#Having to physically scroll down the page rather than just flip a page

[the-busy-ghost]

Idk why every time I have a project that involves using the Register of the Great Seal for something even slightly more complex than looking up a single isolated charter, I always have a lovely plan where I think it will only take me a couple of hours to go in, check the index, and take the numbers I need down. And then I end up having to skimread the whole damn volume.

[may0tuna]

Part 2 High Society | Prowler!Miles Morales x Reader

Writer's notes: I guess I have to also include this but read this lil PSA. Make sure to also read my writer's notes in Part 1, Part 3.

It's been a few days since your dinner party, and you couldn't quite get Miles Morales out of your head. You were attending business school at Columbia University and decided to head on over to the library to do some studying. Books on one hand and phone on the other, you mindlessly scrolled through your friends' social media posts, that is until you bumped into someone just outside the library entrace.

"Sorry, it was my fault, I-," you started to apologize when you realized it was Miles. You blinked once, twice, to make sure it was really him.

"Careful," he responded. His half lidded eyes and smirk made you catch your breath.

"Miles?"

"Y/N, I didn't know you go here."

"Uhm yes, I do. What about you?"

"Helping out in the library is another job to make ends meet," Miles said as he slowly eyed you up and down. You couldn't quite put your finger on him, and it doesn't really help you're in denial about the fact that you're physically attracted to him.

This week was particularly stressful. You were a year behind and all of your friends had graduated already, doing things they're passionate about. As for you, business school was you parents' idea, and since you don't know what you want, you went along with it.

You weren't aware that you were in deep thought until Miles spoke, "Seems like you have a lot going on," he paused. "Wanna grab something to eat?"

The walk to where this eatery Miles had told you about was quite far but still walkable. He said it was a "hole in the wall" type of place, and that they had the best Puerto Rican food.

When you reached the place, the first thing you noticed was the aroma that filled the entire place. It was like being transported to another world where people float when they smell pie being cooled off on a window sill. You haven't realized it until you've gotten to the place that you were famished. Miles greeted some of the customers, including the cook, and led you to a corner booth.

"This place smells like heaven. Well, I don't know what heaven smells like but if it's nothing like this, I'd rather go to hell."

"I assumed you had tasted better food considering you're a L/N."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Your family is one of the richest and most powerful in the city," he paused and looked at you with a deadpanned look before continuing, "I had the idea that you had professional chefs cooking you anything you want, whenever you want." He said as he picked up the menu and started to flip through the pages.

"Don't lump me in with the rest of them," you said pointing a fork at him. "And I know what you're insinuating, Miles. You're telling me that my family's business is evil, I agree. I'm against them using people and treating them like cash cows. I'm on your side." You noticed how your voice hinted a bit of frustration towards the end.

Miles lifted a brow and said, "Is that why you're in a very prestigious business school?"

"Maybe I want to learn how to turn the company into something more ethical," you said proudly, maybe you were convincing yourself more than you were trying to convince Miles. Miles didn't say anything. Instead, he ordered for the two of you. You waited until the waiter walked away. Miles had interlocked his fingers and was eyeing you carefully. You started to become uncomfortable.

After some thought, you decided to speak up, "I should go." Miles did not speak. You decided to stand up, and that's when he stood up, walked over to your side of the booth, and sat down beside you before you could walk away.

"I'd like to leave, Miles," you said meekly.

"No," Miles said as he placed an arm on the back rest of your chair. He leaned in and placed his other hand on yours, which was visibly shaking. You realized that it was true, you are indeed spoiled, privileged, and you know nothing about the real world. If something was to happen to you now, you wouldn't know what to do. Your heart started to beat even faster when Miles leaned even closer to whisper something, "I'm not gonna hurt you, Y/N." You looked up at Miles and gave him a half smile.

When your food had arrived, he moved the hand that was at the back rest of your chair and placed them gently on your thigh. He picked up a fork with his other hand that was previously holding yours and started eating. When he noticed that you weren't eating the food, he softly squeezed your thigh and said, "Eat, mi princesa." You weren't sure if he was being condescending about it but it made your heart flutter a bit.

First bite was indeed heaven. You let out a half moan as you closed your eyes and savor the food in front of you. You saw Miles smirked from your peripheral vision. You're both halfway through your food and you started to relax. You were impressed Miles was able to eat his food with his one hand still on your thigh. Disregard the fact that you were scared shitless a few minutes ago, you decided to test his limits.

"So, Miles," you said as you moved closer to him so that his hands go just a bit further up your thighs. You were wearing a light blue satin skirt with a simple button down shirt. "What other jobs do you have?"

Miles had looked down on his hand and couldn't help but give your thighs another squeeze. He swallowed the food he was chewing before speaking, "Wouldn't you like to know, mamí."

"Yes, I would like to know that's why I asked." You said in your most bratty voice ever just to see how he would react. You have been prim and proper your whole life that this moment right here is giving you some kind of excitement you can't really explain. You would definitely be caught dead if you spoke like this in high society.

"Keep talking to me like that and I'll show you what else I can do." Miles had leaned in so close your lips were inches away from one another. Without breaking eye contact, you feel his hands move up and started rubbing your clit through the fabric. You quickly turned to see if anyone was watching. Thankfully, everyone was busy eating.

Miles continued to rub you and you let out a sigh. You had not realized it but your whole body was leaning into his touch. You felt warm all of a sudden as you let out a breathy "Please, Miles."

All of a sudden, Miles had stopped and picked up a glass of water with the hands that were on you. You pouted at him and he smirked.

"Finish your food, and let's get out of here."

[aranarumei]

the anomalous agate (epilogue)

for anyone who has no idea what this is about, go here for part one

for those who do, here's the ao3 link

there's a lot I want to say. the first, I guess, is that this isn't quite over—like I've mentioned many times before, I still have a bonus scene that's all hanzawa to tashiro. but this, here, is the end of the anomalous agate as it exists in seigi's pov, and as a case in the case files of jeweler richard.

out of curiosity, I found the longest case I could think of in the first two volumes of cfojr—case 2-3—and checked the word count. it totaled an approximate 21k, and with this epilogue, my case reaches the same total.

this is by far my favorite fic that I've ever written, so I could talk about it forever (I really might). but here, I won't say any more, and leave the epilogue under the cut:

case 2-x: the anomalous agate (epilogue)

Richard had always liked to read during his downtime. Rather than keep a stock of books in Jewelry Étranger, he liked to cart them back and forth from his home. Once, when I asked him if he’d ever considered purchasing e-books, we spent the next hour discussing the value of physical versus digital media. There were a lot of arguments for either side, but after analyzing the various pros and cons, Richard admitted that he just preferred the sensation of flipping pages and having the weight of a book in his hands. I tried to imagine Richard scrolling pensively through a tablet in his downtime, and the image was so jarring I almost apologized for asking about e-books in the first place.

Still, one of the cons we’d discussed about physical media was the fact that it took up way more space. Despite that fact, it felt like Richard always had a new book in his hands. I’d never seen his place, so I could only imagine that he lived in a palace with a sprawling library. Or, more realistically, a luxury apartment with a room the size of my apartment allocated for his books.

Most times, the things he read were texts about jewels that went entirely over my head, or books so thick that they were similarly impenetrable. Sometimes they were both. Today, though, Richard was flipping through the pages of a thin book with an illustrated cover. It was a deep blue color, and though Richard’s hand obscured some of the illustration, the blue of the sky was dotted with golden stars—almost like lapis lazuli.

This was enough to pique my interest, and I had downtime in spades, so I sidled up behind him.

From his relaxed position in one of the red armchairs, Richard glanced up at me. I must have successfully conveyed I’ll pace around the room unless you entertain me with my face, because the corners of his mouth quirked upwards.

It had to be an awkward angle, looking up to see me leaning against the back of his chair and unrepentantly staring, but Richard made every move with elegance. I watched the way his hair began to fall away from his face as he tilted his head, opening up his expression into something a little more unreserved.

“What book is that?” I asked. 

“Le Petit Prince.” 

Le Petit? Sheepish, I said, “My English isn’t that great yet…”

Richard raised an eyebrow. “It’s French,” he said, and though the words themselves weren’t laced with malice, I could read the obvious Surely, Seigi, by now you must have learned enough English to distinguish it from other languages in his expression. “The translated title would be The Little Prince. I was reminded of it recently, so I’ve been rereading portions.”

I peered down at the page Richard had open. Sure enough, though I recognized the letters, none of the words made any sense. “What’s it about?” 

“Many things. But there was a particular scene…” He thumbed through the pages until I saw a simple illustration of a fox and a boy dressed in green. “The novel deals with a lot of things—it has a lot to say about the world, but one of my favorite moments in the travels of our titular character is when he meets the fox. The fox asks to be tamed by the little prince—here, he explains what it means.” Without hesitation, Richard translated the French before me into Japanese. “‘But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.’”

“…Tame?” 

“It’s an interesting word, isn’t it?” Richard said. “The fox defines it first as ‘to establish ties,’ but it’s still a peculiar way of expressing friendship. More truthful, perhaps.” He smiled. “Either way, I was reminded of the complications of your troublesome client.” 

There was only one person he could’ve been referring to—the one who’d bought blue lace agate earrings just the other day. I wondered if Richard had remembered the book because he’d seen the same bit of Tashiro’s green hoodie that I had, or because the cover had reminded him of lapis lazuli. But these musings took only a moment; I was stuck on the word tame.

It wasn’t something I’d ever heard used in the context of friendship, but the idea clicked with me. The word evoked a kind of dependency that I felt keenly. I glanced towards Richard. A tamed creature becomes unique, huh? If it was me… Richard couldn’t be anything but a prince.

“What’s on your mind?” Richard asked. 

I’d only recently put my foot in my mouth by comparing us to a married couple, so I refrained from trying to make comparisons. Instead, I chose to bring up a different curiosity of mine. “I was just thinking about how quick Hanzawa’s last visit was. I wish I could’ve heard him explain his choice a little more…” 

Richard set his book to the side. “The blue lace agate?” 

“It wasn’t even something you’d mentioned, so…” 

“I think that was Hanzawa-san’s way of showing initiative,” Richard said. “And it was a rather perfect stone for him. I was not needed for his choice in the slightest.” 

“That’s not true,” I said. “I—there’s no way what you said was unimportant.” 

Glossing past my words, Richard continued his speculation. “I’d mentioned, then, that agate is often dyed to enhance its visual appeal—judging by Hanzawa-san’s reaction to the word ‘truth,’ I’m inclined to think this is somewhat of a sore spot. But what it did tell me was that he was sincerely considering the jewel as a reflection of himself.” 

“…You really know everything,” I said. I’d run into Hanzawa twice, but Richard’s understanding of him matched mine.

“Not everything,” Richard said. “Agate is not metamorphic like lapis lazuli, but its banding pattern demonstrates a subtler uniqueness and complexity. I would think that choosing a naturally colored type of agate, which carries these qualities inherently, was a matter of pride for Hanzawa-san.” 

Pride was really the perfect word—I suddenly remembered Hanzawa’s words about needing strength to be anomalous. To be happy as you were… like Mami-san had expressed, it was certainly a hard thing to do.

“Maybe not everything,” I allowed, “but seriously, you’re spot on. I talked with Hanzawa a lot more than you did, but I didn’t make any of those connections.” 

Richard straightened up in his armchair, obscuring his face from my view. With a sigh, he said, “In this case… I have something of an unfair advantage.”

“Unfair?” I asked, leaning to get a better look at his face.

“Hanzawa-san and I… I believe the expression is, ‘cut from the same cloth?’ That’s the way we are. It makes me feel ill-suited to speak to him, and I suspect the feeling is reciprocated.”

“I don’t think you’re alike at all, though,” I said, studying the mild discomfort on Richard’s face. 

He looked back up at me, curious. “Why do you think so?” 

I wracked my brain for an explanation. If anything, I felt it was Hanzawa and I who were similar, but I couldn’t say why. I could see glimpses of Richard in Hanzawa—something about the grace they made look effortless, but it wasn’t enough for me to truly compare them. Finally, my gaze strayed to the cover of The Little Prince, and I blurted out, “You’re a prince, and he’s a fox.”

As if to prove me wrong in an instant, Richard laughed, his lips curving into a foxlike smile. But even as he did so, he looked like a beautiful, otherworldly prince who could have traveled to many planets before the two of us could meet. “It isn’t that literal,” he said. “Fox or prince; they tame each other the same.” 

Well, I thought, drinking in the visage of the beauty before me, I’m probably not smart enough to be a fox, anyways. “Maybe there’s something you haven’t noticed yet,” I said like the fool I was. “Tell me more about the book?”

After some hemming, hawing, and a promise of milk pudding from yours truly, Richard agreed. He opened the book at the beginning and translated the words before him in a smooth, beautiful tone.

My weight braced against the back of his chair, I closed my eyes, and let his words wash over me.

…If I was ever in Kyoto, maybe I’d get him some kitsune senbei.

-THE END-

[deja-you]

ten ways to say (i love you)

t. jefferson x reader

summary: Thomas has never liked the conventional way of saying ‘I love you.’

word count: 6.1k

warnings: a little bit of angst, high school, karen

masterlist

1.

There is no better way to start off senior year than arriving late to your first class.

In Y/n’s defense, she had left her house early. For once in her life she was actually going to be early to school. She was so proud of herself, and was so certain that she had extra time, Y/n allowed herself to stop at a drive thru and pick up a drink as a reward. Everything was going according to plan. 

That is, until the Karen in the car in front of her decided she wasn’t pleased with her order and made the barista redo it. To make sure she didn’t mess up Karen’s order a second time, the barista was extra careful. And extra slow. Y/n groaned as she watched the time tick by minute by minute. Just her luck.

Y/n watched the barista hand the drink to the Karen and breathed a sigh of relief. Yet, Karen’s car didn’t move. She had her drink, but Karen continued to talk with the barista. Y/n cursed under her breath and banged her head on the steering wheel. She must have been more aggressive than she was expecting, because she accidentally honked her horn. 

She jumped back in shock at the loud noise. Karen poked her head out of her window and immediately began lecturing Y/n on how rude she was being. At least, that’s what Y/n assumed she was saying, she really couldn’t hear the Karen with her windows rolled up. Y/n bit her lip, gave the Karen a little wave, and mouthed an apology.

Eventually Karen had finished her rant and left the drive thru. Y/n got her drink, no longer a reward, more like a consolation now, and sped to school. There weren’t any other students in the parking lot by the time Y/n arrived, remind her of just how late she was. Y/n shoved all her materials in her backpack, locked her car, and quickly walked into the building. 

Of course, Y/n’s first class just had to be with Mr. Rousseau. Any other teacher would just let her tardiness slide. She opened the door to Mr. Rousseau’s classroom, and any conversation that was being had stopped. More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned their attention to her, and Y/n wanted to melt right there and then.

“Miss L/n, nice of you to join us.” Mr. Rousseau addressed her. He narrowed his eyes at her, leaning against his desk as he sized her up. “If you’re done being a distraction to my class, I’d appreciate it if you would take a seat.”

Y/n swallowed roughly, and nodded. Rousseau went back to lecturing the class on how his class would be run, and Y/n did her best to find a seat as quietly as she could. She instinctively made her way over to where her best friends, Abigail and Thomas were sitting. 

Thomas moved his backpack off the desk next to him, and mouthed, “I saved you a seat.”

She gave him a grateful smile and mouthed back a ‘thanks.’ 

Abigail leaned forward and whispered, “Mr. Rousseau wasn’t very amused with you being late, huh?”

“I swear he hates me,” Y/n insisted. 

Thomas rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t hate you, hon’.”

“Thomas is right,” Abigail said. “Mr. Rousseau doesn’t hate you especially. Everyone knows he just hates women.”

2.

Late night study session was code for hanging out at John Adams’s house and messing around.

Abigail was dating John, so Y/n was friends with him and his friends by association. Abigail, Dolly, and Y/n were actually trying to study. John and James were discussing the football team’s chances of winning their next game. Martha and George had snuck off to get freaky somewhere. 

“Okay, Dolly.” Abigail held up a flash card. “What can you tell me about the defenestration of Prague?”

“Um, people were thrown out of windows for fun?” Dolly replied lazily. 

“No. Well, I guess you’re not completely wrong...”

Y/n threw her body against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. If she had to stay here any longer, Y/n would throw herself out a window. Not that she didn’t want to hangout with her friends. After a long day of school, she wasn’t exactly thrilled to spend more time with the people she spent the whole day with. If it wasn’t for her fragile social status, Y/n would have already been home in her bed right now.

“Sorry m’late, had to drop my sister off at a gymnastics class. Or fencing. Or Italian. Honestly, I can’t remember.” Thomas walked into the living room where everyone was hanging out.

“Ah, yes. I had almost forgot that the Jeffersons are all overachievers,” Y/n said with and eye roll. 

He wore an easy grin as he made his way over to Y/n, leaning against the couch and staring down at her. “What can I say? We’re just built different.”

Y/n scoffed but refused to dignify him with any further response. Instead, she closed her eyes again, pretending she was back at home under warm covers. 

“I brought you food.” 

This caught Y/n’s attention. She slowly opened one eye to see if he was telling the truth. Thomas held up a bag of fast food he must’ve picked up on his way over. Y/n couldn’t help but smile as she sat upright.

“For me?” She asked.

“Of course, hon’.” He handed her the bag. “I know you didn’t have time for lunch today, and I know you likely wouldn’t have gotten around to eating anything yet.”

Y/n happily pulled out an order of large fries out of the bag. “Have I ever told you how amazing you are, Thomas?”

“Not often enough.”

“Well. You are amazing. So amazing.”

Y/n finished her fries and was looking through the rest of the bag to see what else he had gotten her when John called out to her. 

“Hey, Y/n,” John said, “what are your thoughts on my cousin?”

“You mean Sam Adams?” Y/n asked. 

“Yep. The very one.”

She shrugged. “He’s cute. Why?”

“He thinks you’re cute. Wanted me to ask if you’re single,” John said nonchalantly. 

Abigail took time away from quizzing Dolly to get invested in the conversation. “She’s very single. Right, Y/n? You and Sam would be so cute together!”

Y/n could feel her cheeks begin to heat up, and she suddenly found the hardwood floors very interesting. “I don’t know... he really thinks I’m cute?”

“S’what he said,” John replied. “Can I give him your number?”

She weighed her options before giving a shrug. “Yeah, why not?”

“Y/n and Sam? I totally ship it,” Dolly said.

“Right?” Abigail grinned. “They’re going to be such an attractive couple.”

“Okay, can we stop talking about this now? I’m here to study,” Y/n insisted, pulling out a textbook.

“I’d rather not fail tomorrow’s test,” Thomas agreed.

Everyone begrudgingly went back to their previous activities, and Thomas took that moment to sit next to Y/n on the couch. She was flipping through the pages of her textbook before she came to a stop. Y/n passed the textbook to Thomas and pointed to the painting on the page.

“Look, this one’s my favorite,” she said.

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” Thomas read. “You’re a fan of Caspar David Friedrich, then?”

Y/n shrugged. “I’m just a fan of the Romantic movement in general. Everything was just so creative, and beautiful, and emotional. There’s just so much feeling in this painting. It’s overwhelming.”

Thomas frowned looking back at the painting, and then back to Y/n. “It certainly is romantic.”

She gave the painting one last look before she began flipping through the pages of the textbook again. Thomas watched her curiously as she read over the vocabulary words for that week. Finally, he decided to say what was on his mind. 

“So, you and Sam Adams, huh?” He nudged her gently with his shoulder.

Y/n bit her lip and focused on a peculiar tchotchke the Mrs. Adams had decorated the living room with. “I guess. I used to have a crush on him in middle school, remember?”

“That’s right. Abbie and I spent most of science class teasin’ you about that. No wonder you’re so bad at physics now.”

She frowned and playfully bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m not bad at physics.”

“Really?” Thomas considered her with eyebrows raised. “Remember that botched science experiment that nearly killed Mr. Newton?”

“Can we not talk about that? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

He hid an amused look. “Whatever you say, honey.”

3.

You’re tired. The sheets are too hot. It’s been a long day, your body is exhausted. The air in your bedroom is too cold. Your mind is tired, too. The sheets are too hot. If you just close your eyes and stop thinking you’ll be asleep in minutes. The air in your bedroom is too cold. Not thinking isn’t exactly easy. The sheets are too hot. Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how -- damn you, Sophocles, and your terribly beautiful words. 

Thomas threw his covers off his body and sat up in bed. He wasn’t going to get much sleep no matter how hard he tried. Thomas rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, if there had been any sleep to begin with. 

There was no doubt that he was tired mentally and physically. Emotionally? His heart was eternally restless. He crossed his room to sit at his desk, fully accepting that sleep wasn’t a viable option anymore. 

The blue light from his computer was a harsh contrast to the darkness of his room, but his eyes adjusted quickly. Thomas didn’t even know what he was doing on his computer in the middle of the night.

His fingers knew. They opened up an application and began scrolling. No, no, no, yes. Perfect. No, no, no, no, no, yes. This is her. And this went on for an hour or so, Thomas lost track of time. He’d be tired tomorrow, but he wasn’t going to get any sleep until he was finished. 

When he actually was finished, he smiled contentedly to himself. A wave of calm washed over him, and before he knew it, Thomas was back in his bed falling asleep. 

He looked terrible the next morning. Well, as terrible as a Jefferson could look. He had still had the sense to dress nicely, collared shirt, sweater, ironed pants, polished dressed shoes. Thomas was still sharp as ever in all his classes, but anyone who really knew him could tell he was a mess. 

“You okay, Thomas?” Y/n asked at lunch in Mr. Locke’s classroom (Mr. Locke was kind enough to let a group of moody teenagers eat lunch in his class, the lunchroom just wasn’t cool enough for them).

“Hm? Yeah. I’m great.”

Y/n cocked her head to the side. “You sure? You seem tired.”

“Don’t worry about me. Actually, I have something for you.” Thomas fished his phone out of his pocket.

“You have something for me?”

“Yeah, I’m sending it now. Check your phone.”

She raised an eyebrow, but Y/n opened up her phone to check the text Thomas had sent her. 

“Sophocles and Serotonin.” Y/n read aloud. “What is this?”

“I made you a playlist of songs I thought you might like.”

“Seriously?” A smile played on her lips; Thomas couldn’t help but reflect it. “When did you have the time for this?”

He shrugged. “I have more free time than you’d think.”

“With all your APs, varsity sport, and extracurriculars? I highly doubt that.” Y/n looked up at him, a teasing lilt transparent in her tone. “I appreciate the playlist even more, knowing you took time out of your rigorous schedule to create it. Thanks, Thomas.”

She leaned forward on the desk she was seated on to press a kiss to his cheek. Thomas froze like a deer in headlights, and if Y/n noticed, she didn’t say anything. He put himself back together before she could notice he was momentarily put-off, and leaned back against another desk in an attempt to look cool.

“S’what do you have planned for after school?” He asked in his best nonchalant voice. 

“Well, Sam and I are going to go see a movie.”

“That’s still a thing, then?”

Y/n shot him a look that had him raising his hands up in surrender. “Yes, it’s still a thing. I really like him, okay? He’s a good guy.”

“But is he good enough for you?” Thomas crossed his arms, his eyes not leaving her’s. It wasn’t that Thomas didn’t like Sam. Sam was great. It was just a fact that no guy would ever be good enough for his best friend. 

“He is.” She said with an eye roll. “Why do you care anyway?”

“Hon’, I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh trust me, I know.”

4.

Summer had felt like an eternity ago, when in reality, it had been less than two months ago. The yellow leaves and the updated fall Starbucks menu were enough to convince anyone that it had always been October. 

It had taken a lot of convincing and a little bit of bribery to convince Thomas to attend the Homecoming football game, but with the assistance from Abigail, Y/n had eventually gotten Thomas to cave. She wanted him there, but more importantly, she wanted him to give her a ride there. 

Of course she could have taken her own car, but Y/n would rather not waste her own gas when she could use Thomas’s instead. It’s not like it mattered to him, his parents paid for his car, insurance, and gas anyway. Plus, his Mercedes Benz had a seat warming function that Y/n couldn’t get enough of. 

She spent most of the ride over to the stadium raving over his seat warmers, and Thomas spent most of the ride making fun of how excited she was about seat warmers. Eventually, they parked outside of the stadium, and Thomas paid for their entrance fee into the stadium.

“It’s co--” before Y/n could finish her sentence, remarking on the obvious cold weather, Thomas had handed her a sweatshirt. She looked down at the maroon sweatshirt, then back at Thomas, her mouth slightly open. “You brought an extra sweatshirt for me? I didn’t even ask.”

“You didn’t have to ask,” he shrugged. She put on the sweatshirt and stared at him with wide eyes. Thomas glanced at, bit the inside of his lip, and shook his head. “Now, don’t go thinking I care about you or somethin’ like that, hon’. Couldn’t have you taking the sweatshirt I’m wearing, then I’d be cold.”

She looked at him with a smug smile on her face that made him regret bringing her the sweatshirt in the first place. “Yeah? Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.” He was doing his best to act annoyed by all her questioning, but he couldn’t help but find it endearing. When he came up with another argument, he added on, “besides, ma would be upset with if she knew I let you freeze. It seems like she loves you more than she loves me sometimes.”

“That’s because she does,” Y/n pointed it out like it was obvious. “Can you blame her? I’m funny and adorable. You’re just a grumpy old man I have to drag to football games.”

“That’s it. Give the sweatshirt back. I hope you freeze.” Thomas was giving her the dirtiest look he could muster. Y/n had the audacity to throw her head back and laugh.

She reached into her purse, and after some digging around, she pulled out a five dollar bill from her wallet. Y/n thrusted the money into Thomas’s hand and pushed him in the direction of the concession stand. “Here. Go get us some popcorn, maybe you won’t be so irritable once you get some food in you. I’m going to go find some seats.”

Thomas grumbled something about “not being irritable” but nonetheless ventured off toward the concessions. Y/n climbed the steps up the stadium and immediately found Abigail sitting in the student section, all decked out in school colors and face paint. Abigail greeted Y/n with a warm hung, then holding her at an arms length, she took note of what her best friend was wearing.

“Is that Thomas’s sweatshirt?” Abigail asked.

Y/n looked down at the the University of Virginia sweatshirt she had wrapped around herself. “Hm? Oh yeah, it is.”

Abigail pursed her lips and mulled over this new information. “What’s going on between you and Thomas?”

“What d’ya mean? We’re friends.” Y/n pursed her lips. 

“And Thomas knows that?” Abigail observed Y/n. “Do you know that?”

Y/n narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Yes, of course I know that. I’m dating Sam now, okay? Thomas and I have always just been friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be.”

Abigail held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. If you say so, I’ll believe you. I just don’t want any feelings to get hurt between the two of you.”

“There are no feelings between the two of us,” Y/n said, but she wouldn’t stop thinking about Abigail’s words for the rest of the night.

5.

All week, Thomas had dreamt about the mint chocolate chip ice cream that was waiting for him in the freezer. 

It was his favorite flavor, and there was just enough left in the carton for one last bowl. He had promised himself he wouldn’t eat the last of it until he had really deserved it. After spending a productive hour studying for the test he had tomorrow, Thomas decided he had finally earned that delectable bowl of artificially colored green ice cream. 

He made his way to the kitchen, humming an upbeat tune and sliding across the hardwood floor in his socks. Thomas had made it all the way to the freezer when there was a knock at the front door. 

Thomas paused. He was so close to getting his ice cream. Maybe it was just a delivery? He debated answering the bowl or ignoring and continuing to dish himself ice cream. Thomas was leaning toward his bowl of ice cream when there was a knock at the door again. With a scowl on his face, he abandoned the fridge and any hope for happiness he had left and made his way to the front door.

“Y/n?” He said in surprise when he opened the door.

“Hi, Thomas. I didn’t know who else to come to. Abigail’s out with John right now. Dolly and Martha aren’t good in situations like this,” she was speaking quickly, sniffling between sentences, and trying not to let any more tears fall down her cheeks. “I just--”

He interrupted Y/n by pulling her into his house and his arms. Y/n melted into his touch, her hands gripping his shirt as she hugged him back. 

“What happened?” Thomas asked softly, rubbing circles into her back with his thumbs.

“Sam and I broke up.”

Thomas sighed softly and rested his chin on her head. He bit his lip, weighed his options, and came to a reluctant conclusion. Thomas pulled away just enough that he could look Y/n in her bloodshot eyes.

“I think this is the part where we break out the ice cream, huh?”

She offered him a miserable smile. “Ice cream couldn’t hurt.”

He led her to his kitchen and began digging through the kitchen while she hopped onto the counter to sit. Thomas hid a frown from Y/n while in the process of pulling out the nearly empty carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

“So you want to tell me what happened?” Thomas asked, pulling out a bowl from one of the cabinets.

“It wasn’t a bad breakup.” Despite her words, Y/n still wiped at her tears with the sleeves of her shirt. “We mutually agreed it was best for both of us.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “He’s just not... he’s not the one.”

Thomas felt something twist and turn in his stomach, but he knew it wouldn’t be right to be happy when his friend was so miserable. He did his best to hide the smile that wanted to form in the corners of his mouth. “M’sorry about that, honey.”

“I know it was the right decision,” she said, staring up at the ceiling in an attempt not to let any more tears stream down her face. “Doesn’t mean it hurts any less, though.”

“It’s normal to be upset after a break up,” Thomas shrugged.  

“You’re not going to have any ice cream?” Y/n asked quietly as he handed her a singular bowl.

“Not in the mood for it,” he lied. 

6.

“You get enough sleep last night, hon’?”

Y/n was in mid-yawn when he asked her the question. She held a hand over her mouth and nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“You look terrible.”

She scowled at him. “Wow. Just what a girl wants to hear. Anyone ever tell you you’re a charmer, Thomas Jefferson?”

“You’d be surprised.” He gave her a teasing smile. “So who’s the cause for your sleepless nights?”

“Napoleon Bonaparte.” She held up her textbook for him to see. “Why’d I ever let you convince me to take an AP class with you?”

“Because you like spending time with me?”

“Nah, that’s not it.”

“Ouch.” Thomas held a hand over his heart. “You really stayed up late studying for the quiz?”

“Some people have to study, okay? Not everyone’s as gifted as Thomas flippin’ Jefferson.”

“Flippin’?” He stifled a laugh.

“We’re at school. Gotta keep it PG, right?” She shrugged. “So yeah, I stay up and study sometimes. High schoolers aren’t supposed to get a good amount of sleep. S’not a big deal.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I worry about you.”

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a small smile. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Believe me, if I could just shut it off, I would. I’ll make you a Quizlet next time so you can get more sleep.”

Y/n was about to say something in response when her phone began ringing in her pocket. “I should get this.”

She went out into the hallway to answer the call, and Thomas turned back to his lunch, not even bothering to hide his smile. 

“Thomas.”

He jumped at the sound of a voice and turned to see Abigail sitting at the desk across from him. Had she been listening to them the whole time? Thomas had completely forgotten she was there; a fact he would be certain not to share with her.

“Yes, Abbie?”

“Do you have a crush on Y/n?” 

Thomas blinked a few times, certain that he hadn’t heard Abigail right. “Excuse me?”

Abigail rolled her eyes, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You heard me right, Jefferson. Do you have a crush on Y/n?”

“Y/n? Where’d you get that idea?” Thomas made a face like he was disgusted by the very thought of it.

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re always following her around and doing whatever it takes to make her happy. Not to mention you always call her “hon’,” seems pretty affectionate to me.” Abigail had a talent for laying out the facts.

“We’ve been friends since I can remember, of course I care about her. So what if I have a nickname for her? Doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s not like you have a nickname for anyone else.”

“I call you ‘Abbie’. I have a nickname for everyone.”

“We both know that’s a load of B.S. Are you really telling me you don’t like Y/n?”

“I don’t like Y/n.” And it wasn’t exactly a lie, because the feelings he had for Y/n had progressed far beyond liking. 

7.

“There’s nothing people appreciate more than a hand-made gift, right?” Y/n said, pulling out a ball of azure colored yarn.

Thomas crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a wall. “Sure, ‘cept maybe a nice Rolex or a new car.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t know what it is about me that makes you think I can afford a Rolex or a new car. I’m an unemployed high school student. My only income comes from birthday cards from my grandparents.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I’m sure Abigail will love the scarf you make for her.”

“Yeah, how hard could it be?” Y/n muttered, staring at the mess of strings in her lap.

Thomas’s eyes widened a little. “You telling me you’ve never crocheted before?”

“How hard could it be?” She pulled up a beginners guide on YouTube, and five minutes later, Y/n had a knotted pile of yarn in her hands. She huffed in frustration and began to aggressively pull at the yarn.

“Let me help.”

“You know how to knit?” Y/n raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

Thomas rolled his eyes, sitting next to her and taking the “scarf” out of her hands. “This is crocheting. You don’t even have knitting needles.”

“Apologies. You know how to crochet?” 

“Lucy went through a stage where she was really into crocheting,” he shrugged. Thomas had quickly untangled Y/n’s “progress” and began to expertly thread together loops of yarn. He held up his work to her once a pattern had begun to form. “See? Perks of growing up with sisters.”

“I hate that you’re good at everything.” 

He snorted and gently began to move the work into Y/n’s hand for her to finish the rest. “’M’not good at everything. Just most things.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Y/n was now laser focused on the project in front of her, determined to get it right this time. Thomas would advise her, but for the most part he let her work on it by herself. She was a fast learner.

“You’re never going to get it like that, hon--” Thomas caught himself, remembering the conversation he had had with Abigail earlier. “Y/n. You’re never going to get it like that, Y/n.”

She looked up at him with furrowed brows. “What?”

He swallowed roughly and shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just... You’re going to want to pull the yarn tighter or it’s all going to unravel later.”

“Oh. Thanks, Thomas.”

8.

It was 2 a.m., and Y/n had already came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to get more than five hours of sleep. She wasn’t exactly trying very hard to sleep. She had tried to refresh her Instagram feed maybe a dozen times now, but it wasn’t like anyone was posting in the middle of the night. Instagram was doing a poor job keeping her mind distracted. 

Lightly biting her bottom lip, she threw her body back onto her bed with a loud sigh. She wrinkled her nose and caved, navigating to the facetime app on her phone. Hesitating one last time, Y/n tapped his contact with her thumb. Her phone began to hum while she waited for him to pick up.

“Hey, Thomas. I know it’s late,” she said when he finally answered the phone. Y/n frowned when she saw him rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. Couldn’t sleep anyway,” replied his groggy voice.

“You’re lying. Hey, don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.”

“I was already up.”

“No, you weren’t. Don’t let me bother you.”

Thomas stopped rubbing his eyes and looked at Y/n firmly through the camera. “Maybe I was asleep, but I’m up now, yeah? Don’t worry about waking me up. I’d rather talk to you any way.”

Y/n pursed her lips, giving him a doubtful look. Thomas was too polite to ever tell someone if they were bothering him. She couldn’t tell if he really wanted to talk to her, or if he was just too courteous to tell her otherwise. 

He noticed the look she gave him and rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” 

“Like you don’t believe me. Would’ve stopped bein’ friends with you years ago if I didn’t find all your annoying habits endearing. Promise.” Thomas shot her a smug smile that made her wish she hadn’t called. 

“So kind of you,” she said sarcastically. 

“I try.” His grin widened, if that was even possible. “So what’d you want to talk to me about?”

Y/n chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” Thomas narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer to the camera. After he had examined her carefully, he leaned back and crossed his arms. “Yeah you do. What is it?”

She shifted, uncomfortable by how easy it was for him to see right through her. Once more that night, she caved. “I can’t stop thinking about how you called me ‘Y/n’ earlier today?”

He tensed up but the action was barely noticeable. “What about it? It’s your name.”

“Sure,” she nodded, “but you never call me ‘Y/n.” It’s always ‘hon’’ or ‘honey.’ Always. Did something happen? Are you mad at me?”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No, ‘course not. Everything’s fine.” He paused. “That really upset you? Me calling you ‘Y/n’?”

“It’s just not normal.”

“It’s not normal for people to call you by your name?”

“It is, but you are supposed to call me ‘honey.’ Okay?”

He laughed through his nose and couldn’t stop an amused smile from spreading on his lips. “Okay, honey.”

9.

“I’m finally going to get to see your mural, then?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “It’s not my mural, Y/n. It’s the senior mural. It’s not like I’m painting it.”

“Yeah, but it was your idea.” She gave him a playful nudge. “I don’t know why you haven’t told me what it is yet. I’m sure if the great Thomas Jefferson designed it, it’ll be the best Senior mural ever seen at Charlottesville High School.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, hon’. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re Thomas Jefferson.”

They turned the corner to see their fellow senior, Henrietta Johnston, working on the mural. The previously beige wall was now covered in black, gray, and light blue paint. In the middle of the painting was a figure made up of colorful hand prints standing above the blue-gray sea.

Y/n stared at the mural with an open mouth. She looked from Henrietta to Thomas, then back to the wall in front of her.

“It was my idea to make the figure all colorful with handprints,” Thomas said. “Thought it would be nice to let our class to literally leave a mark on this school.”

Henrietta smiled at the mural and set down her paintbrush. “It was a good idea. The splash of color is just what it needed. What do you think, Y/n? Do you like it?”

“Like it? I love it. It’s... it’s perfect.” She turned to Thomas with wide eyes. “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. This is my favorite painting.”

“I noticed -- don’t give me that look. It’s not like I care that much. You just never shut up about that painting. It’s annoying, really,” Thomas muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at the ground.

She smiled and turned her attention back to the mural. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this. I can’t believe you remembered.”

“Of course. It’s worth it, seeing how much you like it.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You’re the kind of person I could fall in love with, you know that?” She didn’t take her eyes off the painting, and Thomas was glad. 

Maybe if she had looked at him, she would have seen his breath catch in his throat and his eyes widen just a little bit. If he was the kind of person she could fall in love with, then why didn’t she? Thomas was flustered. If Y/n had noticed his lack of response, she didn’t say anything. 

10.

Charlottesville High School was filled with rich kids. The Charlottesville High School debate team had a minimal amount of members. These factors resulted in Thomas and Y/n having their own hotel rooms when they attended a debate function in Washington D.C.

After a long day of debating, Thomas and Y/n walked side by side down the narrow corridor to their respective rooms. Every now and then, they spared looks at each other when they thought the other wouldn’t notice.

Thomas cleared his throat. “So that guy in the green shirt asked me for your number.”

She glanced up at him. “He did? Did you give it to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Thought he was out of your league. Told him you snored like an ogre and I gave him Maria’s number instead,” he said with a shrug.

She gasped and shoved his shoulder. “Are you kidding me? I don’t snore like an ogre! He was cute and interested in me.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

Y/n scowled. “For your information, I’m adorable. I’m funny and enjoyable to be around. Even if I ‘snore like an ogre’ I’m also extremely attractive, so it makes up for it.”

“You don’t need to sell me on reasons why you’re dateable, honey,” he chuckled softly.

“Oh yeah?”

At the same time, Y/n and Thomas turned to face each other. Their teasing banter stopped when they realized they were only inches apart, he could hear every inhale and exhale. His eyes flicked to her lips. It was only for a second, but she hadn’t missed it. 

Thomas took a step back and cleared his throat. “It’s late, we should go to bed. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed. They both hurriedly stepped into their own rooms. 

Had he almost kissed her? Did that really just happen? Y/n leaned against her hotel room door. Maybe she had just imagined it. She shook her head and grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts out of her suitcase. Maybe Y/n could stop thinking about it after a good nights rest. She changed and was about to brush her teeth when she felt some kind of nagging feeling inside.

It was naïve to think she was going to get any sleep tonight if she didn’t confront Thomas about it. Y/n set down her toothbrush and made her way out into the fluorescent lit hallway. She had made it all the way to his door when she paused.

Is this really what she wanted to do? If Y/n brought up their almost-kiss, would they be able to go back to friends? Did she even want to go back to friends? Y/n bit her lip and glanced back at her own room door. She should just go to bed, it wasn’t worth putting their friendship in jeopardy. But then again, Y/n would always wonder what could have happened if she didn’t confront him.

She raised her fist to knock on Thomas’s door, but before she could knock, the door swung open. Thomas and Y/n once more stood face to face. She had a wide eyed expression that mirrored Thomas’s.

There was an accelerated heartbeat. A flutter. Thomas’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Y/n’s hand found its place on the back of his neck and guided his lips to her’s. His eyes were half open, sneaking glances at her to assure himself he wasn’t dreaming. Her overwhelming scent and the feeling of his hands threaded through her hair was all too real. 

Thomas pulled her into his room, kicking the door closed behind them. Placing both hands on his broad chest, she pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. 

Thoughts were racing in Y/n’s mind. She tried to put reason to the way he gripped her waist tightly -- there would be bruises there the next day. She tried to put reason to the way his pupils dilated as she went in for another kiss. Y/n came up empty handed.

There was no way Y/n felt the same way, Thomas told himself. There was no way she loved him the way he loved her. For as long as he could remember, he had been in love with Y/n L/n. And for as long as he could remember, she had only seen him as her best friend.

Thomas missed the warmth of her lips when she pulled away, but he couldn’t help but admire the way her lips were swollen and her hair was a mess. Her bright eyes, and the way light highlighted the softness of her skin. Thomas took that moment to memorize every line and curve of her face, branding the memory into his head. 

She leaned in to kiss him again, but he pushed her away this time, sitting up. “Stop. We... we can’t do this. This can’t just be a one time thing.”

“Why not?” Her voice was quiet and delicate.

He felt his heart twist inside his chest and he clenched his jaw. “Because I love you.”

[wisherbysharlight]

I Wanna Get It, I Didn't Get It, Til Now

Word Count: 4084

Pairing: Analogical

The second in a series of different pairings being capital O Oblivious because that’s a trope I will never ever get tired of.

Virgil sits at the same library table every single day, alone, until one day, Logan needs a seat.

They are both kind of idiots.

Warnings: none that I can think of

AO3 Link

Virgil loved his library table. He would get there after his work study shift in the registrar’s office, around 7pm on weekdays and 1pm on weekends, and the section on the second floor would be mostly clear. Second floor was quiet but not silent, so it didn’t feel oppressive, and he didn’t feel insecure about whether his headphones were too loud or not. His favorite table was just to the left of the water fountain, had an outlet built into it, and the chairs were adjustable enough that he could lean back and press his knees against the side of the table while he typed. He loved his table so much that he’d come even if he didn’t have homework to do, just to scroll through endless Tumblr pages or work on his personal writing. He’d had his table for 3 months with no problem at all, which was why he was baffled when someone came up to him while he was reading and stood expectantly next to the table, overly full backpack hanging off his shoulder.

 He recognized the other man immediately, he was another library regular who usually sat two tables away, always messing with his hair and adjusting his tie pushing his glasses up his nose and drawing Virgil’s eye with movement. He took his headphones down and put them around his neck, though he could still faintly hear his music, “Hi? Can I help you?”

 “The outlet is broken on my table, and I was wondering if I could join you and utilize the other half of yours?” mystery-man asked, gesturing to where Virgil was only using two of the four outlets.

 “Oh sure, of course, go ahead. Sorry about your table,” Virgil offered, brandishing his hand vaguely at the chair across from him.

 “You have nothing to apologize for, of course. I appreciate your amenity. I submitted a work order request, hopefully it will be repaired soon,” the other man took the seat and set his things down before extending a hand across the table, “Logan Perry. I believe I’ve seen you here frequently so this is at least a good opportunity to get acquainted.”

 Virgil blinked a bit, trying to process, then hurriedly pulled his hand out of the makeshift paw he’d made out of his sweatshirt sleeve and shook Logan’s hand so he wouldn’t think that Virgil didn’t want to, “Um. Yeah. I’ve seen you around too, I think. Virgil Storme. Nice to meet you.”

 Logan tipped his head to the side curiously when Virgil leaned over, as though he was listening hard, then adjusted his glasses, “Hmm. Interesting melody. I appreciate the solid bass rhythm. Who is the artist, if you don’t mind my asking?”

 “The... Artist? Oh, you mean the band I’m listening to?” he picked his headphones up but only put one ear on, “It’s Arctic Monkeys. They’re like, known, for solid bass lines, which is probably what you could hear.”

 Logan hummed like he was intrigued, then began pulling books out of his bag and… wow. That was a lot of books, each one thicker than the last. Chemistry I, Physics II, Theory of Numbers, Discrete Mathematics… Virgil had a headache just looking at the titles, “Uh… Wow. That’s some collection you’ve got there. What year are you?”

 “I am a first semester sophomore. I struggled choosing a major, so I opted to dual major in Math and Physics and minor in Philosophy and Conservation Studies. Also a minor in Astronomy, but that came with no extra courseload, just strategic choices in electives. I enjoy learning quite a bit, so I opt to stay during break semesters, and I am on track to graduate on schedule with no more than 18 credits a semester,” Logan rattled off, like he’d gone through the spiel before and was expecting certain questions and wanted to head them off, “And yes, before you ask, I do take breaks, I am not a hermit with no friends, and as far as I know I am not a robot.”

 Virgil blinked dazedly again, trying to absorb the bucketful of information being thrown at him, “Cool. Sounds like you’ve got it under control then. I’m dual-major too, but creative writing and interactive media design have a bunch of overlap.”

 Logan nodded, pulling out what must have been the notebook he was looking for with a triumphant noise, “You want to be a game designer then? Very lucrative career to choose, especially with the current market for such employs.”

“I wanna write books, actually, but like you said, markets good for game writers and I wanna have a fall back in case everything sucks, ya know?” Virgil admitted. He’d been told his stories were good, sure, but there was always a chance it would all go to shit, and the only way to account for that was to put 110% in and have a backup plan for his backup plan’s backup plan.

 Logan gave him an indecipherable look that passed in a moment before he went back to his neutral expression, “Understandable, I suppose. If you would ever like a second opinion on a piece, please allow me to offer my aid. I may not be as fluent in creative ventures, but I am a fan of such works, and my roommate often uses me as a sounding board for his own ideas.”

 Virgil tried not to let his surprise show, he didn’t want to offend his new… desk-mate? Acquaintance? Study partner? Whatever Logan was to him now. “Sure, uh, that’d be great. I don’t know if I can offer the same, since, ya know, science is really not my strong suit, but I can try?”

 Logan pushed his hand through his hair and pulled a hairtie off his wrist to pull it up into a slightly messy bun that kept his hair out of his eyes. Virgil noticed it actually looked more red than brown as the light hit it, and was so distracted he almost didn’t notice Logan offer a genuine smile, green eyes sparkling and catching Virgil off guard yet again with just how attractive he actually was, and flipped his laptop open, “That would be much appreciated Virgil. Thank you.”

 They worked together in silence for the next hour and a half, then both headed back to their dorms. Virgil felt even more productive with just Logan’s presence and aura of concentration, and he found himself hoping the work order took a while to be completed.

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

The next day, Virgil arrived at his table to find Logan already there, two coffee cups in front of him, studying a tome of a textbook raptly. Still, he looked up when Virgil took his seat across from him and pushed one of the coffee cups his way, “I made myself a tea downstairs and figured I’d make a second in case you wanted one. It’s a vanilla flavored English black tea, not the garbage they serve in the dining halls.”

 Virgil grabbed the cup greedily, “Oh shit this is perfect, I had an 8am and desperately needed caffeine.” He took an experimental sip and groaned a bit as it hit his tongue, closing his eyes as the warmth passed through him like a calming fire, “Thank you, Logan, it’s delicious.” He thought he heard a choking sound, but when he looked up, Logan was looking back down at his notebook. He thought he saw a slight flush to his face, “Hey, you alright?”

 “Oh yes, I’m fine. I just needed to clear my throat,” Logan insisted, though he did not look up from his book and his cheeks got even brighter. Virgil supposed he was probably a little embarrassed since he was normally so poised and put together.

 “Ok, if you’re sure!” He opened his laptop and checked his to-do list, and was thrilled to realize he didn’t have anything urgent in terms of schoolwork. He opened his novel document instead, and immediately remembered why he’d left off where he did as the frustration resurfaced. Well, he thought, now was as good a time as ever to see if Logan meant it when he said he was willing to help. “Hey, Lo, could you help me find a word for what I’m trying to say here?”

 Logan finally looked up from his book, sticking a bookmark in and closing it before adjusting his glasses and giving Virgil his full attention, “Absolutely, I could do with a break from formulae. Go ahead.”

 Virgil felt a little off balance with the full weight of Logan’s stare, and his brain suddenly chose this moment to remind him that he was very, very gay. He cleared his throat and looked back down at his laptop so he wouldn’t be distracted, “Oh. Um. Thanks. So this guy is looking at his friend who he hadn’t really noticed in a romantic sense before, but i need a word for ‘‘momentary gay panic at how pretty he is’ without saying it like that. Like more poetic? Or just less casual.”

 Logan cleared his throat, face flushing again, and Virgil had a moment of alarm when he realized he didn’t even know if Logan was ok with LGBT stuff, and oh god, what if he was a homophobe and yelled at him or he just made him super uncomfortable or - “While romantic language is typically much more my roommate’s forte, I can certainly, er, relate, to the situation you are describing, and attempt to describe it as Roman would.”

 Virgil let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, relaxing once he realized the source of Logan’s hesitation was not derived from intolerance but instead from hitting a little too close to home. Then, in a moment of emotional whiplash, his breath caught again as he realized it hit a little too close to home and that meant Logan was likely attracted to men and that was nerve-wracking in an entirely different way. He forced himself to relax, knowing that Logan was likely waiting for an answer, and stammered out, “Y-Yeah, that would be good. Anything would help.”

 “I believe a good way to phrase it would be ‘Suddenly caught unaware by the realization that he may be attracted to this man’. You could also describe side effects of the feeling itself, such as flushed skin or quickened heartbeat or what I believe my friend Patton calls butterflies?, rather than spelling it out explicitly.”

 Virgil couldn’t hold back a grin as the inspiration hit him, “Oh! Duh! Show don’t tell would work perfect here, thank you Logan you rock!”

 He didn’t miss the way Logan looked momentarily shell-shocked and made a mental note to be sure to give him more compliments in the future, if he was that maladjusted to them.

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

 Virgil hissed as his pencil broke again, clicking the end to get more lead a bit more aggressively than he probably needed to. Calculus was the devil, he’d decided. He was in hell and series and sequences were his instrument of torture.

 Logan cleared his throat and Virgil’s head shot up in surprise. When had Logan gotten there? Oh good, tea, that was always welcome. He grabbed the cup Logan extended towards him and started chugging before Logan could even give him the usual background on what kind it was like he had every day for the past month. The other table was definitely fixed by now, but the two of them had gotten so used to the company that they’d just kept sitting together. “Virgil, are you… alright?” Logan asked tentatively, and Virgil looked up again, guilty and a bit crazy eyed.

 “Fuck that was so rude. Yes. Yes, I’m fine, sorry, thanks for the tea Lo, I’m just stressed about this godforsaken calc II exam I have Monday. I don’t understand any of this stuff,” he gestured to the packets and notebook and textbook spread out on the table.

 “That’s quite alright, I’m familiar with the stress of midterms. Though I may be able to help alleviate some of yours? I am a junior TA for Calc II, I could potentially provide assistance,” Logan offered.

 Virgil let out a breath of relief, twisting one of his rings in an attempt to quell some of his nervous energy, “Oh that would be incredible. My Grad TA’s office hours are during when I have work, and he’s kinda a dick anyway.”

 Logan exhaled heavily like he was trying not to laugh. “Chad, I assume?” he asked and Virgil nodded, “Well I can definitely be more helpful than that glorified orangutan.” It was Virgil’s turn to be startled into laughing, “Here, let me see what you’re working on....”

 An hour and a half later, Logan was watching him work carefully and when he tentatively circled his final answer he gave him an encouraging nod and a smile, “You’ve got it now. See, it’s all about the rules and the patterns.”

 “Oh Logan I could kiss you,” Virgil enthused, still looking in amazement at his own work, “You just saved my entire life, thank you.”

 Logan cleared his throat and turned away, though when Virgil looked up he could see that the tips of his ears were red. Ugh, you’d think after a month he’d be used to being complimented by now. “Well, if that was all, I, er, I need to work on some of my own assignments.”

 “Yeah, yeah, of course, I can do more practice myself,” Virgil told him, waving him away with a smile, “You’ve absolutely helped enough,  I’ll get you that jam you like so much or something. I owe you so much.” 

 Logan mumbled something in return but when Virgil asked him to repeat it he stammered, “I’ll be right back!” and ran off to the bathroom. Virgil shrugged and went back to puzzling through the rest of his study guide.

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

“-so, theoretically, there could in fact be another planet in this solar system, but it would need to be far enough away or small enough to not affect the gravitational pull of Pluto’s moons in a significant way or just in a way which is balanced by another gravitational pull which forced our equations to not identify any irregularity.”

 “Well shit,” Virgil breathed, “So, theoretically, how possible are aliens?”

 “Damn close to guaranteed,” Logan told him with a grin, “Intelligent life, that’s another story, but I still believe they are highly likely-”

 Virgil set his head in his hands, pushing his work to the side so he could simply listen.

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

“I’m going to head down to the cafeteria to make another cup of tea, would you like to join me?”

 “Sure thing, Lo, I desperately need to not look at this anymore.” Virgil felt a teeny bit of pride when Logan choked on nothing in what Virgil assumed was shock as he stood up to stretch and revealed his outfit, his heels giving him the extra three inches he needed to be what Remy called scary tall, which was actually enough to effectively tower over Logan, and the confidence to leave his sweatshirt unzipped over a mesh crop top and ripped jeans that he knew looked good, as he had been assured so around 100 times before he agreed to go to the library in it in the first place, “Sorry, forgot you got here after me, my friend’s playing a show tonight after this and I told him I’d hang with his boyfriend and make sure no one gets obnoxious. So I got a little dressed up, cuz I didn’t wanna have to go back to my apartment in between. Besides, when I’m this tall no one fucks with me in general, not just in the mosh pit.”

 “That is… certainly an outfit,” Logan wheezed, then took a sip of his water in an attempt to wash it down.

 “You ok L? You’re all red, I don’t need you dying on me,” Virgil asked, concerned his friend was actually drowning on his own water bottle.

 Logan waved him off, gulping water down like he’d been stuck in the desert for days. “Yes, yes, just a little, erm, parched. Got a bit too focused and forgot to drink and you startled me.”

 “Whatever you say, Professor,” Virgil teased, stretching his arms up to try to roll his shoulders, “Just don’t get too enthusiastic there. Last thing we need is you to choke to death cuz you were thirsty.”

 Logan seemed to make a concentrated effort not to choke again, adjusting his tie and turning on his heel quickly to head down to the cafe, and Virgil considered it a win.

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

There was someone else at their table. The new man was broad shouldered, with dirty blonde hair that had just a bit of a beachy wave to it, skin tanned perfectly like he’d never spent a day out of the sun. How was that even possible? They went to school in Massachusetts and it was January. He was gesturing wildly while he spoke and Logan was doing that half-laugh he did when he thought something was funny but didn’t want to admit it and Virgil felt… something… pang deep in his stomach. Of course, Logan was ridiculously hot, Virgil had no chance at all, even if he’d been starting to feel like there was something between them. He definitely didn’t have a chance if Logan wanted someone that looked like that. He couldn’t help but be a little vindictive though as he plastered a smile onto his face and headed over, setting his bag down with a resounding thump, “Wow, this quiet corner just keeps getting more crowded, huh?”

 Logan startled a bit, and Virgil could have been imagining it but he thought he saw a flash of hurt at Virgil’s tone, “I-I suppose. This is Roman, he needed some assistance with his screenplay and I suggested he come here, but we can go back to our apartment if it will be too much of a nuisance for you.”

 Virgil would have eaten his own shoe to take back his original words, but he couldn’t, so he covered up as best he could, “R-Roman. Your roommate. Of course. Hi, I’m Virgil, you can definitely stay. Sorry, just had a long day at work, I’m a little - er- cranky, or whatever.”

 Roman gave him a smirk that was just a tad too knowing for Virgil’s taste, “Don’t worry, Mr. Prince of Darkness. I’ll be out of your hair soon and you two can get back to doing whatever the hell it is you do every day. Just need the human thesaurus here to help me out a bit, and it’s not like he’s ever home anymore with how often he hangs around here for your little study-”

 “Roman,” Logan hissed quickly, and Virgil saw Roman shoot him an unimpressed look.

 “Study sessions.” Roman finished, “Now come on Pocket Protector, what’s another word for pining. I’ve already used it twice, and longing and yearning are both not quite a right fit.” Virgil had a momentary thought that Roman should be very glad looks couldn’t kill, with how Logan was glaring him down. “Nothing? How about some flowery language for black hair or blue eyes, hmm? Think you can help me there?”

“Roman Michaels.” Logan bit out, and Roman gave him a bright, shit-eating grin.

 “No? How about helping me with a sweatshirt sharing scene, how about that? I mean, it’s a cliche, sure, but I’m sure we can put a spin on it, like make it clearly well used and important...”

 “I will dye your hair fluorescent orange in your sleep Roman, I swear,” Logan seethed, and Virgil was stock still, eyes wide as they darted between the two roommates.

 ”Maybe some music recommendations then? Those are slightly less cliche…”

 “Destroy your conditioner and hide your blow dryer, add cheap hair gel to all your shampoo,” Logan continued, attempting to speak over him.

 “I know you’ll suggest a height difference, I believe I can fit that in,” Roman’s voice was rising too, and the new occupants of Logan’s old table were firing dirty looks at them.

 “Guys?” Virgil asked quietly and both of the roommates stopped immediately, turning to him with fire in their eyes, “Um. I guess this is like... a touchy subject? But people are staring cuz you guys are sorta… loud.”

 Roman and Logan both flushed brightly, turning to give awkward waves to the other table while Virgil tried to comprehend what had just happened, “So like… Logan you’re pretty passionate about Roman’s screenplay, huh?”

 Roman groaned dramatically and shoved his laptop in his bag, standing abruptly. “I can’t believe there’s two people as oblivious as you,” he muttered like a curse, then almost literally flounced off with a clearly meaningful look shot at Logan that Virgil couldn’t quite figure out but made Logan flush brighter.

 It was silent for a couple minutes, just the taptaptap of Virgil’s pen against his notebook sounding out through the space between them, before Virgil couldn’t take it and spoke up, “You wanna talk about why that was a thing for you or nah?”

 “Y-You don’t know? Seriously?” Logan looked incredulous, then laughed a little to himself, “Virgil. He was teasing me.”

 “Teasing you? About what?” Virgil asked, trying to think through what it could possibly be, “You that against, like, cheesy romcom cliches?”

 Logan shook his head, still looking like Virgil had amazed him in some way, “Virgil. Please. Think about it. Black hair, blue eyes, height difference, well-worn sweatshirts and music recommendations. You don’t have any idea what he could possibly be mocking me for?”

 Virgil’s brow creased in thought, and suddenly it hit him and he audibly gasped, making Logan swallow nervously, and the word pining soared to the front of his mind, “Y-You. You mean?”

 “I am… Interested in you Virgil. Romantically. I have been since far before I ever sat at your table, the broken outlet just provided a good excuse for me to finally attempt to talk to you. Roman was… blunt but he had informed me that he was, and I quote, ‘Coming to see what the fuss was about’ after I got, I admit, a bit too in depth in lamenting my inability to ask you out on a date. I had no idea he would be so infuriatingly obtuse about it, I hope he did not make you uncomfortable. Obviously, you do not share the sentiment-”

 “Whoa whoa. Hold on there. Who said I didn’t?” Virgil cut in quickly before Logan could keep babbling, recognizing social anxiety when he saw it, “Cuz I sure didn’t.”

 “...I’m sorry?”

 “You should be. Can’t go assuming stuff about people, L. Now why don’t you ask me, straightforward, if I am interested. Because I can guarantee you will like the answer.”

 Logan cleared his throat, then swallowed thickly, his cheeks lightly pink, “Well then, Virgil, I like you very much and would like to know if you would like to accompany me to dinner this Friday night? As a date?”

 “I’ll do you one better, since I also very much like you back, and I don’t think my anxiety could take waiting that long. Let’s go get some food right now. I’m starving and I would very much like to kiss you and I want to get at least one date in before I totally ruin your opinion of me and do that right here in this library, and Friday can be our second date, deal?” Virgil offered, extending his hand across the table to Logan.

 Logan grasped his hand and brought it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles with a heady glance up through his glasses, “V, I think you will find that there is not much that you could do which I would not fully endorse at this moment. But I absolutely accept this proposal. Let’s go.”

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

 5 years later, almost exactly to the day, Roman is insufferable during his best man speech about the fact that he is the reason they even got together in the first place, and insists that if left to their own devices they would still be meeting at 7pm on weeknights and 1pm on weekends at a table in the corner of the library with the good chairs and never, ever confessing their love. Logan and Virgil are too busy clinging to each others’ hands and staring into each others’ eyes to dispute it at all.

[salandition]

raihan cuddling a s/o that’s like a foot shorter than him. do it coward 🔫

A/N: IM ALREADY BEING HELD AT GUN POINT...... i expected this I wont lie. also wow how self indulgent because raihan is exactly a foot taller than me.... how’d u know...

---

Honestly, there’s a lot of words you can use to describe Raihan. There are the flattering ones, of course- comments that you’ll usually find on his social media pages: handsome, strong, athletic, and so on and so forth. But to describe the man and his actual physical form... Well, the term ‘tall glass of water’ is something he probably hears every single day. Because he really, really is. 

You just like to say he's a whole lotta leg, though. Because it’s a true statement and it doesn’t feed into his ego, since Arceus knows that he already has too much of that. Even if he likes to act suave and indifferent to public opinion, you know better. His ego could certainly match Leon’s, easy. 

Because of this, he’s cocky. Especially around his friends, where his true personality flourishes and he abandons his public persona (a persona that some call ‘mildly feral’. You agree with that description). And out of his shell, he’s exactly that. Cocky, smart, and a bit of a cuddler, actually. 

You’ve seen him wrap an arm around Leon, Piers (when the man doesn’t shove him off, that is), Nessa- any of his friends, really. He likes to stand close and hover over everyone’s shoulders, too. And he’s certainly wrapped an arm around you before- but like most people that can’t rival his height, it’s not as much an arm around the shoulders as it is a warm palm pressed between your shoulders. You can’t help it that you’re so much shorter than him. The contact is always nice, though, so you don’t complain. 

You’re not really sure how you feel about his recent development, though. 

Unlike the rest of Raihan’s friends, you’re not a Pokemon trainer or Gym Leader. Sure, you have Pokemon, and sometimes you’ll train them just to help with their energy, but you don’t really participate in battles. So you’re not often around the Gyms, but sometimes you go to watch battles or to pick Raihan up after work so the two of you can hang out. Today you had done just that- the receptionist recognized you when you headed into the lobby of the Hammerlocke Gym and let you access the backstage-area which acted like a locker room of sorts. There's a few couches and chairs, a vending machine full of snacks and drinks, and then- of course- lockers to hold the items of the Leader and his assistants. 

No one was in the room when you walked in, so you decided to rest on one of the couches, leaning on the arm of it as you scroll on your phone and wait for Raihan. A little boring, yes. Eventually you got up to get a drink from the vending machine, and then headed right back to your spot. 

You eventually swung your legs up on the couch- after removing your shoes, because you don’t want to get it dirty. Only a few more minutes drag on until you’re pulled into a light rest. 

A rest that is abruptly interrupted by something falling directly onto you- or rather, someone. 

You wheeze as you wake up, the weight on you disorienting as your eyes shoot open and find Raihan squirming on top of you. “Raihan!” You groan from under him, and then cough when he accidentally knees your stomach. “Arceus, what on Earth are you doing-”

“Sorry,” he says, but the impish grin on his face looks anything but. “You just looked so comfortable- scoot over, would you?” 

“What do you mean, scoot over?” Despite your confusion, your body naturally starts to move to make room for him, and he slides into the space provided between you and the cushions. He loudly sighs as his shoulder wiggles under you, and eventually he has you lying on his lean chest with his long arms surrounding you and his legs weaving between yours. “Raihan-” 

“You’re like a stuffed animal,” The dragon-leader snorts in amusement, continuing to hold you against him. 

“It’s not my fault that you’re a giant!” 

“It’s cute, don’t worry about it,” Raihan smiles, one of his arms leaving you to wiggle under his head so he can rest against it. “So, how’re you?”

You give him a look, your eyebrows creasing as you purse your lips. “A bit odd, to be honest.” He meets your eyes. 

“Really? How so?”

You roll your eyes at him. “I wonder.” Your fingers wander to his torso and pinch him over his clothes. “Weren’t we going to go to lunch?”

The pinch doesn’t even affect him as he just swats your hand and pulls it around him, and you try to ignore how hot your face feels. “Yeah, but I’m tired from working. We’ll go later.” 

“If you really want to rest, I should just go-”

“Don’t.” He interrupts you, and when you look up at him, his eyes are closed. Raihan’s body sinks into the couch cushions. “Just lay down for a bit. You already were.” 

You can’t really argue with that. Despite how odd it is that Raihan suddenly ambushed you, it’s not really a bad thing. For how skinny he is, he’s oddly comfortable and warm, but you have a feeling that’s mostly because of his hoodie. “...I guess.” Slowly, you let yourself relax against him on the small space of the couch, your head resting on his shoulder. 

Raihan’s always been a cuddler to a certain degree, you knew this. But this really caught you off guard. You can feel Raihan’s laugh before you hear it, and it makes your face even warmer. 

It’s really ridiculous how much of a limb-monster this man is. Not the most flattering choice of words, but again, it’s true. Laying with him like this makes it really obvious how different your bodies are, and just how much he surrounds you makes your stomach do flustered flips. 

“You’re odd, Raihan.” You mumble against his sweater, and once again you can feel his laugh that moves through his chest. 

“You’re just comfortable, is all. But yeah,” he nods, and you can feel as he fumbles around just a bit more so his cheek presses against the top of your head. “I am pretty odd, aren’t I?”

Truer words have never been said.

[checkurwindow]

ten ways

Book: Open Heart

Warning: So sweet your dentist would be concerned Rating: General Pairing: Bryce x F!MC Word count: 6500+ Author’s note: I finally wrote something that isn’t angst and oh god is it long. I spent so much time on this so please please consider reblogging and let me know what you thought of it, and maybe check out my masterlist while you’re at it.

1.

There was truly no better way to start off senior year than arriving late to her first class. 

In her defense, she had left the house early. For once in her life, she was actually going to be early to school. She was so proud of herself, and was so certain that she had extra time that she allowed herself to stop at a drive-thru and get a drink as a reward to herself. Everything was going according to plan. 

That is, until the lady in the car in front of her decided she wasn’t pleased with her order and made the barista redo it; and to make sure he didn’t mess up her order a second time, the barista was extra careful. And extra slow. 

She groaned as she watched the time tick pass minute by minute. Just her luck. 

She watched the barista hand the drink to the lady in front and breathed a sigh of relief. Yet, the car didn’t move, not a single inch. The drink was already in her hand, but the lady just had to continue to talk with the barista. 

She cursed under her breath and banged her head on the steering wheel in frustration. She must’ve been more aggressive than she was expecting, because her horn went off, and loudly at that.

She jumped back in shock at the noise. The lady poked her head out of her car window and immediately began lecturing her on how rude she was being. At least, that’s what she assumed she was saying, she really couldn’t hear her with her windows rolled up. She bit her lip, gave a little wave, and mouthed an apology.

Eventually, the lady finished her rant and left the drive-thru. She got her drink, no longer a reward and more of a consolation, and sped to school.

There weren’t any other students in the parking lot by the time she got there, only a reminder of just how late she was. Shoving all her things back inside her backpack, she locked the door and hurried into the building.

Of course, her first class just had to be with Mr. Anderson. Any other teacher would have just let her tardiness slide, but not him, never him. She opened the door to his classroom, and any conversation that had been going on stopped. 

More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned their attention to her, and she wanted to melt into the floor right then and there. 

“Nice of you to finally join us,” Mr. Anderson addressed her. He narrowed his eyes at the nervous student, leaning against his desk as he sized her up, “if you’re done being a distraction to my class, I’d appreciate it if you would take a seat.

She swallowed roughly and nodded. He went back to lecturing the class on how his classes would be conducted, and she did her best to find a seat as quietly as she could. Instinctively, she made her way over to where her friends were sitting.

Bryce moved his backpack off the desk next to him and quietly whispered, “I saved you a seat.” 

She gave him a grateful smile and mouthed back a ‘thanks’.

Sienna leaned forward, “Anderson really wasn’t amused with you, huh?”

“I swear he hates me,” she insisted.

Bryce rolled his eyes, “he doesn’t hate you, Boo.”

“Bryce is right,” she said, “everyone knows he just hates women,” she stressed the last part with exaggerated disgust.

2. 

Late-night study sessions had evolved to become code for hanging out at Danny’s house and messing around. 

Sienna was dating Danny, so naturally, she had become friends with him and his friends by association. Sienna, Aurora, and her were actually trying to study. Danny and Elijah were discussing the school football team’s chances of winning their next game, and Jackie and Bryce were in the kitchen getting snacks and undoubtedly bickering about something completely irrelevant. 

“Okay, Sienna,” Aurora held up a flashcard, “what can you tell me about the defenestration of Prague?” 

“Uh, people were thrown out of windows for fun?” She replied, barely having read that chapter of the textbook.

“No- well, actually, I suppose you’re technically not completely wrong.”

She let her body fall back against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. If she had to stay there any longer, she would’ve thrown herself out the window. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hang out with her friends, it was just that after a long day of school, she wasn’t exactly thrilled to spend more time with the people she had already spent most of the day with. 

“Sorry I’m late, I just spent the better part of the last hour trying to explain to a group of freshmen that I won’t be dating or teaching “my ways” to any one of them,” he shuddered dramatically as he walked into the living room where everyone was.

“Ah yes, I almost forgot I was friends with the Bryce Lahela,” she said overdramatically.

He rolled his eyes but decided to amuse her nonetheless, “what can I say, I’m just clearly superior.”

She scoffed but refused to dignify him with any further response. Instead, she closed her eyes and pretended she was back at home under her warm, soft covers. 

“I brought you food.”

That caught her attention. Cautiously opening an eye to see if he was telling the truth, she was met with the sight of him holding up a bag of fast food that he must have picked up on his way over. She couldn’t help the growing smile on her face as she sat upright. 

“For me?” She asked.

“Of course, Munchkin” he handed the bag over to her, “you skipped lunch to finish up the science project you were behind on and I’m certain you haven’t gotten around to eating anything yet,” he said confidently.

She happily pulled an order of large fries out of the bag, “have I ever told you how amazing you are, Bryce?”

He smiled, “not often enough.”

“Well, you are. So amazing.”

She had just finished the fries and was looking through the back to see what else he had gotten her when Danny called out to her.

“What are your thoughts on Rafael?” He asked.

“Aveiro?”

“Yep.”

She tilted her head, “he’s okay, pretty cute. Why?”

“He told me he likes you, even wanted me to ask if you were single?” Danny said nonchalantly.

Sienna immediately got invested and joined in on the conversation, “she is very single, and I for one think they would be a great couple!”

She could feel her cheeks begin to heat up, and suddenly she found the hardwood floors very interesting, “I don’t know…he actually likes me?”

“That’s what he told me,” Danny replied, “can I give him your number?”

She weighed her options before giving a careless shrug, “Yeah, why not?” 

“You and Rafael? I knew this day would come,” Aurora commented.

“Okay, we’ve talked about this long enough. We need to study,” she insisted, pulling out her textbook.

“I’d rather not fail this test,” Bryce agreed.

Everyone begrudgingly went back to their previous activities, and Bryce took that opportunity to fill up the space next to her on the couch. She flipped through pages of her textbook before coming to a stop. She passed the textbook to Bryce and pointed to a large picture on the page.

“This one’s my favourite,” she said. 

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” he read,  “you’re a fan of Caspar David Friedrich?”

She shrugged, “I guess I’m just a fan of the Romantic moment in general. Everything was so creative and beautiful. I just think it’s crazy how this painting holds so much emotion.”

Bryce frowned, looked at the painting, then back at her, “it certainly is romantic.”

She gave the painting one last look before she began flipping through the pages of the textbook again. Bryce watched her curiously as she read over the vocabulary words for that week. After a while, he decided to say what was on his mind. 

“So,” he broke the silence, “you and Rafael, huh?”

“Yeah,” suddenly, the furry carpet on the floor looked beyond interesting, “I used to have a crush on him in middle school, remember?”

His mouth broke out into a smile, “Sienna and I used to tease you about it all the time! No wonder you’re so bad at chemistry,” he joked. 

“I happen to be pretty extraordinary at chemistry, thank you very much.”

“Hm, I think that botched experiment that nearly killed Mrs. Durnam tells a very different story,” he said, and she playfully punched his arm. 

“She’s still alive, isn’t he? Plus, you were the one who didn’t make me double-check!”

He had an amused look on his face, “keep telling that to yourself, babe.”

3.

He was tired, the sheets were too hot. It had been a long day, his body was exhausted. The air in his bedroom was too cold, his mind was tired, too. If he would just close his eyes and stop thinking, he’d be asleep in mere minutes. Now the sheets were hot again, so he kicked them off. Then the air was too cold, so he pulled the sheets over him again. Not thinking ironically proved to be harder than perceived. Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how fooli- damn it, Sophocles, damn your terribly beautiful words.

Bryce threw the covers onto the other side of the bed and sat up. He wasn’t going to get much sleep that night no matter how hard he tried, anyway, no need to lie to himself. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, if there even had been any sleep in the first place.

There was no doubt that he was tired both mentally and physically. But emotionally? His heart was eternally restless when it came that. He crossed his room and sat down at the expensive wooden desk, fully accepting that getting any rest that night was no longer a viable option.

The bright light from his computer was a harsh contrast to the darkness of the room, but his eyes adjusted soon enough. Bryce didn’t even know what he was doing on his computer in the middle of the night. 

But his subconscious knew. His fingers opened up the application and started scrolling. No, no, yes. God, no. yes, definitely, perfect. And that went on for an hour or so, though Bryce wasn’t exactly keeping track of time. He’d be near-dead at sunrise, but he wasn’t going to get any sleep until he finished. 

When he actually did finish, he smiled contentedly to himself. A wave of calmness washed over him, and before he knew it, he was face down and lost in his dreams asleep.

He looked terrible the next morning. Well, as terrible as Bryce Lahela could look. He still dressed as great as always, even styling his hair with a little more volume than usual. He was still sharp as ever in class, but anyone who really knew him could tell that he was a total mess. 

“Hey, you okay?” She asked during lunch in Mr. Jericho’s classroom (He had been kind enough to let a bunch of teenagers spend lunch in his class; the cafeteria just wasn't cool enough for them).

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.”

She cocked her head to one side, “no you aren’t, spill.”

“Don’t worry about me. I actually have a little something for you,” Bryce fished his phone out of his pocket.

“You have something for me?”

“Sending it now. Aaaand…...check your phone!”

She raised an eyebrow and cautiously unlocked her phone to look at the text he had sent to her.

“Sophocles and Serotonin,” she read off her phone, “ what is this?” 

“I made you a playlist of songs that I thought you’d like.”

“Seriously?” A smile emerged on her lips, and Bryce couldn’t help himself but to reflect it, “When did you even have the time for this?”

He shrugged nonchalantly, “I happened to have free time last night.”

“With Mr. Anderson's early deadlines? I smell a steaming hot pile of bullshit, Lahela,” She looked up at him, a teasing lilt prominent in her tone, “I appreciate the playlist even more now that I know you took the time out of your night to make it. Thank you, Bryce.”

She leaned forward on the desk she was seated on and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He froze like a deer in headlights, and if she noticed, she definitely didn’t say anything. He compiled himself back together before she could notice that his usual smirk wasn’t as smug as it usually was, and leaned back against the desk behind him in an attempt to look cool. 

“So, what’re you doing after school?” He asked in his best casual voice. 

“Rafael and I are going to see a movie.”

“That’s actually still a thing?”

She shot him a look that made him raise his hands up in surrender, “Yes, it’s still a thing. He’s a good guy, I really like him.” 

“But is he good enough for you?” He crossed his arms, eyes not leaving hers. It wasn’t that Bryce didn’t like Rafael. Rafael was great, but no guy would ever be good enough for his best friend. 

“He is,” She said with an eye roll, “why do you care anyway?”

“Just looking out for you, Sweetheart.”

“I can take care of myself perfectly fine, Scout.”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead, an impressed look across his face, “trust me, I know.”

4. 

Summer felt like an eternity ago, when in reality, it had been less than two months ago The yellow-orange leaves and updated Starbucks menu was enough to convince anyone that it was already October. 

It took a lot of sweet-talking and a tiny bit of bribery to convince Bryce to attend the Homecoming football game, but with Sienna’s assistance, she eventually got him to cave. She wanted him there, but more importantly, she wanted him to give her a ride there. 

Of course, she could have taken her own car, but she would much rather not waste her own gas when she could take advantage of his instead. It wasn’t like it mattered to him, his parents paid for his car, insurance, and gas anyway. Plus, the seat warming function in his cushy Mercedes Benz was a huge incentive.

She spent most of the ride over to the stadium raving over the seat warmers, and he spent most of the ride making fun of how obsessed she was with said seat warmer. Eventually, they parked outside and paid for the entrance fees. 

“It’s kinda co-” before she could even finish her sentence remarking the cold weather, Bryce handed her a comfy looking (and feeling) sweatshirt. She looked down at the maroon sweatshirt, then back at him, her mouth slightly ajar, “You brought an extra sweatshirt for me? I didn’t even ask.”

“You didn’t need to,” he shrugged. 

She put on the sweatshirt and stared at him with wide eyes. Bryce glanced at her, bit the inside of his lip, then shook his head, “Don’t go thinking I care about you or anything now, Lovey. I couldn’t have you taking the sweatshirt I’m wearing, then I’d freeze up. 

She looked up at him with a smug grin on her face that made him regret bringing her the sweatshirt in the first place, “Yeah? Is that really all it was?”

“Yes, that’s all, Sunshine,” he did his best to act all annoyed by her questioning, but instead found it endearing in the end. 

It took him a moment, but eventually, he came up with a half-decent excuse, “besides, you know my grandma would kill me if she knew I let you freeze. I swear, sometimes it seems like she loves you more than she loves me.”

“That’s because she does,” she pointed it out like it was the only possibility, “can you blame her? I’m funny and adorable. You’re just a grumpy old man that I had to drag to this game.”

“That’s it. Take the sweatshirt off, I hope you freeze,” he said with the dirtiest look he could muster and she had the audacity to throw her head back and laugh.

She reached into her bag, and after digging around, she pulled a five-dollar bill out of her wallet. Thrusting the money into Bryce’s hand and pushing him in the direction of the concession stand, “here, go get some popcorn for us. Maybe then you won’t be so irritable once you get some food in you, I’ll find us some good seats.’

Bryce grumbled something about “you’re irritable” but nonetheless ventured off towards the concession stand. 

She climbed the steps up the stadium and immediately found Sienna and Danny sitting in the student section, all decked out in their school colours and face paint. Sienna greeted her with a warm hug. 

Pulling back, Sienna took note of what she was wearing, “is that Bryce’s?”

She looked down at the Stanford sweatshirt she had wrapped around herself, “Oh yes, it’s pretty comfortable, actually.”

Sienna pursed her lips and mulled over the new information, “What’s going on between the two of you?”

“What do you mean? We’re friends,” she shrugged.

“And Bryce knows that?” She paused, “Do you know that?”

She narrowed her eyes at Sienna, “Yes, of course I know that. I’m dating Rafael now, okay? Bryce and I have always just been friends, and that's all we’ll ever be.” Sienna nodded her head, “Okay, okay. If you say so, I believe you. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt, I care about both of you.”

“There aren’t any feelings between Bryce and I, don’t worry,” she said, but those words didn’t leave her mind for the rest of the night.

5. 

Bryce had spent a significant amount of the week dreaming about the coffee and cookie dough ice cream that was waiting for him in the freezer.

It was his favourite flavour, and there was just enough left in the carton for one last bowl of that sweet sweet goodness of a food. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t eat the last of it until he really deserved to. After spending his afternoon being productive and studying for the test he had tomorrow, he decided that he finally earned that delectable bowl of unhealthy but utterly delicious caramel-colored ice cream. 

He made his way down to the kitchen, humming an upbeat tune and sliding across the smooth marble floor in his most comfortable pair of socks. Bryce had made it all the way to the freezer, barely moments away from the compartment holding his currently most prized possession when a hasty knock at the front door stopped him in his tracks.

He paused. He was oh so close to getting to his ice cream; maybe it was just a delivery? He debated answering the door or ignoring it and getting the ice cream first. He was starting to lean towards just going for his bowl of ice cream when there was a knock at the door again. With a scowl on his face, he abandoned the freezer and any hope for happiness he had left and made his way to the front door.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” He said in surprise when he saw who was standing at her doorstep.

“I didn’t know who else to go to. Sienna’s out with Danny, and Aurora and Jackie aren’t good in situations like this,” she spoke quietly and sniffled in between sentences, trying not to let any more tears fall down her cheek, “sorry, I just-”

He interrupted her by pulling her into the darkening sky and into his house and arms. She melted into his touch and gripped his shirt tightly as she hugged him back. 

“What happened?” he asked softly, rubbing circles into her back with his thumbs.

“Rafael and I broke up.”

Bryce sighed softly and rested his chin on her head. He bit his lip and weighed the options in front of him, before he came to a reluctant conclusion. He pulled away just enough so that he could look her in her teary bloodshot eyes.

“I think this is the part where we break out the ice cream.”

She offered him a slightly trembling smile, “ice cream couldn’t hurt.”

He led her to the kitchen and began digging through the freezer while she hopped onto the counter beside him. He hid a frown from her while in the process of pulling the nearly empty carton of coffee and cookie dough ice cream out of the freezer.

“You wanna tell me what happened?” Bryce asked, retrieving a bowl from one of the cabinets.

“It wasn’t even a bad break up,” Despite her words, she still wiped at her tears using the sleeves of her shirt, “we mutually agreed that it was best for both of us.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, “he’s just...not the one, I guess.”

Bryce felt something twist and turn in his stomach, and he knew it wasn’t right to be happy when his friend was so miserable, but he was anyway. He did his best to hide the smile that wanted to form at the corners of his mouth, “I’m sorry, Cupcake.”

She laughed, “Cupcake?”

He rolled his eyes, but the grin on his face remained, “I’m trying something new, okay? Running out of nicknames.”

She couldn’t help but match his infectious smile, “you’re not gonna have any ice cream?” she asked as he passed her the bowl.

“Nah, not in the mood for it,” he lied.

6. 

“Did you get enough sleep last night, Hon?” She was already in mid-yawn when he had asked the question.

She held a hand over her mouth and nodded, “yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You look terrible.”

She scowled at him, “wow, just what a girl wants to hear. Anyone ever tell you you’re one hell of a charmer, Lahela?”

“You’d be surprised, actually,” he gave her a teasing smile, “so who’s the cause for your sleepless night?”

“Napoleon Bonaparte.” She made an emphasis on the textbook in her hands, “Why’d I ever let you convince me to take an AP class with you?”

“Because you so desperately enjoy spending time with me?”

“Nah, that’s not it.”

“Ouch,” Bryce held a hand over his heart, “you really stayed up late studying for the quiz?”

“Some people have to study, okay? Not everyone is as gifted as Bryce flippin’ Lahela.”

“Flippin’? Really?” He stifled a laugh.

“We’re at school, gotta keep it PG,” she shrugged, “so yeah, I stay up and study sometimes. High schoolers aren’t supposed to get a normal amount of sleep, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I worry about you.”

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a small smile, “you don’t need to worry about me, Bry.” 

“Believe me, if I could just shut it off, I would. Look, I’ll make you a stack of flashcards next time so you can get more sleep.”

She was about to say something in response when her phone rang in her pocket, “I should get this.”

She went out into the hallway to answer the call, and Bryce turned back to his lunch, not even bothering to hide his growing smile. 

“Bryce.”

He jumped at the sound of a voice and turned to see Sienna sitting at the desk across from him. Had she been listening to them the whole time? He had completely forgotten she was there; a fact he certainly wasn’t about to share with her. 

“Yes, Sienna?”

“Do you have a crush on her?”

Bryce blinked a few times, certain that he hadn’t heard Sienna right, “Excuse me?

Sienna rolled her eyes, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “You heard me right. I’m not blind, Bryce. I see the way you look at her when you think no one is focusing. Do you have a crush on her?”

“That’s ridiculous, where’d you even get the idea from?”” He made a face like he was disgusted by the very thought of it. 

“Oh, I dunno, you just do whatever it takes to make her happy. Not to mention that you have a different pet name for her every time I see you two, seems pretty affectionate to me, Bryce.” She did always have a talent for laying out the facts.

“We’ve been friends since before I could remember, of course I care about her. And so what if I have a nickname for her? It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s not like you have a nickname for anyone else.”

“I call you...Si...all the time,” he paused to rethink what he just said, “I have a nickname for everyone.” 

“We both know that’s a load of B.S, are you really telling me that you don’t like her?”

“I don’t like her,” and it wasn’t an exact lie, because the feelings he had for her had progressed far beyond liking. 

7. 

“There’s nothing people appreciate more than a hand-made gift, right?” She said and pulled out a ball of azure coloured yarn.

Bryce crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a wall, “Sure, except maybe a nice Rolex or a new car.”

She gave him a look, “I don’t know what it is about me that makes you think I can afford a Rolex or a new car. I’m an unemployed high school student, my only income comes in the form of birthday cards from my grandparents.”

“Well, I’m sure Sienna will love the scarf you make for her.”

“Yeah, how hard could it be?” She muttered and stared blankly at the mess of strings in her lap.

His eyes widened a little, “Wait, you’re telling me you’ve never crocheted before?”

“I'll get the hang of it soon enough,” she pulled up a beginners guide on YouTube, and five minutes later, she had a knotted pile of yarn in her hands. She huffed in frustration and began to aggressively pull at the yarn.

“Let me help you.”

“You? Know how to knit?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. 

Bryce rolled his eyes, sitting next to her and taking the “scarf” out of her hands, “This is crocheting. You don’t even use knitting needles”

“Apologies. And how do you even know how to crochet?” 

“I may or may not have taken lessons a couple summers back to impress Alisson Rivers?” He admitted, quickly untangling her “progress” and began to expertly thread the loops of yarn together. He held up his work to her once a pattern had begun to form, “being incredibly sexy has its perks,” he jokingly winked at her. 

“I hate that you’re good at everything.”

He snorted and gently began to move the work into her hands for her to finish the rest, “Not everything, maybe just most things.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,”  She waved him off, now laser-focused on the project in front of her and determined to get it right that time. Bryce gave her tips and advice every once in a while, but for the most part, he let her work on it by herself. She was a fast learner. 

“Sweethea-” Bryce cut himself off, remembering the conversation he had with Sienna earlier. He cleared his throat, “you’re never gonna get it like that.”

She looked up at him with furrowed brows, “What?” He swallowed roughly and shook his head, “It’s nothing. Just...you’re going to wanna pull the yarn a little tighter or it’s all going to unravel before you’re even finished.”

“Oh,” She gave him a thankful smile, “thanks, Bryce.”

8.

It was almost 2 in the morning, and she knew that getting any more than four of sleep was out of the equation at that point. She wasn’t exactly trying very hard to sleep. She had tried to refresh her Instagram feed maybe two dozen times now, but it wasn’t as if anyone was going to post in the middle of the night. And even so, Instagram was doing a fairly poor job at keeping her mind distracted. 

Sighing out in frustration, she threw her body back onto her bed with a loud sigh. She wrinkled her nose and finally caved in to her temptations, navigating to the facetime app on her phone. Hesitating one last time, she tapped his contact with her thumb. The phone began to hum as she waited for him to pick up. 

“Hey, Bry. I know it’s late,” she said when he finally answered the phone. She frowned when he realised he was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, no. I couldn’t sleep anyway,” replied his groggy and raspy voice. 

“I know you’re lying, Bryce. Don’t worry about it, go back to sleep”

“I was already up.”

“No, you weren’t. It’s really fine, don’t let me bother you.

He stopped rubbing his eyes and looked at her firmly through the camera, “Maybe I was asleep, but I’m up now, aren’t I? Don’t worry about waking me up. Besides, I’d much rather be talking to you.’

She pursed her lips, giving him a doubtful look. He was too polite to ever tell her if she was bothering him. She couldn’t tell if he genuinely wanted to talk to her, or if he was too courteous to tell her otherwise.

He noticed the look she gave him, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t believe me. I would’ve stopped being friends with you years ago if I didn’t find all your annoying habits endearing as hell. I promise,” he shot her a smug smile that almost made her wish she hadn’t called him up. 

“How kind of you,” she said sarcastically.

“I try,” his grin widened, if that were even possible, “so what did you want to talk to me about?” 

She chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged, “I dunno.”

“You don’t?” Bryce narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to the camera. After he had examined her carefully, he leaned back and crossed his arms, “Yeah you do. What is it?”

She shifted uncomfortably by how easy it was for him to see right through her. Once more that night, she caved, “Earlier, when you told me to tighten the yarn. You stopped yourself from calling me ‘sweetheart’.”

He tensed, but she didn’t notice, “I mean, what’s so unusual about that? That's a perfectly normal thing for someone to do.”

“I know,” she nodded, “but you always call me some cheesy pet name. Always. So, did something happen? Are you mad at me?”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head, “No, of course not. Everything’s fine,” he paused, “that really upset you?”

“It’s just that you’ve always had a nickname for me, I guess I got used to it.”

He laughed through his nose and couldn’t stop the amused smile from spreading across his lips, “Okay, Boo.”

9. 

“Am I finally going to get to see your mural?”

Bryce rolled his eyes, “It isn’t my mural, Love. It’s the senior mural, it’s not like I’m painting it.”

“Yeah, but it was your idea,” she gave him a playful nudge, “I don’t know why you haven’t told me what it is yet. I’m sure if the amazing Bryce Lahela designed it, it’ll be the best senior mural this school has ever seen. 

“Don’t get your hopes up, Babe. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” she said matter-of-factly, “you’re Bryce Lahela.”

They turned the corner to see their fellow senior, Kyra Santana, working on the mural. The previously beige wall was now covered in black, gray, and light blue paint. In the middle of the painting was a figure made up of colourful handprints standing above the blue-gray ocean in front of them. 

She stared at the mural with an open mouth. She glanced from Kyra, to Bryce, then back to the artwork in front of her.

“It was my idea to make the figure all colourful with the handprints,” Bryce said, “I thought it would be nice to let our class literally leave a mark on this school.”

Kyra smiled at the mural and set her paintbrush down, “I was a great idea, the splash of colour is just what it needed,” she turned to her, “what do you think?”

“Like it? No, I...I love it, it’s perfect,” she turned to Bryce with wide eyes, “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, this is my favourite painting.”

“I noticed--don’t give me that look. It’s not like I care that much, you just never shut up about this painting. It’s annoying, really,” he muttered, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at his shoes.

She smiled and turned her attention back to the mural, “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this. I can’t believe you remembered.”

“Of course. It’s worth it, seeing how much you like it.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You’re the kind of person I could fall in love with, you know that?” She didn’t take her eyes off the wall that the mural proudly sat on, and Bryce was glad.

Maybe if she had looked at him, she would have seen his breath catch in his throat and his eyes widen just a little bit. If he was the kind of person she could fall in love with, then why didn’t she? Bryce was flustered, and if she had noticed his lack of response, she didn’t mention it.

10.

Their high school was filled with rich kids. Their high school also had a debate team with a minimal number of members. These factors resulted in Bryce and her having their own separate hotel rooms when they attended a debate function in Washington D.C.

After a long day of debating and watching other teams debate, she and Bryce walked side by side down the narrow corridor to their respective rooms. Every now and then, they sneaked looks at each other when they thought the other wouldn’t notice.

Bryce cleared his throat, “So that guy in the blue shirt asked me for your number.”

She glanced up at him, “He did? Did you give it to him?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Thought he was out of your league. I told him you snored like an ogre and gave him Jackie’s number instead,” he said with a careless shrug.

She gasped and shoved his shoulder, “Are you kidding me? You know I don’t snore, he was cute and interested in me!”

“Can’t imagine why.”

She scowled, “For your information, I’m adorable. I’m funny, enjoyable to be around, and have a high tolerance for assholes who shut down opportunities for their friends. And I’m extremely attractive, which is an added plus.”

“You don’t need to sell me on reasons why you’re dateable,” he chuckled softly.

“Oh yeah?”

At that very moment, they turned to face each other. Their teasing banter stopped when they realised that they were only inches apart, able to hear every inhale and exhale of the other. His gaze flickered down to her lips, and it was only for a second, but she hadn’t missed a single bit of it. 

Bryce took a step back and cleared his throat, standing rather uncomfortably, “It’s late, we should go to bed. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed before they both hurriedly turned around and stepped into their own rooms.

Had he almost kissed her? Did that really just happen? Her mind wandered as she leaned against her hotel room door. 

Maybe she had just imagined it. She shook the thought out of her head and grabbed a sweatshirt along with a pair of shorts out of her suitcase. Maybe she would stop thinking about it after a good night's rest. She changed, brushed her teeth, and was about to turn the lights off when she felt that nagging feeling bubble up in the pits of her stomach once more.

It was naive to think her mind would stop racing that night if she didn’t confront Bryce about it. She set the covers that were in her hands down and made her way out into the fluorescent-lit hallway. She had made it all the way to his door when she stopped herself. 

Was that really what she wanted to do? If she brought up their almost-kiss, would they ever be able to go back to being friends? Did she even want them to go back to being just friends? She bit her lip and glanced back at her own room door. She should’ve just gone to bed, it wasn’t worth putting their entire friendship on the line. But then again, she would always wonder what could have happened if she never followed her gut.

She raised her fist to knock on his door, but before she could make contact, the door swung open. They once more stood face to face, their wide-eyed expressions mirroring each other. For a moment in time, all that stood between them were the accelerated heartbeat and the flutters they felt for one another. 

Bryce’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her hand had found its place on the back of his neck and guided his lips to hers. His eyes were half-open, sneaking glances at her to assure himself that he wasn’t dreaming. Her overwhelming scent and the feeling of his hands threaded through her hair were all too real.

He pulled her into his room, kicking the closed door behind him. Placing both hands on his broad chest, she pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips.

Thoughts were racing in her mind. She tried to put reason to the way he gripped her waist so tightly that there were sure to be bruises there the very next day. She tried to put reason to the way his pupils dilated as she went in for another kiss; she came up empty-handed. 

There was no way she felt the same, Bryce told himself. There was no way that she loved him the way he loved her. For as long as he could remember, he had been in love with her, and for as long as he could remember, she had only seen him as her friend.

He missed the warmth of her lips when she pulled away, but he couldn’t help but admire the way her lips were slightly swollen and her hair was a mess. Her eyes were mesmerising, and the way the light highlighted the softness of her skin made him fall even more. He took that moment to memorise every line and curve of her face, forever branding that memory into his head. 

She leaned in to kiss him again, but he pushed her away this time and sat up, “Stop. we...we can’t do this.  This can’t just be a one-time thing.”

“What?”

He felt his heart twist inside his chest and he clenched his jaw, “Because I love you.”

Her lips curled up in a smile, “I love you too.”

[scapegrace74-blog]

Don’t Call It Love

A/N  With Saorsa done and dusted, it’s time to return to the Metric Universe.  When we last left Jamie and Claire in October 2017, they were sharing comforting silence and attending a Depeche Mode concert together.  Will things fall easily into place now that they have tripped over the line from being roommates to being friends?   Oh, hell no.  What would be the fun in that? 

All other parts of the Metric Universe are available on my AO3 page.

The song by Zero 7 (another guest artist!) that inspired the title is here.

Winter, 2017 - London, England

It happened by accident.  Happenstance.  Serendipity.   Fate.  The words she used to explain the fact that she and Jamie started seeing each other outside of the flat in social circumstances that would typically be characterized as dates varied, but her opinion remained fixed.  They weren’t dates.  Jamie was her roommate, a good friend, a fellow enthusiast of the culturally obscure, and a brilliant pub trivia partner.  They had both agreed that a romantic relationship between them would be disastrous; ergo, there was nothing romantic about their increasingly frequent outings.  If she could memorize the names for the 206 bones in the human skeleton, she could certainly manage to keep her feelings for Jamie inside the tidy box she had built for them.

Non-Date #1

They crossed paths inside the massive Spittalfields Market, both of them with shoulders damp from the chilly November rain.  Jamie was on his way to the fishmonger, while Claire carried a cloth bag filled with late-season vegetables, determined to eat something other than take-out on a rare day off from lectures and the hospital.

“Are ye on yer way back tae the flat, then?” Jamie asked, physically fighting the urge to offer to carry Claire’s wee sack.

“No, I’m off to the charnel house first.”

“The what, now?”  Surely he’d misheard her.

“The charnel house.  Don’t tell me you’ve been living over top of a medieval burial ground all this time without realizing it?” Claire teased.

Intrigued as much by her beguiling smirk as the opportunity to explore a bit of London’s history, Jamie followed Claire to a commercial highrise near the edge of the market.  Descending a non-descript stairwell in Bishop’s Square, they came to a halt in front of a glass wall.  On the other side was an excavated ruin, the crypt of the long-vanished chapel of St. Mary’s Spital hospital, a quick scan of a nearby information plaque informed him.

“They only discovered it was here when construction of the office tower began,” Claire said, a wistful look on her face.  “For centuries, travelers and the victims of London’s many plagues were buried around the hospital, quite literally in the Spital fields.  When the graves overflowed, they brought the excess bones here and stacked them for safe-keeping until the Apocalypse.  Imagine, forgetting something so...fundamental.”

Jamie grunted in acknowledgement, seeing the reflection of Claire’s face superimposed on the glass.  He couldn’t decide if this human tendency towards forgetfulness pleased or disappointed her.

“Tis rather...”

“Macabre?” she suggested with a grin, turning away from the display and climbing back into the cloud-roofed square.

“I was gonna say morbid, but as ye like.”

“We build our present on the bones of our past, my Uncle Lamb used to tell me.  He was referring to archaeology, but I’ve found it to be true of life itself.”

They walked back to the flat, collars raised against the hastening rain.  Jamie had bought enough hake for two, so they shared the narrow worktop, dicing fresh vegetables and letting their shoulders bump together occasionally.

Claire ate at the two-person dining table while scrolling social media on her phone.  Jamie used the coffee table to hold his plate and the gaming magazine he was flipping through.

It wasn’t a date.

Non-Date #4

Her cellphone rang as she was leaving the bathroom, thoughts bouncing between her end-of-semester exams and her non-existent plans for the Christmas holidays.  She accepted the call with one hand while starting the tedious job of separating her soaking curls with the other.  At first there was only static.  She glanced at the screen, recognizing the familiar number.

“Jamie?” she tried.

“...mac na ghalla, Hamish...” followed by muffled noises and masculine jeering.  She switched hands and started to towel off, making certain first that the video call button wasn’t active.

“Hal-lo.  Paging Mr. Fraser.  You have a call on line one.”

“Ach, sorry Claire.  I didna mean tae... That is, the lads were just... How are ye?”

She giggled at his discomposure.  “I’m well, thank you.  And you?”  They had seen each other that morning, as he came off shift and she was leaving for her morning lectures, so she assumed there was more to this call than a polite inquiry into her state of well-being.  She had learned over their months as roommates that sometimes you just needed to wait for Jamie to get to his point.

“Braw, thank ye.  I was... weel, I’m at the park with some o’ the lads, tryin’ tae put t’gether a side, an’ we’re short a winger, an’ I was jus’ thinkin’, ye said ye wanted tae learn tae play an’...”

Another James Fraser quirk was that he rambled in broad Scots when he was nervous.

“Jamie, are you asking me to play rugby with you?”

“Aye.  Aye, I am.  If ye wish, o’ course.”

“I did just step out of the shower...” she mentioned, already peering outside at the threatening sky and mentally assessing her wardrobe for something suitable for a ruck and maul in the rain.  “Hello?” when there was no sound from the other end in some time.

“Aye, I’m here.  Nevermind, Claire.  I dinna consider, ye must be gettin’ ready to study fer yer finals, an’...”

“Where are you?” she interrupted, opening a drawer and pulling out a pair of yoga pants.

“Victoria Park?” Jamie replied, sounding hesitant and hopeful.

“Give me twenty minutes.”

“Splendid!”  She could hear his smile down the line.

“I better not get mud in my hair, Fraser,” she retorted before hanging up, her own smile lingering on her face.

There was nothing romantic about rugby.

Non-Date #7

The flat was strangely forlorn, even with Christmas lights twinkling merrily in the living room windows and a tiny fir tree precariously balancing its five ornaments standing in the corner.  

They had exchanged their gifts on December 23rd, sipping on hot chocolate spiked with Kahlua and grinning shyly at each other.  She’d bought Jamie the next Call of Duty game for his XBox.  Nothing intimate, just something he’d mentioned in passing he was looking forward to trying.  His boyish glee upon unwrapping the package warmed her more than her drink.   Hands shaking slightly, she delicately opened the tastefully wrapped rectangle he presented to her.  Inside was a cashmere scarf, luxuriously soft beneath her fingers as she stroked it.

“Is this?” she asked.

“Aye, tis the Fraser plaid.  Ye ken there’s no’ a clan named Bee-cham, right?”

She was deeply touched, and thanked him was a kiss against his scruffy cheek.

Jamie had left for Scotland the next day, having somehow managed to secure a week’s worth of leave from his uncle over the holiday season.   As was her wont, she’d put down for as many shifts as possible while medical school wasn’t in session, but by some fluke she wasn’t scheduled to work New Year’s Eve for the first time in recent memory.

Some of her classmates from nursing college had invited her along to a “raging party in Shoreditch”, but she’d made up some excuse.  The truth was, she wasn’t in the mood for loud music and over-priced drinks with a group of virtual strangers.  If Geillis had been in town, she would have allowed her friend to coerce her into whatever mayhem she had up her sleeve, but Geillis was still in Columbia and eight months’ pregnant with twins, to everyone’s collective shock.  Especially the mother-to-be.

No, what she really wanted was a quiet evening at home, snuggled under her favourite fleece blanket on their couch, the latest Ferrante novel in her lap and a glass of Pinot Noir at the ready.  Jamie had a turntable and a surprisingly well-curated selection of vinyl in his bedroom, but she didn’t like entering his domain without his permission.

Without giving it a second thought, she rang his cell.  It was only upon hearing the raucous sounds of a party in full swing that it occurred to her that just because she was spending New Year’s Eve alone, it didn’t mean Jamie was as well.

“Claire?” he yelled over something that sounded a lot like live music.  “Are ye all right, lass?”

“Oh!  I’m so sorry, Jamie.  I just wanted to ask... never mind.  It’s not important.  Enjoy your party...”

“Wait!” the background noise mutated, sounding like a riot underwater, and then there was a wooden slam.  Jamie huffed a sigh of relief.

“Mu dheireadh.   Are ye still there, Sassenach?”

“Still here,” she confirmed, suddenly feeling sorry for herself.  She might be the most pathetic thirty-year old in London.

“Did the hospital no’ call ye in for a shift, then?”

She tucked the blanket under her feet, warding off the chill that always seemed to creep in from the wall of windows.  The Christmas lights she’d strung reflected against the glazing in alternating colours: blue, red, green, blue, red, green.

“No. By some miracle of the festive season, I have the night off,” she joked halfheartedly.   “I’m sorry for interrupting your night out.  I wanted to ask if I could borrow your turntable and a few of your albums?”

“O’ course.  Ye didna need tae ask.  An’ I’m no’ out.  I’m at home, at Lallybroch.”  He pronounced the word with a guttural flourish that made Claire think of an exotic kind of pastry or a rare tribal custom.  Any time Jamie spoke of his family’s home in Scotland, he imbued it with an otherworldly quality, like a fortress in a fairy tale, a far away land of warriors and mist.  It was strange to think of him there now, while she sat alone in their flat.

“It sounds like quite the party.”

“Aye.  The Frasers take their Hogmanay celebrations verra seriously.  Ye shoulda come wi’ me.”  Then, as though realizing what he’d said, he added quickly, “We could use a doctor.  Dougal sprained his ankle doin’ a sword dance, and Angus singed his arse somethin’ fierce jumpin’ o’er the bonfire.”

She laughed, her mood suddenly much lighter, and asked for more particulars as to how his cousin’s naked ass came to be in close proximity to open flame.  Without either realizing it, the last minutes of 2017 crept by.

Fireworks erupted outside, followed by the tolling of bells and honking of horns.  On the other end of the call, she could hear cheering and an off-key rendition of Auld Lang Syne.  They were both silent, embarrassed to have been so caught up in their trivial conversation as to have missed the arrival of midnight.

“Happy Hogmanay, Sassenach,” Jamie’s voice came soft and sure over the line.

“Happy New Year, Jamie,” she replied.  “I should really let you get back to your party.   Your family must be wondering where you’ve disappeared to.”

He hummed noncommittally.  It occurred to her that had they been in the same place, they would likely be kissing right now.  It sent a shiver of want down her spine.

“Jamie?”  Her voice sounded thready, like she had just woken from a deep sleep.

“Hmmm?”  Shivers, again.

“What’s a Sassenach?”

He laughed softly, and she had to bite her lip.  What was the matter with her?  “Tis a Scottish word for a foreigner, particularly an English one,” he explained.

“You’ve never called me that before,” Claire remarked.

“I’ve ne’er spoken tae ye while on Scottish soil.  T’wasn’t an accurate description ‘til now.”

There was a long silence.  She could hear the sound of revelry through the door of whatever room at Lallybroch he’d hidden inside.  Outside the flat there were firecrackers.   They reminded her of mortar rounds heard from a distance in Afghanistan.

“You don’t like fireworks, do you?” she guessed.  It didn’t take an advanced degree in psychology to know that bright flashes and sudden pops of sound would trigger his PTSD.  They really were a mess, the pair of them.

“Nay.  Jenny an’ Ian’s bairns love them, an’ I told them no’ tae hold off on my account, but they insisted on a bonfire instead.  It reminds me o’ when I was a lad, a’fore ye could buy fireworks along wi’ yer ham at the local Tesco.”

Jamie launched into a long account of the significance of bonfires in Highland culture, and she let herself drift on the melody of his voice, the turntable long forgotten.

“Tell me about yer most memorable New Year’s,” he prompted after his cultural diatribe wound down.

“Oh, well, they all rather blur together, actually.  Too much drink, too much spent on the cover charge.  You know how it is.”

“Nah, I mean when ye were younger.  Ye must ‘ave celebrated in some remarkable places.”

She thought back to her time spent following Uncle Lamb around the globe.  Truth be told, traditional holidays weren’t something that stood out in her memory.  They felt like a foreign custom, a series of drawings taken from a picture book that showed a mother, father and children crowded around a loaded table while snow piled up outside.  They bore no relation to her reality.  It was no wonder Christmas and New Year’s left her feeling ambivalent.

Still, she didn’t want Jamie to feel sorry for her, so she launched into one of her favourite tales.

“One year, I must have been eleven, Lamb was leading an excavation of a Berber oasis town in northern Mali.  The site closed down for the Christian holidays, but Lamb decided to stay behind rather than travel back to England.  We ended up riding camels through these enormous sand dunes, following a local guide on an ancient caravan route.  On December 31st, just as the sun was setting and we had begun to make camp, the camel Lamb had been riding let out this infernal noise, leapt to its feet, and started to gallop away.  Lamb and the guide set off after it on foot, hollering and waving their keffiyeh in the air.  It was the funniest thing.”

“They left ye all alone in the desert?” Jamie asked, horrified.

“Oh, well, they came back eventually.  The camel had been stung by a scorpion, you see.  Once it got over the fright, they were able to catch it and bring it back to camp.”

“Were ye no’ scared, tae be out there in the dark by yerself?”

“No.  Not as I remember it.  The sunset was glorious, and little by little the sky came alive with a million stars.”

“Ye brave wee thing.”  Jamie sighed.  “I wish I was there wi’ ye.”

She didn’t know if he meant with her on that sand dune, or with her at their flat.  Either way, her answer was the same.

“I wish you were too.”

They finally hung up well past two o’clock.  It didn’t count as a date if the other person was five hundred miles away as you whispered goodnight.

Non-Date #12

The Royal London was expanding its pediatrics wing, and Claire was invited to a fundraising gala held, fittingly, in the Museum of Childhood.  The invitation included a plus one, and she’d been putting off asking Jamie if he could join her all week.  It wasn’t that she doubted his suitability as an escort.  Far from it.  But the gala was taking place on February 14th, of all nights, and the symbolism made her nervous.  Still, the alternative was spending the night being hit on by a drunken internist or hedge fund investor, and that was a headache she could do without.

“So,” she began casually a few nights before the event, “any plans for Valentine’s Day?”  If he said he was working or had, god forbid, a date, she would just have to go stag.

Jamie set down his gaming controller and turned to face her desk.  The pulsing  colours from the screen lit his curls like a neon nimbus in the dim room.

“Nah, nothin’ definite.  An’ ye, Sassenach?” he asked tentatively, as though easing himself out onto a frozen lake, unsure of the depth of the ice.  The nickname he had assigned to her during his holidays in Scotland had stuck.  She didn’t correct the inaccuracy, as she rather liked the idea of having a name that was only his.

“Well, I’ve been summoned to a fundraising gala for the hospital, and I was wondering... not that you need feel obliged... it’s black tie, which is really the height of pretension, if you ask me... anyway, there’s no way to decline gracefully short of an aneurysm, so...”

“Out wi’ it, Sassenach,” he prodded.

“Mightyouconsiderbeingmydate?” she blurted, before taking a large gulp of tepid tea.

“Yer date?” he asked as though he had never heard of such a thing.

She sighed, resigned to the fact he was going to make this difficult.  “Yes.  My date.  My plus one.  My social companion.  And hopefully, my defence against spending the evening being pitied and set up with someone’s second cousin, Nigel, the chartered accountant.”

“Do ye have somethin’ against accountants, then?”  The corner of his lip was twitching with the birth of a grin.

“Oh, very funny, you bloody Scot.  Look, I need a date on Valentine’s Day and you are the only man in the Greater London Area who won’t interpret that as an opportunity for a pity shag.   The offer is on the table.  Take it or leave it.”

Something flashed behind his eyes that she couldn’t interpret.  Then it was gone.

“Ne’er fear, Sassenach.  I’ll protect ye from all the wee Nigels.”

***

She’d forgotten to ask whether Jamie had suitable attire for a black tie event.   It was too late now, regardless.  They were meeting at the museum, since she was on shift until eight.  Using the nurses on-call room to get changed, she slinked into her burgundy chiffon gown, its gauzy layers wrapping around her like millefeuille.   Her hair was a lost cause, so she slicked it back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck and hoped for the best.  Silver chandelier earrings and a dab of cologne below her jaw, and she was ready to go.  She carried a small beaded clutch and her dress shoes - there was no way she was navigating the Tube in stilettos. 

The museum was a single massive space, conversation and the tympani of glassware echoing against its high-arched ceiling.  She stood in the entryway after checking her coat, spinning in circles and trying to get her bearings.  More than one lascivious glance was directed her way, but she studiously ignored them in favour of looking for Jamie.  With his height and red hair, he shouldn’t be hard to pick out of the crowd.

There was an appreciative murmur from behind her, a gust of fresh air, and then a soft tap against her bare shoulder.  She turned around.

No.  Not hard to pick out from a crowd at all.  Standing before her was James Fraser in full Highland regalia.  He wore his family tartan, a black velvet waistcoat, brilliant white dress shirt and a black bow tie.  When her gaze fell to the floor, she noticed his polished brogues and white socks pulled up to his knees.  She’d never before considered how a man’s knees might be alluring, but there it was.   Jamie had very sexy knees.

“G’d evening, Sassenach.  Ye look... weel, ye look bonnie.”  Jamie’s normally deep voice was gruffer than usual, perhaps on account of the cold night air.  Or maybe his bowtie was tied too tight.

“Good evening, Jamie,” she replied once she found her voice.  “You look, well, if you were a Jacobite, I’d say you looked regal.”

The tops of Jamie’s ears went red, and he ducked his chin, his tamed curls falling briefly forward.  It gave him the look of a bashful child receiving unexpected praise, completely at odds with the strikingly masculine figure he cut.

“No’ a Nigel, then?” he teased.

“No.  Definitely not a Nigel.  Come, let’s get something to drink before all the top-shelf liquor runs out.  You wouldn’t believe how much some of these doctors can put away!”

Jamie was a perfect date.  He stood by her elbow as she mingled and greeted various colleagues and professors, nodding at their tales of medical misfortune and smiling at their awkward jokes.  He spoke confidently about his work and current affairs, and patiently tolerated endless jibes about what a true Scotsman wore beneath his kilt.

When she politely excused them from one such conversation, he leaned over to whisper in her ear as they walked away to fortify themselves with more alcohol.

“I’ve a mind tae lift my plaid an’ moon the entire assembly the next time one o’ yer wee doctor friends asks about my underthings.  Are ye sure they arena raising funds for a new proctology department, Sassenach?”

She snorted in a truly unladylike fashion and turned to meet his unrepentant smirk.  Just then, a figure approaching from the bar caught her eye.

Oh no.  It couldn’t be.  After five years, she’d finally relaxed her vigilance, had ceased anticipating his presence at every turn, and now, here he was.

“Sassenach?” Jamie was watching her with concern.  The blush had drained from her cheeks, leaving her wine-stained lips and sintering eyes the only colour on her face.

“Claire!  Fancy meeting you here!”  Had his voice always been so nasal?  His eyes so glassy and vacant, like portals into nothingness.  He’d obviously been drinking heavily.  A blond woman half his age had her arm linked through his.

“Frank,” she uttered his name.  Jamie stepped into her side, his posture erect, somehow sensing that she needed his protection from this unheralded threat.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise.  I’d heard you’d gone into the army, or some such thing.  Afghanistan, was it?  Well, with your penchant for violence, I suppose that’s fitting.”

She breathed deeply through her nose.  She would not let him get the better of her.  She wasn’t that person anymore.  With a clammy hand, she grabbed onto Jamie’s fingers where they rested around her hip.  He squeezed back.  He was here.   She wasn’t alone.  It was all the strength she needed.

“Yes, that’s right.  I served overseas for a time, but I’m back in London now.  In medical school.   Now, if you’ll excuse us, we were just leaving.”

Focusing on each step, she turned towards the exit, Jamie’s hand now warm upon the small of her back.  Her chin wobbled, but she bit down hard to stave off tears.

“A doctor?” Frank taunted from behind her.  “Wouldn’t a demolition expert be more apropos, darling?”

She froze, spine trembling with anger.  Jamie made a questioning noise, asking without words if she wanted him to intervene.   She didn’t.

Glancing over her shoulder, she dealt her parting blow.

“Give my best to Amelia and the children.”  Without waiting to witness the aftermath of her pronouncement, she made her way out into the chilly night air, Jamie’s bulk a silent sentinel at her side.

It wasn’t a date if it ended on the floor of your bathroom, crying ugly sobs as mascara stained your cheeks, while your partner held your shoulders and made soothing noises with his throat.  

That wasn’t dating, that was survival.

***

mac na ghalla = son of a bitch

Mu dheireadh = finally

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 36- Addows

(what’s this, a chapter on monday? Yes! Starting today and for the foreseeable future, LoL will now update mondays and fridays! Hopefuly it will gain more attention when it updates more often,,,)

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

If the hermits hope to enter the most dangerous place in Lairyon, they need to know about the Forest of Memories. Xisuma, Cub, and Joe venture to the haunted city of Addows in search of information.

____________________________________

Mist swirls around Xisuma, his vision obscured by the thick fog of the city. Old, ancient buildings are all around him, once a city of the ancient ones still alive with the people of Lairyon. Massive stone temples, graveyards for heroes and legends, buildings with no known purpose that now house creeds and clairvoyants. 

Addows is a home of ghosts. Ghosts of the past, present in both tomes that the temples and libraries hold, and actual spirits that wander the eternally misty street. No one is spooked by the spooks, just another face in the crowd. 

And it’s the perfect place for the hermits to dig up ancient knowledge. If anywhere would have information on the Forest of Memories, it would be the hallowed halls of Addows. Cub creeps closer to Xisuma, not quite sure if he likes not being able to see more than a few feet in front or behind him. He’s sure there’s some sort of proverb that Joe would spew at him about this and the past or whatever, but right now he doesn’t want to hear it. Joe, meanwhile, is loving this atmosphere. The spooky vibes, the aged buildings and haunting people. He could write entire novels about this place, how much it fits his aesthetic. He may just have to build a new library on Eremita to match this.  Plus, his fuzzy cloak is comfortable and fits in well with the shadowed passersby. 

The three hermits wander the streets, walking through the midday mist, watching as buildings appear from nothing and disappear once again. Joe gets distracted every once in awhile on a witch’s shop, books older than the kingdom, apothecaries with all kinds of rare materials, and about a dozen different colored candles. And lots of rocks. TFC would have a field day. 

But after what feels like both hours and seconds of walking down the twisting streets of the ancient city, they finally arrive where they need to be. A building so old that the rain and forest has weathered it down, and a whole new layer of detritus has turned to dirt, ferns, trees, and vines growing down the massive stone pillars. In the weathered carving, the purpose of the ancient building remains the same. It’s a library, the largest in all the kingdom and filled with the most extensive, the most knowledgeable, and the most ancient of works. In languages long dead and unrevivable, written by ghost writers that now haunt these halls, and recounted by the living and the dead that wander the stacks. 

“And a delightful young adult section with some of my favorite works for young readers.” Joe hums. “Anything, and I mean anything-” He pauses, letting Xisuma and Cub fill in what he means, “can be found in the national library of Addows.” 

“That means if there’s anywhere that will tell us how to handle the Forest of Memories, or what could be hiding in there, it’s here.” Xisuma wanders down the stacks. All three hermits itch to reach out and pull books of their favorite genres or authors. Cub wants to dive into the deep end of the ancient ones history. Xisuma wants to study the great works of the best astronomers. And Joe wants to read the most mind boggling pieces that make absolutely no sense. He loves that feeling of being left confused about what he just read. 

They search the tomes, from geography to history, history to science. They search every section- even the young adult section. Cub resorts to portaling around rather than running the worn stone stairs, but to no avail. In the end, all three of the hermits are sitting in an alcove of ferns and vines, staring out over the thick misted city. 

“It wasn’t in anything. Has no one ever written about the Forest of Memories?” Xisuma grumbles, pulling off his mask. It’s not like there’s any sun, he doesn’t need his brother’s creation. 

“Someone had to. It’s been around for eons and is nestled in the heart of Lairyon. I can think of so many epics that could rely solely upon those two aspects.” Joe speaks with his head on his hands, looking over the library. Where haven’t they checked? “I’m starting to think it’s not even real, just a bunch of folktales.” 

Silence, until Cub’s eyes light up. “Folktales! Where do you put everything that you don’t know or understand?” 

“In the trash bin?” Joe’s dry humor is not lost on Xisuma, but Cub is too excited. 

“The folklore!” Cub summons his magic, a portal opening between the hermits, taking them to the very entrance of the library. The beginning of it all. He jumps through, skidding into a cracked pillar, but the stone is held fast by roots of the forest. Joe and Xisuma follow after, the portal collapsing behind them. 

“Forest….forest...forest…” Cub whispers, running his fingers along books, scrolls, even just tablets of stone. “Forest, Evernight. Nope. Forest, Creation of. No…” 

He stops, fingers coming to rest on a manuscript. Two wood planks pressing fabric pages together. It has no written title, but the front of the book is a tree with it’s branches intertwined like that of a brain. Cub grabs the manuscript, opening it with fervor. “Godsdamnit.” 

“What’s wrong now?” Xisuma sighs, peering over the portal mage’s shoulder. But the symbols scrawled on the fabric are meaningless to them both. Not even Joe, who purveys in ancient and useless knowledge, has no ability to read the book. 

“Ahh, The Journey to the Center of Lairyon’s Mind. A very good work. Quite dense.” All three hermits shriek, echoing in the quiet library as a misty head appears through the bookshelves. They should have been prepared for a ghost, but in the heat of the moment, they forgot they were in the most haunted city in the kingdom.

“H-have you read this? Can you r-read this language?” Joe holds the book out. 

The ghost steps through the shelves, her hand becoming solid enough to hold up the piece. “It’s old kipling. Before they integrated into one oceanic script. Back in the early days, when Lairyon was just a bunch of warring nations. Ah, the oceans were so peaceful in comparison.” 

“What does the author say? What does this mean?” Joe points at the fine print of a page that the kipling opened. 

“It’s the dedication! It’s to me!” She laughs, ghostly fin ruffling with joy. “My wife was such a wonderful author, she is still curious to this day.” 

Xisuma surges up to the ghost, no longer afraid. “The author, she’s still here? Where is she?” 

“Why, I’m sure she’s moping around our gravestone, waiting for me to come back so she can tell me more stories that she picked up from the other ghosts.” The kipling ghost pauses. “Would you like to meet her, or rather just read through this dingy old book? Why not meet the real adventurer Cielle DuNord? Bravest woman ever, only person to enter the heart of the Forest of Memories and come back sane. At least...only recorded person.” 

From the oldest library, the hermits follow the bouncing kipling down the street to the oldest cemetery. Sometimes they lose sight of her in the fog, her ghostly figure becoming a part of the mist and disappearing. But it just takes a laugh and a call from Lady Nellaime, her dress swaying like kelp in the waves, and they’re back on track. The misty glen opens to reveal ancient tombs and stones, but Nellaime waltzes through the historic graveyard as she would saunter through a flower garden. 

Despite the spooky feeling, it’s not scary. The hermtis feel a sense of calm respect among the gates. Rare flowers bloom at the entrances of mausoleums, trees sprouting from burial mounds. Candles provide light along the well cared pathway, and a child runs by, smiling as he trips and hugs an ancestor’s gravestone. 

From the mist, a glowing form appears, hugging the boy back. The ghost settles down in the grass, chatting with the family. Nellie continues past, deeper into the heart of the graveyard, seemingly bigger on the inside. The tombs age the deeper they walk, until Nellie stops at a raised crypt. Carved in the ancient coral stone, two smiling faces rest on their backs, the women’s hands intertwined at the center. Nellie skips onto the tombstone, knocking on the nose of the other kipling. “My sweet Cielle, you have visitors! More fans of yours!”

The eyes blink open, misty blue lashes fluttering. A noncorporeal form drifts from the stone crypt, dress flowing from existing to not, strong arms reaching over and hugging her wife. “You always make friends so fast. Living or dead, you just make people smile. Just like lighting up my life, my little ghost light.” 

“Not in front of guests.” Nellie giggles, her fins fluttering from the sweet kiss. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of such…” Cielle looks the three up and down. “Unique visitors upon my grave?” 

“Are you really the only person who has made it out of the Forest of Memories alive?” Xisuma wastes no time, which causes both ladies to titter.

“No, though I know Nellie here likes to be hyperbolic. Quite a few people have gone into the Forest without going crazy. But you have to be prepared to enter in.” Cielle leans forward, tugging a ghostly finger through Xisuma’s hair like a mother combing a child’s hair. 

“Prepare? What kind of spells do we need? Weapons?” Cub flips through the pages of the book, but it’s in a completely unknown language to him. 

“You can prepare yourself physically as long as you like, but it won’t do much. You have to prepare yourself mentally.” Cielle taps her head, and giggles. “See, for me, all I had to do was think about my fiancee back in Corelpi. I dunno how, but it was like a walk through a garden.” 

“But there is one place that knows all about the Forest of Memories. Where the most people have entered and returned relatively sane.” Nellaime grins, a few locks of hair falling from her messy bun. Cielle reaches over and fixes the loose locks. “Fielville!” 

“Of course,” Xisuma slaps his hand on his head, leaving a bright red mark on his skin. “Druids, insectia, the oldest traditions from the ancient ones are still practiced there.” 

“The elder there has entered and exited the Forest of Memories more than even I have- but then again, she lives longer than me, which isn’t fair.” Cielle sits back. “But be warned- no matter how prepared you think you are for that wood, it will be nothing compared to the true might of the forest. You will return with whatever trove you are in search of-” She pauses. “Or you will not return at all.”

[whitherliliesbloom]

in the eyes of the beholder

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #22 - fluster ]

[alphinaud/wol ] ★ [ 2,042 words ]  ★ [ post-canon ]

fluster-  to put into a state of agitated confusion or embarrassment 

they say an artists always inadvertently pours their heart’s true feelings into their drawings.

The apartment has never been this empty - not since the day he moved in. With cardboard box towers stacked high, and a few other empty ones that have yet to be packed, Alphinaud pauses for a moment to straighten himself up and admire the empty space around him, wiping the sweat off his brows.

This has been his home for a good many years, not quite the kind that he would liken to Leveilleur manor back in Old Sharlayan where he grew up in.. but a home nonetheless- with the bonus of knowing his most trusted friends and allies are ever close by, Rising Stones being just a mere stroll away. So he cannot help but to feel a pang of sadness and longing swelling in his heart, especially as he casts a glance out the window to look upon the slow spinning aetheryte that stood in the center of Revenant’s Toll. 

But, Alphinaud reminds himself, as he finally turns his gaze to look at the young woman standing upon a lalafellin stool in front of the bookcase, her arms stretched high above her head as she grabs at the rows of dust coated tomes and gives each a thorough pat and sweep with her feather duster, that the feeling was more sweet than it was bitter. 

His girlfriend- or rather... his fiancée has busied herself with clearing his impressive collection of tomes and scrolls, cleaning them of months of neglect, before sorting and then packing them into the half-filled box next to her aptly labelled with a thick brush pen as ‘Books’. She’d even sorted the titles out by alphabetical order, just like he’d requested.

They’ve been packing since morning now, and he’s beginning to feel hours of prior strenuous labor catch up to him as he stretches his arms and flexes his fingers. And yet Illya seemed to be none worse for wear, for as used to physical strain and tireless work as she justifiably is. 

Alphinaud takes a second to stop and stare at the woman for a fleeting moment. Her silken white hair that normally cascaded down past her shoulders and waist was now pulled up into a high ponytail and secured with a floral patterned scrunchy, her hair bopping and swaying side to side with every of her movements. Her pink overalls is stained and caked in dust, as is the once pristine white of her shirt underneath - but her dirtied wardrobe hadn’t seem to even be noticed at all, let alone bothered the woman.

And as she took her time to take a book by its spine and read the title before quickly dusting it, she’s merrily humming to the tune of an old Doman piece, volume soft and barely audible, yet soothing as her voice rose and filled the dusty air with an uplifting song.

When the young elezen man finally regains enough of his senses to snap out of his gawking, he can only twist his lips up into a bright smile before calling out her name.

“Liya.”

Her head swivels around instantly, amethyst bright eyes shimmering with immediate affection as she looks at him and mirrors his smile with her own, dazzlingly warm one.

“Yes, alphy?” 

Her voice is sugar coated and dripping with sickly sweetness that he drinks up like he’s a man starved, heart soaring with an unbridled joy as he catches a glimpse of the ring on her fourth finger, a radiant crystal blossom sitting upon the painfully detailed golden band.

No matter how many times he attempts to fathom the reality of his present, there was always a more rational, disbelieving side to Alphinaud that would struggle to believe it. To fathom the great fortune he must have to be engaged to the woman he loved more than anything in the world, let alone someone who has been his biggest inspiration and source of admiration and motivation for years. And he cannot believe that he will soon be living under the same roof as her.

The Warrior of Light... soon to be his Warrior of Light. Even thinking of her as his threatens boyish laughter and cheers out of him. 

Snapping out of the revelry of his daydream, Alphinaud gestures towards the metal canister next to her stool, long since emptied and left neglected with its contents drained. 

“You must be tired. How about a break? I’ll refill your bottle for you.”

“No,no that’s okay-” Unsurprisingly, Illya is quick to refuse his offer with a shake of her head. “I’m not that tired. Don’t let me bother you.”

“It’s not a bother, dearest.” With a sigh, Alphinaud moves over to grab the canister, amused snicker leaving his lips when he looks down at the exasperated pout on Illya’s lips. “Let me do this much for you at least. I won’t be long.”

Ever a woman who much preferred relying on herself, it took a good many years for Illya to come to terms with accepting her own limitations and weaknesses - let alone entertaning the idea of burdening her loved ones with her troubles... no matter how trivial or small they may be.

But she’s come far - they both have... and the girl who would once stutter and burst into a blushing fluster is nowhere to be found in the presence of a older, more confident woman, who merely drops her shoulders in defeat before accepting his offer.

“If you insist, love. Make sure to refill for yourself too, okay?” 

With a quick nod, Alphinaud swiftly take his own bottle before leaving the apartment before crossing through corridors past other closed doors and speed walking down flights of stairs to get to the Seventh Heaven.

Bloezoeng greets the elezen with a cheery grin, graciously refilling the two canisters full with a topping of ice cool water while making small talk, asking how the packing was going and even asking the young man to send his regards to the Warrior of Light. Nearby, the wandering minstrel sings as he strums at his harp, and Alphinaud only spares a single seconds glance towards the door leading into the back where the Rising Stones is, before leaving the Seventh Heaven, heavy and damp water canisters in hand.

Alphinaud hadn’t been lying when he said that he wouldn’t take long - it’d been a total of four minutes maximum by the time he reaches the third floor and walks down the hallway towards the only open door. 

And yet when when he hears what the voice of his beloved says as he approaches the apartment, along with the tell tale sounds of sketch paper flipping, his blood runs dry in his veins and he feels himself freeze in instinctive panic.

“This book... it has no title?”

A book with no title.... Oh gods. She could only be referring to one book - the only book he’d kept purposefully hidden away on his shelf between other innocuous books for reasons unknown to all save himself. The only book with a blank cover, the only book with a well used bookmark made from a pressed lily that Illya had gifted him so many years ago slotted between its pages. A book that he had not wanted anyone to find or to see the contents of - especially not her.

“W-wait- Liya! Don’t-” He bolts into the room and drops the canisters onto the floor with a responding thud that leaves wet patches upon the wooden planks, navy blue eyes blown wide in terror. His heart pounds loudly in the confines of his tight chest, which then quickly sinks into the pits of his stomach when he stares dumbfoundedly at the lalafell and the wide opened book in her hands.

She’s staring down, speechless herself. 

The pages of the book was not filled with words - but drawings. Black and white sketches created with a fine pencil and quill, soft water colored paintings that left dried patches of color upon the pages, colored line art that had been meticulously cell-shaded with an array of colored ink. 

It was Alphinaud’s sketchbook- but not the one he carries in his travel bag or has laying open on his desk. He wouldn’t go through such lengths to conceal a sketchbook if it had just been that - and his dearest has always expressed how much she loved to look at his art.

But this was no ordinary sketchbook - for countless pages between the lavender purple covers of that book, marked with a bright white flower was filled with visages of the Warrior of Light - of the woman he loved. 

From a quick sketch of the lalafellin woman with a stern expression as she was lost in her focus upon an embroidery hoop, a more detailed, colored drawing of her in her adventuring garments, long starlit hair radiant against a dark starry night background as she casts her eyes upwards at the sky... and a small painting of her surrounded by a sea of flowers, the gust of spring wind blowing her hair and pink dress behind her as she holds a single flower between her clasped hands as if in prayer, a serene, ethereal expression upon her face.

Illya can barely even recognize those figures as herself- is disbelieving as she flips through drawing after drawing of what was clearly Alphinaud’s favorite model in various clothing, settings and circumstances, in different mediums to boot.

But the one thing that remained a constant was the heart of the art he painstakingly filled the sketch books with, the heartfelt emotions and earnestness he must have felt as he was working on a single page.

There is a saying that says an artist will always inadvertently pour their truest, deepest feelings into the art they create - that a piece of drawing was a piece of an artist’s heart.

Illya could only wonder then, as she stares with heat pooling in her cheeks that spread rapidly to the tips of her pointed ears... what was it that Alphinaud was feeling whenever he held this sketchbook or drew within it? 

What was it that he was seeing within his wide, observant eyes when he drew her? What compelled him? What will continue to compel him?

She holds his heart in her hands delicately, as if it would break if she were not careful, and slowly closes it before turning to look at the man, who has an equally, if not brighter, darker blush upon his now cherry red face.

“T-that is! I-I.... I was just- I-I-It’s not-” 

Alphinaud was not often a man who got this flustered. Even when he is teased by the likes of Krile and Alisaie who threatened whenever possible and the situation was appropriate to spill unflattered secrets about his past to her, there is a sort of calm elegance to the way he’d diffuse the situation and more often than not lead her away from the two ‘gossip mongers’... as he would so eloquently put it. Though, to be fair, years of putting up with that has taught him to be a little more dexterous in navigating forbidden subjects about his time in the Studium around them. 

But when the blame of the situation was nobody but his own to bear, and it involved a deeply hidden secret he’s kept for so many years from her... it’s destroyed whatever little of his poise he’s pretended to develop over the years... And Illya was absolutely the last person he wanted to have see him in such an unsightly state.

 While Alphinaud attempts futilely to scrounge up a believable excuse, the lalafell has climbed down from her stool and is walking towards him. 

The afternoon sky is bright, casting sunrays through the window panes and forming spotlights upon the wooden floor, as dust bunnies bounce and float carefreely around the room. Illya steps into the light, and the afternoon rays immediately reflect off her head like cut crystal... and above reddened nose are a pair of shining eyes that gaze up at him, and Alphinaud momentarily forgets to breath as she closes the distance between them and smiles delicately.

“I-If..... If you wanted me to model for you, you... you could have just a-asked me...”

[leviathanswingman]

love is a losing game, chapter 5: at the doctor’s office

Lucifer was sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair in the waiting room of the doctor's office, clad in what could only be described as a mediocre attempt at a disguise. He had swapped his pristine waistcoat and dress shirt combination out for an oversized black hoodie he had borrowed from Beelzebub without asking beforehand. His face was partially covered with a face mask, more so to hide his identity than prevent his fellow demons from catching whatever seemed to be ailing him. After all, Lucifer was a well known face in the devildom. Landing on the front page of some overrated gossip magazine was the last thing he needed at the moment, especially since he had conveniently failed to mention his visit to the doctor's office to anyone who knew him. It would be quite bothersome if they found out from a not so well meaning third party, so the safest option was for him to remain in disguise Lucifer pulled the heavy hood a bit further down to his face as he took note of the other people in the waiting room. Of course, Lucifer had chosen the perfect time to have a scheduled doctor's appointment. The room was packed to the brim with sniffling demons of all ages. There was a little D running around, apparently trying to win the award for most annoying toddler to walk hell. Lucifer massaged the bridge of his nose and let out a deep breath of air. The stuffed waiting room felt suffocating and the overlapping scents of different strong perfumes, stale coffee and disinfectant  did nothing for the headache that had been pestering Lucifer ever since he'd returned home from the club with a drunk Asmodeus in tow. Lucifer started to shake his left leg up and down in what could be misinterpreted as a nervous tic, but was actually nothing more than proof of his current impatience. The demon sitting next to him tried multiple times to engage him in polite but nonsensical small talk as Lucifer scrolled through his DDD, trying to look as bored and unapproachable as possible. He was annoyed to see that his tactic did not work out whatsoever. The demon next to him was apparently hell-bent on making a new friend at the doctor's office. Lucifer crossed his arms in front of his chest and suppressed an annoyed groan. The close proximity to this other demon did nothing to soothe his terrible nausea. However, since the waiting room was packed already Lucifer had no choice but to remain in his seat and put up with it. Although in the beginning Lucifer did find a certain kind of interest in seeing the way people interacted with him, thinking he was regular demon, he had quickly found himself bothered by the lack of respect even faster. He just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and then be left alone. The universe however seemed to have different plans for him. Just as the ever so adamant demon pulled out their very own DDD to show Lucifer a picture of some brat he had taken in,the doctor's assistant peeked her head through the door, her pretty curls bouncing with the slightest of movements, and nodded towards Lucifer. To his luck, she had apparently remembered Lucifer's request to not be called by name to keep his identity a secret from the public eye. After all, Lucifer was not the most common of names in the devildom. Lucifer removed himself from the waiting room as quickly as possible before the demon that had been bothering him for the past half an hour could say one word more, or even worse, ask for his number. Without looking back even once Lucifer followed the secretary who was already leading him towards the doctor's examination room. „Terribly sorry for the long wait, but as you can see we're swamped right now. The practice down the street got closed because the doctor's wife found out her husband was cheating on her, so she ripped off his right hand. An eye for an eye, you know? A real tragedy though,“ she chattered on as Lucifer stepped into the empty examination room. „Not for him, but for the wife of course.“ „Most certainly,“ Lucifer answered stiffly, a bit taken aback by the situation, hoping the conversation was over now. He wasn't sure what sort of answer the assistant expected from him after this conversational bomb she had dropped ever so casually. She hovered in the doorway for another moment. „The doctor should be with you in a second, honey.“ She closed the door behind herself as she left in a pace far too comfortable considering the state of the practice. Lucifer stared at the door for a moment, perplexed. To have another demon address him so casually despite knowing damn well who he was. That woman certainly feared nothing and no one. Although normally Lucifer would feel offended, right now he found himself somewhat amused by this woman's strangely laid-back behaviour. He slipped back his hood, pulled down the face mask and sat down on the chair opposite the doctor's desk. Now finally by himself again, he took notice of how the nausea gradually subsided again until it had simmered down to nothing more than a dark, buzzing premonition in the back of his mind. A few minutes later the door opened with a soft clack and Lucifer made sure not to turn around until he heard it close again. The doctor, a tall demon with impressive horns and an almost weirdly symmetrical face, approached him with confident steps and shook his hand quickly after he had stood up. It was a good, strong handshake and Lucifer couldn't help but nod in approval. „Welcome, Lucifer,“ she greeted before walking around the table and dropping down onto the chair, motioning towards Lucifer to do the same. „So what brings you here? I see your brothers come here all the time, yet I don't think I've treated you more than three times ever since I started working here. Are you maybe a bit of an iatrophobe?“ Lucifer pushed his hair back before starting to speak. For some reason, today he found himself surrounded by infuriatingly talkative people. „I do not have Iatrophobia. I refuse to go to the doctor for something as simple as a cold. If I can cure it myself I will do so, which is why you see me less often than my brothers. I do not see any problems with that.“ The doctor simply watched Lucifer as he answered her question. „Interesting,“ she nodded. „So what can I help you with?“ Lucifer took a deep breath. Technically, he still had time to leave the doctor's office to deal with whatever this was by himself. He was Lucifer the Morning Star, he did not need anyone. Yet despite these strong feelings of aversion that were boiling inside of him, Lucifer knew that he needed to do  the correct thing right now. Lashing out out of a misplaced feeling of overwhelming arrogance was not the kind of behaviour that Lucifer could display proudly. So rather reluctantly, he forced himself to relax his shoulders and lean back. After all, knowing what exactly was wrong with him was already a step towards improvement. „Since Saturday morning I have been experiencing strange bursts of nausea. They seem to differ in intensity depending on the situation, but in the worst case I have had until now I ended up having to rest on the floor for a quarter-hour. I assume you understand that I cannot afford to have side effects like these. They are disruptive and unpleasant and keep me from doing my job to my best abilities.” The doctor nodded as she propped her chin up with one hand. „Any other symptoms?“ „Aside from headaches and migraines, no, but I have been getting these for ages so I am quite certain that they are in no way related to the nausea.“ „Alright. I will take your blood and run it through the system, so we should know more in a second.“ At the doctor's request Lucifer moved over to the surgery couch and rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie. He watched her closely as she disinfected her hands, put on gloves and gathered the appliances she needed to draw his blood. Lucifer stared at the needle as it was routinely pushed into the sensitive skin at the crook of his elbow, followed by dark red blood quickly filling up the vial of an empty syringe. When she was done the doctor pressed soft cotton against the little red puncture wound and suddenly yelled out loud. „Sweetheart!“ Lucifer refrained from rubbing his temples. „Next time I would prefer a warning, alright?“ he said rather pointedly. The door opened and as Lucifer's head snapped around to see who had entered, he recognized the assistant from before. „Yes, Miss Doctor?“ The doctor simply extended her arm and shook the vial of blood. The doctor's assistant seemed to understand her without any words and simply grabbed the vial before leaving the room again. „Got it!“ Lucifer turned back around to his doctor and noticed a small smile sneaking up on her face. „My wife,“ she explained before turning back around to her patient. „Let's get your physical over with while Preta gets the results of your blood work. Please remove your clothes.“ Lucifer did as he was asked to. As the doctor whose name tag read 'Naamah' in bold, black letters, carefully examined his body the room was filled with silence. Naamah turned to Lucifer's backside and suddenly halted for a short moment before finishing the exam. „You can put your clothes back on.“ Lucifer pulled his hoodie back over his head as the door opened once again and the doctor's assistant, Preta, hurried over to her wife, handing her several sheets of paper. „Thank you, darling.“ “You're welcome!” She left again and Lucifer watched the doctor closely as she flipped through page after page. While she scanned through the last sheet of paper however, her eyebrows furrowed bit by bit. „So?“ Lucifer asked almost impatiently. Naamah put down the papers and sat down on her chair again, then picked up the last sheet of paper one more time to reread it. „Alright. I think I see the problem here,“ she finally said. „I have one more question for you, just so we can rule out anything else.“ Lucifer crossed his arms in front of his chest. The faster he got all of this over with the better. „Have you had any significant romantic or sexual relations in the past week?“ The world seemed to stop for several seconds as Lucifer stared at the woman in front of him. He had expected any sort of uncomfortable question, but this... „I hardly see how this could be of importance to you,“ he answered harshly. There was no reason for a medical professional to ask him this specific question. Or rather, there simply shouldn't be a reason for his doctor to ask him a question ever so private in nature, not when his sole symptom was debilitating nausea. „Answer the question, please.“ He had already stepped over his own shadow and dragged himself to the doctor with his problems, so Lucifer accepted defeat and rubbed his temple with two fingers as he answered. „Yes, I have had sexual relations in the past week. You are inquiring about this because?“ Naamah folded her hands together and leaned slightly forward. „Multiple partners or a singular partner?“ „One person. Only one person.“ The doctor nodded her head as if Lucifer had just confirmed her suspicions. She lifted her head and looked at Lucifer directly. „I'm just going to give it to you straight. It's very rare to happen, but it seems that you have formed a bond without you nor your partner knowing.“ Lucifer simply stared at her for several moments. „What are you talking about?“ „It seems like the reason for your side effects is that you have become mates with your partner, but neither of you have been aware of it. Your body is showing withdrawal symptoms. Headaches, dizziness, nausea, poor concentration, heightened irritability. As I said, this doesn't happen often, but it's definitely not unheard of.“ The world stopped turning right then and there. This was what Lucifer had feared the most. Not only were his symptoms serious and acknowledged, they were undeniably tied to Diavolo. Although a part of him refused to even consider the possibility of what the doctor had just told him, an even bigger part inside of him knew she had to be right. He didn't want her to be right. This was the kind of truth that he happily refused to believe in because there was no way for him to accept it just like that. „You must be wrong.“ Naamah shook her head and pointed at Lucifer himself. „I understand that you can't believe me that easily, so please go over to the mirror and take off your shirt so you can see for yourself.“ Lucifer walked over to the mirror with almost robotic movements and took of his hoodie once again. „Turn around and look at your neck please.“ Lucifer did as he was told and upon raking his neck, he saw a truth he simply could not deny. Right there, on the nape of his neck, where days before had been a dark purple hickey, was now a pale, yet definitely noticeable sigil forming with delicate dark red strokes. Shocked, Lucifer slowly reached up and let shaking fingers run over the fresh sigil. He felt neither bumps nor edges, but instead noticed how his skin tickled in an almost coy fashion upon contact. This could not be his life. There was no way. Perhaps all of this was nothing more than an intricate lucid nightmare, it had to be. „Lucifer?“ His head snapped back to Naamah. For once, he found himself at a loss for words. How would he ever be able to explain this situation? Lucifer stared at his reflection and noted dark circles and tired eyes.   „Does he need to know?“ The doctor sighed as she returned to her chair. „Technically, no. I would strongly advise you to tell him though. The fact that you have developed withdrawal symptoms already tells me that were the one to accept the mark first. Your partner might not experience symptoms at all, but the sigil will appear on his skin as well.“ Without wanting to, his hand shot back up to the nape of his neck. There was no way he could just accept all of that. „You must be mistaken. I can tell you, there is no way i could have formed a bond in the span of one single night,“ Lucifer forced out and the doctor sighed. “It is impossible.” „I know this is hard to accept, but this does happen from time to time. Your symptoms will only become less intense if you go and clear things up with your partner. Until then I can prescribe you suppressants which will help with the nausea and the headaches, but keep in mind that they are not an eternal solution. You can safely take them for a month if you stretch it out, but not longer than that, do you understand me?“ Staring straight ahead for several seconds, Lucifer found his mind adrift, far away from the clean doctor's office his physical form was sitting in at the moment. The universe really seemed to have it out for him. How could he have been so foolish to just abandon his beliefs in the heat of the moment in exchange for what? A romantic night with Diavolo, Lord Diavolo, his superior and friend of decades upon decades? This was the universe's way of punishing him for daring to be arrogant enough to assume that his actions wouldn't have consequences. If anything, he should know better than any other demon walking in hell that every single one of your actions had consequences. With all of the many mistakes he had ever made, this one might have been the most stupid one. Because usually, Lucifer knew better. He had refused to look at Diavolo as anything more than his lord and his superior for so long exactly because he knew better. He knew for a fact that some things were too good to be true. Those kind of things were generally followed by great misfortune. And now, Lucifer had to deal with the repercussions, had to deal with the punishment for allowing himself to follow his emotions instead of relying on cold, brash logistics. „Lucifer?“ He snapped out of his train of thought and hurriedly put his hoodie back on. „Of course. What were you saying about suppressants before?“ Naamah narrowed her eyes, but did her job without mentioning anything else that could possibly push Lucifer's boundaries. After all, she was a doctor and her job was to make sure her patients were correctly informed and cared for. She simply had to trust that they would follow her words.

Twenty minutes later, Lucifer left the office, a freshly printed prescription sheet weighing heavily in the back pocket of his trousers. On his way back to the house of lamentation he picked up the suppressants and stared at them for a good minute. He hated the sight of them, hated what they were implying. The back of his neck tickled tauntingly as he threw the orange pill bottle back into the white plastic bag, applying much more force than needed before he continued his way back home. He could've taken the bus back to the house of lamentation, but somehow, Lucifer felt restless and unhinged. So instead of a 10 minute ride he took on 45 minutes of walking instead, hoping that it would give him enough time to  calm down, keep his face and portray the meticulous big brother again as if nothing of significance had happened. It turned out that in the end, taking a 45 minute walk hadn't helped much with the disarranged state of his mind. Lucifer entered the house of lamentation and let the doors slam shut behind him. On the way up to his room he passed no one but Mammon, who simply stared at him in a confused manner for several moments,but didn't utter any words to his big brother, which admittedly, was a good thing. Lucifer wasn't all too sure how he would have reacted if Mammon had dared to approach him. The doors to his room slammed shut behind him and Lucifer threw the white plastic bag onto his bed before going after it and pulling out the orange pill bottle. He popped it open and shook out one singular little pill, turning it around between his thumb and pointer before swallowing it dry. Lucifer let himself drop down onto his bed, not even bothering to switch Beel's sweater out with his usual waistcoat and dress shirt combination. He simply laid there and stared at the ceiling. He knew he should be coming up with a plan by now, thinking about all possible outcomes and most agreeable endings, but after having found out that he had formed a mating bond with Diavolo, in the middle of a one night stand of all things, Lucifer had to take a moment to breathe. He had to take a breather to simply come to terms with all of it. Just as he was about to get up again the ringing of his DDD filled the silence. Lucifer retrieved it from the hoodie's kangaroo pocket and stared at the screen in aggravated defeat. It was Lord Diavolo. He gathered himself and fixed his hair before accepting the call, letting his professional persona take over. He was Lucifer the Morning Star and he would be damned if he let something as simple as a misplaced mating bond destroy the life he had built up ever so diligently. Without any hesitation Lucifer picked up the call as he took note of the way his body filled with nausea in the span of mere seconds. „Diavolo. What can I assist you with?“

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4,  Chapter 6 , Chapter 7, Chapter 8,  Chapter 9, Chapter 10

[sourcherrybomb]

SoKai Week 2020 - Day 4 - How to (Incorrectly) Summon a Demon

Synopsis: Sora, a wizard in training, prepares to summon a demon in a desperate attempt to improve his magical prowess. However, things don’t go exactly as planned...

Sneak Peek:  “Hey now, didn’t your mother ever teach you not to stare?” the demoness asks Sora in a playful fashion. “At least focus on my eyes for now, darling.”

Tags: Light Romance, Comedy, Slightly Mature, Slightly Coarse Language, F/M, (It’s not smut, I promise)

Prompt for the Day: AU Day!

Words: 2.4k

Fanart By: karya_mukti (Fiverr)

As a pale moon rises, a wizard-in-training rushes around the confines of a messy tower chamber. Curious-looking tools hang on the walls of the chamber alongside the lamps that light the darkness of the room. Various scrolls, textbooks, and phials of mysterious elixirs are strewn across the floor in a messy and uncaring fashion. The moonlight is let in through a singular, round window, the young wizard waiting for it to line up just right with the carefully detailed magic circle drawn in chalk on the floor.

The trainee’s master would most definitely be angered at the state the room is in. The thought of her in another rage brought a shiver down his spine. Besides making a mess, the various summoning taboos the young man was breaking would be enough to make a more rule-abiding student faint. 

But to Sora, none of that matters. 

After years of messing up and being the laughingstock of his fellow trainees, he would finally have the power to succeed. His days of messing up incantations, having spells blow up in his face, and more would all end once he summoned a powerful enough demon to assist him. Sora wasn’t just aiming for any regular old demon, he was aiming for an Archdemon.

Everything was set up. In the sky was a full moon on the sixth month of the year and the stars of Altair and Vega aligned at the perfect angle. Within Sora was enough mana saved up through the use of elixirs. On his right hand was a special tattoo made to match the summoning circle drawn on the floor. And finally, the coup de grace, a forbidden tome from his master’s personal library, one that would aid in demonic summoning rituals. Written in demontongue, Sora had spent a whole month deciphering the text in secret.

All of these tools would aid Sora in summoning a demon and becoming their master.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, he rolls up the sleeves of his uniform’s cloak. Picking up a book bound in a scaly black leather, Sora opens the ancient tome to a page he had previously marked. Raising his right hand, he waits for the moonlight to shine through the window and line up with the magic circle on the ground.

It’s now or never… he thinks to himself. As the lunar rays make their way across the room, Sora begins to speak.

L'ta raeq yoq aem saowar… 

The marks on his hand begin to glow a crimson red.

Aem nph soin… 

The flames from the candles surrounding the magic circle on the ground change to a violet hue.

Aem aony ardor…

The various runes within the circle begin to glow

Maezzael zes gazina…

The center of the magic circle begins to glow various shades of red.

Oth yaeza qae esaeun zoedabbi!

A blinding red light fills the room as a powerful force knocks Sora backwards and onto the floor, scattering all the texts and tools within the room alongside him. As he rubs the back of his head and his eyes regain focus, the light starts to dissipate. In its place in the middle of the magic circle was a young woman sporting a devilishly smug grin. Garbed in pink and black garments, at first glance she seemed normal, but only if you ignored the blood red horns and demonic wings behind her back.

“Hey now, didn’t your mother ever teach you not to stare?” the demoness asks Sora in a playful fashion. “At least focus on my eyes for now, darling.”

Shifting his surprised gaze away, Sora stands up in confusion. “This… is not what I was expecting to happen.”

The demoness pouts and she inches closer to the young wizard. “Oh, so you didn’t mean to summon little ol’ me?”

“W-well I meant to summon a demon,” Sora stammers out. “Besides the wings and horns, you aren’t exactly what I imagined…”

“Oh don’t forget the tail, darling,” she says as the aforementioned limb slowly wraps itself around Sora’s right hand, eliciting a reaction from him that the demoness finds particularly amusing. “I swear, sometimes it has a mind of its own. As for what you imagined, at least when it comes to Succubi like me, I can’t imagine any other appearance would be as… Sensually inclined.”

“S-succubus?!”

“One of many, darling!” The succubus says as she winks. “What, don’t like what you see?”

“It’s not that I don’t, it’s just-”

“Ah, wonderful! Here I thought you were trying to summon an Incubus.” The succubus stares up and down at Sora. “You certainly do give off the disposition of someone who would do so… But darling, your reaction to me certainly proves otherwise!”

As she laughs, Sora sighs and makes a mental note to watch his words around the demoness. “Listen when I attempted to summon a demon, I was aiming for an Archdemon!”

“One of those prudes?” The succubus scoffs. “Honestly darling, you’re better off with me. Afterall, you did use a summoning circle specifically for succubi.”

“I what?!” Sora grabs the demonic summoning tome off the ground and flips to the page he bookmarked. Pointing at the page, he shows it to the succubus. “Here, doesn’t this read Archdemon?”

Pulling a pair of red glasses from thin air, the demoness reads the page. “Hmmm, nope this is a summoning ritual for me and my many sisters. Demontongue is a complex language for humans, I’m not surprised that-”

Sora lets out a frustrated yell and throws the book at the ground. It’s enough to surprise the succubus and cause the glasses to disappear. “Damn it! Why does this always happen?!” This accident was all too reminiscent of how his magical studies would go. Attempt something, fail, look for a crackpot solution, and fail again.

From behind, the succubus wraps her arms around Sora. “Awww, what’s wrong darling? Want to tell little ol’ me? I promise I’m a good listener.”

“And why do you keep on calling me Darling?” Sora asks angrily. “I have a name, you know!”

Letting go of Sora, the demoness puts her hands on her hips. “Ah yes, and I certainly would love to know it. As much as I adore calling you this little pet name-” Moving closer, she softly strokes Sora’s face. “I’ve been told by many men and women that they love it when I call their names out.”

As she continues to caress Sora’s face, he feels the anger melt away. Amongst other feelings and emotions, the gesture calms him down from his rage.

“Sora… It’s Sora.”

The succubus flashes a warm smile, one much different than the smug one she had been wearing since her summoning. The sight of it is enough to get Sora to blush ever so slightly, something she keeps a mental note of for the future.

“Well then, Sora. I’d imagine it’d be my turn to introduce myself.” As she floats backwards away from Sora, he subconsciously takes a step forward towards the demoness. “I am a Greater Succubus amongst my succubi sisters. My name in its native Demontongue is unpronounceable by most humans, but if I were to roughly translate it, in the human language it would be Kairi.”

That’s… A surprisingly cute name, Sora thinks to himself. “Okay then, Kairi. Is there any way to send you back to the Underworld?”

“My my, Sora!” Kairi feigned surprise. “I didn’t peg you as the type to toss aside a woman if she bored you.”

“N-no! It’s not like that!” he persists. “It’s just that, I did summon you by accident. The least I can do is send you back to your home without issue. I’m starting to think this whole demon summoning thing wasn’t a right fit for me, with me getting the translations wrong and all.”

“Pfft. That literal hellhole isn’t much as a home as you’d think it be. It’s been many decades since I last stepped foot in the human world, in all honesty I'd much rather stay here.” Kairi points at the mark on Sora’s right hand. “Not to mention, that seal on your hand? That’s not just for show, that’s my contract with you.”

“Contract?”

A master who can’t or didn’t read all the instructions, Kairi thinks to herself. This will be fun… 

“Yes, a contract! With this seal I am bound to you until the end of your mortal lifespan.” She says to Sora, lying as easily as she could breathe. After all, the seal was less of a binding contract and more of a leash that could be taken off by the master when needed. 

Looks like I have a new mana reservoir for the next… Let’s say thirty to forty years, tops. Kairi thinks to herself. After all, that’s just enough time to play around with my new boy toy…   

“So I’m stuck with you then?” Sora asks, his voice slightly annoyed.

“Oh darling, I wouldn’t say stuck…” Kairi’s eyes flash red at the idea of being labelled as any sort of burden. “After all, this relationship between you and me is mutually beneficial!”

Sora slightly shrinks back when he sees the demonic red behind Kairi’s eyes. “I-If I may ask, how so?”

A sly grin shows up on Kairi’s face. “I’m glad you asked! It’s quite simple, all you need to do is give me mana daily. In exchange, I will act as a servant both in the magical sense-” Once again, Kairi closes the distance between her and Sora, putting her face barely an inch away from his. “And physical sense. I am a succubus afterall, depriving me of my more carnal desires wouldn’t be the best for either of our interests…”

Sora, being the blushing mess he his, could only let out a nervous laugh.

“Of course, you do seem much younger than most of the people who have summoned me in the past.” Kairi floats away, making space between the two. “How old are you anyways?”

The tight feeling in Sora’s chest fades away as he lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m sixteen as of this year.”

“Tsk tsk. Naughty boy, summoning someone such as myself at your age.” Kairi teases. “For now, your dreams should suffice. At least, until you become of age.”

Deep down, Sora becomes slightly disappointed that he’d have to wait a couple years. However, Hell would be more likely to freeze over before he admitted that to Kairi. Pushing those thoughts away, Sora shakes his head to refocus himself. He may have messed up the summoning, but he was going to make the best of this situation.

“Okay so you say you can help me with my magic,” Sora states. “Even someone as inexperienced as me?”

Kairi lets out a chuckle. “Can you really call yourself that after summoning the wrong demon? There’s definitely potential in you, after all. I had every right to avoid your summons and let one of my sisters take my place, but I chose to answer it.”

“But why?”

“Like I said, I wanted a taste of the human world once again!” Kairi stares out the window, gently smiling as she stares up at the starry sky above. The moonlight shines on her in a way that makes Sora stare in awe. “Oh how much I missed it! The last few masters I had always kept me at arms length, never letting me enjoy my time here. I’m only asking this because you seem to be a kind one, but please don’t be a spoilsport and let me have some innocent fun?”

Can’t help but wonder what your definition of “Innocent” is, Sora thinks to himself. “Okay, then. I’ll make a deal with you then.”

“I’m certainly listening.” Kairi focuses her gaze on Sora.

“I supply you with my mana and let you have your ‘innocent fun’ here in my realm,” Sora says sternly. “In return, you assist me in everything having to do with my magic. Giving my spells more power, creating potions and elixirs, you name it.”

Sora extends his seal-adorned right hand. Smiling, Kairi puts her hand on his.

“It’s a deal then,” she says. Pulling his hand, Kairi once again closes the distance between her and Sora, creating an intimate amount of space between them. “Of course, when you come of age, I have a feeling you’d want to revisit our arrangement to factor in my other services.”

As she speaks, Sora feels her scaly tail stroking his chin. Between that and her suggestive smile, he finds himself paralyzed. Sora finds himself unable to say anything in response. 

I may have bitten off more than I can chew, he thinks to himself as images of what Kairi could do to him fill his mind.

“Now then!” Kairi claps her hands together. “I know it’s nighttime and you might pass out after all the mana you’ve just expended summoning me, but I saw a field of flowers at the base of this tower and I demand you take me to them now!”

I do feel pretty damn tired right now, Sora thinks. Some fresh air might do me good before bed, though.

“Let’s head downstairs then.” As he leads Kairi to the stairs, she does a little spin in the air and follows him.

“You’d best prepare yourself, Sora!” Kairi says. “When you wake up, the first thing you’re doing is making me some human food!”

“Hey now, aren’t I the master here?” Sora asks.

“True, but what woman wouldn’t want to be fed breakfast by their boy toy?”

Sora lets out a sigh. He knew what he was signing up for when he planned to summon a demon, he just never expected their mischievousness to include so much teasing.

Things are about to get a lot more interesting, aren’t they? 

---

Gonna be real, part of me really wants to make this oneshot a multi-fic story. I’d change some details, but I think it’d be doable and a pretty fun experience. Fun fact, the root words for Succubus (succuba) and Incubus (incubāre) actually imply who’s on top or bottom, Succubi being the former with Incubi as the latter. 

(Demon girls ftw, go play Helltaker on Steam. It’s free!)

Since this entry was for AU Day, so I decided to go a bit nuts and write something that’s a bit out there. Like before, thanks to the Sokai: Destined Oath Discord server as well as the member Gee for acting as my Beta Reader!

Thanks for Reading!

[aliciameade]

Desperate Measures

Title: Desperate Measures Author: aliciameade Rating: M for MMMMutual Release Pairing: Beca/Chloe Summary: Mid-PP3. They are quarantined. Chloe and Beca have everything they need to weather the mandated period of social distancing and staying home: food, water, shelter, games, entertainment, and each other's company.

The one thing they don't have?

Much-needed privacy.

Also on AO3

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Chloe figures there are worse people she could be forced into isolation with than Beca Mitchell.

Like, of roughly 8 billion people on the planet, she has the best one to be quarantined with.

It helps that Amy was already shacking up with someone before the Mayor sent down his shelter in place orders. They have the apartment to themselves for the foreseeable future.

At this news, Beca had announced she would be taking over Amy’s bed for a week, and then it would be Chloe’s turn, so she and Chloe wouldn’t have to continue sharing the small, mostly uncomfortable pull-out sofa they’ve been living on for the past year. 

However, when it came time to go to bed, Chloe bit her tongue as Beca rolled her eyes and climbed into the shared bed, same as always.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Chloe watches her in her peripheral vision while they unwind from a day of doing nothing. Beca’s on her phone with only one of her AirPods in, the one on her right side, opposite Chloe. She can hear the tinny, empty sound of the music she’s listening to escaping that one earbud and it’s an odd comfort. Some version of normalcy in the world that’s been turned upside-down recently.

She reads until her eyelids grow too heavy. When she sets aside her book, Beca puts her phone away and they turn in for the night, together, like always.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

They’re on Day 13 when Chloe’s getting antsy. Not antsy from being home, though; they get outside often enough for fresh air. It’s quickly become her favorite thing to grab Beca’s hand and pull her out the door to go for a walk on the least populated streets they can find. Social distancing has only given Chloe more excuses to be closer to Beca than usual by using basic excuses such as, “I’m starved for physical interaction, Bec!”

But all the daily walks can’t quell a different kind of starvation.

Beca not going to work and Chloe never having privacy has resulted in little to no opportunities for Chloe to tend to her personal sexual needs.

And it’s not that she’s insatiable. She considers herself to have a normal, healthy libido and an active sex life. But her hormonal cycle is starting to kick into overdrive and it’s becoming difficult to ignore. She also has precious little to distract herself with, forcing her to fixate on her unexpected and involuntary celibacy.

She does sneak one quick personal session in while Beca showers a few feet away behind nothing but a patterned curtain. The riskiness amps up the hotness of it, as does the fact that she can so easily picture Beca nude and showering, but it’s quick and does little to satisfy her. In fact, it only makes it worse, to the point that she’s beginning to feel drunk with horniness.

It’s a shitty state to be in when you live with your best friend in an apartment with zero privacy.

Which is why she’s not surprised when the question falls from her foggy brain to her lips when they’re in bed doing their nightly domestic routine of reading together quietly after she’s stared at the same page of her book for 15 minutes.

“What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?”

She sees Beca’s face turn toward her. “Dude, what?”

“Like, in bed,” she says with a casual shrug. She keeps her eyes on her book as one does with any casual conversation. “You know, sex.”

“Yeah, I know, what kinky means,” Beca says with a hint of amusement in her voice. “You’re asking me this why?”

She turns the page in her book. She has no idea what it says. “Why not?”

“Because that’s pretty personal?”

She shrugs again and tries to quell her thoughts but fails. She’s horny and in bed with the one person she’s been genuinely attracted to for as long as she can remember. She’s also had a lot of time to think about how she and Beca could be passing their down-time. For example, taking turns going down on each other. Or simultaneously.

“I let someone handcuff me once,” Beca says after a few beats of silence. She mutters it under her breath but it reaches Chloe’s ears loud and clear.

She aims to keep her voice conversational. “Did you like it?”

Beca clears her throat. “Yeah. It was...good, I guess. What about you?”

Chloe doesn’t expect Beca to volley it back to her but is pleasantly surprised. “Ooh, yeah. I like being tied up.” She closes her book to glance at Beca who is staring intently at the screen of her phone, though her thumb isn’t scrolling through anything. “But I like to be the one doing the tying.”

Beca’s swallow is audible. “Cool.”

It makes Chloe chuckle. “Yeah. Cool.” She glances again and she can tell Beca’s blushing, the tiniest hint of pink coloring her cheeks and tips of her ears. “You know what I’ve always wanted to try?”

“No, but I bet you’re going to tell me.”

“Spanking.”

“Oh, my God,” Beca says, sounding thoroughly mortified. Not that that fazes Chloe at all.

“I mean, I’ve done it, but not like, really, done it, you know? Not like bent over a knee, counting them off kind of spanking.”

Beca seems to shrink in on herself. “Wow, yeah. I got it.”

“Oh, come on,” she says, amused by Beca’s bashfulness. She knows it’s mostly false; she’s seen Beca when she gets out of her head. Hell, she’s seen Beca have sex with a woman in a bar (not that Beca knows that; they were clearly trying to be discreet but they weren’t even in a booth; it was literally on a barstool with Beca’s hand under the woman’s skirt. Chloe remembers it clearly and thinks about it often.). She moves her foot over to kick at Beca’s. “I’m bored. Tell me something you want to try. Have you been spanked?”

Beca laughs and whips her head around to look at Chloe again. She’s smiling, but it’s one of her bright, biting, sarcastic smiles. “I am not drunk enough for this. Or, like, at all.”

“Just tell me,” she whines, putting on her famed puppy-dog eyes that she knows Beca can never say ‘no’ to. “Or maybe you’re the one who did the spanking,” she adds thoughtfully and watches as Beca drops her phone and covers her face with both hands with a groan. “No, you totally are the one who’d get spanked.”

“Fine,” Beca grits out and Chloe almost hops out of bed in excitement. “Just...turn off the fucking lights I am not sitting here talking about this like we’re meal planning for the week.”

“Done,” Chloe says, twisting around to turn off her bedside lamp while Beca does the same. She knew she’d be able to crack Beca; it never takes much.

“I’m going on record that I’m only having this conversation out of sheer boredom.”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” Chloe says in her best Law & Order voice as she flips onto her side to face Beca.

“No, none of that,” Beca says swirling her finger at Chloe. “Eyes on the ceiling.”

“Fine,” Chloe sighs and rolls to her back to get comfortable and feels Beca doing the same. “Well?” she prompts after a few seconds of stillness and silence.

“Well, what?”

“Don’t act like you forgot. Answer the question.”

“Oh, my God.” Beca sounds exasperated. “Yes, okay?”

Chloe hadn’t expected that or the welcomed visions that accompany it. “Did you like it?”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, “Yeah.” Chloe can tell she’s rolling her eyes with the answer.

“Blindfolds?”

“They’re fine.”

The hesitancy is shorter that time, which surprises Chloe. She wonders if it’s because it was a vanilla question or if Beca’s accepting the line of questioning and resigning herself to it. Or if Beca just didn’t have to think about it. “Role-play?”

“...What kind of role-play?”

The tone of Beca’s voice holds curiosity, and that curiosity makes Chloe’s heart skip a beat. “You tell me.”

Extended silence follows and she hears Beca sniff, a nervous tick Chloe knows well, before she answers. “I don’t know, like...student/teacher.”

Her heart thumps again. “Who did you role-play student/teacher with?”

Beca’s voice is direct. “We’re talking about what we’ve done, not who we did it with.”

“Okay, okay. Were you the student or the teacher?” She smiles, letting the images of Beca in a Catholic school girl uniform fill her brain. “You were totally the student.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles, making Chloe laugh. “Why am I the one confessing everything?”

Chloe has already confessed a few things but she doesn’t argue. She’d rather keep talking about dirty things with Beca in the dark, in bed, right next to her. “I had a four-way once.”

She sees Beca’s head snap to the left to stare at her, breaking Beca’s own rule. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously,” she laughs.

She feels Beca’s eyes on her but doesn’t give in to the temptation to turn and look and Beca goes back to staring at the ceiling. “And it was all girls,” she decides to clarify. “I thought it would be complicated but we were just, like, in a circle head to toe. Well, more like mouth to—”

Beca interrupts her. “I get it.” 

She decides to embellish. “It was really hot. Like, one girl moaning? Hot. But three? At the same time? I came so—”

“Holy shit, I said I got it,” Beca interrupts again, sounding a bit winded. 

Chloe laughs and tries not to think about the fact that she knows her panties are growing wetter the longer this conversation goes on. “Okay, okay. Your turn.”

“Just give me a minute,” Beca grumbles.

Chloe keeps her thoughts to herself to let Beca think. Thoughts of what Beca might sound like when she moans. Of how hard she could make Beca come. Of what she tastes— 

“I had sex on the desk once.”

Chloe gasps; it’s her turn to snap her head to the right to stare at Beca’s profile in the darkness. “The no-sex-on-the-desk desk?!”

“Yeah,” Beca laughs. “It was bad, too. I just wanted to do it because I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Always the little rebel,” Chloe teases and she watches Beca roll her eyes and smile. “My turn to confess something.”

“Oh God, I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“I saw you fingering that blonde girl at the bar a few weeks ago.” She hadn’t meant to confess that, but there it was.

Beca turns to meet her eyes. “You did not!”

“I totally did,” Chloe laughs. “She was pretty. And came, like, super-fast. I’m impressed.”

“Wait, that she was pretty or that she came fast?”

“No, no,” she clarifies. “Of course you can get the pretty girls. I wasn’t surprised by that.”

“Just that I’m good at fucking them?”

Chloe wonders what her face looks like right now; probably all kinds of entertained and shocked. “No, I was impressed that you did it right there where everybody could see you.”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t that obvious.”

“It was totes obvious,” she whispers. “But it was really hot.” She hadn’t meant to confess that either, but…

She sees the corner of Beca’s mouth twitch like she’s trying not to react. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” she replies as she decides it’s finally safe to turn onto her side rather than crane her neck to see Beca while they talk. “I could tell you really wanted her to feel good.”

“I mean, yeah,” Beca says, starting to smile like she’s proud until her mind catches up with the conversation. “Oh, my God you saw me having sex. We are not talking about that anymore.” She turns to stare at the ceiling once more. “I’ve never seen you have sex.”

It’s hard to separate what is amusement and what is arousal now, but there are ample amounts of both flowing through Chloe’s system. “That could be arranged.”

Beca’s eyes close and Chloe can tell she’s clenching her jaw even in the darkness. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” Chloe says thoughtfully. “But I did. I like being watched.”

She watches Beca swallow; it feels abnormally slow. “Voyeurism, huh?” 

“Mhm.” Something feels different suddenly, like when the air grows still and humid before a thunderstorm.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Beca adds. She sounds kind of breathless and Chloe can’t help but wonder if this conversation is turning Beca on the say way it’s turning her on. “You like to...perform.”

“Yes, I do.” She watches Beca for a few seconds; she seems fidgety. “What’s your favorite position?”

“I am not answering that,” Beca says, her most Beca-like laugh of awkwardness leaping out with the words.

“Oh, please. Who cares. I’ll tell you mine.” The level of need Chloe has to know the answer is not one she should have for her friend. But she can’t unpack that right now.

“You first.”

Chloe pushes back. “No, you first. It was my question.” 

She watches Beca pull a hand out from under their shared blankets to squeeze the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She says something but it’s unclear.

“What?”

Beca repeats herself but Chloe can only make out that it ends with the letter ‘d.’

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t hear—”

“From behind! I like it from behind, okay?” Beca literally shouts it before covering her face with both hands again. “Oh, my God, I want to die.”

The confession absolutely floors Chloe and she doesn’t stop herself from reaching over to pull one of Beca’s hands away from her face. “That’s really hot,” she says, words measured to not make Beca think she’s mocking her. It’s difficult, though; she’s so physically affected by Beca’s blurted answer that she feels lightheaded. Images swirl through her mind again like butterflies of Beca on her hands and knees looking over her shoulder as Chloe— 

“You said you’d answer it, too,” Beca says, voice tight with embarrassment and anxiety. “Hurry up and put me out of my misery.”

“Oh, right,” she says once she remembers to breathe. She’s sure her palm is sweating where it’s still resting against Beca’s arm. “I really like it when the girl is on my lap riding me. Fingers, strap, whatever.”

“That’s nice,” Beca says, voice breaking into some kind of a stressed squeak, her one free hand turning to cover both her eyes.

“And I like my hair being pulled.”

“I didn’t ask about that.”

Chloe shrugs but she doubts Beca can see it, still hiding her eyes the way she is. “You know, both of us being home every day, I haven’t been able to touch myself in a long time.” She’s starting to operate on adrenaline and arousal which is often a dangerous combination.

Beca mutters, “Oh, my God,” for the dozenth time of this conversation. “Do you need me to go stand in the hall? I can give you privacy.”

“Remember how I said I like being watched?” She bites her lip and watches Beca’s reaction.

It’s a full-body one. She squirms until she’s pulled her captive arm away from Chloe so she can drag the covers up and over her head. “Why are you like this?”

“Where are you going?” Chloe laughs as she tugs on the blanket. “You want a front-row seat?”

Beca whips the blanket off her face, wispy hairs floating for a few seconds from static electricity to stare at her. “Dude.”

“Dude,” Chloe parrots, grinning at her. “It’s just me. When is the last time you did it?”

“I cannot believe we’re having this conversation,” Beca says to herself. “I don’t know. Like, the other day, I guess.”

Chloe’s tickled by her honesty. “And where was I?”

“You went to get the mail,” Beca groans, though she doesn’t try to hide her face again. She just avoids eye contact instead.

“It takes, like, two minutes to run downstairs and back.” She just smiles wider. “So quick.”

“Dude, shut up!” Beca says with exasperation. “You literally just said we’re both always here it’s not like I get to do it as often as I’d like.”

Chloe hears her teeth click when she slams her jaw closed for once again revealing more than she had intended, though it’s exactly the kind of revelation Chloe was hoping for. “You know…” she starts.

“What is that tone? What is your voice doing?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Chloe says as she turns to her back to once again lay side by side with Beca. “But if we’re both wound up because we’re never alone to...relieve ourselves—”

“‘Relieve ourselves’ sounds like you mean peeing.”

“Wait, Beca, are you into golden showers?” she teases, just to watch Beca hit the roof again.

Instead, she’s met with nothing but a long, irritated exhale. “You were saying?” Beca surprisingly asks.

“Oh, right. We’re really good friends, right? And we have to share this place for however long. And we have needs. Well, I know I have needs—”

“I have needs,” Beca interjects. It makes Chloe’s eyebrows lift with much interest.

“We have needs. I know talking about all this stuff tonight got me all riled up—”

“It did?”

Chloe chances a glance at Beca, but her eyes are tightly closed. “Yeah,” she answers. “What about you?”

There’s a long pause, and then, “Yeah, I guess.”

It makes Chloe’s heart want to hammer right out of her chest. Beca’s admitting she’s turned on. Right now. In bed. With Chloe. “Then if you’re okay with it, maybe we just agree to…” She has to stop and wet her lips; she’s irritatingly nervous and she only gets nervous like this before a performance. (Well…) “Do you want to touch yourself?”

The painfully extended silence is very telling.

“Because I really want to touch myself right now,” she continues when Beca doesn’t answer. “Would that be okay?” 

Beca finally speaks. “How is that not weird?”

“Who says it’s weird?”

“I don’t know. People.”

“We’re the only people who will know. I don’t think it’s weird. I think it’s kind of sexy.” She leaves it at that. She can’t push it further; she’s on thin ice as it is. All she can do is wait and try to ignore the ache between her legs.

“Just...don’t look at me,” Beca huffs and Chloe sees her pointedly turn her face toward the wall.

“Deal,” Chloe says, basically squealing as she does as requested and turns away while she closes her eyes.

Her heart is beating so hard she barely hears Beca’s voice over it. “So, are we just, like, doing this? Or…?”

“Do you need me to say 3-2-1-go?”

Beca just sighs and Chloe giggles, but chooses to let her giggle turn into a sigh of her own as she slips her hand down the front of her pajama shorts.

How wet she is comes as no surprise to her, but her sensitivity is unexpected and a whimper she didn’t quite mean to release escapes.

“Oh, my God you’re really doing it,” Beca says next to her and Chloe feels her shifting around but keeps her eyes closed.

She can’t get a read on Beca’s tone; it sounds more surprised than anything, but it’s laced with something else. She strains her hearing to listen to Beca, to listen for any movement or a change in her breathing or any sign whatsoever that Chloe is not doing this alone.

She’d be okay if she was, though. It is extraordinarily hot that Beca agreed to it at all, that she decided to be okay to be present and inches away while Chloe touches herself and the wetness beneath her fingers is confirmation of that.

It’s easy to begin to lose herself in it, though Beca’s proximity remains at the forefront of her mind. She’s touch-starved and needy and it feels so good to finally be able to let her hands wander, to let her fingers stroke over and around her clit while her other hand pushes under her pajama top to tease a stiff nipple. To let herself moan and not worry about getting caught.

Every nerve in her body comes alive when she hears Beca’s breath hitch just the tiniest bit. 

She’s filled with a new kind of ache: to make Beca talk about what she might be doing on her side of the bed. It’s too soon for Beca, though. Chloe knows her well enough that everything Beca does has to be worked through in stages until she finds her comfort with it or abandons it altogether.

Instead, Chloe tries to offer encouragement through an embellished moan, but she doesn’t have to fake the pleasure. The very possibility that Beca is touching herself next to her is almost enough to bring on her climax and she has to grit her teeth for a moment or two and still her fingers to let the sudden rush of arousal subside. While she waits, she holds her breath and listens for Beca, for any confirmation that she really is touching herself. She can hear her breathing and it’s almost too even and slow, a little too nasal for it to be natural.

“You don’t have to be quiet,” she chances to say. 

“It’s not like you’re being loud.”

Chloe smiles to herself. “Is that a challenge?”

“No.”

“But does that mean you’re doing it?”

There’s another pause, and then, “Maybe.”

She can’t help the groan that comes with Beca’s admission. 

“You don’t have to sound like porn,” Beca says, actual amusement in her tone.

“Can’t help it,” Chloe says with a smile in her voice, too, as her head tips back and her fingers slip lower to tease her entrance. “This is super hot.”

She hears Beca kind of hum and Chloe thinks she’s doing it to agree or disagree but the hum breaks into a stilted, very brief moan.

“Oh, yeah, you’re doing it,” Chloe breathes, starting to throw what little caution she still has to the wind.

Beca’s only response is a stubborn kind of grunt that tells Chloe she should probably stop commenting on Beca’s actions. So she does and instead lets Beca know what she’s feeling, sighing and whimpering when she tugs on her own nipple, whining when she teases herself by not slipping inside yet.

Beca was right, earlier. Chloe does like performing, especially for Beca. Especially with her voice, but her body is an instrument in this as well, and she lets her hips start rocking up into her hand. She knows Beca will be able to feel it; they can’t so much as blink without it being felt by the other in their rickety bed.

She doesn’t expect Beca’s reaction to be so immediate, or so vocal, but it’s there: a light, airy, unrestrained moan.

She wonders what Beca’s doing. If her fingers are between her legs, inside or outside her pajama pants, if her hands are on her breasts or stomach or thighs. She wonders what Beca likes, how Beca likes to be worked up, to be touched, how she likes to touch herself. If it’s hard and fast or soft and slow. She knows Beca has a vibrator; Chloe found it once by accident when she was looking for a spare cord to charge her phone after forgetting hers at the office. She wants to know how she uses it.

She wants to know what Beca sounds like when she’s being taken from behind, how her back would be sweating when Chloe would drag her nails down it as she— 

A whispered curse slices through her thoughts and on instinct she turns her head to look.

She wishes she hadn’t; she wishes she’d prepared herself for what Beca would look like, eyes closed and lips parted as her head tips back further into her pillow. As her chest rises and falls with her quickened breathing. As the covers over her midsection move with subtle but distinct rhythm. She wasn’t supposed to look. She promised Beca she wouldn’t. But she did and she can’t help the moan that escapes at the sight.

She doesn’t expect Beca to do what she just did until they’re suddenly looking at each other. She readies herself for the moment to fall apart.

“You weren’t supposed to look at me,” Beca says instead, and, breathtakingly, it is clear she hasn’t stopped what she was doing.

“Oops,” Chloe breathes, stilling her fingers and hips for a moment to step her orgasm back again.

“This is hot.”

Chloe almost moans again. “So hot.”

“No, I mean…” Beca uses her free hand, the one not apparently between her legs, to push at the quilt that’s covering them both. “This is hot. Can it go away?”

Chloe has to close her eyes for a second before she nods. At least she has a warning this time, to be able to mentally prepare herself for what she’ll see when they both work together to push down and kick away the blanket until it’s in a crumpled heap at their feet. She whimpers when her eyes reopen because Beca’s right hand is down the front of her pants. Her shirt has ridden up—or was pushed up—past her navel and Chloe’s filled with the desire to kiss the soft skin there. She knows her own is displaced as well and doesn’t bother to fix it.

“Yeah, this is hot, too,” Beca says with a laugh that shouldn’t be as sexy as it is when it sounds so shy. Her eyes are closed again but they reopen after a few seconds, and she’s still facing Chloe.

Chloe can’t help but smile. “So hot,” she repeats.

Beca’s eyelashes flutter a few times before they close again. “This is…”

“Hot?” Chloe finishes.

She watches Beca’s lips tug into a small smile. “I’m not...I can’t…” She huffs instead of finishing her thought and Chloe connects the dots.

“Oh. Oh. Do you want me to put headphones on or something? Or I can move to the floor—”

A hand landing on her forearm, the one that is connected to the hand down her shorts, stops her. “No. Just...”

Chloe’s heart feels like it’s in her stomach. Physical contact wasn’t part of the deal and Beca just initiated it. “Just?” she says, hearing how tight her voice sounds. Her wrist also flexes as her hips tilt, need starting to overtake her again.

She watches Beca’s hips roll, too, as a moan escapes her. “Do that again.”

Beca wants to feel her moving.

“Like this?” she asks as she resumes her pace, her fingers sliding up and down as her hips lift and fall.

Beca licks her lips and nods. 

“God,” Chloe breathes as she watches Beca match her pace until they’re moving in sync. She wants to reach over and touch Beca. She wants Beca’s hand to follow her arm down until it’s her fingers playing with Chloe’s clit. She wants to watch as Beca starts to relax, the tension in her shoulders lessening even as her hand tightens around Chloe’s arm. 

Another quiet moan escapes Beca and Chloe echoes it. She allows her hips to speed up as she pushes her hand further down, down until she’s slipping a finger inside herself. It drags Beca’s hand down, too, and Chloe’s breath catches when she sees that Beca’s fingertips are actually beneath the elastic of Chloe’s shorts where she’s holding on to her arm.

Beca’s eyebrows knit like she’s thinking and a sudden, loud moan almost startles Chloe. She’s maybe realized what Chloe is doing and Chloe is more than okay with that. She moves in and out of herself slowly, exaggerating it for Beca’s benefit though the way it feels needs no theatrics. She’s letting every moan and whimper spill out that needs to because with each one she sees Beca’s hips cant upward sharply.

She wants Beca to look at her, to see what she’s doing to Chloe in the way Chloe can see what she’s doing to Beca, even in the darkness. How her cheeks are flushed and how her tongue flits over her lips and how...God, and how her nipples are so visibly hard beneath the thin material of her T-shirt.

Chloe wants to come. She wants to come so badly it hurts. For all her bravado in proposing this, she doesn’t know how that should play out. If she should bite her tongue and come quietly and modestly. If she should let her hips buck and her voice do what it wants.

She doesn’t get a choice in the matter as Beca’s eyes open and meet hers.

It sets Chloe off like lightning striking.

She comes before she finishes figuring out how to handle it so her climax is uncensored and full-volume. Unbridled and wild as her hips buck and Beca’s blunt fingernails dig into the soft underside of her arm. Her body throbs and she manages to open her eyes, just for a moment, and finds Beca watching her and wearing a look of absolute desperation.

Beca’s release seems to hit her as unexpectedly as Chloe’s and she watches in awe as Beca comes, eyes slamming closed as her body tenses. Her moans are muffled by the way she’s clenching her jaw, like she’s trying to be quiet. Then her body’s curling in on itself, knees drawing toward her chest as she breathes hard until it passes and her legs fall back to the bed.

The whole event nearly makes Chloe again but she’s too caught up in watching it to think to twitch her fingers. Instead, she watches Beca try to catch her breath. Her hand is still wrapped around Chloe’s forearm but it’s no longer clutching it. Beca seems to remember it’s there and loosens her grip as though to pull away but she just ends up dragging it higher a few inches before stopping again.

She watches the muscle in Beca’s jaw twitch a few times before she’s wetting her lips and swallowing. “Um…”

“Wow, Beca,” Chloe says as soon as Beca’s broken the moment.

“Just…” Beca finally, sadly, removes her hand from Chloe’s arm and uses it to hold her finger in the air to ask for a moment. Chloe’s hyper-aware that her other hand is still in her pants, as is her own, and she struggles to keep from staring even though Beca’s eyes are closed. “Gimme a minute.”

Chloe bites her lip and smiles, content to watch Beca return to herself. Chloe does slip her hand out of her shorts to rest wet fingers against her bare stomach

Finally, Beca opens her eyes and keeps them fixed firmly on the ceiling. “What did you mean by ‘wow’?” she asks.

Chloe smiles so big she knows Beca can see it out the corner of her eye. “You are so freaking hot,” she says with earnest.

“Oh, my God, I am not,” Beca huffs and Chloe watches her try to bring her hands to cover her face, including the one she’s just dragged out of her pants, only to stop short.

Chloe tries not to notice that she can see them glistening in the faint ambient light and instead giggles as she twists to grab a tissue from the box next to the bed to pass to her.

She just huffs again and though it’s too dark to measure levels of blushing, Chloe’s sure whatever flush she’s wearing just deepened as she snaps it out of Chloe’s hand to wipe at her hand until she’s crumpling it and tossing it to the floor.

“So totally hot,” Chloe edges once Beca doesn’t seem ready to blow her top with embarrassment.

“Chloe,” she groans with a roll of her eyes that finally lands them back on Chloe for the first time since her climax. “Don’t make this weird.”

“I’m not!” she laughs. “I came so hard watching you.”

“You weren’t supposed to look at me!” Beca screeches as she half-sits up until she’s turning onto her side and laying back down. Facing Chloe.

“Yeah, well, you were looking at me,” Chloe shrugs as she wiggles onto her side, too. “You totally got off on me watching you.”

Beca’s eyes go wide and she puffs her cheeks out in exasperation.

“And I thought I was the one into voyeurism,” she continues teasing. “Learn something new about yourself?”

Beca’s exhale is loud but brief. “Whatever.” She points at Chloe, narrowing her eyes. “We don’t talk about this.”

Chloe’s heart sinks, just a little. It had been fun to live in her fantasy if only for a few minutes. “Ever?” She knows she sounds sad and she’s not trying to manipulate Beca. “I mean, this thing is going to last another month at least,” she amends. “You aren’t going to want to do it again?”

“Right now?” Beca blurts.

“I didn’t mean right now,” Chloe smiles, though suddenly her body warms.

“Oh.”

“Unless you want to?”

“Well...a month is a long time,” Beca finally answers, a bit begrudgingly. “I’m good for now, though.”

Chloe feels her heart soar and has to stop herself from moving to tackle Beca. Any other night and she would do it without thinking. Tonight, though, it’s different. “So you admit it was hot,” she says, grinning.

Beca presses her lips together for a few seconds until she rolls her eyes again. “Fine, it was hot.”

“Told you,” Chloe smiles and she watches Beca start to smile, too, before it fades to something else. Something Chloe can’t label, but it’s there as Beca quietly looks at her. Something about it makes her heart start to race.

It feels a lot like Beca might be thinking about kissing her.

Chloe wets her lips automatically, the possibility already making her breath speed up, until Beca breaks eye contact and starts to move until she’s turned onto her right side, back to Chloe, the way she always sleeps.

Chloe uses it as an invitation to move in behind her, like always, to fit herself along Beca’s back and slip an arm around her waist. Beca’s body is warmer than usual and Chloe can’t help but tip her face closer to breathe her in and find comfort in the familiarity. She lets her closeness bring her lips to the shell of Beca’s ear, which she kisses lightly.

“Sleep well,” she says as she rests her head on the pillow they’re sharing.

“Pretty sure I will now,” Beca replies, her tone playfully wry.

It makes Chloe squeeze her around her middle and give her a jostle. “You’re welcome,” she teases.

Beca hums and pokes her butt backward to bump into Chloe. “You, too. G’night.”

Chloe knows she shouldn’t, but she can’t help herself. It’s too perfect. She pops her hips forward right into her ass. “So you like it from behind, huh?”

The only thing that keeps Beca from running out the door is Chloe’s hold on her waist as Chloe laughs until tears prick her eyes as Beca cusses her out with the most colorful language she knows until she finally gives up and goes limp.

“I hate you,” Beca says after a few seconds of breathing hard from trying to escape.

“Love you, too,” Chloe sing-songs as she presses a kiss to Beca’s shoulder. “Go to sleep.”

She hears Beca muttering something under her breath that sounds a lot like, “Whatever,” and she can’t help but smile as she closes her eyes, Beca in her arms.

The End (maybe...?) (it’s not)

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Main Story 6-22 Translation

Translation Masterlist | Video

Chapter 6 – Tiger’s Accomplice Ghost (Parts 1, 2): 6-1 / 6-3 / 6-5 / 6-7 / 6-9 / 6-11 / 6-13 / 6-15 ♦️ ♦️  6-16 / 6-18 / 6-20 / 6-22 / 6-24 / 6-26 / 6-27 / 6-28 / 6-29

Information on the Chapter title (helpful to know): Wikipedia | My notes

--

Pax CEO Office

Lu Jinghe: Are all the places that Qin Shan went to before he fell ill here?

Wen Chen: Mhmm, all the ones from one month before his illness are here.

Lu Jinghe: He sure lived in a sumptuous way. Basically not a single meal was eaten at home.

Lu Jinghe: He really ended up going once to each club house, high-end hotel, and restaurant that he could reach in the whole city.

Wen Chen: Do you need me to collect the records from a larger amount of time prior?

Lu Jinghe: Not for now. Wait for me to go through this one month first.

Lu Jinghe placed the materials he was holding down, reclined in the leather chair, and massaged his temples.

Lu Jinghe: Are there any updates on that Assistant Hang?

Wen Chen: Assistant Hang is named Hang Jiahe. Her parents by legal relation have no blood relation with her – she was adopted.

Wen Chen: But because it was a relatively long time ago, I have not found the detailed adoption information yet.

Wen Chen: Hang Jiahe took the place of Qin Shan’s assistant at the beginning of this year, around when Xu Ping disappeared.

Wen Chen: She is an assistant in name, but it seems like her authorizations are very large.

Wen Chen: Some resigned Heirson personnel said that Hang Jiahe is a fox who exploits the might of the tiger. There are also people who speculate that she is Qin Shan’s lover.

Lu Jinghe: Lover?

Lu Jinghe: Ever since Qin Shan divorced, he has never married again. I’ve also never heard of him having media gossip before.

Wen Chen: Qin Shan’s familial circumstances in adolescence were decent. His father worked in real estate – they could be considered as… a little rich.

When Wen Chen said “a little rich”, he furrowed his eyebrows very seriously, as if he was assessing the standard of being rich.

Wen Chen: After, the Qin father’s business failed, and the company went bankrupt. Qin Shan’s lifestyle also took a nosedive.

Wen Chen: Qin Shan sought work after graduation and joined his ex-wife’s Xu family’s Xingrui Estates company. He acquainted with his ex-wife, and they got married very quickly.

Wen Chen: After, Qin Shan gradually rose to high ranks in Xingrui, relying precisely on his wife’s nepotism.

Lu Jinghe: Like so, he still dared to cheat, hah.

Perhaps Qin Shan’s past marital history wasn’t known at the public level, but it was no secret in the upper-class business circles of Stellis City.

Wen Chen: Yes. To give financing to the real estate company, Qin Shan had ambiguous relations with a female top executive of a financial company.

Wen Chen: It was that female top executive that talked about this matter with Qin Shan’s wife, having Qin Shan’s wife manage him well, and to make sure that he wouldn’t come out to harass anyone else.

Wen Chen: Due to this, Qin Shan’s wife divorced him quickly, and had him leave the marriage with nothing.

Lu Jinghe: No wonder. Heirson’s business could also be considered as large, yet Qin Shan’s never mixed in with the top crowds.

Lu Jinghe: Have you found about the source of funds used by Qin Shan to establish Heirson?

Wen Chen: It involves an overseas investment company. Though I have preliminary results, I still can’t be completely sure.

Wen Chen: I already have people doing detailed investigation. When there is accurate information, I will report to you again.

Lu Jinghe: Mhmm, speed up the work. We must find the clear truth behind that Assistant Hang and the capital backing Heirson.

Wen Chen: Yes, second young master.

--

Wen Chen retreated from the CEO office. Lu Jinghe took out his phone, scrolling through the message and incoming call records, his face completely pitiful.

Lu Jinghe: Why won’t you send even a single message? I really have no news whatsoever on you.

As he spoke, Lu Jinghe looked towards the table, flipping through the desk calendar on the table.

Lu Jinghe: Alright, we did chat in the morning in the group chat, but several hours have already passed.

Lu Jinghe: Getting in touch with you now will probably affect your investigation.

Lu Jinghe: Ugh, then I’ll consider the big picture, and I’ll wait until the weekend when you can relax to ask you out.

--

Mo Yi’s House

Mo Yi, who basically never pulled all-nighters, slept after he returned home, only waking in the afternoon. Seeming somewhat exhausted still, he brewed a cup of hot coffee and took it to the coffee table.

Mo Yi: The experience of pulling all-nighters and working overtime is probably not unfamiliar to you.

He turned on the electronic photo frame. In it, there were photos taken on outings with the girl – there were single-person ones, and ones with two people.

Mo Yi: If it’s possible, I also hope that you won’t have to work this hard.

Mo Yi: When I calculate it, it’s been a very long time since I’ve collaborated side-by-side with you.

Mo Yi: Recently… have I been too passive…

On the flickering screen on the side, a progress bar on the comparison of data was displayed. The day was almost done, yet the progress bar was only at 50%.

Mo Yi: I still have not obtained results, so it seems that I have no suitable reason to look for you.

Mo Yi: Looks like I need to think some more about this. Losing to other people cannot be allowed.

--

Antiques Shop, 3rd Floor

Lying on his arm, Xia Yan reclined on his bed, spinning his phone with his left hand in a state of absolute boredom.

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: The people in the identification department are getting worse and worse. They’re just a few note pages, so aren’t they spending way too much time on this?

Suddenly, Xia Yan’s phone vibrated. His hand slipped, and the phone nearly dropped right onto his face.

Xia Yan: Hello, Brother Yang, is something up?

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: Why are you the one contacting me? What about the identification department people?

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: Okay, I got it. I’ll go and see right now.

After hanging up, Xia Yan jumped up from the bed, opening the computer on the work counter.

In his recent mail inbox, there was a detailed report on Kong Moli’s notebook.

Xia Yan: Heirson Factory Unnatural Staff Deaths name list…?

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: Seems like… it probably is related to certain things…

Probably because he had no ideas for now, Xia Yan sighed and closed the computer.

He reclined back on the bed and picked up the phone again.

Xia Yan: Oh well, I’ll rest first and then think. Otherwise, if you find out, you’ll harp on me again.

Xia Yan: What about you, are you doing alright now?

Xia Yan: If you’ve encountered difficulty, don’t force yourself to bear it on your own – you’ve got to tell me.

--

City Police Station

Yan Wei: What? Don’t catch him for now? Why?

When we came out the meeting room, Yan Wei told us that they had already found Fu Qiao. The police were in the middle of secretly tailing Fu Qiao; they did not immediately capture him.

Zuo Ran: Right now, whether it’s for Zhou Nan’s case or Chen Hanzhang’s illegal drug dealing case, we already have lots of witnesses and testimonies. What we lack is objective, physical evidence.

Zuo Ran: If we capture Fu Qiao now, it’s very likely that he’ll say nothing at all, or he’ll say only things that we already know.

Zuo Ran: This will not provide any substantial help in solving this case.

MC: I agree with Lawyer Zuo’s view, because…

There is no point in catching Fu Qiao right now, because…

> It’ll beat the grass, only to scare off the snake > Fu Qiao might be able to find where the blackmail leverage is

MC: Lawyer Zuo and I have inferred that Zhou Nan’s death was used to make Fu Qiao into Chen Hanzhang’s Ghost.

MC: As a Ghost, Fu Qiao must want to destroy the blackmail leverage in Chen Hanzhang’s hands.

MC: Chen Hanzhang is in custody right now. To him, this is a good opportunity.

MC: On the other hand, illegal drugs hold no importance to him. It’s too unrealistic for him to want to take over for Chen Hanzhang’s illegal drug dealings.

MC: But he’s recently gotten into contact with the drugs. This indicates that the place where Chen Hanzhang collected the blackmail leverage is highly likely to be the same as where the drugs are kept.

MC: If we don’t capture Fu Qiao, we might instead be able to follow him to find concrete evidence and catch this criminal gang in one net.

Yan Wei: But how do you two know that Fu Qiao went to search for the blackmail leverage, rather than purely slinking off?

Zuo Ran: That’s why we’re saying for the police to not catch him for now, and to only follow him secretly and observe.

Zuo Ran: If Fu Qiao is only running off to the north area to hide, and he makes no other movements, then you can capture him in one or two days.

Zuo Ran: If Fu Qiao is investigating and searching in the north area, or goes straight for some clear target location, then it’s very likely to be the place where Chen Hanzhang has kept the blackmail leverage on the Ghosts.

Yan Wei: What you’ve said makes sense.

Zuo Ran: Aside from that, if Chen Hanzhang requires custody time to be ended early, or your application for the extension of custody time is not approved, I recommend that you simply let her go.

Zuo Ran: Change it from custody to residential surveillance.

Yan Wei: You want to do the same as with Fu Qiao, by having Chen Hanzhang bring us to the evidence herself?

Zuo Ran: Yes. If you continue to detain her in the police station, she will not provide information anyways.

Zuo Ran: You might as well let her go and see what movements she makes. Give her a stage, and let her finish singing the performance.

Yan Wei: Chen Hanzhang’s alertness level is very high. It’s very possible that after letting her out, she’ll bide her time before the police stop their surveillance.

Zuo Ran: Of course, we can’t passively wait for her to move. We can provoke her.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, what you mean is…

When our eyes met, I immediately understood Zuo Ran’s plan.

MC: We can have Qing Zhian put out news to the people in Wiley Financial and the Ghosts that he knows…

MC: Saying that someone called Fu Qiao knows where the blackmail leverage is.

MC: The boss of the Ghosts might change.

Zuo Ran: That’s right. With Qing Zhian’s experience, even if he has never come into contact with Chen Hanzhang’s core business, he is still someone who has serviced the company for many years. He’ll be credible.

Zuo Ran: As soon as these remarks spread, under the situation of having been detained for so long and having her movements limited, it’s highly likely that Chen Hanzhang won’t be able to sit still.

Yan Wei: You both really are something – this is a good plan.

Yan Wei: I’ll listen to you, and I’ll go make arrangements now.

[hello-nichya-here]

Fire Foursome Headcanons Part 2

Here are some more Fire Foursome headcanons if you like. And if you think they are good enough can you please leave a comment under my Fire Foursome AO3 page while also putting them on your AOE Fire Foursome page? Thanks!

KEY POINT: The headcanons in this assume an Azula who has gotten the help she has needed, make amends with everyone, and rekindled her friendship with her old friends and Zuko before Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee initiated Azula into their "arrangement."

Q: Which member of the fire foursome is the most likely to be a pain slut?

Answer: Mai; for she is a thrill seeker and she loves nothing more than finding things that make her feel alive. And nothing does that better than driving her lovers so mad with lust that they lose control and hurt her. She loves it when Zuko is taking her from behind and starts pounding her like she is his inanimate fuck doll. She loves it when Ty Lee picks her up, pushes her against a wall, and forcibly grinds their pussies together. And she loves it when Azula is tired of Mai’s edge play and flips Mai on her back, jerks Mai’s legs behind her head, and starts tribbing. However, by hurt she means just bumps and bruises that quickly heal and don’t affect her the next day and not actual injuries. For there are few things that Mai, and really all of The Foursome, hate than being bed ridden and out of commission. And to the rest of the Foursome’s credit, they haven’t hurt Mai despite Mai sometimes losing control and asking them to really hurt her. Not that they would ever hurt, or anyone in the group, ever (again).

Q: Who would like being choked the most, if at all, in the foursome?

General Answer: Tie between Azula and Mai. 

Answer (Mai): For the reasons stated in the above question. 

Answer (Azula): Azula is a dominant woman in her professional and personal life and likes it when her lovers have had enough of her brattiness and put her in her place. For even if Azula has changed a lot, she is still a brat at times, though the other members of the Fire Foursome find it cute and endearing since Azula isn’t over possessive, domineering, or manipulative like she was when she was younger. That and they realize that for all the airs that Azula puts on, Azula is a socially incompetent fuck up (though with much better emotional stability and maturity) without that much life experience and so they cut her some slack. Also, it is one of the few times Azula can “sit back” and not have to think. Besides, even if they said they have forgiven her, Azula isn’t too sure and so likes to give them an outlet whenever they are frustrated with her, or in general, rather than letting their frustrations build up and have it end in them abandoning leaving her again due to her abusive treatment of them and being an evil jackass in general. This is because Azula isn’t so sure she could survive that again, especially since they have become a lot closer than they were as kids. However, the rest of The Foursome remind Azula that as long as Azula remains a good person, a good partner, and continues her treatments, they’ll never leave her again. Not to mention, as they often point out, Azula works hard in order to not relapse so Azula has nothing to worry about.

Q: Who in the Fire Foursome likes hair pulling?

Answer: All of them. They like having their hair pulled when they are being taken from behind and the giver is asserting their dominance. They like having their hair pulled when they fucking each other face to face and the reciever wants the giver up close when either of them are close to orgamsing in order to heighten the emotional connection. They love it when they are engaging in oral sex and either the receiver, or someone who isn’t involved, violently grabs their hair in attempt to make them tongue their wetness completely or in Zuko’s case, completely throat his cock. They love it when, at the end of a lovemaking session, they get affectionate pats or rubs on the head. For The Fire Nation, and the Fire Nation nobility/royalty, always had a big emphasis on the importance of hair and how it represents your status and honor. And so every time they mess with each other’s hair, it is like they are giving a fuck you to the culture standards that led to their fucked up upbringings. That and the fact that they all have nice, soft, and long hair that is nice to touch or hold. In fact, one of the ways they bond with each other outside of the bedroom is brushing and washing each other’s hair before helping each other put it into their preferred hair style.

Q: Which girl is the most likely to go out of her way to learn a new sex act / improve at it to place the other members of the harem?

Answer: Could the correct answer be anyone other than Azula? Just like she has an analytical, eclectic approach to bending, combat, and statecraft, she has similar views in regards to the bedroom. And to make things worse, Azula is acutely aware that she has no prior romantic or sexual experience compared to her brother (who had a date with Jin, dated Mai on and off since they were teens, and has been with Ty Lee for a while), Mai (been with Zuko on and off since they were teens, dated Kei Lo, and been with Ty Lee for a while), and Ty Lee (who has experience from her time in the circus and The Kyoshi Warriors and has been with Mai and Zuko for a while). She knows that they don’t hold her lack of experience against her and have even told her that they find it hot since they get to mold her to their liking. But Azula can’t help but feel inadequate, especially when there is a nagging voice that sounds awfully like her father telling her that fit, attractive women with pale skin, dark hair, and golden eyes are a dime a dozen in the Fire Nation and once the rest of the Fire Foursome has had their fill of her they will discard her. Especially since they easily can find women like her without the complicated past she shares with them or mental illness(es) she has. Thus Azula scoures for the latest sex scrolls and constantly asks her bro and friends for pointers that they happily give her. However, thanks to her therapy, instead of turning her desire to be the best into a misguided attempt to secure their loyalty for all of time and/or into a (ugly) competition, she returns the help she is given and constantly gives her bro and friends summaries of the scrolls she reads in the form of bi-weekly black ribbon letters. And the result? An massive improvement in Zuko’s, Mai’s, and Ty Lee’s sex life and probably the best sex life in the five nations in the Four Foursome’s no so humble opinions.

Q: What would the girls do if the other two were too pregnant to have sex and they had to try to satisfy Zuko by themself? Maybe with the others watching them?

They would wish the non-pregnant girl good luck in trying to keep with Zuko’s insatiable sex drive before going on with their day. For even if they are heavily pregnant, it is not like they aren’t still active. For Mai is Zuko’s head advisor alongside Azula, Ty Lee is head of the palace guards (whether it be the Fire Nation branch of The Kyoshi Warriors or The Rangi Warriors depends on the verse, and Azula, in addition to advisory duties, is the head of the (official or unofficial depending on the verse) spy network made up of the former Fire Warriors. And if they are truly too pregrant to do anything, it is not like they are going to watch sex that they can’t particpate in. Not when they can be lounging in their well earned luxury while complaining to each other about the state Zuko put them in and their plans to raise their children together (or to continue to do so depending on the timeline/verse).

Q: Who is the best at riding cock, riding a strap-on, or tribbing on top?

Answer: Ty Lee. Girl is supremely talented when it comes to all physical matters and this extends to the bedroom thanks to her nigh unbeatable blend of strength, flexibility, and enthusiasm. Hence one of the reasons why a lot of Zuko’s, Mai’s, and Azula’s favorite sex positions with Ty Lee involve Ty Lee onto top of them and seeing her muscular body go to work pleasuring them while often foddling and/or sucking on her big, fat tits. And Ty Lee loves how being on top basically makes the other members of The Foursome basically worship her like the Sun Warriors worship Ran and Shaw. For even if Ty Lee is not as insecure as a kid/teen and thus doesn’t need or desire (constant) attention, she still likes it when she is the center of attention.

Q: How do the girls react to Zuko's dick being huge and/or a little too big for them?

Answer (Mai): Outwardly complaining that Zuko having a big dick has always made him cocky in the bedroom, while internally being jubilant. This is because Mai is a bit of a size queen, not that she likes admitting to anyone though the rest of the foursome quickly realized it and have lovingly teased her for it. In fact, this is one of the many reasons why she kept coming back to Zuko and eventually made it work with him. For while Mai has had one other male romantic partner, Kei Lo, part of the reason why she didn’t click with him, despite Kei Lo being a way better romantic partner on paper, is because Kei Lo is a bit lacking down there compared to his highness.

Answer (Ty Lee): Enthusiastic and grateful that her male partner is able to satisfy her the way she wants to be. This is because during her time in the circus, all of her male partners were lacking and thus she really didn’t get enjoyment from PiV. Well that and because the men were selfish fucks who didn’t care to pleasure their female partners if it wasn’t through PiV and even if they wanted to, they really didn’t know how to do so. In fact, it was this problem that caused her to experiment with women and led her to believe that she was a lesbian before Mai introduced her to Zuko, whose big dick in addition to actually knowing and caring to please his female partners made Ty Lee realize that she was a bisexual and that there was pleasure to be had fucking men as well.

Answer (Azula): It turns out that her Zuzu is a little too big for her...not that she didn’t notice at first. For the first couple of times she fucked Zuko as part of The Foursome, she was way too happy and horny to notice that Zuko was causing her some pain while doing PiV. But after a while, she started to notice that PiV was a little bit displeasurable from her end but didn’t complain considering how hard she had worked to regain her friends’ and bro’s trust and didn’t want them to think she was a burden. However, Mai and Ty Lee noticed and staged an intervention with Zuko where they asked if Zuko was a little too big for her. Azula wanted to deny it since she had been trained not to admit to “weakness.” But thanks to her therapy and personal growth, Azula pushed aside her prior conditioning and told her fellow lovers the truth while apologizing for keeping a secret and being “too weak to fully take Zuzu.” However, instead of getting upset at her, they laughed and told her that it was nothing to be ashamed about and they understood why Azula was reluctant to come forth. This is because they knew that Azula was very sexual inexperienced, that she probably had aniexty related to sex (espeically with them considering their past), and Fire Nation sex-ed was very lacking outside of the basics and contraceptive use. So Ty Lee and Mai introduced Azula to some Kegel exercises to help her relax her vaginal walls (in contrast to them using the exercise to help better clasp Zuko’s cock) and after a week or so of doing them, Azula was able to take in her (really) big bro without any displeasure and truly enjoy Zuko’s cock much to the other members’ amusement. This is because the first time Azula could take Zuko's cock without resistance, Azula had an immodest orgasm that left the normally sure-footed Azula stunned in silence for a minute straight.

Q: Which members of the fire foursome like to be tied up and/or blindfolded and how? Which members prefer to tie up others?

General Answer: Tied up and blindfolded: Azula and Ty Lee. Tie up and blindfold others: Zuko and Mai.

Answer (Ty Lee): Ty Lee is arguably the physically strongest person she knows, with only Zuko surpassing her for sure. Thus, she loves being tied up by Zuko and being “taken advantage of'' by him since no one else can really overpower her and make her feel truly like she is dominated. And she likes being blindfolded by all of her partners since her extrasensory visual abilities are taxing at times, and so she likes to be able to relax and truly enjoy being pleasured by her partners, as well as pleasuring them, without seeing their auras as well.

Answer (Azula): She likes being tied up partially for the reasons stated in Who would like being choked the most, if at all, in the foursome? And partially because she has constantly masterbated to the thought of being tied up and forcibly taken while being pressed up against a wall ever since that muscular and strong snow peasant Sokka accosted her during the Day of Black Sun and gave her an invader kink. Preferably by Zuko, who is wearing traditional Southern Tribe armor in addition to wearing his hair in the South’s traditional style while she is wearing armor similar to the style she wore near the end of the war (Zuko had them decommissioned but once they had become lovers, he had an armor custom built for him and her so they could engage in their various armor related kinks). She also likes being blindfolded because over the course of her therapy, one thing (among others) that she found effective in treating her symptoms was limiting her sensory perception so she could relax once she was in an area, or room, with people she trusted. And even though it took a long time and a lot of struggling, she completely trusts her bro and friends again, and so likes limiting her sensory perception while in the bedroom with them so she can better enjoy being pleasured as well as better pleasure them. However, she doesn't like being restrained like she was in the asylum since it brings up a lot of traumatic memories and is liable to cause an episode. Something that Zuko, and the other girls, found out the hard way for one time when he tried restraining Azula’s arms to her side without realizing what it meant and caused a nasty episode in Azula which stopped the Foursome’s lovemaking session and forced them to comfort Azula throughout the night.

Answer (Zuko): Considering Zuko’s issues related to a lack of control, is it surprising that he would like tying up and/or blindfolding his lovers (with their consent)? Especially considering his history of tying up headstrong girls *cough*Katara*cough? For Zuko loves it when he blindfolds and ties up Ty Lee to his bed post and alternates between pleasuring her with a didlo molded using his cock and his actual cock, until she just reaches her limit. Only to deny her release and tell her she can only cum if she can correctly guess when he is using the dildo and when he is using his cock. And then hearing her struggle to guess until she is a whimpering mess begging for her Lord to relieve which, as her benevolent lord, he does. Zuko loves it when he ties up and blindfolds Azula and forcibly takes her against a wall while they both wear armor and engage in Azula’s invader kink (see Azula’s above answer for details), and eventually taking her womb like he would her “nation” by filling her up with his seed. Zuko tried getting Mai to accept being blindfolded and tied up but after a couple of times where it became obvious that she didn’t get pleasure from the act, he stopped pushing for it since he can’t get off when his partner(s) are obviously not enjoying their lovemaking. And Mai not liking being tied up and/or blindfolded makes sense considering Mai doesn’t like not having agency due to her severe lack of it during their childhood.

Answer (Mai): Mai, similar to Zuko, had a lack of agency earlier in life and likes to make up for it and nowhere does she like to assert dominance and control than in the bedroom. And there aren't that much better ways to do so than by tying up and blindfolding your lovers. For example, Mai loves to blindfold and tie up her girls and have them fuck each other and her at the same time while making sure they are wearing tight as fuck blut plugs that can only be removed once they make the other blindfolded and tied up girl, or Mai, cum. Which is hard to do since Mai is constantly moving them around and fucking them, which makes it hard for the other girls to know who they are fucking, who is close to orgasming, and if someone did cum, who came and who was responsible. This often leads the girls to become overstimulated and, after reaching their limit and thus forsaking their pride, beg their queen (when she is doming Mai makes sure the girls call her queen, especially Azula) to release their bonds and butt plugs. And Mai only listens to them after they beg for a minute or so straight. Mai tried tying up and blindfolding Zuko one time, but it triggered a nasty memory where Zuko remembered when he woke up strapped down to a bed in the palace healers’ room with a blindfold just after his Agni Kai where he wasn’t sure the extent of his wounds...or if he would even live. So Mai never tried blindfolding and/or tying him up again since she would never hurt her Zuko like that on purpose. Especially not when Mai has other ways to dom her high strung boyfriend (or husband depending on the timeline).

Q: Which fire foursome members like non-con the most? (Either on the receiving end or on the giving end)

Answer: None of the fire foursome like non-con at all and is not surprising considering the lack of agency they had for most of their childhoods. A lack of agency that was partially caused by Azula & Zuko some members of The Foursome. And since all the members of The Foursome are acutely aware of this, non-con isn’t really desired by anyone. However, they do have a lot of non-con roleplay fantasies kinks where, with the prior and consistently obtained consent of the person or people being “raped,” the person or people doing the “raping” forcibly has their way with their “victim(s)”. But, they have a strict safeword system where the moment someone utters their shared safeword (“honor”) they stop the scenario and don’t restart until the person or people who stopped enthusiastically gives consent again.

***

I am LIVING for these

[jenroses]

Dear Good Omens Fandom *

*And others.

It’s time to talk about footnotes.

Okay, so there are a number of different ways to augment text in a print book to provide more information. When expanding on an idea, on a page, one often puts a footnote to a SHORT paragraph that appears on the same page. In digital versions, all the footnotes are often at the back of the text and linked to via some variant of a hyperlink. 

Functionally, in a print book, most people will read the paragraph or sentence the footnote is in, drop their glance to the bottom of the page, and look up again. Grade: B+, perfectly serviceable.

Functionally, in a properly coded digital document such as an Ebook or web page, one clicks the footnote symbol or number, reads, and then either clicks it again or hits the back button to get back to where they were. Grade: C-, if you exit on the bookmark you may never get back to where you started, if you hit a back button, the document may reload if your browser is being techy, but if it is coded right, you probably can usually get back to where you need to be. 

If it is not coded properly or at all, F-, not functional, will not read.

When providing references or receipts, one uses references, often a numerical list or alphabetical list at the back of the book, chapter or article. The point is that if someone wants more information, they can get it. In a nonfiction article, this works well. 

You provide your reference in whatever style is appropriate to the publication, people can find what they need, the document is rarely long enough to care about flipping back and forth. Online, even easier. People can click through, open in a new window, whatever.  Grade for nonfiction: A+. Provides extra information in an accessible way. 

Grade for fiction... eh. Just use an appendix in a print book, author’s note, end note, whatever. Footnotes for receipts pull me out of the story. Grade: B- (or C+)

And online? Use an end note or chapter note. You rarely need to provide links in the text in fiction, just use an end note and say, “By the way, if you were wondering about such and such, here’s where it came from and what it’s about.” Easy peasy, flow is fine. Grade: A

So in a fandom which grew up with a fully footnoted actual physical book such as Good Omens? The temptation is to stick with the original for style, but please, my darlings, I beg you, do not do this. YES, you can absolutely provide snarky asides, quips and expanded information. You can do it without interrupting yourself mid sentence. 

But it will be more functional in a digital environment, ESPECIALLY for people who use “whole work” viewing rather than chapters, people who download for reading later, and people who are visually impaired who need screen readers... if you use another method.* You do not have to send people on a wild goose chase to find footnotes, which many will simply give up on and ignore, and in which case, why did you bother? *It works like this. Put an asterisk in where you want your aside. Finish your paragraph. Break your paragraph. Add another asterisk and italicize your text. Voila.

Using this alternate method has multiple benefits. Your quip, witticism, background note or digression does not interrupt the flow of the writing. People read the footnote just about precisely where they need to. They do not get lost. They don’t have to follow links. Screen readers are 100% fluent with this method. And it copies from Google Docs to AO3 (if you use rich text paste and not html) seamlessly with nothing getting lost in the transition. 

The eye sees the asterisk,* scans down for another asterisk, finds it, reads, and scans back up a very short distance. 

*Like this.

Since pagination doesn’t happen in AO3 or google docs or websites or screen readers set on “scroll”... you simply do not have one of the components required for proper footnoting. Footnotes go at the foot of the page. And a 100,000 word fanfic doesn’t have pages. It has chapters.

And that’s a problem on Archive of Our Own. You see, people tend to upload one chapter at a time. Footnotes are often numbered within chapters starting from 1. But if you do that, and someone has loaded your entire story, the minute they get to chapter 2, those careful footnote links you crafted bounce them up to chapter 1′s footnotes. 

The Asterisk method completely avoids that. It removes the coding stage. It removes all bouncing around. It works no matter how people load your work. And that, mes anges,* is functional. And it looks fine. It’s intuitive. And it doesn’t make me want to throw my phone out of the window of a moving car because we’re out of cell range** and I’m having to follow hundreds of footnotes back and forth and I couldn’t load the whole document because the footnotes wouldn’t work that way and now I can’t get the next chapter of your fucking amazing writing.

*my angels, French **true story, happened today Nov. 24, 2019. The wanting. I didn’t actually do it because I’m a goddamn grownup.

Grade for using the asterisk method? Five huge sighs of relief, and an A+ from every single person who uses a screen reader or can just about manage a scroll but can’t deal with finding the back button in the dark for whatever reason*.

*rheumatoid arthritis, stiff hands, lotsa lying down reading here.    

The show did not have footnotes. It had occasional voiceovers. It’s okay to adapt your technique to the needs of the technology. 

Bless everyone who has painstakingly gone through and linked to footnotes and back again. I know you worked really hard on it. Please stop doing it. This method is so much easier. 

If you want to see how this works in a full fic, I happen to have one here. Mitzvah

End note

There is no real correlation between the quality of the story and the quality of the footnote method. I see a wide variety of methods in many stories throughout the fandom. You’re not wrong per se, if you don’t do it my way. But you’re doing more work than you need to, and wasting time you could be doing literally anything else. This is probably best taken as a “going forward” recommendation, because no one, literally no one expects you to go back and redo hundreds of footnotes. 

If you reread your own work, and you have a lot of footnotes, it is wise to read it on multiple devices and in multiple ways. Does it make sense without footnotes? Some people will never look at a single one. If someone tries to use the footnotes, do they work in subsequent chapters if they’re not in chapter by chapter mode? If someone just reads in order, text first, footnotes last, are they going to have any idea what the footnotes are referring to? I have done literally all of these things in different fics in the fandom.