I think I’ve figured out the reason that I didn’t vibe with Les Mis is that it’s a Musical For Men™️, whereas Phantom is a Musical For Mentally Ill and Horny Women, so it all makes sense now.

these streets are yours

Yenalt, Past Geraskier, Past Almost-Yennskier, and a sort-of-but-not-quite Past Geraskefer. 2896 Words. Tags for Major Character Death, Grieving/Mourning, and Unresolved Romantic Tension. Major Character Death is important and, though gentle, permanent. ao3 link here

x

It had been nearly a year of luteless evenings.

Jaskier had passed in the way lucky humans (exceedingly lucky, in his case) do; warm, safe, in his own bed, with those who cared for him nearby. He’d also had the decency to go during a cool spell in the summer, meaning they could all gather outside for the funeral, mourn him properly, the way he’d wanted: a going-away party.

It had been beautiful; his students from all over had paid tribute, sung songs, played their instruments; tales had been told, Jaskier’s favorite pieces had been played. The annual festival Jaskier had become a patron of made promise to keep his memory alive. Oxenfurt had announced they would set up a fifth scholarship in his name, Jaskier having established the first four himself. All those he held dear had been able to attend, and by the end, it had truly felt more like the going away party he’d wished for rather than a somber elegy. A long line of former lovers had come as well, which had been amusing, to say the least.

It had been… good. It was a good funeral. They’d done as he asked, and he would have been proud.

“Is there such thing as a good funeral?” Geralt had asked.

The wind has whispered through the trees for the rest of the year in ways that sounded suspiciously like the tuning of a lute, to Yennefer, at least. She was projecting, she knew. But it was hard not to, when so much of the little world they’d built for themselves at Corvo Bianco had involved Jaskier, down to the accent tiles in the kitchen, a brilliant touch of cornflower blue running along the walls. The hanging chair in the backyard, wicker and worn now, where he’d sit and play for them while they watched the sun. The library that was filled with so many of his own works, and so many of his favorites.

All of it felt like ghosts now. He had only barely left, but felt so far away already, and yet he was right there in everything they owned, touched, did, said.

“As good as a funeral can get,” Yennefer had replied.

He’d grown old. He was a ripe 94 when he passed, and they’d both privately suspected he had wanted to go sooner than later at that point, as it became harder and harder to play. Not that Yennefer had ever had much insight into how the bard thought; they were… friends. Occasional lovers. Not like he and Geralt had been, though— and not that she’d ever minded, of course. Geralt had brought the mage and bard together, and neither had ever forced it further. Which, Yennefer admitted, had given her a deep respect for the bard she hadn’t been expecting to form. Yes, they’d been friends.

She’d expected Jaskier’s death to be difficult on Geralt. Of course it would, the two had been attached at the hip for decades, they were best friends, lovers, tied together so deeply she wouldn’t begin to try and decipher it, just as he had stopped trying to decipher her and Geralt. What she hadn’t been expecting was the loss to be such a blow to herself.

But that was death, wasn’t it? Knocking your breath away as someone else loses theirs. If he couldn’t breathe it, what use was air at all?

It was a stupid thought. But it lingered in her nonetheless.

Almost a year had passed, then, in the way grieving time always passes; both as molasses and the wind, heart-stoppingly slow and so quick they lost weeks to the ether. But it was summer again, and the birds were singing, and the sun cast the vineyard in a warm and pleasant glow, and the breeze carried the sweet smell of grapes to their porch, and Geralt had been spending increasingly more time in the study.

She’d peaked in a few times, just to see what he was up to— she could only ever see his back, it wasn’t reading, wasn’t writing, wasn’t… whatever she had expected. Instead, Geralt stood in front of the bookcase on one wall, where there was a waist-high counter of sorts, separating the top shelves from the bottom, which were reserved for larger, heavier tombs. He wasn’t looking at a book, though, or even staring ahead blankly as he had so often in the weeks after the bard’s death. He was staring at something small in front of him, lying on that counter, and for the life of her, Yennefer had no idea what it was.

The days were long and the evenings were heavy, and as one tumbled on past another, Yennefer became increasingly frustrated that she could not figure out what was preoccupying Geralt so. It was small, smaller than a book, so it wasn’t one of Jaskier’s poetry collections. Nor could it be the memory album Ciri had put together for the bard’s 85th.

He just stared. More than once, she could see him take a shuttering breath against tears. A handful of times, she’d crept in once he had left, looking for… something, some clue of what had been paining him, but she’d found nothing.

Weeks drew on. Geralt was increasingly agitated and trying hard to conceal it. He must have known she’d been spying, but neither had dared say a word. There was no bar, now, to break the tension. Well, something had to give.

Another evening, another opportunity for Yennefer to peak through the door ajar, to see her witcher’s back, his gaze drawn down, in the middle of a deep breath. The softly lit room made him appear almost as a statue, his sharply defined body looking smoother. She watched for a while, the steady rise and fall of his back and shoulders, the faded loose chemise he wore, his hair dropping around his shoulders and toward his face. She’d think him peaceful if she didn’t know any better. She did, of course. She tended to.

After a minute or two of just looking, (a gift she admitted she often took for granted, after everything they’d been through,) Yennefer pushed the door open just a bit, and it creaked in greeting. Geralt didn’t stir, but took a deeper breath than usual, and she only waited a moment before slowly stepping into the room.

“May I?”

Geralt went stiller, if at all possible, before raising his head and tilting it in invitation. She crossed to him, wrapped her arms around his middle, and planted a soft kiss against his back, burying her head in his shoulder.

“Hi,” he rumbled softly.

“Hello,” she returned with another small kiss. Geralt lifted his arm and brought it around her shoulders, and she tucked in neatly to his side. She looked down at his hands, and finally, there, the culprits lay. Two small strips of fine quality parchment, worn from how often Geralt had held them. Each had a fine filigree along the edges, and along the top read, “Toussaint Annual Bardic Festival”. Below, in neat calligraphy, one ticket read “Geralt of Rivia”, and with a slow sinking in her stomach, Yennefer read the next, identical in all ways save the center, which in small letters read “in memory of” above the gentle curl of the name “Jaskier, Julian Alfred Pankratz”. The bottom of both strips read two dates, the first a week and a day from then, the second a week later.

“Tickets,” Geralt sighed. She hated herself for not having figured it out before. Geralt and Jaskier had gone to the local festival every summer for thirty years, and she hadn’t even realized it was time— how had she forgotten? She’d never… gone, to be fair. She’d heard stories and had made the journey with them more than once, but it was Geralt and Jaskier’s time, and she’d let them have it to themselves. He’d let her have the autumn harvest markets with their witcher, so it’d only seemed fair, but now her heart ached to know she’d never seen the streets of Beauclair cleared, the frivolous banners hung, the tawdry vestments, the excruciating recitation of poetry— she’d never seen it with him. She never would, now, never see his eyes light up at the sights and sounds, the great wave of applause from fans as he bowed after a new song.

Were those tears? Fuck.

It was stupid. The only thing they’d shared was Geralt, after all. And Corvo Bianco. And, to a lesser extent, Ciri. And, she supposed, over 50 years of history. And friendships. And sometimes, a bed.

That was nothing. That should be nothing, to her.

“We usually go together,” Geralt says, as though that needs explaining. But he’d barely talked in weeks, so she let him go on. “He worked so hard to give patronage. Took him years. Was really proud of it. We’d already been going for years at that point, usually stayed the whole week. It was… tradition, you know. Made me promise…” he took a shuttering breath, “made me promise to keep going. Every year. Don’t know how I can, really, those streets are his. That whole place was just… his, you know? They ate out of his hand. It was,” Geralt laughed, and it was thick and wet, “it was something to see.” She could feel the lift of his arm as he ran his shirtsleeve across his eyes, but Yennefer’s eyes were trained on the tickets. She couldn’t look away.

No wonder Geralt had spent so much time in here.

“So, I’m supposed to go to this, and there’s a ticket for him, and it’s just…” she felt him shake his head. “I don’t know. It’s all his, it always was, I don’t know what the point is. They came… a month ago? Something like that, and a note that they’d be sent ‘in perpetuity’, as a gift for his support. But how can I…” The stood in silence, and Yennefer held to Geralt tighter. For her own sake, really. The world had begun to feel… drifty.

“I want to do right by him. But I’m just supposed to go, year after year, and watch as they forget him? As he fades away? It’s a fucking curse.”

“Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his laugh,” Yennefer admitted, and she felt like a fucking child, and couldn’t bring herself to mind that, much.

Geralt nodded. “Mm. Or the— the way his nose wrinkled if something had—"

“Green peppers,” they said together around a laugh.

They stood there, wrapped in each other, and Geralt let a hand come up to stroke Yennefer’s hair as she tucked her nose into Geralt’s chest, on what she belatedly realized was one of the bard’s old chemises. “Let me give you something,” Geralt mumbled, and Yennefer opened up her mind, drew up, and went to go digging in his. But the memory he wanted her to see didn’t need to be dug for at all; he was practically throwing it at her, and she found herself enveloped in the sights and sounds of the streets of Beauclair all done up for the festival. Bright banners hung from windows and beside her, someone was selling some warm pastry out of a stall. She turned and there was Jaskier, maybe 60, that touch of gray dusting his temples that had so quickly taken over his whole head. His eyes were bright and shining and he was rambling on about something. He beamed, bright as the sun, and she felt the ghost of his touch as he wrapped a hand around her— around Geralt’s— upper arm.

She opened her eyes back to the dim study, and it was like a bubble has popped in her chest. She pulled away to look up at him, his eyes still cast on the tickets in his hand.

“Take me instead,” she said before she could even think to say it. “I’ll go. Show me everything I never got to see with him.”

Geralt looked down at her, frowning slightly, and for the first time that night they looked at each other, and she saw his face was full of warring grief and pain and hurt and confusion. There were two tracks of dried tears there, and she wondered what her own face looked like, at that point. She hated not knowing. She must look a mess.

“I don’t…” he sighed. “You’re not much for poetry,” he said, sounding more like a question.

“I could be,” she insisted.

“I just…” He took a deep breath, and she could practically see him trying to arrange the words just right for her. She’d grown more patient with him, something she’d learned from Jaskier. “I don’t know if I can go if you’re not enjoying it. It’s always been… his, and he was so happy there. I don’t want… I don’t want to taint it. With my sadness. Or seeing you… not enjoy yourself.”

“We’re going to be sad,” she said plainly. “We’re going to be sad, that’s just how that is. But… it was his. So there’s a piece of him there, and we can enjoy it. I won’t spoil the fun, and I wouldn’t ask to go if I didn’t think I would have a good time. I know I’m not a replacement for him—” she raised her hand to stop Geralt before he interrupted, “—nor do I need to be, nor do I wish to be, nor would I ever presume to be. It won’t be the same. But he wanted you to go— and if you want to go, I want to go with you. I want to enjoy it.”

Something in her nose stung. Geralt swallowed thickly. This shouldn’t have been anything.

She closed her eyes and remembered the memory Geralt had given her, recalled her own of Jaskier’s ramblings and smiles and soon she was tumbling through them, remembering even their spats and quarrels and it overwhelmed.

Wasn’t she supposed to be above this?

“Nothing,” she suddenly remembered Jaskier saying once, “is above song, or poetry. Some things are above words, but that is exactly why we write.” It had been a cool day in Oxenfurt, and on a whim she’d snuck into one of his guest lectures, and stayed behind after to give him a purposefully difficult time. It had all been barbs for a while, but had ended up turning into a real conversation, something they did not often permit themselves.

“So,” she’d asked, “what, is writing just an approximation of something so… big, grand, you can’t name it? What’s the use of words at all, then? There are other ways to convey something that don’t bother to use words at all. Surely they’d be more fitting for such things.”

He’d smiled widely. “We sing, write, tell stories, because after it’s all over, when we’re gone, you can carry it with you. You can’t carry a massive painting around and share it with someone else, and even if you could, it wouldn’t be the same. When you sing, you participate in the story, Yennefer. It’s never about the words. It’s about the people inside of them, and behind them. It’s about carrying someone else. Someones, really. Everyone. The whole world as it is, and was, and everyone to come.”

She hadn’t had much to say to that. She didn’t really get it, then, much as she thought she had.

And now, here she was. Bastard. Probably chuckling from beyond the grave. Smug as shit with a grin to match.

“Okay,” Geralt finally said. “Yeah.”

“We can?” Yennefer asked, yet again feeling so young and so… eager. She wanted to see the damn festival, now. Wanted to revel in it and let Jaskier be right, wanted to be carried by those songs and carry them with her in return.

“Yeah,” Geralt smiled, and his eyes crinkled in a way she hadn’t seen them do in ages. He nodded and tried valiantly to sound serious. “There are these fried pastries there, we’ll have to get some. Requirement, actually. For entrance. Multiple times a day.”

“Oh, of course. And we have to pick up some new volumes for the collection. Legally, we must,” she agreed soberly.

It was only a moment before they broke again, and she buried her face in his chest, in the warm linen of Jaskier’s old shirt, felt Geralt’s arms come to circle her, and the two began to rock side by side in something approaching a dance. They stayed like that, swaying silently as the crickets and cicadas of the valley chorused away, filling the room with a natural music and rhythm she’d grown to appreciate recently.

“I miss him,” Geralt whispered into Yennefer’s hair. She could feel him crying again. “I love him, I miss him, I miss him so much, fuck.”

“I know. I know.” She tangled the shirt in her hands tighter. Cradled the back of Geralt’s neck with another hand. And soon they were smiling again, not in spite of the grief, but because of it.

At some point, Geralt slipped the second ticket into her hand, and she looked down at it, and could not look away. Toussaint Annual Bardic Festival, in memory of Jaskier, Julian Alfred Pankratz. She read it over and over, until it sounded to her like a song.

Falling (Three)

TW for Character Death but like... not really cos we know where Tony is. Also Tissues because I cried outlining Rhodey’s speech, and then again rough drafting it, and then again editing it...good times. 

Also I already have so many ideas for expansions of this verse ughhhh

MASTERLIST HERE

***********

MCU-verse

“A few days ago, the world as I knew it changed forever.” 

The cathedral went quiet as Colonel James Rhodes took to the podium, serious and somber in his dress uniform, eyes red and hands shaking as he looked down at his notes. 

“I don’t mean because of the wormhole over New York, though that certainly changed my mind about a lot of things I’d never thought to consider true.” the Colonel cleared his throat once, twice, darted a glance first towards Pepper sat off to the side and then to the casket sat closed and heavy on the platform below. 

“One week ago, my entire world changed when my best friend re routed a bomb out of Manhattan and took it straight into the sky. Through the damn wormhole and into the other side without even hesitating cos he knew it would save us.” James had to stop again, let his voice crack and he heard Pepper start quietly crying. “Tony um-- Tony was Iron Man. He was a hero from the minute he put on that suit to the minute he--” 

The podium shook when James gripped at it hard, counted to ten once and then again to give himself time to breathe and to keep reading the speech he’d prepared only last night. 

“Tony was a hero from the minute he put on the suit to the minute he-- oh hell, I can’t read this.” Rhodey put the cards away and scrubbed at his eyes until they stung. “Can’t read a speech about Iron Man when it’s my best friend-- my best friend laying over there, I can’t--” 

Another deep breath, another quiet cough to clear the tears from his throat and James began again, stronger this time. 

“Tony Stark was my best friend. We met at MIT, he was basically five and a half feet of pure disaster and I knew I was in trouble the minute he showed up and tried to claim top bunk. Tony fell right the hell off the ladder and I had to carry his dramatic ass to Health Services because he was sure he broke his ankle.” 

A few chuckles broke out and Rhodey managed a small smile. “He was a disaster that day, and every after that but he was my disaster and my best friend and that’s all that ever mattered.” 

“My favorite memory--” the Colonel closed his eyes again and forced out a breath. “My favorite memory of Tony is actually from a few weeks after we met for the first time. It’s obvious these days how mechanically inclined Tony was but what no one else really knows is that Tony’s first robot was one I built.” 

He tapped at his chest and tried not to sob when his fingers hit his half of a best friends necklace Tony had bought for them one drunk spring break a long long time ago. “I built Tony’s very first robot and the brat actually stole it from me.” 

A few more laughs and Rhodey continued, “I drank all the coffee one day and Tony barged into the robotics class a few hours later screeching about how badly he needed caffeine and I needed to fix it now and then he stopped and stared at just-- just the saddest looking robot you've ever seen. It was basically a box on wheels with one arm and it never did anything I programmed in so when Tony asked what it was, I said 'it's a damn dummy is what it is, doesn't do anything right'." 

The Colonel pulled an old picture out of his pocket, one of a very young Tony next to that same robot. "Tony was so offended I'd call a robot dummy that he told me I didn't deserve to have cool toys and that it was his now, I could have it back when I was worthy. Believe me, I didn’t take kindly to having my project stolen and for the rest of college-- and honestly the next thirty years-- I tried damn hard to get that robot back. It was like a heist movie, me making plans and Tony thwarting them at every turn, me roping people into the conspiracy and Tony shrieking that I wasn't worthy and that's why my plans never worked." 

"...Dum-E is still down there in Tony's workshop." he finished softly. "He wears a dunce cap and carries a fire extinguisher and he's Tony's favorite thing in the world. See that's what no one knew about Tony. Everyone knows Tony was Iron Man and-- and a goddamn hero, but he was also sentimental and sort of embarrassingly sappy and when he decided he loved something it was forever and nothing could ever change it.” 

“Dum-E was lucky enough to be something Tony loved. I was lucky enough to be someone Tony loved and it changed my life. Tony changed my life." 

Rhodey put the picture away and looked towards the casket, tears blurring his eyes as he finished,  "I uh-- I miss you, Tpnes. Miss you, bud. And I want to keep thinking this is some sort of trick, some sort of prank but I know in my heart--” 

He held tight to his half of the best friends necklace. “--I know in my heart that it-- it’s not. And that makes me real sad.” 

Pepper dropped her face into her hands, thin shoulders shaking and James tried hard to smile, to get through these last few words. “So uh-- right now I'm gonna go get my robot back. I fully expect JARVIS to have some anti heist protocol that ends with my hair on fire but you know what? I’m gonna try anyway. Rest well, Tony. We miss you.” 

There was polite laughs, some tears dabbed from eyes, a smattering of clapping and James stepped back from the podium to sit by Pepper. "How was that?" 

"It's exactly what he would have wanted you to say." she whispered through her hankie, and he wound an arm around her shoulders to hold her tight. “I miss him so much, Rhodey.” 

"I miss him too, Pep.” 

“It’s so stupid.” Pepper blew her nose daintily. “Wishful thinking. But you know, I get the feeling that he’s okay. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like he’s okay. Resting.” 

“Yeah, I know, I keep thinking the same thing.” Rhodey touched the necklace again. “But resting or not, when I get to heaven, I’m kicking his ass for leaving me too soon.” 

“Oh definitely.” 

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

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

Bucky and Steve’s Apartment

“Billionaire socialite Maria Carbonell shown here with her husband Howard Stark…” Tony mumbled to himself as he read through yet another article about his mom-- or rather, this universe’s version of his mom. “--donated millions to her husbands research to cure leukemia.”  

“Philanthropist Maria Carbonell opens a school of music for inner city kids.” He kept scrolling, smiling, as he read about Maria changing the world with her money-- and it was certainly Maria’s money this time around. Apparently this Howard Stark was an attractive scientist with a sugar mama and in each of the pictures Howard looked absolutely delighted to be accompanying Maria down red carpets, up stairs to national monuments, through the door of yet another awards ceremony for Humanitarian and conservation efforts ranging from restoring museum pieces clear through establishing brand new schools in sorely lacking communities.

“Howard Stark, husband to Italy’s sweetheart Maria Carbonell passed this morning --” Tony swallowed, pausing in his scrolling. “--at home with his wife. The cause of death is noted as a heart attack, though Mrs. Carbonell is comforted knowing he passed quickly and peacefully into the afterlife. The scientist is lauded for his contributions and research into childhood illnesses and since they had no children of their own, Howard’s personal funds will be diverted into a scholarship fund for MIT. “They are the future, not me.” he is quoted as saying often, “They will turn my first steps into a journey that will change the world.” 

“...bye Dad.” Tony whispered, though the article was dated three years past, though this Howard wasn’t his dad and had led a much different life than the Howard Stark that built Project Manhattan. “I um-- I love you.” 

“Maria Carbonell retires to Italy after husband’s passing, ‘I’m content to live out my life with my grand piano and library and wine!’” 

“Maria Carbonell breaks her silence on ex-family friend and advisor Obadiah Stane-- “he can rot in prison for all I care, and yes you can quote me on that, I said it, didn’t I?” 

Obadiah… Tony hesitated just a moment before searching for the name, his hand automatically over his heart and his breath coming faster as picture after picture of the man that had been Uncle and then had turned to nightmares filled the computer screen. 

‘Obadiah Stane accused of embezzling millions from Carbonell Foundation’

‘Obadiah Stane accused of funneling money meant for prosthetic limb research into smart bombs’

‘Former Carbonell advisor Obadiah Stane egged as he walks to the courthouse, Maria Carbonell shown handing out eggs to crowd’

‘Obadiah Stane found guilty of embezzlement and intent to fund terrorists, sentenced to thirty five years in prison’ 

‘Maria Carbonell laughs in reporters face when asked how she feels about Obadiah Stane’

“Oh.” Tony sat back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus Christ.”

His mom and dad were okay, Howard passed peacefully and Maria sure seemed to be living her best life in her seaside villa in Italy. Obadiah had been caught before he could hurt anyone and was rotting away in a prison cell. 

Last night Tony had got to have dinner with his friends, with his family Pepper and Rhodey and this morning he’d woken up to forehead kisses from both his Doms before Bucky had rolled out of bed for a shower and Steve had gone to start breakfast. 

Captain America was making him breakfast and Bucky had walked past in a towel and his mom and dad were okay. 

 This was-- everything was--

“Beauty?” Steve threaded his fingers into Tony’s hair and smiled affectionately when Tony automatically tipped his head back. “What are you doing, you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” Tony pushed the laptop away and let himself sink into the feeling of security, the weight of Steve’s palm on his scalp, the way the blond always smelled like ocean body wash. There was definitely an inside joke there about his Steve being in the water for seventy years and this Steve using ocean mist soap, but Tony kept that to himself and settled a little firmer into Steve’s hold. 

The Dom’s breath caught when Tony opened his neck further, and Steve brushed carefully over Tony’s pulse point, over the curve of his neck where a collar would lay. “Tell me the truth.” he said quietly. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” Tony said again, and he meant it. “I’m fine and I’m-- I’m happy--” 

He hadn’t heard Bucky come in, but the Dom was at his side in an instant, bending low to dot a kiss at Tony’s collarbone and to spread his fingers wide over the patch of scars on his chest. “Sure do love hearing you say that, baby doll. You happy with us?” 

“Mmm…” the lure of falling tingled at the base of Tony’s neck, the urge to slide off the chair and let the Doms catch him on his knees. He was so safe right here, safe and caught in this place beyond-- beyond his own world. 

And things were different, sure. Thor was a model which was equal parts hilarious and alarmingly arousing. Clint was tall as hell and Natasha laughed so easily here. Bruce was a professional wrestler and in his free time worked with the Ph.d candidates at the university, Steve was an artist and Bucky was alive…

...and oh Pepper was so beautiful and so at peace and Rhodey was a stunt pilot in that ridiculous get up and…

“Sweetheart.” Bucky's voice was nearly a growl in response to the soft whine Tony gave. “You need us to take care of you? Bring you under real easy? It's been a few days since your drop, are you ready for more?” 

“We’d take care of you, Tony.” Steve now, whispering the words into Tony’s ear and right into his heart. “Baby I promise. If you’re gonna gift us with your trust and submission we are gonna do everything to keep it. Everything.” 

“Anything, sugar.” Bucky’s big hand closed just lightly over Tony’s throat and he gasped out loud before going loose and pliant, practically whimpering as blue fuzzed at the edges of consciousness, called him in and under. “Don’t need a collar for us to be yours, Tony. If that’s what you want.” 

Oh oh oh--- 

"Tony!" A new voice, breaking into their moment as James Rhodes pushed open the door of Steve and Bucky's apartment and called out for the sub. "Tony! You home? Where are you?" 

Tony snapped out of the near-scene whiplash fast, jolting up in the seat as everything in his body tuned to his best friend’s voice. 

“I’m sorry.” he said quickly, reached to press at both Steve and Bucky’s hands. “I’m sorry, I want--” this. you. falling. “I do, I just-- I have to talk to him.” I miss him. “Please?” 

“You don’t need our permission to talk to a friend, Tony.” Steve was quick to reassure him, but the Dom’s blue eyes softened at the request anyway. “We will pick this up after though.” 

Not a question, and not a seconds hesitation when Tony nodded in confirmation. 

“Yes sir. Thank you.” 

Bucky caught him as he left, snagged his wrist and pulled him back for a slow kiss that had Tony seeing stars by the time they parted. 

“Hurry.” 

“Yes sir.” 

James looked thoroughly unimpressed when Tony basically staggered from the bedroom and he looked somehow even less impressed when Bucky and Steve posted up in the doorway to watch. 

“Settle down, boys.” he scoffed. “I’m not gonna steal your sub or snatch him away somewhere wicked when it’s pretty damn obvious he’s halfway to down. Not gonna mess with him, I just need a minute. Quit snarling at me and go have a soda or something.” 

“Rhodey!” Tony laughed out loud and James pulled a face to complain, “You weren’t kidding about calling me Rhodey huh?” 

“Oh no. Not in the least.” 

“I guess I’ll learn to deal.” the other Dom said blandly. “Now come on, I’ve got something to show you down in the truck, I think you’ll like it.” 

"...okay?" Tony grabbed his jacket and followed Rhodey down the stairs. “What um--” 

“Are those two assholes treating you right?” Suddenly Rhodey was all Dom, straightening his shoulders and lowering his voice and part of Tony wanted to laugh out loud over Rhodey being threatening, but the other part missed having his best friend be protective to the point of moving him to tears. 

“They um--” he coughed lightly. “They’re being great to me.” 

“They’re good guys.” James continued. “Steve’s a little cheesy for my tastes and Bucky always smirks like he’s one breath away from a stupid come-on, but they’re good men and good Dominants but none of that matters if you came outta a shitty situation and can’t handle them.” 

“Well I--” 

“You’re welcome to move in with me.” The elevator doors opened and Tony gaped up at his friend in surprise. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a sub and certainly not one that looks like as much trouble as you do, but you can stay with me and know you’re safe if you don’t want to stay with those goons.” 

“I’d like to stay with the goons.” Tony said faux seriously, and Rhodey finally cracked a grin and winked down at him. 

“I knew you’d say that, but felt like I needed to speak up anyway. Should I give them a shovel talk so you can see how your Doms look quaking in their boots?” 

“Are they scared of you?” 

“Damn straight.” James pushed Tony through the outside doors and down towards the parking lot. “So last night at dinner Steve mentioned you’re into robotics and stuff? Might even try to improve on Buck’s arm?” 

“You could say I’m into robotics.” Tony eyed the tarp covered lump in the back of the truck curiously. “Really got into it in my college days. Why?” 

“Cos I thought you’d get a kick out of this.” Rhodey undid the latch of his truck and pushed away the tarp, lifted down a clunky looking robot that was nothing more than a box on wheels with an arm attached. "I built this thing back a few years ago when I tried to impress some hot scientist who loved the Terminator movies. What do you think?" 

"I um--" Tony stared at the robot, at the paper dunce cap on it's head and the familiar treads on its wheels. "I--I--” he put a hand over his mouth and tried not to cry. “I um-- Well, why-- why is it wearing a dunce cap?" 

"Cos it's a dummy." Rhodey scowled at the contraption. "Never does anything I tell it to. It wasn’t even cool enough to get me laid. I’m a fighter pilot, a stunt pilot and I build robots and she wasn’t impressed.” 

“She was missing out.” Tony tried to laugh but it came out as a half sob. “You can’t call a robot a dummy, though. That’s just mean.” 

“The hell it is!” 

“Just for that, I’m keeping him.” Tony reached out and straightened the dunce cap tenderly, rubbed at a little bit of grease buildup at the arm hinge. “I’m keeping your robot, Rhodey. He’s mine now. He’s going to live with me.”  

“THE HELL HE IS!” The Dominant gaped down at him. “You can’t take my robot! You can look at it maybe, but you aren’t about to just walk away with--” 

"You can have it back when you're worthy of such a cool toy." the sub stuck his nose in the air and snapped his fingers. "Wake up, robot, you're coming with me." 

The robot beeped and whirred to life immediately to follow Tony up the path towards the doors and Rhodey groaned, “Of course the stupid thing listens to him. Of course it does.” 

“You’re welcome to try and take him back!” Tony called over his shoulder. “But be warned my interest in robotics extends to booby traps and anti-heist protocols!” 

"Traitor!” The Dom threw his hands up in exasperation. “Tony! I want that thing back! That is my robot and I’m getting it back!”

“The hell you are!” the sub snapped and if Rhodey wouldn’t have been laughing so hard he might have wondered why he was letting a submissive back talk him so loudly and thoroughly, shouting sass across a parking lot. 

Bucky and Steve were in for a ride with that one. 

He was a fan. 

Tony could hear the Dom laughing clear into the building and into the elevator so he waited until the doors had closed before breaking down, falling to his knees and throwing his arms around the scrappy robot. "I’m real glad to see you, bud.” 

Dum-E only beeped and waved his arm around in excitement, and Tony hugged him tighter. “This feels an awful lot like heaven, Dum-e, don’t you think? Mom and Dad are okay and Pepper’s okay and Rhodey and now-- now I even have you here and that’s pretty damn perfect.” 

A few more beeps and Tony nodded, pushed his hair out of his eyes and stood back up. “Time to find my Doms, huh?” 

The robot rolled quickly after Tony down the hall to Steve and Bucky’s door, clicking and whirring curiously as Tony led it inside the apartment and then went off to explore the new place while Tony went to find his Doms. 

“Bucky?” he called. “Steve? I’m-- I’m home again!” 

“Hey sweetheart.” Bucky looked up and smiled, took his hand off Steve’s thigh to beckon for Tony. “C’mere and see us.” 

“Come here, honey.” Steve tapped his foot a few times and pointed down at the floor and Tony didn’t even hesitate to move, didn’t hesitate to kick his shoes off and stumble towards them on unsteady feet until he could fall to his knees. 

Home and it was so easy and so beautiful, Tony gasped out a word that might have been a prayer and his Doms were right there to catch him when he teetered, Steve meeting him there on the floor to hold him, Bucky protective over them both as Tony slid towards the edge of under and falling. 

...Tony used to love falling. He used to love the exhilaration and anticipation, the way his breath stuttered in that split second of flying before gravity took over. He used to love falling into a new habit, falling into a new love, just falling when he jumped from the diving board or the airplane or the rocks he’d climbed on as a child that he thought were so big.

...Tony used to love falling and when Steve knelt down beside him and pulled him in close, when Bucky lowered his voice to a rumble and ordered his subs to submit, when gravity tugged at Tony’s soul and he let himself slip to the pull of submission and that quiet, secret need to be held...

… then falling was like coming home. 

Like finding himself. 

Like closing his eyes and letting go. 

Heaven. 

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

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Request by @tarnera-blog || Prompt from this post

Prompt 1 - "Are you drunk?"

Characters: Cody and Fox

Mando’a Translations at the bottom

---

22 BBY  6 months after the first Battle of Geonosis

Fox should have thought better than trying to hide from Cody when the 212th was stationed on Coruscant. His batchmate seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to finding him when he specifically didn't want to be found. 

But maybe he was giving Cody too much credit. If Fox really wanted to hide he would have left the military base. But he wasn't that much of a di'kut. 

Instead, he kept his gaze straight ahead on the First Battle Memorial as he heard Cody's cautious approach. His vod stopped a few feet away.

"What are you doing out here?" Cody asked quietly. 

"Getting some sunshine," Fox replied flatly, his eyes scanning the never-ending list of names and numbers engraved into the massive slab of Geonosian rock. He'd never been able to stay long enough to read them all. 

"It's 0200, ner vod," Cody pointed out, annoyed. Fox hummed thoughtfully and grabbed the nearly empty bottle of Merenzane Gold at his side. He'd gotten it as a gift from a senator for providing a protection detail that he didn’t quite remember doing. It was entirely possible the senator had mistaken him for his other Commanders. He hadn't opened it until tonight. It was smooth and warm, but it took a while to take any effect. He saw Cody stiffen in surprise in his peripheral. "Are you drunk?" 

"Very astute of you, Kot'ika. And you also know that I prefer to be drunk alone," Fox muttered, taking a long swig. He didn't drink often, because he didn't like to not be in control. He also wasn't a very pleasant drunk. 

"Shab, you're depressing," Cody groaned, but instead of leaving he sat down heavily at his side. They sat in silence for a few moments, Cody studying the memorial. Then he extended his hand to Fox, expectant. 

"I don't think you understand the meaning of the word 'alone'," Fox said icily. 

"Like I'm going to leave your miserable shebs here. But since I'm here I deserve to get something out of it," Cody retorted, flicking his fingers at Fox impatiently. Fox grudgingly handed over the bottle, glaring at the memorial in annoyed defeat. "Besides, someone has to drag you back to the barracks before the esteemed Commander of the Guard is found batnor on the ground outside," he reasoned with a smirk. Cody took a sip from the bottle. "That would put a dent into your reputation," he chuckled around the lip of the glass. 

Fox didn't respond. Normally if he heard a jab like that from Cody he would have smacked him on the shoulder. But that had hit a nerve and he didn't want to show it. He snatched the bottle from Cody's hand and drank more from it, feeling Cody's stare on the side of his face.

"What's going on, Fox’ika?" he asked, the concern clear in his tone. "Why are you haryc b'aalyc, alone, in the middle of the night, out in the cold?"

"How did you feel when you were promoted to Marshal Commander?" Fox asked, avoiding Cody's question. He fiddled with the neck of the bottle, turning it around in his hands and watching as the liquid sloshed back and forth. 

"Uh, hmm," Cody sounded surprised by the sudden question and took a moment to form his thoughts. "I was surprised. Honored, by General Kenobi's faith in me. I guess… I guess it made me feel proud," he said, looking up at the sky. The stars were hard to see on Coruscant because of the light pollution, but the hundreds of speeders that flew by in a steady flow in the skylanes were peaceful in their own kind of way. 

"I think I should have felt that," Fox mumbled, not taking his eyes off of the memorial. It had an imposing, ghostly presence at night when the spotlights shined on it. "Being assigned the Commander of the Guard. I think that's what my response should have been," he set the bottle between his feet. 

"It wasn't?" Cody asked carefully. Fox shook his head messily and it made the world spin a bit. 

"Nah. I think I was disappointed," he said, scratching at his chin. He needed to shave. "I only got to fight in Geonosis. To feel like I was really a part of - of everything. To fight with our brothers for what we were bred for," he blew out a long exhale. "We're so disconnected here. From the war, from our vode. We are closest to the Republic, but furthest from making a difference," Fox scrubbed a hand across his face in irritation. "And it makes me frustrated. And I know I shouldn't be. Did you know I have to read mission reports for the Chancellor? Every day. I read about all of my brothers who are killed on the front lines, while I'm stuck here. I send my men on diplomatic missions that they sometimes don't return from and all I can do is sign off on it. Protecting the homeworld of the Republic should feel like an honor. But it feels like a prison."

Cody was silent for a long time. Fox gritted his teeth and rocked back and forth a bit, anxiety thrumming in his veins. That wasn't something he was supposed to even think let alone say out loud. 

"Are you going to court-martial me, Marshal Commander? For my wavering loyalty to the Republic?" Fox asked, his voice hoarse and detached. 

"I don't see any evidence of wavering loyalty, vod'ika," Cody replied softly. Fox glanced at Cody and bounced his knee nervously, waiting for him to continue. "What I see is a man who takes the weight of the war on his shoulders. And who is not at fault for circumstances out of his control," Cody reached over and grasped Fox's hand in a firm grip. Fox squeezed back, the point of contact his only emotional anchor. 

"He died today," Fox choked out. "1123. He was the last of my platoon from Geonosis. Underground mine on Ryloth. I don't know if he ever even had a name," Fox fought back tears. The thirty-six men he had taken with him on a dangerous flank assault during Geonosis were some of the bravest men that Fox knew. Of the thirty-six, only twelve survived. Fox had been told that it was lucky any of them had survived at all, and that their assault had been vital for securing the region. He'd been commended for it. But he'd never considered losing two-thirds of his men a victory. After Geonosis, he was transferred to the newly formed Coruscant Guard, and his men were disbanded and placed in other battalions. One by one, he'd read out their numbers as they appeared on casualty reports. And each one was more painful than the last. "They're all gone."

Cody didn't say anything for a while. Then he reached over and wrapped an arm around Fox's shoulders. Fox momentarily stiffened. But the calming, steady presence of his vod soon melted the tension and he relaxed into the hold, his head dropping heavily on Cody's shoulder. 

"It's not any easier when you're there," Cody whispered. "The 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' are always present. Our men die, we are forced to move on, and we mourn together when we can," his batchmate's voice was quiet and calm, he was stating a fact even if it was painfully rooted in emotion. 

"I don't know what this city is going to do to me," Fox admitted, his gaze unfocused. "War is hard, but it's straightforward. The senate and the politics… they're not. I'm worried about what I'll become because of this place." That was a secret he hadn't told a single soul. Fox took it as the signal it was and decided to stop drinking for the night. He sighed and moved out of Cody's embrace. Cody let him, watching carefully as Fox wobbily staggered to his feet. Fox hooked a finger around the neck of the bottle of Merenzane Gold and offered it to Cody when his vod stood as well. Cody took it and raised an eyebrow and Fox shrugged it off lazily. 

"You deserve it for listening to me," he said, trying to lighten the somber mood. Cody frowned but nodded, picking up the cap from the ground and screwing it on. 

"You want to head inside now?" Cody asked, tilting his head towards the base entrance. Fox shrugged again, already closing himself off. They started walking slowly back. Fox felt the last bits of his vulnerability start to seal up. 

"Kot'ika," he said quietly to Cody's back. Cody looked back to him curiously. "Don't… tell anyone," he mumbled. Cody smiled, genuine and sad.

"You're safe with me, ner vod."

--

Mando’a Translations:

Di’kut - Idiot, fool (impolite) (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on) Vod(e) - Brother(s) Ner vod - My brother (usually affectionate) (proper noun)’ika - affectionate or diminutive suffix Shab - contemptuous expletive Shebs - backside, rear, buttocks (can also mean rear of a building) Batnor - drunk (lit. on your back) Haryc b’aalyc - Tired and emotional (also another way to describe being drunk)

ancient names, pt. vi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt vi: dark, and drenched in longing

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~4.7k

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance from here on out. Mentions of blood/carnage, the frantic energy of people who both hate and are attracted to each other. Also, for this chapter in particular, the forced use of psychotropic drugs (also canon-typical?? I guess). John being himself. Per usual.

Notes: Hi! I'm going to keep these short and sweet because, basically, I have nothing to say for myself. I hope you guys enjoy! I mean it when I say every interaction makes my day. I swear I'm just as awkward in a real conversation as I sound in these notes and I'm not scary at all, so please feel free to come and say hi!

As always, thank you again to everyone who reads! I am so happy to be back in a writing groove with these two idiots again.

Theirs was a strange sort of allyship.

Tentative, to be sure, and certainly strained. But if four days ago you’d told John that he’d be sitting in a van with Junior Deputy Elliot Honeysett driving him straight to his brother, the man she'd slapped cuffs on and tried to arrest at the behest of a U.S. marshal, he’d have laughed in your face. The idea was ridiculous. Expansively, endlessly, incredibly ridiculous.

And yet, if John ignored the clink of the cuffs binding them together, and the knowledge that this van belonged to a strange, traveling band of cultists, he almost felt like he had been tricked into some kind of fucked-up romcom. As soon as they hit the highway, Elliot turned the radio on to the resistance’s repaired music channels, smoked her cigarette down, and leaned back against her seat as though she had not been viciously threatening to kill him just days ago.

Did she still think that? Did he care? John felt his brows furrow and he turned his head away, watching the treeline. He didn’t think he cared. He would say, so what if Elliot still wants to kill me? She needed him, and that was more than he’d gotten out of her in the whole time that she’d been under his thumb.

He didn’t care if she still wanted to kill him, and the thought that maybe she might did not thrill him, and he was not distracted by the stretch of her midriff when she shifted in her seat, and—

—And these were all things that he didn’t struggle with, certainly, because if asked, John would say that yes, he supposed that Elliot Honeysett could be considered conventionally attractive , but only when she wasn’t baring her teeth like a wild animal, only when she didn’t have a gun in her hands, only when she wasn’t making you say please to save the life of someone you didn’t even know the name of.

So, yes, he supposed, she was pretty: and John did not know why in particular he had to leap through those loops to get to that point silently, by himself, but, here he was.

“Oh, I love this song,” Elliot announced suddenly, turning the volume up and startling John out of the reverie he’d plunged himself into. His eyes narrowed when he recognized the song; the very typical back-water-town radio station playing Guns’N’Roses was not beyond his comprehension, and yet he found himself displeased nonetheless.

“Really, deputy?” John asked, staring at her across the console. “You love this song?”

Elliot dropped her glasses— my glasses, John reminded himself irritably—down the bridge of her nose so she could stare at him over the top of them. “It’s a classic, John.”

The radio blared the chorus of Welcome To The Jungle , and John said, “I cannot take you seriously with this music.”

She laughed, apparently pleased by his disdain, cranked the volume higher. Over the sound of aggressive guitar riffs sliding up and down and Boomer barking excitedly in the back, John shouted, “Why don’t we just alert everyone of where we are, hm?”

“Oh, you’re spoiling the fun.” She turned the volume back down, tsking her tongue, and John rolled his eyes. It was so very typical Elliot, to want to enjoy herself at the exact moment that he was trying to remind himself of all the reasons that he disliked her.

A period of silence stretched between them; tranquil, blissful, just for one moment, before John’s gaze slid back to her. She did look peaceful, at that moment, her ponytail smooth and adjusted, her brows relaxed, coughing occasionally into the crook of her elbow but otherwise breathing fine. Relaxed. At ease—with him, of all people. Wouldn't she be furious to know it?

John’s fingers itched. Soft, he thought, reminded of Joseph’s words; you have to love them, John. It wasn’t his style, not particularly, more suited to persuasion rather than fostering mercy as Joseph did. 

He kept his voice light and casual when he asked, “Where did you get your scars, deputy?”

He watched—and watched and watched —to catch her reaction. He couldn’t see her eyes through the reflective shades she wore, but he did see the way her fingers tightened on the wheel, saw the push and pull of her jaw muscle as her teeth worked in her mouth, grinding, perhaps crushing the words she wanted to say between them. He braced himself for the vitriol; it would certainly be something along the lines of, I got them from Go Fuck Yourself USA, John, I’m the goddamn mayor or any suitable string of expletives.

Instead, Elliot prompted, “Who’s asking?”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“I said, who’s asking?” she reiterated, not once looking at him. “Is this John Seed, or John Duncan?” Hearing her say the name like this—as though John Duncan were at all comparable to the man that John Seed was—made his chest prickle, anger and disdain welling up inside of him.

“That’s not my name,” John bit out. “Don’t play games with me, deputy—”

“I know your fucking cult psycho-bombing tactics, Seed,” Elliot replied, her voice sharp and quick as a whip. John opened his mouth to protest, but she went on, “You might think you’re being clever, waiting until I crack a smile to ask me an invasive question, but you’re not. First, you ask me where my scars come from, and when I open up about my past traumas—”

“So it’s a trauma,” John insisted, but Elliot was already railroading on; any footing he felt he’d was gone.

“—then you say some stupid shit like, have you ever really felt at home with your family, Deputy Honeysett? I could give you a home, Deputy Honeysett, which you would say, because for some reason you don’t understand the concept of someone being a Junior Deputy or having a first name—”

“It was just a question, Elliot ,” John interrupted, effectively ending her barrage. “I was only trying to make small talk with you. I noticed them back at the ranch, and since we’re in a car for several hours together, I thought…”

Elliot’s lips pressed into a thin line. “There’s your first mistake, then. You tried to form a cohesive train of thought.” Her voice dripped with a honeyed, pitiful timbre, “I know how hard that is for you.”

“Alright, thank you for this stimulating conversation, you literal child,” John snipped out. “And you’re still wearing my fucking glasses, by the way.”

“Take them back, then.”

John stared at her. The idea of putting his hand close to Elliot’s face was not only a dangerous one because it was in close proximity to her teeth—proven by her many run-ins with his acolytes before to be suitable weapons in a pinch—but because he worried.

He worried that the willingness for soft contact would make him soft, the way it had felt when Elliot tucked herself against his chest to combat the chilly Montana evening. He worried that getting familiar and comfortable with a feral and untamed creature like Elliot Honeysett would change him, and to be changed by someone like her —

“Consider them a gift.” He kept his voice clipped. “From me to you. They’re Gucci, you know.”

“Oh, very generous of you, Herald. What, little old me, nobody Elliot from Hope County, Nowhere-Montana, with her first pair of Gucci shades? Why, I’d never .” A little bit of a sweet Southern-belle drawl slipped in there, and John didn’t know if it was because of the dramatics or if it was an accent she’d mostly lost and only occasionally regained.

But his stomach twisted a little when she used his title, the patronizing drip of her tone going straight to the headache blooming behind his eyes. “You know, deputy—”

Instinctively, he paused; he waited for her timely interjection, as she was so comfortable doing, but yet again the moment he anticipated it she remained silent. Elliot arched a dark-honey eyebrow and waited. John cleared his throat.

“I think I’ve never met a more troubled woman than you,” he continued casually. “To suspect me of such foul intentions when I only want to know my driving companion better, I’m genuinely wounded.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Elliot acquiesced, and for a moment—just one teeny-tiny moment—John thought she meant it; and then she said, “But I’d prefer we not get too friendly, as you were just considering drowning me in a river filled with drugs just a few days ago, and...”

The blonde’s words trailed off. The van rolled to a crawl, and when he looked forward, he saw the remains of the fire assault that they had just escaped a day ago; two Eden’s Gate trucks, and flimsy barricades that had been pushed off of the road. No bodies in sight.

It was almost a relief, if he was being honest—he wasn’t sure how many more flower-stuffed corpses he could see before he finally decided to rip his own eyeballs out.

Any playful heat had died out of Elliot’s expression. She was somber now, the lines of her expression harder than before. In the back of the van, Boomer whined, and John could hear the swishing of his tail against the floor.

“I don’t like that they took the bodies,” she said after a moment.

“Me either.”

The next thirty minutes of the drive passed in strange, awkward silence. Elliot looked like she wanted to say something and wouldn’t; he could feel her gaze dipping over to him on occasion, but each time he thought her mouth was opening to let out what was on her mind, she’d just exhale. By the time they’d cleared the field where the tracks from their last ride had dug in and left the barricade far behind them, dark, heavy storm clouds had rolled in; he rolled his window down and felt the heady pre-storm humidity like a slap in the face.

No good, John thought, a few drops hitting his hand before he rolled up the window. He felt the thunder rumble deep in the marrow of his bones. The rain went from a drizzle to a steady silver sheet, and then to a torrential downpour by the time they’d been driving for just under an hour, and eventually Elliot pulled to the side of the road.

“We have to pull in somewhere,” she announced. “This van is great for toting cults around, but it’s not great for avoiding hydroplaning off of the road.”

“Well, isn’t off-roading your specialty?” John quipped. She shot him a glare, pushing his sunglasses up onto her head and nestling them into her hair.

“Yes, actually, now that you mention it,” Elliot replied tartly, “but not when I can’t see where I’m fucking going.”

“We’re only an hour and a half or so away from Joseph,” John insisted. “You really don’t think you can make it there?”

Elliot heaved a sigh. Her fingers fluttered over her forehead and the bridge of her nose like she had a headache that was a twin to his own, and every time he spoke, he was exacerbating it. That was probably true—and John was happier for it because the times when Elliot had been most compliant were when she was the most genuinely inhibited.

“I don’t like not being able to see who’s behind us or coming around the corner,” she insisted after a moment. “It doesn’t matter how close or far Joseph is. What matters is that there’s a group of nutjobs out there who apparently have insurmountable resources to take over a whole county in a single day, and I will not —”

She stopped, as though to calm herself, and John waited; impatient, but silent.

“I will not,” Elliot finished, “get kidnapped by one more fucking cult, John Seed.”

Lightning crackled in the distance, and the rain pelted the windshield violently. Another rumble of thunder went spiraling above them; Boomer whined, his ears flat against his skull. John could see Elliot’s fingers gripping the steering wheel until they went bone-white, but each time her grip loosened to let the circulation back in through her fingers, they trembled.

“Fine,” John said. “Pull off into the trees up there, then. We’ll take a break and pick up again when the rain lets up.”

“Thank you,” Elliot said, pulling down from the side of the road and winding her way out of sight of any traffic that might be coming; no venom laced her voice, only relief, and there was no follow-up jab, either. Under the shelter of the trees, the rain felt less violent, and already John felt the tension fleeing his own shoulders.

As soon as Elliot turned the van off, the motor ticking absently, John rumbled, “I think that’s the nicest you’ve ever been to me, deputy.”

She got up out of the seat, shimmying her way past the console and into the back where Boomer had been enjoying the right, pulling hard enough to yank John’s arm and force him to shimmy back with her. The gesture was awkward, and he only complied because he didn’t want to be sitting in the front seat with their arms slung at the angle to allow her back there.

“It’s incredible what a little decency can get you,” she deadpanned. She opened the back door of the van to let Boomer out, the dog taking off happily into the brush. Stretching out her legs in the more spacious, empty back of the van, Elliot wiped some rain from her face and made herself comfortable. John settled against the wall of the car, absently pulling at the cuff still locked around his wrist.

“I can be plenty decent,” he replied, almost sly, a little grin ticking the corner of his mouth upward. “But you already knew that.”

Elliot groaned. “You’re still on about the fact that one time in a bar like, three years ago, you hit on me when I was drunk and you might have had a chance?”

“I think we both know there’s a little more to it than that.”

She rolled her eyes. She could not have, perhaps, been more dramatic than she was in that moment, although John reminded himself that he had often considered Elliot could not be more of many things—impatient, infuriating, prone to violence—than she already was, and she had proved him wrong many times before.

“All I’m saying is,” John continued, “somewhere, deep down in that teeny-tiny heart of yours, deputy—”

“One time,” Elliot interrupted, holding up a finger to accentuate the number. “One time, many moons ago, I thought a man named John in a bar was objectively attractive. This was before I knew what your personality was like.”

John laughed. “You don’t need to like someone’s personality to fuck them, deputy,” he said and basked in the way her expression scrunched up, as though a particularly sour flavor had just seeped into her mouth.

“I do,” Elliot replied, “and every day, I thank God that Joey Hudson had the good sense to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Amen.”

Her gaze flashed with something that might have been amusement. She coughed into her elbow, turning her face away from him to glance out the window at the trees, their branches and leaves swaying in the wind but becoming more and more still the deeper into the woods they went.

“So you think I’m attractive, then.”

“Please stop talking,” Elliot groaned, head lolling against the back of the driver’s seat. “John, if I tell you that I think you’re handsome when your mouth is closed, will you shut the fuck up?”

John’s mouth curved in a half-grin, his chest welling pleasantly at her words. It may have been more than a little petty, to like the words coming out of her mouth—Elliot Honeysett, who would probably strangle him to death with her bare hands if given the opportunity, admitting that he was handsome.

“I might be more inclined,” he offered, sly. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m closing my eyes,” she announced, kicking her legs out and nudging his foot out of the way.

Absolutely childish, John thought absently and without much fervor, compliantly moving his foot out of the way for her. “Just use your words, deputy.”

“Certainly, anything for you,” Elliot purred. “I want you to shut up.”

He flashed her a grin, leaning his head back against the window. Rain pattered against the glass, and somewhere out in the distance, he heard Boomer’s happy bark as he did whatever it was that dogs did in the woods; hunt smaller things, perhaps.

“It’s nice to want things, isn’t it?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot did not know how long she had been asleep when she finally woke up.

She knew that she had been allowed to sleep uninterrupted, which was the first red flag—there was no way that John would just let her sleep and sleep and let the day tick them by. As she slowly came to, through the corner of her eye she could see that he’d fallen asleep, too, shifting restlessly against the window.

The second thing she realized was that the rain hadn’t stopped, and the reason that she became immediately aware of it was that the back doors of the van were open. She hadn’t done it, obviously, and she couldn’t fathom why in the world John would leave the back doors of the van open, so then the question in her foggy mind persisted; who?

And then someone grabbed her ankle and pulled.

The back of her head hit the metal floor of the van with a heavy thud , the world spinning in her vision as she was pulled closer to the outside world, even as her legs kicked. Panic rose in her throat, violent and hot, and instantly her hand went to reach for John, his name spilling out of her mouth in a desperate attempt to wake him up.

His eyes fluttered open. Groggily, he said, “Elliot?” and as she was yanked violently down he got pulled, too, slammed forward face-first into the floor of the van, biting out a swear that only barely registered in her mind as she struggled to wake up.

She twisted to look at her attacker—a tall redhead with a nasty scar dragging his lip in a permanent sneer. Elliot recognized him as the same red-head that had been handling Faith for the woman from before, the same man who’d nearly rammed his van into hers on the road just a day ago.

His hand fisted in the front of her shirt; he drawled in his thick, round accent, “Go back to sleep, little one,” and slammed her head back against the floor with purpose, her vision going sticky, staticky black on the edges.

She felt the heavy pain blooming behind her eyes. The weight of it dragged her eyelids down; she swam in inky black, only vaguely aware of the sound of raised voices, the feeling of a damp cloth being draped over her mouth, the sensation of floating, as though she were drifting underwater with everyone else shouting above her; all of these things began to fade, slipping through her fingers like sand until there was nothing left except for the empty, hollow black filling her up.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Elliot?”

It was John’s voice, she thought, or maybe not; it was hard to tell. Hands pressed to the tops of her shoulders, the pressure a welcoming comfort. Her chin was tucked against her chest, and she lifted her head—not without significant effort—and opened her eyes.

The world pulsed around her, colors bleeding brightly and violently against her irises. She was in a field—

(I’m in a field? But the floor—)

—and John was kneeling in front of her, his hands coming up to take her face. There was no smugness, no venom in his expression; only concern.

“I was so worried,” John said. “I was so worried about you, Elliot.”

“John,” Elliot said, and when she said his name it felt like the letters were spilling out of her mouth, choking her on the way out. A warm breeze tickled the edges of her vision, and the sunlight hemorrhaged into the grass, into the ground, oscillating in time with her heartbeat. A strange, sticky feeling wound up inside of her.

John said her name again. When she looked at him, his eye sockets were blooming, beautiful purple blooms pouring out of them, brushing his cheekbones like eyelashes. The feeling in her chest deepened; grief, she thought, with desperation, agony, hollowing her out, dread , filling her back up again, nothing but a vessel for the deepest emotions to be carried in.

“I was so worried about you,” John said again. Soft petals tumbled out of his mouth when he spoke. He gripped the sides of her face and pressed their foreheads together, and she started to cry, shaking her head. “My Elliot,” he said, over the sound of her crying, his thumbs brushing the tears from her face, “my Elliot.”

She thought that her skin must be burning, from the inside out, everywhere his hands touched; sliding down her throat, along the slope of her collarbone, gripping her shoulders. Hungry, and burning, lighting her on fire as he murmured, “My Elliot.”

His hands skimmed her face. They felt different, then softer and more slender; she closed her eyes tightly, willing the horror of it to go away, for the clammy terror to slip off of her skin.

“Open your eyes, mor. Did the visions scare you? ” a soft voice asked, the words slinking across her skin, serpentine and cold. She did as she was told, even when she thought, I don’t want to open my eyes, her body operating obediently.

Soft, dark eyes. Wisps of dirty-blonde hair that curtained Elliot’s face. Her head was in the woman’s lap and the night sky stretched, cloudy and endless, above them. Ase smiled at her dreamily.

“I saw your color the minute I laid eyes on you,” Ase whispered. She said the words like they were meant to be treasured, kept between them, only them. Elliot’s eyes fluttered and she tried to will herself to move. Her body was non-compliant, heavy as lead, and the warmth of a tear moving haltingly down her cheek made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

With the touch of a doting mother, Ase wiped the tear from her cheek, the pad of her thumb sliding along the slope of Elliot’s cheekbone, and then brushed the hair from her face. Now, Elliot could see more clearly the way her pupils were blown wide, swallowing up the color of her irises, crushing it in the event horizon of her eyes. She murmured, reverently, “I saw your color, mor, I saw you. Have you ever felt seen? We waited for you, for so long.”

Elliot moaned, misery stinging in the sound. Her lip trembled. She thought, I don’t want to be seen, the way Ase reiterated it making her vulnerable. I don’t want to be seen, I don’t want this. But she couldn’t make the words come out, her jaw hanging slack when she opened her mouth, the knowledge that they had done something to her flickering only briefly through her mind before it was swallowed up by something else.

“I’ll let you go.” Ase’s voice remained silken, spinning around her, weaving a cocoon. “I’ll let you go, mor , but only because I know that you will always come back to us.” She skimmed her fingers lovingly across Elliot’s forehead and whispered into her skin, “Now go back to sleep.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John found her curled up, her fingers sinking into the earth like she was afraid she was going to float away, and sobbing.

His head was pounding; he felt disoriented, and panicked, the same kind of strange, distant panic that happened when he fell asleep during the day and woke up to it being night. He could only remember the sound of Elliot saying his name jerking him out of his sleep in the van, the sensation of getting pulled forward violently, and the feeling of someone slamming his head into the side of the van.

And then, waking up in a field, in the dark, alone.

He had struggled to his feet when he awoke. He had thought, the handcuffs are off . He had thought, I have to find Elliot. And then he’d started walking, saying her name, until he heard the sound of her crying and found her.

“Elliot,” he said urgently. His mouth felt incredibly dry; he was worried that if he spoke too much, his skin would split. He reached for her when she turned to look at him, and when she saw him she moaned, the sound that came out of her the same kind of sound an animal with its leg caught in a trap would make.

A slur of protests came out of her. A line of no’s that all blurred together, but when brought her to a sitting position she only shrunk away from him a little. He took the sides of her face in his hands and searched her for any sign of wounds or harm that might have come to her: but there was nothing. She was, it appeared, physically untouched.

“Hey,” John managed out. “It’s me, Elliot. I’ve got you.”

She blinked blearily at him. Her face was flushed, puffy, and tears dotted and darkened her lower lashes. Her pupils nearly ate up the entirety of those baby blues; clearly, she’d been drugged. She said, “John?” and he nodded.

“Yes, Rook. It’s me.”

“They did something to me,” Elliot said, her voice rising in her distress. “John—”

“They’re gone,” he said, without confirming her fears. “We have to move, though. Can you stand?”

The blonde hesitated for a moment and then nodded—he supposed she would have to fight through the remains of whatever they had put in her. He stood, taking her hands and helping her as she wobbled to a stand as well. It was hard to figure out exactly where they were, with no road in sight, but the haze of his sleep—which he now thought must also be medically induced—was still weighing on him.

“We have to move,” he said again, Elliot’s fingers clutching his hands so tight it almost hurt. He scanned the horizon of the field, touching on the dip of a hill, a river, and then a treeline. His eyes strained. He thought he might have seen headlights through the dim of them, but it was hard to tell.

It was also all he had to go on.

“Come on,” John said, her hands still locked around his like he was anchoring her to the earth. Unable to guess what they’d drugged her with, he imagined it probably felt like that.

“John,” Elliot said, her voice impossibly small as they began to walk, her steps halting and uneasy, “They did something to me.”

His jaw tightened. He hated this; he hated Elliot like this, emotionally wounded and voice wobbling, because all of a sudden he thought that this was not the Elliot he knew, not his Elliot at all. Where was the venom? The steel? Where had she gone?

Buried, he supposed, under psychotropic drugs, of which he knew not the origin nor the duration.

The rain clouds had moved along; the earth smelled wet, and fresh, the scent of it welling up inside of them, and as they walked his mind felt clearer and clearer. With clarity came the knowledge that they had been trapped; the cultists had had them, and had chosen to leave them alive. For what?

“I know,” John said again, his voice rough with his forcefully-induced sleep. Elliot’s fingers dug into his arm where they clutched, the feverish pitch of her body heat seeping through his clothes from how close she lingered. “You’re fine, deputy, I’ve got you.”

He tried not to think too hard about the voice that echoed in his head, for now.

BNHA Fics I really like

Btw, the ones with a ⭐ are my favorites

journey to the past 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15046934

Izuku is five years old the first time he's saved by heroes. He's an instant fan of the woman in pink with her cheerful smile and the man with his ice powers and fine-boned features, even if they both refuse to tell him their names.

For most of his life, Izuku has been the centre of villain attacks, but he has never been injured. Every time, he's saved by bright, unknown heroes—heroes who smile at Izuku, and ruffle his hair or ply him with hugs, and seem mesmerised by how small he is.

Heroes that the rest of the world doesn't believe exists.

Opinion: Honestly, it’s really pure and heartwarming with a side of angst. Seeing a young Izuku fanboy is adorable and from what I remember it's pretty well written. I honestly really love this one.

Lies in the guise of truth

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124007/chapters/35067359

All Might is the world's #1 hero, the symbol of peace, the pillar that the world knows they can stand on. He dominates every room he's in, from press conferences to his Hero Agency.

It's pretty easy for everyone to overlook Yagi Toshinori, All Might's 'quirkless secretary'. But he's still there.

Opinion: I really love Dadmight. Like I really love Dadmight so I may be a bit bias. It diverts a bit from canon, but I was alright with that. It’s wholesome, cute, and Toshi deserves some love 

I Would Understand  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12729852

Shinsou Hitoshi had a bit of a problem, and that problem was that he’d gotten attached to Aizawa Shouta. And somewhere along the line had started seeing him as a parental figure, a replacement for all the foster home parents who’d passed him along and never quite done their job.

A kid who's been in foster care his entire life spends a normal, average day after training with the teacher who seems to care a little too much.

Opinion: I have found myself revisiting this fic thrice already lol. Honestly, the first chapter is my favorite and well written--as are the other chapters. I love the melodic and somber atmosphere of some of the scenes and it really feels so sweet but hits me in the feels. The EraserMic in here is beautiful and great Dadzawa.

Ghosts of Flowers

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19851709

Shigaraki gets the chance to carefully sift through the pieces of his recovered memories and tries to hold them close.

There is something that bothers him a bit though: Hana seems—oddly familiar.

It’s not until he’s reviewing the U.A. training exercise footage their mole got them that he realizes it.

The Yaoyorozu heiress, with her long, dark hair, her elegant eyes, and her confident smile, she looks just like—

But she can’t be Hana.

Opinion: I love this one a whole lot. The concept is interesting and executed really well. I really love the characterization of the characters and you get some great internal dialogue and inside thoughts. While I do think the story goes a bit fast, I really enjoyed and understand there’s a lot to tell in ten chapters. 

Not a Spare Part

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18974530/chapters/45052543

In one universe, Tony Stark closed his eyes to a world where Superheroes were a rarity.

In another universe, Tony Stark opens his eyes to a world where Superheroes are the norm.

(An AU where after the events of Endgame, Tony Stark finds himself inhabiting the body of a young quirkless boy named Midoriya Izuku and figures out that the world could use... another Iron Man)

------- Basically, Izuku becomes Iron Man.

Opinion: I really like this fic. Tony is giving Izuku the confidence he needs and makes some new friends and builds old ones. 

Reconfigure  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16893972

It's been years since the League of Villains was disbanded. Out on parole and stuck in therapy, Tomura Shigaraki is coasting through life. While he's no longer a villain, he's not exactly a productive member of society either. When an awkward past fling shows up, he's met with a shock: a 3-month-old baby girl. Turns out motherhood is hard when you're a serial killer. Suddenly saddled with the responsibility of a child, Shigaraki has a choice: keep his life the boring way it is or become a father for his kid he didn't know he had.

He knows nothing about being a good parent (and neither does the recently paroled Dabi/Touya Todoroki), but help comes in the most surprising of forms, specifically pro hero Uravity. All Ochako Uraraka wants to do is be a hero, so when she stumbles across the former villain with a baby, she can't help but worry. With Shigaraki clueless, Uraraka decides to do her best to help. What starts out as a chance meeting between two old enemies turns into something else as they find themselves in a strange predicament and more people get involved. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes, it's a handful of mostly reformed villains and the heroes they tried to kill when they were teens.

Opinion: Alright, before you dismiss this one, hear me out:  Tomura/Ochako really works in this fic. This fic has become one of my favorites because of how its written, characterization, and Tomura’s child--because I’m a sucker for wholesome parent and child content. I honestly really love this fic and had a lot of emotions throughout.

Something Still Remains  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22737019

“Are you Shouta?” the shadow-man asks, and his tone is polite but there’s something verging on almost desperate behind it.

Shouta considers. He’s unarmed, facing an unknown person who knows his home address and his first name, he hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and he’s wearing kitten-patterned pajama pants. Despite all of that, he’s still confident in his ability to handle himself in a fight, but nothing about this situation is making sense, and it’s sending him slightly off-kilter.

Starting with how the shadow man knows his name.

“Maybe,” he says, after his silence has dragged on a beat too long. “Who’s asking.”

Opinion: It’s a one-shot, but a heckin good one at that. The tone of this fic is so gentle and quiet. Also, Kurogiri characterization is great. I’m absolutely craving more.

How to kidnap an underground hero and an UA General Studies student- A guide by Present Mic

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068645/chapters/55178836

Hizashi knew what the villains were planning, he was one of them after all. But they wouldn’t hurt what was his and the plan was rather simple. Really.

Step 1: Convince them that it is just going to be a family holiday and that they desperately need a bit of a break

Step 2: Get Shinsou to take quirk suppressants, make him believe it’s a good thing and that it would help him, tell him that they would wear off on their own, not that they do

Step 3: Put the pills into tea, not coffee, the latter could cause health problems

Opinion: I have so many feelings about this. Like way too many. It’s not finished, but I need more. Erasermic, Shinsou, and Eri, and literally everything I love

it's a chatfic, but with villains

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11777448/chapters/26554635

DABnation added NotDeadpool, Ketchup, Magic Mike, BIG MEATY, MoonMoon, FidgetSpinnerPro, MAGNIFICENT, and Loan Snake to the group.

Stab Lick Delicious:Why is Kurogiri crying DABnation: i think DABnation: he realized he made a mistake

Opinion: It’s been a while since I’ve read and it’s unfinished, but I remember having a really fun time reading this and having quite a few laughs.

Karma in Retrograde

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924609/chapters/34574417

When Dabi is struck by a de-aging quirk that regresses him to the most influential part of his life, he finds himself turned back into a sixteen-year-old U.A. General Studies student with lots of self-esteem issues, parent problems, a destructive quirk that he can't manage, and no memory of the years that he's lost - not to mention the fact that his little brother is now the same age as him and one of the top students in the U.A. hero course. In U.A.'s attempt to make up for what they missed and help the Dabi of the past, present, and future, he is placed with the only students that know him and have yet to find out what truly makes the difference between a hero and a villain. There, they must face the question of whether he can change or his destiny is already set in stone.

Opinion: I really like this fic. I really love young Dabi. It’s been a while since I’ve read, but I really love this one.

komorebi  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717599/chapters/39209133

The change can't be immediate, or it’ll seem forced. It has to take time, in order to be realistic. He knows that.

He’ll need to seem like a villain. But he’ll be a hero.

And for that, Hitoshi thinks he’d do just about anything.

Or,

Someone's selling UA's secrets, and Shinsou Hitoshi definitely doesn't have anything to prove.

Opinion: If you haven’t noticed, I really like Dadzawa. This one is super interesting, written really good, and I love the characterization of Shinsou. Like some chapters had me rioting I thought they were so good. I love the alternating moods ins scenes and I feel that I can really feel the atmosphere--if that makes sense lol.

Mendacium  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297146/chapters/50713442

"Why are you doing this?" Shouta couldn't help but ask. Really, this kid couldn't be much older than his class, and he was already out his risking his life to fight... and was good at it. That was the worst part of all, that a child would act like an experienced soldier in the face of danger. "If you stop now, I won't report you. You can just go on home to your family, and maybe try to be a hero-"

A laugh cut him off, but it was more sad than condescending. "Mr. Trash Bag, I'm doing all I can to get home. But like hell I'll be a hero. I've been used by the government too much." A slight European accent colored his words, and his Japanese was a little hesitant, but the determination was clear. "I have to admit, though, your quirk is really awesome. The ability to stop others' energies... remarkable."

The boy tensed, and Shouta activated his quirk on reflex.

"Too bad it doesn't work on me, then. Can't erase what you don't have, after all!"

OR: Edward didn't want to help Truth. He didn't want to go to a different world to defeat yet another Father. He didn't want to become a vigilante there.

He also wanted his brother back. The choice was obvious, even if Truth is a massive asshole.

Opinion: 10/10. Superb. Love our short funky blond alchemist. There’s ling chapters, great Edward Elric, and it had me rolling a few times with laughter. I thoroughly love this fic. 

Demons of the Past  ⭐ 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17642501/chapters/41601551

For Enji Todoroki, hero name Endeavor, reconciling with the past is easier said than done. Even more so when a dead son comes back to haunt him.

Opinion: I had this before BUT HEAR ME OUT! This fic is absolutely amazing. I was blown away with the characterization of Enji and I know so many people hate him-- I included--but I think his perspective is interesting. The high emotional scenes really had me feeling. Honestly, give this fic a try and you’ll see what I mean.

Black Cat Cafe  ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442725/chapters/35844969

Aizawa Shota was a man tired of life, bitter and jaded from the endless horrors of the world. Six years ago, he disappeared, his existence erased.

Redeye is a stoic man with a mysterious past, who runs a tight shop, cares for his young ward with his whole heart, and makes a flawless cup of coffee.

He also has an unabashed fondness for stray cats.

(Otherwise known as a bitter Aizawa makes café Switzerland, adopts twenty hero-in-training children, some villains, and Shinsou, and then kicks All for One’s ass into next week. And maybe falls in love.)

Opinion: This is the one bois. I think this is my favorite bnha fic. The concept, the characterization, the PINING. I am absolutely in the with this story and the author.

Sure As the Setting Sun  ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111294/chapters/27462717

Mob never aimed to be a hero, despite being an apprentice to one. He only wanted to make sure his quirk never hurt anyone ever again. However, an incident that occurs in his third year of middle school spurs him into action despite his wishes. Mob enters into UA academy, the top heroics school in all of Japan, and winds up with several new friends and much more trouble than he bargained for.

Opinion: It hasn’t been updated for a while, but seeing my two favorite cinnamon rolls together melts my heart. Mob is in the hero course but has the moral dilemma of fighting, and honestly, it is so interesting to see how it’s handled. 

_________

Well, I hope you enjoyed the list. I really tried not to star everything (I like them all!). I’m probably going to make more for different fandoms and more in-depth tbh. I had a lot of fun doing this! If anyone has any fic recommendations for, please don’t feel shy to send me some! I love talking about writing!

The Truth Between Me & You

TITLE:  The Truth Between Me & You

ONE SHOT / MULTICHAPTER: One Shot

AUTHOR : tomcuddlesfic WHICH TOM/CHARACTER:  Tom x OC

GENRE: fluff / romance / angst / family drama FIC SUMMARY: Ever since she could remember, Lily knew she was the black sheep of the family. She was always in her older brother Phillip’s shadow and she was never taken seriously. When Tom, Phillip’s best friend, shows up to the wedding, Lily’s attraction to him flares up and suddenly, she’s caught between telling the truth and losing everything or the man she loves.

RATING: T

AUTHORS NOTES/WARNINGS:  It’s been SUPER LONG since I last updated on this page and yes, who am I? Who is she? I completely forgot about her. Well, I can’t say I’m officially back but I was inspired by a song and my head kind of went crazy and I really needed to write it down. So here it is. It’s super long (5,200 words) and I was going to break it down to two parts but I have no time for that.

Tom didn’t know how long he sat in his car outside his best friend’s house. He continued to stare at the modest red bricked house he practically grew up in with Phillip and his little sister, Lily, remembering his life before he was launched into the spotlight and made it big. Before where he wasn’t constantly being followed by cameras and he could get a damn cup of coffee from his neighborhood café without it being splashed on the front pages of The Daily Mail. The simpler days were what he deeply craved right now especially since at the age of thirty-eight, he was sending off his last bachelor friend into the land of holy matrimony while he had no inkling of a love interest in sight. Of course, despite his desperately single status, the tabloids had a way to spin anything into a story.

Just last week, his publicist, Luke, rang him at five in the morning, alerting him that he wasn’t going to like what he sees when picks up the paper. Apparently, Tom was in a secret relationship with Ukraine’s top model with icy blue eyes and hair so blonde, it was almost white. Tom had only met her in passing at one of the galas he was forced to attend because his agency thought it would be a good networking session and if he was being honest, he couldn’t quite remember her name. Lydia? Linda? Lisa?

“Are you just going to sit there all day or are you going to come in?” A female’s voice broke through his thoughts so abruptly, he jumped up in his seat, and banged his head on the roof of his car. The owner of the voice snorted.

Rubbing the top of his head, he whipped his head and glared at the strikingly beautiful woman standing next to his car. For a moment, Tom was rendered speechless. It has been a long time since he saw Lily. Aside from the few short emails and text messages exchanged between them and any news passed on from Phillip these past few years, Tom hadn’t actually seen Lily all grown up. Instead of the awkward gangly kid sister he had engrained in his memory, Lily, at age twenty-nine, had filled out her figure. From her silky violet bridesmaid’s dress that hugged her body, he could tell her breasts were full, probably spilling out of his large hands if he were to cup them. His eyes lowered from her cleavage to a trim waist and hips that flared out. He didn’t have to look to know that Lily had a great ass.

“Tom?” Lily knocked on the window when he continued staring. “My eyes are up here.”

Tom gulped, his cheeks warming. Did he really get caught staring at his best friend’s little sister?

“For the record,” He opened the car door smoothly, effectively pushing her back away from him, and slammed it shut. “I was looking at the stain on your dress.”

Lily gasped, looking immediately down at her spotless dress and growled. “Still haven’t grown up?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” Tom smiled smugly and walked past Lily, leading the way into the bustling house filled with family and friends. Phillip and his fiancée had chosen to keep the celebrations small, opting to hold the ceremony in the backyard they played in during their elementary school years. “How bad is it in there?”

“Why do you think I’m out here talking to your lanky arse?” Lily huffed, trailing after him. Her dress was so long, she had to lift up the fabric just to walk. She picked up her pace and walked ahead of him, confirming his earlier suspicion. Lily had an ass that made Tom’s mouth dry and his pants a bit tighter. “Brace yourself, mom’s a bit high-strung.”

 **

It had been almost six years since Lily last saw Tom. That is, of course, if that didn’t count all the movies or television appearances and the tabloids Lily religiously watched Tom in. One movie was all it took to take her brother’s best friend from small town actor that barely scraped by to a hot heartthrob that was loved by all. Sometimes she hated the character Loki. If Tom never got casted as Loki, he would have stayed in London more. He wouldn’t miss any important traditions or events like Christmas, Phillip’s birthdays, or most importantly, her birthday. Every event Tom missed because of his hectic schedule, was an event that Lily felt an unexplained feeling of emptiness to. It just wasn’t the same without the curly blond boy who taught her how to ride a bike because her father was too busy at work and Phillip had more important things to do than to teach his kid sister. Or how Tom always managed to keep the peace between her and her older brother when things got too heated. Without Tom as a buffer, Lily often struggled being in the same room with her family.

Lily sighed deeply, watching wearily at her loud obnoxious aunts who caged Tom in like animals ready to pounce and feast. She had finally moved out recently to a nice studio flat near the inner heart of the city and every time she had to step back inside her parents’ house, she felt like she was trapped. Lily always knew she was an outsider, a black sheep that nobody understood. Her father had pushed for her to get a reputable business degree but she still managed to continue her passion for photography on the side. In fact, she worked was an investment banker during normal working hours and a professional photographer after. Lily was good at her work. She was proud of it but her family never understood it. They thought of it as a silly fad that would pass soon enough and even laughed when she brought up the idea of quitting the bank to be a full time photographer.

It was another reason why her showcase was so important. Lily needed her family to see her work and take her seriously. She poured her heart into every photo taken, capturing the right moments at the right time to tell stories that could never be told with words. Just then, her Aunt Shirley, dropped her the contents of her purse, leaving Tom to bend down to pick it up. His dress pants pulled tight across his butt, leaving little to no imagination. Tipping back her flute of champagne, she gulped it down in one shot.

He had suffered enough.

“Tom, I think Phillip wants to see you.” Lily walked over to where he stood and squeezed his forearm for his attention. Her mind instantly went to dangerous territory that came with being near him. He smelled good. His lanky build had been replaced with thick muscles and the way he looked at her never failed to send shivers throughout her body. Lily was going to be in trouble if she spent any more time with him.

“Great!” Tom smiled broadly and excused himself from her aunts who tried to hold him longer with more questions and compliments about his latest work. Once they made their way back into the house where Phillip and Holly were getting ready, Tom’s smile immediately dropped. “You know you could have saved me sooner.”

“I was busy.” Lily shrugged, grabbing another flute of champagne off the tray from the passing waiter, and drank a long sip.

“You were watching me being eaten alive.” Tom grit his teeth and narrowed his gaze on her. Did his eyes linger on her mouth or was that just her being loopy from so much alcohol?

“You were fine.” Lily retorted.

“Your aunt grabbed my ass.”

“She must have been disappointed.”

“You didn’t seem so when you were staring at it earlier.” Tom pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Says someone who stared at my tits longer than my face.” Lily mimicked his stance, and raised an eyebrow. His eyes met hers and grew darker. The room suddenly felt a few degrees hotter as they properly studied each other. She had a few boyfriends growing up but nothing ever lasted long enough to get past the heavy petting stages. If she were to be honest, she probably wouldn’t have let herself take any step further. None of the guys she went out with ever stirred the unwarranted feelings inside her now than Tom.

“Hey, shit head.” Lily’s brother’s voice broke the delicate silence between them. Phillip walked into the room, dressed in his sleek black suit, and clapped a hand on Tom’s shoulder before embracing him in a hug. “I’m glad you made it or else I would have dragged your ass here no matter which country you were in.”

Tom laughed, squeezing his old mate tightly before pulling back. “I had to give my condolences to Holly for marrying your ugly face. How she holding up? She’s not still crying or trying to escape right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Phillip rolled his eyes, his face growing somber. “I mean it. I’m glad you made it.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Tom replied, feeling his chest constrict. He hadn’t been a good friend. With his crazy lifestyle involving long extended filming schedules, he had found it extremely difficult to keep up with everyone. When he was immersed in a project, he tended to leave things by the wayside. It had gotten so bad that Tom almost forgot about the wedding if it weren’t for Lily’s email asking if he was going to have chicken or fish at the wedding. His eyes flickered to Lily who seemed fascinated by the floor.

“Lily, why don’t you go and see if Mom needs help?” Phillip asked, his voice cold to Tom’s ears.

Lily looked up immediately. Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

What had happened between these two? When the three of them had been in the same room together six years ago, the brother and sister duo seemed as tight as ever. But now, they appeared to be strangers.

Squeezing past the, Lily ventured back out into the backyard where everyone sat waiting for the ceremony to begin.

“Something wrong?” Tom asked, watching Lily go. Her shoulders hunched as she walked closer and closer to her mom.

“Nothing much changed.” Phillip sighed, his gaze following where Tom watched. “She’s been a brat then and a brat now. I thought she would have grown up by now after graduating from University but she’s gotten worse.”

“Come on, Phillip.” Tom laughed lightly. “What could have she done?”

“She stole from my parents, Tom.” Phillip said gravely. His face was filled with pain as he relayed the story. “Took my mum’s pearls and pawned it off for money so she could buy a new camera.”

Tom had trouble believing Lily would do such a thing. After all, this was the same Lily that had been shoved across the playground after she told her teacher which one of her classmates cheated on a test. She didn’t care about the consequences simply because she did what was fair and right. But it had been six years since he’s last seen her. Six years could change someone. It had definitely changed him.

Tom swallowed, finding a lump in his throat. “That’s awful.”

“She paid her back soon after she started her job but…” Phillip inhaled a sharp breath. “It’s hard to regain trust after something like this. I just never thought she would go to these lengths just for her silly hobby. If she needed money, she could have asked. I would have lent it to her but she went behind our backs and it’s tough…”

Tom could only nod, digesting the information that he was once again fooled by his attraction towards a woman.

**

The ceremony had ended an hour ago. Dinner was served and in proper wedding fashion, Lily had gotten borderline drunk. It was all she could do as she watched her brother and his now wife slow dance across the makeshift dance floor in the backyard. Lily had slipped inside, unnoticed like always, and watched the festivities from the kitchen window. She sipped on her glass of wine, and hummed along to the soft music playing outside.

Holly was a good woman. Lily could sense someone and tell who was genuine and sincere. Although Phillip was a news anchor, it was never Holly being the lucky one who snagged someone as famous or as wealthy as him. Lily saw the opposite. She saw Phillip being the lucky one to marry a woman like Holly who was forgiving, selfless, and extremely loving. In fact, Holly had made Phillip a better person and that was something Lily could attest to.

Something moved behind her.

Startled, Lily let out a short yip before splashing the contents in her glass across the floor.

“Tom?” She squinted at the dark figure standing a few feet from her.

“Lily.” Tom confirmed with his low crisp voice that made her brain run wild. How did he sound like when he woke up in the morning? How would he sound like if he was on top of her or when he came? Lily mentally shook her head before looking at the floor.

She grabbed some towels and threw them down to soak up the mess, watching them stain red.

“Already tired of being the center of attention?” Lily asked, cleaning up the mess as best as she could. She could only do so much as intoxicated as she was.

Tom grunted before kneeling down and helping her clean. She looked up just as he did, locking eyes.

“Why are you in here?” He asked, quietly.

She blinked, taken aback by his question. Her heart clenched as she stood up straight and went to the sink to wash her hands. “Some people don’t like big social gatherings.”

Lily said calmly, not facing him because she couldn’t trust herself with him. She felt raw and vulnerable around him with her piercing eyes that seemed to see her for who she really was. When everyone else seemed to be hearing static on a radio, Tom always seemed to find the right notch and hear her loud and clear.

“You’ve been avoiding everyone.” Tom stated, and walked right up behind her. She could lean back and fall into his safe embrace. Where was he when she needed him the most?

“There’s no proof.” Lily turned around, letting her eyes slowly run up from the middle of his chest to the base of his neck and finally to his devastatingly handsome face. She gulped.

“Lily, tell me what happened.” His voice firm, completely opposite to the fluttering of her heart. Her chest ached because Phillip had told him and now he was no longer going to be on her side. Tom probably thought the worst of her just like her family when she revealed the truth.

The truth made her laugh.

“You already know.” Lily laughed bitterly, moving away from him but only to have him grab her forearm, holding her in place.

“I want to hear it from you.” Tom spoke louder, irritation lacing his words. It made Lily sick to hear how he was speaking to her. Never once in their years of friendship did Tom use this tone of voice with her.

“I sold my mother’s pearls for an old camera so I could take photos for my portfolio.” She let the words fall out robotically. It was the same story repeated over and over again whenever someone asked why she wasn’t close with her family anymore. The people who she told were always taken aback by her bluntness and her character but what could she do?

The statement was met with silence.

She shook her arm, peeling back his fingers that gripped onto her and caressed it to her chest. She needed to leave. Her emotions were already wrung out by everyone’s judgmental stares this evening. Nobody could ever get past the idea of the groom’s little sister stealing from her own family. If she left now, she could get to the grocer’s and grab some ice cream before they closed and return home to a bubble bath where she soaked and ate ice cream by the pint.

“I don’t believe you.” Tom finally spoke. “The Lily I knew wouldn’t do that.”

“You barely spoke to me in the past six years, Tom.” Lily scoffed, fighting back tears. Damn, she really needed to go before she exploded. “I’ve changed.”

**

Lily was back at her parent’s house again. It was a week after the wedding so she thought it would be an appropriate time to go back and retrieve the last few remaining items in her bedroom. This would hopefully sever the strings attached between her and her parents. With proper planning and execution, Lily believed she could get away from seeing them except for the holidays and birthdays. Inhaling a deep breath, she braced herself for the awkward greetings but no amount of deep breathing exercises would prepare her for the sight of Tom in her parent’s house.

Lily had left after their conversation in the kitchen, refusing to look back at the house, and saying goodbye to everyone. She knew her aunts would have something to say about her rudeness but she didn’t care at that point. She needed out. Tom had not tried to contact her afterwards and for that, she was glad. Lily didn’t need the constant reminder that Tom was disappointed in her as well.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.” Lily closed the door behind her and stood from the doorway, watching him sit on the couch in the living room, watching the morning news.

“I was invited for brunch.” Tom explained, watching her closely when her face crumpled and quickly snapped back to a fake happy self.

“Right.” Lily blinked, refusing to let being uninvited to Sunday brunch dampen her moods. This was what she wanted. A clean cut from her family so she can go on and live a happy life where people never thought of her as a pest or menace. “I won’t be staying…I have some things to pick up and then I’m out of here.” She laughed breezily before running up the stairs to her bedroom.

She slowly cleared off her bookshelves, taking the photo frames off and carefully putting them in an empty box. Lily sniffled, allowing a tear slip when she saw a photo of her brother and her at the local fair. They were happy then. It was one of those rare moments in their siblings dynamic did she feel equal and appreciated. Growing up with Phillip had been hard as she was constantly in his shadow from his grades to his sports events to his family’s general appreciation for him.

When she finally packed up the last box, she started carrying them one by one to her car parked outside. The outside porch steps creaked as she climbed down and when she climbed back up, her grip on the railing slipped. It was shaky and loose. Frowning, Lily went to the garage and grabbed a hammer and some nails to fix the mess before her mom got hurt.

She was just about finished fixing the mess when Tom’s voice broke her concentration.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe you.” Tom said behind her.

“I can’t help you there.” Lily packed up her tools, turned and squinted up at him. “I am what they say.”

“If you were really as awful as others say, you wouldn’t fix the railing for your mom.” Tom pointed out simply. “You would have left that railing like that and not care if your mom or someone else had gotten hurt.”

Lily was gob smacked. Once again, Tom saw right through her charades. She wanted to cry into his arms, have him tell her everything will be okay, and let her have things return back to normal. But she knew nobody could be her hero.

“Got me there.” Lily admitted defeat and slowly got back to her feet. She walked back to the garage to put away the tools as Tom followed her.

“Why did you tell everyone you did it?” Tom asked urgently. “Why? Who are you trying to protect?”

“Tom, I’ve been an outsider in this family since the day I was born.” She whipped around, her eyes fierce, and voice strained with emotion. “Let’s face it, I wasn’t your friend. I was your best friend’s annoying little sister. You had to play with me or be around with me because I was part of the package deal. I’m not little anymore. I don’t need you to be here out of obligation.”

Was it really that bad? Tom thought back to their childhood days and slowly pieced together faded memories. Him and Phillip raising hell on the school playgrounds, Lily always following closely behind, and Phillip telling her to leave. It was what normal brothers do. Or how dinner time at their house went down and Phillip would always be able to share his school stories at the table but Lily’s stories were ignored or cut off by someone. Or when Lily expressed her interest in arts during school and everyone taunted her for it, telling her it was a silly dream for someone like as she had didn’t have talent. One memory burst in his memory. It was when Lily wanted to audition for a lead in the school play and her parents had laughed and told her she shouldn’t bother if she wasn’t good as Tom.

Tom had laughed along with them, taking it in as teasing but now in hindsight, he wanted to punch himself.

“You are not an obligation.” Tom gritted his teeth. “You are special to me and I care about you. I can tell, Lily. I can tell that you’re breaking so just tell me so I can help.”

Lily squeezed her eyes shut and put her hand on her forehead, willing silence in her mind. Her brain was swimming with memories and emotions, dizzying her to no end. “I lied for Holly.”

“Jesus.” Tom ran a hand through his hair. He swore. “Holly?”

“Her uncle needed to repay a loan and threatened to ruin her relationship with Phillip if she didn’t give him money.” Lily spoke quietly but firmly. She wrung her hands and sobbed. She had no clue what to do when the pearls went missing and Holly came crying to her, asking for advice. Holly was so afraid of losing everything with Phillip, it broke Lily’s heart. So she protected Holly by lying. This was for the greater good, she had thought. She didn’t feel like she was part of the family already so what harm would it have done if she lied for Holly?

Only she didn’t know it would hurt so much worse.

“You let everyone think the worse of you because of Holly?” Tom began pacing, clearly agitated and frustrated. He could punch a wall. He wanted to scream for the injustice.

“If you can’t beat them, join them.” Lily shrugged, and laughed sadly before wiping her tears away. Thrown back from the embrace of his hug, she stumbled little before he righted their balance. Tom hugged her tightly as if he was trying to hold it all together for her.

“You have not changed one bit.” Tom muttered, pressing his lips to the top of forehead and inhaling the sweetness of her fruity perfume she wore all throughout her teenage years. He pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “You are still a bloody idiot.”

Before Lily could have a chance to retort, Tom pressed his mouth on hers. His body felt alive as he finally did the one thing he wanted to do all along. Deeply relieved that his premonition was right and that Lily was nothing like the deceitful women he met in his life, he slowly it himself fall for her.  He wasn’t sure but somewhere between remembering their earlier days together, her growing up to the woman she was today, and watching her go to great lengths to save her family, he found himself in love. His heart thumped against his chest as he deepened the kiss, savoring the softness of her lips, the short sighs escaping her mouth, and the feeling of her body melting into his. She was all he needed. And she was right there in front of him all along.

Lily felt like she was in one of her dreams. More specifically the dreams she had when she was a teenager and when she had a secret crush on Tom. The dreams had always ended up with a kiss from him. She would never admit this to anyone but when she watched him kiss his costars in movies, she often wondered how it would feel like. She imagined it to be great but definitely not this good. Inching up her tippy toes, she gained better access to his mouth. Her breasts rubbed against his solid chest, aching to be touched. She wanted him. She needed him.

“What the fuck!” Phillip’s voice roared. Her body slammed against the garage door before she was able to right herself. For a second all she saw were two bodies wrestling on the grass. They tossed and turned, Phillip, at one point straddling Tom, and throwing a punch right to his nose. A sickening crunch made Lily shrill hysterically. Undeterred, Tom grabbed Phillip’s shirt and tossed his body like a rag doll off of him. He rolled on top of him and was ready to beat the shit out of the man who was supposed to protect his little’s sister and instead turned his back on her without hearing her side first when Holly ran out of the house and got between them.

“Stop it!” Holly yelled, separating them with her hands. “Stop it right now!”

Tom exhaled a deep breath and dropped Phillips shirt, and backed away. His eyes landed on Lily who was cradling her arm close to her chest and clearly in shock.

Phillip slowly rose up from the floor and looked at Tom like trash on the street. “You’re really out here trying to fuck my little sister?”

Tom shook his head, ready to explain himself and his feelings when Lily cut in.

“It was me.” Lily said, looking at Phillip. “I kissed him first.”

Phillip looked back at Tom for confirmation but Tom was flabbergasted by Lily’s lie. Frozen solid, Tom blinked in confusion at Lily when she spoke again.

“It didn’t mean anything though.” Lily smiled, shaking her head. “I just wanted to kiss a movie star and I did it.” She shrugged and looked at Tom. “It was good but I’ve had better kisses.”

Tom didn’t meet her smile. His stomach had fell when she saw the fake Lily take over the one he loved. The one who acted like what everyone thought of her and pretended like she had no feelings or regards for others. It was complete bullshit. No one kissed him back like that unless they felt something. And what they shared during the kiss was everything. He wanted to vomit. This was all going entirely wrong and there was nothing he could do to get her back. It wasn’t his secret to tell because he knew if he did, it would ruin all of their lives.

“I guess I’ll go now.” Lily moved away from the crowd, still holding onto her arm. Tom could see her shoulders folding in, the way she did when she was holding in a sob.

“Wait!” Holly cried, her big eyes glistening with unshed tears. All eyes focused on her as she looked to the floor. “I have something to confess, Phillip. I’ve been carrying this guilt ever since a month ago when all this started.” She gestured with her hand, the space between him and his little sister.

“It’s my fault.” Holly said quietly. “I’m the one that ruined your relationship with Lily.”

“What?” Phillip breathed. “Darling, I don’t understand.”

“My uncle.” She hiccupped, silent tears falling down her cheeks. Phillip tensed at the mention of him, inching closer towards Holly. “He needed to pay back a loan.”

Lily watched at his brother squeezed his eyes tightly, digesting the news. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his throat. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.” Holly cried. “He wanted me to give him money or else he would do everything in his favor to ruin our engagement. I couldn’t, Phillip. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the money and I became desperate so that’s why I took your mom’s pearls. I was going to earn back the money and buy it back but she found out.” She paused, shaking her head. “I confided in Lily but I didn’t expect her to cover for me like the way she did. She didn’t steal the pearls for a camera, Phillip. She never did. It was me.”

Phillip watched his wife cry as she hugged herself tightly. He didn’t know what to do or how he should feel. As his gaze left his wife and slowly went to his little sister, his heart squeezed tightly.

“Lily…” He said, not knowing where to begin. “I’m the worst brother.”

Lily inhaled a sharp breath.  She was crying just as much as Holly now. “You’re not.”

“I am.” Phillip shook his head. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself for how I treated you and I can never apologize enough. I’m so sorry.”

He reached for her, stopping halfway, unsure about his actions. Lily met him halfway and walked into his arms, hugging her older brother tightly. Burying her face in his chest, she squeezed tighter, crying for all the times she wanted her brother to protect her and letting go of the past.

When Phillip pulled away from Lily, he looked at Tom. “I may not have been a good brother back then but this shit changes now. If you fucking break her heart, I’ll break you.”

Tom grunted. “No need for the threats. I will never hurt her.”

Phillip nodded and released Lily to attend to his wife. He grabbed his hand and murmured into her ear, leading them back into the house where they could have some privacy.

“Let me see your arm.” Tom demanded, rushing to Lily’s side. He gently inspected it, noticing the slight bruising but nothing too serious to raise alarm. “You’re going to need ice.”

He frowned when she winced.

“So much for never hurting me.” Lily teased and yelped when he pulled her into his embrace, careful not to hurt her more.

“Are you always going to be this sassy?” Tom pressed his forehead against hers, allowing his heartbeat to go down from the adrenaline rush.

“Yes.” She quipped, kissing him softly on his mouth.

“I thought I was going to lose you.” He confessed quietly, his chest constricting at the mere thought. Lily was the only constant in his life that grounded her at this point. He couldn’t imagine days without her.

“It broke me more than I thought it would.” Lily stroked the side of his face with her index finger, studying his facial features.

“Promise to always work things out instead of running away?” Tom kissed her mouth softly.

“Promise.” She said, returning another kiss.

A Night in Budapest

Ships: PruHun; past AusHun and SpaAus

Characters: Prussia, Hungary, Austria; mentioned Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Spain, Portugal

Summary: Planning for a romantic weekend together, Hungary and Prussia are suddenly (and Prussia would say rudely) interrupted by Austria's surprise visit. The couple force themselves to make the best of it and, in the end, the trio find themselves having more fun than they could've expected. Drinks are spilled, emotions are shared, and relationships deepen.

Whole story under the cut because there’s a....spicy opening

Gilbert groaned against Erzsébet's neck, nipping at it. He thrusted in, each time harder than the last, until eliciting their shared orgasm. He pulled out gently and rolled them onto their side so they were facing other. Gilbert smirked. "You look satisfied."

Erzsébet spared him a few kisses. "I have quite the reason to be." She lazily draped her arm around his hip and kissed him again. "It's one of your natural talents."

Gilbert pulled her in close, having his ego now sufficiently stroked. He left gentle kisses along her neck before sighing. "My god, you are quite the woman. I'll never get over my luck in having you and I'll never stop doing what it takes to keep you, Erzsi."

The Hungarian caressed his cheek lightly. "Be careful or I might be holding you to that."

Before he could get a chance to whisper more sweet-nothings, his phone started going off. Prussia stared determinedly ahead, focused on not looking at it. Hungary, for her part, was not amused by the charade. "Are you going to do something about that or am I supposed to ignore it as well?"

"Shh. If we pretend it's not there, it won't notice us." He peaked up from behind the veil of her hair he hid behind. She gave him a deadpan stare and he rolled his eyes. "Fine. I've got no idea who it is, though. It's not Ludwig since he knows my time with you is sacred." He also knew that Ludwig wouldn't call him for anything, but that didn't need to be said. "What the hell? Why does Rod want to come over?" He quickly tapped away a response, informing his cousin he would be away from Berlin for a few nights. A new message popped up. He handed the phone to Erzsébet.

"Sure, he can come over." She quickly put her finger to her lover's lips, anticipating his negative reaction before it occurred. "He's at home, it'll take him a few hours to get to Budapest from Vienna. Plenty of time for us." She slipped Gilbert's phone on the floor and returned her full attention to him. "What were you saying about our time being sacred?" Her left ankle gently ensnared his right, rubbing his legs. It sent a shiver down his spine.

"It is. When you're in the presence of divinity, you have to give her your full attention. It's important to worship your goddess as she needs." He kissed her, his hand on her lower back and his body yearning hungrily. "And I remember how the pagans used to teach us to worship such a beauty."

Kisses, a trail of them down her neck, down her stomach, down, down, down. The gentle grunts emanating from her lips all the validation he needed to know he was hitting the right notes. Her hands frantically grasping and pulling at his hair, his own steady grip on her hip. Such bliss never tasted so sweet.

Such bliss never interrupted by such an upsetting knock. He met her gaze up from between her legs, but continued. Probably just some guy dropping a package off. They began getting into it again when another knock came. Erzsébet sat up a ways. "I should probably get the door."

Gilbert tried suppressing his frustration. "It's probably some neighbor. Your cars in the garage, I took the train. They'll get the message that no one's home." He gently kissed her inner thigh. "Let's focus on us."

A third knock. Gilbert snapped. "I'm getting the fucking door! Wait here." He slipped on his boxers and rushed over, grumbling a string of German expletives the whole way. He swung open the door. "What the fuck do you need?"

Austria stood in the doorway. "Calm down, I told you I was coming." He assessed how Prussia was dressed, his eyes landing on his crotch before decidedly looking at anywhere the Prussian wasn't. "Seems you were trying to as well. I'm sorry if I interrupted something."

Suddenly, Gilbert was very aware of his nakedness. He put his hands over his groin. "Yeah, you interrupted something. I was a bit busy, had a bit of a moment going on. Go away and come back in thirty minutes," he hissed through his teeth. Prussia could not get the image of him bludgeoning Austria to death out of his mind.

As this was understood, Hungary came into the room in a robe. "Oh, Roderich! That was a lot...quicker than either of us anticipated. Come on in!" Prussia moved behind her and started jumping around, attempting to non-verbally kick Austria out for a few more minutes. Hungary turned around and glared at him. "Quit acting like a child. And get dressed, you look ridiculous."

Gilbert threw his hands up and sulked back to the bedroom to change. On his way back, he gave Roderich one last glare for good measure. For his part, Roderich was now feeling sufficiently embarrassed. "It's fine, I'm being a bad guest. I should run out and grab a bottle of wine. I'll be right back."

As he turned around to quickly scramble away, Erzsébet snatched his wrist and held it tightly. She had a steely look in her eyes. "Just come inside. You're both being children. I'm going to get dressed, we'll be out in a second." She forced a smile. "I promise."

A shirtless Gilbert was laying on the bed, staring at his phone in frustration. "He told us he was close. I want to be mad at him, but I can't." He looked longingly at Erzsébet. "So much for our nice weekend together." He grumpily finished getting dressed.

She shimmied into a pair of pants and rolled her eyes at him through the mirror. "It's still going to be a nice weekend. Don't be such a pessimist." After throwing on a shirt, she went over and kissed his forehead. "It's weird for him to just be in the neighborhood like this. Try not to think only of yourself." With that, she took him by the hand and led him back to the living room.

When he saw them, Austria let out a relieved sigh. "Again, I'm really sorry about that. I should've been more considerate."

Hungary smiled. "Don't be, you know you're always welcomed wherever I am." She prepared them each a glass of wine. "That being said, you don't normally happen to be in this part of Europe. Any reason you're in Budapest?"

"Works been stressful. I needed to get out of the country for a bit to clear my head and go where nobody will find me. I originally planned on going to Berlin, but Ludwig said you were here and it's usually only about business when you're not around."

"Bullshit! You two are thick as thieves! Whenever you're over you seem to have a great time with him." Prussia sipped from his wine. "I don't buy it for a second that that all drops away when I'm not there."

Roderich shrugged nonchalantly. "Buy it, don't buy it, it's the truth. He's better at socializing with you around. Nothing against him, but if I want an interesting weekend I'm going to go where the party is, so to speak."

Whatever residual annoyance Gilbert had melted away. He puffed out his chest a little bit. "I also haven’t seen you in awhile, Erzsébet, so I thought it would be nice to catch up." Roderich smiled at his hostess, who returned it. "And whenever we have met up, as of late, it's been in Vienna. I didn't think that was very gentlemanly of myself, especially when you to keep such a beautiful home."

"Well, no matter the reason we're glad your here. I totally understand how you've been feeling. My boss has been driving me crazy. He's been giving me so much to do and been on my case about getting it done. It's like he thinks he's some kind of dictator." Hungary let out a nervous laugh and Prussia and Austria shared a look, neither wanting to comment on that.

"With my government being quite a mess of late, I've been having to do quite a bit more than I've been used to. It's almost back to the level of work I had under the Hapsburgs. In a sense it's nice, it keeps me busy, but there's something to be said about having everything run on its own without too much interference."

They drank in silence for awhile. Gilbert slipped his arm around Erzsébet's shoulders, absentmindedly pulling her in close. She nuzzled against him, thinking nothing of the gesture either. As he filled up their glasses, Roderich couldn't help watching them out the corner of his eye with a somber feeling within him. A lot of how Gilbert had acted towards him before 1918 began to make sense. He tried to shake it off, breaking the silence to drown out his mind. "This is the first time the three of us have been together recently. I forgot how much I'd missed it. It's nice to be in the presence of people who genuinely understand who you are and what you've been through, to be with those that have been there since the beginning." The bittersweet feeling hung over him like an anvil.

"You're right it has been awhile. Strange how it doesn't feel like it. I guess that ties in with how we just get each other." She snickered. "Though we do make such a strange trio." Erzsébet glanced at the clock and frowned. "Shit, it's getting a bit late. I'll run out and pick us up Chinese food or something. Before I go, can you help me get some dishes out, Gil?"

They both went into the kitchen and from his vantage point, Roderich could easily watch them. Every little touch was magnified to him. A kiss on the cheek, a steadying hand on the small of a back, any excuse they could find to be physically close was seized upon. The whispering of inside jokes and the subsequent laughter cut into his chest. He forced himself to look away, to focus on the books and nick-knacks on the shelves, but it was no use. Everything replayed in his mind and he couldn't help feeling like a useless third wheel. Maybe visiting was a mistake.

The worst was when Erzsébet left. He'd imagined it many times, but actually seeing them kiss in a way that relayed such everyday comfort? His stomach dropped. If he could teleport back home, he would. But how could he leave without making his discomfort known? Prussia would rub it in his face and the last thing he'd want to do is insult Hungary in such a way. No, there had to be a better option.

Austria's eyes focused in on Prussia's fingers snapping before him. "Earth-to-Little Master, are you there? Hallo-oo-o?" Prussia shook his head. "Are you alright? You're completely out of it today."

Roderich intensely studied the wood paneling. "I'm fine. I've had a lot on my mind recently." He glanced up. Gilbert gave him a stern look. Roderich had always been inept when it came to white lies. "Fine, have it your way. As you've always been so kind to point out, I know you two have been together in some capacity for awhile. Nor have I ever been stupid enough to believe otherwise. I've never had to actually witness your relation as undeniable reality. When we were married, the two of you flaunted it in my face, but it wasn’t anything so blatant. Little things like a brush of the hand here, a knowing look there. I never had to witness anything though and, while ultimately incredibly upsetting, it was easier on me."

Prussia smirked. "You did walk in on us that one time. The look on your face was priceless. My god, I wanted a portrait of it." He held his hand against his heart. "When I die, I hope that's in the highlight reel of my life."

Austria scowled. "Well I'm glad that the both of you enjoyed that. I found it rather humiliating and emotionally devastating, but I'm really glad my emotions never mean anything to you. I'm fortunate you didn't catch me crying in the gardens later that night. Though maybe I should've tried the same plot against you and see how you would've felt."

"To do that, you'd need her to want to sleep with you when I'm around." That gave the Prussian an enormous amount of pleasure and he couldn't stop himself from guffawing at his own joke. Austria winced. "Oh come on! You're playing the victim! You're acting like you're not the son of a bitch that had me, not only serve as your best man, but give her away to you at your wedding. I think that beats anything I could've done to you."

Roderich leaned back in his seat and grinned. "I did do that, didn't I? Ah, what cunning. It doesn't take much to outmaneuver a brute when you're actually capable of displays beyond physical prowess." Gilbert took the backhanded compliment. Sometimes all that mattered was having the physicality to impress. Roderich waved a hand, dismissing wherever his thoughts were leading him. "While all of that does have a certain humor to it, I'm trying to be vulnerable and honest with you. That's what you wanted right?"

"Right. It's not supposed to be a pissing contest yet." They both laughed a bit at that. The 'yet' was necessary. It was in their nature to begin competing with each other eventually, but for now, they could try for compassion, for the love and respect that comes natural to any family but theirs.

"It would be easier, in a sense, if she was with anyone but you. If she were traipsing around with - I don't know - Romania instead. Then you and I could be miserable and not have it feel personal. But she's with you because of course she is. And to see it now before my eyes brings up all sorts of emotions." He finished what was left of his wine, needing some sort of alcohol to help bring his feelings up. "It almost feels like I'd been trying to prevent the inevitable for all these years. It's plain that you two love each other more than her and I ever could." He reached over and finished Erzsébet's wine before filling his glass again. He needed to get the taste of those words out of his mouth.

Surprisingly, Gilbert was silent. "You'd be ridiculous to really think that. For most of our time together, I was just her bit on the side. She didn't know how to feel about either of us. Anytime I begged her to leave, she'd get pissed at me. For years I couldn't breach the topic, the only affection we gave each other was in whatever sex we could squeeze in from time to time. I told her I loved her during...France's whole dance with the devil? It was right after Fritz died and I realized she was the only one I had." He stared down at his hands, clasped in his lap. "She made clear to me then where our relationship stood. Our relationship was for both of us to use against you when you deserved it - I took more liberty with that - but her duty was also to your dual state. I didn't have her heart till later." Gilbert finished off his glass and took a long swig from the bottle. "For the longest time, I wanted what you had with her. It's all well and good to screw around in broom closets, empty carriages, and gardens late at night. But there's something to be said about waking up besides someone, having them witness you at your highest and lowest. I didn't want that from anyone if it couldn't be her."

"You never had anything to be jealous of. It was a miserable marriage, even before it was officially a marriage. It was so soon after my divorce with Antonio, I was still hung up on him." He smiled wistfully. "I still am. What a man he is."

"Shut up, that's my best friend. I don't want to hear that!"

"You can't run from the truth. Anyways, I wasn't in any capacity to be there for her as she wanted, or as she deserved. It was always a political arrangement to me. I only began to realize that Erzsébet, not Hungary, meant something to me when you two became so careless in hiding your relationship to me and the rest of the world. It was only to show you up, I never became attentive to her needs if I knew they wouldn't have me match up favorably against you. Only towards the end, when she made it clear how close she was to walking out, did I ever begin to try and realized that I did love her in my own, strange way. By then it was already too late and I discovered when she wasn't needed in Vienna or Budapest, she was sneaking off to Berlin any chance she got."

"To be fair, she had to secure the alliance, especially after Ferdinand got assassinated. It was a critical time in Austro-Prussian relations." Prussia spoke with all the earnestness of a snake-oil salesman. Austria told him as much and they laughed again. When the laughter died down, the somber mood reasserted itself. "I always thought you married her, not for politics, but to hurt me. You'd known since we were kids I'd had it bad for her."

"Of course I did! The politics was an added bonus! To get access to her military and screw you over in the process? Are you kidding me? That's what my foreign policy had been geared towards since 1740!" Austria wore a mischievous smile. "As your ambitions grew, I knew you wanted what I had. Territory, alliances, your place in the European balance of power, they're all flexible and fluid. I could defend them the best I could against you, but sometimes I'd lose and sometimes you'd win. What I knew you'd be unable to get was Erzsébet if I married her, whether as an equal or as a subordinate. Her hand was a prize that you'd be incapable of taking from me. So I took it for myself and relished every moment of your personal anguish as a result." He shrugged, thinking nothing of it now. "Fat good it did me in the long run, but how scrumptious it was then."

They finished the last of the bottle of wine in silence, mulling over what had been said. It put the majority of their actions in context, but hindsight always a bitter taste to it. It didn't prevent the lasting damage that had been done, but maybe it could prevent them from doing any worse. Gilbert considered opening another bottle of wine, but opted to bring out brandy instead figuring they required something stronger.

"For what it's worth, I do think the two of you are a better match. I always tried to force her into conformity of whatever the proper etiquette of the time was. She had no problem performing all that for guests and dignitaries, but resented me trying to force her into the proper role of a woman."

Prussia almost snorted on his drink. "No shit, do you hear yourself talk? Sometimes I'd sneak her out of the house just so we could go hunting. You've always been afraid of having a partner more powerful than you in any way. Sure, with Antonio you were equals, but at least as a person Erzsi always surpassed you. She's a force of nature, you wouldn't try to dominate a hurricane so why would you try with her?" His voice was filled with adoration. Her impenetrable will and indomitable spirit had always had him in awe. Even when it went up against him, Gilbert couldn't help but be captivated by her. There was always such beauty in her, in how she took on everything and everyone against her by such force. "Oh shit, I think I'm tipsy." He did the math for how much he'd drunk and giggled. "Oh shit."

Austria ignored the last part. "You're right, that was rude of me to phrase it like that and a terrible thing to force her into. I wanted her to be like me, to fit my worldview at all times. But look at you, you're so stupid and in love and I've been jealous of that for centuries, I've wanted what you have with her but I couldn’t get my head out of my ass enough to appreciate the woman she is, not the woman I could force her be.” He paused and his vision shook. "Oh no, we're getting drunk tonight aren't we?"

"I got drunk when I had to see you guys all cuddled together without being able to sleep with her later. It's only fair you do the same." Prussia had a long drink from the bottle. He moved to sit by Austria and held the bottom for him. They couldn't stop giggling, leaning into each other and sharing conspiratorial looks like school girls.

"Ya'know, no one in our family hugs. We needa hug." Prussia decreed it and so it was so. They embraced, laughing about the absurdity of this whole situation. A drunk reconciliation in Erzsébet's house. She entered then, surprised at the sight of them being so giddily affectionate.

She sat the food down on the table. "Are you two alright?" She saw empty wine glasses and the now almost-empty bottle of brandy.

Prussia grinned at the sight of her. "I missed you Erzsi! You look so beautiful!" He rose up from the couch and came over to her. He gently took her hand in his, laying a soft kiss upon it. “I love you, can’t we get married? All I want is for you to be my wife.” He turned to Austria and grinned. “If we get married you have to walk her down the aisle and be my best man. Please, I need that.”

The two men began laughing uncontrollably. “Only if you walk in on us having sex later,” Austria teased. They began laughing harder.

Hungary’s head spun. This was a lot. This was a lot more than she wanted to deal with today. With a laser like focus, she moved towards what was left of the brandy and drank it all. A small part of her had gotten excited at the marriage proposal before realizing how drunk the two men were and that they were messing with each other. She wanted to bring it back to that, to hear Gilbert say those words again. But what was the point? Why did any of this matter at this moment? It would mean more to her in the morning, when he was in his right mind again. Surrendering, she went into the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of whiskey.

Soon enough, the three of them were slouched together on the living room floor, sharing drink, food, and feelings freely. Their conversations free-wheeled from the heartfelt to the mundane to the absolutely ridiculous. Eventually, they devolved into a heated debate over what each nation they could think of would be like to sleep with.

Prussia was dramatically pretending to throw up his rice. "I can't believe you'd consider sleeping with Portugal! Portugal! How can you sleep with a dude with a ponytail! And that silly earring!"

Austria sniffed his nose. "Have you ever gotten a look at his ass! He's a beautiful man, so rugged too from all those years as a pirate. I bet his hands are calloused and when they hold you, my God!" A shiver when down his spine. "That's enough to make you beg for more on the spot!"

"I'm sorry, Gil, but he's right on this one. The majority of the Mediterraneans are beyond belief. Maybe you can't see it, but the rest of us can." Hungary spoke around her chicken. "You need better taste in men."

"Oh so you like the southerners huh? How about Veneziano?" Silence. "Exactly! Oh, but you wanna hear some good shit? He was over the other day because Ludwig's apparently allowed to have his boyfriend over but I can't bring the woman I've loved for a millennia? Jackass. So he has his boy toy around and I'm being a good Christian, I'm in bed and I'm minding my own business and holy shit. Holy. Shit! I start hearing this loud moaning coming from his room, whips, chains, all this begging. I'm shocked guys cause this is lil' Feli getting destroyed by my brother! You know how close I was to going in there, to stop this?" Prussia shook his head in disgust. "I did not raise him to be like this."

The whole time he spoke, Hungary and Austria were cracking up. They started acting it out with Erzsébet in the role of Germany and Roderich as Italy. All three of them could barely keep it together. "Oh god, I guess that means all what America was saying was true. After the war, he kept telling everyone that Ludwig had all this weird porn in his home. I tried pinning it on you, but he didn't buy it." Roderich snickered and leaned against Erzsébet. "Who knew a square like him had such a wild side. You would've thought Veneziano would've wanted a more...tender lover."

The uproarious laughter began again. "We can all agree that America is awful, but would be an incredible one-night stand? I'd love to knock some sense into the kid, but what a hunk." Hungary licked her lips. "No brains, such brawn. The perfect fling."

The jury nodded in agreement. "England's a better screw though. He's surprisingly sweet and quite the gentleman. Romances you the whole way through, even into the next day if you spent the night." Prussia smiled with a devilish glint in his eyes. "I slept over quite a few times."

"Why the hell would you sleep with him? How's he better than Portugal!" Austria was incensed at the thought. Prussia had said many insulting things to him throughout the centuries, but this topped the list.

"Why the hell wouldn't I? You're no stranger to bedroom diplomacy. How do you think I got him on my side in the Seven Years' War? Or for any other war we fought together? If he needed a little enticing, I knew how to give it to him. Show him what's been developing on the continent." Gilbert smiled fondly at those memories. "I can tell you now, Alfred's lucky to have him not the other way around. I know who I'd pick."

"Please, France is so much better! There's passion there! He knows how to work you just right! Especially when it's hate sex. The hate sex takes it to another level. Why take a gentleman when you can be ravaged!" Roderich was adamant in his belief. If there was nothing else he could be certain of tonight, then this was it.

"Wait, when the hell did you sleep with Francis?" Now it was Erzsébet's turn to be upset.

"Throughout the years on and off. To secure an alliance, to break an alliance, to secure a treaty, to assert my dominance as the top power, to be dominated. Since the fourteen-hundreds on, really." Austria thought it over for a second. "I guess you weren't the only one cheating. I shouldn't have been so jealous."

"So both of you were out there, sleeping with other people, while I was loyal to the both of you? What an idiot I was. I could've been getting it on with the hot singles in my area." She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

Roderich and Gilbert laughed at this. They had to lean on each other for support, they were in stitches, unable to properly hold themselves up. They were gasping for breath, trying to get out a sentence. "You were cheating on me and you expected me to sit at home the whole time, twirling my thumb, wondering when my dear wife was coming home after rolling in the bushes with my worst enemy? I'm sorry, dear, but that's utterly ridiculous! I was going to have my fun as it came to me. And it came often." Austria clutched his stomach. It was so sore from bursting into hysterics like that.

"You were married to him! You were married to this bitch! Why did I have to be the loyal one! I was your little piece of ass, you didn't want any real relationship with me till 1845! As far as I was concerned, I could fuck all of Europe and I was doing you no harm." Once Gilbert had calmed down enough, he kissed her softly. "I'm loyal when it counts. I haven't been able to look at another since we got together."

The sting of own hypocrisy and the soothing reassurances of Gilbert helped calm her down. She nestled her head into his chest and smiled, enjoying the comfort of him and being with the ones she loved. "Fine. So what's your opinions on Russia?"

They continued like that for the night, on and on until they each passed out, one-by-one. A mass of sprawled out body parts on the floor, intersecting in different regions. They were drunk enough to find no discomfort in sleeping like this, only focusing on the physical and emotional closeness it brought.

Austria woke up slowly the next morning, sunlight streaming down into his eyes from the window. He winced, his head throbbed and he found himself disoriented for a second. He knew he wasn't in his bed from the way his back ached. He grunted softly and began sitting up. The night came rushing back to him, filling in the cracks in his memory. A warmth spread throughout him, the physical pain ebbing away for the fullness he felt in his heart. He looked over and saw Gilbert and Erzsébet, both somehow shirtless, sound asleep and laying chest-to-chest with arms enveloping each other.

A part of him longed for the familiar jealousy. Instead, he found himself at ease and completely satisfied with the now sturdy relationships they found themselves in with each other. He may have lost a wife and a rival, but wasn't it worth more to have gained a best friend and a cousin he continued to view more as a brother? Wasn't it worth more to see them both genuinely happy for the first time in years? And there, in the truth of it all, he found the peace of mind for himself he'd long craved for.

pro patria, chapters 29-35

“We need real Seraph here in Queensdale, not politicians.” Logan considered him in silence, then simply shrugged and strode past him, leaving the man flushed and glowering. Softly, I said, “Watch your tongue.”

title: pro patria (29/35/?) stuff that happens: Althea and Logan confront Tervelan.

verse: Ascalonian grudgefic characters/relationships: Althea Fairchild, Logan Thackeray, Captain Tervelan; Queen Jennah, Minister Arton, others; Althea & Logan chapters: 1-7, 8-14, 15-21, 22-28

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TWENTY-NINE 1 “I need to talk to Tervelan myself,” Logan told me. “Meet me at the Eldvin Monastery. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” I nodded, and Logan dropped his hand, clenching it into a gauntleted fist. “If he’s responsible for the Falcon Company incident, we’ll make sure he answers for it.” At that, I managed to summon up a smile. “Yes,” I said, “we will.” 2 Despite the if, Logan seemed to have entirely relinquished his first shocked doubts. When I spoke to him again before I headed back to the waypoint, he said, “Once Tervelan finds out you’re alive, he won’t sit around waiting for you to come after him. You should head to Eldvin Monastery now.” It was abrupt—and abrupt was exactly what we needed right now. “I’m on my way,” I assured him. He was right, all the more as I’d taken up valuable time in rushing to Divinity’s Reach first. The gods only knew what Tervelan was up to. 3 I didn’t stop to change my clothes; with one deep breath, I raced back to the waypoint, shoving coins at the guard—I didn’t even check the denomination—and then headed more cautiously towards the monastery. Logan’s as soon as I can turned out to be very soon indeed; he was already there. “Tervelan’s a traitor,” he murmured, face somber. “It’s hard to believe; whoever played him really knew how to manipulate people.” “They played on his weak spots,” I agreed—they must have, whoever they were—”but he made the choice himself.” My jaw tightened. “He should pay.” 4 “He will,” Logan promised me, tone grim. With that, he headed towards the monastery, slowing after a moment to match his stride to my much shorter one. As we entered the courtyard, my muscles tight as I realized my back was entirely unprotected, one lieutenant looked us up and down with open contempt. “The queen’s little loverboy has some nerve showing his face here,” he said. Remembering Shaemoor, I returned his disdainful stare with one of my own. Logan was many things, but presumptuous was not one of them—nor little. He laughed and went on, “Did you two come in a golden carriage?” 5 My eyes narrowed. I wasn’t foolish enough to draw a weapon based on words alone, but I kept my hand close to my scabbard. “What do you mean by that, soldier?” I snapped. The lieutenant glared up at Logan; it was a good ways up. “We need real Seraph here in Queensdale, not politicians.” Logan considered him in silence, then simply shrugged and strode past him, leaving the man flushed and glowering. Softly, I said, “Watch your tongue.” 6 The lieutenant flinched, then gave another sneer and retreated to his post. Another guard, however, seemed to have been paying close attention; as I moved to catch up with Logan, this one caught my sleeve. “Captain Thackeray’s here?” he said, peering over my shoulder. He looked nervous, but sounded nearly hopeful. “Is … is he going to replace Captain Tervelan?” I tilted my head to the side. “You almost sound as if you’d like that idea.” 7 Raw terror flashed over his face. “No, no … I wouldn’t do anything against Tervelan … forget I said that—please?” I nodded at him, reassured that not everyone seemed to be on Tervelan's side. “Noted.” With that, I ran after Logan, ignoring his faint smile as I clambered up the stairs after him. From here, we could both make out Tervelan, staring us down with his arms crossed. Logan leaned his head down and whispered, “Ready, little sister?” THIRTY 1 “Ready, captain,” I said. As we approached, shoulder-to-shoulder (or, well, head-to-shoulder), Tervelan’s features twisted into a grimace, the expression making him look more weasel-like than ever. “Oh, look,” he said, “it’s my lucky day. The city kid is back again, and this time”—his eyes narrowed—“you brought Captain Thackeray.” I was immediately certain that I’d made the right choice in doing so. Following Logan’s lead, however, I stayed silent. “Two heroes for the price of one!” said Tervelan; pointedly looking around, he added, “Hm, nobody’s smiling?” 2 My well of patience, never deep, evaporated. “You left me and Bigsby alone at that centaur camp on purpose,” I burst out. “Were you hoping we wouldn’t make it out alive? Was I getting too close to the truth about what happened to Falcon Company?” Tervelan stepped closer, the movement infused with menace. I repressed the urge to step back; I’d never backed away from anything, and least of all with Logan at my side. “You dare accuse a real soldier of treason?” 3 I simply lifted my chin. Tervelan was not at all my idea of a real soldier. “If you’d seen half what I’ve seen,” he growled, “you’d fall out of your boots!” Oh, please. The day he fought abominations from the Underworld in Godslost Swamp, we’d talk. “Just because you run around with the queen’s lackey, her boyfriend, you think you can undermine my authority?” By his triumphant look, Tervelan expected this to be a winning blow. 4 Logan not only didn’t recoil and run away, or whatever it was that Tervelan anticipated, he didn’t so much as twitch. I glanced up at him, ready to abide by his decision—so long as that decision brought me closer to finding what had happened to Deborah. It was obedience, for me. Logan studied Tervelan with steady grey eyes, then said coolly, “That’s crossing the line, Tervelan. You’re hereby relieved of your command.” Only my refusal to show weakness before Tervelan kept my expression neutral. I’d gone to Logan because I trusted him and because I was acting as his representative, but somehow I hadn’t really imagined him turning on another Seraph, on my word alone. 5 “I’m taking you back to Divinity’s Reach for questioning,” Logan went on, just as calmly. “I’d prefer you come peacefully.” Tervelan’s sneer shifted into a snarl. “Sorry to disappoint you. Gordan! Reginald! Muster the men!” 6 “One hundred gold to the soldier who silences these two, for good!” I drew a sharp breath. “He’s ordering his Seraph to kill us? Will they do it?” After all that I’d seen, and all that I’d heard, I still found it difficult to believe. The Ministry were the suspect ones, the Seraph were—they were Deborahs and Logans, they were the soldiers I’d helped and received help from— “They might,” said Logan grimly. 7 “Listen here!” he shouted. “Anyone who attacks us will be committing treason! I will show no mercy to anyone who turns against Kryta for gold or who protects a traitor like Tervelan!” Afterwards, I was never sure if I should say that a whole half of Tervelan’s command listened—or that only half did. Regardless, we had to fight a number of highly trained Seraph in addition to Tervelan himself, while other Seraph ran up to defend Logan and me from Tervelan’s loyalists, and the priests shouted and cried at the sudden outbreak. The battle was one of utter chaos: Seraph against Seraph, captain against captain, and me and all the clones I could muster, swinging the balance. We won; but it was a victory with little joy in it. THIRTY-ONE 1 “No more!” screamed Tervelan, shrinking away from bolts of aether and Logan’s sword. “I surrender! Enough—I surrender!” He and his lackeys promptly dropped their weapons, shoulders slumping as their fellow soldiers put them under guard and seized the weaponry. The priests eyed all of us from their alcoves and doorways, not trusting this latest turn of fortunes. I didn’t either. Shoving my sceptre into its sling on my back, I kept my sword at his throat. 2 So did Logan. And while mine was mostly a conduit for aether, his was long and sharp. It pricked Tervelan’s throat as the man dropped to his knees. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” I glanced at the trickle of blood, and felt nothing but satisfaction. Pressing my sword closer, I demanded, “Did you send Falcon Company into an ambush?” Tervelan looked everywhere except at the two of us, then squeezed his eyes shut. 3 Finally, he lifted his gaze to Logan and me. “I didn’t want to do it,” he muttered, then flinched back from our incredulous looks. “My soldiers were starving, our equipment was ruined. I had to do something or the centaurs would have killed us all!” A shadow of his old disdain returned to his face. “So, yes, I sold out Falcon Company so that some politician could say the queen was a bad ruler.” Tervelan glanced down at the swords and gulped. 4 “But the rest of my command lived. I got funds to re-equip my soldiers, munitions, decent rations, and a promotion. My command’s killed more centaurs than the rest of the Seraph combined—thanks to Falcon Company’s sacrifice.” Logan and I drew equally sharp breaths. No, this was no sacrifice. Sacrifice had to be willing, conscious—one thing when a soldier risked their life in battle, and quite another when they were sold out by their own commander. He could dress it up all he liked; it was treason. 5 “Who paid you?” growled Logan. “Give me a name, now, or by Lyssa’s tears, you will never see the outside of a prison cell again.” Tervelan shuddered. “I … I never met the man,” he said, “but he signed his letters ‘Minister Arton.’ That’s all I know, I swear it.” Logan’s eyes widened, his sword giving a slight jerk. Tervelan squeaked. 6 “Arton’s one of the queen’s advisors. We need to warn Jennah—and fast. She may be in danger.” I nodded. “Tervelan,” Logan announced, “by my authority as a captain of the queen’s Seraph, you’re under arrest.” With every appearance of little effort, he hoisted Tervelan to his feet, and bound his hands behind his back with a piece of rope offered by one of the loyal Seraph. I shoved my sword back in its scabbard, glaring at the traitor. 7 “You can’t put me in prison,” Tervelan insisted. “I’m a Seraph captain!” “Not any more,” said Logan. “I did what was right for Kryta! Someone had to do it—let me go!” “Falcon Company deserved better than this, Tervelan,” I said coldly. “Deborah deserved better.” THIRTY-TWO 1 He flushed. “Don’t you understand? This was how we drew enough attention to our cause to get aid! Supplies! Weapons!” “You sold them out, Tervelan,” I told him, my free hand clenching. “That’s all I see—a traitor, and a disgrace to the uniform.” 2 I turned my back on him and walked away without regret, leaving two of the Seraph to lead him into one of the empty ale carts. Logan kept an eye on them, his expression grim. “I’ll take Tervelan back to Divinity’s Reach and lock him up,” he told me. “Meet me at the palace—we’ll warn the queen about Minister Arton together.” I hesitated, then said, “Tervelan’s slippery, and someone has a vested interest in not letting him talk.” “No visitors, no ministers,” Logan assured me. “I’ll make sure of it.” 3 I thanked him, and trusting his capabilities, headed towards the main entrance, my heart still pounding in my ears. Several of the priests were starting to creep out; I reassured them as well as I could, silently thanking Faren for my years of smiling on cue. At the main gate, I paused to catch my breath, and heard the jingle of armour silencing just behind me. Someone was following me. I cautiously dropped my hand to my sword—and felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the nervous Seraph from before. “Tervelan commanded my unit,” he said earnestly, “but I serve Kryta; my loyalties lie with Logan and the queen.” 4 He was looking for approval, I realized—approval from the woman who had repeatedly blasted Tervelan off his feet, at that. I summoned up one last smile. “Glad to have you on our side, soldier. Carry on.” It was odd, to think that Seraph could be as unsure of themselves and their choices as anyone else, as hesitant or eager, as loyal or confused. I glanced back at the cart. As corrupt. 5 Foolishly, perhaps, I detoured to Salma upon my return to Divinity’s Reach. I had worn these stained and dirty clothes so far, but before the queen? One had to draw a line somewhere. My mother arrived just as I was rushing out in fresh silks. “Althea!” “Hello, Mama,” I said. “And goodbye—I have to go see Queen Jennah.” 6 “The queen?” she exclaimed. “Althea, what are you up to?” “It’s a state secret,” I told her, and kissing her cheek, hurried through one of the free waypoints to the palace, nearly tripping over my own feet on the way out. Hopefully I wouldn’t before the queen herself. I took a deep breath before the gate to the throne room, looked at the Shining Blade guards, and demanded entrance. “By whose permission?” demanded one of them, looking me up and down. “Captain Logan Thackeray’s,” I said proudly. 7 With much more reluctance, I added, “I’m Lady Althea Fairchild, the … the hero of Shaemoor.” The guards’ expression cleared. “He said to expect you,” the second one said, and both stepped aside, pushing the door open for me. I entered as quietly as possible, and nearly walked right into Logan, who steadied me but seemed otherwise preoccupied in surveying the room. I did the same, searching for anything suspicious or dangerous—but I, at least, found nothing. Queen Jennah, looking as healthy and lovely as ever, stood beside her throne, deep in conversation with Anise, while several ministers milled inoffensively around. At a gesture from Logan, I followed him towards them, and knelt before my queen. THIRTY-THREE 1 Queen Jennah, with a surprised look, told us to rise, and something in her soft voice had me doing so without thought. “Sorry to intrude, your Majesty,” said Logan, clattering to his feet while I dusted off my skirt, “but this can’t wait. There’s a traitor in the Ministry.” I had no idea if she reciprocated his devotion or not; either way, her voice and gaze remained steady. “That’s a serious accusation, captain. Can you provide the required evidence the back up your claim?” I had always felt loyal to her, as a Krytan citizen and one of her nobles; now, I decided that I liked her. 2 “We’re working on it, your Majesty,” I said, meeting her dark eyes directly. “Captain Tervelan confessed that a minister ordered him to reveal patrol routes to the enemy. The Screaming Falcons died because of it.” She paled. One of her advisors said, “Impossible! A minister would never betray our soldiers.” I nearly rolled my eyes, remembering Zamon; at this point, I wouldn’t put anything past anyone. 3 “I wish this matter investigated immediately, your Majesty. The Ministry’s honour is at stake,” the advisor went on. He squared his shoulders and looked around at all of us, seeming more tired than anything else. “Captain Tervelan’s command is within my ministerial jurisdiction. I’m the one who works directly with him; I’m the one impugned.” Arton, I realized. I had not expected so convenient an acknowledgment; we hadn’t even needed to mention his name. 4 “I’m not guilty of these crimes, your Majesty,” he said quietly. “I’m loyal to you, and to Kryta. As a show of faith, I place myself completely in your hands.” I felt rather uncomfortable; a denial must be expected, of course, but I was used to … defiance, bravado, insults, not this sort of meek acceptance. “Thank you, Arton,” said the queen, her manner gracious, but revealing nothing. “The Shining Blade will take you into custody, and you’ll be kept under house arrest while we get to the bottom of this.” He nodded. 5 It didn’t feel right. Maybe that was the idea, but I’d never seen anyone apprehend a culprit so easily as the Shining Blade did Arton; they had only to step forward, and he held out his wrists. Once they led him away, Anise stirred. Her usual sly smile was entirely absent. “Logan, I remember that one Seraph transferred out of Tervelan’s company just after the Falcons were ambushed—Sergeant Hal. He might know something.” Logan and I both brightened up; maybe the trail hadn’t ended here, after all. 6 “Hal?” Logan said, recognition in his face. He and Anise really did seem to know everyone. “As I recall, he patrols the eastern edge of Divinity’s Reach. Hero”—he smiled slightly at me—“why don’t you find out what he knows? I’ll guard the queen.” Anise sighed, but I could not imagine him doing anything else. Just as Faren would be Faren, Logan would be Logan. 7 I was more surprised that he pulled me a little aside, as Queen Jennah spoke to the remaining ministers and Anise. Lowering his voice, he said, “Maybe Hal transferred out of Tervelan’s unit because he found out what Tervelan did. See how much he can tell you about the Falcons’ disappearance.” I thought of Deborah, perhaps slaughtered, perhaps enslaved. And I thought of the others, too, and of Tervelan’s shrill, pathetic justifications. I might be running Logan’s errands, but they could hardly be less of a burden. “If he knows something,” I said, “I’ll get him to talk.” THIRTY-FOUR 1 “Good,” Logan said, looking rather like a proud parent. “I want to make sure Jennah’s safe, so you’re on your own. Find Hal at the eastern edge of Divinity’s Reach, and see what he knows.” I gave a crisp nod. “I’ll check in soon.” With a quick (and somewhat painful) shake of hands, he turned back and clanked his way towards Anise. I breathed in, and thought—oh, why not? 2 I walked over to the queen, not daring—presuming, my mother would say—a smile. Now, away from the rest, she did look anxious. “Arton served as a minister under my father, the king; he’s always been supportive of my rule. Could he really be working against me?” I’d rarely felt more out of my depth. “Captain Thackeray and Countess Anise will ensure your safety, your Majesty,” I said at last. “I’ll look into this.” 3 She lifted her eyes, seeming to really see me for the first time. “Thank you, hero. I’m glad to know that this matter is in good hands.” Logan had once spoken of my name reaching her ears; it evidently hadn’t happened yet. But then, she had rather more pressing matters on her mind. “You’ll be safe, your Majesty,” I promised, glancing over at Anise and Logan, “and I’ll discover the truth of this. I swear it.” 4 Anise caught me as I headed towards the door. She looked vaguely amused once more. “Accusing a minister in front of the queen? I knew you were bold, but I didn’t realize you were fearless.” Hardly that. “Not fearless,” I told her. “Determined.” 5 “I see,” said Anise, which could mean anything. “Well, hurry on; we’re all quite fascinated.” Minister Caudecus, when I approached, looked more irritable than fascinated. But well he might be; I remembered Anise’s suspicion that he’d orchestrated Zamon’s death. “You’re stirring up quite a fuss with these accusations,” he said. “Let’s hope you find evidence to justify this commotion.” “I will,” I told him, “and I look forward to presenting it to the queen.” 6 Logan spoke to me one last time, now looking almost fretful. He said, “I’ll be standing by if you need help.” I blinked. “But you said—the queen—” We both glanced over at Jennah and Anise. “I’ll do my part to protect her,” he said, “but she has other protectors, and you don’t, so … just let me know, all right?” Rather touched, I said, “All right.” 7 I’d rarely felt anything but safe in Divinity’s Reach. It was my home. But my shoulders itched as I made my way to the eastern edge; a minister did not act alone, and who knew what agents might be at liberty in the city? It didn’t slow my steps, but my mind darted between fear and resolve, between I’m going to find out the truth and desperately trying to distract myself with wondering about Faren and Yolanda and the rest, telling myself I needed better shoes, and I really should cut my hair or grow it out, it kept getting in my eyes—frightfully impractical, really— I asked some guards along the eastern wall of Rurikton (of course it was Rurikton), and thankfully, Sergeant Hal was both on duty and nearby. I followed their directions, and braced myself. It was now or never. THIRTY-FIVE 1 Sergeant Hal, an amiable-looking Ascalonian with brown hair bound at the back of his head, seemed an unlikely source of answers to all the mysteries confronting us. Nevertheless, he was our only lead, so I cheerfully abused my authority as an Ascalonian noble to interrupt his watch. “Sergeant Hal?” I said, and lowered my voice. “I need to talk to you about Captain Tervelan.” Hal recoiled from me, his mild eyes turning panicked. “Merciful Grenth, I knew this day would come!” He was a good few inches taller than me, but he cowered as if I were a giant. 2 Taken aback, I just stared at him. Almost whimpering, he said, “Did Tervelan send you to kill me?” What the— “No,” I assured him, smiling, “calm down. Thackeray sent me. But tell me: why would Tervelan want you killed?” Hal heaved a great sigh, and though hardly calm—he kept glancing over his shoulder—the immediate terror receded from his face. 3 He dropped his eyes to the ground, a flush creeping up his cheeks, and mumbled, “I delivered Tervelan’s private messages to the ministry and”—his gaze flickered up, and then down again, his shoulders hunching—“to the woods. I didn’t ask who the notes were for, but … oh gods, I knew. I transferred out the moment I could. You have to believe me!” I could almost hear another piece clicking into place. “So that’s how Tervelan communicated with the centaurs.” But there was another piece left—too many pieces. 4 “Who was his contact in the ministry?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he said, but before I could press harder, he finally looked straight at me and said, “but Dansky might. She was a Falcon before transferring to the Lionguard. She’s stationed at Black Haven now.” Frustration built in my throat, though I refused to voice it. I knew of Black Haven—one of the main Lionguard forts down south, supposedly keeping the trade routes safe—but it was past the swamp, beyond Queensdale altogether. I’d never been so far in my life. 5 I didn’t feel like arguing with Logan about going all the way to the Delanian Foothills; sometimes this older-brotherly thing was more trouble than I cared to deal with. Instead, I went to bathe and change into more practical clothes, sent a vague note, very definitely did not tell my mother where I was going, and headed off once more. I’d decided that the journey wouldn’t be too difficult. I could take the Salma waypoint down to Godslost Swamp—it’d be worth the expense to avoid fighting my way through Queensdale—then make my way south through Sojourner’s Way, and down into the foothills. It was easier planned than done. I had scarcely set a foot beyond Queensdale when I found a child whose mother had been abducted by bandits, assorted Lionguard soldiers under attack, and just—bandits. I’d never seen so many in my life; by the time I reached the haven, my new leggings were as stained with dirt and blood as my last. 6 I’d scarcely arrived at Black Haven when I heard yet more bandits just behind me. I raced inside only seconds before the doors slammed closed. “I’m here to help,” I said hastily, before any Lionguard could stab me (or whatever it was that Lionguards did). They were, it seemed, in no position to turn down another set of hands. One soldier who seemed to be in charge of those near her sent me up on the walls to help pour oil, while other soldiers launched cannon balls at the mortars beneath us. Taken altogether, it was one of the nastiest battles I’d ever participated in. I could only think, Welcome to Kessex Hills. 7 After we’d driven the bandits off, I got directions to Danksy; she was keeping watch up by one of the towers. “I don’t have time to talk right now,” she said brusquely. I considered my options, given that I was neither particularly charming nor particularly threatening. Then I straightened up, and said in my most official manner, “Your help could clear up an important legal matter.” It seemed the right answer. Looking concerned, she turned back towards me and said, “In that case, I’ll do what I can to help.” I smiled.

New Book Prelude: The Armistice

Okay, I said I would create another blog for this, but I didn’t.  This is sort of a free-story lead in for New Book.  I’ve posted it before.  It’ll be in several parts.  I’m going to post the first chapter of New Book after I get done with this.  Maybe posting will force me to come up with a title.  You may have seen this before, since I’ve posted it before, but the first chapter should be new, I think...

Be warned: Naughty language ahead.  Link to the next part at the bottom of the post.

Anyway, here goes:

The Armistice: Part One

“I will tell you the great secret that so escapes you, muj – a soldier’s life is very simple.”

Each swept their own heavy flap of fabric back to enter the tent, but it was Boera who pushed to the front first – and truly pushed, for a good wager brought a good gathering.  Through a crowd made twice as thick by layers of armor and twice as loud by game, he trailed his dark company by the inexorable and – for his companion – unfortunately irresistible bond of friendship in vast parties. 

“This is what troubles your life – you don’t realize this.”

As they had settled into the front, a hand was instantly flat before him – whose hand, what kind of hand, how did it matter?  Gamely, Boera fished in the purse at his belt and took out few bits, pointing to his chosen contender to place his bet.  It was a fine contender, its shell shiny, its squeaking high and impassioned, and even his sour friend nodded his approval.  “It is only this: Do as you’re told!  And when nobody is telling you to do anything–”

He knelt and gestured down at the elaborately constructed dirt-track circus.  “’Ta! Rev, then you do as you like.”

The rat racers were ready to unleash their steeds; some even had intricately woven leashes, made from filched silver thread and scrounged bits of metal.  These were nothing compared to the finely worked hats perched delicately, even jauntily, between their tiny rodent ears.  One had wings, to match those fixed to the twine holding its turtle shell on! Boera repeated his enthusiastic gesture as the race began, bald tails scraping the ground as the rats scampered down the track.

“No, Boera,” Rev said.

Boera’s enthusiastic gesture wilted.  Rev stepped over his shoulder and walked to the edge of the track.

“I like the little hats, for instance,” Boera tried.  “That’s new.”

“Life is complicated when it’s short.”

“And there is Rev, our shining bright dawn,” Boera rose and stepped away from the crowd. 

“I am,” Rev said, grinning.

Over the objections of seven nations worth of soldiers, Rev took a hunk of cheese from his pocket and tempted one of the competitors away from its circuit around the circus so he could coo and scratch its chin.  The Sathian among the crowd threw their arms up, much as Boera had, while their Erro allies sighed.  The Baathians immediately tried to renegotiate the odds, Sivery as quickly trying to block them.  Felanese, Sulerian, and Tarkesh soldiers all shouted for their race to continue despite this interruption.  The tent, quite beyond the cacophony of rats, filled with the chittering, sliding, bellowing sound of a half-dozen languages mixing in a way that had no meaning to anyone, yet was understood.

Get the fuck out of the way, so we can lose money reasonably!

Shrugging, Rev let the rat down and stood, nodding his head for Boera to follow or not as was his wont.  Boera rolled his eyes, aggrieved at this faithless turn – of course it was against his wishes, but he would follow.

Rev kept his grin; his ears felt empty – nothing jangled, tugged, or rang – but that was what four years’ campaign would do to a man.  Each and every Sivernisat had gone back to their tent and carefully and with much thought removed the heavy bangles piercing their ears and set them aside. It was a grave and serious ritual, completed in a moment, which meant they could commence the labors of peace instead of shouldering the burdens of war. 

They could, for example, construct tiny hats for racing rats, and set odds using an elaborate system of tortoise shells for handicaps.  Or, as Boera would have pointed out, fuck an innumerable host of their former allies and enemies alike.

The labors of peace varied from Sivery to Sivery, Sivernisat and Sivereponet; the earrings were mostly the same.

They shouldered their way out of the tent, through a hole that probably shouldn’t have been in the tent wall.  Of course Boera would follow.  Boera had been his tentmate for the last eight months, since the others had died.

“All of the handicaps will have to be recalculated,” Rev cried, throwing his own hands up.

“Yes,” Borea said, leaning away as they walked, leading despite his implied intention to follow, “you’ve weighted that one with cheese.”

“That’s all it was fit for.”  Ren turned, roughly guessing his next trajectory and angling it to agree with Boera’s.  “Weighting rats.”

“And soldiers,” Boera agreed.

In truth, the cheese was the best cheese they’d had in nearly a year. It was certainly better than starving. Certainly better to have a companion.   Certainly better than the cold. But it was the soldier’s prerogative to complain, and they were still soldiers, if only for as long as the celebration.

As if to deny the cold of their memory, the night was warm, weather neutral as the armistice that gathered them here.  Loud, foreign insects did their best to drown out the celebrating ‘honor guards’ and ‘escorts’ and ‘name-your-dynasty’s-ruler’s vaunted immortals’ – the mighty survivors.  The moon was full and pendulous; the stars glittered under the few faintest wisps of gray-black cloud.  Warm as it was, Boera and Rev passed by numerous bonfires filling the camp, because, so it was: fires and festivals and soldiers and the end of war – warm or not: big, big fires. 

“Rats like soldiers,” Boera said, leaning in close, well aware the conversation had only begun to tiptoe around the actual subject.

“Rats,” Rev replied, “are so much more noble.”

“You were stood up.”

“Stood up!”  Rev threw his hands up, identical to a thwarted Sathian gambler.  Bringing them down, he seized an errant tall stalk of the local grass, not yet beaten down by the young festival, and stuck it in his teeth.

“Stood up,” Boera clucked.

“Almost stood up,” Rev admitted.

Boera nodded sagely.

“Eh...” Rev elaborated.

Boera waited.  A small troop of naked soldiers scampered by, no doubt aiming for the river nearby, by their trajectory going to miss it by some twenty yards.  Either that, or they really wanted to run through the tent that several others had set up to cover a very somber discussion of the philosophy of war and a rousing game of dice.  The chase to the river would be fantastic.

“It just didn’t last very long,” Rev said, tossing down his piece of grass. 

“How could it!”  Boera gestured out at the madness around them.  “How could it!” he repeated, gesturing with a remarkable lack of ambiguity at Rev.

This was not a compliment, but rather a statement of stale disbelief. As this was not the first day of the festival, nor the first day of their tentmate-ship, the conversation had been had long before.

“It’s been so long,” Boera snagged his own piece of grass, whipping Rev in the chest with it before sticking it in his teeth, “since you have let someone fully enjoy your... physique, you have become an infernal expert in the... extraneous arts.”  His gesture was amply illustrative.

“Don’t stress your Sivereponet tongue, Boera, you’ll want to use it later – and who calls those extraneous arts?”  Rev returned with an illustrative gesture of his own.

“Anyone who just wants a simple fuck!” Boera shouted, calling the attention of some thirty reveling soldiers around them.  They focused like hawks, howled like wolves – a few Felanese, by their uniforms, went so far as to queue up.  Rev raised his brows, then his shoulders, then had to glower and close his posture off with an elaborately undiplomatic line of Felanese (or – all the words he knew) to dissuade them. 

“You’d think we’d learned better than to volunteer,” Rev muttered.

“Eh,” Boera shrugged, “for war.  For fucking, why–” and he performed a little triple-step, ending in an elaborate presentation of himself that received scattered applause, “–begin the line here.”

Boera took his bows, and they continued their walk, now directed by his impeccable sense of ‘finding something to do.’  “You are a complex fuck.  You are the Alta-puzzle of fucks.  Scholars for generations will talk about what it takes to actually unlock to combination to your pants.  Actually – no, you’ll just test a man until he spends himself before he can touch you. And that means you’re not a puzzle at all, you’re actually just a choosy bastard.”

They’d had this conversation before.  They paced out its rhythms and responses as they walked, encased in the total silence of uncrowded merrymakers.  Until they got to the important part; call and response.

“You could choose me.”

Rev shook his head.  “The bed moves for lovers, but a wise men stakes down his tent.”

“It’s a fool’s adage, I tell you,” Boera groaned.  “A travesty to believe tentmates should not be lovers.”

“You’ve not yet broken it, and you’ve all the cause in the world.” He lifted a finger to correct himself. “All the character in the world.”

“With but your consent I would.”

Rev gave him a sideways look.  They walked in silence.  Relative silence.  There was a great deal of singing.

“Boera,” Rev said, and waited for his friend’s sly and eager glance. “That is a terrible notion.”

“Yist,” Boera chirped.  “But I, my dear, would consider it a personal achievement to be able to hold out against your extraneous enticements.  How long is the average?  Nevermind – to know would dissolve my dreams – how do you resist?”

Rev laughed, and kept his secrets as Boera entertained him with a series of exceedingly crude gestures.  This ended in another companionable silence while Rev pretended not to notice how Boera nudged, bumped, and directed him with false fronts of fleeting interest in yet-further-away displays of debauchery. It was no issue, until Rev noticed a decided turn in the tone of the slurred singing, a slight change in the way the camp sprawled around them, a different mixing of the colors of fabrics.

“Boera.”

“Mu’ vlastni?”

“Where are we going?”

Responding with only a look, Boera quickened his pace, dragging Rev behind yet again.  After a moment it became clear enough that Boera intended to go into a long tent bedecked with wildly colored flags.  That was part of the strangeness – the way the tents stretched to great lengths rather than peaking like the Erro or draping like the Felanese.

“This is the Baath camp,” Rev hissed.

“So you noticed?”

But Boera didn’t slow down, leaving Rev with little recourse beyond sulking silently in step behind him. 

“What are we doing here?”

“What, you think they’ll kidnap you in the middle of the armistice signing?”  Boera was slightly more delicate with his tone; he made sure to laugh.

“I think we were better off with the rats.”

“You mean back by the Sivereponet?”

“Them and the small rodents in shells.”

Letting himself be mocked was Boera’s concession, and he rounded it off with a laugh and an arm over Rev’s shoulder, bearing him down to have his ear tweaked as if Boera were an extra-heavy earring.  He did not, however, then let Rev go.

Rev’s incredulous and confused expression stood in for many words.

Wordless stammering was also the bones of an old conversation: Boera couldn’t possibly have brought Rev down here for a fight.  Though a soldier sick of war, as all soldiers always were, if they were sane, he would admit he picked fights because he enjoyed it.  The very notion disgusted Boera.  Like a spouse with a drinking habit, Rev had come to slinking about when he went abroad for trouble. 

This time, Rev refused to help as they barged into the tent and got a face full of canvas for his trouble.  Blinking back the light from what might have been the most furious bonfire of them all, he breathed the heavy, sweet scent of Baathian fruit-and-honey wines, as well as fresh timber and old sweat.  Several tables and benches pushed together created a single long table the length of the tent, blocking them from the impressive pit and chimney (those surely weren’t stone bricks – even Baathians weren’t so foolish as to have hauled stones to a treaty camp) over the bonfire, long and low as it could be made while still being ferocious. 

He freed himself from Boera’s arm and fixed his tentmate with a look of grave disapproval. 

“So, I have followed you here, Boera.  What business could even you have among Baathians?”

“Well, muj, the people I know, you know I know, and I must know at least a few Baathians...”

“Bullshit,” Rev said.

Boera looked mortally offended.  “You are a man of pressing needs, o tentmate, and I only seek to relieve you of them.”

Rev narrowed his eyes, pulling his head back in a gesture of suspicion that would have been much more effective if accompanied with the slow jangle of earrings.  “You didn’t bring me here for a fi–,”

Boera’s hand came up so fast, Rev thought he was going to be punched, but instead, he pressed soft fingers to Rev’s lips.  He only removed them after a tedious spate of muttering what Rev assumed must be highly sacrilegious prayers, as Boera believed in no gods.

Boera took a deep breath.  Seeing impatience still writ large on Rev’s face, he made a weighing gesture with his hands and started peering about. 

“There’s a man here I want you to meet.”

“I don’t want to meet any Baathians–” but before Rev had finished, Boera seized his elbow and dragged him towards a gap in the long benches. Whatever comforting noises Boera was making to try to ease the scowl on Rev’s face were soon lost in the raucous conversations of the soldiery at the tables.  Both of them had to skip lightly aside to avoid a man launched bodily over the back bench by a Sathian woman who’d mounted the table to plant her foot in his chest.  She paused to secure her footing, bare chest shining with sweat and hair backlit by the fire such that she seemed to embody the night itself, imbedded with stars, before she stomped down on the bench to step over her foe and continue a leisurely stroll towards the hogsheads. 

“Not that man, I hope,” Rev said.

“Ah, no,” Boera said, but as the soldier next to him slipped head-first backwards off the bench, he used the chance to throw Rev down in a the space just cleared.  Before he could protest, Boera slapped him on the shoulders, and made fading excuses as he disappeared after something for them to drink.

Rev refused to have anything to do with this.  He would demonstrate his displeasure with a sullen silence, completely useless as Boera wasn’t here to be bothered by it.  He adjusted his seat on the bench, considered eating a bit of cheese from his pocket, remembered he’d given most of it to the rat, renewed his scowl.

He didn’t like Baathians.  He would admit that Baathians in general had a pleasant aversion to shirts – or maybe that was just because they seemed to be mostly celebrating with Saathians, who saw shirts as a sign of weakness.  Maybe Baathians did, too, though everybody – Saathians included – wore something into battle.  He wouldn’t know, not liking Baathians one bit, and certainly not enough to have learned any of their cultural mores.  He demonstrated his distaste by not participating in them, which was completely useless because it amounted to sitting there doing nothing.

His scowl deepened when he realized just how unoccupied Boera had left him.  No one tried to speak to him, too busy being Baathian, which was simultaneously offensive and uninteresting.  He, of course, couldn’t understand Baathian, so he couldn’t even sneer derisively at the right moments to insult people who were speaking, no doubt of reprehensible Baathian things. 

He did really like the Baathian aversion to shirts.  Not being able – or, rather, unwilling at least while Boera was waiting upon him – to pick a fight, and so cruelly forced to idleness, he could do nothing but watch people parade past, and kick away the soldier trying to take her seat back when he woke up.  The other Baathians seemed to approve of this, as the woman next to him issued something that was either a congratulatory cheer or the final stages of a wasting disease, and slapped him on the back.  This did not lead to fight, but rather, due to his morally-maintained silence, to more watching people parade past.  He was rather more relaxed when Boera returned. 

“I see no man,” Rev said, peering around Boera and raising his hands.

Boera knocked him in the forehead with one of the mugs he was holding and threw a leg over the bench.  “You see your favorite man.”

“I see a man who abandoned me amongst savages.”

“And who brought you delicious Baathian wine, gained at great personal risk from the horde of savages by the barrels, without you so much as even having to move or attempt to summon to your tongue enough Baathian to order it.”

Rev checked his hair for spilled wine, and sipped what was obviously meant as a libation of appeasement.

“Who do you see?”  Boera grinned at him.

“I see... very nearly my favorite man,” Rev replied.  He glowered at the Baathians around them.  “If only he kept better company.”

“I could not agree more,” Boera grumbled.  Before Rev could grasp this reversal, Boera had turned and said something witty enough in Baathian to get his own slap on the back, not that Rev was jealous.

The Baathian wine was good enough – and alcoholic enough – that Rev fell easily into the business of getting drunk.  Decently drunk, that is; not nearly sober, but just drunk enough to ensure he wouldn’t cause someone to come over the table at them.  Also not drunk enough to try to speak to any Baathians, no matter what language they chose, so the burden fell to Boera, who was able to slide into the conversation smooth a snake in a mail suit. 

Boera, in turn, felt far more comfortable when he finally noticed Rev falling into a pleasant and languid silence beside him, almost half as drunk as he needed to be to not start any fights at all.  In fact, for the past few minutes of mindless, half-Sivery, quarter-Felanese, quarter-mimed conversation, Rev had paid no attention at all, no doubt due to some ridiculous notion he was somehow being both superior and insulting.  So Boera let his own attention wander – he let his smile grow warm, let his pose grow alluring, let his current company knowingly begin a grinning departure and smiled broadly as decidedly different sort of company approached.

Boera sampled and rejected a few, who did not take it poorly.  After all, the armistice signing was a veritable open feast, full of soldiers happy to no longer be dying, and eager to express their zeal of life by wasting copious amounts of its generative fluids. 

But finally, a very smooth-looking Baathian, sadly shirted, slid onto the bench beside Boera.  They ran through a few different greetings in sundry languages until it turned out the Baathian spoke decent Sivery.  He passed a number of tests Boera lobbed his way in the form of gratuitous insults, ridiculous challenges, and pointless diversions, proving he could survive a conversation with Rev.  In fact, Boera dared even believe he might thrive.  Then, with his most practiced lascivious and welcoming smile, Boera turned, seized Rev’s lapel, and used shunting him into the Baathian’s lap as a means of levering himself off the bench. 

“Let me get us drinks,” Boera said, then turned his grin to Rev. “Stesti!”

“Stesti-fuck!  Boera!” but Rev called to a hand waving farewell over the passing walls of Baathian soldiers.

“That went poorly.  Is that your friend?” the Baathian asked.

“No.”  Rev seized his flagon – full, he noticed, which it hadn’t been a second ago but somehow Boera must have dumped his in before he disappeared, which meant Rev now had a disgusting mix of peachy-berry wine Boera had been drinking and the salty-bloody wine he’d been drinking.

“You’re the only Siver here,” the Baathian pointed out.  “I think.”

“That Eponet, horse-thieving scum is not my countryman,” Rev growled.  In his furor he took a drink of the wine, which was worth spitting on the table. 

The Baathian laughed.  “Baathian wine doesn’t agree with you?”

“Nothing Baathian agrees with me,” Rev growled, topping his threat off with a grin. 

“I agree with you,” the Baathian said.  When Rev gave him a skeptical look, he half-stood to reach over and sniff the wine in Rev’s cup.  “That would taste terrible.  Why did you mix them?”

Pulling back, Rev slopped wine up his sleeve and cursed.  “You know I didn’t, you fool.”

“Better a fool than a lush,” the Baathian said, still sporting a small smile, perfectly undisturbed.

Rev was getting a good look at that smile because the Baathian hadn’t moved back.  Rev would have, of course, leaned forward so to follow up on his threatening tone, but the Baathian had moved in for him.  It didn’t feel properly threatening that he only to had to lean forward an inch or so to put himself in biting distance of the Baathian’s face, but he did it anyway. 

“Better anything than a slaver.”

The Baathian’s expression didn’t waver.  That, Rev had to admit, was the teeniest bit admirable.

“We agree again,” he said.  This close to his face, Rev noticed that he said it with delightfully curved lips. 

The Baathian’s hand was moving somewhere over to Rev’s right, but Rev wouldn’t let himself look; it’d break his intimidating stare. 

He needn’t have worried.  The Baathian broke first, as he brought Rev’s cup up to his lips, and glanced down at the liquid before turning – only just enough to sip. 

His expression folded instantly into disgust, and he pushed away, laughing.  “Dear God, that’s disgusting, Siver.”

“Yes!”  Boera said, appearing from behind with three newly filled cups.  He intervened between them only long enough to set the cups down, then forcefully and with several intrusive nudges forced Rev over on the bench so he’d be next to the Baathian.  Actually ‘next to’ didn’t cover it, as Boera pushed so close Rev could barely move his arms with elbowing one or the other.  With unobliging eagerness, strangers pushed onto the space Boera cleared, leaving Rev with nowhere to run. 

Rev was all right with that, for the most part, as Boera had noticed. Boera reached across to push a cup towards the Baathian, whose confusion at Boera’s change in position didn’t go so far as to refuse a drink.  At the same time Boera blocked all of Rev’s attempts to use his right hand to grab his drink, forcing it into his left so he couldn’t elbow the Baathian without spilling on himself.  

“How are we going to get you properly drunk with that disgusting slop?” Boera said, with rather more teeth than were strictly friendly. 

“How am I responsible for that disgusting slop?” Rev hissed back.

“How can either of you get drunk on wine?”  the Baathian asked.

Both Sivery turned, and he shrugged at his cup.  “I always end up behind a tree first.”

After a moment’s shared silence, Boera threw his hands up.  “What a manly constitution!”

“What a crock of shit,” Rev said.

“What is going on here, exactly?” the Baathian asked.

“A pleasant evening among friends and allies,” Boera replied.

“Baathians are not friends,” Rev hissed.

“Nor is that Siver, according to you,” the Baathian said cooly, sipping his wine.  “Horse-thieving epo-something scum, wasn’t it?”

Rev’s head sunk between his shoulders; it had been a bit much, the horse-thieving part.  Through one squinted eye, he glanced at Boera, whose expression bore the marks of infinite hurt.  Reaching out, Boera slapped the back of Rev’s head so hard his forehead hit the table.

“I need someone to fuck my friend,” Boera said, while Rev whined like a kicked dog.

“That one?” the Baathian said, glancing at Rev.

Boera’s expression confirmed this, with the utmost reluctance. “Though if you pass him over, I’m not too proud to become a runner-up.”

“I am not to be passed over, for I’m not being offered – offering – and I wouldn’t be passed over, anyway, were I even on the table, which I’m not.”

“You’re on the bench,” the Baathian observed.

Having confused himself in his own retort – perhaps he’d already drunk too much – Rev chose to ignore him.  “I am not involved in this!  Boera, are you insane?  And if I were, it would certainly not be for a Baathian!”

“Muj – muj Povstalec,” Boera said, seizing Rev by the back of the collar.  Generally a peaceable fellow, it wasn’t so much that Boera was being so confrontational as it was that he’d called Rev by his real name – or as close as the Eponet got – that told Rev he was serious. 

“We are all so very aware of your opinion on Baathians.  How could you doubt me, think I would not take this into consideration?  Have you not courted every other breed of soldier around here?  Have you not found yourself disappointed at the end of each one? Are you not, infected by your madness, beginning to yearn to fight someone, you great idiot?  It is an armistice.  In the war, it was madness to try to get yourself killed when three other nations were offering to do it for you, but now it is insanity.  Tasteless insanity, too!  Even the great, be-medaled fucks and flouncing court fops have finally seen that we should not be fighting anymore.  The insanity that afflicts you is now out of place, even more so than usual.  Fuck someone, please, so that I don’t have to deal with your madness disturbing our nice and peaceful tent while the armistice is being signed, so I can fuck whomsoever I like without you deciding to fight them when they wake up.”

“That was once!”

“Three times!”

“Those other two were assholes!”

“Which I thoroughly enjoyed, and you had no right to treat any of them that way and you know it, you bastard!”

Releasing Rev’s collar, Boera gave him a great clap on the shoulder, pushing him towards the Baathian.  “Look – if you do not like him enough to fuck him, then you can fight him instead; either way you will finally be satisfied.  I would put my money on a little bit of both.”

“You know, I’m right here,” the Baathian said.  “Don’t I get a say?”

Both Sivery fixed him with stares like a pair of cats in the dark. 

“It’s an armistice!  Who’s being picky?” Boera said, ignoring Rev’s glare.  “Besides, don’t you like my friend?”

“I can’t say he’s taken a shine to me.  If I say I do, do I still have to fight him?”

“Well, I don’t like you,” Rev replied, “and I’ll fight you any time.”

“Well, if any time includes never, then we have a deal,” the Baathian said, sipping his wine.  “But there are quite a few others here who I would neither fight, nor fuck, and your friend here hasn’t exactly been charming me from my cup.”

“Ah,” said Boera, sweeping himself up from the bench to put a hand on each of their shoulders.  “But that’s because you haven’t heard the best part.”

“Is it not the fighting?”  Rev asked.

“Is it not you?”  The Baathian said, and smiled. 

The shine of that smile made him completely impervious to Rev’s burning glare.

“I like him,” Boera said.  “I’m reconsidering this plan.”

“Then I can fight him in the morning?” Rev asked.

“The best part,” Boera said, leaning heavily on the Baathian, “is that nobody gets to fuck him.”

“How is that the best part?”  The Baathian asked, genuinely confused.

“You have not heard my challenge,” Boera said, gesturing grandly.

“I am not a challenge,” Rev roared, and stood, and the standing was an issue, or at least standing so suddenly.  He didn’t quite fall, and didn’t quite trip, but did get an uncomfortable rush of blood, and the bench didn’t help him stand.  Boera caught his shoulders -

Boera grinned at him.  Rev’s eyes widened, and he shook his head, but Boera’s grin only widened.

Twisting his grip, he threw Rev’s unsettled weight into the Baathian’s lap. 

It was not for nothing that the Baathian had on that soldier’s uniform, for he dodged any untoward damage from Rev’s violent upheaval by throwing himself into the drinkers behind him.  Could not have been more than a second Rev spent in his lap.  In his fury at being so mishandled, Rev only managed to clip Boera’s temple with an open-handed slap, stinging his fingertips to a degree that nonetheless satisfied his vengeful impulses.  He ground the dirt under his heel as he turned to stalk out of the tent, a meaningless and rising cacophony of Baathian following him out.

Part Two

Clarity

Characters: Ike, Mia

Setting: Path of Radiance, Chapter 22; Radiant Dawn, Part 3, Prologue; Radiant Dawn, Part 3, Chapter 7

Words: 4,000

Summary: Mia’s concern over the real outcome of Ike’s duel with the Black Knight rears its head three years after the Mad King’s War. Following a grievous injury in their second duel, Mia finally understands the true nature of her relationship with her commander.  (Shout-out to  @delleal for helping with plot stuff & Ike’s point of view)

CRIMEA, 646

"The one I seek is behind these doors. Don't follow me. I'm going in alone." Mia's ears prickled at hearing those words, the swordswoman's eyes widening in understanding. She'd known that the Black Knight was here, but - to hear that Ike would be fighting him alone? That was...no, she could understand. Some things had to be done yourself. 

"Ike! Wait! I'm going with--" Soren was interrupting. Of course, he wouldn't let Ike's pride get in the way. Mia walked towards the small group gathered outside the door, pausing just to the side as the three argued over it.

"No, Soren. We have to let Ike go alone. The Black Knight is his. Defeating him is a crucial step that Ike must take in order to truly get over the death of his father." Titania said calmly. Soren frowned, his hand twitching - Mia could recognize the urge to throw something when she saw it.

"Idiocy! I'll hear no more of this naive nonsense! What if something happens to him? What then?"

Titania started talking again, and Mia zoned it out - instead just watching as Ike pulled Ragnell from a sheathe and headed towards the door. She opened her mouth to say something, before slowly - reluctantly - closing it, brow furrowed. She could hear Soren's next words when she turned her head away, frowning. 

"...I don't like it. Sometimes, bravery and good judgment aren't enough."

"I agree with Soren." She said, louder than she'd anticipated - startling Titania and Ike into looking at her.

"Thank you." Soren said in exasperation, glad to have support from somewhere - even if it was from Mia. "Ike, please, listen to reason-"

"Yeah. You also need to be a good fighter." Mia continued on, turning Soren's pleas into a wordless groan of exasperation. "Kick his ass, Boss."

Despite the somber mood, Ike let out a small chuckle - giving her a slight nod before taking a deep breath, and heading into the room to face his destiny. Mia closed her eyes and rested her back against the wall, letting out a shaky, nervous breath. She hoped he'd win - gods, he had to win. The only person who was allowed to beat him in a fight was her dammit, and...

She would admit. She wasn't sure what she would do if he died. 

Mia wasn't sure how much time had passed by the time the tower shook - and her eyes snapped open, startled, as she turned to the door. Nasir kicked it open, dragging a half-conscious Ike out, as well as another girl - the secret Laguz' eyes wide in panic. 

"Help me!" He shouted, and Mia nodded - moving to grab Ike off of him, wincing under the weight. Gods, but her boss was heavy - that stupid armor his General position made him wear, no doubt. Stumbling for a brief second, she got used to it, and they barely managed to scamper outside before the tower collapsed. 

"So." She panted, running a hand through her hair and letting out a long sigh as Ike stirred properly, rubbing the back of his head. "Did you get him?"

"I..." Ike hesitated, glancing back towards the tower and then at Ragnell. "...I think so, yeah. It just felt...strange. Like he was holding back."

"Why would he be holding back?" Mia asked, quietly, but then she was pushed aside by Mist, Titania and Soren, and dozens of other as well, all moving to make sure that their Commander was safe - and to spread the story of the man who defeated the Black Knight in single combat. 

Even if that wasn't true. Taking one glance at Ragnell, Mia noticed something strange. 

"...why isn't there any blood on it...?"

CRIMEA, 649

"Ike. Is it true?" 

Mia had hunted down Ike as soon as she'd heard the rumors about who had helped in Daein's rebellion - not wanting to believe the truth, but knowing that it was possible. Ike paused, caught off guard by Mia's use of his name, before turning and giving a curt nod. 

"Yeah. The Black Knight's alive, apparently." He said quietly. Mia wasn't sure how to respond to that, opening and closing her mouth a few times before just putting her hands on her hips and beaming at him.

"You'll get him, boss." She said encouragingly. "You had him on the run last time, right? Besides...I'm the only one who's allowed to beat you!"

"Yeah. I'll get him next time." Ike's answer and smile were forced, and even Mia couldn't have failed to notice that this time. She faltered, the smile on her face falling off. She paused next to him in mid-stride, trying to figure out what to say. Eventually she settled for punching him in the shoulder, staring out over the battlements. 

"What're you so worried about?" She asked, turning back to face him as he rubbed the slight mark she'd left on his skin. "Ike, come on. Sure, you came out of the fight last time real beat up, but you still at least drove him off! And it's not like you've been sitting around doing nothing for three years either - we've both gotten even better. Maybe you'll mop the floor with him!"

"I'm not sure I'd say I had him on the run." Ike admitted, frowning. "I scratched his armor a few times at best. I never actually-"

"Injured him. Yeah, I know. I kind of always suspected, really." Mia cut him off. Ike blinked, startled as she explained herself. "Ragnell didn't have any blood on it. I kind of figured either you'd taken him out with that weird wind slash thing it does, or you never actually..."

"No. I never actually got him." Ike said quietly. Mia sighed. 

"Makes sense. How come you never talked about it?"

"I was honestly hoping the tower collapsing killed him." Ike said after a few more moments, before letting out a slight gasp of pain and surprise. Mia had drawn her sword while he was distracted, and slapped the flat of the blade against his side. He turned to face her, an accusing look in his eyes - but was forced back a few more paces again as she slashed out towards his face. 

"Mia! What are you doing?"

"You were getting mopey." Mia shrugged, slashing again - Ike barely managing to weave out of the way a second time. Ashera be good, but Mia had gotten fast in the last three years. "I'm not great at talking about things, Boss. You want to know what I'm good at? This."

"Trying to kill your employers?" Ike asked incredulously as he drew his own sword, getting a slight laugh from Mia. 

"Nope." She lunged, the two locking blades as they started to dance back and forth on the battlements. Almost a minute later, in the first real pause the two of them had in the impromptu spar, Mia raised her blade to eye level and smirked. "I might not have beaten you, Commander - but I've sure as sure can be pushed you to your limits before. Haven't I?"

"Once or twice, yeah." Ike admitted, starting to catch on - and he wasn't entirely sure he liked where this was going. "So..."

"So, maybe just at dawn isn't doing it for you." She said cheerily, leaping forward once more. Thirty seconds passed of near-silence, steel clashing on steel before Mia's relentless onslaught forced Ike to roll back and start descending down the stairs to the courtyard, parrying her blows as they continued to rain down. "You so worried that the Black Knight's going to beat you again? Practice more!"

Mia took a shortcut, jumping off the stairs and rolling as she landed, turning around to slash at Ike's arms as he turned to meet her. He managed to block that as well, pushing forwards so the two locked blades - and like they always did at this point, he started to overpower her, pushing her slowly back as she gritted her teeth in exertion. 

"I don't think it's about practice." Ike grumbled, and suddenly his eyes widened and he let out a gasp of pain, air exploding out of his lungs. Mia looked almost apologetic, taking some steps back as he bent over, clutching his stomach. 

"Sorry, but I kinda had to prove my point." She said, stabbing her sword into the ground and leaning against the wall. "Boss, I don't exactly think the Black Knight's going to fight you with honor a second time around. You might need to cheat."

"Kicking him in the stomach isn't going to work through all that steel." He wheezed, finally catching his breath. Mia shook her head, long purple hair catching in the breeze as she laughed.

"No, probably not. But you get the idea, yeah?" Her face grew serious. "Boss, if you meet him, it's not gonna be like with me. One of you is going to have to die, and-"

She hesitated, bowing her head slightly. "-...I'd really, really rather it wasn't you."

"Yeah. I'd rather not die too." Ike joked. He slid his sword back into its sheath and nodded to her as he turned to walk away, a smile on his face. "Thanks for the spar, Mia. Even if you really didn't have to kick me in the stomach...I needed that. You give weird pep talks."

"Just be glad I didn't go for your balls." Mia joked back, a smile on her face. That was something, at least - he wasn't brooding anymore. Even so, she felt a slight twinge of something in her stomach. She didn't think it was fear, but...ah, well. Nothing a few good sword drills wouldn't help take her mind off of, that was for sure. 

BEGNION, 650

"Yeah, you better run!" Mia couldn't help but laugh at the retreating soldier she'd beaten off. She'd give the Dawn Brigade member one thing - he was better than she'd expected. Far, far better - but not good enough, as it turned out. He just couldn't keep up with her. The moment the brown-haired man's steel sword had snapped under her Brave weapon's blow, he'd turned tail and run - the smart people's choice, in other words. Blowing a few strands of purple hair out of her eyes, she glanced around the battlefield to get her bearings again, and saw something that made her heart stop.

He was here.

"Oh, shit." She mumbled, sword hanging limply by her side. She hadn't quite prepared herself for the possibility of actually getting to see the Black Knight fight, and now here she was, watching him advance on...on...

Oh, Ashera. Ike.

Mia's instincts kicked in, and she dove back into the fray - cutting down Daein and Senate soldiery alike as she tried to cut a swathe towards them, constantly looking up to see if Ike was still alive. The two were exchanging blows, she could see that, and Ike...

Ike was losing. 

She could tell. He was alive for now, but his knees were shaking, his blows were being turned aside, his feet weren't quite in the right place-

Her vision was obstructed by a blast of fire, knocking her to her back. For the next few moments Mia was more concerned with surviving the next few seconds than Ike's fate, scrambling back to her feet and staving off a group of spearmen. Eventually she could let her instincts die down a little more again, and turned - and he was on his back, and she could somehow hear what the Black Knight was saying. 

"Still nothing. Was I wrong, again...?"

Mia wondered for all of a split-second what that could have meant, before the Black Knight raised Alondite and prepared to bring it down on Ike's body. Time seemed to slow down, and Mia let out an anguished scream that she hadn't even known she was capable of. 

"NO! GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

She didn't have the time to think about how monumentally stupid her next action was. She dashed forwards, and brought her Brave sword - a weapon that Ike had given her to mark her first year of belonging to the Greil Mercenaries, at the height of the Mad King's War - onto the Black Knight's shoulder. Sparks flew, and to her immense surprise it actually sank in - and came away with blood. Stunned, she had barely any time to process that, diving back to avoid a slash from Alondite as the Knight growled in frustration. 

"Who are you." He...complained? Mia swallowed, arms trembling as she raised her sword and tried to look defiant. Behind the Black Knight she could see Ike staring in bewilderment, clutching a shattered arm - blood pouring down from a dozen scratches and gashes of various severity. She swallowed, turning her focus back to her opponent.

"If anyone's going to beat my Commander, it's going to be me." She said, hoping that sounded brave. The Black Knight almost seemed amused, pauldrons shaking for a second in what Mia almost thought was barely repressed laughter. 

"A bold statement...if a foolish one." He said, and suddenly moved. Gods, but he was as fast as Ike, even with all that armor. The swordmaster winced as she blocked his first strike, the sheer impact vibrating up her arms and almost breaking her grip. She couldn't risk a proper block again after that, having to dodge or turn his aside - a few times managing to sneak past his guard, blade slashing out at joints, and a few times drawing blood - but she was being driven away, and she knew it. 

She was outclassed, and it terrified her. But this...she couldn't let this happen, not if she stood a chance of stopping it.

"Mia." Ike croaked, staggering back to his feet with Ettard in his hand. "Run."

"Hell, no!" She said angrily, diving back from another slash and resisting the urge to turn and snarl at her boss properly. "I'm not letting this jackass kill you, Ike-"

She'd made a mistake the moment she dived back out of ‘range’, and she only realized it now. Diving back didn't mean anything against Alondite like it would a normal sword, and her guard was completely open. She could hear a keening noise in the air, and time seemed to slow down again - a piercing white glare taking her vision, until it was blocked by a shadow. She opened her mouth to scream, wondering if this was how she died - until she felt a heavy presence knock into her, someone's blood spurting around her fingers as she was sent sprawling, and it wasn't her own. 

"Oh, no." She whispered, crawling out from under Ike's motionless body. "Commander? Boss?"

"No real resistance." The Black Knight said, advancing - before pausing, and tilting his head. The Daein horns were sounding a retreat, and just like that he turned and left, leaving Mia cradling Ike's motionless body and pleading with him. 

"Boss? Ike? Hey! We need a healer!" She screamed, and suddenly Mist was there - and so was Rhys, the two pulling her away and leaning over Ike, doing all they could. Mia stared at the three, trembling, holding the shattered hilt of her Brave sword in one hand. When had it even broken? During Alondite's ranged attack?

"Oh, gods. Ike." She mumbled weakly, slumping down to her knees. She heard Rhys asking if she was okay, but couldn't answer - hands shaking as she stared at him, tears gathering in her eyes. Why had she been so adamant about saving him? She cared for everyone else, but...she normally had some sense of self-preservation. Why did she completely ignore it, doing something as suicidal as charging the Black Knight, just to buy him a few more precious moments of life?

"Mia. Come on." Someone was talking to her, gently chiding - and it took her a moment to realize it was Titania. Mia let go of her Brave sword's ruined hilt, letting it clatter to the floor as she was guided away, weakly stumbling. What in Ashera's name was happening to her?

"Is he-"

"He'll be fine." Rhys assured Mia, stepping aside to let the surprisingly subdued swordmaster into the Commander's tent. Ike lay on his cot, covered in bandages - but breathing normally, which was almost enough to bring her to her knees. "It was close, though. If he'd taken another hit like that, I'm not sure..."

"Don't. Please." Mia urged quietly, hands balling into fists. Rhys hesitated, before nodding in agreement. 

"You're right. Better not to talk about things like that." He said quietly, the sickly healer packing up his things. "I already had to make Mist leave and get some rest, Mia. Don't stay in here all day."

"I'm surprised Soren's not..." Mia started, before her voice trailed off. Soren was sitting at the base of the bed in a collapsible chair, head bowed forwards and light breaths the only sign he was still alive. Asleep, then. 

"I couldn't get him to leave the room if I tried." Rhys admitted, giving Mia a slightly judging look. "Just make sure you get some rest as well, Mia. Soren said we might need everyone moving forwards, especially if the fact that Ike nearly died gets out. It'll kill morale."

"Yeah." Mia mumbled, already kneeling next to Ike's bed. Rhys left, and she leaned forwards - resting her head on his chest and starting to cry, shoulders shaking. What was she doing? What was she feeling? 

No, she knew what she was feeling. Wasn't it strange, how almost losing someone put things into perspective. She had no clue if the feelings were returned, or even if Ike would understand what to do with them when she told him. But Mia couldn't - she wasn't sure what she would have done if he had died without her finally saying what she'd realized. 

"Oh, Ike." She mumbled, hands resting over the bandages covering his shoulders. She was sobbing now, tears giving way to actual gasps for air and wracking shoulders, her eyes buried in the blankets bunched around his midriff. "I'm - oh, gods, I'm so sorry..."

"For what?" 

Mia let out a slight gasp, straightening up - staring into Ike's eyes. He was awake, if a little blurry and confused - and that just brought a wave of relief to her, shoulders slumping as she watched him struggle to sit up. 

"Gods, Mia what's - hey!" He yelped as she suddenly moved forwards, pulling him into a tight hug and burying her face in the crook of his neck. He let out a few gasps of pain, hesitantly putting a hand on the still-crying swordmaster's back. "M-mia, my ribs-"

"Right." Mia mumbled through the tears, pulling away and wiping at her face. Ike said something, but she couldn't quite hear it through...well, her emotions. "W-what was that?"

"I asked, why are you crying?" Ike said, concern in his voice. "Did he get you?"

"Did he - no, he didn't get me!" Mia said in exasperation, punching Ike in his uninjured shoulder with a glare on her face. "How was he meant to get me! You jumped in front of me!"

"Oh, good. That worked, then." Ike said, sinking back into the bed and getting an open-mouthed stare from Mia. 

"I - you - oh, my gods. Why did I even bother." Mia stood up, clutching long purple hair in her hands and resisting the urge to tug. Gods, but she felt a mess - none of her usual drive here, just confusion and pain and longing. "Ike, do you even know how close you came to dying?"

"No." Ike said simply. Mia let out a sob, body shaking as she threatened to lose control of her emotions all over again. 

"Ike, they burned through two heal staves. Rhys passed out and had to be revived." She told him, wrapping her arms around herself and trying not to burst out into even more sobs. "You almost died - I almost - oh, Gods-"

"You almost what?" Ike asked, ignoring the fact that he'd almost died. Mia stared at him in disbelief, hands hanging limply by her sides now. 

"I almost lost you, you idiot."

"Yeah. Guess we can't have you going without your favorite sparring partner, huh?" Ike was trying to joke, but Mia's response was far from what he'd been expecting. 

"I don't care about that!" Mia almost shouted, sinking back to her knees next to him and staring into his eyes in desperation. "Ike, please! Can't you see that I - oh, gods, I don't know how to-"

"Um... Er... Aaaaah!" "Aaah! What!?" "Oooh! Times... Times like this... I never have any idea of what I'm supposed to say. None!

"-I don't know how to say this." She said, miserably. She hung her head, and Ike reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder, hesitantly. "Ike, when you were...I saw you knocked down, and I just...I couldn't..."

She hiccuped, one hand moving to wipe tears from her eyes. "I don't want to lose you, Ike. I want...I want...oh, screw talking."

Well aware that this could backfire, but having had enough of trying - and failing - to put everything she was feeling into words, Mia leaned forwards and her lips crashed against his. Aching longing, hidden away under jokes and bonding during literal hundreds of morning bouts, fighting to survive next to each other, desire and the fear of loss fueling it as she prayed that was enough. She pulled away as suddenly as she'd moved, eyes shut and wincing as she expected him to raise his voice, or say anything other than what he said next. 

"...huh."

"Huh?"

That was one way of defusing the tension, Mia supposed, as she nervously opened her eyes again. Ike had pressed two fingers to his lips, pulling them away and looking slightly bemused. Mia just watched, the two wincing as he struggled back up again, Mia moving forwards to help - and he didn't push her away. 

"I guess that explains some things." Ike said after almost a minute of uncomfortable silence, breaking it. "...for how long?"

"I don't know. A few years, maybe, but it’s not like I knew it." Mia said, not quite capable of making eye contact. So...this was rejection, then. "I'm just...Ike, I'm bad with...I don't know. People, I guess."

"Yeah. Sometimes, so am I." Ike said quietly, and his hand moved to squeeze hers. Mia let out a soft gasp, their eyes meeting again - and he moved forwards, their lips meeting for a second time. Unsaid and unknown feelings made themselves clear, the two clasping hands and never wanting to let go. Finally Mia parted first, eyes half-lidded as she smiled at him, softly. 

"Don't ever scare me like that again." She said, quietly. Ike nodded, taking it seriously as he kept a tight grip on her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "Okay? I mean it. Even if it was to save me."

"You were trying to save me. I was returning the favor." He smiled. The two moved in, pressing their foreheads together as Mia let a few more tears run down her cheeks. "So...what now? What changes?"

"I don't think anything does." Mia said after a moment of thought, squeezing his hand back. "I'm not going to stop calling you Boss, Ike. And I...you know, I still want to keep sparring. I don't want this to mean we settle down and stop fighting. That's just stupid."

"I don't think it'd suit us." Ike laughed in agreement, letting go. "So, just...like we were before?"

"Like we were before. Just...we know where we stand with each other now." Mia nodded, pressing her lips to his for a third time - gentler, less driven by a desperate need for understanding or a long-last release of tension. It was, however, interrupted by a cough. 

"If you two are quite done." Soren said, making the two split apart - Mia turning red, Ike just shifting his head to look at his oldest friend with a raised eyebrow. "Ike. I'm glad you have apparently made a full recovery...and that Mia has finally grown up enough to understand what 'feelings' are."

"Shut up, Soren." Mia said, almost automatically at this point. She stood up, brushing dirt off her skirt and looking at Ike almost longingly. "I'll...let you two catch up. I'll see you later...Ike."

"Later, Mia." Ike promised with a slight smile. "I'm not going anywhere."

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Stranger: ((Modern-Day Royalty Arranged Marriage AU)) Prince Gregory had never been so terrified in his life. His father had insisted that the worst was over; he had already signed the engagement document – his fate sealed. But the man that he would be marrying wasn’t even in the same room. All he had seen of his fiancé, besides what he had seen in the papers, was an indecipherable scrawl. Now that the agreement had been signed, it was time to prepare for a wedding. They had already decided, without him, that the wedding and Gregory's future home would be in the North with Prince Mycroft. He paced the tea room, not ready to face his future with this man. After the wedding they’d return to a country he had never seen before! Greg sat with a sigh, his heart beating wildly. He waited for his intended, a man he had never met but knew all too well about his chilling reputation. Isolation from the media, cool demeanor, and unfeeling nature. Gregory was going to marry an automaton. He wished that he had never agreed to this and that he would have refused such a suitor as Prince Mycroft.

You: [reading]

You: Mycroft shifted from foot to foot nervously, examining the man before him. "Are you sure about this your Royal Highness?" Michael asked as Mycroft adjusted the crown upon the other man's head. "Surely there are laws against it?"

You: ((oh wasn't done sorry))

You: "Calm yourself Michael." Mycroft instructed. "It is treason to refuse a direct order from your Prince and I, as your Prince am ordering you to impersonate me. So, Treason or risk /possibly/ breaking a lesser law?" He grinned, causing Michael's frown to deepen. "Of course, sire." Michael mumbled. "Surely this is pointless, though. You have already agreed to marry him." "Yes, well. I am curious about him and I'll not have him brown nosing. It's difficult to get a ready on people when they're bowing and scraping. Now, come along... Prince Mycroft." He winked before opening the doors for the not-Prince and following behind. He followed Michael's brisk pace before coming to the tea room and getting the door, stepping inside quickly. He scanned the room, gaze falling on Prince Gregory and taking him in in one quick glance. He was a handsome man by all means, if not a bit somber, though he supposed he expected that... still, he seemed to have kind features. "Announcing his Royal Highness Prince Mycroft Holmes." Mycroft stated, stepping to the side and bowing as Michael entered, giving his own small bow towards Prince Gregory.

Stranger: Okay, so he was nervous. Really nervous. These kinds of marriages were rare, especially for a man his age, a little over thirty and his other royal friends already had supermodels on their arms and plenty more eager to be their ex-wives. Here Greg was, getting married to help cement a peace treaty between their two countries. Not that he didn't want to help his country, but this was...wow, this was a lot. He was a simple man, Greg Lestrade, simple in that he didn't have any quarrel with the media, didn't have any hidden agenda, and certainly held no expectations when it came to his fiance. Greg had plenty of fears, but not so much in expectation. "This is crazy." He muttered to himself, the chill of reality settling on his shoulders, knowing that he was about to meet his future husband. "This is nuts..." He wiped his hands over his eyes, sighing until he heard the doors open. Dropping his hands, Greg stood straight and at attention. He bowed when the prince was announced, the future king of the North. The prince did not look how he expected him to be. The man didn't bare the aristocratic features of a noble, the attendant seemed to have the look down. But perhaps that was a good thing. Greg didn't exactly fit into the mold of royalty, either. Walking forward, Gregory outstretched his hand to the two men. "Good morning. It's nice to meet you, Prince Mycroft. I am Prince Gregory Lestrade..." His lips quirked up, "But you knew that." He held out his hand to the attendant, ready for him to shake it. "I've already called for some tea, so that should be on its way." Greg smiled, gesturing to the chairs. "We should get comfortable."

You: Michael took the offered hand, obviously nervous as they shook and he took a step back. Both he and Mycroft tensed, however, when the same gesture was offered to him. He glanced at Michael who looked just as panicked before Mycroft just fell into another low bow, not taking the offered handshake. They remained silent as Gregory spoke, though when the chairs were indicated Mycroft moved behind the one Michael would be taking and took up the stance he saw his right hand man take so many times before as Michael sank down slowly into his seat. "Thank you, Your Royal Highness." Michael offered graciously. There was a moment of hesitation, one Mycroft recognized as the manners still ingrained in the man to wait until he was spoken to. He was acting Prince now, this wouldn't do at all. Mycroft gave a small tap on the chair snapping him out of it and making Michael jump a bit. "I was actually hoping to speak to you about a... private matter, if I may?" He offered softly.

Stranger: Gregory was relieved to see that the prince was as nervous as he was, he let some of his pretense fall away. "Greg, please. I know that this situation isn't, you know, uh, every day but that doesn't mean that we can't be honest and sincere around each other. It's everyone else that seems to be watching and, well, uh, I'm rambling." He scratched behind his head nervously. "I seem to be making this an awful mess. Just nervous, I suppose." He admitted, "But I mean, who isn't?" He stood when the right hand man, whose name he never got, requested an audience with the prince. "I can step out of the room." He offered. "I can also go check on that tea." Greg had been without someone on his right side for about a year yet. His last attendant had been about his age, died unexpectedly of pancreatic cancer. He hadn't the heart yet to have someone else at his side besides Andrew. Greg made his way to the door, "I ordered quite a bit of tea, too, probably a heavy tray, probably hard to carry all on your own. I'll just, uh, be back in a few minutes." Great, already he was being deciphered and he'd barely said a few words to the prince. Maybe they would call it off? Maybe he was deemed not good enough? He probably shouldn't have tried to shake the other man's hand. Greg was a straight shooter, sometimes to a fault.

You: ((Oh no! I'm so sorry. My writing is such shit... This is what I get for introducing two characters right off the bat lol! I mean Michael had asked to speak with Greg. I can still go with your reply if you'd like. Without a problem! I'm so sorry for my mistake! Or backtrack... whatever you want to do. I'm so sorry again -is totally embarrassed-))

Stranger: ((It's okay! Give me a second and I'll rewrite a little bit! Not a problem!))

You: ((Take your time!))

Stranger: Gregory was relieved to see that the prince was as nervous as he was, he let some of his pretense fall away. "Greg, please. I know that this situation isn't, you know, uh, every day but that doesn't mean that we can't be honest and sincere around each other. It's everyone else that seems to be watching and, well, uh, I'm rambling." He scratched behind his head nervously. "I seem to be making this an awful mess. Just nervous, I suppose." He admitted, "But I mean, who isn't?" The prince wanted to speak with him in private, which was partly a relief, maybe in private they could get rid of all this "royal highness" stuff. Greg nodded, "Of course, I don't mind. Would you like to speak here or...?" He looked to the prince's attendant and smiled, personally not minding if they were in the presence of right hand men. Andrew, his own attendant had recently and unexpectedly passed away and it looked like Greg was flying solo. Maybe, just maybe he could establish some sort of connection with this man...

You: Mycroft was careful to keep his features cool and even, though he could feel the smile at the just how adorable the other man was, threating to break through, though his years of practice kept him locked tightly. "Here is perfectly acceptable, Your Roy- Greg." He managed, though it was obviously a bit difficult for him. There was a pause as if Michael were trying to build his courage to speak once more; calling a Prince by simply his first name, and a nickname at that, was horrifying for the man, and brought an immeasurable amount of amusement to Mycroft. "I..." He began before hesitating and starting over. "I have been recently informed that your caretaker had passed. My condolences." He offered with a small respectful nod, folding his hands in his lap as he allow another soft silence for respect before continuing. "I believe the opening in your staff could be beneficial for the two of us, however. You see, M-Michael here has been in my service for quite some years now and I trust him with my life. Seeing, as we know very little of each other I would like to extend his services to you until the wedding. It would give me the opportunity to learn a great deal about you and you me, while still continuing our duties to our countries. I fear that they keep me quite busy that I wouldn't have the chance otherwise." Micheal explained. It was impressive really, how well the man was doing. Mycroft was sure he was going to crash and burn within the first few sentences but he had managed and quite well. It might have even taken he or his brother to deduce that the man didn't have an ounce of royalty in his blood, if anyone would find out. If he wasn't his right hand he would have made quite the living as an actor.

Stranger: This was...kind. Gregory hadn't anticipated this amount of kindness from the prince/future king. "That's very kind of you, Your Highness. Well, uh /Mycroft/." He smiled, "I would like that. Andrew was a great friend of mine, one that I know I will never replace. His wife and daughter will attend the wedding, as well, as honored guests partially in memorium to him." Gregory turned to the right hand man of the prince he would be marrying in one short week. He held out his hand, the same way that he did before. "I'm happy to know you, Michael." He smiled easily. This advisor would surely give the prince a run for his money in terms of attractiveness, that seemed certain. Freckles always did in Greg, always. "Since we will be in one another's company for a while, I would like to start off on the right foot."

You: Mycroft peered down at the offered hand once more as if it would bite. Out of all his training as Prince he was not certain the proper reaction of a servant. Michael had stood when Greg did, and gave a small huff of amusement at the look on Mycroft's face. "Now Michael, it would be very rude to refuse the Prince's kind gesture." Michael teased, earning a frown from the real Prince. "Of course, Prince Mycroft." Mycroft answered before accepting the hand and giving another bow. "Well then, I shall leave you to it." Michael stated. "I had hoped to stay for tea, but alas, mother is a tyrant when it comes to wedding preparations." He excused. "Perhaps, I can make it up to you at a later date?"

Stranger: Ah, so handshakes. Not a good thing, then. Gregory stood when Mycroft announced his departure. "Of course. Thank you for taking the time to meet me, I look forward to seeing you again." He smiled, bowing. "Good luck and if you need a second opinion on the cake flavor, I'm happy to give it." He smiled, holding the door open for the prince to exit through. The man he would be marrying in a matter of days, still blew his mind. The thirty two year old breathed a sigh of relief when the prince left, that hadn't gone too bad. The faux paus with the servant handshake had gone south, but he knew that was his own fault for putting Michael on the spot. Speaking of Michael, the man had stayed behind, it looked like, to keep him company, as had been promised. "Where are my manners?" He smiled, moving back to sit and wait for the tea. "Prince Mycroft is a very kind gentleman. It's a pleasure to be in his company, and yours. Are you comfortable enough? I believe the tea will be here at any moment."

You: Michael gave a chuckle at Gregory's offer, bowing in return before departing. Mycroft found the subject amusing as well but kept the opinion to himself. It wasn't until the Prince addressed him once more that he blinked in surprise. "If I may, Your Highness?" He asked but didn't wait for an answer. "You needn't worry about a simple servant." He pointed out as if shocked. "I certain don't wish you to shame yourself by having tea with a commoner." He was being a bit stiff necked and didn't believe a word but... This was about testing the other man and nothing more.

You: ((brb gotta take the dogs out wont be long))

Stranger: "You're not a commoner." Greg blinked, shocked. "I don't like that word to begin with. No one is common, no one is a plebeian, no one is a serf." He shuddered. "I don't like that kind of entitled language, you know? Take away a duke's title or holding and all you have is a man, like everyone else. It's not the title that makes the man but the man that makes the title." He shook his head, "My father has taught me that, as did Andrew. I would certainly not look at him and call him "common", no, he was my best mate, a great husband, good father... Just as I would never presume to call you "common", Michael." Greg smiled, "Besides, I need someone on the inside who can tell me which digestives are the best to have with tea."

You: Mycroft's tension only increased with every word, though his heart began to swell. "Of course, my Lord. I meant no offense, I apologize." He offered with an even lower bow. "I can have a variety of biscuits brought up for you sir, the best would depend on your taste, though His Majesty takes gingersnap with his Earl Grey." He offered, still bent at the waist as any servant would be if they had shamed themselves.

Stranger: "Thank you, that's very kind of you, Michael but I'm sure they're bringing up plenty. If you'd like, please make yourself comfortable. I didn't mean to lecture you. It's not your fault, it's just...Andrew thought the same thing when we first met when we were in our twenties and it kept a barrier between us for a long time and," Greg sighed, rubbing his temples. "Now that he's gone, I look at that time where we were both unnecessarily distant and can't help but wonder what we could have done with that lost time." Greg looked up at Michael. "I really am rambling, this isn't about me, this is about you. If you'd like, I'd love to share some tea with you." There was a knock on the door and Greg went to open it, a maid pushing in a cart of tea. "Hullo, nice to meet you." He bowed politely, "Your name is?" "Georgie." The woman smiled, nervous. "It's nice to meet you, Georgie. I hope you already had a cookie, because these look delicious and I don't think we'll have any left over." Greg smiled and the maid blushed, giggling only before she was allowed to pick out her own cookie and left. Greg smiled as he began to set up the tea. "She seemed nice. Everyone seems very nice here."

You: "I am certain they do, my Lord." Mycroft offered, moving over to him. "Please, allow me, sire." He urged, offering to take over. "It's not proper for a Prince to serve his own tea." He added as if scandalized. He politely forced his way in and took over pouring as he fell silent for a moment. "Forgive me, My Lord." He mumbled once more, having had to take a moment to figure a way to ask his next question in a polite yet scandalous way. "But, you seem to except the opinion of the help quite easily and I must say I have been quite curious..." He admitted softly. "Your late husband... God rest his soul.... Well, there were rumors... about you... and about a number of staff.... Was... Was he the only one you had relations with? I truly beg your pardon sir, but the Prince had bid be to ask at some point and I have been awfully dreading it." He lied.

Stranger: Greg shook his hand as he was poured his tea. "Please, please, it's not a great scandal to ask me a question. I have had my share of poor luck when it comes to those that are close to me. Andrew, my friend, died of pancreatic cancer and left his wife and daughter Emma devastated. My husband's accident also was very tragic and it's a shame that medical personal couldn't get to him fast enough after the crash." He cleared his throat. "Ah..." He sipped his tea and took his time. "My royal household was very close. We lived separately from the rest of my family and elder brother, Rowan and I, as royals do when they get married and start a life of their own. I have always been grateful for the support I've had from staff and advisors, even when Rowan was alive. We've always been very causal with our acquaintance of staff and I haven't stopped. Rowan, as you know, wasn't of noble birth and it's no secret that he was a bodyguard for my elder brother." He chuckled before sipping his tea and sobering. "But no, no, since his death six years ago, I've not seen anyone else. He was the first and last man I've ever loved, staff member or not." Greg reached forward and smiled, taking a ginger snap. "Let's try these out, upon the prince's recommendation.." He bit into it and smiled, "It's delicious."

You: "Thank you, sir." Mycroft offered, giving another bow. He had taken in every word, making mental notes of them all as his calculating gaze remained on the Prince. 'The first and last man I've ever loved'; Mycroft felt for the poor man, the departure must have been difficult on him which was probably why he had agreed to an arranged marriage, he probably didn't think love would ever be possible after his late husband. Sentiment... it always caused so much trouble. "May I, My Lord?" He asked, motion to a chair, requesting permission to sit. He suspected Greg had questions of his own and awaited them patiently as he sipped his tea.

Stranger: Lost in his thoughts, Greg nodded, "Of course." He cleared his throat, still not used to being without Rowan or Andrew. Just when the death of his husband seemed far away and he had leaned on his best friend, his own friend died suddenly and unexpectedly, as his husband had. "So," He smiled, breaking out of his quiet reverie. "Tell me about yourself." He smiled. He never believed in asking about other people in polite company. "Tell me about, well, anything." He had many questions about the prince that he would soon marry but left them on the wayside. "I'm quite the captive audience, especially since you brought in the desserts and tea."

You: Mycroft tensed once more, genuinely surprised by the Prince and not for the first time. "Me, My Lord?" He clarified obviously confused as his heart began to race. "Surely, you are more interested in the Prince. I am nothing interesting." He offered in a counter argument. He was unsure how to respond. He hadn't expected such a question. Should he answer as Michael or as the Prince? What /was/ Michael interested in? He paused, realizing that he had never bothered to find out. Perhaps... Well, perhaps it wasn't Greg he should be so worried about...

Stranger: "Anything you'd like to talk about." Greg reassured, "I'm sure that I'll figure a lot of this out as I go along. If you ever want to confide in me or just talk, I'm always all ears." He smiled at the man. Damn, those freckles and those eyes were a deadly combination. He had always been faithful, Greg, had always stuck to who he was meant to be, but he had a bad habit of letting his eyes stray when it came to handsome younger men nowadays since Rowan and Andrew were gone. Perhaps he was trying to find someone else to be friends with, to have another companion. "I'm a one man lecture hall." He reassured Michael. "Anything you want to talk about, I'm here to listen to."

You: Mycroft gave a soft chuckle, startling himself and making himself blush. "Well, sire, to be honest... No one has ever asked me before." He admitted softly. "I wouldn't know what to say." He could feel his heart pounding against his chest as he tried to think of something he was interested in, things he did for fun. "I suppose, I enjoy... reading. When the Prince allows it, of course. It's usually during his studies or when he is quite busy with paperwork." He lied. "What about you, My Lord? Do you have any interests outside your duties?" He asked curiously.

Stranger: Nodding, Greg poured Michael some more tea. "Oh yeah, loads. I love being outside, I love riding and sports and reading, I'm a sucker for mystery novels." He assured him. "Agatha Christie and I are mates." He chuckled. "Um, I love charity work, working with those that don't have as much as I. I've been working very closely organizing some events with the cancer centers in the North since, well, this is where I'll be living." He shrugged, "I like to hike, being out in nature, and I'm looking forward to exploring the North and seeing what it's like nature-wise, maybe do some trail riding." Greg sipped his tea, noticing the blush that came to Michael's face. He was handsome, damn it. "Any good book recommendations?"

You: Mycroft hadn't realized he was smiling as Greg continued to speak, another first for him but he tried to ignore it. "Well, I certainly can't recommend Ms. Christie, now, obviously." He found himself teasing. "I'm a bit partial to Hemmingway, if I'm honest. His Royal Highness has met him quite a few times, though he wouldn't allow me to be present despite his knowledge of my adoration of the man." He added, trying to paint himself in a poor light. Was it possible to be jealous of yourself? It was a conundrum he'd have to ponder more deeply later. "Regardless, the man is brilliant. Mr. Hemmingway, I mean." He clarified enthusiastically. He truly did love literature and the fact that the other man shared the passion was a relief.

Stranger: "I adore Hemmingway." Greg smiled. "I wish I would have had the opportunity to meet him, well, we can't all be so lucky." Greg sighed, relaxing. "We'll get along just fine, Michael." /You have a beautiful smile/ he wanted to add but stopped himself, trying to school himself away from the intrigue of this man. "Thank you for having tea with me. I hadn't done something like this in a while." He admitted. "But I'm optimistic, or at least I try to be that Prince Mycroft and I can get along as famously as you and I." He smiled. He held up his hand, "I don't want secrets or sordid details about him, mind. Talking behind someone's back is rude and in poor taste. But," Greg paused, "What is the prince like? My...second husband?"

You: Mycroft's smile continued to brighten until the question came and it began to fade once more. It was time to go back to the plan to set things on the path he had planned for. Why, then, did he suddenly feel so guilty about tricking the man? "Well... My Lord...." He began after a long hesitation. "The Prince, wished me to express himself as kind and generous and... well... I fear, that, after such a lovely tea... I am not inclined to lie, and for that I am eternally sorry." He mumbled, forcing himself to look a bit saddened or worried. "His Royal Highness is... Well, to be honest he is quite pompous and forward thinking... cruel at times, though I don't believe he means to be. He is intelligent but views every person he comes in contact with, royalty or otherwise, as lesser and ignorant. Forgive me for being so brash, My Leige but I feel as if you have the right to know." He toyed with the cup in his lap almost absently. "Despite his downfalls, I care for him but reality is reality, My Lord."

Stranger: Listening, Greg nodded along, not wanting to let the man lie. "If this is your assessment of him, then I cannot fault you for being honest with your feelings and know that that will never be discussed with Prince Mycroft. And please, call me Greg or Gregory." He cleared his throat. "Well, this is my first marriage that is not done out of love, something I had hoped to avoid when Rowan and I... Well, this is what it is, I'm afraid." He smiled, "Perhaps I will know him as you do and see this as well, but I would like to get to know him of my own accord. Perhaps he will find faults in me that he does not approve of and I may better myself as a prince and man." He smiled. "But, until then..." He reached forward for another cookie. "I am happy to know you, Michael and look forward to your counsel and friendship."

You: Mycroft gave a small bow from where he sat. "Of course, My L- Gregory." He corrected, more pleased by this outcome than he could have possibly hoped. It was a diplomatic answer if there ever was one and completely suitable for the next King. "And I you." He offered with another smile as he straightened. "Perhaps, when you've finished your tea, Your Majesty, you would like a tour of your new estate?" He offered, changing the subject as he set his own cup back on the table politely.

Stranger: Greg sat down his own tea cup, "That sounds fantastic. I'd love to see the place, does Prince Mycroft have his own estate or is this his home, as well?" He was eager to go. "I've seldom been to the North, not since the peace treaty was up in the air." Border skirmishes had settled around where the two countries met and small militia groups were running rampant on either side. With this marriage and a thorough investigation of the fights, Greg hoped that this would calm his country and Mycroft's. He had always been beloved by his people, especially for his honest and sometimes tearful interviews, or his funny appearances on television shows arm in arm with his husband. He'd never forget the Valentine's talk show he went on with his husband. It was hilarious but incredibly heartwarming. He wondered if he would ever be as close to happiness with Mycroft as his husband.

You: "Both and neither, My Lord." Mycroft offered as he stood and began cleaning up. "Each of the royal family has their own estates. This was the Prince's but he has now left it to you and owns another a few miles to the east, that is still being constructed. It is to ensure that should either of you need time to yourselves you will have the options. Once the Prince is crowned High King he will take his place in the palace but the estates will remain in his name." Mycroft explained. "For now, at least until his new estate is finished, the Prince resides here. Though, he will be returning to the palace for the wedding preparations this evening. He has given permission and funding to change things as you see fit, however... Within reason of course."

Stranger: Greg froze, "Wait...what?" He looked around the tea room with newfound sincerity and quiet. "He's given me a home? Of my own?" He couldn't get past that fact. If things truly didn't work out with the prince, then he could always escape to one of these manors and enjoy solitude, something that he was becoming more and more used to. "That is such a kind gift. I should hope that in our union we would not require separate housing but this? This is beautiful. This is too much, no I can't accept it. No, no I won't accept it. It's very kind of him to offer this, but I assure you I'll do just fine without an entire estate to myself."

You: Mycroft glanced up at the surprise in Greg's voice, forcing a similar expression on his own features. "To refuse would cause great insult, My Lord." He explained. "It is a custom here. It is who even the most hated marriages in our history have survived their eras. I do not believe that the Prince would accept any denial you may have, I fear. Surely, you wouldn't want to offend him, or the entirety of the royal family?"

Stranger: Greg had to protest, "I understand, but isn't it morbid?" He frowned, "Already people are fearing the worst when it comes to our marriage? So much so that they know we are going to need separate houses?" He shook his head, "No thank you. It would be a beautiful home for the pair of us, an additional home perhaps but I don't believe that it should be called 'mine'...does this make since?" He asked Michael. "I'm not upset at the gift, it's a beautiful and grand gesture and I'm very honored to have been given such a present but it shouldn't be mine and mine alone."

You: Mycroft studied him flatly, obviously not liking the man's point of view but he eventually gave a small bow. "Of course, sire. I shall bring your concerns up to the prince. Perhaps, he will keep the estate in his name." He offered. It'd be a diplomatic solution. Gregory would still have his getaway and it wouldn't be solely his. "He had mentioned it wasn't a custom where you came from, and had warned me that you might not be too keen. Regardless, he would like your opinion on it's condition and allow you the opportunity to redecorate no matter the owner. If it pleases you of course." He added. The man was folly and a bit of an optimist... Which had Mycroft a bit worried, to be honest.

Stranger: Back-peddling, Greg spoke up, "I'm sorry, it's just I'm not used to all of this, the pomp and circumstance. It's a kind gift and I hope it will be better enjoyed not as a place where we separate and enjoy time away from one another but instead as a place we can enjoy and share together." The young man frowned. "I apologize if it made me seem ungrateful. It's a beautiful place and I'd loathe to change it. But, perhaps changing it would include making it not only mine but also Mycroft's..." He shrugged. "I'm sorry, I think I was overwhelmed at the size and intent of the gift."

Stranger: Greg smiled and gestured to the door and down the corridor, "Please, I'd love to see more of it."

You: Mycroft offered another bow. "Not at all, My Lord. I take no offense. I am merely here to assist in whatever you need and provide what information I may." He explained before nodding at the gesture and moving to get the door. "Would you like to start in the library, My Leige?" He offered as he waited for the man to step into the hall. He was so worried about offending the help... It was endearing in a way, but worrisome as well. It seemed that with every question answered two more took it's place. ((I'm sorry dear, I'm going to have to go. Would you like to continue this else where? Email is best for me, if you're interested: ))

Stranger: ((Sure, I'd love to. Email works best for me, as well. I can send my reply there, if you'd like?))

You: ((If you don't mind?))

Stranger: ((Don't mind at all!))

Stranger: ((Sent!))

Stranger: ((This was fun, thank you for replying to my prompt!))

You: ((Got it! Perfect! It was, thank you for sending it! I'll ttyl!))

You have disconnected.

Things on Earth

"But I know the rage that drives you. That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved one is just poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed so you'd be spared your pain.."

-Ra's Al Ghul (Batman Begins)

Alya scrolled through her blog at the list of questions that had been piling up for a while now. Ever since story broke about how Ladybug stopped a bus jacking and then dropped the criminal responsible off a roof, her blog had been overwhelmed with people asking the same thing: why? And she wished she could answer their questions. She was the girl who'd gotten to personally interview Ladybug more than once, including taking photos of her activities around Paris.

But she couldn't get Ladybug on demand. And Ladybug had practically disappeared afterwards. No one had seen her since. People had sighted Chat Noir, but always without Ladybug. And if he was asked, he could only say that she wasn't answering his calls. All of her journalistic instincts told her to look into it more. But how could she focus on this when her best friend was in need? Especially today? After all, today was her mother's funeral.

...

"Marinette? It's almost time to go. Please...get ready," her father called from beneath the hatch into her room. She reached for her phone from under the covers to find messages from her friends saying they'd be there soon. She'd been dreading this moment. Today was the day of the funeral. Time seemed to just be passing her by and she hardly noticed. Her father added, "I'll be waiting in the living room. I'll check back on you in a few minutes."

"You really should go Marinette!" Tikki said.

She didn't want to go. She had to. This would be the last time she'd see her mom. Ever. She had to be there. It took a moment for her to find the energy to get out of bed. It took a moment longer to find the will to get some clothes together and head for the shower. All through her shower and getting dressed, she felt nothing but drained. It was only with help from Tikki that she was able to make herself look presentable. Once she joined her father in the living room, she found her friends there waiting: Nino, Alya, Alix, Rose, Juleka, Myléne, and...Adrien?

She was surprised by his presence, but was barely able to get a smile out for them. There was an awkward silence between them as they helped her outside.

The funeral was quiet - only a few family members and close friends. Even though it was supposed to be a sad day, the sky was bright and clear. In movies and TV shows, they usually set funerals as somber against the rain or cloudy skies. But this was a day like any other. Bright, sunny, birds singing in the air playfully. It was like the world was mocking her by being happy on this day of all days. If it weren't for Alya there beside her, she wasn't sure she'd be able to handle it.

Then came the time to see her mom's body one last time before they closed the casket. She seemed so peaceful, so calm. But seeing her brought back memories of her mom's horrible, painful death. Then the gunshot, the loud bang, echoed in her mind. Again and again, followed by memories of her mom laying at the bottom of the stairs. Her heart raced and tears swelled. She couldn't do this. She couldn't be here.

She had to be here. For her dad. To say goodbye to her mom.

It took all she had to keep from running away. If Alya didn't take her hand and squeeze it, she was sure she would've. When the time came to finally bury her mom, she buried herself into Alya's shoulder. It was becoming too much. Her mom was gone now.

...

After the funeral, all of Marinette's friends accompanied her and her dad back to the bakery. She still couldn't bring herself to talk to them or to say anything to them. Remembering her mom died reminded her that she'd thrown a man off a roof. And she still had his phone in her room. What was she going to do with a phone number?

Her friends spent the afternoon to make sure she was okay, and she could hear them quietly wondering if either of them would be the next Akuma. That thought drowned out anything else they said. Part of her wondered if being Akumatized would make this hurt stop. She still couldn't bring herself to talk to them. In fact, by the time she heard what they were saying, it was because she realized Alya had been hugging her from behind, "Marinette, you know you can talk to us. We're your friends. We're here for you."

It was only now that she realized her Adrien was kneeling in front of her with a hand on her knee. The look he was giving her was pitying. It was ironic. She'd always wanted Adrien's attention and now that she had it, it seemed like it was only because he felt sorry for her. And meeting his gaze hurt. What would he think if he knew what she did?

Her eyes went down again to avoid their gaze. Then she heard music - a happy beat. It was her favorite song. Nino had brought over some speakers and was playing her favorite song on them. He pumped his arm in the air, "Aw yeah. Here we go. You've been so down lately, Mari. Thought you'd need something to cheer you up!"

"What, like a dance party? Hardly the time," Alix answered.

"That's not a bad idea, though," Alya said, approaching the console and starting it up, "How about a round of Ultimate Mecha Strike III?"

She nodded. Alya passed a controller her way and they started playing. At first, she felt nothing - mindlessly pressing the buttons as her character fought on screen. Normally, winning would've come naturally but this time she was out in the first thirty seconds. Alya cheered, "Alright! My win!"

Marinette looked from her cheering friend to the tv and smiled, "Rematch."

"Oh, it's on girl!" Alya said. They played a few more rounds while the boys cheered them on. With each round, Marinette got a little bit more of her confidence back until she was playing on at least even ground with Alya. Alya still beat her but Marinette was at least lasting longer than she normally would. And, for the first time since in a while, she found herself laughing and giggling with her friends. She felt happy, in a way she hadn't felt in a while.

...

That night, Marinette lay in bed - thinking of the day her friends gave her and quietly wishing it didn't have to end. Even Tikki noticed, "You're smiling again, Marinette."

Was she? She looked at the mirror and hardly noticed a difference. Then again, she was feeling more motivated after the day she had with her friends. Despite the sad beginning. Then her attention turned to the mountain of school work piling up because she couldn't bring herself to do it. The longer she ignored it, the bigger it would get. It wasn't due to laziness but a lack of any motivation to actually do it. Or anything.

But how long could she just sit around feeling sorry? She couldn't do it forever, could she? What would her mom say if she were here? She'd encourage to get up and do it. Maybe now was the time to do just that. She sat at her desk and began her work while Tikki asked, "Marinette? Are you thinking of going back to school?"

"Tomorrow…or maybe the next day," she said quietly, beginning to go through the papers. She noticed Tikki smiling at her fondly, "What?"

"I'm just happy you're not moping in bed any more," Tikki said cheerily, "I'll help! Here! Let's start with this one. I think it says history?"

History…is that all that happened was? History? Something so long ago that she could just forget? Then the fire returned. The bitter resentment.

"Or maybe not."

She noticed Tikki hanging sadly and took a deep breath to calm herself down, putting on her biggest smile, "No, I'm sorry Tikki. Let's get started."

...

Marinette left early to finally go to school and be on time for once. She felt nervous going back, and the school never seemed so far and so big before now. When she finally arrived at the steps, the sight of it daunted her out of walking through. She'd been coming to school here for years but she felt like a stranger standing outside the school.

"It'll be okay," Tikki said from her purse, "Don't run. I'm right here."

Marinette nodded. She could do this. She was Ladybug, after all. So why couldn't she take that first step. And why were the steps so high? Just as she was about to break out into panicked sweats, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder and a soft voice, "Marinette?"

She jumped, not expecting to encounter Adrien first thing in the morning, "Welcome back."

"Hi," she smiled nervously, now feeling more anxious than she had been before. But the fear that would normally have compelled her to stammer her words and run in a panic instead froze her where she stood. Adrien offered her a calm smile, "Here, let me walk you inside. Everyone's going to be so happy to see you back."

Before she could say anything, Adrien took her hand and pulled her up the stairs and through the school entry way. Her heart started to race as all of her senses focused on the warmth of Adrien's hand, the smoothness of skin, the gentle way he held her hand.

"MARINETTE!"

She broke away from warm thoughts of Adrien's touch to see Alya throwing her arms around her in a big hug, "Welcome back!"

She hugged Alya back, relieved to see her and feeling calm now that she had her there. It only lasted a moment when she saw the rest of her class coming to see her: Nino, Rose, Juleka, Mylène, Max, Ivan, Nathaniel, Kim, and Alix. Even Sabrina and Chloé approached although they kept their distance. Then there was Lila - she was saying something about being sorry and how she could talk to her if she needed to. She wasn't sure exactly what but she could tell it was a front for the others. And whatever it was suddenly got lost in a sea of noise.

They all started talking to her and it made her heart race. Her head spun. There were too many people talking at once. Too much noise. There was too much going on. Breathing started to hurt. She was suffocating. There were too many people. She wanted to go away. She would make them go away. She only snapped out of it when Adrien and Nino pulled her back, "Whoa dudes! Give her space!"

"Come on. I'll walk you to your locker," Alya offered, helping to push her out of the crowd. She was glad she had them. She would've had no idea what she would've done if she stayed there.

...

Adrien watched Marinette ascend the stairs with Alya to the lockers, wondering aloud, "Do you think she came back too soon?"

"Yeah, bro," Nino adjusted his hat to better glimpse them as they disappeared. She hardly stumbled or tripped as she made her way to her classroom. She was not okay. Marinette had always been…awkward around him. But the way she'd been the last few days…especially now, freezing up in front of the school and now having a panic attack around her own friends. That cemented it in his mind. She was not okay, "Maybe someone should talk to her?"

"I can do it," Lila offered. Adrien wasn't sure she was the best choice - she and Marinette didn't really get along. Having Lila of all people talk to her, especially now, might make it worse. He pocketed his hands, "I was thinking I should."

"Don't waste your time Adrikins," Chloé said, tapping her foot impatiently. That remark took them all of guard and even Sabrina had to call her on it, "Chloé, that was mean."

"It wasn't mean. It's the truth," she stated matter of factly, becoming annoyed at the dirty looks she was getting. She rolled her eyes, "Look. Her mom was killed in front of her. She's not okay. What she should do is get her stuff and head back home. It's for her own good. And before any of you get mad at me, Sabrina and I weren't the ones who smothered her. Maybe you should all think about how you're acting before you get mad at me. Maybe you all should be more considerate! Hmph!"

She crossed her arms and turned to walk away, stopping only to wait for Sabrina to catch up. It was a rare thing for Chloe's snobbish and rude remarks to be so on the nose. There was a still calm among them until Alix grunted, "She's such a brat."

Max adjusted and added, "She's correct, though. Marinette has experienced a traumatic and life changing event. And she's still recovering mentally. We may want to shower her with affection to placate her distress but recovery comes at its own pace. It would be best to give her space until she's ready to be approached by us."

Adrien glanced towards the lockers one last time before sighing and making his way up there. There he found Alya helping Marinette sort out the things she would need for class that day. He did the same, trying to avoid bothering her as he sorted through his own stuff when there was a loud slam behind them. Marinette gasped and jumped, locking up in place as her breathing got heavy. Alya tried talking to her to calm her down while Adrien looked towards the offending noise to see Kim shrugging apologetically, "Sorry."

He'd closed his locker too hard. Adrien could only imagine what must've been racing through her mind. Max was already trying to drag him out of there despite his protests so that he could apologize but it wasn't helping. Adrien finished grabbing his things and gently closed his locker, making sure not to startle her before helping to push Kim out, "Let's go."

"Come on! I said I was sorry!"

...

The noise echoed inside her head over and over, bringing back the memory of that night. It just seemed to get louder with each shot, the image of her mother lying in a pool of her own blood coming back to her. It only stopped when she felt someone's arms around her and she heard Alya's voice saying, "Marinette! It's okay. It's okay! Everything's okay!"

It took her a moment longer to become aware of her surroundings and she realized she squeezing her locker door so hard that her knuckles were white. As white as the phone she squeezed in anger. She let the locker go and Alya said calmly, "I'm right here. Everyone's safe."

She nodded her understanding, closing her eyes and taking another moment to calm her thoughts, "I'm okay."

"Girl, you're not okay," Alya said, "School hasn't even started yet and you've locked up twice! You should head home!"

"I'm fine!" she insisted, closing her locker slowly, "Let's just get to class."

She was fine. She would be fine.

They made it to class before the bell rang and she noticed right away that everyone seemed to be trying their hardest to pretend she didn't just freak out in the main area. Trying because everyone kept glancing at her, if only briefly. Whether it was out of concern or morbid fascination, she wasn't sure. She wanted to ignore it, but the staring just made her more uncomfortable. It was like trying to ignore a blinding light staring her straight in the face. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she shouldn't have come. It was obviously too soon and she wasn't well enough to come back.

"It can trace a phone number backwards and find the point of origin of the call!" Max said ecstatically, "It's still in early beta but Markov and I think it's very promising. Of course, the only reason we're researching this is for phone number masking. You know, stop those annoying robocalls that come from one person. After all, you can only do it so much if they can all get traced."

Marinette looked over her shoulder at Max. He could trace phone numbers? She could feel the wheels turning in her head as she gave it a lot of thought. She knew what she wanted to do…but should she? Would she? No, she needed to let it go. And she needed to get after them. Was this right? No, of course not. But what if she did nothing and someone else died? Could she live with that? No! Of course not. She assured herself that this wasn't revenge. This wasn't payback. It was taking action to prevent more death. She was Ladybug. That was what a hero would do.

THE PUPPETMASTER’S REGIME: ACT I

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things could go exactly how you want it. and i could be exactly how you want me to be.

[source] [triggers]

Have you ever heard of the musical "The Puppetmaster's Regime"? Most likely, you haven't. In fact, most die-hard theatre lovers are often unfamiliar with this little production. It was a 1934 stage musical written by anonymous authors of the music, lyrics, and book. It starred upcoming performers such as Timmy "cutie-pie" Wright, Sally Wilkes, Henry Gregory, as well as many others. At the time, it was the most expensive show to date. It was said to be the biggest, most spectacular stage show to San Francisco and back.

From the testament of Tyler Warwick (1901-1983) "I went to see the show about a week after I turned thirty-three. The ticket was a gift from my sister, who knew how much I loved the theatre. I remember the signs, they were huge and rather gaudy. Oh, and the playbill--it was just a single red dot with a doll-like face on it. It seemed a bit melancholy for what I assumed was to be a musical-comedy, but I didn’t pay much attention. I was going to see a Broadway show."

From the testament of Georgina Long (1911-1984) "The cast was made completely of 'new' people. Young children and adults alike who were longing to get back on stage after Vaudeville became old news--it was quite charming really. But I did take a bit of notice to that odd little playbill...all the playwrights and lyricists and everyone were all unnamed, and that design...it was a little red drop with a peculiar little face in it. Not even a title, just that little red dot. I had come to New York with my parents on an impromptu vacation after my grandmother had died...a Broadway musical seemed just like what we needed. (…)"

From the testament of Carl Hannigan (1920-1993) "I do recall most of the first act. Then again, who could forget? The story was a little hard to follow at first. There was a little boy who lived in a puppet shop, or maybe he lived down the street--no, no, he worked in the puppet shop, but he was homeless, so they provided him with a home there. The kid's name was Mori..Mortim...something weird...oh yes, it was Morietum...no, Morietur. Morietur, yes.

Anyways, Morietur's employer was this old man named Mr. Obcisor. I remember his name because his character was unimaginably unsettling--bouncing all around and getting angry and the little boy, all while keeping this nasal, gigglish voice. Anyhow, the production opened to Morietur and the odd fellow getting into an argument over the boy not doing his work, then two of them sang this peculiar number about puppets...it wasn't a normal song...or at least, the musicality wasn't normal. The lyrics were very enchanting, and the music did this odd flowing thing about the room…instruments would get very quiet without losing any power to it; maybe it was just the acoustics--I'm most likely explaining it all wrong. Oh well. But...in time, we got used to it, and the show progressed..."

From the testament of Gabriel Johnston (1919-1976) "This youngster, Mori- Morietur, something like that, was quite insecure about his stay in the puppet shop--very paranoid that his boss would throw him out. I was an aspiring lyricist at the time, and I'd done the lyrics to a few original community theater projects, so I was fascinated with the wording in these songs. I scribbled down a few lyrics after I’d went home. Unless I'm remembering wrong, the little puppet-shop-boy and Mr. Obi-something had a introductory duet, and then Morietur went off and had a short lament in a different, much more somber tune:

If I stay, and do everything right I can live in the day, and steer (stay?) clear of the night Out there in the night, in the dark, there’s a world of why’s (lies?)… I can hear them whisper… And sometimes I can see their eyes…

The ‘eyes’ comment confused me for a moment, but then I assumed that he was meaning the stars. It seemed as though the number was unnecessarily tragic and poorly situated within the show, but it was a minor quibble.

Now, Morietur had a girl friend named Trahunt and a boy friend named Adolebit. After interrupting the final note in his lament, they all gushed about how much they loved puppets...but they couldn’t afford one from Morietur’s guardian’s shop. and so they transitioned into this vibrant little song about joining forced to raise money so they could afford to build their own puppet. After this, the three all headed for school, and the story took a sharp turn in a different direction.

(After several attempts to begin again) Now...they had this really nasty teacher or headmistress named Madame Reperio, or something like that. They had a reprise of the song from before and she overheard them, and at first her remarks about the children's fantasies were somewhat comical...but then the light fixed on her and she sang this heartbreaking little song. What the song was about was up for interpretation. It was somewhat about love, but it had all these strange puppet metaphors. The only lyric that’s stayed with me is ‘Stroll through the wood-cracks, show them your pains/The hole in your throat and the strings in your veins’

Then, she just went on this little breakdown--I assumed it was a poorly-conceived character trait. She started singing off key and went to beat one of the kids. The curtain fell, and there was a scuffle heard onstage. People whispered to each other, but a rising new orchestra piece silenced us. The curtain rose again, and we were right outside the puppet shop."

From the testament of Louis Roberts (1905-1967)

"Morietur and his friends went into the town and sang a song about selling...dolls, I think it was. Because the little girl made dolls in her spare time, and she had to sell them. I remember those strange background characters. The company was so absolutely monotonous...they all wore some form of dark clothing, and each of them were very, very tall. I can remember how they all had their faces covered up by hair or hats or veils...none of them spoke. None of them even sang during the course of the show. They just walked in perfectly straight lines, as if they weren't even part of the production. Anyways, this strange song about buying dolls...it had absolutely no life. But for some reason, these children were putting their all into it. I could see the pain in their faces as they hit those high notes. And something else...as the lyrics went on...they seemed to...get...a little...it is so hard to explain. They all looked like they were...hurting a little. They looked so pale and nervous all of a sudden. Coming from a stage family, I convinced myself it was only stage-fright, but it still made me just a tiny bit anxious."

From the testament of Carrie Laurie (1921-1995)

"The kids all got their money from this strange man in cloak who sang a simple little tune...I still remember the lyrics:

Despite the fall of rain, little kiddies, Everyone needs a little song- Wooden dolls give you pain, little kiddies, Go on, little kiddies, run along...

His character was never really explained. But I remember how truly gripping the melody was...so haunting, it got you right there in the gut. Even the little kid actors seemed a bit unsettled by the new turn of the show. They all kept stuttering over their lines as they spoke and sang, and then a light bulb over the stage went out. Everyone kind of gasped and one man I think even laughed. The noise it made really spooked the little girl, little miss whatshername. All the names were so very strange. All I know is that light bulb had gone out, and the actors were stumbling across the stage...and the whole thing looked like a terrible flop.

When the children reentered the puppet shop, they presented Mr. Obcisor with the puppet pieces they’d acquired when the audience wasn’t looking, singing a braggedy sort of chant, ‘we done/we done/diddy-diddy done-done did it!'. It was obnoxious, but thankfully brief. After that, the light fixed on Morietur, and he began another tune. The song was a dud, and all I remember was that he flubbed the last line. The lyric had something to do with 'the final stroke of light', or some sort of long-winded moon-based metaphor. All I know is that he forgot the words, and all that could be heard in that theater was the sounds of car horns outside the building. The boy...he didn't seemed shocked or embarrassed or nothing, but his posture improved out of the blue, and the orchestra stopped. He projected half of the word ‘sorry”, then suddenly he burst forth in wordless vocalization. The music resumed, and the other characters began to join him.”

From the testament of Marcus Edger (1918-1968)

"...So after that bulb went out, the whole set started falling apart. We, the audience, tried our best to ignore it. But it was near impossible. I saw two sets of very angry attendees get up and leave. The set piece for the puppet shop screeched its way onto the stage, and we could see in the far back the paper sky background falling down. The lights went dim in what we assumed was an attempt to hide the malfunctioning set pieces. The kids, with the help of an oddly monotonous Mr. Obcisor, constructed the puppet...and this strange song played. To this day I don't know what they were saying. It sounded vaguely like Latin, but I went on to study Latin in college the next year, and found that guess to come out flat. I remember how it enchanted me, though. It enchanted all of us. We all began to feel this...thing...course through us. I remember a few people around us who were humming in an attempt to rid themselves of the sound, and I could hear people in the front rows crying out in what sounded like pain.

The actors themselves sounded as though they were about to pass out at any moment. They were doing this odd sort of ballet and they were tripping all over themselves, and a few more lights started flashing and breaking. We all sat and waited for the song to end, when...when...I'm sorry. (pause) I'm so sorry...I can't..."

From the testament of George Frank (1899-1999)

"...The lights were going on and off at random, and we were all praying the damn song would end soon. It had this force going with it...it was sucking us in. We could feel it. The little kids and the puppet man were dancing all around when...well, you see...(pause)...I really thought I could do it. I thought I could do it...I was right there in the fifth row, so I saw…but I can't..."

From the testament of Carolyn Mark (1901-1949)

"...The lighting was completely out of control. It was a mess. And that song...it was awful. But something about it...it was powerful. It had a force. I watched intently as the dancers began to skip around and...and...we...I thought they were...the lights..."

The actual events of the final scene of Act I of "The Puppetmaster's Regime" has been up for debate for many years. Not many people are willing to speak out about what happened on stage during those final moments. Many believe that there is no actual record of an interview with somebody who was willing the tell the story…this is not true, as one testament survives from a Billy Prescott, who was only six at the time of the show. At such a young age, one might assume he was less affected by what he recalls happening:

"...I was just a kid, so I don't remember much. All I can vaguely recall is that song...it was giving me a headache. I turned to my father to ask him if we could leave, when suddenly I saw the stage illuminate with this bright red light. The music stopped as one instrument after another died out, and swear I heard pounding underneath the stage. Everyone was questioning what was happening...even the actors. I remember that teacher lady being pushed through the door of the shop...and then everyone else came flying in from offstage, toppling on top of each other like rag dolls. There were people there who didn’t fit the design scheme of the production--stagehands and technical workers, I assume now. I remember the little girl screamed at the audience, then ran behind the shopkeeper while other actors continued singing. A few people started crying right there on the stage when suddenly this...curtain...came forward.

It's hard to describe what it looked like. It was a clear plastic wall, and it came down from above. Several years later I saw "Carrie: The Musical" on Broadway during one of its few runs...that thing that came down on the promgoers when Carrie was using laser lights to kill everyone? It was just like that. A bunch of set pieces from earlier scenes came down on the sides of the stage, trapping all of the actors in the center. Then chaos erupted.

The actors stopped singing, and were pounding on the plastic wall. Then, for some reason, they began to back away. As if some unseen assailants were coming towards them, they fled to the back of the stage--all except the little boy. The little boy who hadn’t stopped singing. Then, amid all that screaming and crying and shooting, the curtain flew out, and everything was in silence.

Due to that odd abruptness, the audience thought it was just a horrible ending to a terrible musical. We were about to get up when suddenly the curtain opened up again, revealing the stationary plastic wall upon which was a single light fixed on the little boy, Morietur. He had clawed his way through the plastic wall...we could see the blood on his hands...but…(pause)…the way he looked was…(…)

There were strings attached to every part of his body. We could all see his stomach...or lack of, anyway. It was like somebody had put a huge ice cream scooper in his belly. He was sobbing all over the stage, twitching and swinging around. It was a sight so unnatural looking, so painful and twisted and wrong...even now, I can't seem to wrap my head around how, but...(pause)...and so...and so everyone looked at him, not knowing what to do...and then he spoke...

"Help me...please...help me..." was all I could make out, and then he vomited and suddenly collapsed. The plastic wall lifted, and lights all came on. We saw the rest of them.

They were all dead. Every one of them looked exactly like the little boy. Everyone had those strings attached...and we watched as all of them, even the little boy...as their strings were pulled on. Their lifeless bodies rose on cue, and they bowed."

However, we cannot be certain that this a credible account...but unfortunately, it's all we have to work with. "The Puppetmaster's Regime" sparked horrible debate among the theatre companies. Several audience members had to be treated to special therapy for years to come...and the show itself was covered up by the police. For years to come the theatre company, as well as the police department, who had never managed to solve the gruesome murders of the cast and crew of the show, denied that the play ever existed. However, in recent years the story has resurfaced...sparking much new debate on the subject.

The theater that housed the musical still refuses to acknowledge the show's existence, and most theatre historians know nothing about the show in general. To this day, the identities of the anonymous lyric and music writers are unknown, and (to our knowledge) all recordings of the songs and police reports have been destroyed. However, through certain pieces of historical documentation, we can gather a bit of information on the production: The show itself had its first workshop in London in 1928. One of the songs, "Get A Puppet" was recorded with vocals by twelve-year-old Garris Creely. However, this recording has been lost, but is supposedly available in the black market of the internet. Other than that, no official records were ever made. Some ancient accounts say that an illegal audio taping of the final scene of Act I was recorded from backstage, but we cannot be certain that this is anything but a rumor.

As for any official memorabilia, very little of anything has survived. Until her death in 1994, theatrical historian Gladys Masters kept two large-scale posters, which she displayed at charity events--but these have since disappeared. Early costumes by Alice Lively, who had been the costume designer on Puppetmaster until she quit after payment disputes, are on display at the Pickett-Dahny Theatrical Museum in Dover, England. Other than that, playbills from its premiere night were given out, but most audience members destroyed their copies after seeing the show. Legend has it, around ten to twenty survive.

On another note, over the years the show has grown a small cult fan base, and here recently, an off-Broadway revival has been scheduled to premiere soon.

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