That’s what they’ll say, in the end: Dr. John Shen swooped Mel up, out of Langdon’s grasp. Good for him. Good for her, finally fucking higher on the food chain.

Or,

John asks Mel out on a date mid-Langdon turmoil.

this was what they meant, he thought, in the haftarot of consolation, behold I will set your stones with carbuncle, and I will lay your foundations with sapphires, the foundations of his soul had been cleared out and replaced with glittering stones and he felt— free, unencumbered, like nothing and nobody could hurt him, not ever again.

Pittsburgh, 1986-1990.

See, this is why Trinity hates living with people. They flake. They flake, and they don’t tell you that they’re flaking, you just get home from a twelve hour shift in the ED to an apartment that no longer has a couch or curtains in the communal area or the TV you contributed half the money for; and a new addition to the decor consisting of a note taped to the fridge (yes, taped, even though there’s a magnet right next to it) that says, to paraphrase, that your roommate has eloped to Nebraska with her boyfriend of six weeks and she took the couch and curtains and TV and a bunch of the kitchenware because she paid for them, except for part of the TV, but she left the $150 cash under Trinity’s pillow.

The Silk Road, 1101.

Yusuf and Nicolò meet the Amazons from their dreams, who reveal to them the possibilities—and limitations—of immortality.

“Marius,” Daniel interrupts. “That was your maker, right?”

“Yes. Marius de Romanus.”

“Out of all the names you could have gone with, you chose his?”

*

The combined efforts of a brand new air fryer and a certain Daniel Molloy force Armand to re-evaluate his feelings about the Maker he loved. A post-S2 fic about identity and abuse.

“You doing all right?” Daniel asks him.

Armand blinks. “No,” he says.

“Most honest you’ve been with me since I got here,” Daniel says. And then, because it seems like the thing to do, “I can clear out, if you need the place to yourself.”

“Whatever you prefer.” Armand’s lips look chapped. Dehydration? He ate the kid with the sunglasses, but the smear he left took a lot of bleach to scrub away. Maybe Daniel should -

“You won’t be harmed,” Armand says, “regardless of your decision.”

“You got served divorce papers so hard it left a crater,” Daniel says, “and you’re still poking around in people’s heads.”

He’s sitting on a beach he hates, trading shitty jokes with a centuries-old monster whose body count would put Ed Gein to shame and who is almost certainly also plotting to turn him into a flesh lampshade.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Armand says, picking up on that thread, “I do wish you’d stop returning to that.”

“What happens when you die in a dream?” Quỳnh asked him once.

Inception!AU. Nicky runs point for an extraction team, working in dreams to pry out subconscious secrets. Now they have to simultaneously navigate a new teammate, a worrisome job, and, of course, a potentially malevolent shade from their past haunting their dreams.

“Oh, man. Did you… did you ask the sea for its gift while you were actually on the sea? …Mate.” The creature took a step toward Stede, then another, until Stede was backed up fully against the desk. “You didn’t read anything in the book but the spell, did you?”

“I - I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Stede squeaked, leaving dignity fully behind him. No wonder his apprentice had threatened so many times to leave him.

In which Stede is not a very good sorcerer, and Ed is the sea demon whose summoning he didn’t get quite right.

Izzy Hands is not having a very good day. This is an understatement, and also a shame, as it will be the last one he ever has.

Future!fic. Humanity has spread out amongst the stars, and Nile and her team are struggling to figure out where they fit in: out in the furthest reaches of the galaxy, or home on Earth with those who still remain. Dreams of a new immortal don’t exactly simplify matters.

"Think it's time to get the band back together?" Nile asks.

"As if Nicky or Joe would let us collect the new kid without them." Booker regards her steadily. "Think it'll be enough to get Quỳnh back on a ship?"

"Guess we'll find out. Because…"

She hesitates, as though saying it aloud will make it too real. So Booker says it for her.

"Because that desert was nowhere on Earth," he finishes. "And the girl in our dreams wasn't human."

Edward “Blackbeard” Teach’s foolproof strategy to get over devastating heartbreak: 1) bring a witch aboard the ship 2) get trapped in an auxiliary wardrobe with the man who broke your heart 3) well, you’ll have to read to find out.

“No,” Ed says. “I’m not happy, Stede. That’s the point, isn’t it? You can’t just show up again and fix everything – you can’t fix me.”

Ed has been stuck in a rut since Stede left. He would like nothing more than to shut himself away, but his crew needs a captain, there’s a cat inside his cabin, and bounty hunters have begun to target pirates on the high seas.

And Stede? Stede has a plan to take back the Revenge and make things right. What’s a little piracy amongst pirates?

Ed propositions the man with the curls for some casual fun at his bar one night. They agree to keep it anonymous, but when Curls turns out to be the owner of the new queer cafe on the same block as Ed’s bar (and also Ed’s dream man), things get a little complicated.

It’s perfect, textbook. Terror, distraction, and a body crushed to an unrecognizable, bloody pulp. If Edward wasn’t entirely livid with Stede at this moment, he might be very fucking impressed.

“Shit, man. That’s no accident,” he says into the darkness. “That’s a fuckery.”

Every year, a person is chosen—supposedly at random—to be sacrificed to the Kraken, to quell the sea’s worst storms and to stop the taking of ships. After his engagement falls apart, Stede is not surprised when his father arranges for this year’s sacrifice to be him. The surprise comes later: when the Kraken claims but does not devour him. Instead, it whisks him away to its secret sea cave, where Stede discovers that there is much more to the creature than he was led to believe—and that they have a deeper connection than he could have ever dreamed.

Or: OFMD x Beauty and the Beast x The Little Mermaid x a bodice-ripper

Sailors call them watermarks. A gift from the sea, a name or symbol written on your chest, meant to guide you to your own true love.

But Stede Bonnet’s mark doesn’t look like anything at all. Not really. And it certainly doesn’t look like ‘Edward’ or ‘Teach’ or ‘Blackbeard’ or a black beard and that’s fine. Completely fine.

Ed’s absolutely fine with it.

In which Nicky joins a queer football club, makes some new friends, and offers to help Joe piss off his ex by pretending to be his new boyfriend. This is a very reasonable scheme that will definitely not lead to any feelings whatsoever.

Ronnie is blinking at him like David just announced he wants to take tap lessons so he can headline a revival of 42nd Street.

“Patrick Brewer,” she drawls, eyebrow raised in what might be respect. Incredulity, but respect. “David, when I said you needed a name to get your next project off the ground, I didn’t expect you to point to the cover of People Magazine and say, ‘ah yes, him.”

“Excuse you, it was Vanity Fair.”

Or, a music superstar and a disgraced theatre director try to find common ground in the state of Denmark.

The first time Danni meets Steve McGarrett is when EMTs haul him into her ER under extreme duress, having just driven a police cruiser onto a ship.