“I...Xander, really. Are you having breakfast for dinner?”
“We’ve been over this before, several times. French toast sticks are eternal.”
“You know, this situation feels familiar.”
“Now we’re even.”
“Buff, that’s not how friendship works.”
“I have a weird feeling about your new neighbor,” Xander announces loudly, glancing over at where the man is barely visible, hammering again. Ignoring, as per usual, Buffy’s frantic ‘keep it down’ motions.
“You’re lucky he’s so loud he didn’t hear you,” she stage whispers as close to his ear as she can manage and still be audible.
“If good fences make good neighbors, what do bad fences make?” It’s...a kind of dark riddle, honestly.
“You’re hurt!”
“Yes, well. Therein lie the dangers of playing hero.”
“Throwing yourself in harm’s way is something for the Slayers, mister.”
“Aww, come on, aren’t you at least going to tell me you’re proud of me?”
“...Okay, I am happy you saved that civilian, but I don’t want there to be one less Xander in the world!”
“We don’t know that I saved his life yet. He’s in worse shape than I am. At least he’s here so I can listen to what they’re doing. To know for sure we’d have to be in something like a video game and have restarted the level because he died the first time.”
“I didn’t think it’d trigger fight-or-flight but it did, and my reaction was to babble like an stream and run like one too.”
“Xander, your sarcasm is showing.”
“Oh, my, thanks for that. I would never have noticed on my own without your help.”
“Xander!”
Buffy nearly attacks when someone silently joins her, only for her instincts to pull her punch at the last second, and it’s a good thing she listens, because it’s Xander. “You know, you don’t have to be here.”
He grins goofily and shrugs. “Just because you have this great destiny doesn’t mean you have to be alone all the time.”
( there's complexity there you hadn't considered )
Vaguely referencing speculations I had from the DMC5 trailer which may not be canon because no I haven’t gotten there yet :(
Morrison is by far the most helpful, not that Dante finds that a surprise. He’d managed to narrow down Xander’s last known location, which is, oddly enough, in Washington DC, but had also passed along that he hadn’t been seen in two weeks. He’d occasionally leave, presumably to go on missions assigned to him by his “benevolent” captors, but they didn’t usually last that long. He’d also been seen in company with governmental types, and while Dante isn’t particularly the type to go messing with any bureaucratic nonsense, he’s also not particularly in the mood to be stopped by anything at this particular point in time, so he’s going to be smart about it and let Lady and Trish plan most of it and isn’t going to go hacking everything apart or setting it on fire no matter how much he wants to do that.
Nero had sensed something wrong because he’s never seen Dante wound this tight, but he just ends up sniping at his nephew not to get involved. He knows that’s not the end of it; the kid’s just as stubborn and maybe he’d have more of a card to play if he’d ever actually gotten around to admitting that he knows the kid’s family. (It’s hard to tell if Nero suspects, because the kid’s bright, too, and had clearly inherited some of Verg’s brains, but even if he does that probably hasn’t earned him much more in the way of authority because if he has Nero’s waiting for Dante to actually speak up, which, well, now is not the time.) He does stop asking, but it’s only a temporary reprieve. Given that they’re moving sometime in the next couple days when Trish has everything in place, though, hopefully they’ve got time, and maybe after this crisis the Son of Sparda can actually work up the courage.
( the Watchers and Willy continuing to make everyone's lives difficult )
I don’t think most people should use the term ‘females’. I also think Trish needs to be shown as not-human more often.
“I just wanted to give you a head’s up. So I was running my mouth and not thinking…”
“And that’s different from normal how?”
“I told Souji we both didn’t like our bodies.”
“…You owe me steak.”
“Fair, but it’ll have to be later this week, after I get paid.”
I was going to have Desmond roll his eyes at her, but apparently the earliest recorded time (which was Shakespeare, so a little later) that was considered flirting, and I didn’t want that misconstrued if they’d even recognize it. The more you know.
I will join the chorus in saying ‘blame esama’. I have no idea what I’m doing here (but then, you could probably say the same for poor Ezio). (and, you know, the rest of the people on ao3 assassin’s creed, but it always starts with esama.) If you think you recognize anything, it’s probably because you do and I don’t own it. If anything, it owns me. I wasn’t ever planning on writing this, but I guess read enough of these awesome works in succession and suddenly this happens.
full list (in no particular order except for esama’s at the beginning): Black Robe https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880483/chapters/34458513
Not really a ‘save the fam’ fic, but the family dynamics in Study of Flight, probably https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702866/chapters/31475031
Desynchronized https://archiveofourown.org/works/37674436/chapters/96727518#workskin
Dead Men Tell Tall Tales https://archiveofourown.org/works/31330643?view_full_work=true
Apple of His Eye https://archiveofourown.org/works/24496570?view_full_work=true
Let me be without regret https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126561/chapters/60877936
Adagio in White https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720462?view_full_work=true
Ezio couldn’t help himself, so he got in a fight with Vieri earlier than in canon.
Shared Jurisdiction
Earning Trust
Gibbs vs Slayers
Out of the Ordinary
A Little Field Trip
Offbeat Questioning
Road Map to the Truth
time gap
time gap
The Requisite Father Embarrassment
Finding Safety
My Fierce Friend
Waiting to Be Found
The Pain of Survival
The Heart Finds a Perch
Haunted By Secrets
Your Truth is What You Wish For
Interagency Cooperation
Got You
Plea Bargains
Evil Plans Within Plans
Floating in Limbo
The Anger Cools
Heart-to-Heart
Plans in Motion
A Good Impression
Pleasant Surprise
Organizational Structure
Foundation of Understanding
Learning to Cope
To Be Seen
A Case of Nerves
Where You Stand
The Theme: Awkward
Good Match
A New Normal
Seen Beyond
Learning Curve
Conflict of Interest
Totally Not a Bribe
What We’re Fighting For
Diary: Prologue
Photographs of Home
Comfort vs Oblivion
Blowing Off Steam
move in circles
Battle Plans
Snowed In
Mutual Embarrassment
Warm Welcome
Ghosts in Ultraviolet
*Technically part of the second ‘phase’, but I’m segregating them here because otherwise plot would just appear and disappear without warning. I’m using numbered lists for this one.
1. Meeting the Redfields
2. Meeting the President’s Daughter
3. Haunting Echoes
4. Another Sparda
Alternative Paths (abandoned)
*This is not the pseudo-time travel fic you were looking for, but you found it anyway. And other oddities.
Great Scott!
being goofy
Leon's First Apartment
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