#he just assumed she did... and she politely told him otherwise

[willyhoos]

a very self indulgent twipri au i made... vampire!zelda x vampire hunter!link..

in which a rancher from ordon is suddenly afflicted with lycanthropy, and hunts down the cursed hylian queen who is absolutely, DEFINITELY responsible for it...

(spoilers: he's Mega Wrong)

a bit more info about the au below the cut!

"Link, go assassinate the Hylian queen so we can go back to living normally." instructions unclear i have fallen in love with her

midna is somewhere probably maybe once i figure out what to do with her .

[drcranessweetestdoe]

heyyyyy

could you do a Tommy shelby fic?

in which he fucks Ada's bestfriend when she is 18!

hii, love this idea xx I have been writing this all day, time to celebrate with a jam sandwich:) xx

Finally mine

warning: agegap!, Thomas lusts after her while she is underage, grooming, virginity loss, virginity kink, innocence kink, unprotected sex, Tommy being a softie, possessiveness

pairing: Thomas Shelby x Innocent!Reader

summary: ever since he came back from the war, Tommy found himself wanting his sister’s lovely and sweet best friend, too bad he has to wait until she is 18

(Y/N) was the sweetest girl in the whole of Birmingham, always polite and kind. Thomas was smitten with her from day one. She and Ada met in school, she felt sorry that Ada was always alone, because everyone told their kids to stay away from the filthy Shelby’s. So, one day she gathered the courage and sat beside the sad girl, who was very excited to finally have a friend.

It was the age of war, so everyone was always on the edge of a meltdown. And money wasn’t exactly falling from the sky. While (Y/N)’s family weren’t considered aristocrats by any chance, she never had to worry about not getting fed, or not having a warm bed to sleep in. That was something that the Shelby’s couldn’t exactly relate to, there was little money and quite a few mouths to feed. Aunt Polly tried her best to feed the hungry children at the table, but she was failing more and succeeding less. Her sister-in-law’s three big boys were away at war, but they were always talked about.

One day, the thirteen year old (Y/N) plopped down beside her best friend Ada with a full lunch box in hand. She always had lunch packed with her, but Ada never did. For a long time, she just assumed that the malnourished girl was not hungry in school. While she was munching on her apple, she heard the growl of a hungry belly and Ada turned her head down in shame. While a girl is naive at 13, (Y/N) immediately knew that her friend was hungry, and that she probably didn’t get as much food at home as she did. When Ada looked back at her, she reacted with a wide smile to the outstretched hand towards her, holding a big red apple.

For the rest of the break, they just sat under their tree, silently chewing on their apples, with a smile on both faces.

That is how Ada knew that (Y/N) was going to be her lifelong best friend. She opened up to her when they were sharing a cigarette on the edge of the forest.

“We had more money before the war, if Tommy was here he would make sure that we have food.” Ada explained.

(Y/N) just blinked at her friend. “Who’s Tommy?”

———-

Three years later, the girls were now sixteen and the war was finally over. Because (Y/N) herself didn’t have any brothers, or sisters, she didn’t know how many families waited for this day to come.

It was a pretty summer day, and she made her way to the Shelby household, where she was always welcomed by Aunt Polly. Except, when she walked into the house, there was only one man sitting at the table. Her breath got stuck in her throat and she blushed heavily, he was very handsome. For a moment she believed that she walked into the wrong house, but the photographs on the walls proved otherwise. He was smoking a cigarette and staring at the wall blankly, he was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even hear her come in.

Thomas just wanted a moment to himself in his childhood house before going back to the Garrison, he was not the same man anymore. Suddenly, he saw a figure in the corner of his eye. A second later, the two pairs of eyes met. His previously sad eyes lit up at the sight of her, but he tried to conceal it. She was so beautiful… Slender and weakish frame, something that made him eager to protect her. Her long and soft looking hair. And that face, oh god, that pretty face.

“H-Hi… I’m (Y/N).” She walked closer to him and stuck her hand out for him, she recognized him from the pictures, he was one of Ada’s brothers.

He heard about her, Aunt Pol always told him what was happening on Watery Lane in the letters she sent to Tommy. She had mentioned Ada’s lovely friend, multiple times. She told him that the girl was pretty, very kind, and that she went with her to church on Sundays when no one else wanted to, just so Polly didn’t have to go alone.

Tommy smiled at her, and she felt herself get lost in those bright blue gems of eyes. Instead of shaking her hand, he brought it to his lips and planted a little kiss on it. Her hand was soft and warm, it was a while since he felt the touch of a gentle female. He smiled when she blushed more at his kiss. “Thomas Shelby.”

—----

From that day on, Miss (Y/L/N) was under the protection of the Peaky Blinders. Thomas always had one of his men following her and Ada to school, and then back home. It killed him knowing that he couldn’t touch her, make her his, not yet anyway. That would have been immoral and awful, and he knew that aunt Pol would have broken his hand in two and cut off his cock. That didn’t mean he hadn’t spent too many night fucking his fist to the thought of her. Everyone in the Shelby clan could see how soft he was towards her, always making sure that she stays out of the bad things, and whenever she came over and he was working, his eyes basically formed into hearts and followed her everywhere. The family loved her, she enjoyed baking and she always made sure that at least once a week she turned up to the office with home-baked treats. Those kinds of sweet treats calmed everyone down, business was blooming after all.

Ever since Tommy came back from the war, he only let himself be pleasured by whores, the one girl he wanted was the one he had to wait for. He always hired prostitutes that resembled her even the slightest bit. He imagined that he was burying himself inside her wet and warm walls, he overheard her and Ada and he was very well aware that she was untouched, a sweet little virgin. In Small Heath, the girls started sleeping around in their teens, but she, at 17, didn’t care about the boys her age. She wanted a certain gangster, who was nearing his thirties.

He didn’t even claim her yet, but wherever she walked, everyone knew she was Tommy Shelby’s girl. He sent her gifts, and always a handwritten note. Her heart never failed to warm up when she saw the little T.S on the bottom of the cards. Flowers, chocolates, exotic spices that she could put in her sweet treats, jewellery, dresses, everything a 17 year old girl loves. She was spoiled by him. When she wore one of the dresses that he got for her, she always sent him a shy smile and a little nod.

—-----

Tomorrow was going to be the day when she would finally become 18 years old, a young lady. She felt so antsy getting to bed, knowing that she would wake up as an adult. She also deeply hoped that Tommy would do something, after 2 years of gifts, protection and lustful gazes from distance. It was safe to say that her standards were very much heightened.

When she woke up, she noticed a big box on the chair of her vanity, tied up in one of those big ribbons. Her mother must have brought it up for her, as she always did when her daughter’s name was on the box, written by the familiar handwriting.

She was smiling widely when she opened the box up, it had a beautiful silky dress and a gold locket necklace. She marvelled at the divine fabric, but quickly blushed when she looked into the box again. There was a set of white lingerie and a note.

Tonight, I’ll send a car to pick you up at 7pm, be ready.

~T.S

She melted at that, and she felt her lower tummy warm up. This evening, she will finally be claimed.

——-

By the time 7pm rolled around, she did everything she could to make herself look pretty for him. She took a long hot bath, made sure she smelled good everywhere. She washed her hair and tied up half of it with a bow. She put lotion all over herself, sprayed herself with perfume and put the lovely dress on. Sitting in her vanity, she put on some makeup. She felt beautiful.

She got her light coat on, along with kitten heels and she was waiting for his car to come. When it did, she sat in the backseat and greeted the driver.

She got driven to Arrow house, which she only heard about before. It was so huge, and overwhelming, but very nice.

A maid took her coat and escorted her to the dining roomom. Just like the rest of the house, it was quite big, both the room itself and the table. It was decorated elegantly, the candlelight flooded the room. Just as she stepped in, Thomas walked in the room on the other door. He looked so handsome as always, with his muscular frame and his tailored suit.

His heart nearly jumped out of his chest, she looked like an angel, and she was standing in his house, wearing his gift. The maid left, now there were only two of them in the room, he walked up to her. With a gentle hand on her waist, he pulled her closer so he could plant a kiss on her cheek and whisper in her ear. “You look absolutely gorgeous.” He got even closer, her head was spinning with him so close, his masculine scent sent her hormones into overdrive. “I hope the dress isn’t the only gift of mine on you.”

He felt his dick twitch when she looked up at him like that, a gentle glint in her eyes. She shaked her head, too lost in his eyes to answer with words. To shake her out of her trance, he guided her to her seat, with his hand still on her slender waist.

He sat next to her, the maids kept on serving the finest of foods. Thomas also brought out a bottle of red wine. Both of them were surprised how easy it was for them to talk. They talked and ate, and Tommy even found himself laughing. He also found out how innocent she was, she wasn’t stupid, just inexperienced, and he was more than happy to give her experience. She also had a big heart, and a gentle soul, she was everything he needed.

While everyone in Small Heath tried to warn her about Thomas Shelby, she never understood why. He was just trying to protect his family and give them a chance at a better life, he was also an absolute softie for her. She could see that he had a lot of love to give, he enjoyed being the leader and defeating other gang leaders, but he must have been craving someone who could take care of him for once, she knew that she wanted to be that person.

When they finished dessert, he pulled her chair closer to his and cradled one of her blushing cheek into his palm.

“Are you aware of my intentions towards you?” He asked in a serious tone, she knew that he wasn’t fooling around. Now or never. She nodded as much as she could with the gentle hold on her face, but he wasn’t having it. “Answer me with words, I want to see if you really want this.” She felt dizzy by hearing his dominating tone.

“Yes, I know your intentions with me.” She replied shyly.

“What are they?” His fingers started to move her hair out of her face, caressing her in the process.

“Y-You want to make me yours.” She spoke lowly, it was hard to speak when he was looking at her as if he was seconds away from ravaging her.

“Yes, and do you want that, (Y/N)? Do you want me to make you mine?” He was even closer now, he whispered seductively in her ear, his full lips were nearly touching the shell of her ear. “Just say the word, sweetheart, and I will give you everything you crave. Please, let me give you the world.” Thomas Shelby barely used the word ‘please’, but he was nearly begging for her. She almost giggled, as if she really needed much convincing.

“I want it, I want it so bad, Tommy…” She was getting impatient, and he saw it on her.

“Shh, sweetheart… Don’t let your pretty head worry, I’m going to take care of you so nicely.” He stood up and stuck his hand out for her to take. “Come.”

He walked with her to his bedroom, she was walking behind him so she couldn’t see the wicked grin on his lips. When they stepped in the door, he just kept on walking, which caused her to walk backwards, until her knees hit the bed and she had fallen down on it.

He didn’t waste a second and crawled on top of her, his lips slowly finding hers. Their kiss started out slow, he guided her lips with his own. After a few minutes, noticing that she was starting to become more and more confident, he slipped his tongue into her open mouth. His hand wandered to her back, where the zipper was, his head pulled away so he could ask for silent permission. Once he got it, he helped her sit up and he removed the dress. Sitting back on his heels, he admired the sight in front of him, her young body was just begging to be ruined. She was wearing the lace, she looked exactly like an angel. His lips glued themselves to her neck and they sucked and bit, her noises were proof that she was enjoying his touch. He made sure to really mark her up, she wasn’t going to leave his mansion for a while, he needed his time with his new prize. She bit down on her lips to hide her moans, something he growled at.

“Don’t you dare. I want to hear you, don’t hold back, sweetheart.”

He went down to her breasts, he also reached under her arched back and unclasped her bra. She tried to cover herself, but he was having none of it. He slowly unpeeled her arms from her chest and kissed all around her breasts. “How beautiful! Such a nice pair of tits you have, the best I’ve seen.” He sucked a nipple into his mouth and she mewled loudly, she didn’t expect to feel so aroused while getting her nipples sucked at. He made sure that he gave both of her tits the same treatment before going lower.

Before he could do more, he stood up to remove his shirt and pants, her presence was making him hotter by the minute. He hooked his fingers into her panties and his cock nearly tore his underwear when he saw how the crotch was stuck to her entrance. She was already so ready for him. He yanked harder and they finally parted, he brought her panties up to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Mhm, so sweet… But, I think I need to feel this from the source.” Tommy dropped to his knees in front of her spread legs, her mind was making her doubt herself. What if she looked ugly down there? What if it smelled or tasted b—

“OH— Tommy!” She moaned loudly when his tongue licked a long stripe up her slit. He just chuckled into her pussy darkly, then he moved on to her pleasure. His mouth was sucking her throbbing clit, his fingers slowly circled her entrance, teasing her.

“Fuck… Your cunt tastes divine, and it’s only for my mouth to taste.” It wasn’t even a question. She was unable to form a coherent sentence, she could only moan and thrash on his tongue. He took one finger and he slowly eased it into her, she was so wet that it slipped right into her, he didn’t hesitate to add another one. “You’re going so good, I cannot wait to feel this tight virgin pussy on my cock.” He curled his fingers and rubbed them right into her spongy spot, her fingers grabbed his hair and tried to push his face more into her heat. He felt her clenching more and more, so he sped up his movements and grinned proudly when she came undone with a whiny moan and a desperate call of his name.

He kissed his way back up to her heaving chest and looked up at her flushed face. He talked her through it, until her breathing evened out again. He slowly slipped his underwear off, his back straightened out for her to see his big cock. It was veiny and thick and it made her nervous. He kept her legs spread, while he kneeled between them, one of his hand smoothing her face and the other one gripped himself at his base. “Want to give a little touch? Don’t be scared, I’m going to make this very pleasurable for you, my sweet girl.” He hissed when her fingertips made contact with his dripping tip, he was so pent up and her soft touch nearly made him blow his load all over her juicy tits, but he had to stay patient. “Are you ready? Ready to become mine?”

“Yes, Tommy, please, I want to feel you. I-I waited for you.” This caused him to grin and give her a deep kiss.

“I know you did, little one.” He positioned himself at her entrance and he slowly began pushing in, he felt a bit of resistance, but with a sharp thrust, he managed to break through it. He wrapped her up in his arms and whispered sweet nothings into her ear soothingly. “I know, I know. It will feel better in a minute, your pussy just has to adjust to my cock. Relax.” It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would, but it still did, the girls in her class made it sound worse, or maybe their boyfriends didn’t take the time to prep them properly. That made her so proud, her Tommy made sure she was ready. She tried her best to relax her muscles and she felt the pain lessen. She planted a shy kiss on Tommy’s neck at which he chuckled at. “Good girl. You’re mine now, only mine.” He slowly began moving in and out of her.

Her walls gripped on him like a vice, he didn’t need any whores anymore, he had her now. His hands lifted her hips up a bit, so his cock was hitting her spot at every thrust. He went more and more faster, his fingers also began rubbing on her swollen clitoris.

“AH— Tommy, I’m going to—do that thing again.” His innocent little girl, so good for him.

“Good… I can feel you squeeze me, come on, sweet girl, come for me. Come on my cock. Let me fill you up. Let me make you mine.” With a shout of his name and a cry, she came around him. When he felt her walls pulsing around him, he let go too. His warm cum painted her walls, and it was such a delicious sensation. He stayed inside her for a few minutes, both of them trying to catch their breaths.

When he pulled out, he sat back so he could watch his cum leak out of her spent hole. He looked down proudly at his softening cock, which had some of her blood on it. Shit, he really filled her up with his load, there was so much of it. And the whiteness of him and the dark crimson of her virginity made such a lovely contrast together.

He took a rag from his bedside table and cleaned her up, making sure that he was gentle with her, the girl just got fucked and she was sensitive both physically and mentally, he had to be gentle.

After he made sure they were both clean, he once again brought her into his embrace. He smiled at her lovingly, which caused her to do the same. Her hair was all puffy from his touch, but he loved it.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” He cradled her cheek, and caressed her under eye area with his fingertip.

“I’m good, I feel a bit sore, but it’s okay.” She nuzzled into his neck and left little kisses. “I’m so happy to be here with you.”

He smiled in a way he didn’t for a long time, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. He wanted to give the world to the girl in his arms, and he felt the primal urge to protect her and keep her away from all the bad. “Me too. I’m happy to know that you’re finally mine.”

taglist: @your-nanas-house

[writeriguess]

Hi Darling! I'd like to request the following: Reader and Katsuki have began hooking up, but never discussed exclusivity and stuff like that, so she assumes this stuff is just casual to him. He usually comes to her for making out and sex and sometimes stays at her dorm, but otherwise it's hard for her to figure out his feelings. So when someone else (Iida, for example) asks her out, she says yes, thinking Katsuki won't care. But he gets very, very angry and they finally sort out their relationship and it turns out it's not casual to him at all. Thank you!

Unspoken Boundaries

You and Katsuki have been hooking up for a while now. It started simple—shared glances that lingered too long, teasing banter, and the inevitable magnetic pull that brought his mouth to yours. The first kiss was all fire and heat, like everything else about him, and when he pressed you against the wall and made you gasp, you knew it wouldn’t end there.

But it never went beyond the physical. No conversations about what you were, no whispered promises, and certainly no talk of exclusivity. He came to your dorm late at night, eyes dark with need, and you welcomed him in with shaky hands and eager lips. Sometimes he stayed until morning, his heavy arm draped over your waist, breaths warm against your neck. Those moments made your heart clench with longing, but by the time the sun crept through your blinds, he was gone, leaving a cool spot in your bed and a mess of tangled emotions behind.

You told yourself it was fine. Casual. Exactly what it seemed to be. It was easier to pretend you were fine when he kissed you senseless, hands wandering and mouth demanding. He was all heat, aggression, and intensity—a whirlwind that swept you away, leaving you aching and breathless. But the quiet moments after, when his breathing evened out and his eyes closed, were the hardest. You'd study the line of his jaw, the way his lashes brushed his cheeks, and the faintest crease in his brow, wondering if he’d disappear forever come morning.

You hated how much you liked him—how your heart twisted when he showed up at your door and how relief bloomed in your chest when he stayed. But Katsuki Bakugo was not the type to sweet talk or hold hands. He was all rough edges and explosions, and you weren’t naive enough to think you could soften him.

That’s why, when Iida Tenya asked you out, you said yes. His earnest eyes and polite smile made you feel seen in a way that had nothing to do with heat or lust. He was kind and straightforward—nothing like Katsuki. You weren’t sure if you wanted a relationship with Iida, but the thought of a real date sounded nice. Maybe you could forget the way Katsuki’s touch set you ablaze, just for a while.

Word spread fast, as it always did at U.A. You barely had time to process what you’d done before Kirishima clapped a heavy hand on your shoulder. “Hey, congrats!” he said, sharp teeth flashing in a grin. “Didn’t know you and Iida were a thing!”

“Oh,” you managed, cheeks burning. “Uh, yeah. We’re… going out.”

Kirishima’s brows lifted, but he just nodded. “Good for you! Bet he’ll treat you well.”

The implication in his tone made your stomach twist. Katsuki treated you well, didn’t he? Sure, he was demanding, harsh, and selfish, but he was also attentive in ways that left you breathless. Maybe he wasn’t gentle, but he was careful. You remembered the way his hands would slow when you were shaky, how he’d brush your hair away from your face when it stuck to your forehead.

Kirishima’s grin faded as he glanced past you. “Uh, you might wanna…”

You turned, heart dropping when you saw Katsuki glaring your way, red eyes narrowed and jaw set. Oh no.

“Get over here,” he snapped, and you followed, pulse hammering in your throat. Katsuki stalked into a side hall, far from prying eyes. He whirled on you, eyes blazing. “What the hell are you playing at?”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Iida? Seriously?” He spat the name like a curse. “You think I won’t give a shit if you let some extra take you out?”

Your temper flared. “Why would you? It’s not like we’re exclusive.”

He stared at you, expression caught between disbelief and anger. “You think this is casual?”

You faltered, mouth opening and closing. “Isn’t it?”

Katsuki’s scowl deepened. “If you’re stupid enough to think I’m just here to fuck around, then you’re not as smart as I thought.”

“What am I supposed to think, Katsuki? You come over, we fool around, and you leave. You never say anything, never talk about what we are. I don’t know where we stand!”

“You stand with me,” he growled. “Always have. Or did you forget who keeps coming back to you?”

“Coming back to fuck me,” you snapped.

“Coming back because I want you!”

The words hung heavy in the air, and you gaped at him. Katsuki raked a hand through his hair, eyes blazing. “Do you think I do this with just anyone? You think I crawl out of bed for just any girl?”

“I don’t know what to think!” you shouted. “You never tell me anything!”

“I’m telling you now,” he shot back. “You’re mine. I don’t share. Got it?”

Something uncoiled in your chest, a breathless rush of relief. “Yeah?”

He leaned in, lips brushing your ear. “Yeah. Now say it.”

“I’m yours.”

“Damn right you are,” he growled, and his mouth crashed against yours, all heat and desperation. You melted into him, fingers tangling in his hair. When he finally pulled back, breath ragged, his eyes were hard. “Don’t make me say it again.”

You smirked. “I won’t.”

Katsuki kissed you again, and this time, you knew exactly where you stood.

[demonic0angel]

Another Anger management idea:

Jason is going through his own First Burn, but unlike Hamilton, he didn't do it. The evidence, though fake, is damning. Hopefully, Jason can get Vicki Vale to give up her sources easily, or there will be hell. He just wants his wife back.

(… did you want comfort, bc it’s only angst tbh. Also, I’m assuming that Jazz doesn’t have Shadow, because this would’ve been fixed so fast otherwise lmao)

Part 2, Part 3

Jazz didn’t turn to face him, as she just hugged her plushie, a little plush toy of Red Hood. She sat on their bed and just curled around the toy, her brilliant hair scattering over the sheets and covering her face.

“Jazz, please. Please listen to me. I don’t know how this was taken, but it isn’t real. I didn’t cheat,” Jason said, almost begging. He moved forward to be in front of her so she could face him, but she turned her head away, tucking her face into the plushie and clutching at it.

Not for the first time, he was horrifically jealous of the toy he had won for her.

“Princess, please. I love you,” he said urgently, “I love you so much.”

Jazz shook her head softly, and he could see a peek of her face through her curtain of hair, horribly blank and empty. She didn’t cry, she would not cry while he was here. She was strong like that, and hated showing weakness unless she felt safe. She hadn’t shown such strength in front of him for years.

“I know,” she said, her voice tiny.

It broke his heart in two.

Jason clenched his fists and tried to breathe.

Just a few days ago, Vicki Vale had released news of him cheating on Jazz with another woman. No matter how much he could deny it, the evidence was so damning that he had nothing to say. But he didn��t really have an excuse. He knew he hadn’t done it, but the evidence all pointed towards him.

Even his family were giving him odd looks. Only Jazz’s warnings had prevented her own siblings from brutally murdering him.

There was no alibi he could give, no witnesses to see where he was, nothing to show that he hadn’t done it.

But he really hadn’t done it! He knew, because he had been in the midst of a reconnaissance mission alone. But he had no excuses, because the video was so well done, the photos were so clear, and the information was so detailed that he couldn’t say a word.

“Jazz,” Jason said, his voice cracking as he felt the lump in his throat grow, “I didn’t do it. Please believe me. I promise, I didn’t cheat on you. I swear on my life. I love you, please.”

Jazz still didn’t face him. Her hands tightened on the doll and then she said slowly, “I need time to think. Can you call Dick and Dani please?”

Jason wanted to grab his guns and start shooting up Gotham, or better yet, sink the whole damn continent into the ocean. His rage and frustration was so strong that he almost felt blood leak up through his throat. He wanted to kill Vicki Vale more than ever, but if he did that now, it would only make him look more guilty.

“Okay,” he said comfortingly. He did not reach out to touch her. If he did, he knew she would’ve shut down further. “Do you want me to call Valerie too?”

Dick, Dani, and Valerie were often part of Jazz’s counsel. Dick and Dani would’ve been too nice to immediately leap to Jason cheating, but Valerie was ruthless enough to be a good voice of reason and if he offered, then maybe Jazz would think that he was being honest.

Jazz nodded silently and Jason immediately called them up as he moved to the kitchen to make the calls.

Dick agreed instantly and told him that he would come over as fast as possible. Dani was clearly disdainful of him, but tried to be polite and agreed the moment she knew that Jazz wanted her presence. Valerie cursed him out for a whole fifteen minutes before he could get a word in, but eventually agreed without hesitation when he asked.

Jason hung up the phone when he was done and buried his head in his hands as the soft sounds of Jazz crying alone in their bedroom filled his ears.

The urge to kill Vicki Vale grew more and more tempting.

He didn’t know why he was being targeted. Or how she had gotten such good falsified photos. Hell, he hadn’t even done anything in the last few weeks to deserve this.

He sat there in the kitchen, eyes clenched tight as he resisted the urge to go into the bedroom to pull his wife into his arms and hold her. He wanted to bury himself in Jazz’s hair, hold her tight to his chest, feel her heartbeat and her warmth, and settle her in his embrace as if they could somehow merge themselves into one.

Jason opened his eyes.

He knew what he had to do to clear his name.

He would have to find Vicki Vale’s sources and investigate for himself. He’d be damned if some hack reporter tore apart his blissful marriage with his wonderful wife. And god only knew what lengths Jason would go to for Jazz.

[thepeaklegendoffirstgen]

Hai! It’s me again-

Can i once again request Gun x reader angst (help yes i know i request this a lot-)

Do basically kind of a continuation of the other fic I requested, but reader actually has her life together, like lots of friends, hobbies and overall is living her best life after they broke up? And like she’s not necessarily angry or something with Gun but is actually like how she always is, only it seems like reader moved on rather quick while Gun thought ye did but didn’t

I LOVE YOUR WORK❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥🫶🫶

Ofc you can always ignore this if it’s too much! :P

~T

Gun angst, yes !🥹 Thanks T❣️

PART 1 💔

Were the sakura still in full bloom? Or were the autumn leaves falling, just like the broken pieces of your heart? Or was it winter, cold like his reaction?

You can’t recall.

Your memories are hazy. You smile and brush the sweat from your forehead. It’s summer now, bright and blooming. The skies are clear. It’s vacation time. And no matter how heavy this place feels with memories, you still look forward to coming back. Even when this place feels like a ghost of your past, it’s also the comfort of home. It always whirls up difficult emotions.

You were first apprehensive, what would your family say? Weren’t the clan elders going to expel you for breaking off your engagement with Gun? It was supposed to be a political arrangement, a benefit for both clans. Love was never part of the equation. How foolish of you two to assume otherwise.

But you had breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced that the alliance with the Yamazaki would remain intact, because Gun said so.

Things like that keep you questioning your decision, but you’ve promised yourself you’ll stay firm. No more boys. Only you. Your life. Your growth. You’re still unraveling the roots of that attachment. When you told your friend everything, she looked at you and said, “You do know your whole identity since childhood was to become someone’s bride, right?”

And she was right.

It made you shift focus and rewire the very axis of your thinking. So even when you got snide remarks or scrutinizing glances, you waved them off. If you could go against tradition and break up with the clan head, you could handle this. You were proud of yourself. You found an internship, made time for friends in Tokyo, and walked through all your childhood places again, this time with your past gently haunting the edges of your present.

🌺

“This is nice. Give it a try,” you insisted.

“No! It’s too sugary. How do you even eat this much sweet stuff?” your friend asked, giving you a funny look.

“I’ve always had a sweet tooth.”

“It’s sweet, but try these fries.”

And just like that, one bite, one laugh, one small thing after another, you were both surprised at how much you didn’t remember about each other’s tastes. But it was okay. You were both willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn. It’s not like you didn’t have friends at university, but nothing compared to the familiarity of speaking the same language, knowing your dinner would be ready when you got home.

You had just returned from your internship when the tension hit. You could already feel it, rumours spreading like wildfire. The clans, once in alliance with the Yamazaki, were being hunted down. Your own clan’s safety? Not guaranteed.

To make it worse, your mother kept nagging—why did you end things with your fiancé?

“A woman should accept her man as he is,” she said. “Now look at the state of things.”

Then came the elders. Whispering, judging, blaming. Claiming you had left the clan’s future hanging by a thread. “Ego: bigger than a man’s, this always ends in ruin,” they’d say.

It was too much.

And with days still left in your summer vacation, you packed up and left the estate. Moved in with your friend.

But not before shouting, “If you’re so scared, in what name are you even Yakuza?”

Not before calling them out. “If you're so terrified of Gun, why don’t you just fight him like the men you claim to be?”

Not before saying, “I’m done. I am not your tool.”

🌺

You spent the rest of your summer in peace. In fulfillment.

It wasn’t Gun’s fault. No, you had let go of him long ago.

It was the system.

Rotten. Unchanging. Unwilling to grow.

Better to stay far away, from it, from them, from him.

Better for both your heart and your skin.

🌺

“Hey! Wanna go somewhere fun today?” , your friend asks.

“Where to?” You inquire .

“Clubbing. Shibuya.”

“Sounds crowded.”

“Sounds exciting!”

“Please…”

“No.”

“Please!”

“…Fine.”

You mutter something incoherent under your breath, and your friend smirks. She knows it’s something unholy, but hey, you agreed. That’s all she needed.

🌺

It was crowded. Just like you expected. Loud music, half-drunk people, the chaos of city nightlife. But the place was spacious, and tonight there was a special menu, so you didn’t complain much.

Then your friend did the unthinkable, she called your high school friends.

You didn’t mind.

It was merry, warm.

But your social battery hits its limit within the hour. Now you sat alone in a corner with a drink, needing a breather, only for it to be shattered by that voice.

🌺

“Still hiding in corners?”

Goosebumps bloomed across your arms. The drink nearly toppled from your hand, only for a blond guy to catch it just in time.

“Hey, you shouldn’t scare people like that,” he said, all chirpy and annoyingly bright, both in hair and energy.

You think you remember him.

You immediately stand, reflex or etiquette, who knows?

“Oh. Hello.”

Your mind blanks.

How do you talk to your ex?

You’re surprised. There’s no anger. No sadness. Just a familiar face with too much history.

Before Gun could say anything, he had to butt in.

“Pretty girl, you remember me?”

You blink. Confused. You do remember him, you guess. Maybe?

Gun shoves him aside, and the blond whines dramatically.

You laugh.

Of course. This must be Goo Kim, Gun’s best friend. Though Gun never admitted it, the way he used to talk about him, the quiet camaraderie between them, it made you happy. He had a companion. An equal.

“Same clown who used to show up unannounced,” Gun mutters.

“I figured. Your best friend, right?” you tease.

He scoffs and sits beside you.

Same old behavior. Same old resolve.

But he’s watching you.

Your new hairstyle.

Your healthier skin.

Your brighter eyes.

Your lips—did you change your lip gloss?

You notice his lingering gaze.

“Analyzing ways to kill me?” you smirk.

“If I wanted to, I would’ve.”

You nod. Fair enough.

If he wanted to, he could’ve destroyed your clan.

He could’ve shattered everything.

But he didn’t.

“Want me to bow in gratitude for your mercy?”

“Sarcastic as ever.”

You don’t say anything. Because honestly? There’s nothing left to say.

But the air feels thick. Unspoken things hanging between you like smoke.

“You’re still doing the same old things,” you say, softly.

He smirks. He knows what you’re referring to, his habit of sleeping around. Ironically, he did it more when he was with you. Now? He barely finds time. Maybe he’s convinced himself you’re gone, so he should work more.

“I’m not angry, you know,” you add. “You can be honest.”

Still nothing.

“It’s my life. I do what I want,” he finally says. Defense mode, as always.

“Of course.”

A beat passes.

“But thank you for not hurting my clan, for not breaking the alliance… and for letting me go.”

You move to place your hand over his, but stop yourself. Gun Park, ever traditional, wouldn't like that. So instead, you bow.

A bow of respect.

Of gratitude.

Of understanding that in rank, he was always above you.

“It’s fine,” he says.

You smile and leave. Of course, it's fine , he has always been fine, and you were also doing great, so you leave with a bright future ahead, leaving behind a broken past and seeing him doing fine was like the ointment to your wounds. It's fine. Truly, he is doing great. You were doing even better, you think.

🌺

He watches you go again.

He laughs, cold and detached. But why does it ache?

Leaving. Just like last time.

Over trivial, irrational things, his mind insists.

But his heart…?

His heart whispers otherwise.

He reminds himself: The world only cares about results.

And the result was: you left him.

That’s fine.

He respected your courage.

He respected that you had the guts to leave, even when the whole world would judge you for it.

But it doesn’t make it any easier.

🌺

Goo returns with drinks, asking where Gun's pretty girl went.

Gun almost punches him.

He’s frustrated. Wants to leave.

But more than that, he wants to know...

Do you remember?

Do you remember what it’s been?

Six months.

Six months since…

Right where you left him.

[batchilla]

Chapter Three: Dread and Despair

Before we start a quick note: while the story loosely follows the events of the leaping into the light series, I am playing with the timeline because otherwise it would be a series longer than what I am really able to commit to at this stage in my life. So things are happening in a faster timeline and occasionally in a different order. You’ll work it out. I trust you.  Also if anyone wants to complain about how long this update took you I will politely remind you I was HIT BY A CAR TWICE between updates. 

You're starting to get worried, because Dick’s not at work. He’s never late, to the point of annoyance. You find yourself checking one of the more reliable Nightwing watching twitter accounts, but find nothing. He hadn’t even been active last night. 

Over the last week, you’d been slowly yet steadily collecting evidence. You’d done your best to be impartial towards James. But you had found cause for suspicion. He had arrived the day the file was moved. He knew people in high places, as evidenced by his promotion. But he wasn’t your only suspect. Honestly, finding a corrupt cop wasn’t hard in Bludhaven. It was finding the right one, who was the correct needle in a massive stack of needles instead of hay. You look around the break room, where Dick’s lunchbox of horrifically sweet snacks isn’t in the fridge, out at the dividing glass into the bullpen as you make yourself a sandwich. 

Your captain would have unquestioned access. He had little care for Buldhaven’s homeless population, but catching a suspected serial killer would be a feather in his cap and a ticket to an early retirement. A beat cop could have snuck in and done it. Less power, but they could have been bought or blackmailed. So could anyone, really. You’d been sifting through the entire department. Last time you saw him as Nightwing you had gone a little too far. Taken up too much of the time you had with your little false accusation prank. Not to mention, he had not taken it particularly well. Over the last week, he’d gone out of his way to be helpful to you. When you’d asked him for a favour, he’d been strangely intense. Grabbed your shoulders and told you he’d never let you down. So clearly, righting your perception of him was something he was desperate to do. You occasionally felt bad about it all. Then you remembered he’d called himself Richard bloody Grerson to your face and expected it to work, and were annoyed enough to let go of the guilt. 

Grerson. Did he think you were an idiot? 

How the hell has he maintained a secret identity up to this point? Fucking Grerson. You finished making your sandwich and sat back down at your desk, trying to act as if nothing was wrong and you weren’t so worried you felt like you might cry. You almost envied the time when you hadn’t known. You’d assume he’d been out late, or he was sick. 

Now you knew, and you were worried that he’d been murdered, or he’d missed a grapple and was lying in some alleyway all alone and in pain. You're so busy worrying about Dick that you don’t even notice when someone occupies his seat. “Hey.” You look up. Sitting across from you is Officer Rodwell. 

She’s a wiry woman. Curly hair in a messy bun, kind eyes, deep brown skin and an overall soothing presence. She looks exhausted. You know the feeling. She looks scared, and you know why. You are too. “He's back.” she says, fiddling with one of Dick’s many desk toys, a newton's cradle, full of nervous energy. “He’s back.” you agree, resting your chin on your hand, holding your fingers over your mouth. “Honestly soon as he came back I felt like I was an idiot for not seeing it coming.” you admit. “Same.” Janet says, shaking her head. “If he tries anything… I’ll watch your back if you watch mine.” she says, and you nod. “Of course, Janet.” your agreement is immediate. But your concerns run deeper. You would help, you meant that. You just didn’t know if it would matter. “Might happen sooner rather than later, Captain Leo has asked to see me in his office at 12.” You furrow your brow and pull open your calendar. “Well, look at you Ms Priority, he doesn’t want me till 12:30.” The invitation glows menacingly, lingering in your mind's eye even as you close the tab.  “What do you expect it’ll be about? How he’s sorry Mc Elroy came back and he won’t let him get up to his old shit?” Janet snorts. “That’d be lovely. Also, he’ll tell me I can take the detectives exam early.” You hum. “Well… guess there’s not long to wait.” It’s not, objectively. Subjectively? It feels like an eternity until you are called into your captain’s office. You only catch the last few words of what Captain Harrison says to Rodwell as the door shuts “...and give my best wishes to your son, eh? We’re all thinking of him. I’m sure the insurance will pull through.” You exchange a tight smile, a nod, and brush past her into the office. 

Captain Harrison took care of his officers. That was not an endorsement. To him, the thin blue was a religious idol. He covered up whatever he deemed necessary as part of the benefits of the job, looked away and denied the most egregious acts committed by those reporting to him. He’d never forgiven you for taking the Mc Elroy incident further than his precinct, but while he’d make your life hell with the worst assignments, he would probably cover it up if you shot a kid. Pig. He grins at you as you slip into the seat across from him. Says your name with a warmness you resent from a man like him. “You wanted to see me Captain?” “Yes, yes, no need to look nervous. I just wanted to be sure that the Sargent has been behaving himself?” You bristle. Yes, in your one, supervised interaction, he had not committed a reportable offence. “Why would you think he wouldn’t be?” is your deflection. 

He taps his hands against the desk in lighthearted annoyance at Mc Elroy you know he doesn’t truly feel. 

“So defensive. Look, you're the best gal in my bullpen-” you are the best in his bullpen. Second to Grayson maybe. It’s hard to be sure given he cheats with his connections. “But while what he said wasn’t on, Me too, I’m with her, and all that, when we can’t present a united front, well, it emboldens the scum.”

Disagreeing at this moment will make everything worse for you, and for Rodwell. So you present a united front. Nod and pick your battles. You hate yourself for it. But you hadn’t joined the force with the intention to fix it from the inside, because you can’t. The rot is too deep for that. You joined in the hopes that you could help a few people. Every case that comes across your desk is in the hands of someone who cares, rather than the Mc Elroys and Harrisons of the force, and that's the best you can do. 

“But, all's well that ends well. So long as you keep your head down, I can see you getting a similar promotion in the not so distant future. Even with this terrible Grayson business.”

This whole time your heart has been teasing at moving into your throat, and now, finally, it has. 

“What?” You croak, as the office fades away and you are blinded by dread. “I mean to say, the announcement he made this morning is a nice idea-” Announcement? What… oh. Dick had done something. You, for all your thoroughness in investigating Nightwing, you’d neglected the other half. “Heaven, or whatever high handed title he gave his project… Really, he should have gone into social work if he wanted to be so soft about these things. You, I at least get, you like the puzzles and the solving, him? No clue why he wanted the badge.” Your tongue is too big for your mouth and too heavy to speak with. 

“I’m a little out of the loop,” you admit. “Has something happened?” “Well, if we do need to assign you a new partner, I hope you keep a closer eye on him, eh? Yes. As far as I know he’s alive, but I'm afraid someone’s put a price on his head.” You are on your feet in a second. “Who? Why?” Badge on your belt - check. “Who, I can’t say. Sufficient enough sum that it could only be a few people. He announced some hippy bullshit save bludhaven project. Re- vamping that tent city those kids hideout in to be something decent or some such…best guess blockbuster didn’t like that. I sent out an order to bring him into protective custody.”

Gun on your hip - Check. Hopefully you wouldn’t need it, but things could get ugly if someone had gotten to him by the time you caught up.

You're leaning over the desk, close enough to see Captain Harrisons pores and smell the tuna salad he had for lunch. “Rescind it.” You say all too quickly, racing the part of your brain that wants you blindly running into Bludhavens streets to get to him. You needed to stay calm. Reasonable. You aren’t a vigilante, you can’t run into the danger head first. You need a plan, and you don’t have a secret identity to carry it out as. Harrison knew what would happen if Dick came into protective custody. He’d have some tragic accident. Something would go ‘wrong’, and he would be dead, a fish in a barrel. He knew and he would let it happen, because unlike you, Dick was too good to bite back the bile and keep his head down. He’d made one too many waves and he was being left to his fate. 

“I’ll get him.” You leave no room for argument. “No need to waste the resources. He listens to me. I’ll make sure he’s safe.” And you're off, out the door. Across the bullpen. Out of the precinct. As fast as your feet, and then your patrol car, will carry you.

You go out too fast. You don’t see it. The eyes on you. The person taking information on your partner, Grayson, and giving it to the heartless killer out of desperation. You don’t see it, and Dick hasn’t seen it yet either. But someone does. Someone with a vested interest in anything Richard Grayson had to lose. And now, they know he has you. Can lose you. 

It’s a pity. You are liked. But when a child is in need of a heart transplant and has been denied, horror befall those who would underestimate a mothers desperation. 

Captain Harrison took care of his detectives. His uniformed officers less so. Allowed to bear the brunt of the consequences of crossing Mc Elroy, Officer Janet Rodwell had been left alone against the hate. 

Fucked over by Shel Pharmacuticals when her son needed a new heart, and offered a solution by a monster, which, with no where else to turn, she took. 

Her boy needed a new heart, and to ensure that… she’d help tear Grayson down, if she had to. 

His partner… it was a pity they were so close. Perhaps if they hadn’t been, she could have been spared. Collateral is a leading cause of death in Bludhaven, and surely she will join them. Pity indeed. 

You had made it to his apartment. Made it just in time to see it burn to the ground. He helped with the evacuation. Of course he did, that wonderful fool. You wouldn’t change that, wouldn’t hope otherwise, because to do anything else would not have been him. There were no other casualties. A miracle, some think. Richard Grayson, you know. You just wished he’d made it out. He probably did, you tell yourself. Probably he’s up in the justice league's space satellite or the batcave or something insane. Because if he is alive, he surely made the call to get out of Bludhaven. At least for now. 

But you put the wingding in the window anyway. And you get to work. Take away containers pile up and mold over, and you work. Your clothes feel like cardboard, and you work. The smell, the fact that you haven’t left your apartment in days, and the general aura of despair you must be radiating causes three neighbours to come and check if you’re alive. 

You’re pretty sure you get fired at some point. Not ideal, but you can get your job back. Say you were in mourning or something. You might be. He’s been gone so long now. You’d figured he’d make it out, lay low, and come back. He wasn’t back. The wingding in your window is dusty. You don’t remove it. You work, and you work, and you work. You think you're close. Too many corrupt cops to find one, but you study the ways they are corrupt. Blockbuster doesn’t seem to be aligned with heartless, and that eliminates a vast swath of them. So you keep working. It wasn’t your Captain, too busy bending over for blockbuster, and you reluctantly had to acknowledge Mc Elroy’s innocence. And you work. 

Till eventually there’s the rap of knuckles on your window. You don’t think you’ve ever moved so fast. Or been so disappointed to see the red and black of Red Robin. Or felt such cold dread in the presence of a young man.  Why was he here? If his brother had come to see you… were all your worst fears true? “Yes?” you say quickly, opening the window and stepping back for him, too tired and too scared and too sad to care about playing dumb “Is Dick okay?” “Who?” Red Robin asks, cocking his head innocently. “Cut the shit, Tim” is your snapping reply. Red Robin drops away, and you are staring at a befuddled boy in a cape. “He told you?” “For fucks sake - I am a goddam detective. No, he didn’t say a word, but his mask covers 20% of his face at most, and his extended family all have rather obvious physical similarities to the rest of the bats.” Tim nods, and furrows his brow “well, that’s… I of all people can’t be mad about that I guess.” You don’t know what that means. In better days to come maybe you’ll ask. Not today. “Tim. Is he okay?” The young man nods. “Relatively speaking, yes. He is. I- Well given you know I suppose I can tell you a lot more than I planned. We were able to track down and arrest enough major players to scare others off taking the hit on him - Dick can return to public life soon. But when he does, we’ll want you with him. Or people you trust. Most of the time he’ll have someone a little better equipped watching him as well - No offence -” You shrug. “Glad to hear it. I’m a decent shot and a good detective but I am by no means one of you.” Tim continues “But it will also help to have you on him, and to keep up the appearance that he’s not anything special.” “Even without Nightwing, I don’t think you could convince a single person that Dick isn’t something special.” Is it true? Yes. Is it an embarrassing thing to have slipped out in front of his little brother? Also yes. Tim doesn’t comment, but you know it’s been filed away in the steel trap of his mind. 

“Well, regardless, be on your toes. You’re a target too, now.” That almost draws a laugh out of you.”Me? Why would I be a target? I don’t matter, not on the scale he operates at.” Red Robin snaps back into place as the young man stares at you like you just asked how people were sure the Joker was mentally unstable and not just misunderstood. “Ohhh you’re another one” “Another what?” “Idiot genius.” “Excuse me?” You take a step back in slight offence. “You’ll work it out.” is his reply, but he does smile. “Dick will be coming back soon. I know he’s had you working through potential moles put in the BCPD by Heartless. Any progress?” You nod, and wave him further into your apartment to see the board. Well. Presumably the cork board is still in there somewhere, having absorbed the wall it rested on. Ten newspapers. Seventeen files you absolutely shouldn’t have. Thirty pages of printer paper. Forty nine sticky notes. Over 200 pins and eight balls of red wool. It is a thing of beauty in your humble opinion. Red Robin clasps his hands together. “Mhm. Yes. We’re going to be friends.” “So, finding a clean cop in Bludhaven is basically impossible. Hell, by the definition I don’t even count, given I’m helping vigilanties. So I’ve tried to narrow down who works for Heartlesses competitors. My instinct was the new Sergeant, Mc Elroy. But it can’t be him, the timeline is all wrong. My Captain wouldn’t do it either. He’s scum, and he is letting Heartless get away with wildly too much, but he doesn’t do murder. White collar crime and letting others off the hook, as long as he can lie to himself about being the hero. He wouldn’t work with an obvious sadist.” “Which just leaves everyone else.” Red Robin hums.

“Less opportunity, but so many of them…”  “Exactly” you agree, hand on your chin.

“I have a good swath of people ruled out… so many of them work for Blockbuster or corrupt officials who lead back to Blockbuster. So many. It’s depressing, honestly. I have found a few that are suspiciously clean… and therefore suspect.”

You take a ruler and tap out your suspects faces where they are pinned at eye level.

“Dick Grayson; we can safely ignore him, but he acts suspicious enough to be a decent red herring, and to not consider him would be suspect if I was caught and this was found.”

“Bet Nightwing loved that.” Tim laughs.

“Oh his face was classic.But moving right along… Officer Jeeves, Officer Rodwell, and Officer Hughes. Jeeve’s is green, but he’s viable. Hughes, I haven’t been able to find anything on really. Rodwell… It wouldn’t be her.”

“No?” Red Robin fixes you with a stern look. “Is that an objective opinion?”

“No.” You admit. “But I trust her.”

At this point you have read nearly 10,000 words of this series, and so should really REBLOG, because likes on tumblr are meaningless! Please share your thoughts, I feed off them like a validation vampire. @sunnie-angel is the BEST beta a girl can ask for and you should check out her work! Banner was made by @stangergraphics

I no longer have a taglist but please follow @batchilla-announces-fics and turn on notifications to stay informed!

[somehow-a-human]

The angels don't have to ask to enter the bookshop.

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY.

We've been operating under the assumption that BOTH the angels and demons have to ask to enter the bookshop, but I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure it's one of our red herrings for season 2.

Continued under the cut.

When Gabriel shows up to the bookshop nude and oblivious, the doors are closed and (I believe) locked. Gabriel doesn't even know who or where he is, so he does what the default is... he knocks, and asks "Can I come in?" Aziraphale is frightened at first and tells him he can't come in but eventually our angels empathy wins and he says "Alright! Just... just get in!"

>> It's never clear that Gabriel would have physically been unable to come in otherwise.

When the Archangels show up Aziraphale literally cuts them off before they reach the door of the bookshop. Saraqael suggests, "Shall we discuss this inside?", and Aziraphale continues, "By all means. Would you like to come in?"

>> If Aziraphale hadn't rushed out to meet the angels, why wouldn't they have just walked into the bookshop like they did numerous times in season 1? Additionally I am fairly certain Aziraphale's "By all means. Would you like to come in?" was added in post via ADR. That doesn't necessarily add credence to anything, just an observation.

When Muriel arrives to surveil Aziraphale they ask, "Great! Well, could I come in and do it inside please? Only cause it's really noisy out here and I can't hear anything." Aziraphale replies, "By all means."

>> Muriel is an endearing angel who doesn't know much about life on earth, but had the shop been open and unlocked at the time of their arrival, they might've just wandered in as well.

We're never told the angels *can't* enter the bookshop explicitly like we are for the demons. We've always just assumed the same rules apply to all of the ethereal and occult beings.

But then, might I ask, why does Aziraphale tell us "Technically, this bookshop still counts as an Embassy"?

If the bookshop is still an embassy, the angels wouldn't need permission to enter, they would still have jurisdiction, and would still be able to monitor what's going on there... yes?

Let's compare this to the demons attempts to enter the bookshop, because Shax states clearly that she can't enter without permission. We see this again when she tries to get into the Bentley after it's canonically 'our car', and therefore at least partially owned by an angel.

I'm pretty sure John and Neil make a point of having the angels all ask in some way to enter, and Aziraphale seem to grant them permission as a red herring. They don't need to, but they want us to assume a false sense of security, to think that the bookshop is a safe space for our duo, outside of the reaches of both Heaven and Hell.

Technicalities are big in season 2 and I definitely think they're a huge underlying string running through all of Good Omens. In season 1, Crowley and Aziraphale stop Heaven and Hell from trying to restart Armageddon on a technicality. Gabriel and Beelzebub don't technically know if the great plan *is* the ineffable plan! It's definitely a favorite trope of Terry and Neil's to mock unfair, broken, bureaucratic systems, and Heaven and Hell are a PERFECT example of this.

**Somebody has written a meta on technicalities, I know I've seen it but I cannot for the life of me find it so if anyone could tag me so I could link it that would be brills! (Yeah that's right I'm adopting that from Charles from Dead Boy Detectives, 80's british slang ftw, I'm obsessed; please watch it, please, I need a second season.)

Neil has mentioned that the plot for season 3 might've had to be changed from he and Terry's original vision a bit, based on the political climate of the current day, and I'm sure that means we'll see some technicalities being the downfall of Heaven and Hells systems in Season 3 as well. I don't think the metatron is a villain, nor any of the other angels or demons. They're just fulfilling their function, following a set of rules, very much to a fault. This is all just God's big experiment after all, freewill, choice, eating the apple, and the angels and demons aren't exempt.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of technicality about the angels and demons themselves in season 3. We've seen that they're of the same stock, and we know Crowley at least is technically still the same person he was when he was an angel... more or less. Could the book of life end up revealing something like that the demons still exist perpetually as their angelsonas? A technicality, if you will?

Given the bookshop is still technically an embassy, is everything that happens inside observable by Heaven? Can they access the bookshop in their Earth Observation Files? There is some questionable blocking surrounding the bust in Aziraphale's bookshop, coupled with a curious record cover from Maggie's bookshop pointed out by @noneorother

Anyway... Let me know your thoughts. I haven't been posting as much, I have been mega busy and I'm trying to be thankful for it. Love you all, hope you have something nice happen for you today! <3

[nb-octopus-writes]

once you’re in the hive, the other bees assume you’re supposed to be there

[Masterpost]

Chapter 6: Baiting the Trap

Wordcount: 1.8K

~~~~

Virgil is woken by his alarm and has never once in his entire life been less interested in getting out of bed.

He's comfortable. The bed is soft, the blankets are warm, and Virgil is sleepy and wants nothing more than to just lie here forever.

He snoozes the alarm and drifts back off.

Five minutes later, of course, he's dragged back out of sleep by the insistent melody.

Virgil seriously considers quitting his job so he doesn't have to ever leave this bed, but he does actually need money to buy groceries and pay his rent, and also his hosts have been real gracious but even their patience would surely wear thin if Virgil never left.

So, regrettably, Virgil sits up. He yawns. He longingly contemplates lying back down, but forces himself instead to get out of bed.

At some point in the night, someone—Patton, presumably—had returned his cleaned clothes, which are now sitting folded on the floor by the foot of the bed. Virgil dresses. He folds the borrowed pajamas and sets them on the foot of the bed. He doesn't usually fold his pajamas, but it seems like the polite thing to do in this case. After a moment, he makes the bed too.

And then he goes downstairs.

They're all in the dining room again, and they give him breakfast, and this time he's calm enough to appreciate it.

Princey drives him to work, and he has an otherwise normal day. He borrows a clean apron, and he makes a lot of coffee. He eats lunch at the shop, he takes the bus home, he has leftover spaghetti for dinner, and he does that load of laundry.

His bed seems even harder and lumpier than usual, contrasted with the memory of the bed—no, the actual literal cotton candy cloud—he'd slept on last night.

At least it makes it easier to get out of bed in the morning, when staying isn't bliss. If only by a little. Virgil is not and has never been a morning person. Still, he manages to actually catch the bus for the first time this week, so that's good.

Their newbie’s here for her second day of training, which means that Virgil splits his time between his usual duties and showing her the ropes. She's wary of the fancy coffee machines, and looks attentive but intimidated when Virgil walks her through one of the more simple brews.

She does better with the register. Its layout is also unfamiliar, but at least the potential worst-case consequences of pressing the wrong button are much less severe than “breaking an expensive machine” or “third degree burns and coffee everywhere.”

Several hours into Virgil’s shift, his manager joins him in the back while he's on break.

“There's someone out front looking for you,” Morgan tells him.

“Who?” Virgil asks.

“Nobody I recognized,” Morgan says with a bit of a frown. “Said he was a friend of yours though.”

“Did he give you a name?” Virgil asks, and Morgan's frown deepens.

“No, and I asked,” she says. “I said to him, ‘and you are?’ and he said ‘oh I'm roamin’ like that's an answer, so I prompts him, ‘yer name?’ and he just says ‘yeah’. So seeing as he's decided to just be evasive I told him he could order something or he could leave, but he couldn't hold up the line any longer, so he bought a coffee. Paid in cash, too, so I didn't get to see his name on the card neither.”

“He said he was roaming?” Virgil asks, gears turning.

“Yeah, ’cept he ain't, he sat down with his coffee,” Morgan answers.

“Brown hair?” Virgil asks, fighting back a rising laugh. “Maybe bout this tall, looks a bit like Remus if he ever shaved and combed his hair?”

Morgan nods. “Do you want me to get rid of him?”

Virgil pinches his lips together and shakes his head. Morgan squints at him.

“And what exactly is so funny?” she asks.

The laugh spills out of him. “Sor– sorry, Morgue,” he says. “I think you misheard him. His name’s Roman.”

“What, like Greeks and Romans?”

“I think so,” Virgil says, still grinning. “He's Remus’s brother.”

“I see,” Morgan says. “Well, if you don't want me to get rid of him, do you want to talk to him, or stay back here til he leaves? Lexi and I can handle the customers for a while yet if you don't wanna see him.”

“Nah, I'll go see what he wants.”

Roman is sitting in one of the booths, sipping a coffee and staring dramatically out the window. He turns as Virgil approaches, and then perks up. “Finding Emo!” he says. “Your coworkers said they had never heard of you in their lives. I was starting to think I’d gone to the wrong coffee shop.”

“Nah, just being protective,” Virgil says, sliding into the booth across the table from Roman. “We don’t give that kind of information to customers.” They’d had problems with stalkers trying to get information on employees before, and one bewildering man who’d kept coming round looking for someone Virgil had genuinely never heard of, til Morgan banned him from the shop. “What’s up?”

“So we realized your bike is still at our house,” Roman says. “I wanted to see if you’d like a ride over to get it back. Also if you would be interested in watching more Unfortunate Events, because we left off at a really climactic bit, and I know I already know what happens next, but I want to know what happens next, you know?”

“I definitely want my bike back,” Virgil says. He glances at the clock. “I don’t get off for a while yet today, but if you want to come back around five?”

Roman nods. “And movies?” he asks eagerly.

“Maybe just a little bit,” Virgil says. “I don’t want to bike home in the dark.”

“Oh of course,” Roman says. “I'd never force you to do that.”

Virgil glances back toward Morgan and Lexi at the counter. They’re busy with customers, but the line isn’t very long. Lexi catches his glance and grins at him with a little wave.

“Do you need to get back to work?” Roman asks.

“Not yet,” Virgil decides, settling more comfortably into his seat. “I’ve got a few minutes left before my break ends.”

~

Roman returns just before five, as Virgil’s getting ready to hand off the machines to the next shift. He orders three coffees to go “and whatever Virgil would like,” with a wink in Virgil’s direction.

Virgil rolls his eyes and makes himself a hot chocolate, which he sips on the drive back to Roman’s house. The sun is already dipping toward the horizon, so it looks like there isn't going to be time for tv before he has to bike home. It's a shame, because he really was looking forward to it.

“We’re home!” Roman calls as he opens the door from the garage into the rest of the house to lead Virgil in. As they cross the threshold, Virgil is hit with a nearly tangible wall of scent, stopping him in his tracks. The air smells rich and warm and delicious. He can smell fresh bread, and roasted meat, and something sweet, all mingled together into a tantalizing aroma that makes his mouth water and his stomach perk up eagerly.

“Oh good!” someone Virgil can’t see calls back. “Great timing!”

Roman pulls his jacket off and hangs it on a hook by the door. “It smells great in here!” he says brightly, heading deeper into the house. Virgil manages to unglue his feet from the floor and finally closes the door behind himself and follows Roman.

Calico is putting a steaming dish onto the table when they enter the dining room. “Welcome home,” he says fondly. “Dinner's just about ready.”

“Oh good, I'm hungry,” Roman says. “It smells fabulous, darling.”

Calico beams, eyes scrunching up with it. “Thank you,” he says.

“We brought coffee,” Roman adds, and hands Patton one of the to-go cups. “Your Chemical Romance made this just for you.”

“Aww,” Patton says, smiling heart-meltingly at Virgil. “Thank you.”

Virgil finger-guns awkwardly back at him with his free hand. “No problem.” Making coffee is literally his job. Roman was the one who had paid for it, and picked the flavor.

Then Patton notices what Virgil had put on the side of the cup instead of his name. “Aww!” he exclaims. “You drew me a kitty!”

“Yeah, I figured– you like cats, right?”

Patton looks up at him with shining eyes. “That is paws-itively precious. Thank you so much!”

“Please do not keep the empty cup just because there is a cute cat on it,” Logan says. Roman hands him his own coffee, on which Virgil had drawn a robot face and a triangle science beaker. “Thank you. We do not need additional clutter in our home, Patton.”

Patton pouts at him. “But look, it's so sweet!” he says. “Look at this precious little kitten drawn specifically for me and tell me that you want to throw her in the trash!”

Logan sighs. “At least cut the picture out of the cup instead of keeping the entire thing,” he says.

“Deal!” Patton agrees cheerfully.

“Sorry,” Virgil says. He had not expected Calico to appreciate the art to quite that extreme. He might've put more effort into it if he had.

“No need,” Logan replies. “This is hardly the first time something like this has occurred, and I hold no illusions that it will be the last.”

“Sure won't!” Patton agrees shamelessly.

“Um, so where's my bike at?” Virgil asks after a moment.

“By the door still,” Roman says, taking a seat at the table. “Do you wanna sit next to me again?”

Virgil just now notices that the table is set with four plates. “You… want me to stay for dinner?” he asks hesitantly.

“Of course,” Roman says, now looking puzzled himself. “Why would I bring you to dinner and then not want you to stay and eat?”

They hadn't discussed him coming to dinner. They had planned for him to retrieve his bike, and perhaps watch tv with Roman, but the topic of dinner hadn't come up.

Virgil means to say no, that he had better get going, but it does smell so very good, and they did set a spot for him, and he is hungry, and if he goes home now he'll have to figure out some other meal and honestly it's not going to be anything fancier than frozen pizza and fries, or maybe just ramen since that would be faster.

“Okay,” Virgil says, and sits next to Roman.

~~~~

Chapter 7: How They Kept Him Very Well

[whysye]

Something about a fifteen year old running away from home isn't out of the ordinary. But, it truly does conjure the question as to why he had and never even came back either. He could've returned to his mother at any moment, but must've chose not to.

And another thought I've had. Was he alone for all those years until he reached his mid twenties and had met Hosea? Did he run with minor gangs or was he a "lone wolf", and kept to himself?

If he was by himself all that time then hell, that's nearly 9 years. And even if he "ran" with other people, he probably never grew an actual connection like he had with Hosea, and was still most likely extremely alone and lonely.

AND. Back to his relationship with Greta. Usually there's a reason children / teens run away from home. And, shocker, that reason's usually never the greatest. Kids will be reckless, they'll disobey sure, but to never go back? Well, now. That's a different story. Not much is exactly said of his mother, expect his quotes in The New South mission. Sure, his gravestone indicates she was a very loving mother, but with how he spoke of her I do think otherwise. Maybe I've read into his tone too much, but he feels slightly distasteful from the thought of it.

Before this "I left home at fifteen and didn't see her again." brief pause~ "She and I didn't always[pause] see eye to eye.." another pause~ "I wasn't always a very obedient child." Said certainly? Said bitterly, as if he's been told that by her before- huh what who said that? Seriously, before that there hadn't been many pauses, he spoke coherent. Wasn't hesitant.

His tone softens as he says the next "Still.. I loved her[brief pause] in my own way[pause], and she me in hers." Then he makes this joke "Somehow, even from the grave, she managed to have the last laugh." Like a "well she is my mother I can't just not love her how ungrateful would I be to ignore her love" if that makes any sense. I don't think she was the spawn of satan, but, I do not think she was the greatest mom either. And it probably left him feeling not-so-good(to put it politely ) as he grew up without much guidance, if any at all.

AND- AND, final thought lol. If he didn't properly grieve Hosea, he most definitely did not properly grieve his father's death. He was, If I had to guess, near 9-10 of age? Could be younger, I might be incorrect. But that's still quite young to lose a parent, and you could rightfully assume he didn't know how to deal with that properly( proper for himself) because he was a child. That's where resentment builds. Towards not only the southerners, but his father, too. Maybe not as vast as those whom murdered his father, but a stem of resentment for leaving him alone. Not being there.

[gingermintpepper]

I spent something like six and a half hours in the hospital today so day 6 of my challenge is being further postponed but, in the lieu of not doing any drawing, I did end up rereading Ovid's Metamorphoses in between waiting and I just wanted to offer some of my favourite underrated bits.

Cadmus and Harmonia's twin transformations into snakes is so gentle? Cadmus goes first, transformed mid plea for his wife to caress him one last time before his face is completely covered in scales, then he rests gently between her boobs and wraps around her neck and shoulders like a big snake gorget. Harmonia follows him shortly and the two snakes intertwine with each other before gently slithering off into the bushes and I love that actually mwah mwah mwah (I also appreciate the sweet irony of Cadmus who slew a snake for his glory becoming a snake, toothless and gentle in the last of his days)

Everything about Perseus was hilarious. Like, I'm sorry - I've never done a lot of reading into Perseus but I did always remember the banquet massacre and the Andromeda rescuing and like, bro I know it's not meant to be funny but Perseus is funny. I think it's his politeness honestly? He goes up to Atlas and is like "hello kind sir, may I please stay a night in your lands? I've travelled an awful long way and I am weary and hungry. If you only accept noble guests, rest assured, I am of noblest birth and have completed the noblest of deeds. 🥺" and Atlas takes one look at him, has a That's So Raven vision about the one time Themis gave him a prophecy about a son of Jove stealing his apples and then told Perseus to kick rocks. So Perseus, like the well adjusted and noble individual that he is, turns Atlas into a mountain with Medusa's head. This is how a great many of Perseus' stories unfold. It is actually hysterical.

I am going to give a special shoutout to Athis and Lycabas who were two young lovers in attendance at Perseus and Andromeda's blood wedding. Athis died first - a skilled archer who never got to shoot and was burnt and bludgeoned across the face with a wedding brazier. When Lycabas saw that his dear friend's beauty was ruined, he picked up the fight against Perseus himself in Athis' name and was slashed to strips by Perseus' sword. Lycabas managed to drag himself over to Athis in his last moments and died beside him, so I thought that was a particularly touching bit of beauty in the otherwise extremely tragic blood wedding.

No one can ever make me feel bad for Niobe. In a lot of the Greek accounts I've read and heard, because they tend to be much shorter or references in a wider narrative, it's hard to really grasp how insanely disrespectful she was to Leto (not that her boasting she should be the goddess of motherhood to the actual goddess of motherhood isn't worthy of death and destruction enough) but Ovid really did go the extra mile to dig it home how far down her throat this lady put her foot because even at her sons' seven way funeral she did not stop boasting about how she was still glorious. I did find it interesting that the seemingly innocuous detail of Apollo killing off the boys first and then Artemis killing the girls was kept cross-culturally, I assume it's because boys were more auspicious than girls in both cultures.

The detail of Athena bonking Arachne constantly with a wooden box and her being transformed into a spider because she begged to not be bonked to death. Also very interestingly, in Ovid's account, it's not a clear victory for Athena against Arachne - she gets flustered at the depictions of her relatives' affairs and rips the tapestry up - the judges didn't actually get a chance to opine. This is in contrast to the contest the Muses sang about where their representative Calliope unilaterally won against the daughters of Pierus.

The account of Apollo and Marsyas was much shorter than I remember it being. I recall it being touted as one of the more vicious and visceral tales in Metamorphoses' collection but it included neither the details of Marsyas' contest against Apollo, nor Apollo's feelings (or even any dialogue from him!) throughout his peeling of Marsyas' skin. Instead it is wholly focused on Marsyas - on describing the physical gore of his exposed veins and contracting muscles and the grief of the rustic crowd as they mourned his loss - which is curious indeed since the entire theme of the poems of Book 6 is divine punishment and it is otherwise filled with rather full accounts of these contests and insults.

Byblis and Caunus made me want to reread Euripedes' Hippolytus for the twelve thousandth time. Caunus made the right call of course but I also very much hoped he would have a huge big speech about incest being bad instead of just smacking the messenger.

And lastly, for now, Jove's speech as Hercules lay burning atop his death pyre where he addresses the host of his gods and goes "Man, wasn't Hercules a great guy? Look, there goes all his mortal attributes burning away in the fire, now he is all my son and surely we are all in agreement that any divine son of mine deserves a place on Olympus :)" was very endearing. I always feel quite bad for Deianira because she truly didn't mean any harm by her gift and I've always wished for an account of Heracles/Hercules' death from her perspective. There could scarcely be a thing more awful, especially given how long and drawn out and incredibly painful Hercules' death was.

Lowkey, I want to take a day and compare Ovid and Euripedes' Medeas. They're both very different women and they both handle their situations very differently. Partially for my own vindication - I adore Medea and Jason equally and since popular fiction cannot speak about Medea without flattening her or making Jason completely monstrous, this is just one of those things I'll have to do myself sometime.

[amburly]

a/n: god i rlly js want to make this a horny fic and write faster but i cantttt. my simple nature will not allow me. someone save me. word count: 2633

warnings: horrific writing, you were warned

DIAMONDS AND RUST ⋆˚࿔ (Chapter 3)

We put our ears to listen to the ruckus and commotion of the room. The creaking of beds, stomping, the clattering of objects. I wondered what was happening, I tried to get a good picture in my head.

“Art, fucking ash!” Patrick said, signaling for Art to go clean the ash.

This implied they were smoking. Was it weed? It’s not like I am against drugs, Tashi tried it before, it’s just it isn't’ for me. I wasn’t invited to lots of parties, and all the parties I did go to in highschool, was because Tashi brought me along. In those parties, there were lots of people doing drugs, and the effects that the drugs had on them weren't pleasant. From what Tashi told me, it felt otherworldly and you would feel woozy. 

“Oh, dude..”

A few more seconds passed, filled with more ramblings inside the room, until the door opened, me and Tashi’s head immediately returned back to normal.

“Hi!”

“Hey!” They said in unison.

I walked into the hotel room, behind Tashi. After a whole ass party full of dancing and shit, she still smelt good? I probably smell like shit. We sit on their floor, Art picking up a beer can, tossing it to Patrick, then putting it down, in the middle of the four of us. Me facing Art, and Tashi facing Patrick. I need to remind myself, during this conversation, that Patrick is not his father. Patrick is not Zweig Industries.

“So, uhm..” Tashi said, starting the conversation.

“How did you guys meet?” Tashi remarked.

“Oh we-” 

“Did you guys go to like mommy and me classes together?”

The sounds of chuckling filled the, otherwise, very smoky air. I swear I would be getting lung cancer by the end of this visit. I just kept looking at the cards on the floor. An ace of spades, a king of hearts, a 6 of clubs. Would I be doing this for the whole time? Just naming the card names? Maybe I could arrange them alphabetically or numerically to pass time. Then where would I put the kings and queens? Maybe at-

“Hey, Mae, you want some?” Patrick offered, holding up a beer can.

They probably wanted to include me. That makes sense, I’m with them too.

“Oh, no thanks.” I say, politely.

“You sure?” Offering, again.

“Yeah, thank you though.” 

“Uhm, Mae’s not much of a drinker.”

“So what do you do?” Art asked.

I didn’t expect a full-blown out conversation, arranging cards would’ve been easier.

“I like to make clothing, watch movies.. Uh, that’s pretty much all.” I chuckled.

My life is very uneventful compared to theirs. 

“So, um, is that where you met your girlfriend, Mark Reballatos academy?” Tashi questioned.

Right, I was zoning out for half the conversation, so that must be where they went to school, and learned Tennis. And the mentioning of a girlfriend, I guess Patrick must have one, but since he is here lusting over Tashi, I assume he must not be loyal.

“Oh, she’s not my, uhm.. Yeah, yeah.”

The thing about Tashi is she is very calculated. She brought out the question to see if he was a liar, and I guess, partially, he’s not.

“And you, why are you pretending not to have a girlfriend?” Tashi asked Art.

“Oh, Art’s in between ladies.” Patrick answered, sabotaging Art at the same time.

“Oh, no, no, that makes it seem like I’m some sort of-” Art delivered, landing him a recovery.

“Player.” Tashi said, 

“Yeah, Art does fine for himself, I mean, look at him.”

Patrick cupped Art’s face teasingly, Art pushing his hand off as soon as he could. In the meantime, I was observing their room. The one thing I noticed, other than the mess and taco bell wrappers, was their beds. They were pushed together. Did they fuck? No, probably not. They were just close. Really fucking close. They sort of reminded me of me and Tashi. They had this playful unspoken energy about them. I guess they noticed my quietness again, and wanted to include me. I don’t blame them for not including me most of the time, it’s not like I talk a lot, and my words just don’t come off as nice as Tashi’s do. And plus, they didn’t even invite me here. 

“So, uh, how’d you two meet?” Art asked.

Tashi looked at me, waiting for me to answer.

“Uhm, we met when I had just moved. I needed to get some good clubs for my college applications, so I went to debate. I met Tashi in the debate club. We were both freshmen, and the seniors always paired us together because they wanted a better chance of winning in practice. So, we kind of bonded from that.”

“Where’d you move from?” Patrick inquired, taking another sip of beer, before passing it to Tashi.

“Rolling-Falcon Falls, Connecticut.”

Patrick looked like he recognized that name, and then it soon all hit him. All of it. Why I moved, Why I wanted to become a lawyer instead of following my dream, all of it. I could hear his breathing become a bit heavier, and his expression pitied.

“I’m sorry.” Patrick answered.

The other two looked oblivious to what was happening.

“What happened?” Art asked.

“It’s a long story-” I said, not wanting to talk about it.

“My father demolished their town, and uhm, he made new buildings. He made them move out.”

Their expressions all balanced pity and sadness. Did I just ruin the event? 

“I’m sorry Mae. My dad can be a bitch. No, he is a bitch. I mean, he takes all these historic places, built with cultures, and just replaces them with these stupid buildings. I really am sorry.” “You don’t have to apologize, it’s not your fault. You didn’t do it.” I say, trying to make the mood happier.

It was like Tashi could feel my suffering, and immediately helped.

“So, how often does this happen? Going after the same girls?” She said, changing the subject.

Okay, Tashi, I love you, and your help, but changing the subject to them hitting on us is very awkward. 

“Not as often as you think, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, no, we uh, usually have different types.”

“So you’re saying we should be flattered?” Tashi said.

“Aren’t you guys everybody's type?” Art answered.

I found my eyes on the floor, trying to hide my disgusted face. I really want to be mature and talk to boys or whatever, but I feel like I’m in the fourth grade trying to get away from the cooties again. When I looked up after collecting myself, I noticed Art was staring at me. I guess he has a charming stare too, because I could feel myself blushing. I wanted to laugh at the humility of this, and I tried so hard not to, but I did let out a simple giggle.

“What?” Art asked me, because of the laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just.. This is really fucking awkward.”

Was I too blunt again? Too harsh? I mean, I just said what it is. The group let out soft chuckles.

“What about the two of you?” Tashi asked.

“What do you mean?” Art countered.

I looked at Patrick, his gaze going away from the two of them and to the ground. He’s always a part of the conversation, but pulling away like this? It had to mean something. Tashi gave them a knowing stare, motioning her head like she was watching a tennis game, side-to-side. I guess it means if they ever hooked up.

“Oh! No.” Art realizing.

Patrick gave this put-together fake look to Art. The one that wants to scream a million words, but is only left in silence. He gives a laugh, a fake one that I can tell. Does he genuinely love Art? Or is it for some other reason? Is he hiding his true feelings?

“No, no! Why is that surprising?” Art says.

Patrick looks up, taking a deep breath in, looking at Tashi.

“Well..” Patrick suggests.

“No, no.” Art defies, with that golden retriever smile on his face dropping.

“I mean..”

“No.” Art says, standing his ground.

“Yes. I think you need to tell us right now.” Tashi says.

“I think it’s a sweet story.”

Art puts his head into his shirt. I want to know, as the naturally nosy person I am, but I do feel bad for Art. I mean, going to meet your crush, and then your best friend tells an embarrassing story about you? That’s my worst nightmare. 

“Yeah, no, go ahead.” Art says.

“I taught Art how to jerk off, so.” Patrick says, taking another sip of the beer.

It took me a while to process the context of that. Did Patrick jerk off Art..? 

“Okay, Patrick was an early bloomer, okay? And I think that I was on time.”

I should’ve never come to this dingy hotel room. What am I even doing here? Talking to some random tennis boys about them jerking off, and drinking some lukewarm beer? Tashi has a million boys all over the world loving her, why them? Is it because she was too busy to get any boy-toy action because of the game and campaign? 

“And, one time, when we were 12, he thought I was asleep, and he was, y’know..”

“Jerking off.” They said in unison after a pause.

“I asked him what he was doing, and he told me, jerking off.” Again, saying the last words in unison like some sort of choir in a church.

“He asked me if I had ever done it before and I said no. And so, he just.. He showed me how.” 

I could feel myself sweat from the broken A/C and the body heat Tashi was radiating. God, I miss our suite. This conversation is awkward. Is this what people do on dates? Talk about embarrassing stories?

“What do you mean he showed you how?”

Tashi was thinking the same thing as me.

“No, I mean. He did it on his bed. I did it on my bed. We did it together but like on opposite sides in the room.” Art said, gesturing with his hands how far the directions were.

“Silent?”

The conversation continued, and they talked about some random girl - It doesn’t matter, I was half-listening anyways. In my head, I ran through the checklists of things me and Tashi had to do together tomorrow. Beg her to take me to the crafts store, so I can get my fabric. Make some designs. Watch some games in the junior open. Sit with Tashi’s coach, and wait for him to finish his session on the replayed footage and backhand and smashes or whatever. Maybe call my mother? No, not today. Even though I haven’t called her since I left with Tashi, I don’t have the motivation to. No, not motivation, I just don’t want to. They all started laughing, about something, drawing me back into the conversation.

“He looked like a kid who just spilled milk all over his lap!” Patrick said.

Wait, what were they talking about? I really need to stop zoning out. I need something active to do. Something like debate, or chess. Debate I was good at. Really fucking good at. It’s what landed me in Stanford. I just so happened to get into a good highschool, with a good debate team after I moved. I got on the nationals team, right after winning our state championship. I think that was the only thing I was good at. Debate, and my fashion, I guess. When I had gotten on the debate team, I had also submitted some designs for the brand Frangola. I got an internship there, but had to decline it. My mom made me say no. It’s not like I was sad about the decline, a little disappointed, sure, not sad though. I knew I wasn’t going to go, my mom would never allow me. 

“We’re out of beer.” Tashi said.

Did I zone out again? Great.

“Uhm..” They said, not knowing what to do. 

Is this the part where Tashi fucks one of them? Both of them? What should I do? Leave? She stood up, making us look up at her, like some sort of statue worshiper. She sat on their bed.

“Come, Mae.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” She said, chuckling.

I got up, and sat with her. She put her hand, with her freshly-done manicure, on my bouncing thigh. I always bounce my thigh when I’m nervous. What were we gonna do? I looked down, but a part of me wanted to look right into Tashi's eyes, and study them. Her eyes were lighter than mine. Lighter brown, and looked like her caramel-frappuccino Starbucks drink in the light. They were a milky-shade. Honey-hazel brown in the corners. Without realizing it, this made my eyes drift up to hers. I could feel the slightly warm breath she emitted on my collarbone. I swear, right then, and there, we were going to kiss. We weren’t though. We had lots of moments like this, but we never did. I could really kiss her tonight though. I don’t know if it was because I needed emotional comfort because of my mom, or the situation she brought me into. Maybe it was how pretty she looked tonight, or maybe how she complimented me. Is it because I’m slightly in love with her? Yes, but I won’t make that move. I never will.

“Tashi..” I said, snapping myself out of it. “What?” She replied.

“Can we go?” I whispered into her ear.

“You can, if you want.” 

She looked disappointed, she handed me our room key, and a couple of bucks for the cab, from her pocket.

“Thank you.”

I got up, before taking a short look at her.

“Bye Art and Patrick. Thanks for letting me stay. I’m gonna go.”

“Really? Already? Stay, please.” Art pleaded, but I suspected only doing it out of manners.

“No, sorry , thank you for the night, though.”

I waved them goodbye, and then left. Something felt wrong. Why am I leaving Tashi? I should stay with her. She could get hurt. I’m just going to stand by the door and wait for her, just in case. She got out in a few minutes.

“Sorry I left. I should’ve stayed.” 

“That’s okay. Let’s get back, I’m exhausted.”

“Okay.”

“By the way, we’re watching their match tomorrow, and the winner gets one of our numbers.”

“So, what happens to the other one?”

“The other person gets the number that the winner didn’t choose.”

“So me.”

“No! Not you, the number that the winner didn’t choose.”

I chuckle, knowing that she means me, but doesn’t want to be rude.

“By the way, they kissed. Art and Patrick.”

“Did you guys have a makeout session or something?”

“Mhm. And, at the end, I sort of left the makeout, and it was just them two.”

“Did they know it was them?”

“I think Art didn’t know, but Patrick did because he put his hand on Art's shoulder.”

“You really are an observer.”

I should’ve known Patrick did like Art like that. By the way he stares, and competes against him, at the same time, you could tell they’ve known each other for a long time. 

3:08 PM - September 10th, 2006

“Are you excited for the match?” Tashi asked.

“I was more excited for the fabric, but yeah.”

“You’ll get it some other day, I promise.”

“Who’s better at tennis? Art or Patrick?”

“Patrick.”

I suspected that. He had the type of ego a bad tennis player wouldn't have. I could hear the announcements start playing, and the fans cheering. The game is starting.

“Please welcome, Patrick zweig!” The announcer cheered.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA For ruining a coworker's "business opportunity?"

For a bit of context this happened in the Summer of 2020. Also I'll be using the term MLM frequently and in this case it means "multi-level marketing" so comapanies like Avon, Tupperware, Monat, Vector-Cutco, LuLaRoe, etc. A

So I have this coworker let's call her T and in July of 2020 I got a FB message from her that said "Hey girl, so I recently started my own business and I thought you would be the perfect candidate to join my team! We'll be selling cooking and bakeware which should be right up your alley given how much you love to bake! So what do you say are you ready to join my team and leave [place of employment] behind?" I was immediately suspicious about the uncharacteristic tone of her message and asked her "What is the company name?" And she responded with "Pampered Chef." (an MLM). For the record, I am extremely anti-MLM, and know from following several anti-MLM YouTubers that hardly anyone makes any kind of money in those comapanies. So I politely declined her offer. And she immediately said "But you would be perfect! It would be just like when you sold Girl Scout cookies when you were a kid! I need you to join my team!" And I told her "I'm not interested in selling bakeware for an MLM. So my answer is still no." (Also bold of her to assume I did any of the cookie selling when I was in Girl Scouts, I gave thr forms to my parents and they did the bulk of the work).

I thought that was the end of it until I got an invite to an IN-PERSON (remember this was July 2020) Pampered Chef party at her house that at that point 40 people had RSVP'd to. I declined again snd blocked the group and a few days later I got another invite which I again declined. And the process repeated several more times. One day I got one at work within earshot of the manager's office and loudly said "Oh my GOD T I'm not going to your Pampered Chef house party in the middle of a pandemic!" Which got the manager's attention (we had already had one incident where an associate's wedding turned into a super-spreader event where 20 other associates ended up missing work due to Covid) and he asked me what was going on. And me being fed up with the near constant harassment, she messaged me several times a week and even went to my dad about it (he worked at the same store we did), I told him everything. And the following day T announced on Facebook "Unfortunately due to the current state of things, I regretfully have to cancel the in-house Pampered Chef party." She had also messaged me "thanks to you I can't hold my party or recruit people from work. Why did you tell management about it?" And I told her I was fed up with the constant harassment and didn’t see any other way of making it stop. I ended up blocking T after that. And thought it was the end of it.

Until her husband messaged me on FB several weeks later "Hi, I'm [so-so] T's husband, she asked me to reach out to you on her behalf to ask you if you would be interested in joining her team at Scentsy (another MLM that sells scented wax melts) she can't seem to message you for some reason." And I responded "Sir, with all due respect I've already had to threaten to file a harassment grievance against T if she continues to try and recruit me for her "businesses." My answer is still no and I will ask you to never contact me about this again otherwise I will go through with my threat." He apologized and I never heard from him again. T on the other hand makes snide remarks about how I ruined her businesses every time we happen to be on the same shift. And how I didn't have to be a narc and go to management about it and I should have just let it be. So AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[bucketsofmonsters]

Where the Light Enters - Part 5

cw: unreliable narrator, hurt/comfort, slow burn, eventual sex, enemies to lovers, past childhood sexual assault, past sex trafficking, referenced noncon, past nonconsensual body modification, happy ending, the tags look scary but this is mainly a story about recovery

Cole/Female Inquisitor

word count: 4k

ao3 link

Masterlist

With their spat mostly over, Rosemary was back to dragging Cole along with her on their missions.

She was still pouting, of course, but in her defense he was the only person she could show her anger to. She had a lot of pouting pent up and she’d jump at any excuse to use it. 

Cole didn’t mind. He could clearly tell it was being done good-naturedly and watched her huff and puff with the closest thing to amusement Cole could muster shining in his eyes. 

One time he blurted out, “The inside doesn’t match the outside. You’re happy.” His voice was tinged with what she might confuse for glee if she didn’t know him better than that.

He showed up ready to head out with her after she hadn’t so much as told him they were leaving and she didn’t address it, preparing to head out alongside him. 

They were off to meet some mage who had sent them a letter. At least she thought the mage had sent a letter, she hadn’t been fully paying attention. 

Her name was Vivienne. She was sure of that much. 

She wasn’t sure of a lot of things about this new mage, but she knew one distinct pro that she had. She was not Solas. 

She wasn’t sure who to bring in the attempt to recruit her. They were going to a fancy party so she assumed this Vivienne was higher class, but that didn’t tell her much. 

So she did the safe thing. She grabbed her two other mages. At the very least, she’d gathered that there was a tumultuous relationship between mages and non mages so they probably wouldn’t hurt on that front. 

But Josephine had made it incredibly clear that Vivienne wanted to speak with her and only her, so when they arrived at a massive house that sprawled over a lush landscape with masked party goers drifting in and out of the doors, she allowed the doorman to lead her to the room she needed to be in and she planted all three of them outside it.  

She said, as clearly as she could, “Stay here. Listen for me, if you hear anything that sounds even slightly awry come inside but otherwise, just stay.” 

And then she went inside, all alone. 

The woman inside turned immediately to greet her. 

The room was meticulously furnished, all done in shades of silver and light blue. They matched Vivienne’s clothes perfectly, like the house was built around her. 

Vivienne had an elaborate dress on, covered in beads and embroidery and a thousand other things that gave her a headache to look at. The set of fabric horns atop her head matched it perfectly. The smile she wore was meticulously practiced, perfectly polite. 

“Inquisitor,” she said, and gave her a gracious nod. 

Rosemary smiled, a mirror of the one Vivienne had given her. “Madame Vivienne. I’ve heard you’re interested in aiding the Inquisition.”

“I am,” she said, and her voice exuded both elegance and snobbishness at once. Rosemary thought maybe that was the most honest part of her. “I admire your cause and I think you could use my expertise.”

“Of course we could.”

Before she could get another word out, Cole was standing between them. 

Vivienne reeled back. “Who is this?” she demanded. “I asked for a private meeting.”

He looked at the door, and once more she could get no read on his emotions. He was such a mystery to her, it was endlessly frustrating. “Their thoughts were too loud,” he announced to them, “and it was tiring to make eyes brush past, calm, unconcerned. I don’t need to make her forget. You can see me.”

He was mostly addressing Rosemary as he spoke, and she wondered what was wrong with him. He almost seemed overwhelmed, eyes a little cloudier than what she was accustomed to seeing from him. 

Vivienne’s eyes roved over him. “Eyes brush… What are you, young man? Are you some sort of spy? Where were you hiding?”

Rosemary was ready to agree with her as quickly as she could. She was beginning to see that it was certainly a better assumption than the alternative. 

He turned to Vivienne, his gaze curious. “You’re both lying, layers and layers and layers, the real words buried too deep to mean anything. You can’t speak that way. Nothing gets said.”

She evaluated him coldly, worry lines creasing her otherwise flawless face. “Are you in my head? Inquisitor, tell me you did not bring a demon into my home.”

Rosemary said “I did not,” at the exact time that Cole said, “I’m a spirit.”

She seemed taken aback by their insolence. “But you did bring him?”

Before she got the chance to respond, Vivienne was speaking again. 

“He should be put to death.”

“What?” Rosemary asked, reeling back a little. 

“You heard me. I will not work with an organization that works with demons.” 

Cole seemed hurt by the word demon more than he was concerned with the demand that he be put to death. He repeated once more, “I am a spirit.”

She scoffed. “If the Inquisition believes that is enough to make this creature docile it must be staffed entirely by fools.” 

“Well maybe if you joined,” Rosemary said softly. “We would have a better head on our shoulders.”

Her tone was softer than it should have been, a little out of place in the argument that had begun brewing. It had to be to fight down the bile that had begun rising in her. 

This never used to happen. She never used to react emotionally to things like this but even as she put on a calm face, she felt the beginnings of anger curl in her. 

It was this horrible creature. He’d done something to her, somehow shoved her back towards humanity.

All of this would have been so much easier if she’d just been able to slit his throat back when they’d met. 

“Have him killed,” Madame Vivienne insisted.

If only she knew that if that was a choice, the spirit would have been dead long ago.

As she went to speak, to respond with something, anything, to smooth this all over, the door flew open and Solas and Dorian walked in, clearly looking desperately for Cole. 

Vivienne took one look at them with their staffs on their backs and then turned her nose up at the pair of them. “You have mages in your employ too, alongside a demon, with seemingly no safeguards. My advice is clearly needed.”

Dorian groaned. “And what safeguards do you think mages should be constrained under? You know, in Tevinter, mages would never allow themselves to be subjugated like you are.”

“In Tevinter,” Vivienne retorted, “corruption runs rampant. Here we are not quite so barbaric.”

He scoffed, “Barbaric is what you do to misbehaving mages.”

“Better than allowing them to become possessed by demons like this,” she said, gesturing over at Cole as she spoke, “with no consequences. The templars are not always correct, but your idea of circles is ineffectual at best.”

“Cole is no demon,” Solas decided to chime in, cutting off the venom that was clearly about to exit Dorian's mouth. “He is a spirit, and he deserves the same respect as you or I. He is no threat to mages.”

Vivienne laughed, a high, condescending thing. “No threat? You’re a fool, you all are.”

Rosemary wondered quietly if it were even possible to have picked a worse team for this mission. 

“I assure you, the only fool here,” Solas practically hissed. “Is you.”

“I’m sure the people will be glad to know that the ones trying to protect us from the fade have a pet demon running around, unchecked, with their mages. Do the templars know about this, Inquisitor? It seems like something they would very much be interested in.”

“The templars are wrong,” Cole snapped, and it was more emotion than she’d ever heard from him before. “The ones who remember you are people are not templars for it. They say you can’t be a templar and be kind. Cullen had to leave.”

“What is the mad demon blathering about now? Words like this, against your allies? You treat this demon like a pup and yet you have not even properly taught him to heel.”

“They have trained me,” Cole insisted. “I move silent, shrouded, but together. We move as one when the knife sinks in.”

“Tell me you have not armed this thing,” she said, sounding more and more outraged by the second. “I demand you have it taken care of.”

Solas reeled back. “Taken care of? Tell me that does not mean what I think it does. You cannot be entertaining this nonsense.”

“Solas,” Rosemary said, fighting to keep her voice measured, “We need her.”

“We do not need someone who lacks humanity like this. Your soul is lined with rot, Madame de Fer, and I am no longer left wondering how you could thrive in those wretched circles.”

Solas grabbed Cole’s arm and attempted to pull him out of the room. Cole fought against it, planting his feet. 

“She’s afraid,” he said, tugging against Solas’s hold. “Seeing me causes the hurt. I would not hurt her. I only harmed mages when I didn’t know, when I thought taking them away was the same as helping.”

Vivienne’s eyes widened and Rosemary suddenly wished Solas could pull harder. 

Vivienne showed few signs of being ill composed, still carrying herself with the same carefully considered weight she always did. The only sign that something was wrong lay in her breaths, how they had started to come just barely quicker. It was hardly enough to notice, at least to most people who weren’t focused on reading every little tell every other person displayed. 

“He admits it,” she said, and her tone was haughty. “He admits he’s hurt mages. Will you still do nothing?”

“He hasn’t hurt anyone,” she insisted, wishing with all her might that she could scream that she wished she could have killed him. That yes, spirits were manipulative, he’d manipulated her into letting him stay and then manipulated her once again, without her so much as realizing, into having her emotions bubble back up to the surface. 

“They did that themself,” Cole said, and she wished they were alone and she could snap at him that this most certainly was not the time to be rooting around in her head. “They wanted to see the air again. You let them with me and they remembered what it was like to be restless.”

She shot Solas a pointed look, incapable of tamping it down any longer. “Please remove yourself and Cole from the premises. You too, Dorian. Your presence is no longer necessary.”

Dorian moved towards the door, where Solas still had his hand firmly gripping around Cole’s forearm. 

“Does he really hurt mages?” Dorian asked as he headed for the door, and Rosemary didn’t know what the truth was.

“He does not,” she said with confidence. “He is kept on a short leash. It was let out today when it should not have been, and now he is being removed. The consequences of this will be discussed.”

Solas managed to pull Cole out the door. He’d mostly stopped fighting it, just staring at her from below that stupid hat with those massive eyes that peered right through her. 

She sighed, desperately attempting to adjust her plan to the disaster that had unfolded. 

Vivienne let out a laugh devoid of any humor, one that seemed to announce how absurd all of that had been and how above it all she felt. 

“Well,” she said. “You most certainly have developed a fascinating little army, haven’t you.”

She shrugged. “The templars are our army. Them, I chose. Solas and Cole I was strongarmed into keeping. I am not the all encompassing ruler the rumors make me out to be.”

Vivinne evaluated her carefully. “No?”

“Absolutely not.” And then, in the name of salvaging this relationship and collecting the mage that she had heard was the strongest in the land, she did one of the only things she could rarely bring herself to do. She told the truth. 

“I have no love for mages. I was victimized by unrestrained mages, you know. I didn’t always look like this.”

Vivienne scoffed a little. “What, young and beautiful?”

She nodded and fought the urge to throw up. “It was an awful thing. Blood magic, I believe you call it here. They twisted me up, molded me into what they wanted me to look like. Men, mages, whoever you’d like to blame it on. I know how dangerous they are and if I had my way, we’d have our own circle to prevent anything like that happening here. I chose the templars. I understand every word you say. I know templars could never incite cruelty like that, could never live up to the wretched actions a mage, unrestrained, is capable of. I have no love for mages and I respect your thoughts on the subject. I think you could be a guiding force for us, even if I have been pushed into housing a spirit in order to learn the enemy’s mind.”

Most of it, of course, was nonsense. Most of everything she said was nonsense. 

In all honesty, she couldn’t have cared less about mages, and what those mages had done to her was far from the worst thing that had happened to her. She would have taken in every rebel mage and allowed them to learn every bit of blood magic they wanted if she thought it would keep her safer than she would have been without them. 

But there was enough truth shining through, enough of a sliver of vulnerability, that she could see it shift something in Vivienne. 

“I am sorry to hear that, my dear. In a proper circle, that never would have been allowed to happen. It is good to hear someone speaking sense.”

“Will you join us?” she asked gently, trying to not push too much. “I only want what is best for Thedas and I think we need you.”

“I will. And tell your spirit that if he comes sniffing around me he will be put down.”

She nodded, and as she did it felt almost like a bow. “Of course. There’s nothing else I’d like more.”

She left Madame de Fer’s mansion feeling exhausted. 

Dorian, Cole, and Solas were all waiting just outside the grounds. She nodded at them and the two mages looked incredibly displeased, Solas raising his hands to rub at his temples as Dorian rolled his eyes. 

Cole’s head perked up when she approached, blurting out words as he pulled them from her mind. “The truth shines through like sun through leaves, but it burns. It hurts even when you say it doesn’t, the face in the mirror being wrong. They say it’s a mercy, that no one ever touched the you that was. You wonder what she would think of the girl they formed.”

Solas and Dorian glanced between the two of them, trying to decipher the words. 

She was too tired to try and spin them into anything. 

And then an arrow landed between her feet and she was back in action, her exhaustion falling away. 

Solas had a protective spell around them in an instant as Dorain positioned himself to attack and Cole stood absolutely still, not making so much as an attempt to draw his weapons. 

“It meant to miss,” he said. “Sent between the heels to announce her way.”

As he spoke a blonde elf with short, choppy hair emerged from behind a bush, bow in hand, positioned perfectly so no one from the mansion could spy her from a window. 

“The Red Jenny’s send their regards,” she said with a smile. “We want to know why you people claim to want to help and yet you keep going to the richy riches of the world instead of talking to the little people. We could do you more good. Could tell you what the actual people living here need too.”

It had been too long of a day for this. She could not bring herself to pretend to care about the ‘little people’ or whatever else this weird girl who had shot at her was talking about. 

But manpower was manpower, and at least she didn’t need to grovel to get this one to stay, so she said, “Sure, come along, join the Inquisition. I’m sure we could find a place for you.”

The girl seemed confused by how smoothly this was going. “What, just like that? Now I’m a member of your little army?”

“If you want to be, sure. And I’m sure Josephine, she’s one of my advisors, would love to hear what the people of Thedas think.”

She was, in fact, not sure Josephine would care about this at all, but she was looking for anyone she could pawn this incredibly irritating girl off to. 

The girl puffed out her chest a little, a smug sense of pride painting itself across her face. It wasn’t that far from what she’d seen in Vivienne, to be honest. She just hadn’t trained any display of real emotion out of herself the way Vivienne had.

“Brilliant. My name's Sera, by the way.”

She heard Solas do his incessant long-suffering sigh next to her and wanted to shake him by the shoulders and ask what he wanted her to do and if he cared about winning this fight at all. 

Instead she just listened as he said, “You do have a fondness for strays, don’t you?” and forced out a bashful smile. 

Then, hiding her level of malice as deep as she could, hoping Cole wouldn’t just blurt it out, she said, “You always tell me I don’t consider elves enough. Here you go Solas, this one’s for you.”

Sera scoffed. “Yeah right, I’m not an elf. Not really.”

Solas shot her an exasperated look as she smiled at him, sickly sweet. “Something for you two to discuss. Now I have important things to do, surely you can show our new recruit to Skyhold.”

Solas might well kill her in her sleep at this point, no matter how many smiles she threw his way. He’d never really fallen prey to them anyways, even before she’d begun antagonizing him as subtly as she could. 

It made her a little afraid to see that she was getting bolder. She could feel it in the way she talked to people, more willing to antagonize, honest laughs and sighs escaping more. 

She blamed Cole once again. He was ruining her perfect training. 

Solas left with Sera, despite his obvious disdain for her. Dorian wandered off too, clearly in no hurry to spend more time with the Inquisitor who had unceremoniously thrown him out and had recruited both someone he hated and a spirit who may or may not have hurt mages. 

She considered asking Cole about what he’d meant when he’d said that before realizing she didn’t care.

As they wandered into Skyhold, Bull tried to flag her down, waving at her from across the courtyard. 

Cole’s head darted around as she began to resign herself to having to go over there. 

His presence disappeared from her side and she realized he’d completely abandoned her. 

It was fair. He could probably hear all of the things she’d thought and said to Vivienne. In his position, she would have abandoned her too. 

Varric’s voice cut through her thoughts from behind her, shouting, “Hey, Rosie, come train with me. It’s been too long since you picked up anything resembling a bow.”

She saw Cole lurking behind him, staring out at her, and considered being upset at him for revealing anything to Varric. 

But then again, she was exhausted and she wasn’t sure how much of Bull she could stomach right now, so she shrugged in Iron Bull’s direction and ran over to meet Varric. 

He thrusted a bow in her hand and she sighed at the realization that despite it being a ploy from Cole, she would not be getting out of training. 

Varric gave her a pat on the back. “Cole said you needed to unwind a little.”

“He did not say that,” she said, knowing the spirit far better than that by now. 

“No,” Varric said with a laugh, “he did not. But he said something and I gleaned at least that much from it. Why, was I wrong?”

“The truth makes things worse,” Cole said. “Starts to unravel knots you thought were tied. I unravel them too, that’s what happens when I can see through them. Vivienne was right. Dead things can’t unravel knots. The string pulls tight. Things don’t count when they’re lies. They can’t hurt when they don’t happen to her. If they can’t count, why do you cry?”

She looked down at the bow, refusing to acknowledge what Cole had said. “You were right that I haven’t picked a bow in ages.”

Varric, always her favorite, chose to ignore Cole too. “Well, it’s never too late to learn. How about it Cole, you want to be the target?”

His eyes lit up as much as they ever did, shining a bit, at least the bits of them that she could see behind his hair and hat. “Yes please.”

It was a shame she wasn’t a better shot, she thought as he disappeared and then reappeared beside the targets. This whole problem could be solved right now. 

“I could not,” he said, speaking at exactly his normal volume from across the range, and she could barely hear him. She wondered if he knew he could change how loud his voice was. “I told you, I am too slippery for you.”

She notched an arrow and fired it at him as quickly as she could. 

It went nowhere near him. He disappeared and reappeared anyway, making it land even further from him. It almost felt like he was taunting her. 

When it became apparent how truly awful of a shot she was, he started doing what she could only call teasing her, disappearing as she released the bowstring and appearing barely to the left or right of her shot. 

It should have been aggravating. She couldn’t understand why it wasn’t. 

Once more he disappeared, though an arrow had not been fired. She also couldn’t tell where he’d gone, seemingly leaving the range entirely. 

A bit of shade encompassed her and she turned around to find herself under the brim of his hat. 

He looked like the cat who got the canary, inexcusably proud of himself. 

“You like me,” he whispered, a fondness in his eyes that made her sick. 

“Shut up.”

He shook his head, the ghost of a smile on his face, and then disappeared. She realized too late, as the remaining wisps of green curled around her, that he’d taken her bow with her, Varric laughing at her side.

[anastasiaskarsgard]

So I had an ask that disappeared that asked about Roman Godfrey has an ex gf that he wants back but she is sick of his shit.

Why on earth had you agreed to see your crazy ex boyfriend again? You were having a fucking panic attack. Why did you agree to this? You were entirely too nice. Boredom was always your worst enemy, and for a moment this seemed like it could be fun.

Plus it’s early morning and light out. This could hardly be considered a booty call. It was too early for Romans antics, right? Oh boy.

Peering out the window, you tried to decide where you were heading. You’d originally assumed the White Tower, but you’d long ago passed that turn off.

The driver had the partition up, so you attempted to lower it. After pressing the button several ways, it became clear it was broken or disengaged. This was looking like a worse and worse idea as the minutes ticked on.

Scooting down the long leather bench, so you were right behind the driver, you knocked on the partition and waited a couple beats.

“Hello? Excuse me sir? My button is broken.” You called out. Knocking a few more times and still getting no response, you told yourself you were fine and you weren’t going to overreact. Roman probably had some rule about no contact with his whores.

Not that you were a whore, but in the mind of his driver, you all probably blurred into one.

Maybe your outfit selection had been a bit hasty. In an effort to show Roman you were not going to be ordered around, you decided to wear your Hello Kitty pajamas. The red booty shorts with the famous cats face all over them, and the form fitting tank top, paired with your shiny white Uggs could possibly give the wrong impression.

You had been going for playful adult woman that didn’t take herself too seriously, but maybe an older gentleman wearing a suit would think otherwise. Add to that, you had a full face of make up, and had done your hair because you refused to look anything less than perfect in front of your ex... oh well.

As the car came to a halt in front of the nicest restaurant in town, famous for their exclusive invite only brunch they held on occasion, you couldn’t help but laugh at your current situation. With the restaurant having an open indoor/outdoor seating arrangement, everyone would be seeing you exit the limo.

Even though everyone dining here was well off, very few people took limousines anywhere, and just in case they were curious who’s limo this was, the big golden G on the window made it pretty clear.

Steeling yourself for the looks and hushed comments you were sure you deserved, you put on your brightest smile and thanked the driver politely when he opened your door. Holding your head high, you followed him into the restaurant, back towards the private rooms. Focusing on the mans jacket, you ignored the snickers and buzzing spreading through the patrons as you passed by. Finally coming to a stop in front of a set of gorgeously carved doors, he opened them to reveal a generously sized private room with Roman seated looking like he was shooting a photo spread for Vogue. Dark top and slacks, tailored to fit him perfectly, and the subdued lighting made his stunning good looks and inhuman beauty all the more obvious. In spite of all that, you couldn’t help but feel flattered at how his face lit up when he saw you.

“You are such a fucking brat. The one time I try to treat you like an adult you show up in Hello Kitty.” Roman chuckled, smiling happily at you.

You couldn’t help but laugh too. You felt pretty ridiculous, but you’d be damned if you’d admit it, “well thanks for trying to be an adult. And thanks for finally bringing me to the place I’ve been begging to go to for our entire doomed relationship. Glad to see you care. Now where’s the server? I’m going to need some vodka for my orange juice.”

Romans face fell into a frown and he glared at you for a moment before raising his hand in the air. Not a moment later, a server arrived to take their orders, and hurried off.

Silence settled over the table and you sat staring at a large landscape piece, refusing to make conversation or attempt to make him comfortable. You didn’t want to be here, and he wasn’t making much of an effort. You don’t know what you expected, but maybe him getting up and trying to hug you or shake your hand. Something!

You refused to cry. You would not allow it. You would not give him the satisfaction. You-

“I’m sorry.”

You turned to look at Roman, shock written across your features. Taking that as encouraging, he continued on.

“I love you and it scares me. When you went back to the room, they all started to give me shit about you owning me, and I reacted...” he knit his brows together and seemed to be searching for the right words, “wrong. Like an asshole. I wanted to prove I could do whatever I wanted. When I returned to the room and you were gone, I lost my mind. I searched everywhere and then Bianca found me and took me to her room.”

Your heart shattered. And here it had started out so perfectly. You’d been elated to find out he’d searched for you, and his apology nearly made you fall from your chair, but it all crashed down with the last part.

You nodded your head and looked away as the server dropped off your items, and you tried to keep it together. It’d always be like this. There’d always be a Bianca. The thought was devastating.

“Can you say something or at least look at me?” He snapped. His famous temper was surfacing, and you really didn’t think you could handle a tantrum.

“There’s always going to be a Bianca, or an Ashley or a Susan,” you said sadly.

“I don’t even know a Susan.” He stated incredulously. “What does that have to do with me being sorry? Who is this Susan? Where did you meet her?”

“Roman!” You snapped at him, pinning him with your fiercest glare. “There’s no Susan!”

“But you just said-“

Slamming your hand on the table, you were pleased to see he jumped. “Do not interrupt me Roman. You will listen since you forced me to come.”

He let out a long sigh and lit a cigarette, cocking an eyebrow at you as you took your time, eating some of the delicious dishes and sipping your cocktail. When he lit the second cigarette, you decided to begin.

“Roman I love you but so does every other woman that meets you. I don’t trust you and I don’t trust any of them. I’m constantly a wreck and worried someone will steal you, when you really should just belong to someone greater than I am. I’m not putting myself down, I’m just not so full of myself to believe I am better than everyone else, and you deserve an unbearable gorgeous Bianca that puts herself above all others, and doesn’t even consider your flaws to be flaws. You’re not a very nice person, and it’s exhausting constantly apologizing, and I need someone that loves me and feels I’m the best thing that happened to them. The competition is simply too stiff with you.” You finished and were surprised to see that Roman was not only listening but seemed to be considering your words.

“Any thoughts?” You asked after he put out his cigarette and continued to stare thoughtfully at you.

His lip quirked up into a smirk, and you pushed down the urge to touch him. He was still gorgeous, and as mad as you were with him, you had missed him. You wondered if it would be counterproductive to have one more romp, but you swiftly shut that idea down. You weren’t sure that you could have the self-control to just have one more time, and that would just lead to you being another one of those girls for him. Another good time and as appealing as that sounded... your heart couldn’t bear it.

Plus you really were tired. Curling up in your warm bed seemed like the most exciting prospect, and you wondered if he’d be terribly mad if you left right now. As your eyelids dropped and grew too heavy to keep open, you barely heard his reply;

“I knew you’d be difficult and I love you too much to let you ruin it.”

You tried to fight against the darkness closing in on you, but it was no use. As you felt your consciousness slip away, you couldn’t help but think that maybe all those good time girls had the right idea in letting Roman throw them away...

[princess-of-the-corner]

Dunno if you're up to writing a random scenes but can we get Icy&Inverno first meeting.

If not, just tell us if Icy stays with her father after than meeting and what are they doing about her technically being a wanted criminal.

OH SO ACTUALLY I WROTE THAT AGES AGO AND NEVER POSTED THAT SO UH.

Quick editing of it?

Inverno had expected this to happen when he invited Princess Bloom to his Kingdom. He knew that there was still unrest and political drama. He had heard rumors about Princess Bloom's previous misadventures in defeating dangerous foes, and even more rumors about members of Ancestral still lurking around.

Had he been a younger man, he would have naively assumed that Dyamond's climate would deter them. Or he would have been foolhardy, and welcomed the challenge. But he was older now, and had a duty to his Kingdom and his wife and daughter to protect. So he made precautions.

When they were attacked, the combined efforts of his guards, Princess Bloom, and the few friends she brought with her were enough to capture the assailant.

It was obvious this Witch had some previous interactions with Princess Bloom and her group. They seemed too used to fighting to assume otherwise. But when he saw her… he had to know.

The Witch was still handcuffed, and Princess Bloom and her friends on guard should she try something. But she just glared at him.

That face looked so familiar. Light blue eyes holding an analytical intelligence. The Witch Marks on her face a dark blue diamond pattern. The way her smile turned into a teasing and smug smirk, despite the fact that it was currently just bravado in the face of being captured.

He had assumed it was her at first. She looked so much like her. But no. This Witch, this girl, was much younger.

"You're not Blizzeta," Inverno said.

The girl glared harder, but he could see he caught her off guard.

"Blizzeta is dead," she stated. "My name is Icy."

She knew who Blizzeta was and of her death. Yet she didn't seem surprised that he mistook them for one another.

"Her daughter," Inverno muttered.

Despite saying that to himself, he knew he had been overheard. In his peripheral vision, he could see Princess Bloom raise her eyebrows, and heard her friends whisper.

Yet their words did not reach him. Inverno was busy taking in Icy's age. She had to be just above twenty now. Old memories he had buried came back.

It was now that he noticed things different from her mother. Blizzeta's hair never cooperated when attempting to curl it, either with products or spells. Yet Icy had strands behind her ears that formed perfect ringlets. Her jawline was more squared than pointed. And her nose….. Just like his own.

Inverno reached out, his hand cupping her face. Icy recoiled, still glaring at him. Did she know? No. She would say something if she did.

"Who took you in, when your mother died?" Inverno asked.

"What's it matter to you?" Icy spat back.

"If I had known," he said. "If she had told me…. I'm sorry."

She seemed to realize what he was trying to say. Inverno didn't know what reaction she would have. But he sure hadn't expected Icy to laugh. A sad, bitter, almost broken laugh.

"That's what she meant," icy shook her head. "She told me stories of royals and palaces. Our future, ruling this place. I thought she had meant it for when she had found the Dragon Flame. But she had other plans, didn't she? I guess you're not the only surprise princess, eh sparky?"

That last comment was directed toward Princess Bloom. Inverno spared a glance at her, only to see her just as shocked and confused as he had been. But he turned his attention back to Icy.

"Please," Inverno said. "You don't have to continue this. Stay here."

That brought Icy's gaze back to him. Now he saw rage and fear mixing in her eyes.

"I don't need you to give me a place out of pity," Icy snarled. "I will rule Dyamond on my own terms. The rest of the Magix world too! I will succeed where she failed!"

Without warning she reared back before headbutting him in the face. Inverno staggered back, but only a few steps before she grabbed him and threw him into a wall.

He heard Sapphire scream. When did she get here? Despite the pounding in his head and the ache in his back, he got up again. Only to be frozen in a block of ice, and everything went black.

By the time he woke up, Icy was gone.

[changingplumbob]

Chopra Household: Chapter 6, Part 8

The birthday continues! Most of the family have appointments to attend afterwards leaving Savannah and Viola under the care of nana Lavina. I mean it's not like she could be any worse than Alana the (insert your favourite swear word for mean nanny)

BTW it was daylight savings here so that's why my posts may seem an hour shifted for you...

If Viola is attempting to say something it will be in brackets, otherwise you can assume it's just trying out sounds Mercedes has a speech delay and may get words wrong, correct wording will be in brackets if that is the case Savannah aka Honeybee Mercedes aka Little Ladybug Viola aka Green Bean

Mercedes: Hey nana

Lavina: Happy birthday kiddo

Mercedes: I have bad news, papa went to the doctor and they found out he’s sick

Lavina: What? Oh why didn’t he tell me? I can’t lose him

Mercedes: Kidding!

Lavina: That’s not very funny young lady

Bizarre thing happened. Mercedes had rolled a like of deception but after this got a prompt saying she felt mischief was wrong? I like the game to have some say so while I did not add a dislike of mischief I changed her like of deception to silly behaviour to match her sister.

Milton: Oh hey you have cake

Savannah: Of course Milton, it’s a birthday party

Milton: That’s uncle Milton to you

Savannah: Mama do we really have to call him uncle? He’s only 2 years older than us

Cassandra: It’s important to be polite to family honeybee

Lavina: And respectful! You girls could learn more respect

Mercedes: *sighs* It was one joke nana

Cassandra: Lavina I have an appointment and Rahul needs to take Mercedes to one. Could you watch the kids for us please?

Savannah: I can watch the house mama

Lavina: Of course I can dear, take all the time you need

Savannah: But nana I can do it

Lavina: You’re six, you couldn’t take care of a fire. Now I hear your sister crying, go play outside or learn something

Savannah: Oh maybe I can find some cool bugs!

Lavina: Just don’t bring them into the house

Poor Viola has been trying to get to sleep but is still a bit overwhelmed by the party.

Lavina: Now what’s all this? You are making a habit of crying every time you see me Viola

Viola: *cries* ge da noo lu (I'm so tired, clapping took it out of me)

Lavina: Is nana scary huh? Big bad nana. Close your eyes and sleep, big bad nana can defend your crib from the monsters huh

Following some soothing Viola does manage to fall asleep as Lavina watches over her.

Outside Savannah isn’t having much luck. But around by the garden she spots some locusts, perfect, papa will approve of catching them! She grabs at them and manages to get hold of 2. Perhaps she can convince mama and papa to take her and Mercedes to Granite Falls so she can find more! Back inside she decides to tackle some homework.

Milton: Why are you holding your pencil like that

Savannah: Like what

Alexander: Don’t be rude Milton, not everyone does things the same way

Milton: Did you never use crayons

Savannah: *gruffly* I have a motor delay actually, pencils are hard

Milton: Oh, sorry

Alexander: That’ll teach you not to be rude

Savannah: I think I’ll go see if mama is back

Milton: I am sorry!

...

Cassandra is pumping in the spare room when Savannah finds her.

Savannah: Mama, can I still go to OT now I’m a child

Cassandra: Of course you can honeybee. It might be called something different but any support you need, we’ll find for you

Savannah: Then Uncle Alexander told him off

Mercedes: Nice!

Savannah: So what did the brain doctor say

Mercedes: They want me to do… Papa how did they say it?

Rahul: Your sister is getting referred to another type of doctor to see if she needs extra help at school

Mercedes: Can I not go to school?

Rahul: No! Whatever you need we can sort but you’ll be best having your first day with your sister

Savannah: Yeah. You don’t want to leave me alone do you? We do everything together

Mercedes: Except OT and word class

Cassandra brings Viola to the table and the family begin eating. For some reason everyone is migrating away from Viola?

Mercedes: Mama did your point tent (appointment) go okay

Cassandra: Apparently I have ADHD which I guess is a bit of a surprise but I’ll be fine. Everybody’s brain has to work in its own way

Rahul: Exactly! Now Viola, how about some peanut butter puffs? Nice and yummy

Viola looks at her papa, confused. Why is what he holding bigger than the things on the plate? It can’t just be her eyesight playing up, can it?

Savannah: Mama, can we have a trip to Granite Falls? I’d love to see some more bugs

Cassandra: Actually papa and I have been talking and we’d like you two to join scouts

Mercedes: Scouts? Why

Rahul: Nature is important to us, we want you both to learn to love it

Cassandra: Plus it will leave after school times free for OT and word class

The girls remain skeptical but agree. Meanwhile Viola is unsure about the taste of peanut butter puffs (and their creepy resemblance to banana once she picks them up) but one thing is for sure, they are fun to play with!

Savannah: Do we have to go to bed mama

Cassandra: It’s getting late honeybee, and don’t you want to check out the new bunk beds

Mercedes: I call dibs on the bottom one! That way you can still tuck me in mama

Cassandra: *smiles* alright but we need to clean up dinner first

Savannah: I got the plates

Cassandra: Mercedes could you put the leftovers away before they spoil please

Mercedes: Yes mama

Rahul: How do you two like the bunks

Savannah: It’s great papa. I can be up high just like butterflies are

Rahul: Good night rugrats, I love you two

Twins: Goodnight papa

Savannah climbs up to the top and snuggles in while Cassandra tucks Mercedes in.

Cassandra: Goodnight Mercedes. I love you both, have good dreams

Twins: Love you mama

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