#THE PARALLELS MAN............................

[neoplatinum]

cowgirls do it better | sophia laforteza

synopsis: it's been 2 years. 2 years since your wife has ripped your heart out as she tried mending it. but now you're in her home court, to finalize the divorce. there's a couple things you need to learn about sophia's life before you leave.

pairing: (ex-ish) wife!sophia x cowgirl!reader

tags: angst, slow-burn, fluff, smut, g!p reader (don't like, don't read), alcohol, mentions of rehab, tension, marriage troubles, cheating but also not really cheating, slight religious themes, cowboys/cowgirls, a-list-celebrity!sophia, manon, more…

wc: 20.7k

"i'll be here waitin' ever so patiently, for you to snap out of it"

(part 1)

2 years later, lax, los angeles

“spare change?” 

it wasn’t how you imagined touching down in california. the casual mix of lavishness and poverty running like parallel lines through the city.

it’s not a pretty sight. 

you offer the man a couple bucks, hearing his praises of God and thanking you for your generosity. you give him a wave, leaving for your chauffeured ride. 

sophia had managed to send you a ride, with the cliché man dressed in a suit and sign with your name. the driver offers to take your duffel bags, dropping them into the trunk of his car. you hop into the car, a general feeling of restlessness running through your veins.

you swore that you would never step into this city. never let your path cross with hers again. she had her own life out here, and you had your own.

but of course, life has its own way. and you either try to fight against the current, or flow with it.

the ride was tedious at best, long traffic on the 5. sunny sunny california with people swarming. each with their own busy lives and even more complicated stories. you were just another story here, with a past that you were hoping to untangle here.

in an instant the buildings gave way to huge mountains. then you saw it, the large houses on the hills. grand spanish-style mansions, newly developed ultra modern ones with expansive windows. infinity pools on the cliffs. 

you definitely weren’t in your ranch back in new mexico. life moved differently here. you shift a bit in your seat, watching the city fly by in front of you. it's gorgeous, but you’d rather be here under different circumstances. 

the driver pulls into the ritz-carlton. definitely not the motel you booked for yourself. there’s a huge circle driveway with many nice cars parked out front for the valet. dark velvet carpets, almost welcoming you in like a star. you gave yourself a once over, the cowgirl attire wasn’t one that was common here. letting out a long sigh. you missed your idyllic life back at your ranch.

the driver drops off your bags onto a cart gently. he gives a slight nod of the head and soon a bellboy is immediately at your side. ready to push your stuff into the hotel. you’re getting money out of your wallet, when he pushes a hand out.

“ma’am, it’s been paid for. have a good rest of your day.” he leaves you and drives away.

fucking sophia. you curse her in your head. 

“of course she would do this”, you grumble to yourself, walking after the bellboy towards the receptionist’s desk. you can hear small conversations droned out by the large front lobby. there’s staff all around, ready at an instant to cater to any patron’s need. the bellboy continues to wheel the cart forward. the sound of your boots muffled by the velvet carpet.

and you arrive in front of the receptionist’s desk. several staff members rapidly typing on their computers. at the sight of you, a woman looks up, calling you up to the desk.

“good afternoon, i have a reservation.” you speak, grabbing your ID out of your wallet.

“oh perfect! we have you set up in the presidential suite.” the receptionist smiles at you, giving you a knowing look. she goes back to rapidly clicking and typing into her machine. 

“i’m sorry, do you know me?” you look a little lost.

“of course we do, miss laforteza informed us of your stay.” she offers a trained smile.

fucking sophia.

“right, of course…well, thank you.” you’re left a bit annoyed. 

who was she to dictate where you were going?

“here’s your room key and please feel free to call room service at any point. your tab has already been covered.” she explains, sliding over a small folder with your hotel keycard.

you offer an awkward smile to the receptionist before walking off to the elevators. your cowboy heels clack loudly against the waxed floor. 

you smooth out your hair for a second, already feeling annoyed that everything’s been paid for by sophia.

“may i see your card?” the bellboy askes you. you slide him your keycard, watching the way his eyes go wide at it.

he opens the large elevator and taps the keycard to head to the highest level of the hotel. and the elevator shoots up, rapidly climbing the tower where you can gaze out at the open city shrinking below you.

you admire the city for another couple of seconds when the elevator dings, and the doors open. 

you trail after the bellboy, entering the long hallway adorned with a gold and white floor. large oil paintings lining the walls, with individual lamps illuminating each one.

it’s starting to dawn on you that maybe you really don’t know sophia. you don’t know how she can afford this lavishness, enough to book you the presidential suite.

he opens the large doors to the suite for you, opening to the largest room you’ve ever stepped into. floor to ceiling windows peering over the city. a gorgeous large round table with a bouquet centerpiece. 

beautiful couches and sectionals just in the main area that you’ve walked into. you can spot at least three doors that must lead into their individual rooms.

“wow, i’ve never stepped in here.” the bellboy gives a whistle as he places your bags by the couches. he gives the room a once over before turning to you. “anything else i can help you with ma’am?”

“uh, no i’m all good.” you reply. and he’s starting to walk away, pushing the luggage cart. “wait! here, take this.” 

you hand him a 20, to which he smiles and happily pockets. closing the door behind him. 

and now you’re left in the presidential suite in a ritz-carlton.

you walk around, taking in the room, opening doors to more living rooms and bedrooms. a large california king with softer than silk duvets. the showers are humongous, enough to fit at least ten people inside. a beautiful vintage ceramic bathtub that is seated near the window. you eventually open to the balcony, a large infinity pool rushing with water. perfectly shaped hedges off to the side.

you can’t help but feel this is too much for you. this lavish suite is definitely worth more than your entire ranch and some.

you take off your boots by the door, getting situated in your suite. admiring the amount of closet space that’s available.

when you suddenly get a call.

“hello?” you prop the phone on your shoulder. trying your best to continue unpacking your duffel bags.

“hi! this is sarah from davidson & partners. i have you scheduled for a meeting at 1pm tomorrow, just calling to confirm.”

you roll your eyes, what a great way to get introduced to the state. 

“yes, i’ll be there.” 

“perfect, see you then!” and then she hangs up. 

you tuck your phone away, this was going to be a long trip. 

maybe you could take yourself sightseeing while you were here. trying to get the heavy feelings off your mind. 

trying to get a certain woman out of your mind.

you walk out the suite, ready to get out of this over-the -top suite when you hear a voice call out. 

“hey, neighbor!” a woman’s voice comes out light and inviting. you swivel your head to a gorgeous woman. dressed like she just stepped out of her nearest tailor shop. a gorgeous blazer and pencil skirt that fitted her perfectly.

you blink a bit before collecting yourself, walking up to her with a hand out.

“hi, nice to meet you.” you offer, she shakes your hand. warm and smooth fingers that slide into yours.

“i’m manon, have i seen you before?” she asks, presenting a charming smile, pearly white teeth and sharp eyes to pair.

“probably not, it’s my first time in california.” you reply, tucking your hand into your belt again.

“are you here to do touristy things? or would you like the inside scoop?” manon winks a bit, clearly amused by your out of state attire and look. 

you don’t miss how she’s given you at least two top to bottom scans.    

“i’m figuring it out…” you gesture aimlessly. then a thought runs through, “you recommend a place to enjoy some peace and quiet?”

“there’s an absolutely gorgeous beach not too far from here.” she grabs a quick paper from her hotel pad, jotting down the directions for you.

“thanks, manon.” you pocket the slip, “i’ll see you around.”

you give a quick wave, and she waves back too.

“buy me a drink sometime!” manon shouts before closing her hotel door.

you descend down the very fast elevator and are about to grab a ride when the valet walks up to you, keys in hand.

“hi! miss laforteza informed us you might need a car during your stay. here’s the car she requested.” he gives you a bright smile, dropping a pair of keys into your hands.

and you swivel your head to a cherry red vintage jeep wrangler. open chassis and red rims to match. 

jesus, she even remembered your dream car.

“i, thank you.” you wave the guy off and he heads back to his stand. your eyes drift to the car again, a clean exterior and interior. you give a little tire check with your boot and examine the engine.

it’s well maintained, clean oil and no sign of leaks.

she did her research, color you impressed. she even remembered the small details. your favorite scent of car freshener dangling by the mirror. you hop in the car, engine rumbling smoothly, it’s obvious this car had a good owner.

you pull off the lot and head to a beach. the wind in your hair and you can hear the seagulls cawing by the ocean. it’s a gorgeous sight, rays of sun peeking into the car. 

you gradually come to a parking spot, locking the car and tossing the keys in hand as you walk away. the beach is looking magnificent, there are some people playing beach volleyball and others still tanning. 

meanwhile, you’re in your cowgirl getup, a little too dressed for the occasion. peeling off your boots and rolling your pants far enough to keep them from getting wet.

you can feel the sand in between your toes. the sand warmed by the sun. and then you step forward, walking towards the ocean and pushing sand behind you.

the ocean is beautiful, gorgeous small waves crashing against the shore. leaving behind darker wet sand. you let the wave crash against your feet, cold ocean water as a contrast against the warm sand.

it’s definitely gorgeous out here, you can’t remember the last time you were by the ocean, maybe when you were a kid?

letting nature continue to move between your toes. water running around your legs and retreating back to the ocean.

then a dog runs past you, darting across the waters in front of you. tongue hanging out his mouth as he chases after a small rubber ball.

he catches it in his mouth and darts back to his owner. a kid no older than ten and cheering his dog on. you smile warmly at the scene unfolding. 

his dog barks loudly, awaiting another throw to which the young boy launches the ball forward.

“go, max!” you hear him shout, and the dog’s already leaped into the air, mouth open as he grabs snatches it out the air. the young boy rejoices when the dog turns around.

it reminds you of charlie, his beautiful eyes staring at you whenever you fill his bowl, or pet him right behind the ears.

maybe it’s slipped past you, maybe in this life you don’t get what you want.

instead you focus out, looking at the sun casting on the water, ripples that look like diamonds dancing on the surface. you can spot some yachts out far away, large cargo ships in the distance.

the water continues to splash against your legs, you feel at peace here. there’s nothing else but you and nature right now. 

you let your shoulders drop, the tension from having to come to california has weighed on your mind. you try to let yourself relax for a while, watching the ocean as it comes and goes.

--

“no lara, listen to me, it’s not like that.” sophia rambles on the phone, trying to grab a smoothie from her fridge.

“yeah, and how would you describe this? hollywood star sophia laforteza seen walking into davidson & partners. literally the best known divorce firm in all of california.” lara is mocking her, reading off a fake tmz headline. “maybe there’s a secret life sophia’s hiding?”

sophia rolls her eyes at the comment, “it’s going to be fine lara. i’ll be discreet.” sophia uncaps the smoothie, drinking it as her friend continues to express her worries.

“discreet isn’t exactly your style sophie.” lara laughs out. 

and sure she may be right, but sophia could be discreet, right?

“nuh uh, you’re probably trying to convince yourself you can be discreet. and the answer is no.

sophia’s jaw drops. “i can be discreet!” 

“you’re about as discreet as a peacock. now listen, what you need to do is meet her somewhere else. somewhere out the public eye.” lara shuffles a bit over the phone, and sophia sets her smoothie down.

“like where?” sophia’s waiting for a magical answer.

“somewhere like uh…what about her hotel?” lara lets it roll off her tongue and immediately sophia feels like a train crash.

“that is the worst idea i’ve heard yet. and you’ve convinced me to go to an award show hungover.” sophia laughs a bit.

“you booked the room, the chauffeur, and the car. i think you’re allowed to go inside.”

“she’s going to shoot me in between my eyes before i open the door.” sophia picks up the smoothie again, grimacing at the taste.

“no she wouldn’t! she married you.” lara explains.

“yeah, that was before she found out i had a fiancé.” sophia rolls her eyes again.

“well, pseudo-fiancé, maybe you could profess your undying love and make more babies, because this one is so darn cute!” lara coos at the toddler. “yes you are! yes you are!”

“lara please, she hates my guts, practically told me so when she ran out on me.” sophia laments. 

the feelings still burn like an open wound.

“so she hates you but you still kept her kid?” lara questions.

“i still love her, you know that.” sophia sighs out.

its quiet for a second.

“your mom is so dramatic isn’t she?” lara’s voice has gone up in pitch, playing with sophia’s kid. “yes she is! yes she is!”

sophia can hear her baby babbling and squealing in delight. “anyways, don’t meet her at the firm, paps are watching you like a hawk.”

“you don’t have to remind me.” sophia lets out with a sigh. 

there used to be a time where she could just exist, without worry of the public. but those days are long gone.

suddenly there’s rustling sounds and a loud wail from the speakers.

“uh oh, your baby just crapped her pants. say bye bye now!” sophia can hear the lara’s poor imitation just above her baby’s wails. “auntie lara signing off, go win her back!”

and then the line hangs up, sophia doesn’t even have time to say goodbye.

“fuck.” 

sophia throws her head in her hands.

--

“hello?” you’re half dressed, wearing shorts and a tank with your hair all over. still rubbing your eye as you try to sharpen enough.

“hi, good morning! it’s sarah from davidson’s, we spoke yesterday. mind if we come up? 

“huh? yeah sure, come on up.” you speak into the hotel phone. half drowsy when you look over and see 7 am flashing on the alarm clock.

you stumble a bit as you approach the door, hearing quick knocks against the door.

“coming, just one second!” 

you rush back to slide on some longer pants and head for the door, unlocking it to the sight of two very well dressed lawyers. both with polite smiles on their face.

“sorry to bother you so early, but it’s urgent.” the woman states and you let them in. 

immediately they place their briefcases on the table. taking out pens, recorders, legal pads and laptops.

behind them, two security guards walk in. they immediately begin scanning the suite. large devices that are moving up and down the rooms. they approach each window and immediately pull the blinds, covering the outside light from coming in. 

it’s like the secret service securing the west wing.

“hey, what are they doing here?” you ask, still yawning a bit.

“that’s our intel security team, we need to ensure this space isn’t tapped since we’re away from our firm. it’s standard protocol.” sarah is very direct, the smile disappears off her face as she sips on her coffee.

her counterpart is rapidly typing on his laptop, flipping through binders like a madman, but with precision behind each move.

“is this really necessary? it’s just me here.” you ask, a little perturbed at the intrusion.

“have you heard of brad and angelina, or bill and melinda? well those clients pay us, pardon my language, a shit ton of money to keep their divorces private.” sarah continues, not missing a beat as she types on her own laptop.

“it’s in our and your best interest that we follow procedures.”

“right…sorry for the offense ma’am.” you offer back.

“none taken. just doing our jobs.” she continues to drink her coffee. and suddenly the door is closed behind you, gone are the two mysterious men that stepped in.

“john, intel team left, place is clean, put that in the notes.” sarah speaks to the other lawyer, rapid typing ensuing.

“i thought we were meeting at the firm?” you ask, letting your arms hang on the back of a chair.

sarah looks away from her screen.

“mrs. laforteza requested to move up the meeting and in a discreet location, so we’re here to set up in time for her arrival.”

“here? as in this room?” you ask, the shock making you stand up taller.

“yes, this room. she’ll be here in…” sarah looks down at her watch, “15 minutes, well 14 now.”

“15 minutes?” you’re wide eyed and stunned, rushing off to the bathroom. trying to freshen up before seeing sophia again. 

you can feel your heart hammering as you brush your teeth. memories flowing through you as you wash your face. you try to calm your clammy and shaky hands.

you can still hear the hushed whispers from the lawyers, 

putting on a shirt over your head, you step out, still looking tired. but definitely more presentable than how you woke up.

you’re ready to drop your shoulders when there’s a sudden knock on the door.

shit.

you smooth your hair out once more and walk towards the door. giving a final breath and opening it.

the light from the windows illuminate sophia. she’s got a cap, sunglasses, dark clothes and no makeup in sight. 

she doesn’t look like the woman that broke your heart.

you gesture to her to walk in, not even able to greet her. she gives a nod when she walks in. immediately you smell the familiar scent of her perfume. you inhale the scent enough that make your heart beat quicker.

it pulls you in, like it always has. truthfully, you don’t know if you’ll ever be tired of the scent.

eyes on the ground as she walks away, trying not to show how affected you are. even without a single touch she has your insides all shaken up. 

you follow behind her, taking notice of her slow steps. like she’d rather just run out the door at a moment’s notice. 

sophia pulls a seat on the other side, dropping her purse lightly. your eyes watch her intently, like you’re tracking her. after some searching, she takes out a folder filled with documents, all tabbed with notes. you watch her separate them into piles, hand meticulous and deft.

sarah and her counterpart watch her as well.

sophia finally settles in her seat. and gives a nod to the lawyers.

“welcome to the first divorce settlement conference.” sarah starts, “we will begin recording…now.”

you watch her press a button on the recorder. the room’s feeling a bit too stuffy now. it’s really here, the dreaded divorce that you tried to put away, just like the stubborn feelings you had.

she gives you a quick glance, just enough to commit your face to memory now. your cheeks are more sunken and those dark circles spell trouble. 

in you, there’s a war against what you want and what you need. you listen to what you need. barely sparing sophia a glance, she doesn’t deserve it. in your head she didn’t deserve any of you, but in your heart…it still beat for her.

“now let’s get the structure of these meetings understood. we will be discussing property division, child support, and spousal support if applicable.” sarah continues.

“this is my colleague, who will be here for note-taking as well as shifting responsibilities as needed.”

you and sophia both give a firm nod.

“let’s start with property division. under page 2, section 5a.” sarah begins, flipping to a new section of her binder.

you both follow suit with your own copies. eyes reaching past all the legal jargon.

“the ranch in new mexico, measured at twenty acres. including livestock, house, and the barn.”

“that’s mine.” you speak up, and sophia snaps her eyes up to you, crossed arms that loosen at the sight of you.

she hasn’t heard your voice in all this time, a pained reminder of the last words you said, correction: shouted at her.

“mrs. laforteza?” sarah questions.

“that’s hers, and sophia, just sophia.” sophia replies.

“sophia, and thank you.” the lawyers are scribbling and typing in their laptops.

it’s strange how calm the room is. four people here to settle a divorce in the presidential suite of a ritz-carlton.

you grab a sip of water, watching sophia through your eye line. 

she’s a bit dazed, eyes that seem so lost. and maybe if you weren’t so heartbroken, you would offer some comfort.

“great, next is the large 1930s spanish-style mansion in the hollywood hills, measured at seven thousand square feet. 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms.” sarah continues.

your eyes nearly bulge out.

“that’s hers.” you speak up, coughing a bit as you clear your throat.

“sophia?”

“yes, that is mine.” sophia shifts her legs a bit.

you sink into your seat, this was going to be a long meeting. 

the hours continue, discussions of property grew to be extensive. you didn’t realize how much needed to be accounted for. 

as well as revealing how much money sophia had accumulated. the star was definitely well-paid. 

and you were slowly realizing how small you felt.

there was nothing comparable to the net worth of sophia laforteza. you once felt so confident and proud of your ranch, a safe haven for you both. but now you feel like maybe you weren’t a good enough provider.

maybe that’s why she left you.

you snap out of your spiral when the lawyers call for a break. giving time for a short walk and stretch. 

you do notice that sophia’s been unfocused. blank stares as the lawyers discuss among themselves.

“would anyone like room service?” you ask into the air. and the two lawyers walk over to you.

“coffee and a bagel with cream cheese please.” you scribble it down.

“would you like anything?” you turn to the other lawyer.

“also coffee, but i’ll have a muffin and apple.” you jot down their orders, and writing another line as you call room service.

room services picks up immediately at the first ring, a woman helping you get all the orders down with efficiency. 

sophia’s still in a daze, her hand slightly shaking in her lap.

you try not to notice it, especially given your now relationship with her. 

when room service arrives, you thank the server. offering a tip as he exits the room again. the lawyers are eager to have something in their stomach. 

you can imagine the hours are also taking a toll on them.

but your mind is focused on the other person in the room. you walk towards sophia with a bowl of fruit and yogurt and a glass of water in hand.

placing it down in front of her, causing her to focus again. a light gasp when she sees your face so close. 

“this is for you, i bet you haven’t had anything today.” you say softly.

it’s not supposed to mean anything, just a simple gesture. but to sophia, she feels like she could crumble.

sophia nods firmly, a bit too firmly. its like the words won’t come out her throat. like she isn’t still madly in love with you.

“excuse me for a second.” sophia makes a quick dash for the bathroom. and you watch her retreating body disappear behind the door.

both lawyers stare at the door as well, giving you a quick look before returning to their conversation.

what you don’t know is that sophia’s sobbing. crying into her mouth so she doesn’t let out a sound.

how could she ever act like she isn’t completely and utterly in love with you? how you still stir up feelings in her body that make her want to reach out to you?

how she had to give herself a ten minute pep talk in her car before stepping out.

God, she was a wreck. 

she gives herself a minute. just one. enough to pull herself together, broken sobs and pain shooting in her heart. 

you stand by the door, caught between wanting to knock and wanting to give her space.

“fia?” you ask. “you okay?”

you faintly hear it, a sob that’s trying to break out of her throat. 

“i’ll be-i’ll be out in a second!” she tries her best to sound normal. rapidly wiping tears off her face and giving herself a quick check in the mirror.

thank God for waterproof mascara. 

she looks presentable, just enough to cover the traces of her tears. with a shaky breath she moves for the door, opening it to you on the other side.

your worried eyes that look too warm, in her mind a flash of angry eyes hit her. it reminds her why she’s here. why you ran out on her with resentment in your eyes.

but you stand here, unmoving and looking into her. and she nearly breaks again, digging her nail into her thigh, trying to keep the tears at bay. long enough to get through this.

you want to ask her what’s wrong but she gives you a controlled smile. one that lets you know she doesn’t want to speak about it. and she doesn’t, instead she walks back to her chair. 

calmly sitting again and scooping yogurt into her mouth. you pull the chair next to her, resuming the silent war between both of your conflicting feelings.

the lawyers both return to their chairs. and offer each other a look when sarah speaks.

“thank you both for a productive meeting, we will meet again in two days.” 

sarah and her counterpart gather all their belongings again. tucked away neatly into their briefcases. both offering a handshake before leaving. 

you shake their hands and thank them for their time. watching them until they close the door behind them. 

then you’re left with sophia. 

you’re left with sophia.

you turn towards her, watching her pack her purse with all the documents she had laid out. she’s in a slight hurry, you can tell by the frazzled eyes and jittery hands. 

she also realizes that she’s left with you.

you stand off to the side, silently watching her. she then shifts back, pushing the chair in and she then tries walking out.

you feel yourself panic, something unsettling erupting in your stomach. 

“thanks for everything. you know, the hotel, the car, everything.” you speak quickly. “you didn’t have to.”

“you’re welcome. it’s really no problem.” sophia’s voice is shaky. 

she waits a beat. 

“it’s nice. to see you, i mean.”

and without another word she walks out the door, closing the door behind her.

you sink into yourself, feeling yourself cringe at the comment. you felt so stupid speaking up.

--

“so spill, how was it?” lara lounges on sophia’s couch, sparkly eyes as she’s trying to pry. 

sophia gives a sigh before joining her on the couch.

“it was…amicable.” sophia didn’t want to talk about how she broke down crying in your bathroom. how you reminded her of her wedding day. 

she’d rather shove all those feelings down.

instead sophia recounts, you looked familiar. too skinny in her mind. you definitely lost weight, she had hoped it wasn’t because of her.

“amicable? your wife hates your guts and she’s amicable!” lara exclaims. 

“it’s not like a movie, you know? we may be actresses but that’s not her.” sophia continues to explain.

“what about you? i bet you were shaking like a chihuahua.” lara spoke.

“i was not! i was very professional.” sophia exclaims. “she was too.”

lara groans, “that’s not fun!”

“divorce settlements aren’t meant to be fun.” sophia explains.

“not as fun as you, right?” lara lifts anna into the air, the baby squealing loudly.

“hand her to me.” sophia opens her arms, and then the baby is propped in her lap. “i saw your mama today, she’s still very pretty.”

the baby babbles a bit, “mama.”

“yes, your mama. she’s lost some weight.” sophia says gently, rocking her toddler slowly. “i’ll have to make her some sinigang.”

anna claps her hands together in excitement.

“okay, this is really sweet, but you’re making me sad.” lara speaks up, and sure sophia’s thought about it. “and i don’t get sad, so go make up with her.”

“i can’t. and you know why.” 

“fuck him! he doesn’t get to dictate your life just because his daddy’s got a big name.” lara scoffs, grabbing anna again.

sophia shakes her head. in an ideal world thomas never existed, or any kind of person like thomas. 

in her ideal life she had you, anna, and grew together. maybe had a couple anna’s with you.

but she’s dug herself in this hole, and she needs to dig herself out.

--

“mrs. laforteza, hey, it’s good to hear from you.” you dig a stick a little further in the sand. 

you stare into the sand, drawing small circles. 

“hi dear, how are you?” mrs. laforteza’s warm voice comes through the phone. 

it’s comforting. she’s like a second mom. you basically grew up in her house.

eating dinner with her, cleaning dishes, helping mr. laforteza with ranch work. it felt like you were always meant to be in this family.

“it went okay…” you drag out, thinking about your stay here. 

the divorce settlement meeting was tense, and its driven you away from the hotel. the room feeling suffocating despite how big it was. you keep feeling this unsettling feeling that something’s wrong.

something’s wrong and you don’t know how to fix it.

so instead, you’ve been spending many hours outside, enjoying the summer sun. trying to find peace with life as it is, especially with the divorce coming.

“just okay? you don’t sound like someone who is okay.” she speaks.

you can hear charlie’s pants through the speakers.

“i’ll be alright, it’s really nice out here.” you look out to the ocean, squinting as you look at the rays of light. “i get why she came out here.”

“i’m sure.” 

mrs. laforteza has always been sweet, trying to be as gentle as she can. knowing that her daughter has broken your heart. “she’s trying to fly us out soon.”

“yeah you both would really like it here.”

maybe a part of you is stuck, stuck waiting for some big reveal that sophia didn’t mean to crack your heart.

you tried moving on. all the worries, pain and anguish slowly dying within you. but some days the feelings overwhelm you, and it’s like you’re back at square one.

“listen dear, you’ll always be a daughter to us, married or not.” mrs. laforteza continues and you can feel the tears welling up in your eyes. “never forget that.”

you nod but then realize how she wouldn’t see that. 

“of course ma’am, thank you for always being there.”

“oh honey, we’ll always be here.” 

you hear charlie's yips as he chases after a ball that sophia’s dad is throwing.

“you think she meant it?” you ask into the open air.

“meant what, dear?”

“you think she meant to break my heart?” you feel like retracting the question as soon as it came out of your mouth. 

who in their right mind asks their mother-in-law this?

“i don’t think she meant to. i think she wanted to save what she could, and your heart paid the price.” you listen to the faint noise of a rocking chair as she continues.

“sometimes, i wish she never liked me back.” you say it and truly you don’t mean it. 

but it stings a little less to imagine a world where you weren’t as foolishly in love.

“honey, that girl loved you the second she laid eyes on you.” mrs. laforteza laughs out loud.

“when i saved her from those coyotes?” you let out a choked laugh at the memory.

“she came running back the ranch, screaming her head off about how you protected her and looked so cool.”

you wipe a tear from your eye. 

“what else did she say?”

“she told me she was going to marry you someday. swore on the Bible she would.” 

you still your movement. 

“did she?” you ask, your heart is blossoming in that way that your brain hates. hates how she still had you wrapped around her finger.

“sure did.”

you let the silence hang in the air. listening to seagulls and soft waves crashing against the shore. trying to think about your next steps, what life would mean for you once you’re really divorced.

suddenly a voice pulls you out of your thoughts.

“hey, neighbor!” a familiar light voice comes through, you tilt your head just enough to see her. large glasses and a beach shawl covering a bikini set. she looks ready to enjoy the beach. you give a light wave to her, as she sits next to you. a large grin on her face.

“hey, it’s good to see you.” you offer, and she nods a bit, watching you, observing the way the smile doesn’t reach your eyes. 

“i would say the same, but you seem a bit…what’s the word? sulky?” manon shrugs, a bit of amusement in her face as she watches you lean back in shock.

“i am not sulky!” you exclaim, hand on your heart like you’re clutching a pearl necklace.

“then what is this?” she points at your six pack of beer, a couple already popped open and empty, grabbing one to open.

“this is…leisure…” you gesture to the space around you. she gives you that look, the kind of look your friend gives you when they know you’re full of shit.

“you’re not convincing anyone with those eyes.” she points out, taking a sip of beer with you, a slight grimace at the taste. 

“what about my eyes?” you take another swig, looking back onto the shoreline, watching someone swim out.

“sad, like you have a thousand yard stare kind of sad.” she laughs to herself as she explains it. 

and really if you had to guess, maybe you do given everythings that’s been happening to you.

“i’m just…dealing with a lot.” you explain, she takes another sip of her beer, despite the taste.

“yeah? tell me about me.” she urges you on, nudging your shoulder a bit. and really life has been so down, you’re more than compelled to spill your secrets out.

“the reason i'm here,” you gesture at the area around you. “is because my wife is divorcing me. i’m here to settle the divorce.” 

and clearly that wasn’t the response manon was expecting. she’s taken aback, slowly digesting and trying to find the words to comfort you.

“wow, that’s a lot. yeah i don’t blame you for doing this.” she comments, trying her best to lend an ear. you give her a nod, thanking her just for the company. 

it’s nice to have someone who knows nothing about her past, a clean slate.

“is it her fault?” manon asks you, genuine interest in her eyes.

“i think so.” you offer. manon doesn’t press further, eyes also watching the ocean, sitting quietly together and admiring the sunset.

“well, to a clean and quick divorce!” manon lifts her glass, you lift yours too. making a light clinking sound as you both sit in silence once more.

--

this was not how sophia wanted to start her morning.

“sophia! my lovely fiancé! to what do i owe the pleasure?” his slimy voice coming through the speakers.

sophia’s already burning. a hot heat of anger spreading through her nervous system. 

a reaction to the sickly headlines funneling out of drama journals and anyone that cared remotely about sophia’s career.

“thomas. getting caught in ibiza with supermodels?” sophia bites out, her manager sitting beside her. tablet in hand as they scroll through the damning evidence.

“easy tiger…i was just celebrating my birthday. you know how those weekends go.” sophia can hear his cockiness through the phone. “which, by the way, you should’ve posted about, it’s pr 101.”

sophia wants to scream. she has not worked this hard in her career to be seen as anything less than a star in her own right.

this man is going to drag her reputation down with his.

“happy belated…but learn to cover your bases, asshole.” 

“stop acting like my mother.” his voice turns into that disgusting condescending tone. 

the one he puts on when he thinks he’s better than you. 

“more importantly, how’s the divorce settlement going?”

it grates against sophia’s ears. 

“it’s going well, don’t get into my business.” sophia scoffs.

“well, then don’t get into mine.” he retorts back. 

sophia continues to try to not curse him out. her manager looking at her in worry, all sophia can do is try to think about happy thoughts.

happy thoughts about anna or you.

he coughs a bit.

“you better attend my dad’s birthday gala next weekend.” 

she thinks about it, thinks about how she’d rather be at home with anna. but duty calls.

“fine. send over the details.”

he hangs up, sending an address and time. and sophia’s losing her mind all over again.

shouting at no one in particular about how much of a jackass thomas is. how his incessant need for the party lifestyle is going to ruin sophia’s life.

she needs a way out, and she needs it soon.

--

this wasn’t how sophia wanted to plan her evening. she wanted to be at home, a glass of wine in hand as she watches some silly tv show for the fiftieth time.

she’d play with anna and lounge outside the backyard. or have a lazy night swim.

but here she is in her long cocktail dress, a jacket adorned with pearls to match. it’s enough to stay afloat at the party, enough to be noticed, but also not stand out. 

with all the old executives and their much-too-young trophy wives on display, sophia wants to leave.

thomas has already turned on his flashy smiles at his dad’s friends. each of them giving respectable nods, just enough to acknowledge him, but not enough to respect him.

he tried parading sophia around, introducing her as his fiancé, to which many seemed disinterested. some women even looked at her in pity, but she held her head high enough.

luckily she spotted lara not too far away.

“oh thank god you’re here, these people are so boring.” lara starts, giving everyone an evil eye before smiling at sophia.

sophia feels exactly the same.

“i hate going to these. no one cares anyways.” sophia continues, and honestly her life has been feeling like that lately.

she’s still a very high profile star, but with the status comes having to attend these more than necessary events. to mingle and be amongst those that run the industry, it gets boring to a point.

“how’s anna?” lara asks, softly tilting her champagne flute around. 

that lights up sophia’s eyes.

“so cute, the babysitter just sent this photo.” and sophia shows the young toddler, sound asleep and tucked into her bed. with her mouth hanging slightly open.

“aw that munchkin, she’s so adorable.” lara coos at the photo.

“i know, yesterday she was trying to open all the kitchen cabinets.” sophia shows another photo of the young girl, wide eyed and caught by sophia’s camera.

sophia reminisces on the photos, scrolling to one that made her heart clench. 

it was a picture of a frayed photo of you and sophia, much younger and much stupider.

silly marks on each other’s faces and stickers all over your shirt. sophia’s wearing your cowboy hat and you’re wearing the pair of boots she gifted you. both seated on mr. laforteza’s truck bed.

lara gives a quick look at sophia, watching the way she pauses herself. admiring memories of her youth that she left behind.

lara looks a little closer.

“anna has her eyes.” lara points her finger down, “the way she scrunches them with her smiles. it’s just like hers.”

“really? i never noticed that.” sophia zooms in on you, the way you smile so hard that your eyes disappear. 

anna does the same whenever she’s finished with her food, or accidentally knocks over a cup of milk.

sophia feels like she could throw up at the fact. 

she’s been trying so hard to keep the memories of you alive in anna’s life. showing her old photos that she stole from the ranch house. reminding her of her other parent.

enough to make anna realize that you are indeed her mama. and sometimes sophia thinks she can recognize you, or maybe she’s just repeating the words back.

when really you always existed in anna.

“i think you should tell her about anna.” it’s not accusatory or said without knowing the context between you two. 

lara had been the first friend sophia made when coming to california. two girls with dreams in their heads and hopes in their hearts. to “make it” out here in hollywood. discussing their dreams and deepest fears of what makes them human. bonding over that shared desire for greater.

so really, lara understood her. understood how the fear of rejection from you would break sophia all over again. 

she saw it firsthand when sophia returned to california. she wasn’t the same, barely was able to pull herself long enough to go outside. 

and when sophia first got her morning sickness, lara was the one waiting in the bathroom with her. waiting for the pregnancy tests together.

“i want‐i want to. but i’m scared. i’m scared she’ll realize that she wants nothing to do with me or anna.” 

sophia speaks truthfully, it broke everything in her when you told her to leave. she had never seen you so angry and upset, like a caged deer, trying so hard to escape. 

she couldn't bear to hear how you don’t want her anymore. her heart would crack open again.

and what if you didn’t want to be involved in anna’s life?

“but what if she did? anna deserves a chance to know her.” lara continues, a sad warm smile on her face. “they both deserve the chance to be in each other’s life.”

it’s not like sophia hadn’t contemplated this before. each prenatal visit making her cry all over again. the ultrasounds, the first heartbeat, even the delivery.

she wished you would just burst through the doors, rushed comments about traffic running late and hold her hand as she went through this scary pregnancy. comforting words and soft affection as she went through the trimesters.

she wouldn’t trade anything for anna. she just wish you were here to experience it with her.

lara lets the topic go, it’s hard to see her closest friend so caught in between worlds. so much of her life she sacrificed and only to be left unsatisfied. it’s heartbreaking, and she hopes sophia will get her happiness back.

to much of the dismay of sophia, thomas’s father began speaking. welcoming all the guests through loudspeakers in his mansion. attracting the attention of all guests, but sophia’s heard this speech at every previous party before. how he owes all his accomplishments to a very special mentor of his. and then he gives that short anecdote about being a young and bright-eyed filmmaker. hoping to get his projects out into the world.

with a slight tug of her arm, lara pulls her away from the crowd, all entranced by the story.

“he’ll probably go on for another hour, come on, let’s go see if there’s some good liquor.” lara smirks. dragging sophia away from the main room, soon they’re walking across marbled flooring. large doors leading into the big pool out back, fountains pouring into the pool.

lara eventually pulls them into a large room. large dark oak bookshelves lining the back wall. each filled with hard covered books lining each shelve. a single lamp illuminating the room. large arabian carpets covering the floor. a heavy wooden desk sat close to the bookshelves. a fit study room for a world-renowned director.

“this camera probably costs more than a house.” lara points out the giant standing camera in the other corner of the room, and sophia would agree. 

it drives her insane how much of thomas’ life was just handed to him, the opulence, the trust fund, all of it simply because he was born into the family. sometimes sophia wished thomas never existed. didn’t use his unlimited power for evil, to manipulate and control the weak.

“shit, sophia. come look at this.” sophia walks towards lara, finding her looking at an open drawer, a manila folder already opened on the table. “S.L.” in bold letters stamped on the front.

images spill out from the manila folder, each one from different events that sophia has attended. either red carpets or pictures from her acting. it’s haunting, it’s like she’s being watched. 

and then it gets worse. 

there’s photos of her child, anna running around in sophia’s backyard. photos of sophia lifting her kid in the air and spinning her around. it makes sophia sick to her stomach. 

“lara, lara…” sophia turns to lara with tears in her eyes, shock making her ears pop and tinnitus ringing. her blood has run cold and so has her body, a slight shaking as she steps away from the table, away from the contents of her private life being captured.

“sophia, it’s okay, come on focus on me.” lara’s trying to stabilize a very lost sophia, her eyes keep darting everywhere. there’s thoughts flowing faster than water down an edge of a cliff.

“he knows. he knows anna.” sophia can feel her breath getting shorter, it’s harder to breath in deeper without feeling like she’ll hyperventilate. and lara’s trying her best to calm her down. but fuck if this isn’t a slap in the face.

she tried so hard to protect anna, going as far as to disappear to give birth. not even letting thomas near her or to see her. it was her way of protecting anna and protecting you.

“what else is in there? i bet that jackass has other dirt on me.” sophia asks through harder breaths. the sudden shock and stress is constricting her airways. 

lara’s searching through the folder, eventually dumping it all out on the table. and out flys two contracts.

“it’s your acting contract.” lara’s quickly reading through it, familiar clauses from her very own. the clauses of work, management, pr image, conditions of pay. all of it laid out and then lara lands on a tab. highlighted in orange and circled in red pen. conditions of pr image and the ability for the company to manage sophia’s pr image if it were to slip into a scandal. and possible pr management rights reserved for the company. 

“hold on…” lara flips through the rest of the contract, finding nothing else out of the ordinary. “something’s not right.”

sophia’s holding onto the edge of the hardwood desk, trying to count to four in her head during each breath, slowly bringing down her heart rate. she can barely hear lara through the ringing. 

“did you know about this?” lara looks at sophia, another contract in hand. 

“what?” sophia barely gets out, straightening herself when lara is breezing through the contract.

“it’s thomas. the trust. the inheritance. all of it.” lara continues to read through the pages, eyes moving left and right. “sophia. his father’s trust! the marriage, it’s all for inheritance.” 

lara turns the page over to sophia, and even with her half breaths she can see the clauses: public-facing equal, married by 30 years of age, inheritance. 

all of it is slowly piecing together. the urgency for the divorce, the sudden interest in sophia’s career. the manipulation and coercion of marriage was all to guarantee the inheritance of his father’s net worth. eventually he would secure his position to acquire his father’s businesses. 

how could sophia be so stupid?

all because of a stupid clause that sophia signed when she was still a bright-eyed actress hoping to land her first big role in hollywood. only because she didn’t hire a lawyer to read the fine print of all the clauses in her contract. 

it had cost her autonomy and the disrepair of her relationship with you. and if sophia had to guess, he was going to drag anna into it too. some sick leverage to get this marriage on the fast-track to secure his position.

all because she signed to a slimy acting agency run by thomas’ father. and all because thomas got his hands on her acting contract.

“i’m going to strangle him lara.” sophia gets out her phone, taking photos of the contract. every single photo or page in the manila folder all documented now in her phone.

“sophie, let’s be smart about this okay?” lara starts, already taking photos of her own as a backup. “we need a way out, we have to do this smart and quick.” 

sophia nods.

“you have dirt on him right now, this contract, the coercion of marriage, his scandals. you know all about it.”

lara continues, thinking about how to use this to their advantage.

sophia continues to read over the inheritance, all of it is so obvious, thomas is after his dad’s assets. in an attempt to secure his position over his brother. he’s using sophia as a chess piece for his plan to take over. a coup.

“leak it.”

lara speaks up suddenly. her eyes are deep in thought, she keeps flipping through all the evidence. “leak it anonymously.”

“what?” sophia stops, confusion in her eyes as she looks at lara.

“make it an exposé, if his dad found out that thomas never went to rehab. and spent his money partying. dragging one of the biggest stars of hollywood into a coercive marriage. that would spell the end for thomas moore. he’d never be let out of his dad’s grasp again.”

lara begins texting people in her phone, a plan to drop pieces of evidence all over the next couple of days. a sudden exposé piece would send thomas into hiding. 

“what if it backfires, lara? i can’t lose her or anna.” sophia panics, still worried about how this will all blow up in her face.

“we have a way out.” lara is confident, a large smile on her face, even if it was the last thing she could do, she would help sophia no matter what. “he’s tormented you for years sophie, the manipulation, the controlling. he took you away from her. he did this.” 

lara points at the pictures, the acting contract.

“we’re going to make him suffer. you tell me to leak it and i’ll spread it like wildfire, okay sophie?”

sophia nods firmly, and breathes out for the first time. a breath of relief.

a breath of freedom.

--

you’re dressed more properly today, in a way it’s to not feel so awful all the time. the long walks along the beach have been helping keep your feelings in tact.

it’s been several divorce settlement meetings and you’ve been realizing just how complex sophia’s life is. between all the assets and bank accounts, and royalties from her acting career. 

you’ve been feeling conflicted, a lost sense of what it means to be a partner to her. or at least what it meant before. 

you weren’t there when she made these accomplishments and you can’t understand why you still want to be in her life. 

it’s a feeling that’s haunted you since the moment she disappeared from your life. maybe there’s something you lacked for her to turn to someone else.

maybe you pushed her into the arms of that man.

sometimes you dream about him, about him burning your ranch down. or standing outside your ranch watching you as you work. his nasty grin on full display. 

you usually wake up in cold sweat and reach out for sophia, trying to protect her. but she’s never there. and reality sinks in all over again.

there were days you could barely get out to do the daily chores, sluggish movement as you tried mending your broken heart a second time. 

it’s no use though, you were used and replaced by someone who probably had more wealth than you could imagine.

so you sit a little clouded by your own thoughts, going through these meetings as robotically as possible.

limiting as much as you could, to remove the emotions out of these meetings. you need this divorce to be done, to never return or hear of sophia again.

sophia wasn’t coping much better, after learning about thomas’ motives to move forward with this divorce. it’s been hard for her to focus at the task at hand. 

just yesterday she burned her hand trying to cook breakfast for her and anna. it reminded her how much of her life was in pain. the controlled aspect of her public image made her want to vomit.

and she’s sat beside you, both of you trying to answer the mediators questions. a hurdle that both of you are struggling with. 

throughout the questioning, at multiple times, the lawyers have asked for a break to reconvene with more focus. 

all it has done is caused more stilled awkwardness between you and sophia. silently sitting together, but unable to look at each other.

it feels like detention, that you both were “willingly” sat in.

and then suddenly, like a glass falling off a countertop, sarah begins again.

“let’s discuss custody and visitation rights…” sarah reads out to the pair. 

her counterpart taking a sip of his cold coffee, a displeased frown on his face.

“on page six, the primary custodial rights of the minor child, would still be under miss laforteza’s legal guardianship until the child reaches 18 years old. in which they are legally an adult. currently, with non-disclosure terms applying to the identity of the other parent…” sarah continues reading down the page.

sophia eyes sharpen again.

“i’m sorry–what did you say?” you snap out of your haze. 

“wait–sarah, wait…what?” sophia stands up straighter, hand immediately reaching out for the paper, rapidly flying to page six. eyes furious as she searches for the words.

“whose child?” you ask sarah, also grabbing onto the paper again.

what the hell?

“this wasn’t…this wasn’t in the draft i sent in.” sophia drops the paper back down. it’s there, in the fine print of the divorce papers. 

“you have a child?” the way you ask is chilly, like you’ve audibly flinched back. electrified adrenaline shooting through you.

“give us a minute…” the lawyers both quickly review their materials. rapid typing from sarah’s counterpart and sarah looks confused as well, rereading the section that she just read aloud.

sophia’s voice is stuck in her throat, a sound coming out but it cracks in the end. she watches you scoot back, chair moving along with you.

“i was–i promise i was going to tell you about her, i was going to–” sophia reaches out, hand trying to grab yours. 

but you flinch back, hand flying behind you, shock and the slow rise of anger coming back.

the exact anger you felt when you found out about thomas.

“fuck. you–you always do this sophia. you always fucking do this.” you step back, chair hitting the marbled floor. 

and both lawyers stand up. immediately packing their stuff up. 

“you never tell me what’s going on. seriously a child? a fucking child?”

sophia gets up out of her seat. 

“is it even mine?” you bite out angrily, a suddenly thought making its sickly appearance. you couldn’t stand the idea that sophia would have anyone else’s kid. 

“don't do that! of course she’s yours. i’m not some–it’s yours okay.” the pain is sharp in your heart. you hate that you’re always the last to hear about anything. 

so a small part of you wants to hurt back. how you want her to feel an ounce of your pain.

“how are you so sure it’s mine?” the pain’s making you say things you would never say to sophia. “it could be your fiancé’s, you know?”

sophia’s hand flies out, slapping you across the face. angry tears at the accusation. the sound echoing against the walls. 

your head stays stuck, realizing how much the words hurt her, but really they hurt you too.

“i would never. never! never raise that bastard’s child.” sophia says it with finality. the kind that shuts you up and lets you know not to press further. “so don’t you dare insinuate…”

the lawyers are quick to leave, sending sophia a look that expresses that they’ll talk later. 

you’re glad because you’d rather have this conversation in private.

you finally sit back down, pulling the fallen chair up. and with that, sophia sits down too. 

both of you facing each other for the first time in a long time. but she can’t hold your gaze, repeatedly looking away to hide the anguish that’s creeping up.

she’s trying to wipe away her tears, not wanting to show how your words tore through her. and you’ve sunken into the chair, the exhaustion released from your shoulders.

it smacks you again, the reality of your life.

“we have a daughter?” you ask, feeling the anger being drowned out by the fact that you have a kid now.

“we do.” sophia cries a bit, this wasn’t how she wanted to introduce anna to you. and she certainly didn’t plan it either.

sophia could only think of one person who would try and ruin her like this. the same man that tormented her life, forced her to get this divorce. pulled her abruptly from you, only to carry your child all alone.

both of you continue to sit, waiting for the other to speak up. and it’s killer, the silence that’s waiting.

so you speak up first.

“is she healthy? i know my dad had some issues when he was a kid. and my mom too–” you begin to ramble, spilling all your worries.

“she’s healthy, don’t worry.” and sophia cracks a small smile when you do too. 

“that’s really good, yeah that’s good. um…can i see her?” 

you ask, realizing all that you ever wanted with sophia was actualized, not just a dream that you kept to yourself. in the most sick way, you now have a child.

its not the full dream of having a big family with sophia, but you have a daughter.

more specifically, you have a daughter with sophia. 

with tears in her eyes, sophia agrees to have you come over. to see the young toddler that had your eyes and sophia’s temperament. 

you felt like a part of you had returned, some part of you wasn’t a complete fuckup of your own life.

and sophia spent hours, talking about anna. every detail she thought she could share, she did. how much she enjoyed eating grapes and would scream at the top of her lungs for fun. sophia even showed you photos of her.

she looked happy, a bright wide smile in each photo. when sophia talked about the pregnancy, you felt like you could cry. all the milestones that you missed. especially when you realized sophia went through it alone, none of thomas’ support or presence. 

it hurt to hear how painful it all was for sophia, the hormone changes in her body. the way she felt about herself after the delivery. you wanted to be by her side, a shoulder to cry on as you both navigated having a child together.

so you both cried, you cried asking about her, and she cried listening to you describe how it feels to hear this all for the first time. 

how you dreamed of having a family with her. all along it was there, and she wanted the exact same.

as the night rose, you realized how late it had become. making plans to see anna the next afternoon.

before she left, sophia handed you a photo of anna as a keepsake.

the drive was somber, all you could do was replay the long conversation you had with sophia. there were bits and pieces that stuck with you, how proudly she spoke about having your child. how anna had the mischievous side of you. and the clever side of sophia.

you listened to her talk and even ordered room service for you two.

it was…nice.

almost like you two hadn’t torn each other to shreds many years ago.

it felt familiar, in a distant kind of way. 

you still want to hide how happy you were when sophia agreed to stay for dinner. she doesn’t deserve to know that. your heart was still in pieces, and one dinner wouldn’t change that fact.

but as you drifted off, you tried to wipe the smile off your face. 

truth is, you fail. you fail miserably.

--

this wasn’t how you planned on meeting your firstborn. you hoped it would be when she was born, still crying and wailing at the first introduction to the world. in a swaddle and tiny hands that would try to thrash around.

but instead you stood outside a large metal gate. a large bag in hand as you tried calming your nerves. 

you buzzed yourself in with the gate code, taking a slow look at the house that was supposedly sophia’s.

perfectly shaped hedges and large bed for flowers out front. large slabs of stone crossing the grass. you step forward towards the house. still a little weary of yourself.

maybe you have the wrong house.

you tuck your hat a little lower, feeling a bit self-conscious as you walk forward. cowboy boots clicking against the large slab stones. eventually you knock on the huge square door.

it opens into what could be described in architectural digest’s showroom mansions. large abstract paintings pinned on the walls. a flowing screen of water trickling. an ornate chandelier hanging high up.

there’s a quietness about this life. a different setting but the familiar quiet of living on a ranch. 

you continue to walk through the front, walking into a long extended room. seeing a large red conversation pit in front of you, a rather unusual vase shadowed by flowers placed in the center. 

and to your right is the kitchen, where sophia and another woman stand. both talking to each other animatedly. 

you give a light cough, to which sophia instantly turns to you. eyes going wide when she spots you.

“hi, you’re early.” sophia lets out, she still had another half hour before you were supposed to arrive. 

but instead you stand in her mansion looking as gorgeous as the first day her eyes found yours. 

cowgirl ensemble and her favorite hat of yours to pair.

“didn’t want to be late.” you explain.

lara eventually turns to you, seeing you for the first time. 

all she’s heard about you has been through sophia, and yeah lara means this in the most respectful way possible. 

but she understands why sophia is so crazy about you.

you step closer to them, the familiar clicking of cowboy heels against the floors. you stop on the other side of the counter.

“i really didn’t want to make a bad first impression.” you say placing the bag onto the table. also taking your hat off, placing it on the table.

you look at lara. “and you are?”

“i’m lara, sophia’s bestie.” lara gives a big smile, and you return one too. 

it strikes lara again, how much anna really looks like you. the same eyes that she’s seen when babysitting.

“nice to meet you lara. i’m-” you take off your hat, placing it onto the table, and extending your hand.

“don’t worry, i know and have heard a lot about you.” she gives a knowing smile as she shakes your hand.

sophia rolls her eyes at the smile.

you try looking around for a young toddler, eyes scanning around, but it lands on nothing. 

sophia starts, moving away from the kitchen. “i’ll go get her. stay here.”

“no, let me, you two should catch up.” lara winks at sophia before disappearing into the house. 

and you’re again, left with sophia.

“so i uh, went out and bought some toys.” you start, rummaging through your bag. “but i realized i don’t know what she’d like…so i kind of bought everything.”

you scratch your head a bit. realizing how dumb you looked with a toy from each aisle of the store.

sophia stares at the gesture fondly, looking at all the dolls and books you bought. enough to fill an entire shelf. 

it’s like you’re santa.

“thank you, you really didn’t have to.” sophia rounds the counter, standing close enough for you to inhale her perfume. 

you blink a bit before focusing again.

she sits down in a barstool, and you do the same.

“it’s nothing, i’m happy to.” you say smiling at sophia. you want to reach out and rub her cheek, but the sudden reminder of your reality keeps that urge down.

“how are ya, fia?” you let the nickname drop, you don’t even notice it but she does.

“i’m tired, but i’m happy you’re here.” and sophia means every word of it. 

you try not to let it, but the words blossom in your heart, a familiar kind of bliss from just being around her.

she’s happy to have you in her orbit even in the circumstances. 

you feel the same way, you’re more convinced that there’s more sophia’s not telling you. what other hidden mysterious could she be hiding from you?

“how about you? enjoying california?” sophia asks.

you think about your time here, it’s definitely different from new mexico. there’s more movement around, the beach is really nice. you’ve been swimming most days or taking long walks on the beach.

“it’s really nice out here, i can see why you came.” you didn’t want to make it feel like she chose california over you.

“yeah, it’s a beautiful state.” sophia thinks about how different life is for you back home.

suddenly a voice hits your ears.

“mommy!” a young girl squirms in lara’s arms. trying her best to reach sophia. and with quick steps, sophia eventually grabs a hold of anna. 

you watch the interaction in slow motion, your shoulders tensing when you realize this is real.

you spent the whole car ride over shaking your foot or biting your nail. to say you were excited and nervous is an understatement.

as sophia’s cuddling her a bit, the toddler’s eyes spot you. and she watches you, a sudden interest in your face.

you’re looking at your own daughter. and God, she reminds you of sophia when you were both younger. she’s got sophia’s long hair, but she has your eyes. 

she has your eyes.

it brings tears to your eyes, and you nearly have to step away so you can cry. but instead anna puts her arms out begging you to hold her.

and you do, with shaky arms. she sits comfortably on your side, looking up at you. small strong hands that pull at your shirt.

“hi there.” you say softly. and lara’s standing there taking photos of you three. sophia’s hands are shaking too. scared to let this moment disappear from her grasp.

anna continues exploring you, hand reaching up to pull at your face. letting your skin snap back when she lets go.

“mama!”

anna slaps her hands against your chest, happily clapping to herself and sophia gasps. her smart girl recognized you, from all the photos and stories she’s told her.

“mama? yeah, i’m your mama.” you cry out, tears falling down your face. you wipe them away with your sleeve. anna seeing you cry makes her cry too. 

“no no, please don’t cry, these are happy tears.” you try to wipe away your daughter’s tears.

lips still trembling as you held her tighter. she stops crying when you wipe her tears away too. leaning into you with a soft smile on her face.

“oh my God. this is really cute, but i have to go. it was lovely meeting you, let’s all have brunch sometime soon!” lara whispers to you, grabbing her purse and giving a hug to sophia before leaving.

“lovely to meet you too, lara.” you wave to her, and anna waves too. her hand shaking as she waves away.

“sophia i–she’s real.” you gasp, feeling the toddler mess with the pockets of your shirt.

“she is. want to play with her while i make her a snack?” sophia smiles fondly at you holding onto anna’s hand.

“yeah of course.” 

so you set the toddler down. grabbing each toy that you bought and shaking it in front of her. she seems mildly intrigued by each until you hold out a toy horse in front of her.

she grabs it with interest, immediately trying to bite it, but you pull it away quick enough before she bites down.

instead you show her how to walk the horse on the counter. you start putting other horses down for her. she continues to knock them into each other, much to your dismay.

“she loves horses. i wonder where she got that from?” sophia says teasingly, continuing to place grapes in a small cup. 

“hm, must be you?” you joke back.

you laugh a bit when sophia doesn’t respond. continuing to knock into horses with anna. 

“one time i took her to a carousel and she begged to get on the horse.” sophia continues, and you can imagine the scene. thinking fondly of the two.

“that’s my girl.” you say confidently, “oh i have a gift.” you grab your bag.

taking out a kid’s sized cowboy hat and fitting it onto anna’s head. it’s still too big for her and she gets completely covered by it.

“she’ll grow into it.” you say to sophia, taking it off the kid. the kid laughs a bit at the hat, putting it back on as she continues to play with the horses.

suddenly a thought hits you, and before you can control it, the words come tumbling out. you don’t mean to ask it, at least not in front of anna.

“would you have told me about her?” 

sophia stills, stopping her movements as she look at you, with all the sincerity in her eyes, she answers you.

“yes, i just didn’t want it to come out like that.” she refers to the divorce settlement meetings. “you deserved to know her.”

you nod along, a solemn expression painting the pain of not knowing your own daughter. you wanted to be there for all of it, the good and the bad. 

even for sophia. 

maybe you were still hopelessly in love with her. but now that there’s a child involved, things have shifted.

“i’m sorry for the things i said to you. what i implied, i didn’t mean it.” you say to her. gently adjusting the hat on anna’s head. “i was…angry, but that doesn’t make it okay.”

she takes a minute to absorb your apology, quietly moving through the kitchen.

“thank you, and i’m sorry too for everything.” sophia puts a juice box on the plate.

you also take a second to acknowledge her apology, it’s been hard grappling how sophia truly feels about you. whether she means everything she’s done to you.

for now you’ll accept whatever this is. but in you there’s still a very cautious and injured animal. cowering in fear that if you let her in again, she’ll ruin you. 

you grab anna, walking across the kitchen. putting her into a high chair. she pays it no mind as she continues playing with the plastic horse in her hand.

anna continues to mess with the horse, setting it down when she sees her plate of food. slowly eating it as you and sophia both watched.

“thanks for inviting me over.” you look at her, a genuine smile that refuses to leave. 

“of course.” sophia walks to the fridge, opening the door and scanning for beverages. “want something to drink?”

you walk right up behind her, enough to hover but not enough to touch her. she can feel your body heat radiating off.

“water would be good.” you reach into the fridge, grabbing a bottle and stepping back. sophia’s closes her eyes for a couple seconds. feeling a bit flushed at the sudden closeness. 

almost wishes you never moved away. and she turns to look at you, with something behind those eyes, you can’t quite place.

you want to ask her what’s going on. but then she walks away, back to the stove. you close the fridge, trying to shake off that moment.

you take a sip of water and return back to anna’s side. watching her happily eat some animal crackers. a smile erupting when you make silly faces at her.

anna pulls her arms up, begging you to hold her again. you lift her up and hold her on your hip. moving into the kitchen again, standing right next to sophia.

“mm, the famous laforteza sinigang?” you dip your head down, smelling the delicious soup. a familiar scent wafting into your nose.

smells like home.

“yeah, family recipe.” sophia continues stirring the pot every so often.

“smells good,” you say cheekily, and sophia grabs a spoon, cooling it down for you. and then spoons some to you. “and it tastes even better.”

you grab another spoonful and shovel it into your mouth.

“i’m going to miss your cooking.”

“yeah…want to stay for dinner?” sophia asks.

and its a step out. a step out of her comfort zone, an extending hand hoping that you take it.

she really hopes you take her up on the offer.

“that would be lovely.” you reply back, a small smile on your face when sophia’s eyes light up.

you continue to play with anna throughout the afternoon. she liked crashing horses into each other and running around the sofa. all of which would tire you out.

but she kept giggling and ran, so you had to run after her. eventually she settled for a nap, you tucked her in, a small blanket covering her as she slept on the couch.

“she’s out.” you speak up, getting up from the couch. walking towards sophia, and God. maybe the world is blessing her, because now you’re standing inside her home. 

“dinner is ready?” you ask.

she focuses again, nodding as you walk towards her cabinets. grabbing two bowls and utensils, passing them to sophia. 

she fills the bowls with some rice, passing them back to you. you set them on the dinner table, sophia grabs her small pot of sinigang. placing it to the next of you, you grab her plate, filling it with the delicious soup, doing the same for you.

“shall we say grace?” sophia began, sliding her hand over and you took it. 

a spark of electricity at the slight touch, you instantly flinch back a bit. before sliding your hand into hers again.

“dear heavenly father, we thank you for the food that we are about to eat. we ask that you would look protect us and guide us along your path. in jesus’ name, amen.”

“amen.” you say quietly, removing your hand. albeit a bit too quickly for sophia’s liking.

as you begin eating sophia’s sinigang, you think about what it would mean to be in anna’s life. how you could be an active parent despite living in a different state. 

it doesn’t seem feasible, having to travel back and forth to visit anna. and with a lack of reason to stay in new mexico, you suddenly erupt with an idea.

“i’m going to move here.” you say calmly, and sophia stops her spoon. lifting her head to look at you. 

“you’re moving here? like hollywood?” she asks, a little shocked at the sudden interest. 

as far as sophia could remember, new mexico was your home and you were content to live the rest of your life on that ranch.

“not hollywood per se, but definitely close by.” you gesture around, feeling your resolve continue to harden. 

“wow, this is a big move. what uh made you decide that?” sophia squirms in her seat a bit, watching you with purpose. a very secret part of her hopes you say it’s because of her and anna.

“i want to be in anna’s life, actively. traveling back and forth would be too difficult.” you look towards your daughter. who is still happily turning and twisting her horse. a delighted smile on her face.

sophia takes her time to reply, taking another sip of soup before leaning back in her chair. hands shuffling as she thinks of a thoughtful response.

“what about charlie? the horses? the chickens?” sophia asks.

she’s elated to hear that you want to be in anna’s life. it’s more than what she asked for, and to be a consistent part of anna’s life would be terrific. 

“i’m planning on buying a ranch out here. i’ll bring charlie, the horses, everything.” you explain. 

it was an idea that popped into your head earlier, a realization that you wanted your life near anna…and sophia. to still have your lifestyle, but be able to visit often and go out to the beach.

“you sure?” sophia continues to eat her food, and you return back to your bowl. feeling a sense of purpose surging through you, instead of aimless days without a direction, you could be a present parent.

“yeah, i’ve decided. and you know me, once i’ve decided it’s set in stone.” you give her a big grin, looking at her briefly. her eyes searching for something deeper, when a grin also appears on her face.

“well then, if your heart is set on it, then no one can stop you.” she explains.

“i’m going to be a cowgirl out here in california, who would have thought?” you grin continues to expand.

sophia rolls her eyes at that, but she can’t deny that deep down she’d love for you to be closer to her.

“don’t go too crazy now.” sophia comments, filling your empty plate with more soup, to which you happily eat more of. nearly emptying the bowl in less than thirty seconds.

to which she offers another filling.

“do they have rodeos out here? we should take anna when she gets older.” you comment. 

sophia doesn’t mistake the use of ‘we’ when you asked.

“yes, there’s some big ones out here, you’d be surprised.” she says, standing up to pick anna out of her high chair.

“hi cutie, want to sit with us?” sophia walks back over, anna perched on her lap when she sits back down. immediately her baby hands are trying to grab sophia’s bowl of food. hunger in her eyes.

“well, she’s definitely yours.” sophia nods at her kid, still trying to reach her small arms for the bowl, frustrated when sophia sits back. “your mom told me you used to do that as a baby. even threw a couple tantrums.”

sophia giggles to herself, seeing you fluster, the embarrassment rising your neck.

“whatever…” you drag out. a definitely big smile still plastered on your face as you watched your daughter try to struggle out of sophia’s grasp.

you think you could get used to this life, a life with anna and sophia.

‐‐

you continue to toss the keys in your hand as you hum along to a song you heard on the radio. the day has been long gone, and now the night is coming to a close too. after spending nearly all afternoon and dinner with sophia and anna, you’ve come to a couple conclusions.

you were definitely still in love with sophia, even if the world were to flip upside down tomorrow, those feelings would never dim.

you didn’t want a divorce, not now, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

you were going to be the best parent you could be.

it wasn’t something that you were happy to announce, considering sophia still had her fiancé. the same one that she conveniently doesn’t talk about. and honestly you aren’t too sure why.

you both have skirted the conversation about him in her life. as far as you knew, that was a person she willingly agreed to marry, she had no reason to state otherwise. but she still kept your kid?

that made everything more confusing. the lack of thomas in her life. every meeting that’s been had, every inch of sophia’s life wouldn’t lead one to believe that she’s happily engaged.

there are no photos of him in her home, even when you went poking in her bathroom, there was no sign of someone else that lived here. it’s unsettling…

you don’t know how to bring it up to her.

like hey, so what about your fiancé that you happen to be cheating on me with, but also you’re technically cheating on him with me?

there was something still lost in the grand picture, he didn’t fit into sophia or anna’s life. something’s not right, and you need to get to the bottom of it, before you lose your wife for good.

these thoughts continue to consume you, so much so you barely recognize the voice that’s calling out to you from the hotel lounge.

“hey neighbor!” and in front of you is manon, wide smile and a long dress to match. you quickly stop yourself before crashing into her. taking a step back before giving her a smile too.

“hey, how have you been?” you ask, subtly noticing the get-up. clearly she’s had a night out, a fancy one.

“i’m okay, came back from a failed date.” she points at herself, a small clutch in hand and sparkly earrings that dangle under her long curly hair.

“ouch, his fault?” you ask. both of you walk towards the bar, pulling her chair out and pushing her in. as you sit next to her.

“her fault, actually.” manon says confidently. you flag a bartender down to order two martinis. “she kept talking about herself all night, didn’t ask me a single question.”

you wince a bit, feeling sympathetic towards manon’s shitty night. the bartender slides over the drinks and you immediately take a sip.

“sorry for assuming, and that’s got to suck. you even dressed up so nicely!” you explain, taking a sip and listening to manon continue to complain.

“no harm no foul, most people don’t know i date women.” she explains, placing her clutch onto the bar counter. “and look! i even pulled my favorite dress out.”

she points at herself, and you can’t deny, it does look very good on her. form fitting and silver accents along the neckline. anyone would struggle to keep their eyes off her on a date.

“sorry to hear that, she wasn’t worth your time.” you continue to sip on your drink as she replays the story to you. telling you how it was doomed from the start, the lack of chivalry, the messy eating, the self-centered monologue, all of which made manon wish she was curled up in her hotel room, watching shitty rom-coms instead.

by then you two have had more than a couple drinks, and you can tell it’s definitely affecting manon more than you. her speech is a little slurred. her eyes are a bit unfocused, and her hands keep reaching out to touch your knee.

you’re not uncomfortable per se, but it definitely strikes you how forward manon is. batting her lashes and listening to you intently talk. almost as if she’s lost in a vision of you.

“alright, clearly you’ve had your fill. let’s get you to your room.” you grab a dizzy manon out of her chair, tucking her clutch under your arm. instantly she pulls all her weight onto you, you brace yourself, almost tipping over.

“sorry, had a bit too much.” manon giggles to herself, and you try your best to counter the weight. having her lean into your arms as you both walk away from the bar. slow steps as she continues to giggle to herself. 

you don’t notice it, not with how hard you’re trying to keep manon upright. the weight of her body trying to make you tip over.

but sophia’s here. she’s here and she’s shaking. in her hand is the cowboy hat you left in her house. 

she had found it when cleaning up the kitchen, hoping to see you again. so she drove over, a smile all over her face as she sang all the songs on the radio.

but now, no. no she’s furious. there’s an unnamed woman hanging off your arm. clearly interested with the way she’s hanging onto you like she was oh so weak.

fucking bullshit.

sophia’s pulled that move on you long before this woman even breathed in your direction. she’s gripping onto your cowboy hat with jealousy brimming in her heart.

and she might just snap. she’s going to snap this woman in half if she doesn’t get her hands off her wife. 

you are none the wiser, walking manon into the elevator and selecting the top floor. stepping back and begging the elevator to fly up, the doors are closing when suddenly in steps another woman.

sophia.

her eyes are filled with rage as she stares at manon next to you. 

“sophia! what are you doing here?”

you’re more than shocked to see her, she’s never come to visit you unless it was to discuss the divorce. and here she was standing in an elevator with you and a drunk manon going up to the top floor.

she stops her glaring long enough to focus on you. hat in hand that she slides back onto your head. “you left this. at my place.” 

she goes back to glaring at the other woman. and manon’s seeming to get the hint, even in her drunk state. pulling away from your arm a bit. and sophia can see it in her eyes, the recognition of her face. she knows exactly who sophia laforteza is.

“and who might you be?” sophia asks, it’s neither friendly not mean. but it’s definitely not kind. 

“i’m manon, living next door.” she gestures to you, eyes more alert as sophia tries to subtly put distance between you two. stepping in far enough that you back into your corner.

“i see.” sophia eyes her more, satisfied that the woman’s stepped away from you. and even more satisfied that her hand is off of you.

the elevator can’t go fast enough with the tense energy in the air. sophia takes a moment to situate herself, happy to have kept her away.

the elevator dings and all three of you walk out. and manon’s really drunk, because she nearly trips over herself, almost falling on the floor.

you reach out quickly, scooping her up before she fell. and with a few adjustments she’s back onto her feet.

“are you okay?” you ask, manon nods a bit trying her best to stabilize herself.

and sophia, well she’s watching like a hawk. ready to swoop in the second manon gets too close.

you walk manon to her room quickly, opening the door and setting her down on a chair. and sophia’s not exactly happy at the sight. it should be her being taken home by you, you keeping her upright if she was too wobbly. this kind of chivalry was supposed to be reserved for her. 

she shakes her head unhappily.

and with a quick nod from manon that she was all good, you bid her goodnight, walking away with sophia in tow. 

sophia gives manon a quick look over her shoulder before the door closed. and walks right after you, all the way into your hotel room. she thinks long and hard, about the next words she’s going to say to you, because really…these emotions have been erupting in her all day.

she walks in after you, closing the door behind her.

but she settles on these next words carefully, eyes wild and hair even wilder. 

“are you fucking her?” sophia enunciates every syllable, she always did this whenever she got serious. wanted to make it obvious what she’s asking, no chance for you to stand there looking confused. 

she hates when you look at her like you’re confused.

your eyes nearly jump out of your skull, you immediately let out a sharp gasp.

“no, of course not!” you reply, feeling a little upset at the question. 

“not that it’s any of your business.” 

it hits both of you like a train when you say it. in truth, you want it to hurt, you want sophia to tell you everything was one big mistake. want her to snap out of it, want her to pull you in by the belt of your pants. to fuck you like you meant something.

but you want it to sting, she doesn’t have the right. doesn’t have the ability to dictate what you are to her, not with him still in the picture. you’re digging for more, for her to explain his unusual place in her life. 

“say that again.” 

she dares you, eyes hard like steel. 

you step close enough to breathe it in her face, she doesn’t step back, body tight like a rubberband. and you think if you breathe in the wrong, maybe right, direction, she’ll blow up.

“i said…it’s none of your business.” you hold your own, standing firmly. she stares at you, listening to you try to defend yourself . “it’s none of your business. who i fuck. who i kiss. who i touch.”

you continue to corner her a bit, and she’s getting angrier by the second, you know in a second she’d be all over you like a predator, she has that gaze.

“oh! you must be out of your depth here.” she pushes you with a light laugh at the end of sentence. grabbing you by your shirt, hand clenched to the point her knuckles turn white. you feel like you’ll snap, either your shirt or you first, you don’t know. “it is my Goddamn business.”

she snarls the words out, an anger thats fueled by jealousy and the tense sexual tension that always lingers when you two are too close. 

“funny how you think i’d let you touch someone else, with what’s supposed to be mine.”

she pushes you, enough to make you stumble a bit, your hat falling onto the ground. then grabbing onto you again, pulling you straight into the bedroom. each step like a sentence to the dungeon, but you’re more than happy to be locked here. with all her attention and anger directed at you.

“you want to play dumb? fine. let me remind me who you belong to.” 

you fall backwards onto the mattress, ready to push her under you, an undercurrent of wanting to control the pace nearly making you go tunnel vision. but sophia’s got her mind set. eyes ablaze as she pulls your belt out of your jeans. holding your body down with her hips. she stares at you angrily, a need to remind you where you are. 

under her. 

she ties your hands in a quick fashion, pulling the belt until there’s tension, keeping your hands above your head. 

you try pulling against the bedpost, but it doesn’t give.

she pushes your shirt up, until she can scratch your stomach with her nails, then she leans down, hair in beautiful waves falling around you, until all you can breathe and see is her.

she pushes your pants down a bit, not enough to take it off, but enough to let the pressure of your pants alleviate. and then she stops midway. your pants are lifted off your hips but not enough to move anywhere else.

“either you tell me who this belongs to.” she snaps the pants back onto your skin. hand immediately back on you, pressed against you, not enough to move, but with enough to make you want to buck your hips. “or i leave you here. your choice.” 

she says it in that tone, the one that lets you know there’s no other choice, not if you still want to be in her good graces. 

“yours fia, i swear.” you groan a bit, trying to find some pressure to alleviate the ever present problem in your pants. “all of me belongs to you.”

she smiles big, in that smile that lets you know she’s won, and she’s going to be rewarded heavily for it.

“good answer baby.” she taps your cheek a bit, liking the way you keep trying to touch her, like you deserved to after pulling that with her. 

“i would say you kept up a good fight,” she takes a long lick over your stomach, feeling it tense under her touch, “but we know you’ll end up like putty in my hands.”

she’s reeling in her win, a cocky grin that won’t leave her face. you nearly whimper at the contact, she’s barely touched you and you’re taut, trying to arch into her, for some contact at the very least.

“please fia, let me touch you.” you whine again, trying your best to get out of your restraints. its driving you mad how you can’t touch her. can’t feel her the way you want.

“not tonight. not until i'm satisfied.” she leans back, unbuckling your pants and staring down at you, like she’s caught her prey in a trap. 

you continue to try and move your hips, like a caught animal trying so desperately to be released, but it’s no use. not when she’s got you finally where she wants you. 

“fuck fia, please, need to touch you.” you try to beg, but it only spurs her on, oh how the mighty have fallen. she shakes her head, giving you a kiss on the cheek before climbing off of you, pulling herself off the bed.

she takes her time, tonight she’s in charge, and she’ll take everything she can get. especially with the way you’re trying so hard to watch her, head trying to look at her despite the restraints holding you in place. it drives her insane, knowing she still has that much of an effect on you, tracking all of her movements without trying to miss a single second. 

she can feel herself getting hot by how hard you’re staring at her. a slight sheen on sweat on the back of her neck. you wish you could just rip these restraints off you, to show her who she belonged too. but a deep part of you is just as enticed by this side of her. 

desire pooling in your lower stomach and you nearly jump when she takes off your shoes, sliding them off quickly. you don’t even care what she does, as long as she’s touching you, you’re more than okay with that. 

her hands slide up along your pants, and really you feel like a horny teenager being touched for the first time. the way she intentionally drags it out, slow enough to keep you engaged but not enough to give you relief. 

“fia, please.” you beg again, and again. she swears she’s never heard you so desperate, at the mercy of her control. she could get used to this. and soon enough, she’s pulling your pants and boxers off, enough to alleviate the pressure that’s been confining your lower half.

“please what?” she says with anticipation in her eyes, she’s never seen you so out of control. so much want to let her do whatever she wants. it makes her pride swell.

“please, touch me.” you moan out, and you’re so tightly wound that it almost feels like you’re in pain. pain of not having her all over you. desperate and whining for attention.

she likes the sound of that. pulling herself forward, settling for sitting on top you. light touches dancing on your hip. not close enough to where you truly want her, but a relief that she is even touching you at all. the hard exterior that you’ve put up over the years is crumbling, and of course is being unraveled by her.

she continues her light touches until she gets lower, already sensitive to the touch, trying your best to get some movement against her hand. but she holds still, liking the way you’re completely at her will.

then she spits in her hand, enough to get your cock wet, spreading it all over. you moan at the contact, letting yourself relax again, getting that much needed relief after all.

sophia’s got other plans in mind.

“so, you let anyone touch you?” she says, continuing to stroke you up and down, letting the build up confuse your brain, “do you, slut?” 

you’ve never heard sophia talk like this before, the way she stares down at you like you’re nothing and everything at the same time. the way she stops her hand when you don’t respond.

“answer me.” it’s not particularly loud, but it makes you want to shrink. 

“n-no, i don’t.” you whimper a bit, trying to buck your hips again, to which she completely lets go of you. a growing dissatisfaction in her eyes. 

“you don’t, slut? so what was that back there?” she growls out. 

“i-i i really-she was drunk. i was helping her back. please sophia, please touch me.” you beg, trying to move your legs and by now sophia’s getting irritated. 

“don’t let that happen again.” sophia goes back to stroking you again, and you nearly flinch at the contact, it was so sudden and gentle that you wanted to chase after it.

“i won’t, i promise! please faster.” you continue to beg, head thrown back in pleasure as she continues to give you a growing pleasure in your stomach. she gives you a quick kiss on the lips, a reward for the correct answer.

“my little slut will get what she wants.” sophia says it out loud, but mostly it’s for herself. a direct and open claim of you. you’ve never been so worked up before, all this teasing and lack of control is making every sense more heightened.

“yes, please, fuck.” you moan out everytime she drags her hand up the top, a delicious pressure that has you leaking out pre-cum. you’re breathing heavy, head to one side as you try to fight the growing orgasm that’s closing in on you. the feeling of sophia all over you again has you unraveling earlier than you were expecting. “i’m your slut.”

you don’t even know what you’re saying anymore, just begging for a release, one that sophia will happily grant you if you answer this next question correctly. she speeds up her movements, you continue to let out begging words at her mercy. 

“so, who’s is this?” she makes it a point to squeeze you suddenly, drawing a gasp and some more pre-cum flowing from the head. the increased pace is making you want to pass out, and all you can feel is the mounting orgasm that will explode soon.

“fuck, yours, i swear to God, it’s yours, i’m yours.” you ramble a bit, trying so very desperately to chase after your own release, it’s a beautiful sight to sophia. just a little more and she has you begging for a single touch.

she doesn’t mistake how you try to bite at something, anything to contain the inevitable orgasm. you bite into the closest thing you have which is a small pillow to your right. and your body tenses like it usually does, a tightness in your stomach and you try and push into her hand. 

“fuck, sophia, please, don’t stop.” you continue to push into her hand, and she can feel herself drooling at the sight, wiping it away with the back of her other hand. and like a drawn bow, the arrow is released.

“fuck oh God, fia. fuck, i’m cumming.”

you shake a bit as you cum, legs shaking and torso taut, arching off the bed, the cum spilling out in streams. 

all landing on your abdomen. 

but sophia doesn’t stop, she continues to stroke you through the orgasm, your body convulsing at the motion, it drives you insane. you can feel your body feeling overloaded with stimulation. 

“fuck-sophia, please,” you try to gain some control, the continuous stroking making you cum more than you’ve ever cum before. “give-give me a second.”

she gives you a few more strokes before letting go, you’re breathing hard, sweat glistening under the lights, and God, sophia swears she’ll never let you walk away from her again. as she watches you try to get your focus back. instead, she pulls herself on top of you, resting herself right on top of your spent cock.

she pulls her dress up, just above her hips, dragging herself on top of your cock, a slow rocking motion against you, and you let out a gasp at the contact again. your brain is fuzzy and barely recovered when she starts moving. 

she has every intent of making this as pleasurable for herself.

you can feel it, the lack of panties in the way. she came all the way here for one thing only, it only brings you faster to attention, the blood flowing straight to your cock once more.

she continues to ride the underside of your cock, small moans and quick breaths pulling from that gorgeous throat of hers. 

you’re mesmerized, eyes in a trance, loving the way she’s using you for her own pleasure. to chase after her own orgasm. you try pulling at the restraints again, trying to desperately to touch her. 

she smiles through all of it, enjoying you trying so hard to get your hands out of your belt. she smells sweet, and the mixed smell of everything is driving you insane.

“fia, please, let me touch you.” you’re pleading with her, barely able to get out a single word without pulling again. and she finds it insanely hot, how you can’t even focus on anything. eyes flying around, trying to pull yourself free, trying to watch her at the same time, trying so very hard.

she swears she can cum just from watching you, her continuous rocking motion making her approach her own orgasm. it’s the delicious pressure on her clit that makes her stay still. wants to see you continue to beg, wants that torture to ruin you. 

until all you know and want is her.

“mm, maybe if you’re good i’ll let you.” sophia returns back to riding herself on top of you, leaning down to pepper kisses along your abs. a reminder that she has every right to touch you anywhere. it’s bringing you to your own orgasm too. and in a deft motion, she pulls herself back, seeing your cock angry red, trying to jump at the loss of contact. 

she smirks at that, slowly lifting her hips to slid it near her hole. the tip just barely prodding the entrance, and with a slow controlled movement, she sinks down onto you, inch by inch, she takes her time. enjoying the delicious stretch, her hands scratching your stomach, where just seconds ago she had left kisses. each lipstick mark like a claim of possession.

“you look so good like this,” she drags a singular nail around, continuing to slowly lift her hips again, and rocking back down. “such a good little slut for me.” 

“fia, fia, fia.” you chant her name like a mantra. caught under her spell and wanting nothing more than to spill everything inside of her. “fuck, i’m close.”

“already?” sophia smirks, and really she’s teasing you. she knows how wound up you are, how sensitive you are after your first orgasm, one slight clench and you would spill inside of her. 

so she tests you, giving you a clench that has your eyes prickling with tears. you can barely contain yourself, twitching wildly at the sudden pressure. wanting so badly to touch her, any part of her. 

she leans in close, giving you another squeeze that has you convulsing once more.

“fia, please, i’m so close.” you whine out. 

she’s on cloud 9 right now, clenching again and then you’re spilling inside of her. loud pants and whines ripping through your already dry throat. cumming with every bit of energy that you have within you. 

she leans close again, kissing you wildly through your orgasm. hair clenched in between her fingers. you’re letting out pretty sounds out of your mouth through each kiss. still trying so hard to pull against the leather belt. tears and cum spilling out of you. and sophia thinks you look glorious like this under her.

you eventually feel the ebbs of your orgasm dying out, sophia still wrapped around you, warm heat that is making you lightheaded.

“Jesus Christ, fia. i’ve never cum that hard.” you get out in between gasps, eyes closed and trying your best to calm your heart. it’s beating faster than you’ve ever felt it, and if you weren’t so spent you would realize sophia’s chasing after her own orgasm. using her fingers to bring her to her own orgasm, with your cock still nestled inside. 

“mm, fuck, that’s good, stay inside.” she whines a bit, continuing to rub herself, rocking herself against you, and really you can’t take it anymore, nearly losing yourself in the throes of passion, almost blacking out. but the sensation keeps you close, the persistent tension against the belt.

“fuck!” she comes tumbling down, orgasm causing her to clench around you, shaking on top of you and then she falls on top of you. cock still very much inside of her as she continues to cum. you try your best to give her kisses, peppering her cheek with them as she’s spent too. heavy breathing, chest to chest, and your eyes are bleary. 

sophia’s the first to move, pushing herself up, enough to have both of her arms holding her up on top of you. her eyes are so filled with emotion, the same kind of emotion she held in her eyes when she stood across from you on that altar, under God, and with everyone in the church. 

she wants to cry, everything’s been so emotional, how she had yearned for you for years. regretting ever leaving you, carried your child and stood by everything that she did in hopes that you two would return to each other. when everything isn’t as messy as it once was. 

just two girls trying to be with each other.

like both of you intended. and by no means is this meant to save everything between you, but for now, for this very moment where your two souls are connected like puzzle pieces, she’ll allow herself this relief. 

in this moment you were hers and she was yours, through and through. 

so she dips back down, giving you a kiss that’s pouring every emotion she can possibly muster up, every ounce of grief, pain, love, and yearning born from her love for you. she doesn’t know if it’s enough, but she hopes it means something to you. wet tears hitting your cheeks as she continues to kiss you. trembling lips that are trying to hold back the pain of losing you, over and over again.

“fia?” you ask her, watching the way the cries continue to slip out, silently crying on top of you. she continues her downpour of tears even when she slips the belt off your hands. your hands immediately on her face again. trying so desperately to stop her tears. so moved by your action that she cries all over again. head sinking to your shoulder.

two naked souls trying to have a conversation with each other. 

you hold her in your hands, keeping her close and softly rubbing her back in comforting circles. and she cries in your arms. wrapping around your torso too. you hold her for the whole night, until her cries turn into soft breaths and her tears have dried. until she’s that girl that you asked to marry when you both were bright-eyed and had dreams of conquering the world.

you hold her close long after she’s fallen asleep. moving to another bed in the suite after you’ve cleaned up the mess between you two. the softness of her eyes hidden under calmness, gently brushing her hair as she continues to sleep through the night. 

you eventually succumb to sleep too. holding her in your arms and hers securely around yours too. in the middle of the night she woke up in a panic, trying desperately to find you, only to realize you were right in front of her. soft snores and a heavy arm laid on her side. 

she kissed each part of your face gently, just to prove to herself you were here. before closing her eyes again. drifting off to a dreamland where your family was all together, laughter and screams filling the air.

‐‐

last night was something.

you didn’t know how to explain it, and you’re sure sophia wouldn’t be able to either.

but last night, you both quickly cross the threshold of just ex partners trying to coparent. crossing the threshold of just trying to coexist in each other’s worlds without crashing into each other. but honestly, did you really think you could just coexist with sophia?

the same woman that stole your heart when she brought you charlie as a small pup from her uncles dog’s litter. the same woman that was your personal nurse when you almost got trampled by a bull and had to be bed-ridden for weeks.

no, you could never simply coexist with her. your lives were intertwined as if by the simple laws of nature. by the simple fact that she was yours and you were hers. through legality and spirituality you two could never completely separate from each other.

and by God’s grace, you were here. running your hands through her hair gently. an ache in your heart and soul to reconnect with the one woman who had spoiled love for you. it drives you mad with want and resentment, wanting for her to be yours again. no need for anyone to interfere.

if last night was any indication of her feelings for you, then you’d be a fool to think she wants anyone other than you. but still everything is so confusing with her, how she refuses to speak about him. you want answers, last night wasn’t just some jealous fueled hook up to you. it has to mean more. it simply has to, or else…did you just give your heart away again?

sophia stirs under your touch, a light smile at the touch, she leans into it, enjoying the way you continue to massage her scalp. it’s relaxing and reminds her of the small acts of affection that you love giving her.

“hi.” you whisper gently, liking the way she hums lightly. eventually placing a hand over your heart, just holding it there. feeling it pulse under her hand. 

“hi, good morning.” you listen to her morning voice, like a songbird it’s tickles your ears. you smile wide before inching closer, placing a quick kiss onto her lips. to which she pulls you in closer, a long and searing kiss filling both of your desires.

“so, last night?” you cock an eyebrow, you weren’t playing any games and you hoped she wasn’t either. instead sophia curls into herself, feeling hot heat rise to her cheeks, dusting them in pink.

“last night…yeah…”sophia drags out. trying her best to hide under the covers again.

“nuh uh, come on, what was all that?” you ask. pulling the covers away, revealing an extremely embarrassed sophia. she instead covers her face with her hands. trying to roll to the other side. “fia?”

“ugh fine, i was…i was jealous okay!” sophia lets go of her hands, dropping them to her side, but still unable to look at you in the eyes. you chuckle a bit, to which she hides herself again. 

this time you don’t bother trying to unveil her.

“yeah i got that,” you roll your eyes in amusement, oh it was clear as day she was jealous. she always was whenever someone got to close to you, or even lingered a little too long. this wasn’t the unusual part, sophia rarely acted on her jealousy. instead letting you respectfully tell the other party that you were taken, because in her head. it was hotter that way. it was hotter for her you to state how you were taken than for her to intervene.

“but seriously fia, you’ve never pulled that. i mean ever.” you continue, dropping the amusement in your voice.

“i know…and it’s so stupid, i just…” she continues to voice out her embarrassment, “everything between us is so rocky, and i needed this. i needed to prove to myself that i’m still who you want.” 

your eyes soften at the sudden vulnerability. instead of embarrassment, sophia lets her hands drop. sitting up straight, half of the duvet still covering her. and you sit up too. 

“fia…what do you mean?” you ask, taking her hand in yours, rubbing small circles on her hand. to calm her through this vulnerable moment, and show that you were here for her.

“i guess, what i’m trying to say is. i still need to know that you want me, and i know it’s selfish. but my God, i still want you, i always have, even when i left, everything in me still wants you.” she rambles out, her other hand moving in a dramatic motion, eyes that are darting everywhere, eventually focusing on you.

“and thomas?” you drop the question. the topic that you both have skirted around since your arrival. especially when you refused to let her explain herself when you left your ranch two years ago. you ask it in a quiet voice, feeling yourself sink at the question. 

you weren’t ready for the answer, but it was now or never.

“thomas, he.” sophia runs her hand through her hair, a long sigh causing her to deflate. “he isn’t my fiancé, at least not willingly. he-his dad, i signed my acting contract with his dad.” she continues to speak, a hidden vulnerability that’s making her shrink herself, head dipped low, almost as if she’s embarrassed. 

you hate the sight of it.

“i signed a contract when i first got here, right after i landed my first big role. everyone wanted to book me, so i signed with his company. and thomas he-he fucking used that contract against me.”

you nod, but there’s a sudden burst of anger growing in your heart. 

“he fucking-he fucking made me get the divorce.”

she dropped the bomb, and you’re leaning back now, shock hitting your system all over again. “sophia, what?” you gasp out, eyes confused and she looks up, watery eyes staring into you.

“he used the contract against me, he knew i had a spat with one of his dad’s buddy directors. i walked out on the filming, my manager made it seem like i had health issues. but i couldn’t stand him, so i left, i left an entire project. everyone was mad, i mean his dad almost threatened to cut me.” sophia continues to talk, a tear falling and you can’t even utter a word.

“you can’t just leave a project unscathed, you could get blacklisted out here. and fucking thomas, he used that against me. he had evidence of me walking out, and he said he would leak it, it would’ve destroyed my career. i was fucking blackmailed.” 

sophia continues to cry, angry tears rolling off her cheeks, much different from the ones she had last night.

“sophia…” you say gently, trying to calm her anger, even though the one inside of you was growing.

“and he fucking asked to get married. said it would fix everything, he would delete the evidence and i would be able to get back to my career. and i said yes, i never should’ve. should’ve just let my career die, but then he got records of us, our marriage. said he would leak that too, fuck.”

you continue to rub small circles, a gentle reminder that you were here, on her side.

“so i came back, to new mexico. i never wanted to ask for a divorce, i swear to you. and when you agreed, my heart shattered. i promised myself i would never love anyone the way i love you. we-we kept on being together, and i fell even harder than i could remember, i still wanted you as much as the first day i met you.” she brings her hand up to hold your head, vulnerable eyes searching for yours.

“i wanted something to keep, even if i had to be miserable for the rest of my life, i wanted to keep something of yours. i wanted to carry your kid. it was the only way i could have you close but keep you safe.” she cries a bit, still holding onto you, trembling fingers dancing along your jaw.

“anna. God gave me anna. God gave me her and i would never trade her for anything. she’s ours and she will always be.” 

“sophia, damn it.” your words are unstable, and you let out a single tear, the pain of thinking about her for two years coming back. all the pain and yearning for each other never subsided. for either side.

“i know, i know baby.” she cries continuing to cradle your jaw, leaving a kiss so soft it felt like a petal had fallen on your face. “it was selfish–but it was all i had. i knew our time was almost up, and i needed something of yours. it’s so selfish, but i could never regret having her.” 

you know in some twisted way what she was expressing. that night, two years ago, you wanted to leave something behind too. something for sophia to remember you by, the willingness to do everything she wanted, to even leave her with the possibility of carrying your child. you wanted it all.

“sophia, i was selfish too.” you confess, remembering how you felt that night, in the midst of the passion you realized how badly you wanted to leave your imprint on her too. “i’ve always, and i mean always, dreamed of having a big family with you. so when you asked me to, you know…i gave into that instinct, because it’s all i ever wanted.”

she stares at you, heart exploding in a thousand directions. she remembered very early on in your marriage, you bringing up wanting kids, maybe as a simple comment. but she couldn’t deny how happy you looked playing with her nieces and nephews.

“you want kids with me?” sophia asks.

“of course i do, fia.” you reply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “i always did, and i always will. even now i still do.” 

you shift a bit, pulling her into a hug with how stunned she looks at you. another explosion of warmth from her heart. even with a tormented past that held her instincts back, how she aches just the same for you. it drives her mad, you wanted everything she wanted and more.

you rub her back gently, enjoying the way she’s holding you so close. she drops her head onto your shoulders, and you do too. just contently laying on each other.

“so, what do we do?” you ask. you’re hoping sophia won’t go through with the divorce. everything that was shared here, in the bed that you two share, it’s something worth preserving.

she lifts her head off your shoulder, taking both of your hands in hers, a determined look in her eyes. 

“you remember lara?” she asks, a small smile on her eyes.

“of course.” you reply, pulling one of her hands towards you to give a small kiss, just across each knuckle.

“well, we found something, some dirt on thomas.” she starts, reaching for her phone and opening the photo album. “we’re going to leak it to the press, everything, all his partying problems, the coercion of marriage, my acting contract.”

she shows you everything, including the unsavory of parts of thomas’ addictive lifestyle. she even points out the clauses in thomas’ fathers inheritance. it’s all there in fine print, this would kill even the highest star’s reputation.

“but sophia, won’t this kill your career?” you ask, realizing there’s no way for her to get out of this freely. surely his team will try and ruin her, ruin everything that she’s worked so hard towards.

“we’re going to leak it to multiple sources, anonymously of course. we’ll leak it tomorrow morning. it’ll be the first day of freedom, i won’t be under his clutches anymore.” she says exasperatedly, dropping the phone onto her bed. 

“tomorrow? why tomorrow?” you ask, going back to holding her hands. 

“i wanted to tell you first, everything about me and my past, you should hear it from me. i didn’t want to leak it and have you find out that way. you deserved to hear it from me.” 

“thank you.” it meant more to you than she could ever know. you were tired of hearing about everything after the fact, almost like an afterthought. to hear about everything firsthand was a relief, she considered how you would feel and took the time to explain the situation to you.

she gives you a kiss, a soft one. one that blooms feelings of love in your chest once more.

“i’m sorry, for everything.” she expresses. 

“i know fia.” you respond, giving her a kiss that makes her wrap her arms around you, trying to deepen the kiss when you pull back. “but i need time, to process everything. i don’t think i can give you my heart as it is right now.” 

you want to, but how could you be expected to offer your heart on a silver platter even with everything that’s been revealed. a part of you still resents her for what she’s refused to tell you, you know it was because of thomas but still there are things that wound your heart. and you need time.

you two were by no means perfect, but you would try everything to make it so that you two could work. 

and sophia, she would try ten times harder to win your heart back.

she swore to God she would.

--

a/n: the much anticipated pt2 of the 'save a horse, ride a cowgirl' fic. i hope i have brought the story to justice. stay safe and stay healthy everyone. cheers, hope you've enjoyed!

[antianakin]

Oh believe me, I DO talk about Leia's relationship to the Organas a lot! This post wasn't focusing on that specifically, but there was a reblog I did from someone else where I bring it up and talk more about what Leia gets from the Organas and how that impacts who she is as a person.

Basically, I think that who Leia is AS A PERSON is pretty much all Organas, none of it comes from her biological parents. But Leia AS A CHARACTER is more often paralleled with Padme, and I think people are choosing to compare her more to Anakin even though the Prequels went far out of their way to emphasize the connection between mother and daughter (especially visually). So this post was focusing more on the ways I think that the narratives in the films really show that comparison between Padme and Leia and the ways that Leia succeeds where Padme fails, but I have an entire tag for posts about Leia's relationship to the Organas and how that impacts who she is and how important it is to her.

One of the things I loved the most in the Kenobi show was that they do have Obi-Wan seeing a lot of Anakin and Padme in Leia for all of the obvious reasons, but the NARRATIVE ITSELF also emphasizes all of the ways that Leia is like the ORGANAS and the ways that Leia CHOOSES to be like the Organas. And the things that Leia is inheriting from the Organas can sometimes be the same things that Obi-Wan is seeing as similar to Anakin and Padme, and that's okay! That's normal! Obi-Wan is going through a lot of emotional healing about what he's lost and what Leia represents to him and a lot of that has to deal with Anakin and Padme, so it makes sense that that's how he's seeing her. But Leia is going on her OWN journey regarding her birth family she's never known and by the end of the story, she chooses the Organas. Obi-Wan gives her several traits that he tells her she's inherited from Anakin and Padme, but she then looks to the Organas and tells him that she doesn't really need to know about them and, if you look at those traits again you can tell that they're clearly deliberately chosen to be equally as applicable to Bail and Breha (if not more MORE applicable to Bail and Breha) as they are to Anakin and Padme. Leia is letting go of any need to connect to her birth parents because she has two parents that chose her and that she is choosing back, and that's what matters to her. It's such a beautifully subtle moment.

I've often pointed out that Bail Organa is not without his own moments of passion and even anger and frustration. He snaps at a fellow Senator in AOTC, and if you want to take Disney canon into consideration, he BARELY holds himself in check when speaking to an in-law about a political issue they disagree on. Breha also tells him in the show after Leia reads her cousin for filth that that's a trait she picked up FROM BAIL. Bail also calls out Obi-Wan when he's trying to convince Obi-Wan to go save Leia. The man is the EPITOME of still waters run deep, there's SO MUCH passion and emotion going on inside of him that he's had to learn to keep tightly wrapped up in order to do his work as a Senator and later his work as a leader of a rebellion. And THAT'S what Leia learns to emulate because she also has so much emotion and passion and anger and frustration and has to learn how to hold it together when she needs to. The few moments we see her lashing out a little are almost entirely with people she already trusts and in situations where she doesn't have to be a picture perfect leader and it's not even real anger but more of just some irritation or frustration at worst.

This is NEVER a trait we see with Anakin. Anakin often tends to just bottle his shit up and seethe until it all comes exploding out in a massively destructive way. And Anakin's passions are so rarely particularly selfless or compassionate or about anyone other than himself, either. Leia's anger, what little exists of it, never ever reminds me of Anakin. But it DOES remind me a lot of Bail.

We know very very little about Breha outside of extended universe stuff, and a lot of it can be very contradictory because there's so little of her in the films that everyone who writes her just takes her in a completely new direction. But if we take the Kenobi show into account again as the only time in a more mainstream piece of media that we've gotten to know Breha and see her relationship with Leia, there's definitely some interesting stuff to analyze. Breha is represented as a GROUNDING presence for both Bail and Leia. It's not that she feels any less passionately than either of them, she's just very very good at holding it together and putting on the right act with the right people so that they never know what she's really thinking. She's fully committed to the idea of the rebellion and fighting back against evil and all of those things, but she knows her role and what it requires of her and how to play it to perfection and THAT'S what she's passing on to Leia. If Leia learns passion from Bail, she learns discipline from Breha. Bail encapsulates all of the morals and goals that Leia takes on, but Breha is the one who shows her how to do it and succeed at it without losing who she is. She can be an Organa without losing what makes her LEIA, but that is a choice that Leia has to make for herself and that no one else can make for her.

I don't genuinely think Leia HAS a lot of inherited qualities from Anakin and Padme. I don't really believe in nature over nurture. I think that the only thing you can genuinely say Leia inherited from her biological parents are her looks and her Force sensitivity. The rest of it are things that maybe are similar to Anakin and Padme, but that are equally as similar if not MORE similar to Bail and Breha.

Bail and Breha were such incredible role models for Leia, especially knowing exactly who and what she was. Much like the Jedi were to the Republic, Bail and Breha were able to be representations of an ideal to achieve for Leia. They modeled all of the very best qualities so that Leia could emulate them and become the best version of herself it was possible to be. I don't personally believe Leia was struggling with darkness at any point during the Original trilogy, and I think that's because of the Organas and everything that they taught her. Leia was not sheltered the way Luke was, she knew exactly what her parents were fighting and the secrets they were having to keep and, if she wanted to help them, she had to learn to fight the same battles and keep the same secrets. Leia would've had to learn how to face her own fears and anger and pain and darkness and let it go and control it much earlier on, so by the time we get to meet her, that kind of thing is easy.

The thing I do think Leia struggled with was figuring out how to BALANCE her own needs and desires with the needs of the rebellion and her cause. And i don't think that this is a result of Bail and Breha not LETTING her balance it or pushing her into responsibility too soon or just failing to teach it to her, but more of a result of LOSING her entire support system at once right at the beginning of the story, and all she has left of her family and her home is the cause they fought for and she throws herself into it. I think that this struggle is, in part, a narrative about Leia's GRIEF (this is a personal headcanon and not something the story itself ever gives us, just to be clear).

Leia is duty-driven, but I imagine she was more able to have a balance in her life when Bail was still running the rebellion and she still had the ability to ask Bail and Breha for help when she needed it and she could go home and relax sometimes. But once Alderaan is destroyed, she has no home to go back to, no one to ask for help, and everyone is now looking to her to fill in the void that her father once filled. And so of course she struggles with letting go of that in order to focus on any romantic feelings she might have for Han, of course she feels like that's the lowest possible priority right now and not something she can afford to add to her list of obligations. It's not until she's forced away from all of that, separated from the rebellion and its fate, that she has no other option but to think about those feelings and allow herself to act on them. For the first time in two or three years, she's willing to let herself act a little selfishly and carve out a little happiness for herself. She's finally able to let go of some of the pain she's been holding on to and accept that just because Bail, Breha, and Alderaan are gone doesn't mean she can't still have a home or a family.

Anyway, I LOVE talking about Leia and her real parents! This post is the one that got really popular instead of some of the ones where I talk more about Bail and Breha, but I promise this is actually a bit of an anomaly and I normally don't tend to compare Leia to her biological parents all that much!

People are SLEEPING on the most interesting Leia & Padme comparisons because there's so much focus on Leia being "like Anakin" because she gets annoyed sometimes and Padme being this perfect moral beacon of truth and justice despite all of her very canonical lies and cover-ups and obstructing of justice.

If Luke is the Jedi that Anakin should've been, then Leia is the LEADER that Padme should've been.

Padme is a hypocrite, proclaiming that all people deserve basic decency and the right to safety, but at the same time allowing Anakin to get away with a mass murder with no consequences by covering it up.

Leia doesn't even let Han get away with being a little bit of an asshole, there's no way she'd let him get away with mass murder. She holds everyone around her to a higher standard, believing in the best of them but also but refusing to accept excuses for cowardice and selfishness.

Padme talks so much about wanting the war to end, but then allows one of the opposition's biggest generals go free just to get Anakin back because she cares about him, causing the war to continue to go on for even longer.

Leia lets Luke sacrifice himself because she knows it's possibly the only way they might have a victory and beat the Empire, even though she knows what he is to her and loves him. She knows what has to be done and respects the choice Luke is making and would never condemn their efforts just to keep him with her.

Padme's story parallels Anakin's, she devolves as the narrative goes on, until she's barely a shell of the person she used to be. That strength and moral clarity she showed as a Queen is entirely gone, leaving only a scared woman pleading with a murderer to come back to her.

Leia's story parallels Luke's, she gains more and more strength and clarity as the narrative moves forward. The bossy young woman we first met has become a confident rebel leader who knows she doesn't have to harden her heart to be strong.

[tossawary]

I have about 10k of fic that's about as far from SVSSS as I've ever written, taking greater inspiration from fics I've written before, which I've been using as writing warm-up. It's a pre-canon third transmigrator AU from the outsider's perspective of Linguang-Jun. (Linguang-Jun having a great reputation as a hunter is something that I originally came up with for the Stardust AU.)

Like SVSSS Mobei-Jun, Linguang-Jun is fun to write because he sucks pretty bad; it's a LOT of fun to try and write a setup for him that's going to explode eventually (not yet, but eventually, inevitably) and in a specific way. How many parallels can I draw? I think it's amusing to think about how the cringefail ballad of Moshang and all the rest of SVSSS is taking place in the crater where Linguang-Jun's dreams used to be. (That happened to my buddy Tianlang-Jun, too, now that I'm thinking about it, and he decided to make that everyone else's problem.) Such is the life of a mere background character!

I don't know when I'll be posting this to AO3. I don't like to post WIP there unless I can fully focus on them. If I don't continue this story, I'll post it eventually to AO3 as an open-ended one-shot or something. But for now... Enjoy!

Warning for minor character death and graphic violence (and vomiting) in the first part, and also unpleasant demonic attitudes to things. Everyone but Linguang-Jun is an OC.

Chapter One: A God's Spear

There is no greater feeling in the world than the long thrill of the hunt. 

Chasing their prey, they become the laughing winds rushing across the yellow steppes, howling at the heels of the thundering herds, even felling centuries-old pines that have bent for every natural storm but never broken before. They send corpse after corpse of scavengers squawking and flailing for their lives. 

Mobei Yang cannot wait to sink his teeth into the monster wrecking its way across the northern kingdoms. They are chasing a Giant Sea Heron... or rather: the creature that used to be one before it met a hole in the world. Did it breathe the poisonous gases too deeply? Did it feed on the vent's escapees too hungrily? Did it become mesmerized by the shimmering chaotic energy and allow itself to dream where reality itself is torn apart? 

Who knows? Who cares? Mobei Yang's lordly brother doubtlessly hadn't cared to ask the babbling messenger either, before waving the lesser demon on to younger men who can truly appreciate the unique challenges of what an unstable Abyssal gateway can create. 

Already two times the height of a large man, the creature has swelled in size to become twice as large as that. Its brown neck has thickened, its dark head has grown a sharp and lopsided crest, and its unnaturally elongated beak is now the same size as the rest of its body, perhaps, a god's spear capable of swallowing grown demons whole. The giant creature needs its folded, white wings to walk along the ground now, almost like a large monkey or a small bat, but it struts slowly along not unlike a long-necked antelope. 

All the Giant Sea Heron does now is eat: struggling to grow, struggling to sustain its growth, struggling to fill the endless hole that's crawled inside of its core. It has left a bloody, dissatisfied trail behind it. Which the breathless messenger claimed had started with its own former mate and eggs, the messy remains found abandoned in a nest on a high sea cliff. 

The giant creature looks so heavy, lumbering awkwardly around the corpse of a Black-Moon Rhinoceros - the crescent of the horn is unmistakable - to jab its long spear back into the dark guts and yank it apart. Ah, it's picking one of those parasitic snake demons out of the body. 

Its eyes have become enormous, bulbous; they have a sickly pale color and are rimmed with mucus. Abyss-touched creatures are often sick, like Abyssal creatures themselves are often blinded by sunlight. The giant creature doesn't seem to notice anything as a brown fox darts out of the tall grass and steals a piece of the kill that had been tossed aside, nor does it care anything for the circling black vultures that aren't yet nearly so brave. 

Just looking at it, one wouldn't think that the elephantine creature is still hollow-boned enough to fly! Yet when their hunting party ambushes it, the giant creature somehow vaults itself into the sky, folding hideously in on itself and then launching upwards in an ascension even more unnatural than a human's. 

Mobei Yang watches its heavy wingbeats take it high up into the heavenly clouds, beyond the easy reach of most demons. All of their hunting prowess, all of the joy they have spilled on their skill, leaves them with nothing today. But this is nothing! When his faithful followers look anxiously towards him for direction, Mobei Yang is the first to laugh at their failure, at the renewed challenge, and they soon echo him. 

"Any excuse to extend a hunt is a cause for celebration!" Mobei Yang shouts, receiving a gleeful roar in response. "If you want a meal that doesn't fight back, then go back to the Ice Palace, cowards!" 

They don't find it again that day, but the mood is still good when they make camp, freed from the dullness of the courts. At home, Mobei Yang is a prince, sought after and respected, but also one among many formidable clan members working to keep his elder brother's favor. On the hunt like this, he might as well be the Lord of the Northern Desert already. 

The wind picks up as the sun sinks. The clouds darken and writhe against a beautiful, burning sky. Shuang Tao, his right-hand, a frost wind demon, loudly and laughingly recalls some of their best kills, their most daring and reckless feats, over the years. A blur of memories now. 

Mobei Yang knows a great deal about the habits of hunted creatures, but this one is new, even before it became the only thing in the world like it. Weak-minded creatures and demons touched by the Endless Abyss tend to go uselessly mad: short memories and shorter tempers and a thin grasp on reality if any. He's hunted Emperors of the Abyss before, those malformed masses of demonic energy that die with every step they take out of their pits, and White Sea Whales, their clever and vindictive cousins that never took man-shaped forms. 

"I'm preparing myself for disappointment, really," Mobei Yang drawls, accepting a new cup of wine. "But ahhh, that skull will look beautiful in the West Wind Palace... hanging over the hall, I think." 

As they were watching the ruined creature, it must have seen them. It must have been watching them as well. In one moment, Shuang Tao is toasting the evening and tomorrow and every hunt after. In the next moment, the setting sun vanishes all at once, as the Giant Sea Heron falls on them like the wrath of the heavens. 

Its enormous beak spears through a demon before it lands with a heavy thump, before any of them know it's there, and a second demon rolls away from the continuing jab. Not fast enough to escape the sharp drawing of blood. 

The Giant Sea Heron's massive wings crash through the camp as it lands. Mobei Yang is knocked head over heels into the grass and dust. His wine spills everywhere. 

Mobei Yang rolls with the blow and recovers quickly, unharmed, of course. And he is the first to summon his weapon and strike back, hastily followed by his hunters, but the creature is well-fed, unflinching, faster than something of its size should be, lunging like a snake. 

Its spiritual energy is unleashed with its battering wings: it's foul, rotting, almost overwhelming. Ice spears and arrows don't seem to pierce its feathers at all. Hastily formed spells break easily against the burn of its spiritual strength.

Shuang Tao throws an ordinary spear, whistling with the wind behind it, and manages to draw blood from its featherless  leg. But the wound is glancing, a shallow cut in surprisingly thick skin. 

"Mire it!" Mobei Yang shouts, summoning ice around its feet. The ice is too weak, too slow, cracking open immediately. 

He dodges its long beak, its heavy wings, its beak again. It seems fixated on him more than the others - not uncommon when dealing with spiritually starving creatures, it wants the most meal - but it still gets distracted when another hunter tries to rope its wing. It pulls on the wing up sharply, pulls the unready hunter into the air, and then spears the weak demon through with its long beak. 

It's much cleverer than Mobei Yang thought that it was. Much stronger. Not clever enough to live, but still annoying, still thrilling, still enough to bare one's teeth. 

Mobei Yang dances towards Shuang Tao's fallen spear, flips it up with his foot, catches, and then launches it towards the creature's swirling eye. 

His aim is true! Of course! The Giant Sea Heron screeches and thrashes like a dying thing, but the spear clearly doesn't punch deeply enough to hit its brain. The spear falls out in the thrashing. Messily. 

The remaining ten hunters have formed a circle around the Giant Sea Heron, ready just out of easy reach, making it more difficult to kill them all quickly. One of the other hunters makes a second spear-throw for the other eye, not nearly so beautifully. The creature ducks blindness easily and screeches. Its raised feathers crackle with resentful energy. 

Mobei Yang can see it decide to flee. Maybe they're much stronger and cleverer than the creature thought they were too. 

The Giant Sea Heron goes down and tries to launch itself upwards, only to go nowhere, to stumble, to barely keep itself upright. The summoned ice they've been throwing at its feet has easily been cracked and crushed, but the water remains, and it has been skillfully manipulated by the likes of Heng Leyang and Xi Mingzhu. 

The water demons have made a mud pit and the Giant Sea Heron's thrashing has only sunk it deeper into the trap. The half-frozen mud is harder to break. 

The creature's rotten energy rises, bubbles, and then it screeches again, disorienting in its sheer loudness, its hatred and desperation rippling through the air. Most of the hunters cover their ears and it helps very little. The unnatural sound shakes through one's entire body. The first terrible screech is still rippling through the world when the next begins. 

Such venting of power can't be sustainable, but the unnatural screeching makes the battle wretched while it lasts. 

Mobei Yang becomes the black wind around the spearing beak, then twists away to attack this ruined creature, repeatedly. But shifting forms burns under the onslaught of spiritual energy. The hatefulness of it even disrupts him once, forcing him to become solid flesh again, and dodge as an ordinary demon might to avoid a raking of freed talons. 

It's hard work keeping the creature down, baiting it this way and that, keeping out of its deadly reach. They pick and they peck, but none of them are certain how to put this Giant Sea Heron down. The Endless Abyss has made a remarkable ruin here. 

Shuang Tao's young nephew, Shuang Qiang, keeps looking towards Mobei Yang with wide, expectant eyes. This is the young frost wind demon's first hunt with this royal party. Does he expect a retreat to be called here? Does he think that the spoiled, weaker, younger prince will go running back to his lordly brother now, swallowing his pride, begging for help? Mobei Yang has never surrendered in such a way and never will while he lives. 

If a creature can bleed, it can die. Through the ruined eye again might do it... 

Mobei Yang isn't certain how long it's been when a new hunting party appears, but the dying sun hasn't fully drowned yet. They must be local demons, summoned by the screeching or the spiritual rot. 

"They'll get in our way! Keep them back!" Mobei Yang snarls at Shuang Tao, who nods and turns to his nephew. 

He doesn't need assistance. Ordinarily, he might appreciate an audience, but this battle is slipping from fascinating to frustrating. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Mobei Yang tracks young Shuang Qiang's progress. The leader of the newcomers, a rock demon by the look of him, greets their messenger with an ally's gesture. Rather than charge in recklessly, they keep their distance atop the hill. 

Most of them. 

While trying to keep the Giant Sea Heron's feet frozen down, Mobei Yang sees a smaller figure break forward from the new hunting party. Shuang Qiang lunges to catch them and... misses? He shouldn't have missed. The figure running forward obviously isn't as fast or as nimble as Shuang Tao's nephew. 

One of the Hao brothers notices and also tries to grab the intruder, his hand should easily wrap around their spear, and yet... he also somehow fails. An illusion wind demon is fast and not easily fooled, but the Hao brother stumbles as though his hand didn't touch anything at all. 

Shuang Tao lurches to intervene and Mobei Yang whips an ice spear in front of his second's middle. "Wait," he orders, "I want to see this." 

The Giant Sea Heron fixes the approaching figure in its one eye and then spears its enormous beak forward. It should split the intruder, crush them. The enormous creature is faster than this fool. 

The intruder disappears. Mobei Yang isn't sure what happens. The figure's own shadow seemed to leap up to swallow them, or they fell down into it, and the blood-stained beak spears down on nothing. There was no noticeable burst of new spiritual energy. Nothing that could be sensed above the Giant Sea Heron's rotting wrath, at least. 

The Giant Sea Heron tilts its head in obvious confusion. It screeches its unhappiness again, much to everyone else's misery, before... the ruined creature jolts and abruptly cuts itself off. 

"How...?" Shuang Tao says. "On its back?" 

"What terrible posture," Mobei Yang remarks, too surprised to put the proper dryness into it. 

The disappearing intruder has somehow reappeared on the giant creature's back, struggling for balance. Despite their slowness, despite their obvious lack of strength, the shadowy figure somehow manages to drive their spear through the creature's long, feathered neck in a single thrust. Mobei Yang sees the spear tip come out the other side. 

The Giant Sea Heron thrashes wildly to dislodge its attacker. When it tries to screech again, the high shriek quickly dies off into a gurgle of dark blood. 

At first, the disappearing intruder clings to their spear like a tied rag, but they fall off within seconds and then vanish again. 

Where they go, Mobei Yang doesn't care. While the giant creature is distracted, he becomes the black wind again and rushes forward to take their place, to put solid hands on the embedded spear, then to push all of the wrath of a noble ice demon into this critical weak point. 

The ruined creature's neck explodes in a shower of ice, spiritual energy, blood, and no small amount of feathers. The severed head hits the ground with a heavy thump before the body finally topples over in an ungainly heap of wings. 

Mobei Yang rides the collapse down easily. Then he jumps off the body, still holding half of the broken spear in his hand, and looks the weapon over. The shaft is ordinary wood. As he felt when he pushed his spiritual energy into it, the spearhead at his foot appears to be without spell or even decoration. This spear should not have been able to pierce such a creature's throat with such singular ease. 

Some of his hunters are whooping with victory, with relief, but Mobei Yang is distracted away from their celebration of him by a stranger stepping audaciously in front of him. A... teenage boy? 

This demon is a full head shorter than Mobei Yang, which puts them at a taller than average height among most other demons, and their pale face seems young. They're plump like a seal, with large, dark eyes. They have no painted marks or tattoos. Their dark hair is cut shockingly short, close to their head, just long enough to flop over furrowed brows. 

Instead of paying the rightful attention and respect to a prince, the boy is frowning at the broken spear, and first crouches down to pick up the spearhead. Like Mobei Yang, the boy is wearing a fair amount of spilled blood. He must have been close. 

The boy stands up again and looks up with those big, seal-dark eyes. "Hurt?" 

Mobei Yang doesn't understand the word at first, so poorly pronounced, so heavily accented. The boy squints at him, looks him up and down. 

"H-help?" 

As though Mobei Yang didn't just kill the creature that this boy failed to finish. The boy's eyes are already drifting disrespectfully away to one of the dead hunters, partially crushed in the battle, a gruesome but unsurprising sight. Such is life, as they say, such is death. 

One would think so, at least, except that this boy's face turns sickly and he looks hastily away. His body jerks, a hand goes over his mouth, he jerks again, pauses, and then turns away from Mobei Yang completely to vomit on the ground. 

It's not often that Mobei Yang finds himself at a loss for words. The overwhelmed awe that he often inspires in lesser demons usually doesn't realize itself so unintelligibly or pathetically as this. 

"Please, do contain your excitement," Mobei Yang says. 

The boy squints up at him, teary-eyed, only to immediately start gagging again. He holds out a hand, apparently trying to cover up the offending sights. 

"How dare you behave so disrespectfully before a prince!" says one of the nearby hunters, Junjun, a mountain wind demon. "Don't you know who this is?!" 

The boy flinches away from this looming defense, staring warily up at Junjun without any sign of understanding. 

"I don't think he does," Mobei Yang says dryly. 

Unfortunately, Junjun takes this as introductions being in order. "This is the greatest hunter in the Demon Realm! A prince of the ancient rulers of the northern kingdoms, the Northern Desert Clan! The only living brother of the great Mobei-Jun! Linguang-Jun!" 

"Yes, yes, thank you." 

The boy looks between them, turning the spearhead over in his hands again and again, hunching his shoulders. "Sorry," he says, bowing slightly, once to Mobei Yang and twice to Junjun, all equally shallow. "Sorry. Sorry." 

And then, further proving his lack of understanding, the boy turns on his heel and runs away. It's so shamelessly cowardly that Mobei Yang laughs. 

"Stop him!" Mobei Yang calls out to the hunter ahead. "If you can." 

It's one of the Hao brothers, his expression immediately determined. Expecting slippery prey, the hunter should have little trouble; they're all used to disrupting disappearing tricks with their own spiritual energy, all of them practiced at wrestling opponents back into solid forms. 

Mobei Yang is surprised again when the flinching boy slips into his own shadow and then appears on the hunter's other side. 

The Hao brother is enraged, of course, which is at least amusing. The hunter roars and chases after the slow boy, who stumbles, looking over his shoulder with wide eyes, and then vanishes again. The boy reappears and disappears a few times on his way back up the hill. The Hao brother catches him once, only for the boy to apparently melt away in the hunter's hands, despite an obvious attempt to use spiritual energy to disrupt the escape. 

"Enough of that!" Mobei Yang decides, when the comedic pair are too close to the other hunting party. "Stop playing with your prey and come back here!" 

The Hao brother stomps back to join the other surviving hunters, gathering behind Mobei Yang. The newcomers whom Shuang Tao is escorting forward hardly seem fearsome, but appearances do matter. Mobei Yang looks best when he looks better than someone else. 

The boy skirts wide around Shuang Tao and dives back into the party of newcomers, which... doesn't seem to welcome him back with any enthusiasm. Like larger beasts dutifully making way for some tiny but venomous creature. The boy lurks behind the rock demon leader, peeking out warily, like a plump little seal sticking its snout of the ice. 

The rock demon leader is a large fellow, a little taller than Mobei Yang himself, fat and strong. Far more grim than handsome. A stone that ice could crack open without much difficulty, Mobei Yang is sure. 

"Greetings and welcome, Linguang-Jun," rumbles the rock demon. 

"This is Bocheng, the next clan leader of the Flying Mountain Clan," Shuang Tao offers. "Sworn to the Northern Desert Clan, of course, and at our service." 

Bocheng the rock demon appears less than pleased by his required obeisance, but Mobei Yang doesn't care much if some backwater warrior hates the fact that he has a king. So long as all due respect is shown to the future Mobei-Jun. 

"And who is that?" Mobei Yang gestures vaguely behind the rock demon. 

Shan Bocheng the rock demon's frown deepens. Some of the others step plainly away from their leader and the coward, so unwilling to shelter the boy from their superiors, even though demon children are supposedly all precious creatures. Sighing, the rock demon pulls the boy up beside him. His massive hand spreads across the mulish boy's back and touches those hunched shoulders with no trouble. 

"You introduced yourself to my hunting party so audaciously before," Mobei Yang observes. "You truly do have trouble finishing a job, hm?" 

The boy looks around miserably. It's like watching some pitiful sea creature try to crawl back inside its shell. 

"He wants to know your name," Bocheng says to the boy, with the slowness that one might offer to a particularly stupid baby. "Name. Naaaaame." 

Mobei Yang can see the way that the boy's eyes light up, before he bows again, deeper this time, and stays there. 

"Beida Wan," he says. "Sorry. I... sorry. Sorry." 

"That's a rather long name. So unique. Not very lucky, though," Mobei Yang says. Shuang Tao laughs, while some of the other hunters chuckle. 

"Sorry," the boy says again. "I... help." 

Bocheng the rock demon sighs again. The mauling of each word suggests another language, but none of these other clan members are stepping forward to offer their translation services. 

"Does he not speak Tongyu or Beiyu?" Mobei Yang can also follow the whispered conversation between two of the newly come wind demons, but there's no need to enlighten them of that yet. 

"No, we don't know what language he speaks," the rock demon says. "We don't know where he's from." 

"He just appeared one day and now he won't leave," complains a young water demon. "Because he saved Bocheng's life somehow, more or less, we can't just-" 

"Yubo, shut up," says the rock demon. 

"He really didn't know who he was interrupting," the young water demon insists. "Still doesn't. Stupid." 

"Let's hear this mysterious mother tongue," Mobei Yang decides. "Perhaps I or one of my faithful followers, worldly warriors that we are, will recognize a few words of it. Say something, boy." 

When everyone turns their eyes onto him again, the boy once more tries to shrink into a shell that isn't there. It takes some more prodding from the rock demon to get the confused, then annoyed boy to produce more than one word at a time. 

"Whadda fuckayou wan' fro'me?" 

Mobei Yang looks at Shuang Tao, who shrugs unhelpfully, and none of his other hunters step forward. There are many isolated languages and wretched dialects across the Demon Realm alone, but Mobei Yang doesn't even recognize the general sound of this one. It's very flat. 

"You must be a very long way from home," Mobei Yang says finally. 

The boy doesn't answer. He doesn't seem to understand the statement at all, squinting helplessly before taking shelter again behind the rock demon. 

Mobei Yang is distracted then by more conventional affairs. The locals had apparently been watching this destructive creature and had been preparing to kill it themselves, and so now must at least pretend to be grateful that their superiors arrived to defend them. Tradition and respect also demand that these lowly demons make an offer of hospitality. 

Some of his hunters are injured, two are dead, so arrangements must be made. Mobei Yang graciously accepts the hospitality outwardly, while inwardly accepting that there will be some trouble from his mother's family for even briefly associating with one of their many rivals, which is exactly what he'd wished to avoid when they set up their now-ruined camp instead of seeking shelter. Perhaps if he does his hosts sufficient damage during his stay, subtly of course, the familial moaning and groaning will be minimal. 

While Shuang Tao negotiates with the locals regarding the Giant Sea Heron's curse, Mobei Yang studies the intruder again. The Beida boy is staring at the sky, occasionally swallowing retching. He's been staying close to the rock demon like a little fly. How does someone with such obviously poor cultivation have such remarkable abilities? 

In his mysterious language, the boy mumbles to no one: "Didwe jus' killa fuckin' pterosaur...?" Utterly unintelligible. 

Beida Wan is cultivated enough that he eventually notices Mobei Yang watching him. He stares back, at first, his brow furrowed, and then shuffles to hide behind their shared host again. 

Chapter Two: The Wind Demoness 

That night, under the silver moonlight, Mobei Yang has his heart suddenly and ruthlessly stolen from him. 

The Flying Mountain Clan's fortress is built on and into a tall hill, the foundational stonework not unimpressive, presumably the work of several generations of rock demons. Of the many villagers still awake to greet them, Mobei Yang takes note of the mixture of rock and wind, with some noticeable brides of ice or water, some less distinguishable types, and some here and there of the animal kinds. It's all very rustic and quaint. Very homely. 

Mobei Yang is being led to the crown of the fortress in the hill, where rests the clan leader's home and his temporary accommodations. Most of his other hunters will be scattered around the other better residences in this place. 

"Oh, when we heard that monstrous screeching, I didn't dare to dream that your hunting would bring back such a handsome trophy. You are most welcome to our humble home, Linguang-Jun!" 

Mobei Yang looks away from a weathered stone carving of rampaging Red River Horses and up to the speaker standing on a stone ledge. His breath abandons him, as though plucked out of his lungs by fine and clever fingers, as though beaten from his chest in a single, mighty blow, and his unguarded heart is carried out along with it. Looking down upon him, veiled in moonlight, is perhaps the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Peerless. 

He is not, let it be said clearly, a stranger to beautiful women. This demoness is tall, broad-shouldered, and her pale skin glows like untouched snow under the moonlight. Her finely beaded dress glitters faintly as she moves and bares most of her stunningly long legs, which have all the hardness and thickness of a powerful runner, the pride of any wind demon. She's wearing long, complicated braids in richly black hair. With a smile of such pretty fangs, she should be wearing pearls and jewels, instead of merely metal bells and ivory. Her pale gray eyes glow nearly as bright as the moon behind her. 

"We have not had a noble demon lord grace us with his presence in too long! If only I had been given time to prepare for you, Linguang-Jun... Days! A month! A year! We can only hope to meet some of your princely expectations..." 

"All of my expectations when it comes to enjoying my stay have already been effortlessly succeeded," Mobei Yang promises.  

This demoness's indulgent laugh is like the sweetest of songs. He desperately wishes that he wasn't covered in both dust and dried blood for such a fortuitous meeting. Fate can be so cruel. 

"My only disappointment is that we haven't met before," Mobei Yang continues. "Oh calamity, have you been busy battling the heavens for daring to outshine them?" 

"No, for they must be arguing over who among them has to face you in battle, Linguang-Jun, for such a wicked tongue," the laughing demoness answers, her smile wolfish in its wideness. "But the little human gods are welcome to come when they are ready." 

"What handsome trophies that hunt would make," Mobei Yang agrees. "Far more worthy of such a wonderful hostess... whose generosity may also, I hope, extend to her name...?" 

"Xiang Ningyue, the only child of Clan Leader Xiang Peng." 

Before Mobei Yang can remark that her mother must have been the moon itself, that grim-faced rock demon steps forward, pulling that strange, stumbling boy ahead of him again. It's understandable that the local demons wouldn't enjoy seeing their greatest beauty be so appreciated, but the interruption is nevertheless annoying. 

"Wife," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon. "Beida Wan needs to be washed. I'll see you it that our honored guests are given baths as well." 

Mobei Yang closes his mouth. 

Wife? Wife?! 

Xiang Ningyue, the most beautiful woman in the world, lets out a soft moan when she sees the boy covered in blood. "Oh, what did you do to yourself now?" 

Beida Wan frowns up at her and predictably says nothing, still trying to fold himself away into the protective shell that he doesn't have. When Xiang Ningyue sighs and gestures for him to come closer, he shuffles forward without any apparent appreciation for the privilege. 

"You're not coming back into our home looking like this! How am I supposed to-? Oh, fine! Fine!" 

Xiang Ningyue apologizes sweetly to them for this, before throwing out an impressive array of orders towards her husband, their servants, her clansmen, and her clansmen's own servants, as confident and as impatient as a whirlwind. Mobei Yang is still mildly stunned and nauseated when she drags the strange boy off. 

"...If I had such a wife, I wouldn't dare introduce her to any higher demon," Mobei Yang murmurs to Shuang Tao, who snorts in agreement. 

"She seems very willing to be stolen." 

"Mmm, clearly this pile of rocks is a little more interesting than previously known." 

A cold bath is most refreshing, even if the following meals are hasty and unbefitting of their stations: some lamb and vegetable stew, which is at least well-spiced. The accompanying wine is tolerable. 

While eating, Mobei Yang and his attending hunters suffer through a long and dull conversation with the elderly wind demon clan leader, the beautiful Xiang Ningyue's father, and Shan Bocheng, who is apparently the clan leader's most fortunate son-in-law. Mobei Yang wants the Giant Sea Heron's head for himself, that marvelously misshapen skull with its god's spear of a beak will look good mounted somewhere, but he doesn't much care what the locals do with the rest of the monster's awkward corpse. 

Xiang Ningyue rejoins them at this point, with the Beida boy slinking in behind her. The Beida boy's new clothes are less plain than before, but still oversized, now obviously borrowed, beaded and embroidered with the vibrant greens, yellows, and blues that this clan seems to favor. Very modest. The short, wet hair ruins any chance of dignity, sticking out at odd angles like an overgrown tuft of grass, partially covering the boy's eyes. 

Beida Wan is sat in the corner of the room with a bowl of stew, which he eats silently and slowly. Mobei Yang has relatives who have been poisoned who regard their meals with less disgruntled suspicion, and he says as much to the beautiful Xiang Ningyue, who laughs in her delightful manner once more. 

Xiang Ningyue's rock demon husband's glaring misery is quite delightful too, while his guests strive to make his beautiful wife cackle and preen, and so Mobei Yang doesn't call for the strange boy to be brought over to sit with them. He forgets Beida Wan almost entirely, until the boy becomes relevant in his retelling of their Giant Sea Heron hunt. 

"Trying to steal a kill from Linguang-Jun!" Xiang Ningyue laughs. "If I didn't already know that our dear guest Beida Wan is stupid, that would make it clear! How insulting! To think that you would need any help from someone like them..." 

"I can generously forgive our glorious battle being cut short if it brought me to such wonderful company all the sooner," Mobei Yang promises. 

When he looks over one or Xiang Ningyue's fine, broad shoulders, he sees that the strange demon in question is watching everyone very intently. Perhaps Beida Wan heard his name, obviously listening, head tilted shamelessly. 

"Perhaps a little more strength behind that killing blow next time, hm?!" Mobei Yang calls across the room. 

Beside him, Shuang Tao cackles drunkenly, and his other present hunters laugh and toast the stupidity and audacity of youth. The present locals join in. Except for Bocheng the rock demon, of course, though he doesn't move to defend the little fly that was clinging to him earlier. 

Beida Wan looks around at all of them, black-faced, even though there is an embarassing red flush crawling up his face. When he finally comes back to meet Mobei Yang's gaze, he bobs his head, neither quite a nod or a bow, and then stares determinedly at the floor, picking clawlessly at the beads of his trousers.

Xiang Ningyue sighs dramatically. "We've been trying to teach Beida to speak some Tongyu these past few weeks, but it's hard work! The only thing that's flatter and more useless than this demon's ears is their tongue..."  

"Does anyone in your clan have a map that this stranger can at least point at?" Shuang Tao leans forward to ask. "Or does he not know his homeland's geography?" 

Xiang Ningyue sighs even more dramatically. "He just stares at it for far, far too long and says, 'No.' Sometimes, he even shrugs!" 

"Does he perhaps... not want to go home, do you think?" Mobei Yang asks. "A remarkably slow runaway? A rather unfortunate fortune-seeker?" 

"Can he read Tongyu?" Shuang Tao asks. 

"I don't know why Beida would have run away from home, because this demon was clearly spoiled!" Xiang Ningyue complains. "No, they can't read any Tongyu either. They just scribble ugly nonsense characters into the dirt. They claim to be twenty-five years old, if you can believe it! But they're even more useless than a child when it comes to most things!" 

"Claims to be twenty-five?" Shuang Tao presses. "Does he know numbers or is he just counting tallies in the dirt?" 

"Beida can count up to ten using real numbers now," Xiang Ningyue explains, with a nod towards the latter option. "But laundry? Spinning, weaving, building, carving, braiding, cooking... They're such a picky eater, you wouldn't believe it! All useless! So useless! " 

Mobei Yang doesn't do many of those things either, but he can at least feed himself. "You're as generous as you are lovely to have taken such a useless demon into your household," he promises. 

"I know!" 

"Truly magnanimous." 

"At least they're an obedient learner," Xiang Ningyue says, finishing her second cup of wine. "Beida can count on their fingers and make stupid gestures in a way that's almost clever... but it's hard to believe that they're supposed to be older than I am! This demon really should be dead!" 

"Wife," her husband says reproachfully. 

"Where did you find him?" Shuang Tao asks, ignoring the rock demon. 

Xiang Ningyue either can't keep a secret or there isn't one to be kept. "We think that they fell out of the Endless Abyss." 

"Beida can't explain anything yet," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon, as if trying to remind his loose-lipped wife of something. "We don't know anything." 

"The Endless Abyss," Mobei Yang repeats, rubbing his chin. "Well, he's not like any Emperor of the Abyss that I've ever seen spawned in those depths before. He's much too small." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles again, as does Shuang Tao, and Mobei Yang smiles and studies the stranger again. 

A powerful warrior might go into the Endless Abyss to test their own strength, to prove themselves, but Beida Wan is much too cowardly to be an adventurer. 

Weaker demons will seek out the more stable gates into that hellish realm, the openings the least likely to tear them apart, and seek treasure or rare ingredients. One does have to be clever and slippery to survive such expeditions. 

Abyssal openings, natural or summoned, often take victims who stray too close. Some are taken when the hole in the world reacts somehow to the spiritual energy of a living creature. Others get snagged and dragged through by lurking creatures, which often can't live long outside of the Endless Abyss, but are eager for easy prey. The Giant Sea Heron killed today is the least of what the Endless Abyss can do to the things that it swallows. 

Some who are taken by the Endless Abyss manage to break free again. But most weaker demons don't survive such places physically or mentally whole. Especially not picky eaters. 

Even Mobei Yang doesn't hunt often in the Endless Abyss. His expeditions there last no longer than a few days, typically, and only through the most stable guards, better armed and armored than he is now. The lack of sunlight may be reminiscent of northern winters, but the sheer heat of some areas can be atrocious. 

"I think that Beida used to be-" 

"Wife," the rock demon says again. 

"I think," Xiang Ningyue repeats louder than before, "that little Beida used to be human." 

"Human!" shouts Shuang Qiang, the nephew of Shuang Tao, now looking at Beida Wan as though the demon might be diseased. "That's a human?!" 

"Well, not anymore, clearly," Shuang Tao says dryly. His nephew looks alarmed by the prospect of transformation. 

"Calm down, it's not catching," Mobei Yang reminds the other demons. "I hope." He sets his drink down, as the flavor seems to have gone off. "...That thing isn't one of those dream demon puppets is it? One of those artificial demons?" 

"Wife," the rock demon groans. 

"Dream demons tend to sign their work," Shuang Tao muses. 

"Well, yes, they're all narcissistic, everyone knows that," Mobei Yang agrees. "The boy is covering quite a lot of skin..." 

"But what would be the point of pretending not to speak Tongyu? Any grandmother knows how to check for possession! At least most types of possession..." 

"Beida is not possessed," says the rock demon. "We checked. We don't know that Beida was ever human." 

"I do," Xiang Ningyue says loftily. "You just don't like that a human saved your life! She saved my husband, so I spend more time with Beida than anyone, and I'm telling you: no killing instinct! None!" 

"That seems against their efforts to interrupt our hunt," Mobei Yang says mildly. 

"Oh, Beida will kill if you make them, just like they'll help with the butchering, but they're not any good at it," Xiang Ningyue says, nodding. "They'll run in to help, but they don't fight." 

"What does that mean?" young Shuang Qiang asks. 

"Won't scratch at anyone!" Xiang Ningyue says, listing offenses off on her claws. "Won't even snarl! Won't hit! Won't even willingly take a hit!  Not for fun, not for position, not for pride. Beida will run away from any fight, every time, and it makes all the boys and girls so badly behaved." 

"I've never known any demon youth to be able to resist a soft target," Mobei Yang agrees. "Our storytelling hostess, do indulge us, how exactly did your clan find this strange demon?" 

Xiang Ningyue lights up. The story isn't complicated, but it is enthusiastically told by the wind demoness: their hunting party was attacked by an Abyss-touched Sword-Toothed Tiger and her husband was injured in the ambush. Their hunting party had been, for nearly a full day by that point, followed by a stranger who had eluded all attempts to catch them, Beida Wan. Shan Bocheng insists that this distraction was the only reason that the Sword-Toothed Tiger managed to surprise him. 

To everyone's surprise, the cowardly stranger had rushed in at the last moment to assist Shan Bocheng. "Beida somehow put a stick up through the creature's jaw and into its brain," Xiang Ningyue says with an illustrative jab. 

"Without injury?" Mobei Yang asks. Sword-Toothed Tigers generally didn't simply let one approach. 

"Without injury! Owing such a debt, we of course had to take in this poor thing in, especially because Beida followed us home anyway." Xiang Ningyue sighs and says begrudgingly, "Beida does try. A real servant's heart, this demon has." 

As the wind demoness describes nursing her husband back to full strength, her vivaciousness does... falter. Briefly. Her lip wobbles as she mentions how worried she was. She and the rock demon are, according to her, childhood sweethearts, born in the same month only twenty years ago, and there may be genuine fondness between the young couple. 

How annoying. Sunk in a comfortably pool of drunkenness, Mobei Yang falls asleep that night wondering how one might lure such a beautiful demoness away from her marriage and her clan. 

One cannot simply kidnap a woman on a whim. One has to plan these things. 

He's more powerful than some backwater rock demon, of course, far more handsome, and far richer. His lordly brother even gifted him the Northern Desert's magnificent West Wind Palace as soon as he came of age! He can cover Xiang Ningyue in as many real jewels and rare bones as she likes! And when his childless, elderly brother finally passes, Mobei Yang will inevitably inherit all of his ancestral strength and become Mobei-Jun himself, and his lucky wife will have all of the Northern Desert at her whims. 

He certainly wouldn't make his peerless queen share her home with some strange, lost creature who can't speak and won't even fight for themself, neither a servant nor a second spouse... Though, what else does one do when a life debt is owed to such a wretched demon? Too publically to honorably ignore? Mobei Yang falls asleep still wondering. 

Chapter Three: A Clever Trick

The land upon which the Flying Mountain Clan lives belongs to the Northern Desert Clan by conquest, so upon them, Mobei Yang and his hunters cannot impose. Mobei Yang takes advantage of this obligatory hospitality by declaring that they will linger in this fortress for several days, until all injuries are mended and all corpses are tended to. 

"We'll have a real feast tonight!" Xiang Ningyue declares, swirling in excitement, looking out over her little queendom. "With singing and playing for the great hunters! And dancing! There are no more beautiful dancers in all the world than wind demons!" 

"Oh? You know, I've seen many wind demon dances before," Mobei Yang replies. 

The blood of the Northern Desert Clan dominates, but his mother was from the Black Wind Clan and they play on that connecting string often, trying to get Mobei Yang to dance for them where they can. 

"It seems like every dancer of skill has been summoned to the Ice Palace over the years," Mobei Yang continues. His elder brother is very, very fond of dancers. "I think I've seen everything by now." 

Xiang Ningyue smiles with all of her teeth. "You haven't yet seen me," she promises shamelessly. 

Mobei Yang laughs. "I haven't seen anyone like you before," he agrees. "You're a calamity." 

Before he can decide whether or not to get closer, to risk being scratched, a familiar figure plants itself beside them. 

"Mistress Ningyue," Beida Wan says. 

Mobei Yang sighs. "I thought you said that this demon didn't enjoy tasks such as butchering prey? He makes such a mess of your lovely name." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles, her initial annoyance melting away. "I did say that Beida was bad at everything!" 

Beida Wan looks back and forth between them warily. Away from their hosts, Shuang Tao has suggested that the strange boy may be some kind of ridiculous spy, but even Mobei Yang's second can't seem to believe his own suggestion. 

With great effort, the boy says, "Cook... say... help. Mistress Ningyue help?" 

Mobei Yang wonders if the rock demon sent the boy as interference, given that the boy clearly doesn't know better than to get between his betters and their prey. 

"That nasty old cook did not say, 'Help,'" Xiang Ningyue says, but she seems amused. 

"Help," Beida Wan repeats firmly. "Help! Help!" The boy waves his hands back and forth slightly, a mockery of flailing panic. "Help, Mistress Ningyue, help!" 

Xiang Ningyue laughs again and Beida Wan understandably looks pleased with himself for provoking it. Mobei Yang feels surprised that the strange boy is capable of humor despite his handful of Tongyu words. His smile reveals slightly crooked front teeth and small canines. 

The smile fades as Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang again. "Ahhh..." 

"Ah, something to say to me as well?" 

"Master Bocheng say..." 

"Even repeating things is apparently too difficult," Xiang Ningyue complains. "So useless! A parrot would be a better messenger. And prettier."  

"Tr-trainer-ing," Beida Wan slurs out eventually. "Training. Lingu-Linguang-Jun." 

Mobei Yang bemusedly watches as the strange boy raises his fists, circling them slightly, in a poor fighting stance. It's vaguely reminiscent of a small child play-acting. Then Beida Wan shrugs, with those round cheeks flushed red again, and points down the hill. 

Mobei Yang follows the gesture to see a wide, dirt ring, where some of the local warriors are enthusiastically doing drills and eagerly beckoning some of his watching hunters forward. Such challenges to visitors are extremely common. And likely the only entertainment that Mobei Yang will be offered here until the promised feasting begins later. 

"Oh, we would be honored!" Xiang Ningyue exclaims, more elegantly. "Nothing interesting ever happens here! Some of our youths could stand to be made a little more worldly, Linguang-Jun, if your men would be willing to show us their strength." 

"I am your most gracious guest." 

If nothing else, Mobei Yang can show off for this peerless wind demoness, and perhaps even directly against her inadequate young husband. 

His hostess must excuse herself to the feast preparations, so Mobei Yang is escorted to the training ring by Beida Wan. Or so he assumes that is the strange demon's intention, as the boy steps back and makes a presumptuous beckoning gesture, repeating it often along the stairs and sloping roads downwards. 

It is the closest Mobei Yang has been to this stranger since the bloody death of that ruined creature. He cannot quite resist the urge to reach out and grab an arm. 

Beida Wan startles wildly, but as weakly as a child, before the boy then slips out between the fingers easily. Even with Mobei Yang making a mild spiritual effort to hold onto his prey. The boy simply dissolved like an illusion, with a faint shimmer in the air, before reforming a few skittering steps away. 

There is spiritual energy being used here, Mobei Yang confirms now that he can focus upon it. It's... slippery. Subtle. An insect landing in water: one would perhaps only notice it in a small, still pool. 

Beida Wan is looking at him with wide eyes and no teeth. "No," he says, flatly. 

Then the boy turns and runs ahead to the training ring, as though a wind demoness's son couldn't easily, immediately, close the short distance between them, if he so chose. Where does this Beida Wan come from that that wouldn't be taken as an invitation to chase? 

Mobei Yang follows sedately, ignoring the whispers and curious looks from the local villagers, and also from Shuang Tao, who has come to greet him. His hosts have set up a modestly comfortable and shaded lounging area for him and his hunters to observe the training and challenges, waited upon with drinks and cool cloths by some of the clan leader's servants again. 

Shan Bocheng the rock demon is acting as their master of ceremonies for this impromptu tournament, with Beida Wan lurking behind the young future clan leader again like a little fly that doesn't even bite. 

Predictably, there are several scowling warriors who evidently won't believe in their own inferiority without a demonstration. Just as predictably, there are several eager youths, at least half of whom are likely hoping that they might impress enough to be taken away from this place. 

"I do have some empty space in my hunting party at the moment," Mobei Yang remarks casually to Shuang Tao, just to fan the flames. 

The locals are determined to mark their territory. Some of the older warriors, canny and cultivated, even manage to put Mobei Yang's hunters on their backs several times, albeit inconsistently. Many of the villagers gather eagerly to watch. A group of younger children are squealing and shouting from a rooftop. 

Shan Bocheng is highly skilled for his young age, but not significantly powerful, and he intelligently doesn't dare to challenge Mobei Yang directly. While Mobei Yang is contemplating proposing a "friendly spar" between them, he is challenged directly by a young water demon, with more awe than arrogance, an appetite sharper than his cute teeth. 

"Yubo!" Shan Bocheng snaps. 

"Can't I have ambitions?" complains young Xiang Yubo, a cousin of Xiang Ningyue apparently, only seventeen years old. "Is it so bad to dream of losing a battle to the great Linguang-Jun?" 

Mobei Yang laughs. "I'll consider it," he tells the water demon. 

"I want to fight the boy who tried to take the killing blow from us!" declare one of the Hao brothers. "From the great hunter, Linguang-Jun!" 

Sitting behind Shan Bocheng, Beida Wan is drawing in the dirt with a stick. Unsurprisingly, he seems to be completely unaware that he's been challenged. 

"No," Shan Bocheng says. "Beida can't fight." 

At his name, the boy looks up and then around, squinting for some understanding. He scoots back, a little more behind the rock demon, like a small child. 

"He nearly killed an Abyss-touched Giant Sea Heron," says Xi Mingzhu, another of Mobei Yang's hunters. 

"That's... different." 

"How so?" Mobei Yang calls. 

The rock demon looks amusingly disgruntled, struggling to explain it. "Beida doesn't know how to fight like this." 

"Beida can stab things badly with a spear until they're dead and that's it," says young Xiang Yubo, the water demon. "And that's only if running away doesn't work!" 

"Yubo!" 

"What? It's true!" 

"Just for that... come fight Beida for us." 

"In front of-?! I'm not doing that!" 

Shan Bocheng the rock drmon ignores the whining and looks down at Beida Wan, who is still squinting at everyone. The rock demon picks the boy up by the back of his clothes and puts him on his feet. 

"Go train with Xiang Yubo," Bocheng orders. "Practice fight." 

Beida Wan's face twists up. "No," he says. He looks around at her waiting audience, then back at Shan Bocheng. "No." 

"Yes," Shan Bocheng insists. 

"No." 

"Yes." 

"No! No, no, no!" 

The rock demon has to physically push Beida Wan into the training ring and hand the boy a... staff? It nearly gets dropped. Shan Bocheng throws another staff at Xiang Yubo, who catches it easily and executes a skillful series of twirls, familiarizing himself with the weapon. 

"No... hurt?" Beida Wan says. 

"No hurt," the rock demon confirms. "No kill. Training. Practice. Go." 

Even before the young water demon can lunge forward, Beida vanishes. There one moment, gone the next, in a flicker of shadow and twisting air. He reappears on the other side of the ring without any attempt at counterattack. 

It's clearly frustrating for the young water demon, but it gives Mobei Yang the opportunity to study such remarkable abilities. Most elemental creatures can still be caught, can be followed, can be disrupted, can be forced between forms, unfortunately including Mobei Yang himself. It happened often when he used to spar against his lordly brother and all the overwhelming power of their ancestors. 

Beida Wan is... unrecognizable. Even when watching closely, there's often no clear thread of spiritual energy to follow from one point to the next. A broken trail. 

Shuang Tao is snickering at Beida Wan's clumsy form, the childish slowness, the obvious uncertainty, the unwillingness to strike back. It's distracting. It's understandable. Such remarkable abilities from such pathetic overall cultivation! 

But Mobei Yang wants to know how the boy is slipping away from a superior opponent, another warrior who is clearly experienced in fighting elemental creatures. He focuses on those subtle twists of demonic energy. 

And he finds himself thinking of... the iridescent shimmer in the air above a hungry Abyssal vent. 

Of the twisting flash of an otherworldly spiritual weapon being summoned to a waiting hand. 

Of the whisper when opening a small pouch hiding a deep stomach. 

Of a dream demon's illusions, spun by a creature hidden in another realm entirely. 

Of a monstrous creature disguised as something small, suddenly unfolding itself, ripping a giant's body out of a spiritual web to reveal its spider's trap. 

Of the way the air shakes when a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python screams. 

"...Ah," Mobei Yang says. 

Shuang Tao and the Hao brothers look at him with interest, but Mobei Yang ignores them to lean farther forward. If they can't figure it out, he's not telling them. 

The fight ends when the young water demon manages to trip Beida Wan, not for the first time, and Beida Wan is too dazed to get up before Xiang Yubo swings the tip of the staff up against his throat. The water demon taps for emphasis. 

Mobei Yang can see the boy's nervous swallow, but also the way that Beida Wan is watching the crowd more than his opponent. It's the boy's choice to release his weapon and indicate surrender. The only thing preventing his escape here should be spiritual exhaustion.  

"Well done," Mobei Yang calls out to the young water demon, who was persistent, if ineffective. 

Xiang Yubo pulls the staff back and demonstrates relieved gratitude, after such a frustrating duel. It must have been like trying to pin down a ghostly butterfly. 

Beida Wan rolls himself up and limps back to hide behind Bocheng again, sitting against the wall in a tired heap. 

"Strike back more," the rock demon says to his little fly. 

Beida Wan raises his hand sharply, an inward fist with the middle finger pointed upwards, though he drops it quickly. 

Mobei Yang wonders what that's supposed to mean. A salute? An agreement? An apology? Hard to say when Beida Wan's sweaty, red face is between his knees. 

He understands better now why this young water demon said that Beida Wan only knows how to run and kill. The boy doesn't have the strength or the speed to strike back ordinarily, to wrestle an opponent to the ground, to spar in a skillful way. All Beida Wan can do is sneak close and put a spear through an opponent's critical weak points, using an apparently natural ability to warp space itself around him. 

No wind demon, no matter how quick or powerful, can reach something that has slipped away into another realm entirely. 

Mobei Yang fights the young water demon, because it makes him look generous more than out of any personal interest. He wants to show Shan Bocheng the difference between them, especially with the beautiful Xiang Ningyue now watching from an overlook with some other local wind demonesses, their colorful scarves and skirts flowing like flags in the breeze.

And he wants to see Beida Wan's face seeing a true demon warrior demonstrate some of his strength. The boy alternates freely between very wide eyes and a frowning squint, apparently. 

Mobei Yang indulges a few challengers after that, out of boredom more than curiosity, and likely embarrasses some of them more than originally intended. The Ice Palace attracts countless challengers, fighting for countless reasons, and his lordly brother has become less and less willing to indulge any of them as the years go by; it's a responsibility on top of the countless cousins whose ambitions need to be treated like summer greenery: killed off before they become overgrown. 

The cheering and compliments are appreciated. The naked envy even moreso. "I did apparently have to prove to this clan that I have no need of help during any of my hunts," Mobei Yang says dryly, provoking laughter again. 

The rush of battle, however inglorious, makes impulses more difficult to resist. While lesser demons debate who has to follow such a performance, Mobei Yang looks towards the elusive little fly. 

"Beida Wan!" he calls. 

The boy's head snaps up. Several strings of surrounding conversation are cut off, but Mobei Yang isn't afraid of an audience. He echoes that condescending little beckoning gesture. By the way that Beida Wan's reddened nose wrinkles, Mobei Yang's demand is immediately understood. 

Shan Bocheng hauls the boy up by his collar again and Beida Wan begrudgingly slinks over to stand in front of Mobei Yang. His expression is wary. He remembers to bow in greeting quite belatedly. 

Mobei Yang doesn't give any warning before grabbing the boy's arm again. Again, Beida Wan is too slow to dodge, startling without dignity. 

"Whadda fuck?!" 

It would have been trivial to break this limb, to do far worse, but Mobei Yang waits patiently. He can feel the shift of the boy's elusive spiritual energy even better this way; he can shift his own weighty spiritual energy to counter the forces hastily moving to work here. 

He owes thanks to the depths his ancestors have given him. Perhaps also to the clan priestess who first taught him how to fortify himself against unstable Abyssal gates, so that his body and mind wouldn't be torn to pieces. And to those others who passed down onto him the ancestral knowledge of stabilizing such gates... of destroying them. Though Mobei Yang doesn't think one can discount his own impressive experience, learning how to disrupt summoned weapons and untie folded spaces and all those annoying tricks with just... a little... push. 

Beida Wan grunts, flinches, as the shadows twist and writhe and fail to whisk him away into whatever halfway realm he's been using. He pulls uselessly. He keeps trying, again and again, a panicking animal with a paw stuck fast. 

Mobei Yang keeps denying the boy an escape. It takes continuous effort, a fair amount of spiritual energy, and really, the boy should be grateful that Mobei Yang hasn't accidentally broken this arm. 

"No," Mobei Yang says dryly. 

Beida Wan stops struggling and stares up at him. Really, it reminds Mobei Yang so much of snagging a surfacing seal as a bored youth, all big eyes and flopping rage. 

Whatever this boy was before, human or not, he's just a weak demon now with a single clever trick. Remarkable abilities left raw and uncultivated. Mobei Yang laughs as he releases his unique prey, at yet another successful hunt, however short and simple it turned out to be. 

"You caught Beida," the young water demon, Xiang Yubo, says. "And he actually stayed caught!" 

"Oh, you just have to find the trick of it," Mobei Yang says airily. "Shan Bocheng, tell your clan leader that I've found some new demons for my hunting party!" 

It's like kicking over a wasp nest, with the buzzing that goes through the watching crowd. The rock demon remains grim. 

"Who?" Shan Bocheng says. 

"Such an honor!" Xiang Ningyue calls from her makeshift pavilion of ladies, far more civilized, all of her beauty on display as she leans forward. "The Flying Mountain Clan is honored to run with Linguang-Jun! But which of us are you stealing?" 

"Your young cousin, generous hostess," Mobei Yang falls back. "Xiang Yubo may have the potential to impress!" 

More importantly, the young water demon will give an excuse to return to the Flying Mountain Clan and speak with his relatives. Mobei Yang will simply have to tell his late mother's family, the Black Wind Clan, that he has a complicated plot to destabilize the leadership of their rival clan. 

"It's- Thank you! Thank you, Linguang-Jun! I won't disappoint you- I won't- I'll prove myself worthy-" Xiang Yubo stammers. 

Mobei Yang nods vaguely at the appropriate gratitude. "And I'll have this thing," he adds, pointing. "If you can bear to let this guest leave your hands." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles, as does Shuang Tao. The other laughter around them is more nervous. Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang's finger like he doesn't know why it's pointing at him; presumably, he doesn't. He shuffles backwards... into the rock demon. 

"I... owe Beida," Shan Bocheng says. 

"And what better reward could you give than a placement with a superior clan?" Mobei Yang says, even though he really doesn't need to ask anyone's permission here. "If there's anything worthwhile to be learned from Beida Wan, the Northern Desert Clan will uncover it." 

"Yes, take them!" Xiang Ningyue calls. "If anyone can make a hunter of Beida, it's you, Linguang-Jun!" 

It's more likely that such a useless warrior will die sooner than later, but Mobei Yang doubts that the Flying Mountain Clan will truly cry over the loss. Perhaps something will be made of these remarkable abilities before that, but perhaps not. 

Shan Bocheng's shoulders sag slightly. The rock demon won't fight over this. 

Mobei Yang smiles down at Beida Wan, who remains wary and confused at first, and then hesitantly smiles back. Weakly. Not threateningly. Obviously false. Quite odd. The humanness is hard to unsee after Xiang Ningyue suggested it. 

"What an opportunity to bring our two clans closer together," Mobei Yang remarks, almost entirely to see Shan Bocheng struggle to remain polite again. "Let's look forward to the new future, hm?" 

[tinfoil-jones]

Sending along an ask chain! Send an ask to ten wonderful blogs :3 (or dont. It is not a requirement)

What's a fun fact about Jerk Ford that no one's given you an excuse to talk about yet?

Jerk Ford on the topic of drinking receptacles: In his home dimension he only uses two coffee mugs;

One that says Best Big Bro (gift from Stan he received post-portal)

One that says #2 Stan ('gift' from Fiddleford he received during the Christmas Fiddleford was helping him build the portal)

The #2 Stan mug is Jerk Ford's most favourite mug ever, but Stanley absolutely despises it and tried (unsuccessfully) to convince his brother to get rid of it. During the thirty years of Jerk Ford's exile, Stan packed and stored it away with some of his other personal effects, not tossing it solely because he knows it was his favourite.

---

Also; regardless of the type, anytime Jerk Ford is holding a drinking receptacle like a cup, mug, or glass, he raises both pinkies on that hand (since he has postaxial polydactyly i.e. an extra pinkie).

This is because as kids, when Stanley learned about the 'raise your pinkie' thing, he'd annoy / insist on Jerk Ford doing it just to piss him off, and it ended up sticking.

This is based off of this message my brother sent me;

[ahhcloudy]

"But the man still remembers his vow"

thinking about the parallels between when Natalie and Henry first meet and hey #2

the swap between her flippant comment and his determination to not give up on her 💔

imo after she told him he gives up too easily he made a vow to not give up on her again. and in hey #3 she finally lets herself believe that he was serious when he said that he would be there for her. he made that promise and for the first time in her life, someone who made a promise to her carried through on it

[midnight--sadness]

Damn In-ho doesn't even look beat up or bloody in that flashback photo. He's sweaty for sure, but when you think about how gihun and sangwoo looked during/after their final round, it's not even close. And if they offered him the front man job right after he won??? And not weeks/months later like most of us assumed???? What did that man DO in his games to win....some nasty shit i tell you

this is such a good observation, omg anon your mind!!

INHO BEING SO DANGEROUS THAT HE WAS OFFERED THE FRONT MAN SPOT RIGHT THERE!!! 🤧🤧😏😏 THAT'S GIHUN'S MAN RIGHT THERE!!! 🫶🫶😌😌😌

but seriously - at this point, inho doesnt know his wife and child are dead or will die. he think he's taking the money home to save them. so, this maybe in this, he'll say no to ilnam's offer and go home, at which point he realizes he lost everything. so he calls ilnam back - the old man gave him a card for sure - and says that he accepts the job since he has nothing to lose now.

and now with inhun shipping goggles - this is gonna be a direct parallel to inho resigning from the job bc of gihun 😌 the light to his darkness! and it also creates another link between inho's wife and gihun; one's death drove inho into the dark and one's survival brought him back to the light

[pascalisnopunk]

Across the Room - Joel Miller x reader

Hi. So... this is wild to be typing out.

After years of reading everyone else's fics, I finally sat down and wrote one myself. Joel’s been sitting heavy on my mind (as he has for a lot of us), and I wanted to try and see him through my own lens. This is my first fic here, so be kind. Or brutal. Whatever feels right. Worth noting, English is not my first language.

Across the Room: Joel Miller x Reader!Jackson Word Count: ~2.7k Warnings: Canon-typical mentions of violence, slow burn, implied mutual pining, language, no smut or fluff, just good ol’ Joel being emotionally unavailable.

Summary: You’ve lived in Jackson for a bit over a year now, but there’s one thing you haven’t quite figured out: Joel Miller. Everyone knows him. Everyone respects him. You? You can’t seem to stop watching him, and tonight, for the first time, you think maybe he’s watching you too.

Across the Room

You’ve heard about Joel Miller long before you ever meet him. The stories come quick when you're new. The smuggler past, Ellie, and the fire he walked through to keep her safe. People don’t speak about it like gossip.

When you finally see him, it’s ordinary. He’s by the stables. One hand on a saddle horn, head ducked slightly as he listens to Tommy. He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t nod. Just listens. From then on, he’s hard to miss. Even when he’s not saying much.

Joel Miller walks like the ground is heavy under him. Like it cost him something just to keep moving. But you admire him the way you admire old trees or standing fences, quiet things that survive.

You’re not friends. Hell, you’ve barely spoken. You’ve been on overlapping patrols a couple times. Shared a nod. One time, a low “you good?” when you came in with a scrape on your cheek. You said, “Yeah,” and that was it.

Still. You look for him.

You catch yourself doing it a lot. In the cafeteria, at town meetings, even walking the main street. It’s not a crush. It’s curiosity. Fascination, maybe. Because people like him aren’t supposed to still exist. Not with that much grief behind their eyes and gentleness still in their hands. You’re not bold enough to say anything. And Joel’s not the kind of man who invites any small talk. So you settle for admiring him from a distance. It feels safer that way.

Until today.

It’s a cold patrol morning. You’re halfway through your route when you catch sight of him. His group taking a different trail that runs parallel to yours. Just for a few minutes, your paths are close. He turns and sees you, a flash of recognition passing between you both. And then, surprisingly, he slows.

You do too.

He calls across the snow, voice low but strong. “Cold out.”

You nod, teeth clicking. “You’d think spring’d show itself eventually.”

He gives a half-smile. It barely reaches his mouth, but it feels real.

“Ain’t in a rush,” he says.

You should leave it at that, but something makes you step closer, boots crunching over frost. “Neither are you, apparently.”

Joel lifts an eyebrow. You think, just for a second, he might say something more. There’s a flicker of amusement, something lighter than you’ve seen before. But just as fast, it’s gone.

He glances back at his group. “Better keep movin’.”

You nod. “Yeah. Me too.”

You both stand still for a second longer than you need to. Then you turn away.

The Tipsy Bison’s louder than usual tonight.

Someone spilled something. Someone else is trying to flirt. There’s laughter and boots scraping and two guys at the bar whispering about which route is getting reshuffled next week. You sit alone for a while, nursing a drink, only half-listening. You should go home. You’re tired.

A burst of laughter to your left makes you turn. It’s Ryan, from patrol, already two drinks in and waving you over. You decline. He insists. You decline again. He takes it personally, then makes a comment you don’t quite catch but don’t need to. The tone is enough.

You leave your stool.

As you step toward the door, your eyes scan the room automatically and freeze.

Joel is across the bar. Leaning against the wall near the back. One boot crossed over the other. No drink in hand.

He’s already looking at you. Not at the room. Not past you.

At you.

And this time, he doesn’t look away.

Your chest tightens. You don’t smile. He doesn’t either. But the look, it stays. Like a bridge just barely raised between two places that were never supposed to touch.

The noise around you fades. You absentmindedly reach for the door and push it open to finally breathe.

Aaaaaaa, thank you for reading! I'm really breaking out of my comfort zone with this so I hope you liked it!

[wyrdle]

The rabbit and the fangless lion

Some explanation under the cut

Some silly musing of post-999 Akane and Hongou interaction and parallel-ing lol. I like the thought of Hongou genuinely having 0 fight left in him, and being dragged out into Akane's schemes. What that is, I'll leave to your imaginations.

As for how she's using him, I'm not sure either. But, I did think of Hongou having access to the morphogenetic field as a receiver, so maybe some sort of amplifier. How he got this was basically Nijisaki's last moments of terror, and receiving echoes of it during his epiphany when he realises he killed the wrong man. The doomed yaoi is fun to museeee

Edit: I was partially inspired/had similar ideas to a specific fanfic about Akane and Ace working together! you should totally read it!!

[sorry-not-feeling-it-right-now]

Narry parallels the voices and the vessels cause technically speaking, he is a smaller piece of someone else. Much like how the voices and vessels are pieces of two bigger gods.

The difference between the Narrys and the voices/vessels is that since the main body/who Narry once was is gone, he can no longer change and have new perspectives added into the “main” body.

And thinking about this, the line between manhood and godhood is like. Really thin in STP. Cause technically speaking, Narry is the god of the construct, since he was the one who had created the place. Quiet and the Princess/Shifty parallels Adam and Eve in that regard, with them being the first man and woman in the world Narry had created for them. Narry had given the two previously unconscious beings a life. And he did all of that while he himself is still just a mere mortal. Not to mention that Narry appears to be the least human out of the three main characters due to his literal inability to change due to his own nature as an Echo.

And then there’s Quiet and Shifty, two gods created by the mortal man, are the two that we usually sympathise and connect with as humans. Despite them being gods, they are very human. One embraces his humanity, while the other denies her humanity. But in the end, despite not being able to fully experience what’s it like to be a person, Quiet and the Princesses/Shifty, before the reveal, believed that they’re mortals.

The debate of whether the voices and the vessels are their own person or not is ever lasting. Are they mere small parts of something much bigger? Or are they their own person? Have they also been gifted the gift of free will? Are they alive? Should they live?

Do you think Narry tries to not think about the fact that he’s no longer human? And tires to deny it as much as he could? That a part of him still believes that he is still a person?

[coffeegnomee]

Obsessed with the parallels of Dogs of War to the day Pangi trapped Zam in bedrock.

All you have to do is change a few names up, and the story is the same.

A friend who was there since the start. A friend who was pushed to the side at every turn. Every time they tried to do something interesting, the Crown arc or Mawn, Zam opposed. And then Zam completely ignores them for one final time, the god-off, or bacon's wardens.

And so they snap. They trap/kill him. And Zam breaks.

And here I was, watching Zam build the room under the tree thinking, man, i miss the past, but the funny thing about princezam is he doesn't like repeating a past arc.

and then he blocks himself up in his here lies the flower knight honey box. like okay. yeah. sure. whatever. Just meet Spoke already you creature. Pangi wouldn't block him in so he does it himself. whatever.

[ziggy-scardust]

Oh man. I tend to think of that as an alternative timeline that diverged in 2015, now taking place in 2035. But you’re right the potatoes are cool. Unfortunately that’s the ONE thing that wouldn’t work - this wasn’t known when he was writing it but Martian soil has too many manganate compounds for potatoes to survive. Everything else, though, is technically sound, including the orbital trajectories, round-trip light times, etc. The movie takes a few liberties so I like it less than the book, but still good.

The thing that really feels real about this book is not that millions of people came together to rescue him - functionally, they didn’t. It was a few dozen people working on this, and I’ve worked in that environment, and they 100% would. And the US government even in this parallel timeline will at least fund that - it’s a comparative drop in the bucket but the optics of not leaving their guy behind are just too good to pass up. Everyone else in the world is rooting for him, but it takes no real sacrifice on their part.

But what makes it human are the individuals who are backroom-dealing plans to return him, and figuring out absurd ways to communicate with long-dead hardware, and keeping each other going with encouragement and hope in the face of an insurmountable problem. Not humanity writ large, maybe, but these people. And Mark Watney at the center of it all being snarky and funny and bored to death but also scared and thinking about his folks and just being a PERSON.

ahh I just finished the Martian, and it made me feel kinda sick. I think because the fundamental message was “look how humans will work together and innovate to save a single life ^^” and then in between chapters I’m scrolling through news of an active genocide. sorry to Mr. The Martian Author, this is a bad time to be reading your novel

[damnitiloveyou]

The fact that Aaron couldn’t look at Robert when he said “you should never have come back, Robert. Speaks volumes

Aaron Dingle is a lying liar who lies, but there's no storyline if he just immediately jumps into Robert's arms and calls off the wedding. I mean technically he did kind of do that initially with the kiss, but I get that the man needed one taste before forcing himself to pretend he's not interested for a bit. I have zero complaints about doing the whole push and pull thing. I will take all the parallels to their original story they want to give us. They do mutual pining so well. The only thing I don't think I want is for Robert to just go around declaring his love for Aaron to anyone who will listen. Obviously I want a bit of that, but I don't want Robert doing all the declaring with Aaron just dismissing him in front of everyone every chance he gets. Let Robert fake it a bit in public and drive Aaron crazy. Give me that push and pull. I can't wait regardless.

[rillils]

pairing: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes rating: T wordcount: 1794 tags: pre-serum Steve, pre-serum Bucky, Meet Joe Black AU, mystery, identity porn-ish, supernatural elements, modern AU notes: written for the prompt N1 - Supernatural Fiction from my @wintershieldbingo card. I started working on the manip for laughs, which then became torture (😭), and I don't know what possessed me to also write a blurb to go with it, but here it is I guess? Also, it's probably kinda unintelligible if you've never watched the film 🥺 summary: One day, Steve Rogers meets a lovely young man at a diner, and his heart skips a beat. That night, the same young man turns up unexpectedly at a family dinner - but there's something eerily different about him. Like he's not even the same person at all.

*

There’s something unsettling about Jay Barnes. Something in the way his pale gray eyes take Steve in as though he could unravel all that Steve is, down to the well-worn fabric of his soul. Parcel him out into bundles of bones and flesh and sinews, and tell him from what ancient stars each of his parts came from: what breathless corner of the cosmos brewed the carbon, the iron, the calcium wrapped up in the milky spread of Steve’s skin, one thousand endless eons ago.

It sends a shiver down Steve’s spine.

Barnes was nothing like this when Steve first met him, all of twelve hours ago.

The man Steve accidentally spilled his coffee on, earlier today, was an easygoing guy with a smile like a movie star and a hint of a Brooklyn drawl coloring his effortless sweet talk, and Steve was all too glad to let himself be sweet-talked into accepting his number and promising he’d be there again tomorrow, same time, same place, same coffee order – and maybe a blueberry danish to share.

There was a warmth about him, easy and engaging, that made Steve feel at home with him almost instantly.

He was a friendly face then; but when Steve looks at him now, at that same dimpled chin, at the perfect bow of those same lips, all he sees is the face of a stranger.

The difference between the two is so jarring, he has to wonder if he didn’t step into a parallel universe by mistake, sometime between leaving work and walking in uncle Abe’s living room.

“The young man I met at the diner this morning. The one who introduced himself as Bucky,” Steve begins, quietly, when he and Barnes are alone in the library, and the filling warmth from dinner is starting to churn bitterly in the pit of his stomach. “He was sweet, and charming, and he lit up the room with his presence.” He wets his lips, swallows past the dryness in his throat. “I liked him, I don’t mind admitting to it. I would have loved to grab that coffee with him, one of these days.”

He pauses, watching Barnes’ expression carefully; drinking in every smooth, dispassionate line of it, as unnervingly blank as a clean slate.

Bucky’s eyes held so much life in them, he seemed to be bursting with it. His smile turned Steve’s knees into butter, and when he left that diner, winking at Steve on his way out, his number saved on Steve’s phone and Steve’s coffee staining the breast of his dress shirt, a grin on his lips like he’d just won the lottery, Steve’s blood sang so sweetly, he was sure he could have eaten up the whole world today.

But Barnes.

There’s a coldness to him – though not of the cruel sort. It’s more like– more like the quiet coldness of winter, deep, deep in the heart of January, on those early mornings when everything is coated in thick white snow, and the silence swallows up even the tiniest whisper of sound. He seems forged out of something that is both holy and hopelessly inhuman, something distant, alien, and the thought makes Steve’s arms prickle with goosebumps.

He can’t even fathom trying to reconcile one man with the other.

“Where is that young man now, Mr. Barnes?” he asks, unable to keep this eerie feeling at bay any longer. “‘Cause I see you wearing his face, but– it’s like I’m looking at an entirely different person tonight.”

A delicate frown forms above the bridge of Barnes’ nose. He shifts uncomfortably on his feet; the set of his shoulders sitting a little too stiffly, his arms held a little too awkwardly at his sides, like he’s never had to stand in front of anyone before.

“I’ve disappointed you,” Barnes says, his voice soft, gentle even. “I’m sorry.”

Steve shrugs his shoulder. He is disappointed, that much is true – he just thinks it’s rude of Barnes to acknowledge it out loud.

“I just want to know which one is the real you,” Steve says, looking Barnes sharply in the eye. “Is it the guy who flirted with me this morning and promised I would fall in love with him by the time I finished my pancakes? Or the mysterious, impassive businessman who appeared in my uncle’s life out of the blue, and acts as though he actually belongs in it?”

The crease on Barnes’ brow turns somewhat apologetic. He looks down at his freshly shined shoes for a moment, nearly shy, and clasps his hands behind his back.

“I’m afraid the man you see before you now is the one who will stick around,” he tells Steve softly, “for however long my business with your uncle will keep me in town – and in his house, and in his life.”

“Ah, your business with my uncle, of course, how could I forget,” Steve snaps, raking his fingers through his hair with an impatient gesture. “You know, I’ve been worried about him for a while now, because Abraham– he’s just the kind of guy who will take care of everyone else before he takes care of himself, right? And his health isn’t what it used to be, but you know what they say – doctors make the worst patients and all. So he keeps telling me that everything’s fine, really Steven, no need to fuss over him, he’s a grown man and he can look after himself just fine, thank you very much. And then you come along,” he adds, pointing an accusing finger in Barnes’ direction, “and suddenly there’s this secret business that nobody’s allowed to talk about, or ask about, or God forbid, even think about, and we’re all just supposed to ignore the tall dark and handsome elephant in the room.”

Unsurprisingly, Barnes remains silent, studying him with those pale eyes of his.

Steve can’t help the urge to turn away from them, looking around the room in search of a distraction from the emotions roiling unpleasantly in his stomach.

Uncle Abe’s library has always been a safe haven to Steve, ever since he was a little kid walking out of school with more black eyes and bloody noses than he cared to explain to his mother. Back in the day, curled up in Abe’s cozy wingback chair with a book spread over his lap, he could breathe in the familiar scent of old paper and dust and beeswax polish, and let the rest of the world fade away for a few blissful hours.

The room still smells the same – still cloaked in the vanilla sweetness of ripe yellowed pages, and beeswax to keep uncle Abe’s antique escritoire nice and shiny – but none of it seems able to soothe Steve now.

“Something just doesn’t add up here, you know?” he says, ignoring the prickly feeling of being watched so closely by Barnes. “Abe says that the two of you are old friends, but I’ve known him my entire life, and somehow he’s never once mentioned your name before. He says you’re only here to assist him with this obscure job of his, and yet you’ve got him hanging on your lips, and he seems to look for your approval for every single word that comes out of his mouth, which– it doesn’t– It doesn’t make sense! None of this makes any fucking sense.”

It's only the fine pinpricks of pain in the palms of his hands that make Steve realize how tightly he’s been clenching his fists. He tries to release the tension, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Not when he’s looking up in the fathomless depths of Barnes’ eyes. Not when the questions he really wants to ask are loaded right there on the tip of his tongue, ready to slip out.

“Why are you really here? Who are you, Mr. Barnes?”

There. That is the heart of it.

The silence that follows Steve’s words is so loud, it’s almost deafening.

Barnes steps closer, treading soundlessly on the rich Persian rug lining the wooden floor.

There’s something – something in the way he moves – something in the way he exists in his space, that makes the very air surrounding him feel charged, as if he commanded it; as if he were the one to give air a name, countless lifetimes ago. Even Time seems to move with him, to his own measured rhythm, each slow second waiting at Barnes’ fingertips.

His gaze feels heavy where it touches Steve’s skin, dense with the weight of gravity. Steve couldn’t look away if he tried.

“I’m just a traveler passing through,” Barnes says, in his soft, gentle voice. He’s standing so close enough for Steve to breathe him in.

Bucky had smelled like toothpaste and a hint of aftershave, and the rich aroma of fresh coffee wafting in from his mug.

Barnes smells like nothing at all.

Like the cold. Like the wind. Like the stretch of years and years between two points in time.

“For so long, I have watched the world rush past my window, without ever truly touching it,” Barnes continues, the soft gray of his irises gleaming as he drinks Steve in, unraveling him. (All that he is, Steve remembers. All that he’ll ever be.) “Today, I finally found it in me to step off the train and into the crowd, to taste this world I’ve only ever seen from afar. But now... I feel lost.”

He sounds so helpless, in that way that people are when they find themselves at the beginning or at the end of their life, lacking the strength to move in a body that doesn’t obey them yet – or anymore. It’s so terribly, painfully human, it makes the inside of Steve’s chest ache.

“Will you be my friend, Steven? For however long is given us to stand in the same crowd?”

Steve’s gaze falls on the bow of Barnes’ lips, the downturned corners of his mouth signaling his unhappiness. Twelve hours ago, those lips smiled at him like Steve was something special. Twelve hours ago, Steve watched the smile lines around Bucky’s mouth, and he wondered how sweet it’d be to kiss him, to be kissed by him – to meet him for breakfast every day at the same table, in the same old diner, and kiss him hello and goodbye, with the taste of coffee and blueberry danish on his tongue.

He wants those lips to smile again. Tonight. Tomorrow. For however long is given him.

“I guess I can do that,” Steve says, finally unfurling his fists. “I’ll be your friend, Mr. Barnes.”

When Barnes’ mouth curls up at the corners, the smile reaches his eyes, too.

[hahahafangirl]

your suo analysis is really good, im reading it again to really let it soak! do you have more thoughts on how suo and kiryu parallel, or maybe they're more perpendicular? I think it's interesting how they have similar vibes but opposite reactions: both blunt but one leans more "kind" (suo), and the other leans more "rude" (kiryu). suo fakes the funk a little, and kiryu doesn't (and sakura just doesn't know how either way, really ends up being both)

Hiii!!! Thank you so much for reading, and sorry for the long wait; I got a little bit too into this and has formulated a plan for a more thorough analysis, but I can show you what I have for now-- very interesting parallels between these two "polite" and "courteous" young men, indeed!

What particularly sparks my thoughts is your suggestion that they are "perpendicular", and of course the observation that they are similar vibes but opposite reactions. The nuance in how they "fake" their funk is interesting too, and I think in general I can make these observations:

They both have traditional and rebellious components, but are opposite in each category.

How Kiryu's backstory was developed is likely very informative of how Suo's backstory will be developed

To start off, I think it's interesting how Kiryu and Suo are both... similar and very distinct (lol, what a helpful sentence). At the first glance they are both gentlemen. one more layer down, both rude (to the people they do not respects) and very scathing. What's more, they both "play up" their acts/performance to hide something underneath (Kiryu in his arc, Suo... as we suspect from his social evasion).

Yep, this is just straight up disrespectful, lol.

Nice, but how nice? Not at all.

Another thing is that they are both incredibly caring and emotionally intelligent people (we have a whole stock of 'em in Wind Breaker! yay!). Kiryu is also incredibly straightforward and bold, much like Suo is, though I think he smooths his words over less:

He respects Tsugeura, but will gladly tell him off.

Kiryu doesn't hate Tsuge! He is just very straightforward!

And, if protecting the girl isn't telling enough, he cares for her safety, even if he doesn't express it-- like how Suo naturally prioritize keeping non-combatants safe.

And it was Suo, who is equally emotionally intelligent and has equivalent battle-sense, who knows what Kiryu is doing and addresses it.

Thematically, what is interesting is where Kiryu or Suo rebels and the other don't. Let's start with Kiryu: He is very much gender-rebellious: pink, long hair, patterned shirt (nothing strictly gendered, mind you, but they are not considered so in the general cultural climate). This is supported by his character profile, where he hates "close-minded" people. In the KEEL arc, ch 48 - 49, he was directly insulted for his "gender performance" (borrowing the term from Judith Butler and gender studies in general)

And Kiryu unrepentantly re-enforces his own gender rebellion

Oops, split end~

Later on, we see that while Kiryu enjoys this act, he especially put it on with the explicit intention of rebelling against his father. He plays it up where appropriate, but I think Kiryu genuinely enjoys the act-- like how he joined Furin for the rebel and ended up liking it for what it is at the end of the day.

On this aspect of appearance and gender performance, Suo is the direct opposite: he dresses conservatively, have short hair, and in general has the very air of a traditional, polite young man

Even his earrings, the only thing that may be argued as "not masculine", are antique -- thus likely gender-accordance. This is the friend you'd bring home to grandma!

Unexpectedly, then, Suo's fighting can be taken as more rebellious/less traditional, while Kiryu's is traditionally learned. Though he has a teacher, Suo's fighting style is a hodge-podge of different styles; having a self-taught teacher also likely means they have the space to innovate the forms as appropriate, outside of the usual wagon wheel track:

(As a side note on this, for a hodge-podge style of martial arts, Suo has really good forms; which makes sense. You can't really do much if you don't have a good basics lol. Then, you can do whatever the hell you want.)

Meanwhile, Kiryu "submitted" himself to the family traditional training, which he hated, for the purpose of defending Akari

I just realized that the purpose of learning martial arts is for "rebellion" in Kiryu's case, and self-defense/offense, in Suo's case -- quite a traditional reason to fight. Again, the two of them opposite in forms and intentions.

I'm sure there are more things, but maybe I will see them as I mull over the text a little more... it also would help if Suo's backstory is soon, lol.

As for the next thing, i.e. how can Kiryu's arc inform Suo's arc progression? My primary basis for this is how Kiryu's arc was introduced in KEEL, where mid-fight, we begin to learn tidbits about Kiryu's personal philosophy. Here, the theme of "Rebellion" (also the title of chapter 48) was introduced; specifically, as the only information we knew then, it refers to (Kiryu's own) "gender rebellion". The chapter also supplied a concrete visual of who the rebellion is for

While Kiryu, in his earlier arc, talks a lot about being popular with girls, we may assume that it is pertaining to his interest in dating/being popular with girls his age. Only later on does it have the explicit intention of making girls comfortable, regardless of whether he wants to court them or not (notedly, he never was shown actually courting a girl-- it was a ruse setup to contrast Kiryu's actual character).

This is very similar progression to Suo's fight against Oobiki in KEEL, where, also mid-fight, he begins to reveal his/his master's philosophy regarding teaching, in the titular chapter "Discipline":

Also the first visual of (presumably) his Master, in a similar narrative role as Akari-- but further away. Will this distance becomes relevant, perhaps?

(Also, funnily enough, I was about to make the argument that Suo is not verbally as scathing as Kiryu, but then this chapter reminded me that he absolutely can be, lol. And at the same narrative stage (during KEEL), Kiryu also delivered his most scathing line!)

So I suspect that just like the theme of rebellion being subtly subverted from Kiryu's gender performance -> respecting women and making girls comfortable, which was previously hinted by the subversion of Kiryu's dating a girl -> he was keeping her safe, we can expect that the theme of discipline as training and passing down your teachings, respect ("How are you supposed to act when you go barging in to another person's home?"), will be satisfactorily and subtly subverted in some way. I don't have an orientation for how it will be subverted just yet, but I bet it will be as good and satisfying as Kiryu's arc (regardless of how angsty it will be lol). We probably can take a stab at guessing, since Kiryu's subversion was also foreshadowed. Given that Suo is now Nirei's master... there is already a subversion from learning how to defend yourself -> "but if I were to teach you," ... learning how to defend yourself and deal damage... Perhaps a conflict or innovation from his master's teaching? Many, many possibilities are ahead!

Thank you so much for the insightful ask, and I hope you found my answer interesting!!

[zykamiliah]

between yandere yqy and sweet himbo yqy people do really water him down, don't they? i mean this is the guy who famously favors sqq and is the sect leader of cang qiong "we defend our own no matter what they do" mountain sect. yue "my hand slipped" qingyuan. the same zhangmen-shixiong who went "I will throw hands with huan hua palace right here in jin lan" and who qi deviated so hard trying to save shen qingqiu (first for the original and later for the transmigrator) he had to be locked up in a cave. twice. yue qingyuan is a failed mxtx protagonist, with everything that implies, in the sense that he never gets what he wants no matter how hard he tries despite having all the character traits required. he doesn't hesitate to break the law to defend his people (his person). he can be very nice but also quite terrifying. he reached the top of the world, took a place of power and proceeded to protect the person most important to him and those in his care regardless of what the world had to say about it or whatever moral stance that required of him. because, are morals even important to someone who's looked the ugly side of humanity in the eye since he was a kid?

he craved the power that would make him the ultimate protector and caretaker of shen jiu and look where that took him. his impulsiveness, his desperation is so potent it damaged his cultivation to the point his body had to be broken and renewed in order for him to survive. that man has seen horror you can't imagine. alone in the darkness crying out for someone to please let him out. the one thing that matters the most to him and it seems he almost always fails to accomplish it. don't you think that would fuck up with anyone's head, on top off all the other slave childhood trauma?

but because he's always ^_^ he fools everyone into thinking he's Normal. boy that man is ANYTHING but normal

also gentle reminder that HE'S STRONGER THAN BINGGE, even with a crippling sword that's the manifestation of all his heart demons (the parallels...)

adding mutual's tags @stardust-falling bc they're relevant too

#THIS ACTUALLY#sj fits the typical ‘uwu trauma’ apologism criteria#woobifying him is just to be expected#yqy REALLY gets his complexities sanded down#I’ve had so many comments on my fics like… surprised (positive) that I actually acknowledge HIS being traumatized and dysfunctional#there’s also something so intriguing to think about how he ALSO grew up witnessing abuse#and so to some degree while he does know it’s wrong what SJ does is just… normalized to him#he and sj should actually be looked at through a similar lens#he’s not just the quest-giving npc or the too good for this world pure gege#he’s not innocent either#and there’s an interesting commentary on trauma responses + how different people are shaped by different experiences#that gets lost when you sand him down into a one dimensional flawless good guy

breaking my silence when i dont think shen jiu is the most mischaracterized svsss character. not even shen yuan. i think the character people butcher most is yue qingyuan because that man just went "i'll half heartedly tell you to be less mean to your disciple, but i'll never actually use my authority as sect leader to step in and stop the abuse everyone knows about because i feel guilty about our past. in fact i will publicly defend you against allegations of abuse that i know are true." and then he gets dumbed down to a gentle sweet himbo who never did anything wrong

[gerardways-mcr]

hi! i’m on a spn rewatch x1000000

here are my wincest-coded highlights from my recently-watched episodes.

s11, ep 17

woman: “I watched the man i love die, there’s no normal after that.”

dean: looks down at the ground and thinks about what she says, seemingly relating. (he thought sam had died earlier in the episode)

————-

Billie: “You’re pretending you’re saving Sam for the greater good, when we both know you’re doing it for you. You can’t lose him.”

Dean looks at her pathetically, not saying anything. He knows she’s right.

————-

s11, ep19

Dean (talking to two men): “You guys fight like brothers, almost as bad as us.” He then gestures to sam.

man: “More like an old married couple.” (they ended up being boyfriends).

Plus, the whole episode parallels the men to sam and dean. so..there’s that.