#because god so many ff titles get ignored

[cafeinthemoon]

Unexpected Changes - Part I

Chapter 1/2

Wordcount 3,4k

Title Part I

Fandom Shuumatsu no Valkyrie / Record of Ragnarok

Pairing Hades X reader

Symbols ✔ . ➕ . 💛

Warnings: none, just comedy and family fluff!

Tagging: ? (If you want to be tagged in any of my stories, just leave a comment here or send an ask or a message)

N. A.: So as I don't post the 11th chapter of my other story with Hades, Ruins, enjoy this little drama/comedy starring reader as an established goddess, queen and wife and her ever loving husband Hades <3 This was a quick idea I had a few days ago and decided to write down as a way to rest, because the last weeks have been tough, ugh.

I'm sorry for not choosing a better title, but I hope it doesn't kill interest in this little ff XD

It’s been at least forty minutes and you were trying to ignore the growing sensation of burn in your eyes, focusing your gaze on the frail figure of Zeus sitting on his chair many floors below you. From there, you were still able to hear his voice, but each minute that passed this task became harder: your brother-in-law’s voice was now showing the first signs of tiredness, and you were fighting the urge to zone out.

You were sleepy. It’s not that you haven’t had a good night of rest before attending to your first divine council since you were received as a deity, but the necessary preparations and the anxiety that would obviously come with them were taking their toll, and now you realized how much mental work you’ve been doing since the day you’ve got the invitation by Hermes’ hands.

Until that moment, you thought you were succeeding in disguising your discomfort, and perhaps you managed to hide it from the ones sitting around you, but there were certain eyes you knew could never deceive – the ones of the King of the Underworld and your husband, Hades.

The silence around you was tangible and the attentions of everyone were for Zeus, but you could feel Hades’ look on you. With a shy glance to your left, where he was sitting, you confirmed the direction of his thoughts.

You gave him a brief smile and was going to turn your attention back to the speaker, but leaned to you and whispered something in your ear, which you couldn’t ignore.

– Is there something wrong, dear y/n?

You took one moment to understand what he was saying, and then another one to formulate a reply.

– No, I’m just a bit tired – and, forcing yourself to widen your smile, – But thank you for asking, Hades-sama.

His response was to approach his hand and caress your face for a second, then brush your hair behind your ear. You still referred to him as your master when you were in public, even when the necessity for this already disappeared: you were now a member of the divine race, and the majority of the gods there paid their respects right in your wedding’s day, recognizing you as one of them and the Queen of the Underworld; but old habits die hard, and in your heart, you were still the young maiden who married a god older than your world. Hades never tried to correct you in this sense, maybe waiting for you to get used to your position after some time, but today he seemed to find grace in this, always reacting with contentment whenever you used that treatment.

There was silence for the next few minutes, since your husband accepted your answer, but it wouldn’t take long until a sudden, loud yawn escape your mouth and catch the attention of the people closer to you, for your embarrassment.

While you tried to cover your mouth, a chuckle was heard beside you. You looked at Hades to inquire him, but he was faster: standing up from his seat, he offered his hand.

– Come with me.

– To where? – you asked as you put your hand over his.

– To a calmer place.

You stood up from your spot, avoiding the curious looks of your pairs, and soon the council was left behind.

***

It was Poseidon who found you.

He was walking down that lonely corridor, taking time to observe the landscape through the clouds, a part of his brother’s domain that he hasn’t seen since the last council: the greenish territory filled with exotic trees and what looked like colorful dots from that height, but would be easily identified as flowers at a smaller distance. You yourself appreciated this view from that same porch before Hades took you to a less visible spot at the end of the corridor, but still under people’s reach.

At that moment, the King of the Seas was the only observer.

When he approached the couch where his brother was, the scene he found was absurd, to say the least: Hades had you sleeping on his lap, wrapped in his coat, with his arms around you while you rested your head on his shoulder. You were snoring softly and didn’t even sense your brother-in-law’s arrival.

Anyone who’d see you like this would only shrug and move on; the King of the Underworld had the right to spoil his wife as he pleased, after all, especially when that was her first time attending a council, and every god knew how tiring this could be. Unfortunately, the person who found you was Poseidon, who had a more critical view on such small eccentricities: what he saw there was nothing but his indulgent brother holding a big child.

The first words said between them were his, and they were exactly like expected:

– What’s the meaning of this?

Hades' response was to raise his eyes to him and show a discreet smile.

– The trip from Hellheim to Heaven is long and tiring, brother. Even you admit that. This is her first time doing it for something that’s not a visit or a party – and, with some diversion in his tone, – Show some consideration.

Poseidon twisted his lips.

– It’s been at least two hundred years since y/n became one of us, elder brother. She must be strong enough to stand the travel by now. Isn't it why you waited so long to bring her to a council?

– Yes, that’s the main reason. Still, don’t you think it’d be cruel to not give her the necessary support? – your husband sighed, caressing your hair as he spoke – You know, I still remember when you attended this type of meeting for the first time. It was very stressful, and you told me that many times in the days after.

The other man crossed his arms, giving no verbal response to this. Hades didn’t show the slightest sign of irritation: knowing his little brother as he did, he knew he still had a long way learning the difference between taking care of a beloved one and spoiling them. Besides, he never approved this habit of his elder brother to recall his past experiences to try and evoke compassion from him: it was so unworthy of a god that he couldn’t take it seriously, so he would prefer not to say anything.

– But what can I do about it? – Hades laughed at his brother’s annoyed expression – Just wait a bit until you decide to find a significant other, Poseidon. It's for your own good, and theirs.

Poseidon would have rolled his eyes if that was a common gesture of his, but he just limited himself to give the other a blunt reply.

– I didn’t travel here just for you to lecture me, Hades. Besides... – he stared at you in a strange manner – This is not the first time I see her in such deep sleep. Are you sure everything is okay with her?

Hades raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject.

– What do you mean?

Poseidon turned to the clouds, leaning one hand on the parapet while the other was hidden behind his back.

– It's been a few days since you two came to visit me at the seas, but even then, it didn’t go unnoticed by me that y/n has been feeling often tired even when she didn’t do hard work. As far as I remember, it hasn’t always been like this – he glanced at your sleeping figure and lowered his tone, as to enter a subject about which he wasn’t sure to have the right to discuss – Not only this, but she has shown such appetite that differs from what we’ve seen from her since her transformation. Don’t you think it’s strange? It’s like she’s unconsciously trying to restock her body’s energy… from something that might be stealing it.

The smile hanging on Hades’ lips since the beginning of the conversation disappeared when he heard that. There was something... wrong with you? Well, he had to be honest and admit that you’ve been showing some strange symptoms beside the uncommon sleep and hunger lately: you’ve been more sensitive to physical contact, to some textures, smells and tastes, and have been avoiding long walks and other forms of physical effort.

However, your aspect was far from bad. Instead, you’ve became more beautiful these last days: your eyes gained more vivacity; your skin had its tone renewed, especially on your face, where it was now showing a sort of glow; your hair was thicker, though you haven’t tried any new treatment lately; also, the curves of your body were accentuated, something visible even when you wore floating dresses.

Surely, that didn’t look like the case of someone whose vital energy has been sucked. Did Poseidon understand what he was suggesting?

– Something that’s stealing her energy? – Hades glanced at you, then back at his brother – Are you suggesting that she might have been... cursed?

It wasn’t surprising that this was his first thought: gods didn’t get sick as the humans did, so the most effective way to cause dysfunction in their divine bodies without getting into a physical fight or making them use all their power was cursing them.

– It’s hard to believe that someone would have the audacity to do this to the Queen of Hellheim – Poseidon stated in a calm tone – But we cannot discard the possibility so soon. You know that not all gods have good relations with Greece. And, I have to say that, not everyone here has a positive view on Psyche’s ritual. You know what it means, brother.

Yes, Hades knew it. A human turning into a god is never a simple case. Psyche herself and Heracles were the most famous in this category, and the challenges and adversities in their way were well known by each god of each pantheon. When he proposed the wedding and the ritual, Hades was aware that a similar fate would be waiting for you, and he warned you about it. For love, you said yes to him despite that, but your willingness wasn’t enough to calm down his worries, so he took measures to protect you in every way he could. As time passed, the possibility of some evil force touching you became more and more improbable, but it never left his mind completely.

So, when Poseidon brought it back, he was ready to act.

He woke you up whispering your name. Once you were back, you straightened up and rubbed your eyes...

And startled when you saw you were not alone.

– P-Poseidon-sama! I’m... – you tried to fix your hair, avoiding his glare as you spoke – I’m so sorry for this scene...

– Don’t worry about this, y/n – was his composed reply – I'll be leaving soon. I think my brother has some matters to discuss with you now.

You turned to Hades and the slight sign of preoccupation you saw in his eyes made you shiver: with Hades being the most confident person you’ve ever known, it was rare to see it in him, and unsettling precisely because of it.

– My brother and I were talking and he said something that made me think of you – Hades explained before you said anything – That’s all.

When you seemed to calm down, Poseidon excused himself, stating that his presence in the council would be soon required. It only took one moment and you no longer heard his steps on the corridor, as his silhouette disappeared in the nearest corner.

Once you were sure you were alone, you turned to your husband and touched his face, making him look at you.

– Hades, my dear – you whispered – I can see you’re worried. What were you talking about? What did he say that put you in this state?

Hades took your hand in his and kissed its palm.

– He just pointed out some things I myself noticed these days concerning you, little one, but refused to acknowledge.

– Concerning me? How so?

He put your hand upon his shoulder.

– You’ve been acting… weird these days, y/n. You’ve been experiencing changes in your sleeping and eating habits, as well as frequent episodes of tiredness. When we visited Poseidon in his palace, he noticed this too, but only brought it to my attention now. But this is not everything.

– What do you mean?

– My brother suggested that these strange symptoms are being caused by some force or influence over your body, which is stealing your energy and forcing you to compensate the loss with more resting and food.

You frowned, trying to process what you heard.

– Something is stealing my energy? Are you telling me that Poseidon-sama thinks that I’m sick?

– My dear, have you forgotten that gods don’t get sick? What he suggested – he caressed your hair with visible preoccupation – Is that you might have been cursed.

You gasped.

– Cursed?! But… how? Why? And... by who?

Hades took a moment deliberating before giving you a verbal answer.

– This is what we need to discover. But we won’t do it if we stay here.

– So, where do you think we should go?

The answer was categorical… and not entirely pleasing to you.

– Back to Hellheim – Hades helped you to stand and started leading you back inside the building – I’ll talk to Zeus and ask him to excuse ourselves from this council. I'm sure he will understand. Then, once we reach home, I’ll contact Beelzebub. There’s no person who knows more about curses than him. He will know what to do.

You swallowed. If your husband considered necessary to reach out to Beelzebub-sama, he surely believed the case was serious, more than he’d like to tell you. However, you weren’t feeling that bad: the strange signs were as vivid to you as they were to Hades, but you haven’t sensed in them any threat against your life. Besides... you were still unable to feel entirely comfortable in the presence of the Lord of the Flies, mostly because the human perception of him was still alive in you, so you still avoided him as much as you could.

And you tried to do it that time as well.

– Do you really think it’s necessary, my dear? – you stopped and held his arm, making him turn to you – I don’t think my situation is that serious... And I don’t like the idea of disturbing Beelzebub-sama. He must be too busy with his works.

Hades’ response was to stare at you for a while and show you a teasing smile.

– After all this time, you’re still afraid of him, aren’t you?

You gasped.

– What?! I-I'm not...!

Though your moods were inflamed, your indignation was just too cute for your husband, whose laughter made you give up on the argument.

– There’s no need to worry, little one – he pulled you into a warm hug and kissed the top of your head – I’ll be there with you during the whole visit. Besides, Beelzebub is an excellent, reliable professional. I’ve told you about the times he helped my family, right? This case must be no challenge for him.

***

You were anxious.

On the first break of the council, Hades hurried to Zeus’ private room to announce your leaving. You were present at that moment and heard all the conversation, of course, and even wanted to make your opinions known, but weren't willing to interrupt: Hades already decided to leave Heaven, and making him change his mind would be too complicated by now; besides, you didn’t want to cause more disturbance to Zeus-sama, who was already busy with the matters of the council.

The thing is that there were some details about your case you didn’t tell your husband, for you yourself weren’t sure of how to deal with them and didn’t want to make him worried before understanding what was going on: besides the symptoms noticed by Poseidon, you’ve been feeling dizzy at random moments of the day, something that you would solve with a few minutes sitting on a comfortable chair, and during mornings, your stomach would feel weird, forcing you to leave the bed to throw. You didn’t know the reason behind these episodes of nausea, since you haven’t made any changes in your diet, so you just ignored them, thinking they were a consequence from the anxiety about the council and hoping they would soon pass.

But they didn’t.

Right in the morning of the trip, it happened again, but you were lucky that Hades used to leave the bed hours before you, so he didn’t see anything, just like in the previous days. You knew you couldn’t hide this forever, so you started to think of how to talk to him about it. However, before you could do it, Poseidon came to speak with his brother; and, trusting him as he did, Hades soon decided that taking you to see a doctor was the best.

And, now that Zeus accepted his request to leave and was saying his farewell, there was nothing you could do. You would just go back to your lodge and pack your things as your husband went to prepare the carriage that would take you back to the Underworld.

***

Hades closed the door of that strange room behind you after you entered, then led you to the middle of it.

The place was filled with tables covered with bottles of all possible shapes, containing bubbling fluids, bowls with colored powders, tools and paper notes, everything touched with a soft, white light descending from the ceiling. It was a quiet room with just occasional noises that barely disturbed your ears, yet with so many things happening at the same time that you were afraid you were going to have an episode of dizziness if you stood there for too long. As if it wasn’t enough, the smells of mixed chemical composts invaded your nostrils, threatening your stomach with a nausea crisis.

In the middle of this, sitting calmly on a chair and reading the last lines of a note in his hands, was the man about whom your husband spoke as being the greatest specialist in curses he knew: Beelzebub, the solitary god who has traveled between all the known worlds seeking for a cure for his own curse.

Because of his decision of not establishing close relations to his pairs, you’ve only seen him in a few occasions since you became a goddess, and he would never stay for too long in your presence; besides, Hades was the one who used to lead the conversations during those occasions, so that you never had an opportunity to talk directly to him for a more than a few minutes. This always caused a sort of discomfort in you whenever you had to deal with him, as if you never knew if you were bothering him, even less how he felt towards you.

That time wasn’t different, and the fact that you were the main subject of the encounter only made you more nervous.

When Beelzebub finally left the paper over the table and raised his eyes to you, you swallowed. Not only those dark, lightless pupils scared you as much as Poseidon’s aura used to do in your first years in the Greek family, but the contrast between them and that young face of his still unsettled you. Letting him notice your discomfort was your worst fear concerning the Lord of the Flies, so you avoided his gaze and waited for Hades to lead the matters for you.

– So, what’s bothering you, Hades-san? – he turned his chair to you; and, with a soft smile, – It’s been a long time since you asked for my help.

– And I’d be forever grateful if you could help me once again – Hades put a soft hand over your head – My y/n has been experiencing strange symptoms that could be considered the consequences of sickness if she was still human. I talked to Poseidon about it and he suggested that this might be a case of… curse.

Beelzebub spent a few seconds looking at Hades before turning his gaze to you; you shivered, crossing your arms over your chest as he examined you from head to toe. He looked back to your husband...

And asked the last thing he was expecting.

– What do you mean, she’s cursed?

Chapter 2

[honorary-farseer]

spreading this here, this is an interest check for a final fantasy fanthology (zine) that will span the entire series, iirc it’s open until march 1

this is something I really wanna see happen so I’m spreading the word

https://forms.gle/dJ4J9ZgA8zZJtu9y6

[rumbleonthemill]

Why I'm tired of communities and certain people; a thread.

[ note: I'll only speak for myself and my close friends from the community, who since then left because of the bullies. Noone else ]

[note2: shipping is when you pair two characters because of reasons, and want them to be very close friends or lovers.]

The thing started in 2021 December, at least I noticed it at that moment. You guessed, it's an edited post, there was something else here before. I'm only adding the screnshots as evidence for later purposes AND writing context so it's easier to understand.

It's a trend nowadays, and while I'm saying "trend" I really mean it; if one wants to ruin another's career in a community or whatever they have there (couldn't be called a career but still) they just pull the "xy is p€doph1le! Supports abu$e and such! Bad person! Cancel them!" card and especially tumblr will immediately listen to them, even if they have exactly ZERO evidence, only a shit callout post. Or multiple.

The quoted things were made up by the bullies and are getting spreaded, probably still.

the people I'm attaching the posts of below, had enough of seeing a ship(!) that's been here since the beginning of the community.

Before they were even here.

or before I was here, this pairing/ship of the two men [Neighbor x Player ] is as old as HN.

explanation post about the pairing is on this link.

Once again, some anti shippers are trying to ruin the lives of people. Real life lives. Not just online profiles.

reason: they dislike a fucking ship between two fictional adults.

To the bullies: you DO NOT set the rules and YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO TELL OTHERS, HOW TO LIVE THEIR LIFE AND WHAT TO LOVE.

.

I must address that in the early Hello neighbor era, around 2017-18 the HN community was awesome, accepting and open to all ideas, supportive towards almost every headcanon and theory, kept together in need - it was a good community.

I didn't call it a bad community, and still, it's always a group of people who are being assholes, not everyone.

There are many nice people

Who these idiots have scared away now. People who don't dare to raise their voice.

Because they're scared by bullies.

The good era was what these idiots ruined

pictures in bigger resolution: 1 | 2

what daradiostarz/da-radio-starz and his friends are spreading, is that fans of certain ship support abu$€ / p€đophilia.

Personally I block every single human who just gets a bit close to supporting these topics........but hey, some random ass people who don’t know me AT ALL, surely know my thoughts better!........for fuck’s sake.

I can only talk for myself, obviously as I stated in the beginning. And my very very close friend group, the good old first gen fans.

What they bullies say, never happened. They made up a fuckin ship name noone has ever heard about + made up lies, listed above -> expect their followers to blindly believe it,despite they have no evidence at all.

they were the ones, who portrayed title character as a p_do (I’ll never forgive this!) + they are the ones who support ab_se. and they also stole fanarts from fans. so we got some art theft here also.

True fans of the ship always supported the love between two adults. Kid versions of characters didn't even exist during that time ffs...

.

there’s thousands of fanarts of these two characters, and both of them are adults. even the callout post STOLE images, that feature two ADULTS.

The bullies mostly had arguments with little kids (bullies being around age 18 and such) or shippers who did mary sue, or shipped something they liked. It's everyone's own business what they like. If a kid sends someone dm and images -> god gave everyone free will, to ignore these messages.

if I could do it in the past, then why can’t the bullies? the block button still exists!

..

Once again, there's no evidence to what they say, because that thing which they try to push on some people, doesn't exist.

They just spit shit about a group of people.. Spread the shit they made up and think exists, while it doesn't

When I told the situation to my friend who was also dragged in, she suddenly remembered that r.starz named bully on a way:

since then she took the mentioned drawing down to avoid being bullied.

once again, all the fans did, was shipping two men and having fun.

.

However, from the bullies' part, we received CYBERBULLYING, visual support of ABUSE on their blogs, drawings from them, which could hint the terrible things they try to push on us, encouraging people to bully other people who don't know shit about THE WHOLE SITUATION, ART THEFT..

Basically, they try to push on innocent people, what THEY are doing.

I'll once again send this one; cyberbullying is admitted+fanarts of people are being used without a single permission. that’s called art theft.

All that shit because they can't ignore profiles they blocked(!) previously.

I once checked this person's tumblr, to find out he blocked me YET he still keeps retuning to my page daily and endlessly stalks me with multiple supporters of his, writing callout posts behind my back, and reblogging nonsense/lies about me and other people. spreading shit behind my back and telling them lies. I know from multiple sources that it keeps happening.

I did write two reaction posts, again, REACTION posts, since I knew nothing about all of this shit until it wasn't sent to me.

as a side note, I’ll just tell that I did not invent the ship lol.

.

I never had any kind of interaction with him or the-meme-monarch, ever. They don't know me at all, mo/narch kept spreading I still actively draw ship, while I stopped in early 2020😂 well, bitch, if you want ship/ positive Peterson posts, then be my fucking guest!~ let's go!

That person makes me vomit too with the fake ass shit they're spreading

Not to mention, the people whose posts I attached above HATE the title character of the franchise. Their posts are shown above.

Also, they tell you to not make au's..., yet they make theirs.

Calling my friend "white" which can also be racist as fuck, especially because they don't know his race!

So,when checked, their blog was FULL OF HATE. Full. Every 1.5th post was about hate towards some characters, especially Neighbor. While most FANS try to spread love in the community, these idiots spread NEGATIVE shit only. Telling others that they're not allowed to love characters.

Why the fuck are you in the community, if you hate the main character? Want him to die with terrible death, stab a kid(!) on your drawing, and you even portray him in the callout post as a p€do looking horrible person!

Brb vomiting.

...

I'm back.

Anyone can check any of my sites, anytime. I and the people who were dragged into this useless shit, were(*are) basically bullied for MONTHS, shittalked.. I mean, these people SPREADED FAKE SHIT ABOUT ME AND OTHERS WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!

And not a single soul did actually send these to me until a point , I found them by pure accident!

You know what?! I feel SORRY FOR ALL OF THE PEOPLE ABOVE. They are so fucking bored in front of their computers, they have NOTHING in their life, they just make up some shit in their small brains and then try to pull random fans into this shit.

That's what they do. They lack life.

Hating fans is one thing, but just because you are unable to SCROLL THROUGH a feed that has things you may not like, and because of that you want to ruin people to the point they need to go to hospital and get medical help, is another!

These people, the bullies above are the real assholes and I can actually prove this with screenshots and evidence.

...

As I'm writing this, I'm actually past several hospital visits and attempts to get medical help due to stress, that's been lasting since early January.

I have many "better" things to do, yet I have to defend myself and my friends for things we haven't done.

Bitch....

...

I once again ask everyone to discuss topics like that and if they see ANY shitpost about anyone..please, PLEASE ask the person themselves before making those conclusions.

I know multiple people in multiple communities who had to go through similar drama. What did they do? I can say for sure,.nothing. They were either misunderstood on purpose, or they didn't even do the thing they got bullied for.

...

I'll say once again.

I'll draw what I want.

I'll share it if I want to.

If you don't like it, then block me. That's what the button is for.

The end.

Edit: bullying got so far, people are afraid to do what they like.

no comment.

Fill the ship tags with love, not hate.

[marblesphere]

Dream or Reality (Noctis x Reader)

I wrote this fic years ago. So, I fixed up a little and decided to post it here. I have also posted it in devianart under LastMoogleHunter. Happy reading!

“Aaaaahhh….what a boring day, always the same. There’s nothing new, nothing makes me excited.” I sighed for the umpteenth times. I see, I haven’t introduced myself, my name is [Name] [Last Name], I am 12th grade in Destiny High. This is my last year, thus was recommended in making good memories. Though…there is nothing fun, I wish Final Fantasy characters are real people. That’ll so much fun, especially if there is Noctis.....

Kyaaaa!!! I am so embarassed... ahem, let’s put that aside and let’s get onto the story.

This morning also has the same routine, wake up, bath, breakfast, school, home, dinner, sleep and so on. And coincidentally my literature teacher decides it’s fun to see her students suffer, and thus given us a homework about composition. I groan, this is going to kill my brain cells. “God, please let my life get interesting such as Final Fantasy character come to life..... Just kidding, it’s not like it can be granted anyway.” I exhaled. I put my homework and stationery on my desk and start thinking about the theme I am going to write. Not long after I start doze off.

My internal clock woke me up from my slumber. Groggily, I glance my clock and it shows 6.30 a.m. I blink once, twice and rub my eyes to make sure I am not mistaking it. In instant, all sleepiness fades away. ”Aaaahh!! I am late!!” I freaked out and with lightning speed I took a bath. While I was stripping though, something fell from my shorts’ pocket. I pick it up and examine it, it was a golden watch. Curious, I open it and something was craved on the lid ‘aeternam vinculo’ ‘what’s this mean? More importantly when I got this thing?’ I was thinking and completely forgotten the time.

“[Name]! breakfast is ready!” Kaa-san called.

“No way!” I yelped and resumed my activity.

I run down the stairs and eat breakfast quickly, “[Name], there’s still some time.” Kaa-san said.

I gulp down my orange juice, “Gotta go. Bye Kaa-san, Tou-san.” I said as I ran to school. Fortunately, the distance to school from my house is not that far. Upon arriving there, I still see a lot of students leisurely walking to the school. Looks like I am safe. I sigh in relief as I pat my chest. suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turn around, but the sight of that ‘someone’ tapping my shoulder made my eyes widenend.

“Morning.” He said, while I blinked once, twice, titled my head and stare at him as he is an alien landing on earth. The person who greeted me is no other than the famous Chocobo head, Cloud Strife.

I keep staring at him without blinking. “You…” I could only manage a word to come out from my mouth.

Cloud looks at me oddly, “What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“Good morning you two.” A new voice called. Our head snap to that direction and find Tifa and Yuffie are walking toward us.

My eyes widened ‘[Name].exe is shutting down.’ I can practically hear a robotic voice said that. ‘What exactly is going on?’

Seeing my confused blank looking face, concern made to Tifa’s face, “[Name], what’s wrong?” She asked.

So, I did the most logical action I could at the moment, I pinch my left hand, “Ow…” ‘It hurt.’ I rubbed my reddening left hand.

“[Name], are you really alright?” Tifa asked again. “Don’t worry Tifa, I bet she just woke up.” Yuffie grinned.

‘It’s not a dream....? t-they are really alive...?’ I am still confused, I am still not sure if I am having a realistic dream or this is the reality. But if so, what about yesterday and the day before yesterday and the days before today? Was that reality a dream? And this is the real reality? My mind is in jumbled mess, but I am happy. My wish has come true, my wish for the Final Fantasy characters are real people and as a bonus I have befriend with them. There’s no more I could ask for.

I feel someone shakes me. “Huh?” I snapped back to the reality.

“Maybe we should get her to infirmary.” Tifa said.

“Whooa. [Name], you really sick?” Yuffie was shocked by the news.

“Let’s go.” Cloud said as he prepared to drag me.

“W-wait! I’m fine, I just dozing because I just woke up.” I said putting a sheepish grin.

“See, she’s just woke up.” Yuffie grinned again, but I can see she was relieved as well.

‘Well, I did wish something interesting like this happen. Well, dream or not let’s enjoyed it to the last.’ I smiled at my thought as we walked to the class.

Upon entering class, I no longer panic on what I saw. There are some FF characters here and there, but I spot no Noctis, ‘Well, I’ll be lying if I am not disappointed.’ I sigh softly. ‘Well, nothing goes smooth now.’

Then I heard giggles and squeals. ‘Don’t tell me this is a famous scene from shoujo manga. The moment when male lead and his group enter the classroom. If so, then… Those girls will be the mortal enemies of the female lead. After the plot milked her usefulness, she and her sidekicks will fall into ruin.’ I blinked as I looked at those girls. ‘What a shame. They look nice enough though. But, I wonder who they’re fangirling about.’ I follow the crowd’s eyes, then the door opened revealing ‘Emergency! Mayday! Mayday! All staffs please evacuate! The ship will sink soon!Eh? EEEEEEHHHHH???!!! What is happening?! Why is he here?! No... I mean… I am happy that he is here. But he being here is a problem itself to me, in many ways.’ The one who opened the door is no other than Noctis.

I stiffen when he walks to me. “Good morning.” He muttered as he walked past me to his seat which is behind me.

“Mo-morning…?” And the problem is I was suttering when I replied, ‘Now I’ve done it…. he officially think I am one of his fangirls.’ I sighed earning a few snickers from Tifa and Yuffie which I give them an odd look.

“Morning, Hime-chi.” Prompto greeted.

I am not sure who is Hime-chi is. But seeing no one responds to him, it must be me, right? “Morning…?” I greeted back hesitantly.

During the duration of the lesson, I can’t concentrate at all. Part of it is because Noctis is sitting behind me. The other part is I am frantically thinking what should I do, what is my relationship with him and the other characters. Just because some of them are my friends, that doesn’t mean all of the characters must be my friends. And I have to be careful how to act around them, so they didn’t notice my awkwardness.

The bell rings signaling lunch break. Finally, me and the group which included almost all of the alvalanche members plus some other go to school cafeteria. Minus Cid and Barret cause they’re too old to go to school anyway which I found out later the two of them are school staffs. Barret as P.E teacher and Cid as engineer. And of course, let’s not forget Zack and Aerith. We go to cafeteria to eat lunch, while the others eat and talking each other, I am thinking about a lot of thing and that mysterious golden watch.

“[Name].” A voice snapped me out of my own world and I found all of them were staring at me.

“Huh?” I blinked owlishly.

“Are you okay?” Aerith asked worriedly.

“Did they bully you?” Prompto frowned.

“Eh? Bully? Who?” I tilted my head not understanding who were they talking about. ‘…For the first time in my life I was bullied…’

“WHAT!? Those girls are bullying my little sister?! How dare they!” Zack raged.

“W-Wait a minute. I am fine. No one is bullying me.” I said quickly calming them down.

“I heard something about bullying [Name]. Who is daring enough to do that?” Another new voice chimed in.

“Ah.” I blinked at the newcomers, twins exactly.

“Stella, Luna. Where were you guys?” Yuffie asked.

“Sorry, the teacher needed us just now.” Stella apologized.

“So, I heard someone is bullying [Name]? Which idiot?” Luna smiled scarily.

“No one was bullying me.” I shook my head quickly. ‘Scary…. Does Lunafreya is this kind of character?’ I sweatdropped.

“If we are talking about bullying, then I am sure it’s no other than her and her little group.” Tifa rolled her eyes.

‘I wonder who and why would people bully me? I don’t think I’ve ever made someone mad enough to be bullied by them.’ I scanned the cafeteria and spot a group of girls glaring at me, ‘Ah. So, they are the bully group.’ Then a mop of blond caught my attention, I narrow my eyes to get better sight, ‘…Who is she? I have never meet her before, but strangely her name popped out in my mind. Tachibana Kirika-san, Noct’s fangirl…. Ah, no wonder.’ I looked at her object of affection.

“Ignore them” Noct said.

“Umm...okay.” I answered.

After that staring contest, all is well. No war break between us. The last bell finally rings, signaling the end of school. And so, as per usual ritual, apparently we always go home together. “See you tomorrow.” I waved to them when I arrived at my house.

“See you.” They waved back. I open the door only to find it is hollow of life. I found a note one dinner table ‘Business trip one week, there’s a leftover for dinner. We’ll get your cousin to stay at the house tomorrow.’ I sighed. It’s still the same,’Oh well, I’m used to it.... wonder who is my cousin. This is the first time I heard about having a cousin staying over.’

Tired and still in term of accepting what has happened today. I am feeling really sleepy, but I didn’t dare to sleep. What if this is just a dream and I’ll wake up in the same position on my desk, as selfish as it may sound I still don’t want this to end yet. So many thoughts race in my head, absetmindedly I take out the golden watch and finally fallen asleep holding that.

I wake up with a start and glancing at my room, then realize something, FF charas. ‘Is it a dream?’ I sighed and I felt something in my hand. The golden watch, it’s still here. That means ‘It’s not a dream.’ I grinned widely, they are real. Thus, I quickly begin my routine of the day.

Arriving to the class, I greet them. Them as in the group. “Morning.” I greeted.

“Morning.” They replied. I sit at my seat and put my bag on drawer, but then a sharp pain creeps through my hand, instictively I take out my hand and trail of blood is dripping from my hand. My eyes flicker at the sound of giggles, there Tachibana Karin stand proudly at what she have done, she even raises her chin up to which I reply with raised eyebrow.

‘Truly, this is the first time I am being bullied for real.’

Seeing my bloodied right hand and still bleeding. Cloud quickly take my hand and examines it. “You okay?” He asked.

“As okay as someone will be with bleeding hand.” I remarked. Zack is definitely pissed off by the look of his face and stalks toward them.

“Why you little-“

“Zack. There’s no need to get angry.” I called to him.

Ignoring my call, he still stalks toward them, that is until Vincent holds him, “Ignore them. We should take her to infirmary.” He said.

“No no no. we can’t let this kind of things go.” Stella stepped in.

“Indeed. We’ll need to teach her a lesson.” Luna easily agreed with the older twin.

“Stella, Luna. Not you two too.” I sweatdropped.

“Let’s just take [Name] to infirmary first.” Tifa said. With that, the group accompanies me to the infirmary.

“The cut isn’t deep, it will heal in few days.” Nurse Quistis said after she finished bandaging me.

“Thank you.” I thanked her.

“It’s my job, now off you go to class.” She ushered.

“Yes ma’am.” I give her mock salute as I get out of the room.

Entering the class, I was bombarded with questions. Quistis kicked all of the out for being so noisy and too much. “I am fine.” I said for the umpteenth time.

Then Tachibana-san comes to me and asks with her sickly sweet voice, “How was your hand? Is it hurt?”

“Well, why don’t we try it to your hand. And then you’ll know whether it’s hurt or not.” I smiled eraning a few snickers from my friends as they heard my reply.

Tachibana-san’s face is red with anger and opens her mouth to say something. But then, the door opened revealing Noctis and Prompto. she quickly puts her sweet façade again to which I know that isn’t fooling anyone with decent IQ. “Good morning.” She greeted him which was ignored and laughter rose from our throats.

“If you didn’t do something like bullying his friends, you might have a chance.” I told her.

“You!” She gritted her teeth.

‘Aaah… She really didn’t get it.’ I sighed mentally. “Good morning you two. How unusuall for you to almost late.” I greeted.

“Good morning, Hime-chi. You see, we are almost late because we met an old woman on the street. She… Hime-chi, what happened to your hand?” Prompto frowned when he saw bandage on my left hand.

“Your hand...”

“Oh, this..” I said as I lift my hand. “Apparently, someone with a bad hobby finds it interesting to get me scream in pain. Unfortunately, they didn’t get what they want.” I smiled. Noct opens his mouth to ask something when the bell rang, signalling the start of class. All of us goes back to our seat. Well, in my case after recieving a hateful glare from Tachibana-san.

‘More importantly I wonder… Why is she targeting me? I mean, Noct’s female friends are not only I. There are Luna and Stella too…. Does she know I like him…? Well, I do like him as character in games before. And meeting him right now does make my feeling stronger… but, I am not sure if I like him as man… Besides…’ A certain scene from the game flashes in my mind. It’s overlapping in a scene I’ve seen here. ‘I am such a fool… obviously they are together…’ A bitter smile graces my lips.

The lessons went well, save for the ocasion hateful glare... okay scratch that, hateful glare all along. Lucnh break bell rings..... “Okay class, that’s all for today... oh and there is winter ball on the 28th December. All of you MUST come, it’ll be the last event for you. Class dissmissed.” Then the teacher goes out of classroom.

I groan inwardly, ‘Great… a ballroom.’ Note the sacarsm. The students scatters, chatting about the ball, while the group (girls only) advance to me.

“Soooo.....” Yuffie begins the conversation. “Who is going to be your date?” she asked excitedly.

“I don’t want to go.” I groaned again.

“You shouldn’t idle too long [Name], he will be snatched away.” Aerith said gigglig slightly.

“He? Who?” I titled my head. ‘Do I like someone?’

“Of course it’s him.” Yuffie answered.

“Tsk tsk tsk. As if [Name] will like another boy except from him.” Stella raised her brow.

“That dense man is too dense.” Luna giggled.

“Who is he exactly?” I frowned. But to them, my expression right now is quite funny because they are giggling.

“Don’t play dumb [Name]. all of us already know who is he. He is the one who gifted you the golden watch on your birthday.” Tifa said.

 ‘So, that was a gift from someone. And that someone is my crush so to speak…’ I blinked. ‘Who is…’ Suddenly the answer appeared itself in my mind.

*Poof* my face explodes to a blush. ‘It’s him. That man who is a trouble to me just by being here.’ I covered my face looking away from the evil grins on their faces.

“That time he was so shy. It’s funny, right?” Yuffie exclaimed.

“Hey, you guys.” I was saved by Reno. “Who are going to be you girls’ date?” He asked excitedly.

“Not again…” I groaned. “Reno, you don’t have any delicacy at all.” I whined.

“What happened to her?” Reno blinked.

“Just girl trouble.” Stella giggled followed by the rest of the girl.

“I mean you guys have fixed date already. Is there any point to ask?” I pouted. “I’m sure Tifa is going with Cloud, Aerith and Zack, Yuffie with Vincent. Stella is with Prompto and Luna will be going with No-.” I said.

“My date is a secret.” Luna cut my sentence.

“Secret?” I blinked.

“Yep. You’ll know when the time comes.” She smiled mysteriously.

“So, what about you [Name]? Wanna be my date?” He winked.

I snort, “No, thank you.” I flat out rejected him. “If I go with you. Your group of angry girlfriends will be waiting for me. Nuh-uh. I still want to be perfectly healthy, thank you.” All of them excluding Reno who is now sulking are laughing at his misfortune. “I am probably going alone. There’s no rule I can’t go alone.” I smiled. “…What’s wrong?” I blinked when I found them stared at me oddly.

“[Name]… You are quite dense…” Tifa sweatdropped.

“Huh?” I titled my head.

“[Name] you know, you are quite popular. If you say you are searching for a date. Everyone will probably line up.” Aerith giggled.

“…You are teasing me, aren’t you? I have a plain face you know. The one that is neither pretty, beautiful or cute. Besides, if I mean if I am quite popular, how come no one talk to me or better yet flirt to me?” I put an unamused face.

‘That’s because a certain someone made sure no one will not talk to you more than necessary. How can they have a gut to flirt with you with him hanging around you like a guard dog.’ All of them sweatdropped.

“Enough about me. What about the prince?” I turned my question to the prince that walked past me back to his seat.

“About what?” He sat back down.

“The winter ball. Who are you escorting?” I asked.

He snorts. “I don’t want to go.” He said.

“Me too. But we are forced to go.” I chuckled.

“I am waiting for someone.” He answered shortly. His answer makes the boys laugh. I raise my eyebrow at their odd reaction.

“You should hurry and ask her out, or else she’ll out of your reach.” Zack chuckled.

“Yep. After all the effort you put into.” Cloud nodded.

Zack’s word make my chest stings a bit. ‘What is this feeling?’ I blink the I shake my head to ignore it and chat with the rest of them.

Zack’s word is still ringing in my head. I am indeed curious as who is he going to ask, but I am more curious about the feeling in my heart just now. ’They are just characters from game, right? So, why did I have this feeling? Besides, I am sure he is going to ask Luna. No need to think that hard. They obviously are going to reveal it at the winter ball.’ I finally asleep while thinking about this.

Again, I wake up from my peaceful slumber before the alarm rings. I rub my eyes to get rid the alimighty power of sleepiness. The calendar on my wall made me realize this is Saturday. ‘Oh, it’s finally this day.’

As usual, I did my everyday routine, and then off to school. My peaceful day was once again ruined by Tachibana-san and the rabid fangirls follower.

“You! You dare to embarass me the other day, in front of my Noctis no less.” She screehed.

���My...Noctis...? Wow, I am not sure how to reply to that statement... Besides, weren’t you the one asked me about my hand, I just answered that it would be better for you to experience it first hand.” I answered effortlessly.

“You bitch!” She swung her hand to slap me. I am ready to dodge and prepare some wise words. But, her hand was caught midair by a more masculine hand.

I turn my head to get a better look of my savior. ‘Squall.’ I blinked at the unexpected character. ‘Rinoa shouldn’t be too far from Squall.’ I giggled inwardly at my own thought.

“You better stop this or you’ll get more than just slapping.” He growled. Tachibana-san turns pale. She and her follower quickly retreat back.

Then suddenly a girl pops out from his side. “Are you okay, [Name]?” Said girl is no other than Rinoa. ‘As I thought, Rinoa is not far.’ I chuckled at my own thought.

“I am fine.” I answered. “But, why are you two here?” I asked, I am not surprised with the characters popping out as my friends anymore. Last time, I found out Ignis is our Chemistry teacher and Gladioulus as our school security guard.

“Listen well! this isn’t over! I’ll make your life a living hell!” Tachibana-san sreeched which we of course ignored. The she stomps out here with her rabid fangirls follower.

“Just like always, you are a trouble magnet.” Squall Leonhart, which like to be called Leon sighed.

“You haven’t answered my question... Squeon.” I added my personal nickname just to annoy him.

“Your parents were worried, so they asked me to take care of you.” He said ignoring my nickname.

“I am fine, Squeon.” I said again.

Squall snorts, he lifts my bandaged hand, “And you said this was okay.”

“[Name], you are injured. What happened?” Worrywart Rinoa asked.

“I am okay. It’s just a small wound, Quistis said it will heal in 2 or 3 days.” I said calming Rinoa down.

Then, we heard some footsteps running toward us. The group are rushing to us. “Squall! Rinoa!” They exclaimed happily when they saw them.

“It’s Leon.” He grunted.

“Nooo, it’s Squeon.” I laughed. Squall only glares at me using his infamous glare.

“Long time no see.” Rinoa smiled.

“[Name], are you alright? I heard from some people Tachibana was bullying you, what did she do to you?” The now panicking Tifa asked.

“I am okay. she was just going to slap me, but Squeon stopped her.” I answered.

“WHAT?! She was going to slap you?! That damn bitch! How dare she!” Zack cursed.

“Calm down. I am not strupid just standing there waiting her slaps me.” I snorted. ‘Besides, which idiot will stand still when they are going to be hit.’

“By the way, if Squall and Rinoa are here. Does that mean they are going to be your care taker again?” Cloud asked.

“Yes, they are.” I said grinning.

“Oooooh, it’s rare that we can gather here together. So, how about we go to Chocobo Land  tomorrow?” Yuffie exclaimed excitedly.

“Chocobo Land.... Well, it’s been a while, the last time we go together was on [Name]’s birthday.” Aerith said. With that said, all of us decide to go to Chocobo Land tomorrow. Unbeknwon to me, I am playing right to their trap.~”~

“Eeeeehhhh~ Why can’t you go with us?” I asked, dismayed at the fact we couldn’t spend time together.

“Rinoa isn’t feeling well.” Was Squall short answer.

But I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. “She was fine yesterday.” I mumbled.

“Yesterday and today are different.” But all I did was stare, stare and stare. He sighs, “Just go already, you don’t want to be late, right?” He ushered me to go.

“Yes~” I sulked.

Arriving at the Chocobo Land. Only Noctis is at the rendezvous point. “Hey, Noct, where is the others?” I asked.

“They still haven’t arrived.” He answered.

‘Weird. They are usually on time. Maybe Yuffie will be a little late.’ I blinked at the unusual happening. And suddenly our phones ring at the same time signalling there are messages in our group chat.

Tifa

“Sorry, my parents are out of town suddenly. Need to housesit.”

Yuffie

Some brats in neighborhood are hunting my treasure. Need to safeguard it.

Zack

Am grounded. T.T

Luna

“Sis and I have trouble escaping from arranged marriage.

Stella

“Have fun. We will arrive there late.”

Aerith

“The shop is crowded. I can’t go out yet.”

Squall

“Rinoa is sick. Need to take care of her.”

Rinoa

Sorry guys.

Cloud

“Fixing my bike.”

Vincent

“…Sleepy…”

Prompto

“Helping acquaintance in photoshoot.”

‘What kind of hellish timing is this?’ I sweatdropped. ‘…No matter how I think, they are definitely setting us up.’ I sighed softly.

The two of us look at each other and sigh. “We were set up.” He said. “So, what should we do? Should we go home?” He asked again.

“Hmmm… We’re already here anyway. So, let’s just play. Just the two of us.” I grinned. A small smile is tugging on his lip hearing my sentece. But, unbeknown to us, we were followed by eight enthusiastic stalkers plus two reluctant stalkers and cameras.

Everywhere and anywhere as far as I can see, all I can see is Chocobo. The excitement is building up. “Chocobo♪~ Chocobo♪~.” I hummed out with sparkling eyes.

“Your love for Chocobo is something else.” Noct sweatdropped.

“What can I say, I just love Chocobo.” I giggled. “Then, our first ride will be that.” I pointed to the Chocobo Jet that was quite far from our meeting point.

“Figures you will ride that first.” Noctis chuckled.

“Let’s go!” I giggled excitedly. ‘Just for today. Let me spend a quality time with him. Yes…Just for today.’ The Chocobo Jet is really exciting. “I want to ride it again.” I said enthusiastically.

“Let’s ride the other attraction first. We’ll ride the roller coaster again later.” He sighed helplessly.

“It’s a promise, okay. I won’t go home if I don’t get to ride it again.” I stuck my pinky to him.

“Yes, yes. It’s a promise.” He hooked his pinky to mine. And then seamlessly warps his hand around mine and tugs me along.

I blink at the action. ‘Alert, alert. The parameter is rising.’ A slight blush adorns my cheeks. I quickly put a hand on my cheek to cool it down.

“What’s wrong?” He asked when he saw my weird action.

“Nothing!” I squeaked in high pitched voice.

He blinks, “You are so weird.” He laughed.

“I don’t want to hear that from you.” I stuck my togue out to him.

The next ride is Chocobo Cup. “Spin faster!” I laughed cheerily as I spun the cup faster.

“You’ll get dizzy later.” Noct smiled.

‘Hm…?’ from the corner of my eyes, I think I caught a glimpse of a familiar chocobo head. ‘Was I mistaken?’

“What’s wrong?” Ncoct asked when he realized I stopped spinning.

“Ah, nothing, I thought I saw Cloud.” I shook my head. “It must be my imagination. I mean this is Chocobo Land.” I laughed. All of the visitors are wearing Chocobo headband which we get as a free gift in the entrance.

“What do you want to do next?” He asked.

“Hm…Oh!” My eyes are drawn to the shooting range not far from us. More accurately, drawn to the prizes in that shooting range. “That! Let’s compete!” I turned to Noctis.

“Yes?”

“Let’s see who will get the grand prize first!” I exclaimed.

“Yo, ojou-chan, an-chan. The point for the grand prize is 150. The rule is easy. Your gun has 3 bullets. Knock down the plate with the point written on it. collect 150 points and you have the grand prize. Easy, right?” Baku explained.

“Yep!” I nodded.

“One game is 150 gil.” He smiled.

“Give us two guns.” Noct said as he handed him the money.

“Haiyo!” Baku handed us the bullet.

“The game is on!” I grinned.

~One Round Later~

“Not fair….” I sulked. In the end, Noctis wins with overwhelming victory. I don’t understand how he managed to get 200 points, while I couldn’t even get the 10 points plate down.

“Bwahahahaha! Ojou-chan, you are the best! Your skill is one in one hundred!” Baku laughed merrily.

“Sh-shut up!” I cried out.

“An-chan, your skill is amazing. Usually, the guests will spend more than 3 games to get a hang of this game.” He smirked.

“This is just a fluke. My friend happens to be good at this kind of game. I was only following his advice.” Noct answered.

“Heh. I want to meet this friend of yours.” Baku smirked.

“Next time, I guess.” Noct shrugged his shoulder.

“Bahahaha! I can’t wait!” Baku laughed harder.

While those two are chatting. I am already at my own land of misery. “I am sorry Chocobo. I can’t get you. I am sorry I am such a failure.” I murmured.

“So, what happen to Ojou-chan?” Baku sweatdropped.

“She just happened to love Chocobo a bit too much. Too much that I am jealous.”

“Bwahahaha! You win the game, but lost the war. I really pity you, An-chan” Baku patted his shoulders.

“Haahh…” He sighed. “[Name]. Here, this is yours.” Something is shoved to my face. It’s the grand prize of the shooting range, Golden Chocobo.

“For me?” I blinked.

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes. “If I don’t give it to you. You’ll keep staring at me as if you are having a grudge on me.” He smirked.

“I-I will not.” I flushed.

“Ojou-chan!” Baku called.

“Yes?”

“Here. A consolation prize.” Baku gave me two droppy chocobo hat. “Thanks to Ojou-chan, I have a great laugh today.” Baku grinned.

“Thank you!” I quickly put it on my head, while keeping the headband I got on my small backpack I brought. “Noct, you wear one too.” I gave the hat to him. The said man obediently bends down his body so I can put it on him. “We match!” I laughed happily, completely missing his softened look to me.

“Bahahaha! I pray for your success, an-chan.” Baku laughed.

“Thanks.” Noct replied. While I completely don’t understand what they were talking about. “Let’s go. We still have many attractions to ride.” He tugged my hand along.

“Yes!” ‘I think whether this is a dream or reality, this will be the happiest day of my live.’

Our next destination is, “Chocobo House!!!” I shrieked at the sight. I rush to the house, wanting to see it up close and personal.

“Hey! Don’t run!” I heard Noct’s warning.

“Don’t worry! I am not a child. I won’t fall down. Hurry up! Hurry up!” I urged him.

“We need to buy tickets first.” He sighed.

“Ah.” I blinked, completely forgotten that. Noct rolls his eyes as he pays for the tickets.

“Thank you for the purchase. Please enjoy the house.” The staff smiled.

Chocobo House, truly befitting the name. The house is basically Chocobo den. Look right, there will be a lot of Chocobo. Look left, there will be a lot of Chocobo. Look up, there will be a lot of Chocobo lantern. Look down, the tile is Chocobo pattern. And in the center if the house, there is the fat Chocobo.

“….Can I take that home?” I muttered out loud.

“Will it fit in your room?” Noct sweatdropped.

“I have an unused room. It will fit there. I can just move my Chocobo shrine there.” My eyes sparkled.

“Oi oi oi. Will they even let you buy it. Rather, even if they are willing to sell. Does your pocket money enough?” Noct sighed.

“Hmmm…. I should really get a part time job.” I muttered as I trying to calculate how much the Fat Chocobo will cost.

“Wait! Wait! They are selling the miniature version of Fat Chocobo. Let’s take a look.” Noct dragged me to the merchandise counter. In the end, I buy the Fat Chocobo plushie. More precisely, it was bought for me.

“I could buy it myself. You’ve paid for the rides and tickets. I can at least buy the merchandise myself.” I pouted and frowned as I hugged the plushie.

“It’s fine. I just want to. My father told me I need to spoil you to win your heart. He even willingly and happily to let me spend money to make you his daughter in law.” He muttered.

“Hm? What did you say?” I couldn’t hear the second part of his sentences.

“Nothing. Let’s ride that next.” He pointed to the Chocobo-go-round.

“Okay!” ~”~

“I am hungry~” I whined as I sat on the park bench.

“It’s already 1.00 p.m.” Noctis said as he looked at his watch. “The food court is over there.” Noctis said.

“Yosh! After lunch, we are going to continue.” I beamed, while my companion just shook his head at my antics. “Hey, don’t tell me you don’t enjoy it. Because we know it’s a lie.” I pointed my finger to him.

“I never said I didn’t.” He chuckled.

“Then all is well.” I grinned.

We are sitting in the food court, waiting for our order. The topic of our conversation is the hellish timing our friends have. “They are definitely…” I trailed off.

“…Doing this in purpose…” He finished.

“There’s no way they have this kind of convenient timing of not going. Well, in Zack’s case… he might be really grounded.” I giggled as we glanced secretly to the seats behind us.

“He-hey! Don’t be too noisy, they’ll find out.” A familiar voice of Tifa was heard.

“But, I can’t hear what are they talking about.” Yuffie whined.

“What a sloppy tailing.” I sniggered.

“They really… have too much free time.” Noct sighed.

“They seem don’t know that we’ve know they tailed us from the start.” I laughed merrily, really enjoying this charade. From the corner of my eyes, I can see now they are fighting for food, Zack and Cloud plus Yuffie. “Let’s caught them red handed later.” I laughed.

“Here are your orders.” A kind waitress set down our food.

“Thank you.” We thanked her.

“Please enjoy!” She smiled cheerily.

“Thanks for the food.” ~”~

“Noct. Let’s go over there.” I pointed to an ice-cream stall.

“Didn’t you just eat lunch?” He blinked.

“If it’s for ice cream, I am sure my stomach will make more room.” I answered.

“….What flavor?” He could only helplessly ask.

“Sea-salt ice cream!” I said excitedly.

“Wait here.” He told me and he is off to the stall.

“Ah, I want ice cream too.” I heard Yuffie whined.

“If we go now. We’ll be caught.” Stella reminded.

“But… ice cream…” I could already imagine her face looked like a kicked puppy.

“We need to endure.” Luna said sternly.

“Here.” Noct came back with an ice cream.

“Where is yours?” I blinked as I took the ice cream.

“I am good.” He said.

“Is that so?” I licked the ice. “Mmmnn… It’s delicious.” My eyes sparkled. “Here. Have a taste. It’s delicious. Delicious food should be shared to double the deliciousness.” I grinned.

“…Then, I’ll be happy to oblige.” He smiled softly as eat the ice from my hand.

“How is it? Isn’t it delicious?” I asked animatedly.

“Yeah. It’s delicious.” A ghost smile on his lips.

“See! I told you, you should buy one for yourself.” I said smugly. I quickly devour the ice cream until I realize what have I done. *Poof* ‘He ate mine…. Indirect kiss… No no no, let’s not think about it.… Okay, breathe in… breathe out… It’s okay. It’s just indirect kiss. No biggie….NO! it’s not okay for my heart! Does he even realized what he has done! I know I was the one offered it to him, but…’

“Why is your face red? Is it heatstroke?” He frowned.

“No! I am fine! Completely fine. It’s only a little bit too hot! It’s not a heatstroke!” The completely flustered me squeaked out. “Let’s go there!” I randomly pointed a ride and hurried there, missing the knowing smirk on his face.

The clock has shown 5.30 p.m. the only remaining ride is, “Hey, Noct. Let’s ride Chocobo Wheel.” I dragged him to the line. The said man allows me to drag him, he’s suprisingly obidient.

The Ferris Wheel stops when we are at the top. “When are we going to catch them red handed?” He smirked.

“You’ll see.” I grinned mischievously. “As expected from the highest point. I can see all of them park from here. It’s beautiful.” I was awed by the breathtaking view.

“Indeed…” What I didn’t know is, he wasn’t talking about the view.

The ride has ended. We are back on the land. “Ah! I have to call Squeon, first. I am worried about Rinoa.” I said out loud, letting our stalkers hear. “If he has something he needs, I can swing to the nearest drug store.” I fished out my phone from my bag. Can practically hear the nervous choked sounds from our stalkers. I push the speed dial button number 1. A familiar ringtone rings. My smile widens when I heard that.

“Hello!” I waved to them. We catch our stalkers red handed. “I thought you all have some kind of troubles.” I raised my brow.

“Ahahahha… We were just...uh…worried about you two. Yes, we were worried.” Zack laughed nervously, which then elbowed by Aerith for stuttering.

“So, did you guys get nice pictures? Because I am expecting it.” I snickered.

“I thought you were grounded, Zack.” Noct smirked.

“Hey, everyone! The photos are done. What are- “Yuffie stopped in mid sentence when she saw us. “Ahahahaha. Hello, [Name].” Yuffie greeted me.

“Geh! Noct!” Prompto gasped.

“Yuffie~, Prompto ~ What about those pictures in your hands?” I asked with a smile etched on my face.

“O-oh, th-this is..” She trailed off, senaking a glance on me, I still waiting her answer with a smile. “Eheheheh.... Okay, I give up. Here, all yours.” She gave us the photos they took. To put it simply, those are our candid photos. There are also the others but mostly about me and Noctis.

“Awww, this one is soo cute.” Tifa cooed. The pictures she chooses is the one when Noct was eating my ice cream. The angle is good. It’s just quite embarrassing.

“Heheh. Mine is this.” Luna chose the time when I put Chocobo hat on Noct.

“Oh. I like this one.” Stella picked our competition in shooting range.

“This one is good.” Aerith liked the one where I hug the huge Fat Chocobo in Chocobo House.

“Oookay. Let’s save this for later. For the last ride, we’ll go on Chocobo Jet. I will not allow any objection.” I exclaimed happily. For the last ride. We are fortunate the ride is enough for all of us.

“It was fun! It’s been a while I play this much.” I stretched.

“We should come here together again.” Rinoa smiled.

“Agreed! But no more stalking.” I laughed.

Time sure flies fast. It’s already one week before Christmas, we the girls are shopping for Christmas gift. ‘Sooo, what should I buy? Let’s just buy what they can use everyday.’ The other girls already busy choosing their own gifts. I am just strolling in the accesorries shop. After all of us finished, we head back to home. ~”~

It’s finally Christmas. The girls agreed to gather at Tifa’s house and give a make-over to each other, while I opted to not involved which is not an option. I am also dragged in to the whole fiasco. Exactly 7 p.m. We heard the knock, signaling the boy group has come.

“Merry Christmas.” Zack said excitedly.

“Merry Christmas.” We greeted. After we greeted each other, the party starts. I give them their respective gifts. Earrings for Tifa, bracelet for Yuffie, a necklace for Stella and Luna, a phone case for Vincent, a dress for Aerith, a google for Cloud, another dress for Rinoa and a for Zack, my self proclaimed brother, I gave him a pair of shoes. For my dearest cousin, it’s a leather jacket.

I am now down to the last person, but the said person isn’t in the room. The gift is still clutched in my hand. I see Tifa tilts her head to the yard, I nod and flash a grateful smile.

I found him gazing stars. “Not going to enter?” I asked.

Noctis glances at me and then back to the stars. “Too noisy.” Was his short answer. I laugh lightly at his short, but clear answer.

There is a comfortable silence between us, until I remember the reason I searched him. “Here.” I gave him the small blue box.

“For me?” I nodded at his question. Then he also pulls out something small from his pocket and gives it to me. I look at the gift curiously. I try to guess what’s in this little black box. Seeing the blatant curiosity on my face, Noctis chuckles. “Open it.” He said. With that said, I open the box excitedly. There, in the black box there is a ring necklace. My name is carved on the ring. My eyes widened and let out a small laugh. Noctis only stares at me with raised eyebrow.

“Open my gift.” I said still laughing. With a strange look he opens the box. His eyes also widen, there in the blue box I gave him, there’s also a same ring necklace. the only difference is the carved names. Then a small laugh also escapes from his lips.

“Will you allow me to escort you in the winter ball?” He asked.

This question caught me off guard. I never thought he will ask me let alone think about it. I look left, right and then behind me to see if someone is there. “…Are you practicing so you can ask Luna?” I blinked.

“Why are you bringing up Luna?” He frowned.

“Eh? Why? Because isn’t that so?” I was taken back.

“It’s not.” He sighed exasperated.

“Then… If you are fine with me. I’ll be happy to take on your offer.” I smiled. ~”~

The day before the ball. The girls agree to meet up again in Tifa’s house right after school. They are going to match the dress they’ve bought with their accessories. “Hm? [Name], where’s your dress?” Luna asked.

“Ah, I don’t have one I was sure I am going alone, so I didn’t buy dress. I am going to wear school uniform. The rule didn’t specifically say the dress code is an evening dress.” I smiled sheepishly.

“School…” (Stella)

“Uni…” (Aerith)

“…form” (Tifa)

“You said?!” (Luna)

“Huh? Isn’t Noctis escorting you?” Yuffie blinked.

“He did two days ago. It’s just, I don’t have time to pick up dress. So, I am going to wear school uniform.” I nodded.

“Change of plan.” Stella said seriously.

“Yes. We have a change of plan.” Luna agreed.

“Huh?” I blinked.

“We are going to shop for your dress right now.” Aerith smiled.

“Eh? Right now. We don’t have that much time…anymore.” I finished timidly, seeing their scary smiles.

“Sorry [Name}. Even I can’t help you.” Yuffie said. ~”~

At last, the most dreaded day that I wish never come is finally here. 28th December, that means the winter ball. ‘Why it has to be a ballroom, can we just change to more casual party?’ I groaned.

“[Name], you shouldn’t put that kind of face. You are the prince’s date, are you not?” Zack teased.

“The said prince has the same opinion as me.” I said unamused. The girls and the boys wear a matching color, including Noct and I. Apparently, Luna called Noct and asked, no demanded him to wear a cobalt blue suit, so he can match with my dress.

The hall is decorated just like a real ballroom. There are also snacks and drinks there. Once we enter the hall, Reno instantly flies to the other side of the hall sweet talking to a group of girls. The others asked their dates to dance with them. Being a gentleman he is, our favourite prince also asks me to dance. “I can’t dance.” I smiled wryly.

“Don’t worry. Just follow my lead. Waltz is an easy dance.” He said taking my hand. We dance peacefully until someone with the name of Tachibana Kirika ruins it.

“Noctis dear~” She called with such coquettish voice that it actually made me had a goosebumps. “I am sure I can be a better partner than this plain looking girl.” Tachibana-san winked at him.

“Sorry if I am plain looking. At least, you should learn how to wear a proper make up. The color doesn’t suit you.” I rolled my eyes.

“No, thank you.” He refused politely.

But that sets Tachibana-san in rage. “Exactly what did you see in this girl?” She screeched and pointed her finger to me. “I am prettier and a ton of guys asked me to be their date.” She yelled.

Noctis narrows his eyes. “Then, you can have them to accompany you. Listen, I am tired of your antics. Don’t you dare badmouth her! The next time you do so, I won’t forgive you!” Noctis snapped. Then, Noct storms out from the hall, leaving the said girl there standing dumbfounded and biting her fingernail.

‘Wow, this is the first time I see him angry.’ I too, quietly leaving the hall searching for my partner.

“So, you are here.” I said after I found him on the rooftop. He only stands there unmoving. “Still angry?” I asked.

“Not anymore.” He answered.

“I doubt she will stalk you after your outburst just now.” I laughed.

“She better be.” He let out a snort.

“Hey, Noct.”

“Hm?”

“What was the meaning of the word carved in the golden watch?” I asked as I took out the watch from my dress’ small pocket.

“Are you curious about that?” He asked.

“Very.” Was my answer.

“That is-�� He walked closer to me without breaking the eye contact. He stands right in front of me, making me wait with bated breath. He bends down so his mouth right beside my ear, and whispers softly. “Eternal bond.” After saying that, he stood straight. A small smile on his lip, satisfied with my now blushing face.

“You-! Can just say it normally.” I glared at him. The futile glare only makes him smiles. He pulls me toward him. “Wha-” I blinked rapidly as he pressed his lips to mine.

‘Unable to process. [Name].exe crashed.’

I suddenly wake up from my nap and look at my surrounding. I am in my room, the same room before all of that happen, my workbook is still on my desk untouched. “I see, that was a dream after all.” I said disappointed. I blush again remembering the last part of the dream. “What an outrageous dream I had.” I sweatdropped. I put my finger on my lips as if I can still feel the warmth.

“[Name], you idiot. That was just a dream.” I scolded myself. “Rather than thinking about it, I should take a bath.” I mumbled walking to the bathroom. Unbeknown to me there are a ring necklace with my name and a golden watch with its lid opened on my desk.

“Our bond is eternal”

[nethandrake]

So, games the Avengers play?

Steve: Dragon Age: Inquisition as discussed, indie games with pretty art/Social Justice themes/dogs

Tony: Tetris and those super hard games that are just like no thoughts only go once it gets far enough in. Think Flappy Bird or Robot Unicorn Attack, the Impossible Game, Race the Sun, etc.

Clint: Zelda and most Nintendo. He has accidentally spent 4 figures on a mobile game before. He pretends he likes horror games but in reality he makes Nat play them for him.

Nat: Halo and the Sims. Shooter and Sim games in general, but those are her favs

Thor: all Final Fantasy games. He’d like other JRPGs but he wants to play all the Final Fantasys first and it’s taking a WHILE. Also Zelda.

Bruce: Metroidvanias, Minecraft on creative mode only

Jan: Animal Crossing, Visual Novels, and puzzle games. She doesn’t care if people call her a fake girl gamer she likes what she likes and those people suck. Also Silent Hill. She likes watching the later FFs Thor plays for the fashions

Dunno which of them are into the Triple A Sony prestige titles, I think Tony would like them? (They would totes make him cry) But he’s to busy to play them and actually pay attention, tho maybe it’s a thing where Steve makes him play it “for him like Nat does for Clint and the scary games” because the game part is “to hard” but really it’s a way to make Tony both take a break and spend time together.

(Ironically none of them play looter shooters and that’s what their big Square Enix game is. Sam and Bucky got super into Destiny back in the day but had to quit after an intervention)

I can totally see all of these fitting them. I just love how Steve would just play games with dogs. He doesn't care what game it is. He sees a dog, it's all over for him. Unfortunately, he immediately quits TLOU2 when he discovers that he has to kill a dog and refuses to touch it no matter what everyone says.

Tony playing super hard games makes me think of the Soulsborne stuff. He'll probably just play them and refuse to quit out of sheer stubborness. Also, I think he'd love sandbox games (ex: Sims, City Skylines). He'd just go ham in designing stuff. That's how he and Nat spend their free time together.

CLINT'S SO ACCURATE, I'M CACKLING. I can imagine him just buying the new Resident Evil and forcing Nat to play it for him so he can bury his face in a pillow. He still screams at every random noise anyway.

I think Nat would also love stealth stuff. She'll probably spend a lot of time playing Hitman, Assassin's Creed, and Dishonored and figuring out the number of ways to assassinate her target.

Thor being a JRPG fan is something I never thought of but yes, I can see it now. I've been playing Digimon lately and I can just imagine him trying to get as many cool Digimon as he can. Someone tries to get him to play the latest God of War but Thor finds the whole thing both offensive and hilarious because this is preposterous and blasphemous. This is not how we Asgardians are like.

Bruce would definitely play lowkey games as stress-relievers. He also jumps onto simulators like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley and plays them with Jan sometimes. He ignores Tony's tips on becoming rich.

Imo, Jan would also be a Nintendo nut (but omg, Visual Novels, I never thought of that but it works). She'd be super competitive playing Smash and Pokemon too.

As for triple A titles, I do think that Tony and Clint would appreciate them. Maybe even Steve. I think he'll love one with a really good story. But I also can imagine Peter being into them??? I feel like considering his love for Star Wars, he'd also love Jedi Fallen Order. But I think they make this a weekly thing. Someone would play, a few people would be backseat gamers while the rest just wants to enjoy the freaking story, goddamnit guys.

When Marvel titles crop up, they definitely make time so they can make fun of their counterparts.

Sam and Bucky being into looter shooters and needing an intervention, SEND HELP. But also, imagine everyone making them play a co-op game where they have to rely on each other (ex: A Way Out). They have to keep pausing the game just so they can yell at each other.

[destihellhound]

We Write Our Own Destiny

Canon-divergent ending to 15x19, ignoring 15x20. Also on AO3 | ff

Tagging @destielintheimpala because she’s my best friend and @ineffable-cas because I remember seeing them asking to be tagged in any fix-it fics.

"I won't be hands on," Jack told them. "Chuck put himself in the story - that was his mistake. But I learned from you and my mother and Castiel that when people have to be their best, they can be. And that's what to believe in. Well... I'm really as close as this," he said, placing a hand over his heart. Then he raised his hand in a stationary, dorky wave. "Goodbye."

"Wait!" Dean said, as Jack turned to walk away. "What about Cas? Chuck pulled Lucifer out of the Empty, you can save Cas!"

Jack raised his hands, palms outwards. "I'm hands-off, Dean."

"But it's Cas," Dean growled, taking a threatening step forwards. "We can't get to him there, and it's not like the Empty is just going to give him back if we ask nicely." When Jack didn't seem at all inclined to change his mind, he tried a different approach. "You owe me."

"Uh, Dean?" Sam said hesitantly. "Maybe not a good idea to piss off the new... Him."

"It's Jack, Sam," Dean said, glancing over his shoulder. "The kid who killed our mother." He turned on Jack. "You said you wanted to make it up to me? This is how you do that!"

"Dean, I—" Jack's eyes glazed over for a second as his attention seemed to be focused elsewhere. "She really does have a soft spot for you Dean," Jack told him before disappearing in a burst of divine light.

Dean stared at the space where Jack had stood, just a moment before. What the hell did that mean? Had Amara persuaded Jack to change his mind, or was he still against interfering?

"Hello, Dean."

Dean froze at the familiar voice, almost afraid to turn around. The last time he'd heard Castiel's voice, it had been Lucifer. He swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. What if it was just another trick?

"Hello, Sam."

"Hey, Cas," Sam said warmly, and his brother's voice was enough to have Dean turning.

Cas was smiling at Sam, though still visibly confused as to why he was back on Earth. When he turned to Dean, however, his smile faltered.

Dean wished he could say something, anything, to wipe that insecurity off Castiel's face because the angel was back where he belonged. He was always better with actions than words, however, so he strode up to Cas and wrapped his arms around him, hands clenching in that god-awful trench coat.

"Dean," Castiel began, unsurely.

"Later, Cas," Dean murmured in his ear. "Let's go home."

Dean felt like a great weight had been lifted from him as the angel hugged him back; a weight he hadn't even realised had been dragging him down.

"I'll make burgers. You love burgers."

"Everything tastes like molecules to me."

"Not the point," Dean said, leading them back to the car. "You are a part of this family, Cas - don't ever forget it."

"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked, a sudden thought striking him. "Do you think Adam... Michael was destroyed, but do you think Jack brought Adam back?"

"I hope so," Dean said. "That kid deserves to catch a break. We'll reach out, make sure everyone we know is back, and put out the word that we're looking for him."

"Okay."

As they got nearer the Impala, Dean saw Miracle sitting patiently beside the rear door.

"Oh, hell no..."

"Do you think he's got an owner around here?" Sam asked, looking around.

"We're not keeping the dog, Sam."

"You've changed your tune."

"That was different, okay?" He'd just lost Cas. "It was supposed to just be us, and then there was this little miracle and—"

Miracle barked, as if recognising his name.

Dean sighed. Looked at Sam. Ignored his brother's puppy-dog eyes. Looked at Cas. Took in the angel's hangdog expression.

"Oh, for..." He trailed off in defeat. "I am not feeding him. I am not walking him. And I am not vacuuming the hair out of Baby! That's your job," Dean told Sam. "And if you don't keep her clean, I will shoot you, and then I'll shoot Mir— the dog!" He turned to Miracle. "And you are not riding shotgun!" He got in the car and slammed the door.

"Do you want to ride up front?" Sam asked Cas, failing to hide his amusement at Dean's feigned dislike of their adopted four-legged friend.

The angel responded by getting in the backseat with the dog.

As they began the long drive back to the bunker, Sam texted Eileen. His relief at getting a response was nothing compared to the relief and joy that wiped years off his face when she answered his video call and he saw her face.

His relief echoed the feeling flooding through Dean for getting Cas back, and he glanced at the angel in his rearview mirror.

"I love you," Sam told Eileen, doubling down on his feelings by communicating them through ASL as well.

"I love you, too," she said.

"Get a room, you two," Dean teased them.

Sam called him a jerk as he dug his headphones out.

Dean didn't think Sam had said those three little words to anyone since Jess, and Dean himself had never said them; could never bring himself to say them. He glanced at Cas in the mirror again, chest constricting at the thought of losing Cas again. He'd lost him too many times, and was terrified that he'd lose him again.

Sam arranged for Eileen to meet them at the bunker, but in the end Dean volunteered to take a detour to her house so that Sam could ride home with her. Thankfully he took Miracle, too, and Cas moved into the front passenger seat.

"Is it later, yet?" he asked, once they were back on the road.

Dean swallowed. He had meant later, once they'd eaten and he'd had a chance to figure out what the hell he wanted to say. "I guess it is."

Cas sat there silently, minutes dragging by, until Dean realised the angel was waiting for him to speak. Cas had said everything he'd had to say before the Empty took him, and now it was Dean's turn.

"Look, uh, I've never... Guys aren't something that... If you know me, then you know that..."

"I am a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent," Cas reminded Dean patiently. "It is the vessel that I am possessing that presents as male." He squinted. "I could take a female vessel, if that is something you would—"

"No!" Dean exclaimed quickly.

Cas swallowed. "It's not my vessel," he realised sadly. "It's that my feelings for you are not returned."

"Dude, that's not what I'm—" Dean trailed a hand down his face. "Losing you, it hurts. It hurts as much as losing Sam, only it's different, and I don't know what that means."

"I think," Cas began carefully, "it means that you love me. But you need to decide what kind of love it is that you're feeling. Familial, platonic, romantic..."

"What?"

"Do you love me as family, as a friend, or as a romantic partner? I loved you as a friend, then as family, and I grew to love you romantically - but I don't love you because I have a desire for sexual intimacy with you. As an angel that would be as disappointing as eating - merely experiencing the physical and hormonal sensations without feeling the accompanying pleasure. Though if that was something you desired I would be more than willing to oblige, but I don't see that as being something you would have an interest in. At least, not in this vessel. Yet you are unwilling for me to change vessels."

"It wouldn't be you, then."

"I would still be me, Dean."

"I know, I just mean..."

"You've gotten used to seeing me as Jimmy Novak."

Dean coughed. "Way to make it weird, Cas."

"All I want is to spend your life with you," Cas told him.

"You've always been welcome to do that, Cas. But you leave."

"Or you send me away."

Dean swallowed, knowing that Cas was thinking about his time as a human - when Gadreel, pretending to be Ezekiel, had insisted that Castiel could not be around him. "I'm sorry," Dean apologised. He'd apologised before, and would keep apologising. "You needed me, and I should have been there for you."

"You made the choice you did out of your love for Sam," Cas acknowledged. "And that love is one of the many reasons that I love you. I would settle for living your life with you as your friend, as family, if that was all you desired. But I hope for you to desire more."

Dean frowned. "I thought you said you didn't want sex?"

Cas stared at him for a long moment. "Commitment, Dean. A promise to spend your life with me, faithfully."

And Dean nearly drove the car off the road as he realised that 'commitment' meant no more one night stands, no more casual flings. He was such an idiot... But the more he mulled over the meaning of Castiel's words, the more he surprised himself to realise that he was okay with the idea. Sure, sex was pleasurable and fun, but without a meaningful, emotional connection to the other person involved it lacked something that always left him feeling physically satisfied but otherwise empty.

"Would you ever have told me how you felt?" he blurted out. "If you hadn't been trying to save me from Billie?"

"I don't think so," Cas admitted.

"Why not?"

Castiel stared out of the window, looking away from Dean. "Because to hear you tell me that my feelings were not returned, or worse, for you to ask me to leave, is something that would hurt too much."

"The Empty's definitely not coming back for you, right?"

"No, Dean. Our deal was fulfilled."

"Then say it again, Cas."

Castiel turned to him, slowly, with hope in his eyes. "I love you," he said quietly.

Dean shot Cas a meaningful look. "I know."

Hurt momentarily crossed Castiel's face, before realisation dawned and he beamed. "I understand that reference."

Dean laughed, and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

"So, what now?" Sam asked, once they'd all pushed their plates aside, stuffed full on Dean's homemade burgers.

"Everything we've ever done has been because Chuck wanted it that way," Dean said. "From before we were even born, Heaven was manipulating Mom and Dad into a relationship. Hunting has been my life, but I don't want the job title to define me."

"Job title?" Sam echoed, amused.

"Yeah. 'Hunter' - I want to be more than that."

"Such as?"

"A teacher," Dean said. "I was thinking about it on the drive home - the next generation of hunters are growing up fast, and they need help just like Bobby helped us. And you were doing good, running that network of hunters from here. That could be our future - making our own way. Not hunters, or Men of Letters, but combining that into something that is ours. From now on, we write our own destiny."

Sam nodded thoughtfully.

"And I want to retire. At least partially. I want to live a life. I want to live my life. I want to be a brother," he said, looking at Sam. "Maybe even a brother-in-law?" he asked, giving Eileen a look that caused her to blush and Sam to kick him under the table. "And a... partner," he finished, looking at Cas. He wasn't sure what the right word was to describe what he wanted with Cas, but he had time to figure it out.

Sam cleared his throat. "You cooked, Eileen and I will clean up," he said, gesturing at their dirty plates. "Why don't you and Cas go, uh, watch some Netflix. And maybe chill." He chuckled to himself.

"Sure, that sounds like a great idea," Dean said, standing up and dragging Cas out of his chair. He failed to understand what Sam found so funny. "Maybe we can finish Game of Thrones - I hear that show had a terrible ending..."

[emeraldbabygirl]

Hanbin was accused, Hanbin was cleared

Wonho was accused, Wonho was cleared

Woojin was accused. Woojin is cleared

Illhoon was accused. I believe Illhoon too will be cleared.

I can finally speak out on of the things that has been bothering me since the news broke out. At the time it was very scary and stressful as we were dealing with the wildfires in our state at the same time so I was already having a hard time. Woojin was my bias and I never believed he would do something like that. I know everyone says to believe the victim but innocent until proven guilty is still valid and victims lie, it happens often and we all know how fans and antis get sometimes, just like Wonho and Hanbin people will do anything to throw idols under the bus.

The scariest thing for me to see was how quick everyone was in defending Hanbin and Wonho and how quick the same people threw Woojin away, immediately spreading hate and sending death threat and calling him fake and all these names and just obnoxious behaiver. I understand we were all upset but you can’t just believe someone right away with no evidence and so many holes in their story. And sometimes it’s best to wait it out and then make a decision.

It wasn’t just Woojin that was caught up in the whirlwind, Jungwoo, Chanwoo, Hongjoong, Seonghwa and a few more that I can’t remember were also names thrown out from so many people. Their biggest thing was when they claimed he was a member from the big three, had a w and two o’s in his name. This is not a good statement because for one thing Woojin left Stray Kids and JYP so not only was he out of the big 3 but he’s not the only one with those letters in his name. Jungwoo and Chanwoo are also under the big three and have a w and two o’s in their names.

Back when it was so big on Twitter the Jungwoo tags were all stating that Woojin was innocent but the Stray Kids tags were saying he was guilty. Even the supposed person themselves posted one last tweet before delete the account stating it was all fake but no one took that screenshot so people were led to believe it was all fake

And then on the bullying, I’ve seen a lot of videos saying ‘this idol bullying this group’ or ‘this group bullying this member for 8 minutes’ and multiple videos being taken out of context and people claiming that since Woojin doesn’t speak a lot in some videos it’s proof he doesn’t get along and the member don’t like him. Y’all that’s not how things work. Just because you aren’t fully engaged in an activity or if you aren’t getting along doesn’t make you a bully or a bad person, Woojin was going through his own shit and idols lives are hard enough, if they feel out of it sometimes it’s not okay for us to immediately accuse them of such things like ‘they don’t like their members, they don’t get along, they are bullies.’

Idols live together and are around each other often so what you might see as “bullying” might just be them goofing off I mean ffs there is a video titled ‘ATEEZ bullying Seonghwa’ and y’all fine with that because they are only goofing around and teasing each other but you automatically assume from any footage or out of context video of Woojin playing with and teasing the members that he’s a bully. Why are you putting double standards on this? Bullying is a very serious accusation and rumors and spreading false information or any information with no evidence can ruin an idols careers. Tara and Co-Ed School unfortunately we’re big examples of this. The Tara bullying scandal ruined those girls and all the rumors and accusations caused Co-Ed School to disband before anyone could say everything was false. You have to be careful with what you say and what you hear and see cause if it’s not true and everyone believes it is you ruined a whole idols career before it can even be fixed.

Ok so, yes I know everyone says “the victim is always right” and it’s okay if you want to believe that but remember there are two sides to every story and both parties are valid until further evidence or actual evidence and you are able to prove whether or not something actually happened. I had some other things to say but I’ll let those slide and it doesn’t matter not because Woojin is innocent and it’s great news. I’m so relieved because he was my bias and I was so heartbroken when he left and when I heard about the trouble he was going through. I was so afraid to even say Woojin because everyone was censering it, acting like it was a bad name and that’s not fair on Woojin himself and it’s also not fair on the other idols named Woojin because there are at least 5 Woojins so for people to be doing that is like, you’re invalidating the other Woojin’s just because you think one Woojin is bad. Seeing people tag Woojin like w***** or w**jin and woojail and tw woojin is really upsetting and that’s not okay, that’s like bullying, calling him woojail is not okay at all. Pretending his name is a trigger when it’s not and if his name was a trigger than all the idols named Woojin would have that and censoring his name, again you’re invalidating all the other woojins. And everyone that says “ot8 or get the fuck out” or “if you still support Woojin fuck off” like..he’s literally fucking innocent. It was a bunch of Brazilian antis that started all the lies and rumors and after all the stories that don’t make sense and people still think he’s guilty and they are still sending him hate and being absolute assholes towards him. If you don’t want to believe that he’s innocent, if you don’t want to like him fine. Don’t talk about him don’t make a bunch of woojail posts, don’t send him hate or death threats because you’re 1. Making things worse and 2. Care enough about him to make his life miserable which is exactly what antis do and what those antis did. It pisses me off and upsets me how fast everyone just turned on him and they continue to bully him and send him unnecessary hate. Also it’s ok to tag Stray kids and Woojin because he was a member of Stray Kids so don’t give people shit for tagging Stray Kids.

So I’m gonna end this posts educating y’all about the multiple Woojins and it’s okay to say and spell Woojin you guys. It’s alright, you won’t get in trouble. So Woojin, my boy who I miss so so much Kim Woojin who was in Stray Kids, there’s my Thot Woojin from Target, an amazing rapper btw, I do believe there is a Woojin in AB6IX and of course there is the hot Woojin from My.st who just has this whole vibe to him that is dead sexy. Also the Woojin from Teenteen/Ghost9 and also also your gurl found a sexy man, despite me not being into body builders, I found a man on Insta named Kim Woojin and he is definitely a fucking snaCC. So thanks and enjoy the Woojins. I can get back to making my memes again. I’m just sad that I believed and jumped to conclusions and deleted some Woojin posts. But I stopped myself before I deleted all of them

ALSO ALSO recently it’s been pointed out how did Woojin has been and someone described it as what Jonghyun looked like before he left us. Woojin is my boy and I’ve been worrying about him ever since he left Stray Kids and I swear on god Hui and my camera roll if he hurts himself in any way or we lose another wonderful person I will blame Bangchan. I will blame Felix, I will blame JYP and I will blame everyone that started the rumors, the lies, the people that sent Woojin mean messages, death threats, bullying him because you don’t need to like an idol no matter what they do but bullying them and sending unnecessary hate to them is not ok no matter what they did. Even if it’s bad just ignore it because you sending them mean comments doesn’t make you any better. I was already pissed off at fans and everyone else and Bangchan and Felix for all the mean comments and everything else they were doing and I’ll be even more pissed off if this whole situation was too much for him on top of his depression and he ended his life.

Ok you know what, I’m so fucking pissed off over these posts I’m seeing on tumblr and I’m upset and I’m still having thoughts on whether or not I should post this but you know what. I don’t care. It’s my blog, it’s my opinion and it’s my feelings that I need to get off my chest. Kim Woojin is innocent and if I get any hate of any kind my stomach will do flips but y’all should know better especially if you don’t agree with me so have fun I guess I’ll probably delete or block you so I don’t have to hear your meany-ness. It’s my opinion, my post and my blog and if you don’t like it then I have nothing to say to you.

[unfolded73]

My Heartbeat Shows the Fear (1/4) - schitt’s creek ff

Summary: A canon divergent story: Patrick gets into a car accident and it brings the Brewers to town sooner.

Notes: This fic will be posted in 4 chapters, every other day. There is some description of injuries, but nothing too graphic or life-threatening.

The title is from "Overkill" by Colin Hay, which thanks to the show Scrubs puts me in mind of hospitals.

Thank you to Amanita_Fierce for putting so much time and thought into betaing this fic - you made it so, so much better. And thanks also to @high-seas-swan for some helpful suggestions, particularly on that one scene that I tore apart and rewrote.

Rated Teen, this chapter 5278 words. (ao3)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1

Patrick drifted into wakefulness like rising from a deep dive to the surface of the water. He became aware first, before even opening his eyes, of David’s arm over his chest and his hand curled protectively around the side of his ribcage. The sheets were soft against his skin and the duvet was a comforting weight over his body and he never wanted to move from this spot. Patrick lifted his own hand and dropped it clumsily over David’s, calloused fingertips tracing gently over David’s knuckles.

“Good morning,” David said in a surprisingly coherent voice for first thing in the morning.

Opening his eyes to see David watching him was an unusual experience. As he blinked sleep out of his eyes, Patrick tried to remember if David had ever woken up before him, and the only occasion he could summon to mind was New Year’s Day, after a night when Patrick had gotten much drunker than David had.

“Why are you awake so early?” Patrick yawned.

David shrugged. “It’s almost eight o’clock; you’re just sleeping later than usual.”

Groaning, Patrick started to sit up. The very energetic sex they’d indulged in last night must’ve really worn him out. “We’ve gotta get up and get started on those vendor pickups.” It was Monday and the store was closed, but they had so many pickups to do this week that they’d grudgingly agreed to do them on their day off, splitting the list in half.

“Mmm, five more minutes,” David said, holding Patrick down with the arm across his chest and shifting closer, their naked bodies coming into closer contact. Patrick closed his eyes and took a moment to appreciate that David hadn’t gotten up to put on pajamas last night, his usual routine even now that Patrick had his own apartment. Patrick was starting to suspect that he could read David’s lack of clothes the next morning as a particularly positive review on his performance in bed the night before.

“What are you smiling about?” David asked.

“Last night,” Patrick responded without opening his eyes. They really needed to get up, he thought, but lazing around in bed with David was very tempting.

David made a pleased sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah, that was, um…” He nuzzled against Patrick’s shoulder. “If that’s what happens after you go on a date with someone else, I’m almost inclined to tell you to do it again.”

Patrick bristled at that. “That’s not funny.”

“Sorry,” David whispered, pressing a supplicating kiss against Patrick’s arm.

“Besides, I bailed partway through the date,” Patrick said.

“Mm. Poor Ken,” David said. “He has no idea what he’s missing out on.”

Patrick frowned, turning onto his side and dislodging David from his chest. “You didn’t expect me to sleep with Ken, did you?”

David opened and closed his mouth. “Not sleep with, no.”

The same queasiness that Patrick had felt last night as he drove to meet Ken rose up in his stomach. “Then, what? A quick handjob in my car?”

David shot him a guilty look. “No,” he said, but then bit his lip. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe something like that. Something that you’ve only experienced with me that you might be… curious about experiencing with another man.”

Patrick sighed. “Okay, first of all, I’m not particularly curious about experiencing stuff like that with other men.”

“Yeah, you said—”

“And if I do become curious, or… or want to … explore with another guy in the future, you and I are going to have to be a lot clearer with each other about what is and isn’t going to happen.”

“Ground rules,” David grumbled.

“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick leaned over and kissed him. “But, David.” He kissed him again. “It’s so good with you. I sort of can’t imagine anyone else not being a huge step down in quality.”

He watched David’s face go on a journey before settling on pleased. “That’s very flattering. But sometimes the point is that it’s a stranger. Or at least, someone you aren’t going to see again.”

Patrick pulled back. “Is that something you want?”

David rolled his eyes, dismissing that idea with a flap of his hand as he looked up at the ceiling. “God no. I had a lifetime’s worth of casual sex.”

Reaching out, Patrick put his hand on David’s cheek, turning his head so that they were looking at each other again. David’s face softened, his eyes gazing into Patrick’s in the way that always made his stomach swoop. Made Patrick want to sink into David’s arms and never let go. “And if that ever changes, will you tell me?”

There was a pause, and then David nodded. “Of course. Will you tell me? If you change your mind?”

Patrick nodded. “I promise.” And then he pulled David closer, kissing him deeper and with more tongue than was probably warranted given their morning breath. For once, David didn’t complain.

After a minute, Patrick had to wrench his mouth away and force himself to sit up. “Okay, if we don’t get up now, I’m going to end up fucking you again.”

David smirked. “What’s so wrong with that?” And then he wiggled his hips and his expression became more thoughtful. “Although I’m still feeling what you did to me last night.”

Patrick winced. They had gone at it pretty hard, he remembered with a mixture of desire and guilt. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” David said. “It was perfect and don’t you dare apologize. Just not sure if I can get fucked again right at this precise moment.”

Patrick whipped the covers off and stood up, ignoring his own visible arousal. “You aren’t going to be. You’re gonna get ready to do the pickups west of town.”

David whined and stuck his bottom lip out. Patrick turned away from him and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor before he was tempted to bite David’s lip, because that way did not lead toward getting their vendor pickups done. “Can you make us some breakfast while I shower?” Patrick called over his shoulder. David’s “ugh fine” reached his ears just as he was closing the bathroom door.

Once he had showered and shaved, Patrick emerged back into the apartment, a towel around his waist. David had pulled on a sweatshirt and drawstring shorts and was in the kitchen making Patrick’s tea. The domesticity of it made something tender and fragile swell in his chest. He loved having David here in his apartment, and he felt a wild desire to just ask David to move in, his resolution to take his time with that step in their relationship be damned. In moments like this, his original idea that he wanted to spend some time living on his own seemed silly. As he pulled on underwear and jeans (glancing over his shoulder to catch David checking out his ass), a t-shirt and a v-neck sweater, he imagined it — David’s clothes in his closet (well, some of them), David’s shoes by the door, his journal on the nightstand, his products finding a permanent home in Patrick’s bathroom rather than lugged back and forth between the motel and the apartment in David’s bag.

“Your mom is texting.”

Startled, Patrick looked over to David, who was pointing at Patrick’s phone on the kitchen counter. “I’m gonna shower,” David continued, unaware of the track of Patrick’s thoughts. “Here’s your tea and some toast.”

Patrick walked over and picked up his phone in one hand and a piece of toast in the other.

Mom: Can you call when you get a chance?

Oh yeah, the other reason he wasn’t ready to ask David to move in yet, he thought with a surge of shame. His parents.

Figuring David would be in the bathroom for a while yet, Patrick unlocked his phone and placed the requested call.

“Hi, sweetheart!” his mother said in a chipper voice.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, we were just having breakfast and realizing that we hadn’t heard from you in a while. How are things with you?”

Patrick looked at the closed bathroom door, and then moved over to the other side of the apartment. “Things are good. I’ve got vendor pickups to do today.”

“You work so hard, dear. I hope you are taking some time for yourself too.”

“I am.” He thought about dates with David, or curling up on the bed and watching movies with David, none of which he was ready to talk to his mother about. He knew it was time. It was way past time, but he could never get the words to come out when he was on the phone with his parents. “I went two for four in my last game,” he said. Baseball was always a safe topic.

“That’s great!” his mother said, the enthusiasm she’d always shown for his athletic activities obvious in her voice. “I bet they’re glad to have you on the team.”

“Uh huh. It’s a fun team.” He thought about how easy it was to be out of the closet around them — mentioning his boyfriend as the team drank beers together at the Wobbly Elm after practice, or kissing David after games when he came to watch. It was nice. He wanted that same ease with his family, to be able to mention David in passing as more than just his business partner. He ran a finger along the top of the framed picture on his desk, of him and David on Christmas Eve last year, arms around each other at the Roses’ party. Patrick had a hard time taking his eyes off of David in that photo sometimes, radiant in a silver sweater under the warm Christmas lights.

“Well,” she said, like she was hoping for him to say something else. After a pause in which he didn’t, his mother continued, “I should let you get on with your day.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, guilt churning in his stomach yet again at the fact that he couldn’t just be fucking honest with this mother. That the life he shared with his parents was more gaps than substance. “I’ll call again when I have more time to talk.”

“Okay,” she said, the happiness gone from her voice. He’d done that with his evasiveness, Patrick thought. He’d made his mother sad. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

~*~

David pulled up in front of the store in the Lincoln and pushed on the heavy driver’s door with a grunt. He stood up, his sweatshirt sticking to the small of his back with sweat. The vinyl seats were one of things he hated most about that car, and he hated a lot of things about it. He wasn’t that fond of Patrick’s car either, but at least it had slightly more comfortable seats. In any case, their divided errands had made borrowing Patrick’s car impossible, so he was stuck with the Lincoln.

He unlocked the door to the store and ducked his head in. “Patrick?” he called. Patrick’s car wasn’t out front, but it was possible he’d pulled around to the back to unload. When no one answered, David pulled out his phone and sent off a text: How close are you to getting back? There was no answer, so David assumed Patrick was driving. He opened his text chain with Stevie and texted, Can you come help me at the store for a minute?

Stevie: I’m busy working.

David: You’re not that busy if you’re texting me back.

She didn’t answer. “Fuck,” David whined to no one, resigning himself to having to unload the entire car by himself. This was why splitting up the vendor pickups had been a terrible idea, he thought as he muscled a crate of honey out of the trunk. Now here he was, all alone with very heavy things to carry.

By the time he had all of the new merchandise stacked in the back room, he was drenched with sweat and there was still no sign of Patrick. Well, just for that, he wasn’t going to wait around, David thought churlishly as he locked up and got back in the car. He was going to go take a shower at the motel and Patrick could unload by himself too.

He briefly considered going to Patrick’s apartment to shower; his water pressure was better and David had a couple of changes of clothes there. Plus, he had a key, and Patrick had said that he was welcome to come and go as he pleased. But he also knew that living alone was something that Patrick wanted — it was something he’d never had before, he’d admitted to David on the day he’d signed the lease. He’d gone from his parents’ house to a dorm to apartments with a series of roommates to living with Rachel to rooming with Ray. He’d never had his own place. David understood that and he wanted Patrick to have what he needed, not have David unexpectedly underfoot when he perhaps wasn’t welcome. Still, it didn’t stop his heart from aching a little bit. He wanted to live with Patrick, he’d realized. He had been ready to take that step and Patrick hadn’t been. It stung.

Alexis was doing something on the laptop computer at her little desk when David walked into their shared room, and she looked up at him and wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh, David, what happened to you?” she asked.

Narrowing his eyes, he dropped his bag on the bed. “I was working. What are you talking about?”

“You’re all gross and sweaty,” she replied.

“It’s hot out today, and I had to do a bunch of vendor pickups in that boat of a car and then unload everything into the store by myself because Patrick’s not back yet,” he complained. He collected a change of clothes and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him to punctuate how tough his day had been. Okay, he’d been able to sample some of the new butter cookies that Mrs. Franklin sold through their store, and maybe she’d also given him a glass of lemonade, but still.

After a shower, David felt worlds better, although there was still no reply from Patrick to his text.

“What is taking him so long to get back?” David muttered as he dug through his cedar chest. The sweater he was looking for didn’t appear to be in there, another annoyance in a day of annoyances.

“What’s the matter?” Alexis asked.

David waved at her, his hand flapping at the end of his wrist. “Patrick’s just taking forever to finish his vendor pickups,” he said, trying to ignore the worry beginning to gnaw in his stomach. “It’s fine.”

“I hope you had a talk last night, David,” Alexis said, her eyes not coming up from her laptop. “No more fooling around with anyone outside the relationship until you’ve established some ground rules.”

David whipped around and glared at her. “Can you let that go, please? We’re fine.”

“No thanks to you,” she said.

He suppressed a squawk. “We had a healthy talk about it this morning. We’re fine.”

“Good,” Alexis said.

“Also the sex last night was very hot—”

“David, ew.” She stuck her tongue out. “Don’t tell me that.” But then she sort of half-smiled at him. “I’m glad you guys are okay.”

David smiled back. He was glad too. “He makes me…” David started to say, then thought better of being so vulnerable in front of his sister. But what the hell; she’d been there for him last night when he needed someone. He moved over to his bed and sat down to put on his shoes. “He makes me feel safe. No one’s ever… I’ve never dated anyone who made me feel safe before.”

Alexis, to her credit, didn’t make fun of him, although the squinty smile she gave him made him recoil, grimacing.

“Kids!” his dad called as he barged into the room. “We’re headed over to the café for dinner. Do you want to join us?”

Alexis shook her head. “I’m going over to Ted’s for dinner.”

David picked up his phone and sent another text to Patrick. Are you still not back yet? And then he stared at the screen, waiting to see dots to indicate Patrick was texting back, or at least to see a read receipt. The ball of worry in his stomach grew a little bit bigger.

“David, do you want to come with your mother and me?” Johnny asked.

“I was supposed to eat at Patrick’s,” he said. “But maybe. I don’t know.” He switched apps and called Patrick’s phone, holding it to his ear and listening to it ring and ring and ring. With every ring, he felt his breathing rate tick up.

“Well, we’re going now, so I need you to decide,” Johnny said irritably.

David slapped his phone down on the bedspread and threw his hands up. “Then go without me; it’s fine!”

“David, I’m not going to wait around for a second evening that I’m supposed to spend with Ted while you have another meltdown about—”

“No one’s having a meltdown!” David shouted. “I just don’t know where my boyfriend is!” He looked at the time, feeling queasy. His previous annoyance was gone and now he was just worried. Patrick really should have been back hours ago. He tried calling again.

“David, you need to be a little bit less clingy—” Alexis said.

“Okay, well, we’re going to go,” Johnny said. “You can join us later, if…”

David’s phone vibrated in his hand, and he saw he had a call from an unknown number coming in as he tried to call Patrick. Maybe Patrick’s phone had died and he was calling from someone else’s phone, he thought as he clicked to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this David Rose?” asked a woman in a sharp, business-like tone of voice.

“Yes, who is this?” he snapped.

“This is Cheryl calling from Elmdale Hospital. We’ve got a Patrick Brewer here and he gave us your number as his emergency contact.”

“Oh, God.” There was a rushing noise in his ears and his mouth tasted like bile as he tried to shape it into making useful words. “What happened to him? Is he okay?” David clutched the edge of his bed, feeling dizzy, heart racing.

“There was a car accident and he was brought in by ambulance a little while ago. He’s having some tests done, but I can’t disclose any information about his health to you over the phone. If you come to the hospital—”

David hung up. He imagined Patrick’s car, the car he’d ridden in countless times on their way to movie dates or dinner, speeding through the countryside as Mariah Carey or one of Patrick’s alt-folk bands blasted out of the shitty speakers. Patrick’s car, mangled on a deserted road somewhere, no one around for miles. How long did it take before an ambulance came? How long was he lying there alone, broken and injured by the side of the road?

“David, you’ve gone very pale,” Alexis said.

“Is Patrick all right?” Johnny asked as Moira wandered in.

“John, I’m a bit peckish,” she said. “Are we leaving soon?”

“Patrick was in a car accident,” David said. Everyone’s voices sounded muffled to his ears, even his own. “I need to go to the hospital.” He stood up and looked around for the keys. He didn’t think he’d returned them to his father’s stupid little hook in the other room. Where were they?

There was a flurry of activity and then Alexis was at his side. “I’ll drive.”

David ignored her. He didn’t have time to think about Alexis right now. Where were the fucking keys?

Alexis held up her hand. “I have the keys and I’m driving,” she said, and David spared a moment to be confused about what he’d just thought to himself and what he’d said out loud. “You’re shaking,” she said pointedly. “Put your shoes on and let’s go.”

“Is he all right, David?” his mother asked as David sat back down on the bed and reached for his shoes. His fingers felt numb and clumsy.

“I don’t know.”

He looked up to see his parents exchange a nervous glance.

“I mean, they said they were doing tests. They wouldn’t say that if he was, like…” Dead, his brain supplied, but the word wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

“Shall we accompany you to the hospital, my darling?” Moira asked, grimacing, clearly regretting making the offer even as she did so.

“Nope,” Alexis said, shooing them back into their room. “No need for that. We’ll call you as soon as we know something,” she said firmly. When Alexis used that voice, people often had a hard time arguing, and their parents were no exception this time.

David tied his shoes awkwardly, the bows kind of a mess. Patrick had made fun of him one time about the precise way he tied his shoes. Patrick, who was lying in a hospital bed, injured, alone…

“Come on, David,” Alexis said, taking his arm firmly but kindly. “Have you got your wallet and phone?” He patted his pockets and nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

It was normally a forty minute drive to Elmdale, lots of time for David to imagine every possible horrible scenario. Maybe Patrick was in a coma, and would wake up having forgotten who David was, or even that he liked men. Maybe he would be paralyzed. Maybe his face would be horribly scarred. David would love him anyway, he thought, even if he’d been disfigured. All that mattered was that he came through this alive.

“I’m sure he’s okay, David,” Alexis said as if she could hear what was going on inside his head. She needed to stop doing that. It was creepy.

“You don’t know that.”

“His car is boring and probably has airbags and, like, crumple zones or whatever,” she said. “I bet he’s just got a little bonk on the head. The tests are probably just a precaution.”

He sighed, playing out that much more comforting fantasy in his head instead of his dark ones. Patrick would just stroll out of an examining room and David would hug him tight and take him home and everything would be fine.

They arrived at the hospital in only thirty-two minutes, thanks to Alexis’s speedy driving.

He identified himself at the front desk, and the receptionist or whatever she was told him to wait. David inhaled a breath, ready to argue, but Alexis was thanking the woman and dragging him over to the rows of chairs before he could get another word out. His sister perched on one of the plastic chairs and pulled out her phone while David paced back and forth in front of her. Now that they were here, he really just wanted to tear the place apart until he could see Patrick for himself. And hold his hand; he was sure that whatever had happened, Patrick would feel better if David could hold his hand.

“David Rose?” A woman in a white coat stood next to the door that led to the rest of the hospital. He rushed over.

“I’m David Rose,” he said, breathless.

“You’re Patrick Brewer’s…” She consulted the chart she was holding.

“Partner. Can you please tell me what happened? Is he okay?” He could sense Alexis behind him, hovering.

“Well, he got banged up pretty good. Compound fracture of the radius and fracture of the ulna, two cracked ribs, and a concussion. The police said a truck ran a stoplight and hit his car broadside.”

David thought it was wildly inappropriate that she would expect him to remember what bones were named at a time like this. “The radius is…?”

She gestured to her forearm. “Arm bones. As is often the case with this sort of impact injury, both bones in the forearm were broken.”

Wincing, David asked, “Can I see him, please?”

“Not yet; he was taken into surgery a little while ago to stabilize the arm. It has to be operated on right away because there’s a risk of infection when the bone is exposed.”

The next thing David was aware of was Alexis guiding him down into a chair. “Okay, just lean over and put your head between your knees,” she said while David tried to figure out why his vision was narrowing. He felt sweaty. Alexis disappeared for a minute, but he could hear her voice, off to the left somewhere. Also that doctor, the one who said Patrick’s arm was…

David fought the urge to throw up. It would be embarrassing to hurl all over the floor in the waiting room of Elmdale Hospital.

Finally Alexis was back. “Are you gonna pass out?”

“No. I don’t think so.” He lifted his head. “What did she say after the thing about his…”

“Bone sticking out?” Alexis asked unhelpfully. David put his head in his hands. “That they did a CT scan prior to surgery and that he was alert but concussed. You’ll be able to see him once he wakes up from the anesthesia. And they’ll have a better idea tomorrow how long he’ll need to be in the hospital.” She rubbed his back. “Do you want me to get you a cup of tea?”

David nodded. “I can’t believe this happened. Just like that.”

“Yeah, I’d like to get my hands on the driver of that truck,” Alexis said fiercely, and David couldn’t help but agree. He wasn’t a violent person, as a rule, but he’d make an exception just this once. Or he’d let Alexis have at him.

“He’s gonna be okay, though, right?” David asked, not liking the pleading edge in his voice.

Alexis was still rubbing his back, and she pressed her cheek against his arm for a second. “He’s gonna be okay, David.”

He startled, a thought occurring to him suddenly, and he fumbled for his phone. “I need to call his parents.”

“You have his parents’ phone number?” Alexis asked with a grin.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never called them, but I was starting to think about…” He sighed. He hadn’t wanted to tell Alexis about this until much closer to the event. “Patrick’s birthday is coming up in a few months and I was thinking about inviting his parents to a surprise party,” he said as he pulled out his phone.

“David, that’s so cute,” she said with a pout.

“So I managed to use Patrick’s thumbprint to unlock his phone when he was dead asleep one night and I put their numbers into my phone in preparation for inviting them,” he said as he scrolled through his contacts. “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad; they can’t keep a secret,” he said as he pressed the button to call Marcy Brewer.

He’d only spoken to Patrick’s mother a couple of times, when she’d called the store after being unable to reach Patrick on his mobile phone. He’d handed the phone over to Patrick quickly after some brief pleasantries, but he’d gotten the impression of a friendly woman. Just the sort of person he’d expect to have raised Patrick Brewer.

“Hello,” came the maternal voice down the phone line as Alexis stood up, flopping her wrists towards her mouth. When he shook his head in confusion at her, she stuck out her pinky, miming sipping, before walking away. Right, she was going to get tea.

“Hi, Mrs. Brewer, this is David Rose calling.”

“Oh, David! How are you?”

“Um, well, not great. I’m sorry to have to call you like this, and let me start by saying Patrick is going to be fine…”

“Oh, dear. This is like the phone calls I used to get from his coaches,” she said, sounding surprisingly calm. “What happened?”

“He was in a car accident this afternoon and he’s in the hospital.” David felt tears pressing behind his eyes, and he ruthlessly swallowed them down. “I haven’t been able to see him yet, but they said his arm is broken. Also some ribs.” He decided to stop there, if for no other reason than he didn’t think he could go into more detail without needing to put his head between his knees again.

“Oh, my sweet Patrick,” Marcy gasped, sounding much less calm. “Why haven’t you been able to see him?”

“They’re… um… operating on his arm.” He braced his elbows on his knees. “It was a bad fracture.”

“Okay,” she said, back to sounding calm. “Clint and I will come there. We’ll be there in the morning.”

David wasn’t sure exactly where the Brewers lived, but he thought it was pretty far, and it sounded like she was implying that they would drive all night. “Maybe you should get some rest and leave in the morning?”

“As if I’d be able to sleep tonight, worrying about my boy,” she said. “He’s all alone there,” she said.

Frowning, David said, “I’ll be here. And my sister Alexis is here.” He wondered why she’d put it that way. Surely she didn’t think David would leave the hospital tonight, did she?

“That’s very sweet of you, David,” Marcy said. “I’ll let you know when we get into town, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” David said, off-kilter from the conversation. His eyes fixed on a stack of pamphlets on the table next to him, where a smiling woman was entirely too happy about routine colonoscopies. “It’s Elmdale Hospital,” he told Marcy.

“Thanks, David. If you see Patrick tonight, please let him know we’re on our way.”

When a nurse finally came to tell them that Patrick was out of recovery, Alexis had fallen asleep across his lap and David had read the entire pamphlet about colonoscopies (and all of the other pamphlets within reach) front to back. He shook Alexis awake and bolted up from the uncomfortable chair, not looking back to see if Alexis was following.

The first thing he noticed were the cuts on Patrick’s face. They weren’t large; probably not worth mentioning in the context of his other injuries. Just tiny knicks in his forehead and left cheek from bits of glass, David assumed. But tears still welled up in David’s eyes when he saw those angry little cuts. Patrick looked like he was sleeping, his arm bandaged and immobilized within a plastic splint contraption.

“Why don’t they put a cast on his arm?” Alexis asked as David went to sit next to the bed.

The nurse who was fiddling with one of the machines in the room looked up. “They will once they’ve made certain there’s no infection.”

Patrick opened his eyes and his face cracked into a sloppy smile. “It’s David!” he slurred, then he turned to the nurse. “David is my very handsome boyfriend who’s very handsome. See, I told you.”

Alexis snorted, covering her mouth, her eyes dancing with mirth.

“What’s wrong with him?” David asked.

The nurse smiled. “He just came out from under general anesthesia. He’s been talking about you a lot.”

“Flying pretty high, Patrick?” Alexis asked with a smirk. She pulled out her phone and held it up.

“Put that away,” David snapped.

Patrick squinted at her like he couldn’t quite focus on someone that far away. “Hi, Alexis,” he said. “Thanks for coming to visit me in the hospital.” Then his head swung around to David again. “I love you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here too,” David said around a lump in his throat. “I was worried about you.”

Patrick’s smile fell. “David?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I think I’m gonna puke.”

Chapter 2

[what-a-messsss]

1x9 rewatch

Yeeeee, this has Jacob and Mathias.  Good good.  ...It bothers me faaaar more than it should (which is to say, at all) that the episode title “Dogs, Horses and Indians” doesn’t have an Oxford comma.  Like, a lot.  o.o

Aaaaaahahaha, and here is Mathias being sneaky, sending Walt and Vic off to the northeast quadrant!  And I am once again confronted with my own double standard.  Because Mathias doing this has me kind of proud of him, but if Walt did it, I would be loading the solar catapult.  Hm.

Henry gives Walt so much leeway.  Mathias’ little dig at Henry about living on the Rez his whole life makes more sense to me now.  After all, Henry and Walt worked on oil rigs up in Alaska for at least part of their 20s according to later info.  That and him living above the Red Pony now, in Durant, make sense that there might be some added friction.

Wooooow.  Vic repeatedly said how weird it was that Mathias was being agreeable, so she just takes it upon herself to be even more of a jerk to balance things out?  Which... the heavy irony being that her “Maybe they didn’t want you running the investigation” crack is right, but also super wrong.  

Haa, the campaign advisor running “joke.” And Henry’s smiiiiile.

Oof.  Walt does not know the meaning of “tread lightly,” but again, he’s not wrong about this one.  Mathias did massively mess with the crime scene and muddle the investigation to a spectacular degree.  But Mathias is wily, and far more savvy about politics than Walt ever chooses to be.  And he’s right that he’s in an incredibly tight spot, and it’s not like he could have just asked for help.  Even if Walt had been inclined to help (haa), doing so would have totally undermined his credibility with the force and the tribe.

“Come on, Sheriff.  Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never broke the law for the right reason?”  Matty, that’s his whooooole modus operandi.  As I think you well know.

I do wonder how long it’s been since Cady got her own place.  No judgement on her credit card statements still going there; one of my bills still ends up going to my mom’s despite attempts to change that, and it’s been over 5 years since I’ve lived with her.  But I do wonder.  

GOLF.  Baaahahaha, golf.  Of course the Connallys golf.  Barlow is suuuuuuuch a piece of shiiiiiit.  And of course he’s already leveraging favours and keeping track.  Oooo, but they do make it delightfully easy to hate him, and very satisfying, too.

NO, Walt, somebody being your deputy does not make their personal life your business.  Even when it involves your daughter.  Until either of them make it your business, it sure fucking isn’t.  And then the look on Branch’s face when Walt goes, “You... that’s a different story.”  Aaaah, back when Branch was vaguely sympathetic sometimes.  Ish.

Why... why does Walt charge in with no backup so often?  I guess just general self-destructive tendencies and all, but ffs.  He takes on a biker gang in their home territory with no back up.  On purpose.  He has no idea that the deputies have figured out where he is and are coming.  He just goes charging in and does some impressive damage, but if they hadn’t showed up when they did he’d be in traction or just flat out dead.  Exhausting.

I cannot for the life of me remember the actor’s name, but he’s in my head as Gabriel from the bit of time I did watch Supernatural.  He’s so squeaky new!  He’s such a rube.

I wonder how many ‘excessive force’ charges have been filed against Walt.  Probably not one in 20 times they could have been.  Ruby is not impressed.  And Vic is, as ever, an enabler.  Oooooo, Ruby just called him Walter.  She means business. Too bad he doesn’t give a shit about anything but what he wants.  ...I think I just figured out part of why Walt pisses me off so much.  That entitlement to do whatever the hell he wants and bother the rest rings really familiar from my dad.  Womp womp.  That can go on the list of things to talk about with the therapist.

Awwwww, Cady’s graduation photo on Henry’s desk!  He’s such a good second dad.  

I hadn’t thought about it the first time around, but @cminerva said something in one of our musings (that I think went into our joint fic) about Walt making Mathias come to him for things.  And here we are in the Red Pony, with Walt having had the Tribal Council brought to him, all 10 or so of them, rather than to go to them.  Which... that’s some fucked up power dynamic bullshit right there.  And they’re all sitting in a semi-circle, with Walt and Vic standing.  This is... so uncomfortable.  Crusty old white man scolds Tribal Council, literally standing there with his hands on his hips.  WITH HIS HAND ON HIS GUN--I fricking swear to gods, Walt, what the flaming hell.

Yeeeeeee, Jacob.  He’s so fluffy.  The sides of his hair are so long.  This is a delight.  Ok, but can I just take a moment with the fact that Jacob bought Eaglestar’s debt?  From a cynical point of view, it could be to make sure that he had the president of the tribal council effectively in his pocket, and there was probably an element of that.  But I do genuinely believe that as much of a pragmatist as he is, Jacob is a thwarted optimist.  When he says, “Because I bought his debt.  ...I wanted to make sure no one could influence his decisions, no one could force him to act against his own judgment,” that he’s telling the truth.  “He may have had demons, but he was his own man.”  I think that he probably hopes the same for himself.

Cady’s faaaace when Walt gets back and is ignoring the excessive force charge.  Officially one of my favourite moments of the whole show now.  Yus.  The sheer lack of respect that Walt has for his daughter. Blatant lack of respect for her and her expertice.  Yeet him into the sun, I’m telling you.

Who she sleeps with is not about you, you jackass.  This is such a good scene for her as an actor.  And such a bad scene for him as a dad.  He’s such a bad father.  Which makes me about 400x more grateful that she basically has Henry as her Other Dad.  Who does not suck as much.  Damn.

Mmmmm, Henry’s glasses make a return.

Vic’s “don’t shit where you eat” is pretty rich, considering her multi-year boner for her boss, and then actually getting together with him.  

I’m pretty ridiculously gone on Jacob.  He walks back in at the end the ep and my sad little heart just goes pitter patter.  I’d sort of forgotten that he doesn’t meet the blood-quantum requirements.

“Not cynical.  Just suspicious.”  No, no, suspicious aaand cynical.  You’re mighty good at multitasking on the shitty stuff, Walt.  The accusations he levels at Jacob are so utterly circumstantial, so completely without any shred of proof to back them up, but we’re still in the early days of the show, where we’ve seen him spin these “here’s what happened” things had seen them pan out, that the audience is inclined to believe him.  Walt also has a tendency to complicate things.

If Jacob was setting up dominoes behind the scenes, the convoluted mess that Walt postulates still doesn’t really make sense.  It would make more sense for Jacob to buy Malcolm’s debt in the hopes that he would possibly feel indebted or otherwise favourable towards him to not pass the blood-quantum resolution in the first place.  Arranging a convoluted murder to get himself a place on the council when there are clearly election anyway is just... not clean, not smart, and too liable to go wrong.  Jacob is careful and while he prefers delegating, a total wild card like Mika would be a huge risk for something that could blow up in his face so spectacularly.  Walt, you make no sense.  Como siempre.

This scene at the end with Branch and Cady reinforces my theory that Branch desperately wanted anything positive from Walt.  “He’ll get over it.”  “Yeah, with you.  You’re his daughter.  But me?”  And that’s kind of gutting for him.  So he squares up and off he goes.

“And I’m no quitter.”  No, you’re a drama llama.  Sheesh.

[seriouslyhooked]

Feels Like This (Part 2)

Emma Swan is a once lost girl who is now making good. She has made a way in the world for her and her young son, Henry, and after years of hard work, Emma is in her last stretch of schooling for the career she’s always wanted. Unexpectedly, she finds herself in a tiny nation no one’s ever heard of for her last year of study. She knows nothing about the place except that it’s beautiful, has a world-renowned child life program, and is filled with possibility. Meanwhile, Prince Killian is hardly happy with the title he received at birth. As the second in line for the crown, Killian has long tried shaking his royal duties. He built a career in the royal navy, and has stayed out of the limelight, but his ship has been called to port indefinitely at the request of his brother, the King. Fate (in her many forms) brings Emma and Killian together and the resulting fic is a cute, fluffy, trope filled romp featuring heart felt moments, a healthy dose of insta-love and an assured happily ever after. Story rated M and will have 12 parts. Part 1 Here. Available on FF Here and AO3 Here.

A/N: Oh my god, guys, I am not going to lie, I am having so much fun writing this fic! I have missed having new stories to explore so much, and I am so eternally grateful for all of you who kept pushing me to do another Royal AU. I didn’t realize how much I was going to love doing this again until I started, and now I have so much I want to explore, and so much fluff and cuteness in my head I can’t wait to share with you all. I hope you will enjoy this chapter. Keep in mind, I know it’s been a slower burn so far, but I promise the pay off will be perfect. In the meantime, you’ll see where Killian is in this fic, and the people in his life who will become important characters to the rest of the story. Some are based on the show, some are added additions as you’ll see. For example, I always name Killian’s mom ‘Meera’ in my fics, I know it kind of sounds like Milah, but they’re not the same and I chose that name originally because of its meaning and because of a poem I read long ago – the sounds was coincidence. Anyway, that being said, I hope you will enjoy, and thank you so much for reading!

“Well, mates, we’ve finally done it. Our twelve-month stint is complete and all our sorry asses are heading home. Never thought I’d see the day.”

The words from Will Scarlet hung between Killian and his friends where they sat in the cargo hold of a military aircraft flying over the last piece of the sea that separated them all from home. They had just finished their active deployment in a classified location, and it had been immersive and seemingly unending. With limited contact to the outside world, and a constant goal of getting their mission done, these officers and their subordinates had worked hard to serve their country and its citizens. It had been trying times, and the task at hand was hard, but this was what they trained for. The Montenarro elite naval force was as selective as it was distinguished, and every man and woman serving in it was considered a national hero. But Killian hated that term, and he hated it more than anything when it was used in conjunction with his other loathed title – prince.

“You nearly didn’t make it, Scar-boy. If you hadn’t had Hook watching your back, you’d be dead ten times over.”

Killian smirked at the bit of teasing from Robin. That nickname for Scarlet was classic and well earned, given how many near misses he’d had with a tragic, awful death. But the boy part was bestowed thanks to Scarlet’s enduring childishness. His old friend always brought a laugh, and he could sober up when things got serious, but he couldn’t apply that sense of military discipline or responsibility to the rest of his life. He was a man child: unruly and a bit manic, but now that they were coming home, Killian hoped Will might figure things out. Meanwhile, Killian’s nickname, Hook, had at one time been a huge resentment for him. He’d earned the moniker in a notorious fight off base years ago just upon entering the royal command. The man he laid out with a single punch was a right jack ass, who’d made a show of harassing women and spewing all kinds of ignorant crap the whole bloody night, but the headline of the moment was that the ‘rebel prince’ had struck again.  His superiors were furious, and he was punished accordingly, but it was his brother, the King, who had dealt the harshest blow.

“You set one more foot out of line and I will bring you back home. If you’re going to make a spectacle of yourself, you’ll damn well do it somewhere our mother doesn’t have to worry about your safety.”

That was enough to set Killian to rights, because despite the seemingly charmed nature of his life, home was synonymous with hardship and discomfort. Being royalty was a constant burden of saving face and proper manners. He loved his brother, his mother, and his Gran, but they fit into that world with ease and a natural charm he didn’t possess. They loved shaking hands and kissing babies, took great pride in parades and national addresses, and knew how to ‘operate society.’ Killian, on the other hand, couldn’t stand it. He never blended well, never trusted easy. He’d met one too many snakes in Montenarro’s royal court and he didn’t need any more lessons on the hidden intentions people carried. It would sound mad to the average person, but there was a similar sense of dread he shared on deployment and at home, and on the good days, when he and his men were all safe with a job well done, he was vastly happier in his profession than in his personal life at home. At least he felt like he was serving something, and participating in a duty that was bigger than hollow gestures and picture perfect moments.

“The most important thing is no one’s dead,” Tink murmured from her spot on the other side of the hold. She was damn right about that. “We made it through another tour and I, for one, am out of here.”

“Olive will be glad to have you home, love,” Graham stated, patting their friend on the arm a few times in a signal to her extra sacrifice made these long months.

The mention of Tink’s daughter made her smile and in any other person tears no doubt would have shown in their eyes at the mention of such a reunion, but not Tink. This woman might be the smallest of their platoon but she was the fiercest and honestly the smartest. She was also brave as could be and composed at every moment. He’d asked her once how she could manage that, given everything that they saw and went through. Every one of them had moments of grave impact, where the stress or straight out fear crept in and took root, but not Tink. Her response was simply stated though it seemed impossible to comprehend: 

‘When you have a reason to get home, a part of you that needs you, you don’t have the luxury of breaking down. Everything I have needs to go towards one thing – surviving. I have to get back for her and she matters more than everything else. No matter what I see here, she’s my beacon home.”

“The day I left, I promised her that this was my last tour,” Tink said, surprising everyone except for Killian with the revelation. She’d confided in him about her plan to leave their unit a few months back, and when the paperwork needed to get to higher ups to unenlist from front-line duty he helped her, knowing she was owed that after years of faithful service to the crown. “I didn’t want to mention it because I knew exactly what you’d all say.”

“You’re leaving us?” Will asked and the tone in his voice was like someone had kicked him in the gut. For someone so full of bluster, he caved in quick, and while Graham and Robin didn’t sound quite so stricken, they too were surprised.

“I took a land command. You’re looking at the royal navy’s newest pencil pusher,” she said with a huge grin. “Six years ago I’d have laughed in your face if you told me how happy that would make me.”

“But that was before,” Killian said, understanding her instinct to be with her daughter and the change she needed to make her family whole again.

“You always get it, Cap. But what about you – you think you’ve got another tour left in you?”

Ah shit. Here was the moment of truth. He couldn’t lie when faced with Tink’s question, but he had been denying the inevitable even to himself for so long. Every tour his brother told him this would be the last one, but every time he waivered when Killian returned and asked to leave once more. Killian had been serving for more than fifteen years now, a decorated Captain who had earned his own way and proven his merit. He knew he was well respected and highly capable, but that would stop meaning anything to Liam soon. No matter how good a Captain Killian was, his duty, as Liam saw it, was to be the prince and the second in line. He had obligations at home, and as loathed as that life was, Killian considered himself lucky. His family had given him the freedom of finding something more like normal all these years. Here, with his crew, he was normal. He wasn’t a monarch, but a man, part of a team even if he was a leader, and there was no bull shit muss or fuss. Now that would likely end, but despite wishing he could come back, Killian was grateful for what he’d been able to do and the friends he’d been able to meet.

“I serve at the pleasure of the King,” Killian hedged. “But I think it likely my assignments will be changing this go around.”

“What he means to say is he’ll be dodging the ladies at court and fending off those investment cats always vying for access to the royal purse,” Graham joked. Killian only shrugged, not able to contradict the man, as he was probably dead on.

“I’d take the desert twice over before I took that shit,” Will said, and for once, Killian had to agree with him, but it didn’t matter either way.

Soon enough the plane that was flying them back to base was prepared to land. Their descent was easy, but the feelings that Killian grappled with were not. There was relief of course when the doors opened and they were back on land. They’d been serving in dangerous places, running on borrowed time with too many close calls. Even the plain façade of their base near the capital couldn’t hide the beauty of Montenarro. Many people called this country too small to notice, but what it lacked for in size, it made up for in location. Nestled on the Mediterranean, with a range of coastlines and mountain range, this nation lived in a world that was warm and where the sun shone brightly and often. Today, the coast was clear and glorious, but the mountains weren’t far and the foot hills were lush this time of year. The greenery around them was a luxury compared to the barren wastelands they’d been encamped in, but beyond the walls of this military compound lay his real life. When he left this place, he stopped being Hook, or Cap, or even Killian. He had to be someone else, and the weight of that shifted the peace within him to something frenzied and on guard.

With a swift but genuine regard he bid all his brothers and sister in arms goodbye, and handed in his papers and his weapons with the higher-ups. By the time he made it outside, headed to his personal barracks where he needed to collect some personal items, a royal enclave was ready for him and their head of security, Jefferson, was already waiting.

“Your things have been gathered, Your Highness. We’re ready to ship out.”

“So help me Jefferson if you start that Highness crap already -,”

“Sorry, sir.”

Killian sighed at the lingering formality but it was a small improvement and it wasn’t actually Jefferson’s fault. If the man waivered from formal titles surely Liam would hear of it, and his elder brother was no fan of abandoning tradition. Why he’d even let Killian serve all these years was beyond him, but Killian expected Liam knew that without an outlet and a feeling of normalcy, Killian would have lost himself long ago.

The ride through the city’s center was long, but Killian barely took it in despite looking out his window. He’d seen this route a million times, and it might be lovely, but it was a signal of returning to a state he didn’t like. The only part of the drive he found favor in was seeing the people around them, and from all looks and appearance, the citizens of their small nation were happy and well. People were out and about, children were playing, families were gathered and enjoying the spring day. Everyone was partaking in this first sweet taste of summer and their worlds seemed calm and bright. As a ruler that was the only thing a King could wish for, and Killian felt that call too even as Prince. Their roles meant nothing if the people were not served – but under Liam’s watchful and ever attentive eye, it made sense that they would be happy. They were surely headed towards another prosperous year, and, as Killian had always known, the nation had never been in better, more capable hands.

By the time they reached the city’s far edge and the golden gates of his family’s castle rose before them, Killian was at war with himself. On the one hand he was edgy from what was yet to come, but he was also glad to be back, to see his mother and grandmother, and even his brother. At the end of the day he loved his family, he knew that they worried for him every day he’d been away, and he’d be glad that coming home could bring them comfort. He mindfully made the choice to choose their happiness over his own for the time being, and as he exited the limousine, he schooled his features in a smile which widened at the sight of who was waiting at the door.

“Oh, my little Killy. You’re home at last.”

To the rest of the world, his grandmother was the dowager Queen and a force to be reckoned with. She was a high society lady, the former ruler of this nation, and a fierce advocate for the throne, but to Killian she was just his Gran, a charming, insightful, sometimes crafty older woman with too much love in her heart to ever perish. She was pushing 90 years old but here she was, the first to greet him and moving about like she was thirty years younger. She came straight to Killian, ignoring his polite bow and instead pulling him in for a warm embrace. How a woman so tiny could still possess such strength, he’d never know, but he had a fleeting though that she and Tink would get along before his grandmother pulled back with a mist of tears in her eyes.

“Did you miss me that much, Gran?” he teased, fending off his own wayward emotion at being reunited with one of his favorite people. “I thought I was just a load of trouble wrapped up in a charming giftwrap.”

“Oh hush. I said that to you one time – one time! And you never let me forget it. I mean truly, my dear, what was I supposed to say? You got into your cousin Sienna’s wedding cake and ate damn near half on your own before the reception could even start. Chef nearly perished at the sight of it.”

“I was a kid, Gran.”

“You were old enough to know better. But you could see what a menace that foolish Count was, no doubt. Can’t say I blame you for your actions now, given everything.”

Everything in this case was a huge scandal strewn across the tabloids. Sienna, who was actually quite a distant cousin, but still of royal lineage, was a rather stand-offish woman who had married more for status than for love. Unfortunately that status was tarnished less than ten years later when her now ex-husband was revealed as a philanderer and not a cautious one. It was a mess of paparazzi fodder, but to Killian it wasn’t all that bad, not after what they’d gone through with his father.

“Honestly I just wanted cake,” Killian admitted, shaking off thoughts of the man who’d wronged them long ago and his Gran grinned, none the wiser.

“Well there will be plenty of it now that you’re home. Your mother has planned a whole host of events, and before you get all stodgy and upset, you remember what every day has been like since you were last home. Poor Meera’s been fussing with that rosary damn near twenty times a day.”

Killian felt a pang of guilt hearing that, but his grandmother ignored his stricken look, pulling him inside. Immediately in the entryway he found his mother and Liam and the rest of the household staff set to greet them. He saw the joy in his mother’s eyes, and a clear sense of relief in Liam’s and he knew, even without words or actions, that he was truly missed and very much loved. Still he glanced back at his Gran, quirking up a brow to silently ask her why she wasn’t part of the precession.

“When you get to be my age, my dear, the formalities start to seem rather pointless. I wasn’t waiting an extra second to see my grandson, and your brother has the good sense to let me be.”

“Anyone who lacked that sense risks a fate worse than death, I’m sure,” Liam said dryly, but he spared a smile for their Gran all the same and allowed the old woman to swat at his arm like he was a pesky fly instead of the reigning monarch. “It’s good to see you home, brother.”

“It’s good to be with you all again,” Killian said, choosing his words carefully. He was not interested in lying to his family. They had enough to grapple with from the world around them, the least they owed each other was transparency. His mother certainly seemed to agree, and the tears she’d no doubt held in for months streamed down her still lovely face as she pulled him in close and hugged him far tighter than a royal mother should. Here was his mother in truth, not the part she played in public spaces, and despite their appearance in front of the staff, she doted on him like any good Mum should.

“You’re okay, darling? No bad scrapes this time?” Her tone grew warbly and Killian again felt the tug of guilt for what he put his family through in doing what he loved. He couldn’t regret his choice to serve and stake his own path, but he knew what a toll it took on his mother, and that was regrettable. On one of his first deployments he’d been injured pretty badly and he bore the scars along his back and side to prove it, but nothing vital had been hit, thank god, and as soon as he was healed he’d been ready to go out again. It almost broke his mother, but she was a strong woman, stronger than any he had ever known.

“A few nicks, Mum. Nothing serious.”

“Oh thank God. And now you’re home for good at last.”

Killian looked to Liam for confirmation and his brother shook his head. “Let’s not go there yet.” Liam pulled him in for a hug of his own, one of a special design they’d shared since he was but a boy and again Killian felt the true affection of his brother. They may be men of very different stripes, but Liam was a part of him and who he was. He was his elder brother and the closest thing Killian had to a father figure. His love meant the world to him, and so too did his approval.

“So, Gran mentioned some festivities. Have I time before the circus, or will it descend immediately?”

“Circus?” His mother asked, clearly confused before looking at her mother-in-law with amusement. “I think your grandmother is up to her old tricks. We don’t have anything planned. It’s just us and your favorite dinner. Just how you like it.”

Thank God for that, Killian thought to himself before turning to his grandmother who looked like a spoiled tyke at Christmas. She was so pleased with her little fake-out, she actually clasped her hands together.

“The Americans call it ‘punking’ someone. Such a garish word, but it does have its merits.”

“Still no hobbies to be found, Gran?” Killian asked, knowing that his grandmother was a busy body, and she needed a lot of occupation or she risked being�� well, like this.

“Who needs the bloody things?” Gran said, swearing so brashly it made Killian choke on his drink and his mother gasp. “I do what is needed. You needed a good joke upon arriving home so I did what I could to provide one.”

“Gran’s taken to jokes of late,” Liam explained and Killian suddenly wanted very much to know what the old bird had been up to. From his brother’s expression, she’d gotten him good, and Killian would pay to see that.

“I tried to get it on tape, but that blasted Jefferson took my phone spouting all sorts of nonsense about royal protocol,” his Gran said, reading his mind. “But regardless, your dear brother knows perfectly well that I have plenty of occupation with the foundation. So much work that needs doing there. It must be constantly tended to, just like your mother’s roses.”

“I don’t remember it being so much,” Killian remarked, not even really remembering that the family had a foundation at all. It was more an endowment, a way to give the vastness of their wealth to worthy causes. But writing checks surely couldn’t take such effort.

“Well I’ve had to change it, haven’t I? If I was going to build something worthy of your attention, it had to do real good. It’s much more hands on now, you see. I might be in my twilight years, but I can still get my hands dirty.”

And there it was. He was wondering what the plan would be. He assumed he’d be added to Liam’s counsels and propped up as a family focal piece, the returning hero back home at last. But even without fully understanding the intention, Killian could see an earnest excitement in his grandmother’s eyes. Whatever the foundation had become, she was trying to build something for him, and if he could have a purpose beyond the face of a royal family, he’d be eternally grateful.

“So I really am home for good then?” Killian asked, broaching the uncomfortable topic once more as Liam considered him from the other end of the table. After a beat of quiet, Liam replied.

“I’ve spoken with our heads of command. The conflicts we’re involved in are winding down and while the Americans continue their crusade in the Middle East, our time of service there is drawing to a close. We’re shifting back to more diplomatic measures, and what’s left to fight can be handled by your fellow soldiers I think.”

“The country is in good hands,” Killian agreed and though it hurt to think that he was truly finished with his service, he was prepared for such an outcome. Liam would not demand that Killian leave. He was never so authoritarian, but this suggestion spoke volumes and Killian, much as he might be tempted, would not go against his brothers wishes.

“If they’ve been trained by you then it certainly is,” his mother agreed fiercely and Killian laughed. Her statement was not at all based in first-hand knowledge. She had never seen him in the field, rarely even seen him in his military context at all, but she still staunchly believed in him. It was appreciated, but comical all the same.

“And the foundation? What exactly is it doing these days?”

“Well by god, what aren’t we doing? There’s so much to do you see. We’ve been funding all sorts of new energies so we can be ‘green and clean,’” His Gran chirped happily. “We’ve expanded our species protection efforts with the ministry of parks and wildlife. I went on a whale watch with the Duchess of Mandrey. It was just marvelous. We wore, oh what, do they call them…? Oh right, ponchos! We’re working with the ministry of health to create community gardens not just to teach the children but to feed the people. You should see what we’ve done in the cities, Killy. We’ve built these centers with the soil and the supplies. The little ones love it -,”

“Clearly there’s quite a few balls in the air as it were,” Killian’s mother said, gently interrupting his grandmother’s exuberant storytelling. “But we were thinking, I mean if it works for you, that whenever you’re settled back in you might look at one particular part of the organization. Get a more hands on feel for something and truly learn the workings of the charity.”

“Did you have an idea of which one?”

“The Montenarro Children’s Sanctuary,” his Gran replied with total assuredness, and to his amazement, she produced a pamphlet (would wonders ever cease?) from somewhere under the table to hand to him. “Got that from the front desk last week. It’s all in there, dear, and the children are just precious. You’ve always loved the little ones, so it’s a perfect fit.”

“Have I?” Killian asked, not sure if he’d ever shown that predisposition. He always liked interacting with the children in the extended family when they came for holidays and events, but that was hardly a background in working with kids.

“Of course you have. You have such a way with them, and these children, well my dear, they just need someone like you so much. It’s a wonderful opportunity to make a difference.”

Killian knew she must be right, and he felt, despite his hesitations and the urge to reject someone else planning out his life, that this may indeed be a good fit for him for now. He never would have chosen such a charity first, thinking himself a bit understudied in the ways of children, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to give it a try, and his family was right, he needed something to do, something that actually felt like it mattered. After living for years with a purpose he couldn’t waste his time doing things he felt were frivolous. If he did he might go mad.

“I’ll go on one condition,” Killian said and they all considered him, clearly surprised he would accept at all and that he was handling his military retirement so well. “No one at that organization is calling me Prince Killian, Your Highness or any of that. I’ll go by Killian. That’s it.”

“But dear that’s -,”

“Before you say it’s not possible, Mum, just think for a minute about the work they do there and the kids in that scenario. This is a home for orphans and children who can’t be cared for in traditional means. They don’t have present families, they don’t have anything to call their own. They might know I am prince, but I don’t want them to feel the difference between us. You want me to help somehow? I don’t know how to truly help people when we’re separate or unequal. I never mastered that. It’s not how I work.”

“It’s just a title, Killy,” his Gran said sadly but he was holding firm. He wanted this for the kids and for himself. He’d dedicate himself to helping in this way, but he wanted at least a feeling of something normal, something that was his and not the crown’s. He looked to Liam, awaiting his brother’s verdict, and after a brief consideration his brother nodded.

“It seems reasonable enough. But only at the foundation. To the rest of the world you are, and always will be, Prince.”

“Fair enough,” Killian agreed. “Now, any chance we’ve got some cake?”

At the joke, everyone laughed, but low and behold there was cake to be had. And though his life was shifting radically, and he might not be on the most solid of ground right now, Killian felt hopeful that things might just work out in the end. Soon enough he’d be a part of something again, and he hoped quite sincerely to make a difference and make a change for the people he served, and in truth, for himself as well.

…………………..

Hours after their meal, and long after her son had headed up to his wing of the palace, Queen Meera looked out her large antique window to the full moon out tonight. She thanked the heavens that her son was back home safe. After so many years of fighting, and being in the thick of too many international skirmishes, he was finally back and all in one piece. Every night she’d prayed for his safety and for his health. She prayed he would be protected and smart out there doing God knows what. But she also prayed that he would feel peace, when she knew peace was a luxury for her youngest boy he wasn’t usually graced with. Recently she’d added a few more prayers as well, ones that would keep him open to the changes coming in all of their lives.  She was grateful at dinner that he was receptive to the prospect put before him of working for the family foundation. So far the plan was working, and she sent up another prayer that the rest would fall into place too.

Perhaps it would be strange to some that she was doing this, trying to craft a future for her beloved son when he was a fully-grown man, but she knew down in her soul that Killian needed the guidance. He was a good man, a strong man, a man bound by honor and compassion, but her son was always closed off, especially when it came to matters of the heart. There were many reasons for that, a few near-misses in love, and all the attention that their family brought forward, but the real reason underneath it all stemmed from the sins of his father, a man Meera once felt love for, who blessed her with two children and promptly threw the life they built together all away.

Prince Brennan had always been notorious. A party boy, a man of mischief. He never met trouble he didn’t like the look of, but his people and his family still believed him to be fundamentally good if a bit lacking in maturity. He was set to inherit the throne as the only child of the King and Queen, and through a twist of fate Meera and him had met and fallen in love. Meera was a common girl, with no connections, and no wealth to speak of, but it hadn’t mattered to Brennan. In fact, in hindsight, he probably wanted her even more because of it. They stole away as many moments as they could, and then one day he told her they were getting married. He never asked, he just informed her, and she went along with it, knowing she loved him even if she was scared of trying to be part of his world. She thought he’d bring her home to meet his family, thought he’d seek their approval, but Brennan had a mind of his own, and that night they eloped.

Only when they were legally man and wife did he bring her home and the fall out had been immense. His father, King Rupert, was furious, but the ire never was directed at her. It was Brennan who the King and Queen were mad at, and Meera couldn’t understand why. If King Rupert and Queen Eleanor truly liked her, why be so angry? Why chastise him as they did? Only a year later, after the birth of her eldest son, Liam, did she realize why; Brennan was flighty and irresponsible. He couldn’t commit to things, he never devoted himself to anything forever. He was bad at making decisions, at paying attention, and he had a total disregard for his impending role as ruler of Montenarro. If someone even hinted at his impending responsibility to the people of this country he went running as fast and as far as he could. Still Meera believed he loved her and that even if he couldn’t give all of himself to his duty, he could be there for her and their children. After trying for seven more years to give Liam some siblings, they were blessed to have Killian, and only after her second son’s birth did the truth fully come into focus. Marriage hadn’t actually meant to Brennan what it meant to her. In her eyes, they were meant to be partners, meant to love each other, and honor each other, but he couldn’t do it. He grew resentful and unruly, and ultimately, unfaithful.

It was an awful time, to be sure, and for Killian, it ended up being all he knew of his father. She kept everything she could from both of her sons, but somehow things always got out. The media had a field day at each and every instance, and then, when it got so bad and so brutal, Meera decided she must go. She and her sons could stay here no longer. Not with Brennan here. Shockingly, when she told Eleanor and Rupert of her plans they told her it was not her place to leave. It was Brennan who must make a choice – shape up and make amends to his wife and to his family, or leave, forsaking his thrown, his power, and all inheritance as he did. Brennan knew in an instant what he wanted, and so he left, but not before Killian and Liam heard him yelling and carrying on. At only six years of age Killian watched his father leave them all, with nothing like regret, and then, a few days later they found that Brennan had died in an accident, the product of reckless choices finally catching up with him.

Explaining to her sons how their father’s actions had no influence on who they were was so hard. Liam seemed to know this, but he channeled his pain into being the perfect heir. He put so much pressure on himself to be a wonderful king and a wonderful son. She worried about that and she was trying every day to help manage that as best she could. But Killian was far more sensitive. He was sweet and thoughtful and bold all at once. He had the biggest heart and he wanted so badly to wear it on his sleeve. But he didn’t. He closed himself off, and then he’d gone into the royal navy and Meera was devastated. She was always worried sick for her son, but what could she say? She saw in him a burst of that vitality and that light in his eyes when he was away. Even in the midst of chaos, Killian was at peace. Why? Because he could be himself. He’d found a place he felt safe, in some of the most unsafe places around the world. Now, though, he was coming back and this was not a place he felt that freedom. With them of course he had trust, but with everyone else she knew his walls would come right back up, steadfast as ever and impenetrable to most.

That was why she was doing this. She wanted a chance to open Killian up to more, to prompt her son towards something he deserved but had always run from: love. She knew he’d be hesitant, and only the perfect kind of woman could bring him to a place where he could be himself, so she’d been looking. It was practically her job to meet people all the time, to come into contact with royals and commoners alike, but she never had much hope. No one felt right, no one seemed perfect until a few weeks ago. Eleanor had returned from one of her outings with the foundation, from the children’s sanctuary, and slapped down a folder with a simple statement.

“I found the girl. Killian’s sweetheart. I know she’s the one.”

Meera was so excited, and she opened the folder without second thought. Sure enough the woman in the file was beautiful, and surprising. She was an American and pretty as could be, clearly smart as she was here on a fellowship grant from the local University. And she had a son. There were all sorts of details about how the school had made arrangements for them because she was such a promising fellow. She was gifted with children and had her own experience with being an orphan as well. Meera planned to go the next day with Eleanor to see for herself, but Eleanor said she wasn’t there. When Meera realized Eleanor never even seen the girl she was horrified. It was one thing to be looking for potential suitors for her son, but people they’d never even met? That seemed like a bridge too far.

“She’ll be here in two weeks. The Sanctuary director couldn’t stop talking about how excited they were for this year’s candidate and one thing lead to another… but that’s the way these things go sometimes.”

It was not the way things usually went, and Meera knew that, but she had never regretted following Eleanor’s instincts before. If her mother-in-law believed in this, then she felt that she should too. And besides, their goal here was a good one – all they wanted was two worthy people to fall in love, after all. What was really the harm in that? Meera just didn’t know, and that was the problem which had been keeping her up for more than a few nights now.

“You are worrying too much, Meera. It will all turn out exactly as it’s meant to,” Eleanor said, having walked into the room with such silence Meera never once detected her.

“You really think it’ll happen?” Meera asked, not even bothering to hide her anxiety.

“Think it’ll happen? My love, he’s as handsome as can be, a Captain of the navy, a hero of war, and has a heart of gold. Any woman worth her salt is going to take one look at him and fall straight in love. Meanwhile he’s going to take one look at this Swan girl and you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to see forever in an instant. His heart will beat for her, and love will stake a claim from the very first moment. Cupid will have quite a simple task of it, you mark my words.”

“You make it all sound so…”

“Romantic? Blissful?”

“I was going to say theatrical.”

“Love at first sight has long been slandered, but still it exists. People find it every day, and many times when they know, they just know.” 

“I just want him to be happy,” Meera admitted looking down at her hands. That was all she ever wanted as a mother, for her sons to be well and whole and good. 

“And he will be,” Eleanor said, grasping Meera’s hand in a sign of comfort. “He will be happy. He will find exactly what he’s missing. You just have to trust and believe, my dear. It’s all any of us can do.”

Meera nodded, deciding to believe that this would work, and to accept the older woman’s sage counsel, despite its fairytale influence. She wished that with this tiny little push in the right direction, her son would find his happiness with a woman of substance, and good will, and heart. From what they’d discovered, Meera truly believed such a love could be found with this one special woman, Emma Swan, and she only hoped that Killian and Emma were ready and willing to take a chance. But alas, nothing but time would tell, and now all they could do was wait and see…

Post-Note: So there we have it. It was a lot of background I know, about Killian and his family and his past. But I hope you’ll see a bit more of the world I’m building and that it will eventually add to the meeting CS will have coming in the next chapter. As for Killian’s meddling Mom and Gran… what can I say? I missed having some meddlers in my AUs. I have lots still left in store for this story, and as always I can’t wait to see what you guys think. Thanks again so much for reading, and I hope you all have a lovely rest of your day!

[coepiteamare]

2020 in fic

2020 was terrible year but an okay year of fic considering i didn’t really write till october. 

STATS: fics: 1 fic; i wrote drabbles because i can’t write long fics. but i wrote 8 drabbles? female pov: 8 male pov: 1 (i thought i had more but nope, they’re all wips) both pov: 0 (i haven’t written anything long to justify both pov) total word count: (lol, i’ll update this later but i know it’s absolute shite) OVERALL: Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? both! i started this blog in january, wrote two things, then forgot about it because life kind of took over. because i didn’t write for so long, i didn’t intend on coming back, but i realized that i had a couple wips for the dictionary of lovers that i never uploaded so i came back sometime in october? (i published one and then kind of tucked away the rest because i wasn’t sure what i quite wanted to do with tdol)

i started off this year intending to write and finish tdol (26 drabbles), but that didn’t end up happening, so less. but when i stopped, i also didn’t think i would ever come back to posting, yet here i am! and i’ve posted drabbles and have a bunch in the wip folders, so more! tl;dr: less than i thought but also more than i thought. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? i don’t write cross fandoms anymore (though that was my start in ff, my peak poetry days), but i never thought i would write 2nd pov/memberxreader because i started off writing memberxmember fics for bangtan, so i suppose that!  Did you take any writing risks this year? most definitely. i never thought i would write 2nd person pov, but here i am. and i didn’t think i’d write memberxreader, but here i am! (a bundle of surprises i am) 2nd person pov is actually a lot harder for me to write, but i’m getting better at it. 

pens and paperwork actually has a lot of dialogue and less purple prose: i think it’s the one piece i wrote that was less emotion based and more plot, which is very out of character for me. it’s also a little (a lot) different than what i normally write, so that was also a risk, but i enjoyed writing that one so much: it’s definitely one of my favourite pieces and i want to flesh out that universe a little more. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? write! longer! fics! i want to rewrite “the dictionary of lovers” and put it together into a long fic. i have a multiverse fic that i’ve been planning out, and i want to finish 9,719km and make it at least 10K: i want to practice fleshing out characters and worlds. my goal in general is just to write a long fic (9,719km, i’m looking at you). and also return to writing memberxmember fics too (i have a namgi fic in the works and there are def taekook ideas). get better at writing openings and closing and titling fics. god, i suck at titles. 

also, i would very much like to publish most of my wips. so, future violet, here’s to hoping you do that.  What were last year's goals? this is my first year, but last year, my goal was to just start a writing tumblr and write! and i’ve managed to do that! so yay  🎉  BEST AND WORST: My best story of this year: nine thousand, seven hundred nineteen kilometers. i love it to bits and pieces and i had it in my drafts for a while? because i wanted to publish it as a full fic but who knows when that will be, so i published it anyways. also this part was so much better than the other parts, so no regrets, i suppose. i think it is my favourite piece i’ve written, along with pens and paperwork, because it’s so different from what i’m used to writing? (both are also yoongi fics, funny enough) i definitely think it’s less purple prose (though 9,719km def has elements of that still; can’t get it out of my system) so hs me would not have approved, but i love it to smithereens. i try to not read any of my fics after posting them though because i’m incapable of letting it be: i have to perform autopsies on it, pick at the bad parts, cut open the good ones for flaws, until it’s virtually unrecognizable and ruined, so i can’t bring myself to reread it, but as of now, from what i remember, i think it’s my best story.  My most popular story of this year: love is a losing game (we played anyways): i’m so flattered and in awe that people actually liked this story because it was so hard for me to write. it’s only 1k and it took me a good week before i could publish it because i kept tripping over the language. and i felt (still feel) like pre-dialogue and post-dialogue are two different stories, which was extremely frustrating for me. i think i can write dialogue (this story is a different beast, just because of the nature of the beginning) but it’s really hard for me to combine poetry/prose with dialogue. i feel like it throws it off but the only other way to write it would be in a short bit compilation (i’ll write fics like that again someday) and i didn’t feel like it would work for lialg. (funny story: it was actually a royalty!namjoon fic where he wants to give her the world but it turns out she was a spy and she essentially burns his kingdom to the ground) i’m honestly not too happy about how it turned out but i’m still glad people enjoyed it!  Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: none! i really didn’t expect to have an audience, so people stopping and reading my fics? wild. Most fun story to write: pens and paperwork. that drabble was so much fun to write and i loved the characters. also gave me the least amount of headaches, probably because it kind of wrote itself once i started. i really do want to expand on that universe, just because i want to revisit it and explore 007′s background (maybe write about 005 and 006 as a spin off though whether i want to make it taexreader or taexjimin is to be determined) and yoongi’s journey in the MI6/NIS as well!

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: probably pens and paperwork? i’ve always known that yoongi was a dynamic and versatile person but that fic really did it for me. i can totally see him being this sarcastic, dry person, but also someone with a lot of love and care for others, like he does with 007 by bringing her alc when she’s in pain and generally trying to distract her as she’s getting stitches. someone who’s as loud as they are quiet. i definitely want to write more soft yoongi though. 

Hardest story to write: i am your ocean (your little mermaid). hands down. i don’t know if tae is just really hard to write (for me) or if that fic was a monster of it’s own, but i spent two+ weeks working on it. it went through so many storyline revisions and changes and then even after i had a decent idea of the final plot, it took me another week to write fucking 1.4k. absolutely awful. do i like it? i don’t even know. but i don’t like hoarding fics, so it’s out there for the word to pick at, to dissect it’s anatomy, to taxidermy it.  Biggest disappointment: the movietheaterworker!oc x marvelnerd!jk fic that i never published. i don’t know if it’s just bad or it’s just not what i wanted but i haven’t touched it since october (and idk if i want to look at it) so that says something. 

in terms of something i published, probably “heart” from tdol. i re-read it recently and it just felt really bleh to me? i should have more attachment to it considering it’s my first drabble on this account but nope. some parts of it are cute but it’s so clunky. i don’t like it.  Biggest surprise: pens and paperwork or monsters under the bed. pens and paperwork because of how much i loved it/how fast it wrote itself and how much i liked it afterwards, even though it’s written in a much different style than i normally write? monsters under the bed because it was written with no direction and honestly feels like a fever dream (though i did have a backstory to jk’s character and his relationship with oc), yet it still was well liked! i kind of posted it as the start to the “things you said” drabble collection and was like here goes nothing, but people seemed to really enjoy it!! which was very surprising. and my butterfly, noor, called me the bob ross of fanfiction (that still cracks me up) so!  Most unintentionally telling story: hmmm...probably anything from tdol. i’ve been so fortunate to have such beautiful, healthy, intimate platonic relationships, but the one (two if we’re being generous, which we most def are if counting it) romantic relationship i’ve had was quite awful and extremely toxic. (ask me about it if you want to: i like to rant about it from time to time) so tdol is a creation of wishful thinking, of what i think a healthy relationship should look like, through the ups and downs, the highs and lows. because i don’t have experience with healthy romantic relationships, i def put a lot of my friendships and bits and pieces from those into tdol. and it’s not published yet, but there’s an unwritten piece from tdol where oc talks about how she doesn’t believe in love but jk very much is a hopeless romantic, and that’s me writing me into a fic so. 

HIGHLIGHTS + WRAP-UP: Favorite opening lines:

(god, i suck at opening lines)

tdol “perfect” + coming back home to you would always be one of the highlights of my day. whenever the sun shined for a little too long, a storm would hit, but this--coming home to and closing the day with you--was one of the few things in life that was completely and utterly mine to have, out of the reaches of whatever was out there that made sure the road was never too smooth. [note: this isn’t THE opening line but we’ll ignore that]

9,719km + paris is much quieter than the places you’re used to, but it’s not a bad thing.

Favorite closing lines: (i struggle so much with these) i’ll be your ocean (your little mermaid) + the enfilade of rain continues and pelts against the windowpane, against your balcony floor. 

monsters under the bed + but when he opens his eyes again, to the blaring 1:01AM of his clock, you’re no longer by his side. 

9,719km + p.s. did you miss me? + maybe he’s just as potent as a habit, just as hard to kill. 

Favorite lines in general: i’ll be your ocean (your little mermaid) + you let the words fall from your lips, dribble down your skin like water droplets, and dissipate in the ocean of your feelings. watch them dissolve into the seafoam of your being and sink down, down, down. + it feels a little like that now as you card your fingers through his sweaty locks, dyed red like ariel’s, bright red against the blue of both your feelings. 

love is a losing game (we played anyways) + he looks at you like you hold the secrets of the universe, even as he tears through the valley of your breasts with the claws of his ambitions and devotion. + (the summary line: he builds cathedrals in your name, whispers prayers into your skin, and you shatter the stained glass windows of his dreams.) 

9,719km + nothing has been able to keep him out: not the gallery treasury in newport beach with its earthquake proof alarm system, not the cartier vault in new york city with its impressive randomized laser grid, and certainly not the flimsy, fickle alarm system of your heartbeat. 

LIST OF COMPLETED STORIES: [note: does tdol count? i’ll put it here anyways. also i suck at titles] the dictionary of lovers: heart the dictionary of lovers: confirmation the dictionary of lovers: perfect love is a losing game (we played anyways) monsters under the bed pens and paperwork i’ll be your ocean (your little mermaid) nine thousand, seven hundred nineteen kilometers you feel like a holiday

WIP TEASERS: welcome to wonderland (we’re all mad here) (aliceinwonderland!au) summary: queen of hearts!jk x alice!reader

excerpt: be careful in the woods, they whisper. so many girls have gotten lost and made it out with just their bodies intact, bones rattling hollow and mind astray. the girls mumble about tea parties with madness, about croquet games with the heads of the executed, before they are wheeled off to hospitals, still talking to the wall. 

be careful in the woods, they warn. it preys on your fear and feeds on your sanity, if you linger too long. 

i know you (i’ve walked with you once upon a dream) (dreamwalkers!au) summary: oc works for the department of dreams: bureau of night terrors as a dreamwalker. jungkook has chronic nightmares.

excerpt: They tell lucid dreamers to look down at their hands, notice the garbled image to recognize they’re in a dream. Your brain backtracks to what it last remembers. A click of the seatbelt, Jimin’s soft “sleep tight,” the cool air inside the tank. Darkness. You grip the wand a little tighter. 

Dreamscapes are weird, you think as you conjure up an ironwood table and a cup of earl grey. The fabric of reality is so thin, so permeable and malleable with the right amount of knowledge. If you think really hard, slip a hand through that curtain, you can still feel the cold air lingering on your skin from the tank. You look down at your watch. 8:44. Eight hours and fourty four minutes left to wander through other people’s nightmares. 

if the world was ending (you’d come over, right?) (au where the world slowly comes to a halt and you find yourself calling your ex. inspired by “if the world was ending” by jp saxe and julia michaels) summary: ex!tae x female!reader

excerpt: The world starts to freeze over when you’re on the bus ride home. 

Pedestrians pause in the middle of the sidewalk; cars decelerate in the middle of accelerations. The chatter in the bus groans to a stop, like a radio after the plug has been pulled, as everyone slowly freezes. Your hair, which once fluttered in the breeze, gently falls back into place. 

The traffic light is red. 

You pull your earbuds out. It’s quiet. Too quiet. 

“Hello?” you whisper, shaking the arm of your neighbor. No response. The silence is loud, almost deafening.

“Hello?” you walk down the aisle to where your driver sits. His face is still. Annoyance clouds his eyes, chest puffed like he was about to take a deep breath. One he’ll never take again. 

You shuffle your feet back and trip on the stairs, back slamming against plexi glass and metal.

The light never turns green. 

untitled (mermaid!au)

excerpt: Jungkook loves the sea, but he thinks he might like you a little bit more. You, with the sea breeze in your hair and summer storm in your eyes. There’s something about the way you sparkle like the ocean top, sun skimming across skin, that makes him think you might be more than human, a trick of light, an optical illusion.

untitled (desert princess x pirate!jk au) summary:  i love you the way ocean clings to shore, the way the horizon wants the sea, but, darling, we were never meant to be

excerpt: you’re pretty sure the ocean is enchanted, bright blue waters glimmering with magic. nothing else could explain how jeon jungkook, notorious pirate and thief, owns eyes that twinkle like the night sky and a face that puts the sunset to shame, unless he managed to somehow steal those too. you wouldn’t put it past him. + they name hurricanes after girls, he tells you. a prayer for gentleness, a hope for small casualties. huh, you reply, whoever came up with that idea must never have been caught in the storm of a girl. 

IN CONCLUSION: 

wow, could i be any more conspicuous about which drabble i like the most? why do i use so many parenthesis? also, i suck at titles and opening and closing lines. but hey, i’m trying, and sometimes that’s all i can ask from myself. i wrote a lot less than i thought but also more than i thought, so cheers to that. maybe next year will be better, maybe it’ll be worse. who knows? hopefully it’ll read easier though.  p.s. if you’ve read this and if you’ve read anything i’ve written, thank you for reading. thank you for sticking through the calamity of my thoughts, through the hurricane of my mind. you have no idea how much it means. i hope i’m able to make your day a little better, a little brighter, a little light in this time of darkness.  p.p.s. i’ve made a few friends on tumblr. i won’t tag them because i don’t want to put them through this awful clusterfuck of words, but if any of you read this, hi. you’ve really shaped my tumblr experience and i’m so glad to have met you all.  noor (papillionsgf): my butterfly, i adore you. you were my first tumblr friend and you’ve been nothing but sweet to me. thank you for talking to me and thank you for our lovely conversations, for letting me squeal about tfua, for  i absolutely adore you.  hana (cutechims): the two of us are awkward potatoes, and i still need to rewatch batman begins, but thank you for always being so sweet, so kind. i love talking with you and reading everything you write. you make me smile when i see you on my dash, with every response you send. jlin (bratkook): i slid into your tumblr dms because you’re so talented and so awfully pretty. i absolutely enjoy our conversations about rich folxs and karens, and i really hope the pandemic comes to an end because i would love to meet you in person and teach you aerial! (also i will bake you lots of cookies) erin (yeojaa): hi lovely. i adore you to the moon and back and to be honest, you still intimidate me because i love your writing so much, but i wanted to say how much i adore you and how i love talking to you. i hope you’re taking care of yourself and staying warm and i hope to get to know you better in 2021!

notes: adapted from lj, where i started writing! i used to see this a bit on lj (or maybe it was the circle of writers i followed) but i figured i’d bring it over here because it’s a good reflection piece and tumblr feels like a good place for that. 

[cto10121]

well i’m bored so might as well review the new twilight book, midnight sun. yeah

you know, if someone had come up to me circa ~2000s and told me “yo cto10121, i have a novel in mind, it’s kind of a beauty and the beast/romeo and juliet high school fantasy au, think it’ll work/make a ridiculous amount of money???” i probably would have said no, but cool fanfic, yo, you do you. but as stephenie meyer came up with twilight and literally spawned ya books as a marketable genre...it goes to show that it really isn’t the idea that matters, but the execution of it. too bad she got the most ridiculous amount of slack and bad faith criticism for it though - people really do not know their vampire fiction from their gothic romances

enter midnight sun in edward’s point of view, and now we’re in full-on b&b/hades and persephone territory (literally, the myth is alluded to so many times it’s ridiculous. on the other hand, meyer’s self-awareness is just so. refreshing. for a moment there all the ya romances shamelessly stealing based on r&j always had to mention something about how awful r&j was. my palms continually itched to strangle some fools from 2008 onwards. dark days, my friends, dark days). so let’s see how it goes

it starts off good: edward is appropriately haughty, arrogant on the side of an actual god complex, intelligent but also very quick to judge, and angsty about his bloodlust-y state. bonus points: he doesn’t think bella is all that at first and dismisses her from the word-go. so appropriately...beastly. i also like how in this version bella’s willingness to challenge edward on his bullshit, and the cycle of  edward assuming something about bella and then his assumptions turn out wrong, is much more evident here. of course, this is edward’s journey from beast to prince, so he gets to realize some truths about himself: he can’t control everything, he really is not a good judge of character, much less human character, and just...let nature take its course sometimes ffs

but alas, since pacing is everything in a romance, i felt edward’s realization that he is in love with bella came a little too fast - pretty much by alice’s vision of bella as a vampire it was confirmed and he was like wup guess i love this sweet-smelling now. i would have liked some more denial and resistance on edward’s part, probably moved alice’s vision way later, since that would have been in line with his all-knowing character and then show that he cares through the narrative. bella’s fascination with edward is woven through her POV so it did not have to be outright stated until very late in the game (the french title actually would have been more apropos - fascination. pretty much says it all). twilight actually has the structure of a mystery, so it’s sad that that aspect so quickly discarded

also - and this was a weakness of twilight too - the vampires are way too overpowered, to the point where immortality is much more of a sweet deal than ancient curse, and so edward’s beast-like angst over it a little less understandable. i know this is the fantasy equivalent/allegory of rich douchebags with obscene wealth, but still. some limits would have been very nice. how far can these vampires move? the super strength is particularly too much. on the other hand, there was more a fleshing out of the eras the vampires lived in and their backstories are still top-notched - you did believe the cullens came from another time entirely, especially edward.

but by far the greatest weakness is that there was too much detail - meyer no doubt found it difficult to stick to the original plotline so there was much less room to maneuver. this led to too many details, particularly unnecessary ones, and not the stuff you actually want to know re:character and lore (for my part, as an example: edward’s bloodlust situation was not at all unique, so why don’t the vampires have a name for it already? the volturi called the human a cantante - why is there no english equivalent, even if it’s just a transliteration? edward literally had to explain it fully to carlisle. but ignore me i’m just a language nerd). it served to dilute the romance, not enhance it. there should have been a lot more introspection, i feel

so that’s midnight sun for you. as for more structural criticism...well, the reason why i would not (normally) think b&b/r&j would make a good mashup is because of the two different character dynamics involved. b&b is essentially a may-december romance, with an older more experienced (and rich, the guy is always rich in these things) man with a tragic past/dark secret and a young, beautiful ingenue. r&j is an immediate mutual attraction, usually a coup de foudre whirlwind passion between two people of similar ages but who cannot be together because of an obstacle. there is obviously plenty of overlap, but the resolutions are different: b&b requires that the beast change his ways into a prince with the help of beauty and r&j is essentially tragic - when the obstacles are too high to be overcome and when the love is too strong to give up, lovers die and (sometimes) the obstacles too. twilight slides between the two poles fairly well, but ultimately goes on way too long. usually romances are one, two books at the most. either bella and/or edward should have died mutually, or bella should have turned into a vampire by the end of book two. the series never resolved the two fundamental diametric poles, only adding the feuding-houses aspect (vampires vs. werewolves) and the rival love interest. i will give midnight sun this, though: like disney’s b&b, it benefits from shifting the development on edward’s part, not bella’s. 

in sum: started out strong, but then lost the plot somewhere around the middle. the meadow scene still slaps, though. not one kiss and yet it’s hotter than the sahara at noon. i’ve forgotten how much the movies sucked, adaptation-wise; the series is pure gothic romance and they turned into an indie high school flick and then a fantasy coming-of-age flick.  

[neven-ebrez]

15x01, a look at the future through the past

Back home! I watched the episode last night and rewatched it just now. I’m sorry to say that I was baseline bored on most levels but the second time through things felt better (yay!) even if the bland factor was still there for me personally (I’m bored with most ghost stuff from SPN these days). Imo the characters basically served the plot of 15x01 instead of the other way around which is very Game of Thrones-y and 1000% not what I’m here for but I won’t talk about the details of that because I’m sure no one wants to hear that and I’m also sure things won’t stay that way long so I’ll talk about some other things instead. There are some things I can tell are a thing but I don’t know exactly what the shows means in depicting them, and others where I’m more confident in my interpretation so here we go.

I’m like 99% sure the demon in Jack is actually Chuck and that he’s basically trying to maintain his torture (I mean... the guy admitted to being a torturer ffs) of the Winchesters with the best viewing seat possible as it were (he even tells Dean point blank he’s a “fan”). For some reason only Dean and Cas got the focus for this (torture) tho and not Sam. With Dean it was the demon reminding him of how dark and brutal Dean can be himself (via his time with Alastair). Dean blows that off pretty quick and isn’t too visibly effected, commenting that it was a long time ago. With Cas the torture came in the demon’s possession of Jack himself, Cas saying bluntly that he can’t even look at Jack and that demonic possession is basically defilement. Cas is clearly more effected and Dean’s harsh “Jack is DEAD!” tonally recalled S13 in many ways. Also oddly the demon admits Dean is gorgeous but not the same is said of Cas, with the demon insulting him instead. Two interactions. Two wildly different responses. It’s the demon putting Dean and Cas at odds without any interaction needed from them themselves, though the latter comes in spades and is the only focused on “true” conflict of the episode, set against soft Sam/Dean exchanges.

The blend of Cas’ angelic nature along with his human nature was also heavily, heavily highlighted in the episode. It was probably the most highlighted thing in fact. Cas smiting and healing. Cas shooting a gun and throwing rocks. Cas tells Dean he wouldn’t starve to death in the crypt (which, on a side note, has huge Buffy vibes for me, along with Belphogor (sp?) calling the Hell rip or whatever the “Hellmouth”). Cas can see the demon’s demonic face easily despite episodes like 14x01 (also written by Dabb) where he can’t see a room full of them (I think I argued back then that Cas was willingfully trying to ignore and was annoyed with his angelic nature). Cas’ angelic side gets another highlight when Sam accidentally shoots Cas and he doesn’t get truly injured. This particular scene seemingly serves no other purpose other than to highlight Cas’ difference (as non-human) in general. Emotionally tho, Cas’ human side is on full display. He’s worried about the town’s people. He’s annoyed with both Sam and Dean for different reasons at different points. Cas bodily removes the demon from sharing the same space as him because the demon upsets him. Cas can not even LOOK at “Jack” but Dean (and Sam) can. As I said, it’s similar structurally to how S13 handled Dean dealing with Cas’ death in comparison to Sam moving on from it. It functions to show that for Cas his relationship with Jack is different from Sam and Dean’s, however otherwise similar in the fact that TFW all see Jack as their child, their family. It’s exactly like how Cas is different to Dean as compared to Sam.

Back onto demon “B” whatever tho. Interestingly, we never see the demon smoke into Jack. Then he just “”happens”” to know every spell needed to help the Winchesters but for Dean and Cas two things are required for sacrifice/gathering. In each, one component is dead-like and protecting (salt, goofer dust) and the other channels life/creation (a heart and angel blood). Each time there’s a duality in play. Curiously Sam is not involved in any of this with the demon for whatever reason, making the demon (within the season’s structure as presented so far) a primary component of Dean and Cas’ differences. They are tests of free will for them specifically in a way. What will each person “freely” give/obtain for the demon? To me, it just all screams this thing/demon is really just God fucking with them in every way he can but while maintaining some ally aligned position physically. It’s Chuck’s literal MO.

Also. The show is back to Dean blanketly treating Cas like shit. Which we know happens in waves constantly but as a Cas fan it’s still annoying to watch for the umpteenth fucking time. And they haven’t even pinpointed the *exact* reason here for all the snapping (yeah, pacing, I know). The audience has to do some connecting the dots here I feel. They have to have a certain understanding of how Dean needs Cas. I *think* the takeaway is that Dean uses Cas as an emotional punching bag when he’s actually mad at himself and that instead of getting so angry with himself these days that Dean’s decided yelling at Cas is a better/healthier way for him to deal with himself. Which is absolutely unfair and devastating to Cas, but it’s what Cas (unfortunately) has become to Dean. It’s like when he told Cas he was dead to him at the end of S14 because of Jack killing Mary. Dean’s really mad at he, himself, for ignoring the warning that was always there. Not really Cas. But Dean has yet to apologize and/or rectify this. This is the (ongoing) problem for Dean and Cas. Point blank.

At this point if I was Cas I’d just leave and not come back. He doesn’t deserve the way Dean constantly treats him. Dean doesn’t “need” Cas like this but he’s become comfortable using him like this. This is so jarring from the understanding Dean shows Cas in late S12. And from the grief arc he has in S13, followed by the relief he shows when Cas returns. Dean never learns how to properly “claim” Cas, however. Looks like this time instead of killing Cas the show (like in S8) is gonna have Cas choose to stay away (after 15x03?) I guess, prompting Dean to do some reflecting or whatever following this (What is Cas to me? Why do I actually need him? How should I treat him?). But honestly I’m not thinking of the reflecting right now. Or the “after” or whatever. I’m just thinking about how shitty Cas is being treated RIGHT NOW and it 1000% makes me wanna just drop the show and not watch anymore until it’s over. I’m just not interested in torturing myself for months watching this slowly drag out but apparently I’m so masochistic and love Cas so fucking much that I will. GODDAMMIT

Onto “pipes” I guess. This is where I point out that I don’t know what the show is going for here but I’ll throw around some ideas. Pipes had a lot to do with the episode. Sam thinks he hears water flowing in a pipe in the crypt and they think they can escape through the sewers. Wrong. Later, Sam tells the sheriff that a pipeline burst near the town. Lies. And lastly there’s a plumbing truck outside the home where the clown ghost slaughtered the birthday party (uh... where’s the bodies btw?). So everywhere we have the imagery of pipes bursting and needing to be fixed. Which, water has nothing to do with Hell, not really. I guess the Hell “rip” is kinda acting like a burst pipe?? Water is usually associated with angels/Cas/change tho. My best guess is that it’s repurposed Michael imagery since good ol’ Bel-whatever let us know Michael’s cage door is busted open and he’s just sitting there for now apparently. I’m not confident in my interpretation here at all though. All I can tell is that busted pipes as imagery (something likely associated with lying/wrong) for something is a thing.

In general I’m going to say 15x01 didn’t even feel like a Dabb episode to me. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed he wrote it. Since I didn’t care about the random people under attack (women running and scared and not tougher is always a hard sell for me personally) I found myself frequently saying “why aren’t they doing _______?” a lot during the episode. Ghosts needing to run? Why? I mean, I get the show wanted to show how the magical border worked but this could have been done in many other more effective ways utilizing tension more. It almost felt like the show didn’t know what to do with its S1 self and so visually everything ended up looking so very incredibly cheesy and not just in the way the colors are no longer desaturated. It literally looks like the show can’t go back into what it was. We saw this visually with a sign that cropped up in several shots as Sam and Cas tried to get the girl and her mom to safety. It was a cul de sac sign.

Here’s a video on why cul de sacs as a design became popular. In short, following the rise in popularity of the automobile neighborhoods are designed for safe car use, above all else. They don’t want outsiders passing through and they want things to be slower. When cars got popular streets were redesigned away from the traditional city “grid” (where accidents happened at intersections most commonly) with features that instead had safety in mind. I choose to interpret this as a visual comment on the show’s design. The Sam n Dean show is like a city grid, dangerous, while the Sam, Dean, Cas, Rowena, and Jack show offers more “safety”. That’s why we get it framed like this imo, between Sam and Cas. Things looked one way before Cas, and another after. Things have changed from the grid and they aren’t going back, for a variety of reasons.

Since the episode title recalls the movie Back to the Future I thought we’d have more of a visual/dialogue tie in tbh. I’ll try to talk about what we thematically did tho. BTTF is a movie about a boy overcoming his impulsiveness to be an alpha male who isn’t scared. This wasn’t a goal of the boy himself necessarily but it was an effect had upon him just the same by the story and his experiences. The movie bookends on this character development. In between the movie is about the disconnect of generations, how kids don’t see their parents in the way they see themselves and vice versa. It’s also about trying to set right familial relationships into proper categories. Marty’s mom, Lorene, accidentally falls in love with her own son instead of Marty’s father, George. Marty’s existence is then threatened and he must spend the movie trying to understand his parents and help them fall properly in love, thus saving and changing himself and them. We only get shades of these themes in the episode, like when the demon (in Jack’s body) calls Dean gorgeous and it makes him uncomfortable. Divorce (unhappy marriage) is also touched upon with the sleepover/makeover girls. In BTTF Lorene and George do not have a great marriage as George lacks confidence but Marty’s interactions with George in the past help change this in the future and their family is much better for it.

We are told in PR that Dean’s “conditioning” and him changing from that is a big part of what SPN is and has always been about. This is similar to how Marty must learn to properly deal with bullies (as he sees his father as weak and overcompensates to distinguish himself from him) and not letting them have power over you. Chuck is like Biff in this structural comparison. Biff is someone we watch become depowered over the course of the movie and I feel this is similar to what the show will likely do regarding Chuck. I could go further in depth here but these are the general thematic points this episode alone addresses. Only with Marty’s character development does he stand to have a happy life with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Back to the Future ends with another call to adventure and its script is widely regarded as “perfect” by many. Quite the structural comparison for SPN to be making. We’ll see. We’re currently stuck in the past for now. Onward, to the future...

[sun-summoning]

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering what happened to the fic the grad fad? I loved it but I can't seem to find it on FF. Thank you! :)

you know what i read this and had a moment of “wtf is the grad fad” followed by “it sounds SO FAMILIAR” then i looked through stuff on my computer and found a doc with that title that was last updated in 2013 and thought “oh god that’s when i graduated university wtf was this fic about???” i assume i deleted it off ffn back in the day bc i knew i’d never finish it.

anyway here’s all that i found:

-

Note: This is my last year of university and I’m actually quite sad, so this is mostly for my lawlz. But I promise I will have a plot.Warning(s): AU, going by my own university’s calendar Pairings: SasuSaku, NaruInoDisclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

-

SEPTEMBERi need a place to live

-

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura needed a home.

She was luckier than most people with her parents living just an hour and a half’s commute away from Konoha University, but she would rather pay rent every month than go through the two trains and two buses and twenty minute walk she spent her entire freshman year dealing with. She spent her second and third years living with Tenten, but that recently-graduated, totally lame, Judas loser decided to take the Next Step in her Relationship and Move In with her boyfriend, hence Sakura’s problem.

Sakura was homeless. Sort of.

Karin only raised an eyebrow at her before eyeing her one-bedroom apartment. There was a solarium, yes, but those doors were see-through and offered no privacy. “Seriously?”

But Sakura would not be moved. She nodded eagerly. “Honestly, I’d be down for a closet. Please? Lend me that room?”

“Fine.”

And so that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

It worked well enough, Sakura supposed. At the beginning, that is, when Sakura was still enjoying the remaining bits of frosh week and the constant keggers going on. On the first week of class—when all that happened was syllabi-reading and maybe an introductory lab or two that Sakura didn’t need—there were Mojito Mondays and Because I Freaking Feel Like it Tuesdays to go along with the traditional Thirsty Thursdays. For the first week of class, Sakura mostly came home to her glass room at Karin’s home in a lovely state of drunk or delirious.

But then she started coming home sober.

Second week struck and so did its readings upon readings upon readings. Sakura scrambled from the KU Bookstore to the shop for cheaper used books a few blocks away from the university where all the hipsters lived. She would then go to the printing press on the other side of the city for that course pack, and then to another printing press on the other side of the city for another course pack. Then she would settle down in the library with a chai tea latte and lemon poppy seed muffin and shut off her phone and get her readings done.

(Not that anyone was texting her, of course. Ino was basically ignoring the world and Naruto still felt like it was move-in time and Sakura knew for a fact he had a keg at his house and Sasuke and her basically didn’t talk unless they were forced to.)

In her second week of September, Sakura would come home extremely late, with aching shoulders and arms full of books.

In her second week of September, all Sakura would want to come home to was a cozy bed and ugly bunny slippers and Netflix. Instead, she came home to Karin’s bra on the sneakers Sakura left by the door and the beautifully permanent sight of Karin and Shikamaru doing the deed on the couch.

Sakura just sighed. “Guys, like, I eat my breakfast on that couch!”

They barely noticed her before Karin let out a squeak and they casually moved their canoodling over to her bedroom.

“Seriously?!” Sakura yelled, dropping her book bag and mourning the sight of the beloved Lazy Boy, forever tainted by Shikamaru’s naked ass, cute as it may have been.

Sakura plopped down on the carpet, sitting right in front of the recliner.

This wasn’t going to work.

-

“Can I live with you?”

Sakura twitched when she got no response. Ino had been like this all summer. She was in I’m-taking-my-LSAT-therefore-nothing-exists-but-these-LSAT-notes mode and essentially drowning everyone and everything. There was no time for double fisting the red sangria and the white sangria at Red Room after a long day of class, nor was there time to listen to Sakura propose potential research paper topics. Ino had quit her job and her social life in favour of studying, studying, studying.

“Ino?”

Ino had a pretty swanky place, actually – for a studio apartment, that is. But it was surprisingly large for a kitchen-living-room-bedroom hybrid monster. It even had a balcony!

“Yo! Blondie!”

Finally, Ino looked up. “What was that, Sakura?”

Sakura pouted.

They were at the coffee shop near the Bio labs on the west end of campus. Ino had only agreed to Sakura’s invitation when Sakura offered to buy her sleepless friend some coffee. Apparently the implied “you’ll have to listen to me when I speak” part of that deal went unnoticed, however. Great.

“Can I live with you?” Sakura repeated.

Ino didn’t miss a beat. “No.”

“What?” Sakura couldn’t help it. Her jaw literally dropped. She was ready to prepare some grand speech about friendship and bonds and love and all that jazz that Naruto would have been super proud of, but Ino waved her hand – granted, she looked more like she was trying to swat away some irritating bug.

“Sakura,” she said flatly, “consider the size of my apartment.”

“It’s fun-sized,” Sakura reasoned. “Super fun-sized.”

“No.”

“But I’m homeless!”

“You live like an hour away—”

“AND A HALF.”

“—you’ll manage.”

“But I’m homeless!” Sakura repeated pathetically, hoping that if she pouted Ino might have been moved.

But that was not the case. Ino’s eyes were already back on her binder of notes for her LSAT studying. “Nope.”

“You’re a heartless, wretched beast,” Sakura said. She gathered her things and made sure to grab the caramel macchiato she spent a grand four dollars on for some traitor. She stuck her tongue out when Ino let out an indignant cry for having her coffee stolen. “Sorry, I don’t buy drinks for jerks!”

“Just commute, you lazy baby!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

-

“Can I live with you?”

Naruto didn’t look even remotely surprised to see Sakura on his front porch with a bright pink gym bag full of her clothes and a backpack that looked ready to burst at the seams. And he didn’t even want to think about how heavy that other bag pulling at her left arm was, considering all the textbooks sticking out of it.

Like the good friend he was, Naruto grabbed the bag of books and the bag of clothes.

“Come on,” he said, moving to the side so she could enter the house.

“You’re the best, Naruto!”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Sakura had been to Naruto’s place many times. It was a house in the so-called “student ghetto” just off of campus with an open-concept main floor and a fair number of bedrooms. If Sakura remembered correctly, Naruto had the big room in the basement, Suigetsu called dibs on the attic, and Sasuke and Shikamaru had rooms on the second-level. But now that Neji had moved in with Tenten—

“Am I getting Neji’s old room?” Sakura asked.

Naruto nodded, guiding her up the stairs even though she already knew where to go. “Yeah, I figured you’d be here eventually.”

“What?” Sakura felt tears spring in her eyes. She couldn’t help it. She was tired and stressed and her shoulders were killing her. “You saved a room for me?” She was in awe of how sweet he was.

But Naruto just shrugged and looked away. Sakura saw the way his cheeks reddened though. “It’s not a big deal. We just didn’t bother looking for another guy. I had a feeling things wouldn’t work out at Karin’s when Shikamaru basically stopped coming home all of first week…”

Sakura still tackled him into a hug, forcing him to drop her bags. She pulled away and smiled. “You are literally the best, did you know that?”

He grinned back. “Obviously.” But a thought came to mind and his smile waned. “Um… there’s just one thing…”

“Yeah?” Sakura was too busy marvelling at the fact that her new room came with walls (and a bed and drawers and a closet and even a calendar) to notice his frown. “Don’t worry about rent. I got my job at the registrar’s office again so I’m good.”

“It’s not that.”

Sakura finally looked at him. “What is it?” She suddenly looked equally as frantic. “Oh.”

“Are you okay with living with your ex?”

“Obvously.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“I figured.”

“Meh.” Sakura shrugged. She took her bag from Naruto and opened it up to beginning the process of moving in all over again. “I’m kind of homeless, so I’ll make due. And you know how I am during school. I basically just live at campus during the year.”

Naruto laughed and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “we just have one more year of this crap, right?”

Sakura glanced at the calendar and nodded.

“Just one more year.”

-

OCTOBERi need reference letters

-

So it was October.

October came to mean a lot of things to Naruto: midterms, essays, Thanksgiving a.k.a. Turkey Day, pumpkin spice everything, breaking out the awesome orange scarf Sakura knitted for him years ago, pretty leaves, and so much more.

Now the boys didn’t usually maintain their house unless someone was coming to visit. Fine, the tiny front lawn would see a mowing every other week or so, and the backyard was only managed if there was going to be a party. And then the inside was divided that every man would take care of his own place, the kitchen would always be cleaned by whoever made whatever mess, and the bathroom would go through a weekly cycle of sorts. But things like the broom and the vacuum were only broken out for special occasions.

“Guys!”

In the living room, Sakura was sketching silly outfits on the bare bodies in her anatomy textbook in lieu of studying, while Naruto made his own efforts to procrastinate pretty obvious as he made a tower of all the novels and plays and poetry anthologies he had to read for the semester. So far, his stack was balancing at a rather noteworthy twenty-two. Shikamaru, on the other hand, was making paper balls with his notes and throwing them at Naruto’s tower.

They all looked up at Suigetsu’s frantic shout.

“What is it?” Sakura asked. She had the grace to look annoyed by the interruption to her ‘hard work.’

“Sasuke’s mom is here!”

Immediately, Naruto and Shikamaru rose, their eyes wide and their arms near flailing. Sakura raised an eyebrow when Naruto shrieked. His book tower had fallen over when he stood up so fast.

“Clean that up!” Suigetsu yelled, pointing.

Naruto anxiously did so by pushing all of the books under the couch. At the same time, Shikamaru was taking all the randomly strewn about mugs and plates and – oh god – beer bottles and hiding them in the video game drawer. Suigetsu was keeping a careful eye on the driveway from the window by the stairs.

Sakura could only frown. “What are you guys doing?”

“Sasuke’s mom is here,” Shikamaru pointed out.

Sakura looked at the boys like they were idiots and, for the most part, they returned the look. Suigetsu finally sighed. “Sakura, have you ever seen Sasuke’s mom?”

“Yes,” she said. “In fact, I—”

Naruto shushed her. “Sakura, haven’t you heard? Sasuke’s mom has got it going on!”

Sakura did not look amused, but that didn’t stop Naruto and the other boys from opening the door and yelling their hellos. They all ignored Sasuke’s knowing glare as they took his bags from him and all warmly greeted the lovely Mikoto Uchiha. They exchanged pleasantries and thanked Mikoto wholeheartedly when she graced them with a whole turkey for the house – her little Thanksgiving present to them.

“Oh, Mrs. Uchiha, you didn’t have to do that,” Suigetsu told her sweetly.

But the older woman just smiled and waved the matter off. “Oh, but you boys need to be properly fed!”

Sakura could only pray she had that kind of decency when she was older and sending her son off to live with his fellow cavemen. Sakura eyed Mikoto Uchiha’s beautiful cashmere sweater and her form fitting skirt and could actually kind of understand why her friends were all salivating like dogs. She suddenly felt incredibly insecure in her yoga pants and the sweater she ninety percent belonged to Shikamaru. God, she was such a mess, Sakura realized. At least she wasn’t wearing her UGGs…

Dammit.

“Sakura Haruno, is that you!”

Sakura blinked. “Huh?”

Finally, the boys got out of the way and Mikoto rushed over and hugged her. “Oh, darling!” Mikoto let go enough to look Sakura over and frown disapprovingly. “You’ve lost weight!” she pointed out gravely. “Why haven’t you been eating, missy? This better not be over some stupid boy, because let me tell you—”

Sakura flushed. “Nope!” she interrupted. “I just…” Sakura laughed awkwardly and took a step away from Mikoto. “I just, um, have been busy and haven’t really been sleeping properly…”

Mikoto immediately turned around to face the boys. “And why haven’t you all been making sure Sakura is eating correctly? Hm? Shikamaru? You’re the responsible one!”

Shikamaru froze for a moment with the attention on him. “Um.” He chuckled. “Well, I haven’t really been around either, Mrs. Uchiha. But I’ll definitely make sure our little Sakura eats three square meals a day.”

“Yes, you better!” Mikoto took her turkey out of Naruto’s hands and deposited it into Sakura’s despite the blond’s protests. She winked at Sakura. “Eat up, sweetie.”

Sakura smiled. “Thank you.”

Mikoto gave her son one last kiss on the cheek before saying her goodbyes to everyone. When she was finally gone, Naruto let out a low whistle and made some flattering but inappropriate comment that led to Sasuke punching him in the stomach and stomping away. Still wincing, Naruto hurriedly stole the turkey away from Sakura and brought it to the kitchen.

That was one last thing October meant to Naruto: Mikoto Uchiha sending over a whole turkey for their little house of broke students.

.

.

But the gesture of turkey-giving didn’t arouse the same happy feelings in Sakura. As Suigetsu thoughtfully took a bag of Sasuke’s on his way upstairs, Shikamaru volunteered to walk Mikoto to her car, and Naruto took the turkey for some “alone time,” Sakura went back to her anatomy textbook and suddenly felt incredibly lonely.

Sakura had spent Thanksgiving dinner with the Uchiha family once, back when she and Sasuke were still together. She got along with them all to the point that Mikoto would literally text Sakura at least every other day just to make sure she was okay or to talk. Ino thought that was weird, but Sakura justified things with that Ino had never been in a real relationship – not one that included bonding with your partner’s parent. And when Sasuke dumped Sakura, Mikoto immediately asked Sakura if she was okay. But Sakura soon began to distance herself from the woman, mostly out of propriety, and seeing her in person today made her feel horrible.

Sighing, Sakura picked up her mug of sangria and whined when she realized it was empty. She grudgingly went to the kitchen and took the bottle out of the fridge. After a moment of consideration, she decided to learn from past mistakes and drink from the bottle and skip the mug.

“Well done,” she told herself after a sip.

“Sakura, it’s ten in the morning.”

She joked and spun around. Sasuke was leaning against the counter with a cup of tea and judgemental frown.

“Um.” Sakura lowered the bottle and reconsidered her mug. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

He then took an economics textbook out of his backpack and went over to the couch, sitting beside her scrawled dresses and flower hats. She cringed, but he didn’t seem to notice her doodles. Sakura slowly made her way back to her book and sat as close to the edge as she could, at this point gulping down the sangria.

Seriously? Sakura thought. That was how he wanted to go about things? He wanted to ignore what happened three weeks ago that essentially set the shroud of awkward that hung over them whenever they saw each other in the kitchen or the hall or the living room?! What the actual fu—

Ugh.

When the silence became too much for her to concentrate in, she turned to Sasuke and found him already looking at her.

“How was your break?” she asked. Granted, KU didn’t really offer a “break” so much as one single day.

“Good.”

“What did you do?”

“Helped my mom cook,” Sasuke said.

Sakura grinned. “Since when do you cook?”

“Excuse you, but if I recall correctly, I’m not the one who set off the smoke alarm from boiling water.” Her eyes widened and he smirked.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME!” Still blushing, she kicked him, but he only grabbed her ankle to steady her. “Hmph. Well, what did you cook?”

“Mashed potatoes.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and that’s just such a feat. Look at you Top Chef Wonder.” She giggled at her own not particularly funny joke and told herself it was way too early in the day to already be tipsy. But from what she could remember, Sasuke actually was a great cook. “Is that all you made?” she continued.

“I made a pie, too, actually,” he said. Then he pushed her leg off his lap and went back to the kitchen. The bounce of her foot on the cushion was what made her realize the Sasuke had actually been drawing nonsensical things on her calf andandand—

No. No, she told herself. This. Is not. Allowed.

Finally, he came back with a Tupperware and a fork, handing them to her.

“What is this?” she asked, drawing her legs in and sitting up straight.

“Pie.”

“Huh?”

“Pie,” he repeated. “I made pumpkin pie. It’s Itachi’s favourite and I remembered that it’s yours too so I brought a slice back for you.” Sasuke shrugged and all but buried himself in his economics textbook.

Sakura smiled at the gesture. “Thank you,” she mumbled, poking at the pie.

He glanced at her but saw her focused on the dessert. “You’re welcome,” he replied into his book.

And after finishing the slice, Sakura picked up her own book. The two sat on the couch for a few hours simply reading in a comfortable silence.

.

.

October also came to mean sucking up. October meant heading over to office hours (even the ones that started at 9AM) and making an impression and getting on your professor’s good side so that at the end of the semester, when they were determining Naruto’s participation grade, they would remember his bright hair and bright clothes at each and every lecture.

But this year, their final year, meant going to office hours would no longer just be about proposing separate essay topics or clarifying anything said in class.

This year meant reference letters.

Reference letters for grad school.

But those also meant office hours, which, with Naruto’s luck, meant 9AM with Dr. Kakashi Hatake – which actually kind of sort of meant 10AM considering the man was always late…

Still, that was early considering said hours were on a Friday.

“Let’s move, lazyass!”

“But I’m tired,” Naruto whined, lagging behind Sakura. “Can’t we just be death eaters?”

“No!”

“Or we can just be homeless,” he pointed out. They were on their way to the Humanities Building where Sakura was going solely as Naruto’s moral support while he asked for letters of recommendation. Naruto Uzumaki was going to graduate school, but… well, he was sort of too much of a wimp to approach his favourite professors alone. Likewise, Naruto may or may not have treated her to slash bribed her with a delicious lemon poppy seed muffin and chai tea latte for breakfast.

“I have worked too hard all these years to be homeless,” Sakura said between sips of her drink.

“Fine, not homeless, per se.” Nevertheless, Naruto continued along to the Humanities Building. He stopped the oblivious Sakura from walking into the doors, knowing that for whatever annoying reason, the automatic doors weren’t so automatic. He knew. He may or may not have walked into said doors before…

“Oh?”

“We can live in a box,” Naruto told her with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “Just ask for your letters, Naruto.”

“I don’t know what to say!” But they were already in the elevator.

“You say ‘Hey, Kakashi, I really want to come back to KU for another year to do more readings and write more papers and lead more seminars yada yada yada.’ He’ll love it.” The sad thing was that Sakura wasn’t joking. She’d had Dr. Hatake in her first-year “Literature for our Time” course with Naruto and from her own visits and talks with the man, she’d come to know what he was like.

And well… Naruto looked like he was considering.

“Do you honestly think that would work?”

“I have full faith.”

She genuinely did.

Sakura herself had been going with the more formal approach of: “Dr. Whatever, would you be willing to write me a positive letter recommendation for X Med School?” Most of her professors were very familiar with her and her study habits and her amazing work, so Sakura didn’t actually need to put the operative “positive” in her requests, but it didn’t hurt to stay safe.

But with a professor like Kakashi, things would work out fine for Naruto.

They stood outside of Kakashi’s office and Sakura gave Naruto a pat on the back. “Do you have any idea what you’d want to research though?”

Naruto nodded. “Gothic literature!” he told her eagerly, looking ready to actually tell her more. “I’d like to look at the late eighteenth century and then maybe at the revival of Gothic literature in contemporary times. I mean, Gothic work is just so prevalent nowadays and—”

“Don’t tell me this stuff,” Sakura interrupted. She pointed to Kakashi’s open door. “Tell him!”

“Oh, right…” Naruto laughed awkwardly. “Okay. I can do this.”

“You can do this.”

“I can!”

“You can!”

“…I CAN’T.”

Fed up, Sakura pushed him into Kakashi’s office.

.

.

“Okay, so that went better than expected.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “I told you.”

“Yeah, I know…” Naruto shrugged. “The entire asking-thing is just… nerve-wracking, I suppose.”

The two were at one of their favourite off campus haunts that served Sakura’s favourite sangria and made some of the greatest ramen Naruto had ever tasted. Sure, it was only noon, but it was never to early for wine and whining – at least, that was Sakura’s philosophy. And well, it had served her well for the past three years so…

Besides, it was Friday. Why not get nice and day drunk?

“So what schools are you applying to?” she asked Naruto.

“KU, of course,” Naruto listed through a grimace. “But… I don’t think I’ll get in. KU is so evil, Sakura-chan!”

She nodded. “Oh, I know.” While completing an undergraduate degree at KU was a magical feat in their humble opinions, to complete one and be accepted into the university’s graduate programs would be hard considering the CGPAs most KU students usually escaped with. While Sakura knew she wouldn’t have any problems, she did know that Naruto might. “Where else?”

“Not sure.”

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “What? Naruto, don’t just apply to one grad school if you’re set on doing your Master’s!”

“You don’t think I can get in?”

Sakura sighed. “It’s not like that,” she said, “it’s just that these are competitive programs. You should at least apply to more than one. I mean, what would you do if you didn’t get into KU?”

“…become a death eater?”

“You are so—so—” She sighed again and finished off her sangria. She poured another glass and sipped on that. “You’re like Ino.”

“What? I don’t like Ino!”

“Huh?” Sakura laughed. “No, I said you’re like her, not that you like her. That’d be weird.” In her semi-drunken state that was starting to become Sakura’s default state, she missed the red on Naruto’s cheeks.

“Well, how is Ino, anyway? I haven’t seen we had that kegger in September.” Both of them cringed, remembering their own personal awkward mistakes from that night. Naruto made a face. “Yeah. Ino.”

But Sakura snorted. “Who’s Ino? Oh! Did you mean Ino, the girl who’s apparently my bestie?” Sakura looked a little bit bitter. Maybe she was. Maybe she’s been in dire need of a girlfriend for the past two months but Ino hasn’t really been that great of a friend. “Yeah, she’s studying. She basically won’t have any human contact aside from lectures until she takes her LSATs in December.”

“I see.” Naruto noticed the sad look on Sakura’s face and wasn’t sure if she wanted a serious attempt at comfort or some kind of joke. “Well…” Naruto shrugged. “At least she has plans?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said with a nod. “I guess I just miss her.”

“What law schools will she apply to?”

“I DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT!” Sakura yelled. Her face crumpled and she took a long swig of her drink. “I miss her, Naruto. I know I’m being irrational and that my period is probably coming—”

“Thank you.”

“—but I mean it’s like she just doesn’t care about anyone right now!” Sakura refilled her glass and finished that in one go. Naruto subtly ordered another pitcher and Sakura continued: “I mean, I’m not trying to be clingy. I get it. She has stuff to do. But like, I’m living with Sasuke! HOW HAS SHE NOT EVEN ASKED ME IF THAT IS REMOTELY OKAY?!”

“Huh?” Naruto blinked. “I thought you said that you were okay with that… Sort of.”

“I am!”

“What?” God. Why were women so confusing?!

“I don’t care about Sasuke, Naruto!” Sakura looked at him like he was the one acting crazy. “What I’m saying is that Ino—my Ino—would have texted me the first night asking if I reacquainted myself with Sasuke, followed by an unnecessary amount of wink-faces! Current Ino responds to my text messages days late and never wants to hang out. Like I’m not even allowed to go to the library with her because she thinks I’ll distract her!”

“…you kind of are a huge distraction.” Which she was. As surprising as it was, Sakura was actually the one between the two of them that could be found not working (but still, unfairly enough, maintaining a 4.0 CGPA, so like what the hell).

“NOT THE POINT.”

Their next pitcher arrived and Sakura’s face lit up. “I’m just sad, I guess,” she admitted forlornly. “Or tired. A bit of both.” She sighed and suddenly looked a bit bashful. “I’m sorry. I’ve been ranting all this time. How are you and Sasuke doing?”

Naruto levelled her with a flat stare. “You make us sound like a couple.”

“Aren’t you?”

“SAKURA-CHAN!”

She giggled and Naruto let her. Mocking his “bromance” with Sasuke was always something that could make Sakura smile so he let it go. But suddenly the smile fell and she adopted a serious look. A bad serious look.

“Hey!” she yelled, grabbing his hand on the table. “Are you single?”

Naruto felt very, very uncomfortable with her hand on his. “What?”

“I have this friend,” she clarified. “She’s seen you in a lot of my photos and has probably stalked you on every possible social network. She thinks you’re really good-looking. She’s a super sweet girl and I think the two of you would hit it off really well.”

“Are you…” The words felt weird coming out of his mouth. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“No. Maybe. Yes.”

“What?” Naruto laughed at the mere idea. “What’s her name?”

“Hinata Hyuuga. Really smart, really sweet, really pretty. You’d like her.” Sakura pulled out her phone and logged into her Facebook to find the girl’s profile. She was about to show Naruto a picture but he covered the phone and placed it face-down on the table. “What?”

“I trust your judgement.”

Sakura blinked, utterly astonished. “So… you’ll go on a date with her?”

Musing over all the nothing that had been going on his life as of late, Naruto nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go on a date with her.”

-

NOVEMBERi need to go to sleep

-

November was the worst. November was when you got back your midterms or assignments, cried, rechecked said midterms or assignments, cried again, and then drowned your sorrows in your alcoholic beverage of choice.

For Naruto that was beer.

And as Naruto whined over the grade he got on the paper he wrote the morning it was due, Sakura rubbed his back with one hand and scrolled through the Recently Added section of Netflix.

“It could be worse,” Sakura said.

“How could it have been worse?” Naruto asked her, his eyes still trained on the bolded 72 at the bottom of the page.

“Naruto, a 72 by KU standards is actually pretty damn good!”

“Oh, shut up Miss 4.0. Leave me alone. Leave me to wallow in my sorrow and beer. There is nothing left for me. Alas, woe is me!”

Sasuke, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as comforting. “Listen, dumbass. You passed. Passing is good, remember? You’re fine.”

“PASSING ISN’T ENOUGH FOR GRAD SCHOOL, SASUKE.”

He sat down beside Sakura, leaving her between the two boys. He handed her a mug of sangria and passed a brand new beer over to Naruto, letting him drink it between awkward whining noises that mimicked some sort of dying animal. Sakura looked ready to say some more words of consolation but Sasuke shook his head, signalling for her to stop. “Leave him be,” Sasuke said. “He’s always like this when he gets back a grade.”

“I know but…” Sakura glanced at Naruto. “He looks so pitiful.”

“I AM LITERALLY RIGHT BESIDE YOU, SAKURA-CHAN.” Naruto sat up straight, letting the blanket he’d wrapped himself in fall back a little. He stole the remote away from her and began to look through the files of movies and shows from Suigetsu’s hard drive that they had connected to the television. “My life is over.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Your life isn’t over.”

“It is.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“Listen, Princess,” Naruto hissed, now glaring at Sasuke. “Not all of us have names that all but grant entry into programs and internships and all those other pretty things.”

Sasuke took offence to that. “I still need to maintain a good GPA to get in, Naruto. My name isn’t everything.”

Naruto didn’t seem to have any proper response to go with that so he simply stood up, tightened his burrito of a blanket, and waddled away. He came back a few seconds later to grab his beer, but still gave Sasuke and Sakura one last look of contempt before leaving.

“Such a baby,” Sakura mumbled when he was gone.

---

ALRIGHT AND THAT IS WHERE IT ENDED. i did find this though. i assume it was supposed to be part of the november chapter, which i never finished:

“Oh,” she said, understanding his look of awkwardness. She rolled her eyes. “No, this isn’t a gift with some meaning behind it, Sasuke. I mean, you made me pie, remember? It’s not like it had some implied Sakura-you-goddess-please-take-my-unworthy-self-back between the bites, right?” When he failed to reply, Sakura only frowned before shrugging the matter off. “The point is, this is a gift for you from me, Sakura the Friend.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Friend?”

She nodded. “Well we are friends, aren’t we?” She preferred ‘friends’ to ‘two people stuck being around each other despite lingering awkwardness simply because they had way too many mutual friends.’ “Sasuke?”

“Yeah,” he eventually replied. “We’re friends.”

Sakura grinned and patted the tablet. “Then accept my gift, friend.” She winked, emphasizing the word weirdly.

“Okay, don’t ever do that again.”

and then this the outline:

December: i need to study

Go sledding at the university 

Have a snowball fight on the field 

Everyone goes out to celebrate after Ino’s LSAT and get unbelievably drunk 

Sasuke and Sakura have gotten back together, which Naruto knows but doesn’t call them on 

Goes to his house for Christmas because her parents are travelling

Ino and Naruto hang out 

NYE party at the house 

Ends with Sakura checking her KU email and realizing there is a problem with her potential graduation

January: i need another vacation

Sakura ends up being in a Jane Austen course with Naruto because she was told she needed a humanities credit

February: i need to fix my habits

Go on a road trip for Reading Week

Come home Sunday night and scramble

March: i just need to graduate

Naruto and Sakura discuss their Big Boy/Girl jobs and the likeliness of them 

Naruto reveals that he’s seriously dating Ino 

Sakura is happy for him and tells him about Sasuke 

“I know. It’s not hard to tell. Why do you think rent isn’t so bad in that house? The walls are paper thin, you bitch.”

Dread paying back student loans 

Sakura tells him she’s nervous because Sasuke is studying abroad next year whereas Sakura’s dream school is KU’s med school – will they break up again 

Doesn’t tell him she plans to backpack for the year

“Do you realize this is like… the last time?”

April: i need to get in

Acceptance letters

May: i need my damn grades

Go on another road trip to unwind

June: i need to go back

Convocation

and i found this, which i think is meant to be in the january chapter:

“There is something very, very wrong with a situation if you are taking a class to bum notes off of Naruto.”

Sakura merely laughed as she spread out some sheets of paper and pretended to read them. She still had another two hours of work and she wasn’t particularly inclined to, well, work, and Tenten—the girl she shared the front desk with—didn’t really care whether she did anything or not.

“I know that sounded really bad,” Sakura said, “but I just need a Humanities credit.”

“Still!” Tenten urged, not even looking away from her computer screen. “Naruto.”

“He’s not as dumb as everyone thinks he is, you know.”

Tenten considered this before shrugging. “I suppose. He has been at KU for the past four years and is even graduating on time.”

“Exactly.” Sakura moved onto the mug of pens on her desk, testing each one to see which still had ink. “And he’s actually really good at Lit courses.”

“He should be,” Tenten replied with a snort. “I mean, that is what he’s specializing in.” Her chair squeaked when she leaned back and pushed away from her desk to roll over near Sakura. Their desk was L-shaped with each of them on one side. “What course is it again?” she asked. But being the fidgety person that she was, Tenten moved to put away some student files. She climbed onto the stool and alphabetizing. “It was something cheesy.”

“Austen and Her Contemporaries.” Sakura hadn’t gotten past her first word before Tenten burst out into giggles. She couldn’t help but smirk when another thought came to mind. “Want to know something even better?”

Tenten gave Sakura her full attention. “Um, obviously.”

“Sasuke’s taking it with us too.”

oh man.

thank you for asking about this fic because i had absolutely no recollection of it but as i read all these docs, i realized how trashy i was in undergrad. and how frightened i was of graduating! just reading this makes me remember how afraid of growing up i used to be -- of not being a student and having to get a job and running out of time. but man i’ve been so much happier since then. the fear of “running out of time” is always around but i also have lost the will to care about people and/or things as the years have gone by. 

ok sorry that totally wasn’t your question lmao. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE ROLLERCOASTER OF THAT OUTLINE. 

how did it end? well, everyone graduated. presumably everyone got into the post-grad programs of their dreams (although funding??). the naruto arc was totally based on me in my 4th year and his plans are NOT where my future went lmao. although to be clear, future him is definitely satisfied with where his life took him. ss and ni double dated happily ever after. maybe. probably.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

10: Stay Alive

Miles has been Spider-Man (in-universe) for less than 5 years. And he’s stayed alive. That’s cute, even though him staying alive owed a lot to Molecule Man.

Ultimate Peter Parker only ‘died’ (and he didn’t even die really) because he sacrificed his life. It wasn’t like he made a mistake, he actively chose to give up his life.

Meanwhile 616 Peter Parker managed to stay alive for like 10 years before his first death in Secret Wars which was due to a literal God so...is Miles remaining alive that impressive? Is it even something to put him over Peter?

Using the argument that Miles doesn’t die whilst fighting Ultimate Goblin instead of dying is again fucking ridiculous because Peter battled and survived Ultimate Goblin multiple times before his ‘death’ in Death of Spider-Man. In that instance it was again an act of sacrifice more than anything and he was carrying a major injury from saving Captain America and taking a bullet for him or something IIRC.

So it’s a false equivalency even if you ignore the fact that the Oz drug both Peter and Miles have make them effectively immortal.

Him surviving Secret Wars isn’t that impressive either. So he manages to stow away and avoid death. How...heroic? Not to mention PETER also avoids the final incursion on his own lifeboat.

Yes Molecule Man saves Miles and brings back his mother, but he literally saves everyone too. He just happens to shunt Miles into Earth 616 and resurrect his mother. That’s not something Miles can do that Peter can’t because it was based upon Miles having a random burger on his person. Had Peter had that same difference. Uncle Ben would probably be back if Peter had a burger.

It’s not that Miles has the magic power to bring back dead people via his actions he just got lucky.

Also doesn’t him never having his loved ones remain dead kind of make him a Marty Stu?

 9) Alleged immortality

Again...Marty Stu.

But for the record Ultimate Peter, whom this video apparently wants to conflate with but also switch out for 616 Peter when convenient and not treat as a separate character. Also has that power and it’s not even alleged. Also gotta love CBR using a picture of 616 Norman Osborn who looks nothing like Ult Norman when discussing the Goblin killing Peter. Then following that up with Raimi Norman who like 616 Norman is definitely not a Hulk Goblin.

 8) Regenerate

 Miles is more durable huh?

 So...when exactly did Miles survive being crushed beneath machinery weighing a locomotive...under water?

 When did Miles survive being buried alive for 2 weeks?

 When the fuck did Miles survive a beating from Juggernaut, or Morlun, or the Hulk, or Collossus empowered by both the Juggernaut’s powers AND 1/5 of the Phoenix Force?

 More durable my ass.

 The evidence for this is also laughable.

 First of all it’s based upon being able to burst from his restraints and fight back after being drugged which...Peter has definitely done at least once or twice.

 Second of all it literally comes from a comic based upon the USM CARTOON not even the canon Miles. It’s literally cherry picking anything from any version of Miles.

 His durability is also being measured by being able to survive several thousand volts of electricity and like...does the author of this video not know who the fuck Electro is?

 Being tortured by doom and then saving his Dad is also not something Peter couldn’t do. Peter wet through worse in the MP trilogy alone.

 Same thing about being lit on fire. Shit one of those crappy #700.ONE issues showed Peter doing that!

 7) Spider Sense

So Miles spider sense allows him to predict the future when he is dreaming.

Er...Peter’s spider sense has done that in the JMS run...

Not to mention this point is ‘Miles can do this and Peter can’t because it MIGHT develop into something more later maybe’

His Spider sense intensifying isn’t that unique either. Peter’s does that too, again especially in the JMS run.

Miles’ Spider sense going off faster than Peter’s also could just be artistic licence stanning him in his own title.

 6) Speak Spanish

 This is the first legitimate point in this article.

 Too bad it ruins it by saying Peter had difficulty connection to certain residents because of language barriers.

 First of all traditionally Peter as Spider-Man is a pariah.

Second of all how many times honestly has he been shown to be disconnected due to a language barrier within NYC. MOST PEOPLE speak English like him.

Being bilingual also doesn’t give a character ‘more depth’. It’s literally just a skill. By this logic Peter being able to drive gives him more depth than Miles.

Yeah it acknowledges his community which is nice but that’s not greater or lesser depth that’s just a unique feature. And one that he technically doesn’t even need to speak Spanish to acknowledge. I barely speak Greek but I still acknowledge my culture.

 5) Learns Quickly

Yes Miles definitely learns quickly, unlike Peter Parker who

-          didn’t have a mentor or video footage upon which to learn how to be a superhero from but still owned Doc Ock early in his career.

-          Figured out a cure to the Lizard within hours of seeing his notes for the first time

-          Invented webbing in his room.

What? Miles gets the win because he was able to learn how to fight from Peter’s video footage when he was 2 years younger?

The age gap is mitigated when you literally have basically an instruction video to follow whilst Peter despite beig slightly older still figured it out entirely on his own.

Miles studying Norman’s fighting style and using that to defeat him is also not that big of a deal. Peter can and kind of has done that. he just REMEMBERS his enemies fighting styles instead of going over video footage of them. If anything THAT makes him FASTER than Miles in the learning department.

 4) Maintain a Relationship With Gwen Stacy

 Oh....fuck....you....

 First of all Miles and Peter’s relationships with Gwen are different given that Miles’ is mostly platonic and a colleague and Peter’s was romantic oh and you know THEY WERE DIFFERENT GWEN STACY’S

 Yeah Miles being able to keep a relationship with a Gwen Stacy who doesn’t die is much fucking easier when he and Gwen have the benefit of hindsight from 616 Gwen’s death AND Spider-Gwen has fucking super powers.

 If MILES was dating Gwen whilst lying to her about being Spider-Man and she had no powers and they didn’t know she could die like that how well would he have actually been able to keep her around?

 Not much better if at all.

 Bringin up Gwen’s clone is also fucking asinine. It wasn’t that Peter was UNABLE to maintain a relationship with Gwen’s clone so much as he didn’t want to. Or rather he was unable to keep a relationship with her clone because he’d moved on and was in love with Mary Jane which isn’t a matter of him lacking an ability Miles has at all.

 Also Gwen doesn’t help Miles cope with his mother’s death. At all. Because they didn’t spend any quality time together until AFTER his mother returned to life. FFS CBR!

 Saying Miles was able to save Gwen when Peter wasn’t is again bullshit because the circumstances were totally different. In particular Peter saved Gwen MULTIPLE times in the past before she eventually died due to a small but significant mistake.

 3) Be a team player/more sociable

 I will grant this article that TEENAGE Peter was less of a team player and less sociable, but that changed over time.

 The article shoots itself though by

a)      Implying Peter was an Avenger as  a teen

b)      Saying he was never truly a part of the Avengers team when he was on it. Er....yes he was. It was badly written but he was truly a member no doubt. His self doubts also rarely if ever came into play. Over all he lacked much personality whilst on the avengers

 the article is also two-faced because it ignores how Ultimate Peter WAS a team player and WAS able to have friends and accept help as a teenager.

 2) Communicate with his best friend.

 Well Ultimate and 616 Peter’s best friend is Mary jane and he communicates with her just fine...especially with his body language If yA Know wat I mEaN ;D

  Everything the article says aboiut Ganke pretty much applies to Ultimate and 616 MJ in regards to Peter.

  More than anything this point is where you REALLY see the video cherrypicking between the Ultimate Peter or 616 Peter. Literally in the last point it was quoting Captain America saying Spider-Man wasn’t ready to join the team from the Ultimate universe yet when it comes time to analyse his friendships in high school suddenly we switch to 616.

 1)      Turn invisible

Not only should this have been one of two things on this entire list but this list is so bad it literally IGNORED the one other ability Miles literally has that Peter lacks, the Venom blast.

 How do you fuck up that badly?

 0)      The ability to be falsely praised and put over undeservedly

Now THAT is an ability Miles truly has that Peter doesn’t.

[hellyeahheroes]

The Post-Mortem for the New Age of Heroes

At the beginning of this year, I had prepared my totally original idea for April Fools 2019. I wanted to film myself in Jim Sterling cosplay performing a Jimquisition parody. Instead, I managed to somehow break my only shitty mic and gave youtubing a pause for time being. So you will have to enjoy what was supposed to be a recording in written text in form. At the end of the text I will do a face reveal, I owe you that.

It has become undeniable by now that the New Age of Heroes was a financial failure. Out of eight new titles that have launched only two are still going. And out of these two, one is already dead, like a guy slapped by Kenshiro of cancellations. And from its fall we can see an image of failures and poorly thought decisions at the editorial level.

Spinning out of incredibly popular, both among fans and critics alike, Dark Nights: Metal, New Age of Heroes was originally named the Dark Matter. It was supposed to form a thematic trilogy with Metal and it’s own prelude. Dark Days lead to Dark Nights, which gives birth to Dark Matter. Simple and catchy, an okay marketing strategy. However, the name was hastily changed at the last minute to a much more generic New Age of Heroes. And to my knowledge, we never really got an answer as to why, leaving us only with speculations. My theory, and this is only a theory, of course, is that someone at the higher level either felt that Dark Matter was not grandiose enough or that the audiences are just too stupid to get it. 

The imprint was supposed to first launch at September 2017 only to have been pushed to December and then to February 2018. At the same time, we had some minor changes regarding the original promo picture showing the characters and more specific one - Damage, whose original design is nothing like the one in promotional material. All this shows there was some executive meddling in the production of the series, not unlike the one that haunted the infamous New 52. 

The strong nostalgia for the 90s is another thing New Age of Heroes shared with New 52, with pretty much every title being in one way or another a throwback to the era. Just like in early Image, many of the new characters who were clearly invoking a feeling of edgier versions of classic Marvel characters. Damage is DC’s third of fourth attempt at making the Hulk since the launch of New 52, Brimstone is Ghost Rider, even Sideways looked like edgy Spider-Man, despite not being edgy at all. On the team side, the Terrifics was deliberately a homage to classic Fantastic Four and this seems to have worked in its favor. While other books had to prove they are more than just knockoffs of the competitors most famous characters, the Terrifics has been embraced as a spiritual homage by FF fandom, especially at the time when Marvel was not publishing that series. However, even other team books had to deal with Marvel comparisons. it didn’t help that Immortal Men was very intentionally playing a homage to the 90′s X-men books and that narrative style, up o shoehorning in it popular villain Batman Who laughs for no apparent reason. While I think it made the book ironically better than titles it was trying to honor, it undeniable set it up to comparisons. The Unexpected had characters who kinda reminded people of Thor and Doctor Strange leading to comparisons with both Avengers and the Defenders. Even the most original title, the Silencer and the relaunch of classic DC book Challengers of the Unknown as the New Challengers had fans attempt to claim they’re ripping off Marvel properties on some flimsy logic. Unfortunately, this all gave the line an impression of just being a Marvel knockoff and made it harder for it to stand on its own.

New Age of Heroes was supposed to have a larger emphasis on artists, putting their names before writers in the credits on the cover and in the issue itself referring to them both as storytellers. Only for that to be undermined the moment the books had mediocre sales and all famous artists who were supposed to be the main draw have been moved to more high-profile books to play second fiddle to the writers again. In the end, New Age of Heroes suffered all the problems with treating artists as secondary as rest of mainstream titles, with artists being shuffled around as it was deemed fit, often without abbility to give a book any visual coherence even in the middle of an arc.

Aside, these examples of editorial incompetence and neglect, we quickly saw two titles, New Challengers and immortal Men, end at issue six, seemingly to allow Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV to focus more on the Justice League and Batman Who Laughs. The Unexpected followed, lasting only eight issues. Curse of the Brimstone and Sideways survived twelve and thirteen issues respectively. Damage, one of the first launches of the imprint, ended at issue sixteen and Silencer will be ending at a similar number. 

All of these saddens me because I quite frankly enjoyed a lot of these books. Sideways was a flawed but entertaining throwback to classic teen superhero books and had it sold better could honestly build enough momentum to rival Ms. Marvel. Curse of the Brimstone was a good horror, Immortal Men was more entertaining than it had any right to be as a 90s homage and the Silencer actually formed an engaging narrative I was not expecting at first glance. Part of me wants to blame any of the above reasons, be it Marvel comparisons or editorial incompetence. But Part of me also wonders if the whole initiative hasn’t just been poorly planned out. Maybe it was a bad idea to launch eight new titles in such a short amount of time. Maybe some of them would have worked better, were the writers put on a single book in the style of 52, with multiple writers and weekly schedule? I don’t know but it feels that it could maybe give more life to Immortal Men, New Challengers and the Unexpected. However, the fact that so many bad decisions occurred on an editorial level only shows how poorly planned the initiative was. It saddens me as I know the failure of those titles to make a lasting impact, the only book still not canceled being also the only one without all new cast of characters, will make it harder to push for more original titles in the future. And so I weep for the New Age of Heroes. It could have been great.

So that’s it for today. I’m going to crawl into a hole and ignore all the news today due to the number of pranks. Be careful with what you read online, not just today, but in today in particular, thank god for me and get ready for my face reveal!

I love April’s Fools

- Admin