Ella's Oneshots

[Ella]

Fandom: The 100
Summary: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy-ish; in which Murphy is basically having a shit time, but learns he may not be alone. Very angsty.
Words: 2824

Broken

Sleep didn’t come to Murphy as easily as it had before. He was back at the camp, to stay, it seemed – as long as Clarke decided he was tolerated enough not to skin alive, useful enough to keep around. He wondered how long that would be. How long before he would manage to screw something up and be left alone once again. He’d done it on the Ark, he done it on Earth. One way or another, he always led himself into misery. For now, however, he was relatively [i]safe[/i], which was a first. He had been relieved at first. No more pain, no longer thrust into the bloodstained dirt with open knees and a torn face. But safety came with the price. No one trusted him, and it seemed to have gotten worse after the ordeal with Finn. [i]It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your fault,[/i] he kept telling himself. Over and over and over again until he almost started to believe it. They didn’t give him anything to do – no guard duty, no hunting trips, absolutely nothing. So he just sat around all day, staring into the sun and whatnot. He rested, and he healed. He could sleep the first few days. Exhausted enough, his mind had shut down and allowed him his peace for a couple of hours. Now his wounds had closed and the worst was over, closing his eyes wasn’t as easy anymore. In the darkness of his mind he became aware of every small sound outside his tent, every whisper of the air around him. And when – [i]if[/i] – he finally did fall asleep, it was never peaceful anymore. He managed to produce vivid imagines. Blood on the wall, blood on the ground, blood everywhere. A rope around his neck, shutting him down like a ragdoll. Shutting him down as if he didn’t deserve the air in his lungs. Shutting him down like he was a criminal. [i]Who are you kidding[/i], his mother’s voice told him. [i]Like you’ll ever be anything else[/i].
***
Bellamy woke up in the middle of the night. [i]Just a dream[/i], he lied to himself. He had almost died that day on the cliff, and he would have if it wasn’t for Murphy, and yet in his mind, everything was twisted and confused. The rope had not been around his middle, but had tightened around his neck, suffocating him. Not a dream. He rolled out of bed and out of his tent, allowing the fresh air of the night to relieve his lungs and light his eyes. He cursed himself – he had to be stronger than this. Murphy had been right in that moment. He was a coward, every time it came to it. He missed Clarke’s guts to be focused on their people every single second of the day. He could still feel the strain around his neck, and almost felt sorry for himself. He had no time for that. And besides, he wasn’t the only one with that memory. Slowly feeling the last breath of air leave your body, drowning into the black edges of your conscious, nothing, [i]nothing[/i] you can do to make it stop. He’d like to think that they were even. 1-1. Murphy had tried to kill him, and he had saved him. Not to mention that the saving part had actually been successful. They were good, right? He sighed at his  second lie. He had nothing to show for.
***
The morning came slowly, the sun fighting its way through the branches of the forest, the camp waking up with it. Murphy waited on purpose. If he’d be the first out there, he knew people would notice the red spots in his neck and the stains on his cheeks. He just had a faced like that. [i]A blessing[/i], his father had said once. [i]I want to know when you’re hurting, so I can make it better. [/i]And he had tried. He had tried until it had killed him. [i]A curse[/i], his mother had started to call it. [i]Take your pathetic misery somewhere I don’t have to see it[/i]. Pathetic misery, that was exactly what it was. So he waited. He waited until he was certain about half of the camp would be having breakfast, so no one would find him slipping away to clean his face, and to try to wash the bloodstains off his hands. He had seen Connor in his dreams that night. It hadn’t happened before. [i]You don’t know what regret feels like. You’re a killer, John Murphy. A killer[/i].
He noticed with regret that he wasn’t the only one who had decided to skip breakfast in favour of the water basin. His night hadn’t been spectacular, and if he could judge from the way that boy was furiously trying to scrub the skin of his hands, his hadn’t either. “Easy there, kid. What did your hands do to you?” he joked. He was met with the cold stare he’d gotten to know so well. “Murphy?”
“Piss off, Blake,” the boy hissed. There were bags under his eyes which undoubtedly reflected Bellamy’s own lack of sleep.
Bellamy’s smile faltered, unable to stop a wave of concern washing over him. “Your bed-hair looks ridiculous,” he said. The neat, slick brown hair that he remembered from the first day was now sticking up, like someone had used it as a mob and then just put it back on Murphy’s head again. He hadn’t even recognised him.
“I’m sorry beauty doesn’t come naturally to all of us.” He didn’t expect to hear so much venom in Murphy’s voice. They had joked before, hadn’t they?
[i]Before[/i].
“What are you still doing here?” Murphy said, his voice not quite composed. “You can see I’m busy here, right? Come back later.”
Bellamy’s eyes rested on Murphy’s, and then on the rest of his face. His face was reddish and he looked as if he had been crying, his shirt was crumpled and if Bellamy didn’t know any better, he’d say that the boy was shaking.
“Yeah, very busy,” Bellamy said. “But I think your hands are clean now, and I need a wash too.”
“They aren’t,” Murphy said, his voice soft but harsh.
Bellamy felt a sinking feeling set into his stomach, painfully aware of the meaning caught behind those words. “Murphy…”
“Fine. Whatever you say, [i]boss[/i].” Cold like fire. The boy splashed some water into his face and turned to rush away, but Bellamy grabbed his arm. “Get off me, you –”
“Mine aren’t either, Murphy,” Bellamy said, and he let go of Murphy. The boy stood as if paralysed, his face knitted into a frown. “Whose are?” 
Murphy shrugged. “Everyone’s but mine, I guess. Clarke –”
“Isn’t a saint either, and whatever she may think, isn’t always [i]right[/i].”
The boy laughed, a smile forming on his face, but no joy to be found in the blue of his eyes. “What point are you even trying to make? I killed two people. I hanged you. I’m the [i]bad guy[/i], remember?”
Bellamy mustered up his courage to speak the words he should have spoken long ago, and to take back the ones he should never have said. “I hanged you. I never apologised for it, and I never did anything to make things right. You saved my life, Murphy. That counts for a lot with me.”
“Right,” Murphy said bitterly. “I thought I was just the asshole who spilled all our people’s secrets to the Grounders, but apparently none of that matters anymore because I managed to not be a dick for once. Because I managed to get [i]one [/i]thing right? I never apologised either. I [i]made [/i]you apologise, and  I’m not even sure I’m sorry.”
“I am,” Bellamy said. “I’m sorry. For the hanging, and for what I said to you. I know you didn’t want to hear that from me back then, but I meant it. I have regretted it over and over again and wished I could make things right, but I can’t turn back time. And neither can you. I’m not saying you’re a good person, but who of us is, really? We make mistakes, but we get back up again. You can get back up again, Murphy.”
Murphy pushed him out of the way. “It’s too early for one of your motivational speeches, Blake, please just leave me alone.”
Bellamy sighed. On whatever level they were before, they were now back to 0-0.
***
He couldn’t stop. The tears kept coming and with every new drop that tainted his cheek he thought about the words that Bellamy had said that morning. As if there was any forgiveness for him in this camp. Just because Blake hated him less than before because he owed him his life – a life he had tried to take – didn’t mean anyone else would even faintly warm to him. His mother knew that. that night, he had found himself back on the Ark. Murphy could still feel the bottle breaking against his head, a loud crashing and cursing from the woman who called herself his mother. [i]You killed your father[/i] – and it hadn’t really stopped there, did it? Oh, how much joy it would have given her to look upon him now. Maybe she was out there, somewhere, laughing at him from between the stars.
He needed air. He opened the flap of his tent. A drink, he needed a drink. Water.
“Wow, watch out where you’re – Murphy?”
[i]Shit, shit, shit – not again. Hadn’t he embarrassed himself enough this morning? [/i]“Blake.” He kept his voice cold as he stared down, focusing on the dirt under his toenails instead of on the guy he had so gracelessly bumped into.
“You all right?”
“Never better, if you could just…”
To his surprise, Bellamy stepped out of the way, and he made his way to the water basin once again, trying to banish all the thoughts of that morning out of his head. He splashed to cold water in his face first this time – he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice – and then focused on his hands again. [i]You killed your father. You killed your father. [/i]If there were a mirror, he would have broken it. He had never been lucky anyway. [i]You killed your father[/i]. He hardly noticed his own tears and his blurred vision, it was just him and the voice. He never knew how someone could manage to pour so much spite into a single sentence, but Murphy knew very well he himself had spoken like that before. He knew how much like his mother he was that night had browned an entire bottle of Moonshine just because he [i]could[/i]. “I know, mom,” he whispered softly to the wall where his reflection would normally be. “I killed him. I killed my own father. I killed. I killed.” His gasped for breath as he tried to control his shaking body. He was strong than this. He was a survivor. Why was this breaking him? Why did he always break? It was his weak and fragile body that had killed his father. “I killed my father,” he said again, somewhat louder this time, “I – I killed my father.” He couldn’t breathe. The tears kept coming and he just couldn’t [i]stop[/i]. “I – I – father… please…” He felt the rope tightening around his neck once more. “Please don’t – I – I know – I killed my father.”
His breathing hitched as he felt two strong arms around him, pushing him straight up from the floor. He didn’t realise he – “I killed –”
“Shut up, Murphy.” Two brown eyes were looking at him as he gasped for breath, tears on his cheeks and in his eyes, the face before him only vague, but the voice familiar.
“B-blake.” His voice was shaking. “G-go aw-way.” [i]Weak, weak, weak.[/i]
“No.” The voice was stern, but not as harsh as he had heard it before. Not as harsh as the voices in his own head.
“I – I killed my father – I don’t –”
Hands on his face. No, he couldn’t have that. He batted them away and pushed himself against the wall, wheezing at the contact his back made with the cold stone. That one wasn’t healed properly yet.
***
Bellamy didn’t know what to do. He had been unable to fall asleep and had just gone to get a drink when he had found Murphy on the floor. He realised that while that morning he had [i]known[/i], he had never actually seen him cry before. The boy was obviously panicking and he simply didn’t have any experience with this. “Hey, Murphy…” No response, just hitched breathing and more tears. He had always wondered what Murphy had done to end up in the Skybox, but shit, he hadn’t expected this.
“Murphy, I don’t know what happened with your dad, but I’m sure –”
“Y-you don’t know s-shit.”
“Explain it to me, then.” He crouched closer to the boy, careful not to get too close.
Murphy shook his head. “Can’t.”
“Okay,” Bellamy said calmly. “Then I’ll just ask some questions. You can just shake or nod, all right?” This was ridiculous. Murphy didn’t trust him, and just didn’t want to tell him. [i]I just want to help, [/i]he told himself. Another voice inside him snickered. [i]Like he wants your help[/i].
Bellamy bit his lip. “Did you mean to kill him?”
No response.
“Murphy? Was it on purpose?”
A furious shake of the head. “H-he shouldn’t h-have –”
“Shh, it’s okay. Did he hurt you?” The though made his stomach twist.
“No, never – y-you don’t –” His eyes were furious, and suddenly a realisation hit Bellamy. Murphy’s dad got floated.
“He got floated, right?”
A nod.
“And you – you think it was because of you?”
“I – I don’t t-think, Blake. I-it was.” His breathing became more irregular, and the boy seemed to push himself further away from him.
He didn’t know how to fix this. How do you fix someone so broken?
“What happened?” Bellamy asked, careful to keep his eyes fixed on Murphy. If he could just hold his gaze long enough...
“He s-stole. I-I was s-sick and he thought – not that the m-medicine w-worked, b-but –” Murphy clutched his arms around his stomach, as if he was going to be sick. “I killed him, I killed him, I –”
***
His words were caught off by Bellamy’s strong arms around him, again.
“It wasn’t your fault, Murphy.” The words were soft and sweet, but they were lies. They were all lies. And yet they were the sweetest lies he had ever heard. He wanted to struggle against the older boy’s hold, but he was so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of breathing, tired of the tears. He tried to steady his breathing as Bellamy’s hands rubbed circles into his back. He was talking, but he couldn’t hear the words. They sounded nice though, so he let a cloud wash over him as he closed his eyes and buried his face into Bellamy’s shirt. He didn’t know how long it took before his breathing evened and the tears on his cheeks tried, only leaving a wet spot on Bellamy’s T-shirt. Bellamy was still holding him, stroking his hair now, as if he was a child to be soothed. Perhaps he was.
He pushed himself upright, away from his comfort and painfully aware of what a fool he made of himself. “‘Msorry,” he whispered, as pushed himself away from Bellamy. The other boy didn’t say anything. He just looked at him with those eyes… “Just say it, Blake. I know. I’m weak and [i]pathetic[/i] and it’s no wonder I hardly lasted three days with the Grounders –”
“Don’t,” Bellamy simply said. “Your dad… That wasn’t your fault. I should never have –” He seemed to struggle for words. “I know you don’t care for my words. I know that whatever I say you’ll just sneer because they won’t [i]help[/i]. I can’t change what happened.”
“Then why are you here?” Murphy bit back. He wanted Bellamy’s words, even if he didn’t believe them. He wanted his comfort. He [i]needed[/i] someone.
“Because I [i]want[/i] to help. I don’t know how to but, I want to try. I just don’t want you to think you have to do this all alone. I want to tell you you’re not weak or pathetic, but I know you don’t believe it. So I’ll tell you this. We all have our demons. Do you think I never wake up crying in the middle of the night? Because I do. I’m weak and pathetic too. But do you know what always helps me? The thought that I’m not alone. I have friends, and…”
“I don’t. I know.” Murphy put his chin on his knees and hugged them close to him. “I know.”
“Wrong,” Bellamy said, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “You have me.” Murphy smiled, not even caring to comment on Blake’s self-righteousness or his hero-complex. He smiled, and hoped that maybe, just [i]maybe[/i], this would be enough.

[Ella]

Fandom: The 100 
Summary: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy-ish; Murphy has a bad dream. Set somewhere mid season 2; angsty and some (canon-typical) description of violence.
Words: 1103

Oh Memory, You're So Unkind

Red on the wall. He blinked a couple of times, his eyes seemingly unable to focus on what was before him. His hands. His hands were in front of him, bound together by a piece of rope. This didn’t shake him – this was nothing more than the usual crap he got. He noticed some of his fingernails were gone. Just as well, right? what did he need them for anyway, what was the use? His hands were only used to hurt, his nails to scratch – marks on his own skin. He felt his face. That wasn’t right, he wasn’t supposed to feel anymore. Hitched breathing before the darkness took him.
Wide awake, bloodshot eyes – not that he really knows. He hadn’t seen a mirror since he landed on the ground. On the Ark, where metal and reflection reigned, he hadn’t been able to avoid looking into his father’s eyes each day, again and again until he wanted to tear them out, until he wanted to disappear and feeling nothing – nothing –
He screamed as they tore at him, as they ripped him to pieces and slashed him until there was nothing left.
He felt his face. Even before he had never been pretty. His face pale and his skin hollow like a snake’s, eyes too large for his skull and slick brown hair now unrecognisable as the single trait he had shared with his mother. They asked him questions he didn’t hardly knew the answer to. To some he had, and he had told them. He had told them everything, more than they asked, if only they would stop – if only –
– But the questions kept coming, and there was only so much Murphy could tell them. John Murphy, who had never been trusted by anyone. The poor little orphan. Stares and jabs. If he would ever truly wish for death, he knew this would be the moment. But relief never came.
Her eyes were smiling. It had been long. The black mod of mud and hair stuck to his forehead, plastered to his skin together with the sweat and the blood and the grime. Relief never came. His hands were shaking as they reached out for her, trying to ensure it wasn’t all another lie, a bitter illusion.
“You killed your father, John.” Eyes of ice, clawing into his bones and through the back of his skull. Not an illusion. Never an illusion.
Hands on him, grabbing him and stabbing at him. Screaming at him in English. That wasn’t. his name. Murphy. Not his mother.
Brightness. A flashlight, a torch. The grounders didn’t have such torches. Chocolate eyes boring into his. Was this what concern looks like?
“Murphy,” the voice said, uncertain and soft, wrapping around him, yet loud enough to crash him back on Earth once more. “You okay?”
He wanted to speak, to shove him away, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. He was just so tired. “Bellamy,” was all he could croak out.
The older boy sat down next to him, his hand still on his arm, but not unpleasantly so. He reminded himself that those hands didn’t mean to hurt him – not as far as he knew. He thought back to the rope around his neck, pushing the breath out of him. When did he know, really? His heart was pumping and for a moment he couldn’t find the air. Tears stung in his eyes, but find their way to his cheeks. He couldn’t be that weak in front of their Fierce Leader. His hands were shaking.
Fingers brushing clammy strings of hair away from his eyes. sweat, not blood – he had to remind himself, and keep reminding, remembering. [i]They won’t hurt you. Not if you stay in line. Not if you –[/i]
Words were coming out of Bellamy’s mouth, syllables slipping over his tongue, but Murphy couldn’t focus. Tears clouded his ears.
“It’s all right,” he caught, the brown close, almost too close. “We all have nightmares.”
Murphy swallowed. Bellamy didn’t understand. He would never understand. Slowly, he closed his eyelids. His tears escaped, but they were gone now. it was okay – no, it wasn’t, but it would be. if only the sun would come and Blake would leave him be, take his big puppy eyes and his pity with him.
“Murphy?” Another touch. A warm hand. Breath on his face. “I understand if you don’t want to talk, but sleeping outside isn’t really going to fix anything, it’s only going to get you a cold.”
“It does,” he said, his voice softer than he imagined it would be. “Fix things. There are no people.”
He imagined Bellamy smiling sadly.
“Usually, at least,” he scoffed.
“And that fixes it? Being alone?”
“When did Earth turn you into a people person, Blake? I never knew you to be such a talker.” Still blackness. He didn’t want to see those eyes anymore.
A laugh. He could see it before him, a freckled face. “Perhaps it did. I changed.”
“I didn’t.” A lie.
“Maybe you should.”
“I’m trying.” It came out as a whisper.
Bellamy sighed audibly.
“Not hard enough, I know,” Murphy sneered. “I never try hard enough, do I? I won’t ever be good enough, and it’ll only take a couple of days before someone finds a reason to kick me out of his stupid camp again. Don’t tell me I’m wrong, because I know I’m not.” His voice wasn’t supposed to be breaking. It shouldn’t be like this.
“Open your eyes, Murphy.”
“No.”
“Look at me,” Bellamy’s voice softly coaxed, and Murphy complied.
“I want you to look at me when I tell you that isn’t true. I don’t know what you dreamt about or who told you anything to make you think that, but that’s what it was – a dream, nothing more.”
Murphy shook his head, and looked the other straight in the eyes. “It wasn’t a dream,” he said, his voice clearer as his body began to calm down, the shaking subsided and his tears dried, leaving his cheeks unmoving like dried mud on stone.
“Then what was it?” Bellamy asked.
Murphy turned his back to the older boy, shivering while he got to his feet. Bellamy was right about one thing. Staying outside wasn’t going to do him any favours. It made the memories seem too fresh. He heard Bellamy call after him, but didn’t turn around. He didn’t need him. He didn’t need anyone. “It was a memory,” he whispered to the open air, to the stars in the sky and the poisoned night. But there was no one there to hear.

[Ella]

Fandom: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 
Summary: Grindelwald is unable to convince Percival Graves of his ideals, but that doesn't matter. He only ever needed his body anyway...
Words: 2078

Shadows

It’s a shame, he thinks, as he watches how the Obscurus is blown apart. So much wasted potential. Think of the things we could have done, if only they hadn’t – No. They wouldn’t have understood anyway. He can see that now, shackled on the floor in front of them as he feels his body take its natural form. They’re too thick-headed to get it through their skull – they shouldn’t be hiding, they shouldn’t be cowering away from those Muggles as if somehow their safety was worth more than our freedom.
Are we not part of this world?
No, he can hear them answer. Not of theirs, as they are not of ours.
There’s only so long you can hide from the world. He knows it better than anyone. He watches the fragments of black float into the clearing skies. The boy learned a similar lesson. Some things shouldn’t stay hidden.
“Will we die, just a little?”
The copper-headed boy towering over him does not respond, and Grindelwald smiles. They didn’t understand what the future had in store.
It’s a shame, really. Percival Graves hadn’t understood it either. He suffered for his failure.
 

***

 

“Who are you?” Percival Graves breathes into the air, blowing smoke into the cloudless evening. He can scarcely discern the man in front of him, but he knows the answer to the question.
The man lights his wand, his features dark and his complexion old. A whisper, and his black hair grows longer, whiter. His complexion grows harder, despite the moustached lips tugging upwards at the corners of his mouth. His clothing seems to suit him ill and he seems out of place, not just in New York, but in the world. A joke of the cosmos.
“You know who I am, Mr. Graves.” His voice is lighter than expected, and the man smiles. “The question then remains, who are you?”
Graves huffs. “You seem to know who I am perfectly fine.” He should be calling back-up, and he reaches for his own wand.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Graves. By the time they find you, there won’t be much left of you.”
“You won’t kill me.” He says it with a lot more certainty than he feels.
A chuckle cuts through the night as if it were a scream. “What makes you so sure?”
He pushes his shoulders back and looks down at the other. “You know who I am. You know my influence. Surely, if you sought me out, you know I can be… useful.”
“You’re not a fan of Muggles. No-Majs, as you may wish me to call them. Or are you, Mr Graves?”
“No, I’m not.”
“We’ve been in the shadows for too long.” Cold eyes meet. “Let’s take a walk, my friend.”
 

***

They lock him up, but he knows it’s only a matter of time. He’s not the only wizard walking the streets of New York with such ideas. How could he be, when they are oppressed into silence, unable to show who they truly are and what magnificent things they could do if the world was truly theirs.
“How did you get into the United States?”
He laughs. “Surprisingly easy. How did Mr. Scamander and his nice suitcase get in, huh? Did you ever ask yourself that question?”
The Auror is not in the least amused. “Cooperation will show on your record.”
He bares his teeth like the man he is. “I’m sure it will.” He is surprised no one has asked him about Graves yet. He could tell them all about his cooperation.

 

***

 
The room was bare and the grey stone almost smelled of draft. “Say what you have to say.” He couldn’t reach his wand, the other’s weapon still on him.
“You know what I have to say. You’re a politician, you know what my beliefs entail.”
“I’d like to hear them from your own mouth.” He gestures, and sees the dark wizard follow his movements closely, his wand moving along just for good riddance. Grindelwald wasn’t stupid. “I know how the papers can warp things. I am, as you say, a politician. I do a good deal of the warping myself.” He smiles, if only to comfort himself that he is still here, that this is real.
Being glib has never gotten you anyway, he hears his father’s voice in his head.
It did, dad. It brought me where I am. Cold air on his skin.
“I believe that wizards and witches should take their rightful place in the world. That we shouldn’t have to hide.”
“And the enslavement of No-Majs.”
Another smile. “Perhaps.”
“Violence, outside of the law.”
“I begin to sense a little antagonism, Mr. Graves. Surely, if we are trying to overturn a faulty law, it is reasonable we act outside of the law.”
Graves averted his eyes. Of course he’d had similar thoughts. He remembered a dinner conversation a couple of weeks ago, a discussion with his father about the dated statutes. Then, as his punishment, he found Mary-Lou Barebone and her Second Salemers on the steps of the church on his way to work the next morning. He was sure she’d been there before, but it was a reminder. They weren’t safe.
“I know your thoughts, Mr. Graves.”
He thought about the children. The young girls with their stern faces, the boy with his arched back. Poisoned minds. Were they to suffer for the faults of a handful of adults? “You mean to murder them.”
“I mean to end them, whatever that may take.”
“For the greater good.”
“The lawful reform you wish for will never happen, Mr. Politician. Your people wouldn’t accept it. They wouldn’t accept it. I’ve seen you looking at the black woman. You know she wouldn’t stand the idea of witches living amongst them. You have surely seen how she punishes the boy for his ancestry. He’s not even one of us. A squib. If she does that to a squib, what will she want to do to us? Surely, she does deserve whatever fate may greet her?”
He closed his eyes, recalling Goldstein’s confrontation with the Second Salemers. Her accusations. How did Grindelwald know about this? Why did he care?
“I’m looking for a child, Graves. One of them.”
“Why?” He found himself asking out loud.
“An Obscurus.”
He laughed. “There haven’t been any Obscuri for ages now, surely –”
“I’ve seen it, Mr. Graves. Do not doubt me.” His voice took a dangerous tone now. “The boy will help me. I’m not sure how, but I know he will. I see it clearly.”
“Credence.” He could not imagine how the young man could be of use to Grindelwald, but he felt his stomach sink at what that would mean for the young Barebone.
“He will help me. The question is, will you?”
His eyes are a sickening colour, and Graves wonders what the man did to himself. A fanatic of pure magic, dabbling in the most impure forms of all. “Never. I won’t let you harm him.” He reaches for his wand, only to find it gone.
The other holds up the long piece of wood and snaps it, now useless to Graves. He presses his lips together, his eyes narrowing. “I was afraid you might say that.”
“Let me guess… Now is the moment you kill me.” Graves smiles, the only way to expel the shiver from his back.
“As you so rightly said, Mr. Graves, I never meant to kill you.”
“What use am I of you if I don’t share your ideas?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he realises this is a very foolish thing to say. His father would chastise him for it.
Another sickening smile. The man’s face could almost be handsome, if it wasn’t for that smile. “I never said it was your mind I needed.”
 

***

 

“I took his body.”
He says it carelessly, as if it is the most natural thing to steal another man’s form – another man’s [i]l[/i]ife. She realises that perhaps for this man it is. “What did you do to him?”
Grindelwald presses his lips together. “Not telling.”
“You know we have other methods. We’ve used them before.”
“And with how much success, exactly?” He cocks his head a little to the right. “I know the blocks on my own memories. Sometimes even I forget how to break them.”
She is sick of him. Sick of interrogating him, of not finding any answers. The truth was that they had no idea how to get into Grindelwald’s mind. She wishes she could ask her sister to help, but she knows that would mean revealing Queenie’s powers to MACUSA. Not a risk she is willing to take.
“If you won’t tell me where he is, at least answer me this question: Is Percival Graves alive?”
He sits up a little, as if this was the question he had been waiting for all along. He shows his yellow teeth. “Yes.”
She is not sure if that makes it better or worse.
 

***

In the end, they find him. Grindelwald never gave in, never went beyond the single-syllable word, but once MACUSA knew that Graves was still alive, they rest at nothing to find the man. Tina silently wonders why they care so much about this man, about this money and this power, while they were not willing to lower their wands for the life of a guiltless boy. She doesn’t say anything, though. She has learned her lesson. She has her job back, and she’d like to keep it.
When she finally gets to visit him, weeks after his resurface – weeks after the official meetings, the press interviews, the entire circus – he still looks as broken as on the first photos that appeared in the evening papers. His hair is matted, his face has an almost grey tint and he looks as if he has not gained an ounce since he was submitted to the hospital. She bites her lip, and realises that she has hated his face for the past two months. She had forgotten that while Graves was never her friend, he was also never her enemy.
“Goldstein.” His voice cracks as his eyes meet hers.
“Mr. Graves.” She doesn’t know if she should sit or stand. She doesn’t know what is appropriate. What is she even doing here? “How are you doing?” She breaks their eye contact. A stupid question. She knows how he is doing. She’s heard the ministry gossip about the scars on his body, but more notably the scars on his mind.
“I’m alive, something that can’t be said of everyone.”
Tina meets his eyes again, and she sees he’s smiling. For a moment she thinks it may all be true, that he has gone completely mad after being trapped by Grindelwald for so long. Then she realises that it is a sad smile.
“Goldstein. Tina… Can you tell me… Is Credence –” He pulls his eyebrows into an anguished frown and presses his lips together.
She frowns, her gaze hardening. “Is Credence what, Mr. Graves?”
He shudders involuntarily. “Please, call me Percival.” His hands are shaking. “I was just wondering. Is he  –”
“Credence died, Mr. – Percival.” She is taken aback by his question. By his memory of the boy’s name. She hasn’t heard anyone but her, Queenie and Newt refer to him as a person, as something other than the Obscurus he held within him.
“Grindelwald killed him, in the end, didn’t he? He mentioned him to me… The night he – he took me. He needed him, the boy would help him…” Graves grinds his teeth. “He helped him find the Obscurus, didn’t he? Enough children among the Second Salemers. He used him, and then he killed him when he didn’t need him anymore.”
She can’t believe they didn’t tell him. She knew MACUSA had never cared for Credence, but she didn’t think they’d care so little never even to mention his name to a high ministry official.
“I could have saved him, if only –”
“It wasn’t Grindelwald,” she finds herself saying, knowing this is something she might regret, will regret. “You couldn’t have saved him.”
The confused look in his eyes breaks her as she remembers Credence, frightened and alone, their wands all firing in his direction.
“He was the Obscurus, Percival. MACUSA killed him.”
It doesn’t surprise her when he starts to cry. It surprises her when he grabs her hand and she cries with him.

[Ella]

Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Draco-centric, Lucius/Narcissa; post-DH; Draco wondered if this house had ever been his home; title taken from Tennessee Williams’s "The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore"
Words: 1130

We All Live in a House on Fire

“It’s not your house.”
His arms were crossed in front of him, and his harsh voice may once have scared her. Now it left her indifferent. She could be stubborn too, if that’s what he really wanted. “I believe something different was said when you proposed to me. ‘This house will be your house, your home, too,’ I seem to remember. I know you’ve lied to a great many people, Lucius, but I didn’t think you’d ever lie to me.
“Exactly…” He reminded her briefly of a small, angry Doxy. His eyes were too tired. “Our home, Narcissa. I can’t believe you’re thinking about selling our home. In open auction.”
“To the highest bidder. It would attract a lot of people. We could even sell some of the furniture separately, if you want to.”
“You want to sell the furniture?”
“Perhaps some of the paintings too.”
Lucius didn’t say anything. He turned around and leaned over the windowsill, his back hunched. Narcissa wondered when she had started to think of him as an old man. He had aged more in a year than he had in the past ten years.
“This place isn’t my home anymore, Lucius. He took that from us. And –”
“But – ”
“Let me finish.” Her voice was sharper than intended, and she laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder as she spoke. “I hate this place. Draco hates this place. Sooner or later he will find a suitable life, and he will leave. And what will be left for us here? A house full of ghosts.”
Lucius turned to her, his lips a thin line. “It can be our home again. We can make it our home.”
His wife threw him a pitiful glance. No matter what he said, she knew he couldn’t go down the cellar either. “We could start over again. Somewhere far away from here. We could go to France.” She had always liked France. Its elegance, and the sun.
He shook his head, a strangled laugh escaping from his throat. “I don’t want to start over.”
Don’t you? she thought. Don’t you regret it? Not a single thing? Narcissa knew better than to ask these questions aloud, of course. She didn’t want to fight with her husband. She really didn’t. He just made it so easy.
“We’ve just gotten it back. I’m not giving it away again. End of discussion.” He strolled out of the room. He didn’t slam the door behind him, but he might as well have.
Narcissa sighed. This was going to be a long life.
The thick, wooden door couldn’t keep out his father’s voice. This wasn’t the first fight they had had in the past few weeks, but Draco found himself surprised by the subject. Auctioning the house… He wondered if his mother had lost his sanity.
He bit his lip and sat down against the white wall. She was right, of course. They all hated it. Even his father hated it, he could tell. It was the little things. Lights left on during the night at the darkest spots of the house, rooms that weren’t used anymore. But of course, the Mighty Lucius Malfoy wouldn’t let himself be bullied from his own house by such trivialities. Don’t mind the literal skeletons in the closet. He knew he’d sell the house the minute he inherited it. Just out of spite.
The door was opened and his father stormed past him, not even noticing his presence. Not that it made any difference. He wouldn’t listen to mother, and there was even less of chance his father would listen to him. If only he had a little less pride. Maybe then he would have made a good father.
Draco wondered if this house had ever been his home. His lip was bleeding.
The bench creaked under his weight. He couldn’t remember it doing that before, but then again, he hadn’t been here in a while. The weeds had grown a little. There was no one doing the gardening now the house elves were all gone.
Dead, his wife’s voice reminded him in his head. Everyone is dead.
Not everyone, not us. That seemed to matter less and less these days. Sometimes he wondered if they wouldn’t have been better off if he were dead. If he had been dead for a long time.
Despite being a little overgrown, this particular spot of the garden had not changed much since the day he had first set foot in the garden. He remembered coming here with his mother, feeding the fish in the pond. They were nowhere to be seen today, and he wondered if they had died too. If they had simply ceased to be and were blown out of existence. Such things happened, he guessed.
He wondered if his wife was right. Malfoy Manor didn’t feel like his home anymore, not right now, but surely, that wouldn’t have to stay that way? The ghost couldn’t stay forever, and even the cellars would have to be cleaned out sometime. He could do that. He must. This was the house he had grown up in, the house where Draco had set his first steps, the garden where he had flown and fallen off his first broomstick. They couldn’t just sell their lives.
Lucius picked up a small rock, fearing the bench would really give under his weight. His father had proposed to his mother here, and he picked the same spot to propose to Narcissa. He doubted if any work had been done on the bench since that time. Probably not.
He tossed the rock into the pond, and watched the water ripple. His father had done the same once, and told him that that was what life looked like. Lucius couldn’t help but feel like it had been an understatement.
Narcissa had looked beautiful the day he proposed to her. Of course he remembered the bloody words. What was his would be hers, and the only thing he asked in return, was her heart. She was always right – one of her most infuriating character traits, if only because he didn’t like being wrong. He remembered her smile as he stared at the water, waiting for a younger version of his wife to rise from the deep and tell him that everything was going to be all right. To tell him that she still loved him. She was still beautiful, while he looked upon his own reflection in disgust.
He couldn’t sell this place, not even if he wanted to. There were good memories too. They would overshadow the bad ones, eventually. This was their home. It still would be.
A frog plunging itself into the water blurred his reflection, and he rose from the bench.
If only he could believe himself.

[Ella]

Fandom: Ulysses, technically
Summary: This was written for a prompt set by a friend: write from an unusual perspective. So here you have a very loose rewrite of Calypso, episode four of James Joyce’s Ulysses, hence I shall have to credit JJ™ for all of Bloom's dialogue, the general plot and the cat's existence. The cat's thoughts, however, are mine. This might also be slightly more understandable to people who have actually read this part of Ulysses, but hey, cat!
Words: 1081

A Portrait of the Pussens as a Kosher Cat

It wasn’t exactly that I was a herbivore. Not at all, of course. I liked the occasional sardine, or some of the scraps of meat he left me. But as he contemplated his regular Thursday morning breakfast of fatjuicymeaty kidney, I had to admit that, overall, I found his unusual taste rather disgusting. I knew he wasn’t too attached to all the rules etc. etc., and that his eating habits wouldn’t keep kosher if his life depended on it, but the kidney-devouring mornings were a level at which I lost my basic comprehension of my human’s mind. Unfortunately for me, it seemed I was stuck with him, including his love for the inner organs of beasts; thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. He ate them all, and all I could do was sit there, mkgnaoing in disgust at his lack of principle.
I walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. “Feed me, you uncultured swine,” I said, on a not altogether unfriendly tone, even if I felt particularly grumpy towards my owner’s dietary preferences this morning. And please please please just let it be something a regular human being would actually feed to a cat this time, I thought, but I didn’t say it. There was no need to be rude
“O, there you are,” Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.
“Oh hurray, you found me,” I said. “Now if you will please get me my breakfast. The woman can wait. You’ve fed her last night, while you haven’t given me any attention in what I have counted to be exactly twenty hours, nine minutes and eeleven seconds.” I had to admit that that may have at least partly been my own fault, for I had been desperately trying to huntcatchkill the mouse that was hiding in the cupboard of their neighbour’s daughter’s small house, which was a few blocks away. Then again, I wouldn’t have been so desperate to catch that bothersome little thing if Poldydear had managed to get me something decent for breakfast.
I began to get impatient. I tried to seduce him with my elegant black shapes. Feed me, pet me. If I bite of your fingers one by one will you be more willing, will you comply? Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not feed me. You call me stupid. I understand what you say better than you do. I understand all I want to. Vindictive, cruel is my nature. I know your secrets, Leopold Bloom, I know them all.
Finally he bends down, hand on his knees. “Milk for the pussens.”
“That is not what I want!” I cried. Don’t hiss. Hiss and he’ll never get you what you want. “Give me some food, you imbecile.” Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, my mother used to say. I wasn’t sure I agreed on that. Right now eating his hand seemed like a good alternative to my usual eight o’clock breakfast on the cat food my human bought for her in the local store. The milk would be good, but I knew he could do better.
“Afraid of chickens she is,” my human said mockingly. What a jerk. Did he really have to bring up that little incident? That was one time. I ran into that little bastard and nearly got my eyes pecked out. I could remind him of some fun incidents as well. “Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.” Don’t you use that voice on me. That voice you use when you think it necessary to humiliate me but do it in such a tone of voice that it seems as if you are just being nice. Well, you are not fooling me, sir. I made a distinctively furious noise in the hope he would catch up on it. I wasn’t wasting any more words on that human, and started to mew plaintively instead. I could tear up his pretty trousers, but decided against it. I knew my human and the woman had a funeral today, and I wasn’t about to disrespect the deceased. Paddy used to pet me in the streets whenever our paths crossed (which was very often in the small Dublin of 1904), the good man. I showed my human my milkwhite teeth and narrowed my dark eyeslits with greed till my eyes were green stones.
The human seemed to catch up on my current displeasure to at least some degree, pouring warmbubbled milk on a saucer and setting it slowly on the floor. “About time!” I cried, running to his lap. That little distraction had done it, of course. I had now lost my human’s attention, and he, thinking I was satisfied, left me alone with the woman.
For a single second I contemplated going upstairs to beg the woman for food, but I knew she wouldn’t get up anytime soon, and certainly not for me. My human at least seemed to like me, even if he was an irregular and unreliable supplier of my wishes, whether it regarded food or drink or anything else for that matter – he petted me when he came home from work, while she just looked upon me as vermin.
After what seemed like a century, I heard the door, and saw his hat take its usual place on the peg. Took him long enough. Still no food. Kidney.
He was talking to the woman. Why did he bother with her. I was about to interrupt their fun little conversation to tell the human that I really really needed some food now or I would consider eating his precious kidney as a replacement, when I smelled the smell of burn. “The kidney!” I cried suddenly, but of course my human didn’t hear me. No, it took a comment from the woman for my human to discern the hideous smell his prized possession had been creating.
Shouldn’t have threatened. Now paying the price. The burned flesh of the kidney was flung at me. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to on such a deep emotional level that I almost decided that living on milk for another day would definitely not kill me. But I was hungry, and so it happened that 16 June 1904 became the day that I stopped keeping kosher.

[Ella]

Fandom: -
Summary: written for a prompt, but I don't remember what it was! 
Words: 883

Nervous

“Nervous?” she asked. He could see a smile tug at the corners of her lips. Her eyes were sparkling behind the black mask she was wearing.
He grabbed her arm and twirled her around the room with him, her hair dancing graciously around her head. She began to laugh. She had a beautiful laugh. Not that she wasn’t beautiful when she didn’t laugh – she was always beautiful. She was staring at him expectantly, and he remembered her question. “No,” he lied. “Am I ever?”
She chuckled. “Do you really wish to have an honest answer to that?”
“When was I nervous then?” His voice was serious now.
She could see the tension in his face, even while he was wearing the mask. The black fabric still allowed his smooth skin to be exposed. She pressed a teasing kiss on his cheek. “You’re definitely nervous now.”
“I’m not –“
“You were nervous last time. You’re nervous every time.” She smiled. He set his jaw. “But you’re ready.” She looked at the black clothes he was wearing. He was more than ready. He almost looked sexy, even though she’d never admit it to him. His ego would only grow, and he already had enough arrogance for the both of them. She didn’t have the leisure to be arrogant – there were more important things in the world. She took his hand and pulled his body towards hers. “You’re more than ready. It’ll be over before you know it.”
He sighed. “I know, I know,” he murmured. “Whatever,” he added, in a weak attempt to cover up that he had just admitted that she was right. She was internally celebrating her triumph.
“Let’s go,” she said, taking off his mask as well as hers, pushing him out of her apartment.
“Don’t forget your purse.”
“Got it. Come on now. We wouldn’t want to be late, now would we?”
He smiled. “Of course not, darling.” The word tasted sweet on his tongue.
He drove the car out of the lane, breaking the speed limit a couple of times. She didn’t care. As long as they were on time.
“Left here,” she said.
“Are you certain?”
“I’m always certain,” she said decidedly.
There was a silence between them, and she just focused on the road. They needed to be in time. If they were only a few minutes late, her perfect plan for the evening would fall to pieces. She glanced sideways. He seemed relaxed enough now, but she knew that his mind was twirling.
He pulled the car over. It was dark, and the street was merely viewable to the human eye due to the weak streetlights.
“We’re… not there yet,” she said, when he didn’t seem to be planning to move.
“I know,” he said simply. “I just –”
“Like I said, we are late,” she said, putting some force behind her voice.
“I know,” he repeated.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She was nearly yelling at her now. Leave it to him to ruin her evening.
He didn’t answer for a while. “Don’t you ever get nervous?”
“What?”
“You heard me the first time, don’t make me repeat it.”
She shrugged. “Of course. It’s not that weird, is it?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You acted as if it was something weird.”
She grinned. “I’m sorry.”
He put his arms on the wheel and stared through the window.
“I’m nervous every time too,” she finally admitted. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”
She had expected many things. She had expected him to apologise for his ridiculous behaviour. She had expected him to taunt her. She could have imagined almost every scenario, but she didn’t expect him to press his lips to hers. For a moment she forgot everything else. For a moment she let his lips capture hers, as if they had never done anything else. As if they were one and the same person. She didn’t want it to end, but them she remembered who she was, and who he was. “We’re running late,” she said as she broke of the kiss.
He looked away. “Right.”
He steered the car away again, and they arrived about ten minutes later.
“You’re late, Carrie,” Jim yelled. They had obviously been waiting for them. “His fault,” she said flatly as she gestured to Trevor, but when Jim wasn’t looking, she threw him a smile. He granted her a small smile back.
“Come through,” Jim said, not generously enough to her taste, but Trevor put his hand on her back and escorted her into the building.
“Don’t forget your mask,” she said.
“I’m not forgetting anything any time soon.”
She playfully pushed him away.
“No shenanigans,” Derek said, sternly, as they entered a small hall. “Do you have it, Carrie?”
She nodded as she took the bomb out of her purse. “It’s all set and ready.”
“Does everyone remember what he has to do?” the man asked.
Everyone nodded.
“Good,” Derek said. He took the package and placed it against the door of the bank’s strongroom. “On the count of ten.”
Both of them put their hands over their ears. There was a loud bang as the door exploded before their eyes.
“Nervous?” she asked Trevor.
He smiled at her, his dark eyes finding hers. “As hell.”

[Ella]

Fandom: -
Summary: for the prompt 'pirates'
Words: 2886

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate's Life for Me

“What makes someone a pirate, then?” the little boy asked, frowning deeply, as if it was the most important question in the world. Perhaps it was.
He didn’t know what to answer. His own father had only started to consider him a pirate once he had successfully stolen something. He remembered the golden ring – the tiny little thing – that made his father look at him so differently. No longer was he the boy sweeping the floor clean – he now was a pirate, one of them, allowed to drink and stay up until it was too late to go to bed.
The boy knocked on the window. If he tried, he could probably break it with ease, but he wasn’t in a hurry. “What makes you a pirate? Why can you be a pirate and why can I not?”
He smiled. “You’re a bit young to be a pirate, matey,” he said, soon realising how patronising he must sound. He had once promised himself that he would never become like that. Then again, it wasn’t the first promise he had broken.

She smiled as he watched. He had watched her from a distance all his life, and even if she would survive to see the sun rise, he would continue to do so. He had promised his father a long time ago that he would stop pining for her. There were so many bigger fish in the sea. He had promised that she would be the one treasure he would never steal.

“You ready, Tye?” Gob breathed heavily next to him, holding one of his larger pistols ready for their attack on the Seven Harbours, which was rising into the night. They were like yin and yang, she on the clean, light ship which seemed to radiate a stronger light than the lighthouses they always carefully avoided, he on the ship his father had owned, and his father before him, barely visible in the cold December night. She emitted the light that he had never felt in his life.
“As I’ll ever be,” he smiled.

“But I’m this many years old already!” the boy shouted indignantly, holding up seven fingers, pushing them against the window, as close to the face of the older man as he could get, as if the mere proximity would make him understand.
“Sssh,” he whispered. He was afraid the boy’s nanny would hear them. That would ruin him.
“Why can’t I be a pirate?” the boy repeated, more quietly.
Tye peeked through the window to see the room a bit better. It was neat and clean, as was the boy himself. The child represented everything he disgusted, and sometimes secretly longed for – although he’d never admit it, not even to himself. His life was organised and simple. He had a perfect little set of parents, and probably more money than Tye could ever manage to steal. He closed his eyes. It was a life he could never have, not even if he wished for it. He had done too many wrong, there were too many people who wanted him dead. If he was successful tonight, he would be rich tomorrow. But settling would not be an option. He’d be dead within a day. “You know what,” he said to the boy. “I think you might make a good pirate.”
The boy’s eyes lightened up at that. It reminded him of something he’d never seen, but always imagined. A light in his eyes to match hers.
“Do you know what would make you an even better pirate?” he asked, grinning one of his golden teeth at the boy.
The boy shook his head. “Tell me,” he whispered, excited, but remembering to keep his voice down. The kid was smart, he had to give him that.
“You could let me in.”
The child shook his head. “My parents say I shouldn’t let strangers in.”
He got a little closer to the boy, as if he was going to share the biggest secret in the world. The boy realised that, and leaned towards the window, nearly pressing his face straight to the glass. “First rule of being a pirate: you don’t do what others tell you to do.”
“But they’re my parents,” the boy said, surprised. “Is that what makes you a pirate? Don’t you do what your parents tell you?”
He thought about his father, long gone, and what he would have said if he could see him here, sitting on the window sill of Governor of Spain, doing exactly the thing his father had told him not to do so many years ago.

“Where is mom?” he had asked once. He had not yet reached the age where he was aware that that question was a mistake, where he not yet regretted having uttered a word as soon as his father’s eyes darkened. He was not afraid of his father, even though he knew that some others on the ship were.
“You don’t have a mother.”
He had simply laughed. “Gob told me that everyone has a mother, otherwise you can’t be born. Why is my mother not here?” His eyes were once again serious, and his father sighed.
“Your mother doesn’t like the sea.”
He knitted his brows. “How can anyone not like the sea?” His father didn’t answer that. “Gob says that his father was married to his mother before his mother died. Are you married to mom?”
His father sighed, cursing his son’s friend for talking so much, and his own kid for being too smart for his own good. “No,” he answered, truthfully. He wasn’t strange to lying, but he wouldn’t lie to his own son.
“Why not?”
He averted his eyes. “She is married to someone else.”
“Oh,” the boy said, disappointed. “Why didn’t she marry you when she got me? Gob said that that was why his mom married his dad.”
He pursed his lips, wishing for a drink, even though it wasn’t past eight in the morning. Rum would be good. Rum always was.
“Dad?” his son’s voice nagged.
“Your mother was already married to someone else when she got you.”
“But-” the boy started, pausing before he could finish his sentence, because he didn’t understand. “But what happened then?” he finally asked.
“I went back to the sea,” his father answered flatly. “And I took you with me.”
His son sent him a worried look. “Why didn’t she come with you? Didn’t she love me?”
He met his son’s eyes. How could he tell him that his mother had been long married to a richer man, a man of status, when he met her, that he didn’t know that when they shared that one night in the back of her parents’ garden, that she had lied to him about not being married, that she had lied to her husband about her pregnancy, that he had taken the child because she didn’t want it, telling her husband that the child had died… He felt for him too, sometimes. He had been deceived all the same. How could he tell his only son that his mother had abandoned him – the both of them, for that matter. That she, indeed, hadn’t loved them. So, despite his good intentions, he decided that he had no choice to lie, as the other had done to him. “Of course she did,” he said, his smile weak in the early morning. “But like I said, she didn’t like the sea.” It wasn’t a complete lie. She liked the sea, but she also liked her secure home, even if she lived there with a man she didn’t love. She liked the sea, but she took a dislike to what it represented. In the end, it turned out that she took a dislike to him, and even their new-born. To her own child.
“Perhaps it’s good that she’s not here, then. It would make her unhappy.”
His father smiled. He was a nice kid. Too nice, perhaps – but that would come later. For now he would enjoy the young child’s innocence, even if he couldn’t remember the time when he was like that himself. Even if all his smiles reminded him of his mother’s. “Perhaps it is,” he admitted, and he looked at his son. “Never fall in love with someone who doesn’t understand the sea,” he then said to the little Tye, who was nodding his head in understanding. He stroked the boy’s head, and told him to get himself some breakfast. Then the boy was gone, and silence returned to the captain’s cabin. He sighed, and returned to his work – but the thought of her golden hair didn’t leave him for a couple of days, if it had ever left him at all.

“That’s right, kid,” he admitted. “I don’t do what my parents tell me.”
The small boy giggled. “That’s very naughty,” he said.
Tye smiled. The child reminded him of himself, of the moments his father told him half-truths, perhaps more to protect himself than to protect his son. He missed him, but he knew his father would know a peace in death that he had never found in life. He had gone down with his ship, like a true captain does – a fate he sometimes feared for himself. “That’s what pirates are,” he said, leaning against the window. He wished that the kid would open it – the night was damp and clammy, and he betted that the house would be cooler, regarding the wealth of the owners. “But that’s not all they are,” he continued. “Do you know what the one thing is that pirates always do?”
The boy nodded, slightly agitated, as if this was a test he had to pass. In some ways it was. “They find treasures,” he said, his eyes gleaming in the light of the moon as he imagined chests full of gold. Gold the kid would never need. His father was the richest man in Spain, richer than the king, Tye thought.
“Wrong,” he said, pointedly. “Pirates steal treasures.”
“Is that what you’re here to do?” the kid asked.
Tye simply smiled. “What’s your name, kid?”
“William,” he answered.
“William,” he said, staring at the boy, seemingly pensive. “That could be a good pirate’s name. They could call you Will, or Billy. I’ve known many good pirates who go by the name of Billy.”
William smiled.
“Y’know what, William,” Tye said. “You don’t have to let me in, but I do want you to tell me something. I will trade it for one of my belongings, if that seems more fair to you.”
“But I thought pirates only steal?” William asked.
“It has recently come to my attention that people do not like to be robbed, hence my proposition. We can both walk away with something in our hands, sounds all right to you, mate?”
The boy looked at him, suddenly a bit wary. “What do you want, then?” He kept his hand on the handle that would presumably open the window, as if he was afraid Tye would suddenly enter. Apparently he decided he did like to keep the pirate at some distance. People usually did, so Tye didn’t blame him.
“Do you see this compass?” Tye asked, as he showed the boy one of his few possessions. “It has sailed across the world.”
Apparently that peaked the kid’s interest again. “Across all the seven seas?”
Tye nodded. “It’s yours, if you tell me what I want to know.”
The kid looked at him expectantly.
“I want to know where your mother is,” he said.
“Oh,” William said, sounding a bit disappointed, apparently expecting something grander. “She’s out with dad.”
“Where to?”
“They were going to some kind of party at the mayor’s house.”
Tye smiled. “Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.” He left the compass on the window sill and jumped down onto the wet grass. He heard the kid opening the window and yelling after him, he noticed the lights going on downstairs – the maid would have noticed him jumping down, would have noticed the boy yelling – but he didn’t look back. He never did.

The mayor’s house was only a few blocks away. Important people somehow always make a point of it to live close together, much to Tye’s convenience. It doesn’t take him long to reach the house, and it doesn’t take him long to break in either. This time he doesn’t bother knocking. As he barges into the ballroom, holding up his father’s oldest and largest gun, people around him start to gasp in shock, and some start to scream, but no one stops him when he grabs Jane Robinson, expertly puts his left arm under her knees and sweeps her off the dancefloor, into his arms. Once her husband finally realises what has happened, Tye is long gone.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?” The young woman struggles as he pushes her against the wall a couple of blocks away. He had instantly recognised her in the ballroom, her eyes the same as her son’s, her hair the same as his own. He saw her, and he once again recalled the light.

“It’s the ship her husband owns,” his father had told him. “The Seven Harbours, standing for all the places he owns. He’s such a proud man,” his father scorned. His son didn’t say that his father was a proud man as well. “If you look through this, you can see the girl,” he said.
“My sister,” Tye had said.
“She’s no family of ours,” his father had bitten back, and Tye had never mentioned the subject again.

“What do you want from me?” The girl was crying – because that was what she was, a mere girl. She must be around his age, she was the mother of a child, and yet she looked so much younger than him. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” he finally spoke, his voice clear in the Spanish night. “That would not be fair, now would it?” he smiled. “You never wanted anything from me either.”

“Do you see the locket around her neck?” his father had asked. “That’s mine. I gave it to your mother, to remember me. It was a gift from my father before that. How he would hated to have it end up in her hands.”
“I will get it,” Tye said.
“No,” his father said, quickly. “Leave it. It’s unimportant. As soon as we attack the ship, there’ll be more important things to focus on.” He looked at his son. “More expensive things.”
“But isn’t this-”
“It’s not important, Tye,” his father said, regretting the decision to share this with his son. This had not been his intention. It was a stupid slipup of his old, sentimental heart. A sentiment he couldn’t afford. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“But it’s not hers!”
“Sometimes a pirate can give too, even to people who don’t deserve it. We will take enough other gold from them tonight. Promise me.”
Disgruntled, his son promised. That was enough for now.

“I am going to take something which is not yours either.” He ripped the golden locket off her.
“That was my mother’s,” the girl said, her face struck with tears. “It doesn’t belong to you.”
He smiled at the girl. “You’re right, sister,” he said, feeling strange as he spoke the words, yet somehow they felt necessary. “But you’re wrong all the same.”

Tye ran through the darkness, not resting until he had reached the haven. Gob greeted him as he came aboard. He asked where his friend – his captain – had been, but Tye didn’t tell him. He simply ordered him to get the ship ready to sail, and within half an hour they had left the harbour of the small city – one of the Harbours, he presumed, which had belonged to his sister’s husband. To Jane’s husband. He retreated to his own cabin and opened the locket, the last possession of his father. He held her in his hands, the light he had seen on the Seven Harbours years ago, and imagined his father holding her in his hands as he gave her to his mother that one fateful night. He imagined his father thanking his own father for giving her to him. His eyes filled with tears as he read the inscription on the inside of the locket. For my son, Billy.
“I’m sorry, dad,” he said. “I broke your promise.” He took a gulp out of the open bottle on his desk, and then he opened the window, staring down into the sea. His sea; his father’s sea. He was a pirate, in every way his father had taught him from the moment he could hold a sword in his hands. Pirates don’t keep their promises. Pirates steal. He placed the locket against his chest, kissed her softly, and then tossed her into the sea that had taken his father, returning her to her rightful owner. He remembered his father’s words from so many years ago. “I gave it back to you, dad,” he whispered into the air. “You do deserve it.”

[Ella]

Fandom: - 
Summary: for some prompt; romance in space
Words: 1483

Clichés in space

Jenna ignored the disgruntled sound coming from Tristan’s general direction. “Keep walking,” she said, marching on with a vigour her friend had obviously failed to find in himself.
“Couldn’t we at least –”
“No,” she said inexorably. “No breaks.”
“We’ve been walking for hours, Jenna. All I ask of you is –”
“It’s been fifteen minutes since our last break, Tristan.” She slowed down so he could at least catch up with her, even if he looked at her like she had just told him to eat a bowl of earwigs. She had never seen her friend look so dirty. He was shivering from the cold, and it occurred to her that by now he was probably drenched to the bone. It was his own fault, really. If he hadn’t tried to show off his formidable survival and rock climbing ‘skills,’ as he liked to call them, and had just listened to her, he wouldn’t have looked like a walking quagmire in the first place. 
They had been separated from the rest for quite a while now. She wasn’t able to tell how long it had been – she wasn’t counting the hours, because she knew she’d drive herself insane in the process. Tristan was though, and he had assured her that it had been longer than her estimation of two days. Or whatever counted as days out here.
“Oh crap,” she heard her friend sigh as he inadvertently added a fresh layer of mud to the collection gathering on his trousers. “If I had known a journey to space would include so much space mud, I’d never have come with you.”
“It’s not space mud. According to our findings its structure is completely similar to that of the mud we have at home. Quit complaining, you wanted this as much as I did.” She knew that wasn’t true, strictly speaking, even if he had told her so. When she told Tristan she was signing up for the space programme, she hadn’t for a moment expected him to sign up as well. She had always been the one who wanted to explore the vastness of the universe, who wanted to walk on different planets and who would obviously have seized the opportunity to go on an exploration trip to a previously unknown planet. She was the one studying astrophysics, while Tristan was going to law school, of all things. Jenna didn’t know how he even managed to get on the programme.
“It’s mud in space, no matter how earthly it looks. It’s space mud,” he retorted. “And no one told me about it.”
“That’s because no one knew about it. If they’d known about the quicksand, the tornados and the carnivorous plants I reckon they’d have told us as well,” she commented dryly. The second was what had separated them from the rest of their group. There was only one station on this planet, and three groups of students and supervisors had been sent out to different parts of the planet to study the forest and to look for signs of life. They hadn’t found any of that, exactly, but the natural environment was… well, interesting is one word for it. If there were these kinds of plants, trees, and not to mention water, Jenna didn’t doubt there had to be life here somewhere. If they could survive here, others could. 
Tristan sighed again. “Why did they even allow us to go in the first place if they didn’t know for certain it was safe? We could be lost here forever.”
“You would have known that they didn’t know for certain if you had read any of those nice colourful forms they made you sign before we left.”
“Well, it’s weird that they make students do this.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “They didn’t make us do this, we signed up for this voluntarily, because we are students of astrophysics, astronomy, physics… and going to space to actually see with our own eyes what we’re dedicating our lives and our careers to is kind of the dream. For students who, you know, study anything even distantly related to space.” She gave him a pointed look.
“It’s not going to do you much good if you die before you even reach twenty,” he muttered under his breath.
“Shut up, we’re not dying here. We just have to find the station.”
“If you need a reminder, you may not be counting days, but I am. If we were walking even remotely in the right direction, we would have reached the station by now. But I don’t see it, do you?”
She turned her back to him and walked on with newfound confidence. “If you have any better ideas, feel free to tell me.” Jenna gritted her teeth and waited for another sarcastic reply she could shoot down, but it never came. Fine then, she thought. At least he quitted moping.
She realised there was something wrong when there not only came no sarcastic reply, but no reply at all. “Tristan?” She turned around again, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Tristan, this isn’t funny!” She shouted a little louder. “I’m sorry, okay. Tris–” She felt a hand on her shoulder and closed her eyes because it wasn’t his and he had been right and they were dying there was life on this planet they were definitely dying it was over now over and –
“Lewis?” a clear voice stated more than asked. Jenna opened her eyes to face Michael Hardman, one of the instructors who had led their group. She nodded, and the man showed a slight smile underneath his serious frown. Relief. “Where is Tristan?” she asked.
“Bennet’s with us,” Hardman said, the little emotion she had found in his eyes vanished as if it had never been there. “You’ll have to report for medical. Wing B9872,” he said. “Pierson will take us.” He gestured vaguely to the trees, and she followed him to find a camouflaged vehicle.
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” Hardman said. Jenna jumped into the van, where she found her friend sitting with his hands clasped together, tears in his eyes. “Tristan…” she breathed and it took only a few seconds for her to cross the small space between them. “For a second I thought that –”
He smiled lightly. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For coming. I…” Jenna gave him an encouraging smile. “You’re right. I probably don’t belong here. I mean, law… How far from space can you get?” He laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You love it here, you managed when we were in the wilderness, and I just… I was useless. I don’t belong here. You are so much braver than I am, because I did honestly believe I would die out there.” He bit his lip. “I’m a coward and I should never have come.”
“You’re not a coward. If you really were, you probably wouldn’t have come in the first place. I know I’ve been nagging about it for, like, the past three weeks, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad you came with me.” She put her hand on his arm.
Tristan raised his eyebrows. “That’s a first.”
She gave him a look. “Do you really think I wasn’t afraid out there, or on any of the past excursions? Because I was. I was only brave because even if we were to be lost ‘forever,’ as you so dramatically stated, I wouldn’t be alone. You’d be with me.”
“I…” he started, but the words weren’t forming. “Oh.”
“That doesn’t mean that I think this is the right place for you, though. I mean, for the record, I am totally braver than you are and you were pissing your pants out there, even while I was with you. I know you miss home, and your parents, and just earth, and if you’re unhappy here, you should go back.”
“That’s not what I mean. I just – well…”
“I never thought I’d find you at a loss for words,” she teased.
“I’m happy here,” he said.
“Really?” Jenna said, not even putting effort in concealing her disbelief.
“Really.”
“Why? Because you’ll see a bit more space mud in the upcoming four months.”
“I think you know why,” Tristan said softly. “For the same reason I came here in the first place.”
Jenna hid a smile. Her trip to space and their recent lost days had been rather terrifying, but she would always look back on the short journey her lips had had to make to find his as the most terrifying of her life. She giggled like a schoolgirl when they broke off their kiss and looked each other in the eyes. “I hope it was all worth it.”
Tristan smiled as he pressed a small kiss on her forehead. “Not to flatter your ego, but that was definitely worth it.”

[Ella]

Fandom: Vineland
Summary: This is a very particular '''fanfiction''', I guess, based on a novel by Thomas Pynchon. To give some background, Zoyd is sort of a hippie who jumps through a window each year (= transfenestration, the act of throwing something, someone or oneself though a closed window) to prove he is mentally disabled so he can get a government fund or something like that. In the novel, however, he jumps through some sort of fake new candy-cotton window so he doesn't hurt himself, but he doesn't have the heart to tell his daughter Prairie that that is the case...
Words: 955

Oh, the Joys of Transfenestration

“No, no, no,” he said. “That one isn’t good enough.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Prairie asked, her eyebrows raised. “It’s a window just as good as any other. They say it’s hard as steel, you can’t get any better.”
Zoyd sighed. He didn’t want to tell his daughter that he was so not going to jump through a double-glass extra-secured department store’s window because he’d gotten used to the candy-cotton rubbish that had been arranged for him the last couple of years, but he also didn’t want to die, thank you very much. Not that he had a lot of self-preservation, but he at least wanted to see his only daughter reach the age of eighteen.
“Look, you know I would never ask you for much, I know you don’t have the money to buy me any cool presents, like normal parents –”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder of my chronic state of unemployment.”
“Oh, please, stop whining, you could have a job if you weren’t so ridiculously picky.”
Zoyd shrugged.
“Look, what I’m trying to say is, all I want for my eighteenth birthday is to help you pick your window this year.”
“It’s a poor comparison if you look at what your friend – what’s her name again?”
“Lila.”
“Yeah, what your friend Lila’s parents got her for her birthday this year. What was it again?”
“A gramophone.”
“Yeah, that kind of shit.” He extinguished his cigarette in one of the plant pots standing in the window sill and put it back in his pocket.
“Dad, that’s gross.”
“You know what’s gross? Wasting a good bit of cigarette.”  
Prairie rolled her eyes.
“What I was trying to say was, can’t I give you something like that? Something cool, you know?” He shrugged, as if he didn’t care too much about it, while he in fact did care a lot. Not that he wanted to give her something expensive, heavens no, he didn’t believe in spoiling your children – but this window thing was becoming a nuisance. It was only two days until her birthday, and she desperately wanted him to do his little show on her birthday this year, and more importantly, she wanted to help him plan the whole thing for once. Not that much planning went into it – not that he ever actually planned the thing, other people usually did that – but she wanted to be ‘involved,’ as she called it. A big bag of bullshit he called it, but what do you do? He honestly didn’t know, but he did know that transfenestration and double-glass had never been the best of friends.
“Talking about waste,” his daughter sniffed.
He didn’t understand why she was so interested in the whole window-thing.
“A good kind of waste?” he asked hopefully.
“Nice try, but no. What’s wrong with the window?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the window. It’s very glassy, and window-y, but I just don’t think it’s right for me.”
“That’s strange,” she said. “A couple of days ago you said that other people usually sorted this out and that you ‘didn’t care’ about what kind of window they chose, and now all of a sudden you require a particular type of window? Not convincing, dad.”
He shrugged. He saw that one madam in a plaid skirt was eyeing them curiously, and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. He winked at her, and she immediately walked on.
“I just don’t understand you interest,” he finally admitted.
“Why not?” Prairie asked. “This is the thing you do, and it kind of, you know, defines you.”
Zoyd raised his eyebrows. “I’m defined by jumping through windows? What an impression your childhood must have had on you.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, ignoring her dad’s sarcastic tone of voice. “It’s exactly the impression my childhood has made on me, and therefore it’s only logical that I want to end my childhood with it, isn’t it?”
Shit, she got him there. “Um, I don’t know, I guess…”
“Come on, dad – this is like the greatest thing our family has ever accomplished, and –”
“It’s not great, it’s a thing I do so people keep sending me money.”
“It’s the most original way of making a living I’ve ever heard of – haven’t crossed anything better in any of the nonsense we get at Career Day.”
“Your mother would’ve –”
“Mom was a bitch.”
“Your mother wasn’t –”
“She was, dad. I’ve met her friends, and even they know. She killed a man, you know…”
“She didn’t kill anyone, she merely –”
“But she did. I know she did. I saw it. Perhaps she didn’t pull the trigger, but she killed him. I know.”
Zoyd sighed. “Whatever.”
They were silent for a moment, but it was only good as long as it lasted.
“Dad, why can’t I pick your window?”
“Why would I let you?”
“I just told you, it’s important to me.”
“This is nuts.” Zoyd started to walk away, severely unsatisfied with his own parenting skills.
“Dad!” Prairie shouted after him. “Dad!” She grabbed his arm. “I just – I’m proud of you, okay? And I just kind of wanted to show that to you.”
“Proud of me?”
She nodded. He scratched the back of his head. Well, this was a new one.
“I guess if you insist, I could maybe… ah, what the hell, just pick a window if that makes you happy.”
Prairie smiled (her dad was way too easy once you found out which buttons to press). “This one, then.”
Zoyd smiled too, and only started to regret his decision when he was lying in his bed that night, thinking about the splinters of glass he’d be picking out of his ass in two days’ time.

[Ella]

Fandom: All-New Hawkeye
Summary: written for the prompt 'holiday'
Words: 1426

Fate, destiny & a horse 

Gran Canaria, 8 August, 9:46 am
This looks bad…
No, scratch that. This is bad.
If you’re wondering how the hell I managed to get surrounded by HYDRA agents in an old warehouse before 10 am, you’ll have to ask Katie, since, well, I am slightly preoccupied with not dying right now. It was all Katie’s idea in the first place anyway.
 
New York, 6 August, 3:19 pm
“And why not?” she asked. Clint was in the kitchen, making coffee. “Is it really such a bad idea to take a break every once in a while? I’m also pretty sure you shouldn’t drink coffee in the afternoon, by the way.”
“Who are you, my babysitter?”
“Yep, that would be me.” He could be such a stubborn ass at times. Some days she wondered why she didn’t just leave. Probably because no matter if he was a stubborn ass, he was her stubborn ass. “Also, I didn’t hear an argument.”
Clint sighed. “Do you remember what happened the last time you went on holiday?”
Kate pretended to think very deeply for a while, frowning and putting her hand to her forehead. “Oh, yeah, I do remember. Madame Masque almost killed me. But hmm, who was it again we turned in last week? Oh yeah, I do remember – Madame Masque! So that problem has been taken care of.”
“That’s not the point, Katie,” the man said. “The point is that every time you try and take a break, bad shit will happen anyway, so what’s the point. Last time it was Madame Masque, this time it will be Doom.” He poured himself a cup and drowned his sorrows in one go. Having an apprentice wasn’t good for his caffeine level. “So I’d basically be paying a fortune to do in another country what I can very well do in New York.”
“I wasn’t planning on going to Latveria, Clint. I’m a rich and spoiled girl, remember. I want the sun, I want an island.”
“You know very well that that’s not the point I’m trying to make, I just –”
She grabbed him by the arms and made him spill some of his second cup of coffee on the carpet. “We are going on holiday. End of story.”
“You made me spill my coffee. I’m not convinced.”
“Aww, come on, Clint. Relax. I’ll pay!”
“I’m not poor, you know.”
“I thought Barney took all the money.”
He took a sip. “Okay, maybe I am poor. Slightly. But that doesn’t mean you have to take me on a holiday, because I don’t want to go on holiday.”
“You can bring your bow?”
“As if I’d go anywhere without it.”
“Lucky?”
“Not leaving my dog behind either way.”
“I’ll pay?”
“We already covered that one, Katie, I’m not –”
She widened her eyes and pinned his arms against his body as she pulled him into a tight embrace. “I’m not letting you go until you say yes.”
“Katie, don’t be so…”
“Please, Clint, please. Did I tell you my dad has a house on Gran Canaria? We could go there and have lots of ice cream and swim in the sea and lie in the sun and –”
“OKAY KATIE, WE’RE GOING ON A HOLIDAY. FINE.” Clint stormed out of the room, holding the coffeepot and mumbling angrily to himself. “Children.”
Kate smiled. Victory is sweet.
 
Gran Canaria, 7 August, 9:08 pm
“These people have a strange idea of partying,” Clint said at the sight of the building. “This place looks like a dump.”
“This is what’s hip, grandpa.” If she was honest, she was having second thoughts herself. The place did look like a dump, but she had been told by a friend that there would be a ‘wild party’ here, and she thought that said ‘wild party’ was exactly what Clint needed to loosen up a bit. Or perhaps that was a lie. Perhaps it was what she needed to loosen up a bit. Going on a holiday with Clint had proven less simple than she thought. He had the most suspicious mind in the whole wide universe and had managed to lose his hearing aid twice within sixteen hours – seriously, how did that man even survive when she wasn’t around –, so their trip had so far been less than relaxing. He saw ‘shady people’ everywhere, and had basically dragged her off the beach a couple of hours earlier because he was convinced one of the other holidaymakers was watching them. Not surprisingly, it had also taken her a lot of effort to convince him to go to the party, but as always she had managed in the end. Perhaps the reason she put up with him was that she knew not matter how stubborn he was, she’d always be worse.
 
Gran Canaria, 8 August, 10:03 am
“But the party wasn’t that bad, right?”
“The party was a trap, which your nice friend laid out for us, by the way, so I beg to differ.”
“Okay, I know that the outcome wasn’t nice, but the party itself...”
“Was a scam, Katie, what part of that don’t you understand? Because the part where my wrists are bound behind my back is pretty clear to me, since, you know, that is happening right now.”
“Gee, relax. The beer wasn’t that bad, right?”
“I am not going to comment on that.”
 
Gran Canaria, 8 August, 11:46 pm
Shit, that was my hearing aid. Maybe I should consider becoming part cyborg and let Stark actually science that thing into my ear.
One down, six to go. Focus. Where is Kate?
This sucks.
I can’t hear you, asshole. There you go.
Katie?
Three down.
Shitshitshi –
Will Kate’s dad kill me for getting blood on his suit? This is why you never borrow suits, shit.
What the hell do these guys not understand about I CAN’T BLOODY HEAR YOU.
“Thanks, Katie.”
“You’re welcome, grandpa.”
 
 
Gran Canaria, 8 August, 12:31 am
To be honest, Clint was right. This whole being-locked-up thing was getting old pretty quickly, and those assholes were taking her well-deserved holiday from me. Our well-deserved holiday. She looked at her ripped clothes and wondered what her father would say if he’d see her like this. “These were my favourite jeans. Don’t we ever get a break?”
Clint gave Kate a look. “I’m not commenting on that either.”
“I can’t wait for retirement.” She tried to free her hands from the binds for what felt like the millionth time that day (“Why are you even still trying?”), and then fell back into her chair.
“You don’t seriously mean that, do you?” Clint’s eyes rested on hers. “You enjoy this shit. You’re made for this.”
“You’ve got a point there, Hawkboy.” She bit her lip. “Do you enjoy it?”
“It’s what I do.” The door seemed as secure as two and a half hours ago.
“That’s not really an answer.”
“I know.”
“Are you looking forward to retirement?”
Clint fixed his eyes on the ceiling. No loose panels. They needed a miracle. “As far as I know, superheroes don’t retire, Katie. They die.”
 
Gran Canaria, 9 August, 1:02 am
“Tell me, Katie, how do we always get into so much trouble?”
“Fate? Destiny?” Kate smiled. “A horse.”
“Shut up.”
 
Avengers Tower, 13 August, 8:47 am
“He followed us to the party and was waiting for us outside. When we didn’t return, he knew where to find Kate’s friends. We visited them the night before. So yeah, that happened.”
Tony grinned. “You can’t catch a break, can you?”
Clint shrugged.
“But seriously, Clint…” Natasha said. “The dog saved you? Sounds like a fairy tale to me.” 
“He’s not just a dog,” Kate protested.
Clint smiled. “Pizza dog.”
Natasha looked at him, unimpressed. “So what have you learned from this?”
“Never wear your favourite jeans to a party?”
“So close,” Tony said.
“Pack extra jeans?”
“Better, but not quite.”
“Always listen to Clint?” Clint offered.
“That’s even worse, dear,” Tony answered.
“Don’t listen to Kate?”
“Always take a dog with you?”
“Don’t go to parties.”
Tony held up his hand to silence them. “Wrong, wrong, wrong…”
“Then enlighten us, oh thou wise one,” Clint muttered. He took a sip from his coffee. Not half bad.
Tony Stark smiled a toothpaste smile. “Invite me next time.”
 
Gran Canaria, 8 August, 9:50 am
This looks worse…
No, screw that. Getting handcuffed by masked assholes is the definition of worse.
“Katie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m never going on holiday with you again. Ever.”