iluvroadrunner6 | get your words out } { gywo bingo!

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PENDING:

~~Neal/Rebekah~~ coconut fudge really blows down those blues, 823 words
~~Stefan/Allison~~ i wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change, 937 words
~~Bo/Tyler~~ and times are forever frozen still, 1,470 words
~~Damon/Buffy~~ we put our feet where they had, had to go, 933 words
~~Diana/Stefan~~ c'mon pretty baby and take a chance, 1,395 words
~~Dean/Christine~~ comes a rainstorm, get rubbers on your feet, 1,204 words
~~Evelina & Alec~~ but you know i know when it's a dream, 972 words
~~Christine & Elena~~ my father was a gamblin' man down in new orleans, 1,238 words
~~Apollo/Elena~~ messin' with the flavor oh the flavor that you savor, 1,029 words
~~Rafe/Hana~~ two ordinary people picked by fate or circumstance, 1,877 words
~~Rafe & Alexander~~ take heed, 'cause i'm a lyrical poet, 1118 words
~~Peter/Nadia~~ i never knew there was someone, to make me come alive, 1,015 words
~~Hales~~ i like this mess i've made so far, 922 words
~~Stiles/Cora~~ all the cats and chicks can really get their kicks at the hop, 1,149 words
~~Derek/Bo~~ but they haven't put their mittens on, 889 words
~~Vi & Felicity~~ where the french fries are fresh and you might get murdered, 1,063 years
~~Lila & Attar~~ she's seen all the disciples and all the wannabes, 894 words
~~Max/Piper~~ you were born with a wanderer's soul, 990 words
~~Piper, Christopher & David~~ girl there's a better life for me and you, 1,208 words
~~Kali, Neal & Dylan~~ sooner or later i'm greater than you, 1,095 words

Word Count:
24,849 words

Keeping track of the belts I've earned in the comments below. I'M GONNA DO THE THING. Or at least try really really hard. If you have requests, feel free to drop them in as comments below.

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Title: coconut fudge really blows down those blues
Fandom: White Collar/The Originals
Prompt: Kitchen
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 823 words
Summary: Neal cons his way into a professional kitchen to take Rebekah on a date in the middle of a supernatural turf war.
Warnings: N/A

Title: we put our feet where they had, had to go
Fandom: Buffyverse/The Vampire Diaries (books) with a bit of RP flavor
Prompt: Bridge
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 933 words
Summary: Buffy is pretty sure that when she comes back from the dead, the only place she actually exists is Damon Salvatore’s head.
Warnings: Mentions of character death.

Title: take heed, 'cause i'm a lyrical poet
Fandom: Original (Riftverse)
Prompt: Frozen Ocean
Rating: PG
Word or Line count: 1,118 words
Summary: There are probably worse things in the world than being trapped in the middle of the artic with an Afreet demon.
Warnings: N/A

Title: my father was a gamblin' man down in new orleans
Fandom: Star Trek AOS/The Vampire Diaries/The Originals with a little RP flavor thrown in.
Prompt: Streets I'm not sure if this is New Orleans but that was what came to mind.
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 1,238 words
Summary: No matter what the risk, she can’t let Christine go after him alone, and she knows that she will if she doesn’t do something. But that doesn’t mean Elena can’t go in without a plan.
Warnings: Klaus. He is a warning onto himself.

Edited 2014-07-17 18:01 (UTC)

Neal/Rebekah

Stefan/Allison

Bo/Tyler

Damon/Buffy

Diana/Stefan

Dean/Christine

Evelina and Alec

Christine and Elena

i don't know if it's okay to ask for npc action, but ;;

apollo/elena

if not

rafe/hana pls

trust me to pick the silly ones there. lbr i'd want both but that's greedy and i don't want to heap too much on you, so if either/any of them inspires you? if not i can always come up with more.

Edited 2014-07-14 13:01 (UTC)

... rafe and alexander

shhh, i wasn't here.

Adjusting to New Orleans is a process.

Being under the watchful eyes of not one but two Originals (one of which he may have insulted by calling his art simplistic), especially considering he was mostly brought there as Rebekah’s boyfriend and henceforth will never be seen as anything else, is much more suffocating than he originally realized. Add to the fact that the kitchen seems to be understocked for anyone living, let alone a pregnant werewolf, and Neal spends most of his time in the kitchen itself, fixing meals for Hayley and stocking the fridge so that it’s actually fit to use most of the time.

(Being the only living person in the house, Hayley appreciates his efforts greatly. That’s probably another reason why he’s being watched like a hawk.)

Regardless, despite the vast improvements he’s made to the kitchen, he can sense Rebekah growing weary under the pressure of her brothers. That’s why when the moment is right – otherwise known as the one night where some big political chess move isn’t being made – he kidnaps her from the house, cons his way into one of the many professional kitchens in New Orleans, and prepares to cook her a meal that’s just for the two of them. They may get caught, they might not, but in the meantime they have the place to themselves and he has a professional kitchen – who could ask for more?

“Hayley is becoming quite fond of your cooking,” Rebekah comments dryly as she lounges near the stove, a glass of wine in her hand as she watches him work. Even though they’ve only been there for barely half an hour, she seems a little bit lighter, and that alone is worth the effort of the trip. “None of us have really taken the time to learn.”

“I’m just looking out for your niece.” Not Klaus’s daughter, even if it means the same thing. “Three meals of cereal a day does not a healthy pre-natal diet make.”

“And what, exactly, would you know about pre-natal care?”

“I did a lot of research when Diana was getting ready to give birth. If I was going to be a somewhat uncle to a tiny Barrigan, I wanted to be prepared.” He pauses, gesturing with his knife briefly as he did. “Granted, she took all of my advice with a grain of salt, considering it was coming from me, but she trusted me enough to let me feed her, for whatever that’s worth.”

She smiles a bit at that, leaning into his shoulder a bit to get a better whiff of the food. “Well, this smells fantastic.”

“Thank you. And it is not even remotely baby safe, so let’s not tell Hayley that I was cheating.”

She laughs a bit at that, leaning in to rest her chin against his shoulder. It’s the opposite shoulder as his cutting hand so he doesn’t mind the familiar weight pressed against him. He just keeps chopping against the board for a moment, letting her soak in the moment. When he shifts slightly, to dump what he’s cutting into the pan, she takes an unneeded breath before speaking.

“I know this hasn’t been easy, being here.”

Neal glances back at her, dragging his knife against the cutting board as he does. “I don’t think existing in New Orleans these days is easy for anyone.”

She gives him a bit of a look at that. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He places the cutting board down and picks up the spoon so that he can stir the pain in front of him. “But I said I would stick it out. I keep my promises, so as long as you’re here, I’m here.” He pauses for a moment, before glancing back at her. “Provided one of your brothers doesn’t try to stake me first.”

Rebekah rolls her eyes, because they both know that that isn’t as much of a throwaway line as he’d like it to be. “So long as you’re taking care of Hayley, I don’t think they’ll try. Elijah’s priority, if nothing else, seems to be keeping her healthy so that the baby stays healthy.”

“I think it’s a little more than that.” Neal got to be an expert at reading people a long time ago, even those as stoic as Elijah, and there’s something in that façade that cracks when he looks at her. “But good to know that my cooking is finally worth something.”

She laughs at that. “I suppose it is.” She watches as he finishes up the meal, dishing it out onto two plates before grabbing a set of forks and taking one from him with a smile. “But for now, I think we should talk about anything but my impossible brothers or a supernatural war.”

“Interesting,” he says with a smile, before moving with her to a set of stools on the other side of the stove. “Challenge accepted.”

The thing about dying in Bete Noire is that you’re never really … dead.

Most people usually come back. They’re scarred and never quite the same, but they’re alive and one little step closer to the city breaking them completely. But even if they do come back a little broken, they’re at least alive. They’re physical beings that can talk to people and reach out and touch them, be touched, be present in the world, even if they’re not completely in touch with it.

Buffy is pretty sure that when she comes back from the dead, the only place she actually exists is Damon Salvatore’s head.

She’s not a figment of his imagination. She feels like she’s her own person, and she’s not here to taunt him, but he’s the only one who can see her. He’s the only one who realizes she’s there. He can’t touch her, but he can feel her presence in a way that the rest of the city seems to ignore. For a long time, people look at him like he’s actually, finally cracked and that the city has done him in, but Buffy is always quick to reassure him that he is not crazy.

Probably.

Maybe.

When Bonnie starts side-eyeing him, that’s when they start keeping their conversations to Damon’s vampire dream world. It starts as a place that’s Bete Noire, but not. Familiar streets and familiar places and drinks at Harvelle’s where it’s hard not to miss the scorch marks around the edges. She’s not sure if that’s her influence or Damon’s mind being more accepting of the fact that Harvelle’s is gone than she is (which is odd, considering she died in it), but it keeps things real, even for a moment.

Then there’s trips to Fell’s Church. He even tries to recreate Sunnydale for her once, trying to use her memories to rebuild Willy’s out of her memories of it, but the details are all wrong, too abstract like it’s clear they were coming from somewhere else.

But soon the trips start to be fewer and further between. Familiar places are replaced by long bouts of silence and isolation to the point where she’s practically clawing at the walls he puts her behind. There’s a part of her that knows why – she’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to exist in this space between life and not. She’s supposed to be dead, and there’s a part of her that’s annoyed that the universe has tried to off her three times now and it still can’t seem to get it right.

But if she’s going to exist in this place of in-between, she won’t be kept in a box like a prisoner either. She’s the Slayer, not some toy that a vampire can put away when he doesn’t want to acknowledge her. She punches and kicks and claws and screams until she’s hoarse and her skin is beaten raw and then she stops.

She lets it heal.

And she does it all over again.

It’s about six months into this little arrangement that she wakes up on a bridge she doesn’t recognize, over a gorge that is a very, very long way down. Damon is standing next to her, all of his usual confident swagger, but looking frayed and tired around the edges. He leans over the edge, looking down into the rushing water and jagged rocks below, before sighing softly.

“We can’t keep doing this, belissima.”

She knows. She knows it more and more the longer she’s trapped behind his mental walls. He can’t keep living in a fantasy world and she can’t be kept prisoner in his mind for the rest of eternity. They’ll drive each other insane ten times over.

“So what do we do?”

He exhales slowly, which is an odd sound because vampires don’t really breathe, at least not where she’s from. She watches him, waits for an answer that will save them both from each other. It’s kind of ironic, that the time they do the most damage to each other is not when they’re Slayer and vampire, when she was alive and he was undead, but when she’s a ghost and he’s just a man, slowly being driven insane by someone he should have let go of a long time ago.

Maybe it’s finally time to do that now.

“There’s a priest in the city. He knows a ritual. But I wanted to be sure to say goodbye first.”

She can read in his tone that it’s already started, the ritual is in progress and she’s going to be gone soon, back to whatever ether she came from in the first place. She shifts a bit as she stands turning to face him a little more as she does.

“Guess we never really got to say goodbye the first time.”

He gives her a halfhearted smile. She wishes it could have been something a little more than that, but she’s already fading, her ability to touch going along with it. “Wherever you wind up, take care, Buffy.”

She smiles a bit in return and she nods. “Is this the part where I say ciao?” Though it sounds considerably less sexy coming from her rather than him, but he’s had a good five centuries longer to practice his Italian charm. He grins all the same, before taking a step forward and giving her a kiss on the cheek before she feels herself fade completely.

“Ciao, belissima. A presto.”

She smiles again, this time a bit sadder as the last of her fades from view. “I hope not.”

Edited 2014-07-15 17:56 (UTC)

Peter/Nadia - Spamalot

Hales as children - Spamalot

Cora/Stiles - Canon AU

Derek/Bo - Teleios (Dealer's choice | Hard mode ON - not the bed)

vi & felicity

lila & attar :)

piper & max

piper & christopher & david :D

kali & neal & dylan :D :D

There are probably worse things in the world than being trapped in the middle of the artic with an Afreet demon.

Or, at least, he assumes it’s the artic. It’s not like he brought GPS when he, Rafe and Leo were unceremoniously dumped into the middle of the ocean, and all he can really tell at this point is that it’s really, really cold. Bonus: it was winter in Chicago so it’s not like they came into things in shorts and a t-shirt. They had parkas and boots and gloves, which is good. They also have someone who can regulate their own body temperature to very, very warm, so also a bonus.

However, when that person isn’t the only one who falls into the ice cold waters of whatever ocean this is, you have to get a little creative with your saving techniques. Since by some miraculous miracle, Leo managed not to slip off the block of ice they landed on, he’s put in charge of venturing ahead to see if he could find signs of life or a boat, while Alexander, the natural space heater, is given the task of making sure that Rafe doesn’t succumb to hypothermia. Not easy when he’s pretty soaking wet himself, but they shuffle the parkas around, settle into a position that’s incredibly snuggly – Rafe’s back is pressed to Alexander’s chest, with Alexander’s legs flanking him on either side and Rafe’s turned his park around so that it’s on backwards and wrapping them in a cocoon of warmth – and prepare to not freeze to death. Alexander’s even got his arms around Rafe’s middle for good measure.

If they had a bit more machismo – or maybe their teeth were chattering a little less – there’d probably be a comment about spooning to be made, but Alexander doesn’t find himself particularly caring at the moment.

“Don’t get eaten by an abominable snowman!” is the parting shot to Leo as he ventures forth, hopping carefully across the floating clumps of ice, windmilling his arms wildly to keep his balance and not slip. He then flips Alexander the bird. That’s true friendship right there.

“M-maybe we sh-sh-shouldn’t let him go a-alone.” Rafe is shivering violently in his arms and Alexander just leans in closer, pressing himself against Rafe’s back as he slowly starts to bring his body temperature up. He doesn’t want to set anything around them – like Rafe – on fire, and he also doesn’t want to shock his system too much either. So he takes it a few degrees at a time (at least as best he can) and hopes that this doesn’t end in third degree burns.

Or the ice drift melting out from under them.

“Look, when you’re not stammering over every other word? Then we’ll catch up with him. But right now? We need to get you dry and warm first.”

Dry was harder than warm, especially with how cold it is because their clothes want to freeze more than they want to dry out, but the heat is making that hard. He can already feel the water from his coat seeping into the spaces where his t-shirt is drying and he shifts his arms, wrapping them around his shoulders to try and keep it off his friend.

Rafe just nods his agreement half-heartedly, eyes watching out over the ice as the tiny parka that is Leo disappears across the plane. He’s shivering less as the heat is applied, but Alexander can still feel his heart rate slowing, either into sleep or unconsciousness – Alexander isn’t looking to deal with either. Either is bad in a situation like this.

“You know, I find it kind of ironic that out of all of us, Leo is the one who didn’t wind up in the water.”

Rafe blinks a bit at the statement, bringing him back into the present for now. That’s a good sign. Alexander intends to keep him there. “Wh-what?”

“His name is Leo. Leo DiCaprio drowned in the icy waters of the Atlantic in Titanic.” He pauses and puts on his most dramatic Kate Winslet voice. “I won’t let go, Jack.”

“I-I think it would be m-more ironic if his name was J-Jack.”

“Eh, I think Leo works just as well.” And it keeps Rafe talking, which is the main mission of the moment. He shifts a bit when he feels the water starting to seep into his pants and he makes a face. “I think the ice under my butt is melting.”

There’s a stuttering laugh and Rafe pushes back into the warmth more. His lips are looking a little less blue and his color is coming up, which is always a good sign. He rubs the sides of his arms, before moving down to his legs, trying to keep the circulation going.

“Do you think you’re good enough to walk a bit?”

“Can we walk like this?”

“We can try? My butt’s just getting cold.”

“Maybe we should just inch back a bit so you’re not sitting in a puddle?”

Alexander considers a moment before giving a bit of a shrug, then glancing behind him. He pushes up from his legs, using his arms to drag Rafe with him, so that he’s waddling backwards out of the divot he’d melted for himself and into the fresh snowbank. What he doesn’t anticipate is Rafe’s tush getting caught on the edge of it, losing his balance as a result, and the two of them falling in a rather uncoordinated heap on the ice.

“Mayday,” he calls out as he starts to tumble. “Mayday!”

They both land with an oof, their bodies still in a rather warm but unbalanced heap. He huffs quietly for a moment, before Rafe huffs quietly from next to him.

“I’m starting to think that Leo got the better deal.”

“Agreed. Next time we’ll let him fall in the water.”

They stay there for a moment, trying to figure out which way they have to go to get themselves to their feet, when there’s a muffled, guttural groan from somewhere in the distance. Alexander picks his head up, staring as a tall, shaggy looking creature stumbles out of one of the nearby ice caves, scanning the ice in front of it.

“ … and now I’m regretting that abominable snowman comment.”

“What?”

“We’re going to have to run.”

“What? I just said—”

“Look.” He grips Rafe’s jaw tightly, turning him to face the creature in question, and watches as his friend’s eyes widen and they break apart, scrambling to their feet in the process.

“Yeah, we should probably start running. Possibly even a little screaming.”

Screaming is good. Fire is better.

Alexander plans on doing a little of both.

“I’m pretty sure this is a bad plan.”

Coming into the Quarter was probably her first mistake on her whirlwind trip through the universes to find help. This particular French Quarter they’ve been to before, a quick jaunt when they were harbored aboard the Egime and got caught in the middle of a supernatural war, a war that Elena is intimately familiar with. She came so close the first time to falling back into Klaus’s hands – or worse, the witches – but this is a risk they have to take.

They aren’t supposed to be here. Dean was supposed to go and talk down the Originals, get them the information they needed. Only problem is, it’s been three days, and Dean hasn’t come back yet. No matter what the risk, she can’t let Christine go after him alone, and she knows that she will if she doesn’t do something. But that doesn’t mean Elena can’t go in without a plan.

She feels odd and out of place dressed like this, wearing the façade of Katherine Pierce like a mask and hoping that most of the Quarter will buy it. The price on Katherine’s head was high, she knows this, but the price for trying to cross her was higher. If anything, it’ll keep the vampires keeping their distance, and she won’t have to prove her prowess and let them find out how incredibly human she really is.

“This place is nothing like home.”

Elena sways slightly on her heels as she tries to adopt Katherine’s strut. It’s a bit of a purposeful walk, an I know I’m better than you that exudes from every pore of her being and while Elena may not be able to pull it off perfectly, she can at least fake it for a good long while.

Or try.

“You’re from a few hundred years in the future. I’d be worried if it was exactly the same.”

“No, I mean.” She pauses for a moment, eyes scanning the streets carefully. “There’s something spooky about this place.”

Elena nods, exhaling slowly through her nose. “The Originals are the oldest vampires in existence, almost completely unkillable and they built this city. I’m pretty sure that ‘spooky’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Christine glances back at her with an apprehensive stare for a moment, before scanning the streets for any sign of trouble. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“No,” she admits uneasily. “But I’m not going to leave Dean to die here either, so until we find him, I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

Christine turns to her with a grateful smile and Elena gives her hand a squeeze before they continue their purposeful stride towards the Originals compound. She’s starting to see why Katherine walks the way she does – these heels are too high to really do anything else – but it helps her sell the part, up until the point where there’s a familiar silhouette in front of the compound. It’s the suit that gives him away, the set of the jaw and the stance in his shoulders that lets her know it’s Elijah, not Kol (who’s dead, she learned that on her last trip too), and she straightens a bit, pulling on her best Katherine, before taking a sure step forward.

“Elijah.”

Please don’t let Klaus be nearby.

He turns to face her slowly, eyes drawing up her and Christine both like he’s appraising something carefully. He takes another step forward, and he doesn’t even need to get as close as he did the last time to tell that she’s not Katherine. Though his lips do quirk up ever so slightly in a smirk at the effort.

“Elena. Is it Halloween already?”

He’s not saying it to be cruel, but the false bravado deflates all the same. She gives a bit of a grimace, before shrugging slightly. “I thought it would be safer. At least while I was here.”

There’s a small, non-committal noise at the statement before his attention turns to the woman next to her, and he takes another tentative step forward. “You are not Caroline Forbes.” It’s a simple, definitive statement that doesn’t surprise her. Elijah has an attention to detail that most don’t otherwise show and to her credit, Christine doesn’t back down as he advances on her.

“Christine Chapel, sir. I’m a friend of Elena’s.” She holds his gaze, holds his scrutiny, and Elena so needs to buy her a drink when this is over. Elijah continues to focus on her for a moment, before turning his attention back to Elena.

“So. Two doppelgangers walk into the French Quarter. What, exactly, are you after? I’m almost certain it isn’t an audience with my brother.”

At the mention of Klaus, her entire body stiffens, betraying how much they didn’t come here for that. “There was a man named Dean Winchester. He came to the Quarter looking to speak with you on my behalf, and he hasn’t returned.”

“He’s tall,” Christine supplies, taking another brave step forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Elena. “Six-one, muscular. Blond hair with green eyes.”

“He’s a hunter, Elijah. We don’t want any trouble, we just want him back.”

Elijah frowns at his, before shaking his head. “If he came to see me, he never made it. I’ve never heard of this Dean Winchester.”

Christine’s face falls slightly, and Elena just frowns in confusion. Dean wouldn’t just disappear and not come back, not with everything he has on the line in Nifelheim. “Do you think one of the other factions could have found him?”

“It’s possible, especially if he is a hunter.” He purses his lips slightly. “I will ask around. Find somewhere to stay in the city, and I will be in touch.” He assumes she doesn’t want to stay with him. He assumes right.

Elena nods her agreement and is about to turn, take Christine and go when another voice comes up from behind them, a sneer in his voice a mile wide.

“Now, now. Let’s not run off so quickly. It would be rude not to stop by and say hello.”

Elena tenses as she turns, the look on her face one of absolute disdain. She can feel Christine turning with her, confusion written all over her face. The man at the door, on the other hand, has a smile like a shark, appraising them both as he takes slow, deliberate steps forward, like a cat toying with a mouse.

“I think you’re one person I can live with being rude to.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would. But I wasn’t talking to you, dear, though your newfound humanity is quite interesting.” Elena would stop to question that statement, but before she can, he is stepping past her to Christine, eyeing her like he’s hungry and about to devour her whole. Knowing this particular hybrid, that may not be a metaphor. “I was talking to this exquisite creature.” He takes hand in hers easily, eyes boring into her as he does. “And who might you be?”

“Christine,” she says slowly, doing her best to stand her ground. Thankfully, Elena had made her take vervain before they left, just to be on the safe side. “Christine Chapel.”

“It is a pleasure, Christine. My name is Niklaus Mikaelson.” He raises her hand, bringing it to his lips but not breaking eye contact the entire time. “But please. Call me Klaus.”

Title: where the french fries are fresh and you might get murdered
Fandom: Original (Knights of Legend)
Prompt: Kitchen
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 1,063 words
Summary: Felicity Braddock and Violet Fiore just came out to have a good time, and they’re feeling so attacked right now.
Warnings: Violence, character death, a laser eyed platypus.

Title: we're entwined and hopeless, and the world turns upside down
Fandom: Teen Wolf/Torchwood
Prompt: Bathroom though Derek's bathroom probably isn't this nice and not all of the fic is set in it, it just sort of exploded.
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 2,628 words
Summary: In which meeting Captain Jack Harkness explains so much about Peter Hale. AKA - Emily uses a fixed point in time and space to save the betas of 3A.
Warnings: Crack. So much crack. Also liberal abuse of the Teen Wolf/Torchwood timelines.

Title: i wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/Teen Wolf
Prompt: Flowers
Rating: PG-13
Word or Line count: 937 words
Summary: So after the whole situation with the nogitsune comes to a head, Stefan’s little secret about being a vampire? Not so much of a secret anymore.
Warnings: Copious Salvatore sass, spoiler-ish for 3B.

Title: i like this mess i've made so far
Fandom: Teen Wolf (AU)
Prompt: Covered Bridge
Rating: PG
Word or Line count: 922 words
Summary: Technically it’s cheating. But Peter never said they couldn’t rig the game.
Warnings: N/A

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Edited 2014-09-04 19:20 (UTC)

Felicity Braddock and Violet Fiore just came out to have a good time, and they’re feeling so attacked right now.

No, really, they’re being attacked right now.

What had started out as an innocent night out on the town – a little dancing, a little food, maybe a movie – has now turned into a full blown, off-the-cuff mission situation when they headed to their favorite Chinese restaurant and found it being torn apart by a giant platypus.

In armor.

With laser eyes.

Felicity isn’t entirely sure what the Veil was smoking when it decided to just open up and toss this particular gem through, but she’s starting to think that maybe it should have rethought that decision if it wanted to keep London intact. Then again, that’s assuming that the Veil actually wants anything, but Felicity can’t really bring herself to care in that respect. She’s just traumatized that the Mongolian Grill is now … well, a Mongolian pancake.

“Oh, shit,” Vi swears from next to her, staring at this thing with her and wondering just exactly how they got themselves into this mess. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

“Do I look like I know?”

“Do you think we can reason with it?”

Felicity’s mouth gapes for a moment as she turns to look at her, hands extending out to her sides in a I DON’T FUCKING KNOW gesture, before turning back to the platypus again. “I think we’re a little past reasoning. They destroyed the place with the best dumplings in London.” There’s a beat. “Do you have your bow in the car?”

“Nope. Did you bring your gun?”

“I’m not sure if my gun is going to do us much good.”

“At least it’s something!”

Felicity shifts her bag to glance at it for a moment, before sliding the strap back onto her shoulder and looking at the restaurant next door. People are running screaming from it, but the building is mostly untouched so far. She pauses, considers her options, and then grabs Vi’s hand and drags her in that direction. “I have an idea.”

Vi goes along with her, because she is fabulous and she trusts her (she probably shouldn’t) and when they reach the front door and the masses of screaming people Felicity gets them through the broken window, through the crowd and into the kitchen. There are piles of abandoned meals across the counters and she ignores them, searching out things they could use instead.

“Maybe … maybe we should just trap it somewhere.”

“What do we have that’s big enough to trap it in?”

“The freezer?”

“Laser eyes.”

“Right.” She stops in the middle of the kitchen, turning as she drums her fingers against her chin, trying to work the problem in her head. “We take the eyes out and then we stick it in the freezer?”

“Or we can just shoot it.”

“Are you good enough with a gun that you know you can get past that armor and not get us laser-fried? Because I am not exactly a sharp shooter here.”

Vi gives her a look for a moment, before she snaps her fingers. “Oh! If I hold him still, do you think you could get off a shot.”

“Hold him still with what?”

Vi glances around the room for a moment, before finding one of the closets housing a very long extension cord. She studies it for a moment, testing the length, and starts to unravel it. “This should do it. I’ll blind him, you shoot him.”

“Blind him or bind him?”

Vi looks up for a moment, before giving a bit of a shrug. “Little of both?” She then flashes her a grin. “Trust me. I have a plan.”

Felicity stares at her for a moment before nodding. “Okay then. Let’s do this.”

***

“I don’t think this was you’re best plan.”

Felicity and Vi are hiding behind the range at this point, waiting for the right moment. Binding the platypus creature when it came through the wall? Easy enough. The second half of Vi’s plan, however, involved taking out the lasers with a spell that meant she could throw giant thorns at it. That didn’t know as well as could be expected. One thorn had missed wildly while the other hand hit it’s mark, so the creature was now howling in pain, one laser eye burning holes into the wall above their head.

“Hey. Just because it’s not working exactly as intended does not mean it’s not a good plan.” Vi glances back over her shoulder and around the range, trying to see exactly where the platypus is in the grand scheme of things. “It just needed a little finessing.”

“So sorry. My mistake.” Felicity takes a deep breath as the laser died out for a moment, before glancing up over the top of the table. “If you’re going to try again, now would be the time.”

Vi glances over again, before shaking her head. “Nope. Your turn. Go for gold, babe.”

“Seriously?”

“He’s completely stuck. Just empty the clip and something should hit, right?”

Felicity stares at her for a moment, checking her gun quickly to make sure she was good to go, before nodding. Alright. This was it. She gets to her feet, moving as quickly as she can and just starts firing as quickly as possible.

Some of them hit the armor and ricochet back. Some of them bury themselves in the wall. But at least half the clip actually manages to hit the mark of the platypus’s head (it must be the adrenaline), and when she finishes, the creature just slumps in the hold of the wall. She waits two minutes to see if it will move, and she’s about ready to collapse in surprise.

“Holy shit, I think it’s dead.”

Vi pops up to her feet next to her, staring at it for a moment, before there is a serious case of victory arms and hysterical, happy laughter. They throw their arms around each other tightly, just soaking in the WE’RE ALIVE of the moment, before Felicity pulls back and glances around.

“We should go. Someone probably heard the gunshots.”

Vi nods, before taking Felicity’s hand and guiding them both around the wreckage. “Well. There goes our Saturday night.”

Felicity gives a hum in agreement, before sighing heavily. “Next time, we should just get Nando’s.”

So after the whole situation with the nogitsune comes to a head, Stefan’s little secret about being a vampire? Not so much of a secret anymore.

From anyone.

Including Stiles’s dad.

(For someone who was new to the whole werewolf thing, Stefan likes to think he took the news about vampires being real incredibly well. Possibly a little too well. Then again, they also left out the fact that they almost killed Stiles in order to stop the nogitsune, so the sheriff doesn’t really have a reason to be all that angry with them.

Yet.)

That being said, the time after that involved a whole lot of explaining – most of it occasionally interrupted by Derek Hale who refused to invite him into the loft. Explaining that you’re a vampire while standing outside a steel door that you’re pretty sure a werewolf wants to slam in your face is not the easiest thing in the world, but none of this was anything Allison didn’t already know. She actually fields the answers to more of the questions than he does, which he appreciates.

What he didn’t appreciate was being kept from her for twenty four hours while the vampire blood circulates out of her system. That, in and of itself, is why he’s standing in the open doorway of Derek’s loft, providing colorful commentary from the peanut gallery, and occasionally pointing out how poorly defensible this building actually is.

(Derek mostly glares a lot. It’s almost like a game – how many buttons can Stefan push before the werewolf’s head explodes? The world may never know.)

Regardless, nothing comes. No unforeseen threat, no old enemy coming back for revenge. For one day, all is quiet in Beacon Hills, and Allison and Stiles remain human. Derek will probably never trust Stefan, but that’s a bridge they’ll just have to cross when they get to it. Personally Stefan doesn’t really care, because all of it has gotten them to now, here, where he and Allison are just sitting outside, completely alone with no one else around. There’s a meadow in bloom and the world is incredibly quiet and there’s this isolation to it that Stefan relishes.

It’s almost like being home. It’s thoughts like that that have him waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for now, he’s just trying to enjoy the moment.

“So I guess you’re not just passing through anymore, huh?”

She’s leaning back into his chest, his legs bracketing either side of her and his arms around her waist. Stefan hums in consideration of that question, his lips dragging against her neck slightly as he does. No, it’s pretty safe to say that Stefan doesn’t really “just pass through” anywhere anymore. It’s always going to be something that compels him to stop, to stay. He’s aware that part of what drew him to Beacon Hills is the nematon, but he still feels like he could leave at any time.

It’s Allison that makes him feel like his feet are glued to the ground, unable to cross the city line and anchoring him somewhere, if only for a little while. Honestly, it’s what he needs, more often than not. He needs something to keep him human. He’s sure that Chris Argent would prefer if it wasn’t his daughter, but Stefan at least has some good will right now for saving her life.

He intends to milk it for all it’s worth.

“Guess not,” he says softly, tipping his head to the side so that he’s looking at her more. “Is that a problem for you?”

“Nope,” Allison responds, shaking her head as she leans back into him more. “No problem with that at all.”

“Good.” He smirks a bit in return, before turning his eyes out to the view again. “You know, compared to home, this town isn’t that bad.”

“We just dealt with a psychotic fox spirit and we’re adjacent to a powerful supernatural beacon.”

“Yeah, but at least you don’t have very many vampires. Werewolves I can handle. Vampires are where things get really complicated.”

“Says the vampire.”

Stefan gives her a look at that. “I’m trying to be positive here. Are you just going to naysay everything I offer as a result?”

Allison gives a bit of a shrug, pushing up a bit so that she’s turning to face him more, arms looping around his neck. “I just think there are some much better uses of our time alone then trying to look at the bright side.”

He raises an eyebrow at that. “Should I be increasingly pessimistic?”

Allison gives him a look that says do I really have to spell everything out for you? before leaning in closer and kissing him softly. He isn’t entirely sure how to respond at first, as this is the first step their relationship has taken from being friendly but flirty to more than that and while he isn’t opposed, he isn’t expecting it either. So he takes a moment to simply sink into it, hands moving to steady her waist and closing his eyes into the soft touch of her pressed against him. He kisses her until she breaks it, pulling back with a small smile.

“You’re right,” he murmurs, shifting a bit to lean back so that she could stretch out on top of him. “We should be doing much, much more of that.”

She laughs as she settles, one hand bracing herself over his shoulder as she leans in closer. “How much time do we have?”

“Probably about another half-hour before someone desperately wants our attention.”

She smiles, before leaning in to kiss him again. “Good.”

“We need a strategy.”

The two ten year-olds were sitting cross-legged under the one covered bridge of the preserve, turning so that they’re facing each other. Cora had her elbows resting on her knees and her chin in her hands while Malia was drawing shapes in the dirt with a stick. It could constitute a plan. It could just be a horse. From a distance, you wouldn’t really be able to tell, which was probably the point.

“Dad’s going to be the hardest to find.” Malia twirls the end of her stick as she talks, drumming the fingers of her free hand against one leg. “Derek will get bored first.”

“Probably means we should find Derek first.”

“Depends if he gets bored and changes spots or if he gets bored and gives up.” Malia gives her a pointed look as she glances up briefly, before turning her attention back to her drawing again. “Maybe we should split up.”

“I thought we were supposed to be working together?”

“We can still work together if we split up.” Malia pauses for a moment, glancing around and making that face she usually makes when she’s really listening, before turning back to her again. “You take Derek.” Only her finger jerks back to point to her instead. “And I’ll try and get started on Dad.” She turns and points her finger back at Cora, hoping she’ll catch on. “And maybe we’ll find Laura somewhere in the middle.”

Cora pauses, considering for a moment before nodding. “Got it. Derek should be easy enough.”

Malia grins in response before pushing up to her feet. “Okay. Let’s go.” And with that they part ways, heading into separate ends of the preserve.

Cora slows as she comes up over the crest of the ridge, eyes scanning for any sign of her uncle. Training like this always took time, as the better she got at it the harder Peter decided to make his hiding places. The thing about this time around, however, is that Cora was getting very good at finding Peter, while Malia wasn’t as strong with it as he would have liked. Which means that Peter would be in a slightly easier hiding place this time around.

Technically it’s cheating. But Peter never said they couldn’t rig the game.

There’s a yelp from somewhere behind her in the preserve as Malia finds Derek, and another sound not long after when she finds Laura. Cora, however, is still working out the trail Peter left for them, which has its moments of disappearing completely from when he suppressed his scent, but she’s catching wise to those tricks.

Probably a little faster than he’d like, but she’d like to think that fast is good all the same. After all, when it comes to having to do it for real, she’ll be fast then too.

When she catches on to where exactly he’s hiding – a small alcove cut into the rock with a book in his lap – she hesitates downwind of him, trying to determine how to play this. As far as she could tell, he didn’t know she was there. She could run, get Malia and come back without alerting him, and then they would win the game. She also knew, however, that Peter could easily move from his chosen spot if he caught wise, and they would be back at square one. Malia knew to follow her trail. It’s better if she stay put, in case Peter decided to move.

So she very silently tries to make her way over to the top of the alcove, doing her best to stay out of sight and stay quiet. It isn’t until she tries to lay flat over the top of the outcropping of rock covering Peter from view that the ground creaks beneath her and she cringes.

Peter doesn’t even look up from his book. “You were supposed to let Malia find me.”

Cora smirks a bit at that, propping her chin in her hand as she waits. “Who says I’m not? You said we were supposed to work together.”

He looks mildly annoyed when he tips his head back to look at her, but there’s an undercurrent of pride that indicates he’s not angry at her for cheating, but a little annoyed that she’s missing the point. “The point was she was supposed to follow my scent trail, not use yours.”

Cora shrugs. “You never said we couldn’t get creative.”

He exhales slowly. “While I’m all for bending the rules in a real world setting, she’s never going to learn if you don’t give her a chance to.” He pushes up from his seat, moving so that he’s eye level with her. “I know you two are inseparable now, but she won’t always have you with her. She needs to learn on her own.”

The tiny wolf manages to look appropriately shamed for the moment, before nodding. Then she looks up at him with a bit of a grimace. “You’re going to change spots, aren’t you?”

Peter nods in agreement. “And you’re going to stay here this time. Let Malia do it herself.”

“Okay.”

“And close your eyes.”

“But … ”

“Close them.”

She sighs softly before closing her eyes, listening as his footsteps move off into the distance, until they’re out of earshot. It isn’t long before another set of footsteps is approaching, and her cousin’s scent on the air.

“Well?”

Cora pauses, considering for a moment, before pointing, not even bothering to open her eyes. “He went that way.”

Apparently not even going out for milkshakes is sacred anymore. Granted, this is probably what they get for going out for milkshakes so close to midnight, but this is what happens when you’re living the life of the college student.

It starts with Stiles driving up to spend his spring break with his girlfriend, which is great and wonderful and Cora is very happy to see him. Unfortunately when he arrives, Cora’s elbow deep in studying for an exam the next day which manages to take most of the day. They get dragged to a party Friday night by Maria and Tara which ends in them passing out in the wee hours of the morning, and then wandering around Berkeley on one of the guided tours for new students Saturday, which has left them with very little time to themselves. After a second suggested party Saturday night, Cora grabs Stiles and bails two hours in, wanting just a little bit of alone time with her boyfriend that they haven’t happened to manage so far.

It’s frustrating, and she’s not a big fan of being frustrated.

Sable’s Diner is a tiny little sock-hop style place that most of the kids frequent because it’s not too far from campus and open twenty-four hours. They can walk there if they’re steady enough on their feet after partying and get post-drinking food any time of night. Right now, Cora and Stiles are on a mission for milkshakes, but given both of their respective appetites, milkshakes turns into milkshakes and cheese fries and pie.

They never said they were going to be healthy about it.

Cora’s reaching the bottom of her respective milkshake when the door to the diner jingles open and three men make their way inside. They’re all wearing leather jackets that were styled out of a nineties teen drama and have a seat at the counter like they’re trying to appraise it for weaknesses. She takes a breath and isn’t even a little surprised when they smell like death.

“Cora?”

Stiles’s voice breaks through the cloud of her thoughts, and she glances back to him for a second, but her eyes are back on the vampires at the front counter again before too long. She isn’t really one who likes to be taken by surprise.

“Vampires.”

His eyes go a bit wide as she starts to turn to follow her line of vision, but she reaches for his arm and stops him before he goes too far, meeting his eyes for a moment and shaking her head. She doesn’t want to draw any more attention to them than she already has. She then grabs her milkshake and tries to play it casual, hoping that they won’t get noticed.

“What can I get you boys?” The waitress walks up behind the counter, smacking her gum a bit as she talks. The leader of the pack puts on his most charming smile, before leaning forward on his elbows so that he’s closer to the waitress. Cora’s eyes glance briefly away to the mop with a wooden handle leaning against the far wall, and slowly starts to slide out of the booth and inch her way towards it.

“I think we’ll have some of you, sweetheart.”

The waitress rolls her eyes, mistaking the outright threat for flirting. “Sorry, boys, I’m not on the menu.”

“Really?” There’s a beat, and the leader’s face shifts quickly, showing off his fangs and brow that almost make them look like a werewolf, if not for the lack of anything else. “Because I’m pretty sure you are.” And with that, his hand snaps forward, and he grabs her by the front of her shirt, forcibly yanking her over the counter and sinking her teeth into her neck.

The mop handle breaks with a snap! in her hands, and both of the lackeys’ heads turn towards the sound, fangs bared. She shifts some herself, teeth baring with a snarl, and one of them chuckles. “Hey, Bobby. You know if wolves are any good to eat?”

The leader pulls back from his midnight snack and the woman is looking a little woozy but she’s still breathing as he drops her to the ground. “Don’t know. Shall we find out?”

Cora keeps glowing eyes on the vampires before she tosses half the stake in Stiles’s direction, watching as he catches it easily. “Help her.”

“Got it.” He inches out of the booth, careful to make his way behind Cora and not get between her and the vampires, and Bobby takes a few steps closer to her, before he leans in with a grin. “My boys and I are going to rip your throat out. Then we’re going to finish off the pretty little waitress, and save your boyfriend for last. How does that sound?”

Cora just stares at them evenly, before gritting her teeth. “Sounds like you’re going to have a bad night.

And with that, she charges.

***

A couple hours later, she’s still sneezing from some of the dust on her clothes, and she and Stiles are sitting in the waiting room of the med center. The waitress was okay, but she definitely needed stitches. Stiles’s Jeep means they got her there quickly, and they’re waiting in case she needs a lift back to her car. Cora is worn out, letting her head rest against his shoulder as they wait, while Stiles plays with the fingers on her hand.

“Well. This is definitely one way to start spring break.”

She huffs a bit of a laugh, before closing her eyes. “We’ve still got a week or so. I’m sure we’ll be able to turn it around.”

“True. But we only really have one day until you start classes again, and have to go back to being a responsible college student.”

“That is true,” she nods slowly. “You know, I think Tara has some kind of rally club thing tomorrow. She should be out for most of the day.”

“Really?” Stiles smirks a bit as he looks down at her. “Then I vote we do not leave your dorm at all. Unless we’re in need of food, or are forced to by a poorly timed fire alarm.”

Cora smiles a bit at that before nodding. “I think that is an excellent plan.”

“Good,” he shifts a bit, letting her settle more comfortably against him, before making a face. “Also? Never want to fight vampires again.”

Cora smirks a bit at that before nodding in agreement. “I will make a note.” She shifts a bit, before pushing up and kissing him softly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He nods with a small smile as the kiss breaks. “Me too.” And with that … the probably spend a few more hours in the ER, waiting for their new waitress friend to be all patched up.

But that’s the price of being the good guys.

“I’m starting to think that as far as mission choices go, this wasn’t our best idea.”

Derek, the jerk, doesn’t seem all that bothered by the cold, despite the fact that they’ve found themselves floating on a chunk of ice in the middle of a frozen ocean. Bo, in her infinite wisdom, had at least had the forethought to take the parka that was offered to her when it was revealed that they were going to be hanging out in the Artic. So while she wasn’t as cold as she could have been, but she didn’t bring gloves and succubi were not built for this kind of weather. Curing hypothermia? Sure. She’s your girl for adding a little body heat into the equation.

She usually tries to avoid catching it.

Derek glances over to her, smirking slightly before reaching forward to tug her into his arms, letting her back rest against his chest. His arms slip around her waist and he ducks his head a bit, so that his warm breath is brushing against her throat, along with the cold tip of his nose.

“Better?” he asks and she wrinkles her nose.

“Your nose is cold.”

He laughs, a sound that sort of rumbles in his chest, before shaking his head. “I can’t really win, can I?”

“In this particular scenario, no. But I like to think I let you win all the time.” Bo turns and gives him a look at that, and he’s very quick to give her an innocent face, like he wasn’t about to say anything against her, which she’ll actually believe when she sees it.

“You do, and I am very grateful.”

She laughs softly pulling one hand out of her pockets to pat the side of his face. “Good boy.”

They’ve been sitting there for an hour at this point, staring down the bright white scenery around them while they waited for their rescue. How they had gotten there is a very long story involving a massive frost giant and his pet polar bear that he could fit in the palm of his hand, a very fancy spear that they did not recover. Tyr probably is not going to be happy with them, but that’s future Bo and Derek’s problem to solve. Right now, present Bo and Derek only have to worry about staying warm and not falling in the water before Kali gets there with their rescue.

She sighs softly as she leans back against him, closing her eyes after a moment to give them a rest. It’s only for a second, before Derek’s fingers are sharp and fast on the edge of her thigh. “Ow!”

“Don’t fall asleep.” His tone isn’t the teasing that it was earlier, this more laden with concern and worry than anything else. Her eyes narrow and he just gives her a stern look right back and she sighs before settling back against him again.

“I’m not going to fall asleep.”

“You closed your eyes.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there happens to be a lot of glare from all that snow, plus the glare from the water – it’s not exactly being kind to my retinas.”

“I know – trust me.” There’s a huff for a moment as he’s trying to be sympathetic, but he can’t really blame her for wanting to shut them. “Just … keep talking to me if you do, okay?”

Bo sighs before turning to relax against him again, trying to think of what to talk about. “Is there something we should be discussing?”

“No.” It’s a very fast, very succinct no, as though they are trying to say no before they said yes, and Bo’s eyes narrow again.

“Derek.”

“Nope. Nothing to talk about.”

She groans as she leans back against him, running her hand over her face. “What is it this time?”

“Well, we’re doing that whole honesty thing, right?”

“Yes, but we did draw the line at too honest.”

“Right, well, remember that last … thing, that happened in the city?”

“Oh God … ”

She’s about to tell Derek to not tell her, when a portal opens suddenly in front of them, and the bow of the Jolly Roger emerges from it, coming to a sliding stop in front of them. The two of them are quick to scramble to their feet in surprise, but not long after they stop a blond head pops over the top of the rail and flashes a grin at them.

“Hey guys! You look very cold.”

Bo just sighs with a bit of relief before making her way over to where Kali is about to throw down a rope ladder. “Understatement. But your timing, as always, is excellent.” Kali beams at her and she goes to grab one of the lower rungs and start to haul herself up when Derek comes up behind her.

“So do we have to talk about this later?”

She pauses, glancing back at him for a moment before tipping her head to the side.

“Do I really need to know?”

“No.”

“Then I think we’ll pass on this one.” Derek looks visibly relieved, and she turns to start to climb again. “Oh, and another thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time? Don’t wait until we’re floating on an ice drift before telling me something bad.”

“I’ll try and keep that in mind.”

[♫ These Days ~ Bon Jovi]

So, occasionally, Attar likes to borrow Lila from Valhalla.

It’s only occasionally because Freyja likes to make his life difficult with her for goodness sake, let the dead rest, but he’s managed to talk her into it once or twice if for no other reason than he is a persistent and annoying creature and usually gets what he wants.

Most people rather hate that about him.

Still, Freyja has an iron will and the stern stare that comes with being the disapproving grandmother of the Norse gods, so Attar tries not to push his luck. He just comes in once every six months or so, needles her until he happens to get his way and takes Lila to one of the realms of his choosing so that she can get off the goddamn fields of Fólkvangr and go do something fun. The girl was nineteen when she died, for crying out loud, and if she hadn’t died with Odin he probably would have gotten her. He’s perpetually annoyed that he didn’t get to stake his claim. It’s half the reason why he does what he does, and the other half happens to be that he just likes Lila.

It’s very rare that he happens to just like people, so he takes advantage of it when he can.

They’re currently sitting in the middle of a museum in Athens, staring at one of the hideous statues with deformed genitalia that Athena has come to consider art but Attar happens to think is just the artist’s way of overcompensating. They both have a rather bored affect going for them, but why they’re here isn’t really about the art.

“I’m aware I’m being cheated you know.”

Attar raises an eyebrow as he glances over to her, curiosity lighting his features for a moment as he does. “And how is that?”

“I heard you took that dumb blond vampire to Tahiti. All I’ve gotten is museums and national parks. I’d like to go somewhere actually fun, please.”

He chuckles at that, before tapping his cane once against the floor as he gets to his feet. “Rebekah didn’t know who I was at the time. I was still … wooing her, in a way. You, smarty pants, already know who you are dealing with, so you get the benefit of knowing how much of a tired old man I actually am.”

Lila makes a face as she gets to her feet to follow him, heels clicking against the marble floor as she pushes past him so that they can choose the next painting they decided to stare listlessly at. They had very many options, and eventually she comes to a stop in front of Jael and Sisera and she stops with an almost pleased sound.

“This doesn’t entirely suck.”

He raises an eyebrow, amused at that, before coming to a stop next to her. “You think so?”

“I do.” She pauses, tipping her head to the side. “What’s the story?”

“Sisera was one of the warlords of Jabin, king of Canaan, who was an oppressor of the Israelites. The Israelites were starting to turn the tides of the war, slaying Sisera’s army in the process, and he runs to seek refuge in the tent of Jael, who he thought was a friend. Her husband’s family was a friend of Jabin, so he thought he would be protected there, and at first, Jael lets him believe it. She is incredibly hospitable, and he is so at peace that he falls asleep in her tent. Once he does, Jael takes a tent peg and drives it into Sisera’s head to save her people.”

It’s actually one of his favorites as well – many paint her as a wily temptress and a treacherous woman, but this particular artist always managed to balance to difficult task of allowing women to get their hands dirty without losing what made them women.

“I like it.” There’s a pause. “I want it.”

“You want it?”

“I think we should steal it.”

His eyebrows go up. “You want to steal from the goddess of war?”

“Why not?” Lila gives him a bit of a look in return, before shrugging. “I want it, you can hide it, she’ll be upset she’s lost it, and some poor idiots in Teleios will probably get a favor out of it. Win-win-win.” There’s a beat. “Well, not if you’re Athena, anyway.”

He taps his cane against the floor for a moment, before he shrugs. Fair enough. He hasn’t had any real fun in a while. He takes a step back to see if anyone’s coming before rotating his cane in a slow circle, letting his magic work against the cameras and hide them from view.

“Alright. That should do the trick.”

She grins brightly at him, before reaching forward to start and take it off the wall. “It’s like it’s my birthday.”

“I’m sure it is.”

He still keeps watch, knowing that there are physical guards around that they will have to contend with, but eventually her voice draws him back again.

“Oh, and by the way?”

“Yes?”

“Next time you get me out of the most boring afterlife ever? We are so going to Tahiti.”

He chuckles softly at that, before nodding his agreement. “Your wish is my command.”

Then again, that saying is probably true for post people with him.

Edited 2015-03-19 18:10 (UTC)

“Be careful what you touch in Fae libraries. You never know what books have a mind of their own.”

Trick always does his best to provide warnings when he can – Bo knows that. Usually, she makes sure she listens unless she has no other choice, but the thing about walking into the Library of Stars, one of the hidden Fae libraries kept safe by the office of the Ash, it’s a little easy to get swept up in the magic of it all. It’s almost something she can feel singing inside her in a way she hasn’t really felt before. She’s never really been one for reading – book smarts aren’t exactly her strong suit – but even she could appreciate how much knowledge was held in this one place.

“This place is amazing ,” she says softly as she heads for one of the spiral staircases, Tyler close on her heels so as not to get lost in the miles of shelves in front of them. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He’s behind her, but she can still hear the smirk in his voice as he speaks. “So turns out the Fae do have some pretty cool stuff after all.”

“Yeah, they do,” she laughs. “Not enough to make up for all the violence and death and victimization of humans, but close enough.”

He shakes his head at that, before coming to stand next to her at the top of the stairs. “So how do you want to do this? I’ll take upstairs, you take downstairs?”

She makes a face in response as she starts to take a step back, moving more towards the middle of the walkway. “This place is huge. If you got attacked by a monster in the stacks, there’s no way I’d be able to get there before it swallowed you whole.” Or vice versa, but since Tyler is essentially human at the moment, she’s more concerned about him. “We’re probably better off sticking to – ”

Her voice cuts off as her foot catches against one of the table legs, one hand going down to balance herself on top of it. Just before her hand connects with whatever is sitting there, she can hear Tyler shouting from somewhere to her left. “Shit, look out!”

After that, it gets kind of hazy.

Waking up, the first thing she’s aware of is the fact that her clothes are different. They’re tight in all the wrong places and also, she’s wearing a skirt when leather pants had been her clothing option of choice when she woke up that morning. There’s a soft groan as one hand comes up to rest against her head for a moment, unsure if she even wants to open her eyes to see how much deep shit she’s in.

“Bo?”

It’s the sound of Tyler’s voice hovering over her that makes her open them, blinking up at him for a moment as he comes into focus, taking in the waistcoat and tie that he seems to be sporting. “What are you wearing?”

Tyler just smirks at her for a moment before holding up his hand for her to wait. “Give it a minute.”

It doesn’t take a minute, thankfully. Instead, it takes about thirty seconds. “Why are you in black and white?”

“There it is,” he says with a sigh as he moves to the side, sitting on one of the chairs next to her. “My best guess is you touched something in the library – either a photograph or book or something and we got sucked inside.”

“Great. That’s … great.” She sighs before looking down at herself, making a face at the frilly blouse and high waisted skirt she’s wearing. “Well, we’ll just have to find our way out again.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ve got way better things to do then being stuck inside of some kind of ass-old painting.”

“You and me both.” She gets to her feet, glances down and holds up a finger. “First things first – I need pants.” Tyler glances up at her with a smirk, like he knows something she doesn’t, and she raises an eyebrow in return. “What?”

“ … About that.”

***

There are no pants.

Apparently Tyler tried to get out of his monkey suits in the moments before Bo woke up to no avail. There was no changing their clothes, so not only is Bo out of her comfort zone and uncomfortable, she’s dressed like a society lady from the 1900s, and they have to figure out a way out of here. The next step in that is find out exactly what this picture is.

“There has to be a reason for this. They wouldn’t just … enchant a picture for no good reason.”

“It’s the Fae. Are you sure that the reason you’re going to find for this is ‘good’?” Tyler glances over at her with a curious raise of his eyebrows.

Bo looks over, considering that point for a moment, before amending her previous statement. “Well, they wouldn’t just enchant a picture for no reason at all.”

Tyler pauses before nodding. That he can agree with. “Maybe there’s just a magical door, and once we open it we’ll tumble back into the library again.”

“It’s the Fae. It’s never that easy.”

“Yeah, but a guy could dream.” He smirks at her for a moment as they continue making their way down the street. She’s about to have a comment for that particular statement, when suddenly there’s a voice behind them.

“Hey! Hey!”

They both stare at each other for a moment, before turning to face the sound of the voice. Jogging up behind them was a portly man in the costume of the age, pushing his glasses up his nose as he makes his way closer. Once he’s close enough to speak with them he’s doubling over, trying to catch his breath.

“You – you’re not – you’re new.”

Tyler and Bo look at him skeptically for a long moment, before glancing back to each other. Tyler raises his eyebrows and Bo’s eyes narrow before she turns back again.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m … I’m the head librarian, of the Library of Stars.”

They both continue to stare at him for a moment, before Tyler’s eyebrows raise and he states the obvious. “If you’re the head librarian, then who the hell let us in?”

***

It turns out that the photograph was used to imprison a kitsune over a century ago, one who liked to borrow people’s faces and commit crimes in their name. Bo personally took offense to that particular information because she’s gone down that road with kitsune’s before, so naturally she was super motivated to get out of their fun little prison and right this particular wrong.

It goes just about how you’d expect when Bo is particularly motivated to do something. Pain, violence, someone getting traumatized somewhere along the way, but eventually they manage to break through the barrier of the prison and tumble out onto the other side.

(They break the table that the photograph is sitting on as well as hitting their heads on the bannister across the way, but Bo is not paying for that. Consider it the cost of her pain and suffering.)

They’re not alone when they fall out the other side, however. Apparently when you lose contact with your friends after saying you were going to visit a mystical library, they make a point to try and track you down to make sure you didn’t get into the kind of trouble that was irreversible. Bo would be upset about not being trusted, but she also knows her own track record as well as the next guy. She wouldn’t trust losing contact with her either.

Tamsin and Hale are standing over them while Dyson has the kitsune-playing-librarian pinned up against the far wall, spitting insults at all of them. Bo groans for a moment, before looking up at all of them. “Ow.”

“What she said?” Tyler seconds from next to her, pushing himself up slowly. “Downside of being mostly human – things still hurt like hell.”

Bo gives him a sympathetic smile, before looking around at the rest of the rest of the group. “What are you guys doing here?”

Tamsin hold up a hand, before shaking her head. “First things first – what in hell are you wearing?”

Bo blinks for a moment, before glancing down and finding that she’s still caught in that same 1900s attire that had pervaded the rest of the prison. She groans before looking to Tyler with an expectant eyebrow. He frowns, before his hands go to the buttons of his waistcoat and start to undo them. With that small check passed, Bo just nods, before reaching down to push to her feet.

“First things first. I need pants.”

Hana Kim is a girl on a mission.

While she doesn’t go to Klaus Mikaelson levels of obsession when it comes to birthdays, she does, in fact, find birthdays to be of some importance and she wants to make sure the people she cares about have good ones. She also puts a lot of effort into making sure that her friends receive gifts they won’t forget – ones that may not be entirely useful, but are special and personal in a way that Hana only can. The problem is, some gifts are harder to figure out than others, even when she starts thinking about them months in advance and she has found herself in one such dilemma for what is possibly the most important present as all.

Her boyfriend.

While Rafe would probably say that it isn’t a big deal and he doesn’t need a fancy gift, it’s important to Hana that she finds the right gift and she doesn’t spare any less effort for him than she would for anyone else. After all, he is very important to her. It only makes sense that he get a very important gift.

“He’s not going to care,” Alexander states pointedly after Hana brought him her dilemma. “He’s Rafe. He’s just happy you exist and want to make out with him all the time.” He pauses as he gets his locker door open before snapping a finger and pointing it in her direction. “Hey, there’s an idea. A make out coupon book.”

Hana squints at him for a moment. “A what?”

“You know those coupon books you make for your parents when your kids – redeem for a free hug or cleaning my room or whatever else teachers come up with?” He grins salaciously at her as he shifts his books around to get ready for his next class. “Make one for you and him. Except for making out.”

There’s a moment where she blinks again, before it sinks in and she rolls her eyes, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she leans into the row of lockers next to him. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m aware. But it’s still something personal that he’d love.”

“Do you have any actual meaningful suggestions? Or am I stuck to do all of this on my own?”

Her voice trails off at the end of the question as her eye catches on one of the drawings on the door of his locker, a picture of Spider-Man with the telltale AA initials at the bottom. He’s talking to her in response to her question, but she’s not entirely listening, just staring at the picture as the wheels in her brain start turning. It takes a moment for him to realize that she’s not paying attention and he stops talking, waving a hand and snapping his fingers briefly in front of her face.

“Yo. Earth to Hana.”

“Huh?” she glances up at him and flashes a smile before shaking her head. “Sorry. I zoned out for a second.”

“Yeah, I got that.” And then his locker slams closed, as he shakes his head. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Hana. And whatever you get him, he’s going to love. So just … relax.”

“Yeah,” she says with a nod, before taking a step back. “In fact, I think I’ve already got something. I’ll see you in chem?”

Alexander looks confused, like she just said something that didn’t entirely sound like it was in English, but he’ll just nod and turn to head his own way. “ … Yeah. Sure. See you later.”

Hana grins back at him, before taking off to head to her own class. She definitely won’t be paying attention, but her grades are something she can worry about later.

***

When Alexander slides into their shared desk in Chemistry, all Hana can do is grin at him. It isn’t necessarily an “I’m happy to see you” grin, however. It’s more of a “please remember that you love me and do this thing I’m about to ask you to do” grin and those always have a bit of trouble attached to them. Alexander is dubious from the moment he sits down and he stares for a moment, before shaking his head and turning to face the front of the room.

“Nope.”

Hana pouts. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“I don’t need to know. The answer is still no.”

Hana grumbles a bit in return, gritting her teeth as she turns to face the front of the room as well. “Please. I can’t pull this off without you.”

“Why not go find Leo and turn him into your patsy?”

“Because Leo can’t draw.”

That statement seems to catch his attention and he hesitates prior to throwing a barb back again. “I’m not that good.”

“You’re good enough. And you have a lot of experience with the subject matter.”

There’s a moment where he almost seems interested, before it disappears below the mask of teenage indifference again, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost him. “What do you want me to do, exactly?”

Hana grins, before sliding her notebook across the desk to him. He eyes her warily as he takes it and glances down to start to read, and that wariness slowly turns to confusion and surprise, before genuine interest lights his face and he starts flipping through the pages. “You wrote this today?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

“During Algebra. And study hall. And a little of lunch.” She grins at his enthusiasm though. “You like it?”

He nods absently for a moment, before he sighs and turns to face her holding up a finger in her direction. “I have conditions.”

Hana nods. “Alright. Hit me.”

“One, I get the appropriate amount of credit. This is from me and you, not just you.”

“Deal.”

“Two, I get to make story changes if I think the current story is stupid.”

“Run them by me first, but fine. Deal. That all?”

“No – three, I am not the sidekick.”

She laughs. “Make Leo the sidekick. I don’t care.” She then holds a hand out to him. “Partners?”

Alexander nods as he shakes her hand. “Partners. He’s going to love this.”

Hana’s grin widens as she nods. “I know he will. Best birthday present ever.”

***

“You know, you don’t have to go in with me. I could meet up with you later to do stuff for my birthday.”

Rafe is walking backwards on the sidewalk of Chicago as they move through the city, his hand in Hana’s as they go, almost as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear from his side if he lets her go, which she personally thinks is adorable. It doesn’t really matter to her that in Chicago that could be a very real concern. Hana doesn’t really want to let him go either, so in the end it all pans out.

“Nope. I made you a deal.” She grins as she takes another step closer when they come to a stop outside the comic book store. “It’s your birthday so we are going to all your favorite places. Where you go, I go.” She then punctuates it with a kiss for good measure, letting one hand rest against his shoulder for balance. “I always keep my deals.”

He’s grinning at her when she pulls back, and it’s her favorite kind of grin. It’s the dopey, goofy, pretty-girl-just-kissed-me grin and she’s pretty sure hers matches, which is another one of the reasons she loves him. “Okay. But I’ll just be really quick here. I promise.” And without another word he’s pulling her inside to wander the racks and racks of comics for ones he likes.

Hana isn’t really a comic book girl as a rule. She likes to listen to Rafe talk about them, because she knows he’s passionate about them, but for the most part superheroes aren’t really what she goes for. She does, however, like the Funko Pop! figures that are kept in the other end of the store, so while Rafe is browsing for comic books, she’s looking through the figures to see if there’s any she likes, but she’s really keeping an eye on the cashier. It isn’t long before Rafe makes his way to the front to pay for his new issues and Hana weaves her way through the racks to come and stand next to him. The order was rung up quickly, and the second it’s done, Rafe turns to her with a grin, and takes her hand.

“Done. Let’s go!”

He’s so excited to just go out and do things with Hana that he doesn’t notice the wink the cashier gives her behind his back, or the grin that she flashes him in return. Fifteen minutes later, they are settled under a tree in Grant Park. Hana has her back against the tree and Rafe has his head in her lap. He’s going through his spoils from the comic book store, explaining various storylines to her until suddenly, mid-explanation, he stops.

It takes her a second to notice, but when she does she looks down. “Everything okay?”

“Fine, I just didn’t … ” There’s a moment where his voice trails off, but then he realizes what he’s holding and his eyes go wide. “Oh my God.”

In his hand is a single issue comic book called The Guardian, featuring a dramatic looking superhero that very closely resembles her boyfriend. There is also a sidekick that is vaguely reminiscent of his best friend and two civilians that look very similar to Hana and Alexander, and he glances back up at her with a wide eyed confused look.

“What is this?”

“That is your birthday present,” she grins, leaning back against the tree some more. “I wrote it and Alexander drew it, and my dad has a friend in the publishing company who got it printed up for me.”

As soon as the information processes, his face splits into that wide dopey grin again as he stares up at her. “You made me into a super hero?”

She nods with a grin of her own. “Just for today, yeah.”

His grin widens even more before he pushes up to meet her, one hand resting against the back of her neck as he leans in to kiss her. “Best birthday present ever. Thank you.”

She sighs softly into the kiss, then nods. “Make sure you thank Alexander too.”

“I will. I will thank him just like that.”

She laughs a bit in return as he leans back into her lap again and starts flipping through it to read. “So you like it?” she asks, wanting to be sure.

“I love it,” he nods. “And I love you.”

There’s a moment where her stomach flutters a bit, because it’s the first time she’s actually heard it from him, even when she’s pretty sure a part of her already knew, and she grins in return. “I love you too.”

He grins in response, almost as though that really was the best birthday present she could have given him, before leaning back and starting to flip through the pages to the first one. “So who am I saving the day from?”

“Guess you’ll just have to read it to find out.”

Once the fifties came around, it is actually pretty good to be a teenager – or at least look like one. Stefan may be approaching his one hundred and tenth birthday, but thanks to the fact that vampires don’t age, he slides right in to the rest of the teen crowd, even managing to obtain himself a letterman jacket for the football team.

He’s not actually on the football team, but it helps him blend in which is what he wants more than anything at the moment. The jocks accept him as one of their own and never think twice on the fact that they never actually see him at football practice – he throws a spiral or catches a ball and that’s all the proof they need. All Stefan really needs is a crowd that won’t judge him for looking too young or not knowing enough. The world is sitting just on the cusp of the younger generation coming into their own and starting to think for themselves and really change the world, and Stefan wanted to be a part of that.

Plus it was kind of fun to sit in sock hops, flirt with pretty girls, and pretend, for a little while, that he hasn’t seen more of the brutality of this world than anyone ever should. It’s exactly what he needed after the war, to bring him back to equilibrium again, and he was going to hold on to that for as long as he could.

It’s also a great time for dance, which is what makes the sock hops even livelier, having people out and dancing until the early hours of the morning. They dance until their feet hurt and there’s a kind of release in that, putting aside the stuffy, uptight dance styles of the decades previous and turning it into something that’s nearly acrobatic in its energy, but enough to even exhaust a vampire from letting his thoughts turn somewhere dark. It’s in one of these moments where he spots a familiar face in the crowd, and he makes his way over to where she’s seated, sliding up onto the stool next to her with a grin.

“Whadaya say, sweetheart? Can I buy you a milkshake?”

A pair of violet eyes turn on him, followed by a bright smile. “Well, well. Stefan Salvatore. There’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“Too long,” he says with a nod. “What brings you to Oklahoma?”

“Just passing through.” She rests her chin in her hand against the counter, pleased as always to see him. “What about you?”

“Same. Heading back home to Mystic Falls.”

Diana’s smile softens slightly around the edges, before tipping her head to the side. “Looks like we’re heading opposite directions, then.”

“Guess we are.” His disappointment is also genuine – they never manage to have much time together when they do see each other and he is in any shape to see her, but at least they’ll have tonight, for whatever that’s worth. “Doesn’t mean we don’t still have tonight though.”

“That is true.” She glances over towards the dance floor. “I don’t suppose a dance would be too much to ask?”

Stefan pauses for a moment, before placing a hand over his heart, almost as though she’s wounded him. “You really think that I would turn down an opportunity to dance with a beautiful woman?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she says with a smirk. “I’m just not sure you can keep up.”

Stefan’s eyebrows go up with a look that says “Challenge Accepted” before sliding off his stool and holding a hand out to her. “I’ll take that bet.”

At that, her grin widens even more, and she takes his hand with a slight squeeze. “Alright, Salvatore. Let’s see how well you can cut a rug.” That’s about all the warning he gets before she’s dragging him out to the dance floor, daring him to put his money where his mouth is.

***

Dancing ends the way dancing usually does for Stefan and Diana, though thankfully in this particular instance it wasn’t the middle of the woods and was the privacy of Stefan’s apartment (“Just passing through, he says,” was what she teased him with before she kissed him), but it was still a good end result all the same. Stefan flops back against the bed with a happy laugh and Diana is grinning next to him, pushing her damp hair back away from her forehead.

“Been a while since we’ve done that too.”

“A lot longer,” he nods in agreement, before shifting so that he was resting on his side next to her. “But still like I remember it.”

She glances over, taking his free hand in hers and giving it a soft squeeze. “I remember too.” He squeezes her hand back and she shifts to her side as well so that she’s facing him more. “How was the war?”

His eyebrows rise some at that. “You actually want to talk about that?”

“Only if you feel there is something worth talking about,” she replies, and he can worry in her voice, that what he saw in battle will cause him to fall back into becoming the person he was in the thirties and he isn’t entirely sure how to reassure her of that beyond the fact that he was getting better. Lexi was staying on his case and his time as a medic seems to have been a success – he was keeping himself under control – but he knows how delicate that balance is. Even if he doesn’t want her to see him like that again either.

“I’m fine, Diana,” his voice is gentle as he speaks, rubbing her hand between his gently. “I’m … coping.”

“Forgive me if that doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. You seem to go up and down like a roller coaster.”

Stefan cringes in acknowledgement, before considering for a moment, trying to put it into words that make sense to more than just him. “You learn from every mistake, right? Mine just happen to be … more costly than most.”

“I would feel better if you stopped making mistakes to begin with.”

“Trust me, I will not be making that mistake again. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

Diana nods, considering him carefully for a moment before inching closer and curling her fingers around his. “So. Tell me about these coping mechanisms.”

Stefan considers for a moment before smiling, giving her hand a squeeze again. “I could tell you … or I could show you. If you let me.”

Diana raises an eyebrow curiously, before nodding her agreement. “Show me.”

His smile widens as he reaches to pull her closer, letting her settle against his shoulder. “Close your eyes and open your mind to me.” It’s still a new trick to him, especially when it comes to doing it with other vampires, but it’s easier when the other party is willing. Diana’s mind opens to him like a flower, and he slips in with ease, but he doesn’t go for her thoughts. Instead, he pulls her into one of his.

When she opens her eyes, they’re standing on a warm beach somewhere. She flinches at first, wanting to shy away from the sun so that she doesn’t burn, but the second after she realizes she’s not, a smile splits across her face, tilting up to the sun with a bright laugh.

“Where are we?”

“Hawaii,” he says with a small smile. “We visited there briefly after we returned from the war. I’ve never been anywhere so peaceful.”

“Or with this much sun?” she teases back, before turning her eyes to the water and exhaling slowly. “I wish I could see this place in person.”

He makes his way closer, sliding his arms around her from behind and pulling her closer. “Maybe you will one day. You never know what could change.”

She glances back over her shoulder and gives him a dubious look. “Yes. Because Hawaii will magically be less sunny.”

“You never know,” he grins, “The sun could get less fatal to vampires.”

She laughs, before shaking her head, leaning back into him with a sigh. “I’ll just have to settle for this for now.”

He nods in agreement, before pulling her in closer. “We can stay as long as you want.”

She nods in return, before smiling. “Good.”

“Where are we going?”

Piper looks dubious as they climb on to the deck of Baal’s ship, and Max can’t really blame her for that. He’s kept his mouth shut for the most part about the adventure they’re about to undertake and he knows it’s driving her crazy, but he meant for it to be a surprise for a reason. He grins at her before shaking his head.

“You’ll see.”

Piper makes a face at that that is very close to being a pout as she turns to face him, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Please?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t even get a hint!”

He shakes his head as he pulls her closer again. “It’s not a surprise if I give you a hint.”

“Yes it is. It’s just not a surprise if I figure it out.”

“But you want the hint to figure it out.”

“Yes, but there’s no guarantee that I actually will.”

He pauses for a moment, making a show as though he’s seriously considering that, before shaking his head again. “Nope.”

She groans, her head flopping back a little, but she doesn’t resist being pulled into him. “I could make you tell me.”

“Yeah, but you won’t.”

“But I could.”

“But you won’t.” He smirks a little, before leaning in to kiss her gently. He holds it for a moment, just enough for her stance to soften and her arms to move from between them to sliding around his torso. As he pulls back, he gives her a small smile, resting his forehead against hers. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she admits, her tone slightly defeated, but not sullenly so.

“Then trust me. You’ll like it, I promise.”

Piper her face scrunches up into even more of a pout before she sighs. “Fine. But if I don’t, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

He smirks, letting her go as she pulls away from him. “Duly noted.”

***

“You did not say that this surprise would require so much heavy lifting.”

They left Baal and his boat at one of the major ports in Demeter’s realm, a place where there is plenty of commerce for him to pick up a few things while Max took Piper where he wanted to take her. The sounds of the bustling city have faded at this point, and all that is left is the rush of the river flowing next to them.

“It’s not that far.” His hand is tight in hers, guiding her up the side of the hill. “We’re trusting me, remember?”

“I’m beginning to regret that statement.” She comes to a stop, tugging him back to her as he nears the crest of the hill. “I lied. I do not trust you. Tell me everything, right now.”

“Piper – ” he begins, leaning in to kiss her, and she turns her head to the side, causing him to kiss her cheek instead.

“Nope. That’s cheating. You’re not allowed to do that anymore.”

He laughs, his arms sliding around her waist to pull her closer again, this time her side pressing against his front as he keeps her in place. He just lets them stay that way for a moment, before his voice softens. “Do you love me?”

She glances back to him, eyes wide in surprise. “That is definitely cheating.”

His face looks a little more uncertain after that, the rejection written completely on his face – or at least the fear of it. Because he loves her, and it’s the first time he’s ever felt that way about anyone. He doesn’t want to jump to the wrong conclusions and scare her away before she’s ready to admit it herself. But the question is already out there, and he needs to have it answered.

“Do you?”

She glances back to him, watching his face for a moment, before nodding as she leans in to kiss him warmly. Max melts into it with relief, letting her turn to face him and slide her arms around his neck. He pours into that kiss all of the words he’s terrible at saying, even if she already knows them. He wants her to feel it as well, because that’s the only way he really knows for sure how to express himself.

She pulls back after a moment, before tipping her head up to look at him. “Was that the surprise?”

He shakes his head, before pulling back and taking her hand to lead her the rest of the way. “Not far. I promise.”

She nods and follows his lead over the crest of the hill where fields of vibrant purple-blue flowers stretch out before them. Piper’s eyes widen as she sees them, fingers gripping his tightly as her vision follows the expanse of land all the way to the horizon. “What is this?”

“This is Persephone’s.” He pulls her closer as he speaks, sliding his arms around her waist from behind. “Whenever she is not in Hades, she is here. Her flowers stretch out as far as the eye can see and are always brighter than any in any other realm.”

A smile stretches across her face as she leans back into him, just taking all of it in. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” he nods with a small smile. “That’s why I wanted to show it to you.”

She nods in return, just resting there for a moment and taking it in, before she tips her head back to look at him again. “How long do we have before Baal gets annoyed with waiting?”

“He usually does a lot of business here, so we probably have a good amount of time.” He pauses for a moment, before glancing back to her and raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

She grins back at him, before pulling out of his arms and starting to dash forward down the hill away from him. “Then let’s go!”

Max stumbles after her before frowning in confusion. “Go where?”

“It’s a surprise!”

The integration of both Peter and Nadia into Nadia’s apartment is almost seamless. Shuffling things around in terms of closet space, personal touches and personal alcohol stashes is easy enough when your tastes are incredibly similar and given that Peter was living with his nieces and nephew for so long, it’s not as though he has an incredibly amount of stuff. The one thing he valued – the one thing they both valued above everything else – are books.

Nadia is already sighing as she looks at her library versus the cardboard boxes that are slowly stacking next to her and comparing that to the lack of shelf space available. While, granted, there are some areas that are void of books, it’s usually because there is a decorative art piece in it’s place and she isn’t entirely sure she wants to remove those either. Aesthetically speaking, a room full of books – even a room with as much open space as she worked to include, can be a bit overwhelming if you aren’t prepared for it.

“Weighing our options?” She feels Peter come up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist to pull her back against him and she goes easily, leaning back against his shoulder with a soft sigh.

“There aren’t many.” One arm comes up to rest over his, brushing her fingers against his hand gently. “I could pull out the couches, add new shelves there.”

“Is that the only choice? I know you tend to prefer to read in here.”

That is true. She does prefer the solitude of the library to the open layout of the rest of her apartment, but in terms of expedience it was the quickest answer. “I could also remove some of the art.”

“You love the art.”

“Hence why our options are limited. Pretty much every choice has a downside, but it’s just a matter of which downside is the least.”

His head dips as he presses a kiss against her pulse point, meant to be a comfort and she closes her eyes in response. “What about an option where there are no downsides?”

“That would be magically finding new shelf space in a place that doesn’t force me to change my aesthetic and completely redecorate the room.” She glances back over her shoulder with a small smile before patting his cheek gently. “Besides, the art of moving in with someone is compromise.”

“Compromise doesn’t mean you have to be unhappy with the result.”

Nadia tends to be a person who believes the best compromise is where neither party is completely happy, but at the same time, that belief probably shouldn’t apply to two people who are moving in together. She gives a small shrug in response, before turning back to the stack of boxes of books and clapping her hands together.

“Let’s start with this. Since we actually have both our libraries in the same place at this point, let’s go through and see where the duplicates are.” They have similar tastes in almost everything else, it stands to reason that they will have similar taste in literature. “Once we know exactly how many books we’re dealing with, we can start from there in terms of a plan of attack. The duplicates can go back into storage at the penthouse.”

Peter glances between the shelves and her books for a moment, before raising an eyebrow. “Is there an efficient way to do this that doesn’t involve you running all over the library trying to find a particular volume?”

“There is a method to my madness.” She smirks. “Besides, it’ll be good cardio.”

He laughs, before grabbing the first box and bringing it over to the table. “Alright. Let’s get started.”

* * * * *

“That’s the last one.”

Nadia lets out a huff of a breath, before making her way down to collapse onto one of the couches with a heavy sigh. He smirks over at her, setting the last book into the appropriate pile before moving to join her. Sitting on the coffee table is a small stack of books that looks almost manageable and for a moment she’s relieved, and just looks up at him with a grin.

“I did say it would be good cardio.”

“That you did,” he says as he moves to sit next to her, giving her something warm to curl up into, and she probably will once she catches her breath. Until then, she’s just going to let her eyes wander to the reasonable stack with a hopeful look.

“That the keep pile?”

Peter looks apologetic for a moment, before shaking his head. “That’s the return to Laura pile.”

Nadia groans, one hand coming up to rub her eyes for a moment, before taking a tentative glance over at the three and a half boxes that remained to be sorted. While it’s good to know exactly how much damage is done, it’s still a lot of damage and they’re going to have to do a little creative maneuvering. She doesn’t argue that now, however, just shifts so that she’s stretching out across his lap, letting her head rest against the armrest of the couch across from him.

“Well, that’s tomorrow’s problem,” she sighs, closing her eyes. “No more cardio.”

“None?”

“Nope.” She can feel his hand brushing against her side as he leans in to kiss her softly and she sighs into the touch.

‘Not even a little?”

He leans in to kiss her right after and she kisses him back, part of her protesting the idea of more physical activity, but the other wanting to sink into it completely, just drowning in the comfort and attention. She hums softly after a moment, before pulling back to look at him.

“Maybe just a little. If that little happens to include a bath and very … lazy cardio.”

He laughs softly at that before nodding his agreement. “I think I can make that work.”

“Good,” she says with a giggle as he scoops her up to take her off to the bathroom to run a bath. “Sounds perfect to me.”

Summer storms have a tendency to come out of nowhere in Kansas. His mother always refers to it as a perfect example of God’s temper – one minute the skies are clear, but mark her words, he is watching his children sin and the rain will come quicker than his father’s belt every time. Granted, he and Sam were ten and six at the time, respectively, and Dean’s appreciation for the rain as grown beyond a force that drives him back into the house but that doesn’t mean the rain is any less a sign. A sign of what, however, is usually the important question.

Today had started out like a beautiful Midwestern day, mostly just a wide berth of bright blue with barely a cloud between them, and it seemed like the perfect day to take Christine for a trip into Lawrence for the day. The town itself is a good few miles from the Winchester homestead so as soon as breakfast is over, he’ll hitch the horses to the wagon and guide her in, wanting to give her a chance to explore something other than a farm.

While she may not be the socialite he originally met anymore, he knows she’s still a city girl and the farm can only be entertaining for so long.

“Today was lovely,” she says as he helps her back onto the cart, before making his way around to the opposite side. “Thank you for taking me.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he nods in agreement, before giving the horses a little nudge to get on their way. At first, their ride is smooth sailing, nothing to keep them from getting too off course, but about halfway there, they run into trouble. Dean’s been living in Kansas long enough that he can smell the rain coming long before he sees the clouds, a sharp damp scent that has him picking up his head and seeing the scowl of dark storm clouds in the distance.

“Oh no.”

“Oh no what?” Christine frowns in return, before squinting at the clouds in the distance, rapidly approaching the closer they get to the Winchester farm. “Is that a storm?”

“Unfortunately,” he replies, before starting to pick up speed with the horses. “We might not be able to reach the farm in time, but there’s shelter not too far that we can take. Hopefully we can get there before it gets too bad.”

Christine nods her agreement, holding on to his arm as well as the cart as the horses pick up speed from their usual cantor. As predicted, there’s a cabin on a wooded path that Dean starts to pull off on, but before they could make it to the front door, there’s a heavy clap of thunder overhead, followed by sudden instantaneous downpour.

“Go inside!” He shouts over the thunder of the rain. “I gotta get the horses somewhere dry!”

Christine nods before doing as she’s told, running for the front door which thankfully was open. He brings the fussy horses around the back to the small barn that rests behind the cabin before making his way back inside. By the time he does, he’s already soaked to the skin, and he looks up at Christine with a self-deprecating smile.

“The weather was nice while it lasted.”

She laughs a bit, before making her way closer, ever the nurse. Some of the wet upper layers she had been wearing were stretched across the back of the couch to dry, but she was still mostly decent. Dean, however, is clearly not so lucky.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes, or you’ll catch your death.”

He nods, pulling off his hat to place it next to her clothes to dry. “There should be some in the bedroom. I’ll be right back.”

He makes his way into the bedroom to shuffle through the drawers, leaving the door open just a crack so Christine’s voice could float through.

“Who owns this place?”

“My father, technically. It originally belonged to a friend of his, but he moved up north to find his fortune in the Dakotas after his wife passed, so he gave my father the cabin so he would have a place to stop on his way in and out of town, should weather like this happen.”

“How fortunate,” Christine says with a nod. “He must have been a good friend not to sell the property outright regardless.”

“My father tried to get him to,” Dean says as he makes his way back out again, now in dry pants and pulling a clean shirt over his head. “But he said that Karen would have wanted us to have it, and once Bobby got somethin’ in his head, there really was no changin’ it.”

“I suppose not,” she nods, her eyes darting from him to the window until she’s certain all his skin is covered.

“I’m sorry about the rain,” he sighs, moving to stand next to her once he is. “I’m sure you would have preferred better weather.”

“I’m from New Orleans, Dean,” she points out, glancing back at him over her shoulder, and he can hear her breath catch when she realizes how close he is. Part of him thinks he should take a step back, but they’ve been dancing around whatever this is for so long, part of him doesn’t really want to. “I can handle a little rain,” she finishes. She doesn’t ask him to step back either.

“Good,” he says softly. He stands there for a moment, hovering in her space, wondering if he should or if he shouldn’t before he can’t stand it anymore and has to ask. “Christine, may I – ”

She beats him to the punch. She usually did. She turns suddenly in front of him, pushing up on her toes and then she’s kissing him, soft and gentle, like someone who didn’t do it all that often, but just often enough to know the basics. He melts into the touch easily, one hand coming up to cup the side of her face gently while the other steadies her waist so that she doesn’t fall.

It doesn’t last long, only a moment, but it’s long enough as far as Dean is concerned. As she pulls back, his thumb brushes against her cheek bone gently, watching her eyes as she shyly glances down to the ground again.

“That was what you were going to ask, wasn’t it?”

He smirks a bit, before tipping his head to the side. “It was. But I didn’t picture it quite like that.” There’s a small pause as he leans in closer. “I think I prefer your way better.”

She beams up at him for a moment, before taking a deep breath and a step back. “We should start a fire. Do you think there’s dry wood here somewhere?”

“I think we can find some.” He smirks again before teasing. “If not, I’m sure we could find other ways to keep warm.”

Shortly after he says it, his wet hat comes at him to smack him in the face.

“I was teasing.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she smirks, before gesturing to the fireplace. “Go! Find the wood.”

He laughs again, before nodding. “Yes, ma’am.”

This is beautiful! Thank you!

There are two rules of Mount Olympus parties.

1) Do not invite mortals. Ambrosia is a danger and nothing can kill a party faster than a dead guest.
2) If you must invite a moral, make sure they can hold their liquor.

It is a fairly easy system to follow, especially when Dionysus is oh so helpful by turning the ambrosia a delightful shade of neon pink. Apollo is not usually one to break rule number one, but Elena wanted to see him drunk. Even after all this time, Elena still usually gets what she wants. This adventure with ambrosia has lead them to scrambling through one of the kitchens in Delphi at two in the morning, trying not to make too much noise in the process, which is a feat, when you’re a drunk agent who is going to kill all mystery by colliding with a series of baking trays.

“Shhhh!” he hisses at the clearly inanimate objects with Elena laughing behind him.

“Maybe you should sit down,” she says, taking him gently by the shoulders and guiding him to one of the nearby stools.

“But I want a snack.”

“I really don’t think you should be cooking right now either.”

“”I’m fine – ” he begins, as one hand swings out and knocks something else off the counter with a clash-bang. There’s a pause as he stares at the result of his destruction, and he holds up a finger in response. “Okay, maybe you should cook.”

“Uh – no. I don’t cook.” Elena makes a face. “Not if you want it to be edible.”

“Yes, you can,” he nods, smirking slightly. “I have faith in you.”

“Apollo – ”

“I’ll teach you.”

Elena looks like she’s about to protest, because that sounds a like the drunk leading the blind and will lead to something in this kitchen being set on fire, but the agent cuts her off before she can.

“Do you trust me?”

“Sober? Yes. Drunk … ” She lets her voice trail off and he grins.

“Grilled cheese. Even with the two of our impairments combined we can’t screw that up too badly.”

Elena sighs for a moment before nodding. Apollo is going to assume it’s because she’s hungry too. “Fine. two grilled cheese, coming up.”

He grins brightly at her before pointing to the fridge. “Get the cheddar and butter. Oooh and tomatoes.”

Elena smirks in amusement as she goes to fetch the block of cheddar cheese from the fridge as well as the butter and tomatoes. “Where’s the bread?”

It takes him a moment of intense concentration, finger wandering wildly around his head, as he tries to discern the location, before pointing to what looks like a bread box on the other side of the kitchen. “There. And the skillet should be in the cabinet under it.”

She nods as she gathers the rest of the ingredients, before assembling in an order so that she can chop up and tailor the ingredients before putting them over heat. As she slices the cheese and the tomatoes, she glances over at him. “I didn’t take you for the cooking type.”

“I am full of surprises,” he replies as he watches her, resting his chin in his hand. “I don’t do it often, but sometime you just want to do things for yourself. And I have a healthy appreciation for food of all kinds.”

“Is it an indulgence like it is with vampires?”

He makes a face for a moment, before shrugging. “Well, I do need to eat. It just probably won’t kill me if I don’t.” He doesn’t know. He’s never tried it. “Put butter on both pieces of bread and place one of them on the skillet butter side down.”

“How hot should I cook it?”

“Just medium should be okay. You don’t want to cook it too fast.” He drums his fingers against the counter as he watches her, just to make sure she’s doing it properly. “Do you miss food?”

“Sometimes,” she says as she places the bread down onto the heat, listening to it sizzle for a moment before starting to add the cheese and tomatoes and then placing the second piece of bread on top. “Butter side on top right?”

“Yep,” he says with a nod. “It must suck, to not really be able to taste it.”

“It does,” she says softly, letting the sandwich settle and melt in front of her but not quite meeting her eyes. “But in some ways it’s good too. It reminds me that I’m not human anymore. Things aren’t going to be the same.”

He nods in agreement, bobbing his head as he listens to the grilled cheese cook. “Still, if you wanted it to taste – ” His statement is cut off when he hears the sizzle he’s been looking for and he points at the cooking grilled cheese. “Now! Flip it now!”

Elena startles at the sudden change in theme, but she does as she’s told, using her vampire reflexes to quickly flip it so that the golden brown side of the sandwich is facing up. Her eyes go wide a bit at that, before tipping her head to the side. “How did you know?”

“I have a knack,” he says simply, before resting his chin in his hands again. “Anyway. As I was saying, if you wanted to taste things the way they’re supposed to, you know where to find me.”

“I will keep that in mind,” she says with a nod, waiting for him to indicate again before sliding the grilled cheese off onto plate and passing it to him. “Think you can stay focused long enough to help me not burn mine?”

He picks up the sandwich before immediately dropping it with a hiss of hot, hot before glancing up again and nodding. “Sure. I can do that. It wouldn’t be fair if you had to watch me eat it and had no cheesy goodness of your own.”

She grins at him, before nodding and reaching for a couple slices of bread again. “I appreciate your consideration.”

He grins as he finally picks up his sandwich and takes a gooey, cheesy bite. “Anytime.”

Edited 2016-01-30 00:58 (UTC)

Oh, good! I'm glad you liked it.

One time, a very long time after Alec invaded Byblos and killed a bunch of witches to rescue Evelina, Evelina takes him back to show him where she grew up. They get Isis’ permission, load up on Baal’s boat, and sail off into the sunset, if for only a little while, for a break from the monotony of Teleios.

At first, Alec doesn’t really understand why they’re going. For him, he understands this as being the equivalent of Manticore, a place where he was tortured and broken and built back up again, expecting him to be stronger. He would never want to take Evelina there, but part of him also realizes that prior to Max, Alec wasn’t all that great a person to begin with. He doesn’t want Evelina to meet the person he was before. That person wasn’t a person at all, he was a metaphorical loaded gun.

Still, Byblos is nice. Alec doesn’t really care much for the people themselves, but the scenery is beautiful. Aside from Teleios, he’s never seen this much green before, ever, and at one point he abandons all pretense of caring about the buildings and just flops down to sun himself in a field of lilacs like the giant cat boy that he is. He closes his eyes and just basks in the warmth, but he can hear the soft pad of Evelina’s footsteps before she leans over him and proceeds to block the very nice sunlight.

“Are you having fun?” she teases, and he grins, blinking his eyes open at her to see her amused smirk.

“I was before you started blocking the sun.” He reaches up to tug on her hand, pulling her down so that she’s sitting next to him, before shifting so that he could rest his head in her lap. “There. Much better.”

“I thought we were having a tour,” she replies, and he closes his eyes again, just letting the warmth wash over him. “We were. But I have now had two months of Teleios winter and I want to enjoy some sunshine.”

“Fair enough,” she says with a nod, her fingers coming up to brush through his hair gently, and he will never say no to that kind of attention. While he’s not big on human contact in general, he doesn’t mind so much when it comes from family. “But did you like what you did see?”

“It’s a nice place,” he says with a shrug. “Probably much better now that that douchebag Olivier is gone.”

“Probably, yes,” she sighs, her hand slowing for a moment. “It’s just so strange to be here and not have to hide.”

He nods, letting them sit in silence for a moment, before one hand comes up and takes her hand, thumb brushing at the inside of her wrist. “Are you thinking of coming back?”

There’s another moment of silence, as though it’s an answer that she’s struggling with, and that seems like an answer in and of itself. Alec certainly won’t judge her if that’s the case, because everyone should follow what they think is right for them. He just knows that he would miss her.

“The Sea Witch has offered to teach me some things,” she says finally, and he doesn’t have to be looking at her face to know that it was hard for her to get out to begin with. “It wouldn’t be permanent – Teleios is my home and it always will be. But she’s … she’s taken an interest in me and she doesn’t do that often. I don’t think it would be right to refuse her.”

“Do you know why she’s interested in you?” Someone that powerful isn’t someone to say no to, that much is probably true, but Alec wants to make sure that she’s at least interested in Evelina for the right reasons.

“Possibly something to do with my bloodline?” she says slowly, but it’s clear she doesn’t know for certain. “Isis says that the curse breakers were created for a reason. Maybe she knows why and wants to make use of that.”

Alec nods once before finally opening his eyes to look up at her, giving her wrist a soft squeeze. “If she tries to make you do something that you don’t think is right, don’t do it.” He knows the sway that powerful figures can hold, and while he appreciates that the Sea Witch helped them save Evelina, he doesn’t want Evelina to lose herself in the process.

Evelina nods, weighing her thoughts carefully. “I don’t think she will. She isn’t really the type. When it comes to things like that, she prefers they be the instrument of their own destruction.”

“Fair enough.” He’s not entirely convinced, but he knows Evelina has the steel to stand up to her. “And if you run into trouble, just … get back to Teleios. We’ll figure something out from there.”

“I will.” She smiles softly, before shifting her grip so that she can take his hand. “Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself.”

“Sure you do,” he teases. “Except when you willingly walk into the lion’s den because you want to help save other people.”

“Some would consider that honorable,” she points out, and he gives a small shrug.

“I’m not some.” He looks up at her and his expression turns more serious. “I would prefer you stay you.”

She watches him softly for a moment, before nodding her agreement. “I will be careful. I promise.”

“Good.” With that, he intends to move on to lighter subjects, his free hand wandering down to pat his stomach lightly. “But right now, I’m starving. Know where there’s anything good to eat around here?”

She nods, with a smile, before shifting to get them both to their feet. “I know just the place.”

Thank you for this one too! It was such a nice surprise!

Yay! I'm glad you liked it!

Neal and Kali have this thing they like to do when they have too much downtime.

Normally, the weather in Teleios is beautiful on any given day, but when it happens to turn a bit dreary, which means people probably aren’t going to Elysifun, and it has also been deemed no good for painting, the two of them will find their way to Friendly’s (Neal will probably talk down on the food the entire time, but even he can be swayed by ice cream), find themselves a corner booth, and proceed to casually one up each other.

It’s an old game, and a slightly conceited one, but they’re also both bored so what harm could it do.

“The roof is the best exit!” Kali protests as she sips her milkshake that she got to go along with her triple scoops of mint ice cream. “You can have a helicopter waiting and and bam, gone.”

“A helicopter is also a loud exit,” Neal replies as he digs into his simple hot fudge sundae, doing his best to be careful not to get said fudge on his usual suit. His hat is sitting on the table next to him and he waves a hand. “It’s a much better ploy to blend in with the crowd. Trigger the fire alarm and the entire building gets evacuated, and you can slip out with them.”

She wrinkles her nose. “How do you do that without getting the gross blue crap on you?”

“Wear gloves.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you two doing?” They both glance over to see Dylan standing at the edge of their table, eyeing them both curiously. Kali grins up at her husband before shifting over so that he can settle into the seat next to her.

“Turns out one of my favorite galleries still exists in Kali’s version of New York in 2021.” Neal knows enough about Kali’s version of the future to know that the Pulse probably wiped out most proper art establishments, so the fact that the same one is still there was a very pleasant surprise.

“We’re discussing what the best way to rob it would be,” Kali chimes in with the second half, and Dylan glances at both of them, exasperated.

“What?” Neal says with a smirk. “It’s not like we’re actually going to rob it. Besides, we couldn’t from here anyway.”

“So you’re going to waste your time debating how exactly you would rob someone rather than doing something … productive?”

“Like what, exactly?” Neal challenges, raising an eyebrow. “It’s raining outside, so no one’s going to the amusement park. I’m caught up on commissions for Pepper and the scenery isn’t exactly inspiring right now. What’s wrong with a little game of what if between two reformed law breakers?”

“It’s not like anyone’s getting hurt,” Kali agrees, before tipping her head to the side as Gaia comes over to take Dylan’s ice cream order. “Wanna play?”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” Neal agrees with a grin. “Tell us, oh brilliant mastermind. How would you play it?”

Dylan glances between them for a moment, torn between what looks like his stubborn FBI agent face, and the face that Neal often recognizes from Peter, the one where he knows that Peter would have made an excellent man with a plan in another life, under different circumstances. Neither his wife nor his landlord say a word, knowing that this is one of those cons where if they speak too soon they lose the sale, and this isn’t one that Neal intends to lose.

“Alright,” Dylan says, as a slow grin stretches across his face. “What are we robbing?”

“Let’s go with something more well known,” Neal grins as he pulls in his ice cream again. “How about the Met?”

* * * * *

“That’s because you have no sense of adventure!” Kali protests with a grin as she digs into her third serving of ice cream. Five hours later, they’ve worked their way through the Louvre and the Crown Jewels in addition to the Met and the Smithsonian, and they still have yet to agree on a particular style. It makes sense, given that they all have different styles to begin with, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not in the mood to tease each other about it.

“I have a sense of adventure,” Neal protests, almost looking offended at the accusation. His sundae sits empty in front of him, and he’s working his way through a cup of coffee instead. “I base jumped off a building and landed on Wall Street in order to sell a con once. I’d just prefer to not risk my life for a job unless absolutely necessary.”

“Un-huh,” Dylan teases in response, working on his own cup of coffee as well. “That still doesn’t account for your lack of imagination.”

Neal almost looks offended at that particular barb. His hand comes up to rest against his chest, looking very disappointed in Dylan’s response to him. “I’ll have you know I was considered a technological virtuoso.”

“Oh God, not that again.”

They all turn to see Peter walking Satchmo into the diner, looking unimpressed that Neal’s bringing out that particular bit of information again. Satchmo goes right to Neal for pets, but Dylan looks up at Peter curiously.

“It’s true?”

“He was called that by a criminology professor who happened to use him as an example in part of his classes. This professor also happened to be a criminal who we arrested, which I think causes the statement to lose a bit of credibility.”

“I disagree,” Neal says as he sips his coffee dutifully. “I think it’s a completely valid description. They copycatted me, after all.”

“Uh-huh,” Peter replies, before glancing at the three of them curiously. “Though I have to wonder what brought that up.”

“Neal, Dylan and I are plotting hypothetical crimes,” Kali says with a grin, and Dylan nods in agreement.

“You pick a location, and we go through the different ways we would rob it.”

Neal pauses curiously, glancing between the three of them over his coffee cup before looking up at Peter with a challenge in his eye. “Want in?”

Peter returns the glances in kind, curiosity crossing his features before nodding as he slides into the booth next to Neal. “Why not? What’s the harm in a little hypothetical crime?”

“See? Now this will be fun.” Neal grins as he shifts to give Peter more room and signals Gaia for a refill on the coffees, as well as one for Peter. “Where to next?”

It is very rare when Christopher gets to be the voice of reason in an argument.

As in it pretty much never happens. Ever. At all. Period.

It’s nothing personal, really, it’s just that usually April is around to steal his thunder, or Piper, and also there is the additional fact that Christopher really just likes to argue with people so in a lot of ways it’s a win-win when he doesn’t have to be the reasonable one.

Until, of course, the moment where he does. In this particular moment, it’s David and Piper that can’t seem to manage to get along which means now he needs to make them regret not being able to resolve their problems by playing mediator. And boy is he going to make them regret it.

When Piper and David arrive at the cabin, they find Christopher sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a stick in one hand and gesturing for them to sit with the other. “Please. Have a seat.”

“What is this?” David demands, crossing his arms in front of his chest and refusing to do as he’s told until he’s given a reason why. Piper, on the other hand, sits just to be contrary to what David wants. Christopher has a feeling it’s probably going to be easier to work with her than it will be with David, but that’s a pro for him as far as he’s concerned.

“I’ve been tasked with the difficult position of getting you two to kiss and make up.” He reaches forward and pats the spot in front of him for David to sit. “Clarisse is standing outside to ensure we get the job done, so let’s not anger the lovely child of Ares and get down to business. Okay?”

David grits his teeth for a moment, before doing as he’s told, joining Piper on the floor and they both clearly look unhappy with each other, but that? That will change. Christopher came prepared, so it takes only a moment for him to produce the stick in his opposite hand with a flourish.

“This? Is the Talking Stick. When someone is holding the Talking Stick – ” They both make a show of being about to cut him off and he holds up the stick. “ – Like me, right now, then everyone else is quiet. Now, remember this isn’t about blame.”

“It’s a little about blame,” Piper mutters, and Christopher shoots her a look before she sighs. “Sorry.”

“It’s about making things better for all of us. And for me to never have to do this again.”

David snorts. “I was wondering why you agreed to do this of all people.”

“I’m proving a point. Get with the program. Now.” He pauses for a moment before holding up the stick between them. “Who wants to go first?” Neither of them make a move for the stick. “Anybody?” Neither of them move again, and he sighs before rolling his eyes. “C’mon guys, the sooner someone talks, the sooner we can get out of here.”

“I’m not touching your stick, Christopher.”

Christopher looks up for a moment. “I’m going to use my considerable self-restraint here to not make an inappropriate joke here, but come on man, we all have things to do. I have a date. Piper also has a life. You probably have a sword to polish, somewhere, and again, I do not mean that inappropriately, though if you wanted to, I could probably – ” There’s a soft growl before David snatches the stick out of his hand, and Christopher grins. “Remember. ‘I’ statements. Let’s dig deep.”

David pauses before wiggling the stick between his fingers. “Talking Stick. My turn.” The “asswipe” on the end of it is implied. Christopher smirks before dramatically bowing to concede the floor. “It’s really frustrating – ” Christopher holds up a finger, and David grits his teeth before correcting. “I find it frustrating when you completely disregard an order I give you in the field. It makes me feel like you don’t trust me and I’m the leader.”

Piper glances between the two of them for a moment, before holding her hand out for the stick. David pauses, before placing it in her hand. “I find it really frustrating that you are incapable of improvising.”

“It was a good – ”

“Uh-uh. I’ve got the stick.” She tips the stick back and forth between her fingers. “It frustrates me, because it makes it seem as though you don’t trust me to have good instincts on the battlefield when this is literally what I’m genetically wired for.”

David manages to bite back another response before holding out his hand for the stick which she concedes and waits for him to speak. “I do trust you. And your … genetics. But when we have a good plan and nothing’s gone wrong yet, I don’t see why we need to improvise?”

“Because we hadn’t cased the place and now that we were seeing it, there’s no reason that the plan can’t change.”

“That doesn’t mean you should just go running off into the middle of danger like that.”

“It’s my job to run into danger, David.”

“Mine too. So why don’t you wait for me?”

“I shouldn’t have to wait for you. I’ve actually been trained for this, unlike you.”

“Because I don’t want anything to happen to you!”

“You can’t control that!”

“I can try!”

The words burst from David with far more emotion than Christopher is used to seeing, because his emotional maturity is usually that of a potato, but at the same time, looking at him indicates it’s much more than that. Christopher, however, is just watching all of this unfold with the curiosity of an avid spectator.

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“I could say the same of you!”

“Because I’m the leader and it’s your job to listen to me.”

“And it’s your job to listen to us too.” Piper throws up her hands as she starts to walk away. “You would think that since we had more experience you would – ”

Her voice cuts off before she can reach the door, and Christopher watches as David’s fingers curl around her wrist and she’s turned back to face him again. A second later he’s kissing her, clumsy and awkwardly and not really doing it with any real finesse but Christopher’s eyes just widen in stunned surprise because wow.

That is really not where he was expecting this evening to go.

Eventually David breaks the kiss, and there’s a moment of startled, deer-in-the-headlights surprise on his face, with eyes so wide it’s almost comical. The next thing both of them know, David is fleeing from the cabin as fast as his stocky legs can carry him, and Piper and Christopher are both staring after him in stunned silence.

Piper’s mouth works awkwardly for a moment, before pointing. “Did he just … ?”

“Yep.”

“And then he just … ?”

“Yep.”

Piper continues to stare for a moment, before starting to head out the door after him. “I’ll be right back.” And with that, she’s gone.

Christopher just stares after them both for a moment, before picking up the Talking Stick and shaking his head. “Damn. I am too good at this.”

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

get your words out } { gywo bingo!

Word Count:
24,849 words

BELT TRACKING

WHITE BELT (1 bingo, any way) - BINGO

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if you don't have too many prompts already!

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coconut fudge really blows down those blues ~ white collar/the vampire diaries ~ 823 words

we put our feet just where they had, had to go ~ bete noire ~ 933 words

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take heed, 'cause i'm a lyrical poet ~ riftverse ~ 1,118 words

my father was a gamblin' man down in new orleans ~ throne of shadows ~ 1,238 words

YELLOW BELT (2 bingos, any way) upside down L

where the french fries are fresh and you might get murdered ~ knights of legend ~ 1,063 words

i wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change ~ tvd/teen wolf ~ 937 words

i like this mess i've made so far ~ spamalot ~ 922 words

all the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop ~ canon au ~ 1149 words

but they haven't put their mittens on ~ teleios ~ 889 words

she's seen all the disciples and all the wannabes ~ teleios ~ 894 words

and times are forever frozen still ~ the vampire diaries/lost girl ~ 1470 words

two ordinary people picked by fate or circumstance | riftverse | 1,877 words

c'mon pretty baby and take a chance ~ 50 shades of stefan ~ 1,395 words

you were born with a wanderer's soul | teleios | 990 words

i never knew there was someone, to make me come alive ~ new york wolves ~ 1,015 words

comes a rainstorm, get rubbers on your feet ~ civil war au ~ 1,204 words

no subject

messing with the flavor oh the flavor that you savor ~ teleios ~ 1,029 words

no subject

but you know i know when it's a dream ~ teleios ~ 972 words

no subject

no subject

sooner or later i'm greater than you ~ teleios ~ 1,095 words

girl there's a better life for me and you ~ heroes of olympus/everworld ~ 1,208 words

get your words out } { gywo bingo!

Word Count:24,849 words

BELT TRACKING

WHITE BELT (1 bingo, any way) - BINGO

no subject

no subject

no subject

if you don't have too many prompts already!

no subject

coconut fudge really blows down those blues ~ white collar/the vampire diaries ~ 823 words

we put our feet just where they had, had to go ~ bete noire ~ 933 words

no subject

no subject

take heed, 'cause i'm a lyrical poet ~ riftverse ~ 1,118 words

my father was a gamblin' man down in new orleans ~ throne of shadows ~ 1,238 words

YELLOW BELT (2 bingos, any way) upside down L

where the french fries are fresh and you might get murdered ~ knights of legend ~ 1,063 words

i wake up wondering if anything in my life is ever going to change ~ tvd/teen wolf ~ 937 words

i like this mess i've made so far ~ spamalot ~ 922 words

all the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop ~ canon au ~ 1149 words

but they haven't put their mittens on ~ teleios ~ 889 words

she's seen all the disciples and all the wannabes ~ teleios ~ 894 words

and times are forever frozen still ~ the vampire diaries/lost girl ~ 1470 words

two ordinary people picked by fate or circumstance | riftverse | 1,877 words

c'mon pretty baby and take a chance ~ 50 shades of stefan ~ 1,395 words

you were born with a wanderer's soul | teleios | 990 words

i never knew there was someone, to make me come alive ~ new york wolves ~ 1,015 words

comes a rainstorm, get rubbers on your feet ~ civil war au ~ 1,204 words

no subject

messing with the flavor oh the flavor that you savor ~ teleios ~ 1,029 words

no subject

but you know i know when it's a dream ~ teleios ~ 972 words

no subject

no subject

sooner or later i'm greater than you ~ teleios ~ 1,095 words

girl there's a better life for me and you ~ heroes of olympus/everworld ~ 1,208 words

Word Count:
24,849 words