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#hunter gets to be a normal teenager for a about twelve minutes

angelspitexe · 2 years

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Temporary Secrets and Sharing Scars

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Hunter (Golden Guard) x Reader

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Spoilers for Episode 13 of Season 2 of The Owl House: "Every Sports a Storm"

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TW: Scars, graphic descriptions of wounds, mentions of near death experiences, swearing, childhood trauma, trauma dumping, a lot of talking about injures (like, 1/4 of this is just Y/n talking about their scars to Hunter, both physical and mental), implied child abuse, and child abandonment

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Summary: When Hunter went undercover at Hexside in an attempt to gain Darius' approval he was not expecting to run into one of the two humans causing chaos around the Isles. You can only imagine his surprise at the fact they stayed silent about his identity, even treating him as a friend. Sure, they had been friendly with him in the past, even trying to get him to join the 'Bad Girls Coven', but this was a step above that. But after Y/n shows him their many scars, he begins to think maybe he should try to return the kindness that made his stomach feel funny and cheeks grow warm.

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"Puddles!", Y/n called out, running at the griffin with their arms out. Viney stepped aside, smiling as Y/n took her pet into their embrace. Puddles made a noise of joy as she curled her neck around the human.

"You're helping out Willow today, right?", Viney walked to pat Puddles' fur, looking at Y/n with a raised brow. The taller teen grinned and nodded, going to speak before being cut off by Puddles using her head to shove them back into her fur.

"Puddles! I asked them a question.", Viney lightly scolded the pet, laughing softly when Puddles made a squeak in response.

"Sorry baby, but I gotta find Willow. I'll see you later.", Y/n pulled away from Puddles, rubbing her fur as they cooed at her. They waved goodbye to Viney before walking away.

They got a ways away before seeing a familiar red cardinal palisman. They perked up, turning to fully look at the bird and the boy who it was perched on.

They grinned when they recognized the pretty face of Hunter, better known as the Golden Guard.

"Hey there.", their grin widened when Hunter jumped, whipping around the face them. His stance widened slightly, causing Y/n to laugh.

"No need to be on edge, pretty boy!", Y/n teased, putting their hands up. They didn't miss how his ears grew slightly red at the pet name.

"W-why are you here!?", Hunter's voice wavered, and his words made Y/n look at him playfully confused.

"I go here, darling. If anything I should be asking why your here.", Y/n put their hands behind their head stepping closer to the blushing boy. They stopped when they saw him get into a fighting position. "I'm not gonna fight ya'! It's my day off, I'm not gonna ruin it to be pointlessly violent with a pretty boy, even if he works for the emperor."

"Don't say it so loud!", Hunter whisper yelled, placing a hand over Y/n mouth. Y/n shook their head slightly with a chuckle, grabbing Hunter's wrist and pulling his hand away.

"Calm down, bird boy. I wouldn't compromise whatever self-righteous mission your on, it's not in my pay grade.", Y/n held his hand, moving it to lay over the middle of their chest. They giggled when his cheeks became pink and he pulled his hand away, holding it as he stared at them.

"Come on, we got some stuff to talk about and I have about thirteen minutes before Gus appears and rips me a new one for disappearing.", Y/n motioned for Hunter to follow them, beginning to walk towards the end of the stalls. Hunter blinked, frozen for a moment before chasing after them when Flapjack beat him to it.

"Can you climb trees?", Y/n questioned, turning towards Hunter as they stood at the base of a large tree. Hunter shook his head slowly, unsure of the answer.

Y/n grinned, grabbing his hand and interlocking their fingers. They didn't miss how Hunter jumped slightly, or how his mouth was slightly agape when he turned to them.

"Keep a hold of me, Cutie!", Y/n teased as they moved the grip a branch, swinging their legs slightly, and digging their heels into the bark to swinging around and curl their knees around a tree branch. Hunter was in slight awe of their strength, being able to do all that with one hand.

As Y/n tugged at his hand, looking down at him with a raised brow, Hunter gulped. He placed his foot on the tree and let Y/n tug him to sit on the lowest branch next to them, wobbling slightly before Y/n grabbed his waist. The pair had their bodies facing opposite directions, Y/n facing towards the woods and Hunter facing towards Hexside's pathway.

"Don't think to hard, sweetheart. It gets harder to sit up straight when you do.", Y/n's voice was soft, and a squrriel palisman rushed down from the higher branches.

"Ah! Gentian!", Y/n grinned, putting their arm out for the blue palisman to crawl on. The palisman scurried to their other shoulder, sniffing at Hunter as they tilted their head.

"That's Hunter, we've meet him before.", Y/n smiled at the Palisman, chuckling at Hunter's surprised face.

"Your staff was a Palisman this whole time!?", Hunter squeaked, looking at Gentian with wide eyes as the squrriel put one of their paws on his cheek. He looks at Y/n again, mouth agape. "I almost threw them into the boiling sea!"

Y/n shook their head, laughing at him. They put their hand on his shoulder, patting it slightly.

"Owlbert is hella protective of them, homeboy would've caught them. Either way, we're not mad about it. Just don't do that shit again"

Hunter still stared at the Palisman, seemingly frozen. When Gentian reached both of their paws out, cupping his face, he snapped out of it.

"Now, let's talk."

"Yeah, I can't really be mad at you for anything. I can see the good in you, even if you can't personally.", Y/n leaned against the tree, Flapjack sitting on their shoulder. Gentian was one Hunter's head, sleeping in his hair.

"Why though? You have every right to be mad at me, hate me even! I harassed your best friend and mentor, knocked you unconscious, and probably more! So how...", Hunter spoke as he made wild movements with his hands, ending his sentence with his hands on his lap. Y/n laughed softly, placing their hand on Hunter's shoulder. When he looked up his heart raced at their soft smile.

"I like to see the good in people, it helps me analyze motives and pick sides. Your not a bad person, just a little misguided.", Y/n paused for a moment, but continued when Hunter opened his mouth to say something. "Even if you don't agree with my thoughts, that's not gonna change anything."

Hunter shut his mouth and looked down slightly, finding his hands very interesting all the sudden. Y/n voice made him whip his head towards them.

"Wanna see my scars?", Y/n grinned as they spoke, talking about it so casually it made Hunter's brain lag for a moment. He silently nodded, afraid his voice would betray him.

Y/n took their jacket off, showing of a large amount of scars all down their toned arms. It made Hunter freeze, his eyes analyzing the flesh.

"This one", Y/n pointed towards what looked to be a burn scar that covered a large chunk of their shoulder, and it looked freshly healed. "Is from when Lilith accidentally hit me with her magic when I got in the way of her and Eda's fight. You were there!"

Y/n's carefree grin made his stomach sink. How much pain had they been in, how did they stand up mostly fine after taking a blow that caused that much damage.

"Oh! This one is from you!", Y/n laughed as they pulled up their left pant leg, showing a huge bandage. They began unwrapping the bandage as Hunter watched their face, horrorifed. He had hurt them enough to leave a scar?

The wound he was made with made his whole body tense. It wasn't fully healed, still pink and red. Their was a handful of obviously painful blisters, and the look of it alone made him wince. As Y/n began tying to bandage the wound up Hunter began to search for the words to say.

"I-I'm sorry.", Hunter looked away, holding himself slightly as he shook. He hadn't realized just how much the magic he used hurt people, and seeing it first hand made him feel guilty.

"Don't sweat it dude, I've been through worse. Even been impaled? That's true fuckin' pain.", Y/n winced just think about it, not noticing how Hunter whipped his head around at stared at them.

"You've been impaled!? When!? How!?", Hunter looked frazzled, even more confused and horrorifed of Y/n chillness about the topic. Y/n blinked and few times, seemingly thinking.

"It was twice. Once on a mental spike when I was around ten, hit me in the side. Doctor said I was lucky I survived. The second time was here. I was running from Kikimora and some scouts she had with her and fell down a hill. I got a branch in my arm, had to stumble back to Hexside. It was not fun to explain to Viney and Principle Bump.", the longer they went on the more the words become worse for Hunter.

How much shit did this one 16-year-old survive?

"But hey, at least I have cool ass scars to show off now! Mrs. Wolfsburg will tear me a new ass for it, but she yells about everything so who cares.", Y/n grinned cheekily at Hunter, giving him the thumbs up as he stared at them, mouth agape.

"Wait- who's Mrs. Wolfsburg?", Hunter questioned, snapping out of his horrorifed trance to ask a single question. Y/n's face fell slightly, but they huffed and grinned again as they sat up.

"Mrs. Wolfsburg is the lady who runs the house I live in back at the human word. She basically gets a buncha' orphans, gets legal guardianship of them, and gets money from the town for it. I was one of those cases, found on her doorstep when I was, like, five? No note, nothing but the dirty pajamas and shitty old sneakers I was wearing.", Y/n leaned back as they explained, talking with their hands during random moments in their story.

"Oh...", Hunter blinked, seemingly lost in thought. Y/n patted him on the shoulder, getting his attention before he could think to hard.

"Dude, don't overthink it. Yeah, I had a shitty upbringing, I'm not gonna deny it, but it made me stronger. Plus, it helped me met Luz, and by extension, everyone here. Even you.", Y/n poked his chest with a grin as they finished their sentence, messing up his hair as they laughed. Hunter blinked, a familiar feeling filling his stomach and chest.

"How...how do you do it?", Hunter questioned, looking down at his hands. Y/n tilted their head, smiling at the awkward boy.

"If your talking about my attitude, I can't give ya' healthy advice. I just faked it tell I made it, it was all I really could do.", Y/n looked up at the many branches above them, a sad smile on their lips. Hunter watched them, frowning as he gripped his knees. He sighed and bit the bullet.

"Your...so weird.", Hunter mumbled, internally hitting himself for his words. Y/n looked back at him, blinking for a moment before laughing. Hunter looked at them, confused. When they calmed down they spoke again.

"Yeah, I've heard that before. But the way I see it, if your not kinda weird your boring, and your not boring so your weird too. So, as Eda always says, we weirdos have to stick together.", Y/n smiled sleepily at Hunter, eyes closed. Hunter smiled and laughed quietly, feeling strangly comfortable in the other teen's presence after everything was out in the open.

"Y/n!", Gus's voice broke the moment, causing Y/n groan in annoyance and Hunter to laugh at them. Y/n grinned at him and motioned down with their head, towards Gus who was walking down the path.

"I was wrong, it was sixteen minutes.", Y/n teased, sitting up fully and shifting to sit right next to Hunter, shoulder-to-shoulder with him. "Your helping me, Gus, and Willow with the Flyer Durpy."

"I am?", Hunter half-questioned, grinned back at the teen, even if it was a little wobbly. Y/n cracked up, covering their mouth as they nod.

"Hell yeah, pretty boy. I opened my soul up to you, the least you could is help me with my only mission for the day.", Y/n held up quotation marks as they said 'mission', mocking the boy slightly. He blinked and huffed with a grin, looking back at the path as Gus walked away, still calling out to Y/n.

"Alright, I guess I'll help you. But you can't tell anyone who I am, the human told her friends about me, right?", Hunter was being half-rhetorical with his question, but Y/n still nodded with a playful grin.

"You want another Alias? What, that's three now?", Y/n teased him, elbowing his arm softly. Hunter chuckled nervously, smiling at Y/n.

"Flapjack recommend Caleb, but I can't think of anything else." Hunter scratched the side of his face, looking away from Y/n, seemingly embarrassed.

"Well, how about Caleb Passerine? Passerine is a family of birds from the Human world, and Flapjack looks like a Cardinal, one of the birds in the Passerine family.", Y/n spewed out the information quickly, seemingly getting flustered as they spoke more. Hunter stared at them, waiting for them to continue. When the didn't he tilted his head, confused.

"Aren't you going to continue?", he asked, his voice sincere. Y/n smiled at him and shook their head, looking down at Gus as he looks into nearby bushes.

"I'll tell you more later, if you're that interested.", Y/n smiled softly at him, readying thenself to jump down. Before they did they turned to Hunter, kissing his cheek. He turned to them, eyes slightly wide, as their face went hot and they jumped down. "Heya Gus!"

Hunter blinked, a hand on his cheek as he watched Y/n talk to Gus. Flapjack sat beside him, chirping something towards him that made his face go red.

"Q-quiet, Flapjack!"

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Author's Note: Yo, your local nonbinary author here with their first actual writing post! Of course it's with my favorite traumatized boy, Hunter! Sorry if anyone is out of character, we only really see a little bit of Hunter when he's just being a normal teenager, so I'm not 100% sure how he would act. Also, the ending is suppose to in a way mirror the Lumity cheek kiss, with Y/n being Amity (who kissed Luz's cheek and then rushed away flustered) and Hunter being Luz.

#golden guard x reader #toh hunter x reader #toh x reader #toh golden guard #toh golden guard x reader #toh fanfic #toh fanfiction #I'm in love with a fiction character #hunter gets to be a normal teenager for a about twelve minutes #two gays in a tree #tree climbing queers are now my writing trope #toh x reader fanfiction #TOH x GN Reader #Hunter x GN Reader

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staysaneathome · 3 years

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That Day (Afternoon)

(I made another part of that Entity swap WIP, this time with 90% more Melanie King and 30% more Basira Hussain, enjoy) Jon initially had no inkling that this day was going to be substantially different from any other.

Admittedly, there were some differences from his usual day-to-day roamings, but none that hadn’t been true of other days. He was a whole year older, as the Watcher informed him three weeks after his twelfth birthday, but that was ages ago now and he really didn’t feel any different between twelve and eleven.

The Collection was back in town, but he’d managed to avoid them so far, sometimes by the skin of his teeth. Somehow he continued to escape The Man’s prying gaze and the searchers who roamed the streets, some cognizant, some…not. He wondered if the Watcher allowed him to roam free because his status as The Recorder meant it liked him more than the Man, somehow.

Martin hadn’t been at the park for the past fortnight or so, though he’s promised to visit again as soon as he could the last time he was there. So he could be forgiven of thinking that this day would be no more significant than the last.

And then he spots an eight-year-old girl toddling after one of the searchers.

She’s tall in the way that suggests she’ll be small later in life, with sparkly hair bobbles and the kind of clothes that come from Marks & Spencer or John Lewis or the other too big, too clean stores where the shop people glare at Jon as he goes past.

She’s asking questions of the searcher (who used to be known as Diana, but has lost what made a lot of her her in the flux and flow of information that The Man commands her to find). Questions like, “what do you know about the ghosts I saw on my holiday” and “why is everything so annoying now” and “why are you holding my hand so tight, it hurts” and “are you sure my daddy won’t mind, because he said he was only going to be gone for five minutes” and “hey, are you even listeningto me, you said you’d listen to me?!”

She’s only little, and she hasn’t lived that long, hasn’t got as many stories in her yet. But she’s had an Encounter with one of the Fourteen, and that called the searcher to her like moths to a flame. Now the searcher’s taking the little girl back to The Collection, where The Man will Ask her about it. And that will be the End of her.

Jon should turn around and walk away. It’s sad, but this has happened millions of times, to millions of other people other than this one girl Jon had the misfortune of seeing. He’s so very incredibly lucky he hasn’t been found and dragged back yet, it’d be stupid to give it all up now. He can’t compromise his own safety for someone he doesn’t even know. He needs to turn around and walk away, see if Martin’s waiting at the park for him.

He’s going to turn around. Right now. Right now. Right. Now. Now. Now.

Now!

Jon has never been the largest child. Even when living with his grandmother and getting three square meals a day plus snacks, he’s always remained small and birdlike and bony. He’s not like Martin, who looks like he’d be soft and huggable, or Tommy, who was solid and square when he pushed Jon and stole his books.

But somehow he manages to barrel into the searcher’s arm and rip the little girl up and away with all the strength in his small body.

Of course, that’s when the girl begins trying to claw his eyes out.

“LET ME GO!!” She screams, wriggling so hard Jon almost drops her as he’s trying to run back across the busy road, car horns blaring around them. “WHO ARE—WHAT ARE—PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I'LL BITE YOUR NOSE OFF, I SWEAR, I SWEAR I WILL!!”

”Stop MOVING!” He yells back at her once he’s safely hit pavement. “The searcher’s going to catch us both otherwise! I’m saving your life!!”

“I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO, YOU STUPID UGLY HEAD!!” The little girl shrieks back.

Jon considers dropping her and booking it himself for a single moment.

But the searcher’s coming for them, and now she’s seen him too, her pace quickening as the knowledge of how much the Man wants his prized Recorder back resonating in her skull until it overrides even basic instincts of pain and survival.

So Jon grits his teeth as the little girl in his arms tears into his shoulder with her sharp little nails and hauls her with him down the street as fast as he can go.

The Watcher tells him the bus pulling up to the station in front of them has a camera that’s faulty on the second level. There are two family groups that are going from sniping at each other to outright exchanging verbal blows over who deserves to get on first, the parents going red in the face with spittle flying from their mouths and the children pulling faces and calling names as the overworked and underpaid bus driver tries to keep order.

It’s easy for Jon to duck through them and drag the girl up the bus stairs with him, as the conflict below devolves into an outright brawl that masks the eight-year-old’s protests. The bus doors slam shut, and the bus pulls away amidst the yelling and fighting outside.

Jon sags down in the seat on the relatively empty second level. The only other person seems to be a teenager slumped down across the very back seats far away from them, eyes shut and white headphone wires trailing out from under their hijab.

He stares out of the window at the searcher, whose figure is quickly vanishing as the bus picks up speed and merges into the London traffic.

”Okay.” He exhales, loosening his grip on the little girl’s collar. “I think we’re safe.”

The little girl whirls around. Her teeth snap shut an inch away from his nose.

Jon presses himself against the window. “What is wrong wi—hey! Stop it!!”

“No!” The girl yells back. “That lady was gonna tell me why everything is being so annoying, all the time now and how to make it stop, so I can be happy again, and you, you went and ruined it!!” She’s still flailing, still trying furiously to claw him open, but there’s a frustrated edge to her voice and tears brimming in her eyes.

”I did not!” Jon protests vehemently, trying to keep a grip on her so she doesn’t give him anymore scratches like the one trickling blood down his arm. “She didn’t want to help you! She just wanted to take you back and make you tell your story so the Collection could eat up your life!”

”Liar! How would you know?!” The girl accuses, one of her sparkly hair-bobbles coming undone.

”Because that’s what they tried to do to me.” Jon hisses. “But they didn’t eat all of me, just…just made me into something like them. A monster that eats stories.”

The girl actually pauses for a moment to digest this.

“Are you going to try to eat me, then?” She asks, warily, arms tensing again. “If you’re a monster like that lady.”

”Of course not!” Jon scoffs, then adds, “Eating someone yucky like you would make me sick.”

The little girl goes bug-eyed and she tears her arms out of his grip to cross them over her chest ”I would not! You take that back!”

”No.” Jon says gleefully, then immediately regrets it when the little girl kicks him in the shin. “Ow! Stop that!”

”You started it.” The girl replies moodily, shifting to sit down in the seat properly and swing her legs.

Jon finally turns away to inspect the damage he’s sustained, pulling his shirt away from his arm and hissing as it makes his shoulder burn with pain. The Watcher tells him he needs to disinfect the cuts and maybe have a few stitches if he wants it to not get worse, but he can’t exactly get those easily where he is right now.

”If you’re a monster, why do you bleed like a normal person?” The girl pipes up behind him. Her eyebrows are furrowed.

”Why do you care?” He mutters, shooting her a dirty look.

The girl puffs out her chest, which looks a little odd, given that she’s now sitting on her hands. “I’m gonna be a ghost hunter when I’m grown up. Like in that one movie, but I’ll be even cooler and have a magic sword instead of a weird gun, and I’ll beat up all the ghosts and monsters on my own, except the nice ones, because they’ll be my friends. I’m Melanie, by the way. What’s your name? Do monsters have names?”

”Yes.” Jon replies. He enjoys the silence for a moment.

Melanie’s cheeks puff out like a pufferfish as she glares at him. “Okaay, so what’s your name?”

”Jon.” Jon says curtly.

”That’s not a very good name for a monster.” Melanie informs him.

”I wasn’t always a monster.” Jon tells her sourly. “Just like you.” The little girl doesn’t ask him many more questions for a long time after that.

”What are you looking at?” Melanie says suddenly as the bus is slowing to its fourth stop since they got on.

Jon twists away from the window. “I’m just trying to see if the searcher’s followed us—”

”Not you.” Melanie replies impatiently. “You. What are you looking at?”

The back of Jon’s neck goes cold. He twists around slowly.

The teenager in the hijab isn’t slumped across the seats. She’s half-way to standing, and staring right at them. Her eyes are cold and intent.

They stay like that, frozen for a moment.

”Melanie, run!!” He screams.

Melanie throws herself towards the stairs as the teenager explodes into motion behind them. Jon can feel her fingers try to snag on the back of his shirt as he thunders down the stairs, only narrowly missing him as he half-falls the rest of the way down and pelts out the bus doors to the sound of the driver yelling indignantly.

One of Melanie’s sparkly bobbles has fallen out and her hair is drooping down as she turns to grab onto Jon’s hand while they run.

”Stop!” The teenager yells. “Hey!” She’s gaining on them.

Jon tries to Know where they can go to lose her, how they can escape, but the Watcher just gives him useless tidbits instead; that man with the skateboard there has undiagnosed intermittent explosive disorder, this lady jogging over up ahead served two tours as a nurse in her youth to pay for her medical degree, that young person with the pins on their bag here is coordinating a flash mob on his phone to protest—

“Go away already!” Melanie complains on a furious exhale, and kicks a discarded can in her path hard.

It rockets away from her, bounces off a rubbish bin, and somehow jams in between the wheels of the man’s skateboard. He yelps as he falls, but roars when the teenager chasing them runs directly into him without slowing down, rising to block her path. The lady jogging furrows her brow with alarm, and races forwards to put herself between what she sees as a hostile and a young civilian in need of her protection, inadvertently preventing the teenager from advancing in her attempts to diffuse the situation and keep the man from lashing out at her physically. The person on their phone looks up and sets their jaw, switching it to video record the conflict and grabbing the teenager back even further, acting as a shield and spit inflammatory accusations that do more to raise tempers and attract attention than to resolve anything.

Jon watches all this with rapt eyes, drinking it in until his hand is jerked hard and he almost falls over.

”C’mon!” Melanie yells, irritated and scared and guilty and angry, the mark of the Slaughter almost an audible note to her voice, her footsteps. “We need to get away from those creepy ladies, find somewhere to hide, where do we go?!”

To hide. Jon tightens his grip on Melanie’s hand and changes their course slightly, heading towards a place he frequents regularly.

”Follow me,” He gasps, trying to ignore the stitch in his side. “I have a friend.”

#the magnus archives #tma #tma au #ageswap au #kid fic #entity swap #technically #jonathan sims #melanie king #basira hussain #martin blackwood #the orsinov institute #the beholding #the slaughter #now we’re cooking with petrol #tma diana #if anyone knows who she is

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schweeeppess · 4 years

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walk slow through the fire

Dick walked down the alley, hood pulled over his head, hands in his pockets, lollipop poking out between his lips, gun holstered on his thigh.

He hummed as he walked, ignoring the water that would splash on his shoe when he stepped in some of the countless puddles in the alley.

After twenty minutes of walking through the winding and crossing back-alleys of Gotham City, Dick paused next to an abandoned building and craned his neck back to look up at a window several feet above him. It was closed, like it always is, and there were no possible ways of entering the building through it aside from rappelling from the roof.

Unless you’re Dick Grayson.

Spitting out the lollipop stick, Dick double-checked the holster at his hip to make sure the gun was secured, then looked back up at the window and rubbed his gloved hands together.

“Up I go,” he mumbled. He walked a few steps back, then took a running start at the wall under the window, jumping up to kick off of it onto the wall of the brick building directly across from it, which he kicked off of with his other foot. He repeated the kick-off motion until he could reach the window.

Once he was grabbing onto the windowsill, he let his legs dangle in the air for a few seconds, then leaned his arm completely on the small sill to free his other hand up to push the window open, then once it was open wide enough, he pulled himself inside the rest of the way and fell a few feet onto the walkway under the window.

Smiling, he grabbed the pole resting against the wall they used to close the window whenever they came in through it.

After the window was closed, Dick set the pole back down, dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans, grabbed a lollipop, took the wrapper off, stuck it in his mouth, then turned to start walking down the walkway for his room.

Dick admired the holiday lights that were strung on the walls and hung off the exposed rafters of the high ceiling to the outwardly decrepit building, shining bright even though it was the middle of February, that he’d put up years ago when they first moved into the building. Gradually, as the years passed, and when they returned to the building for work or vacationing, he’d added more of different kinds.

Now it looked like a teenager’s aesthetic dream.

Tim walked out of his room, apparently reading a book in his hands, and started walking in the direction Dick was coming from. He paused three steps in and turned to face the railing, putting a finger in the book to keep his place as he closed it, then swinging himself over and to the main floor of the building with a “Welcome back, Dick,” as he did. When he hit the ground, he rolled once then stood and resumed reading his book as he walked to the kitchen area.

Dick smiled and lifted a hand in a half-hearted salute to his brother, who wouldn’t have seen it even if he weren’t reading the book since the kitchen was perpendicular to Dick’s position.

Tim was smart, and incredibly so. His nose was always buried in a book. Whether it was about psychology or three teenagers taking a spaceship for a joyride through the galaxy together, Tim would read it. He had a sort of fascination with fictional stories, almost obsessing over the skill a writer must have to create an entire world for others to enjoy and play in; to create an entire universe several thousands of people could visit whenever they wanted. He liked to balance his reading of fiction with his reading of education, though, buying—or stealing, whichever was most convenient—books about criminology and psychology whenever he had the chance to.

Tim was as avid with his training as he was with his reading, spending hours in the training room with several different weapons and practicing different fighting styles. There were times where Tim was a normal young adult, early into his twenties—and, therefore, adulthood, though he’d technically been an adult since his third kill—when he would talk and ramble about a subject for hours or days. He could tell you three facts about disassembling a car’s engine in minutes without pausing to catch breath.

Killing people, for Tim, was just as impersonal as it was for Jason. They didn’t care about what they were doing. Tim was the youngest to be sent to complete field training, assigned to be instructed by Rose through it. He’d been groomed for this practice since early childhood. It made sense that he would be the youngest at nine years old.

His choice in weapons mattered as much to Tim as it would to an elephant if you put a wide array of them before it. Ranged or not, Tim didn’t care. He would work with whatever he was provided, be it a pencil, a stapler, or a metal baseball. The job was in the end, just a job. Nothing more, and nothing less.

On the way to his room, Dick passed Jason’s. The door to his brother’s room was open, so Dick paused outside of it to poke his head inside to check on his brother.

Jason was in the middle of securing the straps of his uniform and raised a brow when he looked up and saw Dick standing there.

“Back already?” he asked, returning his attention to his task and kneeling down on one knee to secure his boots.

“Yep,” Dick replied casually, popping the ‘p’ as he spoke around the lollipop and leaned on the doorframe. “Going out so soon?”

Jason nodded, straightening and turning to his weapons drawer.

“Yeah.” He selected two katanas, a handful of throwing knives, and a hunter’s blade, then tucked the weapons in their respective holsters strapped to his person.

Dick took notice of the weapons type and inquired, “Political deal?”

Again Jason nodded. “Apparently, the dude paid a generous amount of cash for this to be done perfectly. It’s some judge’s… something, I don’t know, maybe a rival. He or she wants us to make sure that the kill isn’t traceable to them. I have to make it look personal, like someone in the guy’s inner circle did it.”

Humming, Dick nodded this time and left to let his little brother finish prepping for his assignment.

Jason was the one to go to if you needed a professional kill of a political or high-order business caliber. He could manage any kind of undercover op like he’d been raised in the environment he needed to infiltrate. If it was a crime organization deal, he almost was raised in the environment. Really, they all were, Dick supposed.

Out of the three brothers, Jason was second youngest to be allowed out for training, having been only ten when he went out to begin field training with Grant. If asked, his brothers would tell you Jason had no styles or weapon of preference, but they knew otherwise. Jason’s favorite weapons were his sniper rifle, that he’d been customizing himself since he was thirteen, and his kris blade, that he’d been gifted at sixteen.

He, like Tim, didn’t have any sort of personal preference for ranged or melee weapons. Their jobs were impersonal no matter the details of them. In the end, for Jason and Tim, they were just assignments. As far as they were concerned, there was nothing to hesitate over. They weren’t killing people. They were earning money.

It was a dangerous mentality for anyone to have, but it was a realistic one for their line of business. Get too involved in a job and it would be your downfall.

Stopping by Damian’s door, Dick decided to check in on his youngest brother and knocked on the teen’s door.

“Enter.”

Twisting the doorknob and opening the door, Dick walked into the room and sat in the chair to Damian’s desk, arms leaning on the back of it and chin resting on his folded arms.

“Welcome back, Richard.”

Damian was sitting cross-legged on his bed, swiping through whatever screens he was looking at on his tablet. On the nightstand beside the bed was a steaming bowl of noodles with chopsticks resting on the lip of the bowl. The food didn’t look touched, and Dick knew his little brother would continue to neglect the meal unless someone reminded him it was there.

“Thanks kiddo,” he said, reaching to move the lollipop in his mouth between his molars, then biting down hard until he felt it break. Dick continued to chew loudly on the lollipop until Damian huffed and shifted the tablet to an acceptable position in his lap, then reached blindly for the bowl of noodles until he grabbed it and brought it close to his chest.

Brow furrowed and eyes scanning the page his tablet was on, Damian started eating his food.

Satisfied, Dick nodded and stood, walking to the trash bin in Damian’s room and depositing the stick of the now-eaten lollipop into it.

“Your task passed without hindrance?” Damian asked between bites.

“It did,” Dick answered. He walked over to the bed to ruffle Damian’s hair—earning a half-hearted tsk—before heading to resume the walk for his room.

Damian was a good kid. If he didn’t have his eyes glued to the tablet reading up on their past completed assignments, he was either on the phone with a friend or his contractor, or in the training room perfecting his strategies and further honing sharp skills. He had a few sketchbooks lying around, almost more than half of them filled with menial little nothings that he found interesting. Damian drew with an artistic skill that he translated over to his fighting style, almost surgical with the brushes and strokes of his swords.

Unlike Jason and Tim, who were both skilled with both guns and blades, Damian’s primary weapons were bladed ones. He had a double edged sword among a wide variety of other, much rarer blades. The weapons were far more personal than any gun could be, and those were the only kinds of jobs Damian did, even since he was twelve and first allowed out to begin field training with Joseph.

Dick admired his brothers and their unique preferences.

In the hall he saw Jason stepping out of his room, black domino secured to his face.

“You eat yet?” Dick asked, pausing.

Jason scoffed. “I’m the only one with normal eating habits here; ‘course I did, you dunce.”

Dick nodded and Jason jogged off to leave for his job.

Now that he’d checked on all three of his brothers, however briefly with Tim, Dick could go to his room and be at peace.

Opening the door and stepping into his room, Dick looked around briefly to make sure it was empty before closing the door behind him and removing the gun at his thigh—the only weapon he’d chosen to take with him for the short and easy job of taking out some random street thugs. The assignment had taken five minutes to complete once Dick had arrived at the designated location. Normally it would be called embarrassingly quick, for seven gang members, but it was almost expected since it was Dick who had killed them—not that anyone but him, his brothers, his trainer, and his contractor would know it.

He deposited the gun on his dresser and began to change out of the casual street wear, dropping the clothes into the hamper by the bathroom door as he headed to take a shower and wash Gotham off of him.

Dick wasn’t as secure in his identity as a killer as his younger brothers were. If you asked Tim why, he’d tell you it was a psychological matter; a hesitation in him that he’d gotten from his eight years living with acrobats in the circus. They’d raised him to be a good man, a good person—had taught him good civilian values and morals.

But his time with them had been cut short by a man by the name of Tony Zucco. Maybe if he’d stayed with them into adulthood, Dick would’ve been different. He wouldn’t have gone down the route he had, would’ve stayed with Haly’s Circus and become a master acrobat there.

It just wasn’t how his story had played out, though.

His weapons of choice were all guns. Blades made kills personal in a way Dick could never handle. Guns were impersonal. You could kill someone from fifty feet away with a gun, you didn’t need to get up close and be a foot away from the victim.

Victim. Even the word he used to describe the people they killed humanized and personalized them. To his brothers, they weren’t victims, they were assignments.

But in Dick’s grey-stained eyes, they were victims.

As the warm water washed his sin off in red rivulets, Dick closed his eyes to the blood, like he always did. He couldn’t watch the blood drip from his hands—which were only stained because he always dug the bullets out of any bodies they got caught in. He couldn’t answer the question of why he did it if he was asked honestly. He’d lie. It was just his job to now.

His shower ended fifteen minutes later, and Dick stared up at the ceiling, thinking about meaningless hypotheticals. Like how different his life would’ve been if he’d stayed with his parents, how different his life would be if Haly had paid the protection money, how different his life would be if he hadn’t been taken in by the men he had been.

Maybe the multiverse is real, he thought to himself, staring at the lights hanging above him like they were stars. And maybe in one of them I’m a hero.

Two seconds later he scoffed at the idea.

His hands were made for killing.

....but what if they weren’t?

And what if fish were made for flying?

#this can be a one-shot #if u want #on ao3 it's gonna be a multichap!#my writing #my work #my fanfiction #fanfiction #Dick Grayson #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #Batfam au #Mercenary AU #hope u like!!!#tw blood mention #tw killing #enjoy my friends :)#walk through the fire

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 5 years

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Summary: After a spell goes wrong and sends you back in time and alters your age, you seek out the help of a young Dean Winchester to get you home...

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 3,600ish

Warnings: language

“Move, Dean!” you said, shoving him aside, a cloud of pink smoke surrounding you. You coughed as you breathed it in, a gunshot ringing out.

“Y/N, you alright?” you heard Dean say but you couldn’t see him, no matter how hard you swiped your hands.

“I can’t see. I can’t...” you said, coughing some more.

“Sammy, I can’t get through this smoke,” said Dean, bumping into something close by. “What’d she do to Y/N?”

“Looks like a de-ageing spell and...oh crap, we gotta get her out of there and now,” said Sam, a shot pinging off the smoke.

“Sam! Watch it!” shouted Dean.

“It’s a time spell too. I don’t know how far back it’ll pop her but we got less than a minute before it happens,” said Sam.

“Guys,” you said, coughing again, their voices farther away. “Dean! Get me out of here!”

“It looks like it’s gonna pop her back in ‘05 if we don’t-”

“Y/N, find us,” you heard Dean say, pounding on the smoke, his voice growing fainter. “Sam’s still at Stanford. It’s not far from here. You know the first cases we had if we aren’t there. Find us and we’ll help you get back. Just-”

You blinked your eyes and looked around, standing in a short grassy field. You swallowed hard and looked around, a sign off in the distance. You headed for it and heard a road, gulping when you read you were standing in a future housing development.

“Oh crap.”

You finally found Sam’s place when you saw Baby parked out front, sighing in relief.

“Oh, Baby, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” you said, walking over to it, the trunk slamming shut, two young men looking at you.

“Can we help you?” asked Dean. He had to be 26, fresh faced and so much more boyish than you were used to. “Is she a drunk freshman or something, Sam?”

You glanced down, gulping when you caught your reflection from the street light on baby’s hood.

If Dean was almost forty where you came from and you were ten years younger...

“I’m sixteen!” you said, running your hands over your face. “No, no! The once was bad enough!”

“Hey, kid. Do you need help or not?” said Dean, narrowing his eyes.

“Shut it Winchester. I ain’t no kid. In fact, I’m older than you on a normal day. Now I need-”

“Great, she’s drunk. Or on drugs,” said Dean quietly, forcing a smile on his face. “Okay, kid. We’re going to call someone to come help you, okay?”

“Dean, I don’t know her,” said Sam. “How’d she know our name?”

“Because Sammy, I do know you. I know both of you and short version is I got sent back in time and deaged and I need your help to send me back home,” you said.

“Alright, listen-”

“You have a group of freckles on your back just above your butt that looks like the big dipper,” you said, crossing your arms.

“Tell me you did not sleep-”

“Of course not Sam,” said Dean. “I’m not an idiot and I’ve never seen this girl in my life. I so do not have freckles like that.”

“Rhonda Hurley. Pink. Satin. Do I need to continue?” you asked, Dean gulping. “I know you, Dean. I know your secrets because you told me them. Now I know you guys are going to work a case right now but I desperately need-”

“We don’t have time for this,” said Dean, ripping open the drivers side door. They were both in the car and down the street in a flash. You sighed, throwing your hands up when you looked back at Sam’s apartment.

Jess.

Maybe you could go warn her this second. You looked around, jogging up the front path to Sam’s building when a cop car pulled up out front.

“Dammit.”

“Hi Bobby,” you said, giving him a smile at the police station. He was still cocking his head at you like you were an alien but he said you were his niece and picked you up regardless. “Thanks for the ride.”

“I just drove for how long to come pick up a strange teenage girl that I’ve never met before in my life why?” he asked.

“If it makes you feel any better, technically, we’ve never met. I heard all about you from the boys though. You’re like a father to them,” you said with a smile.

“How exactly do you know about the supernatural?” he asked.

“I told you on the phone,” you said.

“You sound like a basket full of crazy,” he said.

“Just...hear me out. I’m in need of serious help.”

“Bobby?” you heard Dean say, walking into the front door of the house. It’d been a few months. You knew they had downtime between a few cases right about now so you felt less likely like you’d screw something up if you decided to introduce yourself again.

“Dean,” you said, giving him a smile when he poked his head in the room. “Thanks for calling the cops on me. I appreciate that one.”

“Okay, who the hell are you?” asked Dean, crossing his arms, Sam cocking his head at you.

“She’s your girlfriend in about ten years, ya idjit,” said Bobby, coming up from the basement, dropping a box of books on the desk. “Best researcher I’ve ever seen.”

“Great. You’re a nerd,” said Dean, rolling his eyes.

“You read all of Harry Potter in a week. I’m the nerd. Right,” you said, giving him a smirk.

“Harry what now?” asked Dean.

“Ah, I forgot. You’re still cool guy, Dean. Only cars, women and whiskey for you,” you said, flipping a page.

“Damn straight,” said Dean.

“Don’t worry. You become a normal person soon,” you said, flipping shut the book. “Bobby, the spell I’m looking for packs a punch. A big one.”

“Well alright princess. I’ll go raid my stash. Again,” said Bobby, heading back downstairs.

“Bastard won’t even let me have a drink,” you said, stretching as you stood up.

“Considering you’re a teenager, I can’t argue with him,” said Dean with a smile. Sam excused himself when he caught you staring at them a bit too long, Dean more than eager to let you. “So I got to ask. Are you a hunter or a civilian?”

“I’m a hunter,” you said, Dean nodding his head like he was expecting that. “I know some things, things I can’t tell you. I...there were things I’d like to try and change but I can’t. I’ve already tried a few times and nothing seems to do the trick.”

“Part of your freaky time backwards thing,” said Dean with another nod. “Well, I’m still around and kicking at least.”

“You will be for a while,” you said, rubbing your arm.

“I’ll call that good news then,” he said with a smile, going to the fridge and pulling out a beer. “So am I super into younger chicks in the future or what?”

“We have a bit of an age gap but perfectly normal,” you said. “You always say I’m older than my years.”

“I could say the same thing now,” he said with a more relaxed smile.

“Your jokes do not improve by the way,” you said, Dean shrugging before you saw his eyes go wide. “What?”

“Oh my...” he said. You felt a bit smaller suddenly. Not too much smaller but glancing down you definitely noticed a change. “I don’t mean to startle you or anything but...you just got younger by a couple of years.”

You ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, your twelve year old face staring back.

“Fuck. We have to stop the de-aging. Now.”

“I hate this,” you grumbled, groaning as you hopped off the desk chair and to the ground, stomping to the bathroom. You had to use a step stool to use the sink, your groans giving Dean more to laugh about. “It’s not funny, Winchester!”

“You’re a very grumpy four year old. It’s quite hilarious actually,” he said. “At least we stopped it.”

“I still hate it,” you said, throwing open the door, going back to the desk. Dean tsked you and you felt a pair of strong hands pick you up. “I will kick your ass if you don’t put me down.”

“You have been at it since dawn. It’s late. Sam and Bobby are working a case and you need food before bedtime,” said Dean, plopping you down in one of the kitchen chairs.

“You are not my babysitter,” you said, scowling at him. “I can make myself a sandwich.”

“Well I’m hungry so you might as well eat too,” said Dean. You sighed, your tiny stomach rumbling. Another reason to hate this body beside the height issue was it all felt so off. You couldn’t push it like an adult one. You fell asleep researching after lunch. You needed to go to sleep earlier. You needed more snacks and you knew you were irritated more easily.

Then there was the irrational fear kid crap you were still fighting off.

“Here we go,” said Dean, walking around and flicking on the lights. “Bobby always keeps this place so dark.”

“I’m not scared,” you said, glaring at him.

“Never said you were,” said Dean. He started to move around, your gaze flickering to the calendar on the wall. You knew he’d seen his father just a week ago. He’d meet up with him again soon and then shit would hit the fan. So many parts of you wanted to stop everything that was about to happen but you knew nothing you did would change anything.

You hadn’t realized you were showing your emotions on you face until Dean was bending over, handing you a tissue.

“Okay. Okay. No more teasing today,” he said, ruffling your head as he went back to dinner. “Something bad is going to happen soon isn’t it.”

“Yes,” you said quietly.

“Then don’t get upset over it, Y/N. It happened and we survived it where you come from. We’ll survive it now too,” he said.

“You realize that’s your lying voice. I know when you’re pretending you’re okay with something Dean,” you said.

“I can’t change it. Any time you do try to change something, it goes wrong and you get hurt. What’s the point of obsessing over something I have no control over? Now do you want tomato sauce or white sauce on your pasta?” asked Dean.

You shrugged, Dean silent as he finished with dinner. You tried not to make a mess, sighing when you were stuffed full with half the plate to go.

“You can have it for leftovers,” he said, picking up around you when you finished. You yawned and looked at the clock, grumpy that your little body was already asking for sleep. You hopped out of your seat and went to the stairs, about halfway up when the lights went out.

Your foot missed the step and you tripped, a wet spot leaking through your pants near your knee.

“Y/N?” you heard Dean say. “Was that you?”

“Yeah,” you said, turning around to sit on your bottom. You saw a beam of light appear, Dean coming to the bottom of the stairs and looking up.

“Oh, what did you do?” he said.

“I bumped my knee is all,” you said.

“You shredded it,” he said, tucking the flashlight under his arm. He walked up a few steps and held out his arms, plucking you up and carrying you down the stairs.

“Put me down,” you said. Dean sat you the ground and aimed his flashlight for you. You intended on going to the kitchen and cleaning yourself but your leg wobbled at the knee and you let it smash against the floor again.

You whined, hating how low your pain tolerance was. Dean picked you up again and had you on the kitchen counter in no time, a flashlight hanging down so he could see what he was doing.

“Sorry for being so grumpy,” you said.

“I do not envy being in your position,” he said, a roll of bandages on you before you knew it. “Good as new.”

“I want to go to bed,” you said. Dean nodded and set you down, watching as you went to the couch.

“I’m going to stay up and research some,” he said. You yawned and climbed on the couch, hiding away in a blanket that was far too big for you. “Get some sleep.”

“Hey,” said Dean shaking you awake. There was an awful odor near your face, Dean holding a cup too close to your nose. “I figured out the time part of it. I can send you back but you’re stuck little. Do you think you have something where you’re from to figure that out?”

“I think so,” you said.

“Okay,” said Dean. “Drink this and in a few minutes you’ll be back in 2018.”

“Alright,” you said, reaching for the glass when Dean pulled it away. “What?”

“You’re an adult in your head but I can’t let a four year old wander around by herself,” said Dean.

“I’ll be fine,” you said.

“I’m coming with you. When I know you’re safe, I’ll use the spell to jump back here,” said Dean. You opened your mouth to argue but you already saw a backpack on the floor behind him, a smaller one for yourself too. “I got a feeling old Dean won’t be too happy if I let you get lost.”

“Fine,” you grumbled. After a few minutes you were standing in the living room, holding Dean’s hand, your head swimming. “Dean.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. You felt something pull at you before it got cold. It was night and you were standing in a pile of rubble and Dean looked absolutely mortified.

“Dean,” you said, tugging him out of the old wood and towards the junkyard.

“What happened to Bobby’s house?” asked Dean.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, hoping one of the old cars would run. It took an hour but Dean got one running eventually.

“Where are going little lady?” asked Dean.

“Lebanon,” you said, resting your head on your backpack. “Wake me up when we get there.”

“Rise and shine, Y/N,” said Dean, gently shaking you awake. “We just hit town. Where am I supposed to be going?”

You gave him the directions, Dean stopping the car just near the door down into the bunker.

“We live here?” he asked. “Underground?”

“No. I brought you here to stare at this door for no reason,” you said.

“Someone needs her nap,” said Dean, holding up his hands.

“Come on,” you said, tugging on his pant leg so he went to the door. You pressed a hand against it and it opened, Dean cocking his head as he followed you inside.

“Who the hell...” you heard come to a stop, a smile spreading on an older Dean’s face before he frowned. “You’re so tiny.”

“I’m hoping you can fix that,” you said, moving down the stairs too fast, young Dean scooping you off your feet.

“We don’t need you falling again,” he said, setting you down at the bottom. You couldn’t hide the blush on your face when you looked up at your Dean.

“You okay?”’asked Dean. “We found the spell to get you back a while ago. We were hoping you did too.”

“Mhm,” you said, your Dean kneeling down to be at eye level with you.

“Sweetheart?” asked Dean, rubbing your arm.

“She needs a snack,” said young Dean. “Her body acts like a toddlers.”

“I imagine that’s got you pretty pissed off,” said Dean.

“You have no idea,” said the younger Dean. After a hug from Sam, you went to the kitchen and got yourself something, so happy to be home again. “Hey, kid. I’m taking off.”

“Thanks for helping me,” you said.

“Eh, no problem. I’ll see you around someday,” he said with a smile.

Ten minutes later the bunker was quiet again, Dean chuckling as he came into the kitchen.

“What’s so funny?” you asked.

“He won’t remember any of this. I didn’t. Sam and Bobby didn’t,” said Dean.

“I’m glad, otherwise this would be too weird,” you said.

“Because me talking to my girlfriend stuck in the body of a four year old isn’t messed up enough,” said Dean with a chuckle. “Alright. We’ll work a spell to get you fixed up while you settle in.”

“Dean,” you sighed, half crawling over the table for the cereal box. “No offense but how long is this going to take? It’s been two weeks.”

“Other me got like a whole year and I get two weeks?” teased Dean.

“Make me big again,” you groaned.

“Sammy thinks he found something that’ll work but we sort of had to ask Rowena for help,” said Dean.

“I don’t care. I just want to be an adult.”

“Well aren’t you the most adorable little thing!” said Rowena, pinching your cheek.

“Ro. I will bite you if you ever do that again,” you warned, raising an eyebrow.

“Ball of spitfire like always,” she said. “Alright. Sit the munchkin over there and we should have a full grown woman in just a minute.”

Except nothing happened. You frowned, waiting another minute in silence before Rowena was moving around.

“It must be the other spell that’s stopping the de-aging that’s preventing this one from working,” she said.

“We’ll fix that one then,” said Dean, giving you a reassuring smile.

Three hours later you excused yourself, finding your bed and crawling in it. The door opened not long after that, a small blanket placed over you.

“Other Dean left this for you,” said Dean, rubbing your back. “We’ll get it. Rowena needs more time is all. You’re not stuck.”

“What if I am though?” you asked.

“I’d make sure you found a nice family to grow up with then,” he said.

“I’m already grown up,” you said, throwing back your covers. “I-“

“Would you calm down, sweetheart? I didn’t say I’d put you foster care now did I? “ he said, waiting for you to sit back down.

“What do you mean then?” you asked.

“No hunting. We could go somewhere else. You could grow up normal if you wanted. No school unless you really want to go through that again,” said Dean. “You wouldn’t have to try to act like someone you’re not.”

“I’m just freaking out. It’s hard to control these emotions sometimes,” you said.

“Like how you cried at that dog commercial?” asked Dean with a smile.

“Shut up, loser,” you said, fixing your bedspread. “The least you can do is give me a piggyback ride.”

“Alright. But when you’re an adult again, I am so not doing this all the time.”

One Week Later

“Good morning Dean,” you said, sipping on a cup of coffee as he strolled into the kitchen looking at your very much adult self. “Exactly one week, like Rowena said.”

“I missed you,” said Dean, walking over and picking you up, giving you a tight hug.

“Dean. Need to breathe,” you said.

“Look at you!” he said, spinning you around but quickly setting you down. “You’re heavy.”

“Am not,” you said, throwing your arms around his neck, Dean already halfway to the kiss you were looking for. “I’m so glad I’m an adult again.”

“You were pretty cute. I gotta thank my younger self for keeping an eye on you. Not sure how he did it for a whole year,” said Dean.

“Actually Bobby watched me for the most part,” you said. “I see why you turned out the way you did. I sort of took something from him while the house was still standing. Well I made a copy which you have no idea how hard that was to do for a four year old in 2005.”

“What is it?” he asked. You nodded to the counter and the object on top.

“Pictures. There weren’t a lot but there are some of when you and Sam were little. I thought maybe I couldn’t change the past but I could take something back at least,” you said.

“This is awesome,” said Dean, flipping through the small photo album, a smile on his face. “Thanks Y/N. I got to show this to Sam and mom too when she gets back.”

“You’re welcome,” you said, wrapping your arms around him.

“I definitely missed that.”

#spn #supernatural #dean x reader #one shot #dean fanfiction #dean winchester #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #dean one shot #spn fanfic #dean spn #supernatural one shot #dean x #dean winchester x reader #winchester

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rideonwings · 5 years

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The Talk

A/N: This idea was eating away at my brain for almost a month, but I never had time to sit down and write it… except at work. Oops.

A few things before we begin: While the premise of this is funny and awkward, this fic really isn’t meant to be. I feel like this is the conversation that needs to be had with teenage boys, more than just the regular ol’ birds and bees. We always see the super romantic fluffy fics with everyone getting off their first time and being instantly good at sex… let me tell you, not my experience. Therefore, I wanted a conversation about how the key to good sex is really about understanding your partner, rather than just making Hiccup instantly a sex god… I may do follow ups on this, but again… I can only write at work, so…. We’ll see.

I also really wanted to write from Stoick’s point of view, but not sure how well I actually captured him.

Comments & constructive criticism is always appreciated. I did write this really fast, so I apologize for any typos and mistakes.

Takes place after RTTE, before HTTYD2

Word vomit over. On ff.net here https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13358746/1/The-Talk

The Talk

As he slid off Skullcrusher with a thud, Stoick gave a deep sigh of relief. It was good to be back on home soil. As much as he appreciated the efficiency of riding dragons, he missed the days of sailing from a comfort perspective. Sitting abreast a large dragon for twelve hours at a time wore at his old joints.

Still, they’d made great time, arriving half a day earlier than expected thanks to Skullcrusher’s innate ability to find the quickest way home. Stoick chuckled as he removed his saddle from the dragon, watching the beast shake himself in relief, probably appreciating the break from a 300lb man riding him as well.

The sun was just beginning to dip beneath the western hills as the chief made his way towards his home, only to hear a familiar voice.

“Back early, Stoick?” Gobber’s voice rang out from the forge, the man’s head poking out from the service window. Stoick made his way towards the shop, ignoring his sore feet and the twinge in his back. As he walked through the low doorway, greeted by the welcome heat from the forge, he looked around for his son but came up empty. He sat heavily on a bench as Gobber handed him a tankard – he always kept a supply of mead in his shop for cold nights – and sat on Hiccup’s stool across from him, his own tankard attachment strapped to his arm. “How’d the talks go?”

Stoick took a long draw from his drink, sighing happily, before answering. “Good, Beserkers are willing to stick to the terms we agreed to last year, Alvin’s looking for a little more investment to help rebuild Outcast Island’s guard, but we were able to come to agreeable terms overall. There’s been less dragon hunter activity overall, but they’re keeping steady eyes on the west, just in case that Krogan creep reappears.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take Hiccup with you, considering he helped form all those alliances in the first place.” Gobber replied, reaching down to fiddle with his peg-leg.

“The boy’s been flying all over trying to save the archipelago for going on three years, I figured he could use some time at home. He won’t have many years left where he can just be a boy, you know?” He surveyed his son’s workbench, neatly organized tools contrasting the scattered pile of papers no doubt filled with sketches of saddles and dragons. “Where is he, anyways?”

“He was in early this morning so I let him out about half-an hour ago. Astrid met him, I believe they were going to go for a flight before dinner.”

Stoick nodded, and the two continued their small talk for a few minutes before the chief grabbed his travel bag and bid his farewell.

As he approached his home, he noticed Toothless asleep on the roof, his tail gently swaying back and forth absently. Stoick was slightly surprised Hiccup would be back so soon – it was a beautiful night for a flight after all, and they wouldn’t have many good weather days left – but was too tired to think much of it as he reached for the door.

“Astrid.” He heard as the door opened quietly (Hiccup had fixed the creaky hinge months ago), a soft moan that sounded distinctly unlike his son’s normally pitchy voice.

To his shock (and mild horror), his eyes snapped to the source of the sound finding Astrid straddling Hiccup, who was laying on the floor by the fire, the two of them closely entwined (though thankfully clothed), with Astrid’s lips fastened tightly to the underside of his son’s jaw. Hiccup’s eyes were closed, his hands in her hair and gripping her upper thigh, just under her skirt, as Astrid chuckled softly against his throat.

It said something about how… involved… they were, that neither teen had noticed his approach – he wasn’t exactly subtle when he walked.

Stoick dropped his bag.

The two teens froze, whipping their heads towards the door and jumping apart, Hiccup scrambling for a nearby blanket and covering what was obviously a very uncomfortable situation in his trousers. Astrid darted a good five feet back from him, resting her back against a chair and looking at Stoick in horror, while Hiccup clamped his eyes closed as though he could block the whole situation out.

Feeling no more comfortable than they, Stoick cleared his throat. “Honey, I’m home.” He said, hoping to break the tension that had settled in the room like ice.

It wasn’t like he was entirely surprised. The two had become a couple over the last year or so, and their romance had been building for far longer than that. He’d seen them kiss a number of times, soft pecks on the cheeks to once, while looking for Gobber, spotting them tucked in the corner of the forge, wrapped so tightly around each other that he’d need two dragons to pull them apart if he’d wanted to. He wasn’t upset by it. They were clearly in love, and their relationship was solid and respectful.

He remembered being in that kind of swirling love, chasing Val into dark rooms, drawn by her scent and her coy smiles. They’d done far more than he’d just encountered. And, if he were honest with himself, he was pleased, pleased that after everything, Hiccup had found someone that made him happy the way Val had for him.

Still…

That embrace that he’d just interrupted, that had been going somewhere. Their flushed cheeks and shaking hands signaled that maybe this had been more than just a typical necking session.

They’d planned to have the whole night alone…

He hadn’t prepared for this. He hadn’t prepared Hiccup for this.

“Astrid,” he said softly. “Why don’t you head on home.” Astrid’s eyes darted to his, then to Hiccup, then back to her hands in her lap.

“Chief, sir… we weren’t… it was my idea…” Astrid stammered, sounding entirely unlike herself as Hiccup shifted awkwardly, moving towards his prosthetic, which Stoick just noticed he wasn’t wearing.

Stoick cut her off. “It’s alright, lass, you’ll get him back. I just want to speak with him.” She still didn’t move immediately, wringing her hands. “And I won’t say a word to your parents either.” He finished. Her shoulders relaxed slightly.

He grabbed his rucksack off the floor from where he’d dropped it and moved into his bedroom to give them a moment of privacy. Their soft whispers drifted into the room as he began to sort through his bag.

“I can stay, really.”

“No, go. It’ll only be more awkward.”

A short pause, followed by the soft sound of the press of lips together.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Astrid sounded guilty as she said it, but as Stoick rounded the corner into the room again, she was helping Hiccup to his feet and pulling him into a hug. Almost defiantly, she pressed her lips to his one last time before gathering her things and heading to the door.

Before she could close it behind her, they heard her mutter to Toothless: “What kind of guard-dragon are you, anyways…” before stomping off.

Hiccup was sitting facing the fire when Stoick turned back to him, his thin shoulders set in a tight line, head hung. Stoick sighed exasperatedly.

“Oh honestly, boy, I’m not going to beat you.” He said, patting Hiccup’s shoulder as he walked behind him. He then walked to their small kitchen and grabbed two tankards, filling them with mead from the small barrel he kept on hand. He handed one to Hiccup as he sat in the chair nearest to him. Hiccup took it, still avoiding his gaze. The lad wasn’t much of a drinker, but they’d both need it to get through this conversation. “It’s not like I haven’t been in your shoes.” Stoick continued, “I was once your age and in love, I can’t blame you for acting on it.”

Hiccup raised his head for the first time, worrying his lip. “I… we… haven’t exactly…”

Stoick leaned forward, meeting those bright green eyes. “You haven’t done the deed?” Hiccup swallowed heavily, then shook his head. Relief coursed through Stoick. “Well, at least I’m not too late then. Go on, drink. You’ll be wanting it.” He paused, drinking from his own tankard for a moment. “How much have you done?” He asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Hiccup sputtered in his drink, coughing as it attempted to go down his airway. “Oh come now, son, if you’re not mature enough to talk about this, you’re certainly not mature enough to do it.”

Hiccup looked like he’d rather be eaten by a dragon than have this conversation, clearly forcing himself to speak as he said, “Nothing… below the waist…. I guess.” He said haltingly.

Stoick nodded, ignoring the squirming feeling in his stomach. It was weird to think of his little boy in this context, but he had to admit that Hiccup hardly looked like a little boy anymore. While still thin and wiry, his muscles had become more defined and he’d filled out significantly. It wasn’t as hard to think of him as a man. A man with urges. Stoick tried not to dwell on it too long.

“Dad, you don’t… I know how the…” Hiccup coughed, looking to the ceiling, like he was hoping it would come crashing down on his head. “…mechanics work.”

“Oh, I have no doubt of that. You can hardly get to your age and not hear the stories. Hel, you probably heard them before you knew what you were hearing.” He took a long drink from his tankard. “That’s not what I’m worried about, son. I trust you to be safe and do right by her if she were to come with child.”

Hiccup met his eyes, steeling himself before saying quietly, “She’s been taking the herbs1 for a while now, just in case.” He paused before adding. “Since before we were really together. She was worried what might happen if she were captured by Viggo’s men and they… well…” He swallowed thickly, squeezing his eyes tightly shut to block out the horror of that thought. He then took several long swallows of mead.

Stoick’s stomach dropped, both admiring Astrid’s intelligence and horrified that she had felt that might be necessary. “Smart girl.” Was all he said, taking another long drink himself.

His tankard was already nearly empty, and Hiccup wasn’t too far behind. He stood, taking the mug from his son and refilling them before returning to his chair. “Look son, I’m not here to scold you, I’m not even here to tell you not to do it.” He said, reaching forward to hand him his mug, allowing his hand to rest on his shoulder for a moment. “You’ve grown in to a fine young man, you’ll be nineteen in a few short months, you’ve got a solid, healthy relationship with a smart, strong woman. You could do a lot worse.” He chuckled, and Hiccup smiled weakly at him, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’m not telling you not to do it,” Stoick continued, leaning back in his chair, “and I’m not going to give you the typical speech most fathers tell their sons.” Hiccup paused with his tankard halfway to his lips.

“What do you mean?” He responded, confusion lacing his voice. “What…” he trailed off.

Stoick stayed silent for a minute, organizing his thoughts in his head, remembering his first night with Valka. How she’d cried, how horrified and ashamed he’d been to have hurt her, how she’d been so torn up in thinking she wouldn’t make a good wife because she couldn’t enjoy it, how it had taken them a long time to find ways to make her enjoy it the way he did. And some men never tried to learn. Hiccup may not have Stoick’s bone structure or bulk, but without the proper care…

Hiccup would not be one of those brutes.

“Son…” he started, his voice softer, and Hiccup’s eyes showed surprise at the change in tone. “Those men, the men that sing bawdy tales of conquering women and ‘taking what’s theirs’…those men are not real men. Any man that has to tell others what a man he is in bed, is no man you’d want to imitate.”

Hiccup nodded, opening his mouth to speak but Stoick stopped him. “You know that I have no tolerance for rapists on my island, it’s the quickest way to get sent to Outcast Island for sure. But what most men don’t understand is that even in their own marriages, everything should be equal. If the woman isn’t interested, or isn’t enjoying it and the man insists, that’s the same as rape in my mind. It’s just much harder to enforce.”

“I’d never…You know I’d never” Hiccup swallowed, moving to put his mug down before changing his mind and taking another drink. He waited for his father to continue, obviously lost for what to say.

“Look, son… here’s the simplest way to put it.” Stoick said, forcing himself to meet his son’s eyes, which were big and concerned. “Sex, it’s a powerful thing. It’s one of the best feelings in the world for a man, especially when you’re with someone you love. Once you start, you’re not going to want to stop.

“But for a woman… it’s different. Yes, if you take the time and learn her body, if you really take the time to care, it’s the same for them, you’ll have a wonderful relationship and many happy encounters.” Stoick cleared his throat, forcing himself not to think too hard about the fact that this was his son he was speaking to, trying not to picture anything beyond what he had to.

“But if you force it, if you rush into it and hurt her, you’ll hate yourself for it for the rest of your life. They’re more complicated in their pleasure than we are, son. They can be hurt easily and might not say a thing about it because they don’t know they shouldn’t have to.”

He drained the last of his mug, setting it down on the table in front of him. Hiccup followed suit, staring at it intensely, though his cheeks were red from the alcohol and conversation topic.

“I’d never hurt her.” The young man said finally, “You know I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I love her too much.” He met his father’s eye for a moment. “Anyways, she’d probably clobber me if I did, even by accident.”

“You’d be surprised.” Stoick replied. “Many women think it’s their burden to bear, that they have to go through that just to bear children. Others know different, but many think that sex is not for them to enjoy, just to service their husbands.” He shrugged. “We generally try to dissuade that thinking here, but it’s an old way that’s carried through many generations. Astrid’s a warrior, she might just bite through the pain and not admit to it.”

Hiccup looked dismayed, standing up and beginning to pace. “Then how do I know?” The alcohol had obviously loosened his tongue a bit, allowing him to speak more freely without as much embarrassment. “How do I make sure she never feels pain?”

On one of his passes, Stoick grabbed his elbow, his arm dwarfed in the chief’s enormous hand, and pulled him back to his chair.

“You communicate with her. You talk to her, find out what she likes, what she doesn’t… you go slow and take your time and learn her. I can’t tell you what Astrid would like anymore than I could tell you what Gobber would like…” He paused, scowling. “Eh, scratch that, I know too much about that…. The point is, everyone is different, so as long you take your time and are patient and caring, you’ll be fine. The first time will always be a bit painful, just since it’s new, but be gentle and take your time, and you’ll be just fine, son.”

Stoick stood up and walked the short distance to Hiccup, putting his hands on those small shoulders and crouching to meet his eyes. “Hiccup, I know you. You’re the kindest person I know, I don’t doubt you’ll be good to her. I just want you to have the best relationship you can with Astrid, and not make some of the mistakes I did when I was young.” Hiccup looked at his father questioningly. “I made up for it, in the end, but still. I’d rather you not have to.”

Hiccup nodded, draining the rest of his tankard before taking a deep breath. “Thank you, Dad.” He said quietly, “I… I appreciate that you care enough to tell me this. And…sorry, you had to come home to that.”

Stoick laughed. “It’s alright, laddie, like I said, I’ve been there in the past. Now, it doesn’t look like you were planning on cooking dinner tonight, what do you say we head down to the hall?”

It took them a minute to gather their things and make their way out the door. Stoick noted with amusement that Hiccup’s feet were a bit unsteady from the mead, his cheeks flushed and his eyes a little hazy. The boy had come a long way from the talking fishbone he’d been, but he still lacked a Viking’s ability to hold his drink.

As they entered the hall, Hiccup walked beside him as the villagers welcomed Stoick home, accepting pats on the back from the people who had deemed him the ‘Pride of Berk” – a name that still made Hiccup blush fervently.

After filling their plates, they sat down with their respective friends, Hiccup flanked by Tuffnut, who handed him a mug of wine, and Fishlegs. Stoick watched in amusement as his son tried to pretend he hadn’t just had an extremely awkward encounter, drinking from his mug perhaps a bit more heavily than he should.

After a moment, Astrid appeared from the crowd, looking over to Stoick tentatively before walking over to her betrothed with a confidence that the chief was sure was for his benefit. Fishlegs easily made room for her and she sat beside Hiccup, leaning in close and resting her forehead against his own. After a moment, Hiccup dipped his head into the corner of her neck, pulling her tightly to him and whispering something. The other riders carried on obliviously, Tuff and Snotlout arguing back and forth about something nonsensible and Fishlegs making eyes at Ruff across the table.

The two lovers held each other in their own bubble for a few moments longer, soft words exchanged between the two of them, before separating. Hiccup started to eat and Astrid pressed a kiss to his hairline before standing. She made her way to the casks of water and poured two tankards for them, before looking reluctantly towards Stoick, catching his eye. Clearly fighting with herself, she finally gathered the courage to walk his way, stopping by the enormous man with an odd look on her face.

Stoick waited for her to speak, the adults around him engrossed in conversation with hardly a care for the girl’s presence. She leaned in to him.

“Look… I don’t know what you said to him…” She started awkwardly, her voice barely above a whisper. “All he said is that you weren’t mad, and that he never wanted to hurt me, never wanted to disappoint me.” Stoick smiled softly, encouragingly. “I just…” She continued, taking a deep breath. “Thank you… for understanding. And for not being mad.” She paused. “I really do love him, you know.” She said, nodding at him before turning on her heel and returning to Hiccup’s side.

Stoick smiled, watching the girl – no, the woman – move back across the room, sitting beside his son and pressing another kiss to his cheek.

They’d be just fine.

1 I know that herbs probably aren’t adequate birth control…. But come on, we’re in a universe with dragons. I’m calling that sufficient if I want to.

#hiccstrid #hiccstrid fanfiction #hiccstrid fanfic #hiccup/astrid #Hiccup Haddock #httyd #stoick #fanfic #how to train your dragon #fanfiction #writealoud

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samotchkaficrecs · 5 years

Text

My Hero Academia Fic Recs! #1

Hola!

i’m finally making an actual mha fic post... yay!

since most of these fics are suited to my fanfiction tastes i will be making another in the future with many different ships (to float anyone’s boat).

[Also if there is a star (★) next to any fic, it’s one of my highly recommended]

Anywhoo, let us begin!

TodoDeku

before the world catches up by - silent_academy (white_silence)

Shouto was promised the world when he was born. Unfortunately, fate isn't kind, and he's left with nothing but a broken heart and blazing scars.

Izuku was never "destined" for greatness, but he was sure as hell going to make his mark on the world. With determination and a will to protect, he sets out on the hero's path.

Or, the one in which Shouto is born Quirkless, and Izuku... is not.

Somehow, things work out anyway.

(currently on hiatus)

★ The Wooing of Todoroki Shouto by - crispykrimi

He clasps his hands together and presses them to his forehead. “Please teach me how to seduce someone!”

What follows is the most awkward fifteen minutes of his short life. His friends volley suggestions at him, everything from suggestive comments to practically crawling into Shouto’s lap and kissing him. His head is starting to feel a little fuzzy when someone (goddamnit Kirishima) suggests a strip tease, and really, he has to draw the line somewhere.

“A-ah… Maybe seduce was too strong a word. I don’t know if I could actually do any of those things… I think a better word would be- woo? I want to woo him. P-please teach me how to woo someone.”

(complete)

★ If I'm Being Honest.... by - I_dont_know_man

Midoriya scrunched up his nose in confusion. “Uh, Shouto, why are you glaring at me like that?”

“I-” Todoroki began to lie, until nausea slammed him like a door to any room that Bakugou entered. “I--” Todoroki grit his teeth, and glared daggers into the wall behind Midoriya. Goodbye, friendship. It had been absolutely divine while it lasted. “Because you’re very attractive.”

They say honesty is the best policy, but it sure as hell had a knack for Todoroki making a complete and utter fool of himself.

In which Todoroki is placed under a mysterious truth-telling quirk and suffers, Uraraka laughs at him, Midoriya is confused but smitten nonetheless, and Twitter is the thirstiest site on the planet.

(complete)

i feel your warmth, and it feels like home by - orphan_account

The five times where Shouto remembers that Midoriya is more buff than he lets on.

(alternatively titled the-one-where-shouto-internally-nosebleeds-and-tries-to-act-casual)

(complete)

Trust Fall by - Esselle

' "So, on my signal then."

Midoriya laughs. "No signal. You just fall, and I catch."

"What?" Shouto asks. "But how will you know? What if you're not ready? What if—"

"It's about trust, Todoroki-kun," Midoriya says. Shouto can't see his face, but he senses there's a grin on it. "Do you trust me?" '

(complete)

KiriBaku

Can't Hear the Fireworks of Your Art by - cereal_whore

Bakugou's hearing is slowly deteriorating due to being in close proximity of his quirk, and his constant usage of it. After a visit to the doctors, it's concluded they can never reverse his hearing.

Everyone else: hol y sh ti hes dying (excluding Shinsou, who's too tired to care anymore and is at peace with the idea of Bakugou being the local cryptic)

Or: Bakugou literally disappears for one day, and everyone suddenly thinks he's dying even tho he just rlly needs a hearing aid. none of these hormonal teenagers have basic communication skills. Todoroki is also really trying his best in spite of Bakugou continuously calling him "Canadian Flag Fucker".

(ongoing)

kiss me on the lips by - Lulatic

“So, you’ve really never kissed anyone? Really?”

“No, okay? You fucking happy now? What does it even matter--”

“Would you like to?”

(complete)

★ The Beauty of a Beast by - starofjems

Once upon a time a lonely beast lived in a manor deep in the forest. He dreamed of the day his true love appeared to break his curse... When a beauty finally appears in his life, it is not quite as he imagined. For who could have thought a beauty would be more of a beast.

The beauty and the beast AU nobody asked for but here it is.

(complete)

Ghost Hunters by - PoutyBats

“What, like a ghost sex hotline?” Sero snorts.

“I mean, she was kinda cute-”

“I swear on my life if you don’t shut up I can guarantee that there will be three new ghosts in this house come morning!” Bakugou rubs his temples, aging by the minute.

Kirishima, Bakugou, Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero are part of a ghost hunting squad.

[kiribaku isn’t really the main focus, but it’s here anyways]

(complete)

Love Potion No. 9 by - I_dont_know_man

"It's alright bro, I get it. Not everybody can handle all this pure manliness." Kirishima flexed a hardened bicep facetiously, grinning like the idiot he most certainly was.

...

And Bakugou - Bakugou blushed.

For the mere second time in 17 years of life, no less, and he was pretty sure that blushing over accidentally calling All Might ‘dad’ that one time didn’t count. Bakugou was an aloof, detached, analytical sort of person. Bakugou didn’t fucking blush, alright?

Just what in the ever-loving fuck was going on here?!

In which Bakugou finds himself victim of a love spell, Kirishima tries his Best, and the entirety of Class 1A waits for the other shoe to drop.

(ongoing)

Multi/ Misc/ Minor Ship

★ Blue Monday by - Adox [multi]

Eight years ago, three boys went missing, only remembered by their disappearance. Unless you’re Izuku Midorya. After his (arguably) best friend Katsuki Bakugou vanished, he’s been searching. Hoping. Even after the investigation was closed. Three names ring clearly in his head.

Eijiro Kirishima.

Denki Kaminari.

Katsuki Bakugo.

Jiro loves her new family, they’re the only fosters who seem to give a shit. However, she can’t help but notice the picture frames turned on their side, and the child’s bedroom that hasn’t been touched in years.

Todoroki just wants to help his new friend, even if that means endangering his many, many scholarships.

And Bakugo waits.

(ongoing)

Karma in Retrograde by - Mistystarshine, ohmytheon [misc]

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

(ongoing)

A Night to Remember by - hanwritesstuff (hannahkannao) [multi]

“Huh?” Izuku narrows his eyes and looks at the poster. It doesn’t make sense when he first reads the words, when they first roll off his tongue. “‘Yuuei High School’s 24th Annual Future Heroes Gala’? What... is this?” He feels like he should know, but he can’t think straight after staying up so late last night.

“Well.” Kirishima grins. “When I saw the poster, I texted Amajiki-senpai and he told me all about it.”

There’s something particularly mischievous in his smile that has Izuku worried.

“Long answer, it’s pretty much the only school dance Yuuei has and it’s third-years only,” Kirishima continues, “It’s supposed to be a celebration of everything we’ve done over the past three years, so it’s super fancy and formal and there’s slow dancing and and stuff like that -”

“Short answer, it’s hero prom!” Hagakure interrupts, barely getting the words out before at least four people erupt into cheers.

(complete)

★ I want to kiss (your dumb fucking face) by - gingerbreadshinsou [shinsou/ monoma]

Monoma develops a big gay crush on Shinsou from afar and his life descends into absolute chaos

[The Monoma Neito coming-of-age fic absolutely no one asked for]

(ongoing)

[i know i have already put this one on another list, but it’s just so amusing!]

tell your boyfriend if he says he's got beef that i'm a vegetarian and i EAT LEAF by - hanwritesstuff (hannahkannao) [misc]

“Which one of you fuckers just AirDropped me loss?”

(complete)

★ shock your soul by - montparni [kamisero]

Twelve years of Halloween; or, Kaminari Denki grows up (but not too much), makes some memories, and learns to look right in front of his eyes.

(complete)

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! by - xX_KUUHAKU_Xx [kamisero]

"I could wear just my boxers and I'd win every round. Now let's play."

---

In which Sero and Kaminari decide to face off on a rock, paper, scissors game with beer and stripping being a part of it.

(complete)

Thus With a Kiss, I die by - DomineeringScarves

Kaminari finds himself head over heels for the newest addition to their class, Shinsou Hitoshi. Normally the flirty blonde would just present himself with open arms but there's a major problem with his infatuation. There's unspoken rules in 1-A and Kaminari is part of the Bakusquad...whereas Shinsou is a part of the Dekusquad. The two can't be together. It's just not possible. There's no way Bakugou would ever allow one of his extras to date Deku's friend.

There's only one thing left to do, give up and move on. Too bad Kaminari can't seem to escape Shinsou.

Aka the fic where Kaminari is Romeo and Shinsou is Juliet and they have to secretly date so their squads don't fall into an all out war.

(complete)

★★★

Aaaand thats a wrap! thanks for viewing and i hope you all found some fics that intrigue you!

Au revior!

#mha #my hero academia #ships #tododeku #kiribaku #kamisero #monoshin #midoirya izuku #todoroki shouto #katsuki bakugou #kirishima eijiro #dabi #kaminari denki #sero hanta #shinsou hitoshi #monoma neito #fic recs #my hero academia fic recs

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alegacyofmikalsons · 4 years

Text

The Act of Living Chp. 3: A Link of Fate

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and supported this, I've loved seeing your reactions to what is happening. As you can see this chapter is a flashback, I want to include some of these to give some background context for why Sera has the relationship to all of them that she does. I also wanna include some other important moments from her past that don't involve them as well. I'll probably be including these every three to four chapters, depending on where it would make sense to put this in the story.

I've already started the next chapter so hopefully it won't take quite as long to finish as these ones have.

Rating: Mature

Series Summary: Klaus and Elijah were supposed to die, but fate in the form of new friends Serafina Hewitt and her sister Stevie intervened. A year later Stevie is dead and Sera returns to New Orleans to see her friends and investigate her suspicions about what happened. When it’s confirmed that a powerful hunter group is responsible, she realizes a much bigger threat is coming, one that threatens all of New Orleans. As they race to stop it, she gets more than she bargained for, finding the truth about who she is and a growing attachment towards a certain Mikalson. Most importantly, they all get answers to the biggest riddle of all: what the act of living really means.

Link to Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/874712498-the-act-of-living-chapter-3-a-link-of-fate

@kinda-iconic @endlesshero1122 @bbchoices @katelynnicolerollins @im-a-bisexual-mess

If anyone else wants to be tagged in future chapters, please let me know and I’l add you!

New Orleans, LA - 2019

The streets teemed with locals and tourists alike as I searched for any signs of potential danger. In New Orleans, there was plenty to look out for. There were the normal creeps looking for a harmless young woman to bring home and the rogue vampire who didn't want to wait until midnight to obtain their refill. However, the thing that concerned me the most was the group of hunters who wanted me dead more than any other powerful being. While not a typical threat here, if they ever learned how important this place was to me they could become one.

"Are you sure we should be out here?" I asked.

Hearing a sigh, I finally glance over in time to catch my sister rolling her eyes. "Uh yes. Taking part in the nightlife here is practically a requirement."

We slowed to a stop as she looked at one of the bars along the street, Rousseau's.

"Says the person whose ID is fake?" I crossed my arms raising an eyebrow.

"Oh come on, that hasn't mattered before." When my expression didn't waver, she gave me a pout. "Come on. Don't be such a Debbie Downer Sera! We'll be fine, especially if I stay by you."

Letting out a sharp exhale, I muttered, "That's what everyone in Mirebrook thought too until Nemean showed up."

Until I gave my heart to the worst person I could have.

I didn't say that part out loud but, judging by the scowl forming on Stevie's face, I didn't have to.

"No," she stated, shaking her head adamantly. "We are not bringing them up, especially not James. In fact, you aren't going to think about them for the rest of this trip. It's not like they're going to follow us here. Even if they do, there aren't any large events this weekend for them to crash. So, let's just get out of that overactive mind of yours and have a good time. Who knows when we'll be able to come back."

This didn't ease my anxiety entirely, but she did make a dent in it. She was also right. I did love being in New Orleans again after twelve years. As soon as we drove into the city limits, I felt like I was returning home, something Mirebrook hadn't felt like in years.

"Fine," I told her after a minute. "But, we're leaving before midnight. You know what happens then. And if anything goes wrong, I'm blaming it on you."

A contagious grin spread across her face. "Deal. Now, is this place fine or should we walk further?"

I read the sign above the door once more turning my attention to the inside. I remembered it being popular when I was here last, at least with the underage crowd since they were pretty lenient. However, I was barely in high school when we left so, I didn't get to join in much. Most of the few parties I attended were in the Bayou.

"Yeah, this is fine," I told her with a nod. "Let's go before I change my mind."

Following her inside, the bar is already filled to the brim with loud conversations and dancing. After a minute, we were able to snag the last two open seats at the counter. I took the time to examine the surrounding scene. Everyone seemed to be having a good time with a live band playing a jazz tune.

"Sorry about the wait," I heard the bartender shout over the noise. Quickly, I turned back around to find her eyes carefully trained on us. "I'll have to see some ID, you both look a little young."

We both handed them over without a fuss. It didn't take much time at all for her to return Stevie's fake with a nod. However, when she got to my genuine card she paused, looking back and forth in disbelief.

I traded a knowing look with my sister. Ever since I was a teenager, I appeared younger than my real age, the difference becoming more prominent as I got older.

Finally, after another minute, the woman returned my card shaking her head. "Well, I'm not quite sure I believe it but, it looks legit"

"Yeah, I know. I get that a lot," I replied with a shrug. "It certainly isn't the strangest thing to find in this city."

The lady at the counter suppressed a laugh. "It definitely isn't. Anyway, what can I get you, ladies?"

"Rum and coke please," Stevie said, excitement tingling in her veins.

"And I'll have a Vieux Carre."

It was the Big Easy after all. But there was another sentimental reason why I picked the whiskey cocktail, it was our dad's signature. Since this trip was to honor him a year after his death, it felt right.

"Interesting choice. I'll have those ready as soon as I can. In the meantime, enjoy the entertainment. It's open mic tonight."

She turned away to make our drinks and I sighed, focusing my attention back on the stage where a man sprang up with a lively grin. As he approached the microphone, I raised my eyebrows.

Marcel Gerard.

Our parents talked about him frequently when we still lived here since he was running the supernatural scene. He implemented the rule banning witches from practicing magic, keeping Stevie from studying her spells for a few years and me from using dark magic. However, unlike many at the time, our parents didn't really protest the rule out in the open. While they didn't particularly like it, they understood where it was coming from, that the witches' added fuel to the ever-burning flame among the different factions. That ability to see every side is something they instilled in us and that I took to heart. So, Marcel often came to them when he needed a favor requiring magic, giving our family an exception in return.

"How's it going?" he exclaimed, causing the small crowd to cheer. "Who's ready for some music?"

Hearing the bartender shout that our drinks were ready, I took mine from the counter with a courteous smile. "Thanks."

Bringing the glass to my lips, I was surprised to find myself enjoying more than expected as I let it linger on my tongue. In fact, the more I tasted it, the more it became my new favorite.

Looking over, I noticed Stevie's face scrunched up in disgust. "Don't tell me you actually like that."

"What can I say," I answered, gladly having another sip. "Dad had good taste."

I frowned for a moment before shaking it off. This wasn't supposed to be sad, he wouldn't want that. As I scanned the masses of people, I couldn't help tapping to the beat. Music has always been a passion of mine since it was one of the few things I did that felt effortless. It was more feeling than thinking. Which, for my overactive mind was a needed comfort. Soon, only half of my drink was left and I willed myself to slow down, remembering to pace myself. My tolerance was high but, it wasn't roofless.

"Come, let's dance!" Stevie shouted, hopping off her stool.

I debated turning her down but, then I remembered I was supposed to be having a good time. Sighing, I stood up and took my drink with me.

"Oh, why not."

Wading through the crowd we managed to get ourselves relatively close to the stage. With a giggle, she spun me around, catching me off guard for a split second. She was definitely more buzzed than I was but, then again, she was a bit more of a lightweight and had less experience.

"Hey, take it easy, I am not losing my drink." I told her, trying not to encourage her antics with my laughter. "Or breaking a glass."

"You're no fun," she complained but, let go of my arm.

I rolled my eyes, continuing to dance on my own until the song ended. Pausing, I took a deep breath as my heart raced with an electric feeling. I hadn't been this happy in ages, not like this anyway. Realizing Stevie was no longer beside me, I glanced around a little concerned.

Then, I heard her voice shout from the other side of the dance floor. "Vincent!"

At the name I turned to see her approaching a long time friend of our parents, our dad especially. Smiling, I quickly made my way over being careful not to bump into anyone. When I arrived, I found them deep in conversation.

"Last time you were here, you were about this short and had bright pink braces," he told her.

She scowled, her nose wrinkling at the end. "Ugh, I'd like to forget that ever happened, thank you."

"That is definitely not going to happen, Stevie," I chimed in. "He's seen you in diapers. Something I didn't even get to witness."

Turning in my direction, the grin on his face widened. "Sera. It is sure good to see you in person."

I got pulled into a tight hug that filled me with nostalgia.

"It's good to see you too Vincent," I said once we separated. "Only took a death to bring us back."

A sad look entered his eyes and he swallowed. He and our dad were friends since they were both kids. "I still can't believe he's gone. It's been, what a year now?"

Vincent watched both of us grow up at least somewhat. In fact, he was the reason I was adopted at all. It was him I met first when he stopped by the foster home to donate some supplies. Then, my parents showed up the following week. I didn't know until years later that he was the one who encouraged them to do so. Without him, my whole life would be completely different.

Biting my lip I nodded. "Yeah, it certainly doesn't feel like it."

"Is Mary not here?" he asked, scanning the bar surrounding us.

Our mother.

"No, she didn't feel like coming with us tonight," I replied. "Not really her scene. But, she did plan for all of us to come to visit tomorrow. I hope that's okay."

His expression brightened once more. "Of course it is. She actually already ran it by me the other day, wanted to make sure I would be available. Tell her I look forward to seeing her."

"I will." Taking another sip of my drink, I asked, "So, are you here with anyone, or are you drinking by yourself?"

Hesitating, Vincent ran a hand along the back of his neck. "I'm actually meeting up with...a family I know. The one I've complained about before."

Suppressing a smirk, I remarked, "Ah, so they're what...frenemies?"

"You could say that. One of them invited me and I couldn't really say no. She can be a bit persuasive."

I raised my eyebrows in interest. "Oh, I hope we're not keeping you from them."

"You're not, I'm still waiting for them to arrive," he replied with a half-hearted chuckle. "Actually, why don't you can stick around and I'll introduce them to you. You actually might get along which would be very helpful for me."

I let out an aggravated sigh. "Vince, I am not going to be your pawn for ass-kissing. I have to do that enough at home, I do not need more." However, I found myself becoming curious about these acquaintances. "But, I will meet them, only because I want to. From what you've told me, they sound interesting."

"Yeah, that's...definitely a word for it. More like dangerous and cruel when provoked."

Well, now I was definitely interested. "Is that supposed to make me dislike them? Because it is not working. I can be like that if the impulses take over, you know that. That doesn't necessarilly make me a bad person."

He flashed a disapproving look at me. He always tried to steer me away from the dark energy's effect on my desires. I didn't necessarily love that part of myself either but, I'd accepted its presence a while ago. It was a part of who I was. Plus, the more I used it, the more I learned to control it.

A wave of cheering and applause erupted around us and I looked just in time to see the person currently onstage finishing their song.

Marcel hopped back up as the noise died down slightly. "We'll be taking a five-minute break but, after that, since there are no more names on the list here, anyone can come up to play something."

Vincent glanced in that direction before giving me a grin. "You should go up there Sera."

"What, me?" I stammered as a subtle warmth grew in my cheeks. Then, I shook my head, mild anxiety coursing through me. "I don't...not in front of all these people."

It wasn't a lack of confidence that held me back, but the prospect of being noticed because that led to prejudice. During my childhood and adolescence, most of the attention I received from strangers and acquaintances were for things I didn't want to be known for. Actions I couldn't control. It was easier to be invisible, without any expectations or labels being placed on me. I wanted to be able to choose how moral I wanted to be, without the restriction of reputation.

"Come on sis," Stevie exclaimed, her eyes pleading once more. "You have the voice of a goddess. One of these days you're going to have to let the world hear it. Plus, I know how much you enjoy it."

I pressed my lips together. "That's not..." Once again this evening, the lessons I've given her on rhetoric backfired. "I don't even have an instrument with me."

Vincent shrugged this off, the determination now fierce in his eyes. "That's not a problem. The guitar up there is for anyone to use."

Looking back at the stage, I found what he was referring to and let out a silent gasp. It was one of the nicest ones I'd ever seen. The wood was a beautiful brown color with black on the edges. It was of good quality and the right amount of worn-in too. As soon as I saw it, my fingers itched with the temptation to pick it up.

"I see that look Sera," he said, snapping me out of my daze. "Do it for me will you? I haven't heard you live yet, just the recordings your parents sent me."

I peered back at the stage, as my resolve began to dissolve. The desire to create, that euphoric feeling, it tugged until I had to say yes. It was one of the more common ways my blood influenced me.

After a minute, I sighed. "Oh, alright. One song."

Stevie let out another squeal, spinning me around until I was slightly dizzy. "I win again." Setting me down, her gaze turned bittersweet for a second. "Will you sing one of Dad's favorites?"

I found myself swallowing a dry lump as I nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."

Clearing my throat, I finish off the last of my drink, handing the glass to her. Then, I approached the stage, nerves crawling all over my stomach. The person with the clipboard, a boy around my age, looked up with a sloppy grin. His eyes roamed my figure appreciatively. Instinctively, I tensed ever so slightly.

"Well hello, to you. Interested?" he crooned, tilting his head towards the small stage. His hair was slicked back with too much gel that it needed.

He reminded me a little too much of J...no. I needed to stop thinking about him. About what he did.

Feigning a smile, I nodded. "I am. What do I have to do?"

"Just sign here with your name and the song you're doing," he said, his words blurring together. "You'll be up first when we resume things."

I simply took the pencil from him and jotted the information down. "Anything else?"

"Nope, just wait here until we call for you. Won't be too long." He leaned in, more than a little too close for comfort. "You have a vibe, you know. Mysterious, dark. I like it."

"Oh really? I hadn't noticed," I quipped deliberately taking a step back. "Let me save you some effort, I'm not interested."

He responded by letting out a chuckle. "Oh come on, I won't disappoint. At least let me buy you a drink." He inched forward once more, even closer than last time.

Strong coils of dread seized my stomach as the urge to do something violent took over.

"What part of 'I'm not interested' don't you understand?" I hissed with a glare.

Making sure no one was paying attention, I kept my eyes on him as I concentrated on the dark energy lying in my veins until it stirred ever so slightly. His smirk vanished as his eyes widened, no doubt noticing how my eyes had darkened and the orange glow.

"What the--?" Before he could finish his face contorted in visible pain as the blood boiled beneath his skin. "Ow!"

I continued for a little longer then released him to gasp and shudder. "Keep your hands to yourself, and we won't have any more problems. Is that clear?"

He let out an agonized groan. "Yes, I got it, thank you."

"Good." Smiling, I walked away to the other side of the stage to wait.

"Okay everyone, who's ready for more music?" Marcel eventually exclaimed setting off a loud cheer. "Now up onstage we have, Serafina Hewitt, singing Neon Moon."

Taking a deep breath, I climbed up on the black platform and grabbed the guitar from the hand, slipping it around me. Feeling the comfort of the instrument in my hands I relaxed enough to approach the microphone with a nervous smile.

"This is for my dad, Anthony Hewitt," I said, my voice wavering.

I pulled up the stool at the back of the stage and sat down, adjusting the mic stand until it sat perfectly in line an inch or so away. I took out the pic I always kept in the pocket of my jeans, mainly as a good luck charm, and placed my hands in the right position. Searching the bar, I found my sister and Vincent who were now at the counter joined by several people. They had to be the family he wanted me to meet. This made the nerves increase but, I pushed past them.

Closing my eyes, I strummed the first chords. "When the sun goes down on my side of town, that lonesome feeling comes to my door, and the whole world...turns blue. And there's a run down bar across the railroad tracks, I got a table for two way in the back...where I sit alone...and I think of losing you. I spend most every night beneath the light of a neon moon." I felt myself smile and start to let go as the chorus came in fully. "If you lose your one and only, there's always room here for the lonely. To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams of a neon moon."

Now, I as I looked out, the stares of the people listening didn't matter anymore. Everything drowned out except me and the music until all too soon, I approached the end.

"To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams of a neon moon." I played the last note, letting it reverberate in silence.

Once it died, I sat back with a smile as people began to clap enthusiastically. It made me a bit sheepish but, not as terrified as I was in Mirebrook whenever I played at the local café.

"Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your night." I placed everything back where I found it and climbed down to reunite with Stevie and Vincent.

After a minute, I finally made it through.

"Okay Vince you were right," I said.

He looked in my direction his grin straining his cheeks. "Sera, that was amazing. Had the whole place in the palm of your hand."

"Thanks," I responded, tucking a loose strand behind my ear.

Once again I soon found Stevie's arms wrapped around tightly threatening to cut off my air supply. "I knew you would kill it!"

"And you are killing my lungs right now," I wheezed, and she immediately let go.

"Sorry, I couldn't help it! You were just so good."

Laughing dryly, I remarked, "Yeah, I know you can't help depriving me of oxygen."

As she stuck her tongue out at me, I turned my attention to the people I'd noticed earlier speaking to themselves. Now that I had a good look at their faces, I knew I'd seen them before, in my head. Not from my memories but theirs. After a beat, I realized with surprise who they were.

Oh my god. The Mikalsons.

I knew their story well, anyone who grew up within a school for the mystic did. But, the other version I received painted a more holistic, human picture of them. The two certainly had similarities, such as the endless number of people they'd killed over the centuries. But, they also had differences. I started receiving their memories back in high school after we started to cover them in supernatural history. The first was a painful one from ages ago, probably around the time they first were turned. The intensity of it all woke me up, and I'd been unable to stop thinking about it the rest of the night and following morning. Then, in class that afternoon, I began to question what they were telling me. I wondered just how much information was hyperbolic.

After that, I continued to see them almost daily until the end of that unit. After that, they occasionally showed up though it was only once every few months now. Strangely, I didn't mind. For some reason, I felt like I could sometimes relate to what they went through. Balancing the different parts of yourself, having this darkness that sometimes took over. Even letting it when it was easier to forget you had a heart.

I caught myself staring, and I blinked, willing myself to look away before one of them noticed. The last thing I wanted to do was make them feel uncomfortable. I decided that I'd wait to judge them until we talked. Lord knows I would love someone to look past the demon blood and destructive powers for once.

Glancing at Vincent once more, I raised my eyebrows in interest. "So, Vince, you promised me an introduction to these friends of yours, did you not?"

"I did," he replied. "Let's see, we have Freya, Rebekah, Kol, Elijah, and last but not the least Klaus." I followed along silently as he named each of them. "And this is Serafina. She's Tony and Mary's other daughter."

"The adopted one I presume?" Klaus commented, his grin widening.

He received a punch on the arm from Rebekah. "Nik! You can't just say that. Excuse my brother he has the manners of a two-year-old."

I shrugged it off.

"Oh it's fine," I answered with a laugh. "It's something I don't mind people pointing out. It doesn't make a difference they're the only family I've really had."

"I presume you don't know your birth parents then?" Elijah observed in mild curiosity.

Getting lost in his inquisitive stare, it was a minute before I responded. "I don't know anything about them really."

I scolded myself for being so flustered all of a sudden. Though I had to admit, his eyes were captivating, even more in person. I snapped out of it, noticing the smirk on his face.

"Except that, at least one of them isn't human, right? Or did that poor fellow suffer an aneurysm all by himself?"

So much for being subtle. At least I didn't have to feel guilty about my knowledge of them. Hearing Stevie snickering next to me, I pursed my lips.

"No, that was me," I admitted freely. "Though I figured it was that or breaking his hand when he put it on me without my permission."

This received some more laughter from his siblings and even an impressed look from Rebekah. "Sounds like the bastard deserved it then."

I found myself smiling at this. No wonder Vincent couldn't get rid of them.

"I sure thought so." I returned my gaze to Elijah. "Now, I'm guessing what you really want to know is what I am."

He opened his mouth then closed it. "You could say that. Usually, it's a bit more noticeable. Vampire I'm guessing?"

"Demon, actually," I answered. "Well, a half-blooded one anyway, but that just means we work up here, on Earth. We absorb malevolent souls which transports them to Hell. It also gives us a little more power for a short amount of time."

He almost choked on his drink, his eyebrows raised once more. "Demon...I knew you existed but I don't think we've ever met one."

I feigned shock. "Even with that thousand-year life span? That's...a bit surprising," I replied with a smug look.

Now he was the flustered one which only increased the satisfaction.

"Ah, so you do know who we are," Klaus laughed.

I scoffed loudly. "Of course I do, you're the Mikalsons. What supernaturally gifted person hasn't? I mean you're taught in schools now these days." I ignored Vincent's cautionary stare. "I just didn't feel the need to point it out until now."

"There's no need to be shy love," he chuckled to himself. "Most people make it known either in disgust or fear."

Shrugging, I remarked, "Yes, well, I try not to be like most people. And from outside research, I know the people who wrote the story of you have a bit of a bias. So, while my lessons were entertaining, they haven't influenced too much." The stranger sitting on the barstool next to Freya left and I immediately took his place. "See, not bothered. In fact, I kinda like you. Now, I'm gonna need another drink."

This was met with an array of smiles including from Elijah. "The feeling's mutual."

There's no way I could be Vincent's little spy now. It was an innate pull as if the universe wanted to forge a link between us, a link of fate. However, I wouldn't know why until years later. When the thing that I once hated would prove to be exactly what they needed.

#the originals #elijah mikalson #elijah Mikalson x oc

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ticklishfanfictions · 5 years

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The Tickle Monster - Supernatural

“Hey, Dean, I think I found us a case,” Sam said. He threw a newspaper down on the table and pointed to the headline. “Fredericksburg, Texas. Woman was killed, but nobody knows how.” “Probably just another accident,” Dean replied, completely uninterested. Sam sighed. “That’s not all. Three more dead in the past week. All of them were found dead... smiling.” Dean looked up from his laptop. “Huh. That’s weird.” “Yeah, and nobody knows what killed them. I say we drive there.” Dean nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever.” “You okay, man?” Sam asked. Dean shrugged. “Just didn’t sleep well last night. Let’s go check it out.” AT FREDERICKSBURG “I... I don’t know why I have to answer these questions,” she said, nearly in tears. “I already talked to the police.” “It’s, uh, a private investigation,” Dean responded. “Mrs. Wellington, did you notice anything odd or out of place the night your sister was killed?” Sam asked. Alyssa Wellington shook her head. “No. She was normal. Everything was normal.” “When did you last see her?” “She got home from work at 6 PM,” Alyssa, who couldn’t have been more than 25 years old, replied. “We had dinner.” “What did you eat?” Dean asked. “Why does that matter?” “We just want to know all the details,” Dean said. “We had chicken noodle soup,” Alyssa replied. “After dinner, she said she was going out with Larry for ice cream.” “Who’s Larry?” Sam questioned. “Her boyfriend,” Alyssa told them. “That was the last time I saw her.” “Did Larry and Rachel have a happy relationship?” Dean knew this was a personal question, but he also knew it could be a lead. “Yes, they loved each other,” Alyssa responded. “Rachel would always come home from her dates all happy and excited... to be honest, I’d never seen her so happy.” The young woman wiped a tear from her face. “You are her older sister, correct?” Sam asked. Alyssa nodded. “And... and we loved each other, too. More than anything.” “Did Rachel have any enemies?” Dean questioned. Alyssa’s face hardened. “No. Nobody I know would do this to her.” She sighed. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.” “Thank you, ma’am,” Sam said. Him and Dean walked out of her house calmly. “So what are you thinking?” Dean asked once they had walked for a little while. “I don’t know. I mean, smiling victims? And Alyssa said everything was normal.” “You think it was the boyfriend?” Dean wondered aloud. Sam shook his head. “No. I have a feeling it’s something I’ve never seen before.” “Hello, boys,” a voice said. Dean and Sam spun around to face a young girl. She looked about sixteen years old. Her hair was short and straightened. She was carrying a black purse. “Uh... hi,” Sam replied. “Can I help you?” “I think so,” the girl said. “You’re the Winchesters, right?” Dean and Sam looked at each other for a minute, then looked back at the girl. “And who might you be?” Dean asked. “What, you don’t recognize me?” She sighed. “Of course you don’t. That stupid demon never told you anything.” Sam exchanged a look with Dean. “What are you talking about? What do you know?” “I know what you’re hunting. And I can help you,” the girl said. “What’s your name?” Dean asked after a moment’s pause. “Kennedy. Nice to meet you,” she said. Sam nodded. “Yeah. So, uh, you mentioned a demon...” Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I’m nothing like him.” “Nothing like who?” Dean wanted to know. “I’m forbidden from saying his name. He is my father, and he punished me one time with a curse. I cannot say his name,” Kennedy said. “But I can give you a hint.” She turned to Sam. “Moose.” Turning to Dean, she said, “squirrel.” Sam and Dean stared at each other with wide eyes. Kennedy sighed and looked down. “Look, I told you I’m nothing like him,” she repeated. “I just need you to trust me. I can help you.” “Oh, can you, now?” Dean asked threateningly. “You tell you father to burn in Hell.” “Dean,” Sam warned. “I hate him as much as you do,” Kennedy explained. “As I got older, I wondered what he did all day and why he was never home with me. When I was about... eleven or twelve, I found out what my dad was doing as a job. I disapproved. He killed a lot of people... especially hunters. I need to avenge their deaths.” For once, Dean had nothing to say. Sam looked into the teenager’s eyes. “Alright. You can help us,” Sam said. “What are we hunting?” Kennedy sighed. “You won’t like it. How about we go back to your motel first? We can talk there.” Sam nodded in agreement. “Are you crazy?” Dean exclaimed. “This is Crowley’s secret daughter!” “Dude. Trust me on this one,” Sam told him before getting in the front of the Impala. Kennedy sat in the back. Dean rolled his eyes before getting in the car and driving, blasting the radio as always. AT THE MOTEL “So what is it?” Sam wanted to know. He sat down on the bed next to Kennedy. Dean sat across from them both. “Which one of you is older?” Kennedy asked. Sam pointed at Dean. Dean smirked and nodded. “Means I can kick his ass.” “Well, you’re screwed, Sammy,” Kennedy told him. Sam narrowed his eyes in confusion. “It goes after the youngest sibling first,” Kennedy said. “Then, if it needs more, which is unlikely, it’ll go for the older sibling. If there’s an only child, it leaves it alone. It feeds off of laughter.” “What is this thing?” Dean asked. “A tickle monster,” Kennedy replied calmly. Dean chuckled. “Yeah, right. Come on, Sam, let’s get her out of here.” Sam looked at Dean expectantly. “Dude, all the victims were smiling.” “The tickle monster isn’t real,” Dean claimed. “I’m the only one you’ll ever know, Sammy.” He smirked and winked at Sam, who groaned as he looked back at Kennedy. “You don’t have to believe me,” Kennedy said to Dean. “But your little brother here is probably next on the list, so I would either gank this thing or get the hell out of Fredericksburg.” “How do we gank it?” Sam asked. “Silver hurts it. Fire kills it,” Kennedy responded. “How do you know all this?” Dean questioned. “Cause I’ve come in contact with one myself. Unfortunately, I’m also the younger sibling,” Kennedy admitted. “Rachel was the youngest,” Sam said. “How do we kill this thing before it hurts anyone else?” “Easy,” Kennedy replied with a grin. “Bait.” THAT NIGHT IN THE WOODS “You guys know the plan?” Kennedy asked. Dean nodded. “I’m ready if you are.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you be the bait?” “Aw, is wittle Sammy afwaid of a few wittle tickles?” Dean teased. “Must be nice, being the oldest,” Kennedy sighed. “Sam, it’s time.” “See you on the other side,” Sam said before walking into the woods and disappearing from our sights. About a minute of silence later, Dean started walking in the general direction that Sam was going in. “Hey! What are you doing? This isn’t part of the plan!” Kennedy whisper-yelled. “Sam needs us. I feel it,” Dean replied. Nothing could prepare them for what they saw next. Sam Winchester was tied with vines to a giant oak tree as a terrifying tickle monster dug into his underarms. Sam let out a loud screech before bursting into unmanly laughter. He yelled through his laughter to them. Kennedy giggled and watched as Sam kept laughing. Suddenly, the tickle monster changed tactics and launched a full-on tickle attack on Sam’s knees. This being his worst spot by far, the youngest Winchester literally screamed before guffawing in laughter. Sam’s entire body jerked around, desperately trying to escape the sensations that felt like tickly electric shocks to him. Sam knew he couldn’t take it much longer. After about thirty seconds, his body went limp and he went into silent laughter. It was then that Dean whacked the tickle monster with a silver pole. The monster yelled out in pain before sprinting towards Dean, leaving Sam tied up and helpless. Dean shouted out in surprise as the scary tickle monster quickly tied him up. He didn’t waste a second and attacked Dean’s ribs, making him squeal like a girl and hold his breath to hold back his laughter. The Winchesters had always been extremely ticklish. They got that from Mary. This trait didn’t benefit Dean, who nearly broke when the tickle monster found that one spot on his upper ribs right below his armpits. Dean barely managed to keep his laughter inside when the monster dragged his claws over his ribs, focusing on that one spot. That is, he controlled it until the monster dug into his ribs with a newfound strength. Dean screamed in surprise and sensitivity as the tickle monster zapped that spot on his upper ribs. He hadn’t been tickled in so long that he’d nearly forgotten what it’d felt like, and he was not at all used to it. No, this felt like electric shocks that made Dean jerk to the left when his right rib was squeezed, and jerk to the right when his left rib was squeezed, and the torturous cycle just kept repeating itself. “SAHAHAHAHAHAHAM!” Dean screamed. “Kennedy!” Sam yelled, struggling to get free from the vines. Kennedy didn’t respond; she was busy rolling around the floor laughing. “Just wait... till I tell my father... about this...” Kennedy wheezed, slapping her knee as she burst into laughter. “You bitch,” Sam muttered. Kennedy smirked as she stood up. “I knew you boys had a weakness besides family. So did Crowley. He just didn’t know what. But I’ve finally figured it out.” “Please,” Sam begged, turning his head towards Dean, who was in hysterics. “You have to help him. Crowley doesn’t want us dead.” Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Oh, alright. Shurale, leave him.” The tickle monster suddenly stopped tickling Dean and walked towards Kennedy. The little girl wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “You control that thing?” Sam gasped. This was the last thing he’d expected, even if the girl had been Crowley’s daughter. Dean was just as shocked, but he was still recovering from the tickling. “Of course I do, Sammy,” Kennedy said with a grin. “How else would I know exactly where he would be? Oh, and iron doesn’t hurt him any more than it hurts us. Of course, whacking anyone with silver will be quite painful, and he’s easily angered.” Kennedy gently stroked the creature’s skin. “Okay, well, can you at least untie us?” Sam asked. “Please?” “Aw, he begs!” Kennedy chuckled. “What do you think, Shurale?” All of a sudden, the tickle monster let out a loud shriek and sprinted straight towards Sam. Sam yelled out in surprise as the tickle monster started tickling his stomach. He instantly started laughing, not able to hold it back. “Hey, hey, Kennedy...” Dean panted. “I know there was some truth to what you said earlier. About disapproving what your dad was doing.” Kennedy was silent as she stared at the ground. Sam, on the other hand, suddenly screamed as the tickle monster went for the kill, digging into his stomach with no mercy. Sam desperately tried to escape. “Crowley’s not a good person. The things he does aren’t right. And you don’t have to be like him. You should make your own decisions,” Dean continued, trying to ignore his brother’s shrieks. Kennedy glared at him. “Shurale, GET HIM!” As the tickle monster ran towards Dean, he jerked around in his bonds. “No, no, no. Kennedy, we can talk about this.” “Already talked.” The tickle monster dug its fingers into Dean’s overly sensitive hips, making him yelp and go completely limp. “H-hey...” Sam managed to say through his rapid breaths. “You don’t have to follow Crowley’s orders.” “Shut up, Winchester!” Kennedy shouted before hurrying over to Dean, who was nearly dying of laughter. “Shurale. Armpits. Now.” Dean gasped as the tickle monster attacked his armpits. He was still laughing, but now he actually made some noise, proving that he could breathe. Kennedy leaned towards Dean’s ear and whispered quietly. Sam struggled to escape as he saw Kennedy squeezing the older Winchester’s hips, making him squeal and kick his legs out like a little kid. To Dean, it felt like a series of electric jolts. And he was completely helpless to the feeling. There was nothing he could do except listen to Kennedy’s words in his ear. He could barely focus on them because of her devilish hands tickling his hips in the most ticklish way possible. Dean has been shaking his head, trying to escape the sensations, but by the time Kennedy had leaned away from his ear, Dean was rapidly nodding. Kennedy grabbed one of the vines and pulled it ever so slightly. Sam was relieved when Dean managed to get one of his hands free and punched Kennedy in the face. It was a little messed up, considering she was a child, but Sam couldn’t care less at this point. Dean yanked at the vines, still laughing from the tickle monster. All of a sudden, the Shurale reared up with a howl and ran towards Sam. He started attacking Sam’s feet, making him yell and squirm. Sam’s entire body shook, even though the Shurale’s fingers only ran lightly over Sam’s feet. He couldn’t stand it and threw his head back in laughter. In the next five seconds, Dean got free from the vines and sprinted towards Sam. He grabbed his hunting knife and stabbed the Shurale in the back. “Backstabber,” Sam muttered, still panting as the tickle monster faded into the abyss. Gone. Dead. Dean chuckled. “Bitch.” “Jerk.” Sam jumped down from the tree. “Where’s Kennedy?” “Gone,” Dean responded. “What? How... she couldn’t have gone far. We have to go after her!” Sam exclaimed. Dean shook his head. “No. Dude, that thing was going to kill me. She saved my life.” “Oh, really?” Sam said, cocking his head to the side. “When was that? While she was tickling the crap out of you? While she was tickling the crap out of me? When?” “Sam, just listen, alright?” Dean started. “You know my hips are my worst spot. That thing would have killed me. She made it switch to my underarms, which aren’t nearly as bad.” “I beg to differ,” Sam muttered under his breath. Dean rolled his eyes. “She told me I was right. She hates Crowley’s guts. She doesn’t want to be like him. But Sam, he’s threatened her. He’ll kill her if she defies him.” “Seriously?” Sam gasped. “How do you know she’s not lying?” “I don’t,” Dean said. “But it’s messed up. She’s sixteen. She’s being threatened by her father, who is the King of Hell.” “Crowley’s dead,” Sam argued. “No, he faked his death again,” Dean told him. Sam rolled his eyes. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” “We have to help her.” Sam laughed. “After what she did to us? Hell no.” “Fine. I’ll help her myself. You’re just too damn ticklish,” Dean said with a chuckle. Sam shook his head. “You’re one to talk. Within thirty seconds of your hips being poked, you were done for.” “Same with you and your knees. Be glad I saved your ass,” Dean replied. “Bitch.” “Jerk.”

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feelingsdusk-writes · 6 years

Text

According to plan

(For the Hunter AU square)

The very first thing Stiles does when he finally gets back on his own two feet and has things more or less on track, can’t be defined as anything other than a form of self-torture.

He shouldn’t be doing this, he promised himself he wouldn’t. He was going to spy on the Argents and…

When he started two days ago, he tried to be at the very least a little bit inconspicuous when he spied his mother on her daily walks through the park. Now he’s just sitting on a wooden bench, dying a little more inside with each passing minute.

She’s beautiful and he didn’t know how much his memory of her was skewed by the lack of pictures and the ugliness that her sickness had brought, until he saw her for the first time two days ago. What’s even more heart wrenching, is that he can’t do a thing to help her. No matter how much magic and runes and rituals he has learned, when he skips town, he will be leaving her to pain and suffering and, eventually, to death.

“Everything all right there, son?” Stiles covers a minute flinch and sighs, because he should have expected this. He has been watching her like a weirdo stalker for three days now, after all, it was bound to be noticed.

“Just trying to figure some things out,” he answers quietly without turning to face his dad. He doesn’t think he can handle it, knowing that he won’t be able to call him that ever again.

(He reminds himself ruthlessly that, back in his own time, he couldn’t call him that anymore either.)

“And how is that going?”

Stiles doesn’t have to look at him to know he has adopted his classic cop pose, it transfers to his tone of voice quite clearly. His lips involuntarily twitch but the momentary mirth leaves a sour taste in his mouth too.

“Not so good… but not so bad either.”

Because the damn ritual worked, even if it left him naked and without everything he had prepared (money, clothes, provisions) besides the knowledge in his brain in the middle of a field in Kansas. Ah, and like ten years prior to when he intended to arrive. The last half year hadn't fun at all, but he managed somehow to start from zero.

“Could be worse then?”

“Definitely,” he snorts.

The ritual could have failed and he could be dead. Opposed to that, even having to skulk around Kansas stark naked in the dark, having to steal underwear and other necessities is better. He sighs.

There’s a beat of silence and he doesn’t need to look at his father to know he’s debating with himself about something. He knows his tells like the back of his hand, after all, and this younger John Stilinski, even untouched by grief over his wife’s death, isn’t that different in some aspects.

“Do you need help, son?" he finally asks, and Stiles wonders what his father is seeing in him, a complete stranger (and a very suspicious one at that, who has been stalking his wife for days), to ask that question with that level of concern. "That was a very dramatic sigh there.”

Even after everything, some childish part of Stiles that he has never managed to kill completely still sees his dad as some kind of superhero that can win against anything. He wants to turn around and ask him to fix this mess, to give him back his time, his life, to lift this responsibility to fix everything off his shoulders.

He closes his eyes tiredly and wets his lips. He forces himself to sit up, still not looking at the man. His mother laughs ahead. At this time, either they’re trying to get pregnant or he isn’t even an idea.

“Son?“ His father tense voice reaches him and he sighs again.

This is his reward, he tells himself. To have a new untainted memory of his mother and his father is priceless. So he can remember her smile and laughter without the ugliness of her sickness. So he can remember his warm expression without being tainted sour by their issues or broken and bloodied. It’s a reward and a blessing, he repeats to himself, so that he can, maybe, close his eyes and see that image instead.

He turns around.

Afterwards, he tracks the Nemeton to check on it. The Hales and Deaton must be doing the maintenance, because he doesn’t have to purify it like he feared. The Nogitsune is another thing entirely, though. Either they don’t know of its presence or they don’t know how to deal with it, but it doesn't matter which of those it really is, because both of them are equally bad. Part of Stiles wants to kill it and be done with it; another part of him recognizes that being undeservingly trapped for seventy years (sixty now) can twist anything and anyone.

He releases and cleanses it, performing the ritual to satiate its need for revenge and lets it go. The Nogitsune vanishes with a considering look, but doesn’t say a thing. Stiles places wards where he knows they won’t be found before leaving, so if anyone with ill intent comes near the Nemeton he will know instantly.

He stays in town for a couple more days, looking into the Argents. It’s almost disgustingly easy to lose his tail. He gives his father props for the tenacity, he supposes, but he’s been doing this since he was twelve.

After getting all the information he can (gotta love magic and detection runes, he could have been sitting in their dining room with them and they wouldn’t have noticed a thing), he debates with himself for a bit before he gives in. He buys one of those cheap one use cameras. The moment he finally takes a picture of them as a family, he skips town as fast as he can. In Yuba City, he waits until he’s back at his motel room to look at the printed picture and he breaks out crying.

He keeps the printed photograph in his ratty wallet and a memory stick with the scanned version on a chain around his neck, both of them with enough wards to make anyone who tries to steal them from him vaporize.

—

He crosses the entire Sacramento Valley until he reaches Redding. That night at a seedy bar on the outskirts of town, with a nearly untouched beer in his hand, he tries to figure out what to do now.

It was a simple enough plan, really. Fool proof, even. Get back in time, kill Gerard and Kate, stopping the Hale fire and the creation of the alpha pack in one neat move. Maybe stop the whole Paige debacle? Easy peasy.

No such luck.

For starters, he doesn’t even know where Gerard is. From what he has learned, at the moment he’s part of the Tribunal’s hunters and he has been sent who knows where. Kate is a bratty fifteen year old girl, not yet out of high school and still under the wing of Alexandrine, the current Argent Matriarch. Chris has already been working under another experienced Tribunal hunter for two years now and Stiles doesn't have the means to track him down.

It gets him wondering, when did things go south with them? He can’t know about Chris, because he hasn’t encountered him yet, but Kate looks like a normal bratty teenager. A little acerbic and sarcastic, yes, but there are no tells of psychopathic behavior at all, so he’s been thrown for a loop. He would bet all his money (which admittedly is not much at the moment) that grandpapa Argent (well, at the moment only papa because Allison hasn’t even been conceived yet) has something to do with that. Something must have happened to Alexandrine, leaving the path open to Gerard to manipulate Kate into the psychopath they all know and hate. Whatever happened, though, it’s in the near future and it probably didn’t touch Chris too much because he’s already out of the nest so to speak. Or that's what he guesses happened, in any case, because it's not like Chris was all unicorns and rainbows at first... or ever, really, even if he somewhat mellowed with time.

That is not to say that the current Argents are pro supernatural, but they seem more tolerant? He supposes there’s a very ample range of views but at least they seemingly adhere to the Code to the letter. Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent. The Matriarch is an iron fisted lady about it, as far as he could tell from the three conversations he spied on.

One of those conversations was with newly minted Alpha Talia Hale, so full of rigid politeness and very, very, veiled insults and diplomatic bullshit, that it could be almost considered a new form of art. Stiles was reluctantly impressed with the verbal ninja arts and almost sorry for Talia for the way Alexandrine dominated the conversation.

The other two were telephone conversations with hunters under her command about a wendigo up north that further cemented the fact that they followed the Code. The second of which, by the way, was an epic tongue lashing so sarcastic and dry that it nearly reduced him to tears from the laughter and he had to leave before he got caught towards the end of it.

His lips twitch remembering it and he snorts into the mouth of his beer bottle, making the sound reverberate weirdly.

But back to the situation at hand, he thinks, sobering. Bottom line, he doesn’t know what to do. Does he only kill Gerard? Because something doesn’t sit right with offing Kate, that’s for sure. Also, maybe Gerard isn’t a bad person and something happened that twisted him? Stiles groans. He can’t believe he’s contemplating saving that man, it’s even worse than leaving Kate be. It leaves an incredibly sour taste in his mouth.

Stiles takes a swig from the bottle and grimaces. Damn, he hates beer. He doesn’t even know why he ordered it in the first place. He sighs.

The whole debating and pondering is pointless without the information he needs. He can’t make a proper decision lacking in that department, so he has to investigate. And for that, he has to locate Gerard. He knows for a fact that, at this point in time, the Tribunal’s headquarters are located in Atlanta, so what better place to start than that?

He sits up from the bar stool and heads for the exit after a nod to the barman that goes largely ignored. He shrugs nonplussed and goes to the parking lot. He eyes the sky, full with heavy dark clouds, and tries to remember in which direction was the motel. He really needs to get a car, he thinks as he takes a moment to mourn for his Roscoe. He really wants to invest in one because not only does he hate hitchhiking, but he could use it to sleep. Even gas money would be cheaper than paying for a motel when he can’t sleep outside. However, right now his financial balance is so close to zero that even paying for a beer feels like splurging. Winter hasn’t been fun with limited resources, that’s for sure.

A movement at the edge of his vision has him turning. No attacks come, but for some reason he’s instantly alert. A woman emerges from the dark and his first reaction is to rush to her bloodied and abused form. He squashes it ruthlessly. Something’s wrong.

“Help,” she whispers brokenly, her hand reaching out to him.

Ah, damn, he remembers. That wendigo up north. He takes the toothpick from his mouth and pricks his finger on it. He pretends not to notice how she takes a deep breath at the slight smell of blood.

“What happened, miss?“ he slurs faking concern and a slight drunkenness (he can’t overdo it in case she has been observing him), but makes no move to approach her, seemingly looking around to locate the threat. “Who did this to you?”

“A man… a man,” she sobs. “Can you help me? I need a hospital.”

“Ah, damn, I have no car, sorry! Maybe someone at the bar, I'll go get…”

She must be starving, because she launches herself at him before he can even finish turning. He sidesteps her, her nails leaving a bloody imprint on his face, and twists her arm behind her. He drives the toothpick into the base of her skull in a one swift move and she instantly drops.

Applause rings in the silent parking lot.

—

“With a toothpick.”

Stiles covers a snort and the hunter in the room with him looks at him suspiciously, still aiming the shotgun at him covertly. The doctor looks up from the wendigo briefly and continues his examination. He keeps the surveillance rune tattoo activated and listens to Adam (apparently the same one mama Argent flailed for losing the wendigo in Crescent City) talk.

“Yes, madame,” he answers, not entirely able to keep the incredulity out of his voice. “Doc says that just a millimeter off in any direction and he would have failed.” Well, that was what his blood was for, after all. Perfect placement and an undetectable charged shot to the brain that killed instantly. “We knew he’s experienced from the moment he didn’t rush to it like a civvie or a rookie would, though… and when he didn’t overdo the drunken act.”

“Name?”

“No papers, madame.”

“And?” she prompts impatiently after a beat of silence.

“Madame?“

”Did you, per chance, think to ask?“ Adam splutters and Stiles bites his cheek to cover a laugh. He actually likes this woman. That may or may not change when she fixes her attention and that cutting tongue on him, though. ”For the love of… Pass him the phone."

Adam enters the room again and with a dirty look hands him the phone. Stiles, just to be difficult, raises an eyebrow and makes no move to take it. The man scowls and he aims at him an unimpressed look.

“Madame wants to talk to you.” Adam finally relents with gritted teeth, and Stiles takes the phone, keeping his unfazed expression firmly on.

He’s been mentally preparing for battle since she told her minion to pass him the phone. He needs to set a good foundation for future interactions or she will swallow him whole, not leaving even the bones behind.

“Well, madame,“ he drawls, “tell me why should I care that you want to talk to me?”

I haven’t killed your people, yet, but if you push me that can change, he doesn’t say. She gets it anyway.

(Smart lady.)

—

Stiles is on his way to Atlanta (he keeps getting waylaid, damn it, first with a flock of garudas that needed help with a witch in Reno, and then with a herd of centaurs in dispute with a local werewolf pack near Salt Lake City), going through Denver, when he gets pulled into an alley. He almost blows Adam’s brains out before he recognizes him and only his pale and terrified expression stops him from doing it anyway out of aggravation. Dammit, more trouble, he groans mentally. Happy Birthday to him, yay. Then the foul stench of a darach’s magics assaults his nose, and he almost gags with the thickness of it, driving the seriousness of the situation home quite effectively.

He follows the man to a hideout at Quivas Street, where another two hunters are waiting for Adam. They bring him up to speed in hushed whispers, with eyes that they can't keep from darting around themselves nervously. A week ago, a team was sent to investigate strange happenings in the area and they disappeared without a trace. Of the reinforcement team of eight hunters that arrived yesterday, only the three of them remain.

It doesn’t look good at all.

Stiles asks them to retell him everything that has happened, not leaving out a single detail at all, whether they think it important or not.

They don’t know anything about the first group but, of the five missing reinforcing hunters, two disappeared at 15th Street, another two on Water Street and the last one near the Mile High Stadium, just at the beginning of Platter Greenway. Every single one complained about persistent mosquitoes. He feigns studying the map as he makes them repeat everything one more time, and marks the places of the disappearances with red sharpie. Then he activates the rune in his hand. The nearer he gets to the locations where the intensity of the signature matching the one tainting the missing hunters is higher, the hotter his fingers grow.

Over Elitch Gardens he has to hide a wince at the burn.

They refuse to be left behind, so Stiles has to bring the three hunters with him. He gives them a special speech before going: they do as he says, when he says, no doubt or complaints. They seem a little peeved, but the moment Adam nods (he remembers the toothpick thing, thank you very much) they fall rapidly in line.

Turns out there’s a damn Nemeton in Elitch Gardens (which, how the hell is that even possible???) and the darach’s trying a ritual for world domination or something equally nefarious that Stiles doesn't have the time to stop to find out. They are lucky, though, because the darach hasn’t killed any of the hunters she captured, even if she’s been slowly bleeding them out like pigs if the amount of blood is anything to go by. In any case, it's obvious they probably don’t have much time.

Before he can do anything to take her by surprise, she notices them, and an entire flock of cranes descends on them. He smiles like a shark, welcoming the distraction, and goes after her.

Taking all the hunters to the hospital is a bitch; confounding and conning the hospital staff into treating them without calling the police is even worse. But, having to spend the following ten hours purifying the Nemeton? That's the worst thing ever.

After that, when he’s finally heading (almost crawling his way) to the motel to sleep for a day or two at least, Adam intercepts him, passing him a phone. He groans and the asshole smirks tiredly. Stiles barely resists the temptation of throwing it to his head and Adam's smirk only widens, as if he can read his mind.

Turns out that, in between those seven hunters, he just saved Alexander Argent, Alexandrine’s twin brother.

He has a bad feeling about the whole thing. It only intensifies when Adam, very pissed off, leaves without his phone.

Happy Birthday to him, indeed.

—

He continues to Atlanta, determined to not be waylaid again. He’s passing St. Louis when things go south.

The moment he sits in the passenger’s seat of the truck, he recognizes the driver for what it is. He curses his luck. A wendigo, again? Really? What the hell, he curses mentally.

He nearly dies when it tries to kill him with the truck still moving. Stiles bashes it’s head into the steering wheel repeatedly while he tries to actually steer the truck, but it still crashes. He wakes up who knows how long after, his face bloody and dizzy. The wendigo is dead, slumped heavily over the steering wheel and Stiles grimaces at the sight. He unfastens his seat belt and opens the door to vomit on the gravel. He tries to clear his head, breath harsh as his world spins around him at impossible speeds.

There’s a faint sound coming from the back of the truck and he curses. He heaves himself from the seat and helps himself using the walls to move tortuously slowly to the rear door. When he reaches it, it has a damn padlock and he curses again. The trek back to the cabin leaves him shaking, and it takes him three tries to open the damaged door and another three to heave himself up to search the body for the keys. Afterwards, he has to take a minute to breathe, his rolling stomach making him sway.

Eventually, he gets back to the rear. He takes another minute to breathe again before opening the door and he nearly gets his head bashed for his troubles. He’s actually saved because his legs give out on him.

He’s pretty dizzy, but lucid enough to recognize an experienced hunter when he sees one. “Argent?” he asks a bit slurred. He has a concussion for sure.

The man stops abruptly and Stiles wordlessly passes him his phone. He sits on the entrance and looks inside. There’s at least three half eaten bodies. Chris Argent is unconscious and still tied up in one corner, but thankfully not missing any body parts.

The other man passes him the phone back before going to untie Chris. It takes him a moment to note that the call is still connected and someone is calling his name.

“Well, hello mama Argent,“ he slurs. “You keep losing things, maybe you should look into that?”

—

“I thought we talked about this, mama Argent,” he drawls as he picks up the phone she gave him (Adam, actually) almost three months ago. It’s not like he was going to get rid of it, flat out broke as he was. “Still not one of yours.”

“And yet, you still pick up, Stiles,“ she drawls back and he rolls his eyes.

“Because if I don’t, you keep calling and it gets annoying.”

“I can always send someone, if you prefer that instead. I have some people in Modesto right now. I’m sure Adam will be thrilled to see you again.“

Stiles rolls his eyes again. It took him a while to get that she’s only very good at pretending to know where he is at all times, that it isn’t actually true. He has this mental picture of her minions calling her the moment they spot him anywhere and it shouldn't be this hilarious.

“Yeah, because that worked so well last time.” There’s an actual reason for Adam’s mild to moderate dislike besides having to give him his phone on the spot, pictorial blackmail included. “Let’s cut the chase, shall we? What do you want that I won’t actually give you?”

She snorts dismissively at his words and he pouts. He needs to start following them through.

“What do you know about the naga?“

“That you only find them in Laos, Thailand or Cambodia, which is nowhere near freaking Modesto?“ There’s a beat of silence. “Tell me it’s not in the Naraghi Lake, in full fucking view.”

“Stiles! Of course it’s not in the Naraghi Lake,” she tuts as if she’s dissappointed.

“Let me guess, it’s not in any of the reservoirs, is it?”

“You’re such a clever child when you want to be.“

“I’m fucking twenty-three, you old hag, and I refuse. Nope. Not doing it. I hate the sewers!”

”A little bird told me you went to Atlanta.“ Yeah, he did. It was a complete waste of time, after the pains he went through to get there. At some point the hunters must have had a better relationship with the supernatural world (or maybe they still have it at the present time), or at least the druids, because the headquarters were warded to kingdom come. And trying to contact the Tribunal the normal way without an endorser was futile. “Your help in exchange for my endorsement.”

Stiles sighs. “If it’s not a threat, I’m not killing it. How big is it anyway?”

“An estimated fifteen feet.“ Stiles splutters. ”And I don’t care, so long as none of you get killed and you get the same results as with the centaurs.“ Okay, now he is impressed. How does she know???

He meets with the group in Elmwood Avenue. He has worked with them before, and they know to do as he says without question (even Adam, for all he scowls). Good. It’s probably not a coincidence it’s them, either. Alexandrine can be terrifyingly good like that.

They take Needham Street until they reach Eisen Park. It’s almost midnight, but they take care to check if someone is looking before they open a manhole and slip in.

It takes them more than three miserable and excruciating hours to locate the naga and Stiles curses when he finds out she’s laid eggs. Fuck, he curses loudly. The men tense at the hostile movements of the humongous reptilian but obey his signal to stay put and non threatening. Before she can attack, he blurts out a peace shout, first in Thai, then in Cambodian and in Laotian, hands in the air in the universal sign of peace. He keeps a respectful distance and stays still, hoping she will get it despite his most likely horrible pronunciation.

She blurts something back and he sighs relieved. He asks which is her mother language. Laotian, she’s from Laos, but she speaks just the basics of English. It takes him a while, but he finally gets that she was smuggled with another from Laos almost a year ago, by some man called Jensen or Jansen. She killed the man and hid here after he murdered her mate. And now she’s stuck here with a clutch. She hates the sewers, she wants to go home.

He takes great pleasure in waking Alexandrine at four in the morning so she can reach out to her contacts in Laos. Almost three hours later, they have everything planned to extract Naa Rak and her clutch, and give her a safe passage back to Laos.

He separates from the rest of the group, who is going to keep investigating the man that had Naa Rak and see if there’s a smuggling ring and this situation will be repeated, or if it’s an isolated case. He doesn’t envy them, to be honest, but it serves them right for snickering when Naa Rak hugged him, pressing his face to her very naked breasts (scaly or not) and nearly suffocated him, because she heard that’s how humans express their gratefulness and affection. Ah, and that was right before she did the forked tongue thing so she could memorize his scent and transmit it to future generations because she and her line, quote, would be forever in his debt.

They left the damn room to laugh, the bastards.

—

“Tell your sister she’s a fucking bitch!” he shouts the moment the call connects.

“What.”

A Kate! What have you done now? Are you two timing your boyfriend again? comes muffled, as if the receiver has been partially covered. A Not at the moment? is heard in response and Stiles splutters.

“Ah, sorry, I thought you were Alexander. You have very similar voices, through the phone, I mean,“ he stutters flustered.

”Are you calling my mother a bitch?“

“She’s being one?” he offers weakly.

“What.“

“It’s her fault! She fucking adopted me without my consent!” he finally shouts frustrated.

There’s a beat of silence from the other end of the line, followed by a twin, male and female, MOM.

“You did keep calling me mama Argent, son.”

“I-you-It was mocking and you know it! Stop with the amused tone, dammit!“

“I did promise you endorsement, Stiles.”

“What does it have to do with this?!”

“To be accepted by the Tribunal, you have to be a member of a hunter family. There’s no in between. Either you marry into the main families or you get adopted. This is the only way I could give you what I promised.“ She makes a pause for effect. ”Unless you want to tell me something about you and Adam, Stiles? I'm sure I could arrange something if you want?”

Stiles hangs his phone after spluttering and eyes the identification papers dismayed. There’s a passport, a driving license and, of all things, a credit card, all to the name of Stiles Argent. Even the birth date is right. He recalls his bitching and the string of happy birthday to me from that day with the darach and Alexander so at least he can explain that. He groans. He would bet his life that they are official and complete legal.

The phone rings again and Stiles contemplates not picking it up, but reluctantly decides against it.

“What.“

“You’re genuinely angry.“ She sounds so perplexed that Stiles contains his acidic response. “Most people normally throw themselves at the opportunity to become Argents. Until you hung up I thought you were being your usual dramatic self.”

“I wouldn’t-” he starts, only to stop himself abruptly. He would, because he enjoys ticking people off by being difficult. He sighs. “I dislike being strong armed into things.”

(Dislike doesn’t even begin to cover it.)

There’s a beat of silence before she speaks. “I apologize. I’ll have it undone by tomorrow morning. I’ll change the last name to anything you want, and you can keep the papers. I’ll also try to find another way to endorse you, though I’m going to be honest here and admit that I don’t have high hopes for that.”

Stiles doesn’t answer yet, choosing to analyze what has happened in the past few minutes and what Alexandrine has said. Is it possible that this was her way of thanking him for saving her brother? If it’s so well considered, she probably thought that in his current situation he’d jump at the chance. She has just opened a lot of doors for him, after all. But this taking him for granted rubs him the wrong way.

He sighs again. “Don’t, I just…”

“I should have asked you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to be an Argent, Stiles?“ He snorts. ”I’m going to be honest here and admit that we would be gaining as much as you would.“

“I need to think about it.”

“Take all the time you need.”

—

He wanders for a while, going south but not leaving California. He goes through Porterville and Ridgecrest and even tries the Mojave Desert up to the Kelso Dunes, where he sits for a while.

He’s not a Stilinski anymore.

He feels as if he’s been sucker punched. He rubs his face tiredly and presses his palms into his eyes until spots dance in front of them, hoping to stave the anxiety attack off. He takes a deep breath. It’s not like he was officially a Stilinski before the whole adoption business anyway, he tells himself. Up until now, in this time he was a nobody. He chokes on his own saliva and gasps.

Stiles takes out the picture he took all those months ago and stares at it for the first time, feeling broken and jagged around the edges. He thought he had prepared himself mentally for this, for being a nobody, alone and without any ties whatsoever. It’s not like he was on speaking terms with his father, dammit! Before he watched him die, they hadn’t seen or talked to each other for nearly a year, this shouldn’t be so difficult! But it's obvious he wasn’t as indifferent to the whole familial situation as he made himself believe, after all, or he wouldn't be trying to control himself in the middle of nowhere. Maybe taking the picture wasn’t such a good idea, because it just serves as a reminder of what will never be, what is forever lost to him.

He takes another deep breath and starts timing himself. He reminds himself that, in his own time, he was also not a Stilinski anymore, despite what his official identification papers said. It takes him a while to calm down enough to start thinking clearly again.

He’s frustrated, and not only about Alexandrine’s faux pas. He’s already passed the half year mark since he came back to the past and what has he done? Because he hasn’t killed Kate and Gerard, he doesn’t even know where he is? And now he’s an Argent? Christ, he's now Chris and Kate’s bigger brother! What the hell is he doing?

He takes another deep breath. He needs to take control pronto. He knows that he has more than seven years before everything goes to hell, but if things follow the same dynamics as up until now… He’s going to end up running out of time.

A gentle breeze goes through his fingers and he looks up. He gapes at the sand sprites in front of him. The second they realize they have his attention, they start to beckon him.

Stiles hesitates for a moment but their urgency convinces him. Besides, from what he knows, sand sprites are normally peaceful unless their land or tribes are threatened. He arms himself just in case and follows cautiously but hurriedly. After a long while they pass what he assumes to be the ghost town of Kelso. They cross the railway, and a little further away, he gets what they are trying to show him.

Taking down the manticore, even with the help of the sprites, almost kills him. A centimeter to the left and it would have taken his head. He lets himself fall to lay on the ground, breathing harshly.

The sprites flutter nervously around him and he sits up frowning. Following them to where they’re pointing, he almost chokes on his own saliva from the shock, and has a brief moment in which he doesn’t know what to do. Then he reacts.

He sets out to save as many as he can, unloading everything from his bag and filling half of it with sand. He swiftly creates a safe space with rune arrays that will help them heal and starts helping the few survivors into the bag. There’s no sign of the ruling pair.

Before leaving, he eyes the rest of the desert fairy colony, his heart almost breaking. He tries to take as much as he can from it, but the manticore pretty much destroyed it. He thanks the sand sprites after they guide him to the nearest bus station.

He gets off at Ridgecrest and then heads to the Indian Wells Valley, following Eglantine and Aelfdene’s directions until he reaches pretty much the middle of the valley. He lets them down gently and waits for their return, meanwhile tending to the survivors. Not even five minutes after their departure, a swarm of fairies flies towards him, seemingly out of nowhere. He helps them unload the wounded and what little he could save from the actual physical colony, including the sand when they ask for it.

He leaves feeling pretty damn good about himself. He may not have achieved much from his initial goal, but he can’t say that what he has done today is nothing.

—

He backtracks to Ridgecrest and decides to take a week to recover from the ordeal. By the third day he’s so restless that he throws that plan out of the window.

He decides to go back to check on the fairies. He waits where he thinks the colony is until Eglantine and Aelfdene come out to meet him. His heart clenches when he learns that ten out of the thirty fairies have died in the past three days, and that five are still in critical condition. He offers his runic and ritualistic abilities and they decline. Their bodies are fine, they say, their minds are not. They’re fading due to heartbreak, and no rune or ritual will help them with that.

When they try to talk about rewards, he’s cold and stony. He didn’t come back for that and they helped him get mental tranquillity, he considers them in peace. Eglantine flies to his face and places a kiss on his forehead.

“Fairy luck for you, my friend,“ floats melodiously into his mind.

“Take care,” he mutters back softly, waving at them as he retreats, suddenly assaulted with the need to be elsewhere.

It isn’t until he’s nearly in Sacramento when he connects his restlessness to Eglantine’s words and recognizes the lucky boon she granted him for what it is. He immediately stops questioning it and follows his instincts to the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Mendocino county.

He gets another sudden the urge that tells him to hide and he swiftly activates his misdirection runes as he approaches the entrance to the preserve. Even in the dark, he spots Alexandrine and Alexander ahead with a bunch of her minions, Adam included. More importantly, Gerard is there too.

(Beautiful, beautiful Eglantine.)

He follows after them at a prudent distance. Runes or not, he’s not going to risk it, because there’s being confident and there’s being arrogant. They go straight to a building next to McKinley Creek, Stiles still closely behind.

The moment he spots the party the hunters are meeting, he turns the scent suppression runes on. He thanks Eglantine mentally again. Even with his swift reaction, he can see some of the werewolves sniffing at the air suspiciously in his direction.

Something doesn’t feel right.

Instead of following them inside, he checks around the building. He pinpoints three of Alexandrine’s hunters guarding the entrance, and four betas doing the same. He ignores them and tries to comb through the surroundings in the dark. He goes around just in time to catch two intruders approaching the back of the building. There’s no sign of Alexandrine’s hunters and he doubts she left this part unguarded. Or that the pack did, for that matter.

He activates the tiny little runes on the palm of his hands and claps them at their backs. They immediately drop unconscious. He goes hunting again and manages to incapacitate two more.

He returns to the front and observes. Two of the hunters look shifty, trying to look inconspicuous as they eye around them more and more with each passing minute. He recognizes the third as Paul, one of the hunters that accompanied him on the field trip from hell to the sewers back at Modesto. He looks wary of the betas, but nothing out of the ordinary. Stiles curses the fact that he never bothered getting his phone number…

But he hasn’t deleted anything from Adam’s phone, has he? He grins shark-like when he finds his contact details and then shoots a text. Paul’s eyes widen in shock but he doesn’t react otherwise. Voices start to rise on the inside of the building and Stiles' feelings of urgency grow. He shoots another text.

After a couple of minutes, Paul turns as if he has heard something from the back of the building. The other two offer to go and check and he protests, but ultimately relents. When they are out of sight, Stiles takes them out.

After that, he doesn’t bother with subtlety.

“Tell me you’re fucking sure,” Paul pleads ignoring the wary betas.

“So fucking sure,” he answers as he pulls him towards the back of the building.

Turns out that what Gerard did to Deucalion was the perfected version of what he did to his wife in the original timeline. He takes great satisfaction in crushing the life out of him. He wonders if being glad that he wasn’t redeemable makes him a horrible person but a moment later he doesn’t fucking care. They have found the bodies of the missing hunters and betas. Adam was one of them.

He starts somberly helping the pack and the hunters alike, using some herbs he has in store to help them with the wolfsbane poisoning. He might as well go big or go home, he thinks, following another hunch and using runes with the worst cases, not even bothering with subterfuge.

Alpha Donovan eyes him calculating and then turns to Alexandrine. “My emissary is dead,“ he states, not very subtly. Stiles doesn’t like him very much, to be honest. For starters, it’s very crass to try to replace a dead member of your pack not even an hour after the event took place. Not to mention cold, and it gives the impression that he thinks of the members of his pack as tools. Alexandrine adopts a blank expression. “This was a breach of the Code and now two of my betas are dead too,” he growls and she narrows her eyes. “I demand a compensation.”

Stiles aims a saccharine sweet smile at Donovan and he takes an involuntary step back. Alexandrine’s lips twitch slightly. “Maybe you should check if he’s in shock, Stiles,“ she says in a deceptively soft tone. “I admit my medical knowledge is at best limited, but that’s the only reason I can think of for him to forget that we were here to get to the bottom of why two of his betas killed four of my hunters in the first place.”

“It sounds like a sure thing, mama,“ he answers mildly. “No one is stupid enough to think that forcing anyone into being your emissary is a good idea, after all.”

Donovan doesn’t stand a chance under their combined efforts. He leaves with his pack sanctioned and with a scowl.

Stiles’ a little bit surprised and wary of the lackluster reaction of the hunter party to his abilities (he’s feeling sort of collectively duh-ed?), but he’s still riding the fairy boon’s effects, so he remains to help move the injured and the bodies to the Argent’s vehicles. Alexandrine looks at him from the backseat of a SUV questioningly when they’re about to leave.

“Well?” she prompts impatiently. “Aren’t you going to get in? You did call me mama, after all. Or am I reading the situation wrong again? You’re so difficult to understand sometimes.”

“I expected something like…”

“Fire and damnation raining on you when you decided to stop hiding?”

“Yeah?“ he answers weakly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, child,” she tuts.

“Again, I’m twenty-three years old, you old hag!” he protests, indignant. A passing hunter (and the driver, actually) chokes and starts coughing, quickening his pace. “And I don’t think it’s that far off to believe your reaction would be," he inserts some manic hand movements that are supposed to represent hell on earth, “when you found out, taking into account what you do for a living.“

She blinks. “You seriously don’t believe I just found out, right?” Stiles flails. “You took care of a wendigo with a toothpick, Stiles, I knew right from the start.”

“That could totally happen!”

She ignores him. He pouts. “Obviating the fact that you’ve saved several members of the family already, well, you’ve seen the headquarters in Atlanta, haven’t you? It’s not the first time we've worked peacefully with a druid without having homicidal urges,” she says dryly and she can’t possibly know how much she’s rocking his world view. What the hell happened on the next six to seven years in the original timeline that changed the hunter world so much?

“Not a druid,” he grumbles as he starts to climb into the SUV.

He promptly trips and nearly eats the door. Yeah, seems like the fairy luck is gone.

—

During the very first week Stiles spent in the Argent household, Alexandrine convened a reunion to address Gerard’s conspiracy. Being his charming persona, Stiles managed to infuriate ten more conspirators into revealing themselves and to antagonize almost all of the rest of the attendees.

Including his now (future?) sister-in-law when she answered harshly and almost dismissively one of Kate’s questions about Gerard’s stand on werewolves, with a rant about mutts and how they should be locked up and, of course, eliminated when they lose control. Alexandrine and Alexander had left the room, but he would have said his piece with them present anyway.

"Why?"

"They are dangerous. All that strength and abilities…"

"Of course, you’re right! Just like with all the military personnel, we should lock them up,“ is his blase counter. He doesn’t lift his eyes from the magazine he’s browsing. “And all those pesky veterans with PTSD? Eliminate them, of course."

"Are you stupid? It’s obviously not the same!"

"Is that so? They are dangerous, with a lot more strength than the average civilian and trained to have a lot of deathly abilities. And if they snap…” He snaps his fingers. “Now that I think of it… we should do the same with law enforcers too. Maybe even with firefighters?"

"They are human, they don’t turn into monsters every full moon!"

"Of course, you’re right,“ he answers mildly. “Soldiers can snap any day, after all, like every human. Or more so, given the situations they are placed in almost daily in war zones."

"I can’t even” she splutters outraged. “You’re ridiculous!"

"And you’re incredibly ignorant,” he counters, still in a mild disinterested tone. “Do you even know what an omega is or why shifters can lose their minds when a pack member dies? And I’m not talking about them being killed, I’m saying plain dying, no matter the cause."

"I-"

"No, of course, you don’t know,” he cuts in. “How can I explain it…” He fakes thinking about it.“ I think the most accurate analogy would be losing a limb. You lose a pack member and, it doesn’t matter if you liked them or not, you maybe even hated them, and suddenly it’s as if someone took a serrated knife and took their sweet time cutting your leg. And afterwards, you have no leg but it still keeps hurting. Kinda like when a human loses an actual limb but ten times worse.“ He licks the tips of his fingers and turns a page. No one says a word. “Now, imagine what happens when their whole pack dies."

"That doesn’t explain about newly turned omegas,” Victoria tries to counter weakly."

"It’s pretty simple, actually, if you think about it.” Victoria presses her lips at the jab. “One, born shifters train to control their abilities from childhood, whereas turned ones have to learn from scratch in a very short span of time.“ He purposely leaves the anchor detail out, he doesn’t trust them with anything else besides the obvious things he’s explaining now. “Two, there’s an instant pack bond between the alpha and the turned one. If the alpha dies or leaves, not only do they have to deal with instincts they don’t know how to control, but they also experience the aforementioned losing a limb consequence of the snapping pack bond. And if they have been bitten against their will? Add in trauma to all that shit."

"Are you saying that we should just let them be?"

"Of course not! Don’t be silly, sugar,“ he chides her saccharine sweet, before sobering and looking at her in the eye. “I’m all for killing an asshole that goes around purposely biting people against their will. Keyword: purposely, keep that in mind. And sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and a mercy killing is the best option. Because, don’t be mistaken, that’s what it is in most cases with omegas. Do you think they actually want to lose their minds and kill people? Don’t be stupid if you can help it, mmm?“ He makes a pause for effect, knowing he has the attention of the whole room. “I agree it’s impossible to force a pack bond on an omega, so it’s irreversible. But don’t make the mistake of assuming that every lone wolf is an omega.” Incredulous murmurs rise. “Silence,” he snaps. “Engrave this into your thick skulls: a pack doesn’t have to be formed by shifters only, they share those bonds with humans too. Or do you think that the humans in a familial pack are left apart? They feel the same loss with their human packmates. Also, the turning omega thing is not an immediate consequence. Bringing them to an established pack may stop the process completely.“ He suddenly returns to his placid smile. “Mmm, why am I bothering anyway? It’s not like you care about what I’m telling you, of course. They are just mutts after all, right? Just like they were just Jews. Save yourself the hassle of thinking and just murder them.” He closes the magazine. “Silly me. It’s obvious you dislike thinking and all that bothersome stuff, because anyone with half a brain would know treating your future boss as if she’s a retard is a little bit counterproductive, you know? I’m almost looking forward to that, if she’s half as vicious as mama you’re doomed. Thanks in advance for the future entertainment your stupidity will bring.” Stiles leaves the room throwing a peace sign at them.

“Twinkle, I need a ride to the cinema.“

And now, a month after that happened, he still can’t shake Kate off.

From what he has gathered, Victoria is a bitch to her, continuously judgmental about her choices, because she’s the next Argent matriarch and she should start acting like it. And every time they cross paths she’s silently condemning and Chris is almost always out with his mentor and doesn’t seem to notice the pattern when he’s here. What's even worse, it’s an attitude concerning her that seems to be spreading around the family, and the more that happens, the more rebellious and antagonizing Kate gets. It’s a little absurd that they treat her like a kid and at the same time expect her to act like an adult and Stiles finds it incredibly hypocritical, because they hide like children that know they're doing wrong, never doing it in front of Alexandrine.

Of course, Stiles didn’t know that when he confronted Victoria. To be honest, he only seized the opportunity to say his piece. And the last jab was more to call Victoria stupid to her face than to actually defend Kate…

“It’s spark, you runt, spark. I know your lone half neuron is overworked as it is, but make an effort to engrave that into your memory. If that’s too difficult, I don’t know, sharpie it to the back of your hand or something?”

“Are you sure antagonizing your future boss isn’t a little bit counterproductive, mmm?“ He aims at her a disgruntled glare and she smirks. She’s been milking that a lot. He kind of misses her wary persona from the first week.

“Brat.“

“You know you like me,” she crows and he grunts.

The thing is that he does. This Kate is so like him that it’s almost scary. She’s a sarcastic little shit, almost too smart for her own good, and with the people she likes, she loses that acidic edge that makes her so grating and intimidating to others. He wonders when he entered that category and why, because they have just physically met not even two months ago and he doubts just defending her once grants it.

He eyes her and she shifts minutely. Tough cookie, she is. Just like him, covering his insecurities with a smartass remark. He sighs. He’s doomed all right. When did he get so soft?

“I do, oh, my bratty little sister.“ She covers a grin and, dammit, he shouldn’t find that so charmingly cute. “But that still doesn’t make me your chauffeur.”

“I’ll buy you an ice cream?”

“When you’re trying to bribe someone, make sure to learn beforehand what to bribe them with, runt.”

“Getting you curly fries would require you to drive me to the other part of town yourself, and the play station is broken, so no games. I don’t have access to the library either, so…“

He looks at her for a long moment before he snorts. “I’ll make the terrible sacrifice of driving there. But it’s not enough payment. Send Victoria to any sewer related missions in the future and I’ll even pick you up afterwards.”

“Done,“ she says, and after they shake on it she adds. “You don’t bargain very well do you? I was going to do that anyway.”

Stiles cracks up. Doomed, indeed.

He waves at her lightly as she goes to meet her friends. He decides against going back and goes to the park. He sits on the same wooden bench from half a year ago and turns his face towards the sun. Summer in California is hot as hell but the temperatures had gone back to bearable by now.

He’s a little bit lost, to be honest. In less than a week it will be the one year anniversary of his arrival and, in theory, he’s done what he set out to do? Gerard is gone and Alexandrine follows the Code to the letter, so the annihilation of Deucalion’s pack or the Hales shouldn’t happen. Maybe, since Gerard won’t kill Ennis’ packmate either, the whole Paige debacle won’t happen? He doesn’t know the details of what happened, so he’ll have to keep an eye on that.

But what does he do meanwhile? Because that won’t happen for… nine years? Derek’s six years old now, if he’s doing the math right. He has the sudden urge to check if even at this age he has the same impressive eyebrows.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t met the Hales still. His mood sours, remembering Cora, Derek and Peter.

“Still trying to figure things out, son?“ Comes lightly from behind.

Stiles jumps from his seat with a yelp. His left foot slips and he falls face first to the ground with a pained grunt.

Just his luck. He’s not been purposely avoiding his father, but he hasn’t been looking for him either. He still has the picture, but he hasn’t looked at it since he was at the Kelso Dunes. He made his choice of having a new start as an Argent and he has stuck to it, trying to be open-minded about the whole situation and to adapt, but it doesn’t make seeing him any easier.

“Yeah?” he grunts from the ground and he hears a snort before hands reach to help him up. “Hello again, Deputy Stilinski.”

“Hello, son. It’s been a while,“ he answers as he makes a hand motion to him. He passes him his identification papers wordlessly. “Argent?”

“Stiles, please.”

“Stiles,” he repeats. He can see a lot of questions in his eyes, but his father refrains and just gives the papers back. “How are you holding up?”

“Better?“

“You don’t sound very convinced.“

“The past year has been hectic, and I’ve been trying to complete a project, you know, full investment and all that, and now that I’ve sort of finished it… I don’t know what to do with my life?“ He answers self-deprecating and his father blinks, obviously not expecting the straightforwardness.

“Work, relax or go back to study? So long as you don’t go back to stalking people…" Stiles blushes slightly. His father starts turning to leave. “Stay out of trouble, son.”

He nearly cries at the familiar phrase.

When he calms down, he starts thinking. In his time, he was a year away from getting his PhD in criminal justice at Walden University. Here, he doesn’t have even a high school diploma. He calls Alexandrine.

“What would you say if I told you I was thinking of going back to study?”

She’s awesome and her contacts are terrifying. He takes his exams and has his high school diploma before the month is over. He’s accepted at Walden without a hitch. Inadvertently, he lets it slip he almost knows the whole curriculum and, he doesn’t know who she knows or blackmails or bribes there, but they let him take the exams to evaluate his level and he ends up again at his last year. There’s no point in wasting time, she tuts to a flabbergasted Stiles. The catch? Taking all those exams in the span of a month is a nightmare. It was the most stressful and horrible time of his life and he lost count of how many times Kate mocked him.

He vowed to get back at her and she laughed.

But she also brought food and coffee, and even managed to convince Alexander to drive her to buy curly fries and ice cream so maybe he can be slightly more merciful about the retaliation.

Maybe.

—

In January, at Walden, he debates with himself long and hard. He calls Alexandrine and tells her to keep an eye on threats on the Hales. He doesn’t explain about Wolf Moon and, even though she knows there’s something he’s not telling her, she agrees.

There’s no incident and Stiles breathes relieved.

—

“You asshole!” Kate shouts in his ear the moment he takes the call, making him separate the phone from his ear hastily.

He hangs up, earning his roommate's snickers at his face and he flips him off. He goes to his room as the phone starts ringing again and he smirks. Turns out Kate was born on February 29th. It’s priceless. This year is a leap year and she turns four years old. It’s too good of an opportunity to let it pass.

He told Kate he would get back at her, after all.

“Asshole!“ she shouts again. “You’re the worst brother ever, Twinkle!”

“You’re being such a naughty girl, Kathy.” She splutters outraged and curses. “What a mouth! I’m going to have to confiscate your present and put you in the naughty corner!”

She promptly tells him where to stick Radar, the two-way tutor and he cackles. He goads her for a while before taking pity on her and telling her where the actual real present is, because he also said he was going to be merciful.

“It better make it up to me, I opened the other one in front of my friends!“

Stiles cackles again and she hangs up. It really does make it up to her. She calls gushing (really gushing, and being how she is, Stiles is pretty proud of himself about that) half an hour and an awesome treasure hunt filled with smaller presents later.

—

Stiles officially meets the Hales at Spring break. In his defence, he’s cranky and exhausted and dirty and many things more. Which actually means that he has a concussion, his brain has turned into mush, he can't think clearly and he's past the point of being simply pissed off.

He gets off the plane in Sacramento expecting to have to get a taxi and endure the one hour drive to Beacon Hills. What he gets is ten times worse.

“Welcome home!” Alexander, honest to god, chirps from the entrance of the airport, arms wide as if expecting a hug. A silent Chris, who is at his side, waves shortly at him, rolling his eyes at his uncle. Stiles stops abruptly to give them a narrow-eyed stare.

“I’m not gonna like this, right?“

“Dear nephew…” Alexander starts.

“No,“ Chris deadpans. Stiles looks at the taxi line mournfully and sighs. Paul waves at him as he takes the small luggage case from his hands to put in the trunk. “Welcome home,” Chris adds belatedly in a dry tone.

Stiles snorts and bumps into him as he passes him to get to the SUV. Chris smirks. Alexander pouts at being ignored and Stiles rolls his eyes and gives him a one-armed hug that the man turns into a full blown one. He squeaks, he’s not proud of it.

“This is a hostage situation,“ he grumbles as he climbs in. He nods to Anthony, Clara and Meghan.

“I have coffee?” Paul offers handing him a still hot cup and Stiles grunts as he takes it.

“A COFFEE TOTALLY DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR THIS, YOU FUCKERS!“ Stiles screams as they run through Sacramento’s sewer system, a pack of twenty ghouls after them.

“AT LEAST IT WAS BLACK,“ Chris offers dryly, nearly out of breath. He ducks and shoots in the face of one ghoul. It falls and gets up almost immediately. “UNCLE ALEX WANTED TO GET YOU AN ALMOND AND PUMPKIN MONSTROSITY.” Stiles trips and Chris grabs his arm, righting him and pulling him to continue running. Anthony pushes them both from behind to help them recover speed.

“DON’T YOU HAVE ANY MOJO OF YOURS, STILES?!” Paul asks as he swipes with his machete at one. It gets stuck in its neck and he has to let it go.

“I ALWAYS HAVE MY MOJO!“ he cries almost indignantly. “WE HAVE TO START GOING IN CIRCLES!”

“WHAT?!” Meghan shouts incredulous.

“THE FUCK?!“ Clara ends.

“DON’T QUESTION THE MOJO!” All the men shout.

They start going in circles, Stiles is reminded somehow of that phone game, the snake, as they try to not catch the tail end of the ghoul pack and at the same time not be caught. He slaps his hand to the walls as he passes, placing runes (containment and fire, durability for the walls), directing some of them to the ceiling while some of them glow under his feet too. He desperately tries not to think about what his hand is touching and just concentrate on the runework. It takes him another twenty minutes even going as fast as he possibly can. And fast he works, because if he lets them, all the runes will drain him to an empty husk.

The contained fire is the most beautiful sight they all have seen in a long time. The ground trembles horribly and they have to fight to stay upright, but the walls hold and they don’t explode into kingdom come from the explosion that the fumes cause, so that’s definitely a plus.

They hightail the hell out of there.

“Well, fuck me sideways,“ Clara gasps as she helps her twin. “Don’t question the mojo?”

“Don’t question the mojo.” Meghan agrees, breath harsh.

“Never question the mojo,“ Stiles says. “Question what are we gonna do about the witch.” Everyone turns to look at him. “Seriously? You don’t really think that those ghouls sprang out of nowhere, right? Right? What the hell do they teach you at school these days?”

“Math?“ Paul answers weakly. Anthony groans.

“See?” Alexander crows. “I told you it was a good idea to bring him along.”

“I hate you all,“ Stiles whines.

They do find the witch, after two hours. They have to sneak into the hospital filthy and tired, and it’s a miracle they aren’t found. Their witch is an ancient looking man with Alzheimers (or that’s what his chart says) that probably doesn’t even remember creating them. No one knows what to do about it, because he’s almost catatonic and hooked up to a myriad of life support machines.

He doesn’t survive the night.

They leave town without even showering, which some part of Stiles relishes in, because it's Alexander's car and he keeps whining about how he's never going to manage to get the smell out of the upholstery. But it's not like they can do anything else, because policemen are roaming the streets after the earthquake (they all snort at that) so they can’t even have that luxury. The Welcome to Beacon Hills sign is a sight for sore eyes, though, petty revenge or not, even if Stiles' nose died about twenty minutes into the ride and he's been dozing off for the last ten, nearly asleep after all the energy he spent on those hundred and something runes.

And then they nearly run over someone that comes out of the woods and into the road, hands in the air frantically waving. Stiles’ head impacts harshly against the window as Alexander steps on the brakes violently and he curses loudly.

They all rush out of the SUV. Even dizzy, Stiles can pinpoint the exact moment Peter recognizes Alexander and Chris, and what he probably thought as his salvation turns into a nightmare. He covers a kid (Derek?) behind him and snarls, which obviously serves to identify them as hunters to their pursuers because four men come out of the woods, guns in hand and pointing to the werewolves.

“Thank god you got them!“ one of them exclaims.

“What the hell is happening here?” Alexander demands, his normally easy going countenance gone. Stiles is pretty proud of his group. They have their guns out but, even though they’re obviously wary of the werewolves, they aren’t actively pointing them at them.

“They broke the treaty and killed one of ours.“ Almost as one, they all turn to the snarling and trapped Peter.

“Question,” Stiles butts in even before Peter can say a thing, utterly fed up and wanting nothing more than to go home and shower and sleep. He isn’t very hopeful about the latter, because he’s almost sure that he has at least a mild concussion, which only makes his mood worse. “What the hell are you doing in the middle of the preserve, which is, by treaty, Hale territory, armed to your teeth? And, you’re obviously not Argents, which means this isn’t even your territory… so the explanation better be good.” He lets electricity crack around him. And, all right, normally he isn’t fond of making this kind of theatrical threatening move (especially since he’s rapidly approaching his last reserves after the Sacramento stint), but it gets the guns to point at him instead of a small kid, so he's satisfied.

“You are not pointing a gun at my brother,“ Chris growls menacing and, holy cow, Stiles is impressed. He thought that the effortless badassness was a thing he had gained with age and experience, but nope. He’s also a little touched by the brotherly protection, if he’s honest with himself, because for a very long time it’s been him who does the protective thing and not the other way round.

Stiles, always a fan of nipping the problem at the bud and all that, takes out his phone to call Alexandrine. “Mama!“ he sings happily to the other hunter party’s incredulity. His own (like every single one) either snorts or is vaguely amused. Peter has stopped snarling, still wary but waiting things out, and also, no doubt, still looking for a window to escape. “Yeah, just by the preserve. We’ve got a bit delayed, you know, finding four hunters breaking the Code and the treaty, pointing guns at us… nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t think they’re ours, can I blow their kneecaps off? They’re bullshitting us to kingdom come and it’s so irritating.”

“Very diplomatic,“ Chris snorts.

“Bring them back in one piece to interrogate them, Stiles.”

“I could have asked about blowing their brains out,“ he counters Chris before turning his attention back to the phone. “No? You can still interrogate them without their kneecaps.“ They start to turn, obviously to flee. Stiles lets go of the phone and claps his hands. Electricity flows. “What,” he snaps at Alexander’s dry look. “She didn’t say anything about electrocuting them unconscious.”

He sways as he's finishing talking and Meghan and Clara catch him before he falls. He’s vaguely aware of what happens on the next hour.

Alpha Hale and her entourage come first, making obvious that they were nearby by the response time. Alexandrine has yet to arrive, but Talia doesn't wait for her. When she tries to make them responsible for the hunter’s attack on her pack, Stiles has had enough and he tells her so.

“Sure,“ he says saccharine sweet from where he’s sitting on the floor (not a very intimidating position, he knows, but he doesn’t think he can get up without eating the floor… so the lesser of two evils), “make us responsible. But next time an omega or anything supernatural crosses the border and causes problems, we get to make you responsible, deal? No? I thought so.”

“I’ve heard about you,“ she says, disgust evident in her voice. “The Argent’s dog. A druid that works with those who hunt us.”

“Then, either you have to have that looked at," he motions vaguely to his own ear, “or your contacts are shitty, ma'am,“ he answers plainly and several hunters cough suspiciously. So unprofessional, he tisks. “For starters, I’m no druid. And, well, not to be offensive even when you have just been exactly that, but I’m not the dog here.“ You’re acting like a bitch, he doesn’t say, but her eyes narrow, so he doesn’t think he has to actually say it aloud. “Aaaand… seeing that we are in a clarifying and hashing out misunderstandings mood, we don’t hunt you, per se, or they would be dead," he motions to Peter and Derek, “and we wouldn’t have played white knight.” And, just like he did all that time ago with Alexandrine, he sets out for a good first impression. He gifts her his shark-like smile. “Believe me, if I wanted you dead, you would be.”

The sound of engines fills the air but they don’t stop staring at each other. When Alexandrine gets off one the SUVs, Deaton approaches Talia and murmurs something urgently to her. She frowns at Stiles, way more wary than before and he makes a show of blinking innocently at her, making Chris snort amused.

Alexandrine makes them leave and takes things from there. He waves mockingly to Talia, for once making a graceful exit and not falling to the floor, and smirks at Peter, terribly amused by his baby face and his still teenage attire.

When they enter the house exhausted, Kate is waiting for them. She makes to hug them but stops herself. “Ugh, you stink so bad. What the hell have you been doing? Roll in shit?”

“Remember your promise,“ he grunts at her as he flies to the bathroom. She blinks and then cackles.

He does have a concussion and has to be woken up every half hour the whole night. Joy.

—

On April 8th, he gets woken up at three in the morning by a dead weight falling on him. He flails and falls off the bed noisily, pulling Kate along with him. He looks at the clock and grunts, turning his back to her and pulling on the sheets to cover himself, preparing himself to fall asleep again right there for the other two hours he still has before taking a taxi to the airport.

“Seriously?” she says incredulous and Chris snorts from the doorway.

“Wha'u'doinere?” he grunts sleepily as Kate sits on him and starts wiggling and butt jumping on him. Chris has been living with Victoria for a month now.

“Happy birthday,” he says simply and leaves.

Stiles gapes, instantly rising. Kate falls with an ompf.

There’s birthday pancakes and presents and very yawny people. Alexandrine and Alexander go back to sleep, but Chris and Kate drive him to Sacramento airport.

He’s so stupidly grateful for everything that he almost cries.

—

If there’s one thing he knows about Chris, is that under all that hardened skin he’s a cinnamon roll. Which is why he slips into the bride’s room, to their outrage, and, not caring about the audience, he proceeds to threaten (promise) Victoria with what he’ll do to her if she hurts his brother. Alexandrine, who was just passing by to hand over something blue, is immensely amused.

He throws at her a peace sign along a wicked smile as he heads to the yard where the ceremony will take place. He waves at Chris and snickers at the almost green tint of his face. Alexander and several male family members share it and he’s sad he missed the bachelor party, because something must have happened. Alas, he had classes yesterday and he flew back just two hours ago, because he predictably forgot to book the flight in advance. He’s lucky he even found one in time.

Stiles shares a smirk with Kate as he passes her and a quick kiss. He goes up to Chris and hugs him. He can tell he’s bewildered, because as a rule none of them are very touchy-feely but he hugs him back. The runes take effect and he groans relieved, squeezing him a little more before letting go.

“Don’t question the mojo?“ he says amused and grateful, green tint gone.

“Don’t question the mojo,“ he agrees.

The ceremony is beautiful. And, really, what’s with the Argents? He knows she has just become one, but their crazy absurdity must be contagious because Victoria looks at him with some less frigid contempt in her eyes. What the? He has just promised her hell and damnation and eternal pain if she…

Well, huh. It seems that she loves Chris as much as he loves her, after all.

—

Stiles misses his own graduation.

On the very same day, Alexandrine has a meeting with the secondary Argent branch in Minnesota, but she promises to be on time for the ceremony. She takes Chris and Alexander with her, but sends Kate and Victoria in advance to meet Stiles. Victoria isn’t happy to be relegated to Kate’s guard just because she’s pregnant, but a look from Stiles silences her.

Their bickering draws looks but the last time someone frowned at them, well, their combined glares nearly made them flee and no one has dared again. It was very satisfying… and terrifying to actually coincide on something.

On their way to campus, someone tries to abduct Kate. Long story short, Victoria saves them both and gets taken instead. He breaks his wrist when he pulls a fast one to put a tracking rune on the fleeing van. He calls for the cavalry but doesn’t even wait for it. He wraps his wrist with the hair scarf thingie Kate is wearing and goes after them. She follows despite his protests.

They find Victoria rescuing herself, of course, dented lamp in hand and three attackers already dead.

There’s blood between her thighs.

Allison.

No, not again. He won’t be responsible for her death again.

He comes to himself, covered in blood and other things, just as Victoria’s strength fails her. He catches her with the help of a pale and wide-eyed Kate, whose own hands are crimson. The pocket knife in her hands makes a deafening noise as it impacts with the ground.

Nonononotagain.

He makes her lay down carefully and curses. Kate scrambles to take her phone out and it slips from her bloody hands and clatters on the ground. She’s shaking. Both of them are shaking. They don’t have time, he pulls Victoria’s shirt up harshly and places his hands on her stomach.

He doesn’t know what to do, but anything is better than nothing.

He wakes up at the hospital of Beacon Hills after a two month long coma, his broken wrist still in a cast. Victoria is in the room with him and, after a soft tap on his face and an empty snip about stupid heroics, hand on her swollen stomach and eyes silently grateful, she calls the nurses and the rest of the family.

“The not question the mojo thing, right?” she inquires dryly, eyebrow raised.

“Never question the mojo,“ he rasps back, lips twitching, and she snorts as she helps him take a sip of water.

Kate cries, Chris looks suspiciously moist eyed, Alexandrine hugs him and Alexander, is calm and subdued, which he never thought he would ever witness. And over the course of the day, a lot of hunters he has worked with come by to pay a visit. Of some of them he doesn’t even know the names because he didn’t bother.

He realizes that, even if he has somewhat warmed up to Chris, Kate, Alexandrine and Alexander, he has been subconsciously keeping everyone at arms length. Even though he made the decision months ago to give them a chance and to let go of the past, part of him has held back and tried to not make new ties and friendships.

He’s failed.

He can’t say he’s too heartbroken about it.

—

On January 8th, Allison Claudia Argent is born at exactly four a.m. eleven minutes. Chris comes out and says Victoria is asking for Stiles to enter first without anyone else.

“How?“ Stiles asks, voice broken and silently crying. He’s never seen anything more beautiful than the baby in Victoria’s arms.

“Remember when I got you drunk on Christmas Eve?” Victoria deadpans tiredly from the bed.

“No?”

“Exactly.“

She hands him the baby, who starts to whimper at being moved. She instantly calms in Stiles' arms. He presses a reverent kiss on her forehead.

“And what else did I say?”

After a moment, she starts speaking. “I didn’t pry beyond your parents names… but I know who they are. I also know you have somehow saved me. I knocked you out after you blurted that.“

Ah, that explains the killer headache from hell that very next day, when he normally doesn’t like to drink at all. And the bump in the head. And… He snorts.

“Is that why you’ve been randomly pulling me into shops for the past week? Because, I tell you, I didn’t buy the excuse about you deciding to build a handmade wooden crib for Allison at the very last minute.”

“That crib is perfect and way better than that plastic prefabricated thing we had before,” she sniffs and… Is that a red tint on her cheeks? His lips twitch.

“Yeah, because you made me build it and I warded it to Pluto and back.”

“You did?“

“Duh.“

“You’re going to be the perfect godfather.“

Stiles cries again.

(That she won’t tell anyone goes without saying.)

—

Stiles is on babysitter duty when he meets Peter again. Chris is in Ontario and Victoria in Atlanta. He’s going to get it so bad when she comes back, because she found out about the pact between Kate and him about future sewer related missions and Alexandrine found it so funny that she sent her on one.

“Your mama is gonna kill me,“ he baby talks to Allison and she squeals. She’s almost impossibly cute in her summer dress with matching hair bow. He can’t resist the temptation and Eskimo kisses her. She squeals again.

Dammit. He’s so whipped.

A couple of women coo as they pass him and he blushes a little bit.

“You make me soft, yes, you do. And also talk like an idiot, my precious cinnamon roll, so your goddaddy needs a very black coffee to recover his masculinity and dark edge, yes, he does.“

“He really is an idiot,“ he hears a little girl’s mocking whisper followed by a man’s voice, also mocking. “Yes, he is.”

“He also hears very well,” he says dryly, and has the satisfaction of seeing both Laura and Derek jump guiltily. Peter smirks openly, obviously having known he would hear them.

“Uncle Peter,“ Derek whispers wide eyed, “isn’t he the one from that day?!”

“Yep, still can hear you, yes, I do,” he singsongs as Allison giggles and slaps with her tiny hand on his face. Gotta love runes and his paranoid nature, especially when he’s out with Allison. Derek blushes and hides shyly behind Peter. Stiles contains his cackles. “We meet again.“

—

Over the next four months, he sees Peter exactly ten times. Eight times still at Beacon Hills, during summer vacation, in which more or less both of them try to one up each other, and another two at New Haven, where they save each other’s life.

Figures Peter studied Law at Yale.

Stiles is working solo, which, admittedly he shouldn’t have been, but he was just on his way from Long Island to meet a bigger group in Shelton to take down a vampire coven that is kidnapping and turning kids from orphanages and foster homes from all around. He was on his way, that is, until he noticed something wrong at the East Rock Park and decided that a quick peek shouldn’t hurt.

And now he’s running across the park in the dark chased by a Cerberus. A fucking rabid three headed dog that is supposed to be extinct. And nothing he throws at it seems to be working. Wonderful.

Not.

(In case it isn't sufficiently obvious that he's being sarcastic.)

Cue in Peter and his very sharp claws and even sharper tongue.

“Well,” he says nonchalantly as he cleans his hands with a handkerchief, “so you do have a weak point, after all. Sister dearest has been most anxious to find one, having us, her poor subjects, search left and right for it. And here it lands in my lap. So convenient.”

“Good luck finding another Cerberus,“ he drawls back. “I was convinced they were extinct, but maybe you just killed the last one.”

“First, isn’t that an empowering thought?”

“You would think that.“ Stiles rolls his eyes as he pats his clothes to shake off the dirt.

Peter ignores him. “Second, she didn’t specify it had to be a useful weak point. But, I could be convinced to stay silent on the matter if…”

“I don’t really care if you do?“

“…you go out on a date with me.”

“What.“

He’s too shocked to protest when Peter grabs his hand and writes his number on the back of it before sauntering out, but Paul’s frantic call makes him wake up and speed all the way to Shelton.

In the end it’s a coven in as much as a mad nearly three hundred years old female vampire with an obsession on creating the perfect offspring and eighty-three of her failed attempts can be.

It’s a sorry affair. Out of those eighty-three kids, they can't help killing ten when she sends them to attack while she tries to flee. Forty-two are completely out their minds and try to kill them or each other the moment their sire’s mind control is gone. Of the twenty-one remaining, eighteen are so fragile that they die immediately after so many bonds snap. Finally, the only three left are terrified out of their minds and so touch and go that they can’t be moved without risk of them dying.

Stiles tries the contacts he had in the future, hoping at least one works. After a lot of failures, the one in Pittsburgh works. It takes a lot of convincing but they agree to take them in. Before help arrives, though, one of the little girls dies and only the twins remain. He calls again to urge them. Finally, the help from the coven arrives. Stiles breathes relieved when she assures him they will be fine.

By the time everything is over, the phone number has long since faded from his skin, but he only wants to go back home and steal Allison away and snuggle her for days, his most important decision what he’s going to dress her in when Victoria is not looking (at the moment he really wants to see her in a spiderman onesie).

His phone rings.

What he really does is pick up Brandon and Madison, Anthony’s son and daughter respectively, from Beacon Falls, where they have gone all cocky, without the backup from a more experienced hunter and against their father’s orders, to take on a wendigo to prove they aren’t puppies but able hunters.

It’s difficult to tell if Anthony is proud of their success or furious at their irresponsible idiocy. Stiles’ bet is on a twenty-five slash seventy-five percentage respectively. When the man asks him for advice on how to deal with it (he has already lost his wife, he can’t lose them too, he says pained), he tells him to be honest with them about how he feels, the good and the bad.

(He doesn’t welcome the reminder of his father, to be truthful.)

It must have worked, though, because when the siblings emerge from the motel, they are a chastised pair. He drives them to New Haven, prepared to just drop them, leave the car at the nearest Argent branch garage and take a flight home. He’s not in the mood for anything else. Besides, he’s knackered and the darkness is making him sleepy.

He debates with himself, though. What are the odds of being brought back to New Haven after losing Peter’s number? Stiles normally doesn’t believe in these things but… ever since he came back to the past, even if nothing has gone according to plan, he’s pretty much moved on good luck spectrum of his bad luck… But if he goes and asks for his number, he’s going to be insufferable… He tries to decide how to proceed as he drives towards Yale. For starters, he needs to locate him, after all.

He needn’t have worried, because, just as he’s driving past East Rock Park, a scantily clad Peter crosses the street pursued by… what the hell is that?

Turns out the owner of the Cerberus has taken exception to her pet being killed.

Afterwards, Stiles can’t stop laughing and Peter’s disgruntled expression does not help. He lends him some clothes and buys him coffee, continuously making puns about cheeks or any part of his anatomy that he’s had revealed tonight. He also filches his phone to put his number in and send himself a message.

He’s feeling better, but he still steals Allison the moment he hits Beacon Hills and dresses her in the spiderman onesie. It becomes his phone’s wallpaper.

—

When Kate becomes eighteen she shanghais Stiles into becoming her mentor. He retaliates by leaving her tied in the sewers as her initiation.

Stiles hears her telling Chris that she expected the reaction, that it was fair enough. He cackles, irritation forgotten.

—

For the next two years, everything goes without a hitch. He takes missions, taking Kate with him whenever her college schedule allows or he’s feeling plain vindictive. He also keeps babysitting Allison, who has him wrapped around her little finger. Peter and him continue dancing around each other, to Talia’s chagrin. Alexandrine (or the rest of the family for that matter) isn’t exactly happy about it either, but they leave him be. Peter gets silently threatened a lot, though, but he seems to find it very funny.

Even after all this time, Stiles doesn’t like Talia at all. Peter has started acting as her left hand, even from Yale, which seems to be a sore spot between them. Apparently, she expected him to settle into position and sort of leave his studies or study from home or something. Which, not happening, because it’s a source of pride for Peter to have been accepted into Yale, and he’s not about to give that up like he always does when she demands something. He put his foot down on that one and she has had to accept it, but even so, she still tries to force his hand continuously. And Stiles doesn’t understand why, because at the same time she sort of silently boasts of not needing one, that the respect people have for her (which is based on the measly fact that she can perform a full change) is enough. Also, she always seems to condemn Peter whenever she has to use him and it drives Stiles nuts. And her behavior gets worse and worse as time passes.

Stiles is very sure his patience is going to end up snapping.

—

Cora disappears on a Sunday afternoon. Talia blames Peter, who wasn’t even in the house and was on a date with Stiles. Phillip, who doesn’t like Peter very much, but recognizes the absurdity of the situation, tries to calm her.

Stiles snaps so badly that he slaps her out of the panic. Hard. “Snap out of it, you bitch!” he shouts. Then, he looks at his hand surprised. An array of runes melts from her temple and she looks around as if she has just woken up. Before it finishes dispelling, he surges forward to get a taste of the magics. Phillip tries to stop what he thinks an attack and Peter covers Stiles.

He knows this signature like the back of his hand, but first, Cora.

He tracks her easily via runes, just playing un the woods outside the house. He doesn’t know why they can’t catch her scent… Jackpot. He finds the talisman and recognizes the signature immediately.

He knew it.

How many times did he tell Scott and he didn’t listen? How many? He knew there was always a hand behind the scenes, with every bad they faced. And then, they were being hunted like dogs and they didn’t know by whom. And he could always get a tiny taste of the culprit but never enough…

“Stiles?”

But, why? What was the game? What did he want? Because this didn’t happen in the original timeline, of that he was sure. At least about the Cora thing… But it’s true that Peter was always wary of him. Did he suspect? Or has Stiles presence this time forced his hand into acting sooner or into being more heavy handed?

“Where are Laura and Derek?”

"In their rooms... Why- Stiles?!“

They are gone.

Whatever it is that Deaton wants, it’s always been about the Hales.

How did Laura find out about what was happening back in Beacon Hills when nothing was published about it? Why did he never tell them about his sister being the emissary of the alpha pack? Or about the darach? Stiles has been doing this for a lot less time than Deaton had at the time, and he can recognize a darach’s doings from a mile away! He tricked them into sacrificing themselves, knowing that an untrained spark would be perfectly open to the nogitsune and don’t tell him he didn’t know he was there! And suddenly, when everything seems fine after all the shit, the doctors at the institution where his sister counsels turn out to be psychos? Which, of course, forces Derek and Cora back… And the beast…

And everything went to hell.

When did Deaton become their emissary? He was already their emissary when Talia’s mother was the alpha, which doesn’t make sense, because he’s pretty young at this point. Her mother passed down Deaton along with her powers. Where are they now? Their parents went traveling after she passed the baton to Talia. When was the last time they talked? They look at each other wide-eyed, they can’t remember. When did Talia start changing? When she turned alpha, but it really worsened abruptly about four years ago.

Stiles helped the nogitsune nearly four years ago.

He can’t, for the life of him, guess what he wants, but he doesn’t care right now, or he maybe never will. He’s going to get Laura and Derek back and kill the bastard. And he’s going to enjoy it, dammit.

He calls the cavalry and tells Talia to do the same. Deaton’s pretty good at blocking his magical tracking so they’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way. Hunters and supernaturals are extremely wary of working together, but Alexandrine takes a look at Stiles thunderous expression and gets things moving.

They comb the town and the preserve and nothing. They try the town’s surroundings and nothing. Talia even calls Deucalion to get Marin to talk. Marin says she has never had a brother, that she’s an only child. Stiles opens his mouth to call bullshit and then…

If Deaton is that good that he can even make a pretty powerful druid like Morrel be convinced that she has a brother that she doesn’t really have… his wards around the Nemeton are laughable. He just placed them to warn him about ill intent and Deaton has probably circumvented them a long time ago.

He tries his directioning runes just outside the preserve to track the Nemeton and they fall flat. He swears and everyone backs off at his livid expression. Peter doesn’t.

No, no and no. He’s not going to lose this time. Never again. He’s a spark, he just has to believe, and a measly druid’s rituals are not going to be more than his magics.

He enters the preserve and doesn’t notice that they immediately lose sight of him and that no one can follow him. He doesn’t hear Peter’s howl.

He faces Deaton at the Nemeton. He says Stiles has ruined everything. He has been the guardian of this land since the Nemeton sprouted here and has been keeping it healthy and…

Everything around him starts to blur.

Stiles’ pretty sure that if he ever has the chance to investigate, he will find out that every older generation of Hales (and thus, probably useless to protect the land in Deaton’s eyes) has always disappeared without a trace while their descendants thought them either traveling or away for whatever reason. The Hales have been rumored to have been always capable of a full shift up until Talia’s mother Esme, married a non werewolf, so this last generation, instead of having two powerful sacrifices, Deaton has only had one, and thus he was counting on the nogitsune’s energy to keep the Nemeton alive… and himself. And then Stiles went and freed him.

(And in the original timeline, even if the nogitsune wasn’t freed, Talia (the last known full shifter up until Derek managed it) and almost every Hale died in the fire.)

He tries to fight the drowsiness, hopelessly outmatched. It occurs to him, as he is slammed against the tree stump, that a trained spark is a pretty succulent sacrifice. Which is probably why Deaton has lured him here.

He’s going to die. And probably Deaton is going to wipe or change everyone’s memories and every sacrifice he’s made until now will be for nothing.

He fights. He’s a spark, he just has to believe. He’s stronger than this. He’s just outmatched because Deaton is siphoning from the Nemeton… from which he has been a part ever since his own sacrifice. No matter in which point of the timeline he is, that doesn’t change the mark or the connection it left on him.

He pulls from it and Deaton must notice immediately because he gives an outraged cry and goes for Stiles. Something slams into the man forcing him back and Stiles' mind clears. With a snarl he goes for the kill before Deaton can recover.

Later, breathing harshly and with a rolling stomach, he eyes his rescuer warily.

“We are in peace now,“ the nogitsune says, snout bloody. He licks his teeth lazily, eyeing his surroundings with distaste.

Nothing remains from Deaton.

Now he’ll never know the why of many of his manipulations (why change Talia, for example), but he finds that he doesn’t care so long as he’s dead and can never come back for a repeat performance.

All his suspicions are confirmed when he accesses the Nemeton's roots and finds dozens of mummified bodies, lined in pairs. He waits until he has Derek and Laura outside to wake them and hugs them tight as they cry.

—

Stiles runs across the preserve, breath harsh and exhausted after everything. He’s tackled from behind and he falls with a yell.

“Asshole,” he grunts fondly and Peter huffs amused. They stay like that for a couple of minutes, curled around each other, until a half wolfed Cora jumps on them followed by Derek. Laura laughs before doing the same. “Okay, people, I have to call it a night.”

“But it is Wolf Moon!“ Laura protests as Peter helps him up. He shivers and the kids huddle around him. Peter passes an arm over his shoulders with a big toothed smirk and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Wolf Moon or not, I’m freezing and I hate the cold so chop chop.”

On his way to the car, he nods to a fully shifted Talia and several members of the pack. He immediately sneezes and throws a dirty look at them when they snicker. He kisses Peter deeply before leaving, to the kids' disgust.

Back at home, he’s tackled by a five year old Allison the moment he crosses the threshold. He Eskimo kisses her and she squeals. They all are staying at the family house for the holidays, even though Stiles and Peter’s flat is less than ten minutes away, and Victoria and Chris’ not even fifteen. But since Peter is staying at the Hale house too, it’s working out pretty well.

Victoria hands him a cookie filled plate and warm milk that he not so sneakily shares with Allison. His heart melts when she hands him the last cookie. She squeals again when he theatrically hugs her. He hears the tattletale sound of a picture being taken and he smiles at the camera.

Suddenly, he remembers the picture that he never looks at and his smile dims. Chris leans over his shoulder to kiss Allison, and, at the same time he squeezes the back of his neck. Stiles smiles softly.

The plan was very simple: go back in time, kill Kate, kill Gerard, never ever make contact with his parents, try to find a place within the Hale pack or not, but either way, live the rest of his life displaced and without the people he loves.

Out of those, he can cross out at least half, which is not that bad considering that right from the start, nothing has gone according to plan. He did go back in time, even though it wasn’t exactly when he wanted to arrive. He did not kill Kate, but he did off Gerard. The not making contact has been a total failure, because he’s made contact several times thanks to first his stupidity and later Allison’s park visits and play dates. He’s certainly found his place among the Hales as their emissary, even though he’s still a hunter, and more importantly, as Peter’s mate. About the last one, he’s not so sure, though, because he is displaced and without his loved ones, but, at the same time…

He’s found a new place and loved ones for himself.

Kate headslaps him as she goes to the kitchen. “Wake up, Twinkle!“ Allison giggles a chorus of delighted twinkletwinkletwinkle as she squirms on his lap. Stiles sniffs at Kate, to her amusement too tired for any kind of retaliation, and he tickles the toddler mercilessly. A wet and dirty rag slaps him on the back of his head with perfect accuracy and he narrows his eyes. He’s still on time to tick another thing from his list…

He calmly passes Allison to an amused Victoria and then he runs after Kate, disgusting rag in hand. He’s gonna strangle her, dammit.

A little continuation here.

#teen wolf bingo #teen wolf fics #my writing #steter #teen wolf

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redditnosleep · 6 years

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I Took A Walk For Seven Years

by theoddcatlady

It was August 9, 2010. I was thirty eight years old. My oldest daughter Avis was twelve, and the younger pair, Joanne and John, were nine year old twins. I’d been married for fifteen years. I worked at an insurance firm. And every Sunday, while my wife and Avis went to church and the twins went to my mother’s house, I took a walk.

It was a clockwork sort of arrangement. My wife knew never to push me into going with her, I was an atheist and set on staying that way.

Of course, given what’s happened, my views have changed.

It was just a normal day. Avis gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me to not forget my coat, even if it was an abnormally warm day. I’d say it was maybe sixty five, maybe sixty eight degrees Fahrenheit. My mom picked up the twins. And I started down my walk.

We lived off the beaten path, so to speak. Our road was never busy and most of the area was taken up by farmland. A truck passed me on the road and I waved. I was pretty sure it was Art, although it could’ve been one of his sons on his way to church. Either way, he waved back.

I took a turn to the right onto Hensel. Hensel was a dirt road but it was never travelled except by farmers, and today it was quiet. Good time to collect my thoughts.

Every other time before this, I’d turn back around once I reached Art’s farmhouse, although occasionally his wife would pull me in for lemonade and gossip.

But August 9 would be the day I took the longest walk of my life.

I was passing by the cornfield when I heard laughter. To be more specific, it was a child’s laughter. I paused and looked into the cornfield.

A pair of forest green eyes looked back at me.

The girl looked to be no older than seven, had red hair tied into twin braids, and I assumed she was one of Art’s grandchildren. She smiled broadly.

“Catch me!”

She darted back into the corn and I could hear her giggles slowly fade away.

Normally I would’ve scoffed at going into the field, as I’d have to cross the ditch and I didn’t want to get dirt on my pants. But I felt a little bit of concern, a small child running around the field by herself. So with a jump that I knew my knees would feel in the morning, I jump into the corn field.

Using the sound of her laughter, I started pushing through the corn. The dry leaves scratched at my face and hands, and dust kicked up into my face.

I knew she couldn’t outrun me for long, even if she was a child with boundless energy, I had longer legs.

However, I exited the cornfield in a place I didn’t know.

My house was nowhere to be seen. And there was a light layer of snow covering the ground.

I spun around but the corn was gone, replaced by frosted evergreen trees. The temperature had significantly dropped and I was now thankful that my daughter insisted I bring a coat. I shivered and spun around a few more times, trying to make sense of this dream I’d apparently fallen into and where was that little girl?

“Hey! Mister!”

I finally spun around enough to see her, peering past a branch. She grinned.

“You catch me, I’ll show you the way out!”

That began the chase.

Getting smacked with tree branches was far worse than the corn, the needles tearing at my skin like knives as I pushed past them to find that little girl. Whenever I got lost, I’d hear her laugh. She was having fun. I was not.

The wet snow beneath my feet made it impossible to gain traction, and forget running- I’d slip if I so much as stepped wrong. With every minute I got colder and colder. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached.

Then I broke from the treeline into a grassy meadow.

I didn’t expect the change so I ended up toppling over. The grass smelled sweet as honey. A fat bumblebee trundled past my head and landed on a Black Eyed Susan. It was heaven.

But the peace of the meadow was broken by that girl laughing again.

“Awwww, are you already giving up?”

The warm sunlight made her glow, like a tiny angel, but as I stumbled to my feet, I caught something behind those big eyes I hadn’t before.

Malevolence.

She was toying with me and she knew it.

I can’t tell you how many times the environment changed. One minute it’d be across a meadow, then a desert during a sandstorm. I’d have to rely solely on hearing her in places like that. Sometimes we’d be back in the cornfield, and I’d shout for Art to get me out of here but no help ever came. Sometimes we’d be running across barren tundra, where she’d be just out of my grasp.

She wasn’t always a little girl either. Sometimes she was a young teen, with a gap between her teeth and who’d hum sweet tunes. Sometimes she was a ravishing model of her early twenties, with fiery hair and a flirtatious grin. And the times she wasn’t any of those, she was an ancient crone, with a bent back and arthritic hands that clutched to her cane but still managed to hobble away from me.

She called herself Clarice occasionally. Other times it was Lolita, Dixie, Isabella, Hope… I lost count of her names too. A straight answer was impossible. She’d never lie to me though, just avoid answering any of the questions I’d ask her.

So I knew she was my key out of there.

It was in the meadow where I finally got her.

She was a little girl again, and her taunting was beyond cruel this time. She’d stop, pick flowers, and run on before I could grab her. She’d throw the flowers about and sing ridiculous nonsense songs and I knew I couldn’t ever win like this.

So I dropped to the ground.

The little girl stopped.

“Oh, are you really giving up now? You’re sooooo close!”

Nothing. I remained still as I gasped for breath.

I heard her get closer and closer.

“Mister? Are you okay? Do you need a break? You’ve been going on a really loooong time…”

Once I saw her shadow I lunged.

She almost got away but my hand wrapped around her braid and I pulled her back so hard I could’ve snapped her neck. I embraced her in my arms and breathed out, “I got you.”

I’d never felt so successful in my entire life. I’d finally gotten her.

She turned around and smiled sadly.

“Can we play again? We were having fun. You don’t have to go back, we can stay here.”

No way. I was done with this. “Nope. You let me out of here right now or I’m strangling you with your own braids.” A little dramatic, perhaps, but I gripped tighter onto her hair to make clear my point.

She sighed before she kissed my cheek. The same place Avis did before church.

“Okay.”

When I woke up, I was in the middle of the plowed cornfield.

It was spring time, the ground was churned to mud and the water freezing cold. I peeled myself off the ground and began stumbling home.

It was then I noticed how tired I truly was. My mouth was parched as the deserts I ran through. My body was stiff and ached like I’d run a thousand miles, and there was a chance I had. I had one goal in mind though, and that was home. I could finally go home.

Despite tripping through the mud a dozen times, I caught sight of my house and immediately began to cry. Barely able to move, I just pointed myself to the backyard. My wife should be home about now. She’d see me and come to my aid.

Two teenage boys were on the back porch, one was smoking while the other was playing on his phone. I couldn’t recognize either of them. Had my family moved? I raised my hand and attempted to speak, but it came out as a raspy moan.

Both boys jumped out of their skin, the one smoking dropping his cigarette and they backed off. The shorter one raised a hand. “Sir, you’re gonna have to…” He trailed off and his eyes widened.

The eyes that looked exactly like my wife’s.

“… Dad?!”

I passed out on the ground, just a few steps from the back door.

I woke up in the hospital. I’d been cleaned up, had an IV running into my arm, and a woman was sitting next to my bed. Fast asleep. With a tattoo of a bird on her neck. A sparrow, to be exact.

Avis always loved her sparrows.

I’d been gone for a little over seven years. When I didn’t return from my walk, my wife reported me missing. At first law enforcement assumed I’d just ran off with another woman, but when that line of investigation went dry, they realized I’d been the victim of foul play.

Search parties were made. People were questioned. No one was imprisoned. They never found me. And life marched on.

Art apparently died about a year after I went missing. Stroke. The farm went to his sons, who ended up selling the whole property to another family. A family who stayed oblivious to the fact that was the place I was last spotted.

The boys on the back porch were in fact my boys. I just hadn’t been around when Joanne announced he was now James, at the age of thirteen. I wish I could’ve been there to help him become a man.

I apparently had a good replacement though.

After four years and it looked like I was gone for good, my wife met someone new. His name’s Clark. They’d gotten married six months after they met. Clark was a real outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman, and loved to go camping. As I chased a fairy child through her playground, he was taking James and John out on trips every weekend and putting away money to help James afford his surgeries and the like. Clark had two kids of his own, and I was soon a memory in this house. They could survive without me.

Avis was the only one who hadn’t given up on me. She pursued every lead. Every dead end. Every chance that I could be there, she was chasing it. Stubborn girl. My girl. But she’d grown from a girl to a woman since I’d been gone, and it was like talking to a stranger. A strange who had my chin and nose, but a stranger nonetheless.

My wife did want to help me adjust though, and kindly offered the guest bedroom for me while I recovered. I’d apparently been through hell, bones were broken and healed, muscles torn and strained beyond their limits. I was malnourished and could barely stand without my walker, and I just had nowhere to go.

It was not a place I could stay though.

Clark’s kids looked at me like I was some bogeyman that lived down the hall. Clark and I tried to be polite to each other but things became tense as my now ex-wife was struggling whether or not she should officially put down on paper who she would divorce.

I was just in the way.

But the little girl wasn’t gone.

Nightly I’d see her outside my window. She’d peer in, with those big eyes, and mouth the words,

“Come with me.”

I’ve told my wife I’m just going out for a walk.

#creepy #horror story #lost time #author: theoddcatlady

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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New British TV Series for 2021: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky Dramas, Britbox & More

https://ift.tt/3y44fPr

Among the detective dramas and high-stakes thrillers due to arrive on British television in the next year or so, there are a clutch of sci-fi, supernatural and horror shows also coming our way. April saw the release of Sky One original Intergalactic – the story of a wrongly imprisoned galactic pilot who breaks out of space jail with a gang of other high-security female prisoners – and Netflix has ordered fantasy novel adaptations Half Bad, Cuckoo Song, Lockwood & Co. and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – respectively, tales of witches, supernatural pacts, ghost-hunters, and a woman who jumps between bodies in her quest to solve a murder mystery. Coming to terrestrial TV, there’s Life After Life and The Three, stories about living multiple versions of the same life, and the miraculous child survivors of a mysterious plane crash.

On top of that, there’s plenty of true crime, thrillers, a new Sally Rooney adaptation for fans of Normal People, the screenwriting debuts of Candice Carty-Williams and Cash Carraway, plus Shane Meadows’ first period drama. Find out what’s coming from the UK in 2021 and beyond below.

We’ll keep this list updated with new commissions and as casting details and release dates are confirmed.

Anansi Boys (2022)

Following on the heels of Good Omens‘ surprise second series renewal by Amazon Prime Video came the announcement that the same team were to adapt Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys novel into a television series. It’s the story of Fat Charlie Nancy and his slippery brother Spider, sons of Mr Nancy, the folkloric spider god and trickster famed in West African and Caribbean mythology. Casting for the six-part series has yet to be announced.

Around the World in 80 Days (tbc)

Filming began in South Africa on this new eight-part adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel in February 2020, and was halted in March by Covid-19 with an episode and a half in the can, before resuming in early July, then finally wrapping in March 2021. The European-funded series will air on BBC One and stars David Tennant as Verne’s famous explorer Phileas Fogg. To satisfy a foolhardy wager, Fogg and his valet set off on a globe-circling journey, this time in the company of journalist Abigail Fix, played by The Crown’s Leonie Benesch. It’s been adapted by a team led by Life On Mars’ Ashley Pharoah.

Anne (tbc)

World Productions, the makers of some of the best British drama around (Line Of Duty, Save Me, Jed Mercurio drama Bodyguard) are behind this four-part drama for ITV. Written by novelist Kevin Sampson, who was present at Hillsborough Stadium on the tragic day that ninety-six football fans died, it tells the real-life story of Anne Williams’ decades-long fight for justice for her teenage son and all the victims of the 1989 disaster. Maxine Peake stars in the lead role and Bruce Goodison directs. Peake was spotted filming the series in Liverpool back in late 2018 but there’s no sign yet of a release date.

Before We Die (May)

Adapted from the Swedish crime thriller of the same name (pictured above), Before We Die is the six-part story of a detective who discovers that her son is acting as an undercover informant in a brutal murder investigation. This English-language version is set in Bristol and stars Lesley Sharp, Vincent Regan and Patrick Gibson. The series aired on Channel 4 in May to lukewarm reviews.

Behind Her Eyes (Feb)

This six-part psychological thriller arrived in February, went straight into Netflix’s Top 10 and had an ending that left a real impression on viewers (spoilers in our discussion of it.) Adapted by Hannibal and The Punisher’s Steve Lightfoot from Sarah Pinborough’s 2017 novel, it’s the story of a woman who becomes involved in an unconventional love triangle that develops into a dark, twist-filled web of secrets. Tom Bateman (Vanity Fair, Beecham House) and The Luminaries’ Eve Hewson star.

Best Interests (tbc)

Jack Thorne (pictured), the busiest screenwriter in the UK is returning to BBC One fresh from His Dark Materials series two with a new original four-part drama partly inspired by the real-life Charlie Gard case. It’s about a young child with a life-threatening condition whose medical team judge it in her best interests that she be allowed to die, a decision her family can’t support and fight every step of the way. The commission was announced in July 2019 and filming was due to begin in 2020 before the pandemic took hold. As of June 2021, there were no recent updates about progress on this one.

Bloodlands (Feb)

Series two has already been ordered of new BBC One Belfast-set crime drama Bloodlands, which stars The Missing and Cold Feet‘s James Nesbitt. The thriller, from new writer Chris Brandon, revolved around a cold case that held personal significance for Nesbitt’s detective and dug up buried secrets for him and the people of Belfast. Susan Lynch, Michael Smiley, Ian McElhinney and Lisa Dwan were among the cast for series one.

But When We Dance (tbc)

Directed by Johnny Campbell (of In The Flesh and Dracula fame) and written by Esio Trot’s Paul Mayhew Archer, this one-off comedy-drama about two people with Parkinson’s disease was announced in late 2019 and will be coming to BBC One. Described as a touching and hilarious love story, it’s the story of Tony and Emma, a couple who first meet at a dance class for people with Parkinson’s. It promises to be a witty, heart-felt 90 minutes throwing a light on a much-diagnosed condition in the UK.

Call My Agent (tbc)

An English-language adaptation of the hit French comedy-drama following a Parisian talent agency is coming to the UK, and from the best possible choice of writer – WIA and Twenty Twelve writer John Morton. Filming took place in summer 2021 on the series, which is set to welcome a host of star cameos including Helena Bonham Carter, Kelly Macdonald and Jim Broadbent, all playing satirical versions of themselves. Jack Davenport leads the regular cast.

Cash Carraway w/t (2022)

Inspired by writer Cash Carraway’s recent memoir Skint Estate, this new BBC drama will star This Country’s Daisy May Cooper as a working class single mum skewering stereotypes and exploring the brutal realities of austerity Britain. Creator Carraway assures viewers that it won’t be “a woeful tale of poverty porn,” but a love story between a mother who refuses to give in, and her 10-year-old daughter.

Champion (2022)

From Candice Carty-Williams (pictured above), writer of 2019 hit novel Queenie, comes a series celebrating contemporary Black British Music. Champion is the story of a highly personal rap battle between a South London brother and sister, former rap sensation and ex-con Bosco, and his former PA and younger sister Vita. Which of the Champion siblings will prosper?

Chloe (tbc)

From Alice Seabright, director of Netflix’s Sex Education comes six-part BBC One psychological thriller Chloe. It’s the story of Becky, who becomes so obsessed with the death of an estranged friend that she takes on a false identity to find out the true story. The cast (pictured above) was announced in April 2021 and includes Poldark‘s Jack Farthing, The Crown‘s Erin Doherty, The Serpent‘s Billy Howle and Gangs of London‘s Pippa Bennett-Warner.

Come Again (2022)

Robert Webb’s debut novel Come Again, which was published in April 2020, is being adapted for television. It was announced in May 2020 that Firebird Pictures Ltd is working on the screen version of the story by the writer-actor. Come Again is the first novel by Webb (Peep Show, Back, That Mitchell And Webb Look). It tells the story of Kate, a karate expert, computer genius widow mired in grief who gets an out-of-this-world chance to go back into her past and change the future. It’s part love story, part coming-of-age story, part spy thriller packed with action and 90s nostalgia.

Conversations with Friends (2022)

Following the enormous success of Normal People – the story of young Irish couple Marianne and Connor navigating love, sex, university, class, friendship and mental health – the BBC and Hulu are collaborating on an adaptation of author Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with Friends. This one’s on a similar bent, as the story of a pair of young Irish students who get involved with an glamorous older, married couple. The cast looks excellent too, with Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke playing Nick and Melissa, newcomer Alison Oliver playing the lead Frances, and Utopia (US) and Loki‘s Sasha Lane as Frances’ friend Bobbi.

Crime (tbc)

Filming began in April 2021 on Irvine Welsh crime thriller adaptation Crime, a Britbox exclusive due to arrive late this year. Welsh is adapting his novel for the screen in collaboration with Dean Cavanagh. Set in Edinburgh, it’s the story of Detective Inspector Lennox (played by Dougray Scott) and his investigation into the disappearance of a schoolgirl. Angela Griffin, Joanna Vanderham and Ken Stott also star. Broadchurch and Vigil (see below) director James Strong describes it as “a dark, visceral, shocking ride.”

Cuckoo Song (2022)

Based on the acclaimed young adult novel by author Frances Hardinge (The Lie Tree, Fly By Night), this six-part fantasy series is coming to Netflix. Among the writers are Doctor Who’s Sarah Dollard, Elizabeth is Missing’s Andrea Gibb and The Innocents’ Corinna Faith. It’s the story of two sisters – one human and one a monster – at war with each other, who have to reunite to reverse a supernatural pact gone wrong.

Danny Boy (May)

New BBC Two feature-length drama Danny Boy aired in May and told the story of real-life soldier Brian Wood, accused of war crimes in Iraq by human rights lawyer Phil Shiner. Ordeal by Innocence’s Anthony Boyle plays Wood, with the magnificent Toby Jones as Shiner, from a screenplay written by Murder and Party Animals’ Robert Jones. It’s currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Death Comes as the End (tbc)

With Agatha Christie adaptation The Pale Horse having completed Sarah Phelps’ quintet of adaptations for the BBC in 2020, it’s the turn of a different voice on a very different kind of Christie novel. That voice? Vanity Fair and Five Days screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes. And that novel? Death Comes As The End, a murder mystery set not in the early 20th century, but in ancient Egypt. The arrival of a new concubine sends ripples through an Egyptian priest’s family. The cast and air date have yet to be announced.

Devils (February)

Italian-French-UK co-production Devils came to Sky Atlantic in February, a high-finance thriller based on Guido Maria Brera’s novel of the same name. It’s a story of a top investment firm, multi-million dollar deals, a mysterious death and a public scandal. Alessandro Borghi stars.

Domina (May)

From Simon Burke, the creator of Sky weird-thriller Fortitude, eight-part historical family saga Domina is set in ancient Rome, beginning in the wake of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Based on real historical characters, it follows the ascendancy of Livia Drusilla through the Roman political ranks, as she strategizes her way to the top, driven by revenge.

Englistan (tbc)

Actor, rapper and screenwriter Riz Ahmed (pictured) was announced in 2018 as developing this ambitious nine-part series with BBC Two, but no updates have been released since. It was set to be a drama about three generations of a British Pakistani family set over the course of four decades. As soon as there’s any news on this one, we’ll include it here.

Everything I Know About Love (2022)

Novelist and journalist Dolly Alderton has turned screenwriter to adapt her own memoir Everything I Know About Love for the BBC. Described as “a generous, funny, warm-hearted and uplifting Sex & the City for Millennials, it’s the story of two young women Maggie and Birdy, who move to London and have to navigate relationships, flat-shares, heartache and friendship.

Extinction (2022)

This one needs to be on your radar: Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton has written an eight-part action thriller starring I May Destroy You and Gangs of London‘s Paapa Essiedu. It’s the story of a man recruited into an organisation formed to stop global catastrophes, who ends up reliving the same day again and again. Strike‘s Tom Burke, The Bodyguard‘s Anjli Mohindra and Jonathan Creek‘s Caroline Quentin co-star.

Finding Alice (January)

Keeley Hawes stars as a woman who discovers a host of unsettling secrets when her partner Harry unexpectedly dies when they finally move into their newly built dream house. A black comedy that aired on ITV in early 2021, Finding Alice also stars Joanna Lumley and Nigel Havers, and was written by The Durrells’ Simon Nye.

Four Lives (tbc)

Previously titled The Barking Murders, Four Lives is a three-part BBC drama based on real-life killer Stephen Port, and the aftermath of the four murders he committed. Port raped and murdered four men between 2014 and 2015, using Grindr to attract his victims. Jeff Pope, who previously penned The Moorside and Little Boy Blue, is the writer, with Neil McKay directing. Sheridan Smith and Jamie Winstone will star alongside Stephen Merchant as Port. In this Entertainment Focus interview from April 2020, actor Michael Jibson confirmed the drama was currently postponed due to the ongoing real-life criminal case.

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Ginger Snaps (2022)

It’s 20 years since the release of Ginger Snaps, the first in a trilogy of now-cult horror films, and, according to Sid Gentle Films, high time for a live-action TV adaptation. The darkly comic feminist werewolf movie will be adapted for a TV co-production by Anna Ssemuyaba, who has previous written for Sky’s Guerilla, Channel 4’s Adult Material and ITV’s Unsaid Stories, and from by the co-producers of Killing Eve and Orphan Black.

Grace (March)

From Endeavour creator Russell Lewis come two feature-length adaptations of Peter James’ crime novel series about a Brighton-based Detective Superintendent. Life on Mars’ John Simm plays unorthodox investigator Roy Grace, who’s haunted by the disappearance of his wife, in two-hour versions of Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead. The first film, which aired in May, revolves around a cold case and a groom who goes mysteriously missing just days before his wedding, and the second film will air later in 2021. Reviews were good so catch up on ITV Hub if you missed it.

Half Bad (tbc)

Based on Sally Green’s celebrated book trilogy of the same name, Half Bad will be an eight-part one-hour Netflix fantasy drama. It’s about a 16-year-old boy who has spent his life surveilled for signs that he may follow in the footsteps of his father – the world’s most feared witch. Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton is writing the series, with Andy Serkis among the producers. We. Can’t. Wait.

Harlan Coben’s Stay Close (tbc)

Thriller writer Harlan Coban is currently part of the way into a five-year deal with Netflix to adapt 14 of his novels, and Stay Close is the latest adaptation from writer Danny Brocklehurst and RED Productions, the team that brought us The Stranger. Like The Stranger, Stay Close will star Richard Armitage and move the book setting from the US to the UK. It’s the story of three characters whose dark secrets threaten to destroy their lives. James Nesbitt and Cush Jumbo also star.

Hollington Drive (tbc)

If you’ve seen writer Sophie Petzal’s Irish thriller Blood starring Adrian Dunbar, you’ll want to tune in for this. Coming to ITV, it’s a four-part thriller about two grown-up sisters who become entangled in a tense mystery when their children are involved in the disappearance of a 10-year-old local boy. Expect twists, turns, and sharp writing. The cast looks great too, led by Rachel Stirling and Anna Maxwell-Martin (pictured above).

Inside Man (tbc)

The latest BBC One drama from former Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat is a four-part crime thriller entitled Inside Man. The twisting story is about a death row inmate in the US and a woman who’s trapped in a cellar under an English vicarage, whose lives interlink “in the most unexpected way”. The cast (pictured above) looks excellent and includes plenty of Moffat’s past collaborators in David Tennant, Dracula‘s Dolly Wells and Lydia West, and Mr Stanley Tucci.

Intergalactic (April)

Sky One’s Intergalactic is an original, British space-set drama about a galactic pilot who’s falsely imprisoned, then breaks free with a gang of other high-security female prisoners. It stars The Tunnel‘s Savannah Steyn in the lead role, with Parminder Nagra, Eleanor Tomlinson, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Natasha O’Keeffe, Thomas Turgoose and Craig Parkinson, so lots of great British talent in the cast. The first series aired in Spring 2021 and is available to stream on NOW.

It’s a Sin (January)

This 1980s-set drama (previously titled The Boys) comes from acclaimed screenwriter Russell T. Davies (A Very English Scandal, Doctor Who) and tackles the impact of AIDS on the lives of three young men across a period of ten years. It’s the story of “the epidemic, the pain of rejection and the prejudices that gay men faced throughout the decade.” It was one of the dramas of the year, with a fantastic cast including Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Omari Douglas, Neil Patrick Harris, Keeley Hawes, Stephen Fry, Tracy Ann Oberman and Shaun Dooley.

Karen Pirie (tbc)

A new detective is on her way to ITV in the form of Karen Pirie, the creation of novelist Val McDermid who’s also the literary source of ITV’s popular Wire in the Blood forensic pathology series. The new crime drama comes adapted from the first in McDermid’s five-book series The Distant Echo by Harlots and Save Me Too’s Emer Kenny. It’s about a young Scottish detective working in St. Andrews who is tasked with reopening cold cases. The first involves the 25-year-old death of a teenager whose unsolved murder has become the subject of a true crime podcast. It’s being made by Bodyguard and Line of Duty‘s World Productions.

Landscapers (tbc)

A four-part true crime series about ‘Mansfield Murderers’ Susan and Christopher Edwards is on its way to Sky Atlantic and HBO. Alexander Payne (Sideways) was set to direct, but departed the project in October 2020 following what’s being reported as a scheduling conflict after Covid-19 pushed production back. The Edwards killed Susan’s parents and buried them in their garden, then spent over a decade draining their bank accounts before being discovered in 2014. Olivia Colman will star as Susan Edwards, from a script written by Colman’s producer husband Ed Sinclair. Giri/Haji and Flowers’ Will Sharpe replaces Payne as the director.

Life After Life (tbc)

Kate Atkinson’s 2013 novel Life After Life is a masterpiece of imaginative fiction, so it’s no surprise that BBC One is currently preparing a TV adaptation. It’s the story of Ursula, a woman with the extraordinary power to keep being continually reborn into new and alternative versions of her life after she dies. Seemingly insignificant changes to people and circumstances set her on new courses every time – can she alter the course of history? Playwright Bash Doran (Traitors) has adapted the novel and filming began in April 2021 with a cast including Sian Clifford, James McArdle and lead Thomasin McKenzie.

Lockwood & Co (tbc)

Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish is writing and directing this Netflix adaptation of Jonathan Stroud’s supernatural adventure series about a ghost-hunting detective agency run by two teenage boys and a psychic girl. It’s set in London and was only announced in December 2020, so don’t expect to see it arrive on the streaming service for a little while yet.

Magpie Murders (2022)

One of a slate of original drama commissions for UK streamer Britbox, Anthony Horowitz will adapt for screen his own murder mystery novel Magpie Murders, the first of his Susan Ryeland series. Lesley Manville will play literary editor Ryeland (Manville), with Spall playing her client’s fictional 1950s detective Atticus Pünd. A dream cast for this six-part thriller.

Marlow (2022)

Another Britbox commission that shows the UK streamer is serious about making a splash in quality original drama, Marlow will be an eight-part thriller from Southcliffe and Red Riding’s Tony Grisoni, starring The Crown’s Claire Foy. It’s a modern-day crime fable based around two warring families “amid the unsettling and indelible landscape of the Thames Estuary,” or as Foy’s revenge-seeking character Evie Wyatt calls it, the Edgelands.

Marriage (2022)

From Stefan Golaszewski, the creator of excellent comedy-drama Mum (pictured above) and comedy Him & Her, comes four-part drama Marriage. Not much is known about the show yet, but we can expect it to examine “in intimate detail the fears, frustrations and salvation of marriage and the comfort that can only be found in togetherness.”

My Name is Leon (tbc)

Filming began in March 2021 on a feature-length adaptation of Kit de Waal’s novel My Name is Leon, the 1980s-set story of a nine-year-old biracial boy forced to cope with his mother’s breakdown. Writer-director Shola Amoo is adapting the screenplay, with Kibwe Tavares directing, and Malachi Kirby and Monica Dolan among the cast.

My Name is Lizzie (tbc)

This four-part Channel 4 drama, based on real events, will star The Virtues and Raised by Wolves’ Niamh Algar as an undercover police officer used in a honeytrap search for a killer in the 1990s. Written by The Tunnel’s Emilia di Girolamo, it promises to take viewers behind the scenes on one of the UK’s most controversial police investigations. It was only announced in late 2020, so don’t expect it for a little while.

No Return (tbc)

Filming is due to begin in summer 2021 on ITV’s No Return, a Manchester-based four-part drama from Danny Brocklehurst (The Stranger, Shameless). It stars Sheridan Smith (pictured above) as the mother of a 16-year-old boy accused of a serious crime while on a family holiday in Turkey. Secrets unfurl as the family fights an alien legal system to free their son and get to the truth.

Ragdoll (tbc)

Attn: crime fans. Alibi has commissioned darkly witty six-part thriller Ragdoll, to be adapted from the novel of the same name by Daniel Cole. It’s a Jo Nesbo-ish crime drama about a grotesque murder in which six victims have been sewn into the shape of a single body. Detectives Rose, Baxter and Edmunds are on the case, charged with protecting the killer’s next set of advertised victims. The Irregulars’ Henry Lloyd Hughes, Lucy Hale and Thalissa Teixeira will star.

Ralph and Katie (tbc)

This six-part half hour is a spin-off from BBC One’s hit family drama The A Word, following the married lives of the titular characters, both of whom have Down’s Syndrome. The original series creator Peter Bowker is writing the show, which stars Leon Harrop and Sarah Gordy, alongside new and emerging disabled talent.

Red Rose (tbc)

A contemporary teen horror series is on its way to BBC Three and Netflix, written by Michael and Paul Clarkson (The Haunting Of Hill House, pictured). Red Rose will be an eight-part series about the relationship between teenagers and their online lives. It’s the story of Rochelle, a Bolton teen who downloads a mysterious app that sets in motion a series of terrifying events. Ultimately, say the Clarksons, “it’s the story of friendship told through the prism of a classic horror-thriller.”

Riches (tbc)

From Empire to Succession, the complicated family lives of the super-wealthy are a continued source of fascination on screen. ITV has ordered drama Riches from writer Abby Ajayi to mine that seam. The six-part drama revolves around successful businessman Stephen Richards, a specialist in cosmetics for black women, who’s on a winning streak until a dramatic event forces his grown-up children from two marriages to gather together and decide what happens next.

Ridley Road (tbc)

Four-part BBC One thriller Ridley Road is adapted from Jo Bloom’s 2014 novel of the same name by screenwriter-actor Sarah Solemani (Him & Her, No Offence). It’s the story of the fight against fascism in 1960s London. According to Solemani, the novel reveals “a darker side of Sixties London and the staggering contribution the Jewish community made in the battle against racism.” Newcomer Aggi O’Casey is joined by Eddie Marsan, Rory Kinnear, Samantha Spiro and more.

Ripley (tbc)

Sherlock and Fleabag’s Andrew Scott will play Tom Ripley in a new TV adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith five-strong novel series for Showtime and Sky Atlantic. The first season will restage events as depicted in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, when a young grifter in 1960s New York is hired by a wealthy man to convince his wayward, hedonist son – played by Emma and Beast’s Johnny Flynn – to return home from Italy. Steven Zaillian (The Night Of, Schindler’s List) will write and direct.

Rogue Heroes (tbc)

A major new drama is on its way to BBC One, from Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders and Taboo. The six-part drama is based on Ben Macintyre’s SAS: Rogue Heroes book, which charts the creation of the famed Special Forces unit. Knight has written the adaptation, which will tell a tale “celebrating the glory, action and camaraderie at the heart of this story” while delving into the psychology of the officers and men who formed the SAS in WWII. With real-life events given Knight’s visionary treatment, this one promises to be a spectacle with real depth. Jack O’Connell and Alfie Allen are among the cast (pictured above.)

Screw (tbc)

Inspired by his real-life experience as a civilian prison worker, writer Rob Williams (Killing Eve) is bringing a six-part prison drama to Channel 4. Screw promises to show “the uncensored, terrifying and often darkly funny reality of life as a prison officer in an all-male prison in 21st century Britain.” The story focuses on veteran officer Leigh, who’s trying to keep her past buried, and mouthy new recruit Rose. The cast includes Nina Sosanya, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Stephen Wight.

Sherwood (tbc)

A new six-part crime drama is coming to BBC One from acclaimed playwright James Graham, the writer behind Quiz and Brexit: The Uncivil War. Set in post-industrial Nottinghamshire, where the drama was filmed, Sherwood is fictional but inspired in part by real events and tells the story of two murders that lead to one of the largest manhunts in British history. Two police officers have to set aside their differences to find the killer, against a socio-political backdrop of community divisions riven during the 1980s Miners’ Strikes. Lesley Manville, David Morrissey and Joanne Froggatt star.

Showtrial (tbc)

The Tunnel’s writer Ben Richards has teamed up with World Productions (the folks behind Bodyguard and Line of Duty) on six-part series Showtrial. Coming to BBC One, it’s a legal drama that questions the role class, money and power play in justice being done. The story treats the disappearance of a young working class student and the subsequent arrest and trial of the accused, “the arrogant daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur.” Filming began in April 2021, and you can read more about the cast here.

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Superhoe (tbc)

Nicôle Lecky’s one-woman Royal Court stage show is getting the Fleabag treatment and being turned into a six-part BBC Three series. It’s the musical story of a would-be singer and rapper thrown out of home who moves in with a young woman who inducts her into the life of social media influencing and sex work.

Sweetpea (tbc)

From Kirstie Swain, the screenwriter of Channel 4’s Pure comes a new eight-part series adapted from C.J. Skuse’s 2017 novel of the same name. It’s the story of a young woman who seems unremarkable on the surface and works as an editorial assistant in a British seaside town. Unfulfilled by her job, she turns to darker pursuits outside of work, because who would ever suspect her? The comedy-drama is coming to Sky Atlantic and no casting has yet been announced. Read our interview with Kirstie Swain about Pure, mental illness in TV drama and more.

Tenacity (tbc)

If you saw His Dark Materials on BBC One, then you know Welsh-based Bad Wolf Productions are capable of great things on a grand scale. In 2019, ITV commissioned them to make six-part thriller Tenacity, from a screenplay by Flightplan’s Peter A. Dowling, based on the J.S. Law novel of the same name. It’s about a body discovered on a British nuclear submarine, investigated by military detective Danielle Lewis. Think assassins, high-stakes action and a momentous threat to national security. The cast is tba.

The Amazing Mr Blunden (December)

Following on from Sky’s beautiful festive family film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse with another, this time written and directed by Mark Gatiss. The Amazing Mr Blunden comes adapted from Antonia Barber’s novel ‘The Ghosts’ and its original 1972 film adaptation. The 90-minute feature will star Gatiss, Simon Callow and Tamsin Grieg, and tells the story of two London teenagers whose mum moves them to a haunted country house where they get involved with a thrilling story of strange visitors, time travel and wicked would-be murderers…

The Baby (tbc)

The Baby is a darkly comic horror on its way to Sky Atlantic. The eight-episode first season was co-created by screenwriter Siân Robins-Grace (Kaos, Sex Education) and Gangs of London production manager Lucy Gaymer. It’s being billed as a provocative, dark and funny story about a woman in her late thirties who’s unexpectedly landed with a baby that takes over her world. The cast includes The Duchess‘ Michelle de Swarte (pictured), who’ll star alongside Amira Ghazalla and Amber Grappy.

The Birth of Daniel F Harris (tbc)

With a similar premise to Sky One’s Two Weeks to Live, but a psychological drama instead of a knockabout comedy, this Channel 4 drama by Urban Myths‘ (pictured above) Pete Jackson is the story of a young man raised in isolation from society after his mother’s death, by a father who told him the outside world is filled with monsters. When the boy turns eighteen, he enters the world to find the person responsible for his mother’s death. Read more about it here.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton (tbc)

Adapted by Sara Collins from her own Costa Prize-winning novel of the same name, The Confessions of Frannie Langton is a four part murder mystery set in Georgian London. It follows the title character, born on a Jamaican slave plantation and transported as a ‘gift’ by the man who enslaved her to the home of a wealthy London couple who meet a grim fate. Was Frannie really responsible? Or is she being used?

The Devil’s Hour (tbc)

Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine lead the cast of a new six-part “mind-bending” Amazon Prime Video thriller from writer Tom Moran, produced by Steven Moffat. It’s the story of Lucy (Raine) who suffers from terrifying visions every night at precisely the same time (the titular devil’s hour), and who becomes entangled with a series of brutal murders. Capaldi, pictured above, plays “a reclusive nomad driven by a murderous obsession”, which all sounds rather fun.

The Elephant Man (tbc)

The story of Victorian Joseph Merrick was memorably brought to the screen by David Lynch in 1980, and has since been retold on stage (notably starring Bradley Cooper in the lead role). This two-part BBC drama stars Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton (pictured) and is written by Moorside’s Neil McKay. The biopic will tell the story of Merrick’s life from the start to the end and promises to “explore the man behind the myth”. Filming was due to take place in Wales in late 2018, but there’s been no news about this one since so it’s a bit of a question mark.

The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies (tbc)

In this original six-part BBC One thriller, screenwriters Penelope and Ginny Skinner (pictured above) tell the story of two very different women, both of whom are being conned by the same man. Alice and Caroline have Rob in common, a celebrated ecopreneur who may well be trying to destroy them both. Inspired to fight against society’s glorification of the predator, The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies was commissioned in August 2020, so it’ll be a little while before we see it.

The Gallows Pole (2022)

You’re going to want to look out for this one. Director Shane Meadows (This is England, The Virtues), whose TV work usually airs on Channel 4, is making his BBC drama debut with an adaptation of Benjamin Myers’ acclaimed novel The Gallows Pole. It’s a true historical story about Yorkshire legend David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners, who became the biggest fraudsters in British history. Meadows describes himself as buzzing about making his first period drama, produced by Element Pictures. The cast led by Michael Socha, with George McKay, Thomas Turgoose and Tom Burke, promises a real roster of the best young British talent.

The Girl Before (tbc)

This BBC-HBO Max co-production boasts a great cast in Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki, Black Mirror – pictured above – Belle) and David Oyelowo (Selma, Les Misérables), and a hit psychological thriller as its source material. It’s to be a four-part limited series created by JP Delaney (one of Tony Strong’s pseudonyms), adapted from his novel of the same name. It’s about a woman given the chance to move into a stunning home on the condition that she obeys an exacting set of rules, and presumably things get murder-y from then on in.

The Irregulars (March)

The modern version. The Robert Downey Jr version. The gnome version. The version where Watson is Lucy Liu. Just when you thought the world had no more Sherlock Holmes to give, along comes The Irregulars on Netflix. Written by My Mad Fat Diary‘s Tom Bidwell, this version focuses on the Baker Street gang of teens used as a resource by a sinister version of Dr John Watson, and a Sherlock Holmes whose best days are long behind him. It’s supernatural and horror-tinged, and unfortunately only lasted one season before being cancelled, but did manage to wrap up satisfactorily so don’t let the early ending put you off.

The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (tbc)

Power, love, loyalty and politics all come to play in Dan Sefton’s (Trust Me) BBC adaptation of Keith Badman’s 2010 book The Final Years Of Marilyn Monroe. Narrowing the time-frame (as the working title suggests) Sefton’s drama will take in the final six months of Monroe’s life until her death in 1962 at the age of 36. We first heard about this one back in April 2019, but since then there’s been no news about casting or filming.

The Midwich Cuckoos (2022)

John Wyndham’s classic 1957 sci-fi is getting a modern TV adaptation courtesy of The Night Manager and Hanna writer David Farr. The eight part series will update the novel to the present day and set the action in a commuter town south of London, where the local women all mysteriously fall pregnant at the same time and give birth to a cohort of very unusual children. The most famous adaptation to date was 1965 cult favourite Village of the Damned (pictured above). Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley will star.

The North Water (September)

Film director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years, Lean On Pete) has adapted and directed Ian Maguire’s novel The North Water into a four-part BBC Two drama with an excellent cast. Colin Farrell, Stephen Graham (pictured above), Tom Courtenay, Peter Mullan and Jack O’Connell are all on board – literally so as the series is set on a whaling ship in the Arctic in the 1850s. It’s the story of a disgraced ex-army surgeon who joins a whaling expedition and finds himself “on an ill-fated journey with a murderous psychopath” and in a struggle to survive. Filming took place on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in late 2019.

The Offenders (tbc)

From co-creator of The Office and writer-director of fab wrestling film Fighting with my Family, Stephen Merchant (pictured above, and soon to be seen playing killer Stephen Port in ITV true crime drama Four Lives) and Mayans M.C.’s Elgin James is a six-part one-hour comedy The Offenders. A BBC One-Amazon Studios co-production, it follows seven strangers forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol. Merchant is joined by Christopher Walken, Darren Boyd and Eleanor Tomlinson in the cast.

The Pembrokeshire Murders (January)

This three-part ITV true crime drama stars Luke Evans as Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins, who, in 2006, reopened and solved a cold case from the 1980s using new forensic DNA evidence and, bizarrely, an episode of darts-based quiz show Bullseye. Keith Allen plays John Cooper, the man in Wilkins’ sights.

The Pursuit of Love (May)

Emily Mortimer wrote and directed this glorious BBC One adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s 1945 comic romance about an aristocratic family in the interwar period (loosely based on Mitford’s own family, which gained notoriety through her popular novels and her sisters’ scandalous connections to the British Union of Fascists and Adolf Hitler). Downton Abbey‘s Lily James plays lead Linda Radlett in the three-part series.

The Red Zone (tbc)

Sports writers Barney Ronay and Jonathan Liew are behind this six-part half-hour comedy “about football, but also not about football,” which is coming to Netflix in 2021. Director Sam Mendes is executive producing through his Neal Street Productions company. Only announced in late 2020, no casting has yet been confirmed for this one.

The Responder (tbc)

Filming begain in May 2021 on this BBC Two five-part series from new screenwriter and former police officer Tony Schumacher, who’s been mentored by Jimmy McGovern as part of a BBC Writers Room initiative. The Responder will star The Hobbit and Sherlock‘s Martin Freeman as officer Chris, who works a series of night shifts in Liverpool, alongside his rookie new partner Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo). The series is described as funny, tragic, and showing the realities of policing in Britain.

The Rig (tbc)

In November 2020, Amazon Prime Video green-lit this six-episode supernatural thriller from Line of Duty and Bodyguard director John Strickland, written by David Macpherson. It’s due to film in Scotland and is set onboard the Kishorn Bravo oil rig in the North Sea. The crew finds itself marooned on the rig by a mysterious fog that cuts off communication with the outside world. Line of Duty‘s Martin Compston, Owen Teale and Rochenda Sandall will star, alongside Iain Glen, Mark Bonnar and more (see above.) Filming has concluded so the wait shouldn’t be too long for this one.

The Serpent (January)

Ripper Street writer Richard Warlow scripted this eight-part BBC drama about serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Interpol’s most wanted man in the 1970s for the robbery and murder of multiple young Western travellers across South Asia. Tom Shankland (Les Miserables, The City & The City) directs, and A Prophet and The Looming Tower‘s Tahar Rahim played the lead role of Sobhraj, with Jenna Coleman as his girlfriend/accomplice Marie-Andree Leclerc. Read more about the true story that inspired the series here.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (tbc)

Now this sounds like a bit of alright. Adapted from Stuart Turton’s novel of the same name, it’s a seven-part murder mystery coming to Netflix. The story’s a high-concept thriller about a woman trying to solve a murder who keeps waking up in somebody else’s body every time she gets close to the answer. Sophie Petzal (The Last Kingdom, Blood) is adapting it, and the announcement only arrived in late 2020, so don’t expect it for a little while yet. Casting is tba.

The Three (tbc)

Another BBC drama commission based on a book series, The Three, “an international thriller with a supernatural twist”, was announced in late 2017 but there’s been no news since then. The premise of Sarah Lotz’ trilogy sees four planes crash on the same day in four different countries, leaving three children as the miraculous survivors… Wolf Hall’s Peter Straughan was attached as adapting this eight-part drama but as yet, it’s still to appear on his IMDb credits. We’ll keep you posted if more arrives.

The Tourist (tbc)

Producer-writers Harry and Jack Williams (Fleabag, Baptiste, The Missing, Liar) are back with a six-part BBC-HBO Max drama set and filmed in South Australia. The Tourist is an outback noir about a British man pursued through the Australian outback by a tank truck. When the man awakens in a hospital with no memory of who he is or how he got there, his search for answers takes him to some unsettling places. Chris Sweeney (Back to Life) directs, with The Fall‘s Jamie Dornan leading the cast.

The Tower (tbc)

Three-part detective drama The Tower is coming to ITV, starring Game of Thrones‘ Gemma Whelan, Peaky Blinders‘ Emmett Scanlan and Kate & Koji‘s Jimmy Akingbola and The Haunting of Bly Manor‘s Tahirah Sharif. It’s adapted by Homeland‘s Patrick Harbinson from former Met Police officer Kate London’s novel Post-Mortem, and follows the investigation into two deaths and two disappearances from a London tower block.

The Undeclared War (2022)

Channel 4 has teamed up with Peacock to commission this six-part cyber thriller written by Wolf Hall’s Peter Kosminsky. It’s set in 2024, as a team of GCHQ cyber specialists secretly work to fend off a cyber attack on the UK electoral system. There’s an impressive cast, from Mark Rylance (pictured above in Bridge of Spies), to Adrian Lester, Alex Jennings, Simon Pegg, Maisie Richardson-Sellers and newcomer Hannah Khalique-Brown. The commission was only announced in April 2021, so we can expect to see this one next year.

Three Families (May)

This drama based on real-life abortion stories set in Northern Ireland – the only part of the UK where pregnancy termination remains illegal – aired on BBC One in May 2021. Written by Vanity Fair‘s Gwyneth Hughes, who travelled to Northern Ireland to meet the families who inspired the drama, Three Families was produced by the makers of hard-hitting Three Girls and explores the experience of families and loved ones whose lives have been affected by the law in Northern Ireland. It’s currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Time (June)

Three-part prison drama Time is the latest from legendary British screenwriter Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, Accused, Broken), and stars Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. The four-part drama aired in June 2021 and followed the story of Bean’s character Mark, a former teacher in his 50s who finds himself in prison for the first time, and Graham’s character Eric, a prison officer targeted by a dangerously connected inmate. It’s currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Tom Jones (tbc)

Praise for 2018’s Vanity Fair adaptation, scheduled opposite Bodyguard in 2018, was drowned out somewhat by the hit political thriller, but there was plenty of it, and deservingly so. Good news then, that ITV has brought screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes back to tackle another classic novel – Henry Fielding’s 1749 book Tom Jones. Following in the footsteps of the acclaimed Albert Finney-starring 1963 film, and the raucous 1997 version with Max Beasley, expect rollicking fun. The last update we had in November 2019 confirmed that Hughes was mid-writing, but news has been thin on the ground since then.

Too Close (April)

Emily Watson (Chernobyl, Apple Tree Yard, Breaking the Waves) stars in this meaty psychological three-part ITV thriller. Based on the novel of the same name written by Natalie Daniels (the pseudonym of actor-writer Clara Salaman, who’s also behind the screenplay), it’s about a forensic psychiatrist treating a patient who’s committed a heinous crime that she says she doesn’t remember. The two women become locked in a dark struggle of influence and manipulation. Watson stars opposite Denise Gough (pictured above).

Trigger Point (tbc)

Line of Duty‘s Vicky McClure plays bomb disposal expert Lana Washington in this new ITV thriller from the Jed Mercurio stable. Written by Daniel Brierley and executive produced by Mercurio, it’s the story of a front-line bomb disposal pro whose squad is pushed to the limits tackling a terrorist threat to London. Six episodes are on their way, and likely to arrive in early 2022.

Vigil (August)

With a working title of Vigil, a new six-part thriller filmed in Scotland is on its way from the makers of Bodyguard and Line of Duty. Created by Strike‘s Tom Edge, it’s the story of the mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on board a Trident nuclear submarine that brings the police into conflict with the Navy and British security services. It stars Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Shaun Evans, Anjli Mohindra, Martin Compston, Paterson Joseph and more.

Viewpoint (April)

This five-part ITV thriller from Rillington Place and Manhunt writer Ed Whitmore and Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer aired in April 2021 (well, most of it did. The final episode was pulled from the schedules and made available as streaming-only following a series of sexual harassment complaints made about its star, Noel Clarke). It was the story of a police surveillance investigation in Manchester following the disappearance of a primary school teacher in the vein of Rear Window and The Lives of Others.

Wahala (2022)

This BBC series, described as “Big Little Lies meets Girlfriends meets Peckham” is adapted from Nikki May’s as-yet-unpublished novel of the same name. It’s about Simi, Ronke and Boo, three 30-something Anglo-Nigerian women living in London whose friendship is shaken by the arrival of the beautiful, charismatic Isobel, with tragic consequences.

White Stork (2022)

Formerly known as Spadehead, White Stork is a 10-episode political drama coming to Netflix courtesy of Eleven, the British production compnay behind Sex Education. Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, The Night Manager – pictured above) stars as James Cooper, whose secret past is unearthed when he’s vetted in preparation for a parliamentary election. It was creted by Jericho and Meadowlands‘ Christopher Dunlop, with Taboo‘s Kristoffer Nyholm directing.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (tbc)

Hugh Laurie (pictured above in BBC political drama Roadkill) has adapted Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel as a Britbox original. It’s the story of a vicar’s son and socialite duo played by Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton, who become amateur detectives and set out to solve a crime when they discover a dying man asking the titular question. Production began in June 2021, with a very fine British comedy cast.

Wolfe (September)

From the creators of Shameless comes six-part crime drama Wolfe, which stars Guerilla‘s Babou Ceesay (pictured above) as an expert forensic pathologist and university professor described as “half genius, half liability”. With a complicated home life and a varied work team including a child prodigy, Wolfe uses his unusual expertise to solve a case of the week. Amanda Abbington, Natalia Tena, Naomi Yang, Adam Long and Shaniqua Okwok co-star.

You (tbc)

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We might expect the working title of this one to change to avoid confusion with the Netflix stalker story of the same name, but as it stands, You will be an eight-part thriller coming to Sky. Filming started in June 2021 in the UK and Morocco on this adaptation of the Zoran Drvenkar novel, which tells the story of Tara O’Rourke, a woman on the run across Europe after committing a deadly crime. She’s pursued by a dangerous gangster and a serial killer known only as ‘The Traveller’. The Capture (pictured above) writer-director Ben Chanan has written the adaptation.

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Super Cub, Episodes 1-12

Written by Toshizō Nemoto, directed by Toshiro Fujii for Studio Kai. Based on the light novel written by Tone Kōken and illustrated by Hiro, published in Japan by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America on the Funimation Streaming Service.

I review anime series on my site basically never, but something about Super Cub makes me want to talk about it. It wasn’t the most popular series of Spring 2021 – that’s probably Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song. It doesn’t have an amazing original music soundtrack – though the sound design is incredible. It doesn’t have an all-star cast – indeed, the lead role goes to a relatively new actress. It lacks exciting battles or romantic drama (no, sorry folks, much as I enjoyed teasing about it, this is not a yuri series.) And yet for a select few folks, every Wednesday suddenly became Super Cub Wednesday, a time to sit back and watch an introverted, quiet, and depressed high school girl slowly find friends and a purpose in life thanks to the purchase of a Honda Super Cub.

Contrary to the belief of a lot of fans of the series, it was not created by Honda as an advertisement for their Super Cub line, though I’m sure they were delighted to sponsor the series. It’s based on a still-running light novel series about a high school girl named Koguma, who lives alone in a small apartment in a small town in Yamanashi Prefecture. When we first see Koguma, her life is very sterile. She gets up, shower and gets dressed in her uniform, makes a simple breakfast and a simple lunch (which she will eat cold, as there’s always a line for the microwave), and then ride her bike to school, which involves a hill and exhausts her every morning. After being passed by faster bikes and scooters, one day she decides to turn towards a motorcycle store, where (after seeing new scooters are 100% too expensive for her) she buys, quite cheap, a Honda Super Cub. Over the course of the next twelve episodes, we follow her and her Super Cub as her life grows larger and more enriching with every episode.

There are so many things I could talk about. The cast of the series is minimal – while there are supporting characters, for the most part it’s three girls. Koguma; Reiko, a pretty but distant girl in her class who turns out to be a massive Cub otaku (and also a very eccentric young woman); and Shii, a very small girl in Koguma’s class who rides an Alex Moulton bicycle and gradually begins to idolize Koguma and Reiko. With the exception of the cliffhanger to one episode, the series never gets too big or dramatic. It relies on small, realistic moments, like Koguma’s fear when her Cub doesn’t start after midnight in the local convenience store (out of gas), or Koguma’s part-time job, which involves a 45-minute commute each way; or Koguma and Reiko’s increasing struggles with the elements and nature.

I do love the other two characters. Reiko is delightful and wacky, even if she’s a little too happy to walk around naked in a “this novel is for guys” sort of way. She gets her own focus episode where she tries to climb Mount Fuji with her Hunter Cub, and it’s a delightful examination of sheer stubbornness and perseverance. Shii’s story takes up much of the back half of the series, and leads to the series’ only real cliffhanger, where her desperate attempt to stay on the same pace as the “cool kids” leads to an accident. She has the emotional journey of the series, and seeing her, at the end, buying her own Little Cub, a vehicle as adorable as her, warms the heart. That said, Koguma is the star, and Koguma is the character that I was most invested in, every episode.

Koguma, after buying her Super Cub, gains new friends, has new experiences, shows more of a rebellious side, and also shows off her delightfully understated sense of humor, which was one of the high points of the series. At the same time, she does not change all that much. While we do see her smile more and more (and her smiles are delightful, trust me), her default setting is still quiet and emotionally guarded. She is careful about money, tries not to have to trust other people, and tends to deflect any and all praise of her actions, increasingly crediting the Super Cub with anything she did herself. The Super Cub, as Koguma herself admits in the final episode, is not a magical girl mascot that can heal all your issues – issues Koguma still deals with even towards the end of the series.

That leads to the series’ most controversial moment, when Shii, taking a “cat path” shortcut to go shopping, ends up crashing her bike into a stream off the side of the trail. Looking in a lot of pain, she calls… no, not her parents. No, not 119. She calls Koguma, the girl she has put on a massive pedestal by this time. And Koguma comes to the rescue in her Super Cub, getting Shii out of the water (slapping her to keep her awake), struggling to hoist them both back onto the path, and then… sticking Shii INTO her Cub’s front basket (Shii is teeny weeny) and driving her back to her apartment for a hot bath. This, to put it mildly, upset fans. Why did she not call for an ambulance? What was she thinking? To me (and several others), it seemed far more obvious: Koguma hates relying on anyone else, ambulances and hospitals might mean paying money she doesn’t have, and Shii seemed to mostly just be cold. You could argue it was a bad decision, but: a) who says characters have to always do the correct thing?, and b) we’d literally seen Koguma disobey her teachers – twice! – in a previous episode. She is not a good citizen sort – she’s an introverted teen worried about her friend. (Oh yes, and Shii’s trail was apparently 500 yards from Koguma’s apartment.)

Let’s talk about the animation and sound design. Super Cub does not do anything flashy – it’s fairly standard animation, not a lot of CG work or 3D flashiness like So I’m a Spider, So What?. That said, there was never any moment in the series where I felt “ah, this was the cost-cutting episode” or “this is where they ran out of time” – unlike, say, So I’m a Spider, So What?. It had a shtick which worked wonderfully throughout the series – it used muted colors, but when Koguma had a “Eureka moment” or emotional revelation, the colors would brighten. It was terrific. Meanwhile, the sound design was so good it was being praised immediately even by people who did not normally notice things like that. The soundtrack mostly consisted, at dramatic moments, of public domain classical music, ranging from Debussy and Vivaldi to Erik Satie. But the show was not afraid to have long stretches with no music at all, featuring Koguma silently starting her day, with the cooking of rice and buttering of toast showing off the quiet depression that is her existence as she starts the series.

I would definitely argue Koguma is depressed as we start the show. It’s a very quiet, normal depression, the sort that you wouldn’t even notice if you were a classmate (and indeed they don’t). Koguma describes herself as a girl with nothing in the first episode – no friends, no family, no goals, no plans for the future. At the end of episode 12 (to the consternation of some folks who wanted her to acknowledge what Reiko and Shii mean to her), she repeats the exact same monologue – but says that she now has a Cub, which gives her the determination to find those things. It calls back to the previous episode, where Shii, devastated at the fact that her bike was destroyed in her crash, begs Koguma to take the winter away, to make this season just stop. After a long pause, and it sounds like she HATES to say this, Koguma admits, “that’s not something my Cub can do”. That said, the very next episode, she does decide – yes, we ARE going to take Shii to Spring, and while the Cub is the means, it does not make the decision – she does. The Cub gives her confidence and energy that she completely lacked before.

I could go on – indeed, I have, this is much longer than my light novel and manga reviews. But that’s just how much I got out of this superlative anime. I don’t expect it to win any awards or anything, but if you like character-driven pieces with strong writing for teenage girls and a lack of “message” moralizing (unless that message is to buy Honda products), then Super Cub is a must-watch. I hope the series gets licensed for Blu-Ray release, I’d love to own this to rewatch for years to come.

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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cooperjones2020 · 7 years

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Second City, chp. 5

Summary: Sometimes she worries she’s settling — for a smaller job, a smaller city, a smaller life than she’d promised herself — but that was before she found out Jughead Jones lives in Chicago. That was before she found out the final secret of Jason Blossom’s murder.

A/N: Apparently I’m obsessed with writing about forms of transportation. *shrugs*

ao3–>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11409360/chapters/25851957

Second City one / two / three / four

Nobodies Nobody Knows one / two (ao3)

In which Betty Cooper remembers

On Wednesday, they drink tequila. On Thursday, Mary calls to invite her to their weekly Friday night family dinner with Jughead. The timing makes her suspect he may have had something to do with the invitation. She wonders if they’re becoming friends.

By Friday afternoon, she’s finished transposing the interview and has begun making notes for the story. Currently, she’s switching back and forth between the printed-out transcript, covered in colorful scribbles of half-lines and sentences that came to her that morning on the L, and the word document where’s she’s attempting to put those half-lines and sentences into some sort of order that will open the piece.

She waffles over including the line, “FP Jones is the kind of man who spends his first advance—the first significant amount of money he’s ever had in his life—on a house for his dad and his little sister.”

It’s a great line. It sheds light on his background and his character. It’s relevant to the continuously floated questions on the blurred boundary between fact and fiction in Jughead’s work. It’s a line she, and maybe only she, can walk, having lived through the murder and its aftermath with him. But it’s a line on which she treads lightly. She has no interest in exposing them. She’s already begun the mental math of figuring out just how little of herself she can keep in the piece while maintaining the integrity of the pitch.

Betty deletes the sentence.

She may have a duty as a journalist but she also has a duty to the sacred weight of the shared history they carry. It is not a secret that is hers to tell. It may have been said in the course of business meeting—thereby formally on the record—but Jughead had been so earnest and vulnerable in that moment, she wants to keep it to herself, to hoard it like the piece of gold that it is.

Then she leaves work early, telling herself it’s so she can beat rush hour on the red line. But still, she stops at the French Market and picks up a tiramisu to contribute to dinner and then swings by home to trade her grubby pencil skirt and blazer for a light linen dress.

When she arrives that evening, she spends the first few minutes alone with Mary in the kitchen, catching up. After they’ve run through the past few weeks of Betty’s life, with the brief pitstop on the surreality that was Wednesday, Mary’s eyes flick down to Betty’s left hand and back up to her face.

“No regrets thus far?”

“No regrets.”

Then, she puts a glass of wine in Betty’s hand and shoos her into the living room, where Jughead is FaceTiming with Archie.

“Betty!” Archie extends the ‘y’ in her name into an ‘ay’ sound—a sign he’s either drunk or happy to see her. Tonight, she’s pretty sure it’s the latter.

“Hey Arch!”

He is notoriously bad at responding to texts and emails, and his schedule is so different from hers that they’ve only FaceTimed once since her move.

In order to fit both her and Jughead’s faces on the iPad screen, they are pressed together on Mary’s two-seater couch. He balances his arm on one knee so the camera is more angled toward her, so she and Archie can catch up. The other stretches along the cushion behind her. She is hyper aware of the long muscles of his thigh, where they bunch and release, pressed against her own. But then Archie says something that is so very typically Archie, and Jughead catches her eye and smiles, and it feels like an inside joke. The years melt away. They are twelve and sitting in a treehouse in the Andrews’s background. Archie reads comic books. Betty and Jughead read To Kill a Mockingbird.

Eventually, Veronica pops into the screen over Archie’s shoulder and joins the conversation. Betty’s glad to see her. They’ve been talking since last fall too, tentatively rebuilding the promising friendship they’d once had.

“Jughead, Archie, go away. I need to talk to Betty.” Jughead rolls his eyes but complies, handing her the iPad before he slips away.

“What’s up, Veronica?”

“B, please tell me you’re tapping that.” Betty nearly drops the iPad. She can see Jughead through the front window, knows he’s joined Mike, knows he can’t hear them, but she feels her palms begin to sweat nonetheless.

“Oh my god. You can’t just say that. What if he hadn’t left the room yet?”

“So what if he hadn’t? Look, I know he was dreamy in high school, but Look. At. Him. Now. I can almost forgive him for still wearing that damn beanie sometimes.”

“It’s not happening, Veronica. I don’t even think we’re friends. This is only the third time I’ve seen him since I moved here.”

“You just told Archie you spent five hours in a bar two days ago talking.”

“Yeah for my job. I was interviewing him.”

“Do you normally drink tequila at a bar with your interviewees?”

“No but I also don’t normally interview people who’ve previously stomped all over my heart.”

“Oh, Betty.”

“Don’t ‘oh Betty’ me. You didn’t see. You went back to New York. Jughead left me. There’s no way he still has feelings for me. And if he did, that would be crazy. It’s been years, Ron.”

“Please. That boy looked at you like you hung the moon when you were 15 and from what I just saw, he still does.” Betty’s reminded of a conversation they once had in the hallway at Riverdale High, when she and Jughead had just started dating. Ronnie called him Holden Caulfield. She is just as sincere now.

“It doesn’t matter. He walked away. He picked the Serpents over me.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll drop it. Weird vibes with Jughead aside and I know you had Hunter, but—Look, I just wanted to make absolutely sure I’m not stepping on any toes. You know I don’t have the best track record with that.”

“You’re definitely, definitely not, V. Even if you were, I’m pretty sure I ceded any claim I had when I moved halfway across the country. Archie and I did try dating once and it was so weird.”

Ronnie exhales, “Good, that’s what he said. I really like him.”

“And he really likes you.”

“So tell me about Mary and her boyfriend. They’re coming for a visit in a few weeks and I want her to like me. I only met her that one time after Fred was shot and obviously that didn’t go well what with my dad and then moving back to New York right after.”

“All Mary wants is for Archie to be happy. She knows better than anyone that he’s usually the one tripping himself up when it comes to that, especially with girls. You guys will get along fine. And Mike is the sweetest man in the world. Just don’t try to tell him that New York pizza is better than Chicago pizza.”

“I don’t know if I can promise that, on principle.”

“Okay, your funeral. Also. Kevin texted me he’s gonna be in the city from LA in a few weeks for work. I mentioned you and he wanted to know if you wanted to get coffee.”

“Oh my god yes! Text me his number. I’m so excited.”

She can’t shake the sense that she’s somehow entered a time warp. All of a sudden, Veronica and Jughead are back in her life. All of a sudden, she’s sitting down to a family dinner with cloth napkins and people are passing dishes. It’s not her family, there seems to be none of the Cooper brand of dysfunction in sight, and yet, with Jughead across from her, it’s impossible not to remember. She accepts the platter of green beans Mary is handing her and forces her mind to the here and now.

“So Jug, are you coming to the Cubs game with us next week?”

“What? No. I don’t sports.”

Betty feels her mouth drop open. “You’re the one who told me I couldn’t take the L that first night because of the game.”

“Yeah but that was about avoiding drunk bros. If you wanna take public transportation in Chicago in the summer, you gotta know when the baseball games begin and end.”

Mary laughs and Mike adds, “I’ve gotten him to a game or two. Only ever when Archie’s in town though.”

Betty smiles at Mike. “Guess I’m just not special enough.” She means it as a joke, but when she turns back, Jughead is staring down at his plate.

Mary and Mike had refused point blank to allow them to help with clean up. So instead, they’re leaning against the back porch railing. Jughead is smoking, Betty swirling the dregs of the wine in her glass, when she screws up her courage. “How’d you get out, Jug?”

“What?”

“The Serpents. You were in a gang. Teenage gang members don’t usually wind up with full rides to tier one colleges.”

“You’ve been talking to Mary.” He pulls off his beanie and runs a hand through his hair. “FP found out after a while and lost his shit. He managed to get a hold of my foster parents from prison and all of a sudden, junior year, I was being escorted to and from school. It let up after his trial, but he also reamed out the Serpents. So that was sort of it for my career as a gang banger.”

“Oh, that’s why you disappeared for a while.”

“Disappeared?”

“I mean I stopped seeing you around town. And then when I did again…”

“You were with Archie.”

“Yeah, and you were with that other blonde girl.”

“Sabrina.”

“Yeah. I would get this quick little pang when I would see you around town, at Pop’s or with Sabrina, I always thought it was regret that I’d let our friendship die along with our relationship.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth she wants to inhale and suck them right back in. But she can’t. They hover for a moment, then she overcorrects. “I mean, we drifted apart and eventually we both moved on. We should have been able to still be friends.”

“It wasn’t like that with Sabrina, you know. She had a boyfriend. Harley? Harvey? I don’t know. Last I heard they’d just gotten back together.”

“No I didn’t know.”

They stand in silence for a while.

“I regretted it too. That we lost our friendship as well. That I lost both of your friendships.”

Again, her mouth ruins it. “Yeah well, you’re the one who walked away.”

“What? Betty, I didn’t — okay. Yeah. I did.”

“And you didn’t come back.”

“There was still shit going on, Betts. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? If not the Serpents, what else?” Okay, so they’re doing this.

“Even if I wasn’t a member anymore the Serpents were still a factor. They were still my friends. My dad was still in jail. We were still in the middle of a fucking civil war. We’d already been threatened, and not just with the pig’s blood.”

“Please. No one threatened me beyond Chuck and his usual douchebaggery.”

“Not true.”

“Oh yeah, who was the big threat? And why don’t I know about it?”

His posture goes rigid, and he flicks away the cigarette butt, which still has a while to go before it’s burnt out. “Ah—no. You’re right, you weren’t. I’m misremembering. I must have just been thinking about something else Chuck did.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” But a muscle pulses in his jaw.

“Fine, whatever. Don’t tell me. I suppose I’ve gone this long not knowing.”

“Betty.”

“I’m going to go help with dessert.”

It wasn't dramatic, until the end. He washed away from her like waves on the sand, receding bit by bit until she looked up and he was gone.

Her memory is cinematic. Impersonal. (Her therapist said that defamiliarizing had been an emergency tactic on behalf of her brain to cope with the trauma.)

It had been uncharacteristically cool that July. More days than not, fog rolled in off of Sweetwater River in the early morning and lingered into the night. That night, though—the worst night—the sky was clear.

When she walked out of Pop’s, Archie and Kevin trailing behind her (Veronica already long gone back into the glittering arms of Manhattan), Jughead had been waiting for her. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight by then. His body, a long column of black from his boots to the jacket that clung to his back like a scar to the windblown hair atop his head, silhouetted against the chrome of the motorcycle. When she bounced up, she remembers, she’d tried to force back the smile that had dropped off her face upon seeing him. He pulled away from her kiss.

Something had been wrong for weeks and no amount of wheedling or cajoling could unearth it. There would be days that felt like normal, felt like before a social worker and a leather jacket had come between them.

(This is her post-mortem diagnosis. She doesn’t remember any problems until the end of the school year. She liked his new friends. Liked hanging out at the garage where the Serpents congregated. Loved the happiness and comfort he seemed to find there. Loved the newfound confidence with which he walked, with which he touched her. But half the summer gone and they were done, and the only things she could point to, only concrete things she could finger, were the social worker and the leather jacket from the autumn before.)

The frequency of the normal days receded like the sunlight that hid from the fog that summer. On the other days, the more common days, silence sat awkward between them and a look would come into his eyes that had no explanation.

Eventually, her memory drowned out the specific words Jughead had chosen to break her heart and what she’d said in return. She remembers standing outside herself and seeing her scream, watching him ride away, staring at the blood pooling her palms.

Worse than the night her father died. Worse than the night she returned her engagement ring. She screamed at him until her throat was raw and snot dribbled off her chin. But he’d stood there, still as a column.

She doesn’t remember his words, but she remembers his metaphor. Their lives had torn like fabric and no amount of careful stitching could hide the seam. They had changed, he had changed. It would be easier on them both to just end it now.

She remembers, no matter the words he said, that what he meant was, “I don’t love you anymore.”

She didn’t believe him then. But when he stayed away, when he didn’t answer her texts or calls, when he didn’t come the night she cried into his voicemail until it wouldn’t accept any more messages, or any of the nights thereafter, she began to accept that he’d told her the truth.

(The next thing she remembers clearly, the next memory that’s free from fog, is waking up in Archie’s twin bed the morning after senior homecoming.)

They don’t make eye contact over their tiramisu. And after, when Mike has asked Jughead if he wants to head downstairs to work for a while and Jug has accepted, when she knows he can’t follow her, Betty excuses herself.

She is too tired to stand on the train platform and studiously avoid the eyes of lecherous drunks, to cling to the pole and pretend to listen to the rambling of the people who ride the train one end to another and back again, to pay attention so she doesn’t miss her stop. She has spent far too much money on ubers so far this month, but tonight she doesn’t hesitate.

Construction on the north side means he takes her down Lake Shore Drive.

She opens the window and lets the wind buffet her face until it brings tears to her eyes. She doesn’t blink and the tears blur the stars that hang suspended over the deep, dark blue that merges lake and sky.

#bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #riverdale #second city #mine

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theoddcatlady · 7 years

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I Took a Walk for Seven Years

It was August 9, 2009. I was thirty eight years old. My oldest daughter Avis was twelve, and the younger pair, Joanne and John, were nine year old twins. I’d been married for fifteen years. I worked at an insurance firm. And every Sunday, while my wife and Avis went to church and the twins went to my mother’s house, I took a walk.

It was a clockwork sort of arrangement. My wife knew never to push me into going with her, I was an atheist and set on staying that way.

Of course, given what’s happened, my views have changed.

I took a turn to the right onto Hensel. Hensel was a dirt road but it was never travelled except by farmers, and today it was quiet. Good time to collect my thoughts.

Every other time before this, I’d turn back around once I reached Art’s farmhouse, although occasionally his wife would pull me in for lemonade and gossip.

But August 9 would be the day I took the longest walk of my life.

I was passing by the cornfield when I heard laughter. To be more specific, it was a child’s laughter. I paused and looked into the cornfield.

A pair of forest green eyes looked back at me.

The girl looked to be no older than seven, had red hair tied into twin braids, and I assumed she was one of Art’s grandchildren. She smiled broadly.

“Catch me!”

She darted back into the corn and I could hear her giggles slowly fade away.

Using the sound of her laughter, I started pushing through the corn. The dry leaves scratched at my face and hands, and dust kicked up into my face.

I knew she couldn’t outrun me for long, even if she was a child with boundless energy, I had longer legs.

However, I exited the cornfield in a place I didn’t know.

My house was nowhere to be seen. And there was a light layer of snow covering the ground.

“Hey! Mister!”

I finally spun around enough to see her, peering past a branch. She grinned.

“You catch me, I’ll show you the way out!”

That began the chase.

Then I broke from the treeline into a grassy meadow.

I didn’t expect the change so I ended up toppling over. The grass smelled sweet as honey. A fat bumblebee trundled past my head and landed on a Black Eyed Susan. It was heaven.

But the peace of the meadow was broken by that girl laughing again.

“Awwww, are you already giving up?”

The warm sunlight made her glow, like a tiny angel, but as I stumbled to my feet, I caught something behind those big eyes I hadn’t before.

Malevolence.

She was toying with me and she knew it.

She wasn’t always a little girl either. Sometimes she was a young teen, with a gap between her teeth and who’d hum sweet tunes. Sometimes she was a ravishing model, with fiery hair and a flirtatious grin. And the times she wasn’t any of those, she was an ancient crone, with a bent back and arthritic hands that clutched to her cane but still managed to hobble away from me.

So I knew she was my key out of there.

It was in the meadow where I finally got her.

So I dropped to the ground.

The little girl stopped.

“Oh, are you really giving up now? You’re sooooo close!”

Nothing. I remained still as I gasped for breath.

I heard her get closer and closer.

“Mister? Are you okay? Do you need a break? You’ve been going on a really loooong time…”

Once I saw her shadow I lunged.

She almost got away but my hand wrapped around her braid and I pulled her back so hard I could’ve snapped her neck. I embraced her in my arms and breathed out, “I got you.”

I’d never felt so successful in my entire life. I’d finally gotten her.

She turned around and smiled sadly.

“Can we play again? We were having fun. You don’t have to go back, we can stay here.”

She sighed before she kissed my cheek. The same place Avis did before church.

“Okay.”

When I woke up, I was in the middle of the plowed cornfield.

It was spring time, the ground was churned to mud and the water freezing cold. I peeled myself off the ground and began stumbling home.

Both boys jumped out of their skin, the one smoking dropping his cigarette and they backed off. The shorter one raised a hand. “Sir, you’re gonna have to...” He trailed off and his eyes widened.

The eyes that looked exactly like my wife’s.

“… Dad?!”

I passed out on the ground, just a few steps from the back door.

I woke up in the hospital. I’d been cleaned up, had an IV running into my arm, and a woman was sitting next to my bed. Fast asleep. With a tattoo of a bird on her neck. A sparrow, to be exact.

Avis always loved her sparrows.

Search parties were made. People were questioned. No one was imprisoned. They never found me. And life marched on.

The boys on the back porch were in fact my boys. I just hadn’t been around when Joanne announced he was now James, at the age of thirteen. I wish I could’ve been there to help him become a man.

I apparently had a good replacement though.

It was not a place I could stay though.

I was just in the way.

But the little girl wasn’t gone.

Nightly I’d see her outside my window. She’d peer in, with those big eyes, and mouth the words,

“Come with me.”

I’ve told my wife I’m just going out for a walk.

#sixpenceee #sixpenceee stories #horror stories #scary stories #my stories

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i-love-supernatural-forever · 7 years

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Loving a Hunter part 8

Title: Loving a Hunter part 8

Characters: Reader, Dean, Sam, Claire, Jody, Alex

Summary: Claire calls Dean and tells him there's a monster in Sioux Falls, and of course Sam and Dean are going to help.

Word count: 2 151

Warnings: Kidnapping

You can find my masterlist here

Sam, Dean and I were sitting around the kitchen table when Dean's phone began to ring. He took it up from his pocket and looked at the display.

"Claire." He said and looked at us and then he answered. "Hi Claire... What... calm down, I can't hear... what, are you sure. We'll be right there." He said and hung up.

"Wat's going on?" Sam asked as he took a sip from his coffee.

"There is a monster in Sioux Falls."

"What? What kind of monster?" Sam asked.

"Claire wasn't sure. She just said she knew it was a monster and that Jody doesn't believe her." Dean said and got up from the chair.

"Well I guess we better go then." Sam said and got up from his chair.

I went to mine and Dean's bedroom to change from pajamas to regular clothes. I took some black skinny jeans, a white shirt and some booths and of course a sweater. After that I just brushed my hair and after that I was done. I walked to the library where Sam and Dean were waiting for me.

"I'm done." I said and they looked at me and smiled.

"Finally." Dean said and I hit his arm.

We sat in the car on our way to Sioux Falls. It would take almost six hours to get there, but I didn't mind, I really liked to travel by car. They told me that Claire was Castiel's vessels daughter and that Jody took her in and they also told me about Alex, who worked with a vampire nest and that they saved her from becoming a vampire. As I sat looking out the window I came to think of Castiel, Sam and Dean’s angel friend. They hadn’t talked about him for a while.

"Where is Castiel?" I asked. I had heard of him before, but never met him.

"That's a really good question. He doesn't come when we call for him." Sam said looking at me in the rearview mirror.

"Maybe something happened to him." I said.

"Yeah, but in that case it's hard to find out what, since we can't find him." Dean said keeping his eyes on the road. I was really hoping nothing had happened to him, he was Dean’s best friend.

When it was about five in the evening we arrived at Jody's house. Dean parked on the driveway and we got out of the car. Dean rang the doorbell and the door opened by Jody.

"Hi guys. What are you doing here?" She asked looking very surprised.

"Didn't Claire tell you?" Sam asked and she shook her head.

"Claire." She shouted and after a while a blond girl came to the door. Jody looked at Claire and she looked back at Jody.

"I called about the monster that you refuse to believe in."

"Come inside." Jody said and we all went inside.

"Hi I'm Jody by the way." Jody said with a smile and shook my hand.

"I'm Y/N." I said with a smile.

"Hi I'm Alex." A girl with brown hair said coming down the stairs.

"I'm Y/N." I said and she smiled.

"Hi Alex." Sam and Dean said.

Jody didn't think there was a monster in Sioux Falls, but Sam and Dean wanted to check it out anyway. We had drove all the way, so why not. The guys were talking with Alex and Claire and I was helping Jody with the dinner, we were making chicken casserole.

"So where do you come from?" Jody asked.

"I'm from Lawrence, Kansas." I smiled.

"That's nice. Do you like it there?"

"Yeah I do." After about an hour the food was ready, so Alex and I set the table. After we set the table everyone sat down.

"Wow Jody. This food is so good." Sam said with his mouth full.

"Yeah really good." Dean said.

"Thank you guys." Jody smiled.

"So what kind of monster do you think is kidnapping people?" Claire asked.

"Claire, there's no proof that a monster kidnapped those that are missing." Jody said looking at Claire.

"We'll take a look anyway, but it doesn't seem to be anything." Sam said.

"But I'm sure it's a monster..."

"Claire..." Jody said and Claire looked down at her plate.

After dinner Sam and Dean helped Jody with the dishes and I went up to the second floor and knocked on the door to Claire's room. I waited for a while and then she opened the door.

"Hi, can I come in?" I asked.

"Yeah sure." she said and moved away from the doorway. I looked around in her room and all she had on the walls were lots of articles from newspapers.

"You should decorate your room as a teenager." I said.

"No, this works for me." She said and looked at the articles.

"Have you ever thought about just trying to be a teenager and not try to be a hunter?" I asked.

"Yeah but I'm not normal, I’m not like other teenagers." She said.

"Claire you're a teenage girl, of course you're not "normal"." I said and we both laughed.

"So true." She smiled. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah sure." I said and looked at her.

"You are so nice so, why are you together with Dean." She asked and I smiled.

"Well I love him."

"But he is so... weird sometimes." she said and I laughed and so did she after a while.

"He is weird sometimes, but that's just because he's Dean." I smiled and she nodded.

When I had finished talking with Claire, I went downstairs. I went to the dining room where Sam, Dean and Jody were.

"You know what; I'm turning in for the night." Jody said and got up from the chair.

"Goodnight." Sam, Dean and I said and she left the room.

The clock was ticking and it was almost twelve at night. Sam and Dean had moved to the living room, but I was still in the dining room because I chatted with Sabrina on Facebook. I saw in the corner of my eye that Claire past by the doorway, so I left the computer and went after her. She unlocked the door and walked out and I followed her.

"Claire, where are you going?" I asked and she turned around to see me.

"I'm going to find out what took those people myself." she said.

"No you're not." I said.

"Yes I am, because I think there's something out the..." she stated and suddenly someone grabbed me from behind. I couldn't see who it was, but I saw the face of the person who took Claire. The thought that went through my mind was, why do bad stuff always happen to me.

"HELP, DEAN." I screamed as they dragged us both away.

Dean's perspective

I heard Y/N scream help and my name and Sam and I ran outside and she wasn't there. We woke Jody and Alex up, we were going to wake Claire up to, but she was gone, so we guessed that she was taken with Y/N. We had no clue of what took them. If it was a monster, then what monster was it, we had nothing to go on. Suddenly Jody's phone started to ring and she answered as she walked out of the room.

"One of the missing girls is found." Jody said as she came back into the dining room.

"Where?" Sam asked.

"She just walked into the hospital." She said. We left all four of us to drive to the hospital, when we came there we were shown to a room.

"Hi Lydia." Jody said.

"Hi." she said, looking scared.

"What happened?" Jody asked.

"I don't know." she said with shaky voice.

"Yes you do." I said. "You can tell us anything, we will believe you."

"No you won't." She said and started to cry.

"Hey, you can trust us." Jody said and Lydia nodded. "Who did this to you?"

"It was two girls, their eyes looked like... they looked like snake eyes and their teeth they were really sharp. They only had four front teeth's that they bit me with." she said. I went out to the car to get dads journal and then I went back inside. I flipped over the pages and stopped at a picture of a Vetala.

"Is this how they looked like?" I asked and showed her the picture. She nodded and said "Yes."

We went back to Jody's house to try to find out where they could hide. They like abandon places where no one would disturb them.

"How about the abandon warehouse just on the way out of town" Jody said.

"Yeah that could be it." Sam said and we decided to go there.

Sam, Jody and I drove to the ware house and I parked the car. We took each a silver knife from the trunk and we walked in slowly and quietly. We came into a room where four girls were tied to chairs.

"Feel the pulse." Sam said and we all did, but they were dead all four of them. Their bodies had been emptied of their blood. At least Y/N wasn’t here.

"I don't think that they're here anymore." Jody said.

"No, is there any other abandon building in this town?" I asked and she said "I don't know."

Jody went back to her house where she and Alex would look up what buildings were abandoned and Sam and I drove around the city, to see if we could find anything. We drove around for hours but we couldn't find them. I stopped the car and hit my hands at the steering wheel and screamed "DAMN IT."

"Dean, we will find her." Sam said.

"I really hope so." I said and my phone rang.

"Yeah." I answered.

"Hi Dean it's Jody. We found another building; it's in the middle of town." She said and told me exactly where it was. We drove there right away; it didn't take more than five minutes to get there. We took our silver knives and went inside.

"Dean over here." Sam said and I walked over to him. We stopped at a closed door and we raised our knives. I kicked the door open and we saw Y/N and Claire tied to chairs. Her head was hanging down like she wasn't alive.

"No, no, no, no. Y/N." I said, running towards her. I felt for her pulse. She had a pulse, but she was weak.

"DEAN." Sam shouted and I turned around and there two Vetalas stood looking at us with smiles on their lips. Sam raised his knife and ran towards one of them and I ran towards the other one.

Sam got thrown into the wall and I got hit to the floor. I kicked her and she fell and I got up and stabbed her. The other Vetala came running right at me and knocked me down, blood came out of my mouth.

"Son of a bitch." I said and got up and kicked her in the face so she fell. She got up and I pushed her and Sam stabbed her in the heart through the back.

"Y/N." I said and ran to her. I untied her and lifted her up and Sam picked up Claire then we left the building and drove to the hospital.

Alex and Jody met us at the hospital. Y/N and Claire were given more blood, because they had lost so much. We sat in the waiting room waiting for news. A doctor came out and walked over to us and he said "They are both fine. Claire is in room four and Y/N is in room five." Jody and Alex went to Claire and Sam and I went to Y/N. When we came in she was looking at us.

"Hi." We said.

"Hi." She said with a smile.

"I thought you weren't going to be okay" I said.

"I'm fine." She said and took my hand. "I'm fine because you saved me. You're my hero, my knight in shiny armor." I smiled at that, because it sounded quite funny but it was cute that she thought so. Ever since she began coming with us she always end up in trouble, she should just leave, that’s not what I want, but she would be safer.

Sam stayed with Y/N and I went to talk with Jody. She came out of Claire's room and we took a seat in the waiting room.

"How's Claire?" I asked.

"She's fine. What about Y/N?"

"She's fine too."

"You know, Y/N is an amazing girl. Claire said that she tried to protect her, and she did, that's why Y/N lost more blood than Claire. She's a keeper, I really like her." Jody said and walked back into Claire's room. I smiled to myself as I walked to Y/N's room again.

You can find my masterlist here

(This story is written by me, and no one else is allowed to use it for any purpose.)

#Dean Winchester #Dean #Sam Winchester #Sam #Dean supernatural #Dean spn #Dean series #Dean Winchester supernatural #Dean Winchester spn #Supernatural reader insert #Supernatural fic #Spn fic #Supernatural #Spn #Supernatural fanfiction #Spn fanfic #Spn fanfiction

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ecotone99 · 5 years

Text

[SF] Sassy for Satan.

The final trails of dusk streak through Mariya’s blinds at just before eight thirty pm. There is a slight pink hue against the pale blue of the sky and only a few clouds, the wind blows and makes the blinds bump against the window sill. Mariya reaches out from underneath her cocoon of blankets and presses the on button on the coffee maker on her bedside table. It hisses as it comes to life and soon the smell of mid range French roast is making the idea of getting out of bed more palpable. In fifteen and a half minutes she has showered(though couldn't be bothered to wash her hair, it still looked fine) is on her second cup of coffee and has a record playing on the turntable on the other side of her cluttered room. Yukiko Okada is singing against a fast and upbeat tempo and for a brief moment Mariya thinks today will be a good day. In forty five seconds she is flat on her back and wondering "Why bother." Mariya did not think everlasting life as a vampire would be so tedious. Life's more boring chores tend to seem unending when you are immortal. It seemed so much more glamorous when her perception of it was endless parties of unbridled debauchery, blood orgies, tormenting handsome vampire hunters, or having to keep on the move so as not to alert the humans. "When was the last time I even had to fight or be on the run?" She could not remember. To make matters worse as if existential dread is not bad enough, it was Saturday and she would have to lead the Black Mass for the local coven of mortals who had pledged their everlasting souls in service to her and more importantly Lucifer. "This used to be fun, it was basically a party with violence and all manner of depravity." For a moment her mind travels back through time and she thinks about the haze of blood soaked and alcohol fueled insanity that being a High Priestess in the service of Satan used to bring. Her mind quickly fast forwards to the present day, to the service last week. Fucking goth dweebs that wear vegan leather and spend most of their time bitching and moaning about what is and isn't goth. Mariya rises only because the record needs to be flipped and decides that she might as well get dressed. With one startling revelation her night goes downhill from there. "Fuck." Mariya stands at her dresser and curses the names of God, Satan, Buddha, Mohammed and any other prophet or deity that she can remember the name of. She is out of underwear and will have to do laundry. The sun is still leaving slight streaks she notices with a very slight smile. "I could just go out running into it." She pictures it and in a darkly comical way how absurd it would be to any who saw it. A pale stark naked woman running out of a cheap studio apartment and promptly exploding in both flashes of light and chunks of gore splattering all within fifty feet. Instead Mariya decides to go commando and puts on the cleanest pair of jeans she has and a white shirt with very little coffee stains. Three weeks worth of clothes are thrown into her duffle bag and she is off to the Laundromat down the street. (after taking the record off the turntable and chugging one more cup of coffee) Thankfully true to form someone at the Laundromat has trustingly left their detergent in an empty clothes basket as theirs are being washed. It had been about thirty five years since Mariya last bought detergent, she didn't see the point when it was always laying around. Soon enough the clothes are in and the washer is doing its thing. Mariya scans the place and notices with something that feels a bit like excitement and old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade machine. Twenty five scents is put into the machine and three minutes later Raphael has bitten the dust at the hands of the Foot Clan. Mariya takes a seat next to a young woman reading a comic. For a moment Mariya thinks about making polite conversation or at least the coursory question of what is the comic about. The young woman is wearing earbuds so in the end she doesn’t bother. The crushing boredom of being in a Laundromat quickly sets in and Mariya has slumped down in her seat and she resumes scanning the room desperately searching for anything interesting. Like a beacon from heaven or a siren's song on a tumultuous sea Mariya spots the community corkboard and more importantly the vibrant flier on it. Dead center with a thumb tack in each corner. It is a flier advertising a nine dollar trial month at the local twenty four hour gym and they have just put in a bouldering wall. Visions of climbing sheer rock walls in the desert on cloudless nights flood Mariya's mind. What an intense thrill it would be, and obviously she had the time, limitless time, to train and enjoy it. The flier captivated her, drew her into it and she could see herself at the gym (after dark of course) making friends with people who had no idea who The Cure were or what electro or acid Goth were. Normal people who probably liked sushi and decent mid range cars and patagonia, this was her ticket out of the rut she was in. Mariya spent the next hour and a half sitting in the waiting area thinking about the possibilities that lay before her now that she held the flier in her hands. The walk back to her apartment was much more pleasant and each step was taken with a new found joy that gave her long strides. It had begun to rain only slightly, only enough to warp light into something fantastic and otherworldly. There were not many people on the road and no one else was on the sidewalk at this hour. Mariya could not wait until tomorrow night when she would walk into the gym, pay her nine dollars and learn to climb. For a moment she stops dead in her tracks and thinks that it is a bit odd that with all her years on this planet she had not as of yet learned how to rock climb or boulder. Of course she has not learned to make pasta from scratch as of yet either but what the hell maybe next century. The cinema was advertising this months midnight movies in bright neon bordered windows and Mariya stops and looks at the line-up. Two Fridays from now she decides she will go and see Critters. By the time she arrives back home it is in a frenzy to get ready for the Mass and she should have been out the door heading to the Black Church(it's not actually black, it was just christened that in the eighties.)five minutes ago. Wearing a slightly less bloodstained robe and clutching the ceremonial dagger of Ka'Ndarr in her left hand Mariya runs the entire mile and a half from her apartment to the Black Chruch.(once again, not actually black.) The rain has stopped and only the ound of Mariya's panting as she runs and the sounds of her boots through the mud announce her arrival. Thankfully she is somehow the first one at the Black Church. Though unfortunately in her haste she has forgotten a key element of the Black Mass. The live chicken for the sacrifice which usually is bought from the small market off of fifth was forgotten in her mad dash to make it on time, she also has no idea what she will talk about at tonight's mass, though honestly she could just recycle last weeks and punch it up a bit. The mouth breathers that attend would never know. As the few preparations are made before her flock arrives Mariya wipes last weeks dried blood off the altar, lights all the candles and makes sure the inverted cross is clean and looks presentable. The Black Church itself is an old turn of the century rural church about a mile on the outskirts of town and over the last forty years or so it has started falling in on itself, though that does kind of help to give off the whole "Black Mass/Church of Satan" vibe. Slowly they trickle in, the pale, pimply and in desperate need of any sort of guidance in their lives teens who make up the congregation. Hello's are given and they find their seats on the few structurally sound pews still available in the rotting church. The wind rips through the mostly absent ceiling and Mariya stands at the foot of the inverted cross playing up the theatrical element of organized religion. The sermon is soon delivered, it's a rather stirring piece about the importance of always putting yourself before others and remembering that authority is the true root of all evil. (Which is obviously bullshit, but the teenagers are dumb and impressionable and live on a steady diet of black metal, besides Lucifer is not exactly picky about how he gets his souls, just that he gets them.) The Hymns are sung and the communion wine (Bottom shelf red zin) is passed around in the ceremonial goblet(Halloween city, twelve ninety-nine.) and the evening is coming to it's merciful end and Mariya is chomping at the bit to ditch the nerds. "What about the sacrifice?" It's the chubby one in the back who always wears the iron maiden shirt, Mariya has always found him annoying, a real teachers pet kind of kid. "Unfortunately I was not able to procure the blood that our beloved Lucifer craves, and I alone will pay the penance. I hope you my beloved flock will never have to see our Dark Lord's profound and earth shattering anger." Mariya makes a slight bow as she takes back the goblet from the crowd and hopes they bought her theatrical bullshit. The crowd sits in hushed silence as Mariya starts packing things up. "I offer myself as tribute to the one true Lord of man!" Mariya turns around. It's the chubby one in the Iron Maiden t-shirt. She gives him a long hard stare and in doing so notices several different food stains of different ages and severities on his shirt. One of the dorks somewhere in the middle shouts "Hail Satan." "Hail Satan" Mariya responds with extremely forced enthusiasm. Mariya unpacks the dagger she had just put away. Before she can think of a way to shut down this idea the dork in the Iron Maiden shirt is laying on the sacrificial altar and giving her the thumbs up. The congregation all start speaking in "tongues" and Mariya thinks "Fuck it." The knife goes in, the goth kids go wild, and Mariya yanks out the warm just finished beating heart of the kid who up until just recently was wearing the Iron Maiden shirt. The heart is lit on fire on a small metal tray and the goths pray to Lucifer as black smoke billows and hangs low over the heads of all in attendance. Mariya rushes them out and makes a point to practically push them out the door. "Tonight was great, I can't wait until next week!" Says one of the flock as Mariya shoves her out the door of the Black Church. Finally they are all gone and she too can go home. The air is silent and the scent of blood gives the waning night a slight coppery smell. Mariya reaches into her pocket and pulls out the flier for the gym and looks at the climbing wall and smiles. Mariya throws the body of the deceased over her shoulder and figures he shall make a nice if not easy meal and walks out the door. Soon it will be dawn and she will sleep. Tomorrow night she will go to the gym and start her new hobby. Rock climbing, just thinking the words makes Mariya smile more than she has in years.

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