#when did we devolve to having to talk about everything. sometimes there's no big conversation sometimes it's just a . fuck you !

[heartunderthefloorboards]

i have a headache and cant sleep so im like overthinking some moments from college and like. i am so torn on if i am genuinely not a great person or if other people are just crazy

#del.txt #like okay. conflicts happen and they are inevitable #and being passive aggressive or whatever. that's not a crime #idk i think there's a lot of people who r like. oh i could never oh i would never #ok! i fucking WILL! #i act on my thoughts LMFAO i don't wanna apologize for it even if it seems crazy #if i hurt somebody they fucking deserved it sorry #if any irls see this ignore me im over it just reflecting #genuinely is there something wrong in my brain #blah blah somebody hurt somebody i love is it so out of left field to call them out on it #when did we devolve to having to talk about everything. sometimes there's no big conversation sometimes it's just a . fuck you ! #and then you move on! #is that so wrong. #i am kind i try SO HARD to be kind #but i don't want to be bad just because i am angry

[stardust-wanderlust]

Hey Hey!

So I saw a conversation that was inflicted on poor @akookminsupporter, and while that conversation devolved quickly into finger pointing non-sense, it did bring up a topic that I have actually thought about in some detail --- the various types of relationships that each member has with each other.  And rather than get involved in the existing conversation, as I had no desire to bring to light more of that non-sense I talked about, I thought I would just give my opinions all by my lonesome.

This post will be about Jimin and his relationships with each member, I may post the other members at a later timer.

Now before we get started, let me preface this with a couple things.  I am a “baby Army” and only came to this delightful group of crack heads this past summer.  But I am also an adult (certified-with a mortgage and everything) and I try to be objective and logical in my observations of the world.  This means, that though I am a KookMin/JiKook supporter I am also OT7, because those aren’t mutually exclusive. It also means who rode in what car has no bearings on my interpretation of any relationship.

Before we get started under the cut, please note these are my opinions based on my observations.  Clearly I don’t know them.

Jin (JinMin?) - The relationship between Jin and Jimin is lovely, these two seem to have a close brotherly bond.  They appear to have a similar sense of humor (Jimin is often the only one that laughs at Jin’s jokes) but also a enjoy a light teasing.  They seem very brotherly, in the traditional sense.  They care for each other deeply (this will be a recurring theme because BTS love each other).

Yoongi (YoonMin) - Yoongi and Jimin also have a very brotherly vibe, their banter and bickering scream sibling to me.  I think they are very much in the “I can talk shit about him because I love him, but anybody else tries and we are throwing hands” camp.  That being said, they seem to understand (Yoongi in particular) that sometimes the other needs to hear they are loved and respected.  I also think that Jimin provides some comforting support, I think he knows that Yoongi often needs to have quiet companionship.  This is different from the more playful big brother that Jin is.

Namjoon (MiniMoni) - Namjoon and Jimin seem to have a very equal and balanced relationship. They show great respect and admiration for each other and appear to have a very comfortable relationship.  I think they provide each other with intellectual stimulation and a sounding board for their problems, but also their joys and questions about the universe.  They are very chill, but very close.

Hobi (JiHope) - I love Hobi and Jimin’s relationship!  I think they are underrated as a pair.  They have very similar personalities and seem to agree on most things.  They enjoy giving joy to others.  They are precious.  They also have real admiration and respect for each other.  I saw someone comment once that when “Dance Teacher” JHope comes out he goes easy on Jimin, I don’t think it is so much as going easy on him as him recognizing that whatever mistake he saw Jimin saw as well and was likely already working to correct it.  This shows a real trust in Jimin and his process and an understanding that it may differ from Hobi’s.

Taehyung (VMin) - Fun fact, a VMin fanfic is what introduced me to BTS!  VMin are soulmates, they have stated as much.  They have an intrinsic understanding of each other, they relate to each other on very deep level.  I think much of the confusion here is pop culture’s insistence that soulmates = romance.  I think this is wrong, while a romantic soulmate is very special, I think they are very rare.  But it is far more common to find a platonic soulmate.  A person that just gets you.  This is VMin.  I prefer to think of them as Kindred Spirits.  Kindred Spirits are soulmates, but the connotation is different.  You can have more than one Kindred Spirit for example.  A Kindred Spirit is somebody who connects with you on a higher level, a level that allows your spirits to soar together.

And now ...

JungKook (KookMin) - I absolutely believe that JungKook and Jimin are closest with each other.  And I believe this because I believe their foundational friendship, which was already very strong with many shared interests and passions, deepened into a romantic relationship. Though I am open to being wrong, and just want them happy whether it is with each other or someone else.  Jimin thinks of JungKook first, in almost all things.  And I think JungKook does the same.  They are constantly impressed by the other, and always supportive.  They encourage both artistic expression and individual passions in each other.  I love them.

I have said before that I think one of my favorite Grey’s Anatomy quotes reflect the dynamic between JungKook, Jimin, and Taehyung. Meredith tells Derek “You are the love of my life, but Christina is my soulmate.”  In this analogy Meredith = Jimin, Derek = JungKook, and Taehyung = Christina.

But at the end of the day BTS is 7, and the seven have a deep respect and love for each other.  And I hope they continue for at least a couple more decades.

#BTS #Jimin #JiKook #JungKook #KookMin #VMin #Taehyung #Jin #JinMin #Suga #Yoonmin #Namjoon #MiniMoni #Hobi #Hoseok #JiHope #jhope

[skellebonez]

So apparently in JTTW, Baije kept trying to get the monk to say the thing that would activate the torture headband? According to a post I just saw anyway. So I'd like to prompt something where Monkie Kid era Monkey King and Pigsy are arguing, and Monkey King brings that up, because it's kind of /messed up/. Preferably with prompts 25 or 47 because those seem vaguely fluffy and I don't want it to end /sad/ plz?

There are multiple times in the book (though it happened more often early on) where Zhu Bajie took full advantage of how much Tripitaka trusted him and made Wukong’s day miserable because of it, he isn’t the middle brother for nothing! The two have a better relationship as the book goes on, but as an eldest sibling I can tell you... even if you're on good terms later, sometimes you still remember the ways they used to mess with you... also I went overboard. Very overboard. This is really long.

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me…!"/ “Tell me what you want me to do."

Things had been going so well... at least as well as could be expected given they had only really seen each other twice after 500 years of Sun Wukong vanishing.

Their first meeting, their initial reunion, wasn't so much a meeting and more "hey I'm here to help MK fight because things are actually really bad and I totally don't already know who two of you are" and then lots of saving the world without the time to talk to or call out his once elder brother before he ran off. Their second meeting was not long after, Wukong coming to check up on MK at the shop and "oh yeah uh I kinda know your boss Bud". Which. Nice job revealing his secret Wukong.

That was a very interesting conversation, explaining to MK that he was indeed The Zhu Bajie from the stories and yes Tang knew and no only Tang knew and no he did not want to talk about why this was kept secret. Then it devolved into MK insisting the two of them needed to hang out together and then questions about Sandy and then how it was so cool that his dad was friends with his mentor. The at first befuddled and then completely shocked expression on Wukong's face as he finally put two and two together made agreeing to MK's insistence so much easier.

Easier than being pogo'd to Flower Fruit Mountain and then being stuck there as MK ran off to do "hero stuff" with Mei, anyway. At first it was awkward, being shown around the mountain by a man who he had spent years of his life with and was clearly trying to not look uncomfortable at the time lost between them.

Then the monkeys attacked. Well. Less attacked, more jumped on Pigsy in sheer excitement. It only took a few seconds for Wukong to cackle and pull them off him with the care of a roughhouseing father. Some of them were just little ones barely new to the world (he didn't miss how much more careful Wukong was with them), but Pigsy recognized a few of the elder ones from the time he had come here to bring Wukong back after the... WBS and Wood Wolf... event.

He also didn't expect any of them to actually remember him or to see Wukong acting so positively parental in comparison to how he acted the last time he was here. It was strange, he knew the Monkey King could be caring and that he had changed on their journey and must have become different over their time apart, but this was a side he had never truely thought he would see from him ever before. And he couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that.

It was like a tension line was finally let slack. They didn't simply slide back into banter, but they were much more relaxed. Wukong pointed out where he had been training MK, showed him to where his house stood (Pigsy wondered if he ever tried to rebuild the palace that had burnt down long before he visited all those years ago, but did not dare to bring that up either). The house was much more modern than he had expected, even having full internet access and TV and a kitchen.

He would never tell anyone about the passionate 1 hour conversation they had about cooking when he realized Wukong picked it up as a hobby. No one will ever know their debate/rant on how to properly prepare dough for steaming and how so many people do it wrong.

At some point they ate a lunch Wukong had prepared, much better than Pigsy expected, and that's probably when it went downhill.

He'd made an offhanded joke about people who use too much seasoning. Wukong joked back, asking if his underseasoned cooking was up to Pigsy's standards. Pigsy had shoved the monkey on old reflex, not hard and not nearly enough to move him, saying if he wanted him to compliment his cooking he could have just asked like a good big brother.

That had started a friendly wrestling match, not unlike ones they had had before and that drew a crowed of monkeys excited to watch. That wrestling match turned more violent before Pigsy had realized it and somehow, some way, they started actually fighting. He yelled about how Wukong had no right to just make MK his sucessor. Wukong yelled about how he chose MK because he was the most qualified and capable person he found. Pigsy shot back that he barely knew him before training him and if he had even bothered to try knowing him he would have known he was Pigsy's kid and he was a shitty mentor. Wukong screamed at that, scaring off most of their audience with the volume, picking Pigsy up off the ground entirely with his arms pinned down.

"You take that back right now, Bajie!" Wukong hissed out in a dangerous tone, one Pigsy didn't give a single damn about heeding in his anger.

"You have until the count of three to remove your arms from my person, or so help me...!" Pigsy fought against Wukong's hold, scrambling for any kind of purchase he could get with his feet dangling off the ground.

"Or what, Bajie? What!? Are you going to find another fillet and tell MK the sutra for it this time!? Are you going to make him not trust me like you did Tripitaka!? ARE YOU!?"

The words made Pigsy stop, but it was Wukong's tone that made him try to turn back to look at him. He'd sounded angry before but now he sounded... genuinely upset. Not angry upset. Sad upset. "I wouldn't do that."

"You did before." Damn it. He really was sad upset...

"Yeah... Yeah, I did." Pigsy admitted with only slight hesitation as he looked at the ground beneath him. "I'm sorry. About how I acted back then. I made everything harder than needed. I made Master hurt you and you didn't deserve it. More often than I'd like to admit..." There was a beat of silence before he decided to take a chace with a question that would probably upset Wukong more. But he had to ask. "How... how painful was it?"

The two of them didn't move for a while, Pigsy just hanging limply until Wukong slowly leaned down and set his feet back on ground. His grip losened slighly, but he didn't let Pigsy go as he rested his forehead against the back of Pigsy's head with a sigh. "Very. Very painful. It... the way it... Bajie, I don't want to-"

"You don't have to," Pigsy interrupted, raising one of his arms now that he could move to grab and squeeze his wrist. "If 'very' is all you want to say, I get it. I'm sorry."

"You already said that."

"And I'll say it again because I mean it." Pigsy pulled away, Wukong’s grip weakened enough for him to without even the smallest fight, and turned around to face him.

He reached up, Wukong giving him an odd confused look as he placed his hands over and around his forehead. Realization dawned quickly and he tensed as Pigsy felt the almost imperceptible scars hidden under his well groomed fur. For the band to have been impactful enough to leave marks at all, let alone after all this time... some didn't feel like cuts or stretches, more like burns almost.

"I'm sorry too," Wukong said suddenly. "For being an ass. I wasn't exactly the greatest travel companion myself at times. And for... for disappearing."

"I already forgave ya for the stuff on the journey long ago," Pigsy said as he pulled his hands back and crossed his arms. "Couldn't sit right with myself if I held a grudge for what you did after the shit I pulled. But I appreciate the apology for up and vanishing. And uh, I'm sorry for calling you a shitty mentor."

"You better be!" Wukong chuckled, standing up straight with an awkward crooked smile. "But, you know, I could stand to be a better teacher. You weren't wrong when I said I don’t know enough about MK."

"I could tell you a few things," Pigsy offered. "Nothing personal, just like how we met and what his job is like. To make up for the. Everything."

"Hmn..." Wukong made a point to rub his chin in thought, clearly about to do something Pigsy wondered if they would both regret. "On one condition."

"Tell me what you want me to do," Pigsy sighed out, fully resigned for whatever the Monkey King was going to ask.

"Cook me dinner."

... that... was not what he expected at all. "That's it?"

"That's it!"

That wasn't near enough to make up for anything in Pigsy's mind... but if that’s what Wukong wanted he supposed that was a start.

#im rereading the book and rewatching osps videos #i added in enough references to a particular story i think #i know it 99.99% unlikely the fillet left any marks #let me have this for one fill #pigsy #monkey king #sun wukong #monkie kid #lego monkie kid #prompt fill

[dwaynepride]

troubled water running cold

summary: dwayne pride is so loved and admired in new orleans. so much so, reader finds it difficult to measure up.

Pride Request- reader’s insecure about whatever (from body to competence or whatever) and he’s like “bruh” and it’s this hurt/comfort cute bit

words: 1,361

warnings: feelings of insecurity

tags: @stanathanxoox @pageofultron @6adb0y @thegoodlonelydalek @consultingdoctorwholock​ @starryrevelations​ @thebeckyjolene​ @diaryofafan17​ @specialagentlokitty​

Dwayne is like a whole other man on stage.

And that’s not a bad thing, in the least. In fact, the way he can lose himself in the music - how much he can smile and laugh without a care in the world - is quite the sight to see. The day could be as rotten as they come, but you’ve seen just how much playing with the band means to Dwayne. How much it could pull him away from whatever sour mood he’s in.

He invited you up on stage. You declined. That wasn’t a place you were quite comfortable intruding in on; something so sacred to Dwayne and unfamiliar to you, it wouldn’t have felt as right as it probably should.

And you didn’t even devolve into dancing with the team in front of the stage. From the seat at the bar, you can see Tammy and Sebastian twirling about. Hannah and Loretta laughing and dancing along with the music. All enjoying themselves without the weight that you seem to be carrying tonight. 

Annoyingly, you don’t even know where this weight is coming from. It came out of nowhere; a blitz attack on your heart that was now making it difficult to watch Dwayne perform. Made your stomach tight when you began hearing the bar patrons shout out “King! King! King!” over and over, cheering for the man with the biggest heart in the city.

He’s so loved by them. So admired.

That kind of admiration is difficult to stand next to, sometimes.

The song ends and, much to everyone’s disappointment, Dwayne retreats from his piano. Steps down from the stage wearing a big grin and greeting the team, and some friends you don’t know well, and probably even strangers he’s never met but shakes hands with anyway.

As he shoulders his way to the bar, you quickly throw back the rest of your drink. Hoping that, perhaps if you’re tipsy enough, this awful feeling in your chest would go away. Maybe you’d go back to having fun with Dwayne.

“Hey, honey!” He calls out the greeting, finally reaching your side and pressing a kiss against your temple. “You enjoy the set?”

You tilt your head to look at him; all smiles and soft eyes and a faint sheen of sweat. You do your best to mimic it. “Yeah,” you answer him before glancing around the bar. “And so did everyone else.”

Dwayne doesn’t catch a second meaning to your words. He has no reason to because you’re right: everyone enjoyed the set. So much so, they were calling out his fucking name. “Yeah, it was a lotta fun. I wish you coulda joined me,” he replies, sinking into the chair beside you.

Perhaps you would have, if the bar were empty. If it were just you and him and it was after a date and Dwayne wanted to teach you a couple bars on the piano. Private and sweet, without the eyes of dozens of people who know Dwayne personally.

You couldn’t have replied it you wanted to. The bar was packed tonight; Dwayne kept getting pulled into conversations and stories and jokes. Laughing so naturally, and you would’ve been mostly invisible, if the team hadn’t made their way over a couple times for refills and spoke to you.

But still - mostly invisible.

“Dwayne!”

His head instantly swivels around at the sound of your voice. He catches your eyes, leans in to hear you over the music. “Yeah?”

“I think I’m gonna head home. It’s pretty late.”

He frowns to himself, raises his arm to check his watch. And yeah, you know it’s barely eleven. You’ve stayed for longer after much busier days, and maybe Dwayne was hoping you’d stay over tonight. But he doesn’t comment on any of that; instead, he nods his head and stands. “I’ll walk you to your car, then. You good to drive?” He asks, and despite the noise, you can catch the tone of concern in his voice.

You only nod once and lead the way to the door. Pushing out into the street was like a breath of fresh air; away from the music and the eyes and perfectly friendly people walking up to talk to Dwayne like they were old friends. Hell, maybe they all were old friends - you likely couldn’t begin to meet them all.

“Nice night,” Dwayne comments. His head is lifted up to the sky, wearing a soft smile before looking down to you. “We can take a walk, if you want. I know we didn’t get much chance to spend time together today.”

You’re tempted. It sounded nice; exactly like the thing you needed the most. And yet, you don’t say yes. Something pulls you away from the word. Eyes averting down and stepping away from Dwayne and toward your car. He notices, and it only makes his smile falter. “I don’t know, I’m pretty tired...”

“Is everything alright, sweetheart? You’re actin’ different. You sick or something?”

The way he cares - how he loves this much despite only being yours for several months now - really doesn’t make you feel better. In fact, you feel worse. The alcohol (alright, maybe you weren’t okay to drive) cranks up the emotions you’ve been stifling all night. Makes your heart twist and your throat ache and before you can even think about pushing back tears, they’re pooling in your eyes.

Dwayne sees them instantly. They reflect off the lights of his bar and he’s instantly stepping closer, hands on your arms and knees bending to look you in the eye. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Why’re you cryin’, baby?”

It’s such a hard question to be asked when you barely know answer.

You don’t look at Dwayne; it feels impossible to because you know you’ll find worry and concern in his eyes and if you tell him that you’re crying because of him, he’ll just feel guilty. And Dwayne doesn’t deserve that, so pushing through the wild flurry of emotions, you try to think of good way to answer him. Somehow convey these confusing feelings without hurting him or confusing him or-

The palm of his hand is warm and soft and solid against your cheek. Dwayne tilts your head back to face him, and when your eyes meet, his thumb moves to wipe away the tears that you hadn’t even noticed fell. He looks earnest; worried, but sincere in a way that made you feel bad about ever trying to hide how you felt.

“It’s you. Not really you, but- who you are.” Your voice is shaky and quiet. Barely heard over the late night street sounds of New Orleans, but Dwayne hears. His brows knit together in confusion, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Just...in there? With all those people who know you and love you? And I’m just me.”

You know that wasn’t very clear, but he seems to understand. Because his head tilts and his eyes get sad and Dwayne sighs in a way that just makes you feel worse. “Listen to me: you’re not “just you,” alright? You’re beautiful and smart and strong and a million other things that made me fall in love with you. It doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks about me - I only care what you think of me, got it?”

Your head leans a bit into his hand, and despite everything, the warmth of it soothes you. Just like everything else about him. And you nod.

He nods, too. Brings his other hand up to cup your face, and Dwayne offers a soft smile. “Before I’m anybody else, I’m yours. And that’s how it’s always gonna be. Don’t you forget that,” he says softly. Just for you to hear.

Again, you nod. And when you step in closer, his arms encase themselves around you. Squeezing tight and unwilling to let go, even if you both are standing in the middle of the sidewalk. He’s solid and comfortable and the way his hand rubs up and down your back quickly chases the tears away.

And it’s hard to think of any other place where you feel the most yourself.

#ncis new orleans reader insert #ncis new orleans imagine #ncis nola x reader #dwayne pride x reader #dwayne pride imagine

[nellie-elizabeth]

Grey's Anatomy: Helplessly Hoping (17x07)

What the heck did I just watch with my own two eyeballs? What the ever living fuck? Spoilers ahead, ye be warned.

Cons:

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and compare Grey's Anatomy to The Walking Dead real quick. Both are long-running shows with a large ensemble cast, and the cast grows, people leave, new characters are added, and we're meant to feel emotional attachments to new characters as well as to those few originals who are still sticking around. Oh, and main characters die on a semi-regular basis, for the drama of all of it.

Now, the thing is, Grey's is actually better than The Walking Dead at getting me to give a crap about new characters as they get folded into the show. So many of my favorites today weren't originally part of the show. Jo is a good example of this. Callie wasn't an original character, neither was Arizona, and I loved them. Link is a more recent fave. The list goes on. You know one character I particularly loved?

Andrew DeLuca.

And it was a bumpy start, with him. I thought he was boring as sin at first, but gradually he became one of my favorites. The problem with a show like Grey's is that eventually, you might start hemorrhaging all the characters left on it that the audience gives a damn about. This happened to me long ago with The Walking Dead, and over the past couple of seasons of Grey's, I've started to worry about the same thing happening here. Losing Alex Karev last season was such a blow, especially because of the terrible way they went about it. And now, DeLuca? Are you serious? And killing him off? He was one of the only reasons I was excited to follow the show week to week, and one of my tethers to it has just been snapped clean.

And let's talk about the specifics, here. Andrew DeLuca, man struggling with mental illness. Man who starts to learn to manage it, to find happiness and balance in his life. He manages to catch the big bad child trafficker, but dies nobly in the attempt, thus making his death... what, worth it? Heroic? I hate this narrative on TV, especially for young men, especially for young men with mental illnesses. Jesus, this felt particularly tone deaf to me, in a way Grey's usually isn't. Or at least, not on this issue.

To turn to some other aspects, I will say it's super annoying that they want me to watch Station 19. I'm not gonna watch it. It's annoying that Carina is obviously getting all her stories over on that show now, when I like her so much and want more time with her. Although now it's just going to be her grieving her brother after also having lost both her parents young in life so... yay, I'm sure that'll be fun.

In terms of the other subplots, I'm a Tom Koracick stan. I know he's a dick but I just can't help myself. That being said, I thought his whole "I need you to tell me you never loved me" thing with Teddy was a little too high octane drama. It didn't match Tom's whole sardonic personality. Also, Teddy sucks, I don't feel any sympathetic connection to her struggle over how she totally loved both Tom and Owen at the same time. Like, girl, you need to get over yourself.

Pros:

I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I'm liking the whole subplot with Link and Amelia at home with Scout and also Meredith's three kids. They're obviously having a hard time, but we're not devolving into more Amelia-drama. She's upset, and dealing with so much stress, and she's also... handling it. Her conversation with Zola was actually really heartwarming.

I also liked Link, Jackson, and Maggie's new beau (sorry dude, I'll learn your name soon I'm sure), having beers before noon and talking out their stress. I especially liked Link admitting that he's thinking about how his life will be ruined if Meredith dies. The other two reassure him that there can be lots of different reasons to want someone to live, and some of those reasons can be selfish. Link is a good man, and he's doing everything he can, and he's nearing his breaking point. It's okay to be selfish. I think like that too. Like, if I lost someone I rely on or love very much, I'd worry about how it would affect me and my day-to-day. I don't think that makes me a monster, that's just a normal way of framing things inside your own mind.

Not entirely sure what the heck is up with Levi and Nico right now, but I like that Levi is falling apart and Nico is there for him. I hope that we get some time to sort out whatever their relationship is... I really want it to be my theory, where Nico realizes he's in love with Levi, while Levi is having his glow-up and moving on. Nico deserves to suffer a bit of anticipation, at least, before he gets what he wants. Especially after the way he treated Levi.

I find DeLuca's death to be a uniformly bad choice in terms of scriptwriting, but I can still praise the performances. I liked the beach scenes with Meredith and Andrew. There was something very full-circle about that. It's absolutely bananas bonkers that Meredith is losing another love interest, even though she and Andrew haven't really been together for quite a while... but if we set that aside, they had this really interesting connection, this affinity for each other that was romantic, but was also a lot of other things. It meant something, that we got to see them have that final connection before Andrew died. Also, they really managed to highlight the tragedy with that little sandcastle moment. This isn't someone going peacefully into that good night. Andrew had a lot of shit he still wanted to do. He's not actually okay with dying, even if he is happy to see his mom in the afterlife or whatever. It's bleak, and I appreciate that if they're making this dumb choice, at least they're acknowledging the inherent bleakness.

And just to pile on the tragedy, Jo's patient, the new mother who had to be separated from her premature daughter Luna, dies. Honestly I appreciate that Grey's does this kind of thing sometimes. They let the patients survive often enough that you always have hope, and then when it doesn't happen... oof. I was more angry about Andrew's death, but I was a more choked up about Jo's patient, to be perfectly honest. We also saw Hayes and Jo have a little subplot of connection over grief and loss, which I appreciated.

Okay, I'll stop there. This episode is overshadowed by Andrew's death, and I really hated that aspect of the episode. There are other things going on that could prove interesting moving forward, but goddamn, I am not okay about this at all.

6.5/10

#review #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy review #greys anatomy #greys anatomy review #grey's abc #wtf grey's why did you do this

[ameliasnormandy]

Talk with Sparkles, a therapy session in the Marvel Universe (Fanfic)

This is my third session with code name Sparkles. This session, much like all of my other sessions with her, was odd.

If I came today, does that mean that I have to come tomorrow too? (Why she seems so intent on living these interviews before we have even really begun them is still beyond me.)  

Alright, I will be here tomorrow too. I still don’t see the point in me coming. I have always been as upfront with you as I could be. I have, if I have done anything at all, bent the truth. (She started playing with the necklace that she was wearing again.)

No, not lied. There is a difference between bending the truth and lying. We all bend the truth. We say what’s convenient for us. We lie to protect others. We say someone looks good when we don’t actually think they do. We say we believe someone when we actually don’t.

(I just wanted to point out that this isn’t a direct answer to the question. What questions were unacceptable to lie about?) I believe that the questions that led to the answers about the universe’s secrets are much more important than the answers themselves. What matters is that someone at some point was willing to ask the question. The curiosity of someone got us there in the first place.

Maybe. I had actually bought the place before my dad died. He knew that I would need to do something to occupy my mind; he knew that it had to be both creative and challenging. And that became an escape room. That escape room became a literal escape for me.

No, I love those kids. But I was 17. I was… I never… It’s just… And… (my lights had begun to start flash again, I have started being able to time out my lights flickering to each of her stuttered words) Hey, your lights are flickering again. They still have been unable to figure out the power grid. I wonder if our places are connected on the power grid.

My father’s old house. My father would have wanted that, but my siblings would never have had that had they been around. It was really the only place big enough for all 8 of us.

I have a housekeeper come twice a week and a babysitter 3 times a week. No live-in staff.

I guess, but I didn’t think about it. Truth is, I didn’t have much time to think about anything except keeping those kids alive.

I don’t know. You’re the doctor, shouldn’t you be able to tell me? I mean, I have my guess, but... You’re the one that could be… Not that… I mean no disrespect and… What I mean to say… (my lights started flickering again with every stutter. I had to stop it.)

What? Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know… Sometimes… Occasionally… When I am nervous… (Again, her stuttering caused my lights to flicker nearly uncontrollably, this seemed to be the only proof that I needed. Her stuttering caused the lights to flash, and she had no control of it.)

Sorry. My father used to say that my hamster goes too fast. It will just run and run. It would never stop on anything for… (I was about to stop her from another stuttering rampage.) Rambling. Sorry. The twins say it’s cute when I ramble. They think that it makes me special.

Because their family, my father was old when my mom had me, almost 65. My mom was only 23, as old as I am now. She died when I was 8. My father was over 70 at that point. He could have sent me to some boarding school. He could have gotten me a nanny and never thought about me again. He didn’t do any of that; he cared. He wanted to care because family is what mattered to him. I have siblings older than my mom. I was, in their eyes, a mistake. They always believed that my mother had an agenda, and if she had an agenda, I did too. My father tried to shield me from the worst of it—sugar coating the things that weren’t pleasant to think about. It was about three weeks before my father died; we were discussing his funeral. He had seen what my mom’s funeral had devolved into. Her parents, who were still alive at the time, wanted to make sure everything was just so for their little girl. No one had expected her to die. It was a sudden thing. There was no time to prepare a funeral with her. And my mom’s parents nearly hijacked the whole thing. My dad wanted to avoid that. There was to be no question that this was his funeral. My siblings, my father, and I all met at my father’s… you don’t actually want to hear about this, do you?

(I didn’t but told her that I did, I figured that you didn’t want to hear about it.) Are you sure? It just seems that there are other things that you think I should be talking about.

Maybe my father’s actual funeral? (This wasn’t what I was thinking about either, but it was undoubtedly closer)

Not really, but if it gets me out of here faster… My father’s funeral was a perfectly average day. If I had to call it anything, I would call it may be cloudy, but I acknowledge my own biases. I would want the day my father was buried to be cloudy, if not straight rainy.

(I asked her to closer her eyes. I did this because I started seeing the room go hazy, and I couldn’t understand why. I thought that I would try something different. I thought that maybe if I was right, she could be doing something.) But I already know my biases. I shouldn’t have to… Never mind. Let’s just do this. I woke up in my bedroom that morning, freezing. (My office was slowly fading into the background. Her bedroom becoming clearer and clearer. It was not the room I would have believed to be hers. It was brightly colored, pink on the walls. There were several pieces of clothing strewn through the room. A few stuffed animals also throughout the room. There was a giant bed in the middle of the room. The bed was covered in pink and purple sheets. In the middle of the bed was Sparkles.) I had been so upset the night before, I forgot to either build a fire or turn the heater on. (Against the wall, I noticed that a fireplace was slowly showing up, I also noticed that my room started feeling colder.) The house itself is fairly warm usually, but my room is a little out there, so it doesn’t always get heat like it should. Usually, it’s not a problem. I turn the heater on, or if I’m feeling in a particular mood, I’ll light the fire in my room. The night before, though, I just didn’t feel like doing either. I woke up freezing. I remember that quite clearly because I remember thinking that my dad must have had a horrible night. You see, I’m a forgetful person. Knowing that I am forgetful, my dad would come check on me in the middle of cold nights. He did it religiously until he got very sick. On those days, I would be the one to check on him. My first thought on the day of my father’s funeral wasn’t something profound. It wasn’t some sweet memory of him. It was I’m going to have to go check on him. I was out of bed, my hair pulled into a tight ponytail before it hit me, and it hit me hard enough that I fell to the floor. I just sat there crying. I don’t even remember how long I sat there crying. All I know is that when I finally stood up again, it was eleven. My father’s funeral was two, so I had to get ready.

(I saw an image of her flash before me. It was not her current form. It was her younger. I could tell that, but I couldn’t exactly tell how much younger she was. She had her hair in a tight bun. There was a black ribbon that kept her hair in that bun. She was wearing a black dress that had sleeves that were covered in lace. This black dress had a red belt. I noticed the red belt and thought that it was slightly inappropriate and told her as such.) It was the only… How did you know that?

(I had been caught, and I didn’t even think about it. I needed to create a cover story. I tried to tell her that she had told me.) No. I didn’t tell you what I was wearing. How could you…

(She didn’t buy it, and of course, she didn’t, so I needed to come up with another story, thankfully her father was a rather public figure, so thinking about that, I continued and told her that I had looked up a picture of her at her father’s funeral.) That’s weird. Why would you need to see a picture of me at my father’s funeral?

I honestly hated the idea of having people at our father’s funeral.

(I felt the necessity to ask her what she meant by people.) I mean reporters and people that didn’t even know my father. My sister’s choice. She thought that it would be good for the family image. She was always the one to worry about that. (I didn’t even get a chance to ask her which sister) Holly. She came from my father’s first marriage, the second oldest; she’ll be turning forty-nine soon. Well, maybe. What do you think about the age idea? How do you think that is going to work?

Maybe they aged some but didn’t age as much as we did. Or perhaps they aged more. There is a scientific understanding of how this works according to a set of fake twins called the Einstein Twins. I’m boring you, aren’t I? (Again, she just knew, without me telling her anything) I tend to bore people with facts that they don’t care about. I know that I should get better at this, but I like random facts and… My sisters tell me that I talk too much. I don’t know when to stop talking. They say that I need to learn to close my mouth. They say that men don’t like a girl who rambles about things that the men don’t seem to think are essential to the conversation. And now, I’m rambling about rambling. Only someone like me could do that. Or really anyone. Anyone could do it. It’s just that I am the only one that actually does it. Right… Sorry… I should… I mean, I will… I just…

(I had to quickly stop her from rambling to save my lights from exploding again) OK. Continuing with the story. I walked into the funeral home. My father wanted his funeral to be something simple. He was one person that genuinely believed that simplicity was almost always better. He wanted a few white roses and a small picture of him, that’s it. The minute that I walked into the room, I was hit with the complete disrespect they had for their father, my father, our father. It was an astounding lack of respect for the man that we claimed to respect. The place was covered in both red and white flowers. (When she says covered, she truly means covered. The images that I could see made it seem like there was hardly any room to walk around in.) There was a giant picture of my father, one of his most stern moments, which I felt slightly derailed the legacy that I remembered of my father. He was a kind man, a gentle man. He was not just the stern man that his business partners tried to portray him to be. I feel like I have to use the past tense because I bought out his business partners or their family when I took over the company. Their vision of what they wanted from my father’s company was nothing close to what I wanted from it. So, when they needed money, or their families did, I was more than helpful. I would then offer them twice or triple what their shares were worth. Now, they all thought that they were duping me. They thought they were selling me shares extraordinarily high, and when I was in complete control, the company would begin to tank, and I would be forced to sell the shares back to them for half of what I bought them for. I now own 60% of the company, half from the shares that I bought from my dad’s partners and 10% from the shares that I got when dad died.

(I asked her if she was close in wealth to what Tony Stark was.) I don’t know that answer. Truth is, I don’t care. Some people have tried to compare the two of us, and I have said no. We both grew up in wealth and inherited that wealth from our parents. I don’t like being compared to him. I never invented deadly weapons, thank you very much. My mother’s company is heavily into energy, both renewable and nonrenewable. My father’s company is a bit harder to pin down. He made his money first in biotech - self-growing artificial skin. It cut down on scarring.

(I noticed that she had a small circular scar on her wrist, and I felt like I had to ask her about it) Oh, yes, that is a scar.

(She started playing with the scar the minute that I asked about it) I know what I just said, but it is just a bit more complicated than that.

No.

(She had yet to stop playing with that scar at this point) Because it’s personal, and I don’t feel that I need to justify my looks to you. Honestly, I’m sure that you have already made your judgments about my appearance. It must be so weird for you to look at me, considering that I look nothing like you would expect from one of the wealthiest people in the world. Well, welcome to my hell. Yes, I’m fat because I eat too much, but no, I don’t eat enough to starve an entire nation. So, you wanna stop with the judgments.

You are. I can feel it. I’m not stupid.

That I never said you thought. Actually, you think I’m brilliant, smarter than most people realize that I am. I was a figurehead of one of the largest energy corporations in the world before all my baby teeth had fallen out. Why should I have to be smart with that much money? Of course, when I do show them, then the comparisons start. I’m just a little less charming, not quite as pretty; that one really hurts, and just not quite as smart.

No. Why would I? He doesn’t know who I am. It’s not his fault. I have no reason to blame him for their comparisons. Besides, there are worse things that they could compare me to.  (I do want to point out here that she never once says his name.)

              (My assistant came in to tell us that we were running half an hour late. I didn’t think it was possible. I thought that we still had plenty of time). Looks like it’s time to go. Time really does fly when you don’t want to be somewhere. I will make sure that I am here early tomorrow, Doc. Would hate for you to wait on me.

#marvel #fanfic #oc character #oc fanfiction #tony stark #Talkingwithcodenamesparkles

[tysonrunningfox]

Two Night Stand: Part 5

Sometimes random things you dig up are what you write

00000

Masterpost (ao3 to come)

00000

Astrid stares at the mess in the bathroom for a moment, the door clicking shut behind her echoing in the damp space.  She nudges a soaking towel into the corner by the tub and wrinkles her nose at the way it sogs her sock. 

The stolen plunger is still in the middle of the room and she picks it up with hesitant fingertips and sets it by the thankfully functioning toilet. 

It’s a testament to how far their conversation just devolved that she can’t even focus on the fact that she just dealt mass property damage in the pursuit of breaking, entering, and using a stranger’s toilet. 

She bends down to pull her damp sock off and catches her reflection in the mirror over the sink. 

Hiccup is gross.  Of course.  All guys would want nothing more than a striptease, that’s obvious, he didn’t need to tell her that.  In fact, he just said a bunch of really obvious things and acted like it was brand new information.  He forgot to remind her that it’s snowing though, so he left a base uncovered. 

Base.  Like a baseball sex metaphor type base. 

Maybe there’s a reason aside from lack of birth control and women’s rights that people used to have a dozen kids to work the farm.  How much is there really to do when you’re locked in with someone for a long time?  And like Hiccup said, they already got high and made a pillow fort. 

And critiqued each other sexual performance because apparently, they couldn’t even go twenty-four hours ignoring the fact that they did, in fact, have sex with each other. 

She teeters, because she’s been standing here on one leg like an urban dwelling flamingo native to dysentery creek, halfway through taking her sock off, and when she catches her reflection again, she hates that she thinks Hiccup might have a point.  It’s not really an attractive pose—not that she has to be sexy at all times, that’s stupid, and part of the women’s rights issue that means she will not be having twelve kids to work any farm—but it still makes her pause. 

She shuffles over to the sink, drumming her fingertips on the edge of the porcelain and staring at her reflection like it knows something she doesn’t.  Are you there mirror-Astrid?  It’s me, Astrid, you’re currently in the bathroom mirror of the guy I attempted to have a one-night stand with but then I got snowed in and it’s a whole thing, laws have been broken, I critiqued his sex-technique, mirror-wisdom would be appreciated. 

Mirror-Astrid would shrug, if she weren’t dependent on real world motion to bend light, and the twinkle in her eye says something like ‘well, it would look hotter if you unbuttoned that oversized flannel more slowly while maintaining eye contact.’

Mirror-Astrid is the slut.  Maybe she’s been the slut this whole time. 

Maybe she has a point. 

She bites her lip, reaching for the top button of her shirt and popping it open slowly, cocking her hip to one side. 

And again, they’ve already gotten high and made a pillow fort and broke and entered and committed plunger-themed larceny.  What else is there to do, really?  She was right this morning, she cannot un-sex him, but having sex with him twice, well…they’ve already done it once. 

And it’s cold outside, if the furnace goes out they might have to generate body heat. 

They should practice, maybe. 

Ok, if the furnace were going to go out, it probably would have happened already, but it’s a secondary argument.  If she needs it.  He is a guy, and he didn’t have any problem getting interested in having sex with her last night. 

She fusses with her hair, pressing her bangs down against her forehead and then shoving them to the side when they don’t stay down.  It’s fine, her hair doesn’t matter, this is not a seduction, it’s a scientific endeavor. 

That’s it.  It’s an experiment. 

“Hey Hiccup,” she walks normally into the living room.  Or she tries to walk normally.  Usually, when she walks normally, she’s not thinking about walking normally, but nothing is usual about this situation so she’s doing her best. 

“What did you do to my shower?”  He asks without looking up from his laptop and she perches on the back of the couch above his shoulder, trying and failing to soften her glare, even though she wants something from him. 

“Nothing.”  She sighs, “I was thinking.” 

“That’s always dangerous.” 

“You know what?  Never mind, it’s stupid.”  She stands back up, glad that his personality just saved her from sounding stupid, for once. 

“No, sorry,” he closes his laptop and looks up at her upside down, head on the back of the couch, hair flopping away from eyes that look greener considering what she’s about to say, “stupid’s my favorite.  What’s up?” 

“I was just thinking,” she pauses, waiting for him to interrupt again, but sadly, he appears to have learned his lesson, at least momentarily, “so the hypothesis of our conversation is that a frank conversation with a mutual interest towards self-improvement would make us better lovers.” 

“Oh, so you can pull it off?” 

“Yes.”  She crosses her arms and leans on the couch again, “or no, it’s—I don’t think anyone can really pull it off, it’s kind of an awful word, but—”

“Are you back for more?”  He raises an eyebrow, and the expression is an understanding of an inside joke, like all their jokes aren’t inside jokes, considering the weather. 

He doesn’t mean it and it makes her blush. 

“Yes.”  She stares him down, direct like she was chatting with him.  Asking the clear question. 

“Ok, hmm, you were largely a very adequate lover, but I’m sure there are some minutiae I could help you finesse for a future time with someone else—”

“I think we should have sex again.  For science.”  She tucks her hair behind her ear and feels it sticking out.  But this isn’t a seduction, it’s the intro to a lab class.  Today, the lesson is practical.  Hands on.  Real-world applicable.  “Keep the lines of communication open, put some of what we just talked about into practice.” 

“I know that supposedly, all I need is friction, but I’m not sure I could take your well-intentioned critiques while trying to perform.”  He rolls his eyes, not taking her seriously, and she lets her hands drift back to the buttons on her shirt, letting her eyes bore into his as she pops the next one loose. 

His eyes flick down.  He licks his lips.  The way he’s looking at her is almost worth how silly she feels and she makes a note in her mental, sexual lab notebook.  It’s crisp and new, the blank paper feeling a little sexual under her mental pencil.  It’s new too, fresh out of the package. 

0.05mm lead.  Fine tip.  A precision instrument. 

Ok, too far.  Too far.  But there’s something sexual about new paper and she’s just leaning into it right now. 

“I’m just saying, before we trot out our miracle cure for sexual incompatibility, we should probably do some clinical trials.  It’s only responsible.”  She’s never seduced anyone before, especially not a one-night stand she ordered on the internet on the eve of a once in a century blizzard, but it feels good to speak medically again, even if it’s not a good metaphor. 

Clinical trials take months.  Years. 

“I mean, we haven’t even nailed down stock options yet.”  He’s nervous, and it’s infuriatingly obvious in his big green eyes, and it’s also infuriating, because he’s supposed to be a cocky dick that she literally ordered on the internet. 

“A dry run can’t hurt anything, it’s just compiling more data,” she pops another button open and he bites his lip, setting his laptop aside. 

“Well, not a dry run.  Hopefully.”  He smirks, half-honest, and she doesn’t want to know that he puts a smiley face on his oatmeal or that he’s worried about what she thinks of his leg, but she does, and she’s trying to make the best of it. 

“In a normal sexual situation, there should be some lead up, but considering everything, it’s ok for you to just kiss me.”  Her stomach twists at the creak in the floorboards when he stands up slowly, faking confidence behind the cracks she’s ignoring, because they make him an outlier she shouldn’t consider sampling. 

And he’s silent.  Bigger without words jostling his shoulders as his hand finds her waist, fingers bunching in her oversized shirt.  And he looks at her, gaze a steady confirmation before he kisses her, knee nudging between hers as he guides her backwards. 

“That’s good,” she pulls back enough to nod and he grins, too real again.  “The knee thing.” 

“Yeah?”  He follows as she takes a couple more steps back towards the bedroom, “I thought it was suggestive—”

“Please don’t explain every move to me.”  She kisses him, hands fisting in his collar. 

“They’re very nuanced though, I want to make sure you understand.”  His hand slides under her shirt, too warm against the small of her back.  And his knee nudges between her legs again and she trips on the edge of the rug, stumbling back into the doorframe.  “Shit, are you ok?” 

“I’m fine,” she rolls her shoulder.  Shake it off, Hofferson.  “Walking backwards while kissing is fine in movies, not so great in real life.” 

“Noted.”  He follows her into the bedroom, where unfortunately the bed is unmade. 

“Remember when I wanted to see your apartment?”  She asks, half-expecting to need to explain, because nothing outside of the last day feels real, especially with the buzzing under her skin when she thinks about what’s about to happen. 

“I had to put all my Bundy fan-club awards down the garbage disposal, of course I remember.”  He jokes, his voice deeper, breathing husky on the shell of her ear, and she shivers.  “I’m devastated.” 

“Well, a girl likes a clean place.  Makes you feel taken care of, I guess.”  She grabs the clean fitted sheet from the basket in the corner and starts putting it on the mattress.  “Also, women want to have sex with functional adults, a made bed is an easy first step.” 

“That hasn’t been my experience.”  He laughs and she rolls her eyes, tugging the sheet tight and tossing him the next layer. 

“You’ve had a different demographic thus far.” 

“No, I mean making a bed is like wrestling an eight-foot long, six-foot wide rectangular bear,” he throws the duvet over the flat sheet as she shoves the second pillow into its case, “might need a nap to rebuild strength and energy before the sex.” 

“Lay down then,” she shoves his shoulder a little too hard, refusing to feel guilty when he falls back on the bed, propping himself on his elbows. 

“Lights are on,” she refuses to let her voice shake, tilting her chin at the bulb above the bed as she pops open the next button of her shirt.  He watches, eyes flicking between her face and chest as another button comes undone. 

“You’re a quick study,” he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor before going for his belt. 

“You too,” she compliments, unbuttoning her pants and pushing them down with an unnecessary sway in her hips, trying not to smile when he licks his lips, pupils wide. 

She faces away from him, shrugging the shirt slowly off her shoulders, letting it fall against her heels.  She unhooks her bra and bends forward, letting it fall off of her arms as she tugs her underwear down, bending at the waist and trying not to feel stupid or cold or slow as she steps out of them. 

She looks over her shoulder at him, standing up at that glacial pace and turning to face him like an iceberg drifting past Greenland. 

He’s breathing hard, skinny chest heaving above the boxer briefs that are thankfully the only thing he’s still wearing.  His leg is on the floor and she’s not sure whether she’s supposed to look or not, so she keeps her focus on his face. 

“Is that…” she cocks her hip, then regrets it, unsure where to put her hands.  It’s cold.  He’s staring.  She wants to turn the lights off or to make a joke or to get under a blanket because it’s actually cold in here.  He should keep his place warmer, probably, and she should tell him, but she just got naked the slowest she ever has and she needs his opinion on it, because nothing makes sense.  “Is that more what you thinking of?” 

“Yeah,” he nods, too fast, and she almost tells him off for being cute when they’re trying to be scientific, “that was—yeah.  Good.  You really took my point and um…yeah.” 

“Honestly I just…moved slower—”

“Men are so stupid,” he sits up, waving his arms at her in something halfway summoning, “come here.  Now.  Please.  That’s not an order, I just—you, wow—”

“So, lights on, strip slowly is a real thing?”  She half jokes on her way to the bed, trying to frame how his eyes feel on her skin in terms of scientific understanding.  The mutual pursuit of knowledge.  Earnest commitment to research. 

“Men are dumb.”  He catches her waist with a long, warm arm and pulls her down into the bed, hovering over her as his lips latch onto her pulse-point, callused hand sweeping across her ribs. 

“Apparently.”  She moans when his thumb glances across her nipple and he leans up slightly to look at her face.  “What?” 

“Trying to discern real from faking it,” he teases, self-conscious, and her stomach twists at the still hand on her side that she so badly wants to be moving. 

“It’s going to be easier to get me off if you’re trying to,” she nods at him, “instead of reacting to imagined criticism.” 

“Oof,” he winces, scooting his hips away from her an inch, “that’s—while true, that’s also generally applicable to my failures as a person, which isn’t sexy to think about—”

“You’re not into being accidently insulted by people who just stripped for you?”  She jokes, reaching up instinctually to rub the back of his neck, his shoulders.  His ass, surprisingly taut under his boxers.  And the lights are on and goosebumps prickle up her stomach. 

“Accidentally?”  He’s a little too soft, a little too meek, and she tugs him back down to her by his hair. 

“Yes.”  She kisses him, and she was honest earlier.  He’s a good kisser, just how he’d be a good conversationalist if it weren’t being forced upon her as the only option.  It’s give and take, it’s soft lips and the hard edge of teeth.  It’s determination behind the acquiescence in his moan as his hand finds her breast and squeezes.  “That’s good.” 

“Yeah?”  He kisses down her neck, taking his time like he hadn’t the night before, his fingers curling around her waist and pulling her against him, his thigh between hers.  She hooks her leg around his hip and he groans into her neck, “that’s—”

“Not good?”  She starts to move her leg but he catches her thigh above her knee, pressing it closer to his side. 

“Very good.”  He kisses her collarbone, her nipple, breathing hard against her sternum.  “It’s like you want me closer,” he shudders when she drags her fingernails up his back, “good move.  All good moves.” 

“You too, this is good.”  She reaches between them, fumbling under the waistband of his boxer briefs, “I don’t mind the stubble.”  She groans when he drags his chin against her neck, kissing under her jaw.  She grabs his length and he stiffens, forehead on her collarbone as his expected groan comes out as a whine.  “What?” 

“You’re very direct,” he catches her wrist with a firmness that makes her core twitch.  “It’s—I like it, don’t get me wrong here, I’m a stupid, friction-obsessed man and that feels—you’re naked—and you—”

“It’s distracting,” she lets go, pulling her hand out of his boxers and letting it rest on her lower stomach, flirting with the juncture between her legs. 

“Yes,” he kisses her, “and that’s not a bad thing, I’m just trying to focus.” 

“On?”  She flirts.  She doesn’t have to, but she does.  And he presses his leg against her core and his breath is hot against her neck and maybe talking is what sex has needed this entire time. 

Talking and a quick-witted tongue on her chest, and long, callused fingers dipping between her legs.  Soft, auburn hair tickling her neck as she arches under the contact. 

“Don’t…don’t say anything about a dry run right now, I…will kill you.”  She grips his shoulders, heel dragging down his short calf and back onto the bed as he almost gets it right, the sizzling contact just off epicenter. 

“Wouldn’t make sense, anyway.”  He kisses her neck, her cheek, his smirk like a brand against her skin as he swipes just past where he should. 

“Just—up, ok?  And to the right?”  She doesn’t want to sound irritated, but it’s irritating to have things feel so good and almost great.  He adjusts, over-adjusts really, and she reaches down to grab his hand and direct him, her fingers over his.  “There, it’s just—like…”

“This?”  He mimics her motion and she squints her eyes shut, her knees clenching on his hips as she nods.  “Am I—I mean is this getting you to…where you need?”  He’s awkward, and earnest, and arousal flares in her chest like an errant spark. 

“I mean it takes a minute.”  She gets out, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.  He smells like breaking and entering and a stupid high day in a pillow fort and she tries to focus on his fingers and how they’re trying to build style into the method she prescribed him. 

They aren’t marching, they’re dancing, adding his own flair to steps she’d thought were set in stone.  

And the lights are on, and he’s watching her like a gauge.  Like something independent, instead of as a reflection of himself.  And he kisses her lips and her cheek and a finger dips into her, long and agile but impatient too. 

“Can I, I mean, I was under the impression that you were going to be critiquing—unless—”

“No critiques necessary,” she eeks out, biting her lip and pressing back against his touch.  She feels spectated, but knowing why helps.  He wants to see her.  He wants to study her falling apart, like it’s a phenomenon, and the thought makes her toes curl as his pupils widen and he kisses her neck, her chest, looking up for her reaction between. 

He slows down. 

“Don’t go easy on me, it’s obviously not working—”

“It just takes a bit,” she snaps, grabbing his wrist and pressing his hand closer, “it’s slower, it takes a minute, it was…you were on the right track.” 

“How long is the track?”  He kisses her jaw and her neck, his hips nudging against hers.  He groans when she wraps her leg back around his hips and she feels her own chest, letting the feeling bloom in her stomach. 

“As long as it is.”  She tries to be grumpy.  It half works.  He twitches when she grabs his length again, his groan shuddering against her neck as his hand falters. 

Two long fingers dip inside of her then and she gasps, grabbing his upper arm. 

“Is that—”

“Don’t stop.”  She tries not to squirm, tries not to mess up the angle he has, what feels like the whole length of his fingers stroking against what she has to believe is her G-spot, more obvious than it ever has been, like banter is foreplay.  Like his very presence is foreplay.  Like this was inevitable.  Like he is inevitable.  “You found…”

He rubs it. 

She regrets ever arguing with an engineer, double entendre implied. 

“Is that?” 

“Don’t stop,” she clenches his arm, probably too tight, but there’s no time to think about that because he’s kissing her, stubble and lip and tongue and hand doing that again and again and again. 

“Might have to, if you keep that grip.”  He kisses her cheek and she arches into it, because his hand is unraveling her like she’s grandma’s first sweater attempt and he’s warm and earnest. 

She reaches down to touch herself and he gasps like it’s been ripped out of him.  She bites her lip, leaning into the warmth, which yanks the cord to get his hand moving again, and then it’s here and they’re kissing and she feels her throat going hoarse before she knows he’s kissing her.  And he doesn’t stop kissing, or petting, or holding. 

And this is the worst idea she’s ever had. 

“You didn’t want me to explain my moves,” he kisses her cheek.  Her ear.  His other hand cradles her neck so sweetly, tilting it as he kisses and where was this last night.  Where was this when she needed him. 

“Explain them.” She’d say he was wrong if she needs to.  She’d say anything.  His fingers are thrusting and she’s rubbing and she can’t breathe and every time she bucks up, his hips press back down against hers like a promise. 

“Well, I’m um…” He pauses.  She kisses his chin because it’s what she can reach.  His rhythm falters and she bites her lip.  “Well, I uh…think I found your G-spot.” 

She nods. 

He gets so red that she could light a fire on his face and she digs her heel into the back of his thigh. 

“Is that a yes?” 

She nods. She hits his shoulder with her free hand, doubling down as he strokes. 

“We are communicating,” he kisses her, “I need a yes—”

“Yes,” she yelps, “more.  Yes.  Don’t stop.  Asshole.”  She squeaks out, and he’s kissing her.  Everywhere. And his hand in her is moving, his thumb joining hers on her clit and when she opens her eyes, there’s something in his gaze. 

He’s committed.  He’s tuned in. 

“You’ve told me, emphatically I might add,” he presses her clit for a second, suddenly at home in the mastery he’d only hoped for a second ago, “to not tell you about my moves.”

“You had moves you didn’t tell me about?”  She struggles to sound indignant when he���s touching her like this.  When he’s devoted like this.  When he’s redeeming himself, sure with this kind of frantic, earnest energy. 

It hits all at once. 

She clings to his shoulders, crying out a bit too loud, glad for the empty apartment as his fingers stroke deep.  And human.  And he’s close and real and she’s trying not to remember that this is nothing, a fling, a one-night stand, an addendum to a one-time thing.

And he’s hard.  And that was great.  And she wants him. 

She wants something.  That’s easier. 

She wants parts of him.  Now. 

“Was that..?”  He kisses her forehead, his arms wrapping around her. 

And he holds her, that’s a point in his favor.  He held her last night and he holds her again and she wants to compliment him and for once, there’s no gateway. 

“Nothing fake,” she says as a truth and a comfort and his hand finds her core again, perfectly lazy, hesitantly in something close to awe.  “Condom.  Now.” 

“But my redemption—”

“On track,” she rolls to the side, digging in the bedside table for the reel of condoms she found earlier. 

“But you—”

“I did,” she cups his face, pulling him close with an arm around his waist, “do you ever stop talking?” 

“Not in living memory.”  He touches that spot within her again and she shivers, ankles crossed behind his back.  “Can I have some room to move?”  He kisses the hollow of her throat, and his voice is relieved and she reaches to stroke him with a pleasure-lazy vengeance.  “Astrid, I—”  

“Hiccup,” she settles on his name, because she doesn’t know how else to communicate, even if it ends in him staring at her, through her, into her. 

“For science,” he lines himself up and she bites her lip. 

“It’s just good practice at this point.” 

#two night stand au #modern au #hiccstrid fic #en-es-eff-double-eww #fuck #i need to get this onto ao3 bc this is sex #i can't even type eff eww see kay apparently #hiccstrid won't ever stop talking #here it was a good thing

[eastendies]

So y'all know I have an Antisocial Personality Disorder!AU and I'm writing the first chapter so I got bored and instead decided to write smth I had in mind a bit farther on, Ben and Callum actually being in a relationship and Callum trying to get Ben into therapy.

So here is a blip of Chp. 5ish as Ben confronts Callum for being a jackass, and for once it actually devolves in a way that doesn't involve hate sex. Okay, maybe a little.

---

It hit Ben like a freight train. His heart was torn under the wheels, his ears screamed with the whistle of blood, everything breaking and crashing as he looked up Callum, his boyfriend. The person who swore he could trust him. The one whose eyes, previously concerned and twisted into the most genuine fear he had seen, flicked over his face as the realization boiled his mind into something new--blank, preparing for war. That there was enough proof of guilt that Ben could have stormed out and never spoken to Callum again. But there was no guilt in his eyes. And it drove him crazy. 

It came out softly. “You manipulated me.”

Callum’s mouth opened, but to his credit, he had enough respect to close it and reconsider whatever lies he was about to say next. Ben could see the wheels turning in the taller man’s head as he bit his lip. But he didn’t deny it. 

“You tricked me into seeing your therapist. Into thinking I was crazy.”

At that Callum’s blank face changed in some guarded, hurt way Ben could never name. “I didn’t make you think you were crazy--”

“Because you think that I am crazy.”

“No I--having a disorder doesn’t make you crazy, Ben! Needing help doesn’t make you crazy!” Whatever tactic the sociopath in front of him wanted to take broke down as anger shown through, and Ben knew, at the very least, that much was genuine. “You weren’t acting normal, and--”

“And what?! That gives you the right to control my life?” Ben took a step back when his boyfriend stepped towards him, and the world was becoming dizzy and horrible and filled with the shifting lies from the angry eyes of the man he let himself care about. Value. “I don’t need to see a fucking therapist, and I don’t need you to decide what I need or who I am or if I’m fucking crazy!” Ben’s eyes searched wildly around the room for his coat; he needed out. The walls were closing in. 

The other man must have sensed his intent to leave as alarm was laced into his voice, stifled with a suppressed bewilderment and frustration. “Ben, you can’t deny that you have issues--”

“We all have issues!”

“Most of us don’t go around being a criminal, Ben! Or staying with an abusive dad who treats you like absolute garbage,” utter hatred and contempt filled the sociopath's voice, and Ben felt bile rising in his gut as he felt a small push to blindly defend his father. He shoved it down, gripping onto the couch. “You have a lot of issues, a lot like when I first started seeing treatment.” Callum’s voice became softer, and it hurt. It dragged nails across his skin and pierced his heart because his voice never sounded that true and real and like he mattered. That this mattered. His boyfriend stepped closer, just a little bit, and Ben let him. Because if Callum wanted to manipulate him, he wouldn’t do it like this. “You know how much it helped me. I’m not exactly the pinnacle of mental health,” Ben’s lips flicked up at that, and a bit of triumph stuck in Callum’s eyes (it was soft, not a prize), “but I can stay around people. I can help them. I can think of them as people. My dad…” Callum's voice choked, and Ben knew he had tried to push too far. He let the other man gain his breath back. “It helped. And I knew it could work for you. And I know you’re hurt and you’re hurting and you need help, don’t pretend that everything is okay.” More authoritarian now, the previous frustration showing through. If Callum didn’t care, Ben reasoned, finally meeting the other’s mangled eyes, he wouldn't have put so much effort into seeming sincere. He could see in the way his shoulders tensed how much Ben’s outrage baffled him right now. 

“And that makes it all okay?” He tried to be quiet. He should have been louder. Not sound like the weaklings Callum sometimes talked about. 

“I--”

“Why even do all this?” His voice was sharper now. “Don’t pretend like you care. I know you don’t. You’ve told me. Your stupid therapist told me.” Bitter, biting. His arms were crossed, tight. 

“Because I fucking VALUE you!” Ben jumped out of his skin as Callum almost screamed, frustration and anger riddled and bored into every surface of how he gestured on, like he wanted to shake Ben until his brains were scrambled enough to understand. “Just because I don’t feel empathy doesn’t mean I don’t fucking CARE about you! Do you think I would do all of this,” he gestured throughout the room, “or even be your boyfriend if I didn’t think you were worth it?! Because I do, and I did, and I try to do all this caring stuff that doesn’t mean anything to me because I want you to be happy! Because that makes me happy.” Ben’s eyes stayed widened, words beating in his ears over and over. “This--maybe--” Callum had to regather himself, gesturing near his head, “I reasoned that you being in therapy would mean an overall enjoyment of happiness, and yeah, its crude math, but it makes sense and it’s all part of this cognitive empathy I’m trying, so you can say a lot of stuff about what I did,” Callum pointed towards him, towards his heart, “but don’t fucking say it was because I didn’t care. Alright?” Quieter, and the rare vulnerability that flashed on his face blinked out as Callum gained control over it, breathing heavily. Blank.

His arms hurt from how his fingers dug in. He could hear Callum’s words beat in his heart and in his brain and in his ears, and he had to hold onto his previous anger to stay alive. 

Because that was the first time Callum said he cared. In his own, different way. In the Callum way. 

“You still manipulated me. You lied.”

“And?”

“I don’t like that. You know that,” Ben bit back, voice a bit exasperated. “We said no lies.”

“You lie to me sometimes. Said you’d get milk yesterday.” Ben had to fight back the flick of his lips. No.

“That’s not the same.”

“I know.” There was a second of pause, the second in which he knew Callum was trying to process what to say. “I know that makes you feel hurt,” it came out slowly, like he hadn’t practiced in a while, “and I’m sorry you’re hurt. Like I said, big fan of happy Ben, me.”

Ben opened his mouth, but instead he broke out into the smile he had been fighting back, and sat down on the couch he had been next to, hands interlaced and gripping each other. “I think that was the most healthy conversation we’ve had in weeks.”

“Maybe months.” Callum’s voice didn’t change, but Ben didn’t have to look at Callum to see he was approaching this cautiously. That he wasn’t too far away, but close enough to pounce. To touch. “But we can still have hate sex if you want,” Callum offered, head knocked to the side and eyebrows raised in that stupid, dumb way he did to make himself seem serious. God, he really could manipulate him without even trying. But he still didn’t come closer. Waiting for the verdict. 

“Don’t tempt me, you know how hot you look when you’re angry,” Ben flirted back, maybe on habit, but his voice was still exasperated, looking at Callum with a raised eyebrow. 

Everything about Callum screamed, ‘what does that MEAN,’ but he still managed a smile and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Of course, men and women alike are lining up to make out with a pissed off sociopath. Really turns them on.” His nose scrunched. “Nevermind, that’s probably an actual fetish. Is that why you started dating me?” His voice was a bit too hopeful for Ben’s taste, but he swallowed it down; he wanted to keep this blip of sanity.

“Yeah. The other half is your cheekbones.” Callum’s head ducked in a smile, in a more sincere, gentle way. (He could tell it was real because it was about Callum, that glow always stayed with him with compliments. Narcissistic bastard, right?) Ben looked downward, studying Callum’s floorboards. 

“So?” The other man couldn’t take it anymore, suspense and some impatience lacing his voice. “Are we...okay?” Like he couldn’t wait for this all to be over and done with. 

“No. Not anywhere close to okay.” Ben made sure to meet his boyfriend’s eyes as he said it, breathing steady and eyes serious. Callum didn’t fall apart at that news ( as Ben knew he himself would have). But his face did close a little, more blank, eyebrows straighter. “You lied to me, severely, and I’m gonna need time. To process.” Callum nodded, hands still in his pockets, though his head hung a little. “And I’m still mad at you. Just because your intentions were not...completely self motivated, doesn’t mean I am just okay with it.” Frustration blipped by, as Ben knew it would. But Callum still stayed silent. Until he didn’t. 

“And the therapy?” Ben could practically hear him trying to push him towards the end result he still wanted, so this tangle of emotions wasn’t a huge waste of his time. But, at least to Callum’s credit, he tried to hide it. That respect was something he and Ben and to build up with mortar and bricks and time, so Ben took the small victory. Softer, “It can help, Ben.”

“I know that!” Callum’s face closed up more. The shorter man had to look down at the floorboards again. “I’m--I’ll think about it. But I’ll do it on my own and reach my own conclusion; you’re not involved in this anymore.” Because Callum cared about him. Valued him. Wanted to him to be happy. Wanted to spend time with him. Wanted Ben to be Ben, just for him. And there was no way his sap of a heart, having won a war, could not be a bit lenient in sentencing. Yeah, it was messed up, but so was he. So were they. “Okay?”

Callum looked at him, really looked at him, for a second. He could tell that he was bewildered, frustration knocked on the floor, but patience lingered in his eyes when Ben tore their gaze apart. “Okay,” the softer voice came, and Callum stepped towards him, sitting next to him on the couch, far enough apart for Ben’s walls not to come crashing down, crushing them both, but close enough to whisper through the prison windows. There. 

Because dating a sociopath was kind of hard. It wore down his defense and screamed in his ears and held him at night, but Callum was still there, eyes waiting for him to look up, and as Ben rifled through the options of life (was Callum right? Was he crazy? Could he breathe anymore?) that’s all he really ever wanted. 

#eastenders #ballum #ben mitchell #callum highway #ee #ben x callum #aspd!callum #aspd!au #sociopathy au #ee fanfiction #ballum fanfic #chp 5 #not the final version but i wrote this and i thought it was okay so validate me

[pandemonshq]

Welcome, Destinee, please grab your stake on your way to your tumblr to play Daphne Greengrass here at Pandemons. We were thrilled to see how you created a brilliant family history and dynamic for Daphne—the divorce, her family connections, and how her history feeds into her choices. And her job as a translator? Inevitably going to get her (and you) broiled in more trouble than expected here.

Your request for michaela conlin. // jessica henwick FCs have been accepted.

OOC

Name: destinee.

Preferred Pronouns: she/her, they/them

Age: twenty-four.

Timezone: est.

Activity Level: if you to ask me for one of those out of ten scores i’d probably give myself about a six. i really enjoy roleplaying but i have some chronic problems that occasionally put me out of commission. i’m typically online in the late afternoon and at night.

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character’s Name: daphne greengrass.

Bloodstatus: pureblood.

Birthday: october 4th, 1979.

Gender and Sexuality: cis female, bi-romantic, demisexual.

Former Hogwarts House: slytherin.

Infection: no.

Faceclaim: michaela conlin. // jessica henwick.

SHORT HEADCANON TOPICS

Occupation:

translator.

daphne has always been a bright girl, though she was never the type to flaunt it. she was never the type to draw unnecessary attention to herself, preferring to slip by in the shadows - she was perfectly content to let others take the spotlight, and the blame.

still, she did love to know things. she was quite fond of history, and loved to know the stories behind mysterious artifacts and lost treasures. on sleepless nights, she has always been found curled up in the corner of a library, reading whatever happened to catch her eye.

it was her desire to read books and inscriptions that lead to the discovery of her talent for languages. she taught herself what she could for awhile, and then she turned to her parents, begging for lessons in any language that could be taught. her parents shrugged their shoulders, and let their daughter do as she pleased. unsatisfied with simply learning french and german and russian and latin, she threw herself into the study of ancient and beast languages, and found herself among one of the few with an affinity for such things.

daphne dreamed of putting her talent to good use - of traveling the world writing journals, or translating ancient inscriptions for cursebreakers. but then her parents announced that they’d found her a husband, and daphne put her dreams on the shelf to be the lovely, loyal housewife she was expected to be.

one of the first things she did after her divorce was finalized was dust off those dreams of hers. daphne has translated ancient texts and read the inscriptions of golden sarcophagi. she has translated for ministry officials as they delicately negotiated peace with magical beings, and been the helping hand to reunite frightened tourists with their lost children. she’s quite proud of her skill and of her work.

Marital Status/Ships:

daphne remembers clearly how it felt, to sit in the common room surrounded by happy, giggling girls and not understand. whenever her friends would gossip about boys, or gush over an attractive stranger, daphne would sit in silence. she learned fairly quickly that her friends found it odd that she didn’t seem to like boys, so she learned to smile and pretend to get it, but most of the time she just didn’t. when one of her friends had confided in her that she liked girls, daphne wondered if that was perhaps why she didn’t get it … but then, she found she didn’t really understand when her friends gossiped about girls, either.

pansy would talk about draco more often than anyone wanted to hear, and for long time, it went in one ear and out the other for daphne. but then she met him, and an offhand remark became the odd conversation became a friendship. and daphne finally started to get it. because she liked draco. more than she liked anyone - or, more accurately, differently than she liked anyone else. the trouble was that pansy liked draco, and pansy was the leader of their little clique. daphne had always been taught the importance of social circles, and so she never said a word.

daphne met a girl in the library in her fifth year; a ravenclaw with a thirst for knowledge that rivaled her own and a delightfully snarky attitude. they started dating in sixth year, and their relationship held strong through the turmoil and tragedy of the war and it’s aftermath. but then her parents reminded her that she wasn’t a child anymore, and it was time she started looking for an appropriate match. daphne crushed her own heart in her hands and ended the relationship, and she quietly fears that she’ll never recover.

daphne is still raw and aching when she finds out about astoria and draco. it brings a flash of old feelings to the surface, but once more, she stomps it down. she puts on a smile, and she supports her sister at every turn. it isn’t too long after that her parents nudge her in the direction of the wizard they’ve deemed her proper match - a frenchman with a handsome face and a flawless pedigree. daphne hopes something will spark between them, but it never really does. she marries him anyway, because it’s what her parents want.

the marriage is a disaster. they have nothing in common, except for regrets. they argue over what restaurants to visit, how daphne should do her hair, whether daphne should be allowed to work. he sleeps around, but truthfully, she couldn’t care less. the moment she finds out she’s pregnant, she’s more than happy to kick him out of her bed entirely. she’s only obligated to supply him one heir, after all.

their daughter is born, and daphne falls in love. cynthia instantly becomes the center of her whole world. her husband is not so impressed. he insists he wants a son, but daphne isn’t having any of it. the relationship devolves even further, and daphne sees less and less of her husband as the months roll by. cynthia is three years old when things hit a boiling point. her husband strikes her during an argument, and daphne is enraged. she draws her wand and forcibly hurls him out of the house, and sends his things flying after him. daphne will put up with a lot of things for the sake of her family’s reputation, but not this. he returns to france, and daphne at last feels free.

romance is the last thing on daphne’s mind these days. a single mother with a career doesn’t have much time to fuss about those things, especially when they’ve never been particularly fussed in the first place. now that her sister has fallen ill, she has even less time to think about it. she has to be there for her daughter, her sister, her nephew, and for draco. just because she isn’t thinking about it, though, doesn’t mean it might not surprise her. old flames and new could be hiding around any corner.

MULTIPARAGRAPH OR MULTI-POINT TOPICS

Family

Father | Nestor Greengrass. the greengrass family is one of the truest, purest bloodlines around, and sure, that’s something to be proud of - but more importantly, that’s something to take advantage of. nestor is as crafty as a salesman can be, and he knows how to market himself and the shop. he’s carefully crafted and maintained the ideal reputation; the perfect balance of shady and trustworthy. money is truly his main motivation for nearly everything he does. he’s always encouraged his children to be intelligent, sly, and greedy. he’s certainly a selfish man, but one that does care for his family. whether or not he cares about them more than he cares for himself, though, is rather hard to tell.

Mother | Meilin Greengrass. meilin has certain expectations. there are ways that people should and should not behave. there are obligations that people must fulfill, and duties they must complete. of course people are not perfect. little mistakes may be made from time to time. the young will stray from the path every now and again, but they simply need to be guided back into their place. she has always fully expected her daughters to fall perfectly in line - and the fact that things are so imperfect? that their perfect perfect reputation has been blemished? it infuriates her.

Sister | Astoria Malfoy. daphne’s relationship with her family is a bit … complicated, but she has always loved her little sister with all of her heart. from the time they were small, daphne has always tried to look after astoria, to be the best big sister she can be. she’s always wanted to be someone astoria could look up to, and it’s motivated her a lot in her life. when she found out her sister had fallen ill, she was devastated.

Daughter | Cynthia Greengrass. daphne never really thought much about being a mother. she supposes she’s always been a bit mother; she can recall the many times her sister would roll her eyes and say, “okay, mom” or the way pansy would sometimes groan and snap “you aren’t my mother.” she’s always known that she would have kids one day. it was one of her responsibilities, after all. continue the family line. but she still didn’t really think about it. even throughout her pregnancy, daphne didn’t really think of herself as a mother. she felt more like a bloated bus than anything else. but then she held her daughter in her arms for the first time, and it felt like the world shifted. her daughter is her sun and her sky and all of the stars. she would do anything to keep cynthia safe, and to make her happy. and if anyone were to threaten her sweet, wonderful little girl … she wouldn’t rest until they paid for it.

Childhood/Hogwarts

most people would say knockturn alley is no place for children, but to daphne, it’s simply home. she had spent her early years young and fearless, running down cobblestone streets, dodging the hags that often lurked in the crowds, admiring the dark artifacts her father sold, spying on the illicit clinic her mother ran. perhaps it warped her perspective a bit; perhaps she doesn’t always fear things that she should; but no one can deny that it’s blessed her with nerves of steel.

daphne is a little surprised to be sorted into slytherin. she had thought herself a bit more like her ravenclaw mother than her slytherin father, but she fits easily into the ranks. daphne attaches herself to pansy parkinson within the first few weeks of their first year. pansy is a bigot and a bully and a pureblood, and daphne knows immediately she wants to behind her and not in her way.

daphne makes friends and she gets good grades, but she’s never the center of attention, and that’s the way she likes it. it’s much easier to get away with breaking rules when people are paying more attention to the troublemakers; and people are much more forgiving when they have a worse example to compare you to.

hogwarts becomes a home away from home for her. she finds a sense of peace and simple joy there that she just doesn’t have at home. she loves her parents, she truly does, but that doesn’t mean they were truly good parents. her mother’s presence feels almost crushing sometimes; like her expectations have a physical weight and they’ve perched themselves right on daphne’s lungs and when she fails it feels like she can’t breathe. no one looks at her like they’re waiting for her to fail at hogwarts.

that peace is shattered by voldemort’s return. she watches the people around her change; sees the way the pressure warps and twists them, the way some of them just crack and chip away. suddenly it feels like everyone is watching everyone all the time; constantly on a knife’s edge. she knows what side she’s supposed to be on, but she can’t help but just want it all to end, no matter who wins.

daphne tries to be the sturdy one. she tries to be there for people, do whatever little thing she can for them. sit with them, talk with them, bring them tea, steal sweets from the kitchens. she knows how the rest of the school has started to feel about slytherins - even the ones who don’t deserve it. if no one else will be here for them, she’ll do it all herself.

Post Hogwarts

daphne is exhausted and the world around her is in shambles. she tries to be there for her family and for her friends - for the ones that are left, as they try to put the pieces back together. it doesn’t feel like enough. she doesn’t feel the same anymore. she can’t imagine how the others must feel. the ones who were truly in the middle of it.

she finds happiness in the brief moments she can spend alone with her girlfriend, just the two of them, peaceful and quiet. her mother tells her it’s about time she end her little fling, and daphne’s heart sinks to the floor. her mother reminds her that she must have known this relationship wouldn’t last long. her girlfriend was a half-blood, after all, and not fit for marriage. daphne does as she’s told. her girlfriend doesn’t understand, and daphne can’t blame her.

she sinks into a deep depression after the messy end of her relationship, and finds that she can’t stand to be alone with her thoughts - or with her mother. she starts making anonymous donations to charities and to projects to help rebuild. she throws herself back into learning languages and reading books. she avoids the world.

it’s astoria’s announcement of her engagement to draco that shakes daphne out of her daze. she has a few mixed emotions. it feels a little odd to see her sister engaged to her old crush; it feels a bit painful to see her sister engaged at all, after the end of her relationship. but more than anything … astoria didn’t tell her. all of their lives they had trusted each other with everything, and yet her baby sister hadn’t told her she was going to be engaged? for a moment, she’s angry. and then she realizes that it’s her fault. she’d been pushing her sister away without even realizing it.

daphne puts all of her energy into working through her depression after that. she’s determined to be there for her sister, come hell or high water. she reappears in the social scene, starts to go out with friends again, and ignores her mother a little less.

she’s introduced to her future husband not too long after her sister’s engagement, and they attend the wedding together. astoria doesn’t like him much, but daphne thinks he’s tolerable, and their mother seems very keen that they date. daphne regrets not taking her sister’s doubts more seriously, looking back on it.

daphne is a reluctant and miserable housewife for the course of their marriage. the birth of their daughter brightens her life; she loves being a mother. but she only hates her husband more.

the day her divorce was finalized she used her wand to send up fireworks in the street and laughed like she hadn’t laughed in years. she was free, and goddamnit, she was going to be happy.

she loves her work, and she loves her daughter. being a single working mother suits her far better than being a married housewife ever did. she’s happier than she’s ever been in her life … and then her sister falls ill, and daphne wonders if the sky will ever stop crashing down on her.

Current

daphne only really has one priority these days, and that priority is her family’s well-being.

daphne tries not to worry cynthia. she’s only a child, after all. she should be enjoying her time at hogwarts, not weighed down by tragedy. she knows she can’t keep cynthia completely in the dark; she’s a smart kid, and she’s very close to her cousin. still, daphne can ease her mind with sugar coated words and gentle promises … even if they so often taste like bitter lies.

whenever daphne has the time to read, she spends it pouring over anything and everything that might possibly help her sister. her reputation and skill set gives her access to a lot of unusual material, and she hopes one day it will help her dear sister.

she spends a lot of time with her daughter and with scorpius, always happy to look after her nephew or offer a helping hand to her sister and her husband. she loves scorpius as much as she loves her own daughter, and she’s promised her sister she would look after him.

she’s also promised to look after draco, and that’s proving much more of a challenge. she worries about him getting into trouble, crossing the wrong line, catching the wrong person’s attention. she wants to protect him, like she promised she would, but at the same time - how could she ever ask him to take a step back? she’s as desperate to cure her sister as he is; but she doesn’t want to lose him in the process, either.

Plots

i would love for daphne’s talents as a translator to come in handy for a plot, or plots. it’s an interesting passion of hers, and i love the idea of people coming to her to translate old writing, or ancient inscriptions, or people or magical beings.

daphne was the absolute mom of slytherin, but she also dropped off the map for awhile after the war. i would love to have her reconnect with old friends, or at least try to. bonus points if daphne still gets to mother them.

give me messy, complicated relationships please. romantic and platonic. i’m here for that shit.

potentially interested in the absolute panic of daphne being temporarily infected but we’ll see how things go.

daphne’s got a lot of money to throw around and i like the idea of someone approaching her to invest in something - some kind of charity, big event, business. they would need to win her over, of course, but it’d be interesting to have daphne really show her social/business/money skills.

daphne’s wanted to have more kids ever since she had cynthia, so that might come up at some point. whether she goes through with it, and how she goes about it, would depend entirely on how things end up happening in the roleplay.

Other

usually i have a pinterest board read before hand but it’s 2 am right now and i need to crash, so here is where the pinterest board will be. hopefully i put some stuff in it before y'all see it but if not … i’ll link it again later or something.

#urinfected

[novelconcepts]

Okay, but all silliness aside: I owe a ridiculous amount to Critical Role. Or, more specifically, to having found CR when I did. I came in around the beginning of the second campaign, and I had no idea what this thing was. I didn’t know a damn thing about D&D. I didn’t watch gamers stream. I think I’d been on Twitch a handful of times to watch Jim Lee draw, and that was...it. 

I came into Critical Role having seen a handful of gifs on my dash from people whose opinions I trust, and I realized Ashley Johnson was involved. That was my full base of knowledge: Ashley “hey, I know her from Recess/Growing Pains, I like her” Johnson was the whole deal. And that could have been a breaking point early on, because the first thirty episodes of Campaign 1 are a little rough if you don’t know what you’re getting into. The audio is questionable in places, it can be hard to track what’s going on, there’s the whole...obvious cast issue. And if you came in knowing only Ashley, you didn’t even get that lifeline the whole way through. 

But here’s the thing: this was 2017? I had just gotten married, and while I married the love of my life, who I had been engaged to--we originally had a slapdash courthouse wedding the day after the election, because it was the only safety net we could grab hold of. At least it would be a legal marriage, in case something really cataclysmic happened before our actual wedding date. I was obsessively refreshing six different news sites every hour while at work, and falling down the darkest political rabbit holes on Twitter every night. I was have terror dreams of nuclear fallout and panic attacks over climate change...and, on top of all the fear and the anger broiling in me, my dysphoria was getting worse by the day. My anxiety. My depression. I was sinking. Fast.  So I did the only thing I know how to do when things get truly bad inside my head. 

I hid inside stories. 

Namely, I hid inside Critical Role. The new campaign wasn’t quite on its feet yet, so I went back and started with Vox Machina. I went into these 3-5 hour episodes, letting them play in the background at work, letting these people I did not know or even really get yet into my head. And, at first, it was just the fascination of the concept. A long-form narrative built by upwards of 8 people, all sitting around a table, just...improvising. Not an inch of that is the way I tell stories, so it was brilliant and baffling, and curiosity had me straight out the gate. 

And, if it had just been the concept, that still might not have been enough to hold my attention. If it had just been the idea of it, it might not have been loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me the whole ship was going down, that there was no hope, that there was no point in even getting up in the morning to face more bullshit. 

But...it was Matt Mercer. Matt, with such an incredible array of characters and maps living inside his head, who could so easily have been That Guy--the English Major Asshole who knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and played it up--and instead chooses to be so kind. So utterly engrossed in the desire to give everyone a seat at the table, to let everybody into the narrative he’s weaving. It takes a certain kind of person to not only write the sort of stories he invents for CR, but to be open enough to lean back and let other people take the wheel every night, and to roll with whatever comes his way. 

And it was Travis Willingham. This huge dude who had to sit at the edge of the table because he was all muscle and thumping energy, who I kept expecting to be tight-lipped and brewing with that toxic masculinity judgment straight dudes are taught to value--and, instead of even a modicum of that, he was so excited. So invested in these characters and this game, in these friends, in playing the wisest dumbass ever to cross a screen. Travis, who hugs his male friends, and doesn’t pull the no-homo card, and stans his wife with such delight, there is no way you can watch even half an episode without falling in love with their love. 

And it was Liam O’Brien, who could have played the arrogant Cool Dude, and instead leaned so hard into having fun with his place at the table. Into deep-cut jokes, and his love for his friends, and such an affinity for Laura that I genuinely believed they were siblings. Liam, who wears his soft heart on his sleeve, and understands that sometimes the best way through tragedy is to weave it into a story, to let that be a kind of therapy among friends. 

And it was Taliesin Jaffe. Tal, who is just gonna be him, and not even fuck you if you don’t like it--he doesn’t even seem to notice. Tal, who is physical with his friends, and who laughs with his whole body, and who has the quickest one-liners in the world one minute and “life needs things to live” the next, and who just is such a joy to watch as he immerses himself at the table. He’s gonna have his hair, and he’s gonna wear mismatched socks, and he’s gonna paint those nails, and love his people, and inspire everyone around him to do the same. 

And it was Sam Riegel, who--I’ll be honest--I didn’t get for a while. He was hilarious, and he was a quick-draw, and I loved his songs, but I didn’t understand how much he cared, how truly in it he was. Sam has said he’d do anything to make these people laugh, and I don’t think everyone realizes just how valuable it is to have someone who understands the need of a good laugh in a bad situation. Sam lights up the table in the strangest, silliest ways--but he also brings some of the most vital human moments to the story. 

And it was Laura Bailey, who was just so...warm, it bleeds straight through the screen and envelopes me every time I watch her play. Vex is cool as shit on the surface, but Laura is so full of affection, so quick-witted, so hugely into this game that she transforms herself utterly when she plays. Laura comes to the table to play with everything she’s got, and she’s so honest when she does it. Impeccable voice work one minute, flirtatious wink the next, and then she’s dying laughing at a dick joke. It’s so open, it’s impossible not to love. 

And it was Marisha Ray. Marisha, who took so much shit, and came out the other side standing taller than ever. Marisha, who commits wholeheartedly in voice, in affectation, in climbing up on her chair or lunging backward out of it. From day one, I was rooting for Marisha--I was inspired by Keyleth getting to grow up onscreen, as I’ve been invested in Beau slowly cracking open and letting herself shine out from the spaces she’s spent so much time shoring up. She loves these characters like true friends, and she loves her people, and she loves her husband, and she loves this craft to such a degree, I want to quit my job and come work for her instead. There’s such a strength and a dignity to her that I find myself needing to be stronger, too. 

And, of course, it was Ashley Johnson--deceptively sweet, intensely funny, so much tougher than she looks, and when she turns up in a game, the affection could fill a stadium. Ashley being in town or on Skype for a game is like coming into a party and finding a friend you hadn’t gotten to hang out with in six months waiting for you. Everything just feels brighter with her in the game.

And it is a game, and it is a story, but the family these people have built--people I’ll likely never meet, people who live on the opposite side of the country--is somehow big enough to let complete strangers bask in its reflected glow. I built a habit of listening to CR at work...and then talking about it to my wife, with all the hyper-fixation glee I can’t help when I fall in love with something...and then I was putting it on at home so she could fall in love, too. I was putting on Talks or Between the Sheets while I ran on the treadmill, or when I needed to focus on a project. I put on episodes I’d already seen when I was sad, or when I was lonely, or when I just needed something to fill the silence and keep the darkness in my head behind a wall. For two years, I’ve gone back to these people again and again. To the silly videos. To the serious conversations. To the Twitter feeds and the fanart people can’t resist making to commemorate these characters who feel so tangible. 

Matt always ends the stream with a claim of love, and with most shows, with most streamers, with most people, that just feels like words. With these guys, with the way they open up and share this lightning in a bottle family and story they have created with the rest of us, it feels honest. It feels like these are long-lost friends who may never be in the same room, but are always there when I am drowning because the world is a nightmare, because work is kicking my ass, because this gushing essay is the most I’ve written in months. They are so good. They are human, and fallible, and invested in telling stories that get dark and ugly one minute, and devolve into hysteria the next, because that’s what life looks like. Even life with gods and magic and talking swords and goldfish deaths. 

Critical Role keeps me throwing my shoulders back, keeps me laughing, keeps me insisting on showing the people in my life how much they mean to me. Critical Role keeps me on the board when the demons in my head have me thinking it’d be easier to throw the game. It’s a show, and it’s silly, but it’s given me such a safe, warm place to curl up in some of the bleakest times of my life, and I love them so much for being willing to share some of that light with the rest of the world. They’ve given me a place on the internet that truly does feel like home. 

#critical role #long post #critter #there are a lot of stories and storytellers i love with all my heart #but there are so few that make me feel the things the CR cast and crew and narratives do #and i am so grateful for every minute of it they are willing to give #anyway i've been wanting to write something like this since i finished the VM campaign the first time around

[thatfanficstuff]

The Light in my Darkness - 2

Pairing: none yet

Warnings: language but if that bothers you should quit reading this now. 

A/N: I meant to have this up way earlier but ya know. Enjoy my lovelies. This is so much fun to write. 

***

“I don’t understand why you won’t give me this one thing.”

Sharon’s voice had taken on a nasal quality that grated on Clint Barton’s nerves. Of course, the entire argument was an annoyance he shouldn’t be bothered with. They had an agreement for a reason. He clenched his teeth and worked the muscle in his jaw. He was choosing his words carefully, not wanting the conversation to devolve any further. “I’m going to assume you didn’t mean to imply that I don’t provide you with everything you need.”

Her full bottom lip curled out in a pout and she batted her eyelashes at him. “You know I didn’t mean that, baby. You take such good care of me.”

He arched a brow but didn’t bother to respond. The monthly credit card bill was more than sufficient to show that she was more than taken care of. He crossed the room to look out the window, putting her at his back. Not for the first time, he wondered if it was time to end this. Sharon could be difficult at times but did it outweigh the time and effort he would have to put into finding a new companion? He sighed. God, I sound like a miserable bastard, he thought. Though he tried not to think about it too hard as he was far from happy with his current situation.

Small hands ran over the back of his jacket and across his shoulders.  He resisted the urge to shrug off her touch. 

“Look, we’ve been seeing each other for awhile now. My father thinks it time the two of you met. That’s all.” She’d curbed her tone to sound more reasonable and less whiney, but it was all a game. Everything that came from her mouth was calculated to get what she wanted. It should probably have bothered him more than it did, but he knew what she was when they started this.

He turned to face her. “The only reason he wants to meet me now is you’ve led on that we’re more than what we are. You could have told your parents that this was a casual relationship.”

Her lips pursed and she huffed as she turned away from him to grab her drink off the table. “They aren’t likely to believe that when I’m living with you.”

“We do not live together. You’ve never even seen my house and I’m barely ever here. I hate this apartment.”

Her brow furrowed as if this was news to her, though he’d mentioned it before. “What?”

He shrugged. “It’s cold. Impersonal.” Everything in the apartment was chrome and shades of gray. Nothing about it remotely said home to him.

“Why didn’t you say anything? I thought you’d approve. The designer I hired was one of the best.”

“I did say something, but I’m not the one living here, Sharon. If this makes you happy, so be it.” He raked a hand through his hair.

Her scowl slid into a sly smile. “See, I knew you cared about my happiness.” She sauntered back over to him and slipped her free hand into the front of his jacket. “You want everyone to think you’re so cool and unmovable, but you’re such a good boyfriend, Clint.”

Panic crawled up his spine when she called him her boyfriend. That wouldn’t do at all. He grasped her upper arms and moved her back away from him. “That’s not what this is and you know it. Quite frankly, I’m getting tired of having to remind you.”

“Why are you like this?” Tears welled in her eyes.

Clint didn’t even bother to hide his eye roll. The tears were about as real as the rest of her. “I’m the same as I was the day you met me.”

She slammed her glass down before crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s precisely the problem. By now I thought you would have come around to the idea of us. We’re perfect together. Why can’t you see that?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t love you? It’s too late for that.”

Clint pinched the bridge of his nose. He pulled out his phone and began to send a series of texts. Without looking at her, he spoke. “We’re done here, Sharon. Tonight signals the end of our agreement. This is over.”

“You’re breaking up with me because I told you that I love you?” Her voice was low, little more than a whisper.  

He bit back the harsher words he wanted to say. This was a business arrangement, nothing more. He wouldn’t let her get to him. “You don’t love me and don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise. You love my money. Not that I expect you to know the difference.”

Her glare might have made a lesser man pause, but Clint barely acknowledged it. “You can’t do this to me. I’ll tell everyone the truth. I’ll let them know the kind of man you are.”

His brows lifted and his mouth twitched at the threat. He licked his lips. “You signed a contract that forbids you from doing precisely that. Do it and you’ll hear from my attorneys. Besides, do you really want to tell everyone that you agreed to be in a relationship with me in exchange for money? I don’t think it’s me people will be judging.”

She stomped her foot and growled in frustration. His eyes followed her as she paced angrily across the floor. Suddenly, she snapped back toward him. “I’ll tell them you hit me.”

Anger flared through him then, hot and hungry. His shoulders rolled back and his spine went rigid. “You want to repeat that?”

Sharon ran her gaze over him and whatever she saw must have been enough to make her rethink her words. She shook her head. “I deserve more than this. I deserve better.”

“You deserve nothing. I have paid your every expense for the past eight months in exchange for you decorating my arm in public and a few nights in a lukewarm bed. I was clear from the beginning that was all this was. All it would ever be. I am not responsible for your delusions.”

“But it’s not a delusion. You really care for me. I can tell.”

He felt a twinge of sympathy for her until she continued.

“Please don’t cut me off. I need you.”

“As you’ve just made abundantly clear, you need my money. Not me. Frankly, you aren’t worth the headache anymore. I’ll give you three days to vacate the apartment. You may take personal belongings only. Everything else is to remain.” It was harsher than he intended to be, but apparently it was needed in this situation.

Her arms dropped to her sides as she gaped at him. “You can’t just expect me to leave. This is my apartment.”

“No, it’s my apartment. You really should read your contract, sweetheart.” And with those words, he turned and left. He slammed the door on her cursing his name and took the stairs two at a time down to the garage.

As his driver opened the door to the car for him, Clint smiled. He felt lighter than he had in weeks. Yes, Sharon was a weight he should have done away with some time ago.

“Is Miss Carter not joining us?” Scott asked and Clint didn’t miss the way the corner of the man’s mouth kicked up. His driver had never cared for Sharon and the feeling was mutual.

“Miss Carter will not be joining us again ever,” Clint answered as he slid onto the back seat. He could have sworn he heard Scott mutter ‘thank fuck’ before he shut the door. Clint chuckled and finished sending the emails he needed to make sure the flow of money in Sharon’s direction stopped.

His relief was only dampened by the fact he would have to find a new companion or he’d be right back to dodging money hungry women in no time. One soul-crushing relationship in a lifetime was enough. He had no desire to ever repeat the experience.

***

Once he arrived home, he dismissed Scott and entered through the kitchen door at the side of the house. He jerked to a stop when his eyes fell on Wanda sitting at the table with a pint of ice cream in front of her. Though she was scowling at the food in front of her, she wasn’t crying. Clint could handle anything as long as she didn’t start crying. Despite her obvious upset, he found himself smiling. He was always happy to see his girl. The house had been far too quiet since she moved into her own place closer to school.

He unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged out of it before tossing it over the back of one of the chairs. After that, he loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves to reveal several of his tattoos. There. Now, he felt more like himself. He eyed Wanda but she still hadn’t acknowledged him beyond lifting her spoon in a wave. Moving to the fridge, he grabbed a couple of beers and went to join her at the table. He offered her one but she made a face.

“Beer and ice cream? Yuck.”

He grinned and cracked his open. After taking a long swallow, he sat the bottle on the table. “Lay it on me.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’m just a little bummed.” She rested her chin in her hand with a sigh.

“If it’s not a big deal, why did you drive all the way over here to eat my ice cream?”

She scoffed and narrowed her eyes at him. “Since when do you like pistachio?”

He shrugged and took another sip of his beer. “Talk to me. Who do I need to kill?”

That got him a laugh and his heart lightened considerably.

She shook her head. “It’s Y/N.”

Clint’s chest tightened a little at the mention of your name. You’d been a fixture in their lives since high school. He’d gotten used to having you around. Sometime in the last couple of years, he’d realized his feelings for you had shifted. Once he had, he’d done his best to stomp them into the ground and when that failed to work entirely, he started to avoid you. “Did you two have a fight?”

Wanda’s brow furrowed. “Of course not. We’re just not getting the apartment together anymore.”

He leaned back in his chair with a frown. The two of you had been planning on being roommates forever but it wasn’t practical with you in business school. Your change in majors had come with a transfer to Wanda’s college so now was the perfect time. “Well, why not?” Clint prompted when she didn’t continue on her own.

“Her father refuses to pay for anything unless she goes back to business school. He’s kicking her out of her apartment and cutting her off completely. She planned on financial aid covering her expenses but they won’t give her any money since her dad makes too much,” she told him quickly without taking a breath.

“Fucking Rumlow,” Clint muttered. He hated that man and still didn’t understand how someone like Y/N could have the same genes. “She doesn’t have to pay for her portion of the apartment, Wanda. You know I don’t care about that.”

She pointed at him with her spoon. “I know that and I told her as much, but she won’t do it. She can’t afford her classes much less her half of an apartment. They offered her all the hours she wanted at the diner but she won’t do that either. She’ll think it’s taking advantage of their kindness. You know how she is. I think she’s going to get another job. I’m never going to see her.”

Clint sipped at his beer as he mulled over the situation. If it was up to him, he would just pay for your tuition and your half of the apartment, but Wanda was right. You wouldn’t take it. You were one of the best people he knew and you certainly didn’t deserve any of this. Maybe he should call Rumlow and have a few words with him. He doubted that would have any affect on the situation, but he couldn’t think of what else to do.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out. A glance at the screen showed a text from Natasha wanting to verify he and his plus one would be attending a charity gala on Friday evening. He started to type back a reply but froze, his thumb hovering over the phone. He’d just had a fantastic, horrible idea. He slipped his phone back into his pocket without responding.

You needed money, which he could provide. And he needed someone with a flexible schedule to attend events with him. Go to the occasional dinner. Someone to make him appear unavailable. You were always ready and anxious to help where needed. If he explained this right, maybe both of you could end up with what you needed. And if it meant he spent more time with you, he wouldn’t complain. He could manage to keep his hands to himself while you enjoyed each other’s company. He’d been practicing for years now.

He cleared his throat, catching Wanda’s attention. He met her eye and smiled. “Have Y/N come by the office and see me tomorrow. I might be able to help her out.”

#clint barton x reader #clint barton fanfiction #hawkeye x reader #sugar daddy au #clint barton sugar daddy au #avengers #avengers au #avengers fanfiction #clint x reader #clint barton x you #series #the light in my darkness

[luckyspike]

God should have made a universe full of nebulas - a Good Omens fanfiction

i wanted to write about Crowley’s fall so I did. party on.

Link to AO3 if you’d prefer to read it there

-

He hadn’t meant to Fall. He really, honestly, hadn’t. He had said as much to Aziraphale, once, twice, four hundred times over the years, but he was pretty sure the angel never really believed him. After all, it sounded idiotic. Who Falls by accident? It’s definitely something you mean to do, brought about by a willful wrongdoing without a hint of good intention in your heart. ‘Ah, but,’ the casual observer may say, ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’ And certainly there are good intention rest-stops along the way, but everybody knows the road to Hell is actually paved with frozen door-to-door salespeople. And, thanks to the ever-changing nature of the world, telephone scammers.

They were in the back room of the bookshop some months after the Nahpocalypse. Azirpahale was sitting on the couch, smiling contentedly and sipping his moscato, one of Crowley’s legs in his lap and the other draped over his shoulders. His wings were out, draped lazily over the back of the furniture, primaries spreading out on the worn floorboards like a bridal train. The demon was lounged back against the arm of the couch, glass of red wine in hand and shoulder-length hair in his face, wings out as well, although not nearly as full as the angel’s: the left one, the better one, was splayed across the floor while the right one, twisted and contracted, broken by the Fall, was cocked between the demon’s shoulder and the couch cushions, the few feathers remaining warped by the awkward positioning. He was lightly drunk, and he hadn’t yet devolved to declarations of love for the world and Aziraphale, so he was still in control of his faculties. “Did you know,” he said, in a lull in conversation, after Aziraphale had finished a cathartic rant about internet sales, “that I Fell by accident?”

Aziraphale nodded, and made a point of not shifting awkwardly. Crowley often mentioned his Fall in an off-hand way, usually with some degree of pitch-black humor or sarcasm, the same way humans joked about the deaths of loved ones, or horrible tragedies being personally inconvenient in petty ways. “You have mentioned it before, yes,” he replied, trying to keep his tone light.

Crowley looked into his wineglass pensively. “Guess I have done, yeah.” He swallowed another mouthful. “You wanna hear the story?”

“I -” he paused. His brow furrowed, and he debated sobering up a little. Crowley couldn’t be serious - demons didn’t tell stories about their Falls. At least, not that Aziraphale knew of. Not that he had a lot of experience with demons outside of Crowley and a few vanquished foes from back in the Mesopotamian days. “You’re drunk,” he concluded, reasonably. “Not a good time.”

“Not a much better time, you ask me.” Crowley nudged Aziraphale’s cheek with his knee. “C’monnn, I know you’re curious.”

“My dear, I rather think this is a subject better saved for a more subdued situation,” Aziraphale said quietly, running his hand through the feathers in Crowley’s bad wing. “I wouldn’t want to upset you.”

Crowley groaned, and momentarily went limp. “Aziraphale. You’re killing me.” He looked up to catch the angel’s puzzled expression. “I’m offering, angel! ‘M not that drunk, I assure you I’m fully consenting or whatever to this. I saved the bloody world with you - okay, I was there with you when the world was saved, you can stuff it - for Someone’s sake. We’re going to buy a house together.” He made a face. “Like a couple of pensioners. You were in my body!”

A sigh. “Well, when you put it that way. But if it’s going to upset you …”

“It’s upsetting me how you keep assuming I’m gonna get upset!” Crowley propped himself up on his elbows, ticking points off on his fingers. “Was it traumatic? Yes. Awful? Absolutely. Do I miss God? Sure, I guess, just like everyone else. But!” He held up the other hand. “We have the other points: I met you, got forgiven by you which means way more than some distant authority figure by the way, all great. I get to be me, fantastic. I don’t have to talk to Gabriel ever, the best.” Aziraphale was watching him, and, slowly, Crowley’s expression softened. “I wouldn’t go back to being an angel, angel. ‘Member what I said to you when we were talking about the apocalypse? Back when I’d just dropped off Adam?”

Aziraphale thought it over. “About the dolphins …?”

“No, Aziraphale, honestly, that’s not even pertinent.” He waved a hand. “You said, ‘well I’ll be damned’, an’ I said, ‘it’s not that bad, when you get used to it.’” He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I‘ve had a long time to get used to it. An’ … an’ you’re around which, you know. Doesn’t hurt.” There was silence in the bookshop, and the two studied one another, both thoughtful. “If it’s gonna upset you -”

“No.” Aziraphale held up a hand. “I mean, it might. I … I do not like hearing about bad things happening to you my dear but …” He took a breath. “Crowley, if you want to tell me the story, I’d be honored to hear it out.”

“I want to.” He sat up, and then laid back down, face-first, across Aziraphale’s lap. Absently, the angel buried his fingers into the soft scapulars, and Crowley hissed happily. “Jus’ keep doing that, though. An’ top me off, first?”

Aziraphale did. “Right. You can stop any time if you want to, you know.”

“I do.” He took a breath, and another gulp of wine. “Right. Okay, so -”

In the Beginning (or rather, Some Period before) …

The stars stretched out before him, lightyears away and yet practically in his lap, all at once. In his hands, stardust like clay, clinging to his fingers and wrists, slick and gritty. He swirled a palm-full of stars, and watched it move thoughtfully, and considered.

Raphael had said they needed more asteroids, planetoids, comets, all that tosh, and less stars. No more nebulas, he had been told firmly, with a disapproving look, as the Archangel sighed and looked over the lesser angel’s work. It’s a nice nebula though, Raphael said. I’ll find somewhere to put it. Just … stop making them. Try a comet, they’re kind of the same.

He had tried a few comets. They were not the same. They were, well, boring. They didn’t do anything besides slingshot around a galaxy, messy and dribbling. A nebula - a really good nebula - now that is a big interesting star factory, swirling around and bouncing on its own, doing what it likes once you let it go. It makes things, things which nobody in Heaven has anything to do with - totally independent. Some explode in a shower of ions, that’s always disappointing, but sometimes, oh, the ones that succeed are so worth it. Gorgeous and glorious and amazing.

God should have made a universe full of nebulas, the angel thought. He looked back to the stardust, still twisting in his hands, and breathed on it. It ballooned - they always did, if you knew what you were doing - and formed, and lo, a new nebula was born. He smiled at the thing, and hung it in storage. That would be Raphael’s issue, later.

If they didn’t want more nebulas they shouldn’t have made them so bloody delightful, the angel thought. He didn’t say it, though. Not then, anyway.

“What’re you doing?” He jumped and turned to see another angel - a familiar face, although after the Fall he wouldn’t be able to recall her name, only that she is now called Amii - watching him intently. “I thought old Raphael said no more nebulas.” A quizzical look. “I distinctly remember something about comets.”

The angel sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, comets … comets are boring. Not much of one for comets, me.” He shrugged. “And what’s an extra nebula or two, when you get down to it? Space’s big.”

“Space is big,” the other angel intoned, thoughtfully. “But Raphael is an Archangel, with orders straight from, you know.” A cocked eyebrow, or at least the impression of one - forms were more a loose concept in Heaven, in that time before time. “You don’t want to go against those, eh?”

The lesser angel hedged. “Well, no, obviously, but you know … Well, it’s not like anyone’s checking up. If it was really supposed to be comets only, don’t you think I would be like, incapable of making anything else? I mean why not just make me forget nebulas? Or just … instill me with an overwhelming love of comets?” He crossed his arms. “Way I see it, until someone tells me to stop -”

“Raphael did.”

“Well …”

The other angel chuckled. “You sound like someone else I know. It could get you in trouble, you know.”

“How?” the lesser angel challenged. “She is a being of true love and forgiveness, isn’t She? What, I’m going to get a stern talking to and maybe a transfer to a different department? Hah, ok, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing until then.” He stopped, and then wheedled a little. “You know everyone likes a nebula.”

“They do.” The angel-now-demon-known-as-Amii looked to the stardust residue coating the lesser angel’s hands. “Clean your hands off, I think you ought to meet someone.”

“Who?” but even as he asked, he was shaking the stardust loose into the cosmos, forming clouds and smears of light that drifted away.

“You ever met Lucifer?”

He raised his eyebrows. “The Lightbringer? No, not me. I’m not nearly important enough.”

“I think he’d like you.”

“Do you?” he asked, with genuine surprise.

The other angel nodded. “I do. I think you two should talk. Here, follow me - I’ll introduce you.”

And she did. Lucifer was everything you’d expect from someone called ‘Lightbringer’: charming and charismatic and easy to talk to, easy to go around with. They drank of the manna together*, surrounded by a pack of other angels of all sorts of ranks, and talked about the universe, about stars, about God, and a lot of other things in between. “Makes you wonder if Creation really is infinite, you know?” the starmaker said to Lucifer once. “Or is that just, you know, a rumor. I mean, why limit what all we can make, what all we can put it in if it’s infinite?”

“It does make you wonder,” Lucifer said, thoughtfully. “I’d like to get answers if I could, I think. I’d like to ask, anyway.” There was a chorus of general agreement. He turned his attention back to the starmaker, and nudged his shoulder. “You know, I heard She is working on something new. A new planet.”

“What? All by Herself? You’re having me on.” He laughed. “Why would She do that?”

“Another good question,” Lucifer said, a glimmer in his eye. “Gabriel says he’s seen Her working on it. Supposedly -” he lowered his voice, and the assembled angels leaned in, although in this place, where time and space and sound were optional, they didn’t really need to. “Supposedly, She is making new life to live there and only there. A new Creation. A microcosm of our Host. And She has a Great Plan.” Murmurs of confusion, surprise. Questions of ‘why?’ and ‘what’s wrong with us?’. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Lucifer asked. “I reckon, if She’s so omnipotent and infallible, why would She need to replace us? She created us. Theoretically, we should be perfect. But, I guess not.” He stood, spread his hands. “If we need replaced, after all. So is She really infallible?”

“I mean maybe it’s like a reboot?” the starmaker suggested. Lucifer turned his attention to him, and he realized, suddenly, that he wasn’t sure what a reboot really was, which rather hindered his ability to make a simile. “You know, like Angels 2.0, all the good stuff plus some upgrades.”

“Upgrades,” Lucifer said flatly.

“Yeah, you know.” The starmaker wilted a little, suddenly the center of attention, but he plowed ahead anyway. “Maybe more wings or something.”

“And then what of us?” Lucifer asked, voice low. Suddenly, this was not a light conversation. This was not just idle questions in a group of like-minded people. “When there are Angels 2.0? Are we obsolete? Or just playing eternal second fiddle? A piece to be moved around in this … Plan?”

“I …” He stammered. “I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you like to ask?”

He paused. “I suppose I would, yeah.” He thought about it, and then, surprised, found his resolve hardened. “Yeah, you know, you have a point. Why would She do it all again?”

Lucifer nodded. “Be a lot easier if someone could ask. Be a lot easier if we could … talk it over. Maybe She needs a little more input in decision-making.” There were murmurs of agreement. The starmaker, with a sinking feeling, frowned. “Angels, brothers, sisters - I hear your concerns. And, you know, as a member of the first circle, well …” He gave the impression of drawing himself up, and the light flaring off of him burned brighter. “I think She and I need to have a chat. I think we deserve answers.” Lower still, he added, “And I think we need to know if She has them.”

The chat, as evidenced by the heaps of mythology, did not go well. But you know that part, broadly. The angels who had gathered around Lucifer - including the starmaker - were hunted down in Heaven. Some, angry that their questions were to remain unanswered, or furious that they were to be replaced by Her newest creation, fought back. Blood was shed. Angels, flaming swords gripped in their hands, swarmed unto other angels, who parried, or ran, or were unmade.

The starmaker ran. He ran as far as he could, to the furthest reaches of space, but it was no use. The others had seen him. “You never were good at following orders,” Raphael said, flaming sword held aloft. It would have been easier if he looked angry, but he didn’t. He was crying. “I should have known. I should have - I should have known.”

“I didn’t mean it.” The angel held his hands up, placating. “I’ll make all the comets you want, Ralph, really, I promise, no more nebulas.”

“No. No, you had your chance.” He advanced, and his expression hardened. “Don’t make this harder than it is. Please.”

“Raphael, please, you know me, always getting up to something but it’s all, you know, well it’s never anything really it’s always just talk and -”

“Please stop talking.” The sword hefted. “Please. You talk too much. You talk too much, and you’re too good at it, and I can’t do this right now.”

The angel, wings wrapped around himself, hands raised, drifted back in space, bumping into a galaxy, pitching it on its axis. “Raphael -” he stopped. He couldn’t not stop. There was a flare of light - blinding, horrible light - and screaming. A form, and nobody needed telling who it was, was falling from on high. He was burning, too, as he fell, plunging downwards. Up to that point, nobody had realized there was anything below Heaven but he went through the bottom of that, too, and kept falling.

Falling. With a capital ‘F’.

And then there were more. Some jumped. Some were thrown. Some - and nobody was really sure how - just Fell, without any observable force acting on them. A lot of them screamed, but some of them didn’t. Somehow, that was worse. They burned like magnesium, streaking through space and out of Heaven, to somewhere Below.

The starmaker watched, and Raphael did, too. And then he turned back, eyes wide.

“Don’t kill me,” the starmaker whispered, his hands reaching into a cloud of stardust, twisting it, trying to hold it, to find comfort. “I don’t want to die.”

“That might be worse,” Raphael pointed out. He hefted the sword. “The Lord is merciful in all things.”

“So which one is the merciful one, then?” Raphael stopped. The sword stopped. Flames - silent and roaring all at once - licked the blade and burned away stardust. “You don’t know. I don’t know. But … but I know I don’t want to die.” He unfurled his wings, and looked down. With one last glance to the Archangel, he said, “Bye, Ralph.”

And he Fell, too.

It wasn’t great. The starmaker had free-fallen before, while he was flying, and it wasn’t anything like that. Think of it like this: falling down a hill on a rollercoaster is all well and good, because you know you’re safely held in the car, and will go around the curve at the bottom, and in forty-five seconds you will be walking away, laughing about what fun that was with your friends, and talking about hitting the ice cream stand for some soft serve. Falling off Niagra Falls, however, doesn’t have a meticulously-engineered curve at the bottom. There’s rocks. There’s definitely not ice cream.

He spread his wings, but it was of no use. He could tumble and twist, he could barrel-roll and somersault, but he could only go down. There was no deceleration, no brakes. And there was nothing below, besides the lens-flare pinpricks of other angels who had gone before.

So he Fell. It hurt, too, not physically but deeper than that, as if through every lightyear he pulled away from Heaven a little more of his soul ripped away. Which was absurd, he thought distantly, as he twisted, because his soul probably didn’t have feelings. He had Grace, and that’s what he was losing. He knew that, though no one had told him, because that was the only thing he could think of that would feel that way - the loss of Grace, which up to that point had done the job of trying to fill an empty hole in him that had once been brimming with faith. It was going, he was Falling away from it and burning up as he did, and with every millennium he Fell he felt colder, emptier, weaker. He stopped flapping. Stopped trying to stop. Stopped looking back. He went limp, head down, and let himself Fall. Maybe Raphael had been right.

He Fell for so long that he didn’t notice, not at first, that the air … changed. Got hot. Sticky. By the time it broke through to his consciousness - had he gone to sleep? - and prompted him to open his eyes, there was light, too. Sickly, yellow light. He looked to the source, and saw a pit of boiling sulfur.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and tried to hit the brakes.

It sort of worked. He didn’t hit The Pit at terminal velocity, anyway - some did, bursting out of existence with geysers of sulfur and acrid, greasy clouds of smoke. But at a certain speed, hitting liquid might as well be hitting stone, and he knew that. He braked hard, flapping and twisting and rolling and trying to create as much drag as he could and then, when it became clear that the options were to stick the landing or die trying, he dove.

His right wing hit first. It hurt. And then the rest of him caught fire. Or, he thought, it must have done. Nothing else could possibly cause that much pain. He plunged through the sulfur, flailing to slow himself, burning up and screaming silently, but alive, until the sensation of sinking stopped. He floated.

He wondered how long he could float there. It wasn’t so bad, not now that it all had stopped. Oh, sure, there was pain, his wing felt absolutely mangled and he realized he had no arms or legs, not anymore, who knew what happened to those, but it could have been worse. Beat death any day, anyway. So he floated, eyes closed, and debated staying there.

There was a rumble from Below. It had to be Below. It could only be Below. He opened his eyes, and swam up, paddling with the left wing as best he could, and tail - yeah, that seemed about right, what’s a tail anyway? Definitely wasn’t legs - whipping in the sulfur, propelling him to the surface. He broke through, eyes and nose and ears full of sulfur, the taste of ash in his mouth and fire in his lungs - weird sensations, painful but something he realized he was quickly acclimatizing to - and swam. There was an edge, in the distance. Rocky, sharp, smoking, coated in ash, but an edge nonetheless. A ledge to climb on. He swam towards it.

“Not so fast,” someone growled, behind him, and, with a sticky, charred hand on his broken wing, they pulled.

He didn’t think about it. It happened on something like instinct, although he was fairly certain that he didn’t truly have instincts. But either way, they pulled, and he struck, whipping around in an impossible arc and sinking long, needle-thin fangs - fangs? - into the other fallen angel’s bulk, bearing them below sulfur and hissing - hissing, that was new - the entire time. They screamed for a time, until they didn’t. Eventually, they let go, and they sank. He kept swimming.

The ledge was sharp, and he hissed when it scraped him while he dragged himself up it, but it was solid. His left wing gave him leverage enough to haul himself up to the waist, to get his … no. He didn’t have a waist. No, this wasn’t right.

For the first time, he risked a look at his form, limbless and burnt. And he hissed again, surprised and afraid and angry and lost, all at once, with about forty other emotions thrown in for flavor. For a bare minute, he debated letting go, falling back into the sulfur, and sinking down to the rumbling thing below. And then he snarled, and slithered out of the pool.

There were others around the pool. He slithered over the rocks, raw wounds on his belly dragging and scraping, a new agony with every move, and kept his distance, the other one in the pool still fresh in his mind. There were bodies, too. Dead angels - no, not angels, something else, now - scattered around, broken and lifeless and alien-looking. He stopped among a group of them and thought. Others were coming out of the pool, others were still Falling in. There was screaming, and gnashing of teeth, and even as he watched one tore into another, not unlike what he’d done, and began to eat. To eat. He shuddered and sank low to the ground, curling his body into a tight coil, broken wing held as close as he could. He waited. It would stop, eventually. It had to.

He was right, ultimately. The streaks of light from Heaven slowed, and then stopped entirely. He watched carefully, just to be sure, and then, cautiously, slithered forward. There was a gathering, ahead. A group. And nobody appeared to be eating one another, which was a bonus.

A heavy hand - hot, but not burning - landed on his back. He screamed and coiled, winding up to strike. “Relax!” He stopped. It wasn’t the same voice, not quite, but close. He turned around, and blinked in the face of a pillar of infernal flames. “Hail and well met.” The flames condensed, took form, almost like an angel but shifted to the left, who was waving at him. It looked, if it could be possible with milky white eyes and a mouthful of flames, apologetic. And familiar, in a distant sort of way. “What a mess that turned out to be, huh? I saw you fall - you’re the starmaker, right?”

He hissed, and tried to find the name. It evaded him. The other shook her head. “Not anymore. I know what you’re trying. But you felt the Grace leave you, yes?” He had. He hurt, and he ached, and he felt cold and empty and sick inside. “Our names went with it. You may call me Amii, now.”

“Amii,” he parroted, forked tongue and fangs and alien name unfamiliar in his mouth. “You knew me.”

“I did, if you were the starmaker. Can’t quite recognize you in that form, though - you want to try for something like you used to do?” She paused. “Or you can stay like that, since it’s technically your true form now. You’ll get used to it. Part of the deal.”

“The deal?”

“The deal,” Amii agreed. “The demon deal. It’s what we are now: demons. Fallen angels, technically, but Lucifer isn’t so hot on anyone using that term. I’d avoid it, if I were you, when you see him.”

“Demonssssss.” He looked around then, suddenly apprehensive. “Where’ssss Lucifer?”

“I’ll take you to him.”

“No!” He backed up, over the bodies of other fallen angels - demons - eyes wide. “No, no, not again -”

Amii grabbed the broken wing, dragging on the ground, and the former starmaker froze. Amii looked, for a moment, profoundly sad. “No choice now, I’m afraid. We are his. He is the King of Hell, and the King of Demons, and you have to go meet him.” She tried to smile. “At the very least, you need a name.”

“I had a name.”

“Not anymore. Come on.” She tugged, but was met with continued resistance. She sighed. “You don’t want to make him call you. Easier if you go on your own.”

“Let me go.”

Amii did. She watched, then, as the other slithered alongside him, and they started toward the crowd of other demons. “You can still heal yourself, if you want, and I can teach you how to assume the shape you used to have, approximately. It’s manageable. You survived, that’s the big thing.” She looked to the broken wing. “Wings can’t be fixed, though, I’m afraid.” She heard the sharp intake of breath from the other, and explained, “Lucifer told us She said that we will be doomed to crawl and eat dust for the rest of eternity as punishment for the rebellion.” She let her own wings out, such as they still were, both burned away to charred stumps spotted with sparse feathers.

“Rebellion? I didn’t rebel. I just asked questions.”

“Same thing, I guess.” She continued, the serpent beside her, until they reached the gathered crowd. There was a line leading to Lucifer, and Amii indicated the end. “You have to wait. You need a name. If you don’t go willingly, he’ll call you. It’s not very pleasant.”

“I’ll wait.” He slithered to the back of the line, past grotesque beasts that he didn’t have names for and others that had tried to resume their angel forms, but were marred by the Fall with boils and wounds and burns. He wondered, vaguely, what he would look like if he took that form right now. He looked down to his body again, bright black scales on his back and red on the belly, scars and burns scattered all over, and decided against attempting a transformation. He hissed, and drew his left wing in, and coiled up to wait.

Time hadn’t been invented yet, so the serpent didn’t have any idea of how long he waited, but when he finally reached the front of the line, the horror and pain and sadness had faded to a sort of background hum and were replaced at the forefront with boredom, which was a strange emotion to feel grateful for but an improvement nonetheless. He was also sick of the bull with the flaming eyes and nostrils and mouth behind him, lowing and stepping on his tail. He had been looking forward to getting this over with, but at the front of the line he stopped. Lucifer regarded him through coal-black eyes, luminescent flesh burnt off entirely, leaving only ruddy red leather. He had a crown of horns, twisting out of his head, a scaled tail like the lesser demon’s own, and the legs of a beast with cloven hooves. He had been so beautiful, before. Now, he was a monster.

Maybe he should not have been so eager to get this over with. Nevertheless, cautiously, he slithered forward, eyes downcast.

“A serpent.” Lucifer observed. “You need a name.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Lucifer considered it. “Crawly,” he declared, finally. The serpent would have winced if it had the facial musculature to do it. Crawly? It was too on the nose for him. Maybe he could change it … no, he thought quickly, pulling the brake lever on that train of thought with everything he had. No, that’s what got him into this whole mess in the first place. Taking liberties. Asking questions.

On the other hand that he no longer had, however, what more could they do to him? He burnt and felt dead inside, he ached, and he’d lost the ability to fly. His wings were ruined. He could barely speak without hissing. He surprised himself in that moment with a spark of optimism - really, in this place? - and thought, Nowhere to go but up.

Lucifer spoke again. Oh. Had he lingered too long? “Demon Crawly.”

“Lord, at your command.”

“I recognize your voice.” A hiss slipped out of Crawly, nervous and shaking and weak. He shrank back as Lucifer looked him over imperiously. “Show your other form.”

He couldn’t have resisted if he tried. He had never changed shapes before, slipping an angelic shape on like a suit, but it was easy. Most magic is easy, as all angels know: you just have to know one or two tricks about the backstage workings of physics and space-time, but once you’ve got that down there’s nothing to it. He had been a starmaker; twisting space-time had been his pre-breakfast routine. He shifted from serpent to his old form, or something approximating it, and there was no pain to it, which surprised him. Messy red hair fell into his eyes and then past his chin. He reached up to brush it away, and froze. His hand - the hand that had made stars and nebulas and waved stardust into the universe - was charred, burnt black, the ends of his fingers drawn out into claws. The char traced up his arms, ending just below the elbow and fading into scales instead, the same black and red of his serpent form. Cautiously, watching the claws like they might attack him of their own volition, he brushed his hair back, and experimentally brushed his nose. Flesh, not scales. Interesting. Horrific, but interesting.

Lucifer was watching him. “I know you. I spoke with you, not long before the Fall.”

He bowed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “You did, Lord.”

The King of Hell regarded him for another moment, appraising him up-and-down, and then gestured to a row of demons standing to his left. “Stand with them, demon Crawly.”

He did. He didn’t ask why. On some level, he was glad for the command, because in this form his legs didn’t seem to want to work properly - he might have been angel-shaped, but he still wanted to slither. He staggered to the line of waiting demons and stood at the end, lifting his broken wing as high as he could without worsening the pain, trying to keep the end of the phalanx from dragging along the sharp rocks. He wobbled on unfamiliar legs and fought back a wave of a very new feeling. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

Below the pain and the grief was hate, oh how that burned inside of him like nothing ever had before. Hate for Lucifer, and for his bloody questions, hate for Amii for introducing them, hate for Raphael and his fucking comets and hate for … for Her. It made him feel sick, when he thought about Her. He was so angry with Her, so furious, but then grief would surge up like a geyser and bank the heat of the hate, until another wave of anger fed it back alive. He had been the one that stepped out of line, it was his fault, not Hers. But then - why cast him out? He just had questions. She was supposed to be infinitely understanding and benevolent, forgiving and loving. Was she really so unable to handle a few simple questions?

I just wanted to make galaxies, he thought, watching Lucifer name demon after demon. Another lank strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he left it. He didn’t want to see his own hand again. He didn’t want to see the ash where stardust had just been. He ached, he felt tired to his very core and nauseous, like he might never eat again, but yet … he was alive. That was better than death. Right?

With trembling hands - claws - he reached out and gathered his broken wing closer to himself, combing the three primaries that were left with long, shaky strokes.

The demon next to him was watching him, black eyes empty and gleaming in the light of the brimstone. A frog, seated on the top of his head, croaked. “Who are you?” The demon asked.

“Crawly, I guess.”

The demon considered it. “I’ve never heard of you. Are you a Duke?”

Crawly blinked - ah, so he did have eyelids in this form. “I don’t think so,” he answered, eventually. “Are you?”

“I am Duke Hastur.” He looked vaguely disgusted that Crawly was not a Duke. “Why has our Dark Lord asked you to join these ranks?” Crawly had no idea. He said so. “Perhaps we will eat you later.”

Oh. He hadn’t considered that. Duke Hastur smiled not-very-nicely. A maggot crawled out from between his broken teeth, and re-entered his nose. Crawly shivered, and resisted the urge to transform back into a snake. At least there were no maggots. Not unless, he thought, he wanted to add them later, maybe. Which he had trouble believing he ever would. Rather than slither away, he stepped half a foot away from Hastur, and held his broken wing closer. The bones ground, and the joints, but he found a position that was nominally less painful than any other, and did his best to maintain it. It was healing up, he realized as the wing cracked and twisted in his hand, and some of the pain faded. Badly, still broken, but it was healing anyway.

It would never heal right. Guess it didn’t matter. At least it was still there - one of Hastur’s had been broken off entirely, oozing blood and ichor, maggots feeding at the stump.

As the Fall had stopped, the Naming stopped eventually, too. Lucifer stalked around the assembled demons, and addressed them. They were Fallen. They were damned to an eternity of suffering and pain, never to be forgiven for their sins. They were supposed to be kind, and benevolent, and faithful and loyal and obedient, and they had all violated that in some way. Must have done, to Fall. Crawly thought of his questions as his stomach rolled. Lucifer, too, grieved, pain apparent in every word, and near the end he cried out, voice breaking with pain and loss, and all of the demons fell to their knees, crying and hissing and screaming and roaring, as his pain washed through them, twisting and burning - burning again, just like when they were Falling, burning burning - and flames leapt up from The Pit.

Crawly would have cried, but he couldn’t. Serpents can’t cry. He clenched his fists over his ears instead, claws digging into his palms and raining ash down around his head, on knees and elbows, and whimpered until it stopped. The pain left him curled on the rocks, trembling and weak. Lucifer was talking again, and Crawly was aware of a rough hand on his shoulder, dragging him to his feet.

“The Dark Lord wishes to speak to us privately,” Duke Hastur snarled. “Stand, serpent.” There was no command to it - Hastur had no power over Crawly - but he stood anyway. Around them, demons were shuffling away, blank-eyed and staring. Crawly watched as they started picking up rocks, or digging them with their bare hands, fingers breaking and bleeding as they chipped the stones away, only to heal and re-break. He swallowed. A command, then. Had to be. But his mind was … clear, relatively. Considering recent events, anyway. So it was not a command for him.

He reached for his wing, for the comfort of his own feathers, and was surprised to find he could bring it around a little without pulling it. The pain had faded, too. Healed, then. Stiff and scarred and most definitely useless for the rest of eternity, but healed. How long had they been here?

Lucifer spoke. “Princes, Dukes, Knights … Crawly.” He stalked down to Crawly and lingered there, amused almost, Crawly thought, if that wasn’t a completely absurd thought (he must be starting to lose it, and who would blame him?), before turning and stalking back up the formed ranks. “The free-thinkers. The ones who thought it through.” He breathed out, and embers and flames flickered from his nose. “We were right. There were no answers. There was nothing beyond expected unconditional obedience, and willingness to comply with a Great Plan. And we were right, too - there is a new creation. She has chosen them, made them in her image. Our image, but imperfect.” He snarled. “But they obey. They do not question. They only love and do as they are told. She has created a world for them, and linear time, and they have been enjoying it for one day.” He spat the word. “They will live forever in a garden She has made for them, and go forth and multiply and be Her favored creation.”

“It should have been us,” one of the Knights murmured.

“Unless …”

Crawly blinked again. “Unlesssssss?” he whispered. Lucifer couldn’t have heard him, it was impossible. But he looked to Crawly anyway.

“Unless they can be tempted to wander astray.” Lucifer began traversing back down the line. “Unless we can interfere with this Great Plan. Unless we can corrupt their souls and bring them to our Pit with us. Unless we can ruin Her most favored creation, as She ruined us.” He paused to regard one of the demons, who mostly looked like a buzzing cloud of flies. “You were the ones who questioned. You will be my Prince, and lead the others to do this, Beelzebub.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“And the rest of you will serve your roles as well. Corrupt, tempt, bring them down to us. But not yet.” Lucifer had returned to Crawly, watching the demon with eyes black like obsidian, like lava cooling in the sea. “Because they don’t know, yet, that they can disobey. They only know right. They have no frame of reference for wrong. They cannot know without that power being bestowed on them, which of course She did not do.”

Probably learned Her lesson, Crawly thought. Won’t make the same mistake twice.

“Which is where you come in, demon Crawly. You’re very good with words, I noticed.”

Crawly looked to Lucifer like a rabbit staring down an oncoming semi. He should respond, he thought, or say something, but all the words were scrambled around in his head like so much flotsam in a flooded river, jamming up at the dam of his mouth and leaving him open-mouthed and staring. “I - ngk - Lord, ssorry, I shall teach … ?”

“No need.” Lucifer waved a claw. “Not at all, Crawly. There will be a tree, on which will grow fruit that contains the knowledge of good and evil. One bite, and they will have knowledge beyond any they’ll be capable of now. They will have the capacity to question, and to learn, and to doubt. They will obtain free will. They will no longer be beholden to Her.”

Crawly nodded. “Ah. Right. Sso find the tree, grab a fruit -”

“No need. The tree is in the garden.”

“What? Why do that?” he asked, before his brain caught up with his mouth and he remembered who he was speaking to.

“To ensure their obedience, I assume.” Lucifer smiled, thin and terrible and full of too many teeth. “All you have to do, Crawly, is talk. Ask a few questions. I cannot go myself - She will know if I appear there, and She has guards posted in the garden and the walls. Talk to them, and they will Fall as we did, in time.”

A lick of hate rolled over the grief for a minute, and Crawly sneered. Yes. Yes, make them fall. Misery loves company. And if She didn’t want questions, well … He could have laughed. Good luck with that. You give something sentience, questions will follow. “Yesss, Lord.” He bowed his head. “It will be done.”

“Good. There.” Crawly’s gaze followed Lucifer’s claw as the King of Hell gestured to a craggy cliff face, high over The Pit. “There is a crack in the cliff, it will lead to the Garden. If you succeed, you will be rewarded with privileges far above your station, demon. If you are caught, and you fail -” Lucifer shrugged “- there are others. I will find another who can spin words as well.”

Crawly considered it, in the privacy of his own head. And then he watched another demon claw a rock apart, weeping and breaking and re-forming just to do it again. He would succeed, then. Success was the only option. He squared his shoulders and focused on his form - look natural, look tempting. Scales and char faded, replaced with plain flesh, the wings disappeared, and the fangs shortened to incisors. His face burned on the right side, and he raised a hand - a normal hand, he could have gasped - to feel the raised scar. He didn’t have to see it to know, as he traced the curls under his fingers, that it was a serpent. “Got it, Lord.”

“Very tempting,” Lucifer growled, not unhappy, tracing his claw along Crawly’s jawline. “But you will be spotted easily by the guards in this form. You’ll have to use the other form.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” Another moment of focus - it was getting easier with every time - and he changed again, back to the serpent, wings still safely tucked away. Lucifer nodded, approving.

“Better. Now, get up there and make some trouble.”

-

Crowley - definitely Crowley now - sighed as Aziraphale ruffled his fingers through Crowley’s coverts. “And then you know the rest,” he concluded. “So that’s it. Turns out I’ve always been an idiot.” When Aziraphale didn’t reply right away, he looked up, rolling onto his side to get a better look. The angel, predictably, was crying. Crowley frowned, opening his mouth to make some flip remark, but Aziraphale took his face in his hands, oily from the feathers but still warm and pleasant.

“You’re not an idiot,” Aziraphale said softly. “You’re … yourself. You’re definitely Crowley, you’ve always had questions, but you’re not an idiot.”

“There are literal millennia of evidence that ‘Crowley’ and ‘idiot’ are synonymous, angel. Oof.” Aziraphale had pulled him into a hug, clutching him tightly to his chest. Crowley flapped, more ineffectively even than usual as his left wing was snagged on the arm of the couch. “Hang on, wait, argh, cramp, let go, angel, let me just.” There was more flapping, some hasty repositioning, and Crowley leaned back into Aziraphale. “Right, you can resume.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Aziraphale murmured again into Crowley’s hair. “Being inquisitive is the opposite of that. You only had questions.”

Crowley swallowed, and forced out a bitter laugh. The Fall … that was a long time ago. There were centuries where he wouldn’t sleep, and if he did he would wake up with screaming nightmares of the burning and the pain, the Leviathan roaring in the deep. That had faded around, oh, call it the third century. “It is a part of you but it does not define you,” Yeshua had told him - her, then - centuries before, while they’d stood at the foot of Chichen Itza and admired the jungle around. “You define yourself.”

“Says the son of God,” Crowley - Crawly, then - had pointed out.

Yeshua shrugged. “It’s a part of myself that I am happy with, for all the good and bad it will bring.” He’d looked sidelong at Crawly. “But you’re not happy with yourself.”

“I can’t undo it.”

“No. But could you learn to live with it? Incorporate it into your past, a piece of the history, and then write new history in the future?”

Crawly had thought about it while the Central American jungle faded away, and the snow-capped peak of Fuji soared above them. “S’Mount Fuji,” she’d said, while she continued to think about Yeshua’s suggestion. “Could move you here if you want to. No Pontius Pilate.”

“It’s very nice,” Yeshua agreed, “but no, thank you.”

There was silence as Crawly stared at the mountain peak, and Yeshua looked around, smiling softly at the people bustling around them, paying them no mind. “I can’t really ever get away from it,” she concluded. “I was given a name. It defines me. Crawly. The Serpent of Eden. Fallen angel. Damned for all eternity.”

“Change your name,” said Yeshua, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You make your own name.” Crawly had blinked, which was a rarity. Yeshua laughed. “Those who accept it will move forward with you, those who do not will stay in your past.”

“Except for my boss.”

Yeshua had sighed. “Well, bosses never are particularly good at remembering anybody’s name, anyway.”

“Crowley?” the demon blinked, and found, instead of Yeshua’s dark brown eyes, lined with smile lines even at such a young age, there were Aziraphale’s blue eyes, bright and curious. “Are you alright?”

Crowley frowned. “Sorry. Was miles away.”

“It happens. I was saying,” he went on, gently, “that I like that you’re inquisitive. I like that you ask questions. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a world where there wasn’t a demon who looked at the antichrist, the impending war between Heaven and Hell, and said, ‘well, why’s this all got to happen, then?’” He brushed a lock of Crowley’s hair aside. “Terrible to think of, dear boy. I like your questions.”

“Glad someone does.” He sighed, then took a few deep breaths against Aziraphale’s chest, while the angel rubbed his back. He was floating, a little - he’d never told the story of his Fall from beginning to end before, and while it was something he had filed away in ‘the Past’, incorporated into the rest of his essence, his being, the experience that is Crowley, to tell it like that made it feel just a little bit fresher. Just a little reminder. He took another breath, and felt fire in his lungs and tasted ash on his tongue, but then he smelled Aziraphale’s cologne. The floating feeling lingered, but it lost its grip on him, and a few more breaths, his face nuzzled into the nape of the angel’s neck, and he was back, back in the old bookshop, back with the angel who loved him even with the questions and the temptations and the stupid choices and the broken wings.

He took another breath and then, with the resolve of someone who will remember this moment for the rest of their life but also wants to move past it now, not linger and let it sour, he sat up, slid backwards on the couch until his back rested against the armrest and his legs were across Aziraphale’s lap. He adjusted his wings, swinging them over the arm of the couch, and then took Aziraphale’s right wing into his lap, picking at the feathers and combing them, out, though they didn’t need it. It gave him something to do with his hands, though, and for that he was grateful. “But yeah. I never meant to Fall. Just had a few questions. I’m still not sure why that warranted Falling, though.”

Aziraphale was watching him. “May I be honest? May I ask an honest question?”

Crowley considered it. He took another swig of wine. “Alright.”

“Did you have faith that the Lord knew the answers?”

“I … didn’t.” Aziraphale gave him a significant look. “You really think that’s all that it took?”

“Not having faith in the Lord? An angel without faith? Yes, Crowley. I think that’s what it took.” He rustled the wing, re-directing Crowley’s hands to another part. The demon obliged without remark. “I have known you for a long time, Crowley. You are an optimist - no, don’t interrupt me - you are an optimist and a believer in self-preservation. You always believe things will work out alright. But by the same token, you also feel that it’s your duty to ensure that. You have no faith that without your own efforts, things will be alright.”

Crowley frowned. “That’s not true.”

“My dear, you fought Armageddon tooth and nail, every step of the way.” He didn’t mention the part where Crowley had given up, when he thought Aziraphale had died, because that would have necessitated a discussion that Crowley not only has faith in himself but also in Aziraphale. It is not a discussion the angel feels like having tonight. “Look at Gabriel - he had nothing but faith that God’s plan would be followed. So did I.”

Crowley looks puzzled. “But you - no, you didn’t, because you tried to change the plan too.”

“Ah, no,” Aziraphale raised a finger. “I have always had faith that God’s plan will be followed. I did not have faith that God’s plan and the Great Plan were the same thing. Gabriel did.” Crowley has raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess - you don’t think God has a plan, yes?”

“Not a good one.”

“Perhaps not by your standards. It’s ineffable.”

Crowley sipped his wine. “In-effing-believable, says me. If it exists.”

“And this is why you Fell,” Aziraphale sighed, patting Crowley on the knees. Crowley frowned. “It’s not a bad thing, Crowley. It is who you are. You are a wonderful, complex, marginally kind - stop, don’t say a word - intelligent, funny, and overall brilliant person. The fact that you are also a demon is not any more defining of the person you are more than your hair color, your height, or the fact that even after 60 centuries you still haven’t learned to walk like a human.”

“Alright, alright.” Crowley took a sip of wine, and then glared at his glass until it refilled itself. “This conversation is making me feel some kind of way.”

Aziraphale looked concerned. “Oh? Good way, or bad way?”

“Not sure. We’re going to have to revisit it again some time.” He was watching Aziraphale over his wineglass, his lap still full of lustrous white feathers. “You think it’s that simple?”

“I have no idea, dear boy. It’s a theory. God alone knows.”

“And She’s not telling,” Crowley agreed. “I want to be drunk now. I can’t stop thinking about philosophy. It’s giving me a headache.”

“That might have been the whiskey shots.”

“No,” Crowley lied. “Come on, angel, let’s drink.” He snapped a finger-gun to Aziraphale’s wineglass, which also refilled. “How about music?”

“Mm.” Aziraphale’s head lolled back against the couch as he savored his sip of wine. It was very good, and he’d been saving it for a special occasion. They had decided that tonight, a night that shouldn’t have existed after the Apocalypse hadn’t come, and they were still together, was as special as any. “No bebop. Let’s play a game.”

“Strip Go Fish, right, I’ll get the cards.”

“No! Crowley.” Aziraphale looked wounded. “Why must you always go right to strip card games? I was thinking a board game.”

The demon groaned. “Oh, come on angel, I hate chess - you know that.”

“What makes you think I was going to say chess?”

“What other board games can you play with only two?” Crowley countered.

“Jenga.” He waved a hand languidly. “Some university students left a set here. Doesn’t require nearly as much thought as the other game they left where you have to make words out of these little tiles.”

“Scrabble?”

“It’s in a bag that looks like a banana.”

Crowley frowned. “I … have no idea. I don’t consider Jenga a board game, by the way.” Still, he stood up, swinging his legs to the floor and swaggering from the back room and into the shop, padding across the old floorboards to the front desk where Aziraphale kept lost items**. There was rustling, the distinct clunk of an elderly bong falling to the floor and Crowley cursing as he stuffed it back into the pile of lost gloves, and then more creaking as he returned, Jenga set in hand. “Right, where do you want this? Floor? Table? Table seems a better choice, only it wobbles, hang on, give me a book.”

“I will not!” He handed Crowley a stack of yellowing copies of the Celestial Times. “Use these.” Crowley accepted them, kneeling to stuff a suitable amount under one table leg, until the table was steady. He watched Crowley stacking the blocks deliberately, slowly, with the special care of someone who is just a little too drunk for the task at hand. He beamed, and the demon caught him looking.

“You really meant all that stuff you said about me, didn’t you?” His sunglasses had slid down his nose, one side cocked upwards with his crooked grin. “Brilliant and all that.”

“I did. If you hadn’t noticed, I do find you remarkably wonderful.”

“I’d noticed.” Crowley rested his hands flat on the table on either side of the assembled tower. He studied the blocks for a minute, and then, “You know the feeling is mutual, yes?”

Aziraphale’s smile warmed his voice, colored it with affection and peace. “I rather do. That said,” he added, standing unsteadily and making his way over to the table, wings pitching to help him maintain balance, “don’t think my tremendous fondness for you will at all diminish my desire to soundly defeat you in a game of Jenga.”

“I’d be insulted if it didn’t.” He grinned, honest and wide and genuine, before he downed the rest of his glass of wine and re-filled it anew. “Flip a coin for first draw?”

-

* It wasn’t that good. It hadn’t been, lately.

** Much like all shop lost and found collections, there were mostly just singular gloves and tatty scarves, but Aziraphale’s bookshop also had in its lost-and-found a lace handkerchief (lost 1884), a hatpin (1908), a fob watch (1936), a bong (1962), several lost bracelets (multiple years), a fanny pack (1987), a pager, (1989), two cell phones (1997 and 2001), an iPad (2012), and several board games (2016-2018). All abandoned Kindles, of which there had been several, had been inhumanely destroyed.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #air conditioning #aziraphale #crowley #two supernatural beings sittin on a couch talking about eternal damnation #i worked on this too long #but oh well here we are #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much

[nellie-elizabeth]

Grey's Anatomy: You'll Never Walk Alone (17x04)

Awww George! That was the best possible answer as to who was waiting for Meredith in the pseudo-afterlife. It was so amazing seeing him!

Cons:

I thought Maggie's boyfriend's thing with his dad was a little unrealistic in how blunt it was? Like, he saw his dad on a Zoom call and was immediately like "here is the major family drama that we have, let me explain it to the viewer and then sign off the call." It might have just been an issue of clunky writing.

Okay, Jo and Jackson... tread very, very lightly. I don't mind a good old fashioned friends with benefits situation, but that never seems to go the way we want it to, and I'm not about Jo/Jackson as an actual romantic pairing. This show has convinced me of weirder, but at the moment I just don't want them to pair up because they both happen to be single. Also, any storyline that touches on Jo healing from Alex just gives me visceral flashbacks to how stupid Alex's exit from the show truly was. It's hard to see past that.

Pros:

Okay, starting with a small thing, but I actually thought Nico and Levi's conversation was hilarious. I'm not aboard the ship for them anymore, after everything Nico put Levi through, but it's just occurred to me what the funniest and best way forward would be for them, if they keep this story going. What if Levi actually does a good job with boundaries, is totally emotionally over Nico, and really is just using him as a sex buddy, and then Nico catches overwhelming feelings and realizes how badly he screwed up? And Levi is just like... "nah, man. Thanks, but no thanks." I would watch the hell out of that. I just liked when Levi was like "I want to invite you over, but you and I were not good to each other and nothing's changed." And Nico's like "there's a global pandemic." And Levi's like "good point, let's go." It made me laugh.

While I have serious reservations about Jo and Jackson, I do think their friendship is really sweet, and I hope they continue to be able to lean on each other through the tough times. I'm all aboard the pandemic sex buddy agenda.

George and Meredith talking was so great! I loved how he described being dead, and not getting a choice, and regrets, and do regrets matter? It was so cute, when Meredith got all giggly, asking George if he haunted his mother sometimes. And George bringing up the way Meredith used to dance it out when she got stressed or sad. It was such a lovely callback to the earlier days of the show, the twisted sisters... I miss Cristina so much, I really do.

Giving the main character of the show Covid-19 makes a certain amount of sense from a dramatic perspective, but I was a little nervous going in that they were going to be disrespectful about it. It's still possible they could make some bad choices here, but so far I think the balance is working well. See, Meredith is hovering in this in-between place, and she gets to see Derek, she gets to see George, that's all well and good... but they aren't really implying that it's entirely Meredith's choice. This isn't some metaphysical decision about whether or not to live. She needs to have the will, but also, on the outside, she's sleeping all day and really sick, and her doctors and friends need to make medical decisions to save her life. If it's even possible.

Speaking of, I like the conflict we're setting up here with DeLuca, Teddy, and Richard all taking different roles in Meredith's healthcare. Obviously Andrew is pushing for a risky new trial, and Teddy backs him up, which seems to set Richard at ease... but it's still a big decision for him to make. If he puts her in the trial and she dies, will it be his fault? I loved the moment when we saw Richard come into the dream space with Meredith and George, that subtle blending of these two states of mind.

Amelia and Link for the win! I loved that Amelia lost her shit a little bit, but instead of devolving back into the Amelia of old, who would have totally spiraled and caused big drama, we got Link trying to be a good partner for her, and then telling her in no uncertain terms that he too needs support as he deals with the situation his own way, by not talking and processing, but by focusing on the good things and playing his damn guitar. Open communication for the win!

Poor Tom really cannot catch a break. If they kill him off in a "surprise, you thought Meredith was in danger but it's actually Tom" kind of way, I will be PISSED. The guy is acerbic, and kind of a jerk, but I honestly think he's a good person who tries his best, and he doesn't deserve the crap he's gone through. I'd love for some sort of hilarious reconciliation between Owen and Tom where they put aside their differences and become friends, and both leave Teddy behind in the dust. It's what she deserves, to be quite honest. In any case, I loved Helm and Tom talking about a zombie apocalypse game and doing simulations for COVID... I think this is based on a true story of something that happened in an MMORPG game, although I can't remember which one... probably WOW... it was used to test pandemic conditions.

Even though there was a bit of awkwardness in the writing, I still really love Maggie and her boyfriend. I like how chill and reasonable she's being about this, in a clear example of growth from... oh... all of Maggie's other plot threads! I hope that these two can stay together, and that their long distance relationship will continue to grow throughout the season. I think they're really cute!

I wasn't entirely sure what to think of Owen's racism plot at first, but ultimately I liked how it was portrayed, how you can't exactly hate Owen for making this mistake but at the same time, he needs to own his biases and do better. He says "there's no excuse" and then makes an excuse immediately... and Bailey calls him on it. Owen sucks and I don't like him, but I hope he learns from this mistake. I also liked the intern lady whose name I don't know, who wanted to talk to Owen about his mistake but couldn't figure out how to do it, and the fact that Nico did it for her, basically, telling Owen off in no uncertain terms. That was a good character beat for him.

As always, I feel fairly certain I'm missing someone. This show is just too huge, too many characters to juggle! For now, I'll end things there. This was a perfectly fine installment, it felt like filler for things to come, but I don't mind that! And we got to see George!

8/10

#review #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy review #greys anatomy #greys anatomy review #grey's abc #greys abc

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: Varric

Chapter 35 of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up on AO3! It’s a long one; read here on AO3 instead.

This week’s chapter is a 12k-word ode to Varric and his friendship with Fenris and Rynne Hawke. I had many Friendship Feels™ and sads for Varric while writing this, so I did a shitty garbage cartoon of Varric getting some well-deserved HUGS.

Fenris politely shook Bianca’s outstretched hand. “You are the designer of Varric’s crossbow, then?”

Bianca shot Varric a lopsided grin. “You told him, huh? You two must be close.” 

Varric tugged his earlobe. “Yeah, well… the elf’s not a big talker.” He gave Fenris a shifty look, then frowned at Bianca. “You’re taking a huge risk coming here yourself,” he said. “Maybe for both of us.”

His tone was uncharacteristically stern, and it further piqued Fenris’s curiosity. Fenris had never seen Varric so concerned about protecting someone he did business with, and this only reinforced the suspicions he and Hawke had always had about Varric’s enigmatic contact in the Merchants’ Guild.

Bianca rolled her eyes. “You’re such a worrier,” she scolded. “There’s a giant hole in the sky. I think the Merchants’ Guild has bigger things to think about.”

Varric snorted skeptically. He glanced over Fenris’s shoulder, and his face creased with even more discomfort before settling into resignation. A second later, Hawke bounded over to join them.

“Hello boys! And girl, it seems,” she said cheerfully. She slung one arm around Varric’s shoulders and gave Bianca an appreciative once-over. “Who’s your lovely friend, Varric?”

He sighed quietly, then gestured to Bianca. “Hawke, this is–”

“Rynne Hawke?” Bianca said. “Well well, the Champion herself.” She offered her hand and looked Hawke over with interest. “You dragged Varric into a fair number of scrapes back in Kirkwall, didn’t you?”

Her tone was warm and friendly, but the comment still made Fenris raise an eyebrow. Hawke, however, laughed and shook Bianca’s hand. “Guilty as charged,” she said. “Purveyor of problems for Kirkwall’s most handsome dwarf, that’s me.” 

Varric shifted his weight awkwardly. “Ah, come on. We all dragged you into just as much shit as you dragged us.” 

Hawke batted her eyelashes at Varric. “Aren’t you sweet to try and minimize my disastrous leadership,” she crooned. She kissed the top of Varric’s head, and Fenris noted that Bianca’s eyebrows rose very slightly. 

He cleared his throat. “Hawke, this is Bianca Davri.” 

She whipped around to stare at him. “What?” she blurted. Then she turned to gape at Bianca with fresh excitement. “You’re Bianca? The Bianca? Crossbow Bianca? Andraste’s tit, you don’t know how many times Varric saved our asses with that fabulous crossbow of yours. You know it took four whole years before he actually admitted that the crossbow was–” 

“–invented by you,” Fenris interrupted hastily, before Hawke could reveal that the crossbow was named after her. He couldn’t tell from Varric’s awkward expression whether it was something Bianca already knew. 

Hawke shot Fenris a very quick look before smiling at Bianca once more. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “You must be an extremely talented smith.”

“She really is,” Varric put in. 

Bianca chuckled and folded her arms. “Flatterer.” 

Hawke’s keen gaze flicked between the dwarves, and Fenris could practically see the questions writing themselves behind her eyes. He decided to step in before the conversation could devolve into an interrogation.

“What brings you to Skyhold, Bianca?” he asked. 

Varric sighed and tugged his ear again. “Bianca knows where Corypheus got his red lyrium,” he said. He looked sadly at Hawke and Fenris. “And so do you.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “The thaig Bartrand found?”

Bianca nodded. “The site has been leaked. There’s a Deep Roads entrance crawling with strange humans carrying out red lyrium by the cartful.”

“Oh shit,” Hawke said blankly. “So… so I guess there was more red lyrium down there than just the idol, then.” She grimaced apologetically at Varric, who shrugged morosely.

Fenris frowned at Varric. “But how did the location of the thaig get to Corypheus? Your brother was precious with that information.” He turned to Hawke. “You recall his threat to blindfold us until we arrived at the entrance.” 

Hawke snorted. “I still don’t think that was a joke.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t,” Varric said flatly, and Hawke smirked sympathetically at him.

Bianca waved dismissively. “How they found out isn’t important. What matters is that we know where they are now.”

Fenris nodded. “Where is the entrance they’re using?”

“In the Hinterlands,” Bianca said, to Fenris’s surprise. “Not far from Redcliffe Farm, actually.”

Hawke seemed equally surprised. “The Hinterlands?” she said incredulously. “But that’s so far from Kirkwall. There entire Waking Sea sits between the entrance we used and Redcliffe Village.” 

“The Deep Roads are all connected,” Varric reminded her. “Or they used to be.” 

“They went to every corner of the continent, maybe further,” Bianca added. “In theory, you could get to anywhere using the Deep Roads, but in practice…” She pulled a face. “Well, you’ve seen what’s down there. There’s a reason nobody uses them anymore.”

Hawke shot Fenris a resigned look. “And here we are, about to go back into them.”

“So it would seem,” Fenris said ruefully. 

Varric sighed. “Sorry, guys. I know this isn’t what we’d planned to do next…”

Fenris cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Don’t apologize. If we choke off Corypheus’s red lyrium supply, we are that much closer to destroying him.”

Bianca nodded briskly. “I’ll keep an eye on their operation. When you’re ready to shut it down, you’ve got my help.” She turned to Varric and tilted her head. “Try not to leave me waiting too long, Varric,” she drawled. “I’ve got my own work to do, you know.” With one last smile, she walked away, and Fenris couldn’t help but notice that Varric’s eyes followed her departure. 

Finally Varric sighed and looked up at him and Hawke. “Right. That’s not going to be trouble at all.” 

“No, not at all,” Hawke said cheerfully. “It’ll just be a nice vacation. You know how the rosy glow of red lyrium complements my skin tone.”

Fenris shot her a sharp look. “Don’t joke about that,” he said quietly. 

She winced apologetically and squeezed his hand. Then she seated herself comfortably at Varric’s writing table and gave him an expectant look. 

“So,” she said. Somehow she managed to imbue the single syllable with an entire missive’s worth of meaning.

Varric glanced at her, then chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hawke…” 

She slumped forward on the table. “Varric, come on. We’re your best friends in the whole wide world. Talk to us!”

“Hawke,” Fenris said quietly, “perhaps Varric isn’t in the mood to speak of this.”

“That’s not the point,” she argued. “Sometimes some shit needs to be said. Or written,” she added with a quick pointed look at Fenris. “Or it’ll eat you alive.”

Fenris pursed his lips, but he couldn’t deny the truth of her words. Even he had been incapable of silently carrying his feelings for Hawke for all those years before Danarius’s death. If not for the outlet of the scribbled pages he’d kept hidden beneath his mattress, Fenris wasn’t sure how he would have coped. 

He silently took a seat beside her at Varric’s table, and she smiled at him. Varric, on the other hand, frowned at them in annoyance. “What shit are you talking about?” he said. “There’s no shit.”

Hawke gave him a skeptical look, then perched her chin on her fists. “I always thought it was weird that we never met her. You sent a lot of letters back and forth,” she said pointedly. “Keeping her away from us ruffians, were you?”

Her tone was playful, but her face was quite serious. Varric sighed heavily, then slowly sat at the table across from them. “I wasn’t… keeping her from you, specifically.”

Hawke raised her eyebrows but stayed silent, and Fenris waited along with her. Then Varric sighed and sat back in his chair. “She’s married,” he said, very quietly. 

Hawke’s face went blank. “Oh. Oh. Shit.” Her eyebrows tilted with sympathy. “So you’re her, er…?”

Varric shrugged. “Yeah. We’re still… or we were. Are. Sometimes.” He scratched his ear awkwardly. “Not for a long time, though. Not since she moved to Orlais.” His eyes were on the fire as he spoke, and Hawke reached across the table and took his hand. 

“Have you known her for longer than her husband?” Fenris asked.

Hawke frowned at him. “Why does that matter?”

Fenris shrugged. “I’m simply curious. It provides context.”

Varric cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve… I’ve known her for longer.” He glanced around the Great Hall shiftily, then lowered his voice before going on. “Her husband was picked out by her family. She wasn’t exactly, er, thrilled about the match. But she agreed to it eventually.” He shrugged. “I heard the wedding was lovely. The one Bianca actually showed up for, anyway.”

“What do you mean, the one she showed up for?” Hawke said softly. 

Varric sighed and pulled at his ear. “We, um… tried to elope before her first wedding. It didn’t… work out.”

“Oh. Oh balls,” Hawke said sadly.

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “I am… sorry, Varric,” he said slowly. 

Varric shrugged and gave them a little half-smile, and they were all silent for a moment. Hawke squeezed Varric’s hand once more before releasing him. “Why didn’t you ever tell us?” she asked.

“Their families are powerful in the Merchants’ Guild,” Varric explained. “If anyone found out…” He smirked wanly at them. “Well, I like being alive. The Guild are a cutthroat bunch. Literally. Not to mention that her family hates me. They were still sending assassins to Kirkwall by the time Cassandra dragged me away.” He chuckled. 

Hawke grimaced. “Well, that’s fucking grim. But why didn’t you tell us?”

Varric raised an eyebrow, and she gestured at herself and Fenris. “It’s just us. You know we wouldn’t tell anyone. And come on, I told you everything when we were back in Kirkwall. I even told you about the time I had that filthy sex dream about Fenris and Sebastian and a desire demon.”

Fenris looked at her in startlement. “What?”

She patted his hand. “Don’t worry, I was in the dream too.”

He frowned. “That is hardly what I–”

Varric chuckled. “Hey, I never asked you to tell me about that dream.”

She waved her hand impatiently. “I know, I know, but I did anyway. That’s my point. Didn’t you want to tell someone about all this? I mean…” She shot him a pleading look. “Varric, we’ve known each other for ten years and you didn’t say anything. We sort of guessed, but you didn’t say anything. Wasn’t that… hard?”

Varric’s smile faded, and he glanced at the fire and sighed. Then they heard a startled cry from the rotunda.  

Fenris sat up straight at the unexpected sound. “Was that… Cole?” he said cautiously.

“Sounded like it,” Varric said. “Let’s see what’s going on.” He pushed his chair back from the table and made his way toward Solas’s office.

Hawke tutted softly as she and Fenris rose to follow Varric. “He’s avoiding.”

“You did take a rather aggressive approach,” Fenris said. 

She shot him a chiding look. “You know I have a point, though. If he didn’t tell us about this, then he didn’t tell anyone. Has he just been sitting on this for over a decade and letting it fester?” 

Fenris shrugged helplessly. Hawke did have a point, but Fenris still couldn’t help but feel that they were prying.

“Everyone is not as compelled to share their life’s story as you,” he said gently.

“But Varric is a storyteller,” she argued. “He told my story. You can bet your life he’s going to tell yours when this is all done. Why wouldn’t he want to tell his own?”

“It is not a story,” Fenris said, more insistently now. “It is his life. It is private.” 

“I know that,” Hawke snapped quietly. “But if you can’t share your private shit with your closest friends, then what’s the point?”

Fenris pursed his lips. Again, she wasn’t wrong, and yet…

He placed his hand at the small of her back. “Come,” he muttered, and he ushered her into the rotunda.

Solas and Cole were standing in the middle of the office. Solas’s right hand was glowing with a faint green aura of magic, and a startled-looking Cole was rubbing his chest. 

“Oh, for…” Varric tsked and strode into the rotunda. “What are you doing to the kid?”

Cole turned to face him with wide eyes. “Stopping blood mages from binding me like the demons at Adamant. But it didn’t work,” he said sadly.

“Oh!” Hawke said in surprise. She hurried over to Cole and peered at the plain silver crest that was pinned to his chest. “This is the Amulet of the Unbound, hmm? It looks so plain. I bet Bels was disappointed to loot such a boring-looking bauble.” She smiled at Varric and Fenris. 

“Do not be deceived by its humble appearance. Its true nature is quite powerful,” Solas said absently. He was peering at the amulet over Hawke’s shoulder and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, something is interfering with the enchantment.” 

Varric snorted. “Something like Cole not being a demon?” he said archly. 

Solas frowned at him, but Hawke replied. “Cole isn’t a demon,” she said. “He’s a spirit. The best spirit.” She hugged Cole’s arm encouragingly. 

Varric patted Cole’s elbow. “Yes, a spirit who is strangely like a person.” He shot Solas a pointed look. 

Cole pulled away from them and began pacing around the room. “I don’t matter. Just lock away the parts of me that someone else could knot together to make me follow!”

Hawke and Varric exchanged worried looks, and Fenris frowned. Cole had been quite calm in the past couple of weeks, and Cassandra had assured Fenris that his behaviour at Caer Oswin had been quite normal – or as normal as Cole ever was, given his constant cryptic comments and his tendency to appear unnoticed at inopportune times. But now it seemed that his agitation about being bound had returned in full force. 

Solas, as usual, was as calm as ever. “Focus on the amulet,” he said to Cole. “Tell me what you feel.”

Cole slowed down in his pacing, and Fenris watched apprehensively as his vacant blue gaze seemed to grow more vacant still. “Warm, soft blanket covering, but it... catches, tears. I’m the wrong shape, there’s something…” He pointed to the east. “There. That way.”

Hawke blinked. “There’s something in the stables that’s blocking the enchantment?”

“No,” Cole said. “Far. Farther. Hooking, hanging, holding on…”

Farther? Fenris thought. That didn’t exactly bode well. “How much farther?” he demanded. 

Cole shook his head slowly and didn’t answer, and Fenris scowled. If Cole couldn’t even say where the problem was, how was Solas supposed to fix it?

Varric patted Cole’s elbow. “All right, kid, find Cullen and work with him on the map to figure out where you’re sensing something wrong.”

Cole nodded. He twisted his fingers together and gave them a pleading look. “Will you come with me? All of you?”

Varric smiled. “Sure.”

Cole nodded eagerly, then started to stride out of the rotunda, but Hawke took hold of his arm before he could leave and pulled him into a hug. “You’re going to be fine,” she told Cole warmly. “Solas will fix it, all right?”

“All right,” Cole said, and he walked away. 

Varric, meanwhile, was facing Solas with his arms folded. “All right. I get it. You like spirits,” he said. “But he came into this world to be a person. Let him be one.”

Solas lifted his chin imperiously, but Hawke spoke before he could reply. “He already is a person,” she said. “He’s just a spirit-person, that’s all.”

Solas gave a tiny approving nod, but Varric raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah. A spirit-person that magic spirit-saving amulets don’t work on,” he said pointedly. 

“And what alternative would you suggest?” Solas said archly. “That Cole remain vulnerable to perversion by mages such as the Venatori?”

Varric tucked his hands in his pockets. “All I’m saying is, maybe there’s a reason your amulet isn’t working. And maybe those Venatori demon-binding rituals wouldn’t work on him for the same reason.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t like Varric to engage debates about magic. He usually preferred to sit on the sidelines and make clever remarks. 

Hawke was also gazing at Varric in surprise. “You really think Cole would be all right if he was just… left alone?” 

“You’ve seen how he’s changed since he’s been here,” Varric reasoned. “He hardly ever does his little disappearing act anymore. He plays with Toby like a normal kid. He’s been spending a lot of time in the kitchens, and I think it’s because he wants to know what it’s like to eat.” He shrugged. “He wants to know what it’s like being a person. I think we should… let him.” 

Fenris studied Varric thoughtfully. What Varric was saying wasn’t untrue. Cole still said inappropriate things at inappropriate times, but he wasn’t phasing through the Fade as often as he used to, not unless they were in a fight.

Varric steadily met Solas’s stony stare. “I think Cole’s changed,” he said. “I don’t think he needs your amulet.”

Solas narrowed his eyes. “This is not some fanciful story, Child of the Stone. We cannot change our nature by wishing,” he said scathingly.

“You don’t think?” Varric said mildly.

Solas pursed his lips and looked away. His jaw was clenched, and Fenris waited to see what he would say, certain that the elven mage would come up with some sort of complicated and technical response. 

After a long, tense moment, however, Solas exhaled and faced Varric calmly. “However we deal with the problem, our next step is to track down whatever is interfering with the enchantment,” he said. “Let us hope the Commander will help Cole to localize the source of the problem.” With that, he sat in his desk chair – rather pointedly, Fenris thought – and opened a thick tome.

Varric shot Solas an exasperated look. “Got it. Someone wants their quiet time,” he muttered. He looked up at Fenris and Hawke. “You guys want to play a little diamondback?”

Fenris nodded, but Hawke hesitated, and Fenris noticed that she was nervously nibbling her lower lip. Finally she nodded. “I’ll join you soon,” she said. “I just want to talk to Solas for a minute.”

Solas looked up in surprise, then gestured silently for Hawke to approach. Fenris and Varric shrugged at each other, then left the rotunda to return to Varric’s table by the fire. 

Varric sighed as he plopped into his chair, then pulled over a deck of cards and started shuffling them. “Damn Chuckles and his amulets. Kid just needs a second to be himself without someone telling him what he needs to be.”

Fenris sat at the table and didn’t reply. In truth, he wasn’t sure what to think of all this. He certainly didn’t see Cole as being very much like a human, what with his unnerving ability to read everyone’s minds and his ability to slip across the threshold of the Fade at will. But he could see what Varric meant about Cole becoming more… human-like as time had gone on. 

But being human-like didn’t solve the issue of Cole being vulnerable to binding by malicious mages.

He shunted the problem aside for now. There was nothing they could do about it until Cole figured out where the so-called problem was coming from. Fenris could only hope it wasn’t too far out of their way. 

Varric dealt the cards, and they played a peaceful round of diamondback, which Varric won. Varric began shuffling the cards for another round, and Fenris leaned back in his chair and studied his friend thoughtfully. 

“Varric,” he said quietly, “why did you never speak of Bianca before?”

Varric shot him a quick glance before returning his attention to the cards in his hands. “It was easier,” he said.

“It was easier not to speak of her?” Fenris asked. 

Varric nodded. “Yeah. Easier not to talk about it, easier not to think about it…” He lowered the cards to the table for a moment and gave Fenris a chiding look. “Come on, elf, I thought you’d be on my side with this. You barely talked about Hawke all the time we were in Kirkwall, even though we could all see the puppy–”

“There were no puppy eyes,” Fenris complained. 

Varric smirked at him and dealt the cards, and they played another hand in friendly silence. But while selecting and discarding his cards, Fenris wondered whether he ought to tell Varric about the book of angst- and love-ridden letters he’d written about Hawke during the years before they’d finally gotten together. Fenris suspected that Varric might already know something about the letters, given that Fenris had procured all of his ink and parchment from Varric, but they’d never explicitly spoken about it. 

And for the first time, it struck Fenris as odd that he and Varric had never spoken about it. Aside from Hawke, Varric was his closest friend. And yet he’d only rarely spoken about Hawke to Varric during the years before their reunion.

A few minutes later, Fenris sighed and threw down his cards. “Venhedis.”

Varric chuckled. “Another round? Third time’s the charm.”

Fenris snorted. “For you, or for me?”

Varric smiled mysteriously. “I guess we’ll find out. You in?”

Fenris waved carelessly at the table. Varric’s smile widened as he started to shuffle again, and Fenris watched the brisk movements of his hands for a moment before speaking. “Have you ever considered writing about it?” he asked. “Keeping a… a journal of sorts, like Hawke used to do?”

“Nah,” Varric said casually. “Can’t be bothered. Too busy writing other things. More interesting things.” He met Fenris’s eye as he started to deal again. “That’s one of my favourite things about writing. Stepping into a different world, hearing other people’s voices and thoughts instead of your own for a while…” 

Fenris folded his arms thoughtfully. “It is an escape.” 

Varric smiled. “Yeah.”

Fenris returned his wry half-smile. But before Varric could finish dealing the hand, Hawke came over and plopped into the chair beside Fenris. 

She kicked off her flats and folded her legs. “Deal me in. I’m feeling lucky.”

Varric snorted. “At least one of you is. I’m slaughtering your husband here.”

Fenris huffed indignantly. “It can hardly be a slaughter if it has only been two rounds,” he muttered.

“Ah, the day’s still young,” Varric said easily. 

Hawke laughed and picked up her cards. They played a couple of turns, then Hawke sighed and put her cards down. 

Varric raised an eyebrow. “You’re throwing in so early? I thought you were feeling lucky.” Then he gave her a quizzical look. “What’s wrong?”

Fenris looked over at her; she looked anxious. “I’m worried about Cole,” she said. “I think…” She grimaced. “I think Solas should try again with the amulet once Cole has figured out what’s bothering him.”

Varric gave her a patient look. “The problem is that Cole’s not a spirit. That amulet’s not going to work.” He gestured for her to pick her cards up. “Come on, don’t throw in the towel just yet.”

Hawke picked her cards up, but she continued to gaze worriedly at Varric. “But if it’s just that he’s a… not completely a spirit, then why is he so focused on some strange thing over in that random direction?” She waved in a vague easterly direction. 

Fenris huffed and picked up another card from the deck. “Is there anyone in this castle who truly understands why Cole does what he does?”

Hawke pinched the underside of his arm. “Don’t play dumb, you handsome fool. I know you understand what he’s about.”

Fenris shrugged, and Hawke sat back in her chair. “Solas has never been wrong about spirits,” she said. “He knows more about magic than anyone I’ve ever met. More than my father, even, and he was the most well-learned mage I ever knew.” She glanced around the hall shiftily and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Dorian I said that, though. He likes being my number one bookworm.”

Fenris frowned. “So you recommend that we allow Solas to fix the amulet.”

“I don’t think there’s any other choice,” she said. “Without the amulet, anyone could bind Cole. And he’s going to keep worrying about it.”

 Varric twisted his lips skeptically. “I dunno, Hawke. I just don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t think he’s a real spirit anymore.”

She smiled faintly at Varric. “I know, I know. He’s like your weird adopted ghost son. It’s very cute, Varric.”

Varric scoffed. “Now, I wouldn’t go that far.”

She snickered, then sighed and propped her elbows on the table. “I just… I really don’t want anyone to bind him. Imagine if someone made him into a demon and we had to… you know.” 

Fenris looked at her more seriously this time. This was what she was really worried about: something disastrous befalling one of their companions. And in truth, it was something Fenris dreaded too. If Cole did become a true demon, and Fenris was forced to kill him — forced to take away a companion that Hawke cared about…   

Varric lowered his cards. “Come on, Hawke, it won’t come to that,” he said gently. “The kid’s gonna be all right. We’re going to sort this out.”

“Varric is right. We will fix the problem,” Fenris said. “Wait and see what Cullen’s search turns up before you start to worry.” He tapped Hawke’s cards, which were lying forgotten on the table once more. “Now let’s continue this hand. You may even win this round.”

She grinned at him and picked up her cards. “How would you know that? Were you peeking?”

Fenris smirked. “Perhaps,” he said. “But it is hardly peeking if you were holding them out so carelessly.”

She chuckled, and he relaxed as the return of her humour chased away the worry that was staining her face. “You sneak. Spying on my cards,” she said happily. “Do you have a proclivity for illicit peeping that I never knew about? Because I can work with that…” Her grin grew salacious, and she bit her lip and leaned toward Fenris in a provocative manner.

Varric groaned loudly at her shameless behaviour, and Fenris scoffed and tucked his cards protectively against his chest. “Stop,” he said. “Cheating is for the feeble-minded and the lazy.” 

Hawke cackled and sat back. “I’ll remember that the next time you cheat on my behalf.” 

Varric and Fenris chuckled, and Hawke grinned and kicked her bare feet up on Varric’s table, just as she had always done since they’d all known each other. They continued poking fun at each other as they played their game, and for a short time, Fenris was able to put aside his concerns about spirits and malfunctioning amulets and illicit lyrium mines, and to enjoy a moment of friendly peace.

***********************

As luck would have it, Cullen and Cole localized the problem to the Hinterlands, and specifically to Redcliffe Village. On the one hand, Fenris was relieved; they were already planning to travel to the Hinterlands to meet Bianca and deal with the red Templars at the thaig, so it was a relatively simple matter to tag on a trip to the village while they were already in the area. 

On the other hand, Fenris had never had a more trying journey with Cole. Cole spent the trip muttering to himself with increasing fervency the closer they got to Redcliffe Village. By the time they were half a day’s walk from the village itself, Cole was so agitated that even Solas’s calm advice, Varric and Hawke’s cheerful attempts at chit-chat, and Toby’s entertaining antics weren’t enough to divert his attention from… whatever it was that was pulling him toward the village. 

As soon as Fenris and his companions set foot in the village, Cole looked up sharply, almost like a bloodhound scenting a foe.

“You,” he hissed. Then he disappeared.

“Fasta vass,” Fenris cursed. “Where–”

Toby barked in alarm, then took off at a run straight toward the monument of the Hero of Ferelden. Fenris and the rest of their party followed the mabari, and when they finally caught up with Toby and with Cole, Hawke grabbed Fenris’s arm in alarm: Cole had his dagger in hand, and he was looming over a terrified-looking middle-aged man. 

“Shit,” Hawke squeaked. “Who the fuck is that fellow?”

“Cole,” Fenris snapped, but Cole didn’t look up; he was too busy glaring at the middle-aged man with more ferocity than Fenris had ever seen in his seemingly-youthful face.

“You killed me!” he snarled at the terrified-looking man.

“Wh-what?” the man protested. “I don’t… I don’t even know you!”

Cole grasped the man’s hair and craned his head back. “You forgot,” he accused. “You locked me in the dungeon in the Spire and you forgot, and I died in the dark!”

The man’s face went pale. “The Spire?” he said faintly. 

Solas took a step forward. “Cole, stop,” he commanded.

Cole released the man, and he stumbled to his feet and ran away. Cole instantly made as though to follow him, but Varric hurried over and held out a hand. “Hey,” he said soothingly. “Just take it easy, kid.”

Cole pointed accusingly at the fleeing man. “He killed me. He killed me!” he yelled. “That’s why the amulet doesn’t work. He killed me, and I have to kill him back!”

Fenris gaped at him in utter bemusement. He wasn’t sure whether to be more unnerved by Cole’s extremely uncharacteristic rage, or by the nonsensical words he was saying.

Hawke laughed nervously. “What in Andraste’s knickers are you talking about?”

Solas shook his head. “Cole, that man cannot have killed you,” he said in his usual calm tone. “You are a spirit. You have not even possessed a body.”

Cole turned to face them. His eyes were huge and haunted, as though he’d just solved a terrible mystery. “A broken body, bloody, banged on the stone cell, guts gripping in the dark dank: a captured apostate.” He twisted his fingers together. “They threw him into the dungeon in the Spire at Val Royeaux. They forgot about him. He starved to death.” His gaze travelled slowly across each of their faces. “I came through to help, and I couldn’t. So I… became him. Cole.”

“Fuck,” Hawke breathed.

Fenris stared at Cole in nonplussed silence. Toby whimpered and pressed himself against Cole’s leg, but Cole ignored him; he was clenching his fists compulsively, his vacant expression becoming angry again as he glanced in the direction that the terrified man had run. 

He turned to face Fenris and the others, and Fenris felt a little jolt in his belly: Cole’s pale blue eyes were hard and intense, almost incandescent with focus.

He gazed steadily at Fenris. “Let me kill him,” he said. His voice was eerily calm. “I need to… I need to.”

Fenris swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said brusquely. He pointed at the monument to the Hero of Ferelden. “Sit there and don’t move.”

Cole stared at him for another tense moment, then turned away and wandered over to the plinth of the Warden monument. Hawke shot Fenris a worried look, then wandered over to Cole with Toby at her side. 

Toby rested his chin on Cole’s thigh, and Hawke sat beside him and slung an arm around his skinny shoulders. “Cole, did I ever tell you about the time Fenris and I found these haunted scrolls back on Sundermount? Honestly, if you’d been there, you probably could have talked the demons into calming down, but as it was – Maker’s balls, did we almost get our asses handed to us…”

Fenris watched them for a moment. Cole didn’t seem to really be listening to her, but he also didn’t seem as intent on murdering anyone anymore. 

Varric clicked his tongue ruefully. “If the real Cole was an apostate, that would mean that guy he attacked was a Templar.”

Solas nodded. “We cannot let Cole kill the man.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. It was a bit rich to hear that from Solas, given how badly he’d wanted to kill the mages who had bound his demon friend in the Exalted Plains. 

Varric smirked at the elven mage. “I don’t think anyone was going to suggest that, Chuckles.”

Solas lifted his chin slightly, and Fenris folded his arms. “So the real Cole, the apostate, was captured by Templars and taken to the Spire.”

“Yes,” Solas said quietly. He watched Cole and Hawke as he spoke. “As the young man starved to death in the dungeon, his pain caught the attention of a spirit of compassion.” He looked at Fenris. “An uncommon spirit, certainly, as I have told you before. And all too fragile when its efforts to help proved to be in vain.”

Fenris frowned. “So the apostate died. And this spirit of compassion just… became him?”

Solas tilted his head equivocally. “In a manner of speaking,” he said slowly. “The death of the real Cole wounded him. The inability to help, to assuage the captured mage’s pain… It perverted him from his purpose. To regain that part of himself, he must forgive.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows skeptically. Forgiving someone for killing him? That sounded like an awfully tall order.

Varric seemed to be of a similar mind. “Come on,” he scoffed. “You don’t just forgive someone killing you.”

Solas folded his hands behind his back. “You don’t,” he said. “A spirit can.”

Varric shook his head. “The kid’s angry. He just needs to work through it,” he said.

Solas frowned. “A spirit does not work through emotions. It embodies them.”

“But he isn’t a spirit,” Varric insisted. “He made himself human, and humans change. They get hurt, and they heal. He needs to work it out like a person.”

“You would alter the essence of what he is,” Solas snapped.

“He did that to himself when he left the Fade,” Varric said with a shrug. “I’m just helping him survive it.”

Solas pursed his lips and looked away, and Fenris frowned pensively at Cole. Hawke was still talking softly to him while he patted Toby’s head, and as Fenris watched, Cole shot her a very small smile. 

She smiled back at him and pinched his cheek, just like she used to do with Carver, and Fenris swallowed hard. She can’t lose him, he thought. If something happened to Cole, and Fenris was at all responsible… 

He turned to Varric and Solas. “Cole needs to be immune to binding by mages,” he said. “That is all that matters.”

“He can’t be bound by mages,” Varric insisted. “He’s not a demon.”

“You cannot guarantee that he will not be bound,” Solas retorted. “I, however, can guarantee that the amulet will work if Cole forgives the Templar.”

“Come on, Chuckles, give the kid a chance,” Varric said in exasperation. “I know you love the Fade and all that, but Cole just wants to walk in this world as a human.”

Fenris rubbed his jaw for a moment. He understood where Varric was coming from; he too had grown more comfortable with Cole since he’d started acting less… spirit-y. 

But… but Varric was wrong. Cole hadn’t crossed the Veil because he wanted to be a human. He’d been pulled through by someone else’s pain, and if that lingering pain made him vulnerable to perversion by blood mages… 

Fenris shot Solas a hard look. “You are absolutely certain the amulet will work if Cole forgives the Templar?”

“Yes,” Solas said firmly. 

Fenris took a deep breath. He was loathe to go against Varric’s wishes, but he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t risk Cole being twisted into a demon. 

He nodded to Solas. “Make him forgive the Templar. Make that amulet work,” he said sternly. 

A small smile lifted Solas’s lips. He nodded his thanks to Fenris, then stepped away to approach Cole and Hawke. He gestured for Cole to rise, and Cole and Solas walked away together in the direction that the Templar had run. 

Beside Fenris, Varric sighed and shook his head. “Shit,” he muttered. He moved away to join Hawke, who was still sitting on the plinth of the Warden monument with Toby at her side. 

Fenris followed him, and Hawke looked up at them as they approached. “So Solas is going to fix the amulet?”

Varric sat beside her without speaking, and Fenris replied. “Yes,” he said. “He swore the amulet would work after this.”

Hawke perked up and clapped her hands. “Fantastic! That’s great.” 

Varric continued to sit beside her in silence, and Fenris’s gut jolted uncomfortably. He slowly sat on Varric’s other side. “I am sorry,” he said quietly. 

Varric shrugged sadly, and Hawke frowned. “Wait. Sorry for what?”

Varric sat back and looked at her. “Kid’s going to be more of a spirit after this. That’s how that amulet thing will work. Or so he says.” He jerked his chin in Solas’s direction. 

Hawke raised her eyebrows. “Oh. But… but he’ll be safe, though?”

Fenris nodded. “Solas guaranteed that the amulet will work. Cole will be immune to binding by enemy mages.”

“But that’s a good thing. Right?” Hawke said. She gazed at Varric worriedly. “We wanted him to be safe. Right?”

Varric shrugged again. “Sure. But… ah, I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his hair and looked at Fenris. “I’m not… mad,” he said slowly. “It’s just…” He trailed off and leaned back against the statue, and Fenris and Hawke exchanged a worried look as the silence stretched tensely between them. 

Hawke hooked her arm around Varric’s neck and shook him encouragingly. “Come on, Varric, tell us what’s on that brilliant mind of yours.” 

Varric sat silently for another long moment. Then he sighed loudly and shot her a frank look. “You ever feel like you’re just an observer along for the ride?” he said. “Just watching everything happening while it all just… rolls out in front of you?” 

Hawke raised her eyebrows in surprise and opened her mouth, but Varric chuckled before she could reply. “Ah, of course you don’t. Everything you do changes something. And you too, elf,” he added to Fenris. “You guys are the protagonists. You’re the heroes in the story.”

Hawke frowned worriedly. “But… but you’re the one who painted us that way,” she said slowly.

He waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t just mean my books. I mean… I mean in everything. You show up, and things happen. You change things. People change around you.” He smiled faintly at her. “It does make for a good story, though.”

Hawke’s frown deepened. “What are you talking about? You change things, too. I’d probably still be working for Athenril if it wasn’t for you.”

He snorted. “Right. And look how well that turned out. We got trapped in the Deep Roads and almost died.”

Fenris frowned. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“Sure, but I couldn’t stop it, either,” Varric insisted. “I couldn’t… and then my damned brother…” He trailed off and tugged one of his earrings, and Hawke and Fenris exchanged another worried look. The last time they’d seen Varric this agitated was when Bartrand had turned up in Kirkwall after years of absence. 

Hawke squeezed Varric’s arm. “Varric, listen–” 

“I’m an observer,” Varric said baldly. “That’s it. That’s the story of Varric Tethras: he watched things happening and did nothing to change it.” He gestured at her. “I wanted to keep you guys out of this, and here you are, mixed up in the middle of it.” He ran a hand over his hair once more. “I wanted to help my brother, but he’ll probably be in that sanitarium forever. And now with Cole…” He gave them a wry little smile. “Well, you know what they say. If you can’t do, write. Or something like that.”

Hawke didn’t reply, and Fenris noticed with a pang that she looked close to tears. He gave Varric a frank look of his own. “You did keep Hawke safe for years,” he said firmly. “You are hardly an impotent bystander.”

Varric shot him a tiny smirk. “Impotent, huh? You and Hawke need to spend less time together.”

Hawke let out a wobbly-sounding little laugh. “You filthy men,” she said. “I love it.” Then she hugged Varric’s arm again. “You’re not useless,” she insisted. “You’ve never just been a bystander. We’re all here fighting Corypheus together now, right? That’s not doing nothing.”

Varric shrugged again. Then he looked up and raised his eyebrows. “They’re back,” he said.

Fenris and Hawke looked up as well. Solas and Cole were approaching them, and Solas was smiling. 

He squeezed Cole’s shoulder. “I believe we are finished here.”

Hawke sighed in relief and smiled at Solas. Varric stood up and patted Cole’s elbow. “You all right, kid?” he said gently. 

Cole blinked down at him. His expression was more neutral and blank than ever. “Yes,” he said. “He’s free. We’re both free.” His eyes drifted vaguely over the village. “There is work, wounded to help, hurts to heal. But the weight is off. The old chains have fallen.”

Solas smiled more widely at him, but Varric was frowning. “So you’re not angry with the man who hurt you?” he asked. 

“No,” Cole said dreamily. “I helped him forget. His pain no longer pulls at me.”

Fenris looked at him sharply. “You made him forget?” he demanded. “I told you not to do that!”

Solas held out a placating hand. “Fenris, if I may–” 

Cole interrupted him. “He wanted to,” he said to Fenris. “He needed it, but he didn’t know how.” He blinked benignly at Fenris. “Yours are lost, but not forgotten. Lingering, lying low, layered with old pain, but not forgotten. You could remember, but you don’t. The loss doesn’t pull you anymore. You found peace.” 

Fenris stared at him. His heart was suddenly pounding. What did Cole mean by that? You could remember, but you don’t?

Cole, meanwhile, was looking over at the ex-Templar, who was chatting with a merchant and looking quite normal. “He needed peace,” Cole said. “He needed to forget. He is happier now.”

Toby whined and leaned against Cole’s leg, and Cole looked down at him with an idle sort of interest. “You help, too,” he said to Toby. “A bark of joy brings a smile out of sadness. You’re good.”

Toby tilted his head in confusion, and Varric scowled at Solas. “Listen to him,” he said reprovingly. “Listen to how he’s talking now. Do you know what he sounds like?”

Solas nodded once. “He sounds like a spirit,” he said simply.

Cole blinked at Varric. “Nonsense words, like Bartrand at the end. ‘Just need to hear the song again. Just for a minute.’ I’m all right, Varric.” He started drifting away toward the mouth of the village. 

Fenris and Hawke watched his ambling steps in nonplussed silence. Varric sighed and bowed his head. “He could have been a person,” he said softly. 

Solas folded his hands behind his back. “Possibly. Would that have made him happier, Child of the Stone?”

Varric shot him a dirty look, then walked away in Cole’s wake. Hawke folded her arms and frowned at Solas. “Solas, you know I adore you, but you can be such an ass.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

She shook her head, then turned away and ran after Varric and Cole. Fenris frowned at Solas for a moment, then they began walking toward the village entrance with Toby trotting obediently at Fenris’s side.

After a moment of silence, Fenris spoke. “You are smug,” he said.

Solas pursed his lips and didn’t speak, and Fenris gave him a hard look. “Do not make me regret choosing your solution. Arrogance doesn’t suit you.”

 Solas narrowed his eyes. “You would chastise me for possessing knowledge, then? Am I to be dressed down for knowing more than Varric about these matters?”

“No,” Fenris said quietly. “I would chastise you for flaunting that knowledge to bring shame to another. It is unbecoming.” 

Solas clenched his jaw, then returned his gaze to the path. They walked in a tense silence for a moment before Fenris spoke again. “The amulet is working properly, I assume?”

“Yes,” Solas said, rather stiffly. “Cole will be adequately protected.”

“Good,” Fenris said. They said nothing more until they’d caught up with Hawke, Varric, and Cole. 

Toby trotted over to Cole and licked his hand, and Cole gazed curiously at the mabari until Hawke joined them. 

“Look,” she said, and she scratched behind Toby’s ears. “Just pet him, Cole. You can pet him like you did before.”

Cole watched her for a moment, then reached out and scratched Toby’s head as well. “It makes him happy,” he said. 

She smiled. “Yes, it does.” 

Cole smiled vacantly. Solas moved forward to join them, and Fenris fell back to join Varric. 

They were largely silent as they made their way to the thaig entrance that Bianca had discovered, and Fenris listened idly as Solas and Hawke spoke to Cole. Solas began his usual cryptic conversations with Cole, and Hawke interjected with her usual irreverent remarks, and it wasn’t long before she was strolling between Cole and Solas, her arms linked companionably with theirs while Toby pranced around them. 

Fenris jerked his chin at her. “Look. Hawke is rectifying the situation,” he said to Varric. “Perhaps Cole won’t be too strange, after all.”

Varric gave him a wry smile but didn’t speak. Fenris raised one eyebrow. “Would you really have wanted him to become human?” he said dryly. “One could argue that there are already too many of them.” 

“I heard that,” Hawke called over her shoulder. “And you know what, that’s fair. We humans are pretty terrible. Cole is probably better off as a spirit.” She hugged Cole’s arm.

Varric chuckled, and Hawke winked at him and Fenris before turning around. When her attention was back on Solas and Cole, Varric sighed very quietly and tugged his earring.

He glanced up at Fenris, then smiled faintly and patted Fenris’s elbow. “Come on, elf, don’t worry about it. Let’s just go clean up these red lyrium miners and their mess, huh?”

His tone was as pleasant as usual. Fenris nodded, and they continued along the road to the thaig entrance in a more comfortable silence than before. But as they walked along in Hawke’s cheerful wake, Fenris pondered the similarities between Hawke and Varric – similarities that weren’t just restricted to their mutual love of wisecracks and literature.

He only hoped that this errand with Bianca would go smoothly. 

********************

Unfortunately, once they finally met with Bianca, things didn't go quite as smoothly as Fenris hoped. 

Granted, they achieved their goal for coming to the entrance to the thaig: they eliminated the dwarven mob that was mining the red lyrium, and they closed a darkspawn tunnel along the way. But when Bianca unlocked a secret chamber that led deeper into the thaig itself, Fenris began to get suspicious. When she hurried straight over to a tome-and-paper-covered desk at the back of the chamber, his suspicions deepened even further. 

“There you are!” she exclaimed. She picked up a key from the desk, then hurried over to a reinforced steel gate at the corner of the chamber and locked it. “They won’t be able to use this entrance again.”

Varric sighed heavily. “Bianca…” 

Fenris narrowed his eyes at her. “You were the leak. You revealed the location of this thaig to Corypheus?”

“Wait. Seriously?” Hawke said incredulously. “You’re an agent of Corytits?”

“What? No! It’s not like that,” Bianca protested. “When Varric told me the thaig location, I went and had a look for myself. And I found the red lyrium, and I… studied it.” She winced. 

“You…” Varric rubbed his face, then glared at her. “You know what it does to people!” 

“I was doing you a favour!” she retorted. “You want to help your brother, don’t you?”

Fenris raised his eyebrows at her bluntness, and Hawke’s mouth popped open in surprise. “Easy, tiger,” she warned.

Bianca pressed her lips together, then sighed. “I just... wanted to help. I wanted to figure it out.” She dropped her gaze to her hands. 

Varric, meanwhile, was still glaring at her. “That stuff can kill you, or worse,” he said angrily. “I told you what happened to Meredith. Why would you risk that happening to you?”

She lifted her gaze to his face. “For knowledge!” she said. “You’re not going to beat Corypheus with ignorance. And as it turns out, I found out that red lyrium…” She took a deep breath, and her face was bright with discovery and anxiety in equal measure. “It has the blight, Varric,” she said urgently. “Do you know what that means?”

“What?” he said snarkily. “That two deadly things combine to form something super-awful?”

“Lyrium is alive!” she said. “Or… or something like it. The Blight doesn’t infect minerals, only animals.”

For a split second, Fenris stopped breathing. Lyrium was alive? The hated substance that lay beneath his skin, the substance that Templars drank to cancel magic and that mages used to enhance it: it was… alive?

A shiver of revulsion ran down his spine, and he dropped his gaze to the lines on his palm. Hawke, meanwhile, was exclaiming in surprise. “You’re fucking kidding,” she blurted. “What do you mean, it’s alive? It is like, er… like a golem or something? Like living rocks…?” She trailed off. A moment later, she reached out and took Fenris’s hand.

He numbly looked up at her. Her expression was a picture of sympathy and concern, but Fenris shook his head subtly; if Bianca didn’t already know his tattoos were lyrium, he didn’t want to tell her. 

Hawke squeezed his hand as Bianca answered her poorly-formed question. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I couldn’t get any further on my own, so I looked for a Grey Warden mage. Blight and magical expertise in one, right?” The corners of her lips quirked wryly. 

Varric was still gazing stonily at her, and she grimaced before going on. “Well, I found this guy who seemed really interested in helping my research, so… I gave him a key.” She lamely waved the key in her hand, then cleared her throat. “His name was Larius.”

Hawke, Fenris, and Varric looked at her sharply. “Larius?” Varric demanded.

Hawke threw her hands up. “He’s still alive? Wha– how the fuck did he get here from the Vimmarks?” she said incredulously. “He looked like he was ready to crumble into a puddle of rot.”

“And he was not a mage when we met him in Corypheus’s prison,” Fenris reminded her urgently. 

“No, you’re right,” she said. She and Fenris stared at each other for a long moment, then she rubbed her forehead. “So… so let me get this straight. We thought we killed Corypheus, but we didn’t. And then Larius shows up as a mage–”

“Clearly possessing the vestiges of Corypheus’s essence, and his magic,” Fenris growled.

Hawke nodded. “–and he tricks Bianca here into giving up the key, and an entire thaig full of red lyrium.”

“It was no trick,” Fenris said. He scowled at Bianca. “You willingly gave him the key. You gave access to red lyrium to a stranger, even though you knew the dangers it posed.” He folded his arms. “Even if that was not malicious, it was careless.”

Hawke pulled a little face, and Bianca planted her hands on her hips. “I told you, I was trying to learn more about it,” she insisted. “Don’t you want to know where it came from? How it works, so we can undo the damage it’s done?”

Fenris scowled at her but didn’t answer. She wasn’t wrong; in fact, she was terribly right, given Fenris’s recent interest in figuring out more about the nature of lyrium and its seemingly contradictory properties. But it didn’t excuse her carelessness.

Bianca’s posture softened at his silence. “I didn’t realize who Larius was until Varric told me you’d found red lyrium at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I came here, and… well.” She turned to Varric. “Then I went to you,” she said gently. She took a step closer to him. “When you told me what Corypheus was doing with the red lyrium, I had to make this right.”

Varric didn’t reply. Fenris waved an angry hand at the reinforced gate she’d just locked. “You can’t make this right,” he snapped. “Corypheus has the red lyrium. He has been harvesting it from bodies, like some sort of cursed garden. The damage is done.”

“But at least he can’t get it from here anymore,” she insisted. She looked at Varric, and her expression was slightly pleading now. “I know I screwed up, but it’s as right as I can make it.”

“This isn’t one of your machines,” Varric suddenly burst out. He looked extremely angry now. “You can’t just replace a part and make everything right!”

She recoiled slightly, then straightened and glared at him. “No, but I can try, can’t I? Or am I supposed to wallow in my mistakes forever, kicking myself and telling stories of what I should’ve done?”

Fenris raised his eyebrows at her scathing tone, and Hawke’s jaw dropped. “Woah–!”

“Ha!” Varric burst out. “As if I would tell stories about my own mistakes!”

Bianca scoffed and folded her arms. Hawke took a small step closer to Varric and lifted her chin. “Varric doesn’t wallow,” she said. “He’s the best wingman for people who are trying to fix their dumb mistakes. Which is obviously why you called him here,” she added pointedly. 

Bianca shot her a sharp look. “With all due respect, Champion, I think I know Varric a little better than you.” 

Hawke’s recoiled in offense, then took a step toward her. “Listen–”

Fenris grabbed her wrist. “Enough,” he said firmly. The last thing they needed was a pissing contest. He turned to Varric, who looked very downcast. “Do you have anything else to say to her?” He jerked his head at Bianca.

Varric sighed. “No. We’ve done all we can here.” He looked Bianca in the eye. “You’d better get home before someone misses you,” he said softly. 

Bianca’s haughty posture instantly softened. She took a step toward him. “Varric…”

He moved away from her and rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t… don’t worry about it.” He turned away from her and walked out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, Hawke turned to Bianca. “How could you say that to him?” she demanded. “Just stab him in the gut with a poisoned dagger while you’re at it, why don’t you?” 

Bianca folded her arms. “He’s your best friend. I get that,” she said. “But if you can’t see how he pushes his problems away instead of dealing with them, you don’t know him as well as you think.”

Fenris shifted his weight uncomfortably, but Hawke swelled with anger. “You made problems for him,” she snapped. “Giving the key to Corypheus – all right, fine, that was a legitimate mistake. But dragging him into this to cover for you was a shitty thing to do.”

Bianca glowered at her. “I wasn’t trying to–” She broke off and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want him to cover for me,” she said more calmly. “I wanted him to see that I… I’m trying to set things right. If I make a mistake, I want to be able to fix it.”

Her chin was lifted stubbornly, but her wistful gaze kept drifting toward the door to the chamber where Varric was standing with the others, and Fenris studied her in a pensive silence. He was well-versed in the terrible limbo of longing for someone impossible, and it was not hard to recognize the same plight in Varric’s erstwhile lover. Fenris, however, was lucky; he had eventually tackled the barricade of his own resistance to be with Hawke. 

But Varric and Bianca were not nearly as fortunate as he and Hawke. And Fenris suspected that the mistakes Bianca longed to fix the most were ones that had haunted her and Varric for over a decade.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Hawke scoffed. “So what? You’re trying to fix your mistakes, so that gives you the right to hit him where it hurts?”

Bianca narrowed her eyes. “You’re protective of him. But so am I,” she said fiercely. “And it doesn’t do him any good to let him hide behind his stories instead of facing all the things that have happened to him.” She gave Hawke an arch look. “If you really cared about him, you wouldn’t let him keep burying everything in his writing.”

Hawke let out a little laugh, and Fenris could clearly hear the snarl in it. Before she could say anything more, he took hold of her arm. “We should return to the others,” he said quietly.

She met his eye, then took a deep calming breath. “Fine,” she said. “You’re right, let’s get out of here. A darkspawn-ridden cave is not exactly my idea of a party.” She laughed again, more genuinely this time, then turned and made her way toward the chamber exit without looking at Bianca. 

Fenris nodded to Bianca. “It was interesting meeting you,” he said. 

She nodded in return. “Likewise,” she said. Then she lifted her chin once more. “Get him killed, and I’ll feed you your own eyeballs.”

Despite the tension of the situation, Fenris scoffed at the colourful threat. It was a good thing Hawke wasn’t here to hear it, or she would jump on Bianca in a heartbeat. 

“Noted,” Fenris said, and he turned away from her to rejoin the rest of his companions.

Varric smiled wanly at him as he exited Bianca’s chamber. “All right, elf, we ready to head back to the surface? I might wither if I don’t get a little sunshine soon.” 

Fenris smirked and began to lead the way along the narrow stone bridge to the stairs. “Unfortunate that it’s late evening, then,” he said. “We’ll be lucky to catch a sliver of daylight when we emerge from here.”

Hawke tutted and looked around at the enormous cavern. “I suppose it is evening already out there, isn’t it? Damn.”

“That’s all right,” Varric said affably. “A sliver of sunlight is better than nothing.” 

Fenris glanced at him. “You may not see any of it, given how short you are,” he said slyly.

Just as he’d hoped, Varric chuckled. “I’ll climb on your shoulders, then,” he said. “That should get me enough height to see the sun. If I crush you in the process, even better.”

Hawke laughed, and Fenris chuckled. They continued to make lighthearted chit-chat as they returned to the thaig’s entrance, and by the time they emerged beneath the waterfall that fed the Upper Lake, Fenris was pleased that Varric was smiling again. 

They made their way around the lake and down to the camp at the base of the hill, and Fenris murmured a greeting to the Inquisition guards that were manning the camp. A few minutes later, they were settled around a campfire heating some water for tea while Varric pulled rations out of his pack and passed them around. 

Hawke passed a packet of dried fruit to Cole. When Cole passed the fruit straight on to Solas, Varric shook his head sadly. “He used to sniff it,” he told Hawke and Fenris quietly. “I swear he was wondering what it tasted like. And now…” He sighed.

Another pang of guilt twisted in Fenris’s belly. He and Hawke exchanged a look, and Hawke shuffled closer to Varric. “D’you want to talk about it?” she said gently.

Varric shrugged. “Nah. He’s back to being a spirit now. There’s not really much to say.”

Hawke bumped him with her shoulder. “That’s not really what I meant.” 

“Yeah… I know.” He tugged his earlobe, and they fell silent for a moment as they started to eat. 

Varric munched slowly on a slice of dried apple, then swallowed and shook his head again. “I’m glad to have answers, but… shit. The second she showed up at Skyhold, I knew. I just…” He pursed his lips and stared at the fire for a moment. “I let this mess happen. I gave her the location of the thaig, and…” He sighed. “I’m not good at dealing with shit like this.”

“What do you mean?” Hawke said. 

He gave her a frank look. “Come on, Hawke. We all know that if Cassandra hadn’t dragged me here, I’d be in Kirkwall right now pretending none of this was happening.” 

She tutted. “Varric, do you really think any of us would be here if we didn’t have to be? Fenris and I wouldn’t have come if–” She broke off and winced, and Fenris awkwardly scratched his neck as the unspoken end of her sentence hung between them: she and Fenris wouldn’t have come to the Temple of Sacred Ashes if she hadn’t thought Varric was in trouble.

Varric gazed at her hopelessly. “There’s that too. Andraste’s ass, I really didn’t want you guys to get pulled into this. But here you are, and I just… I let it happen.”

“Varric, that’s… that’s not your fault. That’s my fault,” Hawke said. She shifted closer to him on the roughly-hewn wooden bench. “Fenris and I are here because of me. Fenris has this fucking magic mark on his hand because of me, not you.”

Fenris ran a hand through his hair. This was exactly what he’d feared – that this conversation would devolve into a downward spiral of Varric and Hawke blaming themselves for everything bad that had happened since the entire debacle with Corypheus had begun.

He took her hand. “Hawke–”

Varric interrupted him. “If I hadn’t sent you that letter, you guys would still be safe.”

 Hawke gazed at him desperately. “But… Varric, you sent that letter to try and keep us safe!”

 “Yeah, and look how well that worked out,” Varric retorted. “Just about as well as anything else I’ve tried to do.” He sighed, then smiled wanly at Toby, who was resting his chin Varric’s thigh.

Fenris frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

Varric was quiet for a while as he scratched Toby’s neck. “You know what I love about writing fiction?” he finally said. “Things happen the way they’re supposed to. You plot the story, and you plan what people say and do. And that’s what happens.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Well, sometimes the characters have a mind of their own. But things mostly stay on track.” He smiled at Hawke and Fenris. “There’s nothing more relaxing than writing the perfect death scene exactly the way you imagined it happening.”

His tone was flippant, but Fenris couldn’t help but think back to Bianca’s words: how she’d accused Varric of writing stories about things he should have done. Her phrasing may have been overly abrasive, but the way Varric was describing his writing was consistent with what Bianca had said. 

It seemed that Varric really did use his writing to gain a sense of agency when his life seemed to be spinning out of his grasp.

Fenris rested his elbows on his knees. “If only real life was that easy to control,” he said.

“Yeah,” Varric said quietly. He cleared his throat, then glanced across the fire at Solas and Cole, who were deep in a quiet discussion. “I think we’re way too sober to be having this conversation.”

“I can help with that,” Hawke said. She unclipped her flask of brandy from her belt.

Varric chuckled as she handed him the flask. “I can always count on you, Hawke.” He took a gulp and handed the flask back to her, and she took a sip in turn before offering it to Fenris.

Fenris took the flask with a nod, then tapped his fingers idly on the flask for a moment as he pondered Varric’s words. The feeling of lacking control, and using his writing to regain it… and then there was that comment Varric had made earlier today, about feeling like a bystander in his own life.

Fenris drank from the flask, then grimaced at the burn of liquor before offering it to Varric again. “You think your actions are inconsequential because they don’t end the way you had hoped,” he said to Varric. “You would equate unwanted outcomes with not having done anything at all?”

Varric raised his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he said. “Shit, Fenris. That’s… really accurate, actually.” He eyed Fenris in an impressed sort of way, then shrugged and smirked. “And I mean, if nothing goes the way I plan, might as well just sit back and watch the show, right?”

Fenris eyed him thoughtfully. “You are no mere spectator, Varric. Perhaps the writing is… a trial run. A way to try and anticipate the possibilities when you eventually act.”

Varric listened carefully while Fenris spoke, but when Fenris fell silent, he smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a fantasy just being a fantasy, is there?” 

His tone was flippant and dismissive, and so very reminiscent of Hawke. Hawke, meanwhile, was looking sadder by the moment. 

She hugged Varric’s arm again. “Varric…”

He waved the flask dismissively. “Ah, don’t worry about it. Being an observer’s not so bad.” He took a sip from the flask, then smiled at her. “At least this way I get to watch you idiots and document everything you do instead.”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “Well, I’m full of idiotic ideas, so you’ll have a never-ending inventory of foolishness to write about.”

Fenris frowned at this, but Varric chuckled and patted her leg. A moment later, Hawke enfolded Varric in a tight hug. 

Varric wrapped one arm around her waist in turn, and they were all silent for a moment. Then Fenris broke the silence. “And what of Bianca? Will you see her again?”

Varric pulled away from Hawke’s embrace and shrugged. “I always do.”

His words were casual and neutral, and Fenris simply nodded. Hawke, on the other hand, straightened and stared at Varric in surprise. 

“Wha–  really?” she blurted. “You’re still going to talk to her after–”

“Hawke,” Fenris said warningly. 

She winced. “I know, I know, I’m being a bitch. It’s just…” She gazed plaintively at Varric. “She was so mean to you.”

Varric shook his head. “You don’t know her, Hawke. It’s not…” He hesitated, then shrugged. “She means well. Even if it stings.”

Fenris studied him sympathetically. He could still remember the heavy ache of longing and regret he carried for the four-odd years after he and Hawke’s ill-fated first night together, and it wasn’t a pain he would qualify as a mere sting.

Hawke twisted her lips and toyed with her wedding ring. “Didn’t you ever want to… you know… move on?”

Varric raises an eyebrow. “Like how you moved on from the broody one here, you mean?” he said pointedly. 

Fenris shifted uncomfortably on the bench, and Hawke sighed. “All right, fine, fair enough.” She twisted her rings nervously for another moment, then cast Varric a cautious look. “But… Varric, she’s married. What are you, um. I mean, are you hoping…?”

She trailed off, and Varric sighed and didn’t reply. A long, awkward silence ensued as they passed Hawke’s flask among themselves again. 

Varric took a long swig of brandy and glanced at her. “You and Fenris are lucky, you know. Your whole thing is a pretty big plot twist.” He waved vaguely at her and Fenris. “You’re the only time I’ve seen a tragedy turn into a happy ending.”

“But I want you to be happy, too!” Hawke said plaintively. “It’s not fair. You deserve to be happy with someone too.” She clutched his arm. “Listen, there’s room for a third person in our relationship. And Fenris and I have a really big bed–”

“No,” Fenris said loudly, and Hawke and Varric burst out laughing.

Varric patted her hand. “Thanks for the offer, Hawke, but no thanks,” he chortled. “Besides, I’m not Fenris’s type.” He smirked at Fenris.

Fenris chuckled at the long-standing joke. “No, you aren’t.”

Hawke turned to Fenris with a smile. “Oh no? And what is your type, pray tell?”

“Dark-haired mages named Rynne Hawke, of course,” he said smoothly.

Hawke laughed brightly, and Varric groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go,” he complained.

Hawke kissed Fenris noisily on the cheek. “You smooth talker,” she said happily, then she turned to Varric. “And you, my most clever friend.” She kissed him on the cheek as well, then beamed at both of them in turn. “You know, it’s awful that this Coryfish bullshit is what brought us together, but I for one–”

“Ah,” Fenris drawled. “And the gushing begins.”

“Hide the liquor before she really gets going,” Varric advised him. 

Hawke laughed. “No! I mean it! Down with Corytits, but three cheers for the three of us being in the same fucking place again.” She rested her head companionably on Varric’s shoulder. “I love you, Varric. Just in case there was any doubt.”

He tsked and rubbed his nose. “Love you too, Hawke,” he muttered. He patted her leg and turned away toward his travel pack. “Now come on, let’s play some cards.” 

Hawke smiled at him as he rifled around haphazardly in his bag, then turned to Fenris. “Don’t worry,” she murmured. “I love you, too.”

He smiled at her and gently pinched her waist. “I know,” he said softly. “I love you, as well.” 

She smiled and tipped her chin up, and Fenris laid a gentle kiss on her raspberry-red lips. Then Varric turned around with a deck of cards in hand. “Hey, Chuckles,” he called across the fire. “You in for a game of diamondback?”

Solas looked up in surprise. “I… yes, I would enjoy that,” he said politely. “Thank you.” 

Hawke clapped her hands. “Yes!” she chirped. “And we can teach Cole how to play.”

“Why?” Cole asked. 

“Because it’s fun, you goof,” she said cheerfully. She popped off of the bench and sat on the ground, then patted the grass beside her. 

Solas and Cole moved around the fire to join them, and Hawke smiled as Cole seated himself cross-legged beside her. “Now here’s the idea,” she said. “We each start with five cards…”

Toby flopped down beside Cole and wagged his tail, and Solas seated himself gracefully on the grass. Varric started shuffling the cards. “Want a drink?” he said to Solas. 

Solas shook his head. “Thank you, but no. I prefer to remain sharp for the purpose of this game.”

Varric nodded. “Good strategy. You can’t fleece me the way you did Blackwall.”

Solas shot him a tiny smile. “A sharper mind for a sharper opponent.” 

Varric chuckled. “Nice try. Flattery won’t get you anywhere.” He continued to shuffle the cards, then glanced at Fenris.

Fenris offered him the flask. “Another drink for yourself?”

“Sure,” Varric said. He paused his shuffling to take the flask, but instead of drinking right away, he gazed at Fenris. 

“Thanks, elf,” he said softly. 

Fenris nodded. “Whatever you need, my friend.” 

They smiled at each other for a moment longer. Varric took a swig from the flask before handing it back to Fenris, and without further ado, he began to deal the cards out with an expert speed.

Fenris watched contentedly as the cards landed in front of each player in a tidy pile. This journey had raised even more frightening uncertainties in his life: there was Cole’s unnerving comment about Fenris’s lost (or not-so-lost?) memories, and this new and extremely unpleasant discovery that lyrium was alive.

Even so, Fenris could count himself fortunate for the certainties he did have. No matter what new and terrible trials were thrown in his way, he had Hawke by his side, with her brilliant smile and her brilliant laugh to brighten the darkness of his path. 

And also by his side, whether literally or by letter, he had Varric.

#fenris #fenris fic #Lovers in a Dangerous Time #fenquisition #fenris the inquisitor #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fenrynne #varric tethras #cole #cole dragon age #solas #pikapeppa writes #ghost of the spire

[a-merman-not-a-guppy]

It will be alright, alright, alright | Carrotflakes

Finn reaches out to Nemo and Tae after an argument with Ariel. The conversation sort of devolves from there. Talk of prom, goats, etc. Group chats man.

@justkeepdancing-nemo​ @moon-yeongtae​

Finn: hi Nemo! hi Tae! I hope it's not weird to put us all together in a chat like this.

Finn: it might be weird Nemo: course its not weird ahah we've group chatted before :heart: Finn: :heart: Finn: I want to ask you guys Finn: well I want to talk Nemo: yeah? whats up!

Finn: i got in a fight with Ariel? Finn: i mean not physically Finn: though she did. got in a physical fight Finn: with ASHLEY A! Nemo: ohhhhh yeah i heard Nemo: at mei's party right??? Nemo: but wait why did u fight ariel then Finn: everyone's heard. Finn: well she just Finn: she's just so Finn: reckless? i mean she told me not to panic Finn: and I know I panic a lot okay. but whenever she says that I swear my heart rate picks up ten times because I know something's happened Finn: and that she's gonna be super casual about it and laugh about it while I have my tenth heart attack of the year Nemo: oh i see Nemo: she's not taking your worry seriously, thats why? Finn: I guess? I mean she never does really. Which I get kind of. Finn: I worry about everything. I know that. Finn: but the ashleys are really awful and I'll cry if they do something awful to her. Finn: I mean it's one thing if it's me, I mean I get it and I'm used to it. but she's my best friend Nemo: :/ ok well she should take your worries seriously Nemo: i get why you'd be upset over that Nemo: and the ashleys arent a joke! they seriously messed with robbie for months under everyone's noses Finn: I've never fought with her before! But this is so... Finn: god and Robbie! Finn: she talked about how you and Robbie were in the burn book too and were 'doing okay' and acting like none of what the Ashleys do is a big deal. Finn: I reminded her of what they did to me and she said it was more reason to stand up and fight them! Finn: I wouldn't ask anyone to do that! Nemo: i mean i think it is important to stand up... i dunno about fight... Nemo: i just mean that we cant let the ashleys rule our lives but yeah purposefully antagonizing them is bad haha why sneak into a falcon's nest you know! Finn: they've ruled my life for years so I guess it's hard for me to even think about that. Finn: i don't want them antagonized and doing awful things to you or to robbie or to ariel. Nemo: :/ Nemo: i mean i get where ariel is coming from Nemo: and you too Nemo: is she really planning to...uh...fight more? what would that even mean? didnt she like punch ashley a or something Finn: I don't know. I think so? Finn: she didn't give me details which made me a little more suspicious but after I reminded her about what the ashleys did she said Finn: ' Youre only giving me more reasons to stand up to them and not let them get away with all of that' Finn: and Finn: 'I cant just stand by anymore and im sorry if that makes you upset and that i didnt do something sooner' Finn: i'd rather be homeschooled again than be the excuse to pick more fights Nemo: aw jingles i hope she isnt gonna involve you Nemo [deleted]: i already feel like i made you a target as it is D: sdlfkajs Nemo: maybe give it a day?? she could calm down! maybe it wont seem so important anymore Nemo: to her, i mean Finn: I asked her not to but there's really no telling with her sometimes. Finn: she really makes rash decisions! Finn: i hope she will but I don't think so. And now we're not talking so I don't know what I'm gonna do Finn: besides maybe idk Finn: do you think Tae would make sure Ariel stays safe? I could make cookies Nemo: course he would but Nemo: ...i dunno if ariel would uh, like that Nemo: i dont know much about her but from everything you're telling me i mean Nemo: though maybe she could eat lunch with us if that would make you feel better! Nemo: except ur fighting Nemo: well after you make up! Nemo: though maybe having three burn book victims in one place is a bad call.... Nemo: hm Nemo: hold on let me think ahah Finn: I just want her to be safe. But I guess you're probably right. she'd hate it Finn: and I feel stupid for not being able to do anything to keep her safe either Nemo: well no matter what we would ALL be there for her if she needs it Finn: I'm so lucky to know you guys. Nemo: im so lucky i know you finn :heart: Nemo: im sorry there's more ashley drama ugh Nemo: if i could go back to new years eve and do it all over again i really would Finn: there's always drama with the ashleys. Finn: next year they're gone though from school! and then it'll be fine! it'll be good. Finn: but I wouldn't change New Years Eve. I did something I'd never do otherwise and I had a lot of fun with my friends before everything Finn: Ashley A can...she can....ugh I can't insult her yet not even like this Finn: but you know what I probably mean Nemo: i can Nemo: she's a wartface who can choke on tree fungus Nemo: and ashleigh q is a literal monster who needs to be exorcised from the planet Finn: I can't believe I giggled at that. Finn: that's a very unique insult Nemo: ii got plenty more where that came from! Nemo: but i  will keep them to myself and this group chat!

Finn: hahaha that's probably smart. No need to cause more fights. Nemo: all i wanna do iis get through school without getting grounded again im really trying not to get into trouble lol Finn: a good goal to have too. Finn: it'll be fine. We've all got each other. It should be. Yeah. Nemo: yeah! Tae: I CANT BELIEVE I WAS WORKING Tae: ARIEL FOUGHT ASHLEY A? Nemo: omg u didnt hear yet?? Tae: no I was in Jun's all work and no play orbit Nemo: lol did he take ur phone again Tae: yes next time I'm gonna axe murder him Tae: THE POINT IS THAT ARIEL KICKED ASHLEYS ASS YAAAAAAAAY Tae: sorry I hate her Nemo: join the club aha Tae: I can't believe he took my phone at such a critical time I'm gonna point to this as an example that u cant just take a teens phone bc their friends might need them Nemo: well the fight happened like a day ago Tae: does he have to know that? Tae: no Nemo: i dont think this is a very convincing argument anyway tae yah Nemo: say someone was dying Tae: right yes also I'm really sorry finn Tae: I'll protect ariel Tae: if I can Nemo: just dont get in trouble yourself Nemo: can we all try not to get in trouble??? Nemo: we gotta go to prom in a couple of months ago we need CLEAN RECORDS Tae: sometimes trouble just finds u neems did John mcclane ask for trouble Nemo: (prom is real right thats not just in movies..........) Tae: prom is a real (stupid) thing yes Nemo: tae yah u r going to prom Nemo: sorry not sorry Tae: I dont have a suit and we are poor I cant go Nemo: i dont have a suit and im even more poor and im still gonna go Nemo: i bet you can wear jun's suit Tae: jun is an oddly proportioned dorito Nemo: and you're not??? Finn: pfft Finn: I'm not going to prom Tae: I am a beefcake with angelic proportions thank you very much Finn: oh god Finn: no Finn: i mean respectfully Finn: no Tae: wow rude

Nemo: what!!! finnyyy you gotta Nemo: we'll all go together Finn: please no Nemo: D: Nemo: but why not? Nemo: its not an ashley party, its school sanctioned Nemo: there will be chaperones right? Finn: yeah but they'll be there Finn: they have to to get their devil horns Finn: i mean crown Nemo: but there will be grown ups! Nemo: also lol Tae: we could carrie them Nemo: no Finn: isn't that the scary thing with blood?

Nemo: we'll just mind our own business ok Tae: :))))))))) Nemo: we'll dance and eat food and look fit in our suits and be home before 10 because thats my curfew it will be so lame and fun! Finn: alternative plan: we could not go and have an anti prom hang out Nemo: but i wanna go to prom :/ Finn: oh. that's not fair Nemo Finn: i can picture your sad face Nemo: :(((((((((((((((((((((((((( Tae: you cant go with us anyway nemo u have to go with rooooooobbbbbbieeeeeee Finn: NEMOOOOO DDDD= Finn: that's true too Tae: finn do u wanna be my date? I'll fight everyone for u Nemo: i wanna go with YOU LOT TOO Nemo: c'mon Nemo: i wanna do the big group thing Finn: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Nemo: we have to go to prom at least once Finn: remember the last party we went to? Finn: it can't be that soon to be forgotten Nemo: if not this year then next year when the ashleys arent at school??? Tae: I cant believe I just put my WHOLE HEART ON THE LINE and finn ignored me ya_bae_nemo [this is a snapchat]: 

Finn: WAIT I'M SORRY Finn: TAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Finn: dgpsodjpgojgspdgjdsg Nemo: i meani really wont make you guys go if you dont want Finn: if i were a prom person i would definitely go with you tae of course Finn: wait Finn: why do i have to feel GUILTY Finn: meanies Tae: nemo I'm asking for a date shut ur mouth Nemo: sorry i just realized i was doing the same thing i did at new years!! Nemo: im the worst lol Finn: omg NO Finn: no you're NOT Nemo: nevermind nevermind we'll do anti prom this year that sounds fun too Finn: stooooop it right there Nemo: seriously you're right anti prom could be cool Finn: Nemo Nemo: i mean it! Finn: Nemo: i could go to prom prom next year! Finn: 

Finn: stop Nemo: WHAT Finn: ugh i don't wanna fight with more than one friend today and Finn: who's to say prom wouldn't be fun if Finn: and ONLY IF Finn: Mr. Hot Date over there doesn't leave for another hot date ever Finn: during the time of this Nemo: we arent fighting Finn: it feels like we could and i don't wanna make you sad Tae: I'll stay by your side the whole time Finn: wow Nemo: no im not sad at all Nemo: you arent making me sad Finn: you sure? Tae: only bc u called me hot ;) Nemo: its too early to be talking about it anyway!! who knows maybe robbie will dump me and i'll be too depressed to go to prom lol Finn: omg. you're both going to kill me Finn: here lies Finn Finn: rip Finn: and if Robbie ever dumps you Finn: he'd be the BIGGEST IDIOT ON THE PLANET Tae: nemo u r literally so dramatic ok robbie is so far up ur ass hes like coming out ur throat Finn: that's gross tae Nemo: im just saying its literally three months away Tae: WHERE IS THE LIE FINN Finn: too vivid a mental picture Tae: what's our color scheme picasso Nemo: the theme hasnt even been announced Nemo: u cant decide that yet tae yah c'mon even i know that Finn: can i make our clothes? Tae: oh hell yes you can Finn: :heart:

Tae: also nemo u can always decide first if ur not a coward cmon Nemo: i think the theme makes it fun Tae: ok fine ur right bc I could be something cool like die hard then I could wear a tank top and no shoes Nemo: id just go shirtless Finn: nooooooo Nemo: rub myself up in blood and oil Tae: hahahaha Finn: sounds like the most terrifying form of prom Nemo: its HOT Finn: blood and oil? Finn: gross Tae: yeah Finn it's for the aesthetic Nemo: its so i can take out the germans Finn: ...... Finn: what Tae: have you never seen die hard either Finn: no? Nemo: omg you dont know my husband john mcclane!!! Tae: do I have to do all the work around here Finn: i guess so Finn: you've never invited me for a movie night this isn't my fault DDD= Tae: nemo we have to make him watch die hard with us Nemo: duh! Finn: is it a scary movie? Nemo: yes Nemo: but cool Tae: no Finn: .... Nemo: there's guns and stuff Nemo: and death Finn: ahhh intense Tae: yeah and a really ineffectual police department Nemo: people die hard lolol Tae: I learned that word today Tae: ineffectual Nemo: i dont even know what that means Nemo: tae yah dont get smarter than me Nemo: its not fair lol Tae: good because I probably used it wrong LMFAO Finn: no Finn: you did fine! Finn: :smile: Nemo: see finn is already smarter than me Tae: jun bought me a word of the day calendar bc I called myself a dumbass last week Finn: wahhhhh Nemo: ahhahaha Tae: so maybe I wont sound like a dumbass while still secretly being the biggest dumbass ever Finn: you are NOT Tae: UNDERCOVER DUMBASS HAHAJAHA Finn: D= Nemo: i'll still sound like a dumbass Finn: DD= Nemo: hopefully i'll be cute enough to make up for it Finn: you guys are making me sadddddddd Nemo: :kissing_heart: Tae: nemo ur the cutest it's ok tell him hes cute finn Nemo: im kidding finn i mean im not super smart or anything but im a fairy so who cares Finn: you're smart and funny and kind and cute? Nemo: oh jingles Nemo: i really wasnt trying Nemo: i didnt mean i mean i really was kidding !! Tae: yeah and I wanna be a cop and if you've seen any movies you dont have to be smart to do that either Nemo: now im blushing Finn: my friends are great! i just wanna hug you guys when you say stuff like that about yourself Finn: and we can talk about pots and kettles but i won't hear it Finn: today at least Nemo: also thats tru tae yah all cops are terrible except for hopefully one day u Nemo: well finny you ARE also smart and funny and kind and cute too Nemo: and kind of a bad ass wow Nemo: i promise i wont call myself a dumbass anymore Finn: i'll try to believe everything but the badass part lol Finn: but good :heart: Finn: YOU TOO TAE Tae: I promise I wont call myself a dumbass out loud anymore Tae: lmfao sorry Finn: -.- Finn: fine i guess Finn: sorry. i just really love you guys a lot Nemo: i love you too :slight_smile: Nemo: tae is just okay :slight_smile: Tae: that's me ok tae Nemo: what we call it Nemo: u Nemo: tae just ok moon Nemo: wow saying it like that was weird Tae: lmfao Finn: tae a great friend moon Finn: moon great friend yeongtae Tae: yeah I hate it too just put moon first white people it's not hard Nemo: omg ok is in tokki Nemo: tOKKi Finn: people should figure out how to say names right though Nemo: mine isnt actually hard im lucky Nemo: people butcher my appa's its awful Tae: tae is easy it's like Taylor's swift Finn: I think they'd butcher mine Nemo: Taelor Swift. Finn: but only my mom and aunt called me it anyway Nemo: tae yah thanks for giving me so many great nicknames for u Finn: taelor swift is good lol Nemo: wait finny u never told me your birth name? Tae: if u call me taelor swift i might kill everyone Nemo: i didnt realize you had one Finn: yeah I don't go by it so most people wouldn't xP Finn: dad said it was 'too hard' to say Finn: and they named me Finn Nemo: yeah i get it i dont go by nammin either Tae: i'm gonna pull a power move and use my goat's name Nemo: omg dont Nemo: tae yahasdfja Finn: isn't the goat just Finn: no wait never mind Nemo: dont get him started Tae: MY GOAT HAS A BEAUTIFUL NAME NEMO Nemo: i know that tae yah Tae: i'll just walk into class one day and pronounce myself Hanuelbyeolimgureumhaennimbodasarangseurouri Nemo: theeeeeeeeeere it is Finn: my eyes Finn: what am i trying to read Nemo: ha nuel byeol im gureum hae nnim bo dae sarang seurouri does that help Finn: i wish it did Tae: HAHAHA it's basically the most genius sibling win ever Tae: i named my goat something that basically means more lovely than the sun sky and stars which are, coincidentally, my sister's names HAHAHAHA Tae: it is my legac Finn: oh my god. i'm a lot slower on trying to read hangul and I got some of it Nemo: it IS pretty hilarious Finn: but not all Finn: wow Nemo: and the goat IS pretty sexy Tae: the sexiest goat Nemo: i want her to call me oppa Tae: HAHAHAHAHA Nemo: >) Finn: oh my god Finn: so is this gonna be Finn: 

Finn: not judging Finn: lol Nemo: whoa is that a movie about a romance between four men and a goat Nemo: humans are wild Finn: i honestly don't know. I just know this movie exists Tae: that's one i've actually never seen so i can't help Nemo: im gonna believe its a romance between four men and a goat Finn: should we find out? watch die hard and then Finn: a goat movie Nemo: i will watch anything so sure!! Tae: that's true he is a slut for movies Nemo: hey Tae: um i've seen more than u so Tae: i'm the biggest movie slut around Nemo [deleted]: well u werent called a whore so Nemo: lol true Finn: we could do a movie night at my place? Finn: or yours if you want Tae buttttt Tae: no yours is fine Nemo: if its yours i can play with pannieeeee Finn: i was about to brag and show a picture again Finn: i guess i don't have to Finn: xP Nemo: were u gonna show a picture of pannie!!! Nemo: you read my mind!!1 Finn: i mean Pannie is a treasure! i will definitely cuddle him for all scary things! Nemo: guess that means i gotta cuddle tae yah Nemo: sorry tae yah ur stuck with me Finn: guess so. we could both cuddle pannie too, i could share i guess Finn: check this out Finn: 

Tae: HIS SHIRT Nemo: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Finn: he gets to be stylish with me Nemo: U DID NOT Nemo: did u make that! Finn: of course! Tae: there is no way nemo will cuddle me now look at him Finn: well if nemo desperately wants to cuddle pannie i gueeeeess i could cuddle you tae if you're sad Tae: it's okay i'm a big strong man who doesn't need cuddles lmfao Neems: I CANT BELIEVE U MADE THAT Finn: oh. so you don't want to cuddle me? D= Finn: so very sad Finn: nemo cuddle me with pannie Neems: i will cuddle anyone who needs it tae yah knows im a big rotten coward Neems: HE LOOKS LIKE A GENTLEMAN Neems: sorry im still not over it Finn: =DDD Neems: u should make him a little tie :((( id cry Finn: ooooo that's a good idea Finn: i'll make him a black tie so he can feel fancy Finn: or black bow tie? Neems: both! Neems: one for the office one for special occasions duh Tae: tie the tie around his head so he looks like a karate master Finn: i think he'd just chew that off Finn: but i like the creativity Tae: thank u i'll be here my whole life Neems: tae the tie master moon Tae: omg that sound cooler than taelor swift i'll take it Finn: a bit wordy though. TTTMM Tae: just call me tm Tae: traDEMARK BITCHESSSSSS Finn: hahaha

#t: it will be alright alright alright #r: carrot flakes

[comicteaparty]

March 30th-April 5th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from   March 30th, 2020 to April 5th, 2020.  The chat focused on  Crypts and Cantrips by Kieran Thompson.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Crypts and Cantrips by Kieran Thompson~! (http://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until April 5th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Just starting the first chapter...hmm, what is the establishment hiding, that they're so against the idea of making new maps?

And I'm intrigued by the idea of a society that's frankly & cheerfully accepting of trans people, but also, doesn't know that lesbians exist? Or has a fixation on a super-narrow PIV-specific idea of virginity. Or both? If the issue was "this person can't be allowed to get pregnant before the arranged marriage or it would be A Scandal," that would be a logical reason to divide up which sexy things are "safe" vs. which aren't, but it isn't framed that way...

Okay, end-of-the-chapter blurb says that is what it's about. It's just odd that the dialogue was coy about "the issue is pregnancy" while being so blunt about other things. (I was just reading another comic with a trans princess character, and wow, what an awkward plot twist that could lead to. "So, the good news is, there wasn't an accidental pregnancy in the direction you were afraid of, but...")

"I made a fantasy trope in this comic work the way I wish it worked in a certain other canon" is such a great motivator.

Geez, this kid's only been adventuring for 5 minutes before someone gets murdered in front of him. Poor guy.

...on the bright side, oh good, the princess is aware that lesbians exist.

Loving this axolotl dragon art. http://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/comic/chapter-3-extras-17/

And the orca dragon that follows.

Have now read through the Dramatic Twist. Not gonna go into details for the sake of other first-time readers, but it's more complicated than these plots usually seem to get in fantasy settings, and I'm into it.

warriorneedsfood

I like the comic. The relationships are fun to watch develop. I found the character introductions a little awkward with the announcement of their various types of sexuality. But after establishing them, I found their personalities interesting and was looking forward to reading more.

RebelVampire

What I liked about the beginning of the comic is kind of just how quickly it starts world-building with stuff like the issue of discrimination in the market or just the general name dropping of stuff. All of it felt pretty natural, and as I consider world-building vitally important for fantasy, I really liked the comic didn't hide its punches. My favorite moment was actually when the stranger on the road said "please come help my wagon" and then it devolved into them being attacked. This is like one of the most stereotypical fantasy things to happen, but that's kind of why I liked it. It added familiar comfort food with all the new stuff, and I liked just having something like that 100% met my expectations for what was about to happen. My favorite character right now is definitely Taneli. I love just how sweet and accepting she is. But I also kind of like she's just really...not entirely capable because she's lived the sheltered palace life and not gotten out much. Usually that's something I'd find annoying, but something about Taneli just makes it work so I absolutely adore how overall innocent she is even in spite of being stuck in an arranged marriage. I like seeing Kitov and Taneli interact the most. They have a beautiful, touching, and supportive relationship going on and I like how theyre similar in regards to world experience. It doesn't make it feel like either of them is somehow superior or has the upperhand, so it's just communication between equals.

RebelVampire

As for the art, I really like the character designs. They aren't overly complicated, but are each very unique as well, and I think overall they got that right fantasy DnD vibe to them that just really suits the story being told. I kind of like that the story is exploring the theme of duty and arranged marriages. Usually when it comes to arranged marriage, 90% of stories write protagonists that do everything in their power to escape and express their individuality and freedom. But I like that this story is kind of exploring the idea of duty and how we as people deal with the concept. I also just in general like it's exploring the political things surrounding it. Like I love that frank conversation Taneli had with the king about marrying him for the kid to become the ruler, and he was completely unoffended seeming. This was just a real refreshing approach since as much as I love freedom, I also love talking about when duty needs to override freedom. As for what I like about the comic's story is that this really feels like a tabletop campaign. So many stories claim to be tabletop rpg-like, but they really deviate from the feel I imagine when I think of such a story. So I kind of like that this comic captures that spirit of adventure perfectly. As for the comic's overall strengths, for me it's just kind of the whole fantasy package. Between the art, the world-building, story's feel of being a tabletop, I think the comic is like the epitome of high fantasy and hits all the notes I personally believe high fantasies need to hit. So if someone said fantasy comic, this would be at the top of the list for a comic I would think of.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Why do you think King Rishor was murdered, and why was Taneli seemingly framed in the process? Also, how do you think Leo got involved in everything, and how big of a role do you think he had in the plot?

10. What do you think will happen to Kitov and company as they search for answers and try to avoid capture? Will the group be able to find Leo, and if so, will that be enough to clear their names of suspicion?

11. Given Kitov and Taneli are both similar in regards to their experience levels, how do you think the events of the story will change them and their perspectives on the world? In what ways do you think they’ll remain the same?

12. How do you think the world itself will be affected by King Rishor’s death? Could it escalate into a war, or might Minash Turgal change for the worse? How will this affect characters like Lirre who helps Kitov and company out?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I get the impression King Rishor was probably murdered for two reasons. Once, to destabilize the country/kingdom/w/e you wanna call it, and two to start some sort of war (hence why you frame Taneli). Leo I think is just the pawn of someone else. In some ways, I kind of feel like Leo is a victim of great pain and that pain was somehow manipulated for nefarious means. As for Kitov and company, I think they'll find Leo, but heck no will that clear them of suspicion. You can't just escape and have no consequences or continued suspicion. That will not play into their favor. SO they're gonna have to just dig deeper and deeper into the plot and still run from the law at every turn. Though I do kind of feel they'll wind up back home at some point and find out things are bad there too somehow. As for the world itself, since I already mentioned this, I do think there's gonna be war brewing. Maybe not get to the point where it happens, but people will be scrambling around to prevent it and there'll probably be lots of angry people causing havoc in Minash Turgal cause these are the sorts of things where people need someone to blame. I think Lirre will probably be fine because I don't want to think about bad things happening to Lirre O_O Finally, regarding Kitov and Taneli changing. I think they're both gonna gain some smarts from this. I feel like Kitov could learn some more street smarts and learn that not every nice seeming person is a good person and that it's okay to distrust people you just met. Meanwhile, I think Taneli is just gonna learn the struggles normal people go through outside of the sheltered life she's lived, and that she'll be much wiser when it comes to politics. However, I think they'll both remain lovely people who are sweet and have that twinkle in their eye.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I feel like the murder of King Rishor was foreshadowed on this page: https://cryptsandcantrips.kytri.net/comic/twelve-4/ With the whole "obviously the people like me, because if they didn't, they'd vote to replace me" bit. Like, sure, that's true on a country-wide scale... but votes are majority rule, not unanimous. And sometimes... the smaller group of people who disagree with you can be very vocal.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Taneli's my favorite too. She's very sheltered, but her heart's in the right place and she's adjusting as fast as she can, and she's active and enthusiastic which is great for plot motion. Plus, she gets the best clothes. I like the worldbuilding of "actually, our country has all kinds of mold-breaking things like non-hereditary elected rulers and public transportation." Here's hoping it catches on more widely. Leo's plotting is...complicated. Escorting the Princess gave him a great opportunity to get close for the assassination, and since he had the stuff in the luggage, it seems like he was plotting it the whole time. But the fact that Taneli was a Princess at all was supposed to be a secret from everyone except Kitov, right? The others were all surprised when it came out. Was it a plan that only came together when he arrived, and the poison was just planted to frame the others? Or was the poison in the luggage all along, and the secrecy of the whole mission was compromised from the beginning? Unrelated, I thought the sexual-orientation references were well-done. It's not like the whole cast sat in a circle and announced a list of identities each -- it came up naturally in one conversation with a few people, and they mentioned the parts of their experience that were relevant. Also really liked "masculinization potion." Some of the trans-related vocabulary stuck out from the rest of the dialogue, but this feels natural -- like, of course, those are the words a Medieval D&D Fantasy Person would use for it.

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to seeing in the comic is probably just more of the plot revealed as to why assassinate the king and finding the whole motivation behind everything. Just because I'm hoping it opens up more questions to explore and also helps build the world. My final words are simply that this is a lovely comic with likeable characters and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes in terms of plot since the plot has definitely caught my interest.

Kytri

Hi, uh this is my first post here. I'm the writer/artist of Crypts and Cantrips. The week is over in about half an hour in my time zone, and I just wanted to stop in and say thanks for including my comic and for everyone's kind words.

My comics tend not to spark much discussion or feedback so it was a really nice change of pace.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Crypts and Cantrips this week! Please also give a special thank you to Kieran Thompson for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Crypts and Cantrips, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://cryptsandcantrips.Kytri.net/

Kieran’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Kytri

Kieran’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/itsKytri

Kieran’s itch.io Store: https://Kytri.itch.io/

Kieran’s Teepublic page: https://www.teepublic.com/user/Kytri

Kieran’s TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Kytri

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #crypts and cantrips #crypts & cantrips #kieran thompson #comic tea party #ctp