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gxngsoflondon · 4 years

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As The World Caves In - Part 1/?(Sean Wallace x Reader)

A/N: Hi guys! This first chapter is mainly background information, so bear with me (its not the most action packed chapter but it is 100% necessary).This is going to be a pretty long series so lemme know if you want to be added to a tag list xxxx

Materlist!

Part 1: Bang Bang! (My Baby Shot Me Down)

Nothing good ever becomes of the girl unfortunate enough to fall in love with a Wallace.

There is blood, thick pools of the stuff, not all of it yours.

There is too much blood.

You are running out of time.

This is how you’re going to die, you are sure of it now. But before you do, they are going to take him away from you.They are going to pull everything worth living for out of your sorry little world.

Sean.

You will not let them take Sean from you. You will make sure that he’s safe.

You hear them coming now.

This is it.

/// 16 Years Before \\\

A giggle fills the garden.

It’s more of a squeal in all honesty, carefree and silly and full of joy. Children’s laughter. The innocence of a little girl’s giggle is out of place here.

Innocence is out of place here.

“Ha! Sean! You’re out!” you call “I got you fair and square.”

Three fathers and three mothers sit on black woven garden furniture. Wallace, Dumali, Anderson, London crime royalty. There is no business to attend to today so they are also laughing, glasses of champagne in hand as they watch their children play on wooden stick horses in the April sunshine.

“Nuh uh Y/N! You didn’t shout BANG”

“Yes I did!”

“I didn’t hear you”

“Me neither”

“I did! I did! You’re all dead!’

“You absolutely did not”

You are tall for your age. A pretty white dress, white tights, pristine white shoes, but your pigtails are falling out, the dainty white ribbons becoming a tangled mess and you run to keep up with the boys.

Billy. Skinny, ears and elbows jutting out, a mop of curly brown hair.

Alex. Taller, dimpled cheeks and nervous eyes, deep chocolate skin.

Sean. Grinning, exploding with freckles, blonde eyelashes so long they tangled themselves.

“Watch, like this Y/N,” Sean says patiently, turning his fingers into a gun “BANG! BANG!”

Billy and Alex theatrically hit the ground, taking great pleasure in twitching and convulsing as they pretend to die.

You gallop towards them just as Alex starts to sit up.

“BANG!” you yell and he falls down again. Sean is smirking at you as you both trot together, linking arms as you parade around victorious. You stand on your tiptoes and you kiss his cheek, sparking fits of laughter from Alex and vomiting sounds from Billy.

“She’s precious that one,” Marian coos, she is watching you as you march the length of the garden clutching her own son. She adores you, loves you almost as much as her own.

Your mother laughs.

“She’s not all sweetness and sugar, i’d check you’ve got all of your jewlery when we leave she’s going through a ‘borrowing without permission’ phase,”

Finn guffaws

“Still a damnsight sweeter than my boys”

“You might be stuck with her, she came up to me the other day asking ‘When I marry Sean will I get to stay at Aunty Marians all the time?’”

Marian grins again.

“I guess Alex is out of luck then,” chuckles Mrs Dumani. She is sat cross legged on the grass with the girls. Jacquline and Shannon are oil painting canvases, something not even the promise of sweets would bribe you into doing.

Trust me, your mother had already tried.

She wished you’d stay away from the boys, even further away from the family business.

Gangs are no place for little girls.

“My daddy’s going to show us a real gun!” Alex says as you watch all three fathers approach you, “Now that Billy’s seven, we’re all old enough,”

“But- I’m still five?”

“Yes but Y/N you're a girl,” says Billy pointedly, grimacing with the word as if it tastes foul.

You scowl at your brother Tom, a teenager now, as he picks you up and carts you back to your mother.

You love Tommy more than anybody in the world, so you only kick him twice.

”Why can’t I stay with the boys! None of this is fair!” you announce, your arms are crossed, lip pouting in defiance.

Your mother isn’t phased, she’s been practicing this conversation. The Wallace and Dumani mothers are smiling encourangling at her, they have been here before themselves.

They will raise smart daughters, undeniably good and honest and strong.

Their husbands will raise smart businessmen, undeniably rich, undeniably powerful.

“Look at you darling, you are my treasure. I love you very much,” Your mother is stroking your hair and when you try to pull away, she cups her hand to your cheek. ‘And you know why we stay away from Daddy’s business, don’t you”

“I know but-’

“That��s right, to keep you safe and sound dear,”

This isn’t the first time you’ve shown interest in the family business. That’s what is worrying Mrs Anderson and what is making her face settle into an unsupressable frown.

“But-”

It is Marian Wallace that speaks next.

“Try and listen to your mother Y/N”

She is looking at you with a firm, no bullshit stare. You know this is an order.

‘It's not fair! They get to-”

“Y/N, it’s a scary world out there. There is no place for you in that horriblness do you understand?” a more mellow Mrs Dumani says.

Yet, you don’t understand, how could you? Your mother had done everything in her power to shelter you from the violence attached to your surname.

Only Tom would be expected to contiue the family business.

“But I’m not scared of anything!”

Guillabe, naive, innocent, ditsy. How do you explain to a 5 year old that they inherited a world of death, drugs and crime?

Your brother has an idea. “Man eating spiders, cannibal clowns” He is sneaking up behind you and whispering in your ear

“Thugs, criminals, beasts, Please, they’ll eat you up, alive!”

Your skin takes on a crawling quality, even though you know it’s only Tommy, you are starting to panic.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“But-”

“Also, snakes and large bugs, men with pointy teeth, slimy monsters that creep under your bed at night and swallow you whole”

Any joking quality is removed from Tom's voice. He is doing everything he can to scare you.

It is working. You are only a small child

Guilt flashes on his face when your bottom lip quivers slightly.

“Tommy that’s enough, you’re upsetting her.” Marian again.

You are running straight to your mother, her arms opening to wrap you in a tight embrace.

“You’ll be safe as long as you stay with Mummy okay?”

You agree and she is still cradling you when Finn, Ed and your father return. They had left the boys inside.

“You haven’t been crying have ya?” Finn says. He bends down to ruffle your hair and you shake your head violently.

“Look I know you might want to be like the boys. Personally, I wouldn’t bother, cabbage heads the lot of them. But if you ever see one of these-”

He reaches into his pocket.

And then Finn Wallace gives a five year old girl a gun.

“-I want you to run in the opposite direction, do ya hear me?”

Your mother’s eyes are wide with shock, Marian’s mouth open ready to lecture her husband. But he takes the gun back from you before you can wrap your fingers around it.

“I want you to make me and Uncle Finn a promise Y/N. You wouldn’t lie to us would you? You won’t ever go near one of these will you? It’s very important”

It was your father this time.

“Of course not Daddy,”

“Good, now why don’t you play with Jackie and Shannon?”

“Actually,” your mother says, almost eager to leave now ”I think our drivers here”

You rush through your goodbyes and are herded into the back of the black vehicle. Your daddy sits in the front with the driver, you sit in the middle in the back. You aren’t quite sure why, but you feel the urge to give Tommy a big hug. You do.

As you pull out of the Wallace estate, you see the boys pressed up against a large bay window. Alex is grinning at you, Billy pulling a hideous face and sticking his tongue out. It’s only Sean that is actually waving at you, and you are waving back.

“Why can’t we all live together in one big house Mummy?” you ask.

Your father chuckles.

“Come now Y/N, we’ll be back again tomorrow. Just like always.”

You are smiling as the boys in the window disappear from view, knowing you’ll be back playing with them in the morning. Just like always.

But this is the last time you will see the Wallaces, for a very very long time.

(Part 2!!!)

#gangs of london #sean wallace #sean wallace imagine #gangs of london imagine #joe cole #joe cole imagine #sean wallace x reader #gangs of london fanfic #gangs of london fic #sean wallace fic

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luci-cunt · 5 years

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Neil Josten’s Vendetta

Neil needs a roommate, he gets Andrew. Which is fine, until Andrew is the first person to connect all of Neil’s victims and actually start figuring out who is killing all of the Butcher of Baltimore’s people.

“Umm, that’s pretty much it,” he said, forcing his eyes to land back on Minyard, who was still examining the apartment. He paused for a moment on the dead cactus, and then glanced questioningly at Neil, who smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m not much of a– well I’m not very good at keeping things alive,” he said, then smiled a little wider at his own joke. Sustaining life was definitely a lot harder than watching it drain from someone’s eyes.

(Pt. 1/ ????)

(AN: this is my crappy attempt at fanfic so lol sorry if there’s spelling issues and if it randomly switches to first person, I tried to fix it but I’m more used to writing first person so I slip. Also thanks to @sig66 cause I’m 100% stealing what you added on to my OG idea– unless you want to write it yourself then I’ll back off, but it’s a rad ass idea. Also thank you to @writingpuddle because you’re an icon and really nice so thanks for liking my au idea hope you like this lol)

*******

Neil scowled at the newspaper on his kitchen table. Well, more specifically the ad he knew was folded inside the pages. Written in typed, neat, black and white ink just like all the other rows of ads for dog sales and car sales and sales in general.

He’d been the one to publish the ad, which made it that much worse. Everything about his life until this point– hell even at this point– was about skimming just below the radar. Staying out of everyone’s attention or as far in the periphery as he could manage. First it was staying carefully out of his father’s range and notice, then it was running from the eyes of his father’s people with his mother hand yanking at his hair and her hissing voice close in his ear reminding him that they’re close. You’re stalling us. Stop speaking now. We need to move. Forget that name. Remember this one. And now it was keeping ahead of the cops and making sure no one connected the trail of bodies he was leaving scattered over the country.

Neil ran a hand through his hair, trying to sooth the phantom pains and ghosts of fingers that thinking of his mother brought up. He sighed and looked away from the paper finally, trying to console himself with the fact that the ad had already been publish, it wasn’t under his actual name (he’d used his middle and last initials. A.J.), and his mother was dead. Dead and burned.

That was another memory he wasn’t feeling like reliving, so instead he took a sip of the scalding coffee he’d been making. It burned his tongue but shot him back into the present, out of the smoke and sand of that beach beneath the stars.

He tossed the paper in the trash as he went to grab cream from the kitchen. He knew what the ad said, had it burned into his brain as he’d read and re-read it trying to decide whether or not it was the right decision.

Roommate wanted, must be quiet and able to clean up after themselves. Email me with inquiries.

Part of him knew it was vague and a horrible ad, but part of him hoped no one would answer and he could convince himself that he’d tried.

People had answered though, three to be exact. The first two he’d written off, one asking if medium sized dogs were allowed– no– and the other wanting to know what kind of coffee he kept in the house. Neil hadn’t bothered responding to that one.

But the third one had been a single line.

Does the room have a door that locks.

Not even a question mark, or a name. The email said the person was an A. Minyard, and a quick google search hadn’t really gotten Neil much. Something about a car crash, some court cases Neil couldn’t be bothered to read, and a story about twins reuniting. The picture that had been taken for the article had actually made Neil laugh. Two boys– each with identical blond hair, roundish faces, and small statues– were scowling into the camera while a woman subtly fought to rest her hand on one of the boys shoulders. She looked a lot like them, except she was trying for a pained looking smile.

The exact same picture he realized was also used for her obituary. Just cropped to hide the twins.

But Neil didn’t really care, and he was running out of options so he’d responded with an equally thought-provoking yes. A. Minyard– who could have been either Aaron or Andrew if he was one of the twins Neil realized with some annoyance– had responded simply with a date and time and Neil had given him his address. (Even though his fingers froze when he tried to type it in and he couldn’t breathe right afterwards until he’d double and triple checked that all the doors and windows were locked and the cameras in place).

It had been a long time since Neil had been on the run. Actually, Neil Josten had never been on the run. Alex Crizewald, Chris Lucas, Stephan Waldridge, Nathaniel Wesninski and many more had been on the run. Neil Josten was a broke ex-college student working part time in a coffee shop down the street from his two bedroom apartment, he’d grown up in Virginia, and had a sister in Washington who he never talked to.

Neil Abram Josten was Neil Abram Josten. He’d stopped being anyone else the day his mother was killed.

Neil Abram Josten also had to get ready to meet A. Minyard, who was supposed to be coming over at 1:30. Neil almost groaned when he looked at his clock and it beamed 1:12 at him. He sipped at his coffee again, it tasted better now with cream, and it was less scalding, which was a relief for his already charred tongue.

Damn, and he’d wanted to get a shower.

He caught his own eye in the bathroom mirror as he decided to risk a quick shower anyways. He’d been at the gym down the street for the past couple of hours, trying desperately to run off the burn in the back of his head telling him to run. Leave everything, you’ve been found. They know where you are, they’re coming. Run.

His eyes used to scare him, there wasn’t much special about them, but paired with the Wesninski red curls it made him look like a smaller, more pointy version of the very Butcher he’d run from all those years ago. He’d dyed his hair back to auburn and removed his contacts mostly for dramatic effect, and luckily now they didn’t remind him so much of his father. Well, that’s not totally true, they just reminded him of his mission– Neil Josten’s vendetta if you will. Also the stupid reason he needed a roommate in the first place.

Turns out, hunting down and killing every person to have worked for your father (and your father) takes a lot out of your day.

He tore his eyes away from the mirror and pulled off his clothes, rinsing off fast and changing back into a loose pair of sweatpants and a hoodie just a loud knock pounded on the door. Neil tried not to scowl too much as he opened the door.

The first thing he noticed about A. Minyard was that he smelled like cigarettes and new car, which was an odd mix. Minyard was also shorter than Neil, which was slightly comforting– until Neil realized Minyard was nearly twice the size of him in muscle mass, that was not comforting. He was wearing all black, a pair of jeans, a dark t-shirt with a gray flannel around his waist and twin black armbands on both forearms.

Neil was kind of impressed, it was the end of what felt like one of the worst summers ever and this guy didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed. In fact he looked downright bored, with hooded hazel eyes and nothing other than a lazy eyebrow arch as Neil opened the door. He looked almost exactly like the photo from the newspaper article, and not much taller. The only real difference was his build and a slight shadow of stubble on his chin.

“A. Minyard?” Neil asked.

“Sunshine Muffin 7260?” Minyard asked in a deadpanned tone, Neil winced. He kept forgetting he’d let Matt make him the email after his coworker had found out he didn’t have one. He kept meaning to change it, but he only ever used it to talk to Matt, and sometimes his boss– Matt’s fiancé Dan– since he didn’t keep a phone for more than a week.

“Neil, actually,” Neil said, he didn’t bother to try for a handshake. From the cross-armed stance Minyard was holding Neil thought it wouldn’t be well received.

“Andrew,” he said simply, and Neil stepped aside to allow him to enter. He closed the door after Minyard– Andrew– walked in and then moved past him towards the kitchen.

“I have coffee?” he half asked, a little awkwardly. He wasn’t used to having guests in his apartment– still wasn’t exactly used to having an apartment–, but it was something Matt always said when he dragged Neil over for a movie night.

“I’m good,” Andrew said, glancing around the apartment as he followed Neil into the kitchen. It wasn’t very big, the front door leading into a small living room that turned into a kitchen on the left side. The living room had a couch set up facing the TV, and there was a dead cactus Dan had gotten him sitting in the windowsill above the sink, but otherwise the room was completely undecorated. There was also a door leading to a bathroom through the kitchen, and a tiny hallway to where the two bedrooms were. Both identical, small rooms with a single window and a half closet.

“Cool, uh, your room would be down he hall, mine’s on the right–” Neil pointed down the hall, he didn’t mention that the room on the right had the window over his downstairs neighbors shrub garden, and that he’d picked that room because it would make a halfway decent escape route if needed. “There’s only one bathroom, that’s it there, and then the kitchen and the living room…” he drifted off, glancing around the apartment and fidgeting with his sleeve a little. “Umm, that’s pretty much it,” he said, forcing his eyes to land back on Minyard, who was still examining the apartment. He paused for a moment on the dead cactus, and then glanced questioningly at Neil, who smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Huh, can I smoke in here or are you a prude?” Minyard asked bluntly, and Neil raised a brow and smirked at his blank expression.

“Not technically, but the smoke alarms in the rooms are shit if you open the window,” Neil said, and Minyard nodded. “You can take that as either the warning sign or invitation that it is,” Neil added, and Minyard eyed him carefully, somehow managing to peer at Neil down his nose despite being shorter.

“Can I see the room?” He asked instead of answering, and Neil nodded, gesturing down the hall. Minyard turned out of sight and Neil heard him try the handle of his own– thankfully locked– door.

“Mine’s on the right,” Neil reminded him, poking his head into the hallway and then raised a brow at Minyard, “You remember my email down to the number but can’t remember your lefts and rights?” he mocked, and Minyard scowled at him, before disappearing into the room. Neil breathed a small laugh and went into the kitchen where his laptop was set up. With nothing better to do while he waited for Minyard to decide he opened it up and winced at the number of emails Matt and Dan had both sent him. He regretted mentioning Minyard coming over now.

He closed the laptop instead of reading any of them and instead pulled out his phone. There was a new message, from an unknown number which wasn’t that unusual on Neil’s phone. He opened it and scanned the code. Well, it wasn’t much of a code, just written in French. It was from one of Neil’s newer contacts– one that apparently didn’t understand what Neil meant by confidential. There was GPS coordinates, and a date and time window for Neil to reach it by. Luckily it looked like he had a day, but his fingers itched to get the envelope he knew would be waiting at the site. Containing the names and information on his next victims.

Neil had been hunting down the Butcher’s men for the years. It had been surprisingly easy at first, hunting down the weakest members and picking them off. But the higher up he got the more difficult it was proving– and the longer surveillance took. Neil hated surveillance. If he had any trust left he probably would hire someone to do it for him. But this wasn’t something he could risk– or put in someone else's hands.

The killing had been something to get used to– no, the feeling of killing. Killing was easy, you just stab the right place and the blood drains and the person goes limp and usually piss themselves. It’s not all that.

But the exhilaration of adding another notch into his knife, of getting that much higher in the Wesninski ladder, it was frightening how much he’d started to understand that light in his fathers eyes. It helped a little to know everyone he was killing were monsters, working for a monster, but the first couple of kills had been messy as he dredged up the lessons from Lola and his father and tried to act them out.

A dark part of his mind wished he was able to draw things out longer, to make sure his victims knew who was killing them and why. But another part was glad he didn’t, and knew he never would be able to do more than quick kills from the shadows.

There was also the fact that killing slow meant mess, and unfortunately Neil Josten didn’t have Nathan Wesninski’s murder budget. What a shame.

“I need to move in as soon as possible,” Minyard said, snapping Neil out of his thoughts and making him jump. For being such a heavy looking person he was startlingly quiet. Neil ran a hand through his hair.

“That’s fine, I have work tomorrow but I get off by 11,” Neil said, and Minyard nodded.

“I’ll be here by 11:30,” he said curtly, and Neil laughed.

“Hopefully the enthusiasm isn’t from some trouble you might be dragging in, that would be impolite,” he said, a very thinly veiled threat that he punctuated with his father’s smile– no his smile. Minyard scowled at him.

“I don’t think anything could be more trouble than you seem to be,” Minyard said flatly, and Neil laughed again, barely biting back the words you have no idea.

“See you tomorrow roomie,” Neil grinned as Minyard gave him a last scathing look and then left.

*****

“Surprise!” A voice shouted from behind Neil, and he jumped, reaching for a weapon he didn’t have on him as he whirled around. He relaxed once he recognized Matt’s grinning face and rolled his eyes.

“Are you going to shout that everytime you show up for your scheduled work time?” Neil asked as he finished refilling the to-go cups in the front of the cafe. Matt laughed and patted his shoulder.

“Dan and I have a bet to see who can get you to cuss first,” Matt explained and Neil gave him a flat look.

“That’s the stupidest bet I’ve heard you guys make, and you were betting whether or not toe-jamb was one word or last week,” Neil said, finishing the cups and untying his apron, Matt laughed. He had a good laugh, like him it was large and unignorable and much too frequent. Matt seemed to know everyone, and he loved introducing Neil to people, which made Neil’s skin crawl. But Matt was also the closest thing to a friend Neil could say he ever had.

Well, there was Kevin and Riko, but Neil didn’t think the wonder-twins counted as friends more than childhood acquaintances.

Matt had actually been Neil’s first roommate– aside from his mother (Neil tried not to wince at how that sounded), and had gotten him the job at the horribly named “Biscottea.”

“And what did we learn from that?” Dan asked, suddenly appearing from the back room and making Matt beam. Neil sighed and recited Dan’s ‘lessons’ with a more than excited Matt.

“‘Don’t argue with Dan, and hyphens count as one word.’”

“Mmm, just like Boyd-Wilds,” Matt said, walking over to plant a kiss on Dan who smiled up at him.

“I do like the sound of that word,” Dan agreed, “Hey babe,” she added. Which made Matt’s smile widen– impossibly– as he wrapped his arms around Dan, she hugged him back and they rocked for a moment.

“Come here often?” Matt asked cheekily, and she rolled her eyes with faux annoyance. Neil tried his best to fade into the shadows, suddenly feeling like an intruder, and attempted to open the drawer where his time card was silently. It didn’t work– there was nothing less silent than that stupid drawer– and both Dan and Matt were focused back on him.

“You going to meet your new roomie?” Matt asked, and Neil nodded.

“Technically I already met him,” Neil muttered, but they both ignored him.

“Apparently he’s a grouch,” Dan said, crossing her arms over her chest as Neil handed his apron over to Matt, who furrowed his brow as he tied it on.

“What’s that mean?”

“He said like, four words the whole time, and called me a prude,” Neil explained, checking the clock to fill out the time on the card. Matt laughed.

“Is he wrong though?” he asked, and Dan chuckled when Neil glared over at both of them.

“Whatever, I’m going home,” he grumbled, before closing the drawer extra slowly so that it made a horrible screeching noise that caused most of the customers in the cafe to glare at him. Matt and Dan dramatically covered their ears and screamed.

“Noo! Not the drawer!” Matt cried, and Neil rolled his eyes and turned to leave.

“Bye Spinster!” Dan called after him as he slammed the door behind him. He shook his head out and didn’t bother wiping the smile off his face. He glanced at his watch, 11:03 that meant he still had time to look over the new envelope before Minyard showed up. He sighed as he realized that wasn’t something he was going to be able to do in his own apartment with the new roommate.

He jogged back to the apartment, and took a quick shower to wash off the smell of the cafe and his jog before plopping down on the couch with the plain manila envelope. He turned on the TV, which was tuned to some sports channel reviewing an exy game from last night.

Neil would never admit that he’d picked the station because it played mostly exy reviews. He’d told himself he wouldn’t even dip his toes in the risk of temptation by actually watching an exy game, but the review weren’t games. And, it wasn’t his fault they were on when he got home.

Pure, unadulterated coincidence.

Just like how the envelope was discarded so Neil could curl his knees up to his chest and get sucked into a slow motion replay of a play made by the captain of the Trojan’s team– Jeremy Knox.

Not that Neil knew that. That was a lie, the only thing Neil didn’t know about nearly every Class I exy team was the players numbers, because he needed some kind of deniability for his shabby example of self restraint.

At least he didn’t have the stalker binder of Kevin and Riko anymore, now it was disguised as a cookbook in the kitchen. Though he had kept tabs on them both, enough to know that Kevin had suffered a nasty injury that made it impossible for him to play exy anymore. Neil was pretty sure he’d decided to become a history major and coach the local exy teams. He and Dan actually coached one of the community ones together, and Neil had heard plenty about the arrogant son of exy and his “perfectionist” and “douchwad” tendencies from Dan.

Soon enough there was a pounding on the door that jerked Neil out of his exy hole. He glanced wistfully at the screen and switched it to a regular news station before getting up. He stuffed the envelope behind the fridge on his way to the door and checked the peep hole. Spotting the top of Minyard’s blond head he opened the door.

Minyard was dressed drastically different from yesterday. Neil raised a brow at the choice of light-washed jeans and a bright orange Palmetto State hoodie.

“Are you having an identity crisis?” he asked, frowning at the way Minyard glared at him with more emotion than he’d all of yesterday.

“Not Andrew,” he growled, and Neil nodded in realization.

“Oooh, you’re Aaron,” he said, and Aaron furrowed his brow.

“He mentioned me?” he asked, sounding surprised and Neil laughed.

“No,” he said, which made Aaron look more confused. “Did he pay you to move him in? Cause that would be hilarious.” that made Aaron bristle, but before he could say anything the sound of german drifted up from the stairs. Neil cocked his head as he listened to what sounded like a phone conversation.

“...no, I’m not telling you that. Does it sound like I care about your whiny needs?” The voice deadpanned. There was a pause and then the other Minyard appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked as bored as he had yesterday and was wearing all black again. This time though he had an Arctic Monkeys AM shirt and ripped jeans. Neil tried not to roll his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if–” he sucked in a long, frustrated sounding breath as he was cut off. “No, you will not waste away without details,” he said, pausing for a moment to listen and then sighed. “Then die.” and he hung up. Neil stifled a laugh as Aaron and Andrew shared a look.

“How’s Nicky?” Aaron asked smugly in german, and Andrew rolled his eyes, tossing the phone at him as it rang.

“This is Aaron,” Andrew introduced curtly, and Neil smirked.

“He knows,” Aaron muttered in german, hanging up the phone without picking up he call, and Andrew gave Neil an odd look.

“Knows what, you know I hate vague statements.” he said, not taking his eyes off Neil.

“He knew who I was, I thought you told him but he said you didn’t,” Aaron explained, and Andrew’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Neil tried to smile innocently, but he had a feeling it didn’t work.

“Google is a thing Aaron, stop being paranoid. Go get something from the car,” Andrew snapped a little too sharply to be truly convincing. Aaron seemed to realize this, because he cast a wary look between Andrew and Neil and then reluctantly left for the stairs.

“He’s off so soon?” Neil asked, and Andrew stared him down for a while longer.

“There’s stuff in the car,” he said finally, and Neil nodded.

“Cool, need help? How much do you have?” he asked, Andrew took another lengthy sigh before answering.

“There’s two cars,” Andrew said, before turning and leaving for the stairs again, Neil assumed that meant yes and followed him down. They passed Aaron on the way down, and Neil tensed at the thought of him being in the apartment without Neil there to supervise. Andrew noticed, and raised a brow.

“Worried he’ll steal your dead plant?” he asked dryly, Neil smiled mockingly.

“It’s name is Marshall,” Neil said, Dan had insisted on his naming it, but it had only proven to make him feel worse about telling her he’d killed it. He tried not to pause to much on the fact that he was more guilty over the death of Marshall then the twenty plus people he’d killed.

“Was,” Andrew corrected, before resuming the walk to the cars. Neil clenched his jaw and glared after him, before muttering a couple curses under his breath before following him.

Neil immediately spotted the cars. He didn’t claim to know a single thing about cars, except that the one that Andrew unlocked looked insanely expensive. Next to it there was a large, old looking blue truck stacked full of furniture. Neil almost choked, it seemed to reek permanence.

Not your stuff. Not your stuff. Not your stuff.

He tried to console himself as a girl jumped down out of the truck. She was wearing a flowy looking skirt that had a map of the world on it and a plain green shirt on. Her dirty-blonde hair was tied up in a high ponytail and she seemed to bounce over to Neil, grinning widely as she stuck out her hand.

“Hi I’m Katelyn,” she said, sounding as bubbly as she looked. Neil smiled weakly and shook her hand.

“Neil,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, by the way I love your hair, is that a natural color or do you dye it?” she asked, blue eyes bright and sincere.

“Natural,” Neil said on reflex, it was a little odd to realize he was telling the truth. Katelyn’s eyes widened and she reached out like she was going to touch it. Neil flinched slightly and she pulled back.

“Sorry, sorry, that’s my bad, I should have asked,” she said, casting a wary glance back to Andrew, who didn’t appear to have noticed the interaction and was busy pulling something out of the fancy car. Neil furrowed his brow, but before he could think too much about it Aaron suddenly appeared.

“Kate, can you give me a hand?” he asked, subtly dragging his girlfriend away from Neil. He was glad, her cheerfulness was exhausting.

“No problem,” she said, and they both started undoing the ties keeping all the furniture in place. Neil got another near overwhelming sense of panic, and he dragged a hand through his hair to try and calm himself down.

“Here,” Andrew said, suddenly shoving a box into Neil’s arms. Neil glared at him.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically, before looking at the box and realizing it was an animal carrier. He frowned and peeked inside to see a fluffy looking black and white cat glaring at him.

“Hope you’re not allergic to cats,” Andrew said with a small smirk,

“What the fuck is this?” Neil hissed, which made Andrew’s smirk grow.

“Therapy animal, her name’s King, you should introduce her to the apartment.” Andrew said, before running off to go ‘help’ Aaron unload the truck by standing over his shoulder and snapping at him to be more careful with the furniture. Neil glared between the cat and Andrew before growling and turning away.

“I’m throwing it down the stairs!” he called over his shoulder.

“I dare you,” Andrew replied, and Neil glared again.

“Fuck you.”

*******

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magiciaa · 5 years

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Fallen Subcon chapter 2: The One with the Exposition

((Fallen Moonjumper is a useless idiot and I love him))

Hat Kid awoke with a start in the middle of Subcon Village with no memory of falling asleep there, the last thing she remembered was the flash of light coming from the manor.

“Yeesh, you look rough” Faye’s voice interrupted Hat’s train of thought.

“HOLY PECK” Hat looked down and saw herself in a puddle of melted snow, where she saw that she looked more like Snatcher then herself. Everything except her eyes and mouth were a different shade of purple, her hair was down and flipped outward at the ends, her hat was smaller and floating above her head, and her face looked almost exactly like Snatcher’s, except that she had larger eyes and lighter yellow rings for pupils

“The boss would get a kick out of your new look, why don’t you go show him while I go find your other friends” Faye said “I fainted as well, and I don’t know if other people woke up in different places”

Hat ran to Snatcher’s tree as fast as she could without her sprint hat. When she finally reached Snatcher’s tree, there was someone that looked like the prince from the storybook Hat found in Subcon’s time rift, but with purple hair, pointy ears, glasses, and claws that matched Hat’s sleeping in Snatcher’s chair.

“Snatcher?” Hat cautiously walked up to the sleeping prince “is that you?”

“Huh?” Snatcher mumbled sleepily “why would I not be me?”

“Because you look like someone from a fairytale instead of a shadow noodle” Hat answered

“WHAT?” Snatcher jolted upwards and stared downward with a terrified look on his face. “Kid, tell me this is a nightmare, it has to be, my minions can’t see me like this”

“Nope, not a nightmare, unless dreams have multiplayer now” Hat replied

“Never thought I’d need to ask for his help, but it seems like I’ve got no choice” Snatcher mumbled to himself, putting his cloak hood up and walking to where the trees became the densest, where Hat Kid had never been allowed to go “Moonjumper, where are you?”

“Moon, Moon, Where are you?” Coat Kid yelled, she had woken up as a black and white shadow with large white horns and an inverted colored eye in the center of the zipper on her coat, the only thing that had any color was the red star in her left eye. Coat walked along the edge of dense forest, when she made eye contact with Snatcher.

“Hey, kid, have you seen that stupid corpse anywhere?” Snatcher asked “I kind of need his help with something”

“You mean Moon? I’m looking for him too, maybe we can look together?” Coat replied “I’m Coat Kid, by the way, who’re you?”

“Snatcher,” Snatcher replied

“Moon says I’m not supposed to talk to you” Coat said “but he also said that you’re a giant, evil shadow, so I guess he’s wrong about a lot of stuff”

“Snatcher! There you are” Hat stopped to catch her breath “for someone who hasn’t had legs in who knows how long, you’re fast”

“Hello, are you looking for Moon as well?” Coat asked “I’m Coat Kid, Moon’s assistant”

“I’m Hat Kid” Hat replied “I’m looking for my friends Bow Kid and Timmy”

“Now that the introductions are done, I’d bet that idiot corpse went to the manor” Snatcher announced

The trio walked to the broken bridge, where Coat and Hat jumped effortlessly over, but Snatcher was hesitant. Getting annoyed, Hat jumped back to the other side, picked Snatcher up like a sack of potatoes, and jumped over to the snowy area, where they were met with Berry guarding the cave alone.

“Have you seen anyone enter the cave?” Snatcher asked “We’re looking for Moonjumper”

“Nope, but there was a lot of screaming, followed by a big thud” Berry answered

“That’s Moonjumper alright” Snatcher replied, walking past Berry into the cave and climbing the ice walls in the path while Hat and Coat jumped across the platforms.

When the trio got to the main part of the cave, they were immediately met by the sound of screaming as someone who looked like Snatcher but with pale blue hair, asymmetrical horns, mismatched eyes with strange patterns in them, and red lines on his face kicked open the door to the manor and sprinted away with a blonde girl dressed in green chasing him, yelling angrily.

“Hey Alex” A red-haired girl in a brown cloak and blue cat mask with vine details on it appeared out of nowhere next to Snatcher

“Flora! Don’t do that. You scared me half to death.” Snatcher exclaimed “And how many times have I told you to not call me Alex”

“It’s certainly been a while since I saw you like that” Flora replied “Are you trying out a new look?”

“Ha ha ha. Very funny” Snatcher deadpanned “I didn’t want to look like this”

“Snatcher! Polaris! Flora! Help me!” Moonjumper interrupted, now being chased by a very angry Vanessa and two headless statues

“Who are you?” Hat and Coat asked Flora at the same time

“I’m Flora, an old friend of Alex’s… well, both of him” Flora explained “I see that you two have been affected by that shockwave too”

“Both of him? Is that why they both look like the prince from the storybook I found in the time rift?” Hat asked “and your real name is Alex?”

“Long story short, he’s kind of my corpse, yes I was that prince, yes, my name is Alex, and I hate it when people call me that now, it just brings back bad memories” Snatcher explained

“CAN YOU STOP CHATTING AND HELP ME?!” Moonjumper yelled, still running from Vanessa

“I got it” Flora said, her eyes glowing bright green. A vine grew from the snow and tripped up Vanessa, buying enough time for Flora to teleport everyone out of the ice cave.

“Holy peck, Vanessa’s alive” Snatcher and Moonjumper said in unison, flopping down in the snow

#my writing #A Hat In Time #ahit fallen subcon au #ahit au #ahit fanfic

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hyperbolicpurple · 4 years

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Jane Espenson on humor: types of jokes, part 1

Compilation of joke-telling advice from Jane Espenson’s blog. Yes, I’m just copying and pasting. These are all about screenwriting in particular, btw. I found them interesting, so maybe you will, too.

---

Hang on, everyone. I’m about to take an unpopular position. I’m going to advocate analyzing comedy. This is, in general, thought to be a very bad idea. Even dangerous. Once you start trying to figure out why something is funny, the reasoning goes, you lose the sense of whether it is or not. The enterprise is, at best, fruitless, and at worst, a path to the numbing loss of comedy sensation.

Well, it’s true that once you start taking apart a joke to learn how it works, you do lose track of your natural unselfconscious sense of what’s funny. The sensation of it is unmistakable. And, to me, very familiar. Before I was a comedy writer I was a student of Linguistics. We had to talk about language all the time, asking ourselves questions about which utterances were a part of our own natural idiolect and which ones weren’t. Even a few minutes of this kind of thinking tended to lead to blunted judgments about what one could or could not say. I have heard this referred to as “Scanting Out,” the name coming from the result of trying to figure out when one would naturally use the word “scant.” Would you naturally produce the utterance: “His entrance was greeted with scant applause”? “I had scant time to prepare”? How about “there was scant butter in the storehouse”? Or “She gathered her scant dress around her”? Or “He was a man of scant talent”? Or “Any loss of water will reduce the supply to scant”? Hmm-- lose your sense of it yet?

And still, we do not stop analyzing language. It’s valuable and worth the effort. I think joke analysis can also be worth more than a scant effort. (See-- the instinct is back again. It bounces back!)

I would love, someday, to create a Field Guide to Jokes. A real inventory of types of funny with lists of examples. Much of the skill that makes a good joke writer is clearly subconscious, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be sharpened. And for those of you who are new to joke writing, I think this kind of guide might help you a lot, giving you a mental check-list of possible funny approaches to a moment.

So let’s start.

One of the entries in the Field Guide would have to do with taking cliches and altering them, usually by simply reversing the intent. For example, when Buffy was battling an especially ugly monster she once said: “A face even a mother could hate.” And I vividly remember Joss pitching that in another script someone should say, “And the fun never starts.” In another, I riffed off the old Wonder Bread slogan “Builds strong bodies eight ways” to describe a weapon that “Kills strong bodies three ways.” This one was less successful since no one but me remembered the old Wonder Bread slogan. They can’t all be winners. The headline of this entry, a punnish play off a title, is one that I simply cannot believe we never used.

It’s a fun type of joke. Breezy, a little dry, kind of smart. You might want to play around with it. If you’ve got a character who needs a wry observation on what’s going on around them, this might be the joke type for you.

---

I recently received such an interesting letter from Gentle Reader Maggie in Brooklyn. She writes to point out another variety for our menagerie of joke-types — a favorite of her and her boyfriend. She says:

We were wondering if there’s a specific writers’ room term for a type of joke that we love. It happens when you cut to a scene and someone is in the middle of wrapping up a story, and the only line you hear gives you very clear, very funny picture of what the rest of the story was about.

She goes on to give some examples. One of them was from that Charles Barkley Super Bowl ad in which we hear him say, out of a cut, “…and that’s why I never eat shrimp.” Another is from “Pirates of the Caribbean” in which we hear Johnny Depp wrapping up a story with “…and then they made me their king.”

Maggie is right that this is certainly a distinct type of joke. I love this joke. I remember particularly taking note of the “shrimp” line when I heard it. I don’t think this kind of joke has been given a particular name, although every room invents some of their own terminology — if a particular show used this kind of bit as a running gag, I’m certain they’d come up with a name for it. Maybe it’s a Fragment Joke, since it’s based on only hearing a fragment of the whole. Note that it’s certainly the same joke if you only hear the start or the middle of a story. If you open a door just long enough to hear, “Now if I was to show you the OTHER buttock…” for example. That’s the same joke.

These jokes are so effective because they make the audience do the work of inferring what they missed. They’re certainly related to jokes like those in the old Bob Newhart routines in which we’d hear one side of a phone call or even an in-person conversation and have to infer what was being said or done. From his Driving Instructor Routine: All right, let’s get up a bit more speed and gradually ease it into second… well, I didn’t want to cover reverse this early….

Any time you can get the audience to do some of the work, you’re getting them invested, and that’s a great thing.

---

The day that Harvey Korman died, I heard a little excerpt played on the radio of a comedy bit that I’d never heard before, taken from a sketch he performed with Danny Kaye. I’ve located the whole sketch here, but you don’t need to watch the whole thing since other than one funny joke — the one I heard excerpted for the radio — it’s pretty dire. But the joke worked for me. Here it is:

HARVEY Class, for a baby’s bath, what’s the most important thing you absolutely need?

DANNY A dirty baby?

Now, listening to this being performed, it’s clear early on what the joke is. It’s one of those “Stating the Obvious” jokes that I’ve talked about before. Once you hit “the most important thing,” you know that’s the joke. You probably already know that the answer is some version of “the baby.” And yet the joke made me chuckle. Because of the adjective.

It’s not just that adjectives make things funnier, although they often do. Moist, bendy, pointy, itchy — they are all great words that spice up any sentence. But in this case, “dirty” is doing something beyond that. Can you bathe a clean baby? Well, if you take bathing to include the idea of removing dirt, then, no, you can’t. So the answer makes literal sense, but it also raises the idea of NEEDING a dirty baby — needing something that is normally undesirable. For me, it even raises the image of someone purposefully dirtying a baby so that they can bathe it. Funny!

The joke isn’t in the words, of course, but in the concept. These are all the same joke (even though they don’t all work exactly the same way — since you can’t purposefully make a chicken raw, for example, it doesn’t quite resonate the way the baby one does):

What do you need to cook a chicken? Raw chicken. To fix an engine? A broken engine. To censor a movie? A dirty movie. To cure the common cold? Well, first you need a cold…

If you wanted to use these, you’d massage the language a bit, but those are the hearts of the lines, right there.

---

Friend of the Blog Alex Epstein sends along an interesting contemplation on a certain type of joke. I’m going to let you see his explanation and then present mine, which differs on a certain point. Here is how he explains it:

Sometimes, I see good writers make fun of bad, obvious dialog and cliche. Saw a bit on Steven Moffat’s JEKYLL, ep. 3. A bunch of suits and techies watching the usual assortment of screens tracking Dr. Jackman:

Shot of a dot moving along a drawing of a railroad track.

Technie: He’s moving. American agent: Of course he’s moving! He’s on a train!

We don’t really need “He’s moving” to tell us that he’s moving, unless we’re washing the dishes and listening to the TV out of one ear, or we are very, very stupid. The American agent makes that point for us.

But wait, there’s the retort:

Technie: He’s moving. American agent: Of course he’s moving! He’s on a train. English agent: You obviously haven’t got the hang of England yet, have you?

Joss does this a lot, I think, subverting our TV viewer expectations:

Buffy: Puppets give me the wiggins. Ever since I was 8. Willow: What happened? Buffy: I saw a puppet. It gave me the wiggins. There really isn’t a story there.

I bet that sort of retort comes up a lot in story rooms; I wonder how often it makes it to the screen. (Network exec: “But how does the audience know he’s moving?”)

Oh, this is very interesting. I agree that this is totally about subverting the expectations of the listener. It never would have occurred to me, though, that this had to do with a response to exec-driven overwriting. I would have taken this (at least the first joke) more as a response to the real-life human tendency to state the obvious. And the second one I take as a response to the expected structure of normal conversation (i.e. “ever since” is supposed to lead to a anecdote.) So for me, both of these are about someone reacting to a statement that was deficient in some way, but deficient because of the foible of a character.

However, I’m open to Alex’s interpretation, now that I hear it. Certainly, the first joke illustrates an excellent way to turn a “make it clearer” note into a benefit — have someone hang a lantern on the over-clarity and then, if possible, slap a topper onto it! (So much writers’ slang! Yay!)

By the way, the Buffy example reminds me of another classic Joss joke, in which someone tries to deflect a question by saying “it’s a long story,” only to have another character quickly sum up the situation, leading the first character to lamely say, “Guess it’s not that long.” The standard conventional rule is that “it’s a long story” ends any discussion. To go past it and deflate it is funny.

It’s making me curious about other jokes that do this. Oh! How about the Princess Leia/Han Solo moment: “I love you.” “I know.” That’s certainly a violation of how we know that exchange is supposed to go. If you’re writing a comedy or a drama with wit, it’s worth doing a bit of thinking about this kind of joke since there’s something so ingrained about conversational assumptions that these jokes always pack a nice punch.

#on writing #writing #jane espenson #humor

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terriblelifechoices · 7 years

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omg YES credence/percival "14. “You’re supposed to talk me out of this.”" for the fic meme?

Okay, so, I thought, since you are a fellow Tortall fan, that it might be fun to do a Tortall AU for FBAWTFT. (If this doesn’t work for you, feel free to prompt something else?)

For those of you not familiar with the Tortall-verse, the things you need to know are that it’s vaguely medieval fantasy, in which noble (male) children are sent to the Palace at the age of ten for training to become knights of the realm. They spend four years as a page, learning etiquette and mathematics and how to fight with a number of weapons, and then they spend four years squiring for a specific knight, who is supposed to give them real life hand’s on experience and not get them killed.

Some people have Gifts, which is a more regimented style of magic not entirely dissimilar to the HP-verse, minus the wands, and some people have Wild Magic, which tends to manifest as whatever the hell it wants.

I totally recommend checking out the source material. The early books are a little problematic, because they were written in the 1980′s, but the later ones are freaking amazing. The first series starts with Alanna, the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce.

Tortall AU

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” said Credence, still feeling a little numb with horror. He’d challenged a Scanran warlord to a duel. Him! Credence Barebone!

“I think this might be the dumbest thing you’re ever going to do in your entire life,” Alex told him, checking Credence’s armor. Alex Collins was closer to his knighthood than Credence was, but he’d always been a mother hen.

“True,” Credence agreed. “Because Warlord Grindelwald is going to kill me.”

“Grindelwald isn’t going to kill you,” Percival said firmly. “You’re my squire, remember? I trained you better than that. It’s going to take more than some warmongering Scanran upstart to kill you.”

“Oh, gods,” said Credence, looking at his knight master with flat despair. “You should have bedded me when I asked you to. I’m going to die a virgin.”

Percival went red and spluttered, stomping away from Credence and Alex and muttering about how Credence was going to be the death of him.

Some days, it was really hard to believe that Percival was the Queen’s Champion – the best knight in all of Tortall.

“Still no luck?” Alex asked.

“No,” Credence said. “He’s got too much bloody honor to bed me while I’m his squire. It’d be an abuse of power. How about you?” Alex was sweet on one of Queen Seraphina’s handmaidens. Credence was only a little bit jealous that Alex’s courtship of Dorothy seemed to be going better than his own.

“I’m going to ask her to marry me, once I have my shield,” Alex told him.

Fine. Credence was more than a little jealous, now.

Dorothy appeared in the doorway, as if mentioning her was enough to summon her. “Credence Barebone!” she said furiously. “What did you do?”

Credence hunched his shoulders. He had almost a foot in height on Dorothy, not to mention quite a lot of muscle mass and training. She shouldn’t have been able to put the fear of the Goddess in him, but she really, really did.

“He challenged Warlord Grindelwald to a duel,” Percival said, when it became clear that neither Credence nor Alex was going to fess up and risk the wrath of Dorothy.

“You what?” demanded Dorothy. She smacked him with her project bag. Since Dorothy’s project bag usually contained at least two knitting projects, her sewing kit, and a half-completed bit of embroidery, getting smacked with it was like getting hit with a very squishy mace, or possibly a porcupine. A bit soft, a little heavy and full of unexpected pointy bits.

“You didn’t hear the things he said,” Credence protested. “He was being awful to the Queen.”

“You idiot,” Dorothy said, reaching up to grab one of Credence’s ears and twist hard, dragging him down to her eye level. “You think the Queen hasn’t heard anything Warlord Grindelwald might have to say before? She’s an unmarried monarch and a woman, you idiot. She hears that sort of bile all the time, and you don’t see her picking fights now do you?”

“Ow,” said Credence. “Ow, ow, ow. Let go, Dorothy!” He gently pried her fingers off his ear. “I know that. I’ve sat in on too many meetings with Percival not to know that even our own nobles sometimes look at Queen Seraphina like she’s a piece of meat. But Warlord Grindelwald was worse about it. The things he said, about the Queen, about Percival – he went beyond acceptable rudeness. Queen Seraphina can’t call him out for it, because he came here to propose marriage to her and that would cause a diplomatic incident. Percival can’t either, for the same reason. But me? I’m nobody. Just a squire. I can call Warlord Grindelwald out, and no one will care because everyone will think I’m just a dumb kid.”

“Oh,” Dorothy said, her expression softening. “What did he say?”

Credence set his jaw stubbornly. “I’m not repeating it. It was vulgar and rude.” Just thinking about it made him tremble faintly with rage. He wasn’t sure what he objected to more – Warlord Grindelwald’s casual assumption that Queen Seraphina was somehow beneath him, when she had royal blood and he had none, or the fact that Warlord Grindelwald assumed that Queen Seraphina and Percival were lovers.

They had been, once, when she was a princess and he was her father’s squire. Everyone knew that. But that was over a decade ago, and they were friends now.

“I don’t care if you keep bedding him, so long as you give me an heir,” Warlord Grindelwald had said. “Frankly, I’d like a go at him myself. He’s a comely looking creature, your Champion.”

That had been when Credence slapped him with his gloves.

“I hope you don’t expect me to fight your squire, Champion,” Warlord Grindelwald had said.

“It’s the honorable thing to do,” Percival had pointed out mildly. “Credence is the one who challenged you, not me.”

Warlord Grindelwald had stared at him. “I’m fairly certain you’re meant to be talking me out of this,” he’d said eventually. “Or do you value the boy’s life so cheaply?”

Percival had smiled at him, all teeth. “On the contrary, I value Credence’s life very dearly indeed. I also have faith in his training.”

“Fine,” said the warlord. “On your head be it, then.”

“If you get killed,” Dorothy said, “I will be very upset with you.”

“Not half as upset as I will be,” said Percival, stepping up to tie one of his handkerchiefs around Credence’s elbow. “If Seraphina gave you a favor, things would get political again,” he said. “You should have something, though,” he added, as though Percival’s favor was some sort of consolation prize.

“I’d rather have yours than hers,” Credence told him.

“Don’t get killed,” Percival told him.

“Is that your advice?” Credence inquired. “Don’t get killed?”

“It’s good advice,” Percival said. “Also, he’s partially blind in his right eye. Use that to your advantage, if you can.”

Credence nodded and stepped into the training yard. They had an audience. Other Scanrans from Warlord Grindelwald’s retinue. The wild mage Newt, who cared for the palace menagerie and spoke to animals as if they were people. Percival’s friend Dame Win, and the newly minted Dame Tina, who had been Dame Win’s squire not long ago. Dame Tina’s sister Queenie, from the kitchens, and her husband Jacob.

“Last chance to back out, boy,” the warlord taunted him.

“I’m no coward,” Credence retorted. “But feel free to back out, if you’d like.”

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Warlord Grindelwald mused.

“May I remind you, Grindelwald, that your duel will go until one of you yields,” Queen Seraphina interjected coldly.

“Of course,” Grindelwald said, feigning gentility. Lower, so only Credence could hear him, he said, “Death is a form of yielding, after all.”

“Begin!” Queen Seraphina commanded.

Grindelwald attacked first. He was older and more muscular than Credence was, fighting with a heavy broadsword it would be suicide to try and block. The Scanrans favored heavy weaponry, like spears and broadswords and maces. Their fighting style was completely different from the Tortallan one, but Credence had spent the last year on the border fighting bandits with Percival. He knew how to deal with Scanrans.

“Broadswords are great in a melee,” Percival had told him. “Especially if you don’t care about inflicting collateral damage. But they’re shit in close quarters combat. Their length and the fact that they’re unwieldy make them impractical weapons for a knight.”

“The bandits like them well enough,” Credence had pointed out. A broadsword seemed like a decent weapon for a mounted knight.

“Of course they do, they’re idiots. They think the size of the sword is what matters, not to mention the muscles it takes to swing the bloody things. You have to out think the bastards. Get in close, where their range limits their maneuverability. Finish your opponent off quick, and get out of range if you have to.”

Credence sidestepped Grindelwald’s initial strike, moving in close. He meant to draw first blood, just to humiliate Grindelwald, but he hadn’t counted on Grindelwald being so fast. He dodged another blow, ducking beneath it the way the Shang Hippogriff had taught him to. He wasn’t as good at tumbling as Theseus was, not in armor, and Grindelwald landed a blow that was going to bruise like hell on his shoulder.

Credence gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let Grindelwald defeat him. Grindelwald was fast, but he was pretty sure that he was faster. He had the advantage of youth and flexibility on his side.

He ducked in close again, using his sword to parry the broadsword away and managing to knick Grindelwald with his knife. Grindelwald hissed at him.

Credence laughed and did it again, alight with glee. Grindelwald had made himself a warlord by conquering anyone in his path, but he was no match for a proper Tortallan knight.

If he hadn’t been so out of his head on adrenaline, Credence never would have thought that. The gods punished hubris.

No one had mentioned that Grindelwald was Gifted. He gestured at Credence, his hands glowing white, and Credence fell over screaming, every nerve in his body screaming with him like he’d been struck by lightning.

“Using your Gift during a fight is dishonorable,” Percival shouted angrily.

“Bah,” spat Grindelwald. “You Tortallans are so hung up on your honor. It makes you easy to kill.”

“You’ve got magic,” Credence said, rolling over onto his hands and knees. “That’s nice. I’ve got magic, too.” Credence had wild magic, like Newt, although his didn’t manifest with animals or anything found in nature. He was pretty much a one trick pony, although it was a damned impressive trick, if Credence said so himself.

He let the magic take him, his eyes leeching white while his body became insubstantial, like smoke. He curled his fingers into claws and leapt towards Grindelwald, laughing when Grindelwald’s sword passed right through him. Grindelwald couldn’t hurt him when he was like this, but Credence could hurt Grindelwald. He batted the Scanran’s sword out of his hands and pounced on him, slamming him to the ground and curling his clawed hands around Grindelwald’s throat.

“Yield,” he hissed, claws drawing blood. “Yield, damn you.”

There was nothing but hate on Grindelwald’s face. “I yield,” he snarled.

He would be trouble. Credence could see it in his eyes. For a second, he was tempted to drag his claws against Grindelwald’s throat anyway and spare them all future sorrow, and then Percival’s hand closed around the bit of smoke currently functioning as Credence’s shoulder.

“That’s enough, lad. You’ve won. Let him up,” Percival said quietly.

Percival could touch him, when Credence was his shadow-self. Credence didn’t know why he could, but Percival had always been able to. Credence let himself go human again, his nerves still twinging in pain from whatever Grindelwald had done.

Transforming always made Credence feel wobbly and weak. Jacob was already moving towards him, pulling a pastry out of his apron pocket. “Good fight,” he told Credence.

“Yes,” Percival said. “You did well.” He cupped Credence’s cheek in one hand, and for a second Credence thought that Percival might kiss him. Then Percival ruined the moment by ruffling his hair. “It won’t be long before we’re calling you Sir Credence,” he murmured.

Credence grinned, because Percival could hardly complain about a power imbalance between them if Credence had his shield. “I can’t wait,” he said.

One corner of Percival’s mouth quirked up, a there and gone wry smile that happened so fast Credence almost thought he’d imagined it. “Me neither.”

The way Credence fights as the obscurus is inspired by Emily from Dishonored 2, with many thanks to @halcyoncoast for showing me the trailer and inspiring many new Credence headcanons.

#my fic #Graves/Credence #fbawtft #prompt meme #Tortall AU #not-wisely

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