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drawlfoy · 4 years

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Colorblind

masterlist request guidelines yes ma’am i’m back

pairing: draco x gryffindor!reader

request: yes! thank you kind anon :) this is the first request that really got me out of my writer’s block so i appreciate it!

summary: soulmate!au where the entire world is black and white except for your soulmate. y/n’s situation is a bit...unconventional.

warnings: swearing and a little gore but it’s not explicit at all and just a mention

a/n: helloooooooo everyone! i know i’ve technically been “back from the dead” for nearly a month now, but this is the first time i’ve decided to jump back into writing. i’ve been working on the wonders of ohio bit by bit and have been horrified to see just how much my writing has deteriorated since last summer (when i was writing 1k words+ a day). i’d like to get into writing genuine original work during this quarantine, so i’m using my blog as a chance to polish up my own writing and work the kinks out before i touch my original ideas. thanks for being so patient with me !

music recs: figure 8 from peach pit, don’t delete the kisses from wolf alice, and bad things from cailin russo

word count: 3,098

Y/N frowned as she stirred the honey into her tea, watching the sugary swirls as they dissolved into the bottom of what she had been told was an amber drink. Her best friend, Tina, sat across from her in her snug Gryffindor robes, energetically recounting just how beautiful the color blue was.

“I had no idea, Y/N,” the brunette gushed, her cold triangle of buttered toast lying long forgotten on her plate as her hands added animation to her story. “You have to see it. He told me that the red in our robes brings out my eyes too--something about the color wheel and how green is opposite of red--and we made each other hold up our things so we could see what color its meant to be...honestly, it was such a dream...”

Even though Y/N was thrilled that Tina had found her soulmate in the convenient place of the Ravenclaw house--really, she was ecstatic for her friend--she couldn’t help but feel a little sad. She did quell the bitterness and envy that threatened to crawl its way up out of her throat, instead choosing to sit and pretend to listen as her own thoughts trailed off with a vacant smile on her face.

She’d been alive for 16 years, seen everyone there is to see at Hogwarts, traveled to every country that had a sizable young magic population, and had let her parents submit pictures of her to wizarding families all across the globe--only to still live in a dull world of simple blacks, whites, and greys. Friends like Tina had told her vibrant stories of the stunning hues of green, blue, red, purple, and gold, but Y/N had no way of knowing what they actually looked like, relying instead on her parents’ soft explanation of green as the color of life, blue as the color of peace, red as passion and anger, and yellow as the feeling of the sun hitting your skin after a long winter.

Infuriating. She despised the security questions she had to fill out to open her Gringotts account (What’s your soulmate’s surname? What’s your favorite color?) and the unimpressed look of the goblin teller as they quietly conferred with her parents (”Sir, we rarely have complaints over this--statistically speaking, soulmates are found by the time a wizard or witch is old enough to handle money...).

In other news, her love life was barren and dry, and at the end of the day, it was better to just not dwell on where she fell short.

“I’ll stop going on about me,” Tina said, finally reaching down for her breakfast. “I want to hear about you. I’m so sorry that you have to put up with that crabby posh Daddy’s boy in Potions. You have my moral support. Always.”

“You mean Malfoy?”

Tina quirked an eyebrow as she took a sip of her own tea. “Yeah. Y/N, I have no clue how you’ve gone so long without being put off by that wanker. He’s so annoying. I know you don’t believe me, but you’re about to see for yourself in...erm..” She made a show of checking her pocket watch. “Less than an hour.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Y/N countered. “I’ve spoken to him once or twice in the library. Doesn’t have much to say, but he was cordial. I’m not horrendously upset that we were assigned to be partners.”

“Did he know you were a Gryffindor?”

“I have no idea. Neither of us were wearing our robes, so I couldn’t tell you.”

Y/N’s friend rolled her eyes dramatically. “You’re going to be singing a very different tune come lunch. Trust me.”

<^>

The wooden stool that Y/N was perched on was uncomfortably wobbly as she waited, albeit a little nervously, for her potions partner to arrive. It had been an unwelcome selection process--or perhaps, lackthereof--that began with Slughorn reading off a canned speech regarding house unity and the importance of bridging the gap between old rivalries and ended with groups that consisted of one Slytherin and one Gryffindor and directions to create an immaculate Draught of Peace.

Not her favorite way to spend a Friday morning, but she admitted to herself that it could be far worse. She could be paired up with one of Malfoy’s goons--Crabbe or Goyle--who were by far much more obnoxious.

A slight movement in the corner of her eye pulled her attention back to the present. Y/N started at the dark figure standing by the empty stool next to her.

“Excuse me,” Malfoy said simply, placing his satchel on the table in front of them and sitting.

Y/N sent him a weak smile as she unrolled her parchment and began reviewing the ingredients.

“I don’t mean to sound brash,” she began as she sorted the ingredients at their table, “but I’m pretty good at Potions. If you want to, you can just read the directions while I prepare everything.”

He seemed like he wasn’t quite listening to what she was saying, instead his eyes, unfocused and slightly cloudy, were settled on her braid that snaked around her shoulder.”Er, yeah. Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

As the pair began, Y/N couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy looked tired. His normally pristine and glowing skin looked dull and lifeless, decorated with dark eye bags under his slate-grey eyes. She was struck with a sudden desire to ask if he was alright but decided against it. The furrow in his brow as he glanced over the directions reminded her that they were simply partners for the week--and that Slytherins generally got into a hissy fit if people tried to act too buddy-buddy with them too quickly.

“Add the moonstone until it starts to steam,” he said after a few moments, apparently not noticing that she was already emptying the powdered moonstone into the cauldron. “Stir until completely dissolved.”

“Add syrup of hellebore.”

“Stir until the consistency is akin to cream.”

This went on for the rest of the lesson--Malfoy softly instructing her while Y/N consulted her own set of directions, just in case. As she worked, she couldn’t help but notice how unusual his hair was. It was unlike any other white she’d ever seen before--instead, it had some kind of warm hue to it. Y/N knew that no one her age actually had naturally white hair--Malfoy clearly had some iteration of “blond”, whatever that meant--but all the other light haired wizards she had met had slightly grey tinges in their hair...not whatever he had going on. She shrugged it off and kept stirring.

An hour passed by much quicker than anticipated, and to her surprise, Malfoy never said anything even mildly irritating. Y/N stored this tidbit of information away with the interest of asking Tina why she thought he was such a dickwad.

“I think that’s all we have to do today,” Malfoy said once they had added the porcupine quills and set the lid on for the night.

“We really let it sit here until Monday?” she questioned, reviewing the parchment one more time. “That seems a little excessive.”

“Well, it’s not like--” He began waspishly before he took a breath and cast his eyes to the ceiling. “Er, I mean, I know that Slughorn casts a preservation spell on them over the weekend. There’s really no other way to do it without booking an entire day.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

He sent a surprisingly soft smile her way. It appeared that they had finished earlier than the rest of the students and had a couple more minutes until they were dismissed, so the silence around them was tense. Y/N decided to take a risk and ask something she assumed everyone, especially someone as allegedly ostentatious as Malfoy, liked talking about.

“So,” she began casually, twiddling her thumbs under the desk, “Have you found your soulmate yet?”

The few moments of complete and absolute quiet that followed after this question prompted her to send a glance over to Malfoy, who looked...completely stricken?

“Er....” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked her up and down. “Yes?”

Y/N had never had an interaction so awkward as she waited, tense and very weirded out, for him to just go ahead and pose the question back to her so she could break the ice and complain about how she’d searched far and wide for her soulmate and failed--but it never came. Malfoy just stared at her for another few heartbeats before he shut his slightly gaped mouth and turned to pack up his belongings.

Not another word was exchanged between them until Slughorn officially announced that they were all dismissed as long as their brewing stations were spotless.

Malfoy was out the door before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

<^>

“So?” Tina sat at the edge of her seat, waiting for her friend to relay all the details of her potions adventure.

“Super weird,” Y/N answered. “He was nice. Didn’t say anything mean about my house or parents or wealth or anything. I asked him about his soulmate, though, and he totally clammed up.”

Tina’s eyes narrowed as she shifted on her bench and drew closer. “I haven’t heard a whisper of anything about his soulmate. Poor bloke probably doesn’t have one. I’m not surprised...no one deserves to be stuck with him forever.”

“No, that’s not it,” Y/N countered. “First of all, he’s not bad. I told you. Second of all, he told me he had one and looked at me like I was stupid for not knowing. It was weird.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it. He probably thinks he’s so important and sought after that all anyone talks about is him and was just offended that you didn’t know, I guess. This is what I mean. He’s such a prick.”

“Maybe.” Y/N found herself looking over to the Slytherin table, her eyes stopping on the curiously colored hair of a certain 6th year. He seemed especially down, hardly touching the spoon in his stew and choosing to look like the definition of angst instead.

But in a very attractive way she admitted to herself. There was no denying it--Draco Malfoy was beautiful, in a tragic sort of way, like how paintings of imaginary places that you’ll never be able to actually visit for yourself are beautiful.

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, jarring her out of her whimsical train of thought and bringing a blush to her cheeks. For once, she was relieved that no one could see her in color.

<^>

By the time Monday rolled around, Y/N was feeling more and more uneasy about her whole situation. Malfoy ignited some kind of weird feeling deep inside of her--almost like butterflies--as he absentmindedly tapped his lips with his quill, studying the directions sheet in front of them.

“How was your weekend?” Y/N asked, her voice a little pitchier than she would’ve liked. He arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at this, hardly even bothering to glance her direction.

“The usual,” he drawled. “I studied, mostly.”

“Nice. Way to keep us all on our toes.”

The slight smile that stretched across his face and the dimples that followed nearly made her knees weak, her hand shooting out to grasp the edge of the table before they gave in. “Yeah. You know me. The wild card.” His voice seemed bored, but she was just glad that the words coming out of his mouth weren’t entirely insufferable.

Y/N sent him a soft smile, fiddling with the edges of her robes. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tina watching them intently.

“We only have to stir it 12 times counter clockwise and 14 times clockwise and add the unicorn horn powder before we let it simmer until Wednesday,” Y/N mused as she finally tossed the parchment back on the table. “Easy work. We should be done in about a half hour, give or take.”

They made quick work of the directions, the smell of their potion taking an amiable lilac like scent.

“I think that means we didn’t royally fuck it up,” Draco offered as she rolled her sleeves back down and settled into the stool next to him.

Y/N smirked at him, a glimmer in her eyes. “We? Don’t you mean me?”

He laughed stiffly before immediately sobering up and packing up his things. “Sure. I’m going to ask Slughorn if I can leave early. See you.”

With that, he got up and left her alone. At face value, Y/N didn’t expect the situation to mean that much to her, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth and stung more than expected.

Shake out of it, Y/N, she chided herself. What does it matter, anyways?

<^>

A knock on her dorm room shook her out of a particularly thrilling study session for her DADA exam, whose notes she promptly shoved into her satchel at the suggestion of a welcome distraction.

“Come in!” she called.

The door opened to reveal a particularly devious looking Tina. “I come with questions.”

“Please distract me from that tragic exam tomorrow,” she moaned, throwing herself on her bed. “Anything is better than thinking about it.”

Tina’s lip quirked as she settled down next to her friend. “It’s about your dear Potions partner.”

“What about him?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you were looking at him today.” Tina propped her chin up into her hand. “You like him.”

“I most certainly do not!” Y/N said hotly. “I mean...I think he’s cute, and his hair reflects the light in this really cool way, but no! I’m not an idiot!”

“Of course you’re not an idiot,” Tina soothed. “He’s objectively a very pretty person. No harm in appreciating that. And now that you’ve spent a little more time with him, and you’re realizing that maybe he isn’t an arsehole, I could totally understand why you’d develop feelings for him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“How am I being ridiculous?”

“He’s already found his soulmate, Tina. I’m not masochistic enough to want to pine after a boy who already has his person.” As the weight of the words sunk in, Y/N could feel her chest tighten for just a moment. Tina just kept watching as she moved to gently wrap a hand around her shoulder.

“So say I do like him, just a little bit,” Y/N continued as her voice grew softer. “Say I actually let myself develop feelings for him even though I know there’s no way he’s my soulmate. Say I actually give in and have to see him every day knowing that he’s in love with someone else. Don’t you think that’s a little too much for me? I want to find my soulmate! I don’t want to mess around with anyone unless it’s with them.”

Her friend was quiet, but she moved her arm to wrap around Y/N’s frame.

“I’d just really like to find my soulmate already,” Y/N finished up. “And I’m afraid that they’re not even out there. So, no. No detours allowed.”

Tina smiled a little at this, sitting up to instead pat her friend on the back. “You’ve always been the more focused one. I respect that. But I am saying that there’s no harm in seeing other people while you wait.”

Y/N shrugged. “Yeah. Fairs. Now, I hate to say this, but I have a list of spells a metre long just waiting to be memorized for the exam tomorrow. I’d love to tell you the rest of all my gushy secrets once that’s taken care of.”

“Of course!” Tina kissed her friend on the cheek and skipped off. “Just don’t go too crazy studying. I still need a best friend to bitch to at breakfast.”

“No promises!”

<^>

“Add a little more powdered moonstone,” Malfoy instructed from her right, “Just until it starts to boil.”

Y/N went to reach for it, catching a glimpse of her partner on the way. There was something just so magnetizing about him, something so delicate and stunning. She couldn’t help but feel a quick twinge of envy for whoever his soulmate was.

The sound of the moonstone slipping into the potion pulled her back into reality, and she quickly stirred to avoid an unwelcome explosion.

“And now the chopped gillyweed.”

Y/N turned to their stockpile of ingredients, only to see whole cloves of gillyweed.

“I have to confess something,” she said, still stirring vigorously. Malfoy snapped to attention so quickly it almost made her jump. “I’m shit with a knife. Can you chop it for me? I have to keep stirring this anyways.”

What looked like disappointment flashed across his face for just a moment before he stood up and reached for a knife. “Sure.”

Y/N nodded and turned back to the concoction, careful to make sure that the moonstone wasn’t clumping together at the surface as she waited for Malfoy to be done with the gillyweed.

“Fuck!”

Y/N turned to see Malfoy’s hand covered in--no way.

His hand was covered in blood, as was the knife that was held tightly by his right hand.

“Fuck, fuck, can you hand me a towel?”

Y/N couldn’t help but stare as the words from her parents floated back into her head (Green is the color of life, blue is peace, red is passion and anger...).

“It’s red.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Your hand. It’s red.” Now that she looked closer, she could see hints of colors that she’d never seen before in him--a soft hue that reminded her of first kisses and the scent of roses in his cheeks and lips, a warm, sunny glow in his hair, and a cool, startling color in his eyes that seemed like the color for getting thrown into a cold lake on a summer afternoon.

He was staring right back at her, his eyes wide and his breathing quick.

“It’s you, isn’t it,” she breathed. “It’s been you all along. If only you hadn’t worn those blasted black suits all the time instead of your robes..”

The corners of his mouth crinkled into a smile.

“Ms. Y/L/N, step out of the way,” Professor Slughorn interrupted, rolling up his sleeves and getting his wand out. “Draco, boy, this looks deep. Get on up to the infirmary now. Don’t dally.”

“Meet me,” he whispered as he made to leave. “Tonight. In front of the library. I guess we have some things to discuss.”

“Yes, yes, I guess we do.” Y/N cheeks were hurting from smiling, and as he left the room, the color fading from her vision, she had never been so content to be in pain in her life.

final a/n: hi everyone :) welcome back! can’t wait to write more! sorry if this was a bit of a trainwreck...i haven’t written in a long time and this is the first thing i’ve done since college apps. all feedback is appreciated! thank you! also apologies for any plotholes or spelling errors! i wrote this in a day and i know it’s a little messy oops

#draco x reader #draco imagine #draco x you #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy x y/n #draco x y/n #draco #draco malfoy #draco x oc #draco malfoy x oc

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jincherie · 5 years

Text

potion 609 | pjm & ksj

- COMMISSION -

✩ — pairing: seokjinx reader x jimin ✩ — genre: poly, magic au, roadtrip au, mutual pining, borderline crack, fluff, slight angst ✩ — words: 10.8k ✩ — rating: sfw ✩ — warnings: *sobbing* they’re so stupid man, they’re so stupid ✩ — notes: this took a bit longer than expected, if only because like everyone else in the world rn I’ve had a few unprecedented issues in my life pop up to deal with. I hope u all are well and if you’re not, that you get better soon. please enjoy this mess! <3

A four day roadtrip into the depths of the mountains with the two best friends you’ve recently realised you have feelings for is probably the last thing you need. It becomes a reality, though, when Seokjin and Jimin bring home a cursed doll that reacts with the potion you were making and lands you all cursed yourselves; both forced to say whatever comes to mind and bound to each other. Now stuck in close quarters with your two idiot best friends who for the life of them can not shut up for the foreseeable future while you venture to fix this, you’re beginning to doubt whether you or your heart can survive this trip in one piece.

masterlist | — posted; 24.03.2020

“Oh my god… y/n. What have you done?”

You glare, hard, at the male standing dead in the middle of the room, currently in the midst of being accosted by two idiots you happen to call your best friends. If you hadn’t thought quick and chugged a silencing potion before frantically texting Namjoon, you have no doubt you’d be stuck in the same situation as them right now.

“Please, please, please help us!” Jimin is clutching your professor by the arms, shaking him like a madman. Some of the goo coating his soiled silken grey shirt flings onto your professor’s, and you watch him physically recoil. “I can’t live like this! Jin might be hot but he’s so incredibly stupid and if I have to listen to his unfiltered thoughts all day every day I’m going to lose my [quack]ing mind!”

As much as it pains you, you’re so stressed and exasperated right now that you can’t even laugh at the fact that your professor has spent all of two minutes in the room and already has cast one of his stupid censoring spells on the two of them.

“Excuse me?” Seokjin sounds, smacking Jimin on the arm. “You think I’m hot? Why don’t you tell me more often!! You know I like hearing it! You’re so stingy, honestly. No wonder y/n likes me more.”

At Seokjin’s unwitting confirmation of Jimin’s words, the shorter male turns a look of absolute plea to your professor, grip tightening. The man in his hold then turns to you, looking an odd cross between bewildered and annoyed. Before he says anything more, the two idiots continuing to bicker beyond him, a voice sounds from behind you.

“She can’t talk,” Namjoon supplies smoothly, stepping to your side and slinging his arm around your shoulder with a dimpled grin. “The potion seems to have had the opposite effect on her, oddly enough.”

You resist the urge to spin and pin the male with an impressed look at how smoothly he just pulled that out of his ass, especially after performing a strong silencing spell on you barely a minute ago.

“Well, these two can definitely talk,” your professor says, and the deadpan tone and expression coming from him, someone who is usually so mild mannered and sweet, almost makes you choke on your own spit. Even if you wanted to laugh, Namjoon’s silencing spells are no joke and you can’t let out even the slightest of chuckles. “It seems that not only has the potion bound all those covered in its contents—the three of them—but these two in particular… It seems as though their filters are completely gone, and they’re just saying everything that comes to the top of their head. And I mean— everything.”

Namjoon makes a pitying sound, giving your professor an empathetic look. Meanwhile you are standing and contemplating whether it would be a better option to throw yourself off the nearest bridge rather than stay and deal with this mess. It’s tempting, you admit, but one thing stands in the way…

You look down, catching sight of the translucent, glowing cord of runes and sigils that winds around your wrist, trailing off in the direction of the bickering duo a few metres away. A wave of something like exasperation floods through you, tinged with hints of self-pity.

Of course one of the side effects of this stupid cursed mishap is that you physically cannot stray more than 3 metres from dumb and dumber over there. Like, at all. You’ve tried. It was a massive effort just to get them close enough to the doorway that you could go into the other room with Namjoon so he could give you a hit of magical shut-up juice.

“Please help us!” Jimin whines, louder than before. He is successful in capturing the attention of the entire room, and he stomps his foot. “Professor Lim, please! Have I not been the best student you could ever ask for? Helping in your shop and bringing you cursed items from across the globe?”

Once he starts, he doesn’t stop—which isn’t all that different from usual except this time it’s like you’ve twisted a tap on and the handle has then broken, leaving the pipe jetting out water with no way of cutting it off. You think you’re really going to go insane if you’re stuck with these two any longer.

“I can’t help you!” your professor bursts, tearing himself away from your friends’ pleading grips. “Look, I have no idea what on earth y/n was attempting to cook up in there that made it react with the cursed doll like that—”

I was EXPERIMENTING, you defend silently, thankfully unable to voice your thoughts.

“—but it’s out of my jurisdiction, boys. Judging from the runes on those bindings this is some high level magic, and kind of, uh… niche. I only know barely a handful of people that might be able to help.”

“Who?” Jimin and Seokjin demand at the same time, eyes wide with hope—for all of Seokjin’s rebuttals to Jimin’s earlier whining, he doesn’t seem too overjoyed at the prospect of being stuck with him for longer than necessary either.

At the question, your professor gives a somewhat sheepish laugh. “Uh, well… the closest is a witch I knew back in my university student days. She’s not that far geographically, but she lives at the top of one of the mountains in Dusk Dew Valley and the magic of the forest means you can’t zap in or out so… you’re gonna have to drive.”

“That’s not so bad,” Seokjin comments, at the same time that Jimin squints, suspicious.

“How long?”

Your professor clears his throat, averting his gaze—personally, you’re on the edge of your metaphorical seat. “Uh,” he begins awkwardly, like he wishes he didn’t have to say what he is going to next. “Probably about… four? …five days?”

Aside from the background sound of cursed goo sliding down the walls and plopping onto the floor in fat, glutinous globs, the room is silent. Your gaze goes from your wrist, to the ugly doll on the floor a few feet away (where it landed in the midst of the blast—they hadn’t gotten very far into the room before things went south) and then to Jimin and Seokjin, who have been your closest friends for the better part of your adult life and with whom normally you wouldn’t mind spending such an amount of time with.

Except, thing’s aren’t really as they are normally, and lately you’ve started noticing some feelings rising within you that are getting harder and harder to squash. You don’t think you can make it out of this in once piece, and a look to the side reveals Namjoon’s doubtful expression that tells you he thinks the same.

[ DAY ONE ]

The trip, for the few hours you’ve been on it so far, has proved to be taxing in more ways than one. Case in point:

“Namjoon! Stop playing that hippy garbage and show us your mixtape! What are you, a coward?”

Next to you, you can sense Namjoon’s hands tighten on the wheel—you might have fought tooth and nail to get shotgun but he’d been coerced somewhat unwillingly into the driving seat. He has a provisional licence and still has some supervised driving hours to complete, so it was with a pout that he climbed in next to you earlier today and has been behind the wheel ever since.

The reason for the twitch that’s developed under his eye and the white tint of his knuckles as they grip the wheel lies in the seats behind you—Seokjin and Jimin have been running their mouths for the better part of the last few hours and don’t seem like they’re going to be shutting up anytime soon. To be fair, at the start they were just talking about normal things, but then one of them said something somewhat antagonistic about an hour and a half in and they haven’t stopped bickering since.

In the seat behind them, Jungkook and Taehyung – two friends who had somehow been roped into this abridged roadtrip— sit with looks of pure, unadulterated regret on their faces.

“This is my mixtape,” Namjoon says through gritted teeth, Seokjin shrinking back into his seat in response with a chastised look. It takes all of a split second for Jimin to snicker, no chance for sweet, sweet silence to bloom before they’re back to bickering once more. You almost give in to the urge to slam your head against the dash again. Almost.

“Why couldn’t they both have turned out like y/n?” you hear Jungkook question in something that must be his attempt at a whisper (yet that still reaches you at the front of the car). Taehyung sighs, like the weight of the world has suddenly rested itself on his shoulders and he now finds himself with the task of carrying it for the rest of eternity.

“They’re too stupid,” Taehyung answers, somewhat cryptically. By some show of mercy from up above, neither of the two idiots in question hear him insulting them.

You squint at Taehyung through the rear-view mirror, wondering if he’s onto you. He doesn’t seem like it, what with him now playing ‘I Spy’ with Jungkook and cheating with his magic, but then again you know Taehyung to be awfully perceptive when he needs to be. You’ll have to ask Namjoon to make sure he doesn’t blab to dumb and dumber behind you or you’ll never hear the end of it.

“You know what? This wouldn’t have happened if y/n didn’t pick you up like a stray dog in her second year!”

Ears alert at the sound of your name, you turn your head to nail the two with a suspicious look while Namjoon keeps his eyes pointedly to the front and on the road carving a path between thick rainforest greenery. Seokjin is sputtering at what Jimin just announced, eyes whipping between you and Jimin incredulously. He has the exact look on his face that a child does right before they tattle on their older sibling to their mother for being mean to them.

It really is like raising two kids though, honestly, you lament. You should see if you can get family benefits from the government.

“Excuse me? If anything, I picked you two up like strays. You should have seen her that first day she came up to me, all pleading with these puppy dog eyes, asking if I would be her mentor. She was so pitiful I couldn’t bear to say no.”

WHAT?! That’s not how that went! You glare at Seokjin for spewing mistruths, reaching for something to throw at him in the front cup holder. He has a look of regret on his face, like what he said was never meant to enter the air, but it’s out now and you’re gonna pelt something at him for it. It’s their fault they’re cursed to say whatever the hell comes to mind, anyway. It’s just unfortunate that 80% of the things that come to Seokjin’s mind happen to be things that shouldn’t be said out loud. You’d say the same for Jimin but his percentage is a little lower, more like 50-60%, so you’ll let him live for now.

“Oh my gods that is ENOUGH! Both of you shut up! Please! Or so help me Hecate I will turn this car around and dump you two on the side of the road to walk!”

Surprisingly, Namjoon’s reprimand works and the two males snap their mouths shut, eyes wide. You haven’t forgiven Seokjin for his sleight, so you make sure he sees you glaring before you turn back around. You can hear him gulp.

Before you met Seokjin in one of your classes at the academy, it had always been you and Jimin. The two of you grew up in the same gated community in the same cul-de-sac—you with your aunt, and him with his incredibly rich and highly esteemed parents. You always saw his parents before you ever saw him, and (somewhat unfairly) you judged from their stony expressions and default looks of disdain that he’d be just like them—cold, stuck up and probably someone who would bully you for not living in a home with actual parents. It was a bit of a sore spot for you back then.

To your complete and utter surprise, everything you assumed of him was turned on its head when he found you at the park one day, angry-crying in embarrassment due to the nasty fall you’d just had. Some other kids had dared you to do a trick on the swings that required some air magic, but you’re not very strong in that area. Yet, like the stupid, proud child you were, you attempted it anyway and ended up scraping your knees raw at the edge of the playground. Not wanting to get in trouble and terrified at the sight of blood, they’d fled and left you there gritting your teeth and trying not to wail in pain. You were in the middle of plotting your revenge on each and every one of them while pressing a hand to your knees when a voice had sounded from beside you and scared the living daylights out of you.

“Hey… are you okay?”

Honestly, he had been so sweet and kind that you didn’t even realise straight away that he was the same child that lived in the house across from yours. From the beginning you couldn’t stay strong against his big, puppy eyes, and you ended up letting him help when he offered. You always were a bit better with plants and herbs, trees flowering when you tickled them and dandelions dancing around you in glee as you passed through meadows on the way to school. That didn’t help much in the area of healing, though.

Jimin, you were surprised to learn, actually was quite adept at healing magic, despite his affinity being for water—or maybe that’s part of the reason why. He’d wiped the tears on your cheeks and pressed them to your knees with small, careful hands—they’d glowed before your eyes and a tingle and a tickle later, they were completely scuff free—smoother than they had been when you were a baby, you remember marvelling in awe.

That moment then, you’ve concluded many times, was the moment you first started to like Park Jimin.

All through high school, you liked him. Sometimes painfully so. Eventually, even without the nurturing and watering that comes with requited feelings, that bloomed into something a little too alike love. Right as you entered your undergraduate at the academy, you decided to do yourself a favour and attempted to squash that flower down, to rip it out of your heart. But alas, it was rooted too deep. You were helpless but to continue dealing with those feelings.

That is, until Seokjin came along.

You could say that he was your next infatuation, but it was a little more complicated than that at the time. The way that you came to like him… is a little different.

You might have developed your crush on Jimin instantly as a child, but with Seokjin the feelings built slowly within you for weeks as you sat with him in classes and began to hang out with him outside them. It was the kind of thing that you don’t realise until it smacks you suddenly in the face one day at the most inconvenient time—for you, you realised the feelings that had blossomed within you one afternoon at an ice cream parlour after watching Seokjin shove the entire dessert into his mouth on a dare, ending up looking like a chipmunk with crushed waffle cone threatening to escape the seal of his lips every time he laughed. It was gross as hell and you’d never been more stupidly attracted to him in your life.

Seokjin eventually was absorbed into your little friend circle, and that’s how it has been for the past two years. The two of them bicker often, but it’s usually playful and it’s just the type of dynamic they happened to fall into. You’re growing a little concerned now though, because it feels like these arguments are slowly getting more and more serious now that they don’t have the ability to exercise their filter.

Frowning to yourself in thought, you turn your gaze out the window and try not to think about it too hard. This roadtrip will be over before you know it! Surely!

— X—

“JIMIN! YOU ALMOST SET MY PANTS ON FIRE! STOP, Y—OH my god you ACTUALLY DID! JIMIN!”

Chaos.

That’s what has overtaken your small little roadside camp. As it grew dark and Namjoon grew tired after driving all day, all of you had made the unanimous decision to stop for the night and set up camp. It was part of the reason Taehyung and Jungkook had agreed to come—they’re always down for an adventure and they’d never been into these mountains.

Yoongi and Hoseok, two other friends that ended up joining your troupe as an extension of Seokjin, had only agreed to come along because they are, in fact, huge plant nerds—and this forest is full of magical flora that Hoseok went absolutely starry-eyed at the mention of. They brought their own car and hence didn’t have to deal with the vexing nature of the journey in the company of Seokjin and Jimin, but they were quickly enlightened once you all stopped to set up camp.

Hoseok is the one that screamed, and considering the flames currently licking the dark material of his slacks, you think he’s well within his rights. A part of you is worried you’re about to be set alight as well, but the rest of you is catching up with what you just saw.

Jimin’s magical affinity, as you’ve known ever since you were kids, is for water. Seokjin’s, as you found out quickly after meeting him in college because he likes to show off, is for heat, and combustion. Put plainly, his affinity is fire.

And yet, when Jimin went to magically pull the water out of Hoseok’s pants after Jungkook spilled the ramen pot on him, it hadn’t exactly gone as anyone expected. For one, Jimin’s hands had glowed pink instead of blue, and instead of seeing water seep out of Hoseok’s pant leg, the entire camp watched as a spark formed from Jimin’s fingertips and went flying towards it.

Long story short; Hoseok’s pants are now on fire and Jimin is freaking out.

The campers that aren’t currently affected (read: everyone but Hoseok and Jimin) are instead almost wetting themselves in laughter at the situation.

“If this is a joke it isn’t funny!” Jimin exclaims, waving his hand in the air. You don’t know whether to focus on him or on Hoseok leaping out of his pants behind him and throwing them on the ground to stomp the flames out. Both are funny, especially when Jimin’s frantic waving doesn’t conjure water as he desired but instead more sparks.

“JIMIN NO!”

The rest of the camp pauses their laughter and scrambles in alarm to dodge the sparks falling, diving out of chairs and rolling out of the way in their desperation—well, everyone but Seokjin, who is currently laughing so hard his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s rolling on the ground in a different way. You make a face of disdain—you could have chosen anyone in the world to befriend and subsequently fall in love with, and you chose these two? You’re a little disappointed in yourself.

“I can’t believe it!” Seokjin is howling, cradling his stomach as he curls on the ground. You wince at the leaves currently tangling in his hair. “Are you telling me you didn’t—didn’t know our powers swapped? Oh my gods, Jimin—”

Your gaze whips to the shorter male, who looks like the visual definition of both unimpressed and murderous. “Are you saying you knew? And you didn’t tell me! You ass—”

A sense of resignation settles within you as you anticipate another fight on the horizon. Their bickering has only worsened through the day, and at this point you’re not above physically gagging them. You brought spare socks, babey.

“Of course I knew! I sneezed in the bathroom earlier and had my ass suddenly embraced in cold water. Are you telling me you didn’t notice when we were drinking juice boxes before and the straws kept melting in your hands?”

Well, everything you’re hearing is news to you—you had no idea before this incident that their powers had been mixed up as well as everything else. They are masters of their own affinity, but have no experience whatsoever with the other’s, so you’re anticipating (regretfully) a lot more incidents like this.

At first Jimin’s face is contorted in something like sympathy and disgust, but that quickly shifts into embarrassment—the tips of his ears join his cheeks in flushing pink.

“No, I thought I was just sitting too close to the fire!” he retorts, pointing a finger at the older male. “I never use fire for anything, how was I supposed to know?!”

Seokjin opens his big mouth to fire something back, but is thankfully stopped in his tracks by Yoongi cramming a pizza slice in there. Seokjin immediately starts chewing like the action triggered some evolutionary reflex, like when you put a finger in a baby’s hand and they grip on instinct.

“Can you both shut up?” he grouches, only bold enough to send Jimin a glare since Seokjin is older than him; it doesn’t stop him from running his mouth at him, though. “I can and I will mix something up to knock you out. Hell, I’ll even get y/n to help—I hear her potion is part of what landed you in this mess.”

You were not expecting to be dragged through the dirt at the end of that. You send the male a glare, flipping him the bird before stomping off to go get some of the desserts from the car. He’s lucky you already silenced yourself or you’d be ripping him a new one by now.

Stupid! Stupid boys! All men do is talk, eat hot pizza and LIE!

Thankfully, you have time to cool off before dinner is over, the atmosphere mollifying now that Jimin and Seokjin’s lives have been threatened and their fear of god (or rather, fear of one Min Yoongi) has rendered them silent once more. You almost forget they were even bickering earlier until it comes time to retire for the night and tents have to be allocated.

Of course, after the day and dinner you’d all just had, it was decided unanimously by all those not currently afflicted by a curse that you, Seokjin and Jimin should share a tent. The others happily retreated to the two other tents set up by the cars, and before you could even smack someone in protest they were gone.

Ten minutes and your entire nightly routine later finds you laying on a king-sized blow-up mattress, squished between your two best friends with the blanket up to your chin. Surprisingly, despite the bickering that occurred when choosing tents, they’re silent now—but not asleep. The occasional sigh gives them away. It’s dark, but the moonlight filtering in through the material of the tent allows you to see the planes of their faces a little more clearly. Both are frowning slightly, Jimin staring at the ceiling and Seokjin looking at the runes over his wrist.

You want to sleep, but the air is heavy with the weight of something yet to be said.

“We’re… sorry, y/n.”

You turn to Seokjin in surprise, eyes taking a moment to adjust to his profile. He’s avoiding your gaze; you feel Jimin’s head turning to face the older male as well. Seokjin sighs, closing his eyes and carding a hand through his charcoal-coloured hair.

“This is our fault,” he continues, resting his hands atop the blanket, over his stomach.

“Hyung,” Jimin voices, tone cautioning. It piques your interest and you file it away for later.

Seokjin turns his head, looking at Jimin for a long moment before turning it further and looking at you. You can’t help but wonder what he just said to the other with his gaze, but for now you’re taken with the soft glisten of his eyes as they meet your own.

“Sorry,” he repeats, clamping his mouth shut after. You squint at him for a long few seconds before releasing him from your gaze and shrugging.

You’re forgiven, I guess. Especially since this is technically also my fault, even though I didn’t know that stupid charmed perfumes could react with cursed dolls… where on earth did they even get that thing?

At your shrug, Seokjin grins brightly. “Great, now that you’ve forgiven us, I have a favour to ask.”

You’re not left wondering what he means for long, because in the next second he rolls over, turning his back to you.

“Can you spoon me? I wanna be the little spoon tonight. Makes me feel safe.”

Letting out the biggest sigh you think you ever have in your life, you roll your eyes but oblige his request and shuffle over to slip your arms around his waist and hug him from behind. He can’t see your smile, so you don’t have to worry about saving face.

“Seriously? Right in front of my salad…”

You reach behind to smack Jimin, and he laughs, quickly scooting over to follow your suit and slip his arms around your waist, curving his body around yours. It makes your heart race, and for the sake of your sanity you pretend that you don’t have one and so don’t have to deal with its traitorous reactions. Heart, what heart? It’s Donut Tuesdays that keeps your blood pumping, babey!

Now that the air is clear and warmth seeps between the three of you, runes around your wrists glowing brighter than before, it doesn’t take long at all before the three of you pass out, slipping eagerly into the tender embrace of sleep.

[DAY THREE]

Needless to say, the tranquillity of that night did not last very long at all.

You’re on the third day of the trip, with at least one more expected to go, and for the duration of today’s drive, the entire car has been in a foul mood. Last you saw Yoongi and Hoseok, they were grumpy too, but you don’t doubt now that they’re away from the bickering duo causing you all such stress that they’re in much better spirits. Sadly, the same can’t be said for you, or anyone else stuck in the same car as you.

Today’s driver is Taehyung, and you swear you’ve seen the thought to drive the car into a ditch flick through his gaze more than twice in the past few minutes alone. It alarmed you at first, but now you’d welcome it, to be honest. Anything to escape your current reality.

You already knew that Seokjin and Jimin enjoyed talking and hearing their own voices, but never before have you been faced with such a long, extended situation where they just do not shut up. It’s wearing you down, you have to admit. As Namjoon’s silencing spell wore off last night, you almost blew your cover and tore into them for it. They just can’t help themselves! They’re lucky that your priority is making sure that your thoughts aren’t revealed to the air, so much that you forwent killing them in favour of topping up the silencing spell.

There are some things that have been lurking on the tip of your tongue in the past few months that you just cannot risk saying aloud. You’d rather lose said tongue.

Everyone has long since given up attempting to shut your two idiot friends up, and so your suffering continues, unabated.

“You wanna bring up all the times someone has ditched for selfish reasons? Alright, how about we talk about all the times you skipped movie night because you ‘had a pop quiz to study for’, when really you were out sleeping with half the students in your Aquatic Magics class!”

While you might have been expecting something petty to come out of Seokjin’s mouth, you most definitely weren’t expecting that. Your head whips around at lightning speed, wide eyes locking onto Jimin who looks like he’s just been electrocuted. He sputters, eyes flicking from you to Seokjin rapidly.

Lately, in the past few months, Jimin has been calling in rainchecks for your weekly movie nights. Usually the three of you relish in the opportunity to sit back and relax, and none of you were inclined to skip, but Jimin had told the both of you that the professor he’d gotten this semester is particularly fond of giving weighted pop quizzes. Now that you’re thinking about it, he’d actually skipped more times than he’d attended this this year so far...

You hadn’t even suspected anything before now, but meeting his gaze reveals all you need to know that he’s guilty of what Seokjin said. Immediately, you’re incensed.

You selfish—

He’s lucky you’re magically silenced right now, but Seokjin can still talk, and that seems to be a problem for him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he denies, scowling at Seokjin.

“I saw you on my cousin’s tinder and she told me all about what you’ve been up to the past few months! Said you’ve made your way through almost all of her friends at this point, and always on a Friday—our movie day!” Your mouth drops open as Seokjin flings Jimin’s dirty laundry into the air for all to see. Jungkook lets out a hiss through his teeth, wincing.

“My god, hyung, you’re a whore—”

“I would have said fuckboy,” Namjoon interrupts the youngest to supply helpfully, keen to exact some form of revenge on Jimin for the suffering he’s had to endure in the past three days.

“I am NOT a fuckboy!” Jimin squawks and his face goes so red you’re sure he’s going to combust. “I’m not just some—I have feelings! I’m capable of having feelings for someone!”

“Yeah, you’re really proving it with all your escapades you ditcher,” Seokjin folds his arms, scowling at the younger. Nice! You applaud him in your head. “Good to know your friends mean so much to you that you’ll drop them at a moment’s notice for a quick fuck!”

“How can you say that when you know that just like you, I like—” As quick and heated as he starts off, Jimin suddenly cuts off, snapping his mouth shut with wide eyes.

The car is silent, even Taehyung’s ears perked in their direction. Confusion takes up most of your brain space—had he just been about to reveal that he likes someone? At once, your heart skips a beat and squeezes painfully. Do you want to know who it is, when you also know it can’t be you?

Because why would Jimin blow off nights he is meant to spend with you to play around with other girls, if you were the one he liked?

Trying to keep your face schooled, you turn back to the front, sinking into your seat slightly and missing the way Taehyung’s gaze flicks to you as you do so. You wish that things had stayed as they were, when you’d moved on from Jimin and you only had Seokjin on the brain. It wasn’t that long ago, but unfortunately for you, it’s no longer the case. Your brain and heart have never been so overloaded.

Evidently feelings for Jimin aren’t like the chicken pox, and you can catch them again.

Even stewing in your own thoughts as you are, the prolonged silence confuses you when you notice it a few moments later. Unable to help yourself, your eyes flick up to the rear-view mirror, catching sight of the way Seokjin is sitting, scowl from earlier replaced by a look of deep thought, his brows furrowed and arms still crossed. For a minute you puzzle over why exactly he is being quiet when Jimin was the one under fire, replaying the events of the conversation over in your head once more. You freeze when it strikes you, your own face scrunching in thought.

"How can you say that when you know that just like you, I like..."

For a second you sit in shock, a slight cut of betrayal skirting around your heart. Are they serious-- both your best friends have feelings for someone and have told each other, but not you? Disregarding your own refusal to admit your crush/es to them (mainly because they are the crush/es in question), you don't think you've ever felt so betrayed in your life. If your crush wasn't incriminating to admit out loud, they would be the first to know! You focus on the feelings resulting from their treachery that are drifting over you so that the sting of knowing that they like someone else is a little less noticeable.

This trip is a disaster and as soon as you can speak again you're filing for friend divorce.

x--x--x

Oddly enough, the rest of the day is spent in almost silence. Apparently that last little argument finally taught the two of them a lesson, because they haven't uttered a word since. You caught them glaring at each other once or twice, but apart from that there was a distinct lack of JinMin bickering. Taehyung's mood was quick to turn around after that, and he made sure to turn the music up so that if they started talking again he wouldn't hear it. Jungkook and Namjoon seemed relieved that they could finally have their own conversation, and you... well, you spent the rest of the day's trip staring out the window and blasting your own music, like a moody teenager.

Needless to say, you're in a bit of a funk. One might even say you're upset.

You can't believe them! How much else do they withhold from you and only tell each other? You feel like you don't even know them right now, and do your best to make sure they know it by glaring at them every time they meet your eyes. Because of this, setting up tonight's camp teeters on being a slightly uncomfortable affair.

You're so annoyed (and hurt, but you're not acknowledging that emotion yet) that when dessert is brought out, you even go so far as to take the last piece of their favourite one. The looks on their faces as you cram the entire strawberry crepe cake slice into your mouth in one go is almost funny enough to redeem them, but by this point you've had all afternoon to stew and you're not going to be having a change of heart any time soon.

By the time it's late enough for everyone to be retiring, you've pointedly ignored the two males enough that when you look up and don't see them anywhere, you have no idea where they've gone. Apparently your confusion is in plain view for the rest of the group to see, because Namjoon snorts. When you look over, he speaks.

"They went to grab their toiletries from the car," he informs you, rocking dangerously on the camping chair he's currently seated in. "I heard one of them call the other a tart on the way over though, so they're probably fighting again by now."

You huff, wondering if they've even noticed you're upset with them. Well, it's not like they'd said anything to you-- then again, that is precisely the problem. But still, they're stupid and you don't know if they've connected the dots yet. It's not that hard though!

...Are you overreacting?

It's possible. Learning that they like someone, and intuitively knowing it isn't you, well... it's done a bit of a number on your ego and your heart, and maybe you're overcompensating. Not for the first time, you wonder if there is a potion that can numb your heart and cancel out feelings. That would be great!

"You're wondering if they've noticed you're mad at them?" Taehyung's low register surprises you when it sounds next to you-- you didn't realise that he'd moved seats. Given your attention, he continues, "They most definitely have. Although, they're kind of stupid, so they can't agree on why you are."

"To their credit, they both realise it's something they've said." Namjoon drags a hand down his face with a sigh, "Except the thing is, they've both said so damn much."

You frown, tilting your head in thought; your eyes end up staring unfocused at Jungkook where he sits across the fire, poking his finger in the dirt and making flowers sprout. Your best friends? Having some degree of self-awareness? It seems almost too good to be true.

Yoongi and Hoseok have plodded off in the midst of your zoning out, apparently going to look for a certain mushroom that has unique magical properties and happens to grow near here. Gradually, the other three sitting with you disperse and you use a minor spell to reduce the flames of the campfire to a smolder. You figure it's been long enough that Seokjin and Jimin are probably back at your tent by now (you were really zoned out just then, so you have no idea if they went past or not), so you head to the car to grab your own toiletries and go about your nightly routine. Just because you're on the road doesn't mean you can afford to neglect your skin.

Considering you expected silence and an empty space when you rounded Yoongi's car and turned towards the van, you're more than a little surprised to both see and hear people. Immediately, you halt, expecting them to turn and notice you, but they’re so wrapped up in their own conversation that they have no idea you’re there. It only takes you a moment longer to realise it’s Jimin and Seokjin, who apparently haven’t succeeded in actually getting their toiletries and have instead been talking this whole time.

Well, you don’t know if you can call it just talking.

They’re arguing again, you can tell that clearly, but for once you have no idea what is being said. What you can catch of their voices is hushed and somewhat vexed, emphasised by the occasional arm movement and finger jab. You’re tempted to step closer just so you can hear what they’re discussing so angrily, but don’t even get a chance to properly consider it before Seokjin is snapping loudly and answering your unspoken question.

“You know what we read! We both read it! So the fact you almost said in the car—”

“But I didn’t say anything,” Jimin snaps back, sounding crankier than you’ve ever heard him. His eyes are dark and he leans forward as he speaks, tense. “But you know what, if it bothers you so much, and you want it to be you, then why don’t you say something? Why haven’t you said anything before now? Nothing is stopping you!”

Seokjin’s response is lower than you can catch, heated if the tension in his shoulders is anything to go by. What Jimin says next is also spoken lower than you can hear, but Seokjin does you a favour in the next second when his voice raises in outrage.

“--you wanna know why? Huh? Maybe it’s because I realised lately that it’s not just that— I like you!”

You freeze, an ellipsis materialising in your brain in the stead of any coherent thought. The world around you and the conversation in front of you doesn’t wait for you to catch up.

Jimin blinks, mouth open in preparation to throw back a retort. He shuts it, something passing through his gaze that you can’t quite discern. He speaks a moment later, but you can only catch bits and pieces of it. “Both…? Seokjin… stupid idiot…”

The next bit comes clear as day to your ears, though.

“I like you too…”

All at once, the situation comes crashing back up to speed in your brain and everything catches up with you. Your head doesn’t really know how to process it but your heart is already ahead and shrinking in your chest.

Are you fucking kidding me.

You don’t know what comes over you, but from what you can discern it seems to be a cocktail of incredulousness, anger, and heartbreak. Ruining your cover, you stomp over to the van and march right between them to the boot, yanking it open more aggressively than you need to. The two of them exclaim in surprise to see you, but are left reeling as you simply grab your toiletries bag and turn on your heel before stomping away, ignoring them completely.

You cannot believe the cruel twist that fate has just slapped you across the face with, like a massive silicone dildo giving you a black eye. Earlier today you learned that your two best friends — who you’ve recently realised you have feelings for— actually have feelings for someone. And alright, that shit hurted, but you could have seen yourself getting over it some time in the future.

But to find out that that person they like is each other and you’ve essentially been third wheeling for the entirety of your friendship? Call you a drama queen but you have such a mix of emotions in you that you almost feel nauseous. For the sake of simplicity, you decide to label that concoction anger and wash your hands of it.

Storming back through the camp to your tent, you ignore a bewildered Yoongi and Hoseok emerging from the treeline and instead try not to rip your toiletries bag with the harsh grip your fingers have on it. Throwing it into the tent that you’d left open after setting up, you follow it inside and then turn to rip the zip down. You’re tempted to simply leave it at that before you decide that’s not enough and you hold out your hand, charming it so that it wont open for anyone but you.

Satisfied with your last spiteful act of the night, you rush through your routine and head to bed, blood boiling all through the night until you wake up the next day.

x — x — x

“Did you kick Seokjin and Jimin out of your tent last night?”

Not lucid enough to have noticed him standing next to you by the van as you munch on your cereal with half-closed eyes, you jump in fright when Namjoon’s voice crosses your ears.

And what if I did? You have the impulse to voice that thought, but the slight itch in your throat reminds you that, for the time being, you’re still silenced. At your own behest, sure, but not being able to quip sassy retorts back at people has been steadily getting at you these past four days.

Instead, you simply shrug, and Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Trick question! We know you did because they came to our tents last night pleading for us to let them in because they couldn’t get into theirs.”

Well, you suppose that considering the three of you are bound and can’t be more than a few metres apart, it’s lucky that their tents were so close to your own. You frown at what he says though, squinting at Namjoon. Your point?

As though he’s perfectly in tune with your thoughts, he readily elaborates. “So what did they do to warrant that? I didn’t realise you were that upset with them.”

His words make you remember what you’ve been trying not to think about: last night.

Your mother always told you that sleeping on it would fix almost everything, but you’d woken up in just as bad of a mood as you’d gone to bed with. It’s petty of you to be angry at them for liking each other, just because it’s not you, but there is also the fact that they’re your best friends and hadn’t told you a single thing. The betrayal of it all is one of the things that stings most, as dramatic as that is. Whatever, you’re allowed to be upset and you’re going to exercise that right.

Namjoon doesn’t get an answer because you scull the remainder of your milk and cereal in one go (leaving him in something akin to a state of shock) and promptly walk off to get dressed.

When everyone piles back into their respective cars today, it’s with a lighter air than the days previous. This is because, as Jungkook had announced excitedly before you all departed, you should be arriving at the witch’s home in a little over a few hours. Honestly, you’re ecstatic, because you don’t think you can handle being around Seokjin and Jimin for a while after this.

In your bid to think about literally anything but the two males boring holes into the back of your head with their eyes, you instead allow yourself to daydream about how things are going to be in the next few hours. The witch is probably old and nice, wise and knowledgeable. She’ll get it, and she’ll probably support you if you call the boys names. Sisterhood of witches!

x — x

Hours later and you’re standing outside of an industrial concrete home, not too dissimilar to the Cullens’ house from Twilight, except it’s overrun by plants and vines that curl and flower across the mass of grey in gorgeous patterns. The door has just slammed in front of you after Namjoon explained who you were and why you were here, and you’re now listening to the sound of many chains and bolts sliding on the other side of the wood.

The witch is nothing like you thought and you feel like your fate has fallen into some questionable hands.

When the door opens once more, now unrestricted by chains, you’re met with the sight of the woman you’d driven four days to see and plead with. Needless to say, she isn’t what you expected at all— somehow despite the fact that your professor had literally explained what to expect before you left on this little roadtrip.

She stands, somewhat short but still graceful with long inky hair that curls down her back untamed, slipping over her shoulders at the front. Her skin is the kind of bronzed that tells of time spent in the sun and out in the wilds, and the loose clothing hanging from her form is light and breezy looking. Her eyes are dark and sleekly lined for a cat-like effect, lips stained dramatic red in contrast to the rest of her chill get-up.

She’s really out here living her best life, you think in wonder.

“Lim said you’d be coming… I’m Sunmi,” she voices, staring shrewdly at all eight of you one at a time until her gaze passes over you, Jimin, Seokjin and the runes binding your wrists. Her nails tap against the doorframe that she’s braced against as she hums in thought. “...Come in.”

When she turns and moves further into her home, the rest of you hover awkwardly before kicking into gear. Yoongi and Hoseok dismiss themselves, having spotted some ‘exciting’ plants back by the treeline, and so it is just you, Jungkook, Taehyung, Namjoon and those other two you don’t want to think about that are left to follow the witch into the house.

You follow her as she walks around the whole floor, gathering certain things as she goes. At her request, Namjoon fills her in on exactly what the issue is— he’s apparently a bit intimidated by her keen gaze and grumpy disposition, because he stutters a few times while recounting your situation to her. Taehyung and Jungkook, considering that they’re just along for the ride, spend the walk looking around in awe. Sunmi has a lot of artefacts on display in her home, some with runes you’ve never seen before in your life, not even in textbooks— kind of like the ones on your wrist.

“Alright, you three wait here,” Sunmi stops all of you in what seems to be a sitting room of sorts decorated with soft greens and white, pointing at Namjoon, Taehyung and Jungkook, and then the lounge. “If I’m going to fix this… curse...I will need only the three of them. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Her words are polite, skirting along the edge of being curt. Obediently, like puppies, they follow her instructions and take a seat with wide eyes. Satisfied, the witch turns to you and the idiots behind you.

“Come, in here. Be quick about it.”

Hastily, you follow her finger and enter the room situated off to the side, hearing Seokjin and Jimin scramble behind you. What greets you is dark blue walls with stars smattered across them in metallic gold, the carpet plush, dark grey. There is a desk pushed against the wall, and a large table in the middle of the room that is framed by a few plushly upholstered chairs. You get the sudden urge to cough, throat itching slightly, but hold down the urge as best as you can and ignore it for now.

Sunmi closes the door behind her, taking a moment before moving to the table and placing the items in her arms down. She then leans forward, eyes pinning all three of you in place; you hear Seokjin let out something like an ‘eep’ from just behind you, and have to remind yourself that you’re angry at him so you can’t find it cute.

“Look, I moved all the way out here so I didn’t have to deal with people,” she begins, straightening and crossing her arms. You avoid her gaze, instead focusing on the large window behind her, and then the vase of white and violet blooms in the middle of the table; you wonder if they’re responsible for the sweet, syrupy yet musky scent that accentuates the room. “Let me cut to the chase so that you leave and I can get back to what I was doing sooner.”

Somewhat taken aback by her words, you’re left blinking in surprise while she simply continues, pointing her finger at your wrists and then in the general direction of the boys.

“These runes are specific to a certain deity, one that isn’t often invoked because of how temperamental he is, but one that usually deals with things in the area of love. Specifically, unrequited.”

As she spoke, she started to move around the table, now approaching your little huddle. On instinct you take a few steps back, shifting slightly behind your two friends. You catch a glimpse of their faces as you move, and you’re surprised at how pale and stiff the two of them have suddenly become. Jimin’s silver hair begins to steam slightly, the tips of his ears flushing red.

“Now, usually what people return with after visiting him, is blessings. These, however,” she points to the runes, “Are what happens when one insults him.”

Jimin gulps, and Seokjin swallows before speaking hurriedly, “We didn’t mean to take the doll! We didn’t know it was his…”

Sunmi rolls her eyes, holding her hand out. “Give me the doll.”

You hadn’t even realised it was in Jimin’s hands until he jerked and hastily placed it in her hold. It’s as ugly as ever and you can’t help but glare at it.

“This isn’t about the doll,” Sunmi says, cocking her hip and appearing the epitome of unimpressed. “The runes reveal that the insult lies within a request for a blessing. You did something wrong, and the doll became a conduit for his retaliation. You must have been desperate to go to him of all love deities, so how on earth did you manage to mess up the simple process of requesting a blessing?”

While you're standing with a blank face, struggling to keep up with all the information being unloaded on you, the two men beside you bow their heads in something like shame. When your brain catches up, you realise with chagrin that she’s saying they went to a temple or shrine of a love deity to ask for a blessing— and bitterly, you connect that it was likely for each other.

“Wh— but we did everything right!” Jimin is the one protesting now, eyes wide and fingers fiddling. “Isn’t this because of y/n’s potion?”

Bastard! You can’t believe he’d try to pin the blame on you!

You’re beginning to simmer, throat tingling as you swallow angrily, and like he can sense it, Seokjin sends you a nervous look.

“What? This has nothing to do with a potion,” Sunmi scoffs, sending you a somewhat pitying look. You pretend it’s because she’s sympathising with you for being stuck with these two. “All the potion would have done is cover you in goo. This is—” she grabs your wrist suddenly, turning it to observe the runes on the underside before making a noise of realisation. “— this is because you went to a deity that specialises in unrequited love and asked for blessings in love that wasn’t unrequited.”

Sunmi releases your hand and you’re left reeling, quickly realising that they must have asked for blessings in love with each other— which, as you’d overheard last night and are now painfully aware of, is anything but unrequited. Oddly enough, the two boys next to you appear confused.

“No, that can’t be right—” Jimin starts, but Sunmi doesn’t let him finish.

“The runes don’t lie,” she says plainly, moving back to assemble some things before taking something that looks incriminatingly like a bong into her grasp; you don’t even remember her grabbing it on the way here. “They’re like a signature, almost. I know what I’m talking about, baby boy.”

Jimin goes bright red, hair steaming even more, although you can’t tell whether its from anger or embarrassment. Knowing him, probably both.

“Jimin,” Seokjin warns, shooting the younger a look when he opens his mouth to retort; apparently having Seokjin’s magic has made him that much more hotheaded. Seokjin shakes his head and Jimin clenches his jaw with the effort it takes him not to talk.

“Right, well, it seems like the three of you have some things to unpack— it bound you in particular for a reason. I’ll break the curse for you, but I need to drown this doll in some blessed water before I can get started.” Sunmi is already turning on her heel and walking towards the door before she even finishes. “Stay in here and don’t cause trouble.”

And then she leaves, and for some reason the resounding thud of the door swinging closed behind her is like a metaphor sealing your fate.

For the first few seconds after her departure, the room is silent. The two men beside you are frozen, but it doesn’t take long for them to pick up on the waves of anger beginning to emanate from you. They turn, sharing a similar expression of nervousness and slight fear. They look like they’d like more than anything to disappear right now, but of course that isn’t an option, especially when the curse currently afflicting you all means that whatever comes to their brain is immediately blurted into the air.

“Look, y/n, uh… we can explain.” Jimin takes a step forward, holding his hands out as though to placate you. For some reason even just that is quick to irritate you further, and you glare at him. How is he going to explain, you wonder? The witch has pretty much already spelled out everything you need to know about exactly why you’re in this situation.

They went to the shrine of some obscure love deity to receive blessings on their ‘unrequited’ love — which happened to be requited because the person they were asking for blessings for was each other — and then proceeded to insult the deity and take a doll from the shrine, which the deity then used as a conduit to curse the three of you. You get all that, loud and clear. What you really want to know is why the hell you got roped into this punishment and forced to experience all this shame and humiliation.

“Look, about the shrine— we didn’t only go for personal reasons! We knew there was a doll there that the professor would be interested in,” Seokjin hurried to elaborate, before throwing a dirty look to the side and proceeding to incriminate his friend. “Actually, the only reason we even went at all was because Jimin suggested it.”

You don’t know why they’re so eager to shift the blame; you’re happy to include both of them on your shit list.

Jimin seems to grow so incensed at Seokjin’s comment that his mouth grows that much looser and he’s speaking before the thought can even materialise in his brain. “What the fuck, dude— we both agreed to go because we both read that page of her diary that we found the cat playing with! Stop trying to pin this on me, it was a group effort you jerk!”

For a second your brain is filled with white noise as what he said sinks in.

Then you’re pissed.

So pissed, in fact, that you don’t even feel the familiar tingle in your throat when it occurs and you’re exploding before you even realise that the silencing spell has worn off.

“Are you kidding me— YOU READ MY DIARY?!” both boys flinch, eyes shooting wide as they take a physical step back. You’re so angry you’re almost shaking. This is ridiculous! Faintly, you realise that you should shut up but now that you’ve started you can’t make yourself stop.

“This is unbelievable! Not only did your stupidity and your stupid heart-ons for each other end up dragging me into being cursed, but then you went and made this the worst four days of my life!” You jab your finger at them, voice so loud it’s ringing in your own ears. “I can’t believe I like you two! I’m so fucking angry at you— when we get home I’m performing a cutting spell so I don’t have to love you anymore, so fuck BOTH of you and go kiss behind a tree or something!”

You’re slightly out of breath by the time you finish, still fuming but feeling like a weight has been lifted off your chest. About a second later you realise that the spell has worn off and you just tore their heads off, but your brain is a little preoccupied with everything so you decide to deal with the mental repercussions of it later.

Both boys are silent, looking at you with wide eyes. You’re just beginning to wonder why when Jimin starts to speak, eyes shifting. “y/n did you just… did you just say—”

At his words, you reflect on exactly just came out of your mouth and instantly horror washes over you, your heart dropping through your chest.

Yeah, you like reading about accidentally confessing in fiction but now you’re suddenly feeling a lot of regret and you’re not so sure you’re a fan of it anymore.

You’re saved from having to muster a response in the current black hole that has become your brain by the door opening, Sunmi returning with three squishy, heavy-looking items in her hand that you quickly recognise as water balloons. The realisation comes a little too late, though, because you don’t even have time to move before she’s pegging them at all three of you and next thing you know, you’re standing there soaked, sputtering and shocked.

“What the hell—?!” Seokjin spits out the water that got in his mouth, gagging.

“Specially blessed water, procured by yours truly,” Sunmi says simply, moving into the room just to place the doll back on the table, along with a bowl. She reaches into it and throws something like ground stardust on you, sending you all into a coughing fit once more. “Alright, the curse is dissolved. Your speech issues should be solved, but the runes that bind you… they might take a little longer, a day or so, to wear off.”

She smacks her hands together, dusting them off as she delivers the three of you with a sly look. “I’d tell you good luck, but while I was soaking the doll I realised why the three of you in particular were bound. It’s the same as I said before— your feelings aren’t unrequited, for either of the people that you requested blessings for.”

“Either of the people?” you echo, regrettably inclined to talk now that you’re able to again. Sunmi sends you an amused if somewhat exasperated look.

“I’m sure they’ll tell you,” she says cryptically, before angling her body to the others. “Now my work is done, get out. I miss my solitude. Also, I’m keeping the doll as my fee. It’s ugly as hell and is gonna look fantastic on the wall by the dining table.”

Still processing what she said before all of that, your group is hassled out of the house in a blur and before you know it, all six of you are standing in front of her door and witnessing it slam in your faces for the second time today.

Namjoon is the first to recover and is ridiculously cheerful as he speaks; you’re confused as to why until he sends you a knowing look and you realise that he, along with the other two youngest, probably heard your loud, shameful confession to both boys. He’d never said anything about knowing of your feelings, but you knew he knew. You could feel it in your bones. Also, his expressions aren’t as impassive as he’d like to think they are.

“Right, well! Back to the car everyone! Someone go get Hope and Yoongi. The sooner we head back, the sooner I can forget the weird things I saw in that living room!” He then grabs Taehyung and Jungkook around the shoulders, turning with them and steering them away in the direction of the car. “The sooner I can also get those fish bread things at the market near my house. Gods, I miss them.”

“You have an addiction, hyung.” You hear Jungkook say, his voice growing fainter the further away he grows. You stop attempting to listen after that, turning back to the other two males who you’re surprised to see haven’t budged and are looking straight at you.

“We went to the shrine for you,” Seokjin says suddenly, before you can ask them what they want. You blink, shock smacking you in the face. “We read a page of your diary— which we didn’t realise was a page of your diary until it was too late — and saw that you liked someone, but it didn’t say who.”

“We both wanted it to be us,” Jimin intercedes, rubbing the back of his neck and averting his eyes. His cheeks, along with Seokjin’s, are flushing pink. “Because as you no doubt heard last night, although we like each other… we liked you first. So I think you were drawn into this mess because we both like you… and each other.”

“And, um, like the witch said,” Seokjin gulps, now somewhat tentative. “Our feelings aren’t unrequited… which means that you like us too…?”

“Well, yeah,” Jimin mutters, smacking the other male on the arm. “That’s literally what she said while yelling at us, idiot.”

What they’re saying… is this a love triangle with all sides filled in? It’s a lot to process at once, and they give you a second as they watch the gears turn in your head.

“You…” you pause, struggling to put words together. Finally, you give up trying to be eloquent and slap a hand to your face, closing your eyes. “You both are so stupid— so stupid. I can’t handle this right now.”

When you open your eyes, you’re met with looks of fear. You squash that emotion by jabbing your finger at them, runes still faintly on your wrist. “When we get home, I’m gonna beat you. Then, I’m gonna give you a kiss, and then I’m gonna beat you again, and then we’re going to talk about this. Got it?”

They’re fighting grins at your words, Jimin snorting as they both nod hastily.

“It’s a date,” Seokjin says cheekily, cackling when you raise your hand at him.

“Can we have a hug, y/n?” Jimin hazards a plea, stepping forward with puppy eyes directed full force at you. “It’s rough when you’re angry at us.”

“You deserved it for all the shit you two said,” you say, rolling your eyes but opening your arms nonetheless. They exclaim in happiness and dive forward, almost making the three of you fall over in their zealousness. You feel your heart ease as you hold them both in your arms and they hold you.

Maybe this trip and whole ‘getting cursed by a cranky love deity’ thing isn’t a complete disaster after all.

Then again… you still have the trip back.

a/n: to the commissioner, I hope u like it!!! thank u for reading and if u enjoyed it please lmk with a like and/or rb!! thank u !! love u !!!

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modern-inheritance · 3 years

Text

Modern Inheritance: Two for Flinching

(A/N: Some wound description and technically self harm? {wound burning for infection control}, so warnings for that. Just some Eragon and co. during the run to the Varden. This one actually has a bit more setup for Eragon’s book 1/early book 2 characterization, but I’m not sure how I did. He’s hard for me to write. There’s also quite a few mentions of tech and magic mechanics that I’ve worked into MIC, but those will be mentioned more in the tags.)

~~~

Eragon winced as Saphira landed. Per their usual travel plans since Gil'ead and Arya’s awakening he had spent the night flying with Saphira while the others traveled at a continued breakneck pace on the ground with the horses. It was wearing them all down, even Saphira, and the few hours of sleep they managed to get during the daylight hours did little to alleviate the stress travel was putting on their bodies.

Camp was already in the midst of being set as Eragon untied his legs from the saddle and slid down Saphira’s side. He landed then grimaced as he fell to his knees, muscles feeling like jelly.

“Did you see anything worth mentioning?” Brom asked as the young Rider pushed himself up. When he shook his head, not trusting himself to speak aloud, the older man grunted and turned back to unsaddling Snowfire. “There’s supposed to be some old, ruined staging points of the Varden’s around here. Must be further up ahead. We’re going slower than I thought.”

“We’re going as fast as we can.” Murtagh snapped. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. Lately Eragon had noticed that the other youth was becoming increasingly agitated, quick to anger, and it wasn’t just the lack of sleep and lingering sunburn getting to him.“If you want to warn the Varden so bad, do some of your little magic tricks and tell them about the Urgals.”

Arya spoke quickly from where she crouched coaxing the fire to life, cutting off Brom’s scathing retort and ending the argument before it began. “It doesn’t exactly work like that. Besides, the Varden has specific wards around their strongholds, preventing scrying and other magical forms of communication.”

Eragon eased himself down next to the elf, trying to warm fingers stiff from flying so high in the chill clouds. “Then how do they stay in contact with you and anyone else outside their hiding spots? It seems dangerous to be so isolated.”

The woman gently rearranged a few sticks to give the young flames more air and slipped a dark object under the growing pile of embers. “Special radios were developed, using the fingerprint technology similar to lock on my backpack. Mine was destroyed when Durza tried to operate it himself.” She cracked a slight grin, still focused on her task. “Well, actually, it blew up in his face. Brain matter, just everywhere. Huh-hoo, he was pissed when he got back.”

“The Varden rigs them to explode if the person’s fingerprint doesn’t match?!” Eragon recoiled slightly, agast. “What if someone’s kid found it and thought it was a toy?”

Off to the side, Brom snorted, muttering, “I bet it wasn’t the Varden who–”

“No, I rigged it up myself, and only for those who bore ill-will to the Varden and free races in case it fell into the wrong hands.”

“Knew it.” Brom scoffed. Arya looked over her shoulder to the old Rider and rolled her eyes. “You just like seeing things explode.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in years than when that thing went off. I think I even cracked a rib.”

Brom shook his head, but let the matter go.

It wasn’t long before the fire was high and the day’s meal heated. They sat around the burning logs, Saphira even laying her head down to occupy a third of the circle, and planned the next few legs of travel. When the food was eaten, the talk dwindled away as they all sat staring into the flames, tired but not willing to sleep just yet.

Then Saphira flicked out her tongue, as if tasting the air, and projected her thoughts to the group.

‘Whoever has the infected wound should care for it soon.’ Everyone looked up, mildly startled out of their inner musings. 'It will turn into a deep-rot in another day or so. Just thought they should know.’

“You can smell things like that?” Eragon asked, surprised. “Are you like one of those dogs that can smell cancer?”

The dragon cut her eyes at him and her lip lifted slightly. 'I am nothing like a dog.’

The boy smiled apologetically, realizing his mistake. “I know. Sorry. But it’s pretty cool being able to smell things like that.”

Murtagh raised an eyebrow. “Aye, it’s cool. But shouldn’t we be more focused on who the hell was hiding a possibly necrotic wound? Things like that need to be addressed. It would only slow us down more.”

Then a ringing SMACK! broke through the air as Brom suddenly slapped Arya upside the head. Hard.

“What the hell were you thinking, girl?” He growled, expression dark.

“Ow! Hey, why the fuck do you think it’s me?!” The elf retorted sharply, rubbing the back of her head and glaring back at him.

Everyone, even Saphira, gave the woman a deadpan look that clearly asked 'really?’

She put her hands up. “Alright, alright, so yeah, maybe a cut or two got infected, but I’m already fixing them, okay?” Arya snarled, pointing at the handle of a knife sticking out of the dying fire’s thick pile of coals.

Silence fell.

“Are you sure that is the best idea?” Brom asked slowly. He seemed to have calmed down a bit now that Arya had revealed having an actual plan and wasn’t just ignoring her injuries. His change in tone made Eragon wonder if the latter was a common occurrence. “There’s always magic. You don’t have to–”

“And who, exactly, would cast it, hm? Eragon? Can you instruct him in the intricacies of infection cleansing within the next few minutes? I’ve still got enough drug in me to complicate healing spells, so that’s out of the question. And I’ll not have you working spells on me, not when the Varden will need you at your best.” Arya shook her head. “No, it will have to be burned.”

Murtagh stood at the mention of burning. “Oh, bloody hell. Not right after we ate!” He retreated to where he had tossed his saddlebags and began unrolling his sleeping bag. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again– you’re bloody insane, Arya. I don’t want to see this. I’m going to sleep.”

“Sweet dreams, Murtagh.” The elf called after him in a singsong voice. “Don’t let the sizzling wake you up!” The young man let out a noise of disgust and threw himself on the blankets. “Wuss.”

'She can’t be serious about this!’ Eragon exclaimed to Saphira, worried about the elf who was unlacing her boots as calmly as a praying monk. 'She’s already hurt enough! We should offer to heal it. I know she shot Brom down, but–’

Saphira cut him off. 'Little one, do you honestly think that we know enough about healing to cleanse even a scratch of infection without making it worse? Brom has explained before that waíse heill has its limitations, one of the most dangerous being that if it closes an infected injury the infection will survive beneath the skin.’ Eragon grimaced, cursing himself for nearly forgetting one of the nuances of the spell. 'Once the infected flesh is burned away, thenwe can attempt to heal it for Arya.’

Her logic was sound. 'I still don’t like it. But you’re right.’

The dragon sniffed, a short puff of smoke dissipating into the air above her nostrils. 'Of course I am.’

Eragon grinned, then turned his attention back to where Brom and Arya still sat by the fire as the older Rider grunted, “That looks like it hurt. You’re lucky it didn’t break.” The boy approached them as Arya finished rolling her pant leg up to her knee.

“Perks of elvish bones, I guess.” Arya muttered, gently testing the skin around the injury. On the outside of her left calf was a nasty, scraping gash, most likely left by the sharp edge of a hobnailed boot if the bruising pattern was anything to go by. The skin around the ragged edges was pink and red, and cracks ran through the roughly palm sized scab covering the cut and revealing damp, yellowish flesh beneath. Pinkish, yellow tinged fluid leaked from the cracks. “Damn. At least it isn’t necrotic. You were right, Saphira. This one is about to turn.” The elf flashed a thankful smile to the dragon. “Hell, you might have just saved my leg.”

'You’re quite welcome.’

Eragon winced when he saw the wound. “After you, uh…burn it, I can close it for you. A burn isn’t too hard to heal, and it would keep it from getting infected again and slowing you down.”

For a for a split second the memory of healing the elf’s back jumped to the forefront of his mind. Not images of the horrifying wounds, but of warm skin, lean muscle and an unmistakably feminine body. Eragon felt the tips of his tapering ears turn bright red, and he quickly stuck his hands in his pockets, pinching himself hard through the fabric. It was definitely not the time for those kinds of thoughts.

He was thankful, then, that Arya looked over to Brom after giving him only a quick glance. “What do you think, old man? I can keep up well enough. Wouldn’t mind a little less risk of that changing though.”

Brom crossed his arms. “It’s up to the boy and Saphira. Do you two think you can handle it?”

Eragon nodded firmly. “I’m sure I can. Definitely if Saphira helps. I really don’t mind it, and it’s the least I can do after being unable to heal the rest of your wounds properly.”

“Hey, you and Saphira don’t owe me anything. You saved my life in probably three different ways so far, so I’m the one that owes you all.” Arya pulled a field medkit from her bag and tore off two short wads of gauze from a roll. “If you both want to heal it and it won’t put either of you in danger, I won’t complain. It won’t be the last time I say it, but thank you. Really.”

Eragon smiled, a strange warmth bubbling in his heart at the elf’s expression of gratitude. In the back of his mind he sensed Saphira examining his emotions, and was a little confused when the dragon mentally chuckled at them. “You’re welcome. I like to help where I can.”

“Mm. Let’s get this over with then.” Without further ado Arya pulled the knife from the coals.

It was an old blade of human make, and by the seal stamped on the handle Eragon recognized it as one of the combat knives he had grabbed from a soldier during their mad escape from Gil'ead. In the light of the midmorning sun it was difficult to judge if the metal was glowing fiercely, but the blade had acquired a unmistakeable, faint orange color at the sides and an inch down the tip. At the thicker sections it seemed to be lit on the inside by a deep, dark cherry red glow.

Arya took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and went to stick the wad of gauze in her mouth as she lowered the hot blade towards her leg. Brom’s hand suddenly settled on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, startled out of her grim task.

“Do you want me to do it?” The old Rider’s voice was surprisingly gentle, soft even. In the months he had traveled with him, Eragon had heard him speak in such a tone only a handful of times, mostly murmured under his breath to himself or to Jeod when talking about the Varden and times past. Despite their rough banter, Eragon realized the Brom and Arya were undoubtedly good friends, to the point that he wondered if the two had fought together on the battlefield.

Arya looked between Brom and the knife for a moment, then sighed, “You might have to if I flinch and can’t keep up the pressure. I want to try it myself first, but thanks for having my back.” Brom nodded and pulled his hand back as the elf bit down on the gauze.

Then, without any other warning, she tore her nails across the gash in her leg, ripping away the disintegrating scab, and shoved the flat of the glowing knife into the now open wound.

Eragon jerked back, flinching as his self preservation instinct screamed at the indecency of blatant self-destruction. It wasn’t the visual that disturbed him, but the sound of the metal burning away first the blood and fluids, and then the infected flesh beneath. It hissed and sizzled, and occasionally sounded like the powerful magnet toys he used to buy at the fair and toss in the air hear their buzzing song.

For a moment Arya’s muscles snapped rigid, then she seemed to recover and her face fell into a blank, emotionless mask. After letting the blade rest in its original spot for several long seconds she lifted it and exposed the two remaining sections of the gash to the heat, quickly wiping the knife on the other piece of gauze between each burning. Eragon’s stomach did a sickening maneuver similar to a double full flip he had witnessed Katrina do at one of her gymnastics presentations with Roran when he realized that she was wiping seared flesh off the blade.

Then it was over. The entire procedure couldn’t have taken more than a minute, but the scent of burned meat hung in the air. Where infection had once turned tissue yellow and white, there was now only bright red muscle shot through with soot and darkened epidermis.

“That…wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Arya hissed and spat the gauze out. Her teeth were clenched and voice tight, but her movements were controlled, smooth, and betrayed no other indications that she was in pain. “I’m not looking forward to it if I need to do it again, though.”

Brom rubbed his face, a little paler than usual. “There’s something just…so much more disturbing about seeing you do it to yourself.”

“Dear Gods above, I HEARD IT ALL THE WAY OVER HERE!” Came a distraught groan from Murtagh’s sleeping bag. Arya snatched a stick from the pile next to the fire, abandoning the still-hot knife, and whipped it at the tucked form huddled in the bag. It pegged the young man exactly where his head should have been, and muffled swearing drifted through the camp before it dwindled off as he rolled over and tried his best to sleep.

Eragon scooted closer, forcing himself to swallow back his queasiness. “Here, can we….” Arya leaned her head back and nodded, eyes shut tight as heat lingered in the wound.

Reaching out a thicker tendril of his consciousness to Saphira, the young Rider met the mind of his dragon halfway. Their thoughts, consciousnesses, and minds twisted around each other, binding together more strongly than they usually did. Saphira’s energy flowed into Eragon, and he in turn shared some of his until the stream equaled out and they were one.

Together they moved Eragon’s hand out, the Gedwëy Ignasia shining bright, and uttered the words needed to heal the now cleansed burn. The icy magic rushed through their joined minds, knitting the skin back together with the ease of water flowing from one side of a creak to the next.

As they completed their task, Saphira pulled back from the increased contact, again leaving their minds connected by the usual tendrils of thought. Once separated, Saphira mentioned to Eragon, 'Your magic tickles.’ and rubbed her snout on the side of her foreleg.

'Does it? It always feels cold to me.’ Eragon sat back on his heels, checking the wound to make sure he had not left any scarring this time. Like the other times he and Saphira had worked magic while bound together, he only felt a slight drain on their combined strength. 'I know when something is healed on me it itches like crazy though. Is that what you’re feeling?’

'Being a conduit is different from both casting and being casted on. Acting as the in-between must be giving me the sensation of both the cold and the itching. It makes my scales tickle.’ As if to demonstrate her point, the scales at Saphira’s neck lifted slightly with a sound similar to dry leaves being whisked away by a strong wind. The scales rose and lowered in a ripple along her entire body, giving the distinct impression that she had shivered. 'So, how did we do?’

“Very well for such a simply worded spell.” Eragon realized that Saphira had projected her last thought to Arya and Brom as well when the elf answered. She tested the new skin, not at all bothered that they had not healed the bruising, and seemed happy with the results of their casting. “You’re quite adept at magic for knowing so few words in the Ancient Language, Eragon. From what I’ve seen, you have an uncanny ability to influence your spells more with your intentions than the words you use.”

Brom grunted, nodding in Eragon’s direction. The older man’s chest seemed to swell with pride at the praise directed at his pupil. “Aye, he’s got a gift. And Saphira carries it as well. I’ve never heard of a dragon acting as such a strong conduit before. You both are learning well.”

Touched, Eragon dipped his head as both he and Saphira answered the compliments. Any praise coming from Brom was few and far between, and now he was practically bragging to Arya about their progress.

A comfortable silence fell once again. Brom laid out his sleeping bag, surrendering his usual first watch to Arya at her insistence that 'old men need their rest,’ and Saphira lifted her head from where it rested to tuck it under the tip of her tail, settling in to sleep. Arya tugged her boots back on and reloaded her pistol. Eragon stayed by the fire with her for a few more minutes, content to be close to the elf for a little longer before he too retired for sleep.

“Oh! Right.” Arya suddenly looked over at him, a gleam in her dark eyes. He met her gaze, puzzled, then let out a yelp as her fist shot out and punched him in the arm twice. He knew it was probably a love tap for someone of elvish strength, but it still stung.

“Hey!” Eragon leaned away from her, rubbing his sore arm. It would definitely be bruised by the time he woke that night. “What was that for?”

The elf grinned, rising to her feet to stretch and take her place for the first watch. She slung her sword and its harness over one shoulder, and Eragon felt a hot blush blossom on his cheeks when she casually roughed up his hair as she stepped by him. “Two for flinching.”

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cats-obsessions · 4 years

Text

The Survey Never Lies

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion Modern au, something fluffy

Read on ao3

Summary:

Jaskier convinces Geralt to try Speed dating. The results are not what either of them expected.

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

Geralt isn’t exactly sure what possessed him to agree to this. It’d been a rough past few months, with contracts being few and far between, and when they came, they were truly the worst. To say that this dry spell had extended to other areas in his life was an understatement; even Yennefer was able to move on by now after their latest, seemingly permanent, breakup. ‘Move on’ might be an understatement- enough time had passed for Yennefer to go into full-blown party mode, get over it, begin a new and honestly adorable relationship with their mutual friend Triss, and make up with him to the point of being hostile friends again.

That is to say, it has been a long time.

With next to no money and even less company, even Geralt could admit he has been feeling down. And yet, of course, Jaskier was always there right beside him through it all. It was always that way. Which is precisely why he got himself into this mess.

Initially, when the troubadour had suggested they try speed dating, Geralt was quick to strike the idea down. He’d already gone through the pains of using that awful dating app at Jaskier’s insistence, and he wasn’t about to have a rerun of that disaster. But then, Jaskier started to frame it as if he was the one that needed a date, and Geralt accompanying him would just be a favor- just to keep him company if it was boring, and to keep him safe if things went wrong. Geralt knows that was just a ploy to make him go, but between that and big blue puppy dog eyes, he found himself reluctantly agreeing.

Jaskier did not, however, tell him how horrible it would be. ‘it won’t take long’. Bullshit. Over an hour of small talk with strangers, and Geralt feels like he wants to crawl out of his skin. The establishment isn’t the finest, either. Everything is cheap- 90s music playing on shitty speakers grate on his eardrums, dimmed florescent lighting and fake candles on every table make it feel morel like a pizza parlor than a romantic dinner. And then there’s the people.

They’ve been paired into groups based on some benign personality survey they were forced to take when they got there, then paired off for short conversations. Five-minute sessions are timed on a buzzer, each blessed ring marking the end of the conversation, and bringing with it another stranger. They’re awkward at best and insufferable at worst.

It’s Geralt’s personal nightmare incarnate.

The best conversation he’s had all night was about one woman’s five cats. The worst was probably when a man tried to lean across the table and grab at his medallion without asking and Geralt found himself releasing an inhuman snarl before he could stop himself. The poor guy ended up hiding in the bathroom for the remaining duration of their five minutes, but that’s what he gets for trying to touch people, especially a witcher, without asking.

Even the cheap beer doesn’t make it better. When the timer dings, and all the participants in the room begin to shuffle to new tables, Geralt takes a moment to look down at his glass, taking a long, long sip of tasteless beer. By the time he has glanced up again, Jaskier is seating himself across the table, wine glass in hand. The bard flashes him a toothy grin, leaning in closer, propping his elbows on the scratchy, off-white tablecloth. As per usual, his button down shirt is left undone far too low, exposing a far too distracting patch of chest hair that Geralt most certainly doesn’t stare at, nor do his eyes slowly trace up exposed skin of his collar bones and neck to the slight blush tinging his cheeks.

“So, how’s it going, my friend? Found the new Mrs. Rivia, or Mr., though, I suppose it’s not guaranteed he’d take your last name. Not that it’s guaranteed with a woman, either. You could take her name. Though, I do like yours- better than my own, actually.”

Geralt glances away, trying his best to hide his smirk at Jaskier’s prattling, “Hm.”

“Oh, come on now, use your words. We’ve talked about this. You’re not going to find someone when I’m the only person that understands your unintelligible grunting.” Jaskier chides, though it is true. Somehow, over the years since they met in that shitty bar in Pasoda, Jaskier has come to understand the witcher well- better than most. Where other humans shy away from him, Jaskier became stuck to him, following him on hunts and writing songs about their adventures- reluctant at first, he’s now thankful for the bard.

Geralt sighs “This is hopeless, Jaskier.”

“No, it’s not!”

“It is. They’re all- ugh, I don’t know.” Geralt rubs his hand over his face, “They’re all either freaked out by me or oblivious to what I am, and they just talk about their normal lives and normal jobs and- and how Geofry from accounting fucked things up again, while I’m sitting here thinking last week I was swallowed by a fuckin’ kikimora. I don’t fit in here.”

“That was horridly disgusting, but lots of people are into adventurous men. What about Eveline? She seemed amenable.” Jaskier gestures to the woman a few tables down with long red hair. Yes, she had found Geralt attractive, in dim lighting which hides his scars and expands his pupils into circles rather than slits, but that doesn’t translate to companionship, or even a night of fun. Yet, Jaskier is always the optimist, “There’s still hope yet!”

Geralt shakes his head “Easy for you to say. You don’t need to go speed dating to find someone. Everyone likes you.”

“As flattering as that is, I think, there’s nothing wrong with speed dating. Anyone who isn't interested in you is a fool. Besides, it's not always that easy for me! I’m looking for something a bit more committed this time. Not that I didn’t have great affections for my previous romances. Just…” Jaskier trails off, tongue sticking out slightly as he looks for the right terms.

“Momentarily and in measured amounts?”

“Mm,” Jaskier hums in agreement.

“Infatuation has to wear off some time.”

“So I’ve been told. Seems some hang around longer than others though,” He mutters. He casts his eyes down as if in thought, his ever-moving hands finding the rim of his wine glass, a long finger tracing it in a way that emits a high-pitched noise the musician likely isn’t even aware of. Geralt grunts, frowning slightly as he grabs Jaskier’s hand to remove it from the glass. The bard lets himself be moved easily, fingers warm and inviting under the witcher’s touch.

“Noise,” he grumbles.

Jaskier smiles apologetically, “Ah, witcher hearing. Sorry, my dear.”

His fingers tap on the tabletop, looking for something to fidget with in the wine glass’ absence. He finds the long-abandoned conversation que cards so kindly provided by the event’s organizers, as if they knew rightfully well how miserably uncomfortable this predicament would be.

“Have you looked at these at all tonight?” he asks, picking them up to glance through them.

“Tried not to. They’re deplorable.” Yet, the well-worn corners of the cards attest to how many attendees truly rely on them.

Jaskier smiles coyly “You’ve been showing people pictures of your lovely lady Roach again haven’t you?”

“Maybe” he blushes, both of them chuckling. “People like horses”

“Mm, that would only be a good pick-up tactic if she didn’t bite strangers.”

“She’s shy.” He defends, though he knows she’s not. She’s just picky; she’s never tried to bite Geralt, or Eskel or Vesemir for that matter. These days, she likes Jaskier enough to let him ride her when they visit her stables at Vesemir’s farm.

Jaskier glances to the clock, red numbers counting down the seconds until he will be subjected to yet another stranger. “We still have a bit of time, want to try these dumb questions?”

“Is silence not an option?” Geralt groans, though not without the hint of a smile on his lips.

Jaskier swats at him lightly, ignoring the comment. He flips through the cards, reading a few under his breath “What color is your personality? That’s dumb- yours is blue, obviously, and mine is yellow. Hmm, Ah, here’s one.” Geralt tilts his head, waiting “Describe your best friend.”

He can’t help but snort at that “Annoying.”

“First of all, rude. Second of all, appropriate answers could have included handsome, funny, talented, brilliant, loyal” Jaskier counts his claimed attributes on his fingers, likely to go on forever lest Geralt interrupt.

“Reckless, frivolous-” He jumps in, a teasing, toothy grin on his face.

“Fun. Fun is the term you’re looking for. It doesn’t matter though. I know you adore me.”

There’s too much truth in the words; though he wouldn’t hesitate to call Jaskier his friend -his best friend- adoration is a strong word, a word unknown to many witchers. Yet, he can’t deny the way Jaskier makes his heart fill with warmth, makes him feel alive and safe like he never has before. But that is something he’d much rather keep to himself. Geralt looks away, surely blushing as he lets a curtain of white hair falls in front of his face, hopefully hiding the pink tinge.

Jaskier watches him quietly, that soft warm expression in his eyes that somehow seems to be reserved for the witcher. A moment of silence passes before he snaps out of it, only a few seconds left on the clock “Wanna get out of here?”

At that, Geralt perks up, “I could use a real drink, but what about your search?”

“I don’t think I’ll find the one in this crowd,” he says, looking out on the group, a disappointed little pout pulling at his lips for just a moment before he turns back to Geralt, ever bright smile returning to his face.

Geralt nods, standing up and slipping on his jacket in preparation to leave. He catches Jaskier’s eyes roaming over him for a moment before the bard diverts his gaze, catching his lip between his teeth. Geralt does his best to focus on anything else. Whatever warmth or fluttering feelings it may give him, he knows he’s just imagining his friend’s interest.

They almost make it out with everyone around them shuffling to new tables. But, of course, they’re stopped by the group coordinator. They’d met him when they came in- a young man far too invested in this program, reciting his company provided lines with an unnatural enthusiasm.

“Looks like you two are having a good time. I’m glad to see some real sparks fly tonight! Sneaking off already?” the man grins, a little too much, as he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh, we were just-” Jaskier begins, laughing slightly under his breath.

“No, don’t tell me- for liability reasons and such. But good news!” he exclaims, “According to our survey, you two are our most compatible couple of the night, and the survey never lies!”

“Of course, we-” He’s cut off again, and next to him, Jaskier cringes.

“Which means, if you’re interested and it certainly seems like you are, you have won our luxury romance date package!”

“I think there’s been a mis- Sorry, what?” Geralt stops as the boy pushes a bright pink, sparkling gift card into his hand.

“$200.00 to the White Orchard, free drinks included and guaranteed reservations within the month. All you have to do is go together, have fun, and discover the romance of your lives!” The boy’s smile doesn’t falter as he continues to speak. “I’m legally obligated to tell you we have not run background checks on anyone.”

“But we’re-” Jaskier tries to speak, but not before Geralt can stop him.

“Excited!” Geralt grins, grabbing Jaskier’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Thank you!”

$200 is $200. He’s not about to let the first chance he’s had at a fine dinner in who knows how long go by because of Jaskier’s big mouth. So, with that, he leads the bard outside, their hands still firmly grasped together, and pointedly doesn’t think about why his thumb is rubbing circles into the back of his best friend’s hand. Nor does he consider how well their fingers fit together. He certainly doesn’t notice the disappointed pang in his chest when their hands separate as they step out into the cold night air outside.

One glance between them and their prize, and neither of them can stifle their laughter. “I can’t believe you almost said no to the nicest restaurant in town.” Geralt chides, elbowing Jaskier lightly as they begin to walk home.

“I can’t believe it either. It’s like the offer didn’t register in my brain yet.” Jaskier chuckles.

Geralt rolls his eyes at him “Seems to happen a lot.”

Jaskier deliberately ignores him, instead leaning over his shoulder to look at the gift card, still cradled in Geralt’s hand “It is ‘luxury romance’” Jaskier snickers, “We may have to keep up this act a bit longer.

“Apparently it’s not too difficult.” Geralt sneers “Some survey. Of course, we match; we spend all our time together.”

Jaskier’s chuckles quiet down, a silence hanging between them as he seems to think it over, “I have known you longer and more deeply than any other in my life. There’s no one I’m more comfortable with.”

“And I you.” He doesn’t often admit such things, but somehow in the silence of the night, with the way Jaskier had stated it so gently, he can’t help but know he truly means it when he agrees. After the silence becomes too heavy, Geralt clears his throat “Anyways, it’ll be fun.

“Yea, fun.”

Somehow, Jaskier’s voice comes out flat, preoccupied. When Geralt glances over at him, his lip is caught between his teeth again, his face scrunched in deep contemplation. It’s not a long walk back to their apartments, their complexes within walking distance of each other. Geralt doesn’t push, silence between them doesn't normally bother him after a night of so much noise. But try as he might, he can't help but wonder if Jaskier is bothered by the implication they were- could be a couple. Instead, he tries to focus on the sounds of the city, cool air blowing around them, leaves crinkling as they skip across the cement sidewalk.

When they approach Jaskier’s apartment complex, they stop in front of the old brick stairs leading inside, and Geralt waits for either an invitation inside or a declaration that Jaskier has changed his mind about drinks. He looks… uneasy. His hands are shoved into his pockets, and he shifts back and forth on his feet.

“Um, Geralt?” Jaskier says, voice uncertain for once.

“Hm?”

“I, um,” Geralt barely has time to see Jaskier stop biting his lip before suddenly his lips are on Geralt’s, his hands in his hair, caressing, not forceful. The witcher could pull away without much of a fuss, but he finds himself pulling Jaskier in by his waist, holding him tightly as if he’s afraid he’ll lose him if he lets go.

The kiss is equal parts gentle and desperate. He feels like he’s on fire; he feels like there’s electricity running through him, between them, and- and butterflies in his stomach, for maybe the first time in his life. It’s all so new and different, but he finds he doesn’t mind- not one bit.

When Jaskier pulls away, he finds his head feeling light “Jask,” he breathes lightly, their noses bumping each other lightly.

“Sorry, I-” Jaskier moves to step back, a spark of caution and panic glimmering in his eyes, as if he hadn’t felt Geralt’s desire in their embrace. “I thought-” he begins, but Geralt pulls him back in.

“I didn’t say stop.” He smiles softly, bringing up one hand to cup Jaskier’s cheek. It relaxes the bard, all the tension melting away to be replaced by a mischievous smile as the witcher pulls him into another kiss.

****

Rays of morning sun beam through the windows of Jaskier’s apartment, illuminating every inch of it. Below, the city is bustling with noise, but here, things are peaceful. Geralt woke up first, no surprise there. He would have been more than content to stay in bed all day, wrapped tightly in his lover’s embrace- the thought of that word describing Jaskier brings a smile to his face. But cursed with his witcher metabolism, he was dragged out of bed by a growling stomach.

Rummaging through Jaskier’s kitchen for breakfast, he barely notices the other man enter the room. When he turns around, Geralt is met with striking blue eyes watching him intently as Jaskier leans against the counter, dressed in his boxers and a hoodie he’d stollen from Geralt long, long ago. Geralt chooses not to dwell too much on the thought that he’s been sleeping in it all this time- for now, anyways.

“What are you so smug about?” Geralt grins, abandoning his task to invade Jaskier’s space.

The musician smiles, unabashedly staring as he runs his hands over Geralt’s exposed chest, settling above the hem of the sweat pants he snatched from Jaskier’s closet this morning, “Who wouldn’t be smug after getting a boyfriend as beautiful as you?” Even though they kissed all through the night, Jaskier’s lips on his send a shiver down his spine.

“You know what they say.” Geralt murmurs, kissing his way down to Jaskier’s neck.

As he presses dark marks into the pale skin of his throat, Jaskier only breathlessly hums in response “Hm?”

“The survey never lies.” He quotes mockingly.

Jaskier snorts, shoving at Geralt’s shoulder playfully, but the witcher doesn’t budge, only nuzzling in closer against his neck. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“Very.”

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geraskier fic #fanfiction #my stuff #modern au #fluff #drabble #idk how to tag things #Geralt and Jaskier go speed dating and omg who wouldve guessed their best match was each other #oh gosh please let the read more button work

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telennarre · 3 years

Text

World Eater

Chapter 8: Overtures Across Time and Space

Rating: M

Chapter Summary: Catra steers a potential new ally toward a mutually beneficial arrangement. Glimmer nearly gets herself killed antagonizing the Emperor. Adora upends everyone’s progress.

—

Catra gasped, pulling herself out of the memories. She had let guilt get the better of her one day, and Hordak surprised her by answering her question for once: Queen Angella wasn’t technically dead, just…lost beyond where anyone could reach. She was gone for good.

But that was then, and this was now. The Horde Empire—the true Galactic Horde Empire—could obviously do a lot more than Hordak could in his dinky lab she had trashed to bits when they fought.

“You’ve thought of something,” Taline said, still looking her in the eyes. “We have some time. Crazy as your friends are, if they know magic well enough to craft that rune, then they’ll spend several hours testing it before they do anything. Talk to me.”

Catra bit her lip. Was this crazy to suggest? Would it really work? “If, hypothetically, someone got stuck in one of those portals, like they tried cast that teleportation spell and couldn’t come out the other side…would you be able reach in and grab them?”

Taline cocked an eyebrow and pulled the stool around to sit on it again, clearly intrigued by her line of reasoning. “It’s not easy.”

“But not impossible, right?” Catra sighed and decided there was no going back. “They won’t just listen to Glimmer, since they’ll think she’s just being forced into saying whatever. But if you were to start talking about what you could do for someone they lost? Someone they’d do anything to get back? Well, that’d be a different story, wouldn’t it?”

***

“And if my mom were here, she’d kick your ass too,” Glimmer said, enjoying the thoroughly annoyed expression on Horde Prime’s face as he stared at the intel on the screens around his throne instead of her. “But that’s okay, because She Ra is more than enough to take you, all by herself even.”

Glimmer didn’t know why she was doing this. Intentionally trying to get a rise out of the Emperor was probably the dumbest thing she could have chosen to do. She should have listened to Taline and gone to the communications bridge; she should have just gotten in the elevator like the Sentinels had urged her to, but something about being left to her own devices with an armed guard demolished her better judgement. She was just surprised Narre and Miri hadn’t picked her up and carted her away by force. Instead, they had followed her back to the throne.

Prime finally turned away from the screens and looked at her. “Was all that groveling and cowering you did moments earlier just a ruse? You would have made a good actress, were you born into my empire rather than a queen on a backwater planet.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened with each word he spoke, and Glimmer felt a tinge of adrenaline shoot through on noticing. She was getting to him.

—

Read the rest on AO3 || Chapter 1

#she ra #spop #she ra fanfic #spop fanfic #catradora #catradora fanfic #catra #adora #glimmer #hurt/comfort #sci fi #space opera #writing #creative writing #world eater #fanfiction

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fanyiyimdzs · 4 years

Text

Mo Dao Zu Shi: Chapter 1

Masterpost

Previous chapter

Wei Wuxian had barely opened his eyes before a foot flew at him and slammed into his ribcage.

A voice thundered in his ear. “You think you can play dead?!”

Whoever it was kicked him and kicked him again until he was nearly bleeding. Flat on his back, his head lolling on the ground, a hazy thought came to him: they’ve got some nerve to kick me, an Old Master.

Wei Wuxian hadn’t heard the voice of a single living soul for who knows how many years, much less a voice so loud and angry it sounded like the wail of a dying hen. Though the room swam and stars danced in front of his eyes, he could vaguely make out the voice’s owner: a young man, who went back to assaulting Wei Wuxian’s ringing ears with his grating cries.

“Why don’t you think about whose house you’re living in? Whose rice you’re eating? Whose money you’re shitting away? Who cares if I take some of your things? They’re all mine anyway!”

Around Wei Wuxian echoed the crashes and bangs of people ransacking every corner and hidey-hole of...wherever he was. Some moments later, his sight slowly began to clear—there was a shadowy grey roof floating above him, and angry brows atop a face tinged with green, from which furious spittle flew.

“You wanna report me? You think I’m scared? You think there’s a single person in this household who’ll have your back?”

Two burly men, probably servants, stepped around Wei Wuxian. “Master, we’ve smashed everything!”

“Already?” The young man squawked.

“This lousy room barely had anything in it in the first place,” one of them said.

The squawking youth was mostly satisfied with this, so he turned and jabbed his finger so aggressively at Wei Wuxian it nearly went up his nose. “Report me if you have the spine! Who are you playing dead for? As if anyone gives fuck about your scrap metal and bits of paper. I’ll smash it all—let’s see what you can drag out to report me with then! You think you’re hot shit because you spent a few years in a cultivation clan? You’re more like a mangy cur who’s been chased away with its tail between its legs!”

Fatigue cast a pall over Wei Wuxian’s thoughts.

He had been dead for so many years. He truly hadn’t been faking it.

Who was this?

Where was he?

Since when had he ever done any body-snatching?!

That dying hen had kicked him, wrecked the room, and showered him with his fury, and now the youth took his servants and swaggered outside. He shouted an order as he slammed the door. “Keep your eyes pinned on him! Don’t let him get out and humiliate us!”

The pair accepted the command in unison. Wei Wuxian waited for all the noise to die down and then tried to get up. But his body refused to obey him, forcing him back down. His only option was to roll onto his stomach and look around the animal den that this Mo person lived in, all while his head was still spinning and his vision was still a blurry mess.

On one side of him, a bronze mirror had been tossed to the ground. Wei Wuxian reached his hand out and dragged it over. A strange and snow white face appeared in the mirror, cheeks unevenly smeared with red. If he only stuck out a long crimson tongue, he’d look like a living hanged ghost.*

Not quite able to accept his appearance, he flung the mirror away and rubbed his face, accidentally crusting his hands with white powder.

Fortunately, it seemed the body he now occupied wasn’t born with this grotesque appearance, and he could blame the products its previous owner piled atop his skin instead. Not only had this fully-grown man painted his whole face with rouge, he had done it in this absurdly hideous manner!

After recovering from the shock, Wei Wuxian found he had recovered a little strength and could finally sit up. Only then did he notice the crimson circle drawn beneath him. It was a magic circle, hand drawn, seemingly with blood, still damp and giving off a coppery stench. In the middle, a wild, shaking finger had scrawled a spell. Though Wei Wuxian had unknowingly smudged the runes, the ghastly energy surrounding it was unmistakeable.

For better or worse, people had treated him as the world’s supreme evil for many years now, giving him titles like “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.” Of course he knew these types of nasty things like the back of his hand.

He hadn’t stolen someone else’s body—someone had sacrificed theirs to him!

In essence, the bodily sacrifice spell was a kind of curse. The caster slashed their own skin with a deadly weapon, used their own blood to sketch the circle and paint the runes, and sat in the center, offering their body to an evil spirit. They paid the earth the price of their soul to summon a being of irredeemable wickedness, and then begged this spirit to take over their flesh and make their dreams reality—the exact opposite of body snatching. Both were notorious and forbidden, but the former had not been met with the same warm reception as the latter. After all, rarely did anyone long for anything so much that they were willing to give up everything for it. Thus, people had done it were few and far between; in the past century, even the stories had died out. There had been only three or four confirmed cases in the past hundred thousand years according to the ancient records.

Each one of these three or four people’s wishes had been the same: revenge. The vicious ghosts they had summoned realized those dreams with cruel and bloody perfection.

Wei Wuxian’s heart was uneasy.

How was he a “being of irredeemable wickedness?”

Sure, his reputation wasn’t great, and the circumstances of his death were tragic and miserable. But first of all, he hadn’t turned into an evil spirit, and second, he hadn’t sought revenge! You could search all of earth and heaven without finding a single more peaceful, more good-natured ghost. Promise!

But the trouble was, bodily sacrifice followed the wishes of the caster. It didn’t matter how uneasy Wei Wuxian was...he had already taken over the pro-offered body, and therefore tacitly consented to the contract. He had to fulfill the caster’s wishes, or else the curse would backfire and annihilate his soul, damning him to eternal oblivion.

Wei Wuxian undid the sash of his robes and scrutinized his arm. Indeed, both of his wrists were streaked with angry, bloody gashes, scowling and glowering at him like ragged mouths. Though they had already scabbed over, he had no doubts that these weren’t ordinary cuts. They would never heal if he didn’t fulfill the wishes of his body’s original owner. Moreover, the longer he waited, the worse they would become, and if he pushed the task past due, both his body and his soul would be shredded alive.

After repeatedly confirming that he had made no mistake, Wei Wuxian mentally cursed the situation’s absurdity, and, clinging to the wall, finally forced himself onto his feet.

Though the room he found himself in was indeed large, it was sparse and squalid. The cotton blanket covering the bed hadn’t been washed or changed in who knew how many weeks and stunk of mildew. Someone had kicked over the bamboo trash bin lying in the corner, spilling the waste and scrap paper inside all over the dusty floor. Wei Wuxian noticed that some of the paper seemed to be covered in ink marks, so he picked one up, examined it, and found that, indeed, words were crammed into every corner of the page. He busied himself with collecting all the paper he could find.

On these sheets, his body’s first owner must have vented his misery and dejection. Some of what he had written could only be described as the incoherent cries of a man whose torment so twisted his words that they seeped out of the paper and assaulted the senses. As Wei Wuxian read patiently page by page, he began to feel more and more unsettled.

Though his attempts at organizing what he had read felt akin to groping through darkness, he was able to clear up a few basic facts. First, his body’s original owner was named Mo Xuanyu, and this are was called Mo Manor.

Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather had been the local area’s big landlord, but he had had few kinsmen and no sons. Though he worked diligently for many years to produce male progeny, his efforts had resulted only in two daughters. The second daughter’s name need not be mentioned, as it was the first who became the house’s mistress, her husband moving in with the Mo family after they were married. Though second daughter was remarkably beautiful, her birth mother was a household servant, and thus the family put little thought into marrying her off—anyone would have been fine. Who knew that when she was sixteen, she would randomly meet a passing leader of some great house and catch his eye? The two turned Mo Manor into their private love nest. A year later, the second Mo daughter gave birth to Mo Xuanyu.

Originally, the Mo household had held her and the entire affair in general in great contempt. But in the eyes of ordinary people, the fact that such a grand cultivator had found his way to the Mo family’s doorstep and into their home meant that the Mo’s must have been heaven-blessed. Nobly and somewhat unusually, that chief even supported and assisted the Mo family, even though they were not his own. The winds of opinion in the household thus took a sharp turn. Not only had the family prospered through the connection, those around them also envied them to the highest degree.

But not long after, that cultivator’s unbounded desire longed for fresher meat. Gradually, his visits dwindled. He had eaten at the Mo Manor for less than two years before growing bored. Once Mo Xuanyu was four, the Mo family saw him no more.

Within the next few years, the winds of opinion in Mo Manor changed once again. The contempt and ridicule returned, this time accompanied by sneering pity. However, the second Mo daughter was by no means resigned to her fate—her belief that her great lord would not forget his own child was unshakeable. Sure enough, when Mo Xuanyu turned fourteen, that house leader ordered a band of men to solemnly retrieve him.

The second Mo daughter could once again hold her head high. Though she could not accompany her son, she could sweep away her previous misery and replace it with pride and elation. Haughtily, she announced to everyone that her son would rise like a bird and become a renown cultivator, bringing honor to all his forebearers. Consequently, opinion at Mo Manor changed for a third time.

However, before Mo Xuanyu’s cultivation training had borne results, and before he had inherited his father’s family treasures, he was chased out.

His expulsion, moreover, was not some tidy, quiet affair, but an unseemly, unsightly ordeal. Mo Xuanyu was not only gay, but also had the audacity to harass his fellow disciples—thus, the ugly matter had been publicly exposed. On top of all that, he was at best an average talent, with no notable achievements. He had no excuse to remain.

Battered by the blizzard only to be bitten by frost, Mo Xuanyu did not suffer only this disaster. After returning home, he became entirely, completely insane. Some days were better, some days were worse, but one way or another, his brains seemed to have been scared right out of his ears.

Wei Wuxian’s brow wrinkled.

If Mo Xuanyu were only gay, that would have been one thing, but he was also a lunatic. No wonder his face was caked in so much powder that it looked like he’d been hanged. No wonder no one had batted an eye at the giant array on the ground, still wet with fresh blood. If he had painted the entire room with blood, from the floor, to the walls, to the roof over his head, it wouldn’t have startled anyone who happened to see it. Everybody knew that there was something wrong with his head!

Once Mo Xuanyu had returned home, the sneers, the mockery, the ridicule grew so thick and wide that they seemed to blanket the earth and cover the skies. But this time, there was no more hope for a change in fortune.

The second Mo daughter was unable to bear this kind of blow. She had held so much hatred inside her lungs, and now, there was no hope of letting it go. It suffocated her, and soon, she was dead.

By this time Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather was also dead, so the elder Mo daughter now reigned over Mo Manor. This Lady Mo had been unable to bear the sight of her sister since they were young. At her sister’s bastard, she could only levy thousands of scornful glares. She had a single son, Mo Ziyuan, the youth who had sacked the room. When Mo Xuanyu had been whisked away to his father’s, the elder Mo daughter thought she could also exploit the family connection. She hoped that the cultivators who had fetched her nephew would also happen to pick up Mo Ziyuan and turn him into a cultivator too. Of course, she was refused—or rather, ignored.

She had wasted her breath. It wasn’t as though she were haggling over cabbages—buy one son and get one free!

It was a mystery where this family had gotten their self confidence. They all had a bizarre, unshakeable belief that Mo Ziyuan possessed the blood and the talent to earn himself the respect and recognition of these cultivators, had he been the one taken. He could never have ended up like his cousin and failed to make even a decent showing. Mo Ziyuan was still little when his cousin had been taken away, but, unendingly deluged with utter nonsense, his faith in his own abilities was unwavering. Every day for quite some time, he humiliated Mo Xuanyu, hollering that his cousin had robbed him of his chance. The possessions Mo Xuanyu had brought home—the talismans, the medicines, the little cultivator’s tools—he coveted so much that his hands itched, and he treated them as though they were entirely his own. If he wanted to take them, he’d take them. If he wanted to break them, he’d break them.

Though Mo Xuanyu suffered frequent bouts of insanity, he still knew that he was being abused. He tried to endure it, but Mo Ziyuan only got worse. Eventually, his entire room practically cleaned out by his envious cousin, his endurance finally wore out. He went to his aunt and uncle and forced himself to stutter out a complaint. Thus, Mo Ziyuan had shown up at his door today and raised a ruckus.

The papers’ tiny, densely packed words made Wei Wuxian’s eyes hurt and by then he had no doubts about what kind of shitty, wretched life Mo Xuanyu had lived. No wonder he had no qualms about sacrificing his body to an evil spirit for the sake of revenge.

Once Wei Wuxian’s eyes stopped aching, his head started aching instead. In principle, as the evil spirit that Mo Xuanyu summoned, he should have been able to hear the exact wishes the miserable man had buried in his heart. But this forbidden technique that Mo Xuanyu had secretly stolen from somewhere might have had incomplete instructions. He might have skipped a step. Wei Wuxian could easily guess that he wanted some sort of revenge on the Mo family, but exactly what kind of revenge? How severe? Did he only want his things back? Did he want them beaten?

Or...exterminated?

Most likely, he wanted them exterminated. After all, Mo Xuanyu had done his time in the world of cultivation, and thus should have been aware of how Wei Wuxian was most often described: ungrateful, deranged, was there anyone Mo Xuanyu could have chosen more likely to be called a “vicious fiend”? If he had the nerve to pick Wei Wuxian, he could not possibly have a dream so tame and mild.

Thus, Wei Wuxian had no choice but to sigh. “You found the wrong guy...”

________________________________

Translation notes:

* A hanged ghost (吊死鬼) is, unsurprisingly, the ghost of a person who died by hanging. In Chinese folklore, they are typically depicted with long red tongues hanging out of their mouths.

Next chapter

Masterpost

#wei wuxian #mo dao zu shi #wwx #mdzs

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chubbyheroesworthyheroes · 5 years

Note

Oh, oh, can I please have Caspar + 🐷?

Being a general in the imperial army had its ups and downs.

There was a lot of responsibility involved, of course, and Caspar found that quite a lot of it felt like red tape to slow down doing actual good. He wanted to get out there and do what was right for the people, but – apparently – there were rules about that, and him charging in recklessly to do what he thought was right wasn’t what he should be doing. Edelgard allowed him some slack with things, but many grumbled about his attitude and style of handling issues.

Caspar didn’t let it stop him much. If he saw people being wronged, he jumped to their defense. If he could protect someone in a battle, he’d do so – rank be damned! He wasn’t the sort to sit back and watch others do the work for him.

It was because of this that he had rode out to a remote village, word having reached his ears that a powerful magic user had stormed in and taken over the place. People were scared, but they couldn’t get away with this sorcerer practically holding them hostage as he did whatever he pleased in their little town. It wasn’t a big enough issue for the empire to devote its attention to, or so he’d been told when he brought it up, but Caspar wasn’t going to let that slide. It was only the one man, so he was confident in his ability to take the sorcerer down easily. He left his unit in his lieutenant’s care until he returned, sure that he would only be gone for a day at best.

As soon as he reached the village, Caspar could tell that things were off.

It was unnaturally quiet, the setting sun making the silent town feel eerie and dark as he moved through it. Ax in hand, ready for anything, the squelch of mud under his boots was the only thing Caspar could hear as he trudged further into the village.

“Show yourself!” he eventually shouted in frustration, knowing he was being watched. “I’m here to free these people, and hiding is only drawing out your punishment longer, you fiend!”

Windows were dark or shuttered in homes, no people in sight – not even any animals.

“You really are a loud thing, aren’t you?”

A shiver ran down Caspar’s spine at the voice – it felt like those words had been spoken directly into his ear – but when he whirled around, there wasn’t anyone there. Growling at how easily he’d been spooked, Caspar resolved his expression into something more fiercely determined.

“Why don’t you say that to my face!” the young man called back, eyes scanning every possible place this mage could be hiding.

“If that’s what you really prefer,” the voice returned, calmly, a face to finally go with it appearing in a flash of warping magic right in front of Caspar.

The light caused Caspar to close his eyes against the abrupt intensity of it, blinking rapidly to clear his vision and get a good look at the sorcerer who had been terrorizing this town for some time. His confidence shot up again when he looked the man over. The mage was tall and spindly; thin limbs, boney hands and a gaunt face. He was older, hair thinning and age marring him. A gnarled cane of dark wood was gripped tightly in his hands, and Caspar was sure that a stiff breeze could have knocked the old buzzard onto his ass. There was no way he could lose this.

Of course, without anyone there to rein in his recklessness, Caspar was ignoring the important fact that this old mage had completely taken over a small town without any trouble.

Charging forward, swinging his ax wide, Caspar blinked when the man disappeared like a wisp of smoke – the blade of his weapon hitting nothing but air. He skidded awkwardly in the slick mud, whipping around to try and relocate the mage. The man reappeared as silently as he teleported out of the attack, cheekily waggling his fingers at Caspar.

Taking the bait, Caspar tried again.

And again…and again.

Every single time he came close to landing a blow strong enough to cut the skinny old bastard in half, the sorcerer would simply warp out of harm’s way with a raspy chuckle. It went on like this for a while, Caspar’s energy and stamina starting to fail him after some time, tired legs slipping and sending him face first into the mud; his ax knocked out of his grasp as he fell, skidding through the mud just out of reach.

Panting and sputtering mud out of his mouth, Caspar shoves himself onto his hands and knees, sweating and limbs shaking from fatigue.

“Rolling about in the mud like a hog, are we?” the old man hummed, his foot steps hardly making a sound as he approached. “Quite fitting for a squealing piglet of the empire. Did they not have anyone else to send out here but an obnoxious, arrogant boy?”

Caspar bristled at that, scrambling to get to his feet. “I am a proud general of the empire!” Sure, he was still young and he hadn’t ever hit much of a growth spurt, but that didn’t give this old coot any right to insult him in such a way when he was clearly the evil doer here.

“A proud pig, I see.”

“You’ll regret insulting me–”

The mage waved an age-shaky hand at the younger man, a smug look on his face as he chanted something out in a language Caspar had never heard before. “And you’ll regret ever coming to this little village, Sir Pig,” the old man mused, a wave of magic blasting Caspar off his feet and back into the mud once more.

Caspar groaned, shaking his head and trying to refocus his dizzied vision. He felt so tired, and it was an alarming struggle to keep himself awake, but he managed to sit himself back up and shake off the worst of the sluggishness. Aside from the fatigue, he was fairly certain that whatever magic had been cast at him hadn’t caused him any damage outside of a bruised rear end. Grinning at his luck – for the old man must have simply messed up – he made to jump back to his feet and get right back into the fight, only to stumble in surprise when he felt like he had tried to get up with heavy weights attached to himself.

“W…What the…?” he muttered under his breath, struggling once more to get to his feet. He managed to get onto his knees, but found himself hit with another wave of exhaustion, his breathing heavy and…what in the world, was he snorting?!

Muddy fingers reached up to his nose, Caspar blurting out in shock when they met with the round, flat of his nose – or, what had been his nose. Now, it was more akin to a snout, just like a pig’s. He snuffled exaggeratedly, swallowing thickly against the panic that was threatening to overtake him.

Okay, so what? The old mage could do a few tricks, make him look like a fool, but this could always be reversed, right? It wouldn’t be so bad, especially once he beat the sorcerer and made it back home. They had plenty of skilled magic users in the empire who could probably fix his nose in a matter of seconds. This was just a tactic to get under his skin!

Grunting in anger, Caspar settled a foul look on the far too amused old man, and tried once again to push himself out of the mud.

Why did he feel so damn heavy?! His armor didn’t restrict his movement this much, and he was used to carrying the weight of it by now – not that it was really all that much armor to begin with, really. But, after another few moments of struggling, it started to dawn on Caspar why he was having so much trouble. It felt like his armor was constricting him all of a sudden, movement restricted and breathing getting more difficult. It was a risk, taking away some of his defenses, but the feeling of claustrophobia got to him quickly, and Caspar scrabbled to get the pieces of armor off.

Distracted as he was, he didn’t notice the way he was changing. The way his ears changed shape from rounded off to something more triangular, becoming wider, perky and pointed at the tips. His face started to round out, too, plump cheeks and a swell of fat beneath his chin. It was only when his fingers started to get thicker and harder to use – luckily, after undoing most of the buckles for his plate armor – that Caspar realized that this was going far further than just an embarrassing pig nose.

“H-Hey, what the hell is happening to me–?!” Caspar demanded, fear tinging his words as his statement ended on the horrifically piggish sound of an oink. With his armor now loose and mostly off, he saw the way that the rest of his body was shifting.

He was getting bigger…

The old sorcerer chuckled as he saw reality smack the young general right in the face, dark eyes twinkling as he watched the once confident fighter squirm and struggle as he grew more and more into what he’d spelled him as.

He’d called the young upstart a hog, and a hog he would be in every sense of the word.

Embarrassment and anger flushed Caspar’s features as he was helpless to do much more than watch as his body was ruined. Trim muscle was quickly overtaken by soft, supple fat. He grunted and cursed as his armor popped off and his clothes became uncomfortably tight against his frame. Stuck on all fours, it was easy to feel the way his body got heavier. His thighs grew thick and meaty, brushing up against each other as he struggled, but then forcing him to widen his stance as they pressed into one another. His ass soon followed, rounding out wider and wider, wobbling as he shifted his growing weight. His arms plumped up as well, plush and fat enough to overlap his elbows a bit; even his hands and fingers had gotten chubby.

The worst, however, was his chest and stomach.

His abs had quickly disappeared under a layer of chub, but it didn’t stop at just a pot belly. It kept growing – out and out, rounder and fatter. It was so bizarre to feel, this heavy part of himself just hanging there, getting heavier and heavier as the seconds passed. His gut bounced and jiggled as it swelled outward with fat, stretching his shirt out as far as it could go before buttons gave up and popped right off, pale flesh now exposed to the cool of the air. To Caspar’s dismay, his chest wasn’t too far behind; pecs rounding out and puffing up, drooping weightily against the continuously expanding swell of his stomach.

It was getting harder to keep holding himself up on his hands and knees, his weight just getting more and more to deal with. Desperation started to sink into Caspar’s hastily narrowing mind, a shiver running through his fattening body as his burgeoning belly grew big enough to connect with the ground beneath him, cold mud smearing across the vast expanse of his gut. He can barely even tell when a curly pig’s tail pops up above the wide spread of his ass, his rear doing its best to keep up with the rest of him.

Caspar jolts when he feels a hand on his head, thin, bony hands messing into his shock of blue hair. The old mage is smiling at him, a knowing look on his wrinkled face.

“Don’t look so frightened about all this, boy. You’ll find I’m not a cruel master, especially to dumb beasts that don’t know any better. Isn’t that right, my loud little piglet?” the old man speaks in a soft and assuring tone, another, softer glow of magic from coming from his palm as he pets the former general’s head like one would to calm down a spooked animal.

Caspar wants to protest, wants to get up and shake off the terrible dream that this has to be…but, as that last spell starts to take, thoughts of getting away or fighting back any further seem to slip through his head like water between his fingers. Eventually, the growing weight of his body is simply too much for him to keep holding up, so Caspar simply lets himself collapse onto the solid mound of fat that is his gut. It was surprisingly comfortable, and the mud was becoming less of a discomfort to him as he practically started to wallow in it like a real pig would.

“Good pig,” the sorcerer praised, ruffling Caspar’s hair before withdrawing his hand, watching with amusement as the young man oinks at him lazily, now finally content to simply do what pigs do best.

Grow fat and fatter still.

#Anonymous #male weight gain #male wg #chubby!caspar #pig transformation #pig tf #this damn thing fought me so much because i still havent gotten to the end of 3h & im still only on gd route #so be central stuff is not yet in my knowledge & i had to go looking a bit online #but pls accept this humble oinker

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weirdponytail · 4 years

Text

Modern Inheritance: Two for Flinching

~~~

Eragon winced as Saphira landed. Per their usual travel plans since Gil'ead and Arya's awakening he had spent the night flying with Saphira while the others traveled at a continued breakneck pace on the ground with the horses. It was wearing them all down, even Saphira, and the few hours of sleep they managed to get during the daylight hours did little to alleviate the stress travel was putting on their bodies.

Camp was already in the midst of being set as Eragon untied his legs from the saddle and slid down Saphira's side. He landed then grimaced as he fell to his knees, muscles feeling like jelly.

"Did you see anything worth mentioning?" Brom asked as the young Rider pushed himself up. When he shook his head, not trusting himself to speak aloud, the older man grunted and turned back to unsaddling Snowfire. "There's supposed to be some old, ruined staging points of the Varden's around here. Must be further up ahead. We're going slower than I thought."

"We're going as fast as we can." Murtagh snapped. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. Lately Eragon had noticed that the other youth was becoming increasingly agitated, quick to anger, and it wasn't just the lack of sleep and lingering sunburn getting to him."If you want to warn the Varden so bad, do some of your little magic tricks and tell them about the Urgals."

Arya spoke quickly from where she crouched coaxing the fire to life, cutting off Brom's scathing retort and ending the argument before it began. "It doesn't exactly work like that. Besides, the Varden has specific wards around their strongholds, preventing scrying and other magical forms of communication."

Eragon eased himself down next to the elf, trying to warm fingers stiff from flying so high in the chill clouds. "Then how do they stay in contact with you and anyone else outside their hiding spots? It seems dangerous to be so isolated."

The woman gently rearranged a few sticks to give the young flames more air and slipped a dark object under the growing pile of embers. "Special radios were developed, using the fingerprint technology similar to lock on my backpack. Mine was destroyed when Durza tried to operate it himself." She cracked a slight grin, still focused on her task. "Well, actually, it blew up in his face. Brain matter, just everywhere. Huh-hoo, he was pissed when he got back."

"The Varden rigs them to explode if the person's fingerprint doesn't match?!" Eragon recoiled slightly, agast. "What if someone's kid found it and thought it was a toy?"

Off to the side, Brom snorted, muttering, "I bet it wasn't the Varden who–"

"No, I rigged it up myself, and only for those who bore ill-will to the Varden and free races in case it fell into the wrong hands."

"Knew it." Brom scoffed. Arya looked over her shoulder to the old Rider and rolled her eyes. "You just like seeing things explode."

"Yeah, well, I don't think I've laughed so hard in years than when that thing went off. I think I even cracked a rib."

Brom shook his head, but let the matter go.

It wasn't long before the fire was high and the day's meal heated. They sat around the burning logs, Saphira even laying her head down to occupy a third of the circle, and planned the next few legs of travel. When the food was eaten, the talk dwindled away as they all sat staring into the flames, tired but not willing to sleep just yet.

Then Saphira flicked out her tongue, as if tasting the air, and projected her thoughts to the group.

'Whoever has the infected wound should care for it soon.' Everyone looked up, mildly startled out of their inner musings. 'It will turn into a deep-rot in another day or so. Just thought they should know.'

"You can smell things like that?" Eragon asked, surprised. "Are you like one of those dogs that can smell cancer?"

The dragon cut her eyes at him and her lip lifted slightly. 'I am nothing like a dog.'

The boy smiled apologetically, realizing his mistake. "I know. Sorry. But it's pretty cool being able to smell things like that."

Murtagh raised an eyebrow. "Aye, it's cool. But shouldn't we be more focused on who the hell was hiding a possibly necrotic wound? Things like that need to be addressed. It would only slow us down more."

Then a ringing SMACK! broke through the air as Brom suddenly slapped Arya upside the head. Hard.

"What the hell were you thinking, girl?" He growled, expression dark.

"Ow! Hey, why the fuck do you think it's me?!" The elf retorted sharply, rubbing the back of her head and glaring back at him.

Everyone, even Saphira, gave the woman a deadpan look that clearly asked 'really?'

She put her hands up. "Alright, alright, so yeah, maybe a cut or two got infected, but I'm already fixing them, okay?" Arya snarled, pointing at the handle of a knife sticking out of the dying fire's thick pile of coals.

Silence fell.

"Are you sure that is the best idea?" Brom asked slowly. He seemed to have calmed down a bit now that Arya had revealed having an actual plan and wasn't just ignoring her injuries. His change in tone made Eragon wonder if the latter was a common occurrence. "There's always magic. You don't have to–"

"And who, exactly, would cast it, hm? Eragon? Can you instruct him in the intricacies of infection cleansing within the next few minutes? I've still got enough drug in me to complicate healing spells, so that's out of the question. And I'll not have you working spells on me, not when the Varden will need you at your best." Arya shook her head. "No, it will have to be burned."

Murtagh stood at the mention of burning. "Oh, bloody hell. Not right after we ate!" He retreated to where he had tossed his saddlebags and began unrolling his sleeping bag. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again– you're bloody insane, Arya. I don't want to see this. I'm going to sleep."

"Sweet dreams, Murtagh." The elf called after him in a singsong voice. "Don't let the sizzling wake you up!" The young man let out a noise of disgust and threw himself on the blankets. "Wuss."

'She can't be serious about this!' Eragon exclaimed to Saphira, worried about the elf who was unlacing her boots as calmly as a praying monk. 'She's already hurt enough! We should offer to heal it. I know she shot Brom down, but–'

Saphira cut him off. 'Little one, do you honestly think that we know enough about healing to cleanse even a scratch of infection without making it worse? Brom has explained before that waíse heill has its limitations, one of the most dangerous being that if it closes an infected injury the infection will survive beneath the skin.' Eragon grimaced, cursing himself for nearly forgetting one of the nuances of the spell. 'Once the infected flesh is burned away, thenwe can attempt to heal it for Arya.'

Her logic was sound. 'I still don't like it. But you're right.'

The dragon sniffed, a short puff of smoke dissipating into the air above her nostrils. 'Of course I am.'

Eragon grinned, then turned his attention back to where Brom and Arya still sat by the fire as the older Rider grunted, "That looks like it hurt. You're lucky it didn't break." The boy approached them as Arya finished rolling her pant leg up to her knee.

"Perks of elvish bones, I guess." Arya muttered, gently testing the skin around the injury. On the outside of her left calf was a nasty, scraping gash, most likely left by the sharp edge of a hobnailed boot if the bruising pattern was anything to go by. The skin around the ragged edges was pink and red, and cracks ran through the roughly palm sized scab covering the cut and revealing damp, yellowish flesh beneath. Pinkish, yellow tinged fluid leaked from the cracks. "Damn. At least it isn't necrotic. You were right, Saphira. This one is about to turn." The elf flashed a thankful smile to the dragon. "Hell, you might have just saved my leg."

'You're quite welcome.'

Eragon winced when he saw the wound. "After you, uh…burn it, I can close it for you. A burn isn't too hard to heal, and it would keep it from getting infected again and slowing you down."

For a for a split second the memory of healing the elf's back jumped to the forefront of his mind. Not images of the horrifying wounds, but of warm skin, lean muscle and an unmistakably feminine body. Eragon felt the tips of his tapering ears turn bright red, and he quickly stuck his hands in his pockets, pinching himself hard through the fabric. It was definitely not the time for those kinds of thoughts.

He was thankful, then, that Arya looked over to Brom after giving him only a quick glance. "What do you think, old man? I can keep up well enough. Wouldn't mind a little less risk of that changing though."

Brom crossed his arms. "It's up to the boy and Saphira. Do you two think you can handle it?"

Eragon nodded firmly. "I'm sure I can. Definitely if Saphira helps. I really don't mind it, and it's the least I can do after being unable to heal the rest of your wounds properly."

"Hey, you and Saphira don't owe me anything. You saved my life in probably three different ways so far, so I'm the one that owes you all." Arya pulled a field medkit from her bag and tore off two short wads of gauze from a roll. "If you both want to heal it and it won't put either of you in danger, I won't complain. It won't be the last time I say it, but thank you. Really."

Eragon smiled, a strange warmth bubbling in his heart at the elf's expression of gratitude. In the back of his mind he sensed Saphira examining his emotions, and was a little confused when the dragon mentally chuckled at them. "You're welcome. I like to help where I can."

"Mm. Let's get this over with then." Without further ado Arya pulled the knife from the coals.

Arya took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and went to stick the wad of gauze in her mouth as she lowered the hot blade towards her leg. Brom's hand suddenly settled on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, startled out of her grim task.

"Do you want me to do it?" The old Rider's voice was surprisingly gentle, soft even. In the months he had traveled with him, Eragon had heard him speak in such a tone only a handful of times, mostly murmured under his breath to himself or to Jeod when talking about the Varden and times past. Despite their rough banter, Eragon realized the Brom and Arya were undoubtedly good friends, to the point that he wondered if the two had fought together on the battlefield.

Arya looked between Brom and the knife for a moment, then sighed, "You might have to if I flinch and can't keep up the pressure. I want to try it myself first, but thanks for having my back." Brom nodded and pulled his hand back as the elf bit down on the gauze.

Then, without any other warning, she tore her nails across the gash in her leg, ripping away the disintegrating scab, and shoved the flat of the glowing knife into the now open wound.

Eragon jerked back, flinching as his self preservation instinct screamed at the indecency of blatant self-destruction. It wasn't the visual that disturbed him, but the sound of the metal burning away first the blood and fluids, and then the infected flesh beneath. It hissed and sizzled, and occasionally sounded like the powerful magnet toys he used to buy at the fair and toss in the air hear their buzzing song.

For a moment Arya's muscles snapped rigid, then she seemed to recover and her face fell into a blank, emotionless mask. After letting the blade rest in its original spot for several long seconds she lifted it and exposed the two remaining sections of the gash to the heat, quickly wiping the knife on the other piece of gauze between each burning. Eragon's stomach did a sickening maneuver similar to a double full flip he had witnessed Katrina do at one of her gymnastics presentations with Roran when he realized that she was wiping seared flesh off the blade.

Then it was over. The entire procedure couldn't have taken more than a minute, but the scent of burned meat hung in the air. Where infection had once turned tissue yellow and white, there was now only bright red muscle shot through with soot and darkened epidermis.

"That...wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." Arya hissed and spat the gauze out. Her teeth were clenched and voice tight, but her movements were controlled, smooth, and betrayed no other indications that she was in pain. "I'm not looking forward to it if I need to do it again, though."

Brom rubbed his face, a little paler than usual. "There's something just…so much more disturbing about seeing you do it to yourself."

"Dear Gods above, I HEARD IT ALL THE WAY OVER HERE!" Came a distraught groan from Murtagh's sleeping bag. Arya snatched a stick from the pile next to the fire, abandoning the still-hot knife, and whipped it at the tucked form huddled in the bag. It pegged the young man exactly where his head should have been, and muffled swearing drifted through the camp before it dwindled off as he rolled over and tried his best to sleep.

Eragon scooted closer, forcing himself to swallow back his queasiness. "Here, can we…." Arya leaned her head back and nodded, eyes shut tight as heat lingered in the wound.

Reaching out a thicker tendril of his consciousness to Saphira, the young Rider met the mind of his dragon halfway. Their thoughts, consciousnesses, and minds twisted around each other, binding together more strongly than they usually did. Saphira's energy flowed into Eragon, and he in turn shared some of his until the stream equaled out and they were one.

Together they moved Eragon's hand out, the Gedwëy Ignasia shining bright, and uttered the words needed to heal the now cleansed burn. The icy magic rushed through their joined minds, knitting the skin back together with the ease of water flowing from one side of a creak to the next.

'Does it? It always feels cold to me.' Eragon sat back on his heels, checking the wound to make sure he had not left any scarring this time. Like the other times he and Saphira had worked magic while bound together, he only felt a slight drain on their combined strength. 'I know when something is healed on me it itches like crazy though. Is that what you're feeling?'

'Being a conduit is different from both casting and being casted on. Acting as the in-between must be giving me the sensation of both the cold and the itching. It makes my scales tickle.' As if to demonstrate her point, the scales at Saphira's neck lifted slightly with a sound similar to dry leaves being whisked away by a strong wind. The scales rose and lowered in a ripple along her entire body, giving the distinct impression that she had shivered. 'So, how did we do?'

"Very well for such a simply worded spell." Eragon realized that Saphira had projected her last thought to Arya and Brom as well when the elf answered. She tested the new skin, not at all bothered that they had not healed the bruising, and seemed happy with the results of their casting. "You're quite adept at magic for knowing so few words in the Ancient Language, Eragon. From what I've seen, you have an uncanny ability to influence your spells more with your intentions than the words you use."

Brom grunted, nodding in Eragon's direction. The older man's chest seemed to swell with pride at the praise directed at his pupil. "Aye, he's got a gift. And Saphira carries it as well. I've never heard of a dragon acting as such a strong conduit before. You both are learning well."

Touched, Eragon dipped his head as both he and Saphira answered the compliments. Any praise coming from Brom was few and far between, and now he was practically bragging to Arya about their progress.

A comfortable silence fell once again. Brom laid out his sleeping bag, surrendering his usual first watch to Arya at her insistence that 'old men need their rest,' and Saphira lifted her head from where it rested to tuck it under the tip of her tail, settling in to sleep. Arya tugged her boots back on and reloaded her pistol. Eragon stayed by the fire with her for a few more minutes, content to be close to the elf for a little longer before he too retired for sleep.

"Oh! Right." Arya suddenly looked over at him, a gleam in her dark eyes. He met her gaze, puzzled, then let out a yelp as her fist shot out and punched him in the arm twice. He knew it was probably a love tap for someone of elvish strength, but it still stung.

"Hey!" Eragon leaned away from her, rubbing his sore arm. It would definitely be bruised by the time he woke that night. "What was that for?"

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queen-scribbles · 5 years

Text

A Good Idea

“I do” Kiss prompt for @rannadylin turned into a full oneshot. :D

---

Aloth was lost in thought. Again.

“Must be a real puzzler,” Tavi commented as she plunked down next to him and handed over a bowl of the stew she’d just made. “Careful, it’s still fuckin’ hot.”

He nodded gratitude for the warning as he took the bowl. “What is?”

“Whatever you’re thinkin’ about that’s had you even quieter’n usual for three fuckin’ days,” she replied with a teasing nudge.

“I wouldn’t have thought it was that obvious,” he deadpanned, poking at the stew as steam rose from the bowl.

“I just know you too well, city slicker.” She kissed his cheek. “And you’ve been starin’ at the same page since I started dinner.”

That side of Aloth’s mouth tipped up in a smile as he set aside the book. “It’s nothing to worry about. Just... a small internal debate.”

Tavi raised a brow, well-aware how not-small his internal debates tended to be. “You sure?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.” They lapsed into silence, both blowing on their dinner to hasten its cooling. It was only a few moments before Aloth cleared his throat. “...Tavi?”

Knew it. “Mm-hm,” she mumbled around a (technically too-hot) mouthful of stew.

He twisted one of his rings, working it up and down his finger, and bit his lip. “I just.... We’ve been doing this for a while now.”

“Huntin’ down Key influence? Yeah, we have.” How long had they been at this? If she was honest, she’d stopped keeping track after five years. It didn’t really matter. “What’re you gettin’ at?”

“I...” Aloth sighed, let go of the ring to instead pick at a scar on the back of his finger. “...realized I haven’t thanked you recently for staying with me so long, especially given this task’s distinct lack of the excitement you so enjoy.”

Tavi snorted a laugh. “I’m also stubborn as fuck, city slicker. No way I’m leavin’ somethin’ halfway done if I get a blazin’ say in the matter.” She shot him a grin. “And I like your company.”

His cheeks tinged ever so faintly pink. He was used to her casual, playful flirting, but it was fun that she could still get reactions like that. “As do I.” Another hesitated beat. “Tavi...”

“Food’s gonna get cold, Corfiser,” she reminded him playfully, before catching something in his eye that made her sober. “What?”

That something flickered, but after a moment’s pause, Aloth simply shook his head. “It will keep,” he said, and took a bite of stew.

“Oh, come on, Aloth, don’t fuckin’ do that!” Tavi protested, internally debating the merits of shoving him off the log. “You know curiosity’ll drive me crazy!”

He smiled, leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek. “It will keep,” he repeated.

Tavi growled, and while she didn’t push him off the log, she did peel away a chunk of bark and throw it at him before they turned their full attention to their meal.

---

The morning did not go at all as planned. The contact they’d meant to meet never showed, checking revealed he’d turned up dead the night before, and doing their own investigating had gotten them here.

Running up the stairs fast as they could go, several suspected Leaden Key operatives in dogged pursuit.

“So much for them being subtle,” Tavi grumbled between heavy breaths.

“We could blow their cover,” Aloth pointed out, breathing just as hard. “In that circumstances, it’s more about speed dealing with the problem than remaining subtle.”

“Oh-” There was a loud crackle behind them and Tavi yelped as a lightning bolt skimmed the back of her shoulder and made her stumble on its way up the staircase.

Aloth grabbed her arm to yank her up. “We need to find a room,” he grit out as they reached a landing. There were no options here, but the next one up had at least two doors visible. He jerked his chin up toward them. “See if one’s unlocked,” he panted, reaching for his grimoire.

“And what the fuck are you gonna be doin’?” Tavi demanded between clenched teeth. Her shoulder hurt like the blazes, and no way was she letting him make the sacrifice play here--

“Slowing them down.” He pushed her toward the steps. “I’ll be right behind you, go!”

With a final growl of frustration she she complied, scrambling up to check the doors. She recognized the spell he was chanting and smirked despite the pain. Some of those copperfuckers were about to have an even shittier day than the two of them. The crackle of a rolling fire filled her ears--along with dismayed yells--as she checked the doors.

Both were locked, but one had a rattle to it, so Tavi backed up far as she could and threw herself into that one. The lock snapped with barely any resistance and she stumbled into the--thankfully empty--room. Aloth was, as promised, not far behind her, and they slammed the door closed.

“How much time didja buy us, city slicker?” she asked, bracing her uninjured shoulder against the door while he looked for something to block it closed.

“A minute or so,” he said with grim satisfaction. That was a veritable eternity in a situation like this, and somehow still just the blink of an eye. “They’ll have to wait for the flames to die down at least. However many of them are still alive. Ah.” He untangled a chair out of the corner and dragged it over to brace under the doorknob.

Tavi stepped away and winced when she looked out the window. “Still don’t like our odds, Corfiser.” They were a long way up. And on this side, at least, it was a sheer drop all the way to the ground. She looked around the room, but didn’t see anything that could help, and with minimal options for cover in such close quarters, this would likely go very poorly when they got in. “Y’know, when I figured on doin’ this with you the rest of my life, I wasn’t thinkin’ it would be this fuckin’ short,” she groused, dragging one hand through her hair.

Aloth’s lips curved into a wry smile and he huffed a soft laugh.

Tavi narrowed her eyes as she tested the mobility of a sheet-draped desk. “What? Help me with this.”

It wasn’t until they’d dragged the desk to barricade the door that he answered. “You remember our conversation last night.”

“Yeah. The one you said would keep.”

“Yes. I’d been thinking along those same lines; that this might take the remainder of our lifetime, and...” He hesitated.

“Corfiser, we’re kinda pressed for time here,” Tavi nudged as she started toward the other window.

“And I was thinking I wouldn’t mind that so terribly if we were doing it together, and I...”

She stopped in her tracks and spun to look at him as his silence made the pieces click. “City slicker. Were you gonna propose?!”

He nodded, jaw tense, and twisted one of his rings.”At some point.”

With supreme effort, she swallowed the laugh bubbling up her throat because she knew he’d take it the wrong way, and resumed course toward the window. “You know you don’t have to do that to keep me around, right? You’re already stuck with me.”

“And quite happy that way,” Aloth said, leaning his weight against their makeshift barricade as the footsteps outside reached the door and fists or bodies pounded against the wood. “I just thought-” The door shuddered enough to make the desk rock forward and he cut himself off as he spun to push back in earnest. “I feel our roles in this situation should be switched...”

“Gotta roll with what life gives ya,” Tavi muttered distractedly as she looked out the other window. Still not great, but steep as the angle was, there were a pair of roofs over here they could--in theory--slide down. “Speakin’ of, think I found our way out.”

Whatever he started to say was cut off by the ungodly screech of the desk’s legs skidding against floor tiles.

“Come on!” She shoved the window the rest of the way open, eyeing the way the roofs joined. This was going to be fucking tricky, not to mention dangerous, but they were out of other options.

Aloth pushed the desk back, started toward her, then stopped and spun back, grimoire in hand.

“Aloth-!” Her impatient (panicked) urging died in her throat as he hastily cast his spell and a shimmering wall of brilliantly-colored energy filled the space between them and the door. “Alright, good idea, come on!!”. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged him toward the window with her as a splintering sound came from the door.

He didn’t hesitate, but Tavi saw the trepidation flicker in his eyes mid-clambering out the window. “Tavi, this is insane!”

Insane’s all we fuckin’ got, she thought as she dropped the foot and a half to the roof and immediately started to slide. She picked up speed much faster than she’d anticipated, despite digging in her heels. ShitshitSHIT She let up with one heel and dug the other in harder to partially turn as she reached the juncture with the neighboring roof, hit it with shoulder and hip rather than risk getting spun around. The impact still hurt--especially her already-injured shoulder--but it kept her feet first as she changed direction and skidded toward the blessedly low eaves.

Tavi just managed to snag the edge and check her momentum before she dropped the remaining distance to the ground. Despite her efforts, she still tumbled upon impact, air escaping, her lungs in a rush. Hylea’s blazing feathered--

Aloth landed on top of her.

By some miracle they avoided knocking heads, but his elbow did jam hard into her ribs and she heard him grunt as his breath was knocked out like hers.

A few seconds later came the sharp gasp and mumbled string of still-breathless apology as it registered where he’d landed and he rolled off. “Are you alright?!” he demanded.

Tavi groaned as she pushed up on hands and knees. “I will be, if we have a gods-damned minute to catch our breath...”

Aloth nodded, sitting back to lean against the wall, still breathing hard. “I pulled the window closed behind me; unless one of them survived the spell and managed to look out to witness our, ah, rapid descent, it’s likely they’ve no idea where we went.” His brow furrowed when she hissed as she sat back on her heels. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “I’d rather this over you kissin’ the ground hard as I fuckin’ did. Think that woulda done more damage to you than you did to me,” she panted as she crawled over to join him. Her ribs ached. He didn’t need to know that part.

For a long minute they sat there in silence, backs pressed to the stone wall, knees drawn up to keep out of sight from above, as they tried to catch their breath.

“So,” Tavi finally began. “You still plannin’... plannin’ to ask your question, city slicker?”

Aloth rolled his head against the stone to look over at her, brows raised. “I’ll... think about it,” he said after a long pause.

Tavi scoffed a small laugh--Trust him to over-analyze something, even now--and shifted close enough she could bump her shoulder to his. “If or when you do, y’know, ask, I’ll say yes.”

His expression shifted to an elated yet curious grin. “What happened to me being stuck with you regardless?”

She shrugged, grinned back. “I know that, and you know that, but I kinda like the idea of showin’ everyone else we mean business on this commitment thing.”

Aloth chuckled and laced his fingers between hers. “Well, then, maybe we should.”

She raised a brow. “Didn’t hafta think about that long,” she teased.

“I’ve been thinking about it for years,” he corrected softly. “Just never seemed the right time.”

“And this does?!” Tavi laughed.

“Maybe I’m just tired of waiting,” Aloth murmured. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Marry me?”

She grinned and pushed off the wall to kiss him properly. “Abso-fucking-lutely. But nothin’ fancy. An’ I’m not wearing a dress.”

“Oh, perish the thought,” Aloth chuckled, and kissed her again. “Just a visit to the local chancellor’s office?” Both of them hissed as a variety of tender spots made themselves known with the passion of the kiss. “Perhaps after a visit to the nearest healer?” he mumbled, gingerly brushing his fingertips against her scorched shoulder.

“Good idea,” Tavi agreed, but stole one last kiss before she pushed to her feet. Aloth’s leg gave out when he went to follow suit.

“I... banged my knee on the turn,” he explained, wincing. “Must’ve been harder than I realized.”

“Need a piggyback ride?” Tavi snarked, and he shot her a distinctly unamused look.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “I’m sure it will be fine once I get to my feet.”:

Here.” Tavi held out a hand, and when he took it, hauled him up and draped his arm around her shoulders. “I need you in good shape later,” she winked, cutting off his protest. “Not takin’ any chances.”

He barely blushed, which made her grin, but didn’t attempt to protest further. With how heavily he was leaning on her when they started walking, she was pretty sure she knew why.

But battered as they were, they were still walking away alive(and engaged, however the fuck that had happened), so it counted as a win in her book.

---

Tavi felt the looks they drew as they entered the city chancellor’s offices a few hours later, her with bandages visible under the collar of her shirt, Aloth still limping thanks to how badly he’d bruised his knee. She didn’t care.

She didn’t care about the looks, she didn’t care about the clerk’s disparaging snort at the brevity of their engagement period(”We’ve been in love for years, postenago. Don’t need a long engagement when you have that.”). All she cared about was Aloth’s arm linked through hers, and the look in his eyes that said he was just as giddy about this as she was.

Apparently the chancellor didn’t care, either; upon hearing they were there to get married, he simply nodded and pulled out the appropriate certificate. “It needs to be completed and signed in my presence to count as a legally witness and binding agreement,”: he explained as he set the parchment in front of them.

“Well, Corfiser, last chance,” she teased, heart pounding. “D’you really wanna go through w-”

Aloth cupped one hand around the back of her neck and pulled her into a kiss. “I do,” he said with a smirk that made plain he knew exactly what she was doing. “I absolutely do.”

“Just checking,” Tavi grinned giddily, resting her forehead against his. “I walked right in to that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes you did.” He leaned in to press a lighter, almost chaste kiss to her lips. “As if you did it on purpose. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

“City slicker, that’s your best idea yet.”

It only took a moment to fill out the certificate--complete with internal smirk at the contrast between his elegant script and her careless scrawl--thus making things official.

“So,” Aloth said, taking her hands in his as the chancellor turned to file the certificate, “despite its rough start, and our lack of progress on our true goal, I consider today a success, don’t you?”

And Tavi grinned so wide it hurt her face, tugged her husband forward into a hungry kiss by their joined hands, then slipped hers free to instead tangle in his hair. “I do,” she mumbled against his mouth. “I absolutely do.”

#queens fic #kiss prompts #tavi illani #aloth corfiser #taviloth #otp: third time's the charm #so they sort of ran away with the set-up OOPS #not complaining #and oh boy is it gonna be fun the next time tavi visits eder #HEY TEYLECG GUESS WHAT :D :D :D: D:#this is the most THEM way getting engaged/married would go down in the history of my muses #so fun to write :3 #thank you for the prompt

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azzysclubofdemons · 4 years

Text

Entering the Archives after the usual long descent, Azzy surveyed the area. Nothing seemed to be damaged... as if the place were stuck in time, nothing looked to be different since last he visited. Even still, something was off- but what? He began to browse the shelves, wondering once more what knowledge was in the books, ever wary about stealing their magic. Eventually, he caught sight of something.

A Cookie, covered with an emerald cape, sleeping under the light filtering in from the fountain above. Were they injured? ...Didn't seem so. He approached them with caution, waving a sleeve over their face and backing away. Slowly, and with a tinge of annoyance, they sat up...

"Yep, that's me. Why are you here?"

"oh, uh... i'm investigating. one of my friends saw a huge beam of light come from around here last night... does that have anything to do with you being a cookie now? ...and where's miss blueberry?"

With a sigh, they donned their hat and rose. "That light... it was from a spell cast by Lady Moonlight to free me. No doubt she was just testing it so that she could free Lapis in the near future. And as for the Keeper, she... fell ill, let's say. She's up in the clock tower until she can recover."

"i thought she couldn't leave this place... what a loophole. but what do you mean by that; that she fell ill?"

"You ask too many questions for your age, you know that? ...As it turns out, whatever magic she was taking from me was a factor in keeping her alive, like a parasite. Now that we're not connected, it's as if she doesn't have enough to function... a withdrawl." Azzy didn't say anything. "...You and her aren't so different... I suppose you have something to look forward to there, once Lapis is freed."

"...i see. thank you for telling me all this... suppose i should check on blueberry now." As he turned to leave, Ruby called out.

"Hey, one thing! If you're gonna tell Lapis about all this, tell him I can't visit 'till she recovers, alright? I'm gonna be a bit busy keeping this place organized." Their only answer was a thumbs up; with that, the little demon left them be...

#someone speaks #cookie run #azure wizard cookie #ruby currant cookie (oc)#72520: break free (arc)

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crackimagines · 5 years

Text

Blood of the Eagle, Lion, and Deer (evil!Byleth AU)

AU Masterlist Here!

Withering Flower - Chapter 6

With time running short as the Javelin of Liberation already en route to Garreg Mach, Edelgard, Claude, Rhea, and Dimitri form an unofficial alliance to take down the Knights of Nemesis.

They all converge onto Gronder Field.

—–

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The Battle of Gronder Field”

What I remember about Gronder Field... It was hot, it was muddy, chaotic.

Nothing at all like the previous battles.

Of course that's pretty much the way it was for all of us, wasn't it?

All the experiments, all those years of training...it doesn't really prepare you for all the screaming or the blood, does it?

Frankly I'm still amazed we ever made it through the first few minutes, never-mind the first hour.

—–

1 Day Later after Chapter 5...

Byleth walked alongside his men as they transported the Javelin of Liberation to Garreg Mach. It was in a large metal container being carried by several horses on a cart.

Almost half his forces were here to defend the cart with their lives. He would have been at Garreg Mach fortifying it for an attack, but he did not anticipate Shamir and Alois going rogue.

Though in hindsight, he should have.

Regardless, there was no point in wishing what could have been.

All of this was going to end soon, his plans would be set in motion.

But for now, he was anticipating the arrival of all four factions. He was hoping to slip by unnoticed, but realistically they’d be here any minute now.

And sure enough.

Three armies peered over the horizon bearing Blue, Red, and Yellow banners.

Another army appeared to the hill Byleth was going to escape in, bearing a silver banner.

It was near the House Leaders’ armies that he saw something peculiar.

Shamir, Leonie and Alois were there.

...Leonie.

He had expected to see Shamir and Alois, but he didn't think to see her again.

She was supposed to be dead and yet...

(Byleth) "Percy."

He unsheathed the Sword of the Creator and heard footsteps.

(Percy) "Sir."

Though he looked calm, Byleth could see in the corner of his eye that he was shaking.

(Byleth) "You willingly come to me, knowing what's about to happen?"

(Percy) "I'm proud to have served in the Knights of Nemesis, but I will also not turn my back on my friends. I am ready to accept my fate, sir."

(Byleth) "...You were a good kid, Percy."

(Percy) "Thank you sir. It's been an honor."

With a swift strike, he slashed at Percy's chest, with him falling to the ground. Byleth had no time to mourn the loss.

With the upcoming battle, there was more of his own that would fall.

...

Byleth had just killed one of his own soldiers.

Even though they were so far away, Leonie could tell exactly who it was.

(Leonie) “Percy...”

Alois and Shamir lowered their heads in respect, but put their hands on the hilts of their weapons as Shamir unsheathed her bow.

(Alois) “We’ll make sure his death isn’t in vain, Leonie.”

(Leonie) “Thank you...”

(Shamir) “Look sharp. They’re getting into formation.”

...

Rhea saw the House Leaders stare at her, and she responded with a nod.

The Knights of Seiros were ready.

...

The Generals of their respective armies stood side by side.

(Judith) “Well, this is an alright battlefield to die in.”

(Gilbert) “Very optimistic...”

(Death Knight) “Realistic. Who knows what Nemesis will be throwing at us here.”

(Rodrigue) “If I can protect my son and our future for the Kingdom...I’ll be all right with this.”

(Gilbert) “Annette...Hmph. I agree.”

(Death Knight) “...”

He slowly looked over to Mercedes.

...

Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude walked up to the front together, surveying the area.

Edelgard couldn’t help but feel a sad tinge of nostalgia.

[Between Heaven and Earth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses]

(Edelgard) “Years ago we fought here as classmates…”

(Dimitri) “And now, we stand together against someone who was once a friend.”

(Claude) “As far as big class reunions go, this one’s got to be the worst one in history…”

(Rhea) “There is to be no mercy for these heretics. Do I make myself clear?”

(Catherine) “Crystal.”

(Seteth) “Loud and clear.”

(Alois) “If we are to die today, then we die doing the right thing.”

(Shamir) “Something we should have done long ago…”

(Leonie) “Alois, Shamir. It’s been an honor.”

(Byleth) “I never wanted it to come to this. I’d have much preferred if we were able to find a way to work together but…Wishing for friendship was a foolish thing for what I have done.”

(Rhea) “KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”

(Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude) “FOR PEACE!”

(Leonie, Alois, Shamir) “FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PERISHED, WE DIE IN GLORY!”

(Byleth) “WE ARE THE KNIGHTS OF NEMESIS, AND WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR!”

And so, the Battle of Gronder had begun.

The first forces to begin the fight were Rhea's.

Soldiers charged in, swords and lances raised high straight towards Byleth.

(Riddhe) "What is she doing, her men must know this is suicide!"

(Byleth) "That's exactly why she's sending them in. She'll stop at nothing to kill us. Direct the men while I'm out there."

(Riddhe) "Yes, sir!"

(Byleth) "Since she's so insistent on throwing her life away, MAGES! RELEASE THE WOLVES! BEASTS, IGNORE THE FIGHT AND GET THE CART TO GARREG MACH AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!"

The Javelin of Liberation then began being dragged by several demonic beasts. At the speed they were going, they'd be long gone once the fight was over.

However, this now meant they would only have very few heavy hitters on the field and Byleth decided against pulling his trump card out yet, it was too early.

And Byleth was not going to summon more, if the worst case scenario happened, he needed to save the magic for warping him and his army out of the fight.

He furrowed his brow and decided to observe the battle for now.

Byleth was far back enough from the fight to worry about snipers, and his position was heavily fortified.

He was going to determine when direct intervention was necessary.

Soldiers took the horses from the cart and charged them straight towards the House Leaders. They were joined by other squads of cavalry, meeting the Empire's and Kingdom's head on.

Squads of Mages began casting a large circle around them and after a few seconds, the circle started to glow into a bright light, summoning forth several demonic beasts.

2 giant wolves spawned from the circle, and charged into the Knights of Seiros, crushing and ripping apart any soldier they came across.

(Edelgard) "Rhea, that idiot! She's going to break up our formation walking right into him like that!"

(Dimitri) "Nemesis and his commander are moving to meet us head on!"

(Claude) "I'll be moving to reinforce Rhea before they get overrun by those wolves."

Edelgard and Dimitri nodded and advanced with their soldiers as the Alliance forces moved to flank from the sides.

(Claude) "Stick to the trees and make them come to us!"

Edelgard motioned her soldiers toward the enemy, and turned to Hubert.

(Edelgard) "Take the Strike Force and help the Blue Lions take care of the commander! I will be on the frontlines with Prince Dimitri! Do NOT engage the professor!"

(Hubert) "Understood. You heard Lady Edelgard, move out!"

...

(Alois) “TAKE IT DOWN!”

Seteth's wyvern grabbed one of the wolves by the neck and bit into its eye as it was being distracted by Alois and Catherine.

Using Thunderbrand, she stabbed it into the other eye, making the beast stop, and having Alois deliver the final blow with an axe to the neck, forcing it down.

Another wolf was about to charge them, being interrupted by a hail of arrows, making it grind to a halt as it fell over.

Catherine, Alois, and Seteth looked back at the trees and nodded, a gesture of thanks to Claude and continued to move towards the Mages.

(Claude) "Keep the pressure on those beasts and watch out for any more that might come in!"

(Hilda) "Claude, we'll be moving in from behind to catch them off guard."

(Claude) "Be careful then, and strike hard and get out of there!"

The Golden Deer students stuck to the trees as Claude kept watch.

Rhea slit the throat of a soldier before setting another on fire with her spell.

Catherine and Seteth barely managed to catch up with her as she continued to slaughter any who tried to attack her.

Alois stayed behind picking off any of the stragglers.

Seteth splitting a soldier in half with his axe as Catherine cut one down, they both turned to her.

(Catherine) "Lady Rhea, you need to stand back!"

(Seteth) "Catherine is right, it's too dangerous! We don't know what else might-"

(Rhea) "I DO NOT CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO ME! THAT CHILD WILL DIE BY MY HANDS IF IT MEANS I WILL HAVE TO LOSE EVERY OUNCE OF BLOOD IN MY BODY!"

(Seiros Knight) "F-FORCES ARE WARPING IN FROM BE-"

The soldier with them was electrocuted and fell to the floor.

All three of them saw a squad of mages teleport in, and fired wave after wave of fireballs at them.

Before Catherine and Rhea could react, Seteth pushed them out of the way with his wyvern, making them tumble over and barely dodge the fire as it hit him.

Seteth was thrown off his mount and landed into the grass.

(Catherine) "Seteth! Tch, DAMN ALL OF YOU!"

Picking up Thunderbrand, she charged with Rhea and began brutally cutting down the soldiers one by

Flayn was trying to heal any injured when she saw Seteth get thrown off, making her instinctively run to him.

(Claude) "H-Hey, FLAYN!"

Doing her best to avoid the carnage, Flayn ran and knelt over to Seteth.

(Flayn) "Father! Are you alri-"

Her blood ran cold as she flipped him over.

Most of his face and his front body was burned off from the attack, leaving a mess of charred bones and blood.

(Flayn) "F...FATHER!--"

That was the last thing she screamed out as she felt her entire body go numb, and fell over to the ground next to him.

Rhea, taking her sword out of a mage's head, looked to where Seteth was, and saw his burnt face and Flayn with an arrow through her heart.

(Catherine) "Flayn...!"

(Alois) “Damn it, NO!”

Rhea said nothing and instead roared out even louder, charging right for the snipers who shot Flayn.

(Sniper) "We've been spotted, retreat to-"

The Sniper's head was lopped off as Leonie rode by with her horse, swinging her sword and running over anyone in the way.

(Sniper 2) "SHIT, AMBUSH!"

(Leonie) “TAKE THE SHOT!”

An ice spike went through his chest and he fell over.

Marianne finished casting her spell and got behind a tree as soldiers were coming to reinforce the snipers.

(Hilda) "Anyone fancy looking up there?!"

Ignatz and Shamir threw themselves against the tree next to Marianne and peeked out of cover.

(Ignatz) "That one, up on the cliff directing artillery!"

...

(Riddhe) "Direct your fire at the Knights of Seiros! If Rhea gets too close, our right flank will be completely open!"

The Mages began casting another spell before one of them yelled out.

(Mages) "INCOMING!"

Everyone looked up and saw a lone Pegasus rider coming at them.

(Riddhe) "ARCHERS!"

A small group of archers aimed at the rider and let the arrows loose.

The Pegasus rider twirled around, gracefully dodging the arrows as she kept coming at them.

Several more archers got into formation and kept up the barrage, but the rider kept avoiding them.

(Riddhe) "The hell?!"

No lone rider should be that fast. Their archers were some of the best shots in the army.

Riddhe didn't realize what was special about that Pegasus rider until he saw the symbol of a lion on the side of the pegasus's helmet.

(Riddhe) "Shit, shit, SHIT! PREPARE FOR CLOSE COMBAT, THE BLUE LION CORPS IS UPON US-"

(Ingrid) "Defenseless, are we?!"

Ingrid swooped down and used an axe to send Mages flying into the air, breaking up their formation.

Archers tried taking another shot at her until a circle formed around them, and froze them completely solid.

(Annette) "ARCHERS DOWN!"

(Hubert) "Rush them!"

(Sylvain) "Got it!"

Sylvain and Ferdinand charged in on their horses, slashing at the enemy soldiers who were still trying to get their swords out.

Riddhe pulled out his sword and was about to enter the fray until he saw an arrowhead emerge from his mouth.

He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, shakily trying to reach for it before another arrow went through his brain, killing him instantly.

(Shamir) "Target down, nice shot kid."

(Ignatz) "Don't thank for me taking a life."

The rest of the Blue Lions and Black Eagles got to the others, finally wiping out the artillery unit as the Golden Deers continued attacking the right flank, eventually joined in by Rhea and her men.

...

Dimitri spun his lance around, killing every soldier around him.

(Dimitri) "Gilbert!"

Gilbert spun around and slammed his shield into a soldier trying to charge him, being cut down by Rodrigue.

(Gilbert) "There is no end to these soldiers!"

(Rodrigue) "I'll hand Nemesis one thing, he sure has an army!"

Edelgard and the Death Knight cut down the enemies next to them, letting their forces charge ahead of them.

(Edelgard) "Keep pushing, we're driving his main forces back!"

(Judith) "Looks like the boy and Rhea did their parts as well! We're starting to rout their men on the left!"

(Dimitri) "Good, now let's-"

Dimitri stopped in his tracks, and everyone else did too.

All of the Knights of Nemesis pulled back and got into a guarding formation, stoppong their attack.

Several Alliance and Empire soldiers charged them, trying to take advantage of the situation.

(Death Knight) "YOU FOOLS, WAIT!"

The soldiers were instantly killed and sent flying back, torso and arms flying high into the air.

When everyone looked back into the crowd, Byleth was slowly walking out, de-activating the whip function in his sword.

(Byleth) "I have come too far, and killed too many to be stopped at Gronder."

Everyone immediately raised their weapons as Byleth continued to walk at them.

(Gilbert) "Your Highness, Lady Edelgard, stand back!"

(Judith) "Protect the kids with our lives!"

(Death Knight) "Acknowledged."

(Rodrigue) "With pleasure! HAAAA-"

Rodrigue was the first to charge Byleth on his horse.

Byleth did not bother moving out the way, and instead raised his hand.

Everything grinded to a halt, with nothing making a sound anymore. Slowly, everyone began to reverse, putting back Rodrigue before he even charged.

Byleth slowly walked alongside Rodrigue, waiting for time to stop reversing.

(Byleth) "2 more to go."

(Rodrigue) "With ple-AAAGH!--"

Everyone immediately looked to their left, Byleth suddenly was behind Rodrigue, looking straight at them as the Sword of the Creator plunged into the back of his chest.

(Gilbert) "RODRIGUE!"

Judith and the Death Knight swung their weapons at Byleth, him ripping the sword out and deflecting their attacks with relative ease.

Gilbert came around the side, swinging his axe down as the Death Knight and Judith kept him down.

(Byleth) "One more."

Again, everything stopped around him and the pressure was let off his sword. However, he didn’t have much time to act.

He backed up a safe distance from when he just killed Rodrigue and activated the whip.

Time resuming, The two swung at an empty space, realizing too late where he was.

Byleth was several feet back from where they would’ve hit him, and he swung at Gilbert who tried to block with his shield.

The shield was split in two as the whip reached Gilbert’s chest, splitting it open, and with him falling over.

(Death Knight) “LADY EDELGARD!”

Byleth’s eyes went wide, barely able to deactivate the whip and time and block Edelgard.

CLANG!

(Edelgard) “YOU WILL FALL TODAY, PROFESSOR!”

(Byleth) “Not...until, I AM DONE WITH MY PLANS!”

Byleth kicked Edelgard back, Dimitri and Judith beginning to rush him.

He deflected Judith’s attacks with ease, but rolled out the way of Dimitri’s.

He was confident in blocking everyone’s attacks, but Dimitri’s brute strength would snap his arms in half with how hard he was swinging Areadbhar.

Judith came in from behind and tried to impale Byleth, but he swung around and knocked her sword into the air, bringing the sword back down and cutting her chest.

Edelgard, Dimitri and the Death Knight got into position, slowly starting to surround Byleth.

(Byleth) “With one Divine Pulse left, staying here is suicidal! MEN, WE’RE RETREATING!”

Byleth turned back to them as his forces formed a small blockade around him.

(Byleth) “MAGES, RELEASE THE PRISONERS!”

The mages did as they were told, leaving a summoning circle right above the cliff where the Blue Lions and Black Eagles were and casted a spell around them, using the last of the energy to get out of the battlefield.

(Rhea) “No...NO! NO DAMN IT! YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY!”

Rhea’s body began to glow, and the figure slowly started to larger and larger.

“YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE MEEEEEE!”

(Catherine) “LADY RHEA, WAIT!”

Byleth and the rest of his forces teleported back to where the Demonic Beasts were dragging the Javelin back, but in the distance, he saw Rhea turning into the Immaculate One.

(Byleth) “Tch, of course she’ll force us to use it. DEMONIC BEASTS HALT! MAGES, ACTIVATE THE JAVELIN OF LIBERATION AT MINIMUM POWER! IT WILL BE DAMAGED, BUT WE HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO REPAIR IT BACK AT BASE!”

(Mage) “Understood! ACTIVATING!”

As Rhea took flight, she was about to charge headfirst into Byleth until she saw a bright light coming from the sky.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”

After the sky was lit on fire, Rhea hit the floor, causing a mini-earthquake around Gronder with the impact.

The sky cleared up and Rhea slowly started to transform back into her human self, everyone trying to shake off the intense light that blinded everyone.

Catherine and the others surrounded her, trying to see if she was okay.

(Catherine) “L-LADY RHEA!”

Her hands slowly shook as Catherine took it.

(Rhea) “D-Don’t...let...him...succeed...- “

Her hand fell to the floor, and her dress started to turn red.

(Catherine) “No...! NO NO NO!-”

Alois turned his head away, and couldn’t help but feel guilty for her death.

He may have not liked her after learning the truth but...

...

Byleth was walking with his men until he suddenly felt light headed, and fell to the ground, dropping the Sword of the Creator.

(Mage) “C-COMMANDER!”

(Knight) “Wait a second, his hair!”

Byleth’s hair turned from the bright green he had, slowly to the dark blue.

(Mage) “Someone carry him, and let’s go! We don’t have a moment to waste!”

...

(Annette) “Ack, w-what in the-”

Her eyes went wide when she looked back down, seeing Gilbert on the ground.

(Annette) “DAD!”

She was about to run after him, but Felix grabbed her by the arm.

(Felix) “What are you doing?! We don’t know if there’s enemies still here!”

He said this, but he was fighting every instinct he had to go down to see Rodrigue.

This was a bloody battle, and the last thing he needed was to lose anyone else.

Annette started sobbing, and Mercedes went to hold Annette. Sylvain, Ingrid, Dedue, and Ashe walked next to Felix, looking at the bodies scattered all across Gronder.

(Ashe) “So much death...”

(Ingrid) “To die on a stupid field like this is...is just-”

(Sylvain) “You...don’t have to finish that, Ingrid.”

(Dedue) “It is a tragedy...”

Edelgard, Dimitri, and the Death Knight lowered their weapons for the moment.

(Dimitri) “Gilbert, Rodrigue...”

Claude slowly rode up on his Wyvern, closing his eyes once he saw Judith.

(Claude) “We’ll...We’ll make sure no one died in vain today, in all sides.”

(Death Knight) “...What did Nemesis mean when he said, “release the prisoner”?”

Edelgard and Dimitri started to look around and noticed that the circle that was in front of the mages wasn’t here anymore.

(Edelgard) “What the...?”

...

(???) “H-Help...us!”

The Blue Lions and Black Eagles quickly looked around, not sure if they heard something.

(Dorothea) “H-Hey...Didn’t that sound like?-”

(Randolph) “Help...us!”

(Fleche) “Please!”

There was suddenly a bit of smoke surrounding the area, a circle encompassing the area they were in too.

(Caspar) cough cough “Where’d this smoke come from?!”

(Ferdinand) “That sounds like General Randolph!”

(Bernadetta) “And a little girl?”

(Petra) “They are in the sounding of pain!”

Hubert nodded and went near the cliff they were at, looking at Edelgard.

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard, General Randolph and his sister Fleche is here!”

(Edelgard) “R-Really?!”

There was some good news at least.

Though...Why did Byleth only now decide to release them?

(Ashe) “We have to help them!”

(Ingrid) “Right, come on!”

(Sylvain) “We’re right behind you!”

(Dedue) “Hmph.”

(Felix) “H-Hang on guys!”

The Blue Lions stopped and turned to Felix.

(Mercedes) “What is it?”

(Felix) “Does something about their voices sound...off?”

The Black Eagles stopped moving as well and started to listen.

(Randolph/Fleche) “P-Pleas̶̊͜ë̵͉́.̸̘͠.̷̮͊.̷̭̓h̷̘̾e̴̫̊l̶̳̄p̸͍̏.̴̹̋.̴̛̯.̵̦̽u̷̩͘ș̸͐.̷̰͠.̶̥̾.̶̪͆!̷̩̂"̷̺̑

Everyone’s eyes went wide as Hubert said quietly to everyone.

(Hubert) “Everyone...Backs against the cliff. Now.”

Both classes started to slowly back up as their voices intensified.

(Randolph/Fleche?) “H̷e̵l̶p̶ ̵u̶s̸!̶ ̴H̷E̷L̷P̵ ̵U̷S̴!̴ ̸H̶E̶L̴P̴ ̴U̸S̵!̸”

The Golden Deer students were on the ground, slowly preparing their weapons.

Leonie looked back at Claude and gestured up to the cliff, raising her sword as her horse backed up.

Everyone took the hint, and raised their weapons.

“H̷̘̫͊͗̏̂̐̄̋͑̕͜͝E̶̞͙͉̝͕̗͔̝̬͈͋̚L̴͖͑̈́P̶̰͇͈̿ ̷͔̙̆̏̈́̾́̐̓̀U̸̺͍̇̀̕S̸̡̡̛̝̪̳͋͑͠!̷̧̠̞̜̩̓͛̽̕͠”

Bernadetta was the first to scream when they emerged from the smoke.

First came Randolph’s head, and saw Fleche’s face connected to it. Randolph’s right and Fleche’s left eye connected to form a single eye, one with two pupils and filled with bloodshot red.

As they walked out of the smoke, their heads were connected to a single body. Several limbs stuck out of them, as if a child had created this unholy abomination that stood before everyone.

It was several body parts of different people apparently, all crooked and bent.

Some of them had formed scythes from the bones that came out of them.

The circle began to glow even brighter, prompting everyone to look down at their feet.

(Dedue) “OFF THE CLIFF, NOW!”

No one had to be told twice.

As the circle began getting brighter and brighter, everyone hopped off the cliff and landed right in front of the Golden Deers, looking back up.

It finally enveloped Randolph and Fleche, turning into a massive demonic beast that looked something out of everyone’s nightmares.

It was in a ball-like form, with several disjointed feet at the bottom and hands coming from the side, some broken with the bones sticking out and some arms trying to grab for anyone nearby.

(Leonie) “GODDESS, THAT’S WHAT HE WAS DOING TO THEM?!”

(Alois) “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!”

(Shamir) “He was trying to research the concept of fusing people together to make a stronger unit, but that...thing is what it amounted to! After a short while once the experiments were failing, he just took the bodies we took from the civilians to make that thing!”

Everyone was taken aback by the horrific monstrosity that stood before them.

(Hilda) “I-I THINK I’M GOING TO THROW UP-”

(Hubert) “NOT NOW!”

(Dedue) “Tch, we would be wasting time fighting this thing!”

(Dimitri) “Dedue is right, but we cannot let this thing live!”

(Catherine) “Leave that thing to me...”

Everyone turned to Catherine as church forces surrounded her.

(Catherine) “Byleth is already getting ahead of us! Take what remains of your forces and get after him! If he activates the Javelin of Liberation while we’re all fighting this thing, then Rhea and everyone else would have died for nothing!”

She held Thunderbrand firmly in her hands.

(Catherine) “The bodies of the dead will not be desecrated by this thing!”

Shamir, Alois, and Leonie stood by Catherine, looking at the monster.

(Shamir) “We...we helped this thing be made, so the responsibility falls on us too. I left you alone before. I won’t be doing that again.”

(Alois) “Same here.”

(Leonie) “We’ll keep it distracted, everyone else JUST GO!”

Although no one wanted to leave them to this thing’s mercy they were right.

(Death Knight) “We are wasting time! We need to get moving!”

(Claude) “All forces, on us! LET’S MOVE IT!”

Everyone snapped out of their state of shock, and the Alliance forces followed Claude. Dimitri was the next to signal to move out, then Edelgard.

Edelgard couldn’t help but look back as sounds of fighting had erupted.

(Edelgard) “Professor...”

She closed her eyes.

It wasn’t any of their faults.

It was hers. If she hadn’t left the professor right when he needed her the most when Jeralt was dead...Maybe things could have-”

Dimitri put his hand on Edelgard’s shoulder.

(Dimitri) “It is too late for regret. El.”

(Edelgard) “D-Dimitri...”

(Claude) “He’s right. Right now, it’s up to us to make sure we can fix our mistakes.”

Edelgard nodded.

(Edelgard) “Right. We must not falter now.”

She started to take the lead, and eventually Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude walked side by side to end this where it all began.

Garreg Mach Monastery.

----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The Beginning”

In our bones, we knew the war was almost over.

Fodlan held its breath, waiting to see which side would make the final daring move.

As expected, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude went for the kill.

And the moment they were in sight, everything fell into a mini-civil war. We had loyalists that fought for Byleth, and those who wanted to defect and the fights began to grow violent.

Personally? I didn’t care for either side, after what had happened in Gronder? I just wanted to live.

Because in our bones, we knew the war was almost over.

For better or worse, we knew this battle would be the beginning of the end.

----

[Escape - Darling In The Franxx]

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friendlylocalwhumper · 5 years

Text

alex is @whump-sprite’s oc; whump-sprite helped me with this drabble, wrote parts of it, and made it much better in my opinion!

“Hey, Curls, somebody’s here to see you,” Emory murmurs, kissing Lux on his mess of curls and rubbing his shoulder. “Can you see Alex, there?”

Lux makes a surprised sound and tries to sit up more, tries to focus again. Emory helps him shift to lie propped up on the pillows behind him. He doesn’t want to hover, to block the help from getting to Lux, so he moves away after kissing the fevered warlock’s knuckles. He can’t help watching Alex as he walks into the room, a little skeptical of how this is going to go, how it’ll make Lux better.

He likes Alex, he does. The guy’s a good friend to Lux, and from what he’s been told, no less brave. But right now Alex isn’t a friend, he’s a healer, and the reason that he’s here is to make Lux better.

Alex moves toward the bed, careful but offering Lux something like a smile. “Hey, Lux. How you feeling?”

There’s no answer. Lux’s eyes are sort of dull, confusion seeming to set in. Emory tries to help. “You hear that, Curls? Alex is here, he wants to know how you’re feeling. With your fever.”

Lux blinks and glances between them, sinking down a little more into the covers. “S-sorry, got... forgot to answer. Uh, c-, cold, feel cold.”

Alex sits on the edge of the bed, touches Lux’s shoulder before going to feel his forehead with the back of his hand. Emory takes note of that, considers that people who know Lux well touch his shoulders first, like they’re making him more steady, preparing him for more painless touch. Those shoulders that ache so much, that get sore and stiff and need to be massaged, stretched every day. They bring Lux pain, but he must be okay with being touched there from times when that pain was the least of his worries.

Alex takes in the scene, the dazed but wary look in Lux’s eyes, the unnatural red tinge of his cheeks, with a sharp inhale of trepidation. Presses the back of his hand to Lux’s forehead with even more fear. Doesn’t need to take Lux’s temperature to know this is bad, this is the kind of fever that creeps into the mind and damages, this is the kind of fever that could easily be magical in origin.

But Lux, with his hesitant words and fearful shivers, has more reason to be afraid than Alex, so the healer keeps his voice calm.

“You seem really focused right now, Lux, got to be hard with this fever,” Alex says, lowering his hand and looking at the three water bottles on the nightstand, two of them empty. “Been drinking water, too, that’s really good.”

Some of the shine comes back to Lux’s eyes at the words that sound to him like praise, like he’s being stunningly well-behaved, and Alex’s heart catches in his throat at the sight of it. “T-tryin’,” He responds, voice meek. “...Please, ca-an I, can I have more blankets? Co-old...” The shivers running through him make it seem like he’s stuck out in a blizzard, but the sheets are soaked with sweat and his skin is uncomfortably hot every time Alex brushes his fingers against it.

“Can you bring in a bowl of cold water and washcloths, Emory?” Alex asks, turning away for a second and then looking back at Lux. “I’m sorry, Lux, but we need to bring down your fever. I know you feel cold, but, here, feel this?” He puts his hand on Lux’s forearm, eliciting a violent shudder. “Feel how that’s cold? It’s ‘cause you’re too hot.”

Lux cringes visibly, tries to make himself smaller, and Alex frowns. It looks like his sick friend stopped following the words at some point and only registered that he was being made colder, being watched. Emory returns to the room with the bowl and cloths, and Alex starts to soak them and place them along Lux’s wrists, his forehead, his chest. Lux shakes and stops responding, eyes glassy with resigned terror at what he thinks is a punishment.

“I need to know if this is was caused by magic,” Alex says, quietly, to Emory.

“Caused - magic?” Emory asks, backing away not out of fear, but in an attempt to stay out of the way of things he doesn’t understand. “You think someone did this to him?”

“Possible,” Alex answers vaguely, not eager to bring up the mindfucker in front of a delirious, already frightened Lux. When he looks back down at his friend, though, he finds that Lux was listening, and he focused hard enough to be able to understand.

“Nnnnh, nnh, no, please, ‘m sorry, I... n-no more...” One of Lux’s arms slips out from under the covers, his hand coming up to hover by his temple in an attempt to protect himself from mind magic, from the Hunter’s touch. Holding his hand there is too much of an effort, it seems, because he lowers his hand to rest over his temple, fingers over his own curls, eyes on Alex. “He, he’s not... he didn’t, ‘s not him, is - is it? It is magic? Wa-as I...” He can’t, can’t bring himself to say the word bad, it’s too scary.

“I’m going to figure that out, Lux, and I’m going to make you feel better,” Alex promises, his face drawn in concern. If the Hunter is in Lux’s head, if he did cast a spell on Lux from afar to make him this sick, it could be a trap. It could latch onto a healer’s magic and make it rot from the inside out. Alex isn’t too weak to admit to himself that he’s afraid. Lux doesn’t need to know that, though.

Lux simply needs to feel safe.

“We’re right here, Curls. You’re not alone,” Emory says, clearly thinking the same.

Lux doesn’t answer Emory, but he nods slightly, biting his lip. As Alex holds his hand a few inches over Lux’s chest and promises that he’s only using a light, undetectable bit of magic to check out the cause of this fever, Lux tries not to squirm.

His magic slips in easy. Nothing fights him, his power doesn’t hit against the strange unnatural shine of the Hunter’s twisted sorcery.

“Not magic,” Alex confirms with an audible exhale, relieved beyond measure. “That’s good, it means I can do a lot to help,” he explains for Emory. Then, he touches his hand to Lux’s chest, and starts to press cool healing magic into him.

It should help, should ease the aches and inflammation and the fire in Lux’s blood, should make it easier to breathe and think, but instead it elicits in Lux a panic, a silent agonized mortal terror. Lux’s eyes widen, his breathing nearly stops, the shivers getting worse instead of better. For a terrible moment, Alex thinks that his magic is coming out backwards, twisted, worsening Lux’s condition.

When he sees the tears, though, and the unfocused eyes staring up, Alex figures that this is fear. Lux is afraid, feeling magic in him when he’s this vulnerable, this sick. How many times did the Hunter push magic into him to drive his fever up while in the cellar, Alex wonders? How many times did he make Lux better, out of boredom with a captive too ill to do more than whine, and start beating him again?

The soft whimpers, the tears and hitching breaths, none of them are an attempt at communicating. What good would it do Lux to try and stop the Hunter, try and reason with him? Lux thinks Alex is the Hunter, right now.

Emory has stepped closer, tense and ready to drag Alex away from the bed if he has to, because it looks like Lux is only getting worse. Alex holds his hand up, silently willing Emory to give him just a little bit more time. He knows, knows how hard this is for Emory to watch. But the only thing Alex can do is try harder, and murmur, over and over again, you’re doing great, Lux, you’re doing so well. He pushes in more magic, more quickly than is strictly necessary, to get this over with. After a few minutes, when Lux’s skin isn’t so hot, Alex pulls his hands away.

Lux is blinking and focusing his eyes and panting, thinking hard.

The healer rubs at his stinging wrists, and smiles. “Does that feel better?”

Lux looks at Alex and visibly relaxes like he expected the Hunter to be there, like he was avoiding the revelation of the truth. “Better,” He answers hoarsely. He feels grimy, now, stuck under a sweaty blanket, but he deals with it instead of asking for help getting out from under it. His body is still weak, his mind still drifting, and the idea of moving sounds terribly exhausting right now. “Was that you?”

“Yup, that was me. Emory called me to see if I could help.”

At the mention of Emory, Lux looks around for him and easily finds him. Emory comes over and, when Lux reaches up for him, takes that warm hand in his. Lux uses his other hand to wipe away the tears that gathered on his face when he was confused about being punished. “Can I get m-more blankets now, please?”

“‘Course,” Emory answers without consulting with the healer, desperate to offer some lacking comfort. “Anything you want, Curls.”

“And, and Alex, you’ll stay?”

Alex sits at the head of the bed opposite Emory and smiles, relieved that this time, he helped, he was able to do something, and although his chest feels tight and his wrists are tingling, he didn’t make himself the patient in the process of healing Lux. “No way you’re getting me to leave before that fever’s cleared away. I’m staying until you feel like yourself, I promise.”

#mine #whump #drabble #sick #fever #magic #afraid #past trauma #crying #comfort #lux #emory #alex #other people's ocs #whumpsprite #worry

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keepeacer · 5 years

Text

Ride the Wind to the Sun

a gyjo fic. hehe

Words: ~2101

Rating: T (just for language)

Content Warnings: none really applicable

Summary: Gyro and Johnny enjoy a fireside chat. Sappy.

Ao3 Link

Fic under the cut:

Ever since he saw him getting dragged by a horse along the ground with a plank of wood through his leg, he knew the man would be the death of him.

Gyro’s father’s voice echoed in his mind every time he looked at Johnny. “Sentimentality will get you nowhere. You have a duty to live up to. Remember that.” Duty, schmuty. He’d originally gone to America to participate in the race because of his “duty”, sure. The plan was to win, get the money for Marco, and move on with his life.

He didn't know that some moody American with a serious attitude problem and a wild mane of red hair would throw a wrench into his plans, but here Gyro was, sitting with him at a fire somewhere around Lake Michigan, swatting at mosquitos that had apparently decided his arms were a suitable meal for the night. Johnny had a faraway look in his eyes as he poked at the fire with a stick, mind probably lost in whatever mental malady was plaguing him that night. He had plenty of those.

Johnny must’ve cast some sort of spell over him as soon as they first set sights on each other, ‘cause he found himself totally going against his own logic and reasoning and inviting the fellow to accompany him on the race. He was supposed to be there to win, not teach some depressed kid how to spin a cork. And yet… he saw that determination in his eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. It drew him towards Johnny like a magnet, and he found himself hopelessly stuck.

The flames before him grew taller, illuminating the face of his race partner across him. He must have thrown in an oil rag. Johnny was resourceful like that.

Gyro could see his face more clearly now. Furrowed brow, elegant nose, high cheekbones, full lips drawn into an eternal pout. He could even make out the freckles peppering the bridge of his nose in the low light, though he had to squint to do so. Johnny was cute in a country sort of way, that much had already been established in Gyro’s mind soon after they met; he couldn’t keep his eyes off him on the best of days.

He leaned against the rock next to him, hand going up to support his chin as he sighed. “Lovely creature,” Gyro found himself murmuring. “What act of God brought you before me?” Ah, shoot. He had said that out loud, and in English. Maybe Johnny didn’t hear him?

“The hell you on about?” Johnny asked with a bored expression. He was still poking idly at the flames. Gyro couldn’t see, but a faint shade of red was slowly dusting across his nose, cheeks and ears.

Gyro cursed internally. He shouldn’t have underestimated a jockey’s hearing ability.

Shifting himself up to sit with a grin, he decided to roll with it. A hand was placed over his heart as he used the other to gesticulate dramatically, eyes closed for effect. “Ah, amore mio. Sei un modello? Dio si stava mettendo in mostra quando ti ha creato.”

He peeked an eye open to see Johnny scowling across from him.

“You know damn well I can’t tell a lick of what you’re sayin’, Gyro.”

Gyro laughed and stood up, walking over and plopping himself down next to Johnny, whose face remained as grumpy as ever. Didn’t matter how much he twisted his face up, he was still cute to Gyro. None of the girls—or boys—back home could compare.

He tentatively reached over to gently place his hand over the one that Johnny wasn’t using to wield a stick. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when Johnny didn’t yank his own back. So it wasn’t one of those nights, then.

His thumb rubbed over Johnny’s hand. Hard and calloused. “My Jojo. Always so grumpy.” Johnny made a noise in the back of his throat before replying. “Wouldn’t be so grumpy if you didn’t go ‘round talkin’ like some sap out a romance novel.”

“You love when I do that.”

“Maybe if I knew what the hell was coming out that mouth. For all I know, you could be cursin' me.”

With that he tossed his stick into the fire. His head turned to face Gyro, mouth set in a frown but his eyes glistening in a smile. He really had such cute lips.

Gyro used his free hand to snake around Johnny’s waist and drew him closer, snickering at the surprised grunt from the other man. Green eyes bored into blue as they simply sat there for a while, silent save for the crackling of the fire and the occasional sniff of a horse.

He let go of Johnny’s hand to reach up and pull off the starred cap that seemed glued to his head, his hand shifting down to gently cradle his face. A lock of hair was pushed behind his ears. No complaints yet from Johnny. Ah, his cheeks had felt a bit warm, and now Gyro could plainly see.

For all the aloof, plain-faced fronts Johnny put on, his body was damn terrible at lying along with him.

A thumb brushed over Johnny’s lips. “Was sayin’ you’re so handsome you could pass for a model. God, glory be to Him, was flexing His talents when He whipped you up.”

The corners of the frown lifted up into the faintest smile. “Says you.” His voice was soft.

“Johnny Joestar, you’re the prettiest thing I ever did see. I mean that.”

A snort from Johnny. Not a laugh, but it was close enough. The sound was like music to Gyro’s ears—no, better. It was like an angel’s voice whispering to him. Whatever it was like, it was one of Gyro’s favorite sounds that he desperately tried to get the other man to recreate whenever possible. Those gags weren’t for nothing.

Johnny’s voice was still soft as he spoke, although it had a sad tinge to it. “You won’t be lookin’ at me for much longer, though.”

That was the sad reality to their "goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation". Best case scenario, Gyro won the race, went back to Napoli, freed Marco, and life went on. Johnny would walk again and go back to racing professionally like he wanted. That was the problem—they’d both have to get on separately. Gyro hadn’t wanted to think about it, but he couldn’t ignore it forever.

He couldn’t stand that look on Johnny’s face. Hated when tears welled up in those big blue eyes, hated it even more when those tears were for him. Maybe his father was right about his sentimentality. He almost had a mind to quit the whole damn race and find a nice cabin, maybe somewhere back out west. Take Johnny with him and live out the rest of their days together, away from all this corpse bullshit, away from all the Zeppeli family expectations that weighed down Gyro like a ball and chain.

“Hey, hey,” Gyro whispered, thumb shifting to wipe a stray tear from Johnny’s eyes. “I’m not gone just yet.”

Johnny’s lower lip trembled as he nodded slightly. “Y-yeah. Sorry, you know my damn fool emotions always get the best of m—”

Gyro silenced him with a soft kiss. Johnny’s eyes closed and so did Gyro’s. Until Gyro found a solution, and he honestly didn’t know if he could, they had to revel in the small moments like these. Truth be told, they didn’t even have to be doing anything. He reckoned that as long as Johnny was near him he’d be happy with the outcome.

Gyro grinned as they separated, baring his golden teeth that Johnny claimed to hate. “Now turn that frown upside down, partner. I’m right here.”

His—well, he wasn’t sure what exactly to call him—sniffed, nodding again. A gentle smile, much more visible than before, unfolded across his face, which Gyro decided then and there was one of the most gorgeous sights in all of America. In all the world. Johnny’s arms wrapped around Gyro’s waist as he buried his face in his chest, still sniffing a bit. “I know ya are, dummy. I just wish we could stay this way forever, corny as it sounds.”

“Corny?” Sometimes American English phrases eluded him.

“Means like, well. Uh, trite?” Johnny’s voice was muffled by Gyro’s chest. Gyro’s hand went up to brush through his hair thoughtfully. “Ah. Well, I think corny’s good, then.”

“Mm. Guess you’re right. You’re corny, ‘n I like you.”

Forever, huh?

Johnny’s hair was softer than a haggard ex-jockey’s should be, but Gyro wasn’t complaining. Gyro leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Johnny’s head, a light bulb going off in his own. “You know, I have an idea.”

A groan as Johnny separated his face from Gyro’s chest to face him, a curious look developing in his eyes. Gyro just now realized that Johnny had somehow wormed his way into his lap, but again, it was far from something to complain about. Johnny cocked an eyebrow. “Not another one of your ‘ideas’.”

His own arms went around Johnny’s waist as he pulled him closer, effectively tangling their arms together. It was an extremely far-fetched, flighty notion, but it was worth putting out into the world.

“Come with me to Napoli.”

Johnny’s eyes widened. “Gyro, what?”

“Did I stutter?” His hands rubbed the small of Johnny’s back, near where he knew his injury was. Gyro’s voice had taken on a more serious tone, but it was still tainted by that ever-present sense of melancholy that had suddenly plagued the two. “I can’t stand to leave you here.”

“Gyro…?”

“Please, Johnny,” he found himself pleading. There was that damn sentimentality his father always got on him about.

Johnny’s face was almost as red as his hair, his eyes looking as if they were threatening to burst into tears at any moment. Gyro tensed, worried that perhaps he had been a bit too forward. Of course Johnny wouldn’t want to go back to Napoli with him, and he was a fool for even thinking that. Sure, their remaining time together was limited, but Johnny had probably already resigned himself to going their separate ways. Johnny probably thought he was just lying to him like everyone else.

No.

He wasn’t going to be one of the people that left Johnny behind, and that was the end of it.

To his pleasure (and displeasure because of the tears spilling from those beautiful blue eyes) Johnny nodded, leaning in to kiss Gyro again, deeper this time. His tongue brushed over Gyro’s grills, a tingling sensation running down his spine as Johnny’s hands worked their way through his long blond hair.

They pulled apart breathlessly, Johnny’s hands still tangled in Gyro’s hair. A full-fledged grin was on his face now, and Gyro’s heart soared at the sight.

The voice like audible gold danced in his eardrums as it spoke to Gyro, shining eyes smiling at him fondly. “Can’t say no to you. Dunno what I’d do if I couldn’t see your ugly beard and your dumb teddy bear ever again.”

Gyro cackled at that. He left waist-holding duty to one hand as he reached up and grabbed the hat off of his head, lowering it onto Johnny’s own. “But you gotta admit, the hat’s cool.”

“The hat is cool,” Johnny agreed, and then he laughed, a real, full laugh, and Gyro could feel his own cheeks heating up. Dio mio, he’d do anything to hear that on loop.

They sat like that for a bit, basking contentedly in each other’s presence before Johnny spoke up again, tilting Gyro’s hat up so he could see. “Think it’s about bedtime, darlin’.”

Gyro’s eyes widened. “That’s a new one.”

“Well, get used to it!” Johnny smacked the side of Gyro’s ass and smiled real goofy-like, shifting himself off of Gyro and motioning with his chin toward the tent. Gyro sat there bewildered at Johnny’s sudden change in demeanor, but the surprise melted into a tenderness as he leaned down to scoop Johnny up, despite the other being perfectly capable of scooting himself the 10 feet away to the tent. The usual protests were absent, a pleasant hum coming from the man in his arms. Gyro felt a new sort of hope in his chest.

Gyro Zeppeli decided that whatever would actually happen at the end of the race, it would be worth it just to end up with Johnny Joestar.

#johnny joestar #gyro zeppeli #gyjo #gyrojo #jogy #whatever else lmao #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #steel ball run #my writing

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jfpisadearqueerdeer · 6 years

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Dancing On Our Own, Part 2 | A Perciver Fic

Fifth Year

“Hey, Perce.”

Percy looked up to see Oliver looking at him nervously. They hadn’t seen each other on the train, as Percy was wrapped up in prefect duties. And now, Oliver looked as if he wasn’t sure if he could sit next to Percy in The Great Hall. Percy scooched over, and Oliver smiled softly, and took a seat.

“I heard you made Quidditch captain, Oliver.”

Percy wished it wasn’t like this, but ever since last year when he realized that Oliver had probably been thinking about a girl in the showers before hanging out with him, they were both suddenly very nervous around each other. Oliver confirmed the statement with a nod and then spoke once again.

“And you, prefect.”

Percy nodded in reply politely. He hated not knowing what to say to his best friend. For the last four years, they had been able to talk about anything and everything. Well that wasn’t exactly true. Percy had been hiding his true feelings since third year. He thought that might like-like Oliver. Actually, no, he didn’t think. He knew. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Oliver talking again.

“I know you’re a prefect now, Perce, but do you think, maybe, we could, um, have our own little celebration tonight?”

Percy blushed at the words, but he nodded anyways. He would do anything to be on good terms with Oliver again. And anyways, he had never applied the rules to him and Oliver. It was different with them. It wasn’t like they were doing any actual harm with the rules they broke. And he was sure that it was going to be the same way tonight.

“Of course, Ollie.”

***

When both he and Oliver had gotten to the dormitory, Oliver led him to his bed, and searched his bag for something. Percy wasn’t sure what Oliver was about to pull out, but he was really nervous. He was even more nervous when Oliver was done searching and realized that his best friend had a bottle of fire whiskey in his hand. He had never drunk alcohol before, and Oliver must have known this, going by his next words (and the fact that they had been friends for four years).

“Don’t be nervous, Perce. I’ll be here.”

Percy timidly took the bottle out of Oliver’s hands. He wasn’t sure how to go about this. Oliver was staring at him intently, daring him to drink. One look in his friend’s eyes was all it took for him to open the bottle and take a large swig. Maybe this, of all things, would encourage him to make a move. But drinking so much at once was a mistake, as he started coughing right away, causing Oliver to take the bottle away from him.

“I wasn’t finished.”

Percy knew he shouldn’t have put so much anger behind those words, but it was just him and Oliver now, and that meant he could stop pretending that everything was fine. Oliver didn’t look hurt though, taking the words as a challenge instead. He drank out of the bottle like one would drink water, with casual sips, but still drinking a lot at the same time.

“Little sips, Perce. Little sips.”

Percy snatched the bottle back, mimicking Oliver’s actions. The alcohol stung his throat, but after a few minutes, he stopped feeling much at all. And, suddenly, he got what a drunk person would believe was a “good idea” but unintoxicated people would think of as a little bit stupid.

“What if we play a game?”

“What kind of game?”

“The kind of game where we find new ways to kiss/touch each other every time one of us takes a drink. That is, if you’re not scared.”

Percy watched as Oliver took out another bottle of fire whiskey, and smiled victoriously. He knew Oliver would never pass up a challenge like this, even if he was straight. There was no way Oliver would ever let Percy call him scared. He took a small swig out of the new bottle, raising his eyes in Oliver’s direction, challenging him to start out their little game.

“You really want to do this, Perce? Want your first kiss to be with your bent best friend?”

Percy was shocked at the taunting slash confession, but he didn’t let it show, just nodding, waiting for his kiss. Oliver turned towards Percy, pulling the red-haired boy into his lap, resting his hands on the small of his best friend’s back. He grazed his lips over Percy’s in an agonizingly sweet way, but pulled back after barely a second. He had to leave room to grow after all.

“That was barely a kiss.”

Percy knew he shouldn’t be complaining that Oliver kissed him at all, but he wanted more. He passed the bottle to Oliver anyways, and watched as his friend took a large gulp and grinned at him prettily. Deciding he should tease Oliver as well, he took hold of his friend’s hands and kissed each one of Oliver’s long, thin fingers. Oliver shivered beneath him.

“If you’re going to make me hard Perce, I hope you plan on fixing the problem.”

Percy abandoned their little game after only two turns, setting the bottle aside and pinning Oliver to the bed. He left a trail of wet kisses on Oliver’s skin, starting out just below his ear, quickly pecking him on the nose, skipping over his mouth, and ended with a very wet, suggestive kiss on the most sensitive part of Oliver’s neck.

“Oh, Oliver, you really think I would start something without finishing it?”

And, suddenly, he was nervous again. He had never even kissed someone before tonight, how was he to know what to do next? Oliver must have sensed his anxiety, as he had suddenly sat up, grabbing Percy’s hand. He timidly kissed Percy full on the lips, awkwardly melding their lips together, moving not quite in-sync. It was perfectly imperfect.

“When it comes to us, you have a habit of leaving me… let’s say, unsatisfied. We never did finish our dance last year. And we haven’t danced since either.”

Percy shot a look at him, but then stood up, pulling the other boy up with him. He placed Oliver’s and his hands in position, just as Oliver had the time before, and started out a slow dance. Oliver smiled at him, partly with happiness, and partly with drunkenness. They were a mess of gangly limbs and intoxicated actions, but in both the boy’s minds, never had a moment been so beautiful, especially once they had started singing the familiar words of their song.

“I think we're alone now,

There doesn't seem to be anyone around

I think we're alone now,

The beating of our hearts is the only sound”

They woke up the next morning, passed out the floor, fully clothed, with a bottle of fire whiskey just a few feet away. It was truly a shame that neither of them could remember past opening that first bottle.

Sixth Year

“Perce, let me in!”

Oliver had been stuck in the hall for the past ten minutes, begging Percy to let him into the abandoned classroom, which was warded heavily with locking charms. He had disappeared after lunch, and when Oliver asked around, a Ravenclaw in their year said that they had seen him going into this classroom. He knew that the Ravenclaw could have been lying, though as distraught as they seemed to be, he highly doubted it.

“Percival Weasley, if you do not let me in, I will write your mother!”

The door opened suddenly, and Oliver stumbled slash fell through the threshold. He looked up to see Percy almost carelessly flicking his wand towards the door, effectively shutting it. He looked, well, he looked like an utter mess. Tears stained his cheeks, his hair looked as if he had been trying to pull it out, and his normally pale skin was red and patchy, signs that Percy had been scratching, like he always did when he was upset.

“You’re not going to write her anything.”

Percy’s voice was bitter with a tinge of something else. Perhaps regret, or anger, or… depression. That had to be it. Percy was only like this when he went down one of his depressive spirals. The question was, what had sent him down the spiral? Oliver walked over to his best friend, and even when the other boy turned away, he didn’t give up. He grabbed Percy’s hand and forced him to sit down on one of the many tables. He pulled a chair over and examined Percy’s skin, looking for injuries.

“Percy. You can’t do this to yourself. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

Oliver watched as his friend shook his head, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. As he cast a healing spell of Percy’s scratched raw arms, he asked what was wrong again. Percy still refused to answer. Oliver cast a repairing on Percy’s ripped robe, and a cleaning charm on a mysterious stain on Percy’s white shirt, asking once again what was wrong, his tone more serious and forceful now. And Percy finally gave in.

“If you really want to know… I’ve been so stressed out lately. It’s stressful enough having to keep all my siblings in check, then there’s this chamber of secrets shit, and now… Penelope was petrified, Ollie. And, for some reason, I feel like it’s all my fault.”

Penelope was one of Percy’s only other friends. At least, Oliver hoped they were only friends. He shook his head inwardly, he shouldn’t be thinking like that when something so serious was happening. He set his wand down, taking Percy’s hands in his, and did the only thing he could think of. He pulled Percy off the table, gently dragging him to a part of the room that was emptier than the rest. And he started dancing.

“It isn’t your fault, Perce. Don’t hurt yourself this way. Please.”

Oliver stepped closer to Percy, pulling his best friend flush against his body. He whispered the lyrics of their song in Percy’s ear, swaying along with the words. He was so lost in the moment that he almost didn’t hear Percy’s next words. But when he did, it was brilliant.

“I really want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me.”

It. Was. Bloody. Brilliant. Percy smashed his lips into Oliver’s, not roughly, but not gently either. It was both a new and strangely familiar sensation, leaving Oliver to wonder why exactly it felt familiar. To his knowledge, this was his first kiss ever, so why didn’t it feel like a first kiss? He abandoned all thoughts when he felt Percy push him into one of the tables, practically snogging him now. It was… Passionate. Bruising. Arousing, to say the least. But it ended much to quickly for Oliver’s taste, that is, until he saw, well, more like heard, the reason that Percy pulled away.

“Oh. OH. Um, I was just looking for you, Percy. Wanted to tell you something. It can wait. I’m, um, just going to leave now.”

Oliver groaned, knowing whose voice that was. Ginny Weasley. His eyes flicked towards Percy’s, who was now even more anxious than before. Percy looked at Ginny, who was now running away, and then looked back at Oliver, who motioned for him to just go. Percy chased after his little sister, yelling.

“Ginny. Wait! Come back!”

***

Percy found Oliver later that day, still in the same room. Oliver looked at him tiredly, wondering if Percy regretted what they had done earlier that day. He was sitting on the floor, and Percy joined him after a moment. They sat there in silence for a long time, until Percy reached for Oliver’s hand.

“I’ve liked you for a few years now, you know.”

Oliver expected to be shocked, but he wasn’t. He supposed that some part of him had always known that Percy liked him too. It was just that the other part of him was afraid that he might be wrong. Oliver looked at Percy nervously, his best friend’s blue eyes shining hopefully. He cupped Percy’s face with his free hand, kissing him tentatively.

“I bet I’ve liked you longer, Perce.”

Oliver mumbled these words against Percy’s lips, and he could feel the other boy smiling against his. Suddenly, he was pinned to the ground, and Percy was straddling his hips, kissing him fervently. Oliver couldn’t believe what was happening. Percy was kissing every inch of Oliver’s skin that he could find. It was more than disappointing when he pulled away. But then it wasn’t.

“So… what are we now? Boyfriends?”

Oliver smiled up at the other boy, and it barely took him a second to respond.

“Yes. YES. A thousand times yes!”

Seventh Year

Percy had been dating Oliver for nearly a year now. Their relationship was semi-public knowledge, but they weren’t very into PDA. Yes, queer relationships were more accepted in the wizarding world than the muggle world, but some people still saw it as taboo. So, they settled for pecks on the cheek and holding hands in public, but snogged the life out of each other once they were alone. And, one of these alone times, was Percy’s happiest memory.

“Puddlemere United recruited me!”

When Percy first heard these words, his heart dropped. Quidditch players spent lots of time training, and barely had enough time to sleep, let alone have private lives. What if they had to break up because of this? But inwardly, he shook his head at himself, reminding him that he should be happy for his boyfriend. No matter what.

“Congragulations, Ollie!”

They were in the Gryffindor common room, which wasn’t entirely deserted, but it was empty enough. Oliver flicked his wand towards the record player, and it started playing their song. Percy took Oliver’s hands, spinning him around, singing along with the music, which to be honest, got him a few glares, but he didn’t care. He was so happy that it didn’t matter what his peers thought of him anymore.

“Perce. I have a question for you.”

When the song ended and they had collapsed onto the sofa together, Oliver said this, looking nervous. Percy’s heart sped up. He had no idea what to expect. So, he simply motioned for Oliver to continue and prepared himself for the worst.

“Well, it’s just, as a player, I’ve got to live in Puddlemere, that way it’ll be easier to get to training. And, well, I was hoping, that since I’m getting an apartment out there, maybe you would like to come live with me?”

Oliver rushed through the last part of the question so fast, that it took Percy a minute to understand. But once he figured out what Oliver asked, it hit him: he would be living with his boyfriend. Sure, he and Oliver had been living together for the past seven years, but this was different. This was deliberately renting an apartment for them to share. And he knew what his answer was immediately.

“Yes, Ollie, I’ll live with you. Forever.”

#perciver

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