Tags/warning: Established Relationship, First Time in a Long Time, Post-Episode: s13e10 Wayward Sisters, The Bad Place, Unresolved Purgatory Issues, the practicalities of digesting a lizard, thigh fucking,Intercrural Sex
Wordcount: ~4.1k
Notes: Big thanks to @gracerene for the beta and encouragement. Filling a twofer of The Bad Place fucking for @brobonebang and my blank @spnkinkbingo square with thighfucking x
Summary: There’s one place Dean’s been before that was like this, and that he seemed to take to like a fish to water. Or told Sam that he had, and not…in kindness. Purgatory. The memory sits heavy in Sam’s stomach like digestive stones, grinding him up.
Twenty fabulous fics full of filial fumbling later, the Bro Bone Bang is happy to kick off its Tumblr masterlist with this entertainingly varied list of locations in which Sam and Dean have been getting sweaty over the last 10 days. As always on AO3 we recommend that you heed the tags in order to ensure that whichever item of incestuous intercourse you select is perfectly tailored to your particular taste; with that said, BONE APPETIT!
Technically this is a day late, but I only saw the notification this morning. I was tagged by @mvdeanwhere to post a snippet from a current WIP, so here’s a portion of the first chapter from the S4 D/s Wincest fic I’m working on:
When I finally reached the front door, I peered into the atrium while my hand was getting stamped and noticed Dean coming out of the changing room and heading toward the coat check. I quickly ducked into the shadow of a support column and gaped at his outfit: black motorcycle boots, snug black leather pants hugging his bowed legs and curved ass, black and green leather chest harness framing his lean torso, matching bracers decorating his muscular forearms, and smudged kohl highlighting his verdant eyes. I suddenly needed to revise my earlier assumptions—his presence here clearly wasn’t a mistake, nor apparently was this his first time visiting an establishment like this.
I remained hidden behind the column as he walked past on his way into the main room and then took off my shirt. This place didn’t have as strict of a dress code as some of the fetish clubs I’d visited before, but wearing street clothes would likely still attract the wrong kind of attention. Fortunately the black jeans I was wearing shouldn’t look too out of place, though there wasn’t much else I could do about the rest of my appearance. Both the girl at the coat check counter and the monitor at the door to the club proper gave my casual attire a bit of the hairy eyeball, but I moved with the confidence of someone who had every right to be there, so they let me pass.
Inside was what I’d expected from similar encounters. Most of the central open space was taken up by the dance floor, where guests clad in fantastical, revealing costumes gyrated to the pounding music and exotically dressed performers atop pedestals or suspended in cages twisted through graceful routines. A long bar filled one wall and was doing brisk business supplying a variety of cocktails. Booths with leather seats took up two other walls to allow people to watch, socialize, or make out. An area near the back was reserved for tamer scenes fit for public view, while doors behind it no doubt led to private rooms for more intense or intimate play.
After a couple minutes of looking around, I noticed my brother leaning against a corner of the bar with what I guessed to be a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand. He tossed his drink back, set the glass down, and moved onto the dance floor, where he was almost instantly surrounded by suitors. He danced with several of them for about ten minutes, and I gritted my teeth as these strange men ground against him and put their hands all over him. The alcohol had made him loose-limbed, but I could tell he was nervous by his self-conscious smile and how his hands clenched at their groping. He slowly started to relax and eventually nodded to one, a muscular dark-haired guy almost as tall as me swathed in close-fitting leather from the neck down, who took his hand and led him through one of those back doors—and whom I instantly hated.
I’ve got ~13 chapters written so far and should have only a few left to go, so I hope to be able to start posting this on AO3 fairly soon. In the meantime, please feel free to check out my other works if you’re interested.
Pairing: Bryce Lahela x Olivia Hadley (F!OC) Other Characters: Anthony (OC child), his mom (OC) Book: Open Heart Word Count: ~1,500 Rating/Warning: General (no warnings that I can think of)
Synopsis: Olivia runs into an unusual patient request, but knows just the surgeon to help. Based on this prompt ask.
His big eyes searched frantically as his pace hastened down the hall. His little footsteps grew louder before finally coming to a stop at the nurses’ station. His little hand clasped the ledge as he jumped to pull himself up. “Hi!” He jumped up again, trying to peer over the counter above him. “Down here. I need some help. It’s an emergency.”
Olivia’s smile grew watching the young boy, no more than six, trying to get the attention of the busy nurses. She knelt beside him. “What’s your name? Maybe I can help.”
“Anthony.”
“Nice to meet you, Anthony. I’m Doctor Olivia. Can you tell me what hurts?”
“It’s not me. It’s Mr. Bear!” His eyes welled as he thrust the worn brown bear toward her.
“Oh, I see.” She frowned, noticing the small tear on the bear’s side.
“He needs a doctor!” He insisted. “Can you help?”
“I think we can do something to help.” She leaned over the nurses’ counter and pulled out a bandaid.“ She placed it over the hole. "Just for now! We don’t want any germs getting in there."
"Okay.” He glanced hesitantly at her fix.
She offered him her hand. “Where’s your mom or dad?”
“With Nana.” He looked back down the hallway from where he came. The rooms all blended together now. His lip quivered with a new problem.
“Is Nana down this hallway?”
He nodded, squeezing her hand a little tighter.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find them,” she offered reassuringly. “Then, we’ll see what we can do for Mr. Bear.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
Their search was short-lived. By the time Liv paged Bryce and told the nurses where she’d be, a panicked woman rushed out of a room down the hall.
“Anthony!” She ran to him, wrapping him in her arms. She brushed his hair back, kissing his forehead. “Where did you go? I was so worried. You can’t just leave like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Doctor!”
“My pleasure.”
“Doctor Olivia said she can fix Mr. Bear!”
“Oh, Anthony! I told you not to bother the doctors. I’m so sorry, Doctor. Please don’t worry about it.”
“But mommy!”
“I’m sure Dr. Olivia is very busy with her other patients.”
“I can spare 15 minutes. I’ve got a daughter, so I understand how important our teddies are!”
“Are you sure? I hate to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble. I insist. I already called for a surgical consult."
"You shouldn’t go through all this trouble. I can fix it when we go home."
"It’s fine. I promise. My husband is the chief surgeon, and he’s on break.” Her attention shifted to the little boy. “We want to make sure we give Mr. Bear the best medical care. Every patient is important to us. No matter how small.”
“Thank you.” His mom’s face softened, fatigue setting in. “I appreciate this.”
“Do you mind if I borrow Anthony and Mr. Bear for a few minutes? There is a triage room right down the hall. I think a few stitches, and he’ll be good as new.”
“I really hate to trouble you, but if you insist, yes, of course! Thank you!”
Anthony bounced excitedly. “Did you hear that, Mr. Bear? You’re gonna be all better soon.”
“Where should I return him?”
“Room 815. My mother just had hip surgery; as you can imagine, things have been a little crazy for us.”
“No need to explain. I get it!” Olivia reassured her. “I’ll have them back to you in ten minutes.” She took Anthony’s hand and led him down the hall. “Here we are.”
“You must be Anthony,” Bryce greeted, bending down to his level. “Is this my patient?”
“This is Mr. Bear. He’s my bestest friend, but he got hurt.” The little boy explained with a pout.
“Hmm…” Bryce inspected the wound. “I can fix that.”
“You can?”
“Mmhmm. Do you think I can borrow Mr. Bear for a couple of minutes?”
He nodded, handing the bear to Bryce.
“Do you want to watch or wait out here?"
"Can I stay with him—just in case he gets scared?”
“Of course.” Bryce gestured them further into the room. He had a surgical tray set up along with a suture kit.
Olivia helped Anthony up on the patient table so he could see better as Bryce sat down on the stool in front of his make-shift operating tray.
“This will help him take a little nap so that he won’t feel the stitches,” Bryce explained as he carefully placed a NICU mask over the stuffed bear in place of an oxygen mask and anesthesia. “You doin’ okay over there, Anthony?”
He nodded bravely, though his wide, worried eyes betrayed him.
“You can hold my hand if you get scared,” Olivia offered.
“This should only take a minute or two, and then, Mr. Bear will be as good as new.” Bryce threaded the large needle. He repositioned the bear so that the tear was facing him.
As his needle pierced the bear’s soft fabric, Anthony squeezed hard on Olivia’s hand and turned into her. “I can’t watch!” He whimpered. “I’m not brave without Mr. Bear.”
“Oh, sweetie. You’re being so, so very brave. You found a doctor for your friend. You helped Mr. Bear feel safe by coming in here even though it’s a little scary.”
“Do you really think so?” His voice was soft and unsure.
“Definitely!”
“I think Mr. Bear agrees,” Bryce added, his nimble fingers already on the last few stitches. “One more and that will do it!” He closed the opening off, securing the sutures. “Alright, all done!"
"He’s better now?"
"See for yourself.” Bryce removed the mask and held the bear out to the boy.
“I was so worried.” Anthony quickly pulled Mr. Bear in for a hug, burying his face in his soft fur. “You’re all better now! Thank you!” He squeezed the bear to his chest once more, his smile beaming brightly across his entire face.
“Thank you,” Olivia mouthed to Bryce.
He nodded. “Love you!”
“Love you, too.” Her gaze lingered on him a moment longer. Her face glowed. Not all surgeons would have taken their time to repair a stuffed animal, but he did. No questions asked. Her fingertips settled on her stomach as she watched him begin cleaning up his workspace. She was lucky to have the best husband and the most wonderful, adoring father for their children.
“You ready to head back to your mom?”
“We’re ready,” Anthony nodded his confirmation, keeping Mr. Bear close.
“One last thing—” Bryce scribbled a note on his prescription pad. “Every patient gets a follow-up."
Anthony accepted the note and hugged it to him along with Mr. Bear. He waved back to Bryce as he followed Olivia out and back to his family.
A day or so later…
Anthony kicked his feet out in front of him, waiting in the exam room, Mr. Bear sitting comfortably in his lap.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
"Come in,” his mom offered.
Two familiar faces greeted them.
“How’s our patient today?” Bryce questioned.
“Much better. He’s back to his old self. We even made you this picture.” He held out a drawing of himself and Mr. Bear with Bryce and Olivia, and the words “best doctors” scribbled on the top.
“Wow, this is so beautiful. Did you make it yourself?” Olivia marveled.
“I did, but Mr. Bear helped pick out the colors.”
“It’s so perfect! I love it. Thank you so much!” She accepted the drawing, admiring it more closely. “We actually have something for you and Mr. Bear, too.
"For Mr. Bear!” Bryce unfolded a tiny pair of scrubs he had been holding. “Now, he can be a surgeon too!”
“Really?! I can keep these?”
“Yup. Let’s get him dressed and see how he looks.” Bryce helped Anthony dress his bear.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Anthony’s mom held her hand over her heart in appreciation. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing. Our daughter could staff a stuffed animal hospital with the number of toy scrubs and doctor outfits she has. You’re doing us a favor by taking one of them off our hands. Malia won’t even notice.” Olivia’s attention returned to Bryce and Anthony. “Besides, I imagine it’ll be far more appreciated here.”
“Thank you. Both of you. You’ve truly been a much-needed light in our lives this week. I can’t express how much your time and care have meant to me. Thank you.”
“It’s been our pleasure."
"Now, you try.” Bryce handed his stethoscope to Anthony, letting him check Mr. Bear’s heart. He lightly tapped his fingers nearby, just enough so that the device could pick it up.
“Woah!” Anthony’s eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “I can hear it!"
"Told you.” Bryce smiled, carefully removing the stethoscope from the boy’s ears. “Now, you and Mr. Bear can take care of each other. If you have any trouble, you know where to find us.” He helped Anthony down from the table.
He ran to his mom, holding up the patient-turned-doctor. “Mommy, look!”
“I see. He looks so handsome!” She brushed his hair back. “What do we say?”
“Thank you!” He turned and hugged Olivia, then Bryce.
“Thank you again!” His mom took his hand and led her son out of the room, smiles filling both of their faces.
“You did good.” Olivia cooed.
“We did good.”
“We did, didn’t we?” She agreed, brushing a quick kiss on his lips. “We make a pretty good team.”
He laced his fingers with hers, his thumb caressing below her wedding ring. “The very best.”
A/N: I didn’t have time to edit. Life’s been so crazy these past couple of days and I don’t feel well but still wanted to post something. So please excuse any typos or errors
Tags in a reblog, let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.
Ngl not that big into reading on tumblr. At all. But gave it a try and fell in love with a hella good charlastor fiction holy shit not even finished yet but there’s a lot of word count and proper grammar & those are the biggest turn ons for me in a fanfic and it’s too good to keep to myself so here
Check out Arranged Marriageby@charliesradiodemon if you want to fucking die of heated fluff:
Edit: okay, so, apparently it’s proper title is called Push and Pull on Ao3 by the same author which I wasn’t aware of since the chapters published on tumblr have a different heading but yeah.
The biggest cliches are actually the least cliche since everyone avoids them like the plague.
Have an idea for your story but it’s too cliche? Nothing is too cliche. Things are cliche because people can’t get enough of that shit. Go and make that bitch the hugest cliche anyone has ever fucking seen and I will fully endorse it.
all fanfiction is funnier and sexier and vastly better-written when you read it at three in the morning, in the dark, lying on your side, tucked into bed, with screen rotate turned off. that’s just how it works. that’s just facts.
Stories Summary: Newt Scamander has a secret that sets him apart from the other merfolk, a secret that could drag him into the middle of a magical war he wants no part of. Percival Graves never thought that preventing that war would hinge on him babysitting something that wasn’t entirely human.
This time around, I decided to subvert personal expectations and write something that was really angsty and avoid kidfic. Since I don’t do straight-up angst all that often, only time shall tell I guess. Ialso was supposed to post this on Valentine’s Day, or at least closer, but we see how well that worked out lol
The students know that Wednesdays are when Miss Oswald sees the Doctor, because she’s always different on Thursdays. [3107 words; fic about the Hybrid and the fallout that follows]
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Explosions were going off all around her, to the point where her ears were going to be ringing later. She ran as fast as she could, making it so that she could barely stop to ingest what was going on around her. The planet she was on happened to be in the middle of war… a war no one but her could escape.
Something grabbed her by the ankle and she fell, landing solidly in the loose dirt below. She looked back and saw a hand poking out from the ground. It hissed as she kicked it with the heel of her other boot, it letting go and glaring at her with the large eye sitting inside its palm. As she scrambled to her feet and continued running, she heard it squeal in agony as something else unseen lit it on fire. She could feel the heat encroaching on her back and she knew that whatever it was, it was burning more than just the sentinel…
“Miss…? Miss…? What’s wrong?”
Clara blinked and was suddenly transported back to the present. She was sitting at her desk, a student standing in front of it with a worried look on her face. The rest of the class was also staring at her, concern plastered on their young faces.
“Oh, nothing,” she lied.
“You didn’t move for ten whole minutes.”
“I was thinking.”
“No, Miss, it’s like you were frozen solid. Like Mister Freeze.”
“Mister Freeze is the one who freezes people, you dummy!” another student chimed in. The one at the desk flipped her classmate her middle finger and turned back to their teacher.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Another lie. “Now let’s get back to our silent reading…”
“…which ended five minutes ago.”
Glancing at the clock on the wall, Clara realized that the student was, indeed, correct. She plucked a small stack of papers from her desk and handed them to the student in front of her. “Since you’re here, I take it you’re volunteering to pass out the worksheets?” The child grumbled and took the papers, realizing that she was trapped. Her teacher watched as the kids all put their mobiles away and reached for something to write with—it was time to, unfortunately, do their coursework.
‘How long was I lost in there?’ she wondered to herself. She watched the students went through their work, filling out the answers as well as they could. They at least behaved and, for the most part, only pulled out their mobiles after they were done, which she knew couldn’t be said about their behavior with other teachers. She wondered what brought that on, and how come she supposedly froze in place, according to the kids. Her thoughts began to race until she felt a hand on her shoulder—the student—with a stack of papers as the rest of her classmates filed out.
“Rule Number One,” the tween said, “Miss Oswald lies.” She gave Clara the papers—the finished worksheets—and the classroom emptied. The sheets had all been done and peer-marked, ready for her finalization and entering into the grades software.
It felt, nearly, as though the papers were mocking her, and she stuffed them into her bag quickly before the next set of students could walk through the door.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
The short Human stood there in the middle of the dimly-lit room, with her head held high and her shoulders squared. All around her, the irritated inhabitants of the planet she was currently visiting were gathered, staring at her. There were many whispers about her ugly hair the color of dirt and the pathetic-looking limbs she possessed instead of tentacles, which was what they knew was the superior method of locomotion. To the Human, she was being threatened by a roaming pack of appetizers, though these appetizers also happened to possess the most disturbingly Humanoid faces she’d ever seen.
“You seem to not fear us,” the largest one said. The Human was referring to it as King Calamari. “This is most curious.”
“What’s curious is how you became beakless squids,” the Human said coolly. King Calamari seemed more than a smidge unimpressed.
“Then, with such an outlook, you truly do not fear us,” a Lesser Squidling mused.
“A little unnerved, to be honest, but fear? Not really.”
This seemed to irritate the appetizers. They murmured amongst themselves, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, King Calamari went and quickly approached Clara, with fire in his eyes and looking like a force of nature. Some of his tendrils wrapped around her neck, waist, and wrists, though she remained perfectly still…
…the hold was light—it didn’t want to touch her…
It was disgusted.
“I’ve been threatened by worse,” the Human said. “You’ve forgotten the most important thing.”
“WHICH IS?!”
“When you’re the hostage, you’re the most valuable person in the room. I have nothing to fear.”
King Calamari glared at her, bringing his tentacles back to his sides.
“You are still Clara Oswald,” the appetizer scowled. “Legend states that the being that calls itself Clara Oswald is a bad omen, that it will destroy civilizations at a whim. Why do you think you would be safe, calling yourself by such a name? Do might think we might fear you too much to kill you, but for us to be saviors? The ones who put the demon Clara Oswald to the sword once and for all? I think you’re in more danger than you believe.”
The Human considered that and shrugged. “I don’t know if you really are thinking this all the way through.”
King Calamari stared at her. “How so?”
“Why am I so dangerous? How am I so dangerous? I’m just a Human.” She shrugged and turned around, making sure she made eye contact with each of the unnerving beings. “We are notoriously killable, Humans. What makes me so dangerous? Am I armed?”
No response.
“Am I strong?”
Nothing.
“Am I quick or cunning or devious?”
Again, nothing.
“I’ll tell you why there’s such a warning about me, about why I am feared throughout the galaxy.” She rested her fists on her hips and gave King Calamari a smile. “I might be a measly Human, but I have a Time Lord on speed-dial.”
Right on cue, the VWORP VWORP VWORP sound of the TARDIS began to filter in through the air. Clara grinned as it materialized around her, popping her safely in the control room. She looked over at the Doctor, who seemed a bit waterlogged, but otherwise fine.
“Say the word,” he told her, hand resting on a lever. She considered it, and grinned.
“Now.”
He threw the lever and the console room began to rumble as it began to take off, ejecting some of the spent energy within King Calamari’s domain. Once the ship was in the vortex again, the Human and the Time Lord found their way towards one another, the latter seemingly checking over the former.
“Good, nothing I need to pay another visit to them for,” he said. “Not many people I’d ask to face a Potajibia Council to give me enough time to orchestrate an escape and rig the colony to crash onto a desert planet. I don’t think they’ll try to colonize anyone’s moons without permission ever again.”
He put the ship in idle and she sat down at her desk on the upper level to do some marking, serenaded by the sound of his guitar. Everything was as it should be.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Does anyone know the answer?” Clara asked. She looked over her classroom full of bored tweens and raised an eyebrow. “You’re all acting like I’m asking you to pull out your own teeth.”
“Might as well,” a student grumbled.
“…and why’s that?” she wondered. “What’s so different about reading Animal Farm now compared to earlier in the week?”
“It’s just not the same.”
“What’s not the same?”
“It just is.”
“Now that’s not giving me a lot to work with,” Clara said. She frowned as she looked at her students, wondering what it was that bothered them so much. “Work with me here; you know you can tell me things.”
“You’re not the same. Every day on Thursday, you’re not the same.”
Clara tried her best not to laugh, though she could not help but crack a grin. “What do you mean by that?” The tween shrugged. “I’m still the same old Miss Oswald, aren’t I?”
The looks in the children’s eyes told her that was entirely from the truth.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Later on that week, a student goes missing.
She disappears somewhere between the school and her parents’ restaurant, where she was supposed to work a shift for the Friday night rush. The last place anyone saw her was outside an abandoned storefront, and then, horrifically, nothing. Clara called off the following Wednesday in order to keep up with the massive amount of reassuring and comforting she had to do with the other kids. The police had even gotten involved, and yet there was nothing—all signs pointed towards a trafficking-related abduction, having snatched her off the street because she was small and alone and had an accent not from the British Isles.
Once things began to calm and more parents were around to walk unaccompanied children home, Clara found one of the child’s papers and folded it up, placing it in the TARDIS’s psychic controls.
Nothing.
Couldn’t even do that, as grand and mighty as the ship was.
What good was a space-time ship then?
She and the Doctor had a row and there were no more Wednesdays for a month.
They found one another again as complete wrecks; he disheveled and twitching and having not spoken the entire time he’d been gone, while she was cranky and neurotic. First order of business was pulling themselves through a star system, burning their way across the skies, putting so much distance behind them that their time apart—and the reason—were a respectful and somber memory.
Life is dangerous when we dwell.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
There was more than a fair distance between the two travelers and Earth when they finally had another proper adventure. They were continuing to run, this time from some trigger-happy Judoon, hiding anywhere they could on the backwater spaceport. Ducking into a dimly-lit room, they tried their best to not giggle as the beings stomped right past them, effectively securing their safety.
“Miss Oswald…?”
The overhead lights turned on and, once their eyes adjusted, they saw that they were in something akin to a studio flat, though more office-like than anything. A woman was sitting up from what looked like a nap on the couch, sleep still heavy in her eyes. She looked at the two intruders with confusion, terror, and grief—she knew them.
“…Mina…?”
“Oh, it is you!” she gasped. The woman scrambled to her feet and hugged them both. “I’ve been wondering if I’d ever see the two of you again!”
“I… uh…” The Doctor pointed at the strange woman, with her brown skin and black hair in a long braid, over to Clara, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’d like to ask you,” Clara said to the woman, Mina, who merely shrugged.
“I accidentally found myself on a spaceship that was camouflaged as an abandoned storefront. No one found that I was even aboard until after we passed the Ventress System and couldn’t turn back.”
“How long ago was that…?” Clara wondered. Mina shrugged.
“Fifteen years…? I think…? It’s tough to tell time in space on occasion.”
“Why was a spaceship that powerful hiding itself as an abandoned storefront?” the Doctor wondered.
“They were looking for you two,” Mina said. “They wanted to see how powerful you were.”
“…did you tell them…?”
“Not a word; instead I act as sort of like a guide to life on Earth here, on this station, and at the very least it keeps me safe and alive.” It was then that there was a small, croaking wail coming from behind the desk. Mina went towards it and plucked a magenta-skinned babe from its cot, bouncing it in her arms. She kissed its forehead and it calmed, cooing possessively.
“You have a tiny one,” the Doctor noted. Clara shifted in place, not sure how to fully broach the topic.
“Did you have it, or adopt it?”
“Yes.”
“…that doesn’t answer the question.”
“This is my child—I’d say I’d go back to Shoreditch with the two of you, but there’s no place for this baby there. Not in my family. Not on my home world. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone to you, but it’s been too long for me. I can’t.”
“Then what do you want us to do?” Clara wondered. Mina considered that before shrugging.
“It’s hard to say. I don’t want you to tell my parents where I am, because they will want to bring me back, and I’m no longer a little girl. There is the fact that they should stop worrying, though, and that’s worth something as well.” She shifted the baby to rest in her other arm before patting its back. “I guess this is what I get for trying to be as brave and fearless as Miss Oswald, isn’t it? With any luck, it made the community come together, and that’s worth something, after all.”
There was not much that Clara could say to that; the worth was still there, yet did it justify the pain?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
At the next candlelight vigil, where the ever-shrinking gaggle of mournful students gathered to remember their missing friend, Miss Oswald shed the most tears any of them had seen her cry since one of the other teachers died. It was another part of her left somewhere, they knew, amongst the stars that the Doctor took her through in his blue snog-box. She was different each Thursday because each Wednesday another piece of her shattered, and there was no way to tell which part until she tried to pick up the pieces afterwards.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“My mother warned me about you.”
Clara and the Doctor glanced at the blue-skinned extraterrestrial and simultaneously raised their eyebrows. The old man before them snapped the flints together until sparks came out and he was able to grow a spark into a flame, giving them the start of light and warmth. The suns were rapidly setting, making the need for a camp more urgent on the clear-skied desert planet.
“I didn’t know we came with warning labels,” Clara snarked. The man shrugged.
“She didn’t think it was a warning either, just a fantastic story to tell her children as they nodded off towards dreams,” he explained. “My brothers, sisters, and I were all told tales of our mother’s home world and the people from it, and you were certainly one to feature often and prominently.”
“Are you sure about that?” the Doctor frowned. He sniffed at the large stockpot readied for the coals, curious about the contents. At least he knew they could trust whatever was in there—all three of them needed to camp together that night to survive, and the only things that were available to eat would come out of what was soon to be stew. “I don’t know if we’ve been to your mother’s home world.”
“You have, many times,” he said. He glanced at Clara and then went back to tending the fire. “You even taught her.”
Clara stared at him. “…Mina…?”
“We Minanni learned from a young age that trouble follows Clara Oswald and the Doctor—two people as one, a force capable of destroying the universe on but a whim. She told of your tales until her dying days.”
“We don’t destroy, and not on whims,” she frowned.
“Tell that to the Potajibian wreckage three clicks south of here.” He watched as her expression darkened. “As I thought—Clara Oswald remembers those whom she took down with vengeance and fury.”
“…but… I…”
“…are a force to be reckoned with, the Mercurial Human and the Time Lord at her beck and call. At what point did you give into the allure of the TARDIS and the hubris that it gives? Do you even know if you can stop?”
“That’s enough,” the Doctor growled. He glared at the man, whose hospitality seemed to come at a quickly-steepening price, and contemplated his next course of action. “You don’t know what this life is, what it gives us.”
“You’re correct, and I’m glad I don’t,” the man replied. He dug into his pack and brought out a kettle, holding it out towards them. “There’s a spring just beyond those rocks—juvenile Drashigs frequent it at night—get there and back before twilight hits. Take a canteen with you for more.”
Taking the kettle and a couple canteens, the Doctor and Clara wordlessly went over the rocky ridge to where the freshwater spring sat. As they filled the containers, her hands began to shake as she held the canteen under the water’s surface. Her fingers trembled as they secured the stopper; she had to continue on.
Continuing on is what the Doctor does.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
The students could tell that Miss Oswald was hit particularly hard by their classmate’s disappearance, even if she didn’t show it outwardly at first. It was another piece that was left in the stars—another part of her destroyed over the course of a Wednesday evening—and they knew that it was simply how she was grieving like the rest of them. In how rough of shape she was on Thursday morning seemed to give them an idea of how the following week was going to go, and how that went dictated how much coursework was liable to be levied on them, of course.
Until, they noticed, that it wasn’t just Wednesdays anymore. Sometimes the blue box appeared on Mondays, or Fridays, or any day, really. There were some times that she left with him every single night, headed off in the snogbox with great aplomb. At least, they figured, he kept her busy and unworried, that the Doctor was how Miss Oswald coped with life, that he helped her process the presumed death of one of their own, and that he was what was best to keep her from going too far off the deep end. Even if they wanted to joke about standing in the street like their cousins with not-dead teachers, it wasn’t something they were keen on another of their adults accidentally doing.
Until, one day, Mister Coburn called an assembly, and broke the news to them.
Do I have any right posting another AU when I have more than enough to work on? Will it stop me anyhow? Does any of this surprise anyone? I thought so.
This comes directly from when I was randomizing my writing blog recently and I came upon this prompt fill. That being said: I have no self control. XD
The Coal Hill Catchment Community Musical is having open auditions, and for one man’s niece and daughter, it’s a perfect opportunity to get him out of the house and doing something non-doctor-y for once. [2209 words; Whouffaldi-endgame community theater AU]
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Can you? Please? Uncle Basil, I think this would be very good for us as a family!”
The grey-haired, middle aged man accepted the paper flier from across the table and furrowed his brows at it. It was an open call for auditions for a community-preformed musical based out of the secondary school, his niece grinning at him from over the casserole.
“Why?”
“We can spend time together,” his niece pouted. “You seem to have had less and less time for us since I got into secondary…”
“…and what is that supposed to mean, Dorothy?”
“Oooh, Dad got out the full name.” Basil glared at his daughter, who was sitting down with her own plate of food, and she recoiled with a laugh. “Just saying.”
“Alright then, Bill,Ace: please tell me why it is so important that I do this, despite the fact I am only ever not here because of my job.”
“Like I said: we’d get to spend more time together,” Ace shrugged. “I already signed up to do stage crew, and Bill and Heather are helping with costumes…”
“Heather is doing costumes—I don’t know if I’ll be co-opted into hair and makeup or as part of the cast.”
“…and anyone extra I bring is extra credit for my Humanities class, and you know how much I hate Humanities and it hates me.”
“You know that this will cut into time at work,” Basil stated.
“You’ve held down enough for two-and-half full-time jobs between us and the hospital for two decades,” Bill replied. “I think the staff will understand if you want to not be on-call for a bit. Spend some quality time with the family. Take a semi-vacation. Do something silly for once.”
“Billie, I am not in the mood for silly… at least that much of it.”
Bill and Ace both grinned at that—ha, so he thought.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
It was late Saturday morning in the auditorium, with Basil being all but dragged into the fray by his niece and daughter. The large room was a roaringly raucous environment, where there were plenty of people running around, from some adults all the way to some kids in lower secondary. Bill and Ace placed a thin practice script in Basil’s hands and gave him large grins accompanied by enthusiastic thumbs-ups. He scowled at the paper, completely unamused.
“‘The Music Man’?” He glared at his girls over the rims of his glasses, which he was glad he remembered to pocket before leaving the house. “You didn’t tell me that there’d be singing.”
“Just a little bit, and your voice is amazing!” Ace insisted.
“Whythis, of all things?” he replied. “Who was put in charge of figuring out the playbill?”
“That would be me,” answered another adult, this one closer to his age. She was short and squat, with a sour face, clutching a clipboard in her hand. After giving Basil a look-over—he was dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt, as well as having refused to take off his hoodie—she pointed over towards a group huddled in the corner. “Go there first, and let me see how you fare.”
“Are you the director?”
“I am the everything,” she insisted. She looked at Ace and raised an eyebrow. “This is your uncle?”
“Yeah—I told you I was serious about that extra credit,” the teen replied, trying to play it cool. “Can you please sign that form now…?”
“Not until after casting,” the Everything said firmly. At that, Bill and Ace brought their adult over to his designated waiting area and had him stand there, reading over his sample lines. Most of the other men standing there—and it did seem like men, or that they were at least in the process of casting all the traditionally masculine roles—were teenagers and uni kids, with the occasional washed-up and pathetic-looking middle-aged man that only made things worse. It made him feel like a tit standing there, surrounded by kids the same ages as his niece and daughter, but hey, it could have been loads worse, right…?
Right…?
After being called on to read some lines for a few different characters, none of whom he felt entirely interested in portraying, Basil was allowed to roam freely as the Everything worked on casting the extras. He found his daughter in the back of the stage with her girlfriend, fitting one of the other actors for her costume. She looked to be in her early thirties, and definitely not the sort who was still clutching onto the glory days for as long as she possibly could. Did she have a young cousin or neighbor, perhaps? Certainly she was not here because she had a child old enough to be in the chorus…
“So you’re here for someone’s extra credit too, aren’t you?” he asked, hands jammed in his pockets. The woman glanced over at him and shook her head.
“No—I’m one of the teachers over at Coal Hill. They asked if I could help out and drum up some interest in the student population. I also help verify said extra credit.”
“You don’t remember Miss Oswald, because she first came in teaching levels younger than me and Ace didn’t have her for Lit,” Bill explained. She then looked from the teacher to her father and back. “Oh, yeah, Miss Oswald, this is my dad, Basil Potts. His brother is Ace’s dad—that’s how we’re cousins.”
“…and you’re not a McShane yourself?”
“What can I say? I was having a tiff with the folks around when I got hitched, but then again, so was my brother when he married,” he shrugged. “Most people call me the Doctor, though. Surgeon. St. William’s.”
“Then call me Clara.” She flinched and glanced over at Heather. “Be more careful, please.”
“Oh, sorry Miss Oswald,” Heather cringed. “I’m still not used to doing this on a live person yet. The pins can be tricky.”
“That’s alright… just… I want to have all of my blood in my body and not on the dress.” Clara then turned back towards Basil, who seemed to be watching Heather. “So, did the Almighty Director give you a role yet?”
“No—she’s being too cagey,” he frowned. “I don’t even remember the characters I read for—it’s been so long since I last saw this thing…”
“Not a musical fan?”
“I don’t have a lot of time, not with all my patients and raising the two most insane hellions to pass through Coal Hill,” he shrugged.
“Hey, I’m right here,” Bill frowned.
“…but do you deny it?” His daughter paused and then shrugged at that. “I thought so.”
“That does explain a lot,” Clara quipped. “It must mean that the man who raised them must have plenty of energy to keep up.”
“Some days, I don’t even know how I manage,” he admitted. He raised an eyebrow as he saw Bill and Heather attempting to hide their faces and laughter. “What…?”
“Dad, you’re a terrible flirt,” Bill claimed. Basil scowled at that.
“I wasn’t flirting!”
“Then explain what you were doing just now during that conversation.”
“You live in my house; I can still ground you.”
At that reminder, Bill immediately quieted, which only caused Clara to chuckle instead.
“I’m taken, for the record,” she claimed. “Mister Pink—I believe Ace had him for maths a couple years ago.”
“Yes, I remember; looked nearly ready to die of exhaustion on Parents Night.”
“That’s likely the one,” she confirmed. Heather tapped on her shoulder and helped her off the stool she was standing on. It was jarring, seeing her so short compared to him—must have been nearly a foot’s difference. “I need to get out of this thing. See you at the casting announcement.”
“Likewise,” Basil nodded. Once Clara and Heather had turned the corner, the older man glared at his grinning daughter. “Stop it, you.”
“Stop what…?”
“She’s seeing someone, and I plan on not seeing anyone,” he clarified. “If you and Ace think that me participating in this play means that something at home is going to change, then you’ve got another think coming.”
“Well, she does have a lot of chemistry with everyone, so I guess it’s not too much a stretch that she was just being friendly,” Bill noted, “but that still doesn’t change the fact that you suck at flirting and need to up your game.”
“I need to up nothing,” he insisted. “Now let’s see if we can sneak out to the bakery across the street for a couple sausage rolls before the cast is announced.”
“…and leave Ace here?”
“We can bring some back for her too, now come on, before the Everything decides she wants me to audition for Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn.”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
As it turned out, late that afternoon when all the day had been sucked up, there was plenty of casting decisions that made the group of people scratch their heads as the Everything announced the results after their break. The Mayor and his wife turned into the Mayor and her wife, the sidekick character ended up being a disturbingly egg-shaped man whom no one else seemed to want there, while the leads…
“Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the two main characters in this production,” the Everything nearly giggled. Basil glanced over at his niece and raised an eyebrow.
“She always like this?”
“Only when she thinks she found something spectacular… which admittedly is a lot,” Ace snarked. They watched as the Everything nearly exploded in excitement.
“This year’s two leads are: Miss Clara Oswald as Marian Paroo and Doctor Basil Potts as Harold Hill!”
A weight dropped in Basil’s stomach as the room began politely clapping for the two awarded the leads. He had read lines for the male lead…? And he actually got it…? How…? Was this a trick? He could feel himself growing paler as he was urged to step towards the Everything, who made a show of handing him a thick, heavy script.
“Congratulations, Doctor Potts,” the Everything grinned. “Raw talent like yours only comes around once in a blue moon, and I do believe we are due for another wonderful performance!”
“Yeah,” a teenaged boy scoffed, “you just like looking at his bum and danglers.”
Most of the school-aged participants—and a few of the adults—snickered at the claim. The Everything’s face grew deep red in anger, as she was now beyondcross.
“Alright! Who said that?! You are going to be booted to ushering so quickly your head will spin!” She stormed off in the direction of the voice, while it seemed as though Basil was almost instantly forgotten, standing there in the middle of everything.
“Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of one another for the next few months, aren’t we?” He glanced to the side and saw Clara giving him a nudge with her elbow. “Could be worse—you and The Egg could have swapped roles.”
“That’s true,” he admitted absentmindedly. He looked at the script in his hands and frowned. “If we were going to do one of these things, the least she could have done was gotten something from this side of the Atlantic…”
“Now listen up, everyone!” the Everything said, clapping her hands together to grab attention from those whom she lost. “We are going to start practicing in one week! In that time, I need you to read over your lines, begin to learn your songs, and get ready to learn come choreography! Most of you should be able to gather some clips off of the internet, however, the principals should have sheet music in the back of their scripts…”
“So that’s why it’s so heavy,” Clara mused. Basil flipped towards the back of the stack of papers to find that there was a lot of music… even for something that was called The Music Man. As he browsed, memory of watching the film version of the musical came flooding back to him; he had literally been conned by his children into being cast as a con artist.
He had been conned into playing a con.
Now, the only trick was to not let his coworkers realize what was going on.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Later that night, as Bill and Ace sat on the couch and watched a movie version of the musical together, Basil sat up in his room with the script and sheet music. He read over his lines doused in highlighting pen, examined the meter of the music, and, once he became engrossed enough, pulled out his old guitar to hum along to as he figured out the score. It was taxing to go over something that he hadn’t seen in a long time, using the guitar to help guide him where it could. He figured it would all be worth it, though, as it meant doing something with his kids that wasn’t just making dinner and leaving halfway through a film because his pager went off.
Downstairs, his daughter and niece looked at each other and grinned mischievously—Doctor Basil Potts was actually getting into their family project, and with any luck, there would be someone else frequenting the house by the production’s final curtain call.
Doctor Basil Brown’s time machine worked–it really worked–and now he and Bill need to get going before the clock runs out… even if they pick up someone else along the way… [a Doctor Who/Back to the Future AU]
The TARDIS rattled and shook as it wheezed to a stop. Eventually, everything stilled, causing the two occupants to take pause.
“You think it worked?” Bill wondered.
“There’s only one way to find out,” the Doctor said. He opened the TARDIS door and stepped out into the dark workshop. There were a few things tossed here and there, but to Bill, it was completely unrecognizable. To the Doctor, on the other hand… “We did it!”
“We did…?”
“This was how the workshop looked when River and I bought the house!” he gasped. He turned back towards Bill, expression manic with glee. “We went back in time! This is proof!”
“Okay, I believe you, just…” Bill peeked outside the window and saw that it was already dark. “Do you know what day it is?”
“We’ll figure that out later—let’s compare watches.” They did, and both were the same: 18:07. “We should make sure to head back here by half past eight, just to make sure.”
“…and if we don’t make it in time?”
“We’ll be stuck here as the TARDIS jettisons itself back to our home time period,” he said gravely. “Now let’s go and see if the library’s still open. We might run into your mum on the way.”
It was difficult to get the plywood off the door from the inside, but the Doctor and Bill both were able to push their way out of the workshop and into the darkening streets of St. Luke’s. There were shops that had changed, ones that had stayed the same, and—despite the buildings almost all being intact from what it was in the future—there were plenty of visual markers that said they were in the 1980s. Women were walking by with some of the biggest hair styles Bill’d seen in a long time and it felt as though she was looking at several film sets all at once. She glanced around, marveling at their surroundings.
“Cor… I knew not a lot changes here far as the buildings and whatnot, but I didn’t think it was that bad…”
“Welcome to the Dark Ages, when Thatcherism somehow reigned supreme and many couldn’t get through the decade without hard drugs,” the Doctor shrugged. He glanced over at her, who was giving him a weird look. “Hey—it’s a miracle any of us got out of this decade alive, let alone with all our wits about us.”
“It makes me wonder what I’ll be saying about my youth,” she deadpanned. They continued walking down the pavement to see that their first different building: a dance club that was pumping out some music that Bill didn’t quite recognize, but knew she heard on the classic rock radio station. “I don’t remember this place—this should be the Tesco, yeah? I thought the outside was just brand-related retrofitting.”
“It was demolished before you were born, after a fire had gutted the place,” he explained. “Some young hot-shot was playing around with pyrotechnics for a show and it exploded, catching the stage and the rest of the building on fire. She went down with the ship, so to speak, and they never even found her.”
Bill curled her lip and shuddered. One of the last things she wanted to do is think about ghosts and burning buildings and how the tragedy was so thoroughly forgotten by the time she was a child that the information had been completely new to her as an adult. The Doctor noticed her discomfort and simply shrugged.
“Let’s just get to the library and maybe we can actually accomplish what we need to before the time limit. It was in a few different spots before it settled on the building you know it as being in, so we have to get moving if we’re to check all the locations in time.”
Just as the Doctor and Bill were about to walk by the club, a young woman burst out of the building absolutely furious. She was positively drenched, her hair, dress, and the military-looking coat resting on her shoulders looking rather ruined.
“I’m going to kill him,” she seethed, fists balled tightly. Her accent was slightly jarring, with Blackpool being all over her words to the point the travelers nearly thought they had missed the St. Luke’s mark physically and landed in an eerie lookalike. Bill cleared her throat and her head snapped in the time travelers’ direction. “What?!”
“You wouldn’t know where the library is, would you?” Bill asked cautiously. The other woman looked at the two and raised an eyebrow.
“You look more like you’re going to go clubbing than to the library,” she noted, her brow furrowing as she continued to look at the strangers. Her eyes lingered on the Doctor, taking in his appearance before she brought her attention back to Bill. “Besides, it is probably closed for the night.”
“It’s a long story,” the Doctor said. He looked at the woman’s soaked form and took off his jacket, trading it for the one on her shoulders, which he then tied around her waist. “Can you please show us? After that we can walk you home, show up the pudding-brain that ditched you.”
The woman looked at him, clearly considering the offer. “Alright—follow me. The name’s Clara Oswald.”
“I’m Bill Potts.”
“…and people call me the Doctor.”
“The Doctor, hmm?” Clara smirked. She began to walk, figuring they would keep up with her quick steps; it was clear she was used to keeping stride with long-legged people. “What, are you the sort of person who simply crooks his finger and people follow?” She glanced over at Bill and tilted her head, tone turning serious. “Are you alright?”
“Uh… yeah…?”
“He’s not… forcing you to be here, is he?”
Bill burst into laughter at that, unable to stop herself. “The Doctor’s more like my dad, and a decent one at that.” That caused Clara to glance back at the Doctor to see that his face was turning a bright pink color. “We’re just here to meet up with a couple of people, then catch our ride to leave. No worries.”
“…and one of them works at the library, then?”
“Precisely,” the Doctor said. “You wouldn’t happen to know Melody Pond, would you?”
“Can’t say that I do, but I’m pretty new around here myself.” Her pace began to quicken as he expression darkened. “I’m thinking this is going to be more temporary than I had originally intended. Had been here with a bloke in a rented flat, but considering the fact he just up and disappeared on me… it’s probably time I head back home and figure out where to go from here.”
“So, your boyfriend ditched you after you were subject to some sort of—I assume—water-based prank and now you’re ready for an immediate change?” Bill surmised with a grin. “It’s a shame, really, ‘cause it’s almost like I know a guy.”
“How so?”
“I think that’s enough of that,” the Doctor said, his ears a nice, bright red now. “Let’s just get to the library, please.”
“Sorry, Glasgow—this Melody Pond of your must be some lady for you to follow her all the way here. I can respect that.”
“It’s a bit difficult to explain,” he shrugged. “All I want is a bit of closure, is that so bad?”
“I guess that depends on the closure,” Clara replied. The trio crossed the street and soon the library was in sight. “Are you sure about this? Why not wait until it’s open tomorrow?”
“There’s not exactly time,” the Doctor said. He maneuvered himself so that he was ahead of Bill and Clara and took the lead, heading straight for the building in question.
“Is he actually your dad?” Clara asked Bill in a hushed tone.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just a friend… one I help out a lot.”
“You sound like you’ve lived here your entire life, though, and he does not.”
“I have, but…” They were now on the library, the three able to walk in without a problem. “Why is the library open this late?”
“I must have misjudged the time,” Clara said. “It looks like it’s only just before seven—library closes at nine.”
“That’s… impressive…”
“You’re telling me—I never lose track of time like that,” Clara noted. “I must have spent only half an hour or so in that club. It was so torturous that it felt like ages.”
“Speaking of, how did you get all—”
“Sshhh, I think the Doctor’s found his gal.” Clara pointed towards the Doctor; he was standing in the middle of the main entryway, staring in both terror and yearning. There, on the other side of the room from the entrance, was the woman who Bill remembered from her childhood, whom she most often saw in photos. Melody Pond, before she changed her name to River Song for publishing purposes and had gotten her doctorate in library sciences, was shelving books. Her hair was not the same blonde that Bill remembered, but her curls were instead a light brown, pulled back into a ponytail that just barely contained them, despite the fact that they would have been the envy of all those out on the pavement in their volume alone. It was without a doubt, unequivocally, Doctor River Song roughly fifteen years before she passed away.
She was there, and Doctor Basil Brown was frozen.
“Get over here,” Bill hissed, pulling the Doctor off towards some tall shelving units. “Stop standing there with your mouth gaping like a schoolboy who saw his first pair of tits.”
“I can’t help it,” he growled back. “That’s my wife.”
“Wait… you’re married to her?” Clara wondered. Oh yeah, that’s right, she was there as well. “That’s… erm… unexpected.”
“Not married yet, so calm yourself,” he replied firmly. “I need to get just ten minutes alone with her. That’s all I want.”
“You can do a lot in ten minutes.”
“Yeah, and everything I want to do is talk.” He looked at Clara and Bill and exhaled heavily, knowing that this was going to be the culmination of everything that he had been working towards for the past ten, fifteen years. “Just let me have this, alright?”
“…Basil…?!”
Bill and the Doctor both froze at the sound of his name, fearful that they were already discovered. They poked their heads around the shelving unit to see that Melody was looking at him… a younger version of him, who was approaching her with flowers in one hand and a devilish grin on his face.
“What the bloody hell is that?!” Bill whispered. “You never said anything about visiting her while she was here?!”
“I don’t remember this!” he fired back. They watched as his past self kissed Melody, her hands going into his wavy brown hair while he held her with his free arm. Bill felt somewhat nauseous at the amorous display. “Okay, this might complicate things.”
“Oh… that’s… you…” Clara marveled. She looked from the Doctor, to his younger self, and back. “That does complicate things.”
“Like I said: it’s a bit difficult to explain.”
“How difficult do you think it is?” Clara scoffed. “You time-traveled, probably to right a wrong with her, and now you’re here with grey in your hair and a grad student helping you along because you’re no good alone but don’t have a kid of your own to have inherit her curls and your arse.”
“…and how did you…?”
“I teach literature in my spare time—this seems like a pretty solid conclusion to a melodrama.” Clara then glanced over at Bill and pursed her lips in thought. “Then why are youhere…?”
“I wanted to meet my mum,” Bill admitted. Clara nodded at that.
“I’d meet my mum again if I could; I get it.” She kept her eye on the younger version of the Doctor as he took Melody by the arm and led her out of the building. “Shit—they’ve gone.”
“This complicates a lot,” the Doctor said, sounding like a broken record. “I can’t meet myself—the implications could be catastrophic.” His face glazed over for a moment before a grimace overtook him. “Oh… actually, I do remember tonight.”
“Did you at least get a leg up?” Clara asked. The Doctor shrugged wordlessly—of course he did. “Let’s go and figure out if we can get a hold of Bill’s mum, then see if we can get between yourself and your future wife long enough for you to say your goodbyes.”
“I don’t think I appreciate the tone you’re taking with preemptiving this mission,” he interjected.
“Well, you’re obviously going to be busy, so let’s at least see if we can find a phone book in the meantime,” Clara said. The Doctor looked at Bill in an attempt to find an ally, only to get the opposite response he wanted: Bill looking at Clara with hope in her eyes.
He really was off his game, wasn’t he?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“Are you sure your mum never went by another name?” Clara asked. The three were huddled around an open phone booth, with Clara quickly thumbing through the directory. Bill was holding her mobile over the book so she could use it as a torch, which impressed the other woman.
“Nope—never changed her name,” Bill said, shaking her head. “I know I live in the house my foster mother grew up in, but she never had much contact with my mum outside of school. Her parents would still be there, most likely, and that does us no good.”
“…and what about you?” Clara asked the Doctor. “Do you remember where your liaison took place?”
“I remember, and it wasn’t merely a liaison,” he blushed. “This was the night I first proposed.”
Bill looked at her mentor, not entirely certain she was processing everything properly. “You brought us back to the night you proposed?! As in proposed marriage?!How did you forget that?!”
“I tried to aim for a certain date, but it didn’t seem to work out,” he shrugged. “Come on… how was I supposed to know that tonight was when we’d go back?”
“It just sounds like you’re a horrible driver,” Clara cut in. The Doctor scowled at her.
“You don’t drive a time machine.”
“You certainly did try if you were able to come back this far.”
Unable to counter that, the Doctor simply folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t see you being able to drive a time machine any better.”
“Mmmhmm, yeah, just be glad I’m not reporting the two of you to the police for being utter weirdos.” She glanced at Bill’s mobile and raised an eyebrow. “If that’s supposed to be a phone, why don’t you just call on it?”
“The technology used to connect this to other phones won’t come into the area for another twenty years, and that would be in the infant stages,” she explained. “It’s not all super tech and flying cars in the future.”
“It’s the future, not Thunderbirds,” Clara shrugged. She closed the phone book and shook her head. “Do you have any idea as to where she would be hanging about?”
“No,” Bill replied quietly, turning off the light on her mobile. “She might not be here.”
“Alright, then, we should probably go and at least take care of tracking down the Doctor’s younger self and Miss Melody, get something done tonight, and maybe get lucky and run into your mum on the way” Clara decided. “Do you remember where she lived? Was it a flat or a house?”
“She rented a house, not too far from where we need to be,” he said. “After we were married and here permanently, we bought the bicycle garage on Grynden Lane and the attached house.”
“You live there in the future…?” Clara cringed. “Well, I guess you’d need a lot of space to build a time machine…”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Bill said. She followed the Doctor and Clara as they began to walk in the direction of some residential streets. Falling back a few paces, she kept looking around at their surroundings, taking in the disturbingly-stubborn similarities between the St. Luke’s she knew and the one she currently was in. It was a bit surreal… okay, it was more than just a bit surreal, but it was still interesting all the same.
Then, just as they were getting ready to turn a corner, she saw something out the corner of her eye. Down the street was a group of people all crowded around something. She tried to get a better look and saw that it was a group of teenagers crowding around a particularly short one, a backpack being held high over her head.
Shit.
“Basil, hold on,” Bill said before changing course. She stormed up to the group with her best cross-face on. “Oi, you, what do you think you’re doing?!”
“Wouldja look at that?” the lad holding the backpack chuckled. “The little freak has a friend.”
“Look at that: your manners are appalling,” Bill fired back. “Now give her the backpack. It is hers, right?”
“It’s ours now,” another lad scoffed. “Maybe she shouldn’t carry dangerous shite on her if she doesn’t want it liberated.”
“Give it back!” the teenaged girl snarled, jumping up in an attempt to get her stuff back. She just barely hooked her finger on the zipper pull, getting a couple things to fall out of the opening. “I worked hard on this stuff! You’re just jealous!”
“Billie! What are you doing?!” the Doctor shouted as he approached the group. The offending teens all caught sight of the older man rushing towards them and bolted, not wanting to incur the wrath of what they thought could have been a legitimate grown-up. As they ran away, Bill knelt down and helped the teen girl pick up the things that had dropped—they were small and round, only about the size of a golf ball, and looked like prop bombs.
“Thanks,” the teen said. She started stuffing the items in her jacket, which was covered in patches and pins. “Those arseholes made off with most of it—damn it.”
“What was that?” Bill asked.
“I’m headed towards my job—I do stagework at the club,” she explained. “The special effects were in there.” The teen saw the Doctor and stood up straight, raising an eyebrow. “What, are you her dad or something?”
“I might as well be, considering how much she listens to me,” he grumbled. “Come on, Bill, we don’t have that much time left before we have to go.”
“Alright—sorry about that… uh…”
“Ace,” the teen grinned. She shook Bill’s hand and ran off, headed towards the center of town.
“What did I tell you?!” the Doctor whispered angrily. “No changing the past.”
“You would have done the same thing if you noticed first.” He frowned at that, with her smiling smugly in response. “Come on now, we’ve got to go, right?” They then went and joined their somewhat-native guide, who seemed very amused at the entire situation.
A few more turns in the street and finally the Doctor, Bill, and Clara found the house that was currently being rented by one Melody Williams. It was at the edge of town, with some more trees and shrubbery around it to cocoon it from the rest of the neighborhood. That made the trio breathe a sigh of relief—there would be that many fewer chances that they’d be caught. With no lights on from the front of the house, they went around to the back garden and saw nothing was on back there either.
“We have to be upstairs,” the Doctor figured. He kept his voice low; attention was the last thing he wanted at that moment. “I’ll have to check.”
“By what, breaking into the house?” Bill hissed. He shook his head and took a chair from the patio, placing it underneath where a second-story window sat. “You’re not going to reach with that.”
“Not by myself, no,” he said, gesturing to the chair. “Come on so I can stand on your shoulders.”
“Why me?!”
“I know you can handle my weight because you’ve carried me out of things before,” he said. “Besides, she doesn’t even scrape my chin in heels.”
“Then hold her up—she looks light.”
“…and have you forgotten what she’s wearing?” They glanced over at Clara—she seemed mostly dry now, if her dress was still a bit on the ruined side—and she shrugged. “I’m not here to invoke that.”
“Wise move, Glasgow,” Clara smirked. She gave him a wink and he went red in the face, turning around so he faced the house. Why did she suddenly look really good in his old jacket?
“Let’s get going Bill; I don’t need you two seeing me and River together, alright?”
“Fine…” Bill sighed. She stood on the chair with the Doctor and helped him attempt to scale the stone wall, finding handholds until he was able to set his boots on her shoulders. Holding him in place by his ankles, she struggled to stay steady, hoping that he would be quick. “Any luck up there?”
“…I didn’t realize my body could bend that way back then…”
“Okay, you’re confirmed to be in the middle of a shag, now get off me!”
The Doctor lingered in the window for a moment before complying, easing himself down until he could jump without injuring himself. He looked over at Clara, still blushing, and tried to play it cool.
“It looks like we’ve got a clear shot.”
“Funny, so do I,” she noted. He saw she was looking down, so he followed her line of vision—watching his younger self in the middle of a premarital tumble with his future wife accidentally made him a bit tight in the trousers. Clearing his throat, he maneuvered the jacket around his waist so that it rested in front of his fly.
“We need to distract my past self so that I can talk to my wife,” he said, attempting to sound nonchalant.
“Well, we better hurry up, because we only have ten minutes before we have to head back,” Bill mentioned, looking at her watch. “What do you propose we do?”
“How about throwing some pebbles up at the window?” Clara offered. She pointed at the small rocks sitting along the wall of the house, barely bigger than pea gravel. “That can get your attention, while not going and damaging anything—”
“Hey! Who are you?!” The trio looked towards the back of the garden to see the neighbor behind the house looking over the wall at them. “Miss Williams! Miss Williams! There’s someone in your garden!”
“Shit! Run!” the Doctor panicked. The three of them rushed out of the garden and back down the street, hoping that they could keep from being caught again by the neighbor. “That bloody Mrs. Bleaker—always was too much of a busybody for our own good.”
“I guess this is a wash then,” Bill frowned. “We couldn’t see my mum, couldn’t get to talk to your wife… the only good thing that happened is that we ran into Clara.”
A heavy silence fell on them as everything sunk in. The Doctor had achieved a miraculous feat by being able to travel back in time, and yet the reasons he went were completely out of his control. He sighed heavily and scratched the back of his scalp.
“I’m sorry; let’s head back, Bill,” he said. He then turned to Clara. “I guess this is goodbye.”
“I’ll walk you back,” she said. She took his arm and they continued on, heading back to the workshop. By the time they were able to work their way into the building, the TARDIS was beginning to wheeze.
“Shit! It’s started!” The Doctor gasped. “Hurry, Bill! Before it’s too late!”
“…but Doctor…!”
“We’ll try again in the morning! There’s no time!” He shoved her towards the police box and they jammed themselves in. The machine was just about to disappear when Clara opened the door and squeezed in herself, shocking the other two.
“What are you doing?!” Bill asked.
“You don’t get to just leave like that,” Clara answered. She then looked at the Doctor as the box began to rumble. “You didn’t give a proper goodbye. Who gives a proper goodbye by running off without a word?”
“Do you realize what you’ve just done?!” he asked. “We’re going forward in time! Skipping over thirty years!” Clara instead grinned at him.
“Sounds like a better adventure than anything that idiot can give me.”
The idea for this one actually came from a bunch joking around in the Clara’s Diner Discord server and the fact that some of us are still absolutely enamored with the image of Ian having a row with a bunch of sheep.
2382 words; I guess this is a reminder that this is a fantasy version of North Ronaldsay, where there’s more than a few dozen people who live there year-round (so, more like a few hundred at the least, possibly going over the historical highs of ~500) so there’s, like, some modern flats in town and enough kids to keep the school open; this is all just Ian the Island Weirdo as seen by the normal mortal residents; Time Lord thinking/shenanigans are sort of a perfect soft-scifi analogy for fae mercurialism and I really don’t know how I should take that
The thing about Ian Morlo was that he was never entirely what the other island residents expected when they learned that there was someone new living in Orson’s place. Well… an additional new person—it already passed though Orson’s nephew to the lass who owned it currently—but who was really counting? They watched him curiously from afar, which had been the only way to do so at first, as not long after he arrived, a nasty series of storms had passed through the area, but once the sea and sky were in their summer calm, he seemed to be anything but.
“Why aren’t you in the pund?!” he shouted at a sheep as it walked across his path. He had a list in-hand and a reusable shopping tote hooked on his arm; he was on errands.
“You know, if you wanted to, you could help out,” one of the villagers said as he watched the sheep meander through the road. Ian huffed, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets.
“The sheep and I don’t get on,” he claimed. The sheep bleated from afar, seemingly incensing him. “Yeah! Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for what you did to my hair!”
“What, exactly, did that specific sheep do to your hair?” the villager asked.
“It tried to eat it,” Ian claimed, with all the seriousness of a man used to saying much sillier.
“These sheep don’t eat hair—they eat brown kelp.”
“I know what they eat, and it’s frankly an insult.” The sheep came plodding back, gently headbutting Ian’s thigh. “Don’t think you can catch me off-guard, yeh soda-shitter.”
“Ian… it’s a sheep.”
“Like I said: we don’t get on. My hair is not that salty.”
At that, Ian maneuvered his way around the sheep and kept on walking towards the town, leaving the villager shaking his head. The man lifted the wayward sheep upon his shoulders and brought it back to the pund, placing it in the low stone-walled enclosure with all the other sheep of its grouping.
“What’s with that look?” wondered the other villager who was manning the pund. She watched as he shrugged.
“I don’t know if the academic over at Oswald’s is joking or if he’s just trying to get out of doing manual labor. Could be both.”
“Ignore him—the man’s probably going to leave soon anyhow,” she replied. “With how grouchy he is and how little guff she takes, there’s no way it’s going to last much more than after those visitors she’s got coming next week.”
“Maybe… maybe not… we’ll just have to see…” He glanced down at the sheep that he had placed back in the pund and raised his eyebrow.
Now why would a sheep want to eat human hair of all things?
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
It was nearly summer, which meant that he was shouting.
Well, it wasn’t as though he refrained from shouting during the winter months. Actually, he seemed to be rather good at shouting in all sorts of weather. It was simply put that, Ian Morlo, the man who inexplicably showed up one day and made a disturbingly-quick turnaround of stuffing, then marrying, the English lass on the northern end of the island, wandered more in the summer months, and that meant that others had to hear him shout.
“I will not be sassed back to like that!” he scolded. An elderly couple heard him from inside their house, causing the wife to cringe.
“You left the window open, again,” she scowled at her husband.
“It’s such a calm day,” he justified, remaining in his armchair. When he did not move, his wife huffed and went to close the window, except, she was trapped, as she made eye contact.
“Hello,” Ian said awkwardly. The toddler on the baby leash in his hand jumped up and down and waved, babbling importantly before returning to butterfly chasing.
“Hello there, Ian,” the elderly woman replied. “Could you please keep it down? I don’t know why you insist on talking to your daughter like that.”
“Oh, it wasn’t Terra, it was the wood nymph,” he stated, pointing at the tree next to him. A moment passed and he grunted sourly at the plant. “You try doing this sort of thing day after day and see how pleasant you are.”
“Ian… son… you’re talking to a tree…”
“I’m talking to the wood nymph inside of the tree. Now if you excuse me, Terra and I were going to meet Clara at the school, and I don’t think,” he glared at the tree, “I shall endure this abuse for much longer.”
“Are you alright, lad?” the woman asked. “You seem a bit stressed.”
“Been worse,” he shrugged. Ian then gently tugged on the leash, letting his daughter know they were about to start walking again. “Come on, pup; let’s go meet Mam at work so we can walk her home.”
“Mamma! Mamma!” the toddler shrieked happily, clapping her hands as she followed her father. The old woman shook her head and returned to her chair, not even bothering to close the window.
“It was the tree this time,” she said.
“I thought he said it was the nymph inside the tree.”
“There’s no pulpy tart inside that tree; be careful, or you’ll get just as mad as he is.”
“Seadh, a ghràidh,” he replied. There was no use arguing it. Now he just needed to learn to keep the damn window shut.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
If Charlotte had not seen him do something this level of strange before, she almost would have not believed her eyes.
She was returning to the pund after lunch, getting ready to continue shearing the small remaining portion of the flock she was in charge of that day, when she saw him: Ian Morlo. He was comely, that part was not to be mistaken, but the woman was not too keen on the fact that island’s resident nutter was standing atop the stone wall of the enclosure, dangling a lamb by its hind legs. The other sheep were bleating at him, possibly in an effort to have him put down the lamb.
“Ian!” she scolded. “What are you doing?!”
“I need to keep track of this one,” he claimed. He gestured with the lamb, as though that explained everything. “It’s the only one without a brine-soaked brain.”
“Put that lamb down right now!” she insisted. He didn’t, so she forcibly pulled it from his hands and let the creature go within the grassy pund. “You could have just looked at the eartag and remembered that.”
“That is inefficient—they can break and come off, and then what?”
“Then we just put another tag on it—simple,” she replied. “What the hell has gotten into you?!”
“I didn’t think there was anything—oh! Clara!” Ian waved as he saw his wife begin to walk towards the pund, their two-year-old daughter running along behind her. He walked along the top of the pund’s walls and walked right off the edge to land on the grass before them, seemingly not missing a step. “I think you need to explain to Charlotte how rare it is for me to find one of these kelp-munchers that actually is pleasant to be around.”
“What did he do this time, Char?” Clara asked.
“Looked like he was ready to drop a lamb from twelve feet up,” was the reply. Clara frowned at her husband as he picked up their daughter and allowed her to cling tightly to him.
“You’ve taken to threatening lambs now?”
“No! The very specific lamb I had was one of the good ones…!” He was cut off by his wife raising her hand, which he took as his cue to listen to her (and only her).
“If you’re going to threaten the livestock, then at least do it when they’re not captive in the punds, and stick to the adults,” she said.
“I told you,” he insisted, “I was keeping track of it…”
“Ian, be an adult about this.”
“Fine…” he muttered. His shoulders sank, which his daughter took as permission to climb onto them. Once there, she began to pet his fluff of hair, which he was allowing to grow a bit on the longer side as of late.
“Fwuffy!” the little girl cooed. “Daddy! You fwuffy like sheeps!”
“I am not ‘fluffy like the sheep’, young lady,” he groused. The flock bleated at him and he shot them a glare. “I’m watching you! Now don’t ruin that lamb’s chances at becoming something actually worth maintaining this pund for, you kelp-hoovers!” More bleating and Ian’s face went red. “You watch your mouths!”
“Ian come on, let’s go,” Clara insisted. She began to pull her husband along by his elbow, giving Charlotte an embarrassed grin. “I’ll see you when you come to pick Lorens up tomorrow!”
“Tìoriadh!” Charlotte said, giving her friend a half-hearted wave. She then readied to begin shearing again, trying to keep her mind off of why Clara kept Ian around; even with those looks, she was surprised that the other woman’s patience hadn’t run out long ago.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
To Lorens, there was nothing really like being at home.
His cousins would tease him for it, which he figured was fine. It didn’t matter that he moved in with his mam’s sister and her family in Lerwick for secondary school, nor did it matter when he visited his dad’s sister and her family in Bathgate, because none of his cousins knew how good it was when he’d step off the ferry and finally be back on the island. It was almost nine years since he had lived regularly on North Ronaldsay, and he was eager to pick that back up again. It was the familiarity of it all: the clusters of buildings, the high-built drystane dyke that kept the sheep in their preferred pastures, the folks with whom he had grown up with and around…
…even if some of them were nuttier than a bag of cashews.
“Hi there, Mr. Morlo,” Lorens said as he ran into one person in particular. He remembered the Spring when Mr. Morlo was wrecked off the coast and taken in by the now-Mrs. Morlo, as he seemed to be fiddling with the lock to the school’s front door. The other man lit up at the sight of him, seemingly taken aback by his presence.
“Lorens, your parents didn’t tell us you were coming in,” he said. “How’s the gap year coming along?”
“I’m honestly surprised that I don’t smell permanently of fish,” Lorens chuckled weakly. “I’ve hauled enough mackerel to feed all of the island for at least two years, and probably a good chunk of Sanday on top of it.”
“Did you hear from uni yet? I can’t be the only hopeless academic on this island.”
“No, but I sent out my paper a while ago, so I expect to hear from someone soon, no matter what the answer might be,” Lorens shrugged. “I did what you said in regards to sourcing the poems—my old instructor in Lerwick loves it.”
“Well now that;s goo—hey! What do you think you’re doing here?!” Lorens looked over his shoulder and saw a fully-grown seal flopping its way across the pavement. “You know not to haul out in town! There’s bicycles and cars up here! I don’t care if the sheep are being dense!” Mr. Morlo ran after the seal as it lumbered around without caring it was being shouted at.
“Oh God, not again.” Lorens looked back towards the door to see Mrs. Morlo stepping over the threshold, staring exasperatedly at her husband. She then caught sight of Lorens himself and smiled kindly. It used to be that she was taller than him and now, well, he had even grown taller than her husband. “Well, this is a much better surprise. How are you doing?”
“Well—thought I’d surprise Mam and Dad with a visit while work’s shut down—a fire, of all things.”
“Yes, I read about that; it’s good to know that you’re alright and no… one… was… hurt…” She seemed distracted, as she was looking up and down the road. “Did you see where the kids went?”
“Were they supposed to be with Mr. Morlo…?”
“Please, you’re old enough—we’re Clara and Ian—now where are those two?”
“Mam! Mam! Mam!” Right on cue, Terra and Douglas came running up to their mother, the former pulling a toy wagon behind her. “Oh! Hi Mr. Lorens!”
“Kids,” Mrs. Morlo groaned, “why is there a seal pup in your wagon?”
“Her name is Bridget and she wants to visit the crofts!” Douglas said excitedly. The fuzzy seal barked and the boy nodded. “Yeah, that’s our mam, and that’s one of our sitters, Mr. Lorens. He doesn’t come by too often.”
“So you named the seal Bridget?” Lorens asked cautiously. Terra shook her head as importantly as any nine-year-old could.
“No—she told us that herself.” The seal pup barked again, seemingly happy. “Bridget Dagmarsdottir of Clan Gannet, yes, we know.”
“Kids!” Mr. Morlo shouted from down the road. “Is that Bridget?!”
“RUN!” Terra shouted, pulling away the toy wagon as fast as she could, her younger brother right behind. Mr. Morlo attempted to chase after them, yet however double-backed a few strides and handed his wife a set of keys.
“Please lock up I have to go before Dagmar eats a small dog in protest bye see you at home,” he said all in one breath before scurrying off, his arms flapping in the air. The hauled seal—the presumed Dagmar—flopped after him.
“So… they all talk to seals now…” Lorens noted. Clara exhaled heavily.
“Yeah.”
“Sheep still too?”
“Everybloodyday.”
“You know… my auntie’s neighbor is a psychiatrist… his office has children’s and genetics specialists.”
“Your mum told me. Several times.”
“Just… erm… putting that out there…”
“I know… I’m not cross,” Mrs. Morlo said as she locked up the school. “Just very tired. These kids just need to slow down… but you know that.” She patted Lorens on the arm before beginning to walk down the road and out of town. “Depending on how long you’re here, ever consider stopping by to babysit?”
Ha, lol, hey everyone you get bonus of this prompt because soon after I posted the first part, I realized I missed writing a decent chunk of it so now here it is and everybody wins… except Clara.
3882 words; takes place immediately after the bit where Clara confronts the Doctor in this weird No-Last-Christmas AU; somehow also turned into a reason for me to write more of Malcolm and Courtney talking one-on-one, which doesn’t happen often despite the fact that’s the lynchpin to the entire AU here;
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Malcolm had wondered how it was he should approach consoling his wife. The particular situation they found themselves in was unlike any he’d been in before and therefore it caused for him to be at a rare loss. He hated not knowing what to do—he wasn’t the Dark Prince of Spin for nothing, after all. It just so happened that he found himself standing in a rest stop in the middle of arse-fuck nowhere, holding his wife while she cried into his chest. A bloody police box from when he was a kid had materialized, popped out her old mate-possibly-boyfriend, and then the bastard left, making it clear that he was not just some randy bloke making a pass where he shouldn’t and that was not a police box from days gone past.
“Come on,” he insisted. “Let’s get you in the car.”
She nodded wordlessly and let him guide her back to the vehicle. He then drove until he found the first place that was open—a Waffle House—and decided that it was as good a bloody place as any. She needed to get something in her, whether that was ice cream or carbs or something that would show him she was still able to somewhat fucking function. They both went inside the diner and were seated in the corner booth by a concerned-looking waitress—fuck, she could tell Clara’d been sobbing hysterically. He excused himself before they sat and ducked inside the bathroom, giving what was undeniably space and a chance for the waitress to offer help to a woman possibly trapped. Just because he wasn’t a fucking abusive psychopath towards his family didn’t necessarily mean that all men dragging their crying wives around at night were as well. He took a piss, washed his hands, and whipped out his phone as he made his way back to the booth.
‘Mam and I decided to stop for a bit—the drive has us feeling British,’ the text read. He sent it and sat down, seeing that there were already menus and coffee waiting, Clara already partaking in both.
“Know what you’re feeling like?” he asked.
“Chips,” she said almost absentmindedly. “I think I’ll just get some chips.” She saw his phone buzz from its spot on the table and stared at it. “Daniel?”
“Yeah.” He swiped the phone open and read their son’s reply. “‘Don’t be British for too long or Toulouse and I are going to bed without you.’ That boy’s sass is getting out of control.”
“That boy’s sass is precisely the level it should be,” Clara said, her mouth twitching upwards in a smirk. Good—that was progress. “If anything, it’s on the low side, considering his pedigree.”
“At least he won’t be wondering and worrying where the fuck we are,” he shrugged. The last thing they both wanted was to go for “a long drive” and come home to find Daniel passed out after waiting up for them… or even worse, still awake. “If they have chips, do you think they’ve got some vinegar?”
“You’d have to ask,” she said. She silently reached her hand out across the table and he took it, stroking her thumb with his as they continued to browse the menu in silence. The waitress eventually came and took their order—two orders of fries and their coffees—relieving them of their menus and letting them be. Clara stared at her hand in her husband’s and exhaled heavily; there was no escape. “I guess you’ve got a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“Yeah, though I don’t know how many of them we should broach here and not wait until we’re at home while our son’s asleep or at school or over at the neighbors’,” Malcolm said. He stared at her until she met his gaze, those brown eyes still red and water-logged. “Who was he? Really?”
“John—the Doctor—is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey,” she replied softly. “He travels in the TARDIS, that police box he popped out of, which is a bit run-down and broken, since it’s stuck on looking like that. It’s supposed to blend into its surroundings.”
“So… it could look like an American phone booth? A port-a-loo? A car? This diner?”
“Yeah… we could be eating in a TARDIS right now,” she chuckled weakly. The thought of the TARDIS turning into a Waffle House was fairly amusing, but it also presented her with a depressing option. “I fell in with him when I was fresh out of uni—he showed me the stars, showed me wonders…”
“…and you pushed him away because…?”
“It was a rough patch, after Danny died, and he knew that if I ever would need him again, I’d call,” she said. “I’ve just never felt compelled to call until now.”
“…and that was because something he did showed up in our son’s textbook.”
“No,he showed up himself,” she insisted. Clara took her phone out and found the picture she took of the image in Daniel’s book, showing it to Malcolm. “One of the things that he can do is change faces—this is a prior version of him. I know that because this is the one I first met.”
He looked at the photo and nodded—it didn’t exactly look like the man who he had just threatened, but then again, it was also increasingly sounding like his wife had shagged her way through First Contact long before they ever met. He passed her phone back as the waitress returned with their chips, along with a grimy-looking bottle of vinegar.
“This thing looks like it’s been here longer than I’ve been Stateside,” he marveled. “Does your boss keep any stock that isn’t over a decade old, or are we just piss out of luck?”
“It’s what I got,” the waitress shrugged. She seemed less wary of him, which he took as a good sign, and didn’t give him a side glance as she checked in on another table.
“Would you go with him again?” he asked quietly.
“He already asked.” She watched as he nodded at that.
“What if I wasn’t here?”
“There’s still Daniel to think of.”
“You know what I mean—what if…” He swallowed as he thought of the horrific prospect. “What if we never met?”
“I… I don’t know,” she admitted. She chewed on a fry and thought about that. “We’ve been together for so long that it’s difficult to think of my life without you anymore… without our son… without what we’ve done these past two decades. I wouldn’t trade you for anything… but I also thought the same about the Doctor.”
“Sometimes you find things that you love, but are worth letting go,” he said. “Let me tell you: if you told my wee fae journalist arse that I’d end up becoming an American for political and work reasons, I would have laughed at you while kicking you down the entire length of Parliament.” He sipped at some coffee and felt the liquid life pool in his stomach—ah, now that was some good shit. There was something about American diner coffee that simply hit him different. “As long as he was good to you while you were together, then I don’t give a fuck.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Then why act like it? You’re nearly everything to me, Clara, and what part of me isn’t happens to be about our boy.” He paused and looked at her, so tired and concerned, and watched her heart begin to crack. “You’re the reason why I’m here, the reason I’m a husband and a father and a senior member of a sitting senator’s strategy team. Without you… I’m nothing. Why would I be cross at you because your old boyfriend was a bent intergalactic space-tit that didn’t know what he had while he had you? If anything I should be pissed at him for abandoning you like that.”
“You have a hard enough time grasping Star Wars… who was to say you’d react positively to the Doctor?” she posed. “Besides, it’s difficult to abandon what pushed you away to begin with.”
“He should have still known better, and he didn’t, so instead now I have a fucking amazing wife and a son by her and a new lease on life that you fucking know I’m not going to let go to waste.” He touched his foot to hers, making her smile. “It takes a lot for me to overlook something as egregious as bringing a cat into the house without my realizing it.”
“Says the man who is going to be an absolute wreck when that thing dies,” she teased. “I don’t think I’ve seen you take to anything like you’ve taken to Toulouse—at least you were expecting and wanted Daniel from the beginning.”
“Mmmhmm, and the fact that cat didn’t find itself back at the pet store that same day is more than evidence that the right people brought it home,” he stated. Clara chuckled at that—for all his blustering, he was a big softie. She watched as he attempted to make the act of eating a chip look seductive—no fucking sell—and broke into a full laugh instead.
The couple made it through the remainder of their late-night snack without incident and went back to the car visibly better off than they were when they’d entered the building. After a long drive home where they chatted about everything and anything, they arrived home to find Daniel and Toulouse snuggled up on the couch together, the two sleeping to the repeated loop of the menu screen on an old DVD—a Hammer Horror that Clara expressly remembered not allowing him to watch the previous Halloween—and with a myriad of snacks littering the space around the tousled boy and his “ginger florf”, as he referred to the cat.
Malcolm and Clara let it go for the time being, as they knew the sound from the DVD menu was going to cover up the absolutely overdue round of sex they were about to get on with—it having been too long since they’d shag each other’s brains out—and the relished in the very normal and domestic situation they were in. They didn’t need a space-man to be on an adventure, and by hell they were going to prove it.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
“So… Clara introduced me to someone last night.”
Courtney glanced over her papers and raised an eyebrow at Malcolm, seeing that her elder advisor was trying to be absolutely nonchalant and failing horridly. It was the tail end of their weekly private briefing, where the two confided in one another in her office with the door closed and no one allowed to come in after their afternoon tea had arrived. Few ever found out what sorts of things they discussed, and fewer yet wished to know, as they figured if it ended up being important, they’d hear about it eventually. With the cookies eaten and the drink remnants cold, they were amazingly out of work topics, which meant that personal ones were able to sneak in.
“What do you mean?” she asked, dropping her American accent for the East London she used only when they were alone and not discussing work. “Daniel told me you went on a drive last night.”
“What is my son doing texting you over my whereabouts?”
“When he asks me about which Frankenstein adaptation he should watch based on the amount of time he’s found himself with,” she quipped. “I think he went with Hammer—good taste, your boy.”
“Clara scolded him all through breakfast.”
“…and yet, it has it all: blood, tits, two of the sexiest men of the genre despite one was under nastymakeup…”
“Can we get back to my fucking crisis?”
Courtney raised her eyebrows at that—there was no bite to his words, but there was an undertone of something she rarely heard out of him. “It’s a fucking crisis now? I thought you said that Clara merely introduced you to someone, not gave you a fucking crisis.” She paused, face falling, her attention breaking from him only to check to make sure no one was listening at the door. “Is everything alright…?”
“Better than ever… just…” He ran his hand through his hair and grunted in frustration. “I met the Doctor last night… when Clara and I were out. It was why we took the drive, actually, so she could summon him.”
It was all Courtney had to not let her jaw drop all the way to her desk. “Wait, wait, wait… the Doctor…?! The old caretaker bloke from when I was a kid?! The one that let Clara slip through his fingers…?!”
“The bent space-tit who apparently thinks it’s fine to proposition a man’s wife while he’s standing right there, yeah,” he scowled. He saw Courtney’s expression morph into something he was not used to seeing when it was a private conversation and he wasn’t entirely certain he appreciated it. “It looks like you have something to fucking say.”
“Are you cross?” she wondered quietly.
“Of course I’m fucking cross, but I don’t know who the fuck to be cross at,” he scowled. “Narrowed it down to mostly the Doctor though—the cunt cannae fuck the fuck off.”
“Malcolm, your brogue’s slipping…”
“…as though the wee shites in the office would be able to tell fucking Springburn from Merkinch, and I know you’re having a hard time too based on the look on your face. Used t’run with a mate from there and let me tell yeh, even flitting all over doesn’t always take a lad from his roots.”
“That was way too terribly and cartoonishly Scottish and I’m going to need you to tone that down right now before someone hears you and gets your citizenship stripped,” Courtney groaned. Fuck—she was the one who wanted him there, after all. He grinned at her, signaling that he was still able to have her on if he wanted to do so. “Now, what the fuck happened where Clara decided to summon the Doctor, of all people, last night?”
“He popped up in Daniel’s textbook, apparently,” Malcolm shrugged, voice going back to normal. Well… it was normal to Courtney and that was what mattered. “It was jarring enough to spook my wife, who then decided to dig up a Boyfriend of Adventures Past and make certain he wasn’t meddling or trying to get her attention.” He looked at her and frowned. “Would he do that…? Pop into a history textbook…? Just to get attention…?”
“He would,” she replied solemnly. She fiddled with some papers on her desk and exhaled heavily. “Once the Doctor enters your life, it’s never the same, you know.”
“You were just a nip though… why would your life get changed that drastically?”
“Just trust me: it would.” She saw the concern in her old boss and mate’s eyes and knew that none of this could have been perceived as a joke or dicking around or whatever else might denote that this was less serious than it really was. “It wasn’t my story to tell, so it was easier on me, but I’m surprised Clara kept the secret until now; you and the Doctor do share a lot of similarities.”
“I am by far more attractive, virile, and loquacious,” Malcolm claimed, causing Courtney to snort in laughter. He leaned back in his chair casually, almost triumphantly. “What? Jealous that Miss Oswald landed the better catch?”
“Ugh,gross, far from,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “All I need to know out of you is if everything’s alright and if the Doctor’s face was somehow bloodied last night.”
“No blows were had, but there was a Waffle House waitress that was more than rightly concerned there for a bit, since I’m sure we ticked more than a couple boxes to warrant alerting the undercover cop sitting along the bar.”
That got Courtney. “Wait, you went to a Waffle House last night? Fuck, Malcolm, how far did the two of you drive?”
“Fucked if I know,” he scoffed. “We went up the Fall Line, over the Susquehanna, back—I dunno. I think we stopped in Havre de Grace. It was fucking dark.”
Now completely and empirically past the point of annoyance, Courtney began to rub her forehead in an attempt to stave off a headache. “How Clara deals with you, Malcolm, I have no fucking clue.”
“She deals with me because the sex is still amazing over twenty years on and she doesn’t have to work if she doesn’t want to, despite living in one of the most expensive places in our forcefully-adopted home,” he replied frankly.
“I really don’t need to know that you still have sex,” she shuddered.
“We did last night,” he continued, “and it was amazing. Absolutely worth the backaches we woke up with. You only wish you could have sex that great at our ages, and with a teen and a cat in the house at that.”
“You’re an ancient skeleton running off of Red Bull and pure spite.”
“An ancient skeleton that can still keep it up long enough to let his wife ride him into oblivion. Between that and the spite I can keep going for a good eight months without so much as batting an eye… and she didn’t even need to do all the work.”
“I hate you.”
“You are contractually obligated to not.”
“That’s it—I’m going to call Jamie, have him ring up the rest of the ageing Caledonia Mafia, and get a hit put out on you for deserting.”
“Now in the rare likelihood that I’m killed soon, which I won’t because no one gives a flying shit about political advisors, especially ones that look like me, this conversation will make it look like you caused it.”
“…and anyone who actually fucking knows us will be able to use their fucking brain stems and discern the fact that us speaking like this is a load of bollocks. Besides, why are you so confident in this particular instance, of all instances?”
“I’m fucking invisible, pet; white, male, old, mostly-heterosexual, wife and kid, prescription for some tiny blue pills in my pocket? If I stop rolling my Rs and using the word wee I might actually turn into a fucking ghost around these parts, for better or worse.”
“Get the fuck out of my office,” she said, throwing a pen at him. “‘Mostly-heterosexual’ my arse—you couldn’t be straighter if you were a bloody Tory.”
“You take that back!” he snapped, loving the rush he was getting from this proper spar. “You know better than to lump me in with those limp-dicked, saggy-titted, impotent sacks of shite!”
“Again: I’ll ring Our Jamie. He was the one who told me all about it! In detail I really didn’t want, thank you!”
“So then you know the truth of the matter!”
“I really don’t think it counts when you’re fucking pissed out of your goddamned fucking mind, probably also roofied to fuck and back, only to get around to trading spit and getting a blowie from someone who realized she was a woman later!”
“Don’t you sully Bernice’s name like that! She had a beard and cock at the time, and didn’t know she was a woman yet either, so you can fucking toddle off.”
“You toddle off—this is my office!”
“Maybe I will!” By now Malcolm was on his feet and headed towards the door. He just knew that for the most part, the staff was used to them ending their weekly one-on-one with shouting, so at least there was no one attempting to actively listen in. At least this instance was one where if they heard and paid even the slightest bit of attention, he’d be able to tell on their faces later. “By the way! Clara wants you over for dinner tomorrow!”
“I think your wife can invite me herself!”
“In case she forgets!”
“I’m a fucking Senator! How do you forget to talk to a fucking Senator?!”
“She’s got her own problems to worry about!” Okay, now it was just getting fucking ridiculous. “Half six?”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
“Fuck off!”
“Gladly!”
Malcolm slammed the door on his way out, everyone in the vicinity amazed he still had yet to shatter the glass windowpane. Courtney began to breathe deeply as she attempted to recenter herself back into Senator Woods—of all the things she was hoping that her old mentor never, ever brought up, the Doctor was on the top of the list.
Her mind went, thusly, back to a grubby wee secondary school in the East End of London, where her parents sent her because it was literally the only place they could go after her parents were given the sack, forcing them to move in with an elderly aunt. She remembered the boredom, the crushing realization of being groomed for mediocrity, the horror at the notion that her school—despite being filled with good mates and bright minds—rarely was able to afford basic amenities until it became a pet project not long before of some titled toff of Arnage or something…
…and then, she remembered Clara—Miss Oswald back then—and her boyfriends. Mister Pink was a sad and broken man, but one who she and all the other students could tell was healing into something better than before as he taught them maths and subtly dropped hints at the true horrors that came from when one stopped playing at soldier; while Doctor Smith was… well… a bit gruff and rough and definitely not from this planet, but made older students swoon and made the younger ones, like herself, believe that they could beat the statistics. They vied for Miss’s attention, though seemingly never tried to trap her. It was odd, that much was for certain, but it was entertainment enough for their audience of tweens and teens…
…until they both were gone.
It had been literal decades since the death of Mister Pink, the disappearance of Doctor Smith, and the depression of Miss Oswald. Now… just when she thought that there had been a form of peace brought about, Malcolm’s confession was still making her feel on-edge. She reflected her thoughts even further inwards… what could this mean for her country of circumstance and situation of choice…?
“Madam Senator?”
She glanced up and saw another staffer standing in the doorway, looking rather concerned. Courtney Woods, former Shoreditch resident melted away and Senator Woods with her American drawl resurfaced. “Yes…?”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah—don’t mind me,” she said. “You know how Tucker and I devolve into shouting matches.”
“I don’t know why you keep him around.”
“A reminder of where I’ve been, where I’ve come from, I guess.” She added a shrug for good measure in an attempt to help downplay the notion.
“You were born in Bethesda, not Loch Ness.”
“You have your quirks and I have mine,” she said, ending the conversation. “Now, what do you have for me to go home with? That looks like an annoying-as-fuck stack of papers in your hand, and I know there’s got to be more digitally.”
The teacher handed Sage back last week’s test just as the lunch bell rang. On the top of the page, in bright red, a C- scribbled.
She smiled. Not a D. She thought pleased with herself, shoving the paper into her rucksack.
Although she wasn’t raking in the A’s or B’s quite yet, she was steadily doing considerably better on all her recent quizzes and tests. Not that it mattered. If FP was scarce before, he was virtually non-existent now.
There had been no resolution between them and the fire behind her anger were just embers at this point. Behind it all, she truly missed FP. How the Jones men always seemed to get the best of her emotions.
She strolled to the cafeteria, still thinking about FP and settling between Toni and Joaquin. Sweet Pea was missing from their usual table.
“Where’s Pea?” she asked Toni, looking around.
“Tall Boy needed him today so he ditched.”
Sage huffed. “Wish I could ditch,” she murmured wistfully.
“Speaking of wanting to ditch,” Joaquin spoke suddenly. “I have to go to Northside’s Homecoming dance tonight with Kevin.”
“Oh really?” mused Toni.
“Got my suit and tie already,” Joaquin responded. “Kevin is beside himself with excitement.”
“You’ll have fun,” Sage said. “At least one of us willtonight.”
“I think it’s nice that life has been rather boring lately,” Toni commented, taking a bite of apple with a loud crunch.
Sage snorted. “Speak for yourself. I’m about ready to die I’m so bored. Thank God, my grades are starting to improve, not that FP is around to let me off the hook anytime soon.”
“How’s tutoring going?” Toni asked as Joaquin redirected his attention to his phone, talking to Kevin, no doubt.
“I honestly don’t know what is worse. All the scut I’ve been doing around the Wyrm, thanks to that jerkwad Mustang or all the tutoring,” she groaned softly.
Toni smiled sympathetically. “It won’t last forever. Anymore updates with Mustang?”
Sage shook her head. “Absolutely nothing. Everything has been painfully dull with nothing new to report. He’s still an ass and he’s still running the show now that FP is working so much for Andrew’s.”
Joaquin pocketed his phone as he stood up, breaking up their conversation. “I’ve got to go ditch too and calm Kevin down. He’s already freaking out about getting there early. Dance is at 7:00 and he wants to be there by 6:00.” He shook his head with a roll of his eyes, but they were soft and playful.
“Have fun,” Sage giggled.
“Have a blast,” echoed Toni with a grin.
He pushed his raven hair back off his face with one more dashing smile and looked around casually before slipping out the side exit.
“I’d pay money to see Joaquin at Homecoming with Kevin,” Toni commented.
“He’ll end up having fun. What’s the worst that could happen?” Sage wondered out loud.
Jughead’s words from the previous week played on repeat and echoed around in her head as Sage made her nightly stroll. Her tutoring was done, homework completed and bar completely swept, scrubbed and mopped.
Her heart and her mind were at war with each other. Her mind desperately wanted to stay stubborn and angry at FP for the sake of being stubborn but her heart told her that Jughead was right. It was doing her no good. FP had always wanted the best for her and she couldn’t fault him for that.
He was only human and he too, like her, had his demons. Could she really judge him so harshly?
It was time to make amends.
As she walked in the entrance of Sunnyside Trailer park she noticed the blinding red, blue and white lights up ahead… at FP’s trailer.
Her feet frozen to the ground as she counted five police cars parked outside of the trailer. The lights were on in the trailer and the commotion of the police tearing through the trailer could be heard from where she stood.
“Shit,” she breathed.
***
The news was everywhere even days later.
FP was arrested and had confessed to the murder of Jason Blossom.
There weren’t many words to describe the sense of disappointment and absolute dread that filled Sage from the moment she heard the news. The Whyte Wyrm remained a somber and desolate place as many of the Serpents had been brought in for interrogations. Nothing felt safe. Worst of all, Sage couldn’t untangle the knots in her stomach.
He had killed Jason. It didn’t seem possible.
Did Mustang know? Is that what he was talking about that night in the hallway? Did he know?
What would happen next?
Where was Jughead? More importantly, how was Jughead? She could only imagine.
She spent a lot of time hiding away in her room, anxiety gripping her like an iron vice. Uncertainty didn’t sit well and now the only person she had truly considered family, was ripped from her. Life was so unfair.
She could hear Mustang downstairs talking with Tall Boy and she felt her stomach churn with anger. As if they had FP’s best interest at heart.
She swallowed down the lump in her through, grabbing her phone and locking her door before going downstairs. She felt Tall Boy’s eyes on her and the hair on her neck stood on end. She gritted her teeth till her jaw ached, throwing both him and Mustang the nastiest look she could muster before intentionally slamming the door shut.
She did the only thing she thought would make her feel less helpless.
She headed to the prison to go see FP.
A/N: Just a filler chapter for the most part!For the full story, visit the link below.
Also, If you’re looking for a great fic, I’d HIGHLY recommend anything by @southsidewrites! Especially Pretty Lies (Link: Pretty Liesbysouthsidewrites). I’ve been binging for the last few days!
As the iteration counter rolled over to 200 billion, Reese walked in.
“So what’s the tally?"
"Well,” replied Finch, turning stiffly to face him, “out of 200 billion simulations, Grace and I never meet in 113,332,445,901 of them, and don’t fall in love in another additional 821,563. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that meeting Grace results in a 99% chance of our falling in love."
"What about Carter?” Reese tried to hide his anxiety.
“Apparently, your meeting was almost inevitable, given the assumptions and starting point. You only fail to meet 103,215 times, and most of those are explained by accidents."
Reese continued to try not to look anxious.
"You end up in love in only 348,561,776 scenarios. Apparently, you just got lucky."
Reese lowered his head and nodded. Without looking up, he asked, "and what about Shaw and Root?"
Finch turned back to the machine, looking down at the monitor. "That’s the strange thing. There are no scenarios in which they do not meet and fall in love. Maybe it was inevitable,” Finch turned back to Reese, “Or maybe she just doesn’t want to find one.”
Did I just spend almost 12 hours working on a single chapter of a fanfic so I could publish it today? Yes.
Do I regret it? No.
Some readers follow a story chapter by chapter from its beginning; others discover a story and read all the posted chapters within the space of a few days or even hours. They deserve the best I can give.
I’d been so down about myself and my writing, having pretty much passively abandoned a fic because I just didn’t feel good writing. All it took was literally ONE kind comment to get me writing again. I know you’re supposed to write for yourself and not your readers, but I really underestimated how much one person caring about my story meant to be at a low point.
Multi choice Sex story with celebrity i started, anyone is welcome to write new chapters and contribute! Have fun. Will keep working on new chapter from time to time. I also use fakes of mine in it and even do some unique fakes for it.
And here’s my latest project! My magnum opus, the fanfic that got me to put my phone down and go:“I need to get into bookbinding, RIGHT NOW! I bound 16 books in half a year before attempting this one because I wanted to get as good as possible at it first.
"All The Young Dudes” by mskingbean88 on ao3 or @lobsterbang . I just loved it so much. The cover was designed by the amazing @swifty-fox and it also has fanart made by me and them inside. I also had a lot of fun with the typography in these ones. And I finished them this week!
Okay, so I got a few people in the past questioning how my username is pronounced, and then more recently, people have been insinuating other meanings behind it…which I get, after that brief scandal with the Pucca comics, so I thought it was time to clear things up.
I had done a short explanation a long time ago, which was uploaded onto the webcomic websites I’m on (Webtoon, Tapas and probably here too) but I thought it was time for a more in depth, clearer story, of why my username is Littlekidsin. ♀️
So please read it~ Even if you don’t care hahaha I put a lot of time and effort into these intricately drawn sketches (That’s a joke btw, they’re lazy af)
Expecting them to be perfect and never make mistakes is setting yourself up to be an asshole.
Do you know how long it takes to write and publish a 60k novel for most published authors? Years. Plural.
That includes time spent writing multiple drafts and doing research and multiple rounds of edits. Access to a professional editor, and the ability to hire sensitivity readers. The list goes on and on and on.
Fan fic authors owe you nothing. They are churning out multiple novel length fics (or the equivalent in one shots) a year while still holding down school/jobs.
And you’re gonna jump down their throats because they wrote a pairing differently than you prefer??
Shut the fuck up.
Tags exists for a reason. Read them and move on if the fic is not for you.
I mean really. We all just lived through fucking 2020. Let people enjoy their FAKE gay porn in peace.
Jfc.
This is so real.
I saw a post going around about how “fanfic authors don’t accept critique anymore”
And it’s like?
Imagine you bake a batch of cookies and you take it to the office to share with your co-workers. And then someone just sits down and it’s like “Ah, the flavour profile is not quite proper. See, you should have added the brown sugar *after* the flour, and”
And it’s like? Just eat the fucking cookie, Mike, and shut the fuck up. lmao
A hobby doesn’t need critique. You don’t even need to be good at it. Let people have fun on the internet, for god’s sake.
Loki has finally crossed the line and is banished. Not just from Asgard, but from all the Nine Realms. He’s found himself in a dimension without magic, without superheroes, and where what people know of him, Asgard, and The Avengers is what they read in comic books and see in movies.
He’s in our world.
Totally lost and furiously angry, one woman might be enough to make him see our world isn’t so bad.
That is, until The Avengers come to find him in our world.
My hands are shackled in familiar chains. The guard over my mouth hides the smile that tugs at the corners of my lips. Two guards, in their gold plated armour, walk in step with me while I approach the throne where my father sits.
Odin’s disapproving glare only makes my smile grow wider. While my latest plot was foiled once again, the chaos it brought to Asgard makes it all worth it. That, and how royally furious my not-so-proud papa looks as he glares down at me.
The arrival of my adoptive brother is the only thing that makes my grin slip. Tormenting him can be a delight, but there is no annoyance or anger on his face. No, the only thing on Thor’s chiseled face is resigned disappointment. It is the same expression my mother used to give me after I upset her, and to see it on his face nearly shatters me.
Not that I’d ever let him see that.
Odin’s voice booms through the room. Beyond the guards that shadow me, my brother, and Odin himself, the room is empty. His heavy, thunderous voice bounces off the walls and reverberates through my body.
“Loki,” he growls at me, and my amusement picks up again. “How many times do you think we will put up with your scheming?”
I almost laugh at his question, as it’s so obvious he wanted me to answer. The guard over my mouth makes that impossible, so I do what I can by mocking him with my bright green eyes.
“Mock all you want,” he snarls back at me. “But this is the end of your plots, your destruction, and your madness.”
How many times have I heard that before? I try to take over Earth, and get myself locked up in a cell until I get myself out. I blow up part of Asgard and find myself right back in that same cell. This time will be the exact same. I’ll get out again and perhaps this time I’ll take another crack at earth. Let Thor and Odin have this realm, and I’ll have my own to play with.
“I know your tricks,” Odin says, but his voice is no longer a snarl. It’s faded into a long, tired sigh. “We simply cannot risk another escape.”
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I worry. Father angry is amusing. But tired like this? It’s not something I’m used to.
“Father?” Thor asks. His concern mirrors my own, which only worries me more.
“My original sentence was death,” Odin says, his normally booming voice is hollow and full of shame. My heart clenches in my chest at his words. I can get out of it, I’m sure, but it’s still worrying.
“No, it’s too harsh!” Thor steps in. Despite our differences, my brother, my foolishly loyal brother, is my one defender.
“It is not!” Odin snaps back at him. “We give and we give to you, Loki Laufeyson.” He uses the name of my father, my true father, just to make the sting run deeper. “It is no matter to you. You want more. It’s never enough. You won’t stop until you’ve snuffed out every life that stands in your way.”
“Father, Loki will do his time, with our guards -” Thor protests, but Father will have none of it. “With our guards, he will escape again,” Odin tells him.
He is not wrong.
“No, I will not remove your head from your shoulders,” Odin relents. “Your mother, may she ride valiantly in Valhalla, would never forgive that. No, the only acceptable means of keeping you far from the people you would otherwise hurt is banishment.”
“Father!” Thor protests again, but I only smile to myself. Banishment is nothing. There is nowhere in all the realms where I can’t make my mark and cause a little chaos. Wherever I go, I will find my way to rule.
But Odin doesn’t listen and I hide the amusement in my eyes while I’m led to the Bifröst. Heimdall waits to open the bridge while I salivate at the idea of the realm that I will soon get to conquer as my own.
“Loki Laufeyson,” Father booms as Heimdall opens the gates. “For your grievous crimes in this realm and in others, you are hereby banished from this realm and all the nine realms.”
Wait, all the nine realms?
“Take your quarrelsome, power hungry ways from our world,” Father continues, a touch of sadness echoing in his booming voice as he speaks. “Perhaps in a dimension without magic and Asgard, you will find some humility.”
‘Without magic?’ I want to ask, but the guard over my mouth prevents it. I search the large, cavernous dome from my brother, but he is nowhere to be found. It is just Odin, Heimdall, and myself.
Trembling claws of dread begin to slither up my arms, my legs, and across my spine. This is no ordinary punishment, and the forlorn look in Heimdall’s glimmering eyes as he plunges his golden sword into the gates is enough to confirm it for me.
The rainbow bridge erupts from the gates. My father’s hands, still strong as stone despite all his years, clamp down on my shoulders. With the magical cuffs that bind me, I am powerless to resist him as he pushes me toward the bridge.
My feet move forward against my wishes. The tips of my boots slide onto the crystallized rainbow of the Bifröst. My mind races as I step forward, but all my thoughts freeze in my mind as lightning crackles up from the bridge. Thunder roars around me as static dances over my skin. This is not normal, this is not the Bifröst I’ve travelled so many times before.
Something is truly wrong.
“Loki Laufeyson!” Odin’s voice rolls on the cracks of thunder. “You are hereby banished!”
With a mighty strike of electric energy, fire spreads through my veins. My black hair stands on end and pain envelopes me as my body is ripped apart from the force of it all.
And then everything goes black…
Total silence surrounds me…
Horrible silence…
…
This is the first part of Fall From Grace, a new Loki/OC female character fanfic I’m working on. Not sure quite how adult it’s going to get, so for now it’s rated teen.
If you want to read the rest, it’s on the following sites:
Question for people more familiar with AO3 then I am. Does posting a story to the Anonymous Collection guarantee that your username won’t show up on the fic?
I created a draft, but my user name is still in parenthesis under anonymous. Or does that just show up for me?
Featuring President and CEO of ViacomCBS, Bob Bakish
My is James and I’m 27 year old producer in Hollywood with a number credits to my name. On this day, I had a meeting with Bob Bakish, the President and CEO of ViacomCBS to pitch my idea for a TV series. His receptionist greeted me and told me to have a seat while she let him know I was here. This wasn’t my first time pitching a show, so I relaxed and picked up a nearby magazine. The receptionist quickly sat back down and I could hear him coming my way. I kept my face to the magazine when the door flew open and Mr. Bakish popped out, gave me a once over and greeted me.
He was your typical older white male in his late 50s, dark hair and a husky build. Not too bad, he had a cute quality to him and I love that tuft of dark chest hair poking out of his shirt. I always had a thing for older guys, but today is strictly business.
“Come on in and lets hear about your project.” He said, ushering me into his office and locking the door behind us.
“Well, lets hear it.” Bakish said as after dropping into his leather chair.
Bakish listen intently as explained all the detail of my project.
“So…..I take it, you have no backing for project? Bakish said with a sharpness that made me wince.
”No.“ I said, looking dejected.
”Well, do you want this show to be made, James?“
”Yes.“ I said, looking at him questioningly. There had been a hint in that question and I hoped I was guessing correctly.
”Well, I insist on some insurances. Give me what I want and I’ll let you get your show.“
”But you know I haven’t got any…..“
”Your not listening are you?“ Bakish said. His voice had an edge to it that raised my eyes to meet his and to see him smiling.
”I don’t understand…“ I started to say, knowing all too well.
”I said if you give me what I want then you get your show.“ He said, raising his hand to cut off any comment from me and sat there looking at me.
”Well, does this mean that…“ I said as my voice tailed off.
”Lets just say I swing both ways. Always have and always will.“ Bakish said then smiled as he saw the dawning comprehension on my face.
”So do you want your show and provide me with a few, well… favors, shall we say?“ He said as he casually leant back and began unzipping his flies, his fingers quickly revealing his soft, pink, yet still sizeable, cock and flopping it into his lap.
”Come on now James with a bit of effort on your part you could even enjoy yourself.“
I froze in shock and surprise as I could think of nothing but the sight of the President and CEO of ViacomCBS in front of me. Lounged back, cock hardening in his hands and a dirty smile playing over his ruddy, red features. This was something from my wildest dreams and for a second I seemed unable to think or move.
”Come on now, James, get over here.“ Bakish said in a low, yet commanding voice.
Almost before I knew what I was doing, I got up and walked over to the older man, my mind whirling in hope, fear, surprise and desire. I knelt down on the carpet in front of the CEO when two strong hands grabbed my head, fingers holding onto my ears and I felt myself pulled downwards into Bakish’s lap. My mouth opened automatically and suddenly his cock was in my mouth. His cock, by now was hard and blood filled and big. Probably about eight inches long and quite wide as well. I almost gagged on it as his hands forced my head down further while his hips thrust upwards to fill my mouth to capacity.
”Aaaaaaaaaagh.“ Sighed the 58 year old man as shivers ran up his spine, caused by the pleasure he felt as I began to suck him in earnest. I gave that cock the attention that one so well proportioned deserved. Hearing the sighs and moans of the man above me, kept me to my task, the taste of his cock becoming better and better, musky and manly and filling my whole mouth. I pulled away in order to lick the shaft up and down, nibbling and licking before going back to sucking.
”Oh, you love it, don’t you.“ Bakish grunted with his fingers kneading my hair. He reached down and undid his belt and trouser buttons and then his boxer short buttons.
”My balls, suck my balls, now.“ He told me.
I did as I was told, one hand holding onto his rock hard shaft while the other cupped the pendulous balls, framed in a bush of pubic hair. I took one into my mouth and rolled it around, gently pulling it a little, causing a gasp of surprise from above me, before transferring the other ball into my mouth and giving it the same treatment.
”Uh, that’s good, oh boy that’s good.“ Laughed Bakish.
While I was sucking away furiously, Bob took a few seconds to pull his jacket and shirt off. Then he stood up while I was still sucking away on his cock, slipped down his pants and pulled me to my feet as we ripped off our remaining clothes. A long and passionate kiss followed as we stood there in the room, buck naked, hands and fingers, grabbing and groping each other before breaking for air.
”Want, you, baby.“ The older man grunted as he pushed me to the table, ”You want me? You want daddy to fuck you?“
”Yes, fuck me daddy!“ I said, shoving my ass in his direction.
Bob got behind me, gripping my hips and spread my ass cheeks with his thumbs. He rubbed the head of his cock along my crack before I heard him spit into his hand then he gently inserted just the tip of his gleaming and throbbing cockhead into my waiting hole.
”Oh yes!“ I moaned as I felt my rosebud breached.
Gripping my hips firmly and bracing himself, Bob thrust deep into me with one fast shove of his hips. Our voices met in joint shouts of delight and shock as he began to slowly working all 8” in and out of me. My breathing became ragged and harsh as the enormity of what I was taking inside me made itself very clear. Intense fiery pleasure burnt into me as the full weight of Bob fell onto me. I
Our bodies moved in quick, uncontrolled spasmodic motions with each of us lost in their own world. Bob delighting in the sensations of his cock rampaged in and out of my tight fitting ass. His body thrusting and pushing, hands gripping my shoulders as he rode my bucking body beneath him. I was yelling aloud with pleasure, alive with sensation of this man ground into me and the lovely, blood gorged cock ramming it’s way into my hole. I was being taken, ridden, fucked in the only way I liked to be, by a powerful old man.
I knew he was getting close as he rammed home yet another thrust. I twisted my neck around as far as possible and our lips met for an instant as with one last shuddering push. Bob came in a massive explosion, shouting aloud as his cum shot out of him. I was in ecstasy as the feeling of his warm cum flooding my ass triggered my own orgasm and I came on the floor. My knees gave out and I let the table support my body.
When my head cleared and I could think again I realized that Bob was still smoothly pumping my ass. His cum was a super lube and he had shrunk just a bit, but that still hard member was working my hole like he was working up to come again.
I feel like fan fiction is the fast food of literature. I can see us walking up to the counter of archive of our own and going, “Hi, can I have a klance zombie au with extra angst and a side of fluff and no major character death?”
“Would you like to upgrade your order to a hurt/comfort fic?”
![Return of the Quee[r/n]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/422babef297c161bc89a973234dea328/ceff954b82fb7181-4e/s30x30u_c1/b41d322dfc9c2128319eba562b3b4b1299b539f8.jpg){kind=small}
