#and i know that kitty is the one who sacrifices herself in the books
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III The Hanged Man
¡Norse AU! Inspired by American Gods and also by Heroes of the Valley. Let’s say that I’ve interpreted this prompt quite literally.
Caith looked at him, upright and pliable like an ash branch, but in here eyes could be read the doubt. Fear, maybe.
Njall had never seen her frightened, not when their village was burning and they were just five or six years, not when the warrior chief had struck her with a backhanded slap because she had stolen a blade and not, when he, Njall, had shown her what he could do with a handful of signs scribbled in the dust. Caith had not been frightened even when the creatures had appeared the first time and had started to kill. She was never frightened.
«It’s madness» she pontificated, her knuckles holding on the rope. «You are not Odin. You’ll die».
«We are all going to die» Njall retorted tersely. «You know it. If we stay here and do nothing, they’ll kill us all. We don’t know what they are, your arrows don’t hurt them, nor the fire».
«And your suicide will solve this, oh sure!»
«I am not killing myself» Njall stressed those words with all the confidence he had. «It’s a ritual, and you know it very well. A way to gain knowledge. And I am not the first one: that ancient mage tried and-»
«And he died!»
«Not because of the ritual!» Njall exhaled. «Look, if you are here it means you want to help me. Don’t you?»
Caith stared at him harshly. Just above her eye there was a little scar that cut vertically her eyebrow; it came from a shove by Njall when they were children. Caith had fallen with her face on the ground and had hit a rock hidden in the grass. They both had cried, that time, Caith because of the pain and Njall because of the fear.
«Fine» Caith straightened her shoulders. «Take off the tunic and let’s start».
The worst part, Njall presumed, was the beginning, as it was for all the things: getting used to the position, the blood running to the head, the air coming more and more laboriously, the rope sawing his skin. Caith, of course, had made perfect knots and had not left him any escape. In that position, Njall could only see her legs, moving nervously back and forth. Then they stopped and suddenly Caith’s face appeared near to his.
«Well, hung you’re hung. I’ll come and check-»
«No! You can’t come here during the ritual, Caith! I must be alone».
Even upside down, Njall saw perfectly the terrible scowl appear on Caith’s forehead.
«And you’re asking me to leave you like this… and alone for nine days? Do you realize what you’re asking to me?»
«I do. It’s a necessary sacrifice to gain knowledge. And the gods’ grace». Njall hesitated. «If you are my friend… If you are my friend, you’ll understand».
Caith’s eyes tightened, then her face disappeared abruptly from Njall’s vision.
«Goodbye, then. I’ll be back in nine days».
During the following hours, Njall tried to focus on something else, for example all the spells and chants he knew, the runes, the symbols; then he tried to not take offense for Caith’s coldness and to not regret sending her away: she was like this, and the ritual had to be done like this too, there wasn’t much to do about it.
The tree Njall had chosen had grown under a cavern, all twisted up to find the few rays of sunlight that filtered from above; so, Njall was quite protected, but it was impossible to know how long had passed. Maybe he fell asleep (or better, lost consciousness) despite the pain, because at some point it was pitch black and cold. He felt like someone had set fire to every single tendon and he gasped like a fish outside water.
He tried to convince himself that this was the hardest part.
After immeasurable time spent trying to cut himself from his own body, wondering why he had decided to do it, Njall gave up: he started to think about Caith.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his village and the people; but he couldn’t deny that she was the first reason. Caith was a warrior: she had already fought with those creatures, using blade and arrows and it was just a matter of time before a night ended bad. They were monsters emerged by their nightmares, unstoppable. And hungry for human flesh.
He wondered if Caith knew.
He had his lips completely dry and split, and it seemed like he had no more blood in his veins. He wondered how he could still be lucid.
Any pain was gone, his body was in peace. Maybe he didn’t have a body anymore. It was a relief, anyway.
So Caith was right: he was dead.
«Well, I wouldn’t say» said a voice.
Njall said naked feet drawing near him. Funny, he didn’t feel his body anymore and yet his downturned vision was the same as before.
«You’re not dead at all» went on the voice. «But the nine days are gone, little mage».
«Who are you?» Njall was amazed to hear his voice firm: he would have expected it to be broken, weakened by pain, hunger, thirst.
«Who am I? Haven’t you sacrificed yourself for something? For the gods? I am here. I have seen your sacrifice and I’ve accepted it».
A face appeared above his: it was the same colour as terracotta, all resolute dark eyebrows and sharp features.
«Are you ready?»
Njall didn’t have time to ask for what: suddenly he was on the ground, free from the ropes, and it was as if every pain, every sorrow came back all together.
He started to shiver uncontrollably, coughed, tried to get up and collapsed again.
«Now stay calm» said the voice. «Your friend is coming».
Hesitant steps. «Njall? It’s not possible…»
In a moment, Caith was beside him, putting on his shoulder a cloak, wetting his lips, holding him to warm him. Njall tried to croak out something.
«Very sweet, nothing to say».
Caith turned suddenly, still holding Njall. He tried to figure out who the third person was. He saw that he was young, and grinning. Sunlight shone on the jewels his hair was braided with, tied at his ankles and wrists.
«It has been a long time since I saw someone so pig-headed, you know» his grin widened even more and Njall, even if he was exhausted, worn out, thirsty, felt a vague surge of danger.
«What did you do?» whispered Caith, and, addressing the naked-feet youth «Who are you?»
«The one who accepted his sacrifice» squatted down like this, he seemed a young wolf ready to attack. «I have many names. You call me Loki».
#bartprompts24#bartimaeus prompt week 24#bartimaeus trilogy#bartimaeus sequence#bartimaeus#nathaniel#kitty jones#my fic#fanfiction#uhhhh#clearly bart is loki... sort of#the ancient mage is ptolemy#and i know that kitty is the one who sacrifices herself in the books#but odin-->nat i'm sorry#sacrifice himself for knowledge? gaining power? nat ofc#also their names are not scandinavian i know but i was desperate
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Mary Bennet and Her Sisters
@atablefullofwriting
Very well thought out!!! I wonder what your thoughts would be on P&P Mary and her relationship to the other sisters. She just seems to be put on the backburner so much, especially when Mr. Collins comes along.
I am not very fancy with Tumblr yet, but I shall endeavour to answer this question:
We most often see the Bennet girls in pairs, Jane & Elizabeth and Kitty & Lydia. However, with five sisters, we are drawn into wondering why there isn’t a trio. Why is Mary alone? From all evidence, it seems like Mary excludes herself, not that she is excluded.
When Elizabeth wants to go visit sick Jane, she announces her intention. Mary basically calls her foolish, Lydia and Kitty offer to accompany Elizabeth as far as Meryton:
“No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.”
“I admire the activity of your benevolence,” observed Mary, “but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.”
“We will go as far as Meryton with you,” said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together.
Elizabeth is happy to walk with her younger sisters, but Mary is not happy to accompany them.
Later, Kitty and Lydia go to an Inn to pick up Jane and Elizabeth, afterwards this exchange happens:
“Oh! Mary,” said she, “I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! ...”
To this Mary very gravely replied, “Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me—I should infinitely prefer a book.”
But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.
Now Lydia doesn’t seem to actually care about Mary’s company, but it does seem like it was offered. Mary appears to be purposefully distancing herself from Lydia by calling her pleasures silly. And unlike Elizabeth, she proclaims that she prefers a book to company.
Mary seems either to dislike society or affects to:
Lydia’s intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister except Mary agreed to go with her.
“While I can have my mornings to myself,” said she [Mary], “it is enough—I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements.
About the Netherfield Ball: And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it.
Asked to go on a walk: Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five set off together.
We know Mary is proud of her accomplishments and it seems she devotes far too much time to them. Kitty and Lydia probably enjoy society too much and study too little, while Elizabeth does read, but she also interacts with society and enjoys people’s company. Elizabeth is balanced. It seems like the sisters continually try to include Mary, which reminds me of Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove constantly trying to include their sister-in-law, Mary Musgrove, but Mary is the one who declines.
Mary also shows a lack of compassion for her sisters. She callously suggests that Elizabeth should treat Lydia as an object lesson, she won’t visit sick Jane, and she doesn’t relieve Jane when she is caring for her mother.
Lastly, she is happiest in the prologue, when all her sisters leave. Which seems telling to me.
Additional Notes: Mary was the only sister who might have accepted Mr. Collins, but we are not told she was jealous that he proposed to Elizabeth or that she liked him, it says, “Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him” not that she was attracted to him or something of that nature.
As for the Bennet parents, while it seems that Mr. Bennet favours Elizabeth and Mrs. Bennet favours Lydia and admires Jane, both parents largely ignore all of their daughters. Mr. Bennet seems to bring Elizabeth over for a shared joke and then gently shoes her away. He calls all of them silly girls. Mrs. Bennet might have been the one bragging that Mary is the most accomplished in the neighbourhood, but she doesn’t seem to actually know her daughters very well, or she wouldn’t have tried to push Mr. Collins on Lizzy.
Thank you to my favourite Mary resource, the Mary Map
#question reply#pride and prejudice#mary Bennet#sibling relationships#I'm not a fan of Mary Bennet#but I think this is a fair assessment#Jane austen#also it is not mentioned that she wears glasses#personal pet peeve#I know it's Hollywood shorthand for smart#but Mary isn't actually smart she just wants people to think she is
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Bridgeton AU!!!! yespleasethankskbye
Thanks for the ask @pinkoptics. I do love my period drama and when I watched Bridgerton I thought of all the ways I could cherik it. Now you can’t quite match the storyline entirely to the characters of x-men so I had to develop different ways to establish family connections and backgrounds. This is the idea I have currently, and it might change. The main idea of Bridgerton is there, but some of the characters are merged into others so that the characterisation makes sense. Also, this is A/B/O universe so those are the main differences. But I hope you enjoy what I have.
Bridgerton AU
As London’s social season is fast approaching, Charles Xavier is about to make his formal introduction into high society at the annual Debutante Ball hosted by Queen Emma. Every year the queen hosts the debutante ball where young omegas of noble and gentry families are presented to the royal court. After being presented at court, debutantes are allowed to partake in all the exclusive social events of high society. More importantly, after their debut the young noble omegas are considered eligible for marriage. The season is anticipated by everyone in town, especially when the elusive secret columnist who writes under the pseudonym Lady Whistledown follows reports on the proceedings with her ever watchful gaze.
Charles Xavier is the only son of Brian Xavier and Sharon Marko nee Xavier. After Brian Xavier’s untimely death, Sharon is forced into marriage to Brian’s business partner and friend, Kurt Marko. Kurt Marko has a son Cain from a previous marriage (his wife passed away under suspicious circumstances but there was no proof of foul play). Cain is brutish and boisterous and terribly dim witted. He harbours jealousy towards Charles who is smart, well-read and friendly to all. Charles is also proud and ambitious. Together Kurt and Sharon have Raven who is very close to Charles and becomes overprotective of him.
Kurt Marko doesn’t care about his omega stepson’s societal status and is keen to marry him off as soon as possible. He has made an arrangement with Lord William Stryker II who has shown Charles great interest. Kurt Marko owes Stryker’s father hefty money as he has been spending the Xavier fortune on gambling and indulging his and his wife’s overly excessive lifestyle. By marrying Charles to Stryker’s son, he has solved all of his problems. His plan to marry Charles quietly off to William Stryker II is dashed when Charles receives attention and high praise from the queen herself at the Debutante ball. Suddenly, Charles becomes the most sought after omega of the season and every noble and single alpha is after his hand in marriage.
When Charles and the Marko´s are invited to the first social gathering at the Summers residence in Kensington Charles becomes hopeful of finding a suitable mate. Despite his independence and keen mind, Charles is also very much aware that in order to leave the Markos household he must find a suitable mate.
The Summers family lives near the Marko´s and are an unusually large family. Christopher and Katherine have eight children, Scott being the oldest of them. He has his eyes set on young miss Jean Grey who is also one of the more favourable omegas of the season. The Summers have four omegas to present for the debutante: Henry Philip ´Hank´, Alexander ‘Alex’, Anna Marie and Sean. Their three youngest, Katherine ‘Kitty’, Nathaniel and Gabriel are too young to be presented. Charles and Raven have been close friends with the Summers siblings since childhood. Charles is especially close to Hank who is awkward and doesn’t have the typical small stature of young noble omegas. Hank doesn’t want to sacrifice his studies and get married to a noble alpha. He wants a future in academia and spends most of his time holed in the library with his stack of books.
During the Summers ball, Charles is eager to be introduced to eligible alphas but realizes that Kurt has no intention of making his formal introductions. Raven is of no help either. As an alpha, Raven knows many of the alphas who have their eye on Charles and feels as if they would all take advantage of her brother. She even steers him away from the dashing Lord Azazel and the lovely Lady Braddock. There are also more disagreeable suitors such as Lord William Stryker II whose attempts of seduction are repulsive and aggravating. In his haste to remove himself from Stryker’s presence Charles accidentally stumbles into a tall, handsome alpha. In his desperation to get out of Stryker’s hands he attempts to engage the alpha in a conversation with no luck. It turns out that the alpha is rude, proud and standoffish. Charles deems his character altogether unpleasant though he begrudgingly admits that he is handsome, and his scent is pleasing. Thankfully Raven sweeps him away before he can make any more fool of himself. Raven explains to him that he just ran into Erik Lehnsherr, Duke of Hastings. Raven warns Charles of the Duke who is an acquaintance of hers. Despite her young age, Raven has tried to establish her place in the alpha community of the noble and gentry of London. In her experience the Duke is taciturn and aloof with no intention of marrying.
Much to his dismay, Jean Grey receives all the attention that night. This becomes even worse when the Summers family present their cousin and ward, Angel Salvadore, at the next ball who gains the attention of everyone with her beauty and charm. Little does the family know that she has secrets of her own that are best kept under wraps.
The days following the Summers ball Charles is called on by various suitors but Kurt Marko´s ominous presence and Raven’s forthright comments and criticism of the suitors repel most of them away.
Charles hopes that he’ll have better luck at the ball hosted by Viscount MacTaggert. At the ball, Kurt informs Charles that he has agreed to give Charles’ hand to Lord William Stryker II in marriage. Charles refuses to marry Stryker and storms off. As he seeks solace in the quiet rose garden, Charles is ambushed by none other than Stryker who attempts to take advantage of him. He’s instantly grateful when a tall, dark figure arrives in time to strike Stryker in the head and render him unconscious. Unfortunately for Charles, his saviour is none other than Duke Erik Lehnsherr himself and Charles reluctantly thanks him for saving him (though he assures him that he could have taken care of it himself). The Duke merely humors him and offers to escort him back to the party. Charles explains to him his predicament and Kurt’s acceptance of Stryker’s proposal on his behalf.
During Charles’ explanation, Erik halts him in his step and proposes an idea that is so absurd that Charles can’t help but laugh. Erik proposes that they pretend to court each other. With Charles on his arm everyone would believe that he has found his true mate and he would be free of the constant wooing of young, impressionable omegas. This would help Charles gain the attention of eligible Alphas of good standing, and to challenge his stepfather who has already promised his hand to Stryker. Unknown to Charles, Erik has made a vow to never marry and have children due to events from his past that involve his father Jakob Lehnsherr and his father’s associate Sebastian Shaw. Erik intends to end the toxic reign of his father’s and shaw’s influence by ending their legacy with himself. His last vow to his father was that he would never conceive children and involve an omega into the legacy his father left on his deathbed.
At first their arrangement goes exactly to plan. Charles’ new relationship with the Duke makes suitors seek him out at every ball and he receives severe calls a day from hopeful suitors. The whole affair draws the attention of the handsome Colonel James Howlett and the dashing General Steve Rogers (who harbours a scandalous secret that gets reported in Lady Whistledown’s column). When the queen herself invites Charles to tea at the palace she introduces him to her cousin Prince Warren Worthington III who shows Charles great interest Charles finally feels as if he can escape Kurt Marko’s clutches at last.
The only problem is that as Charles continues his ruse with the Duke…Erik, he starts to become fond of him. Once taciturn and cold, Erik seems to let his guard down when he is around Charles. As their charade goes on Charles begins to form a sort of attachment to Erik and finds that not merely does he seek his presence, but he looks forward to their chaperoned outings. Moreover, Erik gives him lingering, burning glances and subtle touches that makes his skin tingle. But Charles can’t harbour feelings for Erik when he has plenty of other suitors. Besides, Charles is sure that he doesn’t feel the same way about him. He probably sees him as a naïve, foolish omega with no worth.
Their whole charade takes a turn when lady Jean Grey witnesses Erik kiss Charles without an escort present in the maze by the Grey manor house. Jean Grey threatens to reveal the truth and Charles knows that it will ruin him and his prospects entirely. Raven challenges Erik to a duel since it’s her duty to protect her brother’s virtue. Charles manages to stop the proceedings before they go any further and pleas for them to stop, eventually begging Erik to marry him and end their foolish escapades. With reluctance Erik agrees to marry Charles. Raven is furious at Charles and claims that she can end this without Charles having to sacrifice his happiness and freedom. However, Charles is steadfast. Erik agrees to marry Charles but makes it clear that he can‘t and won‘t have children. In his desperation Charles agrees.
However, Charles does not know the reason behind Erik‘s refusal to have children and in the first weeks of their marriage he gives it no heed. Eventually, Charles finds out the truth and challenges Erik‘s decision which ultimately challenges their fragile relationship. Charles‘ belief that Erik was starting to care for him shatters which makes him question his growing feelings for him.
Their whole affair is closely followed by Lady Whistledown‘s column. Not only is the affair between Charles Xavier and the Duke the talk of town, but Ms. Salvadore‘s affair with young Mr. Armando Munoz who was believed to hold the affection of Alexander Summers. Things become even more complicated when Lady Whisteldown reports that Ms. Salvadore has a dark secret of her own.
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Ladybug and Chat Noir Care About Each Other Dammit
Okay look
Ladybug and Chat Noir aren’t completely perfect about realizing what the other person is feeling and being entirely supportive partners without causing any unnecessary emotional distress to each other 100% of the time.
Ladybug can sometimes be short with Chat Noir, even snappy, especially when already stressed, like in Gamer 2.0. When she does feel like joking or sassing him back, one of her insults of choice IS to imply that he’s dumb, especially in Reflekdoll. Even when there’s time to share her plans, she doesn’t always do so, like in Backwarder. She doesn’t gush about Chat regularly the way he does with her, and she has ended up saying or implying that he’s not as necessary as she is, like in Desperada in the first timeline, or a bit in Reflekdoll, when she’s talking about how much lighter his costume is. She does have a tendency to keep a lot of secrets from him, even when arguably they’re unnecessary, like not saying that the reason they’re going after Gabriel Agreste is because he owned a book on Miraculous wielders. She doesn’t always realize all of what Chat’s going through and thinks his emotional issues are mostly dealt with when they’re not, and when she’s concentrating on some other issue that’s taking up her emotional bandwidth, like the afore-mentioned case in Desperada when she’s so caught up in the excitement and joy of being able to work with her crush, that she’s totally okay with starting without him and doesn’t seem worried that they might fail or that something might have happened to him, or in Weredad when she didn’t seem at all worried about his feelings about being “strung along” in a way, or her exceptionally over-the-top acting about how devastated she was at being rejected.
But she still damn well cares about her partner.
Whenever she DOES notice that he’s down or feeling insecure, she does her best to reassure him. She’s upset whenever he’s hurt or especially when he sacrifices himself for her. She enjoys spending time with him, though she IS pretty busy so that’s not too often, and while she doesn’t always have the time or is in the mood for it, she’ll joke and tease her partner right back. And most especially, with Chat Blanc? She HATED seeing him like that. She was tender with him, just wanting to help, and she never called him “Chat Blanc”, unlike with any other akuma - because he was still her kitty. And afterwards, after she’d fixed everything with Miraculous Ladybug, she called her kitty over just to hang out and reassure herself that he was fine and to be with him for a bit. When Hawkmoth threw him off a building, she ignored an opportunity to go after Hawkmoth and instead caught her kitty, reassuring him that they’re a team.
Chat Noir: You had Mayura right where you wanted her, I could’ve managed by myself, why’d you do that?
Ladybug: Because we’re Ladybug and Chat Noir. Ladybug by itself doesn’t sound half as cool.
She values him deeply and wants him to make sure he KNOWS that, especially after the events of Chat Blanc, when she saw him so hurt and alone. She doesn’t want that for her kitty, for her best friend. She cares about him a LOT.
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Chat Noir isn’t always the perfectly supportive, attentive partner either. He goofs around some during akuma attacks, tells jokes at serious moments when Ladybug just wants to concentrate on defeating the akuma, and doesn’t have the best timing with his flirting. He enjoys (mildly) annoying her, even repeatedly. When he’s caught up in his own emotions, he’s not always paying as close attention to hers, or is just too engrossed in his own to care as much as he should, like during Prime Queen when he hinted at at least wanting to get together with Ladybug during the interview with Nadja when Ladybug was just getting uncomfortable with Nadja’s questions and getting blindsided by photos of the two of them in compromising positions, and didn’t seem to fully get that Ladybug WAS becoming uncomfortable with Nadja’s questions, much less why (though that might have to do with being entirely too used to this sort of thing as Adrien Agreste, plus still reeling a little from finding out that they’d kissed before and he didn’t know about it). Also when he found out that they’d kissed in Oblivio, he was more caught up in the joy of finding out they’d kissed again, plus some smugness, to care too much that she was very irritated about it. When he’s felt hurt and rejected, he has sometimes pouted about it a little and lashed out at Ladybug, even though she did nothing wrong.
But he still damn well cares about his partner.
He’s always protecting her in battle, taking hits for her, even “dying” (or as near as ML gets to it) for her, without hesitation. Trusting her implicitly with pretty much anything she asks of him. Even trusting her when it comes to saying that his father might be Hawkmoth, with only the most superficial, circumstantial evidence provided and a promise that she has more info that she can’t share with him. As badly as he wants to know who she is, he does his utmost to protect her secret. While yes, he did temporarily lash out at Ladybug when he shoudn’t in Glaciator and Frozer, he was able to keep it brief, and in Glaciator’s case he quickly realized and acknowledged that she hadn’t done anything wrong and apologized, going back to business as usual, even though her plan rubbed salt in his wound, and in Frozer, he still kept a close eye on Ladybug and as soon as she was in danger, he saved her and they fought together as usual. Any plan that she has, he goes with, even without knowing the details. He’s free with talking about how great she is, to the point of her wondering how he can say such nice things to her so easily, as she points out in Puppeteer 2. And when he notices that she’s down or insecure or doubting herself, he’s there to pick her up and reassure her, because he believes in her, and coming from him, who knows her so well? That means everything.
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Neither of these kids are perfect. Both of them make mistakes, or have ongoing things they say or do that can cause tension in their partnership. But those things are ultimately small in comparison to the amount that they love, trust, and care about each other. They’re different people, with their own lives, experiences, viewpoints, and feelings. Sometimes those differences cause them to come into conflict with each other. But never too greatly. The rockier parts of their relationship do exist, but they are not nearly enough to break, or even generally badly strain their bond. They care about each other too much for that.
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Alice of Human Sacrifice
[Tour]
title has absolutely nothing to do with the fic, i just listened to the song again and thought it sounded cool
Tw: Suicidal thoughts, skin picking
———————
Howard found her collapsed on the ground, face-down, like the dead bodies in those forensic shows Bessie liked to watch. She was bent in the way the bodies usually were, too, with her arms crooked and elbows pointing out, and her knees at an awkward angle. And, also like those bodies, she wasn’t moving at all.
She could leave. Howard has just come back into the theater for the book she had forgotten. She could leave and pretend she hadn’t seen anything. This was not her problem.
And yet, she was stepping forward from the hallway and into the cluttered dressing room.
She kept telling her, what if this was her on the floor? She would want someone to help her. She wouldn’t want to be left all alone with whatever ailment had caused her to blackout in the first place.
“Joan?” She called out.
The girl on the floor didn’t budge.
Howard crouched down next to her and gently nudged her arm.
“Joan. Are you there? Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Howard pursed her lips. Carefully, she rolled Joan onto her back.
Joan wasn’t as filled out as she used to be. Even in her past life, Joan was thin, but at least her face wasn’t as lean as it was now, with sharp jawbones and deep hollows under her eyes. She looked so frail, sickly even, as Anne had once said. While unconscious, that comment seemed so much more accurate.
Joan did look ill. She was paler than usual, making the bags under her eyes and the flush on her nose and cheeks appear even darker. A slight fever was lit beneath her skin when Howard felt her forehead.
That contact was what finally roused her.
“Joan?” Howard peered down at the icy blue eyes peeking out from behind fluttering eyelids. “Joan, it’s Katherine. Are you alright?”
Joan mumbled something incomprehensible. Her head lolled across the ground as she blearily stared up at the ceiling. She still didn’t appear all that there.
“Joan.” Howard shook her slightly. “Come on, Joan. Wake up.”
“...c-can’t...”
It was such a weak, pathetic reply that Howard couldn’t even muster up the effort to be annoyed. The girl below her was just so damn pitiful. She couldn’t snap at her when she was being looked at with those big, dumb eyes.
“I-I’m sorry...” Joan croaked.
Her eyes then rolled to the back of her head and she once again fell into a pit of unconsciousness.
Just leave her. A crueler, more repressed side of Howard whispered. She isn’t your problem.
She hates how she considers it. But it was true. As pitiful as she was, Joan wasn’t anyone close to her. She didn’t care about her like she cared about the other queens or Bessie. She wasn’t anyone’s special to her.
So why was she picking Joan up? Why was she carrying her to her car and carefully putting her in the back seat? Why was she putting herself through the hassle of going to the hospital? And why did she care?
———
Hiding her problems from the others was easier than she expected it to be.
She thinks, as some point, that they did their best to make her feel included and a part of the group, but they’ve given up since then. They’ve marked her as a lost cause and have moved on. And Joan doesn’t blame them.
She was falling deeper and deeper into depression as the days went by.
She can’t remember when it started, she just knows it came about from lack of attention and lack of love and lack of friendship and lack of everything. And that was pathetic.
Above all else, she seeked the approval of others. Why couldn’t she function without it? Why has she turned into such a mess?
What’s happening to her?
She stopped eating awhile ago. The hunger pains are awful, but at least nobody paid enough attention to her to hear the desperate growls of her stomach. Sleep went next, and then speaking to others, and then water.
On top of depriving her body of all of its basic needs, she’s taken to overworking herself after practice or shows were over. She’d tell everyone that she’s just staying to work on new songs or mixes, and it’s not like they think much of it or care, but she’s constantly pushing herself to the point where she can’t breathe during a simple rehearsal of No Way.
(Let’s see if you can hold your breath for the entirety of All You Wanna Do, Her mind will sometimes whisper.)
Another nasty habit that had come back was her skin picking. Picking wasn’t an act of needing attention, like she knew she would be accused of if people found out, it was more of an act to get adrenaline, to escape the constant pain and anxiety that thrummed through her body on the daily. Letting her fingernails carve off pieces of her skin, scratching away the dead, bad parts of her, deeper and deeper each time, just released the most amazing endorphins that she couldn’t even begin to explain. It was like she was floating. And it was the only thing that made her slightly happy anymore, as disgusting as that may have seemed.
She soon created a ritual for herself. After working her body to almost complete fatigue, she would stand in front of her mirror, take off her shirt, and stare at her body. She would name the few things that she had started to like in her head then list all of the bad things she needed to get rid of.
Disgusting.
Freak.
Outcast.
Pathetic.
Words would swim through her head, blinding her by the intensity of the emotion in those words. These were words that she saw some fans write on posts she would make, whether they be piano covers or, more embarrassingly, song covers. Those always got the most backlash- “u sound like shit” “why are you even trying? You’ll never be as good as the queens” “Are you trying to one-up the queens?” “Why are you singing Katherine’s song? That’s so rude!! It’s not about you!! You’re awful!” “my ears are bleeding!!!!”- and everything that was said piled up in her head, even after she frantically deleted the posts.
It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the positive comments when they came about, they brought tears to her eyes by the sincerity in them. But those dozens of people who hated her... She just couldn’t take it. It’s helped drive her down a terrible path of destruction that she can’t seem to get off. All she ever wanted was to prove to the queens and other ladies that she was worthy of their attention, their love, their praises. But now she’s turned herself into some self destructive freak that will never, ever be loved.
Still, she wonders why someone is touching her. And carrying her.
She can feel their arms supporting her and she leaned into their warmth. She wanted to call out to them, to thank them, to beg them to never let her go, but she can’t speak and blackness is starting to encompass the little vision she has left...
———
Howard doesn’t know how long she waits in the lobby of the A and E, but it’s definitely long enough for the man sitting to her far left to stop bleeding from the large gash on his arm and consider just leaving. He doesn’t, although Howard can see her weigh out the options in his eyes.
There’s other people in pretty rough shape in there- a sick young man in the corner looking like he regretted every decision he’s ever made in his entire life; a teenager who /didn’t/ regret every decision he’s ever made in his entire life, but definitely wished he didn’t go with a stick-and-poke method of getting a tattoo; a quiet-looking girl who stared at the white walls around her with wide eyes and also had her right arm horribly limp at her side; someone whose jaw was unhinged like a snake...there were enough characters in this place to make an entire circus.
Eventually, she was called, so she scooped Joan up from where she had her slumped in the chair beside her and followed the nurse into the back. Then, after Joan is set up in one of the rooms, it’s back to waiting.
She was /really/ starting to wish she had just left Joan. This was ridiculous!
A buzz snapped Howard out of her trance. She blinked and squinted at her phone, which she had been mindlessly scrolling through, and saw that she had gotten a text from Anne on the group chat they were in with the other queens.
Anne: where r u?
She had completely forgotten to tell the others about her impromptu caretaker status.
Katherine: Passcode question: What’s my favourite drink?
What? She may as well TRY to entertain herself while she’s sitting here rotting away.
Anne: come on, kit, i gave u the code this morning. i don’t think the answer has changed in the twelve hours since we spoke.
Anna: is this just a thing you two do???? i’ve never gotten a passcode before
Katherine: Passcode question: What’s my favourite drink?
Anne: fine!
Anne: raspberry tea with lemon
Anne: happy?
Katherine: Very.
Katherine: I’m at the A and E.
Anne: WHAT
Aragon: What happened?
Jane: Are you alright?!
Anna: woah woah woah are you okay?!?!
Cathy: Are you okay?
Anne: KAT ANSWER US NOW
Howard smiled to herself. It was nice to have people that cared so much about her.
Katherine: Calm down, I’m fine! I just had to take Joan and now I have to stay here until she’s done being examined or something. I found her collapsed on the floor.
There was a momentary pause from all parties.
Aragon: Oh dear.
Jane: Poor Kitty. Having to stay in such a place for so long. Hopefully you can leave soon!
Anna: oh that kinda sucks. having to stay awhile. they take FOREVER.
Anne: what if i came and picked u up? i can smuggle u out so u don’t have to stay!!
Howard blinked. How weird. None of them seemed to be worried about Joan at all.
Katherine: What about Joan?
Anne: what about her?
She toiled over the option in her head- finally going home would be nice. She was quite hungry and had been looking forward to the weekly movie night that night. It was her turn to pick!
But she couldn’t leave. She had already given the hospital all her information, so they’d probably find a way to drag her back. And she couldn’t leave Joan.
Katherine: As much as I want to, I can’t.
Anne: hm. suit urself.
It was at that moment when Howard’s name was called. She tucked her phone away and got up to meet the nurse standing at the back doorway.
“Joan is stable,” The nurse explained after they took a peek into the room the music director was being kept in. Joan somehow looked even more vulnerable in a hospital bed, caught in a tangle of wires and tubes. “We have her on fluids right now so she’ll get rehydrated. She’ll be able to leave soon.”
Howard nodded, her heart leaping with relief. However, it was stamped back down when the nurse went on speaking.
“But she will need to be taken home and watched over.” The nurse said. She looked Howard up and down. “You said you were a coworker, yes? Do you know if any of her family members are willing to come get her?”
“Oh, uhh...” Howard had no idea how to explain that she and Joan both were actually reincarnated beings from the 1500s and not just some people who happen to have the same names as the past queen of England and a lady in waiting. “It’s not really the best situation...”
“Ah,” The nurse nodded, seemingly buying the excuse, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “I see. Well, does she have any friends?”
Howard struggled not to grimace, but the nurse seemed to notice.
“What about you? Can you take her?”
“Me?” Howard blinked. “Well-“
“She won’t be able to leave until someone picks her up,” The nurse continued. “We’ll have to keep her here until we know someone can watch over her for a few days.”
Howard bit her lip. If the nurse was trying to guilt her into taking care of Joan, then it was definitely working.
She sighed. “Alright. I’ll do it.”
———
Joan’s apartment was exactly what Howard was expecting- bare, cold, and empty, aside from all the necessities. There were no potted plants or decorations or photos. The walls were just plain cream against regular pieces of furniture. Dreary grey and ugly brown and plain white splattered the flat, which almost seemed more like a cell.
No wonder Joan was so miserable.
“W-well, umm...” Joan looked very anxious- it’s the only expression that’s been on her face since she woke up in the hospital. “I-I could- y-you- umm...”
It was so sad. How could someone be so nervous all the time? Surely it wasn’t healthy.
“Just sit down, dear,” Howard pressed Joan down onto the couch. “I’m going to take care of you, so there’s no need to stress yourself out.”
“There’s every reason to be stressed,” Joan mumbled, worriedly wringing her hands in her shirt. “I— I should make you something to eat!”
She’s on her feet in an instant, instantly wobbling treacherously on her weak legs. Howard lunged out and steadied her.
“Woah there!” She said. “Joan, take it easy. You’re not well.”
“But you need to eat,” Joan reprimanded. “A-and so do I...”
“Then I’ll cook for you.”
“N-no,” Joan whispered softly. “No, Katherine, p-please- I need to do this. I need to be useful.”
Howard frowned, then sighed. “Alright.”
They soon got to work. As they did so, Howard noticed Joan loosen up a little. Despite the girl looking completely exhausted, she seemed to be slightly more happy than she was before, relaxed with the presence of another person.
“So...” Howard started awkwardly. She didn’t know what to talk about with this girl. “How have you, uhh...been?”
“Fins... WELL.”
Words more or less began to fly from Joan’s mouth like uncovered popcorn on a hot surface. It seemed like she had been bottling up a lot, or maybe she was just afraid of not getting to talk fully if she didn’t speak fast enough.
Poor kid, Howard thought, She must be so lonely.
“Yesterday was shit.” Joan spit, and Howard was slightly stunned to hear the usually very timid and quiet girl swear, “I fucked up another thing at work because I’ve been so drowsy and the stage manager said it was okay pretty much only because he understood that this was a—“ She paused to do air quotes with her fingers. “—‘rough time' for me. And I thought that was literally the stupidest understatement I've ever heard so I was thinking about it all day and getting really mad and then, like, out of nowhere I thought, dude, it IS a fucking rough time for me, and I decided to do something nice and fun and go out and buy groceries like my—“ She paused again to do quotation marks again, although, this time, it made the statement being quoted a little more sketchy, “—‘therapist’ said I should, but then I accidentally told the cashier that I loved her instead of saying thank you and now I’m never going back there ever again, and than I started thinking about THAT all day and then, well— I guess I passed out? Because you found me...and helped me... Oh, thanks, by the way! I, ahh, honestly thought you would have left me. But you didn’t! So yay! Thank you! Also, do you like oatmeal?”
Everything came at Howard so fast her mind had to scramble to process everything.
The first thing that registered in her mind, however, was Joan’s final comment- about her not leaving her. A feeling of guilt welled up inside of her.
But then Joan flashed a rare grin at her and she couldn’t help but smile as well.
In stark contrast to the (relatively) sharply-dressed girl the woman met a year ago, Joan was dressed in baggy sweatpants and an even baggier shirt with the words “Trust me, I’m a doctor” and a picture of a plague doctor on it, which has been the clothes she had found her unconscious in. The head poking out at the top had hair that was sticking out in all directions. It made her look smaller and lankier than she was. Younger, too. Sometimes Howard had a hard time believing she was college aged.
The sight made Howard’s heart ache in realization because it was a reminder of how unfair everything she’d gone through was. It wasn’t until that moment that she really remembered that Joan had watched her die.
“That’s a lot,” Howard finally said, then glanced over at the pot bubbling on the stove. “So...oatmeal?”
“Aaaaand cinnamon toast!”
“You’ve got everything sorted out, huh?”
“Pretty sure,” Joan said, “I’ve, umm...kinda been thinking about what I’d want to eat if friends were ever over.” She blushed shyly, messing with the hem of her shirt.
Once again, Howard’s heart ached.
How long has this girl been alone...?
“Wanna help with the toast?”
“Y’know, I make a pretty mean cinnamon toast.”
A crooked grin replaced the plaintive look Joan had been wearing, and she turned around to pick up a loaf of bread. “You know I’m not gonna believe that until I taste it, right?”
“Heh. Guess I’d better back up the claim, then.”
Joan beamed magnanimously and handed Howard the loaf, which she set down on a nearby cutting board. With a rumbly clearing of the throat, Howard pushed her sleeves up and rubbed her hands together.
“Alright. Melt a little butter in the microwave and grab that cinnamon I see over there. If I’m gonna make this bread, I’m gonna do it right.”
“Yes ma’am!”
They set to work with a bustle as Howard cut the bread and Joan retrieved the necessary ingredients and dropped them on the counter next to her, pausing every so often to check on the oatmeal bubbling on the stove.
“Hey, you mind if I unmute the TV or put on some music or something? I need some background noise.” Joan said after a while, nodding in the direction of the radio on the counter and then glancing momentarily at the TV.
“Sure,” Howard said, “Just keep it down so we don’t disturb the neighbors. And none of that skippity-bop or whatever it is you kids listen to. I don’t have the stomach for that.”
She was teasing Joan by acting older than she actually was, and the sickened look the girl gave her was completely worth it. Howard bursted into laughter.
“It’s called hip hop , Howard. God. I know you aren’t THAT old! What are you, twenty-two?”
“You are now my new favorite.”
Joan beamed at that then padded over to the radio. She began tuning it to different kinds of music stations until a thumping electric beat started to pulse in the air.
“You want the neighbors to think you’re holding a dance party or something?”
“Maybe I do!”
Howard chuckled. “Can you grab a tray I can stick these on?”
“Yeah!”
Joan bent down to retrieve a baking tray from the clutter of pans in a lower drawer, and by the time she’d straightened up, she already had another idea.
“Oh man! You know what’d be great? I have about five billion kinds of lettuce in the fridge because I was dumb and went shopping while I was hungry the other day. We should have a salad! Caesar! With croutons and crap!”
“You can leave the crap off of mine, thanks.”
“You know what I mean,” Joan hissed playfully. “Here’s the tray. I’ll go start watching the lettuce!”
Joan threw open the fridge and leaned in, gathering armfuls of vegetables. Howard watched this with a fond shake of the head before returning to her own task. It sent a pang through her chest, brushing the butter and sugar and cinnamon across the fluffy bread like she vaguely had all those centuries ago, before her life turned into a spiral of unwanted sex and grabbing hands and unreceived loads of semen...but it wasn’t so bad. Being in a bright kitchen and listening to music she’d never willingly put on of her own volition was miles better than trying to do the same thing in her own one. She had the queens now, too. She wasn’t alone. And, with Joan around and doing this with her...Howard felt like a mother.
A timer buzzed and she sidled over herself, seeing as Joan was already occupied. When she stood straight again after sliding the pan of bread into its place, she wiped the sweat from her brow and looked back over to her young chef companion— only to find her rocking and head-bobbing in place as she shredded lettuce with her bare hands, tossing it into the bowl in time to the punchy music on the radio. Howard found herself shaking her head again, this time in amusement.
“Glad you’re happier than you were when we first got here.”
(It wasn’t just when she found her- Joan always looked like she had been hit by a truck with acid wheels, her remains were burned by a flamethrower, and then she was poorly put back together.)
“Mm,” Joan replied distractedly, snapping her fingers jauntily to the tune. “I'm not, actually. I’m just kinda faking it ‘till I make it. You know?”
“Oh,” Said Howard, suddenly feeling very worried. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“S’okay. Means I’m doing it right.”
Before Howard had a chance to ask if she was okay with her Mummy Voice, as Bessie has dubbed it, the song on the radio changed and Joan’s eyes lit up.
“Oh man! I love this song!”
She flung the last of the lettuce leaves into the bowl and started to dance even more enthusiastically (and goofily), pumping her fists in the air.
“Wait, don’t tell me this is-“
“It’s Smash Mouth! The ballad of the 90s! Shrek’s theme song! You’ve seen Shrek, Bessie said she made you watch it with her last month. C’mon, dance with me!"
The worry quickly became a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
“Joan, I don’t think-”
“Come on! You dance all the time in the show! And you don’t have to break a hip or anything, just move around a little! It’s impossible to be completely bummed when you’re dancing.”
Howard closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Then started to slowly step side to side.
“—Aw man, NO. Is that the Carlton? NO.”
“Hey, you whelp, don't make fun. There is NOTHING wrong with the Carlton."
“NOPE. Not allowed! Jazz it up a lil!”
Finally succumbing to deep laughter, the queen found herself picking up her feet and turning in place. And, as an afterthought, even threw in some jazz hands.
After all, what could it hurt?
#six the musical#uk tour fanfiction#six uk tour#uk tour six#six the musical fanfiction#six the musical fanfic#six fanfic#six fanfiction#tour katherine howard#katherine howard#tour joan on the keys#joan on the keys#tour anne boleyn#tour jane seymour#tour catherine parr#tour catherine of aragon#tour anna of cleves#momward#tw: suicidal thoughts#tw: self harm
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Ghosts Are Just as Real as You and Me - Part 4
READING GLASSES CATHY PARR RISES!
*clears throat* Well then. Chapter four, never thought I’d make it this far. This is actually the longest chapter yet, reaching about 3250 words. Here we get to jump around and see a little bit of everyone including (what anon asked me about a while ago) Duo Moms Aragon and Jane. This chapter escalates from happy to sad to oh no pretty quickly, so I hope you all enjoy that as much as I did. Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors, my brother was performing ritualistic sacrifices in the living room.
Writing Masterpost
If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas (now featuring random asks). If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!
Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Random Asks
Trigger Warnings: Threats of violence, Henry VIII
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
A few days passed with all the queens waiting anxiously for the storm to hit, but life went on as normally as it had before Henry showed up. All the queens became hesitant, unsure of how to support each other when Henry’s reincarnation was uncharted territory. Eventually the tension became too much and Aragon approached Jane before breakfast one morning. “Jane, how would you like to go out for coffee?”
“What?” Jane furrowed her eyebrows. “But I have to make breakfast for the girls, it’s the only time we all still eat together.”
Wincing Aragon put a hand on the countertop. “Well yes, but… I was thinking that if you and I take Kitty out for coffee and muffins this morning -”
Jane caught on to what Aragon was saying. “We’ll be able to get her mind off of everything. You know what Catherine, I actually like that idea.”
Sighing in relief, Catherine moved away from the table and towards the stairs. “Will you finish making breakfast for the others if I go and wake up Kit?”
“One step ahead of you!” Jane called as she flipped some bacon already cooking. Turning around, Aragon made her way up to the second floor and across the way to Kit’s room. Kit was never the last to wake up, but she was never the first either. Chances were she would be shut in her room listening to music or watching television, waiting until Jane called her down for breakfast.
Knocking on the door, Aragon listened until she heard Kit’s voice. “Who is it?” came from within the room, muffled through the door.
“Aragon.”
A hum of confirmation came from Kit, and Aragon entered the room. “Is breakfast ready?” Kit asked, her phone in her hand as she turned off her music.
“About that,” Aragon started, then immediately regretted it when she saw the way Kit’s face dropped. “Jane and I wanted to take you out for coffee and muffins instead today. We thought it’d be nice to get out of the house a bit.”
Eyes lighting up, Kit scrambled off the bed and shot Aragon with the most precious smile on Earth. “Why’d you say it like it’s a bad thing, of course I’ll come with you two!” Exhaling, Aragon couldn’t help the grin that grew on her face at Kitty’s enthusiasm. Lately the girl had been so down on herself that seeing her back to even a sliver of her enthusiastic self was enough for Aragon to feel proud of herself for her coffee idea.
The two of them made their way down the stairs to where Jane was setting out plates for the other queens. Cathy was already at the table with a book in her hands and her reading glasses on. Anna was out on her morning run, sure to return later, and Anne was still in her room sleeping (like she always was). Glancing up, Cathy watched as the three other queens pulled on their shoes and got ready to leave. “Have fun out there you three,” she called, turning the page of her novel.
“Do you want us to bring you anything back?” Aragon asked her God-daughter.
Pondering the offer for a second, Cathy shrugged. “If they have hazelnut muffins, could you grab me one?”
“Sure,” Aragon replied. Jane chuckled, realizing how domestic the exchange was, but she didn’t complain. Kit tugged at her hand and looked pointedly at the door, anxious to get going. It was a change to see Kit so carefree, but it was obvious the girl was trying to push away her doubts. There was still the bit of hesitation before she grabbed Jane’s hand and the cringing when either of the queens spoke too loudly, but Kit was trying. Neither Jane nor Aragon were afraid of coddling Kit when she showed her strength in working to overcome her own problems. In fact, it was a very welcome sight for the queens who had begun to worry.
Jane was the one driving, with Aragon in the passenger seat and Kitty in the back. To a passerby they might’ve looked like a family, and although none of them voiced it, they all had the thought cross their minds. “Which shop are we going to?” Kitty asked, fiddling with her phone without turning it on.
“Coffee and Creme, it’s the bakery down the street,” Jane answered, making a left turn at the intersection.
Kit gasped. “Oh I love their chocolate chip muffins, they’re always so warm.”
Chuckling, Aragon added, “Well we can get you one when we’re there.”
“Really! Jane never lets me eat chocolate in the morning,” Kit leaned forward in her seat. Jane shot Aragon a subtle glare, causing the woman to mouth sorry in response.
But it made Kitty happy, and that was the goal of the outing, so Jane relented. “Just this once, okay Kit? And don’t let us catch you telling Anne about this, or else she’ll never shut up about it.”
“My lips are sealed,” Kitty mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.
As Jane pulled up to the shop, she groaned when she realized the only parking spot was on the other side of the street. “Alright, you girls hop out and go wait in line while I park. Catherine if you could order for me-”
“I know your order by heart,” Kit cut in, a proud smile on her face.
The two older queens felt smiles grow on their faces without any permission. “Well then, I think Kitty’s got it down pretty well,” Aragon shrugged.
Getting out of the car, Aragon poked her head back in. “I’ll be inside in just a moment, you go ahead with Kitty,” Jane assured.
“You be quick Seymour,” Aragon ordered in a faux-stern voice. Rolling her eyes goodnaturedly, Jane pulled away from the side of the shop and drove to the end of the street. Making a legal u-turn, Jane found the open parking spot on the opposite side of the road and pulled into it. Getting out of the car, Jane made sure to lock the doors before moving to cross the street.
She froze, making eye contact with a man right next to the bakery. It was undeniably Henry, regardless of the different clothes he was wearing. He wasn’t moving, just watching Jane from where he stood. Cold fear gripped Jane’s heart as she was unable to move. Jane blinked multiple times, hoping it was only a trick of the light, but Henry remained where he stood. Taking a step forward, Jane was about to cross the street when a large bus passed in front of her.
The queen jumped back, jerking herself back into reality. Looking at her surroundings, Jane let the noises of the busy street filter back into her mind. Returning her gaze to where Henry was standing, Jane wasn’t surprised to see him gone. Why would he stick around longer than to make sure Jane knew he was watching? Henry was playing a psychological game, and Jane wouldn’t fall for it this time. Not when she had Kit and Catherine, Anna and Cathy and Anne to protect.
The bell above the bakery door rang when Jane stepped in the shop, her entrance greeted with a “Welcome!” from the peppy barista. Shooting a smile to the barista, Jane made her way over to Kit and Aragon who were seated at a corner table. Kit was happily munching on a giant chocolate muffin with a frappuccino in front of her. Normally Jane would disapprove of all the sugar, but today was an exception. In front of Catherine was a simple cup of coffee with milk and some sugar.
And at the empty third seat for Jane was her order, exactly as she always got it. It consisted of one of the bakery’s shortbread cookies cut in the shape of a heart with cinnamon sprinkled over the top. There was a piping mug of chamomile tea resting next to it, the tea bag still in the drink, just as Jane always had it. Even though Jane had come to the bakery with Kitty multiple times before, it still warmed her heart that the teen remembered her order.
That warmth disappeared when Jane once again reminded herself of the encounter outside the bakery. Clearly, Henry was trying to mess with them, get to them mentally instead of physically. Withholding information from the queens could cause a lot of conflict but, Jane reasoned, it would cause more harm to tell them than to hide it. She couldn’t let the fear return to Kit’s eyes, the fear she and Aragon were trying so hard to ward off. Opening her mouth, Jane attempted to speak, but couldn’t get any words out.
“Jane, is there something on your mind?” Aragon asked, her grin warm and inviting.
There was no way Jane could ruin this picture perfect moment with Kit and Aragon by telling them what she had seen. Instead, Jane shook her head and sat down in the empty seat. “Not at all. Just glad we’re all here together.”
On the other side of town, Anna wasn’t on her morning jog through the park. Anyone who was used to seeing her wouldn’t suspect anything amiss, she had probably just cut her run short. But Anna would have to postpone her morning run for the time being because she had more important places to be. Instead of being out in the park, reveling in the sunlight, Anna was plotting. Plotting every possible way to kill Henry before he could even make another move on Kit or any of the queens.
She had no idea how she would do it, but Anna was going to track Henry down and get to him first. She couldn’t tell any of the other queens for fear they would disapprove or in case Henry was listening (there was so little privacy in the modern world), so Anna only had the companionship of her own mind.
Her first order of business was signing up at a local boxing arena in order to get fighting experience. It wasn’t the most desirable sport, and Anna much preferred running and weightlifting - non contact sports, thank you very much - but she was willing to do anything in order to increase her chances of winning a fight against Henry.
One of the first things her instructors taught her was that it wasn’t being the biggest or the strongest that made you the winner, it was your skill and endurance. Anna would never be stronger than Henry, that was a given, but if she trained enough, her hope was that she would be able to take him down when she found him. He was slow and fat and probably didn’t have any experience. Anna was young and lean and training, the odds were against him.
In the days since Kit’s confession, Anna had been training as hard and as often as she could, gearing up for a fight that could come at any time. It was on this particular morning when an instructor pulled her to the side. The woman had a high ponytail and must’ve been in her mid twenties, but her muscles were ripped and she clearly had experience. Unable to remember her name, Anna resorted to referring to the woman as “you”, trying to get the conversation over so she could get back to training. “Why are you doing this?” the instructor asked simply, no lead up or extra commentary.
“What do you mean?”
The woman watched a bead of sweat drip down Anna’s forehead. “Why are you working so hard? You showed up less than a week ago and you’ve already advanced faster than anyone else here. So what’s your motivation?”
“I don’t have to tell you that,” Anna said defensively, flexing her hands in the tape wrapped around them.
The woman shrugged, unbothered. “True, you don’t. But sometimes sharing motivations makes it easier to see reason. To pace yourself. The best solution isn’t always working as hard as possible all the time.”
Anna scoffed and ignored the advice. “Yeah, well not all of us have time. If you’ll excuse me,” Anna pushed past the woman and moved back to her punching bag.
“Is it someone in your life?” The woman called. Anna stopped with her fist in the air, about to swing at the bag. “So it is,” the instructor continued, noticing Anna’s hesitation.
“Stop trying to get into my head, okay, it’s not gonna work,” Anna hissed.
The instructor rolled her tongue in her mouth before making a clicking sound. “Maybe you’re trying to protect someone you care about?” Once again, Anna hesitated and cursed herself when the woman’s eyes lit up. “You’re trying to be their night in shining armor.”
“You have no right to violate my privacy -”
“But why? What is threatening them that you feel the need to work so hard?” The woman kept pushing deeper and deeper, hitting all of Anna’s soft spots.
Clenching her fists, Anna swung at the punching bag and watched it go careening in the opposite direction. It wasn’t the most impressive punch, but the amount of anger behind it drained Anna. “Henry. His name is Henry and he has a lot of history with us.”
“Ex lover?”
Anna chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, something like that.” Breathing in deeply, Anna steadied the punching bag. “She’s dealing with a lot, and if I let him get to her again, I’m afraid she’ll break and it’ll be all my fault.”
“Again.” It wasn’t a question, more like an invitation to elaborate.
It wasn’t that Anna didn’t realize she was confiding in a stranger, it was more the comfort of knowing that she could say anything and the instructor would have no idea. “It was my fault the first time, it can’t be my fault the second time. I - I…”
“You love her too much to see her get hurt.”
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
On a regular basis, Cathy tended to be pretty concerned about Anne. With her constant shenanigans and chaotic nature, it was hard not to be worried about what trouble the beheaded queen would get into next. But right now, Cathy wasn’t concerned because of what Anne was doing. No, she was concerned about what Anne wasn’t doing. Ever since Anne had gone to her room after talking with Cathy a few nights back, she had been practically AWOL.
Sure, Anne came down to snag food, but then she would immediately disappear back into her room in the attic. Cathy had seen her come from Kit’s room a day earlier, but the strange part was that Kit had been downstairs with Jane. Anne wasn’t making any sounds, but she didn’t seem to be in any kind of distress or slump.
In conclusion, something was wrong with Anne Boleyn, but for the life of her, Cathy Parr could not figure it out. That’s why when Cathy heard someone leaving later that day, she decided to investigate, praying it was Anne. Sure enough, luck was on her side and Anne’s coat was missing from its hanger.
Noting that she was the only person in the house, Cathy realized she had free reign to satisfy her curiosity. Acknowledging how dangerous her curiosity could be, Cathy threw caution out the window and headed directly for Anne’s room. She needed something, any kind of clue as to why Anne was suddenly acting as if the rest of the queens were infected with some deadly disease. Or maybe she’s the one infected, Cathy thought to herself.
Stopping in front of Anne’s door, Cathy felt her conscience kick in. Is it really okay to violate Anne’s privacy like this? Cathy knew the answer was no and if Anne found out, she’d be pissed, but in that moment Cathy knew she’d never again have this opportunity to - for lack of a better word - snoop.
Opening the door, Cathy made her way into the room. Clothes were strewn about mingled with trash and food crumbs from Anne’s meals. The bed was unmade (of course) and there was an assortment of random items (kazoos, teddy bears, a pair of heelys) in every corner. There was a nightstand next to Anne’s bed, the only thing untouched by all the chaos. Wading through the mass of junk on the floor until she stood in front of the desk, Cathy observed her prize.
It was a journal. That was the last thing Cathy expected Anne to have, but she picked it up anyway. Her reading glasses were resting on her head, so Cathy pulled them down and opened the book. The first page was a doodle (it was surprisingly intricate, Cathy noted) of… herself? The sketch was clearly Cathy, her arm above her head as she slept on the queens’ couch, her glasses askew. Blushing, Cathy read the caption of the picture. Gold star for Cathy Parr, an angel I see.
Frantically, flipping the page, Cathy tried to smother the erratic beating of her heart. She could squeal later about Anne’s drawing. The next page was another sketch, this time of Kitty with a water gun. Cathy remembered the incident over the summer when the queens were out having a water war. The teams were Cathy, Anne, and Anna versus Aragon, Jane, and Kitty. The fight had gotten down to the very end when Kit sprayed Anne, only for Anna to secure a win for her team by taking down Kit. The memory brought a warm feeling to Cathy’s chest, making her smile with a nostalgic fondness.
Flipping further into the book, Cathy came across some of the more recent entries. These ones didn’t make any sense. They were nonsense words like “Double” and “Envelope” and “Instructions”. There was no rhyme or reason to any of the words, and if anything would have been coherent, Anne had scribbled it out with a black pen.
The final page that was written in made more sense. He made it easy for me, a five step plan. I don’t want to help him or do anything he says but Kitty… I went into her room the other day. I was hoping I could find any cameras or wiretaps (I looked it up, they’re easy to get), but there were none. The only choice I have is following instructions. Especially those from the envelope.
Eyes widening as a chill overcame her body, Cathy opened the drawer of the nightstand. Inside was a single, white envelope with Anne’s name on it. Reaching for it, Cathy’s hand closed around the edge when the door downstairs opened with a loud bang!
Releasing the envelope, Cathy closed the drawer and practically sprinted out of Anne’s room. On her way downstairs, Cathy did her best to compose herself so to appear that she had not been snooping. Hanging her coat by the door was Anne, an unmarked bag in her hands. “Hi Anne,” Cathy said, eyeing the bag.
Unaware, Anne gave Cathy a smile that normally would make the girl swoon. “Hi Cathy,” she replied, walking over to the other queen. Anne lifted a hand and Cathy frowned in confusion, only to be answered as Anne carefully pushed the forgotten reading glasses up her nose where they had been slipping off.
“Are you going to hide from us again?” Cathy asked, channeling her passive aggressiveness.
Sighing Anne gave the other queen a forced smile. “I guess I am,” she said before disappearing back to her room.
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Tag List:
@obliviousasheck
@theatergirl06
#six the musical fanfiction#six the musical fanfic#six the musical fic#six fanfiction#six fanfic#this fic is getting awfully interesting#like even i don't know what's gonna happen next#parrlyn#cathy parr's reading glasses#yes that's a tag now#i wanted to have fluff but this is why we can't have nice things#anna's a badass#but i headcanon she doesn't really like fighting#she seems like a pacifist who gets really pissed off sometimes#and then there's some more of#duo moms#that's what i call them#duo moms aragon and jane#and their happy daughter kitty#literally only two characters haven't made bad decisions#watch out aragon and kitty you're next#i love reading glasses cathy parr so much#ghosts are just as real as you and me#part four#cathy is whipped for anne#and that's a FACT
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Inner Voice
So this is Chapter One of a fic written for @saria-malinas for the @six-gifts-exchanges.
Prompt was Kitty & fluff.
Admittedly, I tend towards the view that fluff can only be fluff is there’s some angst to make it soft so...perhaps not to everyone’s liking but hopefully enjoyable anyhow!
It’s a LOT longer than I intended but I’ve enjoyed writing it very much- it’s been a nice distraction!
TW for negative thought spirals and references to emotional abuse.
It begins with an interview- a Sunday interview, no less.
She doesn’t look forward to it- she’s exhausted.
An eight-show week is hard enough but having to sacrifice her one day off on the altar otherwise known as ‘Publicity’ will, she knows, leave her running on empty and the thought of having to immediately jump back into the old cycle on Monday morning- without the benefit of her usual recharge day- makes her feel like she’s having weights piled on her shoulders.
(She still agrees, of course.)
Sundays are usually a day to revel in doing things that would be impossible on show days.
Cathy stays up until a ridiculous hour writing on Saturday nights and then spends Sunday following patches of sunlight around the house in which to curl up with whatever she happens to be reading.
Kitty has taken to glancing at the titles and week by week, they’re never the same, there’s never a pattern: Middlemarch one week, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo the next, Plato’s Republic, Sula, The Hunger Games, Trainspotting, Boswell’s History of Johnson, Finding Nemo: The Official Novelisation… Once, Cathy caught her looking and opened her mouth, but whether she meant to scold or welcome, Kitty never found out, escaping into the kitchen before Cathy had a chance to speak.
Catalina gets up early and goes to hear Mass and usually ends up back at the house around lunchtime. Kitty isn’t entirely sure where she goes- sometimes she comes back with a Starbucks cup (Green tea, always), sometimes with shopping bags, but more often, she comes back just as she left, empty handed.
She finds it difficult to imagine what Catalina might do to relax, honestly- she’s a queen in every sense, just as regal and composed and thus terrifying in the 21st century as Kitty imagines she must have been during the 16th.
Jane goes on walks to places that sell felt and buttons and ribbons, and then listens to the radio- in the garden when the weather is nice, in the living room when it isn’t- while flowers and birds and fruit bloom beneath her fingertips.
Whatever embroidery project she’s working on, she manages to make it look easy. Sometimes she even sews with her eyes shut, the better to take in whatever she’s listening to- sometimes music, but more often, it’s chapter books read by people with calm, slow voices, poetry that flows so easily it’s almost musical.
Once, back in the very early days, when all was spiky and uncomfortable, when they were all still raw from the fallout of their old lives and picking over the old rivalries, Anne had muttered that Jane listened to spoken books so much because she couldn’t read properly.
It was only the three of them in the room at the time- Kitty wasn’t sure if she was meant to have heard or not. She wasn’t even able to tell whether Anne was serious.
Jane had pretended not to pick up on it, only the slight pinkening of her ears betraying her...that, and the fact that she stopped listening to audiobooks in the communal areas, taking them instead to the privacy of her room.
Anne had apologised, in her own way (a stack of newly-purchased audiobooks left outside Jane’s door early one morning a week later, with a bar of Galaxy and a green post it note stuck to the top of the pile that Kitty read when she stumbled down the hall for water at 5am: ‘Sorry I was a total bitch. Love A x’) but Kitty has never been able to find the courage to bring the issue up with Jane herself.
Even if she was braver, she has no idea how she’d even begin to approach something so sensitive, but still, she wishes she could find the words to say that it’s ok, that she understands how it feels to struggle, that she’d never ever think less of Jane for it, that she still admires Jane’s ability to face all catastrophes calmly and without raising her voice and that, in her (admittedly limited experience), this ability is far rarer and far more precious than any amount of literary talent.
They’re words she’ll never be able to say, she knows, but sometimes, she wonders what would happen if she followed the woman into the garden, the kitchen and just sat herself down at Jane’s feet to listen along with her and watch her sew in quiet companionship…. The imagination never goes further than that- she won’t let it.
Imaginings left to run wild can be dangerous, she knows.
Anne’s day-off plans are as unpredictable as she is- sometimes she takes herself to the library and sometimes to the skate park, sometimes to a museum and sometimes to a bar, and she seems to relish all equally, at least as far as Kitty’s judgement goes.
Having never actually accompanied Anne on any of her trips, she bases her judgement on the level of enthusiasm in Anne’s voice when she makes her customary exit: a shouted ‘Bye, I’m going to the-’, followed by a slam of the door hard enough to make the whole house tremble (and twice loud enough to awaken a sun-warmed Cathy from one of her book-naps).
If Kitty is in the vicinity, Anne will sometimes look at her intently as she says her goodbyes making eye contact so intensely she forgets to blink. She cannot tell if it’s an invitation or an attempt to telepathically dissuade Kitty from asking to join her, and not being entirely certain (or even a little bit certain) of the former, she decides it’s the latter.
(It’s safer that way.)
She doesn’t hold the lack of any actual invitation against Anne though.
She wouldn’t invite herself anywhere either, and it’s not like she’s made any overtures of friendship to her ‘cousin’ in their new life.
(Honestly, she isn’t sure how she’d even begin.)
So….. she can’t complain.
Anna is the only queen she’s ever shared a Sunday with, the only queen she’s even close to feeling comfortable around. Anna’s the only one she knew before, the only one she has any right to lay claim to.
Not only did she know her, but they were friends- actual friends, acknowledged as such not only by Anna herself but by the historians too (even if their reporting of some events is unreliable at best and complete fabrication at worst).
Because of this, she makes sure to be extra careful about monitoring how long she imposes on Anna for, how much she forces her company upon her.
She never seeks her out, she always waits for Anna to come to her- and oddly, she finds she never has to wait too long before Anna’s checking in on her again, asking if she wants company, if she wants to walk to the shop, the park, if she wants to join Anna on an errand, on a run.
It’s the last one that means she never sees much of Anna on Sundays- Sunday is Anna’s day to do the sort of long runs that she enjoys, to spend as much time as the gym or pool or climbing wall as she’d like.
She can’t bring herself to let Anna go without the activities that mean so much to her by taking her up on Anna’s suggestion that they spend Sunday doing something different….and as she can’t swim, doesn’t enjoy running and doesn’t even know how you’d go about scaling a climbing wall, she declines all of Anna’s invitations to come with her and have a go herself.
(Anna doesn’t need her holding her back, spoiling her fun.)
Once or twice, admittedly, she finds herself thinking back to the Anna of their old life and the unending patience she showed with the maids-in-waiting (Kitty included) who struggled on horseback. She remembers Anna’s calm reassurance that she was doing ‘very well, for a beginner, liebling’, she remembers Anna’s beaming smile whenever any of them plucked up the courage to take their horse into a canter, her gentle words of praise. ‘That was wonderful, you looked so much more confident!’.
It makes her wonder, for a moment, if perhaps Anna isn’t just asking out of pity or duty but because she really would enjoy showing Kitty how to enjoy the swimming- or the running or the climbing- for its own sake.
But only for a moment.
Time and time again, she turns Anna down. Time and time again, Anna keeps asking, but Kitty knows she’s bound to stop soon.
(For some reason, she dreads it.)
This Sunday though, she doesn’t spend at home- alone or otherwise. Rather than her normal routine of sleeping in and enjoying the lack of interruption, she spends it getting up even earlier than usual, then taking a bus and another bus and then a train to the interview meeting point.
The interview room has greeny-blue industrial carpet with a cigarette burn by her foot that her eyes keep drifting to as she talks. Through the crooked blinds, the sun shines enticingly, teasing her as it pulls out the shadows longer and longer, as minute by minute her precious day off ticks away.
‘-and how would you describe the show?’
She takes a sip of the coffee that she accepted out of politeness- lukewarm and stale tasting.
‘It’s a chance for us to tell our side of the story- it’s a revision of the accepted version of events. Anyone who likes history, anyone who is into feminist narratives should see it.’
She tries to keep her voice enthusiastic- reporters, she knows, can be so quick to read an inflection as a ‘tone’, a muffled yawn as ‘arrogance’.
‘And focusing a little more on you- you were the fifth wife?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The second wife beheaded-’
A nod- professional, adult.
‘And by all accounts...the only wife actually at fault for the ending of the marriage?’
She’s taken back by the calm, smiling audacity.
‘Excuse me?’
‘All the other wives- their marriages ended because of rumours, back-biting, boredom, lust….and yet, yours was simple infidelity?’
She bites her lip.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
‘I think….that’s the sort of harmful narrative we try to confront in the show.’
‘But you would have stayed married, if it wasn’t for the affair?’
Breathe.
‘I think… Henry would have tired of me, one way or another. He would have been rid of me eventually, even without-’
‘But you were found guilty, weren’t you?’
‘I…. By the court, yes.’ She swallows hard. Her voice isn’t shaking, that’s a start.
‘And beheaded. At such a young age- you’re also the youngest wife.’
‘I am.’
‘How has that affected how you’re treated, do you think? Is it useful to you?’
‘Useful?’
‘Do you think that things are made easier for you because of it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh-’ The interviewer waves a hand laden with rings. ‘The stage persona you’ve adopted….the ‘babey’ persona, I believe fans are calling it? The faux-innocence? I think what we’re all interested in knowing is- how much of it is an act? How much of it is YOU and how much is just a way to get what you want?’
‘I’m- well….’ She’s struggling.
An act? It was a persona, of course it was- they’d all carefully chosen the ‘character’ they wanted to be onstage- but was there more to it than that too? Was she really just trying to manipulate the others by playing up her youth?
‘They’re all partly who we really are but I didn’t-’
It’s harder to keep her voice steady now- the second interviewer, silent until now, interrupts to suggest they all take a break and resume in half an hour.
As she’s getting up, she fumbles with her coat and nearly drops it.
‘It’s alright, you know.’
The first interviewer is still watching her, a mug of the horrible tasting coffee halfway to her mouth.
‘I- I’m sorry?’
‘You don’t need to keep the act up. We’re moving on like you wanted, no need for overkill.’
‘What?’
‘You could have just SAID you weren’t comfortable answering. No need to turn on the waterworks.’
The woman pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her bag and makes for the exit leading to the carpark: Kitty is left at the table, alone, confused, a little scared.
A voice in her head: ‘Manipulative whore- do you think I can’t see what you’re up to-’
She’d hoped she’d never have to hear that voice again.
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Switch au (Part 5)
N/A: Is time for the X-men to found out Kitty can alter reality.
@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @tieflingteeth @muninandhugin
Each scent holds a unique perfume with a singular story behind it. Some can be sweetly pleasant while others can be sour in comparison. The magic community is linked with smells. Hexes that burned the human flesh tend to leave a terrible smell to all involved, however, using spells to heal the sicks and downtrodden can leave a sweet smell. Wanda, for her part, believes magic to be more than smells. Belives to be more than the rules the witches in Salem follow and can always be improved and be re-discovered for good or...bad.
As the Sorceress Supreme, it comes with the job to meditate as much as possible. Wanda remains in her lotus position in total concentration. Next to her, in equal silence mind you, remains a young woman in lotus position with an expression not so serene.
Her lips are quivering. Her nose is moving as much is allowed and her hair is being gentle touched by the wind. A scowl marries her pretty and round face. "I think I got it" she murmours to herself in confidence as she can feel her inner energy burning. That or she really ate something terrible.
"What you got it?" Wanda asked with her eyes closed. She´s miles, miles, and miles away, yet, Wanda can still hear her student´s words. A good teacher can and should listen to her pupil.
"Magic is like coding!" Kitty gives a big grin with her eyes still closed. Wanda lifts one eyebrow with her eyes still closed.
"How so?"
"Each spells derivates from magic. Its magic core, I mean." She commences now boldly. Long are the days she would shy away from speaking her mind to Scarlet Witch. "think this way when you´re creating a site...each tag, each word matters and is the same with magic. Each word, each intention matters"
"Uhm is a good analogy. I suppose...and how this would play with changing reality?" there´s a curiosity in her tone and Kitty literally hovering from the ground can answer at least this. For now.
"Reality is a coding program and we can reset if we so wish...but, why fix what´s not broken...yet"
"Uhm...a a good analogy. Agatha used a music analogy with me...but since you don´t like music that much...it works for you"
"Thanks?"
"You´re welcome"
And now Wanda opens her eyes. Crimson and imbued with power. As she´s hovering from the ground and looks far away, actually, Scarlet Witch often has a distant look in her crimson eyes once her eyes are really red.
"We´ve got a mission to do and the X-men will have to help us" Wanda states with urgency and Kitty opens her eyes -never shying away from the sheer raw intensity of Wanda´s eyes- "Is about the Shiars and Pheonix"
And Kitty´s grins die off. "How the level of emergency?"
"No changing reality..."
"Then we have time...no need to be hasty. I´ll call Kurt and the others" she proposes and Wanda nods.
"Kitty...a word of advice, be ready...you can´t hide your new ability forever" and her words have such prophetic tone. Such omen that Kitty almost wants to cry. Kitty almost wants to fight her sensei...but, what´s the point in doing any of those options?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Jean Grey´s death is a sore spot in some people´s memories. Jean wasn´t faithful-for ref Logan and Scott can provide how Jean used both of them- moreover, Jean sacrifice her life to save the X-men and no one forgets this. Was that a selfless action or a selfish action? Scott, once new teammates inquire about this with much tact one can do, only shurgs as what´s the point anymore?
Jean is dead. Jean made mistakes. Jean saved them...so what´s the point?
Kurt Wagner was training in the danger room. Kitty´s latest tale of her magical adventures leaves a sour taste in his mouth. "Be open mind, Kurt" is his mantra now. But...a book that knows everything but changes location, cities where witches ruled and sacrifices are a bit too much for him.
Not for Kitty...
His cellphone rings 3 times. Kurt didn´t answer right away. For once, his impatience with the cellphone is noticeable right now, furthermore, also, his mind keeps reeling to the past-an activity he loathes to do- and always comes back to Kitty and what-ifs.
"ELF!" her familiar voice advertises herself and Kurt jumps like a frightened cat. An astral presence of Kitty is seen and Kurt has to rub his eyes a few times. He saw this scene before and it wasn´t pleasant.
Margalia and Amanda aren´t pleasant...
"We have a problem...and only the witches and X-men can solve"
"You´re an X-men too, Kitty..." his tone is a bit bitter and Kitty notices. When she doesn´t notice something about the elf?
"And I´m a witch too, elf...now, please, listen to me...the Shiars are about to attack...but we have a chance to defeat them"
And Kurt has to listen. And soon so are the other X-men.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The Shiars worship Pheonix in several degrees. The Shiars also are free to do some actions as long it doesn´t interfere with Pheonix´s plans. The Shiars can conquer Earth as long they don´t hurt the X-men, which, is a paradox they love to explore.
Wanda and Scott are talking and planning how to counter-attack. Ororo is not too thrilled to face the Shiars again, in fact, no one is. Rogue is shocking herself a little to be moderately happy for Kitty´s return.
Logan is in the time only in name and Wanda can ignore him. Is a mutual decision.
"Maybe we can use diplomacy? I mean" Kitty trails off embarrassed and looking for Kurt´s support. "The Shiars aren´t totally unreasonable...and worship Pheonix ...maybe we can try"
__________________________________________________________________________________
Kitty´s words are true. Queen Lilandra is willing to negotiate with the X-men, however, her terms are too impossible for the X-men to fulfill in such short terms.
"We don´t have the technology for that" Is Scott's line to state the obvious. Ororo pipes in as she recalls something about Wakanda.
"Princess Shuri may have something like that...however, not in such numbers and not so quick..."
Kitty raises her hand and looks at Wanda. The older woman only nods and mutters a silently "good luck" not very encouraging if you ask Kitty, but, hey she´s not afraid or maybe she´s afraid but won´t let the fear dictate her life.
"I can wrap reality. I can make more of this machine and we can deliver to Queen Lilandra"
Kurt´s eyes widen at this and he steps back at such revelation. Kitty notices. When she wouldn´t notice her elf?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Kitty crafted what the Shiars wanted and peaceful resolution is not always common, but, is still appreciated. Wanda is invited to a celebration party. The X-men need to celebrate something right now.
And Kitty goes to see the elf and the azzure man has his glowing eyes set on Kitty and only Kitty.
"You...have this power? For how long?"
"Recently...I did something stupid and now...well, here I´m"
Kurt steps back from her. "Kitty...stop being a witch, stop...you´re going to be just like...."
"Just like who?"
"Amanda"
And Kitty doesn´t feel like celebrating anymore.
#switch au#wanda maximoff#kitty pryde#kitty is magic. Suck it marvel#Kurt has problems with magic and it shows#kurtty yet#kurt wagner
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Changing the Fates' design (1)
Summary:After the final battle goes terribly wrong, Marinette travels back in time determined to stop Hawk Moth even if it means reliving the last two years of her life.Amidst old enemies and new challenges, she vows to make things right.
Her heart stopped.
It must have. There was no other explanation. Why else would everything seemingly slow down, why else would it feel like she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see? Why else would it feel like she was dying?
In the back of her mind, something noted that their battle just ended, that Hawkmoth was gone, that it was finally over.
But it didn’t matter, nothing mattered. Not anymore. Not after He fell.
Marinette gently cradled her unmoving partner close to her chest, “Chat,” She whispered, hoping, wishing, praying that somehow, someway he’d just get up and answer with his cheeky grin, that he’d let out a large whoop of victory and hug her hard, that he’d….that he’d breathe.
“C-Chaton,” She shook him a little, her own voice breaking, stubborn tears refusing to fall, blurring her vision, “Kitty, please.” She asked again, Chat Noir never refused her when she asked like that.
But he didn’t move.
“Please,” She tried to say something more but she choked up, sobs that she’d pushed back finally broke free. Her chest heaved as she cried holding him close, tears mixed with blood dripped down her face, “Please, Please.” She repeated with each breath, “Please, Please..”
She begged whatever power was out there, begged them to give her back what was hers. To let the cure work one last time. Just once.
Tears fell unbidden, forming hot trails over her cheeks.
She’d give anything. If it meant fighting Hawk Moth every day for the rest of their lives, she’d take it, as long as it was with him.
Please.
Who knew how long she cried. It could be minutes or hours. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“Ladybug...Marinette?” A hesitant voice called behind her before a gasp reached her ears. “Oh, no.”
Marinette didn’t move. She couldn’t. She couldn’t leave him.
“Is he-?” BunnyX whispered” Counter Clockwise.” There was a flash of light and another small gasp probably from Fluff. Footsteps echoed in the empty lair as Alix came to stand next to Marinette.
“Marinette, I’m so so sorry..I….I...”
The tears had dried over her cheeks but her throat closed up again, eyes burning as she tried to find the words to say something, anything. When she couldn’t, she unclenched her fist instead, a small object fell to the ground-a purple brooch. She curled her fingers into Chat’s overshirt again.
The small clang of the brooch seemed to ring in the empty room. Alix slumped down next to her, a hand dropped on her shoulder, “You-You got the miraculous,” She softly said, looking down at the object they’d been searching for for years.
Marinette wanted to move away, to push her away, to scream, to cry, but the words still didn’t come out. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything, like doing something would make this real, like she could just pretend that this was a nightmare if she just stopped, if everything just stopped.
“Marinette,” The hand on her shoulder shook her slightly, then a bit more persistently, “Marinette, Look at me.”
She didn’t want to listen, wanted to ignore Alix, but that small persistent voice in the back of her head wouldn’t let her abandon her team like that. So she raised her tired bloodshot eyes to look at her friend, not saying anything but showing that she was listening.
“You need to cast the miraculous cure.” Alix told her not unkindly, her voice low but firm, “We managed to get all the people to safety but half of Paris is on fire, and the other half is flooded “ She pointed vaguely outside, “, even if the Akuma and the Sentimonsters have disappeared, we need Ladybug.” She glanced at Chat, her own eyes saddened,” Let's fix this, Bug.”
Marinette looked back at Chat, Her one arm under his head and the other over his still chest, she raised a shaking hand and pushed away the blonde strands away from his forehead,“ There’s-” She choked a little and had to take a deep breath, “ There’s no….No cure. Not for…” She trailed off, tears clouding her vision again, “ For Paris, Yes but not...not….” She couldn’t continue, but she knew Alix understood by her soft ‘No.’
Alix stilled then the ever headstrong hero, shook her head in denial, “Don’t say that. Don’t. It’ll work, Marinette.” She told Marinette,” It always does.”
“Not for sacrifices,” Marinette breathed out,” He...He traded them. He..” She closed her eyes, causing the tears to fall.
“But-But Adrien...It has to work,” Alix’s shoulders slumped, “ It's Adrien.” She said like that made all the sense, and somehow it did. Her kitty almost always found a way out of such situations, time and time again..but not this time.
Marinette took a deep breath, steeling her nerves, pushing down the flood of emotions. Ladybug was needed right now, she had to hold herself together at least until she completed her duty.
“Go,” She said, her low voice sounding hoarse,” G-Get the miraculous. Please. Alix.”
“Get the-What do you mean?”
Marinette tilted her head towards a scorch mark on the other side of the repository, where a pair of earrings and a ring lay.
Alix didn’t waste a single second wondering what the miraculous were doing on the floor next to a glass coffin or why the room looked like a rampage went through it, she just grabbed the miraculous and brought them to Marinette. She knelt in front of her friend and held out her hand, both the miraculous resting on her palm.
With one shaky hand, Marinette put on the earrings. Tikki appeared but Marinette transformed before the kwami could say anything. The pink light washed over the blue-eyed girl until it was Ladybug cradling her partner instead.
Ladybug mumbled the words, "Miraculous Ladybug,", they felt bitter on her lips even as the swarm of ladybugs disappeared off in the distance.
There was no outward change for a second, there was stillness, a calmness that wasn’t there before then Ladybug could feel the bones in her leg resetting, and in her arms, the white of Chat’s outer shirt became spotless once more the blood disappearing.
She waited. Despite knowing it wouldn’t work, she still waited, for a breath, for a heartbeat that didn’t come.
Marinette let go of the transformation, not once moving from her place beside Chat. Tikki was quiet as she flew over to rest on Marinette’s shoulder, her eyes teary while exhaustion took hold.
Marinette looked at the other miraculous with unseeing eyes, “We didn’t win.” She caressed the ring with a finger, answering the question she knew was in Alix’s mind,” not really,” Even as some might perceive this to be a victory, they both knew it was everything but.
Alix stayed silent, letting their leader think and ready to take any actions her friend might think necessary. Marinette's mind whirled as she thought over every option they had left.
Bunnyx could go back and warn them, Marinette thought, warn them who Hawkmoth was-what he would do and then-then...then what? She couldn’t guarantee that this wouldn’t happen all over again, not even if Bunnyx guided them all the way.
Not unless she herself was there, but Bunny X's powers were meant to preserve the timeline, not change it. If they changed the timeline, this moment wouldn’t exist and if this moment didn’t exist how could there be a Marinette from this time to go back. They’d both disappear the moment they caused the slightest change to the future, it wouldn’t work.
A fleeting thought entered Marinette's mind, the butterfly miraculous, Alix, time-breaker, but it was pushed away as soon as she thought of it. She did not want to go down the same path Hawkmoth did.
“Marinette,” Tikki whispered as her eyes stared sorrowfully at the young man laying in her arms,” Plagg.”
Marinette knew what Tikki meant but she didn’t want to wear the ring. It wasn’t hers. It was Chats. Chat had to wear it, not her. But as Alix gently took her hand and slid the ring on her finger, she didn’t argue. She was tired but she knew when she was being unfair. It wasn’t Tikki or Plagg’s fault, she couldn’t punish them for this and Plagg, Plagg deserved to know that... that...
Plagg let out a low mournful yowl when he saw his kid, he dropped down and curled up on Chat’s chest, whimpering. Tikki rushed to join her partner, she cuddled close to the other Kwami, trying to comfort him in his distress.
“Tikki,” Marinette finally uttered, “P-Please.” Her throat closed up, she couldn’t say anything more but hoped that her Kwami understood.
She was Marinette’s last hope. If anyone could do something, it had to be the goddess of creation, right?
“Marinette, I would bring him back if I could but sacrifices have their own rules but maybe....”Tikki looked conflicted only for a second before she looked up at Marinette and then at Chat, her face filled with determination,” There’s something.” She finally said, “It's dangerous, but there’s a chance it might work.”
“Anything.” Marinette told the Kwami, the haze in her mind clearing a bit,” Anything.” She repeated, tightening her hold on Chat.
“Then we’ll need all the other Kwami, especially Kaalki and Fluff, and there’s a book back home that explains the process.” Tikki looked lost in thoughts,” It's been so long since we’ve attempted something like this.” Her words made Plagg look up, he was teary-eyed.
“It could go wrong,”, it looked like it hurt him to object but for once he was the voice of reason,
“I could also go right,”
It caused Plagg to go silent as he looked at his kid, then he nodded in agreement.
“We need the other Kwami,” Marinette told Alix who had been uncharacteristically silent this whole time, listening to them with her whole focus.
“I’ll get the Kwami and send them with Fluff to the bakery, they'll be waiting when you get there” She declared,” I know where Max and the others are, or more precisely where they were, but that doesn’t matter, I’ll find them.” Alix stood up rolling back her shoulders,” You’ll fix this,” she said with a confidence that Marinette wished she could reflect,” You’ll see.”
“I’ll fix this.” Marinette softly repeated before shaking her head and trying again a bit firmly,” I’ll fix this.” . because I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t . She didn’t say that but it didn’t make it any less true.
“Fluff, Clockwise!” Fluff was sucked in from where she was staring at the butterflies, BunnyX sent one last reassuring look at Marinette then with a quick shout of ‘Burrow’ she left to look for Max and the others.
“We should go too,” Tikki told Marinette, “The sooner we do this the better, the more this future is solidified the harder it will be to change.
“Ï can’t….”, She shook her head,” I can’t focus enough for the yoyo.” She hated to admit.
Tikki grabbed the purple brooch from the ground and held it out to Marinette,” Then, you need wings.” Marinette unwittingly moved back a little. Seeing the look on her face, Tikki continued,” You could modify your ladybug suit but that takes practice and time, time that we don’t have. So, Unify us. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Marinette moved as if on auto-pilot, transforming, unifying the miraculous in a state of mindless motion.
The soft throbbing of wings behind her moved her hair, that remained the only sound around her for a while. Marinette with no little reluctance moved back and gingerly moved her hands to a better position to pick up Chat, there was no way she was leaving him behind.
Her legs felt numb, she didn’t think she could even walk if she wanted to, so it was a good thing that her wings seemed to have a mind of their own.
She didn’t stay there a second more than she had to, her wings flapped and with a powerful burst of air that broke the glass ceiling of the dreaded room, Marinette flew out.
Kaalki and Fluff were waiting for them with the other Kwami when Marinette landed on the balcony. Tikki flew down the latch to look through the book she had mentioned, she grabbed Noroo on her way down.
Marinette carefully placed Chat on the deck chair, smoothing back his long hair. She remembered when he had decided to grow them out, she had teased him for days. Marinette moved back and sat on the ground, resting her back against the table as she stared at him.
If she looked at him hard enough, she could almost imagine that he was just asleep. She could imagine the way his chest would move up and down, the way he’d purr if she ran her fingers through his hair just the right way, the way his cheeks would flush red as she jokingly kissed his nose, the way his eyes would widen and his lips would curl up in a smug smile when she confessed that-that-
Her heart clenched as she realized that she never told him, not really. She was sure he knew, how could he not? But she never told him.
The Kwami flew up the trapdoor before she could break down again. Tikki was explaining what they needed to do. Marinette turned her attention towards her Kwami instead. They needed to save Chat...they needed to save Adrien. She needed to stay focused.
From what she could gather, Fluff would open the burrow, Kaalki would form a pathway, the other Kwami will help stabilize the pathway, Plagg would somehow extract her consciousness (that part sent a few chills down her back), Tikki would give her consciousness the capability to merge with its past self. At Least that's what Marinette could gather, she was too tired to ask any follow-up questions like she usually would.
Marinette wondered how different this could be. How happy she once would have been to know that two of the most important people in her life were the same person. But now, she tried to ignore it as much as she could. It was better to not feel anything at all, or it might be the emotions that end up killing her.
Mariette leaned over Chat, "I'll save you Minou" She whispered to him kissing his forehead, she ignored the fact that his skin felt noticeably colder. "Okay," She said to Tikki, "I'm ready," She squared her shoulders. Tikki went to get everyone in position. They had to get the timing just right.
The Kwami’s formed a ring in the middle of the balcony.
"Okay, Fluff, Kaalki, Open the doorway."
There was a flash of light as a small burrow-like doorway opened midair, the white of the burrow was surrounded by a neon green glow of the voyage portal. Beams of light arose from the hands of other Kwami seemingly absorbed into the doorway.
"I'll try not to hurt ya, Buglet," Plag said seriously devoid of his usual antics.
"Promise me not to stop either way, Plagg" She met his eyes as an agreement passed between them, She was willing to suffer anything if it meant a chance to get him back. Plag nodded. Tikki flew near him to join their hands, the two Kwami sharing a worried but determined look.
Marinette chose her last view to be that of Chat, of Adrien. Tikki and Plag glowed brighter and brighter until their glow encompassed her view completely. The last thing Marinette felt was the touch of two small hands on her forehead, and the world faded to nothing.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
AO3
#miraculous ladybug#marinette dupain cheng#adrien agreste#Post-Hawkmoth wins#time travel fix it#protect adrien agreste#strong marinette dupain cheng#Lots and lots of hugs#Fluff and angst#ml fanfiction
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An Impromptu Proposal 26-27
<<Previous Next>>
26. Sacrifice
Marinette had spent a good portion of the day making a huge, fancy meal for her and her husband. Today was the day that Adrien would be free of the company, having chosen a buyer and arraigned to meet with him today to sign the company over. Things were looking up for him. Now, he’d have more time on his hands to… well, first to relax and recover from all this superhero drama, then figure out something else he wanted to do with his life.
When he came through the door, he collapsed back against it, looking paler than he should be. Marinette was quick to abandon her cooking, hurrying over and wrapping her arms around him, partly to welcome him home, and partly because he looked like he could pass out at any given second. “Hey, how’d today go?”
“Lila confessed my father was Hawkmoth before her.”
Marinette blinked at her husband, somehow thinking she couldn’t be hearing correctly. “What?”
“The police went to go pick him up today.”
Her heart swelled with sympathy. “Oh, kitty…”
He sniffed, tears welling in his eyes.
She hugged him tighter, holding him for a while in silence. He clung to her, barely being held together by anything other than her touch.
“Well,” she said after a long while, only once she was sure he wasn’t on the verge of breaking down. “I made you dinner to celebrate today, but… how about we build a blanket fort in bed and snuggle while we eat?”
He sniffed once, before huffing out a weak chuckle. “Really?”
“Of course. I know my kitty loves snuggles.”
“I do.”
“Then how about it?”
“I think it sounds nice.”
She smiled. “Okay. Then how about you get started on the fort and I’ll put two plates of food together?”
“I like that idea.”
“Okay,” she said. “Then you’re gonna have to let me go for a moment.”
He didn’t. “Give me a minute.”
She didn’t argue; she just continued to hold him. “Okay. Take however long you need.”
…
It was all over the news by the next day. Last week, the media had been in a frenzy when Ladybug and Chat Noir had announced on the Ladyblog that Mayura had surrendered. But then the media became obsessed over Lila being Butterlie. That was the only thing they could talk about for days. After all, she’d been a media darling. People loved her for reasons Marinette couldn’t understand. But now, that high pedestal she had been on had crumbled, leaving her in the ruins and leaving her fans devastated.
Now, with Gabriel being exposed to be the former Hawkmoth, everything was spiraling downhill faster than Marinette could blink. Her husband was on the brink of losing his sanity with all the news stations wanting an interview with him and the Agreste name being smeared every which way. And then there was a very disgruntled buyer who was none too happy to have a now floundering company on his hands. He had called Adrien afterwards, demanding the deal be called off, but Adrien had just directed the man to his lawyer before hanging up the phone.
After a short conversation with her husband, Marinette had quit the company alongside many other workers. With the company being sold as well as it coming to light that Gabriel had been Hawkmoth, there’d been a good number of people deciding to leave. Marinette decided that for Adrien’s sake, it would be best if she didn’t associate herself with that company anymore. She’d find work elsewhere; Adrien had insisted she was plenty talented enough. But she also decided she’d go back to work only after she had enough down time to recover from all this chaos.
Honestly, Marinette was very sick of it all.
“So, I think you were talking about a two-week vacation?” Marinette asked one day after she had been forced to turn off the radio in her car because every single station was talking about the same thing at the same time. She swore if she heard one more station talking about the supervillains and how amazing Chat Noir and Ladybug were for all their sacrifice for the city, she was going to scream.
“Yeah,” Adrien said. “I was.”
“Could we make it, like… three weeks? To somewhere that doesn’t get a radio signal. Or phone signal… or wifi.”
Adrien chuckled. “I think that sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“How soon do you think we could get it?”
Adrien hummed. “With a couple calls, I’ll have us on a flight tomorrow.”
“Sounds perfect.”
...
27. Comfort
Adrien booked a flight out of Europe for the two of them. He honestly wanted to be as far away from all the chaos as he could be. Far away from all the superhero nonsense and his father and everything.
Marinette swore she didn’t care where they went, meaning that when he told her to get her passport, she was giddy with excitement. Honestly, his wife’s enthusiasm was a huge pick-me-up, helping him forget his troubles by giving him something else to focus on.
“To be honest,” Marinette said as they were driving to the airport. “I thought you would maybe book a vacation somewhere tropical and by the water. That seems like the kinda thing that rich people do.”
Adrien snorted at that. “Really?”
“Yeah. I just feel like every super wealthy person has sat on a beach somewhere in the sun while making a phone call while pretending not to be on the beach.”
“I mean… I have done that.”
“Case and point.”
“But I thought going to China and seeing the sights and country would be interesting. And it’s a language I speak.”
“I cannot believe that the white boy can speak mandarin better than the half-Chinese girl,” Marinette mumbled.
Adrien laughed at that. “Think of this as a learning opportunity.”
“I think of it as embarrassing.”
Adrien reached over to grab his wife’s hand. “You’ll be fine. No one will care.”
Marinette grunted. “I hope so. Last thing I need to do is be laughed out of China.”
…
It took a while to adjust to the time change as well as adjust to the fact they had spent a day and a half just traveling. And even though they were in the beautiful countryside of China, they did not want to leave their hotel.
More specifically, the bed.
Marinette was running her fingers through her husband’s hair as he dozed, his head on her shoulder and arm slung around her waist. She was two steps away from falling asleep herself. She hadn’t realized just how hard things had been in Paris the last couple weeks. Everything had ended so suddenly, quickly, and with a bang. The news was overwhelming. and she hadn’t had time to fully process that they would no longer have to fight akumas anymore. Things were over.
It was all over.
Now, she could live a normal life with her husband who had once been her superhero partner. He would always be her partner, but now… now they didn’t have to play superhero anymore.
That was going to be hard to process.
“What’s wrong, bug?”
Marinette glanced down at her husband who hadn’t moved from his spot. “How do you know something’s wrong?”
“You got really tense and stopped petting me.”
“Sorry,” she said, running her hands through his hair once again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked again.
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar.”
“You’re not even looking at me.”
“I still know when you’re a liar.”
She hummed in surrender. “You know me too well.”
“Hazards of being superhero partners and best friends for nine years. Spill.”
“I guess everything is just hitting me. Like… it’s over.”
He finally shifted, propping himself up on his elbow so as to meet her gaze. “I know. My body is still wired, too.”
“So much has happened.”
“I know.”
“We can live normal lives now.”
“What does normal even look like?”
“Heck if I know.”
Adrien chuckled. “Well, that will have to be our next big adventure.”
“Figuring out what ‘normal’ is?”
“Yup. Most I’ve got is we find work and raise a family and that all that superhero jazz isn’t involved.”
“I think that’s a good start,” Marinette agreed. “But after we spend these three weeks unwinding from nine years of this superheroing stuff suddenly ending in the span of a week.”
With a sigh, Adrien collapsed on his back beside Marinette. “Is still can’t believe it,” he said, rubbing his hands down his face. “Like… we were running at full force for so long and suddenly, everything came screeching to a stop and the world crashed down around us and it feels suffocating to weed through, you know?”
“I do,” Marinette assured, rolling over so she was the one laying on his shoulder now. She reached over to grab his hand, holding it tightly. “I know that learning your dad was Hawkmoth couldn’t have been easy. Or that Nathalie was Mayura and that they were working together. And with Lila, to boot.”
“How long does it take to process the fact that your only remaining family were both supervillains who, at one point in time, tried to kill you on a daily basis?”
“I don’t think that’s a scar that will ever fully heal,” she said.
“I hate to agree with that, but I think you’re spot on.”
“Was that pun intended or coincidental?”
“I think they just pop out habitually now.”
“Yeah, I believe that.”
They slipped into a comfortable silence, relishing being here with the other, both safe and well and together.
“I’m so thankful for you,” Adrien eventually said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You have no idea how thankful I am to have you be in my life, to be by my side, through all this.”
“I’m glad to be here with you, Adrien,” she returned. “I don’t think there could be anyone else I would have rather gone through all of this with.”
“Yeah, but Marinette, I’m talking about how thankful I am that you… you’re here with me now, after finding out my dad was… It’s just a comfort that I have you and you won’t abandon me or—”
“Oh, kitty,” she cooed, taking his cheeks in her hands, rubbing her thumbs in slow circles.
“Thank you,” he finished. “For being my family.”
She felt like she could cry looking at the raw, open, broken expression on Adrien’s face and feeling the earnestness of his words. “Of course, my love. I’m so thrilled to be your family. And so so thankful to be able to be by your side. I’ll always be here for you.”
“I know,” he said, a tear slipping down his cheek. “And that is more of a comfort than you’ll ever know.”
#miraculous ladybug#fanfiction#ladynoir july 2019#marinette dupain cheng#adrien agreste#these poor kids#hurt/comfort
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Hold Me By Both Hands: Chapter 46
Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.
@smolplantmum tagged as requested :)
Chapter 45 | Chapter 47 | AO3 link
Although the plan is to go and visit Master Fu and discuss their next move, a wrench in the form of Adrien’s sleek car pulling up at the Eiffel Tower and honking is thrown into that plan.
“You sure?” Marinette says when Adrien heaves a deep sigh at the sight. “You can transform, you know, and they can’t exactly do anything about it.”
“No, I should go,” Adrien says. “I’ll just be delaying the inevitable. But trust me, Father won’t be stopping me from Chat Noir. That’s one thing I will put my foot down on.”
Marinette smiles and pushes herself on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to Adrien’s lips. “Good luck,” she says and squeezes his hand. “Text as soon as you’re free, okay? I’ll probably gather the team now instead of waiting until tonight. That reminds me, who’s Petite Souris?”
“Mylène,” Adrien says. “I was…well, I was desperate once I knew that Sanguisuga would get to Luka first. I just kind of knew that the Rat would be helpful. And she was the first one I found. Is that…okay?”
“Of course it is, silly kitty.” Marinette kisses Adrien on the cheek. “Don’t doubt your instincts. Mine haven’t been wrong yet and neither have yours.”
Adrien smiles and looks down at the ground with pink cheeks. “She suits it, doesn’t she?” he says. “I don’t think Alix or Juleka would’ve pulled it off as well as she did.”
“A hundred percent,” Marinette says. “Can you text her and tell her to meet at the hotel, since she knows you’re Chat Noir?”
“Of course. That’s my bugaboo.” His cheeks still dusted with pink, Adrien squeezes her hand, then turns to head for his car, ever so slowly letting go of her hand so that they’re left joined by their pinkies before he inevitably has to fully release her. Once his car has driven off, Marinette lets out a deep sigh and pulls out her phone.
[1:56 pm] miraculass
ladyBIrd: @everyone nvm about tonight, meet at hotel asap, I’m heading there now so I’ll meet Honeybee on the roof
honeybeetch: asdfghjkl ok lb
what does the fox say: kk
mess w turt u get hurt: how’s adrien?
ladyBIrd: facing the music with his dad
mess w turt u get hurt: :|
airhead: I’ll be there soon and I’m bringing Luka
what does the fox say: wait why does luka get to sit in on superhero business
ladyBIrd: I’ll explain everything
honeybeetch: lb hurry the fuck up and get here
what does the fox say: smooth
honeybeetch: fuck off
Marinette can’t help the snort that escapes her at Rena Rouge and Honeybee’s banter as she shoves her phone back into her purse, then takes extra care to make sure that no one can see her behind the Eiffel Tower leg.
“You ready?” she whispers. Tikki darts out and nods.
“All recharged, Marinette!”
“Tikki, spots on!”
.
“Adrien.”
Adrien gulps. If Gabriel’s waiting on the staircase rather than hiding away in his atelier, this conversation is not going to go well.
“H-Hello, Father,” he forces out. Gabriel dismisses Nathalie with a nod, then descends the staircase and pauses directly in front of Adrien. The gleam in his eyes as he takes Adrien’s hand and examines the ring leaves an unsettled pit in Adrien’s stomach. Gabriel’s probably just a Miraculous enthusiast, right? Hence why he’d had the Peacock? But there’s just something…unnerving about his face right now. Something almost greedy and…triumphant?
“All this time…” Gabriel murmurs.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Father,” Adrien says. “I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone –”
“Oh, I know. We all have our, ahem…little secrets. And I think it’s time I shared mine with you, in light of this new information. Come with me. I have a task for you…son.”
Okay, so Adrien had expected his father to act weird because of the news that he’s Chat Noir. But there’s weird and there’s leading him into the atelier and pausing before the painting of his mother with an odd smile.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gabriel says. “You look so much like her. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so hard to look at you. To see Emilie in you every time you’re around…”
“Perhaps that’s why it’s been so hard to look at you.” The words are like a slap in the face, leaving Adrien reeling back with an audible gasp that Gabriel seems to ignore. Plagg darts out and nuzzles against Adrien’s cheek to comfort him.
“It all makes sense. You’re never around when akumas attack. Adrien was never in danger because he had magic to protect him.” The hungry gleam in Gabriel’s eyes as he watches Plagg unblinkingly sends sick shivers down Adrien’s spine. He can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to happen, something massive, and it involves Gabriel, and…is Gabriel really Hawkmoth like they’d suspected all those months ago? It’s a thought he’s shelved for his own sanity, especially after Gabriel had been akumatised, but with the way Gabriel’s acting right now…
“F-Father?” Adrien croaks. “What’s going on?”
For a moment, Gabriel says nothing. Then he sighs and reaches out to press several spots of Emilie’s dress simultaneously, and the ground beneath them starts to descend so rapidly that Adrien yelps and instinctively clings to Gabriel’s arm. For some reason, Gabriel doesn’t even react and shake Adrien off like he normally would.
Okay. Another point for the “Gabriel is Hawkmoth” theory. Who the hell has an elevator installed in their atelier?
Oh. Shit. Gabriel could be Hawkmoth. And the Black Cat Miraculous is literally right next to him. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Adrien pushes Plagg back into his shirt with the hand containing his Miraculous, wiggling his fingers until Plagg finally gets the message and the ring starts to slip off Adrien’s finger. If it comes down to it, so long as Plagg can get away with the ring and warn the others, that’s all that matters to Adrien right now.
“Come,” Gabriel says once the elevator grinds to a halt before a metal catwalk in a dark room. As he and Adrien cross the catwalk, lights begin to slam on, bathing the room in artificial fluorescence and revealing it to be full of greenery, with an odd, cylindrical object in the middle of the patch of grass.
“Father –”
“You must understand.” Gabriel stops next to the cylindrical thing and grabs Adrien by the shoulders. There’s so much tension in his hands that Adrien can’t help but wonder if he’s two seconds from snapping like a taut string and shaking the life out of his own son. “Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
“F-Father…are you Hawkmoth?” Adrien whispers. A corner of Gabriel’s mouth twitches.
“I never intended to hurt you,” Gabriel says. “One of my mortal enemies, my own son…well, there’s definitely a sense of poetry in that, is there not?”
The nausea bubbling inside Adrien threatens to rise into his throat at the confirmation; the confirmation that his father is the magical terrorist who’s been traumatising Paris all this time. No. No. It can’t be! Having that suspicion all the way back when he’d found the book and the brooch is nothing compared to having the confirmation before his eyes. But how can he warn the others?
“…the Butterfly’s akumas create internal change within the target themselves, and so a transformed Butterfly cannot affect themselves with an akuma.” Master Fu’s words from months ago come swimming to the forefront of Adrien’s mind. “And akumatising themselves when not transformed, without the safety net of the holder’s control over the akuma, can potentially have harmful effects on their psyche. Only a truly desperate holder would akumatise themselves.”
Is Gabriel really that desperate that his own son isn’t enough to stop him from going to these lengths? And just how much of this is Gabriel? How much has he been warped from akumatising himself into the Collector? Judging from the Collector’s single-minded drive to capture and collect everything around him, does that mean that Gabriel’s just gotten so much more obsessive about achieving his goal? If so, how dangerous is he to Adrien right now, and is he seeing Adrien…or Chat Noir?
“You’re a monster!” Adrien bursts out. “You’ve been terrorising Paris all this time, and for what? Ultimate power? A wish that comes with a price?”
“You don’t understand!” Gabriel shouts. Adrien takes a reflexive step back, then freezes when a small purple thing comes zooming out of Gabriel’s jacket and rests on Adrien’s shoulder. A…kwami with butterfly wings? Is this Nooroo?
“Master, you’re scaring your son!” Nooroo says in a little, high voice. “I’m sorry, Adrien. I never wanted to be part of any of this.”
Gabriel visibly takes a deep breath. “Very well. I’ll explain. And then you’ll see, Adrien, why you should help me in my goal.”
“I’ll never help –”
But the cylinder starts to whir and the top of it slides open before Adrien can finish his sentence, to reveal – to reveal – no –
“Mother?” Adrien claps a hand over his mouth to hold back the bile that rises at the sight of Emilie Agreste inside the cylinder – the coffin – with her eyes closed, dressed in a sleek white suit, looking as though she’s just sleeping rather than – rather than –
“She’s not dead,” Gabriel says as Adrien sinks to his knees and rocks back and forth, trying desperately to cope with the sudden influx of emotions coursing through him at the knowledge that his mother isn’t dead, she’s been here all this time, underneath his feet! “Merely damaged by the Peacock Miraculous. You ask why I want the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses? I want to fix the damage done to her, to bring your mother back for you!”
“Did Nooroo tell you there’s a price to pay?” Plagg comes darting out of Adrien’s shirt and hovers in front of Gabriel, thankfully without the ring. “You really wanna mess with the universe, Gabriel Agreste?”
“I know…sacrifice myself –”
“– don’t get to pick who –”
The whole exchange is distorted, like Adrien’s underwater, but it still somewhat registers in his frying brain. Desperate, he fumbles in his pocket for something, anything to ground him, and his fingers close around something bumpy, something that turns out to be a little charm when he pulls it out – Marinette’s lucky charm! Of course! His lucky charm from his lady!
“– universe could take Adrien, but you don’t seem to give enough of a shit about him –”
“– you dare –”
Adrien can’t breathe – why is the light so bright, why is his mother there, taunting him, just out of reach, little butterfly thing in front of him, mouthing something, but he can’t hear, he can’t hear, he can’t breathe, purple light, why did butterfly thing disappear –
“– universe would shift to accommodate – not just as simple as swapping a life for a life –”
“Enough!” Adrien clutches at his hair, yanking, gasping, struggling to draw in oxygen as black spots dance at the edge of his vision. “Why? Why? Why? Just leave me alone!”
“Adrien. Son. Look at me.”
Purely on autopilot, Adrien’s body obeys and when he looks up, his father is no longer there. No, now it’s a man with a silvery head mask, dressed in a purple suit – it’s Hawkmoth, his mortal enemy, his father –
“You can help me,” Hawkmoth says in a voice that sounds a million miles away. “Join me, son, and help me take Ladybug’s Miraculous. Then you’ll have your mother back. Isn’t that what you want?”
Hawkmoth’s words are smooth, honeyed, sticking to Adrien, trying to draw him into their trap. But…no. He’s a hero. He can’t betray his lady, his Marinette, all his friends, the world, just to bring back someone who he’s already started to move on from, because yeah, it hurts to think of Emilie, but he’s been making progress, he’s moving on –
“No,” Adrien gasps around the iron band constricting his chest. “I can’t. I won’t.”
“Don’t be selfish!” Hawkmoth hisses. “You want your mother back! I’m doing this for you!”
“Not like this!”
Hawkmoth sighs and flips open the top of his cane. “Then I have no choice.”
“Adrien, look out!” Plagg cries as an evil, dark butterfly emerges from the cane and makes a beeline for Adrien. He gasps and shuffles back, trying desperately to avoid it, because he can’t give in, he can’t betray everyone, but there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to run, why can’t he get away from this?
“Plagg! Please!” Adrien’s voice cracks as the akuma darts at his lucky charm, and he’s suddenly filled with despair, betrayal, he’s drowning in it, he wants to cry and scream and do something, anything, to fix this, to right this wrong that’s been done against him, he just wants it all to go away, he can’t cope –
“Be strong, kid!” says a voice through the fog as something brushes against his side.
“No!” Hawkmoth bellows, both far away and deep in Adrien’s mind, so deep that he can’t get away no matter how much he gasps and cries and tugs at his hair. “Fine. It matters not. You can just get the ring back for me.”
“No,” Adrien chokes. It’s clear in that moment that he’s not going to be able to hold out, not in his current state of mind, but if he can just hold on, he can give Plagg a chance to get away and then the ring will be safe from Hawkmoth.
“Yes.” The word reverberates through Adrien’s mind, compelling him to obey. “Phantom, you will obey me. I grant you the power to possess others, to control them and bend them to your will. Once you bring me the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses, you’ll have your mother back. Your family will be whole again. Do we have a deal?”
“N-No!”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Stopitstopitstopit – get out of my head –”
“Obey me!”
The direct order from his father slams into him both physically and mentally, unbalancing him, and that brief lapse in resistance is just what Hawkmoth needs, and cold, sickly power washes over Adrien, enveloping him, pushing him down into the abyss until everything is dark and he knows nothing…
Devoid of spirit, Phantom rises to his feet. The purple man in front of him grins, and he knows he should hate this man – Hawkmoth – but he just can’t muster up any feelings of hatred. He’s blank, floating in apathy, and it’s actually kind of blissful in a way, to not have to care about anything except what Hawkmoth tells him to do.
“Good boy, Phantom,” Hawkmoth purrs. “You’ll listen to your father, won’t you? Tell me: who is Ladybug? Who are the other Miraculous holders?”
Opening his mouth to follow that order is like a bucket of cold water falling on Phantom; he gasps and staggers back, then fumbles for the pitch-black bracelet around his ghostly white wrist to get this evil butterfly away, far away, and if he can get it to Ladybug – to Marinette – because he can’t betray his teammates, he can’t, if he has a smidgen of resistance then let it be for this –
“Enough!” Hawkmoth says, and Phantom sinks back beneath the waves of apathy, swaying on the spot as he awaits his next order, his resistance thoroughly squashed. “No matter. Phantom, you will simply take me to the other Miraculouses yourself.”
They’ll all be together at the Eiffel Tower, but that won’t be until tonight. And the thought of betraying Ladybug causes the faintest stirrings of some kind of feeling deep in Phantom’s core, so he steers himself as far away from it as possible so that he doesn’t have to leave this blissful apathy.
But if Hawkmoth wants Miraculouses, well, Phantom knows exactly where to go to get them.
#miraculous ladybug#ml fic#aotq fic#aotq: hold me#marinette dupain-cheng#adrien agreste#gabriel agreste#hawkmoth#gabriel agreste's a+ parenting#akumatized adrien#phantom#poor nooroo#adrinette#adrienette
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so today is @firelxdykatara‘s birthday!!!! she asked for a fic with natasha in it, and i thought, well, villanelle went home a few days ago on denny but we never got to rp her’s and nat’s reunion. so i did a little fic of it!!! i hope you enjoy, kitty (and i hope i wrote nat okay, im love her) because i do adore this dynamic and i am just so happy we’ve gotten the chance to build it together as much as we have
also, have a wonderful wonderful birthday!!! i know this is not exactly the easiest time of year to be celebrating, but keep your chin up and know that you have friends who love you and certainly love getting to spend a little bit of extra time with you. you have lifted my mood more times than you know by just being around and making me laugh, so i hope i can return the favor <3
Natasha is telling her little parts are enough, and oddly and inexplicably, Vilanelle thinks just then that maybe this is the safest she’s ever felt with another person.
The house is quiet the night Villanelle finally goes home. For a moment, she stands there out on the front porch and just breathes in the familiarity, the smell of the ocean and fire pits from down at the beach on the breeze, the sound of waves crashing against the shore in the distance. It soothes her, even if imagining what might be waiting for her inside does not.
With her and Draco gone, maybe Natasha and Fox have already cleared out. Personally, Villanelle doesn’t see grief or mourning as very good reasons not to live in a gorgeous and expensive mansion, but people and their emotions can be so unpredictable sometimes.
Maybe they are just out doing something. Maybe they are planning her funeral. Villanelle had considered further delaying her return for the sole reason that it would be incredibly fun and dramatic to crash her own funeral.
But barring that, she should probably stop standing here wondering about it and actually go inside, she figures. So she steps up to the door, and --
Damn it.
It’s only when she tries the handle that she remembers she does not exactly have a key on her. To her own goddamn house. Wonderful.
Villanelle steps off the porch in favor of prowling the perimeter of the house instead, making for the pool deck in the back. Neither she nor her roommates are exactly the “hide a spare key under the doormat” type (they are all much too paranoid for that), but fuck, what is she, an amateur? If she cannot even break into her own home?
She’s just trying to figure out a way to do it without having to pay a window repair man -- and that’s when she rounds the corner of the mansion and sees that she was wrong. The house is not completely dark.
There is a light on in (what she estimates with a fair amount of confidence, considering how long she’s been here) Natasha’s window.
And suddenly, Villanelle gets the perfect idea.
Experimentally, she grips some of the ivy casing crawling along the wall and, once she’s sure it’s not going to give, she starts to climb. Natasha’s bedroom is only on the second floor, thankfully, so it’s not like she has to make it the whole way. When she gets up to the window, she pauses briefly to readjust herself before giving it a quick tap. She doesn’t even detect any movement in response, but she knows that’s most likely because Natasha is smart enough not to put herself in plain view of a potential intruder.
Sure enough, the curtain gets pulled back a second later, though, and Villanelle finds herself face to face with her friend with only a panel of glass to separate them.
Natasha stares.
Villanelle grins, and uses her free hand to give her a little wave.
She holds her position as Natasha finally seems to remember herself, unlocking the window and pulling it open, and by way of greeting -- “You... realize you could have knocked.”
“I did,” Villanelle responds innocently. “Technically.”
“At the door.”
“I thought you would respect me making an entrance.”
Natasha’s lips twitch, like she wants to smirk, but she doesn’t. Maybe she’s still a little too rattled. Villanelle will have to try harder. But that will have to wait until she actually climbs inside, which she does carefully when Natasha moves back in clear invitation.
“Surprised to see me?” she asks once she’s steadily back on her feet, offering Natasha a crooked grin.
Natasha doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, she first takes a moment to study Villanelle, who studies her right back, taking a quiet sort of delight in how good she’s gotten at reading Natasha’s usually inscrutable expressions.
She takes less delight in the troubled shadow of sadness she sees in Natasha’s eyes, but... well, what can she do? She can’t take back the fact that she was forced into the Games. Or the fact that she died there.
“There were rumors some of the tributes were coming back,” Natasha finally responds. “But the RID hasn’t gotten anywhere close to verifying all of them. So... yes.” She gives Villanelle a tired sort of smile.
Unexpectedly, Villanelle wants to reach out to her. That’s a relatively new impulse -- so far, she’s shied away from too much physical contact with most of her reunions, or at the very least being the one to initiate it. Maybe the difference here is that Nat has always been so unexpectedly grounding for Villanelle -- not that she would ever be sappy enough to put that into words. But --
-- In some ways, it’s only now that she’s here with Natasha that it finally registers that she’s home.
She curbs her impulse and sits down on the edge of Natasha’s bed instead, shrugging. “It was a surprise to me too,” she admits simply. Understatement of the century, but that part probably doesn’t need to be said.
Carefully, quietly, Natasha sits down beside her. “...I’m not going to ask if you’re okay, because at this point that’s a stupid question.”
Villanelle hums in agreement.
“But depending on your level of... not okay, I’m... you know. I’m here.”
And Villanelle supposes that she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of scaling the wall to climb in through Natasha’s bedroom window if she had not, on some level, wanted her to be. She considers for another stretch of silence before she attempts a response. “...You know what it’s like.” Perhaps not the Hunger Games specifically, but extreme conditions of survival, endless cycles of violence, trauma? Villanelle is sure Natasha’s on the same page. “Sometimes it is best to just compartmentalize and move on.”
Natasha exhales slowly, but there’s nothing remotely judgmental in her expression. “It’s certainly easiest,” she agrees, without pushing. Villanelle instinctively relaxes a fraction. “Especially since you haven’t exactly had a lot of privacy over the last few weeks. It’s just... sometimes it’s also good to have people you don’t have to hide everything from.”
It’s the way Natasha says it that makes Villanelle pause before just shoving the idea away completely. Most other people, Villanelle knows, would have said “you can talk to me” or “you don’t have to hide from me” or some bullshit like that, expecting her to open up like a book waiting to be read.
But Natasha knows that for people like them - people who have worn and shed the skins of many, many different personas, who may not even know who they really are if they dig deep enough underneath all that - it’s not such an easy thing to do. An impossibility, even, to give someone the whole of yourself, or even just the whole of a singular feeling, when you are so used to only chipping off and offering little parts.
Natasha is telling her little parts are enough, and oddly and inexplicably, Vilanelle thinks just then that maybe this is the safest she’s ever felt with another person. She sighs, and then laughs, the sound rusty with disuse. “It feels weird. Giving your life for someone else. Not good. Not special.”
Silence answers her briefly as Natasha turns to stare at the wall opposite, her mouth twisting wryly, sadly. “...Yeah. I know what you mean.”
And she does, Villanelle realizes belatedly. Everything before the Games feels so much further away now, but she still remembers that ridiculous future marriage they’ve both avoided talking about. And she still remembers what Natasha told her, even if she has been trying to do Natasha the courtesy of pretending that she didn’t.
“I know what you did in there must go against all of your instincts. And everything you’ve been taught,” Natasha starts, her voice hitched with just enough emotion for Villanelle to know she’s speaking from experience. “...But you made your own choice. And you did it for someone you love. And whatever else you want to think about it, Villanelle, that still proves that you are so much more than just anything anyone could train you to be. Than every fucked up thing you’ve been through.”
Villanelle swallows without saying anything and stares down at her hands. It makes her think of what Natasha said before, when she had described the sacrifice she’d made for Clint. That she was broken. Villanelle has never thought of herself as “broken”, at least not in any kind of self-deprecating way, but she feels a little bit like she is now.
Mostly, though, she thinks about how Natasha came here after dying. How Natasha has probably not had anyone to tell her these things. And Villanelle, surely, would not be very good at it if she tried, but...
...She finally reaches out the way she wants to, and squeezes one of Nat’s hands with her own. ��So are you,” she asserts firmly, determinedly, staring back at Natasha with all the adoration she can still muster (surprisingly, a lot, even given how exhausted she is) as if she can single-handedly, telepathically convince Natasha of how amazing she is.
And when Natasha squeezes her hand back tightly, Villanelle thinks, maybe she can’t fix everything for Nat just like Nat can’t fix everything for her.
But maybe they can do it in little parts, just like everything else.
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Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde.
The couple, not the comic book.
It’s time for my favorite segment: What went wrong?
You can probably guess whose disaster romance I was following these past days.
If not, I’ll just tell you: Peter Quill and Kitty Pryde!
Spoiler - they both are jerks!
Also, this is very spoilery, and if you don’t want to know what happens, go aheas and give these books a read:
Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3 (2013)
Legendary Star-Lord vol.1 (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy & X men: Black Vortex Alpha
Guardians of the Galaxy & X men: Black Vortex Omega
Star Lord (2015)
If spoiler alert doesn’t scare you, let’s dive in!
Background:
These two met by what can only be described as an accident in “The trial of Jean Grey” event. What happens is teenage version of Jean Grey gets kidnapped by Shi’ar Empire to stand trial for crimes committed by her older self (Shi’ar justice!). X-men and Guardians team up (and invite Starjammers) and rush to her rescue. After Jean escapes with the help of all three teams, X-men return to Earth, and before Guardians leave, Peter gives Kitty a “space-holo-phone” so that she could call him any time. (Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3 #12).
The attraction
It starts with innocent flirting, but you know right away where this whole thing’s headed. Back when I’ve read this event for the first time, they were already together in the middle of Battleworld event. So at first I was very very much against this romance, and I couldn’t explain why exactly. It took me a binge read of every single issue with them together to finally figure it out.
They start holo-dating, and it’s all pretty adorable. The word “cute” comes to mind and rightfully so: it’s exactly how Kitty refers to Peter, so easy to see that she has a crush. She falls for his looks and probably a little bit for the idea of that carefree living, cruising around in space, and stealing stuff. Little did she know…
Let’s see it from her side first. She gets a crush and immediately starts questioning it (a very relatable thing to do). She’s basically weighing negative aspects against her feelings, because there is nothing positive whatsoever. We see that when she talks to Illyana.
Kitty herself even brings up the point that she has too much history with guys named Peter (I really hope it’s not because of a hamster, because this would be weeeeeird). So every rational part of her tells her not to date him, while everything stupid he does, actually gives him points. And he does a lot of stupid, so you do the math.
Now from Peter’s point of view, seemed to me like he was into her right away, and didn’t even hesitate. That was obvious when instead of going after a random girl in a random cantina, he chose to call Kitty. Pretty cute, and in the beginning of a relationship pretty much all you need.
Their first date was weird and incredibly uncomfortable, which makes it look like a sitcom, but also builds up on all the issues they are about to face (Legendary Star Lord vol.1 #6).
One of those issues is Kitty’s mantra “I hate space”, and Quill’s famous dislike for living on Earth (hard to disagree - why limit yourself to one planet, when you can have the whole galaxy?). But hey, Kitty has her reasons too, besides she has responsibilities as a professor and an X-man.
Regardless, she chooses space, and chooses Peter (Legendary Star Lord vol.1 #7). And even though her teammates/friends don’t bother her that much, she’s still running away. But come on, who wouldn’t with everything X-men have to endure?
Does Peter actually understand how much of a sacrifice it is for her? I don’t think that he does. At times he even disregards her issues and experiences, because Earth can’t compare to the whole galaxy.
The actual relationship
Kitty becomes friends with the guardians really fast, I don’t even think I can recall a single clash between them. She has her share of friendly banter with Angela, but that’s it. Other than that she fits in very well. I will say that at times she stays a little on the background. She’s playing a role of an incredibly supportive, albeit nagging girlfriend. Since I’m not a hardcore Kitty Pryde fan, I don’t have an issue with that.
Anyway, she’s up for heroic adventures as well as very questionable ones. The shady stuff is something that’s out of character for Kitty, but every once in a while even that is acceptable, especially considering that she herself says how tired she is of being reliable. Ironically, reliable is exactly what Peter needs, because there can’t be two unreliable partners.
What he deals with is… well. the same things he deals with any other day. Has multiple bounties on his head, a queue of enemies ready to kill him or deliver to someone who wants to, Thanos, Annuhilus, more Thanos, and his own father. Honestly, that’s so much crap, that I seriously think he can’t afford to be too serious about that. As a result, he doesn’t seem that serious about Kitty. He repeatedly tells her that he is, but there’s always a galactic threat. Black Vorteх is yet another one.
During and after that things are moving really fast. So fast that there’s an inevitable proposal from Peter, and a rushed “yes” from Kitty. (Guardians of the Galaxy & X men: Black Vortex Omega).
And that’s when it became obvious to me, the reason I had such a problem with them getting together. It was never supposed to be a lasting relationship. And when I say lasting I mean Jean-Paul/Kyle lasting. Obviously Kitty was eventually gonna be needed back at the school, and later Krakoa. Besides, is it possible to imagine Quill as a married man?
They could’ve used another few years of dating and proper relationship development. Not as a betrothed couple, not even as a living together on a spaceship one. So that’s what bothered me, their relationship was used as a tool to justify Kitty joining the team, and Peter being a president on Spartax. The latter obviously didn’t last and led to their breakup.
The breakup
The end of Kitty and Peter’s romance was not handled tastefully. Yep, we did get a funny storyline out of it, with the Collector and confessions about what has really happened (Star Lord 2015 #6-8). But in that case they both ended up being massive jerks. And all the things that made them cute together: all their jokes, awkwardness, earth references, chemistry etc. all of it worked against them. It even feels like eventual truce they achieved was build solely on the fact that they aren’t likely to meet any time soon.
The outcome, or actually my take on this
It’s not easy to sum up something this messy. But hey, that’s the idea: to review the relationship and figure it out.
If you take out all the heroic stuff and the fact that Peter lives in space, this reminds me of a romcom. Two college students with their respective groups of friends, and their own separate lives, meet each other and fall in love (I bet there’s a ton on fanfiction on the matter). If that had been the case, this relationship could’ve actually worked well. I think they do make a good couple. And if you just give such a couple some time to grow together, they will. In fact, I have a very good real-life example of a similar relationship. Sure, unlike Kitty and Peter, those two don’t have the weight of the galaxy and mutantkind on their shoulders, but underneath all that the problems are still the same. And it’s possible to work through them.
It’s the bigger problems (and I don’t mean Bendis or Sam Humphries) that break up Kitty and Quill. It’s their sense of what is important, and in a way their immaturity and pettiness.
Him forgetting her birthday? Her stealing his identity? Okay, I totally see where she was coming from. Ruling a planet is hard and all, but come on…
Regardless of how you imagine their break up really went (Kitty is an unreliable narrator), it did happen.
They’re over, and as far as I know, many fans prefer it that way.
To me, however, they’re a good example of two characters who seem like a good idea but don’t actually work. And you know what? These things happen in life as well, so I can’t hold a grudge against writers for throwing them together. Quite the opposite.
#star-lord#kitty pryde#peter quill#shadowcat#x-men#xmen#guardians of the galaxy#gotg#marvel#marvel comics#marvel ship#comics#comicships#long reads#kate pryde#star lord
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This is the writing anon from earlier (sorry for overstuffing your ask box). How do you balance introspection scenes with external action scenes? Any tips for integrating them? Especially since my character’s perspective is influenced by her bipolar moods and vivid imagination. How do you write introspection without stagnating the plot?
Hello anon!
Don’t worry, I enjoyed your asks and I am happy you shared your ideas with me! Sorry for the wait, I will try to answer as best as I can.
When it comes to mixing action-scenes with more introspective scenes I think much depends from the style you are adopting and also from the POV you are using.
In some books, it is given much space to introspection to the point that even reading of everyday and mundane things becomes interesting because they are filtered by the character’s point of view. This is similar to what happens in the following short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v5-Xtp8RZc
The techniques used may be different from the ones used in books because the media is different, but the point I am trying to highlight is that in the short the protagonist is actually trying to do a very mundane thing. She is simply trying to leave work early on in order to have her hair cut. However, the way her actions are framed convey the feeling she is in danger and she is doing something incredibly dangerous. Basically, the short conveys the emotions of the character and how she feels and in this way such a simple thing as having a hair-cut ends up changing in a spy-story.
At the same time, there are other stories in which the characters’ interiority is completely conveyed through their actions. They show their feelings by acting in a certain way. Of course in this case dialogues with other characters can help convey what they think and how they feel, but you never properly enter the character’s head how you would in a stream of consciousness. This last approach is often used in movies since the media uses visuals to convey meaning instead of only words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZS5cgybKcI
For example, in this short the two characters’ emotions are conveyed only through visuals and through their actions, not even their words because they are both animals. Of course, one of the advantages of animations and movies is that the visuals can convey something in a much clearer way than with words. If someone were to write a short story about the kitty and the pit-bull they may need to use more words and to enter in the head of the kitty. In this case, the scene where he is in his box with the plushie is perfect to explore a little the kitty interiority. It doesn’t need to be long, but we can have a scene where the kitty thinks how much he loves this crampled box and how much he feels safe with the plushie to the point he doesn’t need anyone else. His reflections can very well be interrupted by the arrival of the dog which moves the plot.
Of course between the two extremes where everything is conveyed through a filtered stream of consciousness and everything is conveyed through a character’s actions there are many middle solutions where “show don’t tell” and stream-of-consciousness-like introspection are combined.
I would also highlight that sometimes you can use visuals to convey introspection as well. For example, in Psycho Pass Akane’s evolution is conveyed through a very long scene where she basically remembers important interactions she has had with other characters (her two friends, Kagari, Makishima). In all those interactions she had been questioned about herself and who she was and what she truly thought of the world. At the time she was made these questions she had no idea what to answer, but in her own mind she reaches the answers and so she answers her interlocutors. In this way we are basically shown an interior evolution of the character thanks to visuals and dialogues.
Apart from the specific example, one can convey a person’s interiority through flashbacks and dreams as well.
Generally speaking, I think that a good way to approach the balance between introspection and action may be to think structurally. Many stories can be divided in three major parts aka the beginning, the central part and the finale. The beginning must present the situation, hook the reader and explain the character’s objective. The beginning of a story often presents an equilibrium which changes after an accident, being it an external factor or the character’s own actions. The central part is the part where the conflict keeps growing until the climax is reached and after the climax there is a finale which is slower and presents a new equilibrium aka how things have changed after the main conflict.
Intuitively, it is common that many of the action scenes will be concentrated in the central parts, while the beginning and the conclusion might be slower and with more introspection to get to know the character and to tie things together thematically. That said, this doesn’t mean that you have to concentrate all the introspection at the beginning and at the end and all the action in the middle. After all, in the middle part the character has to change either internally or they have to change their approach to the problem in order to solve it. For example, a detective may have an introspective scene just before solving the mystery, so he can realize he has been going at things in a completely wrong way up until that moment. In this case, he doesn’t really change as a person, but his method to face the murder changes and this leads to the solution. The same can happen for a character who realizes they need to change as a person. For example, a selfish character might have an introspective scene where they realize their actions are damaging their loved ones and this will lead to their final change which will be conveyed through the final conflict and the final choice they make. For example, the selfish character, after having their realization, will choose to sacrifice themselves for their loved ones by confessing a crime they made and their loved one has been accused of. In this case the introspective scene is right before the resolutive scene of the plot.
What is important of the three part structure is that it can be used not only to divide a story into three parts, but also to divide a scene in three parts. As a matter of fact ideally a scene should be a conflictual unit meaning that it must have its own conflict which is introduced, reaches a climax and is solved in a way which makes the story progress and which links the scene to the one which comes after.
Let’s make an example using your OC and her intention of triggering her grandmother to see her reaction. I will be quoting from one of your other asks:
Similarly, she wonders the same about her grandmother, who hurt my OC’s father during a breakdown. My OC purposely triggers her grandmother to see if the latter would revert to violence.
As you said your OC at one point chooses to trigger her grandmother to see if she will answer with violence or not. Now, let’s focus on the scene she does it. I imagine she will have her reasons to make such an attempt. For example, let’s say in the scene before she has fought an opponent who taunted her and told her she will always be violent because of her mental illness and that recovery is impossible. Because of this, the scene might open with the character thinking back about this confrontation. The opponent reminded her of her own worst fears and so she wants to see if their words are true or not. Now, she might have to go to her grandmother’s house for a reason or another (she goes there weekly, she needs to borrow a book for plot reasons etc.) and she is thinking while she walks there. When she meets her grandmother she might feel anger even if she herself might not realize why (the readers would understand that it is because the grandmother reminds her of herself) and she decides to trigger her even if she had not planned it beforehand. Hence her manipulating her grandmother and her grandmother’s reaction. The interaction might solve in different ways. She could leave her granmother’s house both scared and angry or she might stay until the grandmother calms down and they can have a heartfelt discussion. As you can see these two different endings give different spins to the story and push it in different directions. In the first ending the character might be shocked of having her worst fears confimred and might spiral for a bit, while in the second case her dialogue with her grandmother might help her overcome her opponent’s words in the long run.
What I wanted to show is that in a single scene you managed to convey the character’s interiority and her feelings and to make the plot progress.
Let’s now briefly focus on the POV you are using.
For example, are you using a first person POV or a third person POV? A first person can be difficult to handle especially when the POV of your character is original and not objective in some instances. That said, the fact what your character says might not represent the truth could be used to create interesting effects. For example, Georgy Porgy is a short story by Roald Dahl which is told by a vicar’s point of view. The things narrated by the vicar becomes stranger and stranger until he says that he has been eaten by a woman. However, later details like a man in a white coat coming to visit him in the woman’s stomach make people understand he is in a psychiatric hospital. Another example is given by a novel by Natsuo Kirino where the story is told through letters and a manuscript. Thanks to this, the readers have a specific story told by the book written by a character and letters written by other characters which contradict and criticize the book. Because of this, in the end the reader is not sure about who is telling the truth and who is lying.
Generally speaking, a third person can be easier to handle because you can decide how much to focus it, so that it can perfectly overlap with your POV character, but also offer some kind of commentary to some of the character’s more contradictive actions. At the same time, a third person can make the use of more lyrical and poetic images justified, while it can be difficult to make them believable with a first person.
Another thing to consider is how many POV you are using.
A single POV can let you avoid too much fragmentation of the story and of the subplots, but of course it makes so that the readers’ knowledge is limited to the character’s perspective. This can actually help in the construction of interesting twists which are revealed to the character and to the reader at the same time.
More POVs can let the readers know more characters at the same time and they can in this way acquire more information, but the story might be slowed down by this and it can become confusing.
I think that it is better to have a limited number of POV characters and to choose them according to the plot. For example, if in the end the main POV character gets to know everything the reader needs to know you might just have one POV, while if the POV won’t discover everything and you need the reader to realize this and to know more you may have more POV characters or also change the POV just at the end to show that things did not end like the character thought.
All in all, the choice of more POV characters might also be about the themes of the story like in Baccano! where the fact of having a huge cast and not a proper MC is used to convey the themes about life and narrative the series explores.
Finally I think that when choosing a POV character one should consider that two different effects can be obtained according to the attributes of the character.
Either the character has very average attributes or the character has very specific and strange attributes.
In the first case, the POV will be as close as objective as it is, but the character will lose in characterization.
In the second case, the POV might not be much objective and a part of the story’s charm will be to convey the point of view of the character which is not common. In this case, the POV of the character might twist events, but also the perception of other characters and so it might be difficult to describe in an objective way characters as complex and as peculiar as the one of your POV character.
A solution might very well be to differentiate between POV character and main character. In this case the POV will tell the story of the MC (for example this is the idea behind Sherlock Holmes and Watson). The MC will be the character living the most important conflict and driving the story, while the POV will be the person through whom we will experience the story and will have a more passive role.
For example, in both Psycho Pass and Madoka respectively Akane and Madoka have for the first part of the series the role of POV characters. They are more passive than other characters and they know less about the worldbuilding than other characters. Because of this, they are the characters things are explained to and in this way things are explained to the readers as well. In Akane and Madoka’s case, their role of POV characters is handled very well imo because they both have an important development at the end of their respective series to the point that they take important parts of the plot in their own hands after having been passive for the majority of the story. Basically they do not remain passive until the end and they are given a proper arc.
I would also like to highlight how not being given the POV of a character since the beginning, but discovering that character little by little as the POV’s character gets to know them more and more doesn’t necessarily make the character less interesting or sympathetic, but can actually be very satisfying. For example, this is exactly what happens with Homura in Madoka since we discover more and more about her as the story progresses and we are shown different aspects of her character.
These are my thoughts on your question and I hope they were useful. I will answer to your other asks soon. Hopefully either tomorrow or on Tuesday.
Thank you for the ask!
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Thought I was joking about that essay in my last post, didn’t ya?
Well guess again.
So if you know me, you know that my absolute favorite comic book storyline, NAY, fictional storyline of all time is the incredible, incomparable, indomitable, Dark Phoenix Saga...
I love this story to death! It’s such a great tale of love, loss, pain, action, and space genocide! It’s the story that cemented Chris Claremont as the definitive X-Men writer AND catapulted Wolverine into the ensemble darkhorse we know now! What’s not to love?
But everytime DPS gets adapted, it falls flat with an unimaginable thud. There are many reasons for this, and in this tangent I will be listing the reasons why I, in all my teenage wisdom, think adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga will be a thankless, thankless result for everyone of its fans:
1–The Changes:
This is the reason I hear of the most whenever a DPS adaptation is criticized. You know the drill; they changed it, now it sucks yadda yadda I’m gonna complain to the internet about it! (Hello irony, it’s been a while...)
But in all seriousness, this complaint is a mixed bag of sorts; any adaptation has to have changes not only to be unique and original to fans new and old, but also to fit the new medium it’s being adapted into. This is true for many Marvel films; Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse may be adapted from the Spider-Verse event comic, yes, but it’s change of the method of transportation from The Great Web of Life and Destiny to a particle collider as well as its focus on just six Spider-People instead of thousands makes the story more clear and concise but still adhering to the roots of the comics, and while Days of Future Past’s switching up of the characters involved and plot points is annoying to some, it did so in a way that made sense and kept true to the plot of the original.
But for some odd reason, any changes made to the Dark Phoenix Saga ends in tragedy (which is hilarious to me considering how the storyline ends). The Last Stand (which I am only acknowledging as existing for the purposes of this essay, and everything besides Kelsey Grammer as Beast, Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde, and that one scene with the family in the car on the Golden Gate Bridge can go die in a dumpster fire..) changed the Phoenix from an intergalactic force to a psychopathic split personality in Jean that Professor X suppressed for years, which, to be frank, I could forgive since the 2000s X-Movies were set up to be more realistic than the comics. What I can’t forgive is the addition of characters like Magneto to a story that they weren’t even a cameo in, the numerous plot holes, the atrocious Phoenix costume, and fusing DPS with The Cure storyline for some god forsaken reason...
And while Dark Phoenix 2019 seems to at least try and be more faithful to the original story (with a Mastermind analogue, aliens, and keeping the Phoenix Force an actual intergalactic force of power), only time will tell whether or not it is as such...
2–The Characters:
In any story, the characters are one of the most important aspects. They move the plot, twist the narrative, make funny quips, etc...And for the Dark Phoenix Saga, the most important character is Jean Grey herself.
And you might be saying: “But Jellyfish, isn’t that kind of obvious?” Well, in any other case, you might be right. But for some weird reason, Jean is never defined enough as a character for us to care.
In The Last Stand, Jean is basically an afterthought while the audience is subjected to “The Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine Show”; she’s just there to act as a macguffin for the characters to fight over who occasionally has a line or two with a hint of character depth. It’s insulting how I know more about Movie!Nightcrawler (who we got to know over the course of a single movie) than I do about Movie!Jean (who we had THREE movies to get to know). Dark Phoenix 2019 does carry the positive of putting Jean in the role of main character, but we still know nothing about her because the writing in X-Men Apocalypse for Jean is very, very lacking...
In the original Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean Grey was simultaneously hero, victim, and villain. She was a heroic figure who tragically fell from grace, ultimately sacrificing herself to save the entire universe. She was a selfish, cruel, and wicked monster who cared only for her own passions and desires, with no regard for the hundreds of thousands of lives she destroyed in the wake of her malevolent acts. She was caring, kind, fiery, fierce, terrifying, vain, passionate, etc...In every aspect of her—from Jean Grey to Marvel Girl to Phoenix to the Black Queen to Dark Phoenix—you could see shades of all of these traits and emotions in her. Phoenix and Dark Phoenix weren’t two separate entities, and neither were Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force itself. Two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang. Mortal and Goddess. Maiden and Monster.
In the end, however all these problems with defining Jean Grey’s character are symptomatic of a much larger issue that these movies continuously fail to acknowledge. That reason being:
3–Buildup:
This reason may be, in my opinion, the one that ultimately causes the failure when it comes to adapting DPS.
The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of the most impactful and powerful stories ever written, and the reason behind that distinction is, in my opinion, because of the amount of buildup it had; this storyline wasn’t done in just a few months, it had taken place over 41 issues, which is five years in real life time. There was time spent with the X-Men and building up the Shi’ar Empire and Princess Lilandra as allies and friends to them. We were intrigued by the mystery of Jason Wyngarde and his intentions towards Jean, all while the sinister Hellfire Club lurked in the shadows. We saw the gradual change in Jean Grey as she became more powerful, as she seemingly relived the life of her ancestors all while growing more unsure of her identity with each timeslip. As Jean lost control of her reality and sense of self, the audience was right there with her, trying to make sense of the world we had come to love and enjoy.
And even before all of this—before the Dark Phoenix Saga and the Phoenix Saga—from the very first issue of Uncanny X-Men, we’ve been with Jean Grey. From being the newest student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters to awakening her telepathic powers for the very first time to piloting a space shuttle in the middle of the worst solar storm in history, we’ve been with her every step of the way. And with that history, seeing that fiery redhead fight a herald of Galactus to a standstill, save the universe from destruction! It was so triumphant, so full of awe!!
And...it only served to make things even more tragic with the coming of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Seeing this girl, this heroic girl, as she was twisted and controlled and tamed and broken. As her struggles mounted, with each manipulation and lie, every use of her awesome power growing more tempting and seductive, Jean began to crack—piece by piece—until eventually she just...snapped.
To see her consume that inhabited Star like she was simply drinking a bottle of water, fighting her friends with no remorse, her kind face twisting into a monstrous mockery of a smile...It was terrifying. The buildup gave this story depth, impact, emotion! You could feel every punch, every blast of energy, every scream, every cry, every word echoing in your head and in your heart. And seeing her sacrifice—it was truly uncanny. Begging Cyclops, the man she loved with all her heart, to kill her before she transformed into a nightmare goddess of death was heartbreaking, but his refusal to do so led to her doing the unthinkable; from the moment they were abducted by the Shi’ar to face trial, she knew what she had to do. To destroy any chance of the Dark Phoenix rising ever again, she had to destroy it...and herself as well. So, to save the galaxy, Jean Grey killed herself. In the words of Uatu the Watcher:
“Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die...a human.”
This storyline was filled with blood, sweat, and tears. It’s a reading experience like no other. A love letter to every X-Men fan, past, present, and future. It astounded me when I first read it 5 years ago, and it still astounds me when I read it now...
And that’s why I think we might never get a great adaptation of the Dark Phoenix Saga; to build up a story like this is a undertaking. It wouldn’t be like the buildup to Infinity War, because that was done so that every character in the movie would be well-defined and known to the audience so that they would care what happened to them. If you wanted to make the Dark Phoenix Saga into a movie, you would have to build up Jean Grey throughout each and every movie before that while simultaneously building up the other X-Men too. It would require more than 5 movies to do this; introducing Jean Grey, having her in the X-Men as Marvel Girl for a 2 movies, doing the Phoenix Saga with the M’kraan crystal and the Shi’ar, another movie where she grows in power and develops, and finally the actual Dark Phoenix Saga.
This storyline is incredibly close to my heart for many reasons, not the least of which being that it was the comic book that officially got me into comic books for real. I want to see it done right so badly!!
It’s a tale of tragedy and terror. A symphony of love and loss. A story of absolute power corrupting absolutely, and the unbeatable spirit of humanity that triumphs forevermore...
#the dark phoenix saga#my magnum opus#dear lordy this took way longer than i expected#i’d like to thank chris claremont#and john byrne#and stan lee may he forever rest in peace#x-men#marvel#jean grey
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cool cats (and dogs, too) | myg
⇒ summary: yoongi has one (1) dog, and he loves her very much. yoongi also has one (1) daughter, and she loves cats more than anything. sometimes apples fall pretty far from the tree.
⇒ {dad!au}
⇒ pairing: yoongi x female reader
⇒ word count: 2k
⇒ genre: fluff
⇒ warnings: animals?
⇒ a/n: for sir yoongi’s birthday! i had this idea in my head randomly and thought it would make a cute drabble. also shoutout to that Cool Cat™ in the banner. i’d die for him.
Yoongi loves his daughter more than anything else in the world, but the increasing amount of cat-themed artwork that is hanging around their tiny apartment right next to the heart of the city makes him feel like a traitor. At least Holly doesn’t know what the hell is on all of the things tacked to their refrigerator door, or she’d go into a fit.
People tell Yoongi that his daughter takes after him in many ways. She has the same gummy smile, accentuated by the empty space in her bottom teeth, the first of many. Or, she pouts the same way when she doesn’t get what she wants, an expression Yoongi finds himself weak to every time he is subjected to it. And she loves listening to music, always asks Yoongi to put on her favorite CD (Abbey Road by the Beatles) whenever they’re in the car. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree but his daughter has come so close to the roots that they’re practically the same person.
But the one thing that his daughter doesn’t take after him in? Animals.
Yoongi does not think he has seen a bigger cat-lover than his daughter, and it’s appalling. She has cat bedsheets, a cat backpack, cat-shaped pencil sharpeners and erasers. The walls of their flat are littered with cats drawn on lined notebook paper and little peel-off cat stickers (because Yoongi knows he is too lazy to try and scrape off real sticker remnants). Her bedroom floor is decorated with various stuffed cats, ranging from the smallest kittens to the fiercest lions.
And poor Holly is trapped in the middle of it, Yoongi’s faithful pup who does not understand the horror that is his daughter’s bedroom, can not comprehend what all of the pictures on the wallpaper mean. Holly is the second love of Yoongi’s life, the only other constant in his rocky existence.
It’s not that his daughter, Chorong, hates Holly, or anything. It’s just that every time he takes her into a pet store to pick up Holly’s food, she drags him to the cages where the cats are, ogles them and begs him to adopt one to take home (which Yoongi knows Holly would hate). And she’s constantly babbling about how Holly is so much work to take care of, and even at only five-years-old, she is already aware that cats don’t need to be potty-trained like people and dogs, and that they bathe themselves. And she tells him that Holly deserves a friend because it gets awfully lonely in their little home when she is at kindergarten and he’s at work, and a cat would be the perfect solution to the predicament.
Yoongi was already unprepared to the fullest extent when Chorong came along, stomping all over his previously delicately-laid-out life plans and decorating his life with color. Even five years later, he still thinks he is entirely unqualified to be taking care of a little human despite him trying his best. But this? This sends him back to square one, for nowhere in any of the twelve parenting books Yoongi owns does it detail what to do when your daughter is a cat person and you are a dog person.
Guess this one’s on him to figure out.
---
Yoongi regrets taking this detour after picking his daughter up from extended-day at kindergarten.
His work had dragged on longer than he anticipated, an occurrence he fears will start to become more common. He really hates leaving his daughter alone for so long—she is already beginning to realize that when he doesn’t come to pick her up at the normal time, she just needs to go to the classroom where extended-day is held without being told—and can’t bear the thought of her simply getting used to him not being around. Her mother had left when she was three days old, so Yoongi is all she has.
By the time he picked her up, the sidewalk that was once open for them to walk on as a shortcut to their apartment had been boarded up, metal fencing surrounding it and forcing the two of them to find another way home. Yoongi doesn’t know much about this city to begin with, so he is relying on only Siri to lead him home.
Chorong is happily blabbing on about the arts and crafts activity they did, where they got to decorate ladybugs with sequins and sparkles and glitter as part of their unit on insects. Chorong proudly declares that she is the only person in her class that isn’t afraid of spiders (“even the boys are too scared!”), another trait she got from her father who spent the entirety of his university years taking the spiders that haunted his shared apartment outside.
And then, as Yoongi is telling her that she is the bravest person he knows, she stops. Chorong has a habit of getting distracted fairly easily, yet another inherited characteristic, so Yoongi finds himself getting used to the abrupt pauses and stops as they walk around the city.
“Look, Daddy!”
Yoongi leans down so that he matches her little height, made littler by all of the things in this city that tower over her, and lets his eyes trace from her arm to her pointer finger. When he finally looks properly at what she’s staring at, his brows furrow.
“A cat café!” She cries excitedly, already clasping her fingers together in applause. Yoongi grimaces. “Daddy, can we go inside?” She begs, tugging on her father’s arm in desperation.
Yoongi knows that voice. It’s the voice that Yoongi always caves in to, always finds himself falling weak to, despite the stern tone in his voice as he attempts to tell his daughter “no”.
“Please?”
Yoongi is going to apologize to Holly until the universe collapses in on itself.
Chorong tugs him towards the door, standing on her tiptoes to reach for the handle. Yoongi makes to open the door for her but she pushes him off, already feisty even only at five years of age, wrenching open the door proudly as Yoongi places his hand on the frame to keep it open for her.
“Welcome to the Choco Kitty Cafe,” the woman at the front says, smiling happily at Chorong as she gazes around the quaint cafe. There’s cat memorabilia all over the place, decorating the walls and the floors and everything in between, and Yoongi swears he hears the faint meowing of cats from the next room over. “Just the two of you?” The woman asks, swiping away at the iPad in front of her.
“Yes,” Yoongi nods, already making the pull his wallet from his back pocket. Oh, the things he does for his daughter. He makes sure to keep a close eye on Chorong, knowing how she has a habit of disappearing from his line of sight in favor of something largely more interesting than her father.
“An hour?”
Yoongi looks down to his daughter, who is playing with the lucky cat on the table beside her, paw waving back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
“Yes, an hour,” Yoongi says, and maybe he shouldn’t be wasting away his time surrounded by animals that are notorious for disliking him, maybe he should be working on some of the work he still has left for his boring day job, but the smile on Chorong’s face makes this all the more bearable.
He follows her as she leads him into the room with all of the cats, relatively empty as a result of the time of day. Yoongi counts; there’s eight cats in total, sitting on cushions and towers and shelves, prancing around or eating or sleeping. Chorong looks like she’s in heaven, so overwhelmed at the mere sight of so many of her favorite domesticated pets that she doesn’t know what to do with herself.
Yoongi takes a seat in the corner, letting his body rest after a long day, watching his daughter with a resigned sort of fondness as she jumps from cat to cat, desperate to spread her love equally to all of them. He supposes that some sacrifices are worth making. Chorong can’t contain her excitement—every time a cat sniffs her hand or lets her pet her she shouts, “Daddy! Daddy! Look at this!”—and Yoongi will look at her, send her a thumbs up as he attempts to avoid any sort of contact with the animals. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like they’ve taken too much of a liking to him, either.
“Want tea, sir?”
A voice interrupts his train of thought, and Yoongi whips his head around to find you standing in the doorway to the café part of this cat café, holding a kettle in your hand. You look at him with a warm glow, smiling despite the visible bags under your eyes and the tired slouch of your shoulders.
“Ah, no thank you,” Yoongi says, shaking his head. “It makes me sleepy.”
“I hear you,” you reply distantly, nodding. “Half the time I just want to curl up on the pillows and sleep with the cats.”
Yoongi chuckles to himself, trying not to spend too much time looking at you or the way your lips curl up in a grin or the little sparkles in your eyes. The only person he need love in his life is Chorong. Or at least, that’s what he thinks.
“Is she your daughter?” You ask, motioning to Chorong as she coddles a bright orange cat, one that reminds him of the one from the Harry Potter franchise. You don’t sit down out of respect for his personal space, though Yoongi finds that he wouldn’t mind the company.
He scoots over, the universal sign for “stop standing like a fool and join me on this comfortable cushion”, and nods. “All mine.”
“She’s cute,” you say, taking a tentative seat. “Dragged you in here, didn’t she?”
Yoongi finds himself enamored with how easily you can read him, like you’ve already known him for years. “I’m not… a cat person.”
The declaration makes you gasp in shock, a hand coming up and placed on your chest in mock offense. Your brows furrow and you begin to pout, lower lip coming out the same way that it does when Chorong is begging for whatever it is she wants.
“You’re not a cat person?” You ask, mouth open wide. “How could someone not be a cat person?”
“They don’t like me, I don’t like them,” Yoongi explains. “I like dogs. They’re better.”
“I take personal offense to that statement,” you say. “It seems your daughter would agree with me.”
“There are things that she and I don’t really match up on.”
“But cats are so wonderful! All they do is sleep and eat and look cuddly and shower you in affection,” you say longingly, a hand leaning down past the edge of the seat as a cat brushes by, sniffing your outstretched fingers with a satisfied purr as it rubs its chin against them. “How can you go wrong?”
“Dogs do all that and more,” Yoongi begins to playfully argue, a blush blooming on his cheeks as you pout his way.
You stand up firmly, blatantly attempting to resist the smirk that’s growing wider on your face. “This means war, Mr. Dog Person,” you decide, hands on your hips. “I’ll teach you to love cats. Just you wait.”
---
On the way back, Chorong is joyfully skipping down the pavement, hand resting in her father’s safe grip. The entire walk to their home, she goes on about each of the different cats, citing you as the “nice lady who told me their names and their favorite things to do” and making Yoongi’s heart swell just a little more.
It’s strange for him, really, to already be thinking about a future with you. For five years now, it’s been him and Chorong against all of the forces of the universe, ready to take on anything that comes their way, but now, Yoongi thinks he might have to rewrite a couple chapters. His conversations with you have been brief and meaningless, but, for the first time, Yoongi wants to know a little more.
“Daddy?” Chorong asks as they step into the elevator, her father letting her press the seventh floor button.
“Hmm?” Yoongi responds mindlessly.
“Do you like the lady at the cat cafe?” She asks innocently, looking up at him with her brown eyes wide.
“What do you mean, Chorong-ah?” Yoongi inquires, a little frightened and a little impressed with how easily she was able to pick that up. Is he really that transparent?
“I mean, do you like like her? Because you always told me that when you smile it’s because you like something. Like like something,” Chorong says pointedly, her five-year-old logic sending his heart reeling.
Yoongi’s grip grows tighter on his daughter’s hand as he thinks of what lies ahead. The thought excites him. Perhaps your relationship won’t work, perhaps there will be too many bumps in the road, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try. You make him want to learn to love the things that the universe throws his way.
He thinks he might need to start taking that detour more often.
⇒ hmu with feedback or just talk to me here!
#sfwbangtan#bangtan bookclub#bangtanwriters-net#bts writing squad#yoongi fluff#yoongi fic#bts fic#bts fluff#bts dad au#dad yoongi#yoongi scenario#yoongi imagine#yoongi oneshot#bts imagine#bts drabble#hbd yoongi!#mygday#w: cool cats#i am a cat person if this fic did not make it abundantly clear
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