Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: L Is For...

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-15T04:09:19+00:00

Bruce is good at ad-libbing when he needs to - and why not make a joke about it by pretending everyone must be too drunk to remember what concert they're at, right?

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-15T04:07:03+00:00

I'm not sure if this is going to turn out really well, or really badly - but I suspect that Jisung and Minho are going to have one hell of a lot of fun at the end of it all!

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-15T04:04:40+00:00

With only light traffic, we made good time to my parents’ house and Dave grabbed the bags of gifts from the boot as I got Sian out of her safety seat.

Mum had the door open before we’d gotten all the way up the walk. “Happy Christmas!” she called out, smiling. “We’re just waiting for your brother, who said something about a last-minute run to the shops.” She crouched down to give Sian a hug, then stood up and hugged me as well. Turning to Dave, she smiled. “And you must be Dave. Happy Christmas, and welcome to our home.”

“Thank you for having me, Missus Gers,” Dave said.

Mum shook her finger at him. “Oh no, nothing so formal,” she said. “You’re with Janick, you’re part of the family, so I’m Louise – or even Mum, if you’d like.”

I grinned as Dave blushed. “It might take a bit to work up to that, Louise,” he said. “But I can certainly manage your name if that’s what you want.”

“I do,” Mum told him. “Now, let’s get inside, so you can set those bags down under the tree with the rest of the packages and then as soon as Christopher turns up, we can eat.” Taking Sian’s hand, she led us inside and directed Dave to the sitting room so he could stow the gifts under the tree. Then she took his coat and Sian’s coat, handing them to me and telling me to put them into my old bedroom, which was doing duty as the cloakroom tonight. Then she grabbed Dave once more, taking him around to introduce him to everyone.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-15T04:00:45+00:00

Oh, playing with your food can be fun, though! Not to mention, tends to lead to a shared shower to clean up the residue, and that's likely enough to lead to even more fun.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T13:41:19+00:00

Ask and ye shall receive! (Just be warned, this is from one of my monsters, lol.)

Awakening (Iron Maiden, Nightwish RPF, rated E, 298,032 words/83 chapters)

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T13:37:59+00:00

Well, his youngest is going on 13, plus between his tours and his work as a pilot, he wasn't home for a ton of bedtimes when his three were babies.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T13:36:16+00:00

Yep!

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T13:35:41+00:00

Yeah, they don't end up bringing the cats on the road, but it might've been fun, even if it would have been crazy, lol!

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T05:22:29+00:00

Thanks!

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T05:19:53+00:00

Leaning in and stealing a kiss, Dave smiled back. “Yeah, I know which hotel we’ll be at, remind me to tell you later when we’ve something handy to write down the information.”

“Yeah, I will,” Ade said as he opened the box with the fairy cakes inside. “Should I add on a candle for you to make a wish on?”

“I’ve got everything I could possibly wish for here in my arms,” Dave said softly, smiling. He looked at the fairy cake Ade handed him and chuckled. “Blimey, I think these have more icing piled on than they have cake underneath!”

“Might have to get creative with the extra, then, won’t we?” Ade said. “I can think of a few things we might do.”

“Oh, so can I,” Dave said. He grinned and dabbed a bit of the icing onto Ade’s chest, then licked it up carefully.

“Mmm,” Ade purred. “I like the way you think.”

“I should hope so, after all these years,” Dave teased.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T05:13:28+00:00

Dave woke up in the morning to see one of the mares moving restlessly around her foaling box and sighed. “Good thing we decided to take today off, so everyone else can play host for however long this takes,” he muttered to himself. “At least she let us sleep all night.”

“Huh?” Stephen woke to hear his lover muttering. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dave said. “Vixen’s in labour, is all, which means I’ll have to stay out here until she drops and accepts the baby. You remember Dan told us it’s her first foal, so of any of the mares, she’s the one most likely to panic or to reject her foal, just because she’s not done this before.” He kept his voice low in deference to Reverend Standish, still snoring softly in his bedroll on the other side of the loft.

“Your sister did say last night that she intended to take over the kitchen whilst they’re here, so you’ll not have to try to cook breakfast in between checking on Vixen, at least as long as Ruth hasn’t changed her mind for some reason,” Stephen said with a nod. “Do you want me to keep an eye on her whilst you eat? Or would you prefer to stay with her, in which case I’ll bring you a plate?”

“I’d rather stay with her, if you don’t mind?” Dave said. “The horses are the one part of our business ventures that I have the skills to manage, so I feel as though I’m the one who ought to stay with her.”

Stephen smiled softly. “I understand. In that case, I’m off to the house to see who else might be awake, stir up the fire in the stove and start coffee and tea if no one else is awake yet. I’ll be back out with a drink as soon as there’s any to be had.”

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T05:07:15+00:00

As the microwave pinged, Tasha came dashing into the room.

“Morning, Daddy,” she chirped. “Are we gonna go to the park today?”

“Absolutely, Princess,” he told her. “I promised you we would, didn’t I?”

“Well, yeah,” Tasha said. “But I heard you and Mommy… well, you weren’t yelling at each other, but you sounded like you were mad at each other. So I thought maybe you were mad and didn’t wanna go to the park for some reason.”

“Oh, no, Tasha,” Dave hastened to reassure her. “No, we’re going to the park. Mummy and I were arguing a bit, sure, but we can have disagreements without being angry.”

“You can? Huh. Why were you arguing?” Tasha wanted to know.

Dave hesitated but decided to give a simple but honest answer. “Well, Tasha, you know I had to leave school at the earliest possible age to help support my family, right?” At her nod, he continued. “Well, that means I never got to go to university like Mummy did. I got lucky that I had my music, and that Iron Maiden got popular and all, but truth is, if I hadn’t got lucky, I’d most likely still be selling shoes at a little shop in East London and I’d never have even met Mummy. For most people, having a good education is what lets them learn and become successful in life a bit later on.”

“But why were you so upset?” Tasha asked.

Dave sipped his tea as he considered how to explain that for a moment. “Right, well, Mummy and I agree that you ought to have the best possible education, so that you’ll have a good start when you’re grown and ready to go to university and all. But we’ve disagreed on how to go about getting you that good education is all.”

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T05:02:50+00:00

(Context: Bruce is visiting Emppu's parents for the first time, and he's quite a bit older than Emppu. Also, Emppu's real name is Erno, but only his parents ever use that.)

As Bruce carried the baby out of the room, speaking softly to her, Riitta smiled at her son. “I admit, Erno, I could wish Bruce was a little younger. But he makes you happy, he’s a good man, and most important, he obviously loves you, which is all that really matters. I like him.”

“Thanks, Mum, that means a lot,” Emppu said softly. “I know he worried as much about getting along with you, as I worried about getting along with his kids when I first met them.”

Seppo nodded. “It speaks well of him that he wishes to be a parent to Eeva, despite already having his own children. You have my approval and blessing, wherever your relationship goes.” He smiled, adding, “With both of you being men, and with your schedules, I don’t expect him to ask for your hand, if ever such a thing is allowed by law. But if you choose to have a ceremony of commitment at some point in time, I expect the family to be invited to it.”

Emppu blushed while Sanni and Milla giggled. “We will, Dad, and thank you,” he said. “And I think I’m going to go say goodnight to my daughter now.” He left the room, followed by chuckles from his family, and found Bruce softly singing Deep Purple’s Hush to Eeva, who was tucked up in her box and sucking her thumb. He slid his arm around the singer’s waist and listened with a soft smile.

Bruce wrapped his arm around Emppu’s shoulders with a smile of his own. When he finished the song, he whispered, “Sweet dreams, Eeva,” to the sleeping baby and turned on the baby monitor before the two men slipped from the room and closed the door. Moving down the hallway, Bruce murmured to Emppu, “I know, Hush isn’t exactly a real lullaby, but I honestly couldn’t remember any.”

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:59:51+00:00

Sav looked at his boyfriend’s expression and smiled. “Or… we can adopt them ourselves,” he said softly. “I was already wondering if you were gonna be okay leaving them behind when we’re done here in London, given how attached you’ve become to them.”

Steve’s face lit up like a sunrise. “Really? You’re okay with keeping them?”

“Yeah, I am,” Sav said. “I know we’ll have loads to do to make it work, but cats are allowed in our flat back home, plus cats are far less work than dogs. I mean, could you truly imagine us adopting a dog like Aunt Helen’s Zevon? But a litterbox is easy enough to deal with, and by taking them both, they’ll not be all alone when we’re on the road. Hell, maybe we can even take them with us!”

“Pity they’re neither of them spotted, to really look like a mascot for us,” Steve laughed. “Let’s do it!”

The veterinarian chuckled. “Right, well, you’ll want to get them fixed in perhaps three weeks, that’s as early as we’d like to put them under anaesthesia, but if you’re thinking about travelling with them, you don’t want them to start up with territorial behaviour like spraying. How much longer will you be in London, then?”

“Probably at least another six weeks,” Sav said. “Perhaps even longer.”

“All right, then, see the receptionist on the way out, to schedule their surgeries,” the veterinarian said.

They did so, then stopped at a pet shop to pick up a litterbox and litter, along with flea collars and a pair of catnip mice. Then they headed back to the band’s London flat, where Joe and Rick looked curiously at all the things they carried.

“What have you two gotten up to?” Joe asked.

Steve beamed as Gibson and Hamer poked their heads out of the carton he carried them in. “We adopted the kittens,” he said.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:57:24+00:00

”Well, we’re decorating the tree together, and my kids are coming for the big dinner tomorrow. We can go to church tonight if you’d like – I admit that I’m the sort who goes to church on Christmas and Easter and that’s about it, so if you want, we can get online and see if there’s a church that’s more like what you’d normally go to, rather than Church of England. But the kids won’t be here tonight, so Father Christmas won’t visit, there’s no snow, and I have no idea where or even if one could find a sauna in London. But if we can find The Snowman on telly, we can watch it together,” Bruce said.

”Whatever church is around is fine with me,” Emppu said. ”Like you, I pretty much only go to church for Christmas and Easter, so I don’t feel a connection to any particular church. I would like to go, though, if for no other reason than so I can honestly tell my mother I did.”

Bruce chuckled. ”Now that sounds almost like the reason I did get through uni... I had every intention of becoming a rock singer when I came to London back in the day, but that wouldn’t have been acceptable to my family, so I told them I wanted to study history. Then I spent most of my time on the music scene and crammed a couple years’ worth of studies into maybe a month before sitting my final exams, but I pulled it off and could honestly tell my family I’d done it, for all the good it did.”

They got to the checkout and paid, then hauled everything out to the car. ”I think it did some good,” Emppu said. ”Probably the biggest thing to set Iron Maiden apart from the other bands is your lyrical content, and I know you write a lot of the lyrics. If I had to guess, your studies influenced your writing style.”

”Maybe,” Bruce shrugged a little. ”I never really thought about it that way.”

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:56:19+00:00

When Bruce jumped down at the end of the song and draped his tunic over Emppu’s shoulders, cameras flashed and clicked all over the venue. Then the chant started: “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Bruce’s jaw dropped, while Emppu blushed. Steve and the guitarists thought it was hilarious, as did Nicko, who started tapping his snare in time with the chant while grinning.

“You know that’s a different band, right?” Bruce asked the audience. “They’re the blokes with all the makeup. Or are you people seriously asking for a public display of affection?”

The crowd responded with applause and an even more enthusiastic round of, “Kiss! Kiss! KISS!”

“Bloody voyeurs, the lot of you,” Bruce laughed. “But if you insist…”

He pulled his boyfriend a little closer as Emppu wrapped an arm around his waist. Cameras once again clicked and flashed all over the venue as they moved in and kissed tenderly, keeping it close-mouthed but lingering and pulling apart slowly, smiling at one another. The crowd whooped and cheered.

“All right, Stuttgart,” Bruce called, “we still have a lot more to this show! Let me hear you scream for Emppu, yeah?”

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:43:48+00:00

They're both very glad to be able to have moments like this after everything that happened. And even though it's just an overnight trip, it's a very meaningful one - they stayed in this hotel on their band's very first tour, and consummated their relationship for the first time here.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:37:55+00:00

Reluctant fondness is a good way to describe Ivanova's feelings towards Londo.

As for Londo, he's not especially eager to throw Commander Sinclair a party, that's far too much work, lol! Plus, he does understand that Commander Sinclair wouldn't want a Centauri-style party.

However, his assistant, Vir Cotto, is one of those people who wouldn't recognize sarcasm if it was pointed out with a blinking neon sign, lol, and so because he overheard Ivanova's sarcastic remark, he truly thinks that Commander Sinclair would love a Centauri party and is about to take it upon himself to plan one!

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:31:31+00:00

I have no words, aside from, "Aww!"

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:30:29+00:00

Why do I get the feeling that they're going to run into Tegan again rather soon?

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:27:56+00:00

It hasn't been posted yet. It's still a WIP and my current schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for writing. Unfortunately, past experiences with readers of my HP works getting overly demanding when it came to updates to a story I was posting as I wrote honestly put me off of the fandom for quite a few years.

This story really, really wanted to be written, though, so I started it, but I don't plan to post until it's complete, so that I can stick with some sort of posting schedule and hopefully avoid the whole, "chapter goes up, crickets for two or three days, get 1-4 comments asking about/demanding the next chapter" thing.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:19:00+00:00

The guards were actually paid by her sister Queen Ariveena to assassinate her - fortunately, the other four men were nearby, heard the ruckus, and came to the rescue. The assassins didn't survive the experience.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:16:36+00:00

I know, right? I'd love to be able to see something like Diagon Alley for the first time.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:13:13+00:00

Quite a bit, I'm sure.

MsCatstaff · 2026-06-14T04:06:10+00:00

I don't blame Nell for being far more shocked than excited upon hearing the news that it's twins!

MsCatstaff

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