prompts { 2023 } fictober

[iluvroadrunner6]

Doing this again to get back into Nano shape because I can. Will need to look at plans for October and see what I might need to write ahead but enjoy



PROMPTS:
01. “It’s not too late, let’s go.”
02. “Don’t worry, I got you.”
03. “Okay, show me.”
04. “Do you even know what this means?”
05. “You’re the smartest person I know.”
06. “I can’t wait for you.”
07. “Do you recognize this?”
08. “Give me that, before anything happens.”
09. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
10. “It’s alright, I’m here now.”
11. “You lost it. Well, we lost it.”
12. “I’m not saying I didn’t like it.”
13. “Come with me, hurry.”
14. “If you don’t stop now —”
15. “Fine, explain it to me.”
16. “Do you know a way out of here?”
17. “I never said it would be easy.”
18. “We can’t do this on our own.”
19. “What if we’re wrong?”
20. “This better be good.”
21. “Just in case this doesn’t work.”
22. “Who takes care of you?”
23. “No, you won’t understand, ever.”
24. “Is it over? Is it really over?”
25. “Do I look like I knew that?”
26. “Honestly, why would I care?”
27. “I don’t know if they will accept this.”
28. “I may not get another chance to say this.”
29. “That’s all? Easy.”
30. “Are you with me?”
31. “It’s not your fault.”

Request plurk
Completed: 31/31
Word Count: 45,691

Comments

REQUESTS

[iluvroadrunner6]

If you have a request please comment to this thread with your choice of prompts and character combos.

if this is too many please tell me

[fissures]

1. “Don’t worry, I got you.” - Julia/Fen
2. “You’re the smartest person I know.” - Sam/Alice
3. “It’s alright, I’m here now.” - Freya/Yennefer
4. “Come with me, hurry.” - Diego/Kady
5. “I never said it would be easy.” - Nate/Allison (Hargreeves)
6. “Who takes care of you?” - Dolls/Wynonna
7. “Is it over? Is it really over?” - Allison (Argent)/Lydia
8. “That’s all? Easy.” - Neal/Rebekah because i miss them

[cholesterol]

01. “It’s not too late, let’s go.” Tyler/Liv
08. “Give me that, before anything happens.” Caroline/Ryan
12. “I’m not saying I didn’t like it.” Sam/Allison
19. “What if we’re wrong?” David/Ezra
25. “Do I look like I knew that?” Elena/Dean

i tried to be restrained

[valeas]

18. “We can’t do this on our own.” Our Candlekeep girl party bc I love them so
28. “I may not get another chance to say this.” Audrey/Nathan (Felderwin is my fave setting for them but follow your heart !)
30. “Are you with me?” Jo/Eliot
31. “It’s not your fault.” Jo/Bela

Re: REQUESTS

[themostfun]

Person of Interest, dealer's choice!

26. “Honestly, why would I care?”
27. “I don’t know if they will accept this.”

Re: REQUESTS

[expectedtheworld]

04. “Do you even know what this means?” - Shawn & Anna BroTP
Might be reaching back into the vault a little too far for this one, if it doesn't work, go with dealer's choice lol.

14. “If you don’t stop now-" - Neal & Anna

Re: REQUESTS

[tessitura]

Just in case this doesn’t work - Freya and Hayley because I 👏🏽 miss 👏🏽 canon and teleios fam 👏🏽

This better be good -
Carol Danvers and Wanda

for alison

[dontkanyeme]

Bo/Clark:
03. “Okay, show me.”
15. “Fine, explain it to me.”

[influenceher]

23. “No, you won’t understand, ever.” - Zari squared
06. “I can’t wait for you.” - Steve/Laurel
16. “Do you know a way out of here?” - Allison + Kamala
09. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” - Elektra/Tess

[dragonmount]

07. “Do you recognize this?” - allison hargreeves + five, sibling time!
11. “You lost it. Well, we lost it.” - sara lance and jax

10/1 ~ it's not too late, let's go. ~ everyone lives ~ 2,136

[geminated]

Jo wins the Merge.

Most people would consider it a good thing. Luke considers it a good thing. Jo definitely considers it a good thing. Josiah probably would consider it a good thing too, but he’d never actually admit it to her.

Father of the year right there.

Liv should consider it a good thing. She could look at the relief that comes with the alleviation of the bone-crushing certainty of death that’s been impressed upon her since she was a young child and see freedom in it. She gets to choose the trajectory of her life now.

She gets choices.

The idea of choices makes her never want to get out of bed.

Liv Parker never planned on having a life past the age of twenty-two. She went through the motions, sure, but she always knew that Luke was going to win. Even her father did, though he never let Luke believe as much. He wanted his heir to be strong, which means letting him think he was going to have to fight for that very thread of survival. But Liv always intended to throw the game because she is not a leader, and she loves her brother more than anything else in the world.

The relief that comes with not being the one to kill him is unreal. But that doesn’t make the idea of what to do with the rest of her life any less complicated.

There’s school. She has a degree she could finish. And after that, she could find a job, like a normal person, and live the rest of her life. Advance her career, deal with whatever magical needs the coven has, get married …

Nope. They’re not going there.

“Are you going to class?”

Luke’s voice has her burrowing under the blankets, pulling the soft cotton up over her mess of blond curls. She doesn’t want to talk about it, and she thinks that response says enough. There’s an irritated huff from the other side of the comforter, but he doesn’t press her further, leaving the dorm room and shutting it behind him.

Liv closes her eyes and goes back to sleep. That decision has a bonus of putting off all the other ones.

* * * * *

The next day, Liv goes to class, as she’s decided that the routine is nice, and it gives her less time to think. The text from Jo arrives in the middle of Alaric’s history course, where she glares daggers into the back of his head for honestly no good reason. At first she thinks it’s some kind of sisterly-slash-leader of the coven ESP where she would prefer Liv not kill her husband-to-be with the power of her stare. Turns out it’s just good old-fashioned sibling betrayal.

Luke is worried about you.

She huffs before firing off a quick response: I’m fine.

She has a feeling that Jo doesn’t believe that any more than Liv does. Liv barely believes it today, even if she’s doing all the normal things like brushing her teeth, taking a shower, eating…she’s damn near functional. Instead of the crushing weight of death, she’s feeling the crushing weight of the future and she’s not sure if she likes it better or worse.

Class ends and she makes her way out into the hallways and she finds Tyler there waiting for her. She immediately wheels around to take hold of her arm, but he’s faster than her and grabs her arm before she can get away.

“Not so fast.”

“Let me guess, Luke narc’d to you too?”

“Maybe. But even if he hadn’t, the line of texts you left on ‘read’ might have done the trick.”

“I was tired.”

“You’re freaking out.” They escape out the front of the hall door and he pulls her around the corner so that they’re out of the walkway and have some privacy. “Because you’re suddenly not going to die anymore and you don’t know what to do about it.”

Her mouth opens, then it closes. It’s rude that he knows her this well when she was putting so much effort into not being known at all. Into putting her distance between them to not add to the pile of hurt she already had going. She thought she was being kind by pushing her away, but he keeps drawing her in like a magnet and she really hates that about him sometimes.

“No, I’m not,” she lies, terribly. “I’m thrilled with my newfound lease on life.”

Tyler gives her a flat look, showing that he knows that response is a pile of bullshit. She shifts her shoulders a bit to shrug him off her.

“Do you want to get a drink?”

She should say no. Drinking likely will lead to feelings and feelings will lead to talking, and talking is the thing she doesn’t want to do right now. But the talking part probably won’t happen for a while, and maybe at that point she’ll be drunk enough to not make any sense. She can maintain her standard of being an enigma.

“Fine.”

They get a bottle of whiskey from the local liquor store and Tyler drives them out to some hidden area of Mystic Falls where they can actually be alone. Three whiskeys in, and she’s resting her head on his shoulder, staring out into the blackness of the night sky, and she sighs.

“You forget how many choices you have to make about the future when you don’t think you’re going to have one.” She doesn’t know why she finds it easier to talk to Tyler than anyone else. Possibly because anyone else she has the option to talk with is forced to deal with her by blood, but Tyler actively chooses her, over and over, even if she doesn’t choose him back. “I feel like I’m so fucking behind now. Like … yeah, I went to school, but it was mostly just killing time until Luke killed me and now I’m stuck with an English major.”

She makes a face.

“How am I going to find a job as an English major when I don’t even like other people?”

He laughs. “You could change your major. That is an option.”

“Do they have a magic major? Because witchcraft and pissing people off are literally the only things I’m good at.”

“I will give you that you are very good at both those things.”

“Thank you.”

“But I also don’t think that’s all you’re good at.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t know it right now. Every choice I’ve made so far has been with the expectation of a fast-coming expiration date. Now I have to make a whole new set of choices and a lot of them are …”

“Scary? Because you might have to admit you want something.”

There’s a weight to those words that makes her feel his eyes on her. She knows that while there is no pressure on this conversation, there is something he wants her to admit. He wants her to want him. But wanting him now differs from how she wanted him before. Wanting him now means an expectation if this maybe becoming something infinite versus finite.

How can she give him that when she can barely commit to anything for herself?

“Yeah,” she eventually manages. “And honestly, I haven’t figured any of that out yet.”

“You don’t have to right now. That’s the beauty of having time. You can figure it out later.”

She knows he’s right. She just wishes it felt a little lighter. Instead, she abruptly changes the subject.

“What about you? What does Tyler Lockwood want?”

He’s quiet, and the weight of his stare shifts from her to the stars above them. She knows he’s still figuring a lot out, from the werewolf waiting in the wings to whether or not he even wants to stay in Mystic Falls. But there’s a sense that he wouldn’t be triggering this conversation if he didn’t have thoughts about something.

“I got offered a job by the Armory. I’m leaving after the wedding.”

“Oh.”

So there is a choice with a timetable on it.

“I’m not rushing you.” He’s quick to reply, and she knows it’s a half-hearted attempt to relieve the pressure that he just put on her. “But I wanted to give you the option if you decided you wanted to get out of here for a while.” There’s another long silence as she processes that, before he speaks too soon, again, like he’s trying to make up for a mistake somewhere. “What we are doesn’t have to change.”

If she’d been more self-aware at the moment, she might admit that him telling her things doesn’t have to change is disappointing. It’s something that she’ll dissect later, when she’s had more time to think about it. (Does she want them to change? Is that a choice she’s going to make, keeping Tyler regardless of how much she feels like she doesn’t deserve to?) But she also sees the other choice he’s offering her.

The Armory isn’t a bad option for someone who’s good at witchcraft and pissing off people.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay.” Apparently thinking about it is a better response than he was expecting, because the tension shifts just enough to lighten the mood. “Do you want more whiskey, or for me to take you back?”

Part of her really wants more whiskey, but when she glances down at her phone, there are texts from Luke wondering where she is. She sighs.

“Guess I better go home.” He doesn’t fight her on it, and takes her back to the dorm. When she pushes the door open to let herself out, she glances back at him. “Still be my date to the wedding?”

He blinks, surprised, before nodding. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Cool.” She flees from the car before she changes her mind or does something stupid to fuck it up.

After getting yelled at by Luke for just disappearing from campus without a word, and he leaves for a date or something, she flops down into bed. Instead of reaching for the covers to pull up over her head, she reaches for her phone instead, scrolling through the numbers until she finds her sister. After hitting send, she listens to the ring until Jo picks up on the other line.

“Liv?”

“How much do you think Dad would kill me if I dropped out of school?”

Turns out having your older sister back to talk to can be really helpful.

* * * * *

Being a bridesmaid means arriving separately to the wedding, but once her hair and makeup are done, she waits outside the venue for Tyler to arrive. She needs to do this before the party, so he doesn’t think it's liquid courage deciding for her. He blinks, confused when he sees her, and frowns.

“Aren’t you supposed to be—”

“I dropped out.”

Liv’s transitions have never been artful, and it’s even less so now. Admitting out loud that she wants something is terrifying. Even if realizing that she wants Tyler is easy.

“You dropped out.” He’s trying to put the puzzle pieces together to go with you.

“Yeah. And I thought that … if you want me to, if it wasn’t too late, that I could go with you. Because I don’t know what I want out of my life yet, and I don’t know what I want us to be even, but I don’t want you to go yet.”

Tyler’s cautiously approaching her, like he’s afraid she’s going to spook if he moves too fast, which…honestly, valid. She swallows, then continues.

“So…are you okay with that?”

He smiles widely before nodding, one arm snaking around her waist. “I’m okay with that. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

“I mean, I was probably going to wind out dropping out, anyway. Maybe do the asshole rich kid thing and just travel for a while. But … you’re the one thing that I’m really sure that I want. So I’m going with it and hoping I don’t land flat on my face.” She looks up at him earnestly, already hating being this vulnerable. “So … is it too late?”

“It’s not too late.” He smirks. “I’d say let’s go right now before you change your mind, but I don’t want your sister to kill me.”

“Probably shouldn’t kiss me either. She paid a truly stupid amount of money for this makeup.”

He laughs. “After the pictures, then?”

“Sounds like a plan.” They head back into the venue hand in hand, and for the first time since the Merge, Liv feels like the weight of her choices is a little but lighter.

Sometimes all you need is a little forward momentum.

10/1

[geminated]

"It's not too late, let's go."

10/2 ~ don't worry, i got you. ~ the magicians ~ 906

[consortial]

Fen finds it odd the way people treat her in the palace.

She is important but not, surrounded by magic but not magical herself, a fixture of the palace that most of the advisors are content to ignore. She moves through her day to day, usually keeping company with the kings and queens, but most of the time, she fades into the background.

She is the High King’s Consort, the result of a deal made with Quentin before he realized what he was doing, and therefore has no opinion that matters, therefore she should be ignored. Never mind the fact that she’s the only native Fillorian of the bunch. Never mind that sometimes even the kings and queens don’t want to deal with her because they have bigger things on her plate.

That’s why Fen likes when Julia comes to visit. Julia actually treats her like she’s there.

For this visit, they’re sitting on the dais behind Eliot and Margo as they go through the daily business in Fillory. Tick is droning on and on about the different unimportant interests while she and Julia catch up and the High King and Queen get increasingly more bored. Fen is only paying half-attention, focusing on her conversation with Julia, when something flickers through the crowd.

It’s not magic, at least not that she can tell. It seems to be one noble angling for a better seat. But something about him seems off. His clothes are fancy enough, he certainly looks clean enough, but there’s something about him that just—

“Oh, no.”

“Fen?”

What Fen knows better than anything is knives. She knows what it means to carry them; she knows how you would need to hold them, and she knows what it would take to throw one. His shoulder shifts to bring the blade up and Fen reacts before she can think. She’s up and pushing Eliot out of the way just in time for the blade to fly.

Everything bursts into a flurry of chaos after that. Margo is casting battle magic over her head. Julia shouts and points, likely bringing in magic of her own. Eliot has his arms around her as he pulls her into a sitting position.

She realizes, belatedly, that she didn’t hear the knife hit the wall or the ground. She looks down, and Eliot shoves his fingers under her chin, tipping her face up towards his.

“Don’t look. It’s better that way.”

Naturally, that makes her want to look down and her head twists out of the way of his fingers. They travel down the length of her, admittedly, beautiful dress until she sees a blotch of red and the hilt of the knife sticking out from her gut.

“Oh, no.”

She thinks it should hurt more, being stabbed. She also thinks that the knife doesn’t belong there and when she goes to pull it out, Eliot grabs her wrists more firmly.

“Even an idiot like me knows you don’t pull a knife out of a stab wound. Julia!”

“I’m here.” Julia’s face appears over hers, and her eyes glow. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

The knife is yanked out, and her head swims a bit, because that hurts. A warm glow spreads across her abdomen and her eyes glance to Eliot again.

“I think I might pass out.”

She doesn’t give him much time to protest that before everything slips into darkness.

* * * * *

When she wakes up, she’s in her room, and Julia is by her side. She looks down, and while her dress is still bloody, she can see at the break in the material there’s nothing but unblemished skin. She glances back up with a sigh of relief before turning back to Julia.

“Thank you.”

Julia startles when she realizes Fen’s awake and makes her way closer with a smile. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay. Or … I will be okay. Eliot and Margo?”

“They’re good. Margo is pissed and trying to figure out where the security lapse was, so they’re busy with that, but I’m sure they’ll swing by to see you once they’re done.”

Fen will take that bit of optimism, though she has a feeling it will probably take time. Assassination attempts are not something to be taken lightly. But she reaches for Julia’s hand all the same because she has a feeling that if she wasn’t there, it could have been a lot worse for Fen.

“I’m so glad you were here.”

Julia smiles before moving to slide into bed next to her. “That was pretty brave, by the way. Diving in front of a knife for Eliot.”

“I was hoping to be faster than the knife. That … didn’t really work out.” She looks down at her dress with a frown. “But I’m just glad everyone’s okay.”

“Me too.”

Fen feels her eyes close again, shifting to rest against Julia’s shoulder. “It’s weird that I’m so tired when you used magic to heal me.”

“You still lost a lot of blood. Your body is trying to catch up.”

Fen nods before squeezing Julia’s hand gently. “When I wake up, we can go see your trees.”

She can feel Julia smile before pressing a kiss against the crown of her head. “I think that sounds wonderful.”

“Good,” she sighs as she drifts off again. Fillory may be an unsafe place, but it’s good to know that she has good friends.

10/2

[consortial]

"Don't worry, I got you."

10/3 ~ okay. show me. (1/2) ~ dctv/lost girl ~ 2,057

[dontkanyeme]

Growing up in a farming country teaches Bo two things:

First, an abandoned barn might seem like a great option for squatting, but it’s actually a recipe for falling through a floor of rotting wood to certain death.

Second, a too well-maintained barn is also not a great option, as those owners check on their property and possibly set things like alarms. Or have dogs.

This barn that she’s attempting to sneak into seems to split the difference between the two. Not abandoned and well maintained, but the older couple who lives there seems to be out of town for the weekend, leaving behind their teenage son. She can handle a teenage son. She is, in fact, a teenage girl with many assets they value—at least if they are into girls. Right now, however, the dark of the farm provides her plenty of cover as she wanders up into one loft where there’s plenty of hay and a soft place to sleep.

“Home sweet temporary squatting situation,” she sighs to herself as she arranges her things. A duffle bag with everything she owns in it, including a beat up pillow and a blanket that has seen many worse-for-wear locations. But, if she’s honest with herself, this actually might be one of the better nights of sleep she’s had in a while. She just wishes it had a shower.

Bo peers out the loft window to check the state of the driveway—a beat up truck sits in the driveway, but no lights on in the house. The son must be out cold or just out. She gives herself permission to sneak down and try to find a house or something that might give her the chance to get clean.

“Come on,” she murmurs to herself. “Mama wants to feel like a human again—Ha!” A triumphant fist shoots into the air as she finds the spigot with a hose attached. Glancing again for any lights in the farmhouse, she kicks out of her boots and strip free of her clothes. She’s far enough from the road and it’s dark enough that she should be nearly invisible. She’s down to her bra and is wiggling out of her jeans when she hears the footsteps a half second too late.

“Is someone out—oh my god.”

“Oh, my god!” Bo looks up and sees the broad shoulders of the son she was worried about spinning away from her. Bo tries to dive back into the barn and out of view. With her skinny jeans halfway down her thighs, it’s less of a leap and more of a clumsy stumble, leaving her landing hard on the stone floor of the barn. “Ow.”

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing wounded but my dignity.”

“Can you please put your clothes back on?”

“Working on it.” She gives up on getting to her feet, just rocking back so she can pull her jeans back over her hips, and then sticks her hand out from behind the door. “My shirt, please?”

There’s some shuffling, before the worn flannel passes into her hand and she pulls it back into place over her breasts.

“So why are you stripping in my barn?” the son finally works up the nerve to ask, and Bo at least has the decency to blush as she makes her way back around the corner.

“I was going to use your hose for a shower. I didn’t realize anyone was home. Or awake.”

“I have good ears.” He quips. “Why my barn?”

“Again, I didn’t think anyone was home and unfortunately for me, I don’t have enough money to crash at even the crappiest motels in Smallville.” She gives him an apologetic look. “I was planning to be gone by the morning. I didn’t mean to be any trouble.”

Clark nods as he glances over at her. She sees it when he realizes that she’s just a kid, like him, and then glances back at the house. “You can come in and use the shower. At least you’ll have some hot water.”

“Really?” Her face brightens at the prospect of a real, hot shower. “Wait, why?”

“You seem like you need it. And … my parents are out of town and it’s actually kind of weird and lonely in the house.” He wrinkles his nose.

“Not worried I’m going to rob you or something?”

“Are you?”

He looks at her intently, like he’s listening for something in her voice, and it’s the first time she gets a really good look at him. Handsome, in that corn fed kind of way. Eyes sharp but earnest. Sturdy on his own two feet, but everything about his body language is open, welcoming. She can’t really say she’s ever met anyone like him.

“No,” she answers honestly. Robbing isn’t really part of her modus operandi. That doesn’t mean that this kid will get away clean if he keeps trying to spend time with her, but … well, no one is going there just yet. They did just meet, after all.

“Then come in and use the shower. And then maybe we could go get you something to eat.” He waits for her to grab her things before following him inside. “The Harvest Fest is happening in town.”

“Sounds fun,” she smiles as she steps in the door after him. “I’m starving.” She pauses once she’s inside, and realizes she hasn’t even fully introduced herself. “I’m Bo, by the way.”

He turns back to her with a nod and offers a small smile. “Clark.”

* * * * *

The Harvest Fest is exactly the small-town schtick she expects from a town called Smallville. That doesn’t mean that Clark isn’t right about the food being delicious. The fried cheese curds are top-notch, and she makes a contemplative happy noise as she pops one in her mouth.

“So what are they celebrating harvesting, exactly? Is Smallville known for a specific crop?”

“It’s not really about that,” Clark replies, tearing off a piece of his funnel cake. “It’s more about taking care of each other. Donating what we have and sharing it with people who need it.”

“People like a nineteen-year-old runaway who you find in your barn?” She nudges him with her shoulder and he laughs.

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But I would have helped you whether or not it was Harvest Fest.”

“You know, Clark, I already believe that about you. And you’re probably not even hoping you’ll get lucky.” His ears turn pink as he looks away from her awkwardly and she laughs. “See what I mean? Pure boy scout.”

An awkward smile crosses his face, and as he glances up, and something catches his eye. She follows his eyeline until it lands on another girl, being pretty intensely flirted with by another teenage boy. One who is distinctively less boy scout. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t,” he admits and she frowns.

“Let me guess. Ex-girlfriend.”

“Yep.”

“New boyfriend?”

“Technically, her old boyfriend in a new relationship.” He shrugs. “It seemed to go back and forth between the two of us throughout high school.”

“Ah.” She tips the box of cheese curds towards him. “So what stage are you at in this whole getting over her process?”

Clark gives her a hapless look. “Honestly? I have no idea. When I’m out at school, I can focus on school and everything’s fine, but when I come home…”

“You see her, and it gets all confusing again?”

“Something like that.” He clenches his jaw briefly. “It’s not even about her, really. I just wish I knew whether I was ready.”

“How many girls have you been with since her?” Clark gives her another hapless look, and her jaw drops. “Are you kidding? You don’t have college co-eds just climbing all over you?”

“I’m not … good at girls.”

“Guys who look like you don’t normally have to be good at them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “Are you saying you’re not aware that you’re totally hot?”

Clark’s ears turn pink again as he looks away. “No one’s ever put it in quite those words.”

“Well, you are. Even if you are a little too trusting and kind of a nerd,” Bo turns to step in front of him before adjusting her clothes to give her assets a bit of a boost. “But those things can be hot too. What you have to do is own it.”

“And how do I do that?”

Bo takes a step closer, playing, curling one string of his hoodie around her finger. She’s all too aware of the signal it sends across the midway, and she knows that his ex and her new boyfriend are watching. “By acting like you’re ready to move on.”

She can feel the heat rising from his skin, but to his credit, he doesn’t back away. She can feel a different hunger stirring and while she does her best to push it down, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. But this will not go too far. This is just playing a game to make his ex jealous—that’s all.

Clark’s eyes flare with something, a bit of curiosity, maybe even a touch of desire, but he focuses all of his attention on her. It isn’t even really about the ex at all, is it? It’s just having some confidence in himself. Not the first time Bo has turned herself into a magnet, but this feels different somehow.

“Act like a guy who knows that he’s here with a girl like me.” She says firmly. “And carry yourself like you know what that means.”

His shoulders square slightly at the challenge before looking down at her intently. “I know what that means.”

Maybe Kansas is her kind of guy, after all. She grins as she uses his hoodie to pull him closer. “Okay. Show me.”

* * * * *

Kissing Clark is like … well, it’s safe to say it’s like nothing she’s ever experienced before. Future Bo, when she’s learning about the Fae, will probably attribute it to him being something like that. But Current Bo barely knows what she is, never mind trying to discern non-humans by how they taste. She just knows that there’s something otherworldly about the taste of him. Like a rare delicacy that she doesn’t know she’ll have again, and she simply wants to devour him.

He tries to do the gentlemanly thing, after kissing her in the middle of the midway, and realizing that things are going to be more than just that one kiss. He invites her up to his room, says they don’t have to spend the night in the barn. But empty bedrooms in the family home are for girlfriends, not a stowaway who might leave you dead in the morning, so Bo refuses.

His parents shouldn’t have to come home to that.

When she wakes up the next morning, tucked into the loft in a cocoon of heavy blankets, she almost dreads rolling over. At least, until she feels the body shift next to her, one heavy arm moving to drape across her waist, before stilling as he goes back to sleep.

He’s alive. Clark is alive?

She rolls over to face him, trying to move slowly enough that she doesn’t wake him, but there he is. No telltale shadows on his face. His chest rises and falls in the space between them, and part of her wants to cry. She thinks, maybe, just for a moment, that this nightmare may be over.

But she also knows she can’t stay. His parents will be home in a few hours, and they probably don’t want to catch their son naked with a girl in the barn. So she slips out from under his arm, quietly gets dressed, and turns back to him when he gives a quiet mumble.

“I have to go,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his temple. “But thank you.”

A few stops from now, she’ll realize the nightmare isn’t over. And it’ll take her years to figure out what made Clark from Smallville, Kansas special. But when she gets on that bus and drives off into the distance, she can’t help but feel like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

Maybe Harvest Fest had something to give her after all.

10/3

[dontkanyeme]

"Okay. Show me."

10/4 ~ do you even know what this means? ~ riftverse ~ 1,134

[pwnspatrickjane]

Shawn bursts through the door of the Wanderer Police Force with the fervor that would leave most people concerned. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a few days. With none of the telltale signs of nacho cheese and other accouterment that shows a late-night movie marathon versus genuine stress. He can see the concern on Anna’s face when he makes his way forward and slaps the large piece of paper in his hands down on her desk.

“Something is happening.”

Anna holds up her hands tentatively, as though trying to calm a spooked dog. “You okay, Shawn?”

“Not really.” He’s tired enough to admit it, and he goes to flop into the seat across from her. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in a few days because I keep seeing this mess and I need someone to do something about it so I can actually sleep.”

“Alright.” The concerned look doesn’t fall from her face as she looks down at the sheet of paper, trying to make sense of the mismatched imagery. Her brow furrows as she looks up at him again. “I don’t know what any of this means, Shawn. Do you even know what this means?”

“…Kinda?”

The “kinda” isn’t exactly reassuring. He can tell by the look on Anna’s face. She stares him down, and he sighs before leaning in closer and pointing at the various symbols he’s drawn. Shawn is many things, but he’s not a great artist, that much is clear.

“So remember that scene in Ferris Buller when he’s on the parade float dancing to ‘Twist and Shout’?”

“Yes, you’ve made me watch it several times.”

“That’s where I think it’s happening. It’s the what and when that’s a little … fuzzy.”

“That’s not really a lot to go on.”

“Unfortunately, that’s really all I’ve got.”

Anna takes a deep breath before nodding. “Okay. We’ll go check it out and see what we can find. It’s not like I had anything better to do today.”

Shawn leaps to his feet with a nod and a smile. “Nice. I brought Irma so we can have hot dogs on the way.”

Anna smirks as she gets up to follow him out the door. “Even if your tips are a waste of time, at least you feed me.”

* * * * *

They make it to Dearborn street easily enough, with Shawn pulling Irma to a stop in the nearest parking spot he can find, which took time to find. As they prepare to hit the streets, Shawn shoves the rest of his hot dog in his mouth while Anna surveys the street.

“Okay, so. Are you … getting anything?”

“I am getting…” There’s a pregnant pause before he turns and points to a set of stairs close to where they’re standing. “…that I’m expecting a group of cool cats to come dancing down those stairs to work it on out.”

She sighs. “Shawn.”

“You know, Anna, you can work and have fun at the same time. I do it all the time, especially when I’m solving murders.”

“So you’re saying this is a murder now?”

“It might be.” He makes a face. “The visions haven’t been all that clear, but given that Chicago is worse than Santa Barbara in terms of disasters afoot, I wouldn’t take it off the table.”

“Fair point.”

Anna heads down the sidewalk, keeping her eyes open for any sign of disturbances, and Shawn does the same. They wander for a few hours, trying to find something that might give any sign of what’s coming, but come up with nothing. Shawn picks up a pair of ice cream cones as she comes back to Anna’s bench with a nod.

“It was a long shot. But I appreciate you coming out with me all the same.”

“Any time.” She takes the ice cream from him with a smile. “Do you think checking it out will help you get some sleep?”

“Hard to say. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” Sometimes with these visions, that’s the best they can do. But as he tips his head to chase a trail of ice cream down his hand, a rift opens up not too far from them, and a massive creature pushes through to the other side. Astride its back is a small, gremlin looking creature that raises its tiny spear in the air.

“I AM THE GREAT KARNACK AND I AM HERE TO CONQUER THIS PLANE.”

The voice is so tinny Shawn almost can’t make out the words, but pieces of his vision flash through his mind and oh.

Oh, no.

“Uh, Anna?”

“Yeah, Shawn?”

“I think that’s our guy.”

Anna follows his finger as it points to Karnack and his noble steed, which is running about the size of a city bus. Her eyes widen, hand slumping to the side a bit as her ice cream falls to the ground.

“Did he just say that he was here to conquer this plane?”

“Yeah, think so.”

“Great.” Anna turns to look at Shawn. “This feels above our paygrade.”

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

Anna pulls out her journal and flips to a blank page. “Call in reinforcements.”

* * * * *

It takes some time, but eventually they get the right people for the job to come and talk Karnack down. Fortunately for them, his mighty steed is much more interested in Shawn’s hot dogs than he is in world domination, so it doesn’t take much to distract him.

Flack and some of the other local Chicago leadership sort through the situation. In the meantime, Anna wanders over to where Shawn is sitting on the bench, feeding hot dogs to the beast one at a time.

“Apparently, his name is Wallace,” Shawn says affirmatively.

“And how do you know that?” Anna raises an eyebrow. “Do your psychic powers come with a side of animal telepathy?”

“Nope.” Shawn reaches over and shifts part of the harness around the creature’s neck to reveal a golden tag. “He has a name tag.”

“Well…nice to meet you, Wallace. You two seem to be made fast friends.”

“Yeah, he’s a pretty gentle giant.” He then reaches over to the spot on the bench next to him, retrieving a slushie to pass to his friend. “Thanks again for helping me figure it out.”

Anna glances down at the slushie, but doesn’t decline. “Are you trying to bribe me with food, Spencer?”

“Positive reinforcement usually does wonders,” Shawn teases before grinning at her. “Is it working?”

“Maybe.” Anna shakes her head. “But the next time we go on a vision wild goose chase? I’m going to be expecting something classier than hot dogs and slushies.”

He grins before Wallace nudges his arm, looking for another hot dog. “Deal.”

10/4

[pwnspatrickjane]

"Do you even know what this means?"

10/5 ~ you're the smartest person i know. ~ felderwin ~ 1,303

[imnot_likeyou]

It’s a few days' travel from the edges of Xhorhas to Zadash, so it means a few days on the road. They actually find a tavern room in Shady Creek Run thanks to a friend of a friend of Wynonna, but this night they’re camping. Alice cast Tiny Hut over them as an extra protective shield, but they still agree to sleep in shifts, just in case.

The people they’re dealing with are clearly powerful. They don’t want to be caught unawares.

Sam and Alice volunteer to take the first shift, much to Wynonna and Waverly’s chagrin. The newly found sisters are still feeling uneasy with each other. Given that neither of them is going anywhere, it’s likely for the best that they get some time to actually talk. In the meantime, Sam and Alice’s rapport is getting better, but it’s still not what it could be. Part of him knows it will never be what it was. But there’s a part of him that still reaches for it, hoping that there’s a way back.

As the sisters drift off to sleep, Sam settles with his back against the hut, facing the opposite direction Alice is to cover their bases. He has his spell book resting on one side, while he adds the sketch of the men they’re looking for to the rest of Dean’s notes. It’s not making any more sense than it did before they came to Xhorhas, but at least Sam now knows what they look like.

“Did anything we found make Dean’s notes make more sense?” Alice asks as she moves to settle on the opposite side of him.

“Kind of?” Sam shifts a bit. “Wynonna identifying the mark as being related to the homestead means whatever this is has been happening for a long time. And I don’t know for sure who put Dean onto it. But we know what they look like—which means maybe we can try to scry on them?”

“If their cult has been avoiding detection for this long, they may be impossible to scry on.” Alice gives him a slightly chiding look. “You’re smart enough to know that.”

“I know that,” he sighs, because she’s right. He is smart enough for that. But he’s also been a Volstrukker long enough to know that sometimes people slip up. Scrying on powerful people is a matter of rolling the dice and hoping you catch them on a bad day. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t.”

Alice chooses not to argue. Instead, she gestures for him to hand her Dean’s journal so she could have a closer look. He hands it over without thinking twice, shifting to look up at the stars as she studies the book. She takes it before looking up at him.

“No caveats? You’re just going to give me your brother’s journal?”

Sam glances back at her. “You’re the smartest person I know. If anyone can find something Jo or I missed in Dean’s chicken scratch, it’s probably you.” Even if she and Dean have never met, maybe Alice can see something he missed.

She smiles slightly, her head dipping so that her hair falls in her face as she brushes through the pages. “I might need more than a few hours with it.”

“Well, we still have a bit of time to travel back to Zadash, and depending on how long Jo and Duke take in the mountains, you’ll have time.”

“Okay.” She closes it after a moment, before inching closer, leaning into him a bit. His breath catches at the contact, and while he tries to keep it subtle, she’s close enough that it’s hard to tell whether or not she notices. She then reaches over and pulls out the spell book he keeps by his side, and holds it up to him. “I want to talk about this, though.”

Sam’s brow furrows as he fights the urge to pull it back from her. He’s had that spell book since he started at the Academy. It really helps him crack magic, and he doesn’t understand what Alice has to be concerned about.

“My spell book?”

“How did you get this spell book again? I think you told me back at school, but I … I wasn’t really paying attention.”

She seems almost ashamed at that, but she had bigger priorities at the time than figuring out why Sam couldn’t get his magical shit together.

“I found it in the library. It just … it felt like it was meant for me.”

“Mmm.” She pauses as she flips open the pages, running her hands over Sam’s careful handwriting as he wrote the incantations and components needed. He wonders what her spell book looks like. He hasn’t really hasn’t seen it since school, when they used to compare the spells they mastered in the brief moments when things weren’t about Charlie or Jedikiah. “We’re friends, right?”

The hesitation in her voice almost neutralizes the small thrill that they’ve graduated to friends again. He swallows hard, pushing down the swirl of contradicting feelings and nods. “Yeah. We’re friends.” As much as he’s friends with anyone anymore. And he called her to be here. That counts for something.

“Be careful with this.”

The warning takes him by surprise. He knows she means it as a kindness—she’s a Necromancer and an expositor of the Cobalt Soul. She’s likely seen and has been more cautious with strange magic than he has. Especially given that the Volstrukker mentality is mostly to collect and hoard, rather than understand.

After all, there’s nothing that the Cerberus Assembly loves more than ancient, powerful, unaccounted for magic.

“What do you mean?”

“Most wizard’s spell books feel like the wizard’s magic.” Alice turns to look him in the eye, making sure she has his attention. “Magic … it has its own signature, because people channel it in different ways. Like I’m a wizard specializing in necromancy, and I’m very technical in my casting—it’s going to feel different from how Waverly casts. She’s channeling a divine being and the knowledge domain, so she’s also pretty technical, but arcane magic feels different from divine. You’ve always been really instinctive, on the fly, and it smells like salt and matches. I feel like with how close we were, I always knew your magic.”

She pauses, before closing the book and bracketing it in her hands. “But the spells that you’ve been casting lately—they haven’t felt like you. More and more, they’ve been feeling like this.” She pushes the book forward and places it back in his hands again. “And … I’m not sure that this is good.”

Sam pauses and thinks about the things about him that Alice doesn’t know. The years spent under Jedikiah’s tutelage. The night with Jo in the roadhouse that he doesn’t remember. Things that could have twisted and corrupted his magic. But Alice is warning him about this book for a reason. She sees something he doesn’t.

And regardless of how long it’s been, he trusts her.

“Okay.” He can accept the warning. Look into it more when things with Dean have settled. When he has space for more than finding out what happened to his brother and why. Sam’s committed to being better, after all. He will not let himself get pulled further into a trap that he might not have realized he was straddling.

But as their shift ends and they trade off with Wynonna and Waverly, he hears a quiet whisper in the back of his mind. Almost like Jedikiah’s voice whispering in his ear all those years: Or maybe she wants to steal it from you first? As he drifts off to sleep, that nagging nugget of insecurity settles in firmer than he’d like to, because he knows he can trust Alice.

Right?

10/5

[imnot_likeyou]

"You're the smartest person I know."

10/6 ~ i can't wait for you. ~ dctv/marvel cinematic universe ~ 1,203

[prosecutorial]

Thea plops down on the couch next to Laurel and raises an eyebrow at her. “You’ll never guess what I saw at the Christmas party.”

“You probably saw many things you weren’t supposed to see at the Christmas party.” It’s one of the minor side effects of having a Christmas party thrown by Tommy Merlyn. It means the children present might have seen things they weren’t ready for. Thea rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“I’ve seen worse at clubs.”

Laurel’s eyes narrow. “What are you doing sneaking into clubs?”

“Oh my god.”

“Thea, you are thirteen.”

“Like you weren’t doing some of the same things at thirteen?”

Laurel clamps her mouth shut because she doesn’t have a rebuttal to that necessarily. Playing older sibling to Thea isn’t the same as it was for Sara, where they were so close in age they enabled all of their worst decisions. With Thea, she has to set an example. “I plead the fifth.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Okay, fine, what did you see at the Christmas party?”

“I saw you getting caught with a certain hottie super soldier under the mistletoe.”

Laurel can feel the blush creeping up her cheeks, and she shakes her head. “I didn’t think anybody saw that.”

“Well, I did, and I need all the deets.”

Laurel pauses, frowns, and then glances back to Thea. “You actually want to talk about that?” She doesn’t know why she’s so surprised. Thea’s always been one for gossip, but Laurel didn’t expect her to be so … pleased about it.

Thea studies her face, then reaches over and places a hand on her shoulder. “I loved my brother. But he could be a massive tool. Also, he’s dead. Believe it or not, I think it’s a-okay for you to move on if you’ve found someone you want to move on with. I definitely think you shouldn’t be waiting for a dead guy who snuck off on a boat with your sister.”

“It’s not just—”

“Oh, it’s a lot of that.” Thea replies. “And it’s something you really need to let go of because one, Steve is hot. Two, he’s actually nice. He talks to me like I’m an actual person and not some tag along little kid. Three, did he I mention that he’s hot?”

“Okay, please stop objectifying my friend, thank you.” Laurel sighs as she pulls her closer. “I know it’s been a year and I really need to move on. I just … I’m not sure what’s holding me back.”

“Is he a bad kisser?”

Laurel’s face turns wistful for a moment, before shaking her head. “No. Definitely not that.”

“Is it the whole Avenger thing? Because I guess to some people that’d probably be a lot.”

“It is, but … no.” She can handle being with a hero. Being an Avenger is just Steve’s job. He’s so much more than that. “It’s definitely a me problem. There’s nothing wrong with him. And I do really like him.”

“Then I think you need to finish metaphysically breaking up with Oliver.” It feels like a quip, but there’s more truth to it than she thinks Thea realizes. She pushes the thought to the back of her mind to percolate for when she and Thea aren’t spending quality time together.

“So. Movie?”

“Yes!”

* * * * *

After returning Thea to the Queen Manor, she pauses and deviates her steps on the way back to her car. She turns and heads back towards the grounds, not stopping until she’s standing in front of the large headstones they erected for Robert and Oliver, even though their bodies were never found. She tries not to think of her sister’s equally empty grave, and how she’s never going to get that closure either.

One hurdle at a time.

She pauses, staring at the stone representation of Oliver and sighs, folding her legs under her as she sits on the ground. At first, she’s not really sure what to say—breaking up with a headstone isn’t something they teach you how to do—but eventually she just starts talking.

“I can’t wait for you.” She pauses, rubbing her sweaty palms on her jeans. Admitting this to anyone has been such a struggle, and it seems to just flow out of her once that stopper is pulled. “I don’t know why I am. I keep waiting for you, so that we can have this conversation face to face, even though I know you’re not coming back. I know that you’re dead and we’re never going to have that closure. And that sucks.”

She pauses, takes a breath. This feels good? She continues to let the headstone have it.

“And you know what else sucks? You. You were a really terrible boyfriend. I think a part of me always knew there were other girls? But my sister, Oliver? Really? And it’s bad enough that you were sleeping with her, but you also got her killed too and that … I can’t forgive that.” Another deep breath. She nods. “So we’re done. I will not waste any more time worrying about how I’m living my life because of you. I’m just going to have a life.”

She takes one last deep breath and lets it all go for good. Time to move on.

* * * * *

She flops back on her couch and reaches for her phone as soon as she gets home. It doesn’t take her long to scroll through and find Steve’s number. She intends to go with her newfound weightlessness for all it’s worth, and she hopes she’s not reading things wrong. On the second ring, he picks up and she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hey.”

“Hey. You busy?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.” She hears a shift from light conversation to open air silence as a door closes behind him. “What’s up?”

“So I was thinking about Christmas.” Before he can work himself into a panic, she finishes with. “In a good way.”

“Oh. Good.” He still sounds nervous, and she fights the urge to tease him. “In what kind of good way?”

“In that I would like to do it again sometime? If you’re okay with that.”

“I’m definitely okay with that,” he nods. “In fact, I have some time off coming up, if you want to come out to DC for a little while? Maybe meet some of my friends. Or…friend? There’s only really one of them.”

“I’d love that,” she smiles. “Just send me the dates and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” Steve pauses. “Everything okay? I know when I left, things were a bit … awkward.”

“They were. But it absolutely wasn’t you. It was just some me stuff I needed to sort out.”

“Okay.” He pauses as he nods. “And you think you’ve figured it out?”

“I think I’ve made some much better choices for me. I’ll tell you all about it when I visit.”

“Good. You can help me find some good places…”

As their conversation fades into its normal routine, she can’t help but smile as she settles in to listen. Sometimes, moving on is worth more than you realize.

10/6

[prosecutorial]

"I can't wait for you."

10/7 ~ do you recognize this? ~ villagers ~ 1,576

[rumorate]

“Hey.”

Five gets her attention as she sits in the lobby of the Kashtta, tossing a cutout piece of cloth down on the table in front of her. Attached to it is a metal emblem, a bird in a circle, and while she doesn’t know it offhand, there’s something almost familiar about it. She blinks up at him in confusion and he as he asks the obvious question.

“Do you recognize this?”

She shakes her head. “No? Should I?”

Five makes a face—Allison talking in his head gets no less weird, and she knows that, but she needs the practice. She also knows that if he wasn’t coming to her with a concern, he’d chide her for not practicing with her actual voice. She will not get it back if she doesn’t use it.

Yes, she knows. Don’t rub it in.

“I found it attached to what looked like some kind of super suit. Found it ditched near the trolley. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was one of Dad’s. The material reminded me of the suits he put us in when we were kids.”

Allison frowns again and reaches down to pick it up. She sees what he means. Stretchy and breathable, but sturdy at the same time—yeah. This seems like their father’s work. But what’s with the Sparrow? And where did it come from? She leans back in her seat, trying to do the math when she realizes it's near the top of the month.

“Did a trolley just come in?”

Five nods. “Just like clockwork, as it does every other month.”

“Then maybe it belongs to someone newly arrived. We could track them down and find some answers?”

“That’s my plan.” Five raises a hand towards the door, before turning towards her. “Shall we?”

Allison nods, getting to her feet and grabbing the sparrow emblem behind her. “What happened to the rest of the suit?”

“I left it where I found it.”

She gives him a look at that. That person will not be happy that Five ruined their suit. He gives her one like that, before commenting:

“If you have something to say, Allison—use your words.”

She immediately rolls her eyes before following him out the door.

* * * * *

They spend the first hour heading back to the spot where Five found the suit, and circling outwards from there. They talked to a few newcomers and could send them toward the Kashtta, but nothing that fit with what they were looking for. As the sun sets, Five opens his mouth.

“We need to talk about your voice.”

Of course he does it in the most Five ways possible. Allison’s silence is her response, deciding not to dignify it with one. They do not need to talk about her voice. She can communicate just fine. Case in point.

Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes. “You need to practice using it, Allison.”

”What’s the rush?” she points out. “It’s not like we can’t speak.”

“This isn’t speaking. This is you being creepy while I get annoyed.” There’s a longer stretch of silence before he softens his tone, trying a different tack. “Have you tried it since it healed?”

She remains silent again, though this time it’s more contemplative. Like she’s trying to figure out the right answer to this. Has she tried? There’s been a few croaked words here and there, but sometimes feels too heavy and she closes it again, not wanting to tempt fate.

Five takes the silence for what it is after a while. “You need to try. I know it’s hard—” She flashes him a look, and he holds up his hands in surrender. “—I can imagine it’s hard. But you can’t rumor anyone with your telepathy. You’ve tried.”

“I don’t need my rumors to protect myself.”

“Maybe not. But I would feel better if you had them. You never know what we’re going to come up against.”

Allison lets him have the last word as they come up to the front door of the Crowbar. They’re here to get information, not discuss her unwillingness to move forward any further. She knows that he’s not wrong. She knows that he’s just trying to help her, in his own awkward Five way. But she also knows that this is something that she needs to do on her timetable, not his. She can’t rush it.

She lets her eyes scan over the room as Five does the same, both of them looking for something familiar out in the crowd. Even if there was, she doesn’t know if she’d recognize it. But as she’s about to signal to Five that she has nothing, Five is looking dead ahead, frozen by something that she missed.

“Is that—?”

Allison follows his eyeline until she meets a familiar profile at the bar. Something that makes her heart drop into the pit of her stomach and is also enough that has her response flying out of her mouth before she can give it a second thought.

“Ben?”

Her voice sounds crackling and dry from lack of use. But it’s her voice, and it’s loud enough to get the attention of the young man at the bar. He turns at the sound of his name, and when his eyes land on the two of them, he scoffs.

“Great, it’s you two.”

Allison rears back as Five snaps: “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, what—you end my world, and I’m just supposed to be happy to see you?”

“What do you mean, ‘end your world’?” Allison fires back, and Ben recoils.

“How the hell did you do that? Is that part of your power upgrades?”

Power upgrade? Allison isn’t sure what to make of that, and thankfully, Five speaks up first.

“Listen, numb nuts—you’re in Chicago now, and that means everything with time is royally fucked. So beyond the fact that you look like our brother Ben, we don’t know what you’re actually talking about.”

“Great. So we have to start over with the whole ‘I’m not your brother’ bit? Just peachy.” Ben looks supremely annoyed, but Allison is suspecting that’s just his default expression. “Fine. If you want to be caught up, grab yourself a drink. You’re going to need it.”

Allison glances back over at Five. She raises an eyebrow as though to ask silently: Do they actually want to know? Five looks back at her, and while she can see the war on his face, part of him needs to understand what happened with the apocalypse. Allison can’t answer that question for him, but maybe this Ben can.

“If he continues being a dick, I give you full permission to test if your powers work on him.” He flashes her a thin smile before making his way up to the bar to grab a seat next to Not Their Ben. Allison hangs back, taking a deep breath, before moving up to join them.

This should be fun.

* * * * *

Eventually, Ben leaves them at the bar, having swallowed down that they somehow fucked up their lives so royally that they’d never been born. Allison has no idea how to process that, or the implications that lie beyond it, and Five looks like he’s shell-shocked from all the information.

“Do you ever wish that you could just … not be yourself for five minutes and make better choices?” He’s drunk enough that he’s actually talking to her like a person rather than a know it all. She’s drunk enough that she doesn’t think too hard before she responds.

“All the time.”

Five snorts before looking down at his glass again. “I thought you liked your Hollywood life. That’s what the magazines seemed to say.”

“Yeah, well, those magazines were fake. And to be honest, a lot of the time so was my life.”

Five looks up at her again, then frowns. “Because of the rumors?” She nods. “Is that why you don’t want to—?” She shakes her head, taking another swig of her drink before responding.

“The last time I tried to rumor someone, I wasn’t fast enough, and they slit my throat. I don’t know if I can do it again without seeing that night, and until I can do that, it’s not safe for me to use it.”

Five nods, before resting his chin in his hand and giving her arm a squeeze. “Can you just try? For me. Just so I know, if worst comes to worse, it’s there.”

Him knowing doesn’t mean she has to use it. It doesn’t mean she has to hurt someone or worry about being too fast on the draw. It just means she needs to try. And maybe knowing for herself will be better, too.

“I heard a rumor,” she whispers slowly, trying not to strain her vocal chords too much, “that you were done drinking for the night and went to sleep.”

She watches as his eyes go white in front of her, and then his head droops down into a sleeping position next to her. She knows she’s going to have to get some help to get him back to the Kashtta, but that she can manage. Now he knows that her powers still work.

She knows too. Time for her to decide if she’s able to live with that.

10/7

[rumorate]

"Do you recognize this?"

10/8 ~ give me that, before anything happens ~ everyone lives ~ 1,848

[vampireboulevard]

“So. About Halloween.”

Ryan glances up from the show they’re watching and turns to look at her, a confused expression his face. “Did we have plans for Halloween?” There’s a pause, and he reframes the question. “Or do you want to make plans for Halloween?”

“I do not because it’s my turn to cover the school.” It’s besides the fact that Ric is still out in Seattle with Jeremy and Jo, but it would have been her turn, regardless. She’s not trying to weasel out of it, as much as she would prefer to spend her Halloween evening literally any other way. “I was wondering if you’d like to hang out with me, though.”

Ryan smirks. “Isn’t that, by default, making plans?”

“No. Plans are fun things like a date that do not involve work. This will involve work. It will be boring, but it might be nice to have another adult to spend it with.”

“And if I say no?”

“I will totally understand. You are free to spend your Halloween evening, however you see fit.”

Ryan nods before his brow furrows again. “Does Halloween mean something different for a school of supernatural kids than it does for a school for regular kids?”

Caroline shrugs as she considers. “Some witches who follow witch holidays might plan something for Samhain, but that’s about on the supernatural end of things. What we really need to worry about is just your average, everyday underage menaces who know more about the supernatural than they should and, therefore, will use their supernatural talents to up their Halloween game.”

“So like mischief night times ten.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Sounds like you could use some backup. There are definitely more of them than there are of you.”

“Hence why I’m asking. But since you are my boyfriend, not my employee, you absolutely do not have to.”

Ryan nods to acknowledge that he appreciates the distinction, before glancing back at her. “Do we have to dress up?”

“Only if you want to.”

“Do you want to dress up?”

“Pretty much always.”

He laughs before nodding. “If we dress up, can I pick the costumes?”

There’s a small eyebrow raise in challenge, and Caroline squints at him. He knows Caroline’s need to control everything that’s happening around her—especially for aesthetics—is well documented. But she is the one asking him to do the not fun thing on Halloween, so she takes a deep breath, puts her need to plan aside, and nods.

“Yes. You can pick the costumes.” He smiles, before leaning in to kiss her, and when he pulls back she frowns. “I’m going to regret that, aren’t I?”

“Not too much.” He smirks. “But maybe a little.”

She laughs before giving his hand a squeeze. “Thank you for doing this with me.”

“Anytime. Who knows? It might even be fun.”

Caroline smiles instead of contradicting him. If she knows her students, it’s going to be anything but fun.

* * * * *

Ryan’s choices were not actually bad. A little tongue-in-cheek, but it’s one of his first Halloweens as a vampire. She can’t really say she’s surprised when he hangs up some generic, campy vampire costumes in their closet. But it’s the fun tongue-in-cheek she likes, so it doesn’t bother her too much.

Dorian and Emma greet them in the headmaster’s office, dressed in their matching Wesley and Buttercup costumes as they go over the game plan. “So far, most of the kids are out,” Dorian begins. “A bunch of the teens went to the party at Mystic Falls High. When they’re done there, they’ll venture out to the Old Mill where we’ll pretend they aren’t drinking like most of the adults in this town.”

“Standard operating procedure,” Caroline nods. “Who’s the narc this year now that Milton’s gone?”

“MG wasn’t that much of a narc,” Emma sighs. “But it’s Tara. She’ll be the one to freak out if things go too far.”

“Great. So two of us to man the door and two of us to do inventory?”

Ryan frowns. “Inventory?”

“Of the magical items that we have in our possession.” Emma nods. “It wouldn’t be the first time that the students snuck one out to give their evening some extra pizzazz.”

“So we make sure that all of them are accounted for and if one is missing, it’s hopefully not one of the ones that are too dangerous.”

“Sounds pretty straightforward.” Ryan nods, and Emma smiles.

“Great. Because we hoped that you two would cover that.” She reaches over to place the clipboards in her hands, and Caroline frowns.

“Really?”

“The parents are judgy,” Emma admits. “They’ll probably do better with people they know, and if there’s something wrong with the students, you’ll be faster to handle it.”

“So better if we’re not zip-zip zooming in front of the locals, okay, I get it.” Caroline sighs, before nodding. “We’ve got it.”

“Great. Have fun!”

As they turn to leave the room, clipboards in hand, Ryan glances at her with a frown. “So discipline and inventory.”

Caroline nods in return. “Yep. Fun, right?”

* * * * *

Once they get into the storage room, they’re able to make quick work of most of it. Mostly because it’s easy to check off a box when a magical item is present and accounted for. They make it about halfway through the room before Ryan makes a concerned noise from somewhere on the other side of a bookshelf.

She’s somewhat proud of learning to decipher Ryan when she picks that up as a concerned “hmm” rather than just one of his normal everyday “hmms.”

“Everything okay?”

“The box is here, but it seems like someone tampered with the lock.”

“What?” That definitely warrants more than a concerned “hmm.”

She makes her way around the set of shelves towards where he’s standing. Sitting in front of him is an old wooden curse box. The exterior is pretty beat up, so it’s hard to say for sure whether or not the tampering is recent, but she can see the definite scratches on the edges of the lock. As though to test it, she moves to flip the lid up and her shoulders slump when it goes easily, and the space inside is empty.

“Oh, no. What was in here?”

“It’s the—”

“Headmaster Forbes!” An anxious voice explodes into the room as Tara, one of the tinier, newer werewolves to join the pack, bursts in the door, out of breath and legs shaking. “You have to come quick.”

Caroline turns and frowns even more. “What’s wrong?”

“Gio and Bella took the Orb of Westerion to the high school for the Halloween party.”

She closes her eyes. “Let me guess. The Orb of Westerion—”

“Is the thing that’s supposed to be in that box?” Ryan finishes. “Yep. We gotta go?”

Caroline nods. “We gotta go.”

* * * * *

They arrive at the high school to find it mostly intact, which is a relief. Ryan slides to a stop next to her, before frowning at the building in front of them.

“If this thing goes off, what does it do?”

“Most of the time? It’s just a fun little light show. But if Gio channels too much of his magic into it, things could go from light show to fire hazard pretty quickly.” Caroline takes a deep breath, before looking over at Tara. “Do you know what they’re planning?”

“I think they were just trying to up the decorations. But Gio goes too far sometimes, and we weren’t supposed to take the magical artifacts out of the school.”

“You are absolutely right, Tara. We just need to find them first.” Caroline glances over to Ryan. “Tara knows what they look like. You take her with you, and I’ll comb the opposite side of the gym?” He nods, and the three of them part ways, heading into the crowded auditorium in search of their wayward students.

Some of the Salvatore students are quick to give her a wave. Some seem curious about what she’s doing here, while the other seem to know something’s about to go down. At first, it appears they’re going to come up empty, when the whisper of Ryan’s voice in her ear floats through the noise of the crowd.

“Care? We’ve got something under the bleachers.”

Of course. How cliché. Slipping back along the outskirts of the gym, she winds her way around the corner as she picks up two teenage voices. Gio, bragging. Bella, flirting. Teenagers are always so predictable. Unfortunately, she can’t really say she wasn’t the same way back when. Or she would have been, if she attended a supernatural school that still allowed her to be a teenager, rather than fending off murder and terror constantly.

In some ways, it warms her heart that this gets to be their experience, as much as it annoys her.

She zips in the back and is quick to pull the ball out of Gio’s hands before he can cast. “Give me that before anything happens.”

Gio looks up at her, eyes wide with surprise. “Headmaster Forbes!”

“And what exactly made you think that breaking the rules and stealing something out of the artifacts room is the thing to do?”

“How did you even know we had it?” His face then immediately turns into a scowl. “Did someone narc?”

Caroline rolls her eyes, because Ryan and Tara were fortunately smart enough to stay out of view and let her handle it. “We do inventory, Gio. Every Halloween. And since none of you were at the Old Mill yet, we figured it had to be at the school.”

Gio’s scowl deepens, and she can tell that he’s not sure if he believes her, but he doesn’t have a counter-argument either. So instead, he huffs and goes to head out from under the bleachers and heading back into the party. Once she’s sure they are out of view, she tucks the globe away and heads back to join Ryan on the other side of the auditorium.

“Where’s Tara?”

“I told her to go back to her friends while you were dealing with Gio.” Ryan leans back against the wall. “She did the right thing by narc-ing, but people don’t have to know it.”

“I agree,” she nods, before shifting to lean back next to him.

“So what now? We’ve handled the discipline part of the evening.”

“Well, we are going to take this globe back to the magical artifacts room with a note for Dorian to fix that curse box. But once that’s done …” She takes a breath as she considers. “Finish inventory, then grab a bag of candy and watch Hocus Pocus in my office?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with Interview with a Vampire?” he gestures down to his kitschy costume. “It is on theme.”

She laughs, before taking his hand and leading the way out the gym door. “Maybe you can convince me on the way back to school.”

He grins. “Sounds like a plan.”