#/ i am unspeakably excited to have two weeks off work

[eiiskonigin]

HIATUS NOTICE — Friday, June 23rd - July 8th !!

It's that time of year! My inlaws are taking Mal and I on a vacation, so on the 23rd I leave for the US. I'll still be online in the evenings some nights before we head off to the family and after we return, but my activity will absolutely take a hit for a couple weeks. I'm planning to shove as much stuff in the queue as I can this week before I leave, but anyone who's known me for a while knows how well that usually works out for me...

[aloneinthehellfire]

Chapter One: A New Friend, A New Enemy

The Pariahs That Saved The World (Masterlist)

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: mentions of death, canon descriptions (vecna's curse)

[A/N: Thank you to everyone who seems really excited about this! I am going to try and post for this one weekly, just so I have enough time between uni and work to write new chapters :) This one is a little long, but I needed to set up Reader's character a little more so enjoy!]

The Introduction <-

A New Friend, A New Enemy

“Y/n!”

You slip off your headphones and greet your grandmother with a smile, laughing when she squeezed you tight. It had been almost 8 months since you watched her wave her hand of farewell in the rear view mirror. You had missed her the most, you think. Her warm hugs, her calming perfume, the way she cared for you.

“Come on, I’ve made us some lunch.” She hurries you inside and you laugh again.

“I need to grab the rest of my things, first.” You shake your head in amusement, escaping her clutches and darting back to the taxi, thanking the man for pulling out your luggage.

Just as you hitch your duffel bag over your shoulder, your eyes catch something familiar a few houses down. A worn out and beaten Chevrolet sat abandoned outside of its former resident’s house, a white piece of paper resembling a ticket you had seen when the mechanics would return your property if not claimed. You could just make out the ‘for sale’ sign driven into the mud, your heart wrenching. You had hoped your return would be free from unwanted memories. That obviously didn’t exist in Hawkins.

“So, tell me everything. How’s Stanford?” Gran rushes through with excitement just as your feet are barely inside the door. “Oh, we are so proud of you, honey. Our little star, a Stanford journalist!”

“Gran, you know it’s only my first year, I haven’t even managed to write anything let alone publish it.” You say, following her with your bags. She was leading you up to the guest room. Well, technically, it was your room. You had never really accepted that.

“Oh, did you notice the Hargroves house is for sale?” She whispers out like an unspeakable secret, and you dump your bags on the floor.

“Yeah, I saw.” You try to remain emotionless, rolling your shoulder until the usual ache faded. You were used to it now, the muscles flaring up every now and then.

“Apparently- now, you didn’t hear it from me…” She starts to lean in and you suppress a smile. Your grandmother, the gossiper. “Apparently, the husband just took off.”

“What?” You suddenly gain interest, frowning.

“Oh, yeah. The end of last summer.” She nods knowingly. “Must have been hard for them after their son died. It was a tragedy. And that poor girl… Andrea down the road told me she and the mother were forced to move into the trailer park down by Kerley. Not fit for a child, if you ask me.”

“They obviously couldn’t afford anywhere else.” You say, mostly to yourself, and Gran simply hums in agreement.

“Oh, which reminds me, Melanie, the one with the bird nest hair, she…”

She begins rambling once again about the neighbourhood, obviously pleased to have her granddaughter back so she can share the gossip. You listened intently, nodding when you needed to, offering your own remarks when prompted. You loved your Gran. The thought of her being alone in this house affected you more than you realise.

The real reason you were back wasn’t because you had missed Hawkins. In fact, you were set on your Spring Break exploring Stanford and all it had to offer. But about two months ago, your grandad was omitted to the hospital and a week later, he was no longer with you. Your Gran had shared how his health had been deteriorating for a while now, that they had expected it sooner or later. So, in the end, it wasn’t a surprise. It didn’t make it any less sad.

“Should I be expecting guests for dinner?” She asks and you blink, frowning.

“Guests?”

“Your friends.” She reiterates, already busying her hands by pulling out your already folded clothes from your suitcase and refolding them how she liked it. “I assume everyone will be anxious to see you. It’s been eight months, hasn’t it?”

“Uh…” You purse your lips, shrugging. “I don’t know, I thought it could just be the two of us tonight.”

Gran gently places down a sweater and eyes you suspiciously. “So, you’ll be seeing them tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” You give off the first vague answer in your head, fiddling with the sleeves of your jacket and sitting down on the plush bedding behind you.

“Hm.” She sounds, sliding shut the first drawer before she silently walks around the bed and sits beside you. “You won’t be seeing them, will you?”

It wasn’t a question. You lift your eyes to meet hers and sigh.

“We aren’t as close as we were before, Gran. It’s… complicated.” You decide and she takes your hand in hers.

“You’ve known them since you were just a little sprout.” She ruffles your hair and you cringe, laughing and batting her hand away. “I’m sure whatever happened can’t be so complicated that you can’t… I don’t know, catch up over coffee? Or whatever you kids are doing these days.”

“I wish it was like that.” You say, and you meant it. After a moment, she seems to understand that you didn’t want to continue this particular conversation and she stands, brushing her outfit back into simple perfection.

“Well, sandwiches, anyone?” She offers and you grin, nodding.

The day before you left for Stanford, you were contemplating whether or not it was the right choice. Gran was right, you have known them since you were a kid. But last summer changed all of that. You weren’t sure you could see their faces ever again.

So, rather than try and find them, you decided to spend the next day unpacking. You’d be here for a month so it made sense to have everything neat and tidy. It was just until the funeral, and then you’d be back at college and studying away any memory of Hawkins being your home. Because it wasn’t. Not anymore.

You can hear the distant ring of the phone echoing up the stairs, continuing to pull out your books. You might as well be caught up with your classes if you were going to spend all your time inside.

“Y/n!” Gran calls up and you push away from the desk to lean over the banister.

“Yeah?” You ask as she stares up at you, the phone in her left hand while the right covered the receiver.

“It’s your friend.” She says with a small smile and your face drops into a frown. “She says it’s urgent.”

“Uh…” You shake your head. Who would be calling you? “Yeah, I’ll be down in a sec.”

Gran nods and relays the information, setting the phone on the side table and disappearing back into the kitchen.

Your footsteps were wary as you descend the staircase, eyes set on the white object beside one of your grandmother’s vases. There was a hauntingly familiar rush of adrenaline coursing through your body, one you hadn’t felt in a long time. Once you reach the table, you shift your focus to the photo frame. It was small, a collected memory from a few years ago now. You were stood there smiling, the camera capturing you in pleasant surprise when a brunette girl behind you had jumped onto your back. It made your eyes sting, and you knew you had to make the decision to answer the call.

Hesitantly picking up the phone, you hold it to your ear and close your eyes.

“Hello?”

“Y/n?” Nancy’s voice blares through and your eyes snap back open.

Barrels of apologies and excuses spewed from her lips and you stand in silent shock, clutching the receiver a little too tight. She could only be calling for one reason. You had known it before you had even answered the phone.

Something was happening in Hawkins. Again. And if Nancy was calling for help, then she truly needed it.

And you’d never let her down.

“Have we met before?” You ask, studying the girl stood next to you.

The walls of the archive were surprisingly bright, shining an iridescent hue on her dark blonde locks. Her blue eyes were blinking back at you, pink lips stuck in a soft pucker of indecision. She was pretty. Really pretty. And at the same time she looked effortlessly cool, a jacket you wished you own. Something about her felt familiar to you, drawing you in.

Then a pang of guilt hits you and you force your concentration on waiting for her answer.

Robin felt weak. Who were you? It was taking everything in her to open her mouth and speak which, as literally everyone knew, was incredibly unlike her.

“I don’t think so.” Robin finally breathes out. There was softness in the way you spoke to her too, calming her nerves. Those strange waves of anxiety were being taken with the tide like you were her lighthouse in the stormy sea of her mind.

“Oh.” You scrunch your face with a smile. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

She was surprised to see you put out your hand but she willingly shakes it anyway, smiling back.

When you pull away, Robin seems a little more comfortable, coming closer to peer down at your old project folder, reading along with Nancy. You tried not to stare, busying your eyes with your own work in Nancy’s hands.

“Anything… juicy over there?” Robin asks Nancy and the girl throws her a tight lipped smile.

“Nothing new yet.” She responds and you notice the strain in her voice. She adopted it any time she was struggling to enjoy somebody’s presence.

“Victor seemed like a normal guy. Dead family, missing eyes, took a plea deal, sent to Pennhurst. Blah, blah, blah, blah.” Robin utters as she skims over the page below, slowly raising her head to look at Nancy. “What are we looking for exactly?”

Nancy doesn’t respond and continues flicking through the pages, making Robin’s eyes widen.

“Nance?” She tries again and you frown.

“She’s focused.” You offer, smiling. “She zones in so much that she zones out sometimes.”

“Right.” She nods slowly, still staring at her. “Um, so are we, uh… looking for any mentions of dark wizards or alternate dimensions? Things in that vein?”

You remember something and open your mouth to speak before Nancy interrupts with a huff.

“I don’t know, okay?” She sighs loudly, leaning against the desk and meeting Robin’s eyes. “It’s starting to seem like this was just a big waste of time. And you’re obviously bored so why don’t you just call Steve? I’m sure he’ll come pick you up. And I mean, I’m not really in danger here, so…”

With that, she walks away from the table and grabs another folder you had brought, furiously flipping through as she travels down a different staircase to the filing room. Your eyebrows raise.

“Woah.” You simply say, noticing Robin’s frown. “She’s, uh… hell, I don’t even know. Nance gets ultra focused when she thinks she has a lead on something and, well… she doesn’t like to get it wrong. Which is understandable.”

“So, she acts like this with other people?” She asks and you tighten your lips.

“Um…”

“Okay, that’s a no.” Robin groans, dragging her hands down her face. “I’m trying, I really am, I just struggle with whatever the hell bonding is meant to be, I mean me and Steve literally only bonded because we were both getting tortured and thought we would die. Which, no, not an ideal way to start a friendship but you know what, it’s better than whatever the hell this is.”

“You were at Starcourt?” You frown and she looks back at you, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up-”

“No, no, it’s okay.” She waves her hands, “I, um… no one really mentions it anymore. Unless it’s the news and they’re pretending like it was a-”

“Fire, yeah. I heard.” You say, staring at the stairs Nancy descended. “How did all of this start?”

“Excuse me?” She blinks and you turn your attention back to her.

“This… Vecna, was it? How did it start?” You repeat, shaking your head. “Nancy could only tell me so much over the phone so I’m a little behind.”

“A girl was found dead in the trailer park.” Robin relays, gulping. “Chrissy Cunningham? She’s a cheerleader. Was. They found her with all her bones snapped and her eyes were… gone. They think Eddie Munson did it-”

“Eddie?” You gasp, and Robin looks surprised. “No, Eddie wouldn’t do that-”

“We know. Trust me.” She says hurriedly, “He told us everything that happened. Apparently she was floating in the air and her bones were snapping- it’s a really gruesome story but the same thing, like, just happened to Fred and we need to figure out who this Vecna is before someone else gets hurt.”

“Okay.” You breathe and she raises her brow.

“Okay? I just unloaded a dump of hell onto you, and it’s okay?” She sounded intrigued and you shrug.

“The last few years have been… weird. To the point where weird sounds normal now.” You say, a soft frown on your features.

Robin wasn’t entirely sure where you fit into all of this. Sure, you had information they needed, you’ve been a part of their group for some time, you made sense. What she was struggling to understand is why you were here now. And why you weren’t here before.

“How’d you meet everyone?” You ask before she can. Any thought she had of questioning your arrival was cleverly misplaced. For the moment.

“I worked with Steve at Scoops Ahoy last year.” Robin nods and you frown.

“But I never…” You start before your eyes widen, mouth curling into a smile. “Oh my god, yes! I do remember you!”

“You do?” Robin tries to comb back through her memories.

“Yeah, Max dragged me there maybe… a week after it opened? She was telling me about Steve’s little sailor outfit and of course, I didn’t believe her, so she had to show me proof.” You giggle to yourself, meeting her eyes. “I remember you were taking a break outside, Max introduced us. Well, kind of. She never got to my name before Steve arrived with that stupid frown on his face.”

“I don’t remember that.” She frowns and you bite your lip, shoving your hands into your jacket pockets. “Sorry, I don’t mean that in like, a mean girl way. I mean, my memory is apparently broken because I’m very sure I would have remembered you. Not in a weird way, either, like- I just think you make an impression on people- a good one. Not a bad one.”

“It’s okay.” You laugh and she shakes her head enough to make her bangs sway in her embarrassment. “I looked a lot different then. And I was, like, super shy. I was probably hiding my face or something.”

“Hold on.” She blinks with a smirk. “You’re the girl? Like, the girl?”

“Am I meant to know what that means?” You squint your eyes.

Robin simply laughs to herself until she clocks your confusion. “No, I… Max did bring someone in for, like, one of our first ever shifts together. I remember because when they left, Steve looked like some kicked puppy and I couldn’t work with him and that stupid frown so I made him tell me what was bothering him. Apparently, the girl that left was the girl he couldn’t get in high school and it ‘haunts’ him. It’s so stupid.”

You go quiet and her eyes widen.

“Oh god.” She covers her mouth. “Did I talk too much again? God, I’m sorry- I literally can’t control my mouth.”

“No, you’re right.” You say, shaking your head. “Steve… he and I don’t really get along. Opposite ends of the high school popularity pool until I won this debate contest and suddenly everyone wanted to be my friend. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but suddenly I was on Steve’s radar and, well, you know the rest.”

“You can do better.” She simply nods and you raise your eyebrow at her remark. “What? Oh, he’s amazing now. Like, a genuine gentleman kind of guy, but King Steve? Whew, that boy needed a leash or something.”

“You guys are pretty close, huh?” You ask and she smiles.

“Yeah, he’s my best…” She begins before her face drops. Oh.

“What?” You ask when she starts walking away.

“I know why!” She exclaims before turning her heel and marching down those steps to Nancy, finding her sorting through the filing cabinet.

If Nancy heard her, she didn’t acknowledge it. Robin felt so stupid. It had been a while since she’d been a part of ‘girl world’ or, more specifically, ‘girl-code world’. The thought of there being any tension hadn’t even crossed her mind before.

“You do know that Steve and I are, like, totally not a thing, right?” Robin asks breathlessly, leaning against the wooden banister.

“What?” Nancy frowns, shaking her head and turning to look over her shoulder.

“So I figure that you and Jonathan are still going strong ‘cause you guys are going to college together, and you’re like one of those unstoppable power couples, but I… I just… I wanted to make sure that you knew that Steve and I are just friends. Like, platonic with a capital P.”

Nancy’s response in underwhelming at best, a tight lipped smile and Robin almost groans in frustration. She can hear your sneakers steadily descend the stairs and she turns back.

“Just in case that’s adding any tension between us.” She expresses to Nancy and you frown at the interaction.

“It wasn’t.” Nancy replies and Robin sighs.

“Uh…” You start to say, both pairs of eyes immediately looking at you. “Sorry to, um, interrupt. I have stuff I need to do…”

“Right.” Nancy blinks apologetically, looking back at the folder in her hands. “I’m so sorry, I really thought I was going to find something. I… I didn’t want to drag you into this, really, it’s just-”

“Hawkins.” You finish her sentence, stepping off the final stair and leaning against the banister. “Yeah, I know.”

“Holy shit.” Robin gasps, suddenly grabbing the folder out of Nancy’s hands despite her silent protest. “Is that from The Weekly Watcher?”

She points to a specific part of one of the tabs and you move to peer over her shoulder, nodding.

“Don’t they write about, like, Bigfoot and UFOs?” Nancy scoffs, already dismissing the idea.

“First of all, UFOs are absolutely real. Bigfoot I’m still on the fence about.” She comments and you hum agreement. “But may I remind you we are looking for information on dark wizards? If someone’s gonna write about that, it’s gonna be these weirdos.”

“She’s not wrong.” You add and Nancy’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Yeah, there’s a whole article about Victor Creel. He claimed that a vengeful demon killed his family. Obviously I only added a reference for context, I never actually believed it. You know, before…”

You vaguely gesture the space around you and Robin flips the page over.

“According to several insiders, Victor believed his house was haunted by an ancient demon.” Robin read aloud, and you could feel the goosebumps prickle along your skin. “Victor allegedly hired a priest to exorcise the demon from his home- pretty novel for the 50s, Exorcistwasn’t even out yet.”

“Keep- keep going.” Nancy insisted and Robin frowns.

“That’s all that’s here.” She says and Nancy looks at you.

“He claimed that the exorcism failed.” You recall, staring at the cut out photo of the Creel Family. “He said it angered the demon. It murdered his family, removing their eyes.”

“Did it say why he wasn’t killed?” Robin questions.

“Victor believed he was spared as a punishment.” You say with a twist in your stomach. His whole family died. He was all alone.

“Yeah, that’s pretty convenient for Victor.” Nancy mumbles and Robin frowns.

“Yeah, or super inconvenient.” She challenges, her eyes looking at yours for support. You simply nod, feeling sick. “Victor was declared legally insane by the court, right? Well, what if this is why? I mean, it sounds pretty insane, it just didn’t go public because-”

“The plea bargain.” Nancy jumps in, and you can see her trying to slot all the pieces together, “The records were sealed.”

“What if a demon did invade Victor’s home.” Robin glances between you both. “It’s just, this demon wasn’t any old demon.”

“It was Vecna.” Nancy finishes, and you immediately start shaking your head.

“Okay, you guys got everything you need?” You quickly rush out, sorting the folder around so it would shut. “Actually, you know what, you guys can just keep that, I need to-”

“You’re leaving?” Nancy frowns, following you as you jog back up the stairs and to where you had dumped your bag before. Robin hurriedly grabbed your folder and followed suit.

“Yeah, I told you, I have stuff to do.” You mutter an excuse, slipping your bag over your shoulder.

“But what about-”

“No, Nance.” You suddenly say, much stricter than you intended it to be. You pause your steps, taking a deep breath to look her in the eye. “I hate that there’s something new terrorising Hawkins. And I’m sorry you have to deal with it. I am. But that’s your choice. I can’t do this again.”

Robin stood there, clutching your folder to her chest. Nancy was struggling with her words, and you didn’t look like you were going to stick around long enough to hear them.

“We need you.” Robin blurts and you look at her, frowning. “I’m sorry, but we do. You know more about this case than any of us, you dedicated, what, a whole month? Maybe more? To learn about the Creel House, about the murders. You have information we can’t possible find because Hawkins doesn’t like to keep around its records of murder, and- and Nancy said you were great at this detective stuff which basically means you know what we need to do next.”

Rather than respond, you start weighing your options. The best decision you ever made was leaving all of this behind. Stanford had everything you wanted; hope. Anytime you decided to help them, it was always your life you were risking. That they were risking. Why would this time be any different?

“I really hope you win this.” You finally say, offering half a smile before you push through those doors and don’t look back, disappearing into the darkening shadows outside.

“Damn it.” Nancy curses, resting a hand on her hip and the other on a table.

“What happened between you guys?” Robin asks into the silence and Nancy looks up.

“What do you-”

“I don’t want a vague answer.” She says, still clutching onto the folder pressed against her chest. “She looked terrified. Which, yeah, it makes a lot of sense under normal circumstances. But this was more like PTSD kind of terrified. What the hell happened last year that no one’s telling me?”

The silence left Robin in the dark, Nancy’s features pouring over in restrained emotion.

By the time you had dug out your keys with trembling hands, you could feel the prickling of tears threaten to spill at any moment. They had no right to ask that of you. Especially not Nancy. She was there last year, she knows why you left. And yet again, none of them were listening to you.

You sat in your grandad’s old armchair for about an hour, a book resting on your lap but it remained untouched. It would just be another distraction, another reason to pretend like nothing was wrong. To stop yourself from remembering, feeling.

It’s why you went to Stanford, really. You didn’t care about journalism like you used to. But the work load was almost unbearable, which meant that every waking moment would need to be dedicated to studying. If you didn’t occupy your mind, you’d have to relive last year.

“Hi, sweetie.” Gran says as she enters the room, a shopping bag in one hand. You hadn’t even heard her key in the door. “Did you see your friends?”

“Yeah.” You clear your throat, setting aside the book and leaning forward.

“What did you kids get up to?” She asks before quickly disappearing into the kitchen to set down her groceries. When she returns, you have your head in your hands.

You can feel her fingers gently pry away your hands as she takes the chair opposite you, smiling like she already knew what was going through your head. Looking at her, the way her eyes were glazing over, you felt so selfish. You had left to escape everything that happened last year, and you had left her for months to deal with it all alone. Here you were, wallowing in self pity because your friends hadn’t been there for you when you needed them, and it turns out you’re doing the exact same thing to her.

“I’m so sorry.” You say, wiping away the tear that trickles down your cheek. “I should have stayed with you and Grandad.”

“What?” She frowns lightly, shaking her head. “Darling, no. All we ever wanted for you was to get out into the world, find something that made you happy.”

“But I’m not happy.” You express, catching a sob that threatened to escape. “I just wanted to get away, get out of Hawkins. I wasn’t even thinking about it, I- I just couldn’t…”

Her hand suddenly finds your own, squeezing it tight.

“It’s okay.” She says and you lift your head up. She continued smiling, but it was much sadder now. “No one can expect you to move on from what happened last year as quick as that.”

“And what if I never move on?”

“It’s not about moving on.” She smiles. “It’s about acceptance. It’s about holding onto the memory because you cherish it, not because you are haunted by it.”

The clock in the distance could be heard counting the seconds as you sit there in silence. She was right, as per usual. You weren’t letting yourself feel. You should be embracing the fact that you still had her. Even with all Hawkins has been through, you still had her.

Your heart pangs with panic. She was still here.

“I should be getting to bed-”

“Come with me.” You offer suddenly and she raises her eyebrows.

“To Stanford?” She says as if it were absurd.

“I’m serious. Let’s move away, start fresh. We’ll find somewhere new, Gran. Please.” You beg and she offers a smile, capturing your hand by placing another on top.

“Hawkins is my home. It always has been. I was born here, I met the love of my life here. I watched my little one grow up and, when he had little ones of their own, I watched them grow up too. This is where my family is. I… I can’t leave.”

“No, don’t worry, I’ll get it.” You say, smiling. “You should get some rest.”

Your heart wrenches. If only she knew what you did. About what really happens in Hawkins, what lurks there in the dark. She can’t stay here, not when you know it isn’t safe. Not when she’s all you have left.

Three knocks echo out from the front door, and Gran shifts in her seat, quickly glancing at the clock. Who would be here at this hour?

“Thank you.” She stands with you, squeezing your hand as she dropped it. “Try and get some rest.”

You wait until she’s heading up the stairs and out of earshot before you rush to the door, gently brushing aside the small curtain and frowning at the silhouette. It wasn’t who you had expected.

The door is open barely four inches before she starts talking at you, ring-donned hands clasped together.

“Look, I know we’ve literally just met. And I probably- no, I definitely don’t have the right to ask you to stay with us, but we’re basically alone right now. Half of us are in California, we don’t have any connections in the sheriff’s department anymore. Everyone who would know what to do is gone, and you’re kinda the only person left who can help us. I get so much happened to you last year and I- I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but if there’s even a tiny part of you that wants to do this, then please listen to it. Please.”

Robin didn’t know what she was expecting when she left the school. Her feet had taken her further than her mind was planning, but she knew she had to find you. Max was in trouble, and they were all way in over their heads to not have help. Nancy refused to bother you any further, and she understood, she really did, but this wasn’t a normal circumstance. This was bigger than all of them, bigger than everyone.

“Robin?” You say, brows scrunched together in surprise. She thins her lips.

“Sorry to just blurt that all out, but I didn’t know if you were just gonna slam the door on me- or maybe I’d forget what I wanted to say.” She explained, feeling the embarrassment creeping up her cheeks. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing to you. “Max is in trouble.”

“What?” You sobered at the thought, leaning closer to her. Then, in a moment of split decision, you glance back up the stairs before stepping outside and closing the door behind you. “What happened?”

“We found a connection between all the victims.” Robin tries to explain, and you noticed how expressive she was with her hands. “Basically, Max has the same symptoms as the rest of them, and she’s, like, 100% sure she’s next of Vecna’s kill list.”

“Is she okay?” You ask, and Robin can see the desperation behind your eyes.

“Yeah. Shaken up, but she’s fine. For now.” She clears her throat, a pleading look as she stares at you. “We need to find Vecna as fast as we possibly can before he can get to her. I… I know about what happened last year. About your dad.”

You seem taken aback by her knowledge, eyes darting down to your shoes.

“I don’t blame you for wanting to leave all of this behind.” She sympathises, and she let herself be much calmer than she felt. “But I’m asking you if you’ll help us.”

Your heart was aching as you wipe your sweaty palms against your jeans, barely even feeling the cold rush of wind hitting your bare arms. You had meant what you said earlier; you couldn’t do this again. It took everything in you to move out of Hawkins, go to college and live a life the person you loved the most couldn’t do anymore.

But you were currently stood in front of a door. And behind that door, was the last person you had left, and she wasn’t planning on leaving her home any time soon. As it turned out, fleeing wasn’t an option for everyone else.

“I’ll do it.”

Robin blinks, studying you for any ounce of uncertainty. You looked deadly serious.

Maybe, just maybe, with you by their side, they were taking down Vecna after all.

taglist: @kryztalglear @officerrrfriendly @a-simpfortessa-lesbriean @spacedoutdaydreamer @em16cor @endurexxsurvive

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[nott-another-sideblog]

autistic! theo nott hcs because i want to

in first year he claimed a table at the library and sat at it so many times he couldnt sit anywhere else. one day he comes in to see some random sitting in 'his' seat and accidentally pops the poor lads inkpot out of rage. there was a hasty reparo from theo and a very quick exit after that

has broken so many quills from bending them between his fingers its unreal. he buys them in batches of ten or twenty and has broken all of them by terms end

hates getting his hair cut but also hates feeling his hair on the back of his neck. every month or so its a constant internal turmoil

really likes potions but hates touching the slimy ingredients so often ends up compromising with his partner with him doing the "boring stuff" like precise weighing or stirring to get out of touching the awful textures.

hates divination bcs there are no solid rules. the phrase "its up to interpretation" puts him into fight-or-flight mode

once stupefied someone as a reflex when they grabbed his shoulder. he was very deep into a good book and it scared the shit out of him. do not grab him ever

has learned how to use silencing charms that follow him so he doesnt have to hear the loud noises in the corridoors. this also makes it very hard to get his attention

uses sarcasm often but half of it is by accident. he just doesn't tell them its accidental

"hey, wanna go to x?"

"well. doesnt that sound exciting?"

"no need to get snarky, theo. i'm just saying it could be fun"

*was being completely serious* "fine, then. i suppose there's no harm in trying it"

brilliant poker face purely because he forgets to show emotion half the time in any way thats noticeable if you arent either used to it or looking for it

very twitchy. like, he cannot sit still. he can try. but it wont last long.

'quiet kid' until you ask him about time travel or something he's interested in. then you can't get him to shut up. i am a firm believer in theo nott who wanted to be an unspeakable but was put off by the confines of the ministry so decided to research mad shit by himself

loves the dungeons' low light level. no light means less headaches.

has the exact same breakfast every day: two toasts and a tea. except on holidays and his birthday, in which he has fruit pastries, or on sundays, where he has jam and toast

only found out he was autistic bcs a random kid he was working with asked him if he was 'on the spectrum' and he was so confused on what 'the spectrum' was that he fell down a research rabbithole and realised, oh, i am the spectrum

"sorry if this is overstepping, but are you on the spectrum?"

"the what"

"yknow, the autism spectrum"

"pardon my english, but what the fuck is an autism"

*two weeks of looking into it later*

*staring into a mirror* "ah"

hated the yule ball.absolutely despised it. went anyway because it was a once in a lifetime thing, but mainly hated it apart from the bit at the end where everyone left.

does that thing where if one side of him taps something, he. has to tap the other side to feel balanced again. if you do it you'll get what i mean, if you dont doit im sorry i cant explain it

loves pressure. sleeps with two blankets so he can feel properly buried

[deceitfuldevil]

Snap Out of It!

Pietro Maximoff X Reader

Summary: You grew up with the Maximoff twins, even agreed to be experimented on at HYDRA with them. You and Pietro were clearly falling for each other the older you got, but HYDRA sent you away and told the Maximoff’s you were dead. So what happens when you show up at the Avengers compound with no memory of your past?

Warnings: a little bit of angst I think?? Mentions of bombs, HYDRA experiments, some fluff and kissing ;)

Word Count: 3.69K

You were born during the start of a terrible war in your home country, and about two months later your parents introduced you to a new set of twins who lived just a few doors down from you. Of course you don’t actually remember meeting them, but your earliest memories were all filled with the Maximoff twins. You practically grew up right alongside them, you three did everything together. Birthdays, playdates, dinner when your parents weren’t home, all of it. It was also nice to grow up alongside others who were your age, especially when your country was at such a low place; it was a good distraction.

You were 10 years old when your apartment complex was bombed, your father had just walked in the door coming home from work. He and your mom fell into the hole in the floor immediately, that was the last time you ever saw them. You sat curled up in a ball in the far left corner of what used to be your kitchen. Frozen with fear and trauma for two days, until you were rescued. You were brought down to a large police van, the doors were opened for you and you saw two other children huddled together under a blanket, both of them immediately turned to see you and screamed with joy. It was your best friends, the Maximoffs. You ran into the van and hugged them immediately, all of you breaking down into tears. You sat in the back of the van together and chatted about the bombing. The main question on your mind was “are there any survivors?” but as it turned out, not only were you and the Maximoff twins the only children that survived. You three ended up being the three lone survivors of the entire apartment complex. Newspapers printed out articles on “the miracle trio” for weeks to come.

From that day on you three jumped from homeless shelter to homeless shelter, never once being allowed to stay in once place for too long. You even agreed to volunteer for HYDRA’s experiments with Wanda and Pietro when you were all 17. You tried to stay in communication with your friends but HYDRA made that near impossible with their constant experiments and isolations. The time you did get to spend with the Maximoffs was cherished, especially your time with Pietro. You two were definitely drawn to each other as you grew into your mid teens, but you never truly allowed anything serious to happen in fear of how Wanda might react.

About a year into your experiments at HYDRA, you gained healing like abilities along with some telepathy as well. After learning and controlling these powers you were excited for when you got to see Wanda and Pietro next to see what powers they had gained. But you never got the chance. HYDRA saw more use in you than petty armed fights, and shipped you off to god knows where and gave you the improved and experimental “super-soldier” serum. HYDRA informed Wanda and Pietro that the experiments became too much for you, that you were weak and had passed on. Pietro cried for days on end, and Wanda could hear him every night from her neighboring cell. Thinking you were dead killed his spirit, his soul. He never even got to tell you how he really felt. That you were so much more than just a fling to him. Meanwhile you trained for months on end and every week and were forced to have shock therapy to erase your past memories. HYDRA was making you into nothing more than a weapon, a shell of a person. After a few successful missions, that's all you were good for. So if you weren’t out on business, you were put under cryo-sleep. This went on for years.

It wasn't until 3 weeks after the battle of Sokovia when Sam had been questioning Wanda and Pietro about their time with HYDRA, he was able to locate another one of their secret human experiment facilities. Steve was hoping they’d make a break in that missing persons case of his but to no avail. However, they did find one abandoned soldier in cryo-freeze. You.

Now, of course it took months of isolation and small bits of normal human activity and interaction to erase what HYDRA had brainwashed you into. After about 4 1/2 months Tony decided it was time to move you into the new compound, but kept you restricted to your room. Others were allowed to visit you if they’d like, it was encouraged really. Get you the human interaction you needed.

Three days and no visits later, which you didn’t mind. It was nice being isolated somewhere with TV service.

Clint walked over to the kitchen island where Wanda and Pietro were having a conversation over a snack.

“Either of you meet the newest recruit yet? I hear she’s still in isolation.”

“There’s a... new recruit?” Pietro said, his accent thick as he spoke with a questioning tone.

“Yeah, Y/N something. Found her in cryo-freeze at that HYDRA base we raided a few months ago.”

Wanda froze, immediately looking to her brother who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

“Pietro... it can’t be her. You remember how she died in trials” Wanda tried to reason with her still love stricken brother after all these years.

“That’s what they told us, what if they lied? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

She just shook her head “it’s impossible, do you even think she’d still remember you?” Wanda inquired.

“There’s only one way to find out!” Pietro said, speeding off leaving a trail of blue streaks behind him.

He busted through the lab doors and stood about 5 feet from Tony, breathless. “What’s her name? Her full name.”

“Okay speedy, next time knock, yeah? And half of our team here is “her’s” so I haven’t the slightest clue who you’re talking about.” Tony spoke calmly, but frustrated that Pietro bursted in out of nowhere.

“The new recruit, Y/N.”

Tony looked over to the quick man and quirked a brow at him

“Well you’ve already got half her name down. She’s Y/N L/N, an ex HYDRA super soldier. You should go visit her actually, she just moved into the compound a few days ago. No ones even visited her y—“

“Where is she staying? what room is she in?” He asked, cutting Tony off.

“Floor 2, room 315... you know it’s impolite to cut off your—“ but before Tony could finish, Pietro had sped off again.

You sat into your room watching an old sitcom from the 2000s you felt drawn to. But before you could invest yourself any further there was a knock at your door. Something you weren’t used to. You hesitantly spoke, “come in” you said sitting up in your bed, fixing your hair a little in the process.

A silver haired man slowly walked in, he had broad shoulders and a toned body. He was attractive, no doubt. But he almost looked familiar to you. Why?

“Hello dragâ” he spoke with a Eastern Europe accent, but one not one you could exactly pinpoint. But you recognized the foreign word he spoke

“Hello... domnule. How do you know Russian... and why have you come to visit?” You questioned, swinging your legs over the side of your bed. The man at your door, he looked sad now. His face fell, but you didn’t understand why.

“You don’t remember me?” He walked closer to you, as you stood up from your bed.

“Well I don’t remember much after HYDRA brainwashed the hell out of me” you said with a slight chuckle, but he still looked disappointed.

“But maybe if you tell me your name and why I should remember you” you said with a smirk, stepping closer to the handsome man that stood in front of you.

“Can I show you instead?” He said, stepping so close that now your chests were touching. You enjoyed the human interaction but with your past training, this still left you on edge.

“Show me?” You questioned, but he took this rather as the go-ahead and snaked a hand around your waist and leaned down, placing a soft kiss on your lips. You wanted to melt into his touch but it was all too soon, and you didn’t even know his name. You pulled away abruptly and slapped him. Backing away as you sat back down on your bed and stared at your hands.

“Please leave.” You said just as quietly as you said when you allowed him to come in. When you looked up, the mysterious man was gone; your door left a crack open.

No one visited you for five more days after that. It was early into the evening and you sat alone in your room reading a book. There was a knock at your door but you didn’t answer it. The last time you agreed to let someone in they violated your boundaries. But regardless your door was still opened, but a new person you had yet to meet walked through.

She stood a bit taller than you and had long red hair, a kind smile and warm eyes.

“I hope I am not intruding.” She said, with the same accent as the man who invaded on your days before. Which again, put you on edge.

“Who are you?” You said, keeping your eyes on your book— desperately avoiding eye contact.

“Wanda Maximoff, but you can just call me Wanda.” She said sweetly

“Oh how sweet of you” you said dryly, still bitter over your last encounter with someone in the avengers compound.

“All you remember is pain” she said in an as-a-matter-of-fact kind of way. “But that’s not all you know, you just need to remember.” You now dared to look up at her. She was still at the door, keeping her distance from you.

“And how am I supposed to remember what you think I know?” You asked, and she took a step closer to your bed.

“I don’t think, I see. I can see inside your head, they did unspeakable things to you. Made you carry out violent missions that still haunt your dreams. You’ve forgotten what you know, your life before them...” Wanda paused, your eyes welled up gently with tears but you refused to let them fall. But she noticed.

“I think I can help you, if you’d let me” she took another step towards you, waiting for your reaction. But you stayed silent, fighting with yourself internally.

“We used to be friends, you know. You, my brother and I. He came to visit you a few days ago, and he knows what he did was wrong. He just missed you terribly. We have similar pasts. I want to help you, but if you don’t want my help. That is okay too. Regardless of what you choose, I still want to be your friend.”

You took a deep breath and stood up out of your bed. “How will you do it?” You asked, wanting nothing more than to feel normal again.

“A little bit of my magic, a little bit of love, and a lot of stories.” She smiled sweetly, taking your hand in hers. “I’ll be right back, okay?” You nodded quickly as Wanda left your room. You sat back down on your bed and racked your head wondering what you were about to learn about yourself. Wanda came back in with a fairly large box labeled “amintiri” which you knew meant “memories” in Romanian.

“Is everyone here Russian like me?” You questioned, giving Wanda a laugh “no, just my brother and I. Coincidentally, the only two who have visited you since you moved here.” You frowned slightly at her comment

“Why has no one else come to visit me?”

Wanda sighed “no one else knows you like my brother and I do. All they know is what you have done in your past, and that scares them.” She took the lid off the box she brought in and picked up a stack of photos that were tied together with a rubber band.

“But lucky for you, Pietro and I know more.” She said with a smile

“Pietro?” You said, quirking your head to the side a bit.

“He is my twin brother, the one who visited you last week. You two have... a history of sorts together. But we’ll get into that later.”

So with that, for some reason, you felt that everything was going to be okay.

And okay it was. Wanda showed you hundreds of pictures everyday and told the story behind every picture she pulled. Although you didn’t remember any of the memories she retold, it was still nice to hear what your life was like before HYDRA.

A week and a half later, she used her powers on you. At the time you remembered nothing, but later that night when she was showing you more pictures you pulled one picture out of the  box. It was three little kids, all surrounding a brown chest that seemed to be filled with various sitcoms on VHS tape.

“This was on your 9th birthday, your father had bought a chest full of old American sitcoms. Not only did you love comedy but our family saw it as a great way to practice your English. Your favorite was The Dick Van Dyke Show.” You immediately recalled with great memory as you picked up the picture. Wanda jumped with joy and hugged you.

“You remembered!!” You nodded happily and hugged her back. “I remembered...” you said back quietly, almost in shock of yourself.

From then on memories came back to you not only easier but also a lot quicker. Soon enough, you remembered everything HYDRA had tried to erase out of your head. Even your feelings for Pietro. But you kept those memories to yourself, afraid that he would hate you after your first encounter with him when you came to the compound.

The last step Wanda had for you in what she called “Becoming You Again Project” was to have dinner with the rest of the compound, and finally be properly introduced to them.

So a dinner you all had. It was casual, but still felt formal as everyone greeted you so politely. Of course Wanda kept them all updated on your status. Even though they hadn’t met you yet, with her seal of approval they all trusted you now.

The last person to greet you was a face you could never forget now. Pietro Maximoff.

“Y/n... I know you’ve met a thousand times before, but I’d like you to meet my brother, Pietro.” Wanda said, elbowing her brother to stop staring at you and shake your hand. You felt weak at the knees under his gaze, was this how he’s always made you feel?

Pietro bowed down before you like you were some kind of princess and kissed your hand sweetly.

“Hello again, dragoste mia“ you felt hot under his touch and knew you were turning a beet red. You nodded quickly and smiled at him. He looked up and winked at you, walking to his seat. Which almost dreadfully, was directly across from yours.

After that you all sat down for dinner, Pepper had made a nice pasta dish for everyone. You ate quietly as everyone went around and told you stories of all kinds. Of past missions together, of personal life stories, and so much more. Truly it was a very enjoyable time. You loved getting to know everyone more than the files you were left in your room to “get to know the avenger” as Tony called it.

The night was almost perfect, if you hadn’t felt the gaze of a very familiar Sokovian man on you all night. He never even spoke, not that he had many stories to tell that you weren’t there for. The more stories that were told, the more you tuned them out and fell victim to his gaze.

But when the room fell quiet and you realized everyone's eyes were on you, you snapped out of whatever trance Pietro held you captive in and laughed nervously.

“I’m sorry, what did I miss? My mind was... somewhere else.” A few others laughed awkwardly, it was no doubt that everyone else noticed the constant looks you and Pietro were sharing. Tony stood up abruptly taking it upon himself to avoid the awkward silence.

“It was nothing important, Y/n. Anyways I believe this dinner was long overdue and very welcomed. We will be seeing you at training tomorrow?” Tony asked, starting to clear up his place.

“She can start on Monday, Tony. Let the kid have the weekend before she officially becomes an avenger, yeah?” Steve said, also standing up. Tony looked back at you and said “Captain's orders kid, see you Monday.” He said walking off, plate in hand. The others followed suit as you said your thank you’s for the warm welcome and goodnights to everyone.

Even if you didn’t make the dinner, you insisted on cleaning up. It was a nice way for you to feel helpful and to debrief after the dinner. Wanda left you alone and you cleaned the dishes happily while F.R.I.D.A.Y played some tunes for you.

“Mind if I lend you a hand, printsessa?” You heard a thick accent call out. You turned around to see none other than Pietro standing at the kitchen island with a smirk on his face.

“You’re not afraid of me?” You asked in a playful tone, although you weren’t entirely joking.

“Hardly, you could choke the life out of me and I’d say thank you.” He said, cheekiness radiating in his voice.  You only laughed at his comment shaking your head.

“But just so you know, I used to do the choking in this relationship.” He said, daring to step closer to you. Your legs felt like jelly but you challenged him.

“Oh did you now? It’s a shame I don’t remember that.” You said teasingly

“But you remember other things? You remember me? Us? What we were?” His tone remained challenging, but his words were serious. You flirty front dropped at this, a small fear that he didn’t feel the same now coming back to eat you alive. You didn’t answer, rather turning back around to finish off the last of the dishes.

“You do remember me, and the times we shared together... no?” He said, carefully coming beside you.

“How could I forget? Of all the memories I was able to recall, those were the best” you said half-heartedly... not meaning to sound so bitter.

“But surely you’ve moved on...” you said quietly, staring at the dish you scrubbed aggressively in your hand.

“Oh dragâ mea” he said, taking a risk and placing one of his hands at the side of your face, gently forcing you to look at him.

“I never believed them when they told us you had failed your trials and passed on. I knew you were stronger than that, and the memories of what we had, kept me strong enough to escape from those bastards. I always had hope that you were still out there.”  

You smiled brightly and tears brimmed your eyes, only this time you weren’t afraid to let them fall.

“I never stopped loving you, Y/n. Even when I thought you were dead.” And there went your tears, falling down your face as you turned to fully face Pietro as you wrapped your soapy hands around his neck.

“I love you too Pietro, the memories I have with you are the best ones I’ve remembered since I came back.”

He laughed lightly and brought his forehead to yours “so glad to hear you finally snapped out it, my love.”

“How could I have been so blind? I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you when you first visited me.” You admitted shyly

“It’s okay, I waited so patiently for years. A few more weeks wasn’t going to kill me” you laughed as your noses touched. His breath was fanning over your face and you didn’t dare break your eyes away from his.

“If you can promise not to slap me... we could always try that kiss again?” He said slyly, but you only sighed happily.

“I promise.” And that was all he needed. Pietro closed the small space between the two of you and pressed his soft lips to yours. The moment was nothing but pure bliss as you inhaled his sweet scent.

You pulled away somewhat reluctantly and smiled up at the man in front of you.

“Does that mean we’re together again?” He asked kindly

“Oh yeah, and good luck getting rid of me this time speedy.” You joked, tangling your fingers in the ends of his hair at the back of his neck.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, dragosté” he said, leaning down and bringing you in for a much more passionate kiss.

—

A/N

Ahhh hi everyone!! I truly haven't gotten this many imagines out in years and it feels so good. I turned on “The Greatest Showman” and five minutes later was struck with inspiration and somehow came up with this, which is actually kind of based off the song “Snap Out of It” by the Arctic Monkeys. I’ve been so obsessed with Pietro Maximoff/Arron Taylor Johnson lately, honestly it's ridiculous. Anyways I really hope you all enjoyed this imagine and remember, feedback is always welcomed and requests are encouraged!

Much Love,

—Skyler

[chudleycanonficfest]

The Soul Truth

Day 2, Story #1 is by @honouraryweasley12

Title: The Soul Truth

Author: honouraryweasley12

Pairing: Ron x Hermione

Prompt: Soulmates

Rating: K+

TW: none

The ornate doors slid open and Hermione stepped out of the lift, her shoes clacking on the stone floor as she walked forward, head held high but movements stiff. She quickly found that it was best to give off a strong, confident air as she met with various ministries in her new capacity. 

She hadn't been in this part of the Ministry often and it was quite unfamiliar to her. All the more reason to keep her guard up.

"Greetings, Minister Granger-Weasley. Congratulations on your victory."

A wizened old man in heavy, dark robes welcomed her, limping forward and holding out a shaky gnarled hand. She took it and met his eyes, which were still sharp—despite his advanced age. A playful twinkle shone out from them, reminding her immediately of Dumbledore.

"Thank you."

He gave her a smile. "Welcome to Archive floor of the Department of Mysteries."

She looked around the cavernous space, taking everything in. She could practically feel the hum of ancient magic reverberating around the walls.

"And you are?"

"I am the Archivist."

"Oh, I meant your name."

He chuckled. "We don't use our given names in this department, just our titles. There is great power in names, as you no doubt know, and we don't want that to interfere with the work we are doing here."

"What should I call you?"

He thought for a moment, before looking up at her. "For today, you can call me… Dave."

She immediately relaxed and shook her head, her face incredulous. "Why Dave?"

"Ah, you see, the power of names. By picking something so simple and informal, your posture and tone changed completely. Had I picked something more formal, you would have responded in kind."

She smiled, immediately taking a liking to the mysterious old man. "Lead the way, Dave. I was told I would be receiving the grand tour."

The two walked slowly through the vast archives, the various rooms and chambers full of different experiments, mystical objects, and parchments.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione stopped to ask, noticing that they hadn't seen a single person, Unspeakable or otherwise, as she was shown around.

"Some of our greatest breakthroughs happen in the early morning or late evening. We encourage our members to work when it best suits them." He squinted at a battered gold watch that seemed to weigh heavily on his wrist. "Yes, 3:00 PM is usually the quietest time of the day down here."

"I see. I do some of my best work at odd times as well."

He nodded sagely. "The quiet mind is often the clearest."

They continued touring through, until they came to a small door tucked behind several suits of armour. It was so old and dark that Hermione wouldn't have even noticed it, had Dave not mentioned it.

"Most Ministers of Magic I've worked with seem to be worried about other objects down here that might help them, but I have something interesting which I think you'll appreciate."

He fished out a small key from within the folds in his robes and turned it in the lock. The heavy door creaked open to reveal a closet-sized space with a single pedestal. On top of it sat a thin, aged book.

"It's my understanding that you are an avid reader, Minister."

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It's my job to know," he added gravely, watching her eyes narrow. He waved his hand dismissively, grinning again. "No, no, I'm only joking. I happened to share a lift with Auror Weasley one Monday morning, and while I didn't mean to eavesdrop, he was complaining quite loudly to Auror Potter that he missed you, because you had your nose stuck in a book all weekend. I mean no offense, of course."

She blushed and rolled her eyes affectionately. "That sounds like Ron alright."

"That's why I thought this might be of interest to you," he continued, gesturing to the pedestal.

She couldn't help but be intrigued as she stared down at the frail old book, her voice dipping down to a whisper of reverence. "What is it?"

"It's called The Book of Souls—though it's just a single parchment. Yet, it's the most dangerous object down here."

Hermione stared at it, her face a mask of awe. "How so?"

"Legend has it that the parchment was created by a powerful young witch, who was being courted by a prince. She wasn't sure if he was her soulmate, for she sensed a darkness in him, so she invoked some very ancient magic to help reveal the truth."

"It worked?"

"Indeed, it did. The parchment was charmed to reveal a small note, riddle, and sometimes even a name to the reader, one that would help them understand who their soulmate was. Unfortunately for that witch, her soulmate was most decidedly not the prince. She rejected his proposal, and as was the case back then, disappeared under mysterious circumstances soon after."

"That's terrible. Then what happened?"

"As the story goes, rumour spread about the witch's parchment, and as with most powerful objects, the lure of it drew out many seekers. Though the object was made with good intentions, it soon led to a trail of darkness and bloodshed. Broken families, obsessions, blackmail, jealousy, and even death. Knowing that kind of unshakeable truth proved to be a valuable commodity, or a lifetime of heartbreak for those unable to meet their soulmate."

Hermione nodded. It sounded very much like the Elder Wand, but more subtle and insidious. One thing was puzzling her though. "I've never heard of this before, and I've studied many books about souls, both ancient and dark."

"Once the Ministry recovered it, they deemed it was too dangerous for this information to be out there, so they've removed all known references to it. Those who had known of it died off, and it was forgotten from memory."

"When was this?"

"Centuries ago. However, as Minister, you are privileged to learn certain pieces of information that the general population is not privy to."

"Fascinating," Hermione replied. She watched as he slowly reached a hand toward the weathered book. "Wait! What are you doing?"

"Every so often I check to make sure it's still under the cover, and since we're already in here, I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. Does… does that mean you've looked at it?"

"Oh no, never. I always look away, as should you."

He lifted the corner for a second, and try as she might, Hermione couldn't help but open her eyes to see a word of blazing red ink, before he shut the cover again. Hermione felt the blood drain from her face, unable to comprehend the word she saw so very briefly.

"No, it couldn't be."

"What was that Minister? Did you say something?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Everything seems to be in order here. Shall we continue?"

Hermione nodded mutely, the word still burned in her thoughts.

~*~

She cancelled the rest of her meetings and went straight home after finishing with Dave, or whatever his real name was, needing time to collect her thoughts. How could she tell Ron, the love of her life, what she had seen?

She sat at their dining table, absentmindedly stirring a soothing cup of tea when he walked in.

"Hermione, I'm home."

He came bounding into the kitchen, a piece of parchment in each hand and a wide smile on his face. "Look, the kids wrote. Hugo promises he's already started studying for O.W.L.s, and Rosie is nervous, but excited, to captain her first match against Ravenclaw next week."

"That's great," she replied, her voice a dull monotone.

"They even said their classmates think it's cool that you were elected as the youngest Minister of Magic in history."

"Hmm."

Ron looked at her and frowned. "What's wrong? Tough day?"

Hermione pulled out the chair next to her and patted it. "Come sit down."

Ron scrutinized her again. "The last time you did that, it was to tell me you were pregnant with Hugo. Are you pregnant?"

She sighed. "No, please just come here, I need to tell you something, and I don't think you're going to like it."

He sat down, unsure of what was coming. She quickly told him about the Archivist, the tour, and the Book of Souls, before swearing him to secrecy.

"You saw something when he lifted the cover, didn't you?"

She nodded sadly. "I saw a word."

"What did it say?"

"I-I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not true. Whatever it says, it's not true."

"C'mon Hermione, please tell me."

"It said… Krum."

Ron let out a laugh. "Oh, is that all?"

"What do you mean? Viktor Krum is my soulmate, and that's all you have to say!?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"That you're upset, that you care that I was destined to be with Viktor."

"Destined? We have two beautiful kids, an amazing family, and great careers. I don't care what some ruddy old book says, the charms are probably wonky anyway." He pointed to his chest. "I know that I love you with all of my heart, and you feel the same."

She slid into his lap and threw her arms around his neck. "I do, you know I do… but…but…"

"What?"

She suddenly burst into tears, burying her head in his neck as she sobbed. "I-I always had this idea in my head that we were real soulmates, if such a thing existed. We met when we were so young, and I've only truly ever loved you. I know it's silly, but I hate that it's not true. I didn't even like Viktor that much."

Ron ran his fingers through her hair and rubbed her back comfortingly. "Maybe it was a mistake or something. You said yourself you only saw one word."

Her breathing started calming down. "I-I suppose that's true."

"We know what happens when a charm or prophecy is misinterpreted."

She sniffled. "It would be nice to know."

Ron gave her a squeeze. "Maybe we should sneak in there tomorrow and take a look."

"We can't just sneak in there! I'm the Minister of Magic! Besides, there was a key to get into the room. I don't know how we're going to get it from the Archivist."

"You're the Minister of Magic. I'm sure you could come up with some reason to be there."

She gave him a dirty look. "I'm not abusing my position like that."

"I don't mind abusing my position, as you put it. Maybe I can say I'm researching something for a case."

"No, Ron. What if you get in trouble?"

"Who am I going to get in trouble with? Harry? You?"

"That's not the point. We swore we'd never take advantage of our roles for our own gain."

He sighed. "Fine, you're right. Sneaking in it is, then. It'll be like the good old days! A secret mission, breaking into places we have no business being in. An ill-formed plan. It'll be fun."

She smacked him on the arm. "Those days were terrible."

"Aren't you curious though, to find out the truth?"

"Of course I want to know the truth! I don't want to go through the rest of my life thinking Viktor was my soulmate, when it's clearly you."

"As sweet as that is, we clearly only have one choice."

Hermione shook her head. "Fine."

"Good, things like this are much easier when you're agreeable to them," he smirked, nudging her playfully. "You said 3:00 PM was when it was empty, right? Meet me in my office tomorrow at 2:55 PM, and we'll head down there. I'll just tell Harry we're going to a broom closet or something."

"Ron!" Hermione screeched. "You'll do no such thing."

"It's perfectly plausible. It's not like we haven't done that before."

She blushed, unable to count the number of times they'd had fun at the Ministry. "Alright, fine. 2:55PM at your office."

"Good. Now, I'm starving. I'll whip up one of your favourites. I bet I'm a better cook than ol' Vicky. What do Bulgarians even eat?"

"Not funny, Ron."

~*~

The next afternoon, Hermione was found pacing in front of Ron and Harry's office, much to the fear of the recruits who were stationed outside the door. It wasn't often the Minister of Magic would show up unannounced, muttering under their breath.

The door swung open and Ron sauntered out, his lips upturned in a smug smile. Harry's face had gone a shade of green from what he'd just heard from his best mate.

"Hi, er, Hermione," Harry greeted her awkwardly. "You two… um… have fun."

Mortified, Hermione could only return a quick wave before grabbing Ron's arm, hauling him toward the lifts before she was forced into any further interactions with Harry.

"I honestly can't believe you told him we were going to go shag."

"I literally told you I was going to say that."

"I didn't think you actually meant it." She let out an exasperated snort and pinched the bridge of her nose as they entered the lift. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?"

"You are the Head Strategist of the Auror department. Surely you must have thought of something!"

Ron shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "We'll make it up as we go. Seems to work best for us."

"I don't like this one bit."

The ding of the bell signalled they had arrived.

Ron clasped her hand, their fingers entwining. "Let's do this."

The doors opened and they were greeted with utter silence. It was as if the entire floor was abandoned, which it likely was.

They crept forward, trying to make as little noise as possible before finally reaching the same spot she had been the previous day.

Hermione turned the handle of the door, and to her surprise, it was unlocked.

"Hey, look at that!" Ron exclaimed loudly.

"Ron," she hissed. "Keep on the lookout."

He nodded and stood in front of the armour blocking the door, ensuring that Hermione couldn't be seen, in case they were interrupted.

Hermione took a deep breath, her heart pounding. Whatever it said under the cover wouldn't change anything between herself and Ron, but she needed to know for sure.

Her fingers paused for a second, lightly gripping the frail corner, her body tense. She delicately opened the book, the bright red ink bursting into view, almost glowing in the small, dark chamber.

Her greedy eyes flew over the words that were revealed.

"I knew it," she whispered.

Ron suddenly poked his head in. "Everything alright?"

"Perfect. Everything's perfect and wonderful!" Her giddiness couldn't be contained as she closed the ancient text.

"I guess this means you aren't going to chuck me?"

"Never."

"What's it say?"

Her pink cheeks were starting to hurt from her wide grin. "Your soulmate will first love, then hate, a Mr. Viktor Krum."

"That confirms it. See, nothing to worry about."

"Oh Ron, I'm so relieved. I knew it couldn't be true. This whole thing is ridiculous, but I'm still glad to know it's always been you."

Ron nodded. "Me too."

"We should leave before we get caught."

"Not so fast, it's my turn now."

"What?" Hermione asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Might as well take a look while I'm here."

Hermione stepped back, biting at her bottom lip—a sure sign of anxiety. "But… but… what if—"

Ron cupped her cheeks in his large hands and gently kissed her. "It doesn't matter what it says, I love you and only you. Trust me."

She nodded, before resuming his place as the lookout.

After a moment, she heard him chuckle and close the door behind him.

Hermione whispered urgently. "What did it say?"

"It said my soulmate will be a nightmare."

Hermione let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "Thank goodness. I don't think I would've been able to handle it if it wasn't me."

"It's always been you. I thought you'd have learned by now."

"I know, I never should have doubted it."

"Can you imagine if we'd learned this information when we were younger? We might have been able to get together much sooner," Ron remarked.

"Or we'd have made an even bigger mess of things."

"True. It doesn't matter in the end though, does it? We figured it out and we've done pretty damn well for ourselves."

"We have, Ron. I love you."

"Love you, too. We'd better get out of here before someone sees us."

The two quickly retreated to the lift, having successfully completed their mission. A minute after the doors had shut on the snogging couple, an old man slowly made his way toward the chamber and pulled a small key out of his robes, locking the heavy door.

As it's appointed guardian, he had vowed to never look in the book, and he had kept that oath. That didn't mean he couldn't use it's power in other ways. Past Ministers, those inquisitive few who had the intelligence to understand the book's worth, often revealed something in that moment when he checked the parchment, for good or ill. Usually it mattered little to him, but not in this case.

He paused for a moment, before extracting a small glass sphere from the same pocket as the key. A sphere he'd kept with him for many years, since he was a young man working with prophecies in the Department of Mysteries. Knowing Minister Granger-Weasley was coming to take a tour was the perfect opportunity to solve a mystery he'd been researching for the better part of seven decades.

He held it up to the light, the familiar swirls of mist dancing in the globe. He had long since memorized the prophecy, which had been made by a seer almost a hundred years earlier. His colleagues at the time had dismissed it, because like many visions, it was almost impossible to determine what the seer was referring to.

He had kept this one, for it always gave him hope. He never thought he'd actually solve it. Yet here he was, still alive and able to record this last surviving prophecy in the annals of history.

He turned it over in his hands, the glass still unblemished.

"Magic," he whispered, "such a wonderful tool."

He stared at it again, reciting for the last time the fates encompassed within.

"Two soulmates, brown and orange, will form a triangle with black to defeat evil. Through many trials the two will forge a love so strong it will be unbreakable, and their strength will reshape the world."

He let out a final chuckle, his long-held desire now confirmed by the soulmates themselves. He lifted the glass to his lips, his breath fogging up the shiny surface.

"Prophecy fulfilled."

The sphere melted away into nothing, the outcome recorded somewhere else in the archives. He shuffled away back to his office, his eyes sparkling, and his heart lifted with hope.

[whenihaveyouromione]

When I Have You - Chapter 62

Read on Fanfiction.net or ao3 if you'd prefer!

---

Chapter 62

What had started off as another standard day in the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic had quickly turned into a chaotic frenzy. Aurors moved about every which way, notes passing amongst one another, and a sense of curiosity and excitement buzzed in the air.

At approximately ten o’clock that morning — about an hour after the Aurors had arrived to begin another boring day of paperwork — an urgent memo had zoomed in and landed on Robards’ desk.

No one had given it any mind, for as Head Auror, he got many memos throughout the day. This one, however, had him jumping to his feet and letting out a string of curses.

Ron, who’d been reading through a report collaborated between the Auror Office and Hermione’s office, had looked up in alarm. It wasn’t like Robards to swear like that — especially amongst the Aurors.

Harry and Dean were watching him curiously too, Dean appearing slightly alarmed.

Robards looked up, his eyes drifting to some of the more senior Aurors, then Ron, then Harry. He said, “Weasley, you’re in luck.”

“I am?” Ron said, jumping to his feet.

“Yep. You’ve been wanting something exciting to do for a while now if you asking me as such every other week is anything to go by. Well… today’s your lucky day. You too, Potter. Merrythought and Ryan, you as well.”

All four Aurors jumped to their feet, and Ron felt anticipation bubbling inside him. He hadn’t even heard what he was to do, but it had to beat sitting behind a desk reading reports.

“Edinburgh,” Robards said. “This report here says there’s some funny business happening up there that needs some investigating.” He scanned the memo again. “From what I’m gathering it looks like either some wayward Death Eaters or some wannabes. They’re causing destruction and fear in the city centre.”

Ron’s wand hand twitched in anticipation. He’d not performed any spells apart from domestic ones in months.

“Fifteen minutes,” Robards added. “You’ll be Disapparating from here. I need to speak to an Unspeakable. They’re the ones in charge of dropping the Disapparition charms around here.” He marched from the office.

Now, everyone was abuzz. Even those who were not told to go seemed excited that something was happening. Was this the start of something? Would the others get to go out next time?

Dean tossed his quill across the room. “Just my luck,” he complained.

“We’ve been here a whole year longer than you,” Ron said, grinning. “Finally, something to do.”

“A few Death Eaters don’t need four people, do they?” Harry asked, glancing at Merrythought and Ryan.

“Who cares?” Ron said. “I’m ready, so I’m just going to let Hermione know that I might be home later than her tonight for once. She’ll be thrilled. I think she’s sick of me telling her about all the reports she’s already seen.”

“We only have ten minutes, mate,” Harry said.

“I’ll be five.”

Ron hurried from the Auror Office and walked quickly down the corridor to Hermione’s office. It was convenient having her working on the same level as him now, and now that she was the boss, her hours were much more suited to spending time with her husband. He saw her much more, unless she was down in the courtrooms on a case — which was fairly frequently at the moment. Now that the Office of Personal Law had been fully established, she was working on so many cases — people, who in the past could have had their wands snapped or Azkaban sentences, walking away with a warning or a fine of a few Galleons.

The fact that there had been no system like this in place before astounded Ron now, and he couldn’t help but wonder how a fair trial such as these would have helped Sirius, and therefore Harry, all those years ago.

Hermione only had two other people working for her. A young eighteen year old girl and… Malfoy. And much to Ron’s disappointment, those were the only two in there when he entered.

It was Malfoy who spotted him first, the man rolling his eyes and standing up from his desk. “What do you want?” he demanded. “You don’t work here.”

“To see my wife,” Ron replied shortly.

“Didn’t you see her five minutes ago when you insisted on walking her here?” Draco sighed.

Ron ignored the dig, wondering again just why Hermione had let that idiot into her office. She’d had the choice of fifty applicants, but Hermione being Hermione, she’d decided on the best, even if the best was causing her nothing but hell since starting.

Apparently Malfoy’s constant probation and threat of immediate dismissal did not include snide remarks or insults — he could only be fired if he was caught with anything that linked him to the Death Eaters.

“Where is she?” Ron asked.

“Down in the courtrooms,” Malfoy said. “Should I take a message?”

Once again, Ron didn’t give a response. He looked at the only other person in the room — the young girl. Ron couldn’t quite remember her name. He walked towards her. “Hey, are you able to take a message?”

The girl nodded and took out a quill and parchment.

“Just let Hermione know that I might be home a little late tonight. A few of us are being sent to Edinburgh due to some unusual activity. It might take a while depending on the nature of the incident.”

The girl scribbled the message down.

“Ah, no wonder you’re looking so pleased, Weasley,” Malfoy said. “Finally getting to do something useful.”

“Really haven’t changed, have you, Malfoy?” Ron said, turning back around. “Still full of the pathetic insults.”

Malfoy only smirked as Ron left the office again. “Enjoy, Weasley. The next one will be in three years. And you call me pathetic. At least I’m actually useful.”

Had a few workers not walked past at that moment, Malfoy might have found himself flat on his back. But Ron wasn’t going to jeopardise his one chance to actually act like an Auror. So he walked away, feeling rather proud of himself for managing it. Usually Hermione was also in the room and Malfoy didn’t say much, probably afraid she’d get rid of him if he insulted her husband. In saying that, there was probably a reason Hermione had told him not to come into the office if she wasn’t there.

He was almost back at his office when he saw Hermione making her way back up.

“Hey,” he said, grinning. “How was your morning?”

“Oh, fine.” Hermione sighed, appearing slightly distracted. Ron guessed it hadn’t been ‘fine’ but decided not to press the matter.

Ron looked around to make sure no one was in the corridor and then kissed her quickly.

“What was that for?” she asked, smiling.

“I’m going away,” he said.

“What?”

“There’s something happening in Edinburgh and Robards has picked me — and a few others, Harry included — to go and check it out. I left a message with the girl —”

“Maya.”

“Yeah, her. But I might not be back until later, depending.” He beamed, causing Hermione to smile.

“Have fun,” she said. “And… stay safe.”

“I will,” Ron said. “Love you.”

When he got back, Harry and the others were waiting in a small group. Ron joined them just as Robards returned.

“Alright,” he said, “it’s all sorted. I’ll be coming, too, of course, but I trust all of you to manage it well.”

There was a sense of giddiness inside of Ron as Robards passed them the slips of parchment with the duplicated reports. Muggle police had reported some unidentified strange occurrences that had confused them. One poor Muggle had ended up in hospital with injuries they couldn’t determine and another was seemingly dead but with no obvious reasons as to why.

“This sounds like our kind of thing,” Ron said, looking up at Robards.

The man nodded. “The Disapparition charms have been lifted from this room for the next two minutes. Here are your coordinates. Once we’re all there, we’ll suss out the situation and make decisions. Everyone clear?”

They all nodded, and Ron caught a glimpse of some envious looks from other Aurors, but he was far too excited to feel guilty over it.

Grinning at Harry, Ron spun with his wand clutched in his hand and appeared a few moments later down a side alley in what he assumed to be Edinburgh. They were out of sight of anyone, the sounds of cars and people somewhere in the distance.

A few more pops indicated the others had arrived, Robards appearing last. He glanced around the alley.

“Right,” he said after a moment. “I can’t see anything here, but we need to go out into the city and scope it out. Wands away, but keep at the ready just in case.”

Everyone tucked their wands into their robes. Auror robes were different to the usual Ministry robes, containing many secret compartments and enchantments that could somewhat protect them from simple attacking spells. Ron had always liked them. They were quite comfortable to wear, and now they'd finally be put to good use.

“We’ll split up,” Robards continued. “Senior Auror with junior Auror. Potter and Merrythought, Weasley and Ryan.”

They paired up, Ron standing beside Maximus Ryan, a middle-aged Auror who’d been with the department for years now. Ron couldn’t say he was particularly fond of the bloke, but he was a decent Auror and knew what he was doing.

“Weasley and Ryan, go that way,” Robards said, indicating left out of the alley. “Potter and Merrythought, right.”

“And you?” Harry asked.

Robards paused, then said, “I’ll stay around this area, looking for any trouble. If you come across any, alert by red sparks in the air and the rest will come. Understood?”

No one agreed immediately, all staring at Robards who’d just confessed to going without a partner. That was one of the first things always taught at training — always work in groups of two or three.

“Is that understood?” Robards pressed, a hint of irritation in his tone.

“Come with us,” Harry said after a moment.

“Potter —”

“Two or three,” Harry said, a little forceful for someone considered a junior Auror. “That’s the rule, and it applies to the Head Auror, too.”

For a moment, Robards looked furious. But the flash vanished and his expression turned more neutral. “Okay,” he said. “Me with Potter and Merrythought, Weasley and Ryan go where you’re told.”

Everyone nodded, and keeping their hand inside their robes resting on their wands, they set off, Ron and Ryan taking the left out of the alley.

Ron had only been to Edinburgh once on a day’s training course. It hadn’t been like this at all, but until now nothing had been like training. They’d prepared for everything and nothing had happened.

The city was old, and being September, it was starting to cool down significantly. People were walking around in light jackets and pants, a contrast to London or Nottingham where days were still giving off a feel of summer.

They received funny looks, two men in strange-looking robes, walking around with their hands deep inside their pockets. People gave them a wide berth, some even looking partly frightened by the sight of them.

They didn’t have time to reassure anyone even if they wanted to, because almost immediately, an explosion sounded from somewhere ahead. There was a lot of screaming and the previously calm passersby ran or ducked for cover.

Now that he had a television in his house — a gift last Christmas from Hermione’s parents — Ron thought it sounded sort of like a gunshot like in one of those movies he’d seen. But if it was that, then the Muggles would have dealt with it.

“It came from over there!” Ryan said, pointing ahead, slightly to their right. Sure enough, the moment Ron looked he saw smoke billowing above the buildings.

“What in Merlin’s name could cause that?” Ron asked as footsteps approached them from behind. It was the other three, having heard the explosion.

“That’s not some rogue Death Eaters,” Harry said.

They all ran off, wands drawn now, not worrying about the Muggles around. Most were terrified or hiding, too distracted to notice five strange people with sticks in their hands.

They rounded a corner, coming to an immediate halt as a bunch of terrified Muggles ran toward them, most covering their heads as a wave of smoke and flame chased after them.

“Fiendfyre!” Robards called over the screams, and the five Aurors bolted back around the corner as the hot stream in the form of a serpent chased after the Muggles.

Ron turned away as the horror engulfed them, the group falling over and…

The screams stopped. Robards swore. Harry and Merrythought stared at the charred bodies in horror, as others began screaming, and the Fiendfyre continued on, destroying anything in its path.

“Who the hell sets Fiendfyre in a city?” Ron cried, feeling sickened and unable to look at what had just happened in front of him. Those poor Muggles.

The answer was provided immediately, as a man dressed in dark robes stepped out from the street the Fiendfyre had just come from. He was unrecognisable, so not a Death Eater, but he wore a look of malice as he watched the Fiendfyre continue.

He had not seen the Aurors yet, which gave them a small advantage.

Robards indicated Merrythought and Ryan and himself to go after the Fiendfyre and silently instructed Harry and Ron to deal with the man.

The three more experienced Aurors set off, and the man turned. Ron and Harry pointed their wands at him, Stunning him at the same time. He had no time to respond, keeling over where he stood.

Ron made to go to him, but Harry shook his head. “Wait.”

“What for?” Ron asked.

Harry nodded at the street and for a few moments nothing happened. But then two more figures — dressed the same as the Stunned man — appeared, wands drawn.

They were prepared for Harry and Ron after watching their companion fall, and Ron only had a second to react to the curses they began firing off.

They weren’t very good, whoever these people were. Not at an ability to fight off two fully trained Aurors, anyway. Their aim was off, and their spell-casting wasn’t as strong as Ron or Harry’s.

But they were good at blocking spells, which made Ron and Harry’s life slightly more difficult.

“No!” Harry said, and from the corner of his eye, Ron saw Harry spin and fire off more spells. There were more behind them, plus a rampaging serpent of Fiendfyre chasing and killing innocent people through the city. Who were these people and what had inspired them to cause so much destruction to so many innocent lives from seemingly out of the blue?

Hardly looking at Harry, Ron took on the first two people, while Harry focussed his attention on the ones behind. Ron managed to Stun the one on the left, and she fell back with a loud crack as her head hit the concrete. Ron didn’t have time to worry if she was still alive, because the second was upon him again, enraged by his companion falling.

“Ron!” Harry cried, and firing another spell at the man, catching him square in the chest, Ron didn’t even wait for him to fall before he turned and saw — to his horror — four new black-robed people taking on Harry at once.

“Call for Robards!” Ron said.

“And leave people to die from Fiendfyre?” Harry said, finally managing to take one of the people down. These ones were clearly older, more experienced wizards. They weren’t like the first ones who now all laid motionless on the ground.

One, he saw, even fired a spell with a green spark, and Ron narrowly dodged it, his heart hammering in his chest.

He hoped that wasn’t what he thought it was.

This was not what the report had specified. Were these people waiting for a fight, intentionally causing as much destruction as possible to lure the Aurors out and then show their full force? It was the only thing that made sense to Ron in that moment.

By luck more than anything else, Ron managed to catch another person in the shoulder with a spell, sending them spiralling away and screaming in agony. They clutched their arm, but it had only thrown them off balance, not taken them out completely. It wasn’t even their wand arm, which annoyed Ron.

“Get the one on the left!” Harry yelled. “I’ll take these two.”

Ron didn’t have time to argue. He ducked, another red stream coming his way, and had to stay down while another stream of curses came at him. He’d barely gotten to his feet, throwing up a shield charm to protect himself when he was assaulted with another array of curses.

Harry had managed to take another one of his targets down, but the one Ron was fighting knew what they were doing. He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman, but they seemed to be able to match Ron’s ability on some level.

Ron fired off some Stunning spells, but his opponent blocked them easily.

He swore, feeling sweat dripping from his forehead despite the cool day. Despite being trained in combat like this and having prior experience in fighting, he was rusty. He’d not needed to block so many spells since… well, since the war. These people — whoever they were — had had more recent practice.

They were in some organisation, that much was obvious. Matching black robes, an organised attack on a city. Strangely, Ron didn’t get the feeling they were wannabe Death Eaters, but something entirely new and different. He didn’t like it.

He was tiring, and Harry was, too. His concentration was lapsing and another green light barely passed him.

What were these people trying to achieve?

His opponent shot some more spells and Ron was forced to duck. He attempted to Stun them again, and this time succeeded. The black-robed person collapsed onto the ground.

Ron turned his attention to Harry’s opponent, but something out of the corner of his eye distracted him at the last minute. He spun. The first ones he’d Stunned were coming round, but were still disoriented. He Stunned them again and picked up their wands that had fallen next to them. Next, he bound them so when they woke again, they wouldn’t be able to move.

When he looked up, there was something that both shocked and relieved him. From one direction, he saw the other Aurors running over to them, singed but otherwise okay. Chasing them, however, were…

Ron swallowed. There had to be at least five more of these people.

The pile of bodies that still lay there — that Ron tried hard to ignore — were used as leverage for the ones in black robes. They leapt as the Aurors diverted around.

Ron felt sick, but he couldn’t dwell on that now.

Harry was still occupied, so Ron did the only thing that came to his mind. He ran towards the others, wand raised and firing out as many spells as he could manage. He hit one of them, but the rest dodged, coming back at him with more spells.

These people were not afraid to use the Killing Curse. They threw it out freely, not caring if they missed, or hit a Muggle. They just used it.

“Weasley, you okay?” Robards asked as they approached.

“Fine,” Ron said.

“There’s more back where the Fiendfyre was, too,” Robards said. “They’re everywhere.”

Ron had no time to respond after that, engaging in a battle with the others again. It lasted for some minutes, and Ron saw Ryan fall. He had no idea if he’d been Stunned or… but he couldn’t check either.

Robards took out two, which left three more. Harry had joined them, too, all the original fighters out and bound.

Ron hit the furthest one on the left and they flew ten feet into the air, crashing into a building. He saw Robards get another and Merrythought took out the final one.

Once all were down, they hurried forward, taking their wands and binding them with conjured rope from their own.

“Someone check Ryan,” Robards ordered, and it was only then Ron remembered his fallen colleague. Everyone else seemed occupied with something else, so it was on Ron to check.

Thankfully, the moment Ron knelt beside the man, he heard heavy, pained breathing, which meant he’d only been hit by a Stunner and nothing worse. He was just coming round when Ron reached him, his eyes blinking.

“You’re alright,” Ron said, helping him into a sitting position. “One of those bastards got you.”

“Who are those bastards?” Ryan croaked.

“I’d like to know,” Robards said. “Fiendfyre on the public? Even You Know Who didn’t do that. It’s erratic and uncontrollable — it could turn on the person who cast the spell as easily as… well, as easily as it can innocent people.”

No one said anything to that, and Ron noted that no eyes dared look to where the Muggles still lay — burnt and… dead. The way it had happened unnerved Ron more than he cared to admit. He’d seen a lot of death in his life, including his own brother, but seeing a group of defenceless people be burned alive was something else.

“Potter, return to the Ministry and let the Minister know we require many more Aurors for this mess. We need transportation back to the Ministry for this lot and the memories wiped of hundreds, if not thousands, of Muggles. Then… we’ll need to clean up. What we considered a small case is going to require all hands on deck.”

Harry didn’t wait for any further instruction before Disapparating where he stood, to the gasps of onlookers who’d soon forget all of this.

Ron helped Ryan to his feet, who was still a little unsteady. The black-robed people were all recovering from their Stunning spells as well, looking frustrated that they couldn’t move. Surprisingly, none of them looked all that alarmed that they’d been caught, which unsettled Ron even more.

“Merrythought, you and Weasley can start transporting these — well, I’ll be damned.” Robards withdrew his wand and pointed it somewhere behind Ron and Ryan.

Ron, who still had hold of Ryan, was a few seconds too slow in turning and getting out his wand. At least twenty more of these people were marching down the street, wands drawn and knocking Muggles out of their way as they approached.

There was nothing between them and Ron and Ryan, who were directly in the firing line of twenty spells.

Merrythought and Robarbs fired off spells, but there was nothing to be done. Ron attempted to throw up a shield in front of himself and Ryan, but he simply wasn’t quick enough.

He felt the spells hit him — at least four — like tiny pellets pricking at his skin. His body was thrown into the air at the impact and he landed back on the ground a moment later. He had no idea where Ryan was or how badly he’d been hit, and he didn’t have time to think too hard about it.

A moment after hitting the ground, all Ron knew was blackness.

[mopeytropey]

a beer buds series: chapter 10

author’s note: When I originally told my wife of the idea for this series, she immediately suggested an entire rewrite of 'a pleasant undoing' but told from Lexa's perspective. So I'm counting chapters 9 and 10 as honoring her wishes. The continuation of this series will reprise our almost strictly Lincoln + Lexa formula, but I'm not naive enough to think that at least 99% of you weren't going into this also hoping for some premium Clarke + Lexa content. (Forgive me for the deviation ... and the smut)

Timeline: essentially, we're just picking up where chapter 9 left off ...

Beer: Lil’ Heaven: Two Roads Brewing (Stratford, CT) SESSION IPA

Made with three exotic hops - Azacca, Mosaic and Equinox. Taste is of tropical fruits, specifically passion fruit, grapefruit and apricots. Finishes with just enough toasted malt character to balance.

ABV 4.8%

Posted on AO3 here, or below the cut: 

:::

“Hey, don’t I know you?”

“I saw you two days ago.” Lexa affectionately rolls her eyes, nevertheless smiling while accepting an exaggerated hug from Lincoln as if they are reuniting after a long separation. 

“Work doesn’t count. You’ve been completely off the radar for a week, socially speaking.” 

They’ve met for an impromptu breakfast at a local diner not far from Lexa’s apartment. She’s back in her neighborhood for practicality reasons, having left the idyllic bubble of Clarke’s bedroom in order to do some loads of laundry. But, it’s also a nice excuse to see her friend. 

Lincoln has already procured them steaming cups of coffee and a pair of red vinyl stools at the breakfast counter that faces the busy griddle top. He is grinning at her as they sit, awaiting her response. 

“I’ve just been … busy,” she says, not even able to curb the bashful smile that follows as she removes her coat and hat.

Lexa pretends not to blush, knowing full well her time spent with Clarke has superseded any other social obligations as they have begun a long overdue exploration of new and exciting facets of their relationship. 

Namely sex. A good portion of her week has, in fact, been absorbed by unspeakably good sex. 

“Uh-huh,” Lincoln laughs warmly. “I wasn’t even sure you two had remembered how to physically separate at this point. Thought maybe Clarke would be joining us as well based solely on the fact that you two haven’t surfaced for anything other than work responsibilities in a full week.” 

Lexa sips her coffee through a growing grin to prolong any acknowledgement of Lincoln’s playful accusation. 

“Morning, hon’.” A familiar waitress says in passing, leaving two menus beside Lincoln’s coffee cup. “Let me know when you’re ready to order.” 

“Thanks, Helen,” Lexa smiles. It’s not often that she indulges in big breakfast meals, preferring her protein smoothies or avocado toast, but Lexa has nevertheless fallen into a routine of frequenting the diner as a way of establishing new roots. 

In her old Brooklyn borough it had been the Chilo’s taco bar where she and Anya would meet every Friday to decompress from the work week over carnitas tacos and cheap beer. In her new portside life in Massachusetts, it’s Angie’s Diner. The coffee is palatable, at best, but the atmosphere is welcoming and Lexa has always enjoyed seeing familiar faces when forced to dine alone. Helen’s gruff, New England endearments in a seasoned, smoker’s voice, have consistently been a comforting presence. 

When the woman shuffles off to tend to the other, early morning diners, Lexa turns to see Lincoln still watching her expectantly. “Clarke had some tasks at Dockside to attend to, and I really need clean clothes.” 

“And, you’re functioning okay in her absence? Breathing okay and everything?” 

Lexa laughs at his continued teasing, but easily concedes to an honest answer. So much uninterrupted time spent in Clarke’s company, sharing the myriad truths about their feelings, has apparently begun to bleed into her other relationships as well. 

Lexa has almost always been able to leave herself unguarded in Lincoln’s presence anyway. 

“I’m probably more dysfunctional when she’s around, actually.” 

Lincoln stifles a laugh around a sip of his coffee. “That sounds like a fair assessment. Everything’s going as well as expected then?”

“Yeah, it’s—” Lexa tries, and instantly fails, not to picture Clarke lathered and laughing in the shower while Lexa fights to stand beneath the warm, steaming spray; Clarke pressing her against the kitchen countertops with hands roaming while the coffee steeps; Clarke cuddling into her on the sofa with the lights dim and the TV volume low “—it’s been really good.” 

“Oh no.”

“What?” Lexa smiles unsurely, eyes widening at Lincoln’s grave expression.

“What’s with the hesitation?”

“What hesitation? I did not hesitate.” 

“I know that hesitation.” Lincoln narrows his gaze at her, dark eyes assessing for signs of Lexa’s concession. “What are you in your head about now?” 

She really needs to stop associating with people who can read her like a book. 

“Okay, fine,” Lexa exhales. She flips open the worn menu, its once glossy, laminate pages now dulled from years of loyal patronage. “I’m just adjusting to the intensity of it all.” 

“You’ve made a major life change. Totally normal to feel overwhelmed,” Lincoln shrugs. 

“I know. You’re right. I haven’t even slept at my apartment in almost a week.”

“And, this is somehow a bad thing?” Lincoln laughs. 

“No, I have absolutely zero complaints,” Lexa clarifies. “But, we’re spending literally all of our free time together—and portions of our work days, too.”    

Lincoln chuckles after another sip of coffee. “Also totally normal. In the beginning, Octavia used to impose all of these ridiculous sleepover schedules—like, spending three nights a week together is the maximum, or whatever—only to completely abandon her own, dumb rule and would end up sleeping at mine for weeks at a time.” Lincoln thinks better of it a second later and warns, “Don’t ever tell her I told you that.” 

The legitimate fear she can see in his eyes makes her laugh, and suddenly she doesn’t feel quite so overwhelmed. “I’ve always considered it wise not to let on that I know just how obsessed Octavia is with you.”  

“Smart woman,” Lincoln winks. “So, other than acclimating to new sleeping arrangements, what is it that’s stressing you out? You think you’re spending too much time together?” 

“That’s the thing—I like being able to be with Clarke as much as possible. This past week, spending time with her, I’ve felt calmer and happier and more settled than I have in ages.”

Lincoln smiles so warmly, Lexa can feel it in her chest. “Don’t you think Clarke feels exactly the same way?”

“I’m pretty confident that Clarke enjoys having me around, yes. It’s not like she’s trying to kick me out of her house or anything yet.” 

“But?” 

“But, I keep wondering what the long-term implications are. Because the way that everything is changing between us: it feels … significant.” 

“Yeah. That’s because you’re in l—”

Lexa looks away with a groan that drowns out the rest of Lincoln’s statement, rubbing a hand against her forehead. “Oh my god, please stop saying that.” 

“Okay, okay,” Lincoln laughs. And then, after a moment while clearing his throat, he not-so-subtly reiterates: “But, you are.” 

Lexa studiously ignores any truth in Lincoln’s playful accusation and further expounds, “I guess if anything is stressing me out, it’s not knowing if Clarke is experiencing something similar to what I am right now.”

“Knowing Clarke like I do, and having had the pleasure of a front row seat to all of this from day one, I can confidently assure you that she is right there with you. That being said, have you ever considered—I don’t know—asking her yourself instead of sitting here having a hypothetical conversation about it with me?”    

“I do plan to speak with her about this,” Lexa assures an openly skeptical Lincoln. “I do.”

“I mean, you’re in the first week of a new relationship, Lex. I get it. That is usually not time that’s predominantly spent talking.” 

Lexa is saved from her sudden flush of embarrassment by the return of their waitress, Helen, who kindly disregards the red tint on Lexa’s cheeks as she orders her scrambled eggs and rye toast. 

“The point is,” Lincoln continues once their orders have been placed, “you guys have this really solid and established friendship going into this thing. In my experience, that can sort of push you ahead at a faster clip than you’re probably accustomed to in relationships.” He drains his coffee, placing it back onto the counter with a dull clink. “So, what would make you feel better about the rate at which you and Clarke are headed?”

Lincoln has a uniquely comforting way of simplifying Lexa’s life. He’s so genuine and forthcoming, and she could hug him again for all his supportive logic. Instead, she takes a deep breath to clear her head and pledges to hug him later. 

“I want to be up front with her about where I see this going, to determine whether or not she and I are on the same page. I want her to know that I’m—”

“—in love with her?” Lincoln grins. 

Lexa punches him, with unintentional force, and regrets it only when Helen—a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper curls and kind eyes—glances at them in mild concern as she refills their coffee. “I would ask if he’s bothering you, hon’, but I have a feeling you’re more than capable of handling yourself.” 

“Don’t worry, I deserved that,” Lincoln assures their waitress, laughing at Lexa’s menacing scowl while rubbing his arm. 

“I was going to say, I want Clarke to know that I’m not interested in dating anyone else.” 

“Oh, right, right,” Lincoln nods, still smiling. “See, I just keep forgetting you two haven’t already been dating exclusively for, like, six months.” 

“Why do I hang out with you again?” 

For all her feigned exasperation, she is instantly wrapped up in an embrace, not unlike an older brother might lovingly harass his younger sibling. “Because you love me.” He pulls her in closely for a monstrous hug—right there at the diner counter—despite Lexa’s sharp elbow to his abdomen as she playfully fights against the forced affection. 

:::

Clarke emerges from her silver Saab just as Lexa ambles across the snow-dusted gravel of the marina, icy rocks crunching beneath her boots. Cars are parked at odd, misfitted angles wherever they can find space between the boats set up on large blocks in their bright white winter wrappings. Clarke is wearing her plaid scarf and bulky winter parka, and Lexa’s chest tightens with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation at seeing her again after a short span apart. 

“You should have let me pick you up,” Clarke says by way of a greeting. 

“It’s not a bad walk from my apartment.” 

Their breaths dissipate in the air between them after briefly appearing in frozen clouds. Lexa can feel her teeth about to chatter because the air on the water is properly freezing, but she attributes the chill along her spine to the nervous energy of being near Clarke. 

Clarke’s gaze narrows in judgement. “Stubborn.” 

“Those in glass houses,” Lexa counters, arching her brow in a way that brings that pleasant tint of blush to Clarke’s cheeks. 

It could very well be the wind; except Lexa knows that it isn’t. 

“Okay can we further reprimand each other once we’re inside where it’s warm?”

Clarke’s gloved hand wraps around her coat sleeve and tugs until they are both headed towards the blue front door of the coffee shop. A welcomed gush of warm air envelopes them instantly, and Lexa’s skin begins to tingle where the harsh winds had chilled her face. There isn’t much of a line, nor is the shop crowded with other people. The moderately-sized open room is sparse with patrons, enjoying their steaming drinks under natural lighting and softly playing music. 

It’s been six days—not that Lexa has been meticulously keeping track, but it’s been six days—of near-constant kissing and unrestrained touch; of perpetual orgasms and an intentionally precise exploration of Clarke’s body; of general sensory overload when it comes to redefining her relationship with her best friend. Hardly a week has transpired since they began testing the waters of this mutual attraction, which has nevertheless consumed Lexa entirely. 

Maybe it’s only been six days, an insignificant length of time under normal circumstances, but it feels much more weighted than that. 

Between the kissing and the touching and the orgasms, nevermind the sudden influx of unveiled honesty, she can hardly keep her head above water. Her mind hasn’t stopped spinning since that first kiss on Clarke’s doorstep, and she’s only slightly concerned with contracting vertigo if they don’t stop and address what is happening between them sooner rather than later. Lexa needs to sit in a familiar, public space in the light of day with her best friend to discuss the implications on their relationship as it progresses at full tilt. 

Lincoln’s advice rings in her ears as they enter the shop: just talk to Clarke. 

“Hey, strangers!” A barista greets them happily as she and Clarke approach the cash register. Her name slips from Lexa’s memory, but Clarke returns her greeting for them both. 

“Hey, Morgan.”

“Oh my god, I thought you two got lost at sea or something. We haven’t seen you in ages.” Morgan is young, perhaps just out of college, with bright pink hair and a septum piercing. 

Clarke’s head shifts so that she can give Lexa a strange look, which Lexa promptly returns before offering a brief smile. “Oh, um, yeah. Just busy during the holidays,” Clarke answers. 

Lexa gives her order and Clarke pays, brushing off Lexa’s insistence on paying her share. In seven months, if she’s learned anything, it is not to question Clarke’s generosity. They move to a deserted sofa beside an old wood stove fireplace to wait for their drinks and begin removing their coats and hats. Lexa’s toes begin to tingle and thaw within her leather boots as the heat from the fire permeates. 

The harborside shop is the same as always: natural light streaming through the windows facing the water; a smattering of locally produced art hanging on brightly colored walls; and, a handful of other patrons sitting in mismatched furniture with computers or paperbacks. Everything is the same, except for her and Clarke. 

They sit closely, quickly finding small, innocuous points of contact. Clarke tucks into one end of the sofa so that her knees rest gently against Lexa’s legs. Their hands seek touch as the barista delivers their drinks, separating only briefly to accept the steaming mugs and offer their gratitude. Once Morgan leaves them to attend other customers, Lexa falls into the comfort of their secluded, sun-drenched pocket of the shop. 

“It’s so cold outside. I think my feet are still thawing.”

“It feels nice in here,” Lexa responds, smiling because Clarke inches closer to her anyway and she was only outside for under two minutes as it is. 

Lexa senses a buzzing from her coat where it sits beside her and reaches into one of its deep pockets to check her phone. A text from Lincoln confirms their plans to meet up later for drinks. She types a quick, one-handed response before replacing her phone and returning her full attention to Clarke.

“Lincoln,” she explains, although Clarke doesn’t look poised to ask.

“Does he miss you already?”

Lexa laughs, shaking her head. “No, he’s not nearly as codependent as you.” 

Clarke attempts to withdraw her fingers from where they are slotted between Lexa’s, but Lexa tightens her grasp with a widening grin at Clarke’s dropped jaw and feigned affront. 

“Are you still hanging out later?”

“Yeah, he was just confirming the time.” Lexa’s thumb smooths across the back of Clarke’s hand in a slow, repetitive arch. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

Clarke shakes her head firmly. “No, this is your sacred time together—I can’t encroach on that.”

“It’s beers and appetizers, Clarke. I wouldn’t call it sacred.”  

Clarke’s eyes widen dramatically. “I’m gonna tell him you said that.”

The empty threat makes Lexa smile again. They’ve always had a particular talent for banter, and the added layer of their recent sexual experiences makes it all the more delightful to trade taunts and harmless barbs. 

“How was your laundry adventure?” Clarke asks while reaching for her coffee, and Lexa smirks.

“Thrilling.”

Despite her instincts to stay within reach of Clarke at all times as much as physically possible, there is also the issue of personal hygiene. In this case, it was Lexa’s growing pile of clothes that needed attending. 

“And breakfast with Lincoln?”  

She can’t tell Clarke how she is actually reconsidering a lifelong friendship with Lincoln because he had spent a majority of the morning brutally teasing her. To reveal that would require Lexa to also elaborate on his specific proclamations about her feelings for Clarke. 

And so, Lexa tells her, “It was good.”  

“You can always do laundry at mine, you know.” 

“Is this just another ploy to keep me tethered to your house for longer intervals?”

An exasperated look flashes across Clarke’s face while she swallows down a mouthful of steaming coffee. “Yes. Have you not been paying attention at all over the past week?” 

Lexa swallows through a grin of her own. There’s really only one, notable thing they’ve been engaged in over the past week, and to think of it now has Lexa’s face warming as she becomes acutely aware of Clarke’s proximity in a public space. 

“I’ve been a little preoccupied lately.” 

Light laughter escapes her as Lexa’s right hand fiddles the ribbing of Clarke’s sweater between her fingers. She is dressed in something off-white and oversized that cuts at a low vee below her neck so that Lexa’s eyes begin to wander to its shadowed opening. It’s a sweater she remembers from the time before—when all of Lexa’s cultivated interest in Clarke (including her wardrobe) was something unspoken and dutifully ignored. 

Lexa remembers that Clarke had been dressed for a dinner at her mother’s house, and Lexa had been granted a chance encounter for quick minutes in which they danced around a thrumming attraction. She can feel it sparking in the air between them now, their pocket of relative privacy threatening to implode from the calculated looks Clarke is giving her. 

“Busy week?” she further teases, eyeing Lexa’s blush over the rim of her coffee mug as she takes another sip. 

Lexa purses her lips and narrows her gaze at Clarke’s self-satisfaction. “Exactly how much joy does it bring you to torture me?”   

“So much,” Clarke laughs. She slips her fingers between Lexa’s so that they are loosely held together. “But only because you’re so adorable when you’re exasperated.” 

“Flattery is supposed to absolve you?”

“Obviously.” Clarke rolls her eyes, bringing Lexa’s fingers to her mouth and brushing them quickly with a kiss. 

With affections such as this, Lexa would forgive her of almost anything. 

“So,” Clarke says through a sigh while bringing their joined hands to rest again on her knee. “What did you want to talk about?” 

Now that Clarke has given her the floor, Lexa practically swallows her tongue in nervous vacillation. She had strategized a few, well-devised talking points during the process of cleaning her clothes, not to mention procuring some sound advice from Lincoln over breakfast, but sitting here in front of Clarke has made Lexa forget how to string together words and phrases to construct complete thoughts. 

In a desperate attempt to find her resolve, she reaches for the cup of english black tea she’d ordered. Lexa takes her first sip, wishing she’d asked for a pinch more sugar but nevertheless hoping it will soothe her racing thoughts. 

“I just wanted to … check in.” 

Pathetically underwhelming start. Lincoln would be so disappointed. She takes another sip that is more like a gulp. 

Clarke nods slowly. “Okay.” 

“About us.”

“Okay,” Clarke repeats, her smile looking apprehensive at best. 

“Our friendship has evolved significantly over the past week, and rapidly, at that. I just thought we should—” Lexa wavers and Clarke comes to her rescue.

“Check in?” 

“Yeah,” Lexa nods.

“Okay. Are you—are you feeling okay about everything?” 

Lexa begins to tangle her fingers around Clarke’s more fervently. “Things with you are almost too good.”

Clarke’s smile changes instantly, full and bright and genuinely pleased. “I feel the same. I’m actually feeling incredibly, fucking lucky, to put a finer point on it.” 

“Good,” Lexa smiles, exhaling a modicum of relief. “I do too.” 

“Oh my god, you had me scared.” Clarke leans back into the couch, dislodging their hands to run her fingers through her hair. “I thought you were going to say you want to date other people or something.” 

“What? No.” Lexa’s breath has been lost to a vacuum of panic so that her ask is hardly audible. “Do you?”

“No! No. I’ve dated, Lexa. I’ve dated plenty,” Clarke laughs lightly, reaching for a surer hold on Lexa’s fingers. “But, you—I mean, you’re single for the first time in over three years. You must have thought about it.” 

Not single, Lexa says to herself before thinking better of it and rephrasing aloud:

“Clarke, I could date a hundred women and none of them would be you.”

“Yes, I am fairly certain I’ve yet to be cloned.”

“Are you going to stop being a smartass so I can say this?” Lexa smiles in mock irritation. 

“Sorry, sorry.” Clarke pinches her lips together, attentive. “Continue.” 

“What I mean is, no one else would compare. I’ve never met anyone like you—this connection I feel with you, I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Lexa takes a breath, licking her lips before forging onward. “I can’t say where this is going, but I can say, unquestionably, that I have no interest in dating anyone else for the foreseeable future.” 

The words leave her in a rush of honesty. It feels like she’s said too much too soon, but Clarke leans forward with a smile and Lexa interprets the gentle press of her lips as having said exactly the right thing. 

“Do you think we can take these drinks to-go and finish this conversation elsewhere?” Clarke’s voice is pitched low and seductive, and Lexa senses a chill tingling at the back of her neck. 

She resolves to stop doubting her honesty, if also to reconsider hanging out with Clarke in public spaces for a while until they can get their rampant sexual urges under control long enough to enjoy a cup of tea. 

“Did you have a specific location in mind?” she grins in response as if the gleam in Clarke’s eyes isn’t a clear enough indication. 

:::

Part 2

:::

The sex is consistently noteworthy, and Lexa had never really doubted that she and Clarke would be compatible in that way, but so is the intimacy alongside it. Lexa has never before distinguished between the two so markedly. But, with Clarke, the intimacy is so distinct. When she is coming around Clarke’s fingers, letting her watch the strains of pleasure in her face and shoulders, Lexa registers the vulnerability of being caught in Clarke’s gaze as an orgasm ricochets through her. 

Ordinarily, a week into any new relationship and Lexa would still be clinging to well-practiced safeguards. She would be withholding some parts of herself for safekeeping and ultimate preservation should things go sideways. 

But, not with Clarke. 

She likes that Clarke watches her so carefully. The way that she feels when held by Clarke’s gaze is a kind of certain safety that Lexa hasn’t known before. She kisses Clarke fully, holding nothing back as the pulsating aftershocks of her orgasm begin to ebb. When Clarke slowly removes her fingers, Lexa bites Clarke’s lip, swallowing the soft moan that follows.  

“Does this mean you want to be exclusive?” Lexa asks, still breathless, when their lips have parted. 

She feels Clarke’s laughter against her face before she’s being kissed again. “Yes, you idiot.” 

“Good. Because I want to take you out.” 

“Tonight?”

“Not tonight. It’s going to require some planning. I’d like it to be a proper date.” 

Clarke’s elation is instantly visible. “Okay. I’m going to be honest, I’m highly intrigued to find out what a proper Lexa date looks like.” 

Lexa kisses her again and considers, not for the first time, if she’ll be able to stop now that she’s started. Clarke’s warm tongue and soft lips are now vital to Lexa’s existence. She craves the sensation of their mouths sliding together at random intervals throughout her days. 

“Kissing you has not been a disappointment,” she says, bringing more of Clarke’s bright laughter as they shift their limbs to reposition against the mattress.

Clarke’s leg wraps around her waist as Lexa brushes stray hair from Clarke’s face where they now lay facing side-by-side. “Oh, my god, I’ll second that. I knew you would be a good kisser.”

“Did you?” Lexa smiles at the confession. She likes that Clarke had thought of her in similar ways. She had not been the only one lost in questionably scandalous daydreams over the course of their friendship. 

“Yes. I may have thought about it, once or twice.” 

“I had a pretty good feeling about your talents as well.” 

It’s such a simple, shared admission that nevertheless makes Lexa’s heart trip in its rhythm. “And now, I think about it constantly.”

For that, she is rewarded with another press of Clarke’s lips. “Me too. I’m pretty sure I’m regressing into a terrible excuse for a restaurant manager as a result of constant distraction.” 

“And the bar for your professionalism was already set so low as it is.” 

“Hey!” For that she gets a finger plunged sharply between her ribs, and Lexa squirms away from Clarke’s violent tickling. 

“I’m kidding. You are an elite and respected paragon of your field.” 

“You’re damn right I am,” Clarke affirms with pride. 

“Honestly, I was so lost in thought the other day, I dropped a six pack on my foot.”

“Lexa!” Clarke laughs, kissing Lexa again anyway. “Oh no.”

“No permanent damage,” Lexa smiles. “Can I tell you what else I really like?”

Clarke could not look more delighted. “Yes, please.”

“I really like your sweater.” 

“Wait—which sweater?”

Lexa props up onto an elbow, separating their warm skin as she casts her eyes around the room before locating the sweater in question. It sits near the foot of the bed where it had been discarded moments before. “That one,” she says. “It looks really good on you.” 

Clarke seems both surprised and amused by the compliment. “Come here.” 

Lexa allows herself to be pulled closer when Clarke wraps both hands around the back of her neck and their limbs slot back into place. They kiss lazily as if time doesn’t exist while Lexa’s hands begin to drift along the pathways she has started to chart across Clarke’s skin.

“I like seeing you in such a good mood,” Clarke eventually tells her. 

“The effect of midafternoon orgasms cannot be underrated.” The frank sentiment makes Clarke laugh again as she rests their foreheads together and begins smoothing over Lexa’s skin with the tips of her fingers. “Also, I like being able to tell you things—things I wouldn’t have been able to say before.”

“I like when you tell me things.” Clarke tucks a strand of loose curls around Lexa’s ear. “Anything else in that busy head of yours you feel like sharing?”

Three words ring prominently in Lexa’s ears, and she fully blames Lincoln’s stupid taunting for the sentiment being at the forefront of her mind. It has nothing to do with the soft, swirling blue of Clarke’s eyes, or the subtle tilt of her mouth, or the fact that Lexa has memorized the sound of Clarke’s laugh. She swallows roughly and presses her lips to Clarke’s, sealing the unspoken words between them for good measure. 

She instead tells Clarke a different truth, “I’m feeling much better since we talked.” 

“I’m glad,” Clarke smiles. “I feel better, too.” She runs a hand down Lexa’s arm, finding her fingers. 

“I was sort of anxious to say anything,” Lexa admits, feeling brave while cocooned in Clarke’s bed despite her earlier insecurities. She had worried, yet again, about saying too much. There was always the risk of Clarke pulling away if Lexa revealed too much. “I spent at least two days debating with myself.” 

Clarke’s exaggerated surprise results in Lexa’s quiet giggles. “No, you did? You tortured yourself for days with unnecessary internal debates? That is highly out-of-character, Lexa.”

“You really are a lot more like Lincoln than I ever realized.” 

Clarke’s laughter somehow brings them closer together, and Lexa shifts her legs where they are staggered between Clarke’s. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And, I’m glad you finally talked to me about this. I mean, I wasn’t totally expecting you to propose in the way that you did, but—” 

“Clarke.” Lexa buries her face into the pillow and clenches her eyes to stave off her creeping mortification. So much for embracing her honesty.  

Of course, Clarke is endlessly humored by watching Lexa suffer and only continues her assault on Lexa’s heartfelt admission. “I mean, correct me if I’m misquoting, but you said: ‘for the foreseeable future,’ which basically translates into asking me to date you, but like, forever.” 

“Oh my god,” Lexa mumbles, her face still pressed into the soft cotton of Clarke’s pillowcase. 

Clarke is not deterred by Lexa’s mounting humiliation, pressing kisses full of laughter into her neck and shoulder until Lexa finally turns to face her. Using the leverage of her leg wrapped around Lexa’s hips, Clarke has since wrestled her onto her back. 

“See?” she says, running an index finger down the slope of Lexa’s nose and effectively smoothing the furrow of embarrassment between her eyebrows. “So adorable.” 

It’s hard to keep hold of her ire when Clarke is naked above her and straddling her hips. Perhaps Clarke knows this as well because even as she shifts imperceptibly, Lexa feels it straight through her core. Her hands come to rest on the tops of Clarke’s thighs, and though she senses a residual scowl tugging at her lips, most of her regret for being too honest has faded. 

“I’m sorry for making fun,” Clarke says while her thumbs rub circular patterns on Lexa’s ribs. 

Lexa has never seen anyone look less apologetic in her life. “I would be more inclined to believe you if you weren’t actively trying not to laugh.” 

“No, no, I’m serious,” Clarke reiterates, although she is fully laughing now. She clears her throat, aiming valiantly for composure. “What you said was so sweet, and, I mean, in case you couldn’t tell, I sort of plan on dating you for a really long time, too.” 

Lexa fights her own smile rather poorly. “Well, that’s very convenient.” 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Clarke nods. 

It’s the perfect segue into more unrestrained fondling, more languid kisses, and Clarke seems to be on the same wavelength as she leans her weight onto her hands and begins to roll her hips. It’s easier falling into this rhythm when for six days they have perpetually cycled the same routine: intimate talks bookended by multiple orgasms that are interspersed with brief intervals reserved for sleep and nourishment. 

Lexa gasps into their first kiss from their well-timed movements—the feeling of them sliding together in that way has a heated sensation building quick and low. Just the pressure of Clarke on top of her and the way her slow, purposed movements are hitting Lexa in the all the right spots, has her close to a second orgasm in minutes.

She can hear Clarke’s breathing accelerate as well, the forced puffs of air through her nose that Lexa feels against her cheeks as their kisses grow more urgent. Clarke’s hand moves first, skating down Lexa’s abdomen as she lifts her hips to slide her fingers towards Lexa’s clit. It’s been no more than twenty minutes since her last orgasm, but Lexa’s body instantly responds to the circulating pressure of Clarke’s fingers moving against her. 

They are still figuring things out, learning how the other responds to physical arousal, but this—Clarke on top of her, easily working her towards climax with deft fingers and filthy, open-mouth kisses—will do the trick every, single time. Lexa could probably come with much less stimulation at this point, when brushing touches while fully clothed are sometimes too much for her to function. Never mind the visual currently hovering over her—Clarke’s bouncing chest, grinding hips, and blown pupils. An image of her fingers sunk into Clarke in this position is enough to send Lexa over the edge. Her back arches off the mattress as the orgasm rolls up her spine, and Lexa catches her breath only after Clarke starts kissing her again. 

A familiar dilemma has Lexa torn between using her hands or her mouth as the tingling sensations of her own orgasm have barely begun to fade. In the end, her urgency to feel Clarke’s arousal, and see it to completion, has Lexa moving a hand between their bodies to slide eager fingers into Clarke’s folds. There will always be time later to bury her face between Clarke’s legs. 

Her breath always stutters at that first touch—it’s slick and warm and Clarke groans appreciatively when Lexa extends two fingers just as Clarke sinks onto Lexa’s hand. That she is open and intimate with Clarke in a way she never thought possible has not fully registered as her new reality, and for a brief second, Lexa’s mind goes blank. 

In another breath, Lexa shifts, guiding Clarke to change her position just enough that she can take one of Clarke’s nipples into her mouth. The quick suction and slow laps of her tongue produce a groan from Clarke that Lexa will be thinking about days later. 

“Fuck, Lexa,” Clarke pants, her hips now thrusting quicker against Lexa’s hand, pressing harder against her fingers as they slide in an out. 

Clarke’s arms shift, palms flat against the mattress on either side of Lexa’s head where she is still holding her weight. 

“Are your arms getting tired? Do you want to switch positions?” Lexa absently moves her hand that had been massaging one of Clarke’s breasts to lightly hold her bicep. 

“No.” Clarke smiles and kisses her softly, in direct contrast to the way she is currently riding Lexa’s fingers. “You’re very sweet, but I’m good.” 

“Okay, good. Because I’m really appreciating this view,” Lexa grins, moving her hand again to swipe a thumb across Clarke’s nipple. 

“Do you think you can—”

She doesn’t let Clarke finish, relying instead on her still-developing intuitions, and takes the other nipple into her mouth. 

“Yes, fuck.” 

Lexa celebrates her victory of predicting Clarke’s needs by altering the position of her hand to reach Clarke’s clit with her thumb, the result of which has Clarke nearly collapsing onto her as her elbows buckle and her hips jerk forward. Lexa finds a well-practiced rhythm after that and works Clarke all the way to climax until the movement of her hips becomes erratic and she is no longer able to string together coherent profanity. 

The comedown is soft and fun, quiet giggles and breathless kisses. Clarke collapses onto the mattress beside her, arms and legs finally relieved of their tension, and Lexa curls onto her side so that she can rest a hand onto Clarke’s stomach where she lies flat on her back. 

Lexa is so content, she feels like her body might levitate in a boneless mass above the bed. Clarke’s breathing is still coming to rest, and Lexa watches her hand rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. 

Into the greying stillness of the bedroom, Clarke asks, “Hey, what time are you supposed to meet Lincoln?” 

The serenity Lexa had felt shatters in an instant. “Oh shit!” She flails about for a moment in search of her phone, having completely forgotten about her plans. “What time is it?”

She locates her phone before Clarke can answer. It’s already half past three, and Lexa’s stomach plummets. The text from Lincoln says: where you at?

“Are you late?” Clarke has come to sit behind her where Lexa’s legs hang off the mattress near the bedside table where she’d found her phone. Lexa feels soft kisses against her shoulderblade. “What did he say?” 

Below Lincoln’s text is a picture of two full pints of beer sitting on a bar counter. She holds her phone at an angle so that Clarke can see Lincoln’s texts. 

Lexa runs a hand through her hair as her heart hammers from the sudden jolt of adrenaline. “Shit.” 

More than the shame of accidentally standing up one of her closest friends, Lexa dreads the fallout of this enormous misstep because Lincoln is never going to let her live this down. Worse yet, there is a good chance that he’ll share the story with Anya, which will mean, essentially, Lexa can never again return home. 

“Why don’t you get dressed and go? I can drop you off,” Clarke offers sweetly, still pressing reassuring kisses along her back. 

“I’m going to ask him if we can reschedule,” Lexa decides. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Lexa answers, turning her head to smile at Clarke over her shoulder. “I don’t

really feel like putting on pants at the moment.” 

Clarke kisses her shoulder cap and grins in return. “You’ll get no argument from me there.” 

“Let me give him a call really quickly.” Lexa reaches for a shirt on the floor—something of Clarke’s she’d worn to bed the night before—and stands to slip it over her head. Something about calling a close friend while completely naked and still coming down from an orgasm makes her slightly uncomfortable.   

“Take your time,” Clarke tells her, also rising from the unkept sheets and blankets to pull her hair back into its messy bun. “I’m going to go downstairs and reheat our drinks from earlier.” She tugs at the hem of Lexa’s tee shirt and places a kiss at the corner of her mouth on her way to the bathroom. “Do you want a snack, too?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Lexa grins, following after Clarke’s lips as she starts to move away. A soft hold on her wrist is enough encouragement for Clarke to lean up into another kiss, reminding Lexa just how shaky her legs still feel from their exertions in bed. Perhaps sustenance to replenish her blood sugar is necessary instead of relying solely on a steady drip of oxytocins. 

Lexa appreciates the view of Clarke’s retreating backside even in the fading light of the bedroom as the sun has started to move towards the horizon. She runs a hand through her wild curls and exhales, preparing to make her phone call while perched on the edge of the mattress.

Lincoln answers on the first ring. “Hey, buddy. Did you get lost?”

“Something like that,” Lexa says. “Clarke and I went for coffee, and then I sort of … lost track of time.”

“Say no more,” Lincoln laughs. “It’s your turn to ditch me for a girl now, right? I hope the sex was worth it.” 

The fact that she is wearing nothing more than a thin tee shirt has Lexa covering her face with her hand. “Lincoln, I didn’t—” 

His laughter persists, and Lexa wonders how loud it must be within the confines of the bar. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s totally fine. Honestly, I’d be more upset if you weren’t standing me up for time with Clarke right now.” 

“I’m really sorry, Linc. I can be down there in like fifteen minutes.” 

“Don’t you dare.” For the first time since he’s answered the call, Lincoln’s voice takes on a serious tone. “I swear to god, if you show up here, I’m frogmarching your ass right back to Clarke’s house.” 

“Okay, fine,” Lexa laughs. “Let’s hang out early next week though. Beers on me.” 

“Don’t even worry about it. I’m serious. I actually ran into some people from the gym plus the rep from Two Roads is here doing a tasting—I’m good, I promise.” 

“I’m going to make this up to you,” Lexa reiterates. Despite Lincoln’s assurances, her guilt does not fully dissipate. 

Clarke chooses this moment to step out of the bathroom, wearing just as much clothing as when she’d gone in, and Lexa’s brain lags at the sight. Her expression seems to be asking if everything is okay, and Lexa smiles in response. 

“Lex, would you stop? Tell Clarke I said hi, and I’ll see you at work on Monday. Oh, hey, ask her if she’s tried the new session IPA from Two Roads. It’s intensely enjoyable.” 

“Okay. I will.” She smiles up at Clarke, who has stopped to stand in front of her after slipping into a tee shirt and sweatpants. Lexa’s hand settles on Clarke’s hip like a magnet snapping into place. “Clarke says hi, too.”

“Sorry, Lincoln!” Clarke says, projecting her voice towards the receiver while tucking strands of curls behind Lexa’s ear. “It’s all my fault.”   

There is more laughter down the line before Lincoln reiterates that everything is fine and he could never actually be angry with either of them. 

:::

“So, since when do you source your unhealthy caffeine intake from elsewhere?”

“Huh?” Clarke smiles. 

They’ve taken up seats at Clarke’s kitchen island with their reheated drinks from the coffee shop and Clarke’s version of a snack: smoked turkey and cheddar sandwiches on toasted potato rolls with homemade aioli. 

They’re both wearing slightly altered versions of the same outfit—soft tee shirts and loose sweatpants, Clarke’s cut off into shorts so that Lexa’s fingers are continuously tempted to trail across all of the exposed skin within reach. 

She sips her tea and returns Clarke’s smile. 

“The barista at the coffee shop seemed shocked to see you,” she clarifies. “Don’t you practically pay rent there by spending so much of your time buying their coffee?” 

For a brief moment, Clarke can’t seem to find her voice. She practically chokes on her sandwich, taking longer than expected to swallow her first bite. Lexa raises an eyebrow expectantly as their drinks emit swirling strands of steam into the air between them. 

“I—I could ask you the same,” Clarke volleys back, not unkindly, as she dabs the corner of her mouth with a napkin and reaches for her coffee. “Morgan seemed just as surprised to see you there.” 

Lexa bites her lip and looks away. She had asked out of genuine curiosity and confusion, and now it seems yet another bout of confessions is forthcoming. 

She clears her throat. “Do you have any beer, actually?” 

Clarke laughs lightly before shifting her expression into something like mild offense. 

“Um, hi. My entire existence is practically centered around craft beer—do you even know me?” 

“Right,” Lexa laughs. “Stupid question. Would you like one?”

“Again: do you even know me?”

Lexa starts to slide off her stool with a bright smile that belies the low buzz of nerves she is withstanding as an unspoken conversation simmers between them. Clarke is dislodging their legs from where they had sat in a close tangle at the island. “Stay,” she directs her, brushing a kiss to her temple. “I’ll get them.” 

Once Lexa has pulled open the fridge door, she turns to look at Clarke over her shoulder. “Do you have a preference? Lincoln was asking if you’d tried the new IPA from Two Roads.” 

“Are you actively avoiding answering my question by distracting me with beer inquiries?” 

Lexa pinches her lips together to ward off a sheepish admission, and Clarke rolls her eyes affectionately. “Look on the left hand side, bottom shelf.” 

Lexa ducks down to retrieve two brightly colored cans of IPA before closing the fridge door and returning to the island. “Not to split hairs, but technically, you avoided my question first.” 

“Okay, fine,” Clarke sighs dramatically. She takes one last dreg from her coffee before shoving it away in favor of the can of beer Lexa has just opened for her. “I was—” Clarke actually ducks her head so that Lexa can see her thick eyelashes fluttering “—I was afraid I would run into you during the, uh, when we—”

“Broke up?” Lexa supplies. She is still holding a small smile for Clarke when blue eyes finally snap up to meet hers. 

It had felt like that. A relationship ending—a significant one at that. And, Lexa had been left broken in the aftermath. 

“I was going to say when we stopped talking,” Clarke continues. “But, it was more than that. It did feel like a break up. And, we didn’t decide anything—I cut communications all on my own.” 

“Clarke—”

“I’m really sorry, Lexa.” 

Lexa is already shaking her head, part disbelief at what she’s hearing, part exasperation that Clarke has mistakenly absorbed all of the blame. 

“Clarke, I know you have this bizarre obsession with always being right, but I can assure you—what happened in November was all on me.”

“I just vanished, Lexa. I didn’t even tell you why or allow you to explain anything.” Clarke’s eyes are downcast and her voice softens in unmistakable regret as she fiddles the silver tab on her beer. “I freaked out and hid away. And, it was really shitty.” 

Lexa can’t help the way her mind creates distinctions between Clarke and Costia—the contrast of Costia’s distance from their relationship to Clarke’s sudden disappearance. With Costia, it had often felt like abandonment and disregard. The space between them had been a disappointment, a mild discomfort that Lexa sustained over time. Losing Clarke—and it had felt like that, as if she turned around one day and panicked to find Clarke had vanished—left her devastated and painfully bereft. 

“Not seeing you was horrible. Not being able to talk to you was even worse. But, I’m glad you stepped back and took that space. It was shitty, but not because you did anything wrong.” 

“I hated not seeing you, too,” Clarke admits, and they share another small smile across the kitchen island, tinged with a distant, remembered sadness. 

“I couldn’t avoid Dockside, contractually, but I—I didn’t want to encroach upon your other spaces.”

“So, you stopped going to the coffee shop.” 

Lexa confirms with a short nod and takes the first sip of her beer. She’s glad they’ve had this talk, but she’s also more than eager to segue out of November’s gloom that is better left in the past. She takes a cleansing breath and sets down her beer. 

“In the end, I was glad you created that barrier between us, Clarke. I was miserable, and Lincoln will tell you that I was insufferable to be around, but it made me realize what a massive idiot I’d been.”   

Her admission elicits an actual laugh, and Clarke shakes her head fondly. “So much for that Ivy League education.” 

There’s a lot more that could be said, and it’s a much longer conversation that they will likely parse out at some point. But, today has been exceptionally good, and Lexa isn’t quite ready to lose the momentum of their good moods. Even for the sake of honesty.

“I’m a slow learner,” Lexa shrugs.

“Based on the activities that occurred in my bedroom this afternoon, I can attest to that being entirely untrue,” Clarke says, voice pitched low and taunting. 

At the return of Clarke’s brazen flirting and sly smile, Lexa ducks her head as her cheeks warm. Because, despite the fact that they have spent a good portion of the afternoon swapping orgasms, she still sees Clarke as her best friend, in many ways, who she has only recently had the distinct pleasure of seeing naked. 

“I’m sort of a quick study in that department,” Lexa smirks. 

“I’ve noticed,” Clarke laughs. They sip their beers in weighted silence for a few beats, sharing glances as they drink, and then Clarke adds to the mounting tension by asking, “So, when do I get to hear more about this date?” 

“The details of the date itself are highly classified,” Lexa explains in all seriousness, despite her stomach swooping. 

“Classified, huh?” Clarke laughs into another sip of beer. 

“Do I honestly strike you as someone who is going to halfass a first date?” 

“You don’t strike me as a person who has halfassed anything in their entire life.” 

“Correct,” Lexa smiles. She shifts smoothly along the island’s edge until she is again stood on the same side as Clarke, who accepts Lexa’s proximity with a slow-spreading smile. “You know, I could potentially be persuaded to provide a sneak peek of some post-date activities,” she offers, already moving to enter Clarke’s space more fully as their drinks are gingerly slid a good distance away. 

She slowly spins Clarke’s stool just enough that she can slot between her legs, and Clarke is already leaning into the touch as Lexa’s hands curve around her jaw. The kiss is like regaining breath after being submerged under water. Their conversation on past events hadn’t been strenuous, by any means, but Lexa registers a sense of relief to have resumed their previous activities all the same. 

She sinks into the warmth of Clarke’s lips and tongue, exhaling after several, languid moments. When her hands move to slide up the length of Clarke’s thighs, eliciting a distinctly strained exhale as Lexa teases her fingers beneath the cut-off edge of Clarke’s shorts, it’s abundantly clear where they’re both headed. 

They make it as far as the sofa. 

Lexa can’t be bothered to maneuver the stairs when there are so many other available surfaces on which to make Clarke slowly shake apart. She does so on her knees while making good on her earlier intents to spend a long stretch of time between Clarke’s legs. The last shards of sunlight are nearly gone, leaving them in golden shadows and dim light from the kitchen while Clarke moans soft encouragements and cards her fingers through Lexa’s hair. There is no rush, no urgency, hardly a sense of time moving at all. Lexa feels calm and confident, content to bring Clarke closer to release at a measured pace as she begins to gently rock against the pressure of Lexa’s tongue. Everything feels languid and slow, like running through water. 

It’s not lost on her, as Clarke’s orgasm eventually echoes through the quiet house, heels pressing into her back and Clarke’s fingers threaded into her hair, that this very sofa had been the impetus for their time apart. The innocence of that encounter, as she and Clarke gave in to the comforts of shared sleep, had propelled them toward a shift in their relationship. Looking back, everything that has transpired between them since that singular event seems inevitable. 

Falling asleep with Clarke that first time had been rife with implications that they would eventually end up right back here: a cozy, nondescript, weekend night spent on Clarke’s couch with nowhere to go. 

The insignificance of an otherwise mundane Saturday is outweighed by the way Lexa’s mouth curves into an easy smile as she kisses the warm skin of Clarke’s inner thigh. Clarke is coming down from the aftershocks of a slow-rolling orgasm when Lexa registers a sharp uptick in her heart rate as they lock eyes while Clarke is still catching her breath.

And, this too holds weight—for all their recent honesty, there are still things Lexa has left unsaid.

“Get up here,” Clarke gently demands. Lexa complies without pause. 

Clarke’s sated and satisfied groans melt into scratched laughter that dovetails with their kiss, and the magnitude of what Lexa feels is underscored as their mouths meet. 

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Clarke tells her some breath of time later, when Lexa has moved from the floor to the sofa at Clarke’s urging. “If this type of activity is in the cards for date night, I don’t really give a shit what the actual date itself looks like.” 

They lay along the length of the sofa, limbs over lapping at certain intervals, and Lexa’s hand flat against Clarke’s stomach beneath her tee shirt. 

“Good to know I can scale back my efforts,” Lexa smirks, feeling no less satisfied that she has reduced Clarke’s expectations with one, albeit exemplary, late-afternoon orgasm. 

Clarke’s laughter echoes Lexa’s contentment, and her smile grows. She can feel the subtle shaking of Clarke’s diaphragm beneath her fingertips. 

“This has been such a good day,” Clarke says, adding further reinforcement to Lexa’s equally satisfied mood. “I really like having your here. Have I mentioned that?”

Lexa grins into Clarke’s close gaze and presses her lips to the edges of Clarke’s smile. “Once or twice.” 

“Lincoln is the kindest, most-deserving creature on the planet, but I’m really glad you stayed here instead. Just this once.” 

Lexa’s contented smile slips and she nearly groans as her head falls onto the armrest. “I’m never going to hear the end of it.” 

“What do you mean?” Clarke laughs. 

“I pride myself in being reliable—no excuses. If I say I’ll be there, I’ll be there. Especially when it comes to Lincoln or Anya.” Lexa exhales and glances up to find Clarke’s eyes. “The fact that I neglected our plans for—”

“The best sex of your life?” Clarke supplies with swagger. Lexa’s smile returns without her consent. “I mean, you looked like you were about to say: the best sex of your life.” 

As laughter bubbles up from her chest, it vanquishes Lexa’s lingering criticisms about her snap decision to break plans with Lincoln. Clarke’s commentary is a reductive synopsis, at best, but also not entirely untrue. “Yes. Something like that.” 

A beat of silence passes and then Clarke says, “If you’re worried he’s going to give you a hard time about breaking plans, wait until you tell him you proposed.”

She buries her face against Clarke’s shoulder to the delighted rasp of Clarke’s giggling laughter and concludes, yet again, that it is the absolute best sound in the world, even at her own expense. 

:::

[edenmemes]

game of thrones (s2) starters

❝ two cups of wine? that’s not much at all. please, have another cup. ❞ ❝ you don't need to live your whole life taking commands from old men. ❞ ❝ what did you say? did you say i can’t? ❞ ❝ i will not fail you. ❞ ❝ i don't go serving some shit king who's only king because his father was. ❞ ❝ do you want to stop me? stop me. ❞ ❝ you must be their strength. ❞ ❝ i’ve been fighting far longer than you. ❞ ❝ ‘ how can a man be brave if he's afraid?’ ...that is the only time a man can be brave. ❞ ❝ you are the biggest liar i have ever met. ❞ ❝ we looked for you on the battlefield. you were nowhere to be found. ❞ ❝ i’ve been here, ruling the kingdoms. ❞ ❝ i could show you the streams to fish, the woods to hunt. ❞ ❝ we heard you were dead. ❞ ❝ power resides where men believe it resides. it's a trick, a shadow on the wall. ❞ ❝ you don’t even have the decency to deny it. ❞ ❝ we share a common enemy. ❞ ❝ brave? a dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats. ❞ ❝ aren’t you always so clever with your schemes and your plots? ❞ ❝ someone once told me that the night is dark and full of terrors. ❞ ❝ the king does not ask; he commands. ❞ ❝ loyal service means telling hard truths. ❞ ❝ i don’t like you. i don’t like your face. i don’t like the words oozing out of your mouth. ❞ ❝ if half an onion is black with rot, it's a rotten onion. a man is good or he is evil. ❞ ❝ a man without friends is a man without power. ❞ ❝ that’s twice i’ve warned you. ❞ ❝ no one can survive in this world without help. no one. / let me help you. ❞ ❝ i’ve never heard you hide from the truth. ❞ ❝ calling yourself king doesn’t make you one. ❞ ❝ you can’t avenge if you’re dead. ❞ ❝ these bad people are what i'm good at. out-talking them, out-thinking them. it's what i am. ❞ ❝ are you trying to frighten me with magic tricks? ❞ ❝ the histories won’t mention you but i will not forget. ❞ ❝ sometimes i wonder. if this is the price for what we've done, for our sins. ❞ ❝ it's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on its head. ❞ ❝ wise men do not make demands of kings. ❞ ❝ it's like stepping into a dream you've been dreaming for as long as you can remember, and finding out that the dream is more real than your life. ❞ ❝ i'll remember it all until i die. rhat was the best day of my life. ❞ ❝ the more people you love, the weaker you are. ❞ ❝ it’s better to be cruel than weak. ❞ ❝ do it. all these bad people, they can’t stop you. forget about them. come with me. ❞ ❝ you're not the person you’re pretending to be. not yet. ❞ ❝ my place is by your side. ❞ ❝ would it be excessive of me to ask you to save my life twice in a week? ❞ ❝ i’ve gone too far to pretend to be anything else. ❞ ❝ you promise me these things, but you don’t know. none of us know. ❞ ❝ show me how you fight. ❞ ❝ leaving that battlefield was like being dragged off to prison. ❞ ❝ you’ll say nothing to anyone. do you understand? ❞ ❝ you can’t talk about it without blushing. ❞ ❝ i don’t need trust any longer. i don’t want it and i don’t have room for it. ❞ ❝ cleaner ways don’t win wars. ❞ ❝ i always hated crossbows. take too long to load ❞ ❝ i’m not questining your loyalty. i’m denying it’s existence. ❞ ❝ you don’t have to call me ‘your grace’ when no one’s around. ❞ ❝ you need to be careful. no one can know you’re here. ❞ ❝ this city stinks like dead bodies. ❞ ❝ where i come from, guests are treated with respect, not insulted at the gates. ❞ ❝ i’ll be silent as the grave. ❞ ❝ i understand you don’t like me, and while that saddens me greatly, i did not come here today seeking your affection. ❞ ❝ you know my family name. you have me at a disadvantage. ❞ ❝ a very small man can cast a very large shadow. ❞ ❝ what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger. ❞ ❝ some say the beauty most desired is the beauty concealed. ❞ ❝ that’s exactly what they are - stories. ❞ ❝ keep out of sight. if things go wrong - you run. ❞ ❝ you want to rule? this is what ruling is. lying on a bed of weeds, ripping them out by the root one by one before they strangle you in your sleep. ❞ ❝ you might find it difficult to rule over millions who want you dead. ❞ ❝ you don’t know what i’m like. ❞ ❝ i’m not like most men. ❞ ❝ look around you. we're all liars here. and every one of us is better than you. ❞ ❝ i will love you from this day until my last day. ❞ ❝ i have heard tales of your beauty and grace, but the tales do not do you justice. ❞ ❝ you have a tender heart, just like your mother did your age. ❞ ❝ that’s a fine little blade. maybe i’ll pick my teeth with it. ❞ ❝ how do you sleep when you...have those things in your head? ❞ ❝ they’ll be singing songs about you as long as men have voices to sing. ❞ ❝ you should give me the reins. i’ve been on horseback for the past nine years. ❞ ❝ how unspeakable of me to go on and on, when all you want to do is rest. ❞ ❝ what you just did is punishable by death. ❞ ❝ tales of your courage and wisdom have never been far from my ears. ❞ ❝ you shouldn’t insult people that are bigger than you. ❞ ❝ the streets aren’t safe at night. ❞ ❝ i have come to love you from afar. ❞ ❝ would you like something for the pain? ❞ ❝ and who are you that i must bow so low? ❞ ❝ a lion still has claws and mine are long and sharp. ❞ ❝ i will keep you safe, my love. i promise you. ❞ ❝ asking me questions is bad luck. you’ll probably be dead soon. ❞ ❝ have you grown fond of me? is that it? ❞ ❝ knowledge is power. ❞ ❝ sometimes those with the most power have the least grace. ❞ ❝ how do you kill a dead man? ❞ ❝ i saw it in his eyes. hated me. he never met me before, but he wanted to hurt me. ❞ ❝ not very noble to accuse a lady of dishonesty. ❞ ❝ there’s nothing more sickening than a man in love. ❞ ❝ threaten me again and i will have you thrown into the sea. ❞ ❝ i am very good for keeping secrets for my good friends. ❞ ❝ i promised to protect them. promised them their enemies would die screaming. ❞ ❝ you’ve been having those dreams again. ❞ ❝ would you please shut up? you think you’re better than me. ❞ ❝ don’t trust anybody. life is safer that way. ❞ ❝ boil this for an hour and drink the tea. makes all your pain go away. ❞ ❝ it must be odd for you to be the disappointing child. ❞ ❝ you love your children. it’s your one redeeming quality / that and your cheekbones. ❞ ❝ nothing is worth what this will cost you. ❞ ❝ i thought they were going to kill me. ❞ ❝ i heard you suffered a terrible head wound. ❞ ❝ i know that our enemies hate each other almost as much as they hate us. ❞ ❝ do you understand we’re losing the war? ❞ ❝ wish i could stay and celebrate, but there is work to be done. ❞ ❝ i’m sorry for your loss. ❞ ❝ it’s just words to give us a little warmth at night. make us feel like we’ve got a purpose. ❞ ❝ death is boring, especially now with so much excitement in the world. ❞ ❝ i’m glad you’re not dead. ❞ ❝ more ravishing than ever. war agrees with you. ❞ ❝ i never thought i’d have reason to doubt your loyalty. was i wrong? ❞ ❝ only death may pay for life. ❞ ❝ smart people don’t find themselves in places like this. ❞ ❝ i will shield your back and give my life for yours, if it comes to that. ❞ ❝ do not speak to me like i’m a child. ❞ ❝ i want you to know what it's like to love someone, to truly love someone. before i take them from you. ❞ ❝ you may cover it up and deny it, but you have a gentle heart. ❞ ❝ there are times when i look at you and can’t believe you’re real. ❞ ❝ betray me, and you will wish you hadn’t. ❞ ❝ he who passes the sentence should swing the sword. ❞ ❝ gods help you. now you are truly lost. ❞ ❝ look around. you start thinking you know this place, it will kill you. ❞ ❝ i want you to curse and fight until your heart’s done pumping. ❞ ❝ they’ll never know what you’ve done. they’ll never know how you died. they won’t even know your damn name. ❞ ❝ you are a man without honor. ❞ ❝ does it give you joy to scare people? ❞ ❝ there’s been talk of other forces at work. dark forces. ❞ ❝ strike hard and true, or i’ll come back to haunt you. ❞ ❝ one day i pray you love someone. i pray you love them so much, when you close your eyes, you see their face. i want that for you. ❞ ❝ you are far too smart to think i will succumb to flattery. ❞ ❝ i had terrible dreams last night. i could not sleep until the sun was shining and the birds were singing. ❞ ❝ all my life i’ve been knocking men like you into the dust. ❞ ❝ you will not provoke me to anger. ❞ ❝ there are people who want to hurt me. ❞ ❝ i’m no ordinary woman. my dreams come true. ❞ ❝ i will take what is mine. with fire and blood, i will take it. ❞ ❝ you’re a sharp little thing, aren’t you? ❞ ❝ i always thought i was a brilliant liar. ❞ ❝ i’m yours and you are mine. ❞ ❝ you defend these men who insult you behind your back. ❞ ❝ we’ll stay warmer if we stay close. ❞ ❝ i would kill for you. do you know that? you’re mine. ❞ ❝ do you hear them out there? they want your head. ❞ ❝ you’re brave. stupid, but brave. ❞ ❝ don’t be afraid. i can take care of myself. ❞ ❝ a day will come when you think you're safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth. ❞ ❝ why do you hate me so much? have i ever harmed you? ❞ ❝ this will be my last war. win or lose. ❞ ❝ you're too smart for your own good. has anyone told you that? ❞ ❝ you have forsaken every vow you ever took. ❞ ❝ eny isn’t attractive. ❞ ❝ treat your oaths recklessly, and your people will do the same. ❞ ❝ they will all come to you, little lion, to rest a crown upon your head. ❞ ❝ the world is built by killers. so you'd better get used to looking at them. ❞ ❝ the gods have no mercy. that's why they're gods. ❞ ❝ your crimes are past forgiveness. ❞ ❝ i don’t want to leave you. ❞ ❝ if this is a dream, i will kill the man who tries to wake me. ❞ ❝ you talk about war as if you understand it. ❞ ❝ i don’t want your grief. i want my vengeance. ❞ ❝ what? what? why are you staring at me? ❞ ❝ you are the moon of my life. that is all i know and all i need to know. ❞ ❝ i’d say you possess above-average intelligence. ❞ ❝ i’ve been waiting all night. what is wrong? ❞ ❝ oh, are we friends now? ❞ ❝ never swung a sword before, have you? you look like a baby with a rattle. ❞ ❝ maybe i am dead and i just don’t know it yet. ❞ ❝ i’ve seen your face almost every day. and for that, i consider myself very, very lucky. ❞ ❝ the only way to keep the small folk loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy. ❞ ❝ i will pray for your safe return. ❞ ❝ this is the safest place we can be. ❞ ❝ the worst ones always live. ❞ ❝ i’ve never much liked my head, but i don’t want to see it removed just yet. ❞ ❝ your childhood must have been awful. ❞ ❝ who do you fight for? ❞ ❝ now you’re arguing just to argue. ❞ ❝ i hope you gave them quick deaths. ❞ ❝ you want me? here i am. ❞ ❝ the thing about you i find so interesting is absolutely nothing. ❞

[tomtenadia]

Island Dreams - Chapter 16

Chapter 16 is here. Ten more and the epilogue and the story is over. I have some lovely moments already written down as drafts and i swear there is a lot of fluff coming.

The wee holiday with Lys and Aedion is almost over. Aelin and Rowan share a powerful moment at Callanish. Then something happens and fate throws them together a bit more. And they finally go on a date.

I hope you will all love it.

Thank you to all who have liked or reblogged my fic. You are amazing.

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The next morning a sense of sadness descended on the quartet. They had a quiet breakfast, all moping because their small break was over. They checked-out of the cottage a bit later and they made their way to the ferry terminal to go back on Harris and Lewis. Once they were back on the island, Rowan, who was back at the wheel decided to drive them up via the Golden road. He hoped that the beautiful road trip would raise the spirits up a little bit. Even Aelin was a bit down. At one of the junctions Rowan slowed down a lot after a big sign alerting them of possible farm traffic. He hoped they would encounter some. He knew it would definitely cheer up the two women.

His lips curled into a smile when in the distance he spotted a big flock of sheep heading their way. He pulled over the car and relaxed. Lysandra squealed and jumped off the car as it got surrounded by the animals and Aelin joined her a moment later. The smiles where back on their faces and Rowan realised he would do anything to see Aelin with such a bright smile. “It’s like the picture you sent me.” The dark-haired woman exclaimed all excited and took out her phone to take as many pictures as possible. The two men had exited the car as well and were now leaning against the hood and enjoying the view of their happy women. “I guess for you it’s not that unusual.” Commented Aedion admiring Lysandra. “No, they can be daily occurrences for locals.” Then he stared at Aelin “but look at how happy they are.” And his voice had an edge of softness. Aedion noticed Lysandra trying to pet a sheep and laughed. He took a few photo of her. “Thank you for all this.” The man turned to Rowan “Lysandra has suffered quite a lot after Aelin left. I haven’t seen her this happy in a while.” Rowan smiled back at the man and from how he talked about Lysandra he realised he loved the woman deeply. “And I know Aelin is not coming back and on some level Lysandra knows as well but still has to process it.” “Thank you for looking after her.” replied Rowan, his gaze back on Aelin “When she arrived she was a mess. We both were to be honest. But now she is happy.” “I don’t know what magic you pulled man, but I have known Aelin for a very long time and I have never seen her this happy. Not even when she was married to officer asshole.” “She told me about him.” “I swear I had a daily need to punch the bastard. You can’t marry someone and then decide you can only love some parts of her. When you commit to someone you cannot pick and choose which part you love.” Rowan growled. “And the divorce. The bastard had been cheating on her for months. Had lied to her and told her he was working night shifts when he was screwing the detective bitch. He lied, he hurt her in a way that was unspeakable. He crushed her. I offered willingly to help her move to Lys’ place. I wanted her as far way as possible from that son of a bitch.” Rowan was shocked by the ferocity with which Aedion defended Aelin. “And before you ask, no, nothing ever happened between us. She is a very dear friend of mine. I love her like a sister.” Rowan place a hand on Aedion’s shoulder “Thank you.” Was all he said. Once the road was clear again Aelin and Lysandra went back to their men “what were you talking about?” Aelin had noticed the two deep in conversation and she was glad to see that they had become good friends in that few days away. “Aedion was telling me of his time in the RAF.” Aelin smiled and Rowan was happy she believed the little lie.

They continued the drive and they stopped at the small Harris Tweed place Aelin had discovered and Lysandra spent almost a fortune and even bought a present to Aedion as a thank you. Eventually they crossed back into Lewis and Rowan took the road to Callanish and Aelin was giddy. That was her favourite place. Once they got there they noticed there were only a few tourists. Aelin took Lysandra’s hand and guided her friend to the stones while telling her all the info she had absorbed from the book Elias had given her. They guys reached them a moment later and joined them near the stones at the circle. Rowan grabbed Aelin to him and he moved to the centre of the circle. He had imagined the moment he would be at Callanish with her a million times. He knew she loved the place and for him, being pagan and all, the site had a special meaning. Aedion grabbed Lysandra and the two decided to do some exploring on their own and Rowan for a moment was glad as he wanted to have a moment alone with Aelin. He pulled her to his chest and his arms closed around her. “ 's ann leatsa a tha mo chridhe gu brath” he whispered to her ear and Aelin wished he would speak Gaelic more often even if she could not understand him. His voice changed and it made her heart race furiously. He placed her hand on his heart “gu brath.” He said again and kissed her “On this sacred soil I claim you, mo chridhe. 's ann leatsa a tha mo chridhe gu brath.” And she squeezed him as tight as she could. She had no idea what he was saying but she could feel his love. She looked up at him “I claim you Rowan Whitethorn, on this sacred soil I declare my love to you.” She said and felt horrible. She wanted to say something poetic. Something that sounded just as beautiful as what he said, whatever it was, but that’s all she could manage. But he seemed happy, his hands went to her head and caressed it with gentleness and she felt a shift in their relationship. As if they had just taken a step much bigger than having sex a just a level below getting married. His heart raced just as much as hers.

Rowan could not let go of her. He had just told her something powerful in a magical place like Callanish. He felt as if he had just proposed to her. But she was his and he was hers. And he meant what he had said to her. His heart was hers forever. In the past few days he had realised that there was no turning back. This woman had entered his life and now he could not think to exist without her. And he thought about the Runrig song he sang to her on the beach There is no way without you. Lysandra and Aedion came back and for a moment he was annoyed. He wanted a little bit more time with her and Aelin seemed to be of the same opinion when she did not move from her position. “This place is amazing. And I can’t believe is over 5000 years old.” Rowan nodded and then Lysandra announced they were going to the visitor centre because she had to play tourist and buy a fridge magnet. Rowan kissed Aelin’s head who had not moved from her position even when her friends were here. “Are you okay?” She lifted her head and he noticed she was crying. Shit what did he do? “Hey…” with his finger he removed her tears “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” she sobbed “You said something super amazing to me and I replied in a very lousy way and all I wanted to tell is that I love you. I want you in my life. For ever. For always. Because there is no way without you and I can’t think about another day without you at my side.” He kissed her. He lifted her until her feet left the ground and kissed in a way that would tell her that he felt the same way. “Better?” He asked when he put her down and she gave him a grin. “Come, let’s go and buy you your tacky fridge magnet.” And hand in hand they walked to the visitor centre.

Later in the afternoon they reached Butt of Lewis and their last stop in their adventure. At that beautiful place Aelin took Lysandra aside. It was time. After what happened at Callanish with Rowan she knew her decision was now final and there was no turning back for her. Which meant she had to tell her friend. They sat down at the edge of the cliff and Aelin took Lysandra’s hand. “Lys…” Aelin was now staring at the sea that over there was always angry, no matter how calm the wind. “I am not coming back to London. A part from you and Aedion, there is nothing left there for me. I can’t step back in my old life. Not after here. And…” she took a deep breath “I can’t leave Rowan. I don’t want to.” Lysandra smiled at her friend “I knew from the first moment I saw you again.” She replied squeezing the hand back “you were so happy that I knew you’d never come back. Why would you? And when I saw you with Rowan and I had the final proof.” She kissed Aelin’s cheek “I want to be invited at the wedding.” Aelin laughed “you will be the first one to know.” The two women hugged fiercely “I love you.” They said to each other. Half an hour later they were all back in Stornoway and Rowan had dropped them off at Aelin’s place. When it was time to part Aelin felt a sudden pang of sadness. She didn’t want to stay away from Rowan. “Come and say hi if you are in town,” he said to her, hugging her “I’ll miss you.” She was going to spend time with her friends, but Rowan had to go back to the shop and she was going to miss him. “Leave the other women alone, I am your only bookworm.” She felt him grin against her lips. “I’ll behave.”

Two weeks had passed and Lysandra and Aedion had to go back home and Rowan knew Aelin was going to be in a foul mood so he had prepared a task for her to keep her mind off things. He needed a revamp of the sci-fi section and he left the task to her knowing she would love it. She told him she was coming in at nine when he opened but it was past ten and there was no sign of her and he was getting worried. He also had no text or missed calls from her. It was almost eleven when she walked into the shop and he knew something bad had happened. She walked to him and sat down on her chair. “What happened?” She did not reply and instead she gave him a letter which he took and read it. “Are you kidding me?” “Nope.” She replied totally dejected “my landlord is selling the house and I have a month to move out.” She sighed “I spent the morning looking for other places but there is nothing available, unless I want to buy, which at the moment I can’t do. So, yeah I am in deep trouble. If I don’t find anything I am on the street.” “No you are not.” He said to her and turned his gaze to her “I have a spare bedroom. You can stay at my place. My house is big enough for two and for all your books.” Aelin jumped off the chair and into his arms “You are joking.” “Why would I? You need a place where to stay and I have it. Problem solved.” He was being very pragmatic but his heart was racing at the idea. “You will have me around all the time, Rowan. All the time.” “And?” Aelin huffed and lifted her hands “Just checking that you are sure of what you are getting into.” She kissed him “But I am so very grateful.” “Is my bedroom big?” She asked feeling excitement rise. “It’s normal.” He replied continuing working on what he was doing. “Will I have space for my books?” “I can squeeze them in.” “Ro?” “What?” Exasperation in his voice. “Are you ignoring me or the computer is sexier than me?” With a very slow motion he finally turned “Fireheart, some people have work to do.” “Fine. You are grumpy.” And she pinched his buttocks. Rowan turned quickly and glared at her for a second then exhaled deeply “We can move things on Sunday. Have everything prepared and boxed and on Sunday I will help you. We have two cars so it should be quite quick.” His tone flat. She threw her arms around his neck “You are wonderful.”

Ten minutes later she was back to work all happy again and Rowan had a smile on his face. They were going to live together and he could not contain his happiness at having her around all day. “By the way… the sci-fi section needs a revamp. Fancy playing a bit?” “Hell yeah, Aelin to the rescue.” By the end of the day she had redone not just the sci-fi display but also two more bookcases, explaining that they needed a bit of a spruce up as well and Rowan had let her. Her display were working and his sales had definitely increased. According to Aelin his Facebook page was being successful especially since he had started posting reviews and recommendation. “And again, ladies and gentleman, bow to the Queen.” In the distance she heard Rowan scoff. “You have any problems?” She walked to him wiggling her finger at him “No m’lady I could never tell my Queen she has a very high esteem of herself.” She grinned and walked to him and placed a kiss on his wicked mouth. “Ro?” “Yes, menace.” She snuggled and took a deep breath “There is there is a sci fi festival at An Lanntair this week and tonight they are showing Star Wars episode IV. Fancy coming with me?” Rowan was silent for a moment. “I am coming with you. But just because we are watching the original trilogy. I refuse to watch the new stuff.” Aelin laughed “Oh I’d never do that. For me only the three original episodes exist.” “You are my girl.” “Will… you know. Be okay? With Lyria?” Rowan gave her a squeeze “I will be fine.” She looked up at him with a very mischievous grin “It’s warm, I can wear a very slutty dress and show her who is the stick.” Rowan laughed “Just not too slutty. People talk around here.” “And say what? Rowan Whitethorn is dating the hot chick from London? Like I care.” He ran a hand through her hair “This chick from London is hot, though.” He grinned. “We can also have dinner together. Have a date you know.” He then added. A huge smile appeared on her face “I’d love that very much.” “So if we are going on a date, does it mean we are officially dating? Are we putting a label on it?” She leaned on the counter with her elbows and stared at him. “We can put one label if you want. We can say that we are dating.” He offered her while filing away some of the invoices he had just finished to reconcile. “But we are not boyfriends and girlfriend.” She looked at him. “I prefer a Fireheart and her Buzzard.” Aelin grabbed his face and kissed him deeply “I prefer it so much more” and brushed his hair “And if someone asks us what is means we will tell them to mind their own business and just let us enjoy our relationship how we want.” He had his eyes closed and his his face in an expression of pure bliss while Aelin kept caressing his head. Aelin even thought she heard him purr in delight. She could not keep her hands off him. She always needed to have some kind of contact with him and she was happy that he allowed it. The door opened and they broke apart quickly. She went to the customer and he continued his job at the computer while keeping an eye on he. He could not believe himself. He had just offered her to go and live with him. Last time he had done that it did not end well and a part of him was worried. They relationship was going well and all of a sudden her was terrified he had just done a stupid thing. But then he looked at her again and the rational part of his brain told him that she was not Lyria and Aelin was seriously in love with him. He sighed and hoped he was right. She came back walking with her usual swagger and with her hips pushed him away “I need to order a book.” And she started playing at the computer and Rowan was impressed how quickly she had learned all the other aspects of the job. She had been an amazing help and knowing he could keep the shop open when he was going to the school was an incredible relief. “Who gave you permission to do that?” He joked. “You did. Now let me finish before I make a mistake and then you shout at me.” He pulled her braid and left her alone with her task.

Later that evening they had finally gone home and now Aelin was trying to decide what to wear for her date with Rowan. She had texted Lysandra all excited and her friend’s reply was something that will make him regret that you are in a public place and not in his bed. The night was warm so she decided to wear her blue dress. It was very ‘50s in style with a nice flowing skirt, and sleeveless. It was one of her favourite. And it was also not slutty at all. She put some light make up on and decided to leave her hair down. it was always in a braid during the day, but she wanted to fully shock Rowan. She grabbed a jacket and left the house. They were meeting outside the restaurant. Her stomach was in knots by the excitement. She hadn’t felt like this on her first date with Chaol. When she arrived at the restaurant she spotted Rowan in the distance. It was almost impossible not to notice him. And she stopped. Damn, the man really was sex on two legs. He was wearing a pair of jeans, a white shirt under a green jumper that somehow matched his eyes. It was simple but on him it was a dream. She swallowed and walked to him.

Rowan had spotted her in an instant. She was wearing a beautiful blue dress that hugged her curves beautifully. But what caused him almost an heart attack was her hair. It was down. He had always seen her in a braid and never realised how long it was. It hung on her shoulder and it look like gold. She was the most stunning woman he had ever seen and he was positive he now had a stupid grin painted on his face. “Hey,” he said, walking to her. An arm went around her waist and he pulled her to him for a quick kiss. “You taste of strawberry.” “Lipgloss,”Aelin said and Rowan kissed her again. “Now you removed it all.” “I have no regrets and I plan on doing it again.” He smiled at her and then run his fingers through her hair. “I love this. Very, very, much.” “Shall we go in?” At the restaurant they had a great meal and Rowan told himself he should have asked her out before. But her situation was a mess before, their status confused. Now that things were finally moving in the correct direction he was planning on remedy on all those omissions and treat her out to a meal more often. Once they were done they walked to An Lanntair hand in hand and chatting away happily. At the community centre they stopped outside and Aelin noticed his indecision. “Ro, we don’t have to do it. We can go for a walk and then get ice cream. We really don’t.” He kissed her “I want to. It’s time I face it. I love this place and I am tired of avoiding because of her.” With his hand in hers they walked in and once inside they joined the queue for the tickets. Aelin had noticed a few women staring at Rowan and she had promptly glared at them marking the territory. His arm went tight around her waist and she was petty enough to turn to those women and smirk. “Two tickets please for Star Wars,”Aelin heard Rowan said and she noticed the woman at the counter. Lyria’s gaze was fixed on her. “Perhaps you want to keep an eye on the computer.” Aelin added and her arm went around Rowan’s waist in a possessive manner. And she celebrated a little victory when she noticed annoyance in the woman’s eyes. “I didn’t know you liked this kind of movie.” Lyria’s stare was now on Rowan “Do you want your usual seat at the back of the cinema? Although I doubt your friend here has the guts to have sex in a cinema.” “I have a thing called decency.” Aelin spat back now fully sick and tired by this woman. “Cash or card?” “Card,” growled Rowan. “Here are your tickets.” Then her gaze was on Aelin again “Bye stick.” Rowan turned furiously “Don’t you dare insult her again. Ever.” He grabbed Aelin’s hand and they walked to the screen. “I never had sex in a cinema.” He growled “I always get a sit at the back because I am tall and I don’t want to be in people’s way.” She stopped and turned him to her “I know. I guessed. I could not picture you like the kind of guy to have sex in a public place. Grabbing my leg and some light touching… yes. Full on sex no.” He kissed her and they went to their seats. They were finally comfy when Aelin realised she forgot the pop corn and her drink so she left him alone to go and get her provisions. She went to the kiosk and got her food and got back to Rowan. “Was dinner not enough?” Aelin shook her head “dinner was perfect but I can’t watch a movie in a cinema without pop corn.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. The movie started and Aelin’s head ended up leaning on his shoulder. Then she grabbed Rowan’s hand and placed on her thigh. He was still to start with then his thumb slowly started tracing circles on the inner part. She smiled and parted her legs gently. Their row was empty and the one in front was the same. Everyone was seated toward the front. He shifted more to her side and his hand now was completely under her dress. She concentrated on the movie while his hand was doing wonders on her. Again, he never touched skin, but still he managed to make her tremble. At the same time her hand sneaked at his side and between his legs. It was time to return the favour. “I’ll stop before the end of the movie.” She whispered in his ear when he tried to stop her hand. She palmed him quite hard and Rowan pretended to cough to hide the moan that surely was about to escape his mouth. As she promised she had stopped before the end of the movie to give him time to compose himself and he had been a gentleman. He had mostly caressed her thighs and gave a few very light brushes between her legs. He was not the kind of person to do such things in public. And she loved him even more. She had restrained herself as well and just brushed her hand up and down enough to tease him a bit. It had been fun. When they left the cinema he had a big grin on his face “Still up for that ice cream?” She nodded eagerly. They walked to the ice cream parlour and Aelin’s mouth watered at the lovely selection of flavours. “This is the best place where to get ice cream.” “Please tell me you eat ice cream.” she looked up at him. He smiled “Only fruity flavours.” “This one is on me.” She noticed the protest in his eyes but she stopped him “No, you paid for dinner and did not allow me to give you money for the movie. This is on me.” “Fine, Fireheart.” And he placed his hands on her shoulder. They got their ice cream and they started walking along the marina and then off to Lews castle grounds. They found a bench and sat down and ate their ice cream in silence, looking at the boats rolling in the water. “Did you enjoy our first date?” Rowan looked at her. “Very much,” she finished her ice cream and then Rowan laughed. “What?” But he did not reply and kissed her. “You had chocolate moustache.” And his smile was wicked. Aelin began laughing and he stared at her confused. “Nothing.” She replied at his face. “Come on,” with his fingers he began tickling her. “No, it’s embarrassing.” “More than having chocolate moustache like a five years old?” Aelin sighed “Fine, but I warned you.” She took a breath and fought the embarrassment “I… one of my fantasies involves me… hem… covering your body in chocolate and lick you clean.” Her face was buried in her hands and avoided looking at him. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away “Considering is you, I am not surprise you want to lick something sweet off me. Want to dip me in whip cream as well? I can also have a few marshmallow stuck in my mouth.” And they laughed hard. His arm went around her shoulder and he pulled her close to him and she nestled in the crook of his arm, her hand on his chest. “With Chaol there was chemistry but we never… had adventures. It was always only in bed. I couldn’t even convince him in the shower. I think that’s why I have stupid fantasies.” He squeezed her “Lyria was… well, she was the one that once suggested sex in a cinema. She was always suggesting places where it would not have been a good idea. That’s why she calls me boring.” “I don’t think I could either. I am all for trying all sorts of places in my house and all sort of positions but out of the privacy of my house I don’t think I could.” She explained “probably in a wood or a lake if I knew there was no one around for kilometres.” She looked at him “I guess we are both boring.” “Never.” His other arm went around her waist and Aelin draped one leg over his. “Did you wait with her as well?” Rowan sighed “No. I was younger and horny and she was my first girlfriend. I was eager to get some experience. Most of the guys at my age already had plenty. I didn’t. I was too busy between uni and swimming to add girl as well. Although I had a huge fan club at uni.” “That I can imagine.” She laughed. “But no, with her the first few times were a disaster. I knew the basics but I had no idea how to please a woman.” “I would say that you have honed that skill pretty nicely.” Aelin’s hand on his chest tightened. “I… had a few before Chaol. Too many probably. They were not relationships. More one night stands. I always blamed it to the stress due to med school. It was a good way to let out steam.” She confessed and hoped he would not change his mind about her “Lys and I would go to a bar and see who could score the hottest guy. And now with hindsight I regret it.” She felt Rowan kiss her head and took it as a good sign. Eventually Aelin stood and grabbed his hands “Let’s go, I need to stretch my legs.” They walked a bit longer and kept chatting and Rowan in the end walked back to what was going to be her home for only two more days. “Thank you for tonight,” she snuggled to his chest and he wrapped his arms around her “I had a great night.” He looked down to her “I had fun too.” He kissed her and she pulled back. “Oidhche mhath, mo chridhe” she said to him. He pulled in for a kiss “Good night to you as well, Fireheart.”

[mimik-u]

Flower Child (Chapter 14): Night

AO3 Link

6:10PM:

For the last fifteen years, Jay Zircon had been Diamond Electric’s top lawyer alongside her sister and fellow counsel, Gilda. Whatever lawsuits the company faced—and it had faced more than its fair share—the pair headed the legal team which incisively ensured victory for their illustrious CEO, Yellow Diamond. 

Where Gilda was aggressive and willing to snipe beneath the belt, a style that suited their similarly minded boss, Jay was more circumspect in her methodology, able to work through all the variables of a given case to create a slower but undeniably thorough position. When the two of them worked together, they made a dichotomous but somehow remarkably fluid team.

They didn’t lose very often.

They couldn’t afford to lose given the status, prestige, and formidable demand of their employer, who also didn’t lose.

Very often.

(Yellow Diamond had lost her only child four years ago, and it was clear to everyone, to all who knew her, that she hadn’t been the same since.)

The Zircons worked together often in the sense that they were continually forced into close proximity to each other by the nature of their jobs and painful holidays with their aging mother… but as far as working together in a more metaphorical sense went, aliens would invade Earth first before the siblings would ever find common ground for longer than a day.

And somehow, aliens were less of a far-stretch.

“I’m looking at all the facts now, and I truly think, if I-I’m allowed to be frank, Mrs. Diamond, that it is in our best interest to settle for this particular case.” Jay’s voice trembled as she carefully addressed the figure at the head of the conference table.

Arranged in a black three piece suit, Yellow Diamond was simply—there was no other word for it—striking, a slightly slouched but otherwise imperial statue cut from marble in her hardback chair. There was always an air about her, an impression, that she was an impenetrable fortress, her tall walls fortified with sharp weaponry and stone.

Her architecture was magnificent, but in its harshness and angularity, all lines and geometrical edges, it always emphasized an implicit message: She was a woman who it would be unwise to cross.

She stared between the sisters impassively, finger interlocked below her sharp chin as she listened, though Jay couldn’t help but notice that the CEO’s attention was divided between them and her phone, which sat dormant on the table, a silent specter.

“That’s your go-to solution, isn’t it?” Gilda scoffed, her arrogance impressively balanced in the haughty tilt of her nose. “Settle. What is this? A petty traffic ticket? We shouldn’t be settling anything! We could have them on the ropes if we just—”

“Gilda!” She interrupted incredulously, splaying her hands forcibly on the table. “Loosen your cravat so you can see the big picture for heaven’s sake! The factory‘s waste has been unlawfully leaking on a protected reservation for twelve years. We can contest that until we’re blue in the face, but no judge on this green earth is going to rule in our favor.”

Her sister opened that insufferable mouth of hers, likely to argue some asinine point that Jay would spend the next thirty minutes trying to meticulously deconstruct, but the familiar tango was harshly interrupted by the ringing of a phone that was neither of theirs.

“Quiet!” Yellow Diamond hissed, fluidly pulling the device up to her ear, and there was a viciousness in her ordinarily well-regimented face that neither lawyer felt particularly equipped to contest.

So they blanched into obedient silence on either side of the tense CEO.

Gilda uncomfortably picked at her portfolio.

“Blue? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

On the other end of the line, the woman who Jay knew to be Yellow Diamond’s wife, seemed to reply. 

Fifteen years was a long time to have known the Diamonds, and during that span—all those days, weeks, and months—Jay understood both very little about them and an incredible lot. 

Fifteen years ago, Pink Diamond had been a precocious ten-year old who had accompanied her mother to work from time to time. She used to play on the elevator, zipping from the lobby to the fortieth floor constantly, as though it was some exciting game called Annoy the Poor Elevator Attendant. Jay had been awkward and clumsy then, a young lawyer still trying to find her footing as the newest addition to one of the most elite legal teams in the entire city, and one of her most vivid memories from that time was the youngest Diamond accidentally bumping into her on said elevator, causing her to spill her scalding coffee all over her favorite portfolio.

The child had apologized profusely and even proffered her own jacket as a napkin because she was sweet like that—if a little impish. Freckles crossed the bridge of her nose like trailing dandelion dust; there was a gap in her mouth where she’d just lost a tooth.

For a couple of years there, Jay became familiarized with the heiress’s occasional presence in the building. She was the shock of pink hair bobbing impatiently in the elevator, and she was the flash of red converses heeling off down the hallway and around the corner. She was the lone bubbly voice in a sea of sober business droning. She was ten, and then she was thirteen, and then she was sixteen, obnoxiously jingling the keys to her new convertible around everywhere, as though just begging someone to ask about them.

She was the rare smile on Yellow Diamond’s unbending mouth—crooked there, stiff.

Almost reluctant.

But undoubtedly there.

And then, just like that, she was gone.

The hallways of Diamond Electric felt a little less… vibrant without the spontaneity of those red converses and the climbing octaves of that high, lilting laugh.

Mischievous.

To the last.

As for Blue Diamond, Jay could only claim to have seen her maybe a handful of times in the course of her employ at DE, though only one occasion was stark in the lawyer’s well-ordered recollections.

At the trial where Pink Diamond’s killers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Zircons’ euphoria at having argued their cased well was immediately tempered as the entire courtroom watched a tragedy unfold before their eyes. There was no applause as Yellow Diamond stood and held her wife in her arms.

There was only silence.

And baited breath.

And a mutual, unspoken, dirty relief that they were not the Diamonds and only passive voyeurs to what was assuredly unspeakable misery.

That night, Jay and Gilda were quite polite to each other as they taxied away from the courthouse.

A mutual, unspoken, dirty truce.

“No, no, I’m, of course I’m not busy,” Yellow said, standing up with an abruptness that startled the Zircons. She was already halfway to the door before at least one of them recovered their wits.

“But, Mrs. Diamond!” Gilda interjected. “The lawsuit. We—”

“We’re done for the night,” Yellow called over her shoulder, a brusqueness in her voice that left no room for argument. “We can reconvene in the morning.” “But—”

The door slammed on Gilda’s final protestation.

A framed picture of the Empire City skyline comically fell from its place on the wall at the force of the exit, landing facedown on the floor with a pathetic ker-clunk.

Jay glanced down at the neatly compiled packet below her—the efforts of at least two weeks worth of joint research.

They had barely made it past page four; there were fifty-two pages total.

“Her head’s just not in the game anymore,” Gilda sniffed, scooping up her own papers with a roughness that wasn’t entirely impersonal. “Hasn’t been in years now.”

“Gilda,” Jay chided sharply, her voice low, but even she knew that whispering was an exercise in futility.

Their boss was long gone.

“Oh, don’t give me that holier than thou nonsense, sister mine. You know it. Everyone in this office—nay!—this building knows it.” She shoved her portfolio back into her briefcase and closed it, harshly palming the brass clasps. “Our stalwart leader has been compromised.”

“She’s still grieving obviously. She’s taking care of her wife…”

Gilda only shook her head, standing up from her own chair. Her impeccable coif—tall and vaguely impossible looking—gleamed beneath the warm overheads. 

“And I’m sympathetic towards her,” she said. “I am. But you cannot run a multibillion dollar business on sentiment.”

It was an effective closing statement to which Jay Zircon had no reasonable rebuttal. 

Her sister swept out of the conference room with a last harrumph of contempt, while she alone remained, the last diner at that long, empty table. She shuffled a few of her papers absentmindedly and glanced out of the yellow-tinted windows as the sky slowly turned over to night, charcoaling.

Sentiment.

This company had no use for it.

6:44PM:

The conversation had lasted maybe ten minutes, two of which were lost to clumsy silence as Yellow Diamond navigated from the conference room to her office around the corner, closing the door behind her with a resolute click.

They spent three minutes more on useless pleasantries because that was just what a phone call between two spouses who didn’t really talk anymore entailed.

The barely breathed, Hello.

The awkwardly returned, Hi.

The shuffling of their reluctant breaths, all static and white noise over the line, before Yellow ripped the bandage off with all the indelicacy she centered her brutal facade around, exposing the wound raw.

Did you mean it? Are you sure you’re… okay ?

Because the bleak truth was that she wasn’t sure she believed Blue when she said that she was fine. Four years of perpetual mourning had taught her entirely too much about silent, grief stricken nights and very little about belief, hope, and all of those other empty platitudes. Blue Diamond could say that she was fine and leave a suicide note in the wastebasket three hours later. Blue Diamond could promise that she was okay, only to dissolve on a balcony full of sun because she was light five minutes ago… and now—and forevermore—she was not. She could build a cathedral out of reassurances and condemn it to the ground with just the thought, the remembrance, and the overwhelming absence of Pink Diamond, who haunted them both perpetually and always. 

They’d been in the ruins for four years now, and the bottom line was that Yellow Diamond didn’t trust mere words.

And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t trust Bl—

Pleasantries and silence—that was what a phone call between two spouses who didn’t really talk anymore entailed.

There was breathing, and there was the swelling darkness just outside the gold colored windows of Diamond Electric.

In and out and in and out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

And there was a long pause as Blue Diamond collected her thoughts in that quietly precise way of hers; she was always so meticulous in how she used her words, as though they were instruments to be handled with delicate care.

Yes? She replied gently, her voice lilting upwards as though she was asking a question. And no… perhaps both at the same time if those emotions can coexist without contradiction… Yellow, I—

What? Because Yellow had abruptly cut in, unable to stand the tension.

So impatient to the last.

Unfailingly.

The coldness of the office pressed upon her like a vice, its hard edges sinking in her skin. She dug her fingers into the smooth surface of her desk as though to ground herself, but there was nothing to hold on to but the grains. It was always like this when she talked to Blue; the expansive scope of her world narrowed down to her and her alone. Gravity meant nothing; time meant nothing; everything in the world meant nothing.

Except.

And always.

Blue.

I’m sorry, she simply said. 

It was only two words; they landed in the pit of Yellow’s stomach like a blow.

I’ve hurt you—immeasurably—in all these collected years, and I’m sorry for that, Yellow, she continued, her voice soft, for all the immeasurable, collected hurts. I am.

Two weeks ago, Blue Diamond had been lying catatonic in her bed, decomposing.

And now, she was apologizing for four years worth of hurt.

It was inconceivable.

Impossible.

It felt wrong.

Surreal.

Why? Yellow’s voice was strangled in her throat, dry and parched. Why now?

Why not a year ago when Yellow knelt by her bedside and pleaded with her—begged her—to stay goddammit? Why not all those hundreds upon hundred of nights that she had slept in the study on a damn leather couch, keeping one eye on the half-opened door in her study, even in the throes of sleep? Why today, of all days, when the consummate businesswoman was in the middle of yet another crucial meeting she would easily abandon all for the sake of one person?

Why?

The question scratched her chest; it punctured her beating lungs.

Why now?

And why… why was Yellow never enough?

(She had wanted to be enough.)

I visited a boy who is fighting for his life today, came the quiet reply. And it reminded me, quickly, of how fragile this all really is.

She had paused then.

The unspoken name nestled between them; the memory of their daughter wreathed her neck.

Pink used to love coming up to this very office just because she liked spinning around in her mother’s chair. Her shoes would briefly flash against the floor just so she could gain momentum, and then she would spin, spin, spin, her head tilted back in the beginnings of a long laugh.

Yellow glanced at it then, the worn leather shining dully in the light glancing in from the windows. 

It was completely and utterly empty.

I have to go, Blue. Sorry. I stepped out of a meeting.

She had dismissed the meeting.

Oh, I—

We can talk when I get home tonight.

And then she had clicked the phone off unceremoniously and shoved it across the desk as though it offended.

Ten minutes.

For the last twenty, Yellow Diamond had been sitting in the darkness of her office in that damn leather chair, nursing a glass of scotch between her trembling hands. She downed one smooth shot and then another; she drank and she drank until the expensive decanter was all gone, and the after notes of vanilla and barley and peat smoke burned her aching mouth. She drank and she drank, rummaging through her liqueur cabinet with a kind of desperation that made her feel less like a human and more like a rabid dog, hunting for just a drop of water.

Anything to take off the edge.

She drank until all the memories went away, until four years worth of them were walled off by the dulling buzz of Lagavulin.

And when a single tear crept down the hardened architecture of her face, collecting pitifully on the point of her sharp shin, she was so damn drunk, that she didn’t even know what she was crying about anymore.

Why?

Why now?

And why was she not enough?

She had wanted to be enough.

The beginnings of stars rose from the fire of the sky, and Yellow Diamond watched them as they crashed and burned.

7:01PM:

See, the trouble started when the vending machine near their hotel room stopped working. 

Nose wrinkling, stomach rumbling for the want of a snack that would tide her over until Greg got back with pizza, Amethyst tried shaking it, kicking it, and even pleading with the stupid thing all for the sake of a Twinkie she knew probably wouldn’t even taste that good.

But to no avail.

The Twinkie gods hated her apparently.

And so, with a sigh that sounded a hell of a lot more like a groan, she punched the refund button and got her dollar twenty five back in quarters before deciding to try the vending machine in the hospital lobby, moving along the smooth, carpeted floor with new purpose. The rubber sole of her left boot flapped noisily as she walked, having come loose a few weeks ago; she’d been meaning to get it repaired, but between work and Steven, time had been less of a quantity that she possessed, so much as it was something that she chased after.

Every second was a gift, and every minute was a fucking lottery.

There was an elevator ride down and accompanying elevator music, jingling and jangling rhythmically to the beat of her antsy nerves. And there was a text from Vidalia asking how Steven was doing, which she didn’t know how to answer, so she just didn’t reply. (V would get it better than most. Her hubs was a quiet man, so she knew the language of silence entirely too well, whereas Amethyst was still getting the hang of it. Silence was a stalker she had spent half of her life trying to avoid.)

And finally, there was the elevator prying itself open into an atrium that was darkening with the gathering night. Only a few visitors remained, scattered in various hardback chairs and wearing the same tired, careworn faces.

Amethyst didn’t doubt that she looked the same to them.

Because these were faces, sure enough, of loving someone and being afraid to lose them. There was a depletion to the act, a necessary consumption, that united them together beneath the flat roof of the Empire City Regional Medical Center.

They were exhausted—all of them.

So damn weary.

Amethyst had already slumped halfway to the vending machine when she saw her.

One of those same tired, careworn faces.

But a very particular tired, careworn face at the same time.

Blue Diamond, looking incredibly uncomfortable in the chair upon which she sat, her metal cane gleaming by her side.

Amethyst flicked her phone upwards so that the home screen briefly flashed on—it was 7:07. Hella late, and yet, the old lady was still here, looking for all the world like someone had killed her cat or something equally as egregious. Her plump lips were all twisted in a quiet, gnawing sort of frown as she played a little with her long hands on her lap.

Her eyes stared at the ground, but Amethyst could tell—the woman wasn’t really seeing it.

And there was something so singularly sad about this image.

Vulnerable.

That made Amethyst push her Twinkie quest to the back of her mind. 

Shoving her curled fists into the pockets of her joggers, Amethyst took one step and then another across the tiled floor until she was standing right in front of the puzzle of Blue Diamond, the multibillionaire who had worn a bathrobe to a cemetery.

And she knew it was insensitive of her to think that way. Regardless of the woman’s faults, numerous though Amethyst assumed they were, she hadn’t asked for her griefs to be handed to her on a silver platter. 

She hadn’t asked to be undone.

To be fair, though, no one ever did.

That was just the dice of life, rolled across a slanting table.

Snake eyes.

Sorry.

Better luck next time.

“Anyone sittin’ here?” She asked gruffly, jerking her thumb towards the empty chair on Blue Diamond’s left.

Startled from her solemn reverie, Blue looked up then, mouth parting slightly in a soft ‘o’ of surprise as recognition pinched her silvery brow. She shifted in her seat, hunched shoulders straightening with an understated kind of elegance that Amethyst had come to closely associate with Pearl. 

This wasn’t an especially welcome analogy, though. After all, while she’d gotten used to Pearl’s various quirks by now, for a long time there—years even—she’d always felt… condescended by her in a way.

Patronized.

Small.

That feeling took a long ass while to go away with a person whom she considered to be one of her closest friends; how much longer would the sensation last with a total effing stranger, especially the very one she was, like, supposed to hate just on mere principle?

Amethyst ran a habitual hand through her hair in the awkwardness of it all and shifted her weight from one shoe to the other, rocking back and forth. The sole of the left one went flap, flap, flap.

“You’re… one of Steven’s guardians, yes?”

“Yup, one of many.” And then, because she knew that probably didn’t clarify matters, brusquely added, “Amethyst. I was the one who brought him to your suite the other day. Can I sit?”

She once again gestured pointedly to the chair, raising a lavender brow in such a way that more or less communicated, Jeez, woman, get it together.

“Oh, yes! My apologies,” came the appropriately abashed reply. “Please. Be my guest.”

And so, with a little more force than was necessary, Amethyst threw herself into the empty seat, ass already chafing against its hard bottom, the tips of her boots just barely scraping the clinically white floor. 

She could feel Blue Diamond’s tallness next to her more than she dared to look at it for herself; her presence was overwhelming as it was without having to look at her dead on—the shadows turning circles beneath her huge eyes, the parentheses around her quivering mouth, and that air of misery that the twenty-nine year old knew well enough without needing to observe it in a perfect stranger. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she could see that the woman had gone back to staring at her wrinkled hands, templing them delicately on the blue fabric of her lap.

“My valet is coming to pick me up,” she offered without prompting, “but I believe traffic is delaying her.”

“S’always cray cray around this time of night,” Amethyst returned knowledgeably. She couldn’t claim to like Empire City, but after a few months of driving up here so often, she supposed she at least couldn’t refute that she knew it. “Lotsa idiots out n about.”

“Reckless, are they not?”

“The absolute wooooorst.”

And both of their mouths briefly quirked at exactly the same time before silence fell between them again, clumsy and awkward, like an entity still growing into its feet.

They were talking about traffic.

Neither of them really wanted to talk about traffic.

Amethyst broke the stillness first, studiously continuing to not look at her companion. Instead, she drew her leg upwards into her chair, so she could pick at her boot some more.

Flap, flap, flap.

“So you saw him, huh?”

It wasn’t necessary to evoke his name; after all, she was pretty sure that the image of him laying in that hospital bed, all swarming with tubes, haunted the both of them even now, invading the sanctity of their minds and eyes.

Flap, flap, flap.

She was going to tear her shoe to shreds if she kept it up.

(She kept it up.)

“I saw him, yes,” Blue agreed quietly, her fingers stilling in their cathedral position. One thumb was balanced carefully atop of the other, bricks without mortar, construction without foundation. “I... wasn't ready… he was so small... and I almost looked away... I'm ashamed to even admit it."

The confession was broken into tiny fragments, each splinter slow and painful in the rolling of her accent.

Amethyst couldn’t help herself then—restraint had never been the name by which she was known. 

She was blunt.

She parried back, “You still could, y’know. You don’t have to be here for this.”

You don’t have to put yourself through this if you can help it.

(We can’t help it.)

“Not your circus, not your monkeys, and all that jazz.”

And maybe that was the crux of it, the beating heart behind the entanglement of her reluctance when it came to the wealthy woman sitting next to her. The Crystal Gem couldn’t understand why someone, anyone, would willingly partake in this exhibition when they had every blessed out in the world. Blue Diamond didn’t have to care for Steven. She didn’t have to be here. She could go back to the fiftieth floor of her penthouse suite and wall herself away from one care of this world more. Just from her looks alone, Amethyst could tell that she couldn’t afford another loss, and yet, she could absolutely afford to get away from the possibility of another loss if she just, well, left.

If she hurried.

Before the boy who was kind enough to extend flowers to random ladies in the cemetery could worm his way into a heart that had already had its reckoning.

But—and Amethyst was just now realizing this with the force of a collision—maybe that was the crux of it, too.

That simple goodness of a proffered hand had been enough.

It had changed a life.

Maybe, quite possibly, it had saved one.

“I… just got off the phone with my wife,” Blue Diamond whispered, “and she asked a singular question to which I couldn’t provide the answer. Why? Such a simple beast, and yet a devastatingly complex one.”

Why Rose all those many years ago?

Why Steven now? Why couldn’t they find him a damn kidney?

Why couldn’t life give them one damn break?

Why?

The familiarity of the question rose like a lump in Amethyst’s throat.

“I’ve looked away from her—from everything, really—for so many years, even before my daughter…” The woman trailed away, her voice hitching. It took her a few seconds to regroup. She placed a steadying hand on her chest. “… and now, for reasons I cannot necessarily explain myself… I don’t want to anymore. Maybe, Yellow, it is because a child in a cemetery told me that it was quite possible to still feel the pain of my loss and still live? Maybe, Yellow, it is because I sat upon a balcony with him and envied the hunger he had for life, and wondered, for the first time in years, if it was still possible to obtain a modicum of it for myself? Maybe, Yellow, I saw him in a hospital bed today—sick—and it reminded me of a truth that I’d long forgotten.”

Amethyst chanced a peek at Blue Diamond then, stole it ashamedly, as though she was a child reaching a hand into the cookie jar.

The dim incandescence of the overheads crowned her silvery head in soft, white light as she glanced upwards, her half-moon gaze angled to a spot that the Crystal Gem couldn’t quite see.

She almost looked beautiful—a portrait in melancholy, all feathery brushstrokes.

Steven would have thought so anyway.

Hell, he was the type of person who would have even said it.

“And what that’d be?” She asked.

What was the answer to that devastatingly simple, that horribly complex question, Why?

If there was even an answer at all.

What truth had a woman as seemingly erudite as Blue Diamond so guiltily forgotten?

Blue looked down then, a strand of wavy hair falling between her eyes. It curled a little at the end.

“Why?” She murmured, her strained voice barely above a whisper. Amethyst had to lean in just to catch what she said next. “Because I love you, Yellow—so much. That is why.”

The rawness of the proclamation, the sincerity of it, seared the both of them, landing cleanly between them like the precise swing of an axe. It was always such a vulnerable gamble to admit to love, and perhaps it was even revolutionary to proffer it as the solution to why.

Why am I trying?

Why am I still here?

Why can’t I look away, Steven?

Because I love you—so much. That is it.

That is all.

And that is why.

It was a simple phrase, and it was a profound one. It was scarcely said; in Blue Diamond’s case, it was forgotten.

“You should tell that to her,” Amethyst suddenly said, and just for a moment there, it didn’t matter that the person in question was the dread Yellow Diamond, her mortal enemy or whatever.

Just for a moment, Yellow Diamond was merely a person who was loved by another.

“Exactly like that,” she pressed before glancing away, her bangs falling across her eyes. She played with her busted shoe again as heat clambered up her face—flap, flap, flap. It was surreal to be sitting here, giving advice to a woman so different from her and so alien. It was only chance that they were both sitting here—here, of all places—beneath the roof of this hospital.

Tired and careworn.

Alike but not especially.

Perfect strangers.

Connected simply by a flower and a boy.

Now it was Blue Diamond’s turn to stare; her tall, sickle-shaped eyes were drawn to the noise of flap, flap, flap, which made Amethyst self-conscious about the fact that the woman was likely wearing a designer dress.

Damn these rich people.

“I fear it may be too late. I’ve done my damage.”

“Maybe,” Amethyst shrugged. It was all she could do. “But ya won’t know until you’ve tried.”

They were both silent again. Outside the glass windows, the world had taken on the dull purple of night, pulling it over its shoulders like a cozy, star-spangled nightgown.

“Thank you… Amethyst.” 

Blue Diamond offered her a parenthetical smile of an olive branch of a truce; it was a reluctant little gesture, still stiff and foreign on the mouth of someone who looked like she hadn’t smiled in years.

“Nah, don’t mention it, dude," she shrugged.

It was not forgiveness, nor was it absolution.

But it was a tiny concession.

It was a tired half-smile pulling at her lips.

“I needed the reminder, too.”

7:39PM:

Traffic in Empire City was always a risky gamble of a business, especially at night when the only rule of the six lane seemed to be, “Everything goes, and good luck with the going, buddy, old pal, my friend.”

Having spent years driving up here with Rose for various doctor appointments and then relearning the routine all over again with Steven these past few months, Greg liked to fancy that he could navigate the beast as well as any boardie from a small beach town could ever claim to. But even still, all the ample driving experience in the world was no match for what a car wreck could do to the flow of vehicles streaming down the neon lit highway. 

Somewhere a little up above his van, there was a cacophony of sirens—red and blue and shrill and insistent. In the passenger seat, the pizzas he’d picked up nearly an hour ago were cooling, the rich, greasy smell of them sidling up to his shoulder temptingly. He thought about taking a bite because it was late and he was hungry, but ultimately decided against it.

Amethyst would never let him hear the end of it.

So he thought about the accident up ahead and hoped that no one had been seriously injured. (He had his doubts, though. There were so many sirens, wailing.) His van slowly crept forward as the cars ahead were painstakingly navigated around the ruins. People honked up and down the endless line because patience wasn’t Empire City’s strong suit; the big city, the golden apple, didn’t wait for anyone, least of all everyone, and sometimes, it felt like everyone in the world lived here, a population made of skyscrapers and cars and brilliant lights.

But thinking about the wreck didn’t entertain him for very long—his apologies to those affected—so he thought about the soulful tunes crooning through his staticky radio. Some R&B band from the eighties whose name just barely escaped him. They sung about love and loss and red Corvettes that shined beneath the hot, sticky sun. Greg’s thumbs slapped the wheel rhythmically to the melody, picking out the notes with an easiness that might have made old Marty proud on a good day.

But then the music suddenly shuddered off, the jockey apologizing for the inconvenience. 

They’d try to get the station back up shortly.

The silence was unbearable.

So he popped in the closest CD, thinking it was his relaxing music compilation.

But nope.

It was death metal, the sudden explosion of the heavy bass and snare drums nearly sending his car veering into the next lane over as his hands jerked on the wheel.

“Wrong one!” He panted, chest heaving with feral panic. “Stop! Eject!”

And with a slap harder than intended, he punched the panel of buttons at random, the noise screeching to a stop, the CD comically popping out like toast from a toaster.

Ding.

And silence filled all the empty spaces once again.

In the silence, Greg had no choice but to think of Steven.

He took great gulps of air, his shoulders still shaking from the reverberations of the abruptly snuffed music, and could find no more distractions.

This was the end of the road on an endless road of snailing cars.

His hands clenched painfully around the wheel, the images revving across his mind’s eye—unbidden, quick, ugly, and unwanted.

His son.

His only son.

Laying in that hospital bed.

Dying.

Was this all life had to offer? He wondered to himself, and in the place of noise, there was emotion; there was sadness and horror and anger roaring up the column of his throat.

Rising.

Leaking.

Dripping.

Down his ruddy cheeks and into his beard.

Down his throat.

Draining.

Loving people who were gonna always leave him in the end? Finding home only for it to immediately forsake him? Maybe old Andy had had it right, always up there in that great, blue oasis of sky—never touching the ground long enough for people to find him and love him and hurt him.

Maybe there was something to the idea of giving up.

But no. “Stop that,” Greg scolded himself harshly. “Stop.”

He’d spent his entire teen years running away from his folks and all their shiny expectations, so he was done running away. He had told himself that the moment he kicked Marty outta his van and turned it back around to Beach City and its sprawling sands—to the little oceanside town and the big woman with pink hair.

Right then and there, he’d been ready to accept the consequences of his actions.

The starchild had grown into a man.

And that meant staying the course, no looking back or skywards, no regrets or what-could-have-beens.

For Steven Universe, he would stay until the end… no matter what that end happened to be.

That was responsibility.

And that, above all, was love.

Love was solidity, and it was thereness, and it was warmth.

It was patience, and it was risk that never quite guaranteed reward.

Love was staying.

Even when things got tough, and maybe especially when they did.

(Stay, he'd pleaded with Rose when Dr. Howard turned the ventilator off. He had held her hand. He didn't want her to be alone.)

(Please, he begged as the lines that measured the beating of her heart began to falter and fade away.)

His bushy brow furrowed in quiet sympathy as he finally maneuvered around the scene of the accident, going slowly as a traffic officer signaled him on with a hand and a whistle. He saw the carnage out of the corner of his eye, all twisted metal and climbing smoke. What looked like a Nissan had plowed right into the back of a fancy lookin’ black town car, not unlike the one which had brought Blue Diamond to the hospital earlier…

His heart lurched.

But then he thought about it.

He considered.

Nah.

Couldn’t be her.

From what he understood, her high rise was somewhere past the hospital.

8:54PM:

“Pearl, go home before I tell Gunga on you,” Kiki teased, but all the same, there was concern in her voice, a hint of seriousness that didn’t quite mark her playful threat as simply playful. It flashed in the depths of her warm, brown eyes. And it brushed against Pearl’s shoulder with a gentleness she had come to expect from the younger Pizza sister.

The two of them were both working behind the bar of Fish Stew Cuisine tonight, the restaurant Kiki’s father and grandmother owned. It used to be just a casual place for locals—then called Fish Stew Pizza—but with time, effort, and a considerable amount of increased tourism when vacationers realized that there was a lovely beach here to visit and trash, it had expanded into one of Beach City’s finest restaurants.

It was a slow night, though, rain coming down in heavy sheets outside the tall, glass windows.

At this late hour, only a few diners remained, casually enjoying their dinners to the rhythmic tattoo of the storm—mostly regulars, people who understood that through rain, hail, sleet, or snow, Fish Stew would always be here for patient guests, arms open wide and plates steaming with good food. The amber light strewn from the dusky lamps made the place feel warm, as though it was full of quiet fire, flickering in so many overhanging hearths.

Pearl swiped persistently at a stain on the glass she was cleaning.

She’d been working on it for five minutes now in the absence of a new customer to tend to.

“I can’t just leave,” she returned exasperatedly, still scrubbing away at the mark. She was starting to think that it was yet another lost cause.

(She seemed to have a penchant for those lately.)

“I promised to work until closing.”

And I have to.

There are bills to pay and possible surgeries to fund.

But she didn’t say this part aloud; she didn’t want to put that weight on a seventeen-year old who meant well.

“Girl, closing isn’t ’til eleven, and you’ve been here since two,” Jenny Pizza laughed, glancing up from her phone long enough to do so. She was Kiki’s older sister and a bit of a rebel to the boot. Though she was technically on the clock, too, she had been sitting on the other side of the bar for the past half hour now, sending something she called “snaps” to her friends. These “snaps” often involved her making funny faces at her camera, ninety percent of these compelling her to poke her lips out. “Go home, and get some shut eye. Seriously.”

“Seriously,” Kiki parroted, snatching the glass from out of Pearl’s hands when she wasn’t looking.

With a certain primness, she chunked it into the nearest recycling bin as the bell on the door pealed, signaling an incoming customer.

“Kiki!”

“The new ones are coming in next week anyway,” the girl only replied with a shrug of mischievous shoulder. “Now, Pearl, go the eff home. We got this. Right, Jenny?”

“Mhm.” Jenny made a vague noise of agreement without looking up again. “Yeah, you’ve got this, Kiki. Get it.”

“Well,” Kiki only rolled her eyes, “I’ve got this anyway.”

Two massive arms, both scarred and tattooed, slammed down on the countertop then, and Pearl’s mouth immediately twitched into a smile to see that it was none other than Bismuth, a local construction worker for the city and a fellow Crystal Gem. Her spectacularly colorful dreads were thrown upwards into a haphazard ponytail, and her mouth was wide with one of those trademark Bismuth smiles, all lopsided, shining with white teeth.

“Pearl,” she scolded in that wry way of hers, “are you givin’ these pretty ladies trouble again?”

“Yesssssss,” Kiki replied, already starting on the woman’s usual order. (Jerk chicken and eggs.) “Homegirl won’t go home even though she’s been here all day. Just look at her.” The teenager gestured vaguely at Pearl’s body. “She looks dead on her feet.”

“You’re being incredibly rude tonight, you know,” Pearl huffed, unable to resist the urge to glance down. There was an unidentifiable stain on the collar of her shirt. 

She hated unidentifiable stains on the collars of her shirts.

“It’s for your own good,” she replied sagely, turning away as her saucepan began to sizzle on the stove. With Jenny also occupied, Pearl was left to the mercy of Bismuth, who’d always had a way of seeing through her, down to her deepest core. 

Nothing escaped those dark eyes of hers, not a tool, not a loose screw, not the quiet, aching sadnesses of a friend. With a self-assuredness that Pearl had always lacked and a gentleness that she had always loved, her old companion reached across the bar and placed a calloused palm atop of the pale ridges of Pearl’s knuckles, covering them completely.

“C’mere, sugar,” she said softly, “and tell me all about it.”

“It’s late,” Pearl whispered automatically, glancing away. She always had some excuse or another. “And you’ve been working. You must be tired.”

“Hell,” Bismuth snorted as Kiki pushed a soda towards her, “if I’m tired, then you must be exhausted. The kid’s right. You look it.”

“The kid’s always right,” Kiki chimed in knowingly before moving away again.

And so, as the breath of rain continued to hiss on the roof, Pearl drew up a stool and sat across the bar from Bismuth, her hand warm beneath the other’s surprisingly gentle touch.

And they talked.

Softly.

Pearl told her everything. 

She told her about the cemetery and Steven and the tiny hibiscus flower that passed from his hand to that of Blue Diamond’s, watching as Bismuth’s expressive face twisted in the same sort of horror and disgust that she herself had been grappling with ever since the bathrobed woman had somehow made her way into the entanglement of their lives. And Pearl told her about the last trip to Empire City, how Steven had almost needed a blood transfusion, and how that almost had become their reality when he’d collapsed in the beach house, hitting those wooden slats with a thunk that still echoed in the hollows of her head. 

“I yelled at Amethyst,” she whispered, horrified, trying to withdraw her hand from beneath Bismuth’s.

Bismuth’s grip only tightened.

“I said some horrible things.”

“We all say horrible things,” the woman only replied, looking down, ever so subtly glancing away. Fifteen years ago, she and Rose had had a falling out over how to protest Diamond Electric. They hadn’t made up before she died. “The fixin’ part is what matters.”

And so Pearl, swallowing hard in acceptance of this lived-through truth, went on and on until her voice was scratchy from the strain of it. She told Bismuth about how small Steven was in the hospital bed and how sickly. She told her, fingernails digging into the grains of the bar, about how Priyanka Maheswaran, who always had a solution, didn’t really have an answer. She told her about the IVs and the wires and the blood transfusions and the possibility of a feeding tube.

And she told her, without saying a word, that she was scared.

Admissions did not come easily to the woman, but they were written across the physiognomy of her entire body anyway.

The desperation leaked from her pale eyes.

And all the sleepless nights lined her pointed face.

And there was a stiffness in the way she held herself, so harshly, with studied discipline.

But by definition, discipline was necessarily repression, and repress, repress, repress was the motto and model by which Pearl lived her life. It was the lone vanguard which kept her from shattering to pieces on the floor—just another mess for Kiki to sweep up with the rest of the clutter.

It was her last defense against total dissolution.

When she had nothing, at least she could put a smile on her face and pretend otherwise.

“So it’s been a long week,” she smiled wearily at the end of this.

She smiled because the alternative was to fall apart.

"To say the least.”

But, again, that was the thing about Bismuth.

Nothing escaped those dark eyes of hers, not a tool, not a loose screw, not the quiet, aching sadnesses of a friend. 

With that familiar self-assuredness, her old companion rose from her seat and walked around to the other side of the bar.

“Bismuth, wait, I—”

And then, without hesitating, she crushed Pearl into her strong arms.

The engineer smelled faintly of oil and flavored tobacco.

Peppermint.

Crisp and sharp.

“To say the least,” she only agreed as Pearl’s lower lip began to tremble.

Her arms were limp, useless, by her sides, hanging over the edges of the stool.

“I’m fine,” she tried. The word fell flat on her tongue. “Really.”

“I don't doubt that you are. I never would. But you don’t have to be, hon,” Bismuth replied softly, her breath kindling warm against her ear. “You work so hard… and you care so much… that it ain’t a crime to need some tender love n care, too. It ain't weakness to be kind to yourself, Pearl."

Pearl was frozen, statuesque, even as the world somehow continued to spin around her. Diners chatted, rain fell, and the eggs sizzled in their frying pan. Everything and everyone else had their place in this world.

She wasn’t sure where that left her and all the griefs she so tightly wrapped herself around—scars and still-bleeding wounds.

“How can I break,” she asked, her voice tight, “knowing he’s lying in that hospital bed? What right do I have to fall to pieces when what he’s fighting is a hundred times worse?”

Somehow, Bismuth had an answer to this, too; she seemed to always have an answer.

She rubbed gentle circles into Pearl’s back.

She didn't let go.

“Pain isn’t a competition, Pearl,” she admonished. “When you’re hurting, you’re hurting.”

There was a matter-of-factness to this statement, a sense of finality, and perhaps that was what did it in the end; the raw truth of it confronted her, and it scalded her, and it forced her to confess.

Pearl shattered, and Bismuth was there to scoop up all the pretty, broken pieces.

“It hurts all over,” she admitted as the tears wrenched themselves loose from her eyes.

“I know, sugar."

Outside the restaurant, the rain continued to beat its relentless dirge into the Boardwalk, the sky falling in shards and unholy music, all needle sharp notes.

If the crescendo screamed, it absolutely roared.

10:03PM:

Outside the window of Room 11037, night wrapped its velvety arms around a sky shivering with stars, and Garnet, attentive of every wire and tube, wrapped her warm arms around Steven as they laid in his hospital bed together, watching a late night re-run of Crying Breakfast Friends. This was the episode where Pear betrayed the stoic Spoon’s trust, and all the assorted breakfast people cried about it for a good seven minutes of the show’s eleven minute runtime.

For some odd reason, the animation on Spoon’s tears was exceptionally well done, the liquid fluidly running down the curvature of their face as they wailed incoherently.

“Wahhhhhhhhhh.”

(Not for the first time, Garnet absently wondered who had been paid to write this.)

Beneath her, Steven sniffed noisily, bringing up the less-encumbered of his hands to swipe tentatively at his nose; it was an awkward movement with the oxygen cannulas in the way.

“You’ve seen this one before,” Garnet teased softly, her voice landing somewhere in his dark hair. “Twice that I know of. It can’t be that sad anymore.”

She waited for a laugh and a witty retort—for a remarkably insightful analysis into why it was okay to cry over crying breakfast utensils—but one wasn’t forthcoming, even though the child’s shoulders were conspicuously shaking.

She looked down at him then, catching a sliver of his face in the light wash of the television; tears streamed silently from his eyes and down the sunken hollows of his face, down into the collar of his gown, down past the spiral of wires.

“Steven.” Garnet propped herself up with an abruptness that was almost violent, though when she cupped his face between her long fingers, her touch was exceedingly gentle. “What’s wrong?”

But Steven shook his head, burying it into the front of her sweatshirt as a low whine escaped past his anemic lips.

His chubby fingers twisted into the fabric next to her stomach.

“Steven!” Panic slipped up the rungs of her voice. 

She looked around wildly her for the call button on the railing, but they were surrounded by so many tubes and blankets.

And it was dark.

And Steven was crying.

“Garnet,” he finally moaned, “my back hurts.”

It was a common symptom with his disease. Because the kidneys were located right below the ribcage, his upper back often spasmed when they were being particularly bothersome.

At home, they would give him medicine and press a heating pad to his spine, hoping against both hell and hope that the warmth would sooth the worst of the pain.

Here in the hospital, they could give him morphine.

They could even sedate him.

Make the pain go away for a few hours if that was mercy.

(Once, after a particularly bad attack that’d almost brought them to the hospital, Steven had described the pain like being stung by a jellyfish over and over again, as though its tentacles were wrapped around his torso, wringing him out all over.)

“I have to get a nurse,” she said automatically, her throat dry. He clung to her so tightly that she didn’t dare move an inch. On the TV, Spoon was still crying, their keening overwrought next to Steven, who cried so quietly these days that it was almost like he hated for anyone to hear.

“They’ll drug me?” He asked astutely, the sound muffled in her shirt.

“Yes.”

“It’d make me sleep.”

“Maybe... yes.” Garnet couldn’t see where he was going with this until his fingers tightened just a fraction more where they gripped her. 

Her lips parted.

And there was silence.

And there was crying.

And there was understanding most of all. It scorched Garnet and simply ruined her.

“You don’t want to go to sleep.” 

It was a statement, hoarsely dragged from her mouth.

She received a minimal head shake as her answer.

“You’re scared.”

And somehow, she knew the veracity of her words before he nodded his assent into her chest.

Steven was scared to fall asleep—afraid, maybe even terrified, that he wouldn’t wake up. The horror of it, the awfulness and the unfairness, and the cruelty of it rose up in Garnet’s chest like a tsunami, a fire, a hurricane, a storm.

Yet, she remained immobile.

She didn’t move.

What could she even say to that?

What was she supposed to say?

Words were insufficient.

(She couldn’t even reassure herself.)

The small TV screen suddenly faded to black as Crying Breakfast Friends ended, and the credits rolled, the show’s elegiac theme song playing softly in the background, all piano notes and somber violin strings.

It was a little easier, at least, when she couldn’t see his face.

“I’m scared, too,” she admitted.

It was only three words, but they exacted her, and they excavated her; heat clambered up her cheeks, settling somewhere behind her burning eyes.

Steven’s shoulders briefly stilled, though all the machines keeping him alive continued to whir on.

“Y-you are?”

“All the time.” Scared to touch him, scared to even look at him. Scared that one day, she would wake up and he would be gone, a shell finally reclaimed by its shore. Scared to leave this hospital room lest she miss a single moment, and scared to stay if that meant watching him go. Scared that they wouldn’t find him a kidney in time, and scared that if they did, they couldn’t afford it.

Garnet was a wreck, barely holding together.

She was Garnet.

She had to hold together anyway.

“And sometimes, Steven,” she whispered, hugging him to her chest as much as the tubing would allow, “that is what love is—being scared and moving forward anyway.”

Into the darkness, hand in hand.

Without the promise of safe return.

Her mothers had done it.

Rose Quartz had done it.

And the footprints they had left behind were big to fill, but Garnet didn’t have to fill them; she just had to follow their lead.

Steven was quiet for a couple more heartbeats still before he slowly withdrew his head from her chest to look up at her; he didn’t quite let go of her shirt; he took ragged, rasping breaths, his shoulders heaving to the rhythmic whirring of his heart monitor.

“You can call the nurse now.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

It was all she could manage.

“And, Garnet?”

“Yes, Steven?”

“I love you.”

10:45PM:

Cooling down after a long day of work was always struggle for Priyanka, whose mind was such that it was perpetually working ahead to the next day of work—all the patients she had to do rounds upon, all the charts she had to fill out, and all the procedures she had to meticulously prep for, spending as much time in the hospital’s library as she did the operating room. 

If the table of her head wasn’t perpetually well-set, her thoughts surgically arranged on a porcelain plate, scalpels placed in descending order by size on the adjacent napkin, then the doctor felt unmoored from the trait which made her feel fundamentally herself.

Her precision—unerring, diligent, and unpretentious.

She checked and double-checked and was a better nephrologist for it. By the nature of the temperamental organ she was dealing with, her patient mortality rate was high, but no one, by the nature of her methodology, could say that it was because of human error.

She checked and double-checked, trying to quantify every conceivable possibility before they could make themselves known in the real world, and when she neglected to deconstruct a hypothetical, which was a rarity in and of itself, she would chastise herself for it both before and better than anyone else ever could.

Priyanka Maheswaran was a study in precision, never shirking away from the reward that often laid at the end of hard labor.

But what no one had ever told her was that a side effect of being precise was being so damn tired.

All the time.

She struggled to cool down, and she was exhausted. She desperately wanted to sleep, but her mind whirred and whirled and calculated and thought. The dichotomous interplay of these qualities led to her sipping hot tea in bed with a pinched expression on her face as her husband stretched out next to her, reading his tattered copy of Crime and Punishment and sometimes laughing aloud when a line struck him as funny.

“Ha,” he snorted after awhile of this before replacing his bookmark (an old grocery store receipt) in his new spot and closing the heavy tome. “I love Dostoevsky.”

Lips pressed to the rim of her nearly empty mug, Priyanka arched a sharp brow at him, smiling wryly.

Her husband was a dork.

“Should I be jealous, dear?”

“Naturally,” Doug returned, reaching over to place the book on his nightstand before turning back towards her. “Dostoevsky has it all. A great grasp on existentialism and a beard for days. He could tone it down on the heavy moralism, though.”

“That’s what you said about Tolstoy,” she reminded him with a tilt of her head. “Good beard, too much sermonizing.”

“It’s a running theme,” her husband admitted sadly, and then, catching each other’s eye, the two Maheswarans suddenly laughed, the sounds loud in the otherwise quiet room.

It was moments like these, after nearly seventeen years together, that kept them going strong. They loved each other, and they liked each other, and they especially liked to make each other laugh.

Even if it was about something as specific as Russian literature titans.

And maybe especially if it was about something as specific as Russian literature titans.

“We’re going to wake our daughter up,” Priyanka finally said, setting her mug down on her own nightstand. In the lamplight, the dark ceramic gleamed. Her phone, sitting next to it, showed that she had a new message from one of the surgical interns she was training. 

She’d open it in a minute.

Knowing the group of fools she’d gotten this year, whoever it was had probably stabbed themselves with a syringe.

(Again.)

“It’s never too early for Connie to have an opinion on old Russian men,” Doug chuckled, but he, too, was settling down as the heaviness of night began to sweep across them both.

He sighed fondly and took her hand then, intertwining their fingers on top of the blankets.

Priyanka wasn’t much of a touchy-feely person, but her husband absolutely was, and she knew, from all the coagulated years of having been married to him, that this simple gesture was about being close to her, about reacquainting himself to her presence.

So she didn’t let go.

Instead, she squeezed once, resting her head against the backboard of their bed and closing her eyes for the first time in what felt like days. The darkness was nice and inviting, blanketing her head like a cozy throw.

It was just all the thoughts, buzzing like bees at the velvety, black edges, that made it so unbearable.

Patients, charts, and procedures.

And Steven Universe most of all.

She worried for him constantly now that he was in the hospital; she carried his sunken face with her everywhere that she went; he made her half-sick.

He forced her to become undone.

Caring.

It did something to her.

“You look tired, honey,” Doug said softly. “Shall we put a nightcap on the evening?”

Priyanka opened her eyes again and nodded ever so briskly. She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear and let out a small, exacting sigh.

“I think that’d be in order,” she agreed, and it was a sign of her exhaustion that she acquiesced so easily. Usually, he had to plead with her to close down shop for the night.

These weren’t usual times.

Without letting go of her hand, her husband twisted away and turned the latch of his lamp with a click, thrusting half of the room into darkness. 

And she was about to do the same when the rectangular light of her phone caught her attention again.

Instead of just one message from her intern—a perky blonde named Dr. Stephens—now she had eight of them in total and a missed call. 

The doctor always put her phone on silent when she drank her nightly tea so she didn’t have to be a doctor for fifteen minutes.

She could simply be Priyanka.

Her stomach clenched.

An influx of messages was never a good thing; her mind raced ahead of her; it anticipated the worst.

“Hon?” 

Doug’s questioning concern pressed against her side, and Priyanka found herself clenching his hand all the tighter as she used her free one to pick up the phone, unlocking it with a quick swipe and clicking the message app with a suddenness that was brutal.

Monday, 10:57PM:

Dr. Stephens: DR. MAHESWARAN!!!!!

Dr. Stephens: UNOS JUST CALLED.

Dr. Stephens: WE HAVE A KIDNEY FOR STEVEN UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dr. Stephens: Car crash on the lower East Side. The donor is brain dead, but all their other organs are viable.

Dr. Stephens: And they’re a match for Steven.

Dr. Stephens: Seriously. I’ve checked and double-checked. 

Dr. Stephens: This is our person.

Dr. Stephens: The surgeon at Empire Gen’s gonna perform the harvest procedure tomorrow morning at 10AM, and I told them you’d be there. 

In the half-darkness of her room, Priyanka held that phone aloft like it was priceless gold and let out a breath she had been holding for a very long time. Her shoulders heaved with the sensation of it, the feeling, the emotion.

Of goddamn relief.

Warm, sweeping, glorious relief.

A kidney.

Steven Universe was getting a kidney.

[firebrands]

And not to be greedy, but maybe no. 13 for Stony if you're up for it? Thanks!

THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE, THANK YOU

come into the light, m, 2.2k, steve and tony being porn co-stars (!) and quite a bit of tension between them | “co-stars au” + stony bingo prompt fill “tension” | on ao3

It’s been a while since Steve has done one of these confessional-type videos. After a PA has adjusted his seat and they’d tested the lighting, Steve takes a seat by the window of the cabin.

“Action,” the director says, and Steve takes a deep breath.

“The first time I worked with Tony Stark, I had barely started my career. We were both really young, and well, for me…” Steve pauses and runs a hand through his hair before smiling at the camera. “I wasn’t too experienced yet. But he was so gentle, and sweet, and he really helped with my nerves.”

They do a few more takes, try one where Steve’s wearing a different shirt, and one where Steve is talking to the gaffer, so his gaze is set off camera.

The next shot has Steve lying on the bed, only wearing his briefs. He rolls onto his stomach and looks at the camera from under his lashes. “I’m really excited to work with him again, I’ve always found his style really… sexy.”

He doesn’t need to conjure up anything to make himself flush; the script does the trick well enough, mostly because it’s true. He is excited to work with Tony again, even if he’s seen Tony around fairly often.

It makes Steve feel young, the way he reminisces about the first film they’d shot together, all those years ago.

***

There’s something different about the new guy. Tony has said as much as soon as he’d laid eyes on him, blonde and blue eyed and impossibly shy, even as they made him strip so they could shave him and oil him up. Tony has told them all before, that he didn’t like working with inexperienced boys, boys who would freeze at his touch, worry clear in their eyes and even clearer on camera. But there’s no fear in the new guy’s eyes—quite the opposite. Something about him makes Tony jumpy, but he can’t explain why. So instead, he pesters everyone else until they can give them a satisfying answer.

“You sure he’s in the right place?” Tony asks Jan, again. She tuts in response, just like she did earlier. “He’s too pretty, Jan.”

“Well darling, so are you, and that’s what we pay for,” Jan says, meeting Tony’s eyes in the reflection of the mirror. She tilts her head, assessing him, before she runs a hand through Tony’s hair.

“There,” she murmurs to herself, then she pushes Tony up. “Now it’s his turn, so if you please.”

Tony huffs, then walks onto the set. Nick is already in his seat, going through the boards. “Play nice with this one,” he says, and he doesn’t lift his head as he says it.

“So he is new,” Tony says, sitting down beside Nick. “Something’s different about him.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Yeah, only been in one or two before this,” he admits. “But he’s good.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Nick snorts.

 The scene has them both in their underwear, pressing against each other, hands roaming up and down each other’s sides, breathy moans and whispered pleas. It’s a standard scene, one Tony’s done too many times to count.

Of course, this Steve guy had to go and be great at this, which is both charming and annoying in equal measure. Tony isn’t ashamed to admit that he’d expected Steve to be a ball of nerves, expected him to fumble around, maybe elbow Tony’s solar plexus by accident, or something.

Except, he’s the opposite of that. He opens his mouth readily when Tony kisses him, knows how to move his body, and seems to share Tony’s preternatural awareness of the camera. They move in sync, shifting their bodies to best show the camera their actions.

It’s barely acting anymore when Tony moans as Steve kisses his way down Tony’s chest. Tony feels alight, feels turned on, in a way that he hasn’t been in a long time—even in encounters that aren’t filmed. Steve keeps looking up at him, checking to see if he’s enjoying, and he’s unbearably gorgeous, and god, Tony could write sonnets about his mouth, his tongue, his eyes, the way his breath felt hot against Tony’s skin.

It’s not in the script, but Tony flips them over so he hovers over Steve, desperate to feel in control after losing himself so much under Steve’s touch.

Under his hands, Steve is pliant, his eyes shine with desire when he looks up at Tony and it makes Tony feel a little wild, makes him grab onto Steve’s hips harder, makes him almost rut against Steve until completion.

Almost.

“You’re really good at this,” Steve says, once Nick had yelled cut. Tony wrenches his eyes away from the flush that had spread down from Steve’s neck to his chest, which was glistening with sweat.

“Well,” Tony looks up at Steve and smirks. “I am an actor.”

Tony doesn’t miss the way Steve’s cheeks redden. “Oh, I know I just—“

Tony laughs. “I was kidding.” He takes a bottle of water from the break table and takes a swig, mostly to have something to do with his hands, which are itching to continue touching Steve. Tony wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and considers Steve before speaking, “You’re not so bad, yourself.”

Tony didn’t think it was possible, but Steve blushes even more.

“Thanks, Tony.”

Tony wants to do a number of unspeakable things to Steve at that moment, overwhelmed with how beautiful Steve looks, has looked over the past few hours. Tony wants to make him blush some more, wants to take Steve’s face in his hands and feel the heat on his cheeks on his fingertips, proof that some physical reactions were caused by him and him alone, no script needed.

Instead, he says, “You’re cute when you blush. Make sure you learn to use it well.”

Steve grins and nods. He opens his mouth to say something else, but they’re called back on set.

***

Steve stops in his tracks when he sees him, doesn’t even think when he shouts across the set: “Tony!”

Tony turns, eyebrows furrowed at first at being shouted at, then his face brightens when his gaze lands on Steve, who is already making his way to him; the smile on his face makes Steve’s traitorous heart swell.

They greet each other with an embrace, and it’s so ingrained in Steve to kiss people on the cheek in greeting that he only realizes he’s done it when Tony raises his eyebrows at Steve, surprised.

But Steve isn’t fooled—there’s a slight pinkness to Tony’s cheeks that wasn’t there before.

“How are you doing?”

“Good,” Tony says. “We just wrapped. Are you shooting today?”

“Yeah, what a coincidence,” Steve says, even if it isn't. They all rotate on sets in the large warehouse, schedules crammed tight as shoots go on almost ‘round the clock. It’s cheaper that way, and it’s not like their audience keeps track or comments on it.

Tony nods.

Steve nods back, and finds himself incapable of saying anything else. Tony’s beautiful in the afternoon light, lips pink from whatever activities they’d gotten him to do earlier, eyes bright from release. Steve drinks it all in, feels suddenly like a man in a desert who has found oasis.

Steve sucks in a breath, trying to steady himself against the desire curling in his belly. He thought he was past it, but seeing Tony again, in person, has awoken the desperate need he thought he’d quenched. He wants to touch Tony, would settle with just touching his wrist, really, which is absurd; he’s touched more of Tony before, and has a video to prove it.

“Steve!” Sam calls, voice echoing from across the warehouse.

Tony blinks, and only then does Steve realize that while he’d been looking—Tony had been looking, too.

***

Tony curses. He’s been chasing sleep for almost an hour, now, but can’t seem to settle. He’s tired, exhausted from his back-to-back shoots, and usually he’d just jack himself off to get to sleep but he’s too tired to even get hard.

Or so he thinks.

He curses again as he flips his laptop open. His desktop is a mess, flooded with icons and random files, but he knows what he’s looking for.

His media player, like an asshole, plays from the moment he’d last exited the video. On screen, in high definition, Tony watches himself hold Steve close, watches as he takes Steve’s jaw in his hand and turns his face up, watches as he kisses Steve, open and lewd.

He’s hard, as if he hadn’t spent the past 12 hours in a shoot, popping a pill to keep him up as he held another anonymous man close and imagined Steve in his place.

He thought that he’d reigned it in, that the attraction to Steve was a passing fancy in something new, as it almost always inevitably was. But a week ago, Steve had shouted his name across the soundstage and kissed his cheek and Tony felt weak—still feels weak as he remembers it, the soft press of lips against his skin and he wants nothing more than to trawl through the company directory and find Steve’s phone number, call him up, make Steve blush again.

Instead, he watches, cock twitching in his pajamas as he watches himself manhandle Steve. He clicks to the start of the video, pushes his pants down and takes his cock in his hand, stroking slowly as he watches the way Steve moves under him, remembering the way Steve felt under his hands, breathing hard, eyes trained on Tony’s as he came. Tony has proof, sees it in the video, and at that moment, he lets out a strangled cry.

***

It’s been a while since Tony has done one of these confessional-type videos. They have him pose, clad only in jeans—not bothering to have him wear anything under—as he speaks to the camera.

“Well,” Tony smirks. “I’ve always loved a nice ass.” He laughs, it’s an affected thing.

“I worked with Steve almost a year ago,” Tony says, smiling to the camera. Steve hasn't arrived yet, but Tony feels a thrum of excitement building in him, zinging around and making his body feel alight. He remembers it all still, clear as the video, he’s all but memorized and branded to memory. Steve’s skin, the strong muscles of his arms under Tony’s hands, coupled with how soft his lips felt, pressed against his.

“I’ve always wanted to work with him again, and I’m glad we’ll have this time together.”

Tony’s in the make-up chair, being fussed over by Jan, when Steve arrives. Tony doesn’t bother hiding how he stares at Steve, who is beautiful and somehow, still looking a bit shy.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve says, sitting down beside him. He meets Tony’s gaze in the mirror and offers up a small, nervous smile. “How have you been?”

Tony turns a little, wanting to really look at Steve, but Jan tugs on his hair and makes him straighten back up. “Good. Excited about today,” he says, knowing he sounds nonchalant in spite of how he feels.

He smiles to himself when he sees, in his periphery, Steve duck his head and blush.

“Me too.”

 Nick is sitting in front of the camera, reviewing the boards. Tony shucks off his robe and drapes himself over the bed, clad only in his briefs.

Once Jan is done with him, Steve takes off his own robe. He folds it up, hangs it over his chair, and moves to stand beside Tony.

“Excited?” Tony asks, smiling up at him.

Steve’s lips quirk into a smile. “Been looking forward to this.”

The line shouldn’t affect Tony the way it does; he’s seen the script, he knows exactly what to expect. Still, as if on cue, Tony flushes.

“Come here.”

“Cut,” Nick shouts, sounding weary. “I need you to sound sweeter.”

Tony lies back down on the bed, and Steve rearranges himself, props his knee on the bed, turns to Tony half-way, so that his body is still on full display for the camera.

“Action.”

“Excited?” Tony asks again. He relaxes onto the bed further, an easy smile on his lips—inviting, with just a hint of lewdness.

“Been looking forward to this,” Steve says. He bites his lip for good measure, looking like he’s been waiting to touch Tony, and the look in his eyes is so sincere that Tony, against all rational thought, hopes he actually means it.

Tony lifts his hand, rests it on Steve’s knee. “Come here.”

It’s as if no time has passed between them. Steve touches him confidently, his hand gripping Tony’s waist hard enough to make Tony gasp. His lips against Tony are sure, and soft, and just as pliant as when Tony had kissed him, all those months ago. It feels infinitely better than Tony had imagined, in all those months in between, and he doesn’t bother hiding how pleased it makes him, moans into Steve’s mouth even if there was no direction to do so.

Tony pushes against his chest, turns him over so he’s on top, and kisses him some more.

Nick calls cut, and they rearrange the lights. Tony and Steve stay in suspended motion.

Tony bites his lip, and Steve smiles up at him, beatific.

“Doing anything, after this?” Tony whispers.

Steve reaches up and tucks Tony’s hair behind his ear. “You, hopefully.”

send me a number and i’ll write you a short fic

[dontthinkonithermione]

A Long Ago Opened New Chapter

Hey y’all, 

I am sharing my story in a new way, a way that is meant to be in service to you.

Just a little differently. I have always wanted to serve. People, a community. Those who need it. Embodying Hermione was a way to show up for black people, and it changed my life. Y’all changed my life.  *cue tears -- trying not to get emotional and make this super sappy and long -- wheewwwwww *

Over a year in the works, I have started my own business to serve those with invisible illness, ie: chronic pain, and mental illness. The two largest things that have directly impacted my life in both absolutely unspeakable, and truly beautiful ways. 

Crystal Case is a mission driven pill case company and lifestyle brand, focused on empowering Rx takers and de-stigmatizing mental health, and invisible illness. 

While I work on the technical end of getting up and running, and evolving, I want to hear from you. You who have shared your light with me, your spark, and your heart. 

Please help me align with you, so I can best serve you by taking my short survey. (There’s the added bonus of the chance to get a $30.00 Sephora gift certificate that I'll be raffling off next week). 

Survey is here: https://forms.gle/jDzsFTzyKZzog4qM6

While I step into this new chapter of my life, I wanted to thank everyone -- which will probably be a different post altogether. This is my journey, and I have never felt more aligned, and excited about life than I do right now. 

Please consider filling out the survey, you don’t have to have an invisible illness to enter. 

<3

[angelic-jeonghan1004]

You're In For It || Chani

Request: hello !! i just saw your blog and i saw your taking requests hehe i would like to request 7 with sf9 chani 🥺 preferably a written one! and could u make it a college setting with bad boy chani or e2l 🥰 fluff or smut hehe thank you!

-OoOO I biased Chani before I biased Taeyang so I'm living for this request 🤧 it's mature but it's not smut, a lot of teasing I will say. To specify btw I have 1-2 more requests with this prompt left these are just ones I haven't gotten around to but I no longer do prompt #7 💓 I have a idea for a part 2 which would involve smut so I'd you enjoy this and want a part 2 I definitely can get that done 💞 I'm sorry this took so long btw I made it a bit longer than most of my fics as a sorry for the wait💕

Synopsis: Chani always teased you and one day you had enough of it, so why not reverse the roles?

Prompt: #7 "Come sit in my lap"

Pairing: Bad Boy! Chani x female reader

Warning: strong language, teasing, palming, dirty talk, heated make out

Gif credit to owner

The amount of classes you have with Chani is more, than you want it to be seeing you spend 3/7 days a week with him. Classes with Chani would be fine if he wasn't the college bad boy next to the rest of his "gang." He looks and acts the part which you'd tune out if he didn't target you for his risky teasing, always getting you hot and bothered when you where trying to focus; the fact he recently started calling you "baby" doesn't help it either. A prime example of the teasing he likes to pull would probably be the time like last Monday when you where waiting for the lecture to start and found a place to sit, Chani spotting you sat behind you and whispered dirty talk into your ear almost the whole time, leaving you a mess. Friday being today is one of those unlucky days you have to see him, you found a chair and waited for him to walk in and act all cool with his leather jacket only to rile you up and leave. You watched the door until you saw him walk in, catching eye contact with him very quickly he walked up to you.

"Hey baby" he said leaning on the desk in front of you with a strong smirk.

"What do you want." You said in a done sounding voice.

"Wow a little attitude I see, maybe you'll take my offer today?" Chani said with a bit of a chuckle, smug grin never leaving his face.

"What would that be?" You couldn't help your ears perked up in interest of what he had to say, obvious in your eyes how you wanted him to continue.

"At 8 my place me and my boys are hosting a party, you should come." He said slipping you a paper with his address, you picked it up and put it in your bag causing a wave of excitement to rush over him until your next sentence came out.

"Party's aren't my thing, you also could find way better arm candy than me to be there" you said tapping your pen against the table. The look he gave you seemed a bit hurt but you couldn't tell why.

"Nah baby I only want you, are you acting all tough to hide the fact your just a good girl who doesn't go to party's?" He said with a hint of sadness in his voice, did he really mean that? But that last part still had you keep your guard up so why not throw fire at fire.

"Fuck off, I won't be going now actually find a seat and get your work done for once."

"Wow using some big words there, fine I didn't think you'd come anyway but I shoot my shot atleast." He said with a little defeat in his voice but still with that smirk he entered the door with. He found a place to sit after that and suprisingly didn't bother you, which you oddly kinda missed; you can't hide the underlining feelings you have for him that well, atleast well enough for others not to know, but you can't help that he makes you feel special when he riles you up; his words can sound charming even if he's talking so mischievously. Throughout the class you took notes and kept thinking about that stupid party, you at first where opposed to the idea but now you've warmed up to it and imagining the look on his face proving him wrong when he sees you actually there. Once the class had been dismissed you had nothing else to do that day so you went straight to your dorm, you kept pondering on the idea of what you should wear. The clothes you had where cute but you wanted something that would rile him up for a change and have the looks on you; finding a red crop top and black shorts you decided why not fit some e-girl realness and look sexy doing it catching all the bad boys attention. It wasn't even 7:30 yet but you still where completing your look already, finding a choker you got a while ago to wear since you wouldn't lie they made you feel powerful and sexy and that's exactly what you need to get into Chani's head. Sooner than later the clock hit 7:45 and you head out to be at the party on time, getting there surprised it was already starting to get filled quite quickly when the party had started not long ago. Making your way through the house you spotted Hwiyoung, your goal was to find Chani so you hoped he'd have help into finding where he is; you walked up to him and caught him by surprise from your outfit being different and hot compared to your normal clothes you'd walk around on campus with.

"Do you know where I could find Chani?" You said, he looking you up and down taking in the sight of you; causing your ears to go a little red.

"he'll probably be in the kitchen grabbing more drinks, if he can't fill up your time we'll you can find me for certain." He said with a small wink.

You ventured to the kitchen spotting him, you walked up to him from behind and tapped his shoulder ready for the reactions that he'd bring. Turning around his jaw almost dropped and you could see his eyes go dark with the lust in his eyes drinking in the sight of you, leaning in to whisper in your ear he said.

"Baby I didn't expect to see you here, especially not so fucking hot. Did you dress like this for me baby? To make me want to do unspeakable things? If so it's working baby." He said with his voice two octaves lower than usual catching you by surprise, none the less a idea popped in your head on how to get him back for all the times he's riled you up. Quickly tip toeng you put your hand in his and squeezed it whispering back.

"Where's your room? We'll need it." In less then a second he had you both walking at a fast pace to his room, once reaching it he eagerly shut the door and walked up and sat at the edge of his bed.

"Come sit in my lap" He said less of a invitation and more as a demand which you where quick to go up and staddle your legs around his waist, not knowing if he should touch you he looked up at you with confirmation.

"feel free to touch me." You said giving him the go and he wrested his hands on your thighs. Waisting no time you started kissing his neck and leaving little marks trying to find his sweet spot, once you reached the middle of his neck you head a grown come from his throat as he squeezed your thighs causing you to suck harshly on it ensuing a moan to come out. You found your way to his lips and quickly got stuck in a heated kiss, he swiped his tongue on your bottom lip asking for access which you quickly opened your mouth granting him; soon turning into a fight of tongues for dominance. Your arms left his shoulders and you sneaked your hand to his black sweatpants finding their way to his covered almost fully hard cock which you soon started packing causing deep moans to come from his throat.

"You want me to wrap my lips around you and suck you so hard you eyes roll back don't you? It's what you always say so I bet you want it don't you." You said breaking the kiss gasping for air.

"Yes baby please I need to feel your pretty lips around me, cant you just feel how hard I am from this alone? I never knew you where so dirty" He said panting but still having that smug expression on his face, giving him a quick peck you then smirked at him. You got up causing him confusion, only to bring him to even more when you made your way to the door of his room opening it.

"Too bad you have to wait for another day love, you can fix your problem today like how I have to each time you rile me up." You said quickly exiting making your way to the front and to your car, once inside you didn't realize Chani was on your tail the entire time.

"Now I may say many things to you to get you going but if you asked I would never leave you hanging, I have a serious problem and I need you to fix it since you caused it baby." He said voice full of hunger. You went into you car and grabbed your journey for one of your majors and ripped off a piece of paper grabbing the pen from your cars cup holder and putting your number on it.

"Maybe you wouldn't leave me hanging but you've been turning me on every week for months now this is the least of payback I could do, here's my number if you want me to fix one of your problems later but that is only allowed if you think of me as not a one night stand and a long time deal instead." You said handing him the piece of paper, hoping that if he does choose to do anything with you; you can confess your feelings so he can hopefully stop toying with you and be with you instead. You drove off, after about 3 minutes hearing many dings from your phone go off almost till you reached the host did those stop. Grabbing your phone exiting your car you quickly got inside preparing yourself for the texts you where soon to see from probably Chani.

[unknown number:] it's Chani, baby your in for it after that.

Quickly adding Chani to your contacts you checked the wrest of the texts he'd sent.

Chani: baby I just had to fix my problem, my hands didn't feel as good as how you'd feel wrapping around me but I can only imagine.

Chani: I'm in it for a long time ride with you, you're everything I want.

Chani: Tonight changed how I thought you where baby I'm surprised, I thought you where just a goodie that got flustered easily but your kinky, what else you got as a surprise for me? Sadly you left before anything could happen I could've given you pleasure in any way you pleased.

In other words you have problems to fix for yourself too and now ready to prepare for what class will be like seeing him next Monday.

Chani: make free time tomorrow, you need to finish what you started since I need to feel your pretty lips around me or me filling you up since because of your stunt I won't be going easy on you.

Scratch next time seeing him Monday, it's now time to prepare for tomorrow.

[ritsunaru]

what it is to be loved

my entry for day 3 of @doubletroubleweek! this is the longest by far at about 1.3k words, but i think it’s the best (i know i said that yesterday!). an exploration of forgiveness and the most important people in double trouble’s life, there’s no trigger warnings, only a spoiler warning for season five! i hope you enjoy 💖

Double Trouble was sick of Catra acting like she was all high and mighty because she turned around, fought Horde Prime, and then got She-Ra as a girlfriend. She acted like a saint. But she had done the unspeakable, and she wouldn’t be able to push her past misdeeds under the rug for long.

“You know, kitten, don’t you sometimes wish it could be like the old days? You’re so boring now.” The shapeshifter was currently staying in Bright Moon after Sparkles’ aunt claimed that they were her child, but they were more of a babysitter for Catra and Adora’s newborn Finn than a guest. They supposed, however, the kid had grown on them. Now, they stood on a balcony, watching the sun set. “Always watching your kid or going to meetings about the rebuild efforts. When we were with the Horde, we’d take a skiff and ride through the Whispering Woods, hang out in the rafters, stay up past curfew...don’t you miss that? Having fun?”

“I’m boring?” Catra didn’t sound frustrated—perhaps more amused? Like she had expected this. “Trouble, listen to me. I am happier now than I ever was with the Horde. What we had wasn’t a friendship. You made that very clear before leaving me, and if you want to try and create one, you have to prove to me that you’ve changed.”

Double Trouble wound a lock of their pale hair between their fingers, sighing. “And you think you can prove to me that you’ve changed? Deep down inside, you’re still the exact same person I knew. You’re still cruel, and you’re still ruthless. You’re just like me, kitten, and they’ll never accept people like us.”

Catra sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, Double Trouble, just because you have whatever repressed trauma you’re ignoring doesn’t mean that you can drag other people down with you. I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work on me.” She got up from her seat on the railing and turned to face them. “I know you’re not happy. But stop trying to sabotage things for others.” She sauntered back into the castle, presumably to go sleep with the love of her life. Because she was happy. 

“I am happy!” they shouted after her, but it was useless. She wasn’t willing to listen. That was alright. They didn’t need anyone.

✂✂✂

Double Trouble’s supposed mother must have had some serious abandonment issues, since she wouldn’t leave them alone. She would leave an extra blanket on their bed if she thought it would be extra cold that evening, or make an extra cup of tea in the morning just before they woke up. It was a waste of time, but she did a little something every day. She wanted to be in their life, but Double Trouble wouldn’t let her in. It was time for their “mother” to accept that they didn’t need her.

She looked so excited when they had asked her to speak in private. A shame that it was only to push her away, but they didn’t need her. They didn’t need anyone. “So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” Her voice was so gentle, so innocent.

“Why do you want me?” Double Trouble’s tone, on the contrary, was cold, cutting. Calculated. They knew what they planned to say, and they would cut her out of their life with surgical precision.

Castaspella’s eyebrows knit together, and she frowned. “What do you mean, darling?” The shapeshifter was taken aback by usage of a pet name. That was their thing, and she was trying to turn it on them.

“I’m terrible. I’m disgusting. I’m the worst person you’ve ever met, and I don’t even feel guilty.” Their smile only grew wider as her face fell. They had done so many horrible things, but they were practically a prodigy at manipulation. Their resume was extensive. Flutterina, their most difficult job, was their greatest success. “Maybe you wanted me when I was cute and innocent, but don’t fool yourself. No self-respecting mother would want me as a child.”

Double Trouble half expected the woman to break down sobbing right there, but instead she wrapped her arms around them and squeezed as tight as she could muster. They flinched, but found themself almost melting into the touch. Castaspella sighed, loosening her grip just a bit to speak. “You are my child. I could never hate you. And...and maybe you don’t want me, but I’m going to work every day to be a mother to you. To make up for all of the lost years.”

They stood like that for a while, only stopping when Castaspella lowered her arms and left them to stand in a trance.

✂✂✂

The only things Double Trouble really enjoyed about staying in Bright Moon were the warmth, holding baby Finn for what felt like hours, and its close proximity to Plumeria. Plumeria and its sister kingdom Pavonia were the nearest regions to Bright Moon (save for the Whispering Woods), and in the wake of the eradication of Horde Prime, Pavonia’s monarch Prince Peekablue had emerged from hiding and had resumed his rule of the region. Apparently, he had been watching them steal his identity, but he wasn’t angry with them. He had asked Double Trouble to come over for tea once, and, being fond of the beverage, they took up his offer. Ever since then, they had been meeting about once a week just to chat about whatever came to mind. From the moment that the prince first blushed, the shapeshifter had gone out of their way to be extra flirtatious, just to get him flustered. They were well aware he had fallen hard, and anyone else would have let him down easy. But Double Trouble could always use another subject for character analysis.

One evening, the two sat beside one another on yet another balcony (they truly had a habit of ending up on ledges). The stars twinkled against the inky black sky, and Blue seemed so...at peace with himself, hands folded neatly in his lap as he stared up into the cosmos. Double Trouble had never known inner peace. Their life had always been one of moral ambiguity and emotional turmoil.

“You know,” Blue began softly, “my parents always told me that my powers were connected to the moons. Not directly, but that when the elemental princesses’ runestones were being forged, one of our ancestors fell in love with the spirit of the moons. The spirit felt the same, but being a spirit, was stranded alone. As a token of their affection, they granted them the power of farsight, to see all, just as the moons can. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s nice to think about it. That a gift that could be used for so much evil is a product of a love from centuries ago.

“I never told you this, but...your mother tried to contact me after Princess Prom. She sent almost a dozen letters to the palace, begging me to try and find her child. I only saw them once the war had ended.” The prince sighed, turning to look Double Trouble in the eyes. “I know you don’t want her in your life, but she really cares. She’s always cared.”

“If you’re telling me she cares for who I truly am, you don’t know who I am at all.” The shapeshifter was sick of people treating them like they actually needed them. They could leave any second and be perfectly well-off, and they despised constantly having to spell it out. “Let me explain. I’m a horrible person, and I’m proud of it. I’ve done things your pretty little head couldn’t even dream of. I don’t need her, and I don’t need anyone. I never have. And I never will.” With that, Double Trouble finished their speech, folding their arms with contempt and turning their back to the prince.

Blue nodded, shutting his eyes. “I get it. But I won’t stop trying, and I know she won’t either. I don’t care what you’ve done. I care who you are now.” He slipped his hand into theirs, the faintest bit of a smile appearing as Double Trouble squeezed back.

[harry-meepmeep-dresden]

Hobbit Tricks

Hello everyone. I submitted a microfiction to a fan fiction contest. Thank you @studiocitypsychic​ for helping me edit this! You’re amazing! I hope everyone enjoys it:  Buildings didn’t blaze with fire. Frogs weren’t raining down upon the city. Sidhe queens stayed clear of duking it out tonight. I intended to keep it that way.

If the fate of the world isn’t hanging in the balance, I’d typically spend this day of the year curled up enjoying my comfortable recliner, a cup of cocoa in one hand, book in the other, fireplace burning brightly in the background as I reveled in being the Grinch of Halloween. This holiday is all well and good when you’re not me.

Who am I? I’m the only wizard in the Chicago phone book, Harry Dresden. To say this day’s my least favorite is putting it mildly. This year I couldn’t just attempt to ignore it. No more fireplace, basement apartment, or staying in. I’m a dad, and there are certain responsibilities a single parent needs to live up to. It might not be saving Earth from becoming an undead paradise, but it’s still important. Tonight I’d be escorting two Hobbits and an ax-wielding Foo dog on an epic adventure to claim unspeakably valuable treasure…

Candy.

Father mode engaged as I let my baby girl help me get my fake bushy white eyebrows glued on. Maggie insisted they were absolutely necessary with the wig and beard. My beautiful little girl dressed up as Frodo. She had little makeup freckles on her cheeks, the elven cloak, and the iconic clothing made from what I guessed might be a pattern based on the movies, with lots of grays, greens, and browns. On top of that they’d picked out boots a few sizes too big and decorated them to look like Hobbit feet.

Scratching my jaw a little I determined I would not disappoint her by complaining about my costume she and Charity Carpenter made. Maggie and the Carpenters spent weeks on these outfits. No matter how itchy fake facial hair and wigs could be, not a single negative word would come out of my mouth about it. Anyway, I rarely get to dress up like one of my favorite fictional wizards, and this made both Maggie and me happy. Mouse wore a helmet, fake plastic ax, and that big goofy doggy grin of his. He couldn’t help it as he noticed how much Maggie enjoyed all of this.

Hope or another one of the Carpenter kids normally lead the trick-or-treating. They’d instead volunteered to help with Father Forthill’s trunk-or-treat at the church this year. Maggie and Hank demanded an old-fashioned door-to-door experience instead. I couldn’t lie about the fact that taking Maggie trick-or-treating made my heart grow three sizes.

We picked up Hank, and he brought out a map the Carpenter kids developed over years of experience of the best houses to get candy from. And with that, Sam, Frodo, Gandalf, and Gimli were off on an adventure. Now and then I’d whisper a spell, and Maggie’s plastic version of Sting would glow with a pale blue light. It delighted her and the surrounding kids. One house gave the kids full-sized candy bars as the adults complimented the costumes.

“Dad! Look!” she hurried over to show me. The large boots decorated to resemble Hobbit feet made running or walking tricky. She still half-waddled impressively fast. I whistled and smiled as she held up the candy bar.

“Seems the costumes impressed them. You did an amazing job, kiddo. I mean, these costumes couldn’t be more perfect. Starting to dig the beard. Maybe I should keep this look, huh?” I stroked the fake beard and tried impersonating that knowing stare into the distance Sir Ian McKellen used in the movies.

She giggled, hurrying off towards the next house, Mouse and Hank right by her side and me just behind. No way would those kids leave my sight. Her eyes lit up each time she said ‘trick or treat’. Every few houses she brought her bag over to show off the bounty of the adventure. It made painful memories wash away little by little. Soon we ran out of houses on the map. We were all loaded into the car as Hank checked his watch. I half expected him to jokingly call the watch ‘my precious’.

“Hey, Harry, isn’t there anywhere else you can take us? It’s still super early,” he pleaded as they buckled up.

“That’s all the places on the map, kiddo,” I replied, thinking about how fast we got through it, and blaming it on the kids’ energy and excitement.

“Nowhere else, dad?” I might not have seen it since I kept an eye on the road, but my dad senses felt the pout Maggie had while asking that.

“Alright, fine. Off to Helm’s Deep,” I grinned, changing direction to head to Murph’s house.

When we got there Murphy wasn’t home. There were no signs of foul play from what I could see. She might be at a party. I didn’t expect that with her injuries, but I’m not her keeper. I had really wanted to see her tonight, and couldn’t help the slight ache in my chest. Oh well, on to try Waldo’s place.

I gave a few quick knocks on Butters’ door when we arrived before waiting for an answer. No answer. He might be busy with knight business or his job. He enjoyed working late. Billy and Georgia were the next destination. They also weren’t home.

Before going to Thomas’ apartment, I called him. No answer. He and Justine were likely at a White Court party or busy with other activities. I’d rather not chance interrupting them with two kids in tow.

Back in the car, I noticed that Maggie and Hank were being remarkably quiet. Maybe they were bored. I tried to think about where else we might go. The church was a good option since they had set up games for the kids.

“Hey, sorry, it’s a bust. We’ll head to the church and see what they’re up-”

“No!” the two kids blurted out, interrupting me.“I mean, uh, I think I’d rather head home and you and Maggie could stay over and watch a scary movie or something?” Hank asked.

I turned to glance at the two of them and noticed Maggie change her attention to Mouse, away from Hank’s watch. The way they kept hovering over it, they reminded me of the Hobbits and the One Ring. Hopefully Maggie wouldn’t attempt biting off Hank’s entire hand to get it.

“Uh-huh… You two are up to something,” I said and narrowed my eyes.

“We don’t want the adventure to end just yet. We haven’t even been to Mordor,” Hank chimed with a half smile.

I needed to keep them safe from watching anything nightmare inducing or Charity’d mince me up and bake me into meat pies Sweeny Todd style. Out of the many monsters I’ve fought, I’d rather face them over her. Soon we parked in front of the Carpenters’ home. A shiver ran up my spine from the eeriness of Michael’s house with all the lights off. I thought at least one of the Carpenters would be home. Before I could ask Hank anything both the Hobbits rushed out trailed by the furry Gimli.

“Hey!” I shouted, not wanting to lose sight of them.

Why were they running off knowing how dangerous tonight of all nights could be? Might just be heading to the backyard to play, but it was still Halloween. Even knowing literal angels protected Michael’s property, my chest felt tight with worry when I couldn’t see the kids.

Once I entered the backyard, a bunch of lights blinded me.

“SURPRISE!” voices echoed in the night.

My eyes adjusted and I saw everyone and all the decorations they set up. The Carpenter family arranged themselves behind the table everyone had gathered around. I noticed Butters hanging out with the wolf pack to one side of the table. Murphy sat up in a chair with her crutches close by. Thomas and Justine were even there, wearing modest clothing and standing next to Murphy. The large cake on the table featured a t-rex picture on top, probably Butters’ idea. Next to it were plates and forks. A cooler filled with different soda sat next to the table. To top everything else off, the Monster Mash played in the background.

I felt Maggie hug my leg. Bending down, I picked her up and wrapped her into an even bigger hug. She kissed my cheek and wrapped her arms around my neck as I held her close. Everyone had planned this together. They set me up. Michael brought out an old Polaroid camera to take pictures. Wizards don’t photograph well on most modern equipment.

“You sneaky little hobbitses,” I tried to say in my best Gollum impression before sniffling as the fake beard tickled my nose. “You tricked me.”

That smile she gave me made me feel… Well, let’s just say if it were sunny out I could have used magic to catch daylight in a handkerchief.

“Happy birthday, dad.”

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

The Guardian’s Oath, Part Eight

There’s likely going to be another chapter coming very soon, but I wanted to respect what I felt were the natural “dividing points” in the story. This is already the longest thing I’ve ever written and it keeps getting longer. I do hope to have it finished fairly soon, though. Maybe this week? Not sure. Get caught up on the rest of the story here. 

Pairing: Feargal Devitt/ Finn Balor x OFC

Word count: 2,408

Content advisory: Nothing at all in this part!

Mercifully, the next days passed uneventfully. I still found myself keeping vigil at night but there were no further incidents with the children and no visits from Balor. Increasingly, I spent my nights thinking of the Reverend’s imminent return, of how excited I was to see him again, even more so because he would be with us for longer than usual. I ran through all of the looks that had passed between us in my mind, the infrequent touches, to which I was always trying to ascribe some greater meaning. Sometimes, I felt myself start to drift off to sleep thinking of the gentle press of his fingers against my arm, or his smile the day we had our picnic lunch overlooking the ocean; and sometimes these thoughts would become confused with the memories I had of Balor and his nocturnal visits, of the earthy, animal sounds he made and the sensation of having that part of him inside me, of the unspeakable sensations he gave me. I hated when my mind would become confused in this way, how I could taint the sweetness and beauty of one set of memories with the darkness of the others. 

Thursday came at long last and for once I found myself struggling to contain my own nervous energy rather than the children’s. The two of them were well-behaved, although they were also excited at the prospect that their father would be back. Despite being told numerous times that he was not expected until late in the evening, they keened at every noise, thinking that it was the Reverend arriving. Late in the afternoon, when there was a knock at the front door, all three of us started, forgetting for a moment that the man of the house would not knock at his own door. 

Susan answered it and came to find us with a worried expression on her face.  

“It’s for you, Miss,” she stammered, holding out a letter. 

I couldn’t think of who would be writing to me but as I took the envelope from her, I saw the black border on it. The servant girl trembled a little as I opened it. 

“Sad news,” I sighed. “The pastor of the church that took me in and that educated me has passed.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss,” Susan mumbled. 

“Thank you, Susan. He was quite advanced in years, so this isn’t a surprise. He lived a long and good life.”

“Do you need to go back there for the funeral?” William chimed in. 

“No,” I said softly. “We were not as close as that. He has a family and his parishioners who will mourn him. This is just a notice sent to those who knew him.”

“So you don’t have to go?” he repeated. 

“Master William, it’s not polite to go at her like that!” Susan exclaimed. “She’s just lost someone!”

“Thank you, but really, it’s all right. Reverend Potter was a kind man to me and I owe everything to that, but this isn’t unexpected.” I patted Susan’s hand, a little embarrassed that she seemed more distraught than I was. “I suppose the strangest part of it is that he was the last bond I had to my home. There are a couple of teachers but I never knew them well. The only person who knew me after my family had passed was Reverend Potter.”

“Well this is your home now,” William insisted.

I smiled, touched at how sweet the sentiment was and at the same time finding it strange that it was true: I no longer had any part of my life that lay beyond this place. I still felt like something of a stranger in Bray but it was everything I had. 

That night, I practically had to tie the children to their beds, as they were convinced that their father would return the very moment they tried to sleep. I was far from insistent, however, allowing them to dawdle in their preparations and reading to them for longer than usual. I told myself that I was indulging them in case their father returned earlier than expected. In truth, though, I was indulging myself. Once the children were put to sleep, there was no reason for me to remain downstairs and if the Reverend did return at a decent hour, I wanted to be able to see him myself. 

In the end, all of our patience was rewarded. While I was reading to the children, we heard the telltale sound of the front door opening and immediately both Sophia and William yelped for their father to come upstairs. 

“Well now what have we here?” he chuckled, leaning into the bedroom. “Seems that there are two young ones who should be asleep by now.”

“It’s my fault, sir,” I answered sheepishly. “They were so excited to see you and I didn’t think there was any harm in letting them stay up a little later than usual in case you made it home.”

“Is that so?” He stepped inside the room and dropped onto the foot of Sophia’s bed. She climbed out from under the covers and into his arms, crying out when he tickled her stomach a little. “I suspected that these two had forced you to stay up with them, or that they’d tricked you into thinking it was earlier than it was, but if this is all your doing than I suppose you’re the one that needs to be punished.”

I gasped slightly, although it was clear that he was joking. 

“What do you say, children? What kind of punishment should she get?”

“She should have to go down to the shore and collect crabs!” William offered gleefully. 

“You think so?” The Reverend laughed. “It seems she’s already proven what a strong swimmer she is, seeing as she rescued you.”

“You can’t punish her, Papa,” Sophia informed him. “She’s just found out that a friend of hers has passed.”

Reverend Devitt twisted towards me, his daughter still caught up in his arms, even as he tried to straighten himself. 

“Is that true, Miss Miles?”

“Yes, sir. The pastor of my church at home… back where I come from. He passed away recently and I just received the notice this afternoon.”

“I am so sorry. I never met Reverend Potter but I corresponded with him several times. I understand he was a most gentle man and, of course, I’m in his debt for recommending you to me.”

“Thank you, sir. Reverend Potter was always-”

“We’re her family now,” William interjected. 

I laughed a little. “William, it doesn’t work that way. We’re not family just because I live here.”

“But we are,” he insisted. 

I smiled and suggested, awkwardly, that it was time for the children to go to sleep. At length, and with the Reverend’s help, I was able to get them settled. The two of us, him and me, slipped out of the room together and I turned to wish him good night when he laid a hand on my arm. 

“I would like to speak with you before you turn in for the night,” he told me, eyes darting around like a nervous animal’s. “If you could give me a few moments and then come and meet me in my office.”

“Of course, sir.”

He disappeared down the stairs and I stood frozen in place, unsure of what I was supposed to do or exactly how long I was supposed to give him. My first thought was that his good humor had been a performance for his children and that he was actually angry with me for allowing them to stay up later than usual. It was possible, I told myself, that he wanted to say something to me about the late Reverend Potter, although I couldn’t imagine what. It was also possible that, in light of William’s announcement that we were family, he wanted to remind me of my place in the household. 

I stood on the landing, entertaining all sorts of scenarios in my head before I finally decided that I had given him enough time to collect his thoughts and prepare himself to face me. Every step on the staircase felt heavier and it seemed to require all my strength just to remain upright as I made my way to his office. 

He was standing when I entered the room, shuffling anxiously as he waved me in. 

“Miss Miles, Helen,” he began, “I wanted to say again how sorry I am for the loss of your… protector… friend… for the loss of Reverend Potter.”

“That’s most kind of you, sir.”

“I only wish that he could have lived long enough to see you here… how you’ve flourished… how you’ve become a part of our family.”

“That’s most kind of you to say,” I murmured, blushing. 

“It’s not, though.” He was struggling for words in a way that I had never seen. Normally, speech flowed from him with the ease of a forest spring. “What William said… I hope that you do think of us as a kind of family to you… or that you could think of us that way.”

“You honor me, sir.”

“Please stop calling me ‘sir’.”

“Of course, s- Reverend.”

“Reverend Potter told me something of your history- nothing you should feel ashamed for me to know- but enough for me to understand how difficult your early life must have been and how strong your character must be for you to have emerged from such circumstances as the good, sensible, kind woman you are.”

Despite his assertion that I should feel no shame that he knew something of my past, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I had never been sure how much even Revered Potter knew of my family life before the church had taken me on, and I felt terribly vulnerable at the idea that Reverend Devitt knew any of it at all. My history always felt like a kind of stain, something that needed to be removed and forgotten as best as possible. I felt caught up in the web of my own memories for several moments before I looked up and saw his eyes locked on me, luminous and intent. 

“Marry me?” he croaked. 

“P-pardon?”

I could scarcely believe I’d heard him correctly and he’d spoken so very quietly, so hesitantly, that I felt like I should give him the opportunity to claim he’d made a mistake, or that he’d said something else entirely. 

“I adore you. I wanted to tell you when I said that I thought your prayers had helped us, had helped me. The fact is that simply having you here has helped me in every way but now that this… miracle… has come about and I’ve at last been able to understand the fate of my late wife… I believe that God brought you here and I believe that He brought these matters to a conclusion for a reason and…” He took a deep breath. “God has allowed me to find love again and has at the same time allowed me to close the door on the past. I truly feel like He means for me and you to be together. And I understand if you don’t feel the same way for me, but-”

“I do!” I startled myself with the sound of my own voice. “I mean, I will. I mean… yes. Yes, I will marry you, I want to marry you.”

“Really?”

“Oh sir, since the day I met you, I-”

“Feargal, please. Of all the times I want to hear you call me by my first name, this is the chief.”

“Of course.” I swallowed, trying to collect my thoughts. “Feargal… I am enchanted with this place and I adore your children and I… I love you. I should want nothing more than to be your wife, your family…”

His face broke into a smile like the sun cutting through the seaside clouds. He strode forward and captured both of my hands in his, pressing kisses against them as he hummed to himself. 

“You really love me?” he ventured. 

“So very much.”

“You could be happy with a husband who spent so much time on the road, raising two children who weren’t your blood?”

“Begging your pardon, sir… Feargal… but I already am.”

He grasped my face in his hands and pressed a soft kiss to my lips before taking hold of my hands again. “I know things haven’t been easy for you here. I just hope you’ll believe me when I say that I do want to make you happy.”

Being so close to him, hearing his words, I felt like I was being pulled into the sun. The stability of my body disappeared and I went weak in his arms. Gently, he helped me to the armchair next to the fireplace, easing me into it while apologizing for “surprising” me with his proposal, as if there was anything more I could have wished for. 

He knelt before me, chafing my hands in his, looking deep into my eyes with an expression of excitement that made my breath quicken. His tongue flicked lightly over his lips and his eyes flitted over me in a way that seemed intimate and strangely familiar. I hated that I recognized the pangs of desire I was feeling because of what I had gone through with my demonic partner. 

“I suppose we should both retire for the night,” he rasped. “We shall share our good news with everyone tomorrow.”

Once again, he pressed kisses into my hands before he helped me up and walked with me as far as the door to my chambers in the attic. We were ever so slightly awkward as we took our leave, aware that we would sleep under the same roof as we had for months but that our relationship was fundamentally changed. 

I lay in bed, terrified that Balor would visit me to remind me that I had asked him to bring about this exact situation, and although I did not see him that night, I could feel his eyes on me. As I hovered between sleep and wakefulness, I felt the heat of his body against mine, one hand rising along my skin, under my nightdress, the palm splaying against my breast, and I heard his dark laugh next to my ear. But when I opened my eyes to confront him, there was nothing.