Quieteating

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/iP0b1Z

Pophams Victoria Park

As I am still recovering from too much excitement from my various eating forays, I thought to play it safe for my next event. A branch somewhere I liked before. Couldn’t be that much that could go wrong, right?

This is the Pophams Victoria Park branch. You can see my visit to the original here.

So trying to minimize my risk, I arrived in good time. Didn’t want to leave things to chance so as to make sure I wasn’t rushed, had a good seat (got the best in the house) and they weren’t out of stock of some of my favourite things.

Latte. Coffee was decent. Not burnt, over-extracted or with milk steamed again and again. All the various sins that I have seen in other places serving coffee before. The last issue can lead to stomach volatility in the night. Some care was being taken with the coffee preparation and it showed.

Cheese and mushroom toastie. I remember as a kid playing the game “never have I ever”. Perhaps I shall resurrect this here. Never have I ever had a mushroom toastie this good. It was firm and crunchy outside, moist and springy inside and delightfully umami with delectable mushrooms in between. Excellent.

Bacon maple swirl. If you go to Pophams (any branch), the thing to try is this as you won’t find it anywhere else. Sweet and savory and crispy, all together it makes for a delightful bite. Although it is a bit pricey for a pastry, it is as big as my head (that is quite big, so my friends tell me). So something that you can easily share.

This time at least, things went according to plan, i.e. nothing happened to me or my food. We all got along swimmingly as we didn’t get any surprises here. This place was as good as the original in taste and even has the slight edge in decor. So nothing went wrong here and I’ll happily take that.

A quiet eating 8.5/10.

A pastry and coffee was GBP 10 excluding service.

Pophams Victoria Park

110A Lauriston Road London, England, E9 7HA

#bacon #bacon maple #bacon maple swirl #cheese #cheese and mushroom toastie #latte #mushroom #pophams #toastie

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drwcn · 3 years

Text

《Without Envy》- concubine/sleeper agent!wwx & prince!lwj

[story board 1] [story board 2] [story board 3] [story board 4] [story board 5] [story board 6]

snippets (non-chrono): [1]

snippet #2 →

Wei Wuxian was absolutely rubbish at being a servant, anyone could tell you that. Without mentioning that he was the antithesis of subservient, just the manner in which he was raised did not prepare him for the bullshit of becoming Lan Wangji’s personal attendant.

Wen Ruohan fed him, clothed him, taught him and trained him, but no skills that was imbued into his young mind had anything to do with waiting at another’s hand and foot. Wen Ruohan had high expectations and accepted nothing short of perfection which Wei Wuxian delivered on all fronts, but at the end of the day, there were servants tending to Wei Wuxian at Nevernight. His maids tidied his room, his footmen delivered his messages, and Nevernight’s cooks were charmed and bribed into preparing his favourite dishes.

Even at Jiang-fu, after he cheated and lied and manipulated his way past their defenses, he was quickly embraced by the inner family. Well... okay, Madam Yu was still a little frosty, but she gave him a red-pouch filled with silver coins at New Year, so he’d say he had made significant progress.

Long story short: Wei Wuxian may not be a prince, but he certainly was no street rat.

So, this getting up at the ass crack of dawn business was definitely going to be a problem

Though, never let it be said that he, Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian, shirked from a challenge. Since he entered Hanguang-fu, he had been planning to make an impression on Lan Wangji, and what an impression it would be if he could meet Lan Wangji’s every need on the very first day.

Thus, Wei Wuxian planned, he plotted, he delineated a plan that was foolproof. He had whipped up a modified time tracker that made use of the normal sand mechanism and added an additional function which would trickle a bell when the sand ran out.

Lan Wangji liked to take a morning bath, according to the servants. Wei Wuxian aimed to rise early enough to heat the bath, prep Lan Wangji’s court robes and have his breakfast waiting on the table by the time the man was cleaned and dressed. Yes... all of this would work out swimmingly.

Except of course, Wei Wuxian did not anticipate that Lan Wangji was a complete freak of nature.

In the courtyard outside of his bedchamber, half hidden in the silent greyness of the moments before dawn, Lan Wangji wielded his bichen through a series of formations.

Wei Wuxian stumbled at the round archway, freezing in surprise at seeing his mark already awake. He didn’t like being caught off guard; it didn’t make for a very long lifespan as a spy.

Lan Wangji was dressed down in only a course white linen robe and grey trousers. Wei Wuxian watched him carefully, observing his movements as he swept across the courtyard, rapid and fluid, like torrents over rocky river beds.

Perfectly balanced. Impressive. Silent and still, he stood on the sideline, analyzing the prince’s footwork, taking apart his idiosyncrasies, and memorizing his signature. Unlike so many of their contemporaries whose swordsmanship was more flashy than functional, Wei Wuxian could tell that Gusu’s Hanguang-wang trained to win, to disarm, to kill.

Lan Wangji...what an opponent you will be. He hid a smirk. Suibian was tucked away in a compartment beneath his floorboard, and a wild part of him itched to take it out and try it on his mark. Lan Wangji would not be an easy foe to defeat, but Wei Wuxian did not care about that; his heart picked up speed just imagining it.

It helped that Lan Wangji was also undeniably beautiful.

One day, your Bichen will have to contend with my Suibian -

OW!

A sudden smack up the back of his head broke Wei Wuxian out of his ruminations. The sudden assault triggered the defensive part of his psyche, which at its core was that of an assassin, and he whipped around in a split second, without taking care to guard his expression.

Yue-gongong, Lan Wangji’s eunuch and the second superintendent of the prince’s court jolted in surprise, taken aback by the hardness in this servant boy’s face and the heat in his eyes.

Realizing his slip up, Wei Wuxian immediately slapped on a sheepish smile. “Ah, Yue-gongong, you scared me, haha! I - I -”

“You lazy ox!’ Easily fooled, the eunuch immediately went back to berating him angrily. “Waking up so late and leaving dianxia without anyone to aid him! Heaven knows why dianxia would favour you to be his attendant!”

He smacked Wei Wuxian twice with handle-end of the horsetail whisk that high-ranking eunuchs carried.

When the time comes, I’m gutting you first. Thought Wei Wuxian as he shrank back pitifully in accordance with his continued pretense of being a helpless twink.

“Yue-gongong.” Lan Wangji’s smooth baritone voice cut through the eunuch’s banshi-esque screech. “That’s enough. It’s Wei Ying’s first day. Do not blame him.”

Yue-gonggong shot Wei Wuxian one last glare and backed off. “Yes dianxia.”

“You’re dismissed for now.” “Yes dianxia.” The eunuch bowed and retreated back to his duties elsehwere.

Wei Wuxian quickly got on his knees and thanked Lan Wangji, “Dianxia, A-Xian - uhm, Wei Ying - Wei Ying apologizes for being tardy. I will go boil water for your bath right away!”

“No need,” replied Lan Wangji. “I take my morning baths cold.”

Cold....bath??? Is this another weird Lan practice?

Growing up under Wen Ruohan’s guidance, Wei Wuxian was raised to think that Gusu Lans were a sentimental bunch, too emotional to be fit for ruling because they could not put the needs of the country before their own. Wei Wuxian knew of the reputation of Gusu’a previous emperor, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s father, who still lived yet had shirked from his responsibility to the throne. He was not the only emperor in history to have lost a dear love, but the the death of his empress had caused him to lose all motivation for ruling, the duty of which he had pushed onto his oldest son.

Perhaps if Wei Wuxian had been raised by Jiang Fengmian, he would appreciate the depth of taishang-huang’s love for his empress, but the current Wei Wuxian, trained and molded by Wen Ruohan, could not muster up any respect this sentimental fool. A part of him had hoped that Lan Xichen would be different, that he could show Wen Ruohan he was a worthy equal, that Wen Ruohan’s ambition could be culled if only Gusu’s Emperor was just as strong...

...but Lan Xichen was just as weak; refusing to provide heirs for the crown after Nie Mingjue passed.

“Come, stand.” A shadow appeared over him. Wei Wuxian slowly raised his head to see Lan Wangji standing before him with an outstretched hand. “Rise, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian stared at that outstretched hand, calloused along the palm and along the finger tips: the hand of a musician and a warrior. How strange indeed. Yet, when he dared reach out to it with one of his own and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, he found that Lan Wangji’s grip was warm and gentle.

Sentimentality is the death of power.

He swallowed despite himself.

“Thank you, dianxia.”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t particularly enjoy being a spy, but Wen Ruohan was like a father to him, and he believed in him and in the better future that Wen Ruohan could provide to Gusu if he were to rule.

Wei Wuxian didn’t know it then, but slowly, he would be proven wrong.

#the untamed #cql #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #without envy #corie fics #cql ficlet

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solari-writes-things · 3 years

Text

Boxing Day

requested by: @kind-wolf

Solari says: I feel like this is a little more brief than some of the things I write, so I hope that it provides a little more of the comical vibe to make up for it.

Prompts -

#11: “You didn’t tell me your friend was cute! Now what am I going to do?”

Happy Lowman x Reader

WARNINGS: Language

gif credit: to the OP (pulled from Google).

MORE HAPPY | MORE SOA | > MASTERLIST < | REQUESTS OPEN

It took you awhile to convince yourself to finally visit the SAMCRO clubhouse. Not for any particular reason, it’s just that the party scene just wasn’t your preference.

However, you had known Harry Winston for years. You once lived in Charming, when you were a teenager, before moving a little further South of the small town. Finally deciding to move back, you rekindled your friendships with him and Jackson Teller, which prompted an invitation for a clubhouse party.

You almost didn’t want to accept just on the idea of a party. You weren’t too much of an extrovert, preferring to meet everyone on your own accord; however, you didn’t plan on making any trips out of your own time. This was the chance that you had to meet the other people your two friends mentioned prior, their loyal brothers in arms.

They always spoke highly of them, confident that you would get along swimmingly. You had the talent of getting along with almost anyone, though, within reason.

So here you were, sitting in a crowd that surrounded a rinky-dink boxing ring outside of the bar itself. Harry, or Opie, had been sitting to your right to watch the men brawl. There was two in the center, dancing around one another and swinging harshly. One was Tig, whom you had met on arrival to the party, and the other you hadn’t quite met yet.

Opie had been calling him Happy, which you weren’t sure was his real name. The man was anything but that, tall and tattooed all over the parts of his body that you could see. His hands were wrapped tightly in tape, stained just a slight shade of red from the beating that he had been giving Tig these last five minutes. His eyes were serious, feral even, as he shuffled around the ring.

You tapped your fingers against your beer bottle calmly, watching the two of them circle. The jerking of their arms, followed by the sounds of their skin being beat made you cringe where you sat. Something about the two of them in the ring together almost made you a little fearful.

Two opposing, wild forces clashing against each other.

Tig managed to land a couple of back-to-back punches, which seemed to have Happy in a bit of a daze in the corner of the ring. He would try to follow up with another barrage of hits, but the President of the Sons of Anarchy stood up from his ringside seat and called the match to an end.

Both men were almost coated in a matching shade of red, and you almost didn’t notice until they had been called to a stop.

Instead of them sauntering out, their expressions went from wild to smiling; the quickness of it all was enough to give you whiplash. They bring each other in for a hard hug, before both of them duck through the ropes on opposing sides.

Happy dropped down calmly in front of you and Opie, giving a nod of greeting to Opie before approaching. The longer you paid attention to him, the longer you seemed to realize that he wasn’t a bad looking man--blood and all. Your eyes scanned the different types of ink that he had strewn all over his body, intrigued in the different art styles that he had decorated himself in. God, you had hoped he didn’t notice you staring just a bit too much.

“Fuckin’ badass match, Hap,” Opie commented, taking a drink of his own beer bottle. “You look like shit.”

Happy had an almost wicked grin on his face, amused at the fact that he was in such a shape. “I’ve had worse, man. Shit will get cleaned up quick.”

You were almost startled by the sound of his voice. You didn’t know what to expect, really, but the tones that left his mouth definitely weren’t it. Honestly, it kind of added to the face-level fascination.

Opie nodded his head to you, directing Hap’s attention to you. Your eyes dart up from his tattoos, and you offer a smile that feigned your innocence. “Happy, this is [Y/N]. She just moved back to Charming, I’ve known her for years.”

“Hey,” you said simply, trying to keep your responses as brief as possible to hide the fact that your eyes were wandering just a bit before.

“Hey,” he greeted. “I’d shake your hand, but mine are kinda covered in blood.”

“Noted,” you replied quickly. “Great match, had me worried you were gonna kill each other.”

“If Clay didn’t call it, someone probably woulda gotten close,” he casually admitted. If speaking to anyone else, they’d probably take that as their first warning.

But here you were, completely ignoring that notion. “Can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Situational,” he retorted, before looking down at himself. There was a bit of blood clinging to the skin of his chest and his face, which prompts him to speak again. “I gotta fuckin’ wash this off. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He trudges off, pushing through the crowd of patched members trying to pat him on the back in praise.

You look back to Opie, almost in disbelief, not even paying attention to the fact that he was drinking out of his beer bottle again when you opened your mouth. “What the fuck, man? You didn’t tell me your friend was cute! Now what am I gonna do?”

It was almost comical, the reaction that Opie immediately gave to you. With your mild infatuation with Happy out in the open, he had almost choked on the beer that he was in the process of swallowing. He lurched forward, coughing into the shirt that he wore underneath the kutte. You grimaced at the coughing fit, reaching over and patting his back as if to encourage him to let it all out.

Once he was finished, he sat back up again and wiped his mouth of any remnants of his fit. He began to grin, laughing just a bit once the spasms in his chest has settled down.

“Don’t fucking laugh at me, man, I hate you,” you said jokingly, giving him a gentle shove; inevitably causing him to laugh even more.

“To answer your question, you can come with me to get a beer,” you heard an answer, causing your head to whip around once more in a start.

Your heart picked up it’s pace. Happy had come back, slightly leaned over to pick up something that was laying on one of the wooden tables you were sitting near. He had forgotten to pick up his rings, placing them on the palm of his hand calmly as he waited for you to respond.

“Oh... Shit, Happy, you sure about that?” you ask, nerves settling on your shoulders once it really sank in that he had heard your comment.

“Yeah. Why the fuck not?” he asked, standing straight once he had all of his rings in his hands. “Come on. Just gotta wait for me to finish up.”

So you stand, slowly, just in case Happy decided this was no longer a good idea. You wouldn’t be angry if he did, you kind of embarrassed yourself in front of him and Opie. However, when nothing of that notion left his mouth, you relaxed your shoulders.

He turns, connecting eyes with you once again. With a serious expression, one that he wore since coming back, he nods towards the door that led back into the bar and begins to walk towards it.

And you follow, with an approving nod from Opie, towards the black painted door frame that contained the comradery inside.

#happy lowman #happy lowman x reader #soa #sons of anarchy #samcro #happy lowman imagine #solari writes things

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twistedlymad · 4 years

Text

Reader Giving Into Darkness (Overblotting Reader)

Hewwo everyone! I hope you guys are fine and having a lovely time!

First off, I’d like to apologize for the inactivity for these past few days, I caught a fever last Saturday and I had to do some editing work for Sunday, so, I didn’t really write a lot last Saturday and Sunday. Don’t worry though! I’m fine now and I immediately jumped back into writing!

Secondly, this fic was supposedly to be an overblotting reader fic, but now, after writing and proof-reading it, it doesn’t seem like an overblotting reader story, more like, reader gave way for darkness to take over them. I have no idea anymore haha! I will most probably write another story for overblotting reader depending on how this one goes. (Also tell me if you want a part 2 to this, for now, I haven’t got one planned yet)

Third, I’d like to thank you guys once again for supporting me so much! I do hope you’ll enjoy this story that I’ve written! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day! (Story is under the cut uwu)

It was a pretty mundane day at Night Raven College. You’ve got your daily dose of chaos, your classes went along swimmingly and surprisingly, no fights occurred between your group of dumbass friends! I would even say that it was a boring day!

Or had it really been a mundane day?

You were on your way back to your class after helping Professor Trein run a small little errand, he needed to have a few paperwork submitted but Lucius had fallen asleep on his lap. You volunteered to go in his place instead since you needed some fresh air after sitting at a desk for an entire day. You brought Grim along since the furball wanted to tag along with you.

You were humming softly to yourself as you cheerfully made your way, you couldn’t wait to sit with your friends again and continue your day happily.

“Fgnaaa, you seem to be in a really good mood today (Y/N).” Grim said from your embrace, you giggled in response to his words.

“Well, today has been a really good day so far! I’m sure that today will be a perfect day.” You said as you let a smile grace on your face.

“Well, whatever you say (Y/N).” Grim said as he let out a small yawn.

However, when you got to the doorway of your class, your ears picked up on a few chatters of familiar voices.

You were about to enter your classroom but you had halted yourself just behind the doorframe for you had heard your name being mentioned. You didn’t want to enter your class just yet, for some reason, you had wanted to hear what the chatter was about and why it involved your name.

“(Y/N) doesn’t need to know.” One of the voices said.

“Why did we even ask (Y/N) in the first place?” A second voice asked.

“Yea, it’s not like it’ll be any help to us anyway, after all, (Y/N) can’t use magic.” Another voice piped up, agreeing with the first two voices.

“Let’s not mention this when (Y/N) comes back later, this’ll remain between us.” The first voice said once more and you heard a few grunts and hums of agreement from a few different voices.

You slowly lowered your head as you leaned against the doorframe of your classroom. Those voices were all too familiar to you, for they were the voices of your best friends, the ones that you had spent so many time with, the ones that you had went through the most with, the ones that you had trusted yourself with.

You felt as if you had been slapped in the face harshly after hearing the voices that you had felt safe with associate themselves with such words.

Slowly squatting down, you released Grim from your embrace and onto the ground. The furball faced you with a sad look on his face.

“(Y/N)… They-” Grim started but he was cut off by you gently pressing your index finger on his mouth.

“It’s okay, I’m fine.” You said with a smile on your face.

“We still have some time before class right? I’ll be going for a little walk then.” You said as you stood back up and walked away. Grim looked at you with worry as he stayed in his place, his eyes locked onto your leaving figure. You knew he was watching, so you took a sharp turn, letting a wall come between his stare and your figure.

Once you knew that you weren’t being watched anymore, you ran as fast as you could, adrenaline was pumping through your veins as your vision began to blur. You weren’t sure where you were running to, you just wanted to get out of that place, as far as possible.

Unbeknownst to you, a figure had been watching the whole event and they were smirking to themselves the entire time.

“According to plan I see… Excellent.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After running for what seemed like hours, you find yourself in a forest, surrounded by trees, the only sounds that you heard were the chirping of various animals and insects that inhabited it. You sat down under one of the tall trees while taking deep breaths in hopes to help soothe yourself. You wiped away your tears as they flowed.

The chatter of your friends rang in your head as you reminisced your memories with them, as if whenever you tried to remind yourself of all the good times you had with them, the chatter would be there to tell you that it was all fake.

“They don’t care for you.” Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice spoke out. Or had it been an unfamiliar voice?

You frantically looked around, searching for the source of the voice. It took you some time before your eyes landed on a small little puddle of water beside you, your reflection was as clear as sky as you looked.

So it did give you quite the scare when your reflection suddenly spoke up while you didn’t.

“Don’t mind them, you don’t need them.” Your reflection said to you.

“What?” You asked as you took a closer look at the puddle. You rubbed your eyes to make sure that what you were seeing was real. You wanted to make sure that you weren’t dreamin-

“Oh, you’re not dreaming, don’t worry about that.” Your reflection said, as if it had read your thoughts.

“No. They do, I am their friend after all.” You huffed and stood up, arguing to your reflection’s previous statement. You didn’t want to question the existence of your talking reflection, after all, you were in Twisted Wonderland, a place where magic is real and almost anything can happen, even talking reflections. Heck, take the mirror of darkness for an example.

“Besides, they could be talking about anything! Maybe they were talking about homework. I just overreacted, that’s all.” You replied further to your reflection as well as reassuring yourself.

“Are you entirely sure?” Your reflection asked you once more. “You heard what they said loud and clear.” It said to you. You took in a deep breath through clenched teeth as you closed your eyes and turned away, hugging yourself as you tried to walk away. You wanted to ignore your reflection, you thought that it was just giving negative feedback on the events that had already happen, you wanted to believe that your friends were possibly talking about something else.

But you were shocked when you heard the next sentence come out of your reflection’s mouth.

“Friends don’t talk to friends like that.”

You whipped your head around immediately, looking at the puddle as beads of tears formed in and fell from your eyes. Your reflection was right after all, friends don’t talk to friends like that, friends will tell you their problems straight away, friends don’t hide secrets about friends and most importantly…

True friends don’t talk about friends behind their backs.

As you were buried deep in your thoughts, your reflection smirked a little after seeing the look of hurt on your face. It waited for a few seconds before continuing its statement.

“Don’t worry, like I’ve said, you don’t need them. You only need me.” Your reflection said with a smirk. “After all, I am a part of you.”

“A part… Of me?” You asked, you didn’t completely understand what your reflection had meant by its words.

“Yes, for I am your conscience, I know what you need right now and that’s me.” Your reflection said to you. It then wiped off the smirk it had on its face and extended its hand towards you.

“Take my hand.” It said. “I promise you, with me, you won’t ever feel heartbreak anymore, you won’t ever experience betrayal anymore and you don’t need anything else, you just need me.”

“But, my friends-“ But before you could finish your sentence, you were cut off by your reflection.

“They don’t want you! You only need me!” Your reflection yelled, clearing its throat, it told you once more.

“Take my hand.”

You hesitated. You didn’t want to take the hand, you knew that it was dangerous. But, the chatter of your friends continued to repeat itself in your head, its ringing was making your head spin and drowning out your sense of danger and uncertainty, making you temporarily forget all the good times you had with them and all the happiness you had experienced with them.

As the ringing in your head continued, you felt confused and broken, you didn’t know what to do. Your heart ached as you remembered the memories you made with your friends, for everything was fake. The happiness, the sadness, the trust, the comfort, everything had been fake.

You just wanted this feeling to stop.

Then, the ringing of your friends’ chatter in your head was soon replaced by the chanting of your reflection’s offer. Your reflection seemed to be so welcoming, you felt as if only your reflection understood you, you felt as if you could trust yourself with it, after all, it is a part of you, right?

Surely you could trust yourself with yourself.

So, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes as you extended your own hand towards your reflection. Placing your hand on your reflection’s, you felt your hand being gripped by it. You then opened your eyes to see that your reflection was holding your hand rather firmly with a peaceful look on its face.

But all of a sudden, your reflection looked back at you with a sharp look, its mouth twisted upwards into a menacing smirk as it tightened the grip it had on your hand. You let out a small gasp as you tried to pull your hand away, but you didn’t succeed, the grip on your hand was far too strong.

A black cloud began to form on your gripped hand as your reflection cackled. You finally managed to disconnect your hand from your reflection’s when you forcefully pulled your hand away. When you inspected your hand, your eyes could only widen in horror as you saw the cloud that continued to linger on your hand.

And it was slowly spreading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grim had managed to get your friends’ attention as he questioned the harsh choice of words of your friends, but, your friends only looked at him in confusion as he did so.

“What do you mean Grim? We never said anything like that.” One of your friends replied.

“Fgnaaaaa! Don’t lie to me! Me and (Y/N) clearly heard you guys say those words.” Grim said angrily.

“But, Grim, we were doing homework, plus, we couldn’t talk since the professor was there.” Another friend stated. Grim froze in his place as he realized that he had just seen the professor leave the classroom as you were running away.

So, how did that chatter even happen? If it wasn’t from your friends, then…

“Oh no.” Grim said with a grim look on his face.

“What’s wrong Grim? Is everything okay?”

“No. You guys need to follow me. NOW.” Grim ordered your friends as he ran out the classroom, your friends gave each other a look of worry before rising from their seats and followed the furball.

Your friends had a hard time catching up with Grim as he swiftly navigated his way through the busy hallways of the school. Your friends were yelling questions to him, wanting answers for this sudden change of behavior.

“Just, follow me!! I don’t think (Y/N) is safe!!” Grim yelled back, hoping that his answer would satisfy the curiosity of your friends. As the furball ran, he was buried deep in his thoughts as well.

‘I hope you’re there (Y/N), you always go there whenever something’s wrong, please be there, please be safe… Please.’ Grim thought to himself as he continued to run, eventually running into a forest, the exact same forest that you were in.

However, when they got to you, it was already too late. Your figure was surrounded in a cloud of sheer blackness, leaving only your torso and head available. The cloud slowly rose up, covering your entire body little by little. It was getting hard for you to breathe, your body felt numb, you couldn’t move any parts of your body.

You were panicking, afraid that your friends will get injured just because you had made a wrong decision. You were also afraid for your own life, for you knew what was happening to yourself all too well. You’ve always managed to save the others from this situation, yet you have never thought that it would happen to yourself.

You thought that since you didn’t have magic, it would never happen to you.

Yet, here you are, experiencing the exact same thing that had happened to some of your friends.

“(Y/N)!” Your friends yelled for you, their faces donned looks of pure fear and shock.

You gave them one last look, it was a very interesting look.

It was a look of worry,

Yet it was also a look of sorry,

A look of terror,

And a look of horror.

Tears flowed out your eyes as the cloud slowly engulfed your torso and is partially engulfing your head. With one last breath, you muttered the following words:

“Run… Save… Yourselves…”

Darkness had consumed you as your vision was clouded by pitch black. You felt tired, sleepy, drowsy, your eyelids were heavy and they were drooping on their own. Yet, you tried to fight it, you weren’t going to it control your body with such ease. But it was no use, you had already accepted the darkness when you accepted your reflection’s hand.

Your friend’s smiling faces were the last thing on your mind as you fell into a deep slumber.

As the cloud began to disperse, everyone just stood there, looking at your figure that stood before them, or rather, what was once your figure.

“(Y/N)…” Your friends called out your name softly as they stared at the monstrous and black form you had donned on.

“We have to fight her to save her.” Grim said.

“We have no choice.” The furball continued as your friends nodded in agreement.

‘Hang on (Y/N), please, for us.’ Was the only thought on everyone’s minds as they readied their magic pens.

Let’s just hope they could save you like how you saved them.

#disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #grim #mc/yuu #overblotting mc #overblot #twst imagines #twst fic #twisted wonderland fic #twst headcanons #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland headcanons

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twink-appreciation-posts · 4 years

Text

Girls - Spencer Reid x Reader

chapter seven of “all bets are off”

your night out with the ladies of the BAU isn't actually too bad

warnings: uhh drinking? this is a pretty sfw chapter but um. trust me when i say i have PLANS for next chapter. if you liked chapter 6 then boy oh boy. also i gay 4 emily <3

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, you remembered whining to Spencer about the ‘girls night’ that you were being told to attend, you remembered him rubbing your shoulders as you took a bath. But the one thing you remembered in full clarity?

You remembered him leaving.

You had insisted that he could stay. You told him it was late. It had already happened once, what was the big deal? But he said that he should get home, said you should just get some sleep and that he’d see you Monday. You remembered feeling upset for seemingly no reason as you fell asleep.

When you woke up and checked your phone you saw 3 more messages from Garcia.

‘Do you think ignoring my texts in gonna work?’

‘I’ll have Emily drag you out of your apartment if it comes to that’

You typed out your reply, yawning. ‘Garcia, my love, you know I adore you, but tonight is really not gonna work for me.’

She replied instantly. You sighed. The quick responses were not a good sign. Once Garcia had her heart set on something it became almost impossible to say no.

‘Make it work :( pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee?’

After half an hour of back and forth you sent the text of defeat. ‘Okay. Okay. Fine. I’ll see you guys there.’

‘YES!! I knew you’d come around!’

‘Also, I know I said girls night, but JJ and I decided to invite Spencer’

‘He’s seemed a little off lately and I don’t think he gets out much sooooo’

‘Plus he’s essentially one of the girls!’

Your head was already spinning. Could the situation get any worse? You couldn’t back out now, that would be ultra suspicious. But why would Spencer agree to come if he knew you’d be there? Well, you assumed there were two options. Either he wanted to torment you, which wouldn’t have surprised you, or he had also fallen victim to the curse of Garcia’s persistence. Oh well. At this point, you had resigned yourself to the fact that you were probably the most unlucky person in the universe.

When eventually for out of bed and looked in the mirror you nearly scared yourself. Deep purple bruises were scattered over your neck and collar bone. Spencer had been right, makeup wouldn’t be able to fully cover the damage he had done. You opted to worry about it later, hopping into the shower.

The rest of your day until the evening was normal. Relaxed. Mostly filled with you mentally preparing yourself for what was sure to be an interesting night.

When the time came around to address the issue at hand you did your best. Green concealer covered with foundation and even more concealer. The works. It didn’t cover it completely, but you were just praying that the low light at the bar would do the rest of the work for you. You debated texting Spencer before you saw him again but you weren’t sure what you’d say, so you grabbed your keys and drove to the bar.

When you got there JJ and Garcia were waiting outside.

“There she is!! The girl who made me beg.” Garcia hugged you tightly.

You laughed. “Your persuasive powers never cease to amaze me.”

“Well, threes a crowd, we should head in. The other two can meet us inside.” JJ smiled. You agreed, following her into the building.

“So,” you said casually as you all ordered drinks, “who’s idea was it to invite the doctor?”

Garcia looked at JJ, who rolled her eyes. “It was just a suggestion. Garcia jumped on it.”

You nodded. You had kept your drink order pretty mild, not wanting to get shitfaced with your coworkers while the guy you had fucked the previous night was with you. Your friends didn’t share the sentiment, buying a few rounds of shots. A few minutes later Emily arrived and you soon found yourself out on the dance floor with her, giggling. “Have I ever told you how fucking gorgeous you are?” You asked her over the music. She laughed.

The night was going swimmingly. You were just the right amount of tipsy, the girls were always fun to hang out with. You had almost forgotten about Spencer. Almost.

“So, y/n, have you had any action lately?” Garcia asked you, wiggling her brows.

“Why are you asking me?” You questioned, eyes wide.

“We saw your pictures on Instagram with that guy!” JJ teased. You flushed.

“He’s just a friend!” You insisted. The girls didn’t look like they’d bought it.

“Here, I’m gonna go get another drink.” You rolled your eyes, chuckling. “You guys can keep placing your bets about my sex life.”

You wandered away towards the bar, deciding to order something a bit stronger. “Wow,” you heard a voice say from behind you. “Not skimping out on the drinks, huh?”

You turned around, eyebrows raised. “For your information, I’ve been pacing myself quite well all night. But thank you for your concern, Spencer.” He smiled at you. Fuck, maybe it was the drinks, but he looked good. “You’re late. Busy night?” You prodded.

He shook his head. “I wanted to give you girls time to party before I came and ruined the night.” He joked.

“You’re not planning on pulling anything tonight, are you?” You questioned him.

“I’ve already ruined enough of your weekend, don’t you think?” He exhaled. “But you do look good. I guess you should just hope you learned your lesson last night. Don’t try anything that’ll get you in trouble.”

“SPENCER!” JJ was running up to you both, the other two woman trailing behind. “You made it!” She hugged him and you turned back towards the bar, grabbing your drink.

“We must’ve missed you coming in!” Emily smiled.

Spencer fidgeted with his hands. Did he look almost... nervous? “I’m still not quite sure why you invited me, but thanks.”

“We invited you because you need to party more! Live a little, handsome.” Garcia explained.

Everyone ordered more drinks, and as sobriety abandoned your bodies, conversations began to become more lively.

“So, y/n, if you want us to believe that the fine gentleman that you took those pictures with is just a friend, then would you like to explain the hickeys on your neck?” JJ whisper-yelled to you, poking your neck a bit.

“You can see those?” You gasped.

“Makeup can’t cover everything!” Garcia chimed in.

You locked eyes with Spencer, who just observed as your friends pushed your hair behind your shoulders to better examine you.

“Damn, girl, those are dark. He must’ve been an animal.” Emily shoved you gently.

“Who said it was a he?” You teased.

Emily raised a brow. “Hey, I don’t judge.” She smiled knowingly.

“But, if you guys are really curious..” you locked eyes with Spencer. “I guess I’d say it was a good night.”

“Tell us more!” Garcia begged. “I wanna live vicariously through you, you sexy little minx.”

You looked over at Spencer again. “Oh don’t mind him!” JJ grinned. “He’s one of the girls, remember?”

“I can leave if you’re uncomfortable,” Spencer added. You glared at him.

One of the girls, huh?

“Well, I don’t really know what to say besides I was in a decent amount of pain when I woke up this morning. Honestly my thighs still hurt as we speak.” You swore you saw Spencer smirk. What? Was he proud or something? Better take him down a notch. “Not the best I’ve ever had though. Just because it lasted awhile doesn’t mean it was good.”He narrowed his eyes at you and you refused to meet his gaze.

“Aw, that’s disappointing.” Garcia pouted.

“There was one kinda interesting thing, though.” You hesitated. Were you ready to play this game again?

“Spill!”

You gulped down the drink in your hand. “The guy, was uh, really into being called daddy.” You made sure to say the last part dramatically.

You could see the interest in everyone’s eyes peak. “Oh wow, I’ve never done that type of stuff before. Was it hot?” JJ questioned curiously.

“I’ve never seen you as the type of girl to go around calling guys daddy,” Emily added.

“Lots of people are into things you wouldn’t expect. According to some studies, around 57% of women enjoy rougher or more degrading sex.” Spencer piped up. Everyone turned to him.

“This guy really does know everything.” Emily laughed.

As the night progressed people continued to drink. You and Spencer kept throwing glances towards each other. At some point he even found his way next to you, a hand casually brushing up against your thighs. You flirted a bit, perhaps getting a few free drinks from some men at the bar, but nothing too crazy. You felt a certain someone's eyes boring into the back of your skill throughout it all, though, and you'd be lying if you said you hadn't oversold it a bit to piss him off. It wasn't your fault that he was so easy to mess with.

Emily pulled you aside, yelling over the music. “Do you think JJ has a thing for Spencer?” She asked you.

“Huh? No. No, I don’t think so. She’s just drunk.” You laughed uncomfortably. Not that it mattered to you if JJ was into Spencer. But, she wasn’t. For sure.

You glanced over at the pair, Spencer was laughing about something she said and she was practically in his lap. You caught yourself pouting and shook your head, snapping out of it. “They’d be cute together,” Emily commented. You just nodded in response.

After awhile Spencer and JJ approached you. He was holding her up, supporting her. Your head reminded you of him doing the same to you last night. But that was different. You had gotten to fuck him. He was just being nice to a drunk coworker. It was different.

“I think I’m gonna take her home,” Spencer explained. “She’s pretty, uh,” He motioned to her with his free hand.

“I’m fine.” JJ insisted. “I’m perfectly okay!”

You laughed. She was smacked, but so was Garcia, who approached the group as well. “We should do this way more often!” She exclaimed. “Oh, y/n, come dance with me!” And then you were being dragged out to the dance floor.

When you made your way back to Emily you looked around. “Where did they go?”

“Didn’t you hear Spencer? He took JJ home. Probably for the best, the girl could barely stand. I love her. She knows how to party.”

You felt a tinge of disappointment. Nothing had happened between you and Spencer, which was good, you reminded yourself. It was a good thing.

After the rest of you sobered up by the early morning you drove home, saying your goodbyes.

You waltzed back into your empty apartment, wondering what Spencer was doing. Was he asleep? Yeah. Probably. You decided you should be too.

Tomorrow morning at work would be interesting for more than one reason, and you were gonna be hungover as hell. Your eyes closed, head still spinning. You pushed down your disappointment and groaned. The last thing you wanted to do was waste another night thinking about Spencer. Yes, the sex had been good, but it was unprofessional and incredibly unsustainable. You had to let it go.

God, since when had your personal life gotten so interesting?

taglist <3

@101donuts @annestine @spideyboix @babybloomer @welcome-to-hoeville @eldahae @brokenanxiety @andiebeaword @spencerwaltergubler @la-vie-en-amour1 @rainsong01 @taekwinkle @dreamer7black @guessthatswhyiliveinhell

#all bets are off #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #dom!spencer #criminal minds smut

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this-is-moony-lovegood · 3 years

Text

Nat’s Plan (Part 1/2)

Summary: When a recon mission in Lagos goes sideways, Sam and Bucky have to find a creative way to slip away from terrorist agents without causing another international incident. To do so, Bucky suggests they use one of Natasha’s old plans that helped her and Steve dodge HYDRA agents back in 2014. In other words, I can’t help my obsessive need to write about the kiss-to-hide-in-plain-sight trope for Sambucky.

Word Count: 2.9k

Link to AO3

Lagos, Nigeria - 2024

The last time Sam Wilson was in Lagos, was eight years ago in 2016. He, Steve, Nat, and Wanda were on a mission to get a bioweapon out of the hands of Brock Rumlow and his merry gang of ex-Hydra agents which should have been successful. Technically, it was successful - minus the international incident that ensued when Steve didn’t clock a bomb vest and Wanda accidentally blew up a building trying to stop the blast. Maybe semi-successful was a more appropriate word.

Regardless of Sam’s interpretation of the events, the US government and SWORD took extra time and care to warn Sam, Torres, and specifically Bucky Barnes that this trip to Lagos was meant to be incident-free. No super suits, no guns, no knives, no weapons of any kind unless absolutely necessary.

After everything with John Walker over the past few months, Sam thought it was a good idea for Captain America to not go in guns blazing. Yes, they were trying to stop a new terrorist cell, but if Sam could use this trip to gather intel that would help stop them without exposing the Nigerian people to even more threats, then that would appease the government and his conscience.

For the most part, everything had been going swimmingly. No one had recognized them, they were working incredibly well as a team, and had easily slipped inside the terrorist HQ due to Torres’ ease of hacking into the security cameras, and Bucky’s innate ability to knock people unconscious with ease. Bucky and Sam had even managed to make it through the mission without bickering (at least, not more than the usual acceptable amount).

See, everything was great. Was being the keyword, because, after five minutes of trying to hack the cell’s computer to retrieve the data they needed on their upcoming attacks, Bucky got a little too impatient and accidentally tripped an alarm.

Sam groaned and threw his head back, “You’ve got to be shitting me. You’re the ex-assassin, aren't you supposed to be the stealthy one?”

“An ex-assassin with a metal arm who used to not give a fuck about who saw him coming. I didn’t have to be stealthy as the Winter Soldier, Sam. I just took what I had to and killed anyone who got in my way.” Bucky replied, ripping the flash drive out of the PC the second the last file transferred over. Sam sighed, watching the wave of guilt washing over the soldier’s features.

“Don’t start.” He added, holding up a hand to shush the former PTSD support group leader. “This is not the time for a therapy session.”

Lying, Sam began, “I wasn’t gonna-”

“Yeah, you were. Now, let’s get outta here.” Bucky said, motioning for Sam to follow him over the door.

“Hold on, Cap, let me get the wings, and your suit. I’ll be there ASAP.” Joaquín called over their coms. Sam could hear a rustling in the background like he was tripping over items as he rushed for the wings. Sam knew he had been itching to use them but now was not the time.

“No, stay where you are.” Sam insisted, physically holding his hands out as if he could touch Joaquín. “No suits, no wings, we can handle this.”

“Are you sure about that? ‘Cause according to these cams I hacked, you two are severely outnumbered.”

“He’s got a point, Samuel,” Bucky said, reaching for his gun he had tucked in the back of his jeans. Sam reached out, holding onto Bucky’s right wrist.

“No guns.” Sam’s eyes darted to Bucky’s metal hand inching towards his knife holster, “Or knives. Not yet.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, “then what’s the plan, Cap? Cause you know I hate to admit that the kid is right.”

“A kid that outranks you.” Annoyance flashed across Bucky’s face at Joaquín’s quip, and before he could snap back Sam immediately stepped in by saying, “Alright, Torres use those cameras and find us a route out of this building. If we get out of here first, then we can go from there.”

“On it.” Sam could hear the rapid clicking of keys against Torres’ keyboard, before he said, “Head down that hallway and take the first door on your left.”

With Joaquin’s directions, they two made their way out of the building, only having to fight a few agents (which the partners easily took care of without weapons), but unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones with access to the cameras. More agents were hot on their tails as they burst out one of the side doors. Sam and Bucky took off running, cutting through side streets until they slipped into the crowd at the marketplace.

“We’ve gotta blend in,” Bucky said, immediately stripping off his jacket as they walked, and dumping it on the back of a chair outside a small food stand. Sam couldn’t help but admire the way his flesh and metal arms flexed as the super-soldier revealed that black t-shirt that hugged his chest and biceps in the best possible way. He quickly swallowed, before averting his eyes ahead, only to catch Bucky swipe a pair of sunglasses off a merchant table.

“Woah, what are you doing?” Sam said, gripping Bucky’s army to stop him in his tracks. “You can’t just steal shit, Buck.”

“Now is not the time to lecture,” Bucky said, looking over his shoulder, to see a few agents following them, eyes scanning rapidly scanning the crowd. “We need to hide in plain sight. Dressing like the locals is our best shot to do that.”

“Find another way, besides stealing,” Sam said, taking off his black baseball cap and quickly setting it on a kid’s head that ran while chasing after his friend.

“Fine, hand me your wallet,” Bucky said, extending his metal hand. Sam rolled his eyes before stopping briefly and begrudgingly gave his wallet to the super-soldier. “Good, now take off your jacket.” Without hesitation, the captain slid out of his jacket and tossed it over to Bucky.

Sam watched as Bucky quickly ducked over to an open clothing stall, and greeted a local merchant woman in Yoruba, a smirk spreading across his face as he pointed at a few clothing items and then pointed in Sam’s direction. The woman smiled brightly looking back and forth between the two of them as Bucky handed over a few bills from the wallet along with Sam’s jacket for a short-sleeve button-up shirt with a blue geometric print, a Nigerian football polo, and two brightly colored baseball caps. Bucky said something else quickly, causing the woman to giggle while she placed one of the caps on his head and pinched his cheek.

The entire exchange probably lasted no more than thirty seconds, but Sam couldn’t help but be enthralled in the moment. First, Bucky knew Yoruba? How many languages did he learn as the Winter Soldier? Second, what exactly did he say to that woman to get her light up like a Christmas tree? What did Bucky tell her about him?

“What did you say to her?” Sam asked as Bucky approached quickly.

“I’ll tell you later,” Bucky replied, tossing the polo in Sam’s direction and placing a blue and pink cap on his own head. “Put that on.”

As they continued weaving their way through the crowd, Sam slipped the polo on over his t-shirt. The shirt was a bit snug, hugging his chest tightly. What the hell had Bucky bought him? “Looking good, Samuel,” Bucky said, giving him a once over with a glint in his eyes and a smirk playing on the corners of his mouth. He then threw the button-up over his own short-sleeve shirt (which he didn’t bother to button) and set the other cap on Sam’s head backward. “There you go, now you look like a real local.”

“You know that was one of my favorite jackets that you gave away.”

“Don’t like the shirt I just bought you? I think it suits you. Shows off all those shield throwing muscles.”

“You mean the shirt I just bought me?”

“Semantics.”

“Where are you guys?” Joaquín’s voice called over their earpieces once more.

“Blending in.” Bucky’s smile faded, as he responded. “I count six agents trying to track us. What does the bird say?”

“Redwing,” Torres began, and Bucky could sense the sass rolling off his tongue, “shows six behind you, and six approaching from the front.”

Immediately Bucky stopped them in their tracks and scanned the crowd ahead of them. Sure enough, he could make out six familiarly dressed agents scanning the crowd for them. “Fuck.” Bucky cursed, “Come on.” Before Sam could react, Bucky had grabbed his hand and pulled them into a small alley between two buildings. He had been hoping they could sneak through onto another side street, but no, the alley was a dead-end into another building. “Damnit.” Bucky dropped Sam’s hand, and Sam nearly sighed at the loss of contact.

Bucky groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I think it’s time for guns, Sam.”

“Do you see how many people there are out there? They will all be caught in the crossfire. Do you really want that?” Of course, Bucky didn’t want that. Sam knew - hell was there for - the nightmares Bucky experienced because of people becoming collateral damage for the Winter Soldier. He’d been there to talk Bucky through the aftermath of them when he was willing to talk and fix a cup of coffee or hot tea when he wasn’t. The pain and guilt in his eyes for something he had no control over… that look alone hurt Sam, he couldn’t even imagine how much it hurt Bucky. No, he would not allow Bucky to feel that pain any more than he already was - you know, on top of not harming the civilians. “We need an alternative plan.”

“They’ll be approaching you in about forty-five seconds, Cap. What’s the plan?”

“I have an idea,” Bucky said, looking up at Sam, a look of uncertainty across his face. “Steve told me once about one of Natasha’s plans that they used years back to slip away from Rumlow and the rest of HYDRA’s agents. It could work.”

“One of Nat’s plans? Hell, it’s got to be good. What is it?”

“Don’t know if you’ll be up for it.”

“Buck, we’ve got twelve bullets and a metal arm between the two of us, and I - and the US government - would like to avoid using any of them if possible. If Nat’s plan doesn’t require using those, I’m down. Does it?”

“No guns, no weapons of any kind actually.”

“Alright, then I’m up for it. What’s the plan?”

“Not a lot of time to explain. Really going to just have to show you.”

“Well, go on with it then.”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Do you trust me?” Bucky asked, a question directed only to Sam, sincerity in his eyes.

Do you trust me? What kind of bullshit question is that? Sam thought. Of course, he trusted Bucky. They’d been going on missions together for months since they stopped the flag smashers and they’ve had each other’s sixes constantly since then. He'd welcomed Bucky into his home to be around his family - and practically live there. Sam Wilson trusted Bucky Barnes with his life, with his family’s lives. No questions about it. Attraction (or deep-seated feelings) aside, how could Bucky not know that by now?

“We don’t have time for this, Buck.” Sam protested, peeking around the corner of the alley to look for the approaching agents.

“I need an answer, Sam.”

“Fifteen seconds, whatever you’re going to do, hurry it up!”

Groaning, Sam said, “Fine, yes, I trust you. Now, will you just-“ Before Sam could finish scolding him, Bucky had swiftly pushed the captain back against the brick wall, and covered his lips with his own.

Bucky had his metal hand securely on Sam’s hip, while his flesh had cupped Sam’s left cheek simultaneously holding him in place and pulling him as close to the soldier as possible. To say Sam was surprised was an understatement, but it only took him a few seconds to just let go and relax under Bucky’s touch. Bucky’s lips were wet and warm, and moved effortlessly against Sam’s. Sam wasn’t sure what compelled the super soldier to do this, but at that moment Sam didn’t care. This mission at hand and the approaching agents faded from his thoughts as he melted into the kiss he had secretly been waiting for.

Bucky’s tongue swiped across Sam’s lower lip, asking for entrance, which Sam immediately obliged, letting him deepen their kiss. As he did so, Sam roughly fisted the collar of Bucky's new button-down, tugging him forward as he tried to eliminate any distance between the two. Bucky’s flesh hand ghosted down Sam’s neck, then his left arm, and his side, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake before it settled under the hem of Sam’s shirt, before settling on his lower back. The touch sent a shiver up Sam’s spine and he let out a small moan, which Bucky easily swallowed with another kiss.

Sam couldn’t remember the last time that he had been kissed like this - so passionate, yet so gentle. In an attempt to make it a little less so, Sam let go of Bucky’s collar and snaked his hands up to the base of Bucky’s neck, and buried his hands as deeply as he could in his short dark locks, giving them a tug. The moan that followed this action, was much louder than Sam’s, and almost resembled a growl. Damn, Sam loved that sound and knew he’d do anything to make Bucky elicit that sound again, and again.

Bucky responded by kissing Sam harder than before, and pushing himself closer to him, settling his body into between Sam’s legs, as he moved to deepen the kiss once more. He gripped Sam’s hips so hard he was sure they were going to bruise, but Sam loved every second of it.

He didn’t know how long they had been like this - seconds, minutes, hours - it didn’t matter. Time had stopped the moment their lips touched, and everything else around them had faded, which is exactly why Bucky had to be the first to pull away - because Sam wouldn’t have dreamed of it.

Bucky had disconnected their lips, but both of his hands lightly rested on Sam’s hips. “Sam,” he breathed, his words barely coming out above a whisper before he swallowed hard.

Sam loosened his grip on the Sergeant’s shirt but still rested his hands against his chest. “What... was... that?” He asked, a bit dazed. He was breathing heavily and his hooded eyes lingering on Bucky’s pink, slightly swollen lips.

After a moment, Bucky responded, “Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable.” Sam hummed in response, but only because he couldn’t string any other words together. All he was thinking about was that uncomfortable was not the word that he would use to describe what just happened at all. “When I kissed you the agents only looked for a second before turning away and going right past us.”

When did Bucky have time to look for some damn agents during that fucking unbelievable kiss (more like a make-out session if you asked Sam)? “They did?”

“Yeah.” Sam needed a minute to let the words sink in. The kiss was just a part of a plan. Nat’s plan. A kiss as a distraction/cover. Of fucking course that was a Romanoff plan. A damn good plan, but he couldn’t help but feel the sting of thinking that the kiss - that fucking amazing kiss - was supposed to be… strategic.

For weeks he had been battling over this lingering feeling of wanting something more with Bucky than just a partnership… until this moment of crushing realization, it felt like they had possibly moved to the next step.

Then again, if it was just strategic, why was Bucky still so close to him? He hadn’t made any attempt to move away, still holding Sam against the wall - albeit, without the arousing force he had minutes before.

“Do you think they’re all gone?” Sam asked, loosening his grip just enough for his hand to rest on the sides of Bucky’s neck.

“Probably.”

“But not for certain?” Sam questioned, rubbing his thumbs along Bucky’s strong, stubble-covered jawline, and down his throat. His fingers grazed over Bucky’s pulse point, and he could easily feel the artery pounding beneath the surface.

“Would probably need some more recon to confirm that.”

“Well until then, better to be safe than sorry, right?” Sam dared, doing anything he could to get Bucky’s lips back on his. From the way, the soldier’s heart was racing Sam could only hope that maybe, just maybe, Bucky would want to kiss him again, too.

“Right,” Bucky breathed, and without hesitation, leaned forward once again to kiss Sam, only to be interrupted a minute later, by Torres’ voice in their coms calling for their attention.

“Cap, Sarge.” This time, when Bucky pulled away he dropped his hands and took a few steps back, instantly putting a few feet between the two partners. The captain silently cursed Joaquin and his incredibly terrible timing. “I’ve got eyes on them, they’re headed back to base. You should be in the clear.”

“Okay, good,” Bucky said, a little too quickly for Sam’s liking. “We should be back at the safehouse in 20 minutes. Gotta run an alternate route just in case we’re being followed.”

“Got it,” Torres said, signing off.

Bucky quickly removed the earpiece before shoving it deep into his pocket. He looked around the corner, scanning the crowd before motioning for Sam to follow. “Come on, it’s hot as fuck out here, and I need a shower.”

Yeah, me too. A fucking cold one, Sam thought.

#sambucky #james bucky barnes #sam wilson #hiding in plain sight #don't mind me being obsessed with sambucky #my first sambucky fic #is it any good?#falcon and the winter soldier #captain america and the winter soldier #tfatws #fatws

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killerandhealerqueen · 3 years

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Angsty Writing Prompt, Everyone dies eventually, it's not like they didn't know that going in. But burning to death, that was just too much.

So, uh....10.7K later, the fic is finally done! I really hope you like it, I wasn't really expecting to write this much for these two, but this prompt really, really inspired me. Thank you for sending this in! It was a lot of fun

It was a warm and sunny day as a tall young man with light tan skin, brown eyes, and dark brown hair dressed in all white holding prayer beads was walking through the village, only one thought on his mind: revenge. You see, he was the only surviving son of a very powerful witch coven that had been brutally slaughtered for no other reason than that they were witches. He had escaped death and because they had let him live…it was now his turn to repay the favor. As he walked through the village, thinking about his plans of revenge, he didn’t notice that someone on a snow white horse was riding towards him. “Look out!” a voice shouted, causing him to look up to see the horse coming straight towards him. He let out a gasp and quickly held up his arms, protecting himself in case he got hit, when the rider quickly pulled on the reins, halting the horse just a few inches from the man’s face. The rider then hopped off the horse and looked at the young man. “Are you alright?” he asked. The young man lowered his arms from his face, his eyes widening as he stared at a handsome tall man with light skin, brown eyes, and short black hair. He then shook himself out of it and nodded. “Ah, yes, I’m fine” he replied. The tall man nodded and smiled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there” he apologized. The young witch laughed and shook his head. “Oh no, it’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking” he replied. The tall man smiled slightly before he held out his hand. “Zhan Junbai. Prince Zhan Junbai” he introduced. The young witch looked at him with wide eyes; so he was part of the royal family who murdered his coven? Oh, everything was going swimmingly. He then smiled and reached out, taking and shaking the prince’s hand. “Yu Tangchun” he replied. Zhan Junbai smiled and pulled his hand away before he tilted his head at Yu Tangchun. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around before” he mused. Yu Tangchun blinked before he blushed. “Ah, well, no. I’m new here” he explained. Zhan Junbai nodded slowly. “I see. Then, do you have a place to stay, this evening?” he asked. Yu Tangchun nodded. “I was just heading to the inn” he explained. Zhan Junbai smiled. “Let me walk you over; it’s the least I can do after almost running you over with my horse” he stated. Yu Tangchun laughed softly before he nodded. “Alright” he agreed. Zhan Junbai nodded and motioned for Yu Tangchun to follow him towards the inn, Yu Tangchun smiling to himself as he followed after him. ‘Everything is going according to plan’ he thought to himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai arrived at the inn, Yu Tangchun stepped forward before looking over at Zhan Junbai. “I’ll go by myself. It’s okay” he assured. Zhan Junbai nodded as Yu Tangchun walked over to the Innkeeper and stood before him. “One room, please” he requested. The Innkeeper looked at him before he shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we’re full” he stated. Yu Tangchun frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked. The Innkeeper nodded. “I’m sorry” he apologized. Yu Tangchun sighed and nodded before he turned, heading out of the inn, Zhan Junbai immediately at his side. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Yu Tangchun looked over at him in surprise before he sighed. “It’s full” he explained. Zhan Junbai frowned before he smiled slightly. “Why not stay at the palace with me? There are plenty of rooms” he offered. Yu Tangchun looked at him in shock. “Are you sure?” he asked. Zhan Junbai smiled. “Of course. Like I said, it’s the least I can do after almost running you over with my horse” he stated. Yu Tangchun blinked before he laughed softly. “Alright” he agreed. Zhan Junbai smiled before he pulled himself up onto his horse before he looked down at Yu Tangchun and held out his hand. Yu Tangchun looked at him with wide eyes before he laughed and took his hand, allowing himself to be pulled up onto the horse. “Hold on” Zhan Junbai instructed before he took off towards the palace, Yu Tangchun gripping his waist tightly. As they rode towards the palace, Yu Tangchun thought about how it would be so easy to magic a curse on Zhan Junbai, stop his heart, watch him fall off his horse, dead, but then he would be found out and he wanted to savor his revenge…he wanted to make the royal family pay for what they did to his coven so he decided against it and instead leaned against Zhan Junbai, enjoying the wind in his hair.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When they arrived at the palace, a young page was waiting for them, a bright smile on his face. “Prince Zhan!” he greeted as Yu Tangchun slipped off the horse first, Zhan Junbai following after him. The young page stared at Yu Tangchun with wide eyes, just as Zhan Junbai snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Chu Min. It’s rude to stare” he scolded. The young page, Chu Min, blinked before he bowed his head. “I’m sorry sir” he apologized. Zhan Junbai smirked before he looked over at Yu Tangchun and motioned to Chu Min. “My page, Chu Min” he introduced. Chu Min lifted his head and smiled at Yu Tangchun, Yu Tangchun returning the smile. “Hello” he greeted. Chu Min grinned. “You’re really pretty” he stated before his eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth, not believing he just said that out loud. Zhan Junbai and Yu Tangchun stared at him before Yu Tangchun laughed. “Thank you. That’s the first time I’ve ever been called pretty” he thanked. Chu Min blushed as Zhan Junbai looked at Yu Tangchun. “I think he’s more…enchanting than pretty” he murmured. Yu Tangchun looked at him and the two men stared at each other for a moment before Yu Tangchun looked away, a slight blush on his cheeks. Zhan Junbai then cleared his throat before he looked at Chu Min. “Take the horse to the stable. I’ll show Tangchun his room” he declared. Chu Min looked at him in surprise. “Oh, is he staying here?” he asked. Yu Tangchun nodded slightly. “The inn was full and His Highness was nice enough to let me stay here” he explained. Chu Min nodded in understanding before he took the horse’s reins from Zhan Junbai and guided him over to the stables while Zhan Junbai looked at Yu Tangchun. “Come” he instructed. Yu Tangchun nodded, following behind him as they headed into the palace, a small dark smile on Yu Tangchun’s face.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Zhan Junbai led Yu Tangchun through the palace, Yu Tangchun looking around with wide eyes. He had never been in a palace before and it was a lot grander than he had ever imagined. “First time in a palace?” Zhan Junbai asked, glancing over at Yu Tangchun with a small smile on his face. Yu Tangchun looked back at him and nodded, a light blush on his face. “Is it that obvious?” he asked. Zhan Junbai laughed softly. “A little, but I wouldn’t expect you to have been in a palace…it’s not really a place for common people” he explained. Yu Tangchun hummed and nodded, continuing to follow the prince through the palace before they came upon a hallway of rooms. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened in surprise at the amount of rooms but Zhan Junbai just motioned for him to follow him as they headed towards the end of the hallway, where there was a large door. “Who’s room is that?” Yu Tangchun whispered. Zhan Junbai smiled. “That’s my room. And that’s your room” he declared, pointing to the door to the right of his room. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened and he looked over at him. “Are you sure you want me right next to your room?” he asked. Zhan Junbai shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I don’t think you’ll harm me” he stated. ‘That’s what you think’ Yu Tangchun thought to himself before he stepped forward and opened the door, stepping inside. “Wow” he breathed; the room was so much bigger than he could have imagined. “Is it suitable?” Zhan Junbai asked from where he was leaning against the door frame. Yu Tangchun turned to look at him and nodded. “This is more than enough. Thank you” he thanked. Zhan Junbai smiled and nodded, making to step out of the room when he paused. “I’ll be taking tea in the garden in a little while. Join me?” he asked. Yu Tangchun blinked before he nodded. “That sounds nice” he agreed. Zhan Junbai smiled and nodded before he stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Once he was gone, Yu Tangchun laughed softly, darkly, to himself. “You stupid, stupid man. You don’t know what kind of demon you’ve just let into your palace” he whispered. He then looked around the room before he hummed. “Though I’ll admit, this room is quite lovely…shame I won’t get to stay here for too long” he murmured as he began to walk around, gently running his fingers over everything. He then walked over to the large window that allowed him to look out over the kingdom and he sighed as he rested his elbows on the windowsill, resting his chin on his hand. “If only mother and father could see this…” he murmured before he sighed and pushed away from the window, walking over to his bed and sitting down on it. “A little nap never hurt anyone” he murmured before he laid down and shut his eyes, soon slipping off to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~

An hour later there was a knock on the door to his room, causing Yu Tangchun to slowly sit up and yawn before he looked over at the door. “Come in” he called out. The door then opened and Chu Min poked his head in. “Uh…Master Yu? His Highness requests your presence in the gardens” he stated. Yu Tangchun smiled and slipped out of bed, making sure to fix his hair and his clothes before he walked over to Chu Min. “Lead the way” he instructed. Chu Min nodded and pushed open the door to allow Yu Tangchun to step out and follow him to the back gardens, where Zhan Junbai was sitting down at a rather lavish table full of sweets and tea. “Is your teatime normally like this?” Yu Tangchun asked as he walked over to the table and sat down in the seat across from Zhan Junbai. Zhan Junbai laughed and shook his head. “No, but this is the first time someone is having tea with me, so I thought I would go all out” he explained before he looked over at Chu Min. “Thank you Chu Min, that’ll be all” he thanked. Chu Min nodded and flashed a smile to Yu Tangchun before he turned and headed off. Yu Tangchun watched him walk away before he hummed. “He seems like a good child” he mused. Zhan Junbai hummed as well as he took a sip of his tea. “He is” he replied before he put down his teacup and poured one for Yu Tangchun before handing it to him. Yu Tangchun blinked before he took the cup and took a sip of the tea, humming. “It’s nice” he murmured. Zhan Junbai smiled slightly. “Is it? That’s good. I wasn’t sure what you would like so I went with white tea” he explained. Yu Tangchun smiled slightly as well. “White tea is my favorite” he admitted as he took another sip. Zhan Junbai raised an eyebrow before he smiled. “Well, that’s good to know. I’ll make sure the servants brew white tea the next time we take tea together” he declared. Yu Tangchun looked at him in surprise before he smiled and nodded, taking another sip of his tea. ‘If you live that long’ he thought to himself. The two men then sat in silence, enjoying their treats and their tea, before Zhan Junbai sighed. “Thank you” he murmured. Yu Tangchun paused and looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “For what?” he asked. Zhan Junbai motioned to the tea and the garden. “For being willing to take tea with me. Spend time with me” he explained before he looked at Yu Tangchun. “Being a prince can be quite lonely. You’re surrounded by servants and guards and all these people and yet…” he started when Yu Tangchun nodded. “You feel lonely” he interpreted. Zhan Junbai nodded. “Even with Chu Min. We may seem close, but the relationship only goes as far as page and master. Nothing more. I don’t…I don’t have many friends” he admitted. Yu Tangchun looked at him in surprise before a devilish thought entered his mind and he looked at him sincerely. “I’ll be your friend, if you like” he offered. Zhan Junbai looked at him in surprise. “Y-You would?” he breathed. Yu Tangchun smiled and nodded. “I am new to this town and I don’t really know anybody…having one friend would be nice” he stated. Zhan Junbai then frowned. “But I’m a prince” he argued. Yu Tangchun shook his head. “I don’t care what your status is. Whether you’re a royal or some common peasant, I’ll still be your friend” he declared. Zhan Junbai looked at him, stunned, before he smiled, something soft and almost fond. “Thank you” he thanked. Yu Tangchun blinked, his heart twisting at the fondness of Zhan Junbai’s smile, before he nodded and took a sip of his tea. The two men continued to drink their tea before Yu Tangchun stood up. “Do you mind if I take a look around the garden? It seems so well tended” he explained. Zhan Junbai shook his head as he stood up as well. “No, of course not” he replied. Yu Tangchun smiled and made to walk towards the garden before he looked over at Zhan Junbai. “Care to join me?” he asked. Zhan Junbai smiled and walked over to him, holding out his arm to him. “I’d love to” he replied. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened slightly before he chuffed and took Zhan Junbai’s arm, both men walking around the garden. As they walked around, Yu Tangchun looked up and smiled at the cherry blossom trees that were above them. “How pretty” he murmured. Zhan Junbai looked over at him and hummed, a soft smile on his face. “Indeed” he agreed, not even looking up at the trees. “You know, my mother loved cherry blossoms…they were her favorite flower” Yu Tangchun continued, his voice going soft at the mention of his mother. Zhan Junbai noticed how soft his voice got and he reached up, covering his hand with his. “Really?” he asked. Yu Tangchun nodded, tears coming to his eyes as he thought about his mother and his family. Zhan Junbai was quiet before he gave Yu Tangchun’s hand a squeeze, Yu Tangchun glancing up at him in surprise. “I never knew my mother…not really. She died when I was young…my uncle has been watching over me these past few years” he explained as they continued walking through the garden. Yu Tangchun blinked in surprise. ‘So you’re alone…like me?’ he wondered. “What happened to her? If I may ask?” he asked softly. Zhan Junbai smiled sadly. “I don’t mind. She and my father were heading home one day when their carriage was attacked by bandits. They tried to fight them off, but there were too many and they ended up killing my parents” he explained. Yu Tangchun gasped softly, his heart twinging in pain for the prince. “I’m sorry” he whispered. Zhan Junbai shook his head. “I try not to think about it. My uncle says dwelling on such feelings makes one weak” he declared. Yu Tangchun frowned. “Your uncle doesn’t sound like a very nice man” he murmured. Zhan Junbai laughed. “He’s very strict, given that he is a highly decorated war general” he explained. Yu Tangchun hummed. “I don’t think we’ll get along” he mused. Zhan Junbai hummed as well. “No…I don’t think so either” he agreed, just as Chu Min came running over to them. “Your Highness! The princess from the Islelux Empire is here” he panted. Zhan Junbai tsked. “Another one of uncle’s attempts to find me a bride” he grumbled. Yu Tangchun looked at him before he quietly slipped his arm out from Zhan Junbai’s. “I…I’ll leave you to your meeting” he murmured, taking a step back when Zhan Junbai reached out and grasped his hand, causing him to look at him in shock. “No, please. Come with me” he asked. Yu Tangchun frowned. “Why?” he asked. Zhan Junbai smiled. “You seem like a good judge of character; maybe you can tell me if this princess is a good match or not” he stated. Yu Tangchun huffed and rolled his eyes before he sighed. “Alright, I suppose” he agreed. Zhan Junbai grinned before he looked at Chu Min. “Let’s go” he instructed. Chu Min nodded and soon the three men were heading out of the garden and to the throne room, where a pretty young girl and a few advisors were waiting for Zhan Junbai’s arrival. When Zhan Junbai, Yu Tangchun, and Chu Min stepped inside, the advisors looked over at them and smiled. “Your Highness! Excellent timing. May we introduce Princess Xiang Guanyu from the Islelux Empire” one of the advisors declared. Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai looked over at the pretty young girl, who smiled at them and curtsied before walking towards Zhan Junbai, stopping before him. “Your Highness. It’s so nice to finally meet you” she greeted. Zhan Junbai smiled thinly before he glanced over at Yu Tangchun, whose face was polite but his eyes were telling a different story. Zhan Junbai raised an eyebrow before he took a step closer to Yu Tangchun, leaning over so that his mouth was by his ear. “Do you not like her?” he whispered. Yu Tangchun glanced over at him and shook his head; with his powers, he could read the auras that surrounded people and the aura that surrounded the princess was that of ill intent, just like him. Except he refused to let anyone else but him kill Zhan Junbai or anyone else in the royal family, so he decided that he might as well step in and prevent Zhan Junbai from dying. “I don’t trust her…I feel like she harbors ill intent” he replied. Zhan Junbai frowned before he looked over at the princess, who was smiling sweetly at them. “Are you sure?” he asked softly. Yu Tangchun nodded. “It’s always the sweet and innocent looking ones who you need to be wary of” he stated. Zhan Junbai hummed before he stepped forward and looked at the princess. “Princess Guanyu…do you harbor any ill intent towards this kingdom or to me?” he asked. The princess and the advisors looked at him in shock, the princess’s mouth falling open in shock. “Wha—Your Highness, how could you think that?” she exclaimed. Zhan Junbai said nothing before he looked over at Yu Tangchun, who didn’t want to reveal his powers, gulped before he took a step forward, studying the princess. After a moment, he looked at the princess. “The minute Junbai asked you if you harbored any ill intent towards him or the kingdom, your body stiffened, like you had been caught. And you’ve been clutching at your dress this whole time, like you’re hiding something” he stated. The princess looked at him before she let out a shriek and pulled a knife out of her skirt, raising it at Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai. However, before she could even get close to them, Yu Tangchun lashed out and hit her in the stomach with his palm, using some of his magic to send her flying away. The princess shrieked in surprise and all the advisors, Zhan Junbai, and Chu Min, remained stunned as Yu Tangchun slowly and calmly began to walk towards the princess, his robes almost floating around him, until he was standing before her. She looked at him with wide eyes and she let out a gasp but before she could say anything, Yu Tangchun reached out and flicked the middle of her forehead, using his magic to knock her unconscious. She then fell to the ground with a thud, the knife skittering away from her as Yu Tangchun stared down at her in barely veiled distain. While he was looking at the unconscious princess, Zhan Junbai was glaring over at the advisors. “How dare you send me a princess who wants to do me and this kingdom harm!” he roared. The advisors looked at him in fear and Yu Tangchun couldn’t help but smile, just a little. Zhan Junbai then waved them away, too angry to look at them, before he walked over to Yu Tangchun, Chu Min running over to him as well. “Master Yu, that was incredible!” he exclaimed as he stood before Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai. Yu Tangchun laughed softly. “It was nothing. Just a little bit of martial arts, that’s all” he replied as Zhan Junbai looked at him with wide eyes. “Thank you” he breathed. Yu Tangchun looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “For what?” he asked. Zhan Junbai motioned to the princess. “No one has ever…defended me before. Like how you did. Normally I’m the one doing the defending” he explained. Yu Tangchun looked at him before he smiled softly. “But…friends are supposed to protect friends, right?” he asked. Zhan Junbai looked at him in shock before he smiled and nodded. “Yes” he agreed as he cleared his throat. “Um…thank you. Again. Why don’t you uh, go retire to your room? I need to have a chat with my uncle” he explained. Yu Tangchun nodded and Chu Min stepped forward, motioning for him to follow him back to his room. Yu Tangchun then began to follow after Chu Min, glancing back at Zhan Junbai, who was looking at him with the smallest smile on his face. Yu Tangchun felt his heart twist strangely and he quickly looked away, continuing to follow after Chu Min to his room.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Later on that evening, after a small but lovely dinner with Zhan Junbai out in the garden, Yu Tangchun was in his bed, fast asleep, dreaming. At first he was dreaming of his family, of laughing and playing with them in their small home out in the forest (as that’s where most covens lived) but then as the dream continued, it began to grow darker as it shifted into a nightmare, a memory of the night his parents and entire coven were brutally murdered. As he dreamt, he tossed and turned, gasping and whimpering, just as a gunshot rang out in his mind, causing him to let out a scream as he shot up, eyes wide as his heart hammered in his chest. Just then, the door to his room burst open and Zhan Junbai rushed in, looking around with wide eyes before he noticed Yu Tangchun sitting up in his bed, panting heavily. He then slowly walked over to the young man and reached out, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump and look up at him with wide eyes. “Oh…Your Highness” he breathed. Zhan Junbai smiled softly. “Nightmares?” he asked. Yu Tangchun let out a shuddering breath before he nodded. “I’m fine” he assured. Zhan Junbai frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked. Yu Tangchun smiled and nodded. “I’m fine, Your Highness. Just…go back to bed. I’ll be alright” he assured. Zhan Junbai frowned again before he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Yu Tangchun alone to take some deep breaths and calm down. A few moments later, Zhan Junbai returned, holding a cup of warm tea in his hands as he walked over to him, holding it out. Yu Tangchun looked up at him in surprise and he just smiled. “It’s chamomile. It’ll help you sleep” he stated. Yu Tangchun blinked before he reached out and took the cup, taking a sip of the warm brew before looking up at Zhan Junbai. “Thank you” he whispered. Zhan Junbai smiled and dipped his head. “I’ve had my fair share of nightmares…chamomile tea was the tea the servants always made for me whenever I couldn’t sleep so…I thought it would help” he explained, his voice soft. Yu Tangchun’s heart twisted in his heart and he quickly took a sip of tea as Zhan Junbai reached out and patted his leg comfortingly. “Try and get some rest” he soothed. Yu Tangchun nodded slightly as Zhan Junbai turned and headed out of the room, leaving Yu Tangchun alone with the cup of tea. Once he was gone, Yu Tangchun placed the teacup down on the bedside table and clutched at the blankets, gritting his teeth. “Damn it…damn him” he hissed. He couldn’t start having feelings for this prince…not now. Not when he needed to kill him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, after a much more peaceful sleep (Yu Tangchun thought that there must have been some sort of drug or potion in the tea because after drinking it, he immediately fell asleep and didn’t dream anymore, which he never did), Yu Tangchun got dressed and decided to head out to the village, just to explore a little bit, since he wouldn’t be staying in the village for much longer if he could help it. As he walked through the village, he smiled politely at the merchants and chuckled at the children that ran through the street, feeling much lighter and better after his nightmare last night. At one point, he heard a beautiful voice echoing through the village causing his head to lift in interest before he decided to follow the voice to a beautiful young girl who was smiling and singing, a small bowl next to her. As she sang, more and more people began to gather around her, listening to her beautiful voice. A few people dropped coins in her bowl and some of the children even began to dance in the street as she sang. Yu Tangchun watched, a soft smile on his face, just as two palace guards walked over to the large group that had gathered and began shoving people out of the way, causing them to cry out in surprise and anger as they stormed up to the young girl, both guards grabbing her by the arms. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened as they began to drag her away and he knew that something bad was going to happen if he didn’t step in and do something. “Hey!” he shouted, causing the guards to stop and look over at him as he walked over to them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. One of the guards motioned to the girl. “The priestess said that there was a witch in the village” he explained. Yu Tangchun bristled before he motioned to the girl. “And you think it’s her?!” he exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t it be her? She used her voice to enchant the villagers to gather around and listen to her while also giving her money” a voice called out, making Yu Tangchun turn to see a young woman dressed in robes with a cross around her neck, carrying a staff in one hand and a Holy Book in another. When Yu Tangchun saw her, he bristled; he greatly disliked priestesses and holy people of the church as they were one of the reasons why witches tended to die or burn. “Or she could just have a beautiful voice. No witchcraft or spells” he argued. The priestess turned to look at him and narrowed her eyes. “Why do you care if we take her? Are you a witch? Should we take you instead?” she asked. Yu Tangchun narrowed his eyes back at her before he growled and walked over to the guards and shoved them off the girl before taking her in his arms, holding her protectively. “Are you alright?” he asked, concern in his eyes. The girl looked at him and nodded as the priestess huffed. “Since you’re willing to protect her from us, that means you’re willing to die with her. Arrest them both” she ordered. The guards nodded and stepped forward, grabbing both the girl and Yu Tangchun, ripping them away from each other. “Let me go! Unhand me!” Yu Tangchun roared as he tried to fight against the guards without revealing his powers. As he struggled, the priestess noticed the prayer beads in his hand and she snarled. “How dare you have such holy beads in your possession when you defend such a dirty creature! You don’t deserve to have those!” she shrieked as she reached out and grasped the prayer beads. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “No, please, don’t take those” he begged but the priestess ignored his plea and ripped the beads out of his hand, shattering the string that held the beads together, sending them everywhere. Yu Tangchun’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he watched the beads scatter all over the dirt, tears coming to his eyes. He then slowly lifted his head to look at the priestess, who looked pretty damn pleased with herself, and his eyes slowly began to glow, just as the sounds of horse hooves galloping towards them. Yu Tangchun looked up to see Zhan Junbai looking back at him, a dark look on his face as he jumped off his horse and glared at the guards. “Release them. Now” he growled. The guards gulped and quickly let go of Yu Tangchun and the girl, Zhan Junbai quickly walking over to Yu Tangchun, taking him by the arm. “Tangchun…are you alright?” he whispered. Yu Tangchun was quiet, shell shocked, as he stared down at his shattered prayer beads. Zhan Junbai noticed the shattered beads before he turned and glared at the priestess. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. The priestess huffed. “We were just going to take that girl in for being a witch when he stepped in and defended her” she explained, pointing to Yu Tangchun with her staff. Yu Tangchun flinched slightly, causing the priestess to raise an eyebrow, just as Zhan Junbai smacked the staff away. “Get that out of his face. Why do you think this girl is a witch?” he demanded, looking over at the girl standing nearby, fear in her eyes. “Well, she had garnered a large crowd with her voice…she must have used magic to do that” the priestess replied. Zhan Junbai then motioned to Yu Tangchun. “And why were you arresting him?” he growled. The priestess gave him a look. “Isn’t it obvious, Your Highness? He was defending her, so he must be a witch” she explained. Zhan Junbai snarled. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Yu Tangchun isn’t a witch. He’s my friend” he growled. Yu Tangchun looked over at him with wide eyes, stunned, but for a different reason. ‘F-Friend?’ he thought to himself. He had only seen Zhan Junbai as a part of his revenge plan and yet the prince…the prince saw him as a friend? Well, he did say he would be Zhan Junbai’s friend but he didn’t actually think the prince would take him seriously. “And if you hurt him, you’re hurting a friend of the prince. That alone is enough for me to execute you” Zhan Junbai growled, shaking Yu Tangchun out of his thoughts. The priestess narrowed her eyes before she huffed and bowed. “My apologies, Your Highness” she murmured. Zhan Junbai waved her away before waving away the guards, the three of them soon disappearing. The crowd had disappeared the minute Zhan Junbai arrived, so it was only him, Yu Tangchun, and the young girl left. Zhan Junbai then looked over at the girl and smiled slightly. “Are you alright?” he asked. The girl looked at him with wide eyes before she nodded. “Yes, Your Highness” she answered. Zhan Junbai smiled. “Good. Now, you should get going or the priestess might catch you” he stated. The girl’s eyes widened and she quickly took off, leaving Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai alone. Once she was gone, Zhan Junbai looked at Yu Tangchun, who still looked a little shell shocked, and reached out, gently stroking his cheek. “Come Tangchun…let’s go back to the palace” he murmured. Yu Tangchun nodded and allowed Zhan Junbai to guide him over to the horse. Zhan Junbai then helped Yu Tangchun up onto the horse first before he followed after him, sitting behind him. “Hold onto the reins” he murmured into his ear before he clicked his tongue, the horse taking off towards the palace. As they were riding away, they didn’t realize that the priestess was watching them, her eyes narrowed in suspicion before she turned and headed off towards the church that was near the palace. She had to pray…and to plan.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Back at the palace, Zhan Junbai dismounted from the horse and helped Yu Tangchun down before handing the horse off to one of the stable hands before heading inside, dragging Yu Tangchun with him. Yu Tangchun followed him numbly, not even realizing that Zhan Junbai took him to his room instead of Yu Tangchun’s. Zhan Junbai then sat him down on the edge of his bed before sitting down next to him, both men sitting in silence before Zhan Junbai looked over at him. “Those prayer beads…they must have been pretty important to you” he murmured. Yu Tangchun looked at him with wide eyes and Zhan Junbai smiled sadly. “I saw the way you stared at them on the ground…like someone had just ripped your entire world from you” he explained. Yu Tangchun continued to stare at him as tears began to well up in his eyes and before he knew it, he was crying. Zhan Junbai’s eyes widened and he quickly pulled Yu Tangchun in for a hug, holding him tightly as Yu Tangchun buried his face in his shoulder, sobbing. Zhan Junbai blinked, not exactly sure what to do, but he just gently stroked Yu Tangchun’s back, hushing him as Yu Tangchun continued to sob. The two sat in silence for a while, Yu Tangchun continuing to sob until he ran out of tears and just hiccupped instead. Zhan Junbai said nothing and continued stroke his back, waiting for Yu Tangchun speak instead of him forcing him to talk. “They were my mother’s…they were the last thing I had to remember her by” Yu Tangchun croaked. Zhan Junbai’s eyes widened as he looked down at him. “What…what happened to her?” he asked. Yu Tangchun sniffled. “She was murdered…just like yours. My whole family was slaughtered” he croaked. Zhan Junbai’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open in horror before he tightened his arms around Yu Tangchun. “Tangchun, I—” he started when Yu Tangchun shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything…it’s okay” he murmured. It really wasn’t okay; he was still hurting from the murder but he wasn’t going to tell Zhan Junbai that. And he didn’t want to admit it, not even to himself, but he liked the feeling of Zhan Junbai’s arms around him…he liked the way he fit comfortably in the prince’s arms and slotted against him. Zhan Junbai shook his head before he continued to stroke Yu Tangchun’s back, Yu Tangchun relaxing against him. They stayed like that for a while before Yu Tangchun looked up at Zhan Junbai. “Your Highness” he started, making Zhan Junbai looked down at him and smile slightly. “Junbai. Please” he instructed. Yu Tangchun blushed before he cleared his throat. “Junbai. Thank you” he whispered. Zhan Junbai smiled and nodded. “Friends protect friends, right? Isn’t that what you said?” he asked. Yu Tangchun blinked as a blush slowly spread across his cheeks; he had said that…he didn’t think Zhan Junbai would have remembered. “I…I did say that” he agreed. Zhan Junbai hummed before he tilted his head. “Would you like some tea? To soothe your nerves?” he asked. Yu Tangchun nodded and Zhan Junbai smiled as he removed his arms from around him and stood to his feet, heading out of the room, leaving Yu Tangchun alone. After he left the room, Yu Tangchun quickly wiped his eyes with his sleeves and shook his head. “Get a hold of yourself, Fu Cheng…you can not fall for him. You can’t. Remember, you’re here for one thing and one thing only” he hissed, just as Zhan Junbai walked back into the room, holding a cup of tea. “Here” he offered, handing him the cup of tea. Yu Tangchun smiled at him as he took the cup of tea and sipped it, smiling softly. “Thank you” he thanked. Zhan Junbai nodded as he sat down beside him, the two men sitting in comfortable silence as Yu Tangchun continued to sip his tea. After Yu Tangchun finished his tea, he quickly stood to his feet, bowing to Zhan Junbai. “Thank you for the tea, Your Highness. I’ll take my leave now” he murmured before he turned and walked out of the room, having to escape before his heart betrayed him and his brain’s initial plans of revenge.

~*~*~*~*~*~

That evening, Yu Tangchun was lying in his bed, dreaming the same old dream.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It had been a rather nice day, with minimal clouds and a bright sunny blue sky, until the sound of stomping boots and braying horses echoed throughout the clearing that the Fu family called their home. Gunshots soon rang out as soldiers practically mowed down anyone that moved, bodies dropping like flies left and right. “Search!” a voice barked from the entrance of the home. “Yes!” other voices replied as they soon broke away, running off to find other members of the home and murder them as well. While they were off searching, the leader of the group walked through the home, shooting anyone who got in his way. As he made his way through the home, in another room of the house, Mrs. Fu and little Fu Cheng, no older than maybe five or six, were hiding. As they hid in the room, Mrs. Fu saw the shadow of the leader outside the door, causing her to look at Fu Cheng with wide eyes. “Hide, A-Cheng” she breathed. Fu Cheng looked at her with wide eyes. “But—” he started but his mother gave him no options and instead just shooed him into a nearby cabinet, hiding him inside. “Now, stay here. And don’t. say. anything. Don’t make a sound” she instructed, quickly closing the cabinet doors and walking away from them, just as the leader opened the doors to the room and stepped inside. Mrs. Fu looked over at him and tears filled her eyes as she quickly walked over and knelt before him, reaching out and grasping his arm. “Please…please don’t kill me. I beg you. Please don’t kill me. I beg you. I beg you” she sobbed as gunshots still rang out in the background. The leader then wrenched his arm out of Mrs. Fu’s grasp and pointed his gun at her, causing her to become more frightened and hysteric. “I beg you. Please don’t kill me. I beg you. Please don’t—” she shrieked but before she could even finish her sentence, a bullet landed between her eyes, killing her instantly.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Yu Tangchun shot up with a scream, panting harshly as tears streamed down his face, his heart hammering in his chest. ‘Damn it…when will the nightmares stop?’ he thought to himself. The door to his room then slowly opened, Zhan Junbai stepping inside. “Again?” he asked softly. Yu Tangchun looked up at him and nodded, causing Zhan Junbai to nod before he slowly padded around the bed and sat down on it before reaching out and pulling Yu Tangchun against him. Yu Tangchun melted into his embrace, sobbing into the prince’s chest. He shouldn’t be doing this, he should be killing the man, but right now, he just wanted to be comforted, to be held. “Shh…shh…I’m here, Tangchun. I’m here” Zhan Junbai soothed. Yu Tangchun sniffled and wiped his eyes before he looked up at the prince. “Isn’t it dangerous for you to be here? With me?” he whispered. Zhan Junbai shook his head. “No…you’re my friend and you need comfort so that’s what I’m going to do. Just relax. Everything’s going to be fine” he soothed. Yu Tangchun made a face before he sighed and relaxed against Zhan Junbai, savoring the muscles that he could feel through the thin silk pajamas that the prince was wearing. As he relaxed against Zhan Junbai, he felt himself falling back asleep and he was afraid that he was going to have a nightmare again, so he quickly pushed himself out of Zhan Junbai’s arms, causing Zhan Junbai to look at him in confusion. “Y-You should go. I’ll be fine. I’ve had nightmares before, I can handle them” he murmured. Zhan Junbai looked at him softly before he reached out again and grasped his wrist before pulling him against him, causing Yu Tangchun to gasp and look up at him with wide eyes. “Junbai—” he started when Zhan Junbai laid down, making himself comfortable as he tucked Yu Tangchun against him, Yu Tangchun still looking at him in shock. “What are you doing?!” he exclaimed. Zhan Junbai just chuckled as he reached up and pet his hair. “Hush, Tangchun. Just relax. I’ll be here; the nightmares can’t get you anymore. Just rest” he soothed. Yu Tangchun huffed before he shut his eyes and snuggled against Zhan Junbai, the prince turning and hugging him to his chest. As he lay chest to chest with Zhan Junbai, Yu Tangchun could feel his heart pounding hard behind his rib cage, pounding a repeated rhythm of “revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge” but when Zhan Junbai’s hand came up to tuck his head under his chin, all Yu Tangchun’s brain could think was “safe”.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning after Zhan Junbai and Yu Tangchun “slept” together, Yu Tangchun felt his heart changing towards Zhan Junbai. Anytime he looked at the prince, the thoughts of revenge were minimal and anytime the prince looked back at him and smiled, Yu Tangchun couldn’t help but smile back. He was slowly falling in love with his enemy, with the one person he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with, but his damn heart couldn’t help it. If Zhan Junbai hadn’t been so kind, so caring, then maybe Yu Tangchun would have gotten his revenge a long time ago but now here he was, standing beside Zhan Junbai in the throne room as a long line of princesses stood before them, waiting to be judged. Zhan Junbai looked over at him and gave him a playful nudge, smiling at him. “Go on” he teased. Yu Tangchun tsked and rolled his eyes before he stepped forward, looking at the different princesses, reading their auras before he tsked and pointed to the first princess. “Hate your hair” he declared, causing the princess to gasp as he pointed to the next girl. “Not likely” he continued before pointing to the next three princesses. “Yikes. Yikes. Yikes” he stated before looking at the final girl and smiling. “And, let me guess, you have a great personality” he sneered. All of the princesses looked at him with wide eyes and while they wanted to cuss him out and curse him or even hurt him, he was Zhan Junbai’s friend and most trusted confidant so wanting to hurt him would warrant certain death. Besides, they didn’t know that Yu Tangchun was a witch and could probably kill them all with a snap of his fingers, so either way, if they tried to hurt him or Zhan Junbai, it wouldn’t go well for them. After he had basically dissed every princess in the room, Yu Tangchun turned and walked back to Zhan Junbai, who just smiled and laughed. “My my my, someone was very blunt and to the point today” he teased as they turned and headed out of the throne room, the advisors looking after them with wide eyes while the princesses were fuming with rage. Yu Tangchun laughed as well as they continued down the hall, heading towards the entrance of the palace. “Well, they keep sending you all the same princesses. It’s getting very boring” he replied. Zhan Junbai hummed as they continued out of the palace and into the village. They were a regular sight in the village, with Zhan Junbai dressed in his royal maroons and Yu Tangchun dressed in all white, looking like quite the regal couple (according to all the shop merchants and villagers that they passed). “You don’t have to keep reviewing them for me, you know” Zhan Junbai murmured. Yu Tangchun tsked. “And if I didn’t, you’d probably end up dead by one of these princess’s hands. Don’t you remember the first princess?” he asked. Zhan Junbai huffed and rolled his eyes. “You always seem to remind me of her” he grumbled. Yu Tangchun smiled. “Of course I’m going to remind you of her, it’s when I saved your ass” he declared. Zhan Junbai tsked as he reached up and gently flicked Yu Tangchun in the head, causing Yu Tangchun to laugh as he flinch. “Bastard” he teased. Zhan Junbai chuckled before he noticed a nearby woodcarver, causing him to pause before he looked over at Yu Tangchun. “I have an appointment that I have to go to. Why don’t you look around the market? I won’t be too long” he assured. Yu Tangchun raised an eyebrow, slightly suspicious, but he nodded and watched as Zhan Junbai headed off towards the wood carver. He frowned but shrugged it off before heading into the market area, walking around and browsing. As he walked around, he heard soft singing coming from nearby, making him smile as he walked over and saw the young girl he had saved a few days ago. “Your voice is still beautiful as ever” he praised as he dropped a few coins into her bowl. The young girl looked at him with wide eyes before she smiled. “Oh, it’s you! I never got to properly thank you for saving me from that priestess” she explained. Yu Tangchun smiled and waved his hand. “It’s nothing. I just thought it was a little ridiculous that she would go and do something like that” he mused. The girl huffed. “She does that every now and then. She’ll say she had a “vision” that a person is a witch or what not, have them dragged to a stake and then put them on trial. If they don’t answer her questions or whatever the way she likes, she orders them to burn. I’ve lost a lot of friends to her” she murmured. Yu Tangchun hummed before he tilted his head at her. “What’s your name?” he asked. The girl looked at him before she smiled. “Zining” she answered. Yu Tangchun smiled softly. “Zining. What a lovely name” he complimented. Zining then tilted her head at him. “And you, sir?” she asked. Yu Tangchun smiled. “Yu Tangchun” he replied. Zining grinned as she looked at him. “Do you sing?” she asked. Yu Tangchun smiled and nodded. “A little” he replied. Zining gasped in delight. “I would love to sing with you one day” she breathed. Yu Tangchun smiled, just as Zhan Junbai walked out of the wood carvers and over to them. “Maybe one day” he agreed before he looked over at Zhan Junbai. “Ready?” he asked. Zhan Junbai nodded and Yu Tangchun smiled before he looked back at Zining. “It was lovely seeing you again, Zining” he bid before he and Zhan Junbai turned and headed back to the palace, Zining watching them leave with wide eyes.

~*~*~*~*~*~

As Zhan Junbai and Yu Tangchun were heading back to the palace, in the church that wasn’t too far from the palace, the priestess was kneeling before the altar, her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her in prayer as a person walked into the church behind her. “You said you wanted to see me?” a voice called out, causing the priestess to lift her head and smile darkly before she pushed herself to her feet and turned to see Zhan Junbai’s uncle, General Zhan Tianqing standing before her. “I did” she replied, slowly walking towards him. Zhan Tianqing frowned. “For what?” he asked. The priestess huffed. “I believe that a witch has put a spell on your nephew” she declared. Zhan Tianqing’s eyes widened and his face nearly turned purple with rage. “What?!” he roared. The priestess nodded. “Yes. And I believe that if we don’t do something, this witch might kill your nephew” she continued. Zhan Tianqing snarled before he looked at the priestess. “What do you have in mind?” he asked. The priestess smiled darkly. “I have a plan” she declared.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Meanwhile, in the garden, Zhan Junbai and Yu Tangchun decided to forgo their normal teatime to instead walk around the garden and just enjoy each other’s company. As they walked around, Zhan Junbai kept looking at Yu Tangchun, causing him to huff and look over at him. “Is there something on my face?” he asked. Zhan Junbai shook his head. “No” he replied. Yu Tangchun huffed. “Then why do you keep staring at me?” he asked. Zhan Junbai was quiet before he stopped walking and turned to face Yu Tangchun. “Well, I—” he started before he sighed and held out a small box, one that Yu Tangchun hadn’t even seen him carry. Yu Tangchun looked at the box in surprise before he looked at Zhan Junbai. “Is this…is this for me?” he whispered. Zhan Junbai nodded and Yu Tangchun reached out, taking the box from him before opening it up. “I know…I know it can’t replace your mother’s one, but I know how much those beads meant to you so I thought—” Zhan Junbai explained as Yu Tangchun slowly took out a string of beautifully carved and polished wooden beads. He then looked at Zhan Junbai, who was looking at him hesitantly, and smiled, tears coming to his eyes. “They’re beautiful. Thank you” he whispered. Zhan Junbai let out a breath of relief as he held out his arm again, Yu Tangchun smiling as he took it, the two of them resuming their walk. “Is that what your “appointment” was about today?” he asked. Zhan Junbai nodded. “Mm. I wanted it to be a surprise” he replied. Yu Tangchun laughed softly as he looked at the beads in his hand before looking up at Zhan Junbai. “Well, I love them. Thank you” he thanked. Zhan Junbai smiled and nodded as they continued their walk around the garden, Yu Tangchun gently resting his head on Zhan Junbai’s shoulder. He could feel his brain screaming “revenge” and “kill him” but Yu Tangchun just couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore. He had fallen for Zhan Junbai, revenge be damned. If he could spend the rest of his life, just like this, he would forget his revenge plan and just…be happy. For once.

~*~*~*~*~*~

That evening, Yu Tangchun was fast asleep in his bed, clutching his prayer beads in his hand, when the door to his room was suddenly thrown open, causing him to shoot up from his slumber in drowsy confusion. “What’s going on?” he murmured, just as two guards stormed over to him and yanked him out of bed, causing his eyes to widen. “What are you doing?! Let me go! Get your hands off me!” he exclaimed, but the guards just continued to drag him out of his room and down the hall to the throne room, where the priestess, Zhan Tianqing, and Zhan Junbai, who was also held by two guards, were waiting. “Tangchun!” Zhan Junbai exclaimed, causing Yu Tangchun to look at him with wide eyes before he looked over at the priestess and Zhan Tianqing. “What is the meaning of this?!” he demanded, Zhan Junbai looking over at them as well. “Uncle, what are you doing?” he exclaimed. Zhan Tianqing smirked. “Testing a theory. Don’t worry, if we’re right, you won’t die” he replied. Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai looked at him with wide eyes. “What?!” they exclaimed, just as an archer appeared out of the shadows, causing Yu Tangchun’s eyes to widen. “No!” he exclaimed as he struggled against the guards, but they were too damn strong as they restrained him, forcing him to watch as the archer notched an arrow and fired it at Zhan Junbai. “NO!” Yu Tangchun screamed, magic exploding off of him, sending the two guards flying away from him. He then threw out a hand, creating a forcefield of magic around Zhan Junbai while with his other hand, he sent a blast of magic towards the archer, watching as the archer disintegrated into nothing but ash. He then let out a harsh breath of air before he looked over at Zhan Junbai, who was looking at him with wide, almost horrified eyes. “Tangchun—” he started when Yu Tangchun looked away, hurt and pain in his eyes; he had been caught. He then took a deep breath before he looked back at Zhan Junbai, his eyes glowing purple. “Fu Cheng” he gritted out. Zhan Junbai frowned. “What?” he breathed when Yu Tangchun stormed towards him and grabbed him by the lapels of his pajamas. “My name is Fu Cheng. The last surviving witch of the Fu Family, which your family slaughtered” he screamed, his eyes glowing brightly. Zhan Junbai’s eyes widened as he shook his head. “No, my family would never—” he started when Yu Tangchun snarled and shoved him away. “I should have killed you when I first had the chance” he hissed. Zhan Junbai looked at him in horror. “You want to—” he started. “THAT’S THE WHOLE REASON I CAME TO THIS TOWN. TO GET MY REVENGE! TO KILL YOU! TO AVENGE MY FAMILY!” Yu Tangchun screamed. Zhan Junbai was stunned as Zhan Tianqing looked over at the guards. “Restrain him” he ordered. The guards nodded and ran over to Yu Tangchun, grabbing him by the arms and yanking him away from Zhan Junbai. “Take him away” Zhan Tianqing ordered. The guards nodded and began to drag Yu Tangchun away when Zhan Junbai stepped forward. “So our friendship, everything that we’ve been through…that all means nothing to you?!” he roared, causing Yu Tangchun to stop and look back at him, tears in his glowing purple eyes. Zhan Junbai looked at him before he quickly stepped forward, looking into Yu Tangchun’s eyes. “It means something to you, right?” he asked softly. Yu Tangchun shut his eyes and looked away, a single tear streaming down his cheek, before he looked up at Zhan Junbai, his face void of emotions, as if he was wearing a mask. “It means nothing” he hissed. Zhan Junbai flinched, almost as if he had been slapped, as Zhan Tianqing motioned to the guards. “Take him away. He’s to be burned in the morning” he ordered. The guards nodded and yanked Yu Tangchun away, yanking him so hard that it actually caused him to drop his prayer beads. Before the priestess or his uncle could get a hold of them, Zhan Junbai stepped forward and picked them up, grasping them tightly as the priestess looked over at Zhan Tianqing. “See? I told you. There was a witch in the palace. He seduced your nephew and if I hadn’t told you about it, he would have killed him” she declared. Zhan Tianqing hummed while Zhan Junbai just continued to clutch the beads tightly in his hand, staring at the door where the guards had dragged Yu Tangchun away.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, at the first break of dawn, Zhan Junbai, dressed in his royal uniform, stood next to his uncle on the balcony, watching as Yu Tangchun was all but dragged through the village streets. When he saw Yu Tangchun, Zhan Junbai’s eyes widened in horror, the young witch’s clothes were dirty and ripped and tinged with blood, as if he had been whipped. “Uncle, what did you do to him?” he whispered, looking over at Zhan Tianqing. “What needed to be done. To remind him that witches have no place in this world” Zhan Tianqing snarled. Zhan Junbai felt ice run through his veins before he turned back to watch as the guards finished tying Yu Tangchun to the stake before turning to look up towards the castle, towards him and his uncle. Zhan Tianqing nodded and waved his hand, giving them the signal to light the wood pile beneath Yu Tangchun’s feet on fire. The guards nodded as one guard reached over and grabbed the torch, throwing it onto the pile. Zhan Junbai wanted to scream out, to tell them to stop, but he couldn’t; he couldn’t let his uncle know that he had fallen under Yu Tangchun’s spell, even though Yu Tangchun hadn’t casted a spell. Instead, he just clutched the prayer beads tightly in his hand and watched as the fire crept closer to Yu Tangchun, who was panting heavily, face contorted in pain as he stood there, tied to a wooden cross as fire burned at his feet. Yu Tangchun then lifted his head and made eye contact with Zhan Junbai, both men staring at each other before Yu Tangchun smiled tiredly, his eyes glowing purple. Zhan Junbai felt his heart clench as he looked at the witch but before he knew it, Yu Tangchun’s eyes fluttered and he slumped against the stake, causing Zhan Junbai’s eyes to widen. “Tangchun” he whispered. However, Yu Tangchun didn’t stir and soon all the villagers began to clap because this was the fast death of a witch they had ever witnessed, save for Chu Min and Zining, who had tears streaming down their faces as they liked Yu Tangchun. Suddenly, the ground beneath everyone’s feet began to tremble and an unearthly scream pierced the air, causing Zhan Junbai and everyone to look and see Yu Tangchun looking up at the sky, his mouth open in a scream. “Tangchun?” Zhan Junbai whispered as two large black wings unfurled from Yu Tangchun’s back. The wings flapped once before Yu Tangchun shot into the air, the rope holding him snapping like stretched rubber bands. “He’s getting away! Shoot him down! Marksman!” Zhan Tianqing shouted. One of the guards picked up a crossbow and aimed it at Yu Tangchun, aiming to kill, when Zhan Junbai held out his hand. “No!” he roared before he looked over at Zhan Tianqing. “Uncle, he’s already badly injured. He can’t get far. Just let him succumb to his injuries and die that way” he suggested. Zhan Tianqing looked back at him and narrowed his eyes before he huffed and waved his hand, telling the marksman to back down. The marksman nodded and lowered the crossbow as Zhan Junbai watched Yu Tangchun fly away, hopefully far enough away that he wouldn’t get hurt anymore. “Stupid witch…it was me who ordered the murder of his family, not your stupid father” Zhan Tianqing sneered, making Zhan Junbai slowly look over at him. “You…you ordered the murder?” he whispered. Zhan Tianqing scoffed. “Of course I did. This world is better off without witches in it, which is why they had to go” he replied before he turned and walked away. Zhan Junbai turned and watched him walk away, gritting his teeth as he clutched the prayer beads tighter in his hand, clutching them so tightly that his fists were trembling. “Bastard” he hissed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

That evening, once the entire palace retired, Zhan Junbai quietly slipped out of bed and got dressed, making sure to grab the prayer beads that were lying on his bedside table before he slipped out of his room and headed towards his uncle’s bedroom. He looked at the guards who were unconscious the floor and smirked before he quietly opened the door and stepped inside, creeping over to his uncle’s bed. He then unsheathed his dagger and held it above his uncle’s heart, fire in his eyes. “For Tangchun. For his family” he whispered before he stabbed Zhan Tianqing in the heart. Zhan Tianqing let out a gurgled cry, opening his eyes to see Zhan Junbai looking down at him, a dark look on his face. He continued to hold the dagger in his uncle’s heart and once he was sure that his uncle was dead, he quietly slipped away, leaving the dagger in his uncle’s body as a little calling card for those who would find him in the morning. He then headed towards the stables, taking his horse quietly from his stall before riding into the night, heading for the forest.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Zhan Junbai road out of the kingdom and into the nearby forest, looking around for Yu Tangchun, finally spotting him in a nearby clearing. “Tangchun!” he exclaimed, riding his horse over to him. He then halted the horse before he dismounted and knelt beside Yu Tangchun, pulling him into his arms. “Tangchun!” he exclaimed softly. Yu Tangchun let out a soft groan before he slowly opened his eyes, letting out a gasp to see Zhan Junbai looking down at him with concern. “J-Junbai?” he whispered. Zhan Junbai smiled. “I’m here” he replied. Yu Tangchun shook his head. “What are you doing here?” he whispered. Zhan Junbai smiled softly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the prayer beads that Yu Tangchun had dropped. “Well, I had to return this to you” he murmured. Yu Tangchun gasped in shock as he reached out and took the prayer beads reverently from him before he looked at him. “But your uncle—” he started when Zhan Junbai shook his head. “He’ll never hurt another person or witch ever again” he declared. Yu Tangchun let out a sigh of relief as he leaned against Zhan Junbai’s chest. “Oh thank God” he murmured. Zhan Junbai hummed in agreement as he stood to his feet, carrying Yu Tangchun bridal style. Yu Tangchun let out a cry of surprise, causing Zhan Junbai to laugh as he looked at him. “What are you doing?” he asked. Zhan Junbai smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? Running away with you” he stated as he walked over to his horse and carefully placed Yu Tangchun on the back of his horse before he climbed up behind him, wrapping an arm around Yu Tangchun’s waist so that he wouldn’t fall off. He then flicked the reins, the horse taking off deeper into the forest. “But…what about your kingdom?” Yu Tangchun asked as he leaned against Zhan Junbai. Zhan Junbai smiled before he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Yu Tangchun’s head. “They can always find another prince or king but I can never find another you” he declared. Yu Tangchun chuffed and shook his head. “I really must have put a spell on you” he murmured. Zhan Junbai chuckled as he tightened his arm around Yu Tangchun’s waist. “You really must have” he agreed. Yu Tangchun smiled as he and Zhan Junbai continued to ride into the forest.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Once upon a time, in a little house in the forest, lived a witch and a prince. The witch was the last surviving member of his coven and the prince was a fugitive, wanted by the kingdom for killing his uncle. There are rumors surrounding the two that the witch seduced the prince or put a spell on him, forcing him to fall in love with him, but that just wasn’t the case with Yu Tangchun and Zhan Junbai. They had fallen for each other, no spells or magic involved. Were they an odd couple? Sure, but they were happy. And wasn’t that how every fairytale was supposed to end? With a happily ever after?

#sass writes #Killer and Healer #yu tangchun #zhan junbai #yuan zining #chu min #zhan tianqing #junchun #witch au #prince!zhan junbai #witch!yu tangchun

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themonkeycabal · 3 years

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WandaVision Episode 9 Spoilers

I can't believe we're already at the finale.

This has been better than I expected, though I didn't have any particular expectations one way or the other. I had hoped it would be bonkers, and it's had its moments, but I didn't expect it to be breaking my heart. I'm glad Wanda (and Elizabeth Olsen) got this moment to shine. It was very well done, and it's been nice to have fun with a Marvel property again. It's been a little while.

My wishlist for this episode is simply that somebody, anybody punch Acting Director Dick square in the face. And also that Jimmy Woo arrests him. A lot.

Other than that, I don't know what to expect, or how they wrap this up in 30 minutes.

Previously on: Wanda finally earned the name Scarlet Witch after Agatha made her relive the worst moments of her life. Harsh, Agatha. Vision uttered a line that launched a thousand gif sets. And Hayward revealed his genius masterplan which is a reactivated Vision, devoid of color and powered by the energy bleeding from Wanda's hex. I'm sure that will go swimmingly for him.

Let's see how this all ends.

Agatha still has magical tethers around Billy and Tommy's necks, which obviously Wanda doesn't like. Agatha gives the boys a tug, knocking them back, and Wanda lets loose, walloping Agatha. The boys are now free, but Wanda tells them to go to their room. They object, she insists, Tommy grabs Billy and they zoom off. Wanda hits Agatha again with a hex, but Agatha sort of collects it into a little glowy ball in her hand. Oops.

"I take power from the undeserving. It's kinda my thing."

Wanda notices her hand turning gray and gnarly — the look of somebody about to be magically mummified. Agatha hits her with a hex and taunts her some more.

"You're clearly in over your little, red head, so why don't you surrender your magic to someone who knows what to do with it?" Agatha, you're pushing your luck. "I'll let you keep this pathetic corner of the world all to yourself. What do you say?"

Wanda says she will throw a car right at your face, Agatha. I laughed. Didn't see that coming, did you? Knocked Agatha right out of her boots.

As Wanda is investigating, Director Dick's white Vision floats down behind her. He's creepy looking.

Wanda walks over to him, staring at him. "Is it really you?"

He puts his hands on her face, all gentle like, but it's a lie. He starts to squeeze. "And I was told you were powerful."

Gross, AD Dick. I hope you get stepped on by Ant-Man when he's being Giant-Man.

Sitcom World Vision (hereafter just plain old Vision) makes a timely reappearance, and takes out Not!Vision. He wants to know where the boys are, Wanda assures him they're safe, and she apologizes for everything and that she should have told him what was happening, "the moment I realized what I'd done". Poor Wanda. He tells her it's alright. She says she can fix it. Not!Vision climbs out of the burning remains of a camper.

Agatha reappears to note the awkwardness of the situation. She asks Wanda who she's going to choose, the ex or the boyfriend. What happens when Wanda hits you with more power than you can contain, Agatha?

Wanda tells Vision "this is our home." He agrees, "then let's fight for it." I hope for the best for you two crazy kids! Marvel has a dicey record on happy endings, though. Sorry!

Vision takes off towards Not!Vision again. Agatha flies off, too, and Wanda follows.

Across the street Monica is pounding on a window, calling for Wanda. Fietro, lounging with a guitar in his … stoner den?, tells her nobody can hear her. Can we talk about how Monica's SWORD uniform looks like ST:Next Gen unis? I can't stop seeing it and it's distracting. Anyway, she tries to escape, but, Fietro is still all fast and stuff, so she's thwarted.

In the sky, Vision and Not!Vision battle. Not!Vision says Wanda must be neutralized and Vision must be destroyed. Hmm. Not!Vision tries to rip out the stone in Vision's forehead but Vision goes intangible. More fighting with intangibleness. It's pretty cool.

Outside Westview, AD Dick is feeling cocky as he watches both Visions on tracking monitors. I loathe him so much. Jimmy Woo is brought in handcuffed by a pair of SWORD goons. I'm sorry, who the f is SWORD? Like, they have arrest powers now? Dick says "hey, it's my favorite member of the Bureau." New wishlist: everybody gets to take turns punching AD Dick in the face.

Dick asks his minion to reconfirm mission objectives while Jimmy listens carefully, mentally noting each and every violation of federal law and the Sokovia Accords.

The minion says she can't get through to not!Vision, his system is overloaded. A cellphone rings on a desk nearby and Jimmy eyes it, then tells Hayward that he'll never be able to cover up these shenanigans.

While Dick is busy boasting and the SWORD goons are doing everything but paying attention to their prisoner (in my head all the SWORD goons applied to SHIELD but Maria Hill laughed at each and every one of their applications and then called Pepper to laugh some more and then texted choice bits to May tagging them "RE: LOL"), Jimmy eases over and grabs the phone.

"Wanda canceled her show,” Dick says with the sort of confidence only an enormous prick can muster, “so there's no footage proving there was ever more than one Vision."

Jimmy points out that that is dumb, because there is other footage, from SWORD HQ and stuff, and probably evidence of tampering. He casually sits on a table, shaking his head, like he's just so disappointed (i'm hoping he's somehow managed to use the phone to record the monolog-ing) .

Dick is still too far up his own ass to notice Jimmy being sneaky. "No one's going to care once I've eliminated Wanda Maximoff. They'll believe that the Vision that emerges from the Westview rubble is the one she illegally tried to bring back to life."

Wait, bringing him back to life is illegal? You're full of shit, Dick. And also, an extremely terrible person, who will destroy a whole town for … something? A Vision weapon? Who are you fighting, Dick? BTW, I award him no sympathy points for surviving in the post-Snap world. So if he's been scarred by that or whatever, I don't care. Trauma doesn't excuse murdery megalomania. As has been said before: Cool motive, still murder. I hope Vision intangibles him into a lamp post that gets peed on every day by a parade of small dogs.

"They'll thank me for recovering such a valuable asset. You could be part of that victory, Jimmy. If only you had a little more … vision" says the smug prick who is asking for it. And by it I mean something both terrible and humiliating to happen to him asap.

Jimmy fake laughs back. "That's a good one, Hayward. Okay, I'm convinced. The trouble is my friends at Quantico will probably have something to say about your plan. When they arrive. Inside the hour." heh.

Oh, poor Dick doesn't like being mocked back. He tells his brain-dead goons to remove Jimmy. The goons throw Jimmy into a … stack of hay? In a fenced in cage thing? As you have on your pop-up military facility. Where he sets to work removing his handcuffs with a clip he also stole, because Jimmy Woo is cool like that. Close Up Magic! See the things you can learn from criminals. "Flourish" lol.

He calls his friends at Quantico. "I was hoping you could get here … inside the hour?"

Back in Westview. Wanda is looking for Agatha while the town goes about its business. Weirdo delivery guy drives by "Don't shoot. I'm just the messenger. ha ha."

Then she gets hit in the back by a purple hex. Ouch. She has hit the pavement hard kind of a lot in this episode already. That hurts, my dudes, I know this from personal falling down experience. Wanda's hand, by the way, is still looking ashy and not very healthy.

Agatha taunts her from a rooftop. "Did you know there's an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold." How could she know that, Agatha? Also, boo the Darkhold. That bit of nastiness led to the Framework, and I'm still a little scarred by that myself. "That's the book of the damned," says the witch standing in front of a billboard for "Squeaky Shine" lol.

Agatha produces the Darkhold and recites from it, "The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. She has no coven, nor need for incantation." Wanda insists she isn't a witch, nobody taught her magic.

Agatha continues, "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme" Steven Strange will like that. Not much. He's so twitchy about things like that. "It's your destiny to destroy the world." Always with the destinies. FREE WILL FOREVAH!

Wanda insists she's not the Scarlet Witch thingy. Agatha says "oh really?" and uses her mojo on Emma Caulfield. Hi Emma Caulfield! She seems to be 'awake' and introduces herself to Wanda (who knew her as Dottie) "My name is Sarah. I have a daughter, she's 8, maybe she could be friends with your boys. If you like that storyline. Or the school bully, even. Really anything, if you could just let her out of her room. If I could just hold her." Wow, ouch.

Speaking of free will or the lack of, Wanda accuses Agatha of doing this, but Agatha says "She's your meat puppet. I just cut her strings." Poor Wanda. And now Agatha wakes up the whole town, who all head towards Wanda.

And we cut to Fietro's den of manchildness. Monica asks what that place is, but come on Monica, it's clearly a den of manchildness. Fietro is making himself a smoothie and explaining the purpose of a mancave — chillaxing.

Monica ignores him and rifles through his bills and whatnot. She finds a headshot of Fietro with the name "Ralph Bohner" underneath. Because, people just keep their headshots lying around willynilly. Wait, are we saying Ralph is an actor? Lol.

Fietro meanwhile is planning for a Steven Segal marathon — my dad and I watched all of those movies and for the life of me I could not tell you why. We didn't *like* them. I mean, mostly we laughed, but still. Why?

Anyway, Monica is trying to solve the mystery of Fietro. It's not Agatha's house (obviously) it's Fietro's (Ralph). He's an ass and asks if she wants to fight some more, so she flips him over her shoulder and pins him down, trying to figure out how Agatha is controlling him. With her new glowy eyes, she notices the bead necklace he's wearing sparkles in a magically way. She rips it off and Fietro becomes Ralph.

Elsewhere the Visions are still battling in the sky and the boys are watching from their bedroom. They lose sight of dad, but Billy gets a vision of mom in trouble in the town square. He and Tommy run off.

The townsfolk are confused and scared. Wanda tells them they're all going to be fine. "When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares." Ouch. Wanda insists she kept them safe. Wanda, sweetie, you're very far in over your head.

"You feel, you feel at peace," she tells them, kind of hoping that works. It doesn’t. "We feel your pain." "Your grief is poisoning us." "Please let us go." This is an awful thing to do to Wanda, Marvel!

It escalates with all those voices begging her to free them and she screams, grabbing her head, and when she does that, red light appears around the throats of the townies, silencing them, choking them. Wanda realizes and puts her glowy hands up "stop, stop, I'm sorry", releasing them all.

"If you won't let us go, let us die." Wanda promises to let them go. Agatha wonders what's stopping her from actually doing it.

"Heroes don't torture people." Agatha's a very sink-or-swim kind of teacher.

That does the trick and Wanda throws her arms back and yells to the sky, releasing her power up at the hex surrounding the town. "Go, all of you. Now, go." The people run and the town flickers through the eras and the barrier starts to fall.

Outside, Director Dick tells his morons "this is it, we're going in!"

The Visions keep on battling, but as the barrier falls, Vision starts to falter himself. I was afraid of that.

The Morons roll in with their big trucks and big guns because … reasons. I have a very low opinion of SWORD. Maria Rambeau's agency deserves better than this shitshow.

Vision falls and it looks like bits of him are chipping off. He hits the ground hard, he gets up, but he's glitching, too, falling apart as Wanda takes down her spell. He reaches for her. The boys appear now, too, screaming for mom, but they seem to be flickering as well, flying apart in pixelly pieces. Poor Wanda.

Agatha says "Now do you see? You tied your family to this twisted world and now one can't exist without the other." This is terrible. "Save Westview or save your family." TERRIBLE.

Wanda pulls the hex into herself again, recreating the barrier. The kids and Vision recover and run to her. Outside, as the hex closes, Jimmy Woo is, yet again, left to stare at the barrier, cut off from the fun inside. Poor guy, lol. But, his FBI buddies are arriving, so at least he won't get lonely.

Agatha throws a hex at Wanda and Wanda throws up a shield to protect her family. Which Agatha starts to draw towards herself like the magic vampire she is. Greedy Agatha. Wanda's arms are all gray. And SWORD rolls into town square, because that's what this confrontation needed — these dipshits.

Anyway, the Family stands ready to face Director Dick and his morons, in a quality recreation of the Incredibles family pose. "Listen boys, your mother and I never really prepared you for this," dad says. Because your boys are like three days old, Vision, it's okay. "But you were born for it," Wanda assures them very fiercely. Get 'em, sister!

As they square off, Vision's like "oh crap, it's the other me, back in a mo'" and flies off to tackle Not!Vision who's trying to sneak up behind them.

They destroy the town library and Vision wants to know why Not!Vision gotta be like that. "My programming directive is to destroy the Vision."

Ha ha, says Vision, a loophole. "But, I'm not the true Vision, only a conditional Vision."

Hmmm, says Not!Vision, and they stop fighting, "I request elaboration". Hey, Vision, move into Not!Vision's body and you can be true Vision again! Problem solved, my work here is done.

Back to the street where we find Dick and his Morons and Agatha who is not making this situation at all better. The morons point their guns at Agatha who magics them up off the ground like thirty feet in the air, "Same story, different century. There will always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda." I'm not going to say you're wrong, Agatha, and God knows these SWORD morons are morons, but you're also a pain in the ass. So …

Anyway, then Agatha drops them and Wanda reaches out to catch them. But once caught, she does let them drop the last five or six feet. They'll be fine, but also they deserved it, so I laughed.

"Boys, handle the military. Mommy will be right back." They're my new favorite family.

Wanda flies up to tangle with Agatha and Agatha is super ready except … Wanda throws a curveball and disappears. Suck it Agatha.

Down on the ground the SWORD morons continue to cover themselves in glory and point their guns at CHILDREN. I don't care if they're powered children, you know what I'd like, I'd like if one of the morons would just be like "um, but … they're kids and how about no? I'm going to get Jimmy Woo! He'll know what to do. Don't try and stop me!" That doesn't happen.

Billy freezes the soldiers in place and Tommy super speeds by and steals their guns and hats. AD Dick, being the absolutely loathsome, vile, lower-than-a-maggot, piece of shit that he is, gets out of his humvee and shoots at the CHILDREN.

Monica, who has just arrived to the party, runs and throws herself between Dick and the boys, taking the bullets meant for them. Her new powers render her sort of … I don't even know. Not quite intangible, but she kind of looks like a ballistics gel dummy and the bullets go through her but they slow down a lot as they pass and then just sort of fall on the ground. Dick, crossing the line into pure evil, fires again, the bullet misses Monica and heads towards Billy, who just raises his hand and stops it with his power then he grins at Monica.

"Nice tricks," she tells him.

"I like yours, too," he says.

Dick tries to fire AGAIN! But he's out of bullets. He only had four? Or maybe his gun jammed. Anyway, like the brave man he is, he runs to the humvee, gets in, reverses at speed, stops and looks like he's going to put it in gear and drive at them because the dude is unhinged. But! Lo! It's Darcy and the funnel cake truck, that is apparently built like a tank, though come to think of it, it probably was an armored vehicle in the real world.

Anyway, she t-bones Dick's vehicle, thwarting his evility for the moment. "Have fun in prison." Lol

Back to the Visions. They're having a philosophical debate. "You are familiar with the thought experiment "The Ship of Theseus" in the field of identity metaphysics," Vision prompts Not!Vision.

"Naturally." And Not!Vision helpfully spells it out for us. "The ship of Theseus is in a museum. Over time its planks of wood rot and are replaced with new planks. When no original planks remain, is it still the ship of Theseus?"

Vision presses his advantage, "Secondly. If those removed planks are restored and reassembled, free of the rot, is that the ship of Theseus?"

To sum up, neither is the true Vision, both are the true Vision.

"But I do not have the mind stone," says not!Vision.

"And I do not have one single ounce of original material," replies Vision. "Perhaps the rot is the memories. The wear and tear are the voyages. The wood touched by Theseus himself."

Not!Vision says he doesn't have the memories, though, but Vision insists he does, the data is still there, hidden. Not!Vision says nah, Vision must be the true Vision because he believes himself to be. But, Vision says that's not true anymore, he plays the reverse card, "upon meeting you, I have been disabused of that notion." This is the most philosophy nerd game of 'not it' ever.

Vision continues to try to get at Not!Vision's memories. "As a carbon-based synthazoid, your memory storage is not so easily wiped. May I?" Not!Vision allows Vision to touch the glowy bit where the memory stone used to be, and Not!Vision is flooded with Vision's memories. Not!Vision's eyes go … normal, I guess you'd say, no longer robot-like and glowy.

"I am Vision" he says and flies off. It was a lot to take in, I guess. He needs a little me-time.

I guess we're going to have to go back to calling Vision Sitcom!Vision, anyway, he goes outside and the boys run over to him and there's hugging and stuff.

Agatha stalks them from the rooftop, but it seems she might have forgotten Wanda for a second, because Wanda appears behind her and does that thing she does where she makes you see your worst fear. Enjoy that, Agatha!

Agatha sees herself bound to the stake in the woods again. Her coven dead. Wanda is there in the vision, too. "You see the difference between you and me, is that you did this on purpose."

The coven rise from the dead and shuffle to her while Agatha begs for it to stop. But, then Agatha gets control of herself, I guess, and the undead mummy witches start saying Wanda's name and pointing at her. You're just no fun at all, Agatha.

Now the coven ties Wanda to the stake. "You can't win, Wanda. Power isn't your problem; it's knowledge." That is, actually, very true. Wanda's Scarlet Witch headpiece appears on her all magical-like, marking her as the Scarlet Witch of myth, I suppose.

"Give me your power, and I will correct the flaws in your original spell. And you and your family and the people of Westview can all live together in peace."

If Agatha is so smart, why doesn't she just take Wanda's power, hmm?

"And no one will ever have to feel this pain again. Not even you," Agatha tries cajoling, but that was the wrong tack to take. Wanda gives her the head tilt of imminent ass-kicking, and her powers explode outward, flinging way the weird creepy coven of zombie mummies. Then Wanda knocks them both back into Westview.

She starts hammering Agatha with her powers. "Take it, I don't want it." Vision tries to fly up to help her, but she blocks him with a spell.

Witch fight in the clouds. Every time Wanda misses Agatha, her hexes hit the shield. Outside Jimmy Woo looks on, concerned.

"There's more," Agatha says, "I want it all." Wanda's looking a little mummified, but she's still flinging hexes left and right while Agatha cackles evilly. Eventually Wanda runs out of steam and just sort of hovers there.

"About our deal. Once case, a spell can never be changed." You're terrible, Agatha. Very cruel. "This world will always be broken. Just. Like. You." Low, Agatha. Lower than dirt

Agatha gathers herself and tries to hit out at Wanda with all that yummy power but it just fizzles. Nothing happens. Oh noes, Agatha, what's wrong?

Wanda starts looking like her normal self again and behind her glows a giant rune. Oh, dear, Agatha, you taught Wanda something. When she was missing Agatha and hitting the shield all those times, she was actually casting runes. LOL to you.

The sky is angry and red and stormy. Monica, Vision, and the boys look on.

"In a given space," Wanda says, "only the witch who cast them [runes] can use her magic. Thanks for the lesson, but, I don't need you to tell me who I am."

The Scarlet Witch headpiece reappears and now Agatha has her a fright. I like you Agatha, you're rotten in fun way, but you took it too far, sister. Wanda takes her power back with prejudice and she is transformed into the Scarlet Witch. Updated version of the classic costume. Nice, I like it.

"Oh god," Agatha gasps, "You don't know what you've done." Wanda drops her on the ground more gently than she deserved.

Agatha asks if Wanda's going to lock her up somewhere. And Wanda says, yeah, here in lovely Westview. "I'll give you the role you chose; the nosy neighbor."

"You have no idea what you've unleashed. You're gonna need me." "If I do, I know where to find you." lol

And Wanda turns Agatha back into Agnes. "Hiya, hon. Say, that some kind of getup you're wearing. Did I leave the oven on, or is that just you, hot stuff."

Wanda says goodbye and walks over to her family, kissing her boys.

Vision says their dream home has turned into a fixer-upper. "I know you'll set everything right. Just not for us."

"No," Wanda agrees because Marvel likes to hurt us all. "Not for us."

Monica kind of bounces on her toes, trying to get Wanda's attention, but probably also not entirely wanting Wanda's attention. Wanda gives her a hesitant nod as she and Vision leave with the boys.

The field around town starts to shrink, the circus turns back into the SWORD base.

They get home and tuck the boys into bed.

"Big day today," Vision says. "Your mother and I … are very proud of you both."

"Very proud," Wanda agrees. "You know, a family is forever. We could never truly leave each other, even if we tried. You know that right?"

They kiss their boys goodnight. Outside the window, the field flickers and fails. "Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom."

The town of Westview returns to its sad old self, street by street. Wanda turns out the lights in their home.

But, Vision turns one back on. "Oh, I read somewhere, that it's bad luck to say goodbye in the dark." "No, you didn't." You guys are killing me.

Why did this have to be so good and sad?

And finally the collapsing field reaches their street, they watch it coming.

"Wanda, I know we can't stay like this, but before I go, I feel I must know, what am I?"

She touches his face. "You, Vision, are the piece of the mind stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you're my love." Stupid show, my screen went blurry there for a second.

Vision cries a bit, they both are a little astonished by the tear.

"I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human. And now, a memory, made real. Who knows what I might be next." Aww, Vision, I love you.

Here comes the field.

"We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason—" "We'll say hello again." STUPID SHOW why do you have to make me feel things?

The field collapses and everything is stripped back into nothing. "So long, darling." And Wanda stands in the empty lot, in the foundations of the home that never was.

She walks away again. Poor Wanda. And back into town. The people look at her, they don't seem happy. I don't know why she chose to do that, she does have a car. Ah, she's going to talk to Monica.

"They'll never know what you sacrificed for them," Monica says. "It wouldn't change how they see me," Wanda tells her. "And you? You don't … you don't hate me?" "Given the chance, and given your power, I'd bring my mom back. You know I would." "I'm sorry, for all the pain I caused."

Wanda promises to figure out her power and then files off. The End.

Heartbreaking. Good, but heartbreaking.

Mid-credits scene. Jimmy Woo is large and in charge. He's setting up the incident response in town, ordering folks around (in his good natured way).

Jimmy spots his friend. "Monica!" "Authority looks good on you, Jimmy." "Where's Darcy?" "Something about ‘debriefs are for the weak’?" lol "But we can thank her for that."

And down the street AD Dick is being arrested. Nobody punched him in the face. I'm sad. Darcy came closest, I guess. What with hitting him with the very large truck. It will have to do.

Monica is summoned to the theater by another agent. Hmm nobody there. The agent follows. "I was sent by an old friend of your mother's." And the agent is a Skrull. "He heard you'd been grounded. He'd like to meet with you."

"Where?"

The Skrull points up.

What was Fury's Skrull buddy's name? I don't recall. I didn't actually like the Captain Marvel movie. I felt like they told it backwards, and also they should have just cast a younger actor to play young Nick Fury. That bugged me. And I wanted more of Annette Benning’s character. Anyway … I guess we know where we’ll see Monica again.

Well, that was fun. Like I said, I'm not sure what I expected from this series, just that it be some degree of fun, I guess. But it was much better than whatever I had half-envisaged. AND SADDER, MARVEL.

Thank goodness for the multi-verse. I'm sure we'll see some version of the boys again. And also Not!Vision, who is probably also Vision at this point, knocking around the world, trying to find himself. Talk about identity crisis. I feel you, brother. Stay safe, get plenty of whatever passes for rest for you!

See you guys in a couple of weeks for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I WANT NO TEARS FROM THAT ONE! Unless it's tears of laughter.

ETA: FOR THE SECOND POST CREDITS SCENE THAT I MISSED. Stupid Marvel hiding things from me. Thank you, @beelzebufo

Mountains, a mountain lake, a place I’d like to be right now. Wanda sits on the porch of her lonely little cabin. The tea kettle whistles and she goes inside. There’s a rattling and whispering from the other room, where the astral projection(?) of the Scarlet Witch reads the Darkhold and her children call for her. I don’t know, Wanda, seems dicey, that’s not a very nice book.

FOR REAL THE END THIS TIME

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision liveblog #long post

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