#and obi and shirayuki and zen as kids who BARELY like each other and then become besties and then have this LOVE TRIANGLE

[sabraeal]

If All Else Fails Just Play Dead

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki AU Bingo 2021 Swan Princess AU

There is a boy in her house.

Two boys, actually; not counting Uncle, who is the Margrave Entaepode, or Papa, who acts like he is, or Raj, who everyone simply tolerates because there are worse things than having the first prince adopt your heir as their particular friend, and all of them start with denying said prince what he wants.

(And also because when he’s not trying to flex all his royal powers at once, Raj can be almost tolerable. He at least believes in magic, which gives him a leg up over just about every other boy Shirayuki has known, save for uncle, even if he doesn’t know any himself.)

Sakaki is also not to be counted, though she feels bad about it, on account of how often she typically forgets that Sakaki is a boy and not just some boy-shaped furniture Raj travels with, like how he always brings his pillow and his favorite chair. She’ll have to remember to bring him some extra pastries from the kitchen as an apology.

No, these are two entirely foreign boys, shipped straight from the court of the King Who Isn’t, as her father calls him-- though not within his mother’s hearing. Shirayuki is resigned to make the best of it; Uncle asks for so little, and she is the Lady of the Manor, even if she only comes by the title from a lack of older women to fill it. If she must, she can entertain their guests, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it, not one bit at all.

A shelf rattles, jostling the books on their bindings. Shirayuki’s fingers nearly dint a page as she turns it, but she does not look up. To look up would be to give in, and even if she is charged with entertaining, she does not need to be the entertainment.

It rattles again, now with two giggles to accompany it. Excellent. It seems both her troubles are accounted for.

With a sigh, she collects herself. This is what is fair, after all. It is her duty to see after Entaepode’s guests, and Papa is already taking on the brunt of the Her Majesty’s needs, as well as the marquis’ that travels with her. Not that she would have minded if he wanted to switch; Queen Haruto at least seemed like the sort to enjoy a quiet afternoon in the library.

A leg swings over the top of the shelf, long and skinny and ending in a particularly scuffed boot.

Very much, Shirayuki thinks, slapping her book shut on the table, unlike her son and his companion. 

“You’re not supposed to do that.” She means to be mild, but each sound falls so waspish from her lips that it could sting. Oh, Uncle will be displeased when he finds out she was rude to their esteemed guests. “It harms the books.”

A sly, cat’s grin shines down on her as a second leg follows the first. “We’re just on the shelves.” Obi twitches his shoulders in a lazy excuse for a shrug. “It’s not like we’re ripping out pages.”

Of the three of them, he’s older-- oh, well, both boys are older than her, but he’s oldest. Only a few years shy of being a man in his own right; the sort of older that’s supposed to know better. Not that he looks it-- Obi’s supposed to be thirteen, but he’s barely an inch taller than Prince Zen, showing none of the stretch in his limbs that boys his age should before they come into their growth.

His feet dangle, just at the level of her nose, and uncharitable irritation itches in her thoughts. Maybe he’ll be one of those boys who’s small forever, a man in a child’s body. The sort of boy she’ll be looking down on instead of up at, should she get Papa’s height, or Uncle’s.

“The shelves are where the books live,” she tells him officiously, fists high on her hips. “And if you knock it over, then you might hurt your spine, or worse, one of theirs! Or even worse,” she adds with no little horror, “you might tear out a page!”

He blinks, those wide, gold eyes flashing like candlelight. “Huh.”

She conjures up Uncle at his most imperious as she says, “This isn’t a training yard.”

“How would you know?” The shelf wobbles, and a pale white mop heaves itself over it. The second Prince of Clarines is pinch-faced, like he’s always just finished sucking on a lemon, and pale as an invalid. She could believe he was bedridden, from the way he keeps waiting to be served. “It’s not like you’ve ever been on one.”

A breath hisses between her teeth. It’s not from lack of trying, she wants to say; her last birthday, Papa has trousers sewn for her, plus a shirt and waist. He’d promised her a sword, even traipsed her through the halls to the yard, but Uncle had been waiting right at the gate, mouth drawn to a forbidding line.

What are you thinking, Mukaze? She’d heard him growl, her ear pressed tight to the study door. My own heir, and you put a blade in her hand.

If she were a boy, you’d have thought I’d done it too late, Papa had replied, easy as always, the way that would drive Uncle mad. I don’t see the harm--

Of course you don’t. Uncle had never sounded so cold, so bitter as he did in that moment. You never do.”

Her stomach twists, slithering around like a nest full of snakes, only getting more knotted, more sick as she thinks about it. Uncle and Papa were close as brothers, surely--

Surely, she shouldn’t be worrying about this at all.

“Why are you wearing all that black?” she snips instead, ignoring the heat that licks up her neck. “It’s summer.”

It’s not doing him any favors either; all that thick velvet just makes his limbs skinny and his face more drawn, like he’s a skeleton rather than a boy.

The prince stills, legs no longer kicking, lips no longer flapping; just a steady, slow rise and fall of his chest. Obi-- a study of constant motion-- doesn’t even do that; instead he sits, utterly immovable, and stares.

With a voice chilled with the winter he’s never felt, His Highness finally says, “My father died.”

She’d known that, she had. His Majesty died a year ago, her Uncle even told her, their legs pressed tight on his study’s sofa. She liked doing that, lining bone to bone, like they might one day be a matching set, margrave and heir both. Another pair of shoulders to carry the burden of rule, after so many years of an absent, broader pair.

Her Majesty has ever been a bosom companion to this family, he’d continued, a strange tightness to his voice. Now that her mourning is over, she is bringing her youngest son to visit. I’m sure your father would be pleased if you became...as close as they.

So much for that. Uncle would be so disappointed-- not only had she scolded the prince, but she’d insulted him too, and--

And he had started it. Her mouth settles into a thin line, so like Uncle’s.

“So did my mother.” So long ago that she is barely more than a song and a scent. Still, there is no ceding ground, not to Prince Zen; every inch she gives him yields a mile, and he considers it his due. “And you don’t see me walking around in velvet during high summer.”

The prince’s skin is pale as moonlight, the envy of every maid in the manor, but it flushes an angry red now, his body trembling to contain him. “My father, he sputters, leaping off the shelf, “is more important than your stupid mother ever will be.”

Papa praises her for her even-temper. Just like your mother, he laughs, not as boldly as he is wont. You never let anything under your skin. Not like me. Though all our impulse certainly bred true.

Anger, Uncle would say in his soothing voice, every syllable measured, makes a man a fool. You would do well to eschew it if you can, my little girl.

So it is not that Shirayuki is angry; oh no, she is incandescent.

Her finger curl, carving pitted crescents in her palms. For once she is glad that magic is consigned to history books and scholars in their towers, for if she could but call fire to her fingertips, this whole library would be alight. Her mother may be more sense than solid to her, but there is not a stone here she has not touched, and--

Well, Uncle is right, but Shirayuki is content to be stupid.

“Maybe so,” she says, so calm, so even, just as Uncle might. “But at least people liked her.”

For a moment, Prince Zen looms, every line trembling, and she is convinced that he will raise a hand to her, that he will truly treat her as her father’s mouth has earned her. But instead he spins on his heel, stalking out of the library with naught a word.

Wrath leaves her at once, a spirit exorcised from her chest, and oh, she’s dizzy with the lack. Her hand reaches out, meaning to grab for the chair--

But another hand grabs it instead. Shirayuki had never noticed at what a patrician angle Obi’s nose sat, not until he stares down it at her, his face a smooth bronze mask.

“That,” he says, finally sounding his age, “was badly done.”

Had her father sat her down after that terrible, disastrous morning, and told her that one day she would consent to marry the prince, Shirayuki would have--

Well, she would have done something Uncle wouldn’t approve of, surely. And she had, when Papa sat her down not too long after the queen’s carriage disappeared into the horizon, and told her that their union had been agreed upon, dowry and all. But to think she would ever want to, that she herself would gladly make the plans-- impossible.

If only it had stayed that way. If only she had remembered why she’d waved him off at arm’s length every summer, why she’d tossed him in the pond when he tried to kiss her at fifteen and told him he’d have better luck finding a princess of his own species in there. At least then she might be able to scuttle this whole wedding, instead of having Papa and Haruto cluck at her pitifully when she asks, telling her that it would all work out eventually.

After all, hadn’t she loved him just last night?

Shirayuki huffs, rolling to her side. She’s no longer livid, which is an improvement; last night she’d thought quite long and extremely hard about how many tapestries she would need to tear from the walls to get a good, solid bonfire to catch and burn Wistal palace to its very stones. Once she started considering where the custodians might keep turpentine, or whether she could wheedle the key to the cellars out of the chatelaine, she’d forced herself to lay down. Few things had ever made her so angry that they couldn’t be solved by a good night’s rest.

Wrath and rage has cooled, but not to her usual levelheaded calm, the answer filling her with vim and vigor and a dangerous determination. Oh no, instead her fine barrel of fury has turned to melancholy, and with each minute that ticks by, she drinks a deeper draught.

Is beauty all that matters to you?

Even now her breath catches at the roiling confusion in Zen’s eyes. What else is there?

“What was I thinking?” Her fists clench at her sides, but it’s not enough, not until she brings them to her eyes and pressed down, colors sparking across her eyelids. “Why did I...?”

She thought he had changed. They all had, these last few years, hadn’t they? No longer the three children that had tripped over each other in her uncle’s halls, bickering and pinching and causing trouble wherever they roamed. Shirayuki’s temper had mellowed. Zen had grown taller-- or at least tall enough to please him. And Obi--

Obi should be here. And now he’s not, and it’s yet another why she has no answer to.

A timid knock brushes against her door, followed by an even softer, “M-my lady?”

Shirayuki pulls her fists from her eyes, blinking away the blur. “Come in.”

A small girl slinks inside, dark eyes wide and round. “M-my lady...” Her brow furrows. “Your hands are wet.”

She glances down, staring at the fingers laces so tightly in her nightgown. Her knuckles do indeed shimmer in the light, right where they had been pressed along her eyes. “So they are. I...suppose you are here to dress me.”

“Ah...” The maid loses her certainty, eyes darting around the room. “About that...”

Her heart leaps in her breast. “Has something happened?”

“Ah, well.” The girl winces. “There’s a bit of a, um, problem. With the arrangements.”

“The arrangements?” Shirayuki echoes.

“Ah...”

That’s when she hears the screams.

Her twelfth summer marks the moment that this arrangement becomes completely, irrevocably unfair.

“I don’t see what the problem is.” Branches shiver above her, the only sign of Obi a few flashes of black and buckskin and the leaves quivering in his wake. “You two have gotten nearly civil these days.”

“But you’ve gotten tall,” Shirayuki grouses, tucking herself between the roots of the old oak, book sprawled upon her lap. “Any day now you’ll be head and shoulders taller, and what if Zen’s the same? I can’t be the smallest.”

“Well.” She can’t see him, but she knows he settles above her, perched on a branch too precarious for his size. “You are a girl.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be tall.” A finger taps against the page, thoughtful. “Haruto is.”

“For a lady.”

“For anyone,” she corrects primly. “It’s fine enough for you to be tall-- you’re tolerable. But Zen...” She grimaces. “His height it the only thing that keeps him humble. The king isn’t tall, is he?”

“He is,” Obi informs her with relish. “Almost taller than my father, and he’s not done growing.”

She pictures it, Zen being able to look Haruka square in the eye, and shudders.

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Shirayuki sighs, finger knitting in her lap. “Uncle should forbid you from coming. You can stay for now, but next summer is right out.”

It’s strange how even though she can’t see him, she can feel his grin on the air. “I’m sure nothing would make him happier.”

“Or me,” she admits, wistful. “What good neighbors Zen and I might be, if we never had to look at each other again. Save for weddings and births and funerals, of course. And you’d always be welcome, Obi.”

“Thanks.” He drops down one of his too-long legs, toes curling in the air above her, the only visible part of him. “But I wasn’t talk about the Young Master.”

Shirayuki blinks, mouth curving in confusion as she parses his words. “You can’t mean Uncle.”

Obi leans, just enough for her to see his dubious, arched brow. “Why not?”

“Uncle’s always liked Zen.” He’d been the one to calm her when she’d come crying, distraught that Papa would make her marry a boy as pompous as him. Plenty of boys grow out of their pettiness, little girl, he’d told her, smoothing the wild riot of her hair, at least as many that don’t. “Even now, he’s with him, showing him the march.”

“Only because your father asked him,” Obi says, settling back into the canopy. “The next Margrave Entaepode needs to know what his lands can bring. Especially if he means to bring them to his brother.”

Shirayuki frowns. “I’m the next Margrave Entaepode.”

“No,” Obi hums. “You’re the next margravine.”

Shirayuki is not sure what she expects when she walks into Clarines’ great hall, but it is certainly not carnage.

“What happened?” she breathes, picking her way over a toppled chair. There’s not a scrap of fabric that’s not torn, not a table nor chair without a wobble. Flower petals lay strewn on the ground, and the cake--

“Oh no,” she sighs, “I was so looking forward to desset.”

It’s toppled, every tier crushed to the stone beneath it, buttercream and jam and custard smeared up and down the aisle. It had been a gift from the Seirans; Zen had been so excited to know their much-beloved cook had made each layer with him in mind-- Except one, Obi reminded him, swiping a bit of cream from a spoon. You know who Cookie loves best.

“A beast did it,” the steward tells her, near to tiers. “Knocked it over, then even stopped to take a bite.”

“Three bites,” a maid chimes in. “Odd, it was. I could have sworn it thought about it too, just stood there looking as Cook came in, shouting to high heaven, and ate its share.”

Shirayuki glances down. “Flew? As in-- with wings?”

“Yes,” the steward agrees, “it had wings, and a mouth with cruel teeth.”

“There weren’t no teeth,” the chatelaine snaps waving the wailing man off. “It was just a bird. Swan, I think, from the size. And the meanness. Came in here like a holy terror, it did.

“It was a beast with teeth,” the steward insists, “and it bit one of the footmen!”

The chatelaine huffs. “What did you expect, trying to grab it like that?”

Shirayuki can’t help but agree; she’s bitten more than a man or two that tried to catch her as well. But that’s not what has her attention now; instead it is the cake on the floor, those three big bites out of it, baring chocolate sponge and raspberry custard. The layer Cookie made special. The one she thought would go to waste when...

“Where is he now?” At their looks, she amends, “I mean, it. The beast.”

“Outside,” the steward says, sending a narrow look toward the door. “A few of the maids managed to chase it out, but I’m afraid it will have gotten into the decoration-- my lady, where--?”

“I’d like to take a look,” Shirayuki calls back, slippered feet already carrying her to the door. “I, ah, think I might know how to solve this...problem?”

The steward blinks. “Is there some...Tanbarunian folk tradition for this? Ridding the grounds of a foul beast?”

Her feet stutter at the threshold, and she swallows down a laugh. “Certainly something for removing one fowl.”

At thirteen, Shirayuki will admit, Zen becomes tolerable. Not without extreme duress, and certainly never if Obi is around, but being in his presence no longer feels like slivers under her fingernails. Now it’s just that unpleasant drone of cicadas, the same that herald his arrival every summer.

“Are you supposed to be climbing?” she asks, settling herself at the base of the tree’s trunk, as always. “Your mother won’t thank you for ruining those trousers.”

Obi laughs, already deep in the canopy. “I think you mean his laundress.”

“I have plenty more,” Zen scoffs, levering his boot over another knot, giving him the height to reach the first branch. “And I think you’re only so cross because you can’t climb for beans.”

She retracts her opinion. His Highness has certainly not become tolerable in the least.

“Come off it,” Obi laughs, so easy in his bower. “Anyone can climb.”

Zen grins down at her with smug authority. “Not Shirayuki, she’s a girl.”

“So is Kiki,” Obi reminds him, “and if she heard you talk like that, she’d come up and throw you off that branch herself.”

“Kiki hardly counts as a girl--”

“--That’s not what Mitsuhide would say--”

“--And that doesn’t mean Shirayuki can,” Zen adds, tone brooking no argument. “She doesn’t even have trousers on.”

“Shirayuki can climb in a dress just fine.” Obi swings down, right to the lowest branch. Or rather, the second lowest, since Zen hasn’t vacated the first. “Come on, I’ll tell you how.”

She spares the tree a dubious glance. “Are you sure--?”

“Always. Don’t you trust me?” He lowers down a hand, callused and bronzed, and she takes it. “Good, now put your foot there. Now just...think up.”

She sends him a dubious look. “I don’t think it’s possible to just go up by thinking it.”

He grins down. “You’d be surprised.”

Shirayuki is definitely ruining her dress.

“You’re sure it’s up here?” she calls down, a worried swarm of footmen huddling beneath her. “Waterfowl aren’t really...tree-dwelling birds.”

“I’m sure, my lady,” one pipes up beneath her. “Took to wing, then hopped up the branches easy as you please.”

Shirayuki casts a long look up the oak, sighing. “Of course he did.”

One slippered foot lifts, hooking over a thicker branch, resting her weight right by the trunk.

“Just think up,” she murmurs, irritation rising with every word. “Just think up and it’s hardly anything at all.”

“HONK,” agrees the goose above her.

“Oh.” She blinks, taking in the sleek white body and the webbed feet tucked unnaturally beneath it. Well, not that the pose was unnatural, but the place. “You’re not a swan at all.”

“HONK,” the goose informs her, wistful this time.

“Be glad,” she says, reaching for him. “If you were any bigger, I wouldn’t be able to carry you, and you’d be stuck up here with your big wings and bad decisions.

The goose ducks it head, abashed. “HONK.”

“You better,” she starts, trying to wrangle a bird his size beneath her arm, “be exactly who I think you are.”

This close, her fowl friend doesn’t dare express his opinion at the only volume nature saw fit to give him, but instead, cuddles right against her neck. For one, weak moment, Shirayuki leans against the trunk, letting her head sink into his feathers. Please let this be him. If it is, she can worry about the how later. Maybe even the why. As long as he hasn’t abandoned her, there’s nothing--

“Not to interrupt you,” a lady’s languid voice drawls beneath her. “But I’m assuming that you might need some help getting down.”

Fifteen is when Shirayuki is made aware of just how utterly unfair her life will be from now on, now that she’s to be the wife of a prince.

“No, no,” Obi laughs, nervous. “I think the Young Master has it right this time, Miss. You can’t come.”

“Why not?” He’s gotten much taller now, taller even than when he arrived, and she has to look up to guilelessly meet his eye, much more than she’s used to. “If I can climb trees with you, I can splash around in a pond just fine--”

“Yes, but--” his mouth split into a pained grimace-- “climbing trees doesn’t involve taking off clothes. You can see how that might be a, hm, problem now, can’t you, Miss?”

“No.”

His exasperation is completely unwarranted, considering how exasperating he’s being. “You’re a lady.”

“One that can swim,” she counters. “We’ve done it before, I don’t know why it’s bothering you now.”

“Because you’re...” He waves a hand at her, a harried up and down, but she only stares back. “Of all the things for Master to leave to me...”

“I can keep my shift on,” she offers, “if that helps.”

“It really doesn’t, Miss.” Obi sighs, one hand coming up to rub at his shoulder. “Surely your father-- no, your uncle. Surely your uncle’s talked to you about how boys and girls shouldn’t, um...you know.”

“I don’t.”

“It’s just...” He takes a steeling breath. “Miss, you’re a woman now. You can’t be naked with men.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I said I would wear my shift. And besides, you’re not men, you’re boys.”

Obi head rolls heavenward. “Only to you.”

Shirayuki gives him a considering look and pulls out her trump card. “Would you let Kiki Seiran come?”

She doesn’t know this Kiki Seiran, not from anything more than what’s been said in her presence, but she knows-- whatever a man does, Kiki does, and better too. The moment her name leaves her lips, Obi drops her a helpless glare.

“Kiki,” he says, as if savoring the word, “doesn’t count. No one lets Kiki Seiran do something, she just does it, and we all live with the consequences.”

A fond smile flickers across his lips, and for no reason at all, her stomach twists. “You should marry her.”

Obi blinks. “Huh?”

“Kiki Seiran,” she says lightly. “It seems she’s really quite impressive.”

For a long moment he stares at her, unblinking. Then he coughs, one, twice, until it’s no longer a cough but roaring laughter.

Shirayuki stares at him. “Is something funny?”

“Oh, Miss,” he wheezes. “That’s some vote of confidence, but Kiki Seiran-- she’s not for the likes of me.”

The sick knot in her stomach dissipates into affront. “Why not? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Again, you really know how to compliment a man,” he teases. “But no count worth his acreage will marry his daughter and heir to a bastard. With her pedigree, they’re probably planning to marrying her to Elder Highness as we speak.”

“Well, that’s silly,” she huffs. “You’re worth a thousand princes Obi. Any lady would be lucky to have you.”

His smile wavers. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You should bring her next time,” she decides. “I can talk to her.”

“Ah,” he coughs, shaking his head as he traipses after her. “That won’t be necessary at all.”

This is not how she thought she’d meet the illustrious Kiki Seiran, her wedding dress torn to rags and goose hugged tight in her arms, but it would not be the first time today fate thwarted her expectations.

“I’m fine,” Shirayuki assures her, slowly making her descent. “But do you have, um, water?”

One elegant brow arches. “Water?”

“Ah, yes.” She drops down before her-- oh, Lady Seiran is...quite a bit taller than she’d imagined, and at least twice as pretty. No wonder Obi always smiled when he talked about her. “Like a, um, lake? Or a river might do?”

“A lake?” Her gaze drops, mouth canting into a thoughtful line. “For your avian compatriot, I suppose. You think his home must be close by.”

“Yes,” she lies, because babbling about ancient texts she’s certain she was never supposed to see and magic of the blackest sort seemed a poor first impression to make. “It would probably, uh, help with the...destructive behavior.”

“He has left quite a spectacle behind. It will take hours to clean that up. Or days,” she adds with a pointed look toward the goose. “Your wedding seems to be thoroughly postponed.”

Good, she doesn’t say. This Kiki Seiran is Zen’s friend too, after all. And even if Shirayuki could have shaken him to pieces last night, she’s that too.

“Water?” she says instead.

It’s the right thing to say, since Kiki turns around, gesturing toward the treeline. “There’s a pond back there. Just follow the cobblestone path and it should take you right out to the dock.”

“Perfect.” Shirayuki takes two hurried steps before pausing, turning over her hip to add, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Kiki. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

There’s that brow again, lifted into an elegant arch Shirayuki could never hope to mimic. “Only good things, I hope.”

Her stomach lurches as she replies, “The best.”

[claudeng80]

Spring Day (Mermaid AU)

Sequel to Single Rider.

Sun beats down on Shirayuki’s shoulders, tingling even through the layer of sunscreen she’d so laboriously applied not an hour ago. The straps of her tank top itch against her back and she can’t help but feel like skin cancer is already popping up in all the spots she’s undoubtedly missed. Zen had been too busy to help her when she asked, and she’s never quite sure she’s done as thorough a job as she needs.

A trio of children barrels past, pushing Shirayuki tighter against Zen’s side. It’s okay for a moment, but then guilt gets the better of her and she checks his suit for sunscreen smears. She’d hate to be the cause of a mess. At least he’s ditched the coat in deference to the heat of the sun, but she still feels notably underdressed next to him.

A mom powers past, hauling a prodigiously large beach bag and focused on the kids now disappearing into the crowd queueing up for the waterslide. Honestly, Shirayuki knows she’s not underdressed, Zen’s overdressed, but that doesn’t really help. It just means he’s working, despite all his promises to make the most of her vacation. She’d thought, after the disaster of the last trip, that he understood, that he’d do better this time.

Maybe Kiki really is right. This is just who Zen is.

He stops on a patio overlooking an expanse of sparkling clear water ringed with tropical plants and leans against the railing. “He said to meet us here by the mermaid pool. He’s late.”

“I’m not late, I’m right on time.” A strange voice interrupts from out in the spring, dark hair bobbing in the water for a moment before the man plants long-fingered hands on the lip of the patio and hoists himself  out, biceps coiling. “Can’t exactly carry a watch like this,” he adds, and Shirayuki can do nothing but stare.

He’s bare down to the waist, rivulets of water coursing over skin just starting to pebble with chill. The day’s hot, but the water’s permanently chilly. She can only guess it’s something of a shock to leave the water like that. He shifts his weight, tensing defined abdominal muscles and lean sides, and there’s no ignoring it anymore- below the waist is a tail.

It’s a stretchy tail, pulled tight across his waist and thighs, shimmering with layers and ropes of sequins that send thousands of points of glare in all directions with his every movement. The effect is dulled a bit by her sunglasses, but still it’s mesmerizing.

Zen wastes no time in complaining. “Obi, I said to check the place out, not- this.” He gestures vaguely at the tail, which the man obligingly splashes in the water a few times. A little girl, passing by, squeals and points, and Obi grins and waves back at her.

“They decided my assets were wasted in customer service,” he responds after his biggest fan moves on. Shirayuki keeps her mouth shut, but she can see how they came to that decision.

Zen’s still frowning, though. “I have an appointment with the general manager in about ten minutes. I was hoping you’d be able to show Shirayuki around. She really wanted to see the bird show.” He trails off. Shirayuki doesn’t know what to say. She wanted to do things with Zen, but clearly he hadn’t had the same plans.

“Still on the clock, boss,” the man smirks back, and finally she manages to look him in the face. He seems familiar, but she doesn’t place him right away. “I’m demonstrating for the beginner class in-” he looks at his wrist. “-ten minutes. Just enough time for you to go pick her up a ticket.”

The two men face each other down for a second, Zen looming over Obi and Obi unapologetic. Shirayuki feels like she really ought to say something. “Um, it sounds like fun?” She’s a strong enough swimmer and the water really does look refreshing. Kihal had made her promise not to miss the bird show, but there would be plenty of time for that later in the afternoon.

Zen relents, softening as he turns his gaze to Shirayuki and nodding. “I’ll go pay. I’m sure Obi can show you where you need to go.”

Silence falls after he goes, the far-off shrieks of children and tropical birds echoing across the patio. But Obi smiles up at her, his hair already starting to fluff as it dries, and suddenly she realizes where she saw him before. In the sunlight, half-naked and wet, he looks so different than in the dimness of the restaurant on her last trip. His kindness had made that trip bearable, had given her the patience to forgive Zen and try again. “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she says, suddenly shy for no reason she can guess.

His eyes drop, hair shading his face for a moment. “Come on, you should get moving. It takes a while to get the tail on.”

She can’t help but peek at the mention, and he shimmies, sending sparks of reflected light in all directions. She jerks her head away, staring out at the water, because it’s just too much. “They don’t put sequins on the beginners, right?”

“Meet me at the pool and find out.” He points to the shallows around the arc of the spring, then arches off the patio and back into the water far more gracefully than anyone should be able to.

***

It’s still hard to meet Obi’s eyes when he joins them for dinner, even when he’s fully dressed in a suit this time. Zen fusses over the buttons, yanking Obi’s tie into a straight and tidy order, but Obi winks at Shirayuki over Zen’s head and loosens the knot all over again the moment his back is turned. But even when Obi’s presence is some kind of an itch she doesn’t know what to make of, Shirayuki can’t help but be a little relieved he’s there.

“Mr. Brecker,” Zen says past them, reaching out for the park owner’s hand.

They haven’t even gotten all the way through introductions before Shirayuki decides she doesn’t much like Mr. Brecker. To Zen he’s all smiles and ease: “Call me Fred, all my friends do,” he insists. Shirayuki and Obi might not even be there for all he cares, at the table the hostess whisks them past half a dozen waiting parties to take.

“What do you think of the place?” Brecker’s eyes glitter with the excuse to make others admire his possession. The restaurant stretches out over the edge of the spring with the main body of the attractions on the far side; in the evening light the neon lights are already throwing glimmering reflections across the water’s surface.

Zen thinks for a second, probably trying to edit something palatable out of the rant on Yuris Springs’ finances he’d treated Shirayuki to in the hotel room last night. Clearly he comes up dry. “Shirayuki’s experienced a lot more of it than I have.”

Everyone looks to Shirayuki, who looks to Obi. She doesn’t even know why she does it, and he raises his eyebrows. “I took the beginner mermaid lesson, and it was even more fun than I thought it’d be.” Just mentioning it makes her realize how she’s hunching forward, and she forces herself to uncoil and relax against the back of the chair. More muscles protest at the motion than she even knew she had. But it was the truth, and watching the other adult women in the class salivate over Obi’s demonstration was worth the cost of admission.

“They’re very popular,” Brecker oozes. “Every woman wants to be a mermaid, you know.”

Shirayuki grits her teeth, and is gratified to see both Zen and Obi doing the same. “I was wondering, though, what was going on with the bird show today? I’d heard it was beautiful, and it was so disappointing when I saw it was cancelled.”

That drops the oily grin from Brecker’s face, as his lips curl up in a snarl.

“You!” A stir in the distance turns into Kihal, still in her uniform and radiating fury with every movement as she marches through the restaurant. She fetches up just short of Brecker, hands on hips. “Where’s the key, Brecker?”

“Did you lose it again? What a shame.” His superior smirk is enjoying her frustration far too much.

“You have it, the secretaries saw you take it. You made your point, but now hand it over, I need to feed the birds.”

“Do you know how much those birds cost? And do you know how much they’re bringing in to this park?” He holds up one hand, indicating a zero. “We’d be better off if they were gone. At least then we could put something on the site that would actually make some money. You want this key?” His hand dips into an inside coat pocket, coming out with a keyring featuring a glittering blue bird in flight, and with a flick of his wrist he tosses it over the edge.

It hits the water with a chime and a plop, and Shirayuki’s chair is already screeching back. Nothing about this is okay, not the way he talks to Kihal or the fact he would let living creatures starve to make a point. One foot on the railing, and she’s over and in the air before anyone can stop her.

“You realize this park is full of mermaids, right?” Zen’s voice is the last thing she hears before cold water slaps the breath from her chest.

Underwater, everything looks different by twilight than it had in the brightness of midday. Columns of algae tower like trees in this wilder part of the spring, far deeper than where she’d had her lessons hours ago. Every muscle aches from exertion and cold, but the keyring glitters just below her feet, fluttering in the spring current as it sinks slowly.

Shirayuki jackknifes, stretching for the keys just beyond her fingertips, and a splash behind her says she’s not alone in the water. Obi’s faster than she is underwater, a shadow paralleling her on her left, but she’s already got her eye on the prize. One more mighty kick, an impossible stretch, and her finger hooks through the ring. Her lungs are tight, impossibly tight as she turns to the light, and an arm hooks around her waist and sends them rocketing back to the surface.

When they hit air at last, everything driving her drains away in cold and exhaustion, and it’s all she can do to cling to the keyring and Obi’s shirt. Stroke after stroke he powers them to the shore and helps her out, still steady on his feet while she’s stumbling. He’s warm to the touch, too, somehow, and his arms around her steady her against the shivers that go racing through her body.

Kihal reaches them first, and Shirayuki holds out her quivering arm. “Take care of them,” she says, voice almost unrecognizable even to herself. Kihal thanks her once, clasping the keyring to her chest, but anybody could see she’s dying to go feed her hungry charges.

Zen’s next, Obi’s coat slung over his arm and a look of endless thunder on his face. “You’re buying it, right?” Shirayuki challenges him. She’s not one to poke into his business, never one to try to use his influence for her own purposes, but there’s only one right thing to do now. Wisteria Family Holdings wouldn’t let anything happen to the birds.

“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.” Zen looks off the way Kihal went, already gone in the near-dark, and then turns back to where Brecker is waiting at the restaurant. “Obi, get her back to the hotel.”

Obi drapes his coat over Shirayuki’s shoulders, and immediately the shivers start to ease. She doesn’t know whether the sunscreen and salt she’s smelling is the coat or Obi himself, but at last she manages to loose her fingers from their painful grip on his shirt. One of the buttons is gone and the remnants of her makeup are streaked across his chest.

“Come on, miss, let’s get you back to your hotel.” She wobbles once again, and he scoops her up into his arms. She wants to protest, because she always takes care of herself, she doesn’t need to be carried, but when she meets his eyes he’s smiling down at her with such pride that she feels she can accept it. Just this once.

***

A rattle at the balcony window wakes Shirayuki from a fitful sleep. Zen’s side of the bed is rumpled, but she didn’t see him last night and he’s certainly not there this morning. Bars of sunlight streak across the floor; it’s late. The room’s on the third story of the hotel, there shouldn’t be anything out there no matter what the time, so curiosity gives her the push to pour herself out from under the covers and pull back the curtain.

Obi, all sunglasses and blinding grin, hoists a take-out bag at her through the glass.

When she finds all the latches, which takes twice as long as it should because she’s only pretending to be awake, Obi flows through the gap in a burst of warm air. “Boss said to bring you breakfast. Hope you like bacon.”

There’s a warm paper bag in her hands and she doesn’t know exactly how it got there. “You could have . . . the door?” She points vaguely over her shoulder.

“I was in the area anyway.” He dismisses it with a wave, plopping himself into the desk chair. It squeaks in protest, and he leans it back as far as it can go. “Go ahead, don’t let me stop you.”

“Aren’t you working?”

“Nah, handed in my notice yesterday and they told me not to come back. And besides, I have a much better job. Boss says I’m responsible for making sure you have fun today, and I’m thinking parasailing.” He tosses her a bottle, which she bobbles and just barely manages to snag without dropping her breakfast. She sets it on the table, turning it to read the label. “Don’t forget sunscreen, and let me know when you want help with your back. I got SPF 50. Skin cancer, you know.” All she can do is sit and stare. “Eat,” he reminds her.

[owlsshadows]

Make Them Kiss (Shirasuzu and Yuzuobi)

... it’s all @superhappybubbleslove‘s fault for calling my out like that.

The plan was supposed to be easy. But as any plan including Suzu and romance, it has been doomed from the beginning – and Yuzuri, after three years of blood and sweat and energy drained, stands on the verge of giving up.

Her verdict is clear.

Suzu is too clumsy for love.

She tried, she really tried, but no matter how many times did she give him a chance or momentum – the second she left him to his own devices, he slipped up.

At age six and twenty, Yuzuri feels like a battle-worn veteran, tearing at her hair whenever Suzu misses his chance.

“You should stop doing that. Your hair is thinning,” comes a shrewd remark from behind, and as she glances up, Obi greets her with two flasks of beer.

“But if he is so… dumb!” she flails around with her arms vaguely. Today she has deliberately locked the two pharmacists into the southern hothouse for almost half a day, hoping that the hot and humid air will somehow stick them together – only to discover them well-dressed and well-behaved, deep in a scientific discussion.

“You should probably stop doing that too,” Obi sits down beside her, helping himself with a bite of her tart. “I get that you love playing the matchmaker, but there are certain matches that even you can’t make.”

Yuzuri grabs one of the bottles and drinks at least half of the beer before she replies.

“I may have failed getting you and Shirayuki together, but not everyone sees her as some celestial, untouchable being.”

“My bad,” Obi cocks his head to the side, flashing his predatory grin at her. “I hope you’re not that mad that I married you instead.”

Yuzuri’s frown softens, fondness replacing frustration. She downs the rest of her beer, reaching out for the one Obi has brought for himself.

“I’m not that mad,” she teases softly, leaning in for a lazy kiss. “But I would’ve killed you if you knocked me up and left.”

“Aren’t we lucky,” Obi whispers to her ear, “that we have two eager babysitters guarding the little demon tonight?”

Yuzuri pulls back, eyes wide with surprise. “Two?”

“You asked Suzu, didn’t you?”

“You asked… Shirayuki?!”

“I heard a good husband supports the aspirations of their wife.”

*

Taking care of a child has never been one of Suzu’s specialties – not that he had too many to begin with. He is painfully aware of his lack of talents – especially when it comes to the romance department, but children department follows shortly.

The dervish born from the affair of Yuzuri and Obi has midnight blue hair and bright golden eyes, rosy cheeks and mouth half the size of his head – and oh he screams, he cries, he whines.

“Come on, Mori. Just one more bite,” Suzu babbles in his kindest voice – undoubtedly a tone he could never master in front of Shirayuki.

Be it her huge green eyes or soft pale lips, or the reddened tip of her pointy nose; be it in the morning or the afternoon, or late night as they say their goodbyes after a party – he could never coo to her, not in a thousand years.

The sudden knock on the door makes him jump. He drops the bite-sized piece of pie into his lap, calling forth another cry from Mori. “Damn,” he murmurs under his breath as he stands to get the door.

Ideally, he would not wear a pair of pie-speared beige pants with a disheveled black shirt that a baby has teared at to greet the subject of his longtime affections. Ideally, Shirayuki would not greet him with a practical huff, walking past him and chirping to a baby.

“Shirayuki?” Suzu walks back to the room, catching her in the mid of cleaning up the mess he created. Mori sits in the chair his father made for him, a content smile spread across his face, his puffy red cheeks being the only indicators of his tears just a moment ago. “How come you’re here?” the question comes out agitated. He is not angry at her, oh, how far from it – he is mad at himself, unable to handle the situation. Yet his voice cuts, cold and reserved, and he cannot help but notice the small frown running across Shirayuki’s face.

Congratulations, you managed to hurt her, he thinks to himself.

“Obi told me that they wanted a night out with Yuzuri,” Shirayuki replies. She looks composed, but red tints her ears – a sign of irritation.

“Yuzuri asked me to babysit,” Suzu says, deadpan from the fear crawling up his spine.

“Obi told me this as well. Knowing how it ended the last time you were here with Mori alone, I offered my help. I know… it may seem haughty but… I didn’t mean to question your capabilities,” Shirayuki says with a small smile. She speaks with caution, as if she was afraid she hurt his feelings by being here.

“Really?” Suzu asks. “Now, you may finish feeding him, since I’ve already failed. I’ll be in the kitchen making some tea.”

It is bad and turning worse, he realizes storming off.

He did not plan it this way. They had such a nice conversation going on after they got stuck in the hothouse. They had a thing going on; her eyes were sparkly and she tucked her hair behind her ears with that sly movement that flashed a considerable amount of skin on her arms. They were heated in a debate, inching closer and closer to each other with each remark they made…

Suzu planned to walk up to Shirayuki’s room and confess before Yuzuri asked him to look after her evil spawn – and now it all seems so far, like some dream or a story from another world.

He played his chances, and messed things up. Again.

He pours boiled water on the tealeaves with a long, dragged out sigh, indulging in his own misery for a minute or two.

He watches the leaves swim around in the teapot. One of them reminds him of himself; stuck on the wall of the pot, never quite reaching the water and the others.

“If only you didn’t mess up everything all the time,” he speaks, addressing the tealeaf as he would address himself.

“Not everything, and only around half the time.” The soft voice is followed by an even softer touch on his shoulder, encouraging. “Mori is the kid of Yuzuri and Obi after all. He inherited both of their worst traits. I don’t think there’s any shame in struggling to deal with him.”

“Yet, you manage so wonderfully,” Suzu says. His voice is no longer sharp like a knife, it is just sad. Stating facts as they are.

“He does love me for some reason,” Shirayuki admits, her hand running down his arm to stop by his hand on the teapot. “Mind to pour me a cup?”

“What about the devil?” Suzu asks, readying their tea.

“I fed him and told him a tale. He’s asleep now.”

“Are you some kind of magician?”

“I wish I was,” Shirayuki answers, cupping her mug between her hands.

“So… what would you do with your magic power?” Suzu settles across her at the table.

Shirayuki trails off a second, wondering.

“Try to heal the patients for whom traditional medicine can no longer help.”

“That’s such a typically Shirayuki answer.”

“Why? What would you do?”

“Something selfish, of course,” Suzu says with a hint of self-loathe in his voice. “Like travel back in time to correct my mistakes. Won’t you want to fix the things you regret? Or, do you even have any regrets?”

“Believe it or not, I’m full of regrets,” she replies. “Yet I believe that regrets make us to be who we are. You know, how people always go ‘what if…?’ Now imagine if you really did the thing you regret missing out on. Are you sure you would still be the same person?”

“Maybe I don’t want to be the same person I am today.”

“But then, won’t you make the same mistakes over and over again? You go back, correct the things you regret, and with no regret left you do them again.”

“Is there really nothing you wish to change?”

“Hmm… I wish I could travel back in time and save the life of my mother,” Shirayuki ponders. “I wish I could break it off with Zen on friendlier terms. I wish I did something stupid when I had the chance.”

“Something stupid?” Suzu jumps in. They had talked about Shirayuki’s mother, trying to figure out her illness and all known medication based on her hazy childhood memories and on the testament of her father – Suzu even accompanied her once to the village of the Mountain Lions, looking for similar cases and cues to the sudden illness. They also mentioned her relationship with the prince a few times – always when they were at least the three of them, and always when Yuzuri brought up the topic – but Shirayuki mentioning doing something stupid is new, unprecedented.

“There was this guy, at Yuzuri’s wedding three years ago,” Shirayuki starts, fingers dancing slowly around her mug. “He was dead drunk and I was tipsy, and he asked whether he could kiss me and all I did was laying him down on a sofa and telling him to sleep.”

Suzu remembers.

Oh how, for the longest of winters, he would not. He never forgets a thing he does, no matter how much he drinks. If it is a talent, he adds it to his curt list, right after the skill to make a fool out of himself at all possible social occasions. He was that drunk guy, introducing himself to everyone as a young and capable bachelor.

He is only half aware of emerging from his seat – his hands barely register the hardness of the wooden tabletop under his palm, his legs only faintly feel the edge of the table.

“Can I kiss you?” his lips utter the words, while his entire insides scream.

He would love to run away and hide. Yet he stands, pressed against the table and leaning over her, and he sees as her eyes widen in shock, surprise or disgust.

He may have a bad breath, he realizes.

She may not even have thought about him; his brain adds helpfully.

“If you’d still like to,” comes the unlikely answer, and Shirayuki tilts her head back for him, half-mast eyes looking at him expectantly.

He bends down, pecking her hesitantly.

The next moment he tries to flee and hide in a hole in his embarrassment, only to be yanked down against the table by the collar of his shirt. His thighs hurt, so does his nape where the fabric rubs into his skin.

Shirayuki kisses him fiercely, with the same amount of vigor and enthusiasm she pours in everything she does. Her lips taste like the tea he brew; they are soft but firm on his, and she pries his lips open with a lick of her tongue.

If he had any blood left in his body – which he doubts by the way his cock twitches in his pants – he would blush violently.

“Shira…” he pants when they part momentarily, but Shirayuki does not let him finish, standing up and coming round the table to pull him closer to herself.

“I hope Yuzuri and Obi does not want to spend the entire night out,” she whispers against his lips, his lids, his ears as she litters his face with kisses. “It would be atrocious to make out on their sofa.”

“Do you plan to make out?” Suzu asks back, catching his breath in huge, erratic gulps.

“Certainly, there are some regrets better be fixed,” she admits, cupping his face in her hands. “Some doesn’t even need magic.”

“Fix my regrets for me, while we are at it?” he leans his forehead against hers, nudging her nose adoringly.

“And what would that be?”

“There is this woman I’m head over heels in love with. She’s beautiful and intelligent and every time I meet her I make the biggest dork out of myself.”

“Only around half the time,” Shirayuki says, kissing him again. “Did this help with your regret?”

“Maybe… can I get another?”

“If you wish.”

*

Yuzuri is not even surprised when Shirayuki and Suzu leaves that night with fingers entwined.

“Should I even ask how you did this?” she turns to her husband.

“You have to choose your player well,” Obi replies. “Also, it can work wonders if you let them know that you are setting them up.”

[sabraeal]

Rarely Pure & Never Simple, Chapter 7

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Obiyukiweek 2020, Day 4: Free Day

The air still smells like freesia and vanilla as Shirayuki returns from her shower, scrubbed clean and with the thinnest pajamas she can muster. Even now the heat’s starting to settle on her skin, turning her post-shower dew into regular summer sweat, and oh, she needs to get that fan oscillating stat, before she stews in her own juices like some Shirayuki-flavored pulled pork.

She settles on the bed, flapping out a hand to turn it on and--

Ugh, it’s just...pushing hot air around, at this point. Maybe if she’s sweats through another set of pajamas tonight, she’ll be able to convince Nanna she needs an AC unit in her window.

(Her room-- back when it was her mother’s-- had a unit, but after an unfortunate incident that involved her father, a thwarted clandestine encounter, and a hole in the garage roof, the replacement instead went into the kitchen, where it’s lived every summer until it malfunctioned and froze to the sill. Grandad’s replaced it since, but still-- it’s never returned to her window. Of all the sins of her mother Shirayuki’s had to answer for, this one is hands down the worst.

“Really?” Obi laughs, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his shirt. She sees the barest hint of abdominals and suddenly, the orientation packet isn’t half as engaging as it was before. “Not the whole...’grandparents convinced their first great grandchild will pop out before graduation’ thing?”

“To be fair,” she manages, breath thin as the worn fabric drops back over her current distraction. “The point was pretty much moot until, um...”

Oh, that-- that grin is trouble. “Until you climbed on top of me and made me come hard enough to go blind?”

He really, really doesn’t need to say it like-- like that. “S-something like that.”)

She’s ready to just call it a day at this point-- and nearly does. Rolling up onto her side, she reaches for the cord to her lamp--

Buzz. Buzz.

Shirayuki blinks. That’s...that’s her phone.

She’s tempted to ignore it-- she does not need Kihal speculating about what her and Obi could get up to in the woods “all unsupervised” tomorrow, and Obi should still--

 9:12, her phone reads. His shift at the club is over, and by now he’s probably--

Home. Texting her. 

Shirayuki nearly drops her phone straight down the crack between her bed and nightstand, and oh jeez, it would be nice if she could just...calm down for once. Be cool.

It buzzes again. She yelps, trying to flick the screen on with a wild shake. She can save being cool for another day. One where she’s seen him more than once in two weeks.

hey, the text reads, nestled in its innocuous gray bubble, we should talk

Shirayuki experiences something that could medically be called an event. Is he upset? Has she done something--?

not a bad talk, he clarifies, just miss you

She rolls onto her back with a smile, thumbs poking at the screen to say, i miss you t--

mebbe a sexy talk tho ;3 i *rlly* miss u

:|

is that for the sexy or the bad grammar

Both.

She catches the call on the first ring, barely having time for a breath before Obi drawls, “You weren’t complaining about sexy things two weeks ago.”

With all the dignity of a mathlete champion, Shirayuki replies, “Hnn?”

(”Eek!” She yanks the controller up, to the side, anywhere that might help move her character away from giant beetle on the screen. “How do I--? Where do I--?”

Obi’s chest makes a hollow thunk when she rams into it. He coughs; it takes her a full, frantic second to realize it’s to cover a laugh.

“You know,” he murmurs, plucking the controller out of her hands, “joycons don’t have motion sensors.”

“I don’t know,” she returns primly, folding her legs back down over the edge of the bed. “And also you told me this game was easy.”

“Rune Factory is easy.” His mouth twitches. “Half the game is farming.”

“And the other half is fighting...whatever those things are.” She waves at the screen, scowling at the RETRY? stamped across it. “Which is hard.”

“It’s not,” He leans back, setting the controller on his nightstand. “You could even say...”

His arm hooks around her waist, dragging her on top of him. “...It’s as easy as I am.”

Her breath rasps out of her, and oh god, she can feel his dick pressing up against her thigh, so hard already. “You’re not making me feel very accomplished.”

“Well,” his fingernails scrape up the back of her legs, “we can fix that.”)

“You were very enthusiastic,” he remarks casually, “from what I remember.”

“Mm, well.” Two could play at this game...maybe. “It was two weeks ago.”

She may not be able to see him, but she can feel his grimace through the wire. Or well, the air? Wifi? Shirayuki wasn’t really up on how phones worked past the Edison era. It’s not like they ask how cell phones work on the SATs.

“Sorry,” he sighs, pillow audibly whumping over the receiver. “I know I warned you, but I really thought we’d have had more time to talk.”

“It’s okay.” She squirms against her sheets, fighting a shrug he can’t see. “I...I missed you, but I know how much the hours mean to you.”

“I missed you too.” His voice is so soft, so vulnerable, so unlike the boy who made her miss auditions a year ago. “I’m glad we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“Me too,” she breathes, and oh, it doesn’t seem soon enough. Not when she wants to wrap her arms around him, lay her head on his chest and just listen to him breathe. “You could--”

Come over. Her teeth snap down on the offer. Sure, it’d be nothing for him to hop up to the garage roof, for her to leave the window open--

But that’s how she got here, and nope, no. Not happening.

“--come pick me up tomorrow?” she squeaks out instead, cheeks burning. There’s no way he won’t know she meant something else, that she was avoiding--

“What? Don’t want to be smooshed in the backseat of Big Guy’s swagger wagon?” She can hear the smirk on his lips. “I thought you were looking forward to it.”

“I don’t think Mitsuhide would appreciate you calling his minivan that,” she informs him primly, not a laugh in sight. It’s a feat only achieved by the judicious application of her teeth to her cheeks. “And I was! I mean, I am. It’s just...”

“Big Guy gives priority seating based on height?”

Well, that’s definitely part of it. With all five of them, she’s always left in the back seat, alone, and Obi--

“Gotta say, looking forward to all that leg room,” he drawls, “and getting an airbag all to myself. You think he’ll let me at the aux cable?”

“Never.”

“Aww.” Shirayuki knows he’s pouting; a full-on, little kid lip wibble. “You’re my girlfriend, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“You know what you did.” A two hour meme mix on the way to Laxdo. “Besides, I just thought it would be better if we, um, had some time to ourselves. Before.”

“Oh?” he hums, so curious, and-- oh, it doesn’t usually take him this long to pick up on when she’s trying to, um, tell him something. “I figured you wouldn’t mind since we’d have all day-- oh.” There it is. “You mean alone.”

“W-well, it’s been two weeks,” she hedges nervously. “And I’m not saying I couldn’t, um, behave--”

“Yeah, I’ll pick you up.” The words come out fast, pinched. Maybe she’s being too pushy; Obi likes to tease, but that doesn’t mean he’s always in the mood to-- “I’m definitely not going to be able to keep my hands to myself.”

“O-oh.” Well. That’s hitting different tonight. Maybe because it’s already over ninety, and her temp is climbing with it. Or maybe because she’s only wrapped up in the thinnest, most barely-there clothes she has; the kind he could rip like tissue paper--

Or maybe because it’s been two weeks, and despite going eighteen years without needing any sexual contact, she’s as tragically hard up as a teen comedy protagonist.

“I didn’t know you were...in a bind.” His voice drops to a rumble, and ah, that is not helping the situation. Her thighs slip against each other, trying to dull the ache. “You know I’m always happen to lend a hand when you need it, kid.”

“It not that bad,” she murmurs, but it’s starting to get there the longer he talks. The more she thinks about him showing up tomorrow, just them alone in her house-- “And you didn’t have time to come over.”

“I don’t need to come over.” He’s laughing, but there’s something in it that’s more, that’s almost a purr. “Come on, kid, I gave you those earphones for a reason. Hands free.”

“O-oh.” She’s all too aware of them now, clipped over her ears. Her hand’s only holding the screen out of habit. Hands free.

“I mean, if you’re really hard up,” he hums, “we could do something about it now. Take the edge off.”

She-- she shouldn’t. “Obi! You don’t really mean...?”

“Absolutely. I’d really like to--” his voice cracks,and oh, oh-- “it’s been so long since I made you come, babe.”

(”Well, that’s the last vote for Dreamiest Hair,” Shirayuki sighs, her flyaways dancing at the edge of her vision. “What’s the next category?”

Kihal glances down and grins. “Sexiest Voice.”

She gapes. “Is Mrs Gazalt really going to let us give out an award for that?”

“Mrs Gazalt takes her position of club supervisor very seriously,” Kihal informs her, “and by that I mean, she sits in the corner playing Words with Friends and just lets us do what we want, as long as it isn’t dangerous. Or illegal.”

“Still.” Her mouth pulls tight, a grim line across her face. If the rest of the club could see her now, her Cutest Smile win would be revoked. “That seems, I don’t know...”

“Like it wouldn’t be a contest? I know.” Kihal shrugs. “But that’s what the freshmen picked. I guess they’re just really hoping Obi will growl through his whole acceptance speech.”

“No, I-- wait, Obi?” Her mouth is dry suddenly. She crosses her legs beneath the table. “Why would--? Obi?”

Kihal rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, you’ve heard him over the headset. He’s got that whole like, gravel thing going on. And when he gets heated with someone, like that time with Raj, hoo--” she fans herself-- “I know you have a thing for Zen, but like, I still don’t know how you didn’t jump him.”

Her cheeks burn, painfully. “I-I don’t-- that’s not--”

“Come on, Shirayuki,” she clucks, rolling her eyes. “You have ears. That couldn’t have done nothing for you.”

At the time she’d been so mortified that Raj had not only followed her to the place that was supposed to be her escape, but that he’d brought up what happened, like it didn’t even bother him--

Well, sex had been the last thing on her mind. At least the actual, arousing kind. But now, now--

Listen, I’m sure you have a lot to say but I really can’t-- his voice breaks, and the phantom pressure of his fingers weighs on her lips-- I was supposed to have your back, and I fucked up. I know it doesn’t make up for what happen but I-- his breath rasps from his throat, so raw that hers hurts in sympathy-- I’m sorry.

--she gets it.

“Right, um--” it’s hard to think with her face so hot-- “we should still count the votes anyway.”)

(He wins in a landslide. His acceptance speech at the drama banquet is so suggestive that he ends up with half a dozen panties shoved into his pockets. They tumble out of his jacket when he leans over the console to kiss her, right over the stick shift and onto her lap.

What am I gonna do with a bunch of ladies underwear? he’d murmured against her lips, fingers toying at the strap of her gown, earning her own personal vote. You need any, kid?)

“O-okay.”

“Wha-what?” She winces at the loud bang over the speakers, followed by a softer, more distant “Fuck.”

“Ah, is everything--?”

“Fine,” Obi assures her, sounding like maybe some of his limbs are out of order. “Just...dropped my phone. I didn’t...are you sure?”

Her fingers clench in her sheets. “Yes. I just...don’t really know how to start.”

“Well.” His voice drops playfully low. “Are you in the position?”

“Is the position laying down?” she asks, nervous. “Because I’m laying down.”

He tries to smother it, but she would know his laugh anywhere. “Yeah, great. Good. You’re ready?”

Shirayuki squirms against her pillow, legs rubbing together so hard they should chirp, like some sort of horny cricket. “I guess...”

Obi doesn’t hide his laugh now, just lets it rumble out from his chest in a way that is...not helping. Or maybe it is, considering the whole...situation. “You guess?”

“I just--” am terrified-- “don’t understand.”

He grunts, and by the sound of rustling in her ears, gets comfortable. “What’s holding you up?”

Everything. “It’s better if we just wait isn’t it? I mean to do this, um...”

In person. With someone who knows how to touch her, instead of her fumbling around and showing just how bad at all this sexy stuff she can be.

“This involves sexy talking, doesn’t it?” If distress is a destination, then she’s already laid out a lawn chair and ordered a drink from the cabana. She’s hopeless when her speeches are planned and PG, let alone when she’s trying to improv and it’s about-- about-- “Do I have to talk about penises?”

He makes an ungodly noise. “Kid.”

“I just don’t think I have the experience to talk about them with any sort of authority,” she presses on, brain undaunted by how ridiculous she sounds. “Especially if I’m also supposed to be doing...other things. It’s really--”

“Shirayuki--” he says her name so soft, so fond, and she knows, she knows-- “you should learn how to do it yourself, too.”

--that he’s seen right through her.

“I don’t see why,” she mumbles stubbornly, fidgeting with the hem of her shorts. “You’re going to Lyrias too. Your room is in the building next door, and it’s connected to mine! I don’t really think I need to learn how to-- to--” she whines, the words sticking in her throat-- “this!”

“Kid.” He heaves a sigh, and even though she’s dying from the mortification of Being Known, it sends shivers right through her. “Just because you’re subscribed to Sexy Culinary School Weekly with Obi doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know how to cook on your own.”

“You magazine needs to work on its name.”

“Yeah, let me just go workshop it with Princess Prettymane and Calico Dog.”

“It’s duchess.”

“You know that doesn’t make it better, right?” he deadpans. “Princess Prettymane at least has alliteration. Also,” his voice lilts, playful, “you’re trying to change the subject. Which is cute, and really makes me want to kiss you until you worry that we’re going to ruin another pair of tights, but--”

“I’m not wearing tights right now.”

His jaw snaps shut.

“See,” he manages after a long moment, hoarse, “that is a very distracting thing to say.”

The gravel in his voice scrapes at an itch she didn’t know she had, heat painting a searing line down her spine. She’s already slick from sweat, but this adds another texture to it, one that’s growing more insistent by the second.

“And very confusing.” She doesn’t know what it says that even his complaints are doing it for her. “Since a few seconds ago, you weren’t sure if you could talk sexy, and now you’re telling me all sorts of things.”

“I was just...informing you. Of the situation.” Her nails pluck nervously at her waistband. “It’s summer, so, um, no tights.”

“Oh right,” he breathes, wry, “just setting the scene.”

“You know,” she tries again, too shrill, “I’m really fine with how you do it. I don’t really think-- I mean, is it really necessary that I have to--?”

“Kid, you’re the one that said okay,” he reminds her. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s just better for you if you know what you like. That way if you...”

His breath rasps from his throat. “...You should know what you like, separate from, ah, someone else.”

It’s a nice wrapping job he’s done on this baggage, but even with only a year under her belt, she knows what the tag on this one says. “I’m not going to go to college and suddenly not want you anymore, Obi.”

“I know that,” he says, but he doesn’t, not really. Obi doesn’t really talk much about before, about all the girls he’s snuck into his room or met at a party or whatever, but he thinks that all this, this whole wanting to put Tab A into Slot B thing, is the default. That you meet someone and maybe you talk a little and then bingo-bango-bongo, you know if you want to get on a horizontal surface with them.

He doesn’t get that this, for her, isn’t her normal. If Zen hadn’t been kind to her that first day, if he hadn’t helped Kihal with her Brecker problem, if the rumors surrounding them hadn’t whipped up to a fevered pitch so even she couldn’t ignore them-- well, Shirayuki wouldn’t have even been thinking about romance.

So the fact that she can look at him and feel like she’s walked into the country club’s sauna with her school clothes on-- that different. That’s special. That’s not going to just happen with someone she meets in an 8AM lecture.

If only she were as good with word things as her English grades suggested she should be, she’d be to tell him that.

“This isn’t about...” Obi lets out a disgruntled huff. “Listen, I know I definitely had some inspired ideas about what you would like from...before--”

(She’s still panting as she comes down, tremors zipping up and down her spine, “How did you...?”

Obi smiles, a wide Cheshire Cat grin. Fitting, since she definitely feels like she’s been dragged down the rabbit hole. “How did I what, kid?”

“Know to do that. With my hips,” She smooths her palms over where he’d grabbed them. They ache; it wouldn’t surprise her if she had hand-shaped bruises slapped across them tomorrow.

“Oh, I thought you’d like that.” Obi curls into her side, too pleased. He’s hard against her hip, but-- she likes it. “When I caught you coming off that ladder, you made that little hiccuppy noise, so I figured...pretty sensitive right?”

She stares.

He blinks. “What, did I say something--?”

“Obi” she manages, “that was four months ago.”)

“But if you knew what you liked...” She doesn’t need to see him to know there’s a feral smile stretching across his face. “I could do much better.”

Oh, that sounds...nice. She shifts, and she-- she leaks, thick slick coating the tops of her thighs.

“Besides, if we’re going to bring toys into the equation,” he continues, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb in the middle of the conversation, “you should know what makes you feel good without any electronic intervention, if you know what I mean.”

Ah, she-- she definitely does.

“Toys?” she squeaks. “I don’t-- I don’t remember any, um, toy talk.”

Obi hums, amused. “Well, I did promise you a good graduation gift.”

“You--you already gave me one!” Her hand skips up to run over the smooth plastic. “I’m using it right now!”

“Mm.” He’s too pleased with himself, like he’s caught her scent on the air from all the way across town. “But you won’t need them much at school. So...”

“I won’t need t-that at school either!” She’s glad she’s got these headphones; her cheeks would be making her phone’s screen go haywire. “I’ll have you, and I’m very, um, happy with your performance. I don’t think we need to add, um, props.”

“As chuffed as I am to have you appreciating my prowess, kid--” oh he’s going to be unlivable after this, she can just tell-- “that’s all the more reason to have something in the wings to mix it up. Especially since we’re waiting t-to--” he stumbles, voice dropping to a murmur-- “I mean, since we both want to, um...”

He’s so tortured trying to talk about it without actually talking about it that she takes pity on him. “Since I’m afraid of penises, but we both like to touch each other.”

“I mean, since we’re waiting to have sex,” he manages, pained. “Or at least, the kind that involves dicks and, ah, going places.”

She’s been around him too long, because without even missing a beat, she claps back, “Oh, I didn’t realize yours was having its own hero journey.”

“It has certainly felt a Call to Adventure,” he mumbles, “and a Woman as a Temptress.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, a Meeting with the Goddess,” he amends, quick enough that she grins. “And once again, you’re trying to distract me. Though I thought it would more like ‘clothes I am missing’ instead of ‘Campell’s seventeen stages thesis.’“

“I’m sticking to what I know,” she tells him primly. “But I suppose I could tell you that, um, I’m not wearing a bra?”

He grunts, gutted. “Ohh, you are really just trying to make this difficult.” He adds, a little waspish, “All this trouble better be working for you, because it’s definitely working for me.”

“Oh, are you--” she swallows, hoping he can’t hear it-- “did you really want to try that?”

“Ah, I mean...” His breath comes sharp, short. “Yeah. If you would like to.”

Her breath catches. “I haven’t really, um...”

Done this. Ever. It would be so easy to say it, but it’s just-- belaboring the point. He knows. He just...thinks she’s a much better student than she is. At least about things like this.

“Listen, I haven’t...” He hesitates, and she realizes-- he’s embarrassed. “This isn’t something I’ve done with anyone before. You know I’m not really anyone’s...long term option.”

Grandad always says that she shoots from the cuff-- a nice way of saying doesn’t think before talking-- but she doesn’t regret it, not one bit, when she blurts out, “You’re mine.”

Obi’s breath rasps into the speaker. “Y-yeah. I know.” With a swallow, he adds, “And I know you think I have a lot of experience, but there’s a lot out there to try, and I haven’t even brushed the surface of it, you know? And I just thought, knowing you, knowing how curious you are...”

She blinks. “You mean...you’ve never been with someone long enough to, um, explore?”

“Ah, plenty of people would pick up Sexy Culinary Weekly up off the rack, but um--” he huffs out a laugh, soft and self-deprecating-- “you’d be the first to pick up a subscription.”

Shirayuki doesn’t like to pry, but for a good long moment, she considers asking for a list with some names. Just to talk, of course.

She takes a deep breath instead, trying to focus. “So you want to-- to explore with me?”

“If you want to,” he’s quick to say. “I know all of this is...new. I just thought since we won’t be doing a, ah, traditional progression here--”

“Traditional?”

He sighs. “You know, the uh, porn formula. Fingering, hand job, blow job, eating--”

“OKAY,” she yelps, clapping a hand to her face. “I get it!”

“Right, well, there’s a lot between what we’re doing and PIV.” She nearly giggles at how he says it, piv, like it’s a word and not an acronym. It's almost...cute. Like an adorable monster she could get a plushie of, instead of something that involved penises and could make her pregnant.

“And since we’re not doing any of that soon,” he continues, “we could, ah...take the scenic route. And maybe that would be a little less intimidating for you, since we’d both be new at...whatever we’re doing, instead of feeling like you had to catch up.”

Her heart flutters, and the warmth in her gut spreads up to her chest. “I think you’re mixing metaphors.”

“Sorry, I can’t think of cooking puns for everything,” he deadpans. “Think of it as not having to rush to read back issues, I guess.”

She hums. “I think you’re asking me to help with recipe development.”

“Well, if we’re going to embark on culinary adventures together--” he presses, voice bubbling like he’s trying to keep down a laugh. Several, if she’s anything to go by-- “then you should be comfortable with what your body likes before we add any...additional ingredients. You have to learn to do it the right way before we do it the easy way.”

“Oh,” she breathes. Obi was definitely starting to have a point about doing all this now. “Like New Math.”

“Wow, kid,” he deadpans, “really getting right down to the dirty talk.”

She flushes. Good thing he can’t see her. “I-I thought that was your job.”

He laughs, a rumble she feels right down to her bones. “You’re right. What are you wearing?”

She coughs. “Really?”

“I’m trying to set the scene,” he informs her, far too innocent. “This is a delicate shared fantasy we’re making. Wouldn’t want you to get thrown out of it because I mention panties and you’re wearing boyshorts.”

“I’m not wearing underwear,” she blurts out. “Wearing it overnight increasing the chance of yeast infections.”

Ah, there it is: the regret. It would be nice if she could just...not be like this. If she could just think through what she says when she’s nervous, instead of talking about diseased vaginas with her boyfriend while he’s trying to...make love at her, or whatever.

Now she has to contend with this endless silence, wishing that her mortification would at least dampen her desire even a little. Heaven knows they wouldn’t doing any recipe development tonight, after that. “O-obi?”

“Sorry, I just--” his throat makes a hollow thunk that echoes over the line-- “I got distracted.”

She blinks. “By what?”

“Thinking about how much I want to be there,” he admits, “and what I’d do to you if I was.”

“O-oh.” Maybe some culinary adventure wasn’t...so off the table as she thought. “A-and what would that be?”

A strangled groan tears between them. “I want to eat you out so bad.”

That-- that was not what she’d thought he’d say. “Really?”

“Yeah.” His sigh is strained. “You make such good noises.”

“You like it?” Her thighs clench, and oh, she wishes she knew what to do about it. “I figured it would taste...weird.”

Not that she’s ever tried. But she’s tasted blood (too coppery, bad texture), and well, boogers (too salty; thanks, childhood), and she can’t imagine that can taste much better.

“No,” he hums. “You taste just right. Are you touching yourself yet?”

There’s no way to explain she’s just been rating bodily fluids on a scale of most to least appetizing, so she settles with, “N-no.”

Now that he’s mentioned it, now that he’s reminded her that her body isn’t just some inconvenient appendage for her brain, Shirayuki can’t forget that it’s there. And she certainly can’t ignore the heat between her legs, or the way her skin feels as sensitive as flash paper, ready to burn up at a moment’s notice.

“You should do that,” he tells her, just short of a command, and ah, yeah, that’s sounding like a better and better idea every second. “What are you wearing?”

She’s out of cutesy stalling tactics. Or at least, she can’t think of any, not when her vagina seems to have a pulse of its own. “A tank top. And pajama shorts.”

“Sounds cute,” he breathes. “Put your hand down them.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Pubic hair crinkles under the tips of her fingers, scratchy against her palm. It’s wet too, tangling when she tries to slide further down so she just..doesn’t. “What now?”

“What do you usually do?”

He’s panting just the barest bit, and the sound of him already so undone is what spurs her to admit, “I, um, usually don’t do anything.”

“But you’ve tried before.” She should have never told him that. “What did you do then?”

“I, um--” she licks her lips, nervous-- “put my fingers inside?”

“Right away?” He laughs, and it’s fond, gentle. “No wonder you’ve never gotten much of anywhere. How about you just cup yourself now.”

She does. Little hairs wrap themselves around her fingers, coming loose, and oh, those always refuse to wash off later, clinging to her with the same tenacity as glitter. It’s comforting to feel weight there, at least, even if it clearly isn’t Obi’s. Still, it’s...vaguely unpleasant.

“I don’t feel much,” she reports, trying not to let her frustration leak through. Maybe she just isn’t cut out for masturbation.

“You wouldn’t,” he confirms, “you need to part your lips first.”

She nearly does, until she thinks better of it. “What does that have to do with--?”

“Not your mouth.” He’s barely covering a laugh. “Your other lips.”

“O-oh.” Of course. That makes...more sense.

Her fingers splay, parting her flesh, and ahh, there is...a lot more of her than she remembers. She’s read about lips blooming like flowers before-- mostly in the books Nanna likes to read-- but nothing had ever...blossomed down there for her before. But it’s definitely all petals and sepals now, if things like that were made out of flesh. She saw something like that once, on one of those Syfy shows her grans liked to watch when she was a kid--

She jolts as something slaps her hard, right on the breast, and oh, she’s-- she’s forgotten she’s still holding the phone. Or at least, she was. Now her hand is boneless, empty, and her screen has belly-flopped right onto her boob.

“Oh, um, wait.” She fumbles with it, one-handed, trying to find some place to put it. “I need to--I need to put down my phone.”

He hums, bemused. “Two hands would help.”

Shirayuki’s definitely struggling with one, that’s for sure. Her bedside table is too far for her headphones to reach without tugging; the bed itself is just asking for her to squirm her way to an End Call. She’s stuck discovering all this with one hand plastered in between her thighs, dipping between her vulva in a way that can only be termed distracting.

By the time she settles it on her pillow, far enough away to avoid any mishap via cheek smooshing, she’s practically panting. Maybe she needs to take up a sport at Lyrias; Mathletes clearly isn’t cutting it.

“Okay,” she sighs, dropping back onto her bed. “Now I’m ready. I am parting my...myself. What’s next?”

“Are you wet?”

Well, if she wasn’t before, she certainly is now. “I, um, think so?”

“All right.” His bed groans, like he’s shifting on it, and oh, how she wishes she knew what he looked like now. “Just start sliding your fingers around. You know where your clit is, right?”

“Yes,” she manages, squirming as she rubs at her folds. “I’ve seen a diagram before.”

He laughs, a low rumbling chuckle that sends a shiver down her spine, and yeah, she can take a real good guess at where her clit might be. “Don’t touch it.”

Her fingers still. “Why not?”

“You’re sensitive,” he tells her, so casual. “You get squirmy when I touch it directly. I mean, feel free to try...maybe you’re a lighter touch than I am. You could like it.”

She’s about to balk-- if it doesn’t feel good when he does it, she’s not going to do any better-- when his voice drops and he adds, “Tell me if you do.”

Well, let it not be said that Shirayuki doesn’t believe in science. Which is the reason she’s doing this. Hypothesis testing. Not because her boyfriend asked in a ridiculously sexy way.

With a steeling breath, she swipes her clit with the pad of her finger and-- y i k e s.

She grits her teeth, nerves still jangling. “Um, yeah, that didn’t feel great.”

“Too bad.”

With a sigh, she stretches her neck, hoping to get that raised-hackles feel out of it and-- oh.

Rum Tum stares down at her with his glassy black eyes, mouth stitched into its permanent smile. That’s really...not helping.

“Um.” Duchess Prettymane is next to him, head tilted in question. Calico Dog is definitely just...judging her. “Give me one second.”

With her free hand, she turns each of her stuffies around, placing them in a line on her window sill. They don’t need to see any of this.

“Okay.” She settles back into her pillows. “So I definitely don’t touch that. I just...touch around it?”

“Yeah,” he huffs out, amused. “But no rubbing! Long strokes, just barely brushing it, both fingers, one on either side.” She can hear his grin when he adds, “You like to be teased.”

She wants to protest that; she nearly does, but--

Her fingers skid over her folds, tracing just around the lip of her slit, stopping just shy of her clit, and-- mm, all right, he, ah, definitely has a point. This feels much better.

Still, she’s so used to Obi’s touch; he lingers in all the right places, calluses catching on her clit in a way that makes her writhe. Her own fingers are too tiny and her movements too awkward. She’s too wet too; as much as it’s definitely helping with the, um, sensations she’s feeling, controlling her fingers makes her feel like a contestants on one of those Japanese game shows. Just when she thinks she’s gotten it, when she’s starting to build to something interesting if not good--

“How is it?”

She nearly nicks herself with a nail. “Better when you do it.”

“Ah, I see,” he hums. “A pillow princess--”

Shirayuki has absolutely no idea what that means, but she knows she’s being teased. “No--!”

A thunk stops her mid-thought. Her hand snaps away from her shorts. “Did you hear that?”

“Kid--”

She eyes the door warily. “Do you think it’s Nanna?”

Obi smothers a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure that was just your phone.”

“No, I put it behind my--” she looks down, and oh yes, there it is, right on the floor.

“Oh,” she breathes, mortified. “Oh. Right. Just, um, give me a minute.”

It’s a tricky proposition trying to fish it off the floor. For one, her bed is high and her arms are short-- oh, she was so committed to the whole fairy bower aesthetic of lofting her bed when she was twelve, but now it’s really inconvenient-- and for another, one hand is contaminated with, um, juices, and though she doesn’t want to smear any of that all over her phone--

Well, wiping it on the sheets is a bad decision. Nanna’s nose is sharp, and if there’s one conversation she doesn’t want to happen, it’s why does you bed smell like sex, Shirayuki? She’s done well not getting grounded so far, despite the number of times Obi’s been caught shirtless in her room, but she knows better than to try to test her grandmother’s patience on it.

Shirayuki drops to her belly, elbow digging into the mattress to ground her. Her finger are just long enough to brush the screen--

“Hey kid,” Obi sighs, “do you actually want to do this?”

She yelps. Only a quickly placed hand keeps her from meeting her carpet face first. She does have her phone though. “What?”

“I thought that this was going to be fun and sexy, but now...” He grunts, uneasy. “It seems like I might forcing you, and that’s really not what I wanted to happen. If you don’t want--”

“NO! I mean,” she manages, throwing herself back on her bed, “you have a point. Even though I prefer you touching me by lot--”

Obi hums, too smug.

“--we can’t always make the time to, um, do that.” It’s be nice if the bed could just swallow her whole right now, put her out of her misery, but-- she wants this. She wants him, and part of that is having terrible conversations that make her feel like a five alarm fire in a fireworks factory. “And if we’re having trouble just a few houses away, I’m sure we’ll find a way to have it when you’re only a few doors down too. Which is fine, it’s not like I have to, um...”

He makes a noise, intrigued, and oh, she really hates how badly she does want to keep this boyfriend. If only she liked him less, then she wouldn’t have to talk about any of this at all.

“I just mean, sometimes I think about you when we can’t be together--”

“Sometimes?”

“You know what I mean,” she snips, annoyed. “Sometimes I think about you in a specific way and I get a little, um, stuck. And that can be frustrating. So it’s probably better that I learn this now, than--

“Wait.” He’s breathless, unfocused. “Are you telling me you’ve been all...stuck lately?”

“N-no!” That is really not what she wants to be talking about right now. “I mean, a-a little? Kind of.”

She can hear the rush of his breath through his nose, his long thoughtful pause--

“Do you need some inspiration?” He’s eager, voice tight and nearly winded. “Purely above the waist, of course.”

It occurs to her that he means pictures; pictures of the adult variety. The yes leaps to her lips, but oh, what if Nanna saw it, and--

“Here, one sec.”

He’s not joking; barely a second later her phone buzzes, snapchat informing her that Obi has a new photo. She frowns, flicking open the app, and -- oh. Yes. That was. Definitely not there a few moments ago.

He’s naked from the waist up, lounging in a pair of gym shorts, his legs spread wide where he sits, and-- “Are you, um...?”

“Hot?” he growls playfully. “For you, yeah.”

“Hard,” she blurts out, since she never misses an opportunity to make a fool of herself. It would be nice if her curiosity could take a vacation for a day or two. Give her skin a break.

“Oh. Um. Yeah,” he grunts. “I mean, I’m trying to get you off, and I’m think about touching you. Sort of...a natural response.”

“But you aren’t touching yourself?”

“We hadn’t really talked about that,” he murmurs shyly. “This is supposed to be about you. I didn’t want to get distracted.”

“Ah...” That place between her legs throbs. She snakes a hand under her waistband, and oh, they’ve barely lost any ground at all. “You should.”

“W-what?”

“Touch yourself,” she tells him, running her fingers over her folds. “I think it would help.”

“Oh.” She might as well have hit him for the way that bursts out of him. “I didn’t--”

“I can give you inspiration too.” She whips off her tank before she can think better of it, struggling when she realizes, no, one hand will definitely not be enough to get the job done--

And then it’s nothing to take a picture, or to send it. A few taps and he’s choking, “Did-- did you mean to send this to me?”

It’s then that it strikes her: she just sent a naked picture to her boyfriend. Well, a half naked picture, but for what he could see she might as well have done the whole thing.

“Oh, is that-- is that okay?” She drags her safe hand over her face, sweat clinging to her palm. “I should have checked--”

“Yes!” he pants, half wild. “Yes, this is okay, Very, very okay. I just...you really want me to use this? For, uh, jacking off?”

“Could you?”

“Haah,” he breathes. “Yes. God, your breasts are so good, babe. And your face...”

“Then yes.” She licks her lips, nervous. “Please.”

“I don’t really need the help,” he warns, “I’m a real pro at this.”

“I want you to.” She doesn’t know how she says it without even a stutter. The thought of him touching himself like that, knowing that he’s thinking of her, just her-- “I want you to touch your-- you--”

“Really, kid, you don’t have to--”

“Cock.”

Just saying it shakes her up like a soda can, ready to burst, and she almost wishes she could take it back, that she could unsay half this conversation-- until he groans; the frantic slide of clothes loud from his end of the phone.

“What do you-- what should I--?”

He sounds so lost, his words hardly above a whine, and that’s the only reason she’s able to say, “I want you to, um, stroke it?”

“Yeah, I am-- I am already there, babe,” he assures her, voice throaty and strained. “You’re touching yourself too, right? You’re wet?”

“Y-yeah.” She slides her hand under the band, and ah, she hadn’t know it was possible to be wetter, that her thighs could be slick nearly to the edge of her shorts, but here she is. “I like hearing you. I-I mean...after graduation, when we went to the field, I--” she licks her lips, mouth so dry-- “I really wanted to hear you come again.”

“Jesus. Fuck.” His mattress creaks, distressed. “That was-- that was two months ago. You could have just--” he hisses, so sensitive-- “god, I would have come for you anytime.”

“Could you?” It comes out coyer than she expects, far too confident to sound like her, and she nearly apologizes, until he-- he--

He whimpers.

“If I asked really nice,” she hums, fingers skating along her folds, clit pulsing with how much she wants this, wants him. “Could you come for me again?”

He groans, pained. “Y-yeah. I could definitely arrange something.”

“Now?”

“Shit. Fuck.” He moans, but it trails off into a laugh. “Definitely won’t take long if you keep this up.”

“Good,” she sighs, pace quickening, her fingers daring to loop ever closer to the crux of her problem. “I want to hear you. It’s been so long...”

She hesitates. Obi is always the one to tease, and her the one that squirms away, the one that needs to be cajoled back into the scene, but now--

Well, the shoe is on the other foot isn’t it. “It’s been so long,” she says again, only this time she lets her voice go breathy, lets it linger on the cusp of whine. “Don’t make me wait, Obi...”

He doesn’t.

“Fuck,” is the only word he manages before he’s groaning, whimpering, making every sexy sound he can at once as he comes hard.

“Haah,” he moans, breath heaving. “That was-- that was definitely not how I expected this call to go.”

Shirayuki stills her fingers, mouth slanting into a smirk. She’d always wondered how Obi could watch her orgasm and not want to do it himself, not need to do it when she’s dying every time, but-- now she gets it. She may not have come, but there’s something supremely satisfying in watching-- no, listening to him fall apart instead.

“Oh?” She still sounds coy. Like Obi does every time she goes half-blind from the force of her own climax.

“You didn’t come, did you?” He’s put out, and she can tell his eyebrows are drawn, that his jaw is set. “I could--”

“No, no, don’t worry about me,” she assures him. “I’m fine. Besides, we have to get up tomorrow.”

“Ah, fuck, right. Senior Day.” He sighs. “All right, fine. But next time--”

“Next time,” she agrees. “Though I really enjoyed this time too.”

He makes a noise that sounds like dying. “Yeah, well, that’s great, but I’m not the one who needs to learn how to get off like a champ. But whatever,” he sighs, “we have all the time in the world for you to get it.”

Her chest warms, and she smiles against her pillow. “Right. I’ll see you tomorrow? Bright an early?”

He groans. “Yeah, yeah. Bright and early. Good night, kid.”

[sabraeal]

Happiness Is Just Around the Corner

The Wide Florida Bay | Previous

Written for @bubblesthemonsterartist for her birthday! This was...not the fic I thought I’d be writing, but this is where this subplot needed to start >:3c

There is an improbable amount of fireworks on the lawn.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure none of it’s legal,” Kiki assures him, taking a long drag of her Sam’s Summer. “Shiira took his ducklings up to New Hampshire yesterday, and they came back with two coolers worth of...something.”

Zen coughs on the dregs of his Magic Hat. “What? Should we even--?”

Kiki’s flat stare is more effective than a hand over his mouth. “You really think we’ll get in trouble.”

His gut instinct is yes, because there’s not a day in his life where his brother hasn’t caught him with his pants down just to prove a point. It would be just like him to send a cruiser around so that he could experience the heart-stopping terror of being on the other side of a two-way mirror. Sure, Haruka would be down at the station before he could even ask for a phone call, and all of this would slide off his permanent record like water off a duck’s back, but still-- trouble.

But he doesn’t say that. He takes a deep breath, thinks. It’s quiet here on campus. They’re rowdy, sure, but it’s just the frat there, not some rager with Omega Delta Nu. The campus cops are probably bored out of their skulls, but they’re not going to nail the honor’s frat for a light show.

“No,” he admits, begrudgingly. “Not unless they light something on fire.”

Her mouth twitches, following the spark in her eyes. “Well, there’s a non-zero chance of that.”

Ugh, of course Kiki would be excited by the prospect. “Well, as long as we don’t get--” Obi crosses the lawn, aviators looming over a wide smile, and hovers just at Shiira’s shoulder, perusing the goods. “UH.”

“Fuck.” Kiki hops off the porch, straight down into the landscaping. “I’ll handle this.”

Zen settles back against the porch swing and sighs, taking another swig of Magic Hat. “Yeah, please do.”

Kiki’s already halfway across the lawn by the time he’s finished talking, so quick that when Obi picks up a particularly patriotic package of pyrotechnics, she’s there to snatch it out of his hands. Even from here, Zen can see the jut of his pout, hear the faint whine of Ms Kiki on the air.

Mitsuhide’s lighting up the grill, surrounded by a crowd convinced cooking works by consensus. He takes a handkerchief out of his back pocket-- stars and stripes, stuffed there early this morning as Obi solemnly announced, you are America’s hat today, big guy-- and wipes the sweat beading on his forehead. Zen can’t tell whether it’s from the heat or from the effort needed to withstand six guys offering advice on proper grilling technique.

A cool breeze tumbles through the porch, carrying the muted voices of a dozen conversations. Zen closes his eyes, letting the smell of smoke and the heat of the day wash over him, the swing rocking gently on its chains.

It’s nice, having all this. People he can anticipate. People he can depend on. Friends. The real kind, not just kids whose parents went to the same prep school as his.

This isn’t where he’s supposed to be.

A year ago that would have sent him scrambling-- last minute tickets and crumpled up itineraries paired with the crushing guilt of never being enough. But now--

Now he knows this is where he wants to be. And there’s only one person to thank for that.

“Hey.” His eyes slit open, and there she is, brilliant smile and bright hair, peeping around the post. “Enjoying yourself?”

Zen drops his legs from the rail to make room. “I am now.”

Shirayuki’s mouth slants, playfully wry, and his heart strains against his sternum like a dog testing its leash. “It looked like you were before too.”

“Well, sure.” He wishes he had Obi’s obnoxious aviators right now, if only so she couldn’t see the eager way he watches her as she comes up, tucking herself neatly onto the opposite end of the swing. “But even more now that you’re around.”

Freckles disappear behind a bloom of pink, settling in on either cheek.  “Ah, w-well,” she stammers, staring at her bare toes. “It’s good to know you don’t regret staying here.”

“Instead of being with my family?” He laughs, incredulous, draping his arm over the back of the swing. His fingers just barely brush the freckles on her shoulder. “More like I’m thankful for the excuse.”

Her smile dims. “Oh, um, right. You and Izana...”

She hesitates. There’s a wealth of ways she could end that thought, but instead she says, “It must be nice. I mean, the place your family has, not...”

The fraught relationship you have with your brother. She doesn’t have to say it for him to know exactly what she means.

“It’s all right, I guess,” he allows, wishing she’d sit closer, that she’d give him a good reason to put his arm around her for real, and not just let him awkwardly hang here. “I mean, it’s just a house. The beach is nice though. Private, of course.”

That doesn’t stop his mother from inviting the paparazzi if she thinks it will make a good photo op. Last year he’d made the cover of the Inquirer, face scrunched and unattractive as Izana has splashed sea water in his face, with the words Final Frolic for World’s Most Eligible Bachelor? There had been a two-page spread inside, dedicated entirely to the relationship rumors Izana had accrued since Valentine’s Day.

Well, he didn’t have to worry about that this year. No paparazzo was going to stake out a college frat to take pictures of an illegal fireworks show. Now Haki could deal with having her picture slapped across the tabloids because mother thought candid shots made for better family photos.

“Ah, right...” Her laugh stutters out, awkward and endearing. “That sounds...good?”

Shirayuki’s still next to him, the heat from her skin humid against his fingertips, but she’s never felt so far. He grunts, frustrated, shifting closer.

“There’s an old carousel on the island too,” he offers, haltingly. He’s not sure why the impulse takes him to tell her; why he thinks she, specifically, might like it, save that when he looks at her it’s the same as when he saw those hand-carved horses the first time, well-loved and shining beneath antique lights.

“Oh!” She blinks. “My grandparents took me to one of those, once! Back when we visited...”

Her mouth works silently for a moment before pulling tight, the bittersweet twist making her smile more grimace than grin.

“Well, you’d love this one,” he assures her, sweat pricking at his palms. “It’s the oldest in the US. But it’s still really nice! I’ll take you next--”

His words slam to a stop, running headlong into the barrier of his teeth. She’s staring at him now, eyes wide and mouth parted, and-- and what can he say? I’ll take you next year, when my brother suddenly approves of you.

Yeah, he knows better than to hold his breath for that.

“I’m glad, anyway.” She folds her legs up on the swing, one arm hooked around her knees, and tilts her head back. “It’s nice for all of us to be here, together.”

Her eyes are closed, face serene in the evening light, like she could just sit here forever, breathing into the twilight. His heart flutters just looking at her, at the way she relaxes next to him, content with the slow rock he eases them into. No one can just be the way Shirayuki can.

“It is,” he agrees softly, because anything but a whisper might break this moment, might let the rest of the world in. “It’s going to be weird when you...”

He tries to stop himself, but her eyes fly open before he can. Of course, the one moment he’s gotten her to himself, and he’s gone and ruined it by bringing that up.

“I just mean...” He laughs, tipping his head back on scroll of wood behind his head. “It’s going to be strange when you and Obi are gone next year.”

A month from now, really. It looms over him, a ticking clock that chimes every evening, telling him he’s wasted another day if it wasn’t with her.

“Oh!” Her head snaps upright, cheeks flushed. “I-- I guess. I didn’t really think...” She bites her lip; he wants to kiss it. “Mitsuhide won’t be here either!”

He blinks. It’s true, but he’s never actually thought about that. Mitsuhide has always been in the house, it seems, never the president but a calming influence just to the side of him, and now--

Well, it’ll just be him and Kiki next year. And the rest of the frat, of course, plus all the new pledges.

Still, the future is distinctly more lonely than he’d like.

“He’ll be close, though,” he says, if only to hear the words out loud. “Harvard is a bit of a drive from here, but now that him and Kiki are, you know...”

Banging. That’s what he means to say at least, what he would say if he didn’t, last minute, remember who he was talking to. The last thing he needs is to get a scolding about taking feelings seriously and supporting their friends. Especially when he’d rather be talking about another relationship entirely.

“...Together,” he settles on, and she hums, approving.

“I’m glad that happened.” She rests her chin on her knees, surveying the lawn. Kiki’s abandoned the fireworks committee, instead shooing away the flock of fraters that have congregated around the grill. “They’re good for each other.”

“Made for each other,” he agrees, tickling her shoulder with his thumb. She squirms, a giggle bubbling out from her lips. “Just like...”

Us. He wants to say it, so bad it’s almost an ache, but-- it’s not fair. Not when they’re not really anything, when they can’t be anything, because--

I don’t know if being with me like…like that will be…good for you. I don’t think either of us are ready for that sort of…of attention.

-- Because everything about his life makes things complicated.

“I’m...happy for them,” he says, because he is, because there’s no two people in the world who deserve every bit of goodness they can wring from life more than they do. Even if that leaves him on the outside, again.

“Me too.” Shirayuki smiles, soft and fond, and it’s impossible to believe it’s barely been ten months since he met her, that she isn’t someone he’s known his whole life, not when she just slips seamlessly into every part.

Her hand reaches out, taking his, cool in the evening breeze. “I’ll miss you too.”

His breath catches in his chest, painful. Maybe she feels so familiar because he’s been waiting for her his whole life, too.

“I-I mean, all of you, of course,” she stammers, pink flooding her cheeks, and oh, he wishes he could just lean over now and kiss her, like he was some normal boy with a normal crush and normal expectations of privacy. “I’m excited to go, but...it won’t be the same without everyone.”

Good. He smothers a grin. This whole trip is a great opportunity for her, he knows that-- how could he not, when Izana keeps reminding him about the connections she’ll make-- but--

Two years seems excessive. After a year, she’ll realize that too. And then she can come back for senior year, live in the frat, graduate, spend the summer with him in the Vineyard, and--

“We should do something together,” she says, fingers knotted around his, shoulders rounded shyly.

“Yes!” he blurts out, squeezing way too hard. “Definitely”

“All of us!”

“Ah...” That wasn’t what he thought she was going for. “I mean...”

“One last big adventure.” Her lips spread giddily. “Just the five of us. For now, of course,” she adds, “we’ll be coming back.”

“Oh, ah...” He blinks, staring down at where her hands are tangled with his. She has little over a month left here, and what he really wants is to be doing this, this whole...being together thing, but--

But it’s not like this is going anywhere either. Two years is a long time, but they’ll be sitting here just like this when she gets back. Well-- with more kissing, he hopes.

He can wait. He’s not the only one who will miss her. “Yeah, that sounds...nice.”

His eyes flick up, catching her just as she sinks teeth into the soft pillow of her lip, leaving a dent that begs to be soothed. Zen swallows, hard.

Well, a friendly getaway will have its opportunities for some, ah, private time too. He just has to create them.

“I was thinking,” he starts, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair, trying to be, you know, casual. “What if we--?”

“Hey.” Kiki perches herself across from them with a deftness that says she’s been hanging out with Obi too much. “Burgers are off the grill.”

“Great,” Zen grits out with a glare. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

Kiki hums, brow raising dubiously. “What are you two up to out here?”

“Nothing.” He glowers at her, wishing she would just take a hint. “Just talking.”

“Ah.” Her mouth twitches. “I see.”

“We were just talking about taking a trip!” Shirayuki blurts out excitedly, red-faced and glowing. “All of us! One last adventure before me and Obi go to Lyrias.”

Kiki blinks at that, cocking her head. “What were you thinking?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know.” A giggle burst nervously from her as she smooths the hem of her shorts over her thighs. “We hadn’t really gotten that far.”

All right, it’s time to drag this conversation back on track. Zen clears his throat. “Kiki, doesn’t your dad have that house in the Berkshires? We could go for a weekend, maybe take in the--”

“Why? We’re already in western Mass. What will a forty minute drive get us?” She wrinkles her nose. “It isn’t even peak foliage season.”

Privacy, he wants to say, but he knows how poorly that idea would fly with her. For someone who always seems to find time to be alone with her boytoy, Kiki’s awfully invested in seeing that he never has any with his girl...thing.

“Hm, I wasn’t really think a trip-trip either,” Shirayuki admits, crushing his dreams of a nice afternoon alone in a hammock, just the two of them and their bathing suits. “But something like an, ah...activity. Like an amusement park.” She perks. “Do you have something like that out here?”

“Six Flags!” he blurts out before he can even consider what he’s saying. “It’s only a half hour away, and the coasters are supposed to be some of the best. I mean, if you, ah, like that sort of thing.”

Which he doesn’t, but there’s really no need to mention that. Not when she lights up like she does, hands clapping together over her heart.

“That sounds perfect! I’ve never been to one of those.” She leans in, conspiratorial. “Opa always got vertigo on the Turkish Twist.”

He may not know what that thing is, but it sounds gut-wrenching enough to keep in head in the trash for a good ten minutes. Zen plasters a smile on his face, steadfastly ignoring the arch look Kiki gives him-- god, that’s the last thing he needs, Kiki deciding it would be funny to tell the story of when they rode the Tower of Terror in middle school-- and says, “I’ll go on any ride you want.”

Kiki makes an unearthly noise, somewhere between a cough and a choke, and he braces for it, for the you know, Zen can tell you the location of every trashcan in Hollywood Studios--

“When were you thinking?” she says instead, mouth just barely twitching at the corner. “It’s going to be busy this weekend.”

“Oh!” Shirayuki’s eyes round, matching the curve of her mouth. “I didn’t think of that. It doesn’t have to be right now. Maybe in another...week? Or so?”

Kiki whips out her phone, flicking through with one finger. “How about...the seventeenth?”

“Ah...” Shirayuki squints, eyes rolling upward like her brain is an open book she can skim for answers. “Y-yes. I think that’s all right.”

Zen stares. “Did you just...pick a random date?”

“No.” Kiki clicks her screen off, slipping it back into her pocket. “This weekend will still have traffic from the fourth. Next week we’re supposed to submit our paperwork to the student affairs office for this semester, and I know you haven’t started. I don’t want to go during a weekend rush, and Thursday is far into the week where if we have any last second problems with student affairs, we won’t have to reschedule.” She holds out a hand, ta-da. “The seventeenth.”

It’s not fair how she can just...do all that. “W-well, all right. But we still have to make sure that Obi and Mitsuhide--”

“Hey, Obi,” Kiki calls out, catching his attention as he cuts across the lawn toward them. “What are you doing on July seventeenth?”

In full sunlight, in the view of every member of the frat, Obi stumbles over absolutely nothing. “W-what?”

“July seventeenth.” she repeats archly as he slinks up beside her, arms resting on the rail. “Are you doing anything.”

When he thinks of Obi at rest, he thinks of languid limbs, of a frustratingly canted smile and glittering eyes, but--

He’s not any of that now. His troublesome mouth lays in a tense line, the corners of his eyes creased and wary. “Why?”

“We want to go somewhere, all five of us,” Shirayuki informs him giddily, mouth stretching from ear to hear. “And Zen suggested Six Flags--”

“Oh no.” He holds up his hands, shaking his head. “No way. Hard pass. I don’t do amusement parks.”

Kiki arches a brow, unimpressed. “Is that so.”

“Yeah.” He tosses his head, mouth straining towards casual derision and falling short. “Not my scene.”

“Oh really.” The mild look Kiki levels at him had leveled lesser men, but Obi only flinches. “Too cool for them, huh?”

His shoulders twitch. “Sure, we’ll go with that.”

“Ohh,” Zen grins, enjoying the way Obi squirms like a cat with his head caught in a fence. “So you mean that’s not really the reason? You have some other secret, terrible Bugs Bunny trauma in your past, maybe?”

“Well, I have to tell you,” Obi says loftily, “I’ve never really cared for Yosemite Sam.”

Shirayuki frowns. “We really don’t have to--”

“I think we all know this is just to obscure your Lola Bunny fetish,” Kiki deadpans.

“Excuse me?” Obi presses a hand to his chest, aghast. “Space Jam is a formative experience. To say any of us don’t owe Lola Bunny--”

“Hey.” Mitsuhide hops up the steps, wiping the sweat pouring down his neck. Zen valiantly doesn’t notice how Kiki stares. “The burgers have been done for a bit. What’s keeping all of you?”

“Obi is allergic to fun,” Kiki informs him, earning a shocked gasp from Obi.

“That’s not it!” he protests. “You just want to go to Six Flags--”

“Oh, Six Flags!” Mitsuhide’s mouth break into a guileless grin. “I love amusement parks.”

Obi stares, jaw slack. “Big Guy, don’t do this to me...”

Zen grins. “I dunno, Obi. Looks like you’re outvoted.”

Shirayuki shifts beside him, wringing her hands. “Oh no, I don’t think-- if Obi doesn’t want to go, we can just pick--”

“Nah.” Obi waves her off, one hand clasping at his shoulder. “You guys can do what you want. I’ll just sit this one out.”

“Obi--”

“I better check in on Shiira,” he says, stilted. “Don’t want them blowing up the front forty by accident.”

Shirayuki half stands, but it’s too late, he’s already sauntering away, laughing at he calls out to the brothers on the lawn.

“Don’t worry, Shirayuki.” Mitsuhide assures her with a clap on her shoulder. “He’ll come around.”

“I...” Zen watches the way her mouth sets, too knowing, a grim white line cutting through the flush of her face. “I don’t know about that.”

[sabraeal]

Anything from either Get Up Eight or We Seek That Which We Shall Not Find, please? Your choice. ❤️

Oooh those are both good choices, but I will go with We Seek That Which We Shall Not Find, because that has more meta behind it that “i spent this whole fic mentally screaming”

I wrote this first chapter as, unsurprisingly, a fill for one of my AU bingo spaces! I got D&D AU on my board, and I have a tendency to do 6 fics for bingo at least, one for each week. Joanna informed me that it was clearly fate, since I’m such a nerd, and I will be honest, there are AUs that I like to see DONE RIGHT or not at all, and D&D AUs are one of them. I definitely wanted to be like, THE FIRST ONE OUT THERE, writing a good one...so I agreed. It started out as a one shot, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a fic that was allowed to sit, so I left a bunch of hooks for myself to work with later.

Shirayuki shifts, staring up at the spear-points of the finials, the toe of one sneaker scratching at her ankle. She hadn’t known – Zen hadn’t told her there’d be some sort of gate keeper. She’s known he was well-off – hard to miss that, with the sort of gossip that went around him at the school – but she’d thought – Mcmansion. Three car garage. The usual sort of extravagance.

She was not expecting Wayne Manor, complete with wrought iron gate and stylized W, driveway stretching endlessly behind.

One of the things I like about modern AUs is deciding where everyone sort of slots in, and Zen is almost always one of my favorite things to adapt because, you know, I’m American, and unless I’m definitely basing this in some other modern country, Zen isn’t going to be nobility. Which means he’s going to be a rich kid, and that just...puts such a big gulf between him and Shirayuki. I mean, sure, having a monarchic structure put that there too, but there’s almost always some sort of like...right of god stuff going on, or This Is The Way It Is, but with it just being a case of money....I feel like it makes too big a gap between them to actually work out. There’s no REASON for him to have extreme wealth and be so far above her in terms of social class, but that’s the way it is...and it feels like that would sit less well with Shirayuki.

“PLEASE DO NOT STEP ON THE GRASS!”

“Oh gosh!” she yelps, dodging the aggressive spray of a sprinkler. “It was a mistake!”

This is obviously a Princess Diaries reference. I couldn’t help myself.

Shirayuki’s seen a bunch of fancy entrances in her time. She grew up in a Victorian townhouse with full veranda, wrapping front to back, and most of the neighborhood was the same, save for where houses had been pulled down in the 50s to make room for pre-fabs.

I don’t get into Shirayuki’s backstory until Chapter 2, but I definitely had it in mind here. I can’t remember if I first put the bed & breakfast idea in WFB, or whether Joanna brought it up and THEN I inserted it, but I really like this idea of modern Shirayuki being from bumfuck and growing up mostly alone in this big victorian B&B with her grandparents. It just explains this whole like...raised by the wilderness feel she has in a modern setting, and also how she might have come to have very few real friends to miss or depend on.

I didn’t want to have the EXACT same backstory as WFB though, so I did make this Shirayuki a little more pop culture savvy, though not by overly much.

Bullet Two: He’s actually serious about this whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, or as he gently corrected after her first anxious text, Pathfinder. 

Listen guys, I know 5e is big right now, I know it has a lot of quality of life improvements, but I also find it a little soulless after starting off with 3.5 and moving into Pathfinder. There’s not a lot of choices for characters, i find stuff a little rigid where it shouldn’t be and a too handwavey in other places....so this was always going to be Pathfinder.

She never quite worked up the nerve to ask how long he’s been playing, but it’s long enough that he’s as comfortable modifying its rules as she is with a bread recipe 

The number one question I get asked if if I DM like Izana, and I’m pretty sure every single one of my players would say yes

he spent most of their first conversation trying to explain gestalt 

Gestalt is an actual riff on 3.0/3.5 rules that people do also play in Pathfinder and other D&D-like systems, and you basically get all the class features of both classes, and then the best bits of your level up. I haven’t played in a gestalt game (my one opportunity was with a group of dudes who I loved but had power-balancing issues before), but I’ve really enjoyed the idea of it...and it seemed like the exact type of game Izana would want to set up.

“Oh no, it’s fine,” she assures him, wishing her voice didn’t tremble. “I took the bus.”

His steps stutter on the stairs. “The bus?”

This was one of those bits that came to be fully formed after I realize she HAD to have taken the bus, and I’m glad everyone has enjoyed this bit of snobbery as much as I do.

He recovers. “I didn’t know there was a bus stop near here.” 

This was originally going to include something like “he says, as if it were an infestation” but it both didn’t fit with flow of the fic, and it made Izana come off about a thousand times more purposefully classist than i wanted him to be so...it didn’t stay.

There isn’t, but she doesn’t want to explain how she walked almost a half hour from the nearest one to here. “I don’t have a car. Or a license! So…” 

No one can convince me that Shirayuki would get her license on time. No one. She would be getting it at like 22 and only under extreme duress...which make it a good analogy for the horseback riding in canon.

“Our other player,” Izana says easily. “You inviting Shirayuki reminded me you were very much missing another important role in your party, and I asked Obi if he’d be willing to fill it.” 

This is an even bigger dick move than any of you know, and not just because he’s clearly brought in Obi to scare Shirayuki away.

Zen frowns. “Do you know how to play?”

His shoulders twitch, barely a shrug. “I played Skyrim at a friend’s house, once.”

I know this is sort of a deep cut for some of you, so: Skyrim is a video game that runs absolutely nothing like D&D at all, so he’s basically going to a football game being like, one time i played whiffle ball at my grandma’s, is it kinda like that? Though any RPG will in fact give you the basics of D&D, if only because you are used to the idea of leveling

Obi stares at her, eyes round, as if he’s not used to – to anyone taking his side. It last only a second, and then he’s back to his grin, back to his gaze sliding off of her like she’s furniture. “Guess we’ll see about that.” 

Yes, as you all picked out, this is definitely the first moment Obi really SEES her, and he’s absolutely wooed by the fact that she stuck up for him, even slightly. But he’s definitely not going to let that get in the way of being a total douche nozzle to her in a few minutes

[sabraeal]

Modern!AU where Shirayuki is studying for exams in pjs/Obi's clothes ( :') ) and disheveled hair and I guess he's just,,,enchanted

It’s not odd for Doc to skip dinner.

Zen starts fretting the instant she isn’t in front of the DC at their usual time, convinced it must mean that something is wrong, that somehow his brother or Haruka or this Raj kid have somehow kept her from eating dinner promptly at five. Obi considers it a public service that he doesn’t roll his eyes.

But ten minutes later she’s still not answering her texts. She’s not picking up her phone, even when Kiki’s the one who calls. That’s when he starts to worry, starts to feel something gnaw away at his belly, something that feels like fear.

“Don’t worry, Chief,” he says with a grin, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll go get her.”

Zen’s eyes narrow. “How are you going to get in? You don’t have a card for her –”

“Oh trust me.” He winks. “I’ll find a way.”

It sounds more glamorous than it is. All sneaking into a dorm takes is good timing and a smile, which says some pretty damning things about the security at this school. Considering how he managed to lock Doc out of the science building with little more than a wad of twenties, he isn’t overly surprised.

Doc lives on the fifth floor of seven, but he’s far too wired and worried to wait for the slow-ass elevator to mosey on down to the lobby. Instead, he sprints up four flights, barely feeling it until he hits the last landing. Her dorm’s not far from the stairwell, just around the corner from the lobby where it and the elevator come out to, but each step feels like a slog. His legs are jellied after that climb; tomorrow he’s going to wish he’d been kinder to his quads.

He turns the corner, rubbing at his neck – god, he’s twenty-two, he shouldn’t be getting cricks and falling apart at seams like this from a little jog – and his heart nearly drops through to his stomach.

Her door is wide open – a habit of hers that is more common than he likes – but instead of sugar-sweet lady songwriter crooning out lyrics about forests and mountains and other metaphors for love over twangy acoustic guitar, there is silence. Total, deafening silence.

His mouth makes to wrap around her name, but it shatters on his tongue the moment his gaze falls to the jamb. One pink terry-cloth sleeve splays across the floor, spilling into the hallway. His whole body tenses, adrenaline running through his veins with a roar. If someone has hurt Doc – if they’ve even touched her – they’ll be lucky if there’s something left of them to find.

Obi knows he can handle himself, knows intimately the way he can shithouse a person, but he’s not some idiot ready to fling himself into the fray sight unseen. He creeps up, silent – thanks, shitty childhood – and nudges her door open with the toe of his boot and –

“Oh my god,” he says, loud enough to make her look up despite the music blaring in her ears, “it looks like a girl exploded in here.”

“Obi!” Her voice is entirely too loud for the room, and he must flinch, since a moment later she pulls out her earbuds. “What are you doing here?”

He leans against the doorway, reaching so hard for casual despite his pounding heart, tugging at a shoulder as he shrugs. “Chief says it’s dinner time.”

“Oh.” She blinks. “You could have just called.”

“We did.”

“You –?” She glances down at her phone, shaking it awake, and grimaces. “Ah. I, um, was really focused.”

He looks down pointedly. Papers are scattered in a ritual circle around her, laptop cast off to the side with a mind-bending amount of tabs dotting the browser bar, and a large three-fold poster board lays splayed across the floor. It’s covered in graphs and large paragraphs of small text; he can’t help but think it looks familiar –

He crouches to get a better look, tilting his head with a squint to read the tiny text. “Is this Kihal’s data?”

She rocks back, running her hands through her damp hair. “Yeah. It’s for Tanbarun. Garrack says she’s confident that she can get Massachusetts to adopt the safety measures, but that’s nothing if we can’t get Connecticut to do something about it at the source, and if that doesn’t go through…”

Doc doesn’t look at the other half of the room, desk empty and bed neatly made, but she doesn’t have to; the weight of Kihal’s absence presses on them all the same.

“It’s not your fault, Doc,” he reminds her. He would know, he was there. “I’m sure the charges will get cleared even without this whole meeting shindig.”

She shakes her head, fingers knotting deep in her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t want to chance it.” She looks up at him, her bright eyes watery. “You know, she was the first person in her family to go to college? I can’t even imagine what she’s feeling right now. All because she wouldn’t take Brecker’s bribes.”

He can’t believe he hears himself say the words, “Just because you do the right thing doesn’t mean everything works out, not right away. It’ll take time.”

Like he has any room to talk. The his chest itches madly, and he pulls at his shoulder instead. It eases, just the slightest bit, becomes something he can live with.

“How long do you have?” he asks, letting his knees rest on the carpet. “Is anyone helping you?”

“No, I just —” she sighs – “Mitsuhide’s going to drive me down, but it’s not like he can help with any of this. He’s just there for, you know, moral support and transportation.” Her shoulders set in a tense line. “And you know, any of the stuff with Raj.”

Right. There’s a whole bunch of history there he’s only seen the tip of the iceberg for. Now’s not the time to dig.

“I could, um –” he needs to stop himself, needs to stop the words coming out – “help maybe? I mean, I’m in most of your science classes right? I can probably talk about, uh –” he catches the title of one of the pages – “salinity of the Connecticut River?”

She stares at him, eyes huge and wet with gratitude. “Do you – do you meant that?”

He nods, too late to back out now, big mouth. “Yeah sure.” He grins. “One condition though.”

“Oh?”

“You come down to dinner.” He stands up, offering her a hand. “I mean what happened here? It looks like you exploded.”

She grips his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. A flush works up from the base of her neck, turning her an intriguing pink. “I just – I came back from the shower, and then…got into my comfiest clothes and started working. I didn’t really have time to put things away.”

He laughs, sweeping his eyes over her to find something to tease her about – it’s hard, even with her fuzzy mismatched socks, with her flannel pajama pants covered in owls with cartoonishly huge eyes, with –

With –

“Is that –” He stops to swallow. Get a grip. Get a grip. “Is that where my hoodie went?”

She turns an even darker red, and that’s – that’s so much worse. She knows it’s his. She thinks it’s comfortable. She just – she is –

She’s wrapped up in his clothes like he wish she would be in his arms, and it’s awful, awful knowing she likes it.

“I can give it back, if you want,” she offers weakly. The red of her hair sets off the green of the fabric and she is just – she looks –

She’s perfect. She’s too perfect.

“Nah,” he says, dropping her hand, striving for calm. “Looks better on you anyway.”