Annalise&Tim, Magenta, Solstice, wood fire
@roanawayspoons
Annalise is an OC from my fic City Pigeons Bleed Green who showed up briefly. This is an AU where she came to Bruce right away and lived. Uh, sorry that Tim is only dubiously present... but this got in my head.
“Hello, Bruce,” Annalise called from the sitting room that she favored. It was a slightly smaller one than the family room that the would gather in, but she always said that she liked how cozy and warm it was. The Manor, as old as it was, did tend to have a chill to it that would linger in the colder months.
Bruce generally dealt with the permanent cold by wearing warm, turtleneck sweaters and Dick simply never seemed to get cold. Helena liked to steal Bruce’s sweaters, for all that they came pooled around her feet. Annalise, though, seemed to struggle with getting warm with her poor circulation. (Bruce also harbored a fear that the complications around Helena’s birth had caused permanent harm to Annalise, such as the constant fatigue that she seemed to suffer.)
The warm, golden light of the fire spilled out of the half open door to the room and it felt like coming home to step into it. He leaned against the door frame with a smile “Hello, Lise.”
“Alright day at work?” she asked as she stuck her needle in the cross-stitch that she she had been working on.
There was a fifty-fifty chance that it contained a cuss that would make Alfred tsk at her.
“Mm, holiday bonuses went out today, so everyone was in a good mood.”
“Oh, I imagine,” she said with a smile.
The kid—more a pile of blankets and flash of black hair than anything else—who was asleep against her leg shifted. She carded her delicately painted nails through their hair.
“Is one of our sick?”
Annalise hummed in confirmation. “Poor thing was chilled to the bone.”
“That—”
“B! You’re home!” Dick called.
Bruce barely had time to swing around and catch him as he flung himself over the edge of the stare rail and at Bruce’s chest. At sixteen Dick was big enough to make Bruce have to brace himself to catch him. One of these days, Bruce knew he was going to get hurt doing this (but that would hardly stop him, not when his oldest still wanted hugs).
“Hey chum,” Bruce said as he swung Dick around and into the room and set him down. Not Dick who was sick then, which would save the manor a lot of whining. “How was your last day of school?”
“Super boring. We didn’t even do anything! I don’t know why we had to go!” Dick said in a rush.
“He also got, and ate, several candy canes,” Annalise added with a little smile.
“Also that,” Dick agreed.
Bruce tried not to laugh. “Well then it wasn’t all bad, was it. Did you save one for your sister?”
“I did, but she got even more than me! Not that she ate all of them, she’s saving them,” Dick said, like it was the most ridiculous thing that he had ever heard.
“Well, if she’s not feeling we—”
“Daddy!”
Bruce swung just in time to catch his daughter, who of course had also taken to flinging herself at him ever since Dick had started training her in gymnastics this year. The catch was a little fumbled as Bruce spun back to the room and whoever it was that was sleeping on the couch.
“Who—”
“Timothy Drake from next door,” his wife explained softly and with a little smile on her face that Bruce knew spelled trouble for him. Her fingers were still carding through the child’s hair. “Did you know that he’s all alone over in that monstrosity of a house? Poor baby walked over here, in the cold, completely drenched because a pipe had burst in the kitchen. It burst because the heat had gone out and his parents wouldn’t answer his calls about needing their approval for a new furnace. In December. He wanted to know if we had a wrench so that he could shut the water main off.”
Purposefully, Bruce relaxed his hold on Helena so that he didn’t squeeze her too hard at hearing all that. “I see.”
“Yes,” Annalise said. “So I brought him inside, made sure he got warm, and then we had some tea and cookies. I don’t intend to send him back to that house.”
Words that will echo in him for years to come were spat in a moment of anger and fear.
So he walks away.
Doesn’t get the stories from the others. He stops at their campsite and packs up his gear as quickly as he can. He knows there’s a few of his items in Geralt’s pack but he ignores them. Rooting through the man’s belongings with abandon is not something he should be doing anymore.
His ears are ringing and all he can hear is the steady thud of his heartbeat and the beat of his lute on his back as he walks.
His lute. Jaskier stops short and quickly pulls the instrument from its case. Still as beautiful as the day Filavandrel had given it to him, barring the one small dent when he’d used the poor girl as club. He’d taken out four of the bandit’s teeth with that blow. Geralt had smiled that day.
Now thinking of that moment makes him sick.
Needing to get it away from him and seeing no other options, Jaskier gripped his lute and flung it far over the mountain side. He didn’t hear its drop, but knew there would be nothing left of it but scrap.
Good.
He keeps walking.
Jaskier is alone when the last twenty-two years of his life fragments around him. The memories fall around him like shards of glass; cutting his skin until a biting stinging hurt is all he can feel. And when the pieces shatter they dig into him; flaming shards of the last decades burrow deep into him, the hurt taking root in his bones and the soles of his feet. And every piece sounds like...
Shut up, bard
Fuck off, Jaskier
Go away, boy
Why do you never listen?
He wanted you gone
You shouldn’t be here
He doesn’t like you
This is where we part, bard
He wanted to be rid of you
It’s like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling
He’s telling you everything you need to know why can’t you take the hint
If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands
So give him his blessing you stupid useless excuse of a man
It takes Jaskier three months to get from the dragon mountains to Oxenfurt. Apparently, destroying his main way of generating income isn’t the best idea he’s ever had. When he finally reaches the great sculpted gates to the Academy, he’s stopped by two guards before he can even cross it’s shadow.
“This entrance is for students or faculty. Giving door is around the back.” The guard gestured over his shoulder towards the back side of the citadel where Jaskier knew there were charity and refugee workers to help people. Just not people like him.
“I am faculty, good sir,” He says with a wide smile. No need to antagonize the nice men with pointy sticks. “Julian Alfred Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, at your service.” He mimes tipping his cap. The guards are not impressed.
It takes some wheedling, but soon the dean is summoned and Jaskier is recognized and clapped firmly on the shoulder and after just a little too long of the bowing and scraping and speaking of payment and contracts and gods cursed lesson-plans before Jaskier is allowed to retire to his rooms.
The rooms are as he left them, though he suspects that while he was being held captive by the dean someone came in to sweep, dust, and open the windows.
Here he is. Home. Or as much as passes for it anymore. He’d thought that Geralt was his home but- no. No. If he was going to do this and be here, he has to put that fanciful life aside. He has to accept that he doesn’t belong in the worlds of magic inhabited by witchers and sorceresses and powerful princesses. He was a bard. Less than that, he was a bard without an instrument.
Well then.
Time for a change.
The next morning he takes a long bath. His traveler's beard is scruffier than he likes, so he trims and shapes it carefully until he’s satisfied. He collects the numerous emergency coin pouches from their hiding spots and goes into the city. He buys new shirts, trousers, doublets, boots, coats, gloves. All in muted earth or jewel tones. No black. He gets his hair cut shorter, something more fitting a professor at a prodigious university and not some fumbling idiot following a man who clearly doesn’t care for him.
When Jaskier gets home he carefully packs everything from his life with Geralt into a chest. His clothes, cloak, and some small treasures children had given them as thanks. He grabs the last one, a crudely carved wooden cat. Geralt had been given this by an eight-year-old girl in some backwater village plagued by a nasty band of nekkers. She’d been so proud of her work, even Geralt couldn’t be a grouch to her. He puts that figurine back on the mantle, shuts the chest, and pushes it under the bed.
Slowly, he dresses in his new wardrobe. Shaking fingers struggle with new buttons, but he manages the shirt and half of the doublet. Trousers next, then boots. And finally, after an age of adjusting seams and doing then redoing buttons, he meets his eye in the floor length mirror.
The man before him is in his early forties. A few streaks of grey swirl in his hair. He’s fit, almost six foot tall. Dark blue peeks from under his high necked burgundy doublet. Dressed like this, he looks like a professor and not some damned fool.
“Well then,” His voice is rough, even to his own ears. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” Saying it aloud made his breath catch, his stomach roll, but he stood firm. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” That felt marginally better. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” Hardly any wobble to his voice at all that time. “Jaskier the Bard died on a mountain top, far from home and very alone.” Deep breath.
“My name is Professor Julian Alfred Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
.
will be continuing with some regularity over here on ao3
I dont write fanfic, i just read it and love it and everyone who writes. But, suffering from critical role withdrawal and having an essay due, makes me suddenly very verbose. If you can put up with the prose of a very inexperienced writer, here’s my first drabble (? Idk terms i just use them when it feels right, do correct me if in error) for C2E26 (ish swamp arc?)
She was a glorious sight to behold.
Oh how she became unfettered on the battlefield
Left hook, right hook; a sweeping kick and sharp elbow jabs
Moving like lightning, blows of thunder raining down
Oh her gorgeous-
“..bowl’s probably magical” whispered Molly as they watched on the sidelines of the three-way verbal brawl between Calianna, Beau and Caleb over an innocuous shiny bowl, currently held aloft by Beau.
“Yeah she definitely is”
“...”
Leaving a moment for Yasha’s own mind to catch up to her mouth that was showing just the slightest drool, Molly grinned a smile far too mischievous for the tense situation.
“Y’know, I reckon “she’s” just waiting to get smashed by your magic sword”
“...we’re talking about the bowl right?”
“...Sure. I mean she’s right there, out of reach for anyone, bar you and your sword. That’s a sign if I ever saw one.”
“You wouldn’t know a sign if it dug you out of the earth.”
“Oh how you wound me darling” cried Molly, a hand raised to smother his laugh. Sobering rather quickly, he shrugged his shoulders “The thing might be more trouble than its worth, best to get on with life by smashing it. Besides, we’ll all be happier for it”, indicating the boisterous argument with a nod of his head towards a particular blue-robed monk.
Yasha gave a decisive nod, unsheathing the Magician’s Judge. With but a quick prayer to the Stormlord to unleash the blade’s nullifying effect, she swung it overhead, using her height advantage to avoid cleaving her crush in two.
As Molly predicted, this neatly cut through the bowl and the hullabaloo. Leaving Beau slack-jawed and clutching one half of the shattered bowl while the tension broke up and the rest began looting in earnest.
“Unpleasant one that’s not how you french kiss, unless you plan on doing it to the swamp flies! Can’t believe how some people just stand there with their gobs open, eh Yasha? Yasha? Don’t ignore me I’m trying to help you!”
Aaand that’s it, first fic, inspired by thinking about how Yasha would cast Dispel Magic when she’s a barbarian without a spellcasting modifier. I think she used strength modifier to add to a roll to beat DC 13. Which is pretty on brand for a barbarian.
So I got this prompt ages ago: Hey i was wondering if you could write director sanvers and birthdays. Like how lucy never used to celebrate her bday bcos her parents were too busy and lois never bothered or how maggie stopped celebrating except for eating the cake her aunt would make. And it all changes when theyre all together?
And I’m really sorry it took me so long to do it, and that it’s so short. I kinda fell off of the prompts for a time.
Lucy burrowed deeper into her blankets, into her pillow.
She should have gone to J’onn about actually working, despite it being her normal scheduled day off.
But, no. Instead she had put her hope into some planet threatening event would force her to go in anyway, and keep her from talking to J’onn with all of it on her mind. She hadn’t wanted him to ask her about it.
Because it wasn’t an issue.
It was just her birthday.
She had never done much for her birthday for years, not since she was a kid, not since her mother had died and Lois had left. She had gone through every birthday since with just her father. Her father, who, more often than not, just gave her a kiss on her forehead and a small kiss.
And her father was no longer in her life.
It would have been easier to work the entire day.
She turned, eyes blinking open. She squinted at the nightstand for a few moments before realizing that there was, in fact, something on it. She pushed herself up, the duvet slipping off of her shoulders.
A muffin.
She twisted to sit cross legged and reached over to grab the muffin, holding it just close enough to smell.
A blueberry muffin.
She smiled, plucking at part of the paper lining before ripping a small piece of muffin off of the top and putting it in her mouth. She grabbed the card the muffin had been sitting on. She laughed at the Wonder Woman pop-up design of the card, then read the short message written inside.
Luce,
If you want to do nothing all day and just wallow a bit, we get that and will watch whatever movie you want when we get home. If you want to go out tonight, let us know and we’ll have something set up in time for us to pick you up. Until you decide, enjoy your birthday breakfast muffin.
We love you,
Happy birthday
Lucy settled back against the pillows, taking another piece off of the top of the muffin. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Forgot to post that I put this up? Oops.
This is a Baz POV of the end of chapter 31 in Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. (Written for the Rainbow Book Exchange.)
He hasn't taken off that warded necklace for years, not for a minute. But he’s not wearing it now. I don’t know why. Probably thought I was never coming back, that he was rid of me for good.
Drinking too much champagne, in a club that's too loud, lounging with a pack of idiot animals, Newt muses about the complicated love that might well be killing him.
