#Rare Pair Promptathon

[phoenixwrites]

Hi Dears!

I want to DO something. Something lovely and special for you all. I'm feeling very celebratory and grateful and I just want to do something to let you all feel as joyful as you have made me.

What would you like?

A Hellcheer ST rare pair promptathon?

Update on something you are waiting desperately for?

Livestream of a movie or TV series?

I wish I could do something for VQ that doesn't betray confidences, but maybe a VQ rpf? Or a VQ RPF promptathon?

I have never played a video game. (My dad didn't allow them growing up.) I've been thinking of starting a Twitch to kind of have fun with the fact that I have zero video game experience but it might be fun to try it out...

Let me know, my loves. Replies, anons, DMs, whatever! Today was really beautiful and special and ended on the highest possible note. Thank you for reading my fics, thank you for being my friends, thank you for being patient when I'm vagueposting about VQ, thank you for sending support, thank you for sending smut prompts, thank you for reporting harassment blogs, thank you for being brave, thank you for being there. I am so grateful. You guys kept me going.

[sabraeal]

Hi Jen :D ❤ Still Izanayuki/Shirazana: Izana suffers from some kind of incident/injuries - Both having hard times while she's putting ointment on him.

She’s going to have to apologize to Obi.

Izana has been in her office for two minutes, and already Shirayuki regrets that she insisted on treating him. It seemed vital last night, a shirking of her duties that she could on rectify by showing up at his door in the hours of gloaming and demanding her follow her, but –

But it’s as if he’s forgotten how his limbs work, now that the door is closed. He’s just standing there, mouth curled at the corner, as if he’s never had an exam before.

Still, he is not the worst patient imaginable. Obi’s title is safe.

“How do you propose to treat me?” His eyebrows lift as he stares down at her, as casual as a shrug. “Do you have a step stool?”

But it is a real race to the bottom.

“Sit on the table.” She doesn’t mean to be brusque, but he makes her tense in the best of situations, and this – this is certainly not that. Her patience is a frayed thread, and he’s so adept at making every word scissors.

His mouth cants, but before he can speak, she turns her back to him and says, “I’ll need you to undress. Only your shirt.”

Narrow brows arc higher, but his fingers quickly unlatch the clasps of his vest, dropping it to the side. The shirt follows in short order, albeit slower.

“Should I call for a chaperone?” The offer is wry; propriety asks much from a king, but far less from a pharmacist.

“You’re not the first man to remove his shirt in front of me.”

“Ah,” he sighs, disappointed. “I don’t suppose that distinction goes to my brother, at least?”

Not hardly, but no one’s told her skin that. Heat floods her cheeks, her neck, and she decides that the less time he spends in here, the less likely she is to say something he’ll use against her later.

Her gaze is clinical when she turns back to him, taking in the paleness of his skin – common in Lyrias, though she suspects he comes by naturally, if Zen is any indication – and the tenseness of his muscles. Izana may feign nonchalance, but last night’s disaster has him stressed, drawn down to his last reserves.

And of course, there is the wound.

It sits, pink and swollen, along the cusp of his shoulder, slashing angrily down to his collarbone. From here she can see it’s clean and clotted; she’d be happy to see a wound treated so well if he was limping in from the wilds, but not from a handful of rooms away. That he managed to remove his clothes without visible pain is a feat.

“See,” he says, strained, “a cat’s scratch.”

Her mouth thins. “It needs stitches.”

“If you say so.” He attempt his casual shrug and winces.

There’s a needle – freshly sterile, flamed just this morning before she went to fetch him – and a length of gut on the counter, and she takes them, unerringly threading the eye. “I do. Would you like –”

“I’d rather the pain than oblivion, if you don’t mind.” His lips curl at the corner. “It would be unwise, in these next few days, to not have our wits about us.”

The words to warn him are on her tongue – sometimes pain is more distracting – but she knows that set to his jaw, the narrowness of his eyes. It’s Zen at his most stubborn written on his brother’s face. Instead, she braces herself on his shoulder and stitches.

A air hisses out from his teeth, but it’s the only sound he makes, even when she tugs at the gut to pull it tight.

“I’ll give you some ointment,” she tells him, voice too loud in the quiet. “It’ll help the healing, so you won’t scar.”

“Ah,” he hums, smile entirely too close to her, “and I had been hoping it would leave an impressive one, just like your familiar.”

Shirayuki squeaks, dismayed, cheeks flushing as she jerks away. She’d been hoping he’d forgotten about that – that everyone had.

“C-can I help you with anything else?” she offers, grasping for distraction.

She expect him to wave her off, to sweep from the room like he’d done her a favor, letting him not languish from infection, but –

But he’s quiet, thoughtful.

Black berries float in her mind, so innocent in the rich violet of the punch –

– Are you worried? That one of them might have…that your father…?

His mouth bends, like there’s a bitter taste in his mouth. I’m always aware that I could be sitting at the table with the one who poisoned my father –

“The poison,” she says baldly, “are you –?”

He waves a hand, dismissive. “No, I didn’t drink any of the stuff. You’re fine, of course?”

“My mouth is a little numb.” The smoke still lingers on her tongue. “But it’ll pass.”

“Right.” His nod is sharp, worried.

“There’s something else?” she ventures. “I won’t –”

“The Samese witches,” he admits haltingly, “it’s said they use magic to poison minds, to turn them mad.”

“Hallucinogens,” she confirms with a nod. “I’m not quite sure how, but it has to do with their lanterns –” she hesitates, catching his face – “you’re worried. About yourself.”

“Of retribution, yes. Especially if Our Most Precious Jewel takes a turn for the worse.” A muscle in his jaw tics, as apparent as a stone dropped in a still lake. “Haruka said it would start small, a fraying at the edge of the mind, and then…”

He doesn’t need to say. They’ve all seen casualties from the war.

“Lay back,” she tells him, pushing at his chest. “There’s ways to tell if you’ve already been affected. If you’d like to know.”

Tension lifts from his shoulders, and he lets himself be guided back. “Yes. Please.”

She guides open his mouth, angling his chin so that she can see his tongue, his palette; she has him twist his tongue out of the way to see under, but it all looks normal. There’s no strange scent on his breath, just mint with a hint of tea beneath it, and no inexplicable sores on the flesh. Clear.

The skin of his face is next, and though he’s pale and his eyes are beginning to suffer dark circles, there’s no discoloration. It’s soft beneath her hands – Yuzuri would be jealous – even where stubble would prick her on another man, it’s smooth. Her hands come away smelling of lavender, and she makes a note to ask him who makes his lotion. Obi could use some.

There’s strain in his eyes, but no cloudiness, no irritation when she pulls back his eyelids, no excess tearing.

“Your eyes are clear,” she tells him.

“So are yours.” His mouth curls, and she’s suddenly aware how close she is, how blue his eyes are, how her hands rest on the bare expanse of his chest. “For once.”

“Oh!” She flinches back, heat pricking her cheeks.

“I wonder,” he drawls, rolling up to lounge on her table, “if my brother has ever seen that look on you.”

She scowls, taking his hand. His nails are even, neat, shell-pink and soft-white; no discoloration, but she’s tempted to point out he’ll need to clip them soon. Anything to put him in his place, for one.

“Would you like that chaperone?” he offers, too innocent.

She huffs, flagrantly ignoring the comment. “Your other hand, please.”

“I’m surprised to see your –” she glares, and with a grin, he says, “shadow is missing.”

“The Samese delegation has had him since early this morning,” she says, letting some of her worry leak into her voice. “I don’t know what they wanted, but Obi said he’d be all right.”

“Oh, well.” Izana’s mouth quirks at one side, knowing. “Now that he’s a petty prince of –”

“He’s what?”

“Succession by combat.” His teeth flash behind his lips as she lays her fingers against his neck, her other hand over his heart. “It turns out the man he buried a knife in has no heirs and a very meaty title.”

She sways on her feet. His pulse races. “Oh.”

“Always attracting the eyes of princes, are you not?” Izana lays his hand over hers, thumb rubbing along the ridge of her knuckles. “You should start setting your sights higher. Maybe a king.”

“Well,” she huffs, “Raji is betrothed now.”

“Oh, betrothals,” he says, “such fragile things. Broken every day.”

“Well, I don’t know any other ki –”

Their eyes meet, wide over their clasped hands. She should really – really think before she speaks. Betrothals are broken every day.

“Anyway!” Shirayuki yanks away, flustered. “You seem – fine! Definitely not…not under the thrall of a witch.”

She looks back over her shoulder, just in time to see him look at his hand curiously, just in time to hear him say, “At least not a Samese one.”

[melanoradrood]

“Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!” for Panville?

in honor of 1111 Followers

I apologize. This became nearly 2k words of Panville. I’m obviously supressing my desire to write it all the time quite heavily. Please enjoy.

Never would Pansy have ever thought that sitting by the lake would be a place to find solitude, but somehow, in her last year at Hogwarts, it had become the one and only place that she could feel alone.

The Slytherin dungeons were now filled with wide eyed children that wanted to whisper about the previous year, about their parents, about her. The Eighth Year common room was overrun with Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, and that was even more insufferable. She would not even consider going to the library for solitude, as that would result in seeing the absurdity that was Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy continuing their little dance around one another.

That left outside of the school, down by the lake to be precise, even in this cold. It was nearly frozen over, which meant that soon, it would be covered in ice skaters, but she still had another few nights of peace, where she could sit and be alone. 

The warming charm she had wrapped around herself kept her from feeling too cold, and with the rolling Scottish hills and the heavy snowfall, she felt entirely alone.

Alone, save for the laughter of one particular Gryffindor that she could never escape.

Longbottom had been the one thing she never expected from this year. He had somehow grown into his previously large looks - his large head now perfectly proportionate to the rest of him, his long legs now carrying his thick body, his buck teeth perfectly straight, his clumsy hands sure and strong, his-

“No. Pansy Parkinson, you are above mooning over some idiot boy. You will not think about him, will not-”

Great. And now she was talking to herself.

It had all started with him flashing a smile at her their first week back. Everyone else seemed to avoid her, whether it was because she had wanted to give Potter to the Dark Lord, or because her father was now in Azkaban for life… but then he had flashed a smile at her, and suddenly, people were talking to her again. Granger had invited her to sit beside her in Transfiguration, and then Bones had invited her to sit beside her at lunch, and suddenly, she was no longer on the outside.

Except, being on the inside meant that Longbottom was always there as well, grinning at her from across the lunch table, helping her with her books after class, inviting her to sit with him in Herbology, and she… He was always smiling.

At first, Pansy had been concerned that his face was stuck that way, except, the smile he gave her was never the one he gave others, like Granger and Patil and even Weasley… no, the one he gave her was big, grand, like he was genuinely happy to see her. It was concerning, and she wished to have someone to talk to about it, except Millicent had chosen to not return, and Daphne had gone to Beauxbatons the previous year, and Tracey was now good friends with Abbot… 

Theo refused to discuss Gryffindors with her, Draco had his own Gryffindor problems, and Blaise was definitely getting laid, given the grin on his lips all the time. Useless. All of her friends were useless.

And then that laugh - why was he always laughing? What could he possibly have to be happy about? His life was so full of tragedy and pain, she knew what had happened to his parents, so how could he laugh, how could he find joy, how could he-

And then he had to ask her to Hogsmeade! Like it was nothing! How dare he, just to ask her, because-

It was enough to make her want to cry, and somehow, twin tears were in the corner of her eyes. How dare they - how dare her emotions try to get the better of her. 

She sucked them back in, wiping furiously at her cheeks, but it was no use. Within seconds, tears were running down her cheeks. She was not crying. She couldn’t allow herself to cry. She was a Parkinson. She was a witch. She was a Pureblood. She had control of herself, of her emotions, of her circumstances…

Except she was graduating Hogwarts in a few months with no future, with no parents, with just two little sisters that stared at her with wide eyes in the Slytherin common room, and no husband or job or idea what to do, and she…

“Pansy?”

“NO!” she snapped, turning and pointing a finger at him. “I can’t deal with you and your big teeth and big eyes and stupid smile right now.”

She had snapped that at him when he had asked her to Hogsmeade - the word no. She had yelled no at him and then ran away, down here to the lake, not wanting to deal with feelings and boys. Everything had made sense four years ago - she was going to be Lady Malfoy, and have Pureblood children, and everything would be okay.

Now, nothing was okay, and all because of Neville Longbottom and his stupid smile.

“My stupid smile?” Longbottom asks, and he has a grin on his face now, like he’s amused with her, and it’s absurd, so bloody absurd, she can’t even stand it.

“Yes. It’s stupid.” She tries to make her words sound sure of herself, but instead they’re tiny, like she knows they’re a lie. 

They’re both quiet for a moment, and she’s ready to tell him off again, tell him to go back to wherever he came from, when he’s suddenly hit in the back with a clump of snow. In seconds, he’s whirling around, and she realizes he has a ball of snow in his own hand, which he now lobs back towards wherever the previous hit came from.

“Shove off,” he yells towards his friends. “Give me a minute!”

She doesn’t want to give him a second of her time, let alone one minute, and she shifts back where she sits on her blanket, staring off into the lake. She came here to be alone, to get away from the Gryffindors, but of course, the most vexing one has to follow her.

“What do you want?” she asks, and her voice sounds whiny to her ears, but she can’t exactly take it back.

“Why do you hate me?”

It’s such a simple question, but it almost sounds sad. She sputters at that, turning back to look at him. He has his hands in his pockets, looking somehow smaller than he really is, and she almost feels bad - except for the fact that he has her all in a whirl, and she hates it. Really hates it.

“I don’t hate you,” she snaps, and she turns to look back at the water, unable to look at him and his general sadness.

“So you like me?” he asks, and this time it sounds like a tease, and she hates that.

“What? No, I-” Her voice is getting higher pitched, and okay, maybe now she does hate him. Her cheeks burn, and she refuses to look back at him, to the point that he’s suddenly sitting beside her on the blanket, grabbing her hand, and she hadn’t even realized until it was too late.

“I like you,” he says, and it’s sure and it’s firm and he knows himself, and she-

“You don’t know me,” she retorts, and it’s choked out, because he doesn’t know her. No one does. She doubts she herself even knows who she really is.

“You’re Pansy Parkinson. You spend hours on your hair, because you want it to be perfectly in place, just like the rest of you. You excel at Transfiguration, although you don’t let anyone see it. You never smile big, because you don’t like your teeth. You are friends with Malfoy and Nott because they’re safe. And the only reason you wanted to hand over Harry Potter last year was because you were scared for your sisters, who you refuse to show weakness around.”

Her jaw is set as she stares at the water, and she can feel those stupid tears in her eyes again. She wasn’t as brave as he makes it out to be - she had also been afraid for herself. One life in exchange for everyone else… that was just practicality. The death of one to save so many… She wasn’t anything other than practical.

“You don’t like me,” she finally says. “You just like that I’m not fawning over you like the rest of the girls.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he’s letting go of her hands. She feels cold, suddenly, despite the warming charms, and she wonders if this is it. If she had finally pushed him away.

“I’ve liked you a lot longer than you realized. Longer than I realized. It just took me wanting your eyes on me above all others that I finally realized it. But you refuse. You refuse to even look at me. Will you look at me now, just this once?”

She swallows down her feelings, and then looks at him, her eyes big and wide and scared, and… he’s so pretty, even in his sadness. He’s pretty as he swallows, and he looks more like the clumsy fourth year over the brave seventh year, and she… she hates that she put that sadness on his face.

“Do you really not like me?” he asks.

Her lips quiver a little, and then she’s looking back at the water, not knowing how to answer. She sniffs, trying to keep her nose from running, and honestly that would be the worst right now, if her nose started to run.

She doesn’t know how to answer that question, but she does like him. She likes him physically, yes, likes to look at him, but he’s also kind and good and decent, and she doesn’t know how to talk to someone that is so inherently good without ruining them.

He seems to take that as her answer, and pushes himself up to standing.

“Alright then. I’m sorry to have bothered you. You have a nice-”

He had stopped in his words, turning to stare at someone else, and she looked up just in time to see another stupid Gryffindor, grinning.

“I swear to Merlin, Seamus- Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”

The snowball hit him square in the face, and Pansy jumped up in shock, grabbing a handful of the snow and pressing it into a snowball. She felt like a child, from the speed in which she had reacted, and threw it hard at Finnegan, who went down hard in the snow.

“Honestly! He was in the middle of asking me if I liked him, and I was trying to say yes!” she yelled at the stupid Gryffindor, who was groaning from where he had fallen.

“You like me?” Neville asked, and he still had snow all on his beanie and scarf, but that stupid grin was on his face again, and she hated it, but it warmed her, warmed her deep from within, to see it back on his face, directed at her.

“YES!” she snapped, sounding far more angry than she had intended to, but, it simply was what it was. “I like you, okay? You’re nice, and you smile, and you make me feel important, and I don’t know what to do with it, because I’m not nice and I don’t smile, and I’m not imp-”

He cut her off, walking over to her, and pressing his lips to hers. She froze right there, feeling his lips on hers, and then he jerked away, his face suddenly bright red.

Neither said anything for a moment, and then she kissed him again.

And again.

And again.

[sweetsoundsofignorance]

Riverdale Fall Promptathon: sweetsoundsofignorance (aka meditationonbaaal)

I’m participating in the fall @riverdalepromptathon! Check out this post to learn more about what’s going on and how you can participate, too.

A little hesitant, but I’d like to stretch myself.

Fics I’m accepting prompts for:

kill your darlings

the devil’s daughter

three wise monkeys

develop, stop, fix

the double

it always happens this way

loose lips sink ships (there is bughead, but i’m willing to write other ships within this universe)

feel free to send me other prompts unrelated to these fics (careful, it may turn into a longfic, i’ve got 0.5% self control)

Please don’t send me prompts that include:

i’ll write anything (fluff, angst, smut, crack, you name it)

i’ll angst or smut the shit out of anything

challenge me, please, i need the exercise

i’ll happily write rare-pairs, too. i just won’t post them to the promptathon

i just want to provide content for the entire fandom to enjoy, whatever that may be

a few caveats for smut: no scat/golden showers or fisting

Fics I’m opening up for others to write/create art/edits about:

pick a card, any card

Please don’t write the following:

do anything to your heart’s content; you do you, boo

fuck, marry, kill the whole lot of it

or totally troll me

because i’m interested in everyone’s takes

ask box here anon away

[isabellessantiago]

Star Wars Rarepair Promptathon 2021

Hello lovelies! I’m excited to announce a prompt fest for SW rarepairs!

What qualifies as a rarepair you ask? Any pairing that has less than 400 fics on AO3 that are complete, over 1k, and in English. Does one of your ships meet this criteria? Yes? Welcome to hell :) What is a prompt fest? A prompt fest is where you post prompts for other authors to fill or fill them yourself, if you’re so inclined.

This prompt fest is being run on AO3, so if don’t have an account and need an invitation, please let me know.

Sign-ups are now open and this round will last until May 4th 2020. You do not have to leave prompts to fill prompts, nor do you have to fill prompts to leave prompts.

The link can be found in the source of this post or in the reblogs. The link for the SW rares Discord server can also be found in the reblogs since tumblr hates links. If you have any questions, feel free to drop an ask in my inbox!

[sabraeal]

Hi Jen

Sequel to  Lie Back and Think Of Obi | Out of Context Part 1

Suzu knows it’s a terrible plan.

“So you don’t have to tell me,” he slurs, hovering. “I got it.”

“I haven’t said anything.” Obi’s fingers don’t even slow. “Yet.”

The lock clicks, door swinging open beneath Obi’s capable hands. He sweeps an arm out, welcoming. “After you.”

He’s been in Yuzuri’s room – loads of times, honestly; enough that he could probably find things better than she could – but never without her. There’s something missing when he steps in, something that is everything that makes these four walls hers. It’s just some room when she isn’t here, a place to keep stuff.

Ugh, he is way too drunk to be thinking. He’s gotta stop before he passes out.

“So where are you planning on putting this thing?” Obi asks, shaking him out of contemplation. “Just…on the bed?”

Suzu stares down at the flowers in his hands, slightly crushed in their brown paper wrappings. “I feel like the bed has…connotations.”

Obi give him a long look, the kind that says, isn’t that half the point? “There’s the desk too.”

Suzu considers it. “But isn’t that too work-related?”

The silence in the room is deafening before Obi says, “Consider that you’re working to get out of the dog house.”

“Oh.” That’s not a bad point. “Right.”

The flowers slap down on the hard wood, losing a few petal in the process. He really doesn’t know his own strength like this. He must be ten times stronger drunk or something. “Done.”

Obi stares. “Just the flowers?”

“Jewelry seemed a little steep,” he explains, patting the packaging. “Also it’s really expensive. One little topaz and you’re out –”

“I meant a card.” Obi peels back the paper, brow furrowed. “How is she going to know who it’s from?”

“Huh.” Good question. “I figured it would be obvious. Do you think she gets a lot of bouquets?”

Obi’s eyebrows inch towards his hairline. “I think you better act like she does.”

“Yeah, good thought.” There’s a journal right on her desk, it’s nothing to just rip a page out –

“What?” Suzu blinks. “Something wrong?”

Obi removes his hand from his face. “No. By all means, just…finish what you’re doing.”

Suzu turns back to pick up a pencil – they’re scattered across her desk, some of them still rattling, can’t imagine how that happened – when the doorknob jiggles, like a key’s being fit into a lock.

“Oh,” Yuzuri says through the door, “did I leave this open?”

For entirely too short a time, his life flashes before his eyes. Wow, he really needs to finish that thesis.

“Get over here!” Obi’s hand closes around his bicep like a band of steel, and then everything is movement. He barely has a moment to realize he’s being dragged across the floor before Obi’s broad shoulders crowd him back, back, until he twists to close the closet door behind them.

“Ooh,” he murmurs, hands pressing the page to Obi’s chest. “It smells like Yuzuri in here.”

Obi’s shoulders hunch over him, like somehow the black of his clothes might keep them from detection if the door gets opened. “Great. Be quiet.”

His mouth snaps shut, just in time for Yuzuri to spill into the room, and through the slats he makes out red trailing after her.

“Shira–!” A hand claps over his mouth.

The name escapes him on a hiss, and it’s just light enough in the closest to see the question it Obi’s eyes: do I have to shut you up?

Suzu wants to complain, but he’s saved the trouble by Shirayuki offering, “Maybe you just forgot.”

Obi’s eyes pulse wide, and it quickly becomes clear that no matter how he contorts, Obi is stuck with his back to the door, unless he would like to take a rack of Yuzuri’s coats with him.

Not that it bothers Suzu any. It’s fair now – both him and Obi are equally invested in not getting caught.

By Obi’s face, he doesn’t seem to agree.

“I don’t –” The words end abruptly, like Obi’s taken one of his knives to them, and – “Suzu.”

He almost doesn’t hear the crinkling of paper over the pounding of his heart. He’s a dead man. Dead.

Obi’s head tips back, eyes screwed shut, like he’s appealing to some higher power. Suzu doubts he’s asking for divine intercession for both of them.

“What –?”

“Suzu.” He can’t see through Yuzuri’s back, but he can hear the sound of paper rhythmically hitting skin. “He left flowers.”

He taps Obi’s chest, grinning. Paper crinkles under his fist. “Guess I didn’t need a card after all!”

Obi lets out a thin breath. “Great.”

“Oh.” Shirayuki’s expression crumples in confusion. “An apology, maybe? For a few days ago. You can’t really think that he thinks you’re – you’re stupid. Suzu thinks the world of you.”

Thinks the world of you. That’s what he should have put on the card. The card he didn’t write, because they’re trapped in a closet.

“He has a funny way of showing it,” Yuzuri huffs. “And don’t tell me he’s interested. I know it, but the closest he’s come to doing anything about it he was pretending to be Obi, so –”

“Pretending to be Obi?”

Shirayuki is the only one in the room who doesn’t tense.

“Oh, uh, well.” Yuzuri coughs. “We got carried away, looking in Obi’s room. For you know, birthday hints.”

“And he almost kissed you?”

“Well…” Yuzuri sounds like she wants to be saved from this conversation as much as him, though perhaps not as much as Obi. “I was pretending to be you at the time.”

He can see her skin flush through the slats, painfully red. “O-oh.”

“Shirayuki, listen –”

“It’s not fair,” Shirayuki says, slightly put-out. “Everyone else gets to play at being at someone else besides me.”

Yuzuri lets out a laugh. “I mean, we can if you want to.”

“Ooh.” Shirayuki is the very picture of consideration. “Could you show me what you and Suzu did? For me and Obi?”

“Uh…” It’s impossible to move Shirayuki once she’s made a decision, only distract her, and it’s clear – even with her back to him – that Yuzuri has realized she alone is not enough to manage it. “Well, you’d have to be Obi, since you can’t be yourself.”

“All right!” She sweeps up a scarf hanging from the edge of the bed, winding it around her neck so that it half obscures her face. “I’m Obi! I have aliases and many secrets.”

It’s an effort, not laughing, Especially with the gruff drop in her voice, the conspiratorial tone she takes, the way Obi’s eyes blow wide at the sound of both.

Yuzuri doesn’t have to, of course, so she does, a high bell-like noise that makes something in his chest resonate. “That’s – that’s good.”

She sashays a little closer, entirely too close for propriety, and tries to look up under her eyelashes at someone a good three inches shorter than her. “Oh, Obi, you don’t have any secrets from me.”

“I don’t sound like that!” Shirayuki squawks, giggles overtaking her.

“Well, you don’t sound like me either!” Yuzuri deadpans before pitching her voice even higher. “Now if you’re done trying to seem impressive, I need you to lift something heavy.”

“I wouldn’t say that!”

“Stay in character!”

Shirayuki huffs, trying to affect an air of mystery. “Well, Miss, I…have to do do…guard…ly?…things?”

“Guardly things?”

“He does them a lot!”

“You’re terrible with this.” Yuzuri lifts the scarf from her neck, wrapping it around her own. “Here, I’ll be Obi. You can be you.”

“Well, all right –”

“Miss.” Suzu blinks. Out of the three people in this room who have pretended to be Obi but were not him, Yuzuri’s manly rumble is the best. She crowds Shirayuki, leaning a hand on the bedpost as she looms. “How many times have I told you to lock the doors?”

Shirayuki squeaks, a noise somewhere between amusement and dismay. “I do!” she protests, a little cross. “He makes that up!”

“Miss!” Yuzuri even has his stern-and-scolding tone down. “I tried the knob just today, and it came open!”

“It did not!” Shirayuki huffs. “And no one would know if it did, if you weren’t going around testing it all the time!”

“That isn’t safe,” Yuzuri pushes, bending her elbow to lean closer. Suzu’s glad that Obi can’t see it; he’d probably die on the spot. “What if someone was waiting for you?”

“N-no one would do that!” Yuzuri must be a prodding a sore spot; Shirayuki’s half-forgotten they’re playing. “And I always lock my door –”

“Not to my room.”

Suzu could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

“I trust you,” Shirayuki says, firm.

Yuzuri purrs,“You shouldn’t.”

“Then maybe you should take the invitation.”

He was wrong, this is silence. Obi’s not even breathing.

Yuzuri jerks away, shock in every line of her body. “What?”

Shirayuki looks like she’s half on fire. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean it like –”

“Shirayuki –!”

She moves so quickly Suzu doesn’t even see her leave, just Yuzuri lurch after her, and –

And there’s no reason for Obi to look so bereft, not when Shirayuki just said she wanted him to use that open door, and Suzu shakes at him to tell him so –

They spill out onto the carpet. Right at Yuzuri’s feet.

For a moment, she looks as red as Shirayuki, but then it turns to a different sort of flush entirely.

“You,” she intones, grim, as she points at him. “Don’t move. You –” her finger jabs at Obi, then the door – “don’t screw this one up.”

[sabraeal]

for the Rare Pair Mini-Prompt-a-thon, obi and kiki bonding over their (past) mutual trouble of trusting others and making/keeping friends

Wide Florida Bay | Previous

When Kiki said, I’m taking you shopping, he’d thought – Brooks Brothers, Men’s Warehouse, something that sent out circulars where guys were wearing boat shoes with a blazer, or unironic argyle socks, not –

Not an actual designer, complete with private consultation, 180 degree mirror, and – and freaking tea service. This dressing room is nicer than his first apartment – and the second one too. Nicer than any place he’s lived, except maybe one.

Kiki had passed on the consultation, despite the personal promise – tendered passionately over the phone by his personal assistant’s personal assistant – that Mr Bailey himself would be happy to fly out, if she’d only give him a few hours and possibly dinner (to catch up, the poor woman had said, flustered).

(”Don’t let him trouble himself. It’s for a friend,” she says, mouth curling in a smile that makes sweat bead at his hairline.

“Mr Bailey would be happy to dress any friend of Miss –”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Teeth peek out from between her lips. “I can handle this.”)

Instead she subjects him to an endless stream of high-end clothes, brought out by simpering sales associates, eager to help Miss Seiran with her next purchase. They barely spare a glance for him once she tells them it’s on her account, and even then, he suspects it’s to guess his size.

He lasts an hour before it hits, before it feels like the walls are closing in and all three of his reflections are judging him.

The tie is mulberry silk, spun by only the snootiest, most free range of caterpillars, and it feels like a noose around Obi’s neck.

“I can’t do this,” he says, fingers knotted in his collar.

“What? Tie a tie?” Kiki glances up from her magazine, bored. “God, don’t tell me that thing you wore to the banquet was a clip-on.”

“No, not –” He meets his own eyes in the mirror, but sees – someone else. Someone who can afford two hundred dollar ties and whatever vulcana wool is. Someone who doesn’t have a scar bisecting his chest, who only take pain killers recreationally, not chronic, searing pain. “Not that. The rest of it.”

Kiki stills in her chair, then sets the magazine aside. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t date.” He yanks at the tie, trying to get some air. “I don’t – I don’t do dinner.”

She stares, a steady blue that meets his gaze in the mirror. He used to think Kiki was inscrutable, that she wore nothing on her sleeve, but – but he doesn’t think that now. Her expression isn’t blank, it’s – thoughtful. There’s no knee-jerk comfort with Kiki, no platitudes, just – solutions.

He likes that about her.

“You don’t have to do dinner.” She says finally, gaze sliding back to her magazine. “I like the aquarium idea, but Quincy Market is right across from –”

“No, I – I want to do dinner. Doc deserves dinner. I just –” He puts his hands against the mirror, trying to steady himself. Three Obis stare back, and that is – not helping. “I don’t date.”

Her face furrows, thick with skepticism. “I’m supposed to believe you never –”

“No.” His breath is coming fast now. “That’s it. I don’t date, I just – fuck.”

“Oh.” Her chair squeaks as she shifts, one leg crossing over the other. “So do you not want to fuck Shirayuki, or –”

He summons enough annoyance to send a glare over his shoulder. Kiki doesn’t deign to notice. “I wonder.”

“Good,” she says, “I wasn’t sure you knew it.”

He stares.

“It’s possible. She’s in your bed three nights out of seven.” She shrugs. “Sometimes there’s a disconnect between dick and brain.”

“Your boyfriend would know.”

“God, would he.”

That makes him laugh, at least. “What the fuck am I going to do with this?”

“With what?” Kiki lifts an eyebrow. “With dinner, or – the rest of it?”

The whole feelings thing, she means. Obi rubs his head against the mirror. “I don’t know. Everything.”

“Do something,” she says, as if it’s so easy. “If you really want her.”

“I do, it’s just –” He stands up, scrubbing a hand down his face. “She doesn’t feel the same way.”

“Really now.”

“And I just…it’s fine.” He shakes his head. “I’d rather just be friends. I haven’t really –” He hesitates. “I’m not good at friends. It’s nice to…to have that.”

Kiki is silent for a long moment. “I’ll pick the place.” He opens his mouth to object, and she amends, “I’ll help pick out the place.”

“You don’t need to do that.” He sighs, turning to face her. “You already are paying for the hotel –”

“It’s fine –”

“It’s not.” She bridles, her jaw setting in a way he’s only seen before she punches guys named Blake. He steps down from the weird dais…thing, taking the chair next to her.

“Chief told me about how things were in high school. And maybe that’s a violation of privacy!” he adds when she looks like she’s going to start punching guys with the name Zen, and also maybe Obi. “But I don’t want to be that for you. I don’t want to be someone you think you have to buy to keep around. That’s all.”

“Obi.” His heart jumps when her hand lays over his. “I know. That’s why I’m doing it. Because you wouldn’t ask, and you don’t expect it.”

“I don’t make friends well either.” Her fingers lace through his, her palm to the back of his hand, and she squeezes. It’s…nice. Reassuring. “And the ones I do, I take care of.”

“Thanks.” He surprises himself by meaning it. “But I don’t need –”

“Please,” she scoffs, lifting an eyebrow as she turns back to her magazine. “I saw you at the banquet. You need all the help you can get.”

He stands, running a hand through his hair. three Obis stare back at him dubiously with hair that looks like it got frisky with a pillow for ten hours.

“Okay, that’s – fair. Just –” He stares down at his pants. “No vulcana wool. What even is that? Is it a sheep? Some sort of llama–?”

“That’s it,” she sighs, lifting a leg and shoving him back up to the mirrors. “I’m just going to cut all the tags out of what we buy.”

[sabraeal]

Shidan/Garrack and a love potion gone wrong

The Kit-Cat clock up on the wall’s been acting up again.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-purr-purr-tock. No wonder it’s been running slow.

Shidan tries not to notice – it just encourages the thing – but even with the pneumatic engraver going, even with the Quiet-Me he’s carved into the crown molding of the office, it’s obvious.

He lets out a huff. This is what you get with antiques: attitude.

“That’s what you get for letting mom practice spellwork on whatever she could get her hands on,” pipes a voice from behind him, back where there’s a cluster of what Yuzuri calls alternative seating options and Shidan calls expensive trash bags.

He doesn’t turn – Don’t-See-Mes are tricky things, and he’s just managed to get it anchored to the monogram; the last thing he needs is for the damn thing to get ideas and start turning the whole watch invisible as he’s working on it – but he does say, “That’s what I get for your grandmother letting her spell whatever she wants. God know why she thought a clock needed an opinion.”

“Knowing Mom? Probably so she could argue with it.”

That’s true, but Shidan knows better than to say. If there’s one way to make sure something will make its way to Crystal, it’s to tell Kirito right before he goes home. Won’t take more than an hour for the texts to start, asking why he’d give the kid ammunition for one of their neighborhood-famous rows, or whose side he’s on.

Shidan’s of the firm opinion that if you’ve got the gift, and you’re still putting crystals on your electronics and magnets on your light switches, you should probably expect some push back from your magic-minded son. But that’s not really his business.

“I’ll fix it,” he grumbles instead, trying to ignore the dubious chirp from above him. He wasn’t the one that spelled it for an opinion. “Probably just needs to get wound up again.”

If the next tick sounds like a hiss instead, that’s not his problem either.

“Can’t you just get it counter-charmed?” Kirito asks, somewhere between thoughtful and petulant, like most kids his age. “It’s not like Mom’s much good. Not compared to you.”

He’s too old to let that puff up his ego any, but he does allow a grin where his nephew can’t see. “Maybe so, but she wasn’t dumb either. All her charms at that age repel my magic. Didn’t like me meddling in her education, I gather.”

Or her diary. But that’s not a story for this audience.

Yet.

The kid’s not content to let it drop, of course. “Why not take it somewhere else? It’s not like you’re the only enchanter in the city, and anyone’s gonna be better than Mom.”

“Maybe I like it.”

He doesn’t. Nostalgia’s for your own mistakes, and having to live with a clock that thinks it’s too good for little things like accuracy or telling time at all doesn’t tickle the soft memories of his childhood. But taking it elsewhere means taking it to someone older, someone who remembers him as a know-it-all teenager or a kid who would cry when a pretty shop assistant talked to him. The last thing he wants is a walk down memory lane as he fixes yet another of Crystal’s mistakes.

That’s the problem with this town: it’s too damn small.

“Seattle is not small,” Kiritochimes in. Shidan finally twists to look at him, flipped around on a bean bag chair so old Shidan’shalf-convinced at least one of the people in this room was conceived on it.“You’re just cantankerous.”

He glances at the pattern – arainbow paisley that saw better days when Free Love was a principal philosophy– and amends his estimate. Both the people in this room would have been named Beanif their mothers hadn’t been so viscerally into the mystical Far East during theirpregnancies.

“It’s a flood plain six hundredthousand people are collectively too stubborn to leave,” Shidan grouses,putting the engraving tip back to the metal. “It’s small. And the Marinersnever win anything. Also, who is teaching you that kind of language?”

“High school.”

Shidan shakes his head. “Shameful.”

“Would you prefer ‘asshole’?”

“Just don’t let your mother hearyou. Also,” Shidan twists his head to look at his nephew, “shouldn’t you bein school?”

Kirito scoffs. “It’s three o’clock,man. What do I attend, prison?”

He glances up at the clock, wincing.Damn, he’d been hoping he’d finish this Don’t-See-Me charm tonight. “Some kidsdo extracurriculars.”

“Bugging you is my extracurricular.”

If that isn’t the truth. “I don’thand out college credits.”

“Neither does JV soccer.” Kirito jerkshis head back toward the shop. “By the way, you got strangers.”

“Strangers?” Shidan stands upso fast he bangs his knees. “Damn! Next time lead with that!”

“Nah.”

If there’s a perk to all this, it’sthat there’s not a single caster in this town he doesn’t know.

It’s also, most of the time, hisbiggest problem, but he knows every single person that has legitimatebusiness with him, and who just decided to poke in while their tea was steepingat Tea Republik. Or, more likely, who was trying to find the dispensary threestreets over.

These three don’t look like they fitany of the above.

He’s used to getting young girls in here, ones that look like they got their fashion sense straight from The Craft, but these ones have on tank stops and see-through cover-ups, baring far too much smile to be any of his usual high school hopefuls.

“I love your headband,” one girlsays to Yuzuri, lifting the giant frame of her sunglasses. “Those are like, catears right?”

“So cute,” another chimes in.“I love the little pearls. Where did you get it?”

Lab accident and some air-tightglamour, courtesy of the Emerald City’s Mistress.

“H&M,” Yuzuri offers coolly.

“Oh my god.” A girl presses a handto her chest. “I love H&M. Those are where your shorts are from too,right? I can tell.”

Suzu, trapped up against a displayof verbena, sends him a look that he’s only seen in war movies, just before theplucky sidekick gets taken out by a bunker buster.

Oh, for pete’s sake.

Shidan strides up to the group, hismost customer-friendly smile propping up his mouth. Not that he uses it forreal customers, but – there’s something about this town that enjoys surliness,and he doesn’t want to suddenly make himself interesting. “May I helpyou ladies?”

“Totally,” one tells him cheerfully,sinking her hands into the pockets of her high-waisted shorts. “Do you selllove potions?”

His smile pulls thin. “I’m sorry,this is an apothecary. If you’re looking for Harry Potter merchandise, there’sa toy store just down the –”

“No, no.” She waves a hand with alaugh. “We’re not looking for kid stuff. The real deal.”

He breathes in, letting the air runacross the roof of his mouth, huffing it out the canals of his nose. It’s justthe soft hum of Yuzuri’s magic, mixed with herbs and the more static fervor ofSuzu’s that settles on his tongue.

“The dispensary is over on –”

“Listen, I talked to a goth girl.”The girl leans hard on the counter, focused. “I know this place is the realdeal. How much?”

Shidan lets his smile slip, lets hisface turn as stern and annoyed at he is. “We don’t sell trash here. Who toldyou we would?”

“We just figured,” another girl sayswith a shrug. “The ones that lady is selling are so expensive.”

“Competitive markets,” the third girl peeps,looking not sure at all about the turn in conversation. “It drives down the price.”

His teeth grind in his ears. That lady.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who is huckingsnake oil and contraband spellwork.

“Well, you won’t find any of thathere,” he grits out. “Make sure to spread the word.”

The girl rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

“Now, boss,” Suzu starts as the doorchimes closed behind the girls. “Don’t jump to any –”

“That lady,” he snaps. “Weknow exactly which lady in this city would try to sell high schoolers –”

“College kids,” Yuzuri corrects.“Come on, Shidan, they were wearing U-Dub swag.”

“The point stands!” he huffs,folding his arms across his chest. “There’s only one person who would –”

The chimes tinkle above the door,admitting another three patrons. These, he knows.

“Speak of the devil–” Yuzuri giveshim a glare –”‘s apprentices.”

“Yuki!” his own calls out with apointedly friendly wave. Shidan scowls, hunching over the counter. Fraternizingwith the enemy, that’s what this is. “Can we help you?”

Garrack’s apprentices are a mixedbunch; they’ve been in here before for this-or-that, the woman having nevergotten much better at managing her stores than she was when she trained underArluleon. He knows them by look if not by name: a sullen, dark-haired boythat’s always poking his sharp nose into the belladonna and verbena, far tooyoung to be so advanced in his studies; a girl – woman, Yuzuri wouldinsist, though the both of them would barely be old enough for graduate studiesif they weren’t neck-deep in this world – with hair so red it should be dyed,only there’s no dye that can get that sort of color, not with chemicals alone,and –

And the last one. He’s tall,dark-haired, ethnically ambiguous, and curiously hard to look directly at. There’s something about the air around him, the way it presses down,heavy, when a body gets too close, the way it snaps and spits when someone’smagic gets a little too friendly.

Nothuman, would be Shidan’s guess, but it’s rude to ask, and even worse tosay. Good way to end up a frog or a lamppost, throwing that sort of talk around.

The girl is the one the approaches. The boy peels off seconds from the door, bee-lining for where Suzu’s started restocking the verbena, but the man hugs toher like a shadow, the eerie gold of his eyes tracking over the shelves like he half expects an ambush.

Gosh, what do kids even get into these days?

She gives Yuzuri a smile when she hits the counter, exchanging polite how-are-yous, but it’shim her eyes are fixed to, focus never wavering.

“Can I help you?” he ventures when the conversation comes to an uneasy pause.

Her hair bobs brightly under the lights. “I’d like to make a commission.”

He blinks, and in the second of hesitation, her shadowsnaps, hand banding around her arm and pulling her into a low but clearlyintense personal conference.

“Just give ‘em a minute.” Yuzuri sighs, turning back to theshelves. “Obi hates anyone spending anything on him.”

The never quite finish; Shidan loses his patience first.

“What for?” he asks finally,interrupting a low argument from the man. It earns him a reproachful look he’d rather not be on this side of, but – he’s running a business, not couples’ counseling. Time is money.

“I need a Don’t-Look-Here.” Hermouth purses, thoughtful. “Or a See-Me-Not?”

“I don’t need to get hit by a car,”her shadow grumbles, “a glamour would do.”

“If you want a glamour, you shouldbe asking the Mistress for that.” Five years ago it would have pained him toadmit it, but there’s no use pretending he can weave light like she can. Notnow.

She winces. “Ah, we – we tried that.Apparently Obi’s magic isn’t…harmonious with Haki’s.”

His gaze cut towards the kid. Notexactly a surprise. “Ha.”

“She thought a charm would workbetter – or, some metalworking?” The girl offers him an embarrassed smile. “Shesaid there was no one better on this coast.”

Shidan puffs up at that, but he’snot in his twenties, to be swayed by a little flattery. “I can see what can bedone. For a price.”

Yuzuri huffs. “Shidan –”

The girl though, she just gets focused.“What were you thinking?”

“She would never!” Shirayuki gaspswhen he’s done. Her reaction is so over the top – hand pressed her her chest,mouth and eyes gaping – he’d think it’s fake, if he wasn’t so sure this girlwas incapable of a lie.

“That’s banned magic!” she explains,affronted. “Garrack would never.”

Behind her, Ryuu and Obi exchangelooks.

Shidan points. “I want to talk tothem.”

The apartment is the third floor ofa cramped craftsman, sandwiched between a 24-hour laundromat and a store thatsells vegan foods for either humans or pets, Shidan can’t tell. The steps creakas he tip-toes up the narrow stairs, having to duck under low-hanging wallsevery flight. It’s a contrary little pile; just likeGarrack Gazalt herself.

The ‘3′ hanging on her door iscrooked, missing a screw at the bottom, at the mercy of her guests andGarrack’s mood. When he knocks, it skitters another quarter inch to the right,and he uses the interminable time she takes to answer to straighten it. All itneeds is a ninety-nine cent trip to the hardware store and it’d be good as new,but –

The door swings open. The woman whostands there can nearly look him in the eye.

“Well, well,” Garrack drawls,leaning against the door. “Shidan Weise. What did I do now?”

As always, she leaves him scramblingfor an answer. “Love potion,” he manages, gritting his teeth when she grins.

“You better come in, then,” shetells him, turning her back. “This could take a while. Tea? I have a pot on.”

“Yes. Wait –” she always does this –“No, I’m here to tell you to stop –“

“–Sullying Arluleon’s name, being ashame to the profession, et cetera, et cetera.” The kettle whistles – she musthave spelled it hot, which is not the proper use of her gift – and hestrains to hear her over the banging in her kitchen. “You know that’s not hisreal name, right? It was Kevin. Also he’s been dead for ten years, but who iscounting.”

“He still commands –”

“A decent following despite thewhole being-dead thing, yes, I’m aware.” She sets a mug in front of him, chippedon the rim. “I’m not doing anything he wouldn’t, the sly old dog.”

“Love potions are prohibited by thecouncil,” he manages, finally, wishing he didn’t sound so – so pedantic.“If you’re caught selling one – to mundanes no less –”

“I’m not making love potions,Shidan,” she scoffs. “I’d never.”

“I had some girls in my shop thatthought otherwise.”

“My apprentices wanted to raisemoney for something, and a girl came in looking for something to make herboyfriend stop playing Call of Duty.” Garrack shrugs, her sweater slipping offher shoulder. It’s…distracting. “So we brewed some rose hips with an infusionof Come-Hither, and suddenly we’re making love potions.”

She levels him with a look thatmakes his heart pound, that makes his skin feel two sizes too tight. “It’s allin good fun, Shidan.”

“I don’t –” she shifts, frecklesvisible right where he’s sitting and – “you put something in my tea.”

“You were concerned,” she tells himsimply. “So I thought I’d give you a dose. Easy to control, isn’t it?”

That is…optimistic of her. “Yes. Ofcourse. Very.”

“Unless…” She slips fromher chair to the couch he’s currently trying to disappear into, mouth curled with amusement. It isn’t embarrassing enough to be – to be half hard just looking at her, oh no; she has to know too. “You’re havingsome reaction.”

Typical. he should have expected she’d try something like this.

“Is that –” she leans forward just enough to for his gaze to flirt with what might be beneath; he licks his lips – “isthat common?”

“Hmm. Yes.”

Her arm stretches along the back of the couch, the skin of her forearm electric against the thin material of his shirt. His throat makes a dull thunk when she crosses her legs, when her foot accidentally brushes along the seam of his trousers, making every hair stand up on his calf.

This is interminable. He’s in hell. It’s the only explanation.

“But,” she murmurs, so close he can see the freckles in her eyes, brown and gold against blue, “only when there’s an attraction already in place. Hence why it worked sowell on the boyfriend.”

“A-ahh…”

“And of course,” her eyelashes flutter, and he has a front row seat to when her gaze drops straight to his mouth, “when it’s served with intent.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he pants, grabbing ahandful of sweater and pulling. “Fuck it.”

Garrack grins against his mouth. “Finally.”

[sabraeal]

Torou meets Kiki on the streets and casually asks about the tall and handsome.

The other side of Best Laid Plans; takes place during Chapter 2

“Five hundred dill? For silver?” Torou hooks a hand around her hip, giving the trader her best weren’t-born-yesterday look. “That’s highway robbery. Someone should report you to the Watch.”

“Go right ahead,” the man huffs, arms crossed over his chest. “Call ‘em over. I hear they like having their time wasted.”

He’s got her there; sure she could flag one down, try to tell him the same is selling two towns over at a hundred, but –

But that’d be making herself a memorable. Sure, she hasn’t tried anything here, doesn’t have any plans to, but she knows better than to bank on it.

Besides, she knows all that gets reported back to their commander, and Obi’s already caught her slinking around Lyrias’ rooftops, already given her that unamused look when she complimented the fit of his uniform.

Bleh. Good thing she never tried that staying-in-place thing. Does havoc on the humor, seems like.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you two-fifty,” she offers with a wink, “and we keep those square-hats out of it.”

It lands like a rock. “You’re lucky I don’t –”

Through the gap in stalls she catches blonde chased by blue, and everything is background noise to that, to seeing Miss Murderous Intent walking along with Tall and Handsome, barely a breath of space between them.

Interesting. She’d always thought that might be how it panned out. Good to see she hasn’t lost her chops.

Tall and Handsome sets his hand on the Miss’s shoulder, leans close, says something all low-like –

And disappears into the crowd.

Interesting.

“Here, have three,” Torou says absently, tossing the dill on the counter as she slips on the new bangles. “We’ll call it even.”

“Hey!” the merchant calls out after her, but she’s busy melting into the crowd, busy tracking blondie to another stall – perfumer, nice quality. The sort Torou would only be able to afford by five-finger discount.

Perfect.

“Glad to see someone’s taking that stallion out for a ride,” she remarks, easy as talking about the weather. “He had that ridden hard and put away wet look, the last time.”

Blondie doesn’t even jump, only says, “Does Obi know you’re here?”

Even his friends are boring. “That good, huh?”

Blondie’s mouth pulls thin, the only reaction she’s gotten. “I asked you a question.”

“I hear you.” Torou grins, running a finger down crystal bottles. “And I asked one of my own.”

That gets a smile out of her, almost. “If you have to know, it’s not like that.” Her eyebrows raise, pointed. “I’m sure that’s good news, to you.”

“Nah.” Torou waves a hand. “Hate to see good cock go to waste.”

“Oh.” Now there is a smile. “You should tell Mitsuhide that. I’m sure he’d love to hear it.”

“Well, you know.” Torou leans, so casual, on the counter. “I hate to see a pretty face go to waste t–”

“There, sirs!” comes an all-too familiar voice. “That’s the thief.”

Torou grins, tosses Blondie a wink. “Next time.”

Somewhere between Wilant and Rondel, the snow really starts to lose its shine.

The inn barely deserves the name, but the ride between towns this far north can sometimes measure in days not hours, and Torou isn’t willing to risk a night out in the snow for a place that may think the hay loft is a proper substitute for a room.

She’s not the only one to do that math, it seems; on her way into the barn, she catches sight of white and blue on their way out, grim-faced as they brush snow from their shoulders. They don’t see her – not with her scarf pulled so far over her face, and her hood pulled so low – but she watches them, grin tugging at her lips. What are the odds?

No Obi, at least. He’d only accuse her of stalking again. As if a girl can’t go where she pleases.

The big man opens the door, straining the seams of his coat, she imagines, and –

Well, it’s a good thing Obi isn’t here for other reasons too. He certainly wouldn’t let her press her luck again.

And didn’t Blondie say he wasn’t spoke for?

Torou grins. Maybe the bed in this inn won’t be as cold as the last.

She’s ready to bide her time; the rooms are barely more than closets with a bed, and the few travelers the inn has all gather in the common room. Torou knows better than to approach when the prince is occupying his attention; he seems the sort to be single-minded, serious while on the job, and the last time she’d talked to the boy, he’d nearly choked at the mention of a tumble.

Well, so had the big man, but that was just…intriguing. Still, she doubts he’ll give her much more than a second glance with his master hanging around, making things…dutiful.

So it’s a surprise when the boy stands, rubbing at his head like his thoughts are making a bid for freedom through the bone, and excuses himself. The big man’s left by himself, common room nearly empty, contemplating the fire.

Perfect.

Torou’s not trying for a stealth approach; she wants him to see her sashay over, wants him to watch her hips sway, want him to read the invitation –

He doesn’t even look up. And of course, he’s in one of the few single chairs the inn boasts.

Well, improvisation has always been her gift.

“Well now, handsome,” she purrs, dragging her fingers down his arm. “Fancy seeing you here.”

If he weren’t such a big man, he would have jumped clear off that chair. “A-ah! You!”

She grins, perching on its arm, leaning close. “Me.”

“How did you –? Why are you –?”

“Come on, now.” She trails her fingers up the closures of his coat. “Can’t a lady have her secrets?”

“Does Obi know you’re here?” he blurts out, eyeing her warily.

She heaves a sigh. “What is it with you guys, huh? Blondie asked that too. It’s not like I’m following him.”

He doesn’t seem convinced.

“If you must know, I’m on my way back from a job.” She presses a hand to her chest, put-upon. “A girl has to live.”

He shifts, putting more space between them. “Most girls make it honestly.”

“And some of those girls make it on their back.” Her grin is stiff on her face, she has to work to make it a sensuous curl. “We all gotta make decisions about what parts we’re willing to sell. Isn’t that right, Big Boy?”

Finally he looks at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, me and Blondie, we had quite the chit chat.” An overstatement, but it’s clear by the way the way he winces, by the way he curls on himself, that she’s read that whole situation right. “Can’t say I ever pegged you as the sort who went for –”

“It’s not like that!” She’s got him heated now, defensive. He forgets to pull away when she leans in closer, intrigued. “Kiki – she understands. I’m not meant to – I’m not the marrying kind.”

A lie. There’s nothing about this man that doesn’t say future proud papa, but that’s not any of her business. Not tonight.

“What a coincidence.” Her mouth spreads, baring a predator’s smile. “Neither am I.”

That gets his attention, makes that sweet blush creep up his neck, turns his ears red as spring cherries. “I – I – I’m not – I didn’t mean I was going to do that.”

“That?” she hums, fingering the latch of his collar. “You mean…the old in-and-out? Dancing in the sheets? Making the beast with two –”

“You know what I mean,” he grunts, suddenly looking anywhere but her. The dimness of the common room casts most of his face in shadow, makes all of his skin look golden, but –

But it’s quite rosy too, from where she sits.

“You know, handsome.” He shivers under her hand as she tracing the piping of his coat, and –

And pushes into it. Just barely, and only a moment, but –

But it seems the big man isn’t so against a little petting.

She presses her hand flat against his chest, pushing him back into the chair. Even through a layer of wool, his heart beats frantically against her palm. “It’s hard to go back, you know. Once you’ve had it.”

“Well.” His throat makes a hollow thunk next to her ear. “It’s good I won’t have to worry about that.”

Her fingers stutter against his clasp. Impossible. All of – of this, and even Blondie never took him out of the stables?

What a waste.

“Mm, maybe.” He doesn’t move, not an inch, not even when she’s so close her lips brush his ear. “But you really think you can keep that up? Forever?”

He struggles against her hand now. “Of course! A man –”

“Oh, no,” she purrs, lips curling when he turns to look at her. His nose nearly brushes hers. “Some men could abstain forever. Hell, it looks like Obi’s halfway on his way there, now that he’s turned over a new leaf. And let me tell you – he was no saint before he met your prince.”

He lets her push him back down with hardly any pressure at all. “But you really think a big boy like you –” her nose trails down the column of his neck – “blushing right now because you’re already thinking about it, about whether it’s as good as you’ve heard men say…”

His chest rattles under her hand.

She grins, sharp against the stubble of his jaw. “You think you can last?”

His voice is weak when he says, “You think I can’t?”

“Some men could,” she tells him, “but not you, Mister. You’re curious.”

He’s motionless, completely still. There’s something serious in the set of his face, contemplative, like watching a mother in the market trying to choose whether to spend her last dill on a handful of meat or a bag of rice.

“And…” He licks his lips. “And what if I am?”

Torou does her calculations; there’s a handful of people still in the common room, the innkeep behind the bar, but the wide back of the chair and the light of the fire casts this corner in shadow.

She swings her leg over him, knees slipping between his hips and the chair’s arms. He’s already hard against her thigh.

“If that’s the case,” she sighs, nose dipping in to brush his, “I’d say I’m the right gal to ask.”

[sabraeal]

Mukaze and Haruto!

High tea is a private affair, at the request of the queen dowager. There are to be no other ladies in attendance, save for her guest from the university.

The bandits were most certainly not invited.

The queen dowager sets down her cup, not bothering to arise from her seat – as if this sort of interruption was commonplace, expected – and says, “If you would be so kind to give us a moment, the tea has just finished steeping, and then we will be on our way.”

It sets the tone for the most civil kidnapping Shirayuki has ever experienced.

She’s not a stranger to it, by now. The close companion of two princes, a countess, and a man with a patched past, Shirayuki has been thrown over the back of a horse more times than a saddlebag. Tanbarun hadn’t even been the first time; she’d thought to tell Obi that when he seemed so set on blaming himself, but one look at the painful lines around his eyes had made the words wither on her tongue.

She had, after the second time, hands clenched tight around his middle as they rode away from the bandit camp, all of them under the thick sleep of the lethe she’d thrown in the fire. He’d laughed so hard he nearly toppled them both off the horse.

Funny what a few years can do.

She’s adept at saving herself, now. A well placed stomp and a sharp elbow keeps most of it at bay, but this –

Well, she’s never been kidnapped quite like this.

Haruto refuses to acquiesce to be bound, either to her or a horse.

“It’s the principle of the thing, sirs,” she tells them, as if they are merely wayward knights. “Surely it will be a better thing for you when the king arrives, and he sees I have been kept in comfort.”

Just the way she says it, when the king arrives, is like a knife to the belly of the band. A ripple of unease goes through them, and their leader snaps, “Fine, just the red head then. We can sell her –”

“Oh my,” Haruto gasps, pale hand pressed to her mouth. Her expression is the very picture of innocence, of a pampered noblewoman with no concept of what might happen to girl without the crown’s protection -- but her eyes are narrowed, cold as she speaks. There is no doubt, not for Shirayuki, that this woman birthed Izana. “I’m afraid the king would be most put out if anything happened to my companion. She’s very dear to me. The entire family.”

They turn to her then, faces scrunched in confusion, and she does her level best to look – regal. Someone of importance.

“Don’t he have an understanding, what with the Mistress of Lyrias?” says one, eyeing her sharply.

Haruto lifts her hands, what can you do. “The heart wants what it wants.”

Shirayuki has to bite her tongue. Haruto is doing her a favor. She won’t be sold now, won’t be separated and lost among the other girls who are destined to end up as concubines and worse.

But still – wouldn’t saying that she was –? That Zen was –?

It would have been enough.Izana didn’t need to be brought into this, surely. Now she lays awake at night wondering what will happen when they are found, what Obi will say when they tell him she’s Izana’s lover –

She does not think about what Izana might say. It’s too terrible to contemplate.

When the shouts come, the palisade of the bandit camp breaking down under horse hooves and battering rams, it is not Obi who rides through the gates, or Izana but –

“Dad?” she gasps, as the tent flap whips back, revealing the solid form of her father. “How did you –?”

“Now, now, kiddo.” The rumble of his voice fills the space between them, rough with good humor. “I may be getting old, but don’t hurt your Papa by telling him you don’t think his ears can hear about the queen of Clarines and her red-haired pharmacist being kidnapped at lunch.”

“High tea,” Haruto corrects mildly, and she sees her dad stiffen – he must have forgotten a queen would be with her – just before he turns, and –

And she’s never thought what it would look like, the way her and Zen met, eyes meeting as he leapt over the wall, looking every inch the prince he was even out of his regalia. The way time slowing might seem to someone standing outside of it –

But she knows now.

“Your majesty,” her father says, with the same warm reverence that Obi says Miss. He holds out his hand, his stance going from rebel captain to courtier in a breath.

Haruto lays her fingers gently over his palm, her slender hand dwarfed by his broad one. “I’m afraid,” she says, so soft, so radiant. “That you have the advantage of me, sir. May I know the name of my rescuer?”

“Mukaze,” he says, breathless.

“Mukaze.” She says the name like she’s savoring it. “You may call me Haruto.”

They reach the village not a day too soon. Shirayuki doesn’t think she can take another day of – of –

“Shirayuki!”

The gates burst open, and it’s Mitsuhide’s face she sees first, then Kiki’s, and then –

“Zen,” she breathes, her lungs bursting free of the tension that’s kept them tight, kept them caged all this while. She can’t get to him fast enough, can’t feel the solid weight of him against her soon enough. His scent so soothing to her even now, even when her heart flutters and stomach tips at the sight of him.

“You’re all right?” he asks, nose pressed into the fall of her hair. “You’ve not been harmed?”

“I’m fine.” She steps back, drinking him in. Her father had teased her about his fancy messenger but not once had she imagined that Zen would be the one waiting for her. “I didn’t think you’d be here!”

“Izana and I left as soon as we heard. Made it to Wilant in three days. It took us another two to catch up to –” He hesitates, mouth clamping down in a frown. “In any case, me and Mitsuhide and Kiki made it here in the dead of night. We hadn’t had sleep out of the saddle in days. Your father was insistent that he leave right then, and we – I wanted to be there, when they got you.”

“You’re only human, Zen.” It means more than he could know that he could come at all, that Izana – “Where’s Izana? And…and Obi? Obi!”

Her heart pounds, brought back to that forest in Tanbarun. He’d chased her then, he’d never let her go now, not unless –

“Is he hurt?” she gasps, fingers clenched around his tunic. “Did something happen –?”

“No.” There’s something wrong with Zen’s face as he speaks, something stiff and wooden. “He stayed with Izana, looking closer to Lyrias. We weren’t sure which way the band had gone, and my brother can’t cross the border without causing incident, so –”

Her brow furrows. “Obi didn’t know which way they had gone?”

Zen is rigid under her hands. “It’s a long story. And –” he coughs – “and I am much more eager to hear about you. I trust the ride back has been pleasant.”

Now it is Shirayuki’s turn to grimace, to turn to wood in his arms. “After a fashion.”

“Shirayuki –?”

She knows the exact moment he sees them; his eyes widen, he takes half a step, and then –

Her father has already dismounted, handing his mount off to Itoya with barely a word, and now he stands at Haruto’s side, arms outstretched to catch her. She falls into him from the saddle, his broad hands spanning her middle as if she were a girl no older than Shirayuki herself, lifting her up and down, far too close –

“What on earth,” Zen mutters.

Shirayuki sighs, eyes clenched shut. “I know.”

They arrive at the border a bare half week later – much to the protest of her father and Zen’s mother.

“You’ve both been through an ordeal,” Mukaze says, entirely too close to Haruto. She can’t see their hands through the tables, but she knows they’re touching. “You should stay, rest.”

“My brother was quite adamant on that point.” Zen has barely spoken this week without it being through gritted teeth. Shirayuki can’t find cause to blame him. “He can’t cross the border without permission from the crown of Tanbarun, and that will take a weeks, at least. You can understand, he would like this all resolved much sooner.”

His mother casts her a long, watchful look. “But Shirayuki –”

“I’m recovered,” she blurts out. “Very much. Can’t wait to go back. Really.”

“If you’re sure –”

“I am,” she says, the same time as Zen grits out, “She is.”

Their parents share equally suspicious looks, eyes narrowed at them across the table.

“We can leave at dawn tomorrow.” Zen stands up, green in the torchlight. “I’ll arrange it.”

An army awaits them on the border, and for a moment Shirayuki’s breath catches, and something deep within her says, run. But in the next she sees the tense set of a man on horseback, his body slouched in a way she could not mistake, and before she can make out his face in the morning light, she is off, stumbling toward him, leaving her mare behind.

“Miss,” he breathes, catching her between parties, hands locked around around her elbows.

She does not even realize what a burden she’s been holding, not until he touches her and it lifts, so thoroughly absent it’s as if it never existed. “Obi!”

He begins to slip away, body growing shy so near to hers. It is the last thing she wants; she catches him and crushes him close, until the sound that pounds in her ears is his own heart.

Obi is frigid beneath her hands at first, but he thaws so easily. Arms clutch her to his chest, nearly lifting her off her feet. He buries his face in her hair, breathing deep, and she wonders if she smells the same to him as when she left, or if she smells of leather and wood as he does.

“Miss.” It’s a croak, a groan of a door rusty with disuse. “Miss –”

“I’m back,” she gasps, surprised at the heat that wells in her eyes. “I’m back.”

His fingers knot in her cloak. “Welcome home.”

“Suitably dramatic,” Izana tells her as the parties ride to meet each other. “You’ve given the men something to talk about all the way to Wistal.”

In his usual way, Shirayuki isn’t sure if he means that as congratulations or censure. She’s not sure she ever will.

“You audience seems impressed too,” he adds, and that is when she looks, when she sees Zen riding toward them with a question in his eyes.

He keeps it until he’s close, until the intensity of it, the certainty makes her own gaze skitter away. Their own reunion had been intense, tearful –

But it should be that way, between people with an understanding. Her and Obi –

He’s her home. Whatever else may lie at the center of that tangled knot in her chest, he’s that.

Zen dismounts and does her the favor of not asking. Instead he turns to Obi, clapping him on the back. “If you’re here, my brother must have kept you on a short leash indeed.”

“Master.” Obi presses a hand to his chest, scandalized. “To think, after all these years, you think I have not learned heel.”

“Not to cut your training short, brother,” Izana cuts in, impatient. “But mother –”

“Oh,” Zen groans, tilting his head to the sky. Shirayuki doubts her expression is any better. “Mother is just fine.”

Obi’s eyebrows rocket to his hairline. “That sounds like a story.”

“No,” Zen snaps. “It’s not.”

Izana’s brow furrows. “Zen, what do you –”

And that is when the crowd parts, giving the king his first look at his mother in months – just when she falls, giggling, into the arms of a rebel captain.

“Goodness me,” Obi hums, mouth curling at the edges.

“What,” the word snaps from the king’s mouth like a whip crack, “in the world happened.”

At least Obi seems to be enjoying himself.

“Master’s mother,” he says, voice trembling, “and Miss’s father.”

“This is…unexpected, but…fine,” Izana says, tone saying it is anything but. “After all, it’s not as if it’s been consummated –”

“Oh, it has,” Kiki assures him. “Mine and Shirayuki’s tent are right next to Haruto’s. The giggling coming from there has been…”

Something Shirayuki would rather forget. “A lot.”

“Well.” The king’s face is slack, horrified. He’s at a loss. “Well.”

Kiki let’s out a huff. “I haven’t slept in –”

“Please,” Zen begs, “stop talking about it.”

“Why Master, Miss,” Obi purrs, dropping his hand to reveal a smirk Shirayuki can only term as unsettling. “This makes you practically siblings.”

“O-oh,” she gasps, stomach roiling. “Oh my.”

Zen grimaces. They look everywhere but at each other.

“Oh my,” Izana drawls, suddenly much recovered. “I had so wanted a sister.”

[sabraeal]

alternate modern au: Suzu and Yuzuri keep meeting by accident, until they can't ingore it anymore

The airport’s air conditioning hits Yuzuri like a wall, so aggressive she’d stagger back from the terminal if it weren’t for inexorable flow of the other passengers shoving her forward, tossing her in their current until she’s beached at the baggage claim, screen reading a sterile YYZ > MIA.

It’s not until she’s standing there, shivering in her tank top and flip-flops, that it dawns on her that, fuck, this was – this was a huge move. A big deal. Nearly two thousand miles and just…she’s not going to do the math now, but like a fuckton of degrees latitude.

And this air conditioning. If she wanted to experience sub zero temperatures in real life, she could have just waited until, like, fall back home. She did not need to come all the way here, stuck waiting for her bag to come back from Mordor for the amount of time it’s been gone, to experience some real Fortress of Solitude type weather.

“Oh, thank fuck,” she mutters, seeing the loud orange of her bag coming down the belt. It’d been a gift, from her cousin; he always liked to give her something stupidly useful and aggressively ugly, and this time it’d been the loudest duffel he could find at MEC.

So you know which one is yours, he’d supplied helpfully, not even aware of how hideous the thing was. If there was one thing Mitsuhide needed, it was help. If there were two things he needed, it was help and woman, preferably together, telling him not to buy her ugly accessories in the middle of MEC.

She reaches down, bracing herself to yank this monstrosity off the belt, but –

Another set of hands beats her to it.

She has a moment to appreciate long, knobby fingers, neatly kept. This is it, her meet-cute; she’s going to peer up and he’s going to be tall, muscular, and look like season two Will Riker. On season one Will Riker’s body.

Listen, a girl has preferences.

That’s all before the bag drops at her feet and she sees Birkenstocks. With trepidation, she sweeps her gaze up…and up, past the sweater-poncho that could have walked right off the Big Lebowski, into an improbably attractive face surrounded by hair that is the spiritual precursor to white dreads.

To think, he’s working with all that, and he wastes it dressing like The Dude.

“That’s my bag,” she says, because honestly, she’s stuck between being aggravated with how hot he is and disappointed that he dresses himself like a stoner.

His eyes pulse wide, unfairly long eyelashes fluttering. “No way, look at this. It’s orange. That’s my thing.”

“You own orange?” She folds her arms under her chest, hip cocked out. “Really? That’s what you’re going with.”

His mouth pulls flat. “There’s no need to get nasty, man. We can just open it, take a peek, and then mystery is solved.”

“Great,” she says, baring her teeth in her friendliest smile. “I should warn you though, I keep my tampons right on top.”

He frowns, and this is it, she has this weirdo, he’s just going to –

“Dude, you should really consider a safer alternative,” he says, worried. “I mean like, yeah for the environment, but toxic shock is a thing, you know? My sister’s friend, she –”

There is absolutely no way she’s going to get lectured on feminine hygiene products by someone who has never met shampoo. “You really think there aren’t two MEC bags on this flight? Even orange ones? I mean, it’s a flight from Toronto –”

He blinks. “Toronto? Like, Canada-Toronto?”

Oh my god. How did he even get on the flight this high? How did he manage to stay this high for so long –?

“The flight was from Houston,” he says, guileless.

She stabs a finger up at display. “YYZ. It’s from Canada.”

He stares, mouth rounding. “Oh dude. That explains a lot.” His mouth splits wide and in a sheepish grin, and – ugh, it just makes his face do a thing. A thing where it gets more handsome. “Sorry about that!”

It’s only when he’s drifted away, swallowed up by the crowd, that she gets enough presence of mind back to shout, “What, that’s it?”

God, she should have known better than to move to America.

She expects that to be the end of it, to never see that weirdo or his dumb poncho again, but of course, of course that isn’t how life works out.

Florida is sweltering in August, and by the time she and Izuru get back to the dorms, her clothes are plastered to her, soaked with sweat. She’s got a Target bag in one hand, and her wedges in another, and just – fuck looking nice ever, really.

“It gets better in the fall,” Izuru promises, wide-eye. “Right before the hurricanes.”

“Oh, great,” Yuzuri mutters, hobbling past the quad. “Natural disasters. Perfect.”

“They aren’t so bad.” Izuru turns to her with wide, frightened eyes. “You guys get blizzards though. That’s terrifying! What if the power goes out?”

Yuzuri stops, mouth opening to tell her, you just turn on the generator, when she hears a “Heads up!” and looks over just in time to get smacked by some flying piece of plastic.

To her everlasting shame, she falls over.

“Yuzuri!” Izuru shrieks, dropping her bags, and she’s caught between telling her don’t let the rug get dirty and ow.

“Fuck,” she says instead, staring up at the sky. This is a nice view, at least.

Fuzzily, she hears someone ask, “Is she okay?” and Izuru answer a frantic “I don’t know!”

There’s footsteps, and she has a moment to meditate on the knowledge that the voice was deep, masculine, and that this, this, could be her meet-cute, be the story she tells her grandchildren, scolding her still-attractive, aged-like-George Clooney husband –

“Oh, hey dude!” The face that peers over her is all-too familiar, and all-too unwelcome. “It’s the cranky chick! From the airport.”

“Death,” she tells him, channeling the coldest Ontario winters, “would be a fucking mercy.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to save staring into the abyss for another day, Neitzsche.” He hauls her up one-handed, broad palm warm in hers. It’s not…unpleasant.

He’s not wearing the poncho now, instead some tank top that reads: if it moves it’s BIOLOGY, If it stinks it’s CHEMISTRY, If it doesn’t work it’s PHYSICS. He’s half drenched in sweat too, but it just makes him smell earthy, manly.

God, not only does he have some arms, but he’s nerd, and just – if only he wasn’t fucking the worst, she could climb him like a tree.

“You need to be more careful,” she snaps when she’s on her feet. She’s prepared for him to try to lay the blame on one of his friends back on the quad, but they’re all stick-thin and red-faced, shuffling awkwardly, like this is the first athletic excursion they’ve had since their high school stopped requiring PE.

He winces. “Sorry about that, man. Which dorm are you?”

It’s named after a president or something, so of course she doesn’t remember, but she points. “That one.”

“Here,” he says, slipping and arm under her shoulder. He doesn’t even grimace at how sweaty she is. “Let me help you back.”

“I’m fine. I just –” Her head swivels around. “Where’d my roommate go?”

“To get you some water, I think.” He guides her up the steps of her dorm, and she starts wrangling her purse, trying to figure out where her ID is –

The card reader beeps. She stares.

The Hot Lebowski grins. “Same building. Great odds, right?”

Perfect.

His name is Suzu, which she has ample time to learn because he’s in every single class.

“Bio major too, right?” he asks as they step out of Chem lab. It’s the fourth class out of five they’ve shared, and now she has her very own greasy-haired lab partner. Who is hiding a nice set of guns under that plaid button-down, but that’s -- that’s not what is important here. “Doing conservation?”

It’s what Lyrias’s bio department is known for, sure, but basically any question rankles, coming from him. “Does it look like I want to tromp around in swamps all day?”

She really, really shouldn’t like the way his eyes run over her, the gentle heat she sees banking when he comes back to meet her eyes. “Well, I didn’t think you’d wear the heels out, but…”

“I’m doing molecular,” she snaps, more aggravated with herself than him. “So, you know, when all our core classes are simple shit, we won’t have to deal with each other.”

And you can stop stealing all my meet-cutes, is what she doesn’t say.

“Right,” he says, but it’s weird, kind of faint, the smile fixed on his fox-face. “Just until junior year.”

“Right.” She wonders why she feels so…disappointed. “Anyway. It’s not like you’re going to be a partner in all my labs anyway. So this is…fine. It’s fine.”

It’s not fine. It’s not fine at all, because Suzu is not only in every class – even fucking drama – and her partner in every lab, but – but –

He lives on her floor.

She’s wandering the isles at Target, wondering why none of them can ever be laid out in a way that makes sense, she just wants to – to get her shampoo and go home. Home to where Suzu lives on the other side of the floor, and talks to Kazaha when he gets right out of the shower, towel slung around his hips like it’s no big deal that his dick is just – just right there, under terrycloth. Whose hair is still fucking greasy afterwards.

After a good twenty minutes of resisting impulse-purchases, she finds the hair care aisle, and at least her shit is easy to find with that big red bottle, even if there’s only one left –

None left, after a big, broad hand pulls it right off the shelf, moments before she can.

“Oh you are kidding me,” she snaps, wheeling on Suzu.

She is not even going to question him being here, now, because – because this is her life now, apparently. Suzu, being attractive and terribly dressed just in the corner of her vision. “You’re trying to tell me you even use shampoo?”

For once, he looks offended. “Of course I do! You’ve seen me shower!”

“I’ve seen you outside the bathroom, where I assume you have showered,” she snaps, snatching the bottle out of his hands. “You want me to believe you need Big Sexy Hair?”

“Well, everyone would like big sexy hair,” he tells her, squirming under her stare. “Of course I use it.”

“It’s a volumizer, Suzu!” She yanks at one of his curls. “You don’t need volume.”

“Maybe this is how I get all this luxurious hair, Yuzuri.” He lifts his nose. “You don’t know.”

This is ridiculous.

She grabs him, a fistful of hair in each hand, and drags him down to her.

“Wha –?”

“Goddamn it!” she hisses, loosening her grip enough so her nose isn’t buried in his head. His head that smells exactly like this stupid shampoo. “You do use it.”

“I always have,” he tells her, slipping the bottle out of her grip. “Well, I mean…my sister has.”

She lets out a long, meditative breath. It helps with the whole not-committing-homicide-in-the-middle-of-Target vibe she’s going for.

“Suzu,” she starts, honey-sweet. “Does your sister have the same hair as you?”

“Some of them do.”

In, out, no murder. “The one you borrow the shampoo from.”

He blinks. “No. It’s like yours. Straight and stuff.”

“Suzu.” She takes the bottle, shaking her head. “This is – this isn’t even for your type of hair. That’s why you’re all greasy.”

“Ohh.”

She throws her head back, letting out a groan. Fine, universe. Fucking…be this way.

“Okay, Suzu. I’m going to – I’m going to help you,” she tells him, magnanimous. “I’m going to teach you how to treat your hair right. I’m your sister now.”

There’s a beat before he says, “I have enough sisters. I don’t have a girlfriend though.”

She stares, ignoring how her heart flutters in her chest. “Really? That’s your line.”

“I guess.”

She sighs. “Has that ever worked, like…ever?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “This is sort of the first time I’ve tried it.”

“Right, well.” God, she hopes she isn’t blushing. That’s the last thing she needs right now; him thinking she’d like – that. “We’ll work on that too.”

[sabraeal]

Obi/Suzu, Obi has to borrow Suzu's clothes.

(A sequel to Lay Back and Think of Obi)

“My clothes?” Suzu plucks at his shirt; it’s vaguely brown and vaguely shirt-shaped, which is all he really can ask of a piece of clothing. “You want to borrow things I put on my body?”

It’s not what he thought Obi would be here for when he showed up at his door, teeth bared in a slanted grin. But it’s leagues better than having his body disappear until spring, so he’ll take it.

“Yeah.” Obi flicks through his closet, blank faced. He hesitates at one, raising his eyebrows, and sets a shirt aside. It looks just like every other one he owns, but now it’s Suzu’s favorite.

“Do I…want to know what they’ll be used for?”

There’s a flash of canine before Obi says, “Well, it won’t be to roleplay you striking out with Yuzuri.”

He grimaces. Ah, well, he’d hoped he’d forgotten about that, what with the not making his body disappear thing. He’d even seemed…pleased when Yuzuri told him why they’d been rooting around in the first place.

(”I don’t have a birthday,” he’d said, somewhere between confused and amused. “How were you going to –“

“Well, you do now!” Yuzuri tells him with the sort of belligerent confidence only drunks can have. “And you’ll like it!”)

“Well,” Suzu manages, “that’s a relief.”

“Isn’t it?” Obi grins, digging out a pair of trousers from his dresser. “His Lordship wants me to take a turn around the low town. Look into a few things for him.”

Suzu gasps. “You want to use my clothes for…going undercover.”

It’s certainly the most excitement a pair of his pants will ever see.

“Wouldn’t your clothes work better though?” He taps at his chin. “After all, they’re all…sleek…and…black. Good for stealth things.”

“I’m supposed to look unassuming.” Obi’s mouth twitches, and he braces him, knowing it’ll only be a matter of time before – “I thought I might look like I don’t know my colors too.”

There it is.

Suzu’s mouth pulls flat. “Ha-ha. There’s some gratitude for you. After letting you borrow my clothes.”

“Well, I did ask first.” Obi peels his shirt up his torso, tossing it onto Suzu’s unmade bed. “Unlike some people.”

“Are you just going to strip here?” Suzu squeaks, trying to find a place to look that is not – not filled with Obi’s muscles. There’s just – a lot of them. An invasion of abdominals, really.

“Is there some sort of problem with that?” Obi obviously doesn’t think so. He hears a belt rattle as it comes undone in Obi’s hands, and another as it hits the floor. Which means Obi in in his underwear. In his room.

Or – well, Obi jokes enough about going without, about things ruining the line of his trousers –

“I’m wearing drawers, you know,” Obi sighs, and Suzu can hear the grind of his eyes rolling. “I wouldn’t just wear someone else’s pants without them. That’d be rude.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Suzu says, because he just – does not have a brain-to-mouth filter that works.

That startles a laugh out of Obi. “That’s awful big of you.”

“Well, unlike most of the bumpkins up here, I don’t think that trading pants is sex by proxy.” Not that he’d mind if it was, but – well, he can keep that to himself.

He drags down his gaze as he hears the buckle of another belt. Obi’s back takes up the whole of his vision. Gods, that is – he should suggest Master Iro use him as a model for the anatomy classes.

“If it was, then the girls would be having some very exciting bonding time,” Obi offers, and wow, is that an image he doesn’t need floating around in his head when he’s still got to eat dinner with them and act like a normal person.

Obi slips on one of his shirts – brown, a matching set with the one he has on – and one of his jackets that trends more to burnt than orange.

“Huh,” Obi grunts, catching himself in the looking glass.

“It’s not really fair,” Suzu tells him, mouth pulled tight. “You make everything look good.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t think orange and green was a good pairing –”

“It’s not that.” Suzu shrugs, sinking into himself. “It’s just…you.”

Obi’s eyebrows inch up, mild. “You seemed to be doing just fine in my clothes.”

“Yeah, pretending to be you.” He waves a hand in Obi’s general direction. “You could make anyone…you know…happy.”

Obi’s body gives one great twitch, like a marionette when the puppeteer picks up its strings. In the mirror, his grin flickers into a ghastly thing, just for a moment, before smoothing into one of his slanted smiles.

“I think you’re missing something obvious.” He runs his hand through the bristle of his hair, making it into a shaggy mess, and steps closer, trying to harmlessly loom even when he’s two inches shorter. “I’m a confirmed bachelor. All the ladies ask to marry me. Wouldn’t you like to try, Yuzuri?”

Suzu gapes. He’s never – well, he’s never really seen himself move, or listened to himself talk, but –

“That isn’t how that conversation went at all!” he squeaks, voice breaking just when he needs it. “How did you even know about that?”

Obi’s mouth flashes teeth before he’s the very picture of academic awkwardness. “I prefer to eat alone, but won’t you come get some food at Pavilion Street, Yuzuri? I’ll walk all the way down to the greenhouses to ask you, even though it’s in the complete opposite direction –”

That’s – that’s quite enough of that.

Suzu fans his hands out by his ears, lifting his voice into his falsetto as he says, “Oh, Suzu, don’t you remember? I’m too used to real dates to think a walk down Pavilion Street is anything but a friendly stroll.”

Obi’s nose flares.

“And you’re too silly!” he continues, the words coming easier now that he’s tearing them right out of his heart. “I could have my pick of anyone here, and I wouldn’t want someone as weird as you.”

Obi’s eyes skip someplace above his shoulder and widen. “Suzu –”

“Besides.” He’s really warmed to the subject now, tilting himself in Yuzuri’s familiar sway. “Don’t you know I don’t like academics? I only want to kiss boys who think fire is man’s newest invention –”

“Is that so?” comes a frosty snap from the door.

Suzu spins, and it’s Yuzuri’s icy gaze that pierces him, that pins him to the wall like he’s on the entomology department’s corkboard. Just over her shoulder, he catches a glimpse of red hair and pale skin, and – oh, this is not good.

“Yuzuri –” he starts, realizing too late that his hands are still up by his ears, still making crude little cat muffs.

“Maybe I prefer them,” she spits, letting the words sit on the floor between them, “because at least I know they’re not looking down at me.”

She spins on her heel, practically leaving ice in her wake.

Suzu lowers his hands, feeling them shake by his side. “How long–?”

“Oh,” Obi sighs, “just that last part.”

“Of course.” He clenches his hands, but they still won’t stop. “That’s…perfect.”