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danse-or-farkas · 2 years

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TESFEST22 Day 2: Magic

June 12th - Storms / Magic

I had enough notes and bits left in the WIP from yesterdays entry to throw together a chapter 2. There is now only a few hundred words left in the doc, the tank is empty, the well has run dry.

Please ignore that its technically the first hours of day 3 in my timezone.

Just short of 2400 words. will be posted to AO3 too.

Farkas entered the chamber, his sword held at the ready.

The air wasn’t tomb dry, that taste of magicka suspended rot and old earth drowned out by something else. Velum and scribes ink if he had to guess. No matter how he tried to find what about it was alerting him it slipped him by, growing ever more insistent by the second.

The Whelp was a handful of paces behind and letting him take the lead. Geir was usually much more heavy in his footfalls, perhaps taking the task seriously for once. Between Vilkas, Farkas, Skjor, and Aela they had gambled on a game of Pale Pass who was to be his sponsor and mentor in this task. Farkas’ losing cards decided the task fell to him alone.

They stepped down into what appeared to be some sort of meeting chamber, the draugr here slain as had the others along the path. Their wounds were seared, likely by silver, the hint of cooked foul meat something he had missed the first time this had happened.

He picked up a book from a table, crumbling between his fingers like it had before. He was supposed to make a comment about it, instead staring at it as it dissolved into dry flakes and fluttered lightly to the ground.

The trap room snapped shut, the trellis falling, and Miraak simply tilted his head and made a mildly interested ‘hmm’ at it.

Looking at him properly for the first time it came back to him. Oblivion, the masked man, the inability for him to dream of anywhere but the Infinite Library.

The Silver Hand poured into the room, weapons ready as Farkas stared at that golden mask.

He only paid them any attention when they started to say their lines, more irritated that they didn't have the courtesy to stay dead after the first and real time.

This time Farkas gave them no opportunity to gloat, tearing the armour from his chest with a snapping of quick release bolts. One of them whistled past Miraak with some force, shattering an urn behind him. He didn't even flinch, sparing it only a passing look.

Fur and muscle and teeth and claws burst free as the armour fell away cleanly, to the immediate panic of the hunters. The script they were following wavered, Miraak watching those half born things of memory and void plasm fall from their purpose and for a brief moment become almost alive.

They had barely a moment to respond when their leader had their head sent an impressive distance away and the one behind them lost their throat and jaw with only a swingle swing of razor sharp claws. One of them managed to swing their sword, clumsy and untrained, missing entirely. They had no time to try again, having their arm snapped like a dry twig for the effort before it was torn free from their body entirely.

Farkas dropped low onto his haunches and launched himself into the other two, crushing one to the floor hard with a dry crunch as their skull connected to ancient stone. They convulsed once under paw, blood trickling from anywhere it could escape before they simply went limp. The other was thrown back, barely managing to even get back onto their feet when they were torn to ribbons from navel to neck.

He turned with a snarl, gripping the bars of the cage with enough force to bend the ancient metal inwards.

“Are you quite done?” Miraak simply looked right into those burning white eyes, catching the moment of surprise with mild amusement. That hadn’t been how it had gone the first time around either, Geir had responded with undisguised disgust.

The fur retreated with a snapping of tendons and reforming of bones, folding back into itself until there was just a man holding himself up against the bars, wet with gore and panting with exertion.

“I think I am.” Farkas said, somewhat understanding what was happening and where he was.

“So what did you say when this actually happened?” Miraak smiled to himself, hidden by the mask. Farkas was very good at regulating his body language and expression, or more likely simply didn’t express himself outwardly much, but Miraak was getting very good at spotting the tells. His shoulders would square up and tense, and he would run his tongue over his teeth when irritated or disappointed.

“Hope I didn’t scare you.” He almost mumbled it, his quest to get anything but a raised eyebrow from Miraak still failing.

“I can imagine it terrified the person you were actually with.” Miraak could see just how it would be. Farkas had been a beautiful force to witness, skilful in that form in a way he had not seen in a very long time. There had once been a great many werewolves on Solstheim, near all of them savage things lacking grace or control. Farkas was certainly a cut above them. Not that Miraak would actually admit it aloud.

“What about you? Nothing?” It was hopeful, almost endearing. Almost. Miraak had once kept the company of the highest castes of scholars and priests, now he was reduced to a dreaming werewolf and the utterly humourless Daedra that floated around like jellyfish.

“No.” Miraak considered elaborating, the truth harmless to give away. “I have spent years beyond count in Oblivion. There are things here beyond mortal comprehension capable of horror beyond sanity. You are nothing to fear against such twisted things.” There was leviathans in the ink seas with jaws wide enough to snap up whole sections of library deemed useless to Mora, jellyfish like masses that floated through the stacks and fed on the flesh of lost travellers as they found themselves paralysed and terribly aware of it all, and humanoid masses of pale worm like creatures that dragged themselves through the dark maintaining the oppressive silence with their very presence.

“Sorry to hear that.” Farkas actually meant it, and for the first time in several nights of suffering their presence Miraak found himself without a sharp response.

“If you wouldn't mind, you are woefully underdressed.” Miraak swiftly changed the subject. He had no need nor desire for the pity of another damned soul. The Daedra had them both, the difference being Miraak could feel the bindings of Mora where this lost wolf soul could not feel Hircines. Yet. Hircine would put no collar upon his hound, but he would be a slave even without it once the Hunting Grounds took him.

“I have nothing to hide.” Farkas pushed back off the bars, folding his arms over his chest.

“And direly little dignity either.” Miraak gently lifted his mask ever so slightly, dropping it back after a cooling moment of the outside air. In better times his temple had entertained beauties so fair and warriors handsome, they had danced and sang and debauched for his pleasure, all eager to warm his bed. Now he had only the fleeting sight of a naked werewolf. Eternity had apparently done terrible things to his standards.

He had conversed often and fiercely with poets and scholars, philosophers and mages, the finest minds of all of Mereth and beyond. Now he only had that same naked werewolf that was happy to answer questions with grunts of negative or affirmative.

He couldn’t decide which fall was worse.

He had not yet fallen so low as to allow something as base as petty lust inspired by isolation cloud his judgement. He would be Mora damned twice over before bending knee to Sanguines sphere.

“I’ve got no shame in the body the gods gave me. I thought you were a Nord.” The only Nords offended by bared skin were those raised as Colovians, too many generations of proximity to the Nibenean Imperials had made them prudish and stuffy.

“In my era we were warrior scholars, noble and forthright, the light of civilisation in a land of ice touched savages. We were brought low only by the yoke of the Dovah. Since then it seems we have become feral and dull.” Miraak gave him a deliberate look up and down, exaggerated and obvious. “And apparently also quite happy to let it all fly free for the chill winds of winter to take. Clothe yourself.”

“If you insist.” Farkas recovered his armour parts, sitting naked upon the cold ground as he fixed a set of temporary rivets into the holes and reassembled it.

It hadn’t once occurred to him that he could have simply thought it back together, Oblivion unlikely to resist his will over the image he pressed upon it. Miraak considered suggesting it, much happier to simply let him endure the pointless task. He was reduced to petty victories, utterly unable to do any harm to him beyond sending him back to the Mundus.

“Feim.” Miraak spoke the Word and stepped through the bars, Farkas’ head turning sharply toward the sound.

“You can Shout?” His brow crinkled in confusion, watching as Miraak snapped from barely there to real in an instant. He had been witness to his Thuum once before, but the pressure had struck him deaf before the words had reached him. Now he understood a little more just how he had been caught off guard. That would not happen again if it came to it.

“I am Dragonborn. The first of my kind.” Miraak snorted, mildly offended that his art was not shown the proper deference. The Tongues of the years after his fall, and worst of all the fool Windcaller and his Greybeard acolytes, had taken what he had forged and elevated into a divine art form and twisted it first into a brutish weapon and then a cowards mantra. He would spit upon them all given half a chance.

“Some good you’re doing stuck here. The Dragonborn we’ve got still hasn't done their job.” Farkas laughed, dropping the armour over his himself and shimmying until his head popped out of the right hole.

“I am aware.” Even Farkas felt the ice in his words. That was not a topic to be spoken lightly of. Or at all given how Farkas could almost hear him gritting his teeth.

“You’re aware?”

“I can’t see them, not directly, but I see the ripples they make upon the world. They shy from their duty out of cowardice, seeking profit with thieves and assassins over ending Alduin.” A sharp breath was drawn, Miraak clenching his fists so tight the scaled plates started to scratch and screech in protest. “They see the world teetering on the edge of the abyss and they do nothing.”

“You’re safe here in Oblivion though?”

“Am I?” Miraak’s laugh was sharp and bitter.

With a simple flick of his wrist the candles snuffed out, plunging the room into perfect darkness. He had seen the draugr walks the corridors of a hundred grave fortresses, unshakingly carrying out their orders to keep every last detail in its right place without understanding just why they did so, and that included keeping the candles lit. A strange thing he had never properly considered just where they got fresh wax or tallow from. If he had cared to check he would have found fat rendered tallow could be drawn from adventurers, tomb robbers and bandits just as easily as it was scrapped from the hex hatched walls of a bee hive.

He raised a hand, drawing a lazy circle with one finger. The image formed from the wispy almost colour of illusion magic, a pinprick of green and blue against the darkness that grew to show vast continents and oceans, the turn of storms and sunlight cast from somewhere beyond the purview of the spell.

“The Mundus is the focal point of reality, the binding point anchoring the Towers and holding the Void back.”

Miraak clasped his hands and pulled, the image drawing away. Farkas finally realised had been looking at the mortal world when he saw the familiar shape of Tamriel alone in the middle of an ocean, such a small thing between four great landmasses it barely compared to. He only could give name to Atmora, grim and white to the north, and Akavir coiled and verdant to the east. The shattered charred black mass to the west and the sprawling islands to the south were wholly unknown to him.

Vilkas might have known, or at least been able to make an educated guess. Farkas would have asked him if there was a way to explain that he had been spending his nights in Herma-Mora’s plane of Oblivion talking to a clearly very bored masked sorcerer without his brother thinking he had completely lost his mind. He had to suppose his situation and madness were one and the same, the touch of The Woodland Man and the Mad God not too different in the end.

The image pulled away to show their worlds place as a grain of sand suspended between eight pillars of white and glass, fire and brass that he knew by the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach were so impossibly large a mortal mind could never truly fathom them. Between each sat sixteen bright stars floating in something like oil or thinly diluted tar, ripples and waves upon them casting strange patterns and colours.

Miraak reached up and plucked the mortal world from its place crushing it between thumb and finger.

“Alduin wins and Oblivion sinks too, it’ll just take a few days longer.”

The pillars cracked and crumbled, falling away. The sixteen stars strained and fought as their light dulled, the ocean they had formed around themselves flowing away into nothingness. Soon there was darkness again.

Miraak snapped his fingers and the candles flickered alight again.

“That is the fate of all worlds should your fool of a Dragonborn fail.”

He turned, hoping to see his unwilling companion at least a little impressed by his feat of magic. He found only an empty chamber.

He tried not to be disappointed. It was a losing task, something he was becoming intimately familiar with.

Time had gotten away from him, dawn snatching his only company.

#tesfest22 #farkas #Miraak #maybe the Farkas/Miraak might be peeking through now #its mostly Miraak going 'i am not that desperate haha...unless'

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misha-moose-dean-burger-lover · 4 years

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anyone wanna hear the story of how i found out supernatural was ending and proceeded to have the worst morning of my life?

(super-excessive rambling ahead. do not read the whole of it.)

so i don't remember the date but it was the day of my english 10th board exam. boards are like a series of subject finals, kinda the biggest exams conducted in a student's education in india, plus they're nationalized. so yeah, a massively big deal, and obviously the first thing i do waking up on this massively important day is open tumblr. there are about seventy messages and i'm confused cause i think i barely "talked" to ten people back then, but before i've even checked them out, the first post i see is a textpost about how the longest running joke universally across fandoms is that 'spn has been going on way too long and needs to end' but now that it is ending, all people can do is cry about it. for some reason, i don't process that post as fact™, assuming they mean a general "ending" instead of a "j2m announced last season" ending. anyways i move on to my messages, and all of them are people who've freaking the fuck out for at least a few hours (the advantages of being in a timezone different from of most people) and i go to my activity, still stunned, and someone's tagged me in a meta of some kind, and i check it out completely dazed and it's got gifs (already!) of the three of them standing there with teary eyes and jensen actually saying the words everyone had been screaming about in the chats, and it finally hits me that it's ending, supernatural is ending, it's going to be OVER, and it's already been decided when. obviously, the tears start, and literally crying in my bed, still under the comforter, i think i watched the video twice, without headphones in fact, which is extremely weird because i virtually NEVER do that, but as if anything else mattered at the moment!

i don't remember what all i felt in those moments but one of the thoughts that REALLY stood out was that i wish, wish, wish it lasted just one more year — so maybe supernatural could end at the same time as highschool ended for me, and it'd feel like the end of a phase of my life, but no, according to what they predicted (and not even kidding, now it's even worse) supernatural was going to end smack in the middle of senior year for me, obviously a super important, super stressful year, and god, i wished so hard it'd just go on ONE MORE YEAR somehow but look what happened now it's ending like three months before my college entrance exams and the competitive engineering exams and shit which is just absolutely perfect because it's doing wonders to my attention span and mental health and yeah i'm getting off topic i'm gonna come back to the topic now

it's two am rn and i'm weirdly tired of typing so what happens next is fucking wild, but i'm gonna hurry because i need to go cry some more into a pillow or a ao3 tab or something. so like a whole HOUR later i get up from bed. i've got to get dressed and shit, most important exam of my life YET and everything. so i start brushing, obviously scrolling through tumblr, obviously failing to not cry, and my mum walks in, and she doesn't know a thing about supernatural (even if she did, she would consider the idea of me crying over them announcing an ending RIDICULOUS) so she just assumes i'm sniffling and tensed up because i'm STRESSED and she tries reassuring me like i need fucking reassurance for ENGLISH of all things. anyway anyway anyway i have maggi for breakfast i think and i'm still pretty out of it and stuff but i get dressed in my uniform and put on the fucking blazer though its HOT outside but i like wearing the school blazer for exams but i underestimated how much of a physically draining effect the news and reacting to it would have on me, so then there's me sweating literal buckets and then we set off.

we're already late in leaving the house (why, i don't remember) and once we're at the centre, and my parents have dropped me off and wished me luck, i go to the gate, right. and THEN the guard gestures to my uniform and tells me i'm missing my fucking class ID. now i know i'm late so i panic on cue because shit shit shit i'm gonna be even more late, and i legit turn and look for mum and dad (we weren't allowed to carry our mobiles for the test) and what i see is that they've reversed the car and are about to drive out the gate and obviously my brain isn't really working so i fucking RUN AFTER THE CAR, like, i'm really not an athletic person, i avoid running as much as i possibly can, and i fucking lose my shit and chase the car down in like ten seconds of running cause it's only like ten metres away actually but the highlight of it all is that i run. in a public space. unprompted. with a shitload of emotions and anxiety and panic, and i basically almost sob in relief when dad immediately stops the car and pretty much pulls me in and tells me to stop worrying cause the house is like ten minutes away and i might miss the general waiting part and stuff but i wasn't gonna miss the exam. so THEN we start driving back and obviously because they are who they fucking are, they start arguing about which of them is at fault for this and who was supposed to check in on me carrying my seriously important ID and other crap, and then obviously they're yelling and that does even more wonders for my state of practically hysteria, but i hold it together until we get home and i get the ID (which is on the bed, probably was under my blazer or something) and we set back off, and i know we're late, and i know supernatural is ending, and i know it's going to take a part of me really, and mum and dad just won't stop yelling at each other about god knows what, and i manage to squeeze in the first time in SO many years that i cry in front of my parents right there in the backseat, and they're sort of stunned because i really don't cry (in front of people) and then there's just me losing it in a mixture of helplessness and nerves and anger for some reason and just. whoa.

ANYWAYS we get to the centre (in time for the exam, but like fifteen minutes later than i SHOULD have gotten there) and dad talks to the teacher and stuff and it works out because obviously it's a really important exam they're not going to make me skip it, and i go straight to my classroom — also did i mention these exams aren't held in our own schools but like, different test centres, so basically a different room and desk each day in a different school from mine, ugh, i hate new places — and i find out i have the FIRST bench of the second column which lowkey sucks because it's too public really, but at least my best friend's sitting like diagonally from me on the left, and my friends are basically sprinkled around the classroom as well and i see them eyeing me worriedly cause they were scared i might miss the exam but also because i was a MESS with bloodshot eyes and an outofit look in them and did i mention i was sweating like a dog all this time wearing a blazer because i'm just that idiot because yeah.

so then i calm myself down the best i can. sitting under a fan helps, taking off my stupid blazer helps, and seeing dish (beforementioned best friend) helps — because apparently she heard about the ending too (she's not in the fandom she just keeps up with news for my sake, yes, im very lucky to have her) and tries to cheer me up about it, but then it's time for the paper, and they give them out and...yeah.

three hours later, the exam ends, and i step out of that hall the most mentally exhausted i've been in YEARS. also i swear off tumblr until i've had lunch and napped and stuff because i was also functioning on extremely little sleep but i really think that part was obvious.

as it goes, i ended up getting a 95% in that paper :)

but to this date, my sister jokes about how i ended up getting my personal least marks of that year in english of all subjects which was supposed to be of my strongest suit heh all because of a six-ish minute video released in a different part of the world about something that wasn't even going to happen that year...and like. yeah.

that's it.

that's the story.

#you're advised not to engage #this gets long and messy #even though it's something i'm not mad about rn #but dee thought this would be a good way to release the sheer weight of supernatural ending tomorrow off my heart so yeah #i ranted my ass off #tw rant #ish?#personal #to delete

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Cause Though the Truth May Vary, This Ship Will Carry (Gigi/Nicky) - Campvanjie

AN: Based on the prompt: “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” - “Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.” A slight AU Gigi/Nicky, little bit of unrequited crushing and a lot of fate, originally posted to my old AO3 account on May 24th, 2020. Edited as well to add non-binary pronouns for Gigi out of drag, as the original used male pronouns. Don’t worry, I’m the original author and only want all of my stories collected under one pen name.

Summary: Nicky and Gigi strike up a friendship online, but just can’t meet until the time’s exactly right.

CW: slight mentions of homophobia.

The sun’s almost setting on an August day when Gigi flicks through the games in their library, bored of sniping enemies from rooftops, set on finding something else that has a competitive mode, kicking underneath the bed to find their headset. It would probably be best to at least try to talk to other people, and maybe even count up all the times people call each other gay without even realizing they’re talking to someone, who’s made sixteen dollars an hour dressing up as a girl and working at the rock climbing wall for all of high school.

There’s gay, and then there’s Gigi Goode; with a closet hanging full of custom couture, not that they’d ever admit to their mom that her work isn’t the worst.

There’s only one player in the team’s group chat, as Gigi adjusts their headset so they can talk into the mic.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Hi!”, laughs the voice in his headphones; crackling as Gigi shoots and blows apart a box in the game’s lobby. There’s an accent there he can’t quite place, not that it matters so much, since the guy on the other end easily guides him through the map and even cracks a couple of jokes as one of the other team’s players is booted off a cliff. Maybe he’s Spanish, or Russian, since there are lot of Russian people on the server at this time of almost- night.

They queue for another round, his player’s character stopping next to a poster of one of the girls in the game.

“I like her, do you?”, he asks, and Gigi cringes a little. Straight guys were fucking exhausting, but this was just embarrassing-

“Like, this coat, with the belt like this, makes her waist look like she is a wasp. The insect, not the white people.”, he keeps talking, and Gigi’s eyes widen a little.

“Yeah, I’d buy those boots.”, they joke, hoping that whoever it is, will take it in stride, and he won’t have to listen to someone who’d been cool for the past half an hour, suddenly start losing their mind over how gay that was to say out loud.

“The boots? I want this hair- I want just Mortal Kombat hair but like this color, and maybe instead of a gun I want the scepter, like Sailor Jupiter. You’ve seen that, yes?”

Gigi blinks a couple of times. He’s serious?

“Like, of course. Yeah.”

“She’s a Mugler bitch. Hm, aren’t you?”, the voice teases on the other end; kicking at one of the boxes in the game.

Gigi is silent, as their queue timer runs out, and their team join another game which is already active when they’re dropped in.

“It’s the Hermes winter collection.”

“What?”

“That jacket is a dupe from the Hermes winter collection. You said Mugler-”, Gigi repeats, blasting through a wall in the game.

“Oh- oh you’re saying- this past winter! Of course! Maybe someone on the design team is also a fan?”

“Maybe.”

The two of them finish the round, and Gigi eagerly hits yes; when a little box pops up to add TheNickyDoll to their friends list.

(Gigi adds him back on Discord, too- because they’re probably not taking the Xbox to college, and then, they can send pictures right away.

He’s not a serial killer, and he’s cute.

Gigi can’t help but wonder if Nicky thinks the same of them.)

They slowly knit together in between Gigi’s first semester, and when Nicky moves into a new apartment in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris, and pops a bottle of champagne against his camera on his phone, propped up in his new kitchen. He plays with the zipper on his hoodie, and Gigi still can’t help but be surprised with how simple his wardrobe is.

Gigi spends hours carefully curating their wardrobe, though they supposed in Europe, there were just better pickings.

“Don’t you have friends?”, Gigi jokes, shirtless against the white brick walls of their dorm.

“Everyone will be over later, but I just wanted to do a toast for your timezone. It will be like three am for you when everyone else gets off work.”

“So this is a private party? Well… okay let me get my card.”

“Seriously? Not that kind of party!”

“Didn’t say it was. Congratulations, by the way. I got you something! Well like, I found it, and it’s so you-“

Gigi flicks the camera to face forwards, swinging to a painting hanging in the closet.

“Aw, well you didn’t have to- what the fuck is that?”

“Putin! I painted him in like the eighth grade. My mom was dropping off some stuff last weekend and I can mail him-“

Nicky’s eyebrows shoot up, pots and pans clattering on the other end of the line.

“Bitch, I am trying to not be the victim of a hate crime.”

Gigi laughs a little bit, flipping the camera back to focus on their face.

“I never asked, what do you even do?”

“What?”

“Like you- you have a job right? What’s your job?”

“Ah, I’m working, well I worked at a makeup store, but now I have some contracts, and maybe, you know- this neighborhood is where all the bars and the clubs are. If there’s no work on the runways maybe some will be looking for new girls.”

Gigi’s cheeks run hot for a moment.

“Wait, you- you’re a girl?”, they ask weakly, hoping it won’t absolutely ruin their entire… whatever it is, when you’d rather have a private housewarming alone in bed, than pretend to enjoy the beers that are flowing through the rest of the hall downstairs.

“Only when I’m being paid. Do you know- well, you have to in America you have RuPaul’s show- it’s like that-“

“You do drag? Wait, really?”

“Shhhh.”, he stops them, pressing a finger between his lips. “It’s like, I haven’t got any bookings yet but some of the clubs are interested- some of the parties, too. I can be a bottle girl.”

Gigi simply blinks repeatedly in the screen.

“What- is that too gay? I thought we were both pretty gay.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Hey-“, Gigi keeps the camera on their face, their eyes flicking up towards the naked mannequin resting against the closet door. Most of Gigi’s things were still at home, but there was a black feathered swimsuit they’d been working on- if they took out the waist just a bit-

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Wow, we are getting deep in, Dr Phil.”

“Seriously, what is it?”

“I’m feeling pink recently. Usually just- something simple. Blue. Black. It’s soothing.”

“Black is not a color.”

“Then it’s my favorite not-color.” Nicky pours from the bottle into a flute on her counter. “Get something to drink, come on.”

“Uh-“

“Doesn’t matter what. Come on!”

Gigi reaches for Red Bull, yesterday’s alcohol mixed into it, tangy and stale in the metal can.

“Okay.”

“Pace a Salute!”, Nicky cheers, and they clink their drinks against the camera.

Two months later, there’s a wrapped package on his stoop, covered in foreign postage, wet at the edges like it’s been through- what Americans would call the ringer, the labels so scratched over he can barely make out the return address, when he cuts the cardboard open on his kitchen counter.

If this was that stupid Putin painting, he was deleting Gigi from his entire life-

Inside, is fabric folded in paper, a little cloth ribbon tied around where a card is tucked in.

“I dont know what your actual skin tone is because you need better lights but merry Christmas if it doesn’t fit or doesn’t match sell it on eBay and get better lights”,

Gigi has written, in neat, large letters.

Nicky carefully unfurls the rest of it, and there’s a blue and pink bodysuit inside, accented with green and yellow panels that glitter like the facets of a diamond, and a yellow jacket, the bottom cut off just below the ribs, hemmed in thick stitches so the fabric won’t roll up.

Had Gigi gone and had this made? Or was it off the rack?, he wondered, digging for price tags and labels in the fabric.

Nothing.

Shit.

He fires off a message to Gigi, who is still showing as offline, given it’s probably six in the morning where he is.

14:17

How much is this “gift” you got me? Wtf…

FaceTime me later.

There’s predictably no response, and that night; he paints carefully in the mirror in his bedroom, laying out the little black dress he had chosen for the performance on his bed.

At the very last minute though, it’s that little suit from Gigi that wins out, nude panels sliding over his tights as he shimmies in front of the mirror.

It’s not perfect, but it all looks very nice.

When later comes, Gigi is wearing a red wig with blonde streaks that she runs her long fingers through, winking at the camera.

“My mom’s actually a professional seamstress. It didn’t cost anything, babe.”, she says with a little shrug, a tight yellow dress barely moving around his shoulders. There’s always a party here; and Gigi can’t imagine hating it more, the little college town bigger than he was used to, and yet still- too small for what she really wanted.

“If you want other stuff, I’ll send it. There’s lots of stuff that I don’t really wear anymore and we kind of have the same style. It’s not like anyone can say anything, then they’d have to admit they’ve seen me out in public. Or I could even make you something, I’m bored all the time.”

“Why are you doing this?”, Nicky asks.

“I dunno. It’s not like you’re my competition. You’re my friend.”

19:41

Anyway, I’m dropping out of school, getting a nose job and moving out to LA.

Gigi types out on their phone, underneath the table at their family’s annual thanksgiving dinner.

19:41

Maybe not all at once.

Nicky’s reply comes lightning fast- making Gigi grin.

“Are you seriously getting nudes right now?”, one of their brothers asks, and their mother glares at the both of them over the table.

“I’m getting some new sketches from my atlier in Paris.”, they seethe, glancing back down at the floor. Nicky’s been trying to teach him French, like it’s something that occupies them so that Gigi doesn’t implode; in between sending him links to his favorite shows to watch, and YouTube links to makeup tutorials.

(He still hasn’t figured out if Nicky means it; or if he’s trying to be shady, and just doesn’t know how.)

“Atlier is where you get the clothes made, dumbass. Mom’s sewing room isn’t Paris.”

“Shut up!”

“All of you just stop-”

19:43

It’s a hard time in life in general.

Try not to listen so much to those voices in your head.

Nicky’s text pops up with a loud, mechanical pinging noise, three dots still hovering under the message as Gigi forces looks up from the screen and glowers across the table as they reach for more baby carrots.

19:43

Make mistakes, but not too many, haha. You’ll figure it out.

If it makes you feel a little bit better, I’m moving to San Fran

19:43

What? For real?

Gigi’s nails frantically tap over the screen.

19:45

Yes! I bought a ticket.

And my husband called an immigration lawyer, we’re going to get my green card situation set.

“Lawyer-”, Gigi gasps; and their entire family pauses, glancing over the table at them.

“Jesus Christ. You did it, didn’t you? You got arrested your first semester, and you weren’t even gonna tell us-”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”, they snap, flipping the bird at their oldest brother.

“Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.”

Their whole table erupts in a discussion Gigi can’t pay any attention to.

19:50

Cool.

That means I get to see you soon.

It’s gonna be great.

They taps ou, and close the app with a smile.

They hadn’t known if Nicky even had a boyfriend, not that it mattered; until it did.

Apparently; he had been married, for almost the whole time they had known each other- a blow Gigi hadn’t quite expected, to leave them as breathless as landing in Los Angeles; the shock not setting in, not in full, anyway- until they are standing in a new apartment, looking down at a menu of instructions on how to set up the wifi in the unit, fingers hovering over everyone in contacts.

They can’t call their mom; not this soon, and their brothers would tell her, and the whole plan would crumble; just like everything had with Nicky; whose calls Gigi had declined for the past solid month; the nights they had spent with their phones propped up behind desks and dressing room mirrors fading into something beyond memory; that they refused to think about any more than they had to, the messages asking if they’re alright answered in curt, short replies.

How could they have been so stupid, thinking that they were talking-talking, teasing that Nicky and they were friends; when Gigi didn’t even know what his real name was.

(Unless it was Nicky?)

Shit.

Gigi waits for their phone to load into the app, and refreshes the friends list a couple of times, until they can see Nicky’s icon at the top, the side of the circle cut through with a little green dot, and taps twice to start a call.

“Hi?”

Nicky’s greeting floats in the air, between a breath and utter silence before Gigi swallows their pride, pressing the phone to the side of their face.

“What do you know about connecting a router to a tower if I live on the…um third floor?”

The line crackles, but soon there’s a tiny, familiar chuckle. “First of all, that is not how you do any of that-”

They talk a little more, every day; in between, Nicky moves to New York and Gigi cuts a tape that they put in the mail with a wink. They’re due for a visit home soon, and carefully proposes- maybe it’s time they meet Nicky. New York isn’t far at all, and a layover would make for a cheaper flight, anyway.

Their plans stack up in hours of calls; and Gigi think they’re almost back to normal. Until, three days before the flight is supposed to leave, there’s a call they had forgotten to wait for, and their fingers hover over the message box below Nicky’s name, vibrating with anxiety and excitement all at once.

09:22

Hey. I had a family thing come up.

Gigi types, and then erases the text, steeling themselves as they taps out another one that makes a little more sense, and doesn’t seem like such a lie.

09:30

I’m so so so so sorry about this

I had some things come up and my trip fell through.

They send this instead, surprised to see Nicky start typing back immediately.

09:35

You’re not going to believe this

I have some work things that started recently and so it would have been really shitty to have a guest over now.

09:35

No way!

09:37

Yeah. :(( But we’re gonna hang out someday, I swear!

09:37

Dont worry! You’re definitely gonna see me.

Real real real soon!

“-Where do I go?”, Gigi asks, pulling at the bottom hem of the ornate jacket she wore, fiddling with the gold telescope in her hands. The lights behind the set burned brightly, making the thicker bottoms of the outfit feel much warmer than he had remembered them being.

“Go to that green square on the ground, and wait there, when you see the little arrow light up, you can enter the Werk Room and then we’ll have you stop inside, get your opening line, and let you see the other girls.”

“Okay.”

He does as he’s told, prancing in and kicking his boots in front of him as the lights move to capture Gigi’s entrance, his head only snapping to the side when given the signal, so he can see the others who are already crowded around the pink tables he’s only dreamed of seeing for so long.

“Holy Shit…Nicky?!”

In reality; Gigi can see far more of the detail of Nicky’s face; of her eyebrows and carefully painted cheeks and lashes, of all the effort that they had only really talked about, his eternal summer tan and the long fringe of black hair that he’s always nudging across his forehead, or slicked against a beanie, gone behind a platinum blonde veneer that’s so much brighter than Gigi has ever seen. She’s thinner, and taller, careful breaths underneath sequinned shoulder pads, knees knocking together as she gasps.

“Gigi!”

Widow and Crystal glance at each other over the pink table.

“Hold up, you guys know each other?”

In the flesh; Gigi is impossibly small, the sharp angles of her face, and the dark brown hair that sticks up in angles which Nicky traces against the white of his pillows in his bedroom on the screen of his phone in the morning, taped underneath a gold-tipped pirate hat, and lush, wavy curls. She looks like a model on the runways where Nicky used to work; so close to him that he can feel Gigi’s breath on the back of his hand, as he tightens his grip around the epaulets on her shoulder.

“Gigi Goode.”, she repeats, and Gigi giggles a little at that.

“The Nicky Doll.”, she laughs, and her voice sounds so much more solid, than it ever has over every crossed wire.

Gigi’s hand swings, squeezing Nicky’s tightly as they swing around the table; like the others who are there don’t matter at all. She rests her head on Nicky’s padded shoulder, cocking it just slightly, waiting there, as Crystal’s eyes flash at the scene before them.

“…and may the best woman win.”, Gigi whispers, only for Nicky to hear.

#rpdr fanfiction #nicky doll #gigi goode #gigi x nicky #pre-ship #fluff #online friends au #s12 #on set fic #queen au #campvanjie #concrit welcome

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c-swirlz · 4 years

Text

Denial | Sanders Sides Oneshot (Logan ‘Birthday’ Special)

Summary: Logan is still adamant that his ‘birthday’ isn’t November 3rd. However, when his family takes it as seriously as they do, he supposes he can be persuaded otherwise.

Five (5) times Logan insists it isn’t his ‘birthday’ and the one (1) time he doesn’t.

Pairing(s): None

Content/trigger warning(s): Knife

[AO3 link]

|| This was meant to be posted yesterday (because it was November 3rd in my timezone), but I got distracted partway through writing and didn’t finish it in time. Therefore, this is -- technically -- a day late. ||

“Happy Birthday, Logan!”

Logan stared at Patton, utterly perplexed. The paternal Side was grinning brightly, his hands clasped together in front of him as he contently swayed slightly from side to side.

Logan shook his head, breaking himself free of his momentary trance. “Patton, it’s... not my birthday.”

Patton frowned, tilting his head to the side like that of a confused puppy. “Whaddya mean?” The moral Side gasped, bringing his hands up to cover his mouth. “Oh no, did I get the day wrong?! What’s the date?”

Logan summoned a calendar and examined it for a moment before banishing it. “It is the third of November.”

Patton breathed a small sigh of relief as his hands lowered, his shoulders visibly sagging. “Oh, okay, thank goodness--”

Suddenly, a realisation seemed to dawn on Patton, and he stared at Logan.

“Wait. If it is November third, then... why did you say it’s not your birthday?”

Logan’s brow furrowed and his lips pressed into a tight line. “We are not real people. We were not ‘born’ in the same sense Thomas was, therefore none of us technically have a birthday. However, if we were to have one, it would surely be more logical for it to be the same as Thomas’ as we are all fractions of his personality, not individual humans.”

Patton’s frown became impossibly larger, almost becoming a pout. “Aww, but Logan! Just because we aren’t real people doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to have and celebrate our own birthdays!”

Logan shook his head, almost apologetically.

Almost.

“Apologies, Patton, but if you insist on celebrating my ‘birthday’, I would much prefer you wait for Thomas’.”

And with that, Logan turned and walked away. Guilt began creeping in, but he shoved it down. Guilt was an icky, human emotion that Logic didn’t need. He refused to feel it.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to.

~---~

“Ah, Specs! Fancy seeing you here!”

Logan turned around, his expression neutral as Roman strolled into the kitchen. “Salutations, Roman.” He turned back around and continued preparing his beverage. “We all live here and enter the kitchen quite frequently, so I don’t really understand your latter statement.”

Roman rolled his eyes fondly, walking up to stand next to Logan and lightly punching him playfully in the shoulder. “Nerd.”

“Prep,” Logan responded automatically.

Roman chuckled, gasping quietly as he seemed to remember something. “Oh, by the way, happy birthday!”

Logan made an odd sound in the back of his throat, which Roman picked up on.

“Okay, Patton did tell me you weren’t a fan of the whole birthday thing, but c’mon, Calculator Watch! The sooner you accept your deemed birthdate, the sooner we can celebrate!”

Roman pulled off his iconic pose as he sang the last word, holding for an -- admittedly -- impressively long time on the a.

Logan bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from releasing a huff of amused laughter, lifting the cup containing his beverage to his lips and softly blowing on it before taking a sip.

“Your festivities would be wasted, Roman. Why not wait until Virgil’s ‘birthday’? It is only forty-six days away, and I’m sure he would appreciate it so long as you didn’t catch him by surprise.”

Roman opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as Logan turned around and began walking out of the kitchen.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

Logan strode towards the stairs, leaving Roman alone downstairs as he travelled up.

The guilt returned.

He ignored it.

~---~

“Oh, Nerdy Wolverine~!”

Logan sighed, barely flinching as a knife was plunged into his shoulder. He simply waved a hand and the blade vanished, the wound healing instantly. A nasally whine rang out, and Logan glanced over his shoulder just as Remus clung onto him, having caught him in the hall as he’d left his room to retrieve a book he’d left downstairs.

“Remus,” Logan greeted.

Remus grinned, waggling his eyebrows. “A little birdie told me it’s a certain nerd’s birthday today~”

Logan grit his teeth. “Patton, I’m assuming?”

Remus snorted. “Yep! But you don’t seem too happy, Specs. What’s up?”

Logan scoffed, rolling his eyes as he pried Remus off his back. “I am quite honestly getting rather sick of explaining it.”

Remus clicked his tongue, picking at his moustache. “Eh, fair enough.” He stopped picking at his moustache and looked back up at Logan, staring at him for a moment before his gaze seemed to drift towards Roman’s door.

“Is dear brother Roman in right now?”

Logan shook his head.

Remus brought his hands together with a loud clap. “Goodie, I can fill his room with my latest creations! He’s sure to love them!”

Remus darted over to Roman’s bedroom door, opening it and stepping inside. He poked his head back out, exclaiming, “See ya, nerd!” before closing the door.

Logan blinked.

That was... odd.

~---~

Logan knew Janus had entered his room before the snakelike Side had even announced his presence.

“Salutations, Janus.”

“Hello, Logan,” Janus replied, adjusting his hat before taking a few strides forward to stand beside the logical Side, who was sitting at his desk typing on his laptop at superhuman speed.

“Tell me, how long has it been since you had something to eat or drink since you started your work?”

Logan stopped typing, but remained silent. That was enough of an answer for Janus.

“I assumed as much.”

Suddenly, there was a glass of water and a Crofter’s sandwich on a plate sitting next to Logan’s laptop, and the ghost of a smile was momentarily visible on his face.

“Ah,” Logan cleared his throat. “Thank you, Janus.”

Janus began examining his gloves where his nails would be underneath. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Logan could see the small smirk on the deceitful Side’s face.

Janus didn’t stick around for long after that, and it wasn’t until he sunk out that Logan realised the serpentine Side hadn’t acknowledged his ‘birthday’ whatsoever.

~---~

As evening rolled in, the card sticky taped to the outside of Logan’s door came as a surprise to him. Curiosity got the better of him, and instead of simply ignoring it like he usually would, he carefully peeled the sticky tape off, removed it, opened the card and read the text inside, which was written in Virgil’s distinctive handwriting.

Hey, L.

I know you think having a birthday’s illogical and all, but I still wanted to wish you a happy one, since... y’know, November 3rd’s considered to be yours.

~ Supreme Dark Overlord of Negative Commerce

Logan’s grip on the card tightened, and he almost crumpled it into a ball as an odd surge of anger washed over him. However, he stopped himself, taking a few regulating breaths before re-entering his room, fuming, though he refused to acknowledge it.

“It. Is. Not. My. Birthday,” he muttered, sitting back down at his desk, opening his laptop and resuming his work.

~---~

A knock on the door aroused Logan from his slumber. Wait, when had he fallen asleep? Apparently only about twenty minutes ago according to his laptop’s clock.

“Logan?”

That was Patton’s voice.

“I know you’re probably really busy right now, but could you please come down to the kitchen?”

Logan didn’t respond, and an awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.

On the other side of the door, Patton sighed. “Well, kiddo, we’ll be waiting... please come down.”

We...?

Logan listened for the sound of Patton’s fading footsteps before venturing out the door, slowly descending the stairs only to glance in the direction of the kitchen and stop in his tracks as he reached the bottom.

Everyone was there: Roman, Patton, Virgil, Janus and Remus. They were all smiling somewhat sheepishly at him, and the logical Side’s eyes were drawn to the cake he could see sitting on the bench behind them.

“Now before you say anything,” Patton said suddenly, breaking the silence, “we know you don’t consider today to be your birthday. However, we consider it to be, and we weren’t about to let the day end without at least making you a cake!”

Logan did have to admit the cake looked rather delicious, but he made sure not to show it. His family were looking at him expectantly, and he allowed his lips to curl up into a small smile. He sighed defeatedly.

“Alright, I suppose I can... embrace my deemed ‘birthday’. For the time being.”

When Logan returned to his room a few hours later to find a small pile of gifts on his bed, he supposed he could cope with November 3rd being his ‘birthday’ despite it being nowhere near Thomas’.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #sanders sides oneshot #logan sanders #ts logan #sanders sides logan #logan sanders birthday #tw knife #swirlz scrawls

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lesserpandeu · 4 years

Text

Around The World in 17 Days | Day 1: Toronto

day 0; day 1

fandom: Seventeen

genre: Fantasy + Angst & Fluff

pairing: Chan (Dino) x Reader

words: 6,547

summary: Suffering from a condition that causes you to randomly end up in almost any place in the world, your life was a little chaotic, to say the least. When a solution seems to arise, you are more than happy to try it out. In order to heal, you need to meet the several people you are connected to by the red string of fate. And if this situation couldn't have gotten more ridiculous, one of them was your soulmate.You just don't know who.

Your first day on your mission dropped you in the big Canadian city, Toronto. You meet one of the first 'soul-bros', Chan. While you stress over how exactly you're going to fulfill your purpose with him, you end up doing it so naturally you barely even noticed.

A/N: so this has actually been out for a good year now on my ao3, but I forgot to post it here, so yeah. here. woops. ALSO I PROMISE DAY 2 IS COMING SOON I PROMISE. These things are tough because I research a lot about the cities so I get tired of working on this fic pretty easily. So it takes a lot of time, and I get lazy sooo that’s a really messy combination. Thanks for everyone who has stuck around though! You guys are amazing and believe me your comments make me want to work harder, haha.

Day 1: Toronto

As you began to regain your conscious steadily, you instantly felt an intense difference in the general comfort of your surroundings. The bed you had fell asleep on was replaced by incredibly hard surfaces. Your back was laying up right on a wall of some sort, pain generally coursing through your spine. I should’ve seen a chiropractor before I started this shit, you thought as you winced at the pain when you began to process it. Arching your back, resulting in a cracking noise, your stretched out your arms and legs. Your left leg winced and started when it hit something, causing you to hurriedly open your eyes.

A dumpster. Briefly taking a glance at your surroundings, you saw you were in a narrow alleyway. The buildings you were between were fairly tall, maybe 4 or 5 stories, and made of brick. Your best guess was that they were apartments. You next paid attention to the heat that had bothered you the instant you woke up. It was summer here still, so that wasn’t unusual. You reached for your pocket, turning on your phone. As you looked down, you started. After the brief panic, you observed closer what had spooked you.

A thread from the one tied around your finger led across the alleyway, turning around the corner. Scrunching your eyebrows, you turned your hand around. It didn’t get tangled and when you reached with your other hand to touch it, your hand just went through it. It took a moment for you to think of what it might’ve been. One of the red strings of fate? You assumed that was it. Maybe it lead you to a soul bro? You nodded to yourself, slightly skeptical. How else am I supposed to find them? You reasoned. A jingle came from your phone, making you turn your attention towards it. It booted, showing you the time from your original timezone before swiftly switching to what you presumed to be the current timezone. 8 A.M. That was about normal. Your ability usually meant you’d wake up at about that time no matter the timezone, maybe earlier or later depending on how severe the difference was. As you dismissed all the notifications (nothing important, at least for now), a sun graphic appeared on one side of your phone showing the number “78 F” and underneath the word “Toronto”.

Toronto, huh? It wasn’t too far from the Canadian-American border, if you remembered about the location. Near Lake Ontario? You slightly rose an eyebrow. Wasn’t Canada supposed to be cold? Maybe it just wasn’t this time of the year? Clearing your mind of the minor questions you had, you looked back up to where the string was pulling you. You supposed the best way to start was to follow that string somewhere until you could maybe come up with some sort of game plan. Or a money exchange or ATM. Maybe you’d try to go penniless the whole day? The grumble in your stomach disqualified that thought as quickly as it came. Maybe you’d look for breakfast first.

Getting up and dusting yourself off, you began to follow the string. I wonder how far away they are? You wondered as you turned the corner. Your attention drifted from the string and to your surroundings. The surroundings were quite urban, a block away in the direction the string was leading you were office-like buildings much taller than the other buildings. More life appeared on this street than the one you had woken up on. The corner that the string directed you to turn at was what appeared to be a restaurant, advertised by a large sign. It would likely be lit up, blinking, and flashing if it were dark. The rest of the block had a few stores, some more plain looking residential places. It was a pleasant city, similar to other cities you had been to when transporting place to place.

Your stomach twisted inside of you yet again, enough to make you wince a bit and look down at it with a glare. “Be quiet,” you scolded it. It growled back at you, as if refusing to be silenced. Sighing at its persistence, you looked back up at the restaurant. As far as you knew, you only had one day in Toronto to meet the person you were tied to. But you still had to eat, right?

That being said, you figured to stop in. Just before, you slipped off your jacket, tying it around your waist. One essential thing about transporting was wearing layers. You never know when you’ll need it.

Walking into the restaurant, you were surprised to see a fairly large amount of people. There were just as many enough that you even thought that they were full. Maybe I should just find another place, you thought. Arriving at that decision, you were just about to turn around and leave when a waiter had come up with a smile.

“Hello, just one?” Well it was too late now. Sure, you could simply explain that you had changed your mind and wanted to leave, but that would be awkward for your uncharismatic self to explain. ‘Hi, no, too many people here, I have anxiety haha.’ So you just caved in.

“Yes,” your voice cracked a little. Jesus Christ, you winced inwardly at yourself. This was going to be a long day.

“Is the bar alright?” Did people even have breakfast at the bar section? You were positive they didn’t, but looking quickly back at the crowded area, you guessed it was because of the capacity. Who even goes out to eat this early in the morning? you kept reminiscing, ever so slightly agitated.

“Yes,” you nodded, a bit quieter than the last time. Despite what you believed to be an awkward interaction, the waiter didn’t seem to care, grabbing a napkin wrapped snugly around some silverware and briefly telling you to follow them. You did so, rubbing your arms, surprised at how cold it was in the restaurant compared to the outside. The waiter sat you at the bar, handing you a menu and leaving you.

Legs hanging above the ground, you leaned your elbows on the bar counter, looking briefly at the menu. Becoming disinterested fairly quickly, you took a moment to look around. To your left was a woman, body completely turned away from you conversing with her partner. On your right was an empty seat and what you were somewhat convinced was the last one available in the whole restaurant. In front of you, obviously, was the bar, with various taps of beers, other liqueurs, and whiskies stacked on the shelves on the wall. In addition, there was a TV playing some sort of morning show program. Although you took awhile to watch it and the delayed subtitles, you couldn’t recognize it or anyone hosting it.

The menu was a typical breakfast diner’s menu. Omelettes, pancakes, toast, the usual. You became uninterested in it fairly quickly when your phone started to buzz with the sound of your face call ringtone. You should’ve guessed he would try to contact you. Looking around quickly to make sure no one would try to take your order or judge you for face chatting in public (?), you pulled your phone out of your pocket and answered it.

“Good morning,” you answered when Rowans far too close to the camera face loaded, only illuminated by the screen on the phone. It didn’t necessarily mean it was dark in your timezone, but he refused to use any other sort of light in his dark tent besides candles or lanterns. Electrical lighting “tampered with his work”, or at least that's what he insisted.

“So where are you?” he asked, becoming minimally aware of his ridiculous angle on the camera and tried to fix it a little. It didn’t do much anyways.

“Toronto,” you gave a bit of a forced smile. “But the heat makes me doubt that.”

“Ontario? Oh it's hot this time of year,” he said. “Remember my son, Jacob?”

“Yes, the author,” you did your best to quickly let him know you remembered him, lest he go on to tell you his life story from the moment he was born again. “He lives around here, right?”

“Yes, I’ve been up there a few times to see him,” he laughed a little. The glimpse of the man’s softer side helped you crack a smile. It was short as he went straight back to business. “Did you find them?”

“No,” you admitted, looking at the string. It was leading you out the entrance of the restaurant. “I needed breakfast first. I just got up.”

“You do realise you only have a day to complete your purpose?” Anxiety flooded through you, mostly in your arms that held the phone.

“Yes,” you sighed. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“It’s up to you if this ends up working or not,” he sipped some of his tea. Though you couldn’t see it, you heard it. Rowan made a subconscious effort to make a sound when he drank.

“I know,” you groaned. “I just don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this.” A short silence came after you, as Rowan set down his tea with a clink.

“I’ll tell you what,” he shifted himself in his seat and the camera. “This isn’t just some stranger whose life your trying to fix.” Except that’s exactly what this is, you rebutted in your head. “This is a soul you’ve been connected to since before either of you were born. The two of you have a connection. Every person you meet this next week or two is connected with you in some way. Fate predetermined that these people could have their lives changed forever by you or that your life would be changed forever by them. Fate is going to be doing all the work for you.” He was probably right. But considering how odd and confusing the situation was for you, you didn’t know if that helped much at all.

“Well,” you paused. “I should probably get the breakfast in me and get out there as soon as possible. Time waits for no one.”

“I wish you all the best of luck,” he told you in his naturally grandiose way. You told him a soft “bye” before you hung up, just at miraculously the same time that a waiter came to take your order from behind the bar.

“Hello, welcome to-” the waiter had begun telling you a customary greeting as you put your phone back in your pocket. He paused suddenly just as he had started, making you quickly look up at him to see what he was doing. He was looking over you, a smile quickly spread on his features as he spoke somewhat louder to somebody behind you.

“Well, I’ll be, it’s Dinosaurus Rex. I thought you were supposed to be gone for the summer like everyone else!” You supposed he saw a friend and you awkwardly looked away from him and back at your menu, like you were trying to memorize all of the pancake toppings. As much as you tried to not be any part of the conversation, you couldn’t help to at least overhear.

“Please stop calling me that, that’s not even a real dinosaur,” the voice that responded was somewhat quiet with a hint of annoyance. “And I thought I mentioned that I was staying for the summer.”

“I get ya, gotta work those loans off,” the waiter seemed to shiver. In that brief moment, after you became less interested in your perusing, your attention was caught by the string. It had definitely moved in the time that you had sat down to this moment. The fact that it was moving gave you an eerie, nervous feeling. Maybe you should’ve just skipped breakfast and went after them?

Your mangled feelings had then left just as urgently as they came, and your eyes shot back down at the string. As you held your breathe, the string rotated to your right, at a steady pace that seemed to match the sound of the footsteps as they passed behind you. You heard an airy sigh as in the corner of your eye, a silhouette appeared to hop on the bar stool next to you. After a moment of utter disbelief, you carefully tilted your sight from your ring finger to the person now next to you. Following the bright red string that only you could see, its path ended at his crossed arms. You caught sight of the end on the ring finger of his right hand, tucked beneath his left elbow.

The revelation paralyzed you and your gaze, unable to look away. Your mind realized that if you continued to gawk at him, you would raise suspicions and give off the worst first impression ever. But your body seemed to refuse to listen, as you took in everything about the first “soulbro” you had ever met.

The bottom layer of his dark brown hair was short. His top layer curled towards his face with a wave to it. He wore a somewhat oversized black graphic tee. His face was young and his eyes were sharp, but they had a small, kind droop to them that you could miss easily at a mere glance. As he continued his conversation that you had muted out, his smile shone not only on his lips but in his eyes.

The amount of time that past with you looking at the boy become well over uncomfortable when you attempted to get your wits together just in time for you to look back at the waiter, looking back at you. Panicking, you supposed he had come back to you for your order.

“Oh, uh, eggs, sunnyside up, and bacon. And an orange juice.” You looked away quickly, but back at the waiter again briefly when you swear he was giving you a look drowning in suspicion. With a modest amount of shame, you looked down again, menu extended and lips pursed. You were too embarrassed to look up again as he took the menu, saying the typical “i’ll be right back with your drink blablabla”.

“I’ll have the usual,” your soul bro told him casually after you placed your order.

The waiter left, leaving you completely stiff and nervous, the prescence of the person next to you making you incredibly uneasy. In attempt to calm yourself, you exhaled. Okay. Calm down. Like Rowan said, everything is going to be fine. There’s a reason this guy’s connected to me. I can do it. Just make small talk, get to know him. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? As your nerves returned to a healthy level, you shyly looked at him again. It appeared he still wasn’t paying much attention to you, currently you were just a person he happened to be sitting next to in a crowded restaurant. You thought of what to do, trying to think of anything casual to discuss. What did Canadians talk about?

Without any critical thinking from you whatsoever, you turned your torso towards him as you asked him:

“Hey, did you see the hockey game last night? Pretty intense, right?”

IMBECILE. COMPLETE MORON. YOU FUCKING SOUP CAN. your brain called you names as you realized how stupid you just sounded. You had successfully concocted the lie that you watched hockey while simultaneously just assuming the now bewildered looking boy watched hockey because, oh, we’re in Canada.

He did a double-take, completely taken aback. He hadn’t realized at first that you were talking to him. Or he did, but he just took a moment to actually process the weird and confusing moment. “Uh, What?” was all he could respond with. Understandably. Petrification hit you yet again, causing your gaze to fumble around and words and thoughts jumble into a complete mess as stutters were all your mouth could formulate.

A laugh sounded from him afterwards, stopping the mess you were experiencing as you looked at him again. It wasn’t like a small “ha” or “hahaha?” laugh, he was cracking up. Maybe you should’ve felt bad like “oh, he’s laughing at me im such an idiot”, but it somehow didn’t feel like he was shaming or embarrassing you at all. As he gradually recovered to form sentences, he wiped his eyes and looked at you with a quirked brow.

“Your visiting, right?”

“Uhm, ah, yes,” you almost mumbled.

“Well, first, welcome to Canada, and second, hockey season doesn’t start until the fall,” he informed you gently. You gave a small “oh” sound, shifting awkwardly in your seat.

“Where are you from?” he asked curiously, still smiling kindly. You told him where, which he hummed to in understanding. A very brief silence loomed over, causing the panic to set back in your body. “How long have you been here?”

“Oh, maybe a couple,” you paused, almost quickly about to say that for all you knew, you had only been there for at the most an hour. “Late last night, I haven’t gotten the chance to do anything here yet.”

Well if you couldn’t get any more suspicious than asking someone seemingly Canadian if they had seen the nonexistent hockey game the other night, you had just changed your answer for how long you had been in the country mid-sentence. If this guy was an immigration officer, you’d be fucked.

He at least pretended that he didn’t seem to mind and nodded. You tried to ease into a conversation again by looking over your shoulder at the crowded seating.

“Is it always this busy at 8 in the morning?”

“No,” somebody else answered. You looked back across the bar to see the waiter, setting down your iced orange juice, with an orange wedge squeezed onto the rim of the glass and a little hot pink umbrella. He then put glass of an iced dark drink which you presumed to be coffee, black, towards your “friend”. “We got a U.S. tour group stop by for breakfast this morning. Could’ve warned us about it, but they just came out of nowhere.”

“I was about to ask, its way too crowded for this time in the day,” the soulbro nodded. He looked back at you and quickly arched his brows and “oh”ed before uncomfortably putting his arms in front of him in a shy/defensive gesture.

“Excuse me, my name is Chan Lee. I forgot to introduce myself.” You swiftly told him it was okay and introduced yourself next.

“And I’m Jack. Just call that guy Dino.”

“That’s not my name,” you watched Chan roll his eyes.

“Sure it is! You look like a dinosaur, so why not?”

“I don’t look like a dinosaur, Jack.”

“You’re not gonna admit that if you squint really really hard, you kind of look like one?”

“Jack, Table 10’s order is ready!”

“Shouldn’t you be going now?”

As he hurriedly left, he yelled back, “THIS ISN’T OVER!”

The interaction made you laugh, turning Chan’s attention back towards you. You both took sips of your drinks as the conversation steadily became more casual.

“So… Dino?” you started back up. He groaned.

“Just a name my friends call me. It’s not my favorite.”

“Well…” you squinted at him a bit. You saw it.

“Yeah, just forget it,” he waved it off, with a skeptical face. Your grin widened and a laugh left you.

Taking a sip of your orange juice, you felt a shiver run through you. It was hot outside, but that seemed to instantly mean intense cooling inside as always. As you set your glass down, you looked back at Chan. “I thought Canada was supposed to be cold.”

“It is, in the winter. Summer gets pretty hot in Toronto though,” he explained between sips of his own drink. You nodded, Toronto wasn’t incredibly North.

As the small talk continued, you were surprised by how easy it was to get to know him. It turned out Rowan was right after all. This wasn’t incredibly difficult. But even though it wasn’t hard to converse, you still couldn’t place exactly what you were supposed to be doing to help the guy out. You knew one of the people you were going to meet would be your soulmate, as much as that terrified you. But you couldn’t just assume everyone was going to be the “one” or whatever. You figured you had to dig deeper. But that was going to be tough, or at least you thought. How were you supposed to potentially change somebody’s life in one day?

“So, what do you do?” you asked. You were almost surprised by your own “boldness”. Well, bold for you.

“Hmm?” he seemed to momentarily leave and enter back in the discussion, setting down his coffee. “Oh, I’m a student in medicine at University of Toronto.” You nodded.

“Medicine, eh? What do you want to be?”

He chuckled hesitantly, seeming somewhat fake. Oh?

“Yeah, I don’t really know yet.” Oh. That’s when you thought: Maybe he’s one of those students that don’t actually know/like what they’re studying? Medicine seemed like one of those fields where students would enter to satisfy some sort of familial standard. Not necessarily because they themselves wanted it. You hesitated as you stirred your juice with your straw. Should you ask?

“Your orders!” the waiter, Jack, slipped from behind the bar with both your orders. Even though you hadn’t come together. He slid your platter towards you and then Chan’s. Your glimpse at his food showed you a stack of pancakes doused in cream and strawberries. Nice.

Naturally, the conversation was interrupted as you had now received your food, conversation becoming relatively minimal. Thankfully, after he finished his meal first with you close behind, the conversation stayed.

“Any plans for what your doing while your here?”

“Ahh,” you paused. Maybe this was your chance to spend the rest of the day with him? But how to do so without coming on too strong and scaring him away? ‘Lmao, you’ ‘How bout YOU show me the town tonight, big boy ;)))’ ‘Greetings soulmate, allow me to follow you for the day and reveal your deepest, darkest emotions so I may heal you’ ‘I have come from afar to change your life’.

“... nothing?” before you realised it, you were taking way too long to think of an excuse and Chan had caught on to your speechlessness.

“...no, haha?” you smiled nervously. Your smile must have been contagious, as he then reflected it.

“Well, some people like to go down to the TU campus-”

“Are you here alone, though?” Jack had leaned against the bar from the other side, more liberated to socialize now that the tour group he complained about earlier had left.

“Yeah, just me!” you nodded towards him.

“That’s no fun,” he groaned. He beamed up and leaned over the bar, towards you. “Want me to show ya around?!”

With all due respect to Jack, you had shit to do. Specifically with Chan. You tried keeping a straight face while you looked away, pretending to consider the premise. Before you could gently turn down the offer, you looked over at Chan as he spoke up.

“I thought you said you were busy today?” he seemed annoyed.

“When did I say that?”

“When I asked if you wanted to hang out today last night,” Jack had a face that seemed like he was searching his brain for answers when he “oohhhh”ed.

“I forgot,” he seemed distraught and mildly upset. “I’m covering Wendy’s shift today while she’s at her friend’s wedding…”

You gave a small laugh, “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not,” he groaned. “Sightseeing by yourself is, like, boring as fuck.”

“Some people, believe it or not, like having that kind of time to themselves,” Chan defended.

“Blah, blah, that’s bullshit,” Jack argued back, almost like a toddler. He then gasped and yelled, “YOU CAN SHOW HER AROUND!”

“JACK,” he simply stated.

“C’mon! Don’t you want a real local to show you around?” the question was directed at you. Chan also hesitantly looked at you, awaiting a response.

“Uhhh, I mean,” you hesitated. “It sounds nice, but I wouldn’t want to impose on anyone-”

“Meh, Chan had nothing to do today, anyways,” he shrugged. “It’s not a problem, right?” He directed his question towards Chan.

You shyly looked at him, when he met your gaze he quickly looked away, flustered and struggling to find his words. “Uhm, well no-”

“PERFECT!” he hopped over the bar counter (who the fuck was this dude) and pulled you both up from your seats by your arms. “Chan’s been needing a date.”

“A d-date?”

“Now, GO HAVE FUN,” he dragged you out towards the entrance and pushed you both out the restaurant.

Did you just get kicked out?

Now it was just the two of you, awkwardly standing on the sidewalk at the entrance to the restaurant, standing by the side to not impede pedestrian traffic. A brief silence filled with awkwardness, confusion, and tension swept over as you looked at him in confusion.

“We didn’t even pay?”

“Y-yeah,” he scratched his head, looking back inside. “Well, it’s coming out of his check.”

“Ah…” you awkwardly pulled at the bottom of your shirt.

“Yeah, so…” he rubbed his hands together. “I’m so sorry, about all of this. Jack is… unusual. He means well, though. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your stay here, so you totally don’t have to do what he says, I can give you a few places to go, tips, recommendations for food, photo ops-”

You breathed deeply as you watched him talk. His looks were nothing to sneeze at, and him rambling on made you tune out as it only drew you more towards his face. He made eye contact, making you flinch, unnoticeably perhaps as he just looked away and kept talking. As much as you tried to not think about what Rowan said about the soulmate, you couldn’t help but at least wonder. Well, it was more like daydreaming.

Before you could finish admiring him and tune back into what he was telling you, you found his mouth stop moving and his face look towards you, waiting for interaction on your part.

“Oh, uhm, ah,” you not so charismatically brainstormed to find the words you were looking for. “Actually, I was… uhm…” You folded your arms across in front of you in an instinctively defensive manner. “I would appreciate being shown Toronto by a local, kind of like what Jack said. That is, if you actually wanted to, I don’t want to force you into something you don’t want to do, after all-”

“Okay, I can do that.” You stopped dead in your sentence when he said that, trying to suppress the light fluttery feeling of happiness that welled up inside of you. You smiled wide, only slightly embarrassed by your probably red cheeks.

“Really? Oh, thank you so much-”

“Don’t mention it,” he laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “Besides, I think we get along pretty well, anyways.”

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

To start, he took you down to University of Toronto’s campus where you could see a few people, young and old, laid out on blankets. Some were having picnics, some were just enjoying the day, all in the shade. The temperature had gotten higher from when you first woke up, to a point that you couldn’t ignore it.

Nervously, Chan asked if you would like your picture taken there, which you said yes to. You posed cutely along a tree for a short few minutes, before the heat began to set and he proposed going to cool down in the visitor’s centre. As you did so, you thought to bring up the topic of what he was majoring in.

“Medicine, huh?”

“Hmm?” he set down his can of coke that he got from the vending machine. “Oh, yeah.”

“Do you… like it?” he didn’t make any eye contact as he just sat staring at the can, tracing the rim with his finger.

“Can’t say,” he said. “It’s not the worst thing, I don’t hate it. I think the idea is cool, and the stuff I’m learning isn’t all that bad, but…” he took a deep breath. “I have no idea of telling if this is what I was meant to do.”

Silence overtook the both of you for awhile. You definitely understood. You didn’t know what you were going to graduate with a degree in when you first went to college, either. That part of your life was so hard, you remembered. Leaving home, living by yourself, starting your journey to the rest of your life. It was terrifying. It was lonely. No matter the amount of support you got, you still didn’t have what you thought you needed. Someone, something, anything to tell you what to do.

Afterwards, he decided to take you to the Toronto sign with the fountain. You took the trolleys, falling in love with the idea at first and soon realizing it was still public transport and wasn’t some Cinderella carriage. It was pretty busy to, the two of you were packed in, and while the AC was doing its best to keep up, it just wasn’t made to withstand the heat. It was up to about 96 degrees, you overheard some other people saying who were complaining about it.

“It’s so freaking hot,” he groaned as he shook his shirt, trying to create some sort of flowing air. “You came on a pretty bad day. I mean, it’s not Canada day, but still.”

“Yeah, the heat is killing me,” you laughed, fanning yourself. “At least I got to meet you, though!” You stated a little too enthusiastically. You could’ve sworn the person you were standing over looked up at the two of you, as if watching some sort of drama or crime taking place.

Nonetheless, Chan became shy again, scratching his hair a little as he smiled and awkwardly looked out a window. As he did, his eyes shot open as he then stated “crap” and grabbed your hand as he pulled you off the trolley at the stop that the trolley was just about to leave. Once you both were out of danger of being crushed by the doors, he instantly spurted out a bunch of apologies, which you needed to quelm.

He calmed down, and after he let go of your hand in a silly, flustered way, you headed to the fountain. Along the way, you stopped and asked if you could get some ice cream, to which he happily obliged. Hopping into a sweets shop for a moment, you both got your respective favorite flavors in cones. You paid, after much arguing on both of you insisting you would cover it, Chan threw in the towel after witnessing your aggressive assertiveness to pay.

“I’ll just have to pay next time!” he ended with, handing you your cone after holding them while you fumbled with your bag, which still seemed suspiciously prepared for whatever you could need. You smiled a little, almost solemnly. You thought about staying in contact, but you remembered the reason you were there with him in the first place. To fulfill some sort of purpose you were meant to do with him, and go on to the next one. This day was technically supposed to be the only one where you would spend time with him at all. It’s not like you could come to Toronto, or wherever your “soul bros” were whenever you felt like it. You had a busy job that worked you as hard as it could within the legal (though you had your doubts at times) limits.

You made it to the sign, and it was crowded. And hot again. The ice cream helped minimally, and you could hardly stand the heat. The photo op was ruined quite a few times by kids who were climbing around the sign, but you did manage to get a nice picture with the second ‘T’. Someone offered to take a picture of the two of you, which Chan hesitantly complied to. You understood nearly instantly why, as the minute he stood by you, you realized how weird it was going to look. In a brave attempt to prevent the weird picture you came closer and wrapped an arm around him, posing with a peace sign. You didn’t catch his reaction, smiling at the person who was taking your picture with Chan’s phone. You heard the faint shutter click over the noise of a thousand demons (commonly known as children), as the stranger then put down the phone and came up to Chan and gave him his phone back. You said thank you, followed by a hurried one from Chan, who seemed flustered. You turned to look at him, seeing his face was flushed, maybe just due to the heat, but the rush of heat that you felt the second you came in contact made you think otherwise.

“You guys make a nice couple!” the stranger complimented with a genuine smile before he left. Oh, boy.

“How’d it turn out?” you asked as you tried to peak at the photo. You saw yourself smiling, fairly brightly, while leaning on a surprised Chan who was looking at you as opposed to the camera. The ‘T’ was practically illegible, as well.

“I blame the photographic technique,” you playfully patted his shoulder. He chuckled, and then groaned.

“I suck at posing for pictures,” he stated. “I think I have one good selfie I’ve ever taken. I had weird hair then, too.”

“Let’s take a better one, then!” you suggested.

“I’d rather be done with my complimentary sweat soak first.”

“Good point,” you giggled. “Any plans on what to do?”

“Hmm,” he seemed to think, though only for a brief second. “We could go to the aquarium. I’ve never been and I’d think it’s air conditioned.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

Oh, it was a plan. Maybe not one where you weighed the pros and cons of, but a plan. Everything was fine until you got there. It appeared as if everyone else in the city had the same plan as you did. The line for tickets was enormous, and the aquarium itself was packed.

You stayed regardless, at least it was cool. You started by walking through some more isolated halls with fish tanks. All sorts of colorful fish from yellow, blue, and red swam aside you, back and forth. You’d point out a fish you thought looked nice every once in awhile, or one that was doing something funny.

Chan tried to take some pictures of the fish, to which he voiced some disappointment of because the glass hindered it. As you went further in, more kids started showing up and running around, bumping into the two of you. As minimally irritating as it was, at one point a little girl came running full speed and crashed into Chan. She fell down, and he had suddenly pushed into you a bit.

Before you could understand that was what happened yourself, Chan crouched down and asked if she was okay. You watched them as the girl got up and looked down at a scratch she got.

“I think I hurt my knee,” the girl spoke shyly.

“Uh oh, do you want to get a band aid for it?” he asked gently. She nodded silently. You smiled at how he handled the situation with care. Several college students would be angry as all hell if a kid ran into them. You commended his patience.

“I think I have one with me,” you kneeled down to the girl and started searching your backpack. You pulled out one and took the packaging off, applying it as she let you.

“Thank you!” she beamed. She turned to run off again but paused, turning around and waving. You both waved back before getting back up on your feet.

“I see you, Doctor Lee. You’d nail the pediatrician vibe if you went that way,” you mildly teased him. He laughed, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah, I guess that would be cool.” You hesitated a moment before you began walking further into the aquarium.

“I don’t know if my career is what I’m meant to do, either.”

He looked at you quickly enough for you to feel a minitare draft hit your face. You continued.

“Working is hard, no matter what your doing. My mother always told me to never pick your favorite hobby as your career. Then that hobby becomes your job. And I think there is some truth to that…” you stopped at a dimly lit jellyfish tank and stared at the purple tentacles.

“But I also don’t see the problem with loving your job. Yes, it becomes a job, but doesn’t that just make you love it all the more?” You took a long pause, sneaking a glance at Chan. He was staring at the tank, as if thinking about your words.

“Even if your job isn’t your favorite, why can’t you learn to love it anyway? Someone’s gotta do it. Your role matters. Medicine is so important in that regards. You get to make people’s lives better, longer, and less painful. You can give them the chance to find the meaning that we are all searching for in our little lives. Maybe some people feel that sense of what they’re meant to do. And maybe some need more time to figure that out.”

Your monologue finished, leaving you two in the silence of the one place in the aquarium that wasn’t loud and bombarded with people. For awhile you both stood there, just staring at the slow movements the jellyfish made. Something about the moment made you feel that you had done what you came to do.

“... Thanks,” Chan broke the silence. You smiled and looked over at him.

“It’s no problem.”

After the aquarium, you realized how late it was. The evening produced the wash of orange and yellow that was starting to light up all the street lamps. It only seemed to encourage younger people out to enjoy the night on the town. Traffic seemed worse and more people were out on the streets.

“Hey, (y/n),” Chan initiated as you slowly walked down the street together. “Today was lots of fun. Seriously. I really enjoyed it.”

“Hey, I did too!” you replied.

“I just wanted to say thanks. I thought I was gonna stay in all day and do nothing but this was so much better than that. Like, I don’t wanna be cheesy or anything, I feel like we were almost meant to meet in that stupid diner.” You chuckled to yourself. If only he knew.

“I get it, I felt the same way.”

You kept walking together like that until you came to a park and decided to sit. The two of you kept talking and talking until somehow, in your exhaustion, you managed to fall dead asleep on his shoulder. Though you didn’t notice, Chan surely did as his cheeks grew red and his lips curled into a smile, looking back up at the painted sky.

#reader-insert #chan x reader #chanxreader #dinoxreader #dino x reader #seventeen imagine #seventeen #seventeen imagines #dino imagine #chan imagine #chan lee #dino

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silverwhiteraven · 5 years

Text

Borne of the Stars - Chapter 9 - An MLB Kryptonian AU

Tag List: @eve-valution @weird-pale-blonde-person @kris-pines04 @soulmate-game @abrx2002 @amayakans @vixen-uchiha @heldtogetherbysafetypins @raisuke06 @dorkus-minimus @captainartsypants @mopester-is-here @moonlightstar64 @annabellabrookes @maribat-is-lifeblood @toodaloo-kangaroo @the-navistar-carol @elspethshadow @chocolatecatstheron @ivymala07

[ Posted on Ao3 ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 8 ] [ Chapter 10 ]

[ Summary: Lunch was enjoyed, Félix has a message, and more talk happens as they return to school. ]

The group of students spent the remainder of their lunch period eating to their hearts’ content. Marinette and Barbara had pitched in together to make sandwich wraps, something the latter had compared to being “just like a burrito!” Everything else was bread and pastries brought up from the bakery below.

“Those were the best scones I ever had, I wish I could live here and eat them every day,” Babs lamented as they all gathered their things, preparing to return to school.

The others giggled at her antics and Marinette shrugged. “You get used to them; besides, those were only the rejects, you should try what they sell in the counter displays.”

“Rejects? Those were rejects? But they were perfect! Absolutely delicious!”

Marinette only shrugged again with a sheepish grin. Kara chuckled, knowing the reason for the ‘rejects’. Nino, who also understood the reason, hid his laugh at the continued dramatics and answered the unspoken question.

“Yeah, dude, they’re the stuff that didn't come out quite right. Not good enough to sell, y’know? But they're still just as edible as everything else, so they bring them up here to eat with meals.”

“Anything we don't eat with lunch or keep for dinner, we donate,” Marinette finished the explanation, standing from her barstool perch at the countertop table.

“Is that where you get the macaroons for your class?” Karen gestures to the now empty macaroon box sitting in the recycling can. The last of them had been taken by the girls, Nino content with his scones.

Marinette shook her head, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “Made those ones myself from our home supplies. I stopped letting Maman and Papa give me some from the bakery once I perfected the recipes myself. Still as good as my parents’, Nino?”

The boy gave her two thumbs up and a nod with a big smile. “Can’t even tell the difference, dudette.”

“Aw, sure you can, Major!” Kara exclaims, calling Nino by one of her music-based nicknames for him. “Can't you taste it? She puts much more love into the baking she does for her friends.”

There’s barely a beat before the group bursts into laughs and giggles at the claim, and Marinette covers her blushing embarrassment with her hands. However, she can't help but smile with a bit of appreciation and pride at the statement.

“Thank you, Kara, I’m glad you liked them. Come on guys, it’s a bit of a walk back to the lycée.” She sighs, and adds in lament, “I’m going to miss the days of walking to the collège; living right next door is a blessing I never savored.”

Nino nods in understanding, patting her back and staring at a chain of all the girls following suit in their own pats of comfort, bringing out a giggle from the now comforted girl.

As everyone files out the door and heads down the stairs, Marinette holds the door and leaves last. “Head out the ground floor’s back door, the lunch rush is too busy to get through,” she reminds the group as they head down. Her phone chimes in her pocket as she descends the last of the steps, and she pulls the device out as she exits outside.

“Félix?” Her brow scrunches in confusion and she frowns, pulling the attention of her friends.

“Adrien’s cousin?” Nino asks, stepping closer.

“The Luthor boy?” Babs voiced her own curiosity.

“You mean the Graham de Vanily heir?” Karen pitches in, a little more excited.

Kara breaks the chain of questioning the identity of Félix with a: “What did he say?”

“‘Something doesn't seem right about today. Be careful. And just in case, keep that reporter’s contact open. Paris may need assistance.’” Marinette read the message out loud, her confusion turning to worry.

“I've never gotten a message like this from him before. He never contacts me during school hours, either, even breaks. I wonder what’s wrong…” As she muses, she sends a simple return text: ‘Will do. And you too, Fé. Let’s hope it’s nothing.’

She doesn’t voice her reply before she puts the phone away, or the last one from Félix.

‘We shall see.’

“That was…ominous,” Babs voices skeptically as the group resumes their walk back towards the school.

“He can get like that sometimes, it’s nothing to worry about,” Maritnette shrugs, trying to brush the new worry off everyone’s shoulders. As the only one of them who had been around him the most so far, she was the only one at the moment who could reassure them. And as such, she didn’t voice that Félix’s hunches were usually right in some way or another. Yet she refused to worry anyone else any further, and kept the tidbit to herself.

Her efforts seem to work as the others seem to relax. All except Kara, looking pensive.

Marinette and Kara both drop to the back of their small group, a couple paces behind the other three who had struck up a new conversation about Nino’s hat and the girls’ preferences of headgear that didn't act difficult with their longer hair.

“Rolling Penny for your thoughts?” Marinette jokes to the hero, who snorts at the play on words with their shared interest in music.

“Get me a Stone with Jagged edges and you can have your pick of thoughts for the rest of our lives.” Marinette laughs as she imagines handing over her only famous commissioner as a trade offering.

She shakes her head and chuckles, “No can do, that’s a free Stone, no keeping it like a pet rock. You'll have to settle for the Penny.”

Kara taps her chin in thought before snapping, smirking with a tease; “How ‘bout a nice crystal cluster instead? I hear Geodes are pretty and valuable.”

The teased girl snorts and shakes her head. “This crystal is already around you often enough. I’ll add in extra tarts to our next hang out, would you consider that payment enough?”

“It’ll do, for now,” was the joking return, and the two shared a laugh.

“But really, Kara, what is it? Is Félix’s text bothering you?”

A shrug, and then, “Well, yeah, I’m still a little wary around him, ya’know? His dad was still Lex Luthor, and no hero, let alone any Kryptonian, could trust that man to be as far away from us as we could throw him; and trust me, we could have thrown him far if we wanted to. And you say Félix says things like that a lot?? It sounds a lot like something similar to my original suspicions about you.”

Marinette glances back up at Kara quizzically. “What suspicion in particular?”

“Well the whole ‘Kryptonite in your body’ thing isn't exactly a common thing. Seeing Félix at the same time I saw those crystals in you? Painted a really bad picture. Lex wasn't exactly against human experimentation.”

She recalled a few of the stories both Supergirl and Alya had told her about Lex Luthor, even a few of his family getting their hands dirty in the same villainous business, and factoring in the new information, Marinette understood a bit more about how easy it could be to have suspicions like this against people around the Luthor family. Not to mention the family itself.

“So, you think...Monsieur Luthor did something to Félix?” She was a bit alarmed at the conclusion, worry coating her words and thoughts.

“That, or he’s just a really observant guy. But! Now it’s your turn not to worry about it!” Kara explains, her voice gaining a light cheerfulness and reassurance as she pulls Marinette against her side with one arm. “School is no time to fret over anything except making it to the last bell.”

Marinette laughs and leans into the side-hug, taking comfort in it. “Since when did you prefer school over thinking about all the potential future dangers you could be punching into the sun?”

“Since I had friends to hang out with,” was the returned quip, and an added, “And no more etiquette classes was a huge bonus, too.”

“They have etiquette in America?”

“Nope, on Krypton, it was kinda a thing for me. Kal got lucky.” The Kryptonian scoffs. “But I have a feeling I'm going to dread being at my new home because I'll be suffering through it again,” she groans, nodding out towards the school they could now see down the street.

A glaringly obvious person decked out in all yellows, white and black was standing out front.

“Chloé? What did she do this time? Is this why she was glaring at you all morning?”

“Yep,” Kara scowls, “Publicity stunt from her dad, he offered to host the cousin of world-renowned reporter Clark Kent during her stay in Paris. Lady Bourgeois over there doesn't like my ‘uncivilized, barbarian lifestyle’,” she mocked with a sarcastic one-handed air quote and an eye-roll.

“She’s a bit of a handful, I can agree with that,” Marinette smiled sympathetically, suppressing a laugh at the inaccurate jabs. “I’ll help you out if you want, I’ve dealt with her for enough years to gain a life-long tolerance.”

“I’ve got your number; I’ll call you if I need to. Or,” came the teasing tone, “I’ll just do it anyways; I could never get tired of talking with you.”

With a laugh and an eye-roll of her own, Marinette stepped away from the other and picked up her pace to catch up with the rest of their group. “School first, we can figure out our new phone schedule later, if we even need one now that we share a timezone.”

“Touché, lil’ Butterfly, touché,” Kara concedes, catching up only a step behind.

The Parisian girl raises a brown, “Butterfly?”

“Beautiful, always a step ahead, and always dodging around everything.”

“Dodging?” Kara, I can't dodge anything for my life without warning first.”

The two laughed, and Kara nudged the other girl reassuringly. “Besides avoiding compliments you shouldn’t, I think you’re doing just fine on your own.”

“Well, besides those embarrassing compliments, if there's anything I shouldn't be missing, warn me, okay? I’d hate to leave anything hanging.”

Kara gave a big sideways grin, her eyes hinted with wistfulness. “Sure, Geode, I’ll do that; at least for anything that doesn't want to wait for a perfect timing first.”

“Like?”

“The fact that we’re back at school and the warning bell just rang?”

“AH!! Kara! Warn me next time!”

#maribat #miraculous ladybug #Borne of the Stars #Karanette #marinette dupain cheng #nino lahiffe #karen beecher #barbara gordon #kara danvers #kara zor el #felix graham de vanily #crossover au #dc super hero girls

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bobasheebaby · 5 years

Note

If i think of what this place used to be and what it is now i really wanna know. do people read fics anymore? it feels like if you're not into trr, you might as well not write which is sad because there are so many other good books to explore and so many talented writers get ignored because everyone just wants to promote their friends. I feel like leaving cause i don't have a place here. Why spend free time writing if no one likes your shit?

It certainly is different than when I came two years ago. Then TRR was somewhere around book 3 right before it started, ES was still updating, we were on the Sophomore and we had so many less books that it wasn’t like writers were stretched thin. We had some others but those were the big updating books, and they all were popular and all had amazing fics written for them.

I think we have three major problems we are dealing with.

1) Tumblr.

The tags barely work. People aren’t being notified. I know I used to get emails for every tag and I would save them so I’d remember to find them later. But then there are people who aren’t getting notified at all.

And let’s not forget that Tumblr keeps changing the rules for the search which makes things more complicated than it needs to be. We used to be able to have links to our Masterlists and tag in the fic and still be found in the search, for a long time that was hiding you.

I was checking for a friend last week and found things I had just posted with links and tags in the search under the tags I used, so hopefully that issue is gone, but we still aren’t getting all our notifications which is hurting us, big time.

2) Too much, too fast.

I love that we are getting new genres and new books but the pace that PB is rolling them out is actually a really big factor in the amount of fics we are seeing for certain books.

Think about it, if you have five books you love, two ideas to write for each, but only time to write three of the stories you are more likely to write for the books that are getting more attention first even if they are older and a more saturated market. We know there is interest in those books and people will read the stories, why write if no one is reading?

So in a way the fact that we are getting so many new books at once is killing our creativity because we still have lives to tend to and can’t write every idea we get.

3) The readers.

Yes I’m calling out the readers cause I’ve noticed that there are so many less reblogs then there used to be.

Likes are nice, but most people have them hidden. If no one can see what you like what is the point of it?

Also unlike AO3 we don’t know every time someone clicked on our fic, so we only know someone read it by a like, reblog, or comment. If people are ghost reading we have no clue and then we feel like we aren’t creating quality content and that’s why no one is reading. But the problem really is that less and less people are reblogging stories they love.

Hell send your favorite writer a few asks and tell them how much their stories mean to you. If they have anon on you can do it that way. Seriously a nice note in our inboxed makes our day.

Want to reblog but have zero words? Use gifs, key smash, put your thoughts in the tags, say ‘omg I love this so much I’m speechless’ because that is worth something too. I love love love when I get long winded comments on my reblogs, but knowing that I made someone speechless feels just as good. I love the tag and gif comments and sometimes those small things say more than a long essay on what you thought about the fic.

There are a few things I can suggest to help out your fellow writers and even yourself.

1) Always reblog your own work.

I know it’s feels needy but Tumblr is worldwide and timezone reblogs are needed especially since notifications suck.

Thank your readers for reblogging, let them know you value them.

2) Make recommendation posts.

This is something I have done in the past and need to get back into but I’m horribly behind. @mfackenthal also does it, anyone can and the more of us doing this the better.

What did you read the past week that you can’t gush about enough? Make a post, link the Masterlist (I know it’s work but it helps so much) and tag the author. Not only are you telling all your followers hey I love X but you are telling them too.

See someone who just started writing and they are incredible but only have three notes? Reblog them, and then recommend them. Seriously it helps.

3) REBLOG WHAT YOU LOVE.

Sorry for the yelling but I can’t say this enough. I say it all the time. I’ve seen people complaining that their dash is dead and no one is writing anymore but the problem is that people are no longer reblogging. So many of the people I love I found from someone else reblogging.

I have a little over 400 blogs I follow and most of them I found from reblogs. That is how I found so many of the writers I love and follow. So do them a favor and reblog and help them get seen. Trust me you aren’t annoying and the author loves you gushing and loves that you are singing their praises.

I’m super behind but always down to be tagged by someone new. I will mention that I never got into AME, BSC, ATV, Save the Date so I would not be a good person to tag in those but I’m mostly open to any pairing, hell I’m the person who put Bastien with Olivia, I don’t mind crack pairs (within reason, I can’t do Connie or Regina, or Neville or Madeline).

Holy shit, sorry for the ten page essay Nonny. Hope all this helps and that you stick out our fandom.

#anon #anonymous #e answers #e rambles #e rants #kinda #long post #when did i become so long winded #we have so many things working against us we need to help each other out

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terresdebrumestories · 4 years

Text

One night only

FANDOM: DCEU, but I guess more specifically BVS. SERIES: - RATING: Explicit for safety. WORDCOUNT: 7 333 words PAIRING(S): Superbat CHARACTER(S): Bruce Wayne & Kal-El GENRE: Brief encounters of the sexy kind. One night stands. TRIGGER WARNING(S): None that I’m aware of, but it does contain sex and the vaaaaguest hint of strength kink. Also touch!starved Bruce. SUMMARY:

Bruce crashes on an unknown planet as he returns from a League-related mission. Fortunately for him, he manages to survive the accident with nothing more than big bruises to show for it. Even more fortunately, he finds himself rescued by the hottest alien he's met so far.

OR: Bruce Wayne rescued by beefy alien.

DEDICATION(S): To obviously, who provided the very sexy prompt for this fic, and also to @lorata, who handled the SPAG betaing of this. I, sleep deprived and unused to GDocs on mobile, may have clicked on the “refuse” button on a couple of corrections so assume any typo left is my fault :P NOTE(S): I don’t know why I was convinced my posting date was July 18th, but I was, which means that the final version of it got finished at 11pm on the 17th, which was a bit of a cardio workout. Thank fuck for timezones giving Lora enough time to hunt my typos without too much pressure :P

ALSO AVAILABLE ON AO3

The cockpit almost looks like a Christmas tree: it blinks in increasingly bright and urgent colors, the high-pitched beep of panicking instruments loud enough to drown Bruce’s thoughts as the jet plummets toward the ground. There are interminable seconds of falling, Bruce’s soul scrambling to think of Alfred, Dick Jason MomDad—

Lead on his eyelids, a ton each at the very least. When he finally maneuvers them to half-mast the light around him is loud enough to hurt. He closes his eyes. Tries again. The bright gold echoes like a bellow between his ears. Wince. Persevere. The world around is too much and too little, loud light and bright noises. He blinks and blinks and blinks until something warm licks at him, and then another noise, salt in the air and oh, Alfred, I really messed it up this—

Blue, blue, blue, blue, the world moving—a voice above, deep and tense, dark fringe over a frown…Jas—

When Bruce wakes up for the third time, there is something floating above him. An oblong shape, dark against the light, and close enough to touch if Bruce’s arm had any strength left in it. It remains there for a while, trembling until Bruce’s eyes finally shape it back into a face. It seems calm for now, not attacking or moving in a suspicious way, but it does stay where looking at it makes Bruce’s eyes water, so it’s probably best not to discount the risk of hosni—hossi—ill intent. Bruce blinks, slow and sluggish, while the head moves and melts into some kind of silhouette.

Bit by bit, the light grows quieter, and Bruce sighs, squinting to make out limb-like shapes—only four, thank fuck—as the presumed-head leans down—and then recoils as Bruce’s hand strikes at it...or, well. Tries to. It gets stopped halfway through, easy as breathing—Bruce winces, breathes in. Blinks until the shape moves around him, the hold on his wrist firm but not painful. Once it’s out of the backlight, the head looks human enough: curly black hair, eyes just a shade too blue to feel real. The kind of jawline you could sharpen a battarang with.

Bruce blinks harder and, in a bout of stupidity barely excusable even in his state, he glances down—wool-like garment, reminiscent of a sweater, but close-fitting enough to let him know he wouldn’t blush at having abs like that—and says:

“I always thought I’d go to Hell.”

The world fades again.

The fourth time Bruce wakes up feels like it’s the one that’s going to stick. He’s healed up enough to remember what he said last, for one, and while that’s embarrassing enough to make him groan—religion, really Bruce?—it’s at least a sign of progress. For two: fucking ouch.

It’s a good thing that he can feel the hurt. Bodies that don’t feel it are either traumatized or permanently damaged, or both. Still, if there is a superior entity somewhere, Bruce is determined to make them pay for the fucking nervous system. Aside from his feet, pretty much everything hurts right now—nothing Bruce isn’t used to, though. Healing bruises, decades-old stab wound acting up in humid weather...all in a day’s work for Batman, really, so much as he dislikes the sensation it really isn’t that hard to find a semi vertical surface to prop himself against. The move makes his head swim, predictably, but at least now he can see the person-shaped thing move around when it comes back to the currently-empty cave. If it comes back.

Rather than sit and wait for an answer on that question, which could keep him there a long time, Bruce gives his nausea enough time to subside—he is pushing fifty there, and surprisingly interested on keeping going—swallows around his cardboard-thick tongue, and sets about slowly taking stock of his surroundings.

He can feel rough stone behind his back. There’s another natural wall at his front. Stalactites line the stone ceiling and, to Bruce’s right, slope down until they meet the ground with only a narrow conduit squirreling away under the bedrock. No exit there. Turning back to the left, Bruce discovers the cave widens for about fifteen, maybe twenty feet—depth perception: still AWOL—until wet-dark stone gives way to the sun-bleached gray of fist-sized pebbles and the ruckus of them rolling through the waves. The sea beyond offers a dull brown color tinged with silver, shining under the sleek pewter of the sky.

Bruce thinks, unhelpfully, of Gotham.

He doesn’t dwell on it too much: he’s unbound and, as far as he can tell, alone in the cave. If he’s going to figure a way out of here, now is the ideal moment, though he knows better than to make it too obvious he knows that, just in case there’s some surveillance he hasn’t found yet. There’s no fire, but the air isn’t cold, and when he looks down at himself he realizes there’s a blanket draped over the Kevlar that means he won’t be catching a cold just yet. It also means that whatever found him either has no malicious intent towards him or is very interested in pretending it doesn’t.

Obviously, he doesn’t trust the thing—person? Alien, definitely—that got him here. He’s lived through more than his fair share of people treating him exceedingly well for nefarious reasons, both as Batman and as Bruce; he’s not about to fall for it. Every second he pretends to, however, is more time to recover and plan his escape. It is with that certitude in mind that Bruce leans back against the stone and, keeping his ears focused on the sounds around him, closes his eyes to fake sleep.

He nearly curses when he wakes up to the sound of footsteps on rocks. Obviously, he’s well trained enough to reign the impulse in, but he’s got more than enough brainpower to recriminate himself while he checks out the entrance of the cave. It’s dark by now, which, assuming the days here are roughly the same as Earth’s, means several hours have passed, during which anything could have happened. Fuck. If Alfred learns about this, Bruce will never hear the end of it… At least he’s still up against the wall. Nothing’s coming at him from behind.

The alien doesn’t attack, though. It walks into the cave, familiarly bipedal, dressed disturbingly like the upscale version of a Hollywood fisherman—the sweater even sports a pattern reminiscent of a cable-knit. When it’s done setting up a rough circle of stone near Bruce—with its back to him! If he were at full capacity, that alien wouldn’t stand a chance—and dumping wood into it, it busies itself lighting a fire. Only when it’s done and the first licks of warmth reach Bruce does it turn around.

Bruce, shamefully caught with his eyes open, allows himself to swear internally. An alien it might be, but if Bruce weren’t profoundly aware of this fact it could have passed for a human easily: aside from the too-blue eyes, there’s nothing to make the alien stand out in a crowd. Or, well. There is, but GQ models aren’t generally considered dangers to the general population...although judging from the way his guts twist when the alien smiles at him, right now Bruce is rather inclined to review that particular assessment.

Come on, Batman. Get a grip.

The alien, blatantly oblivious to Bruce’s internal battle against his...heart...approaches him with an easy smile and a soft voice, moving slowly, like it’s trying to calm a spooked animal. It makes Bruce want to show his teeth, but considering he’s not exactly in a state to follow up on the threat if the alien reacts aggressively, he decides against it. He does grunt though, just enough to show his displeasure at his current predicament, low enough that it doesn’t fall into outright aggression. Not that it matters: genuine or faked, the alien’s current persona seems too cheerful to mind, and it smiles as it speaks.

At least, it sounds like there are words in its voice. Bruce’s Green Lanterns-issued translator is on the fritz, though: all he can do is assume the emotion projected actually is relief, closely followed by concern. It’s...not often, that Bruce is confronted with something like that after an injury. Neither Dick nor—Dick has always been the type to joke, and English blood means Alfred’s physical expressions of concern come in the form of tea and a duster served with the stiffest upper lip on the planet. To be the focus of eyes that blue, with that sincere-looking an expression on that face with that jawline is...Bruce swallows. Hard.

The alien says something else that Bruce, of course, doesn’t understand, and then it turns away to reach inside its bag and produce something round, purple and leathery looking. It might be a gourd or a fruit, Bruce has no way to know. He is parched though, and so he tries to dip down for a drink.

What happens instead is a hand on his shoulder, the pressure dulled by the suit, but there enough to realize he couldn’t easily get out from under it. Slowly, gently, Bruce is pushed back against the rock, intense blue eyes crinkling with a smile that, on a human, Bruce would almost describe as apologetic. One of the alien’s hands comes up to tip Bruce’s head back, fingertips lighting long lines of fire against his throat, catching his breath right in the middle of his chest until he’s tensing without meaning to. Bruce can still feel the path of those fingers against his skin, the phantom sensation pulling at his attention even as the alien’s other hand raises the purple sphere above his head. Bruce’s hand snaps up, catching on a wrist. There is a pause, as if the alien had sensed Bruce’s brief burst of fear through his touch—what if the liquid inside is acid? What if he’s about to be bludgeoned to death? —until their eyes meet. Something shifts in the alien’s face, and he stands up straighter somehow, resumes his movement with a slow grace that somehow makes Bruce want to get up on his knees. He allows the grip of his fingers to soften, thumb resting on the alien’s pulse point—it feels fast, under the thin skin—and watches the purple thing rise above his head.

It pauses right above Bruce’s face, the alien looking at him with something almost like a question in his eyes. Bruce meets his eyes head on, wishing he could think of it as defiance. Then, with his chest heaving and his body straining in the confines of his suit, Bruce tips his head back and opens his mouth.

The alien gasps when the juice—it’s too sweet to be water, despite the clear color—falls into Bruce’s mouth, the blood in his wrist speeding up. Lowering his head a fraction, Bruce meets his gaze again—or tries to. A few drops made their way past Bruce’s lower lips, dribbling down his chin and along his throat, and the alien is clearly too caught in tracking their path to meet Bruce’s gaze. He licks his lips, making Bruce shiver, and just when Bruce is starting to consider releasing the moan bubbling inside his chest, the alien takes the purple thing—the fruit? —away.

Juice splashes on the bridge of Bruce’s nose and he splutters, moment broken and yet still out of breath, fingers still clasped around a wide wrist. He takes his hand away, acutely aware of all the places where it’s not touching skin anymore, and breathes in deep, trying to calm his heart rate as fast as possible while the alien clears his throat and tosses the empty fruit shell away into the water.

He speaks again then, motioning upward with his hand, and although he’s clearly trying to look casual there is a faint dusting of pink over his cheekbones. Given the circumstances, Bruce decides to go ahead and provisionally interpret it as having the same meaning as on Earth. Once that’s done, he tries to follow the other man’s request: he barely makes it to his knees before he topples over, legs reduced to jelly despite his clear mind. For a moment, his rescuer—for lack of a better word—seems almost disappointed. Then he speaks again, slow and soothing, as he steps closer with his arms extended.

Bruce is caught in a bride’s carry before he can even attempt to protest.

For one hysterical second, Bruce’s mind provides an image of Alfred’s—or anyone from the league’s—face should he find out about this. It is mortifying and he vows to take the incident to his grave—but the thought only lasts for that: one second. Right after that, Bruce finally catches up with the fact that his companion is showing no strain whatsoever while carrying him and his thirty pounds of armor and— oh come on Batman, get a grip.

Batman does not get a grip. In fact Batman, who is feeling decidedly less Batmany than usual, slowly unravels as his companion carries him out of the cave and into the open air, the smell of clean seafoam assaulting Bruce’s nostrils while a gentle breeze blows the occasional droplets onto his cheeks. For lack of a more dignified solution Bruce lets himself be carried out to the beach, the view swiftly blocked by a tall cliff of white stone fringed with green at the top, fist-sized gravel crunching under the alien’s feet. There’s a short climb up a gentle slope to a wooden platform, and then Bruce watches as the beach grows smaller under them. The ocean, of course, is endless, but a look to their left reveals a badly damaged piece of rock, deep gouges in the ground leading the eyes to a short stripe of bent metal. There go Bruce’s hope of refurbishing the ship and using it to get off planet. Sure, Bruce is extremely lucky to even be alive right now, let alone as unscathed as he is, but even Batman is allowed a bit of hope now and then. As a treat.

Well, no use crying over spilt milk—or sulking about being stuck on an alien planet without a reasonable means of transportation. Bruce keeps looking. To the right, as far as he can see, is a forest. It rises from the ground in bushes and tall grasses at first, quickly shooting to the sky with ever taller trees that, aside from the height, wouldn’t look all that out of place in the English countryside.

Behind him—under him? Bruce is going to have to figure the logistics of this at some point—Bruce’s companion takes a turn toward the forest as soon as they reach the top of the cliff, and as they come close Bruce finally notices it. It being a tall dome-like structure made of wood and what he can only assume is something similar to glass. It rises out of the ground as if grown there, slender limbs turned to the sky in elaborate latticework, a band of colored windows circling the dome about halfway through.

The whole thing looks airy, the kind of place designed to create refreshing breezes and cool shades, which makes it look entirely incongruous in an environment where cold and damp seems to be the motto. Still, odd choices or no, there’s something appealing about the building. It feels...well, structurally, it is leaning more into something like the Taj-Mahal, which is impressive considering a touch reveals it is made of live wood. Yet as Bruce is carried outside and discovers the furniture—rich embroidered carpets of wool thick enough he could fall asleep there, luxurious piles of cushions in red and blues with the occasional gold accent—he can’t help but feel a little like he’s just entered a large, very elaborate treehouse. Everything, from the sitting space to what seems to be a cooking area to the central staircase—and how did Bruce not see any of that through the windows? He’d love to ask some technical questions about it—feels like it wants Bruce to lie back and relax, maybe even fall asleep. God, this house could probably have entire conversations on this very topic with Alfred—and Bruce is just about exhausted enough to let it.

The air inside is warm but not stifling, like a windy summer day: it chases the chill out of Bruce’s limbs, warms him up from the inside as he’s settled down on a cushion even he has to describe as ridiculously large. Bruce...kind of wants to lean into it. Sure, there’s still a chance he’s about to be hurt, but also it’s not like his host is lacking in strength. Why bother waiting when all the power is on your side? It seems probable that the alien is either genuinely uninterested in hurting Bruce, or playing the long con. Either way, there’s no reason for Bruce not to take the opportunity to rest a little.

“You can lean back, you know.”

Bruce blinks as the gentle golden glow fades from the windows, the seaside landscape once more unobstructed as he looks ahead of himself. It takes some effort to twist around enough to see his host, but when he does it’s—well. It’s worth it. The man has changed out of his Englishman costume and into a pale gold tunic that hugs both his arms and his chest before loosening just a little around the waist and falling past his hips down to his knees. Bruce notices the bottom of fitted crimson pants hugging absolutely lovely calves, and swallows before he asks:

“Is the house translating?”

“Yes,” the alien says with a wide grin. “I am quite relieved that it could do anything for us: you do not seem to hail from a well-known region of the universe.”

“You sound extremely formal,” Bruce remarks without thinking, and swallows again when his host laughs:

“Not to my ears, I assure you. I suppose, however, that where outdated technology is concerned, we had better be grateful we understand each other at all.”

Bruce inclines his head in acquiescence. Sure, he’d like the comfort of his usual translator better than having to deal with the whole house filling with his host’s words—if not his voice—but the perceptible delay between his host’s voice and the house’s isn’t enough to make him wish for the alternative of not being able to communicate at all. Even if going back to that after using the Lanterns’ translators feels a bit like trying to stream a movie with a poor internet connection.

“I guess you’re right,” he agrees. Then, because his mask was already lost in the sea and this is an alien, anyway, he adds: “I’m B.”

“Bee?” his host answers, evidently testing the sound. “That is an unexpected name. Still, I suppose different worlds have different tastes. You may call me Kal.”

Bruce pauses, eyes narrowing.

“Oh,” Kal says, as if guessing what Bruce is thinking, “I was not—names where I’m from are quite...long. Much longer than yours. ‘Kal’ is only a diminutive.”

“How long is ‘long’?” Bruce asks, eyebrows raised.

In front of him, Kal blushes, and Bruce refuses to admit it’s not exactly an unappealing sight.

“Well, they build up with our history,” Kal explains, still tinged pink but relaxing enough to step closer and sit next to Bruce on his humongous, satiny cushion. “As a man of thirty-five who has not been idle, mine has grown quite long… I am not reluctant to share it, Bee. I am merely aware that many cultures do not share our patience for it.”

“Mmmh,” Bruce says.

It sounds fair enough.

“Now that is sorted out,” Kal asks after watching Bruce’s lips a few seconds too long, “may I interest you in a change of clothing? I assume your uniform is meant to protect you, but it hardly looks comfortable and it seems to me like your body could use something softer to rest in.”

“I have to get off this planet,” Bruce replies.

Kal nods, accommodating, and leans back against the cushions. It’s Bruce’s imagination that provides the sensation of their arms brushing, the warmth of skin on skin—the batsuit won’t allow for anything less than a full punch to be felt. That knowledge doesn’t change anything to the sensation, though, and Bruce shivers with it, all his senses focusing on the area entirely against his will. His brain, for some reason, reminds him that it’s been at least ten years since he stopped playing the incorrigible playboy and sex-enthusiast.

“This is a vacation moon,” Kal says, voice perfectly even despite the heat creeping up Bruce’s neck. “There are daily shuttles for arrival and departures. When the next one arrives tomorrow morning, I can ask them to send you to the nearest Green Lanterns’ outpost, and from there you should have very little trouble going back to….”

“Earth,” Bruce supplies, and winces when that causes Kal’s eyes to widen.

“I have heard of this planet! Some of the more famous Green Lanterns hailed from your world and—ah. Forgive me, I can see you do not wish to be questioned. That is fair, you must still be quite tired from your ordeal.”

Bruce nods, careful not to look too relieved at the prospect. He is tired though. Not as much as he should be by any right, but enough that the prospect of having to balance and measure what he said about Earth to guard it against potentially hostile aliens sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.

“Well, then,” Kal says, still smiling, like nothing Bruce says can possibly alter his good mood. “Shall I renew my offer of clean clothes then? I promise not to touch or alter your belongings in any way. And after that, perhaps a light supper, and then to bed.”

Bruce swallows. Kal, it’s already been established, is not hard on the eyes. At all. He’s tall and broad shouldered, and in a human he’d be pretty much exactly Bruce’s preferred type. As an alien, he still is, but then there’s also the strength, and the entirely unembarrassed curiosity, and the possibilities provided with potentially different anatomies that Bruce has never considered before in his life but now...now Bruce is wondering if it’s a good idea to dress himself in loose fabric.

Then Kal’s eyes catch his, and Bruce decides if he’s only going to spend one night here and never see the guy again, he might as well enjoy it. He says yes, and keeps a very close eye on the way Kal’s ass pushes against his tunic as he gets up, and then retreats toward the stairs.

Of course, Bruce should know better than to let himself get distracted, let alone so easily. He’s still technically on a mission—well, on his way back from a mission—and if anyone on Earth realizes what transpired here, even if nothing else happens, he will absolutely never ever hear the end of it. Ever. And yet….

Well, frankly, maybe Bruce is just getting old, but he thinks he’s allowed to indulge himself here. He’s recovering from injuries that are frankly ridiculously light for the kind of accident he was in, he’s on an unknown planet light years away from home, his transportation is most likely assured—unless he’s really losing it and missing red flags in Kal’s behavior—and he hasn’t had sex in over eight years. He gets to indulge a little. It’s only one night.

“I took the liberty of picking night clothing as well,” Kal calls after a few moments, appearing at the top of the spiral stairs. From below, it looked like the bedroom was empty the whole time, which Bruce must admit is a neat trick. “I figured you would wish to change before retiring for the night.”

Bruce, clinging to the last of his fraying dignity—he’s indulging, that doesn’t mean he has to be proud about it—manages to hum instead of saying something that could be misconstrued as flirting, but Kal doesn’t seem to mind. He says something about preparing the meal while Bruce changes and ‘do not worry, I shan’t be looking your way’, and then leaves Bruce alone.

Peeling himself out of the suit takes more effort than Bruce would like, but it’s also far from the hardest he’s had it, and he gets re-dressed in a decent amount of time. By then, his legs feel less like jelly, and he’s actually able to sit up and scoot on the ground to gather his things in a manageable pile and set them aside in a corner where they should, hopefully, not be disturbed.

After a while, Kal reemerges from the cooking area with a large tray filled with over a dozen bowls of colorful meats and fruits, several things that look like root vegetables, and even a bowl of something that could be a sort of love-child of wheat and rice. It looks both perplexing—Bruce has never had a purple savory dish before—and familiar, which is probably why his hands twitch toward the food before he can remember to ask:

“Anything in particular to eat with?”

“Merely your fingers,” Kal says, rinsing his hands in a silver dish of lightly fragranced water. “Do clean them beforehand, however.”

Bruce makes sure to give him a “duh” look as he reaches for the dish and rinses his own fingers.

“According to the available information, these should be safe for you to consume,” Kal says, grabbing what looks like a grape but turns out, upon tasting, to be a piece of meat.

“Unlike that purple thing before?” Bruce asks, the back of his neck heating up when he thinks back on their interactions in the cave.

“The shell is dangerous,” Kal agrees, “and I didn’t have any way to explain. Doing the pouring myself seemed to be the safest option.”

“I assume you won’t be feeding me for this meal then,” Bruce says.

Then gives himself a mental slap in the face because, really? For anyone else, that would be one thing, but Bruce is, without false modesty, one of the best martial artists on Earth, an honors graduate from the best university the USA have to offer, and the fucking Batman...and there he is, making an ass out of himself just because it’s been a while since he got sexed up and he just happened to fall in the backyard of the most fuckable alien in the universe. Un-fucking-believable.

Kal, either oblivious or going for coy, gives him an amused smile and nothing else, although he does readjust his position until one of his knees points to Bruce, the other leg extended on the other side in a way that must stretch the crotch of his pants under the pooling fabric of his tunic. Bruce is kind of glad for his own, vivid-red flap of fabric at the moment.

“So,” he asks after he’s eaten enough to settle the growl of his stomach, “where are we exactly? You mentioned this was a vacation moon.”

“Indeed. Cidaris orbits around an uninhabitable planet, yet somehow retained an atmosphere for an extremely long amount of time. Kryptonian architects started thinking of kryptoforming it a few centuries ago… It has been a favored vacation post for several decades, now.”

“Are you Kryptonian?”

“I am,” Kal replies, a piece of the grape-like meat resting against his lower lip and staining it purple. “Although I don’t suppose someone whose family possesses as much as mine does can fairly call himself an ordinary one.”

Oh god. He’s a rich alien—for all Bruce knows, he could be a real life, genuine Brucie Wayne with the wits to match, and he sounds like he’s just escaped a Ren Faire. And the worst of it all is, none of that has any dampening effect on the burst of heat that goes through Bruce when their knees brush. There are times when Bruce hardly even recognizes himself.

“What is your home like?”

Bruce throws Kal a look, but he neither looks nor feels like he’s trying to wriggle information out of Bruce...and even if he were, it’s not like he can’t answer without giving away vital information about Earth. He takes a look around before he answers though: the tall, organic and yet intricately carved arches of smooth wood, the invisible shields that leave the eyes free to roam over the infinity of the ocean and a truly spectacular sunset. The quiet, the scent of salt in the air—the kind of atmosphere that makes you want to breathe deeper but quieter, as if it stole all the stress from your lungs and replaced it with a good mouthful of rest.

“Not like this,” Bruce says to start with. “It’s a lot more angular. The buildings aren’t see-through, and you can’t see the stars at night. It’s...an old city. A wounded city. Frankly, with all the terrible things people do to it and in it, it’s probably a miracle it’s still standing.”

That’s...a staggering understatement, Bruce knows. But on the other hand: how do you even begin to explain Gotham to an alien? People who live less than fifty miles outside of it have enough of a hard time trying to grasp its essence as it is—they think it’s a blight on an otherwise very fine state...which, to be fair, it is. In some ways. That’s the easy part, though.

The hard part is trying to explain all the good side, like diamonds in the mud. The way so many people try to turn things around still, in little ways—insignificant ways, but also in the ways that matter most. How do you explain the dirty alleys with their gang fights and their kids laughing around firecrackers in summer? There are no words to convey all of that in a way that even begins to scratch the surface of what the city is—of what it means to Bruce. He knows: he’s tried. Even Dick never quite seemed to get it though—not enough to stay, at any rate. The only one who came close was—Bruce doesn’t have the words to explain it.

And yet, something must show on his face: by his side, still sprawling over the cushion like a particularly content cat, Kal smiles.

“And yet, you would not leave it behind.”

“Never in my life,” Bruce replies.

There’s something trying to creep in his throat as he speaks, and he manages to tamp it down but not before it pokes at his chest in a way he’s wholly unfamiliar with. it’s such a simple statement, and yet somehow, it’s something even his closest friends—inasmuch as he has any—have rarely heard from him, if at all. It’s an unexpected thing to find himself saying to a one-night stand, and Bruce would sigh if he hadn’t accepted the most likely outcome of the evening already.

“If this is a vacation moon,” he asks in a bit to shift the attention, “how come you’re here alone?”

Kal stiffens, and Bruce...deliberately doesn’t wince. He can’t truthfully claim that he hadn’t expected a sensitive topic, but Kal was more than polite about Gotham when, Bruce is very aware, it would have been easy for him to be less than polite about it. It seems...petty, in retrospect, to answer that with a barb.

“In the interest of not spoiling the good mood,” Kal replies with forced levity, “I will say that I was in need of some personal space, and ask that you allow me to stop there.”

Bruce nods. Even if he disagreed, he’s got a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t be all that hard for Kal to overpower him. The thought may leave him a little warmer in the neck than he’s ready to admit, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get rude about it. The real surprise, however, comes when Bruce hears himself ask:

“Would you like me to give you some?”

“Space?” Kal asks. He laughs, incredulous, when Bruce nods; the shift of his body making them sink closer into the dip of the cushion. “And waste all the good works of physics when I could just as easily have brought you to a bench?”

Bruce snorts, but it comes out short, almost surprised. He hadn’t realized he’d leaned in too, hadn’t realized how close they were to touching, and now his elbow is resting against Kal’s shoulder and even through the fabric it feels like that’s setting his entire torso on fire, the warmth of it slowly baking up his arm, his shoulder, his neck, until every breath of air on exposed skin feels like a caress. Bruce breathes in, deliberately slow, and then allows himself to sink back, just a little. He does, after all, know how to do this.

“You’re right,” he says, faux-nonchalant, “let’s not be rude.”

Kal smiles, bright and brilliant in a way Bruce has only ever seen on Diana before—it’s the kind of smile you don’t often see on adults, and it’s all the more precious for it. Not that Bruce would ever admit it. Still, combined with Kal’s jawline, the blue of his eyes, the circumstances...Bruce leans in closer, half expecting another witty exchange. Kal responds in kind instead and, after a heartbeat’s pause, presses their mouths together. Part of Bruce, up until then, had been expecting something a little different from the usual, but Kal’s mouth has a regular mouth taste, with a thin echo of that purple meat hidden in the flavor. Other than that, and the acute awareness of the damage he could inflict with those teeth of his, it’s no different from kissing a nice, smiley, really good looking human.

It has been roughly a decade since the last time Bruce indulged, though, and he is begrudgingly forced to admit that maybe that’s what makes it so intense, lips so sensitive they almost hurt with it, his chest heaving just from that one point of contact, the rest of his body tensing not to go overboard right away. Around them the lights dim a little, highlighting the transparency of the walls, and the heat spreads from Bruce’s head to his chest, to his groin, and every other extremity he has.

With a sigh, he goes back to kissing Kal, one hand coming up to push at his shoulder...and be met with resistance. He pulls back, body cooling fast enough to feel cold, and asks:

“Did I misinterpret?”

“Not at all,” Kal replies with a satisfied smile and a shrug. “I merely had a different image of the proceedings and failed to consider you might have your own opinion on the matter.”

“I can’t fucking believe I’m about to sleep with a guy who speaks like he’s in a Jane Austen space novel,” Bruce mutters.

If it wasn’t enough to stop him before, though, it’s certainly not enough to stop him now.

“What did you have in mind?”

Kal’s grin turns impish and, in the blink of an eye, he’s on his knees and hovering over Bruce’s lap.

“Do feel free to stop me at any time,” he says. “Things are so much better when both parties feel properly enthusiastic.”

Bruce kisses Kal again as a way to make him stop talking—he does have limits—and it works perfectly except for the part where it sets his skin ablaze again. He doesn’t complain about it though: he may be sensitive to the point of near pain, but he has no intention of giving up on the feeling, and revels in the intensity of it, the feather-light feel of Kal’s fingers against his wrists, Kal’s lips on his neck, Kal’s knees around his thighs.

Bruce sighs when he’s pushed down on the bed, and pushes his hips and erection up against Kal’s ass when he is given a few seconds to object. From there, the heavy weight of another body settles over him, and he pushes up again—the friction against Kal’s clad crotch sends sparks flying all through Bruce’s nervous system, pulling every hair on his body to stand as goosebumps overtake him before there’s even been a move made towards removing his shirt. Bruce really needs to do this more often.

He’s distracted from the thought when, after some awkward maneuvering that almost has them toppling to the side, Kal finally manages to get his hands under Bruce’s tunic and on his waist, barely waiting long enough to get consent before he pulls it off Bruce’s shoulders—Bruce is fairly sure he catches a smug look in his Suit’s direction and...well. Fair. He still reaches up to worry at a nipple in retaliation, satisfied with the reaction he gets right up until he receives the same treatment. Evidently, the days when he was perfectly capable of ignoring his own body until he was sure to leave his partner satisfied are long gone.

He can’t say that he minds too much.

It feels like an eternity before Kal’s mouth finally moves past his pectorals, kissing and caressing his belly, his arms, until it feels like Bruce could come just from that and he makes an impatient noise and pushes down on Kal’s shoulder. It feels a bit like pushing a brick wall, which turns out to be an extremely pleasant sensation, and so Bruce doesn’t even bother with performative annoyance when Kal lifts his hips off the mattress and slides the back of his pants over his ass.

“Oh,” he starts, pleased when he finds bare skin there, “I must say I find this detail very—what is that?”

It’s a good thing no one is here to witness Bruce blink dumbly at the transparent ceiling, or turn around to look past the furniture into the night, where there’s nothing but trees and grass to look at him. Eventually though, he does turn back to Kal and finds him staring at his crotch with a perplexed face. Bruce looks down at where his erection is flagging under the jockstrap he favors with the special fabric of his undersuit. Back up at Kal.

“Problem?”

“Where I am from,” Kal replies with the slow diction of someone trying not to offend, “one may go with underwear or without. This seems like a...an interesting in-between.”

“Do you want me to keep it on?” Bruce asks.

He’s done far more adventurous during one-night stands, and with people he found far less pleasant than Kal. It wouldn’t even be that big a deal. After a moment of consideration, though, Kal asks:

“Is your species capable of climaxing more than once during the night?”

“Yes.”

Given how his body has been reacting so far, Bruce is even cautiously optimistic about attempting a third round, should they be inclined.

“In that case, I should like to admire you in full just now, if you are amenable.”

Bruce has to roll his eyes at that, otherwise he runs the risk of getting caught in the moment and finding this way of talking sexy when it’s anything but. He does dispose of the jockstrap, though, and makes sure to leave it on a nearby cushion where it’ll be easy to retrieve. After that he lies back down on the cushion and gestures for Kal to proceed.

He’s half expecting Kal to take him in his mouth, the break having diminished but not destroyed his erection, but instead the man dives straight for Bruce’s balls—he licks and sucks at them, makes them roll over the bridge of his nose in a way that leaves searing burns over the skin, fills him with heat like a cup in long, slow licks until finally, with one long pull of mouth around his length, he tips over and comes with a silent shudder.

He stays in place for a while, lying down and breathing hard while Kal massages his muscles into a more relaxed state. Eventually—a shorter length of time for him than for most men his age—Bruce’s heartbeat is back to normal, or close enough. Only then does he allow himself to sigh again, and sink even further into the giant pillow.

“Am I to understand you are—”

“Do not say ‘amenable’,” Bruce warns, and Kal chuckles. “But yes.”

“Oh, good. Would you like to proceed as you first intended?”

“Not if you want a third round.”

Kal smiles like a kid at Christmas, and Bruce tries very hard not to groan, even though he knows he’ll get there at some point of the night. He might as well fight for what little dignity he has left, right? Right.

Somehow, he gets even less sleep that night than he’d anticipated.

Bruce wakes up well past sunrise the next morning, the sound of waves in his ears and the smell of salt on his tongue. He still aches in a myriad of different ways, but a lot of them have turned pleasant, and his legs aren’t made of jelly anymore. He takes advantage of the fact to get up and walk to where Kal is seated at a small table turned toward the ocean. The shields, or windows—whichever it is—are gone from between the wooden arches, allowing Bruce to spy the hints of a very large net in the platformed bedroom above before he steps up to Kal. The young alien hasn’t noticed Bruce’s presence, yet, which gives Bruce time to notice he looks extremely pleased with himself.

To be fair, Bruce would be too if he’d managed to bring a near-fifty-year-old, injured man off four times in one night. Not that he’s told Kal about the exceptional aspect of it, but it is possible he was a little too well fucked to hide his own surprise entirely… Either way, Kal is very satisfied, breakfast is still waiting for Bruce, and the mist is only just clearing from around the trees. The air around them is crisp, bracing in a way that makes Bruce half-heartedly wish for Kal’s ridiculous sweater. At the table, Kal still looks entirely oblivious to Bruce’s presence.

Bruce clears his throat, and laughs when that surprises Kal enough to send him sprawling down onto the wooden deck.

“Good morning,” he deadpans while Kal throws a napkin at his head.

“Is that how people on Earth court one another?” Kal asks in mock outrage. “Mind-shattering sex and then heart attacks?”

Bruce doesn’t smile at that, too aware of where he’s going and who he will need to be soon, but he does allow his lips to quirk up.

“Maybe I didn’t think you’d be so affected by something so...inconsequential.”

“Oh, it was plenty consequential enough,” Kal replies without missing a beat with a saucy glance at Bruce’s crotch. “I might even consider letting you know if I ever visit Earth, someday.”

“You can do that?” Bruce asks, satisfied when his sudden spike of stress remains inaudible.

“I do work with the Green Lanterns,” Kal shrugs. “I wouldn’t call it probable, but I suppose it isn’t entirely impossible.”

Bruce hums and, to his relief, Kal doesn’t take offense to it. They share a peaceful breakfast instead, with fruits, fresh water and some kind of crackers that Kal dips into what must be a Kryptonian equivalent to coffee. Bruce tries to get some of it, the house encyclopedia informs them that it might not be safe for humans, and between one thing and the next the time for Bruce to get dressed and follow Kal to the shuttle.

He’s not reluctant about it by far, but if he’s being honest with himself—which he usually tries not to be—Bruce has to admit he’s also not quite as impatient to leave as he thought he’d be.

It was an excellent night, after all.

#Superbat #Clark Kent #Kal-El #Bruce Wayne #DCEU Fic #My Posts #Fanfiction #Toss a queue to your witcher

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damienthepious · 4 years

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okay so this went up at 11:51pm on ao3 but tumblr formatting is a nightmare so uh. happy LKT to timezones that are are still in Tuesday Time? whatever, I made it, somehow. it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine.

Scattered On My Shore (Chapter 15)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [Ch 8] [Ch 9] [Ch 10] [Ch 11] [Ch 12] [Ch 13] [Ch 14] [ao3] [Ch 16] [Ch 17] [Ch 18] [Ch 19]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Pre-Relationship, (for the three of them. it’s established r/d), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, (this will also be), Enemies to Lovers, (for damien and arum eventually lol), Mutual Pining, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings

Fic Summary: Strange things wash up out of the lake near Rilla’s hut, on occasion. But this monster… this monster is certainly the strangest.

Chapter Summary: The humans take a very truncated tour.

Chapter Notes: BOY I'M CUTTIN IT CLOSE THIS WEEK. WORLD GOT ME DOWN, SORRY FAM. I'm RUSHING through to post please forgive any formatting weirdness or typos and also forgive the fact that this chapter is a bit shorter than the last few have been. haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

The Keep releases the humans, and it settles Arum back on his feet as well, warbling a song that blends confusion and warmth and a number of other feelings that bleed through their link, almost overwhelming after Arum has spent so long with only his own emotions to process.

Damien rubs his wrists with a strange, unreadable look on his face, but Amaryllis is still holding one of the vines, gently pulling it close enough to examine, her eyes wide. Neither reaction sets Arum at ease, but he supposes that this was not the warmest of welcomes for them, all things considered.

He-

Arum does not know what to do, now that he is home, and they are here with him.

“So,” Amaryllis says, releasing the vine as he draws closer to them. “This is your… Keep?”

“I… it… yes, yes, this is the Keep,” he says, and the moss is soft and familiar between his clawed toes. “My Keep is… I told you we are meant to protect each other. It thought- it did not know you were not a threat, and it has not seen- it has been without-”

“You’ve been away for a long time,” she says gently, and Arum hates the way his heart lurches for her easy words. “Must be nice to be home.”

“I imagine that is quite the understatement,” Damien says softly, though he is not looking at either of them, and Arum laughs, very lightly.

“Indeed. Keep, I-”

He feels the Keep observing, feels the way it is parsing his own emotions and the way it is observing the humans as well, and it is somewhat like seeing the pair of them again, for the first time. It is distracting, though not unpleasant.

The Keep sings, and Arum watches the way that Amaryllis’ eyes light up with curiosity.

“So, I get that it’s alive, but- you can talk to it?”

It hums around them, answering for itself, and Arum can’t help his smile.

“We speak, yes.”

Amaryllis opens her mouth, clearly to ask another question, to continue to chase this new mystery, but she pauses. Her eyes narrow, and then she tilts her head.

“You- huh. You’re standing more easily. Are you- hang on.” She reaches a hand towards him and Arum tilts his head, and when her fingers brush the edge of his frill he clenches his teeth together to keep from making some noise at the contact. “That looks- the tissue is- is the Keep healing you?” she asks, sounding both impressed and a little- irritated, perhaps?

“What?” Damien says, finally looking towards them again, and Arum stiffens at their combined scrutiny, standing a little straighter. “What do you- oh.”

“Oh?” Arum echoes.

“You look- Rilla, have his scales taken on- more color?”

“I think so, actually. Arum-”

“I told you,” he growls. “Our connection is difficult to explain.”

“But it’s healing you. You’re already better than you were a few minutes ago.”

“Of course I am. We- we help each other. We protect each other.”

Rilla, strangely, looks furious now. “If you told me it could make you better in minutes , we would have tried to bring you home a hell of a lot faster, Arum!”

“It- it is not instantaneous, and it did not seem like something you would believe, Amaryllis.”

“Maybe not at first, Arum, but you’ve been healing like a damned glacier and you could have been better so much faster if you just told me-”

Arum finds that he is smiling. He is reminded with a pang that he will miss this, miss her arguments and her fire, miss the soft tension of passing time with Sir Damien as well, and the smile abruptly flickers off. He swallows, looking away.

“I apologize, then,” he says, and Rilla’s argument comes to a halt. “Believe that if there was any way I thought I could have come back to my Keep any faster, I certainly would have.”

She opens her mouth, then sighs and smiles wryly.

“I suppose this accounts for the escape attempts, then,” Damien murmurs, and Arum chokes on a laugh.

“Quite. Not, I now admit, that I could possibly have gotten here on my own in that state.”

“Stubborn,” Rilla mutters, and when Damien raises a pointed eyebrow at her she scowls harder.

Damien tilts his head away, burying his smile before he laughs at her irritation, and then he meets Arum’s eyes. He looks- wary, still.

“So… we have delivered you back to where you belong,” he says, tone deceptively light. He pauses for a moment, but neither Arum nor Amaryllis interrupt him. It is too clear that his thought is unfinished. “What… what happens now, Lord Arum?”

Arum’s body tenses, his stance going entirely stiff. He glances towards Amaryllis, who appears precisely as unsure about the question as Arum feels. What happens now, as if Arum had ever truly expected to return home, as if he had planned for this. He had not expected, in his heart, to ever return to the Keep, let alone to do so with these strange, strange humans in tow. Or- with them towing him.

"I…" Arum swallows, feels his tail curling anxiously, and the Keep drifts vines out to touch his shoulders, to steady him. "I suppose… I am- certain that the both of you must be… eager to return home, as well," he murmurs, turning his face away. "But- but it is… late in the day, now. It would make little sense for you to set out again without rest, only to make camp in an hour or so." He pauses for a moment, still not looking at them as he flicks his tongue, and he can practically taste tension hanging in the air, theirs and his own. "I would… it would be wisest for the both of you to stay the night. If you will."

"You… you wouldn't mind letting us stay?" Amaryllis asks quietly, and Arum scoffs.

"I have been imposing on your hospitality for so long a time now that I've entirely lost track, Amaryllis," he growls. "One night at the very least will not make the slightest impact on my own." He pauses. "If you can stand to sleep within a monster structure, of course."

"Your… your Keep will not mind our presence, either?"

This next question from Damien, and Arum glances their way again, raising an eyebrow as the Keep sings its answer, decisively closing the portal behind them at last. Arum notes with no small measure of surprise that neither of the humans appear unsettled, that their escape route has vanished.

"Its sense of hospitality is far more developed than my own," he mutters. "I doubt very much it could be convinced to allow you to leave without at least providing you a meal."

Amaryllis smiles. "Does the Keep cook, then, or do I finally get to see your theoretical culinary skills?"

Arum shoots the doctor a glare, puffing up his chest as he growls. "I assure you, Amaryllis, that you will see that my culinary skills are completely and entirely," he pauses, "adequate."

Amaryllis blinks, and then bursts into laughter, her entire body jolting with it as she leans against Damien, who is pursing his lips together tight, his eyes sparkling with his own barely suppressed mirth.

Arum is glad that they are too caught in the amusement to look at him, for only a few moments. He does not like to think what they will see on his face, if they look at him right now. Their joy, bubbling bright within his home-

It is overwhelming.

"Keep," he says before they've entirely recovered, looking away. "Open the way, if you would."

Amaryllis stops laughing as the doorway opens again, the noises of chiming and insects and life drifting lazily through the passage, and her eyes light with curiosity, as Arum had hoped they would.

"It seems… appropriate, that I should show you my home, as you showed me yours, does it not?"

"A tour?" she says, raising an eyebrow, and Arum snorts. "Sure, sounds fun, actually."

"What… what is through there?" Sir Damien asks, his own curiosity mitigated rather obviously by his nerves.

"The room I believe Amaryllis will take the greatest interest in," he says with a shrug. "I did not think the impatient creature should like to wait."

"Okay, fair," Rilla says with a grin. "But now you have to tell me."

Arum barely manages to suppress another laugh. "Come, then, you ridiculous creature. Let me show you my greenhouse."

There's just so much, is the thing. So much life, so many plants and fungi that Rilla has either needed to pay out the nose for, scrabble tooth and nail to find on her own, has only seen in sketches, or didn't even believe existed at all, before. It's like a dream, honestly. If Arum hadn't already told her about the Hermit (a bittersweet sting, that memory- she can't help but be disappointed that the flower was destroyed, but the fact that he trusted her enough to tell her is- interesting evidence), she would have it in the back of her mind anyway, half expecting it to be hidden here, among so many other impossible specimens.

The space is enormous- the Keep itself must be huge, the size of a town, maybe, and it would probably take her weeks to see everything that Arum has in his collection.

Longer, actually, because his collection is exactly as organized as the swamp outside. She's beginning to see where he was coming from, exactly, with his complaints about her own organizational systems.

"So that's the pond you were talking about, for keeping the Jungle Flame from causing trouble?"

Arum and Damien have been drifting behind her, Arum tapping a surprising degree of patience as she bolts from wonder to wonder, and now he nods, his lip turning wryly.

"I may still, despite the strategy you shared. One cannot be too cautious with fire, within a structure such as this."

"No, that makes sense," she says, tilting her head at the pond, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "And the Keep can just- grow an island, there?"

"The Keep is the entirety of this place. It shifts and changes as it is needed."

"That… sounds really cool, actually. Huh."

There is so much, so much to see, to investigate. She could get lost in here, metaphorically speaking. She could just keep finding more and more fascinating things to ask Arum about, more answers to questions she's had penned into the margins of countless journals.

And it's good, she thinks, to have something here to focus on, besides Arum himself. He's so vibrant, now. She didn't realize, all this time, how washed out his injuries had made him, how much he had been muted by pain and recovery. Here, with the Keep performing whatever magic it needs to help him stand easy again, he gleams as glossy as the plants he keeps, he practically thrums with relief and joy, and Rilla-

Rilla's throat hurts, just a bit, because she knows that she won't have any excuse not to leave, when morning comes.

She sinks to kneel, feeling the soft dirt and moss beneath her knees, cool and real and distracting, and she pulls out her recorder.

One more little mystery. Just one more little problem to solve, before she admits to herself that she still doesn't have an answer to the problems that really matter.

Amaryllis is deeply, deeply engrossed with her recorder beside a pair of symbiotically growing plants when Arum realizes that Sir Damien is staring at him, now, instead of at the doctor.

"I apologize, honeysuckle," he says, raising his eyebrow.

Damien blinks. "Apologize? For- for what, precisely?"

"This has been a rather single-minded tour, as Amaryllis put it. We have indulged her curiosities, but I cannot imagine that you share the depth of her interest in my collection of flora."

"Ah," he says, his lip pulling into a surprised smile. "Perhaps not, but- you need not apologize." He turns his gaze towards Amaryllis, then, his smile going gentle. "Her delight is precisely as my own. And besides, it is not as if I expected that we should arrive to your home and you would entertain me, Lord Arum. I did not expect serenades."

Arum chokes a laugh, his tail curling behind him, and-

A thought.

"Not… not serenades, of course," Arum murmurs, and Damien's attention flicks back towards him, curious. "But- perhaps there is something that may interest you." He pauses, and after a moment Damien gestures for him to continue. "I do have a small library. Nothing particularly impressive, and the majority of my volumes will be unreadable to you, but- would you like- rather, I could show you. If you would like."

Damien stares at him for a moment, lips parted, and then he smiles and Arum bites down the rattle that wants to shake in his chest.

"That- yes, that would be- I would be delighted."

"Excellent," Arum says, and then he looks away, his eyes returning helplessly towards Amaryllis for a moment. "Though- she does not seem keen to be pulled away, just yet."

Damien's smile goes soft again, and he shakes his head. "Perhaps not. Just a moment, Arum."

Damien steps closer to his- to Amaryllis, leaning down to murmur something by her ear as she kneels by the flora, and she does not look up from the plant, though Arum sees her mouth move in response, and the focus on her face softens for only a moment when Damien leans the last inch closer to place a kiss at her temple before he straightens and returns to join Arum.

"I told her we would not be long," he explains, and then he makes a rather unnecessarily elegant gesture with his hand.

Rather trusting, Arum thinks, to be so willing to leave Amaryllis alone and unprotected in Arum's Keep. If they meant her harm-

"Right. Right, then." Arum clears his throat. "Keep, the scroll room, if you would?"

Damien watches the vines grow to create the portal with that same mixed trepidation and fascination, but he does not hesitate to step through after Arum, and his eyes widen slightly as he takes in the room.

Amaryllis would call it disorganized, certainly, but such chaos does not trouble Arum. As he said, his library is not impressive by any standards. Literature is not among his more passionate interests, but former Keep-Lords have certainly gathered enough over the Keep's long, long life to amass a decent collection.

"There- oh, so many of these look- positively ancient, Arum," Damien murmurs, lifting a hand but not daring to touch the case of one of the more rare scrolls.

"They are ancient," Arum drawls. "Most of them, anyway. I have added very little to the proceedings, so most of the texts predate my own lifespan. Hence the age. The Keep maintains the air in this space in such a way that it preserves the more delicate parchment. You may examine whatever you like on the shelf on the far wall, however. Those volumes are newer, more sturdy, and if I remember correctly there should be one or two that are written in the human script."

Damien looks bemused for a moment. "You have texts written by humans?"

"Information is information, honeysuckle," Arum says with a shrug, and Damien purses his lips in consideration before he nods, stepping towards the indicated shelf to peruse.

While he is so engrossed, Arum need not force himself to avert his gaze. Damien's focus is… intense. Distracting. It is difficult for Arum, to pull his eyes away. For the moment he does not bother.

"Ah-" Damien laughs very lightly. "It seems you already had a primer in human poetry before we met, Lord Arum," Damien says, running his fingers lightly across the spine of a book and slipping it from the shelf. "I know this poet. She wrote of the Saints, primarily."

Arum clenches his teeth, feeling his frill flutter. "There is little coherency to the collection, little songbird. I could not possibly say how such a work made its way into my hands." He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes at the book as Damien opens it and flips through. "I remember that one, yes." He sneers. "I should apologize, I think, that I cannot provide you more stimulating material to peruse."

"What?" Damien lifts his head. "What do you- mean?"

Arum shrugs, a little aggressively. "I am aware that my collection is limited, honeysuckle. I may have a collection of poetry or two, but I do not possess any volumes of the quality that our doctor shared with me."

"The- the quality?"

"The tome you are holding is rather dry by comparison, I should say," he inhales, hisses a breath, looks away, mutters, "it does not compare. It will not stick in your mind like … like…" he trails off, and- well. The words come almost too easily. "The paper of the lantern will not rise without the flame," he breathes, pretending not to feel his frill rising higher at his neck, "And so ascended I, alight and burning when you came." Arum pauses a long moment, then, feeling the odd way those words curl on his tongue, the way they make him feel, the sympathetic heat they kindle behind the cage of his ribs, and then he exhales again. "Yes. I do not think I shall forget those words, as I have forgotten so many of the dusty poems I have been storing here."

He pauses again, and Sir Damien does not speak. Arum notices, then, that the knight's heart is beating rather quickly, and when he looks to Damien again he presses the book tight against his chest, his lips parting in clear surprise.

"What?" Arum grumbles, thrown by the sudden intensity in Damien's expression, by the heavy tension he can taste on the air. "What, honeysuckle? I have already admitted that your species is… somewhat skilled, in such arts. I will not say so again."

"N-no, I- it is simply that- I- well, you- you read- you read-" he stammers off, losing words entirely for a long moment.

"I read nearly everything Amaryllis provided me in that little basket of hers. Why? What does it matter?" He projects a sneer. "Again, I already told you. Human poetry is not- it is not entirely disagreeable."

"But you read- you read my poe-"

Arum blinks, and stares down at Damien as the poet swallows his words, and Arum's stomach drops in something like panic.

"Those- that- those were… your words?"

"I, ah- yes, I-"

"She stuck them in the basket with the rest," Arum barks, tail thrashing. "She did not mention that- that they were- that they were private-"

"Not-" Damien bursts into a breath of uncomfortable laughter, and Arum barely resists an urge to either bolt from the room or- or to sway closer to the human, instead. "They are not private, not precisely, but- that was from a… a collection, verses written for my- for Rilla. Poetry that my flower inspired, with her brilliance and beauty."

Damien's dark cheeks are darker, now, flushed, and he is looking at the shelf of volumes, away from Arum, and Arum-

More words drift back to him. More phrases, warm and fond, enraptured- sensual, at times, and-

It is no wonder, then, that every line of verse on those pages reminded Arum of her. Of the pair of them. It is no wonder at all, that he had not even noticed Amaryllis enter the room as he read, because her presence was in the room before her, in the words themselves.

Unconsumed, enlightened, and by your heat unfurled

Together, hand in hand, we rose, and made more gold the world.

Arum clenches his own hands, his palms tingling. He should have known, that those words were meant for the love between these two humans. He thinks of their hands, intertwined with such ease. He things of the invitation of Amaryllis' palm, and her gentle invocation of we . He thinks of his little songbird, grasping unseeing in the night, how he settled when Arum took his hand in claws.

He feels what Damien penned. He feels himself a paper lantern. Fragile, and untethered, and close to burning.

"I… I should have… I should have known," He murmurs, and Damien glances towards him again. "Should have recognized your voice upon the page, I think."

"They- many were not-" he pauses, bites his lip, and smiles very cautiously. "You… you enjoyed them? Truly?"

Arum breathes a helpless laugh. "You are a beautiful poet, honeysuckle," he says, and when Damien flushes darker he- winces, glancing away. "Rather- I meant, of course, that your poetry is- not that-"

"It is… it is quite alright, Lord Arum," Damien says. "I thank you for the compliment."

Damien tucks the book of less relevant poetry back onto the shelf, his cheeks still dark as he scans his eyes across the various monster scripts, and Arum clenches his hands.

Beautiful, he thinks again, and there is something almost vicious about it.

"If there is nothing else here that interests you, honeysuckle, we should return to the greenhouse," he mutters.

Damien looks towards him, his eyes flicking oddly across Arum's face for a moment before he looks aside. "Yes," he says softly. "I suppose we should do our best to draw Rilla back to us from her newest puzzle."

Back to us.

He did not mean that.

Arum clenches his hands again, pushes the desire down inside of himself, and summons the way back to the greenhouse.

Arum leaves them briefly, before dinner, so they can finally change out of their travel clothes and scrub off the dust of the road in the Keep's large, strange washroom, and after Damien lowers a hand to help Rilla lift herself out from the large tub (or, perhaps, small indoor pond) made from one enormous waxy leaf, she keeps hold of his hand, pulling him in close so she can throw her arms around his shoulders.

"R-Rilla-"

"Just-" she squeezes him, pressing her face into his neck and sighing there. "One sec. Need- need something that feels normal and real just for- one second."

"Oh… oh Rilla," he strokes a hand down her braid, holding her in return, feeling her breathe softly against his skin. "You know I will always, always hold you, if you ask." He smiles very gently, a laugh in his tone as he continues, "If we were not required to bother ourselves with such mundanities as food and work and rest, I would never let you go."

"That too," she mumbles. "The talking, I mean."

"I suppose I speak at such length that my voice must be as familiar and ordinary as-"

"I love you, Damien," she murmurs, clinging more tightly. "Th-thank you."

Damien's breath catches, his center burning with the sweet shock of it, the way he is never quite used to hearing her say those words. He presses his lips to her hair, to her temple, and he rocks gently on his heels, swaying them together.

"I love you, Amaryllis. I am grateful that I could be at your side along this journey, as I wish to be for the rest of our lives."

"We got him home," she says, her tone a worrying waver.

"So we did," he answers gently. "You've done so much, my love. You saved him. Now all you need do is rest."

"No-" she shakes her head, pulling back slightly so she can meet his eye with a grimace. "No, I can't because I still- Damien, I thought we would get here and I would know what I should do, but- but he's home, we brought him home and he's safe and he's going to really, really heal and I still don't know what to-"

"Rilla…"

"And he thinks we're just desperate to get away from him, doesn't he? He'll let us stay the night and then- and then what, Damien? We just- leave and go back home and pretend like- like none of this happened? Pretend like I can go back to thinking about monsters the way I used to? Pretend I never- pretend that I'm not going to- to miss him, that I don't-"

She cuts off, inhales sharply, closes her eyes and clenches her teeth.

"Rilla," Damien murmurs, and he cups her cheek as she shudders out another breath. "It's alright."

"It's not-"

"It is, my love." Damien manages a smile when she opens her eyes again, scowling at him, and it feels bittersweet on his lips. "You said our feelings could not be part of this discussion until Arum was safe again. He is. He is safe, now, and I think you need to speak your own heart, my Rilla. I think you need to say it."

She stares at him, and fear looks so very strange on his beloved. He brushes his thumb across her cheek, his other hand resting at her waist, and he waits. He is more patient than his love; she may take however long she needs.

"I… Damien, I love him," she says. "I do, I love the way he always seems surprised when he laughs, I love his stupid sense of pride and the way he always gestures with his hands even if it hurts his wrist, I love how clever he is and how he cares so much even if he pretends not to, and I love the way he- he mutters in his sleep and- and when he actually smiles I just want to- to-"

"To take him in your arms," Damien murmurs, and Rilla laughs.

"Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And- and I don't know how I … I don't know how it happened, Damien, and I didn't- I didn't mean to, but- but I do." She looks down, looks away, wincing again. "I love him."

Damien cannot tear his eyes away from her. He would not be capable of the feat if this place collapsed around him entirely. She is-

Fear does not suit his beloved. Love, however, she wears with such beauty and ease that Damien can hardly breathe for the sight of it.

He lifts his other hand, cupping her face, rising to brush his lips over hers, as delicately as he is able.

"I know," he says. "I know, and I know how, as well. It is … rather obvious, in retrospect. You spent every day with him for months, my love. I am unsurprised that you would see the beauty in each other, that you would learn each other, know each other. You are… the both of you are so entirely brilliant, so clever and stubborn and lovely and fierce…"

Rilla exhales half a laugh. "Damien."

"You fell for him slowly, my darling flower. I told you- I believe you grew together. And I … well. I was not beside the both of you for all of that time. I was distant, in the beginning, both in truth and in feeling, and it took time for me to understand that when I looked at him, I saw… someone, rather than some thing. I imagined so much evil in him, and- I could laugh, now, at my stubbornness, the way I twisted him in my mind, to suit my expectations…" he trails off, shakes his head. "What I mean to say, Rilla, is that I was slower to join you, yes. I was slower to follow you, but-" he thinks his smile has gone sheepish, now. Not quite embarrassment, but the awareness of his own nature making him feel wry. "I think we both know that when I fall, it is a rather quick plunge, my love."

Her eyes flick between his own, not quite disbelieving. "You… you said, before, you said feelings, Damien, but- really?"

"Rilla… my darling, my forever-flower, I know that I told you I would- defer to your choices, that I would allow you to set the pace, allow you to choose what would remain said and what would remain unsaid, between the three of us." He swallows, drops his hands from her cheeks to her shoulders. "But- but I am not built to keep feelings within, my Rilla. Every time he looks at me- every time he smiles I feel the waves crashing within me- the damn has nearly broken so many times already- so many moments I looked at him and longed to say…"

He closes his eyes, feeling helpless and awash, but he inhales slowly and the emotion settles, still swelling large within him, but easier, now. Softer.

"He makes me feel… he makes me feel like you do, Rilla. I look at him… his eyes, so sharp and clever, his strong tail, his claws- his hands, so shockingly gentle …" he breathes something like a laugh. "Loving you, my Rilla, is always so overwhelming. Merely being in your presence is enough to make my heart swell, and race, and beg, and your absence causes me such aching that I feel I could die from it. Already I felt so deeply- so powerfully-" He pauses, laughs again. "I felt so full of love … how could I possibly have anticipated that I was capable of further depth of feeling? My heart, full to bursting already- I did not realize that my heart is not a cup, is not some fragile thing wherein I hold my love for you, that jitters and sloshes when I am overwhelmed, when I falter in my tranquility and take, again, to thrashing. Rilla, my heart is not a cup, it does not merely hold. My heart is a spring, is a source, is ever-flowing, without limit. I love you, my Amaryllis, my flower. I love you forever."

Rilla stares, her cheeks flushed dark, her eyes shining. "And you love him, too."

"I do," he says, gentle and certain.

"And he…" she inhales, exhales, and her brow furrows. "I know he feels something for us, too," she says quietly. "I can't say for sure that it's- it's that, but I know he feels something. I didn't want to think about it, I didn't want to make it all even more complicated, but- but I'm not stupid and- and honestly he's not exactly subtle."

Damien laughs, in surprise more than humor. "That, he is not," he says, and then he pulls his lip into a wry smile. "Rilla… I will still hold my tongue, if you truly think it is best, but … I think- I think, my love, that we could find a way, if we tried. That we could all, perhaps, be happy. That we could have what we wanted." He pauses, bites his lip. "What… what, exactly, do you want, my Rilla? I know how you feel, but what do you want?"

"I…" she laughs, presses a hand over her mouth. "I want- I don't want him out of our lives, at least. I don't want- I can't stand the thought that we'll leave tomorrow and never see him again, I just can't-"

"Rilla, my heart… I did not ask what you are afraid of." He strokes a hand across her hair, soft, soothing. "Please. Tell me what you want."

"I want… I want to know," she admits, leaning into his arms. "I do. I want to know if he feels the same. If- if he loves us too. And-" she laughs, "and I want to kiss him, if he'll let me."

"Yes," Damien says through his own laughter. "Quite." He tightens his embrace for a moment, crowding close against Rilla until she laughs again. "I suppose it is good to know that we feel the same in that, as well."

[->]

#elle's fanfic #scattered on my shore #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #lizard kissin' tuesday #rad bouquet #lord arum #amaryllis of exile #sir damien #the keep #i'm SWEATIN #ARGHHHHHH

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weakeninghope · 5 years

Text

Bliss

Pairing: Joseph Joestar/Caesar A. Zeppeli

Rating: Teen

AO3 link here

Summary: His head was full of thoughts of how badly he wanted to be with his boyfriend. Because despite Joseph ignoring the movie and snoring loudly on Caesar’s shoulder or the brunet’s obnoxious comments, the physical contact was always nice; subtle and gentle touches, warm embraces, shared silences, the steady sound of the other’s breathing… it all reminded him that Joseph was there and that they were together even after two years.

Notes: Hello! I'm back! This is terribly late (I haven't missed the deadline, since in my timezone it's the 25th and the deadline was until the 26th, but I wanted to post this earlier) because I struggled with terrible anxiety and writer's block. I wrote a fic and ended up dismissing it because I thought it was complete garbage, so I tried to cool myself a bit and wrote this instead. It's not the best I've written but I hope you all enjoy it (specially my giftee!)

This is the @jjba-secret-santa for @nurseabbacchio! I really, really hope I at least got to make you smile with this <3Happy holidays y'all!PD: please remember that I'm not a native (I'm from Spain) so there might be some mistakes here and there.As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated <3 tumblr: weakeninghope twitter: Shirotxpoison

btw i have some pending requests I’m working on! please be patient, my anxiety sometimes doesn’t allow me to write ;_;

fic under the cut!

“Caesar, can’t we just watch a movie and cuddle on the couch?” Joseph asked tiredly from his desk. Caesar giggled from his spot on the couch and settled his book aside to turn to stare at Joseph. His green gaze settled on Joseph’s turquoise one.

Two years living together and Joseph still behaved as a little puppy. They found themselves in this situation almost every night; Joseph came home from work, ate rushedly, barely talking to Caesar, and after that he had to get busy with overdue paperwork. While Caesar’s the first one that would outright enjoy a movie with his boyfriend (well, depending on the movie though, Joseph had the absurd habit of commenting everything on screen) he knew that Joseph had to finish the paperwork first of all things.

“You would fall asleep on me like you do eighty per cent of the times you suggest to watch a movie. That, or you won’t let me hear the movie with your stupid comments.” Caesar responded, stare fixated on Joseph. Caesar had to say that he felt, deep down, a bit bad for Joseph; he had prominent bags under his eyes and looked genuinely tired, and, after all, he’d missed him too. But work comes first.

“Oh, come on! You love spending time with me.” Joseph replied, knowing that he was, indeed, right. Since they were both busy with their respectives jobs they didn’t get to spend much time together.

“Whatever. Finish your paperwork and then come here if you want.” Caesar said; or maybe he should have punctualized “here, or to bed” since it was already kinda late and Caesar was, after all, an early riser, even when he wasn’t on morning shift.

“Okay…” Joseph grunted tiredly. And with that, he put himself back to work.. Caesar grabbed his book again and proceeded to read again.

Well, he tried.

His head was full of thoughts of how badly he wanted to be with his boyfriend. Because despite Joseph ignoring the movie and snoring loudly on Caesar’s shoulder or the brunet’s obnoxious comments, the physical contact was always nice; subtle and gentle touches, warm embraces, shared silences, the steady sound of the other’s breathing… it all reminded him that Joseph was there and that they were together even after two years. Caesar was really insecure and tended to think that everyone would leave him in the end; his father leaving when he was younger really helped him develop some interesting abandonment issues, and since that point he’d completely rejected commitment and love. He started having flings with people from his work at the bar, one night stands, anything to let him forget the kind of life he was leading. Until this dumbass called Joseph Joestar came to his life two years ago, when Caesar accidentally dropped his drink on his stack of papers, and they got into an argument because who the hell brings important paperwork to a bar at 2AM.

Since that day Joseph started coming everyday to the bar looking for Caesar claiming a free beverage for the “harm” Caesar cause him. Heated arguments turned into makeout sessions, makeout sessions turned to sex and sex turned to attachment; when he wanted to realize it, Caesar had already fallen in love. He even went to Joseph’s workplace one day to wait for him so they could go to a proper date instead of making out in the bathroom of the bar.

Caesar turned one page of his book and decided that he’d had enough, he’d go to bed and, fortunately, when he woke up, Joseph would be there, because the dumbass loved to sleep in. When he stood up from the couch, he spotted a sleeping Joseph on the desk.

His drool was leaking from his mouth and he was snoring quietly, he must had been exhausted. A fond smile crept up Caesar’s lips, and the blond brought a hand to Joseph’s hair to comb it slightly. He leant down and pressed his lips to Joseph’s forehead.

“You missed.” He hears Joseph whisper, and he suddenly lifted his head and pressed his lips to Caesar’s.

The kiss was chaste; probably because Joseph didn’t have the energy to do more, but it was warm and pleasant and was everything Caesar’s wished for; two years together and he couldn’t get enough of the other’s kisses. With that kiss, Caesar decided that Joseph’s paperwork can go fuck itself and helped Joseph out of his chair.

“I think you need a rest. You can work tomorrow.” Caesar said gently, he hoped the other didn’t notice, but he had an endearingly fond smile in his lips; the sight of a half-asleep Joseph almost sprawled out on him had him feeling that he was the luckiest man on the Earth.

Joseph supported his weight on Caesar’s shoulders. “I’d ask you to carry me bridal style to the bedroom, but we both know how this ended the last time.” Joseph giggled, remembering them both falling on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs; laughing and kissing each other without another care in the world. Together. Happy.

“Yeah right. Let’s go to sleep, you sleeping beauty.” Caesar countered, taking a few steps to the bedroom.

Once they were there, Joseph flopped down the bed and turned around to face Caesar.

“Caesar.” He called out.

“Hmmm?” Caesar hummed facing Joseph. They were really close, and he could map with his eyes the perfect shape of Joseph’s eyebrows, the curve of his lips, the shining turquoise of his half-lidded eyes. Every single feature for which he fell for two years ago. Every single feature he loves with his whole heart today, and every single feature he will continue to love in the future. Forever.

“I’m the luckiest man on Earth. I really, really love you.” He whispered against Caesar’s lips.

Caesar smiled and brought his arms around Joseph to hug his frame.

That’s my line he thought, you’re too sappy to be true he thought he should say. But in the end, he settled for

“I love you, too.”

#mywriting #bloss writes #caejose #jjba #jjba secret santa 2019 #jjba secret santa #joseph joestar #caesar anthonio zeppeli

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shadowedoracle · 5 years

Text

An Unconventional Gift

Happy Rumbelle Christmas in July! This is my RCIJ gift for the lovely @moonlight91. I’m sorry you had to put up with me and my poor communication when my life and health overtook me in the last month. Also I’m sorry I drifted over into the next day -- I’ve no idea what timezone you’re in but I’m sure it’s well in Sunday wherever you are.

I hope you enjoy your gift. This what happens when I come up with a new idea so you have a complete gift and write it all at the last minute. I enjoyed working on it even if it wasn’t my initial idea and is perhaps quite different to what you were expecting from your prompt. I’m planning on posting my initial idea too at some point so if you have any interest in seeing that I’ll hopefully post the prologue and first chapter soon.

Summary: Rumple brings a baby back to the Dark Castle.

Enchanted Forest AU and canon-divergent.

Prompt: Fairytale Murder

Rating: G

Notes: Fluffy and but also angsty because that’s what apparently happens when I decide to try to write fluff.

Also because I decided to write this new idea at totally the last minute please let me know if you see any typos because I haven’t obsessively been through this as many times as I normally would before posting.

Warnings: Depression (not in any real depth or detail but it is there).

[AO3]

“And then I reached into her chest and do you want to know what happened next?”

There was a high pitched giggle that was answered by a happy little burble.

“Do you? Yes of course you do.” The high voice trilled. “You’re going to be the baddest and most evil of sorcerers when you grow up.” A scaled green-grey scaled hand reached into a carry basket and tickled light haired baby’s stomach. “Yes, you are. You are, you are.” An excited shriek echoed through the large hall.

Rumplestiltskin grinned at the baby. “Yes. You are and I’ll teach you all there is to know. It’s actually quite simple. You see, little one, the thing you have to remember is people turn to me in times of need, out of desperation, for things they can or won’t do for themselves. It’s amazing what people will ask an evil sorcerer to do for them. You just have to know how to extract the right price for your services. You will want to remember that for yourself later.”

The baby stared back at the sorcerer solemnly, then gave a little twitch of her head which, if you squinted at it carefully enough, you could just about interpret as a nod. The sorcerer’s grin widened and was answered by a small, almost wry, quirk of the lips from the baby. Could babies have a wry sense of humour?

Then again this one seemed to be one of those children who was born an adult in all but body. Her intense blue eyes gleamed with intelligence as if she was in fact taking copious mental notes. If she could have held a pen she surely would have been taking actual notes. She would surely grow up to be a scholar of great renown. Or would have if she had been born into a world that readily allowed women to become scholars.

The sorcerer, snorted to himself, that was of course, a stupid a narrow minded view. Not that he expected anything less from the fools of this land any more. He’d been alive for centuries and how much had changed? Precious little. Women, rich and poor still, died in childbirth and far too many infants never lived to adulthood. The lands were still mostly ruled by the same noble families, mostly by men (although there were notable exceptions), the poor were still expected to give their lives in the battles the noble families fought between each other and occasionally existential threats such as ogres.

Which really reinforced to him how little had changed -- they were still fighting ogres wars of all things. He had always believed when he had been called up to fight them that they would finally have stopped the ogres in their tracks once and for all. Of course he’d been a naive fool back then and now understood something of the harsh barrenness of many of the ogres’ lands and the complicated nature of ogre politics. They weren’t nice and fluffy creatures (then again neither was he) but they weren’t all the rampaging senseless villains most humans believed them to be.

Well all humans he’d ever met in fact except perhaps the one living in his castle. He didn’t think he’d met another person in his life who so much as considered that perhaps not all ogres were monsters. Some would have mistaken such compassion for softness but then only one who had never clashed minds with Belle would have ever have thought her soft. She was gentle in many ways but soft implied that she was weak and malleable and his Belle was neither of those things.

She also wasn’t his Belle. She might have come with him as part of a deal and have been his maid (although with the all the Castle’s self-cleaning spells and other spells to provide food and drink she was barely even that at times) but she most certainly wasn’t his in the way he sometimes wished she could be. She would never look at him that way. If he was a better man he could have released her from her deal with him and let her go out into the world and find the happiness she deserved. But he was still a monster, a selfish one at that, and he couldn’t bear to lose the light she had brought back into his life.

He knew one day he would find his son but that seemed a long way off most days. Before her there had been so many times when he wouldn’t rise from his bed for weeks when the despair over the loss of Baelfire consumed him. But with Belle here even the darkest days were easier. Having someone who would smile at him and even if she was not able to fix his problems somehow made those days less unrelentingly terrible.

She also would not allow him to mope and feel sorry for himself for too long. The first time he had fallen into one of his dark spells after she’d arrived and holed himself up in his chambers, she had waited three days before hammering on his door and then barging her way into his inner sanctum when he didn’t respond. He supposed he could have used magic to lock his door but he’d been so startled it hadn’t ever occurred to him. He’d never bothered with any locks, magical or otherwise until he given her her own suite of rooms and wanted to make sure she’d feel safe from anyone, including him.

Even that first time Belle hadn’t asked him any questions and just taken one look at his pathetic form and walked out. He’d assumed that she wouldn’t be back -- who would after looking at his matted and wild hair, his crumpled night shirt and his twisted bedsheets from his nightmares? He sincerely wished the legend that the Dark One didn’t need sleep was in fact correct when the nightmares over took him. But his little maid had surprised him. She’d returned less than five minutes later with a glass of water and a book. She’d placed the water on his bedside and after looking around his room and discovering that he had no chairs in the room sat down beside him on his bed and began to read to him.

He supposed if he were a better man he would have summoned a chair for her but he wasn’t one. If this was to be the only way he would ever have Belle in his bed he would not pass up the opportunity. So he had lain there entranced by the sound of Belle’s voice and the tale of the hero Gideon. She had read to him for hours and while the heavy feeling in his heart and his limbs was still there somehow it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been before.

Hours later she laid down the book looked him in the eyes. She had smiled somewhat sadly at him and he felt a stab of guilt at idea he someone made his little Belle feel sad. But before he could apologize and grovel for her forgiveness, she had stood up an informed him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t think he’d eaten in at least three days (he hadn’t but hadn’t really noticed) and that she expected him downstairs for dinner. Since he could think of no way to reply to that or how to argue with the fierce and stubborn creature that was his maid he’d acquiesced.

Ever since then whenever he’d have one of his episodes she’d come to his room and read, sometimes out loud to him and other times silently to herself. Either way she would always sit next to him keeping him company. Sometimes she’d absent-mindedly reach out and stroke his hair and it was all he could do not to purr. He would have liked it if she touched him like that out of true affection and not pity but he couldn’t stop in taking comfort from them. They were a soothing balm for his ancient dark and misshapen soul.

She never asked him any questions during those times -- which was a good thing as he didn’t trust himself to answer them without soaking her shoulder in tears. She simply was there and all she seemed to expect was that he managed to magic himself from bed at least once a day to appear for a meal that she’d make with her own rudimentary cooking skills. Some of the concoctions she’d laid in front of him tasted truly terrible he had to admit. But the idea that she cared about him enough to try to make him a chocolate cake was to him a far sweeter gift than her simply instructing the castle to make one for her (and not just because she’d gotten the salt and sugar confused).

No his little maid was kind and compassionate towards him and he had found himself slowly opening himself up to her in a way he hadn’t to anyone ever before. Not even with Milah. Belle might have just been his maid and gradually becoming, dare he hope a friendly companion? He couldn’t hope to yet have met the bar for a friend yet but she was a constant in his life that even a year ago he never would have believed possible. Now he was about to change both their lives. He just hoped that she would be pleased and not mad at him about it. Maybe he ought to have consulted her first?

A loud wailing broke though his reverie. He looked back to the baby and took in the red screwed up little face.

“Hush now. Little one. Hush. What’s wrong now? I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

He reached into the basket and stroked her cheek. She took a big breath and for a moment it seemed like that was all that would be needed to calm her. But then she let out an even louder cry and it seemed that that hope would be in vain. He sighed and took the tiny little one into his arms, sniffing her slightly as he did so. That wasn’t the issue it seemed.

She was lighter than Bae had ever been to hold even though he thought from some of the other signs that she must be at least a month or two old by now. Of course he hadn’t arrived home until weeks after Bae’s birth but he was certain Bae had never been this tiny even as a newborn. His anger stirred as he felt how thin the babe was in his arms.

A quick thought later and a leather bottle appeared in his hand and he shifted the baby in his arms slightly and tilted the bottle so that the teat was in front of its mouth. He hoped that the nipple shaped object in front of it would be enough for the babe to work the rest out but apparently he had slightly over-estimated its intelligence at this stage at least. He shook head, amused at his own stupidity and gently opened the baby’s mouth and placed the bottle’s nipple inside. For a moment she seemed confused but then she gave an experimental little twitch of her mouth and her whole being seemed to relax as she began to drink more enthusiastically.

“That’s it. Drink up little one. There’s more where that came from. Infinitely more, in fact. Now I should go back to telling you your story where was I? I was telling you about how I murdered that women who wanted to harm you. Yes? Now I had dispatched the first two and the final was one was choking on my magic when I reached into her chest and I out her heart.”

There was a crash from behind him and the large doors to the Great Hall flew open and Belle came rushing into the room.

“Rumplestiltskin, I didn’t realize you were back already. Do you want your tea now or later? And what was that noise just now? I could have sworn I heard a baby crying but...”

She trailed off as the sorcerer turned towards her and she caught sight of the small bundle in his arms. His generally soft and good natured maid’s countenance took on a much sterner and frosty appearance as she glared at him.

“And where, pray tell, did that come from?” She tapped the heel of her foot against the floor while he tried to remember how to make his mouth work.

“It’s not what you think, Belle.”

“And what precisely is it that you think I think?” Her stony expression almost made him cringe before he reminded himself sternly that he was the Dark One and he did not cringe to before his maid no matter how much her liked her or how sharply he could feel the points of the her stare piercing into his skin.

“Well… You probably think I broke my promise I made to you after that whole, er, um, incident with Jack and Jill’s baby. But I didn’t. I swear.”

“Then where exactly did it come from? It didn’t just appear out of thin air.”

He gave a nervous little giggle, “No, no, of course not my dear… I mean, dearie. I was getting to that. You see there was this village that called on me to help it deal with a problem it was having. The town’s babies had all gone missing from their cribs overnight. Their parents woke up pleased at first with a good night’s rest because of not having been awakened in the night to discover they had all gone. So I was called by some of the parents to help them find their children.”

“For a price.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well of course for a price. The Dark One doesn’t do anything for free and he most certainly does not do good deeds. But you needn’t worry about the price, it was just some gold the families offered up. Nothing more, er, exotic, this time.”

“Then how did you get her”, a quick nod of that beautiful head towards the bundle in its arms, “if not as the price?”

“I’m getting to that bit. Now I can see you’re not in the mood for the clever little bit of magic I did to find the children right now. But it was a particularly good piece of magic to find them so quickly, if I do say so myself.”

His maid didn’t look the least bit impressed with that.

He swallowed hard. “Right. Anyway, so I tracked the children to a cave in the middle of the Infinite Forest. A trio of those gnats who call themselves ‘Fairy Godmothers’ had taken them in the hopes of using their blood to enhance their powers. They weren’t the first ones, just the first time they’d branched out to taking a whole village. Which was foolish if they’d hoped to go unnoticed but it seems from what I found there they’d done enough experiments to ascertain that this would likely have worked. Well… I’m dark but I’m not like that.

“I dealt with the fairies then returned the rest to their homes but this one was well left over, nobody claimed her or even knew whose she was. I tried to track her parents with magic but there was no trace of them. There’s only one reason for those that particular spell to fail -- if they’re dead. So she’s an orphan, see.”

Belle’s face had softened during his explanation and while she still looked serious she looked more like her usual self. He became aware that the sucking on the bottle had stopped too. He removed the bottle from the girl’s lips and vanished the bottle.

“And so what are you planning on doing with her now?”

He gulped and stared down at baby to give himself courage.

“Well it seems that she needs a home.” He glanced back up at Belle but she seemed to be more focused on the baby in his arms. That was good. Maybe she wouldn’t be too mad about this after all.

“And well, I was, er, wondering if you wanted her.”

Belle’s eyes snapped back up to his face. She looked at him, startled.

“Me?”

He suddenly wondered if perhaps this was a bad idea and that maybe he should have asked her whether she wanted a child before bringing one back for her. She’d never wanted her marriage to Gaston perhaps she hadn’t wanted children either. It would hurt to give this child up if she didn’t want her. In less than a day he’d become rather fond of the little one. But he could hardly keep her if Belle didn’t want her, he wasn’t a fit and proper person for such a task on his own.

“Well… That is if you, um… If you want to of course. It’s just you seemed quite fond of that one baby but gave up on marriage and all that life to come here with me. We agreed that I wasn’t to take any as part of deals any more but I thought this might be, um, a mutually agreeable way for you to get that chance.”

“Rumple...”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to.” He hurried to add. “I’m very good at finding homes for babies.”

“Rumple...”

“I have experience doing it.”

“Rumple!”

“And I wouldn’t hold it against you in the least...”

“Rumplestiltskin! Will you let me get a word in?”

“Oh, right of course.” He swallowed hard of over the dryness of his throat and unconsciously ran a finger over the forehead of the baby.

Belle smiled at him slightly and took a few steps closer to him and the baby.

“Are you sure about this?” She reached out a hand towards him but stopped just short of touching the baby.

“Yes, yes of course.”

“You won’t mind a child running around the place all the time?”

“Why I mind that? Would I have suggested this idea, if I didn’t mean it?”

She shrugged. “You might not have fully thought this through.”

Well he hadn’t but that didn’t mean he was going to regret it if she wanted this.

“Does she have a name?” Her hand grazed the baby’s head as she said it.

“Does that mean you want to keep her?”

She smiled softly her gaze now fully on the baby. “Yes. Yes I want to raise this child with you Rumple.”

He opened his mouth but no sound came out. When she phrased it like that it made it sound like she would be letting him do more help her out every so often. Almost like she would let him help parent the child, almost like they were a couple. He was sure she didn’t meant the latter but perhaps this meant she viewed him as a friend of sorts now? He felt a dampness that felt suspiciously like tears begin to well up in the corner of his eyes. She held out her arms to him and he wordlessly transferred the baby into her waiting arms.

“Why, hello little one.” She smiled one of the most radiant smiles he’d ever seen down at the babe in her arms and she was answered with small little smile. “You’re beautiful aren’t you? What’s your name? Rumple, you didn’t tell me if she had a name yet.”

He didn’t think he could reply, he wasn’t sure he’d seen a more beautiful sight since he’d lost Bae. He swallowed a few times to force the emotions he was feeling down enough so he could answer Belle’s question.

“Yes… Well at least I assume it’s hers it might not be I guess. It was sewn into the blanket I found her in but I suppose that blanket could have belonged to another child first…”

She nodded, “Well let’s assume that it was probably her name then unless it’s truly dreadful.”

He shook his head, “it’s Alice.”

“Alice? That’s a good name. I think it suits her don’t you think?”

He nodded the sight of Belle cooing down at the baby was too much for him to trust himself with words right now.

“Well. Then I guess we’ll have to make a place for you to live, little Alice. We didn’t have much time to prepare but let’s see what the castle can rummage up for us shall we?”

He cleared his throat, “I um, might have taken the liberty of preparing the room next to yours as a nursery. At least until you decide how you want to decorate it of course.”

She smiled at him. “Well let’s start there shall we Alice?”

As she reached the doorway she turned and looked back at him and said, “Oh and Rumple, just so you know, this wasn’t the only way I could have had a child and remained faithful to our deal.”

He nodded wondering what her point was. He supposed she could have found herself some young man in town to get her with child. It didn’t quite seem Belle’s style somehow but perhaps he’d been wrong. She rolled her eyes slightly and he watched the slight crinkles form at the sides of them as smiled at him.

“Just the next time you decide you want to raise a child with me Rumple, perhaps consult me first? We could try the traditional route of acquiring one. I hear it’s a lot of fun.”

And with that she breezed out of the room while he stood gaping after her.

#Rumbelle Christmas in July #Moonlight91 #Rumbelle Christmas in July 2019 #RCIJ #RCIJ 2019 #OUAT #OUAT Fan Fiction #Rumplestiltskin #Enchanted Forest Belle #Rumbelle #Rumbelle Fan Fiction #Alice #My Fan Fiction #Fic: An Unconventional Gift

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scummy-writes · 7 years

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This blog is only going to be used to post personal fic updates from a much more controlled environment, AO3, and nothing else.

This post has been set to queue post two more times for timezones and then no more after that.

Explanation under the readmore:

This is to the shock of absolutely no one, but I can’t do this anymore.

A lot of you guys have stuck here with me from the beginning, and, unfortunately, got to learn about personal stuff I never intended to share. Some of that came around in discussions, of some events that happened, or back towards the beginning of the year that severely impacted me and still does to this day.

Back before I made this blog, a few months before I had started playing MM. I loved it, thought it was great for an otome, and fell in love with all of the characters. Like a lot of people, I ran into the game when I wasn’t doing too well. Things at home were horrible, I had no job, I had recently gotten out of something life altering and was still struggling with myself. This game helped me out, sparked my creative flow again (I think the last time I had published something that wasn't for a friend was a good four years ago), and inspired me to write and share what I had written.

Then, when my stories got an incredibly large amount of hits, and I saw HC blogs circling around, I made one. This one.

I made it to share stories, ideas, and small headcanons- To share positivity, and maybe a bit of fictional angst. For a couple of months, things were going well. A got such sweet followers, I had great support- But then I brought back a fic people had wanted, originally taken down due to me unable to plan a decent plot, and harassment began.

And, well, a lot of you have been around for that whole debacle.

Then. Just more issues started coming up. Instead of this blog being fun, being something I was so glad that it was making people happy, things just went downhill. Constant negative messages/comments, constant drama- I just shrugged it off for the most part, but then I realized that most of this drama, most of what is starting to wear me down, is just because I didn’t write a character how one person wanted me to.

Just because I apparently wrote a character ooc, for two fics, apparently warranted harassment spanning over months– Like literally absolutely fucking months. Do you know when it started for me? March. February for others. But hey, everyone’s seen this, right? God knows I’ve reblogged it countless times hoping the fucking hateful anons would stop coming in. Except They. Kept Coming. Over and Over Again. I even took a fucking hiatus and stopped writing the fic this person couldn’t stop obsessively hate-reading only to immediately get shit on again.

I’ve had my mental Illness, PTSD, and overly traumatic and sexually abusive events in my life degraded, along with many of my friends and now victims of this who did absolutely nothing wrong, while friends and I were being told we weren’t ‘thinking of the abuse victims’ when being confronted about liking a FICTIONAL CHARACTER, Jumin, who was being deemed abusive by this ‘anon’ . My illnesses and abuse history that I had mentioned before and even directly to this person’s messages.

I’ve had the harassment that my friends and I have went through be deemed to be nothing because “Well this user always likes my posts”, “This user sends me a nice message sometimes”, while those same people ignored the posts of the user even completely opening up and admitting to what the fuck they’ve done.

You connect all this with some personal issues of mine- The issues surrounding my mother’s attempt, the strain with my family, and my own personal mental health namely- and, well. It’s hard to view this blog positively anymore.

I’m just not happy anymore. Namely, my current emotions are probably connected to another depressive episode, but even before today- It’s just been hard.

I made this blog to have fun- Because people enjoyed my stories, enjoyed my headcanons- And now due to all this drama and harrassment I just feel disgusting.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, honestly. I never made this blog to be constantly harassed because some dipshit couldn’t ignore my fanfic, couldn’t block my blog and ignore me, couldn’t just move the absolute fuck on with their life instead of spending nearly a whole year attempting to stalk me, attempting to harass me for every little asinine thing. Of course this had a strain on my writing- I after the haitus I just could barely put out HC’s anymore. I kept saving drafts, getting stressed to fuck and back because I didn’t know if a typo was going to cause me to be blasted with insults to my writing and life, I didn’t know if I expressed Zen having insecurities was going to send another flood of anons like I had received many times before. You think all the messages in the Call Out are bad? All the ones that weren’t in it and I didn’t link in this post? What about all the ones you all didn’t see because I deleted them before I even let myself think about them, because I had no energy just to put up bullshit because all I ever, ever, fucking did was write a Fictional Fucking Character a little fucking different from canon.

And that’s not all- There’s a support group in a discord server my friend set up because I’m not the only person this dipshit has gone after. There’s at least ten god damned people that we know of getting this same treatment- and there’s probably so so so SO many more that are probably feeling the same emotions I did. And FUCK, friends of us are even feeling drained because it’s absolutely sickening that we’re being harassed for liking a genuine love interest in a fucking mobile otome game. In a VIDEO GAME.

You know what I did? I went back into fucking therapy because of all this, because my major depression and anxiety kicked into full gear because I was sharing my writing, something that I made, something that meant so much to me because for once I wasn’t being mocked or laughed at when I wanted to be creative. The harassment got to me so fucking badly I had to go to therapy again.

I’m so blown away by how all this shit I’m dealing with is because someone just couldn’t ignore my blog/ao3 stories. That they think harassment is excusable because I won’t write or stop writing what they want me to.

So now, characters I used to help me cope with a very serious issue of mine, just make me feel empty. My coping mechanisms are failing, and running this blog isn’t becoming worth it anymore, not if I’m even going to be bitched at for trying to show lesser known artists to some newcomer in the fandom.

So. I don’t know. That’s why I hardly post anymore. I feel disgusting and empty, for a game that I used as a coping mechanism. Instead of it making me happy, all this drama and this god damned person just makes me regret even writing in the first place.

So no more hc posts. My writing has declined, we all know it, god knows it won’t stop being pointed out to me, and I shot myself in the foot doing character limits. My Hc posts went from getting so many sweet comments to one once in a blue moon, the majority of the comments I receive on here about my HC’s are just a constant stream of hatred, and I just cannot fucking do this.

I just wanted to have fun.

you guys can find me on my twitter (@Mm_Scummy) and my AO3 (Scummy). I’m not posting anything else to this blog unless it’s fic updates, and even that I’m debating on. I’m just keeping this blog up to keep what writings I did enjoy up, and just because I can’t bring myself to delete anything where I did get support.

If this post makes you angry, or makes you upset that it’s came done to this:

SUPPORT CONTENT CREATORS. Don’t sit around and let them be harassed!! I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it felt when I would get a message from a random follower just seeing if I was okay. Just saying that they hoped I felt better, or just sending heart emojis. Every little bit of support means so, so, SO much to content creators after they’ve been outright harassed or taken advantage of, because it shows that you care.

REBLOG THESE POSTS:

- THIS one because the word needs to be spread that content creators do not owe you anything.

- And THIS one because the user that keeps harassing me and so many people, so many that we may never know who all they have harassed, uses the Anonymous tool on every single platform they can to hurt people, and she is NOT above making new accounts to continue her harassment over and over again. Because god knows we have blocked her account and have never, ever, fucking unblocked it and she STILL didn’t get the most obvious hint that what she is doing is absolutely, undeniably fucking disgusting and in no way excusable.

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msu82 · 7 years

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Lazarus (Chapter 1)

So with 5 minutes left in my timezone, I am posting for “Time Travel Tuesday” that was started up by (I believe) @aerefyr and @poplitealqueen. I’m also tagging @prfury, @markwatnae, @sanerontheinside, @kunoichi-ume

This is the first in many chapters to come, because the plan as of right now is to turn this premise into a series of stories.

And now, I shall prevent you with... Xanatos du Crion, faced with time-travel. ...Even if time-travel doesn’t actually happen in this chapter. Technically, anyway.

On Ao3 | On FF.net

Chapter 1 (+Preface)

The first thing he saw was the outside of his own body. Of all the things he had seen in his two-point-five decades of life? Oh, yes, the instant of seeing his own body—burned, scared, and hooked up to machines while left soaking limply in a bacta tank—was by the far one of the most tilting things he had ever been witness to. Entombed by the maintaining of life. He had no idea that this was the beginning of something that would seem utterly endless. This was the beginning of his end. He did not yet know it, but he would see many of those. There would be so many beginnings, and ends, and beginnings of ends, and ends of beginnings. This moment was to be the last of a linear time that he was to be sure of for a very, very long time.... Or, perhaps, not too long of a time at all.

He can't remember when he last breathed. It had been so long ago now and there seemed no end to it at all. His heart beat and his lungs worked (he'd be no longer of this limbo if they didn't, after all) but he was not living. He was caught in an endless purgatory not being alive, yet also of not dissolving into the Force. He had wronged many in life, and after his task of attempting to take his own life, he had been quickly found by a handful of those he'd wronged and they'd trapped his body. They trapped his body to try and heal it in hopes that, one day, he would awaken and be forced to meet legal justice for his acts of crime in his figuratively short lifetime.

Thinking himself a ghost hadn't been so hard when he figured out he was unable to be seen by the living. It was when he started seeing glowing, humanoid, blue figures on occasion (ones he could never identify for sure, their features obscured just enough by this invisible barrier of different) that he discovered he was a ghost among ghosts as well.

Thus, he was trapped as an between. He was left unable to be seen by either end of the spectrum, for he was just a broken down to energy tied to the awakened and living world. He was of both, yet neither. He was a nothing among the infinite.

He was tethered in endlessness.

Though be he tethered, he was somehow not trapped like those black-and-red, aggressive entities of malformed spirits he had passed in many dark temples. He was able to explore the galaxy. To see time during and after his lifetime, but for some reason never before.

He had seen moments tragically great and horribly agonizing.

He had gone back and relived many things that both weren't and were his to experience.

At first, it did nothing to him. There was a ping of something there in his figurative heart, a rush of things on other occasions ins his emotions that stubbornly refused to be acknowledge, but after witnessing the end of another instant from yet another countless person's experience of it? He had no choice at all, but it was instinctive and utterly unavoidable:

He had reflected on himself.

He hated what he found, and mourned what he didn't find despite how hard he searched.

The boy screams and curses the universe while weeping for forgiveness. He knows not what he is, and he hates who he was, and doesn't even like what he had been before that.

It is all mixing together in a confusing cacophony.

It is a booming loudness with an even more piercing silence.

Its volume is evergrowing.

This and the thickness of his entrapment is all he has to sustain himself. All he has to choke on.

The only things that remind him that, though he seems to have no existence, that there is still something left of himself.

It is only these endlessly thickening sorrows that he has to force into his figurative lungs. To nudge him both towards and away from being lost in the insanity of everything.

Of pains and griefs that both had and hadn't been created by him, and a lot of them were by him, as indirect as some were.

He chokes on more of that odd thickness as the endlessness continued on. And in all this endlessness, he still finds it impossible to recall the last time he was able to breathe.

Was it when he was born? Was it his sister's birth, where their mother breathed her last? Perhaps his breathing stopped when his father began to beat him, drunken sorrows and intoxicated declarations that his son would grow into a perfect man.

It could have stop when his father smacked him across the face, alone in a room, when he was barely eight-years old and forcing him abandon his life to head to the Jedi Order. To make him pretend he wanted to go.

At least the man—tall, imposing, hair long and dark—similar to his father but with kindness and softness, had been the one to take him away.

That he hadn't minded.

The kindness had been a small happiness.

Until he'd realized the man couldn't save his sister too.

He thinks his breathing must have stopped around then, though he is unsure. One thing he is sure of, however, is that it was that it was in that moment when anger had started grow.

The anger, hate, and the darkness within him and grown and festered until the weeds strangled his very soul out from the Garden of the Light within him. He felt betrayed by those whom he loved (destinies of being taken into death by murder and justice yet unknown), and in response he had turned on the ones who actively loved him. He turned on the man as he saw for the reason for all of his pain, small happiness he had caused forgotten, yet still it was this man who loved him with pure, unconditional feelings.

It was that man he had broken.

A man who had been more of a father in six years than what his birth-father had been in eight years. He turned on the Jedi Order, for they had caused his pain as well. Sending him for his Knight Trials by intending for him to bring justice upon his own father? Forcing him into a scenario where he would have to watch his little sister and his only living parent die?

“The Jedi of this era were never the best with differences,” a wispy something whispers, “even if the differences were children. Those were the worst off.”

“One point I'll agree with. There really was no excuse.” A something other than the first chimes in.

He always had the feeling the Council hated him—the whispers of “Doesn't he seem too old?” and “His future seems clouded” hadn't escaped the child's ears, for being young does not make one deaf.

He felt ostracized by his peers.

Children were cruel, and being Jedi made no differences. He was different because unlike them, he hadn't been in the Temple since a time of youngness that left no memory of a time before the Jedi Life. He was different, and they made sure he remembered it.

The Order endlessly preached serenity and peace. They had become so wrapped up in that preaching and the haughtiness of their codes that that they ignored (or, perhaps, didn't register) the damage that some of their young faced at the hands of a few others.

They ignored their faults, and ignorance cannot create or maintain true peace.

It also never helped that it was those who defended themselves were also the only ones getting caught.

Defense was always a lot less calculated than offense.

Offense was planned and meditated—it allowed for stealth. Defense was desperation to escape pain.

No one could blame a child for assuming hate was involved when apparent favortism seemed be be happening against their well being for years of their life.

This was a hate that lasted for eight years in the boy's eyes as nothing more than an assumption, until he finally saw it as a proven fact.

For after all, when assumptions had time to fester without acknowledgment of their existence, they need very little to set it off.

What had validated his, however, had been something rather large.

There had been no hope of making him think otherwise.

“It's your fault this all repeated later.” Something says.

“Or perhaps,” Says the Other Something, “it was the Jedi ignoring what the last time they doing this had brought upon them. Different, yet similar. Forgetting history forces it to need a level of repeating.”

“...Time doesn't enjoy parts of its growth being ignored.” Something reluctantly agrees.

That damned mission to his original home had seen as nothing more to him than the utmoest cruelty of monsters. Of evil. Of evil by ones who sprouted hate led to Darkness, yet they had done something that couldn't be perceived as nothing else but evil. In his eyes, they had taken him from goodness.

They took his goodness, and he had saved himself from them, for in his point of view the Jedi were the evil ones. All they seemed to ever do was preach of their goodness, but they were evil, because only true monsters protested not being what they actually were.

He never denied what he became.

He marked his right cheek with the ring of the man who had once beat him, and turned on the other man who had raised him. Blade to blade with the intent of death. He turned his back to face the Dark. He joined with his shadows that, in the least, would admit to their darkness existing. He became a Fallen. A Dark Jedi.

He didn't ever turn back.

He... thinks that he regrets never looking back.

It took him many years to figure this out, but there is definitely regret. A grave, crippling regret. A kind that drowns you, yet leaves the sensation of burning. It left a burning as if one was forced to drink nothing but salty water in some desperate desire for survival.

Surviving until even the survival killed you.

By the Force, why didn't he ever look back?

“There was no point!” Something snaps. “Besides, it felt good to finally feel free.”

“It felt good until even that hurt.” Other Something reminded, not allowing for a successful reflection of the topic. Something didn't enjoy that happening, but then again it never had.

He doesn't care.

He does NOT care.

He doesn't care, he doesn't care, he doesn't care—

...He doesn't understand why it hurts so much.

He has no idea how long anything had been like anything, for all he knows is that he has been able to see many lifetimes that existed both during and after his time alive, but none before.

Even still, countless lifetimes with no linear way to track made things rather endless.

He has seen joy and pain and joy and pain.

He had seen the success of rebellions and the much too premature fall of those success.

He has seen pain, pain, pain, painpainpainPAIN!

So much pain.

It hurts.

It seems fitting that he feel all the pains of the universe, since he had ignored the pains he had caused.

“Who cares if others face pain? It's not ours! We shouldn't care!” Something screamed.

“But we do!” Other Something screamed back.

“WE DON'T CARE!” “WE DO CARE!” “I DON'T WANT TO–”

“–CARE! WE KARKING-” “DON'T MAKE ME–“ “–CARE! WE–”

“–CARE!” Something was hysteric. It was hoarse, and sounded on the cusp of injured insanity. “IT HURTS!” Other Something sobbed and screamed, at some point the two's words having swapped. It had been impossible to tell when.

Their dance had mingled to much. The pitches were losing their differences.

“IT HURTS!” They screamed, so in unison. “IT HURTS, BUT WE CARE. IT HURTS! WE CARE! IT HURTS! WE CARE! WECAREWECAREWECAREWECARE–”

“I CARE!” He screamed, and if he was sentient and solid he had no doubt he'd be spewing blood with how roughened his voice had been made by his own screams. “I CARE! I CARE! I CARE!” He fell to figurative knees, in the throws of space and after witness yet another pointless death in the horrible mixture of Dark, Light, love, hate, and every impossible or extreme that was categorized beyond or in between.

“I CARE AND IT HURTS! I KARKING CARE!” He had never felt less unable to breathe. He hadn't been able to breathe in years, despite his puppet of a body being forced to and indirectly trap him to his ghost-ghosts existence. His chest is intangible, but it's constricting. His heart is in a physical body he can't even touch, yet he feels as if it's beating out of his very chest.

It hurts so much.

“MAKE IT STOP!” Xanatos du Crion, the fallen Jedi Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn, was all but sobbing as he managed to collapse to his figurative knees before another fire of pain and anguish in the galaxy.

His own screams were unable to stop the screams of all else. It was unable to stop the screams he had relived endlessly, and screams he was hearing for the first time.

There was a symphony to this cacophony he had discovered. A song that was to never end. It came at him from the past and present, and there was the faint trilling of it's continued promise to be in the futures to come.

He screamed screams that would leave him breathless if he were to have need of air.

“I CARE! JUST MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! SOMEONE, ANYONE? JUST MAKE IT ALL STOP! IT HURTS–!”

As screams once more continued to rack the galaxy after another destroyed (but so, so, so painfully short) era of peace, his own were no longer a part of the song.

He was gone.

#swtimetraveltuesday #xanatos du crion #star wars #Time Travel Tuesday #SW Fanfic #star wars fanfiction #sw fanfiction #msu82 writes an au!#msu82writes #read more #aerefyr #poplitealqueen #PRFury #markwatnae #sanerontheinside #Kunoichi-Ume

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damienthepious · 5 years

Text

cutting it close this week fam. one hour left on the clock in my timezone though! still not late to the Lizard Kissin’!

Crawling Along The Hours To You

[ao3]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Established Relationship, Temporary Separation, Pining, Cuddling & Snuggling, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday

Summary: Rilla is quite possibly the most skilled doctor in the Second Citadel. Sometimes, this means she must go fairly far afield to do her work, and Lord Arum and Sir Damien are left to await her return.

Notes: I wrote literally all of this today. This was NOT what I planned to post today initially, but the idea invaded my brain (whY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING). Hope you enjoy? Love y'all! Title taken from Waiting Around Again by Eliza Rickman.

EDIT: now accompanied by INCREDIBLE fanart by @spinningstraw!!! THANK U SO MUCH I SHALL CRY NOW. ]

***

Arum creeps into the bedroom, the claws of his toes clicking softly on the wooden floor of Rilla’s hut, and slinks towards the bed with a deep sigh, his shoulders hunched and his head low.

When his fingers meet the edge of the sheets, Arum only just has time to notice the unexpected shape in the bed before Damien jolts awake with a sharp inhale, sitting halfway upright and blinking furiously against the dark, and Arum leaps a full foot backwards in surprise.

“H-honeysuckle?” Arum growls against his own embarrassment, claws flexing in the air. “I thought- I thought you were staying at the barracks-”

Damien’s startled breaths ease into a relieved exhale when he recognizes Arum, and he runs a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, mussing it further. “I… Lord Arum, I was not expecting… what are you doing here?”

Arum’s tail curls behind him, slithering anxious, and his tongue flicks as he avoids Damien’s puzzled gaze. “I…” his jaw snaps shut a few times, teeth clicking. “I believe I asked first, takatakataka,” he deflects, folding his arms over his chest.

Damien pulls his knees closer to his chest as he sits on the bed, and his breath catches oddly. “It’s- I am being- I’m afraid I am acting rather foolishly,” he says with a distinct waver in his voice. “I couldn’t- I couldn’t stand another night there, another night in a cot that I have never shared with any that I love, another night alone-”

Arum’s body sways towards the knight automatically, the urge to comfort him stronger than his own embarrassment by far, his mortification at being caught eased, somewhat, by the knowledge that Damien is yearning for Amaryllis as much as Arum himself is. The most egregious downside of Amaryllis’ brilliant mind is that she is so often needed by the rest of her soft-headed species, and an outbreak of some magical illness or another in a town near the border of the Second Citadel has resulted in her being called away for nearly three weeks, now.

(”I don’t care about doing a favor for the Queen,” she says with a roll of the eyes as she packs her bags, putting extra care into the arrangement of her tinctures and salves, “but a lot of people are sick, and I know damn well I can help them. I know it’s not exactly ideal, Arum, but it’s my job-)

Arum blinks to clear his mind, then slinks towards the bed, kneeling when he is close so that his eyes are level with Damien’s. This puts him within Damien's reach, though he keeps his claws to himself for now. “And- and why did you not come through to the Keep then, if you felt… if you did not wish to be alone?” Arum asks, soft.

“I did not want to trouble you,” Damien says, dropping his eyes. “I know full well that I can be… overwhelming when my emotions run high, and I have been missing our lovely Rilla quite…” his lip trembles, just barely, and Arum can see a brightness in his eyes even in the dark. “Quite terribly,” he finishes in a whisper. “I’m afraid I have been driving my fellow knights nearly mad with my longing, and I did not wish to bring that home to you. I did not want to be a bother.”

“So you decided to come curl up alone and miserable somewhere that she could not possibly leave your mind instead?” Arum asks, incredulous, and the words are already out before he realizes-

“It seems we had similar instincts on that front,” Damien points out, his lip curling into a playful smile as he reaches forward to brush his fingers along Arum’s shoulder and then down his arm. “It is probably better, this way. Missing her together instead of missing her alone.”

Arum growls low again, but there is no sense in denying the truth of Damien’s words. The Keep has been unbearably quiet without Rilla ducking in and out throughout the day, borrowing supplies and asking questions and bullying him into taking regular meals, and his nights have been twice as maddening, since Damien’s early mornings with his fellow knights have made it difficult for him to overnight at the Keep with any regularity as of late, leaving Arum to sleep alone. It has been far too reminiscent of the past for Arum’s comfort, too similar to how his life had been before. When he slipped into his own bedroom tonight and realized he could no longer catch Amaryllis’ scent on the air it had snapped his willpower in two, and the Keep had not even teased when it opened the portal to Amaryllis’ home for him.

He sighs, then climbs up onto the bed, pushing Damien back and slipping under the covers beside him until he can drape his entire body along the furnace-heat of Damien’s skin. The bed here still smells of Amaryllis, subtle and sweet, herbs and flowers and the soft soaps she uses for her hair, and alongside the brighter, more urgent scent of Damien’s skin (linen and feathers and the permanent stain of ink on his fingers), Arum finally feels steady again. He feels as if Amaryllis could be just a room over, working late, soon to join them.

“You are… probably correct,” Arum admits, only when he can breathe the words into Damien’s hair instead of the open air of the room. “I could not possibly leave you alone now anyway, honeysuckle. Entirely unacceptable, you wallowing in loneliness when I could so easily keep you in my clutches instead.”

Damien laughs softly, his fingers dancing light down the scales of Arum’s back. “I will need to wake early to return to the Citadel in time tomorrow,” he warns. “I would not blame you if you would rather-”

“I ‘would rather’ take what moments I can with you, honeysuckle,” Arum growls, and then he sighs, nuzzling against Damien’s cheek. “And… and I would rather not be alone, either. The pair of you have caused me to grow far too dependent on your presence, you unscrupulous creatures.”

Damien hugs him closer, knowing Arum’s grumbled complaint for the quiet admission of love that it is. “It won’t be long until she returns to us,” he says softly, as much to assuage his own longing as to comfort Arum. “The Queen assures me that the crisis is almost entirely averted, and Rilla is staying merely to ensure that her treatments will last. We must… we must simply be patient, and she will return in no time at all.”

Arum has never been particularly adept at being patient. He growls, twining his tail around Damien’s leg, as if it were at all possible to draw him closer. “Of course,” he hisses, unconvincing and unconvinced.

Damien pauses, and after a moment presses a kiss to the crook of Arum’s neck, by the edge of his frill, and then tucks his head against Arum’s shoulder as if he were always meant to fit there. “I hadn’t realized…” he pauses again. “I have… I have endured Rilla’s absences before, as her skills have always been in high demand. I hadn’t considered that this is the first time since we… since us, that she has been called away.”

Arum grumbles under his breath, nothing that quite approaches actual words.

“It is… I am glad you are here with me now,” Damien says softly, his lips still brushing Arum’s scales. “It is easier… the pain of absence is lessened when we may commiserate and comfort each other in turn. When there are still arms to return to, still a heartbeat and steady breaths with which to lull each other to sleep.”

Arum does not like the thought of Damien alone in Amaryllis’ absence, truly alone, before the three of them. Damien alone seems like an unnatural state of affairs. And… Damien is right, about the lulling. Damien’s hands, Damien’s heart, Damien’s heat; Arum can feel it drawing sleep towards him like a tide, here in the safety of Amaryllis’ room. He knows he cannot match Damien’s words, though, and he does not try. Instead he simply draws his own hands as soothingly as he can across Damien’s skin, through his hair, down his back, purring low and deep.

“Sleep you should, honeysuckle,” he murmurs. “Go back to sleep, and when we wake together, we shall be one day closer to when she will return to us.”

Arum can feel the curve of Damien’s smile against his scales, and the sweetness of the creature in his arms could drown Arum if he let it. He nuzzles against Damien’s hair, nudges his snout against his temple in an almost-kiss, and settles to rest in the comfort of his arms.

Some sunrise soon, Amaryllis will return to them. In the meantime, they can endure if they endure together, for a little while longer at least.

#elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #sir damien #amaryllis of exile #VERY MUCH HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY #HOW MANY FICS CAN I END WITH SLEEP? LOTS APPARENTLY #crawling along the hours to you

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