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couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name · 4 years

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Hi! What is your very specific Twilight AU?

okay, so. New Moon.

party disaster, dumping her and dipping, all happens normally.

but THEN. Bella finds out she’s pregnant.

(and I know you’re thinking- pre-marital sex?!?! Edward would NEVER! but listen. I am the author now. I’ve been around Christians my whole life. shut up!)

so anyway after a million pregnancy tests and a lot of googling about vampire baby legends, Bella’s like...well this is probably gonna be a situation,

Nessie doesn’t have an insane growth rate here because I hate that, so she has a normal amount of time to prepare, and she’s very...aware that the birth is gonna be Rough at best. So she goes to Jacob

who is NOT a wolf yet but Is aware of the pack and the treaty, and they are closer friends already, and she’s like ‘hey. paranormal emergency. you’re the only person in this town who enables me. help.’

and Jacob’s like I’m Fucking Fifteen and goes and gets Leah, since she’s technically an adult and a girl

(ms. meyer How did you make one of leah’s only 3 character traits ‘upset she’s infertile’ and then not have her support bella’s choices in breaking dawn please make it make sense)

so they start brainstorming solutions and the best they can work with is. Bella’s gotta ride out the pregnancy in hiding. they have no way of knowing whether she can survive the pregnancy and the only clue they have about whether the baby will be a monster or not is from google searches, but they also can’t exactly take her to an obgyn when her uterus feels like it’s calcified and her ribs are getting broken and she seems to be craving blood

So, Leah’s got her own little place. Bella moves in there, telling Charlie she wants to move back in with Renee (she knows her parents would never willingly call each other so as long as she keeps up communicating with both of them they should be none the wiser of her growing a little dracula in Leah Clearwater’s basement).

Leah has already defected from the wolf pack at this point (because...the Cullen’s left and she didn’t really like any of the guys anyway lmao) so they don’t run the risk of them hearing her thoughts while she’s in wolf form. She goes out and hunts animals, brings them back and her and Jake drain the blood from them so Bella can drink it. All three of them find this extremely disgusting obviously but Jake’s loyal and a little bit lovestruck, Leah’s a supportive friend and queen, and Bella’s just trying to keep her and her baby alive, and none of them feel like trying to rob a blood bank

Bella is 100% certain the baby will just be a baby who happens to like blood, like she was in bd, but the tentative plan is that if a crazy soulless monster comes out of her Leah will...handle that...

Which neither are thrilled about, so Bella’s just trying to focus on staying positive. And between that, trying to survive and stay hidden, Bella doesn’t really have time to...Check Out the way she did in new moon. Like, she’s absolutely still depressed, and she’s still getting an occasional Edward hallucination because carrying a vampire baby counts as reckless in many books, but she’s just more...resigned and pissed than anything. She’ll have days like the ‘possibilities’ scene, but more often than not she’s just telling the Edward hallucination to go fuck himself when he’s begging her to find the real him so they can have Carlisle deal with the pregnancy

at some point, Seth gets roped into the whole mess (he’s prone to just breaking into his sister’s house) but since he’s like, 13 and The Best Baby Boy he’s immediately supportive. He didn’t even fucking know about the wolves and the vampires until he walked in on a six months pregnant Bella drinking blood while his sister and Jacob are hacking away at a dead deer, but he’s like...you know when you were 13 and sneaking around about Anything made you feel like the coolest person alive? point is he’s helpful

AND he can get away with spending a lot of time at Leah’s house without anyone finding it weird, unlike Jacob, so he starts spending most of his free time there keeping Bella company and brightening her day up

HE is the one who enables her when she comes up with the name Renesmee lmao

(just because she hates Edward doesn’t mean Esme ever did anything wrong!)

“bella I’ll throw you out of this house if you don’t come up with a real name” “leah she’s white you can’t just disrespect her culture like this omg”

anyway these four become the DORKIEST and WEIRDEST little family it’s cute

so then. labor.

it’s less...graphic than in bd because Bella hasn’t been actively dying the whole pregnancy and she doesn’t snap her spine in half, but it’s still. bad.

she essentially delivers a rock that Nessie then begins chewing her way out of. she’s actively bleeding out. Jacob’s having a panic attack. Leah made Seth watch so he would never have unprotected sex and the scare tactic is working. Leah’s covered in Bella’s blood which is not great considering she’s Holding A Rock That A Vampire Is Emerging From

Leah’s been taking classes and researching deliveries so she needs to stitch Bella up and see what else is wrong but Seth is rocking back and forth on the floor crying and Jacob’s screaming and pacing too fast to grab so she’s like. Bella babe I know you’re dying but you need to hold this thing for me ksjdfllksf

so while she’s handling That, Bella’s got this weird little rock in her arms and is watching the baby slowly fight it’s way out like this is a very fucked up egg or something and she’s just. overwhelmed. maybe it’s the blood loss but she’s looking at the messy, scrunchy little face and she’s already in love and envisioning their lives together.

and then, you know, the baby bites her,

she has just enough time to think ‘how did we not think to prepare for that’ before she can feel the venom coursing through her. it’s just as bad as she remembers from James’ bite but somehow...easier to tolerate. she blacks out pretty quickly

the other 3 notice and are like : 👁👄👁

Jacob...literally explodes into a wolf On Spot

Seth darts out the fucking door he’s seen enough for one day

Leah, sole holder of the braincell, realizes Nessie just bit and isn’t drinking from Bella, and deduces this is like...a survival instinct or something. the baby instinctively changes it’s mother first thing. weirdly...touching?

So she gets the baby and checks that everything is physically okay with Bella (apart from you know. changing species) and is like...guess this is an issue for 3 days from now Leah

more immediate pressing issues: screaming new born baby and oh, yeah, the giant red wolf in the basement,

“Jacob I know this is disorienting but if you break anything in my house I’ll fucking kill you”

she really just leaves the poor boy to go get the baby cleaned up and warm up some of the frozen blood they’ve got in her fridge (RUINING HER TUPPERWARE, BELLA)

she’s not worried about the wolf pack mind meld yet because she knows Sam took the guys on a mission way farther up the coast for a few days and they’ll be too far away to hear Jake. hopefully, by the time they get back, Bella will be awake and they’ll have made an escape plan by then

and as she’s bottle feeding blood to the baby she’s thrilled that it seems to be like...relatively normal and not s horrific monster or anything. mission: unwillingly murder my best friend’s baby has been successfully canceled

“Oh Goddamn it....Renesmee DOES fit you...”

Seth, from where he’s cowering behind the couch: “told you”

so, Jake eventually calms down, they spend the next few days cooing over Nessie and brainstorming how to handle Bella when she wakes up a vampire, and also nicknaming Nessie ‘Nessie’ because they know Bella will find that intolerable and they feel she deserves karmic punishment for stressing them out so much lmao

so, three days are up. Seth’s upstairs putting on a way-too-elaborate puppet show for the baby with not a care in the world. Leah and Jake are in the basement because they know Bella probably won’t want their wolf blood and their ready to phase in case she gets a little aggressive

but she just wakes up and is like. hey! how’s it going? where’s my baby?

sjdhfksdj they were expecting feral but Bella still has her super self-control. she didn’t even realize she’d changed into a vampire until they told her lmao

Bella’s a little too freaked out to try hunting yet so they give her some of the stored blood they’ve been feeding Ness and she’s like. good to go. Leah’s about to scream like have the elders been exaggerating this whole time or is Bella truly a freak??? lol

So, they spend a couple days just...relaxing, Bella and Renesmee bonding, they’re trying to come up with fun places Bella can move to with the baby so no one she knows finds out, and every now and then Leah and Jake go out and she tries to help him get the wolf thing under control

and then,,,,the pack get back from their mission early

and immediately are able to read Jacob’s mind

so they head over to Start Shit because there’s two bloodsuckers on their land but,

the pack not attacking because Jake imprinted on Renesmee? tired. the pack not attacking because Jake’s Alpha Genes have taken over and declared Nessie and Bella as part of his Pack and attacking would literally start a war? inspired

so they hash the whole thing out....ultimately Sam decides Bella is more of a victim than a threat, and since neither her or Nessie seem to be going on a bloodlust rampage any time soon...he decides to grant them immunity from the whole ‘kill the vampires’ rule. He’ll let her and her daughter stay in La Push as long as they agree to stick to animals and only hunt out of town. PLUS from what little Bella knows about the Volturi, she’s worried about them finding out about Nessie, so they’ll offer protection if that does happen, in exchange for her being able to help them with intel on any other vampire threats in the area (you know like. if a nomad is fucking stuff up in a nearby city, they’ll send her to talk to them first before deciding if they need to intervene. Sam has become acutely aware he has a lot of teens and kids in his pack, so he’s trying to keep them out of fights as much as possible)

anyway that’s the story of Nessie gaining like 17 chaotic as hell ride or die uncles,

let’s fast forward a bit

it’s like 15 years later. Bella’s not living with Leah anymore, but she’s got a cute apartment in a nearby town, and owns and runs a bookstore on the first floor of it. she got her ged and did college online and teaches night classes at a community college. She’s still in contact with her parents, who Adore the life out of Nessie. She still helps the pack out and they’re all close. Nessie is a handful but in a fun and lovable way. They go on little weekend trips whenever they have time. Bella’s happy.

but then a. Situation. arises.

basically, the Volturi have been made aware of some unknown vampire chasing others out of the pacific northwest and conspiring with shapeshifters. and you know when Aro gets curious he tends to spin things dramatically. who’s to say this vampire isn’t conspiring against all vampires? against them? why has no one’s special talents worked on her? he simply must find out.

Bella and the Pack get word and decide their best course of action for now is to go on the run. they’re not gonna be able to take on a whole army but if they can bide some time and lay low they might be able to figure something out

except Bella is like....I have a teenage hybrid that the Volturi don’t know about yet...it would be EXTREMELY irresponsible to take her with me

but she can’t send Nessie to Charlie or Renee because they don’t know about her...dietary restrictions. She can’t stay with Billy or anyone else in La Push because the Volturi might trace the pack’s scent there and discover her. She’s panicking, they have to leave in a few days max and she can’t find a safe place for her daughter

and then she’s like.....fuck.

she had run into Jasper a couple of years ago- they have the same forgery guy and were heading to his building around the same time as a coincidence. She promised to forgive him for the party incident if he promised not to tell Edward he saw her and that she’s a vampire now. He agreed, but then told her Edward’s been living on his own for a while now and insisted on giving her his number...she never could bring herself to call it or delete it...but now...if she wants to be 100% Nessie is safe and protected...

fuck

So, the past 15 years have been fairly rough for Edward

he’s still convinced leaving in order to save Bella was the best course of action, but like...the vampires canonically mate for life. that’s his soulmate. he’s absolutely miserable without her. he’s thought about cracking and going to find her again but he always talks himself out of it, convinced she’d just tell him she hates him or something

so as stated in his patented Edward Cullen Self Loathing Guide, first thing to do is isolate yourself from all the lovebirds you usually live with. Sure, he keeps in contact, but...not well. he’s currently living alone and posing as a university student. He’s not even really sure what he’s supposed to be majoring in. He’s mostly been in a haze since he left Forks.

and one day....he gets a call from an unknown number. he ignores it, thinking it’s a spam call. but then it calls like 8 more times in a row and he figures answering might be a bit smarter than simply throwing it at the wall

And Edward...swears he came back to life and immediately had a heart attack the second he hears Bella’s voice

He feels breathless and disoriented the whole conversation, trying to figure out if his memory did her voice any justice, trying to rush out 15 years worth of apologies, trying to comprehend she’s actually speaking to him.

But Bella’s very blunt on the phone. She doesn’t want to let herself get emotional. She’s on a time limit, and she has to focus on getting her daughter to safety

And Edward swears he somehow misheard her the first ten or so times she told him. He had a daughter? that wasn’t possible

“she has the audacity to be your Evil Twin so I’m pretty sure it’s possible”

so she gives him a rundown. she needs to go into hiding, no I don’t need your help with that, gives him details about Nessie, what she’s like, what she likes to do, her diet, her favorite color, how annoyed she is by this whole situation, “Edward I know you don’t love me anymore, but I remember how protective you were, and that’s what I need Nessie to have right now. She needs you right now” and Edward wants so badly to refute Bella’s claim of lost love, to tell her he has absolutely no idea how to be a parent, but...her tone is aching so much he can barely speak. He can’t let Bella down again, and he can’t let this little girl he foolishly created and left down anymore than he already has, either.

So he agrees, she tells him to be at the airport in a few days, and hangs up.

Edward loses about half a day staring at a wall in shock, before he jumps into preparations.

Bella told him while their daughter possessed some speed and strength, hunting was fairly dangerous for her. She was more delicate than his kind, and had a heartbeat. Reheated blood bags had been their best option, and she also needed human food as well. He also had to get a room ready for her- he wandered around stores for hours, reading young girls minds to see if there was any furniture or decorations that were universally liked- which was of course, fruitless, but he did manage to find a handful of things he was sure Bella would have liked at that age, and prayed for the best. He somehow got himself covered in purple paint that was a nightmare to get off. Bella had sent him some forged documents claiming Nessie was his younger sister he’d won custody of, and he got her enrolled in a nearby school. He lived every day leading up to her arrival staving off a panic attack.

it wasn’t until he was on the way to the airport that he realized he forgot to inform his family about this life update. they must’ve been on a hunting trip, because he got nothing but voicemails

imagine being Carlisle and you come home to a voicemail from your son who’s banished himself from the family that’s just like ‘hi. you’re a grandfather now. I’m having a nervous breakdown and might crash my car. call me back at your earliest convenience I suppose” like what would you DO

after he gets to the airport he starts panicking again, realizing Bella had never actually sent him a picture, worrying about how he’d find her, but then- he sees a tiny girl with untamed, dark red curls, features strikingly similar to his own that are pulled into the expression Bella always made when she was reading, absently chewing on her lip, and before she looks at him with her mother’s big brown eyes, he already knows who he’s looking at, and he’s certain if he was human his tear ducts would be having a fit right now

Renesmee, however, seems less willing to have an emotional meeting. She mumbles out a simple greeting before gathering up her bags and heading for the door, Edward rushing behind her to try and help

listen. the awkwardness of Charlie trying to connect with Bella. but 10000x worse because of Edward’s overthinking, self-deprecating ass and Nessie being like ‘ah yes the guy who broke my pregnant teenage mothers heart, fantastic’ lmao

the car ride is p a i n f u l. Edward’s trying so hard for light conversation and Nessie’s barely giving one word answers. Bella had warned her about the mind reading so she was carefully keeping her mind blocked, which Edward is trying very hard to be understanding about instead of annoyed, but By God does he want to know everything about her

when they get back to his place, she quietly thanks him for the room and then promptly locks him out of it lol. He spends the rest of the day just pacing back and forth until he realizes he should eventually feed her lmao

and that’s...kinda how the first couple weeks go. she only emerges from her room if he bribes her with food, she awkwardly tries to dodge his questions, he drives her to school and then begs her to tell him how it went when he picks her up, he spends his college classes distracted because he’s freaking out constantly about how to successfully bond with her. His favorite time of day now is night, because she can’t block her mind while she’s asleep, and even if her dreams are all nonsense they’re still...part of her that he gets to know.

His family keeps begging him to let them meet her, but he’s pushing back because if she’s this bad at adjusting to one new family member, how is she going to handle six more?

(meanwhile Alice and Rose started a group chat with her and are having a ball clowning Edward lmao)

wait ksjflksd I think this vine perfectly sums up the dynamic im envisioning https://youtu.be/wQZIUHNORHg

anyway they....very slowly make some progress. much too slowly for Edward’s taste, but hey.

Like he finds out snacks she likes. or jewelry she likes. stuff like that and just...wordlessly leaves it around for her lmao. he thinks it’s like trying not to startle a deer, Nessie thinks it’s more like a cat trying to gift you a dead mouse, but either way it’s weirdly endearing.

He notices she always has a huffy little frown when he picks her up on Wednesdays. So instead of begging her for an ounce of information of her school life, he asks her one Wednesday morning if she’s excited for the day and she admits she has an elective class every Wednesday with a girl she doesn’t get along with.

He gets her school photos (and Weeps) and realizes apart from her room the home is fairly barren of decorations, so he buys a bunch of picture frames and hangs up the school shots, and some pictures of the Cullen’s over the years, and the few he has of Bella that he could never bear to part with. Other than catching her smiling at the prom picture of her parents, Nessie doesn’t say anything- but the next time he comes home from hunting, there’s a pile of pictures of her growing up on the table, and he starts weeping all over again as he hangs them up

(there’s one of her and Bella hugging and looking at the camera with identical grins and joy in their eyes, he can’t help but put that in his room. He hopes one day he’ll get to see a scene like that in person)

He starts trying to get her out of her room a little more- he still hasn’t managed to a get a ‘favorites’ list out of her, so he starts playing movies Bella loved, to see if any of them lure her out. some do, some don’t- he got halfway through a Lord of the Rings marathon, which was Torture in his opinion, but then Ness came out and quietly asked if he could restart it and suddenly they became his favorite movies ever.

Bella’s not able to contact her on a set schedule or anything because of her situation (and you can bet your ass Edward’s contacted every vampire he knows and ordered them to help her out if they come across her or the Volturi), and Edward realizes that’s probably taking a toll on the girl, so he starts telling her stories of her mother when he knew her in Forks. She’s particularly amused by the blood typing incident- the first time Edward hears Nessie properly laugh, he literally starts crying on the spot

could you imagine the sheer panic if she ever gets so much as a cold

And yes, she’s still pissed on Bella’s behalf, and yes, she specifically blasts 70s music because Bella told her he hates it one time, and yes, if he looks at her like he’s a kicked puppy one more time she might claw his eyes out, and yes, she refuses to introduce him to her friends from school because she Knows everyone will then start asking her about her ‘hot brother’ and she can’t live with that and also can’t live with him knowing that so she told him if he ever introduces himself to any of her friends she’ll set him on fire, and yes, she’s homesick 95% of the time but...he’s growing on her. like a mold, or something.

(okay, maybe when Seth tried to analyze why Mamma Mia is her favorite musical, he might have had a point. half a point. quarter of a point. shut up.)

And Edward’s still trying to not have a panic attack every time she’s out of his sight- he’s got Carlisle keeping tabs on the Volturi for him, and it’s not exactly hard for him to keep track of her through other people’s minds- but she’s so tiny and her heartbeat is Too Fast and what if she inherited her mother’s unlucky streak??

but they’re toeing the line of co-existing peacefully and Edward’s scared to push it past that

then he has to, because it turns out he sent her to one of Those Schools where the parents have to be involved in the school in some way or another and Nessie’s Annoyed

sdkjfsdkjf she keeps trying to get him to just sign up for like pta meetings or something and he’s like ‘I need you to understand you are the only person in this town I actually know or like I Cannot survive around fundraiser moms I can’t’

so she’s like ugh fine I’m in the drama club

listen.....Stage Parent Edward Cullen.......the power this holds...

that’s right this whole post was an elaborate ruse for me to make a musical theater headcanon again lmao

no okay but seriously he starts off just helping build sets and stuff like that but then midway through the year their music teacher gets fired and the schools like begging him to take over because they can’t find someone in enough time that’ll know the music for the show they’re doing and he’s like “I need you to understand Nessie will never talk to me again if I start actually working at her school” and they’re like “She also will never talk to you again if we have to cancel the big musical, though” and he’s like. fuck.

silent treatment for a week and a half

lmao so now he’s trying to juggle being an overly-enthusiastic stage parent who’s making costumes and sets and kinda crying backstage when he sees his daughter in her costume with also being the music director for the damn show and trying to teach a bunch of kids how to read sheet music

one day he ended up in a coffee shop with the hair and makeup moms, gossiping about the cast’s love lives, and he literally doesn’t know how he got there

is it wrong to pass Nessie in class even though she’s putting all the wrong answers on the test but he Knows she knows the right answers and is only answering wrong to try and get a rise out of him

Bella sneaks into town to see the show- they thought it would push their luck if the pack came, but they sent an ungodly amount of flowers and candy. When she snuck into the house while Ness was sleeping she Was Not expecting to find Edward up to his elbows in sequins, trying to fix a bedazzler he accidentally broke in frustration, muttering under his breath about how if Nessie’s romantic opposite in the show doesn’t keep his thoughts clean he’s gonna kill him- and it just cracks her up. She WAS nervous about seeing Edward again but now she’s assured he’s still a dork lol

So Edward freaks when he sees her but they don’t wanna wake Ness up so they’re trying to be quiet but like. they’re going through it

Like Bella Wants to be pissed at him but she can’t, she still loves him- and while she can’t just get over what he did to her, it’s also not lost on her that ‘leaving to protect someone I love’ is literally what she had to do to her daughter

And Edward....Edward, who only left to give Bella a chance at a safe, human life, seeing Bella in front of him as a vampire, knowing it’s his fault she ended up that way and she had to go through it alone, had to raise a baby herself because he’d made it so hard to find him...knowing if he’d just pulled his head out of his ass he would have been able to be there for her...would be able to form a coherent sentence around his love right now, would have long and fond memories of Nessie’s childhood, likely wouldn’t have to watch Bella hide from the Volturi...he’s back in a self-loathing spiral already

But they haven’t seen each other in so long and they just don’t want to...deal with the unpleasantness right now, so they just push it aside. Bella helps Edward with the costumes. Edward fills her in on what she’s been missing with Nessie. Bella tells him some stuff about when Ness was younger. They just spend the night talking, and it feels like no time has past between them at all- which just makes the heartaches a little stronger

When Nessie wakes up to her mother there she’s ecstatic- bubbly and loud and glued to Bella’s hip all day, giving her in depth play-by-plays of her school and rehearsals and friends she’s made, bouncing on her toes all morning, hyper, giggly, and- it kind of breaks Edward’s heart a little, even though he knows he hasn’t really...earned this side of his daughter, yet.

(at least he got his wish of seeing their twin smiles in person)

(he wishes he could see them every second of every day)

so the girls spend the day catching up while Edward mostly feels like a thirdwheel, and then they have to get Ness over to the school so she can get ready

Bella decides to hang out around the school theater before the show actually starts- she leans against the wall next to the piano, the two talking in hushed tones while Edward runs through songs. Bella really missed watching him play- the only thing that managed to drag her away from it was when Nessie called her to the dressing room to help with a hair emergency

she didn’t talk to him much at intermission, her attention being stolen by the rest of the Cullen family (who had been Very Loudly supporting the show so far, she knew Ness was probably dying of embarrassment backstage)

after the show, the three went back to Edward’s and just...talked. Nessie was gushing about the show and eating while her parents assured her she was the greatest actress ever born, simple stuff like that. she fell asleep sandwiched in between them on the couch

Bella realizes she’s never going to be able to bring herself to leave again if Nessie wakes up, and tells Edward as much. He clearly doesn’t want her to go just yet either, but...she’s on the run, it’s not like she has much choice

He has so much he wants to say to her but he just- can’t. it’s not the right time. but he’s hoping she can see that in his eyes

Bella shifts Nessie off her shoulder so Edward can hold her, and she gives him a light kiss and says ‘thank you, Edward’ before disappearing in a flash. she needed to go before she lost her nerve.

Edward can’t bring himself to let Nessie out of his arms, so instead of carrying her to bed he just stays there, holding her, trying his best not to think that that could be the last time for a long time he’d ever see his Bella again, trying not to let thoughts of a life he gave up unwittingly consume him

okay I didn’t mean for this to be So Long so I’m cutting it here uhh...let me know if anyone wants a part 2? sorry lmao

#twilight #edward cullen #bella swan #edbella #twilight saga #asks #molly mumbles #elephantlovingmouse

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ackerpreach · 3 years

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This ending .... I can name 500 reasons and I will name them right now, because I don’t think I’m the only one who is upset with how things turned out. (Also, A positive message for all of you at the end)

MAJOR LEAKS SPOILERS/ READ WITH CAUTION

Update: after reading more theories from fellow RM bloggers, and sleeping over it one day, this entire chapter might be an april fools... Don't fully lose hope yet beautiful people. It's me just giving a review on a possible fake April fools chapter

After following this franchise since 2013, so nearly a DECADE. this ending is a pure disserve to the entire fandom. I feel like Yams has rushed it just for the sake of being done with the entire manga. So many things are left open, characters and their developemt are reverted back all the way to chapter 1 or are left even worse than that...

Mikasa’s worthless character development/ Aaronmika’s horrible toxic codependent relationship

Oh honey... Let’s start with how horrible Isayama has treated her. We were all rooting for her, because we all felt like she was so misunderstood. She had a horrible childhood and imprinted on a guy who treated her like trash 99 percent of the story. And then, slowly but surely, she starts to realize she has to stop obsessing over him in the uprising arc with the help of a real man who treats her like a queen, more importantly, he treats her like a real human being. This man sees her for her abilities and that she has the power to be self dependent. She learned parts of herself, that she was able to work together with him like no one else could. She learned parts of herself she was unable to do so if she kept obsessing about Aaron. All this love, care, mutual understanding and RESPECT these two shared.

but...NAH FUCK THAT, right Yams?? Throw all this development away, all this bonding. Let’s make the main female lead even more yandere than she already was in the first season. Let her make out with his decapacitated head (like dude, this is also pure disrespect to Aaron’s dead body btw) and let her obsess even more about the guy who has treated her no better than a piece of toilet cloth 99 percent of the time. The guy who was never really appreciative in front of her for saving his ass billions of times, who always pushed her away, who yells at her and snaps at her whenever he can instead of reasoning and talking calmly with her in mature way. (EVEN PARODY YOUTUBE CHANNELS WHO DONT SHIP ANYTHING MAKE IT A TROPE WHERE AARON TELLS MIKASA HE HATES HER GUTS WHENEVER HE CAN)

Then after all that, suddenly Yams tries to last minute persuade us Aaron’s always been head over heels for her??? He should have build their relationship better which he hasn’t even tried to do so... He must be thinking his fans are stupid for eating this from his hands.

Like seriously??? What is this???

Isayama is just fully contradicting himself. It’s like someone tipped him off with a buttload of money for him to write Aaron like this to satisfy shipping needs and to cash in those extra money’s from it. Even if he tried to cater to Erem*ika, this is not how you write a loving and caring couple which people will root for.

This next two panels just freaking infuriates me to the core of my soul. I can’t even describe how dissapointed I am with Mikasa.

Why is she clutching that head so obsessively like that? Why is she walking and turning her back away from her comrades? After everything they have done for her, after all they’ve been through?! After everything Armin has done? Standing up for Mikasa, beating up Aaron for hurting her. I feel like even Jean, Connie and Sasha have cared more for her in a healthy way. Sure, Aaron cares for her romantically too apparently (What a twist Yams :)), but has he aided her to becoming a mentally healthier individual? Has he aided in her mental stability? The answer is a big fat NO! All I see between these two after today’s raw Chapter’s are too Yandere obsessed individuals who have no clue on how to maintain a healthy relationship.

Love should only go as far as the heart can endure and it seems like her character is not willing to be aware of that. Even Armin was able to let go of Aaron in those latest panels. Why does her entire character resolve around this guy??? I really do not understand. Her Ackerbond and her age is not an excuse for her to throw her life away like this.

Shonen’s disgusting portrayal of women

I’ve seen this countless of times in the many years I’ve watched anime. SasuS*ku from Naruto, Ichih*me from Bleach, Shinji and that oranged hair girl from Neon Evangelion.. Why do these women get decreased to simpletons with one single goal? And that is to obsess over a bland male lead who either treats them like trash or doesn’t notice them up until the last last chapter (LITERALLY WHAT YAMS HAS DONE). Some go even as far as the male leading wanting the kill the female love interest and yet the female lead is still in love with them???. It’s disgusting for him to write the MAIN female character this way.

It’s dissapointing we believed in Isayama doing Mikasa’s character right. That she’s finally being able to let go of her codependency and to live for herself maybe live in Hizuru and find more about her roots???, but every single time she shows some improvement, it’s burried deep in the ground again by the Author. It almost seems like a lowkey kink of some of the male Mangaka’s to write about a girl obsessing over them no matter what. I see this so many times to the point that I truly stand behind it that some of them might have this fantasy.

I wished he didn’t portray her last panels like this. Everyone else is living their lives while Mikasa is still grieving about him. I’m not saying she’s not allowed to grieve and everyone takes it at their own pace, but cmon... Show her living her life too. This is too much. Her being next to his grave and grieving him as her last panels just shoves it in our faces that YET AGAIN, BEING OBSESSED WITH AARON IS ALL HER CHARACTER STANDS FOR.

I truly despise how Isayama handles her grieving, kissing his decapacitated head, carrying it around like some handbag, and her last panels being thissss.

The world leaving Paradis alone miraciously after all that???

It’s so weird and out of place with so many political feuds and disagreements between the world and Paradis, the entire Rumbling happening and we can see Mikasa just chilling outside in Paradis with no one bothering them. You can see the rings of the walls in the picture below. I don’t know the exact reason behind as the manga is still in Korean, but from what I see, the story went the route of: throwing a happy ending without enough proper reason and it was all fixed just like that in a snap! It doesn’t fit the entire narrative of attack on titan for things to be so peacful out of nowhere. When it comes to the narrative, how things work in that world, how hard it is to achieve peace, everything made somewhat sense up until chapter 138. 139 seems so so out of place... It’s like I’m reading a chapter from a totally different manga.

Aaron Yoghurt got defeated so easily/ Aaron’s character assassination

The build up on the first part of the rumbling was great, those kids carrying coins. You could feel humanity’s fear and Aaron’s hatred in those pages. As if he truly had a goal and he has turned away completely from his comrades and his closest friends with no return. The world seemed truly doomed, but he got defeated just like that. He was in the nape all this time (because screw the warhammer power of hiding yourself elsewhere in his ginormous titan body). There is no master plan as we all expected, and in the end he just acts all yandere in the paths with Armin and that’s it... They massacared his entire character as well. Many fan theories created a better ending with his character. Him being reincarnated as Historia’s baby would be so much better. For him to still keep on seeking and to strive for power. It has always been his motive. It’s his personality from the start until chapter 138. Even if things are okay, to keep on going and to seek that adventure, but then.. He’s so weak and directionless suddenly.. It’s so weird... This is not Aaron at all???

Using Aaron for him this entire post, because I don’t want others to invade our tags... :)))

Historia’s baby

The only panel we got from Historia’s child was this. Just a normal kid, normal life... Why did Isayama put so much effort in highlighting Historia’s pregnancy if it was nothing too spectacular anyway? It seemed he had major plans for this kid and for their development too??? It’s again, big plans, big developments, big relationship dynamic, but all got thrown out of the window...

Don’t read the next sentence if you are a minor :’)

It’s like almost ejaculating, but stopping right before it and repeating that every single Arc.

My energy when writing about this chapter is the same as Nostalgia Critic and his hatred for atla the live action

In Conclusion...

I know us fans should not be deciding on how this story should end, because this is Isayama’s story after all, but I truly wished for him to wrap up things much more rounded. There are so many unanswered questions... Again, I think for the sake of being done with this manga, he rushed all of it. He’s become a millionaire from this story and now his pockets are jammed full, I guess he doesn’t need to put in any effort anymore, right? Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I really wished he cared for his fans a little bit more with this last chapter by giving some answers that make sense at least. It’s his fans who gave him this platform and the opportunity to tell his story and for him to at least give in a bit of effort especially in the last chapter is the least he can do. Rivamika being canon or not, he truly rushed it without thinking much about the entire story line. He expanded it so much, he didn’t know how to bind it all together.

Even after all this, I’ll still ship them in the headcanon type of way. I do give credit to Isayama for giving us a template for such a beautiful dynamic between Levi and Mikasa. He decides to waste it, but that doesn’t mean we have to. I want to thank all the people with amazing writing skills, the ones who give us beautiful art like @carmenlee @phit chan @vialesana and many more. I want to remind all of you that we can create something beautiful of our own and we don’t neccesarily need canon lore for that. The art I’ve seen, the fanfictions I’ve read have touched me deeper than Isayama ever could at times.The Mikasa in our mind is appreciate of Levi, is mature, classy and has a strong will for herself. They spend their remaining days together peacefully. Keep writing, keep drawing, stay creative.

I love you all so so much, I’ve only been publicly active since March, but thank you Rivamika fandom for giving me so much joy as a lurker these past 7 years <3

#rivamika #snk leaks #snk 139 leaks #levimika #mikalevi

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undercoveravenger · 4 years

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Warmth

Pairing: Paul Lahote x Male!Reader

Requested: Yes

Original Request: “Iiiii wanna request one of the wolf boys of your choice in Twilight imprinting on Bella’s younger brother and how the Cullens were involved cuz they all baby him so much. Thank you & I love your works a lot btw, hope you have a nice day”

A/N: I went with Paul, bc that gives Emmett reason to go angry brother bear mode lol, hope that’s okay!

__________________________________________________________

“Why am I here again?” You asked, looking over at your sister. The two of you, along with the entire Cullen family, were hanging around in some snow-covered clearing in the woods, waiting for the Quileute wolves to show up so that they could renegotiate the treaty, so that, hopefully, the Cullens could turn Bella without causing a full-on war to break out. “I get that this is important to you and all, but Bells, I’m human, and I don’t really want that to change, so I don’t see how this involves me.”

“Because you’re an honorary Cullen, human or otherwise.” Bella grinned at you, reaching over to shove you playfully, “And Emmett wouldn’t shut up about seeing his future brother-in-law again, so I figured this would be a good time to bring you to visit.” She shrugged, looking back out toward the wall of trees in the direction of the reservation, “Besides, having another normal person here might help convince everyone to keep a level head.”

You snorted, crossing your arms over your chest, “Bells, you’re a lot of things, but normal definitely isn’t one of them.” You waited with your sister for a few more minutes before getting bored and going to go talk to Alice and Jasper.

---------------

Time seemed to have been passing even slower for Emmett than it had been for you, since you’d barely even greeted the dainty vampire and her mate before the brunet’s arms snaked around your waist and dragged you up against his chest and you barely had enough time to close your eyes before he was suplexing you into a snow drift.

To mess with him, you remained perfectly still once he’d let go of you, even going so far as to hold your breath. There was a lot of shouting, far more than if it had been just the Cullens to witness your little prank, meaning the wolves had undoubtedly arrived just in time to see you get pitched into a snowbank. There was the expected moment of arguing but before you knew it, you’d been hauled up out of the snow by a pair of arms so warm that you had to wonder whether hypothermia had set in upon impact.

“What the hell, leech?!” The chest you were being held against rumbled as it’s owner growled, “Not enough to have to kill things to exist, now you go killing your own sympathizers!”

You could hear Emmett snarling and you knew that you needed to intervene before things got even further out of hand. You jerked against the stranger’s grip, forcing yourself out of their arms and back to your feet. “Don’t get your fur in a bunch, Fido,” you grumbled, stumbling a little as you tried to regain your balance. “I’m fine, just a little colder than I’d like to be.” It was then that you looked up at your ‘rescuer.’

His hands were still extended out toward you to help steady you if you needed it, but now you’d been knocked off balance for an entirely different reason. He was tall, towering over you easily even though you really weren’t all that short yourself, and he was built, with thick arms and a defined chest and abs and the rich russet color of his skin only made his musculature all the more appealing. Suddenly you were a little regretful that your playing-dead act had ended so soon. He had close cropped black hair that nearly matched the pitch-dark eyes that were fixated on you, like the two of you were the only people left in the world.

His lips twitched up into a tiny grin, like it was meant for you and you only. “Hi,” he said, voice small and breathless like he’d just run a marathon. “I’m Paul.”

You’d opened your mouth to respond when you were cut off by the celebratory whoops and hollers coming from the rest of the wolf pack. Your brows furrowed and you turned away from Paul to see what all the commotion was about.

You could see Edward murmur something quietly to the rest of the family, dark amber eyes flickering warily between the two of you. Emmett bristled, storming over and planting himself between the two of you. “No way in hell,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Any of the other mutts I could’ve learned to live with, but you? Fat fucking chance.”

The werewolf’s shoulders straightened and you could tell he was trying to hold himself back. “It’s not really any of your business anyway.”

“Not my business?” Emmett hissed, tensing at the insinuation. “(M/N)’s my best friend! It’s definitely my business if some mongrel thinks it’s his place to come try and steal him away!”

It was fair to say that you were incredibly confused, but you knew that your first step needed to be defusing the situation. “Emmett,” you said, putting a hand on his shoulder as you spoke, “You wanna tell me what’s got you so pissy?”

Rosalie was the one to answer you, stalking forward to stand beside her husband and glare at Paul. “This pathetic little puppy imprinted on you.”

“Imprinted?” Your brows furrowed and you glanced toward the rest of the pack for an explanation.

Jacob, the only one of the wolves you’d actually met before now, nodded at you, “It’s, uh, kind of like soulmates. When a wolf imprints, it’s like their person is the only thing that matters anymore. Like they’re what’s holding you to the planet, not gravity.”

“Oh.” Well. That hadn’t been what you were expecting. You turned back to look at the vampires blocking you from Paul’s sight, nudging your way past them with a sigh so you could look up at Paul. “Is that true? Did you imprint on me?”

You could see him swallow hard before he forced himself to speak, “Y-yeah.” He was quick to backtrack, “But it doesn’t have to be r-romantic or anything, if that’s not what you want or you aren’t into guys or anything. We could just be friends? Or, uh, whatever you want me to be, really?”

You couldn’t help but smile a little; he was cute when he got flustered. “Tell you what, after this, if negotiations go well, I’ll let you take me out to dinner and we can talk about it, okay?”

Paul brightened, a wide grin taking over his features, “Yeah? Yeah.” He paused, seemingly getting lost in thought for a second, “Yeah-” He pulled a face, “I said that already. Um, sure. Anywhere you want is fine, I’ll just be happy to be there,” he grinned at you sheepishly, ducking his head to hide the faint blush coloring his cheeks.

Carlisle chose that moment to interrupt, “Well, with that excitement settled,” he started, shooting the two of you an amused grin. Esme smiled at the two of you from her place beside him, “I believe we have a treaty to discuss?”

Emmett and Rosalie headed back to the rest of the Cullens with a huff, but the rest didn’t seem all too bothered about your new bodyguard/soulmate. Alice even looked excited, bouncing up and down on her toes and speaking quickly to Jasper, probably already planning your wedding even though you and Paul had just barely met.

You took a few steps toward the group before a thought struck you. You turned to look over your shoulder at the werewolf, “Hey, Paul? You said you’d be anything I needed you to, right?”

He perked up as you addressed him, grinning back at you. “Absolutely.”

“Well,” you started, smirking mischievously, “I’m still pretty chilly, so I could really use a space heater?”

Paul smiled as he realized what you meant, waiting until you turned back to listen to the negotiations to drape himself over you, slipping his arms around your middle so he could pull you flush against his chest. He pressed a barely-there kiss to your shoulder before setting his chin there so he could still see what was happening. He may not have known what you’d want from him in the future, but right now, with you in his arms, Paul was perfectly content.

#paul lahote x male reader #paul lahote x male!reader #paul lahote x reader #paul x male reader #paul x male!reader #twilight x male!reader #twilight x male reader #twilight wolves x male!reader #twilight wolves x male reader #twilight male reader insert #twilight male!reader insert #male!reader insert #male reader insert #male!reader x #male reader x #male!reader #male reader

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ikeromantic · 3 years

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Unexpected Gifts

A Mitsuhide Akechi fanfiction, approx. 2000 words of fluffiness. This scene occurs in the midst of chapter 12 and features Motonari as well.

First: Mitsuhide and the Maiden

Previous: Mad Dogs

Motonari sauntered past the innkeeper with a grin. The man clearly knew something was going on, but he just bowed and went back to wiping down tables and ordering his staff around. The pirate had to wonder what a man like him thought about the rough men filing through his entrance, carrying crates of gunpowder, firearms, swords, daggers, and other implements of war. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to bother him.

Maybe the world had finally gone mad. Fitting, considering his current allies. Only in a mad world would the demon monk, the disgraced captain, and the traitorous kitsune be allies.

He carried just one package, a wooden box. So lightly burdened, Mouri bounded up the stairs. He could hear the little chatelaine ordering his men around, telling them where to set what and how. For such a naive little girl, she could get real bossy. He kinda liked it.

Motonari made it to the top of the stair just in time to see one of his men make a grab for the little Oda princess. The deckhand pinned her up to the wall, leering like she was a dock-front whore.

“Want to tell me where I can put this,” the deckhand grabbed at his crotch suggestively.

She glared at him furiously, but her legs were shaking. “Through the rolling hole of a cheerio,” she spat.

While neither Motonari or his men had any idea what that was, it was clearly an insult. The deckhand drew back to slap her, but Mouri caught his arm first.

“Whaddya think yer doing? Didn’t I tell ya to set tha boxes down and go?”

The deckhanded nodded. “Yeah, but boss, she said -”

He didn’t get to finish. Mouri let go of his hand and punched him in the throat. Hard enough to hurt, not enough to kill. “I didn’t ask fer an opinion.” His men took the hint and grabbed their friend, exiting quickly.

When they’d gone, the spicy little princess sagged against the wall. “Thanks Motonari. I was worried for a second.”

“Ya should still be worried,” he grinned. He closed the space between them, pushing her back against the wall, hard.

“M-motonari. If Mitsuhide sees you, he will kill you.”

“The fox ain’t here, is he? So what’re you gonna do about it?” Motonari lowered his head to her neck, inhaling the smell of her. It was no wonder the kitsune warlord lost his mind for this girl. She was smart, stubborn, and she felt like heaven against his chest. Plus there was something sweet about her. A gentleness absent in most. It appealed to the darkness in him.

The Oda princess considered a moment and then with a breath, slammed her head into Motonari’s jaw. It hurt. He let go with a laugh. “That was good. Not good enough, if I really wanted ta hurt ya. But good.”

Her hands shook as she straightened her clothes. “So what, you were just trying to freak me out by being a creep?”

Mouri wasn’t familiar with that word exactly, but he got the meaning. It only made him grin wider. “Sure did. Yer smarter than ya look.” He shoved the box toward her. “Take this.”

She eyed the box with distrust, but took it from him. “It’s not full of, like, poisonous death toads or something? It won’t explode when I open it?”

“Nah, but that’s a good idea. Have ta remember that.” Motonari watched her, curious if she would take what he’d brought.

The princess carefully opened the box as if she didn’t quite believe it was safe, but once the sunlight hit the polished metal within, she gasped. Inside, lying on a stuffed cotton, a matched set matchlock rifle and dagger. The design was slimmer and lighter than the usual matchlock, and the metal was engraved with tiny flowers, which also decorated the knife hilt.

“Motonari . . . “ she looked at him with wide eyes, wavering between shock and pleasure at the unexpected gift.

“Don’t ya look at me like that. Had ‘em lying around the boat. And ya need ta be able to protect yerself.” The pirate shrugged uncomfortably.

She set the box on the table and hugged him. “Thank you. That was very nice.”

Motonari tensed. “Yeah. Ya better let go before yer fox shows up. Seems ta be the jealous sort.”

The princess dropped her arms and stepped back. “Still. I really appreciate it.”

“Ya can stop thanking me.” He turned away, unsettled. He hadn’t expected quite that reaction. “I’ll have tha boys bring by more powder and shot later. Be ready.”

Then he left, passing Mitsuhide in the hall. The kitsune gave him a flat stare. Clearly, he didn’t trust him, but then, Motonari didn’t trust himself either.

***

Mitsuhide watched Mouri hit the steps at a near-run, hurrying as if he was escaping something. And his face was red, gaze distracted. Strange.

The door to the his room was open, and the smell of gunpowder wafted out. Mitsuhide stepped in. His little mouse was bent over a wooden box on the table. She turned when he came in and hurried over to him.

“You’re back!”

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wider than normal, even for her. “Did I surprise you?” Mitsuhide studied her. Mussed hair, slightly disheveled kimono, nervously fiddling fingers. Something had happened and she was trying to hide it. Silly mouse.

“N-no! Of course you're back! I just, I thought it would take longer.” She glanced back at the table then rushed forward to take his arm. “Look, Motonari’s men came today with more weapons. Are these what you were expecting?”

Mitsuhide let her divert his attention, curious what her end goal was. She showed him the crates of tanegashima, the swords and daggers, and armor. Her words spilled out in an anxious flow, repeating herself and stumbling through descriptions of the delivery.

Finally, she ran out of things to say and stared at the floor. “So, uhm, that looks, ah, about right?”

He took her chin in his hands and gently raised it to look at him. “The delivery is fine. You are not. Tell me what happened today.”

“Nothing?” She blinked up at him, schooling her features to stillness.

It might have been convincing if not for the way she shifted on her feet, and a glance back toward the table. Mitsuhide let go of her and turned back to see what the box was and why it seemed to concern her.

What he found surprised him.

A delicate kaiken and a slim-looking tanegashima. Both bore an imprint of flowers, delicate sakurasou blossoms. Mitsuhide lifted the matchlock. The stock was polished maple, the steel barrel rolled from thin metal sheets by a master. This was no common weapon. It felt light in his hands compared to a regular matchlock, and a little small. A tanegashima made for a woman.

“Did Motonari leave these?”

The chatelaine nodded. “He gave them to me.”

“Before or after manhandling you?” Mitsuhide watched her reaction carefully.

She looked down. “After. He said I needed to be able to protect myself. He had to stop one of his men from . . . well, anyway, nothing happened. I didn’t want to mention it.”

Because he, Mitsuhide, could not keep his calm when it came to her. He felt a mix of guilt and jealousy. If anyone should give gifts to his little one, it should be him. And that flower . . . not that she would understand. But Mouri had to know that he would. Bastard.

Mitsuhide set the weapon down and went to her. He took his little one into his arms and held her tight to his chest. “You must not hide things from me, little mouse. I want to know everything about you. Everything that happens to you. Even if you think it doesn’t matter, even if it might be . . . upsetting.”

Her arms twined around him, pulling her even closer. He could feel the beat of her heart in time with his own, and the rise and fall of her breath. It made him feel so frail for the first time since he’d taken up his place as the left hand of the Oda forces. Small in the face of this love that he held. Fragile in knowing how many ways it could break.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you right off. I just didn’t want you to worry.” She looked up at him. “I want you to know I can take care of myself. You don’t have to worry about me when you go off to do what you need to. I can handle myself around men - even ones like Motonari.”

Mitsuhide held her and let her words sink in. It helped, a little. He still wanted to smash the matchlock and snap the knife. Throw them in a gutter. Bury them. Along with the man that brought them.

“I can tell you’re still angry with me,” his little one murmurred. Her voice was muffled against his chest. He could feel the tickle of her breath, the movement of her lips.

“Never with you, little one.” He stroked her hair.

She snuggled into him, her nose and chin pressing. “Then . . . at Motonari? Nothing really happened. One of his men got a little handsy and Mouri stopped him before I had to.”

Her voice was confident, certain of her skill. Mitsuhide had done everything he could to impart to her the ability to protect herself in exactly such situations, but she’d never really been tested. Maybe he worried for her unnecessarily. But he couldn’t help it. “Perhaps you should come with me when I run errands - just to be sure. I don’t like the thought of another man laying his hands on you.”

“Mmmm, now you sound almost jealous. Are you, Mitsu?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t help the way he growled the word, nor the surge of possessiveness he felt.

She kissed the hollow just below his throat. “You shouldn’t be. There is no one in this world for me but you.”

“I know,” Mitsuhide grinned. “You promised to stay by my side, remember?” He sat down, pulling her into his lap. She fit against him perfectly. “But other men see you and desire you. And bring you tokens of love.”

She giggled. “The gun? You can’t think Motonari - I mean - no - just no. He thinks I am some stupid little girl that is going to mess up your mission.”

“And you believe that means he does not also wish to bed you?” Mitsuhide’s eyes flashed gold and hot in the afternoon light.

“I hope not.” She glanced over at the box. “If it bothers you, I can just get rid of them. I don’t need my very own gun. Any of the ones from our stockpile will do.”

Mitsuhide shook his head. “No. Then he would know it got to me. He would see it as a little victory. No - you should keep them and use them. They are fine weapons.” He ran a finger along the curve of her ear. “Just remember that even if you carry a weapon with his sakurasou, it is my bellflower that engraves your heart.”

“Sakurasou? Is that his clan symbol?” She closed her eyes, enjoying his light touch. These moments were his and his alone. Seeing her in pleasure like this.

“No. But he meant to express his desire for you. And that I would see it and know. He is testing me.” Mitsuhide smiled, and it was a wicked grin. He leaned down to place a little row of kisses along her neck. “Perhaps I should leave my own little message - and mark -” he nipped the skin just under her ear.

“M-mitsu! You already left a mark!” She pointed to the fading love bite half covered by her collar.

“Not obvious enough.” He kissed her forehead. “Maybe I should put one here?” Then he kissed the tip of her nose. “Or here?”

“Ah! No! D-don’t you dare -”

“Or maybe a ring of them all around your neck.”

His little mouse looked worried. “You can’t be serious. Mitsuhide - I might die if you do that. My heart would burst from the teasing alone!”

He laughed, feeling at last better. “I couldn’t risk that.” She was his, and the whole world would know it once he finished this mission. Mitsuhide promised himself that he would make her his wife and she would bear his name, his children, and his mark.

“Good,” she smiled up at him. “But . . . that doesn’t mean you have to stop kissing me. I really liked it when your lips were - here - and here -” she pointed at spots on her neck. Then she got a mischievous look in her eye and brushed a hand over her breast. “Here too.”

“Mmmm, I see. Perhaps I should make a study of these spots. Compare your reaction when I kiss you elsewhere?” He let his hand caress her side, slipping down to her belly.

“I support that research.” She shivered and her eyes took on a hungry light.

“Then let’s begin.”

Next: The Greatest Harm

***flower meanings gotten from here

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen mitsuhide #Mitsuhide Akechi #ikesen motonari #otome guys #otome #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff

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shutteredislands · 3 years

Text

REYLO MODERN AU FIC RECS

Hi!! I spent my entire winter break reading reylo fics and I feel like I’ve found some gems! I’m boring and don’t like angst, so most of these are pretty fluffy, however, always read the tags before reading. Anyways, happy reading!

Already Home - College, Roommates, A/B/O, Soulmates AU - Complete - Rated E - 79k

“Oh stop being all Alpha-y.” She flexes her foot, rolling her ankle as if to prove a point, and he doesn’t miss the wince that crosses her expression. “You aren’t my Alpha, and you definitely aren't my soulmate,” she mutters.

He can’t help but let out a dry laugh. “Thank god for small mercies.”

Okay so this is a trope fest but it was so good! I’m not gonna explain the plot in depth because I think going in blind is best for this!

Baby, It's Just Biology - Professor/Student, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 113k

For Rey Jackson, trying to finish your degree in Biomedical Science at Harvard is difficult enough when you're one of the few Omegas on campus.

It's made even more difficult when your Professor is the one to trigger your heat. You can't help it, it's just your biology.

An Alpha Omega love story.

This is the perfect balance of angst, fluff and pure smut. This one Is a lot angstier than anything else on this list, but you can see every stage of this relationship and I loved it so much! Please read the tags on this one!

I’ve got you (under my skin) - Nanny/Single Parent AU - On Hiatus - Rated E - 81k

“Hi, I’m Rey. I’m here for the—”

“Nanny,” Ben blurts out dazedly, still trying to remember how to form coherent thoughts. “You’re the nanny.”

Her smile hitches up a little wider. “Well, I might be.”

Suddenly, Ben thinks he might be in for a whole new world of problems.

Because Rey Johnson is still most likely the only thing standing between him and disaster, that much hasn’t changed, not by a long shot.

And Ben can’t seem to stop staring at her mouth.

In which Ben hires Rey to watch his son... but he can’t seem to stop watching her.

Okay so I almost never read WIPs, but this one was left off in a pretty good place so don’t worry about cliffhangers or anything. I am a sucker for single dad!Ben so expect more of these. I loved this fic so much and get ready for a SMUTFEST.

Light My Fire - Rivals to Lovers, College, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 20k

When rivals Ben and Rey break into a professor's office together, it comes out that Rey might not be the Beta she thinks she is.

I’ve never been the biggest reader of enemies to lovers, until this. This was so so so good! I loved their banter so much, and this is another smutfest lol.

Peacock - Fake Dating, Enemies to Lovers, Neighbors AU - Complete - Rated E - 72k

Thanks to a series of misunderstandings, failed attempts at flirting, and loud Katy Perry music, Ben grows to hate his new neighbor.

Proposing to her wasn't the best solution to his problems.

This is, hands down, one of the funniest fics I have ever read. I cried actual tears because of how funny this is. Slowish burn, but their banter will keep you engaged the whole time. I love this so much!!

An Unexpected Vacation - Scientist, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 62k

“You don’t care that someone, that people will watch you fuck?” He looks two seconds away from puking. “Like multiple, multiple people will be able to describe your vagina. They’ll probably analyze it in a boardroom. Someone will feel proud about a shitty PowerPoint full of annotated pictures. They will use words like ‘arousal fluid’ and consult charts and these things will never not be digitally saved. That doesn’t bother you?”

“Are you suggesting my vagina is unworthy of analysis?”

In which Rey attempts to bolster her bank account by volunteering to fuck an Alpha in a scientific study. Plans go pear-shaped when she accidentally triggers scientist!Ben’s first Rut.

This was a really funny smutfest and I loved that. I loved Rey and Ben so much, and Ben was the perfect “I hate everyone but you” boyfriend! I love this!

She Doesn’t Normally Bite - Single Parent/Teacher AU - WIP - Rated E - 37k

Ben Solo is a single dad to 6-year old Ellis. Her teacher isn't the old-cat lady that he expects and naturally, sparks fly when they meet. Rey helps show Ben that he is allowed to be happy and the romance is DELICIOUS. There will be the happy ending we all deserve.

Both Ben and Rey have a lot to navigate, and of course - things are never straight forward.

Tw: Bens wife died when their daughter was born - whilst it is mentioned periodically, it does not form a significant part of the story. There'll also be warnings in the notes for the particular chapters it'll be mentioned in.

THIS THE ONLY WIP I WILLL EVER READ REY AND BEN ARE SO FREAKING CUTE AND ELLIS IS SUCH A CUTE KID AHHHHHHH! That is all.

Down an Inch, Up an Inch - A/B/O, Soulmates, Gym Rats AU - Complete - Rated E - 60k

Omega instructor Rey has always been the master of her domain at Rebel Belle Barre and wouldn't dream of dating an Alpha.

When her new neighbors at Supremacy Bootcamp start ruining her classes with their terrible music, she storms over to give them a piece of her mind. She challenges the beefy ex-Marine owner Ben Solo to a plank-off and the loser has to take the other's class. When they spark an unusual connection, can Rey stay away for long?

Has she bitten off more than she can chew with the gentle giant Alpha with the warm, sad eyes?

SMUT FREAKING FESTTTTT. Okay but I loved these two so much, even though I am opposed to working out in any shape or form! I love the non-traditional soulmate part, and I really loved Rey in this.

Tea for Two - Enemies to Lovers, University Setting AU - Complete - Rated E - 67k

'"This is a tea house, you know." The plummy, ultra-posh voice startled Rey Kenobi from her day-dreaming, almost spilling the scalding hot coffee over her chest.'

Rey, an American former hacker, turned cyber security expert, has been commissioned by Oxford University to protect their systems from hackers. Unfortunately, she has to work closely with Professor Ben Solo, Merton Professor of English Literature who also happens to be Lord Ben Solo, member of the English peerage. And an unmitigated snob.

She drinks coffee. He drinks tea. He only reads classic literature. She reads Marvel comics. He is nobility. She is a nobody.

Things should go swimmingly, shouldn't it?

SO. MUCH. UNRESOLVED. SEXUAL. TENSION. I loved the slow burn aspect because I sat in bed because I was waiting for them to bone for so long. And after they bone its a smut and fluff-fest I loved this so much!

And They Were Roommates - Roommates, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 49k

“This isn’t going to work.” He points a finger between the two of them. “This arrangement.”

Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t put any specifications on who could apply.”

“Yeah…” He rubs the back of his neck then, the action making it look longer, making her wonder what it might feel like under her fingers. “You have to know that this isn’t a good idea.”

She knows what he means, she does—but she’s so tired of being brushed aside for her designation that she challenges him anyway. “And why not?”

His eyes bore into hers, his expression blank as he says, “Because I can tell how much scent-block you put on—and I can still smell you.”

In which Rey’s new roommate turns out to be a lot more than she bargained for.

EVEN. MORE. UNRESOLVED. SEXUAL. TENSION. Like these two would be eating cereal and I would be chanting, “bone! bone! bone!” the whole time. I loved these two, and the family aspect of this one was so good.

Imprints - A/B/O, Boss/Employee AU - Complete - Rated E - 74k

“I was happy you’ll be working with someone you know. He’ll take good care of you.”

Take good care of you.

The words send a shiver down her spine, sparking memories that flood her with embarrassment. She feels a strange itch just below her ear, her gland giving a phantom pulse as if her body remembers the incident even still.

Suddenly her triumph fades into dread, the idea of working here leaving a hollow pit in her stomach. Poe is still talking, but she doesn’t hear most of it. Her mind is firmly trapped in the vivid memories of six years ago— in a moment she wishes she could forget.

By the time she hangs up the phone— she isn’t sure anymore if she can do this.

Okay so this is pretty popular so I wont say too much, but it lives up to the hype. Smutfest, fluff and angst rolled into one beautiful fic!

Bespoke - Enemies to Lovers, Boss/Employee (?) AU - Complete - Rated E - 38k

When new stylist Rey Jackson receives a request to dress the hottest (and most unfashionable) new actor in Hollywood, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.

Mentally AND physically.

Because Ben Solo is freaking massive.

THIS WAS SO HOT OMG! Smutfest but also super cute. Another “I hate everyone but you” version of Ben I fell in love with. Loved this!

Incognito - Coworkers AU - Complete - Rated E - 30k

“Somehow Rey’s coworkers find out about her Daddy kink. They all kink shame her for it, except her coworker Ben. He has something else in mind.”

This was so funny! Ben and Rey were so cute, and I love Finn and Rose in this too! This was great!

A Home For Christmas - Single Parent, Sugar Daddy AU - Complete - Rated E - 109k

Rey is a struggling single mother who needs to do right by her daughter, even if it means she needs to steal. Ben is sad and lonely, recently divorced for the second time. When Rey's daughter picks him to help her find her mom, their paths cross and their Christmas becomes a little more bright.

This was so freaking cute OMG!! I know I say that a lot, but this was so adorable! I loved Ben and Rey so much, but Nova was obviously the star of the show. I cannot recommend this enough!

Unsuppressed - Office, A/B/O AU - Complete - Rated E - 49k

Rey had only ever encountered two Alphas in her entire life that had been unsuppressed. And now this third one that stunk up the entire building. Not that it stunk, his scent. In fact, it was the most delicious thing Rey had ever smelled. ///////////////////////////////////// Ben Solo closed his eyes as he rode down the elevator from the 40th floor to the lobby, trying not to reach up to his glands to scratch them. Somehow, it felt like he always caught the elevator that was dripping in the Omega’s scent. The one that wandered around the building without any suppressants. The one that smelled better than any Omega he had ever smelled before.

STRAIGHT FLUFF AND SMUT OMFG!!! I loved this so freaking much! This was whatever the opposite of unresolved sexual tension and slow burn. Like Ben and Rey tried to make this a slow burn but they could not keep their hands off of each other. I loved this!

Sunshine and Gunpowder - Hitman, Surprise Parents AU - Complete - Rated E - 48k

She’s a teacher who would do anything to protect her student. He’s a glorified hitman with a heart of black gold.

Together, they make up odd halves of a beautiful whole.

THIS WAS SO CUTE!! Like, yes, I know Ben is a hitman, but when I tell you he was the softest hit man I have ever read, Temiri was so cute in this! I loved Ben and Rey, and their UST made me love them even more. Han and Leia are also hilarious in this!

It Takes a Village - A/B/O, Surprise Parents AU - Complete - Rated E - 40k

Who knew that all it would take for Rey Johnson to interact with her enigmatic Alpha neighbor without wanting to melt into a puddle of hormones was a baby being abandoned at her doorstep?

Not her. That was for sure.

THIS IS THE CUTEST ONE YET! I REREAD THIS QUITE OFTEN! LIKE AHHHHHHH SO FREAKING FLUFFY! NOT EVEN A WHISPER OF ANGST AND A LOT OF SMUT I LOVED THIS SO FREAKING MUCH AHHHH! AND THE EPILOGUE MADE ME CRY!

Sensual Storytime - Office AU - Complete - Rated E - 23k

When Rey Johnson starts a new job, her initially antagonistic relationship with Ben Solo from IT turns into friendship... and maybe something more.

Little does she know he also moonlights as Kylo Ren, the creator of her favorite audio erotica. One day at the office, worlds collide, and she realizes the sweater vest-wearing nerd of her dreams is also the tattooed fantasy man she listens to while getting off every night...

THIS IS MY FAVORITE REYLO FIC EVER. I RECOMMEND THIS TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T EVEN LIKE STAR WARS! THIS IS COWORKER BANTER LIKE NO OTHER. AND THE SMUT ? UNPARALLELED. READ THIS NOW!

That is all I have time for right now, but I’ll make another list later if anyone would like that! Please take care of yourself and have a great day!

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seventfics · 4 years

Note

Love your writing. Prompt: Jaskier has abandonment issues, which he tries and fails to hide. Angsty shenanigans ensue

[Thank you! ☺️ I normally don’t do prompt requests but this is right up my alley of emotional suffering, so,]—x

So it’s true that Jaskier has everything anyone could ever want in life. He was born into comfort, held status and name, and had the fortune of education, though that last one was beaten into him mercilessly because he was not an easy child. He had it all—

He still has it all, if he wants it. Nothing stops him from returning to teach in Oxenfurt. No one will deny him his family title, of properties or inheritance. On the contrary, he’s earned even more renown by his lyrics and poetry and Continental ballads, his name known to every court and tavern. People flock to him for his tales of the White Wolf—and that too is part of his renown, for he turned the Butcher into a hero at no cost of his own but a few sore throats after eveningfuls of encores—

They invite him for festivals, banquets, courtly affairs. They propose to him, bed him, threaten him out of towns for having bed the wrong person. He is famous. He is the bard Jaskier. And when his fame and his charm are no longer a novelty, people are quick to move on.

In Lettenhove, in his early years, there was a tutor who praised him for his sharp musical ear. The old man spent many hours of the day showing him the value of the arts, something that left an imprint in his very soul. Not a year later, his parents sent him to temple school to learn his letters. He never saw the old tutor again—

In Oxenfurt, there was a girl who loved him for his voice. She was beautiful and sweet, her laughter like winter bells. By Summer’s end, she found a painter who worshipped at her feet like a dutiful priest at the altar of the gods. He doesn’t remember her name—

There were many like that girl since, and every time, he learned to accommodate a little better to keep them longer, to no avail—

In Posada, there was a witcher who huffed and groused at his company, and yet allowed him to come along on his journey. He was kind in a guarded way, a way familiar to Jaskier—the echoes of someone who has given himself up many times, only to suffer loss and rejection. Heartbreak hangs about him like a cape. And it takes Jaskier some time but he accommodates, learning the witcher’s limits, his preferences, what’s a jest and what’s a jab at old wounds—

“What’s this, you’re going to hunt the drowners now?”

The witcher is packing his bags neatly by the door. He offers a brief nod. “It’s early. They’ll be sluggish.”

“Give me a moment, I’ll come with.”

He’s given a strange look that says nothing of the sort will be happening. “No you’re not, bard. You’ll get yourself killed.”

Jaskier takes the threat of life in stride. “I’ll hang back, I swear, who wouldn’t want to see the great White Wolf in action!”

Sometimes the witcher huffs, indulging him. Other times, dreadful times, he orders him to stay put. So Jaskier waits in taverns, sitting on his hands. It’s the hardest thing for him to do. To wait. He does not sing, not while his gut twists and his fingers flutter nervously on wood. He simply waits and thinks about all the reasons why his company is but a burden on coin and travel, the witcher so used to traveling alone.

And every time Geralt comes barreling through the front door wet with gore, his mind and his chest empty of all aches.

“Oh thank the gods, you’re—still in one piece,” he says, because shouting you’re back, you’re alive, you didn’t die and leave me behind is far too much of a weight to throw on Geralt’s shoulders, he knows.

Geralt merely grunts, shaking off some of the grime. “Of course I am.”

It’s like that. The witcher leaves on a hunt, and on the times Jaskier cannot follow, he waits. Geralt always comes back—if not for him, then at least for the reward. It’s at the end of every crossway where they part face to face, never knowing if they’ll meet again.

And Jaskier continues his own journey, in search not of home, but its opposite. Of a place that will forever change to the years and the seasons and never bore him. Never bore of him. No one should know him any more than he is allowed to know another, except—

Except the witcher Geralt of Rivia who he meets again and again. Knowing him more with every meeting—

—A noise in the forest, distant, and Geralt gets up with his swords from camp.

Jaskier just fumbles, “You’re not just going to leave me here twiddling my thumbs in the dark, are you?”

“I’ll be right back, bard. I have to check—”

—A shared room on low coin, and never a problem between them. Jaskier stirs awake to the bed moving.

“Sum’thing up? Y’have to go?” He tries to mumble through a dry mouth. Geralt nudges his head down.

“No, I just need to eat. You keep sleeping, Jaskier—”

—A storm, and they’re both holed in a damp cave. Geralt looks ready to throw himself out in the rain and hunt for the Kikimore queen anyway.

“Geralt, please don’t leave in—in this storm.”

Geralt does listen, perhaps because he sounds a bit more shaken than usual. They’ve already gone low on provisions because the rain soaked through their bags. They need the coin. And it would have been fine, if Jaskier hadn’t insisted they go through this town—

Foolishly, dangerously, he becomes attached. Years go by. A decade. Two. There is no one else Jaskier knows more in his life. Geralt’s mannerisms, his expressions, his disquiet. He knows them all in the silence across a campfire, and he hopes he is known in return.

He hoped at the banquet in Cintra, barely whispering of a need that he dared not tell anyone else.

He hoped in the chaos of Rinde, of the djinn and the witch, begging for the witcher to choose him first.

And he hoped in the mountains of King Niedamir.

And his hope is not enough.

Jaskier knows to bear smiles and jokes for the right crowds, and he knows how to be serious in certain company. He learned to accommodate a little better to keep people longer, of course, to no avail. Even with Geralt—

He should never have grown complacent, believing that things would be different this once. He became attached—beyond attached, beyond need, beyond affection—

“I'll go get the rest of the story from the others,” Jaskier says in parting on that mountain, because if he makes light of it, then it will sluice off his frame like water, undamaging. He can pick himself up to keep searching for that place—of that someone that will never bore of him, that will never forget him and throw him aside.

Despite his efforts, there’s a chasm in his chest. A breathlessness like a wound that doesn’t want to heal. And he lingers at the foot of the mountain when he sees Roach nibbling on dry grass, tethered by the inn’s poor stable poles.

He doesn’t know how long he stays with her, petting her coat. She indulges him, preferring his company over the stablehand’s. There’s a joke there somewhere, about her being as obstinate as her rider, but he can’t bear to say it. Can’t bear to speak through the stone lodged in his throat—

And he shouldn’t be with her, not if he wants to avoid the witcher who so clearly and plainly told him to take off for good. But Roach is sweet. For once, she doesn’t bite his wrists. Instead she nickers, snuffling his dusty doublet. Maybe she’s learned to accommodate for heartbreak too, as it seems to follow where Geralt goes, whether caused by his hand or brought upon him—

“Jaskier.”

He freezes in place. He cannot turn. To see his blazing expression would be too much—

“Sorry. I won’t be staying. I’m just,” his voice fades as it starts to shake. How can he explain why he’s touching the witcher’s mare, for the simple comfort that she offers in not shying away from his touch?

“Jaskier.”

It is a demand for him to turn. He recognizes it in Geralt’s voice. Jaskier clenches his hands on Roach’s mane—

Refusing doesn’t work, as the witcher takes his shoulder to pull him back—

There are no fixed smiles left in him. No jest, no shrug. He hurts too deeply to put forth the effort. He is the bard Jaskier, but in front of Geralt of Rivia, he’s just alone. He has everything anyone could ever want in life, and not a lick of it matters with no one to stay for him, no one to call a friend—

But Geralt is not angry. He doesn’t quite look like anything except intense, keeping his wide yellow eyes on Jaskier’s own as he grips his shoulder tight.

“Let me go,” Jaskier says because he cannot take being seen so deeply, so closely, and not being wanted—

“No.” Geralt’s grip turns painful. “You—don’t want me to.”

Something breaks in him at the words—the truth in them—and it burns in his eyes and it burns his throat—and burns to tears shed pressed to black leather, his hands scrambling at the hard surface of Geralt’s armor.

He doesn’t want to be let go. Geralt holds him to his chest and he feels like stone cracking under pressure. Like gravel being crushed—

“I was angry,” the witcher says, swallowing against Jaskier’s ear, “I didn’t mean it,” tucking his face into Jaskier’s hair, “I don’t want you to go.”

And maybe it’s cruel or greedy but he wants for Geralt to ache like he does. To feel terror at being left behind. At it being Jaskier who walked away—hurting, choked by his own surging feelings—from the mountain first, by his offense—

Another part is relieved. Because Geralt does know him, after everything, after Jaskier’s efforts to know the witcher. He knows him well to strike where it hurts the most. He knew where to tear into with harsh words—

And that by doing so he went too far and tore into Jaskier’s heart too—

There are no apologies, but there are amends. There is a wavering conversation and one more stay at the inn.

At the crossroads they’ll part again, but not with goodbye. Not with tears or screams or hidden fears. They’ll meet again, like they always have. Better than they always have—

Because this time, and every time since, they part with a promise to see each other again.

#reply #geralt x jaskier #geraskier #abandonment (:#prompt #did i go full into post ep6 fix-it? y eh #1k

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jess-the-vampire · 3 years

Text

Sky And The Forces Of The Multiverse, Chapter 51

Previous / Next

Sky had to admit, she was impressed with her own magic skill by this point, even if the progress she was making seemed minimal. She never really tried to dip down much, it's not something anyone can just...do after all, it takes time and work. There was probably no way she could do it by the time the plan would come to action but training couldn't hurt either.

Especially if it was to protect a friend.

Even trying to shoot magic from her hands drove sky crazy, how did judas do this so naturally? Guess when you grow up doing magic like this you don't have to go through so much training to get it to work. Sky was half human too, who knows how that might affect her powers even if she did go through mewberty. She kinda felt silly trying to do magic like this, throwing out her hands and shout spells...but it was better then nothing.

Angel could do magic normally, no wand required.

Lucky.

He was getting better, he'd probably been practicing a lot in his spare time, probably to show off to his mom. His aim was far improved and he seemed far stronger at his spellcasting, from what magic he knew . Sky felt she spent more time watching him then making any progress, if even if it was just to get an idea of how to make her magic work a little.

It was probably pointless anyway.

Unlocking that kinda magic required a lot more to trigger it, otherwise sky wouldn't get very far no matter hoe hard she was trying. Strong emotional reactions were surefire, like...how she nearly attacked her mom...and the masked person, and...other happenings. Those were close but not really the results she was looking for either, she was looking for something like angel had.

Where he went berserk...over her getting hurt.

Wow they both had a bad habit of going evil when they ever did unlock this magic huh? That was both scary and...kinda neat in a weird way, though last thing sky needed was to make herself look worse then she did. Angel could tell she was having trouble, though he wasn't judging, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. "Maybe like...try and clear your mind and stuff? I think that's supposed to help, so you can focus?", that might've been more harsh then it needed to be,

But sky didn't seem to care.

"I can try".

She wasn't good at clearing her head, there was always too much going on in her mind for something like that to even happen. Even now, her mind was going back to judas and the plan. It was like a bug that refused to just leave the room, no matter what she wanted. She grumbled as she sat down on the grass, "Ugh, i can't focus, i'm too worried and everything".

She kicked at the dirt underneath her, "It was different last time, i wasn't trying to do anything intentionally, i just got really upset and for a moment...blam...magic. Now...it's not the same, i only had those outbursts because you got in danger or i felt upset...and i can't channel things all the time like that...like...why can't me being happy channel that same power?".

"Well, maybe you're just not feeling that kinda emotional nearly as strongly right now?", he shot out another web, hitting the wall with perfect accuracy now, "I guess maybe training and stuff happening in real time just...don't feel the same way...even i haven't been able to master my own form...so i think it just means...we have a lot channeling to do".

"You've been learning from eclipsa huh?".

"I did at times stay late with her...she...likes my presence and helping me...not that i ever got too far with it. Clearing your head is supposed to help but also...you can focus on a memory with a strong reaction, that can help your magic too sometimes...so...maybe we should do that? Channel strong memories...i mean i don't know if happy ones really will do much for me to control a raging monster but...".

"Angel, that's a good idea, maybe if i do clear my head properly i can like...channel something, maybe, Mom never really explained the process to me, but it's worth a shot".

He smiled, his ears perking up, "Oh, well, glad i can be of some kind of help then! Maybe it'll work a lot better for you then me, i'm still pretty far behind on my own magic" He shot another spell and sky went back to focusing, seeing if she could recover any strong memories to trigger something. She went back to the chandelier incident, reminded of the party and her performance.

It was hard to channel the anger she had when he mother spoke to her the way she did. in fact it was a hard memory to fully recover at all. Maybe she had to go and try and new one to see if she had better results, she had to have other moments. Right, the time angel was nearly killed and that set her off like crazy, that was also a rather insane moment of magic for her.

She hadn't been so full of rage in a long time.

Though she was worried how she'd react to that memory again.

She had to take a moment to chill and breath, holding her hand out before the memory came back to her. She didn't want to accidentally blow up the entire garden if she wasn't careful about her own actions up to this point. Granted, blowing up a wall wasn't exactly a better option but well, she was going to have to take some risks somewhere it seemed.

She felt her cheeks puff up, remembering the pure anger of angel nearly being killed down by some freak.

Angel stepped back, a slight bit of glow in the princess's cheeks, but it quickly faded, the memory was strong but because nothing was happening it didn't appear the have nearly the same strength. Sky sighing, her hand touching her marks, "Well, it's a start...i guess i should be happy we got a reaction at all...i guess that whole thing...really had me upset".

Angel sent a sad smile her way.

"Hey, i'm just glad you cared at all...i'm...i wasn't sure anyone would if things went wrong...i kinda went into the thing knowing there was a good chance i might not make it out alive all things considered...it...was probably a dumb idea when i think more about it".

She snorted in his direction, "Dude, of course we'd care if something happened to you...but...it doesn't seem to be enough to get me to really unlock my abilities...for now...but...i'll take it. At least it's better then nothing.". She sighed before going back to tryin to do more spells with no success, "I'll figure this out...hopefully...if i could just...get a better grip on my emotions...and with enough practice...". She watched angel go back to doing spells, thoughtful, "Hey...thanks for doing this with me...it's really nice".

"Yeah of course...it's not fully for you though, i...wanna be able to protect myself as well, i wasn't very good before...and i don't want to feel vulnerable again, i felt so...powerless when i almost got killed...and i need to keep my strength up". He shot spells at the wall even harder, "I'm glad you're protecting me but i also don't want to feel so weak either...i want to be able to defend myself if anything happens again...want to know i can...take care of myself when i'm a leader".

"I can't blame you on that one, i would do the same if i was in your shoes", her feet scratched the dirt, making a neat little imprint with it," i just hope it doesn't end up feeling like you're protecting me when i should be looking out for you". Angel stopped casting his spells, quick to notice her change in tone, "It shouldn't have to be a one vs another thing...we should be...looking out for each other...all of us".

"But if i don't get better soon, i'll be worthless for the plan".

"Sky, look, maybe this is something better said by jude and everything but...you're more then your magic, you spent a lot of time beating me without knowing much magic at all, you don't need it to do good...even if you don't learn to dip down...i trust you'll do great out there". The princess took a moment before gently pushing him, laughing, "You're right...i did kick your ass pretty good without it".

"Ok but you don't have to remind me of that...", sky snickering as she got back into focusing, "Says the person who kept a whole journal of all the times we fought, you're far more guilty of this then i am". He blushed as she got back in focus, "Maybe if things get bad, i can really taze the guy, that outta pack a punch and they might not even see it coming either".

"Well, i didn't think they'd avoid my bite either but...you know how that went, but i have faith in you princess."

Sky snickered, "Well, i can say this for sure, next time, your teeth won't miss, i'm sure of it". The laughs ringing in the air as sky enjoyed the moment, she really needed this, and angel made sure she got the break and night to make amends she deserved. And for once, sky felt confident maybe she could actually get the hang of this magic thing properly.

She had the support to help at least.

"You ok landon?".

Landon peeked through the window of the carriage at bernard's house, seeing rhombulus parked outside and feeling his whole body shake. "Do i look ready mom? I'm a mess, i should've fixed myself up a lot more, how am i supposed to go in there and be cool with him when i'm sweaty and freaked out?". He raised an arm to display and marco quickly made him move it back down.

"Landon, it's going to be just fine, do like you practiced".

"This is different, he's going to be looking at me and watching me talk, i'm not even sure about how he's going to react, he might just want to be friends and friends only. All that time i spent and thing might get worse between us and we never talk again". Once again marco found themsleves trying to comfort the boy, handing him some water, "you'll be ok, just take it easy".

'I'm sorry mom, it's just...what if i can't do it? i'm worried i can't".

"Landon, it's going to be just fine, i'll be waiting out here if you need me to make a quick getaway ok? But you have to finally face him down, i know you're scared but this time you're going to have to put that to the side and be brave for both you and bernard on this one. He needs this as much as you do, closure, and he won't be able to rest until you both have it".

Landon slumped back, "Guess i just don't want to know what his final answer will be".

"But you know you have to...".

"Yeah...".

"Landon, it's going to be ok, i promise...i know you're nervous, but it's going to be ok, just go in there and do your best. I have plenty of faith that things will work out between you two, you both seemed to care about each other a lot, and i doubt you won't be friends still after this". The demon nodded, his mother comforting him to the best of their ability, his hands gripping each other tight.

His mother kissed his cheek, "Hey, if you need to bail out at any point, i'm here, but i believe in you...ok?". Landon gulped before finally getting out of the carriage, lucky he was even allowed to on on this trip at all. This was not an emergency and everyone was very uncomfortable even going to other dimensions at this point, but marco insisted this was important.

And it was, for landon.

Rhombulus seemed to disapprove of this choice, sneering as the kid got closer, but letting him in anyway.

He was expected after all.

The rest of the commission were inside and the parents of this lovely home seemed more then used to them now. As used as one to get to having three interdimensional gods living in their home. They were eating their snacks, sitting on heir couches, and chilling as if nothing was happening. Guess they had to be a little bored by now, but still, it was a serious job.

Imagine they came back and hey were following asleep like this? And they thought things were bad before.

Landon spotted bernard's mom quickly who ushered him away from the commission members and upstairs without hesitation, "Ok, he's waiting for you up there, let me know if you need anything and please, don't break anything". She didn't seem the happiest to see him but she wasn't mad at him or anything, so that was a little better then what he thought in his head.

But that didn't help his nerves, he could spot bernard's room and took a few steps forward.

He had to be just as nervous as he was...right? He didn't greet him at the door so he was left with a similar impression that was the case. Then the door opened to let him in, a sleep and messy teenage boy waiting for him. Landon feeling his heartbeat rise even faster and want to flee the scene extremely fast, his body forcing itself to stay put so he didn't chicken out.

"Hey landon".

"H-hey...bernard", god why did he have to make himself sound so awkward the moment he saw him again? He swore his voice cracked too, because of course it did.

Bernard didn't look fully dressed, not did he seem to be entirely...himself, which was a warning sign, but they had to get this over with. Landon had to just go over and finish up before he made another bad choice, though bernard looked very cute. He had never seen him like this outside of the sleepover the one time, most of the time he was more...well kept.

Bernard yawned, "Sorry i'm not looking that great, but...i'm happy you came, means a lot to me if you want to come in and well...y'know, do this whole thing". Landon nodded quickly as he entered the messy teenage boy's room, the door shutting behind them. He took a set on the bed as bernard started going into his closet, nervous about who should speak first.

It was uncomfortably silent after all.

Bernard and landon both wanted the other to make the first move instead, as if they were waiting each other out. The silence however, was killing landon and it wouldn't get them anywhere if neither of them even said a word to each other. Landon really felt his stomach churn, just how bad did he screw up that bernard could hardly even look at him right now?

He wasn't used to this from him, the tension was intensely uncomfortable compared to the usual laughing and giggling between the two. He twiddled his fingers together and tried to choke up a word or two, needing to be brave and come out with it. "Hey look, i'm sorry fi i made things uncomfortable between us...i wasn't supposed to even send you that video...it was an accident", was that good? He hoped so.

The human paused, meaning he had heard landon alright.

"Mason pushed the wrong button, it wasn't supposed to head to you like this, i just want us to be friends again ok? I never meant to hurt you or bother you or make things awkward. But i also get it if you don't want to be friends anymore either with me, i know this would make you feel weird and i don't want you to feel weird around me either...it's just...you mean a lot to me".

"How long?".

His voice caught him off guard.

"How long have you liked me?".

Landon froze, stammering, "Since we met actually...i dunno you came up to me and i thought you were...cool, i know that sounds really corny but it's true. You were so cool and i wanted to get to know you and you wanted to get to know me...and i found it...attractive. I mean i didn't notice it at first bit over time it made sense why i was acting this way about you".

Was that good?, it was hard to tell when he wasn't looking at him right now.

"Look, if you want me to leave i will, i know you're upset with me and i don't wanna be some burden on you. You're just...a great person and i'm glad i got to have you as my friend, even if it was just for a little while". He meant that sincerely, he liked having this guy as his friend, and he was going to miss them if they never spoke every again, "You deserve better friends who don't make you go through this kinda stuff anyway".

"Landon...".

"I'm right, you got kidnapped and you could've died because of it, and it was because of me, if you and me weren't friends you would have never had to deal with that happening to you". God, he sounded so pathetic, was this really how he wanted to even handle this in the slightest? He felt himself curl up a little, clenching teeth, "I wanted to tell you how i felt sooner but i was worried what you'd think. I've never confessed to anyone in my life before and i got scared to screw up or say anything"'.

It was hard to tell what bernard was thinking with his back turned, but he was just going to have to keep pushing through this no matter how embarrassing it was. "I just think you're really cool, i like your magic stuff and your attitude, and your confidence...and how you laugh at my jokes and support me...and i'm dead serious about all of it...i never meant to make you feel uncomfortable.".

Bernard finally turned around, a look of surprise on his face.

"Landon...i...you don't make me feel uncomfortable", he suddenly seemed to feel ashamed of his silence this whole time, his shoulders sagging and his expression more sad. "I...i admit, it was overwhelming finding out...i think it's because i well...i've been on dates before...and a lot of them were...mixed". The human took a seat next to landon, his feet dangling off the bed.

"I...y'know, constantly changed myself everywhere we went and i would get confessed to a lot, but it never felt right because i wasn't being myself...i was just trying to fit in. I guess when you confessed i had so many thoughts, like if this was another occurrence of me not being myself and you not liking the real me, or that you did like the real me, to all the times we hung out and i had no idea...i...had a lot going on".

The human eyed his worried friend, before smiling a little, "But...i'm not mad at you for any of this, none of this was your fault. You had no idea anything like this would happen and it's ok, i'm not mad at you at all. My parents might have some issues, but i don't...because it wasn't your fault that happened. Landon, i'm still processing everything but i'm not mad at you".

"You aren't?".

"Of course not, i just...have a lot to think about with all of this, i'm a little overwhelmed but i'm not mad at you landon. I just need a lot of time to really think on things, if that's ok...". Landon seemed relieved, his face suddenly becoming far happier then he meant for it to, "Yeah, yeah of course! You can take all the time you need if you want, no pressure or anything, you can uh...get back to me when you're ready".

He laughed and landon felt himself turn deep red.

"Yeah of course, when i'm ready, i don't want to leave you hanging or anything...", the human noticed landons face an poked at it charmingly. "I have to admit...it's...a little flattering that you...feel this way about me. I've just never been complimented this much before , or had anyone write a song for me before for that matter, it's actually sweet".

"You find it sweet?".

"Yeah well...it's really good and i can tell you put a lot of hard work into it, it's...nice that i...inspire you like that". I never saw myself having a song about me, always thought the only way something like that would happen was if i won some dumb contest or something. I...i'm sorry you didn't get me to see it under different conditions, i know this was not how you wanted me to...experience it".

"Well...i'm sorry i was acting so weird for awhile towards you...it was a lot more obvious then i thought originally. You...you were worried about me and you had every right to worry about me...everything just got so complicated and i had a hard time trying to figure out what was the best way to handle it. I guess i should've tried to handle it sooner, to avoid this from happening."

"Hey, i'm not great at this stuff either, i might never have caught on without the video. Heh, it took me a few minutes to click as the music started playing that you were going for...y'know, You...play really well landon". He blushed, trying to hide his face as much as possible as he turned away from the cute boy, "Yeah well, i do play it almost all the time".

"It pays off, at least you might get to make it into a career, my parents still are on the fence about magic".

The way he said it seemed to make landon's heart crack just a little

"I'm sorry to hear that...i well, i was really hoping they'd change their minds about it and stuff...you should be allowed to do the hobbies you like, like you're really good at them too, you were able to escape your handcuffs because of magic! It's...amazing...how you were able to actually do that, they don't appreciate enough of your skills, you're...amazing".

He felt himself blushing again and quickly coughed, "Oh right, sorry, this might be making your more uncomfortable".

But bernard laughed, "It's ok, i'm just glad someone cares, i feel sometimes like...no one really does, i've just...wanted someone around who likes what i like and doesn't make fun of it". He sighed, rubbing his hair, "I escaped my cell through magic, that's...impressive, i never knew i'd need to and magic helped me do it, i was just hoping for better i guess from my parents".

The prince watching him sadly, letting out another deep sigh.

"I wanted to confess to you that day...the day you were kidnapped...i know it doesn't matter now but i did, and then when things went wrong i changed my mind because you had enough going on to worry about me. After you got kidnapped and hurt and everything, there was no way we could talk about it, i knew it was a bad idea. I'm sorry things got so bad that you were worried about me like that".

"Landon, it's ok".

"No, it's not".

"No, it is...i'm sure, it was complicated. I...i got kidnapped, and you just wanted me to take the time to recover before unloading this on me, it's not a bad thing. Truth be told, i was terrified down there, i didn't know if I'd make it out alive or not, for a few moments i really thought i might not. But...you helped find me, and...that's important, your confession could wait...".

"But...then i started acting weird...and your texts".

"Landon, of course i was worried about you, we're friends...if you needed space it's ok, you can also just well...text me if you need a break for a bit. I only got worried cause i care about you...but if you need space...it's ok. I didn't really know you were going through so much emotional turmoil because of me and everything, i should have suspected though. I guess i've been so distracted i never even considered you were acting this way because you might of liked me a little more then being just friends, but...i'm glad it's out in the open now".

"You really still wanna be friends?".

"Dude, yeah, of course i do...i'll need some time to process the whole...crush thing, but...it doesn't make me wanna not be your friend. It'll take some getting used to but i like being your friend. I like us hanging out, and i like having someone around who respects my hobbies and interests and shows me all kinda of things i'd never see in a million years. You're a really cool person landon, i like being with you...i don't want us to stop being friends because of this".

Landon felt himself blush and heart beat a bit faster, it was worse that he knew what he was doing to him.

"W-well, i like having you around to like my hobbies and stuff too...yeah".

The human laughed, "I'm sorry for being such a drag and everything this morning, i got to admit, i just have a lot of bad experiences dating...and dealing with crushes. I guess for me it brought back some memories...but i won't bother you with them in detail or anything. Because i think you're different landon, i really think you care about me and everything".

Landon clutched his head in his hands and grumbled, still blushing, "And i was thinking you'd hate me and everything after what happened for a little while...cause...i just didn't...i didn't want to make you uncomfortable". He shifted in his seat before pinching his nose in frustration, "I should have at least told you i needed some time tho...i didn't meant to worry you-".

"No no like i said i-".

Landon turned around, only to realize he might of gotten just a LITTLE too close to bernard's face, making him jolt back quickly. Even bernard cut off his sentence at the action, "Well, uh anyways...glad we talked about this. So well, i guess if you need anything or want to stay for a while...i'll convince my parents to do it, hopefully. They're getting used to your friends down there".

"They aren't exactly our friends, but thank you...we haven't really gotten to hang out properly since...it happened. I was worried about even asking since...well, your parents...they must hate me for what happened with you. Even if you forgive me, i am still the reason they lost you to begin with, and they were terrified...your house got bugged and-".

"Landon, please, don't worry about them, they're always like that. They panic about everything, it's why they're like this about my magic, they're desperate to be good parents and well...make me some perfect kid. I mean i'm obviously not one but they want me to be one. Point being it's ok, don't worry and freak out, they're always like this anyway and i think they'll live with it".

He was doing it again.

"I'm sorry".

"Hey look, let's go down and take a break...your mom's outside right? How about you let them know and we can just...have some time together for a little bit? Some not awkward time together, we can hang in my room for today if you want and we could...properly catch up, if that's ok?". That sounded great, landon finally getting himself to relax as he pulled out his compact.

"Thanks".

"So this is it huh?".

She was looking at the broken wand with extreme curiosity, star watching her very closely as she examined it. She was giving luna the chance to make things up and be trusted but that didn't meant she was just cool handing sky's want over to just anyone. Luna was still on the fence these days to everyone and the wand was in bad enough condition.

"Yeah that's it alright".

"It's in better condition then i was expecting it to be in when i heard it broke, i'll give it this...but yeah, it needs a good repair. I must admit though, wands are hard to crack, this thing must've been hit with a powerful spell. But at least it's fixable, you might just need an expert on this one, though you're not going to like who i suggest to help you with it...".

Star grumbled, knowing where this was going.

"Mom, right?".

"She'd know if anyone.".

"Of course she would, i had a bad feeling you were going to mention i'd need her help, "But fine, whatever, is there anything else you want to let me know about? You and eclipsa were going off about a gem or something?". She was starting to get a little pouty and the less she focused on her mom the better, "Well, me and eclipsa weren't idiots, sky has a rare opal on her wand...you can see the multiverse in it if you look close enough".'

"Rare?".

"Yeah, omni owns these things, never been on a wand before...i think".

That even seemed so surprise star, guess there were things the commission still weren't fully being honest about with her. Luna didn't seem as phased by it though, looking through it curiously, "I'll be honest, i don't really think sky is responsible for taking us here...she...has no reason to and she's not knowledgeable enough to do it even on accident, but...knowing this is on her wand...it's...probably not a coincidence".

"What exactly do you mean by that?".

"C'mon now mom, a magic wand that combusted before we came here? And it just so happens to have a gemstone like this? Even if it wasn't sky it certaintly makes the most sense to be her, the problem is she doesn't know a spell that could do this...so i have to imagine what might of actually happened was we got dragged out of our own dimensions, and got pulled through her crystal into yours".

"Actually...that...kinda makes sense", the queen mumbled, folding her arms together, "But like, you all unwillingly were pulled...right? So someone had to have done this to you, unless this is omni's doing". The person in question had to have knowledge and access to the multiverse in order to even do this and pull it off, and there wasn't a high suspect list.

"No, i don't think it's omni, if the commission were behind it they would've acted upon whatever they wanted us for...not...be as useless as they are now. Before were suspected them but after this much time, well, we don't trust them but we don't think it is them either. It's only so baffling because we're out of many other options, and i've never seen this happen before".

"Well there has to be SOMEONE who can do it".

"I know but, no one here matches well...", then she seemed to think of something, before shutting it down, "No no, that could work but that's far more absurd, we need something more within the lines of reason". Star blinked at luna as she held her hand up to keep star from asking further on the matter, ".We'll start with a list of the main suspects and work from there".

"Luna, we went through the main suspects, there is no one else".

"Have you checked meteora or moon yet?", luna asked skeptically, her suggestion catching the queen off guard, she hadn't really gone into either of them had she? But it was for good reason. "Meteora was doing tasks, she has it on record and my mom...my mom has no reason to even bother doing something like this, where's your proof on that one?".

"You heard me, limited other options".

"Still, my mom would never do something like this...maybe in your word she would but not here...right?".

"You tell me, maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't. I just know she's a suspect and since she's been absent from everything before this point she doesn't have nearly as much of an alibi, even with grandpa...you know how easily distracted he gets". She wasn't wrong, moon could manage it if she were behind it, but there was also no reason for her mother to do this...and she would never attempt to kill a child either.

Even if that child had previous outbrusts about their family.

"i don't believe it but it'll keep it in mind, but frankly...we need a better list, none of these people seem to have anything to do with it", she sent luna a look of worry, "Luna, i think whoever did this is not from mewni, as silly as that is, a disappointment, i know...i think we all thought it had to be family...but it's not". Luna hated to admit it, but she had to agree with the idea, it probably was something else.

"I don't fully agree but i don't fully disagree either, i've heard worse. But learning that kinda magic takes years of proactive. Not to mention accessing the commission tower, it leaves me uneasy, we could pass by this guy on the way to work. Can you imagine how i feel possibly knowing who this is, for them to be a friend of mine only for them to do al of this?".

If luna did she wasn't showing it well.

"You have to know how much that hurts and messes with all of us, we don't just ignore these ideas because we don't buy into them. But if you're right how do we even begin to react? This whole thing has gotten under all of our skin and there's no way we can just forgive and forget if it turns out to be one of us. You don't know who it is, so it's much easier to-".

"Ok, sorry i tried to help, i didn't say it to be rude or anything, it was just an idea"., luna sat back and crossed her arms, putting her feet up nearby. "I do this all the time back home, i catch criminals all the time back home so it's kinda important for me to do stuff like this and try and make a profile of some kind, that way you could spot them even unmasked".

"You scare me with the fact you can spot bad people by just looking at them, i hope me in your world learns to get a grip because you're lucky to not be dead going through all of this", luna snickered, "You're not entirely wrong, i am lucky, but i'm also hard working, so that's another reason i've lived so long, i rarely ever get caught with my talent".

"Is that so? Is that why you're prisoner now?".

Luna's smile was quickly wiped from her face.

"Thought so...but hey, you did say rarely, so this has happened to you before. And you're still here now, so i guess that still says something about you and getting out of stuff like this. I rarely could get myself out of situations without a little help, even if i was a tough fighter. Even now sky usually needs judas to help her out, but thankfully she's never really been kidnapped either".

"I had to learn to do things myself, if...either of you had died the crown would go to me, and if i couldn't take care of myself i was doomed to end up the same way. If you thought i would allow myself to ever be put in that position you were sorely mistaken, I wanted to be a strong queen, stronger then anyone before me...and avoid all the mistakes the others made".

"Like solaria?"

Luna was quiet, "Yeah, especially her, there's...some things about her past i prefer not to repeat, you're honestly lucky in this universe.". The queen jolted her head to luna at that, her face skeptic, "Wait, what do you mean by that? How are we lucky? She still caused massive devastation and we're still recovering from everything she's done, we're not lucky".

The lighter blonde hummed, her fingers twirling the rim of a teacup.

"I...was shocked when i saw angel for the first time, i never really explained why but...it's...well, because his kingdom doesn't exist back home. Or at least not anymore, it's ruins where i live". Star didn't seem to like where this conversation was going but luna continued, "I never got to meet his kind before now, i just knew about what they once were, and well...stories from you".

"From...me?".

"Solaria caused the devastation, but you...you were the one to hit the mark that started everything back home, and it all started with their kingdom. If things hadn't escalated, i might not be the same person anymore. But...it is what it is...it's just worth mentioning that while solaria here might still be quite the queen, you should be lucky you didn't end up with a worse version of her".

"I'll be honest...i'm surprised how much you don't like her, sorry if it sounds rude but i was expecting...you to like...something about her".

Luna shot star back a dirty look, "Outside of her determination to help her people and power there's not much to admire, what she did led to issues we're still solving today, and as far as i'm concerned that does not make you a good queen. You are not a good queen if people remember you for reasons of hatred, i should not be having to fix her messes 800 years later".

Ok so yeah, she really didn't like the old queen herself, even if related to her.

"Sorry for bringing it up then, it was worth asking".

Luna sat back on the bed, spreading out her arms, "It's a lot of stress trying to be a good queen back home, you want to be unique bit you also want to be strong and something to be proud of. It's...a flawed system, always has been a very flawed system. The kind of pressure it puts on everyone is...well it's something alright, not much better in war time".

"I put a lot of high expectation on sky...", the queen laid back, sighing to herself, having to agree with luna. "I know i did, i don't know why it happened, it just did, and i know it really upset her...even though...i just want her to do well. I want her to do well on her own as queen someday and i dunno, i'm never sure what to do, less freedom, too much freedom...i learned from too much freedom.".

"Well based on what i've seen you didn't do much as far as training her by the looks of it, she could barely hold her wand right!".

Luna really has a way of making people feel bad about themselves.

"She really had a hard time preforming magic, i egged her on so bad the ceiling came down", great, she was back to being mad at herself. She could've prevented this so much sooner if she had just...done things so much differently. Maybe sky wouldn't have been accused of crimes, or had even been in danger at all. A little danger was expected out here but not...so often.

Not like this.

"Luna, considering what i know about me from...your world, i'm not coming to you for parental advice. But...i think at the very least i have a better idea of what i need to improve on if i don't want us to end up like me and my mother right now.", she probably could've phrased that far better then she did but luna got the point. "It's been so long...i forget what it was like".

"Well now that moon is stuck here you're probably being reminded of it more then ever, as far as i can tell, nothing has changed about here...i hear enough through everyone else at this point that i'm glad i barely have to talk to her outside of the occasion. Back home grandma and i didn't agree on many things either, it's a lot messier between all three of us in that castle.".

"Luna, your dimension sounds...awful, for the record, not sure if that's what you were going for but, it sounds awful. I'm surprise you even want to go back after everything", she didn't exactly mean for it to sound so rude, it was clear why luna wanted to go back and that going back mattered to her. But it seemed there was little back home that was actually...well, to look forward to besides seeing her family again.

She almost wished luna could stay, not go back to a world like that.

Such an unpleasant world to grow up in.

"Honestly, sometimes i think that too, but i know it's what i want to do...i wouldn't just leave them. And...i won't leave them now especially, it's clear what seems to happen when i make choices to leave people behind, i get myself in more trouble". She motioned to her room, "I can't stay here, you know that and i know that, we have places we need to be and people who need us, we don't belong here".

"Luna, i don't know all of you that well, but i think all of you do belong here, not permanently, i know you all have families to return to...but well...i think being here has...helped you all, to some extent, maybe more then you could ever really get back home". That made luna pause, laying back on her bed, "I guess you really could say that,...i don't think people will even really...recognize me fully when i get back, maybe, it depends how long i've been gone for them...they might not even remember what i was like before i left all of them".

"I'm sorry you've all been gone so long".

"You say that like we didn't lie to your face for months about who we were this entire time, it's not your fault. We insisted on not coming to you for help, and our lack of progress is partially more our fault...and circumstance". She took a deep breath, "I tend not to ask people for help if i can avoid it, and i was aggressive about us staying hidden, and it worked for a while but...it was never going to work forever, there was too many of us, someone was bound to find out".

"Well, you had me fooled, for a good while, though i guess in retrospect the fact you were that good at fighting should've been some kind of red flag, no one who goes into knight training even comes in so perfect. Even on mewni where you could die at any minute, you would've been a good knight if you had been from this dimension though, though heh...oh wow, we assigned you under jackie".

"You can imagine how that went for me".

"Well, i guess it's hard for me to really say, i guess at least in the end you got to spend some good time with us even if we aren't technically your family. I can only hope that talking to us provided you some comfort, maybe. I think...if i was trapped somewhere else, just seeing my mom's face would really help. I...i got really upset when she vanished, after meteora".

Luna paused, letting the thought ponder for a bit.

"You don't hate your mom as much as you want to, she gives you grief and isn't making the situation any better for you...but i can tell that to an extent you're glad she's here. Someone to give you advice...and help you. She's not amazing by any means but i can tell you're glad she's here to help in this crazy situation, even if her help isn't really helping.".

"I've been on my own with the throne for a while...so i dunno, maybe i just miss her", star sunk in her seat, "I nmeed to stop venting, that's not what this meeting was about, it was about the wand, i'm just dealing with a lot of emotions right now. I've never really...confided in someone about this, well, someone who isn't my wife or my best friend at least".

The queen stood up, "I'm trying to handle this stuff on my own without help, but i guess i wouldn't be taking my own advice if i kept doing that, especially when help is coming right to my doorstep to help me on stuff like this. I'll...go talk to mom soon after this, we can come to some kinda agreement on the plan , and maybe work things out properly".

She held out her hand, "The wand, i better head out and i'm not leaving it here with you, no offence." Luna handed it over without any hesitation on her part, star pocketing it, "But...i'll admit, it was nice talking to you, even if i fully don't get why, i can see why eclipsa likes you, she tends to love the kinda people she can soften up from their cold dark hearts".

Luna pouted at that but accepted it anyway, "Well, just update the others and make sure...they're ok, especially judas, i worry about him...a lot. So if you could check up on him and make sure he's alright, i at least would like that". The queen understood, holding the door open playfully. "Cya later prisoner, don't hurt yourself too much in here...ok?".

Like luna could ever get herself that hurt down here? but the thought of it all was rather nice. Better then the other times she was taken hostage, most of those guys were hesitant to even give her food. No one wanted to fight luna when she was at her fully power, no one could even be prepared for it. Luna was the kinda person who could bite your hand off even without any sharp teeth whatsoever.

and no one was gonna test that theory, no one

A few days later, marco found themselves back to work on the plan, landon in a far better mood then he had been, texting his crush in the nearby corner as marco went over their ideas with the rest of the team.

"Alright, we can eliminate that one.", marco said, crossing off yet another idea they considered in their mission. Honestly it was impressive how smart these kids where when it came, ideas like this but it should've been expected. Having some people to bounce ideas off was a brilliant idea and they were all so excited too. Galexia was the most excited actually, she loved talking about her ideas and drawings to with people.

In fact this was the most comfortable anyone had ever seen her at all, period.

Her drawings even made marco laugh at random.

She beamed though, she seemed to like the reaction she was getting out of the queen, in fact she seemed to like the adults in general a lot more then others, I guess considering she grew up with a lot of them that was fair. But every other teen had at least some minor issues with the adults, and yet galeixa was more then happy to spill them everything and talk.

She was so smart it was crazy, her ideas never always made sense but no one really seemed to care that much either. Galexia has been paying attention, that was for sure, she had an ungodly amount of drawings just based on the plan. Some were of the plan itself and others were of them failing the plan, which was no something anyone wanted to see right now. But last there was a plan and it's on it's way guys to getting better.

"Maybe we can hide weapons in my dress", sunny suggested, "I've done it before, just in case anything bad happens and i lose my wand, i wanna be able to protect myself, even without magic". Honestly marco wanted to question why someone as young as her reallly needed so many weapons but maybe it was best just to not provoke it right now for them.

"I think the plan i went with might be out best bet, but these ae some good ideas. Just don't suggest anything too dangerous, i don't wanna put you guys at too much of a risk. I mean i know you guys get into this kinda stuff often but you know what i meant. This is still something we need to be careful with, sorry, safety is always my priority when doing anything with my kids".

"Your kids?".

They never meant for it to come out like that, but i guess upon closest inspection, they seemed to be their parental figure now, it was like marco had adopted a bunch of new kids out of complete nowhere. "Sorry sorry, didn't mean to make it found like...nevermind, i'm just impressed your all of your ideas. But i think in the end our next option is gpnna have to be mind, found good?'

"You even sure it's going to work?", landon asked, huffing at his parent, "Landon, no I'll be honest i'm not, but if we prepare enough for what we may handle when it happens we can prepare for anything with this guy". It was about being flexible and covering any hole, it was all or nothing in this situation and leaving cracks open was the last thing anyone wanted to do.

this entire plan was to be a big trap, a trap is useless if it can be escaped.

With their kids already being in danger enough times throughout this marco had to step up, there was no way they were letting any more kids be put in serious danger, and they were already taking a risk in letting angel even be some form of bait. Marco had to be smart about this, they could run this over several more times to get every nook and cranny.

If they could they'd booby trap the whole castle, they would.

But then that'd risk the safety of everyone else inside, and being trapped in with the crazy person was also a bad idea.

So if they were lucky, the plan would work first go, and they'd not even have to worry about these plan bs or cs. It was just a bit unpredictable where this was going to go, they had been fooled before and if this plan even got out then all of this would be for nothing. For all they knew they'd posses someone else to go in their place and escape them once again.

The mind control aspect really bothered marco.

what if they used it on one of them? That was a thought marco didn't want to consider, especially if it hit him or tom, they'd be powerful and they could really hurt someone if they were made to do so. Marco considered making charms for everyone, perhaps they could attach them to their outfits, not anywhere that they could be seen of course but still.

Then they could be protected at least from that.

Marco made a mental note to tell sky later.

"Ok, so we seem to have somewhat of a good plan going, thanks to judas we have an idea of how the party is going to look, So that outta help immensely when it comes to here to put everyone for this plan. We can keep most of you safe and catch them without anyone at harm, and if this works well then we'll finally be free. You'll all just have to stick to your roles and-".

Landon raised his hand.

"Roles? What?".

"Landon, the party is being used mostly as a front, therefore you have to pretend like nothing is wrong the entire time. If we aren't acting natural they're going to catch on very quick to something happening", landon sunk in his seat, "Right right, but like...won't it be more suspicious if we aren't on edge at least a little the whole night, they're not stupid...i think".

"We can do our best landon".

Landon didn't exactly like this idea, who knew what could happen like this? But marco was right, they were just going to have to be careful, and maybe stay wary of who they talked to. They didn't want to let this person in on any secrets they shouldn't know about, but hopefully they'd be fine. this meeting seemed very effective, marco was going to have star to talk to star about it and-

"Thanks for helping us!", sunny piped up, "And...thanks, we're happy to be considered your kids...", she blushed and marco smiled. "You guys...haven't really had a proper parental figure since you got stuck here, we assumed you were here because your parents let you be here...and we're no substitute for your actual parents but...i hope we can at least help in the meantime."

"You're doing great i promise!", sunny was always so positive, it was surprising how through all of this she still kept a smile on her face. "It's been super nice getting to spend so much time with you, i think we all feel a little at home here. We've lived here so long i guess it's become a second home to us...while also kinda being our home already as well".

Marco bit their lips, thinking of something.

"When we send you home, are we sure you can even come back?'.

They never had to consider it much before this point but now was as good a time as ever to really think about it. Sunny wasn't just a girl from another world, but she was a friend to mason, their youngest son, not to mention friends with everyone else too. They'd well, be sad if they never say any of them again and well, it was an idea that was thought about and could not be helped.

"Sky thought the same thing and she thought, well, we might figure something else out so...we're trying not to think about it too hard y'know? Don't want to get everyone upset right?". Her voice didn't sound like she was too happy about it though, sunny sounding like she almost wanted to hold back from some crying of her own about the matter. At least, it sounded like it.

Losing everyone else must have broken her heart to think about too.

"Sunny i promise we'll all stay together somehow...ok? i don't want to see any of you separated forever either, mason's never been so happy in his life/ He likes having more friends to spend time with, and of course, you all have grown very close. It'd be a burden to separate you, i promise we won't let this all be forever, you'll all see each other again".

Sunny looked over to lexi, who was still drawing by herself, smiling and ignoring most of the world around her.

"I guess i keep worrying about that, even though i try not to...", she admitted, "I'm supposed to be the positive one here, keeping everyone up and happy but...sometimes, i feel sad...thinking about this stuff. i'm going to miss you guys...i really am, i just got used to having sisters and new brothers and saying goodbye, to all of this, it's going to be hard...".

"Well, we'll try and make your last days here the best they can be then, just in case getting back in contact is...hard. You girls at least deserve a few last nights stress free before going home...it's not much, but you all deserve it after everything you've been through. You can even bring some things back home with you if you want to, memories and stuff".

"My parents probably think i've been kidnapped or something".

Yeah, yeah they would, heck knows if this happened to any of their sons marco would feel the same way by now, if they didn't think they died or something. The worry that had to be on their faces must be devastating. Sunny must think about it a lot, especially since she had a little brother back home she loved and had to live without her for so long.

"Don't worry about the now, think about how happy they'll be to see you again", marco said gently, "That's what matters here, getting you home to see them, they'll be thrilled and delighted. I know being away is scary but, it won't be permanent. We will make sure you get home, even if it takes years, don't give up on us ok? We won't let you feel abandoned."

Landon a little way a ways, turned his head away.

"Years, mom you know we can't do that, someone is going to find out eventually".

"I know lardon, but that's no reason to not try. We're going to have to help and not stil and cower even if someone is after them. These girls need to go and everything, the longer they stay here who knows what could happen, it's better they get home as soon as they can before anything worse happens to them. But we need to catch them first, free their names".

"You've been meeting with them right, how badly do people think sky or luna did it?".

Marco tensed up, feeling their shoulders stiffen as they looked for the best works, "Well since that day it's already been a mixed bag, but it hasn't gotten worse if you're looking for good news, i don't think people have gotten stronger on it. Luna must've kicked out a lot of the previous ideas they had which is both good and very bad all things considered".

"Figures as much, we better watch out".

"Oh don't doubt you will, no one feels safe".

"Hey...i hate to ask but, what happens to luna...if this all fails? We're delaying the trail but...there's no way we can defend her if we don't catch the real culprit and...what are they gonna do to her?", the question hit marco like a punch to the gut. They had been avoiding that answer entirely because they knew the answer and didn't want to worry the kids.

Sky was royalty, at worst if she had been convicted she'd lose her right to the throne and her wand.

But luna on the other hand, and with her true identity not known to anyone outside of their ground.

She wasn't nearly as safe.

Around here she was just seem as another citizen, she had no protections outside of perhaps the words of jackie and the royal family to protect her. But even that had a chance of not mattering, because a royal family can trust the wrong people. There was a chance of luna ending up in a BAD situation if they didn't do something soon and the thought was dreadful.

She already had a family back home waiting for her but if they never saw her again due to something like...like being frozen, that'd be even worse.

"We won't let that happen, we'll make sure of it. Even if...things get really bad", Marco was quick to change the subject, going through their papers and papers of plans and ideas. "I'm going to run these by tom and his parents, we need approval for some of these traps within the castle. We're already building up the ballroom for the event and the sooner we have a head start the better".

Landon stood up, ready to head out and join their mother as marco stopped in their tracks and turned again to sunny, "Remember, don't forget the stakeout soon, get some rest and practice your lines...oh...and keep sky updated. She's spending a lot of time with angel and i don't want her to forget about her role, though...it's great seeing her a lot happier...".

"You got it! Uh...thanks for everything", marco smiled at her as landon followed them out, Landon examining the mask and outfit sunny had given him in his arms. It was fitted for him by sky, but he still wasn't sure about it. At least he wasn't doing any of the actual acting or anything, all he has to do was dress up and play music, nothing more, nothing less.

He just needed to be careful.

Not just because of him being a prince, he's just...nearly gotten into fights in there now and if a fight broke out things would not end well, the place was quite on most days but who knows who might head inside on a more ruely day. Demons could be nice people, but they were violent too, and it was always best to keep your watch on them, so landon just hoped this idea was a bust and nothing happened.

It probably would be.

It was that idea alone that was enough to relax him.

Because of his magical abilities he got a little anxious about using his violin at all in case of well, what happened last time, but it would probably be ok as long as he didn't try to do that song again. Besides, he was barely getting results as is, and he wasn't using a wand violin. He needed to chill out, the worst thing to worry about were his nerves at playing in front of people.

Just thinking about it was making his stomach turn, or maybe that was just his guilt at not telling his mother about what he'd been doing.

they knew he knew they did, so why was it so hard to just say something about it?

Marco walked alongside the demon as they made it finally to the nearest bathroom to change and try on the clothes and see how well they worked in case sky needed to fix anything. Marco hadn't said anything yet and he felt their silence was their way of trying to get them to talk. They had done this before when they were really mad after all and landon was feeling the sting of it now.

He went inside to change, not saying anything.

He was so happy everything with bernard was a lot better, not perfect, but better. The entire scare had left him feeing broken for a while and the fact he was still getting texts was a relief in his mind, even if things were still awkward. He felt as if he were walking on eggshells, but he knew this was on him, there was no one else to blame for this then him.

He should say something, marco would go easy on him and he knew it, he just...felt guilty.

How many times was he gonna keep going behind everyone's backs and getting caught? He wasn't sure why he was like this? Maybe he just had a hard time admitting he wanted help? He wasn't a very social person and people knew that, he tended to handle things along when he had the chance and only his mom was ever someone he went to for serious help.

Guess that was bound to kick him in the butt eventually, screw his awkwardness.

He tried on the costume and moved in front of the mirror, sighing to himself, and putting in the mask. It fit well, sky had no business being so good at all of this honestly, she was far more talented then people gave her credit for. Landon just wished he wasn't in some kinda rut right now and could feel a lot better about it. Staring at himself in the mirror before looking to the bathroom door.

He was going to have to suck it up and confront this wasn't he? If he didn't he wouldn't be able to focus and he might get himself into another situation all over again. He did deal with bernard and that went well right? Him trying magic can't be too bad, especially since nothing came of it or anything, why was he panicking over him doing something so minor?

"Landon? You ok in there?".

He took some deep breaths before splashing water on his face, "Yeah mom, i'm coming out in a minute".

He finally pulled himself together, sighing as he opened the door to face his mother, "Mom, i...want to talk to you...about something?". But he was stopped in his tracks, his mom looking at him softly in his outfit, making him blush. "Hijo, you look so grown up...i'm...honestly happy to see you so...open and out there. Look at you opening up and making friends and talking to your crushes.".

"Mom...".

Were they...crying?

They looked like they were crying and landon was hit with a new wave of emotions.

"Sorry, i just...judas is hitting his coronation, mason is hitting puberty and...you're changing a lot too...it's...overwhelming", they wiped at their face, "Didn't mean to start crying or anything, i'm just...so proud...and...you're all so grown up". Landon rubbed at his arms, still blushing hard and having a hard time looking their mom in the eyes, he wasn't expecting this...but...it shouldn't stop him either.

"Mom...you're...right".

Marco looked at them confused at first, right about them making friends and talking to crushes? Landon knowing he needed to clarify more.

"I have been semi-lying...to you, i...when the text incident happened...it was because i was doing magic...not demon magic. I...i realized my violin, i can do spells with it if i really concentrated, it's not the same as a wand but i think i'm the one channeling it, and...i tried to practice it behind your back. I'm really sorry, it just meant so much to me to learn magic and everything and you guys were saying no and-".

"Landon it's ok", they reassured, putting a hand on their shoulder.

"I'm...just happy you told me...instead of me having to find out the hard way.", he felt so much more warm inside hearing that, they really weren't that mad at him for not doing what they were supposed to? Well they were probably a little mad, but not as mad as he was expecting after all the other stuff he had done up to this point. The human sighing.

"We'll work something out...later, for now you're grounded, just for a few days tho."

Yeah, that was expected, but he was glad it wasn't for much longer.

"I'm glad you aren't hurt though, it's easy to get hurt doing magic like that...there's a reason the wand exists...", the pondered for a moment, biting their lips, "We have enough on our plate right now...but...when we get this resolved, i'll make sure to help you learn it. We may have to ask to borrow sky's wand...when it's fixed, but...i'll make sure you figure out this scary part of yourself...".

"D-did you have to use the wand to...to also learn all of this?".

They nodded, "Yeah, it didn't matter at the time because sky wasn't around to use it and star didn't need to anymore...so it gave me the chance to learn so i could well...y'know, do what i do now". As an example, marco cast a small red orb in his hand, "It's not the same as her magic...but, i like to think of it as something new that we can do...discovery and everything. I have to admit, i'm...happy i'm not the only one with it, it's nice being able to have someone else who understands and finds it just as weird".

"I'm still sorry, i shouldn't have lied...".

"If it helps, i wasn't dead honest about my powers to star at first either...it...took me a while before i could talk about it, There was a lot going on at the time and i was just trying to be a good friend". Landon felt a hand grip his shoulder, "I need to also be better for you, a better example for you...but, i think we're both making some progress, and...i'm happy for that".

He had to agree, "I guess...a little progress is better then nothing, right?".

They smiled.

"C'mon, let's change out of that and take a break, if it's ok, i'd like to watch you play. Get you less nervous to perform. It's a way to be there for you, and still help with the plans...unless you don't want me to?". But Landon shook their head, "No, i...i think i'd like that actually, please?". He didn't mean to sound so...needy, but marco seemed more then happy with it.

"Then it's settled, c'mon, i think i need a break too".

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svstfoe #sky and the forces of the multiverse #marco diaz #marco #janstar bby #tomstar bby #ostar bby #starkie bby #tomco bby #fanfiction #my art

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greenninjagal-blog · 3 years

Text

Trouble

Hi yeah its me, and look I’m already back with a new fic for the new year :D cherish this moment I don’t think i will have have this turn around so quick again. For the TSS Fanworks Secret Santa Exchange because I was a pinch hitter :DD @nerdywriterhaven I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Patton has a thing about boardgames and Virgil has a thing about Logan. Together they figure it out.

Word Count: 7900

Quick Taglist: @alias290 @chelsvans @coyboi300 @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders

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Patton shows up at Virgil’s dorm room just slightly after six pm on a Tuesday with two thermoses of soup that are still warm to the touch, a halloween tupperware of chocolate chip cookies that had been passed between him and Virgil so many times that Patton really doesn’t remember whose it was originally, his laptop, phone, the chargers for both, and the board game Trouble.

Virgil, predictably, shuts the door in his face the second he sees the game box hidden under all the other things in his arms. Patton also thinks that Virgil tells him to go away, but it’s muddled by the door.

Instead he shuffles all the supplies to his left arm and knee, and knocks again on his door just below the leftover tape from the nametag that his RA keeps putting up and Virgil keeps ripping down because he doesn’t want anyone knowing where he sleeps. His knuckles hum with the rap, datatata dat dat! And he smiles even when there’s the sound of something being thrown at the door from that side.

Patton chooses not to hear it because he’s a good friend and an even more stubborn houseguest.

The door a little bit down the hall opens up with the usual fanfare of someone who is running late to a night class-- which of course is the charm of Roman Prince. He looks nice, as usual, and Patton even thinks that if he hadn’t been wearing two different colored shoes, no one would even know that he had probably just woken up from a nap. The music of his room blares out into the hall with a rap song Patton thinks is Hip With the Kids these days, but Patton himself can’t make out any of the actual words.

All the much better because he’s pretty sure it’s Remus’s music and Remus likes his songs like he likes just about everything else: dirty, scandalous, and offensive. Not that Patton is good friends with either of the Prince siblings, but he’s heard the rumors floating around about both. Roman smiles at him, with glittering white teeth and dimples and soft warm brown eyes that could have been made of melted chocolate.

“Oh! What a spectre!” Roman says, seeming to forget that he’s on the way to a class at the sight of Patton standing at Virgil’s door. “Tell me, angel, what brings a glorious sight such as you to our dorm buildings on this amazing day?”

Virgil’s door swings back open before Patton can answer and Virgil hisses from the darkness, the way he’s usually prone to do whenever Roman or Remus or their blatant disregard for the rules about music volume at two AM is brought up.

He looks not much better from the glimpse Patton got before the door was closed in his face earlier: he’s still pale to the point of looking sickly and dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, with his eye shadow smeared and his hair not brushed at all. There’s a red imprint on the side of his face that Patton thinks matches a crease in his blankets or pillows from where he probably tried to suffocate himself on and off all day between anxiously texting Patton all about “the absolute worst day of my entire life and no I’m not even exaggerating this time Pat”.

“Hi Virgil!” Patton says, as Virgil reaches forward and to take a thermos and the tupperware from his arms and glare unbidenedly at Roman. “I brought dinner!”

“I hate you,” Virgil says, and does not mean because he loves Patton’s Broccoli Cheddar Cheer Up Soup and he’s been in need of cheering up since Patton had seen his messages at noon on his way to his second class of the day.

Roman gasps like he’s offended on behalf of Patton who is not offended as much as endeared to his best friend of several years. “Virgil! How could you act so callus towards a beautiful muse such as this?”

“Get lost, Princey,” Virgil tells him firmly, grumpily, Virgil-ly. “He came here specifically to make a pun about my pain.”

“I do it with love,” Patton adds. “And I brought cookies to make up for it.”

Roman looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that information and Virgil doesn’t give him time to find out because he kinda hates Roman-- although Patton always tells him that “hate” is a strong word and Virgil always says he means it anyway. Patton supposes that if he, too, had hallmates that played music louder than life up to the early hours of the mornings during Finals Week, and then cranked it higher when he knocked on the door to ask them to stop, he might also strongly dislike them.

Virgil ushers Patton into the dark room and then kicks the door closed while Patton is waving goodbye at Roman.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light level: Virgil was certainly making use of those thick blackout curtains! It made the whole room look like it was three AM, rather than six PM! There are blobs of stuff all around the room, piles of clothes and blankets that Virgil prefers to have on the floor rather than put somewhere where he’s not going to trip over it in the middle of the night, but Patton supposes that’s just how Virgil’s always been.

“If someone breaks in, they’re gonna trip over this shit and I will be out of here long before they can get back up,” Virgil had said the first time Patton had suggested maybe, possibly cleaning something until they found the floor.

The desk where Virgil did his school work is empty and the textbooks and computer that normally covered it are all on the ground like a massacre from what Patton can make out. Virgil shuffles through the room and ends up turning on the purple lava lamp that Patton got him three years ago so that they could at least see each other and the faux-floor, and even then he doesn’t look happy at needing that much. The elevated bed had the blankets ripped up from it and turned into a nest with Virgil’s phone light peeking out from the depths like some underwater cave with a sea monster in it waiting for an unsuspecting diver.

“Remind me, how you got into this building?” Virgil says, tiredly as he pries open the cookie container. “It requires a key and last time I checked, you don’t have one of those, Pat.”

“As if a key would stop me from checking on you!” Patton replies. He plops himself on a pile of clothes and clears away another spot for Virgil to collapse next to him, so that Virgil can’t exactly escape. “Now, what is this about Logan again? You were being kinda vague and world-ending-y again. ”

Virgil lets out a moan around the cookie he shoved in his mouth and drops to the floor next to Patton, to munch angrily or just upsetly without actually offering an answer, because he’s Virgil and he’s allergic to talking about things that upset him. Patton sets down his other thermos, his laptop, and his own phone to make room for the game between them.

“Must we?” Virgil asks as Patton sets up the board with a practiced hand. Even in the near darkness of the room he knows exactly what he’s doing, and could probably figure it out with no light at all.

“Of course!” Patton says. “You sounded like you were in Trouble.”

“ Sorry to disappoint.”

“It’s rather Risk -y of you to be self deprecating while within hugging distance.”

Virgil doesn’t say anything for a moment, just swallows the bite of his cookie and stares at the colored pieces in front of him. The board game is well worn and well loved-- one of the first ones Patton had ever gotten and one of the first ones he ever convinced Virgil to play with him. Although “convinced” is a strong word for how Patton had just been staring at the board numbly with red rimmed eyes when his father had asked Virgil to come over and try to coax him into eating something, anything, please .

They’d lost three pieces of the red team and one of the yellow and two of the green, but that’s okay because Patton generally played blue and Virgil had custom ordered four purple pieces for just the two of them a few years ago.

Carefully, placatingly, Virgil reaches a hand forward and pops the dice bubble for his number. He gets a four.

Patton gets a five.

“How many times have we played this one, Pat?” Virgil asks, in a voice much softer than before. In the faded purple light and the shadows, it’s hard to see the number on the die, and harder to see exactly what Virgil is thinking about with his eyes hidden like that. His nails are bitten down to the quick, ruining the black nail polish he spent an hour applying last weekend over their shared Biology notes.

Patton shrugs as he reaches forward to take his turn and pops the bubble. Honestly he didn’t think he could calculate the answer if Virgil pressed: this was their go-to game, this was his go-to pun, this is what they did even when the world was falling apart at the seams. It was easier to focus on moving playing pieces a couple pegs than it was to focus on the sound of a heart monitor or raspy breathing or bony pale fingers that shook when they tried to hold anything.

It was easier to find a way to win when the instructions were so clear, and the rules were so fair, and the consequences of losing were just having to put the game back in the box.

Virgil doesn’t say anything more and Patton doesn’t force him to, although he desperately wants to. He wants to reach out and catch Virgil’s hands in his own, he wants to give him a squeeze, he wants to wipe away the tear tracks in his makeup and he wants to tell Virgil that whatever it is, Patton will be there for him.

He wants Virgil to look at a game for once and have fun.

But the only sound in the room is the popper when they roll the die back and forth.

Patton gets the six first. He moves his second leftmost piece to the start and hits it again for a three.

Virgil stares his blue piece on the board for a long moment, without blinking. His hands lie limply in his lap and the tub of cookies sits at his knee. The purple light makes his eyes glisten sweetly, wetly, sadly, with a resignation that Patton knows and wishes he doesn’t. The lump in his throat swells up.

“Virgil?”

Virgil blinks. And then blinks again.

“Why should I even bother at this point?” he asks. He runs a hand up to his hair and tugs at the locks.

“Virgil, this is the opening of the game,” Patton says. “You can’t give up alrea--”

“But it’s not like I’m going to win,” Virgil says and Patton sucks in a breath sharply.

Oh. It was one of those days.

Patton thinks that he should have been expecting this; it had been a decent amount of time since Virgil last had refused to finish a game, and Patton had almost thought that maybe they had kicked those thoughts for good! That through sheer willpower and perseverance and proof to the contrary, they might have managed to rework how Virgil approached a challenge. That at one point Virgil might laugh and smile even when he wasn’t in the lead--

And yet, Patton’s sitting with one piece three spaces ahead of Virgil and Virgil is ready to call it quits. The game had just started. Patton had only been sitting in the room for a total of five minutes. Virgil hadn’t talked for more than a couple sentences.

It’s one of those days, except that Patton doesn’t think that it’s ever been this bad before, because usually they at least made it to the one piece around the board in Trouble , through to one check in Chess , through to one hotel being built in Monopoly , or one train ticket completed in Ticket to Ride .

“This is a sign, isn’t it?” Virgil continues. “I’m just being stupid even considering it. Of course I am. I always am. Nevermind, I don’t want to do this today Pat. Thanks for the soup and the cookies and I’m sorry that I made you walk all the way--”

Patton reaches out and snags Virgil’s arm before he can get all the way off the ground. The board nudges to the side dislodging several pieces into the surrounding void, but Patton thinks that he can replace a hundred playing pieces.

He cannot replace his best friend.

Virgil’s skin is cold, even though the room was comfortably warm, and he’s soft to the touch-- which is never what Patton expects when he gets those lightning quick hugs, when Virgil rests his head on his shoulder during movie nights, when they go shopping and there are crowds that make Virgil want to run for the hills and only Patton’s hand in his keeps him grounded there. Virgil is soft despite the jagged persona he puts on to drive away other people, and he hasn’t gotten any sort of touch in a while because he shuts up the moment that Patton’s own warmth floods over him.

The room holds the silence for an eternity: Virgil frozen halfway up from the ground, and Patton latching on to him like he can pluck all the reasons Virgil is upset out of his mind through osmosis. The lava lamp makes him look unreal, makes the silence ring louder, makes the lump in Patton’s throat grow larger.

“Virgil,” Patton says, “please.”

Please tell me what I can do. Please allow me to help. Please let me in.

“It’s stupid,” Virgil says.

Patton wants to laugh, because nothing that ever hurts Virgil has ever been stupid. “I don’t think so, kiddo.”

Virgil bites his lip and inhales with all of his chest.

“You didn’t go to any classes today. You’ve been crying. You’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes.” Patton says. “Something happened. And it can’t possibly be stupid because nothing that affects you like this is can be anything less than something huge.”

Patton feels Virgil’s hand curl into a fist like he can hide his shaking when Patton is right there .

“Do you remember Logan Ackroyd,” Virgil says. “The senior a year older than us who I had Sociology with last year?”

The same Logan who took extra notes for when Virgil missed class and emailed them to him. The same Logan who offered Virgil a granola bar when he overheard that Virgil had missed lunch. The same Logan who helped Virgil break into the auditorium after school hours to search for his missing earbuds.

The same Logan who has eyes more knowledgeable than the entire galaxy, who wears a tie to class, who smells like coffee beans and pen ink and looks like he’d give really good, safe hugs.

The same Logan who Patton has never once met, but feels like he knows intimately thanks to Virgil’s starstruck rambles.

Logan must be something great and amazing. Patton has known that for a year now, from watching the months slip away and suddenly the ghost of Logan joins them on every outing, summoned by the blush over Virgil’s ears and the soft smile on his lips and the way that Virgil steadfastly won’t meet Patton’s eyes like it will prevent Patton from noticing the way that the senior is always on Virgil’s mind. Logan is kind. Logan is smart. Logan has a new book every day. Logan has a voice like the ocean waves.

Logan, Patton thinks, should have been more careful if he caused Virgil this much distress. Because there are things that Patton would do for Virgil that not even a cold blooded killer would consider doing.

“Yeah,” Patton says, with a smile soft and dumb and innocent. “You guys have Analytical Science together this year, right?”

Virgil lets go of his lip, and breathes out a breath that sounds like more relief than Patton is supposed to hear. “Yeah. Yeah. He, uh… yeah.” Virgil shifts back down, shifts so that he’s on his knees and Patton is right next to him, and they’re still touching and that warmth is stronger than the shadows made by the blobs in the lava lamp.

“Janus… Janus asked him out yesterday,” Virgil says, using his other hand to pluck at a thread in his jeans.

Oh. Patton doesn’t think cookies and soup were enough.

And golly, Patton doesn’t think Logan is as smart as Virgil is always saying he is either, because if he said yes in front of Virgil, he must have been the stupidest person on the planet.

Virgil is quiet, dismissible, a shadow in his own skin even on his best days. But he is not un-noticeable.

He carries an aura around himself that storms and thunders and promises danger to those that get too close. His laughter is a threat first and a comfort second. His smile is a knife blade that even Patton sometimes wonders if he might find in his back one day. Virgil was someone that you noticed and you stayed the fudge away from.

Unless you were Patton, who hadn’t been afraid of Death from the moment he watched his mother cough up blood over the cards to CandyLand, watched his mother turn into a real-life game of Operation, watched her breathing get ragged and her fingers struggle to hold playing cards between them.

Logan hadn’t been scared away by Virgil’s thunder, and somehow he had weathered the storm that Virgil put up to protect himself and lived securely in the eye of the hurricane. And somehow he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t cared, had taken advantage of Virgil’s softening heart just to shatter it.

“He didn’t…” Virgil says. “Janus… he didn’t really mean it. I don’t think. It might have been a joke because they’re friends but Logan told everyone that he would only consider dating someone who could… could…”

“Could what?”

Virgil’s eyes flick down to the Trouble game board, to the pieces lost in chaos of the floor, to the box they hadn’t needed except for transport. Patton feels his heart thud in his chest before he crawls up his throat and he tastes it in his mouth along with the remains of the raw cookie dough he licked off the spoon while cleaning up.

Virgil’s words come back to him in whispers. But it’s not like I’m going to win. This is a sign, isn’t it? I’m just being stupid even considering it.

“Someone who could….” Patton says, “beat him in a boardgame?”

Virgil yanks the thread on his jeans sharply and nods without meeting Patton’s eyes. “I told you it was stupid.”

“Virgil,” Patton says. “This is great! We’ve been playing games together for years! You can beat--”

“That’s the thing!” Virgil says with his shoulders curling up to his ears and burying him in layers of excess fabric. “Pat, I can’t even beat you in a board game and I know all your strategies!”

“I don’t think that Trouble actually has any strategies. It’s really luck of the roll--”

Virgil peeks out of his hood enough to give Patton a miserable glare. “When was the last time I won against you, Pat? Be honest.”

Patton purses his lips. “I don’t think that’s fair, kiddo. I’ve been playing games since I was able to understand the rules--”

“You don’t even remember, do you.”

“It was Dominos and you won by twenty points.”

“Nice try, but you purposely miscounted and you actually won by two.” Virgil reaches out for another cookie and offers it to Patton without making any move to pull his other hand from Patton’s hold.

“You would have a lot more wins if you didn’t insist on not finishing games sometimes!” Patton says. “You never know the ending of a game until you play it out!”

“I could tell you that Logan was going to beat Janus in Chess the moment the opening moves were made,” Virgil counters. “He won in twelve moves and then the next game in six.”

Patton opens his mouth, but Virgil shoves the cookie in before he can actually say anything.

“And God Rest Remy’s soul because Logan obliterated him in Trivia Pursuit.” Virgil continues, “He turned Roman to mincemeat over Scrabble, and not only beat Remus in Poker, but won one hundred dollars off him too. I also watched him win in Othello against some kid he tutored in Calc, a game of Mancala with an art kid who was doing it for clout, and Stratego which he won before I finished reading the fuuuuuudging rules and made his opponent cry over it.”

Patton swallows down a bite of cookie that he didn’t not chew well enough because he feels it tear up his esophagus as it goes. Virgil politely ignores him dying for a second and offers him his own thermos of soup to help it down, before remembering that he’s supposed to be brooding and staring at Patton for too long makes him soft.

“Not to make a pun here, but no dice; I legitimately cannot beat Logan,” Virgil says. “He’s just… so good. At everything. What is the point in humiliating myself with this? Even if I find a game so obscure that he’s never heard of it and doesn’t have a strategy built for it, just going up to him and putting the board between us is like-- that’s telling him that I’ve had this massive stupid crush on him for ages and what if he doesn’t even like me? What if I win and then he has to date me because he said so but he actually hates me? What if--”

Patton coughs so hard he thinks he might have dislodged his own lung, which is fine!! Because at least it got Virgil to snap back to him and table his panicky spiral for later.

“Weren’t you,” Patton croaks, “Weren’t you already going to confess to him? You bought the chocolate kisses and you sent me pictures of them in your bag right before class last week.”

Patton can’t see Virgil’s ears because of his hood but he knows that they’re glowing red from the way that Virgil can’t meet his eyes again.

“I just….I did but then he….” Virgil nudges a pile of questionably clean band t-shirts with his socked foot. “He said he wasn’t interested because class was starting and I still don’t know if he meant an actual kiss or a Hershey kiss because he had to leave class early to pick up his kid brother from his middle school because he was sick with a fever and then I was too mortified to bring it back up-- See Pat, I can’t even come up with a creative way to tell Logan that I wanna listen to him ramble about jellyfish immortality and play with his hair or tell him that I wanna know what the flavor of his chapstick is-- which, by the way, I did say to him and he told me was cake batter and that I could find it at the corner drugstore because he thought I was looking for recommendations-- There is no way to subtly tell him that I want to date him.”

“Then maybe… don’t be subtle?” Patton suggests, and then points at the game between them. “Boardgame?”

Virgil scowls at the game like it had personally offended him. “But I can’t beat him. And if I lose and by some miracle he still wants to be seen with me, then he’d be breaking the very rules he set up and everyone else who lost is going to be pissed at both of us and I can’t do that to Logan.”

Patton bites back the then don’t lose that he wants to say. It seems so obvious to him. He doesn’t really see why Virgil doesn’t think he can win one single game. There isn’t even a rule that says Virgil can’t come back and play again-- which isn’t that the point of games? That you can play them for a little while, pack them up, and then come back to them later? That you sit down with friends-maybe-more and you play and have fun ?

Not for the first time, and not for the last time, Patton wonders why Virgil ever played games with him at all. He knows the first time was pity because he found Patton sitting on the floor of his bedroom with Trouble on the ground in front of him and staring at it numbly because he had cried all the tears out of himself already at the hospital, at the funeral, at the everything that had come after that he couldn’t remember. The first time it had been to get Patton to react because he had been so lost, but every time after that Virgil had made the conscious decision to pick up the pieces.

Even if sometimes he had put them back down halfway through and Patton hadn’t figured out how to convince him that the point isn’t to win as much as it is to have fun.

Virgil twists his wrist loosely in Patton’s grip so that he’s holding Patton back, his cold fingers somehow feeling comforting rather than startling. Patton has always loved that about him, although he’s never sure how that works. The coolness of his touch is familiar, but the vulnerability of Virgil reaching out is something newer, something special, something fragile and Virgil holds onto him like he’s expecting Patton to let go at any moment and Patton steadfastly refuses to let him drift off. Patton squeezes his wrist gently, lightly, softly.

I’m here. I’m not leaving. We’re in this together.

“I think that Logan can make decisions for himself,” Patton says with words so featherlight they barely move the air. “Remember the dominos? Any player can choose to lose, whether it be miscounting or it be refusing to finish the game in the end. But if you never even offer to play with him… Logan can’t make that choice, Virgil.”

Virgil holds his gaze for a moment, two, three, and there’s something in his eyes that shies away from the glow of the light, something slippery and weak and scared. Something that Patton is afraid to put a name to, lest it disappear from him forever.

Something that causes Virgil to squeeze his wrist back.

Together. Us. We’ve got this.

“So what game do you want to play with Logan?” Patton asks. “We can go look at my collection if you want? I loaned out Backgammon to a girl in my Shakespearean class, but other than that I have the usuals with me.”

Virgil takes a deep breath. “Can we…” He says. “Do it tomorrow? I don’t want…” He squeezes Patton’s wrist again and Patton can fill in the rest of the blanks with his own interpretations. He is, after all, fluent in Virgilese, as much as Virgil is fluent in Pattonish.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patton says and shifts through the piles of clothes that act as cushions so he’s right next to Virgil, pressing their shoulders together, leaning his head on Virgil’s collarbone, and reaching around him for another cookie. Virgil moves the tub between them and then pulls the Trouble game board in front of that.

He hesitates for another moment-- they’re missing two of Patton’s blue pieces to the floor, and one of Virgil’s purples to a pile of sweatshirts-- but the fact that Virgil drops forward and presses the bubble to roll the die makes Patton’s chest warm.

He gets a six, and then a four and that thing in his eyes seems to grow just a bit stronger.

That is, of course, when the rap music from next door starts up loud enough to shake the entire room and Patton wonders if Logan would still be up for playing a game with Virgil when he’s incarcerated for second degree murder.

Patton, at least, gets a hug out of it, when he tackles Virgil to the ground before he can get to the door, and he manages to coax Virgil back to their area, back to the floor, back to the game, and then later into the blanket-fort-and-movie-night that they watch with one earbud each and their foreheads pressed together late into the night.

***

Patton’s mother developed lung cancer when he was seven. He remembers it in vague flashes: the blood, the shakiness, her fall to the floor because they had never had any sign of it happening until it was too late to do much about it. He was told it was because his maternal grandparents both smoked a lot when she was growing up and she spent the weekends helping them around the house still.

The doctors said she had a year. She got eighteen months.

He barely remembers her face from his own memories anymore, all of them blurred and twisted by the passage of time that he almost got swept away in entirely. Her picture still hangs around the house, though, and he guesses he’s lucky in that regard. He liked how he could see her every time he passed by the stairs, even after his dad remarried and he had grown up and the telemarketers stopped calling the house to tell her that there was an interesting charge on the credit card she didn’t have anymore.

He still wakes up sometimes with his heart beating in his ears and his eyes blinded with tears and his lungs refusing to cooperate because of nightmares about forgetting her entirely, of seeing her stand up to call out to his dad, of seeing her cough out blood and then fall to the floor right in front of him as his dad is running down the stairs. He still wakes up and feels his heart aching where she might have once been if everything had gone just a little bit different. He still wakes up and wishes that he could go back to sleep because at least in his dreams she’s still there waiting with a deck of cards and a smile that says, “Alright, Buster, don’t think I’m going to go easy on you this time!”

Usually those types of days he labels as “Bad Ones”, and he finds it harder to crawl from under his blankets to do pretty much anything.

Virgil knows immediately when he sees Patton staring at his black laptop screen that it’s a Bad One.

Patton loves that he knows not to ask, hates that Virgil can read him so easily, wants to cry because it’s been so long and shouldn’t the edges of that pain have gone away by now? He wants to pull Virgil’s purple comforter back over them and drift back off into the blissful warmth while pretending that the idea of a game right now didn’t make his hands shake.

She hadn’t left Patton specifically a lot of things, but the things that she had left him had been boardgames. Things that she had collected over the years and kept on a shelf in the study for them to play after work and school: Candyland, Trouble, Snakes and Ladders. She had a whole shelf for him when he got to an age where he could understand more complex concepts: Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Mysterium, Star Realms, Settlers of Catan.

After she was gone… Patton had stared at that shelf and wondered if she had ever thought that maybe she wouldn’t get a chance to play some of them with him.

He wonders how many of them he could have beat her at, how many of them she might let him win in, how many of them they would love to play together and how many of them they would both play through once and then wrinkle their noses at because it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.

He wonders and maybe it’s a bit too much because he’s stomach is rolling nauseously and he thinks that if he has to look at a game he’ll actually throw up this time.

Virgil doesn’t say anything, even as he gets up and Patton remains buried under too many blankets and the alarm on his phone goes off again for his morning class. The darkness is safe and warm and Patton thinks he understands why Virgil likes it so much as he closes his eyes and tries not to think of a woman who is long gone and in the ground.

“Breakfast?” Virgil whispers at some point.

“Cookies,” Patton mumbles back.

Virgil had carted a hand through his curls and then the door to the room had opened closed and locked behind him. Patton thinks that was nice of him-- to lock the door like he was protecting anyone from coming in and stealing his valuables even though Patton was there. Or maybe since Patton was there? Patton presses his head into a pillow that smells vaguely like chocolate cherries and black licorice and other things that screamed Virgil, and thinks that Virgil might consider Patton a valuable that needs to be protected and kept safe.

Sometime later Patton wakes up with Virgil lying beside him, headphones on and typing on his computer with one hand while dragging fingers through Patton’s curls with the other. It’s impressive of him by itself, but not nearly as impressive as the fact that Virgil’s hood is down and the blackout curtains are parted enough to bring in a decent amount of light.

Virgil blinks at him and removes one earmuff. “I read that flowers need sunlight to grow,” he says in lieu of explaining the rays of light cascading into the room over the two of them.

Patton wants to laugh, and thinks he might if it were any other day and not this one. He settles for a somewhat bent smile and Virgil reaches to somewhere he can’t see and brings back a muffin from the Campus Cafe.

“Chocolate Chip,” he says. “Which is like a cookie, but better because it’s a muffin and I said so.”

Patton can’t really tell if the tears that prick in his eyes are from the lingering sadness or the softness of just a simple gesture from his best friend. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.

It’s a muffin, not something he should be crying over, and he repeats it even as he takes a bite from the top and Virgil pretends like he doesn’t see Patton scrubbing his cheeks as he chews. It’s a muffin, but Virgil got it just for him and Virgil came right back here and sat with him so he wouldn’t wake up alone and sad and and and--

And if Patton liked anyone romantically like that(™) he thinks he would have fallen straight into love with Virgil.

“Did you miss class?” Patton whispers.

Virgil shrugs. “Nothing important. I sent an email to my teachers saying that I wasn’t feeling too good and didn’t want to risk accidentally spreading anything to anyone, which already helps because I didn’t go to class yesterday and I’ve already turned in all my work for the week for most of my classes. Besides, you were here and I didn’t want to just leave you all alone-- what if Roman started playing his Disney compilations at 160 decibels again?”

“You like Disney, though.”

“I also like my hearing and my best friend,” Virgil says like it’s nothing, like it’s obvious, like it shouldn’t be making Patton tear up again because Virgil is just so nice.

“I’m sorry,” Patton whispers.

Virgil moves his computer and jostles around on the bed until they’re lying side-by-side even though the bed was definitely not made for two persons. He presses his head to Patton’s, and he’s cool and soft and safe.

Together. We got this.

“Your mom?” He asks.

Patton nods, with a lump in his throat that makes all the words he wants to say crumble to ashes on his tongue. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Pat,” Virgil says.

“But… Logan…”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Virgil says. “And, full offense, but no boy is going to be more important to me than you regardless of how fuuuuuuunkily hot he is. Funkily, yeah, sure, that’s a word that I definitely was going to say right there.”

Patton feels the laugh build up in his chest, against all the odds in the world, and it tastes like chocolate when it rolls out of his mouth.

Virgil bumps his shoulder, and grins. “Look, I’m trying here. Cursing is in my nature!”

“Thank you,” Patton says. For everything.

“No prob, Bob,” Virgil says. I would do it all all over again and never change a thing.

“I’m not Bob! I’m Pat!”

Virgil’s laugh is like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm, like a rainbow cascading through the sky, like being caught after a fall. Patton gets the energy to smile back when he hears it and that alone nearly makes him want to cry again.

Patton twists the blanket under him between his fingers and takes a deep breath. “Did you…” He says before pausing to swallow back the taste of his own stomach acids he’s not sure is entirely imaginary. “Did you pick a game? For Logan?”

Virgil’s nose twitches, which means the answer is a sound no. “It’s not that important right now. You’re not feeling up to--”

“ Vir -gil,” Patton says and Virgil’s nose twitches again.

They share a look for another minute, two, three, before Virgil exhales and looks away.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “I didn’t pick out a game yet. I actually saw him in the Cafe earlier with Janus and he waved, though, which was awesome until I waved back and forgot to look where I was going and walked straight into a glass door. At this point it’s going to be a miracle if Logan doesn’t laugh in my face when I ask him to play anything with me.”

“He won’t laugh at you,” Patton says and Virgil slides his arms up and crosses them so he can bury his chin in them like he doesn’t believe Patton at all. “From what you’ve told me, Logan is really nice isn’t he? And the other day didn’t you say that he went on a rant about Pluto being a planet? I think that’s just as silly as you walking into a door.”

Virgil hums to show he’s listening, even if he isn’t taking the words to heart as much as letting them filter through his ears. Patton licks the last of the chocolate muffin from his fingertips and blinks away the urge to hide away from the rest of the world when he spies the box for Trouble on the ground next to Virgil’s desk trash can.

Virgil follows his gaze to the box and he purses his lips, although Patton isn’t sure if its from the fact that he’s remembering that neither of them won last night, or if he’s thinking about odds of beating Logan again or if he, too, is thinking about ghostly fingers trying so hard to move playing pieces that they can no longer touch.

Patton rolls over and stares at Virgil’s ceiling instead, counting his breaths until he feels like the static between his ears isn’t going to overwhelm him.

“What game do you want to play?” Patton asks.

“I won’t win.”

“I didn’t ask what game you wanted to win,” Patton points out. “What game do you want to play against Logan?”

Virgil is quiet, but he sighs so heavily that Patton can see his bangs flutter out of the corner of his eyes.

“This is going to sound stupid,” Virgil says, and again Patton remembers that nothing Virgil ever says has ever once been stupid. “But I don’t want to play against him at all.”

Patton frowns, rolling his head to the side to take in Virgil’s gaze that is already looking at him. His dark eyes are there and the something in them that Patton doesn’t want to put a name to is there again, shining just like the rays of light between Virgil’s blinds.

“I mean I want to play a game with Logan, just not against Logan. It’s stupid, okay? I was just thinking about the cooperative games back at your house that we used to play with your dad and step mom-- you know like the Unlock , Escape-room-in-a-box games? Or maybe Flashpoint? Or Forbidden Island? I was just thinking how shit I am at making my own decisions in Pandemic and Logan is really good at strategy so I bet that working together we’d be able to beat any game.”

Patton breathes deeply, sharply, and tries to ignore the piercing pain in his chest at the mention of the games. Virgil winces like he wants to take the words right back out of the air and hide them somewhere where neither of them have to face them at all.

“I don’t…” Virgil says, “I don’t want to play against him and lose. I’d rather play with him and win. Again: it’s stupid.”

Patton closes his eyes, and sees the shelf his mom left him full of boardgames she picked out long before he was past chewing on building blocks, of him at eleven years old finally getting the courage to drag a kitchen chair to the case and pick out a game while Virgil stood by to make sure he didn’t fall and to remind him that it was okay if he didn’t didn’t feel strong enough to try, of the two of them sitting at the kitchen table with the game directions between them that don’t really make any sense because it there’s no directions on how to attack each other when his dad comes home early and freezes at the sight

He might not remember his mother’s face outside of photographs he doesn’t remember being taken, but he remembers clearly the softness of his father’s expression when he dropped into the seat next to them and asked if they knew how to play this one yet.

“It’s a cooperative game,” his dad said, with a voice shaking and eyes wet. “That means we all work together to get to the goal at the end. Each player is going to have a different superpower-ability-thing that they can do that will make it easier for us to win as a team.”

So no, Patton doesn’t think that it’s stupid at all. It’s hard to do things by themselves, it’s scary, it’s difficult, it’s frustrating. That’s why when Virgil is texting him that the world is ending because of a boy, Patton will always show up at his dorm with soup and cookies and a game for them to play together instead of telling him that he’s being dramatic and silly. That’s why when Patton is missing a woman who hasn’t been in his life for twelve years now, Virgil will always stay with him to remind him that he’s going to get through it, instead of telling him to suck it up.

It’s much easier to win when they’re on the same side.

And Virgil has only ever had fun when playing games that he wins, hasn’t he?

“Why don’t you?” Patton asks suddenly.

Virgil must have nodded off because he jerks suddenly when Patton speaks up, “huh?”

“Why don’t you play a cooperative game?” Patton asks. “What did Logan say specifically about the whole dating thing?”

Virgil rubs an eye and squints at him tiredly. “I told you, he said he would only date someone who beats him at a game. I don’t--”

“Did he say beats him, or beats the game with him?”

“Neither?” Virgil says. “He literally said to Janus very loudly, “I will only consider someone a viable romantic partner if they can win in a game with me.””

“In a game with me,” Patton repeats. “ In a game with me. Not in a game against me!”

It takes Virgil a long, breathless moment to comprehend it, but it’s clear the moment it hits him. Virgil jerks so hard that he tumbles off the bed entirely and to the ground in a fumbling of long limbs, blankets, dubiously cleaned clothes, and his computer-headphones combo. Patton yelps and leans over to check on him but Virgil doesn’t even look like he noticed.

“Holy Shit,” He says, “holy shit, Pat.”

“Language.”

“ HOLY SHIT!” Virgil yells, and then he laughs and covers his mouth like he’s trying to bottle up the sound. “Patton! Patton! He didn’t say against!”

Virgil’s eyes sparkle, the light through the window makes his dark hair shine and just looking at him Patton thinks he’s never once seen him so happy before, so delighted, so excited.

So full of hope.

The next thing he knows is that he’s sitting up and Virgil is wrapped around him in a hug so tight, so soft, so cool and wonderful that those pesky tears come right back to his eyes. Virgil hugs like he’s unafraid of anything for just this endless moment, like he’s never been unsure of physical touch before, like he’s done it a million times before and Patton shouldn’t feel his breath catch in his lungs lest he shatter this dream with an exhale.

He’s standing at the eye of the storm that is Virgil, and he’s never felt so safe before in his life.

“Thank you,” Virgil whispers, “I, uh, I’m sorry for the sudden hug--”

And then, of course, Remus’s music comes back with a vengeance that rattles the ceiling tiles overhead and makes Virgil hiss and break the hug. Patton thinks that he could forgive it, if it weren’t for the unmistakable sound Disney’s Mulan soundtrack also ringing in the air, like it was trying to be heard over the rap music. Dust sprinkles from the tiles overhead.

“I’m going to kill them both,” Virgil vows, but Patton is quicker. He lunges forward before he even knows what he’s doing and coils around Virgil as tightly as he can, and just hugs him, his best friend, the guy who’s always been there for him, and who deserved all the happiness that he could get.

“Pat?” Virgil says.

“If Logan doesn’t treat you right I’m going to make sure no one finds his body,” Patton says.

And Virgil’s laughter makes it sound like he doesn’t quite believe Patton, but that’s okay. Virgil is still looking for reasons to play a game if not to win, and Patton is still trying to find a game that makes him smile, and together they’re going to figure out how to get Virgil to win with Logan.

But for now the hug is good, and the company is nice, and they have the game Trouble packed away ready for the next time they want to play.

#sanders sides #board gaming #platonic moxiety #Analogical #Logan is the hottest side confirmed #Because everyone wants to date him #(Except Pat)#Me the author: what the fuck is hurt comfort #tw: cancer #I just like board games okay #maybe a little too much #I kNew YoU WeRe TrOuBlE WhEn YoU wAlKeD IN #virgil is a disaster gay #Patton really awesome #Hugs? Hugs.

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missorgana · 3 years

Text

can’t say anything to your face

pairing: bucky barnes/sam wilson

fandom: marvel cinematic universe

rating: teen and up

word count: 7779

warning: swearing, alcohol, brief mention of death

summary: Bucky loves Sam, and he tells him so, in his own way. (mostly canon compliant sambucky pining)

(my longest fic yet??? since TFATWS is still taking over my life, here’s some more sambucky fluff slash angst. they’re everything to me. this thing is a bit self-indulgent too, after the idea from this tweet! so all thanks to twitter user @/SAMBUCKY616 for this concept, even tho my danish is probably not the best interpretation jgdjd.... oh well! and thank you to Cat / @wendigostag as always, because you convinced me to write it and beta read and just..... ur perfect. mwah! hope you all enjoy this???)

read on ao3

A remnant that sticks with Bucky, still sticks with him after he’s rid of the Winter Soldier for good, is the language.

The only good thing, really. He could live without every one of the screams he hears in his dreams and lifeless bodies imprinted on his retinas, but that sticks on too, real tight. Being fluent in more languages than he imagined to be is bearable.

Not exactly bearable, though, not when many of them are tainted with those memories that he tries to distance himself to when he’s awake. He’s learning. It’s harder at night, when there’s darkness and stillness and no distractions from what creeps up on him every time.

French is hard. He knows every word to express the chaos in his head, but he can’t pronounce them. German, too. Russian, Spanish, Mandarin. He’s especially fond of Arabic, which is also particularly difficult for him to dig up from his brain, not because he doesn’t remember it, but because the screams in his head get too loud for him to think.

It’s a shame.

There’s one exception in his, quite frankly, extensively large vocabulary, and that’s Danish.

Bucky doesn’t know why this language in particular was something the Winter Soldier (he usually tries to think of him as a separate entity altogether, because, well, it hurts less) needed, given that, as far as his memory reaches, it was never used.

And this is why he finds himself drawn to it.

Of course, English is what he speaks on a day-to-day basis, and it feels… mostly normal. But somehow, Danish becomes a thing of comfort. Or safety, more likely.

He’s pretty sure his pronunciation sounds like absolute hell, the words sometimes more harsh than he intends, making him want to turn himself inside out in embarrassment. All these feelings, they’re difficult to describe.

Especially the ones relating to Sam Wilson.

Sam.

Sam, Sam, Sam. He’s the only other constant visitor in the back of his mind, and whether that’s a good or a bad thing, up for discussion. A welcome distraction or… something more painful.

Yeah, this feeling is a hard one. Maybe it’s because it’s more than two decades since he’s felt it, or maybe he knows, deep down, that he hasn't ever felt it at all.

Since they met, he’s sworn that he hated him. But he doesn’t. It’s so bleeding obvious he might as well get it tattooed on his forehead.

Annoying, positive, calm, vulnerable, perfect Sam. Perfect- ugh, yes, it’s the only word left for him to describe him. It makes sense, like a lightbulb flicked on in his head and since then it hasn’t stopped shining.

Bucky doesn’t really know how this happened. Why or when. Maybe it came to him in that final battle, finding himself living and breathing, and the very first person he saw, first of anything he put his eyes upon, was Sam.

Or maybe it already dawned upon him in Steve’s awfully cramped car, where Sam wouldn’t move his stupid seat up.

Regardless, along the way, his habit of mumbling to himself in the Danish tongue in frustration or anxiety has developed into a way of letting things he doesn’t want his… co-worker to hear flow through, and out into the wide world, without any worry.

If he says what he wants to yell at the top of his lungs, in a way Sam would understand, that could only be the last drop into the oblivion of hating the universe.

He won’t feel that way. Sam is so… good. Bucky isn’t. He deserves better than that.

It’s easier this way, he tells himself. It’s fucking easier. He has a hard time keeping his rage toward himself inside, but he does it.

And that’s exactly what he does, when their reunion in the airport has them at each other’s throats again , and as Sam goes on ahead, refusing for him to follow (of course, he does follow, anyway), and Bucky can’t help himself.

“Jeg skal være sikker på at du kommer tilbage.”

He utters the words through slightly gritted teeth, not realising how his breathing picks up too quickly until the other man glances back at him from the entrance of the aircraft, “What did you say?”

It’s the first time he’s not cursed at himself, and Sam’s response makes him jump in his skin. Honestly, the realisation of the words only settles afterwards, and he knows there’s no way he understood it. Not only is Danish one of the least widespread languages, so the chance of Sam even being aware of it is less than microscopical, but his voice is also in a steady fight with the wind. Lucky for once, huh.

“Nothing,” he lies. Sam doesn’t look convinced. Bucky adds, “Talking to myself. I’m still coming with you.”

The sounds are too loud around them, making him all the more eager to get inside. One of the many wonderful side effects of the aftermath of being brainwashed? Massive, stubborn headaches.

Funny enough, the pain might just be getting worse when the man in front of him visibly sighs, “Suit yourself.”

…

Going after the Flag Smashers, getting their asses handed to them, a certain thorn in his eye showing up, it all goes too quick for Bucky to fully comprehend.

In the end, Sam saves his life, because it’s Sam. Sam, who put his trust in him when he didn’t know him, when he had absolutely no reason to, and yet he did. He’s been spending a lot of time scared that the other man will come to regret it.

And it’s when they’re off the road and the world stops moving, and suddenly, Bucky’s looming inches above Sam’s face, grass grazing and tickling their faces. Or he’d probably feel that, if he wasn’t biting his cheek so hard that he might draw blood.

Sam groans but doesn’t move an inch.

I want to kiss you so fucking bad, Bucky wants to say. But that would be the stupidest and most reckless decision of his yet. Instead, he swallows the words and tells him, “Could’ve used that shield.”

Sam’s grip on his arms tightens, “Get off of me.”

The other man’s voice is strained and he pushes him off, leaving him to stare at the sky with a certain feeling of numbness.

He’s prepared for a long walk back from wherever they’ve ended up, too, Bucky’s not really paying attention to the surroundings besides the road and Sam relieving the tension that’s built up between them (far from uncommon with them, he’s got to admit) with his usual joking jabs.

He didn’t welcome his apology for Redwing much. It’s true, he hated that droid, but that doesn’t mean he’s not sorry… although, deeper inside of him he knows he’s saying sorry for totally different reasons.

I’m sorry you got hurt, is what. I’m sorry you had to pull me out of the fire that I got us into.

“What’s going on in that big cyborg brain of yours?”

Bucky sighs non committedly, he’s heard this one before. “It’s computing.”

And Sam laughs, softly and with a warm tinge that makes it hard for him to keep walking like he doesn’t care. The man next to him tries to be smug, and in the past these pokes at him would get him riled up and walk away without sparing it another thought.

It’s different now. He looks at his smirk for just a second before turning his head, and it’s fine, he won’t notice, stop worrying.

Sam doesn’t hate him, he’s realised. He realised that a while ago, admittedly, but what’s more important to the pressing in Bucky’s chest, Sam doesn’t fear him.

All this pain, hurt and confusion, the Avengers torn up from the inside and running from the government for years, and yet, there isn’t a hint of resentment in his steady voice, his deep brown eyes or the way he falls into step with his own body. Sam makes that joke because he’s a smug idiot who doesn’t let defeat bring him down. Maybe, he even makes that joke to get a smile out of Bucky.

The man at his side doesn’t hate him anymore. In fact, he’s not sure he’s ever hated him in the first place.

“You know what?” Sam says in between his breathy laughs, sounding like he just discovered a lost treasure, “I can see it! I can see the gears turning.”

If Bucky had it in him, he would dare to smile. He would dare to join his laughter, but he doesn’t. It’d probably come out sounding all wrong, anyway.

Which is why he keeps his shoulders tight and gets back on track with what happened, and Sam follows suit. Sometimes he’s convinced the other man can read his mind. And because their arms move in synchron, within a distance where he could so easily reach out for his hand and feel what it’s like to hold it, his thoughts start running along with his mouth.

“Hvorfor gav du slip?” Bucky keeps his eyes glued to his feet, determined to keep the question to himself only, “Hvis jeg var modig nok havde jeg kysset dig.”

Sam’s voice returns to him, “Hm?”

“What?”

His co-worker laughs again, but he furrows his brows and suddenly it’s not that exact warmth that Bucky might’ve just allowed himself to feel safe in. Like the man next to him sees something in him no one does, not even himself. He’d like to know whatever secret Sam’s unlocked about him behind that look.

“You’re so weird sometimes, man.” he’s told, but there isn’t a single shred of judgement painted on any of the syllables. Sometimes.

…

“What was rule number two again?”

It was a stupid question, because Bucky knows. Those rules have been repeated too many times for him not to repeat it to himself whenever he needed to silence everything around him.

Don’t do anything illegal. Don’t hurt anyone. I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James Bucky Barnes.

Then why, after a failed mission, after meeting that fraud who thinks he can just take on the shield like it’s nothing, after his therapist put him and Sam through a conversation that led nowhere at all, does he feel like he just broke that rule?

Of course, he’s been bending the rules a bit.

Of course, he knows why he’s feeling like this.

True to his word, Sam waits for him outside. “When we’re done, we both can go on seperate, long vacations, and never see each other again.”

The warmth that radiated off of the other man earlier that day had vanished somewhere unknown, and the pressure on that last part made it clear. That’s what fills Bucky with the type of guilt and regret that makes him want to rip his own skin off. He’s all too familiar with that feeling already.

He doesn’t blame Sam one bit, obviously. Well, he’d still like to grab that shield from John Walker and shove it somewhere the sun doesn’t shine, but the anger he’d misplaced on his co-worker, it vanished as fast as it had first arrived.

Sam is so fucking good, it almost makes him want to cry.

Sam trusted his heart, trusted what he believed was right, and he didn’t know the government was going to snatch that opportunity and hand the shield over to some nobody who doesn’t know what it stands for. Hand it over like they had any say in the matter.

Bucky didn’t doubt Steve’s decision for a second, and Bucky didn’t- doesn’t doubt Sam. Especially now, he looks at him in the evening glow and understands why Steve trusted him when he trusted no one else. Bucky trusts him. He hasn’t been this confident about anything in ages.

But because his stubbornness never fails to take a hold of him, Sam doesn’t know that.

The other man notices him coming and is already walking. He doesn’t look him in the eyes anymore. Why would he? It’s not like he earned it.

Bucky tries hard to breathe around the lump in his throat.

And he doesn’t even bother hiding his contempt around Walker anymore, while Sam keeps him tied to reality, a hand on his chest that causes everything in him to freeze, until the malfunction can’t make him do anything other than turn around and walk away.

Down to business, that’s what they fucking talked about.

Bucky has an idea and he’s gonna get it out and make it a reality, and, surprisingly enough, Sam agrees. We go deal with it.

It makes for another long walk. But now it’s long and painfully silent. Fan-fucking-tastic.

He steals glances at Sam too many times for it to be considered casual, or fleeting, and he memorizes his fingers tapping his thigh mid-walk, his jawline, every single eyelash that’s blinking hard, a habit of his when he’s stressed, Bucky’s noticed.

Their movements aren’t synchronised anymore. It’s sort of poetic.

He doesn’t realise he’s muttering it to himself, “Undskyld.” because he doesn’t have the courage to hear Sam’s answer, “Undskyld.” because he knows there’s no way the man next to him is going to forgive him, “Undskyld.” because he doesn’t deserve his forgiveness.

He’d overstepped the boundary. Whatever progress they’d made in this weird dynamic of theirs, whatever closeness became a tangible size, is wiped clean from the slate because he was pissed. But it had nothing to do with him. Steve had, but the shield doesn’t. Sam doesn’t need him to tell him that.

“That some sort of mantra?” is what breaks him out of his head.

Sam’s got an eyebrow raised, his hands absentmindedly reaching for something, phone most likely, given they have to move fast.

“What do you mean?”

So the other man slows down and tilts his head, “What you just whispered to yourself.”

Yeah, Bucky’s a horrendous liar. And he can’t feign ignorance around Sam. He can’t fake anything, his body language, his thoughts, his emotions. He wished they’d shut the fuck up for a minute.

He sniffs, shrugs, pondering on the easiest way to get out of this confrontation, if you can even call it that.

“No.”

“Didn’t sound like English.”

“‘Cause it isn’t.”

Sam looks terribly kissable right now. Not because of the streetlights or the faint noise of traffic buzzing around them, but because he’s standing under the moon, almost glowing. Bucky imagines his stupid, addictive smile, and how the moon doesn’t stand a chance compared to his beauty.

He wishes that he could lean over and the man wouldn’t push him away. He’s a tragic romantic.

His co-worker also has that expression on his face that tells him he’s too drained for snark, probably incredibly close to calling it a day. Actually, he expects him to speak, but five seconds pass, and his whole demeanor shifts, and then they’re walking again.

Once again, Sam seems to know him better than he knows himself. We go deal with it. Never see each other again. It sounds great, sounds perfect, sounds ideal, he tells his internal voice, because if he repeats it enough times he might just convince himself to believe it.

It’s not like the thought of Sam never looking at him, never speaking to him and never, ever, wanting anything to do with him again makes him want to scream until he’s got no air left in his lungs. That would be ridiculous.

…

Things happen, and at this point, Bucky just comes to accept it.

It’s almost become a bitter-tasting routine. Something bad happens, his plan backfires, something worse happens, it goes too fast for him to comprehend, so he’s been attempting for the last months to only focus on the moment.

The moment and the memories creeping in the shadows. They’re the hardest to keep at bay.

And at the moment, he’s seated on Sharon’s couch in her luxurious apartment in Madripoor, she’s telling them what to do, because their plan didn’t exactly work, Zemo’s wandering around like the cockroach he’d let out, and Sam’s taken his fucking shirt off.

So Bucky keeps his look square on his drink.

If he keeps his posture, trains his attention on Sharon’s voice, maybe he’ll avoid feeling so flustered.

He’s become pretty accustomed to faking it, admittedly. Not exactly a good thing to lie to his therapist, he’s well aware, but that’s a problem for when this is over. Dr. Raynor, she just… she couldn’t understand him.

That’s not her fucking job, he reminds himself. Her job is to help him move on with his life. Put the past behind him, get a fresh start. Talk about his feelings. “You have to talk about it,” she’d told him. “You can’t ignore your trauma. It’s dangerous.”

She’s right, but like he told her, he’s fine. Totally fine.

And that’s not what he’s struggling with right now, anyway. He hadn’t let Raynor in on anything about Sam apart from ignoring his messages, because these feelings of his are surely one-sided, and besides, Bucky doesn’t think he deserves it.

Being in love, he thinks it’s called. Or maybe he’s just not ready for it.

“Try to blend in.” Sharon’s voice calls in the distance. Her smile is incredibly smug for some reason.

It doesn’t faze him that Sam’s trying to get his attention, and that she leaves the room, until the other man’s sitting next to him (now fully dressed, both to his luck and disappointment), making it, like, 200 times harder to ignore him. And he’s examining him with those all-knowing eyes of his.

Sam can read people pretty easily. Or maybe it’s just Bucky. Or maybe he’s just too obvious, that anyone could read him like an open book.

“Bucky.” is what he says, and Bucky simply nods tightlipped, but apparently that doesn’t serve as sufficient acknowledgement for Sam, because he places a hand on his shoulder.

He feels sort of pathetic for not knowing how to breathe now. Such a simple touch. A friendly touch. A gesture. Yet he can’t think of anything else.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zemo’s watching them and opens his mouth, but the man next to him beats him to it with, “Didn’t you hear her? Go.”

The hard tone always sounds wrong in Sam’s whole being.

And the man looking at them accepts the defeat, surprisingly enough, seeping out of the room faster than Bucky could blink.

So, they’re alone. Cool. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, besides keep drinking. Keep drinking, don’t say anything stupid, don’t hurt him more than you already have.

When he finally chances a look at Sam, he seems… troubled.

He’s not sure if it’s his imagination playing tricks on him, or if he’s stupidly hopeful, but somehow, it feels like the other man’s got something on his mind. What that is, who knows.

The hand on his shoulder hasn’t left.

“Hey,” he starts, barely a sound, more a whisper, perhaps in fear that Bucky would startle and hide away, “I won’t force you to talk about it- or, well, anything.”

Did Sam just stutter? That was definitely his imagination. He’s just… he’s so… warm. Comforting. Beautiful. Bucky’s hand is getting clammy around the glass.

And when he looks at the man again, his big eyes are utterly sincere, so much so that Bucky would rip his heart out and hand it to him if he wished.

He’s not sure how well he’s doing with controlling his face, careful, not to offer any tells.

How would Sam react if he kissed him, right now? If he made a big, dumb love confession? He doesn’t even know how to describe his feelings to him, so it’d probably be clumsy. Messy. And his worst fear of all, that the man next to him would push him off in confusion, or embarrassment, or disgust.

Bucky can’t risk it.

Sam sighs, “I’m just worried about you.”

That makes him frown, and his co-worker looks back in bewilderment. He should stop doing that. Stop looking at him like he means something to him.

It’s the look that pushes the question out before he can think, “Why?”

Sam just seems tired. Not tired of your shit, but rather tired of you talking yourself down, kind of. That’s what he gets from his face, anyway.

“Come on, Buck.”

“I mean, aren’t we supposed to never see each other again?” he then asks, but it comes out more blunt, and sharper than he intended.

Sam retracts his hand. His shoulder aches to follow it.

“Mmhh.” is all the other man’s voice comes with. He folds his hands in his lap, stares at it for a while like it’s the most interesting thing on the planet. Why, oh God, why does he look like he just got his heart broken? “Yeah, I did say that.”

He’s only seen that expression on Sam a handful of times. Once, when Steve gave him the shield. Two, when his friend- Torres, that was his name, mentioned something about Afghanistan and Sam promptly jumped out of the open shaft without a warning. Three, when he’d pushed him off of him in the field. What does it mean now?

Bucky’s brain plays all his words over and over, but doesn’t know how to process them, or analyze them, or come to a natural conclusion. So he downs the last drop of whiskey, “Jeg har brug for dig.”

Geez, that was blunt. He guesses it's thanks to the stars he chose the right language to blurt that out, and Bucky proceeds to release the tight grip on his glass, about to get up and follow Sharon’s order, but Sam’s looking at him again, and as he established forever ago, that makes him weak in the knees. His entire body, actually, now that he thinks about it.

“Is that- that the same language?” Sam asks. Bucky’s awkwardly frozen mid-sitting, mid-standing, listening. “You know, you were talking to yourself. Outside the station.”

He’s right. He always is. So Bucky nods.

“It’s a saying.” and that only makes it the other man’s turn to frown, understandable. Not the most creative excuse, but now he’s gotta run with it, “Like ‘Don’t give up’, or whatever.”

He recognizes every look in Sam’s eyes, jotting them down in his memory in fear of forgetting the only person that makes him feel human. His co-worker is tying him to reality. Yep, another revelation, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

This is the I don’t believe you for a second look. “That’s what you said? ‘Don’t give up’?”

Bucky snorts, “Nope.”

And so they both stand up, and from the other man already steps ahead of him, it’s clear he’s ruined another conversation. Like Sam gave up on understanding him altogether, and it makes him feel sick, because he isn’t exactly making it easy for him.

Look at me, Bucky hopes. Just look at me again. Please.

And Sam does. “And here I thought we were beginning to get along.”

…

Sam’s sigh is all too heavy for Bucky not to notice.

He thought he’d distract himself from Zemo’s annoying presence and annoying private plane by polishing his hand, but suddenly, the man in the other row looks painfully hopeless.

Sam can’t be that. It’s all wrong. He’s supposed to be made of sunshine and full of hope. He makes Bucky have some sort of hope.

“You okay?” he finds himself asking. He’d even put a hand on his shoulder the same way the other man did back in Madripoor, but it feels a little too personal when he remembers the third person in the room.

By the way Sam jumps just half an inch in his seat, so subtle you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking closely, Bucky can only guess he’s surprised he’s the one initiating conversation, for once.

“Yeah,” he answers, but it doesn’t sound all that true. “Just thinking about all the shit Sharon had to go through.”

That’s the thing about Sam, because he cares, cares like he’s pouring out his heart on everyone and saves nothing for himself. He cared about Bucky after knowing him for a day. He had a hard time believing it, but it’s true. And it’s what he likes- loves… loves about the other man the most.

Sam continues, “And Nagel referring to the American test subject like… like Isaiah wasn’t even a real person.”

Bucky feels stupid for nodding along. He should be saying something, or he feels like he should be making up for weirding him out back in Sharon’s flat, or apologise for yelling at him in the shootout, or anything. Apologise for breaking out the douche who’s plane they’re currently in, most of all.

See, talking seems easy, but it’s not when the words are overthinked as deeply as he does himself. Maybe that’s why him and Sam are as they are. Or maybe it’s in spite of that.

When Sam talks, he means every word. His voice is hushed, and he’s leaning into Bucky’s space now (which may or may not make him panic) to make sure Zemo stays out of their business. Not that they both don’t know he’s not going to do that, obviously. Again- his fault.

“Maybe I should’ve destroyed it.” takes him by surprise, though.

In his mind, in his inner voice of logic that he never listens to, he instantly understands why Sam says it, and agrees. There’s a lot of people in this world Bucky’s wronged. There’s a lot of people he hasn’t, but he still longs to help, or somehow feels guilty for. He still wants to change things. Isaiah is on the top of the list.

Which list is Sam on top of?

He’d not thought about his feelings like that before, but it hits him like it hit him back in Madripoor. He’s the only one I have left is replaced with He’s the only one that makes me feel like this so easily. Lightheaded and aching for his company, his attention, whatever else Sam will spare him.

Instead of agreeing with him like his brain is telling him, though, his pride kicks in and circles back on The shield is yours, Sam. You fucking perfect asshole.

And Bucky’s not gonna take the shield, it’s bullshit. The other man knows it’s bullshit, and the look they share is a silent agreement that it’s bullshit.

Mysteriously, the cockroach owning the plane disappears to the bathroom, or whatever.

Maybe he’ll put his hand on Sam’s shoulder now. That would be meaningful. Would prove to the man that he cares, and he knows that Bucky cares about Isaiah, and the shield, and the mission, but he doesn’t fucking know that he cares about him.

But once again, his stomach drops and he keeps his hand to himself. Stupid.

It’s when the other man leaves his space and opts for leaning against the window that he has time to wonder about Sam fully, and why he hesitated back there. They shouldn’t see each other again, but he hesitated.

Does he regret saying it? No, that’s crazy.

It’s for the best, Bucky figures. He supposes he shouldn’t mourn the loss before it’s even happened, but it already seems like he’s reaching out in the darkness for Sam, who’s better than he’ll ever be, who deserves better than to drag him around like this, and it’s like he’s already gone.

Fuck, he really should talk with Dr. Raynor about that.

And the man he can’t stop looking at would probably have that concerned look on his face if he heard Bucky putting himself down like this again, out loud.

Sam wanted to talk to you that nagging voice tells him, for the millionth time. Why didn’t you let him?

He can’t figure out what he would’ve said if he could go back and change it. Stay completely silent? That would annoy Sam. Take that love confession by the horns? Sam would let him down in the nicest, most gentle way ever, he’s sure.

That wouldn’t hurt that much, but his chest always gets a little tighter when he lies like that. It would hurt endlessly more.

Bucky does come back to reality, eventually, when a door clicks shut and Zemo’s talking to his friend (servant? pilot? who gives a shit), and his co-worker's breathing has evened out.

It’s probably more than a little creepy to watch him sleeping. Hm. But peace rests over him and it, somehow, stretches its wings towards himself as well, regardless of Sam’s position with his neck and half laying on his arm that doesn’t look comfortable in any shape or form.

“Jeg ville følge dig til verdens ende,” Bucky says. It’s barely a whisper to himself, to shut up his head crying out loud of possibilities, because what if Sam wanted him to stay? What if in some miraculous alternative universe, he felt the same way? It’s a daydream, is what it is, “hvis du bare ville give mig lov.”

…

He clenches his fist, unclenches, clenches.

Sam seems worried. Bucky can’t see him, since he’s turned his back towards him and faces the window while gaining the feeling back in that vibranium arm of his, but it radiates off of him.

Maybe he does need the space his co-worker’s giving him. Or maybe he just needs a drink and a hug and a chance to sleep. Who knows?

He hasn’t hugged anyone since reuniting with Steve. Well, unless you count Sam saving him as a hug, which he doesn’t.

It’s when he turns around again that the other man is, first of all, a lot closer than he expected him to be, secondly, giving him a small, tense smile. But it doesn’t look uncomfortable, in fact, the effect is exactly the opposite, and Bucky can’t help but return it, gratefully.

He doesn’t think too much about this smile not being forced, like the ones he’s gotten used to doing in public. Sam doesn’t need to know that.

Bucky also is, for once, two steps ahead of his co-worker, answering the question he doesn’t have time to ask, “I’m fine.”

Not easily fooled, he knows the man watching him from the couch looks wary, but Sam’s probably too shocked by the fight and Zemo’s escape to argue. He himself knows he is, which doesn’t help his guilt. But what point is there in guilt anymore? It’s not like he can un-let him out of prison.

He sits down with reasonable space between them. Significantly further away from each other than back in Sharon’s flat, not close enough to touch.

Truth be told, Bucky’s still processing it. Zemo’s escape, he accepted that easily, and it’s probably the least surprising thing he’s experienced in a while. When Ayo removed his prosthetic, that was something else.

And his friend left without another word. What could she have said that made the case anymore clear, really?

They don’t trust him, and despite the overshadowing thought of No one trusts me, Nothing’s changed, Not even myself, it’s hard to blame Shuri, or T’Challa. They saved his mind, saved his life, and he’ll be in debt to them until his grave.

Bucky understands them, he does. He does. He wouldn’t trust himself.

But a little sliver of his stomach still wrings itself inside out of… betrayal? He doesn’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s sufficient for now. Of not being told. Of not knowing everything there was to know about this thing that was a part of his body now. Still feels partially alien, a separate entity altogether.

But there’s no anger to be found. Instead, he lets his attention fall upon Sam. As always, “Are you okay, though?”

The shorter man furrows his brows. Smile’s still intact. “Depends on your definition of okay.”

Of course, he makes another bloody joke, at a time like this. Bucky snorts, and his co-worker looks all too pleased to have it succeed.

Sam glances back, seems like he’s seriously considering the thought of a drink that Bucky’s too exhausted to fulfill, but apparently decides against it, “I didn’t know you were so sentimental, Buck.”

“Can you shut your face?”

Why does it feel exceptionally good to laugh when Sam laughs? Doesn’t surprise him, the feeling he supposes are metaphorical butterflies in his gut doesn’t, either.

The other man’s keeping his eyes in his lap again, picking at the skin around his fingernails and, for the first time ever in the time he’s known him, looks nervous. It’s strange, but so endearing, and he’s so, so pretty.

Funny, that word endearing, Sam’s strong arms could wrap around him as easily as they could take several people out if he wished, which- okay, don’t think about that right now. The imaginary sensation of the other man’s skin against his and Bucky’s face buried in the crook of his neck, that is.

He feels lighter. Sam always knows what’s needed after a shared experience like this. Does he know him too well?

What Bucky does know is that the other man stands up, and instead of heading towards the door, he passes him on the way to pick up their jackets. A hand on his shoulder again. Gracing it more than a steady grip, but still.

He doesn’t stay for long, but his fingers glide down his arm a bit. The touch is the softest thing possible, ghosting over him like Sam doesn’t want him to notice.

But he does. A shiver runs down his spine.

It’s so faint that it disappears as unexpectedly as it comes, and his co-worker’s already at the other side of the room when he finally gains the courage to raise his chin.

Sam’s attention is taken by his cellphone, so Bucky decides to speak, “I don’t blame you, ya know.”

A beat before he notices, snaps the phone shut, tightens the hold on his jacket just a smidge, “For what?”

“The shield.”

“I thought you did.” he replies, because yeah, that’s what he said literally minutes ago. He doesn’t look offended, though. Good.

When Bucky can’t find the sufficient words, he nods. Licks his lips. Then tries something, “I’m an asshole, I know.” and grimaces at himself, “I’m too stubborn. I’ve been listening- I listened to you. I put all this shit on you… I’m trying to apologise.”

The other man smiles again, not tense anymore. Not gripping the jacket like it’s lifeline anymore, either. He slips it on instead.

He just wants Sam to know, so badly, that he cares. This is a start. “Sorry. I can’t believe my apologies suck, too.”

The silence is calm, it’s maybe ten, fifteen seconds tops. Just enough time for his insides to freak out before the shorter man hands him his own jacket, and then offers him a hand to pull him up. Act cool. Act fucking cool, Bucky.

He also wishes he could cling to Sam forever, but that would be the direct opposite of cool.

“It doesn’t,” he tells him, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, pats his arm a couple of times to get the message across, he guesses, “Thank you. And thank you for having my back. You know, I think this communication thing could work, if we really tried.”

Stop being so ridiculous. Stop being so fucking dreamy. Seriously.

Bucky doesn’t roll his eyes, and if he looks lovestruck right now (he’s fairly sure he does), he’ll just have to feign ignorance later if the other man notices. This feels… yeah, you guessed it, good. Tingling in his chest a little. A lot.

He doesn’t even care that the man in front of him reaches for his phone when it rings, controlling his neutral tone of voice when he says, “Tak fordi du stolede på mig.”

Bucky’s fairly certain the words go unnoticed when he puts on his jacket, but of course, Sam covers the microphone and reaches him with a promise, “One day I’ll figure out what it is you’re whispering to yourself about.”

…

On the water, the 2am darkness enveloping him and reminding him just how alone he is, Bucky has time to think.

Mere days ago, the government’s very own Captain America murdered one of the members of the Flag Smashers, and in an eerie and familiar haze, all he and Sam could do was watch. So did Karli. So did numerous regular citizens with mobile phones.

And before Bucky could break and chase Walker down (because let’s face it, a government putting him in the suit? Bucky doesn’t trust those superiors for a second), his co-worker’s got a hold on his wrist and tells him he needs to go check on his sister.

When he follows along, Sam doesn’t complain.

Maybe, possibly, the other man even invited him. It’s not like he’s got anywhere else to be, and it seemed like, for once, Sam didn’t know what to do. A timeout is necessary, he said.

That’s an understatement.

Bucky just hopes that Karli and the rest of the Flag Smashers did the same and got the hell out of there. The shorter man’s got her number, so he suspects he told her so himself.

And Zemo? How the fuck is he supposed to know? The world’s gone to absolute shit, and they’re stuck in the middle in some kind of limbo.

Add Bucky’s unresolved feelings for his co-work- friend? Friend.

Surprisingly enough, Sam’s sister didn’t seem particularly surprised that her brother brought someone along.

Sarah’s a heaven sent. She smiled brightly and hugged him with one arm like they’ve known each other for years, juggling things out of crates on the harbour like it’s nothing. Witty, albeit a tad more serious than Sam, and she doesn’t take his shit for a second.

Her sons were more overwhelming, but Bucky’s not used to being around children, mind you.

They ran to him in excitement, speaking over each other, and he took a step back, because those creeping memories of the soldier and the fear of hurting someone again is rooted too deep to disappear.

Sam patted his back, though. It’s fine. You’re fine.

The boys also couldn’t take their eyes off his left arm and convinced him to lift them both when they bet he couldn’t. They surely know how to drive a bargain.

It’s funny, how much they liked that thing. Makes him think he could get used to the extension himself, eventually.

Sam’s family is so… normal. They’re warm and excited and hard-working and hilarious. He likes the way the other man looks around here, even more bright than usual, domestic and bantering with his sister for a living. They remind him of his own family. He won’t think about that.

But it’s the third night he spends in their home, after another one of the best dinners he’s ever had in his long life, amusing the boys with superhero stories until they’re exhausted and sent to bed, that Bucky wakes up in a cold sweat on the couch.

There you are, nightmares. It’s been a while.

It’s not surprising, of course, but he’s been avoiding sleep until the point of passing out, lately.

And Bucky didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want to rummage around in the kitchen he’s been too kindly invited to for alcohol, which they most likely didn’t have lying around anyways, as well as risk waking any of the family sleeping blissfully unaware.

But he also couldn’t stay, he was itching to move.

So, here he is. He found his way back to the harbour, and Sam’s family boat, not even dressed in more than his t-shirt, banged up jeans and boots, but the cold is a welcome distraction.

Would be good if he had a bottle of whiskey too, but whatever.

It’s times like this he’d rage inward on himself. Curse his head, curse his feelings. Curse his fucking decisions and stubbornness. Curse Walker and Zemo and Hydra. Curse the shield and curse Steve.

Yeah, it’s too much. He really should let Dr. Raynor in on this, if he gets a chance to go back to his regular sessions, that is.

The staggering quiet almost invites him to yell some of that rage out loud. Until, “Thought you might be here.”

Bucky would’ve sprung up and grabbed whatever could be used as a weapon nearest, if he didn’t immediately notice the tenderness in Sam’s voice, noticeably hoarse. He doesn’t know what to answer, but the other man sits down across from him, looking exceptionally soft.

You’re a goner, Bucky Barnes.

The silence between them is nowhere near awkward, but he feels like breaking it regardless. “Sorry I woke you.”

Sam huffs, and he imagines he’s rolling his eyes, “You didn’t.”

Hm. He scratches his neck and his chin. The cold is suddenly becoming a problem, so he wraps his arms loosely around himself. The other man’s doing the same, despite wearing a sweater.

“Nightmare?” he asks, eventually. Bucky nods.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

Is this the end of the conversation? God, he has no idea how to continue, anyways.

He’d ask about it. Ask Sam what he’s seeing behind his eyelids at night, and if it invokes the exact same kind of pain he feels himself. Ask him about the Air Force and how his world changed and came crashing down. Ask him about Riley, who he only knows by name and a single photo.

Bucky can’t get the words over his tongue. Instead, he just wonders why he’s here in the first place, why Sam’s still sticking around with him and why he was allowed into his life.

Well, he followed him first. But he doesn’t feel like he deserves the peace he’s been given the last few days, or Sam’s nephews looking at him with wide eyes and zero judgement. Sam looking at him with zero judgement. Fuck.

He clears his throat, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

He’s adjusted his eyes to the darkness now, and there goes the shorter man looking at him, not intensely but just… looking, the way that makes Bucky’s stomach jump in loops and urge him to stand up and kiss him already.

Sam shakes his head, smile timid but sure, “Another time. I’ll let you know.”

Oh boy, does he know that feeling. They’ll talk about it, eventually. He’s not ready himself, but one day he will be. He hopes so. “Me too.”

The boat’s swaying subtly, a sliver of moonlight is touching Sam’s hand on the railing and Bucky thinks he might fall into an non-existent black hole.

On the contrary, the other man is slightly shivering from the ocean wind. He shouldn’t think about what it’s like to hold him. They’re friends now. Friends. Friends.

Still doesn’t stop him from sealing the deal to himself, “Jeg elsker dig.”

Like he hasn’t known all this time. Since that day they reunited, since before. Bucky’s painfully in love with someone he’ll never have the courage to tell, openly and upfront, anyways. Maybe he’ll get over it.

It does take him a few minutes before he notices Sam’s soft smile, worn like his heart on his sleeve, second nature and drawing everyone in with ease, turning into a shirt-eating grin.

Weird. Whatever. Wait-

“Really?” he asks him.

Oh my God. Oh no. Oh fuck.

Bucky’s eyes must widen to the size of fucking teacups. He’s never been this eager to get up and move out of a situation before till now, “Sorry?”

Sam notices his unease before he even finds it himself, “Bucky.”

“Oh my God.”

“Bucky-”

“I have to go.”

Doesn’t get very far. Five inches maybe, before the shorter man stops him in motion. Bucky could easily shake his hand off, but he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. Sam gets under his skin every time.

His thumb caresses his wrist, “I want you to stay. Can you stay?”

Fucking fuck. Bucky gulps the embarrassment down and relaxes his stiff shoulders. Or tries to, at least. His ears are ringing.

“Will you look at me?” Sam then asks, and how could he refuse anything from that man?

Takes some courage, of course, but he has to. Take the rejection already. Come on. But when he turns around his friend doesn’t seem disgusted, or disappointed, like he fully expected him to.

“Stop looking at me like that.” he finds himself saying, before he can shut his stupid mouth up. And Sam looks absolutely desperate, “Like what?”

“Like I mean something to you.”

Kiss me. I wish you would kiss me. Sam’s perfectly formed lips are still in a smile, not small, not a grin. But just right. And then a hand is touching Bucky’s cheek.

“That’s the thing, you idiot.” the shorter man tells him, “I can’t exactly stop it. But if you want me to-”

“Have you known all along?” he interrupts with. Feels like laughing at himself. God, that would be beyond ridiculous, wouldn’t it? Saying everything on his mind, not knowing his friend heard every word of it. Secret’s out.

There’s another hand finding its way to his face, “I didn’t. Google helped me- uh, after Madripoor. Took me a few tries with the spelling before it gave me a clue. And, well…”

“My pronunciation is pretty sloppy.” Bucky’s circling around what’s happening. Why is he doing this? Because it’s too good to be true, probably. Please don’t be a dream.

Embarrassing, then… then the warmth against his cheeks. Then the impossibly soft and meaningful eyes not escaping Bucky’s for anything. Then his heart beating too fast, like it’s going to crawl up his throat and escape his vessel.

Sam shakes his head with a laugh. Heartily, caring, “Do you mean what you said? You love me?” to which Bucky laughs himself.

“Yeah,” he feels weak in the vocal chords, but gets it out, because he has to, “‘Course I fucking do. Is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay.”

And there, on Sam’s family boat in the middle of the night, wind rushing behind his ears and his breathing too loud like everything isn’t quite real, Bucky smiles like his life depends on it. Because the man in front of him deserves to know. He needs him to know. And fuck the world. “Will you kiss me now?”

Sam’s smile is so fucking pretty, it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. He looks at him like he’s special, and he feels it. Feels everything deeper and deeper, “I thought you’d never ask.”

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official-weasley · 3 years

Text

The Irreplaceable Charlie Weasley: Pt. 7, Ch. 7

PART 7: THE YEAR OF HIDING AND PASSION Chapter 7 - This Isn't Goodbye

Nova

I didn't know what was harder to believe the fact that it was Charlie and I's one-year anniversary or that we have less than two months left of our last year at Hogwarts.

I was studying in the Great Hall with Tonks, who was with me most of the time for the past month. Penny seemed to be doing nothing but crying over the fact how much she will miss all of us and she was driving Tonks insane. I tried not to think about it as much as possible as I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye to living here at school.

McGonagall was getting less strict on me in our last few Advanced Transfiguration sessions. If I didn't know any better I would say she was getting sentimental. It will already be hard to leave this place without the teachers missing us too.

Tulip was getting rather impatient and seemed as she couldn't get out of here fast enough. She and Jae have been fighting more than being all over each other lately and she didn't look like she is going to miss Hogwarts at all.

I have been keeping myself as busy as possible and just tried to enjoy the last two months as much as I could. I found myself strolling around the school on my own a lot. It was like I was saying goodbye to every part of Hogwarts. I even fell into a deep conversation with the Fat Lady, the portrait that is guarding the Gryffindor Common Room, one day when I was waiting for Charlie. She was a bit tipsy but I got a lot of gossip about other portraits from her.

Because Tonks was with me most of the time, Andre had to take on the Penny duty. He seemed exhausted most days as he tried balancing studying and making sure Penny had enough handkerchiefs to wipe her nose in. He never complained or seemed annoyed about it and I am sure Penny appreciated it as much as we did.

Barnaby tried talking to Tonks a few times and she only gave in once. She said that he looked dashing that day and that since everybody's whining about the end of the year might as well have a proper goodbye. Their relationship always was so peculiar to me but I knew Tonks well enough that I knew it suited her so I fully supported it.

Charlie and I, on the other hand, have been great. Nothing really changed except the fact that we tried hiding our excitement, that we are soon going to work together, from our friends. We knew that Penny would be mad that we were so hyped about our job and not all miserable about leaving school.

Lately, it's all we could talk about. Charlie told me about everyone he has met and told me how they are, personality-wise and I couldn't wait to meet everyone. We made speculations about where I would be working and how they were planning to introduce Dragons to other creatures. Like we did for the Creatures Reserve, we also made a list of all creatures we think I will work with. It was all in good fun because I know I will love my job no matter what animals they assign to me.

In my free time, I tried to best prepare myself for the job. I knew I would have a whole month after N.E.W.T.s to get everything ready but I wanted to get there with a strategy. I tried putting myself in different scenarios with various creatures and Dragons, thinking about what they have in common and what they don't, about what the best approach to make them like each other would be. I got goosebumps just thinking about it, that's how excited I was!

—

“Tonks, could you tell me how to properly cut a Mimbulus Mimbletonia again. I can't seem to get this plant straight.” I sighed as I tried to quiz myself on some of the toughest questions and I couldn't seem to get this one right.

“Always do it without a spell and cut straight down, near the main stem.” She answered without even thinking about it. I nodded and closed my eyes, trying to imprint the answer in my brain. It was the simplest thing to remember.

“I think I finally understand this charm!” Tonks exclaimed, rolling her eyes. One good thing about Tonks wanting to spend time with me was that I could keep an eye on her. It was our N.E.W.T.s year and she has been notorious for running away during exams and even though she already had a job secured, she still had to do very well on her examination.

“I told you you'll get it. Just keep practicing.” I encouraged her and repeated her answer in my head for Mimbulus Mimbletonia just to make sure I still got it.

“Hi, Nova.” I turned around and saw Murphy getting closer to our table. It was one of the occasions that I didn't flinch or stiffen when he showed up. Ever since Charlie snapped and we talked about it I have felt more relaxed saying hello to him in the corridors or the Great Hall.

“Hi, Murphy. How are you?” I put my notes down. Tonks looking at us with interest.

“I am great! I know we haven't talked much lately but something happened that I just have to share with you.” He was beaming and shaking in his chair from excitement.

“Do tell!” I turned around completely now, eager to hear his news.

“You are looking at the new commentator for the Holyhead Harpies!” He tried to keep his voice at a normal volume but I couldn't blame him that he failed. He told me that that was his dream job when we were hanging out in our Fifth Year.

“Murphy, that is amazing!” I jumped to my feet and leaned down to hug him. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you! I just got the letter this morning and I just had to share it with you.” He grinned, moving back and forth.

“I'm glad you did.” I smiled. “You deserve it!”

“Will be able to cheer for Bonnie now!” He said proudly. Boonie was the Hufflepuff Keeper Murphy was dating for quite some time now.

“I heard she is going to play for them!” I exclaimed. His cheeks turned pink and I knew he was proud of her.

“Well done for both of you, Murph.” My smile grew bigger. I was genuinely happy that things turned out so great for him. “You and Bonnie look great together.” I didn't know what made me say that but I just felt the need to do so.

“Likewise, Nova, likewise.” He stretched out his hand to me and I shook it. I knew that this was probably one of the last conversations we would ever have and with all that happened between us, I was happy to say goodbye.

A moment later, Charlie sat down next to me and kissed my cheek. Tonks was observing him carefully, knowing full well he saw me talk to Murphy. She wanted to see how he will react but he seemed pretty unphased about it.

“Did you know Bonnie's going to play Quidditch professionally!” He finally looked at me. “She deserves it, really talented.” He added.

“Yeah, she is!” I looked at Tonks not knowing what else to say. “Murphy got the commentator job for the Harpies.” Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut.

“No way! That's awesome!” He sounded sincere. He leaned to me and whispered. “I'm glad you got to say goodbye.”

“Me too.” I admitted. My heartbeat returned to normal when I saw that he really got over the whole Murphy thing and I was proud of him for that.

“So, what are you two lovebirds going to do today on your anniversary?” Tonks changed the subject.

“How do you know?” I asked, surprised.

“Penny told me this morning. It was the only thing that made her smile before she returned to her sobbing.” Tonks rolled her eyes.

“I would tell you Tonks, but Nova doesn't know what I'm up to.” Charlie winked at me. He has been planning something for a week now and as much as I liked surprises I couldn't wait to see what he came up with.

“She'll tell me tomorrow anyway.” Tonks swung her hand, indicating she was okay with not knowing.

“I'll leave you two to study. Got to go check up on Jae.” He turned to me and kissed me.

“How is he, by the way?” Tonks asked. “Tulip doesn't want to talk about him to us at all.”

“Not going to lie, it doesn't look good.” Charlie shook his head.

“Are you serious?” I asked bewildered. I knew they were fighting a lot lately, but I didn't think it was that bad.

“Yeah, I guess the realization of the long-distance is kicking in.” My stomach turned at Charlie's words when I remembered that we could've been in the same position if I didn't get the job in Romania.

“Anyways, got to go. Don't know how long he'll keep me and I have to get to my team later.” He sighed. “Last game of the season next week.”

“Are you going to miss them, Charlie?” Tonks asked.

“Yeah.” Charlie nodded. “This year's team was brilliant.” Even though they lost their first game against Slytherins, they did amazing against Hufflepuff and were 100 points ahead of Ravenclaw so I was confident they are going to win the Cup one more time before Charlie leaves.

“Have you decided who to appoint Captain for next year?” I put my hand on his shoulder. He was debating between Angelina and Oliver for weeks now.

“Wood. I think he'll do great.” He grinned, confident in his decision.

“See you at 8.” He pressed his lips to mine again. “Don't forget, the Seventh Floor.” He reminded me and started towards the exit of the Hall.

—

I tried my best not to be late for our date but I simply couldn't decide what to wear. If Andre wasn't so preoccupied with Penny I would've gone to him for advice. I decided to go with something casual rather than anything else because I wasn't sure what Charlie had planned and he didn't say anything about having to be in certain attire.

I hurried from the Ravenclaw Tower to the Seventh Floor where Charlie was already waiting for me, not at all bothered that I was late.

“Couldn't decide what to wear?” He laughed a little. I nodded. “I like your choice. You look beautiful.” He leaned to me and kissed me. After a year of dating, I still blushed every time he complimented me.

“Are you ready for the surprise?” He grinned. I nodded again and turned my head to the door. He made me close my eyes and I could hear him opening it.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now.” He whispered in my ear as he stopped pushing me forward. I did so and gasped.

The room was much bigger than on our other dates. Everything was still wooden but somehow looked more modern. There was a big fireplace on the right and there was a sofa in front of it. There was a small kitchen in the far right corner and something already smelled nice and on the left side, there was a dining table, with flowers on them.

“Char, this is...” I couldn't find the words for it. If I ever imagined us living together, it would be in a place like this.

“You like it?” He chuckled and took my jacket off.

“Like it? Can we live here!” I exclaimed and he laughed.

“Soon.” He smiled at me, making me shake my head.

“What do you mean?” I started looking around. It was so cozy and so homey that I never wanted to leave.

“I did my best to recreate the cottage I am staying at in Romania.” I gasped. I couldn't believe it was this beautiful. “Of course, you can see it's missing a bed,” he giggled, “but that's usually on the second floor and I think we managed more without one.” He winked and fluttered the butterflies in my stomach.

“This is similar to your place in Romania?” I was still in awe at how beautiful it was. He nodded. “How do you ever leave?” He laughed at my question.

“I wouldn't, if it wasn't for you, love.” He pulled me into a tight embrace and I couldn't help but pretend we were already there. If I was excited before he showed me this, then I don't know what I was feeling now.

“Want some dinner? I cooked myself.” He pulled me towards the kitchen.

“You cooked?” I raised an eyebrow. We did help Molly every Summer but he has never shown any interest that he would like to attempt anything in the kitchen on his own.

“I asked Penny for some recipes. I hope you like spaghetti.” My eyes sparkled. I wanted to marry him on the spot.

The dish was delicious and I teased him that he was going to do all the cooking in Romania. We reminisced on the Ball and our first date and just talked about how good we are together. We decided to get comfier, so we moved our conversation to the sofa.

I loved how we could be a couple and best friends at the same time. I loved how much we could make each other laugh without even trying and how much fun we were having together. I couldn't believe that we were going to work together and not only do what we love but also have each other.

“So what do you want to do now?” Charlie asked softly as it was getting pretty late. We haven't spent a night with each other since the Burrow when Bill was covering for us and I think it was about time we did so.

“Make love to me, Charlie.” My gentle voice made his eyes widen and I loved how those words always made him blush. He got closer to me and pressed his lips to mine and when I closed my eyes, I saw my whole future with him.

—

“I can't believe we are doing this.” Penny sobbed, holding my hand.

“Get over it, Haywood.” Tonks rolled her eyes, her arm locked with mine on my other side. “Why don't you become a professor here, if you're going to miss this place so much?”

“I am not going to miss the school as much as I am going to miss you!” Penny frowned at her and I heard Tulip sigh next to her.

“We are all going to miss each other.” I tried calming them down.

We only had a few more days at school before we would take the Hogwarts Express one last time. We were walking through the corridors, saying goodbye to every professor we've met along the way and to anyone we knew that passed us.

Gryffindor won the House Cup and I knew Charlie was going to have an easier time leaving now. He made Wood Captain and the kid was so excited that he stumbled over his broom and fell flat on his nose almost making them late for their last match. Fred and George told me that Charlie gave his famous speech for the last time and that they let him do it without interruptions.

We were done with our N.E.W.T.s and even though the results didn't matter to me at all, I was still proud of how good I did, despite thinking I was going to fail at the beginning of the year. Tulip only cared for doing well in Astronomy and we all knew Penny did an amazing job even though she did more crying than studying in May.

Tonks surprised us one last time. She was a nervous wreck but she pulled through. Penny brewed her a couple of Calming Draughts and we kept telling her to imagine herself being an Auror and apparently, that did the trick. The information of what she wanted to become would come in very handy in our first couple of years.

“We did have fun, didn't we?” I said, tightening my grip on both Tonks and Penny. We owed everything to the school and our professors. All our friendships, all our relationships and accomplishments, and definitely the fact that we are all able to follow our dreams.

“Oh, I will miss you so much!” Penny stopped in the Courtyard and pulled us all in a hug. We hugged her back as I couldn't help but get emotional as well.

“Miss Blackwood, my I have a word?” I lifted my head and saw McGonagall standing near the fountain. I asked the girls to wait for me by the Lake and walked to her. She was last on my list to say goodbye to as Charlie and I already went to Kettleburn, spent an evening with Hagrid and I said goodbye to Flitwick yesterday.

“Yes, Professor.” I said as I got closer.

“I usually don't do this but I wanted to say goodbye.” I could swear I heard her voice shake. “It's been a pleasure, Professor.” I pressed my lips together to try and keep my chin from shaking. She did so much for me and she taught me more than anyone else in this school. “Thank you for believing in me and thank you for everything.” I wanted to hug her but I knew that would be crossing the line.

“Miss Blackwood, you have been one of the most talented students I had in years.” She bestowed me with one of her rare smiles. “If you ever need anything, anything at all...I am only one owl away.”

“Thank you, Professor. I appreciate it.” I can't deny that she has been a sort of a mother figure to me here at school.

“Run along now, before we get too emotional.” She sniffed and waved her hand at me. I smiled, trying hard to hold in the tears, and made my way towards the Lake.

Jae, Andre, and Charlie joined me, Tulip, Penny, and Tonks for one last hang out under our favorite tree. So much has happened at this spot. We hung out, we had so many fun moments, Penny and I fought, and Charlie and I fought. It was the place where Charlie and I first kissed and got into our biggest fight over Murphy a few months ago. But that was all behind us now as we started to tease Tonks about how many times she ran away from us over the years because of the exams.

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