Thomas Cardinal Lawrence has prayed for a new Pope who doubts, a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and carries on. Instead, he gets a gentle, otherworldly saint who is far above the troubles and failings of ordinary men. Or is he?
The first twenty-four hours of Innocent XIV's pontificate turn out to be the best of Thomas's life, and the worst, and then the best again, and then the worst again… Because sometimes the Holy Spirit sends you certainty, and sometimes he sends you a rollercoaster.
As the wolves snarl and maul, the sheep quail and the sheepdogs scramble to retain control, Thomas learns that still waters run deep, and that friend and foe alike will underestimate this new shepherd of theirs at their peril.
Angst, Whump, H/C, Trauma, Guilt, Secrets and Mind Games. (Yes, it's an assassination attempt. What else would it be?)
Gen fic or early days Lawrenitez, as you prefer.
Now posting on AO3!
Thank you to all you guys who are already on board, and to everyone who may still join the ride. Love you all!
Something finally came to me! (I usually can’t write to prompts to save my life.)
May Prompts 2024 by @calaisreno
May 24th: Imperfect
We've always done things the wrong way round.
We moved in together at a time when we knew no more than four or five facts about each other. Significant facts, granted, such as John being a war veteran and me having no patience with idiots, but neither of us could have claimed to have had anything even close to the full picture at the time. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if either of us had. Only on my really bad days, though.
I don’t have all that many of those any more, luckily. And when I do, I have plenty of good memories to help me pull myself up again. Take the ones of how we confessed our love to each other to a beautifully decorated room full of people in festive dress and in even more festive spirit, to much applause and cheering and well-wishing. Yes, you heard that plural right. Those are two separate memories, years apart and in two different places. I got to go first, and it wasn’t even me who was getting married at the time. That’s another thing that most couples would do differently. Coordinate it a bit better, at least.
The second time around, as a lot of you will remember well, it was John's turn to talk, and I‘d been told in no uncertain terms to keep my mouth shut and say nothing, not even to correct his grammar, till he was done. I can now attest that it is true that the groom never gets to have a say in anything at his own wedding. Someone got his late revenge there. And believe me, that doesn’t depend on whether it’s one groom or two. Yes, and I know there are still people out there even in this day and age who feel that it’s not normal to have two grooms at all. They can all go away and never show their ugly faces again where I can see them, or smell the foul breath of the bigoted filth they’re spouting. That’s not the wrong way around, that couldn’t be more right for both of us.
But we did other things the wrong way around, too. In most romantic stories, killing someone to save the person you love is usually the culmination of long mutual trust and dedication. It‘s supposed to be the crowning glory, the final sealing of a bond that has long been in the making. It’s not supposed to be the starting point. And John is usually the more patient of the two of us, but when it came to this, he could barely contain himself for 36 hours after our very first meeting before he did it. Ever heard of timing and pacing, Doctor, I hear you people wonder? And he’s supposed to be the one with the talent for good storytelling. The timing was good, though. The timing was excellent. There’s another 'what if' for you that is no fun to contemplate at all.
There is killing out of love, and - I have to say it, I can’t not, I‘d be lying by omission if I didn't - there's also dying out of love. I doubt, however, that there’s anyone out there who has ever put a more elaborate effort into pretending to die out of love than I have. As far as I‘m aware, that’s not really a romantic convention, either, and I sincerely hope I haven’t started a trend. I honestly can’t recommend it. Effort is well and good, and I dare say the execution in my case was flawless, but I can’t deny there was a certain lack of forethought as to the emotional impact on both parties concerned. Don‘t try this at home, folks.
People also usually date first, then start cohabiting, then get married, then raise children together. Please don’t ask me to define at what time in our lives exactly John and I were dating and when we weren’t yet. To this day we have never been able to agree on a definition for this mysterious activity that emphatically, according to John, for whatever reason, does not encompass two people who like each other going out together and having fun. But it is an undisputed fact that we had been raising a child together for a good while before we got married. And we have been going out together and having fun for years uncounted now. Crime scenes never fail to work that particular magic on us. Oh wait, no, that was another example I had on my list for what most other couples do differently. Hang on, do I see a certain Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard raise his hand in objection? Raising both hands, actually, showing us… what, seven fingers? Is that the number of couples working for the Metropolitan Police that you know personally who have met at crime scenes? Or are you reminding us of the number of times John and I were actually kicked off a crime scene because we were enjoying ourselves entirely too much, and were told not to come back till we could behave like adults? I could have sworn those were more than seven occasions, but I‘ll take your word for it.
Talking of raising a child together, I‘m sure Rosie will say a word or three about that herself later, but I have never understood why most of you had doubts about the practicability of that particular endeavour. Let me just tell you that a baby carrier is entirely compatible with a cashmere scarf, or didn’t you know cashmere can absorb up to a third of its own dry weight in liquid? And it got only easier from there when Rosie grew older and stopped affectionately drooling on whoever enjoyed the happy privilege of holding her and carrying her around. She hasn’t demanded being carried around in a good while now, and I don’t know what our poor old backs would say to that these days. But we were talking about happy memories, weren’t we, so there’s another. And at least in the metaphorical sense, I hope you know, Rosie, that you’ll be held and carried for as long as you want and need, as long as we both live. You were my daughter even before I was your father’s husband, and that has been one of the greatest honours bestowed on me in my life.
Because this is who we are, isn’t it, our crazy little family, where nothing is as you’d expect it to be. But we still wouldn’t have it any other way, topsy-turvy, weird, flawed and utterly imperfect, but also utterly us, unique, one of a kind. I don’t know if it was fate that threw us together, or if it really was just a whim on the part of the comfortable, corpulent, bespectacled gentleman sitting at this table over here, smirking with his trademark benevolence. But there’s a debt of gratitude to be paid there, and today is a good day to do it. In this at least, we’re doing the conventional thing, but who’s to say we’re not allowed to do that at least once in a quarter-century.
So, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and family from far and wide, I give you: John Watson, the man of my life, the man at my side for over thirty years, and for exactly twenty-five years in the legal sense on this very day. Please raise your glasses with us to the next twenty-five. And for God’s sake stop snivelling like that, Mycroft. You’re embarrassing the whole room.
"When was this?" Thomas asks, turning the pages of the photo album on his lap. The garden in the background looks unfamiliar.
"Aunt Enid's seventieth birthday," Richard explains.
"Ah. And what are you smiling at in this one?"
Richard leans across for a better look. "My new niece, Julie. She was clinging to my leg at the time, demanding 'Up! Up!'" He chuckles. "When you're the youngest of five, you learn quickly how to hold your own."
"I can't believe how much I've missed while I was away," Thomas says quietly, thinking of the births, deaths and marriages both in York and at Downton he only heard of later and from afar.
But Richard is already turning to the next page. A little too quickly, maybe. "Oh, you'll meet her at Christmas. This is during Uncle Fred's interminable speech ahead of the birthday dinner, I think..."
"You look quite happy," Thomas says without thinking, then instantly feels ashamed. As if Richard had somehow been obliged to be miserable, too, just because Thomas had been. "I mean - "
"Of course I was happy. I'd just got a letter telling me when to be on the quay in Liverpool, to pick up a weary traveller and take him home. Look at this one, if you want proof of how happy exactly."
Thomas stares at the final picture from the birthday party. "Christ, are you saying you told them about it?"
But he has his answer already. Richard is grinning like a Cheshire Cat, exactly like he is in the photograph. "Can you blame me, Thomas?" he asks, his eyebrows dancing with delight. "Can you blame me?"
Thomas Barrow's Photo Album
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Also a late contribution to @barris-week-2022 for the Day 3 prompt: Fix-it!
So, I had an idea today... and that idea involved Aziraphale having to basically go undercover as a human for his own protection against the Dominion Cassiel who Heaven sent to wreak bloody justice on the traitor after management’s attempt failed six months before.
Backed up against a wall and seeing no other alternative, Aziraphale pulls a Doctor Who (The Family of Blood episode in series 3 haha) and essentially seals everything he is as an angel into his ring, which he leaves behind for Crowley to find at his shop. This leaves him without his memories and under the impression that he’s a completely human librarian that just started a new job at the university and he goes about his new life none the wiser. Inconvenient to be sure, but essentially molding himself into a new person leaves Aziraphale not only nigh un-trackable by Cassiel, but technically an innocent, meaning she can’t lay a hand on him even if she does find him.
It’s a clever ploy, but conceived at the last second as it was, that leaves no time to tell Crowley, who arrives at the bookshop to find it empty with the exception of the ring he knows Aziraphale hasn’t taken off once in the entire history of their knowing one another... and no way to know what happened. It’s a horrifying realization, but the demon has no idea how to figure out where the angel has gone, so he turns to the only neutral occult party he knows for help: Anathema.
Needless to say the witch is surprised when he shows up unannounced on her doorstep in the middle of the night looking truly desperate and asking for help. When a basic scrying can’t reveal the angel’s location, she decides to do a more advanced one using his ring, but that takes time and a full moon, meaning Crowley has to linger around the cottage for the better part of a month (mostly as a snake) until she’s able to perform the spell.
Meanwhile, Aziraphale, currently under the impression that his name is, in fact, Alexander Zachariah Fell (friends call him Az... if he had any), settles into his new job and pokey little flat. It’s a pretty good set up, but he finds himself constantly plagued by a vague sense of something missing, as well as an odd habit of running his thumb along his pinky finger, as if in search of a ring he doesn’t actually own.
Crowley and Anathema finally manage to track Aziraphale down, though it takes both of them a hot minute to spot him in the library and they both stare when they finally do. Gone is the short cropped white hair and the old fashioned suit, replaced by salt and pepper curls, modern (if not particularly fashionable) clothes, and a beard. It doesn’t take them long to realize that something is amiss when Aziraphale doesn’t react on seeing them, and they’re both horrified when they realize something is seriously wrong after talking to him and realizing he’s under the impression that he’s human.
They go back and forth on what to tell him, but Anathema eventually wins out when she insists that revealing everything to him, or trying to, might destabilizing whatever kind of magic Az is clearly under in a dangerous way. They have no idea why he’s like this, after all, so the witch goes back home to do research and Crowley decides to remain and keep an eye on his erstwhile angel.
He miracles his way into a lecturing gig at the University as an expert on history (he was there for most of it, so he figures that’s more than enough qualification) and spends a great deal of time in the library.
Crowley wasn’t certain what it’d be like spending time with an Aziraphale that didn’t know he was Aziraphale, but he expected it was going to be difficult. And it was. It was hard to look at someone you’d spent the better part of six thousand years with and see no recognition in their eyes... what he didn’t expect was to fall in love with him all over again.
In the six months since Armagedd-off, but before Az’s disappearance, the two had been slowly but surely opening up to one another, allowing each other closer in a way they’d never felt free to in the past. It was slow going, 6000 years of habit was not something easily broken, but it was happening.
Here, though, is an Aziraphale with all of the angel’s sharp wit, good sense of humor, and love of the world but none of the baggage that came from millennia of being Heaven’s agent on Earth. He’s still just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing and seeing him so easy and open, no longer fighting his own nature for the sake of what Heaven deemed was ‘right‘ was both beautiful and acutely painful to behold for the demon.
Crowley tries to keep his distance, and, when that fails, tries very hard just to be friends with the witty librarian... but he’s not at all prepared to contend with a human Aziraphale that comes to love him as much as ever, but with none of the angel’s self-imposed barriers to keep him from acting on his romantic inclinations.
The demon tries to pull away when he realizes what’s happened, but he’s reeled back in just as quickly against his better judgement (he IS a demon lol) and kisses Az after weeks of denying them both. The gesture means something, Alexander knows that even if he doesn’t understand what, and he knows he’s probably pushing the peculiar man he’s fallen head over heels for too far too fast but something in him keeps pushing him for more, more, more. It radiates out from his very marrow, powerful as the tide and older than the moon and it leaves them both gasping and tangled in the sheets of his bed without either of them knowing precisely how they’d gotten there.
Without realizing it, though, they’ve broken the protection that human anonymity granted Aziraphale, and it’s not long before Cassiel finds him and nearly kills him. Laying with demons, after all, is most certainly a sin.
Crowley saves Az when he topples from the tower the Dominion chased him up, though not without exposing himself for the demon he is, wings and all as he catches the man before he hits the ground. A desperate, bloody fight ensues and Cassiel is eventually defeated, leaving Crowley and Az uncertain as to where they stand, though at the very least, Anathema’s concern about Az’s mental stability should he be exposed to the truth is dispelled.
Back at Az’s flat, Crowley explains everything and the demon’s reluctance to love the man is finally explained. He’s worried, though, that maybe there IS no coming back for Aziraphale; he mourns at the thought and Az does his best to comfort him. Realizing he has no reason to keep it now, Crowley gives Az his ring back, and despite never having seen it before, something in the man recognizes it, and without thinking, he slips it onto the proper finger and...
Is suddenly himself again. Memories and power in tact, with the addition of those he’d made as a human. Aziraphale sweeps Crowley up and kisses him senseless and the Demon knows the moment their eyes meet that he recognizes him, really recognizes him, and it leaves him totally wrecked.
In the wake of it all, they move back to London and despite all the drama, Aziraphale’s time as a human has left him changed for the better. Gone is the habit of keeping the demon at arm’s length, and, at Crowley’s request, he even keeps the beard. They live together happily ever after... at least until the next time Heaven and Hell get some clever idea.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
SOMETHING STUPID LIKE I LOVE YOU
CHAPTER 5: SANSA
Listen, it just wasn’t in Sansa’s nature to not appreciate beautiful things when they were right in front of her. And Theon’s bare chest, with all its evidence of the hours upon hours he spends on a boat each week – corded arms, slender but firm back muscles, washboard abs that had to be spray-painted on because she was sure she would have noticed those before – well, it was a goddamn work of art. Forget the Mona Lisa, forget Project Runway, forget Chris Hemsworth… okay, partially forget Chris Hemsworth.
Theon was beautiful. And she wanted to do terrible, terrible things to him.
It was a mutual thing, really. She also wanted him to do terrible things to her – like, just off the top of her head, with no forethought or pre-fantasy planning whatsoever, lick whipped cream off her tits until she begged to come, or bend her over her dining room table and thrust slowly, torturously, until she could hardly see straight or-
The grin she couldn’t seem to wipe from her face only managed to disguise the blush, not hide it completely. Was it so obvious she wanted him? She swallowed and bit her lip as she looked at him, forgetting about the coffee-stained t-shirt in his hands as he argued with Robb about some dumb sport – honestly, she wasn’t listening at all – he was shirtless how was she supposed to focus – wondering why she was suddenly so nervous, and at a loss for words. She had asked if he had plans, but her only plans were to ravage him all day and night, but suddenly she wasn’t sure how, exactly, to go about that. His confession the night before should have made things easier. He wanted her. She knew it. She wanted him too. He knew it.
So why was she still standing here, staring at him?
“Calm down, kiddies, your show will resume momentarily,” Q said with a crooked smile as he appeared on screen, a live feed from his lab supplanting the still of the film you’d all been watching a moment before
“booo, change the channel!” Red said and chucked a handful of the popcorn he’d been sharing with you at the television. Q looked unimpressed as the kernels bounced off the screen.
“What’s up, Q?” you asked as you reached over and swatted Red’s hand to stop him throwing any more of your snack.
“JOINING US FOR MOVIE NIGHT?” Blue asked brightly. “BUCKAROO BANZAI IS A CLASSIC!”
Q grinned. “I mean, yeah, it totally is. Excellent pick, sir,” he said and Blue beamed at him. “But actually I had a question for our dear landlady,” the A.I. continued as he turned his gaze to yours, making your eyebrows shoot up, a handful of popcorn halfway to your mouth.
Edge scoffed, irritated, though whether by the interruption of the film or because Q wanted to talk to you in particular was an unknown. “THEN SIMPLY TEXT HER AND STOP INTERRUPTING OUR MOVIE,” he groused irritably.
Q rolled his eyelights at the other skeleton and remarked, blandly, “I would, but she left her phone in the kitchen.”
You gave a start at this statement, and proceeded to pat yourself down in search of your phone, only to find that it was, indeed, missing. “Oh, damn, sorry,” you said and started to push your way off the sofa, though it was a bit of a struggle.
Edge scoffed. “HE’S ALREADY INTERRUPTED! JUST ASK THE QUESTION AND LET US GET ON WITH THE FILM!”
Series: Detroit: Become Human
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance)
Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.
( < Back to part 1 / < Back to part 10 )
Part 11 - Fooler
Seven stared at the old man for a moment, processors working overtime to make sense of what he'd just seen. Since his active scan hadn't been running, however, he couldn't, leaving the man's actions a total mystery to the android.
“Yes,” he said emphatically, turning slightly in his seat so he could get a better look, and the man's face lit up in a broad smile at the android's enthusiasm.
“Magic fan, huh?” he asked with a chuckle as he shuffled the cards with dramatic flair, making them arc and flow between his hands in a way Seven was quite certain should have been impossible.
“I've never seen it before,” the android answered honestly as he scanned the man's movements. His systems informed him that though it did look impossible, the movement of the cards really was just practiced hand movements and physics like anything else, no matter how flashy. The fact that a human was able to do such a thing impressed Seven deeply, though.
The cards settled into a neat stack in the palm of the man's hand and he used the other to lower the tray on the back of the seat in front of him. “What, at all?” he asked with a surprised quirk of a brow as he put the cards down on the tray, then gestured for Seven to cut the deck.
Realizing belatedly how odd his statement sounded to a human, Seven quickly recovered as he reached over and plucked up the top half of the deck and placed it to the right of the original stack. “Up close, I mean.”
“Ah,” the man said and smiled, allowing Seven to relax internally as he picked the deck up again and shuffled it deftly, then spread them out in a fan. “Here, pick a card,” he said. “You memorize it, but don't show me, then put it back in the deck.”
Curious, Seven did as he was told, and plucked the seven of diamonds from the proffered cards, then returned it to a new place in the deck.
The man made a show of shuffling the deck again, the contemplative movements of his hands reminding Seven of his own coin exercises. “My name's Todd,” he said as the cards flowed. “How about you?”
Seven opened his mouth automatically to answer... and then stopped when none came. He tried again, but his system turned up nothing, leaving the android to furrow his brow and attempt to stifle the panic rising within him.
What was his name?
He'd known some of his memory files had been corrupted in his escape from CyberLife, but the fact that all knowledge of the name he'd gone by since activation months before was gone had only just hit him.
His pause did not go unnoticed, though when Todd looked up at him and saw the furrow of his brown, his mistook the expression for one of reluctance to divulge his identity rather than the identity crisis it actually was. “Hey, don't worry about it,” he said quickly, hands going still as he flashed the younger man a reassuring smile. “I didn't mean to pry, we all have times in our lives when we're trying to leave something behind,” he mused quietly.
Seven met his eyes and it seemed to the android that maybe the old man was speaking from experience. “Yeah,” he answered eventually, “Something like that.” His mouth twisted wryly and Seven let his previous panic at the sudden gap in his knowledge go. What did it matter if he didn't remember the name CyberLife had given him? If anything, it was a bit of a relief, one less claim they had over his existence as a free android. He could be anyone he wanted...
“Well, for the sake of conversation, I'm gonna call you 'John', if that's alright,” Todd said. “Nice common name, John; and better than 'hey you' by a long shot.”
A rueful smile tugged at Seven's mouth and he nodded, then glanced at the woman and child across the aisle from him. “Your wife?” he asked politely and Todd glanced up, then nodded.
“Yep, that's Tonya and our grandson, Jake,” the man explained. The android might have introduced himself, but the woman had relaxed back into her seat shortly after the bus departed the station, and to all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. The boy, Jake, was playing some sort of game on his phone, headphones in his ears, effectively blocking out the world around him.
Seven filed away the potential of acquiring headphones himself for later consideration. He didn't like the idea of blocking out the world around him, considering the world was demonstrably trying to kill him, but on the other hand, people said all sorts of things when they thought you couldn't hear them...
Todd finished shuffling the deck of cards and Seven turned the full of his attention back to the man as he produced a card and asked, “Is this your card?”
The android blinked as he regarded the queen of hearts. “No,” he replied, arching one brow at the old man.
“Oh,” Todd said with a frown as he turned the card around so he could look at it, then returned it to his deck and began patting himself down. “I must have- ah!” he slipped his fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket and came up with the seven of diamonds. “How about this one, then,” he asked with a knowing smile.
Seven's eyebrows shot up and he couldn't restrain the smile that overtook his features at the revelation, frustrating though he found it that the man had somehow pulled the wool over his eyes with the trick. “Yeah,” he said and took the card from Todd, looking at it front and back, though there were no special markings on it that even his scanning program could pick up. “I looked away,” he accused the man, though there was no venom in his words, just amusement and intrigue as he passed the card back.
“I didn't tell you to do that, now did I?” Todd countered, and Seven had to agree. Looking over at Tonya had been of his own volition, after all. “Care to see it again?” the old man asked, voice lightly teasing.
Eaten up by the mystery of it, and having nothing better to do anyways, Seven nodded and watched carefully. This time Todd pulled the card out of a different pocket, and though the android could tell he must be disguising the movement of the card with his hands, he simply couldn't pin down the how of it.
“One more time,” he insisted, much to the old man's amusement. While he shuffled, Seven fished in his pocket and produced a hard candy, which he popped into his mouth to mask the taste of blood that was starting to get to him once more. When he shoved the wrapper back into his pocket, his fingers brushed the quarter from the diner that morning, and he brought it out. Hoping that a little calibration would help him spot the trick to Todd's 'magic', Seven rolled the coin expertly across his knuckles even as he picked a card from the proffered deck.
It didn't help, though, and just to add insult to injury, Todd didn't pull the card out of his own jacket, but from the pocket of Seven's own hoodie. The pinnacle of human technology defeated, the android sagged back in his seat and ceased his quarter's movement across his knuckles, switching instead to flicking it back and forth between his palms.
“Alright you win, I can't figure it out,” Seven said, heaving a sigh as he looked sidelong at the man over the rim of his sunglasses.
Todd grinned in a way that could only be described as 'cheeky', though his eyes were on the quarter as it jumped between Seven's hands despite his not actually throwing it. “How about a trade?” the old man suggested after a minute's consideration. The android arched a brow in silent question at his seatmate and Todd continued, “You teach me those coin tricks of yours, and I'll teach you a few card tricks.”
Seven caught the coin in his right hand and blinked as he considered. “Alright,” he said after a moment with a lopsided smile. “You sure, though? I thought magicians never reveal their secrets?”
The old man waved off his concern as he laid the deck down on the tray in front of him. “Oh my magician days are well behind me,” he mused. “Might as well pass it on to the next generation.” Seven shrugged one shoulder and turned in his seat some again so he'd be better able to watch Todd's demonstration. “It'll probably be easier without the gloves,” the man pointed out.
The android glanced down at the thin cotton gloves he was still wearing and thought fast. “I'll deal. I'm uh... bit of a germaphobe,” he lied.
“Ah,” Todd replied with a nod and let it go at that, for which Seven was grateful. “And the sunglasses inside?” he asked, hint of amusement in his voice.
“Sensitive eyes,” the android answered with another shrug and a rueful smile. That, at least, was true.
“Very Corey Hart, I'm sure the ladies love it.”
“Who?”
The old man grimaced then huffed a laugh. “Musician from the 80s, did a song about wearing sunglasses at night that was all the rage. Look it up sometime, you might like it,” he said, then motioned Seven in closer and said, “Alright, now pay attention and I’ll show you the basics...”
