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heywardsarchive · 4 years

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STAR CROSSED LOVERS~ JAMES SIRIUS POTTER

Summary: Harry Potter does not get along with his old Slytherin classmates. He doesn't let his son talk to his either. But what happens when James Sirius Potter falls in love with the Slytherin daughter of Blaise Zabini?

Warnings: fluff, kinda angsty, slightly ooc Harry and a few swear words

This is for @im-a-writer-right writing challenge

Gif not mine

Being the daughter of Blaise Zabini is not always easy. My mother had left us when I was just a child. I was left in the care of my not so motherly grandmother and her troupe of new husbands and my father, who was really trying his best. He wasn't very fatherly by nature but he tried to be there for me whenever he could.

After the war things were better for the wizarding community. They tried to be mom judgemental based on blood status or house, but old habits die hard. My father and his Slytherin friends especially uncle Draco were shunned and looked down upon. All for the mistakes made by their parents. People would glare at them whenever they passed by. Finding jobs wasn't that easy for us. Not that we needed it but dad wanted to find a way to redeem himself. So he and uncle Draco joined auror training where obviously they were most disliked. Seeing all this around me made me determined to grow up and fight this prejudice. I told my father what I thought and he smiled and patted my head saying that he believed in me. That was all eight year old me wanted to hear and she believed it thoroughly.

But things are not as easy as it seems. I started Hogwarts soon after. I sat in a carriage all alone for a while for no one wanted to sit with a Zabini. Then came in a boy with messy black hair and brown eyes. "Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full." I was delighted! "Yes ofcourse!" "James Potter." He said extending his hand. Oh. A Potter. He'd get up and leave the moment I told him my name. "Y/n Zabini." I said preparing myself for him to walk away disgustedly. I looked up at him after a few moments. "Why didn't you run away screaming?" "Why should I have?" "Because your dad hates mine. My father is Blaise Zabini. Draco Malfoy's best friend." My words sunk in. "So you're the girl my dad told me to stay away from." I felt crestfallen. Why had some old mistakes caused me this? I blinked away tears that threatened to fall. He made no move to leave and continued to stare at me. "Why are you still here then?" "You seem like a nice girl and I think we'll be good friends." "What about your dad?" "He'll get over it and besides rules are meant to be broken." Hd said winking. I laughed. Maybe things would not be so bad.

An hour into the train ride, a boy with tan skin and red hair came to our compartment. "James! There you are. Ive been looking everywhere for you." "This Fred. He's my cousin." James told me. "Now who might this pretty girl be?" He said looking at me. I introduced myself to him, waiting for a reaction. "So this is the girl your dad warned you about?" "Yep." "Nice." "As he already told you, I'm Fred, Fred Weasley. My parents warned me too, but you seem nice and I love breaking rules so, let's be best friends." He said with a genuine smile. I nodded. My biggest fears were wiped! I hadn't reached Hogwarts and I already had two friends!

"Anything from the trolley dears?" Said the trolley witch. "Just jelly slugs thanks." I smiled. She handed it to me. I opened it and shared it with the boys. "So which house are you going to be in?" James asked me. "We're certainly gryffindors." Fred finished with a smirk. "I, uh, I think I'll be in um Slytherin." They had a shocked expression but wiped it off quickly. "Well, Slytherin would have gained a brilliant witch then."

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful. We were nearing the castle and I was quite excited! I had heard so many stories of the castle from my dad. We exited the train and walked up to this giant man who was calling all first years to him. I started walking toward him with Fred and James behind me. We reached a large lake with lots of boats. The boys ran ahead and sat on a boat. They beckoned me to them. Honestly, I was still shocked they actually wanted to be my friend! I climbed on with them and we looked at the castle in awe. The ride was relatively silent as we were all mesmerized by the view. The boat ride was over and we were at the entrance to the great hall.

A tiny profesor who introduced himself as professor Flitwick gave us an introductory speech. I listened intently getting more nervous as the time passed. Seeing my face James squeezed my hand and Fred (who was half a foot taller than me) patted my shoulder reassuringly. The large door opened and we walked in. The great hall was everything I imagined. I looked at the celing it was enchanted with the night sky and floating candles. It was beautiful! The sorting ceremony was about to begin. There was a wierd hat that burst into a song. I got quite the shock.

Professor Flitwick called out names. Some girl names Jessica Greene was sorted into Slytherin. Daniel Walker was sorted into Hufflepuff and so on.

"Potter, James." I squeezed his hand and he gave me a small smile and sat on the stool. The hall started murmuring at his name. The hat had barely been placed on his head when it called "gryffindor!" James jumped up in glee and ran to the gryffindor table. "Weasley, Fred." I smiled at him as he sat on the stool. "Gryffindor!" The hat called after a few seconds. Eventually only I was left. "Zabini, y/n." I breathed in trying to calm myself. Dad would love me no matter what house I was in. Grandmother was a different story, but still. Calm yourself y/n. I climbed onto the stool and the hat was on my head. "You are different." The hat told me. "You've got great ambition and thirst to prove yourself and to change the world. But you're also very brave and chivalrous. Where to put you? Better be Slytherin!" I smiled to myself and walked to the Slytherin table. James and Fred smiled at me and threw me a thumbs up.

"Jessica Greene." Said the blonde girl I had seen earlier. "y/n Zabini." I smiled and shook her hand. She smiled. "I think we're going to be great friends." I felt so happy! I had made 3 friends when I thought I'd make none. Headmistress McGonagall gave us a welcome speech and gave a list of forbidden places and objects; which by the look James and Fred shared and then gave me; they intended to break all of them. i giggled to myself. Hogwarts truly was a magical place. After the speech was over, the tables magically filled up with the most delicious smelling food ever! I immediately piled my plate with a variety of dishes. " You look like you've never seen food before." snorted Jessica. "I have seen food before, just not as good!" I proceeded to finish up my food while conversing with Jessica and the rest of my housemates. They were all very nice, none of them having pureblood only ideas. the feast ended and we were led to the common rooms. The Slytherin common room was in the dungeons. It was green and very cozy. i liked the vibe of the place. i shared my dorm with only 3 other girls since there were only 4 slytherin girls in first year. My bed was beside the window and i loved it!

Jessica decided that since there were so few of us, we needed to bond and stick together. So after all of had got dressed we sat down in a circle and introduced ourselves. "I'm Abigail Larson." said the girl with long brown hair and green eyes. The other girl introduced herself as Anika Smith." she had tan skin and deep brown eyes with dark brown hair. The four of spoke till late that night. I woke up a bit early the next morning, excited for our first day. I got dressed into my school robes and then went to wake up the others. Anika and Abigail woke up easily while Jessica was a whole different story. "Five more minutes." she groaned. "Ok sleepy head, but if we miss our first day of classes i doubt the teachers will be happy. She groaned again but woke up anyway. While i waited i wrote a letter to my father. I told him about my house, the sorting and my new friends." I had just finished the letter when Jess was ready. "Ready to go?" i nodded and the four of us head out to the great hall.

I split from the group so i could owl the letter. I was on my way to the owlery when i felt an arm wrap around my waist and another around my shoulder. "Well, look who it is Fred! Our little snakey friend." " Why yes it is james, say y/n already forgotten about us have you?" I giggled at the comment. "Ofcourse not! I was just about to send this letter before you two slowed me down." "Our sincerest apologies." said James not looking sincere in the slightest. They continued to follow me to the owelery talking among themself. i quickly tied the letter around my owl's leg and gave him a few treats before he took off. " Lets head to breakfast before we get late yeah?" "oh little Zabini, ever the punctual girl." Said Fred snickering slightly. I hit him in the arm and walked toward the great hall. I bid they boys goodbye and sat at the slytherin table with my friends.

First year passed by relatively fast. I topped most of my classes and was the favourite student of most of the professors. Potions was my favourite class, closely followed by charms. The year was at it's end and Fred, James and I were walking by the black lake. I kicked at a pebble before turning to the boys. "Did you tell your parents that you were friends with me?" i asked hesitantly. "Not exactly, no." they said. "Our parents would not be too happy about that." "I understand." i said sadly. I should have known,their family wouldn't welcome me with open arms would they now. "Don't be sad little snake. We'll figure it out. I promise." i smiled.

I sat in the train carriage with the girls, excited to be home. I was top of the class, a slytherin and the teachers loved me. Grandmother would be pleased. Dad, well he is proud of everything i achieve and i love him for it. During the ride James and Fred walked in. "Hello ladies, mind if we borrow our little friend here for a minute?" They nodded and I walked out of the cabin with the boys. "So we have come up with a plan for you to meet us during break without our parents getting to know." I looked at Fred and motioned him to go on. "Our close friend and fellow gryffindor, Alec Thomas lives near diagon alley. We have made a plan to meet him during the break at his house. We spoke to him and he agreed to let us stay over at his place during break. If you could come to diagon alley around the 13th of july (thats my birthday lol) we could meet up for ice cream!" "That seems like a good plan." I said thoughtfully. I was planning on telling dad about the boys anyway, this could work. They grinned. The train sounded as we drew nearer to the station. I grabbed my bag and got ready to get off at the station. I hugged the girls who had grown to become my best friends although i was closest to Jessica.

I walked around the station looking for my father. "Y/N!" His voice came. I dragged my trunk and ran to him. He pulled me in for a hug. "I missed you so much!" "I missed you too dad and i have some great news!" I told him about all my achievements and my new friends. "Your grandmother will certainly be proud. She missed you although she won't admit it." I giggled at that. We apparated home where grandmother was waiting for us. A there was a man behind her whom i did not recognize. He must be her new husband! Yeah, grandmother changed husbands like she changed clothes. I went and hugged her. "How was school?" "It was great!" I told her too of all my achievements and dad was right, she was proud of me.

The days flew by quickly. I received an owl from James asking me how I was and reminding me of our meeting in a few days. Right. I had yet to tell my dad about them. I would do it now. As i was preparing to tell him the door opened and there he was. "Hey darling." "Dad I need to tell you something." "Okay." he said cautiously. "I am friends with James Potter and Fred Weasley. Please don't be mad." He smiled at me. "I am not mad dear. In fact i am happy for you. You have made so many friends! And besides I am not going to control who you are friends with. It isn't fair. But darling, be careful. James and Fred may be nice but their family won't accept you easily." "I know that. And i will be careful. Besides, they have asked me to meet with them this week at diagon alley, Can I go daddy?" He thought about it and and sighed. "Alright. You can go." "Thankyou so much!" I hugged him.

On the morning of the day I had to meet the boys I woke up early out of sheer excitement. I ran down and ate breakfast quickly. Grandmother looked shocked to see me up early but didn't comment. I ran up to my bedroom and got dressed. "Ready to go?" Dad asked coming into my bedroom. "Yep!" We were going to get my school stuff before I met the boys. We apparated to diagon alley. Dad said he had some work to do and told me to go and buy some quills and ink in the mean time. As I left the shop my father walked toward me grinning, holding something behind his back. "As a reward for doing so well, I decided to get you this." It was a broom! Oh I loved quidditch. I used to play with dad and uncle Draco sometimes. Scorpius never liked the sport. "Thankyou so much!" It was one of the best brooms out there. Oh I'm definitely trying out for quidditch this year. He patted my back. "Looks at the time! You'll get late to meet your friends. I'll get the rest of your stuff. You go ahead." I bid him goodbye and ran to the ice cream parlour.

There on a small table were James Potter and Fred Weasley. "Hello boys." I said as I walked up to them. They greeted me cheerfully. We ordered our ice cream and sat down. "Shit!" Said James loudly. He frantically pointed at the window. I looked to see what on earth was bothering him when lo and behold the famous Harry Potter was walking toward the shop. "What do we do?" Mr Potter had already seen us so I couldn't exactly run away. "Don't mention your last name no matter what ok." Fred told me. "Hey kids." Said Mr Potter. "What brings you here dad?" James asked a bit nervously. "Oh I was just in a meeting near by and thought I'd come say hi to you both. I called Dean up and he said the two of you had come here to meet a friend who I'm assuming is this young lady here." He said pointing at me. I shot him a nervous smile, not quite knowing how to react. "Yes. Dad that is y/n. She's in our year. Top of the class." "It's great to meet you." "You too sir." I started to get nervous and I think James noticed because he said. "Dad it's getting late we better get going. Good bye!" Mr Potter looked confused but left anyway. "I'd better leave too boys. See you at school." They hugged me goodbye and I went to find my dad.

***

Fourth year

The whole incident was long forgotten. The boys and I became very close. We decided not to meet such a way ever again. The stress was too much for me.

The boys had decided that it would be fun for them to join me and the girls on our train journeys and while eating dinner ever since Albus and Scorpius had been sorted into slytherin in our third year. My friends gave me suggestive looks but eventually got bored of it and accepted the boys joining us. The train journey wasn't that different this year. "Hello ladies." Said Fred sliding into the compartment. We greeted them with a chorus of hellos. Fred sat down opposite me beside Abi. Although there was a ton of space next to him, James squeezed himself next to me almost pushing Anika off her seat. She glared at him and stood up muttering coulourful words while setting herself next to Abi. "How was you guys' summer?" He asked. "It was terrible!" I cried. It truly was. "Hey! you spent half of your summer with me." Said Jessica in mock offense. "Jess, you know what i mean." She simply smirked. "What happened?" James asked. "Well, for starters I had to help set up this stupid wizarding gala with my grandmother. She wanted to show off and sell her jewelry to other folk while at the same time hosting a ball like thing, whih mind you was boring as hell. The only people who showed up were stuck up old ladies. They had brought along their reluctant grandsons who i am sure my grandmother wanted as a potential suitor for me, and had she had her way it would have been so, but my dad would not allow it. Anyway, I spent a week of my break in that way." I finished with a sigh. I could see how badly everyone wanted to laugh or sympathize with me. "Go ahead and laugh." Everyone burst out laughing and i found myself laughing too.

We spent the rest of the journey laughing and having a gala time. We reached hogwarts and watched the sorting. Slytherin had gained 9 new students. We heard the standard starting of the year speech and tucked in. We chatted merrily until bedtime like every year. It had become a tradition to chat all night on the first day of school. I went to bed that night with a smile on my face.Hogwarts is truly a magical place.

Today was the first day of classes. I had dropped divination and taken arithmacy instead. I had heard it was a wonderful subject. Professor Howard took arithmacy and he was a brilliant teacher. I truly loved the class. I sat down at my place when in noticed a head of shaggy black hair in front of me. "James?" I asked surprised. "Y/n!" James said. "I didn't know you took this class." "Neither did I. But apparently I do now." He joked. "Only kidding. I never took divination after hearing how boring it was from my dad." 'Why don't we sit together?" He nodded and jumped over his seat and onto the one next to me. "You could have just walked you know that right?" He just grinned and shrugged innocently. I just rolled my eyes.

Fourth year wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. I actually quite enjoyed it. I was sitting by the black lake. "I need your help!" came the voice of Scorpius Malfoy, following behind him was Albus Potter. "Whats up Scorp?" "Well, I like this girl and want to ask her out. But I think she hates me." "Who is this girl?" I asked. "It's my cousin, Rose." Albus cut in. Rose Granger Weasley. Another person who hated people like Scorp and me, it was because her dad doe s not like ours, but unlike the Potter boys, she refused to change her views. "Well Scorp, you should be nice to her, try being her friend, only then ask her out. If she refuses to be your friend, then I guess she is not worth the trouble. No offense Albus." "None taken. I know that Rose is a bit stuck up which can be pretty annoying." Scorpius looked dejected but nodded nonetheless. I felt a bit bad for him. But I can't really help him can I?

Today is the first quidditch game of the season. Our captain has been working out butts off sine a month. "Ready to get your arses beat?" I smirked at Fred and James. "You wish Zabini." They retorted. I walked to the slytherin changing room where our captain, Elena Johnson was waiting. "Alright. We have worked long and hard for this. Use your strategies and no cheating and we can win." We cheered and got to the pitch. I was a chaser on the team and so was James. I mounted my broom and smirked at him. He smirked back. Madam Hooch blew the whistle and the quaffle was in the air. I dived to catch it, but James caught it first. Dang it. I chased after him to try and catch the quaffle. He threw the quaffle to the hoop and just as it was about to score, my fellow chaser, Andrew caught it. He passed the quaffle to me and I scored! James was behind me now, I threw the quaffle to the third chaser, Ben who threw it at the hoop. We scored again. Slytherin was in the lead and I was ecstatic. The gryffindor chasers were trying their best to up their score. The beaters were sending bludgers left right and centre. Fred knocked a bludger in our direction, not intending to hurt anyone, but unfortunately James had come in the way and he got hit. He was a foot away from me when I saw him fall. The crowd gasped. I don't know what came over me and I dived to catch him. He nearly hit the ground when I broke his fall. I set him on the ground gently. "James. James?" I tried to shake him, but he was unconscious. Madam Hooch took him to the hospital wing and the game continued. I hoped the seeker would catch the snitch because I was unable to focus. My wishes were answered because the snitch was caught and Slytherin won the game.

I should have stayed back to celebrate but I was too concerned about James. I changed and rushed to the hospital wing. He was lying there asleep looking so peaceful. I sat by his bed and looked at him. I think I must have been there a long time because I had fallen asleep and for some reason when I woke up I was holding James' hand. I quickly retracted it. "Y/n? Is that you?" James asked. "Yea, it's me. You took a pretty bad fall there you know?" "I know. I did it so it would not hit you." "What?" "Yes." He said and before I could say anything else he fell asleep again. Typical.

What he said that day never left my mind. He obviously did it because he's my best friend. Right? RIGHT? I voiced my thoughts to Jess but she simply have me a knowing look and was no help at all. I eventually decided to let it go and move on with my life. James seemed to have forgotten he said it too. So I pretended he didn't and we were back to being best friends.

Sixth year

Although I pretended that I had forgotten what James said, I never did. His words kept resounding in my head and he never left my mind. All the tiniest things he did made it seem like he liked me. Although, he's been like that since the start. I spent the entirety of fifth year deciding whether I liked him or I was just being paranoid. Eventually I decided that I did like him and I was just lying to myself saying that I didn't. I told my friends about my revelation when they stayed over during the summer and they all responded with a "Finally!" Or something along those lines. Rude.

After I accepted I had a crush on James, I because hyper aware of him whenever he came near me. I would immediately tense and blush. I think I was pretty obvious but James was oblivious as always. Even Fred noticed and asked me about it. I tried to avoid answering his questions but he is a stubborn prat. I made him swear not to tell anyone and told him of my crush. He jumped and screamed. "I KNEW IT!" he was convinced James liked me too, but how could he? He was my best friend and besides, his father would probably kill him.

Fred seemed to take my confession as a challenge to set us up. He even managed to rope in my friends. They made us sit together I'm class, while eating. They left us alone for long periods of time but nothing. I decided that it was worthless waiting for James since he obviously didn't like me back. I would try move on. It was hard, obviously when I so clearly in love with him.

I was sitting in the library finishing my potions homework when Andrew Higgs came up to me. He was a sweet boy and was in the quidditch team with me. "Hey y/n." "Hey Andrew. What's up?" He rubbed his neck. "Do you want to go to hogsmeade with me?" I was about to say no but then I remembered that I wanted to move on. "Sure!" "Great! I'll see you tomorrow then?" I nodded.

I skipped back happily to my common room. "What's got you so happy?" Abi asked. "I got a date with Andrew." "The chaser?" "Yep!" "But what about James?" "He doesn't like me. I may as well move on." I shrugged. The girls didn't look convinced. I ignored it and left the common room for my prefect rounds. Yes I was a prefect. I had rounds alone today so I had plenty of time to think. I spent most of the year pining after him and now I only have three months left of sixth year. I may as well go on a date or two and see how it works out. As I was lost in my thoughts, I bumped into Fred. "Well well well. Look who is out after curfew." I grinned at Fred. "Is it true you have a date?" I nodded. "Don't go! James will be crushed." "I am going and he's made it clear he doesn't like me. And even if he does maybe this is the push he needs to ask me out." Fred sighed in defeat but headed back to his common room.

The weekend was here. I dressed up in a cosy but warm outfit and left for hogsmeade. I met Andrew at the three broomsticks. He hugged me and pulled out the chair for me. He was a perfect gentleman and was so much fun to talk to, but something was missing. He wasn't James. "This was fun-" I started. "But you don't like me that way?" I sighed. "I'm sorry Andrew, you're a really great person and I'd love to this again but as friends. I don't like you that way." "It's fine. I know you like Potter and it's ok. I like this ravenclaw girl but she doesn't seem to notice me so I thought I'd try to move on." I grinned at him. I bid him goodbye and headed to honeydukes to re stock my candy. I was about to pay for my sweets when fred and James came up behind me. "How was your date Zabini?" Fred asked. "It was ok." I shrugged. "You went on a date?" James asked a bit accusingly. "Yep." "Oh um that's nice. I uh I gotta go." He said practically sprinting out of the shop. " I told you he liked you." "No he does not." I was still in denial. I paid and left the shop.

James started to act wierd since that day. He started to avoid me and barely spoke to me. Heck even Albus and Scorpius noticed it. I asked Fred about it but he always just shrugged. I started spending less time with the boys and more time with my friends.

The year was over and we were on our way home. I decided that I would speak to James no matter what. "James!" "Yes?" He asked avoiding my eyes. "We need to talk." He shuffled nervously and looked at his feet. "Why have you been avoiding me?" "Avoiding you? I have not!" I gave him a look and he gave me a nervous smile. "Look i-" the train stopped and all the students came rushing out. "We'll talk about this later ok?" He said walking away. I sighed. I'll never get anything out of him.

Seventh year

James ignored all my owls that summer. He didn't even respond to the one about me becoming head girl! I told my dad of it and he sighed and patted my back. Fred still spoke to me though. He told me that James wasn't doing so well. He was always moping. That is very unlike him. Summer before my last year was pretty uneventful. Scorpius and his dad spent a lot of time in our house, not that I minded ofcourse. I wrote letters to the girls who were all travelling to different countries. Since it was my last year, I wanted to try interning with a lawyer of the wizengamot just to get a feel of what my life would be like. It was quite fun to be honest. Summer passed quickly and soon I was walking through the platform for the last time as a student. It was a bitter sweet feeling.

I dropped off my stuff in my compartment and chatted with my friends for a while. Since I had become head girl, anika was the replacement prefect. We headed the the prefect compartment where I had to give out duties. I still didn't know who the head boy was but I guess I'd find out. "James? What are you doing here?" He turned around with a guilty look. "I'm head boy." He said. "But you weren't even a prefect!" "I know, it's odd." I glared at him. He ignored me all summer and now I have to share a dorm with him?! What a life.

I ignored his presence and instructed the prefects of their duties and responsibilities. I have them the schedule and sent them off. As I was about to leave James called out my name. "I don't want to hear it Potter." I threw him an icy glare and walked out. My heart hurt. After all this time I still liked him.

After the feast we all headed back to our respective dorms. It was the first time I'd be away from my friends in school since first year. Usually I would have been happy with James as head boy but at the moment I was very angry.

I set my things in my side of the dorm and head downstairs to the common area where James seemed to be waiting for me. "Y/n! Please just listen to me." "No James. I listened to you last year during school, in the train, I sent you letters but you never responded to them. I think you've lost your chance." I said turning around. He grabbed my wrist and kissed me. I found myself kissing him back.

Realising what I did I pulled away. "No you can't do that! You can't just ignore me and then kiss me!" "I'm sorry I did that to you. When you went on that date with Andrew I got jealous. I was going to tell you I liked you that day but then you went on a date with him and I just snapped I guess. I thought if I distance myself from you my feelings would go away but they didn't. They just became stronger. That's why I didn't answer your letters and I'm sorry." He said looking genuinely sorry. "Why didn't you just talk to me?" I asked making him look at me. "I don't know, I just felt guilty after a point I guess." I wrapped him in a hug. "I forgive you but please never do that again." "You mean that?" I nodded. He immediately kissed me again. My heart fluttered excitedly in my chest. I pulled away for air. "But James, your dad!" "He'll get over it. For now, I just want to be with you."

We didn't plan on telling our friends they way we did. They walked in on us kissing and boy were they pissed. They got over it though. James and I spent most of our time together. It was quite nice actually. Our NEWTS were coming up and I decided to stay back at Hogwarts for Christmas to study. James stayed back too. We occasionally tried to study together but it always failed.

The NEWTS weren't as hard as they were made to be. I think I did quite well honestly. On our last week of school, James and i called our close friends to the head dorm where they would stay the night and we would have fun. We stayed up for most of the night and i cuddled into James' side. "You two are sickeningly sweet." Fred fake gagged. "It's not like you and Audrey are any better." I stuck my tongue out at him. Audrey was Fred's girlfriend. She was nice. "I will really miss this place." Ani sighed. "Me too." "We made so many memories here!" "Let us all promise to stay friends after hogwarts and for the rest of our lives." Said Fred. "Deal" We all said together.

Our graduation ceremony was everything I imagined and better. We sat in the Hogwarts Express for the last time ever as students. I walked onto the platform and sighed. "There's my dad." I pointed in the crowd. "Can I meet him?" James asked me. "You want to?" He nodded. "If you can't meet my father yet, atleast i can meet yours." He followed me to my dad. "Dad, this is James. He is the boyfriend I told you about.""So you are the handsome young lad who stole my daughter's heart? It's great to meet you son. I hope you're taking good care of my daughter.""It's actually her who takes care of me, but I try my best." Dad chuckled. "Good answer. You've got a good one." He told me. I moved to kiss James on the cheek but he moved his face so i kissed his lips. "I'll see you soon, hopefully." He grinned and walked away. I followed my dad and we apparated home.

James' POV

Just as I was about to find my parents, dad walked upto me. I was startled to say the least. "Who's the girl?" He asked me. "Oh no one." I shrugged nervously. "So you just go around kissing no one?" I laughed nervously. Thankfully mom came and saved me. "Ready to go?" She asked. I ran up to her and we apparated home. I spent a few days avoiding dad. I didn't want to answer unnecessary questions about my girlfriend. Unfortunately luck wasn't on my side for long. I was sitting in our backyard when he sat down beside me.

"So tell me about your girlfriend." Well, there was no escaping this now. "She's really sweet yeah, cares about me alot. She's smart and great at quidditch. She's perfect in my eyes." "And her father, doesn't happen to be Blaise Zabini does he because I remember her with him." I started to get angry. When would he see past this silly prejudices. "Yes dad she is his daughter." "I want you to stay away from her." "DAD NO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" I yelled at him. "I can do anything I want because I'm your father. That girl is nothing but trouble. Look at his family tree! A whole lot of death eaters they are." "Her father wasn't a death Eater. And nor is she. She's the best thing to happen to me and you can't make me leave her." "Then you leave us. It's either your family or that girl." "THEN I PICK Y/N! Atleast she doesn't make me pick." "Alright then. Leave." "You can't be serious." "I am." "Fine!" I stormed up to my room and whipped out my wand. I packed my belongings and went to Albus' room. I hugged him and then went and hugged lily and walked out the door. But where would I go? I can't go to Fred's house because dad would obviously find me there. So I apparated to the Zabini manor.

I knocked at the door hoping she would be home. "Coming!" Came her sweet voice. "James? What are you doing here?" She asked looking very confused. "I'll tell you everything, but can I come in first?" "Yeah ofcourse." She let me in and I told her everything. I could see the regret and heart break in her eyes when I told her the story. "Oh James! You shouldn't have left!" "What and break up with you?" "If it means you wouldn't lose your family then, yes!" "But what would I do without you? I love you!" "James, my love, you mean everything to me. But family is always more important. You will find someone else to spend your life with. You need to let go." " I can't do that. I need you." "You need your family more. I'll tell you what. Spend a few days here and then go back. Cool your mind. But I'm not going to be with you if it costs you your entire family James. I love you too much for that." I felt years brimming in my eyes but I nodded. She stopped me in a hug and ran her fingers through my hair.

"Y/n? Who is that?" "It's just James dad. Can he stay here for a few days? He got into a fight with his father." "Alright. I'll tell Jenny to fix up a bedroom for him." "Wait dad, is it ok if he sleeps in my bedroom?" "Ok but only for tonight. And no funny buisness you two. I don't need grandchildren this early." She chuckled lightly and shook her head. We went up to her bedroom and got changed. She lied down and pat the space next to her. I joined her in bed and wrapped my arms around her. "I'll love you forever no matter what." I heard her whisper to me before I fell asleep with the love of my life in my arms.

I had stayed with her for a few days and I had to return home that day. I grudgingly packed my things. I kissed her one last time and apparated home. "So you're back I see." Said dad smugly. "Yes. And only because the girl you hate so much forced me to come back." "See. I told you she would ditch you." I started to get angry. "She did not ditch me. She said she'd rather I break up with her than lose you and my family. But clearly she was wrong." Dad looked a bit embarassed after my out burst. I went back to my room and ignored him for the rest of the day. Albus was the only person I talked too because he understood my situation. He was sad too because he liked her in a sisterly way very much. It was a week after I returned and I was looking at career options when dad knocked on my door.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I realise I was wrong in making you break up with that girl who you clearly love. I spoke with hermione and your mother and they too agreed that what I did was wrong. So I am now here to say you have all our blessings." "Really?" I asked unable to believe my ears. "Thanks dad!" I hugged him. "Now go get her tiger. But wait. I want you to give her this." He pulled out a box with the most beautiful ring. "But dad we're so young!" "I know. It was my mom's. I got it back much after I got married so I kept it for you or Albus. You don't have to give it to her right now. But if you do, I wish you all the best." He gave me the box and left. I thought about what he said. Maybe I do want to marry her.

I apparated to Zabini manor and frantically knocked the door. The door opened revealing a disheveled y/n. "James? Why are you back i-" I cut her off and firmly kissed her. "I missed you so much." "I missed you too but what about your dad?" "He's ok with it. He realised his mistake." "That's great James! I'm so happy for you!" "Yeah me too. I also wanted to give you this." I got down on one knee and opened the ring box. "I know we are young, we have so much of our life ahead of us! And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you more than words can say my love. So will you y/n Zabini make me the happiest man on earth and marry me?" Her eyes started to water and she smiled at me. "Ofcourse I will! But not right now. I will stay engaged to you but I want to settle down first you know?" "I understand I do. And I totally agree with you. I'm with you all the way." I got up and spun her around.

I heard a sniffle and we jumped apart. "That was cutest proposal ever!" Said Mr Zabini. "Thank you mr Zabini." I grinned. "Well you might as well start calling me dad." There was a knock on the door. "Oh that must be your father James. I called him when you started your speech." The house elf opened the door and I saw my parents and siblings enter. "I guess it's time to make amends." Dad said to mr Zabini, I mean, other dad. "You must be my future daughter in law." "Yes sir. I am." She smiled at him. Mom came up and hugged her. "It's great to finally meet the girl who is going to marry my oldest little boy!" Mom gushed. "Mom!" I said embarassed. They started to mingle among each other and I sighed happily. Things did get better and I could not be happier.

Four years later

It was finally the day I was going to marry the love of my life. I flattened the non existent creases on my black suit when Fred walked in. "Chill out James you look fine." "How is she?" "She's good too." He was my best man and also one of y/n's best guy friends and so he got to see bith of us but we couldn't see each other since a week which was a bit unfair you know? We were engaged for 4 years which is a long time. In that much time, y/n became a lawyer, I became a professional quidditch player. Time sure flew by.

"Alright James. It's time." Mum said entering my room. "I can't believe you're getting married! It feels like just yesterday you were in diapers." She sniffed. "Mum!" I groaned. "Sorry. Let's go now." I walked to my position on the altar waiting for my beautiful bride to arrive. What felt like hours but was infact only five minutes I saw her. She looked like a godess. Radiance reflected out of her. She looked gorgeous in her white dress. I felt myself tear up as she walked down the aisle with her father. She stood infront of me and grinned.

While the priest spoke I could not take my eyes off her. I was so distracted I didn't realise I had to say my vows. The crowd laughed and I blushed. I recited my vows and so did she.

"I do." "You may now kiss the bride." I was waiting for those words since the start of the week. I kissed her with all the love I held in my heart and the crowd awwd.

At the dinner table fred who was my best man had to give a speech. He spoke of our time in Hogwarts and all the embarassing things I did. Next Jessica who was the maid of honor spoke of y/n's side of things. The guests laughed at our antics. It was time for our first dance. "May I have this dance m'lady" "Yes you may kind sir." She smiled and extended her hand. I pulled her up and we walked to the dance floor. I out my arms around her waist and she on my shoulders. As we swayed to the music I could only think of her.

"I love you Mrs Potter." God I loved saying that. "And I love you Mr Potter."

*********

#riaswritingchallenge #james sirius potter x reader #james sirius potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter next gen

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

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Legless On Maim Chap. 10: Epilogue: Aliens, Ghosts, And Humans! Oh My!

Vee’s a bastard, Danny’s a bastard, Eddie’s a bastard, ClockWork’s a bastard, Lewis’s a bastard; everyone’s a bastard. And multiple minor characters say why the fuck not and join the bastardly fray.

Danny sighs and turns his head back towards the kitchen, “Lewis! Come collect your monsterfucker boy toy!”. Eddie rolls his eyes like he’s heard this a fair few times.

Lewis walks over, “Eddie? Really? I mean one, kid’s not healed. Two-”, grinning, “-thanks for winning me a bet”, and side-eyeing Danny.

Danny points at him, “hey, doesn’t mean-”. Eddie doesn’t even let him finish that, smirking, “oh it does mean”. Danny sighs and hands Lewis what he thinks is a twenty though really? He’s kinda amused. Smirking at Eddie, “congrats, first dude to ever figure things out on their own”.

Sam shakes her head grabs everyone but Lewis and drags them out of the house. Lewis shakes his head, sips at his drink, and heads back over to his friends; Danny could handle Eddie.

Eddie blinks as they stop getting dragged by the goth, “are you serious kid? You look nearly identical with the glowy bullshit edited out”.

Sam smirks, “people are stupid and Danny’s a walking existential crisis”, looking to Tucker and Danny, “so much for Vampire Dad 2 I’m guessing?”.

Danny immediately points at them, “no you go, illegally record it or some shit”.

Tucker rolls his eyes, “you just don’t want us around Mr. Murders And Eats People without checking him out”.

Literally both Eddie and Danny respond with, “hey and I’m taken”.

Tucker blinks, “okay that was fucking weird”, while Danny and Eddie side-eye each other. Sam shakes her head and pulls Tucker off, knowing damn well Danny will just become a ball of overprotective.

Eddie shouts after them, “let it be known! We don’t eat kids!”. Which makes Danny wheeze when some dude at a stoplight shouts back at them, “good! I’m supposed to be getting my mom some blue hydrangeas from the goth! Doubt I can get then from a digested corpse!”.

Eddie mumbles, “everyone in this town is fucking weird”, looking to the side, “shut the fuck up bitch”. Which just makes Danny laugh more. Eddie looks to him, “anyway, you smell fucking weird and those are the most convincing fake leg crap ever”, sighing, “no, we’re not taste-testing”.

Danny snorts and kicks a rock as they start walking randomly, “actually totally do, I’m curious and, I’ve got legs for days”, and slides his hand down his leg with mock sexiness.

“Do you have a death wis-”, before going wide-eyed and suddenly getting bodily flung into Danny, “no! I don’t think he’s serious!”, regardless they end up in a bush with Danny muttering ‘ow’ and missing a bit of shoulder.

Danny stands himself up easily -a bush is by far not the worst thing he’s been bodily shoved into- and rolls his shoulder, Vee’s got some sharp teeth. Damn. Eddie untangles himself and staggers up, making some faces and muttering, “that’s it, no Lindor for you”. Danny lifts an eyebrow when a little black oily snake or something just sprouts out of the guys' shoulder, seemingly sneering all teeth, “HE OFFERED EDDIE”. Eddie grabs the head? and shoves them at his shoulder muttering, “back in, bitch”.

Danny starts wheezing as Eddie looks to him, “also you- oh”, turns back to the bush and promptly throws up. Making Danny fall on his ass laughing, so much for can eat anything! Snapping a probably not flattering pic of the guy bent over a bush, captioning it ‘guess who’s inedible’, and throws it in the Phantom chat.

Eddie hacks a bit, hands on his knees. Wiping his mouth, “ugh”, blinking down at the weird black/green bubbling sludge on the ground, that was slightly dissolving the bush leaves, “what the Hell are you made outta, kid?”.

Danny laughs loudly, “death!”. Laughing more at the little black snakehead popping out of the guys' neck and sticking out their tongue at him; he thinks they look either disgusted or slightly ill.

Eddie rights himself and quirks an eyebrow at Danny’s totally healed shoulder, “fuck you heal fast”.

Danny chuckles some more, standing up off the sidewalk and giving his shoulder a little pat, “Lewis lied, I’m completely healed. Family just don’t know. And to actually answer your question, ectoplasm and human stuff too”, pointing at the bush, “but that was probably the ecto”.

“Well I guess I ain’t eating fucking ghosts anytime soon”.

“JUST SPIT DON’T SWALLOW”. Danny wheezes more at the little head and Eddie looks to them, “the Internet was a mistake”.

“BUT WHERE WOULD YOU WATCH POR-”. Eddie smashes them against his skin, “no! He’s actually a minor. And we’re in public, asshole”. Looking to Danny, “how the fuck were you in Egypt though?”.

Danny shrugs, “eh, I’m tight with the god of time”. Eddie blinks and mutters to the side, “fuck me”. Danny chuckles, “no?”, which Eddie actually laughs at.

Eddie looks around, “alright, since someone made me lose my perfectly fine lunch, there a hotdog stand or some shit?”.

Danny snorts, “no clue if you’re referring to me or Vee”, tilting his head, “huh, that rhymes”, smirking, “cool”, looking back at Eddie, “if it’s food you’re after then the Nasty Burger’s the place”.

Eddie tilts his head and shrugs, “eh you made us eat at a place called fucking Flavours Of Negros ‘cause you thought they served people”. Danny decides against commenting on that one for so many reasons.

Danny walks and points in the direction of the place, “if it’s anything, it used to be the Tasty Burger before someone stole the T”.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow, “that explains nothing”.

Danny shrugs, “there was a public vote and adults hated how all the teens loved the place. One mayor even banned teens from there”.

“Oh the stinking rich one that’s definitely shady as fuck and is kinda like you but for some reason is rocking some vampire bullshit?”.

Danny pauses and blinks at the guy, what the fuck? “How the- okay I get how you figured me out, I literally challenged and baited you. But how the fuck did you put Vlad and Plasmius together?”.

Eddie gives a goofy grin, a very smug one, “I didn’t, but thanks for confirming”.

Danny grumbles, “sneaky bastard”, but is smirking the whole time, “how’d you narrow him down to Plasmius though?”.

Eddie shrugs, hands in his pockets, “ego the size of the moon and rich people are always into weird shit”, pausing and rolling his eyes, “babe, we’re an alien/human cluster fuck. We absolutely are one of them fucking rich people into weird shit”.

“There’s a lot of ways I could take that”, Danny tilts his head, “wait, you’re rich?”. What?

Eddie grins like an idiot, “Life Foundation paid me out big for infecting me with a venereal disease- I mean Symbiote”. Danny just watches as the guys' legs seemingly gain a mind of their own and walks him straight into a pole.

Danny shakes his head at the guy not even seeming phased by that. “Well, I got jack shit for dying”.

Eddie points at him, “so you legit straight-up fucking died? Not just falling in a vat of ghost acid like some fucking spooky Joker bullshit, but less ‘murder a bitch in a burning pile of cash’ more ‘I actually think spandex looks good like a damn fool’”.

“Hey, don’t diss the supersuit! That shit’s my skin man”, shrugging, “at least a layer of it. I fucking died in that shit. On that note, don’t walk into giant vortex tunnel portals to alternate dimensions fuelled by four billion volts of electricity built by explosion prone people who leave switches inside stuff and want to punch holes into the afterlife for funsies, science, and a little bit of mild torturing”.

“Huh. Well fuck your life too then kid. Literally”, rolling his eyes, “not that literally. We don’t kill kids and I don’t think we can make someone double dead”.

Danny sticks up a finger, “actually that happens. And I’m only half-dead, motherfucker. Check yer facts”, smirking, “I’m a real dead-ringer for life, and too bad doc gave away my scraps. ‘Cause if I tossed ‘em in the portal I could really have one foot in my grave”.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to do that- bitch that is exactly why our ass will never be a doctor”, almost looking genuinely offended, “hey, you leave my intellect out of this, you cunt”.

Danny wheezes a bit, does this guy really just talk like this? “How have you not been forcibly admitted to a mental asylum? And no he ain’t but can’t let torture happy gov dogs have my shit”.

Eddie grins wide at that. “You know so I give precisely zero fucks. And nice, fuck the government. I think we’ll get on fine”.

Danny snorts, “oh I have serious beef with the gov. Fuck them. I absolutely have blown up government bases before”.

Eddie nods approvingly and actually fist bumps Danny, “fucking same, and I have enough dirt on people I could ruin their lives if they came after me”.

Danny grins almost menacingly, “the government section that’s here is a literal government secret and completely ignore any and all laws. Wouldn’t put it past them to experiment on child corpses or assassinate the president if he seemed ghost friendly”, shrugging, “Tuck keeps tabs on them, dudes a damn good hacker”.

Eddie tilts his head and nods, “I could use one of those”.

Danny snapping, “not for murder you don’t”.

“You’re too moral”.

“You’re not moral enough”.

Both of them wind up laughing at that since neither actually sounded serious or genuine.

Eddie shakes his head, “anyway, what’d Dan do with your leggy bits?”, muttering to the side, “Dan doesn’t eat people, Vee, and you’re never going to convince him to try”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “gave it to a ghost, Skulker was probably tickled green to get even part of my pelt”, pointing at Eddie, “he’s a poacher. He would cry tears of joy over successfully skinning me”.

Eddie stares at him, Vee’s little head popping out and opening their mouth very wide, “WHAT THE FUCK”.

Danny smirks, he effectively freaked an alien; talk about life, or death, goals, “I have issues. Many of them. And they like to shoot at me”, glancing around at the finally clear street before full force grabbing Vee’s face, “I’ve held off but, oh my Ancients alien sofuckingcoolohmyancientsfuckingfuckyoufeelsofuckingcoolwhatsyourchemicalcompositionlike?canyoueatEddie’seyesandleakdownhischeakslikeblackmurderspacetears’causeIhadareallycooldreamaboutthatdoyouhaveanyspacerocks?ohmyAncientshowfarawayisyourspacerock?isitevenrock?orgas?floatylava!oh!oh!isitallblacklikeyou?orisblackrarecolouringforsymbiotes?redwouldberealcoolbutkindalikebloodwhichweirdrightgreenwouldbefunnycauseI’mallgreenydoyourcoloursevenmeananything?you’relikealittlevoidahungryvoidandohmyAncientsyoureyesaresocoolhowdotheywork?whatcoloursdoyousee?whatsyourfavourite?canyouseethroughEddie’seyeslikenormalhumaneyesoraretheyallenhanced?doesourplanetlookprettytoyou?andohyourteethwhataretheyyoudon‘thaveanybonewhataretheyconnectedto?wheredotheygocanyoumakeEddieallteethy?seemlikeyou’dbiteyourtongueallthetimewhichouchyourtonguelookssomuchmoredetailedhowmuchcanyoutaste?What’syourfavouritenotpeoplefoodLewissaidyou‘resuperoldsoyou’veprobablytastedsomuchshitfromallovertheuniversewhichjustlikeholyshitAncientsendmeZonecomethandgrantmesweetreliefwherehaveyoubeen?whatplanets?whataretheylike?madeoutof?thesmells!whataboutthesmells!?!yousmelllikebutterandcandiedeelandcigarettesmokewhichmustbeEddie’sfaulttellhimhe’sbadyoumustbesoconnectedthenthoughwhat’shisbodylikeversesotherspecies?whatotherspecieshaveyoubeenwith?what’stheirmusculaturlike?howdotheybreathandseeandhearandeverythinghowfarhaveyougone?whataboutallthestars?howdifferentaretheysetupelsewherearetherestarswecan‘tseehere?haveyoubeenonastar!oh!canyoueatastar?haveyou?waitwaitIforgotwhatdoyoutastelike?youbitmesotittatit’sfair”.

Eddie watches in slightly stunned disbelief as Vee desperately tries to get out of this kid’s grip but the kid's nails -claws actually?- are somehow clinging really well and he just leaves the ground and gets dragged with. Knocking everyone over again and licking? Vee. Then prodding their teeth, but that gives Vee the chance to get comfortably back inside him; feeling obviously super confused and startled.

Eddie has to practically kick the kid off him when he literally sticks his hand through Eddie’s collarbone where Vee disappeared through. “Ohthat’ssocooltheyslipthroughyourpoursandskinsuremyectoplasmdoesthattoobutit’snotanalienohmyAncients”.

Eddie stands, basically holding the kid at arm's length in the air, “Christ on a shit stick kid chill, holy shit”, muttering, “now I get why Dan said you like space with a little smirk”. It felt like the kid was literally vibrating under his skin and fuck, it just hit him how fucked up this is. He’s holding the hero of Amity Park up in the air by the waist. This kid’s got an entire year on his ass and doesn’t, like, y’ know, murder people. And the kid just went all fucking uncle tickles on Vee. “Everything you just said was unintelligible garbage”.

The kid stares at him with eyes almost painfully bright green, “you think your freaky long adult arms are gonna do shit?”, and proceeds to just make a whole ass nother half body out of his fucking shoulders. Eddie scrunches up his entire face, “I’ve never been on this end of the body horror, oh god”, as the kid's new pair of hands grab for his face.

Vee takes over going big ass Venom, because this is some bullshit, and holds Danny away with their claws by the kid’s shirt, like he’s an over-aggressive kitten. Danny just puts his hands to his face, the extra body sorta dissolving into green misty stuff, eyes sparkling, “so cool”. Which both Eddie and Vee think is a bullshit reaction.

“Howdoesthatwork?whatdoesthatfeellike?you’reinafuckingaliendudeohmyAncients”, grabs Venom’s wrist and makes some kind of weird staticky squealing noise, “ohitfeelsthesamebutmorestructuredandtheveiningislittledifferentandohyoumotherfuckeryouareablackandwhitelittlebitch”. Danny makes a few faces and talks like a normal breathing-required person, “you stole my colours bitch”.

Vee doesn’t say shit, just retreats into Eddie’s body and drops Danny; who doesn’t seem to give a damn about landing on his ass, standing back upright in seconds.

Eddie makes a bunch of faces at him, settling on just looking tired as fuck, “kid, what the fuck?”. Rubbing his face and grumbling, “I’m too sober for this shit”.

Danny chuckles, dimming his eyes some, “sorry not sorry, I like space. And Vee is an alien from space”, shrugging exaggeratedly, “sure I’ve been to space but totally not the fucking same”.

Eddie raises an eyebrow, “you’ve been to space?”.

“I can fly and don’t need to breathe, of course I’ve gone to space”, shrugging again, “sure so has my girlfriend but she has a hoverboard. And bitch yes I’m dating a ghost hunter who used to want to murder me real good. Occasionally still makes light stabs at my half-life”, smirking, “we both enjoy the little love taps”.

Eddie blinks and mutters, “well damn Dan, kid’s a mini-me... minus the murder, and probable alcoholism, and job, and probably the piss shit and vinegar childhood; heck he’s still a child-”.

Danny cuts in, “you really do just mutter to yourself in general huh? Not just to Vee”.

“You're weirder than Dan. He’s just chill chill ‘bout me having an alien up my ass, you’re enthusiastically chill. He just goes ‘huh, guess this is happening. Hi new friend, please don’t eat me’ and you’re over here like ‘let me touch theeeeeeeeem!’. Almost enough to make me regret coming mildly”.

Danny blinks, oh Hell no, “no, no taking the alien away from me. Also, Lewis is way weirder than me”.

Vee pops back out, Danny not even bothering to hide his grin, and looks at Eddie’s face, “ARE ALL HUMAN CHILDREN LIKE THIS?”.

“Hey, I’m almost seventeen I’ll have you know. That’s almost adult”.

Eddie looks at him and laughs a little, “no kid, no it’s not. I’d say twenty-four is the cutoff. And you feel like a kid too, and I don’t mean that in the human way”, scrunching his eyebrows, “and the fuck did Dan do? For you to think he’s weird. And why the fuck do you use his last name? You don’t scream pompous formal snob”.

Danny blinks, “oh! You can sense peoples ages? Or childness”, tilting his head, “sure adult ghosts can do that so you’re not special, but whatever”.

Eddie grumbles, “fuck you too buddy”. While Danny continues, “what hasn’t he done? Guy hid me in a thermos while having happy personal time with the bone saw when the government-sponsored anti-ghost militia came to abducted and probably torture me, and he hardly gave a shit. Guy doesn’t even react to ghostly supernovas. Super great dude though”.

Eddie grins, his opinion of this kid going up a few levels, “oh I know, he’s great”.

Danny nods immediately, “just the best. Totally stan”.

The conversation then becomes a solid ten minutes of just ‘Dan Lewis is just a really great dude’ and ‘I know right?’.

Danny chuckles, “and pompous snob is more my evil villain uncle’s thing. Lewis is a Lewis because Dan is an evil version of me that, like, low-key annihilated humanity once”, tilting his head, “who I’m oddly less traumatised by now. Eh, I blame Lewis”.

Eddie blinks, and Eddie thought his life was utterly fucked, “I usually blame him whenever anything goes right in my brain square”. Vee looks to him and practically screams, “STILL NOT A SQUARE EDDIE!”. Eddie aggressively shoving them back in when someone inside the building yells, “Jesus fuck!”, and sticks their head over their balcony, “oh, it’s the fucking Fenton boy. That explains it”, and disappears back into the building.

Eddie looks back to Danny, “I’m guessing you get away with a fucking lot”.

Danny shrugs, “me and my friends are the town weirdos. My parents, the town crazies”.

“Wow, you were screwed the day you were born”, shrugging as they continue walking in genuine yet again, “granted my dad liked to hit me with a shovel so fucking same”.

“Eh, mine used to be really into trying to dissect me. Liked shooting at me, but my dad’s a terrible shot. Though the little couple day torture session in the dungeon was not my idea of a good time”.

Eddie blinks, “I’m literal nightmare fuel and I’m telling you your life is a fucking nightmare. What the fuck”. Vee sticks their head out from Eddie’s jacket, “WOULD YOU LIKE THEM EATEN? WE ARE ALREADY GOING TO EAT EDDIE’S IF THEY EVER SHOW THEIR COWARD FACES”.

Danny immediately snaps, “no. Try that and I’ll impale you with a flaming shank”, and points a pointy chunk of ice that he got from somewhere at them. “My parents are great. Little bigoted, but we’re working on that. Oh and on that, they don’t know about your whole ‘alien up the ass’ situation. So maybe don’t go all chest-burster on them. Also don’t know I’m Phantom, neither does the girlfriend”.

Eddie shakes his head, “so you’ve been doing hero shit without any parents or any other fucking thing?”. Eddie thinks that’s some major bullshit.

Danny shrugs, “eh, I got some adult ghost friends and clockpops, even of I seldom see any of them”. Danny chooses to ignore Eddie aggressively whispering ‘Vee’ and ‘no’ repeatedly to the side. “Vladdie tries to be a father figure but he’s a fucking fruitloop and probably spends, like, half his time finding new fun ways to taser me or maybe he’ll try the whole ‘I’ll murder your friends and family’ schtick again”.

Vee forms half a head on Eddie’s head and basically shrieks, “THAT’S IT! WE’RE ADOPTING BABY GHOST HYBRID PREDATOR!”, and whacks Danny on the head with a tendril.

“What?!? No! ‘Ready got parents, human and ghost!”.

Eddie smirks and rolls his eyes, “too fucking bad. Not literally. They’re just saying you’re a small blob to be protected. Which like, the fuck kid, you're on par or worse than my fucked up life”.

Danny rolls his eyes, though ‘protected by an alien’ sounds fucking awesome. “I could beat the shit out of you”.

“Is that a challenge? That feels like a challenge. And Vee does get bored of smashing around squishy humans sometimes”.

Danny grumbles, “you are way too fucking cool with murder”, and shakes his head with a smirk, “Lewis told me your weaknesses. My strongest ability just so happens to be a supersonic wail. I could level a city, you ain’t winning shit. Also a pyrokinetic, so double fucked”, Danny finger guns at him and shots little blue flames out; Vee, in typical fashion, hisses.

Eddie groans and dramatically sags, though not putting any real effort into it. Trying to play off the discomfort Vee sends his way over fire being so close. “I’ll admit, the Internet is all over the fucking place on what you can do. Some seemed like some crackfic bullshit. Same goes with the theories about you. Found one group that think you’re literally bloody fucking Satan coming to deceive the youth and bring about the end of times or some bullshit. Even a shoot off that you’re determining the merit of our souls and indoctrinating humanity into peace with the dead”, waving his hand around, “and some other crap about you being death itself”, pointing at him, “the stories told around you are just as fucked and wild as us”.

Danny blinks and squints at the guy, “okay, now I’m curious because that’s disturbingly close to the truth”.

“What”.

Danny quirks an eyebrow and smirks, “what? Did Lewis not mention that? The whole prince and eventual king of the dead thing? My defeat of the previous king was kinda a big deal, especially since it got the town abducted into an alternate dimension for a bit and attacked by a skeleton army”, smirking more and shrugging, “and co-existence is defiantly a goal of mine. And kingy is considered the will of the Zone so that is pretty much being death itself. And soul judging comes with the job”, tilting his head, “more of a passive thing though”.

Eddie blinks, “yup. In over our head. My soul is probably pretty fucked”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “no clue man, I ain’t king yet and hopefully won’t be for a few hundred years”.

Eddie raises his eyebrows, “so you’re vaguely immortal? We really are too similar”.

“Oh?”, Danny’s face lights up, “oh! oh! Does Vee’s weird healing of you stop the effects of ageing? Any cells or shit that gets damaged or worn they can just rebuild, reform, or replicate?”.

Eddie gives an almost impressed nod, “yeah, how the fuck did you guess that?”.

“Dude, alien’s meat puppet? Before dying fucked my vitals and physiology I was on my way to being an astronaut. My entire family are scientists, I have my own scientific patents, and my sister’s a certified genius pioneering a new field of psychology. Ancients, Lewis is bartering to get me into med school because he wants me to work with him. And my archenemy is a hardcore mad scientist. If I was dumb and not creative, I’d be deader. Dead with a side of dead sauce”.

Eddie shrugs, “I’d say I’m a dumbass so that’s different, but while I’m a dumbass, I’m a smart dumbass”.

“Fucking same. Investigative reporter probably requires a good head and creativity”.

Eddie chuckles, “yeah, I would have died long before Vee dropped on my ass. The whole situation that led to Vee was me biting a fish bigger than I could chew”, Danny then watched him go all Sauron demon voice and have suddenly very sharp plentiful teeth, “NOW WE ARE THE BIG FISH”, and grinning all teeth,

Danny eyes the teeth and grins, “so cool”, shaking his head, “not the biggest though and no snatching my guppies”, and grins, all fangs.

Still using Eddie’s mouth, “LOOK EDDIE! IMPRESSIVE TEETH TOO! TOLD YOU, PREDATOR!”. Eddie seemingly takes back his mouth, teeth staying though, “I think I noticed, babe”, pointing at Danny, “big ass fangs you got, pretty sharp yourself”, and he has no clue why the kid is looking at him with awe and wonder; probably the alien/space thing again, which is probably going to be a running theme with this kid. Poor Vee.

Eddie gets his real answer when Danny mutters, or attempts to mutter anyway, “hoz? Wiz youvz so goovz at talkin’z? Iz canz barey fuckin’z zveekz”.

Eddie blinks, sputters, and promptly starts laughing. That explained that! The kid hadn't learned how to speak while being sixty-percent teeth yet! Hahahahhahaha. Bending over, hands on his knees and wheezing. Granted, his first time rockin’ shark teeth had been god awful and Vee had judged him so hard. Speaking of Vee, they pop out of Eddie’s jacket yet again and squint at Danny, “BABY. HASN’T EVEN LEARNED TO SPEAK PROPERLY YET”.

“Fuzz youv. Dizt”.

Eddie bursts out laughing more and has to sit down on the sidewalk, “hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha”.

“Shovz tit. Thvez nez!”, and promptly stabs his lip, which Eddie laughs so hard at that he tears up, Danny just scowls, “adulvez fanz, chilz faze; dozen worz”.

Eddie lays on the grass, “hahaha I have no idea what you said kid! Hahaha! You’re really good at the whole unintelligible garbage schtick, aren’t you. Haha”.

Danny flips the guy off, switching to ghost speak which was perfectly easy to do with his fangs, since it was all scratchy echoing warble static. Made by vibrating ectoplasm, different teeth (since each tooth had different density or number of pores or solidity), clicking his jaw, and only a small amount of actually moving his mouth, “t̵he̶͞y͏̕’̵͜r̵ȩ̴͟ ̕n̡o͢t ͜m̵̷ad̡e̷̴͢ ̵̸fo҉̶r̶͏̨ ̵E̡̛ņ̛g̸͢l͠͞įs̸͠h̸̶͟, a̸s̛͡s̷̕h͟o̸͞l̢e̕.̶ ͏̷T̵͟h̴͏e͢y’̕re͜ no̧ţ͟͜ ҉̧͜e̛v̴͟en҉ ̨̛̕ma̸̕d̶̡e̡ f͢ơ͟r̷̡ ̢f͟͢͞l̡͘e͝s̶h ͠͠a͜͡n̡̛ḑ͘ ̨͞b͏͟o҉n̢̛͘e͠,͠ ̨͘e̶͡c̛͏t̛͠o̕’̕͏s̶ al͝wa͟y̨s͢ a̸̧ ̵l̸̨i̵͝t̢͢tl҉ę̵ mor̨͝e̢ ̵̕f͜o̵͡͡r͏g͢i̷̶͞v͏i̸̴n̸g̵̢.̧͡ D҉̕ic̴k̨͢͠”, then deciding to be a real asshole and put some serious power behind it after checking no one was around,

“y̰̠ͬ̄ͭͣ̈́̚ȍ̜̹̚ú̡̖̺̘͓́̔ ͍̖͈̫̗̺̫͆ͧ͒w̛͒̀̿ī͇͊͝l̹͖̝̖̻̹̳͛̅̍̾̓͒l̯̗̻̲ͣ̄ͭ̚̕ ̧̝̻͕̈̽d̵̹ͮ͊̃̏͒i̦͎̝͔̻̭ͤͫ̎̓͂ͮ̐͡ͅe̹̝̲̠̞ ̢̬̘̈̑͐͐ͮ̄o̩͇̰̻̎ͬͨͬ̂ͮ̽ṅ͔̘͙̮͍̋͊͋e̗̳͉̽͆̚ ̙͎͍͙̠̫͘ͅḋ̗̩̱ͪͧ́ͅä̡̺̰̩̺̺͖y͉͔̞̺̦̩̣͋̇͋͆ͤ̅ ͙̭̠̩̬ͪ̄͐̉ͬ͐ḁ͆̅n̫̤̤͈̭͌̽̋̅ͨ͛̚d̦̘̬̻̹ͭ ̧͓ͤͫ̋͂̐I̴͉͍̟̪͈͗ͭ̍̎͒̋͂ ͕̘̳͇̝̤̅ͭ͋͛̃w̸̱͙͖͇̫͕̯ͫ́͌ͯ͆̊̑i̛̒̒̆̓͊̚l̼͉̩͍ͦͪͨl̲̗͍͙̲͚̖̈̍̐̈̚ ̳͍̒̆b͓̹̅ĕ̮̖̣ͨ ̪̹͉̘̉̅ͨt̛͉̲͍̖̬̩͙͐h͈̹̥̥͓͗ͣe̬r̛͖̘̺̱̥͍̆ͮͪͮ̑ͦͬe̎̆̍”.

Eddie blinks from the ground, promptly sitting the fuck up as a shiver ripples down his spine and through Vee; who instinctively hides back in Eddie, which honestly weirds Eddie out a bit. The kid smirks down at him, meaning scaring was literally the goal here. Blinking at him, “the fuck. Alright your voice is officially more frightening than Vee’s. The fuck. That sets off every bloody alarm bell, damn. I’m supposed to be the one that scares the piss outta people”, pushing himself up and staggering only a little, “well, Vee technically. Guess we’re both scary little monsters”, smirking down at the kid, “emphasis on little in your case”.

Danny pointedly retracts his fangs before speaking, “fuck you, I’m gonna be, like, seven feet tall one day”. Eddie just rolls his eyes at that, not even considering the fact that Danny is absolutely correct.

Vee pops their little head back out and immediately moves to hiss, all teeth, in Danny’s face; who hisses right back. Eddie thinks it’s like some weird asserting dominance thing. Which seems exactly like what Vee would do, gotta try to save face after going all hiding whack-a-mole. Though with the temperature dropping and what’s up with the colour palette of this town?

Symbiote and halfa stop and grin toothy at each other.

“IMPRESSIVE”.

“So cool”.

Eddie shakes his head and points at the sign in the distance, “would you look at that, I think I see your favourite poorly named restaurant in the difference”, this kid is going to inflate Vee’s ego at this point.

Vee looks back to Eddie, “YOU’RE THE ONE UP YOUR OWN ASS ENOUGH TO THINK YOU CAN APPEAR ON TV WITH KETCHUP STAINS”.

Eddie rolls his eyes, “says the alien up my ass“.

“I’LL MAKE THAT LITERAL, BITCH”.

Danny’s cheeks go noticeably red, puts up his hands startlingly fast, turns on his heels, and half shouts, “nope! Hello Nasty Burger!”, and starts walking.

Eddie chuckles and shakes his head, least the snarl-fest is over. Though feeling like they just exited a surreal pocket dimension after a bit because suddenly there are people around again, it’s warmish, the colours are normal, and leaves are falling slowly. “Your town is some weird bullshit”.

Danny laughs and grins at the guy meanly, “it’s a ghosts lair, what do you expect?”.

“The whole town? Talk about overkill”.

Danny mutters, “fuck you. Ghosts are dramatic”, as he pushes open the doors.

Eddie gives the most sarcastic, “You don’t say”, he can muster. “Sure makes driving interesting”, tilting his head and chuckling a little, “okay, yes, and fun”.

Danny snickers, flicks his hip hard enough to make a metallic ping, “guess I’m not the only one that has a hard drive”.

Eddie doesn’t get a chance to respond to that as some kid shouts, “holy Zone it’s Eddie Brock!”.

Danny tries not to laugh as Dash of all people runs over, “dude the complication videos of you bashing people’s faces in and shit are fucking legendary”.

Eddie blinks, “I like that’s what I’m known for”. And some ginger kid mutters, “I prefer his exposé”, gets up and points at Danny, whisper sneering, “I hope he exposes your ass, Phantom”, and stalks out of the restaurant.

This gets Dash to actually notice Danny’s existence, “Fentit! The Zone’s a weak loser like you doing with someone famous?”, looking Fenton up and down before smirking, “you look not dead, soooooo”, and moves to snatch that weird basketball kid’s half-empty drink off the table. He doesn’t get a chance as Valerie -who’s honestly scary as fuck- shouts, “if you even think about it I will make you eat that cup and clean the floor yourself!”. Dash puts the cup down when the manager also shouts, “and I’ll let her!”.

Danny snickers meanly and points at a clearly confused Eddie, “Oh didn’t you know? We’re friends”.

Dash snaps, “bullshit”, and shoulders his way past Danny.

Danny shouts after him, “oh I dead ass am!”. While Valerie walks over, in uniform, and hugs Danny, “Zone I’m glad to see you up and about”, grabbing his shoulders and looking him up and down, “your parents scare me”.

Eddie does know how to take a queue, ten bucks says that’s the girlfriend, and just goes up to order. On that note, the fuck is a triple death meaty mighty? I mean, he’s totally ordering that, whatever it is. “-and I’ll have whatever qualifies as strong coffee”. He’s pretty sure Danny and the girl are making out, low key but still.

The cashier glances at Danny and back to the -holy fuck this dude’s famous- Eddie Brock, “you know the Fenton kid so I’m just gonna give you what he orders. One Deathspresso”.

Eddie smirks and laughs.

‘AS BAD AS YOU, EDDIE’

Eddie’s gonna take that compliment.

‘NOT A COMPLIMENT, IDIOT’

Eddie ignores that. Watching the kid just get his ‘usual’ whatever the fuck that is.

Eddie raises an eyebrow at the girl when she joins them at a table. Not even having to ask as she goes from zero to murder a bitch in a split second, smacking a hand on the table and pointing the other at his face, “eat anyone and I’ll blow your ass up with a missile launcher. Even try to eat Danny and you’ll find me standing over you with a cattle prod”.

“Been there, done that”, and gives an award-winning sultry smirk.

Danny chuckles, “this a bad time to mention they already tried a sample?”. Eddie nearly chokes on his coffee due to one, fuck this is impressively strong. And two, the girl actually pulls out a weirdly shaped cattle prod. Danny snatches the weapon away, “we’re cool Val. ‘Parently I’m inedible”.

The girl grumbles, “fine, but I'm watching you”, and sounds aggressively serious about that. Eddie watches as Danny straight up chugs half his Deathspresso; fuck this kid’s worse than him. Which is definitely not a compliment.

Valerie turns to Danny, “so obviously you’re running your cyber stuff well, but the spooky stuff? Did you, maybe, get a spooky visitor drop in?”.

“If by ‘drop-in’ you mean fell through the ceiling laughing and mildly scaring the piss outta me, then being tail bros? Then yeah”, shaking his head and taking a few bites, “seriously, what the fuck, Val?”. Obviously he has to cover his Phantom ass.

Eddie just sips his coffee, pretending this conversation makes any sense.

Danny points to the manager who’s giving Valerie some serious side-eye, “you might want to get back to work, but first”, Danny leans over with mock sexiness, “I’m glad we started dating during this time of year”.

Valerie asks cautiously, “why”.

Danny grins, “‘cause we’re autumn mated”, and points a thumb outside at the orange trees and leaves on the ground.

Valerie sighs, “fuck you”, and shoves him through the window -which had been broken not too long ago- and into a bush. Getting up and brushing herself off before giving Eddie another threatening finger point and walking off.

Eddie tosses out the trash and walks out to watch the kid pull himself out of the bush, “I’m really fucking confused that you let people push around. Pretty sure you woulda let that jock kid dump stuff on you”. Vee sneaks their head out, “EAT THEM”.

Danny brushes off his pants, “not gonna happen”, straightening up, “if Dash spends his time beating me around then he doesn’t have time to beat up the ones that can’t handle falling twenty-something feet from a flag pole or being force-fed rotten food”.

Eddie groans, “oh god, you’ve got a fucking hero complex”, as they start heading back to the kids -really fucking weird- house.

“Lewis says you do your thing for hero-y reasons. Dishing out justice, without the mercy”, squinting at the guy, “or do you just do it for the meal”.

Eddie can practically smell the judgmental disapproval coming off the kid, “kid, no offence Vee, do you really think I’d be munching on people without my little alien hitchhiker?”, shrugging and sticking his hands in his pockets, “sure we only hunt people down when we need the meal, but I’m a thorough motherfucker; they’re always bad guys. Both guys that I would have come after anyways, minus the gratuitous murder. And guys that I couldn’t go after before on account of them probably fucking murdering me”. Danny looks like he’s actively determining his worth and truthfulness.

Danny nods after a bit, “alright, you seem believable enough. You’re the moral compass of Venom, at least it seems you actually are moral”.

“I don’t know ‘bout moral kid. The filth of the world is our prey and happily so”.

“Woah, chill your tits there Jeffery Dahlmer”, anything else Danny was going to say getting cut off by a shiver travelling through his body and a little plume of icy mist, “hold that thought, Hannibal, I’ve got a job to do”, and slips off into an alleyway.

Eddie grumbles, “like I haven’t heard that one before”, and chooses to lean against a building and finish his drink.

Not two seconds later does Eddie hear that echoey voice shout, “well looks like I’ve gone from one foodie to another! Surely you’ll find me a more flavourful delicacy! But no! You aren’t allowed to divide my existence away into servings! Though I’m certain I’m a perfect recipe for heroic tendencies!”.

Eddie watches as the black and white kid, who looks waaaaaaay less blurry in person, seemingly gets blasted out of the alley by meat? Like a legit literal floating river of meat. Eddie thinks this is already some major bullshit.

Danny dodges a meat axe, having a hard time not laughing his ass off at catching Eddie’s major ‘what the fuck’ face. The Lunchlady predictably pausing after Danny blasts apart the meatsuit -he’s gonna have to figure out where all this meat came from in the first place- with a couple well-aimed blasts. She looks him up and down, and shakes her head with a scowl, “YOU'RE STILL TOO SKINNY! Cookie?”.

Danny sighs, putting his chin in one palm, “no”.

“THEN YOU WILL FRY!”, and slams him into the ground with an oversized frying pan.

Danny just shoots a beam at her from the small crater he’s in, “the only thing I need to sweeten myself up is coffee!”.

The Lunchlady stops again and deadpans, “that’s bitter dearie”.

“Do I look like I care what my taste buds think!?! I’m Death flavoured anyway!”, floating back up, “and I think these battle flavours need the added spice of my fist!”, and promptly socks her across the jaw. Talking a bit quietly at her, “you and Boxy aren’t having issues are you?”.

She waves him off, “oh hardly”, and throws him into a building via a meat fist.

Eddie eyeballs a bit of steak that smacked into the ground with an oddly satisfying thwap. Muttering as Vee uses his leg/foot to poke it, “babe, that’s gross. Don’t eat that”. He might not have standards, but he has standards. Though if the steak wasn’t cooked Vee would probably eat it anyway.

‘YES’

The Lunchlady flies in after Danny and presents a little serving tray, taking off the lid. Danny takes the little paper while giving her some serious confused cautious eyebrows. Laughing when he sees it’s actually a bloody baby shower invite! The Lunchlady nods curtly, “I’m well aware you rather your humans not know, dearie”.

Danny nods, “truth”, and floats up, smirking, “should I bring a boxed lunch”.

She shakes her head, “I'm not going to question how you knew her name”. Danny just snickers meanly before, “surprise thermos!”, and sucks her into his thermos.

Eddie grunts, “so you seriously use a thermos? And your enemies invite you to parties? Honestly?”. Bullshit. That is bullshit.

Danny turns and looks at Eddie who’s sticking his head in through a hole, “you know, most people run away”.

“What is ghost lady gonna do? Kill me?”.

Danny blinks and wheezes, changing back human and wiggling his tail about, “we’re weirdly similar”, shaking his head, “and she would have tried once. Ghosts know better than to genuinely try to kill my humans though”, floating over to snatch up the discarded CyberSteps and reattach them, “also, I’m more like frenemies with most of my enemies”.

“You’re stupid”. Detachable robo legs were a new one but Dan had not failed to mentioned getting stab and hack happy with the kids lower half or that the kid's parents were trying, and apparently succeeding, at playing pin the legs on the teenager.

Danny points at the guy, “hey, all ghosts fight each other. It’s a little something called socialising; not that you know much about that”.

“Cut deep why don’t you. You little fucker”.

“I’m only five-four!”.

“Exactly”.

“Jerk”.

“Dick”.

Vee takes over Eddie’s mouth, “BITCHES”, apparently feeling left out.

Danny tilts his head, hearing a very particular engine, and grabs Eddie’s jacket to physically yank him to the side; just as the mini GAV -which is honestly just a reinforced minivan instead of a suped-up mini-tank monster truck hybrid thing- barrels through the wall, his dad clearly being the driver. Eddie yelping, “god fuck! Holy shit!”.

Maddie sticks her head out of the door, bazooka in hand. Lowering the weapon and clearly raising her eyebrows as she spots Danny, lifting her goggles, “oh! Sweetie!”, looking down and likely checking her scanner, “darn, missed It... them, missed them”.

Danny mutters, “they’re trying at least”, before waving at her, “hey mom, don’t worry, I’m fine”.

Eddie grumbles as he stands up, “don’t mind me, I'm good too”, only to slip on a chunk of debris and land right back on his ass.

‘MAKING US LOOK BAD, EDDIE’

Eddie grumbling, “she’s in head to toe spandex, I don’t think she cares”. Danny rolls his eyes, “it’s useful spandex”, he’s over being embarrassed by his parents ‘fashion’.

Eddie just snickers at the kid as his mom walks up and starts checking him over, “you alright? The ghost didn’t hurt you or anything? Or were they one you’re... friendly with?”.

Danny bats away her hand, “mooooom, cut it out. I told you I’m fine”, Ancients he hated being babied, especially in front of others. Having to make a point to keep the snarl out of his voice, can’t help the teeth-baring though, “seriously”, huffing though glad when she gets the message and cuts it the Zone out, “and it was just the Lunchlady”, shrugging, “‘parently BoxedLunch was born”. She just blinks at him.

Eddie turns to the side and laughs, “well those are... names”, and laughs a little more. Danny points aggressively at him.

Maddie smiles a little stiffly, “ghosts names usually have a meaning of some kind”, gesturing to the mini-GAV, “how about I- or Jack I guess, drive everyone back to the house?”. Jack, as if summoned, sticks his head out and waves.

Eddie shrugs, following the adult and teen into the... ‘vehicle’ thing. While Danny nods, “yup, BoxedLunch will be able to telekinetically control boxed and canned food products”.

Eddie shakes his head, “that’s stupid”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “could be Obsession based too. Usually a mix”.

Jack nods and guns it, speaking while Eddie shrieks and chants ‘no’, “Phantom seems to be the exception. But! We’re pretty sure he’s a different kind of ghost! A needed one! A spirit!”, looking to Danny, “like ClockWork!”.

Eddie just side-eyes Danny while clinging to the door handle.

“I do believe I mentioned we are called NeverBorns”. Startling nearly everyone. Eddie muttering, “oh fuck me- no not you”.

Danny tilts his head up a little, child ClockWork appearing with their arms crossed on his head. Danny chuckling slightly awkwardly, “hey Clocky, uh, whatcha doing?”. Is ClockWork showing up randomly around his parents going to be a routine?

Maddie gives a stiff nod of greeting, “hello... ClockWork”. Jack waving erratically and giving a far more genuine, “hello! Again!”.

Eddie catches on damn quick, based on the stiffness the lady seems ridiculously similar to homophobes trying to tolerate or not be an utter ass around an out and proud queer. So she was what? a speciesist? Genuinely it seems. Well that’s fucking stupid and bullshit. The guy seemed more like the ignorant type that’s actually totally cool once they know better and actually believe it. And these guys were supposed to be the creme de la creme of ghost research? Wow, fuck that bullshit. “I’m not even gonna bother pretending to understand what the fuck is going on with the baby ghost, but aren’t you guys like the fucking ghost scientists of the world? I’m detecting some speciesism crap here. Studying the whatever the fuck that you’re bigoted against is stupid and is exactly how you do bad science”.

Danny holds up a finger, “uh, actually the government’s pretty well the same and did try to nuke the Ghost Zone; which would have pretty much destroyed the universe”.

Eddie points are him, clutching the door harder when the vehicle takes a hard turn, “that’s exactly what I mean. Studying while high on the bigotry train equals making stupid decisions”, gesturing wildly, “like blowing up an entire dimension. That’s stupid. I’d metaphorically punch someone in front of the camera for that. If I were a ghost I’d probably terrorise people trying to blow my home up or shoot me for the crime of existing too”.

Maddie opens and closes her mouth a few times, “well we didn’t believe them capable of emotions-”.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow, trying to not look pathetic while clinging to the door, “oh? Just like women aren’t capable of being rational, right?”.

Maddie makes a series of faces, “that’s not the same”.

“Isn’t it?”.

“Ghosts are a different species”.

“And? Women are a different sex”.

“They’re dead”.

“So?”.

“The have an absence of life, so logically it made sense they’d lack things of the living”.

“Women lack balls, which those old assholes clearly thought had something to do with being fucking rational. And do I even need to start on the whole genitalia related hysteria theory bullshit?”. Danny chokes a little and covers his eyes at that. Eddie smirks, “I know jack shit about ghosts, but I can taste bullshit when I smell it”.

ClockWork sticks up a small finger, “that is not how that phrase goes”.

Eddie only glances at them, “do I care? No”.

Jack parks and stands, “to be fair, every time anyone had encountered ghosts they had been violent”.

Eddie practically peels himself off the door, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never ran into a friendly shark”, adding like he’s almost being forced at gunpoint to, “sharks are cool as shit though”.

Danny gets up too, ClockWork not moving from their spot on his head. Danny’s almost impressed they’ve stayed in child form for so long, means there’s probably a reason though. “Sharks are pretty cool. Awesome teeth”, and gives a meaningful smile; he’d throw in his fangs if his folks weren’t around.

Eddie gives a small smirk back, a bit of sharp teeth visible. Then turning back to the parents, “science and biased opinions don’t mix, like milk and lemon juice. Nothing is fact until proven otherwise and if someone says it’s fact, prove them wrong; your bloody well self included. Screw your heads on straight”.

Danny looks to him while his parents gape a little, “I think I get why you get punched and abducted so much. You’re, like, super confrontational”.

Eddie points at him while walking up to the door, “and you’re not?”. Which Danny will admit is a bit fair. Eddie continues, “though yes, I do tend to egg people into throwing down. There is little better than punching pompous money-grubbing jackass that fuck over the lower classes in the face”. Danny can’t ever disagree with that either. ‘Cause well... ‘cause Vlad. Though he absolutely hears Eddie mutter to the side, “okay fine, yes that’s better. Only reason I like it now is your oily ass-oh yeah you and me both-fuck off”.

Maddie bites her lip a little but nods, while Jack goes over and gives ClockWork a pretty awkward handshake; considering how small their hands were at the moment.

Lewis opens the door just as Eddie had muttered, “fuck off”. “Lovely to see you two too”.

“Jesus fuck, God sorry Dan. Not you, you already know that though”, looking to the side again, “shut the fuck up, you cunt”. Lewis just chuckles and moves to let everyone in.

Lewis points to ClockWork, “why’s the ghost godparent slash Guardian here?”.

Eddie turns to Danny, eyeballs the tiny ghost, “who the fuck makes a child someone’s godparent?”. ClockWork immediately changes to their adult form, moving to float next to Danny. Eddie blinks, “or not a child”, then looking offended, “oh yeah mock me why don’t you”, probably being mentally laughed at.

Maddie looks to the ghost, “Dan is right though, is there a reason or do you just... hang out”.

Eddie looks to her, “let me guess, ghosts ‘don’t hang out’”. Lewis gives him a fond smile that absolutely conveys that this is pretty typical Eddie.

Maddie actually does look slightly embarrassed, which might have something to do with Eddie’s tone, “we didn’t use to think they did”. Which both Eddie and Danny huff at.

ClockWork sticks up a finger, “we do simply spend time in each others company here and there. I’ve gotten him quite good at chess and better read”. Eddie coughs, muttering, “he plays chess???”. ClockWork keeps going, “though I do have my reasons for my appearance now”.

Danny sighs, moving to sit in the kitchen, “let me guess, either has to do with Eddie showing up or-”, popping his ankles up on a chair and crossing them, “-the leggies”.

Eddie shuffles off to the living room, pulling out a shitty-looking beat-up journal; when the ghost points at the kid’s metal legs. Now that he’s confirmed a few hunches he might as well work on recent stuff he can actually get paid for.

Danny sighs, “the timer I’m guessing? Some ability or purpose you left out because it wasn’t the right time?”. Danny totally one-hundred percent saw this coming. ClockWork usually had, like, a bajillion reasons for things.

Jack laughs when ClockWork smirks and nods, “you sure know them well! Danny-boy!”. Maddie smiles genuinely at that.

ClockWork taps at the timer with their staff, “as was said, such things can alter time around the wearer. And I must say, the Observants are quite displeased over your now patchy and difficult to interpret future”, both ghost and halfa share a malicious-looking grin over that. Before ClockWork continues, “but much more importantly, you could certainly go on a nice little jog through time. A quaint little stroll down the time streams road. Hop from spot to spot on the timeline”.

Danny blinks and chuckles, putting his chin in his elbow and resting on the table, “so a free built-in pass through time? You out here making me a little optional time hopper huh?”.

Maddie leans forward, “are you saying you gave Danny time powers through his legs?”, how is she even supposed to react to that? Sure he technically had ‘powers’ already, the floating and the cold of his Core; a healing factor arguably too. Probably more, that he might or might not know about.

ClockWork pats Danny’s head, “in a way. Far less timely than me, and I will see anything he gets up to or tries. Quite suiting for a timely apprenticeship”.

Danny blinks, “if I start accidentally falling through time, I’m blaming you”. ClockWork knows how he is with new powers. Though fine, being the ‘child of time’ probably means he should have some kinda timely stuff. Jack can’t help but laugh at that, he could see just how much trouble Danny could get up to with that! Good thing this ClockWork fellow seemed responsible, which super strange to truly see from a spook! Maddie can’t help but see this as like them liking his tail, wanting him to be more like them; which she’s trying not to view negatively. Parents usually wanted their kid to be similar to them.

Lewis leans forward, “interesting choice of words, ‘apprentice’ implies job”.

Danny tilts his head, right they had told him they had a job for him. Sighing with a smile, “you’re really just making me crank my internal clock rapidly towards death”.

ClockWork gives him another little pat, looking to the parents, “traditionally child ghosts always take something like an apprenticeship under their guardian; through the passing on of power. My binds simply don’t allow for it”, smirking, “at least not through traditional means”. Danny grumbles incoherently at that. ClockWork looking to him and changing to their elderly form, “now the title proper would be ‘prince of time’ of course, being that I am the lord”.

Lewis shakes his head, Danny seriously couldn’t get away from the prince title now could he? Ghost Prince, Time Prince. Though he’s pretty sure the second is not even kinda a ruling title.

Jack blinks then looks a little excited, curiously excited, “‘prince’? Like royalty?!?”. Danny thumps his head on the table and leaves it there. ClockWork changing to a child and wrapping their tail around his neck, giving him a kinda weird neck/shoulder massage thing, “cloooooockyyyyyy”. Though relaxing and melting a little.

Lewis can’t help chuckling at that, giving him a very mocking, “awwww”, and getting a very mumbly, “fak yo”, in return.

Maddie shaking her head and a little surprised to find herself fighting back a smile, “I’m more interested in the binds thing. Your power level means you really should be a six, but you’re not”. ClockWork fiddles with Danny’s hair, leaving him to answer. Danny turns his head to the side, “they make sure the universe goes along the best and longest path. And that is all they are to do. Rules they physically have to follow. Restricts how much they can interfere”, sighing and shifting against the table a little, “can only do all this stuff with me ‘cause Guardian. Only Guardian ‘cause of circumstances and whatnot”. ClockWork nods with a hum, letting a content pleased smile be very obvious.

Jack and Maddie grin at that, both pretty damn certain now that this ghost genuinely liked and cared; no villainous motives. And if they were really thinking on that right now they'd probably cringe, obviously they’ve been wrong and probably about a lot. And Danny knew that. He was involved with ghosts, liked some, and very close with at least one. They had screwed up really, because they had hurt him in a way. He’d always been constant and firm in his opinions. His friends the same but seemingly more disappointed in them about it; probably out of protectiveness. Vlad said it like it was obvious fact but didn’t give a damn if they agreed or not. Dan was gentle and arguably objective, though he had probably talked with Danny at length. And this Eddie had pretty much come up and smacked them.

Lewis decides this probably qualifies as a ‘family moment’ so makes possibly awkward attempts to leave them alone, getting himself coffee and leaning against the entryway between the kitchen and living room. Smirking a bit to himself at spotting Eddie, who’s scribbling down his chicken scratch while rubbing little circles on noodle Vee’s head; Vee looks quite content with the situation.

Meanwhile, Maddie eyes the bit of the clock timer peaking out off Danny’s pants. Obviously the ‘prince of time’ thing wasn’t an actual royal title but more ‘family of someone important’, which was still strange. ClockWork calling it ‘apprentice’ definitely confirmed they were teaching him things beyond just chess; a bit mind-blowing ghosts played boardgames. She wonders though...

ClockWork speaks up, Danny looking a little zoned out all the while, “I prefer to allow him to teach himself. A guiding hand, rather than an authoritative voice. The latter weathers with time and often leads astray; the lessons less true and less useful. Request before you demand. Advise before you tell. And listen before you think”.

Jack grumbles, “I don’t think I quite get that”.

“To demand is to control their actions. To tell is to control their beliefs. To think without listening first is to control their voice. You have done plenty of this in the past. Demand fear and hatred of ghosts, scorn those that refuse to listen. Tell tales of your decided truth as if fact, and speaking louder if someone stuck their fingers in their ears. Thought of only others' nativity and how to reinforce yourselves when others spoke their grievances. Now you’ve tried the other path. And though it can be filled with hurt and discomfort, you’re already richer for it you'll find”, smirking faintly, “and yes, Daniel does do jobs for me; though not officially or with any real request from me. I merely pushed for timelines that aligned best and things worked themselves out as they so often do. Now I can request of him in genuine, and him of me”.

The two blinks at them, a little overwhelmed. Both pretty sure Danny might be the only one who doesn’t find them overwhelming. And Danny was probably the only one whose opinion ClockWork actually even cared about. Maddie leans back a little, “so you’re kind of like the... god who can’t truly interfere and simply must let people live their lives? Let fate play out?”.

“And, to use the phrases of mortals, I lose no sleep over that”, shifting to an adult and easily moving Danny to be practically curled up in their lap/against their chest, “I care not whether you live nor die. Whether you know happiness or suffer greatly. Beyond the effect of that upon Daniel and upon the continued existence of the time stream”.

Maddie could choose to take time that incredibly negatively, she could almost call this emotionless; but really? It was more someone whose priorities were far beyond individual beings. And besides, this meant that ClockWork would do what was best for Danny; everything and everyone else be damned. If anything, she could technically trust them with him more than anyone else. Maybe it was the bond Danny explained, or maybe it was simply them as a Being.

Jack’s more focused on how Danny absently grabbed ClockWork’s cloak and sorta snuggled up to it, very adorable and Danny would probably be so embarrassed if he wasn’t practically dead to the world. Danny seldom seemed really relaxed, so it was really nice to see! Then watching the ghosts blue hand pull out a necklace from under Danny’s collar, the one Danny always seemed to wear but never over clothing. Jack honestly has no clue what that necklace looks like and according to the paramedics it literally vanished as soon as they got his shirt off. Seeing the little silver CW charm dangling off the thin chain, he knew that thing had to be ghostly! Neither parent even has to ask.

“I gifted him this after becoming his Guardian proper. And now-”, taping the chain and suddenly a little gear charm appears on it, “-I find this to be another moment to commemorate”, letting go and the necklace simply phases through the shirt. Looking to the parents, “he prefers to keep it over his Core, which is typical for children. Symbolically saying that to truly hurt them you’d have to go through their Guardian first”, ClockWork puts in some emphasis to make the message very clear. The parents give a little nod and are actually genuinely happy to hear that.

Then they hear what they’re pretty sure is a string of swears and thud; turning their heads and seeing Dan choke on his drink a little. Danny -and ClockWork but that’s besides the point- is the only one to actually hear Eddie’s grumble about being bit. Which Danny smirks over and promptly bites ClockWork. Jack laughs while ClockWork chuckles, ahhh the joys of having a trickster who’s still growing into his fangs under their cloak. Danny does crawl off them right after though, moving to make his own coffee and obviously trying to play things off. Which gets Maddie to giggle.

Eddie stumbles in, grunts at Danny, “you like murder coffee, pour me some”, looking to the ghost, “fuck, you’re still here? Don’t you have things to do? Decrepit houses to haunt? Or children’s closets to hide ominously in?”.

ClockWork smirks, “I’m hardly the type. You should watch your local news, I believe”. Eddie rolls his eyes and shuffles back to the living room; reclaiming the couch. Danny sighs and looks to the ceiling, something going wrong in someone’s home when they leave was exactly his luck. Turning around and sipping his coffee while leaning against the counter; everyone (minus ClockWork)feeling just slightly awkward now.

So Jack jumps up, looking to Maddie, “after today I say we need to get right on rebuilding the GAV!”. Maddie looks from Jack to ClockWork to Danny, before smiling; it would probably mean a lot to Danny to just trust ClockWork alone-ish with him. Turning to Jack, “sounds like a plan, hon”.

Danny grins like an idiot to himself after they head down the lab stairs, they had changed so much! Looking to ClockWork, who grins, “one more thing, Daniel. Here”, and hands over folded fabric.

Danny looks at it, only having to fold out the hood to know it’s a freaking cloak or maybe mini cloak, “oh Ancients, ClockWork. Thanks”. ClockWork just laughs a little before throwing the cloak around his shoulders and disappearing. Leaving Danny grumbling fondly, “can’t even say goodbye”. Then looking to Lewis’s stupid smirk, “shut up”. Lewis chuckles and moves to sit in the living room. Danny electing to follow.

Danny leans over the back of the couch, looking at the absolute mess that is Eddie’s writing, “whatcha doin’?”.

“Adult stuff you’d never understand”.

“Fuck you”.

Eddie chuckles, “filling in details on the little interview I had with Cletus Kasady”.

Danny blinks, “ain’t that guy a serial killer?”, he’s not sure he even wants to know now.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t look away from his notebook, “surprised you know that, dudes whacky”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “nice, another frootloop”, leaning over even more purely to be obnoxious, “I should show you how to write with a proper quill, could make this look even more illegible. And writing with a fucking quill in public is a total power move”.

Eddie mutters, “that’s actually a decent argument”. While Danny squints at the words, sounding mildly unsure and tilting his head; attempting to read it, “‘there’s gonna be carnage’?”, snorting and moving to actually flop on the couch, “well someone took lessons from us spookies on being ominous”.

Eddie snorts and rolls his eyes, “more like typical bad guy trying to be intimidating”, smirking, “doesn’t really work on an actual predator though”.

Danny snickers, “tell me about it”.

Lewis sips his drink, watching the slight sharp toothy grins. Maybe those two were going to be like oil and fire, which might not be a good thing. Eyeing the short cloak that was honestly closer to a shawl, whatever, it was probably out of his hands now. Least the kid had some omnipresent god looking out for him. Positives Lewis, positives. Vee’s noodle head being suspiciously quiet is more than a little ominous though.

End.

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afterthelastreset · 3 years

Text

Rules Of One’s Soul Ch21 The Duke’s Return

(Mak belongs to @wasted-church)

AH! Being loved and praised was such a remarkable feeling was it not?

Which is what he had been asking himself all night last night laying awake in bed for who knows how many hours after he and Jevil had parted ways that afternoon and couldn't help but feel like he wanted to ram his head against a brick wall and feel as happy as a young school boy with his first crush now....It was quite the internal debate really. But he surprisingly felt....Happy. Fulfilled even. Like a missing piece of the puzzle finally put itself together in his miserable life. Yes, he still felt regret for having to tell him something so personal but hey. His soul thumped with happiness and fulfillment and dare say...maybe...Love? Whoa. Whoa. Slow down there. Just because you two shared two personal moments and he kissed you a couple times, that doesn't automatically make you two in a relationship or even in love for all that matter. And there was still Seam to deal with and helping Lancer out with this ball idea they had been throwing together for who knows how long. That's a lot of responsibility for one child and needed to be taken seriously if he wanted to be the best father he could be. So for know he would sleep on it and return tomorrow with a fresh mind and not think of any kisses or funny laughing imp's right now.

And that went as well as you would think.

He woke up about two hours late past scheduale and he cursed as he rushed to get himself looking presentable and teleported to the castle. But what he wasn't really expecting was the amount of color to hit him all at once-....OH SWEET MOTHER OF LIGHT!! So much pink and red. The familiar slight twisted and rush of his light weight being carried through with his usually way of teleporting was quite peaceful compared to the amount of eye soar that greeted him once the beautiful white light of his glow faded away. He had to blink to make sure his brain wasn't tricking him. But nope! Pink and read decorations were everywhere. In just the hallway the duke landed in alone, there must've been at least a hundred hearts drapped from the ceiling and more frilly and lace induced decor stretching every which way he could see. .....He couldn't remember the last time he had beheld so much love induced decorating since...Well- He didn't need to be thinking about that right now did he?

"W-Welcome back, Sir." The sudden voice made him jump and whirl around only to spot a hathy just a few feet away from him. She giggled and held a tentacle to her mouth before giving him a sincerely happy smile. "It's so good to know you're break wasn't a boring one. Hehe."

"Eh...L-Likewise."

Everything beyond the hathy was as normal as he expected it to be. About every servant or guard he passed was either chatting about the upcoming ball or 'party' as he heard, or gushing about the up coming night they would hopefully spend the night with their true love. It was all rather adorable and made him chuckle a few times if he was honest. Oh he wondered how many cards he had already gotten from his admirers piled on his desk already. Begging him to go with them or swooning over his dashing looks.~....Imagine his surprise when he opened the door to his office and not only found everything clean, but with absolute no backed up paperwork and absolutely zero cards with the exception of one. The giant one left on his desk was crudely made and had a macaroni smiley face glued to the front of it's red face, and upon opening it up had a pretty stick figured portrait of himself and a small round blue potato which he could only guess was supposed to be him and Lancer holding hands. In terrible handwriting was spelt :

"mE Anb LeSSER Dad!! P.s. I TOTALLY dibs not Eat Half the CAKE!! It WAs Uncle JeviL!!"

That made him chuckle and feel himself be filled with even more joy. Oh Lancer. Ever the little scoundral....OH RIGHT!! He dropped the card back onto the desk and turned immediately to leave. He had almost completely forgotten about his little water beetle, he had to go to him immediately and see what damage had been done if an- Loud sounds and a small pair of fast footsteps approached and he could only guess who had could be. A blue circle dragged itself past the door way out of sight to the other side, before quickly changing it's direction and bulldozer it's way into the office.

"OOF-"

The blue circle blur rammed into his chest at the speed of sound and they both went down to the ground with a thump. He groaned from the impact and felt something constrict itself and bounce on his ribs.

"LESSER DAD!! YOU'RE BACK!!" The child shouted happily and leaned over his face to look down at the worm. Tongue stuck between his teeth.

"...G-Grand to seest thou too, S-Son. Now pleaseth get off mine chest," he wheezed, the spade child was heavier than he looked. But alas it seemed his boy wanted to be held because he giggled and wrapped his arms around his neck when he slowly sat up. To which the worm sighed but gladly accepted the boy's affections with open arms. It was just a little hard to stumble to his feet while holding him in his grip. But somehow he managed. Lucky him.

Lancer giggled when he was lifted up in his father's arms. "HOHOHO!! As king I get to make the Dad rules now Lesser Dad! And you're my loyal steed!!"

"Oh, art I now?" He smiled and shook his head. His eyes gazed over him, Lancer didn't seem worse for wear and it didn't look like anything had changed in the ten days he had been gone. That was a good sign. So hopefully Jevil had kept his word and had been telling the truth the whole time he was talking.

The spade cub nodded. "Yep!...Hey, Lesser Dad. What's a steed?"

The duke laughed and walked out of the office and back into the love infested castle. He still got a sorrowful feeling in his gut being surrounded by all this love, but he guessed his calm mind must've finally been catching up with reality and numbed his skittish side. It was the only logical explanation for his behavior after all. But all that aside he made his way to the royal throne room where the other kings were most likely to be, if there was anything important to discuss or plan then he needed to get right on top of it. There was no time to dilly dally after all. ....But as he walked listening to Lancer ramble on able all the cool plans him and Uncle Jevil had come up with to 'Spice up the mushy party' he noticed a few of the staff gave him side glances and wide smiles, well he couldn't blame then for their gawking. Naturally he was prime crush material.~ But then why were some giving him weird looks? Oh well. Let them be jealous of his magnifinece.

"And he said his friend was gonna help him do this trick with fireballs! And it's gonna be like BAM! KABOOM!! BANG!!" He threw his arms out momentarily making ROuxls stumble and scramble to recover balance before they fell over. Which luckily he did. "...Uh..Sorry, Dad."

He rolled his eyes with a sigh, but made a mental note to instant a backup fire safety plan. "Tis alright." They were already at the entrance to said throne room already and on the other side he could hear the very familiar sound of the King of Clubs-

"AW! It's cute Clover wants to invite him as her date!" "NO! Absolutely not!" "He's not good enough for her! NO ONE IS!!" "But he helped save us?" "Still doesn't matter!"

He shifted Lancer in his grip to where he was holding him in one arm and a blue hand reached out to the door and opened. As sure as he suspected, on the other side down the hall like room was King Clubs in all his glory. Five heads arguing about some boy or date or whatever Clover wanted to bring with her to the ball. Across from his sat King Diamond who had one of his four hands rubbing his temples probably already over the whole thing, while King Heart was busy looking at a long scroll of paper that went almost to the floor. Don't ask him how he could read without any eyes visible, but what really made him raise a brow was the length of the scroll. The kings were easily almost three feet taller than he was, so the list was incredibly long if it was almost touching his feet. Diamond was the first to notice them approach and lifted his head from his hands with a smile.

"OH! Look who we have here. The return of the noble King upon his mighty duke steed."

Lancer giggled and wagged his little tail and the Duke rolled his eyes. "Good morrow to thou too, Mine Majesties." He did a light bow or what he could manage with Lancer not quite ready to let go yet. "I haveth returned from mine ...'vacation' as I shouldst. Apologies for mine tardiness. I assure thee it willst not happy again."

King Diamond waved a hand and gave a smile. "No, no. It's fine...At least you got away from Clubs for a good while." His eyebrow rose at the still arguing Multiheaded king who while wasn't as loud anymore still angrily whisper argued to each other and groaned. "At least you got to relax-"

Rouxls chuckled dryly remembering the past ten day's events. "Heh. Thou wouldst be surprised-"

"Did you say something Diamonds?" The giant Hathy looked up from the scroll in his tentacles and turned towards Diamonds, but before the giant snake monster could reply his gaze(or what he would've considered to be his gaze if he had eyes. Actually head) turned downwards near the floor and smiled at the sight of the small king being held by Rouxls. "AH! Mr. Rouxls! You returned! Thank goodness. I could help with the last of these erronds before the ball." He gave a guilty look and shifted the long scroll. "T-There's only three day left and I haven't even finished half of these yet and I still have to speak with my beloved Amory. She'll be so disappointed if I can't help her p-pick the floral displays like I promised. "

"Fear not my majesty. I shallst see to thine preparations accordingly."

"OH! Thank you! You're a life saver!" A major relief came over the giant hathy's face and Rouxls was happy to serve his Kings again. It would be a good distraction for what regretful feelings were being felt. "H-Here." He lowered the giant scroll down to the Duke who extended a hand to take it. "I-It's everything that needs to be done before then."

Rouxls smiled and held the list up to his face, expecting most of what was already on the long thing to be crossed out or marked as done...But his smile quickly dropped upon seeing the long list of things needed to be done. To be fair a giant portion of the list was crossed off, and the King being a bigger darkner of course had bigger handwriting so the words despite only being a few deeds, still needed a longer list of paper to accommodate the larger handwriting. Giving it the illusion of it being a long list of things when in fact it was only a few large words on the list. He was used to it, so that's not what shocked in. What shocked him was the amount of work, each task remaining task brought-

- Send out one invitation per darkner family

- Prepare the feast

- Give forth the orders of no 'adult talk' during the ball

He guessed he added that last one for Lancer, he could just add that into the invites. But that was only a few out of what must have been twenty or so. Lancer leaned a little closer to the list and pointed at a few crossed out words.

"Uncle Jevil and I did that one! And that one! I got to help him decorate and he showed me lots of tricks! He let me pick the best one ones for the 'enter-containment'!" He beamed with pride as his tail wagged. But Rouxls wasn't smiling at his happiness this time.

Instead his gaze slowly turned to the nervous looking Hathy who was tapping his tentacles together and smiling apologies at him. "Sire. Pardon mine doubts in thou's abilities, ...but didst thou really not getteth ANY of this finished within the month thou has planned and mine time away from the castle?''

King Heart chuckled nervously. "U-Um..W-Well, we got...some of it done, b-b-but we couldn't really decide about which one of our ideas we should do f-for the invites a-and other things. Hehe..heh."

The other two things had fallen silent and gave each other guilty looks over it all. Rouxls sighed and gave the list in his hand another look over bouncing Lancer in one of his arms...This would take a lot of work, but also to get these kings back on track, he knew very well he couldn't just invite every Darkner on the entire kingdom. There must've beeen thousands of subjects in their small kingdom alone....They could just invite the castle staff and encourage everyone else to celebrate it there own way. Much easier to manage than thousands of citizens. Which just left the castle staff and nobles like himself....Which still left easily around three hundred people. Oh dear light he could feel himself already getting tired at just one job alone, but like with any task, he'd be sure to come up with something. After all, Rouxls Kaard was never one to give up easily. Whelp. So much of his relaxing vacation-

"Uncle Jevil can help!" Lancer shouted startling the poor Duke into almost dropping him again. "..Oops. Sorry Lesser Dad. But Uncle Jevil can help! He can-"

"Letteth me guess," He interrupted him with a roll of his eyes, "He canst so anythinge."

"...Actually he can help with all these invite-tation thingies. He can write paper really fast like when he did all your work!"

Rouxls looked at the child with a raised brow, "Jevil didst all mine paperwork?" Lancer nodded his head yes with a hum.

Well whaddya know. The loon actually kept his word by taking on all his tasks and getting everything done it seemed, of course he'd still have to ask Lancer a few questions about the events of the past few days to be completely sure, but it did seem like he had nothing to worry about beyond this giant impossible list...which had to be complete within three days including today. He cooed thinking about it...Except he didn't coo. That sound came from the giant Hathy who sighed and held his tentacles against his head as if he adored the sight before him, Rouxls had no idea what about him discussing the list with Lancer was so adorable but he guessed Lancer was the cutest little water beetle-

"OH! There's nothing more I'd rather see than blossoming love!" Rouxls smiled and rolled his eyes good naturdly but froze by the king's next words. "Amory and I never really got along at first either, but after we sparked and talked it over it was like we were meeting a whole new person! There was nothing we wouldn't do for one another even to this day!~ *sigh*"

King Diamond groaned and reached a hand up to rub his temples. "I swear you get too wishy washy at the tiniest things-"

"E-Excuseth me mine majesties," he interrupted before another arguement could be sparked between them, "But what art thou speaking of?"

"Oh? Well yours and Mr. Jevil's newly established relationship of course! It's so nice to see him settling down and so happy. He said hopefully there'll be little pitter patters of children soon!" He giggled like he was expressing a romantic novel he had just read. And failed to notice the dropping face of the Duke before him in horror at what he was being told. "Oh it'll be grand to have young life around the halls again."

Lancer grinned and turned to Rouxls excitedly. "I get a baby brother?!"

Rouxls fell silent. The weight of the situation hitting him like a sack of bricks. Not that anyone really noticed at the moment, except for Little Lancer who tilted his head at his father's weird face. Flashes of everyone's funny looks his way came back to him, flooding his brain with it, as well as the suspicious lack of love letters this year and with what King Heart had just said-.....

"EXCUSE ME!! WHAT?!" Any sound or talking was quickly shut up upon the duke's high pitched voice peircing their ears painfully and bouncing off the walls, the kings and Lancer wincing back at the loud shout and stare at him with confusion racked faces. Even the always arguing King Clubs had stopped to marvel at the duke who looked ready to faint from embarrassment judging by his flushed face. Even the guards stationed within the room looked almost uncomfortable watching this- "P-Pardon mine s-sudden outburst, Your Royalties. But t-t-that worm and I are nay in ANY sort of r-romantical s-s-shennanigans!"

"....Really?" His tone seemed genuinely confused, and when Rouxls nodded Heart hummed and brought a tentacle up to rub his chin. "Oh my, my, my. Well this certainly is an awkward position to have put you in isn't it? My apologies. ..Although I guess now it makes sense as to why he said he wasn't accompanying you to the ball, I suppose. He must've been referring to a different Kaard with a similar sounding I guess...." He leaned down near eye level with the worm and the duke did was he always did in this kind of situation and smiled wide and nervously. "Are you quite sure? With all the facts he stated I could've sworn it was you?"

Not being one to lie to any of the royal family of course, the duke swallowed the lump in his throat and gave a nervous chuckle to the giant Hathy's confused frown. "I-I-I w-well...I guesseth over t-t-the course of ...however l-long we hadst been having a..fewest teeny tiny r-rendenvous??"

Heart looked at him for a bit longer, a few drops of slime forming at his face at the close proximity, but eventually a realization smile came over him and he leaned back up. "OH! I understand now. Silly me, he's courting you!"

Rouxls....blinked. Courting? Well if one looked at what exactly Jevil did do over the entirety of his behavior ever since that day before the lightners came, and with all he was doing up til now, one could quite consider his behavior as if Jevil was really courting him. The thought hadn't crossed his mind til now, but he guessed this did count as the fool's own way of 'courting'. "U-Uh-...Y-Yes. It wouldst appeareth so." His wide smiled appeared back on his face. "W-Wouldst thou excuseth mineself for just a moment- ...YOU THERE?!" He whirled around and pointed at one of the Rudinn guards in the room, the poor guard jumped and almost dropped his spear from the sudden action. "Send word out for the Court Jester immediately."

The guard gave a salute to the duke and without a word to argue they turned and slithered off towards the door as fast as Rudinn possible, thumbling his weapon a few times and dropping it with a clang before just leaving it and diving out the door. Spear forgotten in the door entrance. Rouxls stared a moment longer before sighing and straightening up, Lancer was giving him a concerned look.

"...Is Uncle Jevil in trouble?"

Rouxls flinched but gave a reassuring smile. "None at all, Little King." His teeth gritted under that smile and his eye twitched. "I just wisheth to discuss his...h-help with a few things is all."

"....Does this mean I don't get a baby brother?"

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

The fire crackled peacefully in the room as the ones within it sat silently doing there own personal business. Seam sitting at the counter lazily like he did most days, now a days it was just a bit more busier than usual. Every few hours or so, a Rudinn or Hathy would come in, frantically looking around at the shelves and picking out one of his random knickknacks or buy some candy to give to their beloved as a last minute gift. Too bad he wouldn't be open on the actual holiday. Meanwhile Jevil was busy trying to sew up any odd patches or small threads in that odd purple suit of his...You would think anyone who would be able 'to do anything' would be decent at sewing, but it appears the master of chaos wasn't mastering this.

"....You got the wrong seam again." The child crawled their way across the couch and point to the messy attempt that was a yarn stitched up hole in the side. Mak tilted their head at it. "It looks sloppy."

Jevil grumbled and held it up to take a look at the terrible stitching job. They were right. It wouldn't do at all for the event if he wanted to do his best, and of course if a child thought it looked sloppy then who knows what everyone else would think. A laugh caught his ears and he turned to see Seam smiling at the two of them with a head tilt. Jevil had been at this thing for a while now. Who knew he was a perfectionist?

"Would you perhaps like me to help you? I think I have decent skill with needle and thread." He reached a paw up to rub the top on his head where the giant black patch was.

But of course Jevil shook his head. "No, no! I can do anything! Something as simple as sewing, sewing is beneath me." Once look back to his messy yarn stitch made him give off a nervous chuckle. "...It'll just take some time, time."

Seam chuckled and turned back to the sheap entrance. "Suit yourself."

Every since the discovery about the Duke...a lot of things have fallen into place. Rouxls's reluctance to touch and affection, his nervous habits, his scars-...And why he was so concerned about the boy's well being. Seam bristled. Just thinking about having to endure what the duke did and still be so proud of his job and take on the role of father to the very child of the terrible king...But he couldn't judge too much. After all he taken his own metaphorical beatings and taking a small ankle biter of his own-...His ear twitched and his head tilted towards the flap door of the sheap. A moment later it flapped open and a green blur plopped to the ground. Seam didn't even flinch as he looked down at the green puddle gasping for breath on his sheap floor.

"...Welcome, Stranger. What brings you to my sheap?"

The green puddle, who was a very tired looking Rudinn wheezed out and slowly raised his head to gaze up at the giant stuffed cat. "...*wheeze* T-T-The Duke has s-s-sent for the Court Jester-...I-Imediately. hhhaaaa-"

His face plopped back to the floor and Seam hummed. Turning around and finding Jevil staring in their direction. "You hear that Jevil? Apparently you're wanted at the castle."

A giggle came from the Jester and his tail wagged, thumping against the couch with soft thumps. Standing up, suit falling into the paws of Mak who gave it a look over.

"Oh. Yes, yes. Who am I to deny royalty, royalty.~"

#fanfic #seaxls #jeam #seavil #rouxvil #rouxlvil #nosuit #Deltarune #jevil x rouxls #jevil x seam #seam x jevil #seam x rouxls #rouxls kaard x seam #rouxls kaard x jevil #rouxls x jevil #rouxls x seam #seam #jevil #rouxls kaard

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3amsnek · 4 years

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Top 5 places from your childhood. In as much detail as you can add. Also tag me

Ooooohhhh okie dokie

(I’m very bad at writing and this will be way too long I apologize in advance)

@deeplyjuniper

(This is ridiculously long I’m going to try to put a cut thing in here so it’s not taking up the entirety of my blog thing or something we’ll see how that goes)

1. My closet in my old house

It had a light switch on the inside (a big plus for a child who was Not Big On The Dark- nobody outside could turn off the light if I was inside with the door shut) and was big enough for a little kid to happily fit in. I had clothes and stuff hanging right in front of the door, but past that and sideways there was a little alcove bit that was empty, with a slanted ceiling like the rest of the room. I used to take all my stuffed animals and make a big heap of them in there and then take a book and sit on top of the pile and read for hours (I especially did this when I got a new book that I was excited about, the smell of new books still brings this to mind)

2. Garden center

Fairly close to my old house there’s a garden center with a little cafe restaurant thing built into it. My mom used to take me there to have lunch and they used to give out little toy frogs and lizards with food to kids and it was one of my favorite things ever. Also plants!! I wasn’t yet allergic to every flower ever so we’d admire all the plant friends and depending on the time of year we’d get flowers to plant in front of our house. There was a five+ year period where I didn’t once go there for a number of reasons and I sorta forgot about it and then I acquired a plant obsession and have been going back a bunch and demonstrating my abysmal impulse control with plant purchases so that’s nice? It’s kinda very cool and I still really like it there but for different reasons which is interesting

3. The woods behind my old house

We lived on the edge of a very large woods area that my brother and I frequently went into, sometimes with my dad. There were tons of trails going everywhere and we brought notebooks and mapped out quite a lot of the trails and then used those maps to navigate and honestly it was fairly accurate and well done for little kiddos? Most of it was in some form of hill that we lived at the bottom of. A highlight of this was a trail leading down a semi steep area of hill that had a much steeper maybe two foot drop off close to the bottom of it. Someone had put three huge leaf piles there a while ago, and they were doing the decaying thing which somehow made them super springy and essentially somewhat functional trampolines if you had enough momentum? Basically picture baby demon child running as fast as they can down a hill and then yeeting themself onto a leaf pile and bouncing off of it and being ridiculously happy about this.

4. My grandparents house, specifically their loft

Every summer we went (and still go but also quarantine so not this year) to visit my grandparents for a weekend (they live about four hours away). While we were there we slept in their loft, basically a big one room second story that covers about half the house with a spiral staircase leading up to it. There’s four twin sized beds and I have had the same aggressive preference for one for years, simply because it has a little window by the floor next to it and that’s wildly appealing to my demon brain. Also an old typewriter, (my brother was fascinated with it at around age 8 or 9) lots of boards with jewelry my grandmother made on them, and a dresser type thing that somehow manages to be woven like a basket? But more importantly has drawers with all sorts of semi random things that my brother and I used to love to look around in and play with. In particular they have a funky wooden snake that’s sectioned and moves and for like seven years I thought it was the coolest thing. Also they live on a lake which is absolutely amazing.

5. [redacted] Studio

Basically as soon as we moved to the state I live in now we found art classes for the overly artistically enthusiastic child I am. I vaguely remember my mom talking to the lady who runs the studio as I finished a painting that we still have (its.....something. it sure is something) from one of the first times I went there. They used to be in this old warehouse type place downtown with minimal space. The tables are covered in paint and every couple years they replace them and auction the old tabletops (they end up looking pretty cool and colorful). There was a main Making Art studio area and then a big room off of there filled with random objects and supplies and also a large multiheaded rubber dragon. I did camps and after school things and all sorts of stuff with them for years and years and then sort of stopped for a while- during that time they moved to a ridiculously amazing new space that I could rant about for even longer but this is already ridiculous so I won’t. I’ve been doing lots of oil painting there for a few years now and also first got to use liquid ink stuff through them so that was very cool

...Oh my

I have written an essay? Somehow? You did say as much detail as I can add and I probably could’ve done even more but that’d be a little insane so

Have this Giant Mess of a thing?

(Once again apologies for my bad writing skills)

#snek asks #snek said a thing #about the snek #snek being a foolish sentimental bastard #and taking this as an essay prompt or something jeez #is this even what you meant I have no idea #i really hope the cut thing attempt works yeesh #studio name is redacted because I don’t wish to be stalked sorry #im technically about twenty years too young for my current open studio class but that’s preferable rly #been wondering about posting something in the realm of paintings or inktobers but idk #juneofmykonos

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thebaronmunchausen · 5 years

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Look, she has hair on her kili-kili! Yecch! Blecch! Ewwww!" I whisper to my four-year-old sister Tisha, who is too busy splashing about in the water with her tiny little hands to care. "Yecch! Blecch! Ewww!" she squeals, followed by a fit of giggles. She’s copying the way I talk again. I don’t think she even knows what I’m talking about. But never mind. She looks so cute in her orange bikini I want to bite her. Tisha hasn’t been listening to me lately. She should, because I’m her Ate, but these days she’s just been such a bad girl. Even Yaya says so. Suwail, she calls Tisha. Last year, in the sandbox in school, when I told her the Family Secret she just kept on shoveling sand into her little yellow pail. She was making a castle for her Princess Barbie doll. "Tisha, I’ll tell you a secret but you promise not to tell, okay?" "Okay." She pressed her little palms to pack the sand into the pail and inverted it onto the ground. "Swear to God? Cross your heart and hope to die?" She crossed her heart with her left hand while patting the roof of her castle with her right. "You know why Mom was crying again last night?" "’Cause she was sad?" "Yeah, but do you know why she was sad?" Tisha just shrugged. She poured some water from her Thermos on her castle to make it more siksik. I wanted to scold her for wasting her cold drinking water but I was too busy telling her the secret. "Dad had a child with another woman! We have a half-brother! His name is Diego!" She didn’t even look at me. She scooped sand again into her yellow pail. Then, she got sand from the pail with her shovel… and put it into her Thermos! Into her drinking water! "Mwahahahahahaha!" she laughed an evil laugh like The Count on Sesame Street. "Sand Juice! With ice! Yum, yum! Want some, Ate Tanya?" She finally looked up at me and smirked. Tisha isn’t listening to me either today on this very hot day at the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the YWCA, which is filled with lots of children who look negroalready from their swimming lessons. The little girls’ bathing suits are not very nice, not like mine and Tisha’s, which Mom bought for us in Rustan’s. Mine is a pink one-piece with big yellow flowers and a bumblebee. Tisha’s is an orange bikini with plastic yellow rings that hold the bra in the middle and on each side of the panty. She chose it herself. She’s so arte talaga. The little boys are so magulo and their swimming trunks just look like ordinary pambahay. I think they go to public school because they’re not speaking in English. And the water smells funny, like Clorox mixed with sweat and rubber from their ugly black salbabidas. We’re on the side of the pool in the corner facing the street – me, Tisha and her – Diego’s mom, our swimming teacher, Hairy Kili-kili Woman. "It’s okay with you?" I heard Dad say last week when Mom suggested we take swimming lessons with her. I almost said "Ewwww!" out loud but I covered my mouth. "Why not?" Mom replied. "You’ve always wanted the girls to learn how to swim, right? She’s as good a teacher as any, I suppose. At least she’s someone we know," she said. "Ang bait mo talaga," he said and smiled. She wasn’t always that kind to him about her. Last-last year, another one of Mom’s crying and fighting sessions with Dad woke me up. I ran to their room and saw her trying to grab a yellow Kodak envelope from Dad. "Let me see! Is that the kid? Let me see!" she yelled. I had never heard her shout at him before. I could tell Dad was very angry because his bushy eyebrows formed one straight line, like Bert’s on Sesame Street. "Give them back!" he yelled back at her. Their agawan became very rough. I got scared. Then, I got even more scared when Dad caught me peeking by the door and yelled at me, too: "Tanya! Go back to your room!" Dad used to be nice, especially when he would tell me bedtime stories about Achilles and his heel and Medusa and her snake hairdo from his old brown Greek Mythology pocketbook. Or when he’d show me the great paintings of the world from the Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia like the "Mona Lisa" or the dark blue and yellow swirly one like in the song Starry, Starry Night. But lately, especially after Tisha turned two, he began to yell more and more often. Especially when we touched his things. Once when I got his giant brown Swingline stapler from his study table because I needed it to staple my assignment for English and I forgot to return it, he started screaming at the whole house. He yelled, "Sino ba’ng punyeta’ng kumukuha ng mga gamit ko?" and started throwing things. But I was only borrowing it! I just forgot to ask for his permission. I was too afraid to return the stapler, so I hid in my closet and buried it under my clothes until I was sure he was gone. Later, I returned it when he wasn’t looking. Last February 14, Mom didn’t even come home at all. That day, we made greeting cards for our parents in art class with red art paper. I cut out two big hearts and glued them on top of each other and wrote "It’s Valentine’s Day!" on top of the hearts using red Pentel Pen. But when I got home and Mom wasn’t there, I got worried. So I wrote "Please don’t fight!" on top of "It’s Valentine’s Day" and put the card beside their dinner plates. I waited and waited for Mom to come home until I fell asleep. At midnight, I woke up and ran to the dining room. Their plates were still there, untouched. Maybe they went out to dinner together and didn’t see my card! So I got the card and went to their room. Dad was sleeping alone in their bed. Even if I was scared he might shout at me for waking him up, I tapped him on his back and gave him the card. I started to cry. "Where’s Mom?" I asked. "Don’t cry," he said, "she slept in your Tita Alice’s house." I didn’t ask why. He let me sleep beside him. When Yaya woke me up to go to school the next morning, Mom still wasn’t there. Maybe Mom decided to be kind now because Tita Alice told her, "Just kill him with kindness," when Mom confessed to her and my other titas, the wives of Dad’s brothers, that Dad had a kid with another woman. They were all in the garden pretending to look at Mom’s orchids. They thought I couldn’t hear them from where I was by the swing, but I could. I pretended to fix my favorite Raggedy Ann and Andy knee socks because their elastic parts were so worn out they kept rolling down. I had to put rubber bands on each knee and fold the top of each sock over to keep them up. "Ang bait mo naman," my Tita Mary said, "Okay lang sa ’yo?" "Wala kong magagawa, eh. He’s always wanted a boy," Mom shrugged. My other titas just kept quiet and looked away. "Eh, I couldn’t give him one. ‘Look o," she pointed to Thea, our six-month-old baby sister in Yaya’s arms. "Another girl," she sighed. "Wala akong laban." We are in the part of the pool near the stairs, and Hairy Kili-kili Woman is putting on her bathing cap. It’s like a shower cap but tighter and made of rubber. It’s bright green, matching her one-piece bathing suit with lots of leaves and flowers. Maybe her long, thick, curly hair, which Yaya calls "kinky," couldn’t fit into the cap, that’s why she had to wet it first to make it more flat. That’s how I first saw her kili-kili hair, which is also curly like the hair on her head, when she put her hands up to pile up all her hair on top to put the cap on. Ewwww. Her kili-kilis look like little curly porcupines. Maybe they need bathing caps, too. I imagine how that would look and start to laugh. "First, we will learn how to do ‘bubbles,’" Hairy Kili-kili Woman tells us, leading us deeper into the part of the pool that says "3 FT." The water reaches up to my kili-kili and almost up to Tisha’s neck. Tisha jumps up and down in the water and claps her hands. She loves bubbles. H.K.W. laughs, plants a kiss on Tisha’s cheek and jumps up and down with her. Ewwww. I flash Tisha a sungit look and try to make my eyebrows meet, but she doesn’t mind me. They’re holding hands in the water, and H.K.W. reaches out to me so I can join their circle, but I just stare at her and put my hands behind my back. Okay, her name isn’t really H.K.W. It’s Amihan. Amihan Marquez. She’s a painter and a water ballerina. Mom told me this one night last year. I was on the floor in my room gluing pictures of flowers I cut out from her old Good Housekeeping magazines on bond paper for my "Flowers of the World" project in Botany. I thought she would get mad when she came into the room because I made so much kalat and spilled Elmer’s Glue on the floor. I was about to cover the gluey spot with a piece of bond paper so she wouldn’t see it when she suddenly sat down on the floor with me. She didn’t see the spot at all. Her eyes were red and she was wiping her sipon with a Kleenex. "Tanya, I have to talk to you," she said, looking very serious. I wondered what I did wrong. Uh-oh, maybe I forgot to check if the magazines I was cutting were really old! Then, she got up and pulled me towards her. "Come with me," she said and led me to the door. "Where are we going?" I asked. "To Aristocrat," she said. "Let’s have a midnight snack." It was only nine o’clock. Mom, Tisha and I go to Aristocrat for breakfast every Sunday after hearing Mass in Malate Church. It’s near our house on Carolina Street so we just walk. Dad stopped going to church a long time ago. Mom says he’s an atheist, which is someone who doesn’t believe in God. Mom says when he was a little boy he was a sacristan in their church, but when he became a grownup he stopped believing in God. That’s why Tisha and I study in the Learning Community where they don’t teach religion. Mom wanted us to go to a Catholic school like Assumption, but Dad said no. He said he wanted us to learn to think for ourselves and not according to any religion. That’s why when my cousins asked me to show them my First Communion picture and I said I didn’t have one, they laughed at me. Mom said not to mind them. She lets me take Communion anyway, because I like the taste of the Body of Christ. "But Mom," I whined, "I have to change first. I’m just in my pajamas and chinelas!" "That’s okay, let’s go, come on!" She almost yanked my arm off. That’s when I knew something was really wrong. She never allows us to leave the house unless we’re dressed nicely. We can’t even play outside in our slippers. We have to wear shoes. I ordered my favorite Chicken Honey and a Choco-Vim. Mom wasn’t hungry. She just asked for tea. It was very different in Aristocrat at night. There were no children like on Sundays, no vendors in front selling balloons and colored popcorn and pet chicks and colorful maya birds in bamboo cages. Just negra-looking women in very short skirts wearing a lot of makeup, making landi to foreigners. I tried not to stare at them too much. I think they’re called Hospitality Girls. I see them hanging around the go-go bars when the school bus passes by Mabini Street. While waiting for our order, Mom told me. "You’re a big girl now," she began. No, I’m not, I wanted to say, because when we form a line "according to height" during flag ceremony, I’m just Number 2. "And you’re very smart for your age," she continued. Oh, okay, maybe she meant I was only eight and already in Grade Four. All my other classmates were ten. "So I know it’s time for you to know," Mom said, trying not to cry. She said Dad still loved us but he wanted a baby boy so badly that he had to find another Mommy for it. Mom said all she could make was girls like me and Tisha and Thea. But she said Diego, our baby brother, was very cute and we would meet him soon and he might stay with us during the weekends. She said not to tell other people, that it would be our Family Secret. Yaya later told me that Amihan was a kabit and Diego was an anak sa labas. I tried to cry like Flor de Luna. I blinked my eyes very hard, waiting for tears to come out, but nothing came out. So I just embraced Mom and stroked her hair, which only made her cry more. I didn’t know what to do. The Hospitality Girls were looking at her. I said "Shhhh…" like I see in sad movies on TV. I felt like I was the Mommy and she was the baby. By the time my order came, I had lost my appetite, so Mom just told the waiter, "Take home." Tita Amihan (Mom told me to call her that, but I still can’t say it out loud) is still smiling at me even if I’m suplada to her. Her teeth are very big and white, like her eyes. Maybe they look so white because her skin is so dark, not like Mom, who’s fair like me and has singkit eyes and short, straight hair like mine. We always have our hair cut in the same style in the beauty parlor, the Page Boy. It’s the same hairstyle in her wedding photo with Dad, where she looks so pretty in her Princess gown and he looks so handsome in his Amerikana, I swear they look just like a movie love team, like Susan Roces and Eddie Gutierrez or Gloria Romero and Juancho Gutierrez in the Sine Siete movies Yaya lets us watch every afternoon before our siesta. Tisha looks more like Dad, dark and curly with big eyes. Yaya told me Tita Amihan looks like a Jeprox, like Sampaguita, because she’s always wearing long, loose clothes with no bra and doesn’t comb her hair whenever Yaya picks up Diego from their apartment every Saturday to bring him to our house. Once, when Mom heard me calling Tita Amihan a Jeprox, she got mad and said it’s not nice to call people names. She explained that Tita Amihan was an artist and probably a hippie, that’s why she looked like that. Mom said Tita Amihan was the one who painted the big blue-and-green painting in our sala. That’s what the A.M. in the bottom corner of the painting meant all along – Amihan Marquez! Well, it’s not really a painting of anything. It just looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Dad told me it’s called an abstract, but he didn’t tell me shepainted it. It used to be my favorite painting in the whole house and I used to copy it all the time in my sketchpad with my Cray Pas – until I learned the Family Secret. Well, I think she looks a like a bomba star. Like a negra Vivian Velez doing her sexy "Body Language" dance on Discorama on Channel 7. They have the same body, like in the rhyme the boys in school love to recite: "Wow sexy, Katawan Pepsi, Coca-Cola body, Lawlaw panty!" Vivian Velez is also always bra-less. When she dances, she squirms and wiggles and her big boobs jiggle around, so Tisha and I laugh and copy her wriggly worm dance while singing, "When you’re moving next to me, I can feel your body heat, so come on move a little closer, let me feel your body heat…" Whenever we watch the show every Saturday night, Tito Boy, Mom’s younger brother, points to her nipples making bakatunder her tube top and says, "Hayop!" Right now in the pool, Tita Amihan’s nipples are also making bakat under her wet bathing suit. She also won’t stop smiling at me. I hate her stupid smile. What’s she so happy about anyway? I suddenly remember that I haven’t seen Mom smile in such a long time. She’s always sad and crying or mad at Dad. "Okay, girls, who can show me how to inhale and exhale?" Tita Amihan asks. I raise my hand automatically like I always do when I know the answer in class. Tsk! Why’d I do that? Oh well. I won’t smile na lang. I show Tita Amihan and Tisha how, drawing in air through my nose and making my stomach small, then breathing the air out, making my stomach big. "Very good," Tita Amihan exclaims and claps. "Now, we are going to make bubbles by doing what Tanya did – but under the water. Let’s blow out air through our nose and mouth. Let’s pretend we’re sea lions. Do you know what a sea lion is?" I roll my eyes. Sus! Of course I do! I learned it in Zoology. Does she know it’s a mammal? Tita Amihan sinks down into the water, and when Tisha sees bubbles form on top of her head, she gets excited and copies her right away. Soon, they’re both jumping up and down in the water again, making lots of bubbles and laughing when they come up. "Wow, Tisha, you’re a nachural!" she says, pronouncing natural with a "ch." It’s just like the way Dad says pizza pie with a "ch" and supermarket and stupid with a "sh" instead of an "s." They’re looking at me, but I just stand there with my arms crossed in front of me. "Come on, Tanya, try it!" Tita Amihan calls out to me. "Yes, Ate Tanya, try it, it’s fun!" Tisha squeals. It looks pretty easy, but my feet are glued to the floor of the pool and I can’t move. It’s so noisy, I can’t concentrate – suddenly my ears have turned bionic and I can hear the kids in the pool talking, laughing, screaming and splashing water all at the same time. I stare at Tita Amihan’s curly porcupines. Maybe they’re baho like the anghit of the high school boys who play basketball in our school gym sometimes. I force myself to try. I bend my knees and crouch down until the water comes up to my chin, then I stop. I’m afraid to taste the water that’s been touched by her kili-kili hair, so I press my lips inwards very tightly to seal my tongue in, then continue crouching down until my head is completely under the water. But I forget to close my eyes! Ouch! The water goes inside my eyes and stings them, so I shut them very tight. I forget to exhale, so the water goes inside my nostrils, stinging them, too. Ouch! I jerk up and come out of the water. I start coughing and sputtering. My eyes are still shut tight and I’m pinching my nose because it’s so painful, like the time a grain of rice got stuck in it. Even my throat hurts. Tita Amihan rushes to me and puts her arm around me. "Oh no, Tanya, are you okay?" she asks. I struggle away from her grasp and grab the hand railing. "I’m fine, leave me alone," I’m sungit to her again as I wipe the water from my eyes and smooth back all the clumped wet hair that’s all over my face. I want to quit and leave the pool, but I can’t. I’m trapped. Dad won’t pick us up until five. I never wanted to be here in the first place, but I was afraid that Mom and Dad would fight again if I complained. Who cares about swimming anyway? Only Dad does. He says we have to grow up to be survivors. "One day, you’ll be on a boat that will sink. What if you don’t know how to swim? In life, you either sink or swim!" he always says. Dad grew up near Bauang Beach in La Union, so he learned how to swim at a very young age. He wants us to be like him, and even if we’re girls, he wants us to learn things like riding a bike and karate and sports. He got so angry last summer when Mom, Tisha and I came back from the YWCA and she told him she enrolled us in Hula and Tahitian dance instead of swimming because all the classes were full when we got there. "Hula? Tahitian?" he screamed at Mom. "Ano’ng lecheng kaartehan na naman ‘yan? That’s not a survival skill! It’s just a waste of money. My money!" I got scared. He was already mad at Mom for enrolling us in ballet classes. Dad grew up poor and had to sell newspapers and shine shoes to put himself through school, that’s why I think he wants us to have a hard time, too. Whenever he sees us with a new toy or new clothes or shoes, he says, "When I was your age, we never had enough money for those things. We had to work to save up money for what we needed." He says we might become spoiled brats if we get too used to special stuff. But Mom used to be a folk dancer, so she wanted us to learn dancing, too. She said we would have good posture and become graceful. I make sure Dad never sees me and Tisha practicing our dancing, and I always hide our ballet shoes and grass skirts under my bed. I know that if he sees them he’ll remember our dance lessons and get mad again. I’m always afraid to make him angry. He might get so mad and leave all of us and make a new family with Tita Amihan and Diego. These days, when I hear his car horn honking whenever he comes home early at night I grab Tisha and we run to my room and hide under my bed. But that’s not too often, because usually by the time he gets home we’re already asleep. Don’t worry, Tanya, you’ll get the hang of it before you know it! Let’s do something easier," says Tita Amihan. She leads us to the gutter and tells us to hold on to it with both hands while stretching out our arms in front of us, then to let our legs float to the surface and kick our feet behind us. "Kick from your knees with your toes pointed," she says. That’s easy, we learned how to point our toes in ballet. "Pretend the top of the water is the roof, and you’re breaking the roof from below with your feet." she says. As Tisha and I kick the water-roof, I remember that Tita Amihan is a water ballerina. Mom told me she was an Aquabelle in Sulô Hotel, where there’s an underground restaurant with a huge glass window with a view of one side of the pool so the people eating could watch the Aquabelles do water ballet. I’ve always wondered if that’s how they met. Maybe Dad was eating there and saw her in the window like the Little Mermaid and fell in love with her. Or maybe he saw her nipples making bakat under her bathing suit. But I’m too scared to ask Mom. It might make her cry again. I wonder why Dad doesn’t want us to study ballet when Tita Amihan is a ballerina, too. Well, sort of. I want to be a ballerina, too, but the real kind, onstage. "Now, girls, slowly put your face in the water, then try to release your hands from the gutter and kick backwards. Don’t worry, Tanya, you can close your eyes first. Inhale, exhale." I look at Tisha. She’s doing it already – just like that, she can swim! Without touching the gutter! And her eyes are open! I can’t believe it. How can she be so brave? I’m surprised that I can even put my face down in the water, but I can’t let go of the gutter. Every time I try to let go, one hand at a time, just when I’m almost there I change my mind and cling to it again. It’s like I’m glued to the gutter with Elmer’s. What a scaredy cat! Soon, my legs are tired. I stand up to see Tisha and Tita Amihan smiling again and looking at me. They must think I’m stupid and hopeless. "Keep trying, Tanya," Tita Amihan says. "You can do it, Ate," Tisha shouts. I roll my eyes. Why does she have to make kampi? Arrrggh! Why can’t I do it? I’m not stupid, I’m bright! In school they call me a prodigy. I can learn anything! Even this! Maybe if I learn this stupid thing we won’t have to see Tita Amihan ever again, and Dad will forget about her and our family will go back to normal. The sides of my tummy hurt. So does my head. I really just want to go home. But I can’t give up or she’ll think I’m stupid. I shiver in the water but decide I will keep trying even if my fingers are all wrinkled like prunes and manhid. On my tenth try, just before I stand up to give up, I feel Tita Amihan’s hands on my stomach. "Relax," she says, "relax your legs and put your face back in the water again," moving me in the water towards the middle of the pool, "and let me teach you how to float." I’m so tired, I have no strength left to put up a fight. Her voice is so gentle I feel like I’m being hypnotized. I become a very obedient girl and surrender to her. I can feel my whole body turning very straight in the water, touched only by the palm of her hand. Before I know it, my eyes have popped open without the water stinging them, and I can see the blue floor of the pool. It looks like a page from my math notebook. I imagine numbers on each tile and try to solve a math problem. But there are no numbers, just dark, skinny legs attached to ugly bathing suits running around underwater. All of a sudden, it’s very quiet. No noise from the public school children, no crying Mom, no yelling Dad. It’s like a very nice dream. In my head I can hear my favorite Church song, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me…" I always wondered what "peace on earth" was like. Maybe it’s like this. Just me and the water and no noise. My body is moving forward like a slow submarine. Nothing is touching me anymore except the water, and I feel like I’m in a cradle. A water cradle that’s rocking me to sleep. I can hear someone saying "Shhhhh…" and it’s not me. It’s Mom! "Shhhhh…" she says, and I’m back to being the baby again. I make bubbles without even trying. After a while, my eyes begin to feel very heavy so I try to make them open wider. The floor has become even bluer, and more peaceful. When I look around me, there are no more skinny legs touching the floor! Where did all the children go? I look to my right behind me and see green flowers and leaves… attached to a body… attached to arms… attached to armpits – with hairy porcupines! It’s not Mom who’s rocking me, it’s Tita Amihan! I wriggle away from her and move the opposite way. I look to my left and see "6 FT" written on the wall. I panic when I remember that the last time I got measured in the doctor’s office, I was just four feet tall. I struggle to get up and lift my head out the water, but my body shoots downward like something’s pulling me from below. I drop lower and lower near the blue floor. I can’t breathe. I can’t make bubbles. I’m sinking. I really want to cry but I can’t underwater. Then, from out of the blue, Aquabelle swoops down to rescue me from the floor like Aquaman on Superfriends. She grabs on to my waist and wrist and pulls me up to the surface zooming through the water like a torpedo. I gasp for breath, coughing and spitting out water. She lifts me onto the pool’s edge, where Tisha is dangling her feet in the water with a very worried look. "Are you okay?" Tita Amihan asks, throwing a towel around me. "Why did you panic? You were floating already! You were really doing well, Tanya! You didn’t have to worry. I was right there beside you. Just trust me, okay? Next time, you just have to trust me." I just stare at her. Then, I look at the big clock by the lifeguard tower and say, "It’s almost five o’clock. Dad will be here soon. My Mom is waiting for us at home." I get up and run to the ladies’ shower room, forgetting to bring Tisha along. When we come out of the YWCA, Dad is already waiting at the entrance with Diego. His face lights up when he sees Tita Amihan in her loose, white backless dress. I don’t think he even sees me or Tisha until she runs to him and shouts, "I can swim, Dad! I can swim!" He smiles, then looks at me. "How about you, Tanya?" He looks back at Tita Amihan, who gives him a strange look like they have a code. I say nothing, except "Where’s the car?" He points to the parking lot across the street. He’s so busy looking at her that when I say "Can I have the key?" he just hands them over without looking. I leave them and walk towards the car. When I turn around, I see Dad and Tita Amihan holding a squealing Diego in between them, swinging him back and forth with their arms while they talk. I’ve never seen Dad laugh and smile so much. He looks so happy. Not mad like he usually is at home. Tisha wants to join them and tries to squeeze in, so I run back to get her and force her to come with me to our car. "Tisha, get in the back of the car!" I order her. "Ate!" she whines but obeys me. I think of joining her in the back seat, but I worry that Tita Amihan might sit in front, and that’s Mom’s seat. So I sit in front instead. If she wants, she can stay with Tisha in the back. I sneak a look across the street again. I catch Dad kissing Tita Amihan on the lips. Then, she walks away from him in the opposite direction with Diego. Dad crosses the street to join us, alone. When we get home, it is almost six thirty, and Mom is standing in front of our gate carrying Baby Thea, right under the lamppost. In the ray of light shining over her head, I can see a cloud of lamoks flying on top of her hair. She’s wearing her pink Chinese silk robe on top of her pambahay and just chinelas, and has a kawawa face – the kind Tisha makes when she knows she’s about to be spanked. She’s wiping her nose with a Kleenex again. I wonder how long she’s been waiting for us? She didn’t have to stand out there in the street – why didn’t Yaya just call her inside the house when Dad honked the horn? I suddenly feel very sad. We didn’t even think of buying any pasalubong for her! I don’t care if Dad gets mad, I run out of the car to her and hug her tight. She smiles down at me and asks, "So, can you swim now?" I whisper, "I didn’t learn Mom, she’s not a good teacher!" And just before Tisha can shout from the car window, "I can swim, Mom!" I whisper to her again, "Please don’t make me take swimming lessons with her again, Mom. Please." She kisses my forehead, then Thea’s, and nods.

Sink or Swim Myrza Sison Second Prize, Short Story, 2006 Palanca Awards

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our-smooty · 4 years

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Flowerbeds and Fertile Soil: Chapter 6

Fandom: Good Omens

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens, )Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer

Tags: Kidfic, Mpreg kind of, they can choose to present however so idk, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Vulva (Good Omens), OCs Galor, parenting, using your snake form to avoid confrontation, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pregnancy, if I missed a tag lemme know

Summary: They could do anything, go anywhere, all without the worry of Above or Bellow making a fuss. Even so, they mostly kept to their little patch of Eden, their cottage and garden and the simple life they’d carved out among the locals. Aziraphale opened a book shop in town, where he only occasionally sold any books (and the ones he did sell, were all modern and stocked specifically for that purpose). Crowley focused his attentions on the garden, and if he occasionally helped their elderly neighbour with her disobedient willow tree, then that was a secret no one needed to know. Lately, however, they had both been feeling rather restless, unbeknownst to each other. Aziraphale tried reorganizing his store, changing the way he tied his bowtie and even ate pizza –something he considered to be far too messy for him personally. Crowley had branched out into birdwatching, and then car maintenance (the human way), and even reading. Nothing scratched the itch for either of them.

Ao3 Link

My Ko-Fi

They ended up calling Anathema. She took it pretty well, and Crowley had the suspicion that she’d expected it in that weird witchy way of hers. She instructed Aziraphale to get Crowley into bed with some crackers and water, and for him to nibble on those until he was feeling better. Crowley complained that he almost never ate anything, being an immortal demon, but decided to try it out anyway, if only because being sick was a new and frankly frightening experience he wanted to be over and done with as soon as possible. And to his chagrin, I actually did help.

Aziraphale hovered around anxiously, asking over and over again if there was anything Crowley needed, and fluffing the pillows, and fussing with the comforters. Crowley let him do it because who didn’t like to be pampered once and a while? Charlotte and Annabella had crawled into bed too with a few of their dolls and were currently reenacting the scene from the kitchen in great detail. It was honestly so domestic he wanted to throw up all over again, or maybe that was just the morning sickness coming back.

“Comfortable?” Aziraphale asked, once again re-fluffing the pillow behind Crowley’s back. “Do you need anything else. More water? Tea? A different type of crackers? I can go down to the shop and--”

Crowley leaned over--carefully so he wouldn’t upset the delicate balance in his stomach--and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand. “I’m alright, but I’d be better if you joined us.” He gave Azirpahale a crooked, slightly fragile smile. To tell the truth, he was feeling pretty overwhelmed and more than a little nervous, having all this come crashing down when they were supposed to be enjoying a fun day at the park. Crowley glanced over at the girls playing at the foot of the bed. He needed to keep it together for them if nothing else.

“Oh well if you insist.”Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed, then folded himself carefully into the space between Crowley and the kids. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

Crowley shrugged. “Happens to humans all the time when they’re expecting, you heard Anathema. Guess I’ll have to get used to it.” He was trying not to think about it too hard. They’d been going at it like rabbits for the past month with the express purpose of this but now that it was happening Crowley was honestly freaking out a little bit. “You know, I think I did something to my back while I was hunched over that sink, you think you could…?”

“Of course my dear. Scoot up a bit then.” Crowley did, and Aziraphale began the massage. He hadn’t actually done anything to his back, but he knew his angel needed something to do with his hands and this sounded like the most mutually beneficial activity they could get up to with the poppets around. And Crowley had gone nearly 6000 years with minimal contact from well... anyone so this wasn’t exactly a hardship. Not the exciting day out at the park he’d planned but also not the worst day (though he’d live through the apocalypse and thinking Aziraphale was dead so his standards might have been warped).

“That’s nice angel, maybe a little further down, near the wings? Ah, yeah,” Crowley moaned happily, twitching said appendages in the not-quite-there space they resided in. “I always forget how good you are at this.”

“Wings?” Lottie asked, consequently losing interest in her doll and crawling over the bedspread to sit in Crowley’s lap. “You have wings Uncle Crowley?”

“Uhh.” They hadn’t exactly hidden the fact they were supernatural in front of the girls. Normally there would have been concerns about them telling other humans about them, but they were children who often said strange things. The few times Bella had said something of that sort to another human they usually wrote it off as the excited ramblings of a three-year-old. And Lottie was getting to the age where she was beginning to catch on that her uncles were a bit different and actually enjoyed keeping the secret. But neither being had shown the girls their more… ethereal bits so far because honestly how do you explain giant wings to humans who were only just out of babyhood?

“Does Uncle Azi have wings?” Bella asked, stealing her sister’s doll and hiding it under a nearby pillow for later use. “Show me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart. It would get rather crowded in here,” Aziraphale explained while simultaneously turning Crowley into a pile of mush with firm circular motions to the base of his spine.

“Aw Hell angel, it can’t hurt to show them,” he said, smiling down at Lottie. Aziraphale sighed but Crowley knew he’d won; the angel was just as weak as he was when it came to the requests of their goddaughters.

“Language, dear,” he chided before letting his own wings out with a woosh. Crowley followed, careful not to knock Aziraphale off the bed. The room was filled with the distinctly dusty-magic smell of wings brought into the physical plane and both Lottie and Bella gasped.

“Magic!” Annabella cried, forgetting her dolls and scampering over to grab a fistful of Crowley’s feathers. He winced and pulled back reflexively, which made her little face fall. Slowly Aziraphale took her hand in his and placed it gently on the demon’s wing, showing her how to be gentle.

“Carefully, like that dearest. Like petting a puppy.” Bella nodded, using the utmost care while playing with his primaries. Lottie joined in as well, enjoying picking through the layers and finding the tiny, downy feathers hidden beneath. Crowley couldn’t hold back a tiny laugh as their hands tickled and prodded.

“Oh sure angel, keep yours out of the way while they muss up mine,” he joked, spreading his wings out more so the girls could see the iridescence of the secondaries and tertiaries. Aziraphale went back to massaging, really getting into the muscles where his wings met his back.

“I’ll sort them for you later if you want. Besides, I think we’re both overdue for a little preening as it is,” Aziraphale chuckled, grabbing one of his own tertiary feathers that had fallen onto the bedspread and handing it to Lottie. “We’re both moulting all over the place.”

“Are you a bird?” Lottie asked, spinning the snow-white feather in her fingers.

“Daddy says birds are for watching and not for scaring,” Bella added sheepishly, tossing some of the loose down into the air.

“Well for once your dad is right, what a shocker,” Crowley drawled, earning a light pinch from Aziraphale.

“Be nice to Newton Crowley. He’s a lovely young man, if you’d made the effort to get to know him.” Crowley rolled his eyes again but didn’t reply. He honestly didn’t mind Newt and Anathema. They were alright, as far as humans went, and he’d probably miss them when their short lifespans came to an end. But that wasn’t something he liked to think about too often--or when he was sober--so he made the executive decision to change the subject.

“Are we still going to the park?” The girls both looked up hopefully. Not even the magical reality of wings could compare to the thrill of their local children's park (the one that had been put in suspiciously close to when Charlotte had been born. Crowley had the suspicion Aziraphale had had more than a little bit to do with it).

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, love,” Aziraphale answered. Crowley groaned and tossed his hair back dramatically. “Oh don’t be like that you were literally passed out in our kitchen not two hours ago.”

‘I’m fine now,” he pouted. Was this how the entire 9 (or however many months demon/angel babies needed to gestate), was going to be? Aziraphale being overprotective and Crowley forced to lay in bed doing nothing? “I don’t feel sick anymore and I ate all the crackers.”

“Please Uncle Azi?” Bella begged, turning her big, dark eyes on the angel and pulling off a pout so manipulative it made Crowley proud. He’d seen Anathema use the exact same look on Newt when she wanted a refill of her drink at the baby shower.

Aziraphale’s resolve lasted all of three seconds before he nodded and withdrew his wings. “Fine. But only for an hour and only if Uncle Crowley agrees to spend most of the time sitting.”

The girls cheered, accidentally tugging at Crowley’s wings in the process. He discreetly disappeared them back into their pocket dimension and made a mental not to give them a once over that night. Monthly wing groomings were one of his favourite part of moving in together. Back before the Apocalypse Crowley had sometimes gone decades without a proper groom because demons did not--in any capacity--groom each other. Only when he’d seen Aziraphale and they’d been in the position to act friendly had he gotten a good groom in, and he cherished many of those memories.

“I promise to take it easy angel.” He leaned back and rested his head on Aziraphale’s chest. “Girls why don’t you go get dressed while we get ready?”

Charlotte and Annabella ran off, though not before collecting the majority of the loose feathers from the blankets. Crowley watched them go with a smile before rolling over and spreading himself over his Aziraphale’s chest and shoulder. “Mmm, thanks for the back rub, angel. Really hit the spot.”

“It’s the least I can do, dear boy,” Aziraphale answered, pressing kisses to the demon’s forehead and cheeks. “You’re very cuddly, aren’t you?”

Normally Crowley would deny that fact until he was blue in the face, but right now in the bed, the sound of their goddaughters making a complete mess of their bedroom vibrating through the walls, he felt content. “Feels nice. Kinda surreal but, nice.”

“Nice is a four-letter word starlight,” Aziraphale pointed out, planting one final kiss on Crowley’s lips. “Are you sue you’re feeling alright?”

“Shut up and get me my shoes,” Crowley laughed, kissing back with fervour. “Give a demon a break I’m carrying some sort of Angelic parasite inside me and it’s turning me soft.” There it was easier to talk about if he made it into a joke. Baby steps.

“Don’t call our child a parasite,” Aziraphale admonished with a gasp. “I suppose it’s too early to pick names, but what about a nickname?” The angel began mumbling to himself as he got ready, purposefully not going near Crowley’s shoes.

“Ngk,” Crowley choked, blushing scarlet. “Too early, y-yeah.”

Aziraphale smiled slyly. He was enjoying this, the bastard. ‘We’ll have to think about it, won’t we? Well, get a move on dearest, the girls won’t wait forever. Do you need a hand?”

“No,” Crowley growled in what he hoped was a menacing way. Not that it worked on Aziraphale. Crowley watched him practically flounce from the room, entirely too pleased with himself. He never had handed Crowley his shoes.

After changing out of his comfortable clothes and into something more appropriately suited for playing in the park, his third skinniest pair of jeans, shiny leather shoes, and a spiffy blazer covering a deep purple t-shirt, Crowley stomped down the stairs to wait in the entry, completely ignoring the commotion from upstairs.

“No, Annabella you may not go out in your underthings--and Charlotte what did I say about those scarves? One is plenty--! Oh bugg-blast! Don’t pull your sister’s hair!” It sounded like the girls were giving Aziraphale a run for his money. Crowley considered going back up to give him a hand, but the effort of getting dressed and down the stairs had left him a little lightheaded, so he decided to stay put. If he fainted again Aziraphale would make a big deal and probably refuse to let him leave the house for the next nine months. There was only so much he could do around the cottage grounds and he didn’t want to go completely mad.

Upstairs things seemed to be calming down anyway. Crowley smiled as he heard one of the girls giggling, then Azirpahale’s answering chuckle. Somebody, he loved that man so much it almost made him want to be sick again, but in a good way. Feelings were confusing. Even 6000 years of experience didn’t give him any advantages. Or maybe Crowley was just a mess; that was also a distinct possibility.

“All good angel?” he asked as Aziraphale descended the steps, Bella on his hip and Lottie trailing behind him. The angel looked frazzled, but fond.

“We got there in the end, didn’t we girls?” he answered, jostling Bella and making her laugh.

With both of them there it wasn’t as much of a struggle to get everyone’s shoes on and out the door. Crowley took Charlotte’s hand while Aziraphale walked with Bella. The park was only a few minutes walk and once they arrived both girls sped off ahead to clamber over the equipment.

“No monkey bars! Can’t have you nearly busting your heads open again!” Crowley called after them, locating a bench and sitting heavily. OK, so maybe he should have stayed in bed a little longer. His gaze shifted over to Aziraphale as the angel took a seat beside him and debated saying something.

“I have to say I’m glad we decided to come out after all. Best to enjoy these last few days of summer.” Nevermind then. Crowley wasn't going to make a fuss about nothing if the angel was enjoying himself.

“Before everything turns all grey and slushy you mean?” Crowley hated winter. He wasn’t cold-blooded per-say, but he did usually run at a few degrees colder than most. Which made the winter particularly unpleasant.

“We aren’t in London anymore Crowley, you know the winters here are beautiful,” Aziraphale remarked, procuring breadcrumbs from one of his pockets and scattering them for the birds. This area hadn’t had many pidgeons before they moved in, but because Aziraphale expected parks to have birds to feed (and there was no body of water large enough for ducks) there were now several groups of birds who visited daily.

“Freezing. Wet. Full of unbearable holiday cheer. Sounds lovely,” Crowley drawled, conjuring up his own, larger chunks of bread to huck at the birds.

“I know Christmas really isn’t your thing darling. Oh!” Aziraphale wiggled slightly. He brushed the crumbs from his hand and began running his fingers over his lips in excitement. “Next year, we’ll have a little one to celebrate with. Won’t that be exciting?”

Crowley grimaced to hide the strange way his face wanted to crumple up. “Guess so. You’re not going to make me do the whole “Santa” thing with them are you?” Crowley would never, ever admit it out loud, but the idea was… not terrible? He liked to give Aziraphale presents at Christmas, but that was because giving his angel gifts was practically ingrained in him now. And Christmas gave Crowley the excuse to go all-out more often than not. Would it be the same with the kid; would he want to dote on them as much as he did on Aziraphale? Maybe more?

“But that’s half the fun!”

“Sure, sure. Telling kids a great big man in a sweaty red suit breaks into the house and leaves them things is all well and good angel--quite demonic really--but what about what you have to tell them he’s not real?” He’d been saved that ordeal by Warlock’s parents, or more specifically his mother, who decided that six was a perfectly acceptable age to rid her child of that sort or silliness. She hadn’t intended to be mean, but Crowley had still spent the entire night with an armful of sobbing little boy.

“Hm, I guess that is a little bit of a problem. But that’s years away and humans seem to grow up fine believing in him,” Aziraphale countered, letting his fingers travel up to twirl around one of his curls. A few feet away Lottie and Bella had started making flower crowns. “Girls, what do you think about Santa Clause?”

Lottie barely looked up. “Santa Claus is a tool used by the capitalist government to force people into participating in the endless cycle of purchase and debt,” she answered automatically. “Daddy says not to tell other kids though.”

Crowley burst out laughing, knee-slapping and all. “Oh, that has Book Girl written all over it. And your face, angle!”

Aziraphale sputtered indignantly for a bit before sighing and giving a small smile. “I guess that’s one way to deal with it. Though Saint Nicholas himself wasn’t too bad. Had ale with him a few times in Greece.”

Within a few seconds Crowley had gathered himself enough to sit back up, now leaning heavily towards Aziraphale in companionable closeness. “Sure sure. Of course, you’ve shared drinks with literal Santa Claus.”

“Charlotte stop putting grass in your sister's hair please!” Aziraphale scolded, making like he was going to get up if she didn’t stop. Of course, she listened immediately, knowing that any further misbehaviour would mean the end of their park trip, but Crowley also saw her steal a few flowers from Bella’s pile during the distraction. He’d have to keep an eye on her at this rate. “That’s the sort of thing we’ll need to decide on, isn’t it. To tell them about Santa, or what to do about school bullies…”

Crowley groaned. “Do we have to talk about this now? For somebody's sake I’ve barely been...you know… for six weeks going by what Anathema said. Can’t we talk about all that later?” Not to mention he’d only known for a few hours and was still adjusting to that particular piece of information.

Every once and a while since this morning Crowley found himself resting his hand on his stomach, subconsciously looking for a bump that wouldn’t be there for weeks, if not months. The idea that there was actually something growing inside him was as weird as it was exciting and for once, Aziraphale was the one moving too fast. Crowley needed time to process all of this but between the angel and the girls, he didn’t think he was going to get much.

“We can stop, if you like. But I do hope you’re up to having this discussion soon. I have to admit, I’m very excited, if a little nervy about the whole business.” Nervy was one way of putting what Crowley was feeling. A right state, too. He just wanted some peace and quiet on this nice park bench while he sorted through some stuff, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to ask for that without sounding like a massive arsehole.

“Nervy, yeah. We can talk about it in a bit?” There that wasn’t too bad right? About as non-committal and non-confrontational as possible. And if it was really a problem and Aziraphale needed to talk well then Crowley would just have to deal with it somehow because there was no way he giving Aziraphale a reason to be cross with him and force himself to go through this alone. “The little monsters will be gone in what, 2 weeks, 3 tops? We can talk then.”

Aziraphale looked like he was going to complain, but stopped himself. He met Crowley’s eyes through the lenses of his sunglasses and Crowley must have been giving off enough signals of stress that the angel picked up on them. “I’ve been pushing again, haven’t I?”

“A bit,” Crowley said with the best casual affect he could muster while simultaneously thanking Someone that Aziraphale remembered from their last argument that he could be a bit pushy when he got excited. And that Crowley was not his usual cool, “water off a duck’s back” self when it came to this issue.

“Sorry again love. I got a little carried away, what with just finding out and then you getting sick it’s been a rather big day.” Crowley’s head bobbed in sympathy then ducked towards Aziraphale again. This time he went all the way past casual leaning to resting his head on the angel’s shoulder. Luckily, his smell was either being blown away by the wind, or whatever sort of episode Crowley had been experiencing was finished. Which was good because he really, really wanted to sneak a cuddle in.

“S’OK, I should’ve said something.”

Aziraphale hummed against Crowley’s hair. “At least this discussion didn’t end in you leaving in a huff.”

“Or you running off to get lost in your books.” Lottie had wandered away from Bella towards the swings, though Crowley was sure she wouldn’t be alone for long. She was too social for that, not to mention her sister was a bit of a clinger.

“That too. How are you feeling now? Not too hot out for you is it?” Crowley resisted the urge to roll his eyes, all too aware that they had only just avoided another fight.

“Stop your fussing, I’m fine. Told you how many times now?” It was mostly the truth. Since the slight dizzy spell after the stairs he’d been feeling fine. He knew enough about human pregnancy to know that morning sickness was a common enough thing. The angel was making a huge deal out of nothing.

Aziraphale tutted, but still squeezed Crowley around the shoulders where his arm lay. “Yes, yes, I know. You cannot fault me for worrying, I love you so.”

“Ngk,” Crowley answered, watching as Lottie helped her little sister, who had, in fact, followed her promptly, onto a swing. “Love you too, even when you bother me.”

They spent the rest of the early afternoon in the park. Eventually Crowley got up to help Lottie try out the monkey bars safely while Aziraphale took Bella home for a nap. Or for “storytime”, since telling a three-year-old to take a nap was just about the worst thing you could do. Crowley had agreed they wouldn’t stay longer than half-an-hour and that he would call the second he felt off. But nausea didn’t come back, and Charlotte managed to get half-way across by herself without Crowley having to intervene and everything was good.

#fanfic #good omens #gomens #crowley #crowziraphale #aziraphale/crowley #mpreg #ineffable husbands

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raphpanda21 · 5 years

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The Tale of Mr Bumbles

Cerberus was lost. Well as lost as a giant hound of hell could be when it was too stubborn to admit it was lost and just turn back. Lost, hungry and tired. He wouldn’t be lost at all if not for his dad’s stubbornness.

‘Stupid Daddy! Don’t need bath! Smell fine! Show daddy! He be upset and forget about bath! ‘

Huffing in exhaustion he stopped on the hillside overlooking a fertile valley crisscrossed with fields of flowers and grain and scattered clusters of smaller forests. Cerberus even as a dog could appreciate the beauty of the scene but it seemed almost too perfect at the same time. A soft spring breeze brushed over him cooling his tired body but with it came the mouth watering smell of food. Coming to full attention once more he began to follow his nose eager to locate the source of the smell and perhaps secure some sustenance for himself.

Wandering down the hillside he creeped into a forest near the origin of the smell carefully crawling among the underbrush as he got closer.

‘Best see who has food. See if is good food. ‘

Coming to the very edge of the forest he peered out from beneath a bush nose twitching as the smell of he food was now mixed with a sweet flower and honey scent. Only about ten feet away he saw the source of the delicious smells. Seated amongst a cluster of daises a small little girl sat surrounded by a pile of daisy crowns and chains a small stuffed bee seemingly her only companion. What really drew Cerberus’ attention though was the buttered bread and olives she was slowly picking at.

The girl appeared to be young and alone. In Cerberus’ experience children always had the easiest touch even with hell hounds like himself. Figuring he had nothing to lose he slinked slowly out from the underbrush making a point to make as much noise as possible so as not to startle the little one.

Stepping on a twig it cracked loudly drawing the young child’s attention. A cherub like face turned to face him the first emotion being clearly confusion at seeing him but quickly shifting to excitement as a smile of wonder spread over her features.

Puppy!? Come here puppy!

The young little girl that looked like she couldn’t be more than 5 summers at most eagerly pat the ground trying to encourage him to come closer. Not one to ever turn down an invitation he quickened his gait coming to a stop before her situating himself closer to the food than to to the owner it belonged to. Giving a soft whine he looked at the food and then at her hoping the little child would be smart enough to figure it out.

The little girl was slightly disappointed at the distance but hearing the whine and following his stare she tilted her head in concern.

Are you hungry? Poor puppy. Here!

The young child smiled and held up a large chunk of freshly buttered bread . Very carefully Cerberus reached out mindful to use his front teeth to carefully lift the bread from her grasp. Safely away from her small digits he quickly devoured the offering licking his chops in enjoyment after he finished it.

The little girl giggled in delight enthralled with the mysterious large puppy. Cerberus’ tail wagged pleased at the sound her happiness and his now fuller belly.

‘She is sweet pup. ‘

Sensing the child’s eagerness to touch him he decided to reward her moving closer nudging her hand in encouragement with his snout.

The child didn’t waste any time eagerly reaching out to stroke his head softly scratching between his ears and around his nape.

‘Dis pup very good at pets.’

Cerberus tongue lulled out in pleasure as the pets and her pleasent scent lulled him into a relaxed state.

‘Dis can’t better get.’

It turned out Cerberus was wrong as a short time later he found himself not unlike Dionysos reclined on a diaz being served grapes by his adoring attendants except in this reality he was a pooch reclined in the lap of a small rose of a child being feed olives.

‘Maybe don’t need go home. Dis pretty nice. ‘

As soon as he thought it he knew he didn’t really mean it. His daddy was hopeless without him. Even if he was mad at him he would eventually go back because Daddy needed him the most. He had the most important job of all the puppers after all.

With much effort he rolled over groaning in mild protest at his now more than full belly. As he shifted his hind legs kicked something furry. Whipping his head ears laid pack at the unknown interloper he quickly located the threat which turned out was no threat at all. Curiosity getting the better of him he leaned closer sniffing the small stuffed bumblebee noticing pleasantly it was soaked in her smell.

‘Pup must love dis lots. It gets many hugs.’

Seeing his attention on her Mr Bumbles she picked it up holding it up for his inspection

This is Mr Bumbles. My mommy gave him to me. He is my bestest friend. Since you are my friend now Mr Bumbles is your friend too!

Cerberus looked at the stuffed insect and back to the small pup not exactly sure what she was getting at but gathering at the very least that the fake insect was Mr Bumbles.

Beginning to feel tired with his now overfull belly and the warm sun of the afternoon beating down on him he yawned loudly showing off the deadly arsenal he sported. As is often the case yawns were contagious and the little one was yawning as well. Deciding he might as well have a rest before actually trying to find his way home he curled himself around her small frame his lips curling up slightly in as close as a doggy smile as a beast could manage as the little one curled into his side. A short time later her soft even breathes leveled out as she slipped into dreamland Cerberus following her shortly after.

The two of them napped together for how long Cerberus had no scope but the moment a scent hit his nose he awoke instantly. A dangerous predator was near. Twitching his nose to take the scent in more deeply he slowly opened his eyes. Too close and judging by the scent it had been stalking them for sometime. Moving carefully he slipped himself free of the slumbering child moving far enough away from her that she would hopefully not wake. He let out a deep warning growl as he made his way into the nearby forest where the predator lay in wait. Out of the line of sight of the slumbering child he shifted form becoming double his earlier size and all three heads becoming visible. Not wanting to waste anytime he bounded off the predator now made the prey. The scent was familiar to him so he hoped to resolve things peacefully but he knew that maddening hunger could make even the gentlest creature unreasonable.

Finally he found the creature in question being upwind it had not been altered to his precense but the snake head which served as its tail hissed in warning alerting the beast which turned to face him the lion head bearing its fangs in warning.

He knew this creature the chimera and although not friends they were not enemies either. He growled a his hackles slowly rolling up his broad back two of his heads snapping their large jaws in warning.

‘Leave. Go away.’

The snake hissed in response a low rumbling roar coming from the lion head as it paced in front of him.

‘We hunger. Eat Child. You go! ‘

Looking at the creature before him he saw the gnawing hunger lurking in it’s eyes. He felt sympathy but he would not allow the kind hearted girl to become its dinners. All three heads snarling he lunged planning to give a warning bite and hopefully scare him off but the chimera had less passive plans . Anticipating his move the chimera dodged his attack slashing out angrily in retaliation catching Cerberus in his side with his claws causing a yelp of surprise to slip from Cerberus.

The pup gloves were of it seemed. Still he didn’t want to hurt the chimera badly despite the painful sting growing in his side. Hunger made a beast out of many. Circling the chimera he waited watching for his moment to strike. The fates were on Cerberus’ side as the chimera so focused on him did not mind where its feet feel and hitting a divet in the ground the chimera momentarily stumbled providing Cerberus his chance. Moving quickly he slammed the full weight of his body into the Chimera making it loose its balance completely. Not wishing to loose the opportunity Cerberus slammed one paw down on the beasts throat pinning it down as two of its heads bit into the nap of the beast a red stain darkening his midnight muzzle even more.

The goat bleated in a panic horns trying to swipe at the two bent heads with little success.

‘Let go! Stop! Let’s make deal!’

Cerberus does not release the creature it’s free head growling lowly.

‘No deal. You go. Go underworld. Say Cerberus sends. Better for us type. Plenty to care. Daddy is kind. ‘

Ever so slowly he released the Chimera moving back from the prone creature which slowly regained its footing letting out a soft rumbling sound.

‘Is far? Terrible hunger. ‘

Cerberus whined softly shaking the only head that’s muzzle wasn’t covered in blood.

‘Not far. Follow stream. It gets small. Goes in cave. You go. ‘

For a moment both creatures just looked at each other assessing the damage done. Both were a little bloody but nothing that would have long term effects. The Chimrera was the first to move nodding its head in acknowledgement an unspoken thanks understood between them as he headed in the direction Cerberus had indicated.

Shifting back to his single head form he made his way back to he hoped the still sleeping child. He tried to lick the blood from his chops with little success and his side twinged painfully with his movements fresh blood staining his fur. He wouldn’t stay long. Just make sure the little was safe and be on his way.

Making his way into the clearing he saw the small one awake and alert looking about for something but eyes falling on him she smiled getting up with her toy and quickly running to his side. As she got closer her smile slowly turns to a look of concern seeing the blood on him.

Puppy is hurt?

Tears start to come to her eyes as she clutched her bumblebee tighter to herself.

Seeing her tears he reached up to nuzzle her gently in comfort forgetting the state of his muzzle . Pulling back she giggled rubbing at the large wet smear he had left on her face smearing the blood like an over abundance of rouge.

I haven’t learned how to heal things yet but my Mr Bumbles always makes my boo boos feel better.” Holding it up to him she smiles. You should borrow him. Mama takes care of all my boo boos so I think you need him more.

Cerberus was surprised he could tell that the bee was special to the little pup. His daddy though had always harped the importance of manners so he took it gently from her hold. He needed to go though. This wasn’t his place and he needed to have his side seen to. Giving her one last nuzzle he trotted away quickly not giving himself a chance to change his mind. Disappearing from her sight he began to trace the steps of the Chimera.

Back in the valley a woman appeared at the far edge of the field calling out to the child.

Persephone dear, come along my sweetie it is time for your lessons.

The child Persephone hesitated still looking to the forest where the puppy had disappeared before turning and running towards the women quickly disappearing from sight.

Present day

Daddy had let the mean one stay the night again and it had him in a sour mood. Wanting some comfort he snuffed around his bed looking for something. His nose led him to his desired item quickly. Although very faint now Mr Bumbles still held the faint scent of the small girl from long ago. Taking it in his jaws he settled down gently holding it and letting the memories and smell calm his turbulent feelings.

#drabble #greekgods #loreolympus #inspired #cerberus #thebumblebee #persephone #lore olympus

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vincent-frankenstein · 5 years

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To My Heart and Soul

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | you are here | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | read on AO3 ]

Warnings: major character death, villain/abusive deceit, blood, fighting, panic attacks, creepy imagery

Pairings: logince, hints of moxiety, a tiny smidge of remile and past abusive anxceit

Logan barely had time to react before Toby slammed his foot into the ground, sending out a wave of magic that shoved Logan right out of the dragon’s grasp. He slammed into one of the dragon’s piles and slid to the floor in a cascade of junk, black spots dancing before his eyes as he struggled to get a hold on his breath.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sheer terror the dragon evoked. She was massive, her long body coiled around and around to fit inside the building. Her head alone was the side of a small truck. Jagged, razor-sharp teeth jutted out from her jaw, and smoke billowed from her tapered snout, sparks flying through the air. Logan shook from head to toe, terror reaching up his throat to choke away all logic. He couldn’t breathe.

Patton and Toby moved in unison, firing off brightly-colored spells that collided with the dragon’s scaly hide with a noise like a train crash. She roared and let loose a volley of flames, which Toby just barely blocked with a flickering orange shield.

Logan balled his hands into fists and squeezed hard enough to draw blood, until the pain drove away his terror, until he’d regained some semblance of logical thought. There had to be something he could do to help. He wasn’t quite ready to reveal his connection to Roman just yet, too wary of what the dragon’s reaction could be — but that didn’t mean he had to be completely useless. He sucked in a deep, shaking breath, glancing around the room.

There! When Toby blasted him backwards, the weapon fell from his hands and landed embedded in a pile off to his right. He watched the battle for a moment — Patton pushed his hands through the air and a bright blue whip lashed around the dragon’s hind legs — and then he set off, inching along the edge of the pile, his hands tightening around his shield generator. If he could just reach the weapon, he could get it out of there. He could ensure their mission was complete.

The dragon’s tail swiped through the air above his head, sending the top of one pile flying. It clattered to the ground with a horrible noise, breaking Toby’s concentration. Logan froze, pressing himself back against the pile, but when he was sure he hadn’t been seen he continued.

The hilt of the weapon glowed in the firelight, and it seemed to grow brighter as he approached, as if it knew he was coming. He darted from the edge of one pile to the edge of another, inching around the perimeter until the weapon was close enough to touch. Hand shaking, he reached out and yanked it from the pile — and in doing so dislodged something very big and very heavy higher up in the pile, which came crashing down at his feet with a deafening clatter.

The dragon froze mid-fire breath, whipping her long neck around to stare right at Logan. He froze solid, his limbs locking with panic, his hands twisting around the hilt of the weapon — and his mind blanked beyond holy shit, holy shit, so this is how I die —

“Logan!” Patton darted forward, yanking the shield generator from Logan’s hands and slamming it into the ground just before the dragon’s massive claw came down on them. “What are you doing?”

He tried to answer, really, but all he could produce was a terrified squeak. Patton opened his mouth, glancing over his shoulder at Logan — and the dragon used his distraction and swiped through his shield with ease, knocking him into Toby and sending them both flying. They slammed into a wall and slumped to the floor in an unconscious heap.

And oh, wasn’t that just perfect. Logan stumbled backwards, mind racing — Patton and Toby weren’t moving, and the dragon was peering at him like a particularly nasty insect, and he had to get them out of there, somehow, but he couldn’t even breathe, let alone think — and the dragon lowered her massive head, until she was so close that Logan could feel her blisteringly hot breath. Sparks brushed against his skin.

“How did you even get in here?” she wondered, her long, snake-like tail wrapping around his middle and squeezing. Red-hot pain cracked through his ribcage as she lifted him off his feet, and he choked, darkness tugging at the corners of his vision. The end of her tail looped around the sword and tore it from his hands, and a cry tore itself from his throat. “Now, come on. That’s not yours, and you know it.”

The weapon’s warmth disappeared in a split second and the pain nearly doubled, flooding every inch of his body in a wave of agony. Black spots danced before his vision and he heaved for air, his lungs protesting every breath. He had to get the weapon back; he didn’t come this far just to die.

“Roman —” He gasped as the dragon’s tail tightened, choking on his own voice. She searched his face, eyes narrowing.

“What did you say?”

He winced, pain wracking his chest when he cleared his throat. “R-Roman,” he managed, his voice shaking and hoarse. “I know Roman.”

All at once, her grip loosened, and air flooded his lungs as he crashed to the floor. He doubled over, jagged agony shooting through every limb, colors popping behind his eyelids as he squeezed his eyes shut. He grit his teeth, a low whine building in the back of his throat. “F-Fuck,” he muttered, hands curling into shaking fists against the floor.

“How do you know him?” the dragon asked, and he could just barely hear her through the blood rushing in his ears. Was there anger, beneath her shock and confusion? He couldn’t tell. Logan breathed as well as he could through his broken ribs and raised his head to face the dragon.

“He was my h-husband,” he said, and the dragon’s eyes widened, a string of hissed curse words flying from her lips. She set the weapon gently on the ground and leaned in close, disbelief and concern warring in her emerald eyes.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. “I — why didn’t you just say that?”

The pride at being right about the dragon knowing Roman was far overshadowed by the pain lacing through the growing numbness in his chest. He groaned, gasping for breath, and the dragon swore again. She gently lifted his head with the end of her tail, peering at him with narrowed eyes.

“Tell me again,” she said. “Tell me I can trust you.”

“He was my husband,” Logan said again, meeting her gaze with all the strength he could muster. “I loved him.”

She searched his face. “Logan,” she whispered. “You’re Logan.”

Had Roman told everyone in this world about him? He nodded weakly, falling against the dragon’s tail as pain spiked through his lungs. “Okay,” the dragon said, glancing around the room. “Um. Okay, okay, I — shit, you’re really messed up.”

“No shit,” Logan said, but it came out as a weak, wheezy groan. The dragon winced, her gaze falling on Patton and Toby.

“In my defense,” she said, “I thought you were just thieves. How was I supposed to know you’re my dad’s husband? I — I can’t heal you, do either of these humans know any healing spells?”

“Y-Yes,” Logan sad, and somehow he managed to lift his hand to point at Patton. A moment passed, then another — he blinked once, twice, the dragon’s words catching up to him — and then he froze. Her dad? “Wh — wait — how?” he spluttered, but the dragon had already curled up near Patton and Toby, poking at them with one claw.

Moving carefully, she pulled Patton off of Toby and propped them both up against the wall. She blew a burst of hot air against Patton’s face, and his eyes snapped open, a million emotions crossing his face all at once before he settled on fear. He jumped to his feet and blue sparks burst to life in his palms, spreading out into a long shield.

“S-Stay back!” he cried, as the dragon stood and glanced at Logan. Patton followed her gaze, and a cry of fright tore from his lips. “Logan? O-Oh no, are you okay? I’m coming kiddo, don’t worry!”

“Patton,” Logan yelled, “it’s alright! The dragon and I have reached an — an understanding!”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the dragon said, with every ounce of comfort a giant, hulking beast with rows of razor-sharp teeth could muster. “I mean — not anymore.”

Patton glanced between the two of them, eyebrows furrowing. He took in Logan’s injuries, concern lining his face, and craned his neck to look at the dragon as confusion joined the mix. His shield flickered away after a long, tense moment, and he set his hands on his hips. “Well, I’m very confused!” he said with a nervous laugh.

“We can explain l-later,” Logan said. He tried to stand and agony jolted through his torso, sending him crashing back to the floor with a cry of pain. “P-Please heal me.”

Patton was at his side in an instant, blue-coated hands pressing firmly against his chest. Warmth flooded through the numbness and drove back the pain and he made a small noise of relief, eyes slipping shut.

“I’ll, uh. Wake up this human.” The dragon moved to turn, and Patton cried out to stop her, his magic flaring painfully through Logan.

“A-Ah, let me do that!’ he said, wincing apologetically at Logan. “He might try to attack you before he understands what’s going on.” He lifted his hands and shook away the excess magic, and then sat back, raising an eyebrow. “What… what is going on, bye the way?”

Logan stretched, breathing deeply with relief. “The Dragon’s Eye was engraved with a… a message that Roman gave me, years ago. I assumed that that meant that he had interacted with the dragon at some point, and I was right. Once I told her who I was, she stopped attacking.”

Patton pulled Toby into his lap, whispering words that made the bruises littered across his skin fade away. “How do you know Roman?” he asked the dragon, his voice as kind as ever. Logan blinked, something hot and uncomfortable seeping into his chest. The fact that Patton already trusted Logan enough to trust a dragon…

The lies he’d been telling settled deep in his gut and burned.

“He’s my father,” the dragon said, and Logan choked, because somehow he’d forgotten about that little detail. The dragon laughed, settling her head on her folded claws like a cat. “Not biologically, of course. My parents were killed before I even hatched. If he hadn’t found me and taken care of me… I would have died. He’s the closest thing to a dad I’ve got.”

Patton cooed softly, hugging Toby to his chest. Logan could practically sense the oncoming tears. “That’s so sweet,” he said, choked-up. “That sorta makes you my niece, huh? And Logan’s like your step-father!”

Logan blinked. Logically, that made sense. He had married Roman; therefore, the dragon was his step-daughter. Somehow, though, he hadn’t made that connection until Patton said it aloud. A step-daughter. He had a daughter.

He took a moment to recover, and cleared his throat. “Y-Yes. I suppose I am,” he said, as evenly as he could manage. He’d gone from being utterly alone to having a brother-in-law and a daughter — and as the shock faded, he realized that he didn’t mind in the slightest. He tried for a smile. “Do you have a name?”

“Seraphina,” the dragon said. “My friends call me Sera, or at least they would if I had any friends.”

Patton made a high-pitched noise of sympathy, and Logan raised an eyebrow. Was that a sincere statement, or a Hercules reference? The latter was extremely likely, considering she had been raised by Roman. “Right, Sera,” he began. “We need some —”

“Holy shit —”

And Toby was awake. He leaped from Patton’s lap with a cry of shock, orange magic flaring around his hands. “Get back, you two!” he yelled, swaying unsteadily. Logan jumped between him and Seraphina on instinct, throwing his arms wide, and Patton grabbed Toby’s arm and yanked him back down with a loud cry of fright. Toby staggered to the floor, his magic fizzing and sparking, confusion and anger flaring on his face.

“It’s okay!” Patton yelled, a bit louder than he had to. “It’s okay, she’s a good dragon!”

“What?” Toby fought to yank his arm from Patton’s grip, but Patton was far stronger than anyone gave him credit. There was no escape.

“She’s on our side,” Logan insisted, as Seraphina nodded vigorously, curling in on herself to appear smaller. “She knows Roman!”

“What?” Toby looked between the three of them, face lined with shock.

“She’s Logan’s daughter!” Patton finished, and Toby went stock-still.

“What.”

His magic flickered out, and Logan sagged with relief, shooting a glance at Seraphina over his shoulder. “I believe we have some explaining to do,” he said, sitting back down with a heavy sigh.

“Damn straight,” Toby growled.

“Damn gay,” Patton said, in a voice so similar to Roman’s that Logan’s heart skipped a beat.

So Logan told the story a second time, with Patton interjecting puns every now and again, to his great chagrin. Seraphina kept her commentary to herself, watching Toby warily, her long, leathery wings shifting uncomfortably, as though she expected him to attack. Toby, to his credit, didn’t react badly. He stared at Sera for a long moment, on eyebrow raised, and then his gaze slid to Logan.

“I can see the family resemblance,” he said dryly.

“Shut up,” Logan said. Seraphina relaxed, resting her head on the floor beside Logan. She shot him a sideways glance when Toby snickered, and Logan raised an eyebrow back, rolling his eyes.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Logan began. “I have some questions, Sera.”

“Ask away, padre,” Sera said with a laugh. The corners of Logan’s mouth twitched. She was definitely Roman’s daughter.

“How did you get Roman’s weapon?” Logan asked. “Did he give it to you? Did he instruct you to take it? When did you get it?”

“He brought it to me,” Sera said. “About… nine months and two days ago. He only told me to protect it, and then he disappeared. He seemed… shaken. Scared.” She frowned, worry swirling in her deep emerald eyes. “I haven’t seen him since.”

Nine months and two days ago — in other words, two months after Roman “died.” If they needed any more confirmation, this was it. Patton shot Logan a wide-eyed look, barely contained hope lighting up his face.

“So Princey didn’t die,” Toby said, leaning back against one of Sera’s hoards. His eyebrows furrowed. “You’re sure it was him?”

Seraphina squeaked. “He — he died?” she exclaimed, head rearing up.

“I just said he didn’t, genius.”

Logan glared at Toby. “Obviously, he didn’t,” he said, deep in thought. “Both Anxiety and Dorian suggested that he is alive, and now we know that he didn’t die the night we thought he did. He faked his own death. Or someone else faked it for him, but considering he was able to bring the weapon to Seraphina months after the fact, that seems unlikely.”

“But why would he fake his own death? And how?” Patton asked, nose wrinkled in thought. “There was a body, and the only way he could have faked that is with —”

“With a duplication spell,” Toby cut in, tapping against his knee as he thought.

“But you said he gave up his magic to be with me,” Logan said. “How would he have cast a spell?”

“There’s more than one kind of magic,” Toby said. “Inherent magic is magic that you’re born with. It can only be used by people born here, and you’d need a near-constant supply of magic to live if you have it. That’s why we can’t spend too long in your world. That’s what Roman gave up.”

“But magic can be stored, too,” Patton continued. “Like — like your shield generator! We can push magic into objects and give them purposes, and then they can be used by anyone, anywhere, even a mortal in the mortal realm. But…”

Toby sat back, eyebrows furrowed. “But I’ve never heard of someone creating a stored duplication spell,” he said, crossing and uncrossing his arms like he didn’t know what to do with them. “I mean, duplicating a body, making it convincing enough that mortal doctors would consider it real? Even with inherent magic, that would be fucking impossible.”

“Dad loved to do the impossible,” Seraphina said. “I mean, just look at this thing.” She angled her head at the weapon, lying on the floor beside her.

“Speaking of that,” Logan said, “what is it? How does it work?”

Seraphina snorted. “Hell if I know, Dad never told me. But can’t you feel it? Whatever it is, it’s powerful. There’s a shitload of magic in there. Even I can’t produce magic that strong.”

Logan reached forward and drew the weapon into his lap, running a finger along the runes. Every person he’d met in the magical realm had a different buzz to them, a unique energy, but they’d all run together until the lines had blurred and he couldn’t tell what belonged to who. Roman’s weapon was defined in a way that nothing else had been; as sharp and as certain as Roman himself. If he could determine the difference, so unused to magic as he was, he couldn’t imagine how it was for experienced mages like Patton and Toby.

He slid his thumb over the small hole in the center of the hilt. There was an identical hole on the other side, forming an almost-tunnel. They didn’t seem to serve any purpose.

“Being obnoxiously talented was Princey’s thing,” Toby remarked with a shrug, and Logan snorted.

“Hey! Shush.” Patton whacked him in mock-offense, giggles tumbling from his mouth. He sobered quickly, though, and his brows knit together. “Why would he do it, though? Why didn’t he just ask for help?”

“Roman wasn’t often one to admit when he needed help,” Logan said. “Something made him believe that the only option was to fake his own death, and whatever that something was, he believed he could face it alone.”

The thought both saddened and terrified him. Roman had him, Patton, and the entire Arcane Council on his side, as well as whatever other resources the leader of magical New York could gather. If even that wasn’t enough, if he still believed the only viable option was to run away… it did not bode well. How alone had he felt, those last few days? How alone had he been ever since?

“Gee, I wonder who the ‘something’ could be,” Toby drawled sarcastically.

“Dorian,” Patton said, pain flashing across his face. “And if Anxiety is right… he ended up getting Roman anyway.”

Logan’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the weapon. “We will get him back,” he said, to himself as much as to Patton. “We have the weapon now. Our next priority should be to return to the council and determine how to use it. Then…”

“Then we find Dorian and bitch-slap him into next year,” Toby growled.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Crude, but you’re not wrong. There is another thing that’s bothering me, though,” he said. “Roman never told me about this place. I didn’t even know he had brothers. And yet, he told me where to find the weapon, and — and he engraved a message for me, in the dragon’s eye.”

“He what?” Toby asked, eyebrows raising. He yanked the eye from around his neck and peered at it, running a finger along the words. “To my heart and soul…”

“You hold the key,” Logan finished. “It’s the same phrase that he engraved in our wedding rings, so it seems likely that he meant for me to find the eye. That implies that he knew I’d get involved in this, that he had knowledge of the future. Is that… possible?”

“Not… really?” Patton said, biting his lip in confusion. “I mean, I guess he could have seen a seer, but —”

“But even Princey wouldn’t be that stupid,” Toby said, dropping the eye back around his neck. At Patton’s annoyed look, he rolled his eyes. “What? Everyone knows seers are bad luck.”

“No,” Patton said, “some people believe seers are bad luck. That doesn’t mean that they are.“

“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” Toby said, rolling his eyes again. “There hasn’t been a seer born in our world for decades. I doubt he would have been able to find one.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Patton said. He shrugged, mouth twisting into a confused grimace. “Just another mystery! We can ask him when we find him, okay?”

Logan nodded. “Right. Come on.” He stood, dusting off his pants, and offered Patton his free hand. “Thank you, Seraphina. Your help was invaluable.”

Seraphina rolled onto her back, wings spreading out beneath her. “You’re welcome, dad,” she said, equal parts sincere and teasing. Logan choked, shoving away the deluge of mixed feelings that threatened to swallow him whole. Behind him, Patton awwed so loudly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they could hear it back in New York.

Bathed in sunset-light, the three climbed out of Seraphina’s keep and back into the forest. Logan held the weapon tightly to his chest as they trekked over the uneven ground, following just behind Patton and Toby.

They were so close. They had the weapon, a way to defeat Dorian, once and for all. They had answers, and above all, they had one definite truth: Roman didn’t die in the car crash. He was out there, somewhere. Logan could find him.

Logan could find home.

He smiled to himself, a sigh of relief falling from his lips. His shattered world was beginning to build itself back up, back into what it had been before.

A figure stepped out from the trees, golden eyes glowing beneath a hood wreathed of shadows. He blasted Patton and Toby aside without a moment’s hesitation, head tilting up, his mouth stretching into a wide grin.

“Hello, Logan,” Dorian said, and the world fell apart once more.

#logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #deceit sanders #ts deceit #villain deceit #abusive deceit #sanders sides #logince #death tw #death mentions tw #to my heart and soul #celeste's portfolio

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aardvark-123 · 5 years

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Gensokyo Festival day 2: Games

“Games” can mean many things, so here’s a little biting satire. Enjoy.

~Reimu Isn’t So Great at Boxing~

"Phantom Sign: Sword of Nightmares!"

"Heaven Sign: Starburst!"

Sanae and Youmu spun slowly through the air as they sent waves of bullets in all directions. A hundred flashing swords whirled past fiery blue stars, leaving the moon rabbits scrambling for cover.

Ringo yelped as a star bounced off her soft, round tummy. "Seiran, they're crushing us! Do something!"

"Like what?!" snapped Seiran, weaving desperately through a dozen swords.

"That new spell-card you got! Try it!"

"But I don't even know if-"

Seiran saw Sanae screaming towards her and dove out of the way. Sanae gave her a stinging smack on the foot, but Seiran's other foot found its mark and sent Sanae spiralling into the sky.

Youmu charged at Seiran with swords drawn. Ringo ploughed into her, forcing the air out of her lungs. Youmu grabbed Ringo's ears and swung her around.

"Aiyeeee! Stop! Stop it!" wailed Ringo, flailing helplessly.

"Well, since you asked!" Youmu flung Ringo up into the air.

As soon as she got her bearings, Ringo grabbed a handful of dango from her pocket and threw the chewy treats at Youmu. One, two, three balls of rice flour she slashed in half, but the fourth splatted right in her face. Youmu screamed as the berry sauce stung her eyes.

"YES!" Ringo punched the air. "Now, Seiran, finish them! I know you can do it!" Seiran whirled past a frog throw by Sanae and gripped her new spell-card. "Here goes... Legendary Arcanum: Danmaku Barrier!"

Thousands upon thousands of bullets exploded outwards. Youmu and Sanae had just a second to react before they were bowled off their feet by a wall of burning light. They plummeted helplessly and flopped down in a battered heap on the grass.

Seiran was screaming as the energy coursed through her body, sparking across her skin and almost setting her clothes on fire. None of her spell-cards had taken even a tenth as much power before.

Just as Seiran was reaching the end of her strength the spell-card stopped. All the bullets disappeared in a shower of blue and purple sparks. Seiran sank down in exhaustion.

"Oh, wow, that was amazing!" Ringo rushed over to hug the exhausted Seiran. "What kind of spell-card was that?! It was so...! So much!"

"Apparently it's one of the rarest spell-cards you can find," said Seiran, with a weary smile. "I had no idea it was going to be so intense!"

"Nor did we," Youmu and Sanae groaned in unison.

Seiran laughed guiltily.

"Where'd you get that spell, anyway? Did you make it yourself?" asked Sanae, propping herself up on her elbows.

"No, I bought it. From Reimu."

"From Reimu?!" repeated Youmu.

"Yeah! She's selling lots of cool stuff now!" declared Ringo.

"Cool... stuff?" repeated Youmu.

"Like spell-cards and things!" Ringo elaborated. "The prices aren't bad."

"Aren't bad?" repeated Youmu.

"Metal Gear?!" cried Sanae, doing a deep, gravelly voice.

An awkward silence followed.

"...And then it turned out the whole thing was just a simulation. Now, the next game chronologically was Metal Gear Solid 4, but Metal Gear Solid 3 came out before that. It was about Solid Snake's dad."

"You mean Solidus Snake?"

"Wh-?! No! It was Naked Snake!" Sanae's brow furrowed. "Or was it Venom Snake? Anyway, some people sent Snakey-boy the Elder into Russia to destroy another Metal Gear, which was actually the first one ever built. He met this woman who was actually two people, neither of which was his mentor who wasn't actually his mother-"

"I'm going to have to stop you there, Sanae."

"Huh? Why?!"

"Self-preservation," said Youmu, drawing an angry pout from Sanae.

They hiked the rest of the way in silence. They could see flags and bunting waving in the breeze as they neared the shrine, and a small crowd of visitors had gathered inside the torii.

"What's going on here?" Sanae elbowed her way to the front of the crowd, an anxious Youmu in tow. Reimu was standing proudly on the decking with a pile of wooden boxes. "Reimu, are you... Are you having a box sale?"

"Hm?" Reimu flinched guiltily. "Oh, Sanae! Hi! These are, um... I promise I haven't sunk to Kanako's level. Just- just hear me out, all right? These boxes are special, all right."

"Wh... What do you mean, 'sunk'?" Sanae glowered at Reimu.

"Oh, nothing... Anyway, these are no ordinary boxes!" said Reimu firmly. "These boxes, ladies and addition ladies, are LOOT-boxes!"

"Loot...?" said Sanae dumbfoundedly.

"Boxes...?" agreed Youmu.

"That's right! In each of these boxes is a super-special random prize!" Reimu launched into her marketing spiel. "It could be a powerful new spell-card, it could be a bomb, it could be a dozen power-up tablets or point biscuits! It could be a new mob-cap or a pair of thermal socks! It could even be a new one-liner for you to say when you win a duel! And what's more, for every ten loot-boxes you purchase, you'll get a free packet of instant noodles!"

"I'll buy one! I'll buy one!" squeaked Chen, running to the front of the shrine.

"All right! Two hundred mon, please," said Reimu.

Chen eagerly passed over a handful of coins. Reimu pocketed them and gave Chen a box.

"Yay!" squeaked Chen, tearing the ribbon off and opening up the box. Her face fell as she pulled out a single red amulet. "Awww... It's just a spell-tag."

Reimu began to sweat. "L-look, everyone! She's thrilled with her purchase!"

"No I'm not! It's a total ripmmmff-?!"

"Another happy customer!" laughed Reimu, her hand clamped over Chen's mouth. "These loot-boxes are selling like hot cakes, ladies and additional ladies, so don't delay! Buy yours today!"

A worried hubbub descended over the crowd.

"Excuse me," said Sakuya, "what are the odds of receiving a single spell-tag?"

Reimu laughed the laugh of a woman who knew the world was falling to pieces around her. "Um, a- a fair and, and sensible amount? Of odds?"

"Are there any other dummy prizes?" asked Narumi.

"No, of course not!" wailed Reimu.

Yuuka grabbed a loot-box off the decking and tore it open. She plucked a small scrap of paper from within and shook it angrily under Reimu's nose. "What's this?" she asked, her voice as sweet as honey laced with plastic explosives.

"That's... That wasn't supposed to be in there." Reimu ducked behind her donation box. "D-do you want a free packet of instant noodles as compensation? There's got to be some back here-"

Yuuka pounced on the box with a furious snarl and stomped it into splintered wreckage. She grabbed Reimu by the throat and hoisted her upright. "What have you got to say for yourself, thief?!"

Gasps of horror rose from the crowd. A few of the weaker youkai bolted into the trees.

Youmu grabbed Sanae's sleeve. Her heart was pounding. "Sanae, we have to do something!"

"Er... Um..." panicked Sanae. "What do you fancy? Fighting Yuuka or fighting Reimu? Or a whole angry crowd?"

Youmu gulped loudly. "Neither would be good!"

"Let me go! I- I'm warning you!" choked Reimu, reaching for her orbs.

"Not a chance. Reimu, you bad girl, I'm going to enjoy punishing you...!" hissed Yuuka.

"I'll buy two thousand," said a voice.

The newcomer's dulcet tones cut through the noise. The throng fell silent in a matter of seconds.

"Two thousand of your finest loot-boxes, please!" All eyes turned to Jo'on, who was weaving her way towards the shrine with bulging wallet in hand.

"H... Huh?" Reimu peered at her through bleary eyes. "Oh, right. Of course. Yuuka, could you put me down?"

"Needle... Common spell-card... One boot... Stockings... Point biscuit..." Jo'on scoffed down the square biscuit and sighed. There were still a hundred boxes to go. "Mob cap... Another common spell-card... Ooh, yay, Divine Virtues of Wind God!" She smooched the rare card, getting glitter and wet purple ink on her face.

"Right, what's next? Amulet... Paint brush... Common spell-card... Mob cap... Mob cap..."

"Um, Jo'on? Hello?"

Youmu and Sanae were clambering over the pile of empty boxes in the front garden. Jo'on barely glanced at them. "If you want some tea, ask Shion. Common spell-card... Piece of coal... Hair ribbon..."

Sanae cleared her throat and stepped forwards. "We've dealt with the Incident, if you were wondering."

"Wasn't wondering. Don't care. Needle... Frilly dress... Power tablet... Hm, the other boot. Point biscuit... Common spell-card..."

Youmu gave Sanae a hopeful look.

"The thing is," said Sanae, "Reimu didn't really want to start selling those box thingies. She was being blackmailed by an evil goddess from the Outside World who wanted to corrupt our spirits."

"One sandal... A pencil... Two nice-looking shells... Common spell-card... Handful of sand... Foldable katana..."

"She wanted to spread greed and cynicism to make herself stronger, but it turned out she was being manipulated by this businessman- a normal human businessman who'd seen Gensokyo in a dream and wanted to turn the place into a theme park," Sanae doggedly pressed on.

"Common spell-card... Common spell-card... Life piece... Hair ribbon... Tiny hat... Lump of copper..."

"Jo'on, we've had a really trying day!" Youmu piped up, flushing red with annoyance. "First we had to fight a squid, then we fought a chimera, then we had tea with a kitsune who tried to poison us, then the goddess showed up and tried to turn our hearts, then we fought all our worst fears inside our own heads-!" she took a deep breath.

"Point biscuit... Piece of coal... Amulet... Straw hat... Common spell-card..."

"Then we spent hours trying to book a train in this huge city called Nagoya, then we broke into a rectangular tower where everything was all white and shiny, then we fought dozens of evil cyborg youkai, then we had to wade through a bunch of tar pits, then Yuuka punched a giant robot in the face, then the businessman tried to drown us in molten titanium...! It ruined my shoes! Jo'on, doesn't that mean anything to you?!"

"Enchanted cape... Safety scissors... One grain of rice... Common spell-card... Needle... Common spell-card..."

Youmu groaned and slumped down on the pile of boxes. "Ohhh, forget it! Just forget it..."

"Common spell-card... Power tablet... Bomb piece... Bread roll... Shell... Little rag-doll..." Jo'on abruptly turned angry as she pulled out another sparkly purple spell-card. "What in the name of-?! Divine Virtues of Wind God AGAIN?! I don't believe this!" She tore the spell-card apart and scattered it on the wind. The scraps burned up as they fell, leaving trails of acrid purple smoke.

#Touhou #gensokyofestival #writing #prose #fantasy #comedy #parody #Sanae Kochiya #Youmu Konpaku #Jo'on Yorigami #Reimu Hakurei #my writing

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jflashandclash · 6 years

Text

Traitors of Olympus IV: The Fall of the Sun

Ten: Sadie

I Play Trans-Mythological Messenger

(or: I Crush a Commander with my Bum)

A Quick Note from Yours Truly: Jak-Jak the Plague Bringer

Dear Reader,

While I was singing these events to my personal scribe, I was rudely interrupted by a persistent young spitfire, audaciously asserting she could dictate this next section with more eloquence and style. Fortunate for her, spitfires are my style.

Her preferred method is using a low quality voice recorder (like a savage). If you have the misfortune of hearing that version (instead of reading it) I am the one accompanying all of her oration in acapella, to set the mood. I hope her insertion does not ruin the retelling of this epic tragicomedy for you. Though, if you do find yourself wanting to smash your face into a wall—as her brother assures you will—please remember that she’ll only be around for a few chapters and that smashing your face into a wall can cause severe trauma, enough so that you will not be able to attend your next bull fight or read the next release of Trials of Apollo.

And I promise to wrestle the mic from Ms. Kane should she get too vapid. Without a further drum roll (there’s a drum roll happening on the audio version) here is Ms. Sadie Kane.

-Jack Flash

Wrestle the mic? From me?

I’ve tangoed with enough disembodied spirits to know they can make quite a fuss, but Jack, you’ve got no hands!

Well, now that I finally got the microphone from that decapitated freak, we can tell this part of the story proper, where I, an Egyptian magician, deliver a Greek message from the future. Don’t worry, it didn’t make much sense to me either.

I’ll say one thing for Camp Half-Blood: I was not impressed. Brooklyn House is just better. Sure, they had a lava wall and a bunch of fancy cabins. But they didn’t have an albino crocodile guarding it—just a napping dragon who they should consider replacing due to job negligence—and they didn’t have a baboon running around eating Cheerios. I didn’t even see the half-horse guy that Annabeth had been going on about.

I might have also been biased, considering my first few seconds at Camp Half-Blood involved me free-falling out of a portal before something squishy broke my fall.

Sometimes, when you’re traveling by portal, you won’t end up where you plan—oh right. Portals are real. I can use them because I’m a descendent of the Egyptian pharaohs. Long story. At least it wasn’t as bad as the time I appeared three hundred meters above Cairo with a terrified Russian. Thank goodness that Russian could fly. Anyway, enough of flying Russians. Back to Greek demigods about to be obliterated.

I expected a well-placed cushion or a particularly lush patch of grass had broken my fall. Had I known I was going to fall on top of a boy, especially a boy who was having a rather rubbish day, I would have shifted a few feet to the side and taken the worst of it! Honest!

“Hey! Aim better when you skydive, lady!” the boy under me cried.

“Sorry!” I said, scrambling to my feet.

There were quite a few of them—campers I mean, not skydivers. They were gathered in a clearing around some metal dragon thing. After stopping a giant snake from ending the world a few times, I’d grown to resent giant creepy, scaly things, but it looked like they were trying to repair it, not destroy it.

The campers stared back and forth from me to the spot several feet above me, like they wanted to disassemble the air particles and figure out how I’d made my brilliant entrance.

“I need to talk to Annabeth or Percy right away!” I said, clutching a scroll in one hand. Leave it to the gods to make someone as important as me a message runner. Oh, the nerve!

The boy that I had fallen on stood and placed his hands on his utility belt skeptically. He pushed up a pair of goggles from his face and into his hairline, leaving him with circles of soot around his eyes. With the oil-stained shirt and dirt smudges, he looked a bit like a mechanic or someone who had been hit with a steam train.

He was Hispanic, with wild black hair, energetic eyes, and elfish features. Somehow, I felt like he’d be a minion of Loki if Norse mythology were real along with the Greek and Egyptian. (Oh, shut up Carter, you can’t assume it’s real. Honestly, my brother thinks he knows everything.)

The energy and glee in the boy’s eyes seemed to drain as quickly as it came, like my entrance had given temporary amnesia from a bigger problem.

“Are you one of the new campers?” he asked.

“Erm, yes?” I said, confident as ever. I couldn’t just say I was a magician. When my brother, Carter, and I teamed up with Annabeth and Percy to stop a dead, evil magician from becoming a Greco-Egyptian god—also long story—we agreed not to have our two worlds mix. Enough apocalypses to stop with one mythology, thank you very much.

“Which cabin?” He crossed his arms. “Other than the Cabin of Inconvenient Landings.”

Ah, a smart guy.

“I prefer the Cabin of Graceful Entrances,” I said and frowned. Carter was much better about remembering this kind of nerd stuff. I had a hard enough time keeping track of all the Egyptian gods, let alone Greek, and I had lived with an Egyptian goddess.

I wanted to say the Isis Cabin. I vaguely remembered Carter saying something about the Greeks or Romans worshipping her at some point. I knew I should play it safe though. What was Percy’s dad’s name?

“Poseidon’s,” I said.

A few of the other campers whispered to each other. The boy laughed, the twinkle returning to his eyes. “Poseidon? Yea right, lady. And I’m a son of Aphrodite.”

Goddess of Love! I knew that one. (Shut up, Carter. It’s not obvious.)

“Well, you could be. You’re kinda cute when you smile, in a dorky sort of way. Put you on top of a sea shell, paint your nails, and I’m sure you’d fit in their cabin just fine,” I said. And, if it wasn’t for the grime and dirt, he would have been quite attractive. Not my usual type, but not bad. That, and I’ll admit, I might have hoped a compliment from a pretty girl would speed things along.

He snorted. “Okay, if you’re working for Eris, this is the worst infiltration I’ve ever seen. Follow me and we’ll see if Percy can fit you into his busy schedule. And, sorry Pinkie—“ He was referring to the pink streak of dye I’d put into my blonde hair. “—but this Bad Boy Supreme is taken.”

The luster went out of his eyes again as he led me away from the silver lizard and confused campers, past a few fairly impressive buildings that I could only assume were cabins.

Now, it was my turn to snort. “I said you were cute. I didn’t say I was trying to chat you up or anything. Who do you think you are?”

“Commander Leo,” he said. We walked through a field that looked like it lost a fight to a crashing helicopter. There were campers bustling all around, preparing battle defenses if I had to guess. But I’m not Greek. This could have been how they picnicked for all I knew.

“Well, Commander Leo, I have a boyfriend too. Or I think I do.” I sighed, thinking over why I had been so eager to volunteer in delivering this message. “It’s complicated, dating older people, especially deities.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

I rarely needed encouragement to do that, but—as we approached an oddly placed ping pong table with a throne and casino-style lighting above it—I found myself blathering to this stranger. “I mean, it is a LOT of pressure. I’m the reason he lives and everything, and that’s great and all, but I want to get him a hobby or a pet. Something else that reminds him that the pyramids will still be in Cairo if I’m not around.

“I did not mean to literally tell me all about it,” Commander Leo said, though, for a second, his amber eyes flashed with understanding. Not something you expect when you’re discussing problems about your romantic, godly partner.

We walked up to a meeting that looked awfully boring. I’m sure they were discussing important stuff, “Bla-bla-bla defenses here, bla-bla-bla chimera, bla-bla-bla magical, stolen stick” (oh? Do the Greeks have magic wands too?) but Jack tells me you’ve already heard enough of that.

I had to wonder why Annabeth was half-asleep and Percy was sitting on such an odd throne. That didn’t seem his style. They weren’t sitting side-by-side as I would expect of the cute couple, but I suppose business came first. There were other campers scattered around the table, maybe a dozen and a half, all looking agitated.

From a quick glance at Percy’s expression, I could tell he was resisting the urge to bash his face into the table at the discussion. He flipped his pen furiously.

“Hey, Water Boy, this chica fell out of the sky and said she’s your sister on your daddy’s side,” Commander Leo said.

At first, I was offended. Percy scowled at me with irritation like I was a pile of particularly smelly laundry that blocked the end of his chore list. Then his expression lit up with recognition. He grabbed the armrests of his throne. “Sadie! What are you doing here?”

Annabeth startled awake. Her disoriented gaze found me and she smiled.

Commander Leo looked completely taken aback.

I smiled at him smugly. “Told you.” I turned back to my friends. “Hey Percy, Annabeth. Sorry to say that I’m here on official business. Have you ever heard of a bloke called Hermanubis?”

“He was a popular god when the Romans occupied Egypt, albeit he mostly disappeared afterwards,” Annabeth said, “He was a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Anubis.”

I winced, not wanting to think of any more gods in my boyfriend’s head. Walt hosted Anubis, the god of death and would die of an ancient curse if Anubis left. It was complicated.

“Wait—slow down. Percy, a sister?” said a rather handsome blond boy with stunning blue eyes and enough muscles to punch out a sphinx. He had a cute scar on his lip, probably from fighting a hydra or something else hot Greek heroes did.

“Not another demigod, right? Is she a nymph? She doesn’t look like one,” said a large Asian boy wearing a flowy purple toga with a military haircut.

Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen Poseidon.

“I’ll explain later,” Percy said.

“Questions after the presentation,” I agreed. “So, half-Egyptian, half-Roman god. Yep, that would be the one. Apparently you’ve been talking to some Necromanteion Oracle or some nonsense? Dead people that use the oracle like a delivery system?”

A girl with reddish-blonde hair timidly leaned forward. “The Traitors Prophecy, um, I think Rachel was possessed by that oracle when she gave it.”

“Great,” I said, wanting to rush this along. I rather enjoyed getting out of Brooklyn House, but there appeared to be some eminent destruction underway if we didn’t make it quick. “So, this undead, Greek delivery system had to go through Hermanubis. Something about your gods all fighting each other and your communication being down—er—our communications being down.” Right. Daughter of Poseidon here. “So the oracle had to outsource to Hermanubis to deliver a message. That got to Walt, a host of—”

“A child of Hades,” Annabeth translated for me.

“Of Hades?” a girl with golden eyes and cinnamon hair said in surprise. She and a girl with a long back braid and eyes possibly fiercer than Zia’s (my brother’s girlfriend) exchanged a glance. (What, Carter? It’s not like I can measure it with a staring contest.)

I ignored the whispers around the table and wary glances. “And that message got to me. So, ta-da!” I held up my scroll. “Good to know your g—our gods talk in riddles,” I corrected.

“We’re getting a prophecy now?” Percy sounded annoyed. “We just sent out two sets of questers.”

“Usually the gods are a bit more punctual than that. Like, by several millennia, right?” Commander Leo asked.

“If the gods are all arguing amongst themselves and communication is down, they are a bit pressed for options right now,” the girl with the long braid said. “And I wonder if Apollo had a difficult time with predictions because two Mayan princes were involved.”

Mayan princes? Great. MORE gods.

The Greeks were lucky their gods still chatted with them. All of our gods weren’t allowed back in the world right now, least they’d bring chaos with them, another end of the world, and some other nasty nonsense. I had a calling card for Bes, the ugliest and most wonderful dwarf god you’ll ever meet, Anubis and Walt were sharing a body in the mortal world, and my Uncle Amos could chat a bit with Set, but our options were limited compared to before.

“That’s not the end of it,” I said. “My Uncle Amos has an action figure board in the First Nome that tracks the movement of all mag—all demigods—”

“All demigods?” the handsome blond asked.

“How?” a girl with a feather in her hair sounded just as shocked.

“Action figures?” Commander Leo asked, which I think was the most important question of the bunch.

“Let her finish,” Annabeth said.

Seriously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this annoying charade of being a demigod, but I kept going. “Anymore questions I can’t answer right now? No? Alright. So Amos’ magical board tipped us off to some activity in Phoenix, Arizona. And being a host of… a child of…” I glanced to Annabeth helplessly. I had no idea what Set’s equivalent would be in Greek mythology. “Chaos?”

“Eris,” she said absently. Then, her mouth hung open like something brilliant had clicked.

“Another one?” one of two twin girls said on the far side of the table.

“Maybe Pax will have to fight to be counselor of the Eris cabin,” said her sister. “A real competition.” The thought of competition seemed to excite those two a bit too much.

“Anyway,” I said. “Amos is better at keeping track of… other children of Eris. He thinks it has to do with a host of chaos, and a rather nasty one at that.”

Although Annabeth’s eyes were already narrowed from exhaustion, they further slanted, making me fear she’d fall right to sleep. “I’ll bet that’s Lapis Pax.”

“That person I heard arguing with Eris? Eris said that henchy is guarding Hemera,” Percy said.

Annabeth nodded. “We know Hiro is in New York. I would guess Lapis is in Phoenix, Arizona. I just wish I knew why Lapis chose that spot to hide Hemera.”

I had a few ideas, although I couldn’t give it away without revealing the whole Egyptian thing. From what I knew about Greece, they didn’t have many deserts, so I could guess their home goddess of chaos didn’t have desert affiliation, unlike our lovable Set. (Yes, Carter. I know there aren’t any deserts in Greece! Give me more credit.) If this Lapis was hosting Set, then Set would be far more powerful in his natural environment.

“We still don’t know how Hemera is connected,” a tough looking boy with a rainbow tattoo pointed out.

“You said that you have prophecies?” the girl with the long braid and purple cloak said, “They might give us a clue as to the connection.”

“Right.” I unrolled my papyrus scrolls. When I saw the first, tiny slip of papayrus on top of the second, I almost tossed it away in embarrassment. It looked ridiculous compared to the other one, but Walt suggested it likely important. “Well, there’s actually two. The first is a haiku.”

“That would be Apollo,” Percy grumbled, slumping into his throne.

A groan resounded around the ping pong table. At least I knew the gods weren’t trying to pull a prank on me. I still felt awful silly clearing my throat to read out loud:

“If you read this note,

It means I will be captured.

S. O. S! Send help!”

If possible, the campers looked more annoyed.

The girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes frowned. “Last Thalia said, Lord Apollo was locked in a competition with Lady Diana to see who can capture the Teusmessian fox. And he’s been captured too? Or will be?”

“Another sun god,” the girl with reddish hair muttered.

“What about the second one?” the boy in the purple toga asked.

This one would be much more of a pain to read, but at least it felt official.

“Sand slithers to noon; bells do chime,

To announce chaos’ course, and sun’s decline.

Theft: essence of day, then erode to night.

Parapets decay to beckon the wight.

Two will leave; five and quart’ return.

Death of a god, their hearts do yearn.

Prevail! Trials of Psyche, led by Desire.

Without arrows of bliss, these pilgrims expire.

Growth is death and death is growth.

Cycles again, love phoenix to loathe.

Sprout ashes of rancor, a new blossom to flower.

Hearts of the ancients, these youths shall devour.

End of an era, before night is done.

Sacred tears and gods fear the day to come.”

This one got more of a stir.

Annabeth paled. The red-haired girl put a hand to her mouth. The campers exchanged uneasy glances at the last two couplets.

“What’s a parapet?” one of the twins asked.

“It’s a low, defensive wall, sometimes used for concealing troops,” the girl with a braid said. She glared at the scroll, like her scowl could threaten the verses into revealing their riddle. If it could, we could certainly get her a well paying job in the First Nome.

“I think the second verse is referring to sunset, when Phobetor will keep the Mist barrier down and allow Melinoe, a wight, into the camp. But those next few lines…” Annabeth trailed off, looking troubled.

“Calex was supposed to go with them,” the redhead said.

My head spun. That name sounded familiar. In my adventures, Carter and I had traveled all over the world, in its many layers, but that name wasn’t common enough for it to stick out without importance. We didn’t have any new initiates by that name…

Annabeth nodded grimly. “In the Trials of Psyche, Eros, or Desire, pulled Psyche from her sleep, brought her to Olympus, and made her immortal. Euna has Joey’s quest box, the last item from the Trials of Psyche. Calex, a son of Eros, must be connected.”

“It could also refer to Reyna,” Percy pointed out.

The girl with the braid, Reyna I presume from the way her killer stare made an attempt to scowl Percy out of existence, demanded, “What?”

Percy shrugged sheepishly. “I meant for Axel. Ignoring how you feel about him—”

“Wisely,” the boy in purple said and leaned back into his chair, like he was getting ready to duck.

“—Axel is the one leading them through the labyrinth. And he also received two of the trials, between the whole cereal thing and the ice water. If he’s really into Reyna, maybe having her around will stop him from going crazy and killing everyone.”

The way Percy said it felt a bit too routine for my taste. Did Greeks often go raving mad? Not to say magicians were much better, but it was good to know who you were working with.

“Still doesn’t explain how Hemera or Apollo is connected,” Mr. Rainbow-Tattooed said.

“I’ll bet we can get some answers if we go to Phoenix and beat the snot out of this Lapis person,” I said, rubbing my hands together. It had been awhile since I’d had a good battle. Granted, my magic wasn’t the best suited to combat, but maybe it would give me a good excuse to have Bes visit.

Percy grinned. “Eris said warriors couldn’t go after Hiro. She never said anything about Lapis.”

“And while Eris does seem to act haphazard, there must be some reason she kidnapped Hemera,” Annabeth said. “Saving her could disrupt Eris’ plans.”

“And it is way better than sitting around here without a solid plan,” the girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes said. She blushed. “Oh—sorry Percy—”

Percy gloomily waved it off. “It’s okay.”

“What else can we do to help you with Lapis?” Annabeth asked and it suddenly occurred to me that neither of them was going with me. Annabeth looked exhausted and Percy kept fidgeting, like he couldn’t get out of that chair.

My heart sank. When I’d come to Camp Half-Blood, I’d partially hoped to repeat some of our adventures—not the Setne trying to take over part, but I wanted to enjoy some quality time with these two.

I shrugged, trying not to show my disappointment. “Not much, unless you have someone who is lightning proof.”

Everyone at the table turned to the handsome blond boy with the scar on his lip.

“Gods of Egypt,” I cried. “Are you really? Fancy that. I’ll take two of him please.”

“The other ‘one of me’ just left,” he said.

The beautiful girl with the feather in her hair frowned. “Jason, are you up to—”

“Yes,” he said in a way that told me whatever might prevent him from going had an embarrassing origin. I’d have to worm that out of him later. “But why lightning? Pax can turn into people, but he can’t use their powers. I assume Lapis will be similar.”

“Sadie will give you the full explanation on the way over,” Annabeth said, eyeing me meaningfully.

“Right,” I said. What luck to have someone lightning proof. “Any chance one of you is fireproof too? I assume that would be too much luck for the gods to grant?”

Commander Leo stepped forward, looking more like a child in a military elf performance than a dangerous ally, and saluted. “Flaming Valdez, here to report. Felix is up and running and I could use this quest to take her for a test drive.”

His eyes flickered back towards camp. I got the feeling there was something he was hiding from back there.

Jason frowned and glanced from Percy to Reyna, to the other boy in purple. “Are you going to be okay here without us? If we leave, we might not make it back in time for sunset.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. I’d had to do some ridiculous stuff to get here quickly—tying ancient artifacts to birds and sending them out when you’re hoping no one is looking with strict instructions to fly over a mythical Greek camp. However, getting from New York to Phoenix should have been much easier.

“You guys go have fun,” Percy said with a weak grin. “Sadie, Jason’s a big tough guy, but don’t bully him too much. And Jason, if you know what’s good for you, I wouldn’t let Leo and Sadie plan any pranks together.”

Leo glanced over at me. For that moment, the spark erupted in his eyes again. “Pranks? Me? Never.”

“And I’m a respectable lady,” I chided Percy. “You shouldn’t spread rumors like that.”

Jason paled slightly, though I honestly couldn’t imagine why. I’m sure this Commander Leo was a reasonable person and I would go easy on him if it was Percy’s request.

Everyone said their quick goodbyes. Jason gave the girl with the feather in her hair a quick kiss and some minor reassurance. Leo stood beside me, fidgeting with something in his utility belt with one hand as he saluted a goodbye with the other.

Jason joined me beside Leo and I grinned. “Right, now that all that is sorted,” I said, “how do you blokes feel about jumping into a roaring vortex of sand?”

#Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Traitors of Olympus #fanfiction #Sadie #Leo #Jason #Percy #Butch #Some other people that--let's be real--don matta for da scene #I've been working a 60 hour work week for the past two weeks and it is so bad that I couldn't remember the name of this book #I stared at my screen several seconds going this.... is book 4..... right...?

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n0-eyedtaissa · 6 years

Text

introductions

so this was an OC that i had created awhile back, but never found the right footing for. maybe i’ll get back to it, who knows. either way, meet Kelley Karper:

age 7: is a mess of blonde ringlets and freckles. blue eyes that don’t hide much. hands sticky from too much orange soda. spends mornings before school with grandma, crawls under the covers with her and asks to be told a story. listens with a toothless grin as she’s told all about a princess who saves her kingdom. reads quicker than all of the other kids in her class. cant ride a bike yet, dad sits her down and says that she can try again when she’s ready. balances on the washing machine as he dabs peroxide-soaked paper towels on her bloody knees. wipes her tears away with the backs of her chubby hands. mom makes her sing that song from annie at grandpa’s retirement party, brags to all of his coworkers how her child already knows all of her vowels. sticks a temporary tattoo on her arm so that she can match her dad. sits in his laps and traces the intricate design with her fingers, asks what it means and dad explains it. calls it his protector. she asks if she has one too. stays up late listening to the cars pass, listens as the 28 bus comes to a screeching halt outside. joins the brownies. gets mad when she’s selling cooking instead of learning how to tie knots. makes mom cry when she refuses to wear the pink easter dress, says something about how she knows kelley likes her father better.

age 9: her hair’s darker now, freckles gone. thats what happens when the fog rolls in. the sun goes away. decides that her favorite color is orange. begs her parents to have her room be painted that color. the boys in her class make fun of her for her buck teeth. she kicks colin samuel in the shin but doesn't mean to break his finger. has to miss the class trip to the zoo. dad sits her down and tells her to be tough, to defend herself, pushes her to make friends and tells her not to worry because there’s always strength in numbers. he takes her to get ice cream anyways. mom wishes she would take her ballet lessons more seriously. dad brings home tickets for the giants game the next week, with seats just above home plate. tells mom that she thinks she wants to play baseball instead. listens intently as her dad tells her stories from when he was her age. laughs loudly at the story about her dad getting his head stuck in between the railings of the staircase. is a strong reader but needs a little bit of help with math. spends every night after dinner for the next two weeks watching her mother teach her how to do long division. lies when asked if she understands. joins choir. gets the biggest solo in the fall program. cries when she sees that mom missed the recital. again.

age 11: notices that she’s taller than all of the boys in her classes. cuts bangs by herself in front of the bathroom mirror with her mothers sewing scissors. gets yelled at all the way to the hair salon. hits her first home-run. dad carries her to the car on his shoulders, yelling about how his kid was the next babe ruth. she doesn’t know who that is, but she figures it’s a compliment. meets her best friend, a new student named olivia. the two of them would walk towards the mission district and buy paletas with the money kelley got from grandma because she got straight a’s on her report card. doesn't understand why mom cant get out of bed in the morning. the dishes in the sink start to pile up, old food crusted with mold making the whole house smell sour. covers her ears when she hears mom and dad fighting. jumps when she hears glass shatter. steals her father’s walkman, finds a tape inside. led zeppelin III. learns that they were both of her parents favorite band. wonders if love was actually all that simple. takes the bus home from school for the first time, frozen with fear the first time a man probably twice her age catcalls her. gets her period on the class field trip. has to have somebody else’s mom explain it to her. helps olivia dye her hair purple when her parents weren't home. presses her ear to the wall and listens as her parents whisper-fight in the other room, arguing about money. doesn't know what her mother means when she asks her dad where his paycheck is. hears her ask him where he’s been spending all his time if he wasn’t at work.

age 13: stops getting upset when her mother fails to show up to yet another one of her softball games. her face gets wrinkled in visible confusion when a teammate’s mom asks if her dad’s single. realizes that no one there has ever met her mother. is still interested in music. spends hours pouring over the big stack of records her parents had in the corner. familiarized herself with names like zeppelin, van halen, the doors, and fleetwood mac. sang ‘rhiannon’ for the talent show. won second place. learns what depression means. watches her mother become a shell of a person. cant help but wonder if it was somehow her fault. holds olivia close to her chest as she cries about the divorce. wonders what it would be like if her own parents did the same. takes the 28 bus to and from school each day. an older man presses his pelvis against the soft flesh of her thigh. he takes any jolt of the bus as an excuse to hip check his balls into her. no one around them paid it any mind. she felt the warm condensation on her jeans, saw the bruise the indent of his belt left. didn’t tell her father. hates the way her parents talked to each other. kisses zach khang at a birthday party on a dare. kept her eyes open.

age 14: finished the summer reading list in a week and a half. finally starts filling out her bras, and the boys in her grade notice. starts swearing. likes the way people looked at her when she told them to go fuck themselves. gets asked out on a date for the first time. stands outside of blondie’s pizza for an hour before realizing that he wasn’t coming. called her dad to pick her up. didn’t talk for the whole ride home. hates that her parents dont even try and hide their fighting now. wonders if love was ever real at all. found out olivia wanted to be called “just via” now. smoked weed for the first time behind the tennis courts at school with a group of junior boys. noticed how impressed they were when she didn’t cough. steals lacy underwear and sickly sweet perfume from victoria’s secret. thinks she should start dressing older than she actually is. wears thick black eyeliner and too-dark foundation. mom tells her that less is more. quits softball cause she can’t keep her grades up. hangs out in the drama room now. has via keep an eye out for the teacher as she makes out with sam lusk and lets him feel her up under her shirt. makes breakfast for dinner with her dad on fridays. flips through photo albums of better days. asks who the people were and what they were doing. wonders why her dad’s family never took interest in her.

age 16: starts wearing fishnet tights under her shorts. mom says that she looks like a stripper, but dad says that he thinks she looks pretty cool. asks if she can get her nose pierced for her birthday. listens to the cure. looks up to kurt cobain in a way that scares both of her parents. decides that she wants to be a teacher. tells her dad that this summer she thinks she’s gonna try and write a book. finds out that via’s mom has cancer. borrows her dad’s shears and helps via shave her head too. yells at all the boys who try and call her best friend a dyke. finds her dad’s leather jacket in the back of the coat closet. notices it’s adorned with the same snake design as his tattoo. doesn't know what it means. asks if she can wear it to school that day. finds her mother out cold on the kitchen floor. a lot of blood. so much. that was the year that they adjusted her mother’s meds. they started going out more as a family. learned that healing was a process. thought that maybe her parents were falling in love again. gets her short story published in the school paper. reads it to her parents at the dinner table and it makes her mother cry. doesn't miss a single question on the learner’s permit test. tries to have her dad give her driving lessons. is in tears before they even made it out of the house. gets too drunk at monty montez’s birthday party. ends up puking blue raspberry vodka, barefoot in the parking lot of his housing complex.

age 17: her and via buy acid from the hippies at golden gate park. she swears that she’s watching the clouds move and the grass grow. she swears that everyone knows she's on drugs. has never had a boyfriend. sits down with her mother and is told that she would still be loved if she was gay. doesn't know if she is, but doesn’t rule it out. gets a lock for the door to her room. still makes breakfast for dinner with her dad on fridays. watches her parents sign the divorce papers. decides that maybe they were never in love to begin with. takes a greyhound bus to los angeles to see her favorite band. doesn't tell anyone about the guy in the pit who grabbed roughly at her breast, like it was his for the taking. gets grounded for a month. has to choose which parent she wants to live with. says a tearful goodbye to via. moves to riverdale with her father. learns that he wasn’t always as good of a person as she thought. learns what the tattoo on his arm meant. wonders if she could be cut out to get her own. finds out what it really takes to become a serpent. refuses to do the dance, says she would rather go through the gauntlet any day. makes friends with a girl who makes her feel more at home than she’s felt in a long time. finds a boy that makes her so fucking angry. believes him when he says she’ll always be safe with him. starts thinking that love might be real after all.

#im projecting SO Much in this #but it lw works #kelley karper #her dad was a serpent #retired #moves back to riverdale #to keep peace with the ghoulies #no face claim yet

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max-neverland · 6 years

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Harry Potter: The Janus Thickey Ward

Neville strode down the familiar street, bumping shoulders with busy shoppers who were all hurrying to get out of the rain. He blended in with the muggle crowd in his jeans and heavy jacket, and his dark hair – desperately in need of a trim – was plastered to his forehead. His wand was carefully tucked away in a side pocket of his charmed backpack where he could easily reach it. There were grazes on his knuckles and an old bruise was fading on his jaw, but despite his rough appearance he still grinned broadly.

As he neared the run-down Purge & Dowse Ltd department store, he made a beeline towards the horrible mannequins displayed in its dusty windows. He feigned seeking shelter under the eaves, shoving his hands into his pockets and tucking his chin into his collar as he leaned against the faded red brick walls. After a minute, he threw the oblivious muggles a quick look and then fixed his gaze on one particularly ugly mannequin posing in the window.

“Longbottom.”

The mannequin’s head jerked down as if it were about to fall off and then jerked back up again in a spasmodic nod. Neville gave the street a last careful look, making sure that no one was watching him, and then stepped straight through the glass.

St Mungo’s reception room was in peak hour. Every rickety chair was filled with a witch or wizard in various states of distress; furry and scaly faces reminiscent of Hermione Granger in second year, limbs in the wrong places or missing altogether, and even one wizard was sitting tangled in a large potted plant appearing particularly regretful. Other normal-looking people were dotted throughout the aisles too; friends and family there for support, and green-robed Healers with the symbol of a crossed wand and bone emblazoned on their chests. The Healers all carried clipboards and every so often they would whisk someone away up the stairs or elevator.

Several Healers and the blonde witch at the enquiries desk called greetings to Neville, which he returned with familiarity as he headed to the doors that lead to the main area of the hospital on the ground floor. He spent the next three hours combing through the wards visiting the patients who were recovering from the Battle of Hogwarts, referring to a roll of parchment he pulled from his backpack that had all their names and room numbers written down. He had a collection of miniature potted plants in his backpack which he left with each patient to brighten up their rooms.

Luna had offered to come with him but this was something he had to do alone. It had been just two weeks since the second wizarding war had ended. Voldemort was dead, Azkaban was filled to the brim, and the Aurors were hunting down the last of the Death Eaters. In just a few days, Neville would be joining them too, recruited as a brand new Auror by the Acting Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, in recognition of his leadership in Dumbledore’s Army and his service in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Never in Neville’s wildest dreams had he thought he would become an Auror, especially at only seventeen years old. No longer was he the scared, clumsy little boy who was bullied incessantly with a toad for his best friend. After years of struggling, he had found his place in the Wizarding world among some of the greatest names in history. Neville himself had wielded the famous sword of Godric Gryffindor and beheaded Voldemort’s giant snake, Nagini, thus allowing Harry Potter to defeat the Dark Lord which apparently would have been impossible otherwise. He was a little fuzzy on the details but Harry’s word was good enough for him.

His head held high, Neville trotted up the next flight of stairs to the fourth floor. He paused at the door to the Janus Thickey Ward and studied his reflection in the window. It had been months since he had last been here, caught up as he was in the underground fighting at Hogwarts. His face was stripped off the last of his baby fat and there was a confident glint in his eye had had never had before.

He was just about to open the door when it opened from the other side and he nearly collided with Gilderoy Lockhart and his Healer, Miriam Strout. Lockhart, busy waving his battered peacock feather quill about and chattering excitedly, paid no attention to Neville but Strout flashed him a quick smile.

“I’ve just taking Gilderoy for a walk in the gardens and then we’ll be right back,” she told him, holding the door open for him.

“Thanks, Miriam,” he replied, grasping the door handle.

They disappeared down the corridor, Lockhart childishly bouncing along with his blue dressing gown flapping like bird wings as Strout chided him. Neville entered the room and shut the door securely behind him.

The curtains were drawn around Agnes’ bed space but Neville could hear her growling softly from within. Lockhart’s space was covered in photographs of himself, most of them autographed. A side table was stacked high with two piles of envelopes; one pile was addressed to Lockhart and one was addressed to a number of witches and wizards in Lockhart’s childish handwriting. At the very end of the room, hidden behind more curtains, were two further bed spaces and the sole window.

Neville padded through the room – Agnes barked twice as he passed her curtains – and went right to the end. He peeled the curtain aside. Beyond were two hospital beds; a night stand stood between them with an old Daily Prophet resting on top. The long window sill was laden with potted plants and framed photographs of Neville at various ages. A larger frame towered above the rest showing a smiling baby Neville in the arms of his parents.

“Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad.”

Frank Longbottom paid Neville no heed and remained sitting on his bed staring at the wall. Alice Longbottom turned from the window at the sound of his voice and gazed absently in his direction. They were both so thin and frail, their hospital gowns hanging like tents on their skeletal frames. Their hollow eyes were sunk deep in their narrow faces and their hair was white and wispy, despite how young they still were. The Cruciatus Curse had aged them decades.

Neville gave his parents a wide, warm smile and began to speak. He didn’t know if they could hear him, let alone understand, but he let the words flow out of him as he spoke about all that had happened at Hogwarts that year. He told them about heading Dumbledore’s Army with Ginny and Luna, and the underground fighting from the Room of Requirement. He explained to them as best as he could about what Harry, Ron and Hermione had been doing throughout that time, and then picked up the pace again when he came to the part where the trio arrived back at Hogwarts. There was notable pride in his voice as he told them of how he had fought against the Death Eaters and beheaded Nagini himself after pulling the sword of Godric Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat. His composure splintered when he described how Molly Weasley had killed Bellatrix Lestrange but he regained it to finish the tale with the news of Voldemort’s death and his new career as an Auror.

As he talked, he pulled numerous items from his charmed backpack. He replaced the potted plants with fresh ones, magically dusted the photo frames, and draped bright quilts in Gryffindor colours over the dreary hospital bedsheets. He took away the old newspaper and left a huge jar of Honeydukes candy in its place. Frank did not seem to know he was there, not even when Neville helped him off the bed so he could put the quilt down, but Alice sometimes looked at him, her expression vague but her eyes still following him. When he had readied the room, Neville crossed over to the tall corner cupboard and arrange the clothes from his backpack into it.

It wasn’t strange for Neville to dress his parents. He hated seeing them in those old hospital gowns and so he made sure to bring fresh clothing for them every time he visited and he would help them get dressed. His father didn’t care about the soft slacks and knit sweaters Neville brought for him and he didn’t even seem to notice Neville brushing his hair, but Alice always seemed as pleased as she could be with the frilly dresses. She stood in the middle of the bed space now in a childish pink dress, running her hands over the frilly collar with a faraway look in her eyes. Neville stood behind her and gently brushed her hair, taking care not to pull out any of the delicate strands. He tied it up with a pink ribbon on top of her head. When he was done, Neville steered her towards the long mirror fixed to the inside of the cupboard door.

“You look beautiful, Mum.”

Alice turned around to cup his cheek in her hand, and smiled.

#maxneverland #fanfiction #neville longbottom #alice longbottom #frank longbottom #st mungos #the closed ward

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littlepryingpandorica · 6 years

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Project Rebuild Chapter 12

EXT. GARMADON’S VOLCANO LAIR - DAY

The Shark Army returns to Garmadon’s Volcano Lair, which is shaped like a giant shark fin jutting out of the water.

The instrumental version of “Coming Undone” by Korn plays in the background.

[Song: Coming Undone by Korn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiDY3UCAyiY ]

Multiple Flying Jelly Subs and Manta Ray Bombers fly into the caverns with lava flowing on the sides. Other aquatic vehicles can be seen entering and exiting the lair. Inside the volcano are hollowed out chambers for use of the different departments in Garmadon’s army. As the music plays, we get an epic, single take, tracking shot exploring the different areas in Garmadon’s Volcano Lair.

INT. VOLCANO ATRIUM - DAY

At the center of the Volcano Lair is The Atrium, where the Research and Development, and I.T. Departments can be found. Many I.T employees are busy working.

Hanging high above in the ceiling is a Dragon Skull on display. Beneath it is a plaque that says “IN LOVING MEMORY OF DEMIC”.

A lady with round blue glasses and a black Batman shirt under her labcoat walks through rows of computers, machinery and display screens. This is TERRI THE GPL TECH. She oversees everything.

She pauses at a display screen that reads “PROJECT SEPARATOR: GOLDEN POWER EXTRACTION AT 86%”. Beneath it is a loading bar to track the progress.

Terri walks over to the equipment connected to the display screen. She watches four golden BRICK SEPARATORS strapped to extraction machines. GOLDEN POWER is being drained from the Brick Separators, which flows into a War Hammer placed on a pedestal.

Content with the progress, Terri goes to her desk and continues working on the blueprints of a large shark-themed, humanoid mech.

INT. GARMADON’S THRONE ROOM - DAY

The walls of the Throne Room have murals of ONI MASKS. Lord Garmadon is sitting on his throne. He is crying tears of fire.

There are several Shark Army soldiers present, attending to Garmadon’s whims. Generals # 4 and 6, currently the only remaining generals, are also present.

But then we focus on a new character, a dark blue reptillian humanoid with a cobra-like hood and a long, brick-built rattlesnake tail. He has red eyes with spiral patterns. But his most noticeable feature is a large, faded scar that can be seen spanning across his entire torso. This is GENERAL FANG THE HYPNOBRAI.

Garmadon sobs loudly. He is an emotional mess with fire tears leaking out of his eyes and fire snot dripping from where his nose would be. His anger makes him look monstrous but his sorrow makes him look pitiful. He swings wildly between these two extremes.

Garmadon blows his nose on a piece of non-Lego tissue paper. It catches fire and he throws it at a pile of other discarded tissues. The pile of tissues also catches fire.

General Fang rolls his eyes and puts out the flame out with a fire extinguisher.

GARMADON: I can’t believe my own son would turn out to be the Green Ninja! Where did I go wrong? I did not see this coming at all!

Garmadon looks at old pictures of him and Lloyd bonding over evil acts. One photo has them standing on the giant non-Lego grass next to a “Keep off the grass” sign. Another photo has them gleefully riding the Ninjago Monorail as it is about to run over several Ninjago citizens tied to the train tracks. Yet another photo has the them playing a regular game of baseball, with Lloyd as the batter and Garmadon as the pitcher. But instead of throwing a baseball, Garmadon throws a kitten in Lloyd’s direction.

General # 4 snaps Garmadon out of his reverie.

GENERAL # 4: Actually, Sir, if you look at past prophecies, this should have been really obvious in hindsight.

General # 4 holds out the original fortune prophecy that says Lloyd would defeat his father.

GENERAL # 4: They even have an attack called the Wu-Cru formation. That really should have clued you in on your brother’s involvement!

Garmadon angrily glares at the general. General # 4 tries to verbally backtrack.

GENERAL # 4: Clued us! Clued us in!

GARMADON: You’re fired!

Garmadon slams down a button and General # 4 literally gets fired out of the volcano.

A Shark Army soldier offers Garmadon a cup of tea, perhaps in a futile attempt to calm him down.

Garmadon drinks the tea and immediately spits it out.

GARMADON: What is this? Green tea?

Garmadon throws the cup of hot tea at another nearby Shark Army soldier in the background. The soldier lets out a Wilhelm scream.

GARMADON: The only tea I drink is black! LIKE MY HEART! You’re fired!

Garmadon slams down the button again and the soldier is jettisoned out the volcano.

GARMADON: (ANGRILY) SOMEBODY BETTER GIVE ME SOME GOOD NEWS OR THE NEXT PERSON TO TALK GETS FIRED OUT OF THE VOLCANO!

General # 6 receives a message over his radio communicator. He nervously relays the message to Garmadon.

GENERAL # 6: Sir, your daily prophecy has arrived.

A large non-Lego fortune cookie is wheeled into the throne room and delivered to Lord Garmadon. Garmadon cracks it wide open with a swift karate chop.

The fortune prophecy reads "You will not conquer Ninjago City today. Better luck next time." Garmadon loses his temper at this. Everyone else in the room sees the fortune prophecy and stands completely still in fear.

GARMADON: AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!

General # 6 drops to the ground in a fetal position.

GENERAL # 6: Just make it quick, sir.

General Fang hisses and put himself between Garmadon and General # 6. He speaks with an emphasis on the “s” sounds in his words.

GENERAL FANG: Sssssssssssir, you might want to firssssstt consssssssider replacementssss...

Garmadon is enraged, practically grinding his teeth in anger. But he pauses to consider the sense in General Fang’s suggestion. He composes himself, wipes the fire tears from his eyes, inhales and speaks to General # 6 in a polite tone.

GARMADON: Oh but before that, could you kindly call in the next batch of generals for me?

General # 6 radios in on his communicator.

GENERAL # 6: Hello HR? Lord Garmadon is requesting a new batch of generals. Okay.

He turns to Garmadon.

GENERAL # 6: They’re on their way, Sir.

GARMADON: Good!

For the third time, Garmadon slams down on the button and General # 6 flies out the volcano.

On cue, the new batch of generals enter the room. They all look exactly like the previous batch of generals but with genderswapped face prints.

All the new generals are uneasy and apprehensive. The Shark Army soldiers mirror their apprehension. They know what will happen next.

Garmadon glares down at the new generals. His eyes burn a bright red.

We go to Garmadon’s POV and in the center of each torso of the new generals, he sees a glowing golden aura. He stares for a beat then turns to General Fang.

GARMADON: General Fang, I’m not in the mood to invoke them one at a time. Take care of this for me.

GENERAL FANG: Assssss you wiiissshhh…

But then General Fang hisses to himself.

GENERAL FANG: You jusssst don’t want to deal with the messssss of fortune cookiesssss.

Garmadon eyes General Fang suspiciously.

GARMADON: What was that?

GENERAL FANG: Nothing, sssssssir.

General Fang slithers into position. He nods at Garmadon. Both their eyes glow bright red as though in synchronization.

General Fang turns to the new generals. They look terrified. General Fang begins shaking his tail rattle. The spirals in his red eyes begin spinning and he hypnotizes the new generals.

GENERAL FANG: Look into my eyessssss. I control you. Follow the Way of Lord Garmadon. Let anger ssssssseep into your heartssssss.

One of the generals looks away. He looks like a male version of the previous General # 2. Garmadon appears behind him, places his hands on the general’s head and forces him to look at General Fang.

GARMADON: Ah ah ah, can’t have you resisting now, can we?

GENERAL FANG: Follow the Way of Lord Garmadon.

The glowing, golden auras in each of the general’s torsos burn brightly. But in Garmadon’s torso is a dark purple aura. A wisp of his purple aura floats out of his torso and splits into seven snake-shaped wisps. These snake-shape wisps drift in the air and slither into the torsos of the seven generals. Their respective golden auras become tainted by the purple aura.

The new generals twitch in uncontrollable spasms. Intense percussive music plays in the background as this happens.

We see a shot from behind General Fang. He moves out of the way, revealing a very stern and angry-looking batch of generals. Each of their eyes briefly flash red. The Shark Army soldiers in the room cover their mouths in shock.

GENERAL FANG: Whom do you ssssserve?

The new generals speak as one.

GENERALS 1 - 7: All hail Lord Garmadon!

CUT TO: INT. NINJAGO HIGH SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY

The Ninja all jump out of their lockers. They have all changed back to their civilian outfits. They are all sweaty and panting as they run back to class.

Kai whispers to Lloyd.

KAI: But seriously, did you just have blab about your secret identity to your dad?

LLOYD: Later, Kai. We’ll talk about it later.

INT. SCHOOL CLASSROOM - DAY

The Ninja enter the classroom and try to return to their seats as inconspicuously as possible.

The words “Show and tell tomorrow” are written on the black board.

Ms. Laudita notices the Ninja and calls their attention.

MS. LAUDITA: Ahem! You were all in the bathroom for a very long time.

The Ninja all freeze in place and Lloyd improvises an excuse.

LLOYD: Yeah... We all got... diarrhea?

Lloyd shrugs his shoulders sheepishly and hopes Ms. Laudita will buy it.

MS. LAUDITA: Really? Simultaneously?

Ms. Laudita raises an eyebrow. All the other Ninja immediately go along with Lloyd’s excuse, all speaking at the same time.

KAI: Diarrhea like you couldn't believe!

ZANE: It was a most painful bowel movement.

JAY: I actually didn’t poop my pants this time.

NYA: Not as watery as usual but it was relentless!

Cole clutches his stomach and groans.

COLE: Ugh! I shouldn’t have eaten all that chocolate cake.

Kai turns around, bends over and points at his butt.

KAI: We had bricks coming out of our...

A disgusted Ms. Laudita immediately interrupts Kai to keep him from finishing his sentence.

MS. LAUDITA: Okay! That's enough! Just go back to your seats!

The Ninja all return to their seats but everyone else visibly inches their desks away.

NYA: (indignantly) Hey! We washed our hands!

CUT TO: INT. VOLCANO ATRIUM - DAY

A flashing light catches Terri’s attention. She looks at the computer screen as it finishes loading, flashing the sign “GOLDEN POWER EXTRACTION COMPLETE”. The Brick Separators have been completely drained of Golden Power. They are now just regular orange brick separators.

Terri gasps and runs off to Garmadon.

INT. GARMADON’S THRONE ROOM - DAY

Everyone in the Throne Room is still completely silent. All the Shark Army soldiers are afraid. They know whoever speaks next risks being fired out of the volcano. The new generals don’t seem aware of this.

Garmadon is pacing impatiently around the room. One general reluctantly raises his hand. It is the new General # 2, the one who previously resisted.

GARMADON: Yes, new General number 2?

GENERAL # 2: Sir, we’ve been sitting here in silence for several hours and I... generally need to do a number 2 so... can I go to the bathroom?

Garmadon narrows his eyes in anger.

GARMADON: It’s “May I? May I go to the bathroom?” You imbecile!

Garmadon presses the button again and we go to a distant shot of the new General # 2 being fired out of the volcano. Too late, he shouts his rebuttal as he flies through the air.

GENERAL # 2: Maaaaaaaaaaay Iiiiiiiiiiiiii????

GARMADON: Grammar is important even when plotting to take over the world. Now, anyone else have anything to say?

All the new generals squirm and shake their heads silently.

Suddenly, Terri bursts in through the doors, slamming them open. All the generals and Shark Army soldiers struggle to contain their gasps.

TERRI: Sir, Project Separator is complete. Your MEGAWEAPON is ready.

CUT TO: INT. VOLCANO ATRIUM - DAY

We go to a close up shot of the Megaweapon. Garmadon leans into view and admires the War Hammer. It glows with Golden Power. Garmadon places a hand on it and the glow fades away.

GARMADON: At last! The powers of the FOUR GOLDEN WEAPONS OF RECREATION are mine!

GENERAL FANG: What isssss it, ssssir?

Garmadon turns to General Fang.

GARMADON: Traditionally, a Hammer is a useful tool for building. But a War Hammer is a weapon of destruction. The Megaweapon is both. Infused with Golden Power, it now has the unlimited potential both to create and to destroy.

Garmadon lifts the War Hammer from its pedestal and moves toward General Fang in a vaguely threatening manner.

GARMADON: General Fang, how would you like to join me on my next attack?

General Fang’s eyes widen and he looks horrified at the idea. He instinctively clutches at the faded scar on his abdomen. He slowly starts to back away.

GENERAL FANG: Sssssoooo sssssorry but I musssssst decline.

Garmadon advances in a show of dominance.

GARMADON: Come now, you’ll be safe. I promise.

GENERAL FANG: Then why don’t you invoke it?

General Fang quips defensively. Garmadon answers as though talking to a toddler.

GARMADON: You know it doesn’t work that way. The powers of life and death are beyond even my abilities.

Garmadon wistfully looks up at the dragon skull of Demic. General Fang follows Garmadon’s gaze. Garmadon looks genuinely sorrowful for a beat. He shakes it off. Then he gives a demonic smile to General Fang.

GARMADON: But I have a good feeling about this one.

Garmadon grips the War Hammer in his hands and gives it a spin.

GARMADON: I’ll even let you ride in my mech this time.

GENERAL FANG: What mech? You don’t even have your sssshark mech anymore. The Ninja trasssshed it, remember?

Garmadon mutters to himself, not really listening to General Fang.

GARMADON: Yes. That Black Ninja packs a real punch. He has a spunk and willfulness that almost feels... familiar.

GENERAL FANG: And now your mech liessssss at the bottom of the ssssea.

GARMADON: Trashed. At the bottom of the sea. Heh.

Garmadon mulls over these words. He tightens his grip on the War Hammer and yells out a raging war cry.

GARMADON: AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

With all his strength, Garmadon uses the War Hammer to strike a wall of the volcano lair. Streaks of Golden Power snake out from the impact point and spread to the rest of the wall.

After a beat, the entire wall EXPLODES!

KABOOM!

Lego bricks rain down everywhere. Everyone except Garmadon panics. There is now a massive hole in the side of the Volcano Lair.

GENERAL FANG: Ssssssirr! What are you doing?

General Fang tries to shield himself from the falling Lego bricks.

Garmadon looks back at General Fang and gives a knowing smile. As though on cue, Terri hands him the blueprint of the humanoid mech.

GARMADON: Observe.

Garmadon holds aloft the Megaweapon. He looks at the blueprint then closes his eyes and concentrates. The Megaweapon begins to glow. Waves of Golden Power radiate out of of the Megaweapon and into the Lego bricks. Ominous choir music begins playing.

The Lego bricks and pieces float in the air and stack on top of each other, creating some sort of brick built structure. One by one the bricks snap and click into place. Slowly, the structure begins to take shape.

Close up on Garmadon as he strains to mentally build the new mech. Then close up on General Fang with an awestruck expression.

When Garmadon is finished, he sets the Megaweapon on the ground and collapses on all sixes. He is sweating and breathing heavily. Using the Megaweapon clearly takes a toll on him.

General Fang moves to Garmadon’s side and helps him up. Then they both stare at a giant, shark-themed but humanoid mech.

GARMADON: I call it the Garma Mecha Man. I’m sure Luh-loyd will come to his senses eventually but I will still conquer Ninjago with or without his help.

Garmadon turns to General Fang.

GARMADON: What do you say?

General Fang looks at the mech and gulps audibly.

General Fang looks back at Garmadon and concedes.

GENERAL FANG: Assss you wisssshhhh.

#Ninjago #Ninjago Project Rebuild #Project Rebuild #Garmadon #Lord Garmadon #Ninjago Garmadon #General Fang

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