#lily please keep the scissors away from him

[girlishwhimsyy]

oscar's hair looked so good this weekend that i'm already mentally preparing for when he shows up in canada with it all chopped off.

[yallthemwitches]

Part 2 (with lovesick James POV!) Merry Christmas you filthy animals

“Call me what you want, Evans. I deserve it,” he pants, “But then I’m going to need you to make my Christmas wish come true a few more times because – Merlin– I’ll do anything for it.”

Read on AO3 or below the cut!

(please keep in mind throughout this fic Remus is like this v (because he is otherwise not present))

The only thing more mortifying about kissing the girl you fancy and not being able to reciprocate properly is having to stand in front of a bloody crowd after said kiss and not look like you are about to fucking implode. 

It had taken everything to pull him away from her—and he meant everything. His heartbeat had clanged in his ears, the smell of her cinnamon shampoo encircling him like some predatory snare--nevermind the fact that she had kissed him just meters from his bed where he had spent the past four years thinking too explicit thoughts about her to ever put on paper. 

Then, after all that, he was expected to stand next to his bloody parents ?

James watches as his dad finishes a rousing speech about ‘goodwill to all men’ and other Christmas adages before pulling his mum in for a sweeping kiss. Typical.��But the crowd cheers in applause and James joins them because–of all nights–this is the one he promises to be good. It’s Christmas for Merlin’s sake, he owes it to them. 

But he can’t hold back the twitch in his jaw and knows that, if left unattended, he will grind his teeth into little stubs from the anxiety of it all. His parents, their friends, the wandering classmates might as well be speaking in monotonous droning noises—all he can hear is the delicious mantra of Lily Evans kissed me. Lily Evans kissed me. LILY EVANS kissed me.

“Uh. Prongs.” 

His nickname breaks through the void. Turning slowly, he finds Peter standing next to him, offering some sort of ruby red liquid with a defenseless, apologetic look. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” 

James blinks at him, unable to comprehend. The chant is entering and exiting all orifices and licking his lips, he swears he can still taste her on him. Somewhere from behind, one of his mum’s coworkers grabs his bum and he doesn’t even care. 

“Didn’t know what?”

“Uh–I mean,” Peter searches for words, knowing a trap when he sees one. “You and Evans just seemed to be pretty friendly, you know.”

Friendly. Suddenly, something cuts the mantra from his brain like taking scissors to a ticker tape. Friendly—a friend.

Lily Evans was–is his friend. He knows so because she has said it many times. How much painstaking work had been done to get to the point of even being just amicable with her? Years worth, at least a solid 365 days if not more. That’s not to say he wasn’t chuffed by the advancement: pathetic git as he was, nights at Hogwarts had delved into anticipation of just sitting next to her, smelling her beautiful hair during their library sessions and maybe (if he was lucky) getting an arm brush against his as she leans over to write some bloody adorable comment in the margins of his parchment, only to be obsessed with her curly, cramped script for the next hour…

It hadn’t not crossed his mind that maybe things were starting to turn flirty. When he was lucky enough to get her to throw her head back in a laugh, she had started to grab onto his forearm for support. Then of course there were the letters. Merlin, how many had he written? Perhaps more than he had ever written to Peter or Moony in his life– and this was just one holiday. Hours of doting on each word, striking the right balance between friendly, maybe a tad flirty, but not overbearing, and if his glasses were working correctly, hers came back just as amicable, perhaps even enthusiastic. 

But would some stray arm touches and jovial letters really equate to a kiss? 

“Do you think we should throw punch in his face? I think we should throw punch in his face.”

James blinks again to find Sirius standing in front of him, hands on his hips while Peter sports a nervous look. 

“You ok, mate? You kind of just…were out of it for a second,” Peter squeaks, eyes roaming and nervous.

“Yeah, fine. Brilliant,” James responds automatically, not sure if he really means it or not. 

“Well,” Sirius butts in, “Now that your mum’s lot have got tired of your sorry arse, can we actually have some fun around here. Flea says I can be in charge of the music as long as I keep the bumping and grinding to a minimum.”

“Right, yeah. Sure.”

James’ mind drifts again, all his thoughts slippery like black ice. Warm lips, so soft, tasting like gin and cinnamon…

“Oi,” Sirius snaps his fingers right between his eyes. “If you took some muggle drugs without me, I swear Prongs I’m going to be so upset.”

“Lily was in his room earlier,” Peter blurts out, then clasps his hands over his mouth as though to stop any other incriminating thing from exiting. 

“Groovy, Wormtail. Really subtle,” James mutters, and shifts his eyes just in time to watch Sirius’ ears practically perk upwards in interest. 

“Oh.” Sirius says in a curt, knowing tone. “Oh, I see.”

“Nothing happened. She got lost on her way to the loo.” 

Sirius smirks. “Yeah, bet it is really hard to find the loo when you are too busy using your mouth to–”

“Sirius, fuck off and drop it—Really, nothing happened.” 

He hears the pain in his voice and for some reason it surprises him. They had kissed hadn’t they? But now even that fact was starting to get murky—like all of the pieces leading up to it didn’t make for a greater whole. Maybe it was a mistake, she had just leaned too far in and his lips were just there to catch her. Or maybe she was just drunk?

He could spiral around the thousands of reasons why she could have possibly not meant to kiss him, but the one thing that he knows for certain is that Lily is his friend. Full stop. And friends don’t try to snog friends, do they?

It didn’t feel fair for a teenage boy to have to wade through such emotional traps–especially on Christmas. 

Sirius does drop it, though not before arching an eyebrow with a sly look and the boys wander away from the older crowd towards the throngs of Hogwarts students who all have slowly commandeered the front of the bar area. He can’t help himself but to look past anyone who isn’t Lily—wondering if she took his words literally and was still leaning against the edge of his desk where he left her. 

“Hey stranger.” 

A small hand grasps his forearm. Sofia beams up at him, silvery blonde hair charmed into perfect ringlets around her face like a china doll. 

“Alright Sofia?”

She gives a small smile. Telling by her eyes she’s had a few drinks and is feeling good, the liquid confidence equating to her ever grasping hand on him. 

“Just wondering if you were going to hide all night.” 

“Wasn’t hiding. Just doing my duty as a good son and host for one day out of the year.”

He shoots her a grin, one that he uses to get out of trouble and he feels her hand tighten against his bicep, fingertips pressing in like trying to commit the feel to memory. 

“Well, would you have time out of your busy schedule to be a good host to me?”

There isn’t much subtlety there. From behind her, Sirius makes a shrugging expression at him, tilting his head in a way that means your mess . 

From the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of red hair reenter the room. Lily steps out of the hall, looking a bit bleary-eyed and nervous. Bee lining her way through the crowd, she completely ignores his gaze, calling for a double gin and tonic and joining Mary and Marlene a few clusters away from him.

Merlin, she looks lovely. 

“James?” 

James snaps his head back to see Sofia still standing there, a crease in her brow from his lack of response. 

“Er–sorry. Uhm, lemme just do some rounds then I’ll come find you.”

The fact that he said almost the same thing to Lily puts a heavy weight in his stomach, but Sofia's smile brightens and she gives an enthusiastic nod, finally relinquishing her grip. 

Not knowing what direction to take, James stocks off back towards his room, the party starting to feel like a real drag. 

* * * * 

During the beginning of holiday, Lily had sent him a letter that he must have read a thousand times.

Dear James,

I hope your holiday is going well too—though I can’t say we have had much time to do anything seeing as it’s only the second day. 

To respond to your last inquiry—no, I will not write your Potions essay for you, though if you send it along maybe I can write some choice words in the comments to add flavour ( choice words meaning horrible insults that will no doubt earn you a T…)

I was watching a bit of telly yesterday (box, glowing screen, moving pictures—you have heard of one right?) and I saw a program where this bloke made the exact same stupid voice you make when trying to imitate Professor Binns. I was so caught off guard thinking that you had entered the room, I practically fell off the sofa, then proceeded to laugh at how incredibly thick I was to think that you would just apparate into my home to do something as stupid as that. 

Anyways, I don’t know why I am telling you this (perhaps a symptom of my absolute boredom). Maybe it’s to say that if you feel like showing up at my house to work on your impressions before next term, I wouldn’t be mad about it. 

Hope you’re well. And sorry Sirius ate all the Christmas cookies.

Lily

It was dumb really. She had even said in the letter that she had written it completely out of boredom, but rereading it even now, his breath catches in his stomach by the implication that she would want to see him, that she had even been thinking about him in the first place. At the time, he probably wasted a hundred rolls of parchment trying to come up with the perfect response that would encapsulate his absolute earnestness to actually visit while not coming on too strong. In the end, he responded by changing the subject almost entirely, too afraid he was getting the wrong impression of her friendliness. 

He sits on his bed clutching the letter. Downstairs, the music changes to a rock beat of Sirius’ doing and a whoop from the younger guests signals that dancing is probably picking up. He rereads the letter again, focusing on the way she curls the J in his name. When had she started calling him James? Did he really let such a monumental switch happen unnoticed?

“Uhm. Sorry.”

His eyes snap away from the parchment. Like some beautiful ghost, Lily wanders into the doorway, hands tugging at the sides of her dress. 

“Mary’s curfew is coming up and I offered to go back with her.”

“Oh, yeah. Ok.” The feeling of sinking weighs heavy in his heart.

“And Sofia is looking for you.”

“I told her I would come find her later.”

Lily’s face twists into something resembling pain, her eyes becoming glassy. 

“Yeah, well. She seems to think it’s later.”

Lily crosses the room and takes a hesitant seat next to him on the bed, letting the end of her dress fan out against her thighs. Well that’s all you're going to think about for the rest of your sodding life. 

“Is that…my letter?”

Too busy letting his teenage mind work in overdrive, he hadn’t put down the parchment. She leans in, resting her chin lightly on his shoulder to read the text.

“Oh god. I’m completely mental. I can’t believe you even kept this. I sound like an absolute nutter.”

He turns to her, frowning. 

“No you don’t. I think it's brilliant. I love that—”

Oh for fucks’ sake. Why did I use that word? 

Lily recovers for him, pulling the parchment out of his loose grasp and giving it a closer inspection. 

“You really should have heard it though—it sounded just like you. Like—” 

She makes this low droning voice that doesn’t even remotely sound like Professor Binns or his terrible impression of him. James can’t help but laugh, a loud booming one that she’s been able to pull out of him more and more. Small droplets of tears start forming at the corners of his eyes.

“Godric Evans, please don’t go into acting— Here, let me do what you just did.”

He replicates the same gravelly voice, giving it an extra dash of absurdism. It's her turn to laugh, head falling back and lips gleaming as her peals cut through the room. Before, he only speculated that it was his favorite noise, now he is sure of it. 

“I didn’t sound like that,” she squeals, giving his arm a tug. “Do the real impression again so I can compare.”

“Nope, sorry. I’ve forgotten how to do it actually. Your rendition has obliviated it.”

“Fuck off with that—c’mon do it.” 

She gives him another playful tug and this time he lets his hand go loose under her grip so their hands remain attached, falling limp into her lap. 

“Sorry, Evans, maybe next year,” he says quietly. He can tell she is feeling the same vibration from their tangled hands that he is, both of their eyes zeroed in on the clasped fingers.

Did friends hold hands when they laughed? Suddenly it was incredibly hard to remember.

“Look James,” she says, eyes averted out towards the room. “I’m sorry—about earlier. I’m not trying to blow this whole thing up, I know we are mates now and–”

What. In under a millisecond, the past three hours of his life had been reduced to pure idiocy. He hadn’t imagined it. They had kissed and it had been intentional. 

“Please. Wait–just stop.” 

She recoils and he can feel her hand start to tug away from his but he adds more pressure, resituating his fingers so they thread with hers. 

“Lily— ” he stammers. Her eyes lower to speculative slits. It’s now or never Potter. Grab the snitch or get off the pitch. 

“You didn’t ask what I want for Christmas.”

Her eyes crinkle, mouth turning downwards. 

“What?” she sputters, incredulous. “What are you talking about, Potter?”

“You know,” he pries, “From before—I asked you what you wanted but you didn’t ask me. So go on, ask.”

Lily looks at him. Ever since their kiss he had felt like a storm cloud raining on the Christmas cheer, but sitting here with her has returned him to form, eyes glinting wild and expectant.

“Ok, fine,” she huffs. “ What do you want for Christmas, Potte–”

He crashes his lips down on hers before she can even finish the question, not holding anything back. Unlike earlier where he had been too shocked and guarded to reciprocate, he goes in full force this time, lips frantic and hungry. Everything starts to feel charged, the softness of her lips and the sweet smell of cinnamon revitalizing him and urging him forward. 

When they pull away, their lips are swollen and breath shallow, their fingers unraveled and on his cheek, the small of her back. His hand contracts against the warm skin, keeping her in place as if with the slightest movement she will vanish into the night. 

“I had wanted you to kiss me then, and I want you to kiss me again now.”

A smile breaks onto her face so wide it tugs perilously close to either ear. 

“We’re idiots. Absolute sodding—”

But his lips are back on hers, mouth already open and breathing deep into her. She coils her fingers through his hair, letting the hard lines of their bodies press flush together as he crowds in further, pulling her so close that he doesn’t think he will feel anything as cozy as her body heat against him ever again. 

“Call me what you want, Evans. I deserve it,” he pants into her, “But then I’m going to need you to make my Christmas wish come true a few more times because – Merlin– I’ll do anything for it.”

She laughs again, but this time he catches it with his mouth, letting the sound develop into a satisfied moan. She tangles back into him and somehow he needs her closer, needs her more . He doesn’t know how he has even survived off of so little for so long. 

“What about Mary,” she gasps, pulling back just enough to speak. “She’s got curfew…I told her…” But even as she says it, her arms pull his neck tighter, her soft lips dragging their way across his jaw to his ear. 

He silences her with a kiss to the neck and a bubbling sigh escapes her, now for certain the most beautiful sound to ever exist. 

“Tell her to live a little—it's too cold to leave now,” he murmurs, not wishing to waste any more time. 

“We’re busy with a bloody Christmas miracle.”

[luveline]

this early dancing (1/2) | sirius black x reader

Sirius turned the camera on your faces. You rested your cheek against his arm and smiled shyly, happy to see his handsome grin.

“Stop hiding. We need a good one to look back on,” he said seriously.

“We take photos all the time,” you argued.

“Indulge me.”

summary blindly in love with your best friend Sirius you find yourself sharing a room with him on a group holiday to the seaside. it wasn’t ever going to go any other way [11k]

warnings fluff, smut, marauders era, mutual pining, idiots in love, she/her pronouns used for reader, fem!reader

With your head sticking out the window of James Potter's people carrier you felt like you were flying, face tilted up to the sun to soak in the seaside warmth. You couldn't be far from the Potter cottage now, having played passenger as peacefully as you were able to for hours now whilst the boys took turns driving.

"Moons," Sirius said from behind the wheel. Remus lifted his eyes from the book he was fighting to read in annoyance - you hadn't left him alone since the trip had begun, and only with your head out the window had he managed to return to his well worn novel.

"What?"

"Pull her back in, would you?" he requested, nodding his head towards you. Remus' warm hand grabbed blindly at the short sleeve of your t-shirt until you conceded and sat flat again.

"Pull her?" James muttered from the front seat, tired from driving the first half of the road trip. "I barely know 'er."

"That 'barely' works," Lily complained from his side, though she wiped the hair from his forehead tenderly.

Marlene booed from behind Remus, which had her seat mates Dorcas and Mary laughing jovially. Emmeline took no notice of any of it at Remus' other side, also reading.

"I don't care how you do it, get her down," Sirius said in concern.

"She's down," you assured him.

"Lovely Y/N will live to see another day," Mary agreed, low voice soft and lilting.

You blushed from all the attention and shimmied down.

"She's embarrassed!" Marlene cooed, reaching over to pinch your shoulders.

Sirius peaked in the rear view mirror and grinned. "Don't be embarrassed, but please leave the dog like activity to me."

"If that's a sex joke, I don't get it," Emmeline said.

"And who does that surprise?" Remus muttered.

You laughed behind your hand, boiling now from the heat. You couldn't help from fidgeting, pulling the fabric of your shirt away from your sticky chest, concerned you looked a sight. Not that the other members of your troupe looked any better; Remus fought a good fight but ultimately didn't look as unbothered by the heat as he acted. James was openly complaining about the sun from the front seat, arguing that he should be allowed to sleep in the relative darkness of the back.

"Too bad, Pots," Marlene said, pressed up against Mary and Dorcas. Only the cool safety allowed them to maintain friendly contact without melting, you knew, and felt very jealous.

"We earned these seats fair and square," agreed Dorcas, legs thrown over your seat, sandal clad toes poking in between you and Remus.

"You cheated! No way can somebody win rock paper scissors 23 times in a row," James said conspiringly.

"Prove it."

You quite fancied that she'd cheated too, though you knew better than to give James any fuel for his fire. Sirius, despite the many years of friendship, had not learned this lesson yet, and so he said, "She definitely did."

"Thank you! Thank you, Pads," he leaned over Lily's arm to grasp his best friend's arm, "my bro."

"Ew, ew, ew! They're getting gooey!"

"They can't help their love," Mary said to Dorcas, patting her arm. "Don't give them too much shit for it."

Sirius leaned his head down to kiss James hand and almost crashed into an oncoming car.

"Lily! Tell your boyfriend's boyfriend to keep his eyes on the road!" Dorcas roared, sandals twitching.

You leaned forward to press your hand at the back of Sirius' neck. "Watch the road, loverboy."

"You got it, sweetheart," he said, eyes obediently on the journey ahead.

Determined to ignore the pleasure that shot through you at the sincere pet name you ran your fingers through the raven hairs at the back of his neck and noted how it was damp with sweat. You pulled the bobble from your wrist and pushed up onto your feet as tall as you could manage, neck craned against the roof of the van to pull his hair back from his face delicately until it was in a moderately neat ponytail at the back of his head. You made quick work of the bobble and tucked the piece you'd missed behind his ear.

"Thank you," he said warmly. Then, "Put your belt on, idiot."

You scratched the skin behind his ear lightly in acknowledgement, a silent you're welcome between you both, and sat back down.

James soon fell asleep against Lily's shoulder. She held his face to her chest tightly and kissed his forehead. You made yourself look away to study the book in Remus' hands.

Remus said something to you and you missed it, attention monopolised by Sirius' soft singing along to the radio. "Hmm?" you asked him, blinking.

"How's your car sickness?" he asked.

You smiled dismissively at your friend's concern. "Fine. Better if I don’t look down for a while.”

He nodded. You went back to your silence and found your stomach turning quickly after that, punished for trying to read while the van rocked. You pushed your face out the window again, eyes on the quick-approaching sea. It was a stunning blue, sunlight blinding you as it bounced off the waves. You squinted and held your hand up uselessly.

"Here," Sirius said, hand reaching back. He was offering his sunglasses to you through the gap.

"Thank you," you said. His finger danced a quick line over your hand, his own silent you’re welcome, and then he was back to driving.

You loved most about your friendship with Sirius the things you didn't have to say. You weren't sure when the scratching had begun, only that it had, and that the slither of intimacy drove you insane.

Pushing his sunglasses up your nose you turned back to the view. The lenses helped dull the bright light of the waves nicely but they did nothing for your best friend; Sirius was as golden as ever. You found him difficult to look at, sometimes.

"How far are we now?" Lily asked quietly, hand in James' hair.

"Not far," Sirius murmured, voice sending tingles through your chest, "and then our summer can really begin."

You gulped a breath of fresh air and willed the nausea away, not fully confident it was car sickness after all. Remus nudged you with his elbow. "You want a polo?"

You laughed weakly. "No."

"Might make you less ill."

"I'm alright."

He huffed like he didn't believe you. You were amazed at his ability to keep his eyes on the page and unwrap a polo mint for you at the same time. He pressed it into your hand. "Eat that, dove."

You smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

"Welcome."

You sucked on the mint and twiddled your thumbs. You wished you would've put your camera around your wrist rather than in your suitcase. If anything you could've been taking sneaky pictures of the back row for you and Sirius to pick over later - you were sure Marlene was dating Dorcas. Sirius was sure it was Mary. James swore up and down it was Dorcas and Mary where Remus shrugged and said it was nobody's business. Lily definitely knew and wasn't telling. Alice probably knew because Lily knew, and Emmeline was about as oblivious to it all as she was everything else.

You didn't know who was snogging who but you knew for certain it wasn't you.

Sirius caught your eye in the rear view mirror. "What're you eating?"

You bit the polo between your teeth and bared it to him.

"Working?"

You nodded.

"Alright. Let me know if you want to pull over."

"Fuck off! If we stopped every time Y/N gets sick we'll never get there," Marlene protested, and then, "Hey! Stop fucking pinching me."

"Be nicer," Mary said softly.

"You first."

"We don't need to pull over. I'm fine."

"Better we pull over then have the car smell like sick all day," Dorcas argued.

"Guys," you were almost begging now, desperate for the attention to be on somebody else, "I won't be sick."

"You won't be," Remus said firmly.

"Aim for Moony's lap," Sirius advised.

-

No sooner had the people carrier pulled onto the Potter cottage driveway had you thrown the door open to keel over by the front garden grass. You were breathing heavily in an effort to overcome the sinking feeling, more than relieved to finally be on solid, unmoving ground. You could smell salt and clay on the breeze, the sun-warmed grass soft under your feet.

Sirius came up behind you, pushing his hand over the skin between your shoulder blades.

He didn't say anything. You'd played these parts before: disapparation made you feel sick, too, and the floo, and brooms and trains and planes - it all made you sick to your stomach. You could barely withstand a piggyback.

You swallowed a heave desperately.

"If you need to be sick, be sick," Sirius said gently.

You wanted to tell him to fuck off, suddenly and unfairly infuriated with him. His hand felt like a poker on your shoulders and you wanted to shrug out from underneath his touch. You recognised that was insane and not an appropriate reaction to your best friend comforting you and so you let him rub what was intended to be a soothing path up past your shoulders and then down to the bottom of your back.

You could hear Lily cheering about the sunset. You could see the pink purple sky out of the corner of your eye and worried you were missing an extraordinary picture.

"Alright?" Sirius asked, noticing your stillness.

You stood up, nodding. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and shook you about, squeezing. "God, I'm sorry. You really can't handle it, can you? Poor girl."

You relaxed under his arm and let him steer you to the cliffside overlooking the beach where everybody else had gathered. The sky was a shock of cherry pink at the horizon melting up into a deeper purple. You felt your lips part at the sight. No matter how many photographs you took of the sky on your shoddy camera, it never looked like the real thing.

You and Sirius looked at each other and grinned. Your eyes darted from eye to eye, pupils wobbling, and Sirius pulled his arm away, patting you on the shoulder.

"Where's your camera? That'll be a nice one to commemorate our first night here."

You retrieved your camera from the boot and noticed Alice and Frank's car pulling in.

"Perfect timing!" you called to them, grinning. "Group photo."

Your friend's all piled in for the photograph. The girl’s gathered in the middle, Alice with Frank on one end and Lily on the other. James was pressed tiredly to Lily's side whilst Sirius had wrapped his arm around the exhausted boy's shoulder. Remus was begrudgingly pulled into the throng of women in the middle.

"Alright, guys. Say cheese," you said, raising your camera.

"Hey! It has a timer, doesn't it?" Lily protested.

"Set it up on the birdbath, love!"  James called.

You rolled your eyes but did as they asked. With the camera ticking you rushed over to Sirius' side, who pushed you in between him and James and stretched his hand back over your shoulder. He smelled familiarly of his cologne.

"Big smiles!" Lily said loudly.

You smiled wide. The camera flashed brightly and then everyone was laughing and rubbing their eyes.

"Merlin, that's bright," Emma whined.

Remus patted her shoulder in sympathy and then walked off, leaving her blindsided. James sat down heavily on the grass and complained he'd never drive again, and he certainly wouldn't be helping get the things from the car. Lily sat down with him in solidarity. They both laughed roaringly at everybody else's indignation and refused to move until everyone had put their things away. You stayed outside, trying to catch photographs of the sky while it still looked so lovely. When James and Lily weren't looking you took a quick photo of their dark outlines in the grass, both their hair splayed around them, heads inclined toward each other, hands twined.

You finally walked over to the car to gather your things, gravel crunching under your canvas shoes. They’d already been taken in. You frowned and let yourself into the cottage. All the lights were on and Remus was talking very crossly from the landing upstairs.

“This is a holiday,” he was saying pointedly, “I will not be sharing a room with you, Pads. I won’t sleep.”

“I know I’m handsome but you don’t have to stay up and watch me,” Sirius sniffed. You stopped halfway up the stairs to listen to them argue.

“You snore! You know you do!”

Sirius winced. “A good friend would pretend not to notice.”

“A good friend would release me. Please, Pads.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do!”

“Sleep on the sofa?”

“You’re being an absolute wan-“

“Room with me,” you said easily, ascending the last few steps.

Remus frowned. “I wouldn’t force him on you, Y/N.”

“I snore too,” you said, shrugging. “Won’t notice.”

Having a room to yourself had been the one game of rock paper scissors you’d managed to win between the girls with no partners (as far as you could tell).

Sirius was looking at you strangely. You backtracked. “I mean, if that’s alright. I can get changed in the bathroom and I’m an excellent roommate, and-“

“It's alright. It’s brilliant, actually. Thanks, sweetheart.”

You smiled brightly. “That’s okay. Wouldn’t want poor Remus to suffer you.”

Sirius frowned. “What’s with everyone’s vendetta against me? Am I such a terrible roommate?”

“Yes,” James called from the bottom of the stairs. “God awful.”

“Right,” Sirius said solemnly, pulling his wand from his back pocket. James cringed backwards.

“Let’s not make any hasty decisions.”

“Trust me, I’ve been thinking about this one.”

You pointed Sirius’ wand up at the rafters and giggled madly when they turned a fluorescent yellow. "What happened to our no magic holiday?"

James squawked. “That would’ve gone garishly with my lovely skin,” he said, preening like a bird. Lily rolled her eyes and patted one of his lovely brown shoulders in mock comfort. “There there, babe.”

Sirius was half pouting at you. “He deserved that one.”

“He didn’t. You’re all cranky from driving. You’ll be besties again at breakfast.”

“Make that brunch,” James called.

Marlene called down something in response that you missed as Sirius shut the door behind you. Your room was big enough to fit two single beds with room to waltz between them, soft white bedding atop raglan furnishings set in a neutral tan room with an en suite bathroom, it was nicer than your room at home. You set your wand and camera down on the nightstand and sank into the marsh softness of the mattress, sighing.

Sirius did the same in his respective bed.

“You okay?” you asked him, peering over your shoulder at his languid form. He stretched his hands over his head, shoulder muscles moving underneath his graphic t-shirt. You bit your lip and watched him indulgently.

“Tired. Are you still feeling poorly?”

You shook your head. Though he didn’t turn to look you assumed he’d sensed it, as words didn’t pass between you again for a while.

“You really don’t mind rooming with me?”

You fiddled with your bracelet. It was a simple chain, gold-plated with a small piece of green jade at the centre. Sirius had gifted it to you for your birthday and you hadn’t taken it off since.

“I don’t mind.”

“It’ll be fun,” he decided.

“Like a sleepover,” you agreed.

“Exactly.”

Where had this awkward space come from? You suspected you were imagining it, so afraid of revealing your fondness for him that you were now hesitating to talk to him. You didn’t trust yourself sometimes to idle in his company. How maddening that a confession rooted itself at the front of your mouth, always waiting for you to get too close, to feel too loved.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

He turned toward you so sharply you spooked yourself, scared you’d said it out loud.

“Picture?”

“What?”

“Let’s take a picture. Me and you.”

Your smile crept up slowly at the corners. You shuffled across the bed to make space for him and he filled it, strands of his hair tickling your face as he settled. He grabbed your camera from the bedside table and struggled through its workings until it was green and ready to go, moaning about how you could possibly get along with such muggle-like contraptions. You knew he was grumbling for the sake of it and that in reality he liked your magic camera just as much as you did. It was brilliant, really, you could take loads of photos before it got full and with a simple spell you could look through them projected onto the wall like a small television.

Sirius turned the camera on your faces. You rested your cheek against his arm and smiled shyly, happy to see his handsome grin. You thanked god that you could veto whichever pictures you wanted because as long as Sirius was pressed up at your side smelling like sweetness and himself so sharply it made your heart ache, smiling like he wanted to be nowhere else, you’d look like a lovesick fool in every photograph.

The flash blinded you.

“Is there a setting that doesn’t jeopardise our eyesight?” Sirius inquired.

You buried your face in his arm and giggled.

“Stop hiding. We need a good one to look back on,” he said seriously.

“We take photos all the time,” you argued.

“Indulge me.”

The way he said it - you smiled with teeth and didn’t complain.

-

When you woke up Sirius was still asleep. You moved to lie on your side so you could watch him breathing, tracing the rising and falling line of his chest, the hair he'd left in your bobble the night before, his soft sleep shirt peeking out where the duvet had slipped in the night time.

You could hear the clinking of dishes and easy conversation echoing up the stairs, followed swiftly by the smell of frying bacon and eggs, the sweeter scent of pancakes hot on its tail.

Sirius made a sound in his sleep. You reached your hand out over the gap despite being yards too far to touch him, lining your hand up with his head and pretended you were smoothing the soft strands of ebony hair from his face, tucking it behind his ears. You'd kiss his forehead afterwards, breathe in the smell of his hair or tuck your face in the nook of his shoulder, slot yourself by his side like you belonged.

There was a sound of smashing glass and a shock of laughter that made you both flinch, rousing Sirius awake. You let your hand fall to hang over the side of the bed, fingers an inch from the hardwood floor.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes and stretched, turning flat on his back. You copied him, pulling the blankets up over your nose.

"Y/N," he said softly, words warped by a yawn, "you awake?"

"Yes," you whispered, aiming for casualness and missing by a mile.

You turned your head and he was looking at you with a happy, tired smile. You smiled back and then realised he couldn't see it.

"Do you want to shower?" he asked you.

"I showered after you fell asleep."

He sat up and hunched over, hair falling in his face, necklace slipping out from under his shirt to dangle in the space between his chest and his legs. It was a chain with a thumbnail sized circle of silver hanging from it. You suspected it was engraved but had never had reason to get a good look, and were too shy to ask.

He scratched his face, his two days stubble. His hands looked funny without a ring or two, you'd never seen them early enough in the morning to catch him without them.

You pushed the duvet down and stared at the ceiling as he got to his feet and scrounged through his bags for clean clothes and his towel. You'd already shoved your toiletries in the bathroom last night.

"You want to go eat?"

You shook your head. "I'll wait for you."

"I'll be fast."

"Take as long as you want."

You should not have said that, you realised, twenty minutes later with a rumbling stomach and Sirius nowhere to be seen. You'd whipped up to get changed in case he'd been as quick as he promised, worried he'd walk in on you starkers. Lily had pronounced the first proper day had to be a beach day, so you'd put on a bikini top and simple white t-shirt with short sleeves and a pair of shorts over your bikini bottoms.

You picked at the seams of your crisp denim shorts and wondered if you should be wearing a skirt, no doubt like Lily and Alice would be. Marlene was likely naked or close to it, Mary would wear a sundress, Dorcas did as she liked and Emma might show up in a hazmat suit.

You pouted and leapt to your feet, rushing for your bag. You'd packed a beach cover up and so you might as well wear it rather than feel insecure in your shorts. You unbuttoned them and pulled them off, kicked them under your bed for now.

The bathroom door opened before you'd located the cover up. You looked up like a deer-in-headlights and Sirius was looking at you too, but he didn't look nearly so bashful. Obviously - there was no need. You were going to the beach and he was bound to see you in your bikini eventually, and still you felt naked as the day you were born.

You smiled fleetingly and crouched down to ruffle through your bags for the wrap skirt. It was plain and black, simple enough that you didn't feel as though it would garner much attention. You pulled it on and then found your sandals and put them on too.

Sirius hummed appraisingly. "You look nice."

"Thanks," you said warmly, cheeks heating, "you look nice too."

And he did, lean thighs showcased by a pair of dark swim shorts and a white cotton vest that hugged his chest keenly. You almost matched.

He'd tucked his necklace back under the fabric. Your bobble was loose around his wrist, hair curling and wet dripping on his maddening shoulders. He'd trimmed up his face but still had a shadow like he usually did. You wanted to run your hands over his face and feel the dark stubble under your fingers so instead you cleared your throat and whispered past him to the bathroom to freshen up.

You came out smelling much nicer and feeling cleaner, face all softened up by cleanser and moisturiser.

"You have sunscreen?" you asked him.

"Nah. Greek doesn't burn."

"Greek does get skin cancer," you said pointedly, pulling your shoulder purse open to check you had what you needed.

Sirius pushed the door open and held it for you, beaming down at you. "If I let you put it on me will you stop scowling?"

You relaxed your face. "I'm not scowling."

He'd tilted his head back and laughed at you all the way down the stairs.

James was at the stove, brown skin speckled by white powder. You laughed at the sheer amount of flour he'd managed to wipe up his own face.

He was on the defensive quickly. "Laugh it up! No pancakes for either of you," he said, pointing his spatula at you both. Sirius scoffed in indignation.

"Am I to be punished for everything she does?"

James nodded pensively. "Indeed."

Lily was sitting on the countertop near the sink. You sidled up to her side and opened a glass fronted cupboard to retrieve a glass to fill with water. She had a piece of toast in one hand and pushed your hair flat with the other.

"I love your skirt," she said.

Her's wasn't so different to your own, you thought, and then realised that was the joke. Her long legs were outfitted in a black wrap skirt that didn't so much hide her blue bikini as it accentuated it. She hadn't bothered with a shirt, which you applauded.

"Thanks, babe," she said.

"Such a pair of tits shouldn't ever be hidden. Ti's the true tragedy they must be encased at all," James agreed.

"What is this character you're doing?" Sirius spluttered. "You ridiculous man!"

"I doth not know what you mean."

You smiled to yourself and sat down next to Mary, who was looking pretty as a picture in her lilac sundress. She'd styled her twists into a half bun that showcased her pretty face, her dark skin glowing in the morning light. You felt a shoot of jealousy and then grimaced at yourself. There wasn't any need to be jealous - your friends were gorgeous and so were you.

Still, you found yourself ogling Mary's clear skin reverently.

"You're glowing," you complimented her, pulling a bowl of fresh fruit towards you, no doubt Mary's doing.

"Thank you! I got this new serum with almond oil that makes me really soft and dewy, and it smells really good too."

"Yeah?"

"Mm, from Boots. Oh, you want coffee?"

"No, thanks," you said at the same time as Sirius said, "You're a godsend, Mary."

Mary smiled brightly, lifting the pot of coffee towards his outstretched mug. "I know."

He sipped at his coffee with his hand on the back of your chair. You tried your best to ignore this and found yourself on ends anyways, wondering what the back of your head looked like.

He stole fruit from your plate and wouldn't back down, even when you started fighting back with your fork. You'd almost speared him when Marlene walked in with Dorcas looking dazed behind her, grinning. "We're ready."

"I'll grab Remus and then we'll go," James said, untying his apron. There was a naked square where it had been, and he looked down at it frowning. "After I change my shirt."

"Thanks for the pancakes," Emma called after him.

"You're welcome. At least somebody appreciates my efforts," James said from the bottom of the stairs.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Get a load of him. Makes breakfast and now he's Saint Lucy."

You smiled up at him. "He can be whatever he wants if he's making pancakes every morning. Though Saint James has a terrible ring to it."

Sirius wiped the corner of your mouth with the tip of his index finger. "Wasn't he beheaded?"

You shrugged, biting back a laugh. You didn't know why you were smiling so wide but Sirius was, and his beatific grin was contagious.

"I hope you aren't planning to execute my boyfriend," Lily said, jumping down from the countertop. Her red, smooth hair moved in a sheet behind her.

"Don't think of it as an execution, Lils."

"An exoneration," you suggested.

"A freeing."

James pushed into the kitchen with a knackered looking Remus at his side. "I've saved you so many pancakes, Moony, you wouldn't believe it. You'll be fed for days."

"Thank you, James," Remus said, rubbing a hand through his depressed hair.

"Eat up, darling boy," Sirius said loudly, "you look as though you're on the edge of death."

"I might have slept too well," he admitted sheepishly.

Sirius looked at him then and all his care melted into outrage. "Your hubris befalls you."

"Did we all decide to speak like this today or did I miss the memo?" you asked, more to yourself than anyone else.

"T'was not a decision! T'was a calling from the heavens," James piped in, looking much cleaner in his new vest and open button-up.

"T'was a twottish calling," Marlene said, laughing. This sent peels of laughter through the room and after a good chuckle, eventually everyone was smiling and ready to walk down to the beach.

Why you'd all waited to go together was a mystery, it was hardly a five minute walk down the path from the cottage cliffside before you were breaking out onto a gorgeous white stretch of sand kissing clear blue waves.

Sirius and James had carried the picnic basket between them. Lily had the cooler. You'd deigned to carry the blankets and towels and refused anyone's help, almost tripping over a piece of driftwood. You let the linens fall into the soft sand and felt the grains of it sink into your open sandals, wiggling your toes.

Your camera bounced at your chest as you traipsed over to the cooler, searching for something cold to hold against your head. It had been noon by the time everyone was ready to head out and so the sun was already making itself known, beating down on your shoulders.

"It's gorgeous," Lily said brightly.

"We'll have a bonfire tonight," James said.

Marlene laid a towel out and put her stereo, her prized possession, down on it carefully. She clicked a button and set the volume low, and the beach was suddenly alive with the hum of The Rolling Stones.

You and Lily spread the biggest blanket out away from where James had begun forming a rock circle for the barbecue and sat down on it with matching peaceable expressions, soon joined by Emmeline and Remus. Mary, Dorcus and Marlene set their towels up at the edge of the blanket and were quick to begin sunbathing.

Marlene was likely going to burn herself to a crisp trying to tan. Lily pulled the brim of her sunhat down and began slathering sunscreen over her pale legs, her stomach and chest.

"James!" she called, "come do my back, please?"

He perked up like an excited puppy. "Oh, Lilykins, you charmer."

"If I'd asked anyone else you would've sulked all day."

"Yes I would've. Now stay still, I need to get your beauty mark."

"Mole."

"Mole, whatever. Most marks on you are pretty, I get confused."

You looked down and made yourself busy covering your skin similarly in sunscreen, bringing your knees up to massage the cream into your legs and feet. You'd just managed to get your arms when a shadow was towering over you.

"What, Sirius?" you asked.

He smiled impishly. "You gonna get my back too?"

The comment made you giggle nervously. "In the event the sun could even reach your back then sure, I'd get you."

He crouched down. "You haven't rubbed it in properly. Let me," and he was touching your face, mouth so close you felt his exhales on your eyelashes. He spread the sunscreen with his thumb in a broad swipe across your cheek. "You don't think you're going overboard?"

"There's nothing overboard about protection."

"No glove, no love," he agreed under his breath.

You batted his hands away. "Grow up. Go help James make his firepit."

"Yes ma'am."

-

Later, you were wading through the shallows, full of barbecued foods and sparkling cider and trying not to get pushed over. The others had insisted on playing chicken and you were watching from a distance. Lily and James were the winning team, closely followed by Lily and Sirius when James got sand in his eyes.

Emmeline from atop Remus' shoulders pouted and called for justice. "Lily is obviously too good. We're never gonna win."

"Fuck you, Em! I'm at least half the team,” Sirius said, offended.

Remus tightened his hands on Emma's calves, who was wobbling as she shook her head. "The common denominator is Lily."

Lily was calling and laughing. "Quite right!"

"Sweetheart, I know you don't like chicken, but it's for a better cause, Sirius said, turning his determined gaze on you.

"Wha-" He bent down, ushering Lily off his shoulders, and you understood what he meant. "Sirius, no."

"Come on! I'll do your dishes all week."

He usually did them anyway.

"It'll make me sick."

"It won't!"

You began protesting again and he trudged towards you, big hands on your arms. He looked particularly handsome, damp and sun-kissed, eyes big with happiness and smiling like you were something good. "Get on my shoulders, Y/N."

"Fine. Just one,” you gave in, pulling your shirt off. You tossed it in the direction of your towel and set your begrudging eyes on his legs, sulking.

"Good sport!" James cheered, flat on his back stoking the small fire.

Sirius led you out into the deeper water and knelt down so you could climb over his shoulders. Once seated he got to his feet, eliciting a terrified moan from you. You grasped onto his neck tightly with your face smashed into the back of his head.

His grip was unfailing on your thighs. "Relax… I won't let you fall."

You loosened your headlock incrementally.

"Good girl. How we feeling?"

You felt a shot of pleasure at his words, and then with horror recognised that your crotch was literally at his neck.

"Y/N?"

"Great. Good. Let's do this shit," you declared, hands precarious at his neck.

He laughed and turned you to face the others. "That's my girl."

-

Having defeated everyone who tried to beat you at chicken, you and Sirius were very obviously feeling closer to each other, and it was infuriating everybody.

"We get it! You're good at chicken! Shut the fuck up!" Remus complained, book flat on his chest to glare at Sirius, who had been lamenting your victory with his shoulder pressed to your shoulder.

"So bitter," Sirius said suavely, running his hand up Remus' sand crusted calf, "somebody sounds a little jealous, Remy-poo."

You crinkled your nose and shook the crisp packet in your hand, looking for a nice one. James leaned over your shoulder to grab a handful and you let him, smiling at your friend. He had Lily's head in his lap and looked as blissful as a man could look.

"I hope you aren't talking to me, Remus," you said, feigning hurt. Usually he could be tricked into being his softie self but he was really quite irritated by Sirius' gloating.

"Get fucked, Y/N."

You laid your head on Sirius' shoulder, your hand on his thigh. He dug through the crisps and offered you a flavorful looking one before stealing some for himself. You knew you were pushing it - this was bordering the platonic boundary - but, high on victory and your friendship, you couldn't help yourself from cuddling up to him.

He didn't seem to mind anyhow, making conversation overtop your head as easy as breathing. You stretched your arm out blindly searching for your camera until you found it, clipping the lense cover off. You clicked the camera on, zooming in on your leg against Sirius'.

"Nice legs."

"Testing," you told him, though you hadn't been.

You twisted around to take a photograph of Lily and James, who didn't protest, Remus with his head on Mary's thigh, who did. You got a wide shot of Frank, Alice, Dorcas, Marlene and Emma playing cards before zooming into Marlene, who was leaning back on one arm, a cigarette dangling between her teeth. She took a lazy drag and laid her hand of cards out flat. "Read 'em n weep, ladies."

Dorcas groaned. "Right, I'm done. Anyone else wanna watch a film?"

"My brains fried," Alice said, nodding.

"I want my pyjamas. And a shower. Not in that order," Lily said.

Soon everyone was getting to their feet and groaning. "I have sand in places sand shouldn't be," Emma said morosely, helping you gather the sheets.

"The boys'll stay for a kick about?" James said, looking between his mates.

"No cheating this time, Prongs," Remus started.

James held up his hands. "Scout's honour."

"You didn't get in scout's, mate. Brownie's honour, at best," Frank said.

A headlock ensued. Sirius jogged over to you with his rings in hand, "Have these for me?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Sweet," he said, kissing you on the cheek. "Shan't be long. Quick, get back before the gnats come out!"

You looked at his rings in your hand, warm still, and felt heat rise to the tops of your ears. Lily threw an arm around your shoulder and you were off up the lane. Marl had already thrown the door open, letting in the summer breeze to break through the humid heat kept in the house while you were gone. Lily rushed upstairs to catch one of the showers, citing a deep rooted annoyance at the sand in her bikini top.

You went into the kitchen and put your purse and Sirius' rings down on the countertop and started putting things away, binning everyone's leftovers and setting the plates in the sink. You'd spelled away the crumbs and food and was about to get to the dishes, hot water running and sleeves pushed up when you realised you weren't wearing your bracelet.

Your heart skipped.

It took a moment to sink in. You looked at your blank wrist in bizarre confusion, turning your hand like it might be hiding. No such luck. You scoured your eyes over the kitchen and spotted no signs of it, hand moving up to push against your forehead.

You walked out the way you came and traced the hall, the porch. You ran up the stairs two at a time and burst into your room, nosing through your bags, then did the same in the bathroom. Your chest felt tight as you stood there, walls white and blinding.

You stumbled back into the bedroom and Sirius was in the doorway.

"What's wrong?" he asked instantly.

Your eyes darted to him and then back to your bedroom floor. "My bracelet. I can't find it."

"When'd you have it last?"

"This morning. Definitely before we went to the beach."

You paled.

"Doll, don't worry-" he started, worried by your expression. You moved past him before he could finish and fled down the stairs for your purse in the kitchen. You'd looked through it once, but it didn't make sense - maybe you'd taken it off to play chicken? Unlikely. You never took it off, not ever.

"D-" Sirius was again cut off by you, eyes widening as you tipped your purse out on the kitchen floor. You picked through the contents, despairing.

"It's not here," you murmured.

Sirius was by your side. "Have you summoned it?"

You shook your head, laughing bitterly, "I put anti-spellwork on it after James turned it into a snake."

Sirius laughed and then smarted, clearing his throat.

"Right. Sorry."

Your eyes filled with tears. You looked at the bright kitchen light and willed them away.

"Hey," he said softly, moving into your eyesight, "don't cry, bub. I'll get you a new one."

You blinked, moving your head left to right like the movement might stop the overwhelming emotion. "Sirius, I want that one."

He bit his lip, pulling his hair. "Alright. Get your shoes back on and we'll go look down on the beach, yeah?"

Sirius pulled his jacket on and pulled his wand out with a Lumos at the tip, eyes steadfast to the ground as you walked. "What's it look like?"

"Sirius-" you began, feeling a little hurt.

His smile came up on one side. "Kidding, kidding. Can't forget the damn thing if I tried. You've only worn it since we were seventeen."

You rolled your eyes, momentarily forgetting the task at hand. "You know any metal-detecting spells?"

"You'll be lucky, it's made of plastic."

You chuckled weakly.

He grabbed your shoulder, digging his thumb into your skin. "Hey, don't worry about it. We'll find it. And if we don't, I really will get you a new one."

"I - it's not like that. It's special. You gave it to me, you know? It's like," you cut yourself off.

"What?" he asked, grinning smugly.

You kicked sand under your shoe. You were almost at the beach now, the tide having moved far out. You only hoped your bracelet wasn't somewhere in the waves, never to be seen again.

"Y/N?"

"It's like my piece of you."

You peeked out the corner of your eye at his expression which had gone slack at your confession.

"Right. Right," he picked up his pace incrementally, "let's get digging. We'll shovel the whole beach if we have to."

And you did, looking through the hills of sand until the sky was darkening and the sun was a yellow beam across the ocean, a multicolour spectral that splashed up your skin and drenched you in pinks and orange.

Sirius was similarly sky stained and on his knees, digging around where you'd been sitting again.

"It's alright. Let's just go back."

Sirius shook his head. "I'm gonna find this bracelet, babe."

You hugged yourself.

"Seriously, Black, let's go home. It's pointless."

Sirius ignored you, crawling over to the firepit. "Oh," he said. And then, "Found it."

He held it up between pinched fingers. "Not so pointless, as it turns out."

You couldn't believe your luck - his luck - couldn't believe it was there to find. Sirius staggered to his feet, legs completely covered in sand. You almost threw yourself at him, pushing him back with the force of your hug, wrapping your arms around his waist and then pulling back to accept the bracelet. He wrapped his own arms around your neck, holding you.

You basically danced in his hold. You stole your arms back to put the bracelet back on.

"I have great taste," he said quietly, arms still at your neck.

You laughed, really laughed, felt your chest heave with the force of it, and then you lost any and all sense of reason, any self preservation, looking at Sirius' handsome face. He was looking down at you all homespun and glowing with the sunset at his back and you couldn’t have stopped yourself from kissing him if you tried.

It caught you both by surprise. He made a small sound in the back of his throat and stilled. You pulled away quickly, still laughing (albeit scared to death) and he brought one hand up to the back of your neck to bring you back in.

His kiss was warm. He tasted of fruit juice and…

"Have you been smoking?" you asked, mouth poised over his.

He stopped short, moving the hand that was cupping your neck to your cheek. His eyes were brilliant, pupils dilated.

"No?"

"I think you have. You know those things are going to kill y-"

He kissed you again. His lips were firm, pushing down with enough force to make you retreat a step. He followed, kissing and kissing. You broke it off to finish scolding him, heartbeat in your ears.

"You'll get cancer. Is that what you want?"

He shook his head in disbelief, hand smoothing the side of your face twice quick.

"Why are you so obsessed with my having cancer?"

"Because you purposefully take stupid risks and don't think about the consequences!"

"Fucking hell," he said, chuckling, eyebrows high.

His laugh was contagious - you were so tiffed with him and so happy about the bracelet and so hot where his arms were wrapped around you, burning at his bare hand on your face. You pecked the corner of his mouth and then the other. "Idiot," you breathed.

He caught you while your mouth was still open.

You realised suddenly that you were kissing your best friend, your favourite person in the world, who you'd been half in love with since you met and more and more every day.

He was kissing you back. He was leading.

His tongue was in your mouth.

You pulled away to question him, planning on asking him what he was even doing, why was he kissing you back? He should've pushed you away, and why was his hand at your lower back? Why was he touching the naked skin there like you were something precious?

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead on yours.

"Is it bad that I kind of like you calling me names?"

"It's terrible," you said, pushing up, mouth a millimetre from yours. When he leaned down so that your lips were touching, you hesitated coyly. "Anything else you like I should know about?"

He pushed his fingertips into your waist and smiled when you squirmed.

"Quite like your bikini," he murmured, kissing you chastely, "worse," he moved down to kiss your jawline, "I like what's underneath it."

You laughed in surprise. "That's the best you could come up with?"

"Careful," he said, punctuating the warning with a nip.

His fingers found the bow tying your bikini top shut. He tugged at one of the ties gently. Maybe he was waiting for your permission, or protest, or something, but you could only stand with your chest heaving with excitement and trepidation both. Slowly, he drew the tie open. The seconds stretched, you could barely look at him where he was unblinking, unflinching. It sprung undone, and his hands moved to the one at your neck. He was even slower the second time around, gaze heavy-lidded. Your faces were close enough that you were breathing in the others exhale, stealing air from his parted lips.

The fabric was slipping away, and suddenly Sirius was pressing you flat to his chest, hugging you tight. You frowned in confusion as he manhandled you to be where he'd been standing seconds ago, bare chest against his shirt. Frank and Alice were at the edge of the sand, holding hands. Alice gave you a knowing look.

"Wh- hi, guys!" you shouted, maybe too loudly.

"Sorry, we were coming for a walk! Didn't realise you were already down here!" Frank called, laden with innuendo.

Sirius had turned his head to laugh but was covering your naked chest by standing in your path. "That's alright, Y/N here was just cold. In fact…" he slipped his jacket off, stuffing your discarded bikini top deep into the pocket. He wrapped it around your shoulders and zipped it up, hands uncharacteristically shaky.

He stepped away from you casually. "We came to find her bracelet."

"D'you find it?" Alice asked curiously.

You pushed the sleeve of your borrowed jacket down and held your wrist up, "Sirius found it."

"Brill," Frank said.

“Yeah, we were just leaving,” you said. “Ssssssso, we’ll get out of your hair.”

You laughed and nodded, agreeing with him as Sirius steered you towards the couple and then past them. "See you in a bit, lovebirds," Sirius shouted over his shoulder.

The walk up to the house was clearly nervous.

"Thanks," you told him, embarrassed, "not sure how many people I can deal with seeing my tits before it's a problem."

"Don't mention it," he said. He didn't sound quite like himself. You bumped his shoulder with yours.

"Is… is everything okay?"

He came into himself a bit then, as if he were shaking off a layer of dust. "Can't believe Longbottom cockblocked me," he said, and winced. "Not that-"

"Who said he did?" you asked lowly.

He looked sideways at you and then down at his shoes. He smiled.

-

Sirius held his index finger against his lips, opening the front door to the Potter beach cottage as quietly as he could. You nodded, a picture in his jacket. Each time he remembered you were wearing nothing underneath he had to take a moment for himself and breathe a ragged inhale. He flicked his eyes to the evening sky before pushing open the door.

The floorboards were thankfully silent. The stairs didn't groan. He was halfway up with you flush to his back when James said, "Sirius?" from his room.

Sirius opened his mouth, unsure whether to answer. You shook your head despairingly.

He shut his mouth. You both stood silent on the stairs, staring at each other with his heart in his throat. James didn't call again, and so you finished creeping up the staircase and then across the landing. He ushered you into the room first and then followed behind, shutting the door. He stood there for a moment, listening.

When he turned back you were cleaning up the contents of your purse from the floor hurriedly. He peered down at you, the big light stretching his shadow and leaving you in darkness. You zipped your purse shut. Looking up at him from this angle, he could see a triangle of your chest. He offered his hand and you took it. Pulled to your feet you wobbled, wavered, looking at him like you wanted to touch him and weren't sure you were allowed.

He rested his hands on your shoulders in what he hoped was a placating gesture. Your smile was sweet and soft as he traversed down your sternum to fiddle with the zipper on his jacket, pulling it down an inch and then up half, down another inch.

"Sirius…" you whispered, reproach in your gaze.

He tilted his chin up proudly. "Sweetheart."

"Are you gonna mess with me all night?" you said, words tinged with anxiety. He laughed at your neediness.

"Maybe I will… I've been known to play with my food."

"Gonna eat me?"

"Gonna try," he affirmed, pulling the zip down steady.

You went to take the jacket off and he stopped you.

"Keep it on, won't you?" It didn't sound much like a question.

He didn't think about it - didn't second guess himself. He spread his palm flat over your breast and took your beaded nipple into his mouth, mouthing your breast in a heavy kiss. Your hand went to his hair so gently he almost felt sorry for being rough. Almost.

He moved to your other breast and felt his chest burn when you giggled breathlessly. He learned the curve of your waist under his calloused hand, kneading your softness.

He took your nipple between his teeth very gently and tugged. Although you made no sound, your hold in his hair tightened which told him everything he needed to know, abandoning your hip to pay special attention to your tits. He smiled at the goosebumps spreading over your body.

You made a sound like a hiccup. His dick jumped where it tented his shorts.

Determined to catch any similar sounds he returned to your perfect mouth, guiding your face to his. He pressed his other hand against his cock and prayed you didn't look down just yet.

You were eager and attentive, trying to get as close to him as you could, hands roving his chest. He walked you backwards into his bed, didn't think about the sand covering you both until it was ruining his sheets. He broke the kiss to retrieve his wand and you chased him. He allowed you a quick peck and then pulled his wand from his pocket, expunging the sand, locking the door and muffling the room from between your legs. Then he set aside the damned thing and pressed his knee between your thighs, pushing your head down into his pillow.

And how many times had he envisioned this?

You, warm and ethereal, laid out in his bed.

Himself, breathing fast and desperate and willing to do anything you wanted.

You pushed your cheek into his pillow shyly and grinned, squinting from how wide you were smiling. He smiled back, not as wide or openly, but hopefully enough.

"You sure you wanna do this?" he asked you quietly, running his hand over your hair.

"Mmm… you'll have to be more specific," you whispered, words so quiet he had to lean down to hear them.

He kissed your cheek, lingered there.

"Gonna make me say it?" he said. He was going for sexy, obviously, but with you affection tinged every word, had them rolling off of his tongue pleased and covered in sweetness like dark honey.

"I might do," you whispered, tone taking on a similar fond-sticky quality.

He ran his knuckle down from your temple to your jawline and then back up, touch soft. He flitted underneath your eye before flattening his hand to push his fingers underneath your ear, pad of his thumb poised over the very top of your cheekbone. He marvelled at how his hand fit perfectly in the space there like it had been made to rest against your skin.

"You're very quiet," you murmured, pupils wobbling.

"'M thinking," he murmured in turn, punctuating with a broad sweep of his thumb.

"'Bout what?"

His other hand smoothed over the soft flesh of your abdomen sinking down, down to the elastic of your bikini bottoms. They were tied in the same fashion as your top had been, and he delighted in the slow unravelling of the bows at each hip.

"'Bout how I'm gonna make a mess of you," he said, drawing a line down your now-bared centre. Your chest moved up sharply and didn't come back down until he'd found your entrance, already leaking slick. He spread wet up your front, circling your clit until your breath caught.

"There you are," he said, laughing.

"It's not funny," you protested breathlessly.

He pushed down a tad roughly, listening intently for your quiet moans. "It feels funny."

"That's my line."

He rolled his eyes, edging your entrance with the tip of his fingers. "Tell me if this feels funny, sweetheart."

He pushed his index finger past little resistance, already coated in your arousal and working more out of your warmth. You shuddered underneath him, reaching out to grab his hand for some comfort. He took your wrist in his other hand and held it away from your cunt. He checked your face to see how you were taking and felt a smugness like no other at the evident pleasure smudging your features, lips parted delicately and eyes shuttering closed with each thrust inward. He increased the pace and added his second finger, scissoring them inside you to spread you open.

He didn't intend on making you cum yet, really, having wanted to get you properly ready by murmuring sweet nothings and worse, promising things he wasn't sure he could give but was determined to try. "How's that feel, baby?"

"Good," you said shyly.

"Good? Just good?"

"Feels really good," you confirmed, panting at his uptick in speed and renewed pressure on your little bundle of nerves.

"Gonna make you feel so good," he promised, "gonna get you all messy, get you ready for my cock. That okay?"

"Yep," you said tightly.

Your legs were twitching - not a full shake but enough to tell exactly how it was going to go. He took his fingers from your cunt and pulled back further to push your knees up, spreading you wide in front of him. He used his left hand to stimulate your swollen clit and his right to finger fuck you in quick bursts.

It was wonderful to watch, your face swimming in pleasure and your eyes getting all wet and glassy, too timid to meet his gaze.

"Hey, pretty girl," he said, forcing you to look at him, "hey, baby. You look so fucking cute, yeah? Don't you?"

Your eyebrows creased, distracted by his attentions on your sensitive cunt.

"Tell me how you look," he ordered.

"Sirius…"

"Go on, tell me how good you look. I'll reward you, I promise."

You shook your head.

"You won't?" he paused attending your clit and took big, slow strokes, curling his fingers to drag down your walls. Your thighs wobbled.

"Just tell me, baby," he said, voice faux pleading, "tell me all about how you look and I'll make you cum."

You whimpered at the unfairness of it all and he felt a little sorry for you, but not enough to let you out of the deal.

"I look… nice." You bought into his game.

He grinned proudly, pressing his thumb back against your clit as though he might begin again, but didn't.

"C'mon, you can do better than that."

"I look cute."

He nodded appraisingly and started slow circles. "And what else?"

You stuttered over your words, stubborn in your own diffidence but desperate. "I look pretty."

"Pretty," he hummed like he was chewing it over. "You're more than pretty. Gonna look so fucking beautiful all covered in my cum too, baby, I promise you."

He was trying to relax himself as much as he was you. Trying to convince himself that fucking his best friend that he loved, loved unthinkingly as the pumping of blood in his veins, the thrumming of his magic beneath his skin, was the right path. And what did people say? Sometimes the easiest path was the path of least resistance? He couldn't resist you, he knew that much. So, selfishly, he made you cum. Selfishly, he cooed as you moaned. Selfishly, he spread his hand across your trembling tummy. Maybe it was the wrong decision, but Sirius Black fancied himself a selfish man, and so he was going to fuck you silly, should you allow him.

You were recuperating, blinking bashfully, wetting your bitten lips. He leaned over you to push his hands behind your shoulders and lift you into a sitting position, stealing a quick kiss. When he broke it you looked dazed as ever.

"You okay?" he asked.

Your dazed expression cleared with his voice. You nodded, catching your breath with your hand pressed to your cunt. He laughed madly when you touched yourself and jumped, ticklish.

You glared at him.

"Don't be like that," he chastised, taking both of your hands into his, tugging your arms towards him.

You squeezed his fingers likely without thought and climbed up onto your knees, almost as tall as him, "I'm not being like anything," you said, climbing up into his lap, wet pussy sliding against his aching, clothed cock, knees either side of his thighs.

He pulled your arms around his neck to relieve his hands and push down his shorts, freeing his cock. He pumped, feeling your arms tighten as you spotted his length.

"Ah," you said weakly.

"You ready?" he asked, guiding his cock underneath you to tease your hole, gathering wetness to palm over his length.

You didn't answer, instead lowering yourself onto his cock slowly. He kissed your shoulder, tasted the salt of the sea on your skin as you stretched around him, gasps like a sweet song in his ears. Hands on your hips to alleviate the effort it took for you to hold yourself upright, he steered you up and down until you were confident enough to do it yourself. You were slow, and he wouldn't rush you, but fuck if he didn't want to lay you out flat and ruin you, pound into you until you were a wet-eyed mess. Still, you worked his cock, moaning as the stretch turned to indiscriminate pleasure.

He grabbed your neck, not rough enough to hurt but certainly not gently, straightening your head up to meet his gaze, though the sight of you watching his cock spread you open was tantalising, mouth a small o-shape.

"Taking me so well," he praised.

You tried not to show how his words affected you. He was determined to make you, fucking up into you as you came down, relishing in the startled delight clouding your face.

"How's my pretty girl feeling?" He followed your hips with his own, dragging his cock against your walls. "How's my pretty pussy, all full?"

You looked like you might burst into tears and dug your face into the side of his neck, tightening your arms. He took this in stride and kissed the top of your head before grabbing a hold of your hips and fucking fast into your heat, moaning at the feeling of your cunt contracting around his throbbing dick.

"Yeah, you know, don't you? This cunt," he said into your hair, "this cunt's all mine now."

You'd gone so quiet he worried for a split second he'd gone too far, until he felt your lips at his neck, mouthing. He didn't have to see you to know what you'd said soundlessly.

All yours.

His fault for goading you, he realised, groaning so raggedly he felt his chest burn. He fucked up into you until he thought even a muffliato wasn't enough enough cover the sounds you were making, unrestrained and half-sobbing in his lap.

He slowed, let you drop so you were seated with his cock inside you as deep as it could go, which was a different agony, and pulled your face from the crook of his neck.

"Awww," he sympathised, rolling his hips as he wiped the tears from your face. "You're okay."

You nodded, bringing a hand up to wipe your face yourself, hands half covered by the sleeve of his jacket.

"It's not too much, is it?" he asked, bringing his hand to the small of your back, pushing leather into your skin and leaning back to really focus on finding your sweet spot.

You pouted jokingly as if to say what do you think? and then laughed, the movement prompting little flecks of water to jump off of your lashes. It was a sight he thought he would remember for the rest of his life, your pleasure driven tears and your cock drunk laugh, tits half sheltered by his old leather jacket.

You took his leaning back as an opportunity, spreading your fingers against the trail of hair at the bottom of his stomach to encourage his back flat onto the mattress. He laid down curiously, head close enough to the edge of the bed that his hair draped over the end. You anchored yourself to his tummy and didn't ride him so much as you squirmed, the head of his cock rubbing against your sweet spot, goosebumps breaking out across your body. You whined, pleading sounds that had him probing your clit, searching for your second climax. You protested his actions, grabbing his wrist and holding it to his breastbone, leaning down so your cunt was flush with his crotch, pelvis' sliding into one another bruisingly as you grinded, faces inching closer and closer as the sensation weakened your resolve to be in charge. He felt his own resolve weakening in turn.

Escaping your clutches he pulled your chest flush to his with only the head of his dick inside you, to which you grumbled, rocking down. He frowned himself and wrapped one arm under your armpit and over your shoulder blades, the other across your back.

"Don't do me in," he blurted, steadying your movements.

You raised your eyebrows at his panic amusedly. "You gonna cum in me, lover?" you asked teasingly.

He kissed the skin left of your mouth, strokes haltingly slow. "Don't do me in," he restated, softer. "Please."

Your lips parted as he dug into your soft spot, mouthing your cheek before tucking you into his front, hugging you tenderly as he opened you up slowly with his cock. He sped up, testing what he could handle and savouring your keens.

The sound of your whimpering was his last straw, pulling out of you quickly, cock throbbing in his hand. You searched for his mouth and kissed him, once and then twice, chaste and slow and loving kisses that made him want to serve you up starlight on a silver platter.

Then you climbed off of him. He let you go reluctantly, watching as you settled in a W-shape near his pillows, breathing hard and neatening up his jacket so your tits were fully out.

"Do your worst," you told him.

He blinked, pushing up onto his elbows, cock twitching at the skin under his belly button.

"What?"

"'Gonna look beautiful covered in my cum,'" you quoted him, something bright in your eyes.

He crawled over to your quivering body, hand already milking his cock. He kneeled so he was hovering over you and you leaned back into his pillows, sweaty and rugged. He thought you looked the prettiest he'd ever seen you, hands tugging roughly at his cock, lubed by your slick.

"You're beautiful," you whispered gingerly, eyes skipping up his chest to alight on his mouth, his nose, his eyes. You smiled, eyes heavy.

He came down your front, pearlescence dripping down the swollen curve of your breasts and gathering at the slade of your chest, white rivulets that shone in the golden sundown. He'd barely finished when he was kissing you passionately, trying to convey his thoughts with his rough hand on your silken face, his undue mouth, trying to push the depths of his devotion into his soothing fingertips beneath your eye.

He broke the kiss begrudgingly, struck with an idea.

"Where's your camera?" he asked, forehead resting on yours.

"Huh?"

"Let me take a picture of you like this."

You didn't need much convincing, a beatific beam dancing across your kiss red lips. He scrubbed his hand down your cheek before he hastily pulled his shorts up and retrieved the camera from where you pointed, messing with buttons he didn't hope to understand until the camera was blinking and aimed at your smiling face. He zoomed out just enough to catch his jacket and your messy chest in the photograph.

"Pretty," he said, more to himself than you. Your chest heaved with his praise. "Say cheese, lovely girl."

You shot up a peace sign and he chuckled so suddenly he thought he'd never breathe right again.

thank you for reading!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

read part two here

my masterlist

marauders tag list @marimorena06 @glimmering-darling-dolly @siriuslystfu @thatblackravenclaw @thatonecomfyjumper @lupinlust @touchdeprivedwh0re @vi0letblu3s @mooncalvin @gaysnowrose @thatonecomfyjumper @set-myself-on-fire @decafcoffew

[bukojuiice]

— their wedding day with you.

ೃ pairings: (izuku midoriya, katsuki bakugo, shoto todoroki, x fem! reader)

ೃ  tags: headcanons, tooth rotting fluff

��� warnings:  none

ೃ  my nav  →  my mha writing masterlist  → my katsuki bakugo x reader smau

ೃ if you want to be a part of my mha taglist. send me an ask!  ♡

ೃ  please do reblog if you enjoyed!! it really helps writers and content creators on tumblr! (feel free to add tags too because i love reading them and my heart swells with happiness when people love my work!)

ೃ after a million wedding videos and pinterest boards later, i’m excited to share with all of you my wedding hcs! these are short and a quick read so i hope you enjoy!  ♡

-  you and your fiancé, katsuki, were arguing over the venue and the theme of the wedding. he wanted it to be a simple ceremony. perhaps taking place at just a regular event place- whilst you wanted the venue to be at a beach. 

- it was a dream you had always wanted while innocently planning your wedding as a kid. so why not make it a reality?

-        The two of you peacefully decided on it over rock paper scissors. You won so… the beach wedding it is.

-        (Katsuki actually loved the idea of the beach wedding as much as you did. He just didn’t want to admit it.)

-        coral blue and oceana palettes, luscious palm trees swaying with the wind coming from the sea, the calming sound and view of the ocean, coral and shell designs hung everywhere, tables and chairs with little boho and aquatic inspired designs.

-        mitsuki bakugo insisted on making your wedding dress. you were overjoyed and deeply touched by her sweet gesture. As she wants the best for her beautiful and loving daughter in law after all.

-        The dress was one of the most angelic and heavenly gowns you have ever seen in your entire life. a long graphic lace gown with an open back and the edges of your white dress had frills like that of a mermaid tail. you wore a shell bracelet, to match with katsuki’s.

-        kirishima and kaminari jokingly dared bakugo to wear a tuxedo heavily inspired by the dc superhero, aquaman to keep the beach theme going. of course, katsuki ignored their suggestions and little jokes, opting for something of his usual style. his suit partially unbuttoned, tan rolled up-pants and matching shell bracelets with you.

- as you walk down the aisle, katsuki could not think of anything but the bursting feeling inside of him saying that this was it. this serendipitous event was going to signify the start of his life... his life with you.  

- your beauty and radiance was like that of a mermaid, your (h/c) hair flowing with the wind and the ocean was there as if practically glowing for you. whereas he felt like a mere pirate who could do nothing but watch you from afar as he sailed the shores.

- yet here you are, about to approach him, to finally begin this momentous event.

- the gentle mermaid fell in love with the aggressive pirate. how sweet.

- you insisted on playing songs from the little mermaid during your walk down the aisle and during the reception, sadly, katsuki disapproved of both. with a little convincing and a dozen of cute pouty faces later, he agreed to have someone play a romantic song. just one.

- the two of you decided on someone performing a beautiful rendition of “can’t take my eyes off of you” 

-        bakugo was about to cry while reciting his vows. Almost. He was totally going to shed some tears after the wedding ceremony, for only you to see, and before the two of you make your appearance at the reception.

- the wedding and the reception ends wonderfully as fireworks began to pop in the sky, colorful swirls as if they were coloring the sky, with one of the firecrackers even shaped as a heart. the reception continues with people dancing, and while your husband wasn’t one for festivities and dancing, he would give this day a pass as you bring him to the middle of the dance floor as the two of you dance the night away.

- “you’re just too good to be true...  Can't take my eyes off of you~ you'd be like Heaven to touch, i wanna hold you so much~”

-        shoto wants the most important day of his life to be reminiscent of a fairy tale as he wasn’t able to experience the wonder and the beauty of it as a child.

-        to keep the theme consistent, he rents out a quaint recreational woodland not far from the city.

-        he wants it to be perfect just for you especially since you’ve been dreaming of living a fairy tale for such a long time… and here you are now about to fulfill that dream.

-        the wedding starting at dusk, twinkling lights and garlands hanging around the trees, fairy lights sprawled about, blooming archways, lilac ash and sandstone pallets, long romantic banquet, and guests composed of his closest friends and family.

-        you’re dressed in a beautiful white (with pastel blue accents) floofy dress reminiscent of a fairy. embroidered with vines, satin flowers, and butterfly accents. instead of a veil, you’re wearing a flower crown decorated with pretty white daisies and leaves.

-        whilst shoto was wearing a suit reminiscent of peter pan. an exquisite blue suit with a peter pan lily as his boutonnière.

-        As soon as he sees you walking down the aisle, tears were about to stream down from his cheeks.

- the whole todoroki fam are at the brink of tears too, as these were one of the very rare times they see the youngest todoroki with the biggest smile and most blissful look on his face. 

-        All of the guests stand up, each seat has one thin branch with attached handcrafted butterflies and fireflies for them to hold up and to illuminate your way to Shoto.

-        A musician strums their guitar and begins to sing “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley.

-        He’s just beyond delighted to see you. As if flowers were blooming with every step you take, approaching closer and closer to him.

- “wise men say... only fools rush in... but I can’t help falling in love with you...”

-        You looked ethereal. Like a dawning light.

-        You continue to walk down the aisle, looking back at him. All the pure love and adoration you have visible in your eyes.

- midway through your vows, shoto couldn’t take it anymore and the tears just flowed down his face. you giggle lightly, the other guests were snickering along.  you bring him into a hug, kissing his tear-imprinted face as the two of you continue with the ceremony.

- It felt like an absolute dream. This was the best day of both of your lives after all.

-        “And they lived happily ever after.”

- you and izuku  just wanted a simple yet still fancy backyard wedding. 

- as the two of you wanted to spend most of your budget on traveling the world for your honeymoon trip instead.

- you could still make things absolutely beautiful and pleasing to look at after all. with your amazing teamwork and working on the planning together, you could manifest a delightful wedding. 

- there wasn’t a particular theme per se. both you and izu weren’t really ones to go into specifics anyway. you just wanted to replicate a very light and airy feeling that can be seen in most dreamy weddings.

-  string lights hung everywhere, a huge whimsical canopy was built up on the yard with two iridescent chandeliers hanging on the inside, draped fabrics and lush, interwoven greenery, mint and powdered colored accents, and a mini bar at the entrance.

- all of the heroes that izuku had known all his life were invited to the wedding. and of course, they wouldn’t miss it for the world. with practically everyone attending the #1 hero’s big day.

- with the help of the girls from class 1-a and after several hours of trying on the most beautiful dresses, your heart was set on an embroidered tulle and crepe white gown. instead of a veil, you opted for a  white crown headpiece, resembling that of a halo. 

- izuku on the other hand, at the behest of the boys of class 1-a, wanted him to wear something extravagant that could woo you. izuku disliked all the suits that they made him try out and instead went for a black suit jacket, dark blue dress shirt, and to complete the look, a cute little bow tie. 

- you walk down the aisle, holding a bouquet of flowers, your calming and ever so beaming presence felt like the light that he had been looking for all his life.

-  izuku could just stare at you lovingly like this if he could. he fights the tears welling up in his eyes, but he knows he’s going to break soon.

- and he does. as soon as he starts reciting his vows, izuku begins to weep. the genuineness and the love that you could hear from his voice and from the emotions he was showing right now made you feel so warm inside. 

- you hug him and squeeze both of his hands tight as he calmly yet emotionally goes through the entirety of his vow. 

- at the reception, inko and all might offer a special toast to you and izuku. their speech composed mostly of doting words and a lot of light-hearted “parent” jokes. 

- dekusquad + bakugo came up to the stage too to give their chaotic toast to the groom and bride, and the atmosphere and the mood became even more fun and lighthearted.

- as a surprise, you and izuku prepared a short musical number. the two of you were going to duet stand by me by ben e. king.

-  “when the night has come... and the land is dark... and the moon is the only light we'll see~ no I won't be afraid... oh, I won't be afraid. just as long as you stand, stand by me~”

ೃ taglist: @chibishae34​​ @sparkykatsuki​​ @ramunegoddess​, @serossimpy

[majormaybe1]

Lily Healing the Boys After A Full Moon

Partially inspired by the @jilytoberfest day 19 prompt: taking off someones shirt because they’re injured. A thousand thanks to @joyseuphoria for all of her encouragement, support, and for beta-reading for me!!

Lily Evans was sound asleep when the owl woke her up. It was aggressively tapping on the window next to her bed, obviously there to deliver a message to one of her roommates. Sighing, she got out of her bed and opened the window. February in Scotland was freezing, but Lily loved the view of the castle blanketed by snow. Somehow on a snowy night everything seemed brighter, quieter, and just a touch more magical. Turning her attention to the bird she untied the message. 

“Thank you, I’m sorry I don’t have a treat for you, but the owlery should be nice and warm right now.” As the owl flew away she closed the window with one hand, and then glazed to see who the note was addressed to.

Lily, help needed in the common room, come quick, bring potions, Peter.

Quickly gathering up her collection of potions and grabbing her wand, Lily took a steadying breath before creeping down the stairs to the common room. “Peter!” She hissed. “Peter! Where the bloody hell are you? If you woke me up for some prank-”

“Shh! I’m right here. They need help. Please. I’m bullocks at healing spells and I don’t know what to do and I couldn’t take them to Madam Pomfrey. Please Lily. You have to help them.” Peter Pettigrew had never been the most confident of his friends but now he sounded downright panicked as he grabbed Lily’s hand and started pulling her in the direction of the boy's staircase. “Hurry! I barely got them up there. You’ve been studying those healing texts right?”

What she expected from the self-proclaimed ‘Marauders Dorm’, Lily wasn’t sure but two boys bleeding out on one of the beds certainly wasn’t it. James was pale beneath his tan and obviously in a great deal of pain but was at least conscious.

“He passed out a few minutes ago. I don’t think he hit his head but I don’t know,” James muttered as Lily approached Sirius and began casting a myriad of diagnostic charms over both boys.

“You’re all bloody idiots I hope you know that. Going near a werewolf on the full moon. DO you know how STUPID that is? Peter, go get a hot damp towel and a dry one.” Lily ordered, transfiguring a quill into a pair of scissors to cut the leg of Sirius’ pants. “I need to see the cut on his leg, I think an infection is already setting in. James, your leg and arm are both broken, as well as a rib or two. I’ll need to set those in a moment.” Lily dug into her Potions bag, pulling out a deep purple vial and checking the date on it. Sirius wounds started to smoke as she dabbed at them causing him to stir. 

“What is that? Is it supposed to smoke like that?” Peter asked nervously. 

“It’s a Wound Cleaning Potion. Peter I might need your help but I need you to calm down. There’s a Calming Draught in my bag if you need it but I need you to hold him still.” Peter gulped but shook his head as he came to hold down Sirius’ legs as Lily continued to clean his wounds. “Okay, that should be fine. He doesn’t have any broken bones, there’s nothing else I can do until he wakes up.” Lily turned to James who was looking at her with a mixture of admiration, fear, and appreciation and tried not to shiver under his stare.

“I’m fine. Just worry about him.” James muttered.

“Oh really, you know how to fix a broken arm? If you perform the spell wrong you could end up without any bones in that arm to fix.” Lily shot back with a glare. “I didn’t think so. Brackium Emendo. Tibium Emendo. Ferula. If you aren’t going to go to the Hospital Wing you need to at least keep those ribs wrapped or take Skele-Gro. I can give you a Sleeping Potion if you want.” At James’ hesitation and worried glance at Sirius she added “I’m not going anywhere until I get an explanation anyways. You two need to sleep. I'll keep an eye on him.” And you, she added silently.

“James, we called Lily for a reason. You should go to bed.” Peter called out from one of the beds, nodding at the bed on the other side of Lily. “We have double transfiguration tomorrow and Minnie will be pissed if you sleep through it.”

“Alright Evans. I’ll rest.” James sighed, but went to lay in his own bed.

As the boys fell asleep Lily busied herself with cleaning up as best she could before settling herself into the window seat by Sirius’ bed, taking inventory of her potions bag, not staring at a shirtless James Potter, and looking around the room. She could tell a lot about each boy by the way they had arranged their space. Remus kept his section meticulously clean. The bed was made with a pair of flannel pajamas folded neatly on one pillow. His desk held two distinct stacks of books, a cup of sharpened quills, and a single photo of his parents. There was a third stack of books on the bedside table next to a muggle water bottle. Peter was a carefully confined mess. There was a pile of clothes half under the bed, another on his desk chair, and his desk was covered in a mess of papers, quills, and  an open inkwell. Sirius kept his cleaner than she would have expected. With the exception of a few quills and a bag from Honeydukes laying around there was no clutter. Unlike the others he had no pictures of his family up, just a single faded photo of his brother on the nightstand. He did have a few photos of his friends and a very cute photo of him and the Potter’s in front of a Christmas tree. James had quidditch posters and pictures of his parents and the marauders stuck to the wall and a Gryffindor scarf strung over the head of the bed. His quidditch gear was piled next to his trunk, which had clothes half hanging out of it. 

“Lily? Is that you Red?” Sirius had woken up while Lily was studying the room. “What happened?”

“You’ll have to tell me what happened. You were in bad shape when I got here. You really need to go see Madam Pomfrey. You’re covered in scratches. I tried episky but nothing happened. There’s only a few reasons why episky wouldn’t work, Sirius Black, and none of them are good.” Lily glared at the pale boy. “So you tell me, was it dark magic that caused those wounds? Or was it Remus? Tell me you weren’t with him tonight. Tell me you weren’t that stupid.”

“You know I can’t, Red.” Sirius met her eyes, allowing his regret at that fact to be seen on his face. He hated that she was worried. 

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You know what would have happened if you had been bitten? Or James? Or Peter? Do you know what that would have done to Remus?” Lily was fuming, even as she performed a second set of diagnostic spells on Sirius. 

“Nothing would have happened if we had been bitten.” 

“How can you think that? How can you be so stupid? Humans who are bitten by werewolves are turned into werewolves.” Lily snapped, her worry turning to anger now that she knew the three boys would be alright. “You could have died tonight Sirius.”

“It’ll take more than tonight to kill me, Red.” Sirius tried to soothe Lily. “Besides, Moony didn’t want to kill me. He just wanted to play.” With this Sirius fell asleep.

“He wanted to WHAT?!” Lily spluttered. “That’s it. I’m going to bed. You lot are the stupidest bloody idiots on the face of the planet.” She muttered, stalking out of their dorm, robe billowing behind her.

A month later and the only one of the boys she was willing to speak to was Remus, who had eventually stopped trying to explain his friends’ actions to her. If she happened to be brewing more healing potions in her free time, then it was just for practice. The night of the full moon though she found herself unable to sleep. Remus had been tired and withdrawn but the closer to this night that they got, the more excited the other three had gotten. Lily knew they were going to do something stupid. When the boys finally stumbled in in the wee hours of the morning they would find her asleep on the couch waiting for them, because while they were idiots, they were idiots she cared about. And she took care of those she cared about. 

[hobidreams]

april 1869.

the night brings with it the moon, rippling waters, and truths silenced with his mouth hot on your skin.

pairing: joseon king!yoongi x reader genre: smut, angst words: 2.2k contains: historical au, exhibitionism (but more indirectly), rough sex, dirty talk, name-calling, hurt feelings, hair pulling, a very unhealthy (but historically accurate) relationship, yoongi is an ass

moonlit throne index. this is drabble two. start from the beginning?

The chilly evening wind of coming spring sweeps a scattering of fallen leaves across the courtyard. It ripples through the sleeves of your jeogori as you descend from the stone veranda of your quarters towards the private palace gardens. The two guards who stand at the entrance move wordlessly aside upon seeing you, offering you slight bows that you return. Past this barrier, the tall, reaching trees hang against the darkened sky, heavy branches scratching invisible marks over the moonlight. You follow the set path with steady footsteps, passing blooming shrubs with a yawn on your lips. The day has been long and your eyes are sore from studying medicine with only a dim lamp for company. But the breeze - it whisks away fatigue with an enviable ease.

The path winds along the expansive pond. Water lettuce and lily pads cover most of the liquid surface, lining the makeshift island that houses your favorite: the grand pavilion. Recently renovated on the king’s direct instruction. You move closer, slippers leaving stone to scrape the thin wooden bridge.

Something in the dark shifts.

Your eyes fall upon a shadow. Your steps stutter, then quicken.

“Jeonha.”

The king sits on the left bench, near the open front that has yet to be replaced, with a casual arm draped over the intricate banister. He doesn’t stir at the sound of your deliberately soft voice, his gaze remaining mired on something in the distance, far beyond the pavilion’s, or perhaps even the palace’s, reach. His hat is abandoned beside him, the topknot slightly loose where it is bound on his head.

“May I join you?”

He waves his hand absently.

You consider your options, but ultimately take advantage of the pavilion’s half-finished state and sit on the very edge with your legs tucked under you in a traditional kneel. You cannot even remember the last time you’ve sat together like this - out in the open outdoors, away from the tightly-drawn curtains of his chambers and away from prying eyes. Only now do you realize how much it had been missing. “The willow trees have grown out nicely,” you offer, what you hope is a safe topic. You watch a lily pad drift idly by. “I hope the lotus flowers bloom well this year. The pond truly felt so empty last season without their color. I—”

“Is it commonplace for subjects to inflict idle chatter on their king?” The ice in his voice is a slap across the face.

You shut up immediately. Nervously swallow too, but the heaviness in your throat remains stuck. You’ve become uncomfortably familiar with that tone, the quick temper that flares up in seconds but takes its time to dissipate. A part of you wants to retreat and hide; the other can never bear to leave him. Ever so slightly, chewing on the inside of your cheek, you turn your head instead. Take your first good look at him and almost gasp at how gaunt he looks in the sparse light. Nor do you expect the deep purple settled beneath his eyes. If this had been ten or even just two years ago, you wouldn’t hesitate to mention it but with things as they are, you are so nervous to speak and…

“What?”

“Have,” you bow your head slightly, “have you not been sleeping?”

Silence.

“Jeonha?” You press. “Please.”

When he finally looks at you, it’s with a glare. “I haven’t the time.”

“And your meals?”

“Not hungry.”

Your fingers knot. “But rest, sleep is essential. As is food. Without it, to make important decisions—”

“Hah!” His scowl deepens, the scar stretching down with his lips. “It would make little difference in how they are received.”

Ah.

You should’ve known it was impossible to miss the rumors rumbling through the palace, their source the restless palace occupants faced with a ruthless king. He can’t stop the rampant thievery brought on by the grain shortage, yet executes the thieves themselves. His petty rejection of treaty with Japan left threats of war looming like an open wound that refuses to heal. All this, the former king would never have done. Or so the gossip goes.

“Still… Jeonha, you cannot, simply cannot, live like this. The people need you to be strong. They need their leader. Every hour you spend pushing yourself too far is an hour taken off your life. ” Saying the words alone puts a tremble in your fingers. The thought of his death could keep you awake right along with him. Has. But every syllable you speak is an overstep of your boundaries and rank. “I-If something is weighing on your mind, tell me. Use me. Tell me what you need and I’ll try to help however I can.”

He laughs then, but it’s an ugly, mocking sound. With a thud, he drops to the floor. “Spare me your fucking idealism.” His tight fist finds the roots of your hair. He yanks, hard. Your plain hairpin clatters to the floor, teetering wildly off the pavilion edge. “You, help me? What power do you have?” He drags you backwards, your eyes wide and quivering as they find fury in his. “What can you really do?”

He all but rips open your sash and you let him. You let him throw aside the layers that cover your chest until you’re exposed to him, torn white fabric pooling around your arms. His breath is hot at the shell of your ear as he growls, “this is all I need from you. This and nothing else.”

“T-Then use me,” you repeat, despite the dagger stab of pain in your heart. If this will lessen his burdens, you’ll do it. If this will have him in your arms if only fleetingly, you’ll do it.

He grabs a breast and smirks when you tense, then cry out when he pinches a nipple pebbled from the wind. Take it all, you think deliriously when his fingers tighten with an almost unbearable strength, and again when he dips his head low, sucking hard at the nape of your neck to give you a dark ache to remember come morning. He leaves one mark then another, and another, as if threatening to consume you entirely with his desire. And you? You’re addicted to that jolt of pain, the heady wetness of dominance that says he wants you. He wants nothing but you right now, and you tuck that precious knowledge away with a moan.

When he flips you onto your back, you don’t hear the quiet splash as your hand knocks the pin over. All your focus is stolen by your king between your legs, demanding obedience even from his knees. He wastes no time in forcing your skirt up, undoing the ties of the shorts beneath and throwing them aside. You don’t think you breathe until his nail rakes across the scrap of cloth covering your heat. “Look at you,” he mutters. “So wet. Shameless.” He doesn’t bother taking off the sokgot before fucking two fingers into you, deep enough for you to feel the ridge of his knuckles. The way your tight cunt opens and molds to him makes him sink his teeth into his lip in appreciation.

You already feel pressure building when he curls his fingers. It spikes up when he scissors, pushes you apart to hear you gasp. The noise travels far, echoing across the water while he makes a mess of you with each rapid pump. You don’t need to see to know that clear arousal is running down the sides of your lower lips. The sound of slick is as lewd as your whines, pitched at a tell-tale high.

“Fast, too fast,” you groan. But when you shift back, you’re only met with open air beneath your hands. You turn your head in panic and yelp when you realize just how close you are to the edge, with nothing but murky water below. “J-Jeonha, let me bac—”

“No.” His eyes glimmer with something possessive at the sight of you stretched out over the precipice, moonlight’s glow painted across your bare skin. All that pliant softness for him to ruin.

And you do break, when he hits that spot and punishes it without a second’s pause. “Please, oh god, please.” You don’t even know what you’re begging for but his palm slaps against your skin with reckless strokes. Your spine curves back, head going with it until all you see is the night and burning stars and everything in this palace that belongs solely to him. You let go. You cum with an errant hand flung out, fingers skimming across the water, the rest of you pinned beneath him. Uncontrollable.

His smile is sadistic as he leans over you, still fully clothed in his royal robes as he watches you tremble. “Think the guards can hear you?” You want to shake your head but all you do is grind your hips into him. “If they turned their heads, they’d see you like this. Needy. Desperate.” He spits the humiliating words through set teeth. “Why don’t I call them over and show them what the esteemed physician is really like?” His cocksure grin stretches even wider when he feels you clench in response. It seems to make up his mind; he doesn’t extract his fingers even though bliss has turned sharply into soreness. Just fucks you through the last of the aftershocks and then some until he brings you to peak for a second, noisy time.

Only then does he draw back, swiping his tongue slowly up his soaked hand. His eyes never leave you, even as he strips enough to pull his thick cock from the folds of gilded silk. You don’t get much of a glimpse before it’s sheathed in you, much fuller than his fingers. Your overstimulated cunt reacts despite the sensitivity, wetly clinging to his shaft as he bottoms out. He doesn’t stop to savor, doesn’t even let you catch a breath before he’s moving forward. His thrusts now, angry and quick and deep  - they’re for him.

The low grunts of effort drop alongside sweat down his neck, topknot bobbing back and forth and he keeps going, nimble hips pistoning with none of the precision of his swordplay. Where that is beautiful, controlled movements, he finds himself the exact opposite when he’s inside you. A damn slave to the pleasure surging through his body,  and he seems to hate that he needs it. A loathing that he leaves in the bruises on your ass every time you smack to the floor.  “Always this tight for me,” he mutters in a low register.

You’re trying your best to hold on, and survive the acute ache of him battering against your deepest core because you could never ask him to stop. Your fingers cling to the stone boundary, holding you to solid ground when everything feels like it’s been tossed clear up into the air. You almost can’t bear to look at him like this. It’ll make you believe in the intimacy shared between lovers when this is—

He snarls your name, draws your attention back.  “Say it.”

“J-Jeonha…!”

He must like what he hears and finds in your gaze, for he smirks. “You’ve become a nice little whore for me, haven’t you?”

And that’s it. That’s when you feel the hot sting behind your eyes finally overflow. It’s a word that’s you’ve become well-acquainted with these past few months but to hear it from his lips is... The tears slide backwards down your cheeks, rippling the pond but he doesn’t notice. Or if he does, maybe he pretends they’re of pleasure. If only you could follow suit.

He takes two almost-unbearably deep strokes and then, suddenly, you’re empty. He’s gasping, surprisingly undone as his hand slides frantically on his own cock. Sticky cum soon splatters all over your stomach, staining your skirt with his conquest. Panting, he looks at you through loose strands of blonde hair and doesn’t pull away. Instead, he leans forward. For a moment, you forget yourself and expect him to kiss you. Instead, he hauls you up from the brink with a sweaty hand on the back of your neck.

“What? Want something else?” He snaps when he finds your puffy eyes staring at him.

You think about asking him if he’s alright. Maybe he would listen if you tried again, just once more time. But your body is sore, your thighs and core between them especially so. A lingering reminder that this is perhaps all you are good for in his eyes. Whore.

“No. Nothing.”

He stands, wiping dust off his sleeves, but otherwise not bothering to fix much of his wrinkled robes.  “Then you are dismissed,” he says, then walks off. Likely to his private quarters, the back entrance connected to this garden.

Alone on the floor, you curl yourself up and still feel the emptiness, a dissatisfaction. You hadn’t noticed it before, but a songbird has been singing, marking the terribly late hour. On a sigh with fingers trembling, you pull the scraps of your jacket around your nakedness and try to shield yourself from the wind.

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

Five times the Marauders came out to Mcgonogall and the one time she had to drag it out of them and the one time she had to tell them to...

TRIGGER WARNING: Internalized Homophobia

ONE: Sirius - (Asexual) Gay

Sirius storms into Mcgonogall’s office in third year, bruises on his body and fire in his eyes. He plunks himself down across from her and declares, “I’m gay, I hate sex, and I want to spend the rest of my life in love with Remus John Lupin.”

Mcgonogall, who had been reading up to this point, slowly closes her book as she raises her eyebrow.

“Is that so?” She asks, and Sirius nods once, sharply.

“I love him,” he says. “And he loves me. And I’m gonna marry him.”

Mcgonogall hums, opening her book back up and leaning back in her chair.

“Werewolves can’t get married, Mr. Potter,” she says, and Sirius glares.

“I will marry him,” he says, and Mcgonogall sighs.

“There is no doubt in my mind you will, Mr. Potter,” she drawls. “I merely mean you may have to do so illegally. However, if your recent trips to the school library regarding only books on the process of becoming an Animagus are anything to go by, I daresay that will not be much of an obstacle for you.”

Sirius shrugs, dropping his chin down onto his arms. “Guess not. Whatcha readin’?”

Mcgonogall sighs.

TWO: Severus - Asexual (Queer)

Severus starts hanging out in Mcgonogall’s office in most of his free time. She knows him well enough by now, it being fifth year and all, but she worries about his severe lack of friends. Barring Lily, he doesn’t hang out with anyone.

He’s draped across her desk on his back, legs and head hanging over either side and holding up a book as he reads, when she asks him how he’s doing. He shrugs.

“Fine.”

She digs a bit deeper - “I notice you only seem to spend time with Miss Evans. Aren’t you lonely?” Severus shrugs again.

“She’s the love of my life. I’m good.”

Mcgonogall sighs. She doesn’t ask any more questions, but after a few moments have passed, Severus speaks up.

“I really am fine, Professor,” he says, sending her a small smile. “I’m best friends with the girl of my dreams, I know the fact that I’m ace as fuck and queer isn’t gonna change that, and I know who I am. I’m fantastic.”

Mcgonogall rakes her eyes over his body, taking in his loose posture and defiant eyes and the skirt he wears nearly every day, and she shrugs.

“If you’re sure,” she says, and Severus lets out a small laugh.

“I’m sure,” he says softly. “It’s just one of those things, you know? A fact of life. James Potter is a prat, Sirius Potter and Remus Lupin are in love, and Severus Snape is fine.”

He trails off. “Just fine.”

Mcgonogall smiles at him. Severus grins back.

“Being normal is boring,” he quips, and it’s that moment that Mcgonogall starts to question his feud with the Marauders, because honestly they could all be incredible friends if they just got past their stubborn pride.

THREE: Peter - Bisexual

In fifth year he develops a huge crush on the new transfer student Maxwell Needles, who came from Beauxbatons and is now a Hufflepuff at Hogwarts. They TA at the library and Peter loves them, and, naturally, panics to Mcgonogall one day about it.

He’s sitting there, bouncing in a chair and fidgeting, when she blurts, “Just ask them out.”

Peter’s head snaps up, his wide shocked eyes fixing on her.

“What?” He whispers, and Mcgonogall sighs, shaking her head.

“Ask them out. Everything you’ve told me says you’ve got a solid chance.”

Peter flushes bright red, looking down at his hands and shaking his head.

“No, no. I… they’re so cool, Professor. They have magenta hair and they wear leather and spikes all the time and they just… they’re loud and rebellious and so, so out of my league.”

(In her head, Mcgonogall facepalms.)

“Oh please,” Mcgonogall says, waving her hand in dismissal. “You’re a Marauder. Besides, leagues are nonexistent. But if you really feel so badly, here’s the test they took last week.”

She hands him a paper, with Max’s name signed at the top. There are hearts doodled all over it with the initials P + M and the name Pettigrew-Needles? Needles-Pettigrew? Maxwell Pettigrew? Peter Needles? written all over it. Peter pinkens, but smiles, and hands it back to her, shaking just a bit less.

“Thank you, Professor,” he mumbles, a grin slowly taking over his face, and Mcgonogall waves his words away.

“Nonsense,” she says, smiling. “Anything to help my favorite bisexual rat.”

Peter groans. Mcgonogall grins.

“Now go. Ask them out.”

Peter blushes, but nods.

“Yes, Professor,” he mumbles, and skitters off as she looks down triumphantly at the test, scrawling quickly next to the O on it, Congratulations on your new Marauder boyfriend. Come to me for therapy when you need it :)

(Max beams brighter than the sun when Mcgonogall passes it back.)

FOUR: Lily - (Polyamorous) Trans FTM

Lily is completing some Prefect duties (read: paperwork) in Mcgonogall’s office in sixth year when she suddenly heaves roughly and stands up, shoving her way out of the room. Mcgonogall follows her, concerned, and finds her emerging from one of the uniform closets in pants.

She raises her eyebrow at the sight, to which Lily sighs and waves her hand.

“Do you have scissors and a big sweater I could borrow? Oh, and some paint?”

Mcgonogall purses her lips, but finds Lily the things she needs. Lily shrugs the sweater over her shoulders, drags her pink, blue, and white fingers all down her cheeks, and lifts the scissors to her hair. Mcgonogall’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ as she steps forward with an outstretched hand, her eyes wide as she watches Lily shear off nearly all her hair.

“Miss Evans,” she hisses, snatching the scissors back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Lily glares at her, running her fingers through her newly shorn hair and tugging down the hem of her sweater.

“Making myself Mr. Evans,” he spits, and stomps out of the room with his hands clenched into fists by his sides.

(Mcgonogall gifts him the scissors the next day, with the nonchalant explanation, “For whenever you need to cut your hair again, of course. Mr. Evans.”

Lily beams.)

FIVE: Remus - (Asexual) Panromantic

Mcgonogall has never met anyone who hates themself as fiercely as Remus Lupin does.

In sixth year, he starts to shrink further and further into himself, even distancing himself from Sirius. And then, one day, he slams his way into Mcgonogall’s classroom three hours after curfew and collapses into the chair in front of her desk, waiting for her to join him from her rooms.

“Mr. Lupin?” She asks. “What ever could possess you to -”

He thrusts his hand out, showing her a silver ring engraved with a black pawprint. Her mouth shuts like a vice. They sit there for a few moments in complete and utter silence until finally Remus mutters, “He wants to marry me.”

Mcgonogall purses her lips.

“I can see that,” she says, knotting her fingers together in front of her. Remus stares down at his hands in shock.

“He wants to marry me,” he says again, in marvel. “I’ve been pulling away from him because I’m a sexless werewolf who will end up whoring himself out on the streets after graduation because no person would ever reasonably hire me and I’ll probably off myself before I’m thirty and I’ve been pushing him away for three weeks trying to prepare myself for when he inevitably breaks my heart and instead he wants to marry me.”

Mcgonogall is readying to break down the mountains of bullshit that just sprang from her favorite student’s mouth when Remus looks up at her through teary eyes and whispers, “How do I take it back?”

Mcgonogall raises her eyebrow.

“Now why would you do that?” She asks, choosing her words carefully. “You were born to stand by Sirius Potter’s side, there was never any doubt in that at all.”

Remus shrugs.

“He deserves better than a piece of shit like me,” he mumbles. “My life has been a death sentence since I was five. I don’t want to drag him down with me.”

Mcgonogall feels her heart break in her chest. She doesn’t show it.

“Mr. Lupin,” she says, quietly. “I am quite certain he intends to lift you up. But if I may speak frankly, my dear - and I will whether you like it or not - that boy loves you more than I thought it was possible to love another human being. And Sirius Potter may be many things, but he is not an idiot - I am quite certain that he knew what being with you would entail long before he ever acted on his feelings for you, and I do believe that if you are truly to live such a life, not a day will go by he is not by your side living the same.”

Remus flushes. He fiddles with his ring, then shrugs.

“Thanks, I guess,” he mumbles, and stands to leave, never looking back at her. Mcgonogall simply nods.

“Oh, and Mr. Lupin?” She calls as he slips through the door. He freezes. She smiles.

“While your heart has the capacity to love all others, I’m not sure it will ever recognize a face other than Sirius Potter Lupin’s.”

As Remus flees, she catches just the last glimpse of his neck above his robes - scarred as ever, and flaming red.

ONE: Regulus - (Nonbinary Male) (Asexual) Queer

Mcgonogall comes back after rounds one night in seventh year (his sixth) to find Regulus Black asleep at one of the desks in her classroom. She shakes him awake, bending down to ask if he’s okay, and Regulus breaks into tears, burying his face in his hands.

“I’m queer,” he warbles. “I’m a piece of gay shit just like my brother and I don’t know what to do.”

Mcgonogall places a gentle hand on his back.

“That’s okay, Regulus,” she says, but he only shakes his head more violently.

“It’s not okay,” he rasps. “It’s not okay. I can’t be like that, Sirius is like that and look what happened to him -”

Mcgonogall opens her mouth to answer but Regulus just keeps babbling, trying to tear himself away.

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t. You don’t understand, Miss, I can’t -”

“Regulus Lupin,” Mcgonogall snaps, grasping his wrists. He freezes, going pliant in her hands at the name, and she stares deep into his eyes as she speaks.

“You are queer, and that is okay. Your brother is a kind, wonderful person who loves you more than life itself and is already making plans with his fiance to take you in once he’s of age. I may not understand everything, but I understand enough to know you can love whoever you want to.”

Regulus calms. He deflates, turning to putty in her hands, and she gathers him close, hugging him until Sirius, Remus, and James come looking for him.

ONE: James - (Polyamorous) Bisexual

While James Potter may be one of Mcgonogall’s favorite students, he is also the one she most often wants to murder.

In the last week of seventh year, he gets up on the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall during breakfast and shouts, “I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT!”

Naturally, everyone looks up at him, including Mcgonogall, whose hand is already on her wand. James pulls Severus and Lily up on the table with him, snogs Lily filthily and dips Severus into a kiss as Lily laughs, and then straightens back up and screams, “I’M SO FUCKING BISEXUAL!”

Sirius, obviously, decides the best course of action is to then scream, “I THOUGHT YOU WERE FUCKING EVANS!”

James turns bright red, Severus starts sputtering, Lily guffaws loudly and Mcgonogall gives all of them detention for the rest of their lives, though she has a particularly hard time getting James off the table:

“Get off the table please, you can’t be up there - DiD yOU jUSt cALL mE HOmoPhoBIC JAMES FLEAMONT POTTER COME BACK HERE SO I CAN FUCKING STRANGLE YOU -”

(Ah, Dumbledore thinks. Good times.)

[leohtttbriar]

please share le ghosts & your romeo and juliet! I've been enjoying it so much

le ghosts is actually just persuasion but ghosty and samtory and i'm just writing it slowly for the atmosphere of it all:

About once a week, often between laundry days, normally in a quiet moment, Tory would fight the ghost trying to suck the soul out of her mother. At least, that’s what she assumed it was trying to do. It was difficult to see, altogether—like the unstable air above a hot summer road. But Tory knew it was there.

It hadn’t been long after her mother had first been diagnosed that the haunting began. At first, it was just chills and the sound of glass cracking. Tory would catch the hairs of her arms rising and race to her mother, gripping her skin to keep the cold from snatching her away. Her mother assumed she was just getting anxiously clingy.

[...]

It was a girl—transparent and outlined in blood. She shimmered like a putrid flame. Bone fragments stuck out of her arm and chest. Her left leg was bent the wrong way. Her jaw was unattached—hanging by the tendons under her glass-like skin. One of her eyes was swollen and her hair was matted . She wore a short, blue day-dress, the color dripping across her body like dark, wet paint. Looking into her chest, Tory could see a dead heart dangling—tied onto a visible collar bone with a piece of twisted wire.

“Victoria,” the thing said, clear and deep, bass-boosted and rattling, despite the hanging jaw and the girlish look.

“Don’t touch her,” growled Tory, hands out. “Stay the fuck back.”

The creature tilted its head, creaking like a door hinge. “I mean you no harm."

Her unholy smell drifted across Tory’s face as she spoke, repulsive and burning.

“Not my name,” she said. “And I don’t care about me, freak. Stay away from my mom.”

“She’s on her way,” the creature replied. “Death will not harm her.”

“Yes it fucking will,” said Tory through her teeth.

“No. You see, I am here to ensure she returns her matter peacefully. I give you my word.”

Tory had no response to this. Hands trembling, she could only stand closer to her mother’s sleeping form, somehow undisturbed, and stare down the thing reaching for her.

“Step aside, Victoria,” it said.

“No,” said Tory, softly but firmly. “And that’s not my name.”

The creature tilted its head again. Then she stepped out of the shadow of the curtains, her glassy, clear feet sliding like ice over the carpet, letting the lamp light reveal her face.

She was more broken than Tory had initially gathered. Her dress and skin looked like they were on the edge of shattering. Blood dripped from where her bones broke through, the droplets landing on the floor, a shower of rubies before vanishing. Her beaten face was grotesque and porcelain and sad. Her uninjured eye was wide and implied a presence beneath. And as Tory took in the wavy brown hair, the white skin, and the weighty gaze, something clicked into place.

“Wait,” she breathed. “Sam?”

“Victoria,” was the reply from a half-smiling mouth.

god okay i wish i could finish the romeo and juliet sometime soon, but i'm actually extremely torn on how to end it. like, how faithful should the story be, is what i'm wondering. anyway, here's daniel and his mother talking:

“Ma,” said Daniel. “I’m in love.”

Lucille stopped trimming and looked up at him with a pinched forehead. “Daniel,” she said quietly. “Ali?”

“No, not Ali.”

She blinked and then put down her scissors next to the pile of lilies. Daniel met her regard as best he could. He thought of a road, the taste of strawberries, and yellow laughter. His heart was steady.

“Then who?” she finally asked.

“Johnny,” said Daniel, briefly smiling at the name despite himself. “Johnny Lawrence.”

His mom was the sort of no-nonsense romantic who had powered through an abyss of grief to deliver a magical world to her son. Throughout his childhood, she insisted on pretty things—on garlic and string lights and simple church hymns. She hung prisms in nearly every window of their home and would spin them as Daniel chased the smattering of rainbows on the floors and walls. Daniel could only ever pray for that kind of courage.

“Oh,” she squeaked, one hand coming up to her chest.

The room went watery as Daniel teared up. “Yeah,” he said.

[themoonandhersun]

thinking about

a no hundred year old war au where zuko goes the southern water tribe with his family, and he’s grumpy about the cold.

but he’s not grumpy about spending time with katara again. (he’s ten, she’s eight and they met two years ago.)

when they see each other, they get excited and bow traditionally, then give each other a big hug.

and of course, sokka and azula tease them about it.

they tell their siblings to shut up and walk off together.

zuko tells katara about the plays he sees on ember island. “i can take you to go see a play sometime, princess katara—but only if you want to, of course,” he looks at her, cheeks pink, fiddling with his fingers. “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“i would love to go see a play with you, prince zuko,” katara tells him, her cheeks pink too.

they make eye contact, and look away from each other quickly, their pink cheeks turning a bright red.

zuko and his family spend a few days at the southern water tribe, and zuko spends a lot of time with katara there, of course. he loves penguin sledding and watching katara waterbend.

(spoiler: he thinks she’s so cool.)

when zuko has to leave, she quickly kisses his cheek and tells him she can’t wait to see a play with him. zuko blushes hard and says he’ll take her soon.

he leaves.

they write letters to each other for months (and they send each other gifts on their birthdays like they always do), then zuko comes with his family again to take katara to see a play. kya and gran gran go along with katara, and they talk with ursa on the ship (hakoda is on a hunting trip with sokka during this time, but he knows it was gonna happen and is okay with it). zuko and katara spend time together on the ship, and he tells her he can’t wait to see the play with her.

a few days later, they’re on ember island.

zuko tells her that he should hold hands with her so he can show her around better (yes, uncle iroh gave him this tip) and katara agrees (she wanted to hold hands with him anyways). he takes her to their house on ember island and shows her around. he shows her where she’ll be staying, and she tells him how excited she is to be spending time with him on ember island.

(she’s only been to the palace before, not ember island.)

she asks about azula, and zuko says that azula is spending time with her friends and doesn’t really like watching plays anyways. but he assures her the play is really good and that if she doesn’t like it, that’s okay. (she jokes that it would be a bummer if she came all this way just to not like the play, and zuko laughs and agrees with her.)

they play together and talk together until they have to go to the theater. they don’t hold hands this time, but katara loops her arm with his. ursa, kya and gran gran sit by them, but not too close—they don’t want to disturb katara and zuko’s little date (even though they both insist it’s not a date).

zuko glances at katara throughout the play just to make sure she likes it, and he thinks she does. he asks at the end of the play (just to make sure) how she felt about it and katara beams. “i loved it! thank you for taking me, prince zuko,” she hugs him.

he pulls away and slowly shows her a bracelet he had in his pocket. “this is for you, princess katara,” zuko smiles timidly. “i thought of you, and i got it...um, for you. well, actually, uh—i made it. i know, i could have done better, but i just really wanted to make you something—“

“thank you, prince zuko. i love it, it’s so pretty,” katara giggles and nudges him gently. she points to her wrist, “so, can i—“

“um—here, let me,” zuko ties it around her wrist securely, cheeks red. it’s a black, cotton string with a charm on it: a silver crescent moon connected to a gold sun.

“do you really love it, princess katara?” he asks quietly, fidgeting in his seat.

“i do,” she nods and kisses his cheek. zuko smiles at her. “and...i may have made you something as well.”

his jaw drops. “wait, what? really?”

“yeah,” katara grins and hands him a bone dagger with blue handle and a fire carved into its side. she looks at him nervously as he holds the dagger.

she rambles: “you mentioned in your letters that your cousin got a really cool earth kingdom dagger and that you wanted one, so i—i made one for you. well, my dad helped me, but—“

zuko hugs her. “this is so cool, princess katara! thank you so much!” she hugs him back, both of them feeling butterflies in their stomachs.

they get up and join their family members, and they all go back to the ember island house. then zuko admits that he has another gift for katara. “wait here,” he tells her when they’re in the living room. he runs up to his room and runs back downstairs.

“here,” zuko whispers as he blushes and holds out a fire lily, “for you, princess katara.”

“oh—thank you, prince zuko,” katara whispers, grabbing the flower as her cheeks get hot.

(yes, she knows what a fire lily means.)

they hug again.

when zuko travels with her and her family on their journey back to the south (with ursa, of course), they bicker about cloud shapes (katara swears it’s a flower and zuko swears it’s a baby turtle duck) and when it gets to be night time, they argue about what a constellation is named.

“it’s the little penguin named tuka,” katara insists.

“no, it’s a baby dragon named eyala,” zuko shakes his head.

“no, it’s not!”

“yes, it is!”

“last person to the other side of the ship has to admit that they’re wrong!” katara calls out and they race to the other end of the ship, laughing as they do so.

they tied, then played a game of elements (the atla version of rock, paper, scissors. idk if that’s the name of it though?) to break the tie.

katara won. (and zuko didn’t mind saying he was wrong all that much.)

when they make it the south pole, and they hug, it’s zuko who kisses her cheek this time. “i’ll write to you soon, princess katara,” he whispers and pulls away.

“you better,” she whispers back, and watches as zuko gets on the ship. she waves goodbye until she can’t see him anymore.

they keep writing to each other.

but then, gradually over the course of a few years (she is eleven now and zuko is almost thirteen), zuko’s letters get shorter and more vague, and they don’t come in as often as they used to.

then he completely stops sending letters by the end of the year, and she remembers how, the last time they talked in person, he admitted to her: “listen, so—um, i don’t know what’s going on with my dad—but if i ever stop sending you letters, katara, please know i had nothing to do with it. you’re my best friend—and i’ll always want to talk to you.”

(then he placed his hand over hers, his thumb stroking her skin. “you’re my best friend, and...i love you, katara,” he whispered it like it was a secret. she whispered it back, and they hugged.)

(and they had a joke only written in their letters to each other—that she was his, and he was hers. she’s gonna be honest: she doesn’t remember how the joke started, but she knows she keeps it going even when he’s not around. mostly because she thinks about it all the time. he’s her zuko, her zuko, her zuko. she’s his katara, his katara, his katara.)

she’s very worried, angry and sad all at the same time. and she never liked ozai in the first place if she was gonna be honest with herself.

as three years pass, she doesn’t hear from zuko. once, she wrote to azula asking about zuko, and azula wrote back with a vague letter that gave no information on zuko. she tried two more times and got vague responses each time. (she gave up writing to azula after the third try.)

all she found out was that ursa left, and she had to find out through her dad.

but why doesn’t anyone know what happened to zuko?

she doesn’t want to think negatively, but she’s fourteen now, and if her dad knew anything about zuko, he would’ve told her by now. she often stares at the bracelet zuko gave her when she was nine. she was six when they met and they wrote to each other until she was eleven.

she misses him.

(a messager arrives and gives a letter to hakoda. he reads it in his office. he doesn’t know how to tell katara, but he knows he has to.)

hakoda goes to katara, and tells her gently that zuko was burned and banished by ozai three years ago, and she feels sick to her stomach.

her zuko?—burned by his own father?

and he could be anywhere in the world right now?

and he could be—

no.

she can’t think like that.

she tells hakoda that she needs some alone time. he hugs her and walks out the room.

she starts writing to her friend, aang—who has an air bison—and hopes that he’ll agree to help her find zuko. and aang is also friends with zuko.

(they can find zuko, can’t they?)

unfortunately, though, hakoda intercepts the letter (the messager dropped it, and it popped open, and he recognized katara’s handwriting.)

he tells her that she can’t just leave and they argue. kya was trying to be the mediator. it did not help.

katara attempts to leave at night on a boat, and sokka catches her. he tells her, “katara, you can’t leave—“

“—oh, not you too—“

“—without me,” sokka finishes.

katara looks at him, confused. “what? you wanna come along?” she notices he has a bag slung over his shoulder.

sokka nods. “yeah, why not?”

“okay, then, come on, sokka,” katara motions for him to hurry up and get on the boat. sokka gets on the boat and informs her that he left a note for hakoda and kya.

she grumbles something like, “whatever,” in response. (she’s still grumpy about the argument with hakoda.)

she uses her waterbending to make their trip to aang’s temple faster. sokka sleeps while she waterbends, and sokka rows the boat while she sleeps. and the cycle repeats until they’re at the air temple.

aang agrees to help them (he’s also very concerned about zuko after katara tells him what happened) and they all get on appa. aang says that zuko once told him that if he ever ran away, he would go to the earth kingdom. so they head to the earth kingdom.

“i think he mentioned gaoling,” aang tells them. “so let’s head there.”

they search for a few days.

and...

they don’t find zuko.

instead, they find toph, an amazing earthebender who didn’t want to be miserable with her parents anymore.

(basically, they went to an earth rumble, and watched toph fight, and aang was like, “she’s so cool, can she be part of our group?” and sokka was like, “if you can convince her to join us, sure, why not?”)

(by the way, sokka didn’t mean it.)

(he also didn’t think aang would do it—or that toph would agree.)

either way, they ended up with a confident, blind earthbender who ‘carries her own weight’ in their group. (at least she brought a bag full of money with her. they were already running low on funds.)

(sokka has a bad spending habit.)

(plus, him, aang and toph have big appetites for their sizes.)

(seriously.)

“i heard there was a good fighter in ba sing se with a big scar on his face,” toph tells them as she picks at her feet. “they say he’s a firebender. it could be this zuko guy you guys are looking for.”

“we can try ba sing se,” sokka nods. “especially since we don’t have any other leads.”

“i hope we find him,” katara mumbles, staring at her bracelet. she’s scared—because he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead. she can’t accept that possibility. “i mean, he’s been by himself for three years, and we just found out about him. he—i hope he’s okay.”

“well, you know how zuko never gives up without a fight, katara,” aang says to assure her and to lighten the mood, “after all, you knew him best out of all of us.”

“yeah,” katara smiles a bit. “he’s so stubborn—in fact, he’s more stubborn than me.”

“okay, let’s not go that far, katara,” sokka snorts. “because you are—nothing,” sokka whistles when katara raises a small water whip and raises an eyebrow at her brother. “i mean, i wasn’t—i was just—i think you’re great, katara,” he says quickly.

“i know i am. thank you, sokka,” katara laughs.

they travel for about two months (appa needs rest, he’s not used to traveling for so long.) they make a stop to omashu mostly because aang insisted it would be a good idea (and appa needed a break too), and aang’s friend, bumi, joins them in appa. (toph is more than delighted to meet another earthbender on her level.)

all of five of them head to ba sing se, bumi talking excitedly about ba sing se and the great deserts they have. and this, of course, leads to a discussion about food, and then—of course—everyone gets hungry.

so they have to stop and make camp, and katara goes to get some water for the rice, when she sees someone sleeping on the other side of the river next to a small fire, wearing a—a blue spirit mask.

her heart races.

a blue spirit mask.

it’s—that’s—that’s zuko’s favorite ‘love amongst the dragons’ character.

it couldn’t be.

could it?

katara puts the pot down. she doesn’t hesitate to swim over, with a water whip in case she’s wrong, and quietly gets out fo the river. katara gently shakes the guy awake, cautiously trashing her water whip in case she’s wrong.

the guy sits up immediately and draws his swords at katara. “what are you doing?” he demands. (her heart beats faster—that’s his voice. it’s his voice.) “do you—wait...katara?” he sheathes his swords slowly. “is—is that really you?”

“zuko?” katara whispers, tearing up. “it’s you. oh, spirits, it’s you.”

she bends the water out of her clothes, and moves to hug him, but zuko scoots away before she can touch him.

she frowns, hurt. “zuko, why did you—“

“i don’t want you to see—it.” zuko awkwardly adjusts his mask. “i don’t—you—i want—just...katara. trust me—you’re not gonna like...it. you’re not gonna like me.” his voice breaks with vulnerability, with sadness, and katara does her best not to cry.

how could he think that?

because—

she loves him.

“are you kidding, zuko? i’m your best friend. i’m always gonna love you,” she sniffles, and zuko doesn’t hesitate to hug her tightly. she hugs back, her head in the crook of his neck.

“i love you, too,” zuko tells her softly, holding her. “i missed you.”

“i missed you, too.”

a beat.

“katara, i’ll show you...my scar,” zuko swallows.

“are you sure?”

“yes, but—but i’m just scared. i don’t want you to think i—that i’m...ugly,” zuko confesses, “i’ll show you, and then i’m, um, gonna put the mask back on.”

“okay, zuko,” katara nods and gently pulls away from his arms. she misses his warmth already. it’s been too long.

she sits across from him, watching him patiently.

zuko’s hands shake as he takes off his mask, and puts it beside him. his eyes are closed tightly.

katara gasps softly as she looks at it. her zuko—he—it must have hurt so much.

she leans forward, and carefully cups his cheek. zuko tenses up, then relaxes. he leans into her hand.

“my zuko,” she whispers, fingers brushing against his scar.

“my katara,” zuko whispers back, opening his eyes, and placing his hands over hers.

“it’s not ugly,” katara informs him as his fingers curl around hers. “and you’re definitely not ugly. my zuko—how could you ever be ugly?”

zuko stares at her, almost as if trying to see if she’s lying, almost like he doesn’t...believe her. “katara, you can’t be serious,” he gently pulls her hand away, but keeps holding it as he grabs his mask with his free hand.

“i am,” katara says, eyes soft. “i’ve never lied to you before. can...can i heal it?”

zuko frowns. “it’s a scar. you can’t heal it, katara.” a beat. “but it itches, sometimes.”

“can i...?”

“you can.”

katara summons water around her right hand like a glove. she cups his cheek with her left hand, tilting his head to the side. zuko closes his eyes and katara presses her water gloved hand on his scar. she watches as the water glows, and feels the scar change, somehow. (yes, she wishes she paid more attention to her healing classes. she knew enough, but she didn’t know everything.)

when she’s done, she puts the water back in the river. “it feels...better,” zuko admits. “thank you, katara.”

“of course,” katara grabs his hands and squeezes. “anything for you, zuko.”

they smile at each other.

then katara remembers—“i still have to get the water for the rice!” she gets up and zuko looks at her, confused.

“i’ll tell you everything later, just—please,” katara reaches a hand out to him. “come with me, zuko.”

zuko nods slowly, and grabs her hand. he gets up, and puts his mask on. “okay, katara, i’ll come with you. after all, we still have a lot to catch up on, don’t we?”

“we do,” katara smiles brightly, holding his hand, and intertwining their fingers. they go into the river, and katara puts water into the pot.

then they head to camp, both of them smiling like idiots.

_____

this......got way longer than i originally thought it would. (it was supposed to be short and cute)

i promise i can do better than this though. i promise!!!!!

(i might write a fic about this now....but it would be different from this obviously)

also, you can thank @ pokidokies for making me think about baby zutara.

like, i was already thinking about them, and then i saw this on instagram—and oh my god,,,,!!!

i had to! express! my thoughts! i just had to!

baby zutara is just...something that can be so personal, you know?

follow her on tumblr and on insta! :D (her blog name on here is the same as her insta name!)

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Injured

A/N: Here is my entry into the wonderful @nebulablakemurphy ‘s 500 followers writing challenge! Congratulations again! I loved the prompt, it’s in bold in the fic! I hope you all enjoy! Thank you for letting me take part in your challenge! :) I know I’ve written something similar to this before but there are some differences and who doesn't love reading healing fics? 

Summary: Sirius is injured on a mission. 

Pairing: Sirius Black X Fem!Reader

Warnings: descriptions of injuries, a gross misuse of commas

Word count: 2.9k

Sirius slumps against the garden wall; holding a hand to his bleeding arm. He grits his teeth against the pain, resisting the growing urge to moan in pain.

A rogue spell had hit him after his cover had been blown on a mission. The Death Eaters he were following had been tipped off to his presence and retaliated from the first sign of his appearance.

It got nasty quickly.

Sirius had always been talented with duelling spells; practicing most of them on Severus Snape through his formative years at Hogwarts.

But twelve years imprisoned in Azkaban had made his reflexes a little rusty.

Sirius hisses, putting pressure on the wound to stem the bleeding. He wouldn’t be able to heal this on his own; he was already feeling woozy from the blood loss. The swears that leaving his mouth in response to the pain, would turn even the dirtiest of cheeks red.

He gathers what little strength he has left and enters Grimmauld Place.

-----------------------------------

From your place in the kitchen, you have a clear view of the front door. The minute Sirius left on his mission, you had sat down in that very spot and you wouldn’t move until he walked through the door again.

From your place in the kitchen, you see Sirius walk through the front door – face pale, arm bleeding.

He sags heavily against the wall; his face drawn with pain. You shoot up out of your seat, practically running the ten feet to him.

Your eyes take in the damage: a deep cut running down the length of his upper arm, and it was bleeding heavily. You knew then that his mission had gone wrong and he had been very close to dying tonight. Your heart skips a beat at the very thought; a life without Sirius would be like living with half a heart.

You smile as calmly as you can, “Alright, sweetheart. I think we’re going to need to sort this out, don’t you?”

“You’re not wrong, darling.”

You wrap an arm around his waist; supporting his weight as you walk down the hall to the kitchen where you could get him sat down.

“Harry?” You call; sitting Sirius down at the large kitchen table.

“Is he going to be okay?” Harry questions, his voice wobbling despite his best attempt to not let it. He had followed you out from his place in the kitchen; he had chosen to spend time with you to get to know you better as his Godmother rather than stay upstairs with Ron and Hermione.

“He’s going to be just fine, but I need to you to go find me some things okay?”

“What do you need?”

“I need a towel and a fresh shirt for Sirius too – a button up if you can find one. Can you get those for me please?”

“I’ll be right back with them.”

He disappears; you can hear his feet clattering up the stairs – in a rush to get what you asked for. You head to the kitchen, grabbing a pair of scissors from the draw before reaching for one of the many first aid kits hidden around the house.

“Sirius, I know how much you love this jacket and shirt but I’m going to have to cut off the sleeve.”

He groans; half from the pain in his arm and half from the pain of losing this jacket. “Babe, they’re my favourite.”

“I will buy you another, I promise, but I need to cut off the sleeve so I can heal your arm.”

You focus all of your attention on the man in front of you as you cut away the sleeve of his jacket. “How do you feel?” You whisper.

“In pain, but I’m coping.”

“Take a swig of this,” You say, handing him the pain potion kept in the first aid kit.

Harry returns with a towel and the fresh shirt for Sirius. You smile at him gratefully; you know he wants to stay, that he wants to make sure his Godfather is okay, but this isn’t something for him to watch no matter all that he’s been through at his age.

“I’ll come get you when I’m done, okay? He’ll be okay, Harry, I promise.”

Harry is reluctant to leave, but he looks at Sirius who nods slightly. “You don’t need to see this, Harry.” Harry frowns but he goes; no doubt going to tell Ron and Hermione what’s happening.

You turn back to the love of your life, “Right then Handsome, let’s get this sorted.”

“I love it when you call me Handsome.”

“I know you do. Has the pain potion kicked in?”

He nods.

It takes no time at all. You whisper ‘Ferula’ over the wound; watching as the bleeding stops and his skin knits back together again.

Healing Sirius was something you had become accustomed to over the length of your relationship with him. Through Hogwarts, he was known for getting in scraps whether they were physical or magical. And then through the first wizarding war with the first Order; healing him over and over again – he would trust no-one else. The second wizarding war was, so far, no different.

You and Sirius had always revolved around each other; as if planets in orbit. He naturally gravitated towards you and you blended seamlessly with the rest of the Marauders. For so long, you danced around each other. Touches would linger; smiles would be wider; longing looks from across the room when the other wasn’t looking. Sirius would look at you as if you had hung the moon and stars in the sky each night for him. You would look at him as if he were the sun personified.

Things changed in Sixth Year when confessions were whispered in the darkest corners of the library and kisses exchanged until thrown out by Madame Pince.

Eloping after James and Lily’s wedding was something that wasn’t planned, but Sirius had taken one look at you in your bridesmaid dress, standing so proudly next to Lily and decided that he was going to marry you. Through their reception, when friends and family were occupied with the couple’s first dance, Sirius pulled you in a corner where a private moment could be shared. His proposal was a whisper in your ear; your acceptance was an exhilarating kiss.

You were married just over a week later. Remus, Lily, and James witnessing the ceremony each with tears in their eyes.

The time apart from him was a pain that could not be described; how every day you rolled over to his side of the bed expecting him to be there, his hair mussed with sleep. For twelve years, you woke each morning alone, but you knew that whatever you were experiencing was nothing compared to Sirius’ experiences.

You didn’t think you would ever see him again, but he showed up on the doorstep one day. he had aged, but then again, so had you.

“It’s been an age, darling.” Were the only words he spoke to you before you pulled him in for a hug.

However, you quickly pushed him away at his smell. “I’ve travelled for days to see my wife who I haven’t seen for over a decade and you push me away saying I smell.” He states in disbelief as you pushed him towards the bathroom with a towel.

“Talk to me when you smell better, Black. I’ll be waiting.”

“You better be, Black.” The mention of your married name, a name you hadn’t gone by for years, had you biting your lip.

“What are you thinking of?” Sirius’ voice sounds, pulling you from your reminiscing.

You take in the scene before you: Sirius’ arm is fully healed, dried blood crusted around the pale pink scar.

You clear your throat as you reach for the towel and some antiseptic, cleaning the scar even though the risk of infection was now low, “I was thinking of us.”

“Us?”

You nod, “Our relationship from Hogwarts to now.”

Sirius chuckles, “No wonder you were so quiet. We have decades to go through.”

It took time to reach this point in your relationship. You had loved the man almost twenty years, but the time apart changed the both of you in ways neither one could imagine. It took time to relearn the quirks and habits of each other, but learn you did. You were both still surprising the other, but the one constant between the two of you remains the overwhelming love you feel for the other.

“Okay, let’s get you out of this shirt.” You start to unbutton to the first buttons to his shirt, the first of his many, many tattoos making an appearance.

“If you wanted me undressed, love, all you had to do was ask.”

You fix him with a flat, unimpressed look, “Sirius, that line has never worked on me nor will it. Now would you like to take off your shirt or shall I?”

He fixes you with a smirk, gesturing to his chest with his one good hand, “I’ll let you do the honours.”

“I married a ridiculous man.”

“But you love me.”

“But I love you, even if you do ruin your clothes.”

His top half is entirely bare now. You swallow at the sight of all of his tattoos now on display. Tattoos on Sirius were never a new experience for you, he got as many as he could the moment he left Hogwarts. It was hard to keep track of them all, however. Your eyes run over the date of your wedding tattooed over his heart; affection for the man in front your surging through you.

“You get your good arm through, and I’ll help with your bad arm and the buttoning up.”

He follows your instructions, and then follows your movements with his eyes.

“I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”

“The feelings mutual, Mr. Black.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Mrs. Black.” He drawls, a slow smile spreading over his lips, crinkling his grey eyes.

His shirt is soon buttoned up; tattoos covered save for the one decorating his hands. Hands which are now cradling your face and pulling you in for a kiss. One hand travels into your hair, the other remains on your cheek. You brace yourself on his thighs, smiling against his lips, enjoying the feeling of his mouth hot and insistent on yours.

It was routine after a mission, no matter who’s, to greet each other with a kiss. A reminder that you’d made it home, back to the other. A promise to never leave the other without a goodbye. It had been delayed due to his injury, but Sirius was making time up now.

Sirius pulls away first, yawning. You chuckle, “Come on, old timer. Let’s get you to bed.”

Sirius squawks indignantly, “We are the same age!” He tries to say more but he’s stopped by another yawn. The adrenaline and loss of blood now taking its toll on his body.

You tap his knee, “I think we should head upstairs to bed.”

Sirius nods, admitting defeat, letting you pull him up from his seat.

You help Sirius up the stairs to your shared room. He flops down immediately on the bed, careful not to jostle his freshly healed arm. He watches you flit about the room, tidying up dropped clothes and sorting out the dressers.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

“You’re tidying – you only tidy to this extent when you’re upset. Remember when Marlene died? I don’t think our house had a speck of dust for a month. So what’s wrong?”

You hold a discarded shirt to your chest; knowing immediately from the smell that it’s his. “It doesn’t matter how many times I do this, how many times I heal you, it will always be hard.”

Sirius’ face crumples, “Sweetheart…”

“Every time you head out a mission, my stomach churns constantly. I thought it would go after so long; after the first war but it hasn’t. Sirius,” You sob quietly, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Come on.” Sirius pats the bare space next to him, urging to lie next to him. He wraps his arms around you; his hand running up and down your arm in a comforting manner. You take in his familiar scent – cinnamon, cloves and sweet orange with a hint of tobacco that no matter how long he hasn’t smoked for, will always linger in his clothes. Your heart starts to calm from his smell and his actions.

“Darling, I will always come back to you. Even Azkaban couldn’t keep me from you. I’d fight tooth and nail to be able to return to you. They could send me to another planet, another universe and I would still come back to you.”

“Here you are, injured and you’re the one comforting me.” You mutter, drying your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt.

“It is interesting how we got into this position. But I don’t mind, my love.”

You chuckle, “How does your arm feel?”

“Entirely healed, thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll always fight for you too, Sirius.”

“I know you will,” He says, quietly.

Quiet falls across the room; the only sounds being the ticking of the clock and the synchronised breaths of the both of you.

You begin to pull away from the embrace, throwing your legs over the side of the bed. Sirius’ hand stops you, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to tell our Godson that you’re okay. He’ll be waiting for us.”

“Don’t go.” Sirius says, a pleading note in his voice. He wanted to end the night with you; holding you or you holding him, he wasn’t bothered. He just wanted to be near you; needed to hear your heartbeat after coming so close to never hearing it again.

“Sirius, Harry will be up all night worried.”

“Stay with me until I fall asleep.” Sirius whispers, not wanting to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in the room. “I’ll see him tomorrow, I promise.”

You shuffle on the bed, pulling the duvet covers over you both. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” You murmur, a hand running through his long hair.

Sirius remains silent for a while, enjoying the feel of your hand in his hair. He’s silent for so long that you think he’s fallen asleep until he asks quietly. “What are your plans after the war?”

“I’m not sure. You remember how it was last time? We made plans and they didn’t happen.”

“I’m not going anywhere this time though.”

You sigh, thinking it over, “I’d like to move back to the country, I think. Buy a cottage large enough for the three of us. I think I’ve spent enough of my life living in terror to deserve some peace.”

“The three of us?”

“Yes. You, me, and Harry. Look, he only has to return to his aunt and uncles for long enough for the protective charm to restore itself. For every other holiday, he’s living with me and you. I spent too long away from my Godson, it’s time I stepped up to the job James and Lily gave me.”

“So you want him with you?”

“He’s my godson too, Sirius. I love him just as much as you. I was also a part of the decision made by Dumbledore that night.”

Sirius relaxes further, if that’s possible at all, your voice lulling him close to sleep. “So a cottage?”

“A cottage. An ivy-covered cottage with a front and back garden where I can grow my own vegetables. We’re going to have a large kitchen where I can bake and you can cook, and hopefully teach Harry how to cook other meals than breakfast. It’ll have three bedrooms; one for us, one for Harry and one to be used as a guest room because I have no doubt that Ron and Hermione will be visiting us. Harry’s room, he can entirely decorate on his own – he can make the choices for it all. We’ll help, of course, with anything he asks us to, but it’ll be his own space where he can relax and be himself. And the centre of the house will be the living area which has nothing but warmth for those who want to sit with us. A place for our friends and family to come visit and not have any stresses while they’re there.”

Sirius’ breaths become slower and slower the more you describe your planned future for all of you. In no time at all, he’s snoring away – completely relaxed with a muscled arm thrown over your waist. You smile serenely down at him, your hand still running through his hair.

With your other hand, you grab your wand from the bedside table, casting the Patronus Charm to send a message to Harry – he’s okay, he’s asleep, come see him in the morning.

In the morning you would be woken by Harry, peeking his head into the room as you had forgotten to check in on him last night. You’d smile at him sleepily whilst holding a finger to your lips, nodding down to where Sirius sleeps – his head on your chest, legs thrown on top of yours effectively pinning you to the bed. But he’d be okay. He’d be completely healed. Sirius would wake more determined to get to that little cottage in the country.

For now though, you were happy to doze off with the love of your life in your arms, no longer injured and planning your future.

********

General (HP) taglist: @the-hufflefluffwriter @obsessedwithrandomthings @kalimagik @summer-writes @lupins-sweater @slytherinprincess03 @mischiefsemimanaged @soleil-amaryllis @masterofthedarkness @bforbroadway @chaotic-fae-queen @peachesandpinks @nebulablakemurphy @haphazardhufflepuff @siriusly-addicted-to-writing @firewhisky-kisses @deafgirltingz @kylosleftbuttcheek @heloisedaphnebrightmore @harrypotter289 @sprvpti @accio-rogers

Sirius Black taglist: @cheapglitter @fific7

[kandyrezi]

Anonymous said: How would the yandere gods of Okegom react to their darling attempting to escape??

(tw: descriptions of various torture methods.)

- : - : - : - : - : -

⌜etihw.⌟

It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve tried to sneak out and leave, the god expected something like this to happen but hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with it again – odds are someone would’ve seen you leave and you won’t end up making it very far from the observant eyes of a god. They would want to know where you are at all times for the sake of your own safety.

Surely enough, they would end up finding you stuck and tangled in a rose bush in the apple forest not far from the gray village. They would smile slightly and remark how clumsy you are, before making the bush disappear and untangling you from the stems. Seeing multiple thorns pierced inside your skin, they would heal those too, then ask how you managed to get here in the first place.

It was a little humiliating having been found like this, but you couldn’t lie and say you were just going for a walk, the god already observed your body language to know how you always looked away when answering with a lie. You stutter for a bit looking for an excuse before feeling the urge to tell everything like a reflex to vomit, that you were going to run away, how you couldn’t bear being constantly treated like a helpless child anymore!

Etihw is only quietly listening to your doubts and troubles. The god isn’t cruel to their lover nor do they have any desire to be cruel if it can be helped. They would instead apologize for their overprotective tendencies, thinking that their smothering must have driven you to run away. That won’t mean they’re going to let you go, or that they won’t continue doing the exact same thing as before, reasoning your behavior to be that of a rebellious adolescent you’ll eventually get over; given they were literally ancient, it isn’t too far off from the truth in their eyes.

“I only want to keep you safe with me, I won’t harm you… don’t you trust me?” They basically guilt-trip you into staying, saying how they simply cannot function without you by their side. The fact you felt mild guilt over it just makes it easier for them to deal with next time.

⌜siralos.⌟

Siralos sees this as an ultimate act of betrayal – he took you in and gave you a lavished life in exchange for your loyalty and undivided adoration, and this is how you choose to show your gratefulness, by spitting on his affections and stomping on the fidelity he was willing to grant, a privilege only to be dreamed of by others.

You’ve betrayed his trust and he sees no reason to take you back. Second chances are practically unheard of from the volatile sun god.

If you really did love him like you claimed (were manipulated) to, then you wouldn’t have done this, but you’ve shown your true colors and you will be dealt with accordingly.

He’ll make you pay for this, probably by ending your life. He’ll have one of his angels find you and drop you like discarded garbage in front of him as he stands above you, sneering at the sight of you. You’re trembling beneath his feet, daring you to beg for forgiveness in one last moment of mockery - not that he is going to listen, but he will revel in it by having the last laugh once you take your final breath as you’re stabbed through the heart, reminiscent of the heartbreak you caused him with your disloyalty.

...then kicking away the remains of your ashes in disgust and will remember you as nothing more than a fleeting fling to pass the time.

⌜elux.⌟

It’s obvious they’re not going to take very kindly to it. Elux would give you a chance to come back to them voluntarily, or the punishment they’re about to dish out will be much worse. Luckily for them, you’re struggling to decide on what to do, but are ultimately compliant and wise enough to realize you won’t have much chance trying to run from a god.

They don’t like getting their hands dirty if it can be helped though, so they order their seraphim angel, Sol, to give you a couple of ‘marks’ as reminders of what happens to those who defy them. By which, they mean having you tied to a post with limbs immobile and the seraph angel leaving deep lacerations and bloodied cuts across your skin with her sword. She doesn’t look disturbed in the slightest as she’s stoically carrying out her god’s orders without a complaint.

Elux probably gets off on humiliating you in front of their angels, though they’ll just claim it’s for the greater good and pretend it’s something they’re simply ‘forced’ to do to keep you in line. They won’t even have to force you to apologize – you’re already doing it on your own free volition with whining and crying for them to order Sol to cease inflicting harm on you.

The seraph will be tasked to carry you to Lord Elux’s quarters without a word, where they can take care of you afterwards and patch up your wounds, caressing their hands over you in almost a loving manner.

“Oh, just what would you do without your god to make everything better again?” they ask in a soothing voice. You don’t know how could the punishment possibly have been worse if you hadn’t come back voluntarily, or if it would have been the same no matter what you’d chosen to do, but you don’t want to think about that right now.

⌜fumus.⌟

If you know what happened to Nadine when she left, but then Fumus found her later anyway, then you already know how you’re going to end up. If you didn’t already catch the hint from his other angels who disobey or go against him, then you’re either a foolish fool or took whatever scraps of bravery you had left to try and find a safe haven in some other world – it matters not because Fumus isn’t about to let his possessions do whatever they please without his knowledge.

He starts with pulling your teeth first, maybe slicing your tongue so the back of your throat is filled with blood as you fervently choke on your apologies. You’re nailed against the wall as his favorite pair of scissors leave deep patterns of bloodied scarring in places he knows hurts the most while you wail helplessly, wishing you could go back to when you first asked the other angels for help escaping, if only you’d listened to them when they told you not to try.

You’re defiled by him from both inside and out as you’re forced on the ground while he fucks you until he’s certain you feel filthy and used up – just how he wants you.

“Now... is there something you’d like to say to me?” he forces you to thank him after all that for being merciful and keeping you alive for trying to betray him, and you will do exactly that.

He leaves your naked body laying there on the cold cement floor for a good while to lap at your own wounds. You don’t know when he’ll be coming back... it could take hours up to several days, you barely find the strength to count them out at this point.

⌜liliya.⌟

Similarly to Siralos, Liliya would see your actions as an act of betrayal, and not in fact a desperate attempt of escaping the chains he has you metaphorically tightly confined with. He thought the two of you had grown close and you’d begun to accept his affection for you – clearly, he was wrong. He will find you - you breathe for him, how can you even think about leaving the love of your life, he thinks to himself.

As big of an egomaniac he is, his emotional state is more unstable than Siralos’ and that’s the main point differentiating the two of them when it comes to his reaction regarding you trying to leave.

Despite his selfishness and inability to see faults in his own actions, Liliya is lonely and he does see you as the most important person to him, for that reason he doesn’t want to just disregard and replace you with anyone else, even if he very well could.

He’s less likely to lose his temper with you, though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have short-lasting patience if you keep pushing his buttons. He attempts to mask his anger, but it’s still blatantly obvious when he tells you, “I’ll clip those wings of yours, so you can no longer fly. You keep forgetting who your superior here is, little lily.”

His threats aren’t empty and keeps his word; he breaks the bones of your wings from the first joint, assuming you’re an angel – but breaking any other part of your body isn’t out of the question either. He promises that next time he won’t be so merciful of your mishaps.

- : - : - : - : - : -

( a/n: the reason why I put this request out so fast is because I already had this pre-written in advance lol since I intended for this is to be a sister headcanon post to the devils one i wrote! so thanks anon for giving me the excuse to finally post this. )

[nc7dr3am]

“can we call 119?”

lily loved performing.

she decided that, musically, we boom was her favorite album. she had become a lot better at dancing with extreme amounts of practice- enough to worry her members at some points.

they were in the middle of promotions and recording for a music show. lily felt very alive during that performance in particular.

the bridge came and she was singing her high note that went with renjun’s when it happened.

it wasn’t even the most complex part of the dance. which made it even more embarassing when her ankle snapped.

there was an audible hiss of pain into her microphone and she heard fans gasping. her eyes filled with tears. she would not look down at her ankle, she told herself. she needed to be professional and keep performing as best as she could.

but the pain was excruciating. she opted to put as little weight on it as possible, silently thanking her stylists for giving her pants and heeled boots that day so fans couldn’t see if anything was wrong. she could hardly move her foot and she was sure she looked terrible. she was relieved she didn’t have any singular lines and the song was almost over because she didn’t trust her ability to sing.

she caught the other dreamies concerned looks, despite keeping their presence and performances intact. the song ended, and she nearly fell over, saved by jeno quickly rushing over and scooping her up before taking her off stage, the other dreamies following and removing their mics.

“oh my god,” jeno breathed, sitting her down on a chair and managers quickly rushing over. by then, the tears were flowing and she was cursing under her breath.

“why did you keep dancing?” jaemin scolded while her manager tried to attempt to remove her shoe. she cried out, reaching for renjun’s hand and squeezing it tightly.

“it hurts so bad,” she whispered, trying to hold in her impulse to scream. “p-please stop trying to take it off. can’t you cut it open?”

chenle ran to find scissors from their stylist, returning almost impossibly quick.

she almost retched when she saw the improper angle of her foot. it wasn’t as bad as some she had seen, thank goodness, but it wasn’t the most pleasant sight.

“can we call 119 now?” she asked, not realizing her other manager was already doing just that.

“they’ll be here soon,” chenle assured her.

“of course this would happen to you, clumsy,” hyuck joked, trying to lighten the mood. she almost smiled, but it hurt too much.

she suddenly flushed when she realized how tightly she was holding renjun’s hand, letting go and apologizing.

“no, it’s okay,” renjun told her, picking her hand back up.

jisung looked like he was about to cry. “does this mean you can’t promote with us anymore?” he asked.

she hadn’t even thought about it. fresh tears started to flow.

“jisung,” jaemin chided. “don’t worry her even more.”

“no, it’s okay sungie,” lily told him, reaching for his hand and squeezing. “i don’t think i will- but let’s try to keep positive, yeah?”

she knew it was pointless to hold out hope, but she also knew how emotional jisung was. so she kept hold of his hand, squeezing it again for reassurance.

“hey,” renjun began, drawing her attention back over to him. “no matter what happens, just know we are never complete without you.”

for once, no one really knew what to say- not even hyuck, who was always intent on lightening the mood.

lily giggled out of nowhere.

“what?” jeno asked, confused.

“힘들면 불러도 돼너의 one-one-nine,” she sang, albeit strained, which made them all laugh pretty hard.

when the ambulance came, it was decided that none of the members would join lily- causing a lot of anger.

“why can’t we go?”

“she’s our member- we have to go and make sure she’s alright!”

“you can’t not let us go!”

“this is crazy- we’re going.”

lily frowned. “guys, please,” she whispered, weakly. “it’s okay, manager unnie will take care of me,” she referenced their favorite, most kind manager who was close to lily in particular.

they attempted to protest, but she cut them off.

“look, you all know as well as i do that i won’t be able to perform with you all for the rest of promotions. but you need to stay for the rest of the show, okay? for me. hopefully we get a win- mention me in the thank you, okay?”

they all looked emotional, but nodded, not able to say much.

“you can come when it’s all done, okay? don’t worry about me. i love you,” she bid them farewell as the ambulance took her away.

once alone with her manager and the emergency staff, she began crying harder than before. a piece of her heart had broken, knowing she would be left out promotions.

her phone buzzed with a text.

shining star lele: we’ll be there as soon as we can. i hope it doesn’t hurt too badly- i love you, and i’m sorry. remember that you’re my best friend~~

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 7

Once more, I arrive, with Midnight Striga in tow!! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Boyd was utterly bored. Groaning, he slung his knife, Radical Chop, over his shoulder, lightly kicking the twitching corpse next to him, one of Reticulus’ leftovers. Those were never fun to deal with, ‘cause they were already dead! What was the point of a killer guarding a corpse, instead of, you know, killing? Eh, maybe he could practice his mutilations, he had been getting a little rusty in that regard. Humming to himself, he slung the ragged body beneath his feet into an upright position; a girl from the looks of it, brown hair styled into three rings on the top of her head, her left eye gouged out, and missing her tongue. Glancing down he saw that her heart and stomach had been extracted. By his estimate, he’d say she was about 12, verging on 13. Ah man, he could’ve had such fun with her!

Sighing, he twirled his knife before pointing the tip towards her. The knife lengthened, stretched, and bent, contouring around the edges of her face, slowly and cleanly skinning off the layer of tissue. If only that eye wasn’t missing, then he could’ve added it to his collection! Ah well, better luck next time. While he was seemingly distracted, one of the nearby Witches decided to make a break for it, a boy whose hair covered his eyes and possessed rather bat-like ears. Without even glancing his way, Boyd’s knife shot out like a bullet, cleanly slicing through his throat in an instant. He didn’t even have a chance to scream, how boring!

“Stupid Witches, can’t even die properly.” He grumbles, flicking the boy’s blood off of his precious blade. “Stupid Reticulus, never leaving any good corpses to slice up.” He briefly wonders again as to why, exactly, he was being stuck with this stupid job. He was one of the Squadron’s best killers, so why were his talents being squandered? He mulled it over in his head, knife idly slicing through the girl’s corpse, when a creak drew his gaze forward. As the reason finally clicked, he deadpanned. He was being used as bait, and as a test; great.

Three kids stood in front of him, staring at him like he was some kind of fucking monster; to be fair, he was one, no doubt about that, but it was always so annoying when people looked at him like that. He briefly contemplated trying to figure out which one Reticulus wanted to test, but decided it would be more fun to just kill the little shits. Not like they really mattered anyway. The chunky girl with the glasses started doing that stupid circle thing they did to cast spells, can’t have that. His knife shot out, smoothly slicing through her wrist and across her face, stabbing through her eyes into the brain.

Before the other two could do more than widen their eyes, he struck again. His blade ripped through the neck of the Mint-headed girl, and wasn’t that a color, sending her head rolling. Before the smaller boy could even scream, the knife slammed through his skull, entering through one ear, and exiting out the other. Scowling, he called Radical Chop back to him. No trouble at all, not even worth the effort of being clean. He sighed, only for a familiar, sharp pain to rush through his body; he had been stabbed. Glancing down, he was both surprised and not to see a dagger driven into his gut, the angle allowing for it to be dragged into his other vital organs easily. He spoke up, perfectly calm in the face of his death. “You can drop the invisibility now.”

As the air next to him rippled and faded, he was pleasantly surprised to see another kid, her face carefully blank save the familiar rage in her eyes, the kind he saw in all the kids who saw him kill their friends. He smirked. “Gotta say, pretty cold of you to throw your friends into the grinder like that.”

The girl snorted, calling over her shoulder. “Gus! Drop the illusion.”

“Got it!” A young voice called out, the corpses of the kids fading along with the blood coating his precious blade, the kids from before shimmering into view, ready to pounce if things turned dicy for the kid stabbing him at the moment.

Boyd snorted. He had underestimated them. He gave the girl who had effectively killed him a smirk. “So, you’re the little rat Retic wants to test, eh?” He laughed at her furious expression. “If you’re looking for him, he should be up ahead, going over the latest batch of bodies. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Before they could blink, he whipped his blade, his beautiful Radical Chop, up to his head, driving it through his own skull.

Gus gagged, while Amity and Willow looked on stoically. It was certainly an improvement over Gus actively heaving and the girls shouting. It was to be expected, as this was the fifteenth kill by this point, though they had only gone for the stealth option when they saw how quickly he had killed that Witch trying to get past him.

Amity glanced down at the Witch the man had killed. She recognized him. “Hey, I think I know this one.”

Luz walked over, glancing down at the bat-eared boy, curious. “Really? Who is he?”

Amity shrugged. “I honestly don’t know him personally, but Skara was interested in him a little.” She sighed, knowing that she’d have to deliver the news to her friend. “I really hope she takes this well.” She glanced up at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder, seeing Willow giving her a comforting, if hesitant smile, which she returned.

Luz sighed. “Let’s go, we’ve still got to take down Retic if we want this to end.” The others nodded. Bracing themselves, they moved, ready for the fight to come, or so they thought.

Eda moved to Lily’s side, shaking her roughly. “Come on Sis, we don’t have time for this!” She cried, frantically gesturing to the crowd under attack. She bit her lip, tilting Lily’s head up. “Listen, Sis, I know we usually don’t see eye to eye, but if you can’t get out of your head, that crowd is going to die.” She thought she saw a flicker of light in her eyes. “You always said you wanted to be in Bonehead’s Coven to help people, well now’s your chance to prove it! Those people up there? They came here to see you, because they believe in you! Are you really going to let them down!?” She got down on her knees, pleading. “Sis, I need your help, as painful and ridiculous as it sounds, it’s the truth! Please!” She glanced back at Rudolph, who had paused, enjoying the show. The bastard was enjoying watching her beg for her sister’s help.

Rudolph snickered, and laughed. “It truly is amusing to see! Earlier, I had lamented your decision to keep the wretched thing alive, but I see now that I was wrong!!” He cackled, relishing the look of enraged confusion on Eda’s face, even as the crowd desperately fought to survive.

“What in hell are you talking about, you psycho!!” Eda growled, bracing herself to defend if necessary.

Rudolph gave her an ugly smirk, oozing amusement. “Simple. You may not have killed her body, but you certainly killed her spirit! She’s lost the will to live, I’d say!” He cackled, soaking in the look of dawning horror on Eda’s face, the soul-crushing realization of what her display had done, even if she couldn’t comprehend how.

“No.” Eda breathed out, slowly walking away from Lily. “That wouldn’t happen, not with her! She’s too strong for that to happen!”

“Is she?” Rudolph mused, genuinely curious. “Everything we’ve gathered has pointed to a woman with a rather fragile ego; seeing her baby sister showing her up once again must’ve been quite the shock.” He was amused at Eda’s denial; for all she claimed to be the strongest on the Isles, a statement not totally devoid of fact, she seemed to be a tad oblivious to the fortitude of those around her.

“Gathered…” Eda muttered, her eyes widening. “You’ve been spying on her!?”

“Oh her, the schools, the government, you, everyone really. We carefully staked this out ever since we arrived.” He placed his hands on his hips, looking pleased with himself. “I must say, we certainly displayed an impressive amount of restraint, building all of this up.” He shrugged. “Normally, we just come and kill everything and everyone we come across. It was quite the learning experience!”

“You…” Eda growled, pure hate coloring her voice. “Just who do you think you are!?”

“Why, my dear, I think I’m the one leading the attack on your people, at the moment at least.” Rudolph cheekily replied. “After all…

“... We are the ones who hold the power in this situation.”

Mattholomule silently cried behind a stand, the crazed laughter of the maniac out front still ringing in his ears. He had just seen a woman torn limb from limb by flying chains, her organs and blood splattered all about. Bria sat next to him, biting her lip, while Gavin and Angmar played Rock-Paper-Scissors to figure out what to do. That choice was taken from them, however, when a chain yanked Bria out of hiding, prompting the three to scream in fear.

“It is simply the way of the world, after all. The powerful thrive, the weak die. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Emira held in a curse, while Edric hyperventilated next to her. Two squads of the invaders had just finished corralling a group of kids into a corner. She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the screams, Edric silently crying next to her, as the Mages ripped the children apart in a hail of magic. Glaring daggers at the murderers, Emira paused, a plan coming to her. Whispering to Edric, who nodded firmly in agreement, the two slunk into the shadows.

“Why, it is only natural for those with power, namely us, to do with it as we- HURK!”

Reticulus loomed over a potential donor, their limbs spread by his veins, dislocated from his body and acting as ropes to bind and restrain his target. He licked his lips. It wouldn’t do for the fools to potentially damage his prize with unnecessary struggling, now would it? Just as he reeled back to rip his prizes from the worthless husk before him, his body registered the sensation of a blade digging into his arm.

“Just shut your fucking mouth.” Eda warned, the butt of her staff slammed into the sadist’s gut. Seeing his hands take on that icy glow, she raised her leg, slamming him back with a kick to the chest. “You don’t know anything about the people of the Isles!” She shouted, her eyes spotting Bump summoning some Abominations in the stands, directing them at Rudolph’s troops.

“You think just because you’ve got a lot of power, you get to throw it around, and we’ll just take it?” She countered his frost with a fireball, landing a cracking blow across his jaw. When Rudolph slammed his hands against the ground, summoning an encroaching sheet of frost, she ripped it away with a shockwave of magical force.

“Your resistance to the inevitable is growing irksome!” He yelled, forming a fang of ice around his hand, lashing out at Eda. She blocked his blow with her staff, grunting as he forced her back. Spines of ice formed along his arms, stabbing towards Eda. “Your people are a pack of sheep, blindly following the words of a false prophet in their inane desire for safety!!” He encased her wrists in ice, preventing her from casting, before slamming his forehead into her eyes. “You may well be the strongest on the Isles, but that title is as hollow as their leader’s words!” He slashed his blades at Eda’s sides, a cry of pain ripping from her throat. Unbeknownst to either combatants, Lilith twitched at Eda’s cries.

“I…! Have stood on my own two feet… my entire life!” Eda choked out, hands grabbing at the claws currently pinning her in place. 

“I do what I want to do, nothing more… nothing less…!” 

Bria screamed, feeling the skin of her arms and legs stretching from the chains pulling her in either direction. The pain was like nothing she had felt before. Angmar and Gavin were being pinned in place, metal blades pushing into their hands to keep them from casting. She was… she was going to die here. Tears came to her eyes at the thought.

The maniac tormenting her gave a demented giggle, gesturing for the chains to rip her apart, once and for all.

“Stay away from Bria!” A young voice shouted. The agent turned in shock, his casting forgotten, as a fist as large as his torso careened towards him, pulping his skull. Standing defiantly, was Matty, tears of rage in his eyes.

“But for all that I hate Bonehead… I love the Isles… and the people who call it home…!” 

With the plan prepped and ready to go, Emira glanced towards Edric. Grimly, she nodded, with him flashing a thumbs up in response. In perfect sync, the two yanked on the cords they had set up, releasing a colossal explosion of smoke into the groups of killers. Working in concert, the twins cast a spell onto the two groups. When their vision cleared, both groups saw the other as a squad of Coven Guards. Reacting to the apparent enemy, the two sets of invaders unleashed their magic upon each other, and in a matter of moments, all were dead. The twins dropped the spell, clutching each other in relief.

“So if you think I’m just going to stand back… and let you kill people because you feel like it… then you’re even crazier than you look!!”

With a scream of rage, Luz drove her blades into Reticulus’ eyes, while Willow used her vines to rip free the near-victim, Amity conjuring up her Abomination to cushion the fall, Gus using his Illusions to guide the way to the exit. Using his broad back as leverage, Luz pushed herself off of his body, landing in a crouch near the others, eyes glaring daggers at the hulking monster before them.

Rudolph scoffed, his humor long gone. “And did you forget that my magical frost builds up and hampers you further the more of it you are exposed to? Hmm?” He accused, eyes narrowed in contempt.

“Nope!” Eda gamely replied. “I just decided I hated the look of you more than I was afraid of dying against you.” Her cheeky grin turned daring, eyes bright with challenge. “Even if I die, I’ll have died fighting for my freedom. Give me your best shot, you two-bit bully.”

With a roar of rage, Rudolph reared back his arm, fully intending to skewer the arrogant Witch who dared to challenge his might! His eyes widened in surprise, however, when his attack clashed against a raised staff, brilliant aquamarine eyes glaring at him.

“Stay. Away. From my sister.” Lilith hissed.

[kaidans-alenko]

so @maskydoolovesmasseffect made a post about a Kaidan doll and mentioned the possibility of renegade shep using it as a voodoo doll and I play as a renegade shep so naturally I opened my mouth in the tags and as a result they encouraged me to write this and I aim to please lol so here ya go, I hope you like it I know I enjoyed writing it.

You could easily call this a crack fic, probably wouldn’t be far off also Shepard and Kaidan are married because I said so <3

“Did you see spectre Alenko on the news last night?” Her husband’s name coming out of the mouth of another woman piqued her curiosity almost immediately. She wasn’t going to deny her jealous streak and even if it was just his last name it was enough to get her to walk inside to see what all the fuss was about and why some random woman was saying his name to begin with.

“I did! He’s so dreamy.” Her friend swooned as she gazed up at the promotional poster they had hung up.

“Isn’t he? I wonder if he’s single.” That set Lily off and she charged over, fully prepared to tear into them but the sight in front of her stopped her in her tracks.

"What the hell…?" A display full of new 'spectre Alenko' merchandise was displayed right next to the very similar display her and Aiden shared. It was absurd, there had to be better ways to raise money than to sell souvenirs with her husband's face on them right? 

Lily pushed past them coming face to face with dolls, posters and even a goddamn cardboard cut out. Now, she was well aware of just how gorgeous her husband was and couldn't blame the Alliance for exploiting it but the thought of random men or women walking home with and doing who knows what to a doll of him made her blood boil. She glanced at her own display, notably even more creeped out that most of the plush dolls of her were also almost gone.

Lily pulled the last one off the shelf and plopped it down right next to one of the many Kaidan dolls "No, no he isn't single." She said loud enough for the women behind her to hear as she snatched up one of everything, glaring at them before grabbing the damned cardboard cut out and dragging it along with her. 

She was most definitely shoving all this in Aiden's swanky new apartment, there was no way it would fit in the Normandy and if Kaidan saw it he'd more than likely make her return everything. 

After setting up her own personal shrine in one of the spare closets, complete with a flameless candle, seeing as Aiden didn't trust her with fire. She took a step back, admiring her handy work, Kaidan and her brother would both find it incredibly creepy but at the end of the day the credits all went to the war effort so if anything she had done a public service. 

Lily picked up the admittedly incredibly cute doll and hugged it, it in no way compared to a hug from the man himself but it would do. She looked down at it "Hmmmm…" setting the doll back down she climbed up on the step stool Aiden kept around for her a dug in her emergency sewing kit looking for a pin or a needle, either would do she just needed something sharp and a knife or scissors would do more damage than she needs, they also fell on Aiden's list of 'things Lily isn't allowed to play with' but that's besides the point. It was a wonder he let her have knitting needles. 

Hopping off the stool she picked the doll back up and examined it "Now...if it is a voodoo doll poking it's cute little plush head would be far too cruel." Lily looked between the pin and the doll's hand, with a shrug she gave it a quick prick not wanting to jab it in all the way if it actually did cause real damage to him. She doubted it though.

-------------

Out of nowhere Kaidan felt a sharp pain in his hand resulting in the coffee mug he was holding to shatter onto the ground, the hot cinnamon flavored liquid spilling onto the cold metal floor of the Normandy. Sighing, he bent down to clean it up. "I thought my sister was the clumsy one between you two." Aiden said as he grabbed some paper towels to sop up the coffee while Kaidan picked up the shattered bits of the mug, his favorite mug. 

"Yeah I don't know what happened, all of a sudden I had this weird pain in my hand."

"Pain?"

Kaidan nodded "Like someone stabbed me, it's gone now though." He said as he stood up to toss the broken ceramic pieces into the garbage.

"Good but do you know what caused it?"

"No idea."  Kaidan chuckled "maybe Lily put a curse on me or something."

Aiden laughed "If she's bored enough I wouldn't put it past her to learn witchcraft." They both shuddered at the thought "But let's not give her ideas."

---------

“Lily! Are you in here?” Aiden called as he walked in, she had some errands to run which was fine, he hadn’t really needed her for today’s mission anyway but he had expected her to be on the ship when he returned but she was nowhere in sight. 

“Uh yeah! In here!” she called back as she frantically tried to hide everything, she didn’t think he’d be mad but he would definitely find her crazier than he already did. 

“You had me worried, you’ve been gone all day so I-what are you doing?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Wha-what ever are you talking about Ai?” Lily tried to appear nonchalant as her back was pressed tight against the closet door, guarding it best she could.

He narrowed his eyes at her “You’re hiding something.” 

Lily scoffed “What? Aiden, I'm appalled, I've never hidden anything from you ever in my entire life.”

“Fine, then move.”

Lily blinked in surprise “Huh?” 

“I forgot my hoodie and it’s cold, move.”

“No.”

“No?” 

“I’ll grab it for you.” She said, turning around to open it but Aiden lifted her up by her underarms, placing her off to the side like she was a small child and with her height she might as well have been.

“Lil, what the actual hell is this?” His eyes didn’t know where to look. He knew she was a tad bit obsessed with him but they were married so that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he just never expected her to make a shrine. 

“Aiden listen I-”

“Where did you even get this stuff?” He asked, staring at the life size cutout, wondering how she was even able to get it home when it was a whole foot taller than her. 

“One of the gift shops was selling it for the war effort.”

“So you bought out the whole store?!”

“No!” she looked down awkwardly “I only bought one of everything…”

“And set up a shrine in my apartment for a man you’re already married to?”

 “We’re twins Aiden, we share everything so it’s not just your apartment.” 

“Not true also that’s not my point.” 

“Are you gonna tell Kaidan?” She looked up at him with puppy eyes, Aiden’s one weakness.

Aiden stared at her, he knew the right thing to do was dismantle it and tell Kaidan but his sister was too cute and he found himself unwilling to punish her like that. “No…keep your creepy shrine.” he said with a sigh.

“Yay!” she hugged him “you’re the best brother ever.” 

“No, I'm an enabler, I enable you.” He said despite the small blush that krept on his cheeks, glancing back at the shrine, maybe he and Kaidan weren’t far off about the witchcraft thing.

-----------

Lily lounged on the bed in the captain's quarters, humming to herself as she poked various parts of the doll, Kaidan walking in as she stuck the pin in his back “Ow, shit!” he exclaimed, arching his back slightly and instinctively placing a hand on the area.

Lily froze, looking at the doll then back at him “What’s wrong?” 

Kaidan shook his head “I don’t know, I just suddenly had this sharp pain in my back.”

“O-oh, I’m sorry babe, do you want a massage?” 

“I probably just pinched a nerve or something,” he said as he walked over to her “I felt the same pain in my hand earlier too but it went away almost instantly.” 

“How weird.” she played along as she hastily shoved the doll behind a pillow.

“I know, I should probably go see Chakwas later.” He sat down next to her against the very same pillow she shoved the doll under and she broke out in a cold sweat “is there something under the pillow? It feels like it’s propped up.”

Lily quickly snatched the mako figuring that sat above the bed “The mako is missing it probably just fell.”

“No...this feels softer.” He pushed the pillow to the side and found the plush doll of him laying face down with a pin in its back. Lily closed her eyes, lips pressed together, her head hung low “Hey Lil?”

“Yeah what’s up babe?” she asked, her voice slightly high pitched.

“What am I looking at right now?”

“A doll of you…”

Kaidan nodded “Uh huh, follow up question.” he took the pin out “why was this stuck in its back?”

“I was pretending it was a voodoo doll…”

“Excuse me?” 

“I didn’t think it actually was! I was just poking it for fun.” She said defensively, though the more she thought about it the more she realized how demented it probably seemed. 

“Right, well I’m getting rid of this before you accidentally cripple me.” Kaidan set the pin on the bed stand, grabbing the doll by it’s small plush arm and walking over to the door with it.

Lily hopped up, discarding the mako toy as she hurried after him, wrapping her arms around his waist to stop him, for as small as she was she had some incredible strength “I’m sorry, I won’t do it anymore but don’t throw him away he didn’t do anything wrong!” 

“Lily, it's still creepy voodoo or not.” 

“No he’s not he’s adorable!” 

“I broke my favorite mug because of this thing!”” He exclaimed.

“That wasn’t his fault!” She looked up at him, eyes glistening with tears “please Kaidan…”

The rational part of his brain knew she was without a doubt faking but if she wasn’t and really was this attached to a doll she only had for barely a day he’d look like a pretty heartless husband for tossing it.

“Fine...take it.” Lily detached herself from him immediately, a huge grin on her face as she took the doll back. 

“I promise no more voodoo!” She said as she held it protectively against her chest. 

“Where did you even get that anyway?”

“One of the souvenir shops had a whole display. I wanted to buy them all but had no place to put them.” 

“A display?”

“Yeah, apparently you’re a spectre and a marketing tool.” 

“That’s….great.” He was definitely gonna have to talk to Hackett about that.

“Now I can add you to my plush collection, maybe i’ll knit him a pink sweater so he fits in.” 

“Sounds wonderful honey.” He said, running a hand down his face.

She looked at him “Do you want one too?”

“I’m good, thanks.” He didn’t have a headache when he walked into the cabin but he certainly did now, Lily had a way of doing that to a person.

[rosevanhelsing]

Chapter 9

After Lily's card reading, Charlie got up, went to the fireplace, and said with his hands folded behind his back:

- Your sister will stay here ... since I don't want her to happily walk around here when she pleases and besides  you are depriving the poor creature of celebrating Christmas ... Believe me, she will be much happier here with us. Do not suffer Mary will call you very frequently and will sing Christmas carols for you with the rest of the children of the choir ...

- No! It can't stay with you! Is my sister ! I'm not going to let you ...!

And then she moaned in pain as an intense cramp tore through his ovaries. Manx turned and saw Lily doubled over in pain.

- As I told you, my dear, having that gift is a double-edged sword. You can cut the veil between reality and the world of thought, but you have to pay a price. It's different for each one ... I imagine yours affects your belly ...

- It doesn't affect my belly but my ovaries, you idiot. My period drops, very abundant, every time I use my gift!

Manx went to her, led her gently to a sofa and said giving her a cup of chocolate:

- Sit down pretty and have a cup of hot chocolate. This works miracles for women who suffer during those days of the month.

Lily pushed the cup away with a grimace of disgust, Charlie shrugged and put the cup on a table.

"Is there any way to avoid getting hurt from using the knife?" Lily asked.

- Of course. If you want to keep your gift and take advantage of it without being affected, you have to hurt someone or yourself, or you can give up your gift by destroying your knife.

Lily was thoughtful, Manx looked at her amused and said:

- Tell me, Lily Abertforth, what are you going to do? Oh, and what's going to happen to your sweet little sister? Keep in mind also that the power of your sister in the long run will also bring her pain and damage, who knows what kind ...

Lily said:

- No, none of this will happen to Mary. I will prevent it.

Manx gave a cruel laugh and said:

- How pure and innocent you are ... and that is why I am going to offer you a very generous deal ... I will let you both go but with the condition that you must destroy your knives and forget about me and Christmasland. But, from experience, I know that I cannot trust women, you are all treacherous whores and you would be very capable of breaking the deal ... so give me a proof of good faith before ...

Lily thought, she picked up her cards, looked at them for the last time and when she looked at the one with the Star she thought of that girl she had seen and thought:

- Whoever you are, I hope you are the Chosen One who ends up with this bastard!

Lily went to the fireplace with the cards and said as she threw them into the fire:

-I'm sorry Dad… but I know you would understand. You would want me and Mary to save me before anything else.

Lily noticed at the moment an intense headache and pain in her ovaries, she moaned  and lost her senses, Charlie picked her up in his arms in time before she collapsed on the floor and laid her on the sofa. While unconscious, Lily saw her late father bending over her and telling her.

- Honey, you have to flee as soon as possible from this damn place. He will kill you and then transform Mary into one of his sinister children and also he take advantage of her power.

-Father…

A soft laugh woke her up and Lily found herself lying on the couch. Manx said, paternally, as he passed a wet handkerchief over his face:

- Are you feeling better, young lady?

Lily jerked Manx's hand away, stood up, and said with fury and tears in her eyes:

- Was my proof of good faith sufficient?

-More than enough. So be it ... you can go ... but remember your promise, Miss Aberforth, destroy your sister's knife or I will come back for you ... and this time you will not leave Christmasland.

Lily glared at him, and at that moment there was a knock on the door, Charlie said:

- Your sister has already returned ... - Come in

Mary came in accompanied by Manx's daughters and hugged her sister.

- What happened to you?

- Nothing, that I got dizzy when my period dropped. I think we better get going.

- Ah, okay, we'll be back another day ... Look what they have given me - she said, showing her some extremely pointed scissors - they told me that when I return they would teach me a new game called "scissors for the drifter."

Lily's stomach churned, thinking of her father's message, warning her of Manx's plans with Mary.

-Mary, we're leaving now!

Lily got up and put the  housecoat  on a chair, took her sister by the hand and hurried out of the cottage. As they made their way to the portal, the children of Christmasland watched them brandishing weapons, and with those terrifying reddish looks. Lily squeezed her sister's hand and whispered:

- Mary, you must never come back here. We have to forget about this site.

- But why?

- Because it's bad, I already told you, and besides, Dad  appeared to me when I was unconscious and told me to run away. And Mr. Manx is not a good person, he has forced me to destroy my Tarot cards. Now hurry up.

Mary looked at her in disbelief but didn't argue with her sister at the time. Manx followed them to Mary's portal and watched as they passed.

"What do we do with them, Daddy?" Millie said, holding her father's hand. "Why did you let them go?"

- For them to trust ... Mary will surely return very soon, and then I will take her for a ride in our beloved car ... and perhaps I  will also bring her older sister in the trunk so that you can play with her "scissors for the drifter",  Lily she looks very appetizing, right?

The Manx daughters smiled and licked their lips.

The next morning:

Lily was totally convinced that her sister's Unicorn costume was her knife, so in order to destroy it she convinced Mary that her Unicorn costume had to be washed because it was disgusting, Mary reluctantly agreed. Lily told her sister to go to her best friend's house for a little while and then the two of them would go shopping for Christmas decorations because this year they were going to celebrate it like most people. Mary looked at her in surprise and joy, and asked:

- What happened to you? It seems that the ghosts of Christmas have appeared to you like Ebenezer Scrooge

Lily said:

- More or less ... - rather the damn Christmas vampire ,said to herself.

Mary left satisfied. Lily's plan was to make her sister's "knife" disappear, although she knew that it would break her sister's heart, but she also knew that in time she would recover. Also, if they celebrated Christmas like any other family, Mary would stop envying her friends from school who celebrated it in style, Lily concluded that this must have caused Mary to search in her dreams for a place to celebrate her by meeting Christmasland. So taking away her envy and convincing her that this damned amusement park was actually a dream would eventually make Mary forget about it.

Mary took out the Unicorn costume, brought it to the barbecue, and set it on fire to prevent Mary from retrieving it, unaware that Charlie Manx was watching her.

- Wow, with the little bitch, so it seems she knew what her sister's knife was ... let's check it out.

Charlie Manx followed Mary at a distance, the Wraith's radio was silent, he grunted in frustration and clenched his hands on the wheel.

- It's a shame, Mary had so much potential ... I could have taught her - He said - Now it is no longer useful to me and unfortunately she  does not appear in the Cemetery of may could be. Anyway, at least these two will no longer be an obstacle for me and they will not meddle in my affairs.

Lily's plan worked very well, despite Mary's initial annoyance  at the disappearance of her costume, but since she was still small  Mary  recovered it relatively soon.  And as her sister supposed, in a short time she considered Christmasland as a dream and eventually forgot it.

[brokentoasterrr]

okay look, sometimes you just need to crank out some angst in 30 minutes and post it even though you’ve already posted two fics in a day. it just. it be like that sometimes

(also please just ignore all inevitable errors it’s literally 7 in the morning and i haven’t slept yet and i just CRANKED IT OUt okAy)

kids with guns.

They were only kids.

Straight out of Hogwarts, forced to fight a war much bigger than they could imagine. It was surreal, watching how they grew from rebellious teenagers to grown adult in the span of a few weeks.

That was all Remus could think about as spell after spell shot past him. It occupied his brain as he tried to come up with spells to defend himself, spells to defeat the enemy. He tried to stay calm, to think logically and hope that this would all be over soon enough, but he couldn’t. All he could think about was that he was a kid. He was eighteen years old, fighting a war older than himself, fighting a war that witches and wizards five times his age hadn’t even gotten close to beat.

He was eighteen years old, watching as his best friends gave up on the pranking and the jokes, and suddenly became harsh and serious and shooting spells and Remus wondered how they could do it. He couldn’t keep a clear head for the life of him (quite literally, he thought bitterly) while James and Sirius duelled as if they were born to do exactly that and Remus couldn’t help but to wonder what the fuck had happened to them. What had happened to the bark-like laughs and the bottles of Firewhiskey and the comfort? When did it all get replaced with seriousness, when did every day suddenly become a life or death situation? When did they lose their lives and became soldiers in something they didn’t even want to take part in?

Sirius had come into their flat the other day, a pair of scissors in hand and his hair up in a ponytail. “Cut if off,” he’d said, handing the scissors to Remus. “I can’t keep it long. Just. Get rid of it.” And Remus cut it off, short and slightly uneven, and all he could think was What is happening to us? What happened to you, Padfoot? When did we get so… Serious? as the snip of the scissors almost echoed in the bathroom. As the locks he loved so much fell down on his feet, all Remus could do was blink away the tears, take a deep breath and hope. Hope that it would all be over soon.

They were only kids and they were fighting a war and Remus wanted it all to just stop, he wanted to go back in time but he couldn’t and it scared the shit out of him. He was terrified. Terrified as a jet of red swirled past him, eagerly replaced with green. Terrified at the “Run!”s that seemed to slip out of his mouth more naturally than a “Hello.” Terrified that he’d wake up tomorrow and everything would be gone. James and Lily, Peter, Sirius. Sirius.

Remus couldn’t stand the thought of losing Sirius. He couldn’t imagine a life without him and it was terrifying that he might had to start thinking about it. What he’d do when he wasn’t waking up next to his boyfriend, what he’d do when he wasn’t living, seeing, breathing, with him. Sirius was his rock, as chaotic and extravagant he was, he held Remus together. A reassuring glance as Remus shouted “STUPEFY!”, arms wrapped around his waist as he laughed for the first time in days, gentle fingers tucking hair behind his ears. Steadying, reassuring, stable, safe. Remus couldn’t think about a life without Sirius. Yet he had to.

Kids, eighteen years old, terrified that his boyfriend would drop dead at any moment. Kids, considering getting married right this second because they never knew when their last day was. Kids, defending themselves, their whole world, holding it up with their bare hands and they were slipping, slipping and they were kids and they couldn’t save everyone but they had to.

Kids, holding the wizarding equivalent of a gun, waiting, waiting to fire, waiting for the outburst, waiting to slip away.

Kids with guns, watching as their world was slipping and slipping and they couldn’t do anything. They could only live with it.