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lastbluetardis · 3 years

Text

Sacred New Beginnings (1/?)

Summary: James Noble thought he traded away his chance at love and a happy-ever-after when he signed a contract with a record label that turned him into an international celebrity. But a chance meeting in a dive bar may prove him wrong.

Ten x Rose AU, @doctorroseprompts

This Chapter: Teen, ~5500 words

Note: Er... surprise? This idea has been in my head for months but my brain took it and ran with it this weekend. I plotted the whole thing and am gonna try to update every weekend. I don’t anticipate this being more than like... 7-10 chapter? I’d love to keep it under 5 chapters but that might be trimming things down too much for my liking. Anyways, I really hope you enjoy this little story!

AO3

Flashing lights and shrieks of his name greet James the moment the back door to his armored car is opened. His head of security ducks out first and James can only see a mass of feet and legs but it’s more than enough to let him know it’s a heavier than usual crowd. Not surprising, considering the news of his latest break-up just dropped while he’d been flying back from a visit to America.

He slides out of the car, helped by hands that pull him as much as guide him through the throng. He ignores the shouts of his name—telling him to look left or right or up or down or every combination therein—and the barrage of questions and jokes that aren’t funny.

Was it you or him that ended it?

Three weeks, is that a new personal record?

Another notch in the bedpost, eh James?

Got another beau lined up yet?

If you’re looking for candidates, what do we have to do to get our names in the running?

“Ignore them,” he mutters to himself, too quietly for anyone except his security team to hear.

In answer, one of them gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they reach his front door. Someone has already unlocked it for him and the darkness within is a blessing he’s all too willing to be shoved into. The cacophony muffles once the door shuts, and finally he’s alone, a rarity for him. If it’s not his security, it’s personal assistants and writers and producers and photographers and the paparazzi.

Or his lover of the month, as the papers have taken to calling his partners.

But nope, his home is empty and quiet and bloody freezing. A shiver ripples up his spine as he treads to the thermostat controller. Summer finally released its hold on London, and the muggy heat has been replaced with a damp chill that burrows down into his bones.

Several button-presses later, James hears the familiar clank of the radiator and he can smell the heating kick on. It’ll take a while for his house to warm up, so James keeps his peacoat on for the time being as he putters around his home, checking the fridge and the cabinets. As always, they’re well-stocked. He hasn’t had to do anything as mundane as grocery shopping in the five years since his YouTube channel full of acoustic covers of popular songs went viral and landed him a lucrative deal with a prestigious record label. Only in his wildest dreams had he expected to find fame and fortune in the hobby he loved so much—for it to have actually happened still took him by surprise, as though any minute he’d be told “it was fun while it lasted, but it’s time for you to leave wonderland now.”

Shaking his head of those thoughts, he goes to the antique dining table that can easily seat ten people, which is great for holidays or in-home meetings, but just plain depressing every other day of the year. A stack of mail has piled up, and he spends the next five minutes attempting to sort it before giving up and telling himself he’ll look at it in the morning, once he’s not quite as groggy—transatlantic flights always take it out of him.

Instead, he rootles around his fridge until he comes up with the necessary items to make himself a ham and cheese sandwich. With the prospect of food in front of him, James realizes he is starving. He shoves a whole slice of ham in his mouth while he assembles his pitiful meal, heaping on lettuce and sliced tomatoes as though that’s enough to negate the pile processed protein and greasy chips he layers in for crunch.

It’s tastier than any sandwich as a right to be, and he nearly makes himself a second one before catches sight of his phone screen and the slew of incoming notifications. His work is never finished, is it?

There are several texts from his publicist, Donna, welcoming him home and congratulating him on not making an arse of himself just by trying to walk up the front drive of his home. (To be fair, he felt entitled to channel his inner crotchety old man and tell reporters to get off his damn lawn if they encroached on his personal property.)

“Though some photos are surfacing of your trip to New York… Anything you need me to get ahead of?”

He rubs his fingers into his eyes, knowing she’s probably referring to his last night out in the city, where he went bar hopping until the wee hours of the morning to try to forget the text his subsequently-ex-boyfriend had sent him.

Thanks for everything, but I need to focus on my career. Cheers mate.

The career that James had kickstarted for him by introducing his rising actor boyfriend to several of his friends in the film industry, because James had been so damn desperate for affection that he’d once again let the wool get pulled in front of his eyes.

And so James had reached out to mates who lived in New York and they’d all gone out and acted half their age and had a wonderful time once James forgot about why he’d gone out in the first place.

But none of that now. Nope. No sir.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he replies. “Let me know if you catch wind of anything.”

Despite the fact that he only just got home and he’s jetlagged and still feeling the effects of his night out in New York, James can’t stay in his house right now. It’s so quiet that his brain is creating its own white noise. He can’t stand being in his head on a good day, and today is not a good day.

He grabs his keys and wallet and makes for the back of the house. His property is landlocked with the back gardens of other houses; the paps have learned the hard way that James is dead serious about protecting his neighbors’ privacy and will not hesitate to phone the police to arrest and sue anyone caught trespassing on private property to snag a photo of him. James hosts dinner for his neighbors several times a year and buys them gifts any chance he can to show his appreciation for their patience and tolerance.

In the dead of night, he slips out into his back garden, the crisp October air burning his lungs in the best way as he ducks his way through the neighborhood, his feet taking him far away from the crowd of reporters that are still stationed in front of his own home. Hopefully they’ll all have dispersed by the time he gets back. Perhaps he should have turned on music or a movie or something, made them think he was settled in for a lazy night in.

He wanders aimlessly for a while, enjoying this taste of freedom and trying to remember the days when he could leave out the front door of his flat without any fanfare.

It’s dark, and thick clouds obscure whichever moon phase they’re in, but the street lamps glow yellow on the damp pavement, lighting his way forward. A crisp autumn breeze ruffles his hair and the leaves, sending them tumbling around him and skittering across the residential street that’s so much quieter than the bustle of New York. It’s good to be home, though.

He arrives at a bus stop and catches one headed into the city proper. It’s no secret that James lives in London, and therefore the general population has gotten used to glimpsing him on the tube or walking on the street or frequenting pubs. He knows people snap quick photos of him, and he’s always happy to stop and pose for a selfie with respectful fans, but mostly he’s left alone when he’s out by himself like this.

Nevertheless, he hears the excited undertones of people trying to inconspicuously point him out to their oblivious friends. He keeps his head down, mindlessly opening and closing apps on his phone for something to do as he pretends he doesn’t notice them. He won’t be on the bus much longer anyway.

Several people get off the bus with him, including a group of teenage girls who are whispering heatedly among themselves. It’s almost funny, watching them debate amongst themselves before one of them approaches him.

She’s red-faced but determined as she blurts, “Can we get a photo?”

“Sure thing,” he says good-naturedly, inclining his head for them to come closer. “Need me to take it?” He holds out a lanky arm and flops it around a bit. “Got a longer reach than any of you.”

He’s certain one of the girls is about to start crying with joy as they all nestle into his side and hand him a new-model iPhone. Damn, it’s fancier than his own. When he was their age, he had an old flip phone that lost reception if he breathed on it wrong. It was a tank though—he’d dropped that thing hundreds of times, and nary a scratch.

“Do me a favor,” he says, handing the phone back to its owner, “and don’t ping our location if you post to social media, yeah? I appreciate it.”

“You’re my favorite person ever,” one of the girls squeaks.

His face splits into a grin and he tucks his hands into his pockets. “Is that so?”

The girls spend the next five minutes chatting with him about music and how they’ve been following him ever since his YouTube days. He listens and chimes in every now and then when they ask him a direct question, but he prefers being passive in exchanges like this, content to hear peoples’ stories. It makes him feel normal, if only for a little while.

Finally, they take their leave, and James turns in the opposite direction even though the destination he had in mind is down the street the girls had just taken. But he’s been burned far too many times by encounters with seemingly innocent fans, only for them to begin following him around and showing up outside his house to talk to him again. He makes a point of not drawing out public encounters with his fans.

He wanders down a street he’s vaguely familiar with, figuring he can backtrack in a couple blocks. The night is too beautiful for him to be upset about needing to take a detour.

Everything looks different in the dark, the glow of neon signs bathing everything in hues of greens and blues and pinks and yellows. Shops and restaurants are mostly shut up for the night, their windows dark or blinds drawn. Dingey motels with pay-by-the-hour rates are in full swing, as are the pubs that have a revolving door of people in varying states of intoxication.

Deep bass that he can feel all the way in his chest catches his attention, and he gets turned around a few times, but he eventually finds the establishment: Bad Wolf Brews. At first, he doesn’t think it’s open, and that he must be mistaken about where the music is coming from, but the heavy front oak door opens, and he realizes the glass on the door is tempered so that the interior lights don’t shine through. The music is clear and heavy and vibrating in his bones. He doesn’t think twice before catching the door before it closes and slipping inside.

The air is humid and smells of sweat and stale beer. Bodies are writhing and gyrating to the rhythm blasting through invisible speakers. The acoustics are phenomenal; none of the layers are lost and the sound quality is nearly as good as if he were listening to the record at home on his own stereo system.

The lights are low, and he’s sure he trips into a few people in the minute it takes for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, but finally, he’s at the bar. There are three open stools, and he claims one between a blonde woman and a red-haired man as he wonders what the hell this dive bar serves. He can see beer taps, but he’s more of a cocktail guy. He must look as lost as he feels, because the bartender hands him a menu that looks like it was hand-written and then photo-copied. It jives with the overall vibe of the pub.

The bartender checks in with him a minute later. James opens a tab and orders a sidecar sans sugar, and is pleasantly surprised by the quality. Not to make assumptions, but he’d figured an establishment such as this would have cheap liquor. If the alcohol in his drink is cheap, it’s well masked.

When he’s drained the last drop and about to signal for another, a hand rests on his shoulder. “Can I buy your next round?”

James looks up into the face of a stranger. It’s a woman with striking green eyes and a disheveled pixie cut. Judging by her crimson cheeks and glazed eyes, she’s three sheets to the wind. There’s buzzed, then there’s drunk, and then there’s plastered. He prefers not to let himself get to that last category, and by extension, he doesn’t really like to associate much with people who won’t remember the night come morning.

“Thanks, but I’m good,” he says with his most charming grin. “G’night.”

He has no idea if the woman knows who he is, but the way she shrugs and saunters to the gentleman sitting beside James, he doubts it.

He gets clumsily propositioned a few more times and always politely declines with a smile. So far, nobody here seems to recognize him and he is going to ride out this anonymity for as long as it’ll last. It has been too long since he’s been able to sit in a pub and drink quietly. Well, quietly, insofar as crazed fans or paparazzi aren’t harassing him—the music is loud enough that he’s sure to have ringing in his ears for a few hours once he gets home.

But he’s not really in any rush to get home, and so he orders his fourth cocktail before making his way to the loo. Alcohol goes right through him, and it’s nearly gotten him in trouble on tour a time or two.

There’s no line, but the loo is crowded, and he tries to ignore the double-takes as he stands in front of a urinal to take care of business. If he wakes up tomorrow morning to find that someone snapped a photo of him having a piss, he’s going to lose his goddamn mind.

Bladder tended to, James keeps his head ducked and shoulders his way back into the bar. His stool is unoccupied, and when he steps forward, he realizes why. A purse sits on it, seemingly reserving the seat but he can’t figure out for whom. He’s about to take the cocktail the bartender hands him and stand against the shadowed wall when someone picks up the purse.

It’s his blonde-haired stool mate. She flashes him a broad grin that lights up her entire face and squeezes something deep in his stomach.

“Saved your seat for ya,” she says with the ease and confidence of someone who’s known him his whole life.

“Thanks,” he manages through a suddenly dry mouth.

Feeling like an idiot for standing and gaping, he slips into his seat and downs half his new sidecar in one go. It’s as though the ice has been broken now, and she turns to him, her elbow on the counter and her cheek propped on her fist.

“Pretty sure you could outdrink a fish, mate,” she drawls, smiling again in that easy way that does too many strange things to his insides. “You’ve been knockin’ ‘em back for over an hour now.”

Has it really been that long? James checks his watch, and yup, it’s half past ten. The paps should be gone from his house by now, but he feels no draw to leave this place. The alcohol has left him pleasantly tipsy and warm, but he’s more drunk on the fantasy that he’s just a normal bloke having a nice night out in a newly-discovered dive bar.

“Fish don’t really drink though, do they? They absorb water through their gills via osmosis,” he replies, and he wants to bite his tongue off because what the fuck was that??

This woman, whatever her name is, doesn’t seem to mind his answer though, because her face scrunches in a giggle. His body is hot and throbbing with more than drink now, and he wants to hear that sound again but his brain has stopped working.

“Is that so different from you absorbin’ alcohol through your bloodstream?” she muses, finishing off whatever is in her short tumbler.

“Can I buy your next round?” he blurts rather than responding to her question, which he’s almost certain was rhetorical.

Her smile melts into something softer, something private and a little shy. “If you’d like.”

“I do.” He flags down the bartender and glances at his new companion expectantly.

“Gin and tonic,” she says. She thanks the bartender, then James when she takes her first sip. “I’m Rose, by the way.”

“James,” he says, feeling stupid because his face is plastered all over London, which likes to boast that it’s the home of international celeb James Noble. But wouldn’t he seem more of an arse if he just assumed this gorgeous woman knew who he was?

Nevertheless, his stomach sinks a bit when she snorts into her drink and says, “I thought it was you.”

“Yup, it’s me,” he forces, his voice flat. He hides his frown with his glass, knocking back the rest of his sidecar like it’s a shot. The room sways slightly with the violent motion of his head, and maybe he’s slightly drunker than he’d thought.

If Rose catches on to his sudden sour mood, she doesn’t mention it. “What brings you here to Bad Wolf?”

He shrugs and blows out a noisy breath. “I dunno. Went for a walk, ended up here.”

“Those are the best sort of adventures.” She hums wistfully. “Sometimes you find what you didn’t know you needed when you let yourself get lost.”

That observation is far too astute for his current state of mind, so instead he says, “Would you like to dance with me?”

Her eyes flicker across his face for a brief moment before she says, “Okay.”

He hops down from his stool, but Rose hesitates, clutching her purse and coat awkwardly. The bartender helpfully tells her to keep them on her stool, and he’ll keep an eye on it. Rose flashes him a grin that James would rather she flash at him, but he realizes that is utterly absurd, so he simply rests his coat on top of her things to better hide them from view. He then holds out his hand for her. Her palm is soft and warm against his as he leads her to the crowded dance floor.

They find space towards the back of the pub, hidden in the shadows of a hallway that states it’s closed off to patrons. And of course, of fucking course, right when he rests his hands on her hips to find the rhythm of the song, a new one comes on, and his own voice belts from the speakers.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters. He loves his music—he made it, after all—but he can’t help but feel pretentious and more than a little silly to dance to it like this.

Rose, however, grins and says, “Oh, come on, this is one of my favorites.”

She catches his hands where he’d loosened them at her waist and forces him to grab hold of her. She’s wearing high-waisted trousers and a top that leaves a sliver of her belly exposed. His thumb grazes the skin of her bare side, and it’s enough to send tingles through his body. Rose, meanwhile, slings her arms around his shoulders and begins to rock her hips from side to side in sync with the bass, embellishing the motions until she looks absolutely ridiculous but so, so beautiful.

He can’t help but grin and laugh, and he mirrors her movements until they’re both dancing like idiots to his music.

“This is how my baby brother dances,” she explains, bouncing up and down while twisting her hips. “We have regular dance parties together.”

“How old’s your brother?” he asks.

“Just turned four.”

He blinks, and blood rushes from his face. “And… and how old are you?”

“A perfectly legal twenty-four,” she drawls, reaching up to flick his nose. “You can start breathing again.”

Thank fuck.

“That’s quite the age gap.”

“My mum got remarried when I was nineteen,” Rose says with a shrug. “She and my stepdad didn’t waste much time.”

“Clearly,” he mutters under his breath.

“It does feel a bit like they’ve started over,” Rose confesses with a too-stiff shrug. “New family, new life, and I’m the interloper.

There is no way this vivacious woman in front of him could ever be considered an interloper, but before he can tell her that, she continues, “Mum does her best to assure me otherwise, but still. It’s hard to watch all the things Mum and Dad are able to do for Tony—that’s my brother, Tony—when Mum struggled so much as a single mum with me.”

“Your dad’s not in the picture?”

A sad smile pinches her face, and he regrets asking.

“No, I never knew him. He died when I was a baby.”

“I… I’m so sorry.” Well, he’s totally buggered this all up, hasn’t he? He wracks his brain on how to salvage the easy banter they’d had at the bar, but draws a blank.

Rose seems to realize they’ve lost the mood, but she breaks out into a lazy grin and says, “Since you seemed so opposed to dancing to your own music, it’ll please you to know a new song’s on. C’mon, show me your moves.”

He’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so he follows her lead, watching her dance her heart out until her cheeks are pink and her hair is damp with sweat. He’s sure he doesn’t look much better, since he can feel the perspiration beading down his back and beneath his arms, but he can’t bring himself to care. Tonight has been the most fun he’s had in a very long time. Clubbing in New York had been a lark, but he’s been swarmed by his American fans half the night, and had been busy drowning his latest heartbreak to fully enjoy it. But here, now, with Rose, it’s like he’s any other bloke in a pub, chatting up a pretty girl he wants to get to know.

Their bodies are wrapped around each other with the ease and grace of partners who have known each other for years, and he forgets that he has known Rose for all of a few hours. He never wants this night to end. He wants to cling to this fairytale and pretend that the clock isn’t about to strike the proverbial midnight.

But time marches on as always. The clock really does strike midnight, and the bartender begins to clear people out of his establishment. James is as exhausted as he is exhilarated, no longer drunk on booze but rather the company of Rose and the magic they made together by simply dancing the night away.

They head back to the bar to retrieve their coats and her purse, and to close out their tabs. James slides his credit card to the bartender and asks him to charge everyone’s tab to his card. If the bartender is surprised, he hides it well. A few minutes later, James is signing off on the receipt of purchase of several thousand pounds-worth of alcohol. His personal assistant is sure to be confused as hell when she wakes up to see the charge. He fires off a quick warning text to her so she doesn’t open up a fraudulent charge claim.

James salutes the bartender, knowing he’ll come back to this pub as often as he can until he’s found out and this place once again becomes somewhere that’s overrun with his fans.

The night is refreshingly cold when he and Rose emerge into it, a nice change after the stifling, sweaty heat of the bar. However, she hunches her shoulders against the chill, prompting him to wrap his arm around her waist and tug her into his side, all too eager to lend her some of his body heat.

“Can I walk you somewhere?” he asks, glancing around the street that is now full of the drunken patrons who’d been in the pub with them. They all disperse in different directions, stumbling home or to a different bar that is still open. “Or wait with you ‘til you catch a cab?”

“Yeah, sure,” she says, pulling up her phone to order a ride. She taps on the screen for a few quiet moments then says, “Done. Should be here in a few minutes.”

They descend into a slightly awkward silence that James wants to break, but he can’t think of anything clever to say. So he says nothing, and finally headlights wash over them, momentarily blinding them before a taxi pulls up.

“D’you wanna share?” she asks, opening the door to the back seat.

Is she as reluctant to leave him as he is to leave her? Or is she being polite and eco-friendly by ride sharing? Nevertheless, he nods and slides into the back seat beside her.

There is something incredibly intimate about sitting with Rose in the dark interior of the taxi, and he feels like he’s fifteen and wondering how to hold his date’s hand after a cheap night out at the cinemas. He fists his hands together, knotting his fingers until his knuckles pop.

The driver goes to the address Rose provides first, and all too soon they’ve arrived.

“I’ll cover the fare,” he says when she makes to hand over some bank notes to the diver. “It’d be my pleasure.”

She hesitates, but nods, then opens the door to climb out of the car. His pulse quickens as he watches her walk away with nothing but a, “Goodnight.”

“Can you wait just a minute?” he asks the driver.

“Meter’s still runnin’,” he grunts.

“That’s fine.”

James scrambles out of the taxi. “Hey, Rose?”

She turns back to face him, frowning.

“I… er… I had a great time tonight,” he says lamely, but her frown relaxes into a smile. “It was fun. With you. I had fun.”

“Yeah, me too,” she answers.

He licks his lips; his mouth is bone dry and his pulse pounds in his ears, making his vision throb with each frenzied beat.

“Do you… do you maybe wanna do it again some time? Hang out together? I… I’d really like to see you again,” he says, cursing his clumsy, fumbling words.

She scrutinizes him for a long moment, her expression indecipherable. His stomach sinks. Maybe this was a one-off, a story for her to tell her mates.

You’ll never guess who I met at the pub last night. James Noble! He paid for all my drinks and we danced like idiots.

He stews in his misery of doubt, and just when he’s about to tell her to forget about it, she slowly nods.

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”

“Really?” he asks, a hopeful edge creeping into his voice.

She laughs. “Really.”

“Brilliant!” James fumbles in his pocket for his phone, and he thrusts it at her. “Give me your number? I’ll text you. Or call.”

He rocks back and forth on his toes and heels, waiting for her to finish up with his phone. He has a sudden, potent bolt of panic that she’s snooping through his private messages or photographs for something to use against him to make a quick profit, but before that panic can take root, she hands his mobile back to him. It’s open to a new texting conversation.

From: 🌹 Bad Wolf Girl 🌹

Now I’ve got your number too 😉

He beams at the name she’s given to herself in his contacts, then he pockets his phone.

“I’ll see you later,” he says.

“You better,” she replies with that knee-weakening smile he’s grown to love over the course of the night. “See ya.”

“Bye.”

He stands there like a moron until she’s safely inside, then he turns back to the taxi and climbs in. The deserted streets streak by as the driver takes him to his neighborhood. He never gives his address though; he always chooses a destination a few streets away, just in case.

James generously tips the driver and bids him goodnight before slipping into the night to his home. He was right: the paparazzi are gone. There is no fanfare as he slips his key into the lock and lets himself into his house. It’s warm and cozy, but still too quiet for his liking.

Between the plane ride and his night out, he feels greasy and disgusting, and indulges in a hot shower before bed. He washes Rose’s scent off of his body, an intoxicating blend of jasmine and vanilla that’s as sweet as it is musky.

He’s groggy by the time he crawls into his giant, king-sized bed and burrows deep into his mounds of pillows and duvets. One of his ex-girlfriends once teased that he turns into the marshmallow man when he sleeps.

His sleep is deep and dreamless, and when he awakes with the sun the following morning, he feels more refreshed and invigorated than he ever remembers being. He’s got a full day of meetings with his songwriting team to brainstorm his next album, and he is ready.

But first, he checks his phone. There’s nothing from Rose, which makes him a little sad, but also nothing from his publicist, which is always a good sign. If ever she messages or calls him first thing in the morning, it always means there’s some sort of dumpster fire to put out. Usually a dumpster fire full of compromising photos of him.

He makes a point of not Googling himself, but he does occasionally check his social media pages for new posts about him, wanting to know when, where, and how his fans came across him in the wild. He easily finds the photo that he took with the group of teenage girls, and makes a point to like the original post and type a quick, “Nice to meet you all. Thanks for chatting with me last night - J” in the comments section. He snorts to himself as his comment blows up within seconds.

But other than some grainy photos of him riding the bus, he can’t find any other photos of himself. Nothing of him wandering the streets or drinking in the pub or even having a wee in the mens’ room. And best of all, there’s nothing of him and Rose. No photos of them dancing together or sharing a cab. If Rose has a social media account, it didn’t post any sneaky photos or bragging stories about dancing all night with James Noble.

He can’t quite believe it; he managed to have a fun night out drinking without it all being thrown back in his face the next morning. Within seconds, he’s grinning to himself and pulling up Rose’s contact information. It’s still in his phone, further proof that his night with her wasn’t some sort of jetlagged fever dream. She was real.

“Good morning. I hope you slept well. Thanks for last night.”

She responds almost instantly. Good morning to you too. I should be thanking you for paying my drink tab and taxi fare 😉 And for being an excellent dance partner.

“The pleasure was all mine, on all counts.” He sends that message, then types out a new one, “I’m gonna be in meetings all day (yes, I know it’s Sunday), so please don’t be discouraged if I don’t reply. But I’d really like to see you again. Want to do dinner or drinks or coffee or something?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, needing to make himself presentable for when his driver picks him up in an hour. Yet he can’t help but check his phone every three seconds, until finally there’s a message from Rose.

Yeah, I’d like that. I work ‘til five most nights, but I’m free after that. Or we can wait ‘til the weekend.

With spirits lighter than they’ve been in months, James steps out of his house with a broad, stupid grin that the ever-present crowd of paparazzi are all too happy to photograph.

#ficandchips #dwfic #doctorroseprompts #doctor who #ten x rose #ten x rose au #james x rose #yet another iteration of james and rose lmao #romance #meet cute #light angst #musician au #my fic #sacred new beginnings

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zargsnake · 3 years

Photo

Knightkiller: Anakin and Obi-Wan’s First Adventure

Chapter 8: Priorities

Word Count: 2565 Links: Chapter 1, Table of Contents

* * *

Anakin hears the cheers for Obi-Wan turn sour, and he soon figures out why. It is no fault of his master's, who fights beautifully -- but there is a transparent dome-shield around the arena, and whenever someone in the angry, heavily-armed audience shoots at it, ripples of white electric shocks cross the dome and obscure the fight. Anakin is relieved that the audience is booing each other, not his master, though he worries that Obi-Wan will think they're booing at him.

Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder, trying to locate Anakin in the audience, and a blade suddenly whizzes by his neck. His reflexes protect him and he jerks out of the way, but a moment later he feels hot blood on his skin. He hadn't moved quickly enough -- the blade cut him sharp and swift. It hurts a lot more than he expected. It could have easily killed him.

He was so focused on finding Anakin in this crowd that he forgot Anakin's own words to him, his warnings about this opponent. Obi-Wan hadn't taken Anakin seriously about Tiango. Of course it was sad about Anakin’s “cool” gladiator friend, but Obi-Wan defeated a Sith lord not long ago. The experience buoyed his confidence to a fault. This Tiango -- not a Sith, not even a professional, just an ex-science experiment, just a Yooro -- landed a blow on him -- a pretty good one, too.

Obi-Wan rapidly teaches himself a lesson. Connecting with Anakin doesn't mean knowing exactly where he is. It means listening to him. Believing him. That's what teachers do. It's what friends do.

This isn't the Outer Rim, but these people are. This is Anakin's haunt. Obi-Wan will train it out of him, will make him a man of the Core. But for now, Anakin is the expert here, and his words must be Obi-Wan's textbook.

With his heart opened wide for Anakin, and his guard up because of Anakin's warning, Obi-Wan realizes he will have to hunker down in defense for a while. Tiango's assault is brutal and inhumanly quick, though Obi-Wan remembers that Yoroos do get exhausted -- eventually. What Obi-Wan lacks in comparative strength, he makes up for in endurance -- patience and energy, the long game, care -- these are Obi-Wan's secret weapons.

Anakin watches Obi-Wan deflect the same moves that once ruthlessly whittled down Crix Spartak, the gladiator who he had loved. The memory of that death match sends chills up his spine. He is certain that some of these blows must hit his master. Part of him is certain that Obi-Wan is doomed, too. Anakin had believed Crix would win, and he had been wrong. It is asking too much to have hope again, against the same, utterly evil man.

Though Obi-Wan has great endurance, his vibroblade does not. Out of habit, he treats it as roughly as if it were a laser weapon, depending on it for deflection, as a shield. Tiango's barrage strikes the metal and bends it back and forth into a zigzag, then into a knot. Obi-Wan is slowly disarmed as his blade becomes less and less tenable as a weapon. He has no choice; he has no other shield. The biggest bother is his own hand: the damn vibroblade is aptly named -- it quivers like a leaf in the wind, wearing out his wrist and weakening his fingers.

The crowd cheers enthusiastically for the graceful Jedi, chanting, "Kenobi! Kenobi!" Anakin does not join in. Obi-Wan could almost be dancing with his expert moves, but Anakin is not in the mood to learn from him. He gazes in hopeless terror at the duel. He watches bullets, lasers and slingshotted electrostones bounce off the dome, as well as gifts, toys and even people’s underwear. All such wild debris from this crazed crowd trying to reach out to their beloved or hated athlete, his poor, wonderful master.

The fastest or biggest bullets send fuzzy waves across the dome, but the dome quickly repairs itself. Anakin follows the arc of the dome, calculating the sources of its projection points from subtle distortions in the waves.

He moves the layers of fur in his stolen disguise to peek at the recharging screen on his hidden acid-blaster: 52%. No other weapons are making a dent in the dome. But no other weapons are quite like this one, and no one else seems to have figured out where to shoot. Could he crack the dome? What would he do then?

Anakin looks away from Obi-Wan for a second and scans his narrowed eyes over the happy rabble. He does not understand them. Are they seeing what he's seeing? They all shout and cheer, laughing and clapping, as if Obi-Wan is triumphant, as if he is playing. He looks back at his master. He sees that Obi-Wan is in great pain. Dying, even. How can the information from his senses, and the conclusions from his feelings, be so different from everyone else's?

Is he connecting, mentally, to his master -- using his supposed Jedi powers to see things for how they truly are? Is he seeing the truth, better than they are, because he is a Jedi, a Jedi Padawan? Is the Force giving him a special message -- because he, unlike the rabble, is a Jedi -- because he, unlike everyone, is the answer to a prophecy -- because he is closer to Obi-Wan than anyone else is?

Or ... is he, Anakin, wrong? Is everyone else right? Is his sight blinded by irrational fear, brought about by his utter dependence on this man? Did Obi-Wan really stumble, just now? No one else seems to have seen it.

Is he, Anakin, perhaps, confusing the past for the present? Crix for Obi-Wan? Death for life?

Is it all in his head? Or is it real?

* * *

Below the arena, Zlinky has memorized the map from the computer. With Jane, she trespasses through the employee quarters. They reach a large, important-looking office which Zlinky guesses is Knightkiller's.

She hears voices inside and shouts at the door, “Hey boss! There's fried fluunies in Rec Room 3!”

She backs off as the door opens and two people exit. Zlinky creeps inside and Jane blusters along behind her. Too soon, they hear the people coming back and Zlinky shoves Jane under the slick metallic desk; the robot is so big that two of the desk legs lift a few inches from the ground. There isn't much room left for Zlinky; she has to nestle right up against Jane's bazooka. A belt of detonators falls across Zlinky's lap.

She peeks over the edge of the desk and sees the people more closely. They look more decorated than the other guards, with sashes and medals, as if there was some kind of made-up military ranking among Knightkiller's cronies, a worthless army dedicated solely to this evil entertainment.

“These fluunies are great,” says one crony.

“I’ve had better,” says the other.

The hidden Padawan hears the gross sounds of chewing, and then the rather more alarming sound of Jane powering up her neutralizers. Zlinky quiets her and gestures for her to stop. Stealth has worked so far; it would be best to avoid violence, especially since these two seem important.

“I can't wait to run the missing Jedi kids through with this,” says the first one, as he ignites a lightsaber.

Zlinky stops gesturing, but Jane has already powered down.

“The Jedi kids must still be on the ship. No one's been allowed to leave and no shuttle pods have activated.”

“You think Jedi could survive in space?”

“No. Only the boss can do that. You saw them in those Coruscanti space suits, idiot.”

“Oh right.”

The second crony ignites another lightsaber. Even without looking, Zlinky recognizes the sound as her own. She feels something very powerful and uncomfortable. Taken aback, she identifies it as jealousy, one of the very worst emotions. Afraid of her own feelings, she is frozen, unable to act, unable to know if she is behaving rationally, according to the light side, or irrationally, which will lead her off the narrow path into darkness.

“They're real nice suits. I called dibs on the man-size one for me and the little one for my daughter.”

“Yeah...the gigantic one and the lady-size one are pretty useless.”

“I'll take the lady one for my kid to grow into.”

Zlinky thinks, I'm twelve! I’m not a lady! Though I am much taller than Anakin. So they say Anakin is missing, too? That means he's not dead! If only I was strong enough to detect his presence!

Jane pokes Zlinky and gestures to her blasters. Zlinky shakes her head.

We can't kill him! He's a dad!

They hear the two men walking closer and closer. One of them accidentally hits something with the lightsaber; the girls hear them cursing and smell melting plastic.

Zlinky feels time running out. This hiding spot is bad. She ran in here without a plan. She knows her decision-making is impeded by fear, jealousy, and access to a murder-droid, but she must decide something.

Zlinky quickly examines the settings on Jane's weapons. All these numbers and charts are too confusing to parse right now. She dials one dial back, but it only causes some numbers to rise and others to fall. She puts it back where it was, though the numbers are still not the same. The last time Jane shot someone, it wasn't fatal. At least not immediately.

The girl feels tears pressuring her eyes and throat. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. She has learned through stories and lessons that the darkness within is far worse than the darkness without. She is more frightened of doing wrong than she is of dying. There is no death. But there is evil.

She can't get out of her head a discussion she overheard from some of the older Padawans. This group of twenty- and thirty-somethings is the pride of the whole Temple. Everyone adores them -- the strongest, most beautiful, best students in school. Once they are knighted, then they leave the young people’s social circle to rub shoulders with the teachers, and have no time for their old friends -- but before they are knighted, they rule the school from the inside, and everyone lets them get away with a little more fun than knights are allowed. In those last years of Padawanship, they are the most free a Jedi can be.

Just last month, when Zlinky fetched the group snacks from the mess hall in order to bask in their presence, she found them in a very strange state. When one of them returns from a mission, the others crowd around to hear the stories and see the new scars. The latest conquering hero, a human named Sara Chid-wun, did not have a physical scar. But she had such an aura of bitterness around her that the whole group was affected, including the young interloper Zlinky.

Sara explained how she and her Master Kayji were caught in various difficult situations, and each time Kayji had neglected to act, so each time Sara had been forced to act herself, often with violence. It felt like a test that she continuously failed. And yet, ultimately, they succeeded in their mission. Sara claimed that Kayji would not address her concerns with anything beyond platitudes.

The whole experience led Sara to, hesitantly, conclude that Masters often take advantage of their students. Masters refuse to move, and claim they are trusting in the Force, or allowing evil to collapse in on itself, or some such excuse, while in reality they are leaving the sensible but nasty work to the impure, young Padawan tagging along.

The group discussed each example, and more from their own adventures, each trying to explain away their masters’ -- sometimes -- confusing actions, each unwilling to support Sara’s conclusion -- including, of course, Sara herself. But the group found that, if they were being honest, she might be right. Sometimes. So they had moved on to finding the moral lesson in this seemingly cruel behavior -- something about knightly violence being worse than non-knightly violence, something about power and purity.

And maybe they came to a satisfying explanation among themselves; Sara herself seemed as cheerful as normal the next time Zlinky saw her. But Zlinky hadn't felt comfortable sitting in on their important big-kid conversation any longer, so she had left at the darkest part of it.

Tila has never forced Zlinky's hand before. Zlinky has never had to kill anyone before. But now the master is indeed the one sitting out, while the student is the one doing the work.

Is it okay to stray off the path when you are only a Padawan? Is it, in fact, expected, and necessary? Must she walk in the gray area beside the light, until she is a master herself, and can savor the light all the time, and never have to do any more wrong? When she is knighted, then she can delegate that dark stuff to someone else, someone young and obedient?

The thought occurs to Zlinky that she is not the one who would do the killing -- that would be Jane. But she knows that is a flaky excuse. Jane is her responsibility. Just as she is Tila's. The blood is on all their hands.

Zlinky turns to Jane and nods. Jane immediately stands up and neutralizes the guards. Zlinky pokes her head over the desk, sees the smoking bodies, and fears the worst.

“Are they dead?”

“ɪ ᴅᴏᴜʙᴛ ɪᴛ. ꜱʏꜱᴛᴇᴍꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ʜᴀʀᴅʟʏ ᴀᴛ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘᴀᴄɪᴛʏ.“

“I'm pretty sure your full capacity is overkill.”

She tiptoes over to the guard's bodies. One seems to be breathing. The other, she can't tell.

She can't alert anyone to the danger, and she doesn't trust the medical facilities here anyway. But she has nothing to give them, to help them. She puts her hand on the soft, sandy hair of the one whose life is unclear to her, the one who has a little daughter.

“May the Force be with you.”

Her voice is a shaky whisper, but she's never meant those words so much as she means them now.

Please, please, live.

She pulls the lightsaber from his hand and turns it off, and does the same with the other guard. She finds three more lightsabers on their belts. She recognizes hers and her master’s; two of them must be Anakin’s and his master’s; the last one could be Glagret’s, a.k.a. Knightkiller’s. It's green, and of the same old fashion as her master’s. She is surprised and glad that it isn't red. But maybe Knightkiller carries her red one on her person. Or maybe, just maybe, the Sith are not at all involved. She prays that they aren't.

Zlinky and Jane hide the bodies behind the desk and lock the door behind them. Zlinky turns away from the door and does not look back.

They were gonna kill me. They still will kill me, if they figure it out. I have to act in self-defense. And I have to save the other three Jedi. These people may be people, but they are low-lives, murderers, and lawbreakers. It wasn't my choice that they got in my way.

Chapter 9: Crix Spartak

#my story #my art #star wars #knightkiller: anakin and obi-wan's first adventure #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #chahlee tiango #zlinkgwal zalt #jane #scifi #adventure #drama

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sheliesshattered · 3 years

Text

First Christmas, Chapter 1 of 3

Clara/Twelve Last Christmas AU. Latest part in the ongoing series For As Long As We Get, but can be read as a stand-alone. Three chapters, 16,000 words, complete. Episode remix, action/adventure, married banter, angst with a happy ending. Available on AO3 under the same title and username.

First Christmas, Chapter 1

“Clara, when I said you could pick anywhere you wanted to go for Christmas Eve, I really had hoped you would choose something a little more scenic,” the Doctor groused as he put the TARDIS into park.

“Oh shush, the north pole will be plenty scenic,” his wife replied, glancing up from shoving her feet into snowboots. She hadn’t changed out of her festive nightgown, just thrown a warm coat overtop, which had created an unusual combination, even by his standards.

“You do realise there isn’t actually a pole at the north pole? Or any proper land for that matter? There’s nothing there, just ice and snow! It isn’t even magnetic north! Why don’t we go to the south pole? At least then we might see penguins.”

“The south pole may indeed have penguins,” she allowed, finally wiggling into her second boot, “but it doesn’t have Santa,” she said, grinning at him.

“The north pole doesn’t have Santa, either,” he pointed out. “Given that Santa Claus is, in fact, entirely imaginary.”

“That’s what you said about Robin Hood,” Clara laughed. “And look how that turned out!”

“For the record, I’m still not convinced about Robin Hood, either.”

“Don’t be such a grinch, Doctor,” she chided him fondly as she started for the TARDIS doors. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I want to see the north pole. We only have to stay a few minutes.”

“Honestly, Clara,” he said, trailing after her, “it’s not like we’re going to stumble across Santa’s Workshop out there.”

“Oh, really?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Then what do you call this?” She threw open both of the TARDIS doors with a flourish, her voice full of such joyful conviction that for half a moment, the Doctor actually thought they might see a life-sized toymakers’ workshop made of candy canes and gingerbread.

Instead, the sight that greeted them was far from scenic, much as he’d predicted. Heavy snowflakes filled the air, half obscuring a drab grey building set immediately opposite the TARDIS, roughly twenty metres away.

“Huh,” Clara said, letting her hands drop from the doors. “I thought you said there wasn’t anything at the north pole?”

He glared at the inexplicable building. “There shouldn’t be,” he replied. “Not in this time period.”

“It looks like some sort of research base,” she said, taking a few steps outside to get a better look, the snow crunching beneath her boots.

“As I said, possibly the least scenic and least romantic spot you could have chosen,” he stated flatly, reluctantly following her out of the TARDIS and closing the doors behind him.

She turned to look at him, walking backwards and grinning mischievously. “Or maybe Santa has just cleverly disguised his shop as a research facility, to keep nosy parkers like us out.”

“If we go in there and find nothing but a load of boring scientists, will you at least let me choose our next destination?” the Doctor sighed.

“Deal,” Clara said, turning to scamper off towards the heavy looking door that led into the research base.

“And if you fall on your face in the snow, we’re going back to Christmas Eve Plan A: hot cocoa by the fireplace in the library!” he called after her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You, sir, have forgotten one very important part of Christmas Eve Plan A, and don’t think I didn’t notice!”

“Which is what?” he asked, catching up to her just as she stopped outside the door.

“We agreed to hot cocoa with mini marshmallows,” Clara said, prodding the centre of his chest with one finger. “It’s not really Christmas without marshmallows!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine. Hot cocoa with mini marshmallows, beside the fire in the library. Just as soon as you accept the reality that this is not actually Santa’s Workshop.”

“Then why is there mistletoe?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as she directed his attention to the green sprig of vegetation above them.

“Right, because only Santa’s mythical workshop would hang mistletoe in a doorway at Christmas,” he said dryly.

“Oh, just shut up and kiss me,” she said, laughing. She gripped his lapels in each hand and pulled him down to her as she rose up on her toes, meeting him halfway for a quick peck. “Now then,” she said, holding his gaze from only a few inches away, “do you think you can sonic this door open? Because it is really quite cold out here, and I’m dying to know if I’m right about Santa.”

“I can guarantee you’re not right about Santa,” he told her, as she sank back to her normal height and rubbed her arms briskly.

“Doctor,” Clara said, her laughter still evident through her whinging tone, “just open the door already!”

“Yes, boss,” he said, pulling the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointing it at the handwheel on the bulkhead door, setting it to spinning. The heavy door creaked as it swung outward slightly, and he shouldered it the rest of the way open, leading the way through. Whatever this misplaced building was, he didn’t trust the look of it one bit.

A frightened yelp from immediately in front of him drew his attention, revealing a young woman crouched on the tile floor of what appeared to be an infirmary. There were four hospital beds lining the wall to his right, their occupants draped head to toe in white sheets.

“We’ve got ghosts!” the woman cried, panic clear in her voice. “Yeah, yeah, it’s a skeleton man and a girl in a nighty,” she went on, as the Doctor spotted the communication device in her ear.

He glanced at Clara, and by unspoken agreement he went left while she went right, splitting up to investigate the room faster. His side of the room contained another empty bed and various other standard issue twenty-first century medical equipment — boring, and decidedly un-Christmassy.

“Doctor,” Clara called, and he glanced over to see her leaning in to examine one of the covered bodies. “What are they?”

“No, no, no! You’re making me think about them!” the woman on the floor said, her eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t make me think about them!”

Moving quickly to join Clara on the other side of the room, he pulled the sonic from his coat pocket again and scanned the figures. “I think we can safely assume they’re not Santa’s elves,” he told her.

In unison, all four bodies slowly sat up, the sheets covering them falling away to reveal human figures with slimy grey alien heads, eerie in their wrongness. Clara darted back a step instinctively, and the Doctor had to suppress the urge to put himself between his wife and the potential threat, knowing she would hardly appreciate his overprotectiveness.

“Just, don’t ask,” the woman told them. “And don’t look. Don’t make me think about them!”

He scanned them again. “Deaf. Blind,” he said, based on the sonic’s readings. “How can they see us? How do they even know that we’re here?”

“They can only see you, yeah, if you see them,” the woman explained. “So just, don’t look, don't even think about them.”

“Oh, telepathic,” the Doctor realised. “They can home in on their own image in someone else's brain. Third-party perception. Mind piracy.” He turned to Clara. “We're being hacked!”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“The visual input from your optic nerve is being streamed to their brains. Stop broadcasting. Close your eyes,” he told her, waiting until she’d done as he asked to close his eyes as well.

He listened intently, focusing on the sound of slow shuffling footsteps approaching.

“...They’re still coming, aren’t they?” Clara said, a hint of panic working its way into her tone.

“It's because we’re still thinking about them. So long as you retain them as an active memory, they can still home in. Think about something else.”

“How?”

“So here it is, merry Christmas,” the woman on the floor began to sing, slightly out of tune.

“Why is she singing?” Clara asked.

“She’s running interference,” he replied. “She’s trying to distract herself. Three hundred and four minus seventeen.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Plus twenty. Just do it!”

“Why are you quizzing me on maths at a time like this??” Clara demanded.

“You have to think about something else, anything else!”

“Does it have to be maths?”

“First Jane Austen quote that comes to mind!” he said, changing tacks. “Quickly, Clara, our lives may depend on it!”

“Um,” she stuttered anxiously. “‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man—’ What are they doing, Doctor? I can still hear them coming!”

“Because you’re still thinking about them. Don’t think about them, think about that quote!”

He knew he had to clear his mind as well, find something else to fixate on besides the threat slowly approaching. Grabbing hold of the first available thought, he tried to flood his mind with something completely disconnected from this moment. Christmas Eve Plan A, cocoa in the library, and Clara curled up next to him—

“‘—that a single man—’” she started again, her voice shaking with fear.

That was no good, not nearly vivid enough to distract him. Christmas Eve Plan B, then, in their bedroom on the TARDIS—

“‘—in possession of a good fortune—’”

It wouldn’t work to simply think of something else, he realised, not so long as the fear of the creatures remained. They had to do something more, something to clear their minds completely.

“‘—must be in want of a—’”

In one swift movement, the Doctor leaned down, cupped Clara’s face in both hands, and kissed her soundly.

He expected to feel her surprise seep through his fingertips, and he searched for the connection between their minds, but there was nothing, just a jumbled silence that unnerved him even more than the alien threat.

“Right, the time for snogging is over, now’s the time to run!” the stranger called to them, and he broke away from Clara, grabbing her hand and pulling her along behind him as they sprinted towards the far door on the heels of the other woman. The door swished open before they reached it, revealing three more people, each carrying a large gun.

“Go, run, now, now!” one of them called, waving them forward.

“Here they come!” yelled another, his gun pointed towards the ceiling, and the Doctor looked up to see grey carcinoform aliens descending from the rafters, heading straight for them.

The gut wrenching sound of Clara’s scream was cut off by an explosion from behind them, and he whirled around to see the door leading to the outside completely gone, replaced by a gaping hole in the wall. As he watched, a single tangerine rolled through the smoking rubble, followed by a surreal parade of slinkies and toy robots.

“Whoa, whoa boy!” called a voice, and the Doctor blinked hard at the apparition in the snow just beyond the ruined infirmary wall. A stout man wearing a red suit trimmed in white fur was dismounting from a reindeer decked out in jingle bells, like an illustration from a children’s book come to life. Glancing at Clara, he found her staring at the inexplicable man as well, disbelief beginning to shift to joy in the curl of her mouth.

“Well, now. What seems to be the problem?” the man said as he approached through the remnants of the explosion. “This is the north pole. We don’t want any trouble here. Oi, sleepy heads!” he went on, turning to the alien-headed creatures. “It’s Christmas Eve, early to bed.” He clapped his hands and the sleepers obediently turned and shuffled back towards their hospital beds.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the gun-toting women behind the Doctor demanded of the newcomer.

“Take a guess,” the Doctor said acerbically, turning to her. “Go on, push the boat out. Tooth Fairy, maybe? Easter Bunny?”

“No, this is ridiculous,” said the gobby one they’d encountered first. Her puffy gilet helpfully labelled her ‘Shona’. “Am I— am I dreaming??”

Her question jarred a memory loose, and the Doctor realised where he’d seen creatures like this before. “Oh, very good,” he muttered, his mind racing through the implications.

“I need to know exactly who you are, and what’s happening here,” the other woman said as the red-suited man approached her.

“Hello, Ashley,” the apparition of Santa Claus said, nudging the muzzle of her gun out of the way. “Lead scientist on a polar expedition! Oh, that microscope really paid off, didn't it? Now, your mum and dad wanted me to get you a toy one, but sometimes, I take a chance.”

“Who are you?” Ashley demanded. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Why do you think?” he asked, spreading his arms wide like the answer ought to be self-evident.

“This is mental,” Shona said. “This is totally not happening!”

“I’ve got three words, Shona,” Santa said to her. “Don’t make me use ‘em.”

“What three words?”

“My. Little. Pony,” he said, ticking the words off on his fingers.

“Shut up, you!” Shona shot back.

“Doctor,” Clara said, looking up at him, “what’s going on? He can’t really be—?”

“Of course I am!” the festive dream construct replied before the Doctor could. “Come on now, Clara. You of all people ought to believe in impossible heroes! You said so yourself!”

She gave him a bemused smile. “I didn’t actually think...”

“There’s no time for all that now,” Santa said, waving it away. “We’re in the middle of an invasion!” He whistled, and his reindeer plodded in through the ruined wall, stopping beside him. Reaching into the saddlebags, he produced a large transparent container. Inside, the Doctor recognised the same sort of carcinoform alien that had descended from the ceiling before the explosion — the same sort that were wrapped around the heads of the sleepers in their hospital beds.

“What do you think, Doctor?” he went on, handing him the specimen container. “You seen them before?”

“Once, a long time ago,” the Doctor replied, taking the container and holding it up to get a better look. The creature inside looked dead or dormant, not so much as twitching with the movement.

“The Kantrofarri,” Santa said, echoing the exact word that had been rattling around the Doctor’s mind the last few minutes.

“Colloquially known as the dream crabs,” he explained to Clara.

“Depending on how many of those are already on Earth,” Santa said, “the human race may well have seen its last day. So, are we going to stand around arguing about whether or not I’m real, or are we going to get busy saving Christmas?”

Ashley cast a quick glance at the others. “Whatever the hell this is, we can’t stay here to figure it out — we’ll die of exposure, with that wall gone. Come on, we have a laboratory, down this way,” she said, turning to lead them out of the infirmary.

“What I’d tell you?” the Doctor said quietly to Clara as he fell into step beside her. “Load of boring scientists.”

“Oh, you are loving this, aren’t you?” she smirked up at him. “Middle of an invasion and all you can focus on is how you were right.”

He shrugged easily. “Have to enjoy the little things, now don’t we?”

They followed Ashley into the laboratory, where she and the others divested themselves of their large guns. “Question him,” she said to Shona, with a tilt of her head towards Father Christmas. “Now then,” she went on, turning to the Doctor. “Who are you, and what is that?”

“I’m the Doctor, this is Clara,” he replied, dispensing with the pleasantries as quickly as possible. “And this is what attacked your sleeping friends back in the infirmary,” he added, depositing the specimen container on a nearby table.

“Is it dead?” Clara asked, glancing up at him.

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

“I’m assuming it’s extra-terrestrial,” Ashley said, leaning down to examine the dream crab.

“Oh, definitely,” the Doctor said.

“Then how can you have seen them before?” she asked, straightening back up.

“Guess.”

She pressed her mouth into an unhappy line. “Because you’re extra-terrestrial, too.”

“Do you believe that?” he asked her.

“As a scientist, I have to examine all the evidence, consider all the possibilities. I’m not ruling anything out.”

“Smart,” he said appreciatively.

“If you have seen these before,” Ashley went on, “I need you to tell me everything you know about them.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why’s it called a dream crab, for a start?”

“Theorise.”

“Because it generates a telepathic field,” she said, naming their most obvious feature.

“And?”

“Alters perception.”

“Meaning?”

Ashley levelled an exasperated look at him. “I seem to be doing all the work here.”

“Meaning we can’t trust anything we see or hear,” Clara supplied, and the Doctor suppressed the proud smile that tried to curve his mouth.

“Go to the window,” he told Ashley.

“Why?”

“Because it gets worse.”

With a skeptical look, Ashley crossed the room to the window, looking out at where the TARDIS stood faintly glowing in the falling snow. “What is that?” she asked.

“That’s how Clara and I got here.”

“In a box?” she said, disbelieving.

“Technically, in a telephone kiosk,” the Doctor said with a grin.

She let out a surprised laugh. “How?”

“Because it’s a spaceship in disguise,” he told her. “You know what the big problem is in telling fantasy and reality apart?”

“What?”

“They’re both ridiculous.”

Ashley cast a glance towards where Shona was questioning Santa Claus in the far corner. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“So we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” Clara said, eyeing Santa as well.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said.

“Are we in danger?” she asked seriously, turning back to him.

“Oh, we are well past danger, Clara. If I’m right, and I usually am—” he ignored Clara’s exasperated little huff, “—then we are dying.”

“Then how do we stay alive?” Ashley asked.

“Oh, I like you,” he said, pointing at her, “straight to the point. I want you to show me how you first encountered those creatures, and what happened to those people in the infirmary. I notice you all wear mini-cams, so I assume that there’s footage?”

“Is it possible I’m about to work with someone who might be a dream?”

“If it helps, so am I,” he smiled at her.

“We have footage on the drives, down in the control room,” she replied, tilting her head towards the hallway that led further into the base. “I’ll see what we can pull up.”

“Ashley,” he called after her as she turned to go, “what’s this polar base for? Why are you all here?”

“It’s a long story,” she said, then continued down the hallway, the other two boring scientists trailing after her.

Clara watched them go, then looked at him. “Do we need to have a rule about snogging during life and death situations?” she asked, eyeing him.

He shrugged. “I’m in favour of it.”

“The rule?”

“The snogging,” he said, grinning. “It worked, didn’t it? I had to flood your mind with random emotion.”

“Random emotion?” she demanded, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe not random,” he allowed, “but better than fear, anyway.”

She studied him for a moment, that skeptical eyebrow still raised. “Stood way over here, no telepathy or anything, and I can tell exactly what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Christmas Eve Plan B, and don’t even try to deny it.”

“I seem to remember that you weren’t exactly opposed to Plan B.”

She made an equivocal noise, tilting her head to one side. “Not opposed to it, no. But there was a distressing lack of marshmallows in Plan B.”

“And yet a delightful lack of clothing,” he grinned at her.

She pressed her lips together, clearly trying to suppress a smile. “There’s no reason we can’t do both,” she said levelly, “once we’re done with whatever this is, Plan C I suppose. We live in a time machine, it can be Christmas Eve as long as we want.”

“You live in a time machine?” Shona asked in disbelief as she approached, notebook and pen in hand. Behind her, Santa Claus was on his mobile phone, grousing at whatever imagined entity was supposedly on the other end.

“Indeed we do,” Clara said, turning to Shona. “That blue box, right out there,” she went on, gesturing to the TARDIS visible through the window.

“That’s a telephone box,” Shona said skeptically. “One of those old ones, yeah? For phoning the police.”

“A clever disguise,” the Doctor shrugged.

“You’re as bad as Beardy-Weirdy over there,” she said, nodding at Santa. “Don’t make a bit of sense, neither of you.”

“You don’t seem like much of a scientist,” he told her.

“That’s a bit rude,” she shot back, “coming from a magician.”

He caught Clara’s muffled snort of laughter but said to Shona, “Why are you out here? What brought you to the North Pole?”

She shrugged. “Long story, isn’t it?”

Glancing at the notes she’d taken while interrogating Santa, the Doctor said. “You missed a killer question.”

“What?”

“Beardy-Weirdy,” he called.

“Yeah?” Santa replied, angling his mobile away from his face.

“How do you get all the presents in the sleigh?”

He smirked at him. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Clara coughed to cover her giggle, and the Doctor shot her a sour look.

Ashley came down the hall from the control room. “Doctor,” she called to him, “Bellows has found that footage you wanted to see, come on.”

The Doctor and Clara followed her to the control room, with Shona and Santa Claus trailing behind them. When they entered, they found the third woman, Bellows, stood at a control panel in front of a bank of video monitors. The polar team’s fourth member, Professor Albert, lingered nearby eating a turkey leg.

“Sorry,” he said when he noticed the Doctor’s attention, “starving.”

Ignoring him, he turned away and focused on the monitors displaying footage from four separate cameras recording one event from multiple vantage points. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Footage from a week ago,” Bellows replied. “A side expedition from our main mission.”

“What is your main mission?”

“Long story,” she said dismissively, waving it away. “This is in an ice cave directly beneath this base. Now, look at what we found.” The footage focused on a cluster of Kantrofarri hanging from the ceiling of the ice cave, unmoving. “Dormant at first,” Bellows went on.

“Until you looked at them too long,” the Doctor said. “‘Til you thought about them.”

“Exactly.”

He stepped closer to the monitors, trying to get a better look. “Sleeping. Probably been down there for centuries.”

“And it wakes up when you think about it?” Clara asked.

“They can detect their own mental picture in any nearby mind,” he reminded her.

“That’s Bellows’ theory,” Ashley agreed, nodding.

“It’s like it responds to the presence of any data concerning itself,” Bellows said.

“That was always the legend,” the Doctor replied, gaze still fixed on the footage from the ice cave as the initial encounter played out. “You think about a dream crab, a dream crab is coming for you.”

“This is where it gets really nasty,” Albert said around a bite of turkey.

“Only now?” Clara said dryly.

The footage turned to panicked disarray as the cluster of dream crabs descended onto the scientists, the cameras each cutting to static in quick succession.

“Okay, then what?” the Doctor asked, glancing at Bellows.

With a few keystrokes, she pulled up another set of footage, security cameras showing multiple angles on the base’s infirmary, before the explosion, and the Doctor watched as Bellows, Ashley, and the others guided the incapacitated scientists to the hospital beds.

“They’re a bit like facehuggers, aren’t they?” Albert said, still gnawing on his never-ending drumstick.

“Face huggers?” the Doctor asked, turning to him.

“You know, ‘Alien’. The horror movie ‘Alien’,” he replied.

“There’s a horror movie called ‘Alien’?” the Doctor demanded of the room as a whole. “That’s really offensive, no wonder everyone keeps invading you!”

Beside him, Clara snorted and subtly elbowed him in the ribs.

“At first, they just slept,” Bellows said, redirecting his attention to the footage on the monitors. “Couple of days, just lying there.”

“And then they got aggressive?” the Doctor asked.

“If we got close enough, yeah,” Ashley said.

“It would take the dream crab a little while to establish control. Depends how much of the host brain was...” he trailed off, making a face.

“Was what?” Ashley asked, sounding like she didn’t actually want to know.

“...Digested,” the Doctor finished delicately. How long until the rest of them began to suspect what had happened right before the explosion in the infirmary? Hopefully not just yet. It had taken him some time to put together the pieces, after all. He needed them focused on solving the problem, he couldn’t let them descend into panic.

Ashley looked a bit nauseous. “Are they still alive under there?”

“Depends what you’d call ‘alive’,” he replied grimly.

“Are they suffering?” she clarified.

“No. No, no, no. The dream crab induces a dream state. Keeps you happy and relaxed, in a perfectly realised dream world, as you dissolve. Merciful, I suppose.”

“Compared to what?” Albert demanded.

“Compared to that turkey leg you keep eating! Could you rewind for me?” he asked Bellows. “I’d like to see them dormant again. Clara, could you fetch me the dead one?”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll fetch myself a mug of cocoa while I’m at it.”

“My very next suggestion.”

She smirked up at him. “Fair enough.” She squeezed his hand briefly, then turned and headed back to the laboratory.

“That one we have in the lab,” Ashley said, nodding towards the hall Clara had disappeared down, “how sure are you that it’s dead?”

“Not as sure as I’d like to be,” he replied, his eyes still on the monitors. “It looks too much like the cluster your team found in the ice cave.”

“I had the same thought,” she agreed. “We need to handle it with care, then, assume it’s alive until we have absolute proof otherwise. I’ve got the infirmary on lockdown, but the last thing we need is that one waking up and attacking someone in this wing of the base.”

On the screens, the dormant Kantrofarri surged into sudden action, overwhelming the scientists, and the Doctor stiffened, a terrible realisation hitting him.

“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked.

“We’re thinking about it!” he bit out, too frantic to explain himself further. “Clara!”

He spun away from the monitors and dashed down the hallway to the laboratory, the polar team close on his heels, Santa Claus following behind.

“Clara!” he called again, skidding to a stop in the lab. His gaze landed first on the broken specimen container on the floor, and then on Clara’s snowboots peeking out from under the table. With a terrible lurch in his stomach, he dropped to his knees beside her, grabbing for her hand. It was limp in his own, and a quick glance at her face confirmed his fears: the dream crab was wrapped around her head, just like the sleepers in the infirmary.

“Clara,” he said, squeezing her hand, “you’re dreaming— you’re dying. Can you hear me? Clara!”

“We did try to wake the others,” Ashley said. “No stimulus worked.”

“Okay, we kill it,” the Doctor said in a rush, pushing back to his feet. “We find a way to kill it and we get it off of her. How do we kill it?”

“There’s no way to kill it without killing your friend, too,” she replied. “And as a scientist, may I just say, I don’t like the way you’re talking.”

“She’s not just my friend, she’s my wife, so perhaps you can understand why I find that answer unacceptable!” He turned away from her, uninterested in any further input she might have. “Santa, in the infirmary, you told the sleepers to go to bed and they obeyed you.”

“Sorry,” he shrugged, “doesn’t mean I can get that creature off her.”

“No, but you can get back in there unharmed.”

“What? You’re asking Santa for help?” Shona demanded. “He doesn’t exist!”

“And how would you know that?” the Doctor snarled back at her. “How did you become an expert on what does and doesn’t exist?

“Says the man who travels in a time machine disguised as a police box, married to a woman half his age!”

“Shut up!” he said, pointing at her. “Clara has a rule against explaining our marriage to small-minded people for exactly this reason. Kris Kringle, you’re up.”

“I can commit several million housebreaks in one night dressed in a red suit with jingle bells,” Santa said mildly, “of course I can get back into the infirmary.”

“Good. Because there is only one way that I can communicate with Clara, only one way to wake her up. I need you to get one of the dream crabs and bring it back here.”

Santa raised his eyebrows. “You realise what you’re asking?”

“Consider it the extent of my Christmas wishlist. Now go!”

“This is proper mental,” Shona said once Santa had gone. “You’re gonna, what? Put a dream crab on your face and hope for the best?”

“The dream crabs create a shared dream state,” he explained, more to keep his mind occupied than out of any real desire to help her understand. “If I can get in there, I can pull Clara out.”

“Then how come none of the rest of them have been able to wake themselves up?”

“Clara has one advantage they don’t have,” he said, turning to kneel beside her again. “Me!”

It seemed to take an unreasonably long time for Santa to return, but when he finally did, it was with another specimen container in hand. Unlike the last, this Kantrofarri skittered inside its enclosure, tapping at the glass, searching for a victim.

“Go away,” the Doctor told the polar team before they could try to talk him out of his plan. “Go back to the control room and think about something else. I’m not going to risk all of your lives as well.”

“Doctor—” Ashley started anyway.

“Go!” he said, pointing to the exit and leaving no room for argument, and one by one the scientists turned and shuffled out of the room.

“Bring it over here,” he said to Santa as he sat down beside Clara’s still form. “I think I’ve got a better chance at this if I’m in physical contact with Clara.”

“You sure about all this, Doctor?” Santa asked, crouching beside him.

He cast a quick glance down the hallway to make sure none of the others were listening, then said quietly, “I’m sure I’m already dreaming, and have been since the explosion in the infirmary. Which means that you are just a manifestation of my subconscious, or possibly the collective subconsciousnesses of everyone in the polar base.”

“You’re the science-y one, I’m just the jingle bells one,” Santa shrugged, “but that sounds logical to me.”

“Which means you even asking that question is really me asking myself — or an echo of the combined worry of the pudding brains in there,” he said, tilting his head towards the other room.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not worth asking. Are you sure about this, Doctor?” Santa said again. “What if it kills you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor replied, shaking his head. “If I can’t get Clara back, none of this matters.”

“You love her that much?”

“Rhetorical question,” he said, arranging himself on the floor beside her and lacing his fingers through hers. “Yes, I love her that much. I’d go to hell if it meant even a chance of getting her back.”

“You may yet, Doctor,” Santa said ruefully, hefting the Kantrofarri. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Santa.”

“Don’t say I never brought you anything for Christmas,” he sighed as he lowered the dream crab towards the Doctor, and then the world went black.

Chapter 2

#Whouffaldi #Twelve/Clara #Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor #Clara and the Doctor #Doctor Who #Doctor Who fanfic #available on AO3 under the same title and username #please comment and reblog!#Last Christmas #AUs #First Christmas #For As Long As We Get #my writing

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datawyrms · 4 years

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The thrilling conclusion. (may not actually be thrilling/a conclusion) Part 1 and 2 respectively. Why was she actually doing this? Standing outside of FentonWorks and it’s eye searing sign in full ghost fighting gear, preparing to knock on the door. It had to be a trap, the ghost kid must have done something to the ghost hunters to make them want to help it. ‘Wanting to talk’, as if. Yet here she was, blundering right into the obvious bear trap anyway. Danny still hadn’t returned to school, even though Sam and Tucker had been acting like they knew where he was, so they had to be in on it too. If Phantom thought he could use her friend against her, he’d have another thing coming. Several very painful things, even. She clenched her fist hard to stop the slight tremor before knocking on the door.

Jack always struck her as more of a brick wall than a man, towering and orange as the door swung open. He looked puzzled for half a second before beaming. “HA! I was right, you did show up! See Mads, she totally did!” He seemed more like an excited puppy than anything, neck craning back to talk to his wife.

“Yes Jack, I see her.” Maddie still had the hood of her suit up, adjusting the goggles as she peered out to their doorstep at the teenage ghost hunter. “You did come to talk, right?”

“Course she did! He’s gotta trust his friends more, like I do!”

Even with her face obscured, Maddie clearly wasn’t a fan of the ‘trusting friends’ line, lips pursed before patting the boisterous man on the back. “How about you go let him know sweetie, while I let her in?”

“Great idea! I’ll even get some discussion fudge!” He zipped away faster than Valerie thought he could manage, the oppressive positivity swept away with him as the blue jumpsuited hunter crossed her arms.

“You don’t have any weapons? We have more than enough ourselves if you’re worried about your safety.”

“I won’t do anything if that ghost doesn’t.” It was hard to keep the disgust out of her voice, watching them act like this. Maddie had always struck her as the more reasonable Fenton, yet she seemed far more worried about some ghost than Jack did, for all his positivity.

“That isn’t what I asked. So I’ll repeat it. Do you have any weapons on you? If you do, just hand them over and then we can talk.”

She was talking like she was more of a threat than that monster in the basement! Whatever that ghost did, it must have been powerful. Maddie Fenton, worried for a ghost she’d gladly spoken about cutting open in the name of science only a month ago. It felt like she’d walked into bizarro world. Maybe if she waited long enough a white rabbit would run by screaming about the time.

“I didn’t bring any weapons. Even though I should have.”

Maddie watched her for a long moment, as if trying to see past the mask and figure out if the red suited ghost hunter was trying to lie. With the smallest sigh, she stepped aside to allow her into the home that doubled as a laboratory. “Follow me. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

She doubted anyone could be perfectly safe in a lab with a portal to another dimension filled with ectoplasmic fiends in it, adding the most dangerous ghost that liked to play ‘innocent’ just made it worse. She wouldn’t be alone down there, judging by the snippets of conversation that were floating up the stairs.

“-not gonna eat that, just take it.”

“Aww, but it’s the good stuff!”

“You need to try-” Jazz stopped speaking at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, turning to glare at the ghost hunter.

Phantom barely even reacted, only the eerie green eyes flicking towards the entrance. Apparently he was too busy sitting comfortably in what looked like a recliner they’d brought down for the ghost to bother with more than that. It just seemed off, having a ghost looking so grounded. “Left it to the last day, huh?” The confident grin didn’t reach his eyes, and even that vanished after a few seconds, like it had been more of a habit than wanting to act like that.

“Only because I know you’re up to something.”

“Yup. That’s me, plotting evil deeds. Maybe next time I won’t get punched through a wall!” He had the energy to roll his eyes, but didn’t cross his arms like she expected him to. “You can go guys, it’s just a chat. Probably.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea-” Maddie’s concern was sickening, watching someone she could respect sometimes just fawning over a playacting ghost.

“I’ll be fine. This is between us.”

“Sure thing! Oh, if you have any symptoms just yell and I’ll be right there kiddo.” The huge man mussed the ghost’s hair, grin wide despite how wrong it looked. “I totally thought of a new approach, so just sit tight!” He was halfway up the stairs by the time he finished talking, not that the distance made him any less audible. Maddie hesitated a moment longer, but followed the loud love of her life.

The only unjumpsuited Fenton seemed to disagree. “I’m not leaving.”

“Yes you are Jazz!”

“I don’t care if she stays, ghost. You can quit stalling.” Valerie interrupted before the two of them could make her wait for ages with some pointless bickering.

Instead the redhead rounded on her. “He has a name. Use it.”

“Jazz, I really don’t care. Just go already.” He looked almost as irritated as she felt . “I just want to get this over with.”

“I don’t trust her not to do something.”

Didn’t trust her? Over the destructive white haired menace? That was just insulting. “You said you’d talk, so start explaining” she did her best to ignore Danny’s sister, it was probably just whatever the ghost was holding over their heads making her act like this.

“Won’t help if you don’t actually listen for a change.” His eyes narrowed, but more at Jazz than Valerie. “You don’t need to hear this Jazz. Okay?”

“If you think I don’t, I definitely do.” She scowled right back, acting as if they were a bratty younger kid than a ghost that could rip her face off. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine! Whatever, be stubborn. Can’t do anything about it.” His eyes seemed to glow more strongly before the ghost slumped back more in the chair. “So what do you think I did then? Since you keep trying to bother my friends.”

“There’s no way you got the Fentons and those two on your side without leverage. Sure, some kids actually buy that hero crap, but the Fentons don’t.” Only having a finger to point at the ghost made her feel unprepared.

The glowing teenager looked bored. “So you think I’m a kidnapper.”

“I know you did something to Danny. The timing matches up too well. So out with it.”

“Or what, you’ll kill me faster?” He seemed to freeze up after the words were out, smacking himself in the face. “Habit. I didn’t do anything, but it’s going to be hard to explain.”

This was such a waste of time. “Because it’s all made up nonsense?”

“It’ll sound like it! But it’s not. I can prove it.” the ghost stopped as if he needed to catch his breath. “At least I think I can. You left this really, really late.”

“You’re getting off track.” Jazz spoke up before Valerie could say something similar but with far less charitable phrasing.

“Right. Just trying to figure out how to say it.” A gloved hand rubbed at his forehead, brow furrowed as the ghost muttered. “You know what ghosts are made of, right?”

“Ectoplasm and bad attitudes. Duh, anyone in Amity could tell you that.” What was this, quiz time? Some sort of ‘How long can I annoy the ghost hunter before she shoots and makes me look good’ plan?

His shoulders barely move, a negative effort shrug. “Close enough.”

“It really isn’t! Ectoplasm might be what a ghost builds their body out of but-”

Phantom cut her off, leaning forward with the air of absolute exhaustion. “Jazz I do not have time to explain the specific inner workings of ghosts to someone who hates me right now!”

“It’ll help with the next bit, but fine. Go ahead and get all confused.” The redhead sat back, arms crossed.

“Thank you.” Green eyes shifted to find Valerie again before the ghost continued. “Thing is, I’m not all ectoplasm.”

“Is that why you’re extra obnoxious? Have some dirt mixed in there?”

The ghost actually laughed. “Probably!” He did hold up a hand while the laugh subsided, apparently having something more to add. “Not all dirt. But you got the important bit. I’m not a proper ghost, exactly.”

“I don’t run some endangered petting zoo, ghost. So why should I care?” Though it did explain the hunter ghost that was always after the obnoxious white haired creep.

“You should care because right now, I’m doing the whole ‘post human consciousness’ thing completely wrong.” He was watching her closely, a strange look on that dead face. Dread, anxiety? It didn’t look right on his face. “In that I’m not post human. Yet.”

Maybe the ghost was just trying to see if he could get a funny reaction. “Sorry Phantom, you look really dead to me.”

“Oh I feel real dead! But nope. Ah- I said I can prove it, don’t start yelling.” he muttered the last bit quickly, eyes flicking away from her obvious disbelieving glare. “Probably. Hurts. Gimme a sec-”

“I just wanted an answer to what you were doing, not this inane story.”

“Inane story very important answering that.” the ghost didn’t seem to even notice he was just dropping words from his sentence, more focused at staring at his own hand.

Jazz got up, hovering over the ghost as if deeply concerned for the absurdity spouting spirit. “I can back you up, you don’t need to prove it.”

“She’ll never believe it without seeing it. Which is why we’re doing this at all. Before I can’t.”

“Mom and Dad are still working on it, they’ll figure out a way to fix it.”

“No they won’t Jazz! I want them to, but they won’t! Not with how they explained it.”

“You’re just letting the worst outcome seem like the most likely one.”

“No, I’m actually understanding what they mean and being realistic!”

Honestly, this entire little exchange felt like something private she’d barged in on. She gave a loud cough, which seemed to startle both of them, heads jerking to look in her direction. They almost looked related, being that in sync.

The psychology lover recovered first. “Urgh. Just say it out loud, you’re obviously struggling.”

Which snapped the ghost boy out of it. “And you’re obviously not helping!”

“So what, you threatened the Fentons with a really bad comedy act?” The ghost winced at the angry rebuke, but she wasn’t done. “I get you being obnoxious, but dragging Jazz into it? You’re pretty sick.”

“He’s Danny.” There was no amusement in her voice, no hint of the concerned smile she kept giving the ectoplasmic pest.

“Jazz!” There was a genuine note of anger, and the temperature seemed to dip as the ghost glared at the one that didn’t want him blasted out of existence.

“I don’t really care what you call him, that doesn’t answer-”

Jazz cut her off, ignoring the cold glare being thrown at her. “It does. Danny isn’t missing, he’s right here.”

“You managed to trick the Fentons into thinking you’re their kid? What did you do to Danny?” Valarie rounded on the ghost, hand reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.

“Nothing!” His hands were up even as his eyes stayed fixed on the elder Fenton child. “I told you she won’t believe it!”

“Nothing’s happened to Danny. This is him. Only grumpier.”

“You can’t honestly think that thing is your brother!”

“Wow Jazz, you managed to get me called a thing. Great assist, keep it up.” Phantom was muttering, settling back as if he planned to just take a nap. “If you keep this up, maybe she’ll shoot me!”

“You could try standing up for yourself, Danny.”

“Oh no, you dug this hole. You lie in it. I’d say your grave, but I have dibs in that department. Twiceover!”

She was going to punch this ghost. Even if the creature could just phase through it. She wanted to clobber it for whatever THIS was. “So you killed Danny, and took his place. That’s what you’re saying?” At least she had the satisfaction of the ghost looking like it wanted to vanish as she stepped forward.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything. That was Jazz.”

“No! Danny’s always been both. I’ve known for a while, but he had to tell Mom and Dad. That’s why they’re suddenly fine with Phantom.” Jazz insisted, trying to look Valerie in the eye. “He isn’t missing, and hasn’t done anything to us.”

“Danny is not a life ruining monster. I don’t care how convincing that thing seems to you, that ghost is NOT my friend.” Danny was sweet, big hearted and a bit of a shy little dork. Phantom was nothing but a snide, cocky creep that insisted you should just forget anything that made him look like the scummy ghost he was. They were nothing alike.

“And this is why I just wanted to make things quick.” The ghost seemed to fold in on himself, not looking at either of the humans in the room. “You can hate me all you want, just let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain! You aren’t Danny.”

“He is. It explains everything. Think about it logically. Danny goes ‘missing’. He tries to fix the problem himself, but he can’t. We convince him he has to tell our parents. He finally does, and even though Danny is still ‘missing’ they stop saying things like a ghost kidnapped him. Because we know where he is.”

“Or he’s still missing and you’ve bought some nonsense story to feel better about it when this ghost probably just tortured him for information.” Jazz didn’t back down from her snappy response, but did seem to be at a loss.

“Hey! I do not do torture. That’s literally everyone who isn’t me.” the ghost sounded offended, shaking his hand as if trying to get it to do something. “Anyway, this is going to suck. I blame you Jazz.”

“Excuse me for thinking friends of yours can be logical with the truth in their faces!”

“Nah. I get to say I told you so for a change.”

Valrie planned to make the two quit their pointless bickering, but words died in her throat as a set of rings appeared near the ghost’s wrist. It wasn’t an attack she’d seen the menace use before and she was already settling into a fighting stance to combat it. Yet it stayed around the ghost, slowly down his arm. It seemed a bit much as a way to take off a ghostly jumpsuit, but she preferred that first thought to how the ghost changed as it swept over his face.

Black hair, blue eyes. Her friend’s face, Danny’s face set in a grimace of pain as the rings snuffed out, a boy that looked pale and sickly while struggling to breathe where the blight of a ghost had been.

“Yup. Sucks. Ow.” Danny wheezed, eyes unfocused even though he knew the two of them were still there.

Jazz was there in seconds. “You need to switch back. Mom said-”

“S-she’s gotta know it isn’t a trick first.” the boy insisted, and his voice was right. It was Danny’s, without the horrid echo or slimy snaps the ghost made.

Yet it had to be a trick. There was no way her friend had been a lie. Just some rotten ghost who’d gotten close to her as some sort of joke. A ghost that had tricked her after making sure she knew he was nothing but a monster in one disguise. “Who are you.” The question was weak.

“Just Danny. Been this way since the accident.” He looked like he was going to say more but was cut off by a coughing fit, flecks of ectoplasm making his pale skin look even closer to dead as it splattered on his hastily raised hand. “That’s new.” His laugh set her teeth on edge.

Her brain wouldn’t work. It was impossible, it couldn’t be true. She didn’t want it to be true. She’d liked him well enough before. This-she wasn’t sure how else she could take this. “So why are you telling me now.”

“I wanted you to know while I could still prove it.”

“Why? Did you think this would help you? Think I might pity you if you look sick?”

“No.” Blue eyes looked away as the rings returned the ghost to the chair. “I told you so you’d leave my friends alone. Since I don’t think I’m going to stop being missing.”

He’d revealed his nasty trick, but wasn’t mocking her about it, or lording over her with it. It didn’t fit. They couldn’t be the same person. You couldn’t be alive and dead at the same time! She wanted to choke him, but also wanted to help. She hated this, she hated him for making this complicated. “Stay missing?” The sickness had to be an act, right? Like how he pretended he was a friend.

“Yeah. I got lucky in the accident. I wasn’t quite a ghost, and not exactly a human.” Phantom wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, apparently preferring to stare at the wall. “It was a balance thing, I guess. I didn’t really notice at first. Like the obvious I did, the whole having ghost powers thing, being able to switch back and forth.” The rambling didn’t stop even as he started scratching at the back of his neck. “I didn’t notice even as a human I needed ectoplasm to keep my heart going, or as a ghost I could use more than just ectoplasm to keep my energy up. I need both halves, I can’t survive without both.” He hesitated again, getting a reassuring hand on the shoulder from Jazz. “Problem is I managed to get that balance screwed up. Ran myself ragged fighting ghosts, didn’t get enough sleep, basically coasted on my ghost half to keep functioning. And I’m a strong ghost now, I guess. Too strong for my weak human body to manage anymore. So I’m basically eating myself alive and falling apart. It’s great. This is when I have a quip about work life balance or something, but I’m too tired to think of one.”

“He wasn’t hiding this out of maliciousness you know. He was afraid.” Jazz was frowning as she watched how the ghost hunter hadn’t really relaxed, still stiff and angry looking. “He couldn’t even make himself tell Mom and Dad until we basically forced him to.”

“She doesn’t care, Jazz.” he grunted, still not looking, “But you know now. So you don’t need to go after anyone to find out what happened. It’s self inflicted.”

It was too much. The whole thing was absurd. What could she even say to something like this? To have the world invert to show ugly stains you didn’t see before? They would need to talk again. About this. About what he actually was, or wasn’t. Now though?

She could only leave without a word.

#Danny Phantom #fanfic #valerie gray #jazz fenton #jack fenton #Maddie Fenton #reposting because yet again the tags eat it #apparently i only speak ambiguous endings

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batshitasian · 3 years

Text

Intemartecium- 1. Incarcerated

Dramione- Voldemort wins AU

ON WATTPAD @batshitasian

TW: Mentions of SA/r*pe, Violence, Death, Mature Themes

Word count- 4948

I will be updating regularly on Wattpad.

STRAGGLED FOOTSTEPS were swamped out by the rain, crippling the air.

"They're here early," the blonde girl buzzed from between the bars, "have you been counting?"

Hermione Granger let herself rest upon the freezing wall of her cell, "Not today."

The similar shoes of Augustus Rockwood were coming down the staircase, each girl's eyes perking up. Behind him followed a familiar face, one that hadn't been seen by them since the Battle of Hogwarts.

The dazed witch kept babbling, "They're three days too early. The second of January isn't until tomorrow, and mealtime isn't for a couple more hours-"

Ginny pulled Luna back from the bars of their shared space, "Hush, Luna. They're coming our way."

The harsh clangs of the keys that sat in the loophole of Rockwell's pants echoed in their ears. A hood was over the stranger's face, none of them able to see him due to his obscurations.

"What do you want?" Lavender Brown snottily spat from the cell across from them. A sigh of relief escaped the other girls' lungs when she didn't say anything out of line. Her hair was matted to her head, her appearance significantly more untidy than the other girls.

Everyone thought her to be mad, the glisten of insanity so prevalent in her eyes with every waking moment in the dungeons.

And as the seasons changed, Hermione took note of her fellow cellmates' mental decline; Lavender Brown had an undiagnosed case of Schizophrenia.

They'd discover her talking-- sometimes screaming-- to herself at night. It was almost disturbing to listen to.

During the day, they tried their best to keep Lavender quiet; any disturbances she caused would have her dragged to Alecto Carrow. Each time she'd return to her fellow prisoners, her condition worsened.

Rockwood came to the door of their cell as his accomplice stayed in the shadows, "I'm here for Lovegood."

Hermione stood up from her cot, no longer suppressing the urge to protest. Her throat was dry, and her lips were chapped as she steadily came to the rusty bars of her cell.

Ginny didn't hesitate to step in front of her friend and take her hand, panic rousing her dry throat. "What are you doing?"

The man stepped into their space, his nostrils flaring as he approached the red-haired girl who puffed her chest out and stuck her chin up.

Hermione's brows furrowed as she turned her head to the two girls through the strips of metal beside her, "Be careful, Ginny."

The man continued his advance, backing them into a wall.

"You can't take her! She hasn't done anything wrong-"

Smack.

Ginny soothed a hand over her stinging cheek. Her face turned in the other direction. After all these years, the Weasley girl hadn't lost her spirit.

Not with Luna beside her, at least.

There was no response from the hooded figure.

Rockwood let out a chuckle as he roughly grabbed the blonde by her upper arm, his unrelenting grip provoking her to resist even more, "Come on, you little brat-"

"Don't touch her," the man huskily muttered from the shadows.

His voice was familiar. Almost nostalgic to Luna.

The dirty death eater's hold on her faltered as she turned to look back at Ginny, who wore a perpetual scowl.

Her heart ached as she looked at her friend.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you," Ginny heaved, getting up from the floor, "Don't listen to them, Luna. They're going to--"

"Come, Lovegood," the figure stood at the archway of her cell, his towering frame nearly too broad to fit in the doorway, "Now."

He offered his hand to her, taking a step into the dark chamber.

Hermione observed silently, taking mental notes in her head of their interaction.

A flush of speculation came across Luna's cheeks in the dim torchlight. She studied the man's calloused hands, taking them into hers as Rockwood continued to glare at Ginny.

Clearly, the cloaked man was a higher rank of Death Eater than Rockwood if he granted him the leniency of time.

Her delicate, trembling fingers came across the palm of his hand, studying the lines across them.

A pair of soft brown eyes could be seen staring at the skin that peeked out of Luna's sleeve, accompanied by a handsome face.

There were burns where shackles used to lay. For a while, they kept her under magic suppressing irons because Luna could easily use wandless magic. But soon enough, her power found its way into the graveyard in her mind, where it lay buried ever since. She was one of the only ones who didn't have access to magic anymore. They had tortured the essence out of the witch until it was controlled-- and soon-- dormant.

Luna stared up at him absent-mindedly and dropped his hands. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not."

"Where are you taking her?" Hermione spoke up. The man now turned to her so that she could see pale skin underneath his hood.

Lavender perked up, "If You-Know-Who sees he's missing a--"

"Voldemort," Hermione corrected. Her glare was stiff on Rockwood, who was ushering Luna and his accomplice out of the cell. "His name is Voldemort."

"I'll cut your tongue out, mud-blood," Rockwood threatened.

Their threats weren't empty.

Fleur Delacour was the only one who had stayed silent in their section of the dungeon. A spell had been cast that permanently stole her voice. She did too much screaming, you see, and for good reason too.

She delivered a stillborn baby boy due to complications after watching Bill's death.

Bill's death was public, almost two years ago. He was chosen to duel one month. His partner was Ginny, and she was forced to kill him. And God knows he'd never hurt his baby sister.

Moreover, Fleur's cellmate was knocked out from a session with Dolohov. Poor Cho had it the worst. Some of the death eaters had a certain fetish for her race, making her an excellent target to fulfill their needs.

Lovegood began to walk up the stairs, her weak eyes meeting the rest of the captives before the cloaked man followed her up.

"Luna, stop!" Ginny cried as her fingers grasped at the rods of metal, "Please don't take her-- She hasn't done anything-"

Rockwood shut her up, "Crucio."

A deafening shriek penetrated their eardrums as she was thrown back to the dirty floor of her cell, Hermione's eyes widening at the sight.

"Stop it!"

"You stay away from her!" Luna shouted. Her call was soft yet demanding. A hand was placed around her waist, which silenced any more protests.

"Quiet, Lovegood," he pulled her back so that she was against him, "Not another word from you or you're next."

"I'll see you soon," she delicately called out. "I promise."

Rockwood stopped his assault, a smirk across his ugly features as he looked down at the girl who stood still against the floor, "Blood traitor."

A horrified glance was exchanged between all the girls as Ginny let out a quiet sob, her hand twitching on the floor. She laid still, but Hermione knew exactly what was racing through her mind.

The footsteps ceased as the three left, Luna being left in the hands of whatever wretched death eater had requested her presence.

"Ginny," Hermione reached through the bars, holding her ankle and rubbing soothing circles on the flesh, "it will be okay. I promise you'll see her again--"

"Did they take her to Dolohov?" Cho had woken up, still drowsy from the drugs they'd administered to her. She rubbed her eyes and noted the absence in the cell diagonal from her and Fleur.

Lavender groaned and sat on her cot. Underneath her breath, she muttered to the wall, her hands moving as if she was speaking to someone. "Luna's better off dead if she's with him," she covered her mouth, whispering to the illusions conjured by psychosis.

The girls tried to ignore her.

"Is everything okay, Cho?" Hermione asked, peeling her eyes away from Ginny only for a moment, "Do you want me to have a look at you--"

"No," she shook her head quickly, "No, thank you."

She nodded.

There was no form of consolation that could be provided for any of them. It was best not to talk about it.

"Try to rest," Hermione raised her brows at the three girls at the other side of the room, "We'll all need it before tomorrow."

A nod of acknowledgment was reciprocated between the group as they assumed their resting positions.

Ginny began to shift and shiver as she pushed herself off the ground. Hermione moved the contact from the girl's ankle to her hand as she collected her bearings, tears tinting her eyes with their shine. Their heads rested together between the bars.

"Match my breathing, Ginny," Hermione suggested, slowly taking an exaggerated inhale, "Come on."

Ginny had clung onto Luna for three years now; they were almost inseparable. Hermione perceived it as codependency.

She took an observation of Lavender, who sat up with her eyes pried open.

Everyone at school always thought Luna was out of it, but as the years passed, Luna's thoughts tended to wander less. Soon, those soothing voices that she heard began to disappear, and she only heard her own.

The voices that Luna heard were in correlation to her belief in the afterlife; Lavender's, however, strayed far beyond the veil of death.

Hermione analyzed her jail mates as they drowned in the tides of distress, their minds bobbing at the surface of the unforgiving waves of brutality for so long. She watched their spirit rot, followed by their minds, and finished with their heart.

It was only a matter of time before she'd decay too.

Fleur's eyes began to flutter shut as Cho faced the wall, curled up into a ball.

Soon, Hermione began to hum a lullaby. A simple tune, something she'd learned on the piano when she was young. It brought her solace. The vibrations were comforting as they steadied the rhythm of her rampant heart, blending with the vulgar lament coming from down the hall.

The boys never cooperated without a fight.

"McLaggen was screaming again, wasn't he?" Ginny muttered to her brother, taking a bite out of the stale bread served to them on corroded metal plates. "Infighting again?"

"With Ron," George muttered weakly, not touching his food, "I wouldn't say it was entirely Cormac's fault either."

"How's his temper?" Hermione frowned, fervent to know the status of his crumbling psyche. "After the last battle, I didn't expect him to get any better."

They looked to Ron, who sat with Dean and Neville. He had been dodging Hermione and what was left of his family for the past month out of the humiliation of what he'd done.

He was chosen the most often out of any of them.

Ron's musty, worn features reminded Hermione of Horcrux hunting with him and Harry. This time, his attitude was worse than when he wore that necklace.

As the years went on of their routine, most of them had grown accustomed to the fact that they'd all fall prey to the killing curse from one another's hands. Ron, however, had sandbags upon his shoulders. He dragged those weights around him, unable to let them go.

"He needs to learn to forgive himself for Hannah," Seamus came next to them. He had heard their entire conversation. "She wasn't gonna last here anyways. Weasley did her a favor--"

"It could be you today," Hermione cut in. Seamus had always been unafraid to speak up. "It's best not to talk about what we've all done for survival."

Ginny focused back on her plate, the stale bread and cheese unable to sustain them for long. Some days, they'd get fed stew when there were leftovers from the cafeteria.

"You didn't sleep again, huh. Granger?" George nudged her as he noticed the bags underneath her eyes. She always had them. Since they were kept underground, the concept of time was almost immeasurable. The dungeons of the Ministry of Magic had driven plenty of them mad.

"It was loud." She nodded, not wanting to talk about Luna's departure.

Ginny sat next to her, acting unfazed yet so blatantly impaired. Her fingertips were trembling-- they had been all morning. The repercussions of the Cruciatus Curse were blatantly obvious.

"You should eat, George," his sister suggested, eyeing his food. "You should be at full strength today--"

"Have it," he grimaced, drawing his stare over to behind Hermione. She turned around to follow his gaze.

"George, I--"

"Take it, Ginny."

Hermione and the last Weasley twin tore their glance away from the figure that stood in the doorway.

Draco Malfoy gazed at the wall, sweat glistening off his brow as he walked into the room full of people.

All of them were scattered in litter groups with their remaining classmates. Most of them were quiet, keeping to themselves as they tried to stomach their meals. There were about fifty of them left. There used to be roughly two hundred. Some died from early suicide attempts, the other from the battles. Most of them had died in the first three months when they'd fight with the guards. However, the Dark Lord made a rule of 'no killing the prisoners.'

He made sure each death was public. It kept his supporters and the rest of the wizarding world well aware of his power.

It ensured no rebellion.

Draco's face was expressionless as he took to his usual corner. No one talked to him, really. He was Cormac's cellmate, but other than that, there was no reason for any of them to address him. He had, after all, bullied at least half the room in their schooling days.

Malfoy had fallen from grace in the Wizarding World not only once-- but twice.

"Have a good morning, mate?" Cormac taunted him. "I see you've warmed up for today."

During the Battle of Hogwarts, he chose the right side, but it was also the losing one. There was no praise for him as he betrayed his Slytherin friends and was 'redeemed' in the eyes of the Order. Instead, he was considered a traitor and was punished as such.

The Dark Lord had resulted in killing the Purebloods if they showed retaliation as well, his administration a river that drowned its own fish.

"Ecstatic," he grumbled, coming to his own corner and ignoring another one of McLaggen's pathetic offers at friendship.

Draco had taken these past years to strengthen his frame, his escape undoubtedly arriving soon.

He wanted to be ready.

He wanted to be ready to reemerge into society as the last victor of the Dark Lord's tournament.

All heads turned as Walden Macnair appeared from the doorway, "It's time."

She was dragged out, shackles against her now thin wrists. Hermione had done her fair share of fighting these past moons.

On the 2nd of every month, in remembrance of Harry Potter's defeat, they held a battle between the last of the followers of the Order and anyone in compliance with it.

Three pairs were selected to duel for the amusement of the Death Eaters and their families. Young children were even encouraged to watch, the Dark Lord considered it would be best to show them young.

Annually, in May of each passing year, they'd invite the public to watch.

In the dungeons, they weren't treated half as bad as one would think. Their punishment was far worse than torture.

"Are you feeling okay, Hermione?" Cho Chang muttered from in front of her.

She didn't have the chance to respond as Cormac McLaggen butt into their conversation, trailing behind her with shackles on his large wrists, "Please, we all know the Dark Lord won't risk his Golden Girl on a private match; he's waiting till May. If she's lucky, she won't get chosen until it's just her and bloody Weasley. The 'epic battle' of Potter's famous friends."

Neither of them responded. Even his presence behind them was frightful enough.

The late Hannah Abbott had been taken by the blonde brute before she passed. She was taken by him multiple times.

Every woman's personal form of punishment.

"Cat got your tongue, Chang?" He chuckled. "Don't worry, we all know you're too popular to let go..."

The girl was never chosen. Cho hadn't been chosen since the day she stepped foot into the hands of the Death eaters because the men simply took too much pleasure with her. But to be honest, she'd rather battle with her peers than be forced to perform another session with one of them again. It truly was a fate worse than death.

"You're vile," Hermione seethed and sent a pitiful look to Cho. The girl had already continued walking.

The Dark Lord sat atop a large granite, throne-like seat, next to Bellatrix Lestrange and Corban Yaxley. His most accomplished subordinates were rewarded well for their series of victories in the first Battle of Hogwarts.

Lestrange and Yaxley were important pillars of the duels. Bella had no hesitation in torturing the contestants in order to increase motivation. Yaxley was proficient in the Imperius Curse, keeping the Minister of Magic completely in his control throughout the battle. If the contenders retaliated or refused to participate, Yaxley made them. The commentators couldn't put a toe out of line with his curse upon them.

The Dark Lord's system worked exceptionally well.

Every other month, they switched off the spectator of the match, a new Order member forced to annotate the strikes cast against the young prisoners. When Ginny and Bill were chosen, Molly was exacted to commentate the murder of her son at the hands of her daughter. Yaxley's curse produced her voice as a sports announcer, her desperate rasp resounding from the walls of the Department of Mystery. She didn't speak for months afterward, repulsed by her sound.

January produced Augusta Longbottom as the interpreter of the match. It always was a bout of irony that someone close to the competitors was chosen.

"Imperio," Yaxley removed his wand from Augusta's harsh gaze, her face turning blank. Her collar was yanked up, bringing her ear to his lips. Whispered words carried her instructions.

"Welcome to the first Occidendum Justorum of the year 2001." The audience of Death Eaters applauded loudly. "This will be an exciting match. Concessions are on the left-wing. Bring out the first pairing!"

Rockwood and Dolohov burst into the arena, dragging the first contestants of the night.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil! Both former members of Dumbledore's Army and the Order. The Indian one even accompanied Harry Potter to the Yule Ball many years ago... It's rumored that Potter even lost his virginity to her! Wonder if Weasley has something to say about that?"

Ginny's head bowed in shame as the audience booed at her. Most of the people doing the booing were the grown men. The mothers and children stayed put in their seats, their expressions unreadable.

"Let the games begin!" Augusta was ushered to her seat, chains sprung from the arms and legs of the chair, shackling her in to watch.

Lavender and Parvati stood on opposite ends, both 10 paces away from the center.

Numbers were floating on the ceiling; it was the same charm used to conjure a night sky across the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

"Crucio," she aimed her wand at Parvati, missing by a couple of feet.

Everyone watched as they began to circle each other. Lavender was muttering something under her breath, her hallucinations taking place out in the open. No one could see them but the girl as a crazed look came onto her face.

Draco tore his gaze away, seemingly uninterested and too apprehensive to focus.

He eyed the raven at the top of the arena as it spread its wings.

Fuck that blasted creature.

How envious Draco was that he had the privilege to be free of the punishment he was bound to. The prisoner saw it as a blatant mockery of his situation.

That fucking bird wore his colors as well-- jet black. It was almost insulting.

Resentment was carved in the craters beneath his eyes.

"She's gone mad!" Parvati screeched as she called out to the Dark Lord, trying to get a clear shot at her opponent. "Stupefy!"

The color upon his cheeks was almost sickly as he turned his attention back to the fight. A scream erupted from Lavender's mouth as she began to send red sparks towards the audience, a protective shield protecting the bystanders from any harm.

"I'll protect all of you!" Lavender screamed into nothingness, her stance guarding a corner with wide arms. "Avada Kedavra!"

She missed.

Draco almost laughed.

The rest of the contestants had appalled expressions as they watched Parvarti take another hit. Hermione let out a small gasp as red sparks were sent in every direction.

"Who do you think is gonna win?" Cormac's head dipped down to Hermione as she felt his stubble prick against the tip of her ear. "My bet's on Lavender... we all know how reckless she can be."

"These are lives," Hermione scowled, turning to him with ragged and fierce eyes. "You don't place bets on your friends--"

"I'll do what I please, Granger," he shrugged, turning to face her as a loud gasp emerged from the audience. "Unlike you, I'd like to spend my last moments not bloody miserable all the time--"

"Weren't you caught for fighting with Ron last night--?"

"We have a winner!" Augusta's voice boomed, the undertones of fear coating her pitch. "Congratulations, Lavender Brown!"

Hermione's eyes widened as she took in the sight of Parvarti's lifeless body on the floor. Lavender was still in the corner, protecting hallucinations of people as two guards came to her side, disarming her and dragging her out of the arena.

"Told you," Cormac tilted his head to the side nonchalantly. "Reckless."

Padma let out a heart-wrenching scream, running to her sister, who no one had attended to.

Instantly, more guards were sent out to restrain her as well. Her sobs were silent against the loud cheers of the audience.

"Next up... Dean Thomas and Romilda Vane!" The two were dragged out from opposite ends, as usual, wands in hand.

The next duel began almost immediately.

They moved on from her death too quickly-- almost as if it didn't matter.

There were blind tears down Padma's face. Her hand clawed at what was left of her twin sister as they dragged them in separate directions. They held the breathing twin by the arms... and the dead one by the collar of her shirt-- her face was being scraped across the ground.

The expression on Padma's face was a representation of what almost every prisoner felt. Besides Cormac, there's only one man who would give him a run for his grim reputation-- Draco Malfoy.

Hateful, vicious, and merciless.

Draco sat sulking in the corner before Dolohov came to his side, whispering in his ear. Before the blonde could comply with his orders, he looked up at the five poles that held a prisoner.

Four large poles had Molly Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Xenophilius Lovegood, and Sybil Trelawny. The fifth one was empty.

Each day, he prayed his mother wasn't in that position.

He left swiftly, ignoring Romilda, who had already thrown the first shot. No one noticed his disappearance.

"We're saved for another month, then?" Cho's voice trembled as Hermione watched tears crowd at her lash line. Unconsciously, she reached for her friend's hand, trying to squeeze a portion of the charade of courage that Miss Granger radiated.

Hermione squeezed back, the clinking of the metal upon their wrists reminding them that they could easily be next, "Another month..." She had to look away from the scene, unable to watch another one of her classmates murder each other. Many of the others did the same.

She looked up, observing that same raven as it wobbled across the rim of the bowl. Below them was the audience. Then, the pillars of older captives.

Molly Weasley was staring at what was left of her family with tenderness and grief glassed onto her eyes. She was forced to watch her children kill each other for years now. This was the only time she'd ever see them-- when they were about to die.

Ginny refused to kill Bill, through her retaliation, they brought out Molly and used the Cruciatus Curse on her.

They kept her breathing to watch her children kill each other. However, Arthur hadn't survived that far.

That was the consequence of rebellion.

They held Xenophilius Lovegood on a totem too. His eyes searched the line of prisoners for a sign of his Luna, but he never found her. One day, he would understand what happened.

Their old professors were taken captive as well.

Today, they had McGonagall strung up, her hands above her head in a ragged white gown. Her lips were dry-- bleeding as she begged them to quench her thirst. The once honest and fair composure she held was now abandoned as her head hung low. The poor woman was forced to watch as two generations of her students were killed, if not my Voldemort, by each other.

And Trelawny... She was reminded everyday of how Harry Potter didn't win-- how her prophecy was as good as shit.

Romilda Vane screamed, snapping Hermione back from her daze. Her stare diverted down to Augusta Longbottom, who was heavily sobbing as she narrated Dean Thomas landing a fatal blow on his opponent.

Romilda was dead on the floor.

Cho's sob was heavy in her throat as Hermione held her hand tighter, careful not to draw too much attention. It didn't matter how many times they had seen their friends murdered by each other; it always stung just the same.

"I wanted the girl!" A man called out from the audience and shouted to Rockwood. "She would've been much better use to me, don't you agree?"

"Unless you have a taste for cold pussy," Walden Macnair shouted to him, "I don't think you'll want this one anymore."

Laughs exploded from the men in the audience. They were pigs—every single one of them.

Cormac began to clap slowly; his lack of empathy or any human emotions disturbed everyone in line. Ron sent a dull stare in his direction.

"Last, but certainly not least... the traitor Draco Malfoy and my grandson, Neville Longbottom!" Augusta shrieked, her voice trembling with each word she said. Her expressions were frightful as the two competitors were escorted by no one, meeting the other's hard stares as they prepared to fight for their lives.

"I've been waiting for this one, my Lord..." Bellatrix stood up from her seat, looking at her master, "What a coincidence that my own nephew will be the one to finish the job."

"Ready..." the old woman breathed, the other parents on the totems looking now too.

"Destroy him, Draco!" Bellatrix cackled, a wicked smile dawning on the Dark Lord's snake-like face.

"Set..." Augusta was sobbing as the two boys raised their wands.

"You can do this, Neville," Hermione muttered under her breath, the outcome of this match already wounding her before it had begun.

"Go."

"Expelliarmus!" Neville shouted with an offensive stance.

Draco easily blocked the spell, knowing that he had to drag this fight out longer. The entertainment was what the people wanted the most; he needed to provide that by playing along with these games.

"Protego!" The blonde took menacing steps forward, his pace quickening as he began to block spells cast by Longbottom.

The majority of them had swallowed the pill of Draco being manipulated at sixteen to become an instrument of murder.

But his loyalties were the least of their problems.

"Crucio!"

He did not have a problem killing. He was no longer a sacred boy that was so troubled to find his place in the world. If he could go back to the night he failed to complete his Master's wishes; he would have killed Dumbledore without a second thought.

"Reducto!" Longbottom panicked, Draco's steps corning him as he blocked his offensive spells.

Hermione's hands began to sweat. Her grip on Cho hadn't ceased. If anything, she was now the one squeezing the backbone out of her hands.

The audience was in a frenzy as Malfoy stopped his defensive spells, sending strikes onto Neville's chest.

His hair was unkempt with smudges of dirt upon his cheeks. The sweat that glistened off of his brow was even appealing to some teen girls in the audience.

He was always one of the three pairs in the month of May when the public was allowed to watch. Slytherin girls screamed for him.

"Crucio!" Draco sneered as Longbottom fell to the floor. "Crucio!"

Augusta was forced to remain quiet. The light left her eyes as she witnessed her kin suffer the same fate his parents did by the same line of dark wizards.

McGonagall had long looked away; every adult with the Order did.

And for the first time in so long, Bellatrix gleamed with pride.

It was supposed to be a bitter triumph for each winner, but for Draco Malfoy, it seemed as though it was an easy task.

How else would he pay the price for his freedom? No amount of money could sway the Dark Lord's mind after a betrayal.

He put on a show to entertain the guests... He was a crowd favorite, after all.

"AH!" Neville cried out, tears forming in his eyes as he looked to his Grandmother-- she was the last sight he saw.

"Avada Kedavra."

The crowd went wild.

#dramione #draco malfoy fanfiction #dracomalfoy #hermione granger #hermione x draco #wattpad #fanfiction #dramione fanfic #dramionefanfiction #harrypotter #hp #harry potter post war #dramioneau

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spmcomic · 4 years

Text

Theia and Gaia

Cover

Chapter 1: (part 1 | part 2) Chapter 2: (part 1 | part 2)

Chapter 3: (part 1 | part 2) Chapter 4: (part 1 | part 2)

Satriya considered the uneven chain mail in front of him, hung on the rack, dripping wet. He rolled a topaz between the fingers of his gloved paw. Now, where exactly did the Den Mother expect him to find a place for a gem of this size? Perhaps it could fit on the chest, with the proper setting.

“Apprentice,” he barked, his ears high and severe. He should at least look the part of the strict mentor. The kid poked his nose around the corner, whiskers quivering.

“Get that empty necklace with the triangle settings. I’m going to show you how to modify damaged armor while you repair it.”

“Here is your map,” something said in the distance. A colored sheet appeared in front of the space. “We’ve loaded it into your processor. You can access it the same way you would move your leg. Just reach for it.”

“Yes, sir.”

A shift in weight. Some kind of belt went over its back.

The creature pointed ahead. Rolling hills stretched past the hand. “Arborville is that way- houses built into the trees. If you get lost, use your life-form radar. It’s not hard.”

“Yes, sir.”

Exene touched a paw to the enormous footprint and rubbed the damp clay between her fingers, letting the earthy scent fill her nose. Her eyes narrowed. An unfamiliar predator lurked nearby, and she was very, very far from home. Then… Just the most hushed breath. Just the slightest change in the air. Her grip tightened on her bow and she bounded away as the monster dropped from the dense, dead trees above, leaving a crater in the clay where she had stood.

The rocky outcropping nearby gave her enough cover to scramble into a crack where the monster couldn’t reach. She took a rattled breath, grasping at the quiver on her back. Looking out through the tiny sliver of daylight, she could see the monster’s sharp triangle ears twisting this way and that. It raised its nose to the air. She shrank back out of sight before it could turn her way.

But the monster had heard her. With two huge leaps, it landed on the boulders, further settling the pile. Exene cried out as her arm and bow caught between two of the shifting rocks. The monster hissed, rocking back and forth on the pile to crush her. She curled up, gasping at the pain in her twisting arm, and put her feet against the boulder above. Even with all the might in her legs and feet, she could hardly keep the boulder from rolling off its support, and she grunted with the effort.

Then she heard the quick whistle of an arrow leaving its bow, and another soon after. The monster screamed and fell back, its shadow crossing the narrow opening above. The others made short work of it while Exene panted and held the rock off herself. They had better not leave her-

Finally, the weight lifted, and her brethren freed her mangled arm.

“I think we can make a home here,” she hissed through gritted teeth. One of her sisters laughed and handed her the aloa leaf, which she snatched away to wrap her arm in.

“You’ve got a pebble stuck in your joint, hold on,” a voice murmured. The space stopped moving. At the creature’s touch, its elbow strained under some pressure, and then loosened with a vague relief and freedom.

There were trees.

Tiny fingers struggled to reach the rough valves of the trumpet. Its bleating filled the empty nest in the moonlight.

Then, there were no trees. There was a ravine.

“We move out at dawn,” the Warlord snarled, cowing his advisors. “You can go one night without sleep.”

Then there were the walls of a ravine stretching overhead, and hard ground.

Fu bumbled with his quill, struggling to keep the stack of skins in a straight pile in his arm. How the Mayor expected him to write and walk at the same time, he had no idea. He shuffled forward, poking his feet out one at a time while he kept his eyes on the skin on top, his quill dripping.

As the Mayor spoke, Fu’s attention drifted to the view from the top of their little fort. An entire town coming together like this… The Mayor was truly an inspiration. As strange as the social structure was… Maybe, just maybe, this could work.

“Did you get all that?”

Fu nearly dropped his stack as the Mayor turned toward him.

“Did you hear about Head Merlock?”

“Ha. What did she do this time?”

“She’s shut herself in her study again and won’t let anyone in the fusion chamber. No one in her department’s going to finish their studies at this rate.”

“Ha! I’m glad I’m not her apprentice…”

Well, this was a fine predicament. Their quest wouldn’t be a very long one if they couldn’t even cross the mighty Yangtze river winding across the wide, wet fields a few miles outside of town. Ishani thumped the ground a few times and hopped back toward the shrubs obscuring their resting spot. The other five members of the party had clustered close in the thin shade.

“It’s dry season,” their leader offered. “If we head upstream for a few days, we should find a place to cross. Even the plains here aren’t flooded.”

“A dry season in a dry year,” the oldest member of the group tutted. “Predators will be hungry.”

“They would have moved downstream by now.” Ishani poked her ears above the shrub. The breeze cooled the tips, and she heard no whispers in the wind.

“But we would lose several days of travel,” their guard piped up.

Ishani frowned. “No. That will take us up into the mountains… The Yangtze curves west through the range. It’s a little out of the way, but not more than a day or two.”

The eldest only twitched her whiskers.

Ishani snapped her fingers. “Oh, wait, this could work to our advantage! The paths there will save us a trek through the Eagle Pillars. That’s slow and careful work anyhow.”

The leader raised her eyebrows. The breeze played with her mane.

Ishani swept her foot through the grass, digging out a little trail in the light dust. “See, if this line is the river, and we move this way…” She dragged her finger through the dust across it. “We skip out on that entire eagle nest. That cuts the danger of our journey in half.”

The eldest blinked. “But only half.”

She shrugged. “We’ll take care of the second nest when we get there. Maybe we can find another shortcut.”

A porcelain monster walked alongside the space. The space tingled at a familiar shriek that echoed across the ravine and cut off with shattering glass. The monster next to it flinched, falling a step behind, before it hustled to catch up.

“Oh. You’re not awake, are you?”

No response.

“… What assignment have you got?”

The information came easily. “Apprentice Merisis has instructed this unit to deliver the filled globes to the Scrying center in Optym.”

They walked in silence for a moment.

The porcelain creature leaned to the side, head tilted. “Which route are you taking, Lazarus?”

“The provided map gives directions across the overworld.”

A harsh, static noise. “I know a faster way. More efficient.”

“More efficient.”

“Yeah, follow me.”

Ajith smirked, clapping his paws together. “Listen. Someday I’m going to play Tempest. Just watch.”

His brother let his head fall back over the side of their nest of skins and cushions. “You’ll never make it. You’ve got no grit, brother.”

“Grit!?”

The memory cut off as the porcelain creature gently rapped on the armored side with several clinks. “Don’t drift too far off. We’re here.”

In front of the two of them stood a row of tall, colorful doors set into a vast wall. From one end of the platform to the other, there were seven, each metal slate splashed with a different color.

The other creature hopped between its four feet. It stepped forward to pat the wall energetically. “Karchner’s perfecting something called Dimensional Doors. Travel between cities is instant, when they’re running properly.”

The space waited for the path to open so it could continue forward.

“The Sentry over there gave me their power schedule, when I worked there a few weeks ago.”

The porcelain creature continued talking, but…

Deven leaned on his spear, watching the other soldiers play their card game.

One of his companions turned their head up to him. “Pouting because you lost?”

Deven sighed. “No, I’m keeping a lookout. My constant vigilance is the only thing keeping you sorry morons alive.”

Another barked out a laugh and tossed down her cards. “That’s a pouting face, if I ever saw one!”

“One of us has to watch!” Deven’s voice cracked as he threw his free hand in the air.

“Sure, but only because you lost.”

Next round, he would kick their tails to the horizon.

The surface. Tall grass, trees on the horizon. Then, the ravine. Then, the surface.

Bugs speckled the inside of the ancient amber. Jing turned it this way and that in her paw, letting the torch light glitter off its surface. This would make a perfect talisman for the Gauntlets of Healing.

Two voices from above, sitting in the trees, while the space waited for its load:

“Meret told me something interesting. You want some city gossip?”

“Hit me.”

“Underside’s slowed its robot production rate way down. Head Merletaph is furious. Meret caught her chewing out Head Merlock big-time on the roof of his apartment, he said he just had the window open and they didn’t even try to keep it down.”

“The most important thing, when you’re brewing tea…” Masala began to her crowd of wide-eyed youngsters. She couldn’t help but grin at how their ears perked. “Is to set the right environment.”

The stars twinkled above. The space’s head lights cast long dim beams across the grassy hill. It turned its head upward to follow the slope, and noticed the moonlight glinting off its fingers.

The moonlight…

Something was wrong. What was it?

There should be three moons, the voices whispered together.

Neima hunched over her stone in the dead of night, pausing every few moments to turn her head up and examine the moons. Their light played off each other: sturdy bronze, icy blue-white, and airy reflective gray between the two. She jabbed her quill against the rock, crumpling the tip. With a snarl she tossed it away, grabbing yet another out of her cup. She dunked the end of it in her ink and very nearly chewed on the tip while she contemplated the three heavenly bodies. Ink dripped off her nose, leaving her whiskers quivering in the multicolored light.

How could you translate such a sight into music? The moons hung serenely in the sky, blotting out even the stars in such a wide circle. The way the colors lit up the long strands of dead grass, bounced off her slate, twinkled at the end of the quill… Neima’s brow furrowed and her ears drew back. She shuffled her stiff feet, trying to force some feeling back into them. They would be out of phase again soon. The next collection like this wouldn’t come around for another two years. She had to make her decision. Bronze, and white, and blue, and gray… The cold and the stillness and the crisp smell of the dew collecting on the rough stones. What notes brought them to mind? What might another instrument accomplish that her trumpet could not?

The song was meant to be her magnum opus, but upon facing the reality of the sight, how could she ever do it justice?

Lazarus paused. I guess I never will, the voices mused together. It stood, on the hill, for a long moment. The packages on its back pushed its knife-legs into the soft ground, so much softer than it was at home.

It could never get home, could it? From the very beginning… the Artificers had total control over Lazarus’ fate, and had ensured it was trapped forever. The voices never had a chance. Even if Lazarus did get home, the voices had been gathered from across time, from across the countries and tribes and regions. Where could Ishani fit, in this new world? Where would Timur? Bryagh? Kai? They had never heard of some of the ideas the other voices shared- the Mayors- the quills- the games- the armored mounts-

Was there even any way home? How did they get pulled into this world? What could Lazarus do on this world, if it did disappear into the wilderness between settlements? Were there other robots out there somewhere?

Lazarus turned its head away from the strange, foreign moonlight and stared at its wrist protrusions, dug into the ground. Before it acted, this time, it needed answers.

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#spm #super paper mario #paper mario #pixls #theia and gaia

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katahnisharma · 5 years

Text

the press tour [11 pt. 1] | t.h.

Word Count: 1.9 K

Warnings: Because Claire @neverlandparker is a cutie and gave me the idea of splitting up chapter 11 into two parts, the second part will be out Tuesday!

Summary: You’re a new, inexperienced actress plucked from the obscurity of everyday life to play the lead in the reboot of a famous British Jane Austen novel, and Tom Holland just so happens to be playing your love interest.

A/N: This is a little shorter but I wanted to get into Tom’s head a little and have you guys understand him a bit :) I’m a little down so if you could just tell my if you liked this or legit even hated it I’d love the feedback! Also Tumblr apparently won’t let me link things so if you’re looking for my masterlist, playlist, taglist, or writing challenge it’s in my bio ♡

“Haz, I would come to the pub quiz, but we just went on a double date and I don’t really want to spend anymore time with him. It bothers Adrian.” You were on the phone with Harrison the Saturday after the date, which had ended as awkwardly as it began. After Tom and Adrian came back from the bathroom, you could tell they had fought over something. Tom wouldn’t look at you the rest of the time, and he barely said two words. Adrian kept a possessive hand on your thigh, which only made you uneasy. Zendaya, though she gave it her best effort, couldn’t salvage the night.

You were so relieved when it was over.

“Ah yes, the dinner date from hell. How was it? Tom wouldn’t say much about it.” Harrison laughed, shooing Monty away from his feet. You were in LA and he was in London, but he’d been trying to get you to visit for weeks now. You knew you couldn’t keep putting it off.

“It was terrible, the whole thing was so awkward. Poor Z tried to make it work, but Tom wasn’t having it. He and Adrian were in the bathroom together for a while so I know something went down, but Adrian won’t tell me anything. Of course, it’s obvious he has a problem with Tom and I just can’t handle the stress.” You whined, collapsing on your couch and avoiding Bailey’s piles of paper everywhere. She’d been in the process of a massive reorganization and your house looked like a bomb had gone off.

“See, this is why you need to get away. Just come over for the weekend, let Adrian sort himself out. It’ll be fun, I promise. And Charlotte misses you, she says you’re more fun than Tom and I.” Harrison pleaded, his voice dropping a bit when Tom came into the room. He raised an eyebrow at Harrison and mouthed Who’s that?.

“You know, I’m going to regret this. But fine, I’ll come this weekend. I need a vacation, even if staying with you is more like being your maid.” You sighed, getting up to go pack. Tom sat next to Harrison and pretended like he was on his phone, but he was really trying to listen in on the conversation. The voice on the other end sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Great, everyone will be so happy! Monty is excited, I can already tell. Fly out tonight and I’ll come pick you up at the airport. And don’t worry, I’ll leave you-know-who behind.” whispered, shoving Tom away who was trying to listen in. You chuckled and found your suitcase behind your closet, taking it out and checking to make sure it was big enough.

“Thanks Haz, I’ll see you soon.” You hung up and started folding clothes to take, texting Bailey to let her know you’d be leaving and to tell Adrian. It had been weird between you two after the date, and you knew it should have been you telling him but you didn’t want to deal with the fallout. Bailey would be able to talk him down.

“Who was that?” Tom asked, trying to be nonchalant about it. Harrison rolled his eyes, knowing that he was secretly curious, but he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to tell him about you. Tom would definitely not be calm about it.

But then again, you were going to be here in a couple of hours.

“Um, it was Y/N. She’s coming here for the weekend.” Harrison said, ignoring Tom’s open mouth. Tom felt his heart drop and race simultaneously, not sure how he was going to handle seeing you. What was he going to do, just avoid you the entire time to ignore his feelings? Tom hadn’t spoken to Zendaya in days, and even she knew the reason why.

“Oh, um, that’s cool. Cool, yeah, you know….Y/N’s cool. Great, I’m gonna go shower. Maybe...uh...I can come with you to the airport?” Tom stuttered, trying to hide his nerves. Harrison wanted to laugh, but restrained himself.

“If you want? I mean, just don’t do anything stupid please.” Harrison said, getting up to change. Tom nodded silently, his mind racing with all the things he had to do to get ready. He’d need to shave, change his clothes, appear like he wasn’t a nervous wreck. Appear like he was over you, when he’d fallen deeper. It was like fighting his heart, and Tom was losing

Shit, why did you have to come and make everything difficult?

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“This has to be the stupidest thing you’ve done in a while” Bailey was quick to give you her opinion while you were packing, and part of you knew she was right.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

“Okay, thank you. Love that you’re so concerned, but I’ll be fine. If Tom is there, I’m just gonna ignore him.” You said, zipping up your bag. There wasn’t much to take for the weekend, and you never packed much to begin with. Bailey opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind at the last minute.

“Alright, everything’s done. My flight is in an hour and a half, so I’m gonna head out now. You’ll be okay alone, right?” You teased, watching her roll her eyes with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a big girl, I think I can take care of myself. Keep me updated, okay? And if it gets too weird, just come home. Harrison will just have to deal with Tom on his own.” Bailey replied, helping you carry your purse downstairs.

“Seriously, what’s the worst that can happen? He tries to kiss me or something, which we both know will NEVER happen. We both don’t like each other, Tom will stay away from me I can guarantee it.” You said, waving to the driver outside and giving Bailey a quick hug. She squeezed you a little, watching you get into the car.

“Did you tell Adrian?” She called from the door, and you froze for a minute. You had not, in fact, told your boyfriend you were leaving for the weekend. To spend it in London with a friend that wasn’t a girl and his apparent enemy. You hadn’t even told him you were free for the weekend.

Well, too late now.

“Yeah, of course.” You lied, watching her relax a little. She waved from the door as the car pulled away, and you sat back in your seat as the driver kept his eyes on the road.

You really should have told Adrian.

“Mate, you didn’t need to get all dressed up for her. She’s got a boyfriend.” Harrison sniggered when Tom came out looking very dressed up. It was something he’d worn to Jimmy Kimmel once, and Harrison could see Tom’s face burn at his words.

“Shut up, it’s not that fancy. I know she’s got a boyfriend, he threatened me in the bathroom last week.” Tom grumbled, taking his phone from the table. Harrison quirked an eyebrow, but he didn’t push it. This was the first he was hearing about an actual confrontation from Tom, but he wouldn’t have put it past Adrian. He didn’t much like your boyfriend either.

“Can I ask you something?” Harrison ventured, testing the waters a little. Tom rolled his eyes, putting on his shoes by the door.

“Can I even stop you?” He groaned, standing up and crossing his arms. Harrison got his keys from the couch and moved closer, studying Tom’s face.

It was nervous, he knew what Harrison was going to ask.

“Are you in love with her?”

Tom’s eyes widened a little, but not enough to indicate he was surprised by the question. He had to have known it was coming. He looked down quickly, but Harrison caught the sight of his eyes watering a little. For a moment it was radio silence, and Harrison thought he wouldn’t answer. The tears spilled out of Tom’s eyes.

“What does it matter if I am?” Tom’s voice was quiet, like he was struggling to get it out. He knew that once he said those words, he was truly fucked. Harrison knew that too, which was why he wasn’t prepared for what Tom said next.

“I love her, Haz. And I don’t know how to stop.” Tom wiped his eyes, feeling his resolve crumble. All the days he spent telling himself to get over you, because he was the one who ruined everything. Tom had only half believed the lie, and now that the words had materialized in front of him it washed over him like a wave. The pain, the heartbreak, the intense pining and longing for someone he couldn’t have.

Because you weren’t his to want. You wanted nothing to do with him.

“I don’t think love works like that. You just have to let it go, Tom.” Harrison was startled when Tom hugged him, feeling him shudder a little. He’d known all along, that you had taken a part of him. It was so easy to see, the way you made him feel. Harrison remembered how excited Tom had been when you said yes to the date, the way he talked about you and how his eyes lit up.

Where had it all gone wrong?

“If I see her, I might lose my mind. I’ve been beating myself up over what happened, and it hurts even thinking about it. I thought if I stayed away, remembered what that prick told me, it would go away. Why does it hurt so much?” Tom cried, wetting Harrison’s shirt slightly. Harrison let him cry for a few minutes, knowing Tom would feel better after. He didn’t know what to say or do, he had yet to be in love. But this wasn’t like anything Harrison had seen before, Tom had never been this way.

What he felt was real, it was vulnerable and raw. And you meant more to him than he’d thought.

“Tom? I’m going to say something and I want you to listen.” Harrison said, and Tom broke away rubbing at his eyes.

“You need to tell her how you feel, before it’s too late. Tell her everything, or you’re gonna lose her forever.” Harrison put a hand on Tom’s shoulder, passing him to get to the door. Tom stood still, staring ahead at the wall.

“What if she still hates me? Or she’s in love with Adrian?” Tom’s voice cracked, not wanting to turn around and face his best friend. Because he knew what Harrison would say, and it frightened him.

“You have to make up your mind, Tom. Either you want her or you don’t. But you’re gonna have to fight for Y/N, she deserves a lot. And if you really love her, then you’ll sober up and join the battle. It’s your call.” Harrison sighed, opening the door and leaving Tom alone in the living room. Tom took a deep breath and closed his eyes, your face being the first thing he saw. It had been the only thing he’d seen for weeks at night.

Tom knew what he had to do. He was scared, but it was clear to him.

He had to win you back before it was too late.

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The Press Tour Taglist: @notes-from-my-journal @mcuspidey @musicandbokkslovingweirdo @kaylzjordan @puffedgill @loki-in-hogwarts @mutuallynotmutual @psycho-mocha @evolutionofkatep @ciannemar83 @eridanuswave @sltwins @grandfunnyemopainter @kidensdouble88 @bonitajuanita @kthemarsian @ollieologys @avngrsinitiative @hannah-olivia @dans2k19 @saysomethingspiderman @strang-ersclub @ad-iuficium @fairytaleparker @neverlandparker @shawnssongs @xoluvx @violet-lilyy @itsjstz @dickgraysonnsworld @a-phan-of-youtube @webshoot3r @ihopeyousteponarosepetal @martinafigoli @ketchuplukehemmo @storiesnroses @the-royal-brown-barbie @babebenhardy @teasemeimeasy @janieavalos @maybeonedayican @peruvian-bae @kathillyard @lost-in-translating @lawstudentbydayfangirlbynight @ballyhoobarnes @gabiatthedisco @one-big-fan-girl @rosebeegraham @shirukitsune @florencxs @mmyepic @baby-unidorn @imahoefortomholland @spidxrparkxr @brown-eyed-brunettes @secretlittlewonders @peterporkpie @notevenlxvely @i-love-peter-b-parker-3000

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fic #tom holland series #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fic #the press tour

218 notes · View notes

bonnieisaway · 4 years

Text

lost my discretion

cough ow this is really bad but here’s chp 4 to my shit saiki k x reader

tw for mentions of kidnapping

chapter two | chapter three | wattpad link

"S-Saiki..?" (L/n) asks, shakily as she sits on the ground behind the boy. He had suddenly appeared out of thin air, separating the girl and the body in front of Saiki. "Wh-wha...h-how did you..?"

He had teleported, obviously, but the weeping girl behind him didn't necessarily understand. Saiki cursed himself under his breath. There wasn't any way to get out of this one.

Saiki sighed in frustration. It was a simple Saturday morning, but something was annoying. He had had the same stupid prophetic dream and headache ever since the night where (L/n) had walked him home. It was weird, and why he had been assuming his powers were off lately, because usually there was't that much of a gap between when his dreams happened and, well, when it actually happened. The volcano- as much as he hated to think about it- didn't count really, it was only so long ago because he had rewound the Earth fuck knows how many times.

The answer was 6. But, we don't talk about that.

He had no choice but to shake it off as his mother called him down for breakfast. Walking down the stairs he tried his best to clear his mind, sitting at the table and ignoring the idle chatter his mother and father started.

(L/n) was a strange girl. Everything about her seemed contradictory. She was average, yet unique in a way that seemed to keep Saiki guessing, somehow- it felt like there were parts of her unknown. Which was odd, since, he could literally read her mind. Hell, even from where he sat now, if he tried hard enough he could hear her thoughts.

Or, well, dreams. She liked to sleep in.

Regardless, that wasn't all. She carried herself as if she was nothing special- and even then acknowledged by some very wrong people as such- but she was talented and beautiful. An average girl who was unique. Part of Saiki supposed everyone was like that, really. Another part of him supposed there was something different. Other than that that hid within her that he was curious of.

Very rarely was Saiki curious. Very rarely did people manage to hide things from Saiki Kusuo.

Of course, there were things like Nendo, and bugs, that were completely unreadable. But you were complex. He heard your thoughts, yes, but you never turned to stone without his glasses and his x-ray vision never worked on you. It was, well, confusing. Emotions that Saiki didn't necessarily understand.

"Ku, are you alright? You haven't touched your food..." Saiki's mother, Kurumi, fretted.

Saiki blinked for a second. He had zoned out. "Yes... I'm fine.." He sighs, finally picking up his spoon and digging into his coffee jelly. Who needed anything else? Coffee jelly makes all your problems go away.

What? Don't look at him like that. You're reading an x reader fanfiction. He can use coffee jelly as a stress coping mechanism all he wants.

Kurumi looks at his doubtfully before sighing. 'I really do hope he's okay..' Her thoughts echoed. Saiki sighed, finishing his food and excusing himself from the table, walking back up to his room.

He figured he'd read a book. Play that one game he never finished. Something enjoyable. he doesn't want to waste a perfectly fine Saturday fretting about nothing.

°·.¸.·°¯°·.,.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.

As you woke up slowly, you heard your phone vibrate on the stand next to your bed. You sighed. Who wanted what this early in the morning..? You rubbed your eyes with one hand and grabbed the phone with the other.

Oh. It's 1pm. It's not that early. You just really, really like sleep. You unlock your phone, which is an unholy level of bright, to find a text from an unfamiliar number

???

Heey! I got your number from Chiopipi.

...Who, got it from Teryukoko.. ehhe..

(Y/n)

..uh.. who's this??

???

Oh, sorry! It's Aiura Mikoto.

I'm in ur class?? lol

(Y/n)

oh! you're the gyaru with the crystal ball right??

Aiura Mikoto

That's me! haha

Teryukoko was planning to have all us girls hang at her house tmrw

Her brother's gonna be out of town and her parents are off on some business trip

So it's just us

You in???

(Y/n)

..yeah sure why not

Aiura Mikoto

Lit!!! I'll text you the details tmrw

Read, 1:32pm

You set your phone down on your bedside table again and sighed. Well, that was your plans for tomorrow. But you had absolutely nothing to do today. You eyed your bag in the corner of the room.

Nope. Absolutely nothing. Nada. None.

You swung your legs over your bed and sat up, head dizzying and vision blurring momentarily from the swiftness of the motion. You sighed, standing and walking off..you had to take care of yourself, for once. Get dressed, brush your hair, your teeth, blah blah... you get the point.

The day goes by slowly, a steady day of jamming to your tunes and doing work. And totally not watching Netflix. Nope. But eventually the steadily changing light of the sun setting begins to noticeably change the lighting of your living room until the sun is still barely left straddling the horizon.

You stare out the window until you turn, grabbing your shoes and hoodie, slipping them on and grabbing your keys and phone as you leave your apartment, locking it behind you. You weren't sure why.. but something told you to go outside. Take a walk. Vibe in the loneliness of the playground. You'd be fine, I mean, Japan has an awfully low crime rate, doesn't it?

Yeah.. It does.. you remember your mother hovering over your shoulder as you researched the country while still in America. Your father nonchalant about the decision but inside he cared. A lot. His baby would move across the world. Your sister, jealous but proud. You were always the smarter of the two. She was an adrenaline junkie who valued smarts last.

Walking along the empty and quiet streets oddly reminded you of her. She was a type of girl who would run down these streets screaming for some demon to come eat her ass while you laughed in disappointment behind her. Sometimes, if you close your eyes hard enough..

Sometimes you could see her running.

Sometimes, when you closed your eyes, you saw the day you lost them instead. It's hard to shake.. your bruised and broken sister holding your hand in a hospital bed as heart dropped and the doctors came in like a SWAT team.

It was really hard to shake that thought away from your head.

You had lost your family a while ago now. Just before you started your first year at PK Academy. See, the original plan was you were going to study at PK and live in Japan while your family in America dealt with most expenses. When they died, there was a new plan offered, mainly out of sympathy. Your living situation was paid by the school as you attended. As long as you kept your grades high, they would pay. Once you were out of PK Academy, then you're on your own.

You shook the thought from your head- or at least tried- as you arrived at your destination, the playground. You kicked rocks littered around under the light of the light post that's near. You're not really sure why you came here. Nostalgia? Wanting to vibe? Bored? Who knew.

It's when you're staring up at the cloudy night sky you feel a tight grip on your wrist, causing you to nearly scream before snapping around. It's a man, obviously older than you, accompanied by his friend, grinning happily.

"Hey, you lost, girlie?" He asks, curiously. You shake your head furiously, mind racing. You did not want to die. Nor get kidnapped. Or anything else like that. "What are you doing out here all alone? It's late, you know."

You don't respond. His grip tightens, and you know it's going to leave a mark. "Let me go."

"You didn't answer my question." His face falls. His buddy behind him pulls up his hood, obscuring his already shadowy face. You feel yourself tremble, and when you look down, you see your fingers shaking like an earthquake tremor.

"I don't have to." You argue, tugging against his grip. "Let me go." You keep a stern face but you're panicking. You want to scream. Cry. You tell yourself you're stronger than this- hell, you work out with fucking Hairo sometimes, of all people, and everything is telling you to knee this man straight where the sun doesn't shine and run away but the fear has you rooted still.

There's a second, where he's going to say something back, and you feel him start to raise your arm up so he can tug you closer, but it stops when a certain force appears suddenly between you and the man, plus his friend, knocking you away and promptly letting you fall on your ass. Ouchie.

You stare up at the object and when you recognize the stature, the bright pink hair, and weird hairpins, you realize it's Saiki. "S-Saiki..?" You ask, staring up at him. "Wh-wha...h-how did you..?"

He turns his head back towards the two men, both as shocked as you are. "Close your eyes." He tells you, and you can't tell if it's soft or stern. A wavering mix of both. You listen to him, and when you're given the signal to open them, both men are gone.

"Whe-"

"Don't ask." He spins his body to you and holds out a hand. You shakily take it, and he pulls you to your feet effortlessly. You're shaking so much you can't help but fall forwards to his chest and he lets you, letting you rest for a second.

"..Thank you.." You mutter.

°·.¸.·°¯°·.,.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.

You sat on the swing, swinging your legs quietly. Saiki had pulled you out of his chest and when he was going to say something you asked that he didn't- that he just stayed with you here. You knew it was nonsensical, asking to stay, but you felt safer when he was with you all of a sudden. Your phone lay under your feet softly playing music and Saiki sat on the swing next to you. It was quiet- a kind of quiet where you couldn't decipher comfort or a still, awkward feeling.

You hesitate, briefly. "How did you...?" The question drifts, before you clear your throat, trying again. "How did you just appear out of nowhere?"

Saiki doesn't respond. He sat still as a statue on his swing, compared to yours, drifting back and fourth slowly, the occasional creek of the swing an undecipherable melody. It's a minute before you speak again.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to." You look away from him and kick your feet at the ground. "..How did you know to come?"

A moment of hesitation follows, before all you hear is a quiet "precognition." It's not part of an unheard sentence, and he won't add anything more, you can tell- it's all he's willing to momentarily share. You accept the answer, humming along to your phone- quietly letting unfamiliar songs drift from the phone. He stands, suddenly, the chain of the swing jingling as the weight leaves.

"I'll take you home." He says, offering a hand. "It's late."

"It can't be.. that late." You look up at him.

"It's 2am." He argues. You sigh and hang your head, muttering an apology as you pick up your phone.

You place your hand in his, and this time it feels different. Tender and understanding, but somewhere you know he's upset that you nearly got yourself killed. You blink, and you're in your apartment, with a nauseating feeling. What the fu-

"Goodnight, (L/n)."

You hesitate. "..'night, Saiki."

He dissapears.

For a fleeting moment, your day feels like a blurry dream- you stare at your hand, steadily counting a precise 5 fingers. You're awake. You're tired, and crave your bed, but you're awake.

The pitter-patter of your feet is all you hear in your quiet apartment before you kick closed the door to your bedroom. It was late now, and if you'd ever fall asleep was a gamble.

°·.¸.·°¯°·.,.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.

#saiki kusuo no psi nan #saiki k #saiki k x reader #i hate this chapter so much #and i was looking forward to writing it #for a while #and it's just. blegh #my writing #saiki kusuo #averagely unique

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im-the-king-of-the-ocean · 5 years

Text

RWBY Rarepair Week Day 1, @rwbyrarepairweek

Prompt: First Meeting

Pairing: Nuts & Dolts (Ruby/Penny)

(this is the only one I’ll have above the preferred 100 fics line. I wanted to kick things off with a pairing I’m a little more familiar with, before moving into more obscure ones)

Where We Began

“Oh, I knew this was a bad idea.” Ruby groans. She looks around, but recognizes no one. Well, except for her dad way on the other side of the ballroom, but he’s surrounded by other teachers and faculty-types. One of them seems to be in the middle of a funny story. They’re all laughing. Ruby doesn’t really want to interrupt. That would be awkward. Well, more awkward than her current level of awkward, which is already very high and…

Ruby sips her drink to distract herself. She just needs to make do. She can’t leave. Dad’s her only means of transportation back to where they’re staying. Also, he’d be disappointed in her if she tries to sneak off in the first half-hour, and she really doesn’t want to disappoint him. Ruby knows he worries about her, especially now that Yang has started her first year at Beacon. It’s not completely impossible for Ruby to make friends on her own, but it’s still hard. Especially without her sister around.

Maybe she could try and guess what type of weapons the other guests have? Yeah, that could work. Almost nothing is better than weaponry—

“Salutations, fellow party guest!”

Ruby yelps. Her brain realizes what’s about to happen, attempts to stop it, but fails. Soda shoots out of her nose. She coughs. So much for making a good first impression on whoever just spoke.

“Are you alright?” A hand places itself comfortingly on Ruby’s back. “It was not my intent to startle you.”

Ruby looks up into the brightest pair of light green eyes she’s ever seen. She blinks. They can’t really be that bright, her mind thinks, but they are. “Um, I…”

“If you’ve been injured, I can notify the house doctor right away. Just let me get my scroll out—”

“No! No, that’s fine! I’m fine!” Ruby grabs onto the girl’s hands. “I just, errr, got lost in thought I guess. Hehe yeah, I do that sometimes. but I am toootally fine.”

The girl smiles. “Okay. May I ask what you were thinking about?”

“Nothing really.” Ruby rubs the back of her neck. In a mumbled tone, she adds, “Weaponry.”

“How interesting! I like weapons too,” the girl gushes. “I don’t have one of my own quite yet. Father says it’s still in development. But it’ll be ready soon, and then I can start training to become a Huntress at Atlas Academy.”

“Oh, um, me too, except I want to go to Beacon.” Ruby relaxes. This is familiar conversation territory, and the girl isn’t giving her the frustrating, ‘humoring’ looks that others sometimes do after she’s been awkward around them. “It’s where my sister goes. I’ve visited a couple times. It’s so cool there!” She sighs happily. “I can’t wait to forge my own weapon, and start training.” Ruby glances at the other girl, but she’s still listening attentively. She probably won’t mind if Ruby starts rambling.

Ruby takes out her scroll. “Here, see, these are my blueprints for my weapon. I’m going to call it Crescent Rose. It’s going to be so cool. It’ll be a scythe, like my uncle’s. Except mine will be way cooler because it’s also a sniper rifle.” She flicks through image files. “Just don’t tell him that.” Ruby snickers, mostly to herself.

The girl giggles in return. “I’ll be sure I won’t.” She pauses. “Though, who is your uncle? Just so I can be sure I know who to not say the wrong thing to.”

“Qrow Branwen. He teaches at Signal Academy, on Patch. At least for now. He keeps saying he’s going to leave.” Ruby holds out her hand. “I’m Ruby Rose, by the way.”

“Ruby Rose, daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long, who also teaches at Signal Academy,” the girl recites back to her. “Both him and Mr. Branwen were invited to tonight’s event, but only Taiyang is in actual attendance.”

“Um…I guess? Yeah? Dad brought me along, so I’m here too.” Ruby shifts her weight from foot to foot. She didn’t think it possible for anyone to be weirder than her, but here they were. “So, uh, what’s your name?”

“Penny Polendina.” The girl—Penny—takes in Ruby’s facial expression. “My apologies, did I say something wrong?”

“No, not really. It was just a little weird how you said all that stuff about my dad and my uncle.” Ruby shrugs. “But it’s not a big deal. I can be a little odd sometimes too.”

“Thank you for understanding.” Penny brightens. “I’ll try not to be as weird in the future.” She pauses. “But I’m still learning all the right social protocols. My father worries about me, so I’m not allowed out much. I don’t have many opportunities to talk to other people.” She frowns. “You’re the first person who’s wanted to talk to me all night.”

Ruby isn’t quite sure what to say to that, so she pats Penny on the shoulder twice. “Well, I think you’re pretty nice to talk to, Penny. Everyone here is old and boring anyway, except, you know, my dad.”

Penny grins back at her. She leans in conspiratorially, and whispers, “would you like to see something cool? It’s a secret I’ve never shown anyone before.”

“Sure, I gue—whoooa!” Ruby has no time to react. Penny has her by the wrist. She’s pulling her along behind her. They weave between party guests—at a speed that causes Ruby to consider if agility is Penny’s semblance—before exiting the ballroom. Ruby has only a second to wonder what sort of trouble she’s gotten herself into this time, and then they arrive at a library.

Penny opens the door and tiptoes inside. Ruby figures she’s come this far, she may as well see things through. She follows Penny. They pass tall bookshelf after tall bookshelf until they arrive at the back. Before Ruby’s eyes, Penny pushes a bookshelf aside with strength that Ruby wouldn’t have believed possible if she wasn’t witnessing it for herself.

There is no wall behind the shelf, but an opening leading onto a staircase, a secret passage. Penny glances back at Ruby, chews her bottom lip nervously, and then heads up. Again, Ruby follows. Penny seals the secret passage after them.

“So, errr, where are we going?” Ruby finally asks. She doesn’t want to distrust Penny. She seems so nice and Ruby always tries to think the best of people, but she’s beginning to get nervous herself.

“To my secret place.” Penny doesn’t turn around. “I come up here when I want time to myself to think.” She leads the way up the stairs. “I know we just met, but I’ve never been able to share anything with anyone before. I must ask you to pardon my hastiness.”

“That’s okay, I think—whooooaaa.” Ruby gasps.

At the top of the stairs is a small, forgotten nook. Leftover from a time before a remodeling of the manor house closed it off from the rest. The wall opposite Ruby and Penny is entirely paned-glass window, with makeshift, tattered bedsheets-turned-window-curtains framing it on either side. There are soft, but ancient-looking, cushions scattered across a woven carpet that had to have been dragged up from somewhere. Against the walls lean worn storybooks, much-cherished toys, and odd, quirky objects like a twisted up spatula.

Slowly, tentatively, Ruby wanders into the nook. She gazes out the window at one of the most scenic views she’s ever seen. Atlas sprawls out before her, gleaming in the moonlight. All smooth walls and shiny metal. It’s not home, certainly, and some of the things she’s seen walking the streets with Dad make her stomach churn, but, from this distance, it is kinda beautiful.

Penny walks up beside Ruby. “I like to think one day I’ll be able to go out there on my own, and experience the world for myself. Not just see it from a distance.” Penny says, without taking her eyes off the city. “I’m sorry to have dragged you up here, Ruby Rose. But I very much would like to be your friend and to share secrets with you like friends do, but I do not know when, or if, we’ll even meet again.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Ruby takes Penny’s hand in her own. “I’m glad I got to meet you.” She smiles at Penny. “And become your friend.”

It would take a lot of time and struggling to be together, but Ruby and Penny would eventually become something more than just friends to each other. They’d think back to this moment, lying together in their bedroom on a calm morning or side by side in a tent while on a mission, and grin at each other knowingly. Their past selves may not be aware that they’d just started something new and marvelous, but they did.

Their story would end happily, and they had all the time in the world to get there.

#rwby #rwbyrarepairweek #nuts and dolts #ruby rose #penny polendina #whirls writing #rwby rarepair ficlets 2k19 #firefly roses

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incarnateirony · 5 years

Text

Democratic Debates, Day 1

So a few ground rules:

If you’re going to reply, be an adult about it, and don’t try to read everything in bad faith default lens. Ask questions of anyone who engages rather than accusing. And not in that presumptuous white guy bad faith questioning that isn’t a question tone.

If replying, put your comments with a lead in no longer than two (reasonable) sentences behind a cut. Because

some of us are fandom blogs first or whatever interests and our followers aren’t deeply invested

I just don’t want goddamn pillars of text on my reblog wall if I respond to discussions.

Literally if you’re a republican out to just be a shitlord and start whining or complaining or insulting or “no u”ing, see rule 4

I will not reblog or reply to any commentary that doesn’t fit these very basic guidelines, because internet trolling etc is not worth the future of our country. And that’s very much at stake now.

If you don’t want to see this, blacklist #politics and/or #democratic debates. Now, my takeaways on this, some surprising.

So, I’ll start with some disclaimers: I’m pretty much “vote for my dog over Trump” party line right now but we need to figure out a mix of “our best chance of winning” along of “award for the least tool” with hopefully a side of “I really like them and their policies”

Honestly, I entered this without being fond of Warren. She had some... establishment backing and other things that were just rubbing me wrong. I actually went in to day one looking to hear about Tulsi since I heard great buzz about her but honestly had only pulled up a few pages that sounded great on paper, but wanted to see her in action. Everyone else was littered policy ideas disembodied and, as a very visual person, I need to be able to connect to how they handle their podium beyond writing nice policy platitudes or listening to the toss back and forth online with everybody screaming at everybody else.

I’m also going to get something out of the way, and BEFORE you flame me on my marks on the image, read why I selected one that... I generally wouldn’t. First, this was my original graphic I released.

Okay so sore thumb here: De Blasio. The reason for the circling being simple: if you took every semi-valid idea of every other white guy’s platform on this lineup, gave it a little bit of meat, and showed ACTUAL LIVING PROOF OF HAVING ENACTED IT ALL IN HIS TENURE AND MAKING THE IDEAS WORK, you get De Blasio. A lot of the ideas of the other nominees is basically *hand raise* “I did that.” So like. That’s that.

Anyone with no mark whatsoever is kinda like “you’re there and not trump so good for you” but there’s some updates further down this conversation on one of those.

The internet keeps acting like Klobuchar did well and I really don’t get why. It kinda feels like our token non-canuck trying to appeal to them-there northern hunter-type and cheese folks to reach out as a middle ground without actually committing to much and honestly, she’s just not going to last.

Booker caught my eye even if I was kind of head tilting because that is quite literally the whitest black man I have ever fucking seen, but he made a point about intersectionality, marginalized groups, and held his ground. He was all but unknown to me but I at least looked at him now. On the other hand, a lot of it felt like borderline pandering. I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye on him, but he actually stood out a bit at least. Not hard with the mayo jars up there but whatever.

It’s not a rare take online that Castro took the internet by storm. I love him. Everyone loves him. I do have some concerns long-term though; it’s less having actual problems with his ideas and more knowing that ... our country is too fucked for him right now. He’s advocating some pretty heavily open borders and while in principle I enjoyed watching him stomp on Beto about that, I honestly feel like if we put him against Trump, we’d lose.

There’s people in the red party that ARE tired of Trump, that ARE experiencing a crisis about the inhumane shit going on at the border, that WOULD be willing to crossvote to make it end -- but we can’t forget that a lot of them initially voted for Trump BECAUSE of a deep seeded Xenophobia, and the level of aggression -- again, the kind of aggression I personally agree with -- Castro had may end up being very dangerous long term in getting that vote. Pretty much everyone up there agrees we need very comprehensive immigration reform and immediate action about the travesty, but I feel like unless Castro smooths his roll a bit we’re in for a long term faceplant that gives us another four years of Trumpian hell by people pulling back into their xenophobic mindset and -- if not voting for Trump -- abstaining from voting for him, which I think several other candidates have in their court.

Castro made a bit of a gaffe about switching trans genders but the fact that he tried, I guess. And considered trans in the discussion of choice and birth control etc. It could have very easily just been a stupid fumble. He’s still trying to take it into account. I can forgive that, in the scale of it, even if it has a bit of performer aspect.

Also I’m left to wonder where Castro was when they needed help running in Texas to begin with. I also just don’t see the passion in his eyes of several candidates, it’s strangely calculating on most topics. I like his platform, in theory, but I’m very cautious.

Jay Insley is just weird even if everyone likes him.

Dulaney is a meme and I don’t know why he’s even here.

Tim Ryan accidentally wandered in on his way to the Republican debates as best I can gather.

Tulsi was the one that I was watching. All in all, I was underwhelmed. And then... it got worse.

The better part of her time was spent repeating her time in the military. And while it was great watching her school Tim Ryan, that’s not exactly hard to do. The fact that she lit his ass on fire when he just about self combusted in front of the party without her help -- I mean, it was the highlight of her showcasing aside from the snazzy Rogue hair.

Somehow, for as woke as tumblr is, and the progressives that had me looking her way, I hadn’t heard of her anti-LGBT past which she’s mostly couched her opinions on and held as recently as 2014 or THE FACT THAT I HAVE FOUND OUT THAT SHE WAS VETTED BY THE FUCKING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO BE ON THEIR CABINET, I’M FUCKING HORRIFIED.

BUT THEN THERE WAS THIS LITTLE GEM THAT I FOUND BEFORE ACTUALLY DISCOVERING THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH.

What the FUCK? What are you, seven? That’s literal pre-emptive “my sister stole my phone lol sorry” level tweets. YOU’RE A FUCKING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TALKING ABOUT IMPORTANT NATIONAL MATTERS LOCK YOUR GODDAMN PHONE.

Because THAT’S just what we need, we’ll go from Trump impulse-tweeting to like “LOL fuck korea - lmao sorry my sister texted that”????

Neverminding how STATISTICALLY INCORRECT that is. Depending on exactly HOW you count time Warren got 2nd or 3rd most time -- yes, more than Tulsi. She did not have the most. She did not have “more than all the other candidates combined.” And Tulsi did not have the least time, but center-ground on time. She wasted a bunch of it endlessly reciting her time in the military, scoring an okay shot on Ryan, and... well, vagueblogging about her opinion on LGBT to the vein of “something something equality my bad I was raised conservative” great. Great selling point. Great couching there. Five years ago you were fighting against me having rights and now you’re basically against government deciding what people can’t do but what the fuck is your opinion on me as a human being?

Doubling back from that problem though, that’s when I dug in her LGBT history and ended up tripping over the Trump stuff. AND THIS IS THE CANDIDATE I WENT IN TO HEAR FROM TONIGHT LIKE “YES PLZ LET ME HEAR MORE” because people I knew LIKED her, but then I find out she’s a Trump frand that has Trump-like hyperbolic meltdowns on twitter? NO I DO NOT WANT FEMALE TRUMP WITH ROGUE HAIR THANKS BUT NO THANKS.

Back to Warren, who I started with a MEH on, she came out WICKEDLY strong out of the gate. Her second half was weaker, she kinda has next to no active plan beyond talking/passing around more research on gun reform, but everything else, yes. Do I think she has the potential weight to pull it off, yes. And most of all, watching as she gets mad, upset, or emotional, do I believe she believes everything she said tonight, yes. Look, I know there’s STUFF about her claiming she had Native American heritage or whatever but I’m honestly so far past giving a fuck about the obscure shit like that if they have decent policies because our country is so FUCKED right now that I DONT CARE. She held her ground.

So in the end my spread ends up looking more like

of day 1 contenders, Warren still maintains her strong chance. Castro kind of sprouted up out of the earth and I really goddamn like him, but I do hold caution for my reasons above, because again, our country is THAT FUCKED.

Booker really turned some heads and I liked him Booker... Booker’s very concerned about a lot of marginalized intersectional issues and it took him from “who the fuck is that” onto my radar which is a leap, but he didn’t drill in as hard as Castro did to my mind and I feel like he’s just... I dunno, I could be wrong but I feel like he’s gonna fade. Beto, IDK, still exists, isn’t an embarrassment and doesn’t just morph in with the other white guys up there. He’s not Trump. So I won’t delete him, but let’s say he barely, and I mean BARELY hedged into my consideration in this image, I almost just cropped it over to Warren.

De Blasio is just sort of “status quo, but actually enacts it” but I wouldn’t weep to see him vanish, either. In the end out of this debate though, I see like

Everyone else go home.

ON THE OTHER HAND, MOST CANDIDATES I’M ACTIVELY INTERESTED IN ARE ON THE FLOOR TOMORROW, WHICH BY THE LINEUP IS SLATED TO BE A BLOODBATH.

I’m really, REALLY hoping everybody has the common sense to make such an ass of Biden he’s knocked out early. Like that’s part of why I’m so goddamn interested in day 2. If we end up with Trump vs Biden we might as well all just put on our goddamn clown suits but he has the fiscal backing to push through even if he shouldn’t unless he’s utterly DECIMATED early on.

I don’t like Kamala Harris’ prison industrial complex CRAP but I’d be HAPPY to watch her drag Biden around like a wet rag. Sanders is a given point of interest. Buttigieg is another one to watch. Yang... isn’t... gonna last. But is just sort of a ... fun thing to watch I guess in this mix up. Someone else may surprise me, I don’t know.

#politics #democratic debates

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dangoghz · 7 years

Text

sunsweet

(a sequel to chlorine kisses.)

word count: 1.5k

summary: dnp get married! in the maldives! very warm and fluffy, not really much action goin on here except a lot of soft words about how the sun is heating phils cheeks. lol i wrote it really fast and it’s probs bad but enjoy

———————

Dan’s thumbs cradled the bow tie pinned to his suit. He had been adjusting it for two minutes straight. His stomach felt like little tiny ribbons were being rubbed in its crevices—an oddly specific yet very unpleasant feeling. The young man looked up at the mirror in his tropical hotel room, taking a deep, sensitive breath. He nodded at his reflection. It was the day.

It was the day he would marry his dream boy, his other half. He knew it was cheesy but it could be said they were soulmates. Eight years and his heart leaped more every day to see those black locks and glitter blue eyes. The ribbons fumbled and tumbled.

“Mister howell?” An assistant called, “Are you ready? Everyone else is set.”

Dan took another sharp breath. “Yes.” He scratched at his shaved side and opened his hotel room door. The attendee guided him down the hall.

The music was already playing, meaning Phil, his parents, and Dans dad were already making their way down the carpet. Dan had decided to walk with his mom down the aisle. It was a small wedding on the beach they had planned. Just family and a few close friends. But it made him nervous nonetheless.

The employee and Dan walked through the resort until they reached two buildings. The carpet was obscured by palm trees and the walls of the buildings, and it was a curved path, so Dan wouldn’t be able to see where the ceremony would occur until he walked out. He read the name tag on the assistant who had led him there: Aishath. He thanked her as she urged him forward with a pat on the back.

As Dan stepped onto the velvet, he felt sprigs of nervosity intensify in his torso, but he ignored them. He had been waiting for this for years. Like, a decade. There was no going back. No going back from the way Phil cupped his check. No going back from playing Mario Kart for six hours straight while calling each other ‘nasty twat’ fondly. No going back from ogling each other at the top of the Manchester Eye, unaware of how their lives would entangle like a hybrid flower.

Okay. Stop thinking. Just walk.

Dan gulped and stepped. One, two, three. The trees cleared and sunlight streamed into his blushly face, revealing his family and friends. They stared at him, and dan began to wonder if there was something wrong. He felt to make sure the lily flower hadn’t fallen out of his black suit pocket, and it hadn’t-so why were they staring? He was just a guy from Wokingham…and then he remembered! This was his wedding. It was real. It was good. It was everything he had ever wanted.

As Daniel Lester (that’s right!) strided towards the podium, he could see a gleam on his little brother’s face and a timid but proud look on his parent’s. He didn’t dare look at Phil yet, taking in Bryony and Willow and Louise and PJ, who all looked splendid, first.

And then he glanced up at his fiancé. He saw in those big, whirlpool eyes their whole past, like a fairytale book being flipped through. And how the book started.

A twitter request and an accept. Skype calls for eight hours and forty two minutes. October 19th, 2009: the train station, a hug diminishing all other hugs. Pinof 1, the sky bar, the Uma Thurman poster, the Christmas adventures, the laundry visits, the move, the other move, the tour, the book, the other book, the other other move…….

Oh my god. And their tale had just started. Phil smiled lovingly and held his hand out for Dan, helping him step onto the podium. Phil looked like an angel as always, in a white suit with a red, red rose in his pocket.

The priest cleared his throat. Dan didn’t really listen to anything he was saying. A bunch of stuff that amounted to nothing compared to the way that Phil looked at him and the way Dan at Phil. Everyone could tell they were in love, no matter how they hid it. And it was okay—no, more than okay. Glorious.

“Now, the grooms will say their vows.”

Phil went first. “I’m going to make this short. I love you, you bumbling idiot. I love how you smell like teakwood and how you laugh and how you remind me of Winnie the Pooh. You used to be my fan but now you are the love of my life.” A slight breeze blew through the ceremony, as if to add depth.

“I can’t imagine how my morning would be without you there to eat cereal with while watching Adventure Time reruns on the couch as an excuse to cuddle. You are so much more than you think you are. I hope I am always enough for you. Until death. Please don’t have an existential crisis because I said the word ‘death’.” The audience chuckled. “Yeah. Uh. Love you, BRO!” He ended the speech with a punch to Dan’s gut to emphasize their Bro-ness. Very Phil.

Okay. This was it. He took Phils hand in his, inhaling at the warmth of his palm. “Okay, I was going to practice this and perfect it because that’s what I always do when I want something to be perfect, but I decided that this had to be special. It’s not a video script. I’m winging it.

I love you, Philip Michael Lester, and I have only loved you more every day since seeing that toothy grin through a Skype viewfinder as we talked about Muse and Battlestar Galactica and Attack on Titan and everything else because we were and still are nerds. I can’t put into words how you make me feel. I feel safe with you. You’re like a soft blanket. Wait, no, that’s weird. Uh. You make me feel. Warm. No! That sounds wrong! Fuck it. I love you. Marry me, you bitch!”

Louise started howling in laughter, and Cornelia joined in.

The priest barely had time to say “you may kiss” before Dan grappled at Phils hair and knocked him backwards with a smooch. They parted for a second, Phil laughing, and then Phil kissed him back suddenly. They touched foreheads, light bouncing off of their hair and noses and sand-dusted shoes.

The audience applauded and rose to go to the reception.

—— two hours later ——

Dan and Phil, freshly married, had somehow ended up making out in a cubicle of the bathroom of their own wedding hall. They couldn’t help it—dinner was over anyhow, everyone was dancing, and they could spend their wedding however they wanted, right? Or at least, that’s what Dan told himself as he dappled pecks along Phil’s jawline. Phils breath smelled of red wine.

He could hear muffled music coming from the ballroom. Britney Spears…what state was he in when he made that playlist to put her song in? Whatever.

“Hey Dan,” Phil gasped.

“Yes, hubby?” Dan said with an exaggerated smirk. His tipsiness has made him say hubby like ten times in less than an hour.

“You’re such a good kisser. This is what I married you for. My face is in heaven right now.”

“I know it. And I married you for your sweet, sweet smile which imma kiss right! Now!” And with that he pressed a heavy, wine-stained buss with his lips on Phil’s still open mouth, and stuck his tongue in and out, quickly, as a tease.

They stared at each other for a good minute then, panting. The song ended in the other room. “We should probably go back in—“ Dan suggested, opening the door. And then he heard it. The song. He tumbled out of the cubicle, Phil following him. “It’s-“

“Interrupted by Fireworks,” Phil finished for him. “I put it on there. To dance with you.” Their song, a part of their history.

“Oh, dang it. Sorry we aren’t in there to dance to it.”

A curious smile arose on Phil’s lips. “What do you mean?” He swiftly wrapped his arms around Dan’s torso and pulled him close. Smooth as ever, even in a men’s bathroom.

Dan laughed. “Here?”

Phils rose flopped as he nodded.

“Okay,” Dan managed, lacing his own arms on Phils neck. They swayed to the song gently, as if they were still on the beach and not a meter away from a toilet. The chords strummed gently in Dans ears, nostalgia surging through him. It reminded him of everything. Everything.

Phil looked at him tenderly. Everything but Phil and the song faded as if the lights were dimming. Dans eyes welled up. He was married. To Phil. Phil Lester. How could he be so lucky?

Phil cupped his cheek, a tear cascading silently down his own face. He beamed. “It’s okay. You can cry.”

And Dan did. He sobbed, his filling with tiny reservoirs of water. Salt and memories and joy soaked out into the open, out of pure and ethereal joy. How was this happening? Oh my god.

Phil lifted Dan’s chin up with his hand softly. “Want to watch Haikyuu when we go back home?”

Dan rolled his eyes despite the emotion of the previous moments. He could always trust Phil to lighten it up. “Sure.”

#my writing #ballet class #phan #phan fics #phanfic

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simonsaidfred · 7 years

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Love Forever, an Otasune Fic

(I Already Have Over 9,000 Writings I’m Working On, Here’s A Random Drib!Fic it gets a bit smutty at the end but it’s mostly shippy slighty au, probably somewhere circa MGS2 also, can you tell I’ve been obsessed with cleancore blogs lately?)

Snake held two bottles to his face, scowling and squinting at the labels. Which one is bubble bath…? He wanted… an obscene amount of bubbles. A Curly Sue amount of bubbles. Otacon had been hunched over his computer for days now, hacking here, coding there, working all the while. He threw words around like Breakthrough! and Nine months of work finally paying off! and Philanthropy isn’t going to be fringe anymore! He wasn’t wrong - the progress he was making toward… whatever… was unprecedented. Snake was, as always, impressed with his partner. However, what he wasn’t impressed with was the smell. All the hacking and coding and dozing off for moments at a time at his computer, only to jerk awake and continue to work - other than quick breaks, he hadn’t spent more than one minute at a time in the bathroom. Personal hygiene had gone by Otacon’s wayside. And Snake had had enough. I’m sure a bath would help him relax, Snake reasoned. When was the last time Otacon relaxed? The mission was Operation: Bathe Otacon, and it began immediately. …after a trip to the store. They had basically nothing by the way of shower products, and certainly nothing fancy - dollar store bottles of White Rain 3-in-1 that were three fourths water, and a couple of travel size bottles of store brand dandruff shampoo. This would never do. Snake grabbed his wallet and car keys, approaching Otacon from five o'clock. The scientist startled slightly when the soldier’s caressing hand made contact with his shoulder, and then relaxed into the stroking sensation. “Hey Snake, you’re never going to believe this. I created a whole new interface for the new version of the codec I’ve been working on, and Nastasha sent me some –” “That’s fantastic. Listen, I’m going to the store for a few things. Do you need anything?” “Just for you to come back.” Otacon pushed against the desk to spin around, smiling up at Snake. He perched criss-cross applesauce on the office chair, right knee bouncing slightly. He wore a heather grey t-shirt with a picture of an anime on it, and pajama pants patterned with the same cute cartoon over and over. Snake leaned over, kissing Otacon on the cheek, then backing away immediately. “Teeth. Brush them while I’m gone.” “O-okay…” Otacon stammered sheepishly, glancing down. Snake caught his chin with his hand, pointing his gaze back up. “You’re doing important work, work that no one else is capable of. Stepping away for a minute isn’t going to derail anything you’ve accomplished, Otacon.” With that, Snake kissed him firmly, lips pressed together, a quiet affirmation. When they separated, Otacon’s eyes slightly hazy, Snake teasingly pushed his shoulder, spinning him a quarter turn. “Seriously. Brush your teeth, nerd.” With that, he walked out the door. Otacon spun back to his computer, smiling. (Cue music: Push It To The Limit) Snake pulled into the parking lot of the Target. Shopping was difficult for the legendary mercenary; large crowds of unwashed masses tended to put him on edge. Wal Mart was basically impossible, and smaller dollar stores, which Otacon preferred, weren’t Snake’s favorite either.¹ Target would have to do. Snake stood in front of a wall of dozens of different varieties of bath soap under the bright fluorescence, arms crossed, finger raised to his pursed lips, deep in thought, pondering the eternal question.. Peach or apricot…? Snake was way out of his element here. He could disassemble and reassemble a gun in the time it takes to say “exfoliating body scrub,” but in settling between that and honey citrus coconut what the fuck ever… He needed help. An employee stood a bit down the aisle, facing shelves. Snake grumbled a bit, approaching from their seven. “Excuse me… I was wondering if you could help me.” The employee turned toward Snake’s voice, smiling helpfully. Her name tag stated her name, Lacey. “Sure! There’s quite a selection, it can be a bit overwhelming!” “I’ll say. I don’t know much beyond Lava and Irish Spring.” “Oh, gosh!” Lacey exclaimed. “Well, do you have anything in mind? Are you picking up something for your wi…?” “My partner,” Snake said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He really needs a nice, relaxing bath. I’m picturing a Curly Sue bubble bath.” “I love that movie!” Lacey laughed. “Bubble baths can be nice, but for deep relaxation, I would actually recommend a milk bath.” “A milk bath?” Snake raked his fingernails thru his six o'clock shadow thoughtfully. “Yeah. Here,” she reached down for a bottle. “This is a lavender chamomile milk bath. You can’t beat lavender or chamomile for relaxation.” Snake glanced at the label. Purple. He nodded appreciatively. “This is perfect.” “Let me know if you need help with anything else,” Lacey said with a smile, turning back to the shelves she had been tending to previously. Snake continued studying the shampoos, taking one down at random and popping the lid open to sniff it. Unsatisfied, he set it back down, gaze listing to the right aimlessly. What would Otacon like? His eyes settled finally on a black and red bottle. He picked it up, popping it open and inhaling the fragrance. Roses and berries. He turned the bottle over to read the label. Caress® Fine Fragrance Love Forever™². Snake stared at the label incredulously. We have a winner. Snake returned to the apartment, opening the door with a bit of trouble with the shopping bags. After a brief struggle and a bit of a commotion, he managed to get the door open, calling a greeting to Otacon. “Kept you waiting, huh?” Otacon was slumped at his keyboard, head resting on his crossed arms. His shoulders rose and fell evenly, three blue Z’s floating above his head. Snake closed the door behind him, setting his keys and the bags on the kitchen island. He crossed the living room to where the scientist slept, pulling the hoodie from the back of the chair over the sleeping man’s shoulders, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Mint. Good boy. Snake made some tea and ran a bath. The bathroom mirror fogged from the steam floating in the air. A heavy foam of bubbles floated on top of the bath water. Once the tub was three fourths full, he shut the water off. “Otacon.” Snake rubbed the sleeping man’s shoulder. “Wake up.” “Huhh..” Otacon slowly sat up, sleepily wiping his mouth. “Oh, Snake.” He adjusted his glasses, which Snake gently plucked from his face. “Wha–” “Otacon, it’s time to take a bath.” Snake set the glasses on the desk, folded neatly. He took the hoodie from Otacon’s shoulders, returning it to the back of the chair. He then moved closer, hands on either side of Otacon’s shirt, lifting it with no resistance from him. “I have so much work to do…” Otacon began to protest weakly. “Yes, you do. We both do.” Snake placed his hands on Otacon’s shoulders, leaning in to kiss him. “But right now, you’ve got a warm bubble bath with your name on it.” “Snake…” The scientist eased into the bath with a blissful sigh. The soldier rolled up his sleeves, kneeling at the edge of the tub. He squeezed a palmful of Caress® Fine Fragrance Love Forever™ into his hand before raising a slight lather, massaging it into the scientist’s chest. “Snake, this is wonderful,” Otacon breathed into the steam. His hand reached up, grabbing Snake’s wrist. His eyes slid closed as he moved Snake’s hand down into the water to caress him. Snake smirked as he began to stroke slowly, his other hand reaching to unzip his jeans. His erection strained against the fabric, popping free to stand tall. Otacon opened an eye at the sound of unzipping, and then both eyes popped open. “Snake!” “Otacon…” Snake continued slowly stroking Otacon's cock as Otacon leaned over, his lips parted slightly, taking the head of Snake’s… well, snake into his mouth. Snake’s eyes slid closed as a low moan escaped from his parted lips. fade out ¹Otacon likes dollar stores because they often have obscure or bootleg toys, as well as cheap electronic components; Snake doesn’t like the narrow aisles (source: my headcanon) ²In researching body wash scents for this very fic, I found Caress® Fine Fragrance Love Forever™. Imagine my delight. Please pay me, Caress®. (Link to Caress® Fine Fragrance Love Forever ™ Otasune art I did as a companion piece to this.)

#otasune #slash #snotacon #cleancore

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sending-the-message · 7 years

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Case #1- Suspected Supernatural Activity In A Strip Club by JacobMielke

When I first moved to Milwaukee, I spent my days lounging about my new home, avoiding human contact. Eventually I figured it wasn’t healthy to be a shut-in at my age and I should make an effort at pretending to be a socially adept person.

That was why I found myself sitting in a dive bar, staring at a young woman sitting by herself at a table across the room. Her hair was dyed bright red and her arms were adorned with tattoos of various religious symbols, a pride flag, several pokemon, and a facial portrait of Linda Blair. She was stirring a martini and looked bored.

Now, I’ve never known how to chat up people. My one and only relationship came about when both of us realized we were already dating, so it’s not like I know how to make conversation.

Still, one must do what one can.

To this day, I am too ashamed to share my fumbling attempts to seem cool. I must have done something right because she let me sit with her and we conversed. Her name was Moxxy, which she told me was a play on her actual name, Molly. I introduced myself.

“It’s nice to meet you, Moxxy. My name’s Jacob. Mielke, in case you… I don’t know, wanted to know.” I internally screamed. Both the angel and the devil on my shoulders cringed.

“Milky? Like, the Milky Way Galaxy? Got Milk? Milk duds?”

“I’ve been called all of those at some point, yes. Jacob Mielke, like the drink, only not spelled the same.”

“How do you spell it?”

“M-i-e-l-k-e. It’s Italian.” I tried to pull off the accent and failed. I’m about as Italian as Olive Garden.

“Why does that sound so familiar? Did we go to school together?” She leaned forward, smiling mischievously. I didn’t have a clue who she was, and I think I’d remember meeting someone with such a unique sense of fashion.

“No, I lived in Pennsylvania my whole life. Just moved here a while ago.”

She grabbed my arm in a vice grip and I let out a rather unmanly yelp. She stared hard into my eyes. They were a lovely hazel, not that it mattered to me at the moment. “Do you write scary stories?”

As it turned out, Moxxy was a fan of my story A Lack of Empathy, which I’d posted on a creepypasta website years earlier. We had a long discussion about my bibliography, which culminated in her agreeing to check out more of my stories. And thus began a long and fruitful friendship. I never did end up getting into her pants like I’d originally planned but truth be told, it was nice just to have another friend in this strange, new city.

One day, several months after our meeting, I mentioned in passing that I wanted to try writing nonfiction work. She… took it to heart, would be a polite way of putting it.

“Oh my God, we have to go ghost hunting or something. You could be like a supernatural detective and you can write about your findings! People will love you!”

I admit, the idea was intriguing. I don’t think there are any horror writers who don’t believe, in some small way, there’s a hidden world under our own. A world that can’t be explained or seen, only glimpsed. Personally… well, let’s just say I’ve seen some things that absolutely inspired my work.

For our first “case”, as she called it, Moxxy suggested we go to a strip club she knew. I’m going to omit the name so as not to piss off the wrong people (the heavily armed people, that is). It didn’t take much prompting for me to agree to go. Can’t imagine why. Anyway, Moxxy said that some of the dancers at the club quit after experiencing “supernatural activity”. The plan was to go, buy private dances from a few of the women and question if they’d noticed anything out of the ordinary. I thought it might be easier (not to mention cheaper) to try asking them at the bar or something but if she wanted to do it via private dances, then damn it, I was going to respect her wishes.

I did some research on the club to prep for our investigation. Most of what I found was articles and opinion pieces posted online by people who have dedicated their lives to combating the evils of what consenting adults do in private. There were, however, a few that caught my eye. One article referenced an incident in which an employee disappeared. Apparently a bouncer named John Doe (totally his real name, guys) showed up for work one night and was never seen again. The owner and dancers confirmed seeing him there, doing his job, but at some point no one was paying attention to him anymore and then when they went to find him later, he was gone.

Another was a post on reddit (now deleted) claiming that a dancer had gone missing on a night she was scheduled to work. They attached a photo of her as well. It’s hard to tell how reliable that info is, as there were no sources to back it up and none of the commentators knew anything useful.

Eventually the night arrived. Moxxy and I took the bus to the club, where she just strolled right in without the bouncer saying shit about it. She winked at me and I stared murder at her while the bouncer took my money and ID. The club was packed; every seat around the stages held a man (and the occasional woman) with a fist-full of dollars. Moxxy suggested we split up to cover more ground (her investigative technique was plopping down in one of the chairs and staring at a voluptuous woman dancing upside-down on a pole). I was approached by my first dancer less than a minute after taking a seat at the bar.

“Hey, baby. You mind if I sit here?” She had a heavy Russian accent. I consented to her presence and we made small talk while I waited for her to propose a dance, as per experience dictated.

Did I say experience? I meant research. I’d researched strip club etiquette, not experienced it.

I paid for three dances and hinted that I was willing to spend more if kept happy. It was hard to get a question at first, she was really a fan of that thing exotic dancers do when they rub their breasts on your face. Eventually though, I asked: “So I heard that some weird things happen here. Like maybe the place is haunted. Ever notice anything weird around here?”

She stopped grinding on my lap abruptly, which was a sufficient answer in and of itself. “Where did you hear that?”

“A friend of mine knows some people who used to work here. She said they were scared by ghosts or something?”

“There’s no ghosts here.” She hesitated, then leaned in and whispered: “But I think there might be something. Sometimes when I walk by the basement door, I can hear my Babushka talking, telling me to come down. But she’s been dead for years.”

“How do you know it’s not her ghost?”

“I know my Babushka.” She dropped her eyes and I saw goosebumps appear on all over her. “I loved her and she loved me. Whatever that thing is, it does not love me. I can hear it in the voice.”

The remaining time in our dance was awkward. I let her wiggle, passionless and tense, on my lap until the songs were over and tipped her extra. I looked for Moxxy while returning to my seat at the bar but couldn’t find her in the crowd. Maybe she’d gotten a private dance. I waited but when four songs had passed she was still nowhere to be seen. The first inklings of doubt entered my mind. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to go looking for… whatever this thing was. Another five songs passed and my concern blossomed into worry.

I found a man at the bar who looked like he belonged there and tapped his shoulder. “Hey buddy, have you been here before?”

He turned slowly to look at me with one eye (his other was too obscured by a drooping eyelid to be of much use). When he spoke I noticed his breath was infused with enough alcohol to sterilize a hospital. “Sure am.”

“Do you know where I can find the basement?”

He slurred some directions and pointed to the back of the club, near the restrooms.

“Thank you.”

“Welcome. I love you, man.”

“I love you too, sir. You have a nice night.”

It took me a minute to actually find the basement entrance. All the other doors in the establishment were painted black but the basement door was the same shade of red as the walls of the club. I couldn’t help but feel like they were intentionally hiding it from customer view (understandable). I made sure no one was watching and pressed my ear to the door.

Three things happened in the space of a few seconds. The first made my blood cold (you think that’s a silly saying? It’s not. When gripped in a state of intense fear, your brain releases epinephrine and cortisol to prepare your body to fight or flee. A side effect is a perceived rapid temperature drop). Someone (something) was scratching the door on the other side. It was too soft to be heard over the music, unless you were as close as me. I tried to think of a reason why a person would rake their nails on the door like that but I couldn’t. No one would do that unless they were crazy or intentionally trying to scare someone.

The second thing to happen… well, I’m not sure anything did happen. Materially speaking, at least. What I thought was happening was some kind of energy was pouring from the door and mixing with mine. For a split second I became convinced that some kind of consciousness was touching my mind. Something not human. More than that, just as I knew it was there, it was also aware of me.

And that was that. Mind made up, time to go. Except… you know that moment in a horror movie where a character does something really stupid?

The third thing to happen was the scratching stopped and the whispering began. I couldn’t make out what the voice was saying but the longer I listened, the more convinced I became that it was Moxxy’s.

Occam’s Razor: something, some ghost or demon or mimic monster, was using Moxxy’s voice to lure me into the basement. I’d become the next person to disappear in the club. The smart thing to do was obviously to walk away. And yet… Moxxy was missing. Why would she leave without me? It was her idea to come here in the first place. What if she went down there while I was getting a dance?

What if it wasn’t too late to save her?

I opened the door wide. Nothing stood before me. There was a light switch on the wall at the top of the stairs and I used it before taking a few steps down. Light flooded the basement and the terror that gripped me only moments ago vanished. I descended the rest of the way and looked around. The basement was a single, open room supported in places with cement pillars. Boxes were everywhere, piled from floor to ceiling in some places. Moxxy wasn’t down here but on the far side of the room was something that caught my attention: a hole in the wall. I crossed the room for a closer look. It was a perfect circle, like a laser beam cut through the concrete. It was about two feet across. While I examined it, two footsteps thudded at the top of the stairs. I turned and saw a man wearing the bouncer’s uniform standing in the doorway. His face was grim.

“Whatever you do, don’t scream.”

He retreated through the door and shut it. Before I could take a step in its direction, the light vanished. The fear returned. There was something in the basement and it was between me and the door. I could feel it there, feel its malice.

When flight is impossible and fighting isn’t an option, the human animal has a third defense mechanism rarely used: freeze. I didn’t so much as twitch a muscle in the dark. My breath was as shallow as I could make it without passing out and I squeezed my eyes shut. There was a shuffling in front of me and a raspy hiss that grew louder as my companion inched closer. Then it was in front of me, then all around me. The noise ceased completely and something touched me, just barely brushing the hairs on my arm.

Light shone in the basement and I saw it even through my closed eyelids. There was a bang and a voice I didn’t recognize: “Over here!”

I opened my eyes and turned my head in the direction of the sound. A young woman wearing flashy lingerie and body glitter (a dancer from the club?) stood in a doorway on the side of the basement. I hadn’t even noticed it was there before, I was so fixated on the hole in the wall. The dancer waved me over urgently. “This way!”

I moved for the door but a voice from behind once again froze me in place before I could reach it. “No… stay. Stay here with me. I won’t hurt you. I have things I want to show you.”

I raised a foot to step forward but moving was slow, like the air had turned to tar.

“Stay, Jacob. You’re just like me, a child of darkness. Stay. You can accomplish so much more down here with me. Just turn around… look at me.”

The woman in the doorway shook her head. “Don’t do it!”

A small puff of cold air hit my ear and a voice whispered mere centimeters from me, “Look at me.”

I bolted for the door. The woman turned and ran as well and I heard her high heels clanging on something metal. It was a staircase. The door led outside from the basement to an alley behind the club. I rushed up the stairs, but couldn’t resist looking back. The basement door was swinging shut on its own. In the moments before it closed, I saw a pair of eyes looking at me from the dark. They flashed green and yellow, like cat eyes. It was less than a second. But I looked. I saw.

I didn’t see the woman in the alley, nor did I see her when I went around to the front of the building. But I did see Moxxy, standing near the front door. She looked surprised to see me. “Sorry man, I got kicked out. Apparently you’re not allowed to put your fingers in the girls here. I was expecting you to come out the front. Did you learn anything from that Russian chick?”

I looked around. The woman couldn’t have gone so far so quickly. But she was gone. “Hey, did you see one of the dancers come running out before me?”

“No, just you. Jesus dude, are you okay? You’re shaking!”

It took two days to convince Moxxy I wasn’t making up a story. Two days for her to believe there really was something in the basement, something not as physical as a person yet not as immaterial as a spirit. She wasn’t very sensitive about how close I came to… well, something tells me death isn’t a strong enough word to cover it. More than anything else, she was excited. In her mind, our new investigation team was in full force and we’d just opened our first case.

Though I was too terrified to realize it at the time, the bouncer who stood at the top of the stares and the dancer who led me to safety had faces I’d seen before, in pictures on the internet on articles and posts about missing strip club employees.

The terror I’d experienced faded over time. I think the mind has a way of refusing to feel certain things, in order to protect itself. I still think about that day sometimes and I’ve never forgotten those eyes (“Look at me.”). Still, life has mostly gone on as normal.

Well, not normal. Over the years, Moxxy and I encountered a great many things that could generously be referred to as unusual. I didn’t get around to publishing our stories or the adventures of the tiny amateur group that would eventually become Mielke Investigations until now. I did write about them though, keeping my musings and notes and findings in folders on my computer marked as cases. This one, obviously, was Case #1.

I do plan on sharing more of our cases once I figure out the technical details and rules (like should I put a series tag on these posts even if they’re all stand-alone stories?) both on this site and my professional author page (which you can view here by the way).

I’m not sure why I want to share these stories or even why I seek out the paranormal in the first place. I think it has something to do with what that thing in the basement said about me being a “child of darkness”. I don’t consider myself a bad person but I do write about evil. Not only as fiction but now also as my experiences with it. I record the dark things and then bring them to you. Maybe that’s enough to count me among them.

Or not, I’m basically talking out my ass at this point. Thanks for reading about my experiences. There will be more cases to come. In the meantime, some advice: when you go to a strip club, try to stay with the crowd. And don’t go in the basement.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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irenenorth · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Irene North

New Post has been published on http://www.irenenorth.com/writings/2017/08/photo-essay-total-solar-eclipse-at-agate-fossil-beds-national-monument/

Photo Essay: Total Solar Eclipse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

The road wasn’t as busy as I had thought it would be at 5 a.m. I suppose it’s because several people traveled up to agate Fossil Beds National Monument the night before and many more came later in the day.

About 10 miles before the park, cars, trucks and RVs dotted the sides of the road. They were all out of state vehicles. Most were pulled off the road and parked against fences. The fences are to keep livestock in. It doesn’t mean it’s free land to park your car or pitch your tent. But they did so anyway.

It angered me in a way. It’s great that people travel from places far away to see an eclipse at a great site, but disrespecting others and their land rubs me the wrong way.

Later in the day, I heard one gentleman say, “We’re so far out in the middle of nowhere, the owners, if there even are any, probably wouldn’t have seen us anyway.”

I was wearing my Star-Herald polo shirt and I was working. I chose to let that comment go. I also didn’t want it to ruin my day.

I turned into the park. The rangers smiled as they saw me. My day was already better. This is a photo essay of my day. I wrote two stories for the Star-Herald, took more than 700 photographs, met some new people, and experienced a phenomenal event.

As we began our day at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, three hawks (one is hidden within the leaves) rested in a tree near Park Ranger Alvis Mar’s home. Mar allowed us to park our car at his home. It’s 6:04 a.m.

A spider web can be clearly seen thanks to the early morning dew at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

Cars line the road to the visitors center at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument at 6:05 a.m., Monday, August 21, 2017. Paul and I are walking on a service road within the park.

Moments before sunrise, the visitors center at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is still obscured in fog. It is 6:06 a.m.

The sun is nearly here as the waters of the Niobrara River are gently moving at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

I know it’s two photos of the Niobrara River, but this is a different angle from the photo before. It is 6:14 a.m. at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument on August 21, 2017. Eclipse day.

The sun peeks over the horizon at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. The visitors center and the sun are partially obscured by fog. It is 6:17 a.m.

Taken from the view of the road, Paul and I finally reach the end of the service road at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. We now begin our walk to the visitors center, about a mile away.

Someone who camped out at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument goes for a run at 6:41 a.m. I am able to just glimpse this man. Paul and I were picked up by the Scotts Bluff National Monument shuttle, which was on loan to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument for the day. This photo was taken while the shuttle was moving.

This gentleman was taking photos of sunflowers. The bright morning sun made for unique photo opportunities at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. It is now 6:58 a.m.

The spider webs were everywhere in the early morning at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

This guy was one of many who arrived early, staked out their spot for the total solar eclipse and then promptly took a nap. It is 7:16 a.m. at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. In a little over three hours, a total solar eclipse will begin.

Chuck Cynamon with Citizen CATE looks like he’s running around his telescope, but he’s really making final calculations for his project. He arrived at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument at 3:15 a.m., Monday, August 21, 2017.

These two stamps were made available to the public for the day. The stamp on the left was only available on August 21, 2017. The stamp on the right is the normal stamp for visitors. Many people stamped both into their National Parks passports. Others stamped them onto a piece of paper like you see in the photograph.

While people did yoga, Aurora McCord, of Denver, looked at the sun. She and her father, Matt, left Denver at 3 a.m. to make it Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in time for the total solar eclipse.

This is just an onion holding down napkins.

This is the only meal I had on eclipse day. It was really good. It’s 8:25 a.m. Eclipse starts in two hours.

The beans were as good as they look.

I don’t know where this girl was going, but it must have been fun getting there.

Someone decided 9:05 a.m. was a good time to go fly a kite.

Volunteer Jeff Bradshaw attempting to hide his phone. Sorry Jeff. You’ll have to find a new hiding place now that the whole world knows.

Thirty-nine wonderful folks from The Netherlands came to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument to view the eclipse. They are getting the final settings just right on their telescope.

See those two guys in the back? They’re called assholes. They climbed under the roped off area at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and went hiking on the trails. It’s a shame they didn’t get bit by a rattlesnake. There was no cell service and park rangers were elsewhere in the park. Don’t be an asshole. If an area is roped off in a national park or monument, it’s been done for your own safety.

Just hanging on a leaf. This little critter is waiting for the total solar eclipse to start at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. It’s 9:36 a.m. It will start in less than an hour.

Many families with children spend time doing projects on their own, with their parents and with the help of park rangers. Here, Hanya Simon, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, stares off into the distance after making a picture with feathers in the sun. She and her family spent time in several national parks in South Dakota before comeing to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument for the total solar eclipse.

This is Ron Banfiel’s camera. Three years ago, he and his wife traveled by car between Denver, Colorado and North Dakota. They made a stop at Agate Fossil Beds. The Banfiels have an interest in paleontology and astronomy. when they saw the total solar eclipse was coming through Agate, they thought the park was their best chance to see the event. The couple hail from Flagstaff, Arizona. Banfiel said he couldn’t image a better place to see a solar eclipse.

Lakota Kelly Looking Horse speaks to the crowd in full regalia at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. This is one of my favorite photos.

If you’d like to read my story about what Kelly Looking Horse had to say, you can find it at the Star-Herald.

As Kelly Looking Horse turns, you can see part of the feathers that make up the back of his outfit. He knows every previous owner of his clothing. It is part of his heritage and he will one day pass it on to another Lakota.

Just some of the crowd who gathered around to listen to Kelly Looking Horse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

Paul North looks at the total solar eclipse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. He called first contact about 15 minutes ago.

After talking to the crowd for about 45 minutes, Kelly Looking Horse gathered the people together in four circles to dance. At the end of the dance, they turned around and greeted each other as friends. Eventually, the crowd dispersed to view the total solar eclipse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

Though it may seem as if a spotlight has been turned on Kelly Looking Horse, this is how the sunlight was projected onto the Earth during the partial phase of the total solar eclipse at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. It is also my favorite photograph of Kelly Looking Horse.

Jeff Leanna takes photos of the total solar eclipse during first contact at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. Jeff was kind enough to loan me his tripod and filter so I could snap a few photos. But that’s what the day was all about – people sharing, talking, laughing, and experiencing a moment in time.

This isn’t the best photo ever taken of Matt Salomon, but I use it here to demonstrate what we saw with our eyes. As the sun neared totality, the sky and everything around us looked as if it was illuminated by an artificial spotlight.

Moments before totality, you could see the Moon’s shadow approaching Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. When it finally arrive and blocked the sun, a cheer came over the crowd.

The moon begins eclipsing the sun over Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. Sun spots can be seen on the sun.

This is the best photograph I have of totality. It is over Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. The spot on the left is, I think, Regulus, but I’m not an astronomer and I can’t be 100 percent sure that’s what it is.

My best photo moments after the total eclipse of the sun at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. You can see the beginning of the diamond ring effect.

After totality, everyone was sharing the pictures they got. Here, Matt Salomon, of Scottsbluff, takes a picture of the photo Ron Banfiel, of Flagstaff, Arizona, took. Matt jokingly said he was going to take credit it for it.

Once the total solar eclipse was over, park rangers opened the trail at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

Folks hike along the trail at Agate Fossil Bed National Monument after the total solar eclipse on Monday, Auguse 21, 2017. I can’t tell if the guy in the striped shirt stole that sunflower or if it’s just a trick of the eye.

The Bone Bed trail. You have to travel along this trail to get back to my car, which was parked at a park ranger’s home. On this trail, you’ll see Thomas Cook’s grave and the Bone Cabin.

The visitors center at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument at 1:35 p.m. There are still thousands of visitors in the park after witnessing a total solar eclipse.

John Cook’s grave is just a short walk off the trail to the Bone Cabin. Near his grave is a bench to rest on. From the bench, there is a beautiful view for you to take some time to reflect on nature, or anything else.

John Cook’s grave at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

The Bone Cabin at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. You can see my car in the left, middle part of this picture. You can see some of the cars parked on the side of the road in the distance.

There is a rattlesnake in this hole. Paul and I can hear him. I walked up to the Bone Cabin and tried to look in the window. I’m too short to see inside. I think I walked on past the rattlesnake. The window is about six feet up and two feet to the right of this hole. When Paul walked up to the window, he said, “Oh shit! There’s a rattlesnake. Quick come take its picture.” I wasn’t quick enough. I saw its rattle and about six inches of snake before it disappeared. Paul was happy. He got to see a total solar eclipse and his first live rattlesnake in the same day.

I didn’t get a photograph of the rattlesnake, but here’s some snake skin.

Though I didn’t get to photograph the rattlesnake, I did get this picture of a dragonfly outside the Bone Cabin at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. I then walked to my car about 100 feet away and drove to get a signal so I could turn in my stories and photographs to the Star-Herald.

This is my collection of eclipse glasses I gathered. I will keep a couple for sentimental reasons. The rest, I have given to Paul to take to work at Gering High School. Kory Knight is collecting them to send to Astronomers Without Borders. They will distribute them to folks who can’t afford glasses for the next total solar eclipse in the world. If you want to get rid of yours, drop by the Star-Herald and give them to me. I’ll make sure they get where they need to be.

#Agate Fossil Beds National Monument #American Indians #Nebraska #solar eclipse

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