#I would REALLY love it to come up in a 'and Juniper across the room you recognize--' situation tbqh lmao but

[pparacxosm]

wounded in

(blue-eyed son part 2: electric boogaloo !!!! ; (hate to be that gal but you may have to read the first bit for context); homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; nonlinear narrative; tw office job; tw coworkers; tw mcdonald’s; the sound of music stuff is for myself; i fucking love sound of music; and i fucking love cats (the animal not the musical, though that's lovely too) so there’s that; pushing a patrick zweig can’t spell agenda; tw new england maybe; i gave new rochelle a better rap this time; kiss scene kindaaaa ??..? ; tashi coaching patrick after new rochelle is canon to me; tw descriptions of emojis; what if i told you there’s a part 3; then what)

You hold in a bout of laughter when Patrick brings the drinks to the table.

His hair is longer than the last time you saw him, which wasn’t that long ago, in scale. In bones, in feels like a while.

Dear old New Rochelle. Far enough out that the city is a twinkle on the horizon like a cluster of stars, far enough that there are some actual stars above you, now. It’s odd to see him in New England. It’s odd to see him in jeans. But then it’s September.

There are new lines on his face already. He’s aging quicker now, as if to make a point.

Drinks are on me,

Is the first thing Patrick told you, when you walked in in a juniper parka. Scanned the room, picked out his booth.

Is this the part where you tell me you’ve opened a savings account? you said, trying to seem completely blasé about it. It would have been childish to be thrilled by such meagre chivalry at twentyeight. I feel like I should pay, you’re in my city.

Yeah, but you’ve hosted me enough for now.

That’s what you are, half the time. A host to him.

A museum. Thumbing through a rolodex of all the different shades of blue his eyes could go in one humid night.

You pass on more nights out than you accede to. You got a cat. You’re getting LASIK soon. But what it really looks like is that you’re wearing glasses to show that time has passed.

“What’re you smiling about?” Patrick asks, placing the foamy mug of beer in front of you.

You wipe discreetly under your eyes, spreading the mascara smudge. “Just thinking about how my aweinspiring generosity has rescued you from the misery of total squalor.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, they say to pay it forward.” He sounds pleased as he lifts his own mug with a wink.

You look out the window. There’s a film of dust on it. There’s dust on the faux-chintz curtains too.

You start to wonder if that’s what he really thinks. That this is him going forward.

Patrick picks up the plastic menu. “We ordering sidedishes or do we want a full dinner? What’s good in Wellesley?”

You try to laugh, though the noise has the distinct tender hue of a sob. But you’re sure you feel mostly fine. “What are you doing here?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Wellesley?”

Patrick looks up at you with bright, twinkling eyes. “Challenger in Boston. Thought it’d be a waste not to come see you.”

You clench your jaw to prevent more runny mascara. It’s stupid. You don’t much like waste either. But you’re not going to weep in front of Patrick like a child.

“You hungry?”

You nod, picking up your own menu, hiding your face behind it.

His hand reaches suddenly across the table, trying to touch yours. You pull away, but make it look like you didn’t.

“Bet you had a hard time leaving Tobes for the night,” he says, trying to lift the mood.

“Um yeah. A little. I like to imagine what she gets up to when I’m away.”

“My sister had a cat, when we were young. My sister was, like, seventeen, and I was eight, so pretty big gap.”

Because he has to clarify those sorts of things. Because you don’t know he has a sister. You don’t know anything.

You find it hard to picture him pinned down in any humane way. It’s always his beautiful leg (now sheathed in denim) writhing in a bear trap. Always his papery wings unfurled and pinned against a picture frame like a butterfly. Something metamorphosed. Something capable of a great change, and that must be tortured for it.

“She found the cat in an alleyway. She called it Patrick.”

You lift your eyes. You feel it bubbling in you like magma, the urge to coo. You feel all soft these days. And maybe that’s just open heart season, and the passage of time. But you see a vivid meridian in your life, and it falls right along the night you met this guy. And this back half is all soft, so you sort of want to blame him.

You swallow.

“Well, that’s sweet.”

Patrick lowers the menu. “Nope,” he shakes his head, that huge smirk on his face, like his name is on every ticket of the raffle, like he’s cheating at something. “Let me tell you what she used to do. She used to put the fucker in, like, a blanket, right? And she’d lift it up like a sack, with him inside, and he’d obviously start clawing and making all of these noises—“

He makes the noises. Just starts whipping his head around and making kitten growls, imitating this cat with his name. You get the sense that this is one of those anecdotes that explains a lot about a person.

“—And she’d come into my room, in, like, the middle of the night—this is real psycho shit—and she’d lift my covers and drop the cat. And the shit would fucking claw at me and bite me, just—“

He’s doing the noises again. And now he’s clawing at the air with his hands.

He stops, and the way he closes his mouth around his grin makes his teeth look like they’re trying to escape past his lips. But it looks sort of lovely.

“When the fuck died, Saskia texted me. She was like, oh, he loved you so much, you should’ve said goodbye.” He pauses, widens his eyes, looks at you with the pointed intimacy of sharing in this ludicrousness.

You roll your eyes. But you catch yourself smiling. You like the idea of him being mauled like that, skin deep. You get the sense that life has done to him a lot of that—those growls and scratches. And that sounds a little fucked. But what you like about it is how he seems so unmoved now, by this psycho shit. This flailing animal, this torture device. Pinning him down. He's laughing.

You try to imagine him as a child, but the proportions are all comically bizarre, in your mind’s eye.

“Pork chops,” you say, throwing the menu aside. “I feel like stuffing my face.”

Patrick gets three sausage egg McMuffins on the way to the New Rochelle Country Club—and fries, and a hash, and a soda—and he’s eating the second by the time you pull out of the drivethru.

There is a compelling sense of chaos to how he drives. Like, he’s so bad at driving. Three different people honk at him in a dozenminute window. And you feel content knowing that whatever had had your heart thumping last night has not shrivelled and died with the morningtime. Though now it’s maybe a partial distress for your safety. But you get the sense that, maybe, this is actually the person you are now. The woman who sleeps beside a rugged stranger and buys him breakfast and doesn’t care how he speaks with his mouth open while he’s eating the fries. Doesn’t care about the writhing mire of half chewed potato on his tongue. The way his lips gleam pink with salt.

“I need to listen to really specific music to, like, get in the zone? If you don’t mind?”

He sounds so uncharacteristically shy, for brief a moment. You have to lean forward and look to see he isn’t joking. He isn't.

“Uh— yeah, of course. It’s your car.”

He slides a Sound of Music soundtrack disc into the mouth of the dashboard.

You laugh so hard you fold over.

He’s got one hand on the wheel, and shifts is his seat, peeling the unfamiliarly clean skin of his thighs off the leather before sitting back down. He’s tearing into his third breakfast sandwich with a reckless abandon reserved for death row. He laughs around the bite, glancing, bemused, between you and the road, and, ultimately, spending more time looking at you.

“What?” he laughs around a halfmasticated mouthful. “What?”

There are tears sluicing down your face. You can’t breathe. You think you can, and then you start laughing again, and you can’t.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Patrick hums cheerily as he noshes. It’s a gross and wonderful noise, the food moving between his teeth, circumventing Hammerstein.

You think the large coke is probably no performance enhancer, not only because he all but tumbles out of the car when it’s hardly halfway parked (poorly, you’ll add).

“Fuck, need to piss,” he says frenetically.

When you know the notes to sing…, carols Julie Andrews.

You’re still laughing. Crying. Your tummy fluttering painfully.

Patrick makes you order dessert too, since you’re celebrating.

Celebrating what? you had to ask, though, at the time, you were wearing an impish, knowing, frankly celebratory sort of smile.

Patrick feigned great offense. He said, I’m fucking here, aren’t I?

He wants you to have sundaes together. You spill some ice cream on your skirt. He finds that funny. He’s always got this weasel smile, like he’s constantly ready for amusement. He’s shaved, at some point between now and then. The hairs on his face are sparser. The skin on his face looks milky and organic like a crinite litchifruit.

The frumpy diner was his idea too.

He’s spent some time on the veritable extremes of the economic spectrum—that’s what life tends to be for him; veritable extremes, scratching him meanly—and now he just wants to play at being the average wage earner.

“You really are welcome to stay with me, if you’d like.”

Patrick looks at you like he’d rather shoot himself.

You sort of marvel at his sense of pride, as if it were a rare stone, swallowing light and spewing it out at all angles. The Sociology course you took in uni had a whole two modules on personal pride. It is one of the few emotions that are unique to humans.

Patrick—for his weasel smile and beastly hunger and feline anti—is remarkably proficient in being human. In the real, visceral parts of it. In wielding his emotions like kaleidoscope hues. Dancing freely in confinement.

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t worry about that. If you have time for breakfast tomorrow, we can—”

“Mm, not tomorrow, I don’t think. But I have no plans this weekend.”

You say it with this weird, bright intonation, like you’re jesting. Which—a lot of things feel like a bit of a joke these days. But he seems to understand you well enough. Delivers a curt, unspurned nod, and even a smile. Not the weasley, chronicling one. The wolfish one that makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Come here then,” he says.

Patrick leans in for a hug. You can’t avoid it. He enfolds you in a fascinatingly soft, burning embrace. He still smells sort of musky and acrid. Like even though he can shower regularly now, he maybe doesn’t as often as he should. But you find a gross comfort that. This pleasantly fetid, human man. His cologne smells like a wine cellar.

He says, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Something churns in your belly. Maybe the pork chops. Maybe the ice cream. This whole fucking day. You accidentally deleted some files and IT spent five hours trying to help you unsheathe them from oblivion. You felt like a failure. And now you’re here and,

“Fuck, you’re still so cool.”

You push away from him with a forceful laugh.

You used to be able to tell your sister all kinds of things. But, lately, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything.

Working so many years for a soulless corporate hive mind has turned you into an expert at short, polite, and meaningless feedback that only varies with inflection.

“Right”, “Sure”, “Got it”, “Whatever you think is best”, “Already on it”.

Half the time you sound illiterate. The other half, you sound like you could have written Prozac Nation.

When your sister asks, how was New Rochelle? she expects you to say something annoyingly vague and ominous in your cool, collected adjunct’s voice, like: Everything is under control.

But, instead, you say, “Do you and Mark still go to mass? I really want to start giving more of myself away.” And you’re wearing this smile that’s utterly sincere.

That’s what spooks your sister.

Of course, you want to tell her more. Because your sister married a Herman Melville character; one of those grizzly, stinky, sacerdotal men who don’t want to work but don’t want to lose either. You know your tale of Linklateresque, serendipitous connection would render her mesmerised and marginally jealous.

But, soft and charitable as you may now be, you keep it all to yourself.

Patrick is still in Massachusetts a fortnight later. You say you’d have loved to come and see him play, but you’re really busy, and he says not to sweat it. Insists really. Maybe even begs. Do not sweat it.

You text him, presumably a day or two afterwards, and ask how it went.

Smahsed it!, he texts, and garlands the (misspelled) notion with eight sunglassfaced emojis. You counted. Dibner? he texts.

Then, a moment later,

*dinner?

You get to see your first New Rochelle sunrise.

You slink out of bed with toothfairy softness, even though Patrick is sleeping the sleep of death—with a deep, miserable snore like a resounding dirge to prove it—beside you. Your pillow wall, in the night, had collapsed like Berlin in 89.

You step outside. You check your phone, first, but you do go outside. You do believe in fresh air in the mornings, even if you don’t have the fortitude for mindfulness and journaling.

The parking lot is a vast open soul. Regretfully resigned and stunningly silent.

The sky looks like a bleeding mouth, but the hard grey edges around it don’t seem to care. The concrete enterprises and litter splay do not want anything to do with this bruise. A tart, sort of sewery smell makes your eyes water.

Cars drive by too fast. 

You think, in some faraway capacity, you can hear the soft, rhythmic thunk of tennis balls hitting asphalt. But it’s only your heart.

You hear things. You see things.

You don’t want to sound like some haunted Victorian heiress with a mystical past, but you do.

In the break room, mostly.

So you hadn’t noticed before. Your coworker, Sam, goes fucking wild for tennis. Sam’s slobbering lewd and voracious over tennis. It’s hard to witness. In fact, you feel dirty witnessing this. You should call HR. Sam’s in the break room doing an onanistic oneman scene play about tennis.

Or maybe he just kind of likes it.

And you hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a lot, for your part, that you were content not noticing around the office.

But now every errant tenniscentric commentary makes your hands feel sore and weightless without the presence of a gun.

“No, you don’t get it, Deirdre, this is like if LeBron played a game at some random Y, and got dunked on by this fuckin’ nobody, and then just… quit the game.” He sounds tumid with bewilderment. “Just fuckin’ dipped!” Sam’s incredulous. “Forever!”

“LeBron…?”

“Fuck, Deirdre, you’re killing me.”

You slot the mouth of your bottle beneath the spout of the water cooler. You close your eyes—zombieleaden, uneven on the tiles; it’s only 10—and listen to the halting trickle, trickle… stream. The plastic goes cold against your palm as the water rises.

“All because of some… fuckin’,” Sam snaps his fingers, “Fuck, I forget the name.”

Peter Zeppelin, your mind supplies dryly.

It is then that Sam chooses to notice you. Points his finger. Wide smile. “Oh-ho, here’s trouble!” says Sam.

Sam and you have had enough one on one conversations for you to list on your one free hand, and you wouldn’t be spoiled for digits. But, all the same,

“Here’s trouble!” Sam announces, “Big shot boss babe, huh? Back from kickin’ rear in New Rochelle. I know you’re glad to be back.”

You don’t say anything. You feign responsiveness, flash a stilted smile. But you don’t say anything. Because what would you say?

Outside the men’s bathroom of the New Rochelle Country Club, you fidget awkwardly, standing against a wall and trying to look inconspicuous. Patrick’s duffel sits at your heels like a staunch hound.

Your gaze meanders around the venue with an idle sense of inquiry.

You’d expected a certain echelon of grandiosity, anyway. And the country club is nice—you feel silly casting any judgement at all—if a little outdated. All glossy wood-panelling and pea green outdoor carpet.

You can see yourself, warped and bleary, upon the polished floor. The bar flourishes a glassy sheen and cloistered amber rows of lavish whiskeys.

Through glass windows, golf splays unfurl, ceaseless viridescence, beset on all sides by sharpcornered hedges.

People mill about with the air of the lookedafter, and polo shirts as white as the maw of God.

Which is nice—it’s all nice—and all, but your chest seems to enwreathe a stark state of dread. You feel the sort of nausea that would rack you as a child. Floating in the curtains at your dance recitals, like an anxious little poltergeist.

When Patrick emerges from the loo, he is whistling. Fluting finely the swooping tune of ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’.

“You certainly seem unburdened,” you murmur, gaze shadowing him as he draws near. You know you sound unconvinced. For his part, he looks undeterred.

Slings his bag over his shoulder like it is floatable, even as you know it bears the poundage of half a man’s life.

He grins, flashing a canine.

To you, he has just eaten his weight in greasy, leaden carbcloth, and proceeded to piss for twelve minutes straight.

But Patrick seems imbued by morningshine.

He throws a heavy arm around you, squeezes your shoulder. Says, “Look alive!” Says, “I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, the breakfast of champions, and I’m about to get paid!”

You wince a bit at his volume, and also because he seems to be emanating a bit of that morningshine. Not to speak of the heat. Searing from his very bones.

If nothing else you admire his buoyancy. In that way, the warmth—even as the sun blooms above you—is a fascinating comfort.

Like something to be shared.

You say yes to dinner.

You keep having dinner. He keeps taking you out for dinner, and to decent places, too, places you haven’t even been to around here.

You’re sitting across from him. You’re eating, as one does. He’s regarding you with something like awe. Though you wouldn’t know it, because he regards, too, his plate, when the waiter rests it before him, with a sort of comical reverence. Even though you’re pretty sure he’s not starving, anymore.

But hunger’s not always about those sorts of things, you suppose. Maybe he's just still hungry.

He’s winning a lot. Must be, if he’s taking you out all the time, and—hey—maybe you can get him to sign something for Sam. That’d be nice of you.

Patrick watches you eat.

You try not to stare back at him. As long as you keep chewing, you won’t have to ask why he’s still here.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he says after a long silence.

You smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t text you for months, many months, after New Rochelle. You’d given him your number, because you wanted to put the ball in his court, and—fuck—here’s hoping you didn’t say that.

But you can’t recall.

It’s been months.

So, when you do get the text, you’re pleased to see it’s aptly contrite.

ypu probably think I’msn idiot, it reads, and it’s late at night and you’re already in bed, stewing over NYT Connections.

You eye the ID. Maybe: Patrick Zweig, but that’s implied—so many implicit little shards—because not a lot of people are so tortured by the prospect of your opinion on them so as to text you at 1 AM. So.

Define idiot, you text back.

dictionary defenition is Patrick Rupert Zweih. There’s prpbably even a lil picture of me next to it.

A few moments.

A bad one.

Ten or eleven emojis of abject terror.

You consider this—not a bad picture of him (though he doesn’t quite strike you as wildly photogenic anyway), just... This Whole Wound—and tap the side of your phonecase in tentative thought.

Your full name is Patrick Rupert Zweig? Tough.

Like ypu didnt already look me up.

You blink. Whoa—okay.

Not a humble idiot, I see, you type.

You don’t know where you get the balls. There’s a sweeping litany of long, gorgeous miles between your bed and New Rochelle, but maybe he can smell you thinking as much because,

Im in MA next week

In the registration room, a man with a binder asks his name, and Patrick sheathes his canine in a way that makes him look conspiratorial and bemused. You suppose it’s become an inside joke.

The ATP official seems to gleam with recognition when Patrick does give his name—his real name—and he says, “Oh wow, that is you!”

You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can envisage the way his moue has settled in confusion.

Apparently, the ATP official was a line judge at the Junior US Open back in 06.

You try to think back to what you were doing in 2006. Probably populating your microcosm in The Sims. Trapping little imitations of those who had scorned you in swimming pools to drown.

“You were really something back then, huh?” says the ATP official.

Your eyes flicker to Patrick’s profile. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The official hands Patrick a packet. There’s a little map of the facility in there, in case he gets lost. His first match is against one Gonzalez, on court seven.

Patrick says, marginally halting, “Hey, so, is there any chance of an advance payment on the prize money.”

The official blinks.

“Because I know I’m guaranteed a minimum of four hundred dollars even if I get knocked out today—“

You frown a bit at that. The official frowns a lot at that.

“Well,” he says, “Generally we don’t give out winnings until a player makes his way through the tournament…”

A beat.

Then,

“You could always just lose today. Then we’d have to cut you a check this evening.”

Patrick hardens to bone. You hope he has another lifeaffirming piss in him. He doesn’t meet your eyes when he turns to leave, but flicks you a glance that seems to ask that you spare him the judgement.

You leave New Rochelle today. Good as the night’s sleep may have been, he knows better than anyone that life’s loveliest things are fleeting.

So—fine—you don’t begrudge him. Instead,

“He seems hopeful,” you say wryly.

“Must’ve been thrown off by my pretty caddie,” he says dismissively. Maybe a little bristled.

The warmup courts, deep blue plane, shimmer in the sunheat.

Patrick takes the asphalt, flicks his racket around by its handgrip as though refamiliarising himself with the palmfeel for the first time in a while. Which—well—doesn’t give you confidence, at risk of contesting Julie Andrews.

He practices his serve. Starts to work the ball up and down the court. Hits a few forehands, a few backhands.

Then,

“He was lying,” he yells to the bleachers.

The bleachers are mostly empty. A few errant loiterers. Bored spectators who have finished their lunch earlier than their friends. What have you.

He’s looking at you, though. With a staggering precision from so far away.

“What?”

“That guy. He was lying. Or… bigging it up. Or whatever. I wasn’t really something, I was just decent.”

He strikes a ball over the net. You can see, from here, the vibration ricochet through the racketstrings with a shudder that has you expecting music to flutter out.

You lean back in your seat, sort of sliding down against the glossy plastic, a tremor of induced electric tickling your bum through your jeans. You cross your arms.

“That’s kind of bullshit,” you call out.

He spares you a glance, sort of doubletakes, and you can see the corner of his mouth tremble with intrigue.

He takes another ball from the basket. Tosses it up. You watch the neon starsphere spin fleetingly in the air before being walloped to oblivion. And what do you know of tennis? But you do think his serve is a thing of beauty. Beauty measured in power and precision, sure (he hits the ball straight and hard and fast and low, just barely clearing the net), but you can also see the way his muscles work beneath his skin. Which—you know.

Patrick walks to the fence that partitions the courts from the stands. He leans over, rests his arms on the palisade, and looks at you.

“This was the whole problem,” he tells you, “Everyone was always telling me how good I was. And it got to my head. And now I’m here.”

It’s a shabby imitation of humility. What it really is, is an attempt to scale down the apogee, so the fall seems less mythic. So the years seem less unkind.

“I didn’t come here to watch you sulk just because some guy was nice to you.”

Patrick grins. His cheeks are flushed with heat, and there are little spots of sweat on the hollows where his skin and bones meet. But he seems to know not to exert himself fully right now.

“You think I’m sulking?”

“I think you seem pretty torn up for a guy who’s going to play a thirty minute match, and walk away a few hundred dollars richer.”

He makes a noise like you’ve wounded him, but he seems elated.

“A few hundred dollars?” he says, raising his brows. “So you’ve lost your faith in me.”

“I have some,” you allow, and you’re not surprised to find that you really do. “Just don’t choke.”

Patrick wears the smile of a newly crowned Miss Universe. He looks touched that you’re being so frank.

“I won’t,” he says, with a sense of finality and what you feel is an incongruous tenderness. “I’m pretty good at dealing with pressure. My parents always used to take me to work with them and tell employees to come to me at random intervals with madeup highstakes scenarios. Like, pretending to have a breakdown, and saying they needed me to help them out and make the final decision. Some of them could cry on command.”

You try and fail to hide a look on your face that divulges how demented you think that anecdote is. But you try to find something neutral to say.

“Well, maybe you’re lucky,” you tell him. “I was horrifically nervous as a child.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, swinging his racket idly, and you get the sense he’s actually very interested in how you will answer.

So it’s hard not to answer him honestly.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, and you look away from his eyes, and instead at the sky. You’re alarmed to find they are precisely the same tincture of aegean. “Mostly not. But if I have to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting, I have to take one of those beta blockers, you know? Propranolol?”

You are stricken, at odd moments, in New Rochelle, in Massachusetts.

You get the sense that he’s trying to be cavalier. But, at the same time, there’s this unmistakable fragility about him. Like it wouldn’t take much to knock him down.

You are stricken by how he’s managed to maintain this cocksure swagger for so long. With such a brittle, aching core.

How easily it all might’ve been shaken by the wrong person, and the wrong word.

You love the smell of your dear kitty’s head right after a bath. The fluff of dandelions and baby bird. You love toweling her, taking her little paws in your hand and prying the toes open.

Toby pretends not to like being fussed over, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, most nights, she falls asleep in your arms.

When he pays you the visit, Ms Tobes is breathing evenly in your arms, your thumb caressing the organtender slope of her silky head.

You open the door, and great weeping gales have been jostling your windows all evening. But he is in shorts.

Patrick’s been in New England for nearly a month.

There’s an odd sort of look on his face, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

Hands in his pockets, he leans against the door frame, staring down at you. You feel a remarkable heat radiating from the downy flesh of his bare legs.

He doesn’t seem confident, nor does he seem unperturbed. He seems… pensive and maybe even penitent, but he wears it with a fascinating poise. There’s still something wounded and vulnerable about the way of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth. It's the softness that kills you, anyway, you think incoherently. 

You peer up at him, dubious, through the briar of your lashes. He looks down at Toby, at the sweep of your finger over her head. You do not know if it is he or Toby who purrs.

When he speaks, he is whispering very softly, though there’s a frayed, low seep of his voice in his throat. It feels revoltingly intimate.

“When Patrick died,” he says, “The cat. I felt so shitty. I had this weird feeling of—like—I don’t know. Shittiness. Because of how Sassy said what she said. You should’ve said goodbye. What am I supposed to do with that, y’know?”

You swallow. The hallway is so vacant and noiseless you can hear the plush shuffle of his running shoes against the carpet. Dutifully beyond the boundary of your home, even though he’s been here quite a few times now.

“Patr—“ you croak.

“I’m not in Massachusetts for a game,” he tells you, shrugging hopelessly and almost smiling. But failing to. Which you register. “There’s no challenger in Boston. There’s just you. In Wellesley. All these… fucking ponds everywhere. Private schools. Bunch of rich little assholes who need a tennis coach, I bet. All these res—fuck. You know,” he shifts, taking the cigarette from his ear and gesturing with it between the two of you, “We’ve been out, like, twenty times, since I’ve been here, and there’s still, like, fifty restaurants we haven’t been to.”

You stare up at him. Your palms, where they cradle Toby, grow damp. The throbbing organ of your heart takes up residence in your throat. There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall.

You lift one trembling finger to your lips.

Please, don’t say anything else, you beg with your eyes. Please, not in front of Toby.

Patrick’s eyes glint ruefully. Almost ominously. He seems insulted by your gesture, but he understands. He always understands. He never holds anything against anyone.

“No need for that,” he says very quietly. “I come in peace.”

He moves closer, breaking the enclave where the carpet of the hall meets the vinyl of your floor, until he is inches away.

A head taller, yet shrinking, as if you were seeing him from across a room.

He smells very good today. He smells like spice and bergamot and the laundered fabric of his navy blue halfzip. You sort of miss the musk. Of course you think of New Rochelle. You think of Bob Dylan and Hello Kitty and thermostats. Fucking Sally.

You lift your chin.

“I’m not asking you to—“

Patrick leans forward, his nose touching your nose.

“I’m gonna do the tennis,” he speaks the words into your mouth, voice like gravel melting in the sun.

You part your lips. A part of you hates him, hates how he’s insinuated himself in your life without warning. Another part, however, is asleep and betrays you.

He shushes you, though you’re sure you haven’t said anything. It’s just that you’re crying now. Completely still and silent. Weeping like the dead, because the dead weep, too.

He shakes his head, his nose brushing over yours, says shhh like you’re a cat, and, even then, Toby only stirs between your fingers.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and you’ve heard him sound convincing. You know that right now he sounds… something else. And he’s still shaking his head as he whispers, “It’ll be good, I’ll be good. I have a coach, I’m not done, I love the tennis.”

You look up at him. Lick your lips, which, when you’re so close, also means sort of licking his. Sort of licking into him. You want to say, fuck your tennis and fuck you too, but you also want to fuck him and you want to fuck his tennis, too.

You think of New Rochelle.

Patrick’s hand meanders upward toward Toby, and, if his cigarette was lit, you’d see sweeping coils of smoke floating heavenward.

It isn’t lit, but still.

You catch him quickly. You hold him by the wrist.

His skin is nauseatingly warm.

“You love it?” You sound unimpressed now. Your mouth moves over and around and against his as you speak.

“I do.”

“You love it, you love the tennis?” You’re sort of spitting it at him, and he tastes it.

And he thinks of Patrick the cat, how he lay there and was mauled. Pinned down. He thinks he’d let you draw blood, now, if you really wanted to.

“Tennis doesn’t love you.”

“Do you?”

There is time enough for you to answer. But when a sound is finally made it is only Toby, who mewls.

Patrick smiles. You feel the seam of his lips touch your lower teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

He straightens, his lips swiping your nose on his way up. He gently removes his arm from your grasp, your nails scraping is skin.

You exhale sharply. You feel stung.

Poor Toby, caught between your beating hearts. Patrick steps away. He places the cigarette between his lips, and then you do not stop him from touching Tobes. He strokes her gently.

“You got a lighter?” he asks around the cig.

There are three aflame candles in your home right now. He can smell the vanilla. You shake your head. He smiles again. Toby purrs. Patrick’s fingers touch yours between the heather fur.

You feel a strange ignition in your bones.

The game begins.

Everything is quick and violent.

You don’t know if tennis is actually quick and violent, or if that’s just him.

You are astounded by just how much a man can sweat. You are spellbound by the visceral implication of being drenched in one’s own exertion.

Gonzalez is younger. A little bit more thrilled to be here. And he’s got the kind of easy, quick thoroughness that means he probably practices with a ball machine at home, but not a lot of real experience.

Patrick makes brutal work of him.

There is a certain way his muscles tense through his forearm and the pulse travels up his bicep when he strikes the ball. His shirt rises as he twists to send it flying over the net. There is so much laboured breath and dripping skin.

He has you sit exactly where you sat during warmups.

Between sets, he extends his arm, taut and sweatsoused, and points to you with the scratched edge of his racket, one eye closed like he’s mapping trajectory. And he does sort of have this bloodhungry precision in his gaze, like a marksman.

You feel it in your neck, the ache of your focus, how your eyes water for lack of blinking as you swivel your head side to side. You do not close your mouth once.

He hits the ball again, and then again. Each with an almost startling accuracy. Each with a deep and fleshsatisfying thwack that makes your very ear canals thrum with the sort of pain that has you expecting the warmth of dripping crimson on your shoulders.

But it’s not just the force that strikes you. It’s that precision. That bulletgleam precision.

He seems to know, with a profound, animalic certainty, exactly where to place each shot.

At times, they will land exactly where the last landed.

And by the time his adversary cottons on, he has set his hungry eyes upon another target.

It’s beautiful.

You start to wonder if you have ever—ever—looked so fucking beautiful doing any single thing in your life. This strange and beautiful violence. Refined and delicate violence. He is violent and graceful.

Patrick groans when he hits the ball. Makes a guttural sound, a pained sort of sound, like he loses something of himself with each forceful departure.

The sun beams down, and you see his beautiful legs flex aglow with the beautiful gleam of his abject labour.

You think, fuck—

New Rochelle is beautiful.

“You know, I could have gone pro.”

Sam leans back in his Herman Miller chair. Takes a deep quaff of his coffee before pointing to Deirdre with his mug.

“You played for two years in middle school,” Deirdre deadpans, her gaze unmoving from her monitor as she populates a spreadsheet with who the fuck knows.

“This is huge, D,” says Sam, unhurt, “This is like if Jamal Mashburn started coaching the fuckin’ nobody that demolished LeBron at the Y.”

Deirdre seems to have forgotten this analogy, which, for her part, Sam first made months ago now.

“But also if Mashburn was married to Lebron,” adds Sam.

Your computer screen casts depressing polygons across your glasses. You slide your AirPods in. You don’t want to know where Bob Dylan will appear on your Spotify Wrapped.

I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded in hatred. And it’s a hard, it’s a hard— It’s a hard, it’s a hard—

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

[arc-misadventures]

Rebirth au: I can believe that Winter could considering Weiss and Whitley are more... physically alike because they got their dad. Winter was bigger thanks to getting that Arc DNA in her working with Willow DNA.

We Have Some Questions

A legacy.

She was the progenitor of the, Schnee legacy. A legacy of honour, duty, and compassion that help shaped the nation of, Atlas into what it was today.

One that strove for the betterment for all of the world’s inhabitants, whether they be human, or faunas. It didn’t care for where one was from, who one was, all that mattered was that they could help their fellow man.

Schnee. A name that bore honour, and duty with pride. One that all could gaze upon with pride.

A name that was now one that all those he said cursed, and spat upon, all because of one mans insatiable greed, and the blindness of one poor woman.

A woman who once had everything that truly mattered: A family to love, a husband that loved her, and a family name to bare with pride. And, now she had nothing, nothing, but the bottle of vodka that lay in her hand, and the many more that lay strewed about the floor of her room.

This was to be the sorry life of the sad drunkard, Willow Schnee. Whose only escape from purgatory was to be found at the bottom of a bottle.

Willow: Here’s to the, Schnee family… I’m sorry for failing you dad…

She was about to take another drink when a comforting hand rested upon her shoulder, while another gently grabbed the bottle, and took it away from her.

Willow: Huw…? Wait, who are…? J-Jun…?

Juniper: Hello, Willow.

Willow turned to see a face with a pearlescent smile, eyes that shined like the finest cut amethyst gems, and hair that shinned like finely woven golden threads. It was the face of her dear friend, Juniper Arc.

Willow: J-Jun…? I-Is that really you?

Juniper: I’m really here, Willow, you haven’t been drinking that much.

Juniper took her eyes away from her friend for a moment to examine all the empty bottles that littered the floor about her before returning her attention back to her friend.

Juniper: At least I hope so…

Willow: W-Why are you here…?

Juniper: We needed to talk with you.

Willow: We?

She felt a weight on the bed sit next to her. Willow’s icey blue eyes turned to stare in deepest blue eyes she knew. A soft smile showed across his face, as he lovingly wrapped an arm around her, and held her close. She thought she would never see this blond hair man ever again, but as she gazed upon him, tears started to swell in the corners of her eyes.

Willow: A-Achiues…? Is that you…?

Acheius: Hello, Willow, it’s me. It’s nice to see you again.

Willow: Acheius… Jun… W-Why are you here? How did you get in here at that?

Juniper: Klein let us in, and we’re here because we needed to talk with you.

Willow: A-About what…?

Juniper: About…

Acheius: Jun… I think we better sober her up first before we ask her anything. She’s not in a good mind set to answer our questions.

Juniper: You’re right… we best get you out of here then, Willow. Besides, I don’t like being here, this place feels like it’s been defiled with his taint.

Acheius: Can’t argue with that. Now, let’s get out of here before we accidentally come across that thing. Come here, Willow.

Willow: W-Wait…? What’s going on…?

Willow would have tried to fight them off, but she was too inebriated in her drunken state that she couldn’t put up a fight, and the gentle swaying of her body as, Acheius effortlessly carried her away swiftly let sleep fall across her as the duo stole her away.

~~~

The first sight, Willow saw when she woke up were bedsheets that were not her own, and yet they felt more comfortable than any other. She tiredly removed herself from her bed, feeling a soft texture upon her body, looking down she saw she was wearing pyjamas they were not her own, a deep rich violet that smelt like lilacs. She pounder at who these belonged to for a moment before she slowly got up, and made her way through the door.

As she passed through the door she heard the sound of food frying, and soft humming. As she came closer she saw her friend, Juniper give her a warm smile as she gestured for her to take a seat at the table. Nothing was said between the two as a cup of coffee was set down before her. Willow picked up the cup, and smelt the rich aroma of vanilla waft through her nostrils. She took a sip as her mind was filled with happier, simpler times.

Willow: You know… If I had woken up in my bed, I would have thought that seeing the two of you was a drunken hallucination. And, yet, here you are… But, why?

A plate of scrambled eggs, and well cooked sausages were placed before her before, Acheius sat next to his wife on the opposite side of the table.

Juniper: We’ll explain after you’ve eaten, okay?

Willow: Very well…

The trio soon started eating the only sound being heard was the scrapping of utensils on plate. They quickly finished their breakfast, and move to the couch with, Willow sitting in the middle, with the two, Arc’s sitting on either side of her.

Juniper: I know you have many questions to ask us, why we’re here, and why we well… kidnapped you, but before that I need to know how you’re feeling, Willow.

Willow sighed before she looked at her dearest friend with a tired smile.

Willow: My head aches from another hangover, and I feel exhausted… But, just having you here, Jun makes me feel worlds better.

Juniper smiled as she reassuringly squeezed her friends hand. Her hand soon left hers as she took a deep breath before she locked her gaze with her friend.

Juniper: Willow… We need to talk to you about something…

Willow: About what?

Juniper: Do you… Do you remember the night… The night we held your, Hen Night…?

A blush spread across, Willow’s face. She remembered that night. Juniper, and her friends had gotten together for her, ‘Hen Party.’ It was a wild, and boisterous night where they just danced the night away, and then in the evening, Juniper decided that the night wasn’t over for the two of them.

Juniper had drag, Willow to the hotel where her, and her husband were staying at, and decided that she should spend the night together. That the three of them should spend the night together intimately. Whether it was because of her inebriated state of mind, or how she was just swept up in the passion of the moment. She didn’t deny their advances, and looked back on that night as one of her fondest memories.

Willow: I remember… Even if we were quite drunk at the time, I do remember.

Juniper: G-Good… That’s good… Willow… That night the three of us got together happened twenty-three years ago. And, your oldest daughter… Winter Is now twenty-two years old now. So… Willow…

Willow: Yes?

Juniper: I-Is… Is, Winter…?

Juniper: …

Juniper: Is, Winter…!

Acheius: Jun, I need to be the one who asks her this.

Archeius smiled softly as he stared into, Willow’s eyes, he gently held her hand as he steadied his breathing before he asked her a question that he never thought he would have to ask.

Acheius: Willow… Winter… She isn’t, Jacques daughter is she, she really mine, isn’t she?

Willow’s eyes widened in fear as a sharp gasp was caught in her throat as she turned her away from, Acheius. He head hung low as she felt, Juniper hesitantly placed her hand on her back. She took a deep breath before she spoke.

Willow: I thought, we all thought, Winter was born prematurely, but she was a perfectly healthy baby so we thought nothing of it. But, when she was about one years old, she got sick so I took her to the hospital, during the checkup, they gave me a list of information… And, I discovered… Winter’s blood type is, O-.

Acheius: …

Juniper: W-What does that have to do with anything?

Willow: My blood type is, B+, Jacques blood type is also, B+… And, so is my other daughter, Weiss, and my son, Whitely.

Juniper: Okay…? I ask again: What does that have to do with anything?

Acheius: Juniper… Children often inherit their blood types from their parents.

Juniper: And…?

Acheius: My blood type… My blood type is O-.

Juniper: Wait…?!

Acheius: Winter Schnee is not, Jacques Gelés daughter… She’s my daughter.

Juniper’s eyes widened in shock as the knowledge settled in. Of course she was willing to accept the idea that, Winter could be, Acheius daughter, but to confirm that she actually was his. Well, how the duo would choose to act next would decide a great many things.

Acheius: Willow… Willow please look at me…

Willow slowly rose her head, tears welling up in her eyes as she revealed her face to, Acheius. A storm of shame blew across her heart as she feared the next words he would speak.

Acheius: Willow… Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you tell either of us for that matter? Were you scared how we would react to this?

Willow: You two just had your second child a few months before that night. You have been happily married for years. I didn’t… I couldn’t come between the two of you, and potentially ruin what the two of you have. So… I said nothing. No one, but me knew who the real father is, so… ‘The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one you have a secret…’ So, I did…

Juniper: Oh, Willow…

Willow turned to gaze upon her friend who softly smiled at her dear friend.

Juniper: Listen… It was me who said we should have a threesome in the first place. If your getting pregnant because of my husband is anyone’s, anyone’s fault it’s mine. And, if we knew you were pregnant with, Acheius’s kid back then, we would have taken responsibility.

Willow: You would have…?

Acheius: If I had know that I accidentally knocked you up, well, I would have barged in the middle of your wedding, screamed, ‘I object!’ Clocked, Jacques square in the face, picked you up, and ran off back home with you.

Willow: R-Really…?!

Acheius: Without a shadow of a doubt.

Willow: B-But, you two are married?! Y-You wouldn’t divorce, Juniper just to be with me!

Juniper: Meh. Polygamy is legal in, Vale. You would just be, Acheius second wife, and my first wife. No big deal.

Willow: Polygamy is legal in, Vale?

Juniper: Yep. Gotta keep the population up somehow.

Willow: How do you know this.

Juniper: I’ve been pushing my son to have a harem, and most of his potential harem partners at the moment happen to be his siblings. So I need to make sure the legality is not in the way of propagating the future, Arc legacy.

Willow: …

Willow: What…?

Acheius: Best ignore her, trust me, it easier that way.

Willow: So… If I was not married to, Jacques right now… What would you two do…?

Acheius: Well… I’m not really sure… I don’t know you as well as, Juniper does. But, you are the mother to my child. So, I would be willing to die to protect you, Willow. To protect you both.

Willow: You would…?

Acheius: Arc’s promise.

Willow smiled as a blush spread across her face. She knew that she couldn’t trust on her husband to do the same, he would probably leave her behind to die in fact to buy himself time to escape. So, the warm feeling that spread through her heart from his sincere words were the sign that she knew of the truth of this mans words.

Willow: And, what would you do, Juniper?

Willow turned to address her friend who smiled comfortingly as she gently grabbed her friends face, and pulled her close to plant a soft yet passionate kiss upon her dear friends lips. They stayed lip-locked for a while before, Juniper broke the kiss, smiling a smile of love that, Willow had never before seen.

Juniper: I would have shown you what true love is, and remind you everyday what love truly is.

Tears started falling down down, Willow’s face as she pulled in her dear friend for a deep hug as the duo basked in a warm embrace that soon grew more powerful as, Acheius, stood up, and knelt before the pair, wrapping his arms around them like a guardian angel watching over his loved ones.

The hug lasted for quite some time before the trio broke the hug, and separated themselves. Willow dapped away the tears with her hand, before she smiled at the pair. It was a smile filled withe hope, hope, and joy, a pair of emotions she had nearly forgotten during the course of her heartless marriage. But, with these two wonderful people besides her, she knew she would never lose this feeling again.

Willow: So, what do we do now?

Acheius: Well… There are many things we could do… Getting rid of, Jacquues, and getting control of the , SDC back to you would be a good place to start.

Juniper: We should ask, Jaune to help us with that. He could probably help us get away with murder if we let him do it.

Willow: M-Murder…?

Acheius: Possible, Highly possible… But, before we devise, Jacques ultimate downfall. There is one thing we must do first.

Juniper: What’s that?

Acheius knelt before, Willow, gently placing his hand in hers before staring deeply into her eyes.

Acheius: Willow… Can you introduce me to my estrange daughter?

[angelasscribbles]

Savage Love Chapter 32: Closure

Series: Savage Love

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings: Riley x Liam, Riley x Drake

Rating: R         

Warnings: Mature themes

Word Count: 2,170

My other stuff: Master List.

Nick and I slipped into the closest meeting room and closed the door.

Turning to me, he asked, “So, you and Captain Walker, huh?”

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“I think you owe me some kind of explanation. You did leave me standing at the altar.”

“You already know why.”

He let out a sound that was half sigh, half growl as he ran a hand down his face, “Fuck, Riley. I knew you were pissed, but I didn’t realize things between us had gotten that bad!”

My mouth dropped open, “I literally told you that I was starting to hate you!”

“I didn’t think you meant it!”

In my entire life, I had never been struck speechless before, but that did it. I gaped at him as I tried to process the utter audacity of a man who discounted my feelings so entirely that he hadn’t believed my own utterances about them. As if I didn’t know myself, or was somehow just being dramatic.

When I didn’t respond to him, Nick finally asked, “What?”

Shaking myself out of it, I responded, “What do you mean what? I told you how I felt, Nick, and you ignored that. I begged you to go to couples counseling. I told you what I needed from you, I tried to discuss the future with you but you-“

“Riley, I’m sorry, okay?”

“What?” Of all the responses in the world, that had been the one I had expected the least.

Nick Adler never apologized. At least not the Nick Adler I’d known. The one I’d loved.

“I said, I’m sorry, Juniper,” he crossed the room and pulled me into his arms, attacking my lips with his own before I had a chance to agree, disagree, or even think about what was happening. Fear struck through me because I didn’t want to feel any of the things that his kiss was bound to stir up.

It was a good kiss. It was a familiar kiss. It was the kiss of a man that meant what he said, a man determined to put things right.

I returned that kiss for all of five seconds. I had been so afraid that all of those feelings would come rushing back, that I would be helpless in the face of them, that I would fall back into his arms and into his life, into a relationship that stifled and constrained me. But I felt none of that. What I did feel was all wrong.

He smelled wrong. His arms around me felt wrong. His kiss tasted wrong. Everything about him was wrong and familiar though he was, he was now as foreign to me as any random stranger would be.

He wasn’t the man I wanted. He wasn’t the man I loved. Nothing in me wanted to set things right or try again. Nothing in me responded to his touch. The life we had shared no longer felt real, no longer a danger. I was free.

I felt elation as I pushed him away. Listen, I don’t like hurting people. I don’t enjoy inflicting emotional pain, but I could not stop the smile of triumph that spread across my face as I realized that the past no longer had a hold on me. Nick no longer had a claim on my heart. The pain of that failed engagement, the shame I felt about how I let myself be treated, the stinging sense of failure for being unable to somehow single-handedly maintain the relationship was gone, and with it, the fear of falling into the same traps again.

I was over him and I was over the pain of the failed relationship. I was stronger than I had ever given myself credit for, and I was healed. I had been for a while; I just hadn’t realized it until that moment.

Nick reached for me again, “Come on, Juniper-“

“I told you to stop calling me that,” my tone was serious, but I still couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I deftly sidestepped his attempted embrace.

“Are you seriously telling me that you felt nothing just now?” He demanded.

“No,” I shook my head with the pleased smile still in place, “I felt something all right, but what I felt was the absence of those old feelings. The absence of the weight of your judgments and attempted control over my life!”

I felt free. I was free. Free from the past, free from the s elf-blame, free from the guilt and anxiety, and free from not being able to trust my own heart.

“You told me that you loved me and that we belonged together, Riley!” Nick protested.

Now he was starting to piss me off. I shook my head in disbelief. It was as if he hadn’t heard a single word I had ever said to him. “And I told you, before I left, that the man I was in love with didn’t exist! You made him up, Nick! Everything about our relationship turned out to be a lie! You told me what you thought I wanted to hear, certain that once you got me down the aisle, I’d change my mind about everything!”

“No,” he shook his head vehemently, “That’s not true!”

“It is true, Nick! Because the man I was in love with, the one I thought I knew, would never have done what you did !”

Nick threw his hands up in the air, “Oh, what the hell did I do that was so fucking bad, Riley? All I wanted to do was marry you and take care of you-“

“I didn’t want to be taken care of, Nick!” I struggled to keep my voice at a reasonable level, “You wanted some version of a white picket fence that I couldn’t give you!”

“You could have-“

“I didn’t want to!” I yelled at him, “I had my own dreams and ambitions, and you fucking knew that about me when you asked me to marry you! Then you changed the game and tried to force me into some kind of Stepford wife bullshit that-“

“Oh, spare me the theatrics! I see you haven’t changed one fucking iota, have you?”

There was a point in time when that would have infuriated me, but it didn’t, because he no longer had the power to make me doubt myself. Instead, I laughed, “Do you want to know what the worst thing you did to me was, Nick? Huh?”

“What, Riley? What was it? Was it buying you a ten-thousand-dollar ring? Was it buying you a house in Rutherford Heights? Was it-“

No, Nick,” I cut him off, because this argument was over, “the worst thing you did was convince me that I couldn’t trust my own heart, and make me believe that love was always a lie and a trap because it’s taken me this long to figure out that it’s not true!”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that I got over you somewhere along the way without even realizing it until you kissed me just now and I felt nothing!”

“Nothing? You expect me to believe that?”

“Frankly, I don’t care what you believe, Nick. But I’m really glad that you came here, and I’m really glad that you kissed me. Because it was exactly the closure I needed.”

“Glad to be of service,” he scoffed.

I drew in a deep breath and changed the subject, “This isn’t going to affect our working relationship, is it?”

Now he looked offended, “You know, I may have been a shit boyfriend, but can we both agree that I’m a decent agent who can separate my personal crap from the professional?”

My smile was back. There was the agent, the man, whom I did actually have respect for. He was right about being a shit boyfriend, but he was an excellent agent. “You know damn good and well that you’re more than decent. Don’t go pretending to be modest on me now.”

He gave me a grudging smile, “All right then. I’m a fucking badass agent and so are you and we make a good team…professionally speaking!”

He was right. The mutual admiration we had found during our working relationship was what had initially drawn us together. We were a great team out in the field…just not anywhere else.

We stood there in an awkward silence for a moment then he cleared his throat and asked, “So, do you want to go with me to question this Lorenzo guy?”

I cocked my head to the side with a grin, “Good cop, bad cop?”

A real smile spread across his face, “Good cop, bad cop.”

“Let’s go!”

An hour later we had a name. I called Drake and had him meet us back in the conference room.

“I thought you said these guys never talk,” Drake looked from me to Nick.

“They usually don’t,” I agreed, “And he didn’t talk to Jared or any of your guys.”

Drake crossed his arms over his chest, eyes flicking back and forth between Nick and me, “Then how’d you get him to talk now?”

“Easy,” Nick answered, “He’s more scared of Saguaro than he is of us, so I told him that if he didn’t talk, I’d put the word out on the streets that he did.”

“Making him a target,” Drake nodded.

“Yes, but I promised to erase any record he was ever here if he gave up his contact inside the Gladius Company.”

“And he bought that?”

Nick’s grin widened and he tipped his head toward me, “Yeah, she really sold it. She does a really good job with the good cop role. She really sounded like she was about to cry at one point, begging me not to throw my career away.”

Drake’s eyes flicked back to me, as something that I couldn’t read slid through them, “Okay. Well, good job, both of you. I’ll get an APB out on this guy.”

“I’m going to get some dinner,” Nick stretched his arms behind his back, “Either of you want to join?”

Drake’s eyes went to my face, and I realized he was waiting for my answer.

“Sorry, boys,” I answered both of them, “But I already have a dinner date tonight.”

“Suit yourself,” Nick gave me one last lingering look before nodding to Drake and letting himself out of the room.

Drake watched him leave then turned to me, “You seem a lot more at ease with him than you did a couple of hours ago. What changed?”

“He kissed me.”

Several emotions flittered across his face in rapid succession, “What?”

I laughed at his obvious discomfiture as I stepped into his personal space and wrapped my arms around his neck. Tipping my head back, I smiled up at him, “Don’t worry, I didn’t kiss him back.” Well, much.

His arms went around my waist and there was an unmistakable smolder in his eyes, “No?”

“No,” I gave him a teasing smile, “I was hoping for a better offer.”

“If that’s an invitation to kiss you, Brooks, consider it accepted.” Then he kissed me.

And that kiss….that kiss felt all kinds of right.

When the kiss broke, he leaned his forehead against mine, “Are we ever going to talk about whatever’s going on between us?”

“We are,” I assured him, “But right now I have a dinner to prepare for.”

He released me with a sigh, “I’m sure you and Liam have a lot to discuss.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…. Now Liam has to walk around all day pretending to be in love with you. Oh, wait…he’s not pretending!”

“Be that as it may,” I gave him a noncommittal smile, “my dinner plans aren’t with Liam.”

“What? Who then?”

“Madeleine,” I told him, “I’m ready to stop fucking around and take down the Via Imperii. I think she’s the key. Her father seems to be in charge of at least the local chapter and I’d bet good money that she knows a lot…or can at least get me in front of the people that do.”

“Are you wearing a wire to this dinner?”

“I’ll have a recording device in my necklace,” my fingers flew up to the chain around my neck, “it doesn’t transmit because the palace’s own jammers would stop that. Besides, Madeleine isn’t stupid and I’m sure I’ll be checked for any transmitting devices.”

The audio would have to be downloaded the old-fashioned way after the fact, but it was the safest way to record discreetly.

“Fine,” he huffed, “but if you’re going to be alone with her, don’t you think-“

“I think,” I pushed out of his arms, “that I can handle myself, Captain. This is literally my job, remember?”

“Right.” He watched me walk to the door, “Can I see you later tonight?”

“Probably not,” I told him as I opened it and stepped across the threshold, “I plan to be working late.”

“Be careful, Brooks.”

“Always, Captain.”

[criticalrolo]

short story for Hal, who is currently trapped in Lady Seryan's highly unethical Medical Experiment Basement while she tries to turn him into an angel

coping mechanisms || halion & elwa, 900 words

“You go away sometimes,” Elwa says.

Halion’s eyes are closed, but he knows she’s there, a few feet to his right. He can hear the lightest click of her fingernails on the tiled floor, her fingers drumming a nervous staccato against a beat he feels thumping in his chest. 

“You think I don’t notice, but I do.” Her voice is resonant and clear as a bell, breaking through the interminable sound of his own hesitant breathing. “You’ll slip away sometimes and be gone for hours.”

She smells like juniper, cool and woody. It cuts through the lemony smell of disinfectant and iodine that still hovers in the room. The combination makes him feel a bit dizzy. It’s not a scent she usually has, but it certainly is more striking than usual. He wonders where she picked it up. 

“Hal?”

“I can hear you.” 

There’s a shuffling of fabric as she scoots across the floor to get closer to him. He can feel the warmth of her bare arm just an inch away from his and the slightest puff of air as she breathes out against his skin. 

“Where do you go, when you leave?”

He hums noncommittally. “I don’t know if there’s a name for it.”

“Is it close?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe.”

Elwa settles back against the wall. Her circlet clinks against the hard metal, and he wonders if it will leave a mark on the soft gold of the band. He adjusts his shoulders while she shifts around, trying to get comfortable.

“There are so many things I want to ask you, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“I know.”

He leans his head down towards hers, not quite touching her hair and keeping his eyes closed. “Where do you think I go? When I leave, I mean. In your words.”

Her breath stutters for a moment as she thinks. Hal doesn’t press her. He’s not really sure how to put it into words either. 

“I think,” she says slowly, “that you used to take out the solo ship whenever you had the chance. When the weather was good and you didn’t need me monitoring the atmosphere.”

“I loved flying with you, but sometimes I needed to go alone.”

“You would go to the meadow in the valley outside our base of operations.”

He can feel the warm metal of the handles of the steering wheel in his hands. The pulse of the ship’s arcane core hums through the hull, beating at a steady pace alongside the thrum in his chest and the clicking of Elwa’s nails. 

Elwa’s resonant voice is much less distinct when it burbles through the comm unit. “Oh… are you there now?”

“I’m here.” Sunlight filters in through the panels of the windows. Outside, it’s late evening, and the sky has turned from blue to orange, pink, and purple. Clouds hanging low in the atmosphere glow gold with the reflected rays of the setting sun, while the long blades of wild grass start to flicker with lights from the first fireflies. When Hal pushes the glass windows open, there’s a rush of warm, humid air into the cockpit. He can hear the cicadas and crickets chirping, and the far off songs of sparrows and meadowlarks settling down for the evening in the branches of the trees. 

“Did you come here often?” Elwa asks. 

“I came here when I needed to be reminded I was alive, and so was everything else.”

“How did you remember?”

“Like this.” Hal leaves the windows open, but shifts the engine of the ship from neutral into first gear. The ship takes off down the center of the valley, wind whipping at his hair and the shaved back of his head. His jacket snaps where it flutters at his back, and he can smell the old leather alongside the rich earthy scent of the valley rushing by and the oiled metal of the airship. Outside, the sounds of life crescendo as he soars past them. It rises with a swell, like the sound of the tide gathering before it crashes onto the sand. He is here, and the cicadas are alive, and the sparrows are alive, and he is alive…

Elwa’s voice is gentle in his ear. “Time to come home, I think.”

The steering wheel drops out of his hand as the ship slows to a stop. The sunlight streaming through the window shifts, until it’s not coming through a window at all. It’s light shining bright through the thin skin of his closed eyelids, turning the darkness red.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Hal nods. It makes his head ache and the cuts in his forehead and under his eyes twitch oddly. “It’s beautiful, whenever I can go.”

“You don’t think it’s beautiful here?” Elwa sounds thoughtful, and a bit sideways. She must have tilted her head to look at him straight on. 

He smiles, a bit ruefully. “It’s hard for me to tell. Lady Seryan said you’d like the bright lights when you came, but I can’t really see in that spectrum of wavelengths.” 

“Can’t you?” Her voice has a note of pleading in it, like she’s lost and can’t find her way. 

Hal knows, on a conceptual level, that the room is flooded with ultraviolet light, and has been for what feels like a very long time. But Elwa sounds confused, and he is alive, and maybe he can help her. So Halion opens his eyes. 

And opens his eyes. And opens his eyes. 

[twstinginthewind]

For the Winter Prompts Sledding/Skiing/snowboarding for Pun Sharing stories for Juni CAUGHT UNDER THE MISTLETOE for Jo! >:D

Winter OC Ship prompts

Punch took a deep breath of the crisp, cold winter air. He was excited to have been invited to Harveston, to spend time with Epel and his family. Winters in the Queendom of Roses were cold, sure, but they never got the same levels of snow that Harveston winters were famous for, and he was looking forward to trying out some sports he hadn't been able to before.

Epel was well ahead of him on the path up the hill. He turned and looked back at Punch over his shoulder, and shouted back to him. "Ain't got all day, Pun!" He shifted the snowboard he had strapped onto his back to a more comfortable position. "I wasn't expectin' it ta be a race, but yer makin' me wait fer ya? Come ONNNN."

Punch laughed; it was great hearing Epel finally be himself, even if he was being impatient. He wouldn't say it out loud, but he had a real soft spot for the accent that Epel's housewarden kept trying to train out of him. "I'm coming, I'm coming! I'll be faster on my way down, at least."

Epel stood with his hands on his hips, his position on the hill allowing him to look down at the taller boy cockily. "If you keep yer balance and ain't skiddin' down on yer keister. But I'll teach ya right. If ya getcher butt up here already!!"

Punch hurried up, and caught up to Epel, who gave him an affectionate punch on the shoulder.

"Atta boy, Pun. Now let's get the rest of the way up this hill, and have some fun already!"

----

(Disclaimer! Miss Moon isn't one of mine - she belongs to @twst-the-night-away, my bestie! - but I do have two possible couples with her among my own OCs, and she's friends with several others, so we're gonna go with one of those sets!)

"All right, I give up. What did you do next?" Juniper wrapped her hands around her mug of mulled cider and nudged Bobby with her elbow.

He graced her with a grin, the light from the bonfire giving his eyes an impish glint. "Well, you know that Trein never goes anywhere without that chubby little cat of his, right? And it so happened that I had picked up a couple of cans of that delightful canned tuna fish, as a favor to our lil' buddy over at Ramshackle, right? So. I figured, what would keep the old man from lookin' for those missing quiz sheets?"

Juniper's eyes widened over the edge of her cup. "You didn't."

"I absolutely did," Bobby responded, proudly. "So, since I just happened to have more tuna on me than expected, due to my excellent haggling skills, I set up to draw that lovely little puddy tat away. Nowhere that he'd get in trouble, mind! But just enough to keep old man Trein distracted."

"And that's why none of us had the quiz until the next Monday?"

Bobby shot fingerguns at her. "You're welcome."

She threw her head back and laughed, the moonlight shining in her hair. And Bobby suddenly wished he had another round of tales to spin for her.

---

Ace stepped back to admire his handiwork, beaming proudly. "Okay. It's right over the doorway. Now all we have to do is wait!"

Deuce looked suspiciously at Ace. "I don't know, do you really think it's fair?"

"Do I think it's fair?" Ace crossed his arms across his chest. "You didn't ask that when I had the idea, or when I put the darned thing up. You're asking now?"

"Well..." Deuce tugged at his collar, and looked guiltily at the sprig of mistletoe that sat jauntily above the door to Joker and Violetta's dorm room. "I know that rule 513 does say that someone standing under mistletoe is subject to a kiss, but I think setting it up like this? It kinda feels like a trap."

Ace shook his head, and tried to sound reasonable. "It's not a trap; no one's gonna make them stand in the threshold if they don't wanna be there."

"Still...." Deuce slumped against the doorframe, his head bumping against the door. "I dunno. Maybe we should take it down."

"Absolutely not." Ace leaned closer to Deuce, poking him in the shoulder. "We were told to decorate the freshman side of the dorms, and every room has a decoration over the door. It's not our fault the only thing left by the time we got to the girls' room, all we had left was mistletoe."

Deuce blinked incredulously. "You saved it for them, Ace."

"I'm not gonna say that out loud." Ace stepped back. "Geez, your face is red. Are you already thinking about which one's gonna come out of the room first? Are you hoping it'll be Joker, Deuce? Thinking she'll stop and look up and smile, and say she's glad to see you waiting there?" He smiled cruelly at Deuce, whose blush intensified.

"... maybe?" he squeaked, still leaning against the doorframe.

"HA!"

A muffled voice came from inside the door. "What's with all the yelling, tweedle dum and tweedle dumber?" The door swung open to reveal Joker with Violetta behind her, peering around the brunette's shoulder.

"Just decorating for the holidays," Ace said, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Hung somethin' real special over your door, ladies."

Deuce froze in place, directly in their doorway. "hi Jo... it's, uh.... nice to see.... 's mistletoe...," he stammered.

Violetta's cheeks went purple and she ducked completely behind Joker, who leaned forward. "You hung mistletoe over our door?" Joker asked quietly.

Deuce's eyes locked with hers and he nodded.

"And you're standing right under it, Deuce."

He nodded again. Ace guffawed in the hallway.

Joker sighed. "Well, it's not like me to willingly break such a simple rule." She took a small step forward, and breathed deeply. She whispered, "Just ask next time, knucklehead," closed her eyes, and pressed her lips to Deuce's.

Violetta made a scandalized noise behind Joker, while Ace cheered behind Deuce. "See that, I told you it'd work!" Ace crowed. "It was a perfect plan! It wa— hey. How long are you two going to... ?"

Deuce and Joker finally disengaged. "Sorry, Vivi. Rules!" Joker called back over her shoulder. And Deuce reeled back, dazed.

Ace stepped forward. "I'm under it next. Where's my kissy?"

And Joker closed the door in his face.

[stylezxsilvermoon]

blue ice | chapter seven: pretty gazes and controlled chaos

❃゜・。. ・°゜✼ ゜°・ . 。・゜❃

CHAPTER SEVEN: PRETTY GAZES AND CONTROLLED CHAOS

❃゜・。. ・°゜✼ ゜°・ . 。・゜❃

Harry

The light of the sun graced over me like a spell casted by a magical enchantress.

I awoke blinking slowly as I heard a grumble to my side as I looked to the right as Louis squinted at the sunlight in annoyance. I chuckled at him as I snuggled deeper into his chest and inhaled his scent quietly as we lay in the silence. His arm wrapped around me protectively as he turns to me and smiles quietly with his eyes closed as I lay a kiss over his forehead as he chuckles deeply as his gravelly voice echos across the silent room.

His touch is like moon dust when his tattooed hand comes across my face and strokes it as he kisses my cheek wordlessly as it leaves evidence of his love on my body as I lay silently like a spellbound man hopefully enraptured in his inescapable trap.

The sun moves across his body gracefully as I get up from the bed as I begin to start my day as his hand grabs mine as his eyes look to me with questions I’m unsure I’ll be able to answer.

“Good morning Harry.” He says with a smile as I greet him as somehow he drags me back into bed as we both find ourselves wrapped up in each other for a few minutes giggling foolishly and love on each other like the day will last forever.

“Good morning my Louis.” I say as if I’ve known him a lifetime, when in actuality it’s only been a couple months.

As we lay on the bed with yesterdays love behind us and tommrow’s love not far in front of us a new spring bloom begins to come across the horizon like an early morning epiphany.

And Louis is the ice that breaks cold winters thaw that envelope the flowers trapped in his wake, and finally the sun arises in Lythorn for the first time in an eternity.

“What are we doing today?” Louis questions mischievously as I pause to think about how we should spend the day together as my brain comes up with an idea like a light in the dark.

“Well, we could go to the Lythorn library, there’s loads of good information there. It could help you with the case… and I could show you what I’m working on?” I asked shyly as Louis’ eyes lit up in interest as I looked to him with an adventurous spark in my eyes.

“Harry you’re brillant! And I’d love to see your work, since you’re a writer an all.” Louis said with a smile on his face as I almost felt as if I could see his soul as we sat in the silence of the early morning.

“Thanks Louis….” I say with a blush that graces the cheeks of my face as Louis moves impossibly closer to me and leaves hot open-mouthed kisses in their wake.

“Cmon babe, we’ve got a city to see.” Louis nudges me gently as I look up to him as an adventurous spark sets something unknown afire in the both of us. And one that neither of us know what it’d turn into, a curse or a blessing, a magical promise of forever… or disaster.

But, there would be only one way to find out.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

The streets of Lythorn strangely embraced the warmth of the sun out on an early morning walk with the premise of doing who knows what. And leaving the winds of adventure to cast under our wings carrying us away to greater things, unknown to us but known to anything and everything.

I looked to the sidewalks as Louis’ hand dangled next to mine as my brain tries to unlearn the idea of our two hands connecting as they brush with the twinges of the wind as it sends a deathly chill down my spine.

Louis looks to me with an undescribable look in his eyes that leaves me questioning everything I’ve ever known, his gaze holds on me like a python on a already sinking ship.

“So, about the library H, do you really think Lythorn has any good information about the history of the town? And how would that help Juniper and I solve the case?” Louis asked puzzingly as I ponderd to how would it really help the case be solved.

However, it’s safe to say the reason as to why Lythorn had information about the town itself was peculiar on its own. It left my brain spiraling to unknown conclusions to why the information about the town was ever needed in the first place, but maybe perhaps… for things such as this.

Though, the mystery still remains as to why the information was there, and if it would help the case be solved.

But wasn’t that always the question at times like this?

Why?

Suddenly Louis broke me out of my reign of wonder as he tapped me as we stood in front of the Lythorn library, as the skies looked cloudier as if the forces above were trying to tell us something, though there was something intercepting the message, or someone.

“Here we are..” Louis said wearily, staring at the building dauntily looked almost as if it was carved out of stone for us to find in this very moment. Looking eerily similar to something you’d see in verbatium, as if this exact scene played out once before, far away from here… but close all the same.

The feeling was puzzling, but it was quick to pass as electricity shocked my senses as Louis grabbed my hand and lead me inside in my daydreaming state. Seemingly having my head stuck in the clouds, and unsure of how to get down.

Though, maybe I’d find the answer to all of this up there. Something tells me… the answer is hiding directly in plain sight, and we’re too blind to see it after all.

“Right, this way Louis.” I say bravely as Louis beckons to my lead as he follows me down the library book isles until we reach the one that reads ‘HISTORY’ in big bold red letters, symbolising books in this section contain information about the history of the world.

The two of us skim until we find a couple of books with the history of Lythorn in the title spread across their bindings. Louis peeks his head up from his crouching position as he finds a maroon red book with gold lettering that read “THE HISTORY OF LYTHORN, A TOWN OF MANY SECRETS” Louis looked to me confusingly as he weighed the odds of whether or not the book contained the information we were looking for.

“What do you think love? What secrets lie inside?” Louis asked me with a mischevious look in his eyes as my mind raced to the many conclusions and finalized endings that could be found inside of the book.

“I’m not sure, I guess we’ll have to figure out together Louis.” I said with a spark of hope, a small smile, and a wish of new discoveries in my eyes as even then I had not realized in that moment.

But I had set a flame to something greater than us, greater than us… and even greater than this book worthy small town mystery.

Though we had just begun, I couldn’t help but elude to the strange distant storm that was brewing.. strong and oozing with dangerous possibilities, and who’s to know what trouble it could bring, but the question was… what direction would it come from? I wonderd endlessly as Louis lead me to a table at the library as my heart bursted into groups of butterflies as he held my hand on the short walk to the table.

After a beat Louis caught me looking into his eyes with adoration as he turned away and blushed at the sight of my gaze as his hand brushed against mine as a spark set a forest fire between us.

As Louis opened the book new adventures opened with it, as well as new secrets being revealed and abrubtly being pushed into the open, gazing spotlight.

Both of our sets of eyes skimmed the pages for a bit as the pages turned, but.. one thing stuck out to us, the mention of Lythorn and the many history of murders and assasin’s and hit men that have been caught and tried over the years. A bizzare feeling began creeping down my spine the longer we stayed in this town, and the farther the date I had arrived creeped away from the present day.

It was an eerie all too true feeling that had mysteriously presented itself into the situation, and I had no idea as to why.. but another question remained as it spun inside my brain like a broken record without a will to stop for any other meaning.

Who wrote this book?

My eyes landed upon the words “secrets uncoverd” as I read further into the pages on the book as I discovered the people of Lythorn were known for keeping secrets, more commonly until the grave.. and they met their untimely end.

But as I read further into the conumdrum of questions that sprailed into the history of this small town, who could have uncoverd the mysteries if the peoplel who had soley died to protect them from being revealed had met their untimely dimese?

Only the witnesses of course. My voice in my brain echoed like a final conclusion to a decades long symphony of questions… like a song that had no end and no meaning to continuing. It was strange, like the people of Lythorn weren’t just the populus but almost a living breathing force captured and fueled by themselves.. only their own could uncover the secrets of this selcuded town.

And that was the defeaning silence amongst the screams, that was the answer.. to everything.

I sat back in the library chair with wide eyes as I raked a hand through my hair, a felt the whispers of the wind blow through me as if I was a ghost who had just haunted a body of the living, and I was the dead. Living in this strange reality as more was uncoverd began to send my mind into alternate realties of questions that continued to pile up to no avail.

I looked to the spine of the book as my brain began to digest the information, I looked to Louis as we turned the book to its side as the author’s name and the title was revealed to us.

Aurora Amanda.

All time seemed to stop in this moment as the both of us raised our eyebrows at the sight of the Author’s name. I knew Aurora, from long ago in my distant memory.

But suddenly all of that was pushed to the forefront and roaring back to life.

“Aurora?” the both of us said in unison as we both looked to each other with confusion.

“Wait, Harry you know Aurora? Aurora and I have been friends ever since we were little..” Louis said as he revealed new information that was unknown to Louis and I both as I began to question why all the new information was occurring the way that it was.

“I’ve known Aurora since I’ve went to college for my major in writing and English, small world.” I spoke with mystery and wonder in my heart and new discoveries creating new sparks of adventures not yet in my possession yet.

Or, hidden information I was meant to uncover all along.

“But how would she write a book in such a small time? My ex erm… Milo had informed me she was here to visit me because we hadn’t seen each other in so long.” Louis spoke as all the pieces began to connect in such a strange way as the information began to be connected by never-ending winding webs of confusion created by my mind.

“But isn’t she on the Anna Blokes murder case as well with you? So maybe that’s why she was here after all…” I added as Louis shook his head in confusion as both of our eyebrows furrowed with the new swirls of mystery coating our senses leaving us blind to the next cold blooded hit of reality.

“This is all quite peculiar, because she met me when was I was little and my mum took her in as her own when her whole family mysteriously died in a house fire, she was the only survior.” Louis said solemly as my mind drifted to new conclusions as I digested the new information I was receiving.

Why wasn’t it all connecting? I questioned to myself, I had never known that about Aurora, and suddenly as the sun set high in the sky… everything stopped.

I knew right then, something was seriously wrong.

And I just had to figure out what, particularly.

“I never knew that.” I whisperd as Louis’ eyebrows shot up in surprise, why had Aurora never told me that, I said as the puzzle of who I thought she once was began to crumble piece by piece, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it as the pieces fell as they were forced to their knees.

“She never told you!?” Louis announced shocked as I shook my head at him as he shut the book and put his head between his hands.

“No Lou, I never knew this at all, this is all so strange.” I announced as Louis looked to me with a whole new mystery in his eyes, and just as the storm cleared, clouds began to circle around us, incasing all the good and heavenly love with a cursed dark incanting spell neither of us knew how to undo, and it would reign over forevermore.

“What the hell is going on Harry?” Louis said as he broke the silence in my mind as his eyebrows furrowed and his stormy blue eyes began to cast storms of doom and anger as my forest green ones looked to his in confusion and hope, but the flame of hope and all good and just was close to burning out.

Forever.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Louis

The sun began to sit higher in the sky as the day dragged on longer like a never-ending prediction of what was to come, but the final conclusion was dragging on like a hot summer storm, perching and waiting until the exact moment to strike.

The daunting feeling of waiting for a wrecking storm was terrifying, especially since you had no clue to the absolute destruction it would bring, physical or mentally, something just threw a wrench in my plans and absolutely ruined everything, but I could never pick out just what.

But I was inching closer to finding out just what made my heart really itch, really tick for a new conclusion in the mystery of this so-called life.

I sat alone with my thoughts as they buzzed around my mind like pollin and tree leaves whilsting around Lythorn on a quiet spring afternoon. Many things happened from the first time I met Harry, or set foot in this town after all this time. Though this town had some type of bad reputattion, I was beginning to see the good in it.

There was good in everything, even the murky midnight blues with codes hard to decipher, you just had to know the switch, what made it tick.

And everything would fall into place.

My mind fell upon the mess I had left behind in Doncaster, and Milo. Thinking back to everything that had happened in the last few months made it hard to remember, it was all a blur, an emotional and painstakingly long steep mountain blur… and now that the storm had passed, I hadn’t wanted to remember my life before the fall.

It was plain as day as I realized to move on I would have to face the problems that seemed to be in the rearview mirror, without being thrusted into the wormhole of overthinking the things that could not be changed and had already played out as moments in history of my life. All of the little moments piled up together really did add up to something.. it almost felt as if it was a heavyweight on my chest of something deeper, seeping into my bones and my veins, an invisible weight with no physical presence but felt.. in a strange way.

Like an energy surge through my veins the memories plunged their way into my aching soul like a ghost of the past spending the rest of its afterlife haunting my memory as some sort of eternal guilt prision sentence I had to carry for the rest of my life.

But would I break the chain? I wonderd as my mind played back all the memories of Milo and I, my body shifted like an ancient monument coming back to life at the thought of his life and ours being completely different if our souls had never tried to intertwine.

People say that some things aren’t meant to be after the fact of realizing the fatal flaw that made all of the goals you’d built up so high above reality completely fall to pieces. It was devastating, it shattered your bones beyond compare with a single deafening scream in the midst of the blinding silence.

I had known how Milo died, though when the information was presented, I buried it deep into my memory, shunning it away from ever seeing the light of day in my mind. Though I knew to completely recover from this life altering blow, the tides would have to change.

And the change would have to start with me.

I reminisced to the day I got the call Milo had died, and the way Juniper Harry and I sat in complete silence completely entrapped and entangled around each other, searching for the words to sum up what we were feeling but the words were stolen from us like our serenity and our breath.

I recalled the day when I attended his funeral, and the physician told me the results of the autopsy, he’d died from an overdose of painkillers, I thought back painfully with each memory scratching deep cuts in my skin like a ravenous animal, but the beastous monster was none other than my own guilt.

The sky was grey and the flowers were lilies, his brown eyes closed and unviewed as he was lowered to his final resting place. I sat speechless as at that time my entire world was coming to a stop, but it felt as if the world was spinning so fast I would fall off any minute.

I tried desperately to grasp onto the memories I had with him, but the guilt cut deep into my bones making me scream out in pain anytime I’d try to. I recalled those lonely nights piecing together new plot points on the case while I was falling apart at the seams, and one by one the seams were breaking along with my strength to continue.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the thought as I shook off the eerie feeling like a ghost claiming my soul to the graveyard of all my past thoughts as if I was racing against time and time had already won.

Suddenly out of nowhere I saw a strange shadow come out of the horizon as a long shadow lulled slowly behind the unknown person whom the figure belonged to. I looked in the direction of the mysterious shadow as it was none other than Aurora.

I raised my eyebrows at her surprise presence as she waved to me and stood next to me at the Lythorn dock.. ever since Harry and I had been here I find myself here even when I don’t know what direction to take next. It’s almost as if it’s a calm spot for me... where everything just feels right and everything makes sense.

“Hi Lou.” She spoke uneasily as if the whole world was beginning to crumble under our feet as she spoke.

“Hey Aurora, what brings you here?” I asked as she looked to the crashing waves as they began to calm on the water as she looked into my eyes again and pursed her lips, attempting to find the answer to the question I had just asked, but to my assumptions none were arising in her mind.

“I come to deliver a message,” She started, smiling at me with an odd look on her face as I squinted my eyes as I wonderd to what the message could be that she had to convey to me, the possiblities were endless, I marvled to myself.

“Do you know that Jake kid? Erika’s boyfriend.. the one who gave us some information for the case… well… he’s dead Louis.” She spoke quickly as she revealed more of the bombshell information, I stumbled back for a moment as it almost felt as if I was spinning in the opposite direction the world was spinning as Aurora sprung to action and caught me before I fell off of my own two feet.

“Rora he’s dead!? Bloody hell, do the police know who killed him?” I asked eagerly as she shook her head with a no, her lips parted before she spoke, but no words came out, it was only silence. As if the wind had stolen everything from her, the color drained from her eyes and she was silent as a ghost, as if she was trying to tell me something with her bare soul.

With all of the deadly information spreading like a deadly plauge, I suppose our souls too became corrupted.

“He went missing on Admensiac island, the one he was talking about, its offshore the Lythorn coast, right there!” Aurora said as she pointed it out as I squinted to see it as it was far away from the location we were standing at.

“Has anyone on the case went over there and investigated? Has his body been found? Aurora when did he die!” I asked frantically as she tried to spoon-feed me the information the best that she could.

“Louis someone put a complaint in that they found him dead but the police are hesitant to go over there because of the choppy waters and the bridge over the water is creaky. They’re not sure what to do just yet, but I’m sure everyone will come together and figure something out.” Aurora said calmly as I nodded along with her, but deep down I knew something was wrong, something with the face of an angel and the soul of a beastly horrifying monster was lingering right under the eyes of plain sight. But I knew I’d discover it soon, once I’d uncovered the truth.

“What about a helicopter?” I asked with my eyebrows raised as my mind was buzzing with new ideas as to why I hadn’t been told this information sooner and why everything Aurora was saying had come off so suspicious, perhaps it was just my better judgement taking over. But mystery was looming around every corner… like it was a forewarning for the future, and I was blind to what was beginning to bubble to the surface.

“The winds are too high, there’s going to be a storm soon, everyone on the case is just going to wait it out apparently. I suppose its just a perfect storm of sorts, just not for us.. maybe it’ll mean something in the end.” Aurora spoke hopefully as the tides of time began to change with my eerie feelings of new life beginning to creep its way into the new spring bloom.

“Aurora, I’m going to Admensiac Island, something about this doesn’t feel right.” I spoke confidently as I felt the strange tides of this new altered reality begin to shift with the wind, I felt almost as if I was floating among the greats, and I was above it all, somehow, I just felt as if everything was just the beginning, and I was itching to uncover more.

Perhaps I would, after all.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Harry

I saw a new fury in Louis’ eyes as he had explained to me all of the confusing information he had been fed by Aurora, none of it made sense to me but.. it was as if he was possessed or drunk on the power of discovery and adventure. He was hell bent on going to the island and discovering the truth about everything related to the case.

Though his ambition was all-consuming at these troubling times I worried because of the lack of information about the island. Though he sensed a strange aura of something more than endlessly never matched up to the reality, or the things that we had been told… or what we had been lead to believe.

“Louis are you sure about this? I feel as if its dangerous.. no one knows next to anything about the island.” I voiced with worry as Louis’ eyes stared into my soul with a complex look in his eyes, something told me whatever he was planning was bigger than us, and bigger than they entire crime invesitgation.

“Harry love can you trust me on this one? I feel like it’s the one piece of the puzzle that makes everything finnaly fit together.” Louis pleaded as if I could see his entire soul barred into the light of our entire beings beginning to become entertwined.

“I’ll always trust you Louis, but there’s no way you’re going in this alone.” I looked into him with my ivy eyes as he knew exactly what my true soul was trying to convey, deep down I knew something about this was dangerous, after all he was working with murder.

“Are you coming with me then, Harry?” Louis asked with all seriousness as I was following him out to the hotel parking lot as his car beeped with the click of the alarm.

I looked to him as thunder boombed in the sky as the skies turned black like a perfect storm… I knew now that he would have to leave right in this second if he wanted to beat the storm. Something unpredictable and reckless was coming.. and I knew we had no other choice than to take this on together.

He looked deeply into my eyes before stepping closer to me, another boom of thunder roared and reared its ugly head in the face of adventure and fearless fate. I stepped closer as he kissed my lips slowly as I tasted his words on his tounge as our lips glided like gold across our skin along with the rain that was sure to fall from the sky.

After another beat his lips slowly departed from mine as I gave him a chaste kiss in the corner of his mouth as a genuine smile spread across his face as he took my hand in his as he led me to the already open car door.

“Oh, my angel, would you look at that, I kissed you on purpose this time.” He smiled mischievously as I squeezed his hand gently for reassurance as he stepped to the other side of the car not before I got in.

“Let’s hurry up with this Louis, I don’t think I like the way the sky looks, or that look in your eye.” I spoke to him in a concerning manner as he looked to me with a bashful smile as the car roared to life as he turned the key and began quickly backing out of the parking lot.

“You got it H, seems as if you want this thing to be over as much as I do.” He laughed halfheartedly as we both nodded, his hand in mine again as he held it over the car console.

His car glided easily over the streets as he stayed under the speed limit while still going realatively fast because of the lack of traffic as another thunderous boom roared over the entire sky as the rain began to pour down on the people of an unsuspecting Lythorn.

“It’s true Lou, it’s just… what do you think about all of that Aurora stuff we found out about back at the library.” I asked solemnly as Louis turned to me he was minutes away from crossing the bridge to the island, I looked to it as the island was filled with flush green trees and a clearing seemingly in the middle of the island. My mind pondered to what could possibly belong there.. and if it would truly help Louis and Juniper solve the case. But now that Juniper was working on Jake’s and Erika’s possible double murder case as she foretold.. something about this was definitely sketchy.. but no one knew exactly what.

“I had supposed it could be just a coincidence, but Aurora was the one that told me about Jake’s death.. and that he disappeared at the island and the worst part is no one has come to investigate it yet! And that’s precisely why I’m here to figure out what exactly is going on once and for all.” Louis stated confidently as he looked dead straight into the lush and thick forest of the island as his car began to cross over the rigity bridge, but to my surprise the bridge seemed anything but unstable.

“Louis, I’m not so sure about this.. something about this gives me a bad feeling. It could just be with all the murders surrounding everyone who’s given more information about the case, or simply come forward about it.” I voiced worridly as I heard a phone begin to ring, presumably Louis’ as he reached for it as he dropped my hand for a moment to grab it.

“Hello?” Louis started as his face formed into a frown at whomever was teling him some troubling information that left a puzzle of emotion that was diffiuclt to decipher on his face.

“It’s the chief.” He whisperd quietly as he began to continue to listen to the phonecall as the car turned dead silent like waves of memories in an infinite ocean. Not knowing where the silence was conveying, but almost feeling the aura of it seep deep into your bones and confirming your deadly preposition.

It was almost as if it was your worst nightmare, come to life.

Seconds later Louis hung up the phone was he ran a hand through his hair and pushed his foot on the gas faster to make it across the bridge to the island as his tires skidded on the mud clearing that almost looked like a path to the heart of the island. Something in me told us that was where we were headed.

“Shit, Harry shit!” He voiced as he honked the car horn as I tried my best to calm him down as he screamed as his voice echoed through the empty car as he turned off the engine, hiding his face from me as if he was ashamed of his emotions taking over and stealing the control that he’d worked so hard to build up.

“What’s up Louis?” I voiced over the loud pouring rain mercilessly beating on the roof of the car above our heads.

“Chief Payne wants to shut down the case, because of all the mystery surrounding it.. and because of Jake’s recent death… he thinks we’ve got no shot in solving it.” Louis voiced with defeat as he looked into my eyes with sorrow.

“Well, what are you going to do now baby?” I voiced sincerely as my nickname for him made him smile for a few short moments as he rubbed random patterns into the palm of my hand as he just held it for a few moments. As chaos was ensued in the both of us… we sat in the silence with the raging storm, trying with all the powers bestowed in us not to let it consume us.. or control us.

“We’re going to go into that forest on the island, even if it kills me.” Louis looked to me for not more than a moment when suddenly he opened the door and flipped his hood over his head as he ran through the pouring rain into the thicket of the island’s mysterious land.

“Louis!” I called as I chased after him quickly as his shadow almost disappeared into the lore of the forest.

I caught up to him as his body crashed into mine as I looked into his icy blue eyes, for the first time in a lifetime, I could feel the terror radiating off of his aura, the tremble deep in his bones, as we stood in the pouring rain.. we were one… against the world with the chaos drowning us as we were struggling to breathe.

“Are you ready for this, Harry?” Louis voiced as I grabbed his hand in mine as I brought it to my lips and kissed gently over his ‘28’ tattoo as I rested my chin there for a beat.. before looking into his eyes.

“Let’s do this.” I voiced.. and with those final words.. we ran into the darkness, with only our fates and our fearless hearts to our names.

A/N: That is ONE CLIFFHANGER. How do we feel about it? I absolutely love it, I feel like I ended it at the right time.

Also, how do we feel about the larry kiss in this chapter? And the closeness between Aurora and Louis, and her mysterious presence at the dock?

Finnaly, what do you think lies in the forest of the Admensiac Island? And what will come out of Louis’ determination to solve the case?

Will they make it out alive? Or will the Lythorn killer win the final battle after all, and the Blokes’ family mystery go unsolved forever….

Remember to comment your theories and predictions my angels!

Gentle reminder there are THREE official chapters of blue ice remaining.

Until next time.

All the love, Louiscarrotsxoxo xxx.

blue ice masterlist link

[bookish-loner]

“Jasper Vale” by Devney Perry

5⭐️/5⭐️

3🌶/5🌶

“I wasn’t supposed to like that label. My heart wasn’t supposed to stop whenever Eloise walked into the room.”

Eloise Eden and Jasper Vale were never supposed to end up married. The two acquaintances spend a drunken night together at a little white chapel in Las Vegas, and the next morning realize the monumental decision made in haste. Both want to get the marriage annulled ASAP, but that quickly proves to be difficult, and perhaps unnecessary. Jasper’s past is coming back to test how much he’s changed, and Eloise must prove her responsibility with running the hotel; a divorce could ruin both of their plans. So, the two decide to fake their marriage for the time being. But it doesn’t take long for Eloise and Jasper to realize there’s something real, something true, to their relationship. 

-I think I have a new favorite book in the Edens series; “Jasper Vale” was such a delight to read. I was totally ready to devour this book in a day, and I nearly stayed up past my bedtime to finish it; I didn’t want to stop! Devney Perry is one of the most talented storytellers I’ve come across in the romance genre. She has an ability to weave a story that tugs at your heartstrings without manipulating your emotions. The characters are fleshed out and complex individuals, and their personal journey in each book is captivating.

-Eloise felt like a kindred soul. In prior books she is a background character, with “Juniper Hill” being the most substantial glimpse into who she is and her role in the family. Readers learned in prior books that Eloise’s trusting nature got her into some trouble at work with the hotel, which then led her parents to waffle a bit on whether she should own the hotel or not. In the years since the incident, Eloise has worked nonstop to get her parents’ approval and respect. She is constantly putting others before herself, often at the expense of her wants and needs. I could really relate to feeling like you’re held to a different standard than your peers/siblings, and that no matter what you do that standard never wavers. She’s a people pleaser, but she does it out of fear; Eloise wants the hotel ownership so badly, she’s willing to sacrifice everything for that opportunity.

-We don’t have a very good understanding of who Jasper is from the previous book, “Garnet Flats”, he’s kind of a mysterious character. Yes, he’s Foster’s best friend and trainer, but Jasper is very hush hush on his personal life. All of this gets thrown out the window when he marries Eloise, he’s now forced to confront all of the painful aspects of his past that he has bottled up. I thought it was a really interesting juxtaposition of Jasper’s family life versus Eloise’s family dynamics. Both are polar opposites, and it’s heartbreaking when you read about why Jasper is so closed off with Eloise’s family. 

-Eloise and Jasper have such natural chemistry together, I loved reading about them navigating real feelings within their fake marriage. The dual POV is essential in this story, and I don’t think it would have been as effective as a romance with a single POV. In some ways Eloise and Jasper are opposites, she’s more forthcoming with her feelings than Jasper is, she’s more talkative, her selfless actions speak very loudly. But that works so well for them, they are a perfect example of two people whose ‘shortcomings’ are balanced out with their partner’s strengths.

-This is the spiciest Edens story yet! Jasper is so quiet and selective with his words outside of the bedroom. But inside? He is a skilled dirty talker, and he doesn’t hold back with Eloise. Sorry, Knox, Jasper is my new favorite MMC in this series! Jasper is surprisingly romantic, there were many moments where I just kind of had a dreamy smile on my face reading about what he was saying and doing.

-The conflict was handled really skillfully in this story, and it felt the most realistic out of the entire series. It was nice to read about outside conflicts affecting Eloise and Jasper’s relationship, rather than internal conflict. Now, that’s not to say that there ISN’T some internal conflict, but it felt minimal compared to the overarching obstacles Eloise and Jasper faced. 

-If you love small town romances, interconnected stand alone books, marriage of convenience/fake marriage, opposites attract, and lots of spice, I recommend reading “Jasper Vale”.

[thomas-meier]

I posted 704 times in 2022

That's 658 more posts than 2021!

45 posts created (6%)

659 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@penned-cbarbosa

@xaviernottheprofessor

@raj-veerapen

@emmie-fitzgerald

@juniwilson

I tagged 700 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#p: celeste - 117 posts

#p: raj - 64 posts

#p: emmie - 50 posts

#t: xavier - 43 posts

#p: antony - 40 posts

#swtask - 39 posts

#t: celeste - 38 posts

#p: juniper - 37 posts

#p: khamani - 30 posts

#p: xavier - 25 posts

Longest Tag: 127 characters

#(just assuming he knows juni’s name because they have been on the island and tom at least introduced himself when they arrived)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Thomas was glad he and Celeste chose to have the baby shower away from home. There were so many people in the restaurant there to support their twins, and he was completely blown away. There was so much love filling the space, and the presents were piling high on the gift table. It was far too generous. Thomas knew the twins were going to be the luckiest little girls in the world. He walked by the snack table and put some fruit and a couple of chocolates on a plate before he sat down at an empty spot at one of the tables. “I just wanted to thank you again for coming to support us. It means so much to Celeste and I that you’re here. Did you enjoy the food? Did you get enough? There’s plenty left,” he grinned. “Lord, I’m really starting to sound like a parent, eh?”

19 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

#4

Thomas was drawing shapes in the sand as he waited for lunch to finish cooking over the fire. It was pretty much the same thing he had for dinner yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. He was honestly getting sick of it and was running out of ways to serve it. He looked up when he saw someone walking toward him. “I’m happy to share, but you have to give me a lap dance first.” He deadpanned for a moment, then burst into laughter. “I’m just kidding. You should have seen the look on your face,” he laughed some more. “I tried to kind of glaze the fish with pineapple juice. So we’ll see how it is.” He patted the ground next to him. “You can sit. I don’t bite- even if you’re into that sort of thing.”

24 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

#3

Bungalow Cuddles | Thomas & Celeste

@penned-cbarbosa​

Thomas was beyond grateful to finally get permanent access to the bungalows. Sleeping on sand and out in the elements for weeks was brutal. It wasn’t comfortable. Sand got everywhere. He got wet if it rained at night. He was also pretty sure it would take years for his skin to recover from the near constant exposure to the sun. He would have to see a dermatologist as soon as he got back. The biggest perk was that he could shower anytime he wanted. He could also escape the heat and the sun by going inside. But as grateful as he was, Thomas was also surprised that he couldn’t fall asleep on the wonderfully comfortable bed in the bungalow. So he got out of bed and crossed the room to Celeste’s bed. He was grateful she also won a permanent spot in the bungalow. After the yacht party, he was pretty sure they were in the same bungalow together on purpose. Maybe he’d thank the producers.

He carefully and quietly crawled into her bed. “Shit. I didn’t mean to startle you,” He whispered. Thomas didn’t know if she jumped from being scared or if she just shifted from him getting into the bed. “I can’t sleep, and thought that if I can’t sleep, I might as well be not sleeping next to you.” Was it cheesy? Yes. But he meant it. Especially after the yacht party. He was thrilled that he and Celeste felt the same about each other and they could focus on their relationship. Thomas moved a little closer and draped his arm across her waist as he got settled into the bed. “Did I wake you up?”

28 notes - Posted February 15, 2022

#2

Text | Group Chat

Thomas: THEY'RE HERE!

Thomas: [photo attached]

Thomas: Everyone meet Shay Edith & Sasha Tracy Meier.

Thomas: Celeste is the most incredible and natural mum, and the babies are everything we dreamed of and more.

42 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Thomas stood next to the table with the ‘noms’ on it, and he covered his mouth to keep from gagging. Everything there looked like something they would offer on Fear Factor. “This is hands down the worst challenge they’ve given us. Who in their right mind is going to say ‘that truth - or dare - is too much for me. I’d rather eat cod sperm?’” 

84 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[blujayonthewing]

now that I’m not being secretive about crossover shipping Elyss and June anymore I was kind of thinking of redoing and reposting that one doodle comic about them being such a slowburn partly because neither of them knew about bisexuality, because I think the concept is funny but the art’s Pretty Rough, but then I remembered that I still can’t share it with the rest of the party because it gives away a lil bit of Juniper’s canon backstory

[boldlyvoid]

Spy Kids

400 Follower Celebration Fic #3 for @meganskane

fic #1 | fic #2

Summary: Spencer and Y/N's kids think that they are secretly spies and request a mission story before bed.

warnings: bomb threat, mentions of euthanasia, Cat Adams, general fluffiness

word count: 900

From the time they were 5, the kids had told everyone that their parents were spies… and no matter how much Spencer and Y/N told them they weren’t, and even if they were it would blow their cover… the kids still firmly believed that they were secret government spies.

Why else did they leave in the middle of the night with guns and bags to sit in a special airplane and run around the country catching bad guys? It was a nicer way of thinking about the terrible things that go on in their actual job, so they indulged them.

Twins weren’t easy but it was the best thing that happened to them. Juniper and Edwin are the best little kids they could ever ask for, one boy and one girl and two incredible personalities. They were a team, sometimes in the worst ways possible, always getting in trouble and never turning on one another.

They enjoyed sharing a room still, they had beds side by side and enough room for mom and dad to crawl in beside them for storytime. Junie was cuddled with her father while Eddie was laying on his mom’s chest as she ran her fingers through his hair. He’s always been a momma’s boy, much like Spencer.

“Can you tell us a spy story tonight?” Junie asked.

Y/N sighed with a small laugh, “why don’t we tell you about the evil Cat that almost crashed our wedding?”

“We can’t tell them that one,” Spencer interjects, “it’s not that funny or happy.”

“Well, you get married at the end right?” Junie asks, “so then it is a happy ending.”

“So there,” Edwin teases with a tongue out, “now you have to tell us.”

“Fine, does Mom want to do the honours?” Spencer asks, seeing where on earth she could take this story.

“You know how weddings work right? Your dad was waiting for me at the end of the aisle and grandpa was just about to walk me down, and this human-cat hybrid woman shows up out of nowhere,” Y/N is over-enthusiastic and the kids get riled up as a result.

“She’s parachuting out of the sky and your dad looks at me like oh no it’s the assassin from my missions before I met you!” She gasps.

“She was evil, she put me in jail and she hurt me, and I was so scared of her hurting your mom too,” Spencer adds with a sad tone, he hated how much Cat tried to ruin his life.

“But your mom is really cool, and I was able to kick her butt even with my dress on! And then we cuffed her up and sent her away, but she knew we’d get her so she had a fake cop come and get her and then just bring her back and she tried to blow up the party!”

Spencer hated remembering it, but it was a wild story, one worth sharing. “Your dad and I had to solve a bunch of clues to get the count down to stop and we did just in time!”

“What happened to the cat?” Junie asked.

“She, unfortunately, went to sleep and didn’t wake up one day,” Spencer glares at Y/N, this was the reason he didn’t want to say anything to the kids about it.

“She’s in hell,” Edwin whispered.

“What?” Y/N laughed, holding him closer, “where did you learn that?”

“Henry told us that Jack's mom is in heaven and the guy who killed her is in hell, that’s where all the bad guys go,” Junie explained on her brother’s behalf, pushing the blame off onto someone else, like always.

“But, at the end of the day your mom and I got to celebrate being in love with each other through everything… even if that means assassin cat’s and parachutes on what is supposed to be the best day of our lives,” Spencer smiled as he pulled Juniper in closer.

“Wrong,” she whispered, “the best day was when I was born.”

“And me.” Edwin added, “just cause you came out first doesn’t make it just your day.”

“I’m pretty sure it does,” she teases right back, sticking their tongues out at each other.

“You two are too much,” Spencer laughed.

“Not too much though, you should have more,” Junie was soft in her request, “I think it would be cool to have another sibling.”

“Yeah!” Edwin agreed, “another boy!”

“We can name him…” Junie took a moment to think, “Patrick… yeah.”

“Why?” Y/N and Spencer laughed and asked at the same time, making eye contact from across the room as they did so. Their kids were the weirdest…

“Junie, Eddie and Patty,” Juniper said it like it all made sense the first time and they should have gotten it then… she was too sassy for being 7.

“It’s settled,” Y/N agreed. “Go to bed so we can discuss how we can have 3 kids and still be spies.”

“So you admit it then?” Junie smirked as she won.

“We’re spies,” Spencer agreed, kissing the top of her head before crawling out of her bed. “Now go to sleep.”

They traded kids and exchanged good night hugs, sending them off to bed with an I love you and a blown kiss from the door, they were the best spy kids in the whole world.

taglist:

@g0lden-cth @doctorspenceryeet @samuel-de-champagne-problems @reiding-recs @ssavanessa22 @spookyspence @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria@reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor @blanchardsbk

[clareguilty]

Juniper and Pine

read it here on the AO3

A/N: Im so glad Geralt is sterile bc i hate pregnancy but love breeding kinks. I barely know anything about the witcher but I know I wanna suck this man dry like a capri sun.

Geralt of Rivia/Reader Rating: Explicit | smut, breeding, reader has a coochie and hair long enough to braid Word Count: ~2300

You found him at the inn. Shrouded in shadow, tucked away in the back just as always. Two flagons before him, one empty and the other half full. He had likely already eaten his fill.

 You sat across from him, ordering your own food and drink. Neither of you spoke.

 He watched you. Mostly hidden by your cloak, he watched your hands as you cut your meat and sipped your ale. Caught a glimpse of your eyes when you chanced to meet his gaze.

 Tension radiated from him. The set of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw. Icy rain pelted against the nearby window. The wind groaned lowly outside.

 A group of men erupted in spontaneous cheers on the other side of the inn, and he turned quickly to glare at them unnoticed before turning back to his intent study of you.

 So you studied him right back. Watching him from beneath the hood of your cloak as you ate. The meat wasn’t as warm as you would have liked but it was much appreciated after your many days of travel.

 He hadn’t shaved in a few days. And silver scruff was filling in along his jaw. His hair was pulled back away from his face, and you watched the crease in his forehead occasionally deepen as he considered you. He was unarmored, though he still had with him a sword smaller than the greatswords he usually traveled with. His arms were bare, his sleeves pushed up to the elbow, and his dark shirt was half unfastened down the front. He must have been unaffected by the cold winds and rain that had overtaken you on your journey.

 Your plate was cleared. Your cup was empty. You handed the barkeep your coins and offered your sweetest smile. Still, they scurried away when he stood, looming behind you. He had pulled his own cloak on, and you could feel the heat of him against your back.

 You walked in front, but he was leading you. As you navigated the muddy, moonlit streets, he silently directed you. A heavy wooden door, a cold dark corridor. His footsteps behind you. You stepped into the room and heard the bolt set in place.

 You unfastened your cloak, folding it neatly and laying it across the back of a chair.

 “You were supposed to arrive at sundown,” he said. You glanced to see him standing before the fire, eyes focused on the flames. They reflected the light like molten gold.

 “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting. A storm slowed me down.” It wasn’t a lie. The weather had not been kind the last few days of your journey. You unfastened your belt, leaving it with your cloak, and pulled the plaits from your hair, combing your finger through the strands.

 “Did you keep to the river?” he asked.

 You hadn’t.

 You were glad you were turned away from him so he couldn’t see your face. You know he had asked you to travel along the water, keeping to the valley. He was right that it was safer, but there were reasons for you to travel through the forest. Reasons he disapproved of.

 Fingers shaking, you started on the lacing of your surcoat.

 He stepped away from the fire, moving to stand behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. You leaned back against him, relaxing as he pressed his nose to your hair. His hands took over for yours as he undid the lacing. You trailed your fingers over his arms.

 “I smell the spruce of the mountains,” he said.

 You froze.

 “Juniper.” He inhaled again, breathing in the scent of the forest that you had unwittingly woven into your hair.

 He loosened the last of your laces and placed his hands over yours, holding you by your wrists.

 “I can smell the North on you.”

 Damn witchers. Damn them and their ridiculous senses. You tried to tug away from his hold, but he held you still.

 “You disobeyed me,” he said. “And then you lied to me. Your heart hasn’t stopped racing.”

 The rapid beat of your heart was only partially because of your dishonesty. He just had that effect on you. Surely he would know that by now.

 “Geralt-”

 He spun you quickly, backing you against the wall and leaning forward until his gaze was level with yours. His knuckles pressed to your throat, forcing you to lift your chin. “I told you it’s dangerous to travel the mountains alone.”

 “I had to go,” you insisted. “It didn’t take me any longer to travel, and I made it back just fine.”

 “And you thought I wouldn’t know?” His voice was low, a rumbling growl right beside your ear.

 “I thought it would be best to ask forgiveness than permission.” You raised your head, firm in your decision.

 “Of course,” Geralt scoffed. “It was foolish of me to even try and stop you.”

 “It was,” you agreed. You moved to step forward, to wrap your arms around him and bury your face in his chest. You had missed him, and you wanted to be close to him. He kept you pinned to the wall.

 “I believe you were supposed to be begging for my forgiveness?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

 Your eyes widened.

 “Go on then,” Geralt shoved you to your knees. “Beg.”

 Your knees would surely bruise from how hard you hit the floor. You reached forward to brace yourself on his thighs. He was watching you with smug satisfaction, already reaching to remove his belts and unfasten his trousers.

 You watched his hands, eager for what was to come. Your lips were already parted, tongue swiping over them unconsciously. Geralt chuckled and pulled his cock free.

 You stroked him gently at first, swiping your thumb over the tip and squeezing all the way down to the base. He was so thick your fingers couldn’t meet around him, but you didn’t mind. You loved the way his hips moved as you twisted your wrist. His stomach tensed and he inhaled with a hiss.

 He quickly grew bored of just your hand, though. His fingers threaded through your hair before he tugged sharply, pulling you towards his cock. You wrapped your lips around him obediently. Slowly, he pulled you farther down his length. Each movement of your tongue or lips earned you a reaction from him, and you turned your eyes up to watch his expression change.

 "You're going to take it all," he said, his voice low and rough.

 You moaned, eager to do exactly as he said. He rocked his hips forward at the same time he pulled you in by your hair, and you were silenced as he forced his cock down your throat.

 It was rough. Punishing. Exactly what you had earned by disobeying him. You weren't sure that obedience was worthwhile when this is what you got from going against his orders. You loved the scratch of his calloused fingers against your scalp and the low moans that escaped him every time you wrapped your lips around the base of his cock. He was taking his pleasure however he wanted, selfishly fucking your mouth.

 And you were dripping down your thighs with arousal. Geralt was so strong and ruthless -- but rarely with you. It was seldom you got to see him this way and you loved it. He must have missed you while you were away.

 "You’re an eager little whore aren’t you,” he growled, holding you down on his cock so he could fuck your throat. “Disobedient. Stubborn. Look at you.”

 Your eyes brimmed with tears, cheeks hot and flushed as you let him use you.

 “I’m close,” he groaned, eyes fluttering shut and head tipping back. His pace quickened, and then faltered. You held as still as you could as he finished down your throat.

 He pulled away as gently as possible, carding his fingers through your disheveled hair as you gasped and coughed. You nearly collapsed on the stone floor, but he was quick to catch you, taking you into his arms and pulling you to his chest. You let your fingers trail over the skin exposed along his collar. He pressed his lips to your hairline, carrying you to the wide, low bed that occupied the far wall. You pulled him down alongside you before he could get very far.

 “I need you,” you whispered, voice raspy. He let slip one of his rare smiles, pointed teeth gleaming in the low light, and you did your best to commit it to memory.

 “I can’t believe you took the mountain path in such a short amount of time,” he said, stretching out long on the bed and pulling you to lay against his chest.

 “I didn’t want you to know. It only takes four days to travel through the valley.”

 ��Yes, and it takes six or eight to take the mountains. It’s impressive really.” His fingers absently searched out any bare skin they could reach, tracing idle shapes into your skin. “You’re nothing but trouble.”

 “I keep things exciting,” you teased. “But maybe I could put in a little more work to earn your forgiveness.” You let your hand trail over his chest, across his hard stomach and back over the fasten of his trousers.

 He raised an eyebrow. You could tell he was interested from the way his cock twitched beneath your palm. Sitting up, you removed the rest of your clothes. Geralt’s eyes never left you. It wasn’t until he caught sight of the glistening mess between your thighs that he moved.

 He was on you before you blink, looming over your back as he pressed a hand between your legs. “I could smell that you wanted me, but I didn’t know it was this bad.” He rubbed your pussy with the pads of his fingers. “You’re so needy. Like a bitch in heat.” His voice was right in your ear, warm breath fanning over your skin.

 You whined, rocking your hips against his hand. He pulled away just long enough to drag his shirt over his head and fling it away. His teeth latched onto your shoulder lightly as he pushed his trousers off as well. He pressed his cock against your ass, chuckling low as you pushed back to meet him, desperate to be filled.

 “Geralt, please,” you moaned.

 “Ah, so now you beg.” His voice was light and you wished you could see his smile. He settled his hands on your hips, lining himself up and sinking into you with a slow thrust of his hips. God, he was big. “You want me to breed you? To fill you up? Is that what you think you deserve?”

 He was enjoying himself. He wasn’t usually so talkative, and you loved the sound of his voice in your ear as he pounded into you.

 “Yes, please,” you nodded. He pressed you into the bed, pinning you beneath him and holding your hips so he could fuck you as hard as he liked. It was a blinding, delirious pleasure that you let yourself fall into, surrounded by Geralt, safe, protected.

 He pulled you from your haze by reaching to press two fingers to your clit. You came almost immediately. He didn’t let up as you shook through your orgasm, clenching around his cock and crying out in pleasure.

 “That’s it,” he said, never slowing the pace of his hips. “You’re going to come for me again.”

 It didn’t seem possible. You were already so overwhelmed. But he changed the motion of his fingers, and you felt it building again. He was getting close as well. You could tell by the way he occasionally slowed to savor the feeling of you around him, almost immediately followed by a blinding pace as he chased his own pleasure.

 His grip on your hip tightened, his teeth sinking into your shoulder once more as he rutted against you. The sharp sting of his canines made you gasp. Spurred on by his own impending orgasm, he pressed harder to your clit. Your eyes rolled back as his rough fingers, slick with your own arousal, dragged you to a second climax.

 He came as you did. His hips pressed tightly against yours as you shuddered and collapsed beneath him. You could feel his cock twitching inside you, filling you with his seed.

 A long moment of quiet, just the sound of your heaving breaths and the crackle of the fireplace. You melted onto the bed, stretching your limbs out long and sinking into a blissed out daze. Geralt wasn’t much better, laying half on top of you with his cock still buried inside. His breathing was evening out and you feared he would fall asleep.

 “Geralt,” you mumbled half-heartedly.

 “Mhm,” he responded, chest rumbling with the sound. You thought he was going to ignore you, but he moved after a second, pulling out of you with a hiss and searching for a way to clean up your mess. You rolled over, listening to your pulse gradually quiet and slow.

 It wasn’t much later that you were beneath the coverlet, once again nestled against Geralt’s side as he lay still. You weren’t sure if he was sleeping, his eyes were closed and his breaths so even and slow. You admired the softness in his features that you almost never got to see. It was only at times like this that you could catch him without a stern expression.

 “What are you looking at,” he asked, not opening his eyes.

 “You.” You splayed a palm over his chest. “I like it when you look happy.”

 “I am happy,” he said, not moving. “You make me happy.”

 You were glad he wasn’t looking so he couldn’t see the effect his words had on you. Your face grew hot, and you couldn’t hide your giddy smile. Curling tighter against him, you rested your head against his chest and let your eyes drift closed. “You make me happy, too,” you whispered.

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Barbatos- True Form

It’s here! Thx for your patience's I hope it’s worth it :<

Last but not least for this series is: Belphegor  

Of all the demons you’ve met, he unnerves you the most. Not because of his demeanor or temperament. No, no you genuinely like him and his company. There is just something about him that unnerves you sometimes. He is just so hard to place.

You see- how can I explain this. The brothers are easy to understand’ easy to neatly categorize and compartmentalize in your mind as friend or foe. For as ancient as they are you do share some common traits. Family lineage for one. Traceable origins. It’s familiar, it’s comforting.

Hells, even Diavolo has an origins, a genealogy one could trace. A family made of stone flesh and blue blood. (He’d be happy to tell you about it too- if you have a few eons to waste).

But Barbatos? Barbatos had just always been- here...there? From the context clues you’ve picked up from Lucifer and Diavolo he was older than even the great kings of the past. He even helped raise the crown price. He grew in experience and expanded his talents, but never aged. Did he have kin? A bloodline? Hell did he even bleed? His very existence raises the hackles of your self preservation skills. 

If he is older than the old kings is he old then the concept of time itself? Does the idea of time really exist to him at all? 

The odd fight or flight feelings he gives you lessen and disappear over time though. He knows he can be quite uncomfortable to the human psychic and evolutionary survival traits instilled in you after hundreds of thousands of years fighting to the top of the food chain. 

It took you a bit, but one day you finally warm up enough to ask him about- well him. How he works, and what is relation with the idea of time even is. It was shot in the dark question. He is a notoriously private demon. But for you he will open up a little. Besides it’s not like you could do anything with the information anyway. Just promise to never tell Solomon. 

The best he can explain time to a mortal is in an analogy. If time was an object it would best be described as a stream or creek to him. And all the little minnows and guppies trapped in it’s currents were the beings of the three realms. While they are bound by the waters he would be the one standing on the riverbank. 

Most of the time he is happy enough to walk alongside the flow. Other times he enjoys simply dipping his feet in and watch it all pass him by seeing what it all does without his intervention. 

Others he’ll slip in himself and gauge out new deviations and channels of his own. He loves to see what flourishes in his hand crafted areas without intervention.

He does confide in you however. Despite his age and maturity he can still slip up from time to time. He is not infallible after all. Barbatos’s corporeal existence depends heavily on his emotional state and mental fortitude. If he is not careful he has a tendency to just-get swept up. 

One moment he is having a delightful time with you over a fresh pot of tea and the next… You had a lovely funeral. Wait- hmmm no. Honestly, humans can be so gaudy sometimes. He was actually offended on your behalf. The flowers weren’t even freshly cut. 

Ah well. Once he is stable he’ll simply dam this stream and kill the flow before this travesty would happen. Now where was he? Ah yes, do you think this blend goes better with Madame Screams or a human bakery? 

Truthfully Barbatos doesn’t use his abilities all that often. It gets boring real quick. But sometimes he is tempted. Anything to do with you is a struggle to be exact. Most streams involving you he is happy to let slip by. All the ones of you falling for the brothers, or his highness, even the angel. There are even a few of you falling for Solomon. Those he doesn’t wise to see. 

But the streams where you fall for him? The itch to look is overwhelming. Just a peek, a small taste of your favor. What had he done to make you his? Did he have a chance in this timeline? He always loved a good mystery. So he’ll bide his time and wait. 

Now naturally there are some other rules to his existence. Being constantly hyper vigilant of himself can get exhausting and he needs to rest. He doesn’t sleep though, not by human standards anyway. You’ve walked in on him “resting” once or twice. He calls it a stasis period. To you he looks like he’s frozen. Stock still and just standing there in his room. His lanky form flickering in and out of focus. After images appear around him, hundreds of different hims there but not. 

It’s an absorption stage, or so he explains. All the input from the trillion parts of hims scattered about all sharing like a hive mind their encounters and experiences. This is the one time every version of him is in sync and very vulnerable. 

While he can convene with all his scattered parts of him in stasis he still cannot be in the same visible area as them. One of the two would have to yield to the other. The weaker one reabsorbed quite violently. It is a most unpleasant feeling. 

After exerting large amounts of energy and not resting it can take him a bit to recover, and it is very noticeable. He lags hard after such instances, literally. The first time you saw him snapping and rubberbanding around the castle gave you a few more grey hairs then was normal for your age. He’s normally smooth movements were now choppy and stiff. It would have been funny if you weren’t so worried for his well being. The only thing to stop him is Diavolo himself having to throw his weight and power around to get him to rest. He hates being reprimanded. 

Don’t get me wrong though. He loves serving the royal family. The years spent in the Devildom have been an utterly delightful vacation. The menial labor and tasks keeps his mind anchored in the present and mutes all the other voices of him to a manageable static. 

Now when it comes to his form quite frankly even he has forgotten what he originally looks like. He has been in this form for so long he might as well call it his original form. You ask to see it once, beyond curious. If you could see it that was. Was he like Dia? A formless form? A mass of contradicting layers stack one on one on top of each other?

He is hesitant to say the least. He consults with himself on this. Have any of the others come across this yet? If not he promises to look into it for you. He practices with Simone, knowing that aside from Solomon he knows the limits of a human. Once certain he comes to you delighted to share himself with you.

He is so smol small. His form fitting neatly in the palm of your hand. He is warm and pulses like with a faint heartbeat. You can’t really make heads or tails of what his defined form really is though. His tiny form is covered in a glowing haze flicks of distorted images and sounds invade your senses whenever you hold him. But one thing you can sense in some kind of bony nodules and slender legs. Thousands of them all skittering and tickling your flesh, like an obscenely long centipede.

Now that you know of this form he likes to pop up from time to time when he misses you. His favorite spot to appear is in the breast pocket of your uniform. It’s dark and quiet and close to your heart. While he can’t talk in this form, the physical closeness is enough for the both of you. 

Mini Fic

“Be honest with me. Which one of me is your favorite?” You flip over onto your pleasantly full stomach. His tea sandwiches and cakes make you feel sleepy. You stretch out with a grunt of happiness enjoying all the little touches that were distinctly Barbatos. The blanket protecting you from the early morning dew smelt of elderflower and juniper. The fleece material was a personal favorite, soft, warm, and perfect. Even the foods had all been your favorites. He had crafted this all with you in mind. Surely you were the favorite. If he would put this much effort into it.

The demon in question hums from his chair. A steaming cup of tea resting lightly on his bottom lip. A perplexing thought. Each one of you was a delight to his many senses, so similar, yet so different at the same time. Like a reflection in a broken mirror. Each one so stunning and vivacious in a way only a human could be. Yet so few even glanced his way. “Does a parent have a treasured child?” He quips back. 

Your peal of laughter warms him better than any tea. “Ha! You must be an only child then.” You snort. He matches your smile, pleased that you were pleased. 

“Perhaps-” He takes a sip cutting off that train of thought there. He didn’t need to sour a pleasant morning with such melancholy questions. Was he an only child? Surely he at least had a sire. If he had such kin would they have not met by now? He was on every plane of existence that he knew of. Had they missed each other? Slipping past each other like ships in the night.

More likely they would be more like two similar ends of a magnet being forcibly kept away by their molecular structure than merely missed chances. Incapable of existing in the same dimension at the same time.

Ignorant to his inner turmoil you flip back over to your back eyeing the snack tray he refilled. “How much longer now?” He checks his pocket watch then looks out at the carnage below them.

The Battle of Omosu was in full swing. The ancient warriors below oblivious to the strangely dressed human and otherworldly man sitting on top of a neighboring cliffside to observe the preordained outcome. “Any moment- now pay attention.” He chastises you but without any heat. Pocketing his watch he comes to sit beside you on the fleece blanket. You scoot closer, happy to have his naturally warmer body beside you. The heat of which fends off the cold sea breeze. “There, look.” He points to a growing patch of bubbles by one of the enemy ships. 

The water turns turbulent, oily green, and black bubbles foaming on top of the surface. “Wow.” It was all you could manage to whisper. 

Leviathan enters the fray now, called forth by his pact barer. The great serpent emerges like a ghost from the depths. Invisible to the other mortals you watch fascinated as his massive tail wraps around a boat crushing it as easily as if it were a stick. Another capsizes, getting pushed away by his massive shoulder. 

The sailors fall into the choppy water mouths open in silent screams. They would not survive after hitting the water. Levi’s legion waits below, ready to drag them deeper down. Their bodies will be added to the Devildom navy. Something dark and humanoid darts around the remaining boats. From what you remember from class Levi had called forth an umibozu from the nearby depth for this fight. Its bloated grey body jostles the boats knocking more sailors overboard whole. The two of them make fast work of the enemy ships. The human sailors pick off the rest.

“Quite impressive.” Barbatos remarks. “I can see why humans want to make deals all the time. But what a terrible cost, don't you think?” 

“What’s going to happen to the pact holder?” You ask. 

“Depends on whatever Levi feels like. Mostly his holders are trapped in the depths of his realms. Left to the devices of their victims. But each brother is different.” The air around you both grows thick with your sudden fear. You rub subconsciously where your pact mark rested, eyes blank. 

He places a firm hand on your thigh bringing your focus back to him. “Don’t worry. Like I said the choice is up to the demon that holds the pact. I doubt you would be advantageous to the royal navy.” You chuckle weakly, still rubbing at the growing chill climbing up your arm. “Will this be enough for your project?” He removes his hand begrudgingly away from your soft leg. “It is getting late.”

You nod glancing back down to the battle. It was already over-with the great sea beasts and demons in the water, Takeda’s forces didn’t stand a chance. You don’t wait to see Levi’s victory lap. “Yes, thank you for your help.” You accept his help in picking up your books and supplies. “I hope Kinz is happy with this.” You had been having a bit of trouble in your history class with Professor Kinz. Nothing major, you had assured him. But if it continued your ranking within the school would be at risk, and with it your scholarships. 

“Any time.” Barbatos moves an elegant hand to the center of your back escorting you away from the edge. A door slowly emerges from within the mist. He grabs the semi-translucent knob and opens it for you. “I know it will be more than satisfactory.” 

“Ye?” You adjust your pack’s shoulder strap bracing yourself for the weirdness of time travel. “Think you can give me next week's lotto numbers? I’m asking for a friend.” Your teasing pulls a deep rumble from him. It was all in good fun, but truth be told he came to find that not keeping one of his many eyes on you had the most enjoyable outcomes. You little human ramblings and witty comebacks being one of them. You at least weren’t afraid to joke around him. 

“Now, who said I did anything of the sort?” He chuckles. Keeping a firm grip on your forearm he ushers you through the threshold. You clung to him hating the sticky feeling of the space between time. It clung to your skin, thousands of webs grab and pull at your clothes knowing that you were not supposed to be outside of their control. You were envious of the fact that you couldn’t experience it the way Barabatos did. To him, this was nothing more than the feel of a cool shower. The pulls of time merely buffering off of him. Hardly a threat like it was to you. 

He sees you off at the gate to the house bowing deeply as you hop up the front stairs waving at him. You had to hurry lest you be late for dinner. Once you had disappeared through the door he melds into the timestream once more emerging in front of your classroom. A week had passed and your paper was due. He was excited to see what you had gotten and just didn’t feel like waiting this time. He could indulge from time to time. 

The bell rings and your class files out. They pay him no mind. The prince’s butler was nothing to gawk at. He counts heads. His frown deepens when you do not appear from the lecture hall. Kinz leaves the room last, her heels clacking obnoxiously on the marble. “Oh! Good afternoon Barbatos, are my services needed by the prince?” She smiles showing far too many teeth to be considered polite. Their mutual dislike of each other was a poorly kept secret. But she had a talent that Diavolo needed; for the moment. 

He matches her predatory smile. “I was here looking for our esteemed exchange student.” Her smile falters, her hackles raising for a moment before her face goes blank. 

“They didn’t show up today.” She flicks her tail dismissively. “You know how pathetic humans are.” She challenges him, locking eyes with him like the fool she was. 

“Hmm. I do not share this sentiment, but it is unusual to have them miss class.” All airs of pleasantly evaporate from him. The cold fury of his ire permeates the narrow hallway. Kinz flinches, breaking eye contact with him. Her weak attempt at dominance is gone. “A moment if you will-” His voice brittle and laced with malice. “I shall return for you later.” He bows shallowly and blinks out of existents leaving the woman quaking in the hall. 

________________________________________________________________

An insult, a complete violation of the rules set by Diavolo himself. If the celestial council caught wind of such a flagrant disregard for your mental well being- the program would be in jeopardy. Hiding your death had been hard enough. But a room full of demons acting out unsupervised? 

Barbatos struggles to control himself. He could feel his grasp on himself waver with each passing second. His very self unraveling at the seams. Your tears fuel his rage.

Kinz stands over you mocking your relentlessness in front of your peers since the brothers were not present in the class. You had been so excited to test your merit on your own, believing that after getting to know the student body you could handle it. Diavolo approved, figuring his name and the program's initiative was enough to protect you- at least on campus. In theory, it seemed like a good idea, you were well liked among the student body. But that same feeling didn’t bleed over to this particular teacher it seems. A grave error on the councils’ part. 

Barbatos watches along with the rest of the silent class as Kinz burns your paper at the front of the lecture hall, berating you for “showing off” and “abusing your statues for brownie points”. You leave halfway through the start of class. A trail of salty tears and ashes left behind in your wake. 

Such disgustingly uncouth behavior. To a guest of the prince no less. To you. 

He arrives inside Diavolo’s office in a blur, filling the empty air by his prince’s side. The younger demon used to the sudden comings and goings of his most trusted ally didn't even look up from his paperwork. “Something the matter? You are getting a little wispy around the edges.” Diavolo asks signing off on a form. 

Barbatos inhales deeply focusing on his present self. The unneeded action of breathing, the expanding and contracting of his chest cavity was soothing. Not necessary for him, but nice. Yet another odd quirk he had picked up during his time in the Devildom. “Kinz has been putting the program in jeopardy.” He grinds out once he finally locks himself back in. 

“Oh?” Diavolo dips his pen in its ink well. “That is quite unfortunate for her. Do you suggest a council meeting on the matter?” Barbatos bites his cheek. 

“I believe her offense far outweighs just a slap on the wrist. I believe her tenure should be revoked. This isn’t her first strike.” 

Diavolo chuckles resting back in his chair. He gives his full attention to his butler who was bustling around the room, tiding an already spotless room. “I haven’t seen you this bloodthirsty since those scribes in Alexandria poked at you.” 

“I gave them a fair warning. As I have with Kinz.” He bristles. Diavolo waves a hand, willing to listen. “Kinz has taken up public humiliation and verbal abuses since the brothers are not around to interject. You know how she is. This will only accelerate in time if not nipped now.” 

“Is that what you see?” 

“I don’t need to to know.” 

Diavolo sighs deeply, weighing the pros and cons of losing such an asset. He already knew his verdict, as did Barbatos. Even without his powers, they both knew either one of them would bend for you. “Fine.” He returns to his desk of papers. “I will let you do as you please. Just don’t tangle things up too much.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” 

In a way, it was a pity. Kinz is- well- was one of the Devildom’s more esteemed historians. Her place amongst the upper echelon had been a commendable feat. She certainly lasted longer than the archivist and scribes that had come before her. 

 Barbatos stares in disgust at his once stark white gloves. But better soil a pair of gloves or two then touch her wretched corpse with his bare hands. Ugh. Was that some viscera on his wingtips? The cruor of it turns purple as it oxidizes in the open air. Perhaps he had gone a bit overboard. Though to him, it was merited. She had been a pain in his ass for years. Plus the past thirty or so versions of her had put up a bit of a fight. Once even he had walked in on a reflection of him taking her down for some other transgressions. He rolls his shoulders as a phantom twitch shoots up his spin. Merging consciousness was unbearable. Yet, as he went about his duties “cleaning” he realized he would handle as many as needed to see you safe. Fascinating. 

At first, he had debated with himself on at least keeping a few versions of Kinz around. While he universally hated her, there were a few less volatile Kinz floating around. If only to steal her work for the prince and his goals. But even without her, her discoveries and advancements would be found by others. He had even found a diamond in the rough, a potential successor. Given time to grow and which paths they take they could benefit Diavolo greatly. Even more than her. A gamble he was happy to take. With that discovery, Kinz’s faith was sealed. She was set to be only a figment of a memory left in his mind. The rest of the universe will never remember her.

 ______________________________________________________________

You stare bewildered at the aged bronze plaque on the door. Something about it didn’t sit well with you. But damned if you could place it. It had something to do with the name. Des Moines...Moines? Who in the hells was that? You glance at your schedule like it was your first day of school instead of your 150th. 

Room 325- Demonic history: Professor Des Moines Riel.

This can’t be right. Where was Kinz? You grab at your head crying out at the sudden violent throbbing that erupted between your eyes. The queasiness it caused was beyond description. It was enough to send you to your knees. Indecipherable images layer themselves in your mind, folding and stacking on top of each other. The mounting pressure scares you and then-

Nothing.

Bliss and clarity. Like sucking in a breath of fresh air after a near death experience. What were you thinking about again? How did you end up on the floor? Shaking yourself from your stupor you stumble back to your feet. The school hallway was too stuffy for some reason. You needed to walk away, especially from this door. Just looking at it made your stomach clench. Yes, you needed some fresh air. That’s all. 

“Is something wrong?” Patent leather shoes appear beside you matching your hurried gate effortlessly. You shake your head, not trusting yourself to open your mouth lest you start feeling ill again. Barbatos stops you with a gentle hand on your waist. He scrutinizes you, teal eyes roving over every inch of you. Shucking a glove he places a warm palm on your forehead. “You are clammy.” 

“I’m fine.” You lie through your locked jaw. “Just got dizzy for a second.” He looks alarmed. “Don’t worry about it- probably just one of those mysteries of the school.” 

“I’m not worried about it, but you on the other hand.” He looks up from your flushed face to the hallway you had vacated in such a hurry. The history wing. Could you? Impossible. “Is there an issue inside the department?” Had he missed something? 

“What? Oh, no really! Everything is great! I think.” You lean into his hand now resting idly on your cheek. It felt so good compared to your cold skin. “I just- I could have sworn. Is Riel new?” You rub at the bridge of your nose. A knot was growing between your eyes now. “Where is Kin-Kinel? You draw a blank. A name was on the tip of your tongue. You glance up at Barbatos. His hand on your cheek becoming stiff. “What?”

“Nothing my dear.” He recovers smoothly. The hand on your cheek slides down to your shoulder. “Perhaps you should sit out of this class for today? You sound like you're overworking yourself. I’ll make a note of it to Diavolo and Lucifer so it won’t be counted against you.” 

“I- don’t think that’s wise,” You argue meekly. “I have a paper to work on for this class-”

Barbatos ignores your weak plea. Drawing you close to his side he steers you down to the lower floor. “Nonsense. Why don’t we spend some time together? I can help you with that paper later as a trade.”

Hmm. That wasn’t a bad idea. If any demon could get you out of class and help you make it up it would be him. Maybe a little break would be good for you. Though you can’t remember why you needed it in the first place. 

[itsthe-neo-zone]

Paint Bleeds on Ice - Enhypen Series

Enhypen, Park sunghoon x Reader

Please read the Masterlist for this series.

Chapter: 4

Entry log 9:

Hey, it’s me again, Juniper. 

So things supposedly got worse, something about my focus being unstable, temporary memory loss or something. It’s stupid though, I don’t see a point in writing my thoughts or memories for today.

I do the same thing every single day. Nothing important. Wake up, go to school, Finish school, eat, try to pick up a paintbrush, have a breakdown over my school work then fall asleep after trying to eat without throwing up. (it’s been like that for the past few weeks.)

See? So why would it matter if my memory is unstable? Why would I bother worrying over pointless stability.

Clearly I fucked my life up bad if I can’t comeback properly after the stupid ‘accident’. But since Dr Choi asked we all must comply and now I have to write every morning about my pathetic life, all the regrets I feel and shi--

The lead snaps beneath her fingers, stubbing the dull sharded wood of the tip indenting into her fingers and smearing the clear paper.

Sometimes juniper really wished her inner self could heal as easy as her physical self.

~

“No way! we just got rid of the diary shit, can’t you go back to them and tell them to try something different with you?” karina hissed. She really did try her best to be quiet at times but it wasn’t her thing at all.

“No, mum said I need to try this,” karina rolled her eyes, “Typical Camille.” I set down the books chuckling at her response, “Jakes idea didn’t work. I tried it the past two nights.” Scanning the last of them in, I put back the scanner.

She paused in thought, “You do realise, art therapy takes way longer than two days to work.” I nod, the librarian was glaring at us again. At this point, we were going to get kicked out if she didn’t keep her voice down.

“hush, she’ll screech at us next time we talk.” Karina followed my eyes seeing the woman’s beady eyes watching our every move, I smile sheepishly pulling the raven haired girl away.

“Uh, glad were out of there, she’s so creepy.” Exaggerating the breath she takes. The doors fall back into place as I follow her out into the corridor. Her voice resumes the volume its usually in echoing across us.

“I’m in the mood for a croissant, come with me to the dining halls?” but she didn’t need to ask twice as I was already linking arms with her.

“Buy me a milkshake?” she grins nodding, “I’ll buy you anything you want my little bun!” poking my cheeks, I swat her fingers away lightly.

“Ugh get a room you two!” a snap came directly from across us. It was Jake sniggering across the end of the hallway. He must’ve finished class, holding his physics textbook, his bag was strapped across his shoulder.

“You’re in a good mood? What can I do to ruin it for you Mr. shim?” karina focuses on him, her face blanking. She squints her eyes, teasing him.

“I am actually in a good mood, bet you’d love to know why?”

“why don’t you tell me.” She pokes. “I’d love to wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Nah guess,”

The two continue bickering the whole way to the halls, as we enter the distinct smell of bakeries and chatter engulfs me, the echo is a bit much but I can handle it for a while. I push down the sniffling that was subconsciously going to happen.

Jake pulls us towards our usual space. A table towards the small cove near the doorway, it was right next to the glass walls giving us a view of the playing fields.

Last year we used to wait for Jake here before we’d go off to the fields to practice for his soccer matches. Me and karina would occasionally make banners and cheer for him from here if we couldn’t find a place at the bleachers. The memory forces a small smile onto my features.

“Ooh, I see a smile appearing. Not as big as the ones I miss. But it’s there.” He teases sitting ahead of me.

“I want to see you happy, I really do, we miss you juni.” I give him a smile extending the one on my own two lips a little bit.

“And because of that, Jay wanted to let you know that he’ll be at the front gates this afternoon if you want to come say hi.”

My face must have lit up a little because his eyes go into full crescent just looking at me. “this the good news you were mentioning earlier?” he grins nodding.

“Thanks Jake, you just made my day.” I grab his hands subconsciously

“No I just made your day,” karina chirms taking her seat as she sets down three milkshakes and a few pastries from the tray. “I want you to try this. I got one for ningning the other day and she loved it!”

“looks delicious. Thanks,” I bite my lip, god did I want to make her happy and enjoy something warm with my friends but I wasn’t sure if my stomach was going to hold it down.

“Here, put that mouth to use and have one of these.” She slid another pastry towards Jake. “Consider it a bribe, now tell me what’s gotten you two on cloud 9?

“Jay is back.” He was almost about to fall off his chair with the new revelation.

“It’s that all?” her eyebrow jolts up.

“You can be so annoying at times, have I mentioned that?” he mutters scoffing down the first bite of the crispy pastry.

“What’s that supposed to mean.” Karina sniggers at his movements.

“Exactly what I said, annoying. I tell you juni’s childhood friend is coming back from his long trip to America and this is all you have to say?”

~

The entire afternoon was spent finishing classes, juniper was glancing every few seconds on the hanging clock, focusing on its ticking. It felt like it was slowing down the more she stared.

Tick,

Unless she was seeing things, but just out of the corner of her eyes it looked like the seconds hand was about to stop. She sighed.

Tick,

Looking back again her eyes twitched trying to focus on the flitting jitter of the hand from a distance. She felt the tingle slowly fade in near her nape, grabbing the back of her head quickly.  

Tick,

It moved again, relieved she stopped to look back at the screen before her, hissing at the blue light shock it sent through her irises.

“Psst,” it caught her attention and juniper glanced to her right. “Watching the time pass by won’t make it go faster.”

Juniper gave her a small lopsided smile, “Yeah, I know. I just can’t help it.” She didn’t notice ningning’s eyes catching her. “I know.”

“Almost done,” she winked, playing with her soft hair, the edges were out at the end of her plait and she toyed with them. “I need a good haircut, and a rest, I’m so exhausted from all the work,”  

Ningning stayed silent for a moment eyeing the lecture, thinking for a moment, she quickly mumbled to her frizzy haired partner. “What do you say we take a spa day next Saturday? You and me?”

“I need to try fixing this whole-” she signalled to her temple “Em, art, issue. I won’t get any better if I just sit there and mope about.” She slipped her chewed up sleeve beneath the table making sure it covered past her wrists, hiding it out of sight, though it didn’t go past Ningning’s sharp eyes.

“Yeah but overworking yourself isn’t going to fix anything either.” She sighed, there was no way ningning would break her stubborn mindset.

She still lifted her glace to try again, but was met with a firm but apologetic no, juniper wasn’t budging.

“Alright fine.” Ningning rolled her eyes.

And about time too, the bell signalled the end of class and the slowly increasing beating of Junipers heart, she shakily gathered her books into her bag before running out.

~

Jay sighed, it was so much more enjoyable feeling the distinct scent of autumn brush through him, just the last few umber leaves of the season lay strewn beneath his shoes, as it got colder he reminisced of the feeling of winter back in America.

He missed the pumpkin spice season but definitely didn’t miss the college experience there, different system and of course America didn’t have is friends.

America didn’t have juniper.

Jay remembered mumbling once when they were young,  a taurus moon, laying above the roof the tiles digging into his shoulder blades but her soft fingers playing with the stray strands of blonde.

“You should come back to America with me.” He missed the echo of a chuckle that day, her eyes shimmering with life, a beautiful galaxy of hope swirled in those dark magnum irises.

“Your dad would be pleased with that wouldn’t he?” Jay always hoped she’d say yes. Agree and run away with him.

“He would, he’s from there. But I can’t leave my life here behind.”

“You don’t have to. Me and you,” he glanced towards juniper, “Can always come back. Here and there. Together?” tracing her curls he watched the blow past her face from the light breeze.

His gaze caught the metallic framing shimmering against the light rays of sunlight from a distance, crossing the road he approached the college closer hoping he’d catch a closer glimpse of Jake or even heeseung.

“JAY!” he heard a yell from past the trees around the stairwell. “Yah Park Jay!”

Before the poor boy was able to turn to see who was calling from across the pathway down he was engulfed into a delicate but warm hug. He recognised those warm chocolate curls as the face buried itself into his chest.

Jay could only make out something close to a sob, her voice broke as she whispered. He wrapped his arms tightly around her small frame, chuckling.

“I’ve missed you too, juni.”

“How come I don’t get a hug bro, but she gets one first?” jay piped up at the familiar voice, the one that was calling out earlier. Turning to see his long-time friend Jake, now much taller and with his hair slicked back.

Jay gaped at his friend, the boy who once was entering his class for the first time, aged 11, without much knowledge of the native language and wore dorky glasses, a sweater and jeans was now wearing ripped jeans, decked in chains and had a piercing.

“How have you been, it’s good to see you bro.” he smirked taking him in for a shoulder hug as he grasped his hand tightly. Jake had gotten stronger too, he could feel the muscle across his shoulders.

“Good to see you too man, gone back to black?” Jake noticed his friends hair colour.

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to stand out with dyed hair in America. Almost everyone has it now.” He laughed.

Juniper watched as the two laughed for a bit, catching up with each other, she slowly followed as the three began walking down, at the end of the road they stopped at a near café.

~

“This is the first time in a month she’s been out and about after school you know?” Jake nodded towards juniper before taking a long sip of his iced tea.

“Fuck, why juni?” juniper watched has jay turned around in his seat facing her with a worried expression.

“No reason. Just haven’t been feeling it.” She noted fact that he nodded slowly as twisted back facing Jake again. She made a mental note to kill Jake for spilling that so easily.

Fazing out she watched the two talk, catching up. Jay was asking about friends he and Jake were mutual with. But her phone wasn’t interesting at the moment.

Instead she was enamoured by the way Jay looked, she hadn’t seen her childhood friend in so long, a good few years, and before he left she was in a small peak before hitting a long and painful low.

Secretly she some part of her wished she had taken the offer to travel, things would’ve been much different. His hair was dyed black again, his natural colour. The default hair came with leather jackets and ripped jeans. Typical Jay.

Although somewhere during his stay in America something twisted, it changed slightly. The grunge rock band shirts and graphic ‘propaganda’ for satanic cults he once adorned turned to freshly ironed suit shirts in blank colours and black plain t-shirts with the mint and freshly cut grass scent.

Park Jay looked good, happy even. Content.

Jay looked like he had definitely matured, even by the way he spoke and carried himself. The slouch now long gone. It made juniper smile to herself quietly.

Juniper sipped the last of the drink in her cup, finishing it up and passing it to jay as he excused himself to the restroom, throwing the empty cups away.

“Hey, what did we say about mentioning my fucked up self in front of others?” juniper hissed, head low as she caught jakes attention.

“Are you saying you’re not going to tell jay about the accident?” Jake sniped back, he was confused now.

“Exactly what I’m saying.”

The males eyes widened. His face going slack, “What the fuck, juni? I thought you’d be the one to tell him everything.”

“He doesn’t need to know, it won’t change anything now.” fingers pushing back a curl behind her ear, she sighed “You and me can both tell he’s doing so much better now, he looks happier.” Jake noticed her voice go quieter towards the end.

“I don’t want to be the one to take that away from him.”

“He doesn’t deserve that jakey.”

~

The entire day after Jake felt like something was off,

Jake shim wasn’t stupid, he could read the air well. He could tell when something had changed. And he noticed right away when a day ago juniper decided to hide something from jay.

“I’m telling you something is up.” Jake mumbled to Sunghoon. He truthfully didn’t want to bother his friends head with drama. He knew he was busy preparing for an upcoming competition but he couldn’t talk to anyone else.

Because Sunghoon listens, he doesn’t try to give meaningless advice or brush him off.

“It feels weird, like you have two friends who have known each other for so long, and one decides that sharing something that was life changing and still affects them is a wrong move,”

He hums to himself whispering slightly as his legs kick at the inner wall of the rink.

“what do you think?” he throws the question at Sunghoon. Blankly fixing his skates, he blinks, sighing.

“what?”

“What do you think is going on?”

“Well you’ve been ranting about person 1 and person 2 for a while now. What do I think about what specifically?”

Jake rolls his eyes leaning back slightly at the thick rim of the ice rink barrier. “Does that sound like a normal relationship between long-time friends?”

Sunghoon straightened himself up. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jake hissed.

“To you? And others? No. To an introvert? or if it’s a personal issue? then yes.” Jake huffed at Sunghoon’s elaboration.

“Wait introvert?” he observed the male before him nod. “Does that mean you’ve kept things from me?”

“Jake, were friends but we can’t tell each other everything and anyt--” “Brothers. It’s brothers.” Jake snapped sulking slightly.  “And I’ll have you know I tell you everything.”

A lopsided smile slipped onto Sunghoon’s features, “Oh really, You haven’t told me who these people are though,”

“What are their names, do I know them?”

Jake bit his lip, shit he was caught.

“No you don’t know them, besides what would their names do in a situation like this, they don’t add anything.” He mumbled.

Sunghoon was now grinning, creating little almond shapes with his skates backwards and forwards. “See? We both hide things from each other,” he spoke voice getting quieter as he skid backwards. Moving farther away.

“doesn’t mean we hate each other or that were bad friends it just means there are things that are best kept hidden, especially if you’re saying that it’s a life changing situation and they’re still going through it.”

Jake was in thought for a moment, his words getting him to think. He watched Sunghoon mindlessly. The male spun on two feet before gliding over to him.  

“So listen to ‘whoever this is’ and don’t be telling jay anything for now.” Jakes eyes stared up, he looked flabbergasted at the mention of his friends name. Fuck he found out.

“How the fuck did you manage to find out I was talking abo--” he slipped off the ledge opening the doorway for Sunghoon. He watched said boy step past the threshold whilst sniggering.

“You mentioned ‘coming back from America’, idiot.”

Seola - It’s the neo zone © All rights reserved.

[whimsicallyreading]

The Answer is Love

“You rescued me when my mind was a prison. You set me free when no one else would listen. Now I finally feel complete, and I will follow you into the sea of eternity-” Broadside

-Crescent City AHOEAB dribbles because I love these two idiots <3 Prompts are currently open.

CW- Pure fluff only

Ear Ache-

Bryce woke up knowing the day would be terrible.

Pain stabbed through her skull like shards of glass through the soft flesh of her brain. She felt cold but knew her skin would be hot to the touch. Every little noise sent lashes of pain through her ears that ripped and tore until all she wanted to do was curl into a ball on her bed and cry.

She had an ear infection.

A common condition that put could put most fae out for days. Even a half-breed like her. Their ears were sensitive on an average day, like delicate instruments, they picked up the slightest sounds and caught the faintest melodies. They also required a lot of care. Tiny pains that would only pose a sight nuisance to most creatures could send a fae soldier to their knees.

Bryce had only suffered through this a couple of times in her life. Once when she was a toddler and her mother had just met Randall. When Ember couldn't console her crying child and was on the brink of an exhausted mother meltdown, Randall swooped in and saved the day. He'd laid her over his shoulder and massaged the insides of her ears. A trick he'd learned in Pangera to soothe fae children whose sensitive hearing became shot from the explosives.

It could put Bryce to sleep in minutes, and Randall still bragged to the present day. Not that she complained. Even as a teenager with school-induced migraines, she would lay her head in his lap, and just the comfort of it could ease the ache in her head...and her heart.

Bryce wished he was here now as she smothered her head under a pillow to block out the hum of the firstlights. Pain. Shattering, consuming pain.

"Bryce, are you awake?" Hunt knocked on her door.

Damn his knocking. Bang. Bang. Bang. Her eyes watered, and tears poured down her face. Bryce would holler for him to please shut up if the sound of her blood rushing through her head wasn't bothering her.

"Bryce?" The door creaked open. She'd put off oiling the hinges. Squeel, Squeak, Scratch.

She sobs quietly.

A feather-soft touch brushes against her cheek. "Tell me what's wrong, Sweetheart."

His warm voice that would typically send chills down her spine makes her body quake in a not so pleasurable way. Bryce doesn't dare reach up to touch the source of her pain for fear they may suddenly erupt. Thankfully, Hunt notices her flinch. His eyes crawl up her figure, scouring her for illness or injury.

"My ears," she mouthes to him.

Hunt's eyes shine with sympathy. He picks up Bryce's phone from her bedside table and shines the light on bright down into them. His eyes squint, and he examines them with as much care as a medwitch.

Frowning at whatever he discovers, Hunt makes his way out of the room with all the quietness of the Umbra Mortis. When he comes back, he has a long, heating compress in his hands. One that Bryce used to wrap around her thigh on bad days when she still had the venom from the kristallos clinging to the bone.

Gently guiding her into a sitting position, Hunt squeezes himself behind her so that her back is flush to his chest. He takes the heating compress, lays it across his front, and then carefully positions Bryce's head, so one ear lays against the warmth.

A large, scarred hand appears at her mouth and slips a tablet between her lips, followed by an icy drink of water. A softly hummed melody vibrates the side of her face, soft enough not to disturb her ears. The rhythm is low and soothing, making Bryce's eyes droop in content.

A warm finger massages the ear that faces away from him, helping release the pressure building up inside it. Relief wells up in Bryce so strongly that a breathy sigh escapes her lips.

Soon, she is blissfully asleep in a cocoon of soft velvet feathers.

When she wakes, it's late in the afternoon. The fading sunlight forms a warm pool on the floor where Syrinx is curled up happily. Bryce nestles her head against the hard pillow of Hunt's impressive pecs. Cracking her eyes, she sees a pair of shoes that are not his at the bedside.

"Ruhn?" Bryce's voice is barely a whisper to keep from agitating her own ears.

He looks a little too smug at their position and waves a small dropper and bottle in her face. "Hunt texted me that you would need this," Rhun said, matching her volume, keeping his voice soft. "Also, I fed Syrinx. You're welcome. He was nearly about to break in here and bite your ass."

Bryce laughed, then winced at the spike of pressure throbbing in her ears. The motion of which causes Hunt to stir beneath her.

Rhun looks at her in sympathy. "Come on. I'll help you put the drops in."

Careful not to wake Hunt, Rhun grabs her under the arms and moves her to the foot of the bed. Tilting her head, Bryce allows him to drip the correct number of droplets in each ear.

The relief is swift as the throbbing subsides to a dull ache. "That's some powerful stuff."

A shift of the bed, Hunt's eyes open, and he quickly takes in her state and the number of people in the room. Of course, he wouldn't be able to sleep through the invasion of their shared space, even if it was just her brother—insufferable males. "I'm sorry, Sweetheart. I meant to wake you before Ruhn got here, but I dozed off."

He sits up and gathers her in his arms once more. Bryce is more than content to comply, his warm body like a drug to her too-cold skin.

Hunt lets her nuzzle her face into his neck as he gives Ruhn a predatory look over the top of her head. "You can go now."

"I literally just got here," her brother complains, brows furrowed in annoyance.

Hunt leans back with Bryce in his arms, combing a hand through her wine-dark hair. "You could have just called up and given me the drops downstairs, but you showed yourself inside. "You've brought me the medicine, and now you've overstayed your welcome. Your sister is very sick. Not fit for company."

Bryce could swear the testosterone was flying in the air like sparks as they got into a silent pissing contest with one another.f

Grumbling, Ruhn finally concedes and bids her goodbye. Cursing out Hunt for his lack of appreciation as he shows himself out the door.

"There. All better. Now we can watch Lunathion Lover's Lockdown without judgment. It's a new episode." She looks up at Hunt to find him mischievously grinning down at her. "We can make popcorn."

"Popcorn and Trash TV?" Bryce murmurs. "You really know the way to my heart, Athalar."

Hunt moves her to the couch and buries her in a mound of blankets. After coffee, popcorn, and several hours of mind-numbing reality shows- albeit at a barely audible volume- Bryce felt leagues better.

Later on, after Hunt had gone to take a shower, she opens her messages to see Ruhn had texted to check on her. Juniper had dm-ed her and offered to bring food by for both of them. And she had missed calls from her mother that Bryce decided she would get back to later.

Bryce's heart swelled. It had been a long time since she felt so loved. Many things had changed, and just maybe, they were finally for the better.

Lemme know if you would like to be added to a tag list! 

Prompts for this fic are OPEN :) DM them or feel free to send them through the ask feature. I love hearing from everybody! 

[twstinginthewind]

“ just let me look at you ” - Juniper just thinks Punch is pretty. :3c

Sweet nothings asks!

"No. I'm not coming out there with this on." Punch's voice was muffled by the thrift store's dressing room door.

"No?" Juniper frowned, turning away from a rack of swishy nylon jackets. "It can't possibly be that bad. Is the fit wrong?"

"Nnnnnno. That's not the issue." There was a soft thump against the door. "It's a perfect fit, weirdly enough. I wasn't expecting there to be anything in my size..."

"Well, okay. So, it fits. That's good, right?" She turned back to the rack briefly, her hand lingering on a sunshine-yellow jacket before deciding against it. "Is it the fabric? Does it feel itchy or something?" Another display caught her eye, and she stepped that way.

"It's actually really soft. Almost like a pajama feel." Juniper could hear a shuffling sound through the door, like he was turning around, and a small sound of exertion. "Stretchy, too."

"Then what's the issue?" Juniper pulled a navy blue top hat onto her head, frowned, and took it back off. Not designed for someone with coyote ears, apparently.

Punch made a whiny noise in response.

Juniper stifled a giggle. "Come on, Punch. It can't be that bad. Just let me look at you."

There was silence for a moment. "I don't know." Another shuffling noise. "It really is a bit much."

"You sound like you need a second opinion, and unfortunately, x-ray vision isn't in my skill set, so you gotta show me."

A heavy sigh. "Fine."

The dressing room door slowly creaked open, and Punch stepped out. He had stepped out of his shoes, and his mismatched socks had a hole in one toe. Juniper wasn't sure why she noticed that; probably because it was such a contrast to the rest of the outfit. It was a suit of deep blue velvet that clung close to his body, embellished with bright embroidery in golden thread up the sides of his legs, down the sleeves, and across his back. The shirt beneath the jacket was a soft creamy color, with a ruffled front. Punch tugged uncomfortably at the cuffs; they wouldn't close properly without a pair of cufflinks, and fluttered around his wrists.

Juniper stood and stared for a moment, silently, her tail wagging behind her. It took a minute to find her voice. "So. Um." She swallowed. "What was wrong with this, again?"

"It looks like it came out of a period drama."

"It looks GREAT, you dingaling. And didn't you say you had to find something decent for that masquerade you're getting dragged to?"

"It's too fancy for me. I should just get a plain one." Punch's shoulders sagged.

"Ohhhhh, no you don't." Juniper stepped towards him, and put the top hat onto his head. "You get one shot to represent Night Raven out there, you're not gonna do it in something from Barney's Rent-A-Sack. This is a golden find. Look at yourself!" She put her hands on his shoulders, gently turning him towards the mirror. "You know what I see here?"

"A dork in an outfit that outclasses him?"

"Stop." Juniper tsked at him. "I see a prince, here. I know, you ain't a fancy type. And I know your little lilac-headed buddy would probably disagree with me, but he's allergic to fancy, so I'm not even gonna pretend he'll know what's good. You have a real opportunity to shine, Punch. And this is something you can really shine in."

Punch looked at his reflection, and then met Juniper's eyes in the mirror. "You really think so?"

"I know so." She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "I'm from the desert, ain't I? I know about shine. Sun shine, moon shine, and, um. People shine." She rolled her eyes. "Words. Whatever. Anyway. I don't know how something this nice happened to be right here in your size, but you should take advantage of it."

"Maybe you're right." He fished around at the end of his sleeve, trying to find the tag. "Maybe I should.... oh for the love of the Seven."

"What?" Juniper looked over at the tag and boggled, her ears flattening against her head. "Sweet merciful crap. Yeah. Okay. Maybe we should hit up Barney's."

"Yeah."

"Sheesh."

"But, Juniper?"

"Yeah?"

Punch brushed some imaginary lint off the suit's lapel. "A shining prince? Really?"

"Really." Her tail wagged again.

".... I'll see if they have layaway."

[jlalafics]

things fictional couples do that make me lose my mind + writing prompts: n 14.

Hope you enjoy anon! This is totally unbeta’d as I have just finished it this morning! Happy Saturday!

14. when one of them has never had a proper birthday party for whatever reason, and their lover makes it their mission to give them the best day ever, followed by “you didn’t have to do all this for me. just being with you is enough.” “i know. but i thought you deserved?’’ and their lover smiles, a kiss is shared

_____

“I just never thought it was big deal.” Katniss picked at her plate of spaghetti. “To me, it’s just another day except I’m one year older.”

Peeta reached over, his hand covering hers from across their dining room table.

“That can’t be true,” he reasoned. “There must’ve been a time when you were actually excited about your birthday.”

Katniss sighed, looking at him warily before placing her fork down.

“Truth?” Peeta nodded and straightened himself so he could fully listen to her. “When I was seven, I decided I wanted to have a birthday party. So, my mom and I had invitations made and I handed them out during class. My parents decorated our apartment with streamers and a huge banner that my dad hand drew himself. We even got my favorite strawberry cake from a nearby bakery—a treat for us—since we didn’t have a lot of money.”

Peeta smiled, imagining a young Katniss, waiting excitedly for her party start.

“Then the day came…and no one showed up,” his girlfriend continued. “I waited for hours…until I fell asleep and my parents tucked me in bed. The next time I went to school, no one mentioned it. I cried all through lunch and finally, my teacher called my parents…it was a mess.”

“I’m so sorry.” Peeta stood and rounded the table, kneeling before her chair. “That’s horrible.”

“Later, I found out that some of the parents had an issue with bringing their kids to such a rough neighborhood,” Katniss told him. “I was a financial aid kid in a preparatory school. I didn’t belong and I learned that early. I also learned that birthdays are just another day and there is no need to make a big deal.”

“That is not true,” he declared. “And I’m going to prove it.”

Katniss looked to him suspiciously. “How?”

Peeta kissed the top of her head. “You’ll see.”

“Oh boy.” His girlfriend couldn’t help but grin. “That can’t be good.”

++++++

May 8th

Katniss awoke slowly, her eyes adjusting to light filtering through the blinds in their bedroom.

“Peeta—”

She turned to find her boyfriend’s side of the bed empty, his pillow cool. It wasn’t unusual. They had been living together for six months and even though it was a weekend, Peeta still got up early to pick up breakfast or even do a quick jog while she slept in.

Getting up, Katniss went to their adjoining bathroom, going through her morning ablutions. Her eyes closed in on her reflection, looking to see if there were any differences now that she was a full-fledge twenty-five-year-old.

Other than the slight line between her eyes—she glared way too much, according to her best friend, Johanna—Katniss found nothing different.

“Sweetheart, you awake?” Peeta called out from the living room. “Breakfast is ready!”

She smiled to herself, hearing the endearment. They had been together for a year, meeting at her friend Gale’s birthday party. Madge, Gale’s girlfriend, had invited her cousin to the party and that cousin was the man currently calling for her to join him for breakfast.

Was it love at first sight?

Perhaps.

Her breath might’ve caught slightly when Peeta had walked into the room. She had also briefly wondered if her outfit smelled like the coffee shop she was working at as Madge made the rounds to introduce Peeta to everyone.

As their eyes met during Madge’s introduction, Katniss knew that this man would change her life.

By the time they shook hands, she was a goner.

“Coming,” Katniss called out as she headed out and towards the living room. “I hope that you have coffee ready—” She froze, stopping at the archway leading into the front rooms. “What is this?”

Their living room was decorated in purple and yellow streamers connected by unicorns. Matching balloons floated on their ceiling while right above their couch was a weathered banner with ‘Happy Birthday Katniss!’ written on it.

“Happy birthday, love.” Peeta smiled tenderly at her, giving her a kiss, before placing a tiara with ‘Birthday Girl’ written in rhinestones atop her head. “Pancakes or waffles?”

“How did you know how my birthday party was decorated?” she cried out and her eyes widened at the banner. “And is that the actual banner that my dad made?”

Peeta guided her to their dining table. “I called your parents, and your mom sent a picture along with the banner. They kept it with all your other belongings.” He pulled out her chair and help his stunned girlfriend to her seat before pouring a cup of coffee, putting in a splash of milk and a spoonful of sugar—just how she liked it. “Also, she invited us for 4th of July at their place.”

“You called my parents?” she asked in surprise. “They haven’t even met you yet.”

“I went by Gale and Madge’s so I could Zoom them and introduce myself,” he explained. “Your mother looks really young for someone who has a grown daughter.”

“Why did you do this?” she asked, still in shock.

“Because you need a birthday do-over,” Peeta told her simply as he forked waffles onto her empty plate. “Eat up. We need to get going.”

She had already stuffed a waffle in her mouth.

“Where?”

++++++

“I thought you and I could try something new,” Peeta said as they walked through the park. “Your Dad mentioned that you used to do this together.”

“Why can’t I remember what it was?” Katniss said as he led her down a side road. “We did do a lot of things together…” He guided her into a gated enclosure, closing it behind them. “What is this? Are we about to run around here?”

“Nope.” Peeta walked over to a nearby tree—and pulled out an archery target. He came back with a bow and quiver of arrows. “We—or more appropriately, you—are going to shoot.”

“I haven’t done this in ages!” Katniss replied. However, her hands were already itching to get the bow. “This was something me and Dad used to do every weekend in the backyard.”

“But you had fun, right?” her boyfriend reasoned. “Birthdays are all about fun!”

Katniss chuckled at his exuberance thinking how adorably handsome he was.

And how hot that made her.

She took off her jean jacket, tossing it to the ground.

“Give me that bow.”

Peeta handed it over easily along with the quiver, watching as Katniss strapped the container to her back. He admired the strong line of her back as she walked away from the target and wondered for the millionth time how he even got a woman like her.

The moment Peeta saw Katniss at Gale’s party, he was a goner.

Peeta could barely get a word out as they shook hands, his eyes square on the beautiful woman before him. However, it wasn’t just her dark hair and smoky almond eyes that had him shook. There was a confidence in her that made her stand out like no other person in the room.

He was intimidated but also enamored.

Even now, Peeta was shocked that he even had the guts to ask her out on a date.

However, he thanked his lucky stars that he did and that Katniss accepted.

Katniss pulled back the string of the bow, hand firm on the grip before she released it with an exhale.

She grinned seeing that she managed to hit the bullseye.

“Thank you,” she breathed out. “I forgot how much I loved this.”

“Anything to see that smile on your face,” he told her.

“Get over here,” she called out.

“What?”

“You didn’t think that you were just going to watch me, right?” Katniss put a hand to her hip, her stare expectant. “You have to shoot at least once.”

Peeta shook his head as he joined her. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Then, I’ll teach you.” She cocked her head at him playfully. “Come on.”

Katniss handed him the bow before removing the quiver and placing it on the ground.

“You’re going to hold here—” She held the bow, hand in the middle. “—this is the grip. The head of the arrow is positioned in the middle of it. You’ll line it up from head to the end of the arrow—the nock. Then you aim, pull back, and shoot. Easy, right?”

“Not even close to easy,” Peeta pointed out.

“I’ll help you.” Katniss reached for an arrow, helping him line it up to the nocking point. She moved behind Peeta, her hand moving over his to where he held the string, pressing her front against the line of his back. He smelled of juniper and she breathed him in. “Now, aim as you breathe in and pull the string back. Now exhale and let go.”

Peeta shivered at her words. However, he held firm, listening to her instructions.

“Breathe in—” He pulled the string back, her hand guiding him, his eyes on the target. “—and exhale.”

Peeta let go, his eyes shutting as he did.

It was silent, the only sound being the twittering of nearby birds.

“Well, fuck that!” He opened his eyes to find Katniss at the target. “You are closer than I am!”

Peeta joined her, examining his work, before beaming at his girlfriend.

“What do you think?” she asked, breathless at the sight of him.

He dropped the bow, gathering her in his arms.

“I think that—” His mouth brushed against hers. “—I need to have you right now.”

Katniss shook at his words. “Now?”

“Yes.” Peeta was already lowering her onto the grass, his lips traveling along the opening of her top. “Now.”

++++++

By late afternoon, they managed to make it to their next destination.

“I still have bits of grass in my hair,” Katniss said as Peeta parked their car.

“But do you regret it?” he asked her, his gaze sated.

She shook her head. “Not one bit.”

They both got out of the car, making sure their clothing was fixed and in place before Katniss looked up at their newest destination.

“Our first date.” Peeta wrapped his arms around her waist as they gazed up at the neon sign: Greasy Sae’s. “I had prepared myself to take you on a fancy date.”

“Instead, you got a girl who loves a greasy spoon,” Katniss replied. “I’m starving, let’s go—”

“Before we go in...”

Peeta cupped her face in his hands before kissing her fully.

Katniss fell against him, her palm to his chest to steady herself. She could already her knees getting weak; it happened the first time they kiss and a year later, it continued.

She knew then that he was the one.

“…I just wanted to get one more in.”

“What do you mean?” Katniss asked as they headed towards the entrance. Peeta pulled the door handle, ignoring her question and her glare. “Peeta Mellark—”

“SURPRISE!”

She gasped, her eyes moving over the crowd of people—just about every person that she and Peeta knew—before settling on the three in front of her.

“Mom? Dad? Prim?”

Her parents dove in first, both pulling her into their embrace.

“Happy birthday, baby,” her mom said, kissing her cheek.

“Growing more beautiful every year,” her dad added gruffly.

They pulled apart so Prim could jump into her arms.

“Happy birthday, sis!” Her younger sister held her tightly. “I’m really glad I get to spend today with you.”

Katniss stared in shock. “How did you even get here?”

“Peeta,” Prim informed her. Katniss looked over to her boyfriend who was chatting with Gale, Madge, and Johanna. “He flew me, Mom, and Dad in. It was all arranged last week.”

“He is unbelievable,” she said dazedly.

“Peeta is crazy into with you,” her sister declared softly. “I wouldn’t mind having him as a brother, you know.”

Katniss grinned as her eyes met Peeta’s. “I know.” He smiled; eyes soft at the sight of her. “One day.”

++++++

“First off, thank you for all coming,” Peeta said, as he stood in the seat of the booth.

His eyes looked over the crowd for people all grinning up at him. Katniss’ parents stood to one side along with his own parents, who come into the city to attend the party and meet her parents. It seemed like the quartet were getting along, agreeing to brunch together the next morning. Prim was at a table with Gale, Madge, and Thresh, his co-worker at the office. The man was obviously into Katniss’ golden-haired sister.

Johanna, Katniss’ best friend, was also in attendance. She sat with Annie, who was Johanna’s cousin, and Finnick, her husband. Katniss along with the two women often went on girls’ nights while he and Finnick would hang out at the apartment playing video games or watching a movie.

Peeta realized that he and Katniss lived a full life together.

“Just make babies already!” Johanna called out, a wide grin on her sharp face.

“Also, I just wanted to say that we wouldn’t be here—eating diner food and drinking milkshakes—if this amazing, beautiful woman sitting before me wasn’t born,” Peeta continued, his eyes looking to Katniss, who shone brightly before him.

“But not before putting a ring on it!” Annie added, before toasting her milkshake glass against her cousin’s.

Peeta’s complexion reddened at their words though he couldn’t help but wink back at the women.

“Anyway, before Katniss goes running for the hills, I just wanted to toast to my beautiful girlfriend.” Their eyes met. “Thank you for being born and for making my life nothing short of spectacular.” He raised his soda glass. “To Katniss!”

The crowd echoed his sentiment: “To Katniss!”

Peeta stepped down and went to his girlfriend, holding out his hand.

“Dance with me?”

Katniss stood. “There’s no music.”

“Tonight you're mine completely…”

“You were saying?”

They went a clearing in the middle, Peeta wrapping an arm around her as her arms circled his neck.

Katniss grinned. “I can’t believe that you remember the song—”

“The song that played the first time we kissed?” Peeta pulled her in closer. He placed a soft kiss on her neck. “Of course, I remember. I remember every single moment since we’ve met.”

“I can’t believe you did all this for me,” his girlfriend replied, her grey eyes shining. “You didn’t have to do all this for me. Just being with you is enough.”

“I know, but I thought you deserved to have a birthday that gave you good memories,” he told her. “This is the birthday that we’re going to remember. The one that we’ll look back on when we’re old and grey. The one that we tell our children about.”

Peeta dared to look into her eyes. They had never discussed their future; he could only hope that’s where they were heading.

Katniss was grinning, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“The one we tell our children?” She nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

Then, their lips met and there was nothing else but their dance and the sound of The Shirelles from the nearby jukebox.

“I'd like to know that your love

Is love I can be sure of

So tell me now and I won't ask again

Will you still love me tomorrow…”

++++++

Katniss’ mouth ran along the line of Peeta’s neck as she slammed him against the surface of their front door. Her hands ran along the hem of his shirt, moving underneath to feel his bare skin.

“Baby…” Peeta groaned, his knees almost caving at the rush of pleasure hit him. He shakily reached for his keys, attempting to unlock the door. Katniss wrapped her arms around him, breasts pressed against his back, and her hands already unbuttoning his jeans. “…oh fuck…”

He turned the knob and they fell into their apartment in a rush of limbs.

“I made a strawberry cake…” Peeta pushed off her jean jacket, his mouth pressing to hers. “…just like the one you had for your birthday.”

“That’s so sweet—” Katniss yanked her dress over her head. “—let’s have it after I thank you for the best birthday ever.”

“The cake can wait.” He scooped her up and her arms wrapped his neck as she kissed up to his ear. “This cannot.”

A platinum diamond ring sat in the drawer of his side table.

He guessed that would have to wait for after as well.

FIN.

Music: “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”-The Shirelles