#You clearly missed the subtle hint that he does not give a shirt about said throne

[dastardlydaemon]

The da.emon tag tho.... good grief 🫠

[calmcal]

kissed opportunities

Summary: The three times that Calum almost kisses her and the one time he finally does

Word Count: 5.3k

Parings: calum x fem!reader , luke x fem!oc (briefly mentioned)

Warnings: fluff, bad writing (?) i literally suck, not even calum can save this !

Note: you like that punny title, missed opportunities, kissed opportunities. get it? eh. it’s been over a year since i’ve written anything for this blog, can you tell i’m rusty? but i miss writing, and calm has me feeling some sort of way + quarantining is driving me crazy!

masterlist

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ONE - FLIP THE MONOPOLY BOARD

“I should feel bad about this” She admitted as she watched Calum move the little dog character around the board, until he landed on the dark blue property. The enjoyment in his features slipped away when he realised what was going to happen. A loud groan escaped his lips as he watched the wide grin spread across her lips. “But I just don’t”

Calum watched as she sat up slightly, straightening her back against the couch from where she sat on the floor, hand reaching out and laying palm up, a strand of her hair falling down the side of her face as she leaned closer to him.

She had tied her hair out of her face and into a ponytail before they had started playing, saying that monopoly required a serious amount of focus that only a ponytail could provide her. As the game went on, the ponytail slowly slipped further and further down her neck, until the hair tie fell from her hair and was forgotten about. Strands of hair were now falling down her back and over her shoulders, flyaway strands falling against her face. Every once and a while she was try and blow the strands from her eyes, but she made no move to fix her ponytail.

There was a glimmer in her eyes, the unique shade seemed to lighten as she giggled happily, they were a shimmering river of pure delight. Her cheeks had a pink hue shading them, her skin looking warm and inviting. She had a glass of red wine clutched in her hand, the red liquid that sloshed around in the glass was the same liquid that was painting her lips, making the plump skin look almost red in the dim lighting.

She was getting to the stage of wine drunk. Her movements were becoming slow and less calculated. Her voice had lowered slightly, but it was still effortlessly smooth and still gave Calum goosebumps. Her lips were constantly offering his that smile, where the corners of her lips were turning up just slightly, and he could just see a peek of her teeth between her lips.

She looked cozy pressed against the base of the couch, a dark blue hoodie thrown over her frame matched with a pair of grey sleep shorts, and pair of Calum’s socks attached to her feet. She had complained about her toes being cold around an hour ago, Calum couldn’t ignore the little pout of her lips as she whispered if she could borrow some socks. How could he was no to her when she looked like that, with those wide eyes and those pretty little just begging to be kissed.

“Pay me loser” She snickered as she nudged Calum.

Calum’s thoughts seemed to fade from his mind when he realised she was staring at him with a shit eating grin, hand still held out in front of his face, fingers wriggling. He spared a look down at the board, seeing the dog standing proudly on the square while the words mocked him. He scowled at the board, his lips pouting slightly as he looked at the small pile of money next to him.

“You’re cheating” Calum announced as he turned to look at her, arms folding across his chest.

She let out a loud scoff of laughter, throwing her head back slightly. It gave Calum a chance to take in the smooth skin of her neck, the sight of her bare skin sent Calum in a was that a neck really shouldn’t. Her musical laughter rang in his ears, the sound was joyous.

“Just because your losing, doesn’t mean you can accuse me of cheating Cal” She retorted as she smoothed her hair away from her face, raising a brow at Calum, her wine glass pressed against her bottom lip.

Calum didn’t realise how much he liked when she said his name until right now, hearing the familiar nickname easily slip past her lips. He just wanted to listen to her say his name on repeat.

Calum’s tongue ran across his bottom lip as he watched her place her wine glass on the table, keeping her bright eyes on his face.

“Just calling it as I see it”

Her brows furrowed in mock anger, eyes squinting in a playful glare. She leaned further into Calum’s personal space, but he didn’t make any attempt to stop her, in fact he found himself just inching himself closer to her.

From this distance Calum could smell the light hint of her favourite perfume, something sweet and the tip of his nose, lingering on her skin and weaving through her hair. There was an undertone of something homely and warm that clung to her, beckoning Calum to breath in the inviting smell. It just undeniably her.

“You should just call bankrupt now” She said with a teasing grin, nodded her head along with her words. “And I might just let you off with minimal face rubbing”

She didn’t really pay much mind to the fact that Calum was only part way listening to her teasing, she just tilted her head as she glanced at him. Calum watched her lips as she spoke and as they pouted slightly when she stopped. Her bottom lip jutting out a centimetre or so, if he wasn’t watching the pink skin so intently he would have missed it. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes quickly darted up to her eyes, seeing that little sparkle up close now, her soft gaze trained on his face.

Calum didn’t realise he was moving closer to her, until there was maybe an inch or so between the two. He could feel her warm breath brushing against his lips, he could feel her eyes staring at his own, but he didn’t look up from her lips. He felt a shuddered breath fall from his lips, it would only take a subtle move from either of them, just a small nudge of her head or a swift jut of his chin and they would be kissing.

But before Calum could even think about moving, his hand that was gripping the table in front of him suddenly gave way.

He jumped away from her as he saw the upturned monopoly board, the paper money spread across the floor and their little figure lost somewhere under the table.

“Calum!” She shouted in loud giggles as she looked at the mess the tanned boy had made. “You can’t flip the board when you lose”

Calum’s cheeks were flushed a deep red, a large hand reaching behind to rub at the skin of his neck, embarrassment clearly written over his soft features. He could make out her pink cheeks as she leaned against the couch, hands gripping her stomach as she tried to contain her laughter.

“I guess I’m a sore loser after all” Calum tried to cover his embarrassment.

“You think!” She cackled.

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TWO - LUKE BECOMES THE COCKBLOCK KING

“Remind me to never agree to host again” Calum muttered under his breath as his calloused fingers tried to untangle the pile of string lights that were sitting in front of him.

She was standing across the room, bright blue streamers hanging in her hands as she stands on a step stool, hanging them against the wall.

He paused his detangling at admire her. She was wearing a pair of tight fitting blue jeans, they were sticking to her like a second skin, be could make each and every define part of her legs. His dark eyes seemed to linger a little longer around her butt, the denim just seemed to define what was already there. Calum wanted to thank who ever invented denim, because it was a sight he was sure to never forget. Her cream peasant top was hanging off her shoulders, and each time she lifted up the streamers her top would edge up slightly, exposing the soft looking skin of her midriff.  The sight of her exposed midriff was slowly driving Calum to insanity.

He could hear her snort loudly, pausing her decorating to peer over her shoulder at him.

“Remind me to never agree to help you set up again” She made a small movement, waving the blue streams in his direction. “Who even hangs streamers at a party anymore?”

The question was more of a scoff as she unrolled more of the crape paper in her fingers.

“Parent’s throwing their children a birthday party” Calum answered her rhetorical question, watching as she gave him an annoyed look over her shoulder.

“And grown men who act like children apparently”

Calum let out a fake gasp of offence, crossing his arms over his chest as he pouted at he, watching as she shook her head at his child like behaviour.

“Luke was the one who wanted the streamers” Calum admitted, throwing his band member under the bus.

He enjoyed the way she threw her hands up in the air as she muttered a string of foul insults towards the lead singer. His stifled his laughter as she continued to whisper to herself.

“I’m going to strangle him with his streamers when he gets here” She scowled as the streamers became twisted with her angry movements.

“I can’t let you strangle Luke, we kinda need him ya know” Calum said bemusedly.

He watched as she shook her head, turning on the stepping stool to look at the bassist, she pointed an accusing finger in his direction as a wide grin pulled at his lips.

“I can and I will”

Calum shook his head, letting the still tangled light fall from his long fingers. He brushed his hands against his denim clad thigh, wiping away the sweat forming on his palms.

She was still facing him, watching as he slowly pushed himself up from the couch. The streamers hanging limply in her hands, he could see her fingers carefully trying to turn the streamers so they were straight again.

He took short strides across the room, his sock clad feel sliding easily against the hard wood flooring. He stopped maybe a foot away from her, giving her a second to see that he was now standing in front of her. She gave him a wide smile as she pulled at the streamers.

She finally got a full view of the outfit he was wearing. A white shirt with an old band logo stretched across his chest, the picture was starting to fade but it added to his appeal. His signature dark pants that she was sure was one size to small for him, not that she was going to complain, in fact she really REALLY like them. His hair was cut short, not quite buzzed, long enough for her to imagine what it might feel like the run her fingers through it.

“You wanna untangle the lights, I’ll put the rest of this crap up” Calum asked as he took another step, the tops of his toes were brushing against the step stool.

Calum reached his hand out to take the rolled up end of the streamers from her hand, his hand brushing against hers lightly, just a mere brush of their fingers.

“It’s a little funny that a bassist can’t untangle a bunch of wires” She said in a feathery tone, smiling at Calum.

Calum gave a scoff of protest at her accusation, but it seemed that the words died right on the tip of his tongue. Her hands reached up to wrap the loose piece of the streamers around his neck, letting it rest against his broad shoulders, she let go of the blue coloured crape paper, but her hands seemed to linger on his shoulders. Her palms grazing against his shoulders, the action let up his skin under his shirt, he could feel her warm skin though the fabric.

He stared blankly up at her, her head standing an foot or so taller now that she was on the step stool, while she gazed softly at his brown hues. He could almost see the gears turning in her head, already feeling her hands slowly slipping away from his shoulders. Calum wasn’t ready for her touch to slip away, and in a rapid movement, his hands gripped her elbows, keeping her hands pressed to his shoulders.

He watched the way her eyes widened at the sudden feeling of his large hands gripping her elbows, calloused thumbs rubbing slowly against her skin. The way her pink lips parted just a fraction as she took a deep breath. An affectionate grin took over his lips as he saw a pinkness creep up on her cheeks.

From this close Calum could see the light dusting of glitter colouring her eyes, a shimmering shade of gold, blending with a matte looking black that Calum thought suited her. He could see the light coating of lip gloss covering her lips, a peachy scent milling around her lips, and he wondered if it tasted as nice as it smelled. He could even see the subtle glow of her highlighter on her cheeks.

“Calum”

She whispered his name so softly, sweet as honey.

Calum’s lips parted. She leaned down an inch, eyes locked on his. Calum’s dark hues were stuck on her shiny lips, he watched the way they parted as she took a breath. She was inciting him and she wasn’t doing anything but breathing, Calum thought he might just be going crazy, but a good kind of crazy.

His hands slipped from her elbows, dipping down to barely touch her clothes waist, hands just hovering above her. She squeezed his shoulders, as if telling him it was okay. His large hands gripped her hips for the first time, thumbs just dipping under the edge of her shirt, he could feel goosebumps lining her skin.

He leaned her body against his, his chest just brushing hers, a breathy sight fell from her lips that made Calum was to scream. He liked that sound.

And just as their lips brushed against each others, there was a loud crashing sound, the front door banging loudly against the wall.

“Who wants a shot!” A loud and tipsy Luke stumbled through the door, followed by a much more sober and apologetic Lola.

She and Calum quickly sprung away from each other, like they had gotten burnt. Her eyes turned down to look are her bare feet, while Calum blankly stared at their intruding house guests.

“Were you two about to-” Luke had a shit eating grin on his face as he wagged a long finger between the pair.

“I’ll take that shot” She announced, smoothing down her top, sparing Calum a single look as he moved out of her way, quickly making her way into the kitchen.

“Nice going big mouth” Lola snorted as she smacked Luke’s arm, following the quickly retreating girl into the kitchen.

“You two were totally about to kiss man!” Luke’s lanky figure strides towards Calum.

Calum give Luke a sarcastic smile, wrapping an arm around the younger body shoulder. “I’m so going to kill you” Calum laughed playfully, gripping Luke’s shoulder tightly.

Luke let out a forced laugh before darting out of Calum’s grip, shouting his girlfriends name. Calum chuckled at his best friends behaviour, ignoring the empty feel in the pit of his stomach.

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THREE - CAKE BATTER NEVER LOOKED SO PRETTY

“Midnight cake baking is an essential when you’re drunk” She explained as she took of a box of cake mixture.

Calum had followed her into the kitchen like a lost puppy, taking in her words like they were his religion.

There had been a whole group of them at the pub, just having a drink and catching up, eating good food and listening to a live band. One two many drink had lead the pair to discussing their favourite midnight snacks, and she had admitted that she liked baking cakes at midnight, simply because they tasted better. Calum had now reason to say anything different, because he hadn’t baked and ate a cake at midnight.

She said that is was a disgrace and it needed to be righted if they were going to keep being friends. The pair of them had decided, in their partially drunk minds, that baking a cake was a necessary activity they needed to do. Which is why they were standing in her kitchen, a box of devil’s cake in her hands.

“Open this while I find a bowl” She smiled as she passed Calum the box.

Calum took the box from her hand and watched her stumble around her kitchen in search for a big enough bowl. He opened up the box and took out the darkly coloured dry mixture. He eyed the dry mixture, his clouded thoughts were all coming together in one big idea. He slyly opened the plastic packet and dipped his fingers into the powder.

“I think this one-”

Calum didn’t even give her a chance to finish her sentence before he twisted on the heels of his feet, flinging a small amount of the dark powder into her face. Her eyes squeezed shut as it landed on her face, her lips pursed slightly. He could stop the loud laughter that fell from his lips, it was high pitched and full of pure happiness, or maybe drunken joy? Either way, Calum found it hilarious.

"Calum!” She exclaimed as her eyes opened, locked onto a giddily laughing Calum.

He tried to stifle the laughter, but it started back up whenever he looked at her. And just beyond the laughter induced tears that were forming on his eyes, he could see the corners of her lips turning up slightly.

“You’re wasting the cake mix!” She continued as she snatched the bag from his hands. “Besides you did it wrong”

“What?-” Calum asked.

His brows furrowed in confusion at her words, but he didn’t have long to think them over because she reached a hand into the mixture and pulled out a handful and dumped it over his head.

Calum could see it falling from his hair and down his clothes, caking him in a light dusting of brown. He didn’t even hold his laughter back, clutching his stomach. She was laughing too, loud and occasionally a snort would fall from her lips.

“We- we not gonna have a cake if we keep going” Calum laughed.

“Oh, but I want cake” She pouted.

“Then stop throwing that stuff at me!”

“But you look pretty”

Calum rolled his eyes at her playful behaviour. While she tried to gather her all other the place emotions, she took a deep breath, there was still a wide grin her lips that just didn’t want to go away.

Calum liked when she smiled like that. The smile that she did when she was genuinely happy, the really wide and toothy smile that she said made her look like a child. Yeah, he liked that smile. He liked it even more when he was the reason it was there.

“Okay, cake time” She announced, placing the cake mix and bowl on the counter, trying to gather the other ingredients they were going to need.

Calum poured the dark mixture into the large bowl and prodded it with his finger, squishing the lumps in the mixture. She came to stand beside him, hands full with other ingredients. She dropped everything on the counter in a messy fashion, taking Calum’s hand out of the mixture, while making a tutting noise.

“Don’t play with your food” She reprimanded in a teasing tone.

“Okay mum” Calum rolled his dark eyes.

She snorted as she began to mix in the wet ingredients. Calum watched her carefully, the way her brow would furrow as she tried to put the right amount of everything into the bowl, sober Calum would think they looked like a pair of idiots. Drunk Calum kind of thought that too, but he was more interested in the way she pursed her lips when she was concentrating.

The pouting pink flesh was eyes catching, and all Calum wanted to do was grip her pretty little face and kiss her until he couldn’t breath.

She mixed it all together until it turned into an appetising brown looking sludge, an overwhelming smell of sweetness entering the kitchen. Calum wondered if it was the cake or her that smelled so nice.

She dipped a finger into the mixture, before bringing it up to her lips. Calum watched her do this with wide eyes and a slightly agape mouth, his heart skipping a beat as he watched her clean her finger of the cake batter.

“Better at midnight, I’m telling you” She insisted, turning to look at Calum.

Her head flopped to the side slightly, hair falling over her shoulder, her eyes were glazed over but they still looked bright. His eyes immediately fell to her lips, like they always did when she was standing this close to him. Brown hues falling to the plump skin, seeing pink clash with brown. There was a thin line of cake batter against her bottom lip, his hand itched up to swipe the batter from her lip, to feel the soft skin under his calloused finger. Or to kiss the batter away, slanting his lips over hers and sucking in her bottom lip.

Calum wasn’t sure if he wanted to taste the cake or her lips more. Maybe both?

But he didn’t.

“You got a little-” Calum made a motion his his own finger, brushing it against his bottom lip.

“What?” She asked slowly, squinting her eyes at him.

“You got cake batter here” He repeated the motion with a smile.

“Oh here” She reached a hand up and swept her finger across her lip, brushing more cake batter across the pink skin, which was now stretching into a wide grin. “Oh wait I think I got it” She reached up again and brushed the batter down her lip and onto her chin.

Calum smirked as he watched her do this. He kept his eyes glued onto her face and he lazily dipped his fingers into the cake batter.

“No you missed a spot” He lathered the batter across her mouth and down her chin. He snicked as her lips parted widely in surprise “I think I got it”

Her tongue darted out to lick some of the batter from her mouth. “You know, you should really try this”

“If your offering-” She cut Calum off by smearing the batter down his cheek.

She cackled joyfully as the surprise on his face. Eyes glimmering with mischief.

“Oh it’s on now” Calum announced as he scooped a handful of batter into his hands and threw it at her.

The brown batter stuck to her skin and dripped down the front of her top, landing on the floor right in front of her feet with a loud-- plop. She gasped loudly, moving her hands to her eyes to move the batter from her sight.

“You don’t know who your messing with Hood” She said in a matter of fact tone, flinging to mixture she wiped from her eyes at Calum, who watched it land on his black shirt.

They both stared at each other soundlessly, eyes boring into each others, lips turning up into matching grins. He saw her eyes dart down to the bowl on the counter, before returning back to him. They both scrambled to grab and handful of batter and started throwing it at each other, the brown mixture went flying everywhere.

Calum had it dripping down his face, the front of his shirt was covered and a large splatter was cover his jeans. She had it dribbling down her chin and smeared across her neck, there was a large splotch of batter on her shirt that dripped all the way down to her shorts, her bare legs were covered in chocolatey spots.

The floor was covered in the batter, piles of sweetness coating the tiles, as well as the counter behind them.

She smeared more of the batter across his chest, laughing gleefully when he gasped. Calum took the bowl and held it above her head as she laughed, watching what was left pour down her hair in thick waves.

“Oh my god!” She cried out loudly as she batter slipped down her back, leaving a cold chill on her skin.

Calum snickered at her reaction. She moved her hair from her face, slicking it back, her hands coming back covered in chocolate. She reached up and cupped Calum’s cheeks in her hands, wiping the batter onto his tanned skin. She grinned at him, pearly whites standing out against the dark batter than covered her lips.

“You look really sweet right now” She teased as she licked some of the batter from her finger.

“Wanna taste?” Calum asked, the words falling from his lips before he had the chance to think about them.

Her brows rose high on her forehead, clearly surprised by Calum’s statement. Although she was surprised, she made no attempt to move, in fact she may have even inched a little closer to him.

Calum wanted to slap himself then and there, he felt like such an idiot for saying that.

She couldn’t help the slight flutter that her heart gave. It was beating so rapidly, her breath was caught in her throat. Her eyes carefully took in his features, his rounded cheeks and his shard jawline, his warm brown eyes and his full and plump lips that were covered in batter.

God, she really wanted to kiss him.

God, he really wanted to kiss her.

They both stepped forward, not really knowing if the others was thinking the same, but each of them saying screw it because they really just wanted to kiss each other. But their timing was anything but good, because her foot got caught in a pale of batter and slipped right out from under her, her hand reached out to stop her from falling, gripping onto anything in her reach. Which happened to he Calum’s hand. Taking Calum down with her.

They were anything but graceful, laying on her kitchen floor, covered in cake batter and their own embarrassment.

Tonight just wasn’t their night.

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FOUR - FOOT POPPING FIRST KISSES ARE A THING

Three times. Three freaking times!

There had been three times where Calum had been inches away from kissing her. The thought of their almost kisses was driving him crazy, all he could think about lately was kissing her. Every thought he had was about her, if you could look inside his head, not an inch of it wouldn’t be clouded with thoughts of her.

It was making writing music impossible.

Every song he wrote sounded like pure garbage, or it was about an angry he was that he couldn’t grow a pair and just kiss her.

He could tell it was driving the rest of the band crazy too.

“Dude” Ashton had sat down across from him.

Calum didn’t look up at his best friend, he kept his face pressed into his hands, eyes squeezed shut.

“You’re over thinking this” Ashton tried to explain, leaning forward. Calum peeked though his fingers at his, newly dyed, dark haired friend.

“You just need to not think about it, just do it”

Calum scoffed as he moved his hands away from his face, folding his arms across his chest.

Easier said than done.

“I can’t not think about, she’s just- she- god what the fuck is wrong with me” Calum complained as he leaned back in his chair.

“Over thinking” Ashton chimed in, making the tanned boy glare at him.

Ashton chuckled light heartedly, not even fazed that Calum was glaring at him. “Look man, you like her, and not that you can see it but she really likes you too. I think you guys are just stuck in this never ending circle of should I”

“You just need to break the circle, grab her face and just kiss her, no think required. Cause thinking isn’t an option for you right now”

“Thanks mate”

Ashton smiled smugly at Calum. But he knew he was right, they were skirting around each other like teenagers, both to scared to do what they want.

“Fuck” Calum muttered under his breath. Pushing himself up, he straightened out his shirt before speed walking out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Ashton called from behind him.

“I’m not thinking!” Calum called back.

.

“I just- god, thought I was passed this boys are confusing stage” She said through the phone.

She could hear Lola sigh though the phone. This was the third time this week she had called to vent about her feelings for Calum, about how they had almost kisses again last night, and she just didn’t know what to do.

“I’m gonna be frank here, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, sex”

“Please don’t quote Vampire Diaries to me” She retorted, trying to suppress the smile on her lips. “And I’m talking about kissing Calum, not wanting to jump his bones, not that I don’t want to do that- because I do-”

“Are you even listening to yourself Y/N” Lola interrupted her, laughing at her friends rambling. “Just kiss him, then freaking jump his bones so I don’t have to hear you complain about how he doesn’t like you, because believe me he does”

She shook her head. “I just don’t- I- I really hate feelings”

Lola snorted at her comment. “No you don’t, you’re just a chicken”

“I’m not a chicken”

“Yes you are”

“No-”

“Yes”

She opened her mouth to reply when she heard a heavy knock on her door. Her brows furrowed. “Hey, can I call you later?” She asked Lola.

“Don’t be a chicken!” Lola shouted though the phone before hanging up.

“I hate her” She muttered to herself.

She put her phone down on the table, when another heavy knock sounded again. She got up from the couch and walked to the door, turning the handle slowly and pulling the door open.

“Calum?”

She wasn’t even given a chance to comprehend that he was standing at her front door, when his large hands gripped her cheeks, tugging her face into his and slanting his lips over hers.

Shock took over her body, her whole being seemed to freeze for a second or two as her brain tried to catch up with what was happening.

Calum freaking Hood was kissing her.

His hands slowly slipped from her face and into her hair, tugging gently at the soft strands, prompting her to indulge herself. She let out a sort of sigh as her eyes fluttered shut, the feeling of his plump lips brushing against her own, the warmth of his mouth nudging her. Her hands reached out to grab the leather jacket that stretched around his shoulders, bring his body closer to hers.

He stumbled into her body, his hands wrapping around her tresses as he tried to push himself even closer. Calum smiled against her lips, feeling her lips moving against his, a passionate embrace that neither of them wanted to end. She was so involved in the kiss that she didn’t even feel her foot lifting off the ground, it was only an inch above the ground but it was off the ground none the less.

Calum pulled away first, forehead pressed against hers as he took a deep and much needed breath.

“Sorry I made you wait so long” He whispered against her lips.

Her eyes fluttered open to look at him, to take in the flush of his cheeks and the little glimmer in his brown eyes, the slight sheen of her lip gloss covering his lips.

“Worth the wait” She smiled softly, tilting her chin to connect their lips again.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Connections Between Nebraska, the CRM , and TWB

Morning Everyone! I wrote this last week and it jumps around a bit, referencing some old TWD episodes, a TWB episode, an a few other things. The biggest thing here is just making connections and showing that the symbolism is the same across all shows in the franchise. That all of them are connected. And that the writers are telling one, huge story, and have been since very early on.

So, while speaking with a follower last week, I ended up making some interesting connections. Nothing groundbreaking. Bit of a rabbit hole, but not too deep. ;D

But someone sent me something yesterday that said on the walking dead wiki page for the CRM, it says they’re based out of Omaha, NE. Now, they definitely talk about the Omaha location in TWB, but I didn’t remember it saying the CRM is actually based there. 

So I went and looked at the wiki page. What it says is that it’s part of the Alliance of the Three, and Omaha is one of their locations. The actual base of the CRM is still unknown.

But I started thinking about TWD 2x08, Nebraska, and decided to go back and watch that episode again. It’s honestly been years since I sat down and watched it beginning to end. I did, and I’ll come back to that in a minute.

(CRM Page HERE.)

A/B Theme

But further down on the page, it also defines the A and B symbolism. It says A = a strong leader who is spirited and willing to fight back. And B = someone who either can’t fight back or won’t.

But it also has a note under the A that says 1x04 of TWB confirmed that A also = Bitten. That seemed a little weird to me. I didn’t remember them confirming that for sure in the episode (we would have talked about it a LOT more). And Jadis called Rick a B, which suggests he’s not bitten. So I was like, Hmm. What’s this about?

Well, I went and rewatched 1x04. I really need only have watched the after-the-credits coda, since I’m fairly certain that’s where they’re getting this. (And of course let’s remember that anyone who is a member can update wiki pages; so this isn’t exactly a confirmation from tptb.)

In the coda, as you will remember, the woman is eating a sandwich and talking into a recorder about test subjects. All of them have an A before their numbers. And the camera pans over all of them, clearly showing bite marks. So, I’m thinking that’s where they’re getting that A = bite from. But to me, that’s not exhaustive evidence. I still think Rick was bitten, and I still think we don’t entirely understand the definition.

I COULD get behind there being two definitions going on here. One that they’ll acknowledge in the show as the actual way the CRM uses the numbers, and one that’s more symbolic that tptb will never confirm or deny. I mean, they did this with the A on Daryl’s shirt at the Sanctuary. And then there’s the A Sam had in 6a, and the A painted on FG’s church. Are we supposed to believe they’ll all be directly linked to the CRM in the show?

So, I’m wondering if the strong fighter vs weak fighter is how the CRM actually uses it. But symbolically, that’s where the bitten/not bitten comes in.

And you may ask, even if that’s the case, why would Jadis call Rick a B? I mean, he’s clearly one who will fight back.

But here’s the thing. When she had him prisoner in his blue skivvies in the yellow storage container, she wrote an A on the outside. So clearly, whatever it means to the CRM, she thinks he’s an A. And obviously he wasn’t bitten then. So either B does mean bitten, or else she’s just lying about him being a strong leader and fighter. Why would she do that?

I’m thinking about Grady. They saved Noah but left his father behind. And I’m thinking that given what we know of Noah’s weakness, his father was probably the stronger fighter. You could also argue that they saw Beth as weak and took her, but when they saw Daryl in their review mirror, they sped off. I think they only take vanilla people they believe they can control. So maybe Jadis said it because otherwise they wouldn’t have taken Rick, and she wanted to save his life. And because he was hurt and weak, his rebelliousness really wouldn’t have come across to the guys in the helicopter.

Boy are they in for a rude awakening!

So yeah, basically it confirmed nothing for me, lol. The symbolism is still clear as mud, no?

Nebraska

As for Nebraska, when I watched, I mostly saw more connections to what we’ve learned recently, about the CRM and the Great Britain theme (Revolutionary War) and such.

So, I wanted to specifically listen to what the guy says about Nebraska. I wondered if he could have ties to the CRM at all. I didn’t see any evidence of that, but there was still kind of an interesting hint. He was talking about how they’d met lots of people, who all had stories about where some community might still be functioning. And one of the things he said was that they met someone who was sending supplies via RAILWAY toward Omaha, NE. And that was it. They went on about Nebraska in a few other lines, so we’re clearly supposed to take note of it. 

But what we CAN now confirm via TWB is that one of three communities in the Alliance of Three is in Omaha. So, to me, this was definitely a very early, very subtle CRM clue.

(Clearly from the above pic, which is not mine, other people in the fandom are also putting these things together.)

I’ll give you one more small thing and then the part that gets kinda wild. His shark t-shirt. Um…Stafford Sharks, I think? And I know we’ve talked about this before in the sense of it being a water clue. But the Stafford Sharks thing is a real place that’s based out of the UK. Their website even ends in the “.co.uk” suffix. And of course there’s an 11 on the back of the shirt, which we’ve talked about for a long time and, as has recently been pointed out, MIGHT among other things point to S11.

So for me, we have the 11, a hint at the UK (Julia Ormond’s character is British and represents Cornwallis in the Revolutionary War template), and a subtle reference to where the CRM is, all in one person/conversation. And if this guy, at a broad level, represents the threat of the CRM, I think it’s important that Rick kills him. Yeah, Rick’s totally gonna knock the CRM on it’s butt by the end of the series. (Yay!)

But here’s the other thing I thought about. This episode is THE next episode after Sophia comes out of the barn.

Think about that. 1. Missing girl 2. Girl found 3. Hint at CRM    

Just saying.

TWB 1x04

As I said, I rewatched the entire episode and probably didn’t need to, but I was actually glad I did. If I had more time, I do rewatches of literally EVERYTHING right now. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen just yet.

I didn’t nail down the TWB template until the final episode of season 1, so rewatching it, I’m just seeing things I didn’t pick up on before.

This was the episode where they went into the high school to get out of the rain, Silas and Iris dance in the auditorium, etc. And mostly I was focusing on the pairings. We picked up the idea of Iris and Silas being Bethyl proxies when we first watched it. That much was clear. But now that I know Felix = Daryl and Huck = Carol, I saw more.

They divide into 3 groups and what really jumped out at me is that in this scenario, Huck and Faith are together. If anything, because she goes into the CRM at the end, Faith = Beth, right? Which we talked about. So I was thinking about what I’ve said that Daryl and Carol will split up and Carol and Beth might have the first reunion, and kind of watching it through that lens. Nothing huge jumped out at him until…

…the wolf.

Remember the wolf that was building a nest and protecting it’s young and dragging walkers through the halls? I don’t even know how to interpret it in a forecasting way, but since TWD ep 21, where we saw Daryl fixing the bike and hear the wolf howl, it really jumped out at me. The idea that the wolf symbolism will return with Beth and be an important part of the story.

Beyond that, I think we MIGHT be able to take some clues about Daryl’s future arc from this little sequence with Felix and Elton, but nothing huge jumped out at me. So, I’ll probably have to go back again later, maybe during or after S11 as we learn more.

So yeah. As I said, very meandering thoughts and connections today.

Thoughts?

[dingobait]

SPN 15x20 - rewrite script notes ‘Carry On’

SPN 15x20 - rewrite.  

Saving Cas from the empty is the only thing left for Dean and Sam to do. 

2735 words: script notes- Destiel, Fixit, Happy, All the gangs here to help saving Cas. Half Ficlet / half mad writings of a grieving Fan requiring happiness and true love and closure- gonna use this as the starting point for some writing practice and probs eventually write a fan / spec script.

* 

Id start it with Dean on the road, fuming and stewing over his grief for Cas. Ignoring Sams calls. Maybe a moment where he hesitates near the trunk of the Impala when Sam comes out of the bunker to be like ‘Dude?! Stop ignoring me!’ And Dean guiltily hides what will later be revealed as Cas’ coat.

All the alternate world hunters are staying in the bunker and established as being back. They’re reorganising, gathering info figuring out what’s changed in this new world post dusting. Sam can’t keep his eyes off Eileen as she works. He keeps getting distracted and almost missing the table when trying to put down his coffee mug. Not wanting to miss a word she signs. She gives his wrist a gentle squeeze when she moves past him, signing that ‘She’s not going anywhere, Promise’.  

The bunker is too crowded for Dean, too noisy, he gets busted sitting in Cas’ room, holding the mixtape between his hands.

Sam and he talk about feelings, well they talk around feelings at least. The ‘I love you’ confession will be saved for the very end for Cas’ ears only.

Our inciting incident of the episode starts off screen. Deans choking on his words about missing Cas, Sam amazed at how many words he’s finally coaxed out of his brother- and then from the other room there’s shouts of shock and alarm- there’s a dark smear growing in the air of the main room of the bunker. And for a brief moment a face struggles to push itself out of the muck-  Dean and Sam arrive in the room just as the goo shimmers like oil vapours in the air and disappears. Cas? Deans afraid to voice it aloud but Charlie beats him to it. Sams nodding. Freaked out. Everyone agrees it looked like Cas.

They have a smear of the Empty left behind to work with. And A room full of witnesses who all want to help.

Jack shows up saying ‘so sorry I can’t play favourites’ while clearly playing favourites and guiding them to the book that contains the magical solution they need (ala Cas’ telling Dean about the arch angel attached to the profit Chuck in season four, ‘so sad I can’t help WINK if only I could ‘continues to give gives blatant info haha)

For the first step of the spell, we’d need a psychic to establish a tether to the Cas in the empty, we’d have to go and check in on the Wayward Sisters to ask for Missouris’ granddaughters help. We’d see Kia and Claire together as a couple, and Sam would catch Dean looking at them trying to hide how happy they are in the face of Deans misery.

Patience needs something of Cas’ to create a tether, Sam freaks that they don’t have anything with them and Dean has to clear his throat twice to get the words out that he does.

He retrieves the trench coat from the trunk. (Or maybe his own jacket with the bloody handprint still on its shoulder-  Sam’s all ’ew dean you still haven’t washed this?!’)

The first part of the spells in place. Patience says something cryptic to Dean as she hands back the trenchcoat, his grip is perhaps a bit too tight to be read as anything but casual. Jodys attempt at getting Dean to open up is less subtle, everyone’s trying to get Dean to admit If he’s okay or hurting or something worse.

‘You’ve gotta talk about it eventually’, but Sam can see the explosion building in Dean, but then it’s an implosion as instead of getting mad Dean just shuts down, shoulders caving in,  and Dean just has to go

‘Pick you up later Sammy’ and he’s out the door.

We finally see the tears once he’s alone in the car

Driving, he almost hits the smear of black ooze absorbing the glow of the impalas headlights growing in the middle of the road, he skids and frames the scene with the headlights, jumping out of the car as Cas tries once again to pull himself from the empty, this time the oil parts slightly and Cas’ hands push through, Dean sprints forward, and almost has Cas’ hand tightly in his own before the oozey hole in the universe blinks back closed.

Jack will pop in briefly, commenting about how how well the first part of the spell worked with Patience’s help. He’d plant another hint about the next step of the spell, and Dean would sheepishly head back to pick up Sam to tell him the news.

Together the whole gang discuss the case over a family dinner, food everywhere, no more emotional pushing from anyone, Dean’s allowed to stay quiet and is offered additional serves as everyone brainstorms how to interpret / fulfil the next step of the spell to save Cas.

Sam quietly checks in with Dean, elbowing him as Jody and Donna and the girls talk at the other end of the table. Sam assures Dean that everyone didn’t mean to freak him out earlier and Dean cuts him off.

‘I think I needed the reminder that we’re in this together’ he admits.

Sam agrees, ‘You’re not the only one who wants Cas back Dean.’

With Charlie’s remote hacking help, we find the location of next relic we need / the next spell component. We see Stevie helping with the research, we see Bobby breaking a code and Garth adding some new piece of lore that’s vital to the puzzle.

We have a classic heist sequence with Dean and Sam doing what they do best, breaking into places to steal shit from museums. It’s dope, music sequences and everything ending with Dean almost tripping a lasor sensor before Sam pulls him back at the last moment. Dean thought he saw another hint of Black ooze and drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Later on the side of the road and with the first hint of hope /excitement from Dean, we preform the next part of the spell.

Almost instantly, another black ooze rifts appears, Cas struggles to pull himself free, but this time Sam and Dean manage to grab his arms together, they pull with all their might, the ooze is retreating back from Cas’ shoulders, neck, and slowly his face, and we finally see the fight in his blue eyes, the desperate hope, struggling to get back to our world.

Dean and Cas make eye contact, Deans grip on his arm turns bone tight- but the ooze is reclaiming Cas’ throat, cutting off his attempt at Deans name. A deep voice rumbles from beyond the rift ’I said forever!’- and SNAP! The ooze rift slams back shut. And dean and Sam are left sprawling on the ground.

Deans hands close on handfuls of dirt and grass, and then Jack appears. Jolly and smiling.

‘That was very close! I almost thought you wouldn’t need the final spell component!’

‘A rare dagger and one other other thing is required to walk through the Empty unscathed.’ Jack hands the the dagger to Dean. He weighs the stone dagger in his hand.

‘Whats the other requirement?’  

’Love willingly given’ Jack tells him and Dean gives a wobbly grin and just nods and opens his mouth to say something but Jack shakes his head, ‘no, I’m not the one who needs to hear it’.

Sam thanks Jack for his help making things right as Dean walks back to where the oozey tear appeared. He clears his throat, once twice, gripping the ancient dagger in his hands. He turns back to Sam and Jack who confer back and forth, Jack looks over and just nods back towards the afflicted space, a ‘go on you can do it’ but they both give Dean his space.

Dean flips the dagger about, changing the grip with finesse and gathers himself. He stares at the point in space that had so recently held Cas.

‘We’re not done yet’ Dean finally admits as he stabs the dagger into the air and slices through universe, the dagger vibrates in his hands, the rift trying to resist, but Dean leans into it, whispering

‘it’s my turn to save your, ass you ass’ and the dagger slices clean through the worlds.

Dean steps through the door he’s created, the void empty sans his own reflection beneath him, but the daggers glowing in his hand now, a beacon that grows hot and cold as he waves it before him. Dean follows the bacon of light, and meets Cas half way, the angel is struggling against the ooze at a snails pace, drowning in the thick liquid and Dean grabs his shoulder and heaves, using the dagger to hack at the muck, and then Cas is falling into him and this time Dean drags Cas through the darkness, a perfect reproduction of Cas herding Dean through the halls of the Bunker when Billie came after them, but now Dean’s the one to throw Cas to safety through the door before leaping through it just a footfall behind him.

And they land in a tangle of limbs in the grass on the side of the highway with Jack and Sam watching on.

‘Ow’ Cas says in his familiar deep rumble. Dean chokes back a half gasped laugh as he lifts himself of Cas’ chest, but then - movement from the corner of his eye. He spins, blade in hand.

An arm of ooze streaks out towards Cas, greedy and grasping but Dean cleaves it in two before stabbing the dagger into the ground at the base of the rift. The rift blinks out of existence and we’re left alone on the side of the road.

Cas lays on his back, blinking up at the night sky. ‘So It worked?’ Dean looks down at him, grabbing his hand and pulling him into a clumsy seated embrace, Dean buries his face in Cas’ shoulder.

‘Hello Dean’ he says warmly. Dean gasp laughs into Cas’ shirt collar.

’You can have it. You’ve always had it.’ He whispers the words into Cas’ neck who stiffens in surprise, looking down at Dean incredulously as Sam and Jack engulf them all in a full embrace. Any other words are stuck in Deans mouth.

’It’s been too long!’ / ’Welcome home!’ a sweet short lived reunion. They get up, Sam jumping on his phone to spread the good news as he walks back to the car, Jack explains the status quo. Giving Cas a wonderful speech about well deserved places in the world and how if you’re lucky you can carve out a family of your own and he thanks Cas for being a wonderful dad and promises that they still have to work to do and he of course he’ll be around.

But eventually he catches on to the energy in the night air, Dean hovering over Cas’ shoulder, Jack ‘Jacks’ and states an obvious ‘ohhhh this is one of those situations Sam told me to help facilitate, I’m going to * obvious wink* remove myself’  and he Bamfs out.

And Dean grabs Cas’ shoulder, half trying to brush off the black handprint he’s left there in dirt or ooze, half trying to gather his courage and Cas watches as Dean finally looks up and meets his eyes.

‘They’re hard words to say aloud.’ Dean admits, but Cas hears them anyway, and a surprised heart warming smile forms on Cas’ face, and maybe it’s a little bit wobbly.

‘Love is patient.’ Cas offers but Dean winces. He grips Cas’ shoulder tightly, but forces his grip to relax. His hands settling into something almost soft at Cas’ sides, bracketing his elbows. An almost embrace as Dean leans closer.

‘No fuck that. You deserve’ - he scrunches up his nose at the word, ‘You’re… wonderful. You have to know you’re wonderful-  I, goddamnit I’m not good with any of this. You shouldn’t have to be so patient.’ Cas is watching him with a warm smile, basking in the words, in the words he can now see between them, and Deans hands are gently drifting up and down Cas’ arms. They finally settle on his waist. Cas would never tell Dean he could feel their shaking.

‘I love you as you are Dean Winchester’ Cas tells him solemnly.

And Dean kisses him. A brief fierce thing, before he buries his face once more into Cas’ neck, engulfing him in a soul squeezing hug.

We see Deans lips move to form the words we so want to hear, but the words themselves are for Cas’ ears alone as we see Sam watching them from the Impala.

His expression is pained, Half ‘gross that’s my brother making out with an angel’, half ‘my fucking god FINALLY’.

His phone going off in his hands, Eileen and others excited about the news of Cas’ return, and Sam hesitates for a moment before raising the phone. Just as Sam predicted, Dean and Cas kiss once more, the shadows soft about them in the half light on this stretch of remote road. Sam takes a photo and sends it to Eileen…  A whole new flurry of texts flood his screen: OMFG WHAT FINALLY?! YOU OWE ME $$$$ and the radios bubbling softly in the interior of the Impala. The first few notes of ‘Carry on my wayward son’.

Dean knocks on the drivers door, Sam jumps and hides his phone guilty.

‘Outta my seat Bitch’ Dean opens the door for him, Sam goes around to get into the passenger seat, only to see Cas already sitting in it, still glowing but trying to play it cool. Cas’ eyes slide to the backseat and Sam humfs before getting in.

‘You’re both jerks.’

Cas and Dean share a look. Sam groans and slumps down in the backseat. But his happiness about the situation is clear.

The music kicks in, the night sky is endless, and the family are together on the backroads of America, ready to take on whatever comes next.

THE END

Maybe a quick shot post credits scene of Gabriel and Crowley and Balthazar exchanging money with all the other angels and demons now awake and creating chaos in the empty.

[whitherliliesbloom]

river flows in you

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #20 - petrichor ]

[ kaye & eulalie ] ★ [ 1,412 words ]  ★ [ post-canon ]

takes place in one of the many alternate canon verses where illya is the warrior of light alongside 5 other ocs, all of whom belong to either me or ancientechos... and kaye is a scion. mentions e’lija and brief hints of illyanaud.

petrichor- a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather

mama wasn’t lying when she said that thanalan was often full of unexpected surprises. heavy downpour upon a place named drybone, and an unplanned run in with one of her parents’ long standing allies being two of them.

“It’s a good thing I found you when I did, kid.” 

Kaye hates how uncharacteristically gentle he sounds, even more so his not so subtle attempt at acting nonchalant as he feels the young girl sticking herself up against his side even tighter, her hands keeping an unflinchingly tight grip upon his shirt. 

Despite the half of an elezen’s blood that flowed through her veins, she was still tiny in comparison to his own stature. He has no doubt one day the girl would grow to exceed even him in height - kids these days always age so uncomfortably quickly. But that only made her small, helpless and trembling form seem all the more fragile by his side - and reminded him of the fact that a mere child shouldn’t be left soaking in the rain, let alone without a single adult supervision in sight.

He can feel the girl shaking like a leaf, her wispy moonlit hair stuck to the sides of her face and pigtails dripping with steady trickles of rainwater. Her comfy one-size-too-big coat is damp, and Kaye ignores the slowly but steady spreading of dampness against the sides of his shirt and trousers. 

“I-I... I didn’t think it would rain so heavily...” Eulalie’s voice is soft, embarrassed, but the cold from the rain has left her complexion too pale to be warmed even by a slight blush of red. “Mama says it rarely ever rains in Thanalan.”

Well, she isn’t wrong. A storm this heavy is rare in the dry, desolate dirt fields of Thanalan, where cacti the height of two grown hyuran men stand tall and proud - though not completely unheard of... and certainly not something that should catch anyone who has visited the area frequently enough off guard. The girl was either unfamiliar with the geography of the area, or she had an utterly incompetent and unprepared adult as a guardian. Kaye suspects both, but negligent and uncaring of the whereabouts of her own child isn’t something he associates with his long time younger sister figure - and especially not of eorzea’s savior. 

“Your mom... did she leave you here?” The man already knows the girl’s mother isn’t at fault, but it’d perhaps be a tad less jarring or scary than if he had asked directly who the asshole who left her to flee from a Myotragus horde in the rain was. 

The girl snaps her head upward so quickly it almost startles him enough to stop in his tracks. 

“N-no! Mama... mama would never! It’s...” With a pause, he watches as cerulean blue eyes narrow, self-doubt swirling evidently in its ocean hue. Even at such a tender young age, the girl’s already learned the virtue of humility - she’s wondering if she should snitch whoever had left her alone here out. It’s admirable - praiseworthy even... But he even he has little patience towards people who would place children in any sort of danger, intentionally or not.

“Papa said he had an emergency and had to leave home for a few days, so he called uncle E’lija to take care of us. G-ge ge said he w-wanted to come to Thanalan... so uncle E’lija took us both and-”

Had both of Kaye’s hands not been occupied, with one gripping the handle of the umbrella he held over the both of their heads, and the other hovering protectively behind her back - he’d have slammed his palms at mach five speed into his face. 

Idiots. The both of them. He has trouble deciding who was the bigger imbecile - Alphinaud for trusting a man like E’lija to take care of his own children... or the red haired miqo’te himself - who, though not malicious or intentionally irresponsible in any way... is most certainly careless enough to lose one. 

The man must be freaking in his boots now, if he has in fact already realized that the young child he had been entrusted with the safety of has gone missing - which Kaye has no doubt he has already. If the twelve so favored him as much as they did his fellow lalafellin warrior of light and mother of Eulalie, then perhaps he’d even be granted a vision of the girl with her arms wrapped around her jittery, soaked form for an added pinch of guilt. 

Kaye felt no obligation to quell the worries of the man, but he did feel a self-inflicted sense of responsibility towards Eulalie. Even if she wasn’t a close friend’s daughter, she was still just a kid - and no kid deserved to be left neglected and alone, he would know from experience. 

“And so, you got left behind?” the man takes a quick guess, though quickly shakes his head to retract his statement. “Or rather, knowing whose blood you inherited... You probably wandered off and then got lost didn’t you?”

If he were being completely honest, he was shocked that of the two twins who would find herself tempted by her own curiosity so much that she’d stray from her guardian, it’d be the calmer, quieter, more clearly intellectually gifted sibling. 

In hindsight, that perhaps was the reason why E’lija might have lost sight of the girl. Ipheion’s tendencies for blazing, passionate bursts of energy and unbridled enthusiasm has earned him the reputation of being the more difficult of the twins to get a reign on. Not many outside of Illya and Alphinaud themselves would know in fact that Eulalie was just as capable, if not more so than her older brother, of letting her own insatiable curiosity get the better of her own rationality.

Shame weighs heavy on the girl’s shoulders that causes her to shrink into herself, the tiny fingers he’d felt grabbing tightly onto the crinkles of his shirt loosening in their grip a tad. 

“W-we don’t get to come here very often! Ge ge and me...” The girl’s squeaks out defensively, though by the way she averts her eyes, it is clear she understands her own fault in the matter - a maturity that not many children her age would possess. “Mama and papa often told us stories about Thanalan.” There’s guilt and melancholy in her tone of voice, though both pale in comparison to the awe and reverence - to the way little bursts of starlight bubbled and swirled in her eyes as they brightened in their radiance, not unlike the celestial violet auroras of her mother’s own. “Papa said that the scions of the seventh dawn used to have a super secret hideout here and... this was where mama first fought a really powerful primal!”

Kaye allows the girl to recount stories he’s long left behind - tales of an adventure of the warrior of lights and their most loyal of allies, a tale he himself had been a part of himself. 

He doesn’t like to boast - far from it. The story is not his to tell, anyhow.. and there was something endearing about hearing a child talk about her parents as if they were the greatest heroes the realm has ever seen - which they were, of course... in every sense of the word. But he knows his form of respect for the warrior of light is different from Eulalie’s... knows that that respect and admiration she held for her mother was stronger fueled by an unconditional love and family bond.

And when Eulalie admits in a stutter how she wished to become a great adventurer as her mother had been, watched in contemplative silence the way her veil of hair gleamed with the added moisture and reflection of the rays of the moon and stars - that she was alike her mother than she’d probably ever give herself credit for.

That in itself was something they both had in common as well, Kaye muses in irony. It is as the famous saying goes - the river of blood flows deep. 

By the time he’s led her far enough to reach the front of the Gates of Nald, the rains have finally ceased.. and the stormclouds part to reveal an unobscured crescent moon that the young girl gazes up longingly towards, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in.

“It smells so nice. It smells... like the earth... like home.”

Kaye hums, folding the umbrella up and shaking it free of droplets from the rain, before lifting his left hand up to rest against her head. 

“I guess it does.” 

[why-not-a-tickle-blog]

Cheating at Games is Ill-Advised

@barelyticklishlee

Logan was laying very still, the barest hint of a smile on his face. 

“Now remember,” Virgil said. “No laughing, and no moving.”

“I have no doubts in my own ability,” Logan said. “Perhaps you should be more worried about what happens when I win.”

Virgil kept a straight face, but only barely. He couldn’t let Logan keep teasing him or he’d never be able to win. 

“You may have no doubts,” Virgil said airily, tugging Logan’s shirt up. “But I do.” 

He was only allowed to use one tool, and fingers counted, but instead of fingers, he’d chosen a feather. He could still use his hands for other things, but he had to use the feather for tickling. Not that that was a bad thing, Logan was extremely feather-sensitive, and Virgil had ten whole minutes to work in. 

He started swirling the feather around Logan’s stomach, but aside from slight squirms and twitches, he got no reaction. 

“Aww, look at you, you’re starting to move already,” Virgil cooed. “This doesn’t tickle, does it? I even started somewhere easy.” 

“It doesn’t,” Logan said firmly. 

“No, of course you aren’t affected by the tickles,” Virgil said, swirling the feather on Logan’s side, and noticing the subtle shift away from it. “This may be a very tickly feather, but Logan just isn’t ticklish.”

Virgil kept the feather on just the one side while he started searching for his next target. The imbalance of it would make it harder for Logan, and Virgil wasn’t chancing loss. Not this time. 

Finally he moved the feather up under Logan’s chin. Logan locked his jaw tight to avoid any moving or giggling, but his smile was steadily growing, and the briefest sound slipped out when Virgil brought the feather just behind his ear, sawing the delicate bristles back and forth. 

“Aww, is Logan feeling giggly from the light tickles?”

“Mmmm,” Logan said, clearly intended to be a no. 

“Oh, you are?” Virgil cooed. “The little bitty ticklies are starting to get to you?”

Logan looked away from him, his jaw twitching with the effort to hold still, and his face turning a pretty pink. 

Well, it was time to up the ante just a bit. 

“Let’s have these arms come up, Lo,” Virgil said, giving Logan an evil smirk. 

They were both dressed in tank tops and shorts, so when Logan raised his arms both his armpits were exposed. Virgil was loving this game more and more. Only he could make Logan move, or else Logan lost, and Virgil was doing his best to ensure that that was what happened. That Logan’s pride in suggesting such a stacked game would get its comeuppance. 

Virgil dragged the feather down slowly from elbow to armpit in a way that would have Princey squealing and pulling away. But Logan just closed his eyes, setting his face tighter and holding still aside from a number of tiny muscle twitches and small puffs of air. 

Virgil glanced at the clock, to see that he only had two minutes left. No! He couldn’t lose! He would get Logan to laugh! 

“Alright, time to roll over,” Virgil said, his worry bleeding into his voice and ruining any teasing effect. 

Logan did roll over, but he had a self satisfied smirk on his face. Virgil moved down the bed, attacking the backs of Logan’s knees with the feather. 

Finally! He had a reaction. Logan was letting out whines, his legs twitching almost convulsively, but he wasn’t laughing, and this didn’t count as moving. 

Virgil sat on top of Logan’s calves, dragging the feather down the sole of one foot. The whine became much louder, and Virgil suspected that Logan was just yelling into the pillow to stop himself from laughing. He fluttered the feather up and down, and under toes. 

Logan was fully squealing, but somehow managing not to laugh, and with Virgil on his ankles, he had to do much less to keep still. 

“Tihime!” Logan yelled. “Tihihime!” He burst into giggles and laughs. 

No. Nonono. Virgil was NOT giving up that easily. He attacked Logan’s feet with both hands, scribbling all over his soles. 

Logan shrieked with laughter, twisting and jerking and begging for Virgil to stop between breaths and giggles. With him so caught in laughter, he couldn’t get away, or stop Virgil, and Virgil knew well what would happen when he did, so he didn’t let up. 

One hand was scribbling and the other was sawing the feather below and around Logan’s toes. 

“Nohohoho! StohahahahaAHH!”

Virgil pried back his toes to scribble with the stiff end of the feather, and sent Logan into a series of desperate shrieks, before he managed to pull one foot back and shoved Virgil with it. 

Logan was collapsed on the bed in giggles, and Virgil ran. Out of the room, and racing around the mind palace. He had to find somewhere to hide, before—

“Viiirgil~,” Patton called. 

Virgil knew that tone of voice. Logan had a failsafe. And it was Patton. 

Virgil ran. 

He suddenly heard footsteps chasing behind him. 

He let out a shriek as hands caught his waist, pulling him into a hug. 

“Nohoho, Patton, please! Let me go!”

“Aww, it’s not me you have to worry about, kiddo,” Patton said cheerfully. “I’m just taking you back to Logan.”

“Noho, Patton, have mercy, let me escape! I’ll do anything!”

Patton started pulling him towards Logan’s room. “Anything? Well, Lo might not like it, but I’d like a tickle toy just as much as he would. I could just keep you for myself.”

Patton’s hands around his waist squeezed, and Virgil burst into giggles. “Nohoho!”

“Awww, I guess back to Lo you go then.”

Patton finally released Virgil at the doorway to Logan’s room. Logan was just sitting up, his face red and teary, but with the brightest smile and missed hair. 

“Ihif you’ll lock the door, Patton,” Logan said. “Thank you.”

“Oh, no problem, Lo!” Patton said cheerfully, closing the door and trapping Virgil with Logan. 

Virgil spun to try and twist the handle before it could lock, and stopped short at the black bands circling his wrists. 

“What?”

“Oh, those,” Logan said, his voice smooth now that he had recovered. “I had Roman make them for me. They appeared as soon as you tried to run.”

Virgil looked down to see that they were not only on his wrists, but at several points all along his limbs. They felt like soft, stretchy fabric. “What are they?”

“Restraints,” Logan said simply. “They respond to my mental commands.” 

Virgil suddenly felt them tugging him forward a step. “Wha-at— no! These aren’t fair!”

“Oh, of course not. That’s why they only appeared after you both broke the rules and then tried to run. Now why don’t you come lay down?”

Virgil hesitated, an excited buzz settling in his gut. Well, if he was about to be tickled hysterical, going into in a lee mood was certainly best. 

Logan clicked his tongue several times, shaking his head. “After all you’ve done, you don’t want to hold back now.”

Virgil shivered, a smile growing as he laid down on his stomach. At least for the moment he’d protect his worst spot. As soon as he was settled, he found he couldn’t move any farther. At least, his legs couldn’t. His arms seemed quite free. 

“I suppose I’ll give you the same consideration you gave me, and I’ll start somewhere easier.” Logan said, sitting over Virgil’s ankles the same way Virgil had done to him. “Thankfully, you’ve given me very few limitations. I suppose you didn’t think you’d lose. I believe I’ll begin with a pen.”

Virgil could twist his body enough to see Logan conjure the pen, and send him an evil smile. “Do try not to scream.”

And then Logan started writing on Virgil’s feet. 

Virgil was already fully keyed up, and it only took a second for that to release into loud laughter. He pounded on the bed with his hands, thrashing his upper body back and forth, but his ankles and legs were held immobile, and Logan had a solid grip on the foot he was currently writing on. 

“I’m listing your crimes,” Logan said calmly. “You’ll be here all night, and I’d rather not have to explain them over again every time.”

Virgil squeaked and laughed entirely at Logan’s will for several long minutes, before he stopped to give him a break. 

“Would my precious tickle toy like a break for water?”

Virgil turned red right up to his ears, but he nodded. 

He could move now, and sat up to let the rest of the giggles out. Logan handed him a bottle of cold water. 

Logan stroked a hand through his hair, and Virgil leaned into the touch. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Logan said, “but this is nowhere near over.”

Virgil flushed darker, ducking his head over his water bottle. He’d been in a Lee mood all week, only briefly driven out by the challenge Logan had given, and now back in full force. He was going to enjoy this far more than he would ever let on. 

From outside, he heard a happy squeal that couldn’t be anyone but Patton. 

“I do believe we will all have quite the enjoyable evening,” Logan said. “Are you about done with your water break?”

Virgil nodded, handing the half-empty bottle back. He laid down on his stomach, still trying to keep Logan away from his worst spot. 

Once again, as soon as he was settled, he found that he was unable to move his legs. 

“I do believe I will work backwards from the way that you went,” Logan said thoughtfully, and Virgil felt a feather slowly drag up his bare calf and settle just behind his knee. 

“No, I seem to remember something better than a feather for you,” Logan said, and suddenly Virgil was launched into laughter as Logan brushed two soft makeup brushes on the backs of his knees. 

It was too much, but Logan knew that, and moved the brushes down over his calves, where it was more relaxing than ticklish. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Y— noho.”

“No? Are you lying to me, Virgil?”

“Nohohoho!”

The brushes moved back up, just on the edge of where it would tickle like mad. Virgil was giggling his heart out, not even struggling. 

“Are you sure? Why don’t I ask one more time, are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yehehes!” 

The brushes moved up, moving slowly, but perfectly calculated to send Virgil into wild laughter.

Once Virgil’s laughter got a bit wheezy, Logan set the brushes aside, rubbing softly with his hands. Virgil melted into the bed, giggling. 

“I find it perfectly endearing how much you enjoy being tickled,” Logan said, his tone calm and fond. 

Virgil couldn’t even find it in him to protest. Because it just felt so good! Even at his very meanest, Logan knew when to stop, and he’d usually stop a few steps before it. 

“It’s such a wonderful thing I have you all night,” Logan said proudly, skittering fingers over the backs of his knees to make Virgil squeak. 

“But I think it’s about time to move on to better areas, don’t you? Be a good Lee and roll over for me.” 

Virgil’s stomach quivered, even though he knew it was last. 

“If you don’t, I’ll have to make you, and I don’t think you want that, Virgil.” Logan said, his voice a mixture between stern and amused. 

Virgil rolled over, revealing his bright red face and excited smile. 

“Oh, there we go! Such a good little Lee. And now let’s get these arms up.”

Virgil picked his arms up, and then they were stuck there. 

“Oh, that’s excellent, Virgil! I believe now would be the time for positive reinforcement. You remember what is next, I’ll let you choose what tool I use.”

Virgil could barely decide. Did he want light tickles, or rough tickles? Nearly unbearable, or only giggles, or somewhere in between?

Not to mention, Logan wasn’t exaggerating, Virgil had agreed to being a tickle toy for the whole night if he lost. Maybe he’d had just as much pride as Logan had in making the game. 

“A feather.”

“Ah, I see,” Logan said, picking up a feather in each hand. “I do love your sweet giggles.”

Each feather traced delicate shapes directly in his hollows, making Virgil squirm constantly, soft giggles pouring from his lips. 

There was a soft knock at the door. 

Logan didn’t change the way he was tickling at all. “Come in.”

Patton, his face red and happy, came into the room, immediately cooing at Virgil. 

“Aww! Can you make him go back and forth?”

Logan smiled. “Certainly.”

He fluttered the feathers a little faster, focusing on one side and then the other, making Virgil squirm from one side to the other with bright laughter. 

“Lohohoho! Stahahap!” 

But Logan didn’t stop, turning calmly to Patton as if the wriggling, giggly side beneath him didn’t exist. “What did you need?”

“Oh, I came to say that dinner’s ready.”

“Hear that, Virgil? Dinner’s ready. Would you like to get up now?”

“Yehehes!” Virgil squealed. 

Logan snapped away the feathers, and Virgil’s arms were released. He curled them around his torso, letting out the last of the giggles. 

“Dinner came at an excellent time, Patton,” Logan said, climbing down. “It saves a perfect warm up, and then the best tickles for after.”

Virgil flushed darker red, sitting up. His ears and chin, and then his belly. Why hadn’t he added more places when tickling Logan? Anticipatory tingles ran through him even as he knew he wouldn’t be getting tickled until at least dinner was over. 

The dinner table was full of spontaneous giggles, bursting out with seemingly no provocation. From what Virgil could tell, Patton had been tickled before dinner, and Roman would be getting it after. But that didn’t stop Roman from teasing him. 

“What’d you do to get those?” Roman said, grinning, and looking at the restraints. 

“You will find a complete list of his crimes written on his feet,” Logan said cooly, which made Virgil blush again. 

“You’re gonna get wrecked too, Princey, you can’t say anything.” 

“Oh, but I’m going to check out those feet first,” Roman said, grinning brighter. 

Virgil shifted to be partially behind Logan. “I’m not your tickle toy, you don’t get to pick.”

Logan smirked. “I’ll allow it.”

Virgil’s mouth fell open. “Lo!”

Logan pet his head. “I can’t be all sweetness to you, not after you wrecking me unfairly.”

“I wanna see too!” Patton piped up. 

“Of course,” Logan said calmly, turning his attention back to his dinner. 

Virgil ate very slowly, trying to lengthen the time. But that just meant that Roman and Patton’s predatory gazes were fixed on him for several minutes. 

The instant the last bit was gone Patton pounced, tackling Virgil to the ground, and making them both burst into giggles. 

Roman grabbed his ankle. “Oh look! It says ‘if you’re reading this, tickle me’.”

“It dohoes not!” Virgil yelled. “Logan!”

“Oh, dear, I seem to hear something, but I can’t tell what it is,” Logan said. 

Roman grinned, digging into the soles of Virgil’s feet. 

Without anything to hold him down, Virgil’s squeal was accompanied by violent kicking, and soon Roman was forced to admit defeat. 

“Oh, let me see too, Virge,” Patton said pleadingly. “I won’t tickle you.”

Virgil grumbled and blushed, but didn’t try to kick at Patton as he looked at the writing on the bottoms of his feet. 

“Oh, dearie my, Virgil, you’re gonna have a long night.” 

“Yes. And now I will take him to begin.” Logan said, smiling proudly. 

Virgil blushed. If there was any way for them to doubt how much he enjoyed himself, the way he followed Logan without hesitation ruined it. 

“Why don’t you sit here on the edge of the bed,” Logan suggested. 

He slipped one hand into Virgil’s hair, making him melt almost instantly, and then started teasing a feather around his ears. Virgil was giggling soft and light, not moving at all, and leaning into the hand in his hair. A deliberate flutter beneath his chin had him looking up. 

“I-I’m ready to be tickled now.” 

“Oh? Then lay down, on your back this time.”

Virgil laid down, and there was a tugging at his wrists and ankles to pull them out taut and hold them there. 

Logan rolled up his shirt, and Virgil was already giggling. He skimmed his finger in a circle just around Virgil’s bellybutton, which was by far his worst spot. 

Virgil sucked in a breath, squirming from side to side. 

“Oh, no, this is too much movement. I’m going to restrain you further for this part, they will vanish when I’m done.” Logan said, looking up to Virgil’s face for confirmation. 

Virgil nodded slightly, nervously. 

Two more bands appeared, one around his hips, holding them down and still, and another around his ribs. It didn’t hinder his breathing in the slightest, but wiggling was certainly a lost cause. 

“There we are,” Logan said. “Would you give me a good attempt to wiggle free? I must know the parameters within which I will be working.”

Virgil tried to wiggle, but it didn’t work. 

“I meant an attempt in earnest,” Logan said firmly, his hands hovering threateningly over Virgil’s belly. 

Virgil tried harder, arching his back and squirming as much as he could. He felt some of the restraints tighten just a little more, and yet they weren’t at all uncomfortable. Leave it to Roman to come up with something absolutely perfect. 

“Well done, Virgil. And now, I regret to inform you, especially with how eager-to-please you’ve been, is when I will get my revenge.”

Virgil’s breath caught in his throat, and he thrashed, trying to get away, but he had done a good job helping Logan to force his body, or at least his belly, into perfect stillness. 

Logan’s finger touched down, circling around his bellybutton and sending lightning flashes of tingles through Virgil. And he couldn’t squirm either toward or away from it. 

He was expecting a spiral inward, and ruthless tickling of his weakest spot, so he was very surprised when the circle stayed exactly where it was. The anticipation was sending his sensitivity through the roof, but the actual touch wasn’t quite enough to have him laughing on its own. And it kept circling. And circling. Around and around in its torturous journey, not tickling, but so close the threat of tickles could constantly be felt. 

Virgil was caught in a strange limbo, wanting both more and less tickles. But it was awakening his Lee mood, turning it from the bear that had been growling all week into a dragon. 

“A-are you going to-to tickle me?”

“Not yet. Did you know, the longer I stay here, your sensitivity will continue rising?”

Virgil let out a whine. “Please?”

“Please what, Virgil?”

“Please tickle me?”

“I’m afraid not. Not yet, anyway.”

Logan just kept circling, his face impassive, not caving into to any of Virgil’s pleading, and merely offering facts about tickling, and how much more it would tickle once he reached the little bellybutton. Minutes stretched on, the tingles growing and growing, until Virgil was nearly writhing, trying to get closer to Logan’s one finger and actually get tickled. 

“Logan, please! Anything, you can tickle me with anything you want, for however long you want, I don’t care! I want to be tickled, please!”

“You certainly are getting desperate,” Logan commented. “Do you suppose that this would be sufficient revenge for me?”

Virgil whined desperately. He wanted to be tickled! He wanted to be wrecked until he couldn’t breathe and then some! He could barely remember what he’d done for Logan to get revenge for. “Please!”

Logan flicked his wrist, and a bottle of baby oil fell into it. He poured some directly inside Virgil’s bellybutton, letting it overflow and trickle over his belly in tickly streams. All Virgil could think was ‘Finally!’.

But it wasn’t yet. Logan smiled at him evilly, staying with his circles. Virgil could’ve screamed. Several minutes, or were they years, later, Logan’s finger edged closer, spiraling inward. 

Virgil took a deep breath, and he needed every bit of it. He’d never guessed anything could tickle as much as that one finger did, finally applying pressure right at the rim of his bellybutton. He was shrieking with laughter, with nothing soft building up to it. And then Logan picked up a small makeup brush, just the size of his bellybutton, and swirled it down inside. 

Virgil SCREAMED, and his laughter went silent almost immediately. But that wasn’t where Logan stopped. He knew where the line between silent laughter and couldn’t breathe was, and he kept that one brush swirling until Virgil reached the line. 

He rubbed his hand over Virgil’s belly firmly, clearing away tickles and spreading the oil evenly. In the middle of this Virgil found his voice again, laughing deep belly laughs from just the residual feeling. 

And then he looked like he might be done. He tapped the extra restraints and they disappeared, and all the others loosened. 

“Nohoho, tihickle me mohore,” Virgil begged. 

“More? Are you certain?”

Virgil nodded vigorously. 

Logan took the brush, swirling it over Virgil’s belly. Virgil broke into wild laughter, as happy as he thought it was possible to be. 

For a while Logan switched back and forth between the soft tickles of the brush, and kneading Virgil’s tummy with his hands, both methods causing streams and streams of laughter to come out. 

Logan smirked, and that was the only warning before the brush was tickling the inside of his bellybutton again. 

Virgil could now move his arms and legs almost freely, but the restraints somehow pulled him back if he tried to stop Logan, and he could do nothing but thrash in the amazing feeling, almost too much, and definitely screaming his head off. 

Logan dragged the brush out slowly, and down across Virgil’s pantline, which had him wailing in blissful agony. 

He rubbed his hands over Virgil’s belly firmly, rubbing away tickles. 

“I believe I see now why Patton delights in pushing you to where I had previously thought was too far. I’ll give you a short break, and we will continue afterwards.”

Logan helped Virgil sit up, and get water, dropping his persona entirely to be absolutely certain that he wasn’t going to far. 

“Oh, no, the circles were too far. That was torture. The tickling is amazing.”

Logan flushed just slightly at the praise. “I’m pleased that this is a mutually enjoyable experience.”

Virgil finished off the water and went to use the bathroom before coming back, readily laying down and pulling his own shirt up. 

“See now you’ve ruined my opportunity to tease you more,” Logan said, painting figure eights in the baby oil with the brush, and bringing out bright laughter. “Perhaps I should invite Patton and Roman back in. They certainly have no shortage of teases in them. Not to mention, I believe they finished a while ago.”

Virgil was laughing too hard to answer, his hands batting at the air ineffectively. 

But soon there was Roman’s laughter and Patton’s cooing joining his laughs in filling the room. 

“You just can’t get enough, can you?” Roman teased. 

“It seems not,” Logan agreed. “I’ve called you to offer each of you a turn, provided you comply with certain guidelines.”

“Yeah, sure, like what?” Roman said. 

“This little lee,” Logan said, squeezing at Virgil’s sides and making him jolt and snort. “Is quite over sensitive at the moment. Any tickles must be of the lighter variety, though that will not by any means lessen the reactions.” 

To prove this, Logan slipped the brush back into his bellybutton for a few seconds. Virgil was thrashing violently, shrieking laughter. 

“He is unable to interfere with your tickling, but I would request that you not attempt to pin him down any further.”

“Alright, sounds good.” Roman said. “Can I use some more of the oil?”

“That is acceptable.” 

Logan traded places with Roman, who smirked down at Virgil. “Hello there, Giggles, ready to go hysterical?”

Roman moved his hands up to Virgil’s armpits, and the restraints held his arms up. He could keep them up in the air, or above his head, or anywhere in between, but he couldn’t close off his armpits. 

Roman poured oil into each one, and then picked up the makeup brush. “We have to have an even coat, Virge.”

Virgil certainly went hysterical. His feet were kicking, and his head was thrashing back and forth, laughter pouring from his throat. 

“Can I have a turn now?” Patton asked, bouncing up and down. “I want to play with his little giggle button!”

“It’s more of a scream button at the moment, Padre,” Roman said, but he got off of Virgil, giving him a chance to catch his breath. 

Virgil was finally beginning to feel sated, the dragon no longer roaring, and beginning to shrink. 

Patton sat on his hips, staring down at his belly hungrily. “Poke!” He said in a bright voice, poking his finger on Virgil’s bellybutton. 

Virgil let out a short shriek, and then laughter. 

“Poke, poke,” Patton said, sending his fingers poking randomly over Virgil’s belly. “Poke, poke, poke.”

He pulled his hands back. “And a tickly!” They darted down, scribbling over Virgil’s belly. Virgil laughed so hard it went silent before Patton stopped. But he wasn’t done. 

“A poke. A poke poke poke!”

Virgil squealed louder with each poke, as they seemed targeted now to more sensitive places. 

“Pokey poke poke!”

“Patton, perhaps not—“ Logan started. 

“And a tickly!” Patton said, scribbling all over. 

Virgil’s laughter went silent faster this time, and Logan pulled Patton away, taking his place. He rubbed over Virgil’s belly, clearing away what tickles could be cleared away. 

“Ihihi’m dohone,” Virgil said. 

Logan snapped, and the bands disappeared. 

“You did absolutely amazing, Virgil. You’re always my favorite lee.”

“Ihi’m all of yohour favorite Lee.”

“You bet you are, Virgil!” Patton said. 

Roman chuckled. “You certainly like being lee better than any of us do.”

Virgil was hit with an intense wave of exhaustion. 

Logan moved to his head, and stroked a hand through his hair. Virgil melted, and the sleepiness very nearly won. He looked up at Logan. “Stay w’ me?”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” Logan said, gently carding through his hair. 

Virgil fell asleep even before Roman and Patton left. 

[concealeddarkness13]

WHG 15 Post-Games Imposter Syndrome Part 30

This is the last one before the party! Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses (also thanks for Conor!), and @thoughts-of-nora!

With the blood in my carpet, I was able to create a few crystal knives just in case I needed them, but I would only use them in an emergency. So, I kept one on me very inconspicuously.

A couple days after I saw Shine and Volt, some Peacekeepers knocked on my door. They didn’t tell me what was going on; they just grabbed me and pushed me along. Brilliant. Was it some other brilliant idea of Aurora’s?

Nope. It was Conor’s. He was standing in the middle of the room, wearing just a buttoned shirt, instead of a full suit, and he had rolled his sleeves up. There was an Avox over to the side, standing by a radio. What the hell was this?

I smirked over at him as the Peacekeepers pushed me into the room and slammed the door behind them. I crossed my arms. “What’s this? You trying to woo me now?”

“You’ve only just now figured that out? We’ve only been a couple for how many days now?” He pretended to look wounded as he walked closer to me, and his eyes sharpened when he got closer.

I laughed. “That means my acting has been that good. I had no idea.”

He actually looked serious. “If I was to ask if you were physically alright, what are the chances of you giving me an honest answer?”

Aw. Was that a bit of concern I saw? I held up my hands so he could see the scar on my right hand even more clearly. “100% truth, I’m technically physically alright. You don’t have to worry about me fainting on you.” I winked at him. He really thought I was going to admit weakness in front of him? He had already exploited my weakness for my friends once.

“Alas, and here I was hoping we would get the full cliché of the romance story. Now I’ll never cross it off the list.” Sorry for disappointing him. “But if ever there was a time for Ally cats presence…nevertheless, I suppose the dress will have to be a little different than the first plan. Still I do hope you will like it.” Ooh. What was this? I hadn’t heard hints of these plans. “But as for why we’re here, apparently the Capitol is afraid that throwing their newest gem into a party for the first time might embarrass them more if she doesn’t know how to dance. Though, I suppose we can’t give them too much credit for worrying about how they’ll be viewed through you all things considered.” A dark look passed over his face before he hid it with a smirk.

Huh. He seemed to be so concerned about me getting hurt. I wouldn’t have expected that of him. I put my hand over my chest, faking pain. “How rude to assume I can’t dance. And 100% true. So, I’m assuming that means you know how to?”

“Why of course! Some of the best dramas unfold on the dance floors of parties, loves, deals, battles of their own sorts, break ups, and renouncements…so much easier to see it all the closer you are. Or to spread the right rumor, secret, story, and what-have-you when the guards of those around you are down from music and dance.” Good to know. I really should pay more attention to parties then. “And,” he added as an afterthought. “I have told you I like the finer things of life.”

Ugh. But dancing was so annoying. I fake pouted. “You can have the finer things in life without learning how to dance. Look at me…well, at least before all this shit happened.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A point I will not contest, though I admit, some of them are to be found in it. Lucky for you I have had enough practice that I doubt many would notice your mistakes when the time comes, but I confess, I am unsure how we will fool the ever watchful,” he nodded at the Avox and a camera, “eyes, that we did indeed do as they asked. Or how we would otherwise spend this time.”

I huffed, but he had a point. Damn it. I held out my hand and smiled my best smile. “Then shall we begin?”

“Let’s.” He bowed and kissed my hand before guiding me to the middle of the room.

I was going to look like a damn fool. I didn’t know anything about dancing. The Avox turned on the music. He helped me position my hands, and I hid my nervousness with sarcasm. “My, but I feel under-dressed for this occasion. I hope you can stand a partner who doesn’t know the dress code.”

He started a complicated dance, moving with no warning, and I already stumbled. Shit. I wasn’t prepared for this. “And here I hoped I was dressed down for you, should I have worn less? Perhaps undo a few buttons as well? You can hardly be blamed when uninformed.”

Shit, I couldn’t even respond right away. I looked down as he moved me in the dance. I tried to keep up, but I kept stepping on his feet or stumbling. I looked ridiculous. “I don’t know how you could wear less and still be appropriate. But a more casual shirt would have made me feel less like I missed a memo.” Less sarcasm now.

“Alas, my current wardrobe is rather lacking in what you would call casual, unless of course you mean in the manner of the Capitol? If not, then this is as dressed down as I can appropriately get while in my current position.”

Huh. That probably wasn’t something I should try to imagine, or I’d start flushing. But I made a face just thinking about having to wear fancy clothes all the time. “Then I’m even more grateful they let me wear whatever I want when they’re not parading me around on tv. Sucks to be you.”

He laughed. “Indeed, though I will admit to revealing a bit in playing these roles. Putting a mask on and allowing the world to see something they wish so you can do as you please? I do enjoy these games.”

I had already seen how much of an expert he was in playing those games. It would be better if I learned more about that, if I ever thought to have another scheme. As I was thinking, he spun me, and I almost tripped over my feet. I frowned. “Any tips for doing that? I’m still working on it myself.”

“When spinning, the best option is to pick something stable to look at so you will not become dizzy, only turning away when you can physically no longer look at it. I’d say trust me, but well,” he spread his arm and raised an eyebrow.

Yeah, he couldn’t be trusted. Especially because he hadn’t answered my question. I snorted. “The dancing tips are much appreciated, but you know that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s much the same really. Pick a point that you know is stable about your mask, even if it’s something as small as how you stand or what you wear. Imagine how that fits the part you want to play, as you’re already in it, go from there and believe that it’s a part of you. But only a part. Want to seem confident? Straighten your back, and keep conscious of how it is, and you’ve already done one step of the persona. Then just add more.”

I bowed my head a little, and then promptly tripped. “That’s solid advice. I honestly didn’t expect that from you.”

“I’m wounded.” In a deadpan voice. “But of course, it’s more fun to play the game with someone else who knows.”

“But of course,” I echoed. As we danced, I was actually able to keep my balance. So, I was getting better. “Tell me about your methods. So that I can appreciate your effort that much more.” Maybe I could figure out more about his motives.

“Hmm, some of my methods, I’ll admit, are natural for me, and I have had years of practice. Of building up my personas and masks for everyone else, they are naturally a part of me at this point. I confess, I don’t know what other methods you’re referring to.”

I sighed. He was going to make me say it, wasn’t he? But at least I could get a few more tips out of this. “Fine, I’ll admit. Your charm, your wit, how you can destroy someone with just a few words, how you’re always one step ahead of everyone else.” I made my voice exaggeratedly sarcastic. “You can’t tell me all of that is just a fake persona.”

He laughed. “Destroying someone with a few words is probably the easiest to explain, but it requires having knowledge ahead of time or being able to read them and their tells on the fly. Actually, a rather cheap trick learned from pseudo-psychics about how to cold read a person based off subtle tells they give to a conversation. If you mention this, does their breath hitch or eyes go wide? Or did they seem dismissive of it? Or again, have prior knowledge of their weak points based off their history. Which I suppose aids in the being a step ahead, but having ready access to knowledge and plenty of contacts helps. As well as the years of seeing the patterns people tend to play out. As for charm and wit,” he dipped me, and I lost my footing, and I flailed a little before I realized he was keeping me from falling, “well, at one time they were ‘a fake persona’ for me, learned through pretending to be sharpest in the room, acting like those that were, watching and picking things up to add to my masks. But as I also said, they became a part of me from those years because I let them and wanted them to the point they became as natural as breathing. Satisfied my little thief?”

He pulled me back up, but I still stuttered before I could speak clearly. And I frowned. “Wait, since you answered those questions, do I owe you more kisses? Not complaining or anything, just making sure I know everything I’m getting into.”

“I was not going to charge you for those no, but if you insist, you do still owe me.”

I hated how I actually felt a little disappointed about that, but I didn’t have much time to think about that. He dipped me again, and I almost lost my footing, but he kept me from falling even as he leaned down closer so that our faces were inches from each other. Shit, and I was starting to flush. I was being so stupid. He was dangerous.

He kissed me and as I was getting lost in the intensity of it all, he let me fall and broke contact so that he could lean over me with a smirk before crushing his lips to mine. His hands wandered to my scars on my collarbone and my hand, and he traced them, and his kiss became more intense. He clasped my right hand tight before letting it go and slipping his hand under my shirt. And that was where he found the scar on my lower back and stomach. His hand lingered there, tracing over the scar tissue, and he held me tighter and tighter, and I couldn’t breathe…

He broke away, and when I looked up at him as I gasped for breath, his eyes were dark again. “Are you well enough to continue, little thief?”

I was still gasping for breath, but I wouldn’t admit any weakness. Anyway, I was fine. I was just still in pain from the healing. “To continue what? Don’t go and start talking all vague. I’ll assume something you aren’t meaning.” I smirked.

His gaze hardened a little, and he frowned as he pulled me back upright. “Dancing of course. Though,” he smirked, “I am curious as to what else you could have assumed?”

I cocked my head. Had he really not realized his vague wording? “Well, you did say ‘continue’ after you just stopped kissing me. So, I wouldn’t be out of line to believe you were talking about kissing me more.”

“And tell me, is that what you want?” He leaned close to me as he positioned my hands again.

I flushed a little. He was dangerous. I shouldn’t get closer to him. But also, a stupid side of my brain wanted me to close the distance. Shit. I wasn’t going to admit that. “You’ve already expressed doubt that I’d tell you the truth in other matters. So, why do you think I would now?”

“And yet I’m the liar in our little game.” He started the dance, and it was a lot simpler than the last one. “I am allowed the basic emotion of hope, am I not? Why exactly must these things be such a terrible secret that you have to keep it to yourself? But nevertheless, I will not press. After all, I do keep far too many things close to my chest so to speak, that I am not to be trusted by anyone. Perhaps I should instead be commending you for being one of the few.”

One of the few what? I couldn’t even tell what he meant. “Hmm. Now that’s just confusing on purpose. And I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell the truth, so insinuating that I should be called the liar is just assuming. Like you assumed I wouldn’t tell the truth before. And then I told the truth.” Talking about when he asked if I was physically alright.

“You told the truth in the same manner that I tell the truth, so either, we’re both liars, or we’re both honest people. And should I not be judging based off of past actions or do we constantly forget the past to blindly hope the future is brighter because we so wish it?” As he led me in the dance, he was studying my face.

Of course, my mind flashed to how he had actually told me the truth about Reine and the others. They were safe. They hadn’t been captured by the Capitol. But I’d never admit that. So, I went for a subtle admission. I smirked a little. “A little bit of both, I suppose, especially when new information about the person in question comes to light.”

“Ah, but new information simply means you yourself were wrong about their past, not that they themselves have changed. But I do concede the wisdom of that, given the difficulty one might find in reframing their early bias.”

Good time to press. “So…in the spirit of learning new information and reframing my early bias, what are your motives for fucking with me? This can’t help you with the three motives you stated in the past. Unless you were lying about those.”

“To which three do you refer? I have mentioned my interest and curiosity haven’t I? Or perhaps it was the need for entertainment in a boringly long life? And I informed Star that I’d help her get as many tributes out of the Games of the Capitol as possible. When she failed to get you, and your other friends out, that meant that I was still to help her. Or are you by chance hoping to uncover the dastardly ulterior motives that I’ve yet to reveal that paint me as the true villain in this story?” He spun me, but I actually didn’t trip this time. “The part where I’m using all this as a distraction for the Capitol and other interested groups so I can obtain something that’s been kept from me?”

With how much he made it sound that his villain plan was farfetched, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was real. And I totally didn’t believe that he was just doing this to help Reine get the tributes out. Was he lying, or only telling partial truths? “The three whose answers I’m still paying off. But if there aren’t ulterior motives, why the hell did you choose me?”

“I never said there wasn’t an ulterior motive, but the reason I chose you was simply interest, dear little thief. I’m not sure whether it would comfort you to think that it was purely by chance of fate that our paths crossed in time for you to steal my gloves and draw my attention enough to be intrigued about what the Shades had to say about you instead of say another. Avery or Hugo, or any of the others perhaps could have worked just as well for the purposes, but I’m not sure if she would have endeared herself to the Capitol as easily to be a big enough star.”

Oh boy. I spoke with heavy sarcasm. “Yeah, that makes me feel loads better, hearing that it was just chance that a manipulative, crafty jerk decided to interfere with me. Seriously, the only thing going for you right now is how easy you are on the eyes.” And the information he was giving away that was hopefully at least partially true.

“Not even my honesty, I’m shocked. After all, I’ve always been rather up front about who I am.” He finished the dance, letting go of me and bowing. “But I dare say, that was a little too close to a compliment.”

I smirked and gave him a small curtsey. “Well, maybe you’re too close to deserving that one. But only that one.”

“I’ve survived off of less and have gotten this far. Feel like you understand that one? You didn’t step on my feet accidentally once.”

Maybe I should have. “It makes sense. I should be fine with that one.” So, why did he even show off the complicated one first? “You just made me dance the first one because it was so complicated and I’d stumble and look foolish, didn’t you?”

“Stumbling yes, because it would make the others seem far easier to perform.” Sure. “Looking foolish was not the plan, though I was curious what would happen if you were truly off balance for once, if you’d let anything slip. I cannot say if I’m disappointed or pleased by how you adapt so easily.”

Ha. I either disappointed him or pleased him. I smirked. “I’m just annoying like that, aren’t I, hun?”

He raised an eyebrow, also smirking. “Intriguing is the word I would have used. But if you’d feel better labeling yourself as such, yes, I do find the puzzles I’ve yet to solve annoying as you say.”

I felt even more accomplished. I’d actually annoyed him! Best day ever. I laughed. “What puzzles? Me, I’m an open book.” I spread my arms out with a little bow.

He mimicked me with a flourish. “As am I if you look close enough, and yet we seem incapable of fully understanding the other. Or do you believe to have figured me completely out already and I’m the one left behind?”

“This time I’m being 100% honest when I say: hell no. But I guess that’s part of the fun.”

“Exactly, on that we can agree.”

Well, this had been fun. But time to go. Didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I took his hand and kissed the top of it. “Until next time, Bystander.” And I walked off before he could get the last word.

I paused by the Avox, glanced at the camera, and discreetly handed her one of the crystal knives I had kept on me. I leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Use this to escape, if you can. And take as many as you can. It’s very sharp.” She gasped and nodded, and I left. Hopefully, I had helped her.

[blazerina]

Linger (Ethan x MC)

Open Heart // Ethan Ramsey x Allie Valentine (MC)

author’s note: this is kind of sad – not sure where it came from but it made me get a li’l emo at the end…sorry I can’t write fluff anymore…I don’t know what’s wrong with me! this story is inspired by a dear girl  @parkerattano who is always inspiring me!!

word count: 3084

summary: ethan struggles within himself to figure out his true feelings for allie (MC).

--

Ethan was angry. His normally brisk pace was even faster today as he made his rounds and checked on his patients. He felt how stiff he was holding his own neck and shoulders when he bent down to get a drink of water from the fountain next to the nurses’ station.  He knew their desk was the “gossip hub” of Edenbrook and today was no different. The chattering. The whispering. The laughing. Everything had him on edge. Even the orderlies and interns seemed to be cackling about something. He was pretty sure he knew what it was.  He had to get out of there.

Instead of eating on his lunch break, he decided to go for a quick run. He had a favorite path through the park, about a block from the hospital, that he followed countless times before. It was always his “go to” lunchtime activity when he felt extra tense, or too stressed to eat a decent meal.  

He opted out of using his ear buds this time.  He wanted to clear his head without a distraction. That seemed to be his problem lately – he was too distracted.  He was longing for the days when all he had to worry about was himself; when he could focus on his patients and his work while he was at the hospital, and then go home or do whatever he pleased in his free time. It felt like forever since he had the freedom to just be. All his spare time, every waking moment, his head and his mind were filled with thoughts of her.

Ethan’s muscles knew the way having run that trail so many times before, it was as if his body’s memory took over, leading him around every bend and up and down every hill. The energy built up inside of him made him feel like he could run it five times over. He wanted to keep going…and going…and going.

Regrettably, lately he even noticed that he was slipping when it came to his patients. He had missed obvious details in a case a few days ago.  That never happens.  Not to Doctor Ethan Ramsey.  This really could only be explained by his intense focus on one fact - he never expected her to be so cold.

When he told her that what they had was in the past and they had to be professional now, he thought it would be easier than this. He expected her to pout or sulk, maybe look for excuses to see him or manufacture moments that would ensure subtle and secret exchanges with each other, but she always remained steadfast.

It was as if as soon as the word professional was uttered, Allie was shut down and turned off. The Allie he knew and had fallen in love with, ceased to exist.  She was a damn good doctor and still relied on him to be her mentor and guide, especially now that she was working with him on his team, but something was different. The look in her eye was distant, she steadied herself and steeled herself in a way that surprised him more than he cared to admit.

There were moments he wanted to linger, especially when they found themselves alone with each other, but just as he had asked, she kept it professional.  And that’s what it would take for both of them to continue to be successful. This is what proper and honorable medical professionals did – they put everyone else first and resolved within themselves to make sacrifices on behalf of the greater good.

As Ethan slowed up his jog, returning to the hospital, he was more out of breath than normal.  He checked his own pulse and realized it was much higher than he was used to on one of these more simple runs. Rolling his eyes, he was still frustrated with himself, especially as he remembered the newest buzz he’d been hearing all morning from the gossip mill.  With a heavy sigh, he moved quickly to the locker room and showered. His plan was to hunker down in his office the rest of the afternoon and hope he wouldn’t be bothered.

--

It wasn’t long before a quick knock on his office door, disturbed him from his thoughts. He had read and re-read the same line in the medical journal he was studying, at least 4 times.  

“Come in.” He barked, more forceful than he intended.

“Ethan – there you are – hiding in here again today?” Naveen beamed, appearing in the doorway as bubbly as ever, reminding Ethan of a male version of the fairy godmother in Cinderella.

Naveen’s voice sing-songed like a nursery rhyme and he seemed extra cheery for some reason. Ethan suspected he had also heard the rumors, but didn’t feel emotionally capable of handling a deep, honest, raw conversation with his mentor and friend today.

“Cut the crap, Naveen. What do you want?” He snarled, opening a drawer and pulling out his glasses. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh, before putting them on.

Naveen’s brow furrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest and studied his protégé. Looking over his shoulder to ensure Ethan’s office door was closed, he moved closer to his desk and looked down his nose at him, waiting in silence for Ethan to speak again.

“Look – I know I’m being short and you’re going to lecture me, but can we do this some other time? Frankly, I’m not in the mood.”

“There are days I’m not in the mood either, but I don’t go around treating everyone like second-class citizens.” Naveen chided.

“Are you going to tell me what the problem is?” He sighed and settled into one of the dark leather lounge chairs facing Ethan’s desk.

Ethan rolled his eyes and removed his glasses after letting the journal fall to his desk with a loud smack.

“Don’t you have more important work to do? You’ve gone and left me high and dry to deal with this “situation…” Ethan made quotation marks in the air, “on my own, so I’ll just take it from here.”

He huffed, clearly agitated, but looking Naveen in the eye.

Remaining calm and completely unphased by Ethan’s theatrics, Naveen replied, “Excuse me. I left you high and dry you say? Ethan, need I remind you that YOU are the one who left for two months, completely unannounced and unexplained.  So, who exactly left who?”

Ethan was not expecting him to push back with such logic. Defiantly, he pushed himself away from his desk and stood up.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. This has been a well thought through plan that you’ve been watching unfold right before your eyes, even as far back as the hospital bed I kept you alive on in quarantine, months ago.”

“You and Dr. Valentine kept me alive, just want to correct you there.” Naveen chuckled, pointing out the one person, or situation, that Ethan did not want to discuss.

“Dammit Naveen, I said not now. I don’t have time for this.” Ethan walked towards the large glass window that overlooked the park where he ran a few hours earlier. He wished he was still there.

“Ethan…” Naveen, cleared his throat, “If I may…”

“You may not.”

Ignoring Ethan, Naveen kept going.

“For someone who relies so heavily on the facts of any given situation to lead you to the truth, you are making an awful lot of assumptions.”

Ethan fixed his gaze outside, not wanting Naveen to see any hint of emotion or feeling. He couldn’t let the man know he might be right.

A silence settled over the two men, hanging in the air that now felt pretty thick between them.

Quietly, Naveen offered, “With Harper this was never an issue. Why does this professional situation appear to be causing so much strife now?”

Ethan closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. Snapshots of Allie flashed in his mind. He didn’t have a good answer. Words failed him at trying to explain this “situation” to anybody.

“It’s different and you know it.” He grumbled, turning away from the window to face his friend.

“She…she has made her choice. I wasn’t so sure, but now it’s clear to me.” Ethan explained. “Everyone’s been talking about it all damn day, Naveen.  Haven’t you heard? She’s found someone else.”

--

Later that evening, Ethan was absentmindedly scrolling through shows on his television while nursing a beer.  Dejectedly, he sat on the couch, totally bored and disgusted with his current state. It wasn’t like him to recoil into himself like this. To sulk in his home and be full of self-pity. He hated what he had become. What she had done to him. What he had done to himself.

Smeone rapped on his front door loudly and suddenly, pulling Ethan from his thoughts, causing him to jump.

“Christ!” He cursed as he realized some beer had gotten onto his shirt. He glanced at the clock.

“11:17? What the hell?” Not bothering to look through the peephole, assuming it was a drunk college student at the wrong apartment AGAIN, he opened the door ready to give the person on the other side a very heated dressing-down.

He swung open the door and had to do a double take, not believing that Allie was actually the one in front of him.

“Are you insane?” He blurted out.

“Good to see you too. Can I come in? We need to talk.”

“Clearly.” Ethan held the door open wide enough for her to get by and then slammed it shut.

Allie whirled around with an angry look in her eye, referencing the way he banged the door closed.

“I didn’t mean for that to…be so hard…I just…” He sighed, already exasperated from the emotional ups and downs of his day.

“Look, I won’t drag this out or anything, but I need to know if this is what you want.”

Ethan was still reeling from all the beer he consumed, believing that Allie was actually in his living room, and also the fact that she was talking to him, not at the hospital, about what appeared to be…their relationship.

“Sorry – I’m not sure I follow…?”

“This.” Allie gestured to the large space between the two of them. “Did you spill something on your shirt?”

“I did.” He nodded. “Go on, Dr. Valentine.”

He crossed his arms over his chest to one, cover up the stain and two, show her he wouldn’t be intimidated. But why did he do that? Why did he bristle every time she was around? Why did he force himself to act like a pompous, arrogant, jackass whenever she challenged him? This wasn’t the way it had always been. Back to Naveen’s point earlier: what was different?

“Are you pleased, Dr. Ramsey? With this arrangement? Have I been professional enough for you?” Allie used air quotes when she said the word professional.

“I suppose I’d say I’m satisfied with how things are progressing, professionally,” Ethan emphasized, “however, it’s only been a few weeks so I don’t know that I can give a full review of my thoughts on the matter entirely.”

“Ethan.” Allie squared up to him and faced him head on, also crossing her arms over her chest.

“You know what I mean. Quit playing games.”

He swallowed hard. He knew that there were very few people in his life who cared about him enough to call him on his BS. Allie was one of them.

Relaxing a little bit, Ethan walked to the kitchen and Allie tentatively followed him.  Sitting down on a stool near the bar, Ethan reached into a cabinet for some glasses and offered her some water.

“No thanks, I won’t be here long.”

Ethan poured some bottled, sparkling water into a glass with some ice and took a sip. He leaned back against the counter and asked, “What are you doing here, Allie? What is it that you’re wanting…really?”

“I’m wanting to know if this is how it’s going to be.”

“How what’s going to be?”

“You’re gonna make me say it aren’t you?” She asked, a mixture of shock and sadness falling on her face.

“You are impossible.” Allie muttered under her breath before sighing and slapping her hands on her thighs.

“US – Ethan! I’m talking about US.  You and me. Is this how you want it? The professional thing. Me saying yes sir and you giving me the cold shoulder and US pretending that there never was an US.”

He wanted to speak. He wanted to say something but he had no idea what would come out if he opened his mouth so he didn’t. He kept quiet and let her continue.

“I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult.” She stood up.

“I never should have come. I’ve been trying so hard to do the right thing, to be the good doctor who doesn’t let her feelings get in the way of anything…” Allie started moving towards the door when Ethan finally spoke.

“I heard about you and Bryce. Today. At the hospital. You have someone else now, someone better suited for you, someone who can give you the attention, the care, the relationship you want and deserve.”

Allie stopped in her tracks.

“There is no me and Bryce…” She turned around to face him. “At least not…yet and I don’t really know if that even really is a thing or not but I had to talk to you because I don’t…I can’t…”

“Move on.” Ethan finished the sentence for her, but his words sounded more like an instruction.

“Move on, Allie. It’s for the best.”

“Just like that?” She questioned, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “You can cut it all off that easily? Did it…did I really not mean that much to you?”

“This isn’t about me.” Ethan started, feeling himself about to ramble.

What a lie he was spinning. Everything was about him. The way he responded to Naveen. The way he treated the few people in his life he was closest to. His anger. All his emotion. The jogging. The isolating. This was all about him and he knew it. His choices had gotten him into this mess. There was only one clear way out.

“I want this to be about you and what’s best for you and your future.  You need to do your best to put whatever it is about us that you focus on…behind you…”

“I just want you to admit that it’s hard.” The emotion in Allie’s eyes and voice was enough to drive Ethan to his knees.

“After all we shared together and how vulnerable we’ve been with one another, why can’t you just admit that it’s not that simple? It’s not that easy to just walk away?” She questioned.

“I don’t know why. But I can’t. I can’t give in to my emotions on a whim. I must stay calculated and measured and have some semblance of order to my life, Allie.  I cannot live in chaos.”

Ethan paced a few times in the quiet as Allie studied him, letting out a sigh or two of her own.  He settled on the couch and grabbed the remote, about to turn the volume up on the television.

“You’re welcome to stay if you’d like…but I don’t have a lot more to say on this subject.”

His jaw tightened, every muscle in his face clenched. Ethan was afraid with one more word he’d let the dam inside him burst wide open and there’d be no going back. He had to think about her. He had to put her first for once, and not be selfish. As hard as it was, he had to willingly push her into someone else’s arms.

“I’ve always trusted you, you know.” Allie said, sitting down next to him on the couch.

“Allie…” Ethan tried to interrupt her, whining a little and giving away his agitation with her. He did not want to hear her appeal.

“I trust you now, too. And if you really, truly think that me trying to move on…with Bryce…” she paused, watching his face for a reaction.

“…is what I should do…then I’ll do it. I’ll move on.  And I’ll make you proud of me and we’ll be part of the best damn diagnostics team in the country. I trust you that much. I’ve always looked to you for guidance and direction. This is no different.”

A strange peace settled over Ethan. He didn’t like and couldn’t even entertain the thought of Allie being with Bryce, but it was better than her still hurting or being sad about him. He could handle never getting over their relationship; but he couldn’t handle it if she still held on.  

This morning he had been wishing for her to not be so cold. He wanted her to want him again. Here she was in front of him, letting those walls down and he couldn’t do it. Maybe he missed the secret. Maybe he wanted something that was just for the two of them. Hand brushes here and there; looks across the table only meant for one another. The thrill of sneaking out of her apartment before her roommates got up…

It was all those things and more. He didn’t miss the game completely although he had to admit it was fun. More fun with her than anything ever was with Harper…but really, when it all came down to it, he just missed her.

“I think that’s a wise decision.” He sat up a little straighter and looked into her eyes. “Go for it. You deserve to be happy.”

Allie nodded, accepting his wisdom while biting her lip and looking at the floor.

“You said I could stay…” she offered moving closer to him.  She put her head on his shoulder and reached for his hand.

Allie placed Ethan’s arm around her shoulder and looked up at him. “I just want this…one more time.”

Ethan closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, taking in the feeling of her next to him. The smell of her shampoo mixed with her makeup. Her dark red hair resting beneath his stubbled chin. Her hazel eyes sparkling and looking up at him as if he had given her the world, when all he’d really done is crush it.

He tightened his grip around her and thought to himself:

I just want this too.

But couldn’t bring himself to say it.

[obsessedwithbbandsuju]

In Love | Part 2

“Hello?” the voice was unmistakably Taeyeon’s. And Jungsoo also realized that he had no idea what to say.

Pairing: Park Jungsoo/Son Taeyeon

Warnings: Subtle references to Leeteuk’s family’s case

___

hyung: a term used by a male to refer to another male, older than him, that he is close to

oppa: a term used by a female to refer to a male, older than her, that she is close to

sunbaenim: a term used by a junior to refer to a senior in the industry

sunbae: a less formal variation of sunbaenim

___

A few days after the incident of his panic attack and that fleeting intimacy that he had shared with Taeyeon, Jungsoo quietly finished the recording that he’d been having trouble with. Sitting on the bed in his dorm room, he stared at his phone, considering. He had Taeyeon’s number, had gotten it on their first meeting in the studio, but whether or not he wanted to call it was another matter entirely. He wanted to apologize for acting the way he did with her before their argument in the meeting room, not being the type of person to try to shunt blame when it was his, but he hesitated. Even if he did call, would she pick up? He didn’t feel like she wouldn’t, but it also wouldn’t surprise him if she didn’t. After the unpleasantness that had passed between them, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to not want to talk to him. She might have been extending a helping hand during his panic attack in the studio, but aside from that, Jungsoo didn’t doubt that she probably wasn’t too keen on meeting him.

He picked his phone up off the nightstand and stared at it for what must have been another good five minutes. Eventually, though, he screwed up enough nerve to pull up his contacts, scroll, and press the call button underneath her name, without thinking about what he was doing. If he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he would have managed to do that, he reflected, as he listened to the phone ringing.

There was a click. Jungsoo nearly dropped his phone. He didn’t realize he had been so tense.

“Hello?” the voice was unmistakably Taeyeon’s. And Jungsoo also realized that he had no idea what to say.

“Hello.” He cleared his throat to buy himself time, wincing at how painfully awkward he sounded. “…It’s Jungsoo.” The words sounded even stupider out loud than they had in his head. To avoid curling inwards from embarrassment, he pushed on, not letting the wave of chagrin to overwhelm him.

“I was wondering if we could meet sometime tomorrow.” At least he’d managed to get the words out.

“What about?” As usual, she was concise, but there was no hint of opposition or even confusion in her tone, which he was grateful for. She sounded willing.

“I want to… talk.” He very nearly stumbled over his words, fumbling, feeling self-conscious. Usually Jungsoo wasn’t particularly shy, but this situation was entirely outside of what he’d experienced before. He couldn’t even find a way to describe their relationship, if there even was one between them. Colleagues, in all technicality, but colleagues didn’t have sneering arguments with each other, nor did they huddle together on a sofa, arms around each other, while one of them was breaking down in the midst of a panic attack.

“Alright. What time?”

Jungsoo blinked. Her quick acceptance caught him slightly off guard, having expected at least some sort of skepticism after everything. She must know that this likely wasn’t a professional matter, or there would be no reason to have to meet face-to-face to discuss it, and after their spat, he didn’t expect that she was keen on meeting him again outside of work, especially not one-on-one.

“Sunbaenim?”

Jungsoo blinked again, “Oh – I’m sorry. Does two work for you?”

There was a pause on the other end, like she was thinking. “Can you make that three?”

“Yes, that’s fine.” Jungsoo paused. He supposed this was nothing unexpected; Taeyeon was a busy woman, after all. From all he’d heard about her she was constantly working. And considering that he wasn’t exactly the epitome of leisure either, it was a relief that their schedules had matching times at all.

“I can come that way. What place is good for you?”

Jungsoo named a café he frequented, where the staff knew him and made sure he and Taeyeon would get sufficient isolation. “There’s a section in the back that will give us some privacy.”

She readily agreed. “Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow, sunbaenim. Take care.”

She hung up, leaving Jungsoo feeling uncertain. He lowered the phone from his ear to his lap, staring at the device, deep in thought. She was unhesitant to agree to meet him, even after the derision with which she’d looked at him during their argument and her less-than-eager behavior when he was around. Maybe she had decided to ignore her dislike for him? After all, if there was anything he���d come to appreciate about her despite their rocky relationship, it was how professional she was.

The next day, he sat in the café, nerves eating at him. It was 3:04, and there was no sign of Taeyeon. While just ditching without a word didn’t seem like something she’d do (she would never have become so close with Heechul of all people if it was), he felt anxious, nonetheless. But then the door of the café opened and Taeyeon, cap pulled down low and mask pulled up high to shield her face, came in, her steps brisk. Her gaze swept the café once before she located him in his secluded corner and made her way over. As she joined him in the nook partially hidden from the rest of the place, she took off the cap, high ponytail falling around her shoulder blades. She was wearing a black cropped-shirt jacket, a black shirt that hugged her snugly, blue skinny jeans, and black-and-white sneakers. Her hair was dyed pale white-blonde, which, coupled with her pale complexion, made her look almost ethereal.

Jarred by the odd feeling that could only be described as her beauty had leaping at him and giving him a backhand across the face, Jungsoo suddenly found it slightly difficult to inhale. Of course he knew that she had always been objectively attractive, but suddenly, she seemed stunning. Was it just him, or did her eyes seem particularly bright in the afternoon sunlight?

Fuck, he thought, panicked, suspecting what was going on but not wanting to accept it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why now, and why her, of all times and people?

“I’m sorry.” Taeyeon sounded slightly winded as she settled into the seat next to him, ensuring that both of their backs were turned towards the rest of the café so it would be more difficult for people to recognize them. “I’m usually on time, but my meeting went on longer than I expected.”

Her shoulder brushed against his, and Jungsoo’s senses seemed to flare, grasping at every little millisecond of contact before Taeyeon settled and their shoulders were no longer touching. The “it’s okay” he let out sounded muted to his own ears.

Saehyul, one of the café’s employees whom Jungsoo was familiar with, came over. “Hi there, hyung,” he greeted before his gaze flicked to Taeyeon and his eyes widened, clearly recognizing her. “Son Taeyeon?”

Taeyeon nodded, flashing Saehyul a brisk smile. He stared at her for a few moments before visibly pulling his composure back together, although Jungsoo didn’t miss the curious glance that he sent his way.

“The regular, I’m guessing, hyung?” Saehyul asked. Jungsoo nodded.

“I’ll have the iced caramel macchiato, please,” Taeyeon said, her voice low to avoid attracting any attention. Saehyul jotted it down onto his notebook and, with one more slightly incredulous look at Taeyeon, left.

“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” Taeyeon asked. Jungsoo took a deep breath, trying to recover his thoughts after his shock. Right. What he wanted to talk about.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said, deciding to just get straight to the point. “For the way I acted with you at first. I was…” He wasn’t sure how to describe what he had been, although none of the possibilities were pleasant. Pretentious? Out of line? Prejudiced? Impolite? He settled for the last one, mainly because it felt like the most accurate. “…rude.” Brilliant, Jungsoo. You sound so amazingly eloquent.

Taeyeon turned her head slightly to look at him, eyebrows arched in an expression of mild surprise. Jungsoo met her gaze, and again, it startled him how her eyes seemed to gleam in the sunlight streaming through the window. The observation that they were an unusual color – light hazel, so pale that they could even be mistaken for green or grey – seemed to punch him in the gut, leaving him breathless for the second time. He couldn’t help noticing how long her eyelashes were, even though she was wearing no makeup.

Even when she looked away, Jungsoo couldn’t take his eyes from her face. His gaze trailed from her eyes to the delicate arch of her nose to her lips, pressed slightly together as if she was in the middle of a serious contemplation.

It was only when Taeyeon spoke up that he blinked, returning to his senses and mentally scolding himself for staring. “I didn’t think you’d apologize,” she admitted. “No, I didn’t think you’d even consider apologizing. I thought you were the same.”

“The same?”

“The same as those people I compared you to, when we fought,” she elaborated. “I can’t imagine them admitting that they’re wrong to judge others based off of speculative articles. I can’t imagine them admitting that they’re wrong for being so hateful about people they don’t know.” She paused, a vaguely displeased expression settling over her delicate features. “Maybe it’s close-minded of me, but I have a lot of disdain for people like that.”

Oh. That explained it. Which meant she’d had a lot of disdain for him. The fact that she had been able to act so naturally like nothing was out of the ordinary between them, then, was even more noteworthy. She’s good at hiding her feelings, Jungsoo realized with a start, even though in hindsight it was something he should have realized since a while ago.

“But I was wrong about that. You’re not the same as them.” She glanced over at him, her lips curling upward in what could be taken as a smile. “I’m glad you’re not, and I forgive you. I’ve been a sincere fan of Super Junior since your debut, sunbaenim.”

Jungsoo didn’t know what to say to that. The idea of her being a fan of Super Junior was peculiar to stomach. She was such an omnipotent presence in the industry and in South Korea in general, not to mention someone whom he and many of the other members had been fans of, that the concept of such a person being a fan of Super Junior was difficult to wrap his mind around. Of course he knew his group was, and he thanked God every day for it, successful, just like Pandora was – but it was still strange.

“Thank you,” he said, awkwardly. If Taeyeon noticed his fumbling – which he was sure that she did – she gave no sign.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. She seemed nowhere near as ungainly about their interaction as he was. Or was she just better at hiding it? “I was rude back then as well.”

“That’s okay.” Jungsoo couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at her for that. If he was in her place, he would have been thoroughly pissed off, too.

“Heechul-oppa talks about you a lot,” Taeyeon said, sudden. Although surprised at the abrupt shift of their conversation, the topic of his friend made Jungsoo feel a little bit more at ease; at least now, they had someone to talk about and something in common in their friendship with Heechul. Maybe that was her intention in mentioning his friend.

“All good things?” he joked, still a bit awkwardly. But Taeyeon laughed. It was an unrestrained sound, short but genuine and mirthful. More than that, her laugh made him feel ridiculously happy to hear, and even more so to know that she had laughed because of him. I need to get it together.

“Lots of complaints,” she retorted, and they laughed, this time together. Jungsoo could practically hear Heechul making fun of him and whining about their dissimilar personalities, their countless disagreements, to Taeyeon. It sounded just like him. He could tell his friend and Pandora’s leader really were close.

“But he said good things, too.” Taeyeon continued. “That you’re necessary for Super Junior to keep going. That you work tirelessly for all the members. That no one else could be leader but you.”

Jungsoo looked away, Heechul’s compliments making him feel both embarrassed and slightly emotional at the same time. For a moment, the dilemma of this unwieldy situation was forgotten. He and Heechul had too many differences to count, but…

“That sounds like Heechul,” he managed to say.

The sympathetic look Taeyeon gave him made him feel uncomfortable and at ease all at once. Because that sympathy was so understanding, like she knew very well where he was coming from even without him elaborating on it. The feeling of someone else, someone whom he barely knew anything about personally, comprehending him like that was both unsettling and comforting.

Jungsoo stared at the wall, unsure of what to do (a feeling that he was quickly getting tired of). There was a different kind of tension between himself and Taeyeon now. No longer people who disliked each other, they were now two people who were stuck in some strange relationship that he was certain there was no word for. Jungsoo wasn’t blind; even he couldn’t deny that he was very clearly, very obviously, and so very suddenly attracted to her, which made things even more difficult. Not to mention – she was ten years younger than him. The realization that he felt attraction for such a young woman was jarring.

Next to him, Taeyeon drew back. Not physically, but Jungsoo could feel her emotionally drawing away, disengaging herself from the clumsy interaction between them. It wasn’t unfriendly or anything negative; she was just as if she was extracting herself from their conversation.

And he didn’t want her to. Awkward as they were, he somehow wanted to keep talking to her.

But before he could find anything to say, Saehyul came back holding a tray with two coffees. One was Jungsoo’s usual order; the other was Taeyeon’s iced caramel macchiato. Not noticing the tense atmosphere, he placed the coffees down in front of the respective people and smiled. “Enjoy.”

Jungsoo gripped his coffee and took a sip, grateful for the distraction. Taeyeon was slower, more relaxed, but she did generally the same. The silence between them grew slightly more comfortable, at least that’s what it felt like to him. Was there even any awkwardness here? Or was he just stupidly overthinking by himself, especially now that he knew he was attracted to her? Jungsoo fought the urge to groan, the entire situation embarrassing him.

“Loosen up a little.” There was a teasing note in Taeyeon’s voice that made Jungsoo forget how clumsy and unwieldy he felt. She was peering at him playfully, still holding the coffee close to her face so the straw hovered near her lips. “I’m not that unbearable, am I?”

Despite himself, Jungsoo laughed, and Taeyeon smiled. Embarrassingly, she must have noticed how tense he was – but he was thankful that she could easily make it into a joke. He was thankful that she was easygoing and humorous. It was suddenly easy to understand why the other members had liked her so much, so fast.

From then, the silence they fell into was a bit more comfortable. They each sipped their coffee quietly, sitting side-by-side. Jungsoo realized that he was enjoying the calm. When he was with his members things always became chaotic, which was fun but could be tiring, and when he was alone he felt lonely from time to time. Taeyeon wasn’t like either. She was quiet, gave him space and time to loosen up, but at the same time, her presence was definite. He could tell she was there with him. It was a new feeling, he decided, but not a bad one.

For the next ten minutes, they said nothing, and Jungsoo realized that he had sunken into that mindless, serene calm that helped put him at ease but was usually difficult for him to unwind enough to reach, without even noticing it. Surprised, he snuck a glance at Taeyeon, his heart speeding up in his chest as he did. Was it because of her? Something about her presence made it unusually easy for him to let his guard down, but he couldn’t believe that he’d become so disarmed around her so suddenly. The soothing mindlessness that he had slipped into just now rarely came over him, even when he was completely alone.

Taeyeon looked over at him. Their eyes met and, caught red-handed, Jungsoo glanced away, feeling himself flush. The peace of their silence drained away, replaced with thick tension – at least that’s what it seemed like to him. God, what was the matter with him? He was acting like a teenager with a crush. That alone was embarrassing enough, but the bigger problem was that he was sure that Taeyeon was fast going to catch on that he was attracted to her if he didn’t get it together. Just the thought that she might notice was mortifying; how bewildered and maybe even unnerved would it make her? It hadn’t been that long a time since they’d first met outside of broadcasts, not to mention that he was ten years older than her. The thought was difficult for him to process; it would be even stranger for her.

Taeyeon’s eyes lingered on him for a few seconds longer before she looked away, apparently deciding to dismiss his staring – for which Jungsoo let out a little mental sigh of relief. He didn’t know why he had gotten lucky and she didn’t seem to think much of his glancing at her, but he prayed that his fortune would hold up until he could knock some sense into himself. And he would. She was a charming, individualistic, kind woman, not to mention very attractive, and she had been there for him in a moment of distress; it wasn’t unusual that he’d be gravitating towards her. It was just a passing attraction, it had to be. He’d make sure it was. And besides, he had too many other things to worry about. Super Junior’s comeback, his father, his grandparents, paying off his father’s debt… now was not the time.

Lost in thought, he was mildly startled when Taeyeon stood up; she had finished her coffee. Looking down at Jungsoo, she smiled, brushing her hand reassuringly across his shoulder as if she could tell he had some internal conflict going on. Despite resolving to get himself together not ten seconds ago, her fingers against his skin had Jungsoo’s nerves flaring and electricity arcing up his spine. He pushed back hard, figuratively speaking, on the involuntary shiver that threatened to shake him.

“I’ll pay, so don’t worry about the bill,” Taeyeon said. Jungsoo hesitated. “You really don’t need to.” He appreciated it, of course, but part of him wondered if it was a gesture borne from pity. Everyone in Korea must have heard about his father and grandparents, and as inappropriate as holding on to his pride was in his situation, he didn’t want to let go of it. He certainly didn’t want anyone to pay something as small as a coffee bill for him because they pitied him.  

Pulling up her mask and tucking her cap on low over her face, Taeyeon briskly tossed the empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can and looked back at him. “I’m sure I don’t need to, but I do want to. Consider it my thanks for approaching me first to talk.”

Jungsoo said nothing to that. A thanks? Of all things, he’d never imagined that she’d be thanking him after the rocky start they were off to.

Taeyeon took his silence as a yes. “I’ll see you later then, sunbaenim.” Those light eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled, and then she was off, heading briskly towards the counter to pay. Unable to stare after her lest he run the risk of being recognized, Jungsoo kept his gaze fixed firmly on the coffee in front of him, fighting to keep his expression indifferent. Their meeting hadn’t been much, but his mind, racing, scrambling, brimming with thoughts, seemed absolutely intent on making it into more than it had been.

All you did was apologize to each other, he reminded himself, irritated that the reminder was even necessary – irritated that he was acting like a newly-pubescent boy. If he didn’t fix his act by the next time he saw her, which was only two days away, then he was going to have to make it through another silently embarrassing day, praying that Taeyeon wouldn’t notice his chagrin. And even if she didn’t, even if she disregarded it, his members sure wouldn’t. The idea of such a day wasn’t an appealing one, and Jungsoo squared his shoulders, determined to avoid that particular possibility.

He was fishing through ways to properly compose himself around Taeyeon when it suddenly hit him: he had completely forgotten to thank her for helping him out during his panic attack in the studio. Fuck. Jungsoo wasn’t a forgetful person, so the realization was even more jarring. How had that completely slipped his mind?

Faced with the new knowledge that he’d definitely have to thank Taeyeon the next time he saw her, thus heightening his nerves, Jungsoo felt his thin resolve drain away, and the urge to just resign himself to more painful awkwardness on Monday grew stronger. With a sigh, he finished the coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. Then, careful not to make eye contact with anyone lest they recognize him, he hurriedly left the café.  

~

Early that Monday morning, Jungsoo arrived at the studio, newly calm. He hadn’t managed to come up with a reliable way to retain his composure with Taeyeon, but he had managed to resolve himself to be professional. He could sort out his attraction to her in the privacy of the dorm; in the meantime, he was just going to have to play it cool, somehow.  

Entering the building, he was surprised to find Taeyeon sitting on one of the couches; the actual meeting time wasn’t until about twenty minutes later. Her hair, still dyed platinum blonde, was swept into a ponytail, and she wore an oversized grey sweater, blue jeans, and brown boots, a white coat draped neatly next to her. Her eyes were narrowed with concentration, staring intently at a notebook in her lap, which she was sketching in. It was clear that she was too preoccupied to notice him.

“Good morning,” Jungsoo greeted, relieved to hear that his voice was calm. Good.

Taeyeon looked up. In the morning light streaming through the window of the studio, her eyes looked almost gold, giving her a slightly surreal air. “Oh – hello,” she said, standing up and bowing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, sunbaenim.”

“That’s okay.” Jungsoo hesitated. Although they weren’t friends, he didn’t think that her bowing to him was quite proper anymore – not to mention that he was the only Super Junior member that she was still greeting formally, or even using honorifics with for that matter. He wanted to amend that; both out of a little bit of personal desire and the reasoning that being comfortable with her like the others would lessen potential suspicion. “You can stop using honorifics, if you’d like.”

Taeyeon took a seat on the couch again, looking up at him with a small but friendly smile. “I’d like to.” She’d dropped the honorifics, which made it easier for Jungsoo to as well. Awkwardly and a tad bit shyly, he responded by calling out her name, meaning for it to be funny, to break the ice. The attempt hung, tenuous and unsure, in the otherwise silent studio – and then both of them laughed.

Taeyeon’s laughter was the kind that was unrestrained and chiming, ringing through the room. “Now you’re just making it weird,” she complained, her lips curled upward from the remnants of her laughter.

“Am I?” Relieved that he was making progress, and that his composure was holding steady, the smile that spread over Jungsoo’s face was genuine. “I’m sorry. I’m not a funny person, so I make things weird instead.”

“If you’re not funny, no one is,” Taeyeon replied sincerely. “Really, sunbae. You’re hilarious. I think it’s amazing, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who would agree with me.”

Despite himself, her compliment made Jungsoo feel ridiculously happy. Embarrassed at his unwarranted reaction, he thanked her and had to make a conscious effort to not smile too wide before it hit him: he still hadn’t said the thank you that he came to the studio today intending to say. Mentally chiding himself for forgetting, Jungsoo spoke again.

“I never thanked you properly,” he said, “for helping me back then in the studio.” He could tell from the look in Taeyeon’s eyes that she remembered exactly what he was talking about. “We weren’t off to a good start, but you still did. I… it would have been difficult if you hadn’t helped me. So really, thank you so much.”

Taeyeon shook her head. “Don’t thank me,” she said sincerely. “I’m only relieved that you’re alright.” Her gaze flitted over him, and Jungsoo thought he saw a hint of thoughtfulness there. It made him feel like he was being appraised, but not in a bad way.

“You know,” Taeyeon spoke again, a small smile spreading on her face, “I feel like you’re going to be thanking me for a lifetime, sunbae.”

Jungsoo’s eyebrows rose at her statement, the subtle awkwardness of talking to a fairly unfamiliar person abating. Taeyeon was a good conversationalist, made him feel at ease despite his worries about how today was going to go. And it felt good to relax. Jungsoo wasn’t a shy person normally – tiptoeing around their verbal exchanges for fear of her noticing his less-than-appropriate feelings was exhausting, and he appreciated being able to loosen up enough to stop it. “We’ll be around each other for that long?”

“If you want to, I’m all for it. I may sound pretentious, but I like you.” Her eyes were on him, casual, playful, so Jungsoo had to rein in his thoughts from misinterpreting her words and letting his flusterment show. He opened his mouth, caught between thanking her and saying he liked her too, when the studio door opened and Heechul burst in, loudly singing KARD’s Mamma Mia. He stopped when he saw the two of them.

“You two are this early? Especially you, Teuk. You’re usually barely on time.”

“You’re earlier than is usual for you, too,” Jungsoo commented, also surprised to see his friend show up more than ten minutes before the time everyone had agreed upon.

“I’m going to reform my ways,” replied Heechul, with a tad big of unnecessary dramatic flair that made Jungsoo smile. He wasn’t quite sure if the other man was being serious – it was always hard to tell with Heechul – but Taeyeon snorted. “I guarantee that you’ll have given up within the week.”

“Hey,” Heechul gave her a dirty look. “Don’t crush my dreams. I’m trying to be better!”

“You’re already plenty good,” Taeyeon said, the compliment as natural and understated as breathing. “But if you want to be better, I’m just giving you my best assessment.”

“That’s still crushing my dreams,” Heechul whined. Taeyeon shrugged, obviously feigning nonchalance.

“I guess that’s the way it’s going to have to be, then.”

Jungsoo watched the exchange with interest. He’d never really bothered to pay too much attention to Heechul’s interactions with Taeyeon; all he knew was that they had known each other since 2009, when they’d emceed Inkigayo together. Now, from firsthand observation, it was clear that they were more than just acquainted; they were obviously friends.

“You and Teuk are finally talking.” Heechul’s mention of his name brought Jungsoo back out of his thoughts. He winced internally – he had hoped Heechul wouldn’t notice, given that he’d put some effort into staying under the radar, but he guessed that with Heechul’s perceptiveness, he had been wasting energy even hoping. Taeyeon didn’t say anything, but Jungsoo saw her shoot him a discreet glance through the corner of her eye.

“It’s none of my business what happened, but I’m glad that the two of you are getting along better.” There was sincerity in Heechul’s voice.

I’m glad, too, Jungsoo thought, also sincere. Despite the private conflict that getting closer to Taeyeon had caused him, he was still happy that they’d been able to smooth out the kinks between them. It felt good to understand why Taeyeon grew on the other members so fast so fast – and besides, knowing her on a level that was a little bit more than common was just a nice feeling, in general. She was a charming person, and someone he could see becoming and would like to become friends with. As long as he could get his attraction to her under control, that was. But he was sure that he’d be able to; he felt much more comfortable around her now. Surely if he had managed to that in such a short time, he could make his feelings go away soon enough. They were unwarranted, anyway, and more of a result of appreciation and desperation than actual… well, feelings.

“That’s new for you to say – you’ve never really cared much about that kind of stuff.” Taeyeon commented, looking at Heechul curiously. “Is it just nice to see two of your friends corroborating well?”

“That’s part of it,” replied Heechul. “But it’s mainly… this sounds weird, but I just wanted you two to get along.”

That did sound a bit strange, but Jungsoo found it more amusing than anything. He was grateful that Heechul wasn’t particularly interested in knowing the specifics of what had gone on between them, because that would have been an awkward conversation containing information that he wasn’t sure he was willing to divulge. But he did find Heechul’s wish that he and Taeyeon see eye-to-eye to be endearing – especially so because it was Heechul, who normally really didn’t pay attention.

“Huh.” Taeyeon sounded vaguely surprised. “Well, be happy. I think Leeteuk-sunbae and I will get along pretty well.” She glanced over at Jungsoo, and their eyes met. Somehow, by some force of will, Jungsoo was able to stop himself from reflexively looking away out of embarrassment, worried that his jumpiness would make Taeyeon suspect something. But she didn’t look away either. They held each other’s gaze for a good five seconds before Jungsoo cleared his throat, unable to keep it up any longer. To his chagrin, he could feel Heechul’s eyes on him.

The sound of the door opening had them all turning to look. It was Hyukjae, holding a coffee in one hand. He seemed surprised at the group that had already gathered in the studio, but greeted them all cheerfully; first Jungsoo and Heechul with a “yo” and Taeyeon with a quick side-hug, the two briefly looping their arms around each other’s shoulders. Now that he could be near Taeyeon without constantly cringing at the thought of their argument, Jungsoo could see exactly how familiar she’d become with Hyukjae, too. The side-hug was natural and easy on both sides, both of them clearly not thinking too much before doing it. Hyukjae was a fairly physically affectionate person, but Jungsoo hadn’t been so sure about Taeyeon. She didn’t seem to be averse to it, though; he wondered if she maybe was physically affectionate too – and then scolded himself. If he let himself become curious about her it would be harder for his attraction to ease. But still, the urge to look at her again gnawed at him. He clamped down on it, though, unwilling to run the risk of getting caught staring. He’d already done that once before today; he couldn’t afford a second time.

One by one, the other members began to arrive until they were all there. Jungsoo did a quick count; Heechul, Youngwoon, Donghee, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Siwon, Donghae, Kyuhyun, and Ryeowook, all there. They were there to record the chorus parts of Islands, which required all of them to be singing. Taeyeon had proposed that the results would be better if they all sang together, and the majority of the members had agreed, hence them all gathering at the same time for the recording today.

Ready to record, all of them, minus Taeyeon, filed into the recording room. As for Taeyeon, she sat at the desk in front of the room, where most producers usually sat, and looked through the glass of the recording room at them. By now, he was used to seeing that critical look in her eyes when it came to work. He appreciated it, because he and the other members were the same way.

But although he was used to that critical look, it was the first time he could stand to be the subject of it without feeling too uncomfortable. Before their fight he had always fought the nagging instinct to make his dislike of her known on his face when he felt her watching him, after their fight he had found it difficult to be in her notice at all, and after his breakdown in the studio when she’d comforted him, he just felt so flustered in her presence that he was afraid he’d make himself look like a fool at any moment. Now, though, that they were more familiar with each other, he was fairly relaxed for the first time when recording with her overseeing. As expected, it felt pretty good to be able to stay calm during work after so long.

The recording went fairly smoothly, and it was only during then that Jungsoo managed to get a clear mental image of what exactly Taeyeon was like when producing. She gave little nudges and suggestions here and there, listening diligently as the members sang. She was strict, and extremely meticulous, but she wasn’t overbearing or rude, and had no problem with jokes and fun from time to time. It was over sooner than Jungsoo had anticipated it would be, and he blinked in surprise when Taeyeon looked down at her notes one more time and nodded. “I think everything’s good,” she called. “What about you?”

The members all gave their agreement, and they filed out of the recording room one by one. Taeyeon marked down a few more things on the sheets of lyrics she had been writing on and then stood up, gathering the papers in front of her in her hand. Her eyes, though, were still narrowed in concentration, intently examining the words in front of her for something Jungsoo couldn’t gauge. And he didn’t even have the thoughts to gauge it, not when his focus had been completely swept up by the curve of her dark eyelashes and the movement of her platinum blonde hair as a few strands fell across her eyes from the downward incline of her neck. Fascinated against his better sense, he stared as she swept the fringe briskly from her face with her index finger. Was it normal to find a single, short movement so charming?

Abruptly, Taeyeon glanced up, finishing her once-over of the papers in her hand. Their eyes met.

Startled and a tad bit panicked, Jungsoo looked away, cursing himself for letting his guard down. He could feel Taeyeon’s eyes on him, and willed himself to be natural under her scrutiny. To his dismay, it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped it would be by now, because she didn’t glance away for a good several seconds. And by the time she did and he had worked up the nerve to look in her direction again, there was a thoughtful look on her face. Jungsoo’s heart dropped, and the world tilted on its axis. Fuck, fuck – had she caught on?

“Hey, this Friday,” Siwon spoke up, “would anyone mind if we all have dinner together? This week is our last week working with Taeyeon, and I thought it would be good if we gave her a send-off.”

“A send-off?” Taeyeon laughed, her greyish eyes glinting under the studio lights. “Siwon-oppa, you don’t need to. It’s not like I’m dying or anything.”

“But it’ll be the end of you working with us,” Hyukjae pointed out, slight dismay in his voice as he voiced the thought. “It’s been great so far, Taeyeon. I really think you deserve what Siwon’s suggesting. It’s a good idea – I’m in.”

Jungsoo blinked as the other members began voicing their agreement or nodding their heads in consent. He had never seen them so charmed so fast by a person. Sure, they were never unfriendly, but this – it was obvious just how genuinely taken with Taeyeon all of them were.

Before, he would have scoffed. Wondered what it was about her that was so great in their eyes. But now, he thought he might have some idea – and it was just a slight bit unnerving, Jungsoo realized, how fast Taeyeon had grown on him, just like she must have fast grown on all the other members.

“Hyung?” Siwon’s voice brought him out of his thoughts. “Are you okay with it, too?”

Jungsoo realized that everyone in the room, including Taeyeon, were now looking at him quizzically. Chiding himself for getting distracted, he nodded. “I’m all for it.”

Taeyeon smiled. It was a small smile, just a slight curling up of her lips, but it stood out in Jungsoo’s sight like a single red rose growing in the middle of a pile of weeds. She looked genuinely glad that he had expressed his willingness to go along with Siwon’s idea. For some reason, that fact surprised him – and, to his dismay, sent his heart pounding. He took a deep breath, willing it to be calm.

“This Friday it is, then,” Siwon said. “What time is good for everyone?”

“Anytime after five is fine for me,” Hyukjae reported.

“After five-thirty, I’m clear.” That was Youngwoon.

One by one, the members began to give their times. Everyone was free after six, so they eventually decided that they’d all meet up at the restaurant on Friday by six-thirty.

“Looks like you’ve completely entranced everyone,” Heechul said to Taeyeon. His tone was joking, but Jungsoo couldn’t help wondering if his friend was being serious. Because it was true – Taeyeon had entranced all the members over her time working with them. They had all always been friendly, but he hadn’t seen them so happy that they were close to someone for a long time.

“It’s only because they’re kind to me,” Taeyeon replied, palming Heechul lightly on the cheek, a small but playful smile on her face. Surprised to see that they were close enough for such casual physical contact, Jungsoo had to look away from the pair to process what he’d just learned from that short exchange. He’d known Taeyeon and Heechul had been acquainted for years, and he’d found out today that they were friends, but he didn’t think they had become so effortlessly comfortable with each other as they were. Heechul was a person who took some time to get close to, and he and Taeyeon had only met about five years ago. Jungsoo wouldn’t have expected that he and Taeyeon had become close enough for easy skin-on-skin contact – with Taeyeon touching Heechul’s face, no less – but it had just happened in front of his eyes. He wondered if Heechul had maybe fallen to that charm of Taeyeon’s, just as the other members had.

Kind to her… well, Jungsoo didn’t know about anyone else, but he certainly couldn’t say that he’d been kind to her after everything. He appreciated that she hadn’t mentioned their rough start, although he knew it probably had less to do with doing him a favor and more to do with avoiding anyone else from knowing about what had happened between the two of them. Still, he was thankful regardless.

Heechul laughed, boisterous and unrestrained as usual. “Kind? These guys? You must have really put a spell on them if they made you think they were nice with the way they treated you.”

“Maybe they’re not nice around you because of the way you treat them,” Taeyeon retorted, smiling. There was a teasing gleam in her eyes. “I know what you were like a few years ago, oppa. No wonder they’ve become hardened if they had to deal with the way you were back then as much as they did.”

Jungsoo couldn’t help reminiscing a little at Taeyeon’s words. Back in 2009 – yes, Heechul had definitely been a pain in the ass. He still was – he wouldn’t be the Heechul that he knew otherwise – but significantly less so. Which, he supposed, could be considered a blessing from God.

The week went by smoothly, and, to Jungsoo’s relief, he was getting a grip on his attraction to Taeyeon. When she looked at him his heart still raced, but it was becoming easier and easier to hide it. He could carry out fairly lengthy conversations with her without a hitch and without losing his composure, and talking to her in general was becoming easier and easier to manage. She was still funny and charming and there was something about her that drew people in, but any feelings of romantic interest were, every-so-slightly, beginning to wane. He wanted to and hoped he would keep being friends with her, get to know her better, but thoughts of anything beyond that were slowly vanishing. It made sense, Jungsoo thought, since his romantic interest in her wasn’t even romantic interest at all – just a spur-of-the-moment attachment that had happened when he was, mentally and emotionally, in a low place, and she had helped him out.

Now that he had gotten to know her better, he recognized that she was too… surreal for him to legitimately want to pursue a romantic relationship with her. Despite working with her now for a substantial amount of time, she seemed so distant and out of reach. Not the way she acted – that was down-to-earth and grounded – but just her. She was easily charming, seemed to be able to seamlessly break the awkward ice between people interacting for the first time. She was intelligent, well-spoken, beautiful, and seemed to be a natural in every field; perfect at everything, bad at nothing. And while it was fascinating to witness, it made her almost intimidating despite her calm, approachable personality. She seemed just like the kind of person who was absolutely, one-hundred percent confident in herself; no insecurities, no baggage, no worries, completely satisfied with every aspect of her life. It made her feel alien, not someone he pictured would even be interested in dating.

Jungsoo arrived at the restaurant that they’d all agreed to meet, the waiter escorting him into a large, private room that Siwon had reserved for the night, at to find that Taeyeon, Hyukjae, and Heechul were already there; Hyukjae was on his phone, reading an article, Heechul was looking through the menu, and, sitting next to him, Taeyeon was typing something in her phone. Heechul was the first to notice him, glancing up to acknowledge his presence before looking back at the menu. Then it was Hyukjae, who called “hyung”, and turned his attention again to what he had been reading. Taeyeon didn’t see him until he took a seat, after which she looked up, an expression of mild surprise on her face. When she saw him, though, she smiled.

“Sunbae,” she greeted, “I’d say it’s good to see you, but I just saw you today at the studio.”

“That was hours ago,” Jungsoo pointed out, smiling back at her, “you never know, something could have happened between.”

“If something did, I would have noticed it,” Taeyeon assured him. Jungsoo couldn’t place his finger on why it felt like an assurance rather than just a statement.

The others arrived and they crowded around the tables put together, listing their orders to the waiters. Jungsoo ordered a bowl of jjajangmyeon and some ice water, glanced around to make sure that everyone had everything they needed before taking a bite. He was familiar with the restaurant’s food, having eaten here before a few times, but it was so good that he wholeheartedly enjoyed the meal, nonetheless.

After everyone had finished their dinner, Siwon, being as over-the-top as he was when it came to these things, presented a bottle of wine that he’d bought for the occasion. It was a fairly expensive brand and pretty hard to come by, so Jungsoo was impressed when his fellow member pulled out the bottle. They all filled their glasses. The mood was cheery, maybe the smallest bit wild, and altogether pleasant. For the first time in a while, Jungsoo felt light.

As usual, Siwon was as poised and smooth like a politician as he began speaking once the last glass had been filled to the brim with wine. “I think we all want to express our gratitude towards Taeyeon for working with us for these past weeks.”

“Oppa,” Taeyeon complained, even though she was smiling gratefully. “You really don’t have to. It’s embarrassing!”

“Be quiet, you deserve this,” Heechul retorted, patting her head softly. Nodding in agreement with Heechul’s statement, Siwon continued.

“For one, I enjoyed my time with her,” he said. “And I think she’s a talented, charming, genuine, kindhearted woman who deserves all the best.”

In her seat, Taeyeon was practically crumpling in embarrassment; it was Jungsoo’s first time seeing her look so off-kilter. Her shoulders were tensed and she was hiding her nose and mouth behind her hands, eyes narrowed bashfully. An awkward, self-conscious laugh burst from her as the others nodded and called out their agreement to Siwon’s words. Jungsoo stared at her, trying to be discreet, but it was fascinating to see someone who was so unfailingly composed in such a state.

“She’s allergic to compliments like I am,” Heechul declared, watching Taeyeon’s reaction with amusement. The members all jumped on the bait, lightheartedly poking at Taeyeon about her chagrined response to Siwon’s speech while she waved them off, pretending to be annoyed but not even trying to hide the smile on her face.

“So how did you like working with us, Taeyeon?” Youngwoon asked, hushing the group with his question as all of them leaned in curiously to hear Taeyeon’s answer. She looked thoughtful.

“Fun,” Pandora’s leader finally said. “I was sure it would be lively, since it’s, well, Super Junior, but it was even more entertaining than I expected it to be.”

“What did you expect?” Hyukjae asked, completely focused on Taeyeon as she spoke.

“A lot of tomfoolery,” she replied, “but I think it was better than that. Super Junior makes work half into entertainment. You’re all so serious when you need to be – it amazed me how quickly you can go from recording diligently to making ridiculous jokes.”

“Then!” Heechul interrupted, a mischievous glint in his eye that made Jungsoo uneasy to look at. He could just tell that his friend was about to suggest something ridiculous.

Heechul didn’t disappoint. “Why don’t you go around the table and say what you liked most about each member, Taeyeon?”

Taeyeon groaned, fixing Heechul with an irritated look. “Why did I know you were going to suggest some bullshit?”

“I want to know,” Kyuhyun chimed it with sly excitement, prompting Taeyeon to give him a look of betrayed exasperation. That exasperation only increased when Kangin voiced his agreement, and then Hyukjae, and then Ryeowook. Jungsoo sat in slight unease; even though he highly doubted Taeyeon would say anything particular about him, he wasn’t sure what she’d be able to come up with. It hadn’t even been a week since they first had a proper, civil conversation.

“Okay, okay,” Taeyeon grumbled. She started with Heechul, putting a hand on his shoulder and patting him lightly as she spoke. “For Heechul-oppa… well, we’ve known each other for some time now, but this is the first time I’ve seen him work up close. I was surprised to see how much he put his all into it. I mean, I knew he wasn’t the type of person to goof off when it’s not the time to, but I don’t think I really anticipated how hard he works.”

Despite being the person who had suggested this entire game, Heechul looked slightly self-conscious at Taeyeon’s words. “Stop that,” he said. “You’re supposed to say you didn’t realize how much of a lunatic I was or something, not that.”

“I already know plenty about what a lunatic you are. There’s a reason my nickname for you is Nutcase,” Taeyeon responded, smiling at Heechul before she glanced around the table. “For Hyukjae-oppa…”

Hyukjae raised his eyebrows beckoningly as Taeyeon stared at him, putting her thoughts together. “I think I was impressed that he can make work so lighthearted. With Pandora we’re all pretty serious throughout recording sessions. Recording with Hyukjae-oppa, though – that was different. You made me laugh every five minutes,” she added, smiling at Hyukjae.

She went on, going around the table as Jungsoo’s uneasiness grew by the moment. Finally, she was at him. Just my luck that I ended up last, he thought dejectedly.

“As for Jungsoo-oppa,” Taeyeon started, and Jungsoo had to remind himself not to let his surprise show; she’d jumped from calling him Leeteuk-sunbae to Jungsoo-oppa, a way of reference that was infinitely more casual. And while he understood that she’d done it because it would be strange if she referred to him as Leeteuk-sunbae after calling all the other members by their real names, which would draw suspicion (the last thing that either of them wanted to do), it was still jarring to hear.

“He’s kind.”

Jungsoo stared at her. He was dumbfounded. Of all the things to say about him, that was it? He would have written her words off as just trying to compliment him so it didn’t look strange to the other members, but the way that Taeyeon locked eyes with him and held his gaze effortlessly with her own told him that, without a doubt, she was being sincere. Completely, totally sincere. And that confused him even more.

The others must have seen that she was genuine, too, because they didn’t laugh or comment that this must mean she really had nothing good to say about him. Heechul gave him a long look, Youngwoon’s eyes flickered back and forth between him and Taeyeon, and Siwon leaned back slightly as he looked at Taeyeon as if he was getting a new perspective on her.

Flushed and clueless of how to handle the compliment, Jungsoo could only laugh in embarrassment. If it had been from someone he was close with, like the other members, he would have puffed up pridefully – mostly as a joke, though he was honest enough to admit that being complimented felt good – but this was Taeyeon. They didn’t know each other that well, and yet he could tell her compliment wasn’t at all meant to flatter him. Where could she have possibly concluded that he was, of all things, kind?

“Leeteuk-hyung’s embarrassed!” Kyuhyun crowed, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, which only widened when Jungsoo glared at him.

The other members metaphorically flocked to the bait as they usually did, making teasing statements and poking verbally at Jungsoo a little more.

“Must be nice!” Youngwoon commented slyly. Jungsoo scowled at him too, though there was no real anger behind it – in fact, he was still slightly embarrassed.

“Be serious,” Taeyeon scolded, even though from the gleam in her eyes she was clearly amused. “I’m being honest – he really is kind.”

“Leeteuk-hyung is our leader for a reason, after all,” Hyukjae agreed, and from there the teasing gradually died down, much to Jungsoo’s relief. The conceding nods from the others made him mostly self-conscious all over again, but a little bit of him was proud, pleased, that they thought the same.

A little less than an hour later, everyone was getting ready to go. Jungsoo excused himself to bathroom, intending to wash his hands and head out. He was feeling slightly tipsy, but he hadn’t drunk that much and was still in full control of his senses. At least he thought so, until he, caught up in a daze, nearly stumbled into someone – a woman – as he was turning the corner of the secluded hall leading to the bathroom. Slightly panicked, he kept his head down and muttered an apology, hoping she wouldn’t be creeped out.

“It’s just me, sunbae.”

Realizing it was Taeyeon and he needn’t have worried, Jungsoo looked up to find her watching him, a glint of amusement in her eyes.

“I’m sorry if I was unexpected when I called you ‘Jungsoo-oppa’ earlier,” she said. “I’m sure you know why I did it, but it was still out of nowhere.”

Oh. She didn’t need to apologize for that. If she was already referring to the other members by their names, there was no reason she couldn’t with him, he decided.

“You can keep calling me that, if you’re okay with it,” he told her.

Taeyeon looked mildly surprised, her eyebrows rising curiously. “I’m okay with it – Jungsoo-oppa.”

For some reason, Jungsoo smiled. It felt… nice to hear her call him that. Not the romantic kind of thrill that would send his heartbeat speeding up, but the warm, fluffy kind of satisfaction that he really felt closer to her. Hearing her refer to him as ‘Jungsoo-oppa’ confirmed it.

“I really meant what I said, you know.” Taeyeon’s voice was even.

“What about?”

“About you being kind. You are – you’re a really good person. I’ve always admired it.”

Her honest admission knocked Jungsoo off his feet, metaphorically speaking. He was grateful she had such a good impression of him – truly – but he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what made her draw those conclusions about him. Taeyeon had always been a Super Junior fan – he remembered her saying that several times before on shows. Was it because she’d listened to the stories the members had told about him? Had she seen him talking about his place as leader? But moreover, was all that even enough to draw the genuine conclusion that he was a good person?

“Honestly,” he admitted, “I can’t put my finger on what made you think that. I’m grateful – of course I am – but I’m confused.”

Taeyeon gave a small smile, fondness softening her gaze. Jungsoo didn’t see what else except him that it could be directed at, but he also couldn’t make himself believe that it was directed at him. Why would it be?

“I like that cluelessness of yours too,” she told him. “How it’s so easy for everyone else to tell what a good person you are, but you can’t tell it yourself.”

Jungsoo didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of anything to say, anything to do, except stare at her in silence, caught completely off-guard. When someone was complimented so blatantly, with such sincerity, what were they supposed to do?

“I… thank you,” he stammered. “I’m still not sure what I’ve done to make you think so highly of me, though.”

Taeyeon looked thoughtful. “It’s not from how you act with me – we haven’t talked that much, after all. I think… the way you interact with your members touches me.”

“How?”

“You always look after them before you look after yourself. I can see how much they mean to you.”

Her response was simple, but cutting, its implications easy to grasp. “You’ve been observing me?” Jungsoo couldn’t deny that the thought was flattering, if a little bit unsettling to picture his mindless daily grind being taken note of by anyone. No one around him really paid much attention; it was a rare occurrence for him to be observed unless he was actively trying to be.

Taeyeon laughed. “It sounds kind of creepy when you put it that way. I think I have a habit of observing things, even when they’re not technically my business. But yes – I have.”

So that was why she’d come to her concluded that he was, by her words, a good person. Kind. The thought made him feel slightly choked, like emotions were rising up inside of him, but he couldn’t fathom why they would be at a time like this. It couldn’t possibly be just because someone had told him so blatantly that they found him kind, could it?

Taeyeon was silent for a moment, but Jungsoo could feel her eyes on him, thoughtful the same way they’d been at the studio earlier this week. He wondered if he should say something, but she spoke then.

“Sorry, I’ve been holding you up from the bathroom. I’m going now.” Flashing him a brief smile, she walked around him and back to the private room that Siwon had reserved.

Watching her go briefly before finishing the walk down the hallway and to the bathroom, Jungsoo found it surprisingly difficult to forget Taeyeon’s words.

He’s kind.

You’re a really good person.

As he finished washing his hands and shut off the faucet, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and found himself staring at his reflection. Dark eyes, dyed brown hair still fairly short from his time in the military, a long nose and a pretty defined jawline. It was only until he finished observing his own self that it clicked. Why Taeyeon’s casual words were sticking with him so firmly.

For a long time now, Jungsoo realized – he’d been wanting to hear someone say those things to him. It didn’t have to be over-the-top, because that would come off as insincere, but he had wanted someone, somewhere, to direct those words at him. And Taeyeon had – so earnestly and easily.

[potterandpromises]

91 and 99 for Garcy, please?

Failed Analysis

Set a few months post Chinatown. 

Summary: Lucy has been dropping subtle hints for months. Unfortunately, subtle isn’t Flynn’s style.

Content warning(s): Self-esteem issues, non-consensual cuddling, food, & one (1) murder joke. 

Also on AO3

Flynn wakes to a familiar warm weight curled into this chest. He resists the urge to brush the hair from her face, for fear of startling her, and for ending this moment too soon.

It’s become a habit, after a particularly difficult mission, or when she simply needs to talk, or be with another warm body, for them to sit and talk and fall asleep together. He feels a pang of guilt: she must have needed him last night.

7:03, the clock reads. The others will be up soon, and he briefly considers waking her. But she’s peaceful now and that’s a precious thing, for her and for him, given this tradition won’t last the storm. Hopefully whatever caused her to come here didn’t steal too much sleep. They’ll talk about it later, he decides.

The Mothership alarm goes off.

-

For once, no one died or was seriously injured, which is a success in and of itself. It was the easiest mission he can remember. So, he is moderately annoyed with his joints for aching: there is no good excuse.

(No, middle-age isn’t a good excuse.)

(And he really can’t consider what would happen if he truly got too old for this.)

Perhaps Lucy will want to watch a movie with him, as has become a part of their routine on the less heavy of days—

Lucy.

Lucy is… sitting on his bed, book in hand, and… wearing his sweater. Yup, definitely his sweater.

This isn’t the first time she’s borrowed clothing of his— she’d had to help him with his clothes and sling after Chinatown, and it had been advantageous to borrow something loose-fitting. Then there was the night she’d broken down sobbing, which ended with snot covered shirts. And, most recently before this, she’d just said she was cold. His sweaters look good on her. But he can’t comprehend the scene before him. Maybe she’s cold again, or wants comfort. But she has her own clothes. This time, there is no reason for her to want—

“I can leave if…”

“No, no,” he’s staring, and his stupid face burns, “I’m happy to have your company.” She smiles shyly, and makes room for him to join.

As Flynn settles next to her with his own book, he’s glad for the queen bed this newest safe house provides— not that he hated their last arrangement: Lucy atop his chest. But it didn’t lend itself to casual affairs: they couldn’t read, silently, separately, but together, as they do now.

Flynn doubts he’ll get much reading done at present, though. They still have to talk about this morning, and for that matter, her current choice of fashion. But her contentment is enough to delay it, leaving him to stew.

Is she ignoring what happened out of guilt? they’d talked about that. Embarrassment? they have to be past that by now, right? Denial; simple distress at the memory? Maybe she just wants to move on.

“Lucy?”

“Mm?”

“Are you okay?”

She stiffens next to him, and it’s barely felt. Then she sits up, and he follows her example, licks his lips and waits. He won’t push any further. After a moment, she closes her book with more care then necessary and stares at him, on guard, analyzing. He swallows, it’s been a long time since she’s looked at him like that.

“I’m fine,” she says slowly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He gestures vaguely, and she flashes a playful smile. It dies unreciprocated. ”Well, last night—” he starts. “You’ve been more…” he searches for a word that won’t sound accusatory, “affectionate—”

She laughs involuntarily. “Walt, is that what this is—” Something shifts, her smile fades. “Do you not… want that?”

Flynn doesn’t understand the question. Obviously, he doesn’t want her to be in a bad place. But that doesn’t seem to be what she’s asking.

Without an answer, she comes up with her own, and she looks devastated. He reaches out, but she’s already moving away, almost felling out of bed. “I’m sorry.” She’s wiping away tears. “I should go—”

She’s already at the door, and his chest is tight. “That wasn’t a criticism.” She stills, and with one hand on the doorknob, turns back to him. Her eyes hold weariness, and something he can’t name. “I enjoy your company,” he continues, wondering how she’s not internalized that, and knowing the answer. “I’m just… concerned.”

Relief visibly washes over her, and he can breath easier too, but it’s tainted with confusion. “So you— I should go.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’ll see you later,” she promises, exiting in haste.

The bed creaks as Flynn falls back, exhausted and deeply bewildered.

-

At the top of the stairs, Flynn watches Lucy make tea, which she only drinks to self-soothe. He doesn’t like seeing her this way, but somehow, it’s reassuring to know he isn’t the only one still affected.

Despite his best efforts at analysis, he’s no closer to understanding what happened. It seemed she wasn’t coping well, and he confronted her about it. But clearly, he badly miss-read the situation. And as a result, led her to believe she wasn’t wanted, that what she did and needed was a burden. It was only for one, horrible moment, and he’s knowingly done far worse, but still, it weighs on him.

They need to talk, need to understand each other. Flynn takes a deep breath, tries to cast a friendly face, and steps on the squeaky board he ordinarily avoids on principle. Lucy looks up, then away, uncomfortable.

Okay.

He tries to catch her eye, to offer a smile. But she avoids it, causing Flynn to give preparing his cereal the same focus he affords missions against Rittenhouse.

“That milk is low.“ When he turns, she’s looking into her tea. “There’s a new carton behind the casserole.”

With some reluctance, he sits down across from her. And as she stares to his right at an unappealing mark on the well, Flynn rather wishes he were defusing a bomb. But it’s not like they can avoid each other for long, so: “Are we—”

“You really don’t get what I’ve been trying to convey these past few months.” He stares, and so does she. And before he can ask for clarification, she sighs, frustrated. “Do you honestly believe that I couldn’t ever have feelings for you?” it’s enough for him to short circuit, “Is that it?“

Her eyes are glistening now, and before he realizes it, one hand is halfway to her. But he stops dead, and his fingers close around nothing. He isn’t— she can’t possibly mean…

But there is no other way to take it.

(Is there?)

It’s happening again; except no one’s about to die, and her mother’s body is long decomposed, and Wyatt is fast asleep. And it wasn’t an accident this time, she could have given any number of half-truths or told him to drop it and he would have accepted that. But she wants him to know. She wants him.

(Why?)

“Flynn?”

“I thought…” It comes out croaked. “When I saw you taking with Wyatt after— you know,” but she doesn’t know, “I sort of assumed that was where you wanted to be. Long-term, romantically.“

“No.” She looks more defeated than ever. “No, that’s in the past. Why would you even think that?” There’s offence in her tone on the latter part, and he doesn’t blame her: she deserves better. But clearly, that isn’t how it works.

“Well, there’s certainly plenty of reasons not to,” a million, “but I know love isn’t always convenient— ”

“And I fall in love with you!” she bolts up and the chair scrapes violently against the floor, “Not him.”

Flynn is certain his heart has stopped; her’s too, by the way she recoils in on herself. And they stay like that, faces turning bright pink, Flynn distressingly aware of how someone probably heard that and they’ll have to ether explain themselves or bury some bodies. Then Lucy grabs her tea with enough uncoordinated force to spill it on herself. And he’s far too eager to fetch a towel.

He wants to leave, to process or maybe ignore this (in love), but you can’t unring a bell, and the last thing he wants is for her to think she’s scared him away. So instead, he hovers nearby as she dries her sleeve off and avoids his gaze.

“It could have been a bomb,” he points out.

“What?”

“Our misunderstanding, it could have been about a bomb.”

Her lips twitch, then she gives in to laughter. And when she looks up again, he does his best to reflect her glory in a reassuring smile. “What I’m I going to do with you?” There’s fondness, and love, love, in her bright eyes, the one thing he’d never, ever wanted to hope for. But he did, and she is here.

“Whatever you want.”

With pursed lips, she tilts her chin up. “How do you feel about ice cream?”

-

They lay on her bed, empty bowls temporarily abandoned in favor of cuddling without excuses or false assumptions. “You know, I thought you were flirting back, I mean I guess you were, since you do— “ love, he loves her, she’s known for awhile, “Like me.”

She’d had doubts about the exact nature of their relationship, but he’d made his feelings, his expressions when he thought she wouldn’t notice, difficult to honestly interpret as friendship. So, she thoroughly examined the evidence, as any good academic would, and concluded that the butterflies must be mutual. And last night, she worried she got it all wrong, read too much into it, saw what she wanted to see. But no, the last six months could not just be written off as a misunderstanding; rather, they’re just bad at this.

“This um, isn’t the first time I’ve done that.” Lucy shifts in order to rise her eyebrows at him. “Lorena casually said we were dating, and that was news to me. Good news.”

Half atop his chest, she laughs. Somehow, it feels good to know he’s always been like this.

She climbs upward, so she can rest, and feel his heartbeat under her cheek. “So you want to do this,” she murmurs, because she has to, “Not hiding thing?”

He’s silent too long, and despite all the evidence, she’s scared. “Yes, my love.”

[imperial-martian]

Sculpture - Chapter One {Mycroft Holmes x Reader}

A/N: Mycroft is out of character throughout the entire story. He is only this way towards the reader and their is a reason as to why he is. Their is a sequel that I have planned for this story for months. It goes on to explain the backstory of the reader and explains why Mycroft acts the way he does with the reader.

If you dislike the fact that Mycroft is out of character, don’t read this story then. I do hope you all enjoy that do decide to read this!

The sound of your laughter was the only sound that filled the relatively silent manor- the only other sounds being a ticking clock and the man before you, who was currently trying, and somehow failing, to set a tea cup down after accidentally spilling some on himself.

Wiping the tears that clouded your vision, you stood up from your usual reading spot by the electric fireplace that stood by the corner of the room and made your way over to the, now, struggling man. You sighed gently, shaking your head playfully at the auburn-haired man before you. 

"Damn," he mumbled just as you grabbed the pocket square from the breast pocket of his blazer, carefully beginning to dab at his, once, crisp button-up. You bit your lip on concentration, making sure not to allow his damp shirt touch his skin. You didn't want the hot tea that spilled on it to burn him more than it already had.

Rubbing his pale hands, which have now reddened a bit due to the scalding tea, he looked down at you. Curiously, he watched as you carefully wiped his button-up, his eyes following your hand as you wiped down his shirt, following a trail of tea that had stopped just before his abdomen.

You had backed away once you made sure that his clothes weren't nearly as damp as before. You watched as he smoothed down his shirt, an unconscious habit of his, and smiled softly now that you knew his clothes weren't as hot as before and could touch his chest without the worry of it causing him pain.

"You're slipping Mycroft," you teased, folding his slightly damp pocket square and placing it on his desk before turning to look up at the taller man with a soft grin plastered on your lips. Gently, you patted his chest, missing the spot where the tea had spilt, and giving the man a small smirk, which he returned with narrowed eyes and a slight head tilt to show that he clearly wasn't amused.

"Am I?" he questioned rhetorically, raising his brow playfully at you. "Why do you think that is?" he asked, watching as your grin faded and you now brought a finger up to your lip as you thought, which only caused him to grin now.

You looked up to meet his gaze when you noticed his grin, your gentle e/c eyes searching his pale blue ones to find any answer that he had for his own question in them. Mycroft's lacked emotions, like they usually did, however, you learned to see the hidden ones in time. Working with Mycroft Holmes for nearly twelve years gave you time to find the subtle hints of emotions in his eyes, or even just his thoughts on a subject by his body language. 

Mycroft was truly a mystery to you, and yet you noticed the softness in his pale blue eyes. The softness that only grew the more he looked into your gentle e/c ones. 

"Hmmm, I'm not quite sure, Mr. Holmes"- he raised a brow, knowing that you only called him that when you were acting innocent towards him -"Why don't you tell me." 

Mycroft narrowed his eyes again, knowing exactly what game you were playing and planning to make sure he was the winner of it. 

He didn't break eye contact with you, if he did he'd be letting you win and he simply could not let that happen- he had started this game and he would finish it. Mycroft knew all the emotions you were feeling at the moment: amusement, enthusiasm and the most common and visible of them all being care. 

A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he walked passed you, gently brushing his shoulder with yours as he made his way to the door so he could head upstairs and change.

"I have no idea, my dear," Mycroft replied, looking over his shoulder to look at you, "it's part of the reason why I asked." 

You crossed your arms and wiggled a finger at Mycroft, your alternative to pointing it at him. "Then what was the other reason you asked?" you wondered, watching as Mycroft turned the door handle and pushed the door open a bit, leaving it ajar. 

Mycroft was still looking over his shoulder, his structure showing his usual demeanor, but his lips showing you the playfulness he was currently feeling. 

"Oh, Miss L/N, surely you know what the answer to that is," Mycroft urged, chuckling softly when you only returned his statement with a shake of your head. "Well, if you must know," he started, turning around and grinning wickedly to himself. "Maybe you are the reason I am slipping."

You heard the door open a bit more and the sound of Mycroft's footsteps walking towards the stairs that led to the second floor. You stuttered to reply back, having not expected Mycroft to flirt with you, especially in such an obvious, verbal way. 

He chuckled, hearing your struggle and called back out to you from where he stood, "kidding!" Then, he finally made his way up the stairs and walked into his room, shutting the door behind him.

By the time Mycroft had returned back to the office after having taken a quick shower to ensure that he didn't get sticky due to the honey and sugar in his tea, he wore a new button up, a light grey one, and completely disregarded the blazer he would usually wear around the house. 

You noticed that he kept the same trousers, those haven't had a single drop of tea spill onto them. It was a simple black trouser that could have been completely different from the one he wore before had it not had a piece of string that hung from the left foot hole right before the fibula. You smiled proudly to yourself, knowing that your deduction, something that Mycroft taught you a bit about through the years, was right and that he simply found no point in wearing a new pair of trousers when this one was perfectly clean. 

Now, you were nowhere near as good at deductions as Mycroft or even his younger brother who had come up in many conversations between you and your employer, but you still tried your best to notice things others wouldn't bother looking for. 

You blinked a bit as you heard the sound of the door shutting and began to focus on Mycroft, who's back was facing towards you as he took a step back from the door. Smiling at the man softly, you turned back around and faced his desk where you had organized some of his files while he was gone. 

Mycroft walked towards his chair, sitting down upon it once he reached it. Noticing the nearness on his desk instantly, he hummed and looked up towards you.

Smiling genuinely, he said, "Thank you, Y/N," before leaning back a bit and observing you for a short moment. 

"Of course Mycroft," you replied, shrugging to show that it was really no problem.

Thinking to yourself again, now that you were both sitting in enjoyable silence once again, you took the time to think about how almost twelve years ago you were living in such disarray. You weren't proud of your past, by any means, but the one man in front of you was able to turn your entire world around within just a few years. 

Sure, he hadn't been as nice to you as he is now. It took at least two years for him to finally ease up around you, and another two for him to give you the position of his in-house personal assistant and not just his personal assistant. 

It took years for Mycroft to actually open up about his emotions to you. Six years to be exact. Before that, he was just your stuck up boss who had saved you on the streets that winter night. Of course, you had stuck with him having been far too thankful for what he had done for you since that night. 

Yet, your relationship grew with time, like most things in the world, and although it was strictly professional he had deemed you a friend, a word he dared not to say. 

It was rather strange, how things had seemed to change between you both, because, although it took years, Mycroft seemed to open up to you rather willingly. Of course, he had been hesitant when telling you something, and even though you weren't sure why he had so freely told you the things he did anyways, you were glad he had. Not only had it improved your trust in him, but you had then told him things that you would never have told to anyone else. 

Mycroft, already having deduced what you had told him, still listened. He knew that you needed to verbalize your issues, and even though it was hard for you to do so, he encouraged you the best he could while still giving you the option to stop the conversation where it was.

And you smiled now, knowing that you couldn't wish for anyone else to be your friend. So, looking up at Mycroft as he began to write something down on a crisp white sheet of paper, you leaned forward.  

"Y'know, we should really go out for ice cream like we used to," you stated with a soft chuckle as you saw him look up at you with a raised brow. 

He grinned before replying back with a simple nod and standing up after he checked the time. "Well, shall we then?" he asked before quickly debating with himself if he should grab a blazer or not, but looking back at you and realizing you were grabbing the sweater on the back of your chair, he decided to grab his. 

"I suppose we shall," you hummed, letting your hands slide through the sleeves of your sweater and waiting for Mycroft as he just threw his blazer of his shoulder. 

Nodding, Mycroft walked towards the office door before holding it open for you and walking out behind you and doing the same with the front door. 

"Let's walk," you said softly, knowing that the ice cream parlor was only a twenty-minute walk and that it was far too nice out for the both of you to be sitting in a car.

Mycroft chuckled and looked over at you, grinning slightly. "Alright," he whispered before walking out to the front of the driveway.

Tags: @klinenovakwinchester

*If you want to be added, send me an ask!*

[kusunogatari]

[ ObiRyū October | Day Twenty-Two: Shopping ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū ] [ Verse: Pretty in Pictures ] [ Previous || Next ]

Slouched on a bench, Obito sits and spins a loose thread from his current attire. It’s been a while since he updated his wardrobe...he’s had more pressing expenses for quite some time.

Of course, rather recently, the most urgent of them has completely disappeared. And thanks to the rather obvious clue left along with the payment made to his account at the hospital, he came to learn he had Ryū to blame for that. She’d claimed it to be a thank-you for his accidental saving of her life that night on the bridge. And though Obito had tried to insist he repay her, she refused...quite adamantly. Though he’d attempted to keep his ties to Itachi and the rest of his family from her, she’d come to question him about it, finding the bill on his entryway table.

Which wasn’t in any way her fault. It was right there in the open, and maybe he didn’t really mind her seeing it. What he did mind was her paying the hefty bill off completely. No strings attached. Apparently she’d been even further motivated by the lack of pity or help from the rest of his family.

The more she learns, the more she seems to be questioning her attachment to dear cousin Itachi. First came her realization that her money and fame as a model was what really caught his attention. Then her rash attempt at suicide...which Obito saved her from without even meaning to. And with his subtle worming into her life in order to usurp any facet of Itachi’s stupid, perfect life...she’s been slowly changing her tune.

Which was all well and good. Obito is no short of jealous of his cousin. That side of the family got all the money, the fortune, the good graces. When Obito has his accident, spent months in the hospital...did they even call? Offer a scrap of help?

...can you blame him for being bitter?

So, after meeting Ryū, he decided to take her uncertainty and just...urge it on a bit. Maybe Obito can’t take Itachi’s good looks or political career or his money...but he can sabotage his relationship. Which, he’ll admit, is mostly done out of vindictiveness...but also because Ryū doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.

...she’s already proven how selfless she is.

Which is why Obito has to be very...careful. Ryū is a sweet, kind, and admittedly beautiful girl. The fact that she’s even noticed him is surprising enough. But even beyond her debt of gratitude, she’s been befriending him! Actually wanting to spend time with him! Him! A wrong-side-of-the-tracks sort of guy. No money, no fame, with a bum leg and a scarred visage. But none of that seems to phase her.

...which is why he’s been attempting to squash a hint of a crush he seems to be forming. He tells himself he’s just lonely. He’s just...clinging onto her kindness. Thinks she’s pretty. He didn’t want to steal her from Itachi, just...break them up! Free her, and make him miserable! A relationship isn’t what he needs.

He...he doesn’t…

Heaving a sigh, he ducks further into himself, shoulders hunching into his sweatshirt. He’s actually currently waiting for her to meet him. She said she wanted to visit, and he gets embarrassed having her at his place, so...hence asking if they could do so elsewhere. What they’re actually going to do, he has no idea. But it’s a little after the time she said she’d be here, and she’s usually so prompt…

A tickle of worry blooms in his gut. Surely she’s just a bit waylaid, but...what if something happened? Should he call her? What if -?

“Obito!”

Startling, he looks over to see her jogging up to him. Dressed in a thick grey sweater dress, she’s got black tights and flat knee-high boots on as she waves to him. “...hey.”

“I’m so sorry, traffic was a nightmare - there was an accident a few streets from my apartment. You haven’t been waiting too long, have you?”

He shrugs. “Nah.” In truth...he was here twenty minutes early, a bit nervous of being late. Add in the time she’s late, and it’s...been a while. But he doesn’t want her feeling bad. Especially since her sheepish smile betrays she really is worried about it. “...‘sides, it’s a nice day. Good to be out of the house.”

That gets her to brighten, and Obito smothers the little jump in his chest at the sight. “Oh, okay! Yes, I love Fall...it’s my favorite season!” Her arms lift, giving a little grin as she shows off her outfit. “”Give me a pumpkin spice latte, and I’d be a poster girl for it, right?”

That earns a small chuckle. “You mean you haven’t done a shoot like that before?”

She pauses. “...actually...I have!” A laugh soon follows, and darn it there goes his chest again… “But that’s not why I’m here!”

“Then...why are you here?”

Mischief glints in her eyes. “Come on, I wanna take you somewhere.”

“...uh -?”

“It’s nothing bad, I promise. I’m parked right over here!”

After a pause, Obito gets up and follows, sliding into the passenger seat of her little silver car. “...you’re not going to tell me?”

“Not until we get there...I don’t want you bailing on me.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t bad?”

“It’s not! But I have a feeling I know how you’re going to react, so...it’s a surprise!” she insists with a little nod, pulling off the curb and back into traffic.

That makes him squint suspiciously. “...now what are you going to try to pay for?”

All she does in response is stick out her tongue, and he groans. “No trying to escape.” A finger pushes the door lock button, earning a snort. “You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Something about the question makes his chest tighten. “...I think I don’t have much choice.”

“Well, friends do nice things for each other. So...shush.”

“When am I going to be able to do something nice for you?”

“You have!”

“...besides the bridge thing.”

“You still have.” At his perked brow in question, she replies, “...it’s been a long time since I’ve had a real friend. Someone who doesn’t...want something from me. Uses me. That, to me, is enough.”

...his stomach twists in guilt. In a way...isn’t he using her? His scheming to get at Itachi is relying on her leaving him, putting ideas in her head...would she be angry if she found out? It’s still partly for her benefit! But…

“...anyway, we’re almost there, so...just be patient. I’ll only torture you for a little while, I promise.” She pulls off and...into the mall parking lot? Once they park and head inside, she pulls him into a clothing store. Nothing extremely high end, but...still spiffier than anything Obito owns.

His heels dig in. “No...no, you’re not buying me clothes…!”

“Why not?”

“I have clothes!”

Ryū gives him a gentle look. “Obito...they’re falling apart.”

“You already -!”

“I know that! But you said it yourself: it’s my money, and I should use it on things that make me happy. And helping you makes me happy,” she sniffs stubbornly. “I could get more for myself, but work means I already have a full closet. C’mon, Obito...for me?”

His shoulders hunch again with a scowl. He doesn’t want to owe her even more than he already does…! She insists he doesn’t, but he’s not about to let her generosity go unrepaid. “...you could donate the money instead.”

Her expression flattens, pouting. “...if you don’t pick something, I’ll pick it for you, and you’ll be stuck with it!”

A bit of color sparks in his cheeks. So, what...he’s a doll for her to dress up, now? Part of him stubbornly insists he should be insulted, but...he knows well enough that’s not her intention. She really is just trying to be nice. Besides...maybe with some new threads, he’ll have better luck trying to pick up jobs… “...all right, fine. But this is going on my IOU tab.”

“You don’t owe me -!”

“Not listening,” he cuts in, walking past her into the store. At least nothing in here is stupidly expensive...he’d riot. But then again, she likely thought of that: that he’d feel uncomfortable in a place like that. He’s not his cousins.

For a while he just...awkwardly shuffle around, perusing as Ryū looks over things on her own. Then he grabs a shirt...and then some pants...and a few more things...until he has a whole armload, much to his dismay.

“Try them on!” Ryū insists, urging him to the changing rooms. “I want to see!”

Flushed and flustered, he awkwardly switches between wardrobes, earning smiles and thumbs-up each time.

“Get them all!”

“But -?”

“And look again, you might’ve missed something! Oh, and some shoes, too!”

Cut off in his retorts, he lets her steer him back into the racks, almost feeling like a kid being taken school clothes shopping by an overly-excited mother. A few more things join the pile, and Ryū seems to consider if he needs anything else.

“This is plenty,” he persists through clenched teeth, making her laugh.

“Okay, okay!” Still looking amused at his embarrassment, Ryū takes their selection to the counter and makes to pay as Obito lurks beside her.

As he checks their things, the cashier looks to the clothes, to Obito, and then to Ryū, expression clearly quizzical. Then a thought seems to click, and he busies himself almost hurriedly, avoiding their eyes.

Frowning, Obito mulls it over for a moment before the same thought hits him like a train, face exploding into color.

She looks like his sugar mama!

About-facing and mortified, he tries to fight the heat in his face as Ryū finishes up, hefting a few bags. “...Obito?”

“Heh?”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine! Er...fine. Just remembered I’ve got some...errands to run.”

“...oh! Want me to drive you?”

“No! No, that’s...that’s fine. I should head home first.”

Head tilting curiously, Ryū shrugs, accepting as he gestures to take the bags. “Well...we’ve got you some fresh clothes, and now I’m happy!”

“...thank you.”

She beams. “You’re welcome.”

The pair grab some quick lunch in the food court (which Obito insists on paying for), chatting leisurely amidst the crowds. A few people seem to stop and stare, recognizing the model from a distance but not daring to get closer with Obito sitting with her.

...and he can’t help a few subtle, warning glares whenever Ryū isn’t looking. She’s just out minding her own business, for Pete’s sake. Leave her alone!

“Well...anything else you want to do?”

“No, I...I better get home.”

“Okay…” Ryū sighs. “Well, at least it was a nice morning off.”

That gets him to pause. She...wants to be with him more? But he already told her he’s got errands...he doesn’t want her buying him anything else! “Uh...well, we’ll have to do something else soon. But no more shopping sprees.”

That earns a giggle, her mood (and his) perking back up. “Okay! I really do feel a lot better knowing you’ll have some better clothes, especially as the weather gets colder.” A warm smile lifts her lips. “You’ll have to wear some next time!”

“...yeah…”

They drive back to his apartment building, Ryū insisting on taking him to his door despite his refute. “Just to make sure you get in okay,” is her reason.

After a bit of thought, he realizes she likely knows he’s liable to be robbed with his arms full of stuff if he goes alone, trying to juggle his keys to the door. But once he sets things down, he shoos her off. His place is a bit of a mess, she doesn’t need to see it!

“I had fun today,” Ryū offers earnestly.

“Yeah...me too. You really didn’t have to -”

She cuts him off with a finger to her lips, winking. “No takebacksies! You’re stuck with it, I’m afraid.”

He just sighs.

“Well...guess I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Yeah. Take care, okay?”

“I will...and you too, Obito.” Giving him one last smile, she turns and heads back out, Obito moving to a window to let him see her get safely in her car and pulling away.

For a moment, he just stands and smiles, replaying the morning over in his mind. It really was fun...even if also embarrassing. But his pride can take a hit or two.

Turning back to his apartment, however...he slowly wilts as the silence seems to ring. Well...he better get those clothes washed and hung up. Besides...he has to pick out an outfit for next time.

     Sooo, this is a random snippet that's not necessarily "canon" in the Pretty in Pictures verse! There's a chapter up on this account, and also another snippet (from later on in the story) on the RP blog...which isn't posted here because it's gonna be in the fic later. I just had to write it out at some point cuz it was driving me nuts xD      ANYWAY, just Ryū bein' Ryū and spoiling her new /friend/...x3 At least, she thinks they're friends. Obito is having second thoughts, lol - she's still technically with Itachi at this point, and she's not the cheatin' type, so to her it's still 100% platonic. But that'll change later ;3c      But uhhh...yeah! That's all for today lol - thanks for reading!

[purplebenjy]

2005-Part 2

There’s six patients at his next session. Then nine. Then twelve. Dorcas has stopped participating to give up her spot to the thirteenth member, new today, a girl with nails that are bloody stumps and a smile that doesn’t reach her glazed over eyes. She gets her long dirty red hair in the paint and Dorcas has to gently help her tie it back.

RJ had missed last week’s but was back again, sitting determinedly next to a boy who looked maybe a year or two older than him, and twice as nervous. Katie, ever the faithful student, was still remarkably skinny, though Benjy could see a noticeable difference in five weeks of classes. Deena was in her usual spot in the back, but Benjy noticed she was quieter than usual that day, only heckling Benjy twice through his muddled lesson. Their sessions have extended to an hour and a half, so all of them spend the first sixty minutes putting paint on paper. He makes the rounds after that, pausing and smiling big when Rj tugs on his flannel to show him what he’s made. 

“You uh, get it?”

Benjy laughs delightedly. It was a painting of a young boy with the head of a cow, floating in space. 

“Space Cow Boy. Amazing and really well done. Rj you’re really talented.” He blushes, the tips of his ears turning bright pink. The boy next to him smiles shyly at RJ when he looks down.

“I’m glad you came back.”

“Me too. Vance told me I should.”

Benjy introduces himself to Vance and tries not read into the shy, borderline flirty smiles the boys are exchanging. Katie and her friend also from the ED program, Shawna, have both painted sunflowers. Her strokes are finally looser, slightly less perfect, though Benjy knows she’s got a long battle ahead of her. 

When he finally makes his way back to Deena, he’s surprised. Every session after their first one had depicted some sort of flying penis motif, but not this time. She’s painted a field, with mountains in the background. Her talent is obvious, it’s a semi-photo realistic style that Benjy has never even really been able to master himself. In the field there are all sorts of wildflowers and walking through them are a little girl with unruly tangled hair and a woman with slightly less wild curls. They’re facing the mountains, only the backs of them visible, their blue dresses picked up by a breeze Benjy can almost feel. Deena’s coloring in the raised arm of the mother, and she glances up at Benjy when he sits down beside her. 

“Deena...”

“I’m more than just flying dicks you know.”

She’s studying him now, Benjy can feel it. Waiting for his approval-a feeling he knows all too well, he can feel it coming off of her almost in waves. It’s bizarre to be in this position, to be on the other side of the canvas as it were, but he’s here, and Deena’s eyes are boring into him. 

“I know. I just didn’t know...you’re incredible.”

She scoffs. Without thinking, Benjy grabs her hand. “I mean it.”

She smiles, a real smile. A rare smile. She squeezes his hand once and lets it go.

“Thank you. I was..I mean I’m going to be again, in a program for art. It was just...a lot. My parents are splitting up and I...”

She trails off, glancing around the room. It’s alive with chatter and activity of the other patients and the two other nurses Dorcas rounded up to help her. No one’s hearing her, so Deena lets the wall down, just a little.

“It’s been hard. But I’m-I go home tomorrow, Benjy.”

He hears the excitement and fear in her voice as pride swoops through his heart.

“D, that’s great.”

“I’m terrified.”

“That’s a good thing.”

Deena snorts. “Oh yeah? When was the last time you were terrified?”

“When was my first session here again?”

That makes her smile again. 

“I hope it’s a good thing. I’m uh...” She drops her gaze to the painting. “I’m gonna miss you.”

The pride turns into affection.

“I’m gonna miss you too. But I can talk to Bernie about an outpatient program maybe...”

Deena shakes her head.

“No uh, other people need you more than me.”

“I mean, clearly.” Benjy says, nodding at her painting. “I can’t do that shit. You’re remarkable.”

“Not like you are.” She says, looking at him again. She clears her throat.

“You know how whenever you talk about your mom, you say she’s the best person in the world?”

“I talk about my mom that much?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, I’m really cool.”

Deena laughs.

“Well, uh, my mom’s the best person in the world too. She got me in here, came to visit as much as they let her and...well after you came the first time, I finally could talk to her. It was just about the session at first but then…” She smiles. 

“I told her about you. About what you do. She asked me what your name was and she uh, knew you?”

Wildly, for a second that doesn’t make sense, Benjy wonders if Deena is one of Forest’s daughters. He shakes himself. At most they were middle schoolers right now, barely if that. Still, his chuckle is nervous when he speaks. 

“Um, how?”

“Her name’s Donna-uh, Donna Pierce?” 

Deena keeps talking but Benjy feels a little piece of him die. Donna Pierce was arguably one of the most influential art agents in not only the Bay Area, but the whole fucking state. She’d been at his showcase. She’d shaken his hand and taken a sample of his portfolio-he found out later he was one of only two she’d done that with. And she was one of the agents’ whose assistants had told him they’d call him, but he hadn’t heard anything.

“She saw me at school.” He says dumbly. Deena laughs.

“That’s what I just said. Anyway we’ve sort of just...talked about you and painting and stuff when talking about the other stuff was too hard. She wants to meet you again-she left her personal card for you at the front desk. I hope uh-I hope that’s okay. You obviously don’t have to call her if you don’t want to.”

“I think I’m going into shock.”

Deena laughs.

“Yeah uh, she’s a pretty big deal. That’s part of why all of this was just….like I’m her kid and if I fuck up it’s twice as bad, you know?”

Benjy softens, snapping out of his surprise for a moment.

“I doubt she’d ever see you as a fuck-up.”

Deena grins.

“That’s what she said too.”

~~

Cass glances nervously towards the corner booth. He’s been cleaning the same mug for the past 20 minutes, which happens to be about as long as Benjy has been having a conversation with Donna Pierce. She’d almost look out of place in the Spacey KC’s if it weren’t for her wild collection of curls. Her sharp red blazer stands out  aggressively against the seafoam green of the wall she sits in front of. Cass smiles to himself when Benjy says something that makes her laugh, the sound crossing the cafe and hitting him at the  rainbow bar. She’s got black cat eye glasses and light green eyes that look like they could easily turn cold, but they look like they’re at least entertained by his boyfriend as he sits across from her. He can only see the back of Benjy’s head but he studies it all the same, a smile crosses his face for a moment when he notices the blue streak is fading back to the almost white bleach they’d put in it. He’s not messing with his hair too much, which either means he’s not nervous at all or too nervous to do it. Benjy’s jean clad leg is bouncing under the table but it always was. He’d worn the “Kinda Gay” shirt today after almost 20 minutes of debating with himself. He’d finally decided on it, not wanting to hide himself, even if it meant risking what this opportunity could be. Cass was proud of him either way, and of course he knew Benjy knew that. He knew Benjy was talented and if things didn’t work out with Donna, they’d work out with someone else. But still-he’d been lower than either of them had really realized before he’d started volunteering to do the therapy sessions. Cass had watched Benjy come back to life after each of them, his self assurance blooming again, his confidence rising, wounds that were still painful healing a little more each time. If Benjy could get an agent...well, when he does get an agent, Cass was sure he’d be completely unstoppable. He already was of course, but he needed something to remind him, to fully light that fire again-

“Shit.”

Cass quickly averts his eyes as Benjy turns around to look at the counter, grinning like an idiot at the too clean mug in his hands when a snippet of what Benjy is saying drifts over to him.

“That beautiful tall one? Who doesn’t fit in at all with the Rainbow Brite thing that’s going on? That’s the love of my life.”

“Um, hello?”

Cass whips his attention to cash register and smiles sheepishly at the customer. Well, not customer. It’s Carly-one of the co-owners and his boss.

“Hey, hey, Car. Sorry.”

“Is that her?”

Everyone at work knew about Benjy’s meeting today, mostly because he couldn’t stop nervous babbling about it to anyone who would listen, and whenever Cass was at KC’s, Benjy wasn’t far away. Cass just nods, playing it cool and Carly, mercifully, picks up on the hint. Kat, her wife, was far less subtle, and probably would’ve gone over to also introduce herself. Cass makes Carly the weird herbal tea she stocks for pretty much only for her own use and she settles at the robin egg blue part of the bar, close to the register-doing the books but also listening in. 

When Cass goes back to his mug, Donna and Benjy stand up. They shake hands, and then, in something that appears to surprise them both, Donna pulls Benjy in for a quick, maternal hug. She laughs a little sheepishly, but Benjy says something to her that makes her instantly relax. They speak in low voices, probably because Benjy was highly aware of eavesdroppers. Donna Pierce straightens her blazer and with a nod to Cass, who doesn’t even pretend to not be staring, she leaves the cafe.

His eyes find Benjy’s as he walks over to the counter, hands in his pockets, body language casual.

“Hi baby.” 

“Hi…”

Benjy smiles at him in a way that really shouldn’t be legal and Cass can barely resist the urge to reach over the bar and pull him in for a kiss.

“Do I look different?”

Benjy cocks his head to the side slightly when he asks, the small gold earring in his ear catching the light. Cass’s eyebrows come together; that wasn’t what he was expecting him to say.

But he should know by now; Benjy Fenwick is anything but what’s expected of him. 

“Uh, no? Not really? Should you?”

“Well I thought you know, landing an agent, therefore making me an official professional artise would make me a bit more-”

Benjy doesn’t get to finish his thought because Cass lets out a cry of delight and gives into temptation, grabbing the sides of his face and bending ¾ of his body over the bar to kiss Benjy victoriously, swallowing his laughter and breaking away in astonished giggles.

“Shut the fuck up!”

“I’m guessing it’s good news?” Carly says dryly, glancing up from her books with a smile that betrays her. Benjy’s grinning almost manically and he nods so fast Cass actually sees a blur.

“Congratulations, Benj. You deserve it.” She jerks her head to the door as her eyes find Cass.

“Go. Celebrate. I can start half an hour early.”

“Are you sure?” Cass asks, already untying his apron. Carly nods, her smile growing.

“Your lives just fucking changed, of course I’m sure. You only get to celebrate this once.” 

Cass doesn’t even bother to properly walk around the counter, opting instead to clamor over it to get to Benjy as fast as possible, squeezing him in a bone crushing hug that lifts him slightly off of the ground.

“I knew you’d get it.” He tells his hair, Benjy just grins back at him. They leave the shop and start walking home, their hands firmly together, safe in their own neck of the city. Benjy breaks the contact soon, energy pouring out of him as he recaps everything for Cass, practically dancing as he walks backwards on the sidewalk.

“So she said she remembered me from school, even before Deena mentioned me-and I was honestly already in her ‘possibilities pile’ which is just...I want one of those. How fucking bad ass. But anyway, she remembered my name since it’s you know, ridiculous. And then she said uh, she remembered me because of my talent, but she was giving me a shot because of my compassion, which you know...pretty cool.”

Cass knew it was a lot more than ‘pretty cool’. He could see it on Benjy’s face, the way he spoke, how his eyes danced right along with him-he didn’t need to explain himself further.

“And we talked about Deena for a long time and just...god Cass, she’s such a cool kid and just, like, even if her mom had been like a dentist or something, I still would’ve loved meeting her like this, you know? But she’s not a dentist and now…”

His smile kind of fades and Benjy stops, Cass watches it all sink in right in front of him. When Benjy meets his eyes again, galaxies are forming.

“I’m real.”

Cass closes the distance between them and kisses him sweetly. He wants to tell Benjy that he’s always been real, that he would’ve been real no matter what had happened, but he knows what Benjy  means. And he doesn’t want to take even a fraction of any of this away from him. 

“You’re real.” He says, taking his hand again and giving it a squeeze. Benjy tells him all about logistics, the next steps, how he made sure he could still do the program at the hospital-answering Cass’s questions as best as he can. When they get to their building, Cass starts to unlock the door as Benjy balances on the top of the railing like always.

“You know what one was her favorite?”

Warmth is already spreading to Cass’s cheeks, instincts and the way Benjy’s voice has gone impossibly soft giving him a hint.

“What one?”

Benjy hops off the railing and stands on his tip toes to reach Cass’s lips fully.

“You, your highness. Your photograph. My favorite too.” 

Their fingers are locked together as they climb the stairs. Benjy pauses when they get to their landing.

“Do you think Carly was right? Is everything about to change?”

Someone not fluent in Benjy would’ve missed the tiny hint of doubt in his voice, but not Cass. He pushes some of Benjy’s hair out of his face and smiles at him.

“I think so, Star Eyes. But you know what?”

“What?”

“So far, every change with you has been a good one.”

[mamashitty]

Samwell Elementary Chapter 7

a new pov this time around. y’all can read the story here on my tumblr or on my ao3.

Shitty is seated cross-legged on the floor in Maisie’s room. She is in the process of figuring out how to braid his epic flow. She pulls his hair a lot less than Jack does, Shitty notices and files that information away for later. It is always good to stock up on chirping material for the future. Except, just as Shitty is musing over that, Maisie tugs his hair back rather painfully, and Shitty bites back a wince that his badass hockey niece does not even notice.

“Uncle Crappy?” Maisie asks.

“What is it, Corndog?”

“Do you think Mom is going to love me less after the baby is born?” It is not very often that Shitty hears the fear in Maisie’s voice. Her whole life she seems to face any situation head-on. She is always grabbing life by the horns. He finds himself frowning, not liking the question, and not liking that this is a worry that Maisie has floating around in her adorable little head. He tilts his head back so that he can look at her. He wonders if she has asked Jack or Camilla this question yet, or if he is the first one. He forces himself to flash her a smile and then he is sticking his tongue out her. Maisie lets out a giggle, though it sounds forced to his ears.

“Maisie, your Mom is going to love you the same as she does now, brah.” He says, putting as much conviction into his voice as possible, and hoping that Maisie hears it and understands it. Maisie is the first kid that he has spent any real amount of time with, she’s the first one he proudly calls a niece. The first one he gets to be some form of Uncle to. This feels a bit like a test to him, a test he is really just putting on his own shoulders. He does not want to fuck this up. He wants and needs Maisie to know that she can always come to him, no matter what the problem or concern is. He loves this little girl. She is a perfect mix of Jack and Camilla. And completely her own person too. Shitty remembers clearly her as a baby, and the first time he babysat her, and how she got mad. She was somewhere between six and nine months, no longer that scary kind of blob that newborns are, something a bit more sturdy and something that could move. He remembers she was screaming at the top of her lungs, and nothing he did could cheer her up. He was on the verge of panic calling Jack and Camilla when she reached up to grab his sunglasses and chew on them. She began to laugh. And Shitty, his heart still racing, had started to laugh too. Jack and Camilla had come home to Shitty and Maisie just shouting and laughing at each other. They had really connected after that, even though Shitty had been smitten with her the first time he saw her.

“Are you sure?” Maisie asks, her voice quiet. Shitty reaches behind him, tugging Maisie onto his lap and giving her a tight hug. She melts into it and her arms wrap around his neck.

“I am positive, Maisie-Daze,” Shitty says, before adding. “Every time I meet a new friend, I don’t love my other friends any less. Love has a way of growing, brah. Your Mom and Steve will love you and your brother or sister. And you are going to love them too, and be the best big sister in the fucking universe,” Shitty knows better than to swear in front of Maisie like that. He has had practice with it, after all. But he does it on purpose because something tells him, Maisie will like it.

And she does, she lets out a giggle as soon as he lets the f-bomb drop. “Uncle Crappy!” She admonishes him through giggles. When they subside, she pulls her head back to look at him. “But are you sure?” She asks, and he hears a hint of a quiver in her voice.

“I am abso-fucking-lutely certain, Corndog. Neither one of your parents will ever love you any less than they love you now. And if you don’t believe your Uncle Crappy, you should ask your Mom.” Shitty finishes, vaguely wondering if he said the correct things or not. Hoping that he did. He watches Maisie and she looks like she is really mulling over what he said. He watches her nod her head.

“Okay, Uncle Crappy. You swore again!” She adds, laughing.

“Please don’t tell your Papa,” Shitty jokes, before adding. “And, remember, you can always come talk to me if you need to, Corndog. Thank you for talking to me about this,” he finishes. He has always spoken to Maisie like she was a little adult. Not so much in the content of his words, that he usually keeps as kid-friendly as possible, but just in the way he talks to her. Shitty isn’t one for higher-pitched voices and dumbing down his speech for kids. He thinks Maisie appreciates it.

“Okay,” Maisie says, and he feels like he is losing her a bit now, that she is shifting from serious mode and wanting to get back into fun mode. She hops off of his lap. “Wanna play hide and seek?” She asks, and Shitty grins.

“Heck yes, I do!”

It is a few hours later. and Jack is finally home. Maisie is sleeping, Shitty had had to do bedtime. He had fun with it though, he read her three books for bedtime even though her parents usually just read one. He and Jack are seated on the couch in the living room. Shitty had already filled Jack in about Maisie’s frankly heartbreaking question. They had talked about it some and he knows Jack will talk to her about it tomorrow. He had sent Camilla a text message too about it. He feels like that was the right course of action. Silence has fallen between the two friends. Shitty is only half paying attention to the documentary that Jack put on. He’s nursing a beer, knowing that it is getting that time when he should leave. Jack’s bedtime is quickly approaching, after all.

“So, you coming to the Halloween party this year?” Shitty broaches, affecting as much nonchalance as he can. Shitty knows Jack does not have a game that night. He also knows that Maisie will be staying the night over at Camilla’s.

“I don’t know, Shits,” Jack says after a beat and Shitty wonders if Jack’s mind had immediately gone to Bitty or not. He decides it is time to go for broke.

“You’ll miss the costume that Bitty is wearing. It is going to be a beaut,” Out of the corner of his eye, because Shitty can be smooth and not outright stare at his best friend, he sees Jack tense for a moment and then relax.

“Really? Eh, that is nice.” Shitty notes that Jack’s attempt at nonchalance pales compared to his. Shitty shifts his position on the couch so that he can stare his friend down.

“Jackie-Jack,” Shitty says, adopting as firm a voice as he can. “You like him. You should come and hang out with him outside of school and outside of those five-minute chats you bros have before you and I go jogging.” He sees Jack opening his mouth, likely to denydenydeny. Shitty interrupts. “Brah, I have seen how you look at him and those coffees you bring him?” Shitty decides not to mention the looks he has seen Jack give Bitty when Bitty is wearing that Falconer's shirt. Jack is not subtle. Jack is also frowning now and Shitty only feels a teeny bit guilty about that.

“Shitty, even if I do find him attractive and even if I do enjoy talking with him… he’s Maisie’s teacher. That seems inappropriate, plus he just got out of a relationship with someone,” Jack is hedging. Shitty supposes his concerns are somewhat valid but they get in the way of Shitty’s dream. The dream that two of his best bros might actually be able to find happiness together. Jack is not subtle in his looks and neither is Bitty. Shitty can fucking taste the pine between the two of them.

“Jack, Trevor was a fucking douche,” Shitty starts with because that is easy. “Their relationship… it was not… well, it was not awful but also not the best. And Bitty is the one who gets to judge whether or not it is too soon, but you gotta’ give him a chance to do that. The teacher thing… maybe it is a little inappropriate. But, brah, you like him. I haven’t seen you like this with anyone in a long time. You deserve to be happy. And, also, it is just a party.” Shitty finishes.

Jack stays quiet for a while, likely mulling it all over. “I will think about it, Shits.”

“Sweet!” Shitty exclaims and he clumsily closes the gap between the two of them on the couch and smacks a wet kiss on Jack’s cheek.

Shitty and Bitty are seated at the kitchen island. Shitty has bravely volunteered as taste-tester. Bittle wants all the treats he is making for the Halloween party to be perfect. He claims half of what Shitty has eaten today is just not good enough, but Shitty, oh Shitty he begs to differ. And has countless times but Bitty just lets out a huff and reworks the recipes. Shitty is certain he will gain fifty pounds tonight alone, and he does not mind one iota.

“I invited Jack to the Halloween party. Brah, I invite him every year but I think this year he might actually come,” Shitty says, hopefully as smoothly as he wants it to be. He might be just a little high but nothing that he can’t function with. Nothing that impairs his taste buds any, a point he has argued over and over with Bitty over the course of the night.

“Jack? He won’t be busy with Maisie and Camilla?” Bitty asks, and there seems to be a strange tone to Eric’s voice and fuck maybe Shitty is higher than he realized because he is having a difficult time deciphering what that tone means.

“He has plans to go with them for trick or treating and then no plans. No game or anything,” Shitty explains and he notices the way Bitty tenses up, pausing in whatever it is he is doing to the baked goods. Probably something to make them epically delicious. Shitty can feel his mouth start to salivate at the thought of what those baked goods will taste like. He wants them in his mouth and down his belly stat! Wait, he is supposed to be focusing on Bitty and Jack and trying to encourage one of them to make maybe think about making the move on the other. In their own time, of course, but hopefully, that own time will be sooner rather than later.

“Seems kind of strange that he won’t be spending the night with them, doesn’t it?” Bitty asks and there is that tone again. Annoyance? Maybe even anger. Bitty’s Georgian twang has gotten thicker. Shitty frowns.

“Not really? I mean Maisie has a bedtime and they might let her stay up a little later because it is Halloween but, she’ll go to bed with plenty of time for Jack to come out and play. And Camilla is probably going to want to spend the evening with Steve, brah.” Shitty explains, hoping that settles whatever concern is in Bitty’s mind. He wonders if Bitty has the same concerns as Jack, the whole appropriateness thing with being Maisie’s teacher. This whole plan of his, half-baked though it is, suddenly seems more complicated if that is the case.

“Shitty. If Jack decides to come to a party and not spend his free evening with his pregnant wife then he is not the sweet man he acts like,” and Shitty wonders if the weed he smoked broke his brain some.

“Pregnant wife? Bro, no. Camilla and Jack are divorced. She’s with Steve and the kid is Steve’s, not Jack’s and…” and suddenly Shitty is laughing, harder than is probably warranted given the situation. Bitty spins on his heels to stare at him and Shitty notices how red his face is. He feels guilty about laughing and tries to stop. He manages to finally stop the laughter and sort of curses the weed gods for making him so giggly. It isn’t right laughing at Bitty right now even if it is kind of funny. Suddenly, the vague comments he has made in the past two months are starting to add up in Shitty’s head.

“Brah, did you think Jack was some kind of like… nice asshole? He’s single as fuck,” and Bitty is definitely Jack’s type but Shitty stops himself from saying that. Bitty is worrying his lower lip something fierce. He looks on the verge of saying something when the timer on the oven dings. He busies himself with getting the baked goods out of it and Shitty watches him, only pausing in his watching, to spin on the barstool for a moment, before he returns to just staring at his friend. Probably creeper level of staring.

“I was a little confused. Lord, Shitty. The man keeps bringing me coffees whenever he drops Maisie off. He always seems so interested in what I have to say, and I could not tell at first if he was just being polite or if it was something more. And then if it was something more that was just wrong because I thought he was with Camilla,” and Bitty lets out a groan. “I probably embarrassed myself around him so many times.” He watches as Bitty hides his face in his hands.

“Bitty, Bits… don’t worry. Jack probably never noticed you saying or doing anything embarrassing,” and if he did, Shitty thinks silently, he probably did not mind. Bitty is silent for a few minutes.

“I hope he comes,” he says, quietly and Shitty breaks out into a grin.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

The Precise Moment I Stopping Reading City of Bones

by Wardog

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Wardog is probably a bit patronising.~

Like all inflexible people, I like to think of myself as being relatively open-minded and, therefore, in the spirit of open-mindedness I recently got round to reading (or rather attempting to read) Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. I wanted to like it, no really, I genuinely did. Cassandra Clare, for all those who have been living under an internet stone, is a pseudonym of a pseudonym, but Cassandra Cla(i)re, back in the day, wrote fanfic, the very popular Very Secret Diaries and The Draco Trilogy, which seems to be no longer available on the internet at the request of its author (interesting that, hmm?). Well, when I say no longer available on the internet, what I mean is ... not available unless you spend about five minutes looking, which I might have just done. For the record, said trilogy is beautifully decorated with anime-style Draco Malfoys and black roses. Awww. She also has a hefty set of pages over at the Fandom Wank Wiki (trust me, if anything needs a wiki, it is fandom wank), which are suitably, painfully entertaining in a "for what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" kind of way.

Anyway, background cheapshots and raised plagiarism eyebrows aside, I really have no strong opinions on either fandom or Cassandra Cla(i)re, but I quite liked the idea that a popular, moderately competent fanfic writer managed to break into the publishing world. Fanfic is a difficult beast to comprehend unless you're right there in its mouth but, as far as I see it (and, bear in mind, if you do write fanfic this is probably going to sound like the simplistic flailings of an outsider), there are three possible attitudes, or at the very least a spectrum with some definable stopping points on it:

1) Fanfic is art, man, art and there is ultimately no difference between If You Are Prepared and Bleak House. They're both pretty damn long for starters.

2) Fanfic is like original fiction but not as good, and is basically written by people who can't get their own stuff published

3) Fanfic is entirely different from original fiction

Since the first one is clearly non-viable, and the second is actively rude, I subscribe to the third. Writing for fans and writing for publication is vastly different, and to assume that the one aspires to the other is rather to miss the point (and, arguably, the pleasures) of fanfic. Even so, I would have thought the gulf between fanfic and original fiction to be eminently jumpable. I mean, the ability to string a decent sentence together is a transferable skill, right. Right? Well, evidently not. To be fair, my problems with City of Bones a are not about the sentences (although they are of questionable quality), they goes rather deeper than that.

The truth is I actually couldn't read the damn book. I had to give up. It's not that it was, y'know, bad as such, although it occasionally was, it just didn't - to my mind at least - make the leap from fanfic to original fiction at all successfully. I know attempting to draw a distinction between fanfic and original writing is likely to get me shot at dawn but it's the only hope I have of articulating why City of Bones just doesn't work.

As far as I could tell from the sliver I read, City of Bones is young adult urban fantasy. The heroine, Clary Fray, (and let's not even ask why an author who calls herself Cassandra Clare decided to call her heroine Clary) is exactly the sort of spunky young thing you would expect of a modern heroine. She's out at a nightclub with her best friend Simon when she happens to witness a supernatural murder. Demons yadda yadda vampires yadda yadda Shadowhunters yadda yadda sardonic attractive blonde yadda yadda yadda wise old mentor with bird yadda yadda. Look, truthfully, I don't really have any idea what the plot is because I only made it to page 63.

And this is the exact moment when I snapped.

"In the distance she could hear a faint and delicate noise, like wind chimes shaken by a storm. She set off down the corridor slowly, trailing a hand along the wall. The Victorian-looking wallpaper was faded with age, burgundy and pale grey. Each side of the corridor was lined with closed doors. The sound she was following grew louder. Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn't identify the tune. Turning the corner, she came to a doorway, the door propped fully open. Peering in she saw what was clearly a music room. A grand piano stood in one corner, and rows of chairs were arranged against the far wall. A covered harp occupied the centre of the room. Jace was seated at the grand piano, his slender hands moving rapidly over the keys. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, his tawny hair ruffled up around his head as if he'd just woken up. Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his hands holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel."

Let's skim all over the things that are awkward about this passage ... wind chimes only make sounds when they're stirred and piano music doesn't sound like that anyway ... how can wallpaper be faded with burgundy ... can a skill be desultory but undeniable ... why does it have to "clearly" be a music room, surely it is just is one ... how many times can you say "hands" in one sentence ... how does she know he's barefoot, he's playing the bloody piano ... and what the fuck is with the rain of silver tinsel...

But, yes, skim all that and riddle me this:

Wouldn't that whole scene be so much better if it turned out be Draco Malfoy sitting at the grand piano?

There's a technical name for what's wrong with this passage. In the industry we call it "blowing your load prematurely" (question is, what industry). Seriously, though, we're on page 63, we've spent all of 20 of them in the company of this character (and, let's face it, he's a pretty, sardonic, wise-cracking faintly angsty type very reminiscent of Cla(i)re's take on a certain slytherin): why the fuck should we be even remotely interested in the sight of him at a grand piano? It's a very senses-heavy scene: we have the sound distant music, the wallpaper beneath Clary's fingertips, and the lovingly detailed description of the ruffle-haired eyecandy sitting at the piano, so there's this self-conscious build up, deliberately (albeit not entirely eptly) evoking something of the fairytale, and what's the pay off? Up until this point the tawny-haired Jace has been a rude and snippy, so it's clear that this little scene is meant to show us a different side of him but character revelation scenes only function when you know the character well enough to experience it as a revelation. This is just ... information, excessively presented. It's like being hit over the head with a neon sign saying: "you should fancy this character now." And for the record, he's a demon hunter, not a concert pianist so there really is no reason to have that scene there except as drool-footage.

Possibly I'd feel differently if I was a teenage girl but I hope I'd have more taste.

What the scene did for me, aside from inducing me to throw the book across the room in disgust, was exemplify the subtle sense of wrongness I'd been getting throughout the previous 62 pages. Essentially City of Bones reads like fanfic - and I don't mean that as kneejerk indicator of poor quality, I mean that it reads like something constructed for a different purpose, functioning on a different ruleset. Leaving aside any criticisms of the actual style, this scene would probably work - for me - if I read it as fanfic. It's visually and linguistically striking - the juxtaposition of scruffy boy and fine old instrument (sorry), the hint at aspects of a character hitherto unknown, the touch of submerged melancholia (playing the grand piano to an empty room is a lonely hobby), all this would be fine if the mysterious pianist turned out to Draco. I mean, playing the grand piano is one of the things that one could potentially imagine Draco being able to do. Well, if you stopped and thought about it for a moment, probably not, because surely wizards have ... like ... magical pianos, or house elves to produce their music for them. But given that Draco is a repressively raised posh kid, it seems to me at least credible his parents made him have piano lessons, even if he hated it. And Draco, being the wizarding equivalent of genetically modified, would probably be reasonably good at it regardless.

I truthfully have no idea what it is that makes fanfic work but it seems to me to have something to do with potential plausibility. Scenes of certain characters doing things they never explicitly did in the books (even if this is fucking each other) resonate with you because it feels both novel and familiar - to continue the musical theme, if I presented you with Remus Lupin playing the electric guitar you might raise an eyebrow because he's far too bookish and quiet, but it would totally suit Sirius Black for example. Or even James Sodding Potter. And such scenes require no build-up because the reader already knows the characters being written about. Equally, dwelling on the details, and presenting very visual, senusous scenes, seems less purple than it does when you do it in original fiction because it helps to establish a familiar character in what may be an unfamiliar setting: for what's it worth, I can picture Draco Malfoy playing the grand piano very vividly. Pale hair, slender fingers, whatever. Fan fiction, even if you're looking at a 100,000 word AU fic, seems to be all about the establishment of moments, which need not necessarily (and probably don't) exist as part of a continuum of moments.

This is absolutely the opposite to a book.

The scene of Jace/grand piano has utterly no resonance for the reader because, well, partly because it's rubbish and partly because no time has been given to properly establishing the character so it's essentially meaningless, but mainly because it has no real sense of its place in a connected, developing narrative. Although the 63 pages I read did occasionally have moments of genuine mediocrity that made me suspect I should try to be more generous with the text, the whole reading experience felt so ultimately hollow I couldn't bring put myself through it. There's nothing inherently wrong with something reading like fanfic - fanfic reads like fanfic and I quite enjoy the stuff - but City of Bones is a work of original fiction, it's a book that I paid real money for (more fool me) In essence, then, it's original fiction without the necessary underpinnings, and fanfic without any of the characters you like. Worst of all possible worlds.

Comments:

Dan H

at 12:57 on 2008-09-25So I've started reading it now, to pick up where Kyra left off (nearly at good old Page 63).

I actually don't think it reads that much like fanfic (at least not like *good* fanfic). There's way too much exposition (fanfic tends to assume that everybody knows what's going on) including some truly wonderful scenes with people actually saying things like "surely you recognise a girl, your sister, Isabelle, is one" (Isabelle, it should be pointed out, is *right fucking there*).

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink".

What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

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Arthur B

at 15:32 on 2008-09-25It strikes me, actually, that while most of us have a good idea of what "bad" fanfic is like, good fanfic must by its nature vary widely in style, because at least part of the point of fanfic is to produce something that is reminiscent of the source material, so good Lovecraft fanfic will read different from good Firefly fanfic, or good Pratchett fanfic.

(Which would mean that, say, "good" Cecilia Dart-Thornton fanfic is a contradiction in terms: if it's good, it's no longer reminiscent of the source material.)

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Dan H

at 18:38 on 2008-09-25I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

Actually they probably do.

By contrast, I actually think with most fanfic the style is fairly consistent between fandoms (although I admit to limited experience here). Part of Cassandra Cla(i)re's big plagarism debacle, indeed, was the fact that she regularly borrowed lines from Buffy for her Draco fics.

In further updates on City of Bones I've now got past the point reached by our intrepid editor and have the following to add:

Holy Crap the wise old mentor dude is a lot like Dumbledore. There's a bit where he asks the heroine if she wants anything and I *totally* expected him to offer her a sherbet lemon. And if you don't read "Muggle" for "Mundie" every time you're a better man than I am.

Also, some exposition from earlier in the book which I found particularly awful:

"Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger, Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, as any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension."

"That's enough, Jace" said the girl.

"Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy, "nobody here needs a lesson in semantics - or demonology."

As you know, I *almost* applaud the bare faced cheek of it.

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Arthur B

at 00:38 on 2008-09-26

I think Lovecraft fanfic is a special case actually, because it borrows Lovecraft's ideas rather than his characters. Lovecraft fanfic (and, to borrow Arthur's term, peerfic) is all about eldrich horrors from beyond the void, it's not like anybody writes Herbert West/Charles Dexter Ward slash.

To be fair, there aren't that many recurring characters in Lovecraftian fiction except for the Old Ones themselves, who get reused all the time. And I've lost count of the number of times I've read stories about long-lost offshoots of the Whateley clan or where yet another dozy protagonist realises they come from Innsmouth stock.

I agree, though, that the Lovecraft-tribute scene is pretty unique; I expect this is partly because Lovecraft was one of the first authors who genuinely encouraged people to write stories set in his mythology, to the point of sending them detailed letters showing them how to boost their fanfic to peerfic. Having essentially established the core of his own fandom before he died, that core went on to set the norms for Lovecraft tribute works forevermore.

By contrast, I actually think with most fanfic the style is fairly consistent between fandoms (although I admit to limited experience here). Part of Cassandra Cla(i)re's big plagarism debacle, indeed, was the fact that she regularly borrowed lines from Buffy for her Draco fics.

I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

Which might explain why City of Bones exists. Once you don't care what the background to what you're reading is, so long as it has shipping and mary sues and whatnot, it becomes easier to accept the idea of fanfic-like work which is fanfic of nothing in particular - nothing, that is, except fanfic itself.

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Montavilla

at 01:55 on 2008-09-28

I truthfully have no idea what it is that makes fanfic work but it seems to me to have something to do with potential plausibility. Scenes of certain characters doing things they never explicitly did in the books (even if this is fucking each other) resonate with you because it feels both novel and familiar - to continue the musical theme, if I presented you with Remus Lupin playing the electric guitar you might raise an eyebrow because he's far too bookish and quiet, but it would totally suit Sirius Black for example. Or even James Sodding Potter.

Sadly, you made me immediately start wondering what Remus would play in James Potter and the Silver Marauders band. He might, ala George Harrison, play lead guitar. (Sirius would be play rhythm guitar and James would play the bass). Peter, of course, would be on drums. Which might explain why they put up with him all that time. It's hard to find someone who's got their own drum set.

Favourite line so far: "Her hair was almost precisely the colour of black ink". What colour would that be, exactly? Black, perhaps?

To be fair, comparing hair to ink is a difficult image these days because we only really see ink in the stems of our ballpoint pens. Perhaps it might have been better to say, "Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

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Dan H

at 12:18 on 2008-09-28

To be fair, comparing hair to ink is a difficult image these days because we only really see ink in the stems of our ballpoint pens. Perhaps it might have been better to say, "Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

Hee hee.

In all seriousness, though, it's not the comparison to ink that bugged me, it just strikes me as elementary that if you're saying "X was the colour of Y" then unless you're doing a Blackadder style joke "Y" should not include reference to a specific colour. "Her hair was black as ink" "her hair was black, like ink" "her hair was ink-black" would all have been fine. So for that matter would be "her hair was like black ink". "Hair the colour of black ink" is like something out of the Bulwer-Lytton contest: "Her hair was the colour of black ink, her eyes the colour of a blue crayon, and her dress the colour of a dress made out of red silk."

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Wardog

at 14:16 on 2008-09-29

Since we're playing Favourite Lines, my personal shoutout goes to: "He had electric blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus..." I guess it's just the awkwardness of the construction coupled with that startled octopus...

Arthur: I would suggest that this may be the result of people writing to indulge the sort of mores that have grown up around fandom-in-general, as opposed to writing to emulate the original work.

I'm not sure emulating the original work has ever real been the goal, well, not unless there's specific stylistic feature *to* emulate if that makes sense - like Lovecraft. I mean, you want to make your characters sound like the characters they are but ... well ... to indulge a bit of JKR bashing just because that's what we do here, most of the Harry Potter stuff I've read has been stylistically objectively better than the author.

"Her hair was almost precisely the color of laser toner. In a really old printer. You know. The black-and-white kind."

Hehe!!!

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Arthur B

at 15:47 on 2008-09-29

I think direct stylistic mimicing is, as you point out, actually rare, especially since a lot of fanfic is written about TV series, so you're translating a visual format into a literary one. But at the same time I think that the aim of a lot of fanfic is to emulate the source work in the sense that the writer's trying to tell a story that is a) reminiscent of the source material, in that it establishes a mood and tells a story which could recognisably fit within the source, and b) features the characters behaving in a manner recognisable from the source (unless the explicit point of the fic is something like "What if Captain Lolcats got possessed by a brain worm?"). At the very least, a lot of fanfic authors seem to want to produce something where the reader would look at it and say "Yes, that's very much how it would have happened on my favourite show if the screenwriters had only had the courage to write an episode where the ship's doctor and the robot owl consummate their love".

I say "a lot of fanfic" because I've seen the occasional piece (generally AU fics) where the premise is so utterly far removed from the source material that I start scratching my head and wondering why the author bothered retaining the link to the source material in the first place. Sure, perhaps the characters retain scraps of their personality, but they're in such an utterly different scenario it becomes a stretch to call them the same characters; to my mind, at least, characters are at least partially defined by context. Being a cheeky black marketeer on Deep Space 9 is a very different proposition from being a cheeky black marketeer in Blitz-era London.

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Wardog

at 16:01 on 2008-09-29

We are now mainly haggling over semantics, dear boy.

So instead I would like to play the "Her hair was" game.

I submit: Her hair was almost precisely the colour of one of those motorola telephones, the ones with that come with a gloss finish not matte."

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Claire E Fitzgerald

at 16:32 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of a grey cat in a room that was totally dark, such that the colour of the cat was indistinguishable from black.

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Arthur B

at 16:59 on 2008-09-29

Her hair was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

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Wardog

at 21:20 on 2008-09-29

Oi! Minus three points from Slytherin for being meta.

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Arthur B

at 00:26 on 2008-09-30

“Minus three hundred points for turning the comments section into Harry Potter fanfiction," muttered Harry, glowering at his Nintendo DS. He was pretty sure he was on the right track in this Phoenix Wright episode, but the game was being evasive about precisely which investigative avenue he should pursue. Harry was not looking forward to the half hour he'd have to spend looking for the plot, but he supposed he couldn't complain: he normally had to doss about for half a year before getting anything done in real life.

"How's my hair looking?" asked Ron, anxious about his big date with Hermione. He had spent the last six hours smearing his skin with Hackiburr's Very Useful Ointment in order to conceal the telltale marks of gingerness, and was now in the process of rubbing the stuff into his scalp. Harry glanced at his bare-torsoed chum and then returned his attention to his game.

"Your hair is all carroty," quipped Harry, "like someone was just sick in it."

Draco giggled and ran his hands through his hair, which was bright yellow like artificial egg yolk.

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Rami

at 12:17 on 2008-09-30

I think these are still worse, but you're getting there ;-)

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Guy

at 04:26 on 2009-07-24

Her hair was almost precisely the colour of light with a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz, and as she moved the angle of its inclination to her scalp seemed to undulate with a regularity that spoke softly to his soul.

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Rami

at 04:41 on 2009-07-24

a frequency of 590 nm and a wavelength of 526 THz

I think you got the wavelength and frequency swapped around ;-)

A redhead, eh? Why is it that female protagonists never seem to have violently ginger hair?

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Guy

at 08:34 on 2009-07-24

Oops, so I did. I could pretend that it was a deliberate attempt to further enhance the awfulness of the sentence, but no, I just muddled it up. :)

It would be kind of interesting to see some kind of frequency histogram of female (and male) protagonists and the wavelengths of their hair colours... but I suspect nobody would be mad enough to actually do the work to make such a thing.

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Michal

at 05:29 on 2011-09-29

And I only stumbled on this when I found out Cassandra Clare will be one of the instructors at the 2012 Clarion Writer's Workshop.

Suffice to say, I won't be applying. (Jesus Christ guys, you had Neil Gaiman and Ellen Kushner and Particia C. Wrede and Gene fucking Wolfe as instructors and now you've had budget cuts or what?)

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Arthur B

at 11:25 on 2011-09-29

Well they also had Orson Scott Card.

I guess it's like Hogwarts. Not everyone can be a Griffindor or a Ravenclaw. They also have to recruit Slytherins (Card) and Hufflepuffs (Clare).

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Michal

at 13:30 on 2012-11-18

There's a movie now.

I think I caught a half-second glimpse of Henry VIII at one point.

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Arthur B

at 14:05 on 2012-11-18

Urgh, they actually say "mundanes".

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Ibmiller

at 15:05 on 2012-11-19

It's like they learned nothing from Golden Compass...

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

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Wardog

at 15:36 on 2012-11-19

Oh no, that's Jamie Campbell-Bower. Officially the drippiest boy in Hollywood.

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Arthur B

at 15:44 on 2012-11-19

Also, are they deliberately trying to recreate the "awkward teen significantly older British actor" Twilight vibe?

I suspect they are going to mimic Twilight/Potter as closely as copyright will allow. It's got that "clinging to the underbelly of the bandwagon and trying to scrape as much gold as you can out of it" look. (Of course, this is likely to lead to jibbering incoherence due to Potter and Twilight being two different bandwagons...)

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

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Fishing in the Mud

at 16:51 on 2012-11-19

The extent to which Blonde Love Interest looks like a reject from the Draco Malfoy auditions is hilarious.

Hey, at least they got that right.

[kusunokihimea]

★ five times Ryuu thought Sasuke looked breath-taking, and the one time she voices it (in their senjutsu/traveling verse.. if Sasuke can even be breath-taking lol XD)

[send me a symbol for ][ @kyuuzuchiha ][ Accepting ]

     Hm…he said he’d be back by now…I hope they didn’t get carried away… After all, the last time Naruto and Sasuke really had a chance to do anything by way of battle, it nearly resulted in catastrophic geographical destruction.

     But given she hasn’t heard any explosions - at least, from this range - Ryū’s going to hope for the best.

     Seated outside a small cafe, she’s got her chin in her hand, mostly tuning out as she waits. Her lunch is half-eaten and now mostly forgotten, free hand absently twirling her cup of tea. Sasuke said he wouldn’t be long. Something about catching up with Naruto…which evidently translated into a spar. One that’s lasted far longer than she’d thought it would…

     Watching the few last dregs of amber liquid spin, there’s a pause before looking up at the approaching signatures. The pair of them are…certainly worse for wear, scuffed up and dirty. But Naruto has a companionable arm around Sasuke’s shoulders, laughing at…goodness knows what. Eyes closed, Sasuke manages a small scoff and an upturn of his lips. His normally-mussed hair is all the more untamed, clothes dusty and half-shed, skin both flushed and sweaty.

     It’s not anything unusual, or even entirely notable. But for some reason, the sight makes her heart skip a beat.

     “Yo, Ryū!” Naruto drags himself off his former teammate, still grinning ear to ear. “Look what I dragged back to ya in one piece! Though - heh! - just barely!”

     “You’re the one who was leaning on me, dobe.”

     “I wasn’t leanin’! I was just -!”

     Snapped from her stupor, Ryū gives her head a little shake and smiles reflexively, stubbornly ignoring the extra few beats pounding in her chest as her heart works overtime to make up for its stutter. “D…do either you need any patching up?”

     “Nah, we’re fine! Nothin’ a shower and a nap won’t fix, eh teme?”

     Sasuke doesn’t reply, staring at the healer with a furrowed brow. Greys glance bashfully aside at his scrutiny.

     “…teme?”

     “…yeah. I’m fine. C’mon, Ryū - Naruto’s late for his Hokage lessons. We’d best leave him to it.”

     "Oi! You’re just jealous!”

     “Of course I am. Now, I’m going to go shower, and you’re going to go let Kakashi lecture you for a few hours. Have fun.” With that, Sasuke gives a jerk of his head that clearly says, “Let’s go.”

     Scrambling to her feet, Ryū leaves her paid bill on the table. “C…coming!”

     Sitting up in bed with a sigh, Ryū takes a moment to rub palms at her face. It’s a little late…she’d best get up and get going. Dressing second naturedly, she indulges only in a cup of tea before heading out.

     …he must have gotten up before her.

     Taking the path from the manor toward the largest peak, Ryū eventually makes her way up the many stairs and switchbacks that lead to the plateau where her master waits. Each torī gate standing over the turns gets a familiar pat, until she reaches the one that crests the top where Suigin’s cave and the shrine sit.

     And, this particular morning…Sasuke, too.

     He’s about ten paces from the threshold of the stone staircase, perfectly still and positioned in a meditative pose. If not for the subtle swells and shrinks of his chest, Ryū would almost swear he was a statue carved up from the rock. Eyes are closed, expression neutral.

     He looks so…at peace. Ryū can’t help but stare a moment, a funny feeling beneath her sternum.

     Then one dark eye peels open, startling her. For a moment she’d forgotten he could move. “…Ryū,” he greets, a small hint of question in his tone.

     “Sorry, I…o-overslept.”

     “I haven’t been here long if you want to join.”

     “…sure.”

     A few sunsets later, Ryū comes in through the manor’s front door, leaning against it with a sigh once it snaps closed. What a day. Maintaining the valley and its self -sufficiency isn’t easy by any means, but some days are harder than others. And this was one of them.

     Add in the fact that, despite the late hour, she has yet to make dinner…and she’s only all the more disheartened. Partially at her own loss, but also because of Sasuke’s.

     Removing her shoes, she pads silently, barefoot, into the main room. Most of the lights are off, and it takes a sweep of her senses rather than her eyes to find him.

     He’s laid himself atop a settee, head propped up on a decorative pillow and more than obviously asleep. If not judging by his calmed chakra, then by his slack features and deep breathing.

     The guilt gets a little worse. Getting close with intent to wake him before she starts supper, Ryū stills as she takes in his features while vulnerable with sleep.

     He looks so…different. No suspicious crease to his brow, no hardness to his eyes, or set to his jaw. Everything softens as he slumbers, breath whispering past parted lips and a few stray locks cast over his face.

     Ever so carefully, heart quickening in her chest, Ryū brushes inky strands from his skin. His face tilts ever so slightly with just a breath of sound…but he doesn’t wake.

     Looking him over, Ryū sets her jaw against…whatever that was before retreating to the kitchen. For now…she’ll let him rest.

     More time passes. For a while, she can let herself forget. But after readying for bed one night, she goes to bid him goodnight…only to find him missing.

     …where…?

     Spreading her senses, she picks up his signature down at the first bridge from the manor. It’s well past sunset - what’s he doing out there? Heaving a small sigh, Ryū adjusts her yukata and slips on her sandals before heading out to chide him to sleep.

     The moon is high in the sky, bathing the valley in sharp contrast of black and white. It’s almost as though all the color has bleached from the world. Picking her way carefully along the still-overgrown paths, the healer comes up behind him, trying to lean and catch sight of his face.

     Sasuke leans folded arms across the crossing’s railing, one hip cocked and gaze staring out north up the valley toward its entrance. His usually-sharp features are thrown into even harsher relief. It’s almost like an old painting of ink on white paper rather than a living, breathing body.

     A bit breathless at the sight, Ryū eventually recovers and steps up beside him. “…are you all right?”

     “Hn. Just…thinking.”

     She lays dainty hands atop the same wooden railing, feeling the smoothed wood from generations of hands before hers. “…anything you want to voice?”

     “…not yet.”

     “Well…you should head to bed soon. It’s late.”

     “I will. Just not quite tired yet. You go rest.” He turns to face her, visage equal parts light and dark.

     “…goodnight, Sasuke.”

     “Night.”

     Sitting on the front step and sewing up a torn shirt of her companion’s, Ryū’s gaze drills into the task. A needle passes to and fro through the fabric, slowly but surely pulling the rift closed. He really needs to stop managing to tear such gaping holes in his garments! At this rate she might as well just make him new ones, he seems to damage them so often!

     Sighing, she brings it upright between her hands, eyeing her handiwork. Her last few stitches are a bit off…she’ll have to pull them out and try again.

     All the while, in the front garden, the soft sound of footfalls and measured, huffed breaths carry through the still, misty air. Going through his morning kata regimen, Sasuke moves himself through a series of stances, strikes, and held positions before letting himself relax between each set.

     Subtly, Ryū peeks over the shirt at him.

     He currently lacks one, hence her work. Instead, he works in nothing but typical trousers, feet bare with wrapped forearms and hands. Though not as intense as sparring, the rigorous work still leaves him gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat, a look of absolute concentration upon his features.

     …not to mention the tension in his muscles leaves them well-defined.

     A bit lost as eyes traces over his musculature, Ryū snaps back to attention as he finishes another set, losing rigidity and glancing her way. She makes a show of keeping the shirt aloft, staring at her stitching and trying to will away her blush and racing heart.

     “…are you done with it yet?”

     “A…almost!”

     She’s never been one much for fancy parties. But given this is the first anniversary of the shinobi alliance peace treaty that Sasuke has actually been present for…Ryū decides they should go. He was, after all, a major instrument of said peace.

     At least…in the end.

     Finishing up adjusting her kimono, Ryū carefully picks up the hem before approaching the bathroom door of their room. Knocking, she asks, “Um…are you done yet?”

     “Just about. You can come out.”

     After a slight pause, she does just that, opening the portal to the rest of their room. Sasuke has his back to her, adjusting a new set of hakama and haori. All of his top garments are a midnight blue, the hakama a soft grey, lightly patterned. Apparently done fiddling, he turns and gives a small gesture of critique.

     Along the front of both shoulders of his haori, bright white and crimson, are twin Uchiha crests.

     As before, her chest seems to still for a moment.

     Crossing the room, she releases her hold of her garment, fidgeting his ever so slightly. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with it. She just…needs a moment, head tilted down to stare at the fabric to avoid his gaze. A subtle blush dusts her cheeks.

     “…you look perfect,” is her murmured reply, daring to lift her eyes to his face as palms rest against his chest, greys flickering between onyx and amethyst. By now, both the sight and proximity have her heart racing - surely more than noticeable by someone of his ability. There’s little doubting it by now: why she reacts the way she does. Only her bashful nature seems to stand stubbornly in the way of admitting it. How much she’s grown to care about him.

     …how much…she loves him.

     Eventually her nerve crumbles again, and she ducks her face to avert her gaze. “Should…should we go, then? Surely everyone’s waiting on us by now, n-ne?” Ryū retreats half a step, folding her hands at her front.

     The tactic largely fails, however, as Sasuke insists on taking one as his own, fingers weaving. Looking up in surprise, she jolts as he lowers his brow to hers.

     “…let them wait,” he rumbles in reply, stare pinning her in place. “…we’re taking this night at our own pace…Ryū.”

     She stares back, barely daring to breathe as her heart beats overtime. 

                                                   “O…okay.”