#also i just spent like a good five minutes trying to remember how to spell seruel's name bc i'm so used to typing セルエル | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

slothgiirl · 2 years

Text

a rose by any other name part xiii

11k. druig x reincarnating reader.

prev. /// next.

London 2024

Nathan frowns as Sprite takes on an adult form. “Seriously?”

“I’m trying to get laid.”

“Oh yeah,” he rolls his eyes, “because that’ll work.” She kicks his shin.

Your brother filled out during the past year, no longer lanky limbs. He has your dad’s high cheekbones though he’s pasty from having spent all of last year in New Asgard and his long hair proves he went native.

You check your messages for the millionth time.

“Happy birthday Dane,” Nathan gives Sersi’s long time boyfriend a loaf of gross healthy Norwegian bread that the Asgardians also like making. His obsession with alien archeology paid off.

“Thank you! How was your trip?”

After the snap, a car swerved into your parents' honda civic. A freak accident. You were all Nathan had even as you spent days sitting under the showerhead remembering so many lives. You scratched at your skin, trying to peel away the layers and get back to you. You. Whoever that even was. What were you?

At least Sersi and Sprite had the excuse of being aliens. You were just a freak. You weren’t Thor.

“Great. The salmon up there really gives Hawai’i a run for its money.”

“No way.”

Sprite doesn’t even flirt with anyone, just holds her glass and watches Dane and Nathan and you can see her getting angrier by the second.

You make your way to her as Sersi does the rounds with Dane’s friends. She was always careful to not get too close.

You were like two thousand years old. It was just your body that wasn’t. Fuck. Trying to rationalize your past always gives you a migraine.

Sersi has a black and white photograph, the ones people had to stay still for minutes for it to work right, of you and her in Paris during the 70s. The 1870s. Nathan had it as his lock screen.

“You wanna go get nando’s instead?” Your brother had told you he wanted to go when he was back in the UK. Everyone here thought it was adorable that Sersi brought her kid sister everywhere. But when it was just the four of you, Sprite didn’t have to pretend she was a teenager when she was older than the English language.

“Naw,” she shakes her head, the movement odd when carried out by the illusion she was wearing, “I kinda wanna see Dane’s stupid face when she shoots him down again.”

“We can kick Sersi out and give her no choice?”

Sprite snorts. “You’d never.”

“Maybe I’m not as nice as I look.” You brush imaginary dirt from your shoulder.

One of Dane’s friends from uni, also your alma mater, hits on Nathan and you gag. It was so weird to think of anyone finding your brother who you’d seen eating his own boogers when he was five as attractive, let alone flirting with him.

Sprite frowns. “Obviously or you’d have told Druig.”

You wince.

She had you there.

There was a letter in your sock drawer. You’d written out a lot. Then crossed it all out and instead wrote something much more to the point, then thrown that away. Finally, you’d settled on a picture of you and Sersi on a river cruise for new years. Sprite had photobombed. Nathan’s finger was in the bottom corner. But you had struggled for the words so you never sent it.

It was a lot.

Reuniting with Druig would force you to confront the reality of your situation, the big M question you’ve been avoiding. How would the use of your magic this go-a-round impact your ability to reincarnate? You didn’t want to tell Druig. You didn’t want him to think that you didn’t want this, you and him in whatever space you were able to carve out for yourselves. You didn’t want to burden him with the knowledge of some freak spell, but you knew you would have to talk about it.

“Drink,” Nathan offers Sprite his cocktail. Your brother loved a good margarita.

“I can get my own drink,” she snaps. “I’m not five.” Then stalks away before Nathan can reply.

She was always touchy about her unchanging appearance.

You check your messages again. Lizzy still hadn’t responded. She was living in a mental health residential clinic Nathan was paying for. Tracking down alien relics paid the big bucks.

The transition from being ash to being alive, the world having moved on for five long years, had been rough for your sister.

You were the same age as her.

Her things had been thrown out in the chaos.

It was weird.

You didn’t know how to make her understand you were just happy to have her back. You’d outlived everyone, always.

Somewhere you probably had descendants.

“Have you ever heard about the golden apples,” Nathan asks you.

“Like from Percy Jackson?”

Nathan grins, and you know he’s about to make fun of you, “didn’t you live through the trojan war.”

“Fuck off.”

“And you have magic! If anyone should know this stuff it’s you.”

You grumble, “say that a little louder I don’t think they heard you in Tokyo.”

***

You glared jealousy at Sprite and Nathan sharing headphones to watch some in-flight movie while you were suffering sitting between Sersi and Ikaris. You couldn’t even watch a Mission Impossible movie because your headphones were bluetooth and the plane only had the aux plug in. So there you were, while Ikaris kept stealing looks at Sersi like he was a Youtuber about to launch into a ten minute apology video and Sersi scrolled through her eBooks. Her seatbelt was already on.

Why couldn’t your seat be with Sprite and your brother?

“Should’ve flown there and saved us these last minute flight prices,” you try to joke, looking at Ikaris who had never warmed up to you in nearly two thousand years.

Sersi blushes. “It wasn’t too bad. Nothing I can’t afford,” glancing at Ikaris before adding. “I had a lot of time off saved up.”

“Maybe if you’d gone with us to Spain,” you point out, “Barcelona was great. Ate way too much ice cream.”

“The V&A-”

You snort. Classic Sersi, turning down a vacation to spend a week going through a new exhibition. What a nerd. “So,” you address Ikaris, “what have you been up to in the last five hundred years?”

“Um.” He swallows, clearly not expecting the question though given the circumstances, he really fucking should. Maybe he doesn’t owe you an explanation but he does owe Sersi one.

Fuck, you should’ve sent this in to The Cut. Ask Polly.

“I’ll go first,” you start, “Travelled around Europe with Sersi. Surprisingly didn’t die from all the lead around then but apparently missed out on the Radium craze. Stayed with Thena and Gilgamesh for a bit. Was a nurse in World War 2, not that anyone ever remember’s India’s part or that front. What about you?”

Ikaris rolls his eyes. “I have continued my mission.” His gaze flickers to Sersi, “our mission.”

“How many thousand years and you haven’t changed, haven’t grown.”

Sersi puts her hand on your arm. Let it go.

“There are deviants. I have a duty to Arishem.”

“But not to humanity?” You scoff, “call the Avengers. Let Antman or the Wasp handle it.”

Ikaris scowls.

Sersi sighs.

“Miss,” the flight attendant asks Sprite, “I need you to have your seat upright at the moment.”

Sprite glances at Nathan with a pointed look, “I’m eight thousand years old.”

“All the same,” the woman doesn’t even blink, “your seat needs to be upright.”

“Told you,” Nathan snipes back.

Sersi rests her head in her hands.

It was only a nine hour plane ride, a two hour connection, followed by a three hour drive, until you reached Ajak. Fuck.

***

Ikaris digs the grave by himself. Twin rivers of tears run down his cheeks.

Sprite and Sersi sit on the steps of Ajak’s house, comforting each other. You feel like an outsider. You didn’t know Eternals could die. For so long she has been a constant. No matter how much the face of the world changed, the Eternals remained the same.

Only they haven’t. So many cracks have shown behind their alien facade since they split. Thena had become ill. Ikaris had all but disappeared, and inside of everything Sersi had grown.

They could change just like humans did, just like you did. And they could die.

You bite your lip, thinking of Ajak.

It had been in Mexico when you had last seen her, lived with her. Her dark eyes reflected the awful human sacrifices that the Aztecs had carried out like many other cultures throughout history. Ajak’s unblinking gaze: you wondered how such a sweet woman could be so cold to an entire planet.

And here you were.

You look up at the scenery. It was peaceful here in rural Montana, far from any city.

Your eyes were wet with tears for a woman who’d let you die before.

“Did you know here,” Nathan asks, shadowing you, giving the others space to mourn.

“Not very well,” you chuckle, “I mean, we lived together, but no, I didn’t really know her.” It sounded shitty.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” your brother looks at the horizon, “I’m going to move Lizzy to New Asgard.”

Oh.

You feel blindsided.

Your sister wouldn’t even talk to you.

“Is that a good idea?” She was not the only person to live in a residential facility for those affected by the Snap. It was traumatic enough for you, and you didn’t even get Snapped.

People had collected the ashes and taken them to doctors, hoping. . .

“Her therapist thinks so. And Lizzy doesn’t want to stag in Canada.” Nathan rubs the back of his neck.

“Are you okay with that,” you have to ask. “You're young. It doesn’t have to be your responsibility. You should be able to date and move in and not have to look after Lizzy-”

“I want to. . .and I’m not,” Nathan does air quotes, “building a family.”

“You never know.”

“I do know,” he tells you, meeting your gaze. “I’m not interested in the nuclear family thing.”

You blink.

“I’m ace. Look it’s not a big deal but I wanted to let you know, and that you can always move to New Asgard with us.”

You swallow. The idea of your siblings living in New Asgard, would they be in the path of would-be Thanos’? There seemed to be a new catastrophe everyday and now Deviants too. Maybe you should call the Government. They could get in touch with Captain Marvel, right?

“I have a job.” It sounds weak even to your ears.

“I know. No pressure. Seriously. Just, visit, call, zoom?”

“Yeah. I will.” You remember all the voicemails you’ve left Lizzy.

Did she even want to see you?

Before you leave, you run your fingers over the freshly dug grave, soil upturned, and watch as flowers bloom over Ajak’s grave. Blue and yellow wildflowers.

****

You say goodbye to Nathan at the airport, dreading the three separate flights you need to take to reach Kingo. It’s Sprite that hugs him the hardest, punching his arm, and grinning, “two for flinching,” like a particularly annoying aunt to her favorite nephew.

You hadn’t told him about the possibility of the world ending, again. What good would that do? Everyone on the planet lived with existential PTSD, Spiderman destroying the London Eye didn’t help.

You sit next to Ikaris in business class and spring for purchasing headphones. Best ten pounds you’ve ever spent. Sersi hadn’t thought twice about sitting with Sprite.

Neither Ikaris nor you make another attempt at small talk.

It’s not until your layover in Doha that you stretch your legs.

“You didn’t tell him about the whole new Celestial did you,” Sprite asks you while you wait for a McDonald’s meal. Your internal clock is messed up. It could be breakfast or dinner.

“No,” you sigh. “I feel like-okay telling someone would freak them out but maybe telling New Asgard? They have ships? People could be saved, they could call in backup. We, you don’t have to do this alone.”

Sprite sighs. “I-I thought one day we’d finish and I could, maybe back on Olympia there might be a way for me to change. . .and now-we can’t just,” she looks down at her shoes, “I spent nearly ten thousand years protecting this planet and now we’re just supposed to let it die. That’s not what I signed up for.” She laughs darkly, “not that I signed up for anything apparently.”

You wrap an arm around her shoulder, “You’ll have time to talk this through with a therapist after.”

She looks up at you, “someone’s counting their chickens before they hatched.”

“Very punny.”

“Thanks.” Sprite adds, “I told my D&D group I’d be gone. They were worried.”

“That's what friends do.”

“I’ve never been able to stick around in one place for long,” she muses, “not after. . .I’d tried and people got really burn the witch quick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. You didn’t make me like this.”

You grab food for Sersi and Ikaris too.

***

Kingo introduces yet another Auntie he’s older than. You’ve lost track, looking through your messages: trying to get work off your back, replying to your brother, seeing your sister still hasn’t responded. The world’s going to end in days. You should be with them? What were you even going to do to stop this?

Not for the first time you want to call the Wakandan Embassy. Maybe their technology could help?

But even Sersi was on board with bearing the responsibility on her own.

And Kingo-

He’s supposed to be saying goodbye, but that involves introducing everyone in Karun’s family. They keep spawning. You think they must’ve called people over. One of the old men is definitely the neighbor. Karun’s wife quickly gets food going: wanting to send her husband and Kingo off with snacks. It’s a lot.

You doubt Arishem had this in mind when he created Kingo.

“Ah and that is Kush,” Karun excitedly gabs, “he is studying for his entrance exams. We are very proud of him!”

“I miss when you could just make things up and people believed them,” Kingo sighs, “now you need accreditation.”

Sersi frowns, “well, yes-otherwise you get quack doctors and pseudoscience. There’s enough of that within academia to start with.”

“We can’t all inherit our father’s media company,” you point out. Karun had signed pictures with Kingo Sr. It was a photograph of the entire cast for some folk tale musical.

“Hit me up for a job. Make nepotism work for you,” Kingo grabs you by the hand. “What’ve you been up to? Wait-do you know,” he narrows his eyes, scrutinizing you.

“Too late for that,” Sprite says bitterly. Being around Kingo was putting her in a mood.

“Oh. Thank god. Keeping secrets, smh. Am I right?”

“Well you obviously told Karun,” Sersi says.

“And apparently the whole family,” Ikaris adds, holding up a photograph of a teenage Karun and Kingo. “Do they all know?”

“Eh. It’s not a big deal. Once we got over the vampire and evil jinn theories we really bonded. You should watch 30 hours in Mumbai. A real tear jerker. Almost as good as Dangal,” Kingo explains, before calling out to someone in Marathi.

You barely retained any Hindi.

Some memories, some lives, were clearer than others. You could still picture the waterways of Tenochtitlan, but India was a blur.

“So they know,” Sprite finishes.

Karun’s wife, Seema, comes out with lunch boxes, all filled with freshly made food. They’re all labeled. There’s more than enough to get you all through the plane ride to Australia: to Thena and Gilgamesh.

And then there’s more goodbyes all over again as she fixes Karun’s lapels.

Kingo puts the food in the car.

“I don’t think we can all fit,” Sprite frowns.

“We can split a cab,” you offer.

“We fit, don’t worry,” Kingo says before squishing four people into the back of his car. It was an absurdly tight fit. Sprite sat on the edge of the seat, your knees jammed against Sersi.

“We should’ve split a cab,” Sprite grumbles.

***

Sersi breaks the news again. And again.

No Olympia.

Their entire life was a lie.

You wonder how this kind of world altering news will impact Thena’s mental health. Her grasp on reality was fucked. This couldn’t help.

You understood, looking up at the night sky.

Time had stood still at Thena and Gilgamesh’s homestead. There were stars you had not seen since Airdrie. The London smog was not nearly as bad as it had been at the turn of the last century, the tail end of the Victorian era. But here even the Milky way was visible to the naked eye like it had been centuries past.

Learning the truth of Arishem’s mission was watching Tony Stark fall out of the wormhole all over again. It was learning about aliens, that there were empires grander and more powerful with their eyes on Earth. The Hulk, Thor: it had never stopped after New York. The attacks, the threats had kept coming from people and the stars.

Nothing had ever been the same.

There was Alien insurance that could be added to houses like Volcano Insurance.

Mutants went viral on Tiktok.

But everytime a Thanos level event happened, you and the rest of humanity remembered how vulnerable the little blue dot called Earth really was.

This was their wormhole.

“Can I join you,” Sprite asks, sitting down on the packed earth with you.

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice out here.”

“Relaxing.”

Sprite laughs, “we should’ve taken a quiet country vacation instead.” She inhales deeply. “There’s dolphin’s off Scotland.”

“Next time,” you lay your head on her shoulder.

“You sound so sure,” your old friend mutters, “a celestial. A fucking Celestial.”

“They can’t be that bad-”

“What did Druig tell you about Arishem?”

“Honestly,” you offer, pulling away, “not much.”

“To call them gods isn’t an exaggeration. It’s not like with us, people worshiping something they don’t understand. They’re gods. The whole life, death and universe shabang.” Sprite closes her eyes, the tired expression on her pixie features at odds with her age. The trepidation in her eyes reminded you of the British Indian soldiers on leave. Eyes that contained all the horrors of war; Sprite who had seen more horrors than had ever been put to historical record.

You’d been sacrificed once.

“I should’ve-I should have tried more, built-I could’ve had what Kingo does! Family. Real family. Not a bunch of losers Arishem stuck on the same ship.”

You try to comfort her. “Family, are people you love not necessarily always get along with. Or even like all the time.”

Sprite intertwines her fingers with you. “I’m glad you shot an arrow at me.”

“I was shooting a deer.”

“Way to ruin the moment,” she snipes, both of you bursting into laughter.

***

Kingo’s private plane was a game changer.

“Please tell me this is some green lofty Stark tech so I don’t have to feel bad about the CO2 emissions,” you ask the Southeast Asian in appearance Eternal.

“Yeah! Nothing but the best for Kingo Jr. or Is it Kingo the fourth now?”

Sprite rolls her eyes.

“Guys,” Kingo points out, jumping from topic to topic, “should Thena have a knife on the plane?”

“It’s fine,” Thena doesn’t look up from her wood whittling.

“She said it’s fine,” Gilgamesh echoes, sitting down next to you and leaning his seat back.

You trust Gilgamesh’s judgement on this.

“Um,” Kingo continues to look worried.

Karun hands him a drink.

You were used to Kingo being surrounded by friends. He’d always known merchants and butchers, haggling with a smile and actually managing to get fresher produce. Haggling is an art. Karun and his kin were just the latest in a long line of people that Kingo had built friendships with.

It was Kingo more than any of them that had taken to being human like a fish to water.

“You mentioned the deviants could speak now,” Gilgamesh asks Sersi, looking pensive.

“What does it matter,” Ikaris cuts in, “They’re deviants. We have a job to do.”

“Oh right,” Sprite says sourly, “our mission. Because that’s going well.”

“Sprite,” Ikaris chidded as if he had any authority.

You busied yourself with the contents of Kingo’s mini fridge. There were masala lays and bottles of beer. You play with the inflight tv, wondering if Kingo had anything other than his own movies.

“Sersi,” Gilgamesh recenters the conversation.

“Yes, um,” she nods, “He-they,” cleary she wasn’t sure what pronouns to use and only Sersi would be worrying about pronouns when dealing with deviants for the first time in milena, “tried to speak before attacking.” She purses her lips, “about Arishem. I don’t know.”

“Then they have the capacity for higher thought,” Gilgamesh ponders, “are more than predators following their nature.”

“What are you saying,” Kingo asks carefully.

You frown, “that still means they chose to attack us in London. They could’ve remained in hiding.”

“Do you think,” Sersi says slowly, “that they sense Tiamut’s birth?”

“If we are all children of Arishem,” Thena trails off, her pencil stilling. What must she feel now, learning that the illness in her mind wasn’t delusional hallucinations but memories of other worlds? She was holding herself together admirably. You thought this must be hardest for her.

Learning the truth did not stop her flashbacks from occuring like a glitch in the matrix.

“Does it matter.” Ikaris clicks his jaw.

“Yes,” Gilgamesh argues, “if they are sentient beings then we should try to. . .we shoukd hear them out. Everything we thought we knew was wrong. What if we are wrong about them. Clearly, they evolved.”

Sprite stands, “did you forget they killed Ajak!” Tears shine in her eyes. The wound still fresh.

You wonder what Ajak woukd have done if she lived. Would she have told them about Tiamut? Would the Eternal leader have let the Earth die? You hoped not. But you had never been close, you could not guess at her feelings for humanity, her loyalty to the mission might have won out.

It didn’t matter.

Ajak was gone.

You’d never know what she would have done if she had lived:

“Sersi,” Gilgamesh says, “perhaps they can be reasoned with. From their point of view, we have hunted them to near extinction. Should we not try to do things differently-better than we have? We can’t afford to fight the deviants and stop Tiamut at the same time.” His arguement was well put.

You’d never faced deviants before.

“Arishem created the deviants for a reason,” Ikaris states, “just as we have a purpose.”

“Oh and I suppose that makes it right,” you point out, “and if Arishem told you to let Thanos kill half the universe that makes it alright!”

“You’re human. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Kingo defends you, “hey! It’s her planet we’re talking about here.”

“And billions of people,” Sersi collapses into the seat, her expression that of a deep rooted depression.

Thena places her hand over Karun’s camera lens.

“They. Killed. Ajak.” Sprite slams a steak knife into the coffee table you were all gathered around.

“Ajak knew,” Thena adds quietly.

The woman had left behind so many questions.

You think of the iridescent alien creatures that had smacked Ikaris aside with ease. Sersi’s abilites had only bought seconds. They had made you feel so small. What were a few magic tricks against alien creatures that could take on an Eternal?

The images of the Battle of New York fill your thoughts again. Everything had changed after that.

“And she knew it was the right path,” Ikaris again argues, “that’s why she was the leader.”

“You’re talking about the destruction of an entire planet,” Sersi points out, hurt in her eyes as she regards her former lover.

“And billions of new worlds.”

“He has a point,” Kingo points out, “I don’t like it, but who are we to decide which lives matter more?”

You roll your eyes, “um, the lives currently existing obviously! Those new worlds are theoretical, they don’t even exist yet. If Tiamut has waited 5 billions years already, can’t they wait another 5 billion for the sun to die? You can have planet earth then.”

“It’s the way of things,” Ikaris once again argues, “destruction so that new life may begin.”

Kingo shakes his head, but says nothing, looking tormented at having to bear the responsability of Earth, of Tiamut.

“You haven’t seen worlds die,” Thena notes, her gaze lost to her memories.

Gilgamesh squeezes her shoulder in sympathy.

It was the same arguement, recycled, as time ran out for your planet.

***

Mexico was both exactly how you remembered it and incredibly changed.

Kingo’s plane landed in Mexico City, the sprawling metropolis was akin to most cities in the world. But once you left the city behind, you saw traces of what life had been like at the turn of the century. People still hung their laundry up to dry and the closer you got to the mountains Druig had made his home in, the less development there was. You wondered how much was Druig’s doing and how much of it was just a result of how remote this cerro still was with its dirt road.

“You two have been here before,” Kingo asks you and Sersi. “Right?” You’ve made a stop at an Oxxo to grab snacks and refuel.

“In the 1800s,” Sersi answers. You split some pecan pies with her.

You look up at the mountains surrounding you. It was hot and humid in the worst of ways. “I was buried here last time, no,” you scrunch your nose, “the time before that with Sersi.” You were pretty sure it had been in the 1800s. “I died somewhere in Bangladesh I think?” There was so much to remember.

Humans lacked the capacity to live as long as you have. You didn’t have space to remember everything.

“That’s ghoulish,” Kingo frowns in that humorous way of his. He’s always been charismatic.

“I don’t really think about it. . .” It was rare for you to come across your grave. Different places, centuries later, this was the only one you knew the location of. Now you weren’t sure how to feel about your bones rotting in the earth. Was there even anything left?

Sersi squeezes your hand.

“Why haven’t you talked to Druig,” Sprite asks, nosy as always as she nicks your drink without thought. You were used to Sprite and Sersi. You’d missed Kingo in your past lives.

You shrug, biting into the thin pastry. It was always fun to try snacks in different countries. You just wish all this travel wasn’t done under the cloud of another impending apocalypse.

Sprite jabs her elbow into your side, “Come on. Spit it out.”

“Fuck, that hurt,” you complain, covering your mouth with your hand.

“So?”

Kingo also leans in.

You roll your eyes, “seriously?”

“Well now I wanna know,” Kingo nods.

“Eh,” you look down at your shoes. It was a bit weird where you did want to vent but also didn’t want to tell them because it would get back to Druig in the form of Kingo saying shit. They were your family. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to finish Uni and then there was the whole Snap and. . .it honestly seems a little fake even though I can remember everything.” You couldn’t have dragged your baby brother to your husband’s commune.

Kingo pats your shoulder, “that’s. . .”

Karun shoves the camera in your face.

“Really,” you take a step back.

“It makes for good drama.”

“Karun worked on Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.”

“So why are you working for this one,” you ask Karun. There was no way being a valet was this man’s dream.

“There is so many places and things to learn when working with Kingo,” Karun smiles kindly, “like all of you! What do you see when you die?”

You cringe.

“Don’t answer that,” Sprite pulls you away.

Back to the car.

“Give me my soda back,” you tell her even as you grab it. It was hot and already sweat ran down your back.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod. It had never been that you didn’t want to see Druig. . .you just wanted to take care of some other stuff first. Sort the mess of memories in your head as much as you could. Time, you had wanted time to figure yourself out first.

It wasn’t fair.

To either of you.

It never had been.

Shakespeare couldn’t have imagined a better tragedy.

***

You’d honestly forgotten how creepy this place could be. You didn’t want to sound judgemental, or dimish each villagers life and their autonomy, only you couldn’t let go of the idea that they couldn’t consent to Druig’s whole mind control as a deus ex machina when it was all they had ever known. Over two hundred years later, and you still hadn’t come around on this.

Neither had anyone else.

“Can I film you sir,” Karun asks someone.

You search the man’s face for familiar features. You’d likely known this man’s ancestors. He might even be Cualtzin’s great something.

You swallow, suddenly wishing you had talked to Druig before. You wanted to do this in private, to have a change to see him before everyone by yourself, and maybe guilt also wormed its way into your thoughts. Would he be hurt you didn’t seek him out? You’d known for years.

You wanted a proper reunion without the impending birth of a celestial hanging over everything.

Sersi intertwines her finger with yours.

You only hoped your sister would come around. You needed to talk to her before-

Sprite asks a man, “Hey, estamos buscando a Druig. Donde esta?”

“De que conoces a Druig?”

“Somos,” Sprite thinks on it, “amigos de la universidad.”

Their eyes grow gold.

Definitely creepy.

Druig steps out of the community center. Though the way this place ran, everything was communal. That was one thing you’d liked about this place, how close knot everyone was. And the food.

Your heart lurches in your chest when you see him, the same dark hair, cheeky smile with those mischievous eyes. Any doubt of the validity of your feelings, of your memories, faded away because this was real, he was here in the flesh. Like learning to ride a bike, you slipped back into the habit of being in love.

“I miss you all,” are Druig’s first words to the Eternals after centuries in a warm tone that was a complete turn from his schism from the rest of his companions.

Your fingers tighten around Sersi’s hand.

It’s obvious when he spots you.

Caught off guard as his eyes widen, whatever he was about to say is forgotten. “My lady-” Druig always has the brightest smile.

“Druig,” you rush forward.

It’s without throught. You just need him at that moment.

And he needs you.

Druig cups your face in his hand, resting his forehead against yours.

You stare into his eyes, feeling amazed that you were able to spend another lifetime with the man you loved. The only man for you. In his gaze, the history and love shared between you echoed back.

“You’re getting this? Please tell me you're getting this,” Kingo’s terrible stage whisper breaks your trance.

“I am Sir. Do not worry.”

And you remember why you were here with the rest of the Eternals.

“What’s wrong,” Druig frowns.

You didn’t want to tell him any of it. You wish you could shield him from the news of Ajak and Tiamut, from learning that his entire existence was a farce, but you couldn’t. The Eternals needed him. Earth needed him.

Pepper Potts would understand how you felt at this moment.

“You should sit down.”

***

Sersi explains the finer details, filling in the truth with the astral projects she’s had with Arishem shince Ajak died.

You observe how he takes the news, sitting next to him. The muscles of his arm shift under your hand. There’s no easy way to break the news of the Emergence.

Nothing would matter if the Earth was destroyed.

You knew he’d help.

But it was easy for you to read the vitriol in his face. You could practically hear him think back on every event they had watched impassively as innocents died, trusting Ajak’s judgement that they were doing the right thing to ensure humanity entered an age of enlightenment, only to learn it had been a lie.

Druig had a temper.

When he’d finally snapped, the Eternals had disbanded, because of him they’d gone their separate ways.

“You’ve given me a lot of bad news in one go, Sersi,” he finally states, bitterness lacing his light tone.

This was not going to go well.

“Will you help us,” Sersi asks, barely finishing before her phone rings.

Druig clenches his jaw.

You squeeze his arm in support. You were here for him, for however long that was. Again, you think of your siblings; of Sarah who sent you something off your amazon wishlist on your birthday even though you guys barely talked anymore; the Indian place that gave you two orders of rice for your curry order for free. All these people. . .

Druig stands. “Do you all remember Tenochtitlan? Beautiful. The canals. Tlatelolco.” He pauses in front of Gilgamesh and Thena, looking genuinely happy to see them again, “It was the last place we all lived together.” For them alone he had left this place for a decade.

“I protected these people for twenty generations now. From the outside world and from themselves,” he saunters over to Kingo and Karun, bitter in his gloating. “Your kind my friend, you will be responsible for your own extinction one day. Don’t you think.”

You sigh when Karun earnestly answers Druig’s rhetorical question.

This was not going to end well.

Druig possess Karun.

Kingo immediately surges to protect his friend, “Oh no you didn’t.”

Covering your face with your hand, you sigh, letting your head fall as they talk about streaming views when the world is about to end.

It gets worse when Ikaris tries to leave.

“Druig this is serious,” Sersi tries.

“I’ll tell you what’s serious. I’ve just been told I’ve been sent on a suicide mission for the past 7,000 years and that my entire existance was a lie. So excuse me for not giving a shit about your plan right now.”

Yeah, he was not taking this well.

You knew from the moments of travel where no one could do anything but stew in the truth that everyone was feeling torn, but Sersi and the rest were trudging through to fix the situation before they had their existential crisis.

Druig slams the door when he leaves.

Thena gives you a long look.

You’d never been able to read her.

“I’ll. . .go talk to him,” you tell them, feeling incredibly awkward.

Spite, being her usual self, asks you like she had hundreds of years ago, “him? Really?”

You roll your eyes and chase after him.

“How long have you known,” Druig says coldly.

He stands on the edge of the treeline. You know where this pathway leads. The graveyard.

Kingo was right, it was strange to think you were both here and buried here.

“Not long after Thanos,” you answer honestly. You didn’t want to do this now. Not about the magic, not about the time, or Thanos or any of it. Not when-

You’d seen people turn to ash.

Running into the flat corridor and people just. . .gone.

He turns to you. “You didn’t come,” his voice was small.

You reach for his hands, “I had to take care of my brother,” you explain, “and then. . .my head was a mess. I remembered bits and pieces but not in the right order.”

“I’m not mad. . “ he says softly, looking up through his fringe at you.

“I didn’t think you would be. . .I just needed time and was psyching myself out and now this-”

Druig’s fingers tighten around yours, “The Emergence.”

“You have to try,” you plead with him, “isn’t it what you’ve always wanted. To do something instead of sitting by?” Here you were, begging for the future of humanity. You’d never felt that difference between you and your husband more.

“My love,” he sighs, “even if I could. . .this is not just any mind I would have to control.”

“So you won’t,” you frown, voice wavering. Your eyes burn with unshed tears.

Ikaris you’d expect.

Even Kingo and Sprite’s hesitance made sense.

But Druig-

“That’s not what I said,” Druig says slowly. “We could take the Domo-”

“You once told me,” you say as you gaze into his eyes, “that you wanted to be buried here. On Earth. That you were as much of this Earth as I am.” Your lips tremble, your words hanging in the air.

“And I do,” he utters with a turbulent sea of emotions on his face, “But I am a selfish man, my lady. I want more time. For us.”

Tears fall from your eyes. “There might be more,” your smile is small, “we might pull this off. And if not, I wouldn’t change a thing. How lucky are we to have had lifetimes?”

Druig smiles, looking as handsome as he had in Australia, before leaning in to kiss you.

You meet him halfway.

There’s no rush.

A steady passion that never wavered, Druig kissed you like he had a thousand times before, like he might a thousand times more.

You wouldn’t give into the anxiety.

This was not the last time: they’d pull it off. You trusted that your patchwork family would save the world.

Just look at what the Avengers had managed to do.

You wrap your hands around his neck, placing a kiss against his cheek, “I missed you.”

Druig hugs you against his chest, “Sure, as if Sersi hasn’t replaced me,” he jokes and you know it’ll be okay.

You hope.

“Speaking of Sersi,” you say, “I should go let her know to get going, while you take care of things here.”

“One last thing,” he tells you.

“Yeah?”

Druig kisses you again.

You laugh against his plush lips.

“Sersi,” you spot her and Ikaris talking. Like any best friend, you immediately want to plant yourself as a shield between her and her ex.

They look alright, for the moment.

But you saw first hand how lonely she was when you found each other.

And you’d never liked Ikaris.

“Hey,” she waves you over.

Ikaris sulks, and you know he’s going to say something annoying once more.

A metallic screech fills the air.

You look up, instinctively trying to find the source. In the blink of an eye, a deviant snatches Ikaris into the air.

Sersi screams. “IKARIS!”

Fuck.

You look around wildly. There was nothing sturdy to hide in. Just huts and trees that they could rip to shreds. Your heart pounds in your ears.

For once you wish you knew fancy spells like Doctor Strange.

“Señora, esta bien,” a voice calls from the fog as you hover around Sersi.

What were you supposed to do?

“Watch out! Clear the camp!” Sersi yells.

It’s chaos as more deviants appear. Their bodies are exposed muscle, vines wrapped around to form animalistic creatures. In one you saw sabertooth tigers.

Fuck.

You clench your fists.

“Sersi,” you scream when a deviant lunges at her.

It’s too late.

A deviant comes barreling towards her.

“Get back,” Kingo yells, shooting fireballs at the thing, “it’s an ambush.”

Sprite grabs you, “come on!”

It’s chaos as people run into the forest. You’re not even sure it’s safe with these deviants popping up everywhere.

“Sprite, get Karun to safety!”

You don’t even see what happens, running with Sersi, running amongst the crowd.

Your eyes scan but there’s nowhere to hide.

“This way,”’she takes over, showing the streak of leadership Ajak must have seen in her, “quickly,” her first priority was ensuring the safety of these people.

It’s world war 2 all over again.

People running, attacks coming randomly. All you could do was hope your luck held out. (You hadn’t been snaped.)

“Get inside,” Sersi urges you.

“I’m not leaving you.”

She wants to argue but she also knows there’s no time. Her hands press against the wood, transforming it into metal.

She doesn't finish.

“Sersi!” The scream dies in your throat when the deviant tosses her body aside like she’s a paper doll.

You don’t have time to see if she’s okay. Your scream attracts the deviant’s attention. Blue and green and awful you hold up your hands, praying for something to happen. You didn’t understand magic.

Maybe you didn’t have to.

Without knowing, you’d made yourself reincarnate.

You act, raising your hands, aiming at the deviant and knowing something would happen. It would.

It does.

Light flares out of your hands. You feel the pull of magic from you, your teeth aching like you’ve got a brain freeze. The light blinds the deviant for seconds, sending it reeling back.

It shakes its head, disoriented.

You don’t know what else to do.

Sersi clambers out of the remains of a hut.

There’s nothing around you to use as a weapon, not really.

You scramble back, wanting to put distance between the creature and you. They certainly didn’t seem sentient. You cannot blame a predator for its nature.

Shots ring out.

You flinch.

The villagers line up, controlled, aiming their guns at the deviant. Buckshots ring out as they surround the deviant.

Your eyes widen in concert.

While the bullets ripped into the deviant’s iridescent hide, the alien creature grew annoyed. They weren’t putting it down.

It’s tail throws people aside.

You inhale sharply.

Unlike Sersi, they didn’t get back up.

Druig runs in, engaging the creature, weaving around and shooting it at close range.

It rears, angered.

Sersi spurs into action. She weaponizes a tree, her ability slowly turning a ring of bark into water, as Druig and his villagers keep the creature in place.

The magic is there, at your fingertips, it just needed a form to take, a spell to wield it properly. You flex your fingers.

Your breaths were sharp and shallow, adrenaline racing.

The tree, frozen into ice, traps the creature, and in a classical dysfunctional family way, Sersi and Druig argue as the deviant begins to shake the tree off himself.

Fuck.

You act, planting your foot forward, knees bent. Muscle memory took over, hundreds of years of experience, you see the ice. While Sersi and Druig argue about the villagers, your hands once more glow softly, a color between sunset and rust.

The ice moves with your will. The motion is fluid even as the weight of the branch slams into you. You grit your teeth. Your knees bend with the effort, more weight lifting than wand waving.

A branch breaks off and spears the deviant through the eye.

It happens in seconds.

You pant with exertion.

“How did you-”

The shock breaks Druig’s hold over their minds.

“Is that really important right now,” you run over to Sersi, looking her over.

“I’m okay,” she says quickly. “The others-” She looks further into the village where Kingo’s ability blasts through trees and the deviant: she doesn’t hesitate to run over.

“Head to the river,” Druig commands the villagers. They listen, trusting the man who had led them peacefully for generations. In some ways, they were better off than Wakanda, the front of Thanos’ war on earth, better off than London when Spiderman decided to go rogue.

You take a deep breath, concentrating.

“Right,” you run after her, stumbling after a step.

Druig catches you. “Careful,” he says, sounding grave.

Maybe it had taken more out of you than you’d thought. You think back to what Hoa had told you. What effect would using magic in this cycle have? Would you even reincarnate? Did it matter if they couldn’t stop the Emergence?

“I need to,” your legs shake.

“You’ve done enough,” Druig says gently.

It’s lucky timing. Ikaris flies in, slamming into the final deviant attacking the village.

This one proves its sentient intelligence, cleverly pinning Ikris face down.

Sersi runs at it with a spear.

Your husband tries to take aim but it’s too close to Sersi. It’s the same problem Kingo runs into.

You watch as Sersi and the deviant both fall into the well, disappearing beneath the surface.

“Sersi!” Ikaris runs, ready to play the white knight, tortured by duty.

The surface explodes.

An ungly mangled tree grows, the bark merged with the deviant in a disturbing form of mummification. You’d seen this on an episode of Hannibal.

But Sersi is alright.

“Sersi,” Ikaris hugs the stunned woman.

“Where’s Thena,” you look around. Gilgamesh was missing too.

Ikaris pulls away from Sersi, looking into the treeline.

You have a bad feeling.

***

You watch the pyre burn.

For hundreds of years you believed them to be invincible. Now you sat watching as Gilgamesh’s body burned to ashes. You hadn’t wiped the tears away. They’d dried on your cheeks long ago.

Exhaustion clung to your body. The magic trick had taken so much out of you. It was like running a marathon with no training, you were surprised to be awake. How could you sleep when Gilgamesh was-

Sprite rests her head against your shoulder.

You sit with her in the dirt.

Thena cuts a lonely figure, stark white in the dark of the night. A pale ghost. It had always been Thena and Gilgamesh.

In a small voice, Sprite mutters, “what if Arishem kills us all for trying to. . .”

You have no answers for her.

***

A Ramada Inn was the closest place near Phastos.

Sprite lays on your bed as you call your brother, “she said she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Nathan sighs.

You close your eyes, swallowing back the tide of emotion. Gilgamesh was dead. It still felt surreal. How could he die? How could any of them die? “Tell her I love her.”

Nathan pauses, static crackling over the phone call. “How serious is it? Tell me the truth?”

He’d been alone in Canada to identify your parents' bodies. An unlucky casualty of the snap. A car’s driver blew away into ashes and veered into their car.

“Just,” you clench your jaw. What was the point in telling them when they couldn’t stop this? Should you tell them? Try and save a little of humanity so that even if Sersi’s plan failed someone would survive. “tell her I love her, and to call me. Please.”

“So it’s bad.”

“Yeah.”

Sprite leans next to you, “don’t worry kid, we got this.”

Your brother replies, “tell her I’m taller.”

“Tell him-”

You laugh, “yeah. Sure,” they were such siblings. The way Sprite looked at him. . .having family outside the Eternals for once. It was good for her. Being accepted as the unaging crotchety old woman she really was. “I love you too.”

“Me too,” Spite adds, wrapping her arms around your shoulders. She hadn’t left your side since the funeral. Which was annoying because you could see Druig and Sersi discussing whatever plan she’d hatched and didn’t even know. . .you wanted more time with him, to settle back into being Druig&You.

On the plant things had been. . .it was the shittiest of reunions. Terrible timing.

You lean into her, “did you hear her?”

“Yeah. I heard,” your brother chuckles. “You two should stop by. It’s nice out here.”

“We will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” You wait for him to hang up. How much time was left?

You’d never wanted to be a superhero. The Earth came too close to the brink of destruction: so many close calls, one of these days it wouldn't be saved. Right?

“Hello Sprite,” Druig walks in still clad in linen, “goodbye Sprite.”

“Have you ever tried not being a dickhead.” She’d been pricklier than usual since Ajak’s death.

“That’s childish,” he replies, sinking down to her level.

You roll your eyes, laying back on the bed. All you could do was sit and wait around for Sersi to convince Phastos. You didn’t think sending Ikaris was the right idea.

“At least I don’t have to possess people to have friends!” She storms off.

“Really,” you ask him pointedly.

“She started it,” he shrugs, dumping out a bag on the bed.

You turn onto your stomach: looking the clothes over. Denim, a black shirt, a worn leather jacket, and boots that were not handmade. He’d gone thrifting. You found the thought amusing.

“How are you?” Druig takes a seat on the bed, looking you over.

“Fine. I was fine by the time we took off. A bottle of coke does wonders.” The sugar had helped. And so had the nap while Kingo drove back to Mexico City.

“You’re using magic?”

“Before I remembered. . .it just came to me. Not that I know anything,” you close your eyes, trying to remember what exactly you’d told him. “It’s not like-I’m not trying to be the Scarlet Witch here, I just wanted to help.”

“I know.” He rubs your back gently.

You bite your lip. “I don’t know what this means for,” you gesture at yourself, “but can we just handle one thing at a time?”

“Do you want to know magic?”

You sit up. “Technically I have been using magic,” you wink at him, wishing things could be lighter. Gilgamesh was dead. You’d never run into the kitchen and see him covered in flour again.

He chuckles, blue eyes sparkling.

You take his hands. “I don’t hate it. But I’d rather see you again.” They’d save the world. You were manifesting it.

“You shouldn’t have to choose.”

“Don’t be stupid,” you tell him, running your thumb over his knuckles. He had changed. 7,000 years on earth had affected him. How could it not. Druig had lived through so much. You’d changed too. You were greater than the sum of your parts, no longer the simple slave girl in Athens, or the textile worker from Ghana. You’d grown. “I love you. The rest is just stuff to figure out.”

He smiles, “my beautiful lady, you have a way with words.”

You blush. “Shut up. I’ve been a lot of things but never a poet.”

Druig laughs, toppling you over into the bed. He presses his body against yours. Hand on your side, he kisses your mouth with his soft lips. “Is this okay?”

You dig your fingers into his shoulder blades. This wonderful man. You’d missed this. Missed him. You could not have imagined him in all your youthful fantasies. Druig was so much more. Hard headed with an empathetic soul: how could you not want him? Love was waking up everyday and choosing him, always and forever.

“Come here,” you kiss his jaw tenderly.

There was nothing sweeter than reuniting with your lover.

***

“So this is The Domo,” you gaze around, trying to take everything in. Makkari has become an even worse horder in the past few centuries. Living as long as they did meant a lot of keepsakes. And Makkari is of a sentimental nature, attaching past memories to emerald tablets and gold incan figurines.

Her collection in The Domo is priceless, a complete record of the last 7,000 years of humanity’s history. Her love letter to humanity.

Karun is having a similar wow moment, as he films the interior of the ship.

Druig nudges your shoulder with his own, “my beautiful, beautiful lady,” he offers you a simple beaded necklace. Each bead is hand carved and strung on a gold cord.

It takes a second for the memory to come, but you remember. Thebes.

He’s never asked your age in any life. You’ve only now noticed his simple joy at being able to spend however many years you could together.

You’d freeze yourself in this moment if you could and spare Druig another death, another cycle.

“You kept it,” you say in amazement.

“There’s more around here,” amusement in his features. Who could find anything in Makkari’s clutter?

“Druig.” You melt. More than two thousand years later and he could still surprise you in the ways he loved you.

He slips his hand into the back pocket of your jeans, squeezing your ass.

Heat rises to your cheeks as you fumble to wrap the necklace around your neck, the ancient clasp easier to work than modern ones. It was only hours ago that Druig had squeezed your bare ass, urging you to ride him harder.

“Really,” Phastos groans, “in my lab?”

“Yeah,” Kingo piles on, “was the plane not enough?”

Considering the world might end, you don’t really care. Neither does Druig.

Shamelessly, he ignores their comments. “Phastos, I need to be able to control the mind of a celestial.”

“Okay. Get ready for it.” Phastos turns on his lab, holographic blueprints detailing the mechanics of the plan to stop the Emergence.

“Bracelets? You made us bracelets?”

You take in the image of a celestial for the first time. There was always more to the universe. Why couldn’t it be something good? Like the Asgardians.

Druig presses a kiss to your shoulder.

You push away the negative thoughts.

Manifesting. Right. You could do that. Think positively. Manifest a million more days. Had Druig tried Greggs? The world would be saved and you’d take him to Ireland again. He’d meet your siblings. You’d fix things with Lizzy.

“So here’s a little Celestial 101,” Phastos says, and proceeds to speak absolute gibberish. It flies right over your head.

Druig shifts. He rests an arm around your shoulders as Phastos finishes with his bracelet machine energy thing. The Unimind.

Ignoring Kingo’s late capitalist desire to turn everything into a profitable brand, she asks, So suppose Druig can, say put Tiamut to sleep-then what? Her hand remains in the air, asking her question, curious as to what the next part of the plan was. Tiamut wouldn’t sleep forever. Druig was going to buy time.

“We find humans a new home on another planet,” Sersi says cryptically. Which yeah. Was not a solution.

Your people had only built a long distance spacecraft once, for five people.

“Are we building them a big ship too? Take a pair of each animal,” Sprite pokes holes into her non plan.

“You know what’s never saved the world,” Phastos says annoyed, “your sarcasm.”

“Space colonization could take decades.”

“It could happen quickly with our help.”

“Do we have that time,” you point out. “How long would Tiamut remain asleep for?”

“I don’t-” Phastos looks at Druig for an answer which your lover doesn’t have. It wasn’t like he’d put a celestial to sleep before.

“What if we accidentally end up killing Tiamut,” Kingo brings up. “We could be responsible for billions of lives not being created across the universe. Not to mention the death of a Celestial. All bad.”

You shake your head in disbelief, “how could you value potential lives over people alive right now! Who’d die. Remember. We have to take that chance.” Tiamut’s life was worth the billions of people, the billions of lifeforms on your planet.

“Who are we to decide that!” Kingo rubs his forehead in agitation, “what if by stopping the natural cycle of the universe we cause something worse? Throwing nature out of balance always ends badly. Global warming anyone?”

You frown.

“Can we not work with nature sir,” Karun asks, camera rolling, “ask Mr. Tiamut to wait until we can live somewhere else?”

“Both of you are too close to the situation to think objectively,” Sprite cuts in, “we have to do what's right for the universe.”

You arch a brow, “seriously? This is all any of you know! That makes you biased too.”

“How would we even know what’s right,” Phastos says dejectedly. “We barely found out what we are? Not a great track record here.”

“Ajak chose Sersi to be the leader. Sersi should decide,” Ikaris puts in his two cents.

You look at your old friend, heart lodged in your throat. You already knew Druig would risk it. It was just a matter of getting everyone on board.

Phastos' plan requires everyone to wear a bracelet.

There’s an anime friendship joke there somewhere.

“I-”

“So even you’re having doubts,” Sprite throws her hands up in the air. “This wouldn’t happen if Ajak was here.” She stalks off.

“Sprite,” Ikaris calls after her. When she doesn’t come back, he follows.

“Let her blow off some steam,” Kingo follows Ikaris out of The Domo.

“Great,” Phastos utters, powering down the holograms, “glad to see we can still work together.”

“Make the bracelets,” Sersi nods. “Just in case.”

“How many,” Druig pauses, “of us would we need to power your,” he gestures at Phastos futuristic printer.

“I don’t know.” Phastos admits. “A lot of this is guesswork and approximation. I don’t know the limits of your ability, or how that translates to a Celestial. There’s no time to measure averages of built up cosmic energy.”

You swallow, pulling away to let them talk it out while Sersi chases after the others. Whatever was decided, it would be together.

It would be okay.

You knew them well.

Karun asks you shyly, “Kingo tells me you reincarnate.”

“It’s a party trick.” You felt as stressed as everyone else.

“So karma and-”

“Magic.” You answer the question he was about to ask. “I don’t, it’s not the Hindu gods. It’s some spell I accidentally cast and now,” you shrug.

“Oh.” He nods. “Well, the answer lies not in aliens or magic.” Karun smiles kindly. “That is why we aim for moksha. Though I think this could only be my second or third life at most.”

You can’t help but smile. “How is your family?”

“Good. They know I do important work with Kingo. Cinema, movies, it is now how we pass things on. I remember the first time I saw Kuch Lich Hota Hai!”

“I’ll have to watch it some time.”

It was easy to see why someone as easy going as Kingo had hit it off with Karun.

“I’m close to figuring it out,” Phastos calls out.

You look up just in time to see Ikaris shoot lasers at the inventor.

Everyone stands in stunned silence.

“Ikaris,” Kingo calls out, “what are you doing?” He looks at Phastos’ prone body.

“I’ve let this go on long enough,” Ikaris stalks further into the room. He reminds you of a sleek predator, of facing the deviant back in Mexico. And now you’re stuck in close quarters with him.

You weren’t stupid.

You couldn’t hold out against Ikaris.

You were all going to die.

“Don’t hurt him,” Sersi rushes to Phastos’ side, helping him up.

His shoulder smokes where the lasers made contact. The fabric is blacked. But Ikaris hadn’t hit him for long enough to truly hurt him. It was lucky they were built so durably.

“He lied to us,” Sersi stares Ikaris down, tears in her eyes. “He already knew about the emergence.” She’d made her peace with being abandoned, but to be betrayed by someone she once loved, someone who remained as dear as family to her-

“No he didn’t,” Kingo denies.

“Ajak told me everything when we left Babylon.”

“What?”

You suck in a breath. “That long.”

They’d all changed, grown to love humanity because they’d thought they were here to protect the Earth. But Ikaris, your heart hurts for him. He’d always been distant and remote. No wonder.

He’d purposely kept his distance. It would be easier to carry out his mission, Arishem’s mission, that way, without attachment.

“You were never going to let her stop the Emergence.”

“No.” Ikaris looks around at his team, “I only wanted to protect you from the deviants.”

“If Ajak wanted you to take her place, why did she choose me?” There’s a hard edge to Sersi’s voice. “

Ikaris says nothing.

Druig puts it together first. “He killed her.”

Spite turns away from Ikaris, unable to stand the sight of him.

You can’t believe it. Ajak and Ikaris. He’d trusted her above all others. For so long, Ikaris was the faithful follower. The Eternal Ajak relied on.

For him to kill her-

He’d always been a good soldier.

“I had to.”

“She loved you.”

Ikaris flinches. “Did she?” His eyes fill with tears. “Do you think it was easy to know the truth? To know that one day all this would end.” He glances at you. Meets everyone's eyes, searching, beseeching. He was so far gone. “To keep on lying to you.”

“If we gave humanity the choice, how many of them would be willing to die so that billions more could be born?”

“I suppose that’s easy to say when you’re not the one dying,” you retort coldly.

You’d never wished Ajak dead.

“Is this why you’re willing to kill,” Phastos asks furiously, “You are so pathetic.”

“I’m an Eternal Phastos. I exist for Arishem. As do you. That’s who you are.”

Phastos steps forward, unafraid to confront Ikaris. “I wouldn’t change a single thing about who I am, born or made. But I do not exist for Arishem. I exist for my family.”

“You are making the same mistake Ajak did.”

Makkarish wooshes in, rapidly motioning while she beamed with pride, I found Tiamut. The fastest Eternal was apparently the last one to find things out.

Ikaris’ eyes glow.

“No,” Kingo knocks the speedster out of the way. Blood seeps out of his shoulder, more viscous than human blood. He clutches his shoulder, “get out of here.”

Makkaris flees.

Ikaris stalks forward.

Kingo powers up. “You. Do. Not. Turn. Against. Your. Family.” His fireball grows, “Gilgamesh died because of you.”

“You will not succeed against me. And I will kill every one of you if I have to.” Having made his threat clear, he leaves.

Spite wails, collapsing onto her knees.

“What is this,” Thena glances around the wreckage of their family. Of your family.

Ikaris had once saved your life.

You didn’t understand the man. You never would.

“I-” Sprite looks at everyone. “I can’t. I know he killed,” she sobs then, “Ajak, but I can’t hurt-I can’t hurt my family.” A sheen passes over her fingers and she disappears.

“Sprite-” Sersi reaches out to the spot where she had been just seconds before.

Makkari runs in. She holds her hands up, before turning her palms down into fists. What happened? Where did Sprite go?

“I don’t know,” Kingo shakes his head. “Away. I-we’re no match for Ikaris.”

“Don’t say that Sir.”

“He really fooled us didn’t he,” he says sadly. Kingo looks over at Karun, “you should go be with your family.”

“Sir.”

“They need you. Whatever happens.”

“Kingo,” Sersi says carefully.

He shakes his head, “even with my help. . .we need a plan B.” He looks over at you. “I love the people of this planet, and even if I can’t save everyone, I can still save a few.”

New Asgard.

The Avengers.

This was bigger than you.

You nod, understanding him. “Okay.”

“We need you,” Sersi pleads.

“And fight my brother,” Kingo recoils.

“My lady,” Druig says carefully.

“Don’t-” you shake your head. No goodbyes. This wasn’t a goodbye. “It doesn’t matter because you’ll stop the Emergence.” You’ve never been more scared.

Serving as an army nurse had been a cakewalk compared to the end of everything.

He lifts his chin playfully, “anything for you my lady.”

You stifle tears. Instead you smile.

And leave with Kingo and Karun.

***

You cry saying goodbye to Karun.

“It has been an honor Sir,” he bows to Kingo.

Tears wet the Eternal’s cheeks. “No, it has been my honor. Not everyone would try to kill a vampire. Twice.”

They share a laugh.

In 3 hours he would be home. In 3 hours, there might not even be a planet left.

You call your brother from the plane, unable to stop crying. Ajak. Ikaris. Everything was falling apart and you could only hope the rest of them made it, that they could put Tiamut to sleep.

You wonder where Sprite is.

He doesn’t answer.

You call again.

And again.

You feel time slipping through your fingers. “How long do you think we have,” you ask Kingo. It was such a nice day outside. The skies were clear as you flew over Eurasia.

You wipe tears from your eyes, dialling your sister instead.

Please pick up, you begged the universe.

“I don’t know,” Kingo sighs, resting his head against the seat. “Really wish I’d kept in touch with Thor now. . .” He cracks a smile. “Maybe I should’ve gone with Karun too.”

“You don’t think-” Lizzy picks up. Her voice changed from the last time you had properly talked to her, a uni student, your older sister, full of life and bad advice.

“Hello,” her voice is groggy, “is that? Why are you calling?” Your sister sounds exhausted and monotone. The Snap had taken its toll on her. She’d missed out on years.

“Lizzy,” your voice is fragile. She’d actually answered you. She never did. You didn’t know why. Maybe there wasn’t a reason. But she’d pulled away so much. “How are you?”

“It’s four in the morning.”

“Oh. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“Rough night?”

“No,” she sighs. “Can’t sleep.”

“Have you tried melatonin gummies?”

“Yes. They don’t help.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize. For everything, that the world was ending, for whatever you’d done to her. You were tremendously sorry it had been her and not you. You should’ve been Snapped away.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“How’s New Asgard,” you ask instead.

“Cold.”

“Colder than Canada?”

“About the same,” her voice drifts. “Not that it matters.” Your childhood house had long ago been sold.

“Do you like it there at least?”

“Does it matter?”

You bite your lip, “of course it does.”

Lizzy doesn’t respond.

Kingo motions with his hand to get on with it, but you can’t. You can’t tell your sister who turned to ashes that the world is about to crack open, killing everyone. You can’t force her to live through another doomsday. You won’t be the one to put that on her shoulders.

It’s static.

Neither of you speak.

“Hey,” Lizzy says worriedly, “do you know if Norway gets earthquakes?”

“Why,” your heart sinks.

“Because the earth won’t stop shaking.”

“What!” Oh no.

“I have to go.”

“Lizzy, wait-”

“B-”

“Iloveyou,” you manage before the line goes dead. The world was ending and you were on a private plane.

Kingo takes your hand. “They never really leave you, do they?”

“No.”

“I’ve been lucky to meet so many cool and amazing people. I think of them, from time to time.”

You look over at Kingo, “you love this planet.”

“It’s my home.” He smiles, thinking back fondly of the milena he’d spent here, eyes wet.

“We’re lucky to have you-and all your bollywood dance scenes.”

He laughs as the plane shakes with turbulence and you don’t know if it’s the wind or the Emergence. It wasn’t a terrible way to die, here with a friend.

Squeezing your hand, Kingo adds, “you think you’ll be reincarnated as a Lumia?”

You roll your eyes as the plane shakes.

“Or Kree? Can’t forget about-”

“Not helping.” You frown. "Do you think there's more out there? More wolrds with Eternals and deviants?" More eternals who didn't know the truth?

Space had become so much more tangible since The Avengers. Since the Guardians. You looked up at the stars and wondered.

"Probably," Kingo nods, unconcerned.

But you were concerned. You'd had choice taken from you before due to societal norms, due to your position as a slave, as a woman. Didn't those worlds deserve the truth too? Didn't the Eternals deserve more than to carry out Arishem's wishes for millions of years, their minds wiped away like they were nothing better than a phone defaulted to factory settings? Wasn't Thena proof that more lingered inspite of Arishem's meddling?

"Let's survive this first."

You nod, "can't exactly weather this storm in a bunker." There had been no safe place from Thanos' Snap.

Kingo chuckles. “Thank you.”

“Yeah well,” you smile softly, “it’s not so bad, being your friend.”

notes: there will be an epilogue bc this chapter got SO long. sprite is so jealous of nathan growing up its insane but also its like the first time shes had humans who know what she is and accept her. reader going w kingo was really an excuse to bow out of the fight ngl. it might've gone the same was as the movie, mb not.

#a rose by any other name #druig x y/n #druig x reader #druig x you #me trying to finish all my wips challenge #rewatched the movie and ah i love eternals sm

70 notes · View notes

randomshyperson · 3 years

Text

The Scarlet Witch Prophecy - The First Year

Series Masterlist || Read on AO3

Summary: As the youngest daughter of Howard Stark, you have ordinary expectations for your years at Hogwarts. Little do you know what adventures await you when your destiny is intertwined with the legendary Scarlet Witch.

Warnings: +16. Adaptation of the Harry Potter Saga, Magical Thematic, Prophecies, Mentions of Violence, Torture and dark magic, Language (swearing and minor/major offenses), manipulation of will, Underage kissing, insinuation of smut with minors, Smut (overage), descriptions of death, aggression, obscurity, angst, fluffy, soulmates analogies.

Chapters will have additional warning when necessary.

Tag list ( let me know if you want to be tagged or removed idk haha) @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5 // @myperfectlovepoem // @helloalycia // @ENSORCELLME // @AIMEZVOUSBRAHMS @imapotatao / @aimezvousbrahms/ @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia

//////////////////////////////////

Part I - The First Year

Hogwarts will be fun was the first thought you had when you opened the letter in your hands.

Tony, your older brother, ruffled your hair slightly as he came down into the kitchen and watched you open the mail.

"Your letter finally arrived, huh, little witch?" He joked with a smile as he sat down at the table.

"I can't wait to go!" You commented excitedly rereading the acceptance letter for the third time.

"Miss, after coffee, can we go to diagonal alley if you like?" Jarvis, your butler, asked you politely as he poured Tony's coffee making you hesitate slightly. Tony, who had his eye on you, forced a smile as he patted you on the arm.

"I'll go with you, don't worry." He assured and you nodded.

"I wish dad would come." You grumble as you sit down and Tony sighs.

" Yeah, me too." He says. "But you know he's busy, and we can't leave it to the last minute."

You mumble in agreement as you serve some sweetbreads on your plate.

Eating in silence for a few moments, you are startled slightly when Tony lets out an exclamation.

"Damn, I forgot to write back to Steve." He announces getting up and walking over to the next shelf where there were some stationery and pen.

"Your boyfriend will be upset." You tease lightly, and Tony mumbles softly without responding.

When he finishes writing the letter, he goes to the kitchen window and opens the metal, whistling loudly in a familiar rhythm. A few seconds later, Iron, his barn owl lands in front of him. Tony stroked the animal gently before dangling the letter in his paws.

" Please take this to Steve, Iron." He ordered and the animal made a noise before flying away again.

"Jarvis, I'll get ready to go." You tell the man as soon as you finish eating and head off toward the stairs.

//-//

Diagonal Alley is a noisy place.

Tony asked you to walk beside him, but you stopped walking at the first Quidditch shop you spotted, and he had to turn back halfway when he noticed you were no longer beside him.

"Don't do that." He warned, mildly annoyed, but you glazed over at the exposed broom in front of you, and he let out a chuckle when he noticed. "Come on, Y/N, you already have a broom."

"But that's no ordinary broom." You retorted with an impressed look. "It's a Nimbus 2000, it's the fastest broom there is."

"You have the 99, I don't understand the difference." He retorted with his hands in his pockets and you shrugged.

"Tony, can we buy it?" You asked pleadingly, making your brother laugh slightly.

"Let's buy your stuff first please" He retorted with a smile and you grumbled but accepted the arm he offered for you to hang on. Jarvis walked behind you with a keen eye on your surroundings.

After you had bought the vast majority of your supplies and replenished your stocks of potions items for Tony, Jarvis took you to Blossoms and Blurbs to buy this year's books.

"Good morning! Hogwarts, third and first year books, please." You heard Jarvis tell the clerk who approached you three. Tony nodded his head signaling you to feel free to walk around the bookstore in the meantime, and that is exactly what you did.

You found many interesting books in the place as you walked among the shelves. One in particular caught your attention, as there seemed to be little miniature magical creatures trying to jump out of the cover, and you grabbed it on a table, watching the item carefully.

You smiled when an ink dragon jumped into your hand, moving your head as if you were looking around. Distracted by the book, you let out a low exclamation when someone bumped into you.

"Sorry, kid." You heard a female voice speak in a humorous tone. It is a girl taller than you, short red hair. "I ended up tripping over some of those runner books."

"It's okay." You said with a smile. The girl looked at the one book in your hands for a moment.

"Do you enjoy creature tracts?" She asks casually as she reaches for a book on the bookshelf beside her.

"I don't know yet." You say and she looks at you slightly confused, "I never studied."

"Ah, first-year." She understands and you nod in agreement. "Hogwarts too or some other?"

"Hogwarts."

"Cool, I guess I'll see you there then." She says. "I'm from Slytherin, third year."

You let out a surprised exclamation.

"Maybe you know my brother." You say and the girl takes her gaze from the books in her hand she was checking to look at you with her eyebrow raised in curiosity. "His name is Tony Stark, he's also from your house."

The girl lets out a short laugh.

"I can't believe you are Stark's sister." She says. "We're not exactly friends, but I've seen him around the dorm several times. And your brother is a pain in the ass, by the way."

You laugh lightly, agreeing.

"I am Natasha Romanoff." She introduces herself next, balancing her books in one hand to greet you. You introduce yourself with a gentle smile. "Good luck with your books." She says before turning away.

You think it's cool that you already know someone besides your brother before you start at Hogwarts.

//-//

Buying your wand is a rather strange experience.

Mr. Ollivander has a glint in his eye as if he knows everyone's secrets, and seems to disappear and reappear in his store very easily.

Tony sat on one of the stools while he waited for you, and Jarvis went to buy something for you two to eat.

After trying almost five wands, and exploding a glass vase when he tried the last one, Mr. Ollivander sighed.

"Sorry, I don't know why it's not working." You asked feeling nervous, but he smiled.

"Don't worry, dear." He said. "Difficult customers are so much fun."

He walked back in between the shelves after that, and then reappeared with three new packages.

"I remember when Howard Stark bought his wand." He told smiling nostalgically as you opened one of the packages, a black wand in front of you. "Phoenix, Cedar, slightly flexible."

"Dad has changed wands thousands of times." Added Tony wryly, but Mr. Ollivander didn't seem to mind.

The wand you tested let out a faint spark when you tried to cast a simple conjuration spell, and the man in front of you was quick to take it from your hand the next second.

"I think I have a better idea." He announced turning around, and then climbed the ladder supported by the wall, picking up a package at the top.

"Try this one dear." He asked handing you a dark wand, the wood was shiny, a color you didn't know exactly what it was, but it was beautiful.

When you grabbed the item, you felt a tingling sensation spread throughout your hand, and the wand vibrated slightly for a few seconds, causing Ollivander to let out a noise of excitement.

"You see, I knew I would find an owner for you dear." He spoke and you realized that he was speaking with the item in your hands. Soon he turned his gaze back to you. "Take good care of this one, will you, it was quite difficult to get dark elf blood for the core."

"R-right." You said with a slight frown, not quite sure what to make of that information.

Tony laughed lightly at the interaction, he should be used to Mr. Ollivander's eccentric manner by now, since he kept breaking his wands just like your father and often returned to the store to get a new one.

After paying, you and Tony met Jarvis outside, he was carrying some sweet rolls.

//-//

July ended too quickly for your happiness. You were very eager to go to school.

You spent most of August at home, playing quidditch with Tony in the backyard, curiously reading the magic books you bought, and trying to peek into the basement where your father worked, but he always caught you looking and smiled, asking you to go back to your room.

You would like your father to take you to the station, but he said he had a magic conference in September, and would be traveling for the next few weeks. Tony was upset, but he put his arm around your shoulders and asked you to hurry to get your bags.

When you finally got to the station, you were slightly nervous about going through a wall, but Tony laughed, and showed you how to go first.

You hugged Jarvis good-bye before following your brother along the way.

Tony dragged you across the train cars to the first empty cabin he could find. He commented that it would be nice if you made your own friends, but that he would like you to sit with him.

So here you were, sitting with Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, Tony's best friends since the first year. The boys smiled encouragingly at you. You already knew them, because Tony kept inviting them to spend holidays with him all the time.

"Hey, Y/N, how was your vacation?" Steve asked as soon as you sat down next to him. You shrugged, saying that it was nice, but that you were looking forward to attending Hogwarts.

Soon the boys started talking about what they were excited about next year, and you did your best to keep up, not knowing exactly who the people they mentioned were, or knowing the classes they talked about.

Many minutes after the train was moving, a girl opened the cabin door.

"Hey, strangers." She greeted with a smile.

"Hi Peggy." Steve said with a smile, you frowned at the slight scowl on your brother's face.

"They're calling for us in the prefects compartment, Steve." She warned and Steve nodded, getting up. He and the girl then left, and Tony crossed his arms.

"What's wrong?" You asked noticing his posture and the way Bucky had a little smile on his face.

"It's nothing." Grumbled your brother, and as he turned his face to the window, Bucky who was standing in front of you, whispered to you.

"Tony thinks Peggy likes Steve." He recounted. "So he doesn't like Peggy very much."

"Oh." You said, pretending to understand the whole plot. It didn't make much sense to you because everyone couldn't be friends, but you figured that when you were your brother's age you would understand better.

//-//

The Hogwarts Express only stopped at night.

Properly uniformed, you smiled when your brother patted you on the shoulder, telling you that he would meet you at the castle, since the first-year students had to go by boat.

Your hands were sweating a little as you walked up to the extraordinarily tall man who introduced himself as Drax.

"First-year students, please, six in each boat." He shouted to the crowd, and the students moved closer together.

You sat in one of the first little boats, five other children you didn't know surrounding you.

"I'm so excited." A blonde girl commented cheerfully, waving her hands. She smiled at everyone as she introduced herself as "Harley Quinn".

"I bet you''ll blow something up once we get there, Harley" Added a redheaded girl sitting next to you, you could tell by her tone that they were probably friends. The blonde, Harley, laughed.

"Shut up, Ivy." She said, and then Drax was back, climbing into one of the boats beside her. He checked the boats one last time, then waved his hand, and the transports began to move.

Everyone, including you, let out a chorus of excitement.

When you noticed the castle, you smiled. It was huge, and just as amazing as Tony used to tell you.

"Wow, it must be amazing to fly over all that." You quietly observed, and the girl next to you turned her head in your direction, smiling.

"Do you like flying?" She asked, and you nodded. She looked at you for a moment and then held out her hand to greet you. "I am Diana. Diana Prince."

"Hi, Diana." You said introducing yourself next. "Do you also like to fly?"

"I love it." She says. "I hope i can make it onto the team."

"I don't know if the first-years have any chance, but I'll be rooting for you." You assure, and Diana smiles.

When the boats stop in the harbor, the students are all excited to get out and see the castle, but Drax's almost intimidating posture makes everyone properly behaved.

He leads the crowd to the staircase, and then there is a lobby. There is a woman waiting for everyone, her strict posture makes you think she is someone you wouldn't want to upset.

"Welcome to Hogwarts." She announces. "I am Professor Okoye, head of Gryffindor house."

The students exchange burbles next, but the teacher's gaze shuts them up almost immediately.

"As long as you are here, your houses will be like your families." She continues. "Your triumphs will earn you points, and if you break any rules, those points will be taken away."

She says, casting a disapproving glance at one of the students in the corner, who giggled. "In a few moments we will begin the sorting hat ceremony."

The teacher then turns around, heading toward a large bronze door, and talking to someone on the other side. You hear someone laughing near you, and you turn your head to the side in curiosity.

It was a blond boy, and he seemed to be enjoying himself as he balanced one of the gold cups he picked up from the surrounding shelves. You thought he would be in trouble if he knocked it over, and this seemed to be exactly the same opinion as the girl next to him, who was looking at him disapprovingly.

"Stop being an idiot, Peter, put that back." She complained and he laughed, shrugging.

"Gamora, you're a spoilsport you know." He retorted and when he put the cup back, it spun and fell to the floor, breaking into several pieces. The boy turned pale as Teacher Okoye turned her head in his direction.

You rolled your eyes, walking over to them.

"Reparo" You said drawing your wand as you pointed at the broken object. Some children let out impressed exclamations when they saw the bowl form again, but you just put your wand away in shame. It was no big deal. Okoye caught up with the three of you next, looking reproachfully at the boy.

"I expect better behavior during the ceremony, sir..."

"Quill"

"Mister Quill." She completed and took one last look at the boy that had with his head down before turning back to the front of the crowd again, waving for the students to follow her.

"Hey, that was pretty cool." Peter commented beside you as you walked. You shrugged, focusing on the path.

//-//

The sorting hat was something exceptional.

Tony never told you how the choice was made, and you knew it was only to annoy you. He had sometimes joked that the students faced each other in a duel, and even though you told him to shut up, you had a look at his spell book before you came.

The actual ceremony was much simpler, however.

When it was your turn to climb onto the small stool, you bit your lips, hoping that everything would go smoothly. Just as the old cloth of the hat fell over your eyes, blocking your view of the rest of the hall, you heard a voice in your head.

" Hello, dear, no need to be so nervous." Announced the hat gently. "You are a curious little thing, I see."

"Is that a good thing?" You thought, and the hat chuckled lightly.

"It might be." He said mysteriously. "Interesting what I see here. Very interesting."

"What are you seeing?"

"Your memories, dear."

"Oh." You thought, feeling slightly embarrassed. That seemed like an intrusion of your privacy. The hat laughed again, and you remembered that he was on your head.

"You're hard to sort out." He says, and you squeeze the stool. "Don't worry, I'm not going to send you home, that's not how it works."

"Oh, right."

Hat was silent a few moments.

"I see courage in your heart." He says and you try to remember the characteristics of the houses. "But that courage is well forged with your loyalty."

You swallow dryly, feeling your anxiety rising. This was definitely taking much longer than the people who went before you.

"You are as smart as your father and brother, both members of the Slytherin house." He says. "There's a willingness not to let them down."

"That's personal." You grumble feeling your cheeks flush, but the hat doesn't care to apologize for bringing up your insecurities.

"Ah, this is interesting here. A pure kindness, yet pruned in your origins of shallow paternal affection”.

You frown, not understanding what he is saying.

"You are quite adaptable child, it has always been one of your best virtues." The hat remarks, and you get the impression that the next part is only said for you. "Tell me, where would you like to stay?"

"Isn't that your job?" You retort in thought, and hear him laugh again. You rush to correct yourself, not wanting to be rude. "Sorry, hat. I don't really know. I'd like to stay where I fit in best."

"You would do well anywhere." He retorts, and you frown. "And that's pretty impressive, you know. I haven't met another hatstall since the last century."

You swallow dryly, not knowing if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"I'll work hard, sir." You tell him. "I don't want people to think I'm a special witch just because of my family. That's something I'm sure, I don't know if it helps you choose."

Hat lets out a sigh of relief.

"Actually, that's exactly what I needed."

It takes a moment for him to speak again, and when he does, you feel your whole body shake.

"Hufflepuff"

//-//

Steve Rogers is the head boy of Hufflepuff and he celebrates excitedly when you sit down at the table next to him.

"That's so cool" He comments. "I'll be able to tease Tony all year about it."

After that, director Agatha Harkness, made the announcement of the beginning of the year. If her goal was to scare the students, she succeeded when she talked about the deadly dangers surrounding the forbidden forest and the punishments for the disobedient. Professor Strange interrupted her speech as he cleared his throat, awkwardly waving for Agatha to stop saying such things, and the woman giggled.

Dinner is delicious, and then you are following the crowd of students into the communal rooms.

"Butterbeer" Steve said to the portrait on the wall, and you blinked in surprise when the painting moved to the side, a door behind.

You sighed when you realized how cozy the Hufflepuff's common room was.

"Everyone please come in." Asked Steve in the center of the room, waving to the students who stayed behind. When everyone was around him, he smiled. "The dorms are divided by gender, but you can sleep wherever you feel most comfortable. I will only suggest that none of you try to sleep with the seventh graders, because they are scary." Steve joked making the crowd laugh lightly. "We have a supply of food in those lockers, just in case you feel like having a snack in the early morning, outside of the permitted hours for walking around the castle." He continues and stands thoughtfully for a few moments. "Most of the things you need to know are on the bulletin board on that wall, and you can also ask me anything you want. Your belongings have already been taken to the free beds, but if you want any help, you can organize among yourselves or just come talk to me."

Steve smiled as the crowd moved. You headed in the direction where he said the rooms were.

//-//

You let out a surprised exclamation as something landed on your head.

"Damn, sorry!" Asked an asian girl approaching you, and pulling the small being out of your hair as you entered the room. "Groot, I told you to behave yourself."

"I am groot." Grumbled the little creature. You looked at it wide-eyed, impressed.

"Wow, is that a tree?"

The girl laughed, putting the small creature sitting on her shoulder, sitting on the bed next to the one you identified as having your things.

"Yes and no." She said. "I found Groot in my garden over the vacations, and well, I don't know what he is exactly. But I think he was trying to make my mother's plants grow."

"He's really cute." You commented approaching with your finger extended. Groot smiled, accepting your touch.

"I am Mantis." Says the girl next and you smile at her as you introduce yourself. "We're going to be roommates."

"Yes, and so is Groot." You add as you take off your cape to throw on the bed that would be yours.

After eating so well at dinner, it doesn't take long for you to fall asleep.

You dream of glowing green eyes and a red light, but you don't recognize them or understand what it means, and when you wake up, you no longer remember.

//-//

Two weeks since you started at Hogwarts, you are used to how eccentric everything can be.

The classes weren't as difficult as you imagined, but that's probably because you've had contact with magic all your life and always had an easy time learning things. All the teachers were unique in their own way.

Professor Rocket, for example, taught Transfiguration and spent almost the entire period transfigured into a raccoon, even outside of class hours. He was temperamental and got irritated very easily when students talked too much in his class, so it was not recommended to do so.

There was also Professor Fury, who had an eye patch as a mandatory piece in his daily costume, and all the students spent more time trying to guess how this happened, than listening to his explanations of defense spells against the dark art.

Your astronomy class on Wednesdays was taught by Professor Odin, who like to claim that he was a descendant of the Olympian gods, but no one believed him. He was also the father of two of your classmates, Thor and Loki Odinson, who were the exact opposite of each other. While Thor was warm and friendly, Loki was cold and reclusive, plus the former was from Gryffindor and the other from Slytherin. Surprisingly, you liked them both.

You ended up meeting the head of your house only on the second day.

Professor Heimdall taught Divination, so you wouldn't have any classes with him until the third year.You bumped into him when you were late for fifth period and had to run to the common room for your Potions books, and almost fell on the floor when you turned the corner without looking and the professor was there. He prevented you from falling with a wave of his wand, smiling gently.

" Forgive me." You said clumsily, feeling slightly intimidated by the yellow irises as the magic set you on your feet properly, as well as catching your books in the air and placing them in your hands again.

"Be careful with the castle corridors, Miss Stark." Said the man, and for some reason, you thought he wasn't just talking about this little incident.

"Professor Heimdall, let's talk in a private place, please." Asked Professor Okoye, who was standing at his side, she looked at you with a certain disapproval, and you couldn't tell whether it was because of your intrusion, or the fact that your tie was hanging loosely around your neck, in addition to the open buttons on your shirt.

After this little incident, you asked Steve who Professor Heimdall was, and he explained that he was the head of Hufflepuff, and might seem intimidating at first glance, but that he was very kind.

But so far, the professor who has intrigued you the most was Professor Erik Lehnsherr, who taught Potions. He didn't say anything that wasn't related to the subject, didn't make any comments about behavior or events at school. And he had such a stern and mysterious look in his eyes that no student had the courage to ask him anything. You heard Peter Quill make a bet with Thor Odinson that Professor Erik was unable to smile because of some particular sorcery, but you thought it best not to laugh, especially since Mr. Lehnsherr was looking at your direction.

When you had your first Potions period with Slytherin, after herbology professor T'Challa needed to reschedule classes for an appointment, you were surprised to discover that professor Lehnsherr had children.

Gamora ended up on the same bench as you, and she was talking to her sister, Nebula, about an incident that occurred in their dormitory.

"Clearly, the professors' children have an easy time getting away with punishment." Nebula bitterly remarked, and you frowned in confusion.

"I don't think it was the girl's fault." Gamora retorted as she put the ingredients into her cauldron. She looked at you quickly, realizing that you were listening to the conversation, but she didn't scold you, she just kept stirring the mixture.

"What happened?" you asked next, and Nebula looked at you with mild irritation. She seemed about to tell you to mind your own business, but Gamora smiled, moving closer to whisper to you.

"A girl lost her temper in the Slytherin dorm bathrooms last night." She told. "She's a second year, her name is Wanda Maximoff. She and her brother are Professor Lehnsherr's kids, and everyone is saying that she didn't go to detention because of it."

Your jaw dropped, impressed.

"I can't believe Magneto has children." You said making Gamora and Nebula laugh at the nickname. Last week you found out that the school had been calling Erik that since he stopped the hall chandelier from falling on the teachers' desk two years ago when he used non-verbal magic to attract the metal, and everyone started calling him that behind his back. Tony told you and you liked the story.

"I know right, he seems so self-contained." Gamora remarked looking back briefly. Professor Erik was focused on his own potions book.

"That noisy kid from Gryffindor said he's married." Nebula added next and Gamora laughed lightly.

"Peter Quill?"

"Yes."

"Wow, that's surprising." Says the girl. You both return to stirring your cauldrons in silence after that little conversation.

When you have finished your mixing, Professor Erik gives Hufflepuff five points for your good work, and you smile with red cheeks.

"You're nice." Nebula suddenly said beside you as you were leaving the room. Gamora stood next to her. "Do you want to walk around with us?"

"We're already walking." You joked and Gamora laughed unlike her sister who grimaced.

"Yep, definitely cool." She added. "Do you want to have lunch with us?"

"At your table or mine?"

Gamora and Nebula exchanged glances.

"I'm not sitting with Hufflepuff." Nebula declared and you sighed, rolling your eyes.

"You know I'm from Hufflepuff, right?"

"I'm reconsidering the invitation." She retorted and you frowned, but Gamora smiled at you.

"Will you sit with us, please?"

You sighed, nodding in agreement. You could talk to Tony after all.

//-//

Lunch at the Slytherin table became an everyday thing after that day. It took two weeks for Mantis to start joining you, and then you realized that you had a small group of friends now.

At Christmas, neither you nor Tony came home, because your father was working and you didn't want to be alone in the Stark mansion. You ended up turning down Tony's invitation to spend Christmas with Steve Rogers and his family, because you weren't really friends with Steve. Tony insisted, not wanting you to be alone, but you assured him that you would be fine in the company of your friends, and that he needn't worry.

On Christmas morning, Groot woke you up by jumping on your face. You laughed lightly because he was so small that he was like a tickle, and stood up as you returned the little creature to Mantis' bedside table.

A few hours later, as you were opening your presents at the Slytherin table along with Gamora, Nebula, Mantis, and Peter Quill, who had also stayed at Hogwarts for the end of the year, you let out an excited exclamation.

"I can' believe it." You spoke, opening the package in front of you. It was a large box, it was bewitched and only revealed the actual wrapping once you tore the paper off. It was actually a broom.

"Wow, that's cool." Peter remarked as he looked at your present.

That's how you ended up in the middle of the snow, testing your new broom while your friends cheered and celebrated below you.

"Are you sure you can fly?" You asked Peter as soon as he asked you if he could ride. He shrugged, smiling.

You and the girls watched as he controlled the broom for a few feet above the ground, and then he overspeeded it and sped away.

You all ran into his direction, while the broom seemed almost annoyed at his lack of control, and knocked him into a tree. Peter fell between the branches, onto someone who was resting under it.

When you all reached him, you frowned when there was a boy pushing Quill.

"Watch it, dude!" Warned the boy, but before you could say anything, Gamora was already stepping forward, wand in hand.

"It was just an accident." She said and the boy looked at her surprised with her wand outstretched. He crossed his arms however, not looking scared.

"Oh, you're going to spell me now, are you?" He teased.

"Piss off, Maximoff." Warned Nebula next, taking a step beside her sister. So this was Pietro Maximoff. You figured that confidence should come from being the son of one of the professors.

"I suggest you leave my brother alone." Warned a voice behind you. You turned next, only to catch sight of a girl with brown hair, green eyes that glittered with anger.

Gamora clenched her jaw, and Nebula drew her own wand toward the girl, who also had her wand in her hands.

You sighed, raising your hands as you stood in the line of fire.

"Would everyone please calm down?" You asked. "It was just a misunderstanding, and the broom is mine anyway, no need to fight about it."

It takes a moment, but Gamora puts down her wand, and everyone follows her after that. She has an insinuating smile on her face.

"You really are a Hufflepuff, aren't you Stark?" She teases, and you laugh sheepishly, putting your hands in your pockets. "Come on Quill."

Gamora warns and the boy shoots Pietro an ugly look as he leaves. You accept your broom that he hands to you, and turn around, your gaze meeting that of the girl who is supposed to be Wanda Maximoff for a moment. You feel your face heat up at the intensity of the angry look, and you look away, following your friends.

//-//

The months went by quickly as the rest of the school year passed. You managed to do very well on the exams, and didn't get involved in any near-fights again.

When the year ended and the Hufflepuff didn't win the House Cup, you thought you should have been more upset, but you didn't mind having Gamora and Nebula celebrating beside you, laughing and hugging you excitedly.

You also didn't understand why you felt your stomach turn when you caught Wanda Maximoff smiling amidst the Slytherin celebration when you looked around.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda x you #wanda maximoff x you #wandaxreader #wandaxyou #wandaxyn #wanda maximoff x yn #The Scarlet Witch Prophecy #marvel imagines #harry potter au #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda x fem!reader

512 notes · View notes

innocent-malfoy-slut · 4 years

Text

Days with Draco

A/N: this came out longer than I’d expected

... if you were public:

Draco would kiss you wherever and whenever he can

at breakfast, in the Great Hall, he would give you little pecks on your cheeks every now and then, maybe he would also wrap your should with his arm and pulling you closer to him

so close that you have your leg resting on his thigh as you talked with Pansy and Daphne on your right

he would spend breakfast making plans for the day with Blaise, or just staring at you as you were focused on repeating for an up-coming test

since you’re both Slytherins, you would walk hand-in-hand to your classes

and when he feels extremely sweet, Draco would bring your books for you

between a class and another you would lean against a cold, stone-made wall and kiss until you’re out of breath, your lips reddish and swollen

Professors McGonagall and Snape definitely wouldn’t like that, so you tried to be as careful a you could before their lessons

you would wait lunch being served in the Slytherin’s common room, together with your group of friends, chatting about the morning lessons

the topics would change, and also the attitude of your friends towards some other people, what would never change was you, sitting on Draco’s lap, his hands brushing against your thighs, under your skirt, while yours would just lay on his arm

you didn’t pay attention to any of their talks, you just enjoyed being touched by your boyfriend and, even though you were in a room crowded of people, you laid there, shivering whenever his fingers went up too far

“remember where we are” you would scold him careful not to let everyone else hearing you

“I wouldn’t mind showing them how much of a good girl you are”

your little interaction stopped there, as you were told to make it to the Great Hall for lunch

it would be very similar to breakfast; your leg resting on his, though this time you would just pay attention to each other -your friends not even trying to engage a talk with you

during the early hours of the afternoon you would just sit under a tree far away from the castle, enjoying the silence the nature had to offer you

Draco would have his arm around your shoulders, canceling any distance between you two

your head would be resting in the crock of his neck and your hands would be waved together, his thumb gently stroking the back of your hands, and you doing the same

“what about studying in my room today?”

both of you knew how little homework you would do when alone in a room, so you would try a compromise

“let’s study in the library until five and then we go to your room?”

Draco would just put on a pout and give you the puppy’ eyes, though after a while you had learned to say “no” to them. and that was what you would do

as you had already imagined, the hours spent in Draco’s room hadn’t led you to study, instead you’d spent hours snogging and rubbing against each other

only ten minutes after closing the door behind your backs, your clothes would already be scattered around the room and you’d be straddling him

“I really like this subject” Draco’d have his arms around your waist, pulling you closer and closer to him, while his mouth would leave wet, hot kisses on your shoulder going up to your chin “I’m astonished by your beauty, my love”

Draco had always beee great with words, amazing you each time he’d make you a compliment. particularly, he’d love to address flatteries to your body when he had the chance

it would make you blush and hide your face in the crock of his neck, “you don’t need to do that every time”

“I’ll stop when you will stop blushing” from that moment on your kisses would change into desperate and passionate, burning every inch of your skin, his hands cupping your face, or gather your hair in a ponytail with his fingers

you’d shivered underneath his touch as if it was the first time, and it only increased when Draco’s fingers reached the latch of your bra and, with a swift move, removed it

both his hands would grabbed your tits, his skilled fingers playing with your pinkish nipples, before placing his lips on them

“D-draco” you’d moaned as you felt his tongue caressing them, gently at first and as time passed, he’d suck more harshly, making you moan

the increase would make you a “wet mess” -as Draco loved calling you

as you frantically grinned against his hips, you felt him growing harder beneath you -it could get inside you without much of effort

“what’s wrong, my love?” he mocked you, a smirk plastered on his face “do you want anything?”

you moaned and tried to rub your thighs, smoothing the not ignorable aching core

“talk to me, baby” his grasp on your chin would be rough, forcing your eyes in his “what something?”

“you...all of you” you captured his lips in yours and let your hands wander on his bare torso, “please, Draco”

“I still don’t get what you want, honey” while saying it, he would hit your throbbing cunt

“please, Draco, fuck me” you’d squint your eyes as the ache became unbearable “fuck me with your fingers, your mouth, your cock”

Draco would give a quick look at the clock on his bedside table“well, we don’t have enough time, so...you’d better be ready for this”

you put a spell on the door and put away your wand once and far all, finally focusing only on the two of you

meanwhile Draco had lowered his boxers, his cock was already reddish and the tip was leaking with the pre-cum, “all this only for me?” you teased him as you gave him a few strokes, before alining it at your entrance

you slide it easily in, taking it all the way in until its tip hit your deepest spot, “you’re so big”

you knew that kind of statement would increase his ego, but you also liked seeing his satisfied smirk on his face every time you would say that

“and you’re fucking tight”

your words game would go on for a while, though it’d be cut off by you bouncing on his cock and him staring at you, arms crossed behind his head, as you struggled to keep it together

he’d take control only when he noticed your legs trembling and your arms no longer holding your weight. without flipping you over, he’d pound into you at an ungodly speed, faster and faster

“you’re not capable of taking control” he’d hold your head near to his hearts -which you heard beating inside his chest- while he’d make you reach your high, “you keep trying, but you fail every” thrust “single” thrust “time”

a flow of hot cum would be released into you as you reach your climax at the same time

“I love you” “I love you, too”

after dinner you’d part your ways, until the next morning

...if you were not public (most likely belonging to a different house):

Draco would definitely tease you in public from afar, but when behind ht e door of a safe room he’d be the best of the boyfriends -showing you a never-seen side of him

you’d wake up at the sound of your clock going on, together with all your dorm mates

you’d enter the Great Hall next to your friends, talking with them as you sat down at your house’s table

maybe at first you’d actually be interested in their conversation, but then a owl delivered you a letter

a deep black envelope with the silver seal reminding a serpent which you carefully unfolded and found inside it a black card which said: “meet me at the Girl’s Lavatory out of service”

you’d excuse yourself from your your friends and quickly walked out of the Hall, climbing up the stairs and opening the door of the bathroom once you had reached it

Draco Malfoy would already be there, waiting for you resting against the wall

“are we late, aren’t we?” with only three steps he’d be a few inches in front of you

“I’ve got short legs, it isn’t my fault” you’d try to catch his lips between yours but you failed as he threw his head back “don’t you want your good morning kiss? well, I can go and give him to someone else”

no matter how old that sentence would be, it would always make him jealous

in fact, also that time, he’d grab your wrist and pull you back against him

“stupid girl” Draco’d lean in for a gentle kiss, your lips soft and tasting against his “my stupid girl”

you’d melt in his thigh embrace and leave at him the job to lead the kiss

it soon turned into a make out session, which kept its sweet way

“see you again here after your last morning class”

you’d leave the bathroom at the distance of 10 minutes from one another and you’d meet up with your friends soon after -avoiding their questions about your strange behaviour

the thought of seeing him again would keep you from focusing on your classes, though you’d always manage to be among the top 5 students of each class

as you were about to turn around the corner and enter the bathroom on the first floor, you’d see someone else sneaking in

you’d put on a pout and metal hex whoever dared to stole your place of secret meeting with Draco

“is something wrong, Y/N?” by the time you had searched for another solution, your friend would have reached you and started worrying seeing you staring at the wall

Draco’d observe the scene from behind another wall, not wanting to keep his eyes off of you as you came up with an excuse to your friend

during the lunch all you did you exchanging looks with your boyfriend

at first they were innocent, like hidden smiles and quick glances over the table where the other was seated, but then you played too much you the fork in your mouth -you didn’t do it on purpose- and once your eyes went back on him you found him staring at you

on the other end, Draco was dying to meet you, though he was slowly realising you wouldn’t have met him until later that afternoon -being you busy studying with your friends

for the first time since you started seeing each other, Draco decided to sit down with Blaise, Pansy and Daphne in the library, not far away from you -though you were turning your back at him

“try not to fuck her here, okay?” Blaise’s words would block any Draco’s attempt to imagine what would it be like to bend you over the table where you were

Blaise would be the only one to know and no, Draco had never told him anything

“next time remember people can hear her screams from the common room” was how your boyfriend found out his friends knew

the afternoon passed slowly and painfully, according to Draco Malfoy

when he sat down at the Slytherin’s table, his mind was filled with imagines of you -acting in the most provocative way

he swallowed the entire banquet, if only he would have been able to do that, just to end it and bring you to his room

“mate, she has just left”

Draco would run out of the Great Hall and discreetly walk closely behind you

you’d smiled at yourself as you perceived his presence behind you and you took the next turn as a chance to grab him by his wrist

“I can’t wait any longer” you made him lean into you and you placed your lips on his

the kiss didn’t keep soft, instead you soon found yourself being pinned up against the wall

his fingers traced your inner thigh, make you more wet and he went up and down

you moaned into the kiss, which allowed him a better entrance in your mouth

“w-we can’t h-here”

“the things I can’t do are very little” he turned you around, your face meeting the cold stone of the wall as he pushed up your clock and your skirt, your soaked panties vanished inside his robe, “fucking you against this wall isn’t among them”

you heard him unbuckling his belt and then his trousers

the cold air hit your cunt and you inhaled deeply

Draco wouldn’t give you any kind of warning before filling you up with his cock

“you’re always so ready to take me in”

“my warm and wet cunt”

he’d pinch your clit, making it harder for you to hold back your moans, “keep quiet” he’d scold you putting his hand over your mouth

his thrusts would become sloppier and faster as both your climax approached

he’d grabbed you by your throat and made you arch your back up to the point where your head was resting on his shoulder

he’d give you a kiss, only as an excuse to spit into your mouth and watch you as your high washed you

“that’s right, take it like the desperate cum slut you are”

he’d cum into you without any warning -again- and keep himself inside you for a couple of minutes -making himself sure his cum wouldn’t go wasted on the floor

he’d watch as you tried to recompose yourself -as if you hadn’t been fucked right in the middle of the hallway

“fuck, it’s sticky” you looked down between your legs and notice a drop of cum went down your inner thigh

you tried to wipe it away but your hand was blocked by Draco’s “leave it there”

“don’t you think I’m done with you” he’d smack your ass “walk”

your next stop would be the Astronomy Tower, where he’d fuck you other three times, before finally letting you head back to your dorm

609 notes · View notes

bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher · 3 years

Text

Trick or Treat

The next A Very Bouncey Halloween installment and a belated birthday gift to my darling @veritasrose. Thank you so much for the last year of friendship, I look forward to celebrating with you again. <3 you are much loved.

tw: curses, Geralt is an idiot, competent Jaskier

---

Light flashes through the room and momentarily blinds Jaskier, who stumbles back against Geralt. He mumbles an apology to the ever-sturdy Witcher as he waits for his vision to return and when he blinks clearly for the first time after a few long moments, the bard feels utterly and totally confused by the scene unfolding before him.

The Duke’s grandest ballroom, which had been bustling with excitable party guests only moments ago, is now flooded with ghouls, ghosts, vampires, and monsters of all sorts. A woman with swan’s wings is huddled in one corner, squawking angrily at anyone who tries to draw near. A minotaur stumbles through the center of the dance floor, lowing in frustration as he tries to control his bulky limbs. Two werewolves wrestle for dominance atop the furthest banquet table to their left. As Jaskier takes it all in, he feels Geralt’s hands wrap suddenly around his bicep; the Witcher is clinging to Jaskier fiercely, leaning his not insignificant weight against the bard’s side as his eyes grow round and watery.

“What’s happening?” Geralt finally asks. His tone of voice seems breathy and high, filled with a terror - almost totally foreign to Jaskier’s ears. Geralt fears nothing and yet… “Let’s get away from this dreadful place, please!”

“Aren’t you going to try and solve this problem?” Jaskier asks, glancing at his companion. He gestures at the various monsters roaming freely past the buffet table. “You’re likely the nearest Witcher, after all.”

“I’m no Witcher,” Geralt declares. He splays a hand over the very center of his blue velvet doublet (a nearly perfect imitation of the way Jaskier reacts to a perceived offense). “I am a Count. Witchers are dirty things, not meant for such a public life as my own.”

“For fuck’s sake, Geralt, now is not the time for a prank of this nature,” Jaskier huffs. “Something is clearly going on here. We need to help these people!”

“I know something is wrong,” Geralt sniffles - fucking sniffles - and squeezes the bard’s upper arm even more tightly. The sound of Geralt crying shakes Jaskier into understanding, even as Geralt begs: “But I don’t know how to help! Please get me out of here, Milord, I’m scared.”

Milord? Jaskier mouths to himself, even as he wraps one comforting arm around Geralt’s waist and ushers him away from the growing chaos at the center of the ballroom. Jaskier hurries them down one suspiciously empty hallway after another until he reaches the small suite that he had accepted as payment for his performance at the party. Jaskier ushers Geralt inside and locks the heavy oak door behind them.

“My Lord Geralt,” he gets the not-quite-Witcher’s attention. “Do you mind taking a seat by the fire for now? I’ll be right with you as soon as the room is secure, and then we can figure out what’s going on and what to do from here.”

“Yes, Milord,” Geralt nods. He hurries to comply with Jaskier’s request, to the bard’s continuing shock and awe, and stays still and quiet as Jaskier removes his doublet and rolls up his sleeves. Using the strength he’s spent twelve years at Geralt’s side developing, Jaskier shoves a bookcase, a dresser, and an unfortunately designed roll-top desk in front of the locked doors for added protection.

Moving behind Geralt with practiced efficiency, Jaskier also closes, shutters, and locks every window in the room, pulling the curtains closed to keep any light from spilling out and alerting stray creatures of their presence.

When he’s finished locking down all of their room’s possible entrances and breathing hard from exertion, Jaskier tugs the Witcher’s xenovox from his bag and flips it open, waiting with bated breath until Yennefer’s irritated voice snaps: “What do you want, Geralt?”

“Who is that?!” Geralt cries from his place near the fire. He has a white-knuckle grip on the overstuffed armchair he’s perched in and his clothing is mussed; Jaskier motions for him to be quiet and Geralt bites his lip, worrying the soft pink skin between his unusually dull canines.

“Was that Geralt?” Yennefer asks. "Did Jaskier summon me?"

“Yes and yes,” Jaskier replies. “I think he’s been cursed or enchanted or something. I was hired to play at the Duke of Rinde’s All Hallow’s Eve celebration and Geralt accompanied me - even dressed up for the occasion - but something happened at the party and now he’s acting strangely. I don’t know what to do.”

"What's happening?" Yennefer prods.

"Geralt is acting rather out of sorts. He’s speaking strangely, he wanted to flee the party rather than investigate the source of the changes-”

“What changes?”

“Everyone sort of… Well, a good portion of the party guests suddenly transformed into their costumes,” Jaskier explains, his speech stunted by his disbelief. “I know it sounds incredible, and it was! One moment we were all enjoying the music and the next… there was a minotaur and a mermaid and a faun… Geralt went nearly mute and started clinging to my arm like some sort of aristocratic maiden!”

“Oh shit,” Yen groans.

“Who is that?” Geralt repeats. Jaskier continues to ignore his companion. He knows that the moment he turns his attention to caring for Geralt, he won’t be able to tear it away again, and he needs to finish this conversation with Yennefer first.

“Why are you swearing?” he asks the sorceress. “What is it?”

“Geralt asked me for advice about this stupid ball a few days ago, while you were busy making arrangements with the Duke. He wanted to impress you with his All Hallow’s Eve costume and prove that he could be just as fancy and well-mannered as all the other men of your status.”

“Why in the world would Geralt want to dress up and act like a nobleman? It makes no sense! He detests small talk, he hates vanity, and he finds most men of my station to be cowardly and overly delicate - myself included! I just- I don’t quite understand why he’d go through all of this just to impress me. Or why he thinks this kind of thing would be impressive in the first place.”

“Jaskier, please tell me that you aren’t as stupid as our mutually beloved Witcher…”

Jaskier considers for a moment, pondering the things that he does to impress Geralt: gathering wood, learning to cook with game meat, preparing the Witcher’s potion ingredients while he's out on hunts, organizing their packs when they're spiking camp, brushing Roach’s mane… Realization dawns suddenly and all at once. He has a moment of pure understanding, a moment much beloved by every poet, bard, and playwright across the Continent: “Oh.”

Yennefer gives a tired laugh. “Yeah.”

“So he’s stuck as… a noble?”

“I suppose,” she sighs. “I’ll portal you to my location and we can figure things out in peace. Get your things together, I’ll open it up in precisely five minutes.”

“What’s happening!?” Geralt demands. Jaskier pulls the Witcher/Count to his feet and bows shallowly.

“I am Jaskier Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. I will be your protector and chaperone for the foreseeable future, Your Lordship,” Jaskier bows shallowly. “I’m going to gather our things together and then we are going to meet up with a very lovely sorceress, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

Jaskier barely manages to hide his surprise at Geralt’s utter lack of recognition. His memories of Yennefer have also been taken, then.

“She’s a mutual friend.”

“Are you my friend?”

“I would like to think so,” Jaskier smiles. Geralt remains oblivious to the bard’s heartache, even as he curls himself against Jaskier. He tucks his face against Jaskier’s shoulder and sobs quietly. The bard runs his hands comfortingly up and down Geralt’s spine for a long, soothing moment. The smooth, royal-blue velvet tickles his fingertips. “Shh, dear heart. I’ve got you. Everything will be alright, I swear.”

“I trust you,” Geralt whispers.

Just as Jaskier is about to reply, Yennefer’s portal snaps open in the center of the room. Jaskier hands Geralt a set of bags and hauls his own over his shoulder. “Time to go, Your Lordship. Just take one little step…”

---

“Do you know who I am?” Yennefer asks. Geralt shakes his head before burying his face in the back of Jaskier’s shoulder-blade.

“I’m so frightened, Milord.”

Frightened? Milord? Yennefer mouths. Jaskier shrugs nearly imperceptibly and makes a panicked gesture in the Witcher’s general direction.

“I don’t know what to do either!”

“Well, start from the beginning. Tell me what happened at the party before all of… this.”

Jaskier recounts every detail he can remember in the most straightforward way possible, momentarily renouncing his poetic skills in favor of efficiency - for Geralt’s sake, of course, not Yennefer’s. When he's finished he asks: “And you said he did all of this to impress me?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” Jaskier repeats his earlier question. Yennefer understands that his meaning is different; Jaskier understands that Geralt is interested in him romantically, but the bard can't seem to get it through his head that Geralt has deemed him worthy. Although, knowing the Witcher, he isn't even sure how to go about doing such a thing in the first place.

"I just... I don’t quite believe you," he adds.

“He loves you,” Yennefer reiterates. "And now he’s stuck like this until the effects of the spell wear off, so I suggest you take his precious Lordship to one of my spare rooms and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll see you both for breakfast, providing the magic is null and void by then.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“I hope you enjoy small talk, you bardic bastard.”

Yennefer smirks and disappears from the room in a whirl of black and white silk, the scents of lilac and gooseberry curling through the air in her wake.

Geralt clings to Jaskier’s bicep again as the exhausted bard stands, keeping his larger body pressed against the human’s side as if Jaskier is the one who wields the Witcher’s swords. “So I’m under a spell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“At least I have you here to protect me, Jaskier. You’re so brave and strong; my hero!”

“It’s usually the other way around, dear heart, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now, how about we find a comfortable place to bed down for the night, Milord?”

"Alright."

Jaskier moves Geralt's hand so that it's curled around the inside of his elbow, the proper etiquette for a platonic escort, and leads him quickly down the long hallways of Yennefer's sprawling manor house. He chooses the blue-themed bedroom at the back of the East Wing, far from the sorceress' own suite of rooms.

He has to help Geralt change out of his lordly costume, the Witcher-turned-Count fumbling uselessly at the laces and buttons as if he'd never seen a fastening before in his life. Geralt whispers shyly as Jaskier pulls a nightshirt over his head: "Thank you again, Milord Jaskier. I feel as if I can't help but continue indebting myself to you."

"Think nothing of it, dear heart," Jaskier smiles, ignoring the pang in his chest. "I am happy to help you."

Jaskier tucks Geralt into bed before changing into his own nightclothes, tossing his things back into their travel bags as he swaps outfits. He feels Geralt tense up when he sits on the edge of the bed and his eyebrows narrow in concern.

"Are you alright, Geralt?"

"Are you going to share a bed with me?"

"Would you rather I didn't?" Jaskier answers with a question of his own.

"I... I wouldn't mind it if we shared."

Jaskier wishes he had Witcher sight, so he could catch a glimpse of the blush no doubt attempting to stain the Witcher's face. Despite the mutagens, Geralt's face still went pale pink when he encountered a strong emotion. It was adorable. And incredibly rare.

As soon as he pulls the covers over his chest, Geralt glues himself to Jaskier's side, snuggling close. "Feels safer," he says in lieu of explanation.

"Goodnight, dear heart."

"Goodnight."

---

"Fuck," Geralt groans, sitting up in bed. Jaskier sits up beside him, wiping the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Good morning, Milord," he teases.

"Shut up," Geralt groans. Jaskier does get to see him blush this time, and the bard revels in it; he would trade all the gold in the world to see Geralt flush like this. "I can't believe I cried on you!"

"It was rather adorable, actually."

"Hmm."

"Still..." Jaskier reaches out, tentative, and cups Geralt's cheek with his palm. He turns the Witcher's face and locks their gazes together, blue meeting gold. "Still, I think I prefer you as you are. My big, strong Witcher who cares so much about defending the little guy. Willing to step in and help wherever and whenever he can."

Geralt's eyes get a little glassy and he leans forward, pausing and letting Jaskier make the final decision. The bard meets him halfway, pressing his lips against Geralt's without any sense of urgency at all. It's warm and sweet, time fading away as they let their feelings pour through this one simple gesture. When they pull apart again, Geralt gives a surprised, lopsided smile. "Oh."

#geraskier #geraskier fluff #a very bouncey halloween #geraskier first kiss #geraskier and buffy #btvs au #geraskier fluff and silliness #curses #cursed geralt #nobleman geralt #yennefer was there #bamf jaskier #competent jaskier

138 notes · View notes

loquaciousquark · 4 years

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E125 (Feb. 16, 2021)

Goooood evening good evening good evening, all! I hope you’re all staying warm and safe and dry in this chilly weather. Tonight’s guests: Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey.

We open tonight with Travis ribbing Brian for his continuous remodel of his office space. Laura demands a second introduction of herself as she wasn’t paying attention during the first one.

Travis: “You’ve gotta love Julianne Moore. She’s the only actress who can cry and show you all her teeth at the same time.” I was listening pretty closely when he said this and I’m still not sure it had any context.

Jester thinks there’s a strong possibility at least half the party will die against the Tombtakers. Fjord doesn’t think the odds are quite that high, but it will be dangerous. Laura points out that most of the M9 are also willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the party, so that changes their odds as well. Travis: “The game is not a stress reliever. It is not a stress reliever. I mean, it’s fun as shit, but it is stressful!”

Laura thinks Essek will give them a better chance. Travis: “A plus-one? A powerful plus-one, but a plus-one?” Did you see his reaction when we gave him the lowdown? Let’s be real: we kinda trust Essek. I got $50 that when we come back, he’s gone.” Laura is convinced he is trustworthy & wants to lighten his soul.

Jester spent so much time trying to bring out the Molly side of Lucien that to have him then betray them sucked. She knew that trying to bring the good out of everyone they met would eventually fail, but it stung that it was the most powerful one they encountered to first betray them.

She tries to talk about finger gestures during the answer as a reference to the HBO show “Raised by Wolves,” and Brian and Travis tell her to keep digging this hole she gets herself into about fingering. Travis: “Just get off the interstate at the next exit and turn right.” Laura, of course, immediately mimes turning a hard left, and they spent the next few minutes laughing at her inability to tell right from left and that even now she still has to hold up her hands to tell left from right.

Fjord is furious that they nicked the Bag of Holding. The loss of Vess DeRogna is bad enough, but he is genuinely IRL anxious about the loss of the Cloven Crystal. Laura points out that Fjord has also explicitly talked to Lucien about the deep sea creature patron he used to follow as well. He’s terrified one of Lucien’s scimitars is suddenly going to have a big eye sticking out of it. Laura suggests they’ll just succeed, bring back the city, and wake up Uk’otoa for the heck of it.

It was really rough to go from the Gelidon fight to the Tombtaker fight, especially since the first fight sent so well. Travis felt great that he initiated the dragon fight - he knew they had a far advantage in the numbers and felt that it was an open and shut case.

Laura does boggle that if Caleb hadn’t asked for that item from the Bag of Holding, they might have slept all night before realizing it was gone. They’re both relieved that they now know so much more about how the Tombtakers fight, especially the anti-magic cone. The most anxiety-ridden part was when they were trying to run and the TTs weren’t letting them. “You know when you don’t even have squares, when Matt’s black-tableclothing it, you’re in deep shit.” Laura had no spells left - she was so worried if she dropped the polymorph she would have had nothing left.

Travis: “Thanks for healing me, babe.” Laura: “You’re welcome, baby. It was ultimately a waste, though, because we took a rest immediately and you could just spend your hit dice.” Everyone laughs at Travis’s pain. She does say it was worth it in the moment since they didn’t know if they would be able to get away.

They joke that Laura’s just wearing the Fire Resist ring on a chain around her neck/Sprinkle is wearing it now to keep it safe since she’s not attuned to it anymore. It’s pretty hilarious!

Travis hoped that the TTs were originally actively looking for more acolytes rather than just having Caleb & Beau read the book. Otis needs to die. He’s relieved they have an idea of what all their blood rites do. Laura thought the time with them was fun, but it makes her retroactively wish that she’d dropped Zoran in the lava when they had the chance. Travis wishes they’d put a chime on the door of the tower.

Laura loved the tarot card reading, since Taliesin sent her really detailed breakdowns of the cards & gave her a real deck for Christmas. Taliesin told her she did a great job afterwards which she really appreciated, since she’s not sure what she’s doing. She does wish that she knew why Lucien seemed so nervous when she was talking about rebirth.

Cosplay of the Week! @clever_comics on twitter with a lovely Veth in her snowy lavender-colored outfit and pigtails.

Travis on confessing to Jester: “It FUCKING made me crazy!” He’s never been an instigator of campaign romances in the past, but because he loves Laura and was able to connect to her on that level he felt like it was a good challenge instead. He doesn’t think he could have done it with someone he wasn’t comfortable with. It was also important to him for it to be founded on real-game moments and after real-game time had passed, and he felt it was a very natural progression. Seeing the statues rip five years from her in such a benign situation made him realize that to let the opportunity pass wouldn’t have been worth it. He wishes he’d told Vandran what he meant to Fjord as well.

Laura loves that Fjord is becoming more confident as well. The post-Gelidon smooch took Laura completely by surprise since she’s finding Jester is a little surprisingly awkward with IRL affection, and she was surprised Fjord was the confident one there. “It’s so wonderful. It’s a matter of finding a way to get comfortable with it with her away from the Tombtakers.” Travis thought it was important to continue the “go for it” mantra. He notes that he’s pretty private about his personal life IRL, so it’s been a bit of a shift. It’s slower in a way - not a “you’re my one true love” kind of thing, more of a “let’s see where this goes and act on what you can” thing.

They were all “poopin’ in their pants” to get to go to Emon. The worst part was not getting to explore outside the tower since they had to leave again immediately. Kima is so cool, and Travis was actively trying to get Kima to come with them. Everyone boggles that they got to borrow Allura’s staff.

Laura only was thinking about the item-tuned-to-the-target-plane because she’d been texting with Liam trying to iron out their spell choices. She’s so relieved that they were able to get something tuned to the Sea from Allura.

For the most part, Laura knows what spells are the most useful for Jester, but every now and then she does get caught by major component requirements that she hadn’t noted. She wants to get another chalice for Hero’s Feast before they go into the Sea.

Dani points out that a lot of their allies right now are mages (no Kashaws, no Kimas, no Grogs) and they’re heading to a bad place for mages.

Travis has a sudden brain wave about all the TTs being from the Claret Order and wonders if they should investigate that before they pursue. I don’t even remember what that order is and I feel terrible!

Fanart of the Week! It’s a beautiful card by @crovyne on twitter of the Cree counterspell.

Laura really wants Brian to shave the sides of his hair and do Viking braids in the rest. I didn’t want to say anything out loud, but Brian’s hair is really looking pretty...pandemicky.

This is Dani’s four-year-anniversary of her start for Critical Role! Awww, Dani! You’re so short in real life.

Fjord is stoked that the Star Razor is a Vestige, and more now that he knows in-character what that means. It was great to see Allura react the way she did.

Jester doesn’t think they can really go to Nicodranas - they don’t have anymore time. Even more, Jester’s avoiding going home because she doesn’t want the Ruby to see that she got aged up/hurt on her travels.

Travis honestly assumes that the TTs are spying on them 100% of the time now.

Does Jester feel better now that the crest is away from Lucien? Yes, even though it’s gone off course. She thought dropping the crest where they were was a HORRIBLE idea and was appalled so many people were suggesting it. She saw the city with her own eyes, knows the danger of what’s coming, and if they had dropped it in flight she would have dropped with it and defended it as long as she could if that’s what would have kept them from getting it.

Travis thinks that if they can negotiate with Lucien, they should try. Everyone is super worried about Caleb’s and Beau’s new eyes and are fully anticipating they’re on a clock at this point. They wonder if it’ll drive up their exhaustion, allow Lucien to force them to fight against them, maybe make them willing slaves to the mysterious voice...they need to solve it sooner rather than later.

And that’s all for tonight! New episode this Thursday - usual time, usual place. Stay warm, friends, and is it Thursday yet?

#talks machina #talks machina spoilers #critical role #critical role spoilers #long post for ts

322 notes · View notes

pies-writes-and-more · 3 years

Text

Hungover Love

word count: 2,688

pairing: UniversityStudent!Akaashi Keiji x Fem!Reader

warnings: characters getting drunk and hungover - all assumed to be of legal age

a/n: I don’t know where this came from but I started writing it so here it is haha. Got the idea from @moanlightlust‘s list (can find it here!) so thank you! I’ll bold the prompt down below (I kinda changed it for the sake of the story but still got the idea from their prompt list :)) Thank you to @satan-ruler-of-hells and @thisnoodlewritesao3 for reading over this for me! Love you both :)

haikyuu masterlist

“Akaashi?” You repeated the name for the second time as you strained your ears to hear something besides bar music and Bokuto’s loud voice in the background.

“Hm?” The small grunt made you smile, knowing he was probably slumped over on a chair, holding his face in one hand and leaning on a table in front of him, with his other hand pressing his phone a little too hard on his ear.

You let out a small laugh, pausing the show you had on your TV so you could hear him better, “Akaashi, you called me. Did you need something?”

There was another grunt on the other end of the line, and you chuckled as you heard Konoha teasing Bokuto about something in the distance, “What is it, Akaashi?” You inquired some more, listening to him hum quietly to the song playing.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” he mumbled and you just shook your head with a smile. God he must’ve had far too many drinks to be this out of it. “I fucking love Y/N Y/L/N. It almost feels like she can hear me right now,” he was saying and you just laughed. “Like I can... I can hear her laughing.”

“Akaashi, you idiot,” your face felt hot but you tried to ignore it. He was drunk. Very clearly drunk. He didn’t mean anything by it - the last time he was drunk, he told you he was going to leave his college volleyball team and join some new sport because Bokuto was getting on his nerves.

It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t. It didn’t matter that those were the words you had been waiting to hear from him. It didn’t matter that you’d spent the last two years pining after him. He was drunk.

“Didya know... the other day.... Y/N smiled at me cause I said something funny- what did I say... I can’t remember what I said but I said something funny and she smiled and I just.. God it’s that smile ya know?” Akaashi’s voice seemed so much lighter than it did usually. You could tell that he was smiling and just imagining that goofy drunk smile on his face made your heart skip a beat or two.

“That’s nice,” you tried to keep things casual, avoid getting your hopes up too much. You didn’t want to ruin what you had with him - the nice fun friendship that was definitely just a friendship.

“Y/N?” Akaashi suddenly seemed a lot more present, as if just realizing you were on the line.

“Yea?”

“Y/N!” The smile on his face was probably a lot bigger from the sounds of it, a chuckle slipping from his lips, “I love you, Y/N! I’ve loved you ever since I met you when you picked up my runaway ball for me back in high school. You were so pretty then and you’re super pretty now. Like you get prettier every day I see you-” his speech was quick and slurred, you could almost feel him getting drunker by the second.

“Akaashi-”

“Bokuto keeps telling me that I need to tell you but I dunno if I can because I’m pretty sure you like that dude that lives across from you and-”

“Akaashi-”

“But I guess I wouldn’t know until I told you right? So I’m telling you because I like you. I really like you. I wanted to bring you to that new ice cream place down the road from your place but you always seemed so busy and I don’t want to bug you, plus volleyball takes up so much time, and then there’s school, and I don’t even know how to balance volleyball, school, and a girlfriend-”

“Akaashi!” Your voice was louder this time, biting down on your inner cheek as his name left your lips. You needed him to stop - it had to stop. Your heart was fluttering too much and you couldn’t even tell how much of this was true. You wanted to tell yourself that alcohol could bring out people’s true feelings, but it also made you do dumb shit. And wouldn’t confessing to someone you didn’t actually like be considered dumb shit?

“Ya that’s me,” Akaashi mumbled, clearly a lot more tired than he seemed five seconds ago.

You tried not to laugh, tried to swallow your fears and your feelings, your heart feeling like it was beating a thousand times a minute. “I need you to go sober up, get some rest and drink lots of water okay?”

“But-”

“No but’s! You obviously drank way too much and honestly, I’ve never heard you talk like this before and I can’t even tell if it’s you anymore,” you acted like you were scolding him, putting up that wall again like you had so many other times before. He couldn’t really like you, could he? There was no way.

“Y/N Y/L/N, I fucking love you!” Akaashi yelled into the phone, making you cringe a bit at the volume.

Your chest was tightening, you couldn’t tell if it was fear or hope but whatever it was, it was scaring the shit out of you, “Shut the hell up! If you love me so much tell me when you’re sober, dammit!” You yelled back, immediately hanging up the phone. Your eyes widened as you watched the call screen disappear, your mouth suddenly feeling very dry.

The next few hours were radio silent from both Bokuto and Akaashi. You refused to text either of them in fear that you might accidentally say more than you wanted to.

It’s fine, he was really drunk from the sounds of it so he probably won’t even remember it right? I mean, the last time he got super drunk, he didn’t remember challenging the bartender to a pushup fight so... so he won’t remember.... right?

You paced in your room for a bit, glancing at your phone every five seconds to see if there was any sort of notification from either of your friends. But nothing.

You barely slept a wink that night, tossing and turning while facing dreams of Akaashi laughing in your face the next time you saw him.

You thought I meant that? It was just a joke, Y/N.

I only see you as a friend, sorry.

Don’t you think you’re reading into our friendship a little too much? That’s all there is. Friendship.

The idea of Akaashi awkwardly laughing in your face, giving you that half smile while dismissing your feelings haunted you for hours. By the time the sun came up, you gave up on the idea of sleeping and threw your blanket off of you. It was time to figure out how to survive your day without thinking about Akaashi Keiji at all.

It wasn’t easy. Everything reminded you of him. Half of your Netflix was shows you were watching with him, or movies you’d already seen with him next to you. Your homework wasn’t any help either (though you definitely needed to get it done). Akaashi would normally come over and study with you, his adorable glasses making him look like some young professor, twirling his pencil around in his fingers while nodding along to some song stuck in his head. You couldn’t get used to studying on your own.

Radio silence finally broke when you texted Bokuto, asking if they all made it home safe last night and he responded with a very badly spelled text message saying, “himw safe so tirwd need adcil heaf hurtinh” (aka. home safe so tired need advil head hurting)

Your lips curled into a small smile - at least Bokuto was alive. And the fact that he wasn’t all up in your face about Akaashi meant that the setter probably hadn’t said anything last night, or at least, it meant that Bokuto was too busy tending to a hangover to think about it.

A knock on your door made you jump, watching it for a moment before slowly approaching.

“Oi, open up, I know you’re in there.”

You calculated the odds and realistically there were only 3 reasons why Akaashi would be at your door right now, while he was still probably very hungover.

A. He was tired of listening to Bokuto complain about being hungover while also hungover and wanted you to help take care of him.

B. He wasn’t actually hungover and wanted to hang out.

C. He remembered your phone call from last night and wanted to confront you about it.

...

There was no way it was B or C so... it had to be A right?

You opened the door with a smile on your face, trying to pretend like this was the first time you spoke to him since you saw him earlier yesterday.

“Hey, what’re you doing here?” You asked, welcoming him in and watching his movements as he shuffled inside. He was wearing his sunglasses and wincing a little so... it definitely wasn’t B. He was definitely still hungover.

“Good morning to you too,” Akaashi chuckled slightly, groaning as he made his way over to your couch and flopped onto it. “God, my head is killing me,” he grumbled.

You felt almost a bit of relief - he wasn’t bringing it up so... it must mean that C wasn’t an option right? “I’ll make you some tea. Want something to eat?”

He made a noise that you assumed was a yes, grabbing some ramen packages that you liked to have whenever you were hungover.

“How’re the boys?” You asked as soon as the tea was finished, handing it to him as he sat up with a huff.

“Fine... I told them I didn’t want to get drunk,” he rolled his eyes. “But Bokuto kept pouring shots and being a little bitch when I didn’t want to have them... something about how he didn’t want to lose his best friend or something.”

You laughed, shaking your head slowly as you moved back to your little kitchen, “You’re always so busy studying. Bokuto probably just misses having you around.”

“We live together.”

“Ya well you’re always either on campus or here with me so I can see why he’d miss you,” you smirked, humming softly to yourself as you let the noodles cook. Things were okay. Things were normal. Things were going to be fine - all your worries were slipping away-

“So are we not going to talk about it?”

Akaashi’s voice made you jump, turning around to find him standing right behind you and slowly sipping on the tea.

“Fuck, Akaashi, don’t do that,” you glared at him, hitting his arm, “Could’ve made me burn myself.”

“Sorry,” he gave you a small smile, leaning against the nearby counter. “But we are going to talk about it, aren’t we?”

The ramen so clearly needed stirring and stirring was a full focus kind of job and this was obviously why you were looking into the pot and not looking at Akaashi, even though you could feel his eyes watching you, “Talk about what? Bokuto missing you?”

Akaashi chuckled and lifted his finger to under your chin, tilting your face to look at him, “I drank a lot. But I don’t think any amount of alcohol could make me forget how embarrassing I was.”

“Embarrassing?”

He watched your eyes for a moment before pulling his hand away from you and looking down at his tea, his smile slowly stiffening, “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I don’t want to make you more uncomfortable. I just thought I should apologize and let you know that you don’t have to reject me or anything. I like being friends with you and that’s enough for me, even if there’s a part of me that wants more.”

You almost dropped your spoon on the floor, staring at him with wide eyes, “S-Sorry what? Apologize? For... for what?”

“For confessing to you while drunk,” Akaashi’s smile was turning more sad now, taking a slow sip from his tea. “I’d been considering telling you how I feel for a while now and I guess I should’ve stopped myself from drinking sooner to save you the embarrassment.”

“Embarrassment? Akaashi, don’t be an idiot,” you ignored the soup still dripping from the spoon and whacked his arm with it.

“Hey!”

“You’re telling me you were drunk enough to confess to me and to remember what you said but not remember what I said at the end?” You huffed, hands on your hips now.

Akaashi’s eyes lifted to the ceiling in thought, his lips pursing slowly like he did when he was concentrating on getting an answer right on his homework, “I know you seemed mad,” he finally responded, shrugging a bit. “I figured it was cause I put you on the spot like that.”

“No you absolute meathead, it’s because after months and months of pining after you, weeks of Bokuto almost spilling my secret on multiple different occasions to you, him almost screaming to you once about how much I love you, you end up telling me you love me over a drunk phone call and I can’t tell if you’re being serious or just a drunk dummy!” You scold him, hitting his arm again with your hand and shaking your head. God, for a boy with as high of an average as he had, how is it possible that there were no brain cells running around in that head of his?

Akaashi smirked a little, watching your eyes as you ranted, a playful smile on his lips, “So... you love me huh?”

“You better get out of my sight before I dump this ramen on your head,” you glare at him, trying your best not to smile because his smile was just so contagious but ugh that evil little smirk of his-

His lips were suddenly on your cheek, pressing a soft kiss to your skin and letting you feel the smirk still toying on his expression, “Drunk or not. I do love you, Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Y-Yeah yeah whatever,” you avoid his eyes some more, your whole face feeling hot and your cheek tingling where he had kissed you. “Go sit, it’s almost done.”

“Not until you say it back,” he teased, hugging you from behind and peppering your cheeks with some more kisses. “You said you love me, you can’t take it back now. Say it again.”

“Why?” you laughed, trying to pull away from his tight hug.

“Because it’s the best news I’ve ever gotten and I want to hear you say it again and again and again,” he insisted, turning you around to face him and smiling down at you. “Pretty please?”

You sighed with a smile on your face because as annoying as he could be, you really did mean it when you tell him, “I love you too, Akaashi.”

Alone time with Akaashi lasted long enough for him to properly ask you to go on a date with him to that ice cream shop, and was then interrupted by Bokuto showing up at your door and inviting himself in with a grin.

Apparently, the cure to Bokuto’s hangover was just knowing his two best friends had finally confessed to each other.

“God, I thought he’d never get drunk enough,” Bokuto grinned proudly to himself after you had happily explained the details to him. “I thought I’d have to just keep ordering him drinks.”

“What?” Akaashi glared at him, putting the pieces together.

Bokuto just smirked mischievously, “You can’t get mad cause it worked. I figured it would take a miracle to get you two to confess. And getting you drunk is basically a miracle.”

The fact that you were laughing made Akaashi want to kill Bokuto a little less, and even though he glared some more at his best friend, he would secretly thank him later for helping him get the courage to get the girl of his dreams. As much as Bokuto could get on his nerves sometimes, it really would be thanks to him that Akaashi got to take you out on that cute date and tell you just how much he loves you every day.

haikyuu taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added!)

@al0ehas @aurumk @neko-chii1 @thisnoodlewritesao3 @satan-ruler-of-hells @trashy-simp @jeppiet @tobi-momo @darkvadeeer @haikyuutothetop @livy384 @babyshoyo @jesssobs @b-bakana

#akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji #haikyuu x reader #hq akaashi #haikyuu fluff #pies writes

248 notes · View notes

theoreticslut · 4 years

Text

"Why do they hate me so much?”

pairing: fred weasley x reader x george weasley (*might change)

requested: no

word count: 3k

warnings: mentions of cheating, SFW

A/N: i’m attempting an enemies to lovers kind of story, but i’m not sure if it’ll really come across as that. if you haven’t noticed i kinda just write and whatever comes out, comes out. As i mentioned above the pairing of the story might change as I’m still working on it. right now its heading in the direction of both the twins, but that’s not how i originally wanted it to go, so we’ll see. I hope you guys like what I have so far, I do want to make this into a small series so if you have any comments and/or suggestions please let me know - i would love hearing your thoughts! Xx

Taglist: @justmesadgirl @xuckduck @yikesyikesyikes95 @filipi-yes @aestheticwh0r3 @siredkai @matsuno-nadeshiko @msmarklee1213 @immajustreadwritereblog

^ let me know if you’d like to be added/removed!

“You pig-headed prats!” You holler, huffing as the infamous weasley twins ‘successfully’ pull off another prank, you as their target yet again.

“Oi, sweetheart. That’s a bit harsh for such a pretty lady.” Fred smirks.

“Shove off, weasley.” You hiss as you push through the two who were standing in front of you.

If you spent another minute near them you feared you’d find yourself in detention for a month. The two redheads had a way of thoroughly getting under your skin.

You’re not entirely sure what you’d done to them, but for the better part of two years now you had been the butt of many of their pranks. You’ve had everything from an itching charm put on your robes to mini fireworks exploding out of your books to the most recent of having your wand tampered with to cover you in slime instead of whatever spell you were trying to cast.

Besides that, the two had been beyond irritating to talk to. You could always find them laughing and joking with others, but they seemed much kinder than they were to you. That’s not to say that they were rude or mean to you in anyway, but their jokes and smart replies were definitely not what you needed after having been pranked.

“Y/n! Ohhh, what happened?” Your friend hermione called as you entered the common room, immediately sensing how pissed you were.

“The twins happened.” You grumble, gritting your teeth.

“I don’t know why they keep pranking you! I’ve talked them multiple times about it and I thought they had finally gotten it through their heads that it wasn’t funny.”

“Don’t worry about it, hermione. I think they were just born bloody annoying. It’s what they do and they know they’re good at it, so why stop? It’s not like we plan to be friends or anything any time soon anyway.” You huff, making your way up to your dorm.

“I know, y/n. I know. Just....let me talk to them again. I’ll make sure they stop. It’s not fair to you. Even harry and Ron get annoyed at them for it.”

“You don’t have to do that, ‘mione. I’ll just...start ignoring them, maybe that’ll get them to stop. They’re not worth my time of day anyway.”

“Alright, y/n. Well, let’s get you cleaned up. You are going to need help getting this out of your hair.”

~.~

“You two need to stop this prank thing against y/n. I’ve told you over and over, it’s not funny anymore. Do you know that it took at least five washings to get that slime out of her hair? Five!”

“Oh stop harping us, hermione. It’s not like we’re hurting her any.” Fred says, dismissing her disapproval.

“You’re not hurting her, but you’re certainly annoying all of us.” Ron says through a mouthful of breakfast.

“Why should we stop? It’s fun and honestly pretty great to get a rise out of her.” George smiles.

“Don’t you think she wonders why she’s being targeted? She is our friend, too, and you hardly prank any of us. Don’t you think she might feel a bit frustrated? Don’t you think she wonders why you two have such a vendetta against her?” Hermione pushes, becoming annoyed herself with them.

“We’ll bring it in a bit, but we’re not stopping. She’s just too easy to prank.” Fred finally offers.

“I wish you would stop completely. It’s honestly not fair to her in the slightest.” Hermione sighs, giving up for the time being.

The twins are stubborn and she knows she better take what they give her for now before they revoke their compromise to bring it back completely.

~.~

You groan to yourself as you listen to Professor Binns drone on about history. This was by far your least favourite class, even more so when you’ve had the week you’ve had.

It started monday when you woke up to a surprise visit from Aunt Flo to which you were very unprepared for. You had been meaning to get some more pads and tampons but had been so busy it had left your mind. Not only did it inconveniently arrive, it was also being a major witch this month. As soon as it hit you felt you were going to be sick. The amount of nausea you felt on top of how crampy and achy you were. You honestly felt like you had been run over by the hogwarts express.

Tuesday you had been surprised by a last minute exam that Snape decided to give out. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, except this really was not your week and hadn’t been able to remember the potions you were being quizzed on. You had just barely passed when you normally received the higher marks that snape rarely gave out.

Wednesday you had just had a very rough day. Everything you had tried to do backfired and you ended up creating more hassle for the professors and your friends than would normally be expected. You spent the day just feeling completely useless, which continued into thursday.

Then, so far today, you woke up late and forgot your tie which earned a deduction of house points. You had spilled a bunch of ingredients in potions which earned even more deducted house points and complete embarrassment. You felt completely disgusting today even though you’ve showered and still looked put together. And most recently, just after lunch you had found your boyfriend has been cheating on you.

To put it lightly, this was just a really bad day at the end of a very rough week. The only thing you’ve been able to be grateful for is that the twins have seemingly stopped pranking you.

They still made smart remarks that you were trying your best to ignore, but for the time being you haven’t found yourself in the middle of one of their pranks.

You’re not sure why, but at least you haven’t had to deal with them on top of everything else this week.

You had managed to get all the way through to dinner where you sat very tiredly. Hermione knew you’ve been having a rough week as you were roommates, but she wasn’t sure what exactly had been happening. You hadn’t been wanting to talk about it. Harry and Ron, however, could tell you were in no mood for anything else even without knowing you’ve had a rough week.

Unfortunately, the twins did not get the memo that this was not your best week and had decided today was the day they’d prank you after leaving you alone for a couple weeks.

they had been planning out how to do so for a few days now and were proud of what they had come with. therefore, It came as quite a surprise to the both of them when you broke out crying after setting a smoke bomb to go off when you lifted your fork.

The food had just been revealed to start dinner when you picked up your fork to grab a piece of ham from the platter in front of you.

Before you could realize what happened, the smoke bomb went off, completely covering you in soot and catching the attention of many of the students in the great hall.

Without being able to hold it in, you had started crying as Fred and George were laughing.

“What have I ever done to you? I’ve tried being nice and it always blows up in my face, quite literally right now.” You sigh, choking on your tears as you stand up from the table to leave.

Fred and George stop laughing when they hear you, their smiles dropping when they realize you had been crying. They watch as you hurry off, hoping to Merlin this encounter wasn’t being listened to and watched by everyone.

“Look what you two have done now! I told you to knock it off with all these pranks. You can’t ever listen though, can you Fred. George.” Hermione states, fuming at the red-headed twins as she gets up and follows after you.

“Oh bloody hell.” They both sigh in unison, slumping into the table.

“Bloody hell is right.” Ron says. “You really don’t want Hermione mad at you.”

“We’re not worried about hermione, mate.” Fred says, keeping his eyes on the door that y/n had left through.

“We just wanted to get her to smile.” George sighs sadly.

~.~

“Y/n!” Hermione calls as she catches up with you in the hall back to the common room.

“Please go, hermione.” You sniffle, wiping at your eyes.

“I’m not leaving my best friend out here crying all alone.” She huffs, crossing her arms as she looks at you.

“I know you had a bad week, but what’s happened? It must’ve been real bad if you break out crying like this, y/n.” She says after a minute or two.

“I’m just so tired, ‘mione.” You cry, shrinking into yourself in front of her.

you felt pathetic yet you couldn’t bring yourself to stop crying. you had been hiding it away all week and you just couldn’t do it anymore.

“Tell me what’s happened.” She urges, pulling you into a hug, her heart breaking for you. she cared for her friends more than anything, but it really broke her seeing you so upset. you were usually such a literal ray of sunshine to everyone around you, that it was painful to see you carrying so much pain.

“I’m so tired and achy and nauseous. All because I’m a bloody woman. I’ve been so unfocused that I’ve lost us so many house points. Well, more than I ever have,” you sob as hermione leads you over to a bench by the window.

“I practically failed that exam snape gave us this week and I made such a mess of his ingredients. He was so furious, hermione.” you whisper, your terrified eyes meeting hers as you recall the way he fumed over your mishap.

“I was so embarrassed. I’ve never done that terribly in his class.” you mumble.

“I’ve been nothing but a hassle to everyone around me this week and I just - I feel so bloody disgusting. It’s honestly no surprise I found my boyfriend cheating on me.” You sigh, crying more.

“He did what?!” Hermione gasped, sighing as you cry harder.

“He’s been cheating on me, ‘mione. For like two months at least! I feel so dumb and used. I really liked him, ‘mione, and he just....he just used me!”

“Take a breath, y/n. We don’t need you getting sick.” hermione urges, noticing how you’re choking for air through your sobs.

“A-and now I’m covered in soot all because the twins have something against me. I don’t know what I could have done! Why do they hate me so much?” You cry.

Fred and George frown as they hear you recount your week, having left dinner to come after you and apologize. They truly had no idea. If they did they wouldn’t have set up that smoke bomb.

“We really messed up, Fred.” George sighs, not being able to take his eyes off you as you cry in hermione’s arms.

“Yeah, we have. Come on, let’s go apologize and try to fix this.”

They make their way over to you and hermione who shoots daggers at them.

“Y/n, we’re sorry. We-“

“Would you two get out of here? You’re some of the last people she wants to see right now.” Hermione states, knowing that the twins are beyond sorry and just want to make sure you’re all right, but taking your emotional needs as her priority.

she knew that they had a bit of a crush on you even though they had never said a thing on the topic. it wasn’t hard to miss, however, when she noticed how often they’d stare at you from across the room, smiling dumbly to themselves and zoning out. it was quite adorable, actually, but she did wonder how they ever thought pranking you was the way to your heart.

“We didn’t know you’ve had such a bad week.” Fred sighs, ignoring hermione.

You start crying harder at the mention of your week. You just wanted it to end. you wanted to curl up in your bed, tucked tightly into the blankets and listen to some comforting sad songs while you cry.

“Fred, George, go back to dinner. I’m taking y/n to our room. She needs to be left alone for awhile.” hermione orders, helping you to stand even though you don’t want to. all your energy has been drained from your body so even lifting an arm to wipe at your tears felt like it was the most difficult task in the world.

The twins sigh, but nod, knowing it’s the truth. Having them around wouldn’t help anything, but they felt so guilty. they just wanted you to understand that they don’t hate you, but rather the complete opposite.

They had never wanted to upset you when they started pranking you. In fact they both saw you as a friend and had a bit of a crush on you that they couldn’t understand. Sure you were beautiful, beyond kind, and a little bit of a fireball, but you were just a girl. neither of them were quite sure when they had started feeling and thinking it, but even though they tried to tell themselves that you were, they knew deep down you weren’t just some girl.

They really aren’t the greatest with their feelings though, especially when their beyond confused with them, and decided pranking you was the best way to show that they liked you. They never prank you to be mean, they just want to make you laugh and see you smile.

~.~

Hermione had gotten you into bed after having you shower and change into some comfy clothes.

She had left to go get herself some dinner and promised she’d be back soon to see how you were holding up.

You had told her not to worry about bringing anything back for you. Instead you were just going to curl up and go to sleep.

You heard a knock on your door and sighed. You didn’t really want to talk to anyone, even hermione. You hummed out however to notify the person on the other side of the door that you were listening.

You hear your door creak open a bit and hear some footsteps enter.

“Y/n? Uh, Fred and I brought you some dinner. Hermione said you didn’t want anything, but you can’t just not eat.” You hear George say, cautiously stepping over to your bed. his voice was filled with concern which you thought odd, but couldn’t care enough to think about too long.

You hear Fred shut the door but you don’t bother looking at either of them. You’re far too numb to care at this moment.

“Y/n?” George asks after not getting a response. he didn’t think you were sleeping, but he wasn’t sure.

“Thanks. Just, set it on my trunk. Or my night table. I’m not really hungry right now.” You mumble, still not bothering to look at either of them.

“H-how are you holding up?” Fred asks, fidgeting in his place.

“Why do you care? You’ve never cared before. Either of you.”

Both the twins sigh, looking at the other with guilt written all over their faces. they’re well aware how they come across to you, but it was truly a complete misunderstanding.

“We know we made you the target of our pranks more often than not, but we weren’t trying to be mean. We just, we really wanted to make you smile. Make you laugh.” Fred sighs.

“Did quite a job at it, huh?” You ask, still staring straight ahead. You don’t have the energy to turn to look at them. And truthfully, you didn’t really want to.

“We-we’re sorry. We had no idea how bad of a week you’ve had. We, uh, we heard you tell hermione everything.” George states, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It doesn’t matter that it was this week.” you deadpan, “It’s the fact that I’ve never once enjoyed your pranks on me. It was pretty obvious, so why would you continue?” You ask, getting a bit irritated at the two twins.

“Well, uh. I-I don’t know. We’re dumb.” Fred answers.

“No, you’re not. You both are so brilliant that I’ve been jealous of you at times, but you just don’t care about school. You’d rather use all your brilliance on tormenting poor classmates or make a girl cry than apply yourselves to classes.”

You knew you weren’t being fair, but you were fed up with everything. You wanted to be left alone. you couldn’t handle socializing, much less able to handle these two trying to make up for what they’d done for years only after you broke down crying.

“No, we never wanted to make you cry. Merlin we feel so guilty that we did.” Fred tries to argue, but is promptly cut off.

“So you really don’t care, do you? You’re just trying to make yourselves feel better.” You say, finally looking over at them, a fire blazing behind your eyes. Both of them look like deer caught in headlights, not sure whether to stay put or run and in which direction if they did.

You watch as Fred gulps nervously as George opens and closes his mouth trying to find the words to not make things worse.

Even though they can’t meet your eyes, mainly because they’re scared of the anger within them, they notice just how awful you look. Not in the sense that you’re unattractive, because Merlin even now you were gorgeous, but awful in the sense of how absolutely heartbroken you look. It truly looks like your soul has been ripped from your body and your heart crushed to pieces.

Your eyes are bloodshot and puffy, your nose red from blowing it into the rough tissues on your bedside table, tear tracks etched into your cheeks almost looking like spilled ink that had run across a piece of parchment.

They can see how tired you are, and how much sadness you’re still holding in. They wish more than anything that they could comfort you, but you were making it very clear that you didn’t want them here.

“Can you please just go? I don’t really feel like keeping company.” You sigh, turning back away from them.

They both nod, even though you can’t see them. Turning to walk away, they stop to look over your form once again. They’ve never seen you so heartbroken and it scared them. You had been a light in their lives, happiness radiating from inside you constantly spreading warm that reached deep into their souls. it hurt seeing that light extinguished.

“We’re really sorry, y/n. For everything.” George sighs, him and fred leaving you to yourself.

#harry potter #harry potter fluff #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfiction #hogwarts #hogwarts imagine #fred weasley #george weasley #fred and george weasley #fred weasley imagine #george wealsey imagine #weasley twins #fred and george weasley x reader #fred weasley x reader #george weasley x reader #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers #series??

696 notes · View notes

dameronology · 4 years

Text

love in the time of p.t.a meetings {marcus moreno} - 2/5

summary: your kid has taken a liking to marcus moreno - and frankly, so have you {series masterlist}

warnings: swearing, mentions of divorce & very brief mentions of his wife’s death

i don’t normally update series this quickly but this was originally one imagine that reached about 11k words lmao so it’s all written, just being split up. i’ve also decided it’s gonna be 5 parts instead of 3, cos i reread the ending and realised i was not done by a longshot. enjoy!

- jazz

Mondays. You hated ‘em.

Everything just seemed so...amplified. The peace and relaxation of the weekend was over and everyone had to go back on the grind. The traffic always seemed worst, the clock seemed to tick backwards and you just wanted to be at home, in bed. After an incident involving the dog, a toaster and a small pan fire, you were already running twenty minutes late and you knew in your soul that your child’s shoes weren’t on the right feet. That, and also he was wearing a Chewbacca onesie to school. It had been a compromise. As in, he was refusing to go to school unless you let him wear the damn thing. It was a compromise. You’d lost.

On the bright side, the past weekend had been the best you’d had in a long time. Jack had spent all of Saturday afternoon at the Heroics headquarters and he was so worn out, he’d slept through all of Sunday. Marcus Moreno must have a been a fucking wizard, because you’d been trying to tire the kid out for five years. You made a mental note to do something in return, though you sensed there was nothing on God’s green earth that could possibly amount to babysitting the world’s most exhausting child for six hours. You were allowed to say that, because Jack was your world’s most exhausting child and you wouldn’t have changed him for anything.

‘New week, huh buddy?’ You glanced at Jack in your rear view mirror. He was sat on his booster seat, legs dangling back and forth and a power ranger action figure in his hand. ‘A fresh start.’

‘Can we listen to the song from Cars?’ Jack ignored your comment.

‘You gotta try and behave yourself this week. You’ve seen what happens to people who do follow the rules, right? They get to go work at the Heroics-’

‘- I wanna listen to the song from Cars!’

You wanted to have a deep conversation. Jack wanted to listen to Life Is A Highway. That was...actually, it was exactly how you’d expected that to go. It wasn’t that off of the time you were trying to explain your divorce to him and he’d interrupted you to demand that you put Toy Story on.

‘Sure thing, kid.’ You rolled your eyes, reaching across to hand him on your phone. ‘D’you know how to spell it-’

Your sentence was cut off by the sound of guitars blaring from the speakers. At least he could work out Spotify.

By some miracle, you managed to make it the school with a few minutes to spare. Because most people had dropped their kids off earlier (see: on time), the lot was pretty empty. That meant you could once again dump your car without regard for the painted white lines -- who had time to park properly on a Monday morning? That was for people who had their shit together.

Leaping out the car, you almost cursed when you tripped over your heels. You didn’t have to wear them, but since you’d started working in a managerial role at your office, you figured it made you look a little more professional. And what was the harm in being a few inches taller? It made you feel powerful.

‘C’mon, J.’ You pulled open the back door, helping Jack leap out the car.

‘You know, I’m starting to think you can’t park your car at all.’

‘Marcus!’ Jack practically flew out the car, his tiny body suddenly jolting with excitement.

‘Morning, buddy.’ He replied; he then moved his brown eyes to gaze at you, offering a smile. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey, how you doing?’ You greeted him. ‘I don’t normally see you here in the mornings.’

‘Yeah, I normally drop Missy off at the front but it was one of those mornings, you know? She was taking a little more convincing than usual to go in.’

‘My kid is in a Wookiee onesie and backwards Thomas the Tank Engine shoes and you have the audacity to ask me if I know those mornings? I am those mornings.’ You replied.

Marcus chuckled. ‘I think it’s a look. I especially like the Lightning McQueen sunglasses.’

‘Do you have a super suit?’ Jack asked. ‘Can I try it on?’

‘C’mon, Jack. You’ve already managed to get a tour of the HQ.’ You ruffled his hair. ‘And we gotta get going to school.’

‘But I wanna ask more questions.’ He muttered. ‘I have over a hundred.’

‘Don’t I know it.’ You murmured under your breath. ‘But school is more important.’

‘I don’t wanna go anymore.’

‘I let you wear the onesie. That was our agreement, remember?’

‘All good superheroes have to get an education.’ Marcus reasoned. ‘And if you go in, maybe I can show you my suit at some point?’

'Okay!’ Jack grinned. He wrapped his arms around your waist in a quick hug, before peering up at you with a toothy smile. ‘See ya later!’

He turned on his heel and ripped his backpack from your hand, suddenly speeding up the path and towards school. Had...had that just happened? For once in your life, had you not had to wrench him from the car and wrestle him through the school gates? Move aside, Harry Potter, because Marcus Moreno was the new wizard in town. You might have been a little jealous that he was so good with your son but at the same time, it made you like him even more. He was the first parent at the school that had leant into Jack’s wild tendencies. And, whilst you tried not to think too much about it, even his own dad had struggled to do that. It made your heart warm a little.

‘You are seriously my favourite person.’ You chimed, leaning back against your car.

‘Kids with character are way more fun than kids who are well-behaved.’ Marcus replied.

‘I spent forty-five minutes scraping string cheese out the USB port of my computer yesterday, but sure.’

He chuckled. ‘No, I’m serious. I don’t encourage Missy to misbehave but she does get herself into some situations. I choose to see it as a testament to her intelligence rather than disobedience.’

‘I refuse to believe for a second that Missy ever misbehaves.’ You shot back back. ‘She seems so well-behaved.’

‘What you see in the parking lot is not a reflection of our whole lives.’ He reminded you.

‘Right, because despite appearances, I’m actually a very put together parent.’ You snorted. ‘But I get what you mean.’

‘I gotta get to work now, but it was good to see you.’ Marcus pulled his car keys out his pocket. ‘I was serious about that suit thing, by the way. He saw my katanas on Saturday.’

‘Katanas?’ You spluttered. ‘My kid managed to start a fire last week out of nothing and you want to give him katanas?!’

‘Maybe I can show you how to use them.’ He flashed you a smile. ‘And then you can pass on the knowledge.’

‘That’s probably an even worse idea.’ You shook your head with a laugh, pulling open your car door. ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘You as well. Have a good day, pretty lady.’

Did you stop thinking about your exchange at any point during the day? Absolutely not. In fact, you’d already written an email to the local deed poll office to change your legal name to Pretty Lady.

No, but in all seriousness, you’d been a little giddy about it. Had he been flirting? That didn’t seem like a long shot. You got on well, you’d hung out a bit over the weekend and not to toot your own horn, but you were by no means bad looking. Tired and a little frazzled, sometimes? Yeah. But anyone would have been lucky to have you and you were doing a better job at recognising that, especially since your divorce.

You were almost ecstatic when it got to 4PM and you hadn’t received a single call from Jack’s teachers. That meant that he had behaved, and what Marcus had said had worked. Because you worked past his finishing time, he usually went to the after-school club till you could come to collect him - it had been a lifesaver, especially since you couldn’t always leave early. He usually came home with some kind of weird arts and crafts. Last week, it had been an unidentifiable item made of dried macaroni and glitter. He’d placed it pridefully on the old fireplace in your lounge.

After saying goodbye to your co-workers, you headed out the building. Your office was right in the city centre and not too far out from the school. It was a nice place to be; your lunch hour, when you could head out to a street cart and eat your food in the local park, was usually the highlight of your day. It was when you could exist just as you. When you were at work, you were in charge on your entire department. When you were home, you were a parent 24/7. That time to yourself was vital.

As you were heading to your car, your phone began to ring. Your heart almost jumped out your chest when you saw Marcus’ name - he hadn’t called you before, only texted to sort out the previous weekend’s plans with Jack. You quickly organised yourself (he couldn’t see you, dumb ass) and cleared your throat.

‘Hey, everything alright?’ You brightly greeted him.

‘Hey! Are you out of work now?’

‘Yeah, I’m literally just leaving. What’s up?’

‘Look, I hate to do this but I’ve had an emergency at work - superhero related, you don’t wanna know - and I’m not gonna be out for hours.’ Marcus sounded stressed. Yeah, I feel that you thought. ‘Would you be able to pick up Missy and possibly have her for a few hours? If not, that’s totally-’

‘- I’d be glad too!’ You interrupted him. ‘I owe you one anyways for the weekend. And this morning, actually.’

‘You don’t owe me anything.’ He sounded surprised that you’d even imply it. ‘But I will definitely owe you for having Missy.’

‘Hey, it’s cool!’ You insisted. ‘Do you want me to drop her off at yours later?’

‘I can come and collect her if you text me your address?’

‘Perfect.’ You smiled. ‘I’ll see you later then?’

‘You’re a lifesaver.’ Marcus said. ‘I’ll text Missy to let her know to find your car instead of mine. I would ask for your plate number, but your car is...’

‘...bright red, covered in dents and hard to miss?’ You finished his sentence.

‘Exactly.’

You’d been in the same situation before; pulled between work and parenting, with Jack stuck at school and an important meeting that felt like it was never ending. It was hard to get a sitter on such short notice - or afford one, sometimes - and it was just another one of the million, stressful situations that single parenting could get you into. If you could help Marcus even a little bit, of course you were going to. You knew he’d do the same for you. Heck, he had done the same for you.

Jack and Missy were both chatty on the way home. Given that she was a little older than him, her conversational skills were strikingly better. It was nice to ask someone about their day and not get where are my Cheetos? as an answer. From what you gathered, she hated science class, enjoyed gym, and her favourite subject was lunch. That didn’t come as a surprise to you - her dad was a literal superhero and probably encouraged physical activity.

(You’d seen his arms, okay? They were more than enough to go on. I digress).

The only thing that made you wish you’d had a little more notice on having her for the evening was the state of your apartment. The place wasn’t bad; you’d lived there for the better part of eight years, and it was crammed with soft furniture and millions of blankets, as well as photos of you and Jack and his questionable art projects. It was just that you hadn’t done the dishes that morning, there was a mountain of shoes by the door and the pancakes from the previous night were still stuck on the roof.

Missy barely blinked an eye; the minute she saw your dog, she’d abandoned her bag and was playing with him.

‘Hey buddy!’ She grinned. ‘What’s he called?’

‘That’s Oppy.’ You replied, hanging your jacket up. She didn’t need to know that it was short for Optimus Prime. No guesses on whose idea that had been.

‘He’s so cute!’ Missy continued. ‘I’ve been asking dad for a dog for ages but he won’t budge.’

For some reason, that surprised you a little. Marcus might have been the leader of a super-hero team and a public figure, but you could tell he would do anything for his daughter. You knew because it was the same for you with Jack. He might have ruled your whole life but you would have hung the damn stars in the sky for him if he asked

‘They’re a lot of work.’ You reasoned. ‘I have to wake up every morning at 6AM to make sure he gets a walk. Then there’s the matter of-’

‘- mum! Optimus Prime pooped in the bathroom!’

‘The matter of that.’ You murmured under your breath.

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly. You fed the kids some leftover takeaway and between the dog and Netflix, they were easily entertained. Jack seemed to take a liking to Missy, which was good because it meant he wanted to sit with her the entire time instead of bouncing off the walls. She had the same patience as her dad, especially when he asked her a million questions about superheroes. It took her twenty minutes to convince him that Batman wasn’t her uncle, and a further fifteen to make him believe that she hadn’t met Captain America.

Jack had asked you a few times about whether or not he would get siblings. Of course, it would be different to any interactions with Missy because he would have been the oldest, but it did get you thinking. You were finally in a place where you were moving past your former relationship and healing from the wounds. Time wasn’t much of an issue either - you’d had Jack when you were young and barely out of college. You couldn’t possibly imagine having any more kids right now, not when it was just the two of you, but in the future? You’d never rule out meeting somebody new. If anything, you were hopeful. Your first relationship had been your only one, and it had ended badly. You wanted to experience love for what it actually was, and not what you thought it was supposed to be.

Not long after 7PM, there was a knock on your door. By that point, both Missy and Jack had passed out on the sofa with Star Wars playing quietly in the background. It had been her idea to watch it - she had good taste. Marcus had clearly done a good job.

‘Hey!’ You greeted him as you pulled open the front door. ‘Come in quick, it’s fucking freezing out there.’

‘Thank you.’ Marcus came inside, dusting a few snow flakes out his hair. ‘Seriously, I can’t say it enough-’

‘- it’s fine!’ You shook your head, offering him a smile. ‘Missy’s been great. She’s really chatty and it was nice to have a coherent conversation with someone that isn’t about Paw Patrol. But was everything at the office okay?’

He was quiet for a minute. ‘Yeah. We uh, we lost someone. A hero.’

‘Shit, man. I’m sorry.’ Your voice fell quiet. ‘You wanna come in? You look like you could probably take a moment.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course! Missy and Jack are both asleep on the couch anyways.’ You pointed through to the living room. Marcus leant over to have a look, smiling slightly at the sight.

‘Thank you. I’d appreciate that.’

He took a seat at the kitchen counter. Your old bar stools were a little old and wobbly, but Marcus didn’t seem to notice. If anything, he admired the place. It was cluttered as hell and filled with useless, old items - cook books you didn’t use, random magnets, assorted toys - but it was nice. His house always felt a little cold and clinical. He’d moved a lot over the course of Missy’s life and now that he was retired from the field, he’d sworn to her that their current house was going to be permanent. Whether or not it felt like home was another question entirely.

‘I would offer you a drink but all I have is..’ you paused, opening the fridge. ‘Nesquik, vodka or apple juice.’

‘You know what? A Nesquik doesn’t sound too bad.’

‘I like your thinking, Moreno.’

After quickly fixing up the two drinks, you slid into the seat beside him and handed him one. You had never in a million years imagined a situation where Marcus Moreno would be in your kitchen drinking chocolate milk, but here we were. It had clearly been a long day for him and you had enough of those to last a lifetime, so you knew how it felt. Coming home after a day that had beat your ass into the ground and having to put on a brave face for your kids was difficult at best.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ You gently asked.

‘Yeah, I’ll be okay - it just always fucks me up a bit.’ Marcus murmured quietly. ‘Hits a little too close to home.’

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that you knew what had happened to his wife. You knew why he’d retired, and why he and Missy had moved away from their original city six years ago.

‘Sorry, that was too deep-’

‘- it wasn’t!’ You quickly cut him off. ‘I’ve had random women come up to me at pick up time and say they’re sorry to hear about my divorce. People I don’t even know. So really, after that, nothing is too much.’

He smiled slightly. ‘They always say they’re sorry but why would you bring up a subject if you have to apologise for it?’

‘Exactly!’ You replied. ‘Especially when I’ve moved on. It’s been a year.’

‘It’s the same with me. Missy and I miss her everyday but we don’t mope about it. We just...we look back with fondness on the good memories we have. You can’t move forward if you’re stuck in the past, no matter how much it sucks.’

‘That’s...that’s wise.’ You blinked in surprise. ‘S’pose that means I should take down the dartboard I have with my ex’s face on.’

‘From what I’ve heard, he seems like he should have more than a dart board.’ Marcus snorted - then he froze. ‘Wait, not that I’ve heard stuff, I mean...I don’t listen-’

‘- Marcus!’ You whacked his arm. ‘It’s fine. One of the other kid’s mums started telling me about the terrible divorce someone was going through but she realised she was gossiping to the one who was going through it.’

‘I don’t know how much of what I’ve been told is true, but it sounds like it was bad.’ His hand hovered over where yours was rested on the counter.

‘The rumours pretty much get the gist of it.’ You replied. ‘But we were talking about your thing, so I don’t wanna take away from that.’

‘Hey, it’s okay.’ He finally moved his hand, fingers gently curling underneath yours to intertwine them. ‘If even half of the whispers are true, he sounds like an asshole. You and Jack both deserve better than that.’

Whatever people had said, it had sort of covered the gist of it. You’d married too young and had a kid too young - your ex had been a terrible husband and an even worst husband. He’d chastised Jack for being...well, being Jack. He’d stay out late with his friends, spend money on things neither of you needed and tried to make you take the blame for it all. After giving him a few too many chances, you’d finally reached breaking point and kicked him out. Filing for divorce and taking on being a single parent was single-handedly the hardest and bravest thing you’d ever had to do. In a way, you were glad you’d done it when Jack was still so young - he didn’t really understand any of it, even when you’d try to explain it in child friendly terms.

‘I think people judge me for it a little sometimes.’ You confessed. ‘They see me struggling but they know I made the choice to separate from him, like I brought it all on myself.’

‘That’s bullshit.’ Marcus plainly stated. ‘Parenthood isn’t a dependent thing based on whether or not you’re still married to the other parent. It’s unconditional and permanent.’

‘I should tell him that, but I also don’t want him back in our lives.’

‘I know it’s none of my business, but he doesn’t deserve Jack. He’s one of the best and brightest kids I’ve ever met.’

‘Thank you. I’m glad he doesn’t seem like a complete lunatic.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you either.’ Marcus continued. ‘Again, I might be out of place saying this but you are...you’re amazing. I was a wreck when I was suddenly on my own and you’re still holding everything together and working your ass off.’

‘You’ve noticed?’ You quirked an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, in passing.’ He admitted. ‘I remember I once saw you carrying three separate science projects at once and then Carol made a passing comment that you were on your own and...I just kinda admired you from afar.’

‘You, Marcus Moreno, admired me?’ You blinked at him in disbelief. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I wish I’d had my shit together half as much as you did when I lost Missy’s mum.’

‘But the difference is you didn’t have a choice in your situation. I chose to boot his dad out-’

‘- you gotta stop discrediting yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘And stop blaming yourself. You did what was right for your kid and that is the most admirable thing of all.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so.’

The conversation slowly drizzled away, leaving you two to just look at each other. It was hard to tear yourself away from his brown eyes - there was a lot going on behind them. Fear, pain, anguish, admiration. He was one of the most mind-blowingly impressive people you’d ever met; single dad, superhero, electric car owner. He probably didn’t have a mortgage too and that was kinda hot. You were none of those things and yet, here he was, with you, managing to connect on a level that you never had with anyone. Both of your situations were tough, but they’d brought you together.

Marcus Moreno was pretty fucking fearless (came with the job, you figured), and he wasn’t afraid to make the first move. He slowly inched his head forward and in return, you gravitated towards him. Your lips met halfway in a soft kiss, his hands moving to firmly hold your waist as he pulled you closer.

You almost stumbled out your chair with the movement, but his grip on your hips meant you didn’t slip. Instead, he placed you up on the counter, standing up as he did. It took you a moment to adjust to the position, but with your legs resting on either side of his, you could reach forward and lean on him. You had one hand tangled in his hair and the other on the back of his neck - you’d surprised yourself with that. It had been months since you’d kissed anyone, but you weren’t as rusty as you thought.

‘Oh my god, is the superhero gonna be my new dad?!’

Marcus suddenly jumped backwards at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was stood in the doorway, post-nap hair covered by a lopsided Chewbacca hood. His eyes were like dinner plates, even though he was grinning from ear to ear.

‘Uh...’ you glanced between him and Marcus. ‘We were just...we were...’

‘I had something in my eye.’

‘He had something in his eye.’ You quickly agreed. ‘But now it’s out, so Marcus is gonna go home.’

He knew you didn’t mean it rudely - it was more of a desperation thing. The longer he stayed, the more questions Jack would come out with. Missy could have overheard too and that would have been twice as much to explain. So really, the sooner he got out, the better.

‘Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll grab Missy.’ Marcus said, scratching the back of his head. ‘Thank you again for looking after her.’

‘You don’t need to keep thanking me.’ You shot back.

He disappeared into the living room for a moment, reemerging with a sleeping Missy in his arms a moment later. Your eyes met again, and he gave you a soft smile.

‘I’ll call you.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ You nodded. ‘See you, Marcus.’

True to character, the next hour was spent being pelted with questions from your over-curious son. He didn’t shut up once when you were bathing him and he got even louder when you were reading him his best time story. On the bright side, you’d managed to get him to change out of his slightly manky Wookiee onesie and into a clean Buzz Lightyear one. Normally, you would have argued that he couldn’t live in pyjamas, but if it kept him quiet? It was a price you were willing to pay.

‘Night, kiddo.’ You pressed a kiss to his forehead, switching on his nightlight. ‘Remember our deal, yeah? If I buy you a Happy Meal tomorrow, you won’t mention what you saw to any of your friends?’

‘You said library was bad.’

‘No, it’s bribery.’ You corrected him. ‘And do as I say, not as I do.’

‘Sounds bad, but okay.’ He sleepily murmured. ‘Night.’

‘Night.’ You stood up, flicking out his bedroom lights.

‘Wait, mum!’ Jack suddenly sat up, as though he’d remembered something. ‘You never said no.’

‘No to what, buddy?’

‘When I asked if the superhero was my new dad.’

Well, fuck.

taglist: @naivara-duneimith @1-2-3-4-5metalfingers @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky @lyanna-the-giantsbane @phoenixhalliwell @crazycookiecrumbles @bitchin-beskar @comphersjost {message me to be added!}

#marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno imagine #marcus moreno x you #marcus moreno x y/n #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character headcanons #pedro pascal characters x reader

376 notes · View notes

startanewdream · 4 years

Text

Into her sleep

This is me writing Hinny smut (or any kind of smut) for the first time, so, you know, be gentle? Thoughts and suggestions are appreciated!

And because I can’t write pure happiness, it’s more of an wankst (wangst?) than anything else.

__________________

Summary: “...after a while Harry found himself taking it out simply to stare at Ginny's name in the girl's dormitory, wondering whether the intensity with which he gazed at it might break into her sleep, that she would somehow know he was thinking about her, hoping that she was all right.”

In which, unlike Harry thought, Ginny was not sleeping.

Rated M, so below the cut:

__________________

It’s well past midnight when Ginny finally finishes her shower and leaves the bathroom. For a few seconds, she just stands on the door, hearing the soft breaths of her sleeping friends, but her eyes are on the two empty beds. Anne and Janet didn’t return to Hogwarts this year. They are both Muggleborns; she hopes, as she does every time she sees their beds, that they just fled with their families.

The alternative is too painful to think about.

And if there is something Ginny’s been understanding lately is pain.

Not that she should be complaining today. By Alecto Carrow’s standards, her detention was easy, but then Alecto is much more smooth than her brothers. Alecto likes her venomous words and, unfortunately, she had finally heard more about Ginny’s relationship with Harry.

Ginny supposes she was lucky if there is such a thing in her life now. But she had three free months in Hogwarts without the Carrows knowing more of her connection with Harry than the fact that her family was close with him; why Snape didn’t mention it to them - or why he didn’t question her himself - she is too tired to guess.

She should’ve known there was something weird when she entered that room on the fifth floor and Alecto was waiting for her with a sweet smile. Ginny had faced other detentions with Alecto - she’d endured a few rounds of the Cruciatus Curse, had felt the pain of a quill cutting her skin, had blacked out once after being thrown in the room - but she had never feared Alecto as then, with that smile that did not fit the room with chains and spots of blood.

‘You’ll clean up today. Muggle style, since you love them so much’, Alecto had said, pointing to a bucket and a mop.

After so many detentions, Ginny just nodded. She knew that her silence annoyed the Carrows more than when she’d scream to them, so she just concentrated on her task, trying to stop her thoughts of who had been bloodied in that room. Not a pure-blood, sure, they were so protective of them. Maybe a First Year, someone who was as innocent as she'd been before the darkness had tried to wrap her…

‘I heard you used to date Harry Potter’, Alecto said then, and when Ginny didn’t answer, she snorted. ‘Maybe you forgot to mention early when I asked you about him’.

Ginny tried to control her breathing. She’d know a moment like that would come up sometime.

‘It was nothing’, she said without looking up. ‘We were just messing around. He dated other girls’.

The truth is far from it, but Ginny expects her apathy is enough to convince Alecto.

‘I see’, said Alecto and for a second Ginny thought she had believed. ‘So he just used you then he dumped you’.

That was low and they both knew it; there was no good answer for Ginny, so she just kept her head down, trying to clean the floor as fast as she could.

‘Boys are after one thing only, you should have known better’, Alecto continued, and Ginny could hear the mocking tone in her voice, could now understand her sweet smile. This was her real punishment. ‘You’ll be lucky if any Pureblood accepts you after you are… profaned’.

Ginny bit her lips to keep from screaming with so much strength she felt the iron taste of blood on her mouth. Alecto was talking as if Ginny was dirty and no matter the fact that she and Harry never had time to really be together, she knew that nothing she’d ever do with Harry would be stained.

But Alecto didn’t deserve to know anything about her relationship with Harry. That was one thing that nothing - not Tom, not that Dark Regime, not the Carrows - would take away from her. The memory of the way his green eyes spark when he laughs. That dimple in his face when he’s smiling shyly. The way his hair is even messier after he lands from a flight. The determined expression on his face the first time they kissed. The way his eyes had darkened that night when she’d opened her shirt, had taken out her bra -

Perhaps it was the fact that it happened also in an empty classroom, a lifetime ago, but somehow this specific memory stayed with Ginny, protecting her almost as a Patronus against Alecto’s increasingly obscene comments. It was almost easy to turn off Alecto’s voice and after that, Alecto’s fun seemed to be dispersed. She discharged Ginny with a disdainful look, but Ginny didn’t notice for once; when she met Neville in the Common Room and he looked at her with concern (that’s the only kind of look they share these days), she’d been almost truthful when she told him she was okay.

‘I just need a bath’, said Ginny, and Neville nodded, understanding.

Ginny stayed under the hot water for a long time, as if the heat could clean away the filthiness that the Carrow’s presence always brought to her - it was worse than the blood that made her scrub her hands almost to raw skin, it was their evil dark magic. It reminded her of Tom’s diary and that’s the worst part for Ginny.

So she concentrated on her memories of Harry, letting the pure raw emotions she’d felt with him draw the heaviness of the day away.

It had worked for her shower, but as Ginny lays down on her bed, closing the curtains around her except for an opening where the moonlight enters, the stress returns as always.

She is tired and she feels tired. She can’t complain, though, because people look up to her to not give up. Neville and Luna are counting on her as much as she’s counting on them. Neither can fall.

But somehow Alecto Carrow’s voice still echoes in her mind and Ginny closes her fists, feeling her fingernails in her flesh, using the pain to draw away Alecto’s laugh that Harry used and dumped her.

‘No’, she whispers, hearing her voice. Her voice is real. Her relationship with Harry was - is - real. ‘He cares for me’.

She repeats it to herself as many times as she can, until Alecto’s voice is far away in her mind, no more than an annoying fly. Quietly, Ginny takes the Gryffindor scarf she always keeps by her bedside and hugs it close to her body, feeling its scent.

Even after five months, the scarf still has Harry’s scent.

She sniffs it, letting that musky smell fill her nostril, until she shamelessly wraps the scarf around one of her pillows, hugging it, pretending it’s Harry she’s with. It’s only imagination, of course - she doesn’t have a memory of sleeping like this with Harry, but she wonders if he would cuddle her, if she would caress his hair until he falls asleep first, if he would wake her with soft kisses - she likes to think she would giggle them, marvelling at the fact they were together...

That’s what hurts her the most. All the questions that she doesn’t have an answer to only because there wasn’t enough time.

When these thoughts come, Ginny admonishes herself. Be grateful for what you had together, she says firmly, and waits for what will come in the future. She can do both.

She bits her lips carefully to not reopen her wound, and she hesitates just one second before grabbing her wand from below her pillow.

‘Muffliato!’, she whispers, pointing from one occupied bed then to the other one, her mind already remembering Harry casting the same spell after pushing her to that deserted classroom seven months ago. Her heart beats faster, just as it had then, thrilled by the fact that Harry was the one being bold then.

He’d been so innocent at first, so careful with her and with her boundaries that in the first weeks it was Ginny that had been the one to pull him into empty broom cupboards, who had coached him to wait for her in the Common Room so they could have a moment together alone on that couch in front of the fireplace.

But that night Harry was the one who had searched for her in the library and had called her for a night stroll. Ginny had accepted eagerly and it had been so worthy.

She touches her lips, feeling the ghost of Harry’s mouth over hers - the moment the door had closed, Harry had spent two seconds casting a protective spell on the door and then he’d kissed her as if he’d stayed away from her for years rather than since breakfast. His mouth had been hungry, demanding, and for once it was Ginny that was matching his excitement instead of the other way around.

‘I’ve missed you so much’, he’d whispered, his mouth inches from hers only enough so those words could slip away, and even then it had sounded more as groan than anything.

Their time together had been scarcely on these last few days, with her exams starting and Harry not wanting to disturb her in this final stage. They had barely a time together - other than a good morning kiss and a brush of lips before she went to bed, exhausted, and Harry had not once complained; he was too noble for that.

The fact that he was asking - almost demanding - a few minutes for them - of her - brought Ginny an elation she’d missed amongst all stress from her exams.

Ginny remembers how she had pressed herself even closer to Harry, and how he had lifted her until she was sitting in one of the tables, with him standing in front of her, their heads for once in the same level. It had been exhilarating, but she had wanted more back then and she wants more now.

Just like that day, her hand trembles slightly when she opens the button of her shirt. With her eyes closed, she can visualize how Harry’s eyes had widened when she took off her shirt, then had darkened when she had removed her bra; he had seemed so torn between his evident desire and his nobility. He had already felt her up during their fumblings on broom cupboards, both above and below her blouse, but this was the first time he was really seeing her naked skin and Ginny would have hexed him mercilessly if he’d dared ruin the moment. Harry didn’t.

She takes off her shirt and the light breeze makes her nipples harden, just how it happened then - or maybe then it was the pure adoration in Harry’s eyes, how he seemed entranced beyond words seeing her naked chest. With an almighty effort, he’d looked in her eyes, asking silently, desperately, if he could touch her, and she had nodded in silence.

Her hand cups her breast, just like Harry did; her hand is less warm than Harry’s had been, but it doesn’t matter. She can reproduce how he’d touched her, carefully as if he thought he could break her - as if he couldn't see the shivers his touch was causing -, before his thumb caressed her nipple; just as before, she lets out a soft moan and the sound excites her now as much as it seemed to excite Harry. Now both of her hands are cupping her breasts, playing with the nipples, letting small waves of excitement flow through her.

She can’t reproduce what Harry did then - how he’d lowered his head until he was kissing her neck, then her collarbone, then the top of her breasts as he’d already done before, enjoying the cleavage of her summer top. But Harry had lowered his head even more, not stopping his kisses, until he’d taken her nipple in his mouth and pleasure had left her out of breath for a few moments, as if there wasn’t anything else in the world but the feeling of his tongue teasing her nipple, his mouth sucking it lightly then harder. She had moaned, not caring of how she had sounded, and Harry seemed to correctly take that as approval; his other hand had gone back to cup her breast, squeezing with the same amount of gentleness and roughness and -

And then they had stopped because there were sounds outside the door and they had thirty seconds - during which Harry thrown his Invisibility Cloak above them - before Filch had opened the door and looked around with mistrust.

But just as Ginny cannot reproduce Harry’s mouth on her nipples, she also doesn’t need to stop now. She wishes there were memories - she certainly tried on his birthday -, but if there aren’t, then she can let her imagination take over of what it would have happened if no one had interrupted.

She lowers her hand, below her waist that Harry had enjoyed holding while they kissed, until her hand slips under her panties. She is not as wet as she can be, but she imagines how Harry would be patient, how he’d be so gentlemanly touching her carefully until he was sure he wasn’t crossing any limits she wasn’t comfortable with.

She touches her more sensible spot, feeling another wave of pleasure, and she wishes it was Harry - with his calloused hands, long Seeker fingers - touching her now, making those gentle circles that make her want more. He wouldn’t know exactly what spot she liked most, but Ginny could show him - and Harry would be an eager student, a fast learner.

If they weren’t interrupted, she thinks she would let him touch her even more; perhaps she would touch him as well, would let him ease the tension and hardness she’d felt during their most passionate make-out sessions. Harry had wanted her, that she knew. She imagines she was still on that table, with Harry standing between her open legs; if she would move her body just a bit forward, she could rub herself on him - Harry would be the one moaning then - and Ginny pretends it’s this she is doing instead of using her fingers.

She slips her finger forward, inside, and now she’s wet, she’s ready for him. She doesn’t think they would go all the way then - Harry would want something far more special than a quickie in an empty classroom -, but she can pretend they are meeting there again, that this is just the umpteenth time that they are doing it, that they can lose themselves in each other. It can be rough, it can be desperate.

She can imagine Harry inside her, how he’d groan and how she’d be moaning with the feeling of him, alive and heart beating and thrusting into her, filling her. She can’t reproduce a feeling she’s only imagining how it would feel, but it doesn’t really matter. She slips out her finger, letting her attention focus on her clit, on that spot where she knows how to touch, how to make her come; for everything else, she and Harry will have time later, and anyway she thinks he wouldn’t mind seeing her giving herself some pleasure. He’d enjoyed it, because that’s who Harry is.

Her fingers move faster in that circle, her breath now coming in short intakes, unstable, and she presses her eyes even more, imagining Harry kissing desperately her lips while he too moves faster, how he’d warn her that he was so close and how she’d kiss him, looking at the desire in his face that matched hers, and say it was okay. She too was close.

For a second Ginny is so fixed on the image of Harry, his brows furrowed while he tries to last a bit longer waiting for her - he’d always wait for her -, that her coming almost surprises her. That final fatal wave of pleasure washes over her and she moans loudly his name - Harry, Harry, Harry - until she feels adrift in the space, as if the only thing connecting her to the world is her finger still touching her clit, pulsing - and Harry, who’d thrust once more and then he’d come, crying her name like a prayer, pleasure and bliss written all over his face.

He’d pressed his lips fervently to hers, unable to properly kiss her; they would hug, hearing each other’s heavy breathes, feeling their racing hearts slowly calming down, and she’d hear Harry whispering to her: Open your eyes, Ginny.

She obeys him without thinking, but all she can see is the canopy of her bed. Harry is not there with her and suddenly everything comes back to her.

She is alone and Harry is just in her imagination. They are even dating anymore. Harry is out there, lost or hurt - never dead, because that is a thought she never lets herself even conjure -, not knowing that Ginny is in Hogwarts dreaming about him, wishing he returns safe, missing him as if he took with him a part of her.

The last bit of that wondrous bliss leaves her and Ginny dries her moist eyes, hating the tears that doesn’t fall. She hugs the pillow with Harry's scarf, closing her eyes and letting herself pretend they are just cuddling, protected in each other's arms.

#Hinny #Harry and Ginny #Smut #Wankst #Wangst #hinny fanfic #t: fanfiction

210 notes · View notes

herstroywritten · 4 years

Text

Darn Pigtails

Hello! I genuinely have no excuse for this monstrosity of a piece that I agonized over for the past few days instead of focusing on my uni work. I’ve spent the last month obsessing over Fate and Rivusa (the latter has been a life long obsession and Fate has only added fuel to the fire, with just one scene...). Yes, I am a part of that clown circus and honestly, I’m proud. I’ve always been a writer, but never posted anything but I figure here goes nothing. I was very inspired by some very talented writers in this tiny little club that’s been created on here for this ship (you all know them by now...). I couldn’t resist adding my own (not so) little addition to the collection. I don’t currently have an account on ao3 or anything, so this is just what’s happening. Be warned, it’s long and maybe excessive (8k words, oops). Other than that, enjoy and feel free to let me know your thoughts!

It started with pigtails.

He'd seen Dowling parading her around the square as students fought tooth and nail to kill the fake dummies that seemed to embody their realistic counterparts more than they should have. She's had a raincoat on at the time, not that he would have cared what she was wearing because… how could he notice anything but the pigtails? Fucking pigtails! Long enough to reach her waist, dark enough to have him thinking that the darkest of night skies must have been modeled after that same color, and pin-straight from root to tip. She walked by, lavender sweater and loose jeans, and that's the first thing he noticed. Her pigtails. He felt his tongue move, the tip pressed against the top of his mouth, ready to make a crude comment about how he'd love to tug on those pigtails in more than one scenario because honestly, was he not supposed to with the way that they swung about perfectly matching the sway of her hips? His eyes lit up as he just about let the words tumble out, and then she let her eyes lift to meet his as she made her way through the specialists' training grounds. Brown eyes lingered over his green ones for longer than any normal interaction accounts for, before dropping downward to the rest of his form. His mouth quirked into a smirk.

"Oh," he thought. "So this is how we're going to play this game."

Never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a game or a challenge. And it just so happened that this particular game, the cat and mouse chase, was one of his favorites. So he figured, if she could stare at him like that, it would only be rude not to return the favor. He turned around, let his eyes fully graze over her whole figure the way he'd been too distracted to do before, and that's when he noted the stick she held. Whatever dumb comment he'd been so eager to make about her pigtails was quickly replaced by, "You like holding that big stick?"

He'd hoped for a reaction. And boy did he get one, a swift and lithe little trick she'd been hiding, seemingly waiting for the chance to pull it out. And even though he'd been training his whole life to defend himself, he just about let her jab his left eye out because he was so very much intrigued by the way her hair swayed to meet her movements and her brown eyes that bore into him with rage. Yeah, this was going to be all kinds of fun.

"I think I just threw up," she said, her face twisting into clear disdain. But her eyes sparkled and he thought maybe her hair is not the only thing the night sky was modeled after. He'd seen her before, somewhere in the background perhaps. Class? No. If she were a specialist and in his classes, there was no way in hell he wouldn't remember her. The cafeteria? Probably, there was only one place to get food in this godforsaken place and he doubted she hadn't made her way down there at least once. The Alfea hallways? Again, not unlikely. And that's when it clicked into place. She was one of the too many to remember (in his opinion) roommates of Sky's new obsession- Bloom. The four, sometimes five, of them were always together, huddled up beside one another in the cafeteria benches or on the way to classes. Honestly, now that he thought about it, was there ever a time when he'd seen those girls- besides Stella- alone? He definitely had never seen her alone. "Well, better take advantage of the chance," he thought. So, he dug into her, asked about her little run around the training grounds with the headmistress. He wanted to see how far he could push her rage, how willing she was to give him a good show. Between comments about dancing and fairies versus specialists, her eyes flashed purple and he soon realized that he'd bit off more than he could chew. As if her natural brown irises weren't alluring enough, the way they looked when he powers took over held a whole other sense of siren's lure within them. It took him a second to realize what was happening, that she was reading him. And he would have let her continue too, if it meant that he could hold her attention just a little while longer and feel whatever kind of electricity was rippling between the two of them for a few more minutes. Too bad she chose that moment to let him know exactly what she was doing, and exactly how he felt.

"You really hate being here, don't you?"

In this school, yes. Here, right now, with her eyes all over him and his hands twitching to edge upwards and brush his hands against those darn pigtails? No. No, he would have loved to stay right here just a little longer. But he was more scared of whatever hell she'd dig up from within him, so instead he told her to stay the fuck out of his head. He caught a glimpse of her prideful smirk, taunting him about this lost battle and her evident win, right before he whirled around and walked his way back to wherever his legs would lead him.

Passing by the guy he'd seen constantly following her around like a lost puppy dog, the one he assumed was her boyfriend, he murmured under his breath something along the lines of "Good luck with that one."

And then he was gone. But not before he remembered that he hadn't caught her name. No matter. As previously mentioned, never let it be said that Riven ever backed down from a challenge. She'd won this battle, but he was going to win the war.

_______________________________________________________________

The next time he found himself in her company only, the world had flipped on its axis.

Dowling and Silva were gone and Harvey had turned into a muted professor, almost never seen anywhere except in the greenhouse when he had classes to run. The new headmistress, Rosalind, ruled with a grip tougher than steel. Andreas was the male version of her, so not any better. Fairies were being forced into combat positions, whether they liked it or not, and upperclassmen specialists were forced into being their mentors, whether they liked it or not. Classes were stricter. You miss one lesson, you make up two class times in personal training with either Andreas or Rosalind herself. At first, everyone'd thought that was a stupid rule. Who doesn’t want a one-on-one with the professors? It took just one dumb third-year specialist missing his first lesson on the first day of the second term for everyone to realize that these training sessions were practically abuse covered with a prettier name.

But the thing that had changed the most, the thing that he couldn't even begin to name, was whatever the hell was happening to his mind. He no longer knew where his day started and where it ended. He knew he must have gotten up every morning and gone to classes and eaten to sustain his body for the brutal training session that followed and delt with whatever else needed dealing with. And yet, he remembered none of it. None of it except the moments spent chasing Sky around (which inevitably meant chasing the Winx suite around), the moments spent training his new fairy mentee- Musa, and the nightly runs to Dowling's- no, Rosalind's- office where he involuntarily spilled every little detail about his day. His mind had become an utter blur, his thoughts were no longer his own. He knew somewhere in his mind that he needed to stop, had tried endlessly to stop, but the more he held back from Rosalind's spell, the faster his words seem to come out. So, he'd stopped trying to fight it.

It was to his horror when he had been assigned Musa for training. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Of course they were going to pair him with a Winx suitemate, he just had expected it to be Bloom. Bloom was who they wanted details on after all. Even Stella would have made more sense, what with her mother being so very controlling. But no. Bloom went to Sky, Stella to some third year specialist, and he got Musa. If guilt wasn't already shredding him to pieces, it would be now.

He tried to console himself with the fact that he was better prepared to handle her this time. He'd spent enough time with Sky and the girls to have picked up the little details about her. She constantly listened to music to block out the world, she liked wearing shorts and miniskirts (a fact he quite enjoyed), she had an unhealthy obsession with bomber jackets (a fact he could do without when she was also wearing lacy silks under those same jackets), she liked pancakes for breakfast (but only when they were drenched with maple syrup), and the list goes on. His personal favorite fact, however, was that her hair was always immaculate and never the same two days in a row.

The point was, he could do this. All he had to do was train her. No talking necessary. She sure as hell was not about to strike up conversation with him if he didn't bother her. So, he'd keep his mouth shut and just teach her what he needed to teach her. Then he'd leave. That way, when his legs would inevitably carry him to Rosalind at midnight on the dot, he'd have nothing to give her but a good rundown of what moves they had practiced.

How wrong he had been.

He had clearly overestimated his ability to not falter in front of her, because the second she walked into the mat, he knew he'd have to say something.

This time, her hair was in tightly wound braids. Two of them, wrapping vertically down her scalp like fine rope. This time, he wants to undo her hair, to tug the black elastic ties out of place and run his fingers through each threaded piece until the strands lay about her shoulders in waves. He'd like to know what she looks like with her hair down, like fully down.

As if the hair wasn’t enough, she was also dressed in the tight female version of the specialist gear. It's all green woven material that crosses her chest, black mesh that lines her sides, and tight leggings that bring an ungodly amount of attention to her ass.

So, he slips up. "If I knew this is what you'd look like in a uniform-" he starts, but never finishes.

"Don't you dare finish that thought," she warns, voice dripping with a no-nonsense attitude.

"What's gotten into you?"

"It has not been my day. Hell, it has not been my week."

"It hasn't been anyone's week," he feels the need to remind her. And when she looks at him with those eyes, he wonders if she can read right through him without having to use her magic.

"Yeah, well. Let's just say I'm having a particularly more-so-than-average-shit day. So I'd appreciate it if you kept the comments to yourself." She's frustrated, he can see it. She's giving him the perfect out of a bad situation. She's begging him not to talk to her and that's exactly what he needs but goddamn it, he can't back away from a challenge even when his mind is in literal hell.

"What, can't handle me?" She scoffs at that.

"I can handle you just fine. I've been handling other's comments and thoughts since my powers started showing up. That's not the problem.

"What is the problem then?" He's digging, searching for something. For what, he's not sure. She's just finished lacing up her boots. She looks at him then, stares him down.

"The problem is I don’t want to handle you right now, Riven." And with that, she shoves past him to the center of the mat. But he's not done yet.

"You sure about that? I've never met a girl who doesn’t want to handle me before…" He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she chuckles a little at his antics.

"Yeah, no. But even if I did want to, you'd really have to do better than that.

"What, the line wasn't up to your standards?"

"Was it up to yours?"

"Not my best, I'll admit. But I make do. And you can't tell me Harvey Jr. has done any better." Rage flushes through her features at that particular comment. He watches as her cheeks flush bright red and as the flush slowly spreads to her neck and below the rounded collar of her uniform, slowly cursing whoever created the damn thing for not making it a V-neck.

"Ooh, a reaction! Go on, then. Tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours."

"None of your fucking business."

"It never is, and yet I'd love to know."

"Seriously, Riven. Let's just not talk." She wound up, ready to burst. Her hands are balled into fists by her side and her back is arched towards him in anger. She's a spring ready to jump, and he wants to see how high she can reach.

He goes for the typical line, "Trouble in paradise, then?"

Turns out she can jump pretty damn high, something he expected. What he didn't expect was for her to jump him. She pushes him with so much force that he barely catches himself before he falls. Tears stream down her face as she punches at his chest (hopelessly, he notes… he's got a lot to teach her). He lets her continue the onslaught on his chest, is impressed by her force and strength and persistence even if the form is all wrong. When she finally stops, the tears do too. All that's left are her hiccups and his eyes following her every movement. He watches her dry her eyes vigorously, hears her curse him and the school and herself… and Sam? He's not sure what's happening right now, not sure why his arms suddenly want to wind around her frame and pull her in, or why his heart clenches at the sight of her tears. He chooses to ignore it all.

They continue the rest of the training session in silence, with him only speaking to direct her movements and point out a thing or two about her form. Later that night, after running through his nightly routine with Rosalind, he finds out from Sky that Bloom was especially distressed today because Musa was especially distressed today because Musa and Sam had decided to call it quits. Riven feels light-headed at that news, and he's still not exactly sure why his body is so adamant about reacting to news involving her.

He rolls into bed, thinking bitterly to himself that he won today. He won this battle. So why does it feel like he lost it?

______________________________________________________________

They continue their training sessions in silence for a while, until eventually a banter sparks between the two of them. He's not quite sure how it happens, just as he's not quite sure how anything happens anymore. He assumes he probably made some joke about how good her legs looked in those damn tights or about how she desperately needed help with her fighting stance. Maybe he just wore her down with his constant questions. He doesn't really care, to be honest. He knows he should care, in the same way that he knows he should actually avoid talking to her instead of showing up every day eager to see her. He just can’t bring himself to do it, not when she shows up in that uniform every day or when she looks at him with so much pride when she finally nails a move they've been working on for so long, and definitely not when she starts to initiate the playful conversations with the same smirk that he would maybe like to kiss off her face. There's so many things he should do at the end of the day, but he does none of them. He just lets whatever happens happen, and it kind of works out for a bit. They tease each other, teeter-tottering somewhere between playful and full on flirting. They fight in close combat corners, sometimes ending up on top of each other. Those days are a personal favorite of Riven's, especially when she's on top of him and he can feel her thighs straining against his waist as she pins his arms above his head. (He may have taught her that one move just for this moment. He felt it was a shame to not put those dance-trained legs of hers to use.)

The perfectly odd tightrope they walk snaps on a Wednesday afternoon, after they've finished training and are walking toward the benches that hold their water bottles. He takes a swing of his water, and then looks up from his seat to see her standing up and chugging her own bottle. A loose droplet slips past her lips and down her uniform's tank top. He follows it with his eyes, not even bothering to hide the very obvious motion even as she finishes her drink, looks at him with a raised eyebrow, and then chuckles at him while rolling her eyes.

"You could be a little less obvious, you know." She calls him out casually. He smirks at the comment before dragging his eyes back up to her brown orbs.

" Subtle isn't really my forte. Besides what fun would it be if you didn't know I was staring at you?"

She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away. "You're gonna give some poor girl a heart attack one day if you look at her like that." It's a teasing remark, but he feels his adrenaline hike up at her comment. The game is back on.

"Some poor girl, huh?" He leans into her on the bench, invades her personal space. She blushes, looks directly ahead, and he thinks he's winning another one of the many secret battles they seem to find themselves fighting. Then, she turns to him and looks him dead in the eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" He didn't expect that. Again, he knows he should just leave or say no. Anything to avoid a conversation that could lead to more than just a flirting banter, anything to avoid something that Rosalind may actually be interested in. But she's looking up at him with wide eyes and he's convinced he's become weak and that she's won this battle because he can't bring himself to say no.

"Uh… sure?"

She looks around nervously, as if deciding whether to ask what's on her mind or not. Finally, she leans close to him and asks in a slow and quiet voice, "Where do you sneak off to every night at midnight?" He pulls back from her faster than he thought he would ever be able to pull away from her, blinking down at her now shocked face.

"How-"

"How do I know? You have a roommate, Riven. He hears you leave every night and says nothing about it, but he's been worried about you. He says you've been acting different… For what it's worth, I think he's right. Especially when we're not in training sessions, you're completely out of it. I know this has been a rough mon-"

This is it. She's dug deep enough that she has hit rock bottom, she's found the dead-end at the bottom of his soul. He has to let this banter go now. He can't have her asking questions he'll then have to report back to Rosalind.

"You know nothing." He words are curt and sharp. She flinches at their edge, but doesn’t back down. It's one of his favorite things about her, her persistence.

"You can talk to me if something is wrong, you know? Or to Sky or the girls… you can talk to any of us…" He watches as her eyebrows furrow, traces the line they form down her nose to her lips and then back to her eyes. And that's when he notices that her eyes have changed color to purple. He grabbed her hand quickly and firmly, enough to break her concentration but not enough to hurt her (God, even in his rage, it would never be enough to hurt her).

"I've told you not to do that. Not to use your damn mind powers on me." His voice is strained, laced with anger and something resembling fear.

"I'm trying-"

"I don't care what you're trying. You shouldn’t be in there. You shouldn't be in my brain. There's nothing in there worth your time or energy and there never will be."

And with that he spins on his heel and marches into the forest behind the training grounds. He doesn’t turn around, but if he did, he would have seen Sky moving out of the shadows and heading toward Musa.

"Did you do it?"

It takes her a second to interpret his question. She still staring into the distance as Riven's figure fades out of view, her eyes finally returning to their normal brown color. She continues to stare at the dot in the distance, unwilling to look away as if she's daring him to turn around and spare her one last glance. He doesn't.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." She finally turns to Sky. "He's completely blocked from my powers. Dowling was right, he's under some sort of mind control."

______________________________________________________________

It’s 2AM by the time Riven finally makes his way to the room he shares with Sky. He's once again not really sure where his day went or what he did after he flipped on Musa and marched his way into the woods after their little spat. He remembers anger, a lot of anger. He's angry at her for trying to dig into his brain when they had already established that he hated it. He was angry at Dowling for dying (at least, he assumes she's dead because where else would she be?) and leaving the school to the psychopath that is Rosalind. He's angry at Rosalind for manipulating him, controlling his mind. He's angry at Beatrix for getting him into this stupid mess. But mostly, he's angry with himself for letting it all happened, for somehow always making the wrong move at the wrong time, for managing to screw up his own life in such a grand manner that it constitutes an award (truly, he's outdone himself this time). He's mad at himself for not being able to control his own mind, for letting Rosalind take up residence in his brain and being able to do nothing about it. He's even angry at himself for not just standing there and letting Musa read his emotions, because maybe if she did then she'd know the hell he was in. His brain was constantly pulling in all different directions, trying desperately to get away from the constraints of Rosalind's spell. Headaches are nonending and thoughts leave as soon as they come. It's like there's two people waging war within him, but one of them brought swords to a gunfight and is losing horribly. But it’s a war he feels he should fight on his own, and maybe that's why he didn't let her read him. As much as he hates to admit it, the mind control and guilt was breaking him but he could handle that. What he couldn't handle, however, was getting her involved in this stupid mess by mistake, which would inevitably lead to Rosalind getting ahold of her as well. God knows there's only so much room left in hell or sins, and he'd be damned if he hadn't already filled all the available spots.

He was glad for the day to finally be over, glad to be heading to bed (not sleep though, sleep did not exist when his mind was in so much pain all the fucking time). It seemed the world had other plans for him, however, because upon opening the door to his dorm, he was met with a sight that he both dreaded and wanted to burn into his memory for the rest of however long he had to live before Rosalind finally took pity on him and bent his brain to death.

Perched on his bed, leaning forward ever so slightly, elbows meeting her knees, and head bend toward the floor was Musa. From his angle, he could only see her side profile, but apparently that's all his body needed to be automatically sent into a frenzy. The first thing he notices was, not to his surprise, the hair. She'd replaced her training braids with buns, big ones that hang precariously form her head as tendrils of her dark hair fell in loose waves and framed her face. He again found himself wondering what she would look like with all of her hair fully down. His fingers itched to burrow into those carefully constructed space buns and pull their pins out of place, just to see if she'd look half as beautiful with her hair down as she did with her hair up.

He stood like that for a while, taking her in and letting her continue to stare at the dark wooden floors with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He's not sure when, but eventually she turned toward the door, eyebrows first shooting up when she noticed him staring at her, and then falling back into place as she shot him a shy mile from across the room.

"Hey," came her greeting in a small voice.

"What the hell are you doing here?" His question was harsh, but he knew himself well to know that if he even let just one layer of himself down with her, he may as well just lay down all his defenses. She had a way of getting him to speak and break down and he wasn't about to let himself get her mixed up in whatever evil plan he'd been helping construct against his will.

Too bad for him, because it seemed Musa had been expecting a fight and was ready to fire back his quips with some of her own. She simply rolled her eyes and casually stated, "Well, then, straight to it, are we?"

"If you're looking for Sky or Bloom, they're probably in a dark hallway somewhere snogging each other half to death," he answered. She grimaced at the image.

"Yeah, no. I'm not here for Bloom or Sky."

"Then you're not here for anyone." She gave him a pointed look at that phrase. He wisely chose to ignore it and instead made his way to the couch in the middle of the room, throwing his jacket somewhere on it.

"What, that's all you have today? I'm standing on your bed, we're alone in your bedroom, I'm in a miniskirt… and you're not going to make a comment about showing me a good time? You're losing your touch, Riv." She was teasing him, he could tell by the light tone of her voice. Maybe she liked to see his reactions the way he so enjoyed watching her react to his own snarky comments. Maybe she saw enough into his brain earlier to have dug up some of his fantasies. Damn her, he'd been avoiding looking anywhere but her face since he walked in, and now here she was basically challenging him to do more. Damn him and his inability to back down from a game he was so clearly not apt to win at the moment. He turned around and finally got a good look at her. She was indeed in a miniskirt, under which she had tucked a lacy white top that was very clearly meant to showcase the black bra she wore underneath the pitiful excuse of a shirt. Her signature red bomber jacket hung from her shoulders and the black boots she had on were laced all the way up to her kneecaps.

This must be it, he thought. This must be his punishment for spilling his guts to Rosalind every night. Or maybe, his guilt and the pain throbbing through his veins had finally won out and he was finally cracking under all that pressure. That's fine. He wasn't even surprised this is what his brain chose to tease him with at the brink of destruction. He figured she'd be the one to shatter him, it was only a matter of time.

"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" Her voice broke him out of his trance. Ok, maybe he wasn't imagining her.

He sighed, defeated and broken and just tired. "Why are you here, Musa?"

It’s a staring match now. He watches as her eyes soften and the sarcasm leaves her features.

"I couldn’t read you earlier today. In the training grounds-" No. Anything but this conversation.

"Maybe you should consider working on those powers of yours then. Seems to me like you're the one losing your touch."

"I'm serious, Riven-"

"I am too."

"Jesus, Riven, let me just finish!" Anger sparked in her features. "You're loud, Riven." He scoffed at that. "Your emotions, I mean. They're usually loud… but they're also lively and harmonious, in a weird way that I can't seem to figure out. Lately, however, they've been quiet… as if they don't exist at all. And at first I thought it was me, I thought I was getting better at controlling my powers. But when I tried to read you today, I felt nothing…" There is was, she had figured it out, and now she looked at him as if he was a science experiment she couldn’t quite figure out.

"… Maybe my hearts just finally turned to stone." He tried for a joke. She did not find it amusing.

"I know, Riven." He's not sure what that was supposed to mean. What did she know? That he was a horrible person? That he'd snitched on her and all their friends (were they his friends?) to the queen of evil? Or worse, that his body lit up whenever she was around?

"Cryptic, but ok. I guess between that line and the fact that you somehow snuck into my room, you could make the whole 'good girl turned bad, mysterious girl' vibe work. Honored I'm the first you're trying it out on. If you'd like to take it a step further, the bed's right behind you." She may have the upper hand in this game, but he's still a stubborn ass.

"Seriously, Riven. I'm not kidding." She took a step toward him. Wrong move, angel.

"I know you're not. That shirt doesn't exactly scream 'kidding'. Tell me, did you just choose the first thing you found in your closet to put on?" He took a step forward this time, one long stride before they stood chest to chest and he hooked his finger under her chin. "Or is that shirt part of this whole 'mystery girl' scheme? Because, I won't lie, it's working." He sees her shiver at his words and doesn't bother to hide the smirk that graces his face. Finally, things were getting interesting. "Wonder if it looks half as good on my bedroom floor…" He noticed her eyes flicker downward, to is lips, but they moved back up just as quickly. He stared right back at her, watching as she struggled to make up her mind about where to slap him for that last comment. He didn't have to wait too long for a response.

"I'm sure you do." Her words came as a whisper, and the smirk that followed was just as alluring. He barely had time to process the meaning behind it all, before she crashed her body onto him and her lips found his. Her hands gripped into the sides of his t-shirt, keeping him to her with such force that he vaguely wondered why in the world she felt the need to do that when he wouldn't dream of walking away from this, from her. It's frantic and it's rushed. One of his hands find her waist, pulls her impossibly closer to him. His other hand delves into the hair at the back of her head before sliding to the side and pulling at the pins that hold her right bun in place. It takes him pulling out just one pin and the structure falls apart, her hair tumbling around them and cocooning them in place. He hears her gasp, her hands finally unlatching from his shirt as she splays them apart over his muscles, moves them up to his shoulders.

He's moving backward, whether to ask her if this okay or make a comment about that noise she just made, he's not sure. He never gets the chance. She pulls his to her again, kisses him like she's been starved in a thirsting in wasteland for days and he's the first sign of water she's stumbled upon, bites his lip- fucking bites his lip and sucks on it and pulls it with her teeth… and he thinks that her being here could not have been his punishment. This, right here, her kissing him like this, this is his punishment. This is his pain finally taking over and shattering his soul.

Maybe Rosalind somehow found out about his little crush and is getting payback for the fact that he didn't show up for their nightly midnight story time. Maybe, he's already dead and in hell and some devil out there is playing a cruel, cruel trick on his brain. Maybe that's why his body is shaking, literally shaking, and his mind feels like its tearing apart. He feels Musa's hands on his scalp, her palms splayed out at his temples and fingers tightly wound into his hair. Again, he is surprised at the sheer force she seems to pour into her touch, anchoring him to her as though he could ever want to leave her embrace.

He's so wrapped up in his thoughts and in her touch that he barely hears the whimpers of pain coming from her or feels the tears streaming down her face as she hold him to her. When he finally feels the tears trickle between their lips, be pulls back (genuinely, pulls back because her fingers are still forcing him to her), opens his eyes to find her already looking back at him. But instead of the brown irises she wore when this rough little make out session started, her eyes are now purple. And her face is red. She looks exhausted. He feels exhausted.

He's about to ask her what's wrong, if she's ok, if her powers are going haywire. But he's so dizzy and so tired and suddenly he's leaning on her and she's pulling him onto the bed. She looks down at him, whispers "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over in his ear and he finds himself wondering what she's sorry about and where the pain that haunted him for weeks has gone before he slowly sinks into oblivion.

________________________________________________________________

He wakes up and she's gone.

It's Sky who sits next to him the next day, Sky and Headmistress Dowling of all people. He mumbles something about being dead and hallucinating, but Sky just laughs and tells him he's happy to have him back.

It takes a good few hours to catch him up on all the shit he's missed while he was being controlled by Rosalind. Apparently, Dowling was stuck under a bunch of plants? The girls somehow managed to free her with some potion from a cousin of Terra's. Turns out they've been sneaking out every night, pretending to go to parties and instead heading outside the barrier trying to find clues on what the hell Rosalind is up to. That would explain Musa's choice of clothing the other night.

Sky tells him it was the girls' idea to keep him out of the loop at the beginning, worried that his weird obsession with Beatrix and her even weirder obsession with him would lead to Andreas and Rosalind finding out. Sky swears they were going to tell him eventually, and Riven has to tell him that he's glad they didn't. That's when Sky tells him what he'd already guessed. It was Musa who refused to tell him even after time has passed, sensing that something was wrong in his mind. Her being in their room the other night had been no mistake, but an orchestrated move. She'd practiced with Dowling for weeks, training to unlock his brain, pull it apart so that she could mentally remove Rosalind's control from his brain by sheer willpower and might, and then put it all back together as best she could.

He's instinctively proud of her, she did it. But, he also wishes she'd done it with less kissing and in some less distracting attire, but he probably deserves the type of torture that will surely follow as a result of last night. After they fill him in, Sky throws his gear at him and tells him to get dressed and ready.

"We leave tonight."

"What? Where are we going?"

"That's a bit complicated." It's Dowling who answers this time. "Silva and Professor Harvey will meet us in the woods beyond the barrier. We will lead you the rest of the way. We're going to collect forces. There will be a war, and Rosalind will know that something is wrong when you miss your nightly meeting with her for the second time in a row. The Winx suite is already with Silva and Ben. They're waiting for us."

They leave the dorms using Stella's ring, which she has given to Dowling as a backup to her magic, which Rosalind is be able to track within school grounds. When they arrive to the location in the woods, Riven is only slightly surprised to find Sam among the girls. He's leaning on a tree, talking to Silva and his father, both of which look like they haven't slept for days. The girls are gathered together by a fallen tree. Musa is in the middle of them, huddled into herself, as Terra and a new girl with brown skin and long honey-brown hair rub her back. Stella, Bloom, and Aisha stand back, watching Musa with worry evident in their eyes.

It's Stella who notices them first. She wipes the worry off her face with mastered ease that only comes with practice, straightens up her back, shoots Musa a look and calls loudly, "There you are! Took you guys long enough!"

From then on, it’s a quick fill-in on what the plan is, an awkward introduction to the Harvey cousin whose name he can't remember because his mind was too stuck on the girl whose hair is back in those buns he managed to loosen yesterday, and a small little "welcome back to the good side" before they're trekking their way through the woods.

He stands behind her the whole time. Watches as she follows the professors, but stands at the tail end of the line the girls have formed. She looks tired, the bags under her eyes tell him that the girls have probably been out here all night. He wonders how much of her energy it took to tear and mend his brain, if anyone bothered to let her rest after she did it. He wishes he was braver, wishes he could walk up to her and… what, thank her? Ask her why she did it? Why kiss him and then cure him? She could have just as easily done it while he was asleep. He bides his time, observes as one by one the girls take turns standing next to her, linking their arms with hers, smiling down at her, whispering who knows what in her ear and earning a laugh form her every now and then. He likes her laugh, it's cute.

He's currently watching as Bloom pull Musa to her and makes some joke about chickens, when he feels a punch land on his right arm.

"Are you as stupid as you look?" He turns to find that Stella has somehow walked backwards and is now next to him.

"Missed you too, princess," he mutters back.

"Oh, cut the bullcrap, Riven. You've been staring at her for the last two hours and I told her I wouldn't say anything but honestly, you two are hopeless. I've never met two people so oblivious in my life."

"I don’t know what you're talking about." he starts.

"Like shit you don't. If you don't know it yet, figure it out." And just like that she's running ahead and linking her right arm with Musa's as Bloom tries for another joke, this one about pigs that fly.

He tries to ignore Stella's stupid comment. Honestly, he figures it's probably safer to stare at her and look like a total creep than try to talk to her and make sense of his feeling about who the fuck knows what anymore. But Stella's words ring through his mind and he lets himself believe that maybe, just maybe…

In the end, he convinces himself that the reason he walks up to her once Bloom goes to hold Sky's hand and Stella moves in on the new girl to make conversation is because Stella offered him a challenge, and he likes to win at those. (He's heading straight for a loss, he's fully aware of that, but whatever.)

"Long time no see," he jokes when he reaches her side. She cranes her neck up at him, not surprised to see him.

"Thought I heard your loud-ass emotions coming closer."

"Yeah, I've been told they can be quite the riot." He shoots her a smirk and she smiles up at him.

"Who told you that?"

"Oh, you know. Just some girl."

"Some girl, huh?"

"Yeah. Then she gave me a good snogging before tearing my brain to pieces without my knowing it."

"Mmm. She seems like a handful."

"Tell me about it." Her eyes fall downward and he doesn't need to be an empath to see the gears turning in her head.

"I'm sorry," she starts, "About that. I didn't want to do it, I know you have me reading your emotions."

"Yeah, but I hated having them controlled by someone else even more…" There's a pause and he quickly moves to fill it, scared that whatever courage juice that's coursing through his veins will run out soon. "Thank you, by the way." And he means it. He hopes she can sense the sincerity coming from him because he only has so many words in his vocabulary when it comes to her and fears he's already run out of them when she turns to look at him once more.

They've fallen behind the group at this point. He figures he won't get the chance to do this again for a while, so he asks her the question that been running rampant through his mind. It's pathetic, really. They're headed to god knows where to do god knows what and instead of worrying about the fact that war is coming or even being slightly concerned that he's just had his mind abused and prodded around by an evil mastermind, his biggest worry is if this girl really wanted to kiss him or if she just did it for show.

"So, umm, just so we're clear… did you mean it?" If he felt dumb thinking it, he feels like a world-class idiot saying it out loud.

"Mean what?" She stares back at him intensely, and he thinks to himself in an amused manner that they seem to be making a habit of staring at each other for longer than average periods of time. "The part about you being loud? Cuz, yeah, I meant every word. You're a walking catastrophe." She's smirking at him. He rolls his eyes her words.

"Couldn't care less about that. In fact, I'm glad my emotions are as obnoxious as I am- means they've been driving you crazy for a while now." Her smile falters a bit at that line. "What I want to know," he continues. "Is if you kiss everyone whose mind you go digging into like that." He still has not taken his eyes off her, and he's not going to start now, when she blushes and ducks her head under the collar of her red bomber jacket.

"That was a… last minute choice."

"What for?"

"I had to get close enough to you to make contact. I've only been practicing with Dowling for a few weeks and I didn’t want to screw it up. I can't really do the whole mind thing without some sort of contact just yet…" Her words drift off.

"Hand holding didn't cut it? Had to go for a full make-out session, complete with lip biting and everything?" He watches as she shivers into her coat, arms wrapped around herself.

"You would've pushed me away."

"How did you know I wouldn't push you away while kissing me?" She mutters something under her breath. He doesn’t catch it, not between that stupid jacket that she's using to shield her face. He gently takes a step forward, catches her chin between his fingers just as he had done the night before, makes her meet his eyes. "Come again?"

She sucks in a breath, her eyes waver to something behind him when she finally lets it out, "We both know you weren't going to say no to me throwing myself at you."

"And if I did?" He doesn't know who he's kidding, but it’s still a game and he's still playing to… lose?

She's still staring behind him when she frowns and says, "Then we would have seen just how great this shirt would have looked on your bedroom floor, after all."

And goddamn it, her words send his blood boiling. He's about to kiss her senseless, but he refuses to do it if she's not staring at him when he asks one last question.

With his finger still hooked under her chin and them standing mere inches away, he whispered into the air between them, "Look at me, Musa."

Her eyes slowly move to meet his. He gives up his last question, which just so happens to be his first, "Did you mean it?" And when her small "Yes" makes its way through her lips as her steady brown eyes catch his green ones, that's all the confirmation he needs.

His finger leaves her chin and moves to her head and then he's pulling her in, closer and closer and closer until she's all he can feel and smell and see and breathe. And she responds with the same vigor she used last night, wasting no time to wrap her arms around his neck and lock him to her. It's a new kind of game, one where they battle for dominance until they both run out of breath and need to break free. It makes him stronger, it breaks him down, it makes him wonder why the hell he ever wanted to win against her when he could instead let her win and lose himself to her as he is right now. And when his hands pull the pins from both buns from her hair as he kisses down her neck, she groans in half pleasure and half annoyance.

"I'll have to fix them again now," she whines, pouting her bottom lip out, which he takes as an invitation to bite and pull on it.

"You'll manage. Let me just have this now. I've been waiting a while to see you with your hair fully down." She scoffs but lets him stare at her in awe once he finds it in him to pull back from her lips in order to get a view his handiwork.

And to think, it all started with some fucking pigtails.

#rivusa #fate the winx saga #fate the winx club #musa #musa fate #riven #riven fate

137 notes · View notes

fortisfiliae · 4 years

Text

Promised Part 9 - Tom Riddle x reader

Summary: In this story, Tom didn’t grow up as an orphan, but with his grandfather and uncle. Reader’s sister got very sick and the Gaunts offer their help. But not without asking for something in return.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that I don’t condone any of this in real life. (GIF is not mine)

Warnings: Arranged marriage

Word count: 3.3k

Part 9 - Never trust a Snake

Tom’s dorm was the nicest one you had ever seen in Hogwarts. Single bedrooms were offered to head boys and girls only, as a further reward to their title. His room was the size of a normal five-bedroom, but instead of four additional beds, it was furnished with a welcoming couch, a nice wooden desk and chair, a fireplace and provided overall much more space. It wasn’t located next to the other dorms either, which had its virtues and disadvantages. The good thing was that you didn’t have to walk through the hallway of all the Slytherin boys’ dorms to get there. The bad thing was that Tom’s room was right next to Freda’s, so you had seen her a couple more times than you had wanted to. She had never said anything though and usually stomped off right away, brows knitted and red in the face.

Tom had ordered you to his room the day after Slughorn’s party, which was a privilege not many students were granted. Maybe not that much of a privilege if one was engaged to him. But thinking of it from your perspective, his fiancée, who he hadn’t even proposed to, who he wasn’t even in love with when the engagement took place, it certainly felt special. And like he wanted you to be there. He let you study there even when he had to attend to his duties as head boy, which took up quite a bit of his time.

And then there was the Moly. A magical flower, used to counteract enchantments, that Professor Beery, the Herbology teacher, had given to pairs of students to take care of. They were weakest the last days before blooming and needed tending multiple times a day. It was a tricky task to keep them alive, so Beery had promised to give everyone who could manage it extra points for the Herbology N.E.W.T.s in advance.

Tom had suggested keeping the Moly that had been given to the two of you in his room, as it would increase the chances of keeping it in good condition, seeing that no one else could get their fingers on it. Even though the plant looked quite healthy, he insisted on your help to look after it, as he was not willing to share points if you wouldn’t. So you had come to his room every day, only for the Moly of course.

Other times, when you were just reading or writing another Charm’s essay there, Tom used to stay nearby. He didn’t talk much, as per usual, and rather stared at you from across the room, but the fact that he never told you to leave and always asked when you would come back, for the Moly obviously, made it quite clear that he enjoyed your presence.

And you did too. So much that you had even spent the night accidentally. Accidentally, as in, you had stayed up way too long reading and making notes in your Guide To Advanced Transfiguration textbook, had really, absolutely, doubtlessly planned to go back to your own dorm, but couldn’t be bothered to get up from the sofa until you had finally fallen asleep.

You woke up in Tom’s bed, not remembering how you had ended up there and sat up slowly, looking around, until you noticed him sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“Have I overslept?” you asked, hastily fixing your hair and rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.

“It’s Saturday,” Tom answered, grinning at your attempts of getting up. “8 a.m. You can sleep a bit longer if you want.”

“Oh, Saturday, yes. How did I… What happened last night?”

“You fell asleep on the couch. It didn’t look comfortable, you were all sprawled out and twisted. So I put you into bed.”

You swallowed thickly. He had put you into his bed?

“Did you-”

“No,” Tom shook his head. “I took the couch.”

“Noble,” you said sarcastically, leading him to roll his eyes at you. “Why can’t I remember how I got into bed?”

“I used a Levitation Charm.”

“Oh. Weren’t you afraid I might’ve ended up on the floor?”

He chuckled, shaking his head as if doubting his skills wasn’t a thing Tom Riddle would do. “I tend to know what I’m capable of before I do it.”

“I see,” you answered. “Come here then?”

Tom looked at you questioningly before you reached out your hand, holding it in the air for him to take it. He did and you slowly pulled him closer, until he lay down next to you.

Your hand went up to his face and you ran your fingers through his hair, to which he closed his eyes, letting you play with his locks for a while.

Now that you were fully aware of where you were, you noticed how different Tom’s linen smelled compared to your own. They had his clean, warm scent, of tangy embers dying in the fireplace, mixed with leather and something fresh like dewy iron. The scent had rubbed off on you while you had slept there and it felt like he had marked you, without even coming close.

“You didn’t have to sleep on the couch,” you whispered.

His eyes opened again. “You were completely knocked out. That would have felt off.”

“Well, for next time then,” you smiled, took his chin between your fingers and pressed a kiss to his lips. “We’re engaged after all. Have you forgotten?”

“Oh piss off,” he scoffed and pulled you in for another kiss.

Some hours later, when you were tending to the Moly, you looked over towards the fireplace, where Nagini was sleeping in front of. At least you assumed she was sleeping. Her eyes were open and her tongue flicked out of her mouth every now and then, but she seemed calm. You laughed to yourself at the sight, as it reminded you of a cat seeking warmth. Well, a pet was a pet, you figured.

“How’s the Moly doing?” Tom asked and went up to inspect it.

“Good. Great actually,” you said. “I think we’re going to earn those extra points from Beery.”

“Don’t you think it looks a bit sickly?” he asked, holding the thin black stem between his fingers.

“No, it’s alright.”

He uttered a humph. “You don’t have the book on you, the one I gave you for Christmas, do you?”

“No, it’s in my dorm. Why would you need that now?”

“Have you read through it? All the way?”

“No, I haven’t yet. I just flicked through it and read some recipes that sounded interesting,” you answered, not knowing what he had in mind. “I wanted to try one of the Potions after we’re done with school. They all seem to take a while.”

“Which one?”

“The Vial of Auras for starters. Why?”

He nodded, still looking at the Moly. “I think there’s a recipe for plant cultivation in there. Could be of use.”

“But it looks fine, why-”

He turned his face toward you, looking into your eyes. “Just bring the book next time.”

“Okay,” you said, although it sounded more like a question. “I can bring it tonight. I’m going out to Hogsmeade with Camille in the afternoon. I’ll be back around 7 I guess.”

“That’ll do,” he said and smiled, finally sounding satisfied.

It was five minutes past seven when you returned to Tom’s room. The date with Camille had been wonderful, although you had had one too many toffees at the sweet shop. You had also gotten the Potions book from your dorm, still wondering why the Moly would need extra support. It looked totally fine to you.

Tom’s room was empty, aside from Nagini, who had curled herself around one of the bedposts. You went over to the desk, where the Moly was standing and put the book beside it. Next to the plant lay a handwritten note:

“Coming back soon - Dippet needs me for head boy duties”

Killing time it was, then. You took Tom’s Charms book from the stack and practised a few spells for a while, trying to revise those that would most likely be tested in the N.E.W.T.s. About ten minutes later, the door opened and Tom entered the room. He dragged his feet as he shuffled in and was slightly out of breath.

“Are you alright?” you asked while putting the Charms book away.

He nodded. You walked over and took a seat on the couch, patting the space next to you for Tom to join you.

“I brought the book,” you said and pointed towards the desk.

Tom sat down, looked at it from afar and squinted. “The book?”

“The Potions book you asked me to bring. Don’t you remember?”

“Ah, yes. Sorry, I totally forgot.”

You frowned, slightly worried. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Tom nodded and scratched the side of his face. “Yes, yes. I’m just a bit tired.”

Tired wasn’t exactly what you would have described the state of him. He seemed nervous and completely out of it, his shoulders hanging down limply.

“Did something happen? What did you have to do for Dippet?” you asked.

His eyes roamed the floor while he pondered. “Nothing important. Just some scheduling for the prefects.”

Something cold rubbed against your foot and when you looked down, you saw Nagini, who had slithered over. She placed herself between Tom and you on the floor, her hisses a tad louder than usual.

“What does she want?” you asked.

Tom stared at Nagini vacantly and didn’t answer.

“Tom?”

“Hm?”

“What is she saying?”

“She’s hungry.”

“Hungry? We’ve just fed her recently. Strange,” you said and bent down to pat her head. “I’m going to get you some more mice soon, don’t worry.”

Tom’s gaze roamed the room as if he was looking for something.

“Do you want to take a look at the book now? For the Moly?” you asked.

“No,” he answered. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead then.”

“You remember the day we got engaged, right?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Well, it was obviously an arrangement between our families,” he stated, waiting for you to confirm.

“Yes.”

“So I was wondering… What’s in it for you?”

Your stomach dropped. What did he mean ‘what’s in it for you’? Your sister’s curse was the most evident thing in this whole situation.

“You know exactly what’s in it for me,” you said while folding your arms. “Actually, I could ask you the same thing. Don’t tell me you forgot why we’re doing this.”

He took a moment to think before answering. “Of course I haven’t. I just thought there could be something else. Like, perhaps your parents bribed my family.”

You blinked irritatedly. He had not just said that.

“Are you serious right now?” you asked. “You’re suggesting my parents took advantage of the situation, went and killed two birds with one stone? So that they could marry me off and make me your problem?”

He stared into your eyes for a moment, then retracted. “No, I didn’t mean-”

“Because I’ll have you know, my family would never do such a thing,” you interrupted him. “I know yours probably would, but my parents are not like that, believe it or not. I thought you knew that by now.”

“I was just wondering. No need to make a fuss about it.”

“You know what?” you said and got up from the couch, making sure not to step on Nagini. “You sound exactly like Ben. Only more rude. And I thought you didn’t trust him. But it seems that you don’t trust me either all of a sudden.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Tom said and followed you. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“We’re done here,” you huffed, making your way to the door, followed closely by Nagini, until Tom grabbed your hand.

“Don’t leave now,” he said, pulled you in a bit closer and a whiff of cologne wafted your way. He reeked of sweat and coughed so loudly you thought he might throw up any moment.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Tom,” you answered, your hand still in his. “Maybe you have a cold coming on or something because you don’t seem like you’re in your right mind. Now let me go.”

“No,” he said but turned his face away from you.

Suddenly the door flew open and you sucked in a sharp breath when you saw who it was. Tiernan Lestrange. And next to him was... Tom? Standing in the door frame, his eyes darting back and forth between you and… You looked to your left, to the person next to you and saw that Emlyn Avery was standing in Tom’s place, still holding your hand.

You wrenched your hand out of his grip and took several steps backwards.

“Avery?” you asked. “What is going on?”

Tom, the real Tom, still stared at you, a fire burning behind his eyes as he quickly walked into the room. Lestrange followed and closed the door behind himself.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tom hissed, both at Avery and you.

Avery kept silent, a nasty grin forming on his face.

“He… You,” you stammered.

“You two? Holding hands in my room?” Tom yelled, his chest heaving. “Are you kidding me?”

“I can explain.”

Could you really?

“Well, I hope you can. Taking Avery into my room to do who knows what? Care to explain that?”

“He was you!” you said, only then noticing how crazy you must have sounded.

Tom shot you a look that told you better not to take him for a fool. His thoughts must have raced at top speed inside his head, as you could practically see him thinking. His eyes scurried from your hand to Avery’s, then up to his face. His knuckles had turned white from how hard he clenched his fists and he couldn’t seem to stand still. You wondered what his next move would be. Punch Avery in the nose, curse the two of you, or rush out of the room? It reminded you of the time he had seen Ben and you at the Black Lake.

“Please,” you whispered. “Let me explain.”

Tom sighed and avoided looking at you. He shook his head as if he was fighting an internal battle against himself. It almost looked painful. Finally, he went up to Avery, pointing his wand right below the boy’s chin.

“Sit down,” Tom spat. “You too Lestrange! And I don’t want to hear a single word from either of you.”

They did as he said and Tom led you to the other side of the room, followed by Nagini. He cast a Muffliato Charm on the two boys so that they wouldn’t be able to hear what you had to say.

“Go on,” Tom then said, still avoiding eye contact.

“I came here around seven, as we agreed. I brought the book but you weren’t here. Then I saw your note on the table and waited for you. You, I mean Avery, came in shortly after. But he looked exactly like you. Just until you showed up right now. I swear to Merlin.”

“What do you mean he looked like me?” Tom asked, an annoyed frown on his face.

“He looked and sounded just like you. I thought he was you. He acted weird and I didn’t trust him, but I thought you were just stressed out. The only way I could possibly explain this would be Polyjuice Potion.”

“You don’t really think one of them would be able to brew that correctly, do you?”

“I don’t,” you mumbled. “But how else would it be possible? You have to believe me. I would have never brought him here. Or anyone.”

He looked at you now, so intensely, it felt like he was reading your thoughts, trying to see if you were lying to him.

“Why would he do that?” he then asked.

“I don’t know,” you answered and gave it a good thought. “He asked me about some things. About the engagement. Maybe he was trying to convict me. They haven’t trusted me ever since the school year began, remember?”

Tom nodded and exhaled strongly, walking in circles around you.

“Did he touch you?” he asked.

“No. He just held me back when I wanted to leave. Just my hand, nothing else.”

“Are you sure? Don’t lie to me. If he touched you, I swear I’m going to-”

“No. He didn’t.”

Silence. Nagini’s quiet hisses disrupted your thoughts and you noticed that Tom seemed a lot calmer now.

“Why was Lestrange with you?” you asked.

“He came up to me when I was done at Dippet’s. Tried to babble on for ages about assignments.”

“That makes sense. So you wouldn’t disrupt their plan.”

“What did Avery ask you exactly?”

“If my parents had bribed your family. So we would get married.”

“Idiot,” Tom muttered.

“That’s what I thought too.”

Tom eventually stopped circling you, placed himself beside you and you both watched Lestrange and Avery sitting next to each other on the sofa. They didn’t dare look back at you and simply stared down at the floor like two ten-year-olds waiting for their parents

to punish them.

“Oh, and another thing,” you began. “Avery stinks.”

Tom, to your surprise, laughed.

That made you a bit more confident, so you asked: “Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

He did? You looked at him, taken aback.

“Nagini,” Tom said to you while watching as the snake’s head reared up. “She’s your witness. She confirmed you’re telling the truth.”

“Good girl,” you said and smiled at her, to which she hissed happily. You really had to get her some more mice. “Now, what were they thinking? What point were they trying to prove?”

“Let’s ask them,” he said, broke the Muffliato Charm with a swift motion of his wand and walked over towards the couch.

“I’m going to ask you some things,” he said to them. “And don’t you dare lie to me. You know I can tell. You’re lucky you caught me on a good day, actually.”

They both nodded.

“Polyjuice Potion?” Tom asked.

Avery looked over to Lestrange. They both nodded again.

“Where did you get that from?”

“Stole it from Slughorn,” Avery mumbled so lowly, you could hardly understand.

“Speak up!” Tom ordered.

“We stole it from Slughorn’s stock,” Avery repeated. “At the party, when everyone was dancing.”

Tom sighed and pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose. Of course they hadn’t brewed it themselves. They were far too daft.

“Why?” Tom went on. “What’s the reason for all that?”

“Well,” Lestrange cleared his throat. “We were only doing it for you, Tom. To make sure she’s not betraying you. To find out if she and her family were using you, you know.”

“So we could help you,” Avery added and nodded vehemently.

Tom grinned coldly. “And you thought I wouldn’t have found this out myself by now? That I would need your help? Seriously?”

“We thought-”

“No! You didn’t think at all,” Tom interrupted. “You went behind my back, stole from a teacher and disrespected my fiancée. You’re both an embarrassment for Slytherin and I swear, if I ever see one of you just looking her way, it’s not going to end this lightly.”

Both of them nodded again and looked down onto the floor, not saying anything.

“Now follow me,” Tom said, still angry with them.

“Where are we going?” Avery asked as he got up.

“I’m going to report you to the headmaster of course. And trust me, you’ll be glad Dippet is going to choose your punishment and not me.”

Phew, this chapter was exciting to write! Please consider leaving a comment and tell me what you think so far :) They motivate me so much to keep writing! Let me know if you want to be tagged, or untagged. Thank you for reading!

Permanent tags: @geeksareunique @ren-ela @marauderskeeper @way-obsessed5 @oreofrappiewithblueberry @draqcnheartstrinq @dogfatherpads @obscurilicious @maralisa124 @theseuscmander @lumos-barnes @theboywhocriedlupin @igotmadskills @jamcspotters @thisismysecrethappyplace @vulpecula-minor @snarledblack @swellwriting @carolinesbookworld @fandomtravels @heartbeats-wildly @clockworkherondale @aikeia @i-padfootblack-things @emmamass24 @sleep-i-ness @miss-theya @gruffle1 @pcseidcnsvoid @buckysblueeyes-18

Promised tags: @superblyspeedydragon @angeli-fucking-cat @cyarikaaa @hp-slaps @prettylittlehiddles @katjusja @elderwilliams @-thatgirloverthere- @1950schick @kissing-violet-wings @accio-boys @mythicalamphitrite @aqswdefrgthzjukilop @always394patronus @nesseldee @peachyserenade @iliveforthefandom04 @chr0nicbackpain @truly-insatiable @blushingpogue @scarlet-says-hi @staplerrrr @uglipotata72829 @muralskins @noobmaster696969 @urbankite2 @prettysatan @april-showers-and-flowers @etherrxall @slytherclawmalfoy @thoseofgreatambition @officiallyunofficialperson @lettersfromtheocean @whyisallthecoolstufftaken @eternitydarkling @blisfvll @hufflautia @weasleybees

If your tags don’t work, please check if your email is verified on tumblr!

507 notes · View notes

themadauthorshatter · 3 years

Text

OTP PARENT HEADCANONS PART 2

Because I'm bored.

And I want to give myself some serotonin.

And because I've put this off for a long time😅

RED QUEEN:

Shade and Coriane were never afraid of monsters under their beds because Cal would "scare them away" with a really bright flashlight.

Both children have a little bit of buidling and tinkering in them. Shade showed it by switching out lightbulbs and pointed out the ones he was putting in would be better at being adjusted than the ones before and Coriane showed it by fixing a clock.

Mare isn't exactly the best at cooking, but she's at least better than Cal. And her mother; sorry, Ruth.

Both children are excellent swimmers, much to Cal's chagrin.

Coriane remembers meeting her great Nanabel, and the smile she had at the sight of her great granddaughter.

Shade didn't really have a chance to meet her.

Both children wish they could have met their uncle on their mother's side and uncle, grandfather, and grandmother on their father's side.

Both Samos siblings are allowed to see the children, and neither of the children were excited; they'd heard "scary stories" about them and their father, who sounds scary; no, Cal didn't make it clear that Volo was dead, all he said was the Samos patriarch had fallen down and didn't get up, so they assumed that meant he couldn't use his arms anymore.

They were all pretty surprised to meet each other.

Ptolemus was more like a fun uncle than the berserker they all knew.

He did explain that Volo did indeed fall, but couldn't get up because of how high he fell.

The electricons love how entertained the children are with their lightning abilities.

Tyton is a pretty good babysitter. Coriane is allowed to stay up, but only after Shade has gone to bed.

Kilorn is not allowed to teach either child how to swim; there was an 'incident' where Cal tried to be brave and go swimming and Kilorn scared the living hell out of him.

That's fine because neither children like swimming.

Yes. Just because the children are good at swimming doesn't mean they enjoy it.

Mare has told Gisa she doesn't need to make the children outfits, but Gisa did it anyway because she loves her niece and nephew.

The court ettique stuck with Cal, which has led to him raising the children to be very formal.

SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL(I'm naming Tedros and Agatha's son Anthony):

Both parents were kind of scared Anthony was mute because he didn't start talking until he was nearly a year old. He's not mute, he just doesn't talk much.

You have to catch him at just the right moment. Anthony is completely silent around large crowds or assemblies, but with his parents he's half of a chatterbox, at least.

Anthony and Agatha can have full conversations with nothing but facial expressions.

Tedros had a hard time getting Anthony to open up to him, and decided to give the boy space for a little bit.

It was absolutely worth it for the heart to heart they had.

Hester and Anadil hate kids, but Agatha's and Tedros's little demon spawn is the only exception to that statement.

Anadil was won over by how he didn't cry and even 'said' how her rats were cute.

Hester, however, only warmed up to him when she spent a longer time with him, and after getting a chance to watch him because Aunt Sophie kept stepping in.

On one such occasion, where Anthony was surprised by Hester's watching him, the boy was overjoyed to see her, hugging her closely. He then backed up and stepped back, giving her a wave and smile. As she understood his silence better than Sophie, Hester wrote to him on a paper, 'Did you miss me THAT much?' Anthony nodded and wrote back, 'Yes!'

Sophie is not a helicopter aunt, but she loves Anthony a bit too much for his liking.

She NEVER talks about how she'd been hoping he was a girl.

Anthony isn't a fan of pink, but he doesn't hate it. Pastel is fine. Anything more vibrant makes him puke.

Both Tedros and Agatha were surprised to see how good Anthony was on horse back.

Heart attack angst moment: A former supporter of Rhian and Japeth snuck into the castle and made an assassination attempt on the royal family, more specifically Anthony. Tedros threw his son behind him and drew hus sword and Agatha shot a spell at him and proceeded to tackle him to the ground, not caring about her dress or the fact that the assailant was still armed.

Anthony colud not watch the execution because he hates bloodshed. He's a vegetarian/vegan and tries to eat as little meat as possible because he often spends time in the stables and around animals.

Agatha and Tedros are aware of this and are okay with it, though Tedros has him eat a single steak for dinner and teo eggs for breakfast once a month on seperate occasions, just so he doesn't lack any iron or protein.

To clarify, by separate occasions, I mean that Anthony will eat the steak one day and the eggs later another day within the month. After that, he can indulge in as much vegan/vegetarian food as he wants.

Have fun trying to convince Tedros and Agatha to let him attend the SGE; it's not that they have unpleasant memories, they just want him to try and have as normal of a life as possible.

On a walk, and when the Tagatha child was a teen, Tedros noticed some girls trying to flirt with Anthony and that his son barely reciprocated their actions. He pointed out that they were showing an interest in him, and Anthony admitted that he knew and he just didn't really feel the same way; he didn't exactly see why they were so flirty when he didn't feel like giving it back to them.

NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS(The triplets I'm naming Jacob, the eldest boy, Luna, the middle girl, and Daemon, the youngest boy):

Jacob is 98% the triplets' father; he'd be a spitting image if it weren't for his mop of hair, he's sharp as a whip, but still puts the E in idiot(please tell me you git that Jenna Marbles reference!!!).

Luna is arguably the smartest, but good luck getting a, 'you don't say' out of her. She won't tell you she's smarter than you, she will show you. Good thing Jack and Sally keep her in check.

Daemon is the family's "underdog." He has the last minute, 'this will work,' Jack Sparrow plans. He's quiet, he sews, he sings, and if he's not trailing behind Jack, Sally, or his siblings, he's probably touching up his clothes.

Jacob was the idiot kid that got electrocuted to the point his red hair turned black. He barely remembers it, but now all he tastes is cold peanut butter. Daemon has often suggested and offered to do it again, but Luna stops him. Pro: he's spending more time with Luna and Jacob is safe. Con: he's spending time with LUNA and Jacob still doesn't remember.

Jacob, as the oldest, attends 'meetings' with Jack and the Mayor. It doesn't bore him, he just gets tired of the Mayor's whining.

Jacob doesn't get Christmas. Luna has the basic idea of it. Daemon is the only one that understands, but doesn't explain it fully out of spite; Jacob called him scatter brained because of an incident where, at the table, a cockroach crawled out of his eye socket.

Daemon is the only one of his siblings to have eyes.

Even though she's literal bone, Luna has stitches that are very close to Sally's.

Neither Jack nor Sally have nicknames for the children, besides terms of endearment.

You know you're in trouble when Jack looks at you and looks ready to dig your grave himself.

All three triplets have Jack's fire power, but no one's gotten hurt because of it, even though Jacob and Daemon had one close call.

Neither parent would ever even dream of raising a hand against the children.

It's safe to say that Luna and Sally use common sense the most out of all five of the family members.

Daemon smells like pumpkin and cinnamon. He finds both himself, cinnamon bark and small, apple-esque pumpkins, and eats them like skittles and popcorn.

Another result of the electrocution, Jacob is hard of hearing where is left ear would be, if he had ears. He can't hear at all in the "ear." Not even a ringing sound.

The only reason Jacob doesn't like something is because he doesn't get it. At all.

Luna sees the glass as half full, Daemon sees the glass as half empty, and wonder if it belongs to someone who drank out of said glass, hence its being hald empty, and Jacob just sees a glass of water, now can he just drink the rest?

Luna, the best with herbs, has poisoned her brothers. Sally found out and she was grounded.

Daemon, to see how much he could take, dived off the roof of Dr. Finkelstein's tower. It took Jack, Sally, Luna, Jacob, and Zero all day to collect all of him. He was grounded and locked in his room.

Jacob got grounded for a few things: setting his sister on fire(no one knows who started that fight.), hiding in a morgue to scare people only to end up falling asleep, even as they tried to cremate him, and then waking up in front of the humans, pretending to be one of the hanging men on The Hanging Tree, and dancing on top of the tallest Pyramid in Egypt.

The children do misbehave sometimes, but their parents love them.

Jack and Jacob don't see eye to eye exactly, but they still get each other.

Luna loves both her brothers, but she will hang out with Daemon more than Jacob.

Daemon has a lot of glow sticks he collected and they all still glow when it gets dark. Jacob used his thinking cap and had a moment of big brain time, and drank some of the glow stick juice.

One more thing he got in trouble for.

Daemon also got in trouble, but he was allowed to keep his glow sticks.

Luna is a good singer, Daemon is a great dancer, and Jacob is the best at succeeding their father

#red queen #school for good and evil #nightmare before christmas #marecal #tagatha #jack x sally #tiberias calore vii #mare barrow #sge tedros #tedros of camelot #sge agatha #agatha of woods beyond #jack skellington

64 notes · View notes

natromanxoff · 3 years

Text

20 - Rockin' in Rio

Greetings one and all A quick return from the Bondi Bard. Last weekend there was a surprise party for Gerry and Sylvia in San Francisco, and judging from the email I got from Ratty a good time was had by all, and a few of our old mob were there. I would loved to have been there but I was committed to go to the wedding of a good buddy of mine. James and his new wife Suze got married on the original Manly ferry, which has been converted into an amazing houseboat and is moored at Balmain. The ceremony was at 7pm, just as the sun was setting to the left of us, and the Harbour Bridge to the right, very picturesque. An Aussie band called Leonardo's Bride sang their top five hit to the couple (of course I can't remember the name of it) and the girl singer has an incredible voice, and is also gorgeous and a very charming lady, who is shacked up with a DJ mate of mine. Lucky bastard. The booze was good, the food even better and a fun night was had. I can hear that question again, "Whats this got to do with Queen?" Well I shall tell you. James worked as an engineer at Metropolis Studios in London, along with the lovely Heidi, where the Queenies did a lot of recording, he also did some work with the band, but did a lot on BM's first solo outing. The next link is even weaker. I spent a good part of the evening chatting with Rob Hirst, who is the drummer with Midnight Oil, and is also a fabbo chappie. And being a typical drummer, while the Oils are not working he is recording his own solo album, as a singer/guitarist.......sound familiar. We had a couple of drinks and swapped a few stories, and as his wife was with us we managed to keep them all clean.

Staying on the subject of drummers I had an email, via Jacky, from a drummer who didn't seem that amused by the joke I told in my last ramblings, they might hit things but they are really quite sensitive deep down. So I suppose I should say I'm sorry, well I'm not. But here's another little jest to piss him off some more. Q: Whats the most asked question to a person with an IQ of 2? A: What sticks do you use?

Onto Sonia's request for some info on our trips to Brazil. What can I say about Rio except that it is a fun city and we all had a great time there, maybe that's why we went back a second time. On the first venture there I was still looking after the kit, and on one night myself and a few of the crew hit the town and got very drunk on the local drink, I think it was made from sugar, which I can pronounce but I've no idea how to spell it. (Help me out Sonia) We were in a bar getting louder and louder when a Welsh Rugby team came in, and they were big boys, and they are also on the tipsy side.

I'm 6ft, Jim Devenney makes me look small and Bob Bickleman made him look small, and the rugby players are of equal size, so we now have a contest on our hands as to which team can sing the loudest and dirtiest rugby songs. To start with the Welsh were winning because they had a couple of good looking women with them, and even though it was loud it was also in good fun. Devenney then comes up with the great statement that rugby is a girls game, the Welsh reply that at least they don't need padding when they play, unlike Gridiron, to which our team say, "OK, lets have a game on the beach tomorrow morning." This to me sounds like a really daft idea as I hate Gridiron, Rugby and Soccer, so one of the lighting guys and myself decided to leave, which means the Queen crew won by default cause neither team turned up on the beach to play, and as the two of us were leaving the bar we took their gorgeous ladies with us. Sorry Wales.

Our second visit to Brazil, when I was traveling with the band, was for the first Rock in Rio which was a two week festival with a host of big names on, each playing two nights. We did the opening night with three Brazilian acts, then Whitesnake who had Cozy as drummer, then Iron Maiden and then us. The second show was at the end and our opening acts were the B52's and the Go Go's. After the show I ended up in my room with a couple of Go Go girls, and boy were they party hounds. Apart from the bands I've mentioned there were other big names like Rod Stewart, AC/DC, Yes, George Benson and more. It was fun because we got to see old friends of the road, but it was also a nightmare cause we were almost prisoners of the hotel, due to the fact there were far to many fans outside the hotel, so we hung around the pool most of the time. The press were paying guests with poolside views so they could use the room and snap rockstars by the pool, which, of course, put an end to that.

The only thing left to do between shows was to get out of Rio and Roger and I heard of a great place called Buzios (Hope I spelt that correctly) which I suppose is about 100 miles away. Deaky and Wally decided to come as well, and being wimps they took a limo, unlike us drum type people, we don't eat quiche, we're gonna drive. The locals were all driving around in beach buggies, they look like fun, thats us, lets go. A buggy is basically a VW beetle with a different body, and our gleaming white buggy turns out to be the biggest pile of crap ever allowed on a road.

I take the wheel and we're not too far into our journey when 1st gear goes on the missing list, I don't care, I'm a good driver, I can start in 2nd. The gearstick decides to loosen on us, so trying to get it in gear was like stirring soup, who cares, onwards and by now our buggy decides to dump the clutch, so when it came to pulling away I just pushed the stick, and whatever gear it went in was the one we drove in. At least we can see the funny side of it all. What else can God give us to make this mission harder, how about torrential rain, which is great fun to drive in when you don't have a roof on the car. Needless to say the buggy rapidly filled up with water. Five minutes of this downpour and we get our next treat, the wipers pack up, so RT has to stand up and lean over the top and wipe the windshield so I can see where I'm going. By this time we look like a couple of soaking wet tramps, but we are killing ourselves laughing as we watch the red mud flow down the hillsides into the river we are trying to drive through. As we go round a bend we both screamed out "OH F***" at the same time. A huge truck was heading in the opposite direction to us, and as it passed at high speed a tidal wave of red water engulfed us and our crappy little car. I have to be honest here, that did wipe out a bit of the humour. We got to our destination, found the hotel and as the drowned rats walked in, the wimps were sitting in the bar, very dry with very cold beers. Next time, I'm with you Deaky. You would think the first thing I would want was a shower, nope, top of the list was a nice quiet chat with the company that rented us our friendly little buggy, and after a couple of well placed words they didn't charge us. Once there we had a good time. Oh, I nearly forgot, we did a couple of great shows as well.

Loads of the usual stuff

Crystal

#oh i suppose i forgot to queue this!#queen #queen band #roger taylor #john deacon #crystal taylor #crystal's tales

29 notes · View notes

hxlyhead-harpies · 4 years

Text

The Last Dream of My Soul pt. 3 (R.L.)

Pairing: Young!Remus Lupin x Reader

Summary: The very bookish (Y/n) has spent most of her life alone, aside from her best friends Lily and her beloved books. But when the infamous Marauders get thrust into her life, how could she resist the beautiful and unattainable Remus.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2.7k

Hi everyone! I am really proud of this part and how it turned out so I hope that you like it!

Part 1, Part 2

Now that you spent more time with the Marauders, you finally got to go to Hogsmeade with Lily again. Just like old times you and Lily walked around arm in arm. The only difference now though, was that her other arm was linked around James’s. It must have been an odd sight. The three of you strolling through the village together, attached at the arms. But you didn’t care. You finally had your time with Lily back.

“Oi (Y/n)!” Sirius shouted. You turned towards him, smiling.

“Yes?”

“You make an absolutely fabulous third wheel. Even better at it than me, I reckon,” he said with a laugh. You dislodged your arm from Lily’s and began to walk in step with Sirius.

“I would say that it’s still a pretty close contest. I haven’t forgotten when you went along on a date with them,” you said jokingly. Lily turned to look over her shoulder from in front of you.

“And I haven’t forgotten yet either, you git!” Lily shouted. Sirius let out a deep belly laugh.

“I’m sorry Evans! I swear,” he shouted back. You laughed along with the two of them, struggling to remember a time when you had felt this happy. You were finally starting to understand the appeal of larger friend groups. You couldn’t feel lonely when you were surrounded by friends. You turn to look over your shoulder to see Remus and Peter lagging behind you. Peter had dropped his scarf and had begun to chase after it when it got caught in the wind. While the snow on the path to Hogsmeade had been shoveled, the sides of the roadway had not. So as Peter kept attempting to run through the shin-deep snow, he kept faceplanting into it. Remus stood behind him, safely on the road, with a wide grin on his face. His face was flushed red from the cold and he kept shouting after Peter, attempting to direct him to the scarf. The scene made you smile softly. You felt a nudge against your shoulder. You turned to face Sirius who was giving you an odd look. His expression made you almost believe that he knew something that you didn’t.

“What?” you asked him.

“What’re you staring at?” he inquired. You gestured to Peter struggling to get up from a mound of snow, sputtering out a string of curses.

“Peter’s lost his scarf,” you answered simply. Sirius smirked at you.

“Are you sure that all you were looking at?” he responded in a teasing tone. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion.

“What do you mean Sirius?”

“Oh nothing,” he responded cheekily. You frown, confused at his answer. Before you had the chance to further push the question the lot of you arrived at the Three Broomsticks.

James pushed open the door, causing a blast of warm air to hit you. You sighed contentedly. James and Sirius ran off to the bar to grab a round of butterbeer.

“A hot chocolate for me!” you yelled after the two boys, sliding into the booth next to Lily. Sirius turned around towards you and saluted in affirmation. After you and Lily got settled, removing the layers of hats and scarves from your body, Remus and Peter stumbled through the door. They were both smiling wide with red faces. Peter was huffing and puffing but held up his red and gold scarf above his head triumphantly. You and Lily cheered loudly from your table, drawing the attention of a few of the other patrons. They made their way over to the table, grinning the entire way. As they made their way over, James and Sirius also arrived at the table, beverages in hand. James slid in next to Lily while Peter sat on his other side. Remus gently slipped into the spot next to you, while Sirius began handing out the drinks.

“Okay then. Butterbeers for all of the normal people, and hot chocolates for Moony and (Y/n),” he said factitiously. You and Remus both reached for the same mug, accidentally brushing hands. You pulled back your hand quickly, muttering a quick apology, and attempted to hide the heat that had risen to your cheeks. Ever since that night in the common room where Remus had revealed to you that he didn’t like the idea of romance, you had done everything in your power to squash your crush. You tried your best to sit far from him at meals, you made sure that you were never alone together, and you found yourself talking to him less. But alas, none of this helped to quell your infatuation. All it took was merely seeing his face or hearing him speak for you to become a stuttering mess. None of your efforts conceded in stopping butterflies from erupting in your stomach every time you were near him.

The table talked about random, trivial things for a while. Topics such as “who had finished the charms essay” and “why were the first years acting extra annoying?” After a few minutes though, side conversations began to break off. Sirius and Peter appeared to be in a heated conversation, while Lily and James looked at each other all lovey-dovey, exchanging gentle touches to each other’s arms. For a moment you and Remus sat in silence, sipping your hot chocolates. After a second Remus cleared his throat.

“So I’m really enjoying the book so far,” he said.

“Good, I’m glad,” you replied with a smile.

“And I have to say, your annotations are quite entertaining,” he teasingly said. You groaned, putting your head in your hands.

“I’m sorry about that. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you,” you replied. He shot you a grin before taking another sip of hot chocolate.

“Well-” he placed his mug back down on the table- “It definitely makes reading it more fun,” he said. You smiled at this, humming in agreement.

“I suppose that could be true, I do tend to write pretty idiotic things in the margins,” you said with a laugh. Remus laughed along with you.

“I wouldn’t say idiotic… Though they aren’t the most insightful comments,” he teased. You playfully nudge his arm, ignoring the way that the touch made your heart skip a beat.

“But I do have to say, my favorite part is seeing the lines that you underline. You pick good favorite phrases,” he said earnestly. You smiled, tracing the rim of your mug with your forefinger.

“It’s one of my many talents,” you respond. Remus hummed in agreement before returning to his hot chocolate. At that moment Sirius began to tell a story detailing his latest rendezvous and you turned toward him to listen. You and Lily made faces at the moments where he bordered on disrespectful, sending him warning glares, while James high fived him from under the table.

After about an hour of reveling in the warmth of the pub, the group headed back out into the cold, ready to make the journey back to Hogwarts. As you exited the pub’s doors you felt yourself gasp in delight. While you were sitting inside, it had begun to snow. You practically ran outside, sticking your hands out to try and catch snowflakes. Lily and the Marauders watched you from the doorway, all of them smiling. You turned back to look at them with a jubilant expression.

“Guys,” you exclaimed breathily, “it’s snowing!” Lily ran out to join you, immediately sticking out her tongue to catch snowflakes. James followed behind her closely, putting his hand on her waist. Sirius spent no time crafting a snowball and chucking it at Peter’s stomach. The boys began chasing after one another, attempting to stuff snow down each other’s hoods. Lily squealed with delight when James picked her up by the waist before plopping her down into a snowbank.

“Potter!” she shrieked, “You’re going to pay for that!” She made a snowball as quickly as she could and chucked it at her boyfriend, earning a chuckle from the group. You watched from the side, content catching snowflakes in your gloved hand and watching them disappear. After a moment you sensed someone walk up beside you. You looked up to see Remus who was smiling down on you. You smiled back, your stomach churning. His eyes looked down at your gloves which had an array of snowflakes melting on them.

“Here,” he said, moving to stand in front of you. He grabbed your hand lightly, turning it so your palm was facing the sky. He waited for a snowflake to land there before muttering a quick incantation and pointing his wand at the flake. It froze in place, his spell stopping it from melting. You looked at it with wide eyes, admiring its beauty. The small, crystalized, symmetrical shape was extremely beautiful. You felt awestruck. You looked up to thank Remus, an impossibly large grin on your face.

“Thank you,” you breathed out. He smiled at you before responding.

“You’re welcome. I thought you’d enjoy it,” he said, his breath fanning across your face, reminding you of your close proximity. You flushed, stepping back an inch.

“I did,” you replied shyly. The moment is broken when a snowball exploded on Remus’s shoulder. He sputtered for a moment, knocked off balance. He reached for your shoulder to steady himself before scanning the scene to identify his attacker. Sirius and James grinned at him cheekily, more snowballs in hands.

“Oh you two are dead!” he yelled at his best friends, kneeling down to create his own snowball. The snow war waged on for a few more minutes, you eventually being pulled into the battle. And you use it as an excuse to distract yourself from replaying the moment that you just had with Remus.

After your small moment in Hogsmeade, you felt a slight shift in your relationship with Remus. He seemed to purposely seek you out to talk to you; topics of discussion ranged from books to the upcoming holiday break to random tidbits of gossip. (Remus was a notorious gossip but he would vehemently deny it if anyone suggested it). The way he spoke to you appeared to be softer, more gentle, and when you’d find yourself alone with him in the common room late at night, the conversations seemed more intimate and vulnerable. But despite these factors, you refused to let yourself think about it too deeply. You knew Remus’s stance on romance and you didn’t want to get your hopes up for nothing. Despite this though, you still reveled in each conversation, soaking up everything that he had to say. You were content just listening to him talk, hearing the melodic tone of his voice. And while late at night you fantasized that he’d confess his love to you in the same way that the leading men from your books did, you were just fine being his friend. At least that was what you told yourself.

At some point, you and Remus had formed a habit of reading together in the astronomy tower. It was almost always empty after dinner, so you and Remus would head up there and settle down next to each other to read. You would mostly read in silence, occasionally breaking the quiet tranquility to discuss something happening in your respective novels. But it was a comfortable silence, the kind of silence you had only ever experienced before with Lily. It almost scared you how fast Remus and you had become close. You thought that you had a good understanding of one another, despite only knowing each other for a few weeks. You knew that you didn’t know everything about him, but you felt that you truly knew him nonetheless.

On this night you were reading Persuasion, another muggle romance. Remus was still reading your tattered copy of A Tale of Two Cities. You had been reading for about half an hour when you began to peer over the edge of your book at Remus, something you caught yourself doing quite often.

His eyes were slightly furrowed in concentration, his thumbnail caught between his teeth. His messy hair was beginning to fall into his eyes which were sweeping across the page in front of him. He looked absolutely beautiful, and you felt as if you could spend your whole life watching him.

You eventually let your eyes fall back to your own book, attempting to avoid being caught admiring him. You spent a few more moments reading, envisioning yourself and Remus in the shoes of Anne and Captain Wentworth until you felt a gentle tap on your shoulder. You turned to look up at Remus, who was smiling gently.

“I think I’ve found your favorite part,” he said quietly. You felt yourself smile and straightened up.

“Really?” you asked excitedly. Remus nodded, shifting around so he was now facing you fully. He cleared his throat and before you realized his plan he began to read the passage out loud.

“To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul,” he read. You felt yourself beam as he uttered your favorite line. It had somehow become even more romantic in his voice.

“In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this homemade such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent forever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down,” he paused to take a breath, looking up at you with flushed cheeks.

“But I wish you to know that you inspired it,” he said, finishing the paragraph. You felt yourself swoon from the combination of the romantic words of the text and Remus’s eyes boring into your own. You smiled softly at him before turning away, unable to handle the eye contact. You played with the hem of your skirt for a second, though you still felt his eyes on you.

“You guessed correctly,” you muttered, “that is my favorite part.” Remus hummed, nodding slightly.

“I can see why you enjoy it so much,” he said. From the corner of your eye, you saw him tracing his finger across the words you had underlined.

“Really? You? Mr. unromantic?” you teased. You lifted your head to look at him again. His cheeks were tinted red and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Well… maybe I’m beginning to see the appeal of romance,” he said ashamedly. You furrowed your eyebrows and attempted to slow your now racing heart.

“Oh?” you said softly, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Well fictional ones at least,” he said quickly. You felt your face crumple at his words, quickly attempting to cover it up.

“Oh I understand what you mean,” you replied, trying to keep your words light. “At least now you have so many more books you can read,” you continued. Remus chuckled from beside you.

“I suppose so. Might have to borrow them from you though,” he said. “I’ll miss reading your annotations after I’m done with this,” he continued, flashing the cover of the book towards you. You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and shot him a small smile.

“Well don’t worry. I have hoards of books with silly little notes in them that I can lend you,” you said with a giggle. Remus laughed with you for a moment before you turned back to your own novel. Quickly, you became engrossed in the story. So engrossed that you missed the way Remus continuously traced one line in the book. A line that had been underlined many times, in an array of colors. A line that had kept you up at night, fantasizing that someday, someone would think it of you.

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist:

@goosegorl @serenefreakgeekao3 @blueflame2778

307 notes · View notes