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pathofcomet · 5 years ago

Text

and it’s just around the corner

fandom: stardew valley

pairing: sebastian/player (female)

summary: She’s a fool – she tries to tell herself. There’s nothing she can offer Sebastian that would make him stay in this village he so obviously loathes. She’s just dumb enough to have fallen for the man she cannot even bring herself to ask to love her back.

rating: explicit // word count: 25k // AO3

She cannot remember the farm per say, just the proof that she’s been there once: a dusty, yellowed photo of herself, smiling in a pink sundress under the shade of a gigantic oak, 4 years old and beaming. She can vaguely bring back the savour of cranberry jam on her tongue, the authentic, slightly sour taste that only meant home-made. She thinks they had a gray cat, and she can feel the smell of gasoline in her nose, from the long car ride there as a child. That’s all she remembers about her grandparents’ old farm; and anything of that lifestyle is completely lost upon her, or her memories of her grandpa. They haven’t been crazily close either: she was busy pursuing her education too far away to allow proper visits, and the phone signal failed the old man too much to allow even constant communication. When he died, they buried him in the city, next to his wife, and everything about the way he lived his life became hazy and forgotten in the lives of the living.

Which is probably why it is so hard to comprehend what she’s reading now, in her cubicle at work, defeated under her 16th time this month of overwork. Her grandpa was known for being eccentric, which is why she expected to see a card with hey, we all die in the end! or something written on it, and not the dreams of her childhood offered on a plate to her. She stares at the paper, reads and rereads it for 7 times before she’s convinced it’s actually real.

She’s touched at the care in his words, at the oozing affection on that piece of paper. It’s something that she didn’t know she was missing until now. A care sent across generations, to reach her – and when she feels like she needs it most. She doesn’t know if she should scream or cry or laugh.

She looks around: there are only a couple of other workers left in the office at the moment, in the late hours of the night. There’s delivery food all across the others’ empty desks, and a few of the girls switched their shoes, from heels to sneakers. And yet, as she stops, the clanking on the keyboard never ends around her, and the neon light remain buzzing above her, the static noise of her real life nightmare. The sigh coming from a co-worker several seats away is deafening in her ears. As she’s writing her resignation letter, for her boss to find on his desk at the first hour in the morning, she can’t help but notice how her vision shakes, how she can’t quite straighten her back under the pain of hours and hours of being hunched at a desk.

It’s not even the irony of it all, dying in a storm of unfair overworking while those above her wallow in money, that upsets her more. But rather, the way in which she cannot have any satisfaction out of it anymore. As a graduate, she thought she’d find happiness in a corporate job that pays well, but now the comfort of money means nothing when she doesn’t have the time to even spend it, and she can’t even recall what her hobbies are, let alone when’s the last time she did anything else but work, do house chores and sleep.

She cannot recall the last time she met up with some friends, visited new places or ordered online something else but a new pair of heels or a new shirt for work. Gods, now that she hit the brake on her wreck of a life, she can’t stop noticing how pathetic she’s been.

Her hands tremble as she signs the paper, as she tosses her meagre office belongings into her bag, as she pushes the elevator button. She’s already overthinking the decision, but it’s already made and she can only worry about what’s to be done next now. She’s 100% sure she’s not made for this, she has zero knowledge of how to take care of a farm and she still screams when she sees a spider in her apartment. But she’s tired, there’s a tiredness that never seems to let loose, and no matter how much she sleeps on Sundays, she wakes up feeling like she has her hands and feet tied. Even if to only rest for a while, and the whole ordeal would still have been worth it.

Sleep doesn’t come easily to her that night. She reads the letter over and over again, she measures the weight of the keys in her palms, she tries to put puzzle pieces together, from old photos she brings up from hidden boxes. Nothing tells her she made the right decision, though in her old photos, everyone looks so happy while on the farm. Maybe she didn’t even truly get to the end of her patience, just a bad day, maybe she still could have taken it for a while. After all, it’s not like she had that bad of a life. But then, it’s not like it was that good either. And once she started thinking of it, the idea of change became hauntingly tempting. The potential in this new place is infinite, and so, so terrifying.

But a change nonetheless.

She spends the next couple of weeks in a frenzy: selling most of her belongings, keeping only the strictly necessary. She keeps the pictures, of course. A few books, only those that she read during university and she felt like they changed her life, though she hasn’t revisited those stories since. Maybe she’ll finally have the time to, now. She sells or donates all her office clothes, expensive shirts and bags – all gone, because they remind her of some kind of work she never wants to do again in her life.

When she stops to count what’s left, looking at her near-empty apartment, two suitcases and a backpack put aside, she’s overwhelmed at how pointlessly she lived her life up until this point. She has nothing to show for all the efforts she’s made, and she can feel the skin all over her body itch with the realisation, itch for something else to do.

She doesn’t look back, as she’s returning the keys of her rented apartment. She has been paying expensively for the chance to live on her own in the big city, and there’s nothing but bitterness towards that idea anyway. She waits in the bus station with music playing at the highest volume, drowning out an incoming panic attack – as she’s struggling to count up to 10, reassure herself that she’s a grown fucking adult and that she can do something as easy as just moving someplace new.

Still, the scenarios roll in her mind, unperturbed, and she almost throws up thrice before she reaches her destination – and then she almost throws up again, as she’s watching the bus pull away, leaving her alone in the middle of nowhere. The sun is bright, but too bright and her clothes are sticking to her skin, even if it’s barely early spring, and the air is fresh. A fairy-tale start to her new adventure, and yet she feels like crying right then and there, a fain headache booming at her temples from all the anxiety she had to push away.

She’s already exhausted and it’s barely noon. She starts pulling at her suitcases, though the road makes it a tricky and tiring job. Then, just as she’s ready to take her first break, a hand grabs the handle, and she stares up in the face of a kindly looking old man.

Mayor Lewis; she still remembers the face, as he is the kind of person who probably always looked the same. They’ve last seen each other at her grandfather’s funeral, so there’s a bit of awkwardness hanging between the two of them, as she’s allowing him to help her with her luggage.

A redheaded woman is waiting for them in her truck, a bit of a distance away, and she helps them with her stuff. It’s easy to make conversation when friendly people are pushing it forward, and they seem way too enthusiastic about her presence. They don’t even comment about her sneakers, totally unfit for most of the roads in the town, or her outfit, that would rip or get dirty the second she’d encounter a field.

She already has a room prepared at Lewis’ place, there’s no way her old house can offer her proper living conditions just yet. That’s not a jab directed at her, rather at the passing of time and the overgrown state of her courtyard. But there’s nothing mean behind their comments, and they’re even offering all the help they can.

She’s trying to come up with a list of things that she might need, but Robin is already writing one of her own.

“She’s our architect,” Lewis whispers, winking at her in secrecy.

It’s weird and scary and she doesn’t know how to feel about it. Back in the city, she could have crumbled on the sidewalk and nobody would have cared. Here, it seems everyone jumps at the chance to do just that, help and care, and she’s terrified out of her skin. Her thanks are muffled by the weird knot in her throat. When balancing things out in her head, there’s nothing she can give them in equal measures.

The key in her hand feels foreign, but yet it’s that thing that grounds her to the moment, doesn’t let her slip away in that part of her brain that makes her forget things even happened. The house is, of course, a disaster, though someone had the good thinking of covering the furniture. The place is small, and it needs a good dusting, maybe even a new coat of paint. Robin, by her side, is still doing her job.

“Is there anything you want in particular?”

“No, not really. I don’t think so?”

She’s lost and overwhelmed. She’d like to just sit somewhere and start unpacking, maybe go and switch all of her things again actually, because there’s no way she can fit in with these people. But Lewis’ arm is around her shoulder, urging her back the way they came, promising her his special vegetable mix and green tea.

Once finally out of his sight, and comfortably settled in his extra bedroom, she squeezes a pillow close to her chest, hiding her face in it, and starts crying. She sobs – for the grandparents she didn’t properly appreciate while alive, that still left her with so much. For the chance that not many have to switch things around. For the state in which the farm is, and the immense effort she’ll have to put in building it back together. For the pain in her arms, the burn so unfamiliar that it must be only the sign of something new. She’s overwhelmed and scared, and hours pass before she finally falls asleep,

The next morning, she refuses even the breakfast, and immediately heads towards her place, luggage in tow. Mayor Lewis promised he’ll solve the problem of electricity and water running back to the place, so at least she can forget the administrative part.

She greets everyone she passes by, because otherwise the staring just gets too unbearable, and though they’re curious, they also remain polite too. But her courtyard and house are truly disastrous. She’s glad it’s still so early in the year, so the weeds didn’t grow yet on the path towards her door, so at least she can focus on dusting off the room, polishing the floor. She unpacks with nostalgic music blasting from her phone: plates in one drawer, her clothes in the other two. She builds herself a nightstand out of all the books she brought with her, and she washes the curtains by hand, letting them dry out in the sun.

She goes to the town for bedsheets and even more cleaning products, buys a basil plant for the windowsill. The place is small, smaller even than her city apartment, and she has nothing of her own to properly decorate it with, give it a specific charm, so she allows herself to get lost between the small isles of the store, and pick whatever piques her fancy. But this is fine, she thinks. This is, after all, the true definition of a new start.

She watches the sun set from her porch – she thinks she’d like an armchair for the place, it’d make a lovely reading pace if it’s not rainy, and there’s a soft lull from the TV inside, where the weather prognosis for the next day rattles on.

She finds grandpa’s old gardening books, and she starts reading them. She cleans up a small portion of the land, plants some seeds she picked based on Pierre’s recommendations. Gathers wood from the end of the forest that runs almost up to her house, practices splitting it in smaller branches, that she can carry and gather in the small tool shed, for the winter.

During the first night that it rains, she opens her door to a stray, lost dog. She hugs him close to her all through the night, as he whimpers and warms up – and in the morning she names him Max, and buys him dog food and a colourful bowl. She stops feeling so alone, so lost, a purpose forming, even though she can’t quite name it.

When too many days pass with her cooped only at her place, letters and requests for visits start pouring in her mailbox. Sometimes mayor Lewis comes pick her himself, walking around the town with her, stopping to present her to any villager they encounter. She feels like a circus freak being paraded around like this, but she smiles, wonders if Max is getting bored at home or if she could walk through the forest in search of some fruits.

***

Then, when the weather prognosis tells of many sunny days in a row, Robin shows up at her doorsteps, can of paint in one hand, brushes in the other – and her son behind her, to help her out.

She watches him, fiddling on the spot, looking like he certainly doesn’t want to be here and she smiles. Well, that’s at least a feeling that she can relate to, even when in her bed after a tiring day, she still sometimes yearns for everything that this place is not. Max helps. In this case as well, as he runs to the door and immediately jumps on him.

“Max, no!” she chides, though he settles calmly on panting up at the man for pats. Luckily, he hasn’t slammed him to the ground, as he tends to do with her, but that’s still no proper way of greeting strangers. “I’m so sorry…”

“Sebastian,” he says. “There’s no problem, really.” He’s scratching the dog between his ears, absentmindedly looking in through the door, at the small place she now calls home. There’s nothing much in there, but she finds herself growing protective over it anyway, at his gaze.

Max, the traitor, is now cuddled down at his feet. From the side, Robin laughs.

Her and Sebastian move the furniture, as Robin tapes newspaper on the wooden floor. She prepares fresh lemonade for her visitors and helpers before they start painting, and she takes a short break just to water her crops. They do the work in silence, mostly, just her phone turned on to fill up the space – and without mayor Lewis’ fast mouth, she isn’t certain what she could possibly talk about. From time to time, Robin asks Sebastian something – regarding his sister, or some things she asked him about before, which sounds a lot like nagging so she prefers to stay out of it.

She thanks them many, many times before they leave for the day. Especially since it was the weekend, and she’s sure they just threw away a perfectly free day on helping her put together her house. She just feels more and more indebted towards all these people. Even if Sebastian didn’t look her way even once.

***

She starts going to the local library, borrowing books and learning more and more things about the farm. She accepts the quests from the bulletin board, and in exchange she asks for fishing tips or some town history. She starts taking evening walks, with Max, picking up acorns. She gets stronger and better at all the farm work. She places various orders, starting to gather syrup from the trees near her house – and one lazy day, she makes jam, that she then sells.

She starts counting the money, making plans for the farm. She buys two chickens, and the one day when no one in the town sees her, it is because she struggled all the time to build a fence so that they won’t step all over crops and no fox would reach them during the night.

***

Everyone is friendly, showing up at her door with gifts for her new move: a handmade mug from Leah, a beautiful seashell from Elliot, an actual functional first aid kit from Harvey. She suspects the mayor’s doing behind all these kindness acts, and yet it’s with a reverent kind of gestures that she finds a place for all of them in her small house. She starts adding some kind of adjectives to this cast of characters that enter her life.

But with Sebastian, something’s different. She doesn’t know what makes her notice him again; that something that made him stand out from the mass of people she met in the past few weeks. Maybe it’s not even just one single thing, but a mix: like how he is the son of the kindest lady, paler than the farmers or football players, how he doesn’t want to stand out at all, how she has to go out of her way to find him, instead of the other way around.

Most of all, it’s the desperation she can feel off of him. There’s a force in him that cannot make peace with how things are for him at the moment – and it’s the familiarity of it that pulls her in, lets her gaze linger on him for a bit longer, makes her ask about him while smiling in the most innocent way, sipping tea in Robin’s office.

***

They’re not that different; she’s easy to fit in the village life, mostly because she’s so pliable for others, knowing the memory of her grandpa is attached to her as well. She sometimes feels like the older residents of the town look through her, instead of directly at her, and see the ghost of someone else they used to know. And the days pass, things fall together, and yet in her chest, there’s a clock ticking away, counting down the time spent here, because if she was looking for something like belonging, it seems this town buried it away with her grandpa, and things don’t seem that different from how they used to be. She just has dirtier nails now, and some decaying make-up skills.

So she never visits without a purpose, doesn’t get too friendly with most of them. She spends days in a row on her farm, ploughing the land, watering the plants, feeding the animals. Task upon task, she goes through all of them, grateful for how it’s silencing her mind, giving her the time and space to breathe. If she finishes early, she likes to go fishing, the breeze nice against her sun-warmed face, especially as the dusk approaches.

It’s the simplicity of life that lulls her into wanting something more, eventually, tentatively. She visits Robin, as she’s closing the store, so they can share some fresh-picked fruits while watching the sun set. She meets up with the mayor for chess during Sundays, stories of two best friends half a century ago embedded in every sigh, and she wins every time and that’s how she knows he just lets her. When she passes by to drop something for the museum, she spends the remaining afternoon in the library, browsing the collection, reading for the children fresh out of classes that ask her to do so.

But if anyone in Pelican Town would be asked, they wouldn’t be able to tell people that much about their newest villager. In truth, even for those closest to her, there’s an aura of mystery: whatever her life was before, she doesn’t go into details. Whatever and for however long she might remain in their lives, she doesn’t say.

To Sebastian, that’s what makes it easy. He doesn’t expect her to tell him anything, since she’s not pressing her curiosities either. Probably why she opens so willingly, why she creates a routine around his. She always stops at the edge of the river, where she knows she’ll find him in the evenings. They never talk for long, or of important things – but she thinks, the magic is in staring together at the same scenery, feeling much of the same things. After the third time, she asks for a cigarette from him, and she winks at him when he looks just a tiny bit surprised.

This is how it begins. The rest she almost doesn’t even notice.

***

She remembers the Egg festival; she’s sure she took part in one of the hunts back when she was little, though the details are foggy in her mind. She doesn’t remember any of the villagers, but she’s been a very shy child, and not even the promise of bunny chocolates was enough to persuade her back then.

Still, she worked for so long in a corporation, at this point the spirit of competition is embedded into her. She wakes up early, and she wears one of her dresses from before, even if she has to match it with grandpa’s old jeans jacket. She even puts on make-up, manages to water her plants as well before she’s walking towards the town.

She officially meets Maru and Demetrius, as they’ve been so busy during her past visits. Marnie clasps her in-between her arms, exclaims how pretty she is when not trying to imitate her house’s looks, and loudly kisses both her cheeks. Gus waves at her, and keeps presenting various plates to her, and by the time she can excuse herself, she’s glad she hasn’t eaten any breakfast. Jas and Vincent come at her yelling tag! and she spends the next half an hour running around, followed by the sometimes annoyed, sometimes happy smiles of the other villagers.

She buys strawberry seeds, more on a whim, because she was craving for some, and gets herself a cute bunny plush, since she’d had trouble sleeping, and she’s sure Max would appreciate her hugging a non-living thing more. She feels like she fits more, now, that she’s surrounded by everyone else, and she realizes that she knows them all, that they know her back – and there’s no outright hostility.

She greets Sebastian, and meets his friends. She compliments Abigail’s hair, Sam compliments her instead. He’s friendly and outgoing, compared to the other two in his group, but she notices Sebastian’s fleeting smile at the toy in her arms, so she straightens her back even more.

As soon as mayor Lewis starts his announcement, Abigail immediately seems more excited, especially since she is presented as the winner for the past decade. However, by the time the day ends, Pelican Town has a new Egg Hunt winner.

The straw hat doesn’t fit her outfit, and it’s not quite yet a necessary accessory, but she’s beaming at every villager that comes to congratulate her, even if she’s already so old and she shouldn’t be so happy about beating a few 10 year olds. Even Abigail is a good sports and promises she will beat her next year.

Next year – she wonders if she’ll even be around for that long. Her saved-up money is slowly trickling down, as she keeps buying things that she needs, and she has no idea yet how much profit she’ll be able to make at harvest time. She feels better knowing her doubts don’t show to others.

She walks part of her way home with Robin and her family. Maru is happily telling her something about her research, though it goes over her head and she doesn’t understand much of what’s going on. Demetrius and Robin walk several steps ahead, arms linked, and it’s a sweet sight to see, that they can be so close even after so many years.

Then, before she takes her turn to her farm, after everyone else said their goodbyes, Sebastian looks up at her.

“It suits you,” he says, so low she almost misses it, nodding his head at her hat. She blushes under the street lamp, but he’s already turned his back on her and he can’t see, so she can go on her own way and pretend it never happened.

***

She starts going to the mines, even if everyone tells her she better not. But she needs better tools, more resources and something to do on rainy days, so she goes anyway. She comes out late into the night, dirtier than she’s ever been, spider cobwebs stuck in her hair, but her backpack heavy.

The next morning, she struggles packing some presents for Robin and Lewis, for all the help they’ve showered her in ever since she moved. She doesn’t have much to offer, some syrup and a jar of jam, a few eggs. But as she’s going into town, there are three presents that she’s carefully carrying around in her bag.

She stops by Lewis first, sits on his stairs with a steaming mug of coffee between her hands, as he waters his small garden – and they chat about the weather, the fishing days that Lewis has programmed, their favourite Stardrop meal. The days get warmer and warmer, as they’re slowly rolling towards summer, and she’s feeling peaceful, listening to the mayor’s chatter, his grunts as he digs around, his yelling when she offers to help him around.

She drops by Clint to let him examine some of the stuff she found underground, and by the time she reaches Robin’s place, the older woman is taking her lunch break. She’s exclaiming happily at the gift, and invites her to stay for lunch. She helps her with the plates, and while Robin goes to gather the rest of her family, she sends her to get Sebastian.

She has to breathe deep, count to 10, before she has the courage to knock at his door. There’s the sound of something tumbling to the floor, and she winces; more shuffling, and the door finally opens to reveal a somewhat sleepy looking Sebastian. It looks like he hasn’t brushed his hair yet, as it sticks out in odd directions, and in his own space, he’s wearing some old, washed-out t-shirt that is several sizes too large, and sweats. She stares at him, entirely endeared, but also deeply aware that there’s a line she has just crossed by seeing him like this – and she’s not sure she was allowed to.

“Hi,” she says, at the same time he says “Shit”, closing the door on her. She opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to come up with a proper way to reach to this, but her mind coming up blank.

Eventually, she lamely says “Robin said lunch’s ready,” before she leaves for the kitchen again. Demetrius is already seated at the table, looking up at his wife like she hung up the sun on the sky. Maru refuses to show up, as she’s too invested in her research, but there’s the slam of a door from downstairs, and Sebastian eventually shows up, just as his step-father takes his first bite from his plate of spaghetti. Their guest has not yet picked up her fork.

Sebastian is now wearing actual jeans, and his hair looks a bit more tamed. He sits next to her, and the four of them eat in relative silence, though she’s obsessively thinking of her knee, against Sebastian’s, under the table and she wants to fucking swear at herself, for acting like a fucking cowardly high-schooler.

“So, why did you move to Pelican Town?” Demetrius asks her, in the end. She notices him wincing immediately after the dull thud from under the table, and she imagines that was Robin kicking him from asking a question that no one had dared poise to her until now.

She finishes chewing the food in her mouth, swallowing a bit more painful.

“I needed a change,” she says eventually, entirely too vague.

“From? You should tell Sebastian about your city experience, because he’s obsessed with leaving the town.”

There’s a disapproving tone in his voice that makes her wince, but her head snaps up at Sebastian, who looks both entirely annoyed and disappointed. She’d like to press her finger to the frown now so obvious on his forehead.

“Really?” she mumbles lamely instead. Sebastian’s now looking at her, and although across the table his parents are bickering with each other in low whispers, he doesn’t break the eye contact. He just nods at her question, grabs another bite of food – the words won’t make it any better.

She always thought that the people in this town are happy to live here, heck even she’s trying to understand the charm of the place and why her grandpa never left it. She always thought that if there is someone to leave it, that’d be her, in an example of another of her life’s failures. But here’s Sebastian, burning with a yearning for a city just as hers to leave it was.

He takes her back home, assuring her that his lunch break is long enough to allow him to do that. They’re walking side by side in companionable silence. Sebastian, unlike his father, doesn’t ask her anything, so when they reach her property, she hands him her last package.

“Can I?” he asks, a hand already tugging at the ribbon, and she smiles at him. Inside, there’s an assortment of minerals: quartz, obsidians. She’s found them during her time in the mines, and the only thing she somewhat remembers from her dialogue with Maru is that her brother loves this stuff.

“What’s this for?” he says, voice a little chocked, laughing at the end, embarrassed and overwhelmed.

“Thanks for that day,” she says. Then, more unsure… “And good luck for the future?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She’s already turned around on her feet, a hand up in the air in goodbye.

The next morning, even if Sebastian never eats breakfast, he makes toast and eats it with strawberry jam, from a jar cutely decorated in stickers, where in cursive, their newest villager wrote for Robin and family <3.

***

She goes to JojaMart to buy an electric kettle; she can’t quite yet afford to get her kitchen built in, so she’s been eating at the Stardrop Saloon or lived on oatmeal and salads. But the mornings are dreadful with instant coffee and cold tap water, so she’s finally investing in something to make her life a bit better. This lifestyle reminds her of being a student in the dorms, and it’s not something she thought she’ll ever return to.

Sam looks around for his managers, and when there’s none around, he stops next to her and they chat by the vegetable stall. She’s frowning at the price, way higher than what they can find in the town and what she sells her own products for.

“Capitalism,” Sam says brightly, tugging at his employee lanyard, and she laughs at him.

“Oh, trust me, I know all about that.”

He wiggles his eyebrows at her, which makes her snort. Shane, his co-worker, turns to stare at them, but he’s not telling them on, so she moves one step closer to him.

“I’ve worked in customer care for Joja Corporation.”

Sam mimics throwing up, turning serious again only when she’s elbowing his side. She’s painfully aware of all the cameras in the store, after all this time away from anything of the sorts.

“But for real, you’re way better in Pelican Town,” he says, even if she’s not yet quite convinced.

But he doesn’t continue pressing the matter. Instead, Sam invites her the next Friday for an evening at the Saloon, where him, Sebastian and Abigail are supposed to play live a few of their songs. She clasps her hands together, and agrees immediately. She used to love this kind of thing: but it’s been so long since she allowed herself to take an evening off, both in her life back in the city, and the life here.

***

She’s already a regular, so Emily nowadays greets her with a hug. Though this time she whistles suggestively at her outfit. Since it’s supposed to be a more special night, she chose a low cut blouse to go with skinny jeans, and she’s no more a formless body buried under work clothes. The only make-up is a very dark lipstick. Her… friends, she supposes, are already on the side, tuning their instruments. Sam grins at her, waving her at the table Gus saved up for them, where he ordered pizza for everyone.

They’re not playing for a long time, maybe half an hour, but by the end, everyone is loudly clapping at their performance. She’s the only one whooping, and Sam is loudly laughing at her embarrassed grin afterwards, runs to fall into her waiting arms and twirls her around in the air, feet not touching the floor.

“Who knew our biggest fan would be you?” he says, helping her pat her hair pack into place.

“I did. I mean, your band has Abigail.”

The girl in questions frowns a bit at her, suspicious that it’s less of a compliment than she tried to make it, turns on her feet as she moves to the music box, tosses a coin in and picks a song. It takes a few seconds for her choice to start loudly booming in the saloon, but as soon as she does, she moves to grab at Sebastian’s arm, dragging him to the dancefloor, though he looks like he’s a lamb taken to sacrifice.

Sam laughs at the two of them, then turns back to his new friend.

“Do you think these two will ever hook up?”

She chokes on the slice of pizza that she’s eating, punching at her chest so she can breathe again. Someone slides in the chair next to her to the table, a hand slapping her hard on the back until she can breathe properly again. Then, frowning, she turns towards the newcomer, because she can’t bear looking at Sebastian and Abigail, together, dancing. She doesn’t think she can look at them without imagining them doing exactly what Sam asked her about, and it’s a shaming thought that she burns down. Shane, the one sitting next to her now, has already picked a slice of his own from their order, and nodded in greetings at Sam.

Sam leaves to talk with Penny, spending enough time as it is in Shane’s company, so Shane moves even closer to her, so he can be heard over the loud music. He’s a bit of an asshole, as he’s looking nowhere else but at her cleavage and the skin she’s showing with her choice of clothes. He’s not even trying to hide it, licking his lips, speaking without even trying to lift his eyes.

“Didn’t know the sunshine and the emo buy are hiding such a beauty between themselves,” he says, snaking an arm around her waist, shoving the second pint of beer he arrived with in her direction. He already smells like the stuff though, which means he’s at least tipsy, if not outright drunk yet. There’s offense in the way he said those nicknames, horrible on their own as well, but she’s sitting between the wall and his body and he’s a man showing interest in her, clearly going out of his way to make it obvious.

She takes several big gulps from her beer, and then turns towards him, smiling. He can’t tell it is strained.

“Well, I’m here now,” she says, and the hand around her squeezes in response. She lets him talk, mostly shit about the town, then shit about himself, and she keeps drinking and drinking, glass after glass of alcohol, because then at least she doesn’t have to reply. In the dark, they must look pretty cosy to the others, because no one else returns to the table – and by the time she remembers she is supposed to have friends around, and looks around for them, her vision is unfocused and she can’t make out the shapes and figures all around.

But she can notice the slightly grown stubble on Shane, how he’s now so, so close to her, his lips brushing against her ear each time he tells her something. She feels like she’s about to suffocate. But he tells her about how beautiful she is, how hard he makes her – and he guides her hand to his pants, where she indeed can feel her effect, and it’s a surge of pleasure and power. She squeezes him through his pants, and he groans in her ear. Her nipples perk up. And then his lips move closer, to her neck, where his tongue is lapping at her skin, sucking against the space. She feels hot all over, in a way that she doesn’t know if she likes or not. His other hand is now fondling with her breasts through her blouse, and she gasps – which only makes him to go at it harder. His mouth finds her, his tongue moving against hers immediately. She’s lost in time, doesn’t know for how long he does it – her body becoming lighter and lighter with each swipe of his saliva against her lips.

Then, a cough from behind Shane. She snaps out of her daze, looks up. Makes eye contact with Sebastian, which feels as effective as a cold shower to her fogged mind. She yanks Shane’s hands off her, but he’s unbothered, turns to look at Sebastian with something like disgust and boredom.

“Can we help you?” Shane says. She hates how the word we sounds from his mouth.

Sebastian doesn’t bother to even look at the drunk guy, instead addressing her only.

“Do you want to go home? The others left already, but it’s getting pretty late…” He stops to stare at Shane, and she wordlessly nods at him. He starts moving instantly, shoving Shane away so he can grab her wrist and help her out of her chair. She needs a few seconds to stabilize herself on her feet, stop the dizzying headache that hit her at the sudden movement.

“Come on, man, what do you think you’re doing?” Shane asks, though he also has troubles standing on his own feet. He makes do with leaning against the table, doing his best to look as menacing as possible.

In his arms, she shudders at the sound of his voice, clutches her fingers around Sebastian’s leather jacket. He doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t want to touch her either, so he just stands still.

“She’s coming with me,” is all he says, and when he starts towards the door, she follows silently. He offers her jacket, which he picked up earlier, before checking on her, and she hangs her head even lower in shame. The cold, outside air is quickly sobering her up, and she really can’t believe she lost herself, just as if she were a college freshman. She burns with embarrassment.

Once out, Sebastian moves a bit away from her, offering her space, though he always extends an arm in her direction when she stumbles on both existent and imaginary obstacles. The silence now is excruciating.

“Say something,” she croaks, her throat hurting from all the alcohol.

“Are you okay?”

His voice is soft, and he stops, looks at her for the first time since the start of all this situation. She knows she probably looks like a mess, lipstick smeared all around her mouth, clothes hanging awkwardly, but his eyes just search hers. She suddenly feels like crying. He must see it too, because he’s moving closer to her.

“Can I-” he tries, sighs, moves a hand through his hair in frustration. “Can I touch you?”

She nods, but he doesn’t move.

“I’ll need verbal confirmation.”

“Yes.”

She’s outright staring at him now, as he makes his way to her, cups her face in between his hands. His fingers are cold against her flushed skin, but it grounds her to the moment. Sebastian’s eyes are moving now, across her face: stop at her jaw, her neck, where Shane sucked painful love bites against her skin, visible even only in the light coming from the street lamps. He hesitates before moving his gaze downwards, where similar marks were left by his fingers against her tits. She feels like used goods, even if there is no judgement from Sebastian.

“Did you want that?” he asks again, sounding deadly serious, so she’s trying to think equally as seriously about his question. It’s hard, her thoughts all jumbled up, a soft kind of edge to everything going on in her head.

“I don’t know,” she answers finally, her head pressing more firmly against his palm. Sebastian’s thumbs are now moving softly against her jaw, and she wants to purr, just like a cat, maybe hang on to him for more of his warmth.

“God,” he says, and it sounds like a swearword. He unglues himself from her, extends an arm that she gracefully takes as they continue on the road to her house. He doesn’t say anything more until they arrive on her porch, though he looks like he’s thinking very hard. She’d like to press her finger to the frown on his forehead.

Max is happily snoring on the warm ground, and she lets go of Sebastian to run the short distance to her dog. She goes on her knees, grabs Max’s head in her hands and coos at him like she would to a baby, talks lovesick nonsense to the dog, pats him all over.

Her voice sounds fucking cute, Sebastian thinks, but instead he fishes something from the pockets of his jacket, bends down so he can press it in her palms. She immediately turns to look at him, eyes big and questioning.

“Take those in the morning, okay? You’ll need them,” is all he says, raising a hand and waving it in a goodbye.

***

Sebastian is right. She wakes two hours later, empties all the contents of her stomach, tears burning at her eyes, and when she wakes again, she thanks all the gods that outside it is raining, because she only gets up to get a glass of water and swallow the pills. Her head is killing her, and her heart aches in embarrassment at the way she acted. She hangs between screaming out in frustration at her own self and complaining about being hangover the whole day, hating herself so, so very much.

She still shoots Sebastian a text, thanking him for taking care of her, in so many ways, the night before. He leaves her on read.

For the next week, she busies herself with work on the farm. She makes another batch of jam jars, which she sends to Lewis for selling. She plants a new tree sapling, harvests strawberries, even builds an ugly-looking scarecrow out of an old broom. She cuts down wood, saves up stacks of it for when she’ll eventually afford Robin’s services. She goes in the mines, once or twice.

Then one of Lewis’ invitations is waiting in her mailbox, for another festival. Spring is coming to an end, already a sweeter, warmer breeze in the air, so the whole town is to celebrate the exact thing.

***

But Pelican Town is a small place, and so it never forgets gossip too easily. On that evening, enough pairs of eyes saw her fumbling in the dark with Shane, and so enough pairs of eyes are now watching her suspiciously as she greets the mayor. She’s wearing some city dress again, though more modest, and ribbons in her hair. She’s forcing herself to smile at everyone she encounters, trying not to seem so affected by the outright cold shoulder.

Sam still greets her, though, grabbing her in his arms.

“Oh, handsome!” she says, and laughs when he’s looking around, to check if anyone else heard her. But he is wearing a suit, his hair is gelled down and he smells like his mother. His eyes are searching hers though, and she thinks Sebastian might have said something to his friend. But thankfully Sam mentions nothing.

She looks behind him, at Sebastian, dressed in a costume as well. Her heart starts beating faster in her chest; his hair is pushed back, and his forehead is now uncovered. He sits relaxed, his hands in his pockets, like he doesn’t really want to be there and she hasn’t seen someone look that heartbreakingly gorgeous.

“You too,” she says. Sebastian raises an eyebrow at her. “Look good, I mean,” she clarifies, and she clears her throat before the awkwardness chokes her.

It’s a big understatement, but it’s the best she can do right now. There’s a small smile that she gets in reply. On the other side of the field, by Robin’s side, Abigail, Penny and Maru look absolutely stunning in their festival dresses, with the flower crowns on top of their heads. They’re laughing at one of Abigail’s stories, and they’re just beautiful and young and entirely enrapturing. She wonders if she didn’t fuck it up so badly earlier, she would have been invited to be one of them.

This time around, there’s not as much mingling with the people as earlier in the season; people are a bit warier, though she supposes she deserves it. She’s busy setting down a mat under a blossoming tree, preparing some kind of picnic and viewing spot at the same time.

“You look beautiful,” she hears from behind her, and she turns around to find Shane. A bit behind him, Marnie is engaged in a conversation with the mayor, and by his side, there’s Jas, who immediately shoves her sandals away so she can step on her mat and sit next to her.

She offers her tea and strawberries, places her own hat on top of the child’s head to protect her from the sun, who squeals in delight that she can show off the winning prize of the egg hunt. Then, she turns back to Shane:

“Is she your daughter?”

“Gods, no. She’s my goddaughter.”

She sighs, relieved a bit. In the morning, Shane looks just scruffy, some kind of sober, but his face is still red and puffy, sign of alcoholism. She knows Jas lives with him and Marnie, and it can’t be a good environment for a child, but she’s heard the rumours that he’s not that much at home anyway. She’s worrying for the young girl, but she also trusts Marnie to handle the subject, not really her place to say anything anyway.

Shane moves closer, his hand grabbing the end of the scarf she’s wearing around her neck, tugging so it comes undone between his fingers. She gasps, palm gluing to the skin there, reaching out for him.

“Give it back,” she all but growls it out, eyes frantically looking around, hoping no one is actually looking their way, since everyone is focused on preparing for the dance.

“I did that, right?” he asks, finally stopping, and she takes back her scarf, hangs her head low, so that her hair can cover her movement, as she ties it back in place.

“Yes, you fucking asshole,” she spits, but doesn’t move away from him.

“I was honest, you know. About you looking beautiful. Then and now too.”

“Thank you,” she says, and stays in place even as Shane gets closer to her. He’s also dressed up, wearing an actual shirt and everything, his jaw freshly shaven. He even looks somewhat attractive, and just like last time, she’s grateful for the attention. Back in Zuzu City, no one bothers with any kind of dating, no one bothers to notice someone else at all – no sweet lies, no prelude, just a dick and a cunt. So this feels new and flattering at the same time.

She sits down on her mat, reluctantly serves Shane too with some of her freshly picked strawberries. Jas moved over to Vincent and Jodi, her hands carefully holding on to the hat that’s still a bit too big for her, so it’s only the two of them in this corner. The music can’t start soon enough, because she can feel stray eyes looking to them.

The dance starts, and she watches, transfixed as the pairs walk towards each other, meeting in the middle in an embrace. Almost immediately the dresses flutter in the air, twirling. There’s an admiring exclamation from somewhere in the crowd, Jas happily clapping along to the rhythm. She looks at Sam, all but drinking up Penny’s laughing face. She looks at Abigail, tightly holding on to Sebastian’s shoulders. She looks at her friends dancing with the girls they have a crush on, and something in her chest rips apart.

“Hey,” Shane says. “Wanna get out of here?”

She nods wordlessly, and he takes her hand. No one looks at them, as they discreetly make their way behind everyone else. Once out the field, Shane breaks into a run through the woods. They stop in a clearing, both breathing hard from their run, and Shane grins at her, before straightening his back, walking purposefully her way and deciding to kiss her. It’s hard and rough, much like he’s been handling her until now too, but she still moans.

His hands are already moving at pulling his belt apart, and he takes her hands and moves them towards his dick.

“Come on, play with it,” he whispers breathlessly, as he’s pulling apart her scarf for a second time today, mouth finding the tender skin, reinforcing the fading marks. She’s feeling needy herself, she’d like him to shove down her panties and eat her out, but she makes do with moving her legs one against the other, seeking some kind of friction, as her hands are moving from his tip towards his balls, slower at the beginning, and faster once he starts grunting in her ear, pumping into her hands.

Then, he grabs at her hair, and she has to bite her tongue to stop from yelping.

“On your knees,” he says, already pushing his weight on her shoulders, and more or less willingly, she gets to the ground. The uneven dirt hurts her skin, and yet she has to ignore it, because Shane is already guiding his dick with his hands towards her lips. She forces herself to open her mouth, hopes he’ll better get down to do the same thing for her.

Her mouth is warm, and she’s fucking good at what she’s doing, sucking hard and taking him all in, like a good bitch, even if tears are forming at the corner of her eyes and her throat is burning. He pulls out, just to slam, hard, back inside her wet, welcoming hole – and in just three shoves, he comes undone, half coming in her mouth, half out just so he can have his fantasy of his cum leaking on her face.

Her dress is stained, and almost all her arousal is out of her. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, presses a palm against the painful strain in her jaw. Shane hurries to put his now flailing dick back inside his pants, and he’s not helping her back up.

“Gotta go,” he says, and he’s patting down his pants, where she held onto and left some creasing.

“What?” she asks, suddenly annoyed. “What about me?”

“Solve it yourself, princess.”

He starts walking away. She screams after him.

“Oh, fuck you!”

“My pleasure, next time!” he shouts back, but he doesn’t stop, as he’s making his way back towards the festival.

She shoves the middle finger up in the air, stomping her feet at the same time, shrieking.

“You fucking asshole!”

He chuckles at her tantrum, but he’s spent and satisfied, while she’s there frustrated and fucked over, so he’s not bothering to take her too seriously.

There’s no way she can go back there without everyone else figuring out exactly what she’s been up to. Of course, Shane looks no different than his usual, maybe he’s even surrounded by some post-orgasm glow, but there’s some bleeding from one of her knees, his now dry cum on the front of her dress, and her hair is nothing but a mess. She can’t believe how fucking stupid she can be, and how she fell again in the same old game of “I give you some attention, you give me some sex” that she’s been playing for ages now. It seems like habits don’t change, no matter if she’s in Zuzu City or Pelican Town.

And for what? Just because she felt lonely and jealous, because she felt like no matter how much she’ll try, she’ll never be anything but a passing fancy to these people that know each other inside out?

She makes her way towards her farm stomping her feet, swearing at Shane and mumbling curses all the way. Once back, she draws herself a hot bath and, in the tub, finally somewhere safe, she touches herself, moans out into the air a name she doesn’t dare to even say out loud, and thinks of someone who never even looked at her in any way to indicate she might want her too.

So, she must make do with fucking Shane?

But as she succumbs to her orgasm, moving lower into the water, maybe she can just order a dildo online and leave it at that.

***

On the first summer days, she takes up fishing. She buys a bottle of mead, because she’s heard from mayor Lewis that’s the favourite drink of their local fishermen, and she goes down the beach to beg.

She wants to learn fishing, she says. Just a couple of lessons, whenever he can leave his store and he’s willing to – she really just wants some new hobbies. It’s dreadfully awful to have only three functional TV channels, and only a dozens of books. Even Max is just a dog, and there’s a limitation to what he is capable of. Willy is funny and wise in the way only old men who love the sea can be, but he’s patient in his explanations – and sure enough, very soon, she catches her first fish.

She takes a picture of it on her phone, proud of her achievement. She sends it to Sam, to boast a bit and to annoy him, because he’s currently stuck at his part-time job. Then she goes shell hunting, because she’s too giddy to do any actual work. The villagers recently rebuilt the small bridge on the beach, and it’s lovely to get to take a walk like this. She wants her house to have the same fresh feeling, so she visits Robin for an upgrade.

And she knows she’s paying for the work, but with Robin, she feels like she’s asking for a favour, so she must give something back. And because she feels guilty, for having thought so angrily and jealously about Sebastian and his life, she wants to say sorry in a way, even if he has no way of knowing why she’s doing it in the first place.

Robin’s outside the house, just having come back from an exercise class at Caroline’s. She greets her visitor just a bit more strained than usual, and well – there’s no doubt that if there’s a gossip mill in the town, that’s probably the weekly gathering of middle-aged wives.

The farmer sighs, agrees to wait in the house while Robin takes a shower, before they can discuss about work.

“Is Sebastian home?” she asks, and the older woman makes a dismissive sign with her hand, which means she can go and check for herself.

The door to his room is slightly open, and he actually asks her to come in when she knocks. She greets him from the doorway, suddenly shy when he speaks, suddenly guilty that she’s interrupting him. She sits down on the couch, starts by watching him work, and then eventually she gets distracted by the posters on his walls, and the huge book collection he is showcasing on his shelves. It’s work that she’s familiar with, the stuff she liked to read before, when she used to have time for her hobbies, about worlds that she could escape to only by reading about them in books, featuring magic and dragons and robots.

He doesn’t seem to mind her looking around, as long as she’s quiet. Then, he eventually finishes, and sighs, stretching out his arms.

“Sorry about that, had to finish what I was working on.”

“Ah,” she nods. “And what is that?”

“I do freelance programming,” he answers. “I just want to save up enough to move from here. You know, if I’d gone to college, I’d probably be making six figures right now… but I just don’t want to be part of that corporate rat race, you know?”

“As a rat,” she says, a smile already on her face, “I totally agree with you.”

He looks at her; this is the first hint he gets – of something more about her. He’s heard from Sam, of course, about her actual job in the city, but it’s different to know it from her, to know he has her trust, to hear the defeat behind her voice, even as she tries to hide it with humour.

Then the moment is broken, the ping from his IM breaking the companionable silence between them. Normally, he’d have to explain to people why he is not in the mood to meet up with others, his introversion something out of a freak show with the villagers, but she just nods at him in understanding.

But the next interruption is almost brutal, Robin returning to pass on Abigail’s message, so filled with dismissal at his work, and indifference at his preferences. The easy air about him, as he was talking about a work he clearly loves and his dreams, is now entirely stifled – and instead he, defeated, just accepts all of this, even if he complains. She’d like to press her finger to the frown on his forehead.

This situation makes her blood boil, though: because she’s been in his exact spot. She’s had people look down at her choices for as long as she’s decided to walk her path, out there in the city – and now that she knows what it’s like not to, she can’t take to be the witness to it happening in front of her. Of course, some people will always have something to say, but it should be different with those considered friends – considered family, no?

From the kitchen upstairs, Robin is calling out her name – now, suddenly, she doesn’t really want to go, especially when she knows her presence is soon to be replaced by someone else’s. So, she acts daringly. She touches his arm, as she raises to go:

“You know, I think you’re doing an amazing job, especially considering your conditions. And trust me, it really is better than being a clog in the corporate system, and your work is important, even if it’s important for you only.”

As soon as she came, she’s gone and he loses his chance of asking for more. She left behind another sloppily packed present on his desk, a piece of quartz inside. He gets up, moves to put it up on his shelves – and shit, he wonders if she noticed the other stuff she’s given him, up there.

***

So Robin starts coming around with her carpenter tools, sometimes so early in the morning that she’s welcoming her still in her Disney pyjamas. They drink instant coffee, warm this time – and they discuss recipes that she’d like to try in her new kitchen, or the kind of animals she’ll grow in the barn. She learns that Robin loves goat cheese, and she shares that she absolutely hates peppers. She asks about Sebastian and Maru’s childhoods, she tells of her grandpa’s favourite magic trick.

The sound of Robin’s hammer accompanies her through her motions, as she’s ploughing the land for the summer crops. She didn’t really understand how lonely she has been all these months, just going through what she has to do. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, even if just for a few stolen minutes.

Sebastian drops by during his breaks sometimes, to bring his mother’s lunch, and both women nag at him so much that he ends up eating with them, Max nestled at his feet under the table.

Once, she walks back with him towards the town; she needs to drop by Pierre’s, to order some kitchen utensils – and by Lewis’ house, to leave him a note with info on her next batch of syrup and honey, that she sells for some good prices. He strains himself to walk in a pace that matches hers, even if he just wants to hurry home and take a nap.

She noticed, how tired he looks lately: hair more dishevelled, the slight stubble on his chin, the dark under his eyes. She knows, from Robin, that he spent even more time than usual in his room, refusing to meet even Abigail or Sam. She’d like to press her palm on his forehead, check for any signs of sickness.

“Are you working a lot these days?” she asks, fumbling with the edge of her t-shirt, feeling shy and worried that she might be overstepping.

“Had a tight deadline, but it’s over now.”

He pushes the hair out of his eyes with his hand, pats the pockets of his jeans with the other. He takes out his cigarettes, and then swears.

“Shit, do you have a lighter?”

In fact, she does. Sometimes, when she goes to the mines, her flashlight flickers and dies out, so she started the habit of carrying candles on her expeditions, and always a lighter in her pocket. She offers the fire; she has to stand on her tiptoes and he has to bend down to make it work.

Sebastian looks at her; she’s determinedly staring at the ground. They’re so close that even in the summer heat, she can feel his breathe on her cheek. Once the cigarette is lit, she almost scrambles away, pressing her palms to her cheeks, complaining about the hot weather.

She starts walking faster, afraid of what she might do if Sebastian looks into her face. There’s a small smile on his face that she can’t notice.

***

Pierre’s store is more of a general hangout spot for his daughter, though – Maru is eating her lunch with Abigail in a corner, and she waves at the two of them as she turns towards the counter. Of course, Pierre convinces her to buy several types of flower seeds – and she walks around the town with those in her arms. She thinks she might actually be his best customer. Or easiest, which in his case, it is one and the same thing.

That’s how she meets Evelyn: in the town square, taking care of the flowers. In truth, she never stopped to think about who maintains the town, and now she seems to have her answer. There are many people around; Penny with the kids, playing in the water fountain. Mayor Lewis and Harvey discussing in front of the clinic, Gus sticking a request on the board.

But the old lady spots her shopping, and sits her down on a bench, where she lectures her on the proper way to take care of them.

Then, the tone shifts – and the older woman asks her about the animals she’s growing (they’re well), how she finds Pelican Town (nice) and what’s her favourite flower (hyacinth).

“You know,” she laughs. “I almost married your grandpa.”

She sputters, unsure how to take this wild what-if she’s presented with. Of course, if Evelyn would have ended as his wife, she wouldn’t be here at all. And still, her curiosity gets the best of her.

“What happened?”

“Oh, George – that’s my husband, dear – bought an old farm here in town and moved one day. The next thing you know, everyone was smitten with the new farmer, me included. And by then, your grandpa was already in the army.”

And when he returned from the army, he returned with a wife – that’s a story that she knows. Grandpa met her grandmother at one of the dance evenings organized for young soldiers, and if the story she was told as a child is to be believed, he danced with no one else that night, the next and all the other ones that followed.

“How was he like?”

Sometimes, when it comes to someone you love, it’s hard to consider them from another point of view than the one you were always familiar with. He has always been just her grandfather to her, yet Evelyn here has seen him growing, becoming all those things to all those many people: son, neighbour, husband, father.

“He always worked hard, stirred trouble wherever he went and loved this town like no other,” she says, a faint smile on her face, lost in memories.

That sounds like the old man alright.

“Th-thank you, Evelyn.” Her voice sounds a little chocked. Just a little.

“Psssh, please. Call me Granny.”

The old man takes her hand, squeezes her fingers in hers – and pats her butt when she gets up to go home.

***

“Hey, mom,” she says, pressing the phone closer to her ear. It’s the first phone call she’s making from the landline, and there are jitters all over her skin. She hates that she has to stay still, glued to one spot the length of the phone’s cable. Her brain goes in override.

“Darling!” her mother exclaims from the other side. There’s some shifting, the sound of a door closing, then a sigh. “How are you? How’s Pelican Town?”

She tries not to sniffle outright, tries not to cry that she wants her mother when she’s a fucking grown-up adult, but that really is how she feels. It was all okay, the construction almost to an end, her crops growing beautifully – and then Max gnawed at her only good pair of shoes, and the thing sent her into a spiral of self-pity. She really has no idea what on earth she is doing here.

Instead, she asks: “Did you like living here?”

She is grandpa’s only living child. After her older brother’s death, she simply packed her stuff and moved to a shitty dorm in city, got married in two months and had her almost immediately after. Nowadays, her father is drowning in alcohol and her mother is drowning in work – and she wonders if the first coping mechanism may be more useful than the latter, though her last experience seems to point to a no.

“No,” her mother says. “But depends on what you’re chasing, or what you’re running away from. So, do you like living there?”

She tugs at the phone cord, shifts on spot, looks at Max sleeping a few feet away.

“M-maybe? I don’t know.”

“That’s not a no,” her mother says, ending the call immediately afterwards.

She sits on the same spot, with the tone dead in the background for a very long time, just staring out the window at the setting sun.

***

With the new barn built, she visits Marnie about filling it with the appropriate animals. She’d like a sheep, just because she thinks knitting would be a useful hobby to pick up by winter. Maybe a goat, so she can make cheese and thank Robin properly for all the overtime work she put in finishing her house so early.

Jas is out with Vincent, but before discussing the price of the animal, Marnie hands her the straw hat and her picnic mat. She burns as she takes those from her, not knowing what to say. It’s been two weeks since she ran from the town’s celebration, and even now, she burns with the shame of that day. She starts looking around.

“He’s not-”

“At work, dear,” she says, and finally she starts calculating and writing down something at her desk.

“So you know.”

“Everyone knows,” she says and sounds forcefully cheerful, although she must understand what weight her words have, because the farmer is slouching in a chair, head hanging in her hands.

“There’s nothing going on,” she wails, looking up at Marnie, begging her to believe her – even if she’s just a stranger, asking for a bias against her own blood relative.

“Nothing going on anymore?” Marnie corrects, moves to pat her on the shoulder, signalling at the same time for the young woman to follow her. She nods her head, defeated, and Marnie has to wonder what exactly did this hard-working farmer see in her drunk nephew. She feels relieved to know that she put an end to it. Maybe exactly because she got involved with her good for nothing boy that she feels a bit more forgiving towards her.

She talks her in getting another chicken too, as an apology for having fucked around with her nephew. She doesn’t have the heart to correct this motherly woman that it was, in fact, the other way around. But either way, she’s forgotten.

She knows that because the next day, Penny calls her and asks her to spend the day together with the kids on the beach. She shouldn’t be that surprised to see Sam there too.

***

She asks everyone she gets along with over, after the house expansion is finished. She spent most morning just preparing various recipes, to fit everyone’s taste. Penny arrives first, dropping an apple pie on her kitchen counter and moving around the house to admire Robin’s work. She’s been thinking of doing something about her trailer-living situation for a while.

Abigail and Maru arrive together, with a plate of Robin’s spaghetti. Her and Demetrius decided it’s better to skip the evening, seeing how everyone else there is the same age as their children. She learns that Abigail is supposed to start her second year of university in autumn, and that Maru is going to do her master’s in astrophysics.

She whistles appreciatively, makes fun of her literature degree on the way. The two then huddle together in a corner of the porch, feeding Max stray bits of food and cooing at him when his tail starts wagging.

Sam and Sebastian arrive the last, each carrying a board game in their hands. It’s smart thinking on their side, because she’s not sure what she would have entertained her guests with otherwise. They huddle around the table, filling up plates with at least five different food recipes, passing iced tea and lemonade around. Abigail has this perfect skill of being able to imitate Lewis’ announcement voice perfectly, which in turn makes Sam snort his drink out of his noise. It makes everyone else lose it, and afterwards there’s no awkwardness hanging between them.

Penny helps Sam clean up in the kitchen, and they’re gone for way longer than necessary, though everyone else at the table is polite enough not to comment on it. Abigail and Maru, sitting one across the other, keep looking at each other while the other is not looking, and Abigail might be eating so much chocolate cake that she risks getting sick.

Sebastian sits next to her, smiling softly at a story that Penny is telling, from their time together in high-school. She should, technically, feel left out of the loop, but each time she mentions someone unknown, or a habit they used to have as a teenage group, Sebastian leans over closer to her, and whispers explanations into her ear. His voice, low and smooth, makes her feel like she’s melting down her chair.

Sam and Sebastian go out for a smoke, and she’s following them too, asking for a cigarette from Sebastian, letting her lighter pass around in a circle. The sun has already set, and there’s only the soft buzzing sound of her lamp in the air. The boys are talking about their rehearsal schedule, ask her over sometime, which she happily agrees to.

“Hey,” Sam says, kicking at her leg with his shoe. “Are you single?”

“What the fuck?!”

Sam raises his hands in the air, talking with his cigarette between his teeth. “Don’t shoot the messenger!”

She was ready to punch his elbow, but is now lowering her arm, frowning at him. Behind Sam, Sebastian continue smoking, refusing to get himself involved in this mess.

“Whose messenger?” she asks, though there’s a teasing edge in her voice, clearly proving that she doesn’t believe anything else but his own curiosity brought him to this rudeness.

“Look man – uhm, woman I guess, we’re all friends here, no judgement zone.”

“You just laughed at Maru for liking math two minutes ago!” she points out, this time her kicking his leg.

“You can just not answer the question,” Sam says, pacifying, turning towards Sebastian to offer him his lighter, as he’s already on his second cigarette.

“No, it’s fine.” She feels embarrassed for causing a scene, when it’s not even such a big deal. “I am single.”

She starts walking a bit away, making it seem like she’s inspecting the shrub just next to the stairs.

“So no Shane?” this time it’s Sebastian asking, which is surprising because she did not expect him to care.

“No Shane,” she confirms, her voice a bit weaker than she intended it to be.

Sam punches the air in a victorious movement, grinning at her.

“Thank God, that guy’s a fucking asshole.”

He shivers a bit in the cold night air, wearing only a t-shirt, and with a goodbye thrown over his shoulder, he goes back inside. Sebastian moves his hand in the air a bit, gesturing to his unfinished smoke, but she’s still not making a move to go back.

“But him and Penny… totally a thing, right?”

“Totally,” Sebastian says, and they both burst out laughing.

***

When Abigail phoned to tell her about Luau, she actually mostly whined that summer festivals are the most boring ones, because everyone is so busy tending to crops and making the most out of the long days. The farmer herself was actually taking a break, at the height of the summer heat, with a glass of iced water, but counting down the minutes before she’d be back in the garden, pulling out the weeds and gathering ripened fruits.

She still gets invited to Luau with everyone else; somewhat of a temporary, potentially forever fixture to their group. There’s a gaping hole opening in her stomach when she thinks of this, anxiety bubbling all inside her body making her feel sick. She feels like something terrible surely must happen soon, considering how much joy she gets from all these people.

She has sent some stuff to mayor Lewis, to add to the potluck soup: fresh tomato, some mushrooms, basil. But still, the thing looks completely inedible.

“Are we trying to kill the governor?” she asks, as she’s carefully looking at the bowl in her hands.

Sebastian laughs, turning his upside down in the sand. She’d really like to do the same thing.

“It’s tradition!” Maru explains, frowning at her brother.

“Are we choosing governors based on the quality of their stomach?” she tries again, this time sniffing at the stuff. Its consistency looks absolutely… gluey.

Sam joins the laughter this time, and Sebastian pats Maru’s shoulder in some attempt at an excuse. Abigail is the only one who actually eats the stuff, though her face turns somewhat pale as soon as she is done. The governor looks like he is perfectly fine, and even praises their soup, which makes everyone visibly relax.

***

Maru’s birthday was a solitary thing; just another ordinary working day, celebrated only with chocolate cake in the evening with the entire family. Robin builds her another bookshelf, Demetrius and Sebastian get the money for a new telescope. No other guests are invited, though random gifts still find their way to her mailbox: a stray astrology book, a new case for her glasses.

Sam’s not that different, though they all heard the rumours that immediately after his shift, he visited the museum, and spent a very, very long time there. They meet on Friday night at the Saloon though, so that the band can play and the others can cheer. They’re spectacular, as usual, and when doing something they love, all three of them look younger than she has ever seen them.

Penny is at her side, an arm looped around her waist, and they’re both swaying their bodies on the rhythm of the music. Sam winks in their direction, though the redhead pretends she doesn’t see it.

***

On one of their river discussions, Sebastian mentions frogs to her once; something she’s been terrified of for as long as she remembers. But there’s just such a soft smile on his face, and his voice is so calm: and as such, she thinks to give it a try. Which is exactly why he finds her one day, as he goes to visit Sam, by the river bank, on all fours, staring into the water.

She yelps when he hears him calling out to her, fluttering her arms in the air in a panic. It’s that movement that makes her stumble forward in the water. She doesn’t know how to swim, but the water is low enough to not be a problem, but as she gets up, sitting on her ass in the middle of the river, she scowls at him.

“I hate you,” she says.

He smiles, and with the sun at his back, it’s the most beautiful sight she’s seen. He offers her a hand, which she accepts gratefully, trying to remain as dignified as possible, considering that her clothes are now stuck to her body and there might be some mud on her butt.

“What were you doing?” he asks, and she immediately reddens under his attention.

She mumbles her answer; she’s a terrible liar, so she doesn’t even try. This time, Sebastian actually laughs at her, and she crosses her hands at her chest, both indignant and cold.

“I hate you,” she says again, this time accentuating each of her words. But there’s no fire behind it, so he ignores her remarks. Instead, he unzips his hoodie and, slowly, places it on her shoulders.

“But-” she starts, already moving to remove it, give it back, refuse the help, her natural instinct kicking in. He hasn’t stepped back, and having him so close, she notices the subtle smell of his aftershave, the dark marks under his eyes. She wants to get on her tiptoe and let her fingers run through his hair, so soft from up this close. Then he speaks, the magic breaking, and she moves her eyes down to her shoes, shy all of the sudden.

“Sam’s living real close, so it’s really no problem.”

He’s trying very hard not to move his eyes away from hers, face burning red with embarrassment – and only then does she realize she’s wearing a white shirt, and she’s wet –

“Oh,” she says, lamely, moving her arms through the sleeves and zipping it up. “I… I’ll wash it and bring it back to you.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” he says, before awkwardly saying his goodbyes. Sam will chew him out for being late, and Abigail will frown at him for not letting them know about this ahead of time.

But their new farmer will stand by the river bank for a long time still, looking down at the water, even when Vincent passes her by and laughs at the wet pool that dripped at her feet.

***

She likes taking the mountain path, especially during hot summer days: less people to stop and chat with under the sun, more shade from the trees, chances to see a wild bunny or a squirrel, maybe picking up some wild fruit. She learnt to enjoy these things, that felt like such a chore back in the day, when she was simply a child helping out her relatives. Maybe because, from start to finish, in everything she does for her farm, she leaves a part of herself in there.

She’s as familiar with Robin’s garden as she is with her own, and that’s why it takes her brain a bit to catch up with what she is seeing.

She didn’t even expect to see Sebastian at all, and especially not like… this. Sprawled under his motorcycle, the picture perfect of her dream boy from high-school. It’s then when it dawns on her that she might have some other reasons too, for visiting Robin today, for picking the mountain path, for going to the mines so often, even if she’ll never admit it to anyone else.

For a second, she hates him so much for having been so kind to her, for having taken care of her, for his beautiful smiles and his unending understanding. For having made her like him so much, when this recluse and silent man seems to dislike everything that she is starting to like lately.

She crushes the feeling coming up in her chest; the despair and the need to go and run as far away from him, before they make eye contact, before her beating heart goes into override.

Sebastian heard her approaching footstep though, and as he’s coming up, t-shirt clinging to his chest, she closes her eyes. God help her not to jump this man right here and now.

“Hey you,” he says, the corner of his lips lifting up a bit seeing her.

She waves, taking a deep breath as she approaches him, taking a seat on the outside bench. He picks up the tool that he needed, and goes back to work. She stays put right where she is, watching him.

“You know, it’s fascinating to watch someone do something I know nothing about,” she laughs, thinking of her useless literature degree as well, her dirt stained nails and her dead-end job back in the city, so opposed to his programming skills and the coppery smell of his motorcycle.

“That’s how I feel when you talk about farm upgrades with mom,” he says, and then asking her for another tool – it’s the round one with a yellow handle.

She shifts closer; he gets out from under the metal labyrinth of his bike enough to nod at her in thanks when she hands it to him. But he understands her feeling better than he manages to put it into words, especially since he’s been an outcast in the village for so long; heck he’s not sure anyone else but her even accepts what he’s working, let alone understand it.

But if there’s someone who can get it, it’s certainly the city girl who gave up everything to become a farmer. Much as he wants to drop everything here just for a shot at the big city. It’s the same strangling hope in his voice, that she’s detected the first time they met, when he talks about his short escapades.

He gets up, wiping his hands on a dirty old rag. There’s a dark stain on his cheek that makes him so incredibly cute, and yet the contrast couldn’t be more obvious with his muscles.

“You could come with me next time,” he says, and he purposefully looks at her, digging out her reactions.

She blushes, all red, prettily and opens her mouth to say something, closes it again. Then, with a bit too much eagerness, that makes her seem just a bit too desperate to do the right thing, she says:

“I’d love to.”

“Great,” he says, and this time it’s a full smile that he graces her with.

They move to enter the house now, the sun setting at their back, and he holds the door open for her. She has to squeeze by him, so close that she can feel the smell of oil mingled with his sweat, and the always present soft aroma of soap.

Robin is in the kitchen, preparing hot chocolate for everyone; Abigail is over too, in Maru’s room, the two’s laughter loud enough to be heard from downstairs. Demetrius is in his office, researching something in one of his biology tomes.

She immediately moves to help Robin; now familiar with the layout of her kitchen, with everyone’s favourite mug. His mother yells at Sebastian to go and take a shower before even daring to enter her kitchen, which is exactly the reason why he moves closer to her instead, loudly kissing her cheek.

Robin shrieks, hitting him with the spoon she’s holding in her hand. Their guest watches the scene with a soft smile; she likes it when there’s no bitterness between the two, which is something that comes way easier when no one else in their family is around.

She presents Robin with her first goat cheese; it’s experimental yet, really I have no idea if it’s any good, but she gathers her in her arms anyway, thanking her from the bottom of her heart. She carefully places it in her fridge.

And while Robin goes to Demetrius’ office, forcing a break out of this man as they plan to drink their hot chocolate together, she’s tasked to bringing up the girls’. She knocks, but it still doesn’t feel like sufficient incessant to stop whatever they were doing, because when she opens the door, Maru’s in Abigail arms, having a somewhat lost look on her face. Abigail’s lipstick is all over Maru’s neck, and smeared around her lips, and both their mouths are pulsing red with the pressure of shared kisses.

She blushes under their eyes, hates to have interrupted what she just did. It’s worse than if they were having sex, because the tension in the air is so thick she can choke on it.

“R-Robin said-” she tries, but she’s so embarrassed that she just leaves the tray on the desk, and all but bolts down the stairs.

Shit, she thinks.

“Shit,” she exclaims out loud as well. She’s so wind up she doesn’t hear the footsteps following her, and she almost screams when Abigail’s hand comes down her shoulder.

“Hey, look, let’s be chill about it and keep it a secret, yeah?”

“Of course,” she nods her head. “And I’m really sorry…”

“Our fault for being daring enough not to lock the door. But in our defence, we didn’t think that would happen,” Abigail says, winking at the other woman, before moving upstairs, probably to calm down her lover.

The theme of her life is that she is a big, stupid, idiotic fool. She’s been jealous for months on a relationship that didn’t even exist, and now she feels guilty and embarrassed all over again for what she did when overcome by those emotions. She stands in the middle of the hallway, hating herself so much that she would burst into flames if she had magical powers.

Sebastian finds her eventually, grounds her back to reality with a soft touch against her elbow and a soft call of her name. She startles like she’s been shot, almost jumping out of her skin, before things start refocusing around her. Sebastian, after his shower, smells like pine and mint, and he’s wearing shorts.

“Come on,” he says, slowly guiding her back to the kitchen, where their drink probably went cold already. At the back of his leg, Sebastian has a tattoo: a man lying face down, ten swords hanging above his body.

“That’s cool,” she nods her head at the design, sipping from her hot chocolate.

“Thanks. Sweet sixteen present, teenage rebellion and everything.”

“I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” she says, and Sebastian rises his eyebrows, clearly sceptical.

“For real!” she laughs. “I came here, to gramps.”

“Can’t remember you ever being up here,” he says, but now he’s curious.

“Well, of course, he called my mom the second I entered the house, and next morning she came to pick me up, but still.”

Sebastian snorts at her story, and she’s beaming at him with the largest smile possible, having gotten such a reaction out of him. It seems like it’s so easy for her to rile him up, or to get him involved enough in what she’s doing that he can’t filter his reactions anymore.

He walks her home that evening; she insisted he didn’t need to go through the trouble, since she’s out even later all the time, but Robin pushed, especially since Abigail was to sleep over, so she didn’t need Sebastian to walk her home.

In the end, she had company on the way home.

“Sorry for the trouble,” she says. Sebastian is smoking again, and only shakes his head. They continue their conversation from earlier, about how they used to be as kids and teenagers, periods in time that feels very far-away. Then she tells him of her past job, how she used to want to kill herself every time she entered the building, how there was no more city around her, and just the clutch of overwork and need for money.

She breathes easier here, she says. She hasn’t seen the stars in years, she adds.

She’s looking up at the sky, but Sebastian is looking at her.

She’s seemed lost on that first day, overwhelmed as she looked around at her inherited plot of land, and he’s given her two weeks maximum to survive in there. And here she is, rounding on six months, looking like she’s always belonged.

She hands him his sweater, thanks him again, in that sweet voice that matches her face, but not her personality when she’s swearing. He wishes the road between their houses was longer, longer than to Zuzu City, so long that they could have the entire night at their disposal.

***

“You’re late,” she says, from where she sits on the pier, her feet just a few centimetres above the water surface.

She’s barefoot, and she’s wearing a thin and short dress, and showing so much skin that Sebastian is a bit distracted at first. Technically, they haven’t set a meeting time, but he is indeed the last of the villagers to arrive on the beach for the dance of the moonlight jellies. By now, the others are also grouped together, leaving her alone.

She pats the space next to her. He sits down, yawning.

“Sorry, I was up until 3am reading a new book.”

She lights up then, shoots question after question at him: about his favourite authors and books, hints at the volumes he knows she’s seen on his shelf. They decide to buddy read a book together, and the next day he finds her favourite novel in his mailbox, he sends his instead. His are in pristine condition, while hers are underlined all over, notes scrambled over the margins that he spends a lot of time trying to decipher, corners dog-eared. The first few are a hit and miss, then slowly, as they go through the volumes, writing long texts and handwritten note with their thoughts on it or calling each other late into the night, they start to figure each other’s state, collections growing on each side.

On Penny’s birthday, no one can find the young woman almost the entire day. For that matter, they had the same problem with Sam too.

On Abigail’s birthday, she knocks on the farmer’s door in the middle of the night. The other woman is sleepy, bleary eyed, and she knows that something serious is going on because Abigail doesn’t even make fun of her pyjamas. She opens the door, wordlessly. Makes some tea, as Abigail plops on the rug on the floor, nuzzling Max.

She passes her a steaming cup of tea, sits in front of her in much the same manner.

“What happened?”

It takes Abigail a long time to reply, and when she does, she stumbles over words.

“I-I came out to my parents. Let’s say they didn’t take it too well. Sebastian lives with M-Maru so it didn’t feel like the smartest move, and Sam’s mother already has enough things to worry about. I had no-nowhere else to go.”

She shouldn’t be this surprised when the farmer leans closer, wrapping her arms around her, squeezing her close. Abigail reaches up her hands, tugs at the pyjama top and starts sobbing. There’s a large wet mark on the other woman’s shoulder when she is done, though she doesn’t seem to notice it as she’s running around her house, pulling out a rolled up mattress and building a make-shift bed in the middle of the room. She’s gentle as she moves Abigail to her bedroom, helps her in bed, petting at her hair, and chanting it’ll be okay over and over again.

Abigail’s already asleep when she moves to the kitchen, scrolling through her contacts list. It takes a few seconds before the person at the other end picks up, and Sebastian’s voice sounds muffled. She imagines him for a second, face half-hidden in his pillow, dishevelled hair. Then:

“It’s Abbie.”

The next day, Sam and Sebastian show up on her doorstep at 6am with chocolate cake, and they barely even greet her before moving inside, slamming open the door to the room where Abigail’s sleeping, essentially waking her up. But they also jump on the bed, squeezing themselves in the small space, peppering her face with kisses, even as she screams at them to stop, that they’re gross. But she’s laughing.

Over breakfast (eggs and salad and chocolate cake), they discuss what they should do next. There’s enough space here for two people, and it makes most sense to have Abigail live here for a while, until things calm down a bit.

“Did,” Abigail starts, unsure, playing with a tissue, “Maru tell your parents?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, and he feels like he really needs a smoke.

“I guess it went well.”

Abigail ends with a laugh that resounds dry and bitter in the room. Sam’s leaning towards her, holding her hand.

“Your parents will come around,” he says. “They just need to get over the initial shock.”

Except Abigail, everyone else nods. It’s hard to imagine Pierre staying mad at anyone, let alone his own daughter. But Pelican Town is a small enough place that such a thing might take a long time to forgive in the eyes of others. After the guys leave that first day, Abigail spends the entire day in bed. The next one, she joins her host for coffee, asks about the pumpkin patches.

When the Stardew Valley Fair rolls around, she helps the farmer fill Robin’s truck with her products. The older woman hugs Abigail that day like she’s a long-lost daughter, which makes her cry all over again.

***

The Fair itself is nice; the trees around had already started to turn orange, and it gives the place a really cosy atmosphere. Almost everyone in town buys something from her stall, and Marnie even comments that she fits right in. She enters Lewis’ competition with her pumpkins, but she loses to Shane’s chickens, which is a totally deserved win on his side, though she hates to admit.

Abigail makes up with her family that day, because the second she steps in town, her mother drops a crane of jars, swears, and runs up to her baby girl to hug the life out of her, cry and apologize. Pierre is sniffling at his stall, next to her – and she passes him her handkerchief.

Then, because Abigail is Abigail, she kisses Maru in front of everyone. George whistles, loudly and everyone laughs, which ends any discussion on the topic. With this scene, the farmer thinks she has just fallen a bit in love with the man herself.

Shane approaches her, to boast his win.

“Congrats,” she says, though she is pointedly not looking at the bow pinned to his chest. Jas has already been over, stopping everyone and showing it off.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, and she’s glad the stall stands between them, because she knows he would have liked to be much closer than this.

“Glad you took the hint.”

“Is the freak gang that entertaining, little girl?”

There he goes again, with his horrible nicknames and that shit-eating grin. She hopes he’d choke on all the bullshit he’s spewing, some day.

“Yes.”

She sounds firm, serious and soft at the same time. There’s a small smile on her lips as well, and probably it’s that combination that makes Shane realize she’s entirely truthful. So, he laughs. For sure, he must find her stupid and foolish, and yet she only feels relieved as he watches him walk away, shaking his head like he’s disappointed.

As evening approaches, Sebastian stops by her stall. It’s almost empty now, most of her products sold earlier in the day. He sits next to her, smoking, looking at Sam winning the big prize at darts for Penny. She all but swoons.

Sebastian gets up, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it.

“Do you want to walk around?”

She nods, he helps her up. She asks Pierre to watch over the rest of her stuff, and when they move from stall to stall, her and Sebastian are so close that their shoulder almost touch, though none moves to put more space between them. She keeps stealing glances at him, as he explains to her about his favourite stalls, and how it used to look like back in his childhood.

They eat Gus’ famous burgers, and her heart almost stops beating when he leans closer, pressing a tissue to the corner of her mouth. He starts by looking her in the eye, but then her own eyes drop to the flutter of his eyelids, the curve of his nose, eventually settling on the plumpness of his lips – and his gaze follows suit, tracing the same path on her face. They sit in silence, staring at each other, until Gus’ boisterous laugh makes them both startle.

She mumbles her thanks, looking at her plate, too afraid to look at Sebastian.

They play darts too, though she only manages to hit the target only once, and only on its furthest ring.

“Sam rigged this game, didn’t he?” she asks, which makes him smile.

Sebastian pays for his turn, raises his eyebrows at her when she’s expectantly watching him. He throws the first dart while still looking at her, and it hits bull’s eye. She screams in delight, clapping her hands together.

He moves his hand to the back of his head, embarrassed at her reaction, even if he so desperately wanted it in the first place. He asks her if she wants any of the prizes, but she shakes her head. As cheesy as it might be, for her it’s enough that she can enjoy the fair, and that she can do it alongside him.

***

When she counts her savings the next day, it’s not as much as she would have liked. So she starts going to the mine again, because she can sell well everything that she finds in there, and for a couple of weeks, it works out just fine. Until it doesn’t anymore.

She knows the place is old, but the crack of the stair giving way under her weight was not an expected problem. The lurking animals and the unmapped areas, sure. But not the wooden step of the stairs.

It takes her by surprise, and she doesn’t have fast enough reflexes to find another footing, so she falls all the distance to the ground. She lands on her side, and there’s a terrible crack in the shoulder that makes getting up so, so painful afterwards. She’s bleeding heavily from one of her knees as well, and several bruises are already blooming on her legs and arms.

Her flashlight also went out on impact, so at first she is disoriented, her head booming with the sound of her fall. Then she gets scared, her heartbeat in her throat, and before she can even think more of her wounds, she forces herself to count up to 100, as slowly as she can, bringing her breathing back to normal, forcing her body to refuse the incoming panic attack just yet.

No one knows she’s in the mine right now, so technically even if they were to notice her disappearance, it will take a while until they find her. And it was already dark outside, judging from the last time she looked at her watch, which makes searching for her unsafe until at least tomorrow morning. She can’t just stay here and wait for someone to find her, even if that is all that she truly wants to do.

She winces when she finally raises to her feet. She’s unstable and everything hurts, but she’s most worried about her arm. She tried to pick up her discarded flashlight, but the movement hurt so much she left out an agonized wail.

Tears start biting at her eyes when she bumps into the stairs, after fumbling through the dark for it. She tries not to think of all the steps until the surface, and then her walk back home – and instead tries to take it one step at a time. She can support her weight only on one arm, and her legs hurt each time she raises them, the skin at her knee ripping open a bit more with each move of her leg up. She takes it one at a time, stops often to breathe deeply, give some part of her body some respite. She struggles even more when she finally gets to the broken stair, and she has to cover twice the distance.

When she eventually collapses on the ground at the entrance to the cave, she can smell the fresh night air, and she can hear the rustling of the leaves, and she starts crying. Somewhere down there, where the mine caved in, trapping workers under the stones and dirt and in unending hallways, is the body of her uncle. Of course, she could have easily shared the same fate today, if she would have been a bit higher, if she would have fallen on one of the sharp stones littering the lower floors instead.

She forces herself, again, to just breathe. But even as she makes herself stand up and walk the long way home, her mind is drifting further and further away, the pain now more dulled at the edge.

That’s why she doesn’t catches when someone calls out her name, doesn’t realize she’s not alone anymore until said person catches her arm to make her stop. Unfortunately, it is her hurt arm, and she shrieks, tears pooling at her eyes, as she’s stumbling away.

Sebastian stares at her, mouth agape, looking like he’s just seen a ghost. He moves his eyes over her body, taking in her state, though he’s unsure in some spots, if the stains on her clothes are blood or dirt.

“Shit, you need to see a doctor,” he says, moving closer again, but she flinches upon his approach.

He passes a frustrated hand through his hair. Dumbly, she wonders what he is doing out here, by the river, in the middle of the night.

“Can I touch you?” he asks. He’s still keeping his distance, though he’s looking at her in a strange way, like she’ll fall off her feet at any moment. Although she nods, this time more aware, more in tune with her surrounding, this time around he approaches more slowly, careful with his movements.

She leans onto him, sighing in relief.

“This will hurt,” he says, and before she has time to think about it, he gathers her in his arms, head at the crook of his neck, her good arm around his shoulder, as he starts carrying her. She just whimpers pathetically, at his chest, blushing furiously and trying not to overthink the gesture, or her weight, or the fact that they’re stopping in front of Harvey’s clinic at fuck knows what time.

Harvey answers on the second knock, looks at the state she’s in and simply mumbles I need my coffee, allowing them inside. Sebastian is still carrying her the flights of stairs up, before finally setting her down on a bed. He’s breathing hard by now, but he’s not complaining. In the light, she can see how wild and panicked his eyes are, how deep his frown is as he searches her body for wounds.

Now that they can see, her shoulder is at a weird angle.

“I’ll have to set it back,” Harvey says, sipping loudly from a fresh cup of coffee, sitting on a chair next to her bed. He looks up at Sebastian, checks the time on his wrist watch. “You can go if you want to.”

“I’ll stay,” he replies almost immediately, making her shiver on the bed, a movement that both men catch. “If that’s okay with you.”

She nods, pleading with Harvey to let him stay, to which he agrees. His job is not made any more difficult, since Sebastian looks perfectly healthy, the weird sleep schedule aside. She doesn’t notice when Sebastian moves, shifts so he can sit next to her on the bed, wrapping his fingers around hers.

Harvey descends like a shadow above her, snapping her bones back in place. She squeezes Sebastian’s hand in her good one, so hard that his bones crack, her fingers digging in his skin until they draw blood. But she only inhales sharply, letting out a string of soft curses, teeth grinding together in pain. When she looks at them, she feels only betrayed, because they both clearly knew what was to come, and did their best to make it as fast as possible.

Harvey hands her a glass of water and some painkillers, and only then does she realize she’s still holding onto Sebastian’s hand. She lets go slowly, smiling at him, patting his hand in silent thanks, though Sebastian cannot smile back at her.

“So what happened?” Harvey asks, moving on to cutting open the leg of her pants, cleaning up the cuts, disinfecting her wounds.

She speaks, evenly, though her panic shows through in some parts, and Sebastian rubs calming circles on her back with his palm. She leans into his touch, swaying in place, eyes fluttering closed, opening them again at a slower and slower pace.

“You should sleep here tonight, so I can monitor your condition,” Harvey says, and Sebastian rises, helping her lay down on the bed, covering her with the blanket, as she’s already fallen asleep.

The two men move downstairs in silence. The clock on the wall shows 4 a.m.

***

She wakes to Granny knitting on a chair next to her bed. It’s such an odd image that it takes her a while to recall all the events of the night before. Then, she startles upright.

“Easy, darling, all’s good,” Granny says, though she didn’t even look up at the younger woman.

She learns that Marnie visited her farm earlier, feeding her animals. Abigail took Max to her place, Penny came by with pie. And Sebastian is downstairs, on his 3rd coffee of the day, not having gone home since he first dropped her at the clinic.

Granny smiles to herself when the patient looks longingly at the door, her skin on fire.

***

Harvey keeps her for one more night, though she is feeling alright, and she insists so to everyone coming around to check on her. She thought Robin will pick her up, something that she agreed to after much pestering from the woman, but instead the one waiting for her in front of the clinic, leaning on Robin’s truck, is Sebastian.

“Mom had something come up,” he says, moving to get her backpack, filled with the stuff from the mine and some clothes that Abigail picked for her. He opens the truck’s door for her.

“I could have just walked,” she says, though her leg is still stiff.

He shuts the door on her, and until he joins her in, she has time to mull over what exactly she wants to say.

“Thank you,” she beings. “For everything and I’m sorry.”

She fidgets on the spot, as he starts the engine and begins driving.

“Why are you apologizing?” his voice is soft, the corner of his mouth tilted up just the tiniest bit.

“For all the trouble?”

It sounds more like a question,

“You know I’d gladly be troubled for you.”

She does not know that, in fact. She turns to look out the window, at the stretch of trees on the road to her farm, and she wonders when she became such a person to others.

When they arrive, she invites him in, but he politely refuses. She needs to rest. But he does walk back to the car, fiddling with the gloves compartment, coming back with something in his arms. He presents it to her, carefully wrapped, and watches attentively as she opens it, catching her reaction.

In her hands, she has the first volume of what she knows is Sebastian’s favourite comic.

Abigail will tell her, later on, that before he came to pick her up, he drove all the way to Zuzu City so he could pick a copy for her. So on an autumn rainy day, she makes herself a cup of tea, and curls in her bed, opening the book.

She takes her sweet time, searching every detail in the art, rewriting particular quotes in her journal. Then her thoughts fly without her even wanting to, to a particular someone she’d like to have next to her, to explain her favourite parts. She’d like to have him by her side more than that though, as she wakes and works, a person that makes it so much easier for her to just be.

She’s a fool – she tries to tell herself, hugging the book close to her chest. There’s nothing she can offer Sebastian that would make him stay in this village he so obviously loathes. She’s just dumb enough to have fallen for the man she cannot even bring herself to ask to love her back. But the image is now stuck on a loop in her mind: stray sun rays filtering through the curtain, and Sebastian in the door frame, with her mug of coffee in his hands, offering it to her as she wakes.

She tortures herself with thoughts like this afterwards, whenever she finds a moment of respite in her work, as she hurries to sell the last of her crops, to preserve the mushrooms, fill the sill with grains for the animals and the storage outside with wood.

***

The first time she gets out of her property after the accident is to attend a dinner on Robin’s birthday. In the town here, it’s not a big deal, so she feels particularly honoured to have the older woman invite her.

However, Robin sends Sebastian to pick her up. She’s on the porch, bundled up in her favourite sweater and a shawl, petting Max, when he pulls up in her courtyard on his motorcycle. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and as he moves to get her helmet, she’s only staring at the way his muscles are straining under the material.

He helps her put it on, clasping it under her chin, his fingers lingering on her skin, and they stare in each other’s eyes for a few long seconds. Then, he holds out a hand, helping her get up, and guides her arms around his waist.

She’s basically glued to his back, and she wonders if he can hear how loudly her heart is beating. He tightens his hold against her arms, signalling that she should hold on tighter, and she does, even though she closes her eyes to will the embarrassment away.

Robin welcomes her with an enthusiastic hug, and she’s delighted to see Abigail has been invited as well, and she’s now sitting next to Maru at the table, discussing something with Demetrius. She’s sent her present in the mail earlier this day, more goat cheese and a few quartz pieces, and the redhead thanks her happily.

When she passes Sebastian on the hallway, she stops for a few seconds to thank him for the ride, warmly clasping his hand in hers. Then just as quickly she lets go, joins everyone else in the kitchen.

Most of the conversation is just the parents dotting on the newly formed couple, though there is a passing comment of the pumpkin soup currently served being Sebastian’s favourite food, so she makes a note to ask the recipe from Robin the next day. There’s an anecdote about how Demetrius and Robin first met, though it makes both their children cringe at how young and lovesick they still sound recalling it. Abigail talks about her studies, Maru continues, though their degrees are vastly different.

The farmer turns to look at Sebastian.

“What about your work?”

The conversation stills, a bit awkward. No one ever asks what Sebastian is doing, since freelancing is such a grey area in their mind – though they fail to see that almost everyone in this town is the goddamn owner of their own work.

“Well,” he starts, playing with the food on his plate. “Actually I’ve got a promotion recently and a really big project coming up.”

She clasps her hands together, beaming up at him.

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

Everyone at the table nods politely, Robin even congratulation her son. But he thinks of her question, and lately the answer seems to be no, because each of his successes brings him closer to leaving Pelican Town, and he’s not sure he wants to anymore.

***

By the end of the evening, everyone is more or less tipsy, made soft by the drink and the warmth of the house. Robin insists that she should sleep over, afraid to let her return home this late. She almost puts Sebastian and Maru in one room, but the daughter refuses so vehemently, that Sebastian instead just tells her he’ll take the couch. Their mother stares for a long time after both of her children, as each turns to their guest, and instead decides to retire for the night, together with Demetrius.

That’s how she ends up sitting on Sebastian’s bed, as he’s searching for a towel and some clothes for her.

“Maru is leaving next spring for a research program,” he explains. “That’s why-”

“She wants to make the most out of it,” she continues.

“Yeah.”

He understands the feeling; it’s why he’s more often than not out of his house these days, afraid that one day he’ll have to root himself out of this place, and he will leave many things behind to regret. And many people he will miss.

He throws the clothes in her direction, points her to the direction of the bathroom.

She’s feeling more awake after the shower, and she’s drying her hair with a towel as she enters his room again. She wears one of his hoodies, but on her it looks almost like a dress, coming down halfway to her knees, sleeves rolled several times over. The sweatpants are equally as large.

“I like your socks,” she says, wiggling her toes, an ugly, green gooey face dancing with the movement.

She’s way too freakin cute, Sebastian thinks, though he only smiles at her as he passes her to go and take a shower. When he returns, she’s snuggled in his bed, a comic book in hands, the sequel to the present he’s given her before. She doesn’t hear him come in until he plops on the couch, and then she looks up at him, cheeks immediately flushing.

“Aren’t you cold?”

He’s wearing a tank top, loose enough around the chest area that she can see his collarbones. She knows she’s staring, yet she can’t tear her eyes away from the skin of his arms, or the taut stretch of his top against his chest. When eventually, finally, she moves her gaze up to his face, he’s smirking, clearly having caught her in the act.

“I never get cold,” he replies, shrugging, though he tenses the muscles on his arm, and her gaze immediately snaps back there.

He’s outright laughing right now, which makes her turn her back to him, pulling the blanket over her entire body and mumble an embarrassed good night.

But she has a very, very hard time falling asleep.

***

“I don’t wanna go,” she whines at Sam, pulling at his clothes, dragging him away from the maze.

He just laughs, tugging her harder instead. His little brother scared her as soon as she arrived for Spirit’s Eve, and since then she refused to leave his side, on edge all the time.

The town is decorated in skulls and supersized spiders, and Abigail took to walking around with a witch hat on and a sword in her hands, which everyone agreed was cool but also relatively worrisome.

She swears, loudly, clinging even closer to Sam’s arm, when Sebastian joins them, carrying two glasses of punch. He chuckles, but still passes one of them to her.

“You don’t celebrate Spirit’s Eve in the city?”

“Well,” she says, taking a large gulp of her drink. “There it’s more about getting shit-faced in a club, and less about your heart going for a run when you turn the corner of the street.”

“Amen, sister,” Sam yells, grabbing her glass and downing it all in one go.

“Hey!” She punches his shoulder.

“It made you laugh though!” he says, leaving so he can get her a refill, and well, he’s not wrong, because now she feels way more at ease than before.

Sebastian shifts closer to her, for which she is grateful.

“Is it really that bad?”

“I just hate jump scares,” she whines, again. “And I’m sure the maze is filled with them.”

“You know you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, right? We can just sit on a bench and watch the skeletons.”

“We?”

He’s pressing his palm to his neck. “Well I’ve cleared the maze every year, so.”

So they sit, together.

***

Back in the city, she can never tell when it will snow anyway – but here in town, the air is crisp and cold for days before. Robin shows up one early winter morning, and helps her isolate the house as much as possible, around the windows and the doors, so that no cold seeps in, so that all the warmth stays. She might need to renovate the house next year, but for now, it will have to be enough.

Robin sips at the coffee she’s been offered, and pretends not to see Sebastian’s books sprawled all around the farmer’s house, on the kitchen counter, on the bed, next to the TV. She also equally doesn’t comment on one of Sebastian’s jackets hanging on the back of the chair that the young girl is currently occupying. Robin takes another sip, and smiles in her cup.

Back in the city, when it snows, it never piles; part car fumes, part all the people walking around doing their business. But here in the town, when she wakes up one morning, all she can see around her house is a wide expanse of whiteness. Max runs past her, jumps into the snow, comes back in so wet but so happy, that she doesn’t mind having to towel him near the fire from the fireplace.

But she’s left with too much time on her hands; she watches Queen of Sauce almost obsessively, following along in her own kitchen, surprised when her food is actually good. She starts knitting, phoning Granny each time she stumbles through a row. She reads, almost obsessively. And she does go to the mines, but for shorter periods now, scared of not repeating her injury, even if the Adventurer’s Guild repaired the broken stairs.

Then Sam calls her over one day and welcomes her to the world of DnD, him and Sebastian more or less forcing everyone else to start a new campaign with them. It’s the happiest she’s seen them both, so she tries to keep up with the characters, stops to ask about plot holes. They explain things in tandem, finishing each other’s sentences, for almost an entire hour, because you see, this race can’t have this magical power. Sam pulls out his guide, passing it around so that everyone can look up the kind of character they want to create.

That first evening together, that’s all they do in fact: filling stat sheets, searching reference pictures on the internet. And they eat Jodi’s delicious snacks, gossip a bit about Marnie and mayor Lewis’ affair, that the whole town knows about but somehow only the two of them missed this detail.

They turn it into a weekly meeting, rotating their meeting place through all their houses, sometimes the Stardrop Saloon in the days when they know it’ll be more empty and calm. They fight imaginary battles, Sam’s voice guiding them through cities and enemies and friends, saving each other’s asses and forging alliances. It’s the best fun she’s had since arriving in the town, though if anyone were to tell her this a year ago, she would have laughed directly into their faces.

They break the tradition only once, when instead they decide to go ice-skating. Each winter, if the temperatures are low enough, the lake freezes, making it a perfect rink. To be fair, it’s her favourite sport – probably only sport that she’s so excited to do, that she jumps on the spot as she waits for her turn to lend a pair of skates.

She’s looking a bit ridiculous, wearing 3 different layers and one of her grandpa’s padded vests, a beanie on top of her head. Sebastian finds her just really cute. She skates around holding one of Maru’s hands, Abigail the other – because she’s the only one who doesn’t really know how to do it.

Then Sam starts a game of tag with Jas. So they start chasing each other around, yelling when they’re caught only to start again. Penny almost trips, but Sam’s catches her hand and stabilizes her, even if he’s it now. Abigail and Maru skate around holding hands, working more like one person than two separate ones, though Abigail lets go only when it’s her turn to chase someone; and she’s fast as a flash, her turn over in under a minute.

She touches the farmer’s back, and she’s left in the middle of the frozen lake, trying to think who to go after. Her intention is to go after Vincent, his voice shrill with happiness when he realizes he has to run away from her, but her skates catch in the ice.

She only has time to gasp out a swearword, preparing to fall flat on her face. But there’s an arm around her waist, though the angle is awkward and her weight too heavy, so both of them fall to the ground.

She blinks, trying to make sense of the new position. She didn’t hit the cold ice, instead Sebastian’s body cushioned her fall. She’s on top of him, hands on either side of his head, and she’s staring into his eyes. She’s so close that she can feel his chest heaving.

“You good?” he asks, a hand moving to settle around her waist.

It snaps her out of it. “Shit, I’m the one who should be asking that.”

She’s trying to get up, though she’s embarrassed and fumbling, and her first movement just positions her ass on Sebastian’s thighs and crotch area. He shudders, inhaling loudly – and she can feel him stir under her.

“Oh,” is all that she can say, eyes blown wide catching his. Though there’s something more there: curiosity, and a growing interest.

“You guys okay?!” Sam’s voice is distant to her ears, though she waves a hand in the air, to both show that they’re okay and ask for a break from their game. Sebastian says nothing, looking up at her like a man found guilty of murder, face flushed, though he hasn’t moved his hand from her waist.

She grinds her hips, pushing harder against Sebastian’s body, watching in fascination as he’s squeezing his eyes shut, a frown on his forehead.

“Stop,” he says, sounding wound up and chocked.

So she does, rolling from on top of him, pulling herself to her feet, smiling when offering him a hand up. Though he’s not smiling back, he takes her hand.

***

“Happy birthday!” she shouts, when Sebastian opens the door to his bedroom, holding up her present to him.

Behind him, music plays loudly, and she can see Sam and Abigail arguing about who gets the last slice of pizza. She’s the last to arrive, but that’s also partially because outside there’s a real blizzard. Penny comes to hug her in greeting, and she high-fives Sam. Most of the time, they just drink and joke around, chatting about random things, his oldest friends telling tales of Sebastian.

After a couple of hours, Sebastian catches her eyes, motions towards the outside. Sam has given up smoking, being more of a social smoker, just like her. But since he got together with Penny, a fact to which they finally admitted after merciless teasing from Abigail, he quit.

They stop in the hallway, putting on their coats – and she hands him the present again, though he hasn’t noticed her coming up with it.

“You might find useful what’s in here.”

So he opens it to find a matching hat and scarf, in a dark navy. They’re clearly handmade, and handmade by her he suspects – and he’s touched by the time and care she had to put in her gift. Nestled between the material, there’s also a frozen tear.

“God, I-I love this. Thank you.”

She beams at him, obviously relieved. He puts the frozen tear carefully in the pocket of his jacket. She helps him with the scarf and the beanie, her hands lingering on his shoulder for a second afterwards, admiring him.

Outside, in the courtyard corner where they’re smoking, there’s a snowman. Sebastian almost feels like kicking it when she mentions in passing that it’s cute.

“I built a snowgoon but Demetrius made me get rid of it, yet Maru’s cute little snowman still stands…”

He didn’t mean to sound this bitter. She shifts, coming in closer, taking his empty hand in hers.

“If I just disappeared, would it even matter?”

He means it like a rhetorical question, just for himself – but she’s strengthening her grip on him, forcing him to look at her. She wants him to understand that she’s entirely serious.

“It would matter to me.”

***

It’s drizzling, a mix of snow and rain, weather suddenly warming up. On the beach, anyway, snow never piles up, and when Sebastian turns around, he finds her standing a few feet away, staring out into the sea. She is drenched, shivering lightly with each gust of wind, and now that her concentration has been snapped by his movement, she’s staring at him instead.

He gestures her closer, and she stops by his side. Now, closer, he can see that she’s shivering more violently than he initially though, and she’s certainly not dressed properly for the weather.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks, softly, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. She closes her eyes, head leaning toward his touch, and he finds himself cupping her cheek without thinking too much about it.

“What are you doing out here?” she counters, blinking up at him.

Maybe it’s the absolutely pathetic state that both of them are into that makes him answer honestly to the question. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s her.

“Looking out at the bleak horizon… It makes me feel like it’s worthwhile to keep pushing on.”

He shrugs, trying not to look as serious as his statement. Lately, he’s been having more reasons to believe that same thing, but old habits die hard, and there’s a particular calmness in being somewhere where no one else is. Or, he thinks, looking down at her, almost no one.

“I just like the sea,” she says, and any awkwardness that he still felt dissipates with her admission. The water is raging, stirred on by the storm, crashing violently against the pier, and they stand in silence, his hands carefully petting her hair, pulling her closer when she shivers again.

“Fuck, do you want to catch your death?”

He undresses quickly, placing his jacket over her shoulders. It doesn’t make much of a difference, but it’s more waterproof than what she’s wearing, and also carrying his warmth. He pops open the umbrella he’s carrying, and with an arm around her shoulder, pulls her to his chest.

“You know,” he starts, his palm rubbing circles on her back. “I would normally feel anxious doing this with anyone. But somehow, you’re the exception.”

Her head turns, chin resting on his chest so she can look up at him.

“I want to kiss you,” she says, and Sebastian chokes on whatever he wanted to say before. “Can I?”

She’s on her tiptoes now, her lips so close to his that their breathes are mingling, yet she’s giving him the choice of covering the remaining distance. Which he does, hungrily, almost desperate for it, both hands cupping her cheeks as their mouths clash. The umbrella falls into the water, and yet they don’t care enough to notice it.

They stop for a moment, coming up for air, and then they’re back at it, and despite the fire growing at the pit of her stomach, the kiss is languid, exploring, tongue pressing against tongue. Slight movement, a change in their position to deepen the kiss, her fingers now playing in the hair at the nape of his neck, his hands at her waist.

He kisses her like he never kissed somebody else, and went hungry for it all this time. His fingers move under her sweater, and the sudden cold touch makes her break apart. His touch turns comforting, pressing against her skin, and she sighs. Their foreheads meet.

“Fuck, I wanted to do that for so long,” he breathes and she laughs.

“We are two idiots, right?”

“Big idiots,” he nods, and she takes his hand in hers, starts pulling him in the direction of her house.

***

She starts the fire in the house, as he’s slowly undressing layer after layer. In the bathroom, the bathtub is filled with hot water, waiting for him. He’s down to a t-shirt and his boxers when he cups her elbow in his hand.

“Join me?” he asks, voice a bit strained, but firm.

She can only nod, dazed, not trusting that this is not just a dream, afraid that speaking will ruin the moment. He sits down on the edge of the tub, gesturing for her to come closer. She’s standing in front of him, and he’s gentle in guiding her out of her clothes, letting them drop to the floor. He strays from his purpose sometime, to press a kiss against her hip, or at the tip of her fingertips.

When she eventually ends up stark naked, his eyes are hungry, but his touch not, as he guides her inside the hot tub. She sighs in pleasure, closing her eyes. She opens them again when she hears the rustling of clothes, to watch him undress. He’s a bit slow, a bit shy, joining her inside the tub. The water almost spills over. She tries not to think of his cock, the precum leaking. She tries to ignore the uncomfortable heat growing between her legs.

She helps him shampoo his hair, he washes her back. They go off track from time to time, kissing lazingly for a long time, his hands massaging her breasts, her teeth grazing his neck. Until she moans, a loud sound. Until he gasps, her name caught between his lips.

Then, with ease, he helps her out. They share one, large towel, huddling together until they reach her bedroom, giggling like children. They’re almost to the bed when he stops, looks at her.

“We don’t have to do anything.”

He’s a liar, because his cock is pulsing with want and she can feel him against her hip. She pouts.

“But I want you.”

He kisses her pout away, pushes at her shoulder until she falls to the bed with a yelp, hands wrapping against him, taking him down with her. She’s laughing, pleased with having him on top of her, when his mouth moves downwards on her body, kissing against her collarbones, sucking at the skin, biting at the skin, until there’s a dark mark behind. He throws her a pleased grin, moving lower yet again.

Sebastian takes one of her nipples in his mouth, a hand moving up to tease the other. Her hands immediately wrap in his hair and she gasps. He pulls at the sensitive area, with his teeth and his fingers, licking it better immediately afterwards, and she writhes under him. He kisses his path downwards, though his lips kiss at her hips, he bites at her thighs, always circling around where she most wants him.

“Seb,” she whines. “Please.”

He stops his ministrations to look at her, frowning and pouting, hair dishevelled against her pillows, her body flushed all over, his marks so obvious against her skin. He feels himself growing at the sight, though he smirks at her.

“Please what?”

She blushes.

“Please eat me out?”

It sounds like a plead and a question and a prayer and a command all at once, and he’s on her in the blink of an eye, tongue lapping at her folds. Her back arches, but his hands are keeping her in place – and he maintains a constant, slow rhythm.

Until he doesn’t, one of his fingers entering her in full, with ease. Sebastian chuckles.

“You’re so wet, baby.”

Her walls squeeze at the nickname. He adds another finger; watches, transfixed, as it disappears inside with the same ease. He starts pumping them inside her, and the sound of her wet pussy taking it all in is so hot, that he groans.

Buried down in her to the knuckles, he opens his fingers apart. She moans, pushing down, searching for more, more, more. He scissors her, spreading her wide – and his head moves lower yet again, lips kissing against her clit at first.

Then, he adds a third finger. He can feel her stiffen under him, so he pulls her clit in his mouth, rolling his tongue around it, just as he starts pumping his fingers inside her. Now her hands are holding on to her sheets, and she’s mumbling some curses, halfway lost to her pleasure, moans louder and louder as he speeds up.

He raises his head just for a second, to chuckle against her heated pussy.

“Come, baby.”

So she does, and he continue pumping inside of her, letting her ride her orgasm. She still sighs when he pulls out his fingers, immediately missing the feeling of being filled up with him. He moves to pepper her face with kisses, petting at her now sweated forehead.

“You did so well, baby.”

He’s teasing her, knowing how much she likes the nickname. So instead she looks down between their bodies, his cock against his navel, leaking – and looking like the most beautiful dick she has ever seen in her life. It’s not the biggest one she’s seen, but he’s thick and she’s never wanted to taste something more than the cum that’d spill out of it.

Still staring, she moves her hands to grab it, her fingers dancing over it, starting with his leaking tip, spreading his precum all over his length, before stopping with a slight squeeze at its base. Sebastian shivers over her, eyes closed, mouth open in an unspoken prayer, because he’s not sure even god can help him now.

Holding his dick in her hands, she helps him adjust at her entrance. At first, he teases against her cunt, pressing his cock between her folds, rocking his hips back and forth as they both moan in tandem. She’s already dripping over the sheets again.

He grabs at her hand, fingers entwined.

“You ready?”

“For that dick? Born ready,” she says, chuckling, but not moving her eyes away from where he’s starting to push inside her.

“Fuuck,” he says, just as she moans, only the tip in. The stretch is painful, but so fucking delicious and she’s a blabbering mess begging for more, pulling him closer with her free arm. He slams inside her, forcing the rest of his length inside in one go, and she swears. He kisses at her eyebrows, at the tip of her nose, apologizing softly.

“Tell me when to move again,” he says, and true to his words, he seems content to just kiss her, tongue at her neck, words whispered and lost in her hair, but making her shiver nonetheless just because there’s the hot breath so close to her skin. She’s trying to adjust to his entirety of him inside her, not hurtful but not entirely comfortable just yet either, and his mouth now licking at her hypersensitive nipple seems to slowly do the trick.

“Move,” she says, and he does.

He’s slow at first, almost frustratingly so, pulling out almost entirely, before slowly filling her up again. She moans, drawn out sounds, with each movement – and she almost doesn’t notice when the speed picks up, when she starts moving her hips to meet his actions. They’re a mess of grunts and moans, gasps and swears – and he squeezes so hard at her hip when she comes again, the orgasm washing over her with an intensity that it’s almost blinding, that she’s sure he’ll leave bruises.

Sebastian looks like a man in pain, inside her as she’s coming back to herself after the orgasm. She kisses his cheek, hands rubbing against his chest muscles.

“Do you want to cum all over me?”

He almost trips with the haste that he’s pulling out of her. She’s waiting, on her back, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Sebastian rises on his knees – it’s embarrassing that he only needs two more pumps to come. Most of it falls on her tits and neck, though she’s happily licking every bit that she can reach with her tongue, swallowing it all like a good girl.

“Fuck,” Sebastian says, falling next to her on the bed. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

She beams at him, getting closer. They kiss for a while, bored and tired and messy, teeth clanking together, tongue at the corner of the mouth. There’s a string of saliva between their lips when they separate.

She gets up, goes to the toilet, returns all cleaned up, before coming back to the warmth of the bed, dragging the covers over both of them. Sure, the sheets are dirty, but that’s a problem for her future self, because right now, all she wants to do is snuggle at Sebastian’s back, an arm draped over his waist. So that’s what she does.

***

When they wake, they fuck on the kitchen counter, the angle hitting her just right. Truthfully, half of her butt is in the air, her legs wrapped around Sebastian’s torso, as he snaps his hips up in her, deeper and deeper each time. She’s never been so glad she doesn’t have neighbours in her entire life. Maybe because it’s been so long on her part, or because Sebastian is really just that good, she’s loud – and she loves to feel him stirring inside her, with each of her moans and praises.

“So good,” she gasps, fingers digging almost painfully in his back, and he proves his point by ramming into her, ripping a sob of pleasure out of her.

He’s wearing a condom this time around, so there is no mess to clean up, and they drink their coffee afterwards – talking about this and that, not even skimming the topic of what they’re doing, or why.

He kisses her goodbye though.

And on Winter Star, while she’s getting ready for the feast with everyone else, Sebastian comes by. He welcomes him warmly, and he sits on the side of her bed, watching her finish her make-up and doing her hair, and though he doesn’t move, she keeps catching his eyes in the mirror, looking at her every movement hungrily.

“We’re not fucking after all this effort I just put in,” she says, pointedly plucking her lips and applying a bright, red lipstick.

“I want to take you out on a date,” he says, ignoring her childish theatrics, but shaking his head with a soft smile.

“Sure.”

She tries to sound nonchalant, but her heart is beating in her chest. As much as she’d like to have him bend her over the table and take her like a bitch in heat, she’d much prefer him being her boyfriend while he does so.

“Good, let’s go then.”

“Now?” she yelps, when he grabs her hand and walks her towards the entrance.

“Now,” he says. He helps her putting on her beret, she straightens the scarf around his neck. “I’ve already called Sam and told him we won’t make it to the feast.”

“You did? What did he say?”

“To have condoms on me,” Sebastian says, face serious, which is why it makes her snort.

“And?” she’s wiggling her eyebrows at him. “Do you?”

He slaps her butt as she’s getting out instead of a reply. She turns at him, the slightest darkness in her eyes.

They go for a ride, promise not forgotten. They drive for a long time, and when they finally reach their destination, he tells her to keep her eyes closed, keeps his palms against her eyes as he guides her steps.

When he moves his hands away, she gasps. Spread ahead of her, the lights of Zuzu City against the usual darkness of the night. Sebastian moves next to her, grabs her hand in his.

“I come here when I want to get away from everything and just… think.”

He’s been doing this a lot lately, ever since she came to the valley, became his friend. Torn between his dreams of the city and the familiarity of home, he came here often thinking about what he should do.

He’s fumbling with his cigarettes, before eventually lightning one. Leaning against his motorcycle, she’s still looking out at the landscape in front of them.

“It gives such a strange, sad feeling…”

She’s almost saying it to herself. She doesn’t understand why he is showing this to her, and she can only think of how much he wants to be a part of those lights shining in the distance. She knows, if he is to walk that path, there’s nothing she will do to stop him.

Sebastian gets close to her, slings an arm around her shoulder. His gaze is still fixed to the city out in the distance, but when he speaks, it’s all just for her.

“The city used to draw me in… but now I’m finding myself happier at home in the valley.”

Her head snaps up so fast that it almost hurts. She doesn’t trust herself to say anything, afraid she’s overstepping, afraid she actually misunderstands whatever is going on, afraid to hope too much.

He turns to her, knuckles slowly caressing her cheek.

“You’re the only one I ever brought to this place. You know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

She shakes her head; wants to hear it. He leans down, pulling her close with his other arm, covering her sound of surprise with his mouth, kissing her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to his kisses; he’s a passionate but patient kisser, drawing out the movements for as long as possible, biting and licking at her lips, smiling smugly and lazily at her when he is done.

“I want us to be together. For real.”

She jumps in his arms, the move making him stumble a bit, but they’re not falling. She looks in his eyes, the gaze as touching and passionate as it’s ever been.

“I love you, Sebastian.”

“Wha-”

But she kisses him.

***

She’s obsessed with saying those three words. Now that she has the right to say it, it blooms out of her at his every gesture. She says it out loud without embarrassment or care as to whoever else can hear it. She says it as good morning and as good bye. She says it when he stays the night, and when he asks her over to play a new game together. She says it in front of Maru and mayor Lewis. She says it when he comes inside of her. She says it when he lets her borrow his sweater. She says it when he calls her in the evening after work.

It makes him dizzy with how wanted she makes him feel.

It’s the middle of the night and they’re waiting, alongside everyone else from the city, for the clock to strike exactly 12, and the fireworks to blast into the sky. She’s holding onto his arm, chatting happily with Sam about a cover song they’re planning. Her weight, next to him, is something new to get used to – but she’s always fitting herself right there with so much ease, that it seems almost natural.

The countdown begins, mayor Lewis’ voice booming across the square. At 8, she joins in. At 3, he does too. The fireworks blast with a loud noise, and she squeezes herself closer to him, her eyes to the colouring sky, her lips to his ear.

“Make a wish, babe.”

She closes her eyes, thinking of everything she wants in the upcoming year. He looks at her.

“So, what did you wish for?” he asks.

She tugs at his jacket, kisses him.

“You.”

#stardew valley #stardew sebastian #sdv sebastian #sebastian x farmer #sdv farmer #sdv fanfic #i think this is the first part and i might do a 2nd one with them being domestic pieces of fluff #i'm so tired i 'm so glad this fic is DONE #hope you enjoy ~#my writing

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local-diavolo-anon · 4 years ago

Note

Hi there! I hope I'm not being rude or anything!

But if it's okay, can I request a SFW scenario where either Giorno or Josuke get hypnotized and they act different? Giorno acts hyper and bubbly while Josuke acts super shy and timid? And just cuteness ensues!

oh course my dear anon!

due to english not being my native language and google not being of any help, i have zero idea of what bubbly means in this context so i'll do Josuke and reader, i hope that's ok too qwq

Josuke under hypnosis

i don't think Josuke would be the first to notice it, quite the opposite, he wouldn't see anything out of the norm with his behavior.

the first one to notice something was off was Okuyasu.

who else could have been after all since he's the first person he speaks properly in the morning?

at first everything looked normal, but as Okuyasu complimented his hair, everybody could see the furious blush that covered his cheeks and ears before the teen babbled out a thank.

contrarily to his usual solar and noisy self, Josuke would remain quite and observe what goes on around himself without saying a single word unless asked.

when you met them along the street to your high school the first thing that pops into your mind is something bad happened and he was not in the mood to talk about it

but you soon noticed that there was no scowl on his face, just staring down and avoiding to look at anyone in their eyes

Later that day you try asking him about it, he doesn't look at you in the eyes but he manages to put together enough words to explain you that nothing really happened and he's fine

When you remark that he obliviously does not look fine, he doesn't seem to understand, and immediately goes to check his hair

You stop him and reassure him that nothing is wrong with his appearance, but his behavior looks abnormal

He seems confused at first, asking again what you meant

"I told you that your hair looked nice today and you went through fifty different shades of red in a single second, Josuke."

The second you point it out, he immediately apologizes, starting to make up an excuse that it's nice to hear someone being nice to you, when suddenly he stops.

"I- Huh... This is not how I act usually, isn't it?"

You stare at him for a long, silent moment, before patting his back.

"Don't worry man, we'll find a way to get you back to normal alright?" You say while hugging his shoulder.

He flushes up and smiles awkwardly as he thanks you for the disturbance.

Luckily, it didn't turn up to be any kind of weird stand effect and to Yukako's words, "he sounded way more bearable like that"

And you had to admit that he really did look cute

Seeing him getting all blushy because you asked him to stay on his lap or him hiding his face into your shoulder? Definitely not something you would have thrown away, is it?

Sorry is this was short and maybe not what you had in mind, i hope you liked it anyway, my dear Anon qwq

#jojo headcanons #jojo josuke #jjba josuke #jojo okuyasu #josuke headcanons #yukako jojo #reader insert #hypnosis

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2-cute-4-school · 5 years ago

Text

Vox in umbra

Group : NCT

Pairing : Huang Renjun x gn!Reader

Genre : angst, fluff

Word count : 8.2K words | M.list

Warnings : mentions of death, cursing

Summary : Inspired by the anime ‘Given’ | ‘ I’m willing to give you half of my heart to fill up your own.’

Renjun neared the bench he regularly occupied ever since he attended middle school. He deemed it the perfect spot, a corner of Heaven where he could rest his soul and body in the vast shadow of an oak tree that covered the seat. It was a safe spot where he could escape the hectic world he lived in and his friends’ weird antics that could become annoying from time to time. The isolated bench was namelessly his, his own cloud of comfortable silence. But now, an unknown figure occupied his spot, shuffling around awkwardly under the shade of the tree.

You shuffled in your seat clutching the guitar case close to your chest, the rough folds of the fabric digging into your thighs leaving red marks on your skin. Renjun’s steps, although faltering slightly, swiftly reached the side of the bench as he stared holes into the side of your head. Despite his obvious attempts at getting your attention, you didn’t pay him a single glance. He awkwardly cleared his throat, making your turn your head towards him and gaze up with a somewhat uninterested look.

“This is my spot.”

You looked around a bit at his words, shifting around. After a few moments of unsettling silence, you met his eyes once again with the same kind of look.

“I don’t see your name anywhere.”

Renjun sweat-dropped and he felt his upper lip lightly twitch upwards.

“Can I at least sit here too?”

Silently, you scooted over, leaving enough space for Renjun to sit at a comfortable distance away from you. You sat together, the soft breeze caressing your cheeks and making the grass graze your ankles. The uneasy atmosphere unnerved you, your habit of softly racking your nails along the surface of the case absentmindedly.

“Do you know how to play it?”

Renjun motioned with his head towards your guitar, regarding it with curious eyes. You hummed under your breath before shaking your head, a few rebellious strands of hair falling like a curtain in front of your face. Renjun tried to suppress a scoff at your answer.

“Then why do you carry it around?”

A beat of silence followed as you pondered over your thoughts.

“I broke it.”

“What do you mean you broke it?”

“I don’t know, it just happened.”

“Can I see?”

You nodded and eagerly unzipped the plain black case and Renjun noticed a teal sticker stuck on it spelling out the letter ‘J’, carefully pulling out the shiny instrument and stretching out your arms towards Renjun who stared in awe at the guitar, forgetting to ask you if your name started with a ‘J’. He believed he was experienced enough to be able to tell when a musical instrument was of high quality and the guitar he was entrusted with probably even exceeded Mark’s, his bandmate who had been obsessed with said instrument ever since he was a child, perfecting his skills over the years.

“I think this is more expensive than my entire existence.”

You merely shrugged at his statement, gazing worriedly at it. Getting over the initial shock, he lowered his gaze to find the problem, his eyes immediately zeroing on the snapped chord. He pinched it between his fingers and looked back at you.

“Is this the problem?”

You nodded, chewing on your lower lip. He chuckled at your useless scare.

“This can be repaired in a few minutes.”

Your eyes seemed to light up as they snapped up, locking with his as a hopeful look bloomed in them. The sudden eye contact brought a pink hue to Renjun’s cheeks and ears, making him advert his eyes anywhere else but at you.

“Can you fix it then?”

“No”

You deflated as quickly as you previously jumped up in your seat, lowering your gaze to the carpet of grass surrounding the bench you sat on.

“Please, I’ll pay you back.”

“It’s not about that. I don’t know how to and neither do I have any chords.”

“Oh”

He handed you the guitar and you put it back in its case, zipping it back up. Renjun regarded you as you dejectedly settled back in your spot, guilt pooling at the back of his mind. He tried to push back his thoughts and just settle for a few minutes of silence, but the waves of sadness rolling over from you and the sight of you slumped over like a kicked puppy drove him insane and burned through his heartstrings.

“Ah fine! Fine! I’ll help you, just stop looking like that!”

You flinched at his raised tone, your wide eyes racking over his standing stature as he fretted around.

“Excuse me?”

“I know someone who can fix your guitar right away, I can take you to him, but do you have any money on you?”

“Huh? Are you trying to rob me?”

“Yah, is this how you show your appreciation for me trying to help you? Fine, forget it. Good luck getting it fixed.”

You grabbed on his sleeve at his attempt to turn around and leave, moving the case with your guitar away and also standing up.

“Wait wait, I’m sorry. Please help me.”

You bowed your head, still gripping slightly on his sleeve. He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“So? Do you have any money?”

“Oh, yeah, I do.”

“Good, we’ll make a stop on our way to buy some chords then. Can we go now?”

“Yeah yeah, sure.”

He turned around without a second glance and started to walk away. You scrambled to pick up the case and swing it over your back, slotting your arms through the handles and hurry to catch up to the boy. You walked side by side with him, taking the chance to properly study his face.

“You know, I’m not supposed to follow strangers.”

He craned his neck to face you at your words, smiling slightly at you, taking you by surprise at his change of mood. You were amazed by how a mere smile could change the entire way he looked, making you also soften at his open display of subtle cuteness.

“I’m Huang Renjun. Now that you know my name I’m not a stranger anymore, right?”

The corners of your mouth also twitched up and you averted your eyes in the opposite direction from him, taken aback by the intensity of his gaze, an indescribable passion burning alight in his bright orbs. You kicked a pebble on the sidewalk, following the way it rolled to the side.

“I guess.”

To say that Renjun was bewildered was an understatement as he watched you, whose name he only found out after Mark had asked you, curled up on the floor of their practice room with your newly fixed guitar in your lap. Your wide eyes stared as if in a trance at the way Mark’s fingers glided expertly along the chords of his own guitar, explanations and tips leaving his lips as you absorbed every word.

“Hey hey hey, I only brought you here so he could fix your guitar, not teach you everything he knows!”

Renjun’s frown deepened even more at the crestfallen expression you wore once you lifted your head to face him. Those kicked puppy eyes would be the death of him. He didn’t dare glance in your direction, fixing his glare on Mark.

“What’s got your panties in a twist, Renjunie?”

“I just- why are you wasting your time doing this?”

“I’m not wasting my time helping a passionate newbie.”

“We’re supposed to practice once Jaehyun and Chenle come back.”

That seemed to light up your eyes.

“Can I stay and watch?”

“Yes”

“No!”

You stared up at Renjun who still avoided your look, trying to stay firm.

“Please?”

He couldn’t. He had to be stronger than a pair of glassy eyes and a wobbly bottom lip. He was a man, a hardcore ice prince with a heart made of stone, there was no way a puppy face could make him melt and-

“Please sunbaenim?”

“Fuck, fine, but don’t get in our way or I’m throwing you out myself.”

“Yes, I promise you won’t even hear me breathe.”

“I really hope so.”

He waved his index finger at you as if tutting a young child. You nodded your head excitedly and Mark watched the encounter with fond eyes.

“Come on gramps, go easy my new pupil.”

Mark got up, motioning for you to also stand up and move to another corner of the stuffy room from where you could properly see all of the instruments. He laid Renjun’s jacket on the ground so you wouldn’t sit on the cold floor and if Renjun noticed it, he chose to stay quiet about it.

“Wait wait, new pupil? Are you serious, Mark?”

“Why are you so against this? It’s none of your business in the end.”

“I mean- I’m just- you know what? Fine, do whatever you want, I don’t care.”

Mark smirked victoriously just as Jaehyun and Chenle returned with water bottles and they started fixing their instruments for practice. Chenle noticed you sitting in the corner, watching them with wide curious eyes.

“Are you staying to watch us?”

You nodded, albeit a bit hesitant in case he or Jaehyun disliked the idea. At the sight of your nod, Chenle’s straight face broke into the widest grin you’ve ever seen, his shrill yells of excitement deafening everyone in the room as he bounced up and down. You also smiled at his open display of happiness at having someone watch them sing.

After Jaehyun and Renjun calmed an overjoyed Chenle, everyone took their position, Jaehyun at the drums, Chenle at the piano, Mark with his guitar slung over his neck and Renjun only warming up his vocals. Mark counted out loud for everyone and with that they started practicing.

You were astonished already when Mark played his guitar for you a little bit earlier. But what you felt when their music reached you was a sentiment that you couldn’t describe with words. It felt complete, like you finally pinpointed the missing piece of yourself you’ve been searching for your entire life. You felt your lost butterflies again.

You waited quietly until their break and as soon as they declared they would take a 10 minute break you sprung up, rushing over to Mark and startling both him and Renjun as you stumbled over your own feet in your spur of energy. You gripped Mark’s sleeve, gazing into his eyes with burning orbs, passion and determination seeping from them, taking all of the others aback.

“Teach me, please, I want nothing more but to learn how to sing.”

Mark chuckled, snapping out of his moment of bewilderment. He raised a hand to pat the top of your head. Renjun watched, still shocked, catching a glimpse of his old self in your voice, in the way your eyes sparkled brighter than the sky full of stars at the thoughts of creating music.

“You didn’t have to ask twice.”

That’s how you found yourself attending their practices as often as you could, spending any free moment both you and Mark could afford to teach you. Mark was a surprisingly good teacher when his explanations didn’t confine to just ‘go with your feeling’ and your devotion and will to learn as much as humanly possible assured you of a mostly smooth sail. Your progress in just a couple of months was admirable, exceeding even your own expectations, but Mark insisted you were akin to an undiscovered genius and an unpolished gem, even though Renjun always tried his best to find a small imperfection of yours to drag on and on about.

Despite your bickering with Renjun, or more like Renjun picking at any crumb of a mistake he could find, you two developed a habit of walking home together even though Renjun had to walk a bit more than he would usually have to after bringing you home. You also started spending your breaks together at school, mostly talking about music and their band in the comfort of the shade provided by the tree under which you first met months ago.

So it was no surprise when you decided to spend yet another evening in their stuffy practice room with your guitar in your lap and Mark guiding you through the chords. The rest of them were packing up, exhausted after hours of practicing, allowing you some extra learning time with Mark.

“You know, I didn’t expect you to last this long with him as a teacher.” Chenle prodded at you once you also got up to put your guitar back in its case.

“Hey, what do you mean by that?!”

“Yeah, you’d fit nicely in a band soon enough.” Jaehyun trailed off.

“What?” Renjun’s head snapped up, regarding his other band mates who all watched you knowingly. He could tell what they were trying to do and he didn’t know if he should protest or encourage the idea.

“Uh, thanks.”

At your answer the boys couldn’t help but share a somewhat confused look, before Mark cleared his throat.

“Sooo, what do you think?”

“Sorry, about what?”

Chenle couldn’t help but face palm. Were you really not getting their innuendos or was this your way of politely declining them? Renjun oddly hoped it was the first option.

“Jeez, are you really that slow? Do you want me to spell it out for them?”

You looked up at him, making him halt in his rampage of words. Blood rushed to his ears, reddening them at the sight of your confused eyes searching his for an answer that he chose to deliver. He waved a hand in front of his face, as if the fact that you flustered him with a mere look would simply vanish and gathered his thoughts once again.

“They’re asking you to join our band.”

You blinked faster as if waking yourself up from a daydream.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Renjun, shut it! I mean, only if you want to, we can take things slow with you, but another guitarist wouldn’t hurt and your voice sounds nice from what I could catch so we could try some harmonization with Renjun, you know?” Mark’s rambling broke the awkward tension.

“Don’t you have a concert in like 2 months? There’s no way I can learn so many songs in so little time, I’ll only drag you down.”

“You don’t have to sing with us the entire time, just as much as you can learn until then and after that, you’ll have enough time to catch up.” Jaehyun reasoned with her, keeping a somewhat more straight face.

You looked up at Jaehyun. Their band had no real leader, but everyone went to him for advice or just when in need of a calm conversation. He was the band’s rock, everyone leaned on him when it came to decisions.

“Could I really?”

Your voice was small but hopeful, a reignited flame after a stormy night. Jaehyun’s dimples showed as his lips spread into a fatherly smile. He nodded firmly as they watched you lose yourself in a spiral of downright dizzying happiness. Renjun wondered if he’s ever felt so strongly about such a trivial matter as he watched in wonder as you let yourself free your emotions fully for the first time.

“We all agreed on it, didn’t we?”

“More or less.”

“Renjun!”

“Welcome to the family, rusty but warm.”

And warm did you feel the rest of the day. Not even the harsh night winds that ruffled your hair on your walk home could extinguish the rising flame lighting up your soul that reflected in your eyes your fierce desire to prove yourself worth to the boys that accepted you in their small family.

Renjun stared fondly at you from the corner of his eye, at the light skip in your steps as you held your chin high, showcasing a smile so sincere in outshone the moon. Your giddiness pulled at his heartstrings in an odd way, gazing contently at you like a crushing primary school girl. You slowed down your pace, making Renjun also stop beside you and meet your shiny eyes.

“Thank you, Renjun.”

“You shouldn’t thank me, I had little to no say in this.”

“Still, you could have insisted to kick me out.”

“I had no interest in kicking you out. Sure, you’re not nearly ready enough for concerts and what not, but there’s enough time to teach you. You’re worth every moment of extra practice.”

At his last sentence, you seemed to totally melt into a puddle of overflowing thankfulness. Your smile widened, revealing your gums and also softening Renjun’s whole demeanor. Your eyes almost closed, the muscles in your cheeks aching from how wide your smile was and Renjun couldn’t seem to avert his gaze away from the whiskers forming at the corners of your eyes.

Watching your innocent joy felt like a breath of fresh air after drowning for the longest time. Renjun felt his emotions flying unbound as he tied his happiness to you, he knew this moment would be burned into his soul. His hand reached up hesitatingly to lay on the crown of your head and caress you gently, carefully threading the tips of his fingers through strands of your hair. He felt right, in the right place, at his most heart fluttering time.

“Y/N? Is that really you?”

Renjun had never seen a smile die so fast and turn into shock and maybe fear. You both turned around, coming face to face with a boy, most likely around your age. His eyes were trained on you, never averting his eyes from you, disbelief seeping deeply into his eyes. Renjun could see your figure shaking, standing unsure on your legs like a deer caught into highlights.

“I just want to talk, Y/N, I’m sorry I never reached out to you after the funeral. I know it must have been even harder for you so please..”

Renjun’s confusion overflowed at the other’s remark.

“What? Y/N, who- Hey!”

Before he could even turn back to you, you sprinted away from them, running as fast as your legs could take you without looking back even once. He spluttered at the sight of your retreating back but he had no time to also spring into action as the boy wheezed past him, attempting to catch up to you. The boy could barely take a few strides before Renjun gripped the back of his collar, rendering him to a sudden stop.

“Hey! Let go, asshole!”

“Where do you think you’re going, Y/N for sure doesn’t want to see you.”

The boy swiftly faced Renjun, eyes ablaze with frustration and stepped up close to him in hopes of intimidating him.

“What do you know? I need to talk to Y/N.”

“Well, they don’t want to so fuck off.”

“Who do you think you are?”

Renjun took a deep breath to contain his rising fury. He didn’t know who this boy was and he could only think about your frightened stance.

“Her friend from whom she definitely wouldn’t run away from. I think I’m the one who should ask about who you are.”

“Hah, name’s Jaemin. I’m Y/N’s childhood friend, no need to apologize, you must have not recognized me.”

“Never heard of you.”

“So mean!”

While Jaemin whined about you never telling Renjun about him, Renjun ran Jaemin’s earlier pleas for you over in his head. He frowned before interrupting Jaemin’s rambling.

“What did you mean by funeral?”

Jaemin straightened up at his question, all hints of childishness gone from his face. He sighed deeply, meeting Renjun’s eyes with an icy expression and worry seemed so seep even deeper into Renjun’s bones.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Renjun didn’t say anything, just stared pointedly at Jaemin, waiting for an explanation to clear the fog clouding his thoughts. Jaemin’s gaze seemed to get lost, looking through Renjun with a straight face.

“I don’t think it’s my place to talk to you about this.” his eyes flickered to the guitar enclosed in the case slung over Renjun’s back “Are you in a band? Is Y/N in it too? Like playing the guitar and everything?”

“Oh, um, yeah, we were coming home from practice.”

Jaemin scoffed but there was no real malice in his reaction. Actually, a small smile slipped on his lips. His dreamy eyes sparkled knowingly.

“That’s Y/N for you, taking one’s words to heart.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Look, uh...”

“Renjun”

“Look, Ronjeon, why don’t you ask Y/N directly? I have no right spilling their life story to a stranger.”

“It’s Renjun. And I’m not a stranger, we’re band mates,” he paused for a moment “we’re friends.”

“Still not my place, sorry. Talk to them on your own if you’re really friends. And put in a good word for me, I just want to talk for a bit, clear up a few things, apologize and maybe gain my friend back.”

All playfulness vanished in that moment, a suffocating atmosphere taking its place and only raising more question marks for Renjun.

“Anyway, I’ll see you around, Ronjeon.”

“It’s Renjun for God’s sake!”

Renjun watched Jaemin’s retreating back helplessly. Snapping out of his confused daze, he quickly fished in his pocket for his phone, searching for your contact and dialing it. He felt his breath getting stuck in his throat with every ring that passed unanswered, until your voice mail connected. He considered trying again, but decided against bothering you further that night and waited for the next day in order to talk to you.

But getting a hang of you seemed almost impossible. You were never in your class when he came by, nor were you by the bench where you used to hang out. He always searched the cafeteria for you during lunch break and scanned the school yard every time he passed through it. You even missed a couple of practices with an apology texted to Jaehyun saying that you simply weren’t feeling well and that you would practice on your own at home.

Renjun felt helpless. He feared that whatever relationship you had was barely hanging on a thread, but he couldn’t just drop the matter. If it affected you that bad he though you might need someone to talk to. and he wanted to be that someone, he wanted to be the person you could come to without fear of being judged, the one you could freely talk to. He wanted to be there for you.

So when you finally started coming back to practice, he watched you from the sidelines too afraid to crowd you, but at the same time impatient to get to talk to you.

“Y/N.”

Your head snapped up at Jaehyun’s voice. He looked at you expectantly and you put your guitar down to walk up to him as he waited beside the door. The rest of the boys locked eyes, sharing worried looks.

“Let’s go out for a little.”

Your blood froze in your veins. Was he going to kick you out for your absence? Or just scold you? Despite your growing confusion, you stepped outside,, following Jaehyun. He leaned against a wall, watching as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other and fiddling with the sleeve of your sweater.

“Relax, Y/N, I didn’t call you out to argue with you.”

“Oh...right.” You still didn’t seem convinced.

“First of all, I want you to write some lyrics. It’s something each of us has done when we joined the band.”

“About what?”

“Whatever you want, whatever you feel. Just let your words flow.”

You watched him, hoping for more indications, but none came. You nodded a bit unsure of yourself.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Good.”

You waited for Jaehyun to continue, you knew this wasn’t the end to your conversation. He wouldn’t have pulled you out just for this. The silence pressed you and you collapsed under the pressure of guilt.

“I’m sorry, I know I should work the hardest out of everyone here yet I’m the one missing practices. I promise I’ll work harder, please let me stay.”

He stayed silent for a moment before he chuckled, reaching out to pat your shoulder comfortingly.

“It’s alright, I just wanted to check on you. Renjun has been really restless, you know?”

You lowered your gaze ashamed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Look, I don’t know what happened and neither am I expecting you to spill your past and secrets to me. But Renjun cares about you a lot, in a different way from me and Chenle and Mark. I just wanted you to know that.”

Jaehyun’s words left you speechless. Sure, you and Renjun had gotten a lot closer in the past months and you trusted each other just as much as you enjoyed to tease each other. Spoiler alert, that’s a lot. But never have you thought of Renjun in a different way from a precious friend. It felt like a betrayal, a lack of loyalty from your side so how could you admit your growing feelings without tearing yourself apart? But now that you took a moment to think about it, he was the only one who managed to reignite the fire at the bottom of your stomach. Could Renjun be the one to break your promise to yourself and make your heart beat unruly again?

“I...I care about him too.”

Your words were vague, not making it clear if you cared for Renjun more than a friend should. Jaehyun pushed himself away from the wall, standing up to his full weight and showing you a soft dimpled smile.

“Good. I want what’s best for both of you. Talk to each other, let him know you value him, whether if that’s as a friend or something else. Life is too short to let things go by you without cherishing them.”

His last sentence left you shell shocked. It felt so close to your heart. You never considered the way life can flash before your eyes and watch something you once considered to be in the palm of your hand vanish with the retreat of an ocean wave.

“Come on, I don’t trust Renjun and Chenle alone in a practice room surrounded by expensive equipment.”

You rushed to him as he waited for you while holding the door. You let giggles spill past your lips, knowing that no matter how dark the world seemed, maybe you were not truly alone.

“Hey, Renjun, are we walking home together?”

His hand froze on his neck, gripping harder onto the bunch of tissues he used to wipe the beads of sweat rolling down his neck. Everyone pushed themselves to their limits during practice, the atmosphere becoming intense and fast paced and the confinement of the room didn’t help with the rising temperature.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

You exchanged a few more words with Mark, who was hellbent on taking you under his wing and teaching you everything he knew. You were so thankful to him for his advice you often didn’t even know how to show it. So the least you could do was pay attention to his every word and try your best to show him your best progress. After packing up everything you bid goodbye to your other band mates and followed Renjun out.

The night air was chilly, but you let it embrace you, grateful for a breath of fresh air. The streets were quite empty, only a few hurried students rushing home and adults with bags full of groceries, yet it didn’t concern you. If anything, you preferred the serene atmosphere the starry night emanated. Yet you knew you had to break the comfortable silence eventually.

“This isn’t my guitar.”

Renjun’s face tried to stay impassive, but the confusion laced onto his features couldn’t be easily concealed.

“Did you...Did you steal it?”

“Yeah, from a homeless blind old man.”

Renjun halted suddenly at your serious tone, his gaze boring through you. You also stared at him, maintaining your serious expression for a couple more moments before your face also morphed into confusion.

“You know I was joking, right?”

At that, Renjun broke into awkward and forced chuckles, bringing a hand up to the nape of his neck and rubbing it in embarrassment. He resumed his walking with you beside him.

“Pfft, yeah, of course I knew, haha, yeah”

“You were reconsidering my sanity and our friendship, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was.”

It was silent for a while before Renjun sorted out his thoughts again.

“So whose is it?”

You tried to hide the deep breath you felt the need to take. You promised yourself you wouldn’t back out no matter what, but when confronted with a question that needed an answer everything felt so much more real. Suddenly everything you worked hard to bury in the deepest drawers of your memories surfaced and brought up the feeling you wanted to avoid the most. But this was Renjun, the first person to approach you after you lost everything without any hesitance. You owed him the truth.

“It was my boyfriend’s.”

Renjun felt his heart fall to the pit of his stomach. Restlessness pooled at the strings of his heart making his hands clench into fists, but he couldn’t react in anyway. In the end, he was nothing but your friend, he was only supposed to support and listen to your concerns and he would be damned if he couldn’t even do that.

“Oh” his tongue felt heavy in his mouth and words had to be ripped from between his lips “did he give it to you?”

“His mom gave it to me.”

Now he didn’t know what to think anymore. But he was sure of one thing, he could feel the tension and anxiety rolling off of you in bitter waves.

“His mom gave you his guitar?”

“Yeah.”

He tried to piece things together but he couldn’t come up with much.

“Did his name start with a ‘J’?”

“Yeah, his name was Jeno. Remember the kid we met a while ago? That’s Jaemin, they were best friends.”

Your poor attempt at explaining your reaction at the time still didn’t make sense entirely in Renjun’s head until he rolled over your words in his head. He suddenly turned somber, not knowing how to phrase his next question.

“Was? Were?”

It took you a moment to push the words out through gritted teeth.

“He’s gone.”

“Gone as in...”

“Gone as in dead, yes.”

Renjun stumbled then. The once comfortable silence turned tense and suffocating, squeezing the pieces of your shattered heart with every ounce of strength left in willpower. Renjun tried to catch a glimpse of your face in an attempt to decipher your feeling even in the slightest, but even when he laid a gentle hand on your shoulder you refused to slow down or raise your head from behind the curtain of hair that fell over your eyes.

“Y/N”

You kept on walking, Renjun dragging himself after you.

“Y/N, stop, please.”

Still no response. His worry toppled over, confusion and distress making him lose his composure. His fingers tightened on your shoulder, yanking you to face him and halting you in your steps.

“Fucking talk to me, Y/N!”

“I don’t know what else to tell you, okay? That I loved him more than I thought loving was possible? That I thought there would never be an end to what we had? That the moment I lost him I also lost all the love I had to ever give? That despite my promise to myself to not allow myself to lose more that I have already I still let you get to me?”

“Get to you?”

“I care about you, you idiot! I value you more than I value what’s left of my feelings!”

Renjun, who listened crestfallen, was snapped out of his stupor by your exasperated retort to his question. You forced your head away from him, avoiding his prodding eyes while Renjun tried to turn you to face him almost desperately.

“I care about you too, Y/N.”

To his surprise you shook your head, shrinking into yourself.

“No, it’s better that you don’t.”

“Jesus, Y/N, you can’t just tell me to stop.”

“I can’t do this, please let go.”

Renjun’s heart was beating crazily, unable to express his turmoil with words while also keeping his composure. The hand that wasn’t gripping you firmly shook with caged emotions that threatened to overflow and spill unstoppable past his lips.

“How long are you going to deprive yourself of happiness, huh? How long are you going to keep yourself hung upon your past lover when you have your entire life ahead of you?”

His words finally got a reaction out of you, although not one he wished to. Your orbs locked onto his, burning with a withheld rage and maybe passion without shying away in the slightest. You ripped yourself out of his hold forcefully, stepping back from him without breaking eye contact, instinctively reaching a hand back to touch the guitar that hung in it’s case.

“You don’t get it, Renjun, you can’t!” Your voice softened, a swirl of emotions glistening on the surface of your eyes “I’m carrying his dream on my back and he’s carrying half of my heart with him six feet under.”

Your display of vulnerability locked Renjun’s mouth. He regarded you conflicted over his choice of words. You seemed lost, confused at the way you itched to let yourself voice out your pain, your suffering, your longing for something that won’t return but at the same time called for a revival of the spring screaming to break free in your soul.

You felt warmth enveloping you, blocking the chilling wind that swiped across your flushed cheeks, a gentle, cautious hand sneaking its way into the strands of hair at the back of your head and guiding your head to rest against a welcoming shoulder. Renjun made you feel safe, he reignited a flame, but not one that threatened to burn you down. He gave life to a flame that offered you security and the feeling of a newfound home. At the sound of his soft voice, you knew the dice have been already thrown.

“I’m willing to give you half of my heart to fill up your own.”

“Renjun!”

He turned to you, smiling confusedly at your slightly reddened face. He assumed it might have been the forever stuffy air of the cramped practice room. The show was the following day and so you all spent all of your free time together, hours after hours of practicing. You and Renjun were closer than ever even though the heated talk of that night remained unfinished. You two had a silent agreement to focus on the show for now rather than your personal problems, but that didn’t stop you from leaning on each other more than before.

“Uh, here.”

You stretched out your arm in front of him, fingers clasped over a sheet of paper. Renjun skimmed over it once he took it from you, recognizing your handwriting. His eyes widened once he realized what exactly you handed him.

“I know it’s out of the blue and just one day before the show and in no way do I expect it to be used even though the instrumental for this song is finished, at least not tomorrow. I just thought you would like to look over it and just- I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“It’s alright, Y/N. I’m happy you decided to write them, you never said anything about how it’s going with your lyrics so I assumed you weren’t working on them yet.”

“Oh, I..well...uh, yeah, well they’re done. I think, yeah.”

He chuckled at your awkwardness before you scrambled to continue packing your things and go home with him. Renjun raked his eyes over the scribbled title of the song and smiled dreamily as he ran his thumb over the ink.

Half of my voice

Your nerves have been on edge the entire day, feeling the blood rushing through your veins first thing in the morning and keeping you wide awake and overexcited the entire time. Thankfully the show took place on a Saturday so you didn’t have to sit through an entire day of school, bored out of your mind and bouncing in your seat at the thought of the evening that was to come.

You and your band mates met up in the lobby of the local that hosted the small concert hours before the start. You were instructed about the schedule and everything and Jaehyun stayed behind to talk to the owner with whom he seemed to already be friends with. You scrambled around, jumping up and down in a poor attempt to keep your excitement under control.

“Y/N. Y/N!”

“I should practice a bit more, shouldn’t I? Where did I put my guitar? What if my chords snap? What if-”

Mark’s hand settled on the nape of your neck, pinning you in your place. His face tried to stay firm but he just couldn’t help the fatherly smile slipping on his lips. Your wide eyes stared at him, questioning him.

“Please stop running around, you’re making us nervous too. Also don’t you dare touch that guitar until I tell you to, you’ve practiced enough.”

“But, but-”

“Y/N.”

You huffed, your lips forming a pout unconsciously which made Mark sigh. He knew practicing in the last moment could do more harm than good, but your kicked puppy face made him falter in his attempt to play the leader role with you. Renjun’s light laugh echoed in the backstage room as he approached you and cupped your face with one hand, squeezing your cheeks together and only deepening the pout of your lips. You furrowed your eyebrows together, watching his smug face carefully.

“Be confident in yourself, Y/N~! We all trust that you’ll give the best of you and knock everyone off their feet so trust yourself too.”

You felt warmth spread across your face and you ripped yourself away from his grip before he could tease your flustered state.

“Fine.”

You tried to look unbothered at Renjun’s action but everyone could sense your cute uneasiness as you turned your back to him and trudged towards Chenle who watched the exchange, amusement dancing in your eyes. Chenle stretched an arm out to ruffle your hair before slinging it over your shoulders to bring you closer and show you some game he was playing on his phone.

Jaehyun returned soon after, looking quite relaxed as he announced the start of the concert.

“The first band will play for about 30 minutes and then we’re up so take this time to make sure everything is good. Oh and Y/N, someone’s looking for you, I told him to wait in the lobby.”

“For me? Who?”

“Dunno, he looks around your age. Go, but don’t take long.”

You had an idea about who it might be and the mere thought of facing him made you hesitate to exit the safety of the current room. A hand slightly nudged you forward and as you looked back Renjun’s encouraging gaze gave you a sudden bravery to face him. You had to eventually so why not get it off your chest now? You trusted that Renjun would be here waiting for you once you returned, assuring you everything would be alright.

You nodded, more to yourself that to the others and left the room with your head held high. Just like Jaehyun said, Jaemin was waiting for you in the lobby, shifting from one foot to the other as he stayed glued with his back to the wall. You strode towards him, locking eyes with him once you stopped in front of him. It was silent for an awkward moment before Jaemin cleared his throat.

“Um, hi, Y/N.”

“Hi.”

“Sooo, you’re in a band.”

You nodded in return.

“And you’re playing tonight.”

“Seems so.”

“Huh. How the tables have turned, am I right?”

You recoiled at his words and at your self protective stance he seemed to recollect his choice of words.

“Wait! I didn’t mean it in a bad way! I’m sorry if it seemed like that. It’s just, he would be proud of you, I’m sure. And I am too.”

“Jaemin.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I just wanted to, you know, apologize. I’m sorry for not reaching back to you when you needed me the most. I’m really sorry, I was just in a very wrong mindset, I was looking for someone to blame for his death.”

“So you thought that I was the best choice?”

“No,Y/N!”

“It’s okay, I get it. I blamed myself too. After all, I let him leave my house when it was so late at night and raining. If i insisted for him to stay the night, he would be-”

“Stop, Y/N! There was no way you could have known this was going to happen, okay? No one blames you. No one, not me, not Jeno’s family and I know for sure Jeno himself would never blame you. So what I wanted to tell you is that it’s time you stop blaming yourself.”

“I...Jaemin, I just...”

“I know, I know that my words are a tad too late, that you spent all this time blaming yourself for something completely out of your power. But I wanted to let you know that no one thinks you’re at fault. And that you need to let go of him and live your life. Jeno loved you so much and that’s exactly why instead of wasting your life away, you should live and love for him.”

Your walls just shattered at his words as you slotted yourself against his familiar hold, his protective arms caging you against his chest and holding you the way he used to ever since you were children. And weirdly, you could feel Jeno’s arms around you too, bidding you goodbye and cutting off the painful longing for forgiveness you held in your heart. You finally felt free, you felt ready to love again.

You let Jaemin go, straightening up and wiping your cheeks of leftover tears that you didn’t even notice before. Jaemin also tried to subtly swipe his sleeve over the corners of his eyes to hide his emotional state and you didn’t comment on it.

“Thank you, Jaemin.”

His bright smile showed itself as he patted your shoulder and pushed you towards the room you came out of.

“Hush, why would you thank me? Now go and make us proud! Hurry!’

And you just knew what he meant by ‘we’, which only widened your smile. As expected, Renjun waited for you, meeting your eyes as soon as you came through the door, his understanding gaze melting you even further. He understood, he was there for you and that only spurred you even further to break your self made cage.

“Just in time, we have to go up soon. Remember, Y/N, after our new song the lights will go off for long enough for you to leave the stage, okay?”

You nodded. You would only sing with the guys for half of their time on the stage since you didn’t have enough time to learn all of their older songs. As you moved to stand beside the entrance on the stage, Renjun gripped your hand, guiding you to look at him.

“I’m here for you.”

You know he didn’t only mean it for the concert. And you also knew Renjun would be the one to whole your heart once again. You were more than ready to face everything as long as you had him by you. As if he could hear your thoughts, he squeezed your hand. That was the thing about Renjun, he was your voice but he needed no words.

“Okay, let’s rock it!”

Jaehyun led you all on stage, readying everything. As the lights turned on again, you felt life surging through you, you felt alive. You finally understood Jeno’s endless words about the inexplicable sensation he felt on stage. You felt in a world of your own, surrounded by your friends, by people you could trust, by people who admired you. Your fingers glided along the chords as if pressing on your own heartstrings, following a familiar and comforting path that tickled your ears and ignited the butterflies in your stomach to come to life stronger than ever.

At that moment you decided you loved playing the guitar, you loved music, you loved your band mates, you loved your life.

You didn’t even feel the way the songs you played flew by you, nearing your final song. This song felt like home to you, a weird start to the rest of your life. But as the first tunes of the melody rolled by, Renjun’s voice echoed in the microphone and across the local.

The words you spent nights tying together on a piece of paper rolled off Renjun’s tongue as if coming straight from your heart. They felt real, an intimate confession shared between lovers caressed by the moonlight while standing on an empty street. You felt as if you heard them for the first time, as if he whispered them to you while holding each other, wrapped up in your own world, away from the blinding lights and prying eyes right there, in the shade of the oak tree where you met. And as the song came to an end, your tearful words were finally voiced out by your newfound light.

You’re my long lost wordless voice

The one who gave me a choice

Who drifts with the echoes of my laugh

My only other half

The lights went off just as they were supposed to, allowing you enough time to scurry backstage breathless while the public erupted into loud cheers, clapping and cheering overtaking the room. But you didn’t retreat, you couldn’t control yourself anymore, the adrenaline and heart clenching emotions getting a hold of you.

You took confident strides forwards where Renjun regulated his breath, stepping back a bit from the microphone. You slid the guitar to rest sideways on your hip and gripped Renjun’s shoulder with a hand, your other one resting on the nape of his neck.

“Y/N, what-”

You didn’t allow him to finish his sentence as you pulled his head down and slotted your lips against his. He melted against you, kissing you back with as much fervor as you did, putting all of your buried feelings in it. You couldn’t seem to get enough of each other, getting lost in the addictive closure you both allowed yourself to savor. You barely acknowledged the lights coming back on. What snapped you out of your daze was rather the intensifying yells that came from the public that had to witness your intimate moment.

You broke away from him as if lightning struck you. The public seemed to enjoy the free melodramatic moment, teasing the both of you to not mind them. While you wished for the floor to split and swallow you whole in embarrassment, Renjun seemed rather smug considering the situation. He turned towards you, the hand on your waist tightening.

“Well, if our dear public is asking-”

“Thank you!”

You ripped yourself away from him, bowing deeply and sprinting backstage, leaving behind a flabbergasted Renjun and a slightly disappointed public. You slapped your already red cheeks as if to wake yourself up.

‘Did I just make out with Renjun? And on stage in front of 200 people on top of that?! I must be crazy, you’re out of your mind Y/N Y/LN!’

Despite your self reprimanding you couldn’t fight off the proud smile slithering onto your face. You kissed Renjun. And he kissed you back. You allowed yourself to be happy and he wished to teach you how. He was willing to teach you how to love again.

The guys continued their stage, acclaimed by the public like never before as you watched them proudly from behind. Once the end of their segment came, Renjun was the first one to bolt backstage after thanking your listeners. He rushed away from the prying eyes to meet you who waited for him with the widest smile you could muster.

Renjun knocked into you, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you off your feet to swirl you around with such a childish laugh. He captured your lips in another kiss, this one rather light-hearted and innocent making you feel like a dandelion swiped in the gentle spring breeze.

“Okay, okay, we get it, you like each other, don’t stick it in our faces.”

Renjun lowered you slowly and you averted your eyes to the floor shyly at Chenle’s teasing words and the others’ amused stares. But Renjun didn’t back down and neither did he remove his arms away from you. If anything, his grip tightened, his thumb tracing patters into the fabric covered skin of your hips.

“Shut up, big head, you’re only jealous. And I don’t like her.”

You lifted your gaze, meeting Renjun’s glazed over eyes. They had a glint in them, a sparkle of relief and something else.

“I don’t like her. I love her.”

You smiled a bit bashfully back, silently telling him the feelings were reciprocated but the audience wasn’t helping you with your timidness. But Renjun understood you, as he always did, wordlessly, just a shared look and bonded souls. And you finally understood yourself too.

Jeno was a fading echo. Renjun was your newfound voice.

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mageicalwishes · 5 years ago

Text

Read on AO3: Here

Rating: Teen & Up

Chapter: 1/? (More chapters to come a little later in Dec + Early Jan!)

Summary: A loose crossover between Carry On and parts of I'll Give You The Sun. "He’s haloed under the streetlights, and I’m trying not to stare. But, it’s hard. His face is celestial - The sunshine of his soul peeking through his features. I want to say more, just so that he doesn’t leave. Our houses are right there but, I feel so ... multicoloured."

Carry On Countdown, Day 10 - Crossover @carryon-countdown

Tags: Fluff, Getting Together, Meet-Cute, Social Anxiety, Crossover, Pining Baz, Artist Baz, Space Enthusiast Simon, Star Gazing, Anxious Thoughts, Carry On Countdown 2020 Day 10

Words: 2,145

Baz

I need to stop thinking about grey, slippery roads and black shrouds. About the purple under my Father’s dull eyes, and the red of my Aunt’s anger. I need to stop thinking about me - About my life. My head is too loud. Too noxious. I need someone else to take my mind for a while. I need to see. To paint. And so, I search for a subject.

Dragging my binoculars across the bleak, colourless houses, I search, desperately, for even a glimpse of a hue. But the colours are slipping from the world again. They always do when I’m trapped in my head.

And then I see them - The movers - so far from colourless that I’m dizzied. They’re great work horses, both of them - One chestnut, and one palomino - Hulking a grandfather clock up the house-next-door’s stairs. I’m zooming in, before I have time to reconsider - Into the stretch of navy against the flex of their arms, the rose flush of their foreheads, the tan swath of smooth stomach revealed each time they lift their arms. And then ... Shit.

I drop the binoculars onto the floor, my body following swiftly behind them. Because, on the roof of the house, there’s a boy pointing a telescope directly at me. Fucking Hell. How long has he even been there?

I risk a glance over the top of my windowsill. He’s wearing a tatty purple jumper, and there’s a mess of bronze curls tangled atop his head. Even without the binoculars, I can see that he’s grinning at me. Is he laughing at me, already? Does he know what I was doing? That I was watching the movers? Does he think that I’m ...? He must. Why else would I be ogling them. God. I feel the dread pinching at my throat, and try to tether my mind, so that it doesn’t get away from me again. Maybe he’s just a smiley person. Maybe he thinks I was looking at his clock. That’s equally as plausible, surely? And, I mean, he has a telescope. Dickheads don’t tend to have telescopes, do they?

Tugging at the ends of my hair, I stand. When he sees me he waves, but before I have a chance to reciprocate, he’s reaching into his pocket, drawing his arms backwards, and lobbing something straight at me. (Maybe he is a dickhead, after all).

On reflex, I stick out my hand. The unknown object slapping hard against my skin, as I close my fingers around it.

��Nice catch!” He yells. His voice deep and bright, with a definite Northern tinge. I decide that I like it. It suits him.

But, I don’t know what to say back. So, I don’t. Instead, I examine his potentially dangerous ‘gift’ - Spinning the rock around in the palm of my hand. It’s small (About the size of a pound coin) and covered in irregular lightening-like cracks. What am I supposed to do with it? Do I throw it back? Why did he even throw it at me, in the first place? I don’t know, but I slip it into my back pocket for safe-keeping, anyway.

When I look back at him, hoping for some kind of explanation, he’s turned himself back towards the sky. Too focused on looking through his telescope to notice me. Which, to be honest, is odd. I mean, it’s daytime. What could he possibly be looking at?

Even though I’m curious, I don’t stick around to find out. I’m worryingly off-kilter, and I need to rebalance. I hadn’t prepared myself for meeting a new person. I wasn’t ready. And so, I run to the place that I know best, to recuperate - The Art Institute. Where I can carry out further recon on the studio.

-------------------

It was a good, productive sketch session. Nobody caught me peeping through the window, and I was able to get a few decent body references down. But … I don’t feel my usual post-art calm. My mind is still racing (Although, with a different genre of thought than earlier).

Every over time I have visited, the models have been women. Posing demurely, with a bowl of fruit or silks. Arms placed, to partially protect their modesty. I’m used to that. I’m prepared for that. But today … it was a bloke.

I don’t have a problem with that (Not really). There’s nothing wrong with blokes. And there’s nothing wrong with naked blokes, either. I’m mature enough to handle that. A body is a body. A sketch is a sketch. And I’m an artist first, queer person second. I just … hadn’t expected it. And I don’t like to be caught off guard. So, I’m feeling slightly rattled. I just need to get home, and get back to normality. To safe things - Like a beach scene, or a self-portrait. Familiar things. No more surprises.

And yet, a few steps into my walk back home, I see the guy from the roof leaning against a nearby tree, the same lopsided-grin aimed over at me. I blink, confirming his existence, and then he’s talking. Stood, barely 3 metres in front of me, in the dirt.

“How was class?”

He says it like it isn’t the strangest thing in the world that he’s here, with me, where he really has no reason to be. Like it isn’t only just slightly beaten in its absurdity by me, sketching propped-up on a wall outside, rather than inside, the studio. Like we aren’t complete strangers (Because, no matter how much he may be smiling at me, we don’t even know each other's names yet).

‘Yeah, sorry, I kinda’ followed you. I wanted to check out the woods, but I wasn’t sure of the way. So … I just tagged along. Figured you wouldn’t mind. Don’t worry though, I wasn’t watching you the whole time. I was busy with my own stuff.”

He points to an open suitcase filled to the brim with ... rocks? As if that’s normal.

“My meteorite bag’s all packed.”

I nod like that explains something, but it really doesn’t. Meteorites? I thought those were in the sky, not on the ground. And what does that even mean? He just carries around pieces of infinity. For what?

I look at him more closely, studying his face for any sign of disingenuity. For any sign that he’s just having me on. But I find nothing. Nothing … bad, anyway. Just a deep dimple accompanying his crooked smile, and miles of tawny skin, speckled with moles. He exists in shades of orange and gold. He’s the sun. And I can’t look away.

“Stare much?”

I drop my gaze, embarrassed - Staring down at his scuffed Nikes, as my neck prickles with heat. I don’t talk. What am I even supposed to say to that? Yes?

“Well ... you’re probably just used to it from staring at that bloke for so long. You know … for your drawing.” I look up - Grey meeting blue. He’s eyeing my pad curiously. “He was naked?” He breathes in as he says it, like the words stole his oxygen. It makes my stomach plummet, but I try to keep my face calm. I think about him watching me, watching the movers. How he watched me, watching the model. He must know. And ... I don’t know how I feel about that, just yet.

He looks down at my pad again. I don’t understand why. Does he want me to show him the drawings of the model bloke? It seems like he does. And some disturbed part of me wants to. But I doubt it. ‘Hey stranger, wanna’ see how I draw dicks?’ said no sane person ever. My stomach twists tight, and I’m out of control - My brain hazy amongst the moment’s tension.

“Look, man,” he sighs, half-smiling as he scrubs at the back of his neck. “I legit’ have no idea how to get home. I tried, but I just ended up back here. I’ve been waiting for you to lead the way. You don’t mind do you?”

I don’t think I mind. Do I? I don’t know. I shake my head, anyway, and point him in the right direction.

-------------------

It’s a long way home, and we walk the majority of it in silence (Well, near-silence. The bumping of his suitcase creating a constant accompaniment to our steps). I try and resist the urge to look back at him. The urge to ask him all of my ‘Why?’s - Why did you follow me? Why are you still following me? Why are you collecting meteorites? Why were you looking at the stars in daylight? Why were you looking at me in the daylight? It would only make me more muddled. So, rather than relent, I take out my invisible brushes and start to paint behind my eyes.

And, after a while, I feel myself settling back into my skin. The dancing trees and setting sun relaxing me, in spite of the moment’s unsteadiness. Or ... maybe it was him. He’s an alarmingly relaxed person (I mean, I don’t know anybody else who would just follow a stranger around, with zero self-consciousness), so it wouldn’t surprise me if he had some sort of ‘Realm of Calm’ thing going on around him.

When we emerge from the woods, returning to our familiar concrete-laden pavements, he spins around and jumps in front of me. Ecstatic.

“Holy shit! That is like ... the longest I’ve ever gone without talking in my life! I was holding my breath just trying to keep the words in. How do you even do that? Are you always like this?”

He’s a mile a minute, and I’m lagging behind.

“Like what?”

And then he’s laughing at me. I can tell that he’s a person who laughs a lot, from the way he lets it take him over so easily - His whole being lightening up, as the sides of his eyes crinkle, joyfully. But it’s alright, I don’t mind. It’s not a mean laugh. It just makes me feel a little bit fizzy inside (In a good way. I think).

“Dude! Are you kidding? You do know those are the first words you’ve said all day, right?”

I didn’t, actually. But I don’t tell him that. He’d probably just think that I’m more strange than he, no doubt, already does.

He’s properly cracking up now (Although, I don’t know what, exactly, I did that was quite so funny). “And then you’re all just like ‘What?’”. </p>

He makes an absolutely atrocious attempt at imitating my accent (Which leaves him sounding like some kind of drunken Prince Charles impersonator), and before I can stop it, I’m laughing outright, alongside him. Both of us hunched-over cackling, wholeheartedly, probably looking more than a little mad.

Once we’ve calmed down, he starts staring at my pad again. Jesus Christ. I really wish he wouldn’t. I’m not going to show him my sketches. Not even if he begs. I’d never survive the embarrassment.

“So ... lemme’ guess. You do most of your talking in there?” He points down at my pad, and I feel the tips of my ears flood scarlet.

“Yeah. Something like that.” My voice comes out mumbled and gruff. I didn’t mean for it to. He probably thinks I did it on purpose, though.

He’s haloed under the streetlights, and I’m trying not to stare. But, it’s hard. His face is celestial - The sunshine of his soul peeking through his features. I want to say more, just so that he doesn’t leave. Our houses are right there but, I feel so ... multicoloured.

“I paint in my head sometimes,” I blurt. Dumb. So unbelievably dumb. “That’s why I was so quiet, I was painting.”

“Oh that’s cool. Saves paper, I suppose. Better for the trees, and that.” Stalling. He’s stalling. I’ve made it weird. I always make it weird. “So ... were you painting anything specific?”

“You.” Oh, fucking hell! I’ve ruined it - I’ve smeared on that last glob of un-erasable acrylic and ruined the painting. I shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t even mean to say it, it just ... popped out. And now he’s stood, gawping, eyes wide and face flushed. I’ve embarrassed him. I’ve gone and dumped all my greedy keenness on him, completely uninvited, and now he’s drowning in it.

Everything feels tight. The air, suddenly too humid to swallow. I’m gasping - Waves of breath crashing, loudly, in my ears. Panic. I’m panicking. I need to - I have to go.

So, for the second time today, I run. Spinning on my heels and darting back towards my house, without as much as a ‘Goodbye”. Away from him. Away from humiliation. Back to my room, where I pull the blinds shut and open up my pad - Briskly skipping over today’s work. A blank page. A fresh start. I really am no good at talking the normal way.

#carry on #carry on countdown #coc 2020 #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #my fic #my writing

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slashingdisneypasta · 5 years ago

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Jason Voorhees x Freddy’sDaughter!Reader || Oneshot

Title: They Cuddles; Him, Her, and her Bottle of Hypnocil.

Notes:

‘-There was something in her, something that was… pure horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes. Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.’ - John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Inspired by the above quote.

Quick Background of Reader: You’re Maggies younger (Only a little) half-sister. (You were conceived and born shortly after he killed Loretta and your mother didn’t want you so you were pawned off to him so you were living with him until he was burnt by the Springwood Parents, whereas Maggie was of course taken away) (Pretend it was years between the time he was caught and the time he was killed)

Tried to write in Jasons POV, not sure how good it is, hah.

I miiiiiiight have some ideas for future parts of this, this was adorable and sweet.

Plot:

Just, Jason falling in so love with the enemies daughter who is so like her father - she’s loud, she’s hurt, she makes s t u p i d jokes and then laughs way too hard at them, she’s dangerous, - but who is gentle with him and kind. (She’s basically the type of girl Pam wouldn’t approve of at first but is so honest and kind that Pam cant help but begrudgingly like her eventually XD )

Warnings: Age gap? I mean it’s not a main plot point so you could ignore it but Jason and Freddy are similar in age so you’re young enough to be Jason’s kid too- but you’re in your 30’s-40’s so its okie. Fatherly trauma (Is that the right phrase?? Hah. You know what I mean) / Nightmare on elm Street survivor trauma also. Panic attack I think? Ends in fluff ^^

~~~

When you stayed a night in your van at that old, abandoned camp, you certainly didn’t expect to meet Jason. I mean, you weren’t surprised by his… abnormalities -referring to the fact that he’s dead. Not his deformities, - as much as you were how cute and sweet he was. And how well you two got on, after he tried to kill you.

And you don’t blame him for that! You trespassed; you get it. If you had known he was there and he had taken ownership of the area, then you would have asked before parking there.

When Jason had found a girl hidden away, sleeping in the back of a yellow van, he certainly didn’t expect that she would soon become so important to him. She was just another trespasser acting like a hoodlum -living! In! A! Van?! – in his general vicinity and of course, he didn’t like that.

Boring chase story short; He pushed your van over and there was a chase through the forest (You’ve never run that fast in your life, jesus christ. You can still feel the wind burn on your cheeks, that one rock under your bare feet that cut you and the energy rushing through your body pushing you forward anyway) and you leapt into the lake- waiting until he came in after you. And then when he did, you just screamed random nonsense, splashing around spastically at him until you hit a nerve that sobered him (Something about his mother). This is a technique you developed after you were given up to various foster homes after your father was burnt to death (And then also when he found you again) when stinky foster parents, foster siblings, bullies at school rando’s off the street wanted to put their hands on you, and that you mastered since. It works, evidently, with asexual zombie monsters too.

After that, you went back to your van and rap up your foot, thinking that at least the lake water cleaned up the cut on your foot, and then grumpily set up your bed on your window now since the van (Poor, dear Mandy) is now on its side thanks to the local undead jerk!

You hadn’t slept a wink the rest of that night, not because of the hulking mass of rotten flesh and a hockey mask that you knew was lurking somewhere close by, watching you, but because you weren’t about to waste an extra Hypnocil pill in one night. You just laid there, pillows propping you up and being bored. Staring at the ceiling, smearing various ugly pastel shades onto a page in your sketchbook, listening to the woods and imagining getting rawed by Danny Zuko were highlights. Then, when daylight finally broke out, you were finally, unhappily wondering how you were going to get Mandy back on her wheels, zipping up your jacket and looking at your beautiful pale-yellow Volkswagen.

You thinking what pain this would be to correct… and then having turned on your heel and went on a trek to the closest town to get some kind of breakfast. Procrastinating the inevitable.

When you had returned, a bag of groceries in your arms -drink propped on top of everything else so you could sip through the straw as you walked,- , your van was back on her wheels.

You don’t know what it was about you that made him do that, that made him stop and not kill you, and its likely you’ll never find out since he doesn’t talk, after that you had gone directly to find the - cute, now, -behemoth you knew fixed it for you, to make and give him fairy bread to say thank you and sorry for what happened last night- and honestly you’ve been friendly ever since. More then friendly, after a while, but never less then.

___TIME SKIP: Current time now. Months and months after you met___

~ POV Change~

Oh my god.

The second I see that the familiar bottle, the one from Typo with the Coca Cola logo on it that reminds me absolutely zero percent of my father that I keep Hypnocil pills in is not where I left it, a deep sense of dread and anxiety fills me up to the brim- only proceeding to grow outwards to the air around me as I search in an increasingly more panicked fashion for the thing. Where is it!? Where is it, where is it, where is it. “Where, where, where, where, where, where- “

I fling a pillow out the back of the van and am just bundling up the blankets, not caring what else goes with it to push out as well so I can find that fucking bottle when I notice Jason standing there at the back doors watching me, head tilted. I immediately stop what I’m doing, heart stopping for a second. “Lost something.” Is all I can squeak out.

He leans forward and I watch as I bends down so his head and upper body are in here with me and looks around, then up at me again as if to ask what I’m looking for so he can help me. “I-Its, um… “ My voice trembles. I need to find that bottle- the fact that Jason is being so sweet and offering to help me look just makes me feel even less together. I could cry. “A r-red bottle with umm, curly writing on it?” He probably doesn’t remember what coke is, much less the logo…

He nods, and starts looking around, eyes focused and slow as the graze along everything in the van so studiously that I stay extra still instead of helping- so he doesn’t miss anything with that super-vision he’s acting like he must have. The vans a mess and I’m just kneeling in the corner, against the driver’s seat with the blankets all bundles up in my lap, worrying my bottom lip and waiting for this man to save me. Please, jesus- help me. Save me.

A moment later and I’m about to slowly move from my place and Jason suddenly moves. His heavy arm shoots forward and pulls the bottle, a tubular shock of red, out of a nook between my portable DVD player/screen and some books and I was showing him earlier, offering it to me.

Dropping the blankets and sitting on them instead, feeling the softness on my bare legs and taking the bottle from him before hugging it to my chest and covering my face with my hands, silently.

Oh my god.

~POV Change~

Y/N curls up on herself, hiding her face and the bottle between her legs and her tummy and doesn’t make much noise except a quick, quiet whimper. She’s acting different, in a bad way. Why isn’t she talking to him, Jason wonders? Why isn’t she being loud? Is she okay?

Looking around the van, because he has to go in there and see if she’s okay- get her out of that body-cocoon, Jason crawls into the vehicle that he’s never dared to touch since the first night they met, and it breathes under his weight a little bit. He sits down next to her, crossing his legs and watching her for a while. What… to do… now… hmm…

Finally, he decides putting his hand on her shoulder might work to get her attention at least, and she does relax her shoulders quickly at the contact. Then looks up, face red, at him before wiping her face again and crawling suddenly into his lap. She takes a deep breath, regaining some of her usual colour and composure as Jason just sits solid and c o m p l e t e l y still beneath her, flashing him a quick, toothless smile. “Thank you for finding this Jason, it’s important to me.” She looks at the bottle in her hands, not wanting to put it down and risk losing it again even as she knows its irrational that she would do it twice in a row. “Its… how I keep him away… “

Y/N looks up at Jason, eyebrows risen up her forehead to watch him cautiously, worriedly, looking for signs. Did he understand what you were talking about? And if so, is he okay at the mention of your father?

He’s just completely unmoving still. Y/N blinks at the utter lack of responce. “Jason?”

When she still doesn’t receive a response, she taps his mask gently. “Jaaaason?”

That gets his attention, as he looks down at her face… and nods. A wonky smile that makes his somehow-still-beating heart flutter weirdly appears on her face and she looks outside instead. “So, what did you come to see me for? Ya just missed me? Hah, I missed you too cutie. How about we go for a walk? Its pretty today- ah.” When Jason’s big arms suddenly, slowly take action and wrap heavily around her, she’s pleasantly surprised. Her anxieties and panic from earlier all but slip from their knot in her chest and disappear at the action, and she responds by turning properly to her side in his lap so she can lean into his chest. “Oor we could cuddle. That sounds better anyway!~”

She taps the side of his face affectionately before closing her eyes, and he lets his own half lid themselves at the feeling of her so close to him. She’s so cute and warm. Its weird, but he thinks- if someone were to come right now in this moment, and not be loud and not do anything to Y/N or him… he would probably let them go.

(Well at least until he let her go.)

#Jason Voorhees x Reader Oneshot #Oneshot #Jason Voorhees #Freddy Krueger #Oneshots #Jason Voorhees x Reader

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lilsherlockian1975 · 5 years ago

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The Nose Knows

A little soulmates AU, mostly fluff. Here’s part one. This is NOT beta’d, sorry for any mistakes. Huge thanks to @mel-loves-all for helping out with editing the images since I’m an ignorant goose penis when it comes to all that business. Blame me for the quality of the pics... it’s what I picked out for her. ~LiL~

-o-o-o-o-

He catches it on a breeze. It hits him like a physical blow and he instantly knows what he’s smelling, if not... who.

He and his cousin Daven are sitting on one of the few available benches on the Quad. Addam, his best friend since childhood, is talking about some girl he’d met at a sorority mixer the night before but as soon as the scent drifts his way, Jaime pretty much tunes out the sordid tale of sloppy, near-anonymous sex. It’s a gorgeous Spring day, not a cloud in the sky and no hint of rain for the first time in at least two weeks. This fact alone has driven most of the student population out of doors, making it almost impossible for him to quickly assign the scent to its owner.

Jaime is instantly ill at ease, which is unfortunate as moments ago he’d felt entirely in his element. He and his twin sister had celebrated their twenty-second name day the weekend before and prior to the scent, he’d been feeling at the very top of his game. Now he’s... confused and excited and anxious all at once.

Less than two months and he will be finished with this gods’ forsaken town and its massive university. He’s already been accepted at Crakehall School of Art & Design for his post-grad, which is, incidentally, where he originally had planned to study. His father’d had different ideas, forcing Jaime into the business programme at KLU. Thankfully, he had managed to slip a minor in Architecture into his degree by selling Tywin a load of shit about wanting to ‘propel Castlery Corp. into the modern era’. The minor had added a full year to Jaime’s studies and without a major in his chosen field, he will have to take supplementary classes at CSAD but he’s certain it will be worth it in the end.

None of that matters now. Tywin Lannister had died of a massive stroke seven months ago. Jaime supposes he should feel worse about that; should feel some kind of loss or sadness, and maybe he does, though not for the reasons most sons would for the death of a parent. But the old man was never a real father. He’d been indifferent toward Tyrion, dismissive toward Cersei - though he could occasionally be somewhat warmer to his only female child - and constantly demanding that Jaime ‘live up to the Lannister name’. Jaime can feel sympathy for their mother, of course, she did love the old bastard, but neither he nor his sister are overly damaged by the old man’s death. Oddly enough, their father’s death seems to be affecting his little brother the most.

The scent assails him again and this time he stands, walking towards it, leaving Addam sputtering objections and calling him names. Jaime doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about is the originator of that smell.

He passes small groups of fellow students, all equally excited about the respite from the spring rains. The Quad is packed, of course, so it’s no easy task. Not to mention that he probably looks like some kind of weirdo, walking around, nose first and… sniffing. But he’s being driven by something entirely out of his control.

Though he’s never really given much thought to the idea of soulmates, he knows they exist - his Uncle Gerion and Aunt Briony are soulmates, for instance, but it’s rarely talked about within the family, almost as if it is some dirty secret. Actually, for some unknown reason, talking about soulmates seems to be taboo in ‘polite society’. Uncle Gerion - his favourite uncle - however, is quite outspoken against Lannister Family tradition and societal norms. The phenomenon, as far as he knows, is very rare these days and Jaime has never once even considered the possibility for himself.

Now… Now there's no doubt. He can smell her - them? - whoever! Jaime’s never been attracted to men, but somehow he knows that if the gods have seen it fit to match him with a man… so be it!

Shaking himself, he chuckles as he moves to another group of students. It won’t be a man, he thinks. Surely the gods would have given him some kind of inclination towards his own sex if… Suddenly, he’s engulfed with the scent. They’re close, they must be! He turns, following his nose like a damn toucan.

The crowd thins a bit; it’s the top of the hour and people are rushing off to class. Jaime’s eyes and, yes, his nose, zero in on his target. Shit! It is a dude! He’s taller than Jaime by maybe an inch or so with short, straw-like blond hair, broad shoulders and… He’s just about to resign himself to a future that he’d never even considered (okay, so he’s maybe had the odd thought here and there about other guys - everyone has, right?! Right?) when they turn around and…

“You’re a girl,” he says without thinking.

She (oh, thank the gods she’s a she!) narrows her eyes, straightens her spine and glares. “Yes, I am. And you’re not very original, I’m afraid,” she says coldly before stalking past him.

What?! No! She’s… she’s supposed to know. She’s supposed to smell him too. What in the seven hells is going on?! “Wait!” Jaime calls out but she doesn’t stop. He can’t give up, he just can’t. Sprinting to catch up, he reaches out for her, wanting to stop her, to talk to her. He doesn’t make it that far, though. Just before he touches her arm, she jerks back - maybe she saw him in her peripheral vision, maybe it’s some strange side effect of their connection, he doesn’t know - but when he sees the look in her unbelievably blue eyes, he’s the one flinching away.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she practically growls, “but you can’t just go around insulting people, chasing after them then touching them as if it’s your right!”

“But it is,” he replies lamely because... how doesn’t she know?

Her responding laugh is mocking and he can’t deny that it hurts him in a way he never imagined being hurt. Shaking her head, she sneers as she looks him up and down. “Guys like you are all the same…”

There are no guys like me, he thinks but luckily, this time he holds his tongue.

“I know I’m an easy target - hard to miss, low hanging fruit and whatnot - I’m just not in the mood for this nonsense today.”

Jaime knows he should give up, regroup and try again later, but patience has never been his strong suit. “I wasn’t… It wasn’t an insult. I was…” ‘Surprised’ sounds insulting and really, how does she still not know? His mind scrambles for a word to properly describe his condition. Finally, he settles on, “Confused?” though it unintentionally comes out as a question.

This seems to only further enrage the girl. She takes a step back, draws a deep breath and, once again, shakes her head. “Find someone else to help you figure out your sexuality!”

Okay, there’s a story there, Jaime’s sure of it but he doesn’t have time to ask. “No-no, you’re misunderstanding me. I know I’m not gay.” Although the fact that he considered it for thirty seconds or so is something he’ll deal with later! “I’m saying that…”

“I really don’t care what you’re saying.” Again, her eyes travel over him and Jaime has never felt so judged in his entire life. “It’s nothing new, it’s nothing I’ve not heard before. Do you really think you’re the first prick to want to screw with me? I’m guessing it’s another bet. Who put you up to this? Red? Bushy? If it was Hyle, I swear to the Seven...”

“None of them! I don’t even know who you’re talking about!” When he thinks about her words, an intense feeling of protectiveness overcomes him. “What bet? What did they do?”

Her pale, freckle-covered cheeks turn an interesting shade of pink as she hitches her messenger bag higher on her shoulder before crossing her arms over her chest. “Nothing. Never mind. Just… Just leave me alone. Please.” The last word comes out softly, pleadingly and it just about breaks Jaime’s heart. Turning, she starts to go.

“I’m not a creep!” he calls out, managing to stop her escape. Looking around, he notices that, miraculously, the Quad has pretty much cleared out. If their fellow students hadn’t been in such a rush to return to class he and the angry girl would have surely drawn a crowd. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself before continuing, “And I’m not a prick. I am sort of an arsehole, but not - I think, not like those guys you mentioned. Whatever they did... hurt you enough to make you make that face…”

She whips around. “What about my face?”

With a sigh, he says, “It looks sad. Too sad. It’s not supposed to.” And what does that even mean? he wonders as the words leave his mouth.

She’s surprised for a split second, then all emotion seems to drain from her features. “I don’t know why you’re doing this but please just… leave me alone.”

So he does. For now.

-o-o-o-o-

There is a very good reason that Brienne doesn’t know ‘who’ Jaime is. This is just the first part, I’m working on the next bit. Please let me know what you think. Thanks ~Lil~

#jaime x brienne #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #uni AU #modern AU #game of thrones

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scribbles97 · 5 years ago

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Left Behind - Chapter 43

PART 1 / PART 2 / PART 3

Chapter 37 / Chapter 38 / Chapter 39 / Chapter 40 / Chapter 41 / Chapter 42

Read on Ao3

If her leg hadn’t have been killing her, she would have probably been standing and pacing the arc of the circular lounge. Her leg was aching though and Lucy wasn’t sure she was capable of holding herself up.

Not when Eos had said she was on to something.

Not when that something was a signal from deep space.

Not when deep space was where they thought Jeff was.

“Here.” Val murmured as she sat down next to her, “Drink.”

Part of her wished the water was alcohol. Part of her knew that it was one too many chick flicks that made her wish for the cliche.

Her mind was spinning with possibilities though, even if she didn’t dare to think his name for fear of temping some sort of fate.

“I’m not sure I can stomach it,” She whispered, glancing over to Gordon as he returned from possibly the quickest shower she had ever seen.

“Anything?” He asked, russett eyes not leaving the scrolling jumble of data highlighting the room.

“Not yet,” John murmured from his seat, hand gripping tight on to Ridley’s, their argument about the AI apparently forgotten for the moment.

Taking a breath, Lucy looked back to the hologram, suddenly wondering how on earth she was to thank an AI for helping them as Eos was. Not that she had actually done anything yet, but Lucy could see that she was trying, and she knew that had to count for something.

Maybe she really was changed, even if it had only been a matter of days. People were capable of change, she only had to look at herself to know that was true. Computer programs updated and refreshed constantly. Could the same not be true of an AI?

“Scott said you’d found something!” Alan exclaimed as he came screeching to a halt at the edge of the lounge, “What? What is it?”

She held her arm out to him, hoping he would accept the request and take a seat under her arm.

“We don’t know yet.” John told him with a sigh, “Eos detected a signal from the same source as before, she’s trying to decode it now.”

Scott was still frowning as he took a seat on John’s empty side, “She couldn’t decode the last one, how can she decode this one if it’s from the same place?”

“It’s less d-degraded.” Hiram informed them, “R-readings from Thunderbird Five s-suggest that the rem-menants from a solar flare may have b-been enough to disrupt the first signal. It m-may also be why th-this signal is so p-poor.”

“If we waited a month we’d probably get a near perfect signal through.” John added.

Lucy couldn’t help but scoff, “I’m not waiting a damn month.”

Scott nodded in agreement, “How long will we have to wait?”

Virgil was quiet as he cleared his throat, “We shouldn’t get our hopes up.”

Alan tensed under her arm, straightening towards his older brother with a sudden glare.

“What else can it be?” He snapped, “There’s nothing else possibly in deep space!”

Squeezing his shoulder, she shook her head, “We don’t know that Allie,” She swallowed, not liking to think of the possibility, “Nobody has ever been out there. Maybe the Calypso is on its way back, but we have no idea what they might have found out there. For all we know it could be a fault in their comms.”

“It can’t be!” Alan exclaimed, “It has to be something!”

Scott was watching his youngest brother, leant forward with his elbows on his knees and hands braced behind his neck, clearly also afraid of what they might not find.

“It could be anything,” Val murmured from beside Lucy, “For all we know it could be Gaat.”

Lucy froze at the comment, eyes widening in realisation and thought.

“Mom?” Virgil prompted, “What is it?”

She shook her head, “Your Aunt has a point. Gaat did always have a flare for dramatics, especially when…” She trailed off, knowing that the boys knew everything now but telling them still not coming naturally.

“When you dated?” Scott grimaced, “No offence Mom, but he has tried to kill you since then.”

Gordon snorted as he leant back in his seat, “Every bad guy has a theme though Scott, geeze did you never watch the movies?”

Val squeezed her shoulder, offering a tight, sympathetic smile as she shook her head. Lucy leant into her, resting her head against Val’s shoulder as she sighed. Her mind was spinning, full of so many questions of what and how and why. It probably didn’t help that anything even slightly strenuous still took energy from her like water from a leaky bucket.

She knew that not even Sally - sat directly across from her- would scold her for pushing too hard though, not when it was a question of--

I don’t know if anyone may receive this.

The shift of the hologram drew all of their attention, dragging Lucy back upright as she read the words.

But I’m still out here. The ship launched. I’m in deep space.

Lucy swallowed, her hand finding Val’s and gripping tight.

Tracy Island, I could do with a lift home if you get this.

“I believe that this is the entire message,” Eos elaborated, “I have cross referenced it with what I could of the previous message and they seem to match.”

Silence met her, nobody quite able to talk. Nobody sure of what there was to say.

“Thank you.” Lucy whispered, swallowing and looking to the second hologram alongside the first, “Eos, thank you.”

“He’s alive.” Sally croaked, “My boy’s alive.”

Virgil was quick to move to her, wrapping his arm securely around her shoulders and holding onto her tight. As Lucy smiled across to the older woman, she found her own cheeks wet, too many emotions to properly process flooding her at once.

“So,” Alan started, hesitant and soft, “what do we do? We’ve gotta do something, right?”

“And we will Alan,” Scott replied for her, even his voice thick with emotion, “We’ll figure something out.”

Pulling the youngest into her side, Lucy took a long breath, “Orbital alignments aren’t going to be right for years yet, plus we have no way of getting out there.”

She could feel the weight of her words as they settled on the room, everyone's shoulders falling slightly at the thought. They knew he was there, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

“Eos, dear,” Sally murmured, “Do you think it might be at all possible to send a message back?”

The circle of lights lit up a soft shade of blue, her voice softer as she replied, “Oh yes, it would be quite easy. I believe that the ship Calypso is in close enough proximity to the true origin of the sign to be used as an amplifier.”

Hiram looked up suddenly, eyes wide as he looked from the hologram to Sally, to Lucy and then back again.

“Mrs Tracy, we can use the Calypso.”

She frowned at him, tilting her head as Sally straightened, beating her to the question, “What?”

The engineer pushed his glasses up his nose before reaching out to the hologram and bringing up a new image. Lucy remembered it from months ago, weeks before her accident had even happened, the assumed coordinates of exactly where the Zero-X had gone.

“This is where we b-believe the Zero-X is. And this,” A pause as a badge was added to the image, “is where we know the Calypso is.”

Alan pulled away from her, “That’s not where the Calypso is meant to be.”

The shift of the great ships flight path was subtle, but Alan was space mad, hooked on anything that related to man’s exploration of the great unknown. She should have known that, out of her whole family, he would pick up on the differences.

“We might have borrowed it, changed the flight plan,” She shrugged, “Just slightly.”

Gordon was grinning, “Ooo Mom playing espionage, I like it.”

“The Calypso is where I traced the signal back to,” Eos informed them, “I would imagine without it we would not have received the message.”

Hiram waved the AI off with his hand and a shake of his head, “What I am t-trying to say is, if we turn the Calypso back, once we get close enough to Mr Tracy’s location, a landing pod could be used to pick him up before the ship returns to Earth.”

“How long would it take?” Scott asked, eyes darting from the hologram to Hiram, “To pick him up?”

His shoulders sunk as he glanced back to Lucy, “The calculations are still in p-progress, most likely m-months.”

She shook her head at him, “It’s the best we’ve got. I’ll have to ask permission from the Calypso’s owners though.”

“I’ll arrange a meeting next week,” Scott nodded eagerly, “When we go over for you to start physio.”

It was hard not to scoff at the thought, physio hardly seemed important in the grand scheme of things. Jeff was out there, he was alive and they had a way of contacting him.

He’d murder her if he found out she wasn’t looking after herself.

“You’re still going to physio.” Val told her in no uncertain terms, “When he gets back I’m not getting blamed for you not looking after yourself.”

When, She swallowed at the thought, When he gets back.

“Meanwhile,” Scott started as he stood, “I think you and Grandma have a message to send, perhaps from your office?”

Lucy looked to her mother-in-law, “What do you say Sal?”

She smiled as she stood, gesturing for Lucy to go first, “I say four years is plenty long enough, let’s not waste another minute.”

#thunderbirds are go #Thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfic #Lucy AU #lucy fic #scribbles writes #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Gordon Tracy #alan tracy #Virgil Tracy #Lucille Tracy #grandma tracy #Aunt Val

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greenygreenland · 5 years ago

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Wannabe Chapter 6: Star Wars x Reader

'𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗜 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲...'𝗖𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗜'𝗺 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂. 𝗜'𝗺 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗼, 𝗜'𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂.' -𝗥𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗬𝗼𝘂, 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘄 𝗠𝗼𝗹𝗲

pt 1

Sitting in the back seat of a taxi should have been a treat after sprinting like a track star through the city. It should have been a relief to finally rest their achy legs and catch their breath, yet...(Y/n)'s anxiety peaked. She hated sitting still in one place because it meant the one thing she wanted to avoid: being a sitting duck. As the cab zoomed through the street, (Y/n) kept her gaze focused on the brightly coloured lights.

"Didn't know clones could have girlfriends." he said with a friendly chuckle. (Y/n) pulled her cloak further over her face with a wry frown as Fives offered a grumpy scowl in reply. "She's not my girlfriend."

"That what's gotten you down?"

(Y/n) and Fives shared an unamused side-glance. "No." There was a bad taste in Fives's mouth. "Can't you just drive?"

"Sure." There was a playful smile on the driver's lips. "Whatever you say."

The taxi pulled up to 79's without problem. From where (Y/n) sat, she already felt the vibrations of the music and energy rippling through the bar. There were many people she knew in there, some of which she didn't want to see at the moment. Fives was the first to exit the taxi. He would have paid if he could, but he didn't have credits because clones didn't get paid. (Y/n) dug through her pockets and produced the few credits Shaak gave to her for her previous mission.

"No tip?" the driver inquired. (Y/n) offered an apologetic smile. "Apologies sir. I'm kind of broke." She climbed out of the back seat and onto the streets. She shared a short glance with Fives, who almost smiled before his gaze flickered over to 79's entrance. Clones mingled with the occasional twi'lek under the dim lighting of the bar. Some drank to their legions, giving hearty laughs and hoping for a better future. It was a Monday, so of course the bar was packed with clones drinking their sorrows away. "You don't have to go inside if you don't want to." said Fives, eyes all tender and soft. "I know you don't like crowded places."

(Y/n) frowned. "Will you be alright? You said Nala Se drugged y--" Fives tried for a grin wile rubbing at his temples. "I know, but I'll be fine. I just need to find Kix." (Y/n) nodded in understanding and Fives was quick to disappear into the rowdy bar, leaving (Y/n) on the streets. She quietly leaned against the wall, sluggishly folding her arms over her chest.

"What are you doing here?"

The stern voice made (Y/n) jump five feet in the air. Her gaze snapped up to the tall clone and she could have sworn a chuckle came from his lips. His cybernetic eye seemed to stare into her soul as a short sigh escaped her lips. Oh, great, she thought. "I don't know you." Wolffe rolled his eyes like the sassy man he was.

"Cut the act. I'd recognise that shirt anywhere." (Y/n) stared at her dark blue shirt, where the classic Mandalorian hexagonal design in silver sat. (Y/n) huffed. "I didn't think I'd ever see you at a bar."

"The boys' idea, not mine. And you know General Plo, he told me it would be 'good to loosen up a bit'." He took a sip of his drink and settled on the vacant spot against the wall. "You don't sound good. Sick?"

"Something like that..."

"What're you doing here di'kut?"

"You don't want to know--and I'm not an idiot."

"Actually, I do. I have all night."

(Y/n) looked up at Wolffe with a sad frown. "I can't, Wolffe."

"You know you can tell me anything."

"I know, but...I just can't. Not this one." replied (Y/n). Wolffe took a sip of his liquor, unbothered. "And why is that? Did you somehow get caught up in Skywalker's business again?" (Y/n) shook her head. "It's complicated."

"How so?"

"I don't want you to get caught up in this. Someone is out for my head right now because I know something I shouldn't." She heaved in a deep sigh. "If I get you involved, you could die too Wolffe--and I don't think I could ever live with myself knowing I hurt you." Wolffe folded his arms across his chest with a hard look on his face. "Well," he paused as if to prepare himself for whatever he was about to say. "To be truthful, I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I could have prevented the potential death of my vod."

(Y/n) almost smiled. Vod, it meant sister, or brother, in Mando'a. It wasn't often Jedi were held in such a high respect such as that (mostly due to the Code), so this meant more than the galaxy to her. "Wolffe." She pursed her lips so tightly they turned a shade of white. "I trust you, and I know for a fact that the feeling is reciprocated, but what I need you to do now is trust me with everything."

Wolffe mimicked (Y/n)'s grim expression. "Where are you going with this?" She took a hold of Wolffe's free hand and gave it a good squeeze. "Trust me. Please." He was silent in thought, a look of doubt washing over his stern features. For a moment, (Y/n) thought he'd say no, but a simple 'okay' was all she heard. (Y/n) took a step closer to Wolffe and motioned for him to lean down. "In my room, I've written all the information needed to know. The code is three-two-one-nine." She spared a glance over her shoulder and caught sight of Fox and his boys exiting a ship. Wolffe followed her gaze as she rubbed a hand over her temples.

"Don't tell me they're involved." he grumbled. (Y/n) frowned. "In a way." Wolffe looked as though he had eaten a whole lime. He placed a hand on (Y/n)'s back and guided her towards the bar's entrance. "The back door's over there. Want me to stall?"

"If you can. Thanks Wolffe."

"You can thank me by not dying, di'kut."

(Y/n) weakly smiled before disappearing into the crowd. Strobe lights lit her way, reflecting off helmets and illuminating the dance floor. She shimmied across the floor and tangoed towards a booth. As she turned to dodge the prying eyes of Jesse (he had a vague idea of who she was), a hand gently took hold of her wrist and lead her away from the lights and heavy chatter. The warmth his hand held was more than enough for (Y/n) to know exactly who he was.

"Fives." He stealthily lead her through the back doors. "We have to go, like, now." he quietly said. The duo emerged onto a balcony the size of a regular street, where speeder bikes sat lined up in neat rows. The balcony would have been a picture-perfect setting with the view of the stars, but the Coruscant Guard questioning a clone off to the side ruined the vibe. If (Y/n) could properly think straight, she would have made a run for it with Fives on a speeder.

(Y/n) placed a hand to her head. The galaxy was spinning and all she could think to do was lie down on the ground and take a century long nap. Fives started up a speeder, giving it a good rev. It blinked to life and he hopped on. (Y/n) climbed aboard the back, thankful for the fact that it had two seats. Fives kicked off the balcony as fast as he could drive. "Are you okay?" he shouted over the wind. "There is a disturbance in the Force. I don't know what it is, but it's...dangerous."

There was a beat of silence as Fives drove into the underground levels. The descent was short and filled with zero chatter neither could break. Keeping their heads was beginning to prove a task unworthy for the both because damn was so much going on at once. "I told Kix to contact General Skywalker and Rex to meet us here." He steered the speeder towards a platform and landed the bike behind a pile of dusty crates. "They should be here soon."

The two sluggishly dismounted and walked through a crack in the double doors just large enough to fit a person. "I'm just going to sit here." (Y/n) mumbled. She eased herself onto a dusty crate as Fives rubbed at his head. He scanned the area until he stumbled upon a panel in the wall. He flicked a switch and the warehouse glowed with newfound light.

The anticipation and pure agitation rolling off his shoulders disturbed (Y/n). It wasn't like him to display deep negativity like that. He was the one to make other people agitated or annoyed with his dumb jokes and jabs. "Don't think too much Fives." quietly said. "Once they come, everything should be alright. They'll listen."

Fives shakily met her gaze. "Do you really believe that? Do you really believe they won't turn us in? Sure, they--they may not hurt us, but that doesn't mean they'll believe what we have to say." (Y/n) wanted to refute from the bottom of her heart, but a part of her couldn't deny that trusting in her friends laid a potential threat to their safety. Rex's loyalties laid to the Republic while Anakin's laid to both the Order and the Republic, along with the people he held close to his heart.

"It's not a matter of who they will believe," (Y/n) said, "but of what they will choose."

Footnote: The password to your room is ironically the dates of when Order 66 was created and when it was executed. 3219. 32 = when it was created. 19 = when it was executed.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars x reader #star wars the clone wars x reader

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derireo · 5 years ago

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dedue & dimitri - she knows what she’s doing

Dimitri doesn’t know how to kiss. Dedue offers up Byleth as his instructor until he gets the hang of it.

dedue x f!byleth x dimitri

LEMON

Dimitri was popular with the girls at Garreg Mach University (aka GMU). The girls loved his tall, broad frame, and the way he tied his hair back for varsity track and field. He did several field events like shotput and discus, but his best event was javelin.

Women loved to watch the way his strong muscles flexed as he ran down the track and threw the light spear up into the sky, and almost always defeat the other competitors that go against him.

He was undoubtedly handsome, and his kind personality towards his friends and strangers was a plus to many.

Dimitri was a ruggedly gorgeous man, and many of the girls from the university would try almost anything to spend a day with him.

Except, Dimitri has never been interested in girls or even boys – no one has ever piqued his interest. So, his experience with relationships and flings were at a zero, and no one really knew except for his small friend group.

Well, he wasn't interested until he met Byleth.

He first saw Byleth when the university was hosting the fencing provincials for the nth time this decade, with consecutive wins every following year due to the strong team GMU trained for hours, months, and years.

There were rumors about this woman, Eisner, who had been fencing on the team for three years, and had won each competition despite being a fresh competitor. No other students have properly seen her face before as she never left the gym with her mask off, and whenever she changed out of her fencing gear with her team, no one would see her leave.

So, she was kind of a mystery in the university, but she had a small fanbase considering her epic wins in the past half decade.

Unexpectedly, Eisner had sucked Dedue in too, as this year the Duscur man invited Dimitri to tag along with him to watch the mysterious fencer compete tonight. Dedue only really focused on his studies or training when he has a boxing match, so it was a surprise for his friend to all of a sudden be invested with fencing, of all things. He already had the tickets when he asked Dimitri, and so he couldn't refuse.

He's too shy to admit, but he was excited as well.

It was the match for gold, and Eisner was competing against another student from a different university. Her impressive footwork and her quick reactions to attacks had everyone in the gym holding their breath.

The match was close, as Eisner had one more point to win to get the gold and win the provincials, but throughout the whole match, the two fencers kept handing each other points, back and forth; such a heartracing match that it even had Dedue inching towards the edge of his seat.

It was quiet, the clock was ticking and the patter of their footsteps on the piste were the only sounds in the gym.

A quick stab to the chest was quickly deflected by Eisner, and her parry momentarily flustered her opponent as she twisted her body gracefully, body arched backwards as she reached forward with her sabre and hit her opponent square in the stomach.

And with the flashing of Eisner's light on the scoreboard, everyone in the gym who went to GMU stood up from their seats and roared from the top of their lungs as Eisner jumped up, throwing her fist in the air with joy.

Everyone went wild as it was another year that Garreg Mach University had won provincials again, all thanks to Eisner, and to make everyone go further into a frenzy, the young woman peeled off her mask to reveal her pretty, sweaty face to everyone in the gym, short strands of hair matted to her skin as her cheeks were flushed a lovely tinge of pink due to all the energy she had exerted into winning.

Boys and girls alike screamed.

"Oh, Goddess, it's Byleth!" Dimitri could hear a few people shouting over the ruckus in the gym as he stood in shock beside Dedue who was clapping his hands.

He wasn't really expecting to see someone so gorgeous under that mask.

As the gym quietened down, the officials of the tournament began sorting out the competitors into their rankings to get ready for the end of the competition awards, organising the trophies and medals on a large table as everyone who participated began to come back into the centre.

And Byleth, being the cheeky one she was, playfully sent a love arrow into the audience around where both Dimitri and Dedue sat, causing another small uproar from the students around them.

Dimitri was too dazed to remember what happened after that.

So, you could say it came as a shock when the next time Dimitri saw Byleth was when he was sitting at Dedue's desk with his friend sitting at the edge of his own bed, the girl happily bounding into his room without knocking on the door, finding her place in the large man's lap with a wide smile.

Her small ponytail bounced excitedly when she snuggled up to the man, and Dimitri couldn't help the way his heart stuttered when he saw that sweet smile of hers up close.

"What did you think about yesterday?" she whispered between Dedue and herself as the man curled his arms around her waist and dragged the both of them towards the headboard so that she'd be near Dimitri as well, his smile uncharacteristically private as Dedue cupped her cheek in his palm and placed a light kiss to her nose.

"You did well, cutie. Everyone was so shocked when you took off the mask."

Byleth scrunched her nose with a smile and looked over at Dimitri with her bright, twinkling eyes, almost startling the man by acknowledging his existence in the room.

"Were you shocked, Dimitri?" She asked with a tilted head, the tone in her voice casual as if she had spoken to him multiple times before, her hands finding Dedue's as he rests his palms against her thighs, his chin propped atop her head.

Awkwardly, Dimitri loosened the uniform tie that was beginning to get a bit tight around his neck and pushed himself back a little on Dedue's rolling chair, a faint blush creeping up his neck as he avoided eye contact with the girl.

"A little, yes. I don't know what I was expecting though." He muttered quietly and brought his hands together to fiddle around with his thumbs, a slight frown forming on his face as he took a quick glance towards Byleth who was giving him a friendly smile in return.

Byleth gently elbowed Dedue in the arm and turned her head to look back at him with a mischievous expression. "I bet he didn't expect me to look so pretty under that mask."

Dedue scoffed, pinching Byleth's thigh as Dimitri was too busy sputtering quietly over his words that neither he nor Byleth could hear.

Byleth squinted her eyes in thought the next few seconds as she leaned back into Dedue's chest and looked back at Dimitri who was fanning himself out of embarrassment, the heat already having risen to the tips of his ears.

"I was also really sweaty though, so I probably looked gross." She pondered aloud, lips pouted. "Nevermind."

Despite being flustered by Byleth's earlier words, Dimitri immediately shook his head in denial and shot himself forward on the chair he was on, his knees bumping into the side of Dedue's bed as he braced himself against the bedding.

"Not at all," he managed to blurt out, "I thought you looked absolutely gorgeous. I swear I– my heart stopped." he stammered, eyes wide and pleading as Byleth pretended to look unsure, Dedue behind her just rolling his eyes in amusement, but he decided to play along with the girl in his lap.

"I don't know, Dimitri," he started off, his cheek pressed against the back of Byleth's head as she giggled when his fingers tickled the inside of her thighs. "She's quite hard to convince."

"I look disgusting when I'm all sweaty in my gear." Byleth lamented, body sagging against Dedue to sell her joke.

Dimitri was a very sweet man from what Byleth could tell and from what Dedue had told her, considering the blond man was scrambling over his words with heat fuming out of his ears as he stared at her with a lost expression on his face, his lips slightly trembling from having no idea on what to say to her.

"Relax, Dimi." She laughed softly and reached out for his hand that was gripping onto Dedue's bed sheet, happily ignoring the way his body twitched when the nickname fell from her mouth. "I was just joking. You don't have to impress me with your words."

The blond could only flush an even deeper shade of red (if that was in anyway possible) and let the woman in front of him take his hand in hers, her thumb brushing over the back of his knuckles as she made an effort to get him to look at her.

"I heard you were in a bit of a predicament though. Dedue thought I could help."

Looking positively lost, Dimitri straightened in his chair with a tilted head, his eyebrows sad as he looked back and forth between Byleth and Dedue. "What's my situation?"

Scoffing, Dedue shot Dimitri a look. "You can barely function around girls you're interested in. You can't even make eye contact with Byleth."

"I'm surprised you didn't recognize me yet, either." Byleth mused, pulling at Dimitri's hand to get him to join the duo on the bed as well as making sure he kicked off his slides before putting his feet on the sheets.

"I'm the girl who took Dedue home that one night you were at the club."

Wide eyed, Dimitri pointed at Byleth and then Dedue, quickly realising the situation between the two and gulping when he saw how close Byleth was leaning into him, her eyes sparkling under the light as she curled both of her hands around his much large one, his smile becoming nervous.

"I don't know what you two are planning, but I believe I don't fit in to this equation."

"Hey, now." Byleth scolded, fingers lightly thwacking the back of his hand as Dedue rubbed his forehead while at the same time pulling out his phone to scroll through whatever. "I'm just gonna help you out with the kissing stuff."

Dimitri choked.

"Kissing?" He rasped, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to look at Dedue who was boredly typing something on his phone, obviously paying no mind to them both as Byleth continued to stay perched in his lap.

"I heard your first kiss happened a long while ago, and it didn't go so well. That being said, I will be your kissing partner until you get the hang of it!" She let go of Dimitri's hand to clap, and the blond nearly missed the warmth that she provided him for the past few minutes.

"You can't be serious." Dimitri laughed, incredulous, as he bravely stared Byleth in the eyes, his head shaking.

"I am." Byleth pouted, pointing her thumb back at Dedue who was still minding his own business. "Dedue thought it would help you be more confident around girls."

"I'm not so sure." Dimitri muttered unhappily and fiddled with the hem of his sweater, again, nervous, to look at Byleth.

The woman could only sigh, her eyes gentle as she tentatively reached out for the man in front of her, palms carefully sliding up to his cheeks to hold his face in her hands, making sure he was looking right at her when she spoke.

"I am here to take care of you, Dimitri. I will not force you to do anything you do not want to, but I can tell that you are a sweet, and sincere man. You just need a little guidance, that's all."

Those sad baby blues stared right back at Byleth while she brushed her thumbs along the dark circles that lay beneath his eyes and she couldn't help but coo at him as she brushed his long fringe from his sight, exposing the long, ragged scar that cut across his right eye.

"And without Dedue telling me, I can see that you've been through a lot these past couple years." She chuckled faintly, and traced the tips of her fingers along the uneven skin that was permanently etched onto his face, his eyelashes fluttering when she ran her thumb along his eyelid.

"From what I've been told about Dedue's scars, you were in the same situation." She smiled, sighing when the man in front of her visibly relaxed at the touch of her hand.

"You two are naughty boys." She scolded all of a sudden, and Dedue responded with a lazy grumble, leaning back against the headboard as he closed his eyes, Byleth still comfortable in his lap as she slowly got Dimitri to inch closer and closer to her without asking him to.

"I ought to punish you both for being delinquents in high school." She snarked playfully and printed a light kiss to Dimitri's scarred eyelid, her grin pleased when the blond flushed in surprise.

"You weren't any better yourself, Sweetheart." Dedue drawled without opening his eyes, a slight smile on his face. "You can't tell me the Ashen Demon was the nickname of an innocent high school girl."

"Oh, stop it." She groaned, lazily tickling her fingers against Dimitri's jaw as her other hand went back to poke Dedue in the chest. "I don't have as many scars as you guys do. No one else can prove I was her."

Fidgeting, Dimitri stared up at Byleth from his slouched position with some sort of emotion in his eyes; almost as if he was lovestruck. He wasn't really sure what it was about Byleth that made him eager to get closer to her, but with the way his hand was shyly coming up to wrap around her wrist to keep her hand on his face was something he's never felt comfortable doing before.

When Byleth looked back at him with curious eyes, he could only nervously bite at his lip as he kept her hand on his cheek, leaning into the warmth that her palm provided.

"Um.." His gaze flickered. "I–... I think I'd like to kiss you.. Now..." He murmured shyly, lips pouted a little as Byleth hummed, pleasantly surprised.

"I'm flattered. But first," she reached out to tug at the hem of his school pullover, indicating that she wanted to get it off of him before they continued. "Take this off. I have a feeling you're going to get a little hot under there, considering you've been blushing the whole time I've been here."

To prove her point, Dimitri automatically reddended and slipped off the pullover from his body to reveal the tight, white uniform button down that hugged his muscular frame. Byleth licked her lips in approval and gave a slight nod to the rolled up sleeves that made his arms look positively lovely.

Byleth supposes she has a thing for men who do that thing with their sleeves.

She shook her head. She couldn't let herself get distracted.

"We're gonna start off slow, okay?" She carefully readjusted herself in Dedue's lap to not disturb him and reached out for the loosened tie around Dimitri's neck, smiling. "Then once you've got the hang of it, the real fun begins."

Once the blond nodded, Byleth carefully pulled him in with his tie wrapped around her fist, letting the anticipation slowly rise between them as their breaths slowly began to mix and their lips just barely brushed. Dimitri held his hands in front of him, where they dug into the mattress just a few inches away from Byleth's knees.

He was shaking – reasonably so. Byleth was a gorgeous, and confident young woman. She could choose to do this with anyone else, but she chose to take care of Dimitri. The young man wasn't so sure if he was worthy to be in the presence of such a kind girl.

Lightly, Byleth tipped her head to connect their lips in a short kiss, quickly pulling away after a second or two so as not to overwhelm the man who was already clenching his hands into fists.

Dimitri was visibly flustered already.

The kiss only lasted for two seconds, but Dimitri already had the sensation of her plush, wet lips resting against his ingrained in his head, and he felt like he was ready to combust.

Giggling at the blank expression on his face, Byleth pulled Dimitri in again for another short kiss, just to get him used to the feeling of her lips against his as her free hand went to guide Dimitri's own to her thighs, so that he was able to brace himself against something more comfortable.

This kiss lasted a bit longer albeit only being just a press of their lips, and when Byleth pulled away a second time, the faint sound of their mouths smacking apart had Dimitri's body flinching in embarrassment; the sound almost lewd to him.

The action nearly had Byleth gushing a mantra of little coos.

"You're a cute one, aren't you?" She whispered sweetly, lips coming to find his own again to have him melting against her, his fingers weakly scratching at her thighs.

Slowly, their mouths began to move in tandem with each other as Dimitri eventually got the hang of what he was supposed to do, lips almost always tentatively connecting with Byleth's over and over again just to hear the addicting sound of their mouths smacking against each other.

Byleth sighed happily against Dimitri's mouth as he began to sink his fingers deeper into the flesh of her thighs, her teeth making an appearance to carefully nip at the man's lower lip.

She really loved riling men up with just the sound of kissing, amongst other things.

Lazily, just as Dimitri was getting more confident, Byleth gave a gentle suck to his bottom lip, the searing heat of her tongue dragging along the flesh eliciting a feeble moan from the young man that lit the ends of her nerves on fire.

"Mmh.." He mewled cutely, only adding more flame to the fire as she tugged his lip back with her teeth to see it snap back, her hands coming up to frame his face with her palms, dragging him into a much more heated kiss that had their teeth clashing.

His skin under her fingers were thrumming with heat, and as his lips parted just the slightest to let out a sweet, little moan, Byleth carefully licked her away into his inviting mouth, much to his surprise.

Dimitri didn't expect her tongue to enter his mouth, and so his first reaction was to gently bite down on her tongue, causing the girl to reel back in slight pain from the sharp pinch.

"Oh, Byleth! I'm so sorry." He panicked, body seizing up as he watched the girl wince at the throbbing ache that pulsated through her tongue, eyebrows slightly furrowed as his fingers calmed down against her thighs.

Pouting, Byleth lightly brushed her knuckles against Dimitri's chin in a mock punch, poking her tongue out a little to show that it was bleeding.

Just when Dimitri was going to apologise again, Dedue interruped him with a tired laugh, his eyes just barely opening as he reassured his friend. "It's okay. She likes biting."

"You have to kiss my ouchie." She demanded through a lisp as she held the tip of her tongue out, patiently waiting for Dimitri to regain the courage to get close to her again, eyes sparkling with anticipation as the man in front of her gulped nervously.

And much to her pleasure, Dimitri, who wanted to be a little daring, cupped her jaw in his large palm and dipped his head down, lazily sucking at the tip of her tongue to soothe her wound all the while successfully riling Byleth up.

"Playing dirty." She murmured when she pulled away from Dimitri and proceeded to knock him onto his back by pushing at his chest until he got the hint, the grin on her face wicked as she removed herself from Dedue's lap to crawl over Dimitri, who was staring up at her with dazed eyes as she straddled his hips with her thighs.

The room was getting hotter with how much their bodies were burning up, and with Byleth already going back to licking her way into his mouth, Dimitri was almost sure he was going to explode. He couldn't help the moans that escaped him as she used her tongue to have him melt in her palms, and his body couldn't help but shiver as her hands trailed over his chest and abdomen through his shirt.

Dimitri felt like he was going to die.

As her fingers skillfully undid each button from his uniform, Dimitri had a firm grip on her tied hair as their mouths slotted together in a wet kiss, saliva nearly leaking from their lips while Byleth ripped apart the rest of his shirt, effectively popping some buttons onto the floor as she exposed the hard ripple of his body.

"Is this okay?" She asked him breathlessly as her fingers began to trail down his chest and through the ridges of his stomach until they stopped at the buckle of his belt, her hand lightly tugging at it to let him know what she was asking for.

When he nodded his approval, Byleth started to expertly undo his belt with a single hand, her lips moving to press fleeting kisses from his chin and down his throat as she got the buckle undone, slowly moving down his body with her mouth pressing kisses to each inch of skin she can reach while she worked on unbuttoning his pants, the flat of her tongue languidly tracing every hard ridge of his toned stomach.

Just as her tongue was about to meet the waistband of his boxers, Byleth's hips were suddenly being hoisted up into the air with a new pair of hands, her back carefully being pressed down by a weight that was undoubtedly Dedue kneeling behind her with a tired smile.

"My lovely girl is getting carried away, I see." He murmured sweetly as he held his hips flush against her ass, where his growing erection pressed against the crevice of her cheeks, cooing faintly when she turned her head to look back at him, her hand palming Dimitri through his undergarments.

"He's a fast learner." She mewled pathetically as Dedue had a firm grip on her waist and ground his hips against her, keeping his movements slow so that she wouldn't get too distracted from pulling Dimitri's cock from his boxers, her mouth practically watering at the sight of the flushed head and the tip that was leaking precum.

Dedue nodded in agreement as he looked over at Dimitri who was covering his face with his hands in embarrassment, his chest heaving with shallow breaths as Byleth's hands gently pumped him to full hardness, her mouth just barely ghosting over the crown of his cock.

"Just watch her face, Dimitri. You don't need to be so shy." Dedue teased his friend who was trying to peek through his fingers to see what Byleth was doing to him, and began to inch her shorts down her thighs with his fingers tucked in her waistband, already being met with a panty-less Byleth and thin glistening strings of her slick sticking to her shorts.

Dedue pinched the soft flesh of her hip as reprimand.

"You have got to stop walking through our dorm without any underwear on, By."

Byleth pouted at the tone in his voice and made sure to make eye contact with Dimitri as he uncovered his face, one hand lovingly fondling his balls between her fingers as she pressed her thumb through the slit of his tip, giggling happily at the strangled sound that left the man's mouth.

"It makes it easier for your cock to– oh." just as she was about to respond with something playful, Dedue pulled his own cock out from his sweatpants and immediately pressed himself inside of Byleth's wet heat, her slick making it an easy entrance as her hole swallowed him up hole in just a few seconds.

Dimitri's breath stuttered when her smile was quickly replaced with a blissful expression as Dedue began to fill her up with his cock, with the way her eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head as her mouth fell open to let out a soft gasp, Dimitri wanted to see what other kinds of faces she could make.

He held himself up by elbows, his shirt left hanging open on his shoulders as his toned stomach clenched, Byleth's cheek pressed against his v-line while she pumped his length a few times, exhales coming out in short breaths as her hips were being gripped by Dedue while he fucked her, and the small tendrils of hair that weren't tied up already sticking to parts of her neck and face.

"You are so pretty." Dimitri whispered under his breath and reached a hand out to cup Byleth's cheek in his palm, heart squeezing when she responded with a smile and leaned the weight of her head into his hand, body slightly shaking with the force of Dedue's hips slapping against her ass.

The wet noises of Dedue's cock sliding inside of her made Byleth moan as her slick continued to flood out in copious amounts, making the mess between the two lovers messy as Byleth tried to not let the pleasure take over her so she could start making Dimitri happy, mouth already falling open to let the the thick head of his cock slide against her drooling tongue.

Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears of pleasure as she stared up at Dimitri who held her jaw in his hand, and tried to bite his lip to muffle the growl that rumbled from his chest as she teasingly sucked the head like it was a popsicle, the tip of her tongue poking out to lap at the slit that gushed with more precum.

The noise made Byleth's thighs tremble, and her eyelashes fluttered as she loosened her jaw to accommodate the size of Dimitri's cock in her mouth, tongue slack against the underside of his shaft where the sensitive vein lay, a pleased hum escaping her when Dedue lazily rolled his hips into her, the head of his cock pressing against that bundle of nerves that had her twitching beneath the two men.

And then she started sucking.

The sensation of her mouth wrapped around his cock was something Dimitri couldn't describe, and he found it unbearably hot that whenever she popped off to breathe in some air, she was always salivating with the need to fill her mouth up with something. The hungry whimpers that fell from her lips as she searched every crevice and ridge of his cock with her tongue had Dimitri covering his mouth in pleasure, and at some point, his eyes started rolling too.

Eventually, the air became thick with heat and the smell was of sweat as Byleth continued to be taken from behind, and the sound of her choking on Dimitri's dick when she was given a particularly hard thrust nearly had both men orgasming at the same time.

Popping off of Dimitri with a sticky gasp, Byleth's hand quickly replaced her mouth as she felt her own orgasm coiling in the pit of her stomach, a mantra of little yes' escaping her as Dedue picked up the pace, his hands on his hips pulling her into every thrust to shove his cock deeper and deeper inside of her to get his sweet lover to squeal.

"Oh, please." She cried out, all cute and pathetic as her body swayed between the two much larger men that held her captive. Dimitri was slack jawed as he watched the girl come undone right in front of him, throat parched as the hold on his shaft tightened, her tongue falling from her mouth as tears slid down her face, body wracking with the hot flashes of pleasure dragging through her.

It wasn't long until Dedue was cursing as well, and with a low growl and a deep push of his hips, the young Duscur man released his fat load inside of the tiny girl that desperately lapped at the head of Dimitri's cock.

"Fuck." she growled weakly as Dedue continued to rock his hips into her, causing his cum to leak out of her while she suckled at Dimitri's tip to calm herself down from her orgasm.

Slowly, Byleth's body began to relax as her limbs got heavy, a faint whine escaping her once Dedue pulled out after a few more seconds of coming down from his high. The girl was finally able to focus on Dimitri once more, who was trying to pray to the Goddess above to forgive him and his sins.

She was getting lazy though, as her tongue was languidly lapping at his shaft with slow strokes, mouth occasionally giving the head gentle kisses before she licked her lips.

Then suddenly, Byleth had an idea.

Peeking up at Dimitri through her eyelashes, she sent him a little wink which caused him to flush.

"Daddy, lemme fuck 'im." She pouted cutely once she removed her mouth from Dimitri's cock with a faint pop, turning around to face Dedue who was resting against the headboard with his still hard cock resting in his palm. Dimitri stammered bashfully when Byleth turned around, and was met with the gorgeous sight of hot, white cum seeping out of her tiny hole.

Dimitri gulped.

How did Dedue fit inside of her?

And Daddy?

With fond eyes staring down at Byleth who was already crawling between his thighs to mouth at his cock, Dedue let out a sigh and dragged a hand through her bangs as he held the base of his shaft, lazily tapping the head against her parted lips as he motioned Dimitri over with a jut of his chin.

Nervously, Dimitri shuffled up behind Byleth who had her hips propped up while on her knees, obviously inviting Dimitri to sink his cock inside of her whenever he wanted.

"I think I'm gonna let him fuck you instead."

Byleth mewled happily, teasing the head of his cock with the tip of her tongue as she looked back at Dimitri who was already eagerly pressing at her loose hole.

She licked her lip once he slid inside of her and nuzzled her face into the toned stomach of Dedue to muffle her purr, mouth just barely ghosting against his cock.

"Give it to me, Daddy."

Dimitri gushed precum.

#dedue molinaro #dedue x byleth #dimitri x byleth #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #byleth eisner #fire emblem imagines #fire emblem byleth #female byleth #lemon

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