#loumas

WEEK ONE

dec 1st | playing in the snow — Luke Alvez

dec 2nd | snowed in — Shane Walsh *

dec 3rd | mr. lumberjax — Jax Teller *

dec 4th | mistletoe — Tig Trager

dec 5th | baby's first christmas — Spencer Reid

dec 6th | decorating the tree — Chibs Telford

dec 7th | ice skating — Juice Ortiz

WEEK TWO

dec 8th | christmas lingerie — Jax Teller *

dec 9th | take me to church — Bishop Losa *

dec 10th | gingerbread houses — Happy Lowman

dec 11th | late night drives to see the lights — Aaron Hotchner

dec 12th | christmas cookies — Opie Winston

dec 13th | family dinner — Ez Reyes

dec 14th | advent calandar — Angel Reyes *

WEEK THREE

dec 15th | naughty or nice — Chibs Telford *

dec 16th | kissing in the snow — Derek Morgan

dec 17th | staying up late to wrap gifts — Daryl Dixon

dec 18th | 7 minutes in heaven — Sirius Black *

dec 19th | 'watching' old movies — Bishop Losa *

dec 20th | home for christmas — Angel Reyes *

dec 21st | red ribbons — Soap MacTavish *

WEEK FOUR

dec 22nd | secret santa — Jax Teller *

dec 23rd | last minute gifts — Tig Trager

dec 24th | big gifts — Chibs Telford

dec 25th | christmas morning — Daryl Dixon

* contains smut / suggestive content, warnings posted on each individual fic; read and heed the warnings. all content is 18+, mdni

THOMAS:  The house glowed warm orange through the trees. This side of Swynlake was quiet. All of Swynlake was quiet, but this felt eerily so. It was probably just circumstances, but it made Tom’s blood quicken in his veins nonetheless. He had been on stakeouts before, but this case had always been unique to the Order. They didn’t usually go after multiple targets of different species, most of the creatures they went after kept to themselves or traveled in packs of a similar kind. That was not the case here. It was not a pack, per se. For all intents and purposes: a normal family. Except that they weren’t. A werewolf lurked in their house. And their father was a demon. The woman seemed ordinary enough, but they couldn’t be too sure, especially when she aligned herself with such creatures. Though, she wasn’t the target. And neither were the children. 

For yes, there were children involved. Tom had seen them through the kitchen window, on their mother’s hip, or sitting in their highchairs being fed dinner. They knew this. Had all the details on Opal, Aidan, and Bellamy Acheron. When they’d first arrived the twins hadn’t even existed, and then they’d bided their time due to the possibility of hurting a pregnant woman. And now there were two more children to worry about. 

And, the thing was, this was not the first time they’d come to this house. No, Tom had been here months ago, with Marie. Just dropping a gift off for the little ones. It wasn’t more than enough to get a brief peak at the layout of the downstairs, but it had been something. And they’d been here during the construction. Once or twice. It was easy to dress in blue jeans and plain t-shirts and pass themselves off as a helping hand. But they had not been inside and they had not staked it out long enough to determine a pattern they could work with. 

Tonight, they were pushing their luck. Creeping closer to the treeline, wanting to see if the charms they’d been handed by the Order actually worked. It was risky business, hence Tom’s heart pounding in his ears. The family had long moved away from the kitchen window and dinner time. There was a light on in one of the upstairs windows, one of the children’s rooms, perhaps. Tom watched it until it turned off. 

“I would assume the children are in bed by now,” he said and checked his watch. It was nearing nine in the evening. Darkness having just fully fallen, giving them better cover. They’d been out for a few hours now, trekking the long way around through the forest, so as not to leave a trail. 

“We should stay until they go to sleep.” 

Just as he said this, the back door opened, flooding the garden in front of them with light. 

PHILLIP: Phillip had never been this close to the house.

He’d come by this way, usually under pretense of walking Gilly. He’d scouted out the area casually and from a distance. He whistled and nodded at neighbors. He’d been nothing but Phillip Knightley, insufferable MFA student, walking his best mate’s dog. He watched this house, but had a way of observing that did not seem out of the ordinary. 

But he knew it well — from a distance.

This was different. He watched as the light turned off. They were here to track the patterns and movements of the family, to figure out an optimal time to launch their mission. It was for all intents and purposes, just reconnaissance.

Phillip didn’t know why he was so nervous. Hadn’t he done this before? Hadn’t he waited at the edge of caves for dragons to peek their noses out, watched the side of coursing rivers for kelpies, lurked on the edge of forests for werewolves?

(This was different, a little voice whispered, this was different, this was different, this was — )

The door opened before he could react to Tom and immediately he ducked his head so the light would not hit him. He peeked through the bushes, watching as a tall figure stood in the doorway, silhouette by the light. There was a bark.

“Letting the dog out,” he muttered under his breath.

The dog barked again, and then — well, Phillip didn’t know how this was possible, considering they were wearing concealing amulets, but it looked straight at them, eyes glowing eerily in the dark. He inhaled sharply.

“John, you don’t think…?

JOHN: John had only been near this house under the guise of climbing a tree in the neighboring vicinity, he’d never been on the grounds. They were here to make sure there were no surprises for when the eventually acted and made their move. He wouldn’t charge into the home of the Archeron’s blindly. Additionally, there were children present and although he did not like children, he felt they didn’t deserve to see their parents taken hostage and tortured or whatever means the Order wanted them to extract information from them and achieve their goal. 

Things had been going well. They’d prepared and blocked out their path. The three of them made their way through the surrounding forest and made sure not to near the house until nightfall when they’d be cloaked. The plan was perfect.

Unfortunately, they didn’t entirely account for the dog. 

Bloody christ, why did it have to be a dog of all things.

If you’d been paying attention all this time, you’d know that animals hated John. Literally despised him, and dogs were some of the worst. So despite all their preparation, of course, what else would happen but the dog would sniff out the one person who hated animals. 

“Fucking hell…” He whispered as the dog bounded forward into the brush. “Scatter! We’re going to have to shake it off our trail and confuse it or knock it out.” And with that John leapt up to the nearest tree and hoisted himself up onto a lower hanging bough to begin his ascent because he knew with his luck that he’d be right in the crosshairs. 

HADES:  No, Hades wasn’t just letting the dog out.

It had been a quiet night all-around until about three or four minutes ago, when Shuck had began to tremble, growl, and froth at the mouth, dribbling his (thankfully fire-proof) saliva all over Hades’ recently cleaned floors. At first, he’d thought very little of it. Shuck was more like mortal dogs than some might suspect. There were times when he raised his head and whined at a passing rabbit or got excited when he saw someone approaching. Other times, he reacted to the magic in the air: restless during full and new moons, hyperactive when the veil between worlds shifted. 

Hades expected him to stop, then

Instead, he’d let out a snarl, and then a bark, snapping his teeth at the window as if he saw something there that Hades didn’t. 

And maybe he did. 

The warning about the Order was still on his mind. He did not want to alarm his family yet; after all, it could be a deer or something of that sort, nothing more.

Hades opened the door to let Shuck investigate. 

Shuck instantly headed straight for the wood, beelining with a determined gait. Still could be a deer-- if so, Shuck would lose it and come back, whining and dragging his feet, the miserable wretch. 

If he didn’t though…

Well, then it would be Hades’ turn to enter the wood. 

THOMAS:  The dog headed straight for them, a hulking black mass taking off into the darkness. He was almost impossible to see and Tom only had a second to glance at Phil, who was to his right, and John, who was a cross from him, before they scattered. John hopped up into the tree and Tom drew his sword on instinct, heading deeper into the wood, though he looped close to the treeline.

He was running through the underbrush, hearing Phil’s footsteps beside him for a moment until he split off. Probably trying to confuse the hound into following one of them. He tried to listen for the sound of the beast, but all was silent except for the breaking of twigs from himself and Phil. All of the sudden there was a growl and Tom looked up, sliding to a halt.

The hound was right in front of him, dark eyes glowing in the light. Without that and the growl, he didn’t think he would’ve even seen him until he was right on top of it. 

Tom spread his stance and raised his sword. The hound lunged. 

Ducking to one side, Tom slashed his sword at the hound as it soared through the air. He knew that a mortal weapon would not necessarily kill a hellhound, but he could certainly incapacitate it. There was something off about this hellhound too: it did not snarl fire nor fade into smoke. Instead, his sword caught it in the shoulder. The blade jerked as it hit flesh, slicing the beast open. It gave another snarling yelp as it landed in the brush. 

This time, it didn’t lunge. It snapped at Tom’s heels, making him dance backwards before he got his footing and jabbed again at the hound, this time he missed and stumbled forward slightly, the hound’s giant paw catching him in the calf. He let out a hiss, doing his best not to shout as the pain shot up his leg. Turning, he brandished his sword, catching the beast in the flank and knocking it off its feet.

PHILLIP: If there was one thing Phillip and Tom and John were good at, it was fighting together.

Perhaps this wasn’t a surprise. They’d been trained to do this since they could walk, perhaps before them. The real skill was not that they could fight well, but that they could fight well with each other. It was like a dance: one had to know the movements of one’s partner, know where they would step, know where they would fall, know which side they favored and how to cover their weaknesses. You had to know all of those things and ingrain them so deeply that you did not even think when the time came to perform.

So as Tom stumbled backwards, the hound snapping at his ankles, Phil circled on the other side, driving the dog into a corner, forcing it to angle itself so that Tom could easily slash at it.

The great beast growled, knocked to the ground, and Phillip took this opportunity to raise his sword. He thrust his blade forward, aiming for the dog’s heart, but it was fast and fierce and got to its feet, snarling and frothing at the mouth — Phillip missed the kill, but he did manage to drive his sword deep into the beast’s shoulder. It hissed at him, but he thrust it further, twisting the blade and pinning the monster down. The more it struggled, the deeper the wound would get.

He looked at Tom now, their eyes locking in wordless communication.

THOMAS:  The hellhound looked like any normal hound that Tom had grown up with. He knew it was a monster, a demon, because the Acherons hardly hid it. The court hearing had been private, but the newspaper articles that reported hellhound attacks were not and it was easy to draw the line. And there was a orange glow in the hound’s eyes in the dark. 

But it looked like a family pet, without drooling fire, without howling it’s bone chilling howl. 

Phil managed to pin the beast down and it yelped and struggled like any helpless animal. Tom always hated this part. He preferred quick and easy kills, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. Like now. 

So, Tom looked at Phil and nodded his head. His hesitation lasting only a fraction of a second before he moved to the hound’s other side and drove his sword into its heart. 

Without a sound, the hound went still. For a moment the woods were hauntingly quiet. Nothing moved. 

Then, the hound vanished into smoke, leaving no trace of its presence. No blood on their swords. Only the gash on Tom’s calf. He stumbled a step as his sword, which had been embedded in the hound was released. Standing up straight, he looked at Phil, his expression clear, knowing that they shouldn’t speak:

We need to find John. 

JOHN: The third member of this trio had been on the lookout from above as his mates ran out of sight. In the moonlight, he could see the glint of the sword sparkle in the distance. He could tell his mates just by their outlines and their fighting styles, but these woods were thick and dark and concealed much more than it revealed. As much as he wanted to be down there, he was much more dog bait than he was a man of slaying one. Animals just didn’t care for him.

So once they’d disposed of the dog, John looked to the light that was still on. A figure still near the doorway. That figure would notice the absence of the dog and come down this way. He was currently up the tree, cloaked by branches but he had a clear view towards the house. He slowly began his descent, watching for the figure to move. He had to think quickly. Would they fight? Would they engage? Should they engage? Or should they run? Call it a wash? No. They couldn’t. The whole house would be on high alert the following days. Whatever happened, they had to complete what they’d set out to do. 

He continued climbing down lower, slowly, his eyes not wanting to leave the shadow in the doorway and so his hands missed a branch. That cold sinking feeling exploded across his body in panic before his hand immediately scrambled to grab another branch. Always so easy getting up, but getting down? Wasn’t his forte.

He wasn’t going to leave his advantageous position. Not to find Phil or Tom. Not to run to help. They had it handled. He trusted them to do their jobs just as he trusted himself to do his.

John gathered himself as he saw the figure of Hades Archeron step out from the doorway, shadowed in the light from the door. John assumed that since his dog had not returned, it had alerted him. He was coming this way and the blonde only had moments to decide what he would do.

As the figure neared, John steadied himself on the lower branches he’d climbed down to, waiting for the right moment when Hades was passing just within reach. Hades crossed the mark and John threw himself from the tree and onto the man, arms wrapping around his throat, sending them crashing down into the ground. He jammed his hand into the pressure points that would cause the man under him to pass out, holding onto him with all his strength until the body slumped under him.

HADES: He heard Shuck’s yelp and knew-- something was wrong. 

Hades glanced back at his family. He didn’t want to alarm them but maybe now was the time to be alarmed. Then again, the shadows were long. He could jump into the woods and see what had happened to his hound and then back again in no time. Just a blink. One blink, and if it was just an animal, then he wouldn’t disturb his family’s peace. Everyone was already on high alert from the talks they’d had with Merida and Elinor anyway.

Yes, it was best to handle this quietly. As far as they knew, Shuck was being a pill about comin’ in, and Hades was going to fetch him.

He closed the door and headed into the woods. 

“Shuck?” he called once. His foot cracked a stick on the ground. 

Then, a rustle above him. 

Hades tried to turn, but it only took-- that blink. That one second. Something heavy slammed into his shoulders, and an arm clenched tight around his neck. He gasped, stumbled forward, veered back, as he reached up and grasped at the arm of the stranger. His windpipe was being crushed-- he couldn’t yell out. Oxygen drained from his lungs. But fuck if he was going to go down without fighting. 

His hands erupted in blue fire, searing into the man’s skin, even as Hades’s knees hit the ground and his vision started to go.

TOULOUSE:  Something was wrong. 

The wolf knew it before Lou did. It felt restless in his chest as soon as Hades closed the back door. For a minute, Lou tried to ignore it. Everything was quiet, a blanket of evening falling over the house. Lou was putting dishes in the dishwasher, because they finally had one in the cottage, thank god. Belle was entertaining the children on the floor in the living room. The calm was complete and there was no reason to feel the sense of foreboding in his chest. Shuck was a silly thing, for being a sentient guardian of the Underworld, and often ran after deer and rabbits, forcing Hades to retrieve him. 

But the calm and the stillness stretched on and the feeling in Lou’s chest only grew until he abandoned the dishes and came to hover in the living room, standing near the couch, looking toward the back door. 

“What’s wrong?” Belle asked, looking up at him. Opal looked up at him too, her face a perfect inquisitive mirror of her mother’s. 

“I—“ Lou hesitated, glancing over at her, planning to lie at first, “—don’t know. It’s probably nothing.” 

This reassured Opal who went back to trying to teach the twins how to play patty cake with little to no success. 

Belle kept looking at him. “Is it the wolf?”

Lou nodded without taking his eyes off of where he had turned back to the door. “Maybe—we should start getting the children ready for bed?”

“Yes, let’s do that,” Belle agreed, her expression serious. “Opal, bath time.” 

“Nooooo,” Opal whined and quickly scampered away from Belle, coming to cling to Lou’s leg with a laugh. 

“Opal, go with Maman,” Lou said, his voice anything but playful. She looked up at him with wide eyes, but his gaze hadn’t moved from the door. 

“Opal, come here. Now.” Belle had grabbed up the twins, holding them on either hip. She held out her hand for Opal, who buried her face in Lou’s trousers with a laugh. 

It was only then that Lou looked down, grabbing Opal by the bicep and peeling her away from him, even as she started to whine and go limp. 

“Legs no work!” Opal declared as she hung from Lou’s grip. 

“Opal. I am going to count to three. One—“ Belle started, even if it was a pointless exercise. She wasn’t going to do anything when she got to three except Lou was going to have to scoop her up. But at least it let Opal have the opportunity to make the right decision. 

“Two—“ 

Lou heard something snap outside and his grip on Opal’s arm tightened. She looked up at him with wide eyes. 

“Opal, go with Maman.” Lou said much more firmly, shoving Opal towards Belle, making her stumble slightly, but the toddler listened. “Belle, take the children upstairs.” 

No sooner had he said it than Belle grabbed Opal’s hand and tugged her onto the first step. Lou twisted on his heel, following a few steps behind, keeping an eye on both the front and back doors as best he could. His ears searching for any sound. He hoped it was just Hades. The wolf told him it was not. 

Both doors burst open almost simultaneously and it wasn’t even a thought. Where the man once stood, there was now a wolf, shaking off the remnants of its tattered clothes and making for the stairs. It’s large paws scrambled for purchase on the hardwood, but he managed to make it to the bottom of the stairs before the assailant. 

Lou growled and snapped but launched himself up the stairs just a step behind Belle and the children. He heard Opal squeal, saw her tug out of her mother’s grasp. 

“Tonton!”

“Opal, no!”

Lou half turned on the stairs, the small space making it hard for the wolf to maneuver and easy for the toddler to slip by him but he managed to block her descent. Even though she was coming for him and put a hand in his thick fur. Lou growled at her but she paid him no mind, so instead Lou turned, ears flattened against his head, hackles raised as he snarled at the man in front of them. 

PHILLIP: They couldn’t stop now.

They hadn’t counted on being noticed tonight. This was just supposed to be bloody recon, but Hades had spotted them and John was gasping in pain, and fuck. They had to do it all tonight, didn’t they? There was no choice — Hades would come to if they left him like this and he’d know who they were and this past year or so would be for nothing. 

It was now or never.

It was now, or face failure.

Phil looked to Tom, who had immediately gone to John’s side to help, and he jerked his head in the direction of the house.

It did not take long for them to rally, swords brandished. Normally, Phillip liked a good fight, liked to stalk a rogue monster and corner it and save the day. It always got his blood pumping in the best way.But now, as he stalked towards the darkened house, he couldn’t shake the nasty feeling churning in his gut. His body was on high alert, but not in a good way — in a way that made the shadows across the ground seem longer and darker and every footfall felt like he was sinking deeper into the depths.

It was easy to throw the door open and barge in, and Phillip led the charge towards the second floor. He reached the staircase and there was the wolf, teeth bared and ready to strike. 

Phillip had fought wolves before. This was no different. He had to remember that. He had to remember the monster in front of him, the cursed creature, and not the man barking orders backstage at play rehearsal. 

(He did not notice the girl behind the wolf; he did not see a pair of small eyes staring at him in the darkness). 

“Ah, a stairway,” said Phillip. He leapt onto the stairs, slashing his sword towards the wolf. The narrow space made it difficult to maneuver, but he figured he could back the wolf into a corner of the hallway and between him, John, and Tom, this would finish easily.  “One of my least favorite places to have a fight — so constraining —” He ducked out of the way, catching himself before he fell, and using the momentum to surge forward again. “-- but of course, when used the right way, very beneficial — “

Maybe it was because he was talking his mouth off that he wasn’t paying as close attention to his surroundings as he should. Maybe the reason he was talking his mouth off was because he was nervous. Maybe from the get go, he knew deep in his gut that this mission would go wrong, like he hit the wrong key while playing the piano and he couldn’t make the recovery, and that doomed the whole sonata going forward.

He just had to do this job, just had to kill one stupid wolf, just had to use his years of training to do one damn thing and just get this over with. 

So when something small surged forwards on the stairs, Phillip just leaned into his instinct and knocked the figure to the ground.

But whatever had bumped into him was lighter than he anticipated and it was smaller and it let out a high, girlish shriek as it thumped down the stairs, and Phillip’s blood curled. He whipped his head back, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and saw a small girl on the foot of the stairs, crying in pain.

“Fuck — “ 

TOULOUSE: Metal flashed in the near-darkness of the upstairs. The wolf saw it swing towards him and he snarled, snapping his jaws towards it. He stalked down another stair, trying to get close enough to clamp his teeth around the assailant’s arm or leg. Opal was still clinging to him. He shook out his thick coat, dislodging her grip on him.

This allowed him to push up onto his back paws, thrashing his front ones out, trying to knock the man from the staircase. If he could just get him off the stairs...

Lou didn’t know what the plan was and neither did the wolf. With Opal in the picture, Lou had to adjust every step to make sure that she was protected. It kept him stuck in place. He didn’t want to leave her side, even if drawing them away might work better. Lou didn’t want to risk it.

Where was Hades?

The man fell against the railing and Lou saw his shot. He lunged forward, snapping his teeth.

But, at the same moment, Opal had run forward too, probably trying to get back down the stairs—to go find her father or a place to hide or, maybe, to follow the wolf. It didn’t matter her motivation, because the next few seconds happened very quickly.

The wolf heard, before he saw, Opal tumble down the stairs. He heard a snap and a wail. Then, footsteps: in the hallway above and the living room below.

“Opal!” screamed Belle from behind him. Even Lou looked over his shoulder to see her standing at the top of the steps, gripping a sword. The twins no where in sight. Safely tucked in the office.

“Christ!” another voice, one the wolf recognized.

Thomas Harrington was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking like he was about to reach for Opal.  With a horrible snarl, Lou launched himself down the stairs in one leap, landing right behind Opal, his teeth snapping within inches of Tom’s fingers.

A sword came swinging, but stopped the next second. “Fuck,” said the man, scrambling back against the doorway.

Behind Lou, on the stairs still, he heard the dull clang of metal as swords met.

“Get out!” Belle shouted, her sword smashing against the man on the stairs’ again.

Lou’s teeth grabbed Opal by the shirt and dragged her from the foot of the stairs (the amateur doctor in his head was screaming not to do this, but the wolf didn’t listen). Once she was more out of the way, he crouched low over her with his ears flat against his head.

“Phil!” Tom shouted, taking a step towards the stairs, but Lou swiped at the blood on his leg, trying to get him in the same spot, causing him to stumble and grab the banister. 

PHILLIP: In that moment, Phillip felt like everything froze.

This didn’t happen. This never happened. Usually, Phillip was a trained killing machine — carefully calibrated to be deadly and merciless. But the little girl’s scream made him pause enough to stumble backwards on the stairs, as if through a haze.

It was only a split second of fog. He snapped out of it immediately. But it was there and that was more than had ever happened and it lingered like a bad taste in the back of Phillip’s mouth.

He couldn’t swallow it away.

Tom was fighting off the wolf now. He couldn’t see John in the darkness, but everything in his gut was telling him that this was not worth it. Not now at least. This hadn’t  been planned. This was going wrong. They’d have to get out of town, disappear, recuperate — 

They’d have to face their fathers.

But there was no other way out.

“John!” he shouted, somewhere into the darkness. “We need to go.”

JOHN: John had almost passed out from his own pain. 

He grit his teeth and fought back a scream as the white hot flames seared through his shirt and into his arms, his skin boiling and blistering as Hades slumped down beneath him. 

He was not a fighter, he was a strategist. He didn’t have the swordsmanship and brute strength of Tom or Phil, not when it came down to it. All he had was his brain really. He’d reacted to the situation in a way that he felt was perfect. He had put Hades to sleep at least for a bit before he could rescue his mates and get out of here. No damages. No lethal blows. Just weakening before they would get them to surrender. 

But John knew deep down they’d started this fight and it didn’t sit well with him. They had attacked a family going to bed in their own home. They’d smeared themselves through the life someone else had made like an oil spill in an ocean, trapping innocent creatures in their wake. 

He needed to find his mates. He got up, arms hanging at his sides because it hurt too much to move them, the air stung and his jaw set as he looked out towards the door that had cast the light onto the yard. He had no idea where his mates were, they’d gotten chased around by that dog and it was only until he heard Phil call his name that he knew where they were.

Phil’s voice though. That’s what unsettled him. It was panicked. It wasn’t the Phillip he knew on a mission. Something was wrong. 

Burns be damned, John darted towards the sound of the voice and into the house. Skin on his arms running hotter than anything else and beating along with his heart as he grit his teeth and fought through the pain with only the adrenaline and his drive to find Tom and Phil. 

“Tom? Phil?” He called out as he reached the doorway and then his eyes widened as he saw a wolf continue to swipe at Tom and Phil stood there frozen at the spot and looking like he had no idea what to do.

His muscle memory kicked in and he yelled, both in pain and in hopes of startling the wolf to get its attention off Tom so he could escape, he grabbed the sword from Phillip’s hand and immediately plunged it into the meat of the wolf’s back leg (he had no strength left in him so it wasn’t exactly a deep stab but it was enough). “Get off of him.” 

He grabbed Tom by the arm, his own going numb and his head foggy as he yanked him from the banister and flung him towards the door. “Go! Both of you!” He yelled at his mates before turning back to the wolf as his mates ran. 

As he stared down the now wounded wolf, he couldn’t do it. He had no fight left in him. He turned and ran right after Phil and Tom.