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ecto-hazard · 5 months ago

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Well Boys. We did it. I posted this on October 1st, 2024, and just two months later, December 20th, we officially got the end of the TF2 comic series after a 7 year hiatus. I'm fully taking the responsibility on this one. Clearly my passioned rant about this game's storyline and my desire for more of this enchanting tale singlehandedly inspired Valve to finish their masterpiece. im sure it had nothing to do with a negligent company finally bending to years of protest of an unplayable game and setting an unreasonable deadline on the writers and artists to crank out a half baked finale to earn some goodwill from the mob

all that aside, i really do like the ending of the tf2 comic. im not going to claim it was a masterpiece and that everyone who has criticism of it is wrong because it does seem rushed and a lot of characters dont get a lot of closure or even thematically appropriate lack of closure. even beyond the mercs, stuff like the charles darling plot goes nowhere and saxton getting his company back is a big nothingburger. and it wouldve been nice to get a proper epilogue where we see at least a little more of what the other mercs are up to after the war.

but its clear that a lot of what was put into the finale, although it might not be sewn together the best, was intentional from the beginning and by themselves are well done story elements, and emails with the creators confirmed as much. the administrator's lore is chilling and im glad they took the time to close it off, even if it resulted in sacrificing other scenes. Between that, the meaningful Scout and Spy interaction at the end, and the very conclusion with Saxton and Maggie, there's really impactful planned scenes throughout this comic. It's okay to be disappointed that there wasn't more to tie it together, but I think what we got was good.

With that said, they didnt fucking write anything else with the other blu guys so im mad about it. Lightheartedly anyway. Take all of this as lighthearted.

But that's not to say that there isn't insight into blu team and team fortress as an operation as a whole from this comic. Not only is blu engineer here again, but we also get a glimpse of TF headquarters and what the whole operation actually looked like. Its interesting that I havent seen a lot of people talk about this at length, but i cant blame people for getting caught up in all the canon children and name reveals because that's probably more fun. But there is something ostensibly wrong with me so we're going to dive back in, see what we can squeeze from the already juiced fibers of this comic about blu team, and cover a few points i mightve missed in my first post. you're already reading this far you're probably not turning around. lets go down this shitty rabbit hole together

now ill go ahead and disclaim that ch 7 doesnt really have any explicit evidence to clone theory but just. just stick with me. trust me. just. j

Blu Engineer

Dell conagher is back babey. He really doesn't do a whole lot but he's the Main Blu guy right. The officially blu character! Dell Conagher is Blu! and he's got the same characterization and everything!!! yippee!!!!

We can see based on his greeting and Pyro's positive reaction that not only is the team familiar with Blu Engie, they're on good terms with him. This is most likely indicative that Blu Engie bonded with the red team during the events of MVM. What's also interesting is, compared to the rest of Team Fortress, he's got an actual role at TF industries. It seems like for everyone else, this is their first time here, based on their reactions to the environment, but we'll get into that later. It's been established that Blu engie has a family history with the company, and that's what's got him in such a high position. I think it also might suggest that, if clone theory is real, this engineer is an Original. We never see Red engie doing something like this right. It's always explicitly the Blu one.

What's interesting is this Engineer is more reserved. More cautious. In game lines suggest he's got a god complex and is as insane as the others. He canonically sawed his own hand off for a cool robot hand for chrissake. This is obviously due to working closely with the administrator for as long as he has and seeing the futility of it all. I wouldn't consider it a character inconsistency. But it is interesting to compare the character directly across the series and see how he's worn down.

This is especially apparent after the Administrator dies. The old engineer seems like he wouldve jumped at the chance to use that australium. But he's seen just how much someone can let it corrupt their life. He doesn't want anything to do with it. And that's really interesting.

A small detail that also aligns with this change in mindset is Engineer having two flesh hands again in this series. We don't really know if its actually a flesh hand or he got some sort of more realistic prosthetic, but it at the very least functions like a flesh hand. Originally this seemed like a weird detail, but in the context, it shows how he's abandoned that more megalomanic side of himself. I wonder what drove him to that. Did he realize over time that the hand caused him pain? Did he have trouble using it in normal tasks? Did he find he couldn't strum the guitar the same? He couldn't feel the warmth of someone else's hand? Did he see the administrator becoming a shadow of herself, tormenting herself with technology to stay alive just a bit longer, and feel guilt? Did he feel like an enabler? A hypocrite? Would having a flesh hand again maybe set some sort of example?

None of that really has anything to do with the theory probably, but its cool to see that much depth put into a Blu for once.

The Alphabet Soup Squad

On the same panel with the blu engie reunion, we see this thing

five alphabetical letters with five statues associated with them, and a notable missing sixth letter that would presumably be F. these guys have been referenced by name before by Blu Cheavy in the previous issue.

Ajax, Citadel, and Echelon match the A,C and E respectively. These are the other teams under the administrator's employment. Interestingly, this panel was changed after ch7 came out. he originally called Ajax "team vanguard," but this was probably changed for continuity. it makes me wonder if there was an intent to delve a little deeper into what these teams were, but they didnt get to it.

The fact that Team Fortress isnt the Only team working for the administrator is a detail that's been tossed around quite a few times in the comic before the final chapter, and i dont think anyone really read into it much before. they're mentioned several other times in the series, though not by name. nobody really processed it till we were given a proper visual i guess

The last panel in particular i had previously chocked up to meaning "which team? red or blu?" but what it actually means is "which of the 5 main teams- oh none of them"

team fortress, compared to the rest of the mercenary world, are the rejects, and they explicitly say this. but i dont think we really knew what that really meant in perspective. and i dont think they knew either.

demo's never seen this image. he's never seen this merc. we dont need him to say that to see that. He's never seen Real mercenaries. he couldn't imagine being on this level. admired. lowkey worshipped in this facility. and the dialogue around this scene captures it as well. this is a realization for everyone. they aren't the "real" mercs. and that doesnt even necessarily mean clones. theyre outcasts. they arent up to standard. they dont receive the support and glory of the real mercs because theyre not the 'good' teams.

this has been pointed out before (and i think correctly) to be a commentary on tf2 as a franchise. i think its fair to say valve didnt expect it to hold out this long. for it to be as beloved nearly 20 years after its release. but it is. tf2 is the reject game. the game without support. the game without the glory. its not supposed to be valve's 'good' game. and yet its still here.

grey what the fuck does any of this have to do with clone theory. uH.

so as i said, nothing in this issue really explicitly functions as evidence for clone theory. i think considering how team fortress is considered the reject team, its plausible to extrapolate that they might be reject clones for the 'real' mercs (who are all dead now i guess???) but that's not so much theorizing as just grasping at straws here. I think clone theory makes sense in that it might be a cheap way to keep the war waging, but in the grand scheme of the story, it would be overall less important to determine if red or blu is made up of clones, and more important to see how team fortress as a whole is considered bottom of the barrel shit being recycled just to keep money flowing. and it seems like they werent always that way. the evidence of the F pedestal indicates that they were once considered a great team. but that's really all i can glean from this issue unfortunately.

its kind of a bummer that blu wasnt explored in the series any more that it was, But yknow what, at the end of the day we got the cutes christmas image with the whole team and the heavymedic undertones and the-

wait a second.

no.

no. they wouldnt do this... they wouldnt do this to me... no...

ENGIE IS MOTHER FUCKING

RED

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING WITH ME VALVE. YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING WITH ME. THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THEYVE AUTOBALANCED SOMEONE TO RED ON US. THEYRE DOING THIS TO FUCK WITH ME SPECIFICALLY ARENT THEY!!! THEYRE ONTO ME. THEY KNOW IM TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH! WHATEVER THE FUCK THE TRUTH IS I DONT EVEN KNOW WHATS THE POINT OF THIS. EVERYONE'S LIKE RETIRED FROM RED I GUESS BUT THEY STILL MADE A POINT OF PUTTING THEM ALL IN RED TONES SO WHY THE F U C K IS THE ONLY EXPLICITLY COHESIVELY BLU CHARACTER IN THIS ENTIRE FUCKING FRANCHISE RED NOW. THIS IS CLEARLY ORIGINALLY A BLU GUY WHYS HE RED NOW WHY WHY W H Y

Intermission

Did you know we have even more evidence that Red soldier and blu soldier are the same guy????? well we do fucker!!!!!

previously on dragonballz, we pointed out that both red and blu soldier are referred to as Doe and work as a lawyer, but technically I think red soldier is only ever referred to as "Doe," not "Jane Doe." he could have a different fuckign first name and be in like a stan twins situation with the blu soldier, which would be funny. but we do actually have confirmation his name is Jane. Behold, the decoy map.

This is an mvm map that's supposed to be a fake mann co facility to trick the robots into attacking the wrong place (and it works!) on the map, theres a contract pasted to a wall that authorizes Jane Doe to build the place

This base is mentioned in the comic, and it shows a familiar image. yep thats jane motherfucking doe, winner of the nose picking contest and verified lawyer. Granted this was after the red/blu truce but my sanity is barely holding on here so just go with it okay

Team Fortress Two (but actually)

So what was team fortress like when it was good. The team fortress in team fortress 2 is actually team fortress 3. they're the third generation of mercs. the previous team was the team fortress classic.

notice how they're a mix of red and blu in this image. this and the fact that team fortress classic is a game you can play implicates that there's a red and blu classic team in the lore as well. the blu classic team features as antagonists in the comic series. them being blu was probably sort of arbitrary. probably to contrast with the main mercs being red and to make it clear these are the bad guys the baddies theyre evilllll

this wasnt just when team fortress was a 'good' team. they very well mightve been the best team. blu cheavy says they were able to take down all the other teams on their own, which is fucking crazy. and cheavy identifies the new team as rejects as well, so team fortress becoming the reject team would likely be when the classic generation switched out.

another detail is their medic is just dead i guess? or at least he's not in the picture when the comic series takes place. hes commonly theorized to be dead. whatever the case, that's what gave the tf2 medic the chance to work with them. i wonder if the implication might be that the death of the classic medic is what caused the classic team's fallout. if that was the turning point between team fortress and team rejects. you're gonna have a rough time in game if you dont have a medic on your team, thats for sure.

the fact that there's a mix of the team here and then theyre all blu in the comic series may also imply that there were duplicates on either team? but it could also be an mvm teams merged situation. its hard to say. whatever the case, they died permanently, so either wasn't a thing or is no longer a thing. and the same is true for everyone else since the administrator is dead.

anyway like. there isnt a conclusion i really am coming to with this post i guess. it became less about clone theory and more about just rambling about the universe. theres a lot of interesting stuff there. and i wish it was explored more. it seems like it shouldve been explored more. im all good with show dont tell but we were shown slivers of a picture with the new issue and its a shame. i moreso wish they actually did the goddamn adult swim show just cause they actually included blu team in their promos so like there was something there

i still think clone theory fits into the universe they have set up, but we're probably never going to get any closure on blu team and that's fine. as i said before, the fan content we get is enough for me for now. but i love saying things for a long time and subjecting everyone else to it so uh. blu team's number one stan will stick around out here till the end

The End (aw shit)

ive never had an original thought process and i will continue not to, aka, Grey's TF2 BLU team clone theory post. This is a long one boys.

i was talking about this with some people yesterday but i really wish tf2 canonically acknowledged blu team more and i think everyone who likes tf2 agrees with me. In case you're one of my hfjone followers who are unaware of tf2's story, Ill just give you the basic overview cause the story is like scrambled around in a bunch of comics, videos, and updates so it might be kind of overwhelming but i do recommend trying.

THE BACKGROUND INFORMATION

There's like these two richass brothers fighting over ownership of a plot of land inherited from their father who gave it to both of them in hopes theyd learn to cooperate with each other. Like reasonable people, they decided to hold an all out war in the American southwest by hiring the world's most skilled mercenaries to fight their battles for them in hopes one of them would claim the land. They each own their own company, RED or BLU, and in the game you fight on one of these two teams usually with the objective of taking territory or intel. A key plot point, that neither the mercenaries or the two brothers are aware of, is that this whole war is being orchestrated to be in a perpetual stalemate by a woman known as the Administrator, so she's the one involved with managing the mercenaries and coordinating attacks so that nobody makes any substantial victories. The gist makes this sound like a more serious story than it is like theyre fighting over a plot of gravel its really dumb actually. And then there's robots and shit that happens later just dont worry about it for now. dont even worry about it

In the game you can play as one of 9 classes of mercenaries, shown above with the aforementioned brothers and also saxton hale (dont worry about him either). Youll notice that in this image its a mix of red and blu people, but these guys exist on both teams. When it comes to promotional material, you almost see them as red team, but the exact same classes exist on blu. And they look the same, and sound the same, and have the same weapons and stats.

Obviously from a gameplay standpoint, it makes sense for these guys to be identical, but they aren't just identical in the game. There's a ton of stuff in videos and comics where they just use the same designs or models, same voices, same personality, everything.

So that's where the popular Clone Theory comes from. Basically one or both of these teams are clones of the original mercenaries to keep the fight between teams fair, because as stated before, these guys are in an orchestrated stalemate.

Again, if youre unfamiliar with tf2, you may be wondering what these guys canon reactions are to the fact that they are fighting somebody who looks and acts exactly like them right? Like, there's a ton of comics and videos about them, so they probably noticed or something? well they FUCKING DONT. ITS NEVER BROUGHT UP.

MY FRUSTRATION WITH THE LACK OF BLUUUUU

i really want them to like. fucking acknowledge what the hell is going on there? like are they actually clones in canon? it would make sense but its never fucking talked about. like even if they didnt actually give a definitive answer, i wish at the very least they pointed out the fact that HEY. these guys we're paid to kill look just like us thats fuckign weird. granted like most of the team are idiots, but while someone like soldier might not question what's going on, i'd think someone like Sniper or Spy who's jobs involve keeping a close eye on the enemy team would probably notice right?????

to be fair also theyve like. never interacted with themselves in any media stuff? the closest we ever get to seeing a red and blu counterpart interact outside the actual game is in meet the spy but we'll get to that later. It's interesting that they either purposefully avoided having them interact or they just overlooked a chance for the funny. we never see what its like for the mercs when they originally get hired (maybe cause they were never hired at all!!!!!!!!!! THEYRE ALL CLOENSSSAAGHG) so we dont really get to gauge their reactions

well why focus on blu team? pretty much all the media is very red centric. the meet the team videos are all about their respective red members, and the proper comic series is about red team (or is it?). the only meaningful stuff we see from blu team is from the war update, meet the spy, and that one christmas comic where spy told a child to murder someone. why's it so red centric, you may ask? well its cause they look better in the promotional art dumbass. do you think people would buy the orange box with blue people on the cover? fuck no think about the color theory

of course its entirely plausible that the red and blu team only use the same character designs for simplicity sake. its possible in universe they are two different sets of people who just look the same to us for the sake of gameplay, but that seems a bit outside the style of storytelling, where everything is sort of ridiculous and literal. i feel like in writing they would commit to it, but they've just managed to write these guys so they never have to interact and acknowledge how weird it is

so i wanna explore what of blu team is actually acknowledged and see if we can reach some sort of conclusion about them? cause clone theory seems to be the most prevalent but what do we actually know that would support that? But before we can even get into that we have to talk about the unavoidable elephant in the room

IS RESPAWN EVEN FUCKING REAL??????

In tf2 you dont stay dead when you die unless youre playing like a specific gamemode that nobody plays. you respawn after a short period of time in a little room and then go back out to get killed again. this is like crazy magic shit so that probably wouldnt be canon right. except crazy magic shit is canon, but that doesnt mean people are getting brought back from the dead- no thats canon too. While nothing in the videos and comics explicitly states that the mercenaries that are getting killed are able to just pop back to life, its not out of the realm of (tf2) reality. Furthermore, certain voicelines that activate after killing the same person multiple times in the game indicate that the characters themselves are in fact killing the same people over and over again, and they do just come back to life. The reason this is even relevant is just cause like BLU team has all canonically died at least once, and the BLU Spy has died two different times at least, so if they can respawn it would make more sense

Since we're talking about voicelines, what do the voicelines tell us about BLU team? really not a lot. The voicelines are the same no matter which team youre on, which supports them being the same people, but again is probably a game mechanic thing. Now onto the videos.

We can sort of skim over most of the meet the team videos because Blu's central role in almost all of them is getting killed, but there's a couple meaningful interactions in some of them.

Meet the Soldier

There isn't a whole lot going on in this one, but I find it interesting that they made the choice to include the BLU soldier's head here, but mostly obscured. This could be an example of an instance where they purposefully chose to avoid showing these two guys at the same time, which couldve been easily avoided by not putting it there at all honestly. Also why does he have that many blu helmets

Meet the Spy

This is the most we ever see of blu team in the videos. Characterization is mainly featured with Blu Spy, Soldier, and Heavy. These characters share the same mannerisms and personality of their Red counterparts here for sure. Most interestingly, Spy also talks a lot about his Red counterpart here. It's pretty clear he seems to consider the two to be similar in terms of skill and threat, which would make sense if he suspected the Red Spy was one and the same.

The Scout here isnt the actual BLU Scout, so his behavior is a bit suspect. It'd make sense that Red Spy is behaving like the Blu Scout and that their behavior isnt actually meaningfully different from the Red Scout. Furthermore, he's the one who specifically draws the comparison between himself and the Blu Spy ("I've killed dozens of spies... like you!"). So it seems the feeling is mutual.

This video is interesting also cause it implicates that Red Spy is Blu Scout's father, while the comics implicates that he's the Red Scout's father. Like what is it? Is he both of their dads? Is Blu Spy anyone's dad? Do the scouts have separate moms? Are the moms also clones? if both scouts went to see their mom and would they end up meeting at the same place and freak out? See this is all interesting which is why i WISH THEY WOULD AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ITS STRA

Meet the Medic

Blu isn't really characterized here a whole lot. A minor joke that's in here is Blu Spy's head, which is a reference to the unused concept for mtm if you weren't aware. But that's just like a one second joke and we don't ever see him again except for that one taunt. Honestly i really shouldve just skipped talking about th WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

That is about 5 million BLU Soldiers. This is i think the ONLY time we've ever seen multiples of a single class on the same team in tf2's story universe. This is perhaps the most damning evidence for the clone theory we're going to get.

However, this is pretty easy to write off as a production streamlining choice. They want to make a mountain of bodies to stand on, so it's probably easier to copy and paste the same model than take the time to get a good mix of classes in there, and I can respect not wanting to waste that much effort on a minor detail of what was probably their highest quality production at the time. They did take the time to give them different hats though, but that's not hard to do in sfm. But if this scene is literal I really wanna know what the fuck happened here. At least we know where all those helmets came from

War Update Comic

Speaking of BLU Soldier, this comic is all about him. We learn a lot about him in this comic, such as his name being Jane Doe, a trait he seems to share with the RED soldier

(though this panel comes from the mann co no more series and its possible that, at this point in the story, this IS the blu soldier for. reasons. we'll get to that)

He behaves in the irrational violent manner we're accustomed to for the red soldier, though there is an interesting detail that he lives alone in an apartment, as its later revealed that red soldier is roommates with a wizard (dont worry about it). in game voicelines being the same for both classes means that both red and blu soldiers claim to be his roommate but voicelines being the same doesnt really mean a whole lot

Loose Cannon

This is around the time TF2 decided to have lore. We learn that BLU engineer is contracted to keep the two Mann brothers alive so the war can go on perpetually, as his family have a history of doing this apparently. The fact that BLU Engineer is the one who's got this specialized role is actually something thats consistent later in the comic as he specifically is revealed to be personally aiding the administrator

As for Red similarities, well. Blu Engie here is referred to as Dell Conagher, and I don't know think the red engie ever is. However, they both have a cool robot arm known as the Gunslinger, an item that specifically the Blu engie got access to in this comic, not the red one.

either the red engineer has some sort of shared memory with blu, or he was given access to these files after the blu engineer built his own gunslinger so things could stay in a stalemate. there's more evidence for the former, but i would believe the latter too.

Meet the Director

The origin behind the meet the team videos is revealed to be "interviews" staged to keep an eye on the red team and also make a point of how stupid it was for them to agree to an interview in the first place. Blu is basically absent from these comics, but they are mentioned. They made the explicit choice to skip videos of them for whatever reason, hence why all the meet the team videos are red team focused. I dont know how much weight this comic holds though cause its just announcing the saxxys. rip.

A Smissmas Story

This Christmas special is the most blu the comics ever get. It's also pretty standalone though. So while the characters are all pretty in line with their red counterparts as far as personality, not much extends outside of this to really point any fingers. The main tie in to the main series is this courtroom scene where Soldier is acting as Scout's lawyer.

This, as it turns out, gets referenced far later in the main series where the Red Soldier wants to act as Red Scout's lawyer in a courtroom.

Well. okay. case closed then? These two different red guys remember this exact scene that occured with the blu guys as if it happened to them. Theyve got some weird shared experience thing going on right. Guess theyre clones???

YOU FOOL WE HAVENT EVEN TALKED ABOUT MANN VS MACHINE

You remember those two brothers who are the whole conflict thing well they fucking Died. Turns out they had a secret eviler brother who killed them. "Oh what's his name grey?" uh. dont worry about it.

This event causes both the red team and blu team to have to work together in a new coop mode where they fight new brother's army of robots so he cant take over mann co, which is what the administrator and saxton hale (still dont worry about him) oversees.

(this video is so badass man)

So red team and blu team are mixed together now. That's fine though they're still color coded. ARE THEY????? ARE THEY??????

in mvm, all players wear red, and all evil robots are blue. It seems like they had plans to let people play as blu team against red robots cause red robot models exist but they didnt implement it.

This is consistent in the comics as well, where we in The Shadow Boxer see all Ms Pauling is planning only with the red team to fight the robot uprising.

See all red wait-

ive seen this image before. what the hell. lemme check back at the main page

WHAT THE FUCK WHYS THE HEAVY BLU IN THE THUMBNAIL

DID THEY. DID THEY ORIGINALLY MAKE THE COMIC WITH A MIX OF RED AND BLU AND THEN GO BACK AND MAKE THEM ALL RED? LIKE THE HEAVY WAS BLU IN THE ORIGINAL MVM UPDATE AS WELL, SO IT MAKES SENSE HE WAS BLU. IS HE. IS HE JUST WEARING A RED SHIRT NOW????

so whats this mean? it means that in the main story series, the red team we follow MIGHT NOT EVEN BE THE FUCKING ORIGINAL RED TEAM. they couldve all just put on red shirts to distinguish themselves better from the robots or something. there's just no way to be certain who's who anymore

well damnit grey guess thats theory over then BITCH YOU THOUGHT

GRAVE MATTERS

Grave matters is a comic released after the shadow boxers for that years halloween update. Despite this, it explicitly takes place after the two brothers are killed

These two guys become ghosts disputing who actually died first because all they can do is bicker. So they turn to a lawyer to actually figure things out. What lawyer you ask?

JANE MOTHERFUCKING DOE

they go to RED TEAMS SOLDIER, who is named Doe, who also claims to be a lawyer. this is EXPLICITLY before the teams can be mixed up, so this is the ACTUAL RED SOLDIER REMEMBERING SOMETHING THE BLU SOLDIER DID. I DID IT. I PROVED CLONE THEORY. ITS REAL. AHAHAHLDKGHDKLASHLGHKSLGGJ

well. honestly no i didnt. its highly likely clone theory is real if you take all this evidence as legitimate, but tf2 is kind of a bullshit game when it comes to how seriously it takes itself. there's contradictions about demo's upbringing, about whether or not medic actually had a license, shit like that. so its all suspect and thats okay. i dont blame them for not having a concrete plan for the story of a silly shooter game.

theres been good news for tf2 lately but i somehow doubt they're ever going to bring attention to this one specific thing i find interesting, and thats okay. there's plenty of fan made media that explores the blu team. Emesis Blue and Lil Pootis are amazing animations about them. You've also got fanfiction like Kith and Kin and You Need to Get a Head that specifically explore the angle of the tf2 teams being clones. And I think that's what makes tf2 special is the community that gets creative with it. Yeah it may be cool for valve to come out some day with the 7th chapter and the heavy update and the adult swim series, i know id be ecstatic. But we've got tons of people who can create all on their own and thats enough for me I think.

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solardragun · 2 years ago

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v7/v8 made me dislike ruby a lot but v9 made me really side with her. i've been in her shoes, with having to put on a strong happy face for everyone because their problems always seem to be bigger than mine.

but to see yang walk ahead of blake to shield her from ruby really broke me. like?? do you not know your own sister?? do you genuinely think she'd harm her own teammate??

blake doesn’t need protection, and it’s weird how yang tries to shield her like ruby is about to hurt her. i get bumbleby's whole thing is "we're protecting each other"

but that doesn't mean go and protect blake (who has shown she can hold her own in a verbal argument anyway) against your own sister, yang!

sorry for the rant, i just am in shock that this was written and executed this way with no one thinking of how ruby would feel from this. ruby was somehow more effected by jaune's rant (which, while valid, doesn't change the fact that jaune basically held a whole town hostage for 10-20 years) than by yang shielding blake.

i also grew to dislike ruby in v7 and 8 because of her hypocrisy (that got half addressed before dropped) and her attempt to talk down all the adults and take over before making situations way way worse. however i do agree that i also began to sympathize with her in volume 9, and it felt like her actions were finally being addressed while also showing that maybe she isn't suited to be the leader like she and everyone else thought.

the whole yang vs ruby thing angered me. i'm sorry, but YANG? the actual hothead who trashes clubs, assaults grown adults, destroys government property, charges into battle headfirst. that yang? meanwhile ruby is the kindest, sweetest person, who despite being socially anxious, tried her best to make friends and impress others. the kind, quirky girl who loves cool weapons and adores the adults in her life and wants desperately to be like the heroes in fairy tales?

yes, as I addressed, she started fumbling as the weight of the world finally started to get to them, she charged through situations half-baked, thinking she knew what was best because it's what everyone expects of her. but at her heart she's still a kind, simple soul who is meant to see the light in every situation, and yet the moment she started losing sight of that, wondering if she truly made mistakes, the friends that propped her up as the best leader and someone they looked up to, they let her fall.

yang, who grew up with her sister, who knows her inside and out. yang, who went into this FOR ruby, insisted she only took part to make sure her little sister was safe. that same yang turning against that said sister she fought so hard to find is astounding to me. her sister is falling apart at the seams, having panic attacks and an identity crisis and struggling with guilt and shame and the horrifying thought that she made the world worse and helped salem grow closer to victory. and yang instead steps up to defend blake.

ruby has never been a threat, not like this. ruby screaming and crying and having a reasonable and justified meltdown after everything she's been through should not be met with yang putting herself between her sister and girlfriend, nor should it have been brushed aside.

it bothers me because the show and fans insist adamantly that yang is the greatest big sister, but then say that yang doesn't have to always be there for ruby and that she's allowed to make time for blake. nobody said that yang wasn't allowed to spend time with blake, the issue was this. the issue was that yang sensed her own sister as a dangerous threat and stepped between her and blake as if ruby is the one with anger issues who flies off the handle and attacks anyone and anything with said anger. it's ridiculous.

yang sat there while her sister fell apart and did and said nothing beyond limp "are you okay?" the person who actually tried to be there for ruby was weiss, despite the flawed writing of her character. i'll give her credit there. but imagine your team partner trying to comfort you over your own sister who is too busy making googly eyes at her girlfriend or defending said girlfriend against you.

i didn't watch the last two episodes so i'm not gonna touch on that, but yang throughout this volume showed where exactly her priorities lie.

#illusorytorrent #asks.#aphs.#rwde

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julek · 5 years ago

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five times jaskier does nice things for roach, and one time she returns the favor.

(or, jaskier spends a ridiculous amount of time and money on a horse).

“i told you not to touch roach,” geralt says when he hears his mare stomping her feet on the ground, displeased. she’s tethered to a tree near their fire and geralt, now busy brewing some potions, had finished brushing her a few minutes ago.

jaskier curses himself mentally, still not used to geralt and his witcher hearing, capable of listening to a bird’s cry three towns away. reluctantly, he draws his hand away from the horse, grinning innocently in geralt’s direction.

“i was just saying goodnight!” he says, sitting down cross-legged on his bedroll, “first impressions are very important, you know. wouldn’t want her to think i was being impolite on purpose, not when we are this”—he pinches his fingers together—“close to being best friends.”

geralt looks up at him, unimpressed. “she doesn’t like you.”

behind them, roach snorts in agreement, and jaskier splutters in indignance.

the forest is quiet.

no birds chirping, no predators lurking around, no sound. ideal work conditions, in geralt’s opinion. he’s crouched down next to a fallen tree, waiting for the drowners to take his bait.

suddenly, the swamp’s stillness is breached by soft singing and feet stepping on branches. rolling his eyes, geralt stands up as quietly as possible and walks over to jaskier, who’s busy picking flowers from a nearby meadow.

“i told you to stay with roach,” he says in greeting, his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

jaskier yelps and turns around to face him, clutching his heart and letting the flowers fall to the ground.

“gods, geralt! warn a guy, would you? i thought you were one of those, um… what do you call them? swimmers.”

“drowners.”

“my words exactly,” he says, gathering some long stems. “i was waiting with roach, mind you, but i got bored. so i looked around and thought hey! roach looks awfully dull without some pretty flowers weaved in her mane, so here i am.”

geralt lifts his eyebrows, abandoning all hope for a peaceful, quick hunt.

“she’ll trample you to death before she lets you touch her,” he deadpans.

jaskier tsks, already making his way back to their camp with his fresh selection of flowers.

geralt waits for the inevitable.

“fucking ow!” he hears, and feels a smile tugging at his lips. “that doublet was new! that is not how one reacts to gifts, you vicious horse. did that witcher teach you nothing about manners?”

he did, actually. he’s glad she’s putting them to use.

“fuck, i’m cold.”

they’re in the outskirts of blaviken, and much to jaskier’s chagrin, they’re making camp in the forest. winter’s near, and as much as he would have liked to sleep in a warm bed, he would have turned it down anyway. he’d seen the look on geralt’s face as they approached the town, and that had been enough of a reason to follow him into the forest.

jaskier is pacing around the fire, his woolen cloak snug around his shoulders, doing little to protect him from the biting wind. geralt had gone deeper into the forest to hunt something for their dinner and hadn’t yet returned.

he looks over his shoulder at roach, who’s laying down on the ground, her legs tucked under her body. geralt had slung a blanket over her back, and she’d been dozing off for the last half hour, seemingly unfazed by the cold.

he knows it’s a bad decision, and he’ll probably be kicked and yelled at, but right now he can’t find it in himself to care. his fingers are frozen and he can’t feel his ears, and he’s sure he’ll drop dead any minute now from hypothermia, so why not?

“hi, beautiful,” he whispers, crouching down next to roach, watching her reaction. “do you mind if i sit next to you? you see, it’s horribly cold,” he sits down, carefully as not to startle her, “and it’s something my brothers and i used to do, you know? huddling for warmth.”

if roach notices him laying against her side, she doesn’t show it. he gently places his head on top of her spine, and drapes himself in his cloak.

“you’re incredibly warm, did you know that? had i known that before, i would have cuddled you sooner.”

he’s so warm and comfortable he almost doesn’t notice geralt coming back. he hears his footfalls but decides to ignore them, too cozy to move, but roach has other plans. all of a sudden, she stands up, leaving him on the floor, confused.

“wha—roach!” he exclaims, picking himself off the ground. “we were doing fine! what happened?”

geralt smirks as he starts to skin the rabbit. “maybe that will teach you not to bother her.”

“but you don’t understand, i—we were happily laying side by side just a minute ago!” jaskier says, sitting in front of the fire. “you startled her.”

geralt snorts. “i did?”

jaskier rolls his eyes and looks at roach, who’s laying down again, unperturbed. “traitor,” he whispers.

spices, curated meats, oils, and baked goods are all geralt can smell, meaning this particular market isn’t too big and they’ll be out on the road soon. that, if he can get jaskier to hurry and get whatever he so desperately needs.

“oh, that stone is beautiful,” the bard says to a bald salesman, keen on selling him a new ring. “alas, it’s much too expensive for me.”

he gives the salesman a sheepish smile and moves on to the next stall.

“i just need one more thing, dear witcher, and we can be on our way,” he says, grinning.

geralt arches a brow, but says nothing. better not to distract him, he’s learned.

“hello, madam!” he chirps, looking at the goods displayed on her counter, “if you would be so kind, i’d like a full bag of sugar cubes.”

huh. that’s not what geralt had been expecting. cherries, maybe, or a honeycake, not sugar cubes.

jaskier pays the woman and kindly thanks her, then ties the small bag to his belt. “well, i’m done. are we leaving?”

geralt nods.

they make their way to the side of the road, where roach is nibbling on the outgrown grass. he takes the herbs he’d purchased and places them inside roach’s saddlebag, while jaskier resumes his daily chattering.

“you’re looking quite dashing today, my lady,” he says, gently stroking the mare’s neck.

geralt expects roach to hastily brush jaskier’s hand aside, but much to his surprise, she doesn’t, snorting happily instead. he looks at them for a second, dumbfounded.

“geralt? are we going, then?”

“hmm.”

summer is kind enough to let a gentle breeze filter through the trees, giving jaskier a breath of clean air.

he’s got his breeches rolled up to his knees, and his doublet is nowhere to be seen. they’d been traveling nonstop for two long, humid days, the burning sun above them, and jaskier had been too tired to even sing, lazily strumming his lute as he walked next to geralt. then, in the middle of a pointless rant about how the world would be better off without the sun and its infernal heat, jaskier spotted a stream.

grabbing roach’s brush from geralt’s saddlebags, jaskier takes her reins and gently leads her into the stream. she complies, braying lightly as she feels the water on her legs.

“i know, girl,” jaskier says, gathering water on his cupped hands and letting it pour on her head, minding her ears, “it’s too hot out, even for you.”

he looks over to geralt, who’s got his back to them, scrubbing mud from his boots.

“you know,” he murmurs, smoothly brushing her mane, scratching behind her ears, “he doesn’t think we’re friends, you and i.” she snorts in response, and he chuckles. “he still thinks you don’t like me.”

she moves forward, and jaskier’s about to move out of the way to let her walk out of the stream when she bumps her head affectionately against his chest.

“oh,” he whispers, overcome with emotion. “as you know, i’ve become quite the expert at reading geralt’s hums and silences, but this is uncharted territory. animal behavior is foreign to me.”

she swishes her tail, and jaskier huffs out a laugh.

“i’ll give it my own meaning, then,” he says, pressing his nose against her snout. “i love you too.”

the tavern is packed to the brim, overflowing with hearty patrons who served as a great audience, generously rewarding jaskier with applause and tankards of ale with his name written on them.

“thank you, my good men and women, for listening to my tales!” he exclaims, hopping off the stool he’d been using as a makeshift stage.

he heads to the bar, picking up two of the mugs and moving toward the corner where geralt’s sitting, half-hidden under the shadows.

“help yourself, witcher,” he says, smiling brightly. “the crowd was kind to us tonight.”

to you, geralt thinks but doesn’t say. instead, he takes a swig of ale. “so i’ve seen.”

jaskier beams at him, his cheeks flushed and his hair matted with sweat. he downs half his glass, sitting back on his chair, sighing contentedly.

they spend the evening in comfortable silence, jaskier casually making remarks about the town or the last contract, taking small bites out of a piece of bread. after a while, geralt stands up.

“i’ll go check on roach.”

“oh, good!” jaskier says, standing next to him. “i forgot my quill in her saddlebags, i’ll go with you.”

geralt hums, and they walk past the people at the tavern. they reach the half-lit stables at the back, where roach chews on some straw in her stall.

“hey, sweetheart,” jaskier greets, stroking her snout. geralt starts brushing her down, and jaskier looks into her saddlebags for his forgotten quill. a long time ago, geralt had given up on trying to split their belongings into different bags, realizing the your side, my side logic meant nothing to jaskier.

after all, they shared everything. coin, wine, food. beds, sometimes, waking up with their legs entwined, jaskier’s head on geralt’s shoulder, embraced in what they both tried to pass off as the natural seeking of warmth on cold nights, nothing else.

jaskier leans against a pillar, watching geralt take care of his horse. they’d been traveling together for so long, yet it still amazes jaskier to see geralt move around roach. how his gaze softens, and a small smile stretches across his lips, only for roach to see. how he murmurs sweet nothings, rubbing that spot on her jaw he knows she likes.

“okay,” geralt says, “go to sleep, now. we’re leaving at dawn.”

roach bumps her head against geralt’s chest, lovingly, and he gives her a smile.

“goodnight, darling,” jaskier says, sneaking a sugar cube into her mouth. “i’ll see you tomorrow.”

when he turns back, geralt’s looking at them with a fond expression, a small smile on his lips. he moves toward jaskier, his eyes soft.

“you’re spoiling her”, he says, amused. this close, jaskier can see geralt’s got a little bit of mud on his chin, and he wants to wipe it off.

“she’s a good horse,” jaskier tells him, feeling roach’s eyes on him. “she deserves nice things.”

“hmm.” geralt closes his eyes for a moment, exhaling softly.

jaskier moves forward, licking his thumb, and gently wipes geralt’s chin. he opens his eyes, watching jaskier.

“there,” jaskier whispers, his thumb now stroking geralt’s cheek.

suddenly, he feels roach nudge him forward with her snout, and he stumbles onwards, clutching geralt’s shirt for balance. they’re close, geralt’s breath on jaskier’s cheek, his hands on the bard’s waist.

“she’s a clever horse, too,” geralt says, pressing the tip of his nose against jaskier’s, rubbing softly.

“she is,” jaskier murmurs against geralt’s lips.

roach nickers softly in agreement.

#mywriting #geraskier #geraskier fanfic #roach deserves soft things

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penfullofwordsaheadfullofstories · 5 years ago

Text

No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen

A/N: I really have nothing to say for myself at this point.

Sequel chapter to this fic here, if you’d like to catch up.

Thank you to @caffeine-in-an-iv for being my incredible beta and to @maybege for letting me rant to you and giving me so many wonderful ideas when I hit my walls. Also to the Obi-Wan fandom in general: Y’all are some of the kindest, most supportive people I’ve ever encountered on this hell site. Thank you for your support and your content!

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Force Sensitive! Fem! Reader (no Y/N)

Word Count: 11.9K (I lost all control)

Warnings: SMUT!!! Soft Dom! Obi rights, Also, Sub! Obi vibes, Foodplay (but not how you’d think), Inappropriate use of the Force, Voice Kink, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Hands Appreciation Society, As Usual: Too Many Feelings For Porn, Emotional Competence Kink, Trust Kink, TW: Pregnancy, TW: A character draws blood on themself unknowingly

Title from one of my favorite quotes:

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

-D.H. Lawrence

What infinite irreverence the galaxy has for Obi-Wan Kenobi.

As if his master and only semblance of a parent wasn’t taken from him when he needed him most.

As if a boy who needed a father wasn’t entrusted to Obi-Wan quickly following, far too young and full of his own loss.

As if he wasn’t thrust onto the pedestal of parenthood when he really only wanted to be a brother.

As if that isn’t what they became anyway, and as if that wasn’t the exact cloud that hung over the atmosphere of your lives ever since you’d arrived on Tatooine.

As if the being whose life signature resided in your abdomen didn’t throw a punch into each of those blooming bruises by its very existence.

Which is why, you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you couldn’t tell him yet.

Normally, it’d be no small feat to keep something of this scale from him. But these days, he’s so focused on having his shields up around you, keeping you from both being hurt by or helping with his torments.

You have to take great care to control your body language, because even when he’s shut off from you in the Force, his keen perceptiveness will pick up on something being off anyway.

The art of a convincing lie is having layers. If he senses your feelings and decides to dig, then only give up one layer, and he’ll stop looking.

In this case, it’s your worry over him. It is true you’re trying to shield him from feeling that, not wanting him to carry the burden of it on top of having to work through his own pain.

But it’s not everything you’re trying to hide from him. So you let a small projection of your fear over his well-being escape, like you’re losing control of your feelings. It’s enough to convince him, and something critical inside you dies at the victory every time.

He deserves your honesty, and you’ve never given him anything less until now.

You hate how well your strategic deceit takes root. Because only part is due to your talent as a liar. The rest comes from how much he trusts you.

You’re not stupid, though. You know it’s only a matter of time before the biological changes in your body betray you.

Obi-Wan said he needed time, and you’re going to give him as long as you possibly can before dropping this anvil on him, hoping the further he gets from it all, the better off he’ll be.

You could kick yourself for not being more careful. You hadn’t missed any dose of your herbal Ho’Din contraceptive. It was one of the few things you shoved in your bag with the mere minutes you had to leave Coruscant for good. It was from a reliable medicinal shop, and there’s no good reason it should have failed in any way.

But here you were anyway.

Of course, there are options that free you from the obligation of carrying the child to term. All are expensive, and Tatooine is sorely lacking in any trustworthy medical facilities. The alternative methods could put your own life in danger as well.

Even if it wasn’t, you’d feel so strange making that kind of decision without Obi-Wan. Not that he wouldn’t support whatever decision you needed to make for yourself if you did, but going behind his back is something you’re not sure his trust could recover from.

And really, far too much has been decided for him in his life.

The worst reason why you can’t bring yourself to move towards any solution that ends the pregnancy now, the reason you abhor, is because somewhere within you, despite the awfulness of the time and place, you want this baby.

You couldn’t give a definitive explanation for yourself, but you did. Undoubtedly

Obi-Wan doesn’t press when you ask to cease your combat training for a time, asking to start learning the new offerings of the Jedi texts instead.

He’s concerned when you tell him, but if he’s suspicious as for your reasoning, he doesn’t show it outwardly, at least.

The way he doesn’t even ask about why, though: It makes you wonder if he had a reason all of his own why he’d rather not fight, even in imitation.

The Jedi writings given to Obi-Wan by Master Yoda are often more cryptic and mystifying than logically applicable without deciphering, which you are at first annoyed by, but then strangely thankful for, as Obi-Wan verbally processes his understandings of it, knowing what he does of the Jedi way, and you adding your thoughts from the stance of fresh eyes.

The conversations distract wonderfully, and you savor any way you still get to connect with him.

You don’t push for the ways he doesn’t allow you to connect with him anymore. The way he won’t let you in his mind. Because now, you too have a reason to not let him in yours.

*******

When it’s time to go into town for supplies again, you make up some feeble excuse which you know Obi-Wan sees through as a lie, and this time, he does pry, eyes soft and concerned. He knows you love going to the markets. You simply explain that you’re tired, which is true enough to satisfy him, leaving you behind with a kiss on your forehead before you watch him saddle up your eopie and ride off.

You sigh, sagging against the closed door once he’s disappeared into the horizon. You do love the markets. They’re the most colorful thing the planet has to offer, textiles and rugs and shiny, hanging things.

But the spices. Fragrant and potent, usually so appetizing and intoxicating, you know would turn your stomach alone. And that doesn’t even account for the strange meats being cooked at different vendors, and Maker help you if anyone was selling raw meat of any sort today. You’ve done your best to keep your nausea at bay, at times even tapping into the Force for centering when the world felt like it was rocking. But you know the market would be too much, too many variables.

It’s not a fast journey, even on the eopie, and you don’t expect Obi-Wan to be back for hours. Which is why when you hear a knock on your door, the tool in your hand clatters to the floor, as does the remnants of your project.

You quickly grab one of the long staffs you and Obi-Wan had only begun to use in your defense training, trying to recall the lessons as adrenaline begins to rush through your veins. Tatooine isn’t known for its pleasant company, and if anyone was going to try to rob your home, now would be as good a time as any.

The knock sounds again, and you shout from the inside, “What do you want?!”

“A peace treaty in the form of baked goods,” comes the feminine voice, one you recognize.

Opening the door, you lower the weapon in your hand as Beru Lars blinks at you.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were…” You step aside, gesturing for her to come in.

She waves a hand, dismissive. “I understand.”

You lead her over to the small living area as you fix two glasses of water from the kitchen.

When you set them down on the table, Beru speaks. “I apologize for the intrusion, if there was another way of contacting you before coming here…”

“It’s absolutely fine, I’m glad to have you.” You smile in what you hope is an assuring way. “Although, I’m surprised at it just being you. Where’s Owen?”

Her eyes flick to the stone floor. “He um… doesn’t exactly know I’m here. He’s out on a business deal today.”

You feel your eyebrows go up at that, waiting for her to continue. But instead, she changes the subject. “Where’s Ben?”

“In town. We needed some things from the market.”

Awkwardness settles in as a conversation topic evades you.

She breaks the beat of quiet. “Here, I brought these for you.”

You take the basket in her hands from her, peeling back the thick woven cloth to reveal a simple form of bread. It looks so appetizing your stomach clenches, and you instantly realize you haven’t had anything since breakfast.

But then the smell hits you, hard and powerful, and stars, it’s just bread, there’s nothing that should do that about bread, but you’re on your feet in a minute, forsaking the basket on the ground as you bolt to the fresher, barely making it in time to the sonic sink before you start heaving.

In a moment, you feel soft hands at the nape of your neck, gently holding back the fabric of your shirt and blowing cool air as you continue to wretch.

By the time everything has settled again, you’ve dealt with the aftertaste in your mouth, and splashed on your face with a precious cup of cool water, hot shame rises in your cheeks at how this must seem to Beru.

You wipe at your face with a rag, half muffling your words when you address her. “I’m so sorry, I’m sure they’re absolutely delicious, It really has nothing to do…”

“How far along are you?”

Your spine straightens instantly, and you let the cloth drop to the floor.

“I… what?”

Now she’s the one to flush. “My apologies, it’s just that it’s known for being a very gentle bread, it’s one my mother used to feed me when my stomach ached. If that smell turned you... I just assumed, and I shouldn’t have.”

Your lips purse as you consider your options. It’d be easy to say nothing, or just to nod.

“Two months,” you hear your own voice answer despite yourself. You’ve never been one for easy anyway.

A surge of emotion wells up in you at even being able to speak it aloud, aloud to another human, and next thing you know, to your absolute horror, you’re crying into your hands as your shoulders crumple in on themselves.

Why now, of all times? In front of Beru Lars? Whom you know accepted Luke with her husband without question because they couldn’t biologically have any children of their own?

“I’m… so… sorry,” You manage to choke out through the sobs, disgusted at your own lack of control.

At some point Beru must join you on the floor, patting her hand soothingly on your back. “Shhh, it’ll be alright. You’ll see. It’s not so bad having a young one around, you and Ben have so much to look forw…”

“He doesn’t know.”

Her hand pausing briefly on your back is the only indication she gives of shock.

“Would he not be happy?”

You take a steadying breath in, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t know,” you whisper, small and almost frightened to let the room hear you say it.

It falls silent again, but it echoes around in your brain, bouncing against your thoughts until you feel the onset of a headache.

After you’re to a numb enough state to enjoy yourself, you and Beru make tea and bring it back to the living area.

She lifts her glass to yours, clinking them. “To secrets kept from men and the mischievous company they bring.”

Your head now throbs with pain, but you smile anyway. “Thank you,” you say to her, and you mean it so very much.

********

The next time Obi-Wan goes into town, you’re feeling well enough to go with him.

You’re not visiting the food portion of the market, after all, so you’re not as much of a risk to set your stomach off. He’s taken to fixing small machinery for trading with the Jawas recently, the extra income helping with the projects around the house.

There’s a trap door that you found within the first day of being there. The staircase carved out of the bedrock beneath the hut leads to a small room that has now served as additional storage and a place for Obi-Wan to work. It’s also quite cool during the day, so if you can stand the smell of the various meats hung to dry, you’ll sit down there with some sort of project, or even reading material if you come upon it.

So today, he’s looking for a few specific tools that will streamline his working.

It doesn’t take long to find a promising stall among the maze of shopkeepers, selling everything from trinkets to weaponry of questionable legality. Obi-Wan finds what he needs easily enough, and it looks like the trip is going to be as efficient as it is successful as you walk through alleyways with him.

At some point, he takes your hand in his, squeezing it gently, projecting an assuring strand of affection toward you. It’s such a small gesture, but you’ll never tire of the feeling of his hand clasped in yours.

You’re almost back to where the eopie, Rooh, as he named her, is stabled when Obi-Wan abruptly slows his pace, dropping into a stall. An alarm goes off in your head when you watch him pick up a frivolous trinket on a table that you know he has no interest in.

You open your mouth to inquire at his actions, but it answers itself once you see him glance out of his peripheral vision to where the holonews plays in the stall adjacent.

Battle footage on what you recognized to be Kashyyk at the presence of the many Wookies plays with the Emperor addressing the viewers in a very two-dimensional, sugar-coated, thinly-concealed threat to any other world that would try to resist occupation.

There’s wreckage and uncensored violence, and you turn your head away.

“May it be known that Lord Vader is quite capable and willing to help those into compliance that require assistance... “

The item in his hands crushes, ceramic tile cracking into his hands, breaking the skin and drawing out drips of red.

But he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even seem to register the glass he’s pushing into his own hand. His eyes are wide and he makes a wounded noise from the back of his throat, eyes peeled to the holonews now, not even trying to feign disinterest.

His signature sparks, giving a flash and then a severe cry of anguish, and it hits you then. Pieces of information coming together as you feel Obi-Wan tear apart at seams.

Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side, and Obi-Wan thought him dead. There’s a new Sith Lord now; the correlation and timing can’t be coincidence.

The Toydarian male behind the stall shouts something about paying for it in full, and you quickly hand over the credits with a glare.

You start to pull Obi-Wan’s other hand off the table, but you quickly realize your mistake in that.

The moment it isn’t holding his weight anymore, his knees start to give, and you’ve only a second to react, jamming your body under his arm to keep him upright. His momentum nearly pulls you forward, but you plant your feet and remember at the last second to call on the Force to assist you.

He seems to come to himself enough to walk somewhat as you steer him to the nearest alley away from the vendors.

He braces a hand on the stone wall, but even it isn’t enough as he drops to his knees. He doesn’t even seem to have the will to stand.

Crouching beside him, you place one of your hands on his chest.

“I…. I…” The tremor in his usually so crisp wording and steady voice crushes your chest, making it hard to breathe. “I failed him. I failed him.”

“Obi-Wan,” you start, trying to grasp at anything, everything to comfort him, not even thinking of how you can’t call him that here, even if there’s no one in sight.

If he registers your call, he doesn’t let on, continuing in his whispers to the wall. “He was burning. Burning, but I couldn’t do it. It would have been mercy to kill him, it was my mandate to do it, but I could not...” his voice gives out on the last word, and his shoulders fall forward in a shuddering inhale that transforms into a cut-short sob on its exhale.

“And now…” as the words pour from him, his shields fall, and so do the floodgates on his emotions, and it takes all the training you know to not be washed away in the torrential current of his grief. Does he even know he’s doing it, or has the insurmountable weight of his burden finally overridden his innate control over them?

“I’ve sentenced him to a fate worse than death.” He’s only barely choked out the end of his thought before his shoulders start to shake in earnest and he crumples in on himself as he begins to weep for his brother.

Giving no heed to the odd angle, you throw your arms around him. Trying to get your arms around his body is exactly the embodiment of the feeling of the moment, this anguish you don’t even begin to be enough to cover.

What could you say? What could you do? What would even begin to…

When you press your fingers to his temple, it’s light, a show of how unforced this is, how much he can say no if he needs. Because this isn’t for you. No, it’d be so much easier to not know the exact depth of his pain and rip your chest open with that knowledge. But you’re offering it, meaning it absolutely, desperate for him to take the hand offered to him. “Please let me in. Don’t do this alone. Let me…”

Then he’s pulling you in, not just letting you come in yourself, clinging to you like a person drowning. You remember to steady, to try to keep your own head above the water as wave after surging, overpowering wave of soul-crippling agony like you’ve never felt it engulf you in their surge.

You can’t hold out against it no matter how hard you try, so you refocus from centering yourself to pulling his signature into yours as you wrap your arms tighter around his torso.

And you begin to weep with him.

*********

The suns are drifting low by the time both of you have any intelligible thought, far too late to start the journey back to the hut.

At the inn, as Obi-Wan falls into the beginnings of a restless sleep, a thought emerges, clear and crisp in its awful truth.

You cannot tell him for a long while still.

*******

It’s different now. Because when he wakes in the night, he doesn’t give you falsehoods you see right through. He lets you into the terror and distortional dreams that all reside over one theme.

There’s silence in the first days after. Just silent tears and still embraces and the way time seems to freeze when grief is at its worst.

But then he starts talking. It comes in little pieces, then in larger ones.

The loudest thing his signature screams is guilt.

You tell him how it isn’t his fault, how Anakin is responsible for his own choices, but he just gives you a new reason every time as to why it is his fault, how he could have stopped it.

Because even in what he considers his worst failure, his verbiage is indicative of how it’s not his own image and pride hurting that he’s even considered. All of his thoughts, all of them, are on what Anakin needed that he didn’t give.

At first, it’s just impressions from his mind, unsorted, blurry thoughts and feelings, but it eventually begins to become words.

“After his mother died… I know that he blamed me. How couldn’t he? He told me of his dreams, dreams he knew were foresights, but I dismissed them, multiple times, at that. And the council… advised me against comforting him, but he… I… I did anyway.” His shoulders are forward, body sagging with unsureness that doesn’t fit him right in the slightest. “But it was far too late. I know there was something pivotal about the death of his mother, and I am...” he hesitates, seemingly not because he doesn’t know what to speak, but because he does. “Terrified. Terrified it’s all because I didn’t validate him sooner. If I had not...” His voice breaks off, as he shuts his eyes.

Fear is not something admired by the Jedi, you know. When he speaks of his own emotions, he speaks them like he’s confessing them.

And as he confesses and confesses, you comfort where you can, cry with him when you cannot.

*****

The swells of sorrow ebb and flow in their intense bursts and receding stillness, and despite the moments of not being able to breathe under the weight of it, there are miniscule, almost violating, hysterical intervals where smiles and life spring to the surface, gasping for air.

Or in this case, the inexplicable desire to dance.

You don’t even really know when you start, simply going about cleaning clothing in the sonic washer, and the next, some ridiculous, repetitive tune sweeps you to move your hips and feet, uncoordinated and graceless. The tune itself played from a datachip, scrapped with some pieces Obi-Wan was repurposing to make repairs. You’re not even familiar with the type of music, and it’s hardly the type of music you’d normally choose, but you find that today, it’s an improvement on the quiet that falls upon the house as Obi-Wan works outdoors.

The song swings into a bridge, and you slide across the stone floor, imitating something you saw in a music holo years ago, as you do, your foot catches on the rug you recently added, sending you fumbling for your footing. You eventually catch it before you fall, but as you look up, you decide to lower yourself to the ground anyway at the sight of Obi-Wan, leaning up against the door frame, watching you with an amused expression, the fingers of one hand tracing between his lips and chin.

You sit splayed as tactless and gangly as you danced and let out a short, startled laugh.

“Please, don’t stop on my account. I was quite enjoying myself.”

Maker, could you just hide under the rug you tripped over? “Please tell me you haven’t been standing there long.”

He pushes off his lean on the wall, crossing the room to you. “I won’t tell you lies, my love.”

Shame twists in your gut at his words, chasing the laughter in your throat away. But Obi-Wan extends a hand down, and you take it, letting him draw you to your feet.

He kisses the back of your hand before taking it in his, extending the clasp out to the side of your bodies as his other hand rests hot on the small of your waist.

“But I will join you, if you don’t mind a style change.”

“I don’t know how to dance like this,” you say, factually.

“Then allow me to teach you.” When you look in his eyes, they’re lined with the etches of heartache still, but there’s something else too, brimming to the surface.

“What, to this music?” You give your last, unconvincing protest.

He simply drops his forehead to yours, and the small sounds of the room fade to white as a sweet, moving melody replaces it. It’s not perfectly clear, and it takes a moment to realize that it’s because it’s coming from Obi-Wan’s memory.

The music has a distant, foggy quality, and it has potential to be eerie, but instead, it just lifts you into an ethereal feeling.

He steps, and your feet follow, not as graceful, but he makes it easy for you, the steps hinted out in his thoughts before taking them in actuality.

When you start to feel confident enough in the movements, you look up at him. “Does this mean I can teach you my dances next?”

He laughs, laughs, unabashed and with no emotion harbored under it, and some torn piece of your heart mends at the sound.

“Certainly not.”

You laugh too, even at the thought of him trying. The laugher rolls into a smooth quiet, and you let yourself bask in the feel of his body against yours, the press of his hand on your back as you rest your cheek against him.

Obi-Wan cradles you to him, forsaking the pattern of the dance as he encompasses you in his arms, lowering his lips to your cheek, then your mouth in a blazing kiss.

He takes your hand in his, lifting it above your head. Then you’re guided into a spin, and the room spins double with it as you abandon all endeavors of trying to get the dance correct. Your hand drops protectively to your belly before you can even think better of it, and by the time you know you’re not going to throw up, it’s too late. You already feel Obi-Wan’s unmistakable concern right before he asks, “What’s wrong?” extending an arm out toward you.

His complexion is ashen with worry, and when you don’t respond, you feel him start to reach out to your mind; a spike of panic zaps down your spine, and you’re suddenly not sure you’re not going to throw up after all.

Your shields crash down, not enough time for subtlety, and he retracts both his hand and inquiring tendril of energy as hurt and confusion shape his features.

You can’t do this. You can’t keep up this facade or cover this moment with a lie you know he’ll see through. But you can’t tell him either. After all the weight he’s carrying, the weight of the being that grows in you should be yours alone. You can’t thrust that upon him.

But it’s a delusion that you can keep this from him forever. You’re going to hurt him one way or another, and the weight of your silence and lies multiply every day you insulate him from the truth.

You take in a shuddering breath as dread settles into your bones. You know what you have to do.

Even as you slowly lower your shields, opening your signature, your mind screams at you in opposite directions, ripping you in half, and your hand shoots out to the nearest wall to stabilize yourself. How could you be so sadistic to tell him this? How could you not tell him? After all the trust you have in each other?

But he doesn’t take the invitation. “I will not touch your mind if you are still unsure you want me to,” he says softly but resolutely as he approaches you, but stays an unthreatening distance away, as if approaching a frightened animal.

No, no, no. You won’t have him being the one to sturdy you through this. You need to be strong, be ready, don’t force him to coddle you through the blast to his own chest.

So you dial down your own emotions and switch your absorption to amplifying the still tiny, barely recognizable life you’ve been carefully censoring ever since you heard it yourself.

You want to close your eyes, blockade the pain of both how it impacts him and how it will impact you, but that’s not how you two do things.

Summoning every iota of bravery and resolve running in your veins, you force yourself to look up at him as you watch understanding coat him.

His eyes go wide, and his hands clench and flex at his sides in an erratic, nervous pattern.

You can’t keep your signature open to his mind’s reaction, you just can’t. He’s seen enough, and you can put your shields up again. His face is enough to confront all on its own.

Obi-Wan steps toward you, slowly, dazed in a completely uncharacteristic way. With the way he seems to ever be prepared for the blows life throws at him, you hate how you have to be the harbinger for the second one that’s knocked him off his feet.

When he stops in front of you, he places his hands on either of your shoulders and looks into your eyes, searching for confirmation, and you nod, trying to not let fear seep into your expression.

One of his hands covers his mouth as he takes it in.

And then he’s sinking in front of you, off of his feet indeed, and onto his knees. You want to follow, ready to hold him through the heartache sure to follow, at the second child he didn’t ask for while he still grieves the loss of the first.

But his hands instead take purchase on your stomach, tightening the fabric of your tunic around the barely-visible bump before bunching it up and lifting, just enough so he can tilt his forehead against the skin there.

You can feel him reaching out, not taking him long at all to find what he’s searching for, and curiosity beats self-preservation at the last moment, prompting you to open your mind again, just for you to be able to catch elation coursing through Obi-Wan.

You don’t even bother trying to stifle your confusion as he looks up at you with glassy eyes.

Sinking to your knees to meet him, you take his face in your hands, trying to make sense of it all as he takes your hand in his. “I never... “ when his voice comes out unsteady, he clears his throat and tries again. “I never thought I’d have... That we could… didn’t occur to me that now...stars above, how long have you known?”

You don’t recall when you start crying, but tears are falling freely down your cheeks as you shake your head. “I’m so sorry. I… I would never want to keep something like this from you, Obi-Wan, but I couldn’t tell you, not with everything, not with all you already have…and i’m so sorry.”

“Oh, heavens, no. You should not have to do this alone. Please don’t keep things from me, even if you think it to be for my sake. We can…”

You fix him with a pointed, unamused stare. He exhales as he must notice his hypocrisy.

“Your point is well-put and taken, but the sentiment still stands. We’ll not keep secrets from each other anymore. Do we have an accord?”

Despite it all, you smile at his overly-formal phrasing, something you’d normally have a quip about if it weren’t for the concern still nagging at you.

“Are you not angry then? Or disappointed?” you watch him carefully, praying to any deity listening that he doesn’t concoct some half truth to placate you. His first instinct is always to protect, but you’d never want it at expense of his authenticity.

Bafflement marks his brow at first, then he takes your face in his hands. “Darling, no.” He says your name, gathering every bit of your attention. “I dreamt of you. During the war, when I was away. I did not sleep well, even then, but when I did, I’d sometimes dream of you, holding a child that I knew to be ours. When I woke, I would remember it so vividly, so painfully, because I never thought that was an attainable future for us.”

But that doesn’t need to matter if you… do you want this child?” His eyes are so full of hope, and it was the last thing you expected, but here he is laying it down on the altar of your preference, and maker, are you glad those two things aren’t opposing each other.

Because his hope and yours are one in the same, and once he knows it too, at your whispering, choked, “yes,” he’s clutching you in his arms.

And for the second time in a month, you’re both huddled on the ground in tears. The first, bowing under the mass of catastrophe. Now, at the glowing relief of the sprouting of a dream sown in tears, too tender before to even say aloud.

But now? You’re saying it, back and forth, from him to you as your walls fall, permitting him into your mind as he welcomes you into his, and finally you take true comfort once again in the home you’ve built in each other.

*******

The night after, you lie side by side, hand in hand, on a blanket splayed not far from the hut. The suns have sunken, but the pinks and oranges of their palette still paint the sky where it hasn’t yet turned to midnight cobalt. The light of the lantern gives off a similar hue, dousing everything in your reach in soft, warm hues.

It has taken Obi-Wan some convincing, being so out in the open with everything he had to worry about wasn’t his first choice, but you compromised for a small alcove in the rock formations which surrounded you on two sides. More easily defensible. Not that he needed it, but if he was cautious before, it was borderline unbearable now. With the added danger of the Empire knowing without doubt that he lived. With more than ever to lose.

So, he was in charge of safety, you were in charge of snacks. And if they so happened to be almost entirely comprised of those melons you couldn’t quite get enough of lately? That was no one’s business except yours. You brought a few things you knew Obi-Wan liked too, of course.

What little remains of the miscellaneous spread you push to the edge of the blanket so you can both lie down.

“I dare say it’s almost pleasant out tonight.”

You turn your head to him, a snort ready at him discussing the weather of all things, but it instead forms a cloud in your throat at the sight of him.

His eyes are closed, hair rustling in the slight evening breeze, a tranquil ease over his profile.

The small patches of grey in the part of his beard next to his ears catch the first glints of moonlight in a way the rest of his hair doesn’t, giving them away.

The mellisonant lowness of his voice brings you back to yourself, cheeks heating.

“I can feel you staring, little one.” He opens his eyes, leisurely rolling to his side. “Some say it’s quite impolite.” Slanting over you, he lifts a brow, daring your response.

“And is that a problem?” You look up at him through your eyelashes, feigning innocence.

Obi-Wan’s gaze follows back up to the stars, as he plays right along, pretending to have to think on it. “I suppose it depends.”

“On?”

“On whether or not you allow me to return the impropriety,” he responds with a coy smile, moving back to you, so close now you can feel his exhales on your cheek.

Warmth blooms through you as you answer back, “You can always look, Obi-Wan.” You lift yourself to close the short distance between your face and his, pressing your lips together, which he deepens right away. Using the hand not supporting half his body off of you still, he fans out his fingers across your belly, towing the line between caressing gently and clutching protectively.

You pull your lips back from his as an uninvited slither of insecurity slips into your chest.

He senses it, of course, so you speak before he even needs to ask. “Are you really, truly, certain this is what you want? Now? I don’t want you to just say so because…and we could wait, we have...”

“I am,” he says, adamantly, before you even have a chance to finish. His eyes flash to the side. “I…” He rolls back onto his back, looking straight up as he talks seemingly half to you, half to himself. “There is not much I know for certain these days. Some days… I scarcely can remember who I am anymore.”

He turns his eyes back to you, unwavering. “There are seldom few things I haven’t questioned of late, and my love for you isn’t one of them. And from the moment I’ve known, from the very first instant you let me feel the life within you, my love for them hasn’t been one either.”

Your thoughts split into two, one wanting to lean into it, to take him for his word that’s always true, and the other cautioning you, telling you to keep distant and watch for the surface level honesty he gives that hides the brutal one he safeguards you from.

But you’re not hiding anymore, feelings unconcealed in your energy and on your face, so he leans back into you, grasping your arm in his hand, squaring your shoulders to him. You cringe at yourself when you know he’s heard the impression of you questioning. It’s redundant, but self-doubt always is. “Know, please know, my darling.” Taking your hand in his, he brings it up to his temple with an insistence that you have no desire to counter.

And it’s there. Right there and sparking in its clarity, right at the threshold of his mind as you enter it. How much he means his words, no holds barred, no cleverly crafted glazes to an unly underbelly of reality. His reality was this, how severely he craves starting a family with you. How much he already loves the being within you, how he looks forward to the day he gets to hold them in his arms.

The fear is there too, quiet, but not kept from you. The fear of failing as a father, unsure of assuming any role that resembled a mentor again, all-too-familiar with the ghost that will float over him in every lesson he teaches.

What shocks you there is his faith in you. In how much he’s already learned from you about the impact of open affection, in how you don’t let your feelings lead you, but you let them breathe, not suffocate them. It’s part of how he even can acknowledge his fears to himself and to you without berating himself under the too-simple phrase “fear leads to the dark side.” There’s truth in it, but also inaccuracy.

Because he’s afraid, and yet, there is so much light in the acknowledging of it to himself, and in that very act, it loses much of any power it could have had over him. Oh, how deeply he wishes he could have articulated that understanding to Anakin.

The pain is fresh, but so is his anticipation for the future, swirling together in a potent drink, and his throat bobs with the effort to swallow them down simultaneously.

He knows you’ll help ground him through it, he trusts you, even in his uncertainty in himself.

It breaks your heart but also warms it: the knowledge that he lets you into that place where he keeps the questions of himself, the place only you and the man who’s caused most of this doubt have been permitted.

With a thankful short farewell, you part from his mind as you know exactly what you want to do.

The remains of your snacks still rest on the edge of the blanket, including the shells of the deep purple-pigmented melons. The one draw-back to their delightful taste was how badly they stained your fingers. You had to break them into tiny pieces, plopping them into your mouth without allowing them to touch your lips unless you wanted your mouth to stain too.

But right now? The staining quality was just what you needed.

Although first you needed a blank canvas.

“May I take your tunics off?” you ask, sitting up.

Despite a short twitch of confusion and then interest, Obi-Wan follows, raising himself up into a kneel, slightly lifting his arms in compliance.

The paleness of his skin catches all the light of the lantern, highlighting your view as you slowly slide the fabric up and off, gliding your hands up the line of hair dipping below his navel as it becomes more exposed. It grants you a quiet, steep intake of breath from him and you suddenly give halt momentarily, distracted by the alluring appetite you’ve created.

No, you won’t give in. Not yet. He needs to know this.

You take one of the broken pieces of melon rind in your hand, where little tart bits of the fruit still cling, dribbling pigment, but before your finger makes contact with the taut skin of his chest, you pull back at the realization you might have bitten off more than you can chew.

How do you even begin to describe him? Obi-Wan is so many things at once, so many attributes, and every descriptor that comes to mind falls blatantly short of him.

Then you recall Obi-Wan going through the motions of Alchaka, watching his body fight to maintain the poses at times. Being such a personal practice, you felt honored that he let you see him go through the exercises, and even more honored that he opened up to you about the purpose behind it later. It was an exercise of both physicality and Force use, and the goal was absolute exhaustion. That was the destination. Trying, knowing from the start that he’ll fall short in the end, but doing it all the same. Because there’s so, so much to be said for the trying.

So you do. You bring the messy fingertip to his clavicle, smearing the first word you know to absolutely be true of him, as if starting the premise with a whisper of I know you’re even more than the sum all of these singular praises.

The word “complex” appears in your penmanship on his skin as you drag it to life. You look up to his eyes, and his curiosity is clear there, but also so is the tenderness that is elemental to any time he looks at you. And just like that, you have your next word.

Kind.

And at the way he flushes so lovely for you at that?

Beautiful.

You feel his protest before you see it, the objection in his signature, and you know you’re going to have to switch methods.

Just then, a droplet from where you’ve written the last word on his pectoral falls, down, down, threatening toward the hem of his trousers, but you’re fast, dropping your mouth down and catching it all on your tongue before it can stain the bleached beige of his remaining clothing.

When his stubborn revolt at the affirmation quiets in his mind in exchange for a flash of searing lust, you know exactly how you’re going to continue.

Because Obi-Wan Kenobi, general, warrior, negotiator, Jedi Master, legend, has rarely ever been affirmed as such, and he squirms under the thick blanket of his humility and deprivation anytime someone endeavors.

So you need his mind to be preoccupied enough, guards down low enough, so he can even hear the message get through.

When you place your hands over his waistband, locking eyes in inquiry, stopping when he hesitates, scanning the area around you, vigilant as always. Overly so now.

“We’re alone. And wouldn’t you be able to sense it if we weren’t?”

He looks down at you as he answers. “If I stay mindful enough to do so, yes.”

Good, he’ll be even less prone to fight you if he has some of his mind sensing outward.

You look back up at him with the facial equivalent of asking “well?” to which Obi-Wan sighs in response. “Very well then.”

With your familiarity with ridding him of clothing, it only takes moments before you can finally taste him where you want to, where he’s already hard and swollen for you.

You know you won’t be able to take him as much as you want, a recently-developed overactive gag reflex preventing you. But it just so happens to be convenient tonight, as the resulting taunt should have him right where you want him.

A gentle kiss, right to the head of his cock is all the warning you give him before taking the whole tip in your mouth, swirling your tongue around him, pulling a choked hum deep from his throat.

Oh, oh, Maker, have you done a grand miscalculation, because you forgot an entire factor in this equation: the way you have been borderline hysterical in hunger for him.

You’ve kept so much from him, and part of how you’ve even managed is starting to convince yourself of less than fact. Facts like how many times you’ve had to change underthings recently, physical evidence of desire unwilling to comply to your head’s demands. Facts like how you’ve literally had to bite your finger to keep the feelings at bay.

You’d expected changes in your body even before your belly grew, but this was one you hadn’t anticipated. In some ways, it wasn’t that different than usual. You never knew you could want someone with the breadth that you want Obi-Wan.

But this? Of late? It feels like it’s been amplified tenfold.

You’re not keeping any cards close to your chest anymore, but you do have to ignore your own body’s screaming cries as you complete this.

He needs to know.

Nerves still serenading his brain with feedback, you re-wet your finger with the purple juice and write the next words across his abdomen.

Wise.

Perceptive.

He’s caught on to your scheme by now, cued by the all-too appropriate addition of the last word, and he lets you know it, an impression projected, speechless but still unobstructed. He’s still powerless against it. Or rather, letting himself be powerless. Trusting you with the control he has left, trusting you in his vulnerable places. The places where he’s weak.

Strong.

The word spread over his right upper arm, where he’s obviously just that. But may the tint of the word bleed through his skin, may it run through his veins, because that’s how deep and deeper still that his strength runs. It’s in the way he doesn’t flaunt it. It’s in the way he chooses to wield it.

Gentle.

He closes his eyes, flinching at the onslaught of acclamation, and you dip your head down again, wrapping your lips around his cock, letting him slide to where you can take him comfortably, just starting to build a pace as his hips squirm in harmony with his suddenly erratic breaths. Oh, how you’d love to let him deeper, allow his cock past your lips beyond the teasing amount you can take now, but the little writhes his body gives in protest are enough to almost make you okay with how your mouth won’t agree with your ambitions. He says your name, groaned out in bliss as he cups a hand on your cheek.

His barriers are down, so it’s easy to hear when his deprecating thoughts quiet again, and you switch back to coloring him again.

You know the moment you look up at him that it’s a mistake, because he’s flushed, so torn, suspended in the limbo of your give and withdrawal, mouth ever so slightly open, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.

You’re only human, so before you draw anything else, you bring your lips to his, which is yet another mistake, because among the many things Obi-Wan is, he is a deep kisser, and as his tongue delves into your mouth, your will power takes a devastating blow.

You pull back, reeling at the reminder of how easily he can take back control, knowing you have to complete this before you let him.

Stars, how you want to let him.

For now, you need that control back, so you take him into your mouth again, filthily wet and not nearly long enough as you quickly pull back, watching in satisfaction as he heaves forward at the loss, correcting himself quickly back into straight posture.

With a smirk, you drag your slippery, pigmented finger across his lower stomach.

Disciplined.

There’s so many more words, so much more he needs to know, and if you covered every inch of his skin in the smallest writing it still wouldn’t be sufficient of all that he is.

Or you could whisper it all through the Force, embed it all in his mind.

But because you’ve been there, know his mind inside and out, you know every time he sees his own skin, all he sees is the red of blood on his hands. The blood of his brother.

And that’s exactly why you’re going to stain it in your own colors. Take back territory and push back the front lines that the army of guilt has taken over on him.

Your Jedi, ever-adorned in unassuming beige, now drips in the color of royalty.

Charming.

Humble.

Confident.

Steadfast.

You’re only left with enough space for one more word, and you want some sort of conclusion to it all, something to summarize the expanse of the man kneeling in front of you.

Nothing can.

But maybe, just maybe, one word encapsulates what he is to you.

Treasure.

This time you do chant it across his thoughts, prompting him to open his eyes and look at you.

Cerulean blue blinks open, slowly, almost painfully and nearly overflowing with emotion.

Thank you, is all he says, unable or unwilling to say it out loud, much too heartfelt and newly-budded for that.

You know his pain has older roots than those tended to in this moment, but you vow to yourself that you’ll never stop trying.

Lowering your mouth around him once again, you don’t tease him anymore, at least not intentionally, even though you still can’t take more than half of him.

“Look at you, you’re…” he hisses in a breath as you swipe your tongue against that vein on the underside of him. “Stunning. You’re doing so well, little one.”

The taste of him compels you as much as his words, seizes you in spice-like addiction, and how interesting it’s going to be explaining that taste craving to him, among your sudden adoration for those damn melons.

“Darling, I’m…”

You feel it in his energy before he says it, already pulling off, replacing your mouth with your hand, dropping your lips down even lower, mouthing at his balls, and the feedback is instant. An outpouring crest of his pleasure blasting outward as he lets out a depraved moan, netting his hands into your hair.

Your hand is wet and so is where he’s spilled on his still flexing and releasing stomach, clear white maring the lettering halfway through “disciplined.” You’d clean it with your tongue if you weren’t sure how your overly sensitive taste buds would react now.

It’s not the first time you’ve had sex since you’ve known you were pregnant, but it’s the first time since he’s known, and it’s the first time you’re not hiding the symptoms. Before, you carefully shied away from anything that might give you away, and between the preoccupation of everything on his own mind he was trying to keep from you and his respect for your boundaries, he never pressed. He had questions in his eyes, but you knew how to carefully reveal partial vulnerabilities to keep him off your trail.

Your chest flares at the memory.

We’re not hiding now.

It’s your chant, your reminder, your comfort. How nothing of this caliber will be kept between you again.

His eyes confirm it, sincere and exact as they fight to break through their dazed slipping.

Never again. His voice in your head is home, so consoling it can and has put you to sleep before.

Right now, it wakes you up in a different light, dowsing you in heat as Obi-Wan takes your hand in his, wiping it on a piece of his discarded clothing before wiping the spend off himself.

Then he’s taking your face in both his hands tilting you up before kissing you soundly.

I love you, he says across the wire that ties your minds, the wire that keeps growing stronger every day. So, so very much.

You say it back, a fact as simple as breathing. You love him.

You want him, borderline need him the way you need your next inhale, you don’t say, but he must hear it anyway, because that cocky little smirk that’s been gone far too long is back.

“Shall we do something about that?”

You’re about to just lift your shift dress up and off in response, but he halts you, grasping your wrists.

“Allow me.”

He pulls you into another sultry kiss, completely neglecting the task of ridding you of clothing.

Or so you think.

There’s buttons all the way down the dress, and you’ve never used them, always wondering at their purpose if it can so easily lift over your head.

At first, you don’t even know he’s doing it until you start to feel the coolness of the night air on your nipples. Opening your eyes, you pull back from him to watch as seemingly in thin air, your buttons undo themselves.

“You needn’t seduce me further. You already know how much I need you,” you gasp, breathless from the kiss.

Obi-Wan just gives a small smile as he drops a hand, dragging it down your side, then down your thigh. “Hm. So impatient. All this from just pleasuring me?”

Maker, he knows! He knows that you are. You always have been, and it’s not as if you weren’t projecting your feelings too.

When he reaches a hand between your thighs, parting them and making a single, tempting stroke through them, his fingers come back glistening.

“I should think you could feel that I am.” You let the tide of your frustration spill over into your connection to his mind.

You know he had to hear you, but he gives no indication that he did.

“Mm. Desire needn’t always be indicatory of impatience,” he punctuates his statement with a hand at the base of your skull, tipping your head back to expose your neck. “I need you to be patient, little one. Let me savor you.” And with that, his mouth makes contact with your neck at the same time his other hand plays with one of your exposed nipples.

You whimper at the attention, quietly pleading with him for more. Among the still slight changes to your body, this has been the most notable one. How sensitive your breasts have become to even the scrape of the fabric of your clothing.

And with the rough pads of his fingers working only one, leaving the other to pang in want...

“Obi-Wan,” it’s a prayer, a request. He doesn’t need his hands to cause sensation, and you’d beg him right now if he asked.

He lets up on your neck, only barely, lips moving against the now throbbing skin. “Answer me first.”

Clearing your throat, you give the most cogent response you can muster. “Depends on if you’re definition of savor is synonymous with torture.”

He locks eyes with you then, gently grasping a breast in each of his hands, dragging his thumbs over the nipples as you moan out your assent.

His chuckle is far too self-satisfied to be becoming of a Jedi, but you’re already too far gone to call him on it.

“Is that what you want, little one? For me to torture you so?”

An affirmative whimper is all the response you can give, and Obi-Wan reacts quickly, taking your chin in his fingers and tilting your eyes up to his again.

“Then you will be patient for me. Because I’m always happy to stop, and we can begin again when you decide to adhere.”

Your brain short circuits on the spot, and all energy is redirected much, much lower. His voice, stars above, his voice when it takes a commanding tone.

It’s intimate, it’s personal, and yet this game is almost inappropriately playful for how sincere the moment is.

But such was being loved by Obi-Wan. Full of dissimilar feelings that shouldn’t fit, but moved together in liquid consistency. Like metaphors that didn’t rhyme but still somehow gave their own life-giving rhythm, not dissimilar to the sound of his heartbeat when you lay your head against his chest at night.

Making quick work of the remaining buttons of your shift and underwear, he beckons you to join him as he lies back down, large, warm hands guiding you to turn around so you’re facing away from him.

You know that the purple stickiness of the fruit will smear from his body to yours like this, but you can’t at all bring yourself to care.

You gasp a sigh of relief as one of his hands finds your breast, brushing a knuckle over the too-sensitive nipple.

“Please.” Your whispered beg sounds pathetic, even to your own ears. But as you arch against him in a frenzied attempt at skin contact, Obi-Wan juts his hips forward, grunting into the exposed column of your neck, and stars, yeah, maybe he didn’t find that so pathetic after all.

“What do you want, darling?” His voice doesn’t divulge any desperation, and for only the hundredth time do you envy his immaculate self-control.

“You know, don’t pretend you don’t.” Leaving any doubt to the wind, you push your chest against his barely-touching hand.

“Specificity can be a virtue; that I also know.”

You change techniques, driving your hips back softly into where he’s hard and insistent against your ass, hoping it compels him.

Then you simply… can’t anymore. You’re frozen, unable to move your lower half at all.

Tangling your desires into a knot and tucking it away, you find the mindfulness to reply. “Yeah, so is mercy.”

“Indeed it is. I shall concede when you do.”

You won’t win a battle of the wills with him. You’re not sure anyone could.

So you bring his hand over to your nipple. “Touch me here.”

You feel his smile without even seeing it as he starts tweaking the bud. “Like this?”

It’s so much sensation, all concentrated on such responsive flesh, that you want to beg for him to switch to touching you between your legs.

You haven’t even finished the thought when you feel his unmistakable metaphysical brush against your thigh.

Extending a tendril of your own energy, you invite him in, and he takes it eagerly, ever as eager if not more to be entwined with your mind as with your body.

He hears it all, the besottment, the arousal, the neediness. The panic that he might drag this out longer, that you’ll have to go a single minute longer without...

“It’s alright. It’s alright.” He sends soothing waves through your connection, and he swaps the positioning of his hand with the curl of power. He turns his hand so that the back of it runs through where you’re aching for him, gathering up your slick on the backs of his knuckles. You have to contort your neck to see what follows when he takes the hand back behind you, and your mouth goes dry when he sucks the knuckles in between his lips.

You want to hear, you want to know what he’s…

He’s welcoming you in, navigating you to the brink of his mental barriers, letting you take that final plunge into the unsuppressed fullness of your bond to each other.

Now it’s your turn to hear it: how his carefully constructed unaffected persona is not at all a match for his naked, wanton need for you.

And under that, the foundation on which that desire is built, not the product of it, is his love, his unyielding, unashamed, iridescent love for you.

It’s all you can do but to pour it back, affirming and soothing and calling his love into action with your own.

You both don’t want anything else except the most complete of entanglement, and that’s exactly what he moves to do, situating your bodies, hiking your top leg in the crook of his arm as you feel the initial breach of his body into yours, and all breath leaves your lungs in an exhilarating evacuation.

His audible gasp is an echo of his emotions, how he thinks he’s prepared for this onslaught of feeling, but how you take him off guard, how his equilibrium threatens to teeter every time.

The web of his consciousness enveloping you, it’s easy to pick out a single thought blaring within him: How much he adores the way you fit together. Your back against his chest, how your breast fits in his hand, how the snug joining of where his cock presses into your body sends you into trembles, how comforting your very presence is to his soul when he lets you in like this.

Tears, without warning, seep out of your eyes as he starts to move against you, slow and deep. You close your eyes, willing the powerful emotion away, but glimmers of light flash out behind our closed lids the moment you do, and how the kriff does he stay composed?

Anchor. Anchor against me.

He stills, letting you have a break from the barrage of pleasure blinding you as you search him out, looking for the cords of his intellect that seemingly both steam downward and beam upward, grounding him.

You find it, and you clasp on tightly.

But the moment he starts moving again, you lose sight of it all over again.

Your heightened hormones make your flesh so susceptible, and the tears start to fall again. Obi-Wan rolls your nipple in between his thumb and index, and he’s so good, and you’re so full, and you can hear his pleasure as your own, adding, doubling everything…

Scorching, electrifying heat speeds through your veins, hitting hard and fast, leaving you astounded and even more sensitive than before.

Obi-Wan’s signature spikes as your climax resounds through him, and you can feel the vibration of the wanton noises he’s making right where his beard scratches against your neck.

But he doesn’t allow it to overtake him, letting it run through him without resistance, making himself pliable but unmovable, keeping himself back from the edge.

You still have much to learn.

Because that control? Gives him the ability to not even stop, not even hesitate once, even at both yours and his own ecstasy flowing through him.

When he starts striking his hips hard into yours, the weight of him inside you dragging exactly in the right place, you start to cry in earnest. Obi-Wan stops for a millisecond, concern radiating off of him, even when he can hear how much you want this so clearly, has access to every little passing thought.

“Don’t stop, I’m fine, I pro…” He does just as asked while moving his hand down to your belly again, a soothing touch to his rough thrusts. Your eyes are blurred with wetness, overwhelmed with him.

He’s listening to it all, applying every micro-feeling of feedback into action against your desperate, post-orgasmic skin, hand switching back and forth from your nipples to loosely clutching your neck, Force energy focused on applying pressure to your clit.

“You’re doing so well, so good for me,” comes the wisp of his sultry tone, lips pressed against your ear.

Since you aren’t even thinking about changing position, you know it’s his own preference that has him withdrawing, guiding you onto your back.

There’s no inhibition this way, not the way there is when you’re on your side, no separation from your bodies being flush when he pushes into you again. You have to anchor in him, both mentally and with your fingernails clawing at his shoulder blades as your body starts into tremors.

He’s keeping the weight of his chest off of you, even though your belly is still barely swollen into distinguishable roundedness, and as much as you miss the contact, you can look into his eyes like this, can see the unfiltered attachment and all the weight of all the emotion he wills his body to not cave under.

But then the tremoring transforms into series of contractions throughout your body, centering through your slick core, and you thrash your head to the side catching a glimpse of Obi-Wan’s fingers clenching into white knuckles, grasping into the exposed sand from the blanket being bunched up.

He projects his thoughts across the tether to you, how thoroughly impacted by the very fact you’re carrying his child, how affected he is by every little thing about you, honored that he’s allowed to touch you like this.

You roll your hips back up into his, and that’s what it takes. His stuttering body is the lightning, and the searing, molten pleasure across your connection is the thunderous repercussion.

It completely overthrows you, and your body bows against him as his high instantly cues yours again.

You can feel him throb inside you at the very moment you do, his turn to experience the secondary sensory white-out of your mate’s climax through the Force, his shuddering shout meeting your breathy whines in the close distance between your mouths.

And he does kiss you then, soundly but with the haze of afterglow slowing it.

“Have you any idea how bewitching you are to me?” He breathes it out, and despite all the ways you’d normally scoff at such words, his eyes tell the story, and you listen to it’s truth.

His eyes hold that constant infiltrating study of you, the one that could be unnerving if his mind, still tethered to yours didn’t hold such amor, heart bleed such fondness that settles in the creases around his eyes.

How interesting it is watching someone as knowledgeable as him having such an inquisitive outlook on life, and being so frequently the object of those investigations.

Did the galaxy know her debt to him? Did she know the sum owed to inflicting the worst of life’s pains on someone who refused to let it build anything except an even gentler man of himself? When does she plan on repaying him? What does she offer in exchange for her cruelty of the hand she’s dealt Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Then the whisper comes, soft but crisp, from somewhere in the threads of existence around you, “Can’t you see? It’s you, child.”

You could argue it. You could scream how it’s not enough, how you’re not enough, how he deserves so much more from some dark insecure place inside you. Or how love shouldn’t be treated as currency in exchange for pain, how the galaxy could still have your fists if that was how it tallied.

But the finality of it settles in your soul, more impressionistic than in solid wording: there is no easy conclusion that ties the suffering of life into purpose, no experience that erases or mends its pain. But love. Love makes the complicated endeavor of trying to find purpose in the madness worthwhile.

Obi-Wan’s hum of agreement resounds in your ears and through to your head. His Force signature feels so familiar, so at home within yours and yours within his, that you’d briefly forgotten he could still hear you.

With all the strength still left in quaking limbs, you wrap your arms around him, and he melts into it.

The compassion of his soul hardly matches his war-ravaged skin, his guilt-ridden memories. Every good thing here came to be with a war waged, refined and not burnt away in fire at his sheer tenacity.

It’s a growing thing, blooming in the desert. The beliefs in both of you. Your love for each other. Your own trust in the Force.

Healing is no short journey, but her two sojourners here are determined.

And if that tender hope can blossom here?

Then maybe, just maybe: Tatooine is exactly the place for a baby after all.

*********

In the valley beyond the hut, a boy jets quickly away in some mechanical contraption he recently motorized, a girl in a similar vehicularized compilation of junk not far behind.

On the cliff’s edge stands Obi-Wan, eyes scanning the landscape intermittently for any sign of threat between longer affectionate looks at the children before him.

He turns, feeling your approach in his keen awareness as you set a hand on his shoulder from behind. His temples are now even thicker with sun-bleached silver, and his eyes wield the lines of laughter around them.

And you? You’re as roped in by his gravitational pull as you’ve always been.

He puts a hand over yours, clasping it to bring you in front of him, where he can still watch the children and encase you in his arms at the same time.

“Slow down, Luke! You’re going too fast!” comes the distressed cry of your daughter, Ahlina, drawing your attention away from admiring Obi-Wan and back to the valley. Her vowels curl in the same way her father’s does, but her more casual phrasing was certainly thanks to you. Luke shouts back at her, “Come on, keep up!” while he races on ahead.

Obi-Wan smiles, seemingly amused at a secret joke.

“They are much too young for this nonsense still,” he speaks, muffled slightly as he hides his lips in your hair.

“Probably,” you reply with an airy laugh.

Not long after, the engine on Luke’s small contraption gives out, jutting him off and tumbling forward into the sand.

“I told you!” Ahlina yells, her own machine coming to a halt not far away from Luke.

When they make it back up the cliff, Obi-Wan couches and opens his arms, and they both come running with smiles. They’re still young enough to be unshy about affection, and Obi-Wan knows to soak it up, closing his eyes in relishment.

Luke is the first to wiggle down, waving before running over to hug your leg, which you happily return, brushing some of the blonde mop of hair from his forehead. You adored the nights that the Lars let him sleep over.

Although the nights that Ahlina slept over at theirs certainly had their allure too.

“Can we have a snack, Daddy?” Ahlina asks, still happy to be hoisted up on one of his arms.

“Hm. Perhaps I can make some of those ahrisa sweet breads again?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Can Mommy make them?”

“Why not mine?”

“Because you always burn them.”

He bops a finger lightly on her nose with a smile. “Cheeky.”

She goes to bop him on his nose in return, but he catches the finger, holding it.

“Give it back!” she screeches through a giggle.

“No, no. I think I’ll keep it now.”

The suns are dipping low as you retreat into the hut, the two children running ahead, racing to gather the ingredients to help you bake the bread. Luke especially was an enthusiastic sous-chef.

You step to follow them, but Obi-Wan grasps your hand. You turn back to him, and he barely gives you a second before he joins his mouth to yours. Sliding a hand into the auburn beard, you open your mouth to him, letting his familiar taste permeate your senses.

He reluctantly breaks after a long moment, and you take his hand in yours. When you turn back to the horizon, the suns are dipping, blanketing the landscape in the most celestial light of the day.

The planet’s eyes aren’t harsh in the way you used to see them. They’re still intense, and frequently unforgiving.

Perhaps they never changed. Maybe only you did.

But as they sink now, you give a silent, partial farewell, knowing they’ll greet you again in the morning.

Because if Dark’s patience is infinite?

So is the promise of the return of the Light.

Tagging upon request: @million-dollar-legs

#obi-wan kenobi #obi-wan kenobi x reader #obi-wan kenobi x you #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi x you #obi-wan x reader #obi-wan x you #obi wan x you #obi wan x reader #obi-wan kenobi smut #obi wan smut #obi-wan smut #obi-wan #obi-wan x oc

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mallowstep · 4 years ago

Note

What are your opinions on forbidden relationships in Warriors? I've seen people label it as a "trope" because of how common this is. Some find the forbidden romance aspect intriguing, though others find it extremely repetitive and old

I'd like to know your thoughts!

hm. well, it is a trope. i mean, there's an average of one major one a series, right? greysilver, leafcrow (and others, but that's the big one), heatherlion (and implied others), tigerdove, idk i don't remember anything from avos but violetshine luv her but there's probably something, bristleroot. dotc doesn't count bc well it's dotc.

anyway.

definitely a trope.

but that's not a bad thing.

what i think people don't give warriors enough credit for is that these are not all the same forbidden romance. most of them are handled in different ways and bring up different conflicts. i understand why people are tired of them, but let's not discredit one of the only good things in warriors romance: that they make forbidden relationships different.

like, with grey and silver, it's about loyalty and responsibility. leafcrow is just bad idea central, both heatherlion and tigerdove are about responsibilities and young cats, and they have two different answers, and bristleroot is challenging the whole idea from the start.

so like. give credit where credit is due: we're not doing the same (forbidden) relationships again and again. i don't see enough people talk about that.

okay so it turns out i have um. a lot of thoughts about this. idk i just kept writing and now it's over 2k words. so you know. under the cut: matthew does half-baked media analysis to talk about why the code and cats' relationships to it are misunderstood. while actually staying on topic.

anyway from here on i'm just going to say relationship/romance, and understand that i'm generally talking about the forbidden kind. also i'm talking exclusively within the realm of warriors romance, which is, on average, bad. so when i say "X is good," i don't mean "X is good in general," i mean "given what we have, X is good." just to be clear.

right! basically, this is a tool. it creates tension and drama, and that's fine. warriors is a soap opera, remember. soap operas use secrets and relationships and all sorts of plot devices over and over again. warriors is not Serious. it can be dark. it has serious moments. but it is not a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids. it is a soap opera for Future Theatre Kids. yeah?

from that perspective, i'm a-ok with forbidden romance. (also, as a mini-aside, it creates some much-needed genetic diversity when kits are involved.) and again: all of the major relationships are different, so i think that's better than a lot of people give it credit for.

yeah, heatherlion and greysilver and tigerdove are all about the same general idea (loyalty and responsibility), but they all have different circumstances and different resolutions.

so like? yeah. sure. why not?

plus, like, who's reading warriors for the romance? i separate the concept of "romance" from a "relationship" here: i like the relationships in warriors (ivy and dove tension my beloved), but i'm not here to read about tigerheart wooing dovewing. (yes, i do love the tigerdove scenes in oots. no, that's not because i think they're very good at being romantic.)

but i digress.

if warriors was a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids, i'd have a different take here. having been in an IRL forbidden relationship, i have the Personal Insight and Experience to say they're this weird mash of "very much how it feels" and "not at all how it feels."

tigerdove is probably my favourite bc it's the closest to my circumstances, and i think dovewing is a good pov. i like how she breaks up with him because it's a bad idea, but that's not the same thing as not feeling for him.

(heh. twelve-year-old me reading oots like "this will never apply to my life" what did you know)

but to the point, if warriors was serious, i'd point out that the consequences always seem to be internal. we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions. and so on.

but warriors is a soap opera.

and here's my actual thesis: we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions, because "forbidden relationships" are a normal and expected part of clan society.

like no, fandom-at-large, you're kind of missing the point. okay, you know how like. people complain about. idk. ivypool and fernsong being distantly related?

(third aside/very long ivyfern rant, i put a nice big "rant over" after it if you want to skip past it: they're third cousins. they share, max, 2.2% of their genetics. they are fine. do you know your third cousins? do you? yeah. and like. they live in a closed society. there is no one new.

i've never seen someone complain about forbidden romance and ivyfern at the same time, and i do generally agree we should have more mystery fathers, altho for a different reason, but like. idk. this bothers me.

their last shared relative was nutmeg. that's so far back. god. i get it, there was a prophecy saying they're related, but if you remember my rant about how dovewing shouldn't be a part of the prophecy because of how distantly related to firestar is, you know how i feel about that already.

complaining they're related and that's a problem is. deep breath here. it requires demonstrating that warriors has kept track of kinship all the way back to firestar's mother. and even if you wave that requirement, you still have to convince me they would care about that. this isn't a "they're cats, harold" situation, this is a "you would not know your third cousin even if you lived in the same town" situation.

i mean maybe you would. some people do. but my hometown has generations of people who married within its borders. you get as far as "cousin," maybe "second cousin" if you're feeling fancy. i'm not trying to make an always true statement, i just. every time i see someone complain about ivyfern being related, it strikes me as not understanding how extended families work?

i know third cousins isn't technically classified as a distant relative, but you have, on average, 190 third cousins. i feel so strongly about this i looked it up.

like i'm not. okay if you say, "I don't ship ivyfern because they are third cousins and that makes me uncomfortable" you are Valid. in general, you are all valid. i do not think you have to, on a personal level, be okay with ivyfern. you are free to do as you wish.

but. if you want to argue "ivyfern is a Bad Ship because they are third cousins" you have a hell of a burden of proof. simply saying "they share a great-great-grandmother" does not meet that, because like. yeah. we're all pretty damn related.)

(ivyfern rant over)

IVYFERN RANT OVER

right so. anyway. if you remove forbidden romance? you're forcing a lot more of those situations.

i've been messing around with modelling some small-scale fan clan-adjacent stuff to double-check the ratios for wbcd, and it's. it quickly becomes a necessity, is what i'm saying.

but i got distracted like. researching how related third cousins are. my point is not about that, that's like. a different topic. that i crammed into here because i have no self-control.

no, no, what i was trying to get to is: oakheart straight up tells us that cats have half-clan kits all the time, it's not a problem, no one talks about it. and that? that is exactly what we see modelled by warriors.

the only reason greystripe and silverstream have a problem is that silverstream dies and greystripe claims the kits. i feel very strongly that if she had lived, the kits would have been born and raised riverclan kits, that might, maybe, one day, guess who their father is.

we haven't had any half clan kits in a while, which yes! i think is a problem, but like. the fact that the three are medicine cat kits seems to be a bigger issue. which feels right.

and i'm not trying to argue what i think should be, i legitimately believe the text of warriors defends this, even in newer books which throw out a lot of the older world building in favour of more human-like conflict.

as readers, we are naturally following protagonists. we are following the interesting story. but imagine you're just a background riverclan cat. minnowtail, if you will. do you think, do you honestly think, anyone cares about minnowtail?

not in a bad way, just. if she's meeting up with mousewhisker at night, do you think anyone cares? of course not! no one cares. she's not a Protagonist. her kits aren't going to be prophesized about.

heck, finleap switches clans! and it's barely a big deal. it feels like one, but when's the last time anyone bothered dealing with it? that's what i thought.

(also i forgot like all of avos so that very last point might be a bad one if it is my argument stands i just literally do not remember anything in avos but violetshine. none. zero.)

but it's easy to get caught up with characters like hollyleaf and bristlefrost and forget that like. not everyone cares about the code. most of our protagonists do, because it's become mostly equivalent with being moral. and i have an essay draft titled "the code as religion vs the code as law" where i want to expand on this more, but i think like. that idea, that we as readers should use the code as a way of evaluating cats' behaviour, is flawed.

like, i'm not talking about being inconsistent with how that is applied. if you want to say, "the trial leafpool goes through for having half-clan kits is legitimate because of the code," i still think your approach is flawed.

because the cats themselves don't seem to think that way.

the code doesn't, to me, feel like the ten commandments. it does not feel like "you must do this to be a good cat."

rather, it feels like aesop's parables. "here are mistakes cats made and what we do instead of that."

i don't think the cats know the code the way we do. i do not think they memorize a list of rules as kits. i think they know what is and is not part of it, but i imagine they know the stories far more than the rules.

(i'm working on my lore stories to replace code of the clans.)

and even if that's my thoughts, i do think this is supported by the text. no one ever teaches the warrior code, cats just learn it in pieces. "don't waste food because we don't have enough to spare" is taught, not "there's a rule about food and starclan on the code."

that's why the whole arc of the broken code even works: the reason the imposter is able to manipulate things is because cats don't treat the code as a rigid set of rules and commandments, but guiding principles.

the parts of the code that we tend to focus on the most are relationships, apprentices, and battle. or that's my perception. i didn't do a poll to obtain that. there's also the leader's word, but readers don't usually think of that as a good rule, so i'm not including it.

but the parts the cats focus on most are food, territory, and the leader's word. which makes sense: those are basic needs: food, security, and...i don't want to say authority so much as some kind of social system. explaining it would be a whole thing. just trust with me, if you don't mind.

i don't think we have any real reason to believe cats care about half-clan relationships half as much as we do. yes, apprentices are chastized about it, but that's not really the same thing as being punished.

and it's hard to tell, because apprentices being punished has really fallen off, and that's kind of the problem with any argument i try to make about warriors, but.

wow.

i'm actually still on topic? i'm 2k words in and i'm still on topic? a day i never thought would come.

let's wrap this up. cats seem to care about half clan relationships in that: a) they lead to conflicted loyalties, b) they mess with borders and prey, and c) they are in the code as bad. in that order.

and again, if the code was some high and holy religious doctrine, we couldn't have the broken code as an arc. it does not work if the cats are already following it to a t, and know it word for word, because it's signfiicantly harder to manipulate people if they do.

not to the level the imposter does, at the speed he does.

and yes, you could argue that it's more bad writing, but. i think that discredits warriors. yeah, it sure has its fair share of bad writing, but i don't think that's in the way the imposter works. instead, he seizes on a big important doctrine that's nebulous, and uses that to control people.

and that? that feels much more interesting.

so with that in mind, i don't think the cats would care about your typical, non-protagonist forbidden relationship, and i don't think we should, either.

as far as a plot device, i think we're okay with what we have. don't get me wrong, i understand why people are tired of it, but i think we also should remember that warriors is not repeating itself. having multiple forbidden relationships is not repetitive. now, if medicine cats were having half-clan kits every series, i'd make a different argument.

but all of the major forbidden relationships have different outcomes, lessons, and circumstances, and for me, i think that's signficantly interesting.

i didn't really check sources and quotes for this, so like, if you spotted something wrong, feel free to correct me. my overall point stands, but there's a lot of warriors and i have a bad memory, so i could have missed somthing major.

#ask #anon #essay #mine #discourse #not really but you know

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parvuls · 4 years ago

Text

fic: at certain times

word count: 12k

tags: year 2 canon-divergence, getting together, first kiss

summary: The Swallow's Samwell Awards issue of '15 crowns Jack and Bitty as Samwell's cutest couple. It is somewhat unfortunate, then, that they're not actually a couple at all.

read on ao3

The kitchen smells like something burnt, a smoky tang that clings to the walls and floors, stings inside Bitty’s nose. April should smell like hot cross buns and zucchini bread, he thinks wistfully, but it turns out that some Aprils poor ovens are pushed to their last legs prematurely, leaving his kitchen smelling like Ransom forgot his frozen pizza in the microwave again.

Dex has been tending to Betsy on her deathbed all month, spending most of his free hours at the Haus. Bitty called him again after class, while he was standing in Superberry with Jack, and promised to pay for his services with froyo. Said froyo -- which Jack insisted on paying for, bless him -- is still on the table, untouched, yogurt melting over the rim of the paper cup and dripping onto the wood. Dex has been kneeling in the same strip of sunlight on the floor since he arrived with his toolbox. Bitty isn’t sure what exactly he’s been doing, but he seems to be too busy waving a screwdriver in the air and ranting to remember his abandoned bribe.

“So we finally got over the fucking Samwell Republican sticker thing,” Dex says, his face red and his brow furrowed. He’s been disgruntled all day because of an email he’d received, which he claims Nursey will never let him live down. "And Bitty, I know this is Massachusetts, okay? But I haven’t even actually voted yet! Fucking Swallow. How can I be Best Republican?"

Bitty hunches over in his chair, palms clasped together on his knees like a prayer. He’s anxiously following the motions of Dex’s screwdriver with his eyes while listening with only half an ear, deeply confused by the conversation subject. “The Swallow does pieces on politics? I can’t even imagine what an article like that’d look like, honestly.”

Dex grumbles quietly, shoving a hand under his backwards snapback to scratch at his hair. “No, it’s like -- their Samwell Awards thing? I don’t know, I just got an email about it this morning. I guess it’s like that 50 Most Beautiful shit they do.”

Bitty’s never heard of it, but then again, Bitty carefully sidesteps most articles of The Swallow whenever he comes across them. Those guys write about their team an uncomfortable amount for a university with almost ten thousand students. As long as Holster or Ransom aren’t reading it aloud at team breakfast, Bitty’s not eager to find out what The Swallow has to say.

He asks, though, because Dex seems to be upset about this and his frogs need to be handled with care. “Like in high school yearbooks?” Heather Barron was his class’ Best Laugh back home, and she made everyone who signed her yearbook tell her a joke so she could laugh for them.

“I guess,” Dex says distractedly. He bends down low to reach something close to the floor. “This girl from my Intro to CompSci class got the same email about it -- she won Best Dressed. I mean, who even judges these things? That’s a matter of taste.”

Dex wipes a dusty hand across his forehead and Bitty momentarily forgets to care about The Swallow in favor of looking on worriedly. Betsy is unplugged from the wall with her back side facing the room, surrounded by loose cables and scattered bolts. She looks old and frail. Bitty kind of feels like he’s watching an open-heart surgery occurring right in front of him.

“Can you save her?” Bitty presses a hand over his heart, dreading the reply. Dex wrinkles his forehead even further and doesn’t meet Bitty’s eyes.

It is then that their ordinary afternoon is interrupted by three emphatic knocks on the front door of the Haus.

"Did someone just knock on our door?" Shitty yells from somewhere down the hall. Bitty assumes he’s still curled up on the couch of sins in a t-shirt and flimsy underwear, mourning his grandparents’ affirmative RSVP response to graduation.

His tone sounds downright shocked at the sound, but that’s probably reasonable. Bitty’s been living in the Haus for over nine months now and he’s never once heard anyone knock on that door. It’s always unlocked, anyway; it’s actually nothing short of a miracle that they’ve never been burglarized. Not that there’d be anything to steal, of course, other than Holster’s collector's edition Simpsons DVD box set, or maybe one of Jack’s used jerseys to be sold to the highest bidder on ebay.

"Well, whaddaya know,” Ransom appears in the hallway outside the kitchen doorframe, likely summoned downstairs by the abnormal noise. His eyebrows are high on his forehead as he stares down the hall at the door. “It didn't collapse. I told you it’s sturdier than it looks."

Neither of the boys makes a move to actually open the door. There’s a second set of knocks, this one slightly louder than the first, and Bitty huffs as he gets off his chair. He casts one last hopeful look over his shoulder. Maybe, he wishes silently, Betsy has performance issues and would be magically fixed once she’s not under his constant scrutiny. Or maybe Dex does, and would magically fix her. “Y’all, when someone knocks on a door, they generally expect you to open it for them.”

He shoulder-checks Ransom on the way to yanking the door open, and is presented with some guy Bitty’s never seen before standing on their front steps. He’s wearing an atrociously ugly plaid vest and an awfully wide smile, which only grows wider when he sees that it’s Bitty who’s opening the door.

“Eric Bittle!”

“Yes?” Bitty agrees, eyebrows drawing together. He’s usually pretty good with faces, but he doesn’t think he’s seen this guy in any of his classes. Maybe a hockey fan. Still -- Bitty’s mother brought him up right, and he’s resolved to stick to his manners even if he now lives in a frat house. Someone with malicious intentions, he rationalizes to himself, wouldn't knock before entering. “Hi. Wouldya like to come in? I’m afraid our oven’s down, so I don’t have much to offer in terms of baked goods --”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary!” The man dismisses quickly, his smile not waning any; it’s hard not to eye it suspiciously. Absently, Bitty can make out the sound of feet shuffling, which presumably means the boys are crowding together behind him to peer curiously at the stranger on their doorstep. “I’m from The Swallow, I’m here to deliver a message for you. And Jack Zimmermann, but I’m sure you can pass it on. Our annual Samwell Awards issue is coming out early next month, as you know --”

“Sure,” Bitty confirms politely, although he’s never heard of the thing until about two minutes ago. There’s no sense in getting the man down.

“-- and we wanted your response on the win. We do that for the real popular categories. If you want to draft a short statement, you can reply to the email we sent you two --”

“I’m sorry,” Bitty cuts him off, maintaining a carefully polite tone. He hasn’t checked his email since the previous night, too preoccupied with avoiding his American Publics essay and fretting over Betsy. Somewhere behind him there are more heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and one of the boys whispers excitedly, Bitty won a Samwell Award!, though he’s not sure which. “What win? Who’s you two?”

“Oh,” the Swallow guy blinks, obviously taken aback. His smile doesn’t completely disappear but thankfully thins a little bit, at last stretching over less than two thirds of his face. He looks marginally less maniacal like this, Bitty thinks uncharitably. “You and Jack Zimmermann?”

There’s another shuffle of feet. Bitty turns his head to catch Jack pushing Shitty aside, coming to stand a step behind Bitty’s right shoulder. Bitty hasn’t seen him since they got back from Superberry and Jack headed upstairs to study, chirping Bitty for not doing the same all the while. He’s taken his thin fleece jacket off since, and the soft V-neck he’s had underneath clings to his biceps, to the shape of his pecs. His hair is messy, the smell of his aftershave hasn’t faded yet, and his palm rests lightly between Bitty’s shoulder blades to keep his balance in the narrow, crammed doorway. Bitty’s stomach jumps at the sight of him and he can feel a reflexive smile tugging at his lips. It’s an uncontrollable reaction to Jack’s presence, no matter how many times Bitty’s seen him that day. Good gracious, but it’s plumb pathetic.

Jack is oblivious to Bitty’s eyes on him, too busy frowning at the Swallow guy from above Bitty’s head. “What is this about?”

The guy’s expression is clearly confused, despite the upturned mouth in his creasing face. His eyes survey the huddled group in front of him searchingly, as if waiting for them to catch up. When no one adds anything his smile drops entirely and he says: “You guys won Cutest Couple!”

Time seems to slow down while Bitty’s mind stomps on an emergency break and short-circuits completely. He knows things are happening in the backdrop, can hear someone behind him, probably Holster, choking really loudly on their spit, but none of it truly registers.

The Swallow guy is frowning now, looking completely baffled as to why they’re not enthused at the news. “Seriously, did you not get the email?”

“We. What?” is the only thing Bitty manages weakly. Whatever smile was on his face is thoroughly wiped off now. His heartbeat begins pounding in his ears, drowning out any further background noise under its heavy thrumming. From the brief glance he braves, Jack is not coping much better. His mouth is opening and closing silently.

"Yeah!” The guy recovers, apparently blind to the catastrophe he’s inadvertently causing. “I mean, I’ll be honest, some of the staff was like, ‘enough with the fucking hockey team’, and Khalil and Sara who did that awesome Halloween costume, they came really close -- but I was totally on your side. Anyway, the draft should be in your inboxes. We’d like to have your response in the next couple of days so we can start running it. The more romantic and gooey the better, of course. Thank you!"

He smiles and then skips down the stairs before Bitty’s brain fully catches up with what has just occurred on his front porch. He can barely grasp at tail ends of thoughts before they slip away from him, disappearing in a cloudy daze of absolute horror. His pulse is still racing and his fingers, wrapped around the door handle, are trembling.

Behind him, Ransom makes a slow wheezy sound and then descends into hysterical laughter. Bitty’s feeling rather hysterical himself, actually, but he’s not in the mood for laughing at all.

“Can’t believe it’s another year we didn’t win Best Party,” Holster mopes back in the kitchen, sprawled out spread-legged in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s because of Alpha Sigma Phi and their fucking tropical Christmas party, I know it, Rans, I can feel it in my booze bones. Like, okay, they served drinks in real coconuts while bare-ass naked in twenty degrees, so what."

Ransom reaches out to give him a consolatory clap on the back. "We've always got next year, bro. Our names will appear on the holy Swallow pages, I promise."

“You’re right,” Holster sighs rather dramatically, sagging down a few extra inches in the chair. “We mustn’t despair. I’ve already bookmarked some ideas -- think we can keep live parrots in the Haus? Only for a few hours!”

“What I would like to know,” Shitty muses, stroking his mustache between two fingers while looking from Jack to Bitty’s flaming face and back again, “is who the fuck is their source. I mean, no offence, Bits, but if anybody is going to be Jackie’s fake-ass boytoy I call double fucking dibs and I’m willing to fight you on it.” He then considers it for a split second longer and says, “Or negotiate with food, honestly, I’m amendable.”

“Cooking is a touchy subject right now,” Dex mumbles from his perch by the counter, away from the cluster of boys that’s spread out at the table.

Dex looks like Bitty feels, actually: like he’s seriously regretting being present in this instance, and is looking for any excuse to make a quick escape. Or -- maybe only partially how Bitty feels, anyway. There’s another whole side of Bitty that’s feeling like there’s a vacuum in his chest, a ringing in his ears, a voice in his mind whispering, they know, they all know, Jack knows and he hates you for it.

Bitty has been studiously avoiding Jack’s face since they all withdrew from the door. He’s convinced that his feelings are written all over his face, pining daydreams altering his features and sappy midnight fantasies painting his cheeks bright red. He’s sure that one look in his eyes would give away every guilty thought he’s had since November, so he determinedly keeps his head down. Only, then Jack clears his throat and Bitty can’t help but spring his eyes up to look at him -- like a moth drawn to the flame that’d inevitably scorch it.

"Well, whatever is the misunderstanding, obviously they can't actually run that, Bittle. I mean, because. Hockey, and." His eyebrows do something complicated that Bitty cannot bring himself to study too closely.

The words hit like a two-hundred pound flour bag dropped on Bitty’s chest, weighing him down into the floor. Bitty tries to swallow, fails, tries again. His throat still grates like it’s made of raw sandpaper when he speaks.

"Right, no, of course," there’s this horrible sinking in his gut, a phantom sensation of freefalling that tastes like acid when it reaches the back of his tongue. "Of course, Jack. I know that. The last thing you need right now is --" he finally swallows past the lump in his throat, drops his eyes to watch his toes curl inside his shoes and dent the fabric upwards. “-- rumors about the gay kid on your team.”

Shitty says, “Bitty,” with a sharp edge in his tone, and when Bitty looks up Jack looks like he’s been struck.

"Hold on, Bittle, that's --"

“It’s okay, Jack!” Bitty makes a valiant effort to smile reassuringly. His chest is growing tighter and tighter, and he really can’t handle hearing Jack’s explanation right now. He feels like he’s shaking all over, like more and more words are being rattled out of his mouth without his permission. “I mean, it’s utterly ridiculous, but that’s The Swallow for you, I ‘spose. We’ll tell them it’s nonsense before anyone in the league catches wind of it. I’m sorry I even put your career at risk like that, honestly.”

“Bittle,” Jack says again, more firmly. He looks almost angry.

Holster’s stunned look is flickering between the two of them, and Bitty can feel the humiliation crawling up the back of his neck. He thinks that if he stays sitting in the kitchen any longer the boys might actually hear the splintering sounds his heart is making in his chest. Or he might start crying, whichever comes first.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Bitty forces himself out of his chair, squeezes Jack’s elbow in passing for good measure, even though bringing his hands anywhere near Jack feels like torture. He doesn’t want Jack to feel guilty about this -- it’s not his fault. “It’s fine. I gotta go, I’m meeting Prof. Atley, but we’ll talk about it later, okay?”

He bolts out of the kitchen and rushes down the hall. The last thing he hears is Ransom saying, “Dude, I’m pretty sure his meeting with her was like, four hours ago,” before the Haus door slams shut behind him.

The worst part is, Bitty knows Jack is straight.

Jack dates 50 Most girls from the tennis team, he takes ladies in tall heels to Screw, he brings puck bunnies to his room during kegsters. Or -- that turned out, actually, to be not all that true after all -- but.

Jack is straight. Bitty knew this all along. Bitty knew this and still let his foolish, stubborn heart say, maybe. Bitty saw Jack laughing at his weak chirps, and looking at him sometimes when Bitty was turned away, and there was that party, with Parse, and Bitty’s blood was rushing in his ears and he tried so hard not to listen, but they almost looked like they -- and Bitty thought, maybe --

But Jack wasn’t. Of course not. And Bitty knows it’s so unfair and so unjustified that he’s allowing himself to be mad about Jack’s words. Because these boys accept Bitty for who he is, have never shied away from him, have always been comfortable with his presence in their lives and their house and their locker room, and that’s not something to be taken for granted. It’s not their fault that they’re straight and that’s easier, not their fault that Jack’s straight and Bitty can’t bring himself to let go. Besides, something like this, it could wreck Jack's career even if it were true, and it isn't, so of course Jack would want it gone. It's not personal, Bitty knows. He has no reason to be so hurt.

Except maybe it stings a little, how untrue it really is. Maybe it burns a little inside to know that other people see what he sees, what he wishes were true, and still know that he can never have that for real. And maybe it hurts, that Jack can so easily make the article go away and never deal with those rumors again, because it's simply not true about him, but it will always be true about Bitty. Maybe he’s tired of how he will always have to fight for his place while people like Jack Zimmermann can walk right in.

Maybe.

But none of it is Jack's fault. Because Jack is straight, and Bitty isn’t, and he’s gone and fallen in love with him anyway.

Breakfast with only Lardo and Jack is a quiet affair the next morning. Habit has them settled down at the team’s usual long table, but they take up significantly less space just the three of them. Bitty is surprised by the two empty seats remaining to each side of them despite the crowded dining hall, but considers that maybe the Samwell population knows whose seats are available and aren't willing to risk it.

Lardo is chewing her toast silently by Bitty's side, oversized hoodie draped over most of her face. Jack is sitting across from them, peeling the shells off a pile of hard-boiled eggs. His body is curved in a stiff line over his plate and his elbows are tucked in close to his sides. He keeps sneaking glances at Bitty every few minutes, looking torn; Bitty busies himself with spooning exactly three banana slices in every dip into his oatmeal bowl, keeps hurriedly shoving them into his mouth every time Jack looks like maybe he’s going to actually say something.

Bitty spent the majority of the previous night hiding out in a quiet corner of Norris library, binging episodes of The Great British Bake Off on his phone. When he ultimately found the courage to come back to the Haus, he power-walked straight into his room and didn’t venture out for anything more than brushing his teeth. The walls in the Haus are thin, however, and he could still hear Jack in his own room through the closed doors, speaking on the phone with his father in brisk French. They didn't exactly sound angry, but Bitty had unintentionally overheard enough of Jack’s phone conversations to recognize Jack’s business tone easily.

Jack’s lawyer had sent The Swallow a sternly phrased email first thing that morning -- for formality, Jack informed Bitty when the two of them left the Haus for breakfast with Lardo. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets and his eyes were hidden beneath the bill of his Habs cap. He kept his body angled away from Bitty, maintaining a careful six feet between them, and Bitty’s whole body ached like he’d spent the night playing consecutive shifts instead of tossing and turning in his bed. It was the only time they’ve acknowledged the Swallow article since the previous afternoon. Bitty changed the subject immediately after, and prattled meaninglessly the whole way to Commons.

The three of them separate after breakfast, Lardo heading for the studio and Jack and Bitty for their respective classes. Bitty spends most of his spare noon hours trying to do work in the kitchen, but he steals longing glimpses at Betsy more often than he does the reading for US Intellectual HIST or the darn American Publics essay he still hasn’t started.

This day needs an assist, he justifies when he eventually deserts his open notes on the table in favor of hunting down a clean towel. Polishing dishes is a more effective way to escape his blues. Maybe he’ll make some jam -- that doesn’t require a working oven, and it’d be a longer-term distraction from the mess he’s landed in.

Jack’s lawyer's actions in mind, the knock on the Haus door doesn’t really surprise Bitty. He can’t help the way his body tenses at the sound, though; the blood rushing through his body is too much like the terrible lightheadedness he experiences when checked.

Jack comes down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and grinds to a halt when he sees Bitty leaning against the wall at the entrance to the kitchen and staring at the door.

“It’s probably the Swallow rep,” Jack states the obvious, voice completely monotonous and face blank.

Bitty's gut lurches. He tries his very best, but he’s certain that his smile looks even more put-on than it was the day before.

“We should probably go get it, then,” he says. He keeps his hands wrapped in the dish towel as they move to open the door, to have something to do with them and to cover up the way they’re shaking.

The guy standing on the bottom of their stairs is the same one from yesterday. His loose printed shirt is somehow even uglier than the plaid vest, but this time no smile is taking up the majority of his face. In fact, he isn’t smiling at all; he kind of looks like he’s been sent to the gallows and couldn't beg out of his sentence.

“We've been informed that a mistake was made,” the guy says promptly, glancing between the two of them. Everything about his face and his body language appears cautious.

“Yes,” Jack confirms firmly. The guy blinks in sync with Bitty, both of them waiting to see if Jack has any intention to follow that statement with an explanation, but none seems imminent.

“We understand that it’s an honest mistake and we just want it scrapped," Bitty says instead, trying to keep his voice from betraying any emotion, even when his vocal cords are wound tight. "We can't be the cutest couple if we're not -- if we're not."

“You talked to your lawyer,” the guy says faintly. Bitty's not sure that he actually heard a word of what was said. He keeps eyeing Jack’s rigid posture and bulging muscles like he’s afraid that he’s going to be dragged into a fist fight right there on the lawn.

“It’s a legal matter,” Jack replies curtly, frowning.

“No one ever sent his lawyer after us,” the guy says, fainter still. “It’s just The Swallow, man.”

Jack's frown deepens. He’s wearing his hockey face, mouth pinched and eye narrowed, every angle of his face turning sharper. He looks serious, assertive, like he’s getting ready to step out on the ice for the puck drop. Bitty’s heart hurts so badly looking at him that he has to turn away. His eyes, mid-movement, catch on three faces eavesdropping from behind the living room’s doorway. He just barely suppresses a heavy sigh.

"-- you’d be spreading misinformation with unwelcome consequences,” Jack is talking, apparently, and Bitty tuned out most of it. “So you understand why we need you to retract that immediately and delete all further copies."

"Yes," the guy nods tentatively, eyes jerking in Bitty’s direction and then immediately back to Jack. "I'm -- sorry? We really thought you were --"

"Well we ain't," Bitty says, wringing the towel in his hands to hinder an uncommon urge to break something with them.

"Yes, I -- I understand," the guy seems as spooked by Bitty now, contemplating him and the towel as warily as he did Jack. "But we --"

"And I've got a date!" Bitty blurts, before he can hold his tongue from making his situation worse. Shitty whispers, the fuck, brah?, loud enough to carry all the way to the front door. "A date! With. Someone else, obviously, who is very much not Jack Zimmermann, so if you could -- make it go away -- good heavens this could be embarrassing for my date --"

"Of course,” the guy is nodding more vigorously now, head bouncing much like a dashboard bobblehead. He takes a cautious step back. “We're, uh, sorry. We’ll take care of it."

The guy retreats from the porch, glancing back every few steps as he hastens down the sidewalk.

Jack shuts the door behind them when they step back inside, and has to move closer to Bitty to allow the door to close. It brings his arm flush with Bitty’s back, solid and warm through the thin fabric of his shirt.

Bitty’s breath catches. His look flits sideways to watch Jack’s face twist into something Bitty hasn’t seen since the playoffs last year. He really felt like Jack and him were getting steadily closer throughout the year, considers Jack one of his closest friends, but he doesn’t think he’s imagining the distance between them in the last twenty-four hours. It’s more painful than the verbal confirmation that Jack will never like him back was. It’s painful that Bitty’s been shoving his feelings so far down to avoid this very outcome, only to have it blow up in his face through no fault of his own.

"What's that now!” Holster’s booming voice snaps Bitty out of his brooding, and he jerks his eyes up to see that Ransom, Shitty and Holster have crawled out of their eavesdropping spot and are blocking the hallway. “You've got a what and didn't tell us!"

“It’s not a big deal, y’all,” Bitty mumbles, mortified at how much he’s really not lying at all. He slinks away from Jack’s touch, tries to at least be subtle about it. Jack's expression is shuttering further with every moment that passes and Bitty is feeling irrationally miserable about it.

“Is too, Bits!” Ransom claps him on the shoulder excitedly, shaking his entire frame. "You know you gotta tell us all about it, we get veto rights! Is he hot? What's his name? Is he going to be your shoulders for Spring C?"

Bitty’s lousy day has only been getting progressively worse, which he thinks validates the way he bristles and knocks Ransom's hand off his shoulder. "I am average height, Justin Oluransi!"

So it's not -- really a date.

Anthony from his Eating Practices Since the 19th Century course, who sits two seats away from Bitty and always forgets to bring a pen, caught up with him after class and offered to study together. Bitty’s doing alright in that course, but Anthony is smart and friendly and it’s a good incentive to actually get some work done before finals, so Bitty smiled and said yes. He didn’t think a few days later he’d be lying about it to his friends.

They meet outside Annie’s because Anthony preferred it to Founder’s, which Bitty didn’t mind. He was a little embarrassed about how the librarians might react to the sight of his face. They, unlike some others, don’t have a problem believing he’s a member of the Men’s Hockey Team, and the treatment earned by his teammates’ behavior extends to him.

Ransom wouldn’t let him leave the Haus until his outfit has been appraised, which means he’s maybe a little overdressed for a platonic study date -- but Anthony is in nice jeans and wearing neither a team logo shirt nor a marijuana crop top, so he’s already setting the bar higher than Bitty’s usual company.

"After you," Anthony beams, opening the door for Bitty. It’s awfully nice of him. Maybe Bitty should consider running cotillion classes for his boys before graduation.

It’s easier to revert to his sunny nature in the company of someone new. Anthony keeps up chatter about the last subjects they covered in class, relates to Bitty’s chronic procrastination tendencies, and even insists on paying for both of their drinks. Bitty tries to refuse, instantly dejected by the stark reminder of coffee runs with Jack, but Anthony argues that they’d probably refill several times and Bitty can get the next one. His winning smile is so convincing that Bitty can’t find it in himself to say no.

It happens again when Bitty begins leading them to a larger table in the middle of the café where they’ll have more room to spread out. Anthony points at a table by the windows instead, says, “There, it’ll be quieter,” and Bitty instinctively thinks, those are the windows Jack and I always sit by. He then thinks, good Lord, ERB, get a hold of yourself, and agrees. There’s not much point in attending a study date if he’ll be constantly thinking about Jack Zimmermann.

They spread out all their notes and laptops and books, settling on both sides of the small, round table. Anthony drinks his coffee extra hot and the steam fogs up his glasses, which causes Bitty to laugh and Anthony to grin sheepishly. It sets a good mood for their joint studying.

They work decently well together. Anthony's been more diligent with his schoolwork but Bitty is a faster reader than him, so they catch up with each other fairly quickly and proceed from there. Bitty finds it fun, partnering with someone who doesn’t consider violent food breaks an essential part of studying, and enjoys having somebody to complain about the professor with. The two of them are just starting on technological advances at the end of the century when Bitty’s shoulders fully loosen for the first time in three days and he thinks: this is going well, this is nice, maybe we can do this more often.

This is also the exact point he looks up to tell Anthony about Louis Pasteur and catches Holster and Ransom spying on him from outside Annie’s front window.

His knee-jerk response is uncontainable: he groans out loud. Anthony seems alarmed, twisting in his chair to look over his shoulder and detect what Bitty’s glaring at. Ransom, who clearly knows they’ve been caught, looks directly at Anthony with a deliberately threatening face, pointing two fingers at his eyes, then at Anthony, and back at his eyes.

Anthony makes a confused face into his mug and says, "Um."

"Gosh, I am so sorry," Bitty drops his face into his palms, trying to smother the waves of heat rushing to his cheeks. "It's my teammates -- they have no boundaries and they -- gracious, they think this is a date --"

Anthony swallows a mouthful of coffee too quickly before he sets his mug on the table. "Oh, uh. Do you… not think this is a date?"

Bitty lets his hands fall into his lap. His eyes dart to where Holster and Ransom are waving their thumbs up in the air as they mercifully walk away from the window and then back to Anthony, whose face is unmoving. "...What?"

The top of Anthony's cheeks pink, and he adjusts the glasses on his nose with a knuckle. "I... totally asked you meaning this to be a date."

"Oh," Bitty exhales numbly. Oh, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, he thinks, and then opens his mouth to say something to Anthony -- anything at all, because the poor boy is starting to squirm in his chair -- but all his words seem to get stubbornly stuck behind his teeth.

Because Anthony is perfectly nice. He’s mild-mannered, has a pleasant smile, and he's made Bitty laugh in class a few times when the professor wasn't looking. He's sitting across from Bitty with his hands twitching on top of the table, like Bitty's answer on the matter of their date is important to him. Like he would actually really like it to be one, so he found the courage to ask.

"Oh boy, I really didn't realize," Bitty confesses, finally, clutching his coffee tightly between his fingers. He's never thought he'd be this bad at this, but apparently he's just completely and entirely blind to anyone's affections as long as anyone isn't Jack Zimmermann. And now he made this difficult for both Anthony and himself.

"That's okay," Anthony says, clearing his throat. His lips quirk up in some intimation of a smile, which is, while still very pleasant to look at, much less genuine than his usual smile. "No, really, it's cool. My fault for not being clearer. We can -- I can go and order a refill for this coffee, and when I'm back we'll forget about it? We still have work left to do." He drags his legs out from beneath the table, turning sideways in his seat, before he risks another look at Bitty. "Unless you --? I mean, now that you -- realize -- would you want it to be…?"

The answer to that, Bitty thinks regretfully, is too complex for an acquaintance. Because how does one say, you're very nice and I imagine liking you could be very easy, but I've never dated in my life and right as I thought maybe I'd give it a try, I went and fell head over heels for a grumpy, kind-hearted, heterosexual Canadian?

One doesn't, Bitty reckons, but one also cannot keep waiting forever for something that will never, ever come. So he straightens his back and says, with his best Georgia smile, "Well, how about we carry on studyin’, and maybe we'll see how things go?"

It's a little more strained after that, but that's more Bitty's fault than anything. Anthony is still as perfectly polite as he was before, as focused on the reading. It's just that now every time Anthony smiles at him Bitty freezes, and then feels guilty for freezing, and gets mad at himself for not giving this a fighting chance, and by then he's not smiling back for so long that Anthony's smile shrinks, and Bitty feels even guiltier --

"Look," Anthony tells him after they packed everything back into their bags and walked companionably outside. "This hasn't been ideal, but I still had a good time. I'd like to maybe -- do it again?" Anthony smiles genuinely this time, and his smile is so pleasant, and he tilts his head the slightest bit closer to say, "As an official date this time?", and --

This is the second time Bitty freaks out about a very nice boy leaning in to possibly kiss him at Annie's, and it's exactly as mortifying as the first.

Bitty jumps back painfully obviously, as startled himself by his physical reaction as Anthony clearly is. He's blushing fiercely when he stammers, "Oh -- I -- I don't think it'll work out, I'm so -- I'm so sorry --" turns around, almost breaking into a run, and calls out, "I'll bake you a pie!"

The corners of Bitty’s eyes begin to burn, indicating the impending shameful tears. He’s terribly upset with himself for his reaction, but he’d be even more upset if he allowed himself to cry over it, so he makes the effort to blink furiously the entire way home.

The team gathers to eat dinner together that night. Bitty’s still a little vulnerable in the aftermath of his failed study date, but he does his best to hide it, pushing himself to be cheerful and revel in quality time with his boys. It’s easier when Ransom spends most of the walk to the dining hall engaging him in a conversation about wild alien conspiracies. It’s harder when Shitty and Holster join forces to cajole him into giving deets, and don’t take his, “Oh good Lord, there’s nothing to talk about!” as an acceptable answer. Telling them the truth is not an option -- they’re his best friends, but they would absolutely, no question about it, chirp him to death, and he’s really not in the right mood to take it good-naturedly.

Bitty’s surprised when it’s Jack who eventually tells them to knock it off, shoving Holster’s shoulder to force his way into sitting between him and Bitty at the table. Holster topples sideways into Nursey, and Jack seizes the vacated space and grants Bitty a miniature triumphant smile.

Jack’s dour mood had persisted through yesterday and during their walk over, but Bitty’s been watching him gradually thaw ever since they arrived at Commons; this smile is the first true, earnest one in days, and it melts Bitty on the inside. He’s immensely relieved that at least their friendship isn’t ruined, that the past few days have only been an unfortunate bump in an otherwise smooth road. Bitty tries to cling on to that, use it to move forward from the raincloud lingering over him since his afternoon with Anthony.

A baby-faced freshman approaches their table while Chowder is telling them about a text conversation with his sister. Bitty has his phone out before anyone else even reacts -- the nervous look in the kid’s face is enough warning, and he’s not disappointed; the kid zeroes in on Jack and asks for a signature on his Samwell jersey. There is absolute silence at the table while Jack surrenders to his inescapable fate and pulls out a pen. He then ducks his head and hangs on to that pen once the kid is out of earshot and the boys begin chirping him ruthlessly, yelling loudly enough to rattle the cutlery.

Bitty’s hiccupping laughter comes as a surprise to himself, but it’s the welcome sort. He directs his smile at his phone while he tweets -- true friends don't care that you're a professional hockey player; true friends ask you to sign their mashed potatoes during dinner -- and when he raises his head Jack is peeking at his screen and grinning at him.

“Not a professional player yet, eh? You can’t go lying to the Twitter.”

Jack is so obviously pleased with himself, white teeth gleaming in his mischievous grin. Bitty's heart soars and then swiftly sinks to the bottom of his stomach. He tries to hang on to the gratitude for what he has, but something in Jack’s voice triggers the memory of it stating, obviously they can't actually run that, and then, consecutively, the memory of Anthony's dumbfounded look when Bitty fled away from him.

Not even Jack's benign chirps or his concerned glances can restore Bitty's uplifted mood after that.

Can’t make it to Founder’s tonight. Sorry! :( :( Raincheck?

The reading room is quieter than the rest of the Haus at night. It's dark out, gray shingles lit only by the lamp inside Bitty's bedroom and the faint glow of the streetlights down the road. Bitty lets his legs dangle from the edge of the roof, cradling a can of Twisted Tea and watching his shoes swing twelve feet above the shadowy green of the lawn.

There's the sound of a creaky window sash sliding up behind him. “Hey, Bittle.”

Bitty turns around. Jack is sitting on the ledge of his windowsill, holding a folded blanket in his lap. It takes a few seconds to blink away the disorientation caused by rumination and beer. “Jack! What’re you doing?”

Jack shrugs. “You said you’re not coming with me to Founder’s, and then you didn’t answer your phone. I wanted to check in.” He holds out the blanket with a modest smile. “Here -- so you won't get cold. Spring is pretty rough on you Southerners, eh?”

Bitty snorts inelegantly at the chirp, but stretches his arm to accept the blanket. He twists back to watch the twinkling Christmas lights on the LAX frat house across the road. They never take those down, and never add any new ones during the holidays. It’s as good a reason as any to hate the lacrosse team.

Jack clears his throat, an obtrusive sound in the relative silence. “Can I -- do you want me to stay? I mean, I can leave if you need some quiet.”

Bitty looks at him from over his shoulder, chin digging into his collarbone. Jack’s face is gentler than Bitty’s seen it in a while, mellowed out by the orange tint of the streetlights, and it’s so unfair. Even when Bitty’s upset about Jack he wants Jack near him, wants to hear Jack’s opinion, wants his straightforward, pragmatic type of advice. He wonders what Jack’s face would look like if Bitty was brave enough to tell him the truth about what’s bothering him. A sardonic laugh almost escapes him at that visual.

“No, you can stay,” Bitty says instead, and then makes a herculean effort to brighten up. “As long as you promise not to prattle on, you chatterbox, you know I like silences.”

The chirp falls flat when Bitty’s cheery façade cracks. Jack swings both legs out the window and slides down to sit by Bitty while Bitty takes another swig out of the can. There’s a lot of space on the roof, two empty lawn chairs on Bitty’s end, but Jack sits right next to him. Bitty’s shoulder knocks into Jack’s bicep and Jack’s thick thigh brushes against his, but Jack doesn’t take any action to inch away.

Bitty collects his knees close to his chest, leans his chin on top of them and continues watching the span of street visible from their roof. Beneath their feet, some couple probably returning from the bars by the river stumble together on the sidewalk, the echo of their giggles drifting up to the reading room. Bitty can’t quite cover his grimace in time to hide it from Jack.

"You're upset," Jack jabs Bitty’s elbow with his own, brow furrowing.

"No!" Bitty objects quickly, hoping his voice is only a lick squeaky. He's not drunk by any means, but the Twisted Tea makes everything a bit fuzzy, softens the world at its fringes. "I'm not upset. It's -- finals are coming up in two weeks, and I've got this essay I haven’t started, and -- you know, Betsy hasn’t been well and what am I gonna do, if I can’t bake to distract myself before the tests --"

"Bittle," Jack cuts him off quietly. Bitty lifts his head off his knees just enough to enable a quick glance; Jack is looking at him, those intense eyes trained on Bitty’s face, making his cheeks flush self-consciously. Jack’s expression is his distinct blend of uncomfortable but determined. "You're upset. Are you -- is it -- your date was this afternoon…?"

Bitty’s blush deepens, and he lays his cheek down to avoid eye contact. "So?"

"So," Jack begins, clumsily, and then shifts his arm so it nudges Bitty’s, fingers curled loosely into his palm. "Did he -- I mean."

It takes Bitty a moment to decipher Jack’s faltering sentence, but -- "Gosh, no," Bitty denies with profound embarrassment once he follows Jack's train of thought. Jack, unable to shake off the role of captain, is assuming some boy hurt him. Bitty doesn’t know how to tell him that he couldn't even get through the date to get hurt how normal people do. "He was a gentleman. If anything, it was me who was on my worst behavior."

Jack doesn’t look convinced. He bumps the back of his curled fingers against Bitty’s thigh. "But you're upset."

Bitty loosens his grip on his knees, keeps the hand not holding the can busy by fiddling with the hem of Jack’s blanket. Jack is both the last and the only person he wants to talk to about this. Bitty’s original plan was to get tipsy enough to fall asleep without thinking his emotions through, and then spend the next day compartmentalizing it away -- but Jack’s presence brings everything to the forefront of his mind, plucks at the tangle in his chest until it unravels.

"Well, because --” he sighs, and the expansion of his lungs must fracture some dam, because the words begin spilling out in long strings of nonsense. “I just -- I came here from Georgia because I thought it’d be different, y’know? I couldn't fit in there, and I know -- you said yourself -- I know it’s not any different here, not really, not in hockey, but outside of hockey it’s Samwell, so at least I could be me, right? But apparently I can't even be that, because I can't manage a simple thing like a date with a cute boy," he stops to take a deep breath, buries his face in the nook between his knees. "And, goodness, I can't believe I'm -- none of this is on you, I'm sorry --"

"Bittle," Jack touches his knee, inches away from his cheek, causing Bitty to look up. Jack doesn’t move his fingers from Bitty’s bare leg after Bitty lifts his head. "Don’t be sorry. It's okay."

Bitty searches Jack’s face. He doesn’t know how to read it, what the tiny microexpressions currently mean, but Jack’s fingers are splayed in the valleys of his joints and there’s something grounding in it. He takes another big breath in an attempt to calm himself down.

"I guess," Bitty whispers, but the turmoil in his chest doesn’t settle, not after he started letting it all out. He can almost picture it surging in him, clawing its way up to his mouth. "But -- is it? Okay? I'm just." He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself, both for feeling so much and for being unable to articulate feelings with the proper words. "I feel like I can't just be me. Because who I am isn't good enough at home, and isn't good enough for hockey, and who I am likes boys but apparently I'm no good at liking them right, or -- the right ones --"

He restrains himself from saying anything incriminating, biting his lip hard enough to taste the metallic flavor of blood.

"You are good enough for hockey," Jack says, stilted. His hand tightens on Bitty’s knee and belatedly pulls away. "You're a strong player, and you did a great job this season. I know we lost, but you still did good. You'll be even better next year."

Bitty exhales sharply, rubs his eyes. He knows Jack; he knows he chose to latch onto hockey because that's something he’s capable of expressing. Telling Bitty he's a good player is something Jack can find words for. Bitty didn’t expect Jack to be the right person to talk through an identity crisis, but it’d be an easier evasion to accept if he wasn’t wrong.

"Jack, no offense, but that's a load of horseshit." Jack is clearly caught off guard, seems to be gearing himself up for retaliation, but Bitty talks right over him. "It is! It is, because I might do alright now -- here -- but if I wanted to go into real hockey, into the league, you think they'd be alright with who I am? You've heard what some guys’ve got to say on the ice, and this isn’t even professional hockey."

"You want to play professionally?" The familiar glint in Jack’s eyes indicates that he’s losing track of the grand scheme of the conversation.

"No! But that's not the point!" Bitty swallows, because it isn't, but getting to the point might as well be impossible with Jack. He can't exactly tell him that he's heartbroken and disappointed in himself and everything looks more bleak from this perspective. He's no better than Jack right now; they’re both afraid to dip their toes into the murky waters of everything Bitty said that isn’t about the game. "I couldn't if I wanted to because of who I am."

"You could," Jack says, looking away, his shoulders tight. The conviction in his voice gets Bitty's attention. Jack really isn’t the most emotive of guys, and it takes a lot to get his voice to change pitch. "The league isn't a very welcoming place, but it's hockey. The whole point is hockey. And if you're good at hockey, they'll just have to accept that -- at some point. It might be hard, but if hockey is what you want, then --" he looks up, catches Bitty's eyes. Jack’s are unfocused, like somehow he forgot Bitty was even there. "I mean -- you said it isn't, but if it was -- all I'm saying is --"

"Sure," Bitty brings the can up to his mouth for another swig, skeptical even in the face of Jack’s unanticipated speech. "I get it. You can play, and all."

"Yes,” Jack insists, turning his upper body towards Bitty. Their knees press together and Jack’s face is suddenly a lot closer than it was before. Bitty has to blink a few times until he can get his pulse under control. “You can. Because you are good enough, Bittle."

They stare at each other, time stretching between them, caught up in the unforeseen gravity of the situation. Bitty can’t really wrap his head around hearing Jack defending him with such vigor, but he knows there’s nothing he can say to argue. That’s Jack’s opinion. He’s never been guilty of handing out compliments he doesn’t believe in.

"Thanks, Jack." Bitty whispers. "'m sorry. It's been a rough day. Sometimes --” He sighs again, bows his head, and musters the last shreds of his courage to be at least a little honest. “I guess sometimes it can get lonely. And it sucked to realize that it's my own fault I'm alone in the first place."

Jack subdues gradually, his shoulders folding inward and the fire in his eyes dying out, leaving room for something much more empathetic than Bitty expected.

"I'm sorry, Bittle." He reaches out to grasp the ball of Bity’s shoulder in his large palm, squeezing it tightly. It’s a friendly gesture of comfort, one the boys in the team offer each other all the time, but Jack’s thumb is absently rubbing small circles on the base of Bitty’s neck and it spreads tingles through his skin.

“It’s alright,” Bitty moves away, smiling, but the words are like dust in his mouth and it isn’t really alright at all. They settle back into sitting side by side, and Bitty notices Jack's fixed eyes on the side of his face, but he doesn’t turn to look.

Friday evening finds Bitty scrambling to complete last-minute assignments before Spring C the next day. He shuts himself away in his room and turns off his phone, tries to make his eyes focus on long lines of text instead of on any creaking noises in the Haus that might provide a distraction. This tactic has failed him more often than not, but for once the Haus is completely empty and any creaking Bitty might hear could only be chalked up to Ransom’s ghosts. Lardo and Shitty are out buying booze for Spring C, Holster is with the frogs, Ransom is at his weekend study group, and Jack has been in Providence with his mother all day, looking at potential apartments, and will be returning later to have dinner with her and her former Department Chair.

Studying is easier when Bitty’s using it to avoid thinking about other things. Lately, since his oven has been acting up, it’s been easy using studying as a distraction from thinking about Jack -- about Jack moving to Providence, about Jack taking the first steps in his adult life away from Bitty and the team. It isn’t a better distraction than watching Say Yes To The Dress with Holster or listening to music with Lardo, but in the absence of all other options, it’s good enough to push Bitty to make his deadlines, even if it’s at the last minute.

Bitty’s laptop emits a sharp ping that alerts him to a new incoming email, and Bitty scrambles up from the floor, almost tripping over two piles of reading material on his way. His room is an absolute mess; papers covering the bedspread and the desk, textbooks spilling from inside his bag onto the floor, pens scattered haphazardly. He’s been reviewing for the HIST test while emailing back and forth with the TA for his American Publics course -- the last three lectures of which he honestly cannot remember, but is somehow expected to write two thousand words for anyway.

The new email in his inbox isn’t from his TA, however. It reads, RE: RE: Your Nomination in the 2015 Samwell Awards, and only contains one line of text, visible in the thread’s preview without Bitty clicking it open. Attached is a confirmation for the removal and termination of the aforementioned article.

Bitty pauses, his essay forgotten, and goes over the subject lines four more times.

Bitty hasn’t read the article. Bitty didn't want to read the article, had convinced himself that he was indifferent and was more interested in putting the whole ludicrous affair behind them. But now he’s incapable of dragging his cursor away from the email’s subject line. He can’t help but want to know what they have to say -- want to know why anyone would mirror his misguided feelings for a close friend.

It can lead to nothing but trouble. Bitty still opens the article file for the first time since the whole mess began on Monday, because he won't have the guts otherwise, but for some masochistic reason he just has to know.

The Samwell Swallow

Vol. 26, Issue 31 | May 2015 | Special Edition | The Samwell Awards

CUTEST COUPLE AWARD: ICE HOCKEY AS A LOVE LANGUAGE

Our most dedicated readers will know that the title of Samwell’s Cutest Couple is highly coveted. Perhaps only second to Dream Date or Biggest Gossip in prestige, this award is one of the greatest honors young Wellie lovebirds can strive for. This year, we’re proud to elect JACK ZIMMERMANN ‘15 and ERIC BITTLE ‘17. We know: enough with the fucking hockey bros. But hear us out.

These unlikely candidates were initially nominated by Zimmermann’s fellow photography class students with an exclusive scoop. Bittle was the subject of Zimmermann’s midterm project! (Awe.) Such a grand romantic gesture could not go overlooked, and we set out to investigate. Copies of Zimmermann’s photos are brought to you here, courtesy of the Department of Visual Art.

[Images: a collage containing a dozen semi-professional photographs, all depicting BITTLE. His character is consistently linked to themes of warmth and light, and is obviously portrayed with great affection.]

We were delighted by what we learned. Observant Wellies report that the two are often seen taking long romantic walks around campus, with Zimmermann’s lens sometimes pointed at the scenery, but more often at his boyfriend. Sources at Annie’s, the local café, tell The Swallow that, “Yeah, they’ve been like, coming here at least two or three times a week this year? There’s their table [points at a secluded window table in the corner]. The tall guy always pays -- what? No, they’re almost always alone. Except this one time that they were here with this other couple? I don’t know, man, I see lots of people on dates, but these guys kinda stand out. They’re always giggling with each other, it’s ridiculous. And loud.”

Our research yielded clear results: service staff at Samwell’s Jerry’s, Superberry and Stop&Shop have gone on record with similar statements; students who shared a class with the two disclose that their constant whispering and flirting have been impossible to ignore; even the janitor at Faber Memorial Rink reports that current team captain and fellow liney spend every weekend skating alone as they watch the sun rise, while no practice is scheduled! It’s official - Bittle and Zimmermann are, indeed, 2015’s Cutest Couple.

[Image: BITTLE and ZIMMERMANN at the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team’s #Epickegster this winter. The two are standing very close in the midst of what appears to be an intimate conversation, leaning towards each other under a bag of free condoms. Text under image reads: Our staffers report that the two then disappeared upstairs while the party was still in full swing. Get it, boys!]

Bitty spends a long, breathless moment staring at the screen with unseeing eyes.

It’s like an out of body experience. Bitty can’t feel the tips of his fingers, can’t feel his toes. He can’t lift his hand to ram the laptop lid shut so his eyes are still glued to the block of text, words blurring together into a solid sheet of gray. His mind keeps losing footing, coherent thoughts cutting off before they can run their course, parts of sentences jamming into one long sequence -- grand romantic gesture, long walks, whispering and flirting -- that plays over and over. Distantly, he’s aware that there are stray tears in the corner of his eyes, but he’s too disconnected from his limbs to do something about it.

People look, he thinks, brain stuttering over the realization, pushing itself out of its shock, people look and see -- people look at the two of us and what they see is --

A loud noise behind his back scares the living daylight out of him, enough to send him spinning on the chair. The door to his bedroom swings open, nearly banging against the wall with the strength of its motion. Behind it is Jack, standing in the doorway with his eyes blown wide and his face pale, looking like he's seen a ghost; panting for breath like he ran a marathon to get there.

Bitty nearly collapses out of his chair, stumbling over the papers on the floor to step closer, arms reaching out automatically. “Jack -- what --? Is everything alright? Aren’t you supposed to be with your mom --?”

“Bitty,” Jack breathes out, unsteady, and then tumbles further into the room. His hair is disheveled and his buttoned shirt is smeared with stains of sweat, and Bitty’s brain is still coming back online but he’s suddenly overcome with how handsome Jack still is, even like this.

And then Jack takes a lengthy step forward right into Bitty’s space, his body enveloping Bitty’s and his broad palms cupping Bitty’s burning cheeks, and tips Bitty’s mouth into his.

Bitty’s eyes remain wide open for one paralyzed split second, taking in the sight of Jack’s dark eyelashes and sculpted brow bone from extreme up close, and then Jack’s lips move and Bitty’s eyelids flutter closed, melting into the unfamiliar action.

Jack's mouth is as soft as Bitty imagined, as hot, velvety lips sliding against Bitty's and catching on the dip of his cupid’s bow. Bitty’s mind keeps up a remote chant of oh my god, Jack is kissing me, oh god, what is happening, before that too is silenced by the thrill of Jack’s mouth parting against his, deepening the kiss, and then everything goes blessedly silent.

An undetermined amount of time later, Jack’s phone begins buzzing insistently; Bitty can feel the vibrations from where his hip is aligned with Jack’s. Jack ignores it, separating their lips to angle his head in the other direction and suck Bitty’s bottom lip into his mouth, tongue wet and tentative. His phone buzzes again, though, and subsequently two times more, and then Jack finally sighs into Bitty’s mouth.

“That’s my mom,” he says quietly, breaking their mouths barely far enough apart to speak. His lower lip is shining with spit and Bitty feels faint, needs to sit down before he falls over, needs to step back before he sinks his teeth into it impulsively. “She’s waiting for me...”

“Oh,” Bitty says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. He has so many things he wants to say -- what the hell, and what does this mean, and but aren’t you, and stay, stay, don’t go -- yet the only sounds his mouth can apparently make are, “Uh. Okay.”

“We have this… dinner…” Jack continues, and his eyes are so blue and his lips are so red and his cheeks are so pink, and Bitty thinks that maybe this is a very vivid stress-induced hallucination, and also thinks that he wouldn’t mind hallucinating a little longer. “I gotta go, but I’ll -- I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” Bitty says again, even though he’s not sure it is. He’s pretty sure, actually, that once Jack exits the door of his bedroom this spell will break like at Cinderella’s midnight clock strike, and Jack will return from dinner with his mother still painfully perfect, and still painfully straight, and still so, so far out of Bitty’s reach.

Jack backs up towards the door, eyes lingering on Bitty as his hands drift down Bitty’s arms. “I’ll be back,” he repeats, although Bitty’s not any more convinced, and then he takes his hands away and fumbles blindly for the doorknob, slips out into the hallway from whence he came.

Bitty hears his breaths shallow into nothing more than gasps of air, and promptly crumples backwards onto his chair.

Bitty spends the entire time Jack is absent slowly going out of his mind.

Once the shock passes and the fogginess clouding his thoughts clears, all he can do is think: think about Jack kissing him, and the lovely shape of his mouth, and the bewitched look on his face; wonder how the hell it happened, and why, and what it even means. He conjures a dozen, a hundred versions of what transpired to bring Jack to his door, and even more of what would happen if he does indeed come back.

Bitty paces back and forth across his room, unable to focus or hold onto any one scenario for more than a few seconds. His heart beats so fast for so long that it develops into nausea; he continues pacing while clutching his stomach and praying that he won’t throw up, because he doesn’t think he’d survive that kind of embarrassing memory.

Shitty and Lardo come back at some point, stoned and bearing three bags of sour worms. They squint at his messy room but don't comment on the condition of his hair or his shaky limbs, kindly offer him some sour worms and the opportunity for contact-high in Shitty’s room. They back off and close the door as soon as they see the look on his face. Bitty runs his hand through his hair one more time when he tries to imagine what his face must look like to successfully scare them away.

A long while later there are footsteps in the hallway outside his door. Bitty braces himself to tell Holster or Ransom or, god, Chowder that he’s busy right now. He tries to remind himself that he loves them even when he's in a state, and sits down on the bed to tell them that he isn’t feeling well -- except then the door opens, and it’s Jack standing in the doorway.

Bitty’s heart jumps, somersaults, and plummets all in the space of one millisecond, as he stands up abruptly from the bed and stares, openmouthed.

Jack doesn’t look as rumpled as he did earlier. His collar is adjusted neatly and the tails of his shirt are tucked and smoothed into his pants, but his face is a rich shade of pink and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists by his side. He seems so awkward, standing there, that Bitty’s continuous state of panic morphs into a different chaotic mess of confusion and affection, all while Jack does nothing but stare at him.

“How was dinner?” Bitty squeaks out, eventually, when it’s clear that Jack’s not going to speak anytime soon.

Jack looks like Bitty has veered off script unexpectedly. His eyes widen and he clenches his fists and then releases them again, compulsively. “Eh -- good, good.” Bitty nods. There’s a long stretch of silence neither of them fills. Jack inhales and says, right when Bitty is sure that his heart is sincerely going to beat out of his darn chest, “I. Bittle. About earlier.”

The color in his face deepens further but Bitty can’t tell what that means, if he’s already regretting what he’s done or if he’s just tripping over his own emotions like Bitty is. “You should -- the door,” he stutters, because whether he’s going to be kissed again or be let down gently, he’d rather do it without an audience. Jack looks at him like he spoke in a cryptic foreign language, so Bitty forces out, blushing to the roots of his hair, “Come in and shut the door, Zimmermann.”

“Oh -- shit, ouais,” Jack jostles into action, stepping away from the threshold and kicking the door shut after him. It’s the first time Bitty has seen him move with anything other than practiced poise.

Bitty’s room isn’t very large, and with the door closed the atmosphere in it quickly shifts. There’s an inherent intimacy in the short gap between their bodies that heightens in a small, enclosed space, and Bitty can feel his body heat rise and spread to his palms and his face as a result of it.

It’s unsettling, and Bitty suspects that he could grow to crave it, but not as long as he has no idea what is going on. “Jack --”

Jack interrupts him, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Wait, Bittle, listen. I -- it’s really important that you know that you shouldn't feel obligated.”

There are maybe a hundred thousand things that could’ve come out of Jack’s mouth after Bittle, listen, and Bitty spent two and a half hours imagining a good deal of them. Telling Bitty that he shouldn’t feel obligated is so perplexing that Bitty’s too wrongfooted to protest, and Jack carries on speaking. “I know as team captain I have a certain amount of authority and I didn’t even -- think about that, before, which is really wrong --”

Bitty squints, slowly gaining a renewed grasp on this bizarre situation. The only thing he manages to think with clarity, through the storm brewing in his chest, is, You doofus, what on earth are you talking about. “Jack. The season is over."

"Right," Jack shoves his hands in his pockets, squares his shoulders. "But -- still. Technically we kept up with a.m. practices even after the playoffs, so."

Because you are an insane person, Bitty thinks to himself, coming to terms with the fact that the tone of his thoughts is on a scale ranging between neurotic and cloyingly smitten. He opens his mouth, not sure what’s going to come out of it, but Jack keeps talking without pause.

"Anyway, the NCAA allows intra-team dating but doesn't say anything about involvement with captains. I checked."

This bowls Bitty over, a new wave of warmth rushing to his cheeks. "You checked?"

There's a sheen of what can only be nervous sweat above Jack's upper lip that shines under the glaring ceiling light. “It’s only thirty pages.”

Bitty feels lightheaded again, as he allows himself to consider for the first time that evening, with some measure of possibility, that Jack Zimmermann in fact came into his room and kissed the right sense out of him with the intention to date him. It’s almost too much to consider, making him weak at the knees. He grabs the edge of his desk to be on the safe side.

“You -- I -- dear god, what is even happening? What brought this on?” Because they’ve been spending -- well, they’ve spent almost every waking moment together this semester, excluding this odd week since the damned Swallow article. Jack had plenty of opportunity to confess his feelings had he possessed any, and the best time certainly wasn’t while his mother was waiting for him downstairs to go to a formal dinner.

“Well, I,” Jack stammers, dropping his chin to his chest. His ears are bright red, dark enough to be seen from a few feet away, and Bitty is enchanted by it. “I didn’t know, but. I read the stupid thing in the car because I couldn’t -- my mom said -- I kept thinking about you in every kitchen that we looked at, and I…”

Bitty can feel his eyes widen, his organs flipping over inside him. "You… did?"

Jack lifts his head, and when the two of them finally make eye contact it zings through Bitty’s body. "Yes. I mean, I guess it’s hard not to. If you're not on ice, you're baking, Bittle. Or tweeting. Or baking and tweeting."

He winces as soon the words are out of his mouth, and Bitty can’t help it: he bursts out in laughter, high-pitched and giddy. This boy, Bitty marvels, and euphoria spreads like thick cotton candy in his chest, making it hard to speak; to breathe.

Jack’s face still looks vaguely horrified, like he’s regretting ever opening his mouth. "Crisse, sorry, it's not -- I wasn't trying to --" he blows out air, starting over. "It's fine that you do. I mean, more than fine. I thought about you in the kitchens because I like it. I like you."

His voice is unmistakably uncomfortable, and beads of sweat are glinting on his temples. Bitty’s so overwhelmed by hearing Jack speak candidly about his feelings that he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind. "You like me? But you're -- I mean, I thought you --"

Jack’s eyebrows draw down and his mouth thins. He looks irritated, but Bitty knows it’s the shape his face takes when he’s distressed. "I know last year it didn't seem like -- but I thought this year you knew things changed --"

"-- were straight," Bitty exhales, chest heaving. God. This is real. "I thought… you were straight."

Jack squints, stopping himself in the middle of his sentence. He seems honestly, genuinely confused, the big lug. With a more functioning part of his mind Bitty recognizes that this is probably the most facial expressions he’s seen Jack make since meeting him.

"But I kissed you."

"Yeah," Bitty swallows, cheeks probably glowing bright red. Somehow it’s so much more jarring hearing the words out loud than it was to have Jack’s mouth on his. Like something that’s not supposed to be discussed out in the open. A secret lifted right out of Bitty's subconscious, manifested by sheer will. "Uh. Sure did. Thus my confusion."

"Your -- confusion…?" Jack trails off. His flushed face begins shifting by degrees, a smile spreading slowly but steadily and creating the smallest, sweetest crinkle at his eyes. He wipes his shiny brow with the back of one forearm and then crosses the distance between them in a few short strides, sweeping in to kiss Bitty.

It’s not any less mind-blowing the second time around. Jack's fingers slot under Bitty's jaw, titling his head up, his other palm sliding from Bitty’s neck to his shoulder and down his back in a tantalizing stroke. Bitty grows hot all over, bending his body into Jack's to press their chests together, his hands hesitatingly finding their way to Jack's hips. He hooks them over the sharp curves of Jack's hip bones, feels the strength in Jack’s obliques through his clothes.

Their mouths create a soft slick sound when they glide against one another, lips meeting and parting smoothly. Bitty gathers the confidence to attempt parting his own lips, applies the slightest pressure of tongue to Jack's bottom lip, and is rewarded by Jack's shudder and the tightening of his hand on the small of Bitty's back.

Jack pulls his face back slowly enough for Bitty to blink his eyelashes open and catch Jack licking his lips, exhaling shakily.

"I like you, Bitty," Jack leans their foreheads together. His eyes are staring right into Bitty’s, drooping and soft and so clearly fond that Bitty feels the tremor flow in his body all the way to his toes.

"Me too," Bitty whispers. His heart is still beating irregularly, vainly trying to catch up with the emotional upheaval of the last few minutes. “Jack --. I like you, too.”

Jack smiles at him, and it’s more honest, more tender than Bitty's ever seen it. It makes Bitty so happy that he wants to burst into giggles, wants to hide his beam in Jack's chest until butterflies stop fluttering in his ribcage.

Jack runs his fingers into Bitty's hair, gently brushes through it. He's bashful, both of them avoiding prolonged eye contact, and it's so absurd that they're shy after kissing like that, but Bitty can't help it. Jack tips his head to kiss Bitty's chin, his temple, makes Bitty actually giggle when he kisses his ear and then settles his lips in Bitty's hair, tugging him closer into the crooks of Jack's body.

"Hey, Jack?" Bitty says quietly, leaning his cheek on the curve of Jack's shoulder and wrapping his arms around Jack's waist, hands linking at the arch of his spine.

"Yeah?" Jack mumbles into Bitty's hair, mouth moving against the crown of his head.

Bitty presses his lips briefly to the closest patch of Jack's skin he can reach, which is the dip in his clavicle. It's barely a kiss, but his entire body shivers with the knowledge that he’s allowed. "Wanna be my date to Spring C tomorrow?"

Jack draws back far enough to be able to look down, tilting his chin into his neck and catching Bitty's eyes with his. His face is pink and his lips are swollen and Bitty's so unbelievably in love with him, but it's the furthest thing from pathetic now. It seems funny that it was ever something shameful at all.

"It'd be my pleasure," Jack smiles, and leans in for another kiss.

#omgcp #zimbits #zimbits fic #omgcheckplease #pavfics #ooof. finally done. i'm sure i'll edit again in the morning BUT

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snelbz · 5 years ago

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Reckoning and Retribution {3}

An A Court of Thorns and Roses, House of Earth and Blood, & Throne of Glass Crossover, Western AU fanfiction.

Based on a prompt sent in for the 4k follower contest {winner}, from Anonymous: “Ok hear me out: WILD WEST AU CROSSOVER”

@snelbz / @tacmc

It was Saturday morning, which meant that the market was set up in town, every local farmer and gardener, and even some from other towns and territories, out to sell their goods. Elide loved Saturdays, loved deciding what she would be baking that week. She loved to bake, her mother used to bake, and she used to help in whatever way she could before her mother’s untimely death.

“You should bake banana bread,” Aelin crooned, looping her arm through Elide’s. “You make the most wonderful banana bread.”

“I do make wonderful banana bread,” Elide agreed, with a grin.

At the end of the market, up by Hunt’s saloon, Lorcan Salvaterre was leaning up against a post, the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes, smoking a cigar.

Elide couldn’t shake the feeling that he was watching her, that he had been since their abrupt meeting earlier in the week. His gaze didn’t unsettle her like it should have though. She often found herself meeting those dark eyes, and just when she thought he may approach her, something would steal one of their attention or he’d glance away.

“What a waste of a second chance.”

Elide glanced up at her oldest friend. She followed her line of sight and found that they were looking at the same man. “Why would you say that?”

“He’s awfully cocky,” Aelin said, with pure disdain. “And horribly rude.”

Elide had to admit that he wasn’t exactly welcoming during their encounter, but he didn’t seem that horrible.

Aelin lifted a brow. “Judging by your silence, I’m assuming you disapprove of my judgement.”

“It’s not that I disapprove,” she said, slowly. “I’m just...intrigued by him.”

“Intrigued…” Aelin mused, letting the word hang between them. “I wasn’t even aware you two had made an acquaintance.”

“I wouldn’t even say we’re acquaintances,” she muttered, stepping away from Aelin to inspect a stand full of exotic fruits. “We’ve only spoken once.”

“And when was that?”

The question wasn’t accusatory, but there was indeed an edge to Aelin’s voice that hadn’t been there before.

Elide sighed and turned around to look at her friend. She was off duty today, so she was dressed as Elide was used to seeing her: full, ruffled skirts, corset cinched tight at the waist and her hair was curled and pinned back off her face, which was elegantly accented by the cosmetics she used every day. She looked like a lady waiting for a ball, not the local deputy of a small town.

“A couple days after you started working with Sheriff Whitethorn,” Elide said, moving on to the next stall. Knives and blades and weapons and bullets and all manners of destruction and death were laid out before her. She made to move on, but they’d caught Aelin’s eye and she moved in.

“When you were dropping off my gift basket, I assume,” she asked, picking up a small, wicked looking dagger. Elide nodded, knowing Aelin had worked out the rest.

She’d ranted to her for an hour the other night after she’d come in and found his muddy boots propped up on her desk. Half the goodies in the basket were gone, too, though Rowan had admitted to eating quite a few of them.

“Mm.” Aelin said nothing else as she examined the dagger, it’s intricate filigree handle shining in the morning light, and found a suitable thigh holster for it. She paid the stall owner an egregious amount of money and turned to Elide. “I feel like you’re going to disregard everything I say and are going to attempt to befriend that surly brute of a man, so I would like you to be prepared, just in case.”

Elide blinked as Aelin pushed the small dagger and leather holster into her hand. “I can’t use this.”

“I’d prefer you not have to,” Aelin sighed, “but I’d rather you be safe than sorry.”

Elide hesitated, but Aelin was already walking away. After hurrying to catch up and match her pace, Elide was saying, “You know that I have never used a weapon, not once.”

“Perhaps I should give you a lesson?” Aelin asked, something new already catching her eye.

Elide sighed as she, once again, had to hurry after her oldest friend.

“I won’t even have to use it, Aelin,” Elide protested, looping her arm through Aelin’s to slow her down. “And I am not going to...befriend him.”

Aelin snorted. “You forget how well I know you, Miss Lochan.”

“Oh, trust me, Miss Galathynius, I am fully aware,” Elide said. “You know me as well as I know you, which is why I believe you’re being over dramatic about Mr. Salvaterre.”

A blonde eyebrow raised. “Mister, hmm?”

“Drop it, Aelin,” Elide said, picking up a new bundle of chalk sticks for her classroom. The pieces the children were having to use we’re becoming so short, their writing was becoming near illegible. Well, more illegible, in the case of her younger students. She snagged a bottle of ink as well and before she could reach for her money pouch, Aelin had paid the man. She didn’t bother thanking her friend, knowing she’d wave the praise off anyways. “There’s nothing going on between Lorcan Salvaterre and I.”

“Well that’s a damn shame.”

Aelin and elide turned, finding the man himself standing behind them.

“Miss Lochan,” he drawled, tipping his hat. “Deputy.”

“Mister Salvaterre, good morning,” Elide gave him a friendly curtsy and continued on her way, pausing at a stall that sold little trinkets and jewelry.

Once she was out of earshot, Aelin turned to Lorcan. “Don’t even think about touching her.”

His gaze was amused. “And what made you think I would, Deputy?”

The way he said Deputy made Aelin want to punch him in the throat.

“She’s a kind woman,” Aelin went on. “You will not do anything to cause her harm or ruin.”

Lorcan grinned, wild and vicious. “You make it sound like she fancies me. Has she taken a liking to me, Deputy Galathynius?”

The fact that he used her title as a form of mockery had her hands curling into fists at her sides.

“Aelin, are you coming?”

The pair turned to where Elide waited a few stalls ahead. She called, “Give me just a moment.”

Elide nodded and continued sorting through the fabrics the seller offered.

Turning back to glare at Lorcan, Aelin breathed. “I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. If it weren’t for my promise to protect this town and all who live in it — including you, apparently — I’d put a bullet between your eyes and wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it. Rowan tearing up the warrant for your arrest was the most reckless thing he’s ever done. Now, don’t make me repeat this, ” She was a solid foot shorter than him, but as she said the words, Lorcan felt as if he was being talked down to. Like a child. “Leave. Her. Alone.”

His eyes turned dark, hard, as his jaw locked. “Fine, if it means that much to you.”

“It does,” Aelin snapped, picking up her skirts as she stormed to Elide’s side, leaving Lorcan behind.

Elide blinked as Aelin approached, frowning. “Is everything alright? What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” Aelin said, forcing a bright smile. “Let us continue on with our morning.”

Sighing and linking her arm with Aelin’s once more, Elide did just that. After they’d shopped for a few more minutes and Elide had decided she had enough supplies for the week, they were making for her cabin at the far end of town. It was a bit of a walk, but the ladies didn’t care, not wanting to saddle horses. It was such a hassle, and now that she was used to trousers, Aelin just didn’t want to mess with it.

“So,” Aelin began as they walked up the steps of Elide’s little house. “Aside from the fabulous banana bread you’ll be making me, what other goodies will you be baking this week?”

Elide listed off a menagerie of delicious desserts and baked goods. “A peach cobbler, oatmeal and cranberry cookies, blueberry crumble, a couple pies, and a chocolate and stone ground oat cake.”

Aelin’s eyes were wide. “Such a wide variety. What for?”

The tips of Elide’s ears turned red and Aelin certainly noticed as she began to blush. “Mister Salvaterre’s welcome basket.”

Aelin froze as she followed her friend into her house.

Oh, this was not good.

* * * * * * * * *

Bryce loved the silence.

Lying on her bed, she opened the new novel Hunt had given her the day before.

A gift, he had said, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she had told him that she couldn’t accept.

She was grateful for it.

It had been so long since she had been given a gift, had owned something new. She couldn’t wait to lose herself in the story, if even for a few moments, to get out of the living hell she was in.

A quiet knock sounded on her door. She tightened the sash of the dressing gown she wore around her waist. “Just a minute,” she called.

She made herself appropriate before opening the door, finding Hunt on the other side.

“Hunt-.”

Her quiet words were cut off as he crashed his lips against hers and softly shut the door behind him. When he finally pulled back, Bryce was breathless.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Come on, grab your things,” he said, looking around the room for a bag. The room was lavish and luxurious and the furnishings probably cost more than Hunt’s entire saloon, deed, ale, whiskey and all. “Maeve just left. Feyre is watching the bar. Let’s go.”

Bryce hesitated. “Go? Go where?”

Hunt took her face into his large, calloused hands. The look in his eyes was wild, determined. “It’s our chance. Now is our chance.”

Bryce closed her eyes. “Hunt-.”

“Please,” he breathed, his breath hot against her mouth. “Please, Bryce-.”

“I can’t go anywhere,” she whispered, forcing her eyes not to well up with tears. “You know I can’t go anywhere.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she pressed on. “Cairn will find us, you know that. What happened to Clare, to Isaac… I won’t let that happen to you.”

Hung closed his eyes, letting his forehead fall against hers. He knew she was right, knew if they had any hope of getting out of this town alive, it would cost them an egregious amount of money.

Otherwise, they’d be paying with their lives.

Clare Beddor and Isaac Hale were proof of that. After they ran away in the dead of night, Clare’s debt unpaid, it only took two weeks for Cairn to bring back her lifeless body and his decapitated head. His mouth hung open in a wide, never ending scream. It was tossed into an unmarked grave somewhere on the property, but Clare…

Maeve had made a few extra bucks off of her, thanks to the few sick fucks who lived in this town.

This was her life, and there was no getting out of it, no matter how many sleepless nights she spent wondering how she could get out of her debt.

But there was no way.

It was hopeless to dream.

“Bryce,” Hunt whispered, bringing her back to reality.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it, even though it meant nothing. “You need to let this go, Hunt. I’m a lost cause.”

“Don’t say that,” he begged, just as he always did.

Every time he did it broke her heart.

“I’m making an offer to Maeve on Monday.”

Her head snapped up and her eyes met his. “What?”

He wrapped her up in his arms. She rested her head against his chest, listened to the heart beating inside. The heart that belonged to her, in every way. “I’ve saved up enough for your freedom, with some extra. With what you’ve…earned… We have to be close, Bryce.”

She heard the words he specified. Your freedom. But not Danika’s.

“It’ll be a few more years, Hunt-.”

“No, damn it, I refuse to believe that.” He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. He whispered, “I wish you never would have made that bargain.”

She shook her head. There was no dwelling on it now. What’s done is done, and besides… “I don’t. Not if it kept her safe.”

Copying her motion, Hunt shook his head, his loose hair shaking with the motion. “For two weeks, Bryce?”

The sob that tore from Bryce was heartbreaking.

When she was eight years old, her father had ripped she and Ruhn from their beds, with no explanation, and they’d left the small town they called home. Years later, they’d realize it was because he’d killed Bryce’s mother in a fit of rage. If only that was the worst thing their piece of shit father had done.

Just a few years later, the family, with their young ward, Danika Fendyr, visited Rose Creek on their way west, as far west as they could go. Their father had gotten drunk beyond measure, the former owner of the saloon supplying as much whiskey as any one man could consume. He’d run out of money during his poker game, and needed a few new bargaining chips. He had three.

Bryce and Danika were sold to Maeve, while Ruhn was shipped off to the mines.

The girls were only sixteen when they were to begin selling their bodies, their souls, on behalf of Bryce’s father’s debt. Bryce’s birthday came first, Danika’s just a month later. A week before Danika’s unveiling, Bryce made Maeve a deal.

Her life for Danika’s. Double the price, double the debt, Bryce promised Maeve double everything, if only she said yes.

Maeve agreed.

Danika went free.

She protested, told Bryce she was an idiot as she wept and wrapped her arms around Bryce. Bryce told her best friend, her sister, to go free, to make something of herself.

She deserved as much.

Less than two weeks later, just days after Danika turned sixteen, she was killed by a bandit, a robbery gone bad, making the sacrifice Bryce made worthless.

She had doubled her debt for two weeks of Danika’s freedom, and she had been paying off that debt ever since.

“I don’t care the price, I don’t care how long it takes,” he promised. “One day, you and I are going to leave this town, and we’re never going to look back.”

“Hunt!”

The cry from downstairs was a warning, their time was short.

“Go,” Bryce breathed, her tears at last running down her face. “You can’t be up here when she gets back.”

He knew that, knew that he wouldn’t be the one to bear the punishment if they were to get caught. He nodded, pressing another kiss to her forehead, then her lips, letting it say all the words he couldn’t out loud.

I’m sorry.

I’ll get you out.

I love you.

* * * * * * * *

Exhaustion dwelled in every inch of Ruhn’s body as he followed Aedion, Declan, and Flynn into the saloon. That exhaustion did not stop him, though, he had things to do, those to protect, even if he could only do it from afar.

Anything else would get him shot.

Or hanged.

All they had to do was raise their hands in greeting to Hunt before plopping down around a table. A minute later, Feyre came carrying a jug of ale and four mugs.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Feyre crooned, setting it all in the middle of the table.

“I don’t see any gentlemen here,” Flynn muttered with a smirk.

“True,” Feyre agreed, “but any other sort of greeting just seemed rude.”

Aedion’s attention was immediately on the striking brunette across the room. She was primped and preened and the smile on her face showed everyone how much fun she was having at the saloon, being passed from lap to lap.

That smile was the biggest crock of shit Ruhn had ever seen. It was the same smile he saw on Bryce’s face and Nesta’s and all the other girls who had to lay on their backs just to keep their families fed or protected.

Promising to come back if they needed anything, Feyre flitted off, refilling the glasses of whiskey the sheriff and his newest deputy had sitting on their table. The man in black intrigued Ruhn, but he wasn’t one to start a conversation and make new friends. Especially with a man he was sure had killed people.

It was slow, for a Saturday night, if Lysandra was down on the floor of the saloon. Either that or she was a walking billboard for the services Maeve offered. Since he didn’t see his sister, Ruhn was inclined to believe the latter.

So instead he kept an eye on Feyre, tracking her as she moved from table to table, carefully watching every hand that came close to her.

It seemed that Feyre was fairly good at taking care of herself, and Hunt watched her like a hawk, but still, as he watched Feyre flutter around the floor, watching every man she passed watch after her with a hungry gaze, Ruhn felt the need to look after her, too.

It was difficult enough having to watch the women passed around who weren’t allowed to say no, but he couldn’t bear to watch those who were allowed to say no be taken advantage of simply because they were a woman in a saloon full of drunk bastards.

Flynn and Declan had ended up at the bar and Aedion had snuck into the dry storage room, leaving Ruhn to mull over his day, life and purpose with nothing but a mug of ale to keep him company. When he realized he’d been tracing the same knot in the wood for an entire song in the old, barely-in-tune piano, he looked up, his eyes darting around the room.

No sign of Bryce, but he’d learned to not to hold out hope for easy nights for her long ago.

But when his eyes made another pass, searching for not for wine-red hair, but golden-brown… He came up short.

For a moment, he debated on joining his friends at the bar, if for no other reason than a new vantage point to watch the room. That thought drifted away as he heard a voice, full of sass, from behind him.

“Are you watching me, Mister Danaan?”

He spun around in his chair to find Feyre, one hand on her hip, the other holding up a tin pitcher.

“I was just...scanning the room, Miss Archeron,” he said, simply.

She narrowed her eyes and suppressed her grin. “I believe you’re telling a lie.”

Ruhn huffed a laugh, unable to help himself as Feyre sat down across from him at the empty table. “I was just ensuring your safety after what had happened the other night.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Feyre said, eyes bright. “You are appreciated, you must know.”

He tipped his head in thanks. “How has your day been?”

“Long,” she admitted. “I suppose I cannot complain, though. And yours, Mister Danaan?”

He thought of the hacking he’d done with his pickaxe, hour after hour after hour all day, before he said, “Mine was long, as well.”

Unlike his sister, Ruhn wasn’t forced into the servitude he was sold into. Gavriel, the man who owned and operated out of the mines, was a fair and just man. He saw the situation the children were in, saw that he had the opportunity to help at least one of them. So when Ruhn’s life was offered to him, as payment for a life debt, he said yes, took the young man in.

And then told him he was free to do as he wished. Free to go, to stay, to work, to run.

But with Bryce in proverbial shackles, that wasn’t an option. So he took a job in the mines, made a modest living and did what he could for his sister.

The sadness in Feyre’s eyes told him she understood well.

“Miss Archeron, may-.”

“Feyre, please,” she interrupted. “Call me Feyre.”

He smiled. “Miss Feyre, with your permission, I’d like to walk you home tonight.”

Her eyebrows rose, her blue-grey eyes bright in the candles hanging from the chandelier. “I don’t get off work until late, well past midnight.”

Shaking his head, Ruhn said, “I don’t mind.”

Feyre nodded, slowly, perfectly amused. “Very well, Mister Danaan, you may walk me home.”

She pushed herself up from the table and was beginning to walk away when Ruhn called, “Miss Feyre?”

She turned to face him, yet again, a small smile on her lips. “Yes?”

“If I can call you by your first name, then you may call me by mine,” he said, then added, “Please.”

“Very well,” she said, softly, and then she was off to make her rounds, yet again.

* * * * * * * *

Saturdays were Nesta’s least favorite day.

The crowds were bigger. The room was louder. The men were worse.

As Nesta hurried toward the saloon, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of torture Maeve would have planned for her to punish her for being late the night before. Again.

She hurried into the saloon, squeezing Feyre’s hand as she passed, her sister giving her what little strength she could, and started up the stairs.

“Nesta Archeron.”

She paused, and turned, finding Maeve standing at the bottom of the staircase. “I’m not late tonight, ma’am.”

A wicked smirk. “No, you’re not.”

Nesta swallowed hard and made her way back down the stairs.

“Get ready and be back down here within twenty minutes. You have a special request tonight.”

A special request. It sent chills up Nesta’s spine.

And not in a good way.

Nonetheless, she did what she was told. After hurrying up to her room, she took her place in front of the vanity and took down her hair, the curls long and loose as they hung around her shoulders. She lined her eyes with kohl, painted her lips to a ruby red, and pinched her cheeks until they were nice and red. She looked at herself, admired herself in the mirror as she did every night before she changed.

Her reflection haunted her.

She was staring at the ghost of the girl she once was, the girl she once knew, before.

After pinning her hair back so that it was out of her eyes, she shrugged off her robe and dressed. Corset, skirts, stockings beneath that reached her mid-thighs.

Lacing her boots up, she steeled herself, praying it wouldn’t be one of the sick men who enjoyed pain. Nesta hated the pain.

She walked down the stairs, Maeve still waiting in the same spot as before. Eyes turned to look at her as she descended into the saloon, as they always did. People always stared when the whores entered the room.

She glanced around, trying not to make it obvious, as she caught the eyes of those in the bar. The usuals were there, of course, Hunt and Feyre and Luca, picking up dirty dishes. But Azriel Draeven was there, too, along with the mayor. And at their table, eyes trained on her, a glass of whiskey in his hand, was Cassian. Their eyes locked and her feet almost froze on the stairs, but she forced them to keep moving.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Maeve inspected her with an experienced eye. Without a word, she nodded, clearly pleased with Nesta’s appearance. She held out an envelope. “Do not open this envelope until you’ve reached the general store. You’ll find further instructions inside. You’ve been booked until sunrise. Go get your coat.”

Nesta didn’t say a word as she took the envelope and went back up to grab her coat. It was all she grabbed, her coat, not wanting to bring the rest of her belongings in case things turned ugly. She would have Feyre to grab them before she left. She wouldn’t mind.

She never did.

With her coat over her shoulders, she descended the stairs, once more, not bothering to look at anyone else except for her sister behind the bar.

Feyre could see the question in her eyes. She nodded, once, and Nesta ignored the sorrow in her youngest sister’s eyes as she exited the saloon, envelope in hand, and went down to the general store.

It wasn’t late by any means, but the dusty main road in and out of town was deserted. Those with families were home, having dinner, spending time with their loved ones. Those that didn’t… well, the saloon would be open for quite a while yet. The envelope in her hand felt heavy, though she knew that was just in her mind. It held nothing but a note, written in Maeve’s formal penmanship, like it always did. This wasn’t the first special request she’d fulfilled and she knew it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.

With a sigh, she opened the envelope and a letter in an unfamiliar hand fell onto her lap. She read through it once, blinking, and paused. She was misunderstanding. She had to be. Nesta quietly read the letter allowed, making sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

“Return to your home, lock your doors, and go to bed,” she murmured. “Tell no one, keep this a secret from all but your sisters. Get some rest, beautiful.”

The letter still clutched in her hand, Nesta looked around the deserted street. There was no one around, no one secretly watching her, waiting to catch her making a mistake.

Nesta had never run home so fast in her life.

* * * * * * * *

Lysandra had slipped into the dry storage of the saloon while Cairn wasn’t looking. She just needed a second to breathe, to sit without being hounded.

The door cracked open a minute later and Aedion appeared. “Are you okay?”

She breathed a relieved sigh as she nodded her head. She wasn’t sure if she could speak. If she spoke, she may start crying. Maeve would get far too much enjoyment from her tears.

He understood though, he understood how it took a toll on her. Wordlessly, she stood, making her way over to him, and wrapped her arms around his waist. Aedion didn’t hesitate to wrap his own around her and kiss the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he breathed.

She shook her head and Aedion knew it’s because there was nothing either of them could do.

For a moment, that’s all there was in the world, just the two of them and the silence. She loved that silence, loved when he held her and she could take a few minutes to breathe.

Even if it was never long enough.

Which it never was.

“You should go back out there,” she whispered.

“Or I can give you some coin,” he replied, quietly.

Not for sex, she knew, but so she could have ten extra minutes of breathing time.

Lysandra shook her head. “It would be a waste of coin, and you know it.”

Neither of them made to move though. Aedion’s hand wove into her hair, holding her head to his chest as she breathed him in, as she rooted herself in this moment, to use it as her anchor for the rest of the night.

Stolen kisses and secret meetings are all they had. Aedion would gladly pay for a night with her, for every night with her if he could. He loved Lysandra more than a man had ever loved a woman, or so he firmly believed. And she had given him her whole heart, since they could never have anything more.

She was Maeve’s favorite whore. There were no prices for a night with Lysandra, not unless someone was willing to shell out a wagon full of coins. No, she was Maeve’s personal gift to give out.

To the most worthy of companions.

Maeve’s most worthy clients.

“I have to go,” she whispered.

Aedion nodded, knowing the time was coming. The time always came, no matter how many nights Aedion spent praying it wouldn’t.

He wanted so desperately to tell her that he loved her, but he wouldn’t. No matter how much he felt it, he’d keep it to himself, because to say it would be too hard.

He would say it and nothing would change.

“I’ll be there,” he decided on, after a few seconds passed. He would be there, in the saloon, in case she needed him to look at, to make eye contact with, when she was feeling completely and utterly alone.

She nodded, before taking one last deep breath, breathing him in. And then she was out of his arms, out the door and back into the front room, into her own personal hell.

Because when she saw who was sitting in Maeve’s booth, she thought she was going to be sick. It had been years since she’d seen him. When Maeve crooked a finger over and called for her, those silver eyes met hers and Arrobyn Hammel smiled.

#snelbz rar #reckoning and retribution #sjm crossover #snacmc #snelbz tacmc collab #snelbz x tacmc #acotar #tog #hoeab

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winterknight1087 · 4 years ago

Text

Hardly the Villains

Summary: Roman is the superhero Prince, who fights against the Dark Sides, consisting of Green Menace, Viper, and Shadow Wing. What happens when Roman discovers the real identity of these villains will change his outlook of them.

Word Count: 4868

Warnings: sympathetic Remus, sympathetic Deceit/Janus, fighting, injuries, cursing

Pairings: eventual romantic LAMP, romantic Demus, brotherly creativitwins, brotherly anxceit

AO3 Link My Writing

@rosesisupposes I am so sorry this is a little bit late! 2020 ended the same way it went. But still, I hope you enjoy your @sanderssidesgiftxchange present! It was a fun challenge to work on a superhero fic focused on Roman and Remus!

"Here hold this."

The masked hero barely had time to catch the thing thrown at him, much less identify what it was, before the stick of dynamite blew up in his face. If it were any other super villain, then this would have been the end of the hero. Yet, Green Menace didn't seem to get the memo that he was supposed to try and kill the hero.

The hero let out a squawk as, for the third time this week, his face and hair were covered in cartoonish ash. He heard the cackle of the villain as Viper told Menace that they needed to go.

"Til next time, Princey." Shadow Wing announced.

“Stop flirting and let’s get out of here.” Viper stated to Shadow, not caring if the hero heard or not. The hero did hear, but he also couldn’t see Shadow’s reaction as the villain scooped up Viper and vanishing into the shadows.

"Well, this was fun!" Menace cackled before pulling a paint brush out of nowhere and painting a tunnel on a wall.

The hero knew better than to go after Menace at that point. All of Menace’s powers followed cartoon logic. He had flown straight into too many walls to know that only Menace could use those dumb paintings to travel. So, the hero sigh and flew off.

****

“Like honestly, does that fiend have any idea how hard it is to get that gunk out of my hair?” Roman scrubbed his hair with the towel around his head.

His boyfriend didn’t even bother looking up from his book. “I highly doubt that he knows considering that he is smart enough not to be here after your fights.”

“Sure, I have to take a shower anyways, because of normal fight dirt, but that fiend just has to give me that dumb stick and I have to spend 5ever trying to get the stuff out of my hair!”

“You could try asking him not to hand you the stick of dynamite.”

Roman gave the book Logan was holding determinedly in front of his face, the glare meant for the nerd. “Right, yeah, sure. Something like ‘Excuse me, fiend I fight at least three times a week, can you like not hand me your explosion gunk sticks? Thanks boo.’ How’s that sound?”

“Sounds perfect, RoRo! Just make sure to use your please and thank you’s!” The third boyfriend said, swooping in with a plate of cookies.

Logan finally lowered his book to glance at his watch. “Hmm, you are getting faster at washing that stuff out of your hair, Roman. Patton usually has eaten half of his baked goods before you return.”

Roman managed to let out an offended squawk before the windows suddenly blew in, knocking the bug screen inside the house. The gust of wind responsible seemed to spin around Patton before vanishing. The man let out a small giggle before the chaos appeared.

Remus was shrieking as he scrambled through the window. Logan managed to count to two before a furious looking goose followed the chaotic man in. Remus was already running down the hall to his room, but the goose didn’t seem to be deterred, even if the goose had to make its nest and raise its chicks outside this fiend’s door. The goose would get its revenge eventually.

This time, Logan got to ten before the front door was thrown open with the other two. Janus barked at Roman to help him before sprinting down the hall. Roman shut his eyes to let out a breath, but a crash and something shattering sent him after his twin and twin’s boyfriend. Virgil let out his own breath before saying something that couldn’t be overheard by a loud beep.

“Patton, stop trying to give me a filter! It’s not going to happen and I think a murderous goose deserves a swear or two!”

“What did Remus do this time?” Logan asked, unnervingly calm about this entire situation.

Virgil ran a hand through his hair. “Jan told Remus to get out more and enjoy the sunlight for once. Remus pulled out his meme skills and informed us he went to the park. Then as Jan was congratulating him on going outside, Ree pulled out the goose and it did not like that. We’ve been following the idiot and goose since 4th Street.”

“I’ll go grab the three of you some water then.” Patton hummed as he went back into the kitchen, ignoring the screeching and thumps from further down the hall.

“I am pleased to hear you are getting exercise at least, Virgil.” Logan commented, returning to his book.

“I swear the rat is going to give me a heart attack one of these days, and then I won’t hear the end of Jan’s whining.”

“I do not whine.”

Logan lowered his book, questioning why he was even bothering to try and continue reading. “Also, why would Janus whine to you if you were the one to have a heart attack? I would assume he would whine to the rest of us, as I doubt he would whine to his boyfriend.”

“Janny, you would 100% whine that I was making the rat look bad.” Virgil stated, rolling his eyes.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

A voice at the front door cackled. “But Janny makes you go red and it’s cute!”

Logan raised an eyebrow at Remus, who now stood at the door as if nothing had happened. “Did you climb out your bedroom window to avoid the goose?”

“No,” He grinned. “I climbed out to avoid my bro bro twin. Pretty sure he’s still screaming at my door. Where’d Goose Janus go?”

“Well, Janus is right there, however, I am unsure what has become of the goose.”

“Nooo, that’s Human Janus. I asked about Goose Janus.”

“Do not call me Human Janus either.”

“VeeVee, your brother is being mean to meeeeeeEEEee!!!!”

Virgil rolled his eyes at the two of them. “Where is the goose, Jan? I don’t want to be running after the rat and a goose across town again.”

“Roman managed to get it into a pillowcase. He had the top clutched for dear life while screaming at Remus. Which means, we should probably get out of here before the goose is released.” Janus commented.

“Oh, you three are already leaving?” Patton asked, carrying three water bottles.

“Patton, you are amazing.” Janus stated, snatching a bottle from him and downing it in a single gulp.

Virgil rolled his eyes at the figure going for a second water bottle. “Probably for the best. Prince Whines a Lot isn’t exactly agreeable after… work.”

“Oh, OK. We’ll see you guys later then!”

With that, Virgil shoved the other two out the door, muttering that he wanted to go lay down and not move for the next year. The two left in the living room could hear their third partner ranting at a door down the hall, oblivious to the fact the resident was gone. There were also muffled goose noises that worried Patton.

Logan sighed, setting his book aside. “I’ll call Animal Control to come get it. You want to go inform Roman that his twin is gone?”

“M’kay.”

***

Roman’s day had been absolutely terrible. He had gotten a flat tire, some dragon witch at the store stole the entire stock of Crofters before telling him off for being in her way, and he accidentally dropped his phone so it now had a giant crack on the screen. So, when he walked in to see muddy footprints and what he would argue was the stench of a dead rat in the wall, in the summer, he was not exactly kind as he turned to face his twin.

Remus was curled around his laptop, furiously typing away on it. Roman noted the muddy boots that made the muddy footprints were hitched up on the coffee table, spreading the filth there too. Remus muttered something about ripping someone’s ears off and shoving them up their butt and that was the line for Roman today.

“Are you serious, Remus! This place is a disaster! When I left, it was spotless! And what is that smell?! Did you run a secret trash dump in here while I was gone?”

“Oooooh, that is an interesting idea.” Remus cackled, still not looking up.

If Roman had the ability to shoot laser beams out of his eyes, Remus would have already been a crisp of a crisp. “What are you even doing?”

“Hacking into a multibillion company for a sweet payday.”

Roman managed to get halfway through an eyeroll before realizing what his brother was actually doing. “Great, I’m going to have to burn that couch!”

Remus finally glanced up at the other, eyebrows knit. But before he could ask, his phone let off a ding and he decided that was more interesting. He snatched it up and started grinning. Roman watched Remus quickly throw everything into his backpack. He jumped up and grabbed a duffle bag that Roman hadn’t noticed. If Remus was covered in mud, the duffle was mud disguised as a bag. Remus sang out a ‘smell ya later, bro bro’ before he was out the front door, leaving Roman in the middle of the mess.

Roman took a deep breath as the door slammed behind his twin. He took another. One more deep inhale and he let out a frustrated scream into the arm desperately trying to muffle it. Now his throat hurt on top of him needing to clean up the mess his idiot of a brother left behind.

“Come on, Roman. Mom is paying off your car payments and rent for letting the bastard stay here. And you like not having to use 85% of your paychecks just to pay for those. Plus, the bastard spends most of his time out of the house with those irritating friends of his. It’s fine! It’ll be fine!”

He kept muttering this to himself as he angrily cleaned up the mud. Once he got as much as he could up, he took a seat (on the opposite couch as he now had to get rid of his favorite couch) to Google how to get rid of the stench. Like honestly, what did that bastard do to make it smell so bad in here? Roman thought it would be a bit better once some of the mud was gone, but nope, still just as bad.

Almost louder than Remus’s snoring, the Hercules song Zero to Hero started blaring from Roman’s work phone. He was instantly on his feet, heading to his room as he pulled it out of his pocket.

New message:

Human Computer: The Dark Sides are robbing the regional Walmart financial offices. That is two streetlights left of the so called ‘lame’ coffeeshop, Prince.

Moral Compass: Aww, I just put on the new episode of Steven Universe Future though!

Human Computer: I am sure they will apologize if you inform them of this. Prince, have you seen the message or am I going to have to hack your personal phone and laptop to get your attention?

Prince: 10-4 nerd

Roman grabbed his katana before rushing out the back door. He grinned as he twisted the watch face and pressed the newly appeared button. Sometimes making Logan watch cartoons and daring him to make cartoon gadgets was worth the mutterings and frustration Roman faced from his partner. The hero costume shimmered around him, concealing his identity as he took off into the sky.

Roman could hear the alarms going off. Even if Logan hadn’t specified where it was, Roman would have known where those fiends were. He knew that Patton would give him the scolding of the century if he knew, but Roman welcomed this attack. It gave him a means to take his frustrations off on some villains who constantly tormented the town.

“Sorry, Princey. Can’t let you go any further.” A voice commented behind the hero as he took in the scene.

“Oh look, it’s the talking shadowling.” Roman commented, turning to see the villain.

Honestly, seeing Shadow Wing always took Roman’s breath away upon first sight. Long wings were stretched out, barely flapping in order to keep the person up. Shadows were cascading down the wings, mimicking black flames falling to the ground. As for the villain, Shadow always reminded Roman of Wesley in his full Dread Pirate Roberts getup from the Princess Bride.

“Ooof, pretty sure you used that insult last week. Running out of creative material there, Princey?” That insufferable smirk!

“At least I have a variety, Raven Boy.”

“Mmm, creativity is not my department. Anyways, what’s up with the big knife you’ve got there? Wanna try slicing shadows?”

Roman had enough time to pull out the katana before the strange ball of frozen darkness was dangerously close. He barely managed to slash it. He still preferred Shadow’s cold blobs over being handed the explosive gunk stick Menace always handed him. Roman watched Shadow take off into the sky before swooping down close to the ground.

A ball of darkness landed right before Logan, or as he was in his own hero costume-the Human Computer. The villain was already rising back up into the air, ignoring the fact that he had just barely missed the hero’s sidekick. Roman threw himself into the fight, angry about the day, sure, but this villain just went after his boyfriend! There must be vengeance!

“Oooooooh, Shadow really does have interesting flirting methods!” A new voice commented.

Shadow threw some of his shadows at Green Menace, who was eagerly cackling. Roman quickly scanned, searching for the last of the evil trio. No sight of Viper. Then Menace’s voice forced Roman to turn back to seeing what the villain was cackling about. He did have to admit Menace and Shadow seemed to be close friends at the very least. Why does that hurt Roman?

“Let’s get this over with. I have SUF to watch.” Shadow commented.

“Okie dokie, bro-kie!”

“Say that again and I am sending you to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and leaving you for the eldritch horrors down there.”

“Pleasssssse, even they would ssssend thissss trash back to ussssss.” Ah, there’s Viper.

Menace was grinning as he pretended to wipe away a tear. “The two of you really understand me.”

Roman twisted the katana, mentally mapping out how to try and take these three down. It was always a difficult fight but Logan and Patton were better ground support while the dark trio kept to the skies, out of reach of almost everyone and thing. And because Roman was certain of this fact, he didn’t see the safety hazard strike him down.

All Roman knew was one moment, he was getting ready to whap Menace and the next, he was in a huge crater, staring up at four figures in the sky. The air was knocked out of him and his body did not want to move for the next year. Before he could reorient himself, the new figure knocked an entire building on top of Roman, trapping him under rubble. Not that the hero noticed as he lost consciousness.

***

The three villains stared in shock at the new figure. The new enemy hummed disinterestedly at the pile where the hero had landed. The new figure turned to look over the three standing before them. He had planned this entire take over and subjecting these three useless tools to his will. Half of his plan was already complete, now just to deal with the amateurs.

All three of them had lost the easiness they had with the hero. Now, they look furious. In fact, Green Menace looked like he was about to rip the world apart with his teeth. The new figure didn’t place much thought on that, expecting that reaction.

“Now then. You three idiots see how a real villain does it.” He stated. “I will be merciful and offer you positions as my lackies, but this is now my town.”

Shadow was already pulling all of the shadows towards him as Viper hissed at the newcomer. “No, you will not. This is our home. We will not let anyone else terrorize our home. We might not be heroes to the people here, but we will not let someone come terrorize the town we have under our control.”

“Shadow, Viper.” Menace’s voice was chillingly serious. “Now.”

Shadows shot through the air, stealing the sunlight and replacing it with waves of fear and terror, as a long snake managed to coil around the newcomer. However, Green Menace was the most terrifying to onlookers and the new villain. Menace was out for blood and would not rest until the bastard was twenty feet under for hurting his twin brother.

****

“…kidding me?!”

“What else were we supposed to do, Vee? Leave him there?”

“Take him to the house the two of you share! Hate to break it to you, but your brother is a complete dumbass; I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he doesn’t know the truth. So, he’s not only going to wake up after a massive fight, in a strange place he has never been in, he’s also surrounded by his enemies!”

For all the luck in the world, of course this was the first thing Roman heard as he gained consciousness. The hero tensed as he opened his eyes only the smallest amount to see the trio of villains standing in front of him in a dark room. He desperately wanted to look around and see how much danger he was in, but that would require that he open his eyes and if they weren’t torturing him because they thought he was still unconscious, then he wasn’t going to let them know he was awake.

“I agree that he probably hasn’t figured it out yet, but if we left him, rescue services would have found him and if one of our identities are revealed, all of them are. What do you think the government’s first reaction to having the superhero Prince unconscious in some hospital would be? Hmm? We are working with what we can do. We wouldn’t be able to make it to the twins’ house without being spotted. We have our tunnels to get here.”

Wait… That meant… They knew where he lived. Oh no, they knew where he lived. That meant Remus would be in danger as well. It meant Logan and Patton were in danger. It meant that Virgil and Janus were in danger. It meant that everyone Roman knew and cared about were in danger because of these villains.

“I know that this entire situation is bad, but we’re doing the best we can. Even the walking ray of sunshine and nerd said this was the best option.”

Pound. Pound.

“Where is he?! How badly is he hurt?”

Roman’s heart might as well have stopped in that moment. These villains could do whatever they wanted to him, but he will not let these fiends harm a hair on Patton or Logan’s head. In an instant, Roman was on his feet, and shoving the closest figure to him against a wall. As he looked at the face he had pinned, his heart might as well be stopped as that would be a kinder fate than this. The face he saw, was the face of Virgil Storm-Ekans.

Roman stepped back in pure shock as his eyes swept to the other two villains, taking in all three shocked faces. Standing in front of him were both his brother and Remus’ friends, but also the trio of villains, perfectly mashed together. His twin brother in Menace’s sparkling green and black costume probably found in some thrift store, looking like some knock off Luigi. Janus in Viper’s black and yellow suit complete with the dumb cloak and hat. And Virgil in… Virgil in a black Wesley outfit with huge shadow-y black wings wrapped tightly around him.

“I-No… Noo… This isn’t- it can’t”

Patton appeared, blocking Roman’s vision from the three he hated. “Roman, hey, hey. Shhhh. It’s OK. Come on, let’s get you back on the couch. You’re OK, your safe.”

Roman was gently forced onto the couch before Patton started to heal the injuries he had. Soft blue light shone from his hand as each wound healed and vanished. Roman’s eyes were still trying to take in the mess, however. A creak pulled his attention to a set of stairs to see Logan calmly walking down, looking at something on his phone.

“Lo, do you have information on who the hell Orange Traffic Cone was?” Virgil asked, his wings fluttering nervously as they unwrapped from around him.

“I was going to ask the same of you. They were obviously some kind of villain, so I assumed you three would have more information on who or what they were.”

“Well, isn’t this a wonderful situation we have.” Janus grimaced. “I doubt they will be returning, however.”

Logan adjusted his glasses as he glanced over at Roman, pleased to see the boyfriend was healing up well. “Well, after that impressive show of power, I doubt anyone will try to take over the town from you three. I do wonder how the three of you gained so much power though.”

“We were the ones to find the dumb radioactive stone and spend more time around it, Logan. Proximity to the source of all of our powers.” Janus commented.

“Ah, that does make sense. It would also probably explain the extra developments as well.”

“Call them what they are, Lo. Mutations. Freaks like me… us have mutations.” Virgil spat.

Logan looked over the other, noting that the wings were tightening around the youngest of the group. “You are not a freak, Virgil.”

Virgil scoffed, “Yeah, right.”

Logan narrowed his eyes but could tell that it would take a while to improve the other’s confidence, so decided to try and improve the mood. “You are not a freak, Virgil. I know you do not accept it right now, but hopefully in time. Now, Remus, a question I have been meaning to ask. Did you really dump cow manure on the executive’s desk?”

“Wait, was that what was in that disgusting bag of yours?!”

“It was bull shit!” Remus cackled.

“What-what is going on?” Roman intruded, weakly. “Is-is this some kind of prank or a dream?”

“Roman, have you truly not realized who the ‘dark sides’ are?” Logan asked, curiously. “Did it not occur to you that if you got superpowers, at very least your own twin brother would also develop some powers as well?”

“But-but- they’re evil!” Roman screeched.

“Hardly.”

Remus knelt to look his twin in the face, concern filling the red-tinted hazel eyes. “Ro- did- do you really think that? Do you really think us evil?”

Words would not escape Roman’s chocked throat, but that seemed enough of an answer to the rest of the room. Virgil and Janus instantly backed away, granting Roman more space as Logan moved forward and took the seat on Roman’s other side. Remus looked at his twin in so much shock and pain that Roman wanted to lie through his teeth.

“Roman, while these three may violate legal codes, they are hardly evil. They are more like Robin Hood than some evil monster.”

“But today-“

“We were stealing from Walmart to give money to a homeless shelter full of full-time Walmart employees, Ro. What happened with that rando was unexpected. We still don’t know who they were or what their intentions truly were.” Virgil said, softly.

Patton took Roman’s hand into his. “RoRo, have you not even wondered why despite all those fights, you never actually ended up hurt? Not even a bruise most times.”

“That literally every hit that would actually hurt missed? Like I get thinking that of Remus, but of Jan and me?”

“But- what about you throwing one of those dark snowballs at Logan earlier?!”

Logan barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Roman, I’m not sure you’ve realized yet, but Patton and I knew who these three were. Virgil was tossing me a flash drive that I designed to aide them in hacking through complex security measures that I was able to use to further hide the true amount they stole.”

“You were helping these fiends?!?”

“Well, it’s not acceptable that a multibillion company lets their employees live in poverty.” Patton softly admitted.

“Why-“ Roman was just so lost and confused. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why was I left out?”

“Most of us thought you already knew. Virgil pushed for a verbal confirmation that you knew before letting the idea that you didn’t know rest. It’s not like we made any effort to discuss work out of very specific locations, which rarely intersect between all of us.” Logan answered.

Roman ran a hand through his hair, trying to process all of this. The rest of the room glanced around at each other. A silent agreement to give the hero a moment was passed around. Once they seemed to understand the decision, Janus glanced at Virgil before turning to Patton.

“Hey, literal sunshine. Can you possibly take a look at Virgil’s wing and see if you can heal whatever happened to it?”

“I’m fine, Jan.”

“Bullshit. Don’t make me pull the older brother card on you, little shit. You only hold your wings that close to you when they are hurt.”

“If you’re hurt, I can fix it! You don’t need to be in pain!” Patton said, jumping up.

“Seriously, I’m fine, Princey over there was the one who got hit with an entire building.”

“Vee, let Pat look at your wing. Traffic Cone did a pretty bad number on you, trying to knock you out of the air.” Remus said softly.

“Come on, kiddo. I’ll need access to your back to see if the joints are alright, but you’ll feel a lot better afterword!” Patton said.

“Ugh, I can see the fight is already lost.” Virgil muttered, before taking his black shirt off.

Roman had a lot of information to process, but that didn’t happen as he saw how ripped the other was. He had thought Virgil was hot and Shadow Wing hotter, but seeing the two combined, yeah, Roman was gay. At least he was also poly so could ask his partners if they were interested in romancing a certain shadow. Which if his super gay mind could actually remember anything, he would remember that they were actually already pushing to ask Vee out.

“OK, you have a bruised muscle and some of your feathers are gone. I also think you have a broken bone somewhere around here.” Patton said, pulling Roman out of his gay panic.

Janus immediately moved over, looking over the feathers before letting out a breath. “You are one lucky bastard, Vee. It’s mostly tertiary and a few secondary ones. But that means you were close to getting taken out by that knife.”

There was a small mischievous cackle near Roman. “So bro bro. You crushing hard on Virgil yet, or do Jan and I need to undress him some more for you?”

“REMUS!”

“Whaaaaat, I’m just trying to set up my bro with my hoe’s bro.”

****

2 months later…

“Oh come on, Princey. Surely you can do better than that.”

Roman was glad that most people couldn’t see details of them from the ground. If they could, they would see that Prince had a huge smile as he dodged his boyfriend’s shadow ball. It wouldn’t do him any harm, and in fact all of their boyfriends found comfort in the gentle cool kiss of them by now. No, Roman was determined to tag the sensor on the other’s arm, indicating that he won the game today. Can’t win if Virgil won.

Below, Remus and Janus were breaking into an Amazon warehouse to steal food, blankets, and clothes to donate to various homeless organizations. Once they were done, the two of them would join their third partner in crime to ‘escape’ from the Prince while the Prince pretended to hate them. Prince would fly off, talk to police about what happened, watch the Human Computer bury the actual amount stolen so that the company would just write it off. The Moral Compass would gently push a calm acceptance upon everyone so that there would be less struggle to hunt the villains down.

Then, the three of them would go and change out of their hero costumes and pick up the trio from their downtown townhouse. They would go home, order pizza, and watch movies all night, laughing and having fun. The next day, they would spend the day dropping off items at various homeless shelters. Roman would see how much it meant to the shelters to receive the donations, and it would make him wonder why he ever thought the trio were evil. Then the group would split so Remus and Janus would head to the townhouse while the four boyfriends would head to Roman’s planning a nice night with their partners.

And honestly, Roman wouldn’t have it any other way.

#sage writes #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #superhero au #logan #roman #virgil #Patton #injury mention #romantic lamp #romantic demus #brotherly creativitwins #brotherly anxceit #cursing #fighting mention #sandersidesgiftexchange #sandersidesgiftexchange2020 #rosesisupposes

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poptimus-prime · 5 years ago

Text

Here is what the kids call my highly disorganized, half-baked list of stuff that could have been done with Jack to make him a better character.

@yeetmetothehell I am sorry if you are disappointed by my ideas.

“Optimus was more like...Jack.” OK…so show us that.

In my opinion...Jack seems like he was intended to be written to be almost a parallel to Orion’s journey to becoming Optimus Prime, at least how he is used in the plot. Jack is described as “smart and responsible”, which can also be read as “hardworking and responsible” and really this can be achieved in narratively using a few points, IMO:

Long hours in his room/the library studying outside of work and school.

Filling out the background of the garage more with sketches/print outs of motorcycle blueprints (to keep the idea that Jack really wants a motorcycle and show hints of extreme dedication, but they’re kept in the garage rather than his room to metaphorically show that distance he’s put between himself and what he wants)

“Man of the House”/”Grew up too fast” (This will be discussed more later but TL;DR “I’ll handle the electric bill this month, Mom”)

Somewhat fragile work/school/life balance that Jack somehow perfectly maintained before meeting the team

Orion was very physically passive. Jack seems to be intended to be written as passive but it comes off as an apathetic reluctance that Orion doesn’t possess (Orion may not believe in violence but he clearly wasn’t unwilling to communicate his thoughts; it’s how he got the title of Prime in the first place.) However, Orion had to learn to become more outspoken over time probably, so we can keep him as being aloof/reluctant at the start of the series.

“Man of the House”/”Grew up too Fast”

It’s no secret Jack came from a nonconventional home; June is very explicitly portrayed as a single mother with a dad nowhere in the picture. However the situation surrounding Mr. Darby is unknown. The way June talks about it makes me personally feel like Jack’s dad either ran out or divorced June and doesn’t bother with his kid. Dysfunction in the family really just goddamn changes you TBH. (can confirm bc hi, I come from a dysfunctional home) Sometimes you just grow up super fast. Jack probably spent his childhood missing his mom as she worked shifts at the hospital and seeing how lonely and hurt she was. He maybe went out and got a job the first day he could and helps with smaller bills (“I’ll handle the electric bill this month.”), or maybe other expenses like groceries and his own phone bill. June probably makes enough to comfortably support her and her son, especially given her job and the cost of living in rural ass desert Nevada. But Jack still does this anyways--it’s how he copes with his issues after what happened with his dad. Doubling down and trying to be what he thinks is the bigger man because his dad couldn’t be fucked.

This would make the disruption him letting the bots into his life creates more staggering; June doesn’t expect her son to pay bills, but the sudden change in behavior (skipping out on work) would be a cause for concern because sudden shifts like that are Usually Signs that Something is Very Wrong. Especially because Jack is usually responsible and open with his mom; he would have told her if he was gonna cut hours at work, theoretically.

Jack feels like he has to constantly put his own wants aside to contribute to his household. Even if June doesn’t force this expectation upon him, it’s a feeling that he will have, especially if he watched his dad just abandon him and June. Maybe he has resentment towards his dad for this and that is causing some anger he’s keeping tightly under wraps? And maybe the bots give him an excuse to do something he actually wants to do for once or some excitement in his life and that’s why he goes along with it? Lots of options, people!

Clothing Choices: The Hoodie™

You are going to have to deal with me being a whore for costuming choices and what they can mean. The show has a problem with the humans wearing the same shit every time they’re on screen and I’d love to rant about all of them (yeah yeah I get it saving money) but I’m focusing on Jack right now. Give Jack a hoodie 2020. A grey one or some other dull and drab color. And make him actually always wear the hood (except like in scenes where he is working bc workplace dress codes obviously) As time progresses, the drab hoodie is changed to a more vibrant color, but he still always has the hood over his head. And then, at a pivotal moment, the boy takes the hood off. (You could even throw in Miko cracking a joke about Jack actually having hair if you really wanted TBH.) Why this? The narrative is that Jack is constantly holding himself under wraps because of his self-imposed responsibilities. As he starts to become more into his own, he decides to express himself more with brighter colors, but still has some reservations. When he takes the hoodie off, that’s when he’s fully realized himself in this process and thus completes the parallel.

Actually make him interact with Optimus in a meaningful manner.

Arcee can still be his guardian in the field and I think working on strengthening their relationship is vital. But also, if you’re gonna make Jack the confidante holding the key to Vector Sigma, there actually has to be...meaningful interaction. Optimus asking Jack what he’s so engrossed in reading and Jack explaining the book he’s got with passion before shutting himself up and saying “it’s kinda dumb though” or something. And Optimus just responds “I don’t think it’s dumb, tell me more.” Coaxing him towards more self-discovery and expression. Optimus maybe sees more of his old self in Jack and starts attempting to be a quasi-paternal figure without really thinking about it because he is, after all, Dadimus. Jack maybe lashes out about how he doesn’t need Optimus to be his dad and that makes the space between them tense for a while. Eventually Jack comes to apologize and maybe there’s an important Talk.. Just a few ideas I will expand on later. I feel like forgiveness and lack thereof is a good theme--I know I was held back for a long time because of how convoluted the concept of forgiveness is with family.

The Character Arc

So, what would Jack’s character development throughout the events of season 1 be? My basic idea for a Jack arc that mirrors Orion’s self-realization and coming into Prime-hood without being a carbon copy is essentially:

Jack is portrayed as a responsible, hardworking, studious teenager who constantly turns down chances for fun and excitement to handle his responsibilities. Has clear dreams for after high school and for his own personal life; but he’s constantly contemplating and changing his mind about whether he will or not because he’s extremely dedicated to helping his mom and all that. However, he still gets super curious about Arcee and gets swept up by her in the Vehicon chase, and he still has whispers of courage and protects Raf during the altercation. He first tries to ditch Team Prime because he’s concerned about his responsibilities, but eventually returns because he’s drawn to the opportunity to finally go buck wild for once in his life (even if he spends his time being hesitant about everything.) His hesitancy and dedication to severe self-imposed responsibility is a result of his inability to move on from what his dad did to him and his mom; he’s under the impression that he 1) Has to forgive someone to move on, and thus 2) He cannot move on because his dad isn’t there to bother to say sorry and take on his position as Dad. In essence, he becomes less the character telling Miko to stop and more the character being pushed by Miko to be more adventurous. In lulls in action, Optimus starts to take interest in him when he notices his constant hesitance to express himself and is just being dragged along rather than going willingly. Has a conversation with him about a book Jack’s reading, which Jack attempts to shut down because it’s “dumb and childish,” but Optimus urges him to continue. The idea that June knows about Arcee as a bike and Jack explaining that he bought a motorcycle as a fixer-upper for dirt cheap can stay. (He probably still is saving up for his motorcycle.)

The longest portion, after Optimus starts interacting with Jack on a level of bonding and gently coaxing him to be himself— Jack becomes more outspoken and he’s shown as curious, analytical, quick witted, and has a deep sense of justice. Being young and craving a childhood lost to his trauma and self-imposed obligations to help his mom with running the household, he suddenly starts spending more time at the base pursuing hobbies and going on missions rather than studying and work, which concerns June. She tries to press Jack, and is met with what can be described as typical teenage headbutting that gets progressively worse. She grounds Jack after the fight, MECH takes her, the rescue happens. (That makes sense to stay in this narrative IMO.) Around this time, Optimus has effectively started becoming Jack’s own Alpha Trion—teaching him things that he’s picked up that he may feel apply to Jack. Jack interprets one of these lessons as Optimus trying to be “dad” and he’s not having it. Makes it VERY clear that he does not need a dad (“didn’t need one before and sure as fuck don’t need one now”) and definitely snaps at Optimus, which then pushes his progress in the arc closer to the end. He eventually comes back to apologize, and Optimus forgives him. He and Optimus have a heart-to-heart about one of the hardest lessons Optimus has had to learn—how to let go of the past without forgiving those who have hurt you and refuse to make amends, so that you may determine your own future. It’s very clear he’s talking about Megatron, even though he never says his name. Jack takes this lesson to heart.

His final bit of development before the hood removal thing probably happens during the events of “Rock Bottom” and reinforces that hard lesson, right when he’s faced with the option to off Megatron. Maybe there’s some taunting about how Optimus preaches softness and forgiveness too much when Jack refuses to kill him. Jack gets angry, and he’s about to fucking do it. But then he stops, takes a breath, and says “Optimus doesn’t preach forgiveness, he preaches moving on from those who refuse to move on themselves. He will never forgive you, but he’s learned to live on despite what you’ve done.” Soon after this, when Megatron comes to the base, Jack takes off his hood, stares Megatron right in the face, and says “This is not forgiveness, Megatron. Don’t you forget that.” Later, when Optimus gives him the key, he tells him something along the lines of “you have grown since we’ve met, Jack, and even though there is still a long way for you to go...” he hands Jack the key. “...Remember that even I am a work in progress.”

Anyways this is again, half-baked. And needs lots of polishing. But it’s something.

#luna.docx #No I will not be tagging this outside the blog #I am self conscious about it

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bunnyywritings · 5 years ago

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awkward introductions

tsukishima kei x fem!reader

𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤 - 𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥 - 𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕥

[a/n: he’s so pretty (つ◉益◉)つ since I’ve gotten new followers since then, just a quick psa, this is not part of the ‘maybe it’s fate’ (or the ‘uncle kei’) series, this is part of my first Tsukishima series ‘hollow words and misunderstandings’...anyways, here’s part 4 of the series! sorry for the wait, oh and I made his super soft here so uh enjoy! -yours truly, bunnyy -`ღ´-]

Things were finally dying down, the boys getting some well needed time off after the Spring-High playoffs which meant more time for you to bother a certain blonde middle blocker.

“So since we’ve got no practice today...do you maybe wanna hang out?” You asked as you trailed behind his tall figure, weaving through the students in the hallways.

“Hmm sure.” He mumbled as he stopped at his shoe locker.

“Wait...really?” You almost did a double take. He looked at you with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk.

“Fine, I take it back.”

“No, no. I-uh I was just surprised that you agreed...that’s all.” You blushed as he chuckled and pulled his sneakers back on.

“Mhmm whatever you say. Now go put on your shoes before I leave without you.” Even if it was an empty threat, you wouldn’t put it passed him to actually leave so you hurried over to your locker and switched out your shoes.

As the two of you walked side by side, you could feel his pinkie brush against yours before he gently hooked it around yours. This little action made your heart soar because Kei isn’t one for PDA, so even if it didn’t seem like much this was a big step out of his comfort zone.

“So where should we go?” You swung your joined arms a bit as you guys made your way down the sidewalk.

“Would you m-maybe want to come over?”

You looked at his slightly blushed cheeks as he avoided eye contact with you, deciding to let him be, you nodded eagerly.

“I’d love to, Kei.”

So that’s what you did. The butterflies in your stomach were going wild at the thought of going to his home. As you arrived, he fished his key out of his bag and unlocked the front door. He let you in first and closed the door behind the both of you. The both of you sat down to take off your shoes. The butterflies did nothing but continue to flutter around because, from the looks of it, no one was home.

“Here. You can use these.” He slid a pair of house slippers towards you. You thanked him and put them on before getting up and following him into the house. It was definitely what you had expected, neat and tidy. What you hadn’t expected was the volleyball net in the back courtyard. “What’s this? I thought you didn’t care that much about volleyball?” You teased as you slid open the door and walked out onto the small ledge. “It’s not mine. It’s my brother’s.” he leaned against the doorframe. “oh. I didn’t know you had one.” He sighed and made his way over to a stray volleyball.

“Yeah, I don’t talk about him much.” It sounded like a sensitive subject so you just let him be. “Come on.” He motioned to the other side of the net. “Wow, even on your day off, you still want to practice.” You chuckled as you mad your way to the side opposite from him. “Well I do remember this one annoying girl who yelled at me during our training camp and told me to start trying my hardest because I’d be screwed if I didn’t.” He tossed the volleyball in the air and served it. He chuckled at the deep scarlet that painted your cheeks as you bumped the ball over the net.

“I didn’t say it like that...” you pouted as the ball came over the net once more. “So what? You’re trying to woo me with your hard work to prove me wrong.”

“I thought I already wooed you?” He caught the ball in his hands.

“Meh...” you shrugged, playfully crossing your arms. “I wouldn’t go as far to say that.” “Oh yeah?”

Back inside, Akiteru had finally come home. He was kicking off his shoes when he noticed there were already two pairs at the door. Opening his mouth to call out to his brother, he was cut off by-

“Kei!” He was confused to hear that Kei had brought a girl over.

He quietly made his way over to the opened courtyard door and peeked out, eyes widening as he saw Kei grab the girl by the waist and hoist her over his shoulder.

“Kei! Kei put me down!” She giggled. “I’m sorry! I take it back!”

“Hmm that wasn’t very convincing...” he chuckled as he continued to tickle her sides. “No! No ple-” she choked out a laugh. “Please! I take it back! I was wooed by you, you won me over!”

Satisfied with your answer, Tsukishima put you down. Once your feet were back on the ground, you slumped against him. Breath heavy as you recovered from his tickling.

“You’re a jerk. You know that?” You playfully shoved his shoulder as you stood up straight. “Hmm so I’ve been told...” he muttered as he leaned down, tilting your chin upwards. “But it doesn’t seem like you care much.” Your noses brushed. “I don’t.” You tugged at his shirt collar and tugged him down so your lips finally met. Smiling into the kiss as he pulled you closer. Then someone cleared their throat, causing the both of you to pull away. Both of you turned to the door and there stood a tall, blonde guy in volleyball shorts and a school t-shirt.

“Sorry to interrupt.” He chuckled. “I thought I’d introduce myself.” Your cheeks suddenly grew very warm and you could just tell that they were red. “I’m Akiteru. Kei’s older brother.” “N-nice to meet you. I’m (y/n). K-Kei’s uhm girlfriend.” You bowed formally, wishing that the earth would open up and just swallow you whole.

“So you’re the reason why Kei’s been so different lately.” He had a teasing grin on his face as he watched his little brother try to hold back a blush. “Oh...well it’s a good different I hope.” You awkwardly smiled back. You honestly had no idea what to do at this point, that was such a horrible way to meet for the first time. Just before anyone else could say anything, as a soft calling of ‘I’m home!’ echoed through the empty house.

“Oooh mom’s home, wait till she hears about this. Mom!” Akiteru giggled childishly before running back into the house. “Your mom doesn’t know you have girlfriend?!” You hissed quietly as Kei rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

“...no. I hadn’t really gotten around to it.” The both of you stood in a stale silence for a bit. “Well, there’s no avoiding it now. Come on.” “What?! We can definitely avoid it. I can uhm I can c-climb the f-fence or I can-” the look of disapproval on his face is what stopped your panicked ranting. “Do you really not want to meet my mom?” He wasn’t upset or anything, just slightly concerned with how much you were panicking. “Well no, that’s not it. I- I’m just not ready...what if she hates me?” He thought it was endearing that you wanted his mom to like you.

“That’s impossible.” he grabbed your hand and tugged you along. “Come on, she’ll love you.” your heart started to pound in your chest as he pulled you into the living room. “What’s this about a guest Kei? You should’ve warned me, I would’ve had dinner ready.” You hid behind Kei as she spoke, peeking out just a bit. “Sorry.” He turned and guided you in front of him, taking a deep breath. “Mom, this is my g-girlfriend, (y/n).”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry for the sudden intrusion.”

“Oh it’s no problem dear, it’s very nice to meet you. You’re staying for dinner, I hope.” Her kind smile was enough to calm your nerves.

“If it’s not too much trouble but I’d like to help out, if you don’t mind. Not to sound too conceited but I’m not too bad in the kitchen.” You smiled hopefully.

“Well how could I turn down an offer like that.” She grinned, putting an arm around your shoulder and guiding you to the kitchen. “I hope you’re good with pork. I was hoping to try and make some tonkatsu.”

“Not to brag or anything, but I’ve been told I make a pretty killer tonkatsu.”

He watched as you and his mother laughed together, cooking and whispering to each other. Akiteru could see the heart eyes that his little brother had for you.

Later on, all throughout dinner, you were doing great. It was like you were never nervous in the first place. You were charming, funny, and loveable. You talked to Akiteru about volleyball, to his mom about your dream university and your passion for baking things. Promising to share some recipies with her. But alas, it was getting late and you had to head home.

“It was great meeting you, thank you for the hospitality.” You bowed.

“Oh! No need to be so formal sweetie.” She tugged you into a hug. “Come by anytime.”

“Hopefully we’ll see you around more often.” You giggled at the not so subtle wink that Akiteru sent you before he also pulled you into a hug.

“Yes, yes, we’ll see her more often, she’s great, blah blah. Okay, bye.” And with that, Kei pulled you out to the porch.

“You know, that was so much-mmph!” He sealed your lips in a rather passionate kiss, hands cupping your jaw. The kiss was dizzying before a thumping on the window and a muffled voice reached our ears.

“I-see-you!” It was Akiteru before he was yoinked away from the window and the curtains were shut once more. Your giggles interrupted the kiss and Kei sighed, resting his forehead against yours.

“My mom really likes you...”

“So does Akiteru apparently.” You teased. “But all jokes aside, I really enjoyed my time with them. They’re pretty great.”

“Yeah...I guess they are.” He looked away, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. His eyes widening when you gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Good night Kei.” And you ran off.

“Text me when you get home idiot!” He called after you, a smile on his lips as you turned around mid run. He watched as you seemed to contemplate something. He squinted, seeing your lips move but not hearing anything. He frowned, shrugging and pointing to his ears.

“I said!” You shouted, “I LOVE YOU!”

He jogged over to you, “Are you crazy?! You’re gonna wake half the neighborhood!” He hissed.

There was a small silence before he pulled you into a hug, holding back a smile when he felt you snuggle into his chest. “I love you too, shrimp.”

His mother and older brother had been watching from the window, huge smiles on their faces as they witnessed the heart warming scene in front of them.

I guess it wasn’t a bad first impression after all.

#tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader #hollow words and misunderstandings #haikyuu x reader

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tuffdwightwest · 5 years ago

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You Are My Best Friend Ch. 1

"Snotlout!" Gobbers voice rang out right before a hooked hand smacked a piece of metal. Startling Snotlout back awake as he cried out in fear, forgetting briefly where he was.

Seeing the familiarity of the forge though, his cry quickly turned into a groan as he crossed his arms meeting Gobbers gaze. "What? Can't a viking get a little shut eye around here?" He complained.

"Not when you are working with me, boyo. Perhaps you would like to work on the next shipment of maces needed instead of the meager, sharpen these axes job I have going for ya." Gobber responded. Turning away from the Jorgenson as he went back to what Snotlout assumed was forging some new maces.

For a months now, Snotlout had taken over Hiccups old job in the forge. Working as a second hand to Gobber. He had been promised the 'Official Weapon Tester Position' but that was clearly not the case. In fact the other Riders had a good laugh as even his father piped in and agreed that it would teach him some humility.

If Snotlout's life was a fable this chapter would be called the dark years. Still mumbling he still went back to work as he focused on sharpening the blade. Trying to ignore Gobbers off-key singing as he silently cursed Hiccup's name. As they were nearing being finished however Gobber piped up with something that actually caught his interest.

"-ading off with her cousin Lars to the Northern Markets. With that Zippleback with her, I bet she'll come back with more gold then she could carry!" Gobber boasted with a laugh.

"Uh who? What's going on?" Snotlout cut in having missed the beginning of whatever Gobber was speaking about.

"Ruffnut. She is trying to become a Trader of all things and for a few weeks she'll be training with her Cousin Lars on the business." He explained. Snotlout blinked in surprise at this. Of course he knew that both the twins were planning on trying different avenues for professions, something that their family had been harping on them about, both had been adamant on saying that they were Dragon Riders and that was what they would stay. Although now apparently it seemed that Ruffnut was going to try being a merchant?

"Uh when did she leave?" He asked.

"Just this morning; well done!" Gobber said before quickly switching into something else as he noticed Snotlout for once actually finish his work. Looking down Snotlout hadn't even noticed he was on the last sword. Grinning he set it aside, feeling mighty pleased with himself as he stood.

"This mean I can go?" He questioned.

"Gah, yes! Get more work done without having to deal with your moping anyway." Gobber complained although he still had a small smirk. Excited Snotlout turned to leave as he practically raced out of the Forge.

It wasn't dusk yet and the sun was still decently in the sky which left him a good four hours to actually have some fun for once. Usually he would go straight to Hookfang and the two would go flying together but today he actually veered off course as he remembered the conversation he was just having with Gobber. He was actually kind of curious about why Ruff chose to do that and he figured Tuffnut would be the best one to ask.

After all, he still was gearing for Ruffnuts love and her suddenly up and leaving was quite a shock for him. He thought they were finally getting somewhere!

With those indignant thoughts he found himself in front of the Nuts house. It was further back on the island and looked like it needed its fair share of repairs. With cracks lining the walls and even a few smashed windows. The chicken coop behind the house actually giving a kind of unpleasant odor. Come to think of it. Snotlout had never really visited the twins at their house and at this moment, he kind of wished he still hadn't.

Just as he was about to knock on the door, a squeal sounded from behind him. Turning he came face to what appeared to be a very angry boar. The animal stomping on the ground as it glared at what it deemed an unwelcome trespasser. "Uh... nice boar." Snotlout mumbled trying to calm the animal as he held out his hands, trying to make himself less threatening. The boar however just stomped the ground again, shaking its burly head as it gave a loud snort.

Then with a roar the animal started to rush Snotlout. Screaming out in terror, Snotlout went to move out of the way but before he could he was suddenly pushed to the side as something shot out from behind him. Not suspecting it he fell back on his ass but at least now he could identify Tuff as the twin rode on the Boars back, laughing and giggling as the beast tried to buck him off.

Just as Snotlout was starting to get concerned, the boar finally started to calm as Tuffnut finally jumped off. "Next time. Lets do that in the boar pit okay Bjorn. Also! Good pig telling us when theres strange men at the house." Tuffnuts voice rang out as he petted the boar behind the ears. The once angry animal just snorted as it sniffed at the twins hair, Tuffnut without a helmet, before it started to trot off.

Standing up Tuffnut brushed himself off before crawling up the steps and standing next to Snotlout. His eyes alight with amusement as he looked down at him. Realizing that Snotlout still hadn't gotten back up, he cursed before scrambling to his feet. "Why is there an angry boar guarding your house?" He scoffed already angry at what just happened.

"Why not?" Tuff responded. The retort Snotlout had was lost in the absurdity of that so instead he just threw his hands up, thinking of many reasons why not to have a boar guarding your house. Visitors being maimed being one of them. Before he could though Tuff beat him too it.

"You need something? Not to cut off your imminent rant but none of you have ever come to our house before. Unless its overhead, on dragon and you are yelling at us to get Barf and Belch cause Svens sheep got out again." Tuff explained, "Although still, its not usually you." He added looking at Snotlout warily.

Ignoring it though Snotlout shrugged, "I heard Ruff left and I just came to find out why. I thought you two weren't gonna go through with your tribes demands?" He said jumping right into it. Tuff looked surprised for a moment before he just shrugged, his whole body moving with the effort. Instead of answering though he just gestured Snotlout to follow him inside. Although Snotlout really didn't want to know what the interior looked like, he still followed.

"We weren't initially but Mom convinced Ruff to trail along with Lars. She said she actually enjoyed it so... yeah she's gonna try to be a Merchant or whatever." Tuff said, voice a little detached when he said it. He didn't exactly sound pleased by his sisters decision but it was obvious he was at least trying to be supportive. "They wouldn't let me go with her either." He added at the end.

Glancing around the surprisingly tidy inside, he listened to Tuffs explanation and couldn't help but feel a little bad for him. He was mostly sad that he wouldn't be able to recite his newest poem to her, while Tuff was upset cause he already missed his sister. "Two weeks?"

"Or more. Depends on how it all goes." Tuff responded with a sigh as he went and sat down in the center of the floor. "What am I even gonna do while she's gone? She took Barf and Belch so I don't even have that." He complained.

Snotlout pursed his lips before going and sitting next to him. Whatever he was planning on saying in comfort though was lost as he actually smelt the twin. Now usually they smelt like a mixture of BO, Zippleback gas and cheese. A disgusting scent but they were always proud of it. Today though, today he smelt like, "Why do you smell like freshly baked sugar cookies?" He asked.

Tuffnut looked surprised as he spared a glance at Snotlout. Snotlout was actually surprised to see the twins face redden as he averted his gaze and mumbled something under his breath. "What?" Snotlout shot back leaning in closer to hear.

"My mom made both Ruffnut and me bathe in this special oil she made. She said she didn't want us smelling like a dead rat so she's making Ruff and me bathe more often. Except it has always been me. Ruff always somehow finds a way to avoid it while I walk right into it." Tuffnut huffed crossing his arms.

Snotlout grinned finding Tuffs distress amusing, "I think its an improvement. Might actually want to hang around you more now that I don't gag everytime I'm downwind."

"Haha..." Came Tuffnuts response as he kicked at Snotlouts boat. "Speaking of hanging out though. Do you wanna hang out?" Tuffnut asked offhandedly.

"I really just wanted to know why Ruff left. Was gonna go take Hookfang for a flight. He's been restless." Snotlout responded, moving to get up as he was reminded of his original goal. He was still looking at Tuff however as he caught a flash of hurt cross over his face before the twin quickly covered it up with a half smile.

"Yeah okay, I get it. Maybe later?" He asked.

Snotlout frowned, Tuffnut sounded almost desperate and what was with the hurt look he gave him. It wasn't like they hanged out all the time so why did he suddenly want too today. Feeling wary he just shrugged, "I'm a busy dude." Was his response as he turned to leave.

If Tuff was trying to pull him into a prank he wasn't falling for it. Tuff didn't say anything as he left the house either so Snotlout just assumed he realized that Snotlout was too good to be tricked.

Now to go flying.

#tuffnut #snotlout #tufflout #yambf #httyd

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mickmarstookmyheart · 5 years ago

Text

Family Tour

Trust Universe!

Pairing: Mick Mars X Reader

Summary: The whole Crüe family goes on tour along with Guns N Roses. (Y/N) has been hiding some secret and is about to explode.

"Babe, have you already packed the medicines in the bag?" Mick yelled from the bedroom.

"Yeah, it's in the side of the green one!" You yelled back from the kitchen.

"Mommy, when can I already eat?" Zoe asked sitting on the counter. She was licking the remaining chocolate from the bowl. She had chocolate all over her face but she didn't notice it.

"Hey, don't waste chocolate!" You said cleaning her cheeks and mouth with a wet towel. "Anyway, do you want to bring some cake for Neil and Elizabeth, too?"

"Yes, I will show them how good I can bake!" Zoe had a proud smile on her little face.

"Hmmm. What smells so good?" Mick asked approaching you and your daughter. He leaned on the counter with his back beside Zoe.

"Chocolate cake!" She yelled putting her hands in the air.

"Really? I love chocolate cake." Mick said. You smirked and looked in the oven to check it.

"Okay, it still needs some time so we can go back and finish packing some clothes for the tour if you want." You said while trying to take down your apron. Mick turned you around and helped you untie the knot. When he was ready he pressed a soft kiss on your shoulder.

"Ewww," Zoe said covering her eyes with her hands. Mick chuckled and you couldn't help but smile, too.

∆

"Neil, look!" Elizabeth yelled to his brother on the swing when you and Zoe arrived at the playground. When you let her hand go she ran to her friends while you took a seat beside Vince on the bench.

"How many times has Mick already complaint that he doesn't want to go on tour?" He asked smirking.

"Umm, one complain per hour normally. If he feels bad, two or three."

"That's quite good."

"Could be worse." You laughed.

"Mommy, mommy, can we have that cake?" Zoe asked running towards you and Vince along with Elizabeth and Neil.

"What kind of cake?" Vince raised an eyebrow.

"Chocolate!" Zoe yelled rubbing her belly.

"Zoe did it by herself so if you don't like it I wouldn't say it out loud." You said opening the box and handing one slice for everyone. The children went back to their usual spot while you and Vince just watched them play and live their lives.

"Can I have one, too?" John asked standing right behind your bench making you jump.

"Man, you scared the shit out of me! You could at least cough before you speak, damn." Vince snapped turning back to the man and glaring at him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to." He held his hands up in defense.

"I think I should go." Vince standing up from the bench. "If you need anything, I will be nearby." He winked and left while John sat down beside you.

"She has grown so much." John sighed looking at his daughter with pure love in his eyes. That was the only thing that made you sure he wasn't a monster. He was capable of love.

"Yeah." You admitted smiling at Zoe who was fighting with a stick with Neil.

"Anyway, why did you wanted to meet? What can't wait until Saturday?" He asked turning to you. You bit down your lip, you knew he would be mad. To be honest, you would be, too. You hated him, though he was the father of your daughter so he needed to know about this.

"You know, their new album came out a few months ago..."

"I know about that. So what?"

"They need to promote it. And Doc and I have already planned a whole tour for the guys. And not just in the US but overseas, too." You played with the box of the cake. You looked at John, who still didn't understand what this affect him.

"So this means, that I had to follow the band since I'm the co-manager."

"Got it. So that means Zoe will stay with me the whole time?" John asked with high hopes. You took a deep breath and shook your head. The smile from John's face disappeared. "No. No way you are taking her with you! She is barely 5 years old!" Vince lift his head and glanced at you. He put Neil down from his shoulders and headed towards you fearing John might be do something he shouldn't.

"I know. And I completely understand that. But I need her. I am her mother and the full custody is mine."

"You don't need to remind me, I'm aware of that." He growled but he didn't shout. Luckily, those treatments were successful in some way.

"Is there a problem?" Vinnie asked crossing his arms, looking at John then at you.

"There is. She wants to take away my daughter." He spit.

"But not for the long-term! Just a tour." You murmured realizing the tour will last at least six months.

"How long?" John was desperate. The only positive thing in his life was Zoe and he didn't want to lose her.

"Six months." You admitted fearing his reaction. "The USA, Canada, and some in Japan."

"Japan? What the hell?" He placed his head in his palms.

"Look, man..." Vinnie said fully knowing the situation. He didn't see his children for half a year either. "If you really want to see her you can anytime. (Y/N) didn't prohibit for you to see her, just told you the situation." Vince surprised you. He was never fond of John but treating him like this was a new thing.

"Really?" John had tears in his eyes. You felt a bit of sympathy for him.

"Yes. And I think I can arrange a backstage pass, too so you can meet her there until Doc and I take care of things."

"That would be great. Thank you. And don't worry, I won't be present on the whole just once a week or less." John smiled.

"Luckily," Vince said making you chuckle.

∆

Now that you discussed everything with John, you didn't have to worry about him. Though, there were a few things that bothered you. First of all, Nikki and his new girlfriend, Vanity. You met her a few times during these get-togethers but you didn't like her face and her attitude. Not to mention the drugs. Nikki already had some problems and, bringing it back to his life made you angry. You didn't want her to ruin his life and the tour also.

There were some positive things. Heather also came along with Tommy so you would have some company. You and she had many things in common and she adored your daughter. Beth hesitated to let Neil and Elizabeth go with him, but you made sure nothing bad will happen and that you will treat them as Zoe so finally she gave in. This way, Zoe wouldn't be alone either.

You were sitting in the living room already with your luggage and were waiting for the tour bus to come.

"They said they will come at 9." Mick murmured looking at the clock which showed 10:30.

"I know. And I will give them a piece of my mind." You said cuddling closer to Mick sitting on the couch. You barely slept at night so you were quite exhausted.

"Babe. Babe, (Y/N). The bus is here." Mick said softly. You didn't even realize you drifted into sleep. You rubbed your eyes and sat up from Mick's lap.

"Daddy, daddy, Uncle Tommy, and Nikki are here!" Zoe said running towards Mick. She took the guitarist's hand and pulled him up from the couch. "Let's go and say hi to them. This bus looks so big."

"Alright, let's greet them, angel."

When you became aware of your existence you started to gather all the luggage and bring them closer to the door. Mick had some problems with his back recently and you didn't want him to struggle.

"Hey, (Y/N)! Why didn't you come to the bus and say hello? You are rude." Tommy said when he entered the house.

"Can you just shut up and help me?" You snapped trying to lift one of the bags.

"Good morning, (Y/N). Sorry for being late. We just had some issues with the bus but we are here and everything is okay." Doc appeared, too, and took the bag from your shoulder.

"No problem and thank you." You looked into every room in the house to check if everything was okay before locking the door and giving one last look at the house. Mick stepped behind you and placed his hands on your waist.

"Are you ready?" He asked kissing your shoulder.

"Yeah."

∆

"I can't believe they still aren't ready!" You sighed waiting in front of Vince's house. It was arranged two hours earlier.

"At least the kids have fun," Mick said looking at Neil, Elizabeth, and Zoe playing around in the garden with Tommy and Nikki. They played hide and seek, and Tommy was the one who needed to find the others. Well, he didn't manage to. You can see everything from the bus and occasionally laughed when he failed.

"Finally!" Doc sighed when Vince and Sharise appeared. When they got on the bus Vinnie waved at you.

"Hey!" He smirked when he placed himself on the one remaining place next to you on the couch.

"Trouble in paradise?" Mick asked noticing Sharise's facial expression who went to the back of the bus without saying hello to you. You hoped she will leave the tour within a week.

"You know, you didn't have to waste time having sex when you will be together on the whole fucking tour!" You ranted.

"Woah, someone needs to get laid," Vince added smiling, earning a hit from Mick after you got up and gathered the children.

∆

The route to the hotel was a bit calmer than you thought. Zoe and Mick were sleeping on the couch next to each other which melted your heart seeing them like this. Tommy and Nikki with Heather and Sharise were talking about Tommy's spinning cage, Vince and Sharise were in the back.

"I don't think they will be happy about this interview. Are you sure about it?" You asked Doc when you were discussing things about the tour.

"They don't like interviews at all. So this will be no different."

"Maybe Whitesnake could do that interview, no?" You asked Doc. "Or Guns N Roses?"

"Why not all the three of them?"

"Cause World War III would break out." You said with an odd look.

"Alright. Then GNR will give the interview and the boys will decide if they want it or not." Doc offered which you agreed with totally. "Now, enough of work. What's up?" Doc asked putting aside his papers and leaning back on the seat.

"Well, not much, Doc. Life goes on. The boys have a lot of fans so I don't think we will have a problem."

"I was asking about you, (Y/N). Not the boys." Doc said tilting his head.

"What should I say? Zoe, Mick and I are okay, we have a pretty good and adventurous life. I love my family and I love my job."

"Good to hear." You somehow relieved that Doc didn't ask more. "But I see something is bothering you. What is it? Is it John?" Damn, this man.

"You can be as annoying as the band sometimes, you know that, right? Hell yes. I can't get that man out of my head." You said. Mick woke up a couple of minutes ago and he heard every word you changed with Doc. He smiled when you mentioned him and your life but the slight smile faded when John was in the picture again. He hated that man with his whole heart for hurting you like this. "I-I keep seeing this picture in my head that whenever I'm not around Zoe he somehow tries to steal her from me." You were rubbing your arm with your other hand to comfort yourself. That man gave you a headache whenever you met him and all the bad memories came up. You tried to avoid him as you could but it was still hard to be around him.

"I see. Well, I could arrange someone, a guard to keep an eye on her and I'm sure the others willingly help you monitor her. Everyone loves her and they wouldn't let anything bad to happen to her." He placed his hand on your thigh and squeezed it. "I and I think everyone admires you, especially Mick, to let that bastard see your daughter frequently. Not many mothers would let that."

"Thanks, Doc. It means me a lot."

Maybe you were just going crazy for thinking that. He wouldn't kidnap Zoe, would he? If he did that, he would go to jail for a very long time so he wouldn't be able to see his daughter.

"Anytime, kid. Now, go and rest a bit until this madness begins."

∆

When you arrived at the hotel you and Doc headed to the receptionist to discuss the details and got the keys.

"Alright, Everyone!" You yelled when no one listened to you. You were beside the bus and everybody was dealing with their luggage. "Hey, listen! I have already told you that certain people will bring up the baggage, damn. Tommy, put that down!" You threatened the drummer who immediately dropped the bag down. "Thanks. So Heather this is yours, and Vinnie room 10 is yours with Sharise. Nikki, your room is just beside Heather's..."

"Yeah, man!" Nikki high-fived with his Terror Twin. Maybe it wasn't the best idea. After you handed out the keys and everyone went inside Mick approached you. Zoe went along with Neil and Elizabeth to look around. He stood in front of you and cupped your face.

"You are doing great." He pecked your lips and pulled you in a hug. He was rubbing your back while you rested your chin on his shoulder. "You are the best co-manager we could get." You can't help but smile.

"I'm trying my best, but I'm afraid Tommy, Vince, and Nikki won't be so helpful." Mick chuckled.

"I will help you make them listen to you," Mick promised, taking your hand and walking in the hotel. It wasn't a five-star hotel but it was decent and nice. Decent until Mötley Crüe arrived. At the reception, you already apologized for the trouble so you hoped they will handle things easier.

"Mommy, look there are a playground and a pool, too." Zoe cheered. She ran to you and you picked her up and let her show you the mentioned places.

"Oh, wow. Now you can play as much as you want, honey."

"I want to play with you, mommy!" She hugged you tightly.

"I know, Zoe but there are a few other things I need to take care of. I need to give the keys to Axl, Slash, Steven, Duff, and Izzy, too. As I heard they have just arrived." You sighed seeing your daughter pouting.

"Alright, but be sure they will be around soon so I could play with Steven!" She said while you put down her.

"I promise." You places a soft kiss on her cheek and headed back to the entrance of the hotel. Mick hummed watching you go before taking Zoe's hand and letting her pull him closer to the playground.

When you arrived at the bus the band were already talking next to the bus. They were much quieter than the Crüe and immediately looked at you when you greeted them.

"Sorry, (Y/N) for being behind a bit. Steven had some problems with the journey and we had to stop a lot." Izzy apologized.

"We arrived not too long ago so no problem. And are you okay now, Steven?" You looked at the drummer who was still pale.

"Yeah. Well, better than before." Slash patter his back to lighten him up. "This isn't helping, Slash."

"You still have two days before the concerts so you can recover until then. There are many possibilities to leisure here, I have already looked around."

"It's quite a big hotel. What if I get lost?" Steven asked.

"Don't worry, Popcorn. We will keep an eye on you." Duff said with a smirk.

"Anyway, (Y/N), would you be so kind and give us a tour of the hotel?" Axl asked. You weren't used to this kind manner with the other band. Alright, sometimes they could be knights, too.

"Of course. Oh, and Zoe wanted to make sure that you will greet and play with her. She mentioned that she wants to play with you, Steven but don't worry I will tell her that you aren't feeling well." You winked and handed out the keys to their rooms.

"Steven!" Zoe rushed to the drummer but you stopped her before she could jump on him.

"Zoe, not so fast. He isn't too well so be gentle, alright? Don't play Slave and Queen with him. The Slave can be played by anyone else, except Mick and him." You smirked glancing at the band.

"Alright, then I will escort him into his room and take care of him." She took the drummer's hand and headed to Steven's room.

"I can wait until she will be 18," Axl said. You hit him in the arm glaring at him. "Just kidding. No need to kill me."

"You deserved it, man," Slash said making you laugh. Mick was watching you with a jealous look. You always looked so happy with them and rarely with the Crüe. He stood up from the bench and approached you.

"Hey, Mick." Duff greeted the guitarist.

"Hey, man." He muttered. Slash and Axl nodded to him as a greeting while Mick shook hands with Izzy. Izzy was the only one who he kinda liked. "Sorry guys, but I need to steal (Y/N)." You made a face not understanding his problem. After you said goodbye, Mick was literally dragging you towards the lift.

"What is wrong with you?" You asked freeing your arm from his grip. "Mick, why are you acting like this?"

"Not here." He could only say this. You huffed but stepped in the elevator next to him but tried to stand as far as possible. You didn't like him when he was this angry and overwhelming. You opened the door and happily saw your luggage has already been brought up.

"So, what is it?" You asked crossing your arms. Mick counted to ten not to say something he might regret.

"Why can't you just relax? And be with us? Zoe and me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"At the moment you heard the guys arrived you dropped down Zoe and rushed to them. Whereas they could wait a bit and I can't see why Doc couldn't greet them."

"Are you jealous or what? Cause I don't see your reason for that."

"What? No! I'm just angry that why aren't you honest with me. Why are you locking up things in yourself whereas I'm your husband, no?"

"I don't understand a word." Why can't he and Doc leave you alone and let you do your job?

"I heard your talk with Doc on the bus." He stepped closer and took your hand into his. "Why didn't you tell me that John is bothering you? I could've talked to him not to come or I don't know."

"You don't understand it. I can't reject him seeing his daughter. I don't have the right."

"But you have it, (Y/N)! You have the full custody for fuck's sake!" He was gripping your hand way too harsh now. "Why can't you let that person just disappear from your life? He hurt you so much and you still let him do that. I think we could discuss it with Zoe. She is so smart and I'm sure she would understand it." Mick said softly. He rested his forehead on yours while rubbing your arms. You felt the tears running down your cheek which Mick noticed and wiped them away with his thumb. You closed your eyes and took a shaky breath.

"I know. It's just so hard." You whimpered.

"But I'm here for you, (Y/N)! You are my wife and I would do anything for you. Even it includes killing."

"Mick!"

"Alrighty, no killing. But I support you in everything and you can tell me whatever is going on in your pretty head. Sometimes I wish I could just go back in time and do things from the beginning. From the very beginning."To be continued...

∆

Next Part

Tags: @leatherandheels @littlemisscare-all @karrotkate ❤️

#motley crue #rocknroll #glam rock #nikki sixx #80srock #mick mars #tommy lee #vince neil #80s music #mick mars x reader #mick mars imagine #motley crue x reader #motley crue imagine #trust

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gordvendomewhore · 5 years ago

Text

heyo this was supposed to be attached to a reblog of @schoolfullofmorons‘s post but it is so outrageously long and has taken several days and therefore is its own post now LMAO

because this is super long, everything is gonna be under the keep reading thingy teehee

anyway,,, i present to you: all nine preppies, and how they would act during quarantine

(please note that these are just headcanons and honestly are pretty ooc considering the fact they’re all assholes who would protest quarantine with signs that say “WE WANT HAIRCUTS” but GOD i just wanna pretend they’re decent people for a day or two)

derby:

thinks the virus is a joke and would 100% protest quarantine, but still gets SUPER antsy and jumpy when anyone coughs or sneezes around him

wastes a bunch of water and half a bottle of soap washing his hands for ten minutes straight, but totally not because he’s scared or anything!! the virus still totally isn’t real!!!

since there’s only the household help he can boss around, derby gets bored and lonely pretty quickly, and misses feeling in control.

in attempts to fix this, he tends to call up bif or some of the other preps just to half heartedly yell at them about every little inconvenience that happens in his day to day life, but they’re really dismissive and say things like, “yes, yes, derby, whatever you say.”

(they all know derby is just expressing how he misses them in the only way he knows how.)

derby probably spends a bunch of time lounging around the house, watching the workers do their thing and thinking about how he’s sooooo much better and fancier and richer than them.

however,,,,,, he ends up watching them so often and so intently that the workers get confused and wonder if derby is interested in trying out what they do around the house (cleaning, cooking, gardening, etc.)

so they offer to teach derby, and of course, derby gets wildly upset and most likely threatens both their jobs and their lives haHa

it doesn’t stop him from watching just a tiny bit closer though, you know,,,, just to make sure that these paupers are doing everything to the harrington standard

derby pays off the teachers to keep his grades up and acknowledges school in absolutely no other way.

bif:

while bif is concerned about the virus, he doesn’t really care about school closing down.

school was never his main priority, but he’ll still make sure to tune into a couple of his online classes every week because of the sheer guilt that starts to pile up over time.

however he will NOT do anything with his assignments except read over them, and similar to derby, pays off a nerd to do his homework for him to make it seem like he’s actually doing something.

BUT you can totally bet that bif is one thousand percent upset over the boxing gym being closed down!!

he still has his personal gym in his mansion, which he now uses a lot (partially because he has so much time to kill, but also because he’s still butthurt over jimmy’s scrawny ass beating him)

but it’s not the same because now he can’t train with the other preps!!!!!

how will he know if they’re improving? or if they have the proper stance??? or if they’re swinging with the right force????? or if—

but yeah, bif makes sure to check up on the preps every once in awhile to see their boxing progress

he finds quarantine to be incredibly quiet and empty, in a literal and metaphorical sense.

he isn’t lonely per say, bif actually finds a lot of peace in the silence!

he gets a lot more time to think than he normally does and that’s a gift within itself.

...but his days are usually filled with never ending whining and the loud screaming of faux accents, so the sudden change feels strange, but not unwelcomed.

(plus he still has derby bothering him 24/7 so it’s not like much has changed anyway LMAO)

bif may not admit it out loud, but he misses his prep family clique members a whole lot. :(

gord:

this bitch couldn’t care less about the whole situation.

he spends his days at home binging every movie and tv show known to mankind, expanding on his beauty care regimen, and doing major amounts of online shopping; daddy’s card isn’t gonna just spend itself after all!

he’s actually clearing out the entire aquaberry stock as we speak.

gord is aware of the dangers of the virus, but hey, he’s not stepping a foot outside anytime soon, and he’s always been the hygienic type, so why stress over something out of his control?

this king is absolutely thriving, the outside world truly does not matter to him anymore.

(but did it ever?)

gord will admit that he misses his friends, but it’s not like he has no means of communication with them!

you can bet your ass that every single prep is being hit up with a selfie of gord‘s magnificent face every single day of the WEEK baybee.

gord would also be the time to experiment with new hobbies and activities, yknow like a bunch of random shit like knitting or wood carving just to say he’s actually done something during quarantine.

he’s also the type of person to get really obsessed with social media quarantine too LMAO he probably gained thousands of followers on twt or tiktok or some shit for thirst trapping

gord would 100% open an onlyfans too, but he doesn’t need the money

plus, the world already can’t handle him and he CANNOT be held responsible for the chaos that will ensue if he does more than mere thirst traps

with school, he skips out on the online classes for subjects he doesn’t take an interest in, but rigorously studies for the ones he does care about (especially if they’ll play a big part in law school!!!

tad:

oh poor baby, he’s stuck at home with his horrible excuse of a father.

tad, like the other preps, doesn’t care for school (“money gets you farther in life than education ever will,” derby harrington at some point), but that doesn’t stop him from sucking himself into his education.

he attends all his online classes, does all his homework, studies optional material, does extra credit, anything to keep his mind away and busy from his dad.

(idk what tad’s dad does for a living but let’s just pretend he’s an essential worker and is out of the house often because i do Not Want tad suffering more than he has to)

he’ll take lots of walks around the neighborhood, and spends a lot of time hanging in the park.

plus gord usually calls him every other day or so to keep him company and the two will just chill together and talk.

tad probably gets into some soft hobbies like keeping up a diary, sewing, painting, and maybe even slowly picks up baking again.

gord probably sent him a bunch of tiktoks of people making frog bread and tad knew in his heart that he needed to make frog bread too LMAO

tad is canonically the type of person that would bake for your bday, so he experiments around with cakes and sweet treats in general he thinks the other preps would like.

there’s an Entire Fridge in his house dedicated to his baked goods now. that’s how often tad bakes.

he also looks forward to the day he can see his friends again and plans out all the things they’ll do once they’re reunited.

the preps are more of a loving family than his real family ever was, and tad doesn’t plan to let that fact go by unnoticed in the future :))

parker:

he lowkey goes insane.

parker has no idea what to do with himself now that he’s stuck at home with his parents and sister.

don’t get him wrong, he really loves his family, and genuinely enjoys the family activities his mother forces them to bond over, but what else is there to do?

he’s bored.

plus, parker gets up in his head way too often, and now there’s nothing to distract him.

he never really had any particular hobbies, and you will never catch him doing school work (he pays off his teachers).

and even though being at school sucks because bullworth academy itself sucks, doing things with the other preps made parker forget about his lack self importance and direction in life.

it seems like the end of the world to him, more because of his life and schedule being interrupted rather than the virus itself.

when he’s not with his family, parker spends a lot of time lounging in the mansion’s garden with the garden gnomes, and talks to them pretty often too (we’ve all heard those voice lines LMAO).

parker talks about everything and anything with the gnomes, and allows himself to just rant about life.

and sure, he thinks people who talk themselves 24/7 are hella crazy, but hey!! the gnomes love to listen!!! so therefore parker isn’t crazy!!!!!

he probably ends up doing gardening as a small hobby, and he genuinely likes it!

...even if it does have him down in the dirt and covered in sweat amongst other filth.

parker’s one of the less pretentious preps, so i can see him putting his entitled behavior aside, even if it is only this one time and for this one thing.

after all, his money and status don’t exactly matter anymore; everyone’s busy caring about more dire matters.

after the initial boredom, i can see parker letting loose and maybe even becoming a more decent person while in quarantine.

bryce:

he is 24/7 anxious.

it’s not specifically because of the virus itself, or because of school closing down, but it’s just the whole situation in general that makes him nervous.

bryce is stuck at home with his mother and father, in what bryce likes to call their cozy mansion, but what derby likes to call their oversized blue collar cottage (which bryce finds dumb because his parents don’t even work blue collar jobs).

his father, even during these dire times, is still gambling and wasting their money away, so that just hella adds onto bryce’s anxiety about the situation.

golf & yacht (where bryce canonically works) closes down since it isn’t considered an essential business, and so bryce ends up losing his job.

he’s really desperate to find another place to work, and rightfully so!! he doesn’t want his family to be losing more money than they gain.

bryce probably ends up working somewhere a step above fast food (he isn’t that desperate), like a cafe, since some are still open and surprisingly busy.

because of this, most of his hours are spent split between working and sleeping, and bryce doesn’t exactly have time to think about anything else other than family and money issues (something he thought he’d never have to worry about).

but bryce hides his physical and mental exhaustion quite well, mostly so that his life proceeds without anyone wasting his time with questions of concern.

sometimes the preps that aren’t as judgmental as the others (tad, gord, parker, pinky, bif) will check up on him and even offer to lend his family some money, but bryce knows better than to accept donations of any kind.

he tries to attend the online classes that he can, and does a lot of his homework with tad.

chad:

put simply, chad is fine.

he wasn’t particularly shocked when the virus was reported to be spreading, or when school was closed down, or even when he had to say goodbye to his fellow preps and the harrington house, and leave to his home in old bullworth vale.

chad was never strongly effected by any of this, and honestly is just really relaxed.

chad’s relationship with his parents is quite well (despite their occasional nagging), and he has a lot of hobbies that filled up his time during school and still fill up his time now.

so unlike tad or gord, chad doesn’t go searching for new activities to keep him busy or give him a sense of meaning and accomplishment.

chad wakes up early in the morning, when the sun is still rising, spends his day playing with his dog, chester, jogging around the neighborhood or park, boxing in his home gym, talking with his family, attending his flute lessons (which are now online), and then he goes to sleep with a tired mind, yet a well rested soul.

the only thing he doesn’t do is his school work (he pays off his teachers like derby), but occasionally you’ll see him attend an online class or two.

he lives his life on a clean schedule, and enjoys the alone time he gets during these tough times.

there’s no significant change in how he goes by his days, and chad is perfectly content with that. :)

justin:

he’s vibing.

at the beginning of quarantine, justin probably spent a bunch of time laying in his $10,000 satin sheets, doing nothing but thinking about random shit ranging from whether or not his family should invest in a second jacuzzi, his raging insecurities, how big his muscles are, or if he’ll ever get a chance to talk to the ted thompson himself, but that all gets old REAL quick.

he’s the type of person to be like, “i’m too rich to be sulking around!” even though those two things don’t exactly correlate in this situation LMAO

(but oh well, justin is a prep after all, their whole personalities are based around money.)

similar to bif with his boxing, justin throws himself entirely into swimming!

his family owns an indoor and outdoor pool, but nothing will EVER beat the feeling of swimming in the ocean for him.

there’s just nothing that feels the same, not even a pool with saltwater will ever mimic the feeling.

so justin will often times travel from his cozy home out to the beach just to swim and chill out in the sand for awhile, whether it be for thirty minutes or a whole afternoon.

omg he also gets really into corona virus gossip

*justin the the prep group chat* “guys, i heard that if you put an onion in every corner of your house, you’ll be safe from corona”

“guys did you know that if you drink a shot of vinegar everyday it’ll clean out your immune system?”

“GUYS omg i just heard that if you bathe in a mix of egg yolks and nesquik chocolate milk powder, you’ll be immune to corona!!!”

and everyone is just so tired of him (except for parker who believes almost everything justin says and derby who encourages his behavior on because he lives for chaos)

he pays off his teachers for grades lolol mr. hattrick didn’t get fired for us to just forget these canon facts

honestly justin completely forgets school exists as a whole.

pinky:

pinky is completely sucked into social media.

she has an account on every big platform out there, each one being incredibly active, and each one having a cult following.

and now she gets to be even more active than she was before!!

pinky spends all of her time doing complex photoshoots in her bedroom, experimenting with intricate makeup looks, binging tv shows with gord, and contemplating whether or not she should give herself bangs (you can bet all of this shit and more is going onto her accs too).

pinky also spends a lot of money ordering random shit she doesn’t need and sometimes doesn’t even want, but hey!! it’s free serotonin, and pinky’s therapist says that serotonin is a good thing ahahA

sometimes she’ll even order something and just send it to random addresses just for the fun of it.

pinky is like santa, but with better fashion taste and a little less no slave labor.

speaking of therapy, her sessions are now all online because we practice social distancing in this house teehee

shits and giggles aside however, pinky is thriving!

she’s happy, and healthy, and safe in her mansion, and besides the general feeling of unimportance and lack of meaning during these times where time itself doesn’t feel like it exists at all, she’s fine haHA.

her parents keep nagging her to talk to derby and to “hang out with her future hubby while the streets are empty and there’s free time!” but pinky is NOT breaking quarantine to hang out with a boy who made her wait for a whole three minutes on their date.

(she had a nicer time with jimmy than derby would’ve ever given her anyway.)

surprise surprise! pinky also pays the nerds to do her work, but still attends most of her classes for fun, mostly so she can help tad and bryce with anything if they need it.

real queen shit if you ask me.

whew, thanks for reading all of that if you did!! sorry it was super long but enjoy your preppy food lmao

oh and my anon asks are on now so go ahead and send me some shit if you want to!! headcanon requests, drawing requests, questions in general lol anything

anyway bye byeee uwu

#tag yourself as a quarantine preppy LMAOHSJSKD #jesus fuck why is this post so long #well anyway here she is #i love feeding the community #derby harrington #bif taylor #gord vendome #tad spencer #parker ogilvie #bryce montrose #chad morris #justin vandervelde #pinky gauthier #bully canis canem edit #bully scholarship edition #canis canem edit #bully #mine #writing

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