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unholyhelbig · 2 years

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Ronancetober Day #4: Horror Movie AU

[A/N: Less of a Horror Movie Au and more of a Twilight Zone episode that I watched when I was way too young]

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Summary: Nancy drives back to Hawkins during a stormy summer night. She encounters a strange hitchhiker in a prom dress.

There were three general rules that Nancy Wheeler kept while traveling the 14 hours from Emerson to Hawkins Indiana. Rule one: keep a loaded gun in her glovebox for emergencies only. Rule Two: if you get tired, take breaks, fatigue is not an excuse for dead. Rule Three: never, never, pick up hitchhikers.

It was a steady drive on a single highway that she would split straight down the middle. Seven hours in the morning, a quick stop for lunch, and then seven hours into the night. She had gotten a book on tape of the Grapes of Wrath, had loaded up on orange Gatorade, and had hit the road before the sun even rose about the horizon.

Nancy spent every summer in Hawkins. She would pack up her car with the two totes of clothes and books she had accumulated in her dorm over the school year, and leave the rest for the RAs to pick through. She’d drive and resume her summer internship at the Hawkins post. Schooling had given her claim to something other than errand girl.

It was her second summer making the trip, the air was clear and warm. She had stopped for lunch at a local diner and devoured the burger that the waitress had recommended being the best. Seven hours had flown by and the last seven proved to be a difficult stretch.

Ohio stretched endlessly. There were fields of yellow crop and swaying corn, large oak trees that stretched on either side of the backroads. Dark gray clouds bricked the air and heavy rain forced Nancy to crank her windows up by the time that night fell.

When she stopped to fill up her tank at a Sinclair right on the edge of Van Wert, she called her mother from a payphone on the side of the building. Karen begged her to get a hotel in town, to ride out the weather and get some rest before continuing on her way.

“Mom, I’ll be fine.” She ran her fingers over the ribbed metal chord “I just want to be there. I want to see you and Holly, and Mike.”

Karen understood. There was an itch for Nancy to return home at the back of all of their minds. She had fought hard to get away from the small town of Hawkins, but at the end of the day, it was home and she could get bouts of sickness for it.

She hung up after a rushed ‘I love you' and pulled back out onto the highway. The windshield wipers on her car had been replaced by a senior named Joel Davies who had an infatuation with her. She could see well through the sheets of violent rain. Corn fields surrounded her on either side, slowly turning to wheat and then back to corn.

Nancy slammed on her brakes when the figure stepped in front of her car. The rubber screeched against the wet asphalt, slipping from the sudden stop. Nancy struggled to gain control of the car, ending up in the grassy embankment with her breath rapid and hands clenched around the steering wheel.

Her heart was in her throat faster than her fingers could find the loaded pistol in the glove box. She palmed it regardless. She had angled the car into the embankment in a way that her yellow headlights illuminated the fat drops of rain, the smoke from her tailpipe in the suddenly cold weather.

It was a girl. She had gotten a glimpse of royal blue fabric and what she thought was mud, though it could easily be mistaken for blood. She was standing in the strong color, breath misting in front of her lips white with the weather.

Nancy must be imagining this, a girl in a prom dress. A prom dress of all things, hailing her down in the middle of an Ohio road. She was stunning, Nancy clocked that pretty quickly. There was a smattering of freckles across her features and the coolest blue eyes that she had ever seen.

Despite her better judgment, Nancy Wheeler got out of the car.

She gasped as the water came down hard and fast against her shirt, soaking her to the bone in a matter of seconds. The girl was barefoot, holding a pair of heels in one hand and a useless white wrap in the other.

“Do you need help?” Nancy called over the wind.

“Just a ride.”

Nancy nodded and hoped the girl saw her through the water. She did she walked around the side of the car in time for Nancy to unlock the door and close her back into the warmth. She wasn’t sure if the car could handle the heat after such a long drive, but she turned it on anyway.

The stranger smelled of nature, sharp with clove cigarettes mixed with the dampness of the air around them. She was deathly pale, entirely too quiet for her own good. Nancy felt the gun as she stealthily slid it into the hull of her boot.

“Thank you for stopping.”

She shivered into herself, teeth chattering. Nancy’s instincts took hold of her in that moment. Her chest ached for the girl dripping rainwater into her passenger seat. She reached into the backseat and grabbed the closest coat: a red bomber jacket that was lined with wool, complete with brass buttons. It hadn’t been worn since her freshman year in high school.

The girl took it and draped it around her shoulders. She said again, “Thank you.”

“Where are you heading?”

It seemed like the next natural line of questioning. She had seen her dad pick up one or two hitchhikers on the interstate before Karen forbade him from ever doing so again. While there was no inherent fear of the stranger, there was a sadness that radiated from her in waves. Nancy wanted to cure it. Get her warm and a meal to eat and out of the torn prom dress.

The girls’ eyes lit up. “There’s a diner sixty miles up the road. I can use a phone there.”

“Okay,”

She didn't want to pry. Was this time of year for proms? She never attended her junior prom despite the way that Steve pried and eventually she did give in and go to the dance held her senior year, but it had been a blur of terrible punch and flashy music and men who had layered on too much aftershave. The times could line up, really, they could.

Nancy repeated that to herself as she pulled carefully onto the street and kept driving forward as if nothing had happened. If there wasn’t a girl in her passenger seat at this very moment she would have chalked it up to exhaustion.

“Are you warm enough?” She asked, voice quiet.

The girl pulled Nancy’s coat closer to her bare shoulders. “I am.”

“I’m Nancy.”

“I’m Robin.”

“Nice to meet you, Robin.” She had long ago abandoned her attempt to focus on the audiotape she brought along. Instead, she wanted to learn about the stranger, still respecting invisible boundaries. “Come here often?”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were hitting on me.”

Nancy’s cheeks instantly flushed, and she let out an awkward laugh. “No, no. I mean, you’re very beautiful. I just can’t say I’ve ever seen a woman in a prom dress on the side of the road. It’s a first.”

“There’s a first for everything” She was smiling, no malice in her words. “My date was an absolute douche and ditched me on the side of the road on the way to prom. Can you believe that? On the way.”

“How long have you been walking?”

“I… don’t know.” She shook her head as if to clear the fog “A long time, I think.”

Nancy gritted her teeth in anger that she felt was entirely irrational on her part. It was soon replaced by a sadness unimaginable. Steve may have had some growing to do when they began their relationship, but he would never do this, would never shove her out of the car in the middle of nowhere, knees dripping with blood, fingernails caked in dirt.

Ohio, the few times she had driven through it, was desolate. She always figured that what scattered towns lay within were hidden by trees and country roads. She saw the occasional gas station, a farm here and there. It was downright cruel to leave a girl like this, one so captivating, out here in a storm.

She chuckled, a sweet sound “You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t. I feel bad for whatever asshole dropped you off on the side of the road.”

The girls’ pale cheeks heated the same way Nancy’s had. Something in her pushed the words from the deepest part of her mind. What did she have to lose? She would take Robin to the diner, would test the waters to feelings she had been pushing aside for a long time. She would pay for their meal and give Robin a night better than the one she was promised in the first place.

Curiosity tugged at her. Nancy wanted to learn everything about Robin. Where was she going to college? What was she majoring in? How did she meet this guy who had been so cruel and unforgiving?

None of these questions were answered. She saw the neon blue light of the diner wash against the wet streets. It stretched onto the edges of the wheat fields surrounding the out-of-place restaurant.

Nancy slowed down and pulled into the lot. There were two cars parked in front of the stretching windows. She could see a waitress flitting around behind the counter. A man sat hunched at the end of the counter despite the darkness of the night.

“Thank you,” Robin said again, this time a soft emotional murmur.

Nancy shut off the engine and looked at Robin. The neon blue bathed her in a gorgeous color of new beginnings. Nancy fought the unriddled urge to tuck the damp piece of hair behind Robin’s ear.

Robin leaned forward in the small damp space of the car. She placed a tender, grateful kiss on Nancy’s cheek. It grazed the corner of her lip. Her touch was cold, the sensation shooting to the base of her spine like a broken electrical wire.

“Of all the people who have ever stopped for me, you are by far the kindest.”

Nancy’s eyes snapped open, and she was left alone in the front seat of the station wagon. The seat was stained from rainwater and mud, the washed lilac scent that Robin carried lingered cruelly. But Robin herself, and the red suede jacket that was draped over her shoulders, had vanished.

She was shaken up, fear coursing through her veins as she nearly tumbled from the side of the car. Damned, the rain and the puddle that soaked the cuffs of her jeans. It was balmy, the air clinging to the back of her throat, her skin like a second life not shed.

Nancy had nearly wrecked for this girl, and had driven a solid sixty miles with her in the passenger seat of her car. There was no plausible way that Robin could have exited quickly and quietly. She wasn’t in the diner; Nancy could see straight through the windows.

After gulping in three large breaths, she entered the diner. The air conditioner was blasting. It dried the rain against her collar and made it feel tight. Her fingers were shaking. The waitress behind the counter had a calming nature about her. She placed a laminated menu in front of Nancy, who ended up ordering a warm cup of whatever tea they had to calm her nerves.

“Darling,” The waitress said, pouring steaming water from the kettle. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Nancy didn’t’ wait for the tea to seep from the bag. Instead, she drank the slightly tinted yellow water quickly enough for her stomach to simmer. “I think I might have.”

#Ronancetober Day 4 #Ronancetober #Robin Buckley #Nancy Wheeler #Ronance #Ronance fanfiction #Stranger things #Stranger things fanfiction

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hunnie-luv · 1 year

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The Last Fight

The air was stagnant, dust flutters weightlessly around the cool beams of light entering between the shades of the kitchen window. Hues of dim blues paint the hardwood floor, as streetlights provide the small apartment with its only source of light. On the table rests a single plate wrapped in aluminum foil, set accordingly alongside a pair of sterling silver utensils, a lone glass of red, and freshly extinguished tea-light candles which lay carelessly about the tabletop. Everything rests still, with nothing but the hum of the dishwasher to disturb one’s senses.

A bottle of nearly empty wine sits at the foot of the couch, right within the reach of a sleeping form whose chest rises and falls, laced heavily with slumber.

The muffled rattling of keys and the pushing open of the heavy iron front door jostles the room. The form sits up with adrenaline as their eyes adjust within the darkness. Quickly flickering to the clock perched upon the gold side table, the figure huffs with displeasure as 12:37 A.M. stares right back.

Light rushes in from the apartment hallway, casting sharp shadows upon the room, illuminating the angry woman who sat lonesome amongst the variety of throw blankets she threw off herself in a fit of disbelief.

Not looking up, the shadow of a man in the doorway stands lazily for a second, taking a moment to adjust in the room.

A huff escapes the man’s lips before he suddenly tosses a pair of keys into the dish that her mother had gifted her upon moving into their new apartment. The keys clang loudly on the entry table and the man mumbles out a gruff, “’m home.”

Without making eye contact, the door is slowly shut, drenching the home in darkness once again.

Stumbling ever so slightly, the man kicks his sneakers off and trudges his way through the dark, feet shuffling around, naturally finding their own way. He passes through the living room and enters the kitchen without a second glance at the silhouette upon the couch. Feeling around aimlessly, he drunkenly opens the fridge door, pouring light into the kitchen, causing him to cringe at the brightness.

The sounds of clinking glass cut the air as he pulls out a corona. Popping the cap open with the backs of his molars, he spits the cap into the sink and tosses his head back as he gulps the bitterness down.

After a few seconds he pauses and looks up, making eye contact with who he was ignoring. Her stare burned a hole in the back of his head throughout the entirety of his drunken trek through their home.

The clink of the cool glass bottle upon the granite countertops rings in the air, and two hands are placed firmly on either side of the beverage.

Sighing, he begins, “What’d I do now?”

The woman opens her mouth, ready to fire when suddenly nothing comes out. Her face scrunches as she tries to find what she wants to say, what she needs to say. But she sits silently for the next few moments, furrowing and frowning, eyes darting about the shadows, searching for what was missing.

After the silence became too deafening, she asks in almost a whisper, “Where were you?”

His eyes slowly lift and he dismisses her with, “Went out for a round.”

Her fingers grip into the satin fabric of her red dress, knuckles turning white and frustration collapsing the center of her chest. Her heart beating wildly as heated anger and adrenaline swirled within, fingers and toes twitching as she braces for the inevitable.

“So, you’ve been gone for just ‘a round’ for almost seven hours?”, her eyes stare at the cracks in the flooring, waiting for a response.

“What, it’s suddenly illegal for a man to go out and enjoy a few drinks with his friends?”

His tired hands turned firm, planting him strongly in his tracks. His body flexed in defense as he bore his eyes to where he assumed hers were. She snaps her head up, standing abruptly as she switches the lamp beside her to life. Once again illuminating the room.

She blinks quickly and refocuses, finally locking honey eyes on rough oak.

She counters quickly, “You know I didn’t mean-.”

Her sentence was cut off with creased eyebrows and a loud, “Exactly, so lay off me will ya?”

She chokes on the words caught on her tongue as she unknowingly takes a step back. A chill creeps up her neck, trailing painful goosebumps in its wake.

Sluggishly, he chokes the neck of the glass bottle and takes a quick swig before he makes his way towards the hallway, probably mere seconds away form collapsing atop the white comforter in a drunken haze.

Before his back disappears into the darkness of the hallway, her voice forces him to a stop.

“How dare you.” Quivering ever so slightly, a look of displacement is etched within the creases of her eyes, casting a dark shadow over most of her features. The silence between the two rang loud as she began once more, this time with squared shoulders and newfound confidence.

“How dare you. At this hour? In this condition? With that stupid fucking look on your face?” She stood there, expectedly, angrily. Basically bouncing on the tips of her toes; she starts again.

“You have the audacity to come in here, drunk off your ass, and expect me to welcome you with open arms? It’s been hours, Adam. Hours.”

He turns slowly and meets her gaze with matched energy. Without breaking eye contact, he takes a lazy sip and wipes his mouth messily with the sleeve of his hoodie before he grins.

“I’m guessing you want an apology?”, he stumbles in her direction, feet crossing over one another. “You want me to get on my hands and knees and beg for forgiveness? Huh? For what? For enjoying my fucking night?”

The boom of his voice echoes off the walls as his face veers closer to hers, dipping downwards so his forehead is but inches from her own. The smell of alcohol floods her senses, as he throws his hands outwards in exasperation. Her body stands strong but the quiver of her lip and the gloss over her eyes are enough to tell him she’s scared. She stands silently, hands by her side in small fists and eyes locked upon his own.

“Sue me Sarah. Fuckin’, sue me for living a little, and... and ... and sue me for having a drink or two, right?”, a wry chuckle escape between his lips as he readjusts and flicks his nose cockily. He looks down at her and waits. He waits for anything, even the slightest crinkle in the corner of her mouth that would give him something to argue over.

“Oh, so now you have nothing to say? Fucking typical Sarah, typical. Stand there and act all innocent. Wasting my time with this bullshit.”

He takes another swig of his drink and turns his back on her once again, mumbling curses underneath his breath. Before he turns around completely, Sarah interrupts.

“Who are you?” A look of disgust mixed with bitter disbelief clouded over her being.

Her hands slowly wrapped themselves around her shrinking form as she succumbed to the sadness. She dipped her head downwards, allowing her long chestnut hair to fall in front of her face, hiding from the stranger in front of her.

“Oh my god Sarah, enough with the dramatics. I’m tired, let’s call it a night already.” Wiping a dry hand down his face, he finishes the last of his beverage before dropping the bottle to the floor, allowing it to clink, fall over, then roll underneath the couch. Dragging his feet towards the bedroom, he pauses when he doesn’t hear movement behind him.

Turning his head over his shoulder he calls out in a firm voice, “I said, let’s go to bed, Sarah.”

Faintly, Sarah whispers, “No.”

Snapping his neck around, Adam looks at her with bloodshot irises, annoyance creeping up the back of his neck.

“No?”, Adam retorts, turning his body around to fully face her.

Her flushed cheeks are stained with the trails of her tears which rapidly fell to the ground, splotching the hardwood with dark specks.

“You want to talk so badly, fine, let’s talk, huh?” Adam strides back to the couch, sitting down expectantly, hands firmly interlocked within one another as his elbows rested on his knees.

His right leg bounced unknowingly, waiting for Sarah to respond. After a moment, he continues.

“I’m fucking waiting Sarah. You wanted to talk, let me hear it, I’m all fucking ears babe. Now’s your chance to tell me how everything is all my fault, right? How I’m such a fuck up and I make you so unhappy, huh?”, his nose scrunched upwards in hot rage as she stood there, back towards him, arms wrapped around her small frame.

The silence that fell was sharp, expectant, and unnerving. Suddenly, he exploded.

“Fucking talk to me goddammit!”

Almost immediately, Sarah screams in frustration.

“What more do you want from me Adam? God, I have spent the past three months trying to figure this new person out, you’re not the same guy anymore!”

She whips around, tears now flowing violently. Her hair sticks wetly to her cheeks as her chest heaves sporadically.

Equally as wild, Adam retorts, “The fuck do you mean I’m not the same person? I’m the same person I was two fucking years ago, you’re just causing problems because you’re bored with your own life.” He pauses and sizes her up, drunkenly running a rough hand through his hair, jaw clenched tightly.

Nastily, he lists off, “No friends, no family, no plan B. Nothing. You’re stuck with me, and you know it. What are you bored with me too? Really? I’m the same me, get that through your thick skull.” He pointedly shoves a finger into the side of her head.

Sarah scoffs and leans away from his touch. Wiping her tears away angrily she screams, “No Adam, you’re not the same person. No matter how much you say it out loud, it won’t change the fact that you peaked in fucking high school, okay? And.. and just because you can’t handle the fact that you’re not hot shit anymore doesn’t give you the right to take it out on me. Get over yourself, I’m standing here pouring my heart out in hopes you’ll give me a glance that even somewhat confirms that you still want to be here. And yet, all you seem to be able to do is sit there with that stupid fucking look on your face.”

Her eyes are puffy and sore as she rubs them tiredly. In an exasperated breath she confesses, “I can’t keep living like this. You’re driving me crazy!”

She begins to pace back and forth, running her hands through her knotted hair and mumbling under her breath.

Adam watches distantly, eyebrows furrowed, leg bouncing feverishly, and under his breath he voices a passing thought,

“You’re fucking delusional.”

In a matter of seconds Sarah explodes.

“I’m delusional? You’re driving me fucking insane Adam! I have raked my brain countless times trying to figure out why you don’t see me anymore! Why… why you don’t even talk to me, why you stay out past midnight, why you crawl into bed drunk nightly, or… or how you don’t even fucking look me in the eyes anymore. Goddammit Adam, I’m right here! Look at me for Christs sake!”

Practically screaming, the tears gush once more, bringing a raging headache to the entirety of her face.

She stands there, looming over his slouched body, waiting for him to even acknowledge her presence, but his eyes remain glued to the floor in front of him, silent. Her breath is caught in her throat as she waits, generously allowing him the time to build up the courage to look her in the eyes.

But she is met with the crown of his head, instead of an ounce of sincerity.

Letting out a strained noise she had been unknowingly holding in, she sank to the floor in hysterics. Placing her head upon her bent knees, she cried and ferociously wiped her face, smearing the makeup she had excitedly applied earlier in the day. The silk dress now ran splotchy from tears and snot and was wrinkled from the constant clenching of fabric between her fists. The gold clips she had used to pin her hair back had fallen solemnly and clung to the remnants of lingering pieces. She could no longer hold herself together. This was the last of what she had left.

Adams anger had fizzled into guilt as he took in his girlfriend’s appearance for the first time. His heart ached with regret, yet his pride shone the brightest.

Whether it was because he was drunk or his pride truly got the best of him, he picked himself up off the couch and walked past her sunken form.

Before he could get too far, Sarah questioned aloud, “Why doesn’t he love me anymore.”

She had backed herself against the wall of the living room, head tilted backwards as the tears fell silently from her eyes. She stared off into the dark ceiling, seemingly talking to nothing.

Adam hesitated, back still facing her, then continued towards the bedroom without so much as a second thought.

He crawled into bed that night, and though he tried to fall asleep, he couldn’t block out the sobs emanating from the living room. Each gasp of air, hiccup, and cry cut deeper and deeper into his being, until he eventually dozed off into a drunken sleep.

A slam of a door startled him awake. Looking at the bedside table, he managed to tell it was a quarter past eight. He silently reached to his right, looking for the familiar warmth only to be met with cold sheets. Grumbling inwardly, he pushed himself upwards, trying to rub the bags off of his eyes.

Throughout his morning routine, he didn’t acknowledge how empty the air felt, or the eerie silence, not even the smell of coffee lingered in the morning air. He could tell something was off, misplaced, or missing even, but he couldn’t put the pieces together as his hangover ruled over all else.

No, it wasn’t until he entered the living room that he remembered the events of the previous night. All at once he sighed, cringing inwardly, and continued into the kitchen where he started the coffee machine, grabbed a mug, and waited patiently as the brew dripped slowly. Rubbing his face once more, he stretches and turns around, leaning his back against the countertop, shutting his eyes tightly as a yawn rips through him.

When his eyes readjusted, he choked at the scene in front of him. With half inflated balloons, and wilted rose petals littering the floor, he took in the words of the card that was perched atop the table, centered in front of the wrapped dinner plate.

In swirly, large red letters, he guiltily read aloud, “Happy 5th Anniversary.”

#writing #creative writing #breakup #heartbroken #sad stories #angst prompt #woman writers #anniversary #original story #short story

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rikalovesrice · 3 years

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Brother

A ficlet inspired by this thread on Twitter, some “Douxie During Trollhunters” stuff I was working on a while back, and my love for Douxie and Jim being best bros UwU

@aaronwaltke and @biancasiercke if you guys ever wanna give this a read (Absolutely zero pressure! Just sharing💙)

Also a big thank you to my good friend @nikibogwater for proofreading for me! ^_^

Please enjoy!

~ ~ ~

Douxie still remembered the day a seven-year-old Jim Lake Jr. came through the door to Benoit’s, tugging his mom in after him by her hand. His big toothy smile when he exclaimed that it was his mom’s birthday and that he was paying for all of it, even the drinks.

“Are you now?” Douxie asked, handing the pair of them menus. They’d chosen a two-top right next to the windows, the backdrop of Arcadia under a soft orange sunset in full view.

“I helped mom clean,” Jim said. “Like a lot. So I have lots of money.” He crossed his arms, throwing his mom, Barbara Lake, a cheeky grin. His black hair was on the long side and messy, sticking up and flopping in various places including over one of his eyes, though it did virtually nothing to hide his pride and excitement.

“Can you believe he wanted to spend his whole allowance on me?” Barbara said.

“Uh yeah! You’re the best mom ever!” Jim leaned towards Douxie, feigning a whisper. “She’s the best mom ever.”

Douxie chuckled. “I’m sure. And it looks like she’s got a great son to match.” Jim beamed, though a hint of shyness bloomed on his face.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” Barbara asked.

“Oh, quite alright. You can call me Douxie. I’ll be your server tonight.”

“Well thank you, Douxie.”

“Mom, can I get a milkshake?”

“Why are you asking me, little man? You’re the one paying.”

“Oh yeah.”

One shared entree of well done steak, a milkshake, and two free slices of cake (accompanied by Douxie’s acoustic guitar and a birthday song) later, Jim caught Douxie by the hem of his jacket after he’d set their receipt down.

“Wait, Mister Douxie I uh…” Jim dug deep into his pockets, rummaging with a look of determination.

Douxie smiled, kneeling down beside him. “What is it, little man?”

“Um, wait, wait I need to...Oh!” Jim smiled big as he pulled a single coin out of his pocket. He held it straight out to Douxie, his eyes seeming to sparkle. “This is for you! Mom said that you should always tip people.”

Jim placed the coin in the center of Douxie’s palm. It was a nickel, a small bit of rust darkening ol’ Tommy’s profile. Douxie glanced over at Barbara, who was gazing at her son with an expression nothing short of pure endearment, glowing with pride. Douxie closed his fingers over the nickel and held it to his chest.

“A fine tip, indeed,” he said with a soft smile. “Thank you very much, Jim.”

Jim beamed. Then he was springing out of his chair, giggling as he gave Douxie a hug. How long had it been since he’d been smothered by someone who wasn’t Archie? Maybe long enough, because Douxie’s brain stopped working at the gesture, as did his arms. It registered more with every second that passed, the feeling of Jim’s small arms wrapped around him and his head on Douxie’s shoulder. Even without seeing his face, Douxie somehow knew Jim was smiling into his jacket. Something welled up in his heart, warm and touched. Douxie hugged Jim back, one hand on his back and the other gently holding his head.

“You’re awesome Mister Douxie!” Jim said as he pulled back, his hands still on Douxie’s shoulders. “Mom was really happy.”

“Hey now, I’m not the one who bought her dinner tonight.” Douxie ruffled Jim’s hair.

“Alright, Jim, Mister Douxie has to go back to work,” Barbara said softly. Jim’s expression fell and he began to wring his hands.

“No worries.” Douxie gave Jim’s shoulder a squeeze, tilting his head to look Jim in the eyes. “Chin up, buddy. Next time you come in, I’ll still be here.”

Jim beamed. “Cool!”

“Go on, then.”

Jim hopped to his mother’s side, taking her hand. When he was distracted by one of Douxie’s co-workers wrestling with a malfunctioning blender, Barbara reached into her purse and pulled out a bill. She slipped it into Douxie’s hand, silently mouthing a thank you. Then the pair were off, stepping back out onto the streets of Arcadia under a pleasant evening.

Douxie unrolled the bill.

Twenty dollars.

His eyes shot to the window in disbelief, catching Jim giving him one last wave goodbye. A deep breath turned into soft chuckling. Douxie waved back.

See you, little buddy.

~ ~ ~

The morning Archie reported Kanjigar’s death, they’d booked it to the canal. The last thing they wanted was for the Amulet of Daylight to wind up in the museum or in some kid’s backpack. Douxie would pick it up and then head right back to Arcane Books. So a brisk ten minute walk later, they were peering down the deep slope of the canal and spotted what must have been the remains of the Trollhunter. A heap of broken stone, just out of reach of the shadow of the bridge. Douxie closed his eyes, taking a moment to honor the fallen Protector of Trolls and Man. Wondering if, somehow, Merlin was doing the same.

“Alright Arch, let’s go — “ Before they could take another step, what looked like a boy on a bicycle suddenly launched over the other side of the canal, suspended in the air before diving back down and landing on his wheels. The boy skid to a halt and turned to holler behind him, up from where he’d come.

“Jim?” Douxie whispered, recognizing that head of black hair and those skinny legs. “A bit late for school, isn’t he?” Then Douxie felt a pinch of panic seize him. He prayed the kid would stay away from that odd pile of rocks.

“Come on Tobes!” Jim hollered.

And not a second later…

James...Lake.

A deep, echoing voice rumbled out into the atmosphere, buzzing in Douxie’s ears. Shock and disbelief struck Douxie like a manticore’s tail. He and Archie shared a look. The panic spiked.

Douxie watched, his heart beginning to pound harder and harder, as Jim faced the stone rubble, slowly removing his helmet. Another familiar face, Toby Domzalski, came struggling down the canal, falling onto his face as Jim passed under the bridge and approached what was left of Kanjigar.

“Do you think he heard the voice?” Archie said.

“No...It can’t be…He’s not…” It couldn’t be. Jim wasn’t a troll. Jim wasn’t a troll. And yet —

James Lake.

The voice rang out again. Jim yelled and fell backwards in surprise.

“That pile of rocks knows my name!” Jim exclaimed, scrambling closer on his hands and knees. Douxie stared, mind still suspended in shock but gut starting to sink with dread as Jim dug around the rubble, eventually unearthing the Amulet of Daylight, its distinct soft blue glow ever hard to miss.

Everything in Douxie wanted him to somehow swipe it from Jim’s hands.

Because not him.

Not Jim.

But Douxie also knew better.

“What should we do, Douxie?” Archie asked. They ducked behind a tree when Toby started shouting for someone to reveal themselves. Made sense he would think it was a trick. Only magical beings or the chosen could hear the Amulet.

Only magical beings.... Or so Douxie had thought. Jim slipping the Amulet into his bag was a nail in the coffin.

“Well...we can’t take it now,” he said, eyes still trained on the boys. “The Amulet... seems to have made its choice….”

In the distance, the school bell of Arcadia Oaks rang out. Jim and Toby hurried back to their bikes, quickly mounting and taking off. When they were long gone, Douxie stepped out from behind the tree without a word, sliding down the canal and standing over the pile of stones. He stared off in the direction the boys had left, his mind reeling like nothing else, trying to comprehend what he’d seen and what it meant.

Why it had to be Jim.

Archie joined him, climbing up on and inspecting the rubble.

“I know...the Amulet doesn’t make mistakes,” Douxie said quietly. “But...a human Trollhunter? And he’s only a child…” His voice quivered, pangs of worry and dread striking his heart.

“It’s...certainly a first,” Archie said, leaning a paw on Douxie’s leg. “I’m not sure what to make of this myself.” There was a long beat of silence before Archie spoke again. “What do you want to do, Douxie?”

What could they do? Was there anything to be done now? That and there wasn’t anyone he could discuss this with, at least who would know more.

If only you were here, Master… Douxie thought, one hand balling into a fist. He stewed in his thoughts for a moment longer before scooping Archie up onto his shoulders and heading back up the slopes of the canal.

“Douxie?” Archie said.

“We’ll keep doing what we’ve always done,” Douxie said. “Watch...and protect.” He didn’t have any answers. But it was done. The new Trollhunter had been chosen.

Something stirred in Douxie’s chest, growing stronger as he remembered the smiling face of a seven-year-old boy who’d tipped him a nickel. Stronger still because Douxie knew. He knew what it was like to be so young and have so much, far too much, thrust upon him. Having his hand and the growth of his strength forced. The secrets that had to be kept, even from the ones he loved most, for their own safety. Pain he hadn’t known was coming.

The loss.

The loneliness.

The weight of the world.

When Douxie retired to his cot that night, he approached the small shine of silver on his nightstand. No, he didn’t have a clue what any of this meant. But what Douxie did know was that he’d be Jim’s greatest ally.

He picked up the nickel and held it tight, a promise burning deep within him.

I’ll protect you.

~ ~ ~

Author’s Notes :

So I imagine that Jim and his mother ended up not frequenting the diner as much since Barbara was always so swamped and Jim was learning how to cook more at home. So Jim eventually just forgot about his first meeting with Douxie. But Douxie of course still continued to look out for him as best as he could. And I believe this is why Douxie saw Jim as family, even though he seemed to have only known him for a short time. In reality, though, Douxie always loved the kid💙

God bless and thank you all so much for reading!💙

#rika tries to write #tales of arcadia #Big Bro Douxie #douxie #hisirdoux casperan #jim lake jr #barbara lake #toby domzalski #tales of arcadia headcanons #this was fun heehee #this is my favorite bromance ever i swear lol #is so precious how can you not love them #can't wait to see my boys again #21st OF JULY LET'S GOOOOO

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fascination-street-writing · 3 years

Text

Somewhere to Begin | Pannacotta Fugo x Ghirga!Reader

He has always adored you, like the sun and the moon and more - but he had a brilliant way of convincing you otherwise.

- 200 Follower Giveaway Piece iii for @idontlikerisottounlessitsnero -

Content Warnings: Not SFW Content, Post Break-Up, Emotional Hurt & Comfort, Regret, & Explicit Sexual Content (Aged-Up Characters)

You had promised your brother Narancia to never involve yourself directly with Passione; even the occasional stay for a meal at Il Libeccio made him antsy, yet you failed to see the harm in sharing a plate of bruschetta with Fugo, or a pot of hot tea with Abbacchio – two of his closest companions. It was only fair that you ought to spend time with the men who gave you unbridled protection at the behest of nothing more than goodwill and magnanimity. Not that you needed such security, but it kept street thieves from picking your pockets, at least.

You had promised him indeed, and now that he lies in the casket before you – clad in the suit from your mother’s funeral that you never thought to see him wear again – you intend to keep it. Giorno had offered to have an outfit tailored for your brother, but you refused him with consternation that your he would not be buried in something from the boy responsible for his death.

“No,” you had told him, cold as the wall of ice that has crept around your heart, while clutching the woolly material to your chest. “This one will do nicely.”

And so, the mortician severed the seam along the back of the jacket and draped a silk sheet over Narancia’s legs so that no one would be wiser to fact that his ankles stick out past the bottom hem of his trousers. It was bad enough that you could not afford the casket on your own. You knew better than to believe it when Mista told you that it and the headstone were paid for with the money yielded from the liquidation of Bucciarati’s assets. If that were true, then why not pay for a new suit, too?

Trish snatches a single white lily from the memorial wreath and tucks it between your brother’s still, clasped fingers. She hides her grief behind a pair of sunglasses that do not match the overcast weather that looms above your heads. You had not wanted to wait so long for the funeral – for two months, Narancia’s body had been left in the morgue to chill on ice, par Giorno’s insistence that the service must wait until his transfer of power over Passione has finished.

Thus, for two months, you had lain awake at night, shuddering at the melancholy and its melody that reminds you how you your brother died without saying farewell – his platonic little soulmate. Giorno may have his victories and suffer for them, but you would not let him entomb Narancia in the mausoleum with Bucciarati and Abbacchio.

“He’ll be buried next to our mother,” you said to the new Don with indignancy. “After everything you’ve taken from me, let me have this. Lascia che mio fratello torni a casa – let my brother come home.”

Your wish was granted, though you suspect it only so because he was growing tired of fighting with you over burial rights and passages. The congregation is kept small, consisting only of yourself, Mista, Trish, a tortoise named Jean-Pierre Polnareff, regrettably Giorno, and a handful of bodyguards, though the latter kept their distance from the immediate service; it would not come as a surprise to you, should you learn that the men in black suits were employed to protect their Don from the mournful sister of the deceased.

The handkerchief clutched in your grasp is damp with past tears. Not even your father had come, despite your pleading that he ought to pay his respects to his only son. Too preoccupied with his floozy of a new wife and her children from two previous marriages than to love his own – you never needed him in your life anyways, because you had Bucciarati. Now, you suppose that you must be a proper orphan.

You do not weep when the casket seals and cleaves the line of sight betwixt you and your brother forever. You do not weep when the mechanical apparatus lowers the coffer made of Osage orange wood into the steel vault that already holds your mother in oak. You do not weep when the gravediggers shovel the dirt mound back over the crest of opened earth.

You do not weep until Mista clasps your trembling hand, pulls you to his chest, and embraces you amidst the anguish that burns you alive. His is the consolation that you needed, but never thought to ask for, though it is not his touch that you long for. One by one, the attendees disperse for the train of luxury cars and you remain alone with the gunslinger who had been courteous enough to come without his oddly patterned beanie hat.

“Why don’t we get going?” Mista urges to coax you away from the gravesite – away from yourself and the suffocating agony. “Giorno’s having dinner for us all, back at the estate.”

You pull away. Rivets of mascara stain his white dress-shirt. “You can go on ahead,” you tell him, not quite liking the way your voice strains in your throat. “I’m not hungry.”

“Then, let’s go grab some coffee or something –”

“I’m fine, Mista.” He frowns and averts his gaze. “I have some things I need to take care of.”

“Oh?”

You tug your cardigan closer to your chest. “I’m going to collect Narancia’s belongings from our dad’s house. Not sure what I’ll do with it all, but I know it can’t stay there.”

Mementos of life, from when things were far simpler and your brother far more alive. Family photographs with tattered edges and holes of where your father should have been, wedged between unread and abused schoolbooks. Worn out blue jeans with patches of fabric scraps from your mother’s old dresses that you had sewn on for him. A collection of empty glass soda bottles. CDs and cassette tapes of Snoop Dog, Tupac, and whatever other American rappers had appealed to his tastes.

“Alright, I guess. Promise me you’ll call when you get there.”

Soon to be packed away in cardboard boxes and to be stacked precariously in the living room of your studio apartment – another gift from Bucciarati – with nowhere else to go. You simply cannot afford to rent a storage unit downtown.

“I will.”

Mista does not offer to help, because he knows you will refuse it. With that, he takes his leave of you in the cemetery. Left to your solitary devices, you clench your fists and stew on hatred and loathing for none other than Giorno Giovanna. You do not blame Narancia for his eagerness to trust the boy so quickly; his charisma, as appealing as it entreats to the willing, is an infectious disease.

If not for Giorno, your brother would have been buried two months ago. If not for Giorno, your brother might still be alive. And perhaps you must resent Fugo too, for what he has done – or rather, the lack thereof of doing; yet for everything, you are incapable of such feelings, as you have always been fond of each other. The optimistic heart within you stands that he has saved you from suffering more – that in his choice to stay behind in Venezia, it only meant you would not have to bury him, too.

Because surely, his unrestrained anger would have gotten him killed – if not before, then certainly after Narancia’s death.

With a quivering sigh, you turn from this dreary place and meet his illegible violet stare. A row of crackling headstones separates you from the boy whom you love more than life itself. Fugo clutches a pretty bouquet of daffodils wrapped with parchment paper and a white-string bow – your favorite flowers, though you wonder whether they are meant for you or your brother’s fresh grave.

You do not know, nor will you ever, as he sets the flowers atop the nearest monument and makes off, as if on sabbatical to you.

And it fills you with nothing more than bitterness.

“Everyone misses you,” Mista confesses between a sip of tea and a bite of strawberry cake. “You should come around sometime soon.”

Nearly a year has passed since the funeral, and you have yet grace anyone from Passione with your presence, with the exception of Mista for weekly sojourns to Il Libeccio to catch up on life – because, as you have learned, much can happen in seven days’ time. With each occasion of crossing the archway’s threshold into the private dining room at the back of the restaurant, you find yourself preening for two heads of black hair – one neatly combed and clipped, the other a sprawl held in place with an orange headband –, taut lips painted in black, and Fugo. And every time, you are left with the kind of disappointment that curdles your soul like sour milk.

“Who misses me, Mista?” you reprimand, pointing your icing-lacquered fork in his direction. “I barely even know Trish, and I have no interest in ever speaking with Don Giovanna again.”

You wish Giorno would call off the bodyguard who trails you every waking hour of the day; it makes you feel like a child who has proven herself untrustworthy to her parent. But you have done nothing deserving of such punishment. You suspect that his intent is an extension of the olive branch treaty that does not exist between you two – a reiteration of Bucciarati’s protection that should not have to be reiterated, because he should not be dead, either.

Or, alternatively, he wants to irk you so far that you might barge into his office one day – fuming with unspent determination to admonish him regarding his dominion over your life – just to trap you in a conversation wherein he might attempt to suspend your animosity towards him. Alas, you are simply not interested; you will scorn him, because it is all you can do.

“Forget I asked . . .” Mista trails off, swirling a dollop of whipped cream with his knife. “So uh, by the way, have you seen Fugo lately?”

Just the utterance of his name has you perking in your seat.

“No.”

“Hm, well, rumor has it, he’s working at the public library. Shaking people down for late fees or something like that.” It is not implausible to imagine Fugo in the position of extorting old ladies and young children for overdue fines – but, you know that it is only a jest. Regardless, he has always been the type of boy to surround himself with books instead of people. “Why not visit him sometime? He’s not affiliated with Passione anymore. Or, not now, at least.”

You stab at a strawberry. It bleeds beneath the weight of your fork.

“I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Mista’s question is one that you ought to be asking yourself, as you sit here at the scratched pine desk of the library – pretending to study for an upcoming exam on the history of art in Pompeii – though you look up from your scrawl of notes every few minutes to see if Fugo should pass you by; perhaps pushing a cart of books to be put away, or branding return cards with a plush red stamp to mark the date in two weeks’ time.

You have seen him only once more since his implied attempt of reconciliation at your brother’s funeral. It was by chance that you should wander into the same café as him that day; and by extended odds that – while you stood over his table with a sad smile and a cup of coffee – he stood abruptly and left without finishing his own drink. He had not even bothered to wish you well.

Today, you catch him on your way to the reference section. The look of hurt in his eyes – like salt instead of sugar on the tongue – brings a scowl to your face. “Please, Panni,” you plead, and though your fingers ache to catch his hand with your own, you refrain for you know the gesture is a crossing of the line between you two. “Can’t we just talk?”

“No,” he says, so dry and unrecognizable. “I’m not getting paid to do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Panni, I – Please, don’t do this. I already lost my brother: don’t make me lose you, too.”

A fuse switches in his head, and you have been the one to flip it. He clutches the encyclopedia in his hands with such fervor that his knuckles pale, and for a moment, you wonder if he means to hit you with it. And maybe he thinks it too, but he drops it atop the ground as soon as the thought crosses his mind. He takes a step back, as if you have scorned him – maybe, after all, you have.

The cover spills open, and the pages bend against the hardwood floor. You wish he would do the same to you – to disclose his grievances and let you in. Instead, it is the toxicity of acrimony “Don’t ever come near me again,” Fugo warns. “Haven’t you realized by now that I never want to see you again? Get out of my life – get out of my dreams – and leave me alone.”

You will save the tears for when you stand in front of the bathroom mirror tonight before bed to wash away your makeup from the day, amongst other regrets. But you will never understand the guilt that suffocates him – a noose that is just taut enough to keep him breathing – each time he looks at you, and even when he does not. You are everything he has ever wanted and more.

And you are the emblem of everything he has ever done wrong.

“I still care about you,” you tell him with an affirmation that will not fix the desolation. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

He bites his lip and looks away.

“I know you’re hurting. I am too. So, can’t we heal together?”

“Are you stupid?” You grimace at his words. “I told you to go.”

There is no chance to dispute it, nor to bid him an aggrieved adieu, because he is gone again. Burying him might have been easier, after all; a corpse cannot remind you of what a fool you have become.

And so it seems to you that dying dreams are the best ones.

Adulthood is – as you have found in your years of treading its waters – a dreadful inevitability. You and your brother’s boxes have outgrown that compact studio apartment, though for years, you had made it work perfectly fine. When Giorno pulled the strings to terminate your lease and forcefully relocate you into a sizeable townhouse in the Chiaia district, you wanted to hate him for it – for his reminder that you cannot sever your connection to Passione. Yet, boggled down with university loans, you were in no position to turn down his assistance.

And he knew it, well.

A pretty townhouse located in one of the nicest regions of Napoli cannot bring Narancia back, nor can it attune for every bit of suffering incurred since his death; but if it is a strain upon the aging Don’s wallet, then it is all the better.

On the day of your fourth birthday spent in solitude, you treat yourself to a tub of gelato and a dress from the costly boutique across the street that you will never wear because you have no need to. It will hang in your closest amongst other unworn gowns, still pinched with price tags, that you have impulsively accumulated over the years – a hereditary habit of your mother’s that had caused more than a few spats between she and your father. You know your vice, but there is something so gratifying about it.

You sink into the tweed couch that does not quite match the architect’s vision for the living room – with its crown-mould white walls and hardwood floors the color of wenge; too clean and proper for what furniture you have kept from your former residence. Silver spoon clenched between your teeth as you page through television channel after channel, you balance that melting gelato on your lap. Perhaps you should have grabbed a straw from the kitchen as well.

The evening passes by, uneventfully so. You have spent it spoiling yourself and replying with fabricated enthusiasm to incoming text messages from study mates, who wish you well on this happy day – as if you have a reason to remember your twenty-first beyond the accomplishment of finishing the entire tub of would-be-frozen lemon curd without incurring a single regret or twinge a of brain-freeze. You have gotten rather good at knocking back shots without needing to stop for breaths, too.

At the ringing of the doorbell, you are torn from the real estate program that you have invested so much time these past few hours. Mista, no doubt – come to deliver a gift and takeout because he knows you have not eaten properly tonight. You have no room left in your belly, but whatever he brings will make for a decent meal tomorrow.

You do not bother to tidy up, and when you open the door, you wish you had. Illuminated only by the balcony light stands Fugo with a bouquet of daffodils, a bottle of sauvignon blanc, and a remorseful, sheepish smile upon his handsome face.

Get out of my life – get out of my dreams – and leave me alone.

“Uh . . . “ He trails off before he has even begun, perhaps taken aback by the widening of your eyes and the disheveled appearance that, despite your own judgement, he thinks to be the most beautiful vulnerability in life. He speaks your name with the kind of tenderness that you have not felt since you were teenagers. “Buon compleanno.”

You need not ask how he found you, because you know without question that either Mista or Giorno had told him. “Why are you here?” you ask.

He clutches the flowers a bit tighter. You do not move to take them; however, you have already decided on which vase you will place them in. “I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. And give you these.”

The bottle of wine feels far too heavy in your arms – and the daffodils, as if they might float off in an unforeseen gust of wind. “And, to apologize. For too many things that I can’t ever make right; although, if you’ll let me, I’d like to try.”

“Fugo, I . . . I don’t know.”

“Please, [Y/N]. That day in the library, all those years ago . . . I never stop thinking about the horrible things I said to you. It killed me – it ate me alive; I thought for all this time and before that you hated me, because of what happened to Narancia. Because I wasn’t there to save him.”

“It hurt when you told me to get out of your life, but I listened, and I did it.”

He brings the heel of his hand to swipe at the tears in his eyes. The curling of his other fist is a gesture that terrifies you – although, not for your own sake. “I couldn’t face you. I was scared to look you in the eye, because I thought you hated me,” he mutters like a broken record as his voice cracks with agony. “I thought you hated me, because of him.”

He stops, throwing his head back with a groan. The apple of his throat bobs up and down as he chokes down a sob. He refuses to look at you when he speaks again – too afraid to come undone before he has made his peace with you, his greatest loss. “We were young. Probably too young to even understand what love really meant. But, dio dannazione, you were the most important thing to me, and I understood that more than love.”

His words have always held the capacity for swaying you, as if they replenish the empty spaces within. It is why, as you open the door wider, you let him fill you once again. Fugo contemplates the crannies of your living room, hovering above the couch that you insisted he take a seat upon – he remembers when you bought it, because you had dragged him to the furniture outlet that day. He pretended to be annoyed, though in truth, he was beyond elated that you had chosen him over Mista, or even your brother.

“I guess I should put these in a vase,” you say about the bouquet of flowers. “They’re beautiful, Fugo. Thank you.”

He nods, suddenly entranced by a photograph of Narancia that sits atop the fireplace mantel. You do not notice his unease.

“I’ll grab us some glasses, too.”

You find your vase in the kitchen cabinet niched into the alcove above the refrigerator. Its emerald swirls glisten under the twine of the recessed lights that add no character to the room. So much for a birthday spent in reclusion, you chide alone. Deep within you sits a fire that longs to ignite – to send Fugo away in some thwarted act of retribution for the very loneliness he inflicted upon you years ago; as if to say that the rejection suits you well.

Of course, you cannot deny that your heart leapt into your throat when you saw him standing before the front door, a vision of a man who still held those inklings of boyish charm that you fell for in your adolescence. They say you should not dote over the first person beyond your mother and father to call you pretty; it is weakness to complacency. Your life has never been one of convention – and so by that right, who there is to insist that you must abide?

Bearing a content grin, you trim the stems one-by-one to better fit the vase. In synchronous rhythm to the next, the green stalks bounce from the cluttered countertop to the floor. You have only just stuffed the flowers back into the vase when the shattering of glass resonates its way into the kitchen.

The photograph of Narancia lies amongst bits of broken frame and wreckage. Face buried in his palms, Fugo crumples until his knees meet the ground; he shakes, as if smothered by a chill. When his hands fall to smack the coffee table – baring his grief, in all its pandemonium – you catch them and force his arms around your waist instead; his fingers lock together, holding you in place. He whimpers against your stomach. Already, you can feel the wetness of tears through the fabric of your overstretched shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry, [Y/N]. I’m sorry.”

Your own fingers curl through his strawberry blonde hair – a means of stability as you too have begun to cry. “It’s just a picture frame,” you promise, and it is the grandest thing he has ever heard. But it is more than a box made of wood and glass – it is an impossible longing. “I’m not upset at you.”

“I . . . Okay.”

Mindful of the mess, you rock him backwards until he is lying down. You join at his side, take his hand into your own, and wait in silence for the moment when his misery will dissipate for clarity. Regardless of the circumstances that have brought him here tonight, you are grateful for it – even if your birthday is spent wallowing in irrevocable regret.

Above all else, you know that he has always adored you, like the sun and moon and more – but he had a brilliant way of convincing you otherwise.

Your thumb coaxes over the back of his knuckles. “There’s a crack in your ceiling,” Fugo announces, nonchalant and monotone.

“Where? I don’t see one.”

He raises an unoccupied finger, and you follow its gesture to the corner of the ceiling, just above where the moulding meets. It is no longer than the length of hair from his head, and quite honestly, not an underlying issue of foundational complications. Still, you indulge him. “Oh, wow. I never noticed.”

In this hasty repertoire of patterns, you fall into stillness again. “Panni,” you whisper with the utterance of his endearing name. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He squeezes your hand.

“But it’s getting late. Why don’t you stay the night?”

Truthfully so, you cannot send him on his way in such a state of disarray.

“I can make up the couch for you, if you’d like.”

“Yes, please,” he murmurs.

However, you do not make it far because he has – inspired by a need to express his devotion and apologia – pulled you atop himself, hands braced on your hips as you balance on bent knees and grasp his shoulders. Tenderness is becoming of the boy – no, the man – who looks up at you as if you are the embodiment of everything good that exists in one life to the next. It is a side that he has never shown to anyone other than you.

You covet it like a piece of cherry-flavored candy, even when you lean down to capture his lips and nip at his tongue that likewise explores the long-forgotten caverns of your mouth. It is a distraction of meaning and not; from the broken frame, loss, and perhaps everything in between. Every attempt to catch a breath of air is met with resilient protests of needier touches and not before long, you lie on the couch – shedding your clothing like the skin of the woman you no longer wish to be – and let him in.

Bare chest to bare chest, you cup his hardness as he places his fingers to your untouched folds. You mean to tell him that you love him, but the penetration of unpracticed digits to your core stifles the very thought from your scattering mind. In dark closets and empty rooms, you two have had your share of imprudent experimentation with one another’s bodies in the past – and nothing more than warm, tentative touches that lead to girlish giggles and boyish huffs.

Fugo pinches your nipple, drawing a plush gasp from you; it urges him to do it again until at last you are throbbing with need from your lower half, your pelvis jerking upwards to meet his for the stimulation of wanting. His breath ghosts your face, and you think you smell wine – a drink for good luck, you think, because despite the distress manifesting in his soul, his mannerisms are otherwise as habitual as you might recall from moments of normalcy.

It feels wrong – to be filled with such wanton, salacious desire within the very hour that you have both spent in mourning of your brother and everything else that has been discarded to the wind, to be picked up by someone else. Yet tonight, you will not sleep with Fugo to forget your blue heart, nor for celebration’s sake as you embark upon another year of being – you will sleep with him, because you have grown tired of learning how to end your days without him.

“I haven’t . . .” You trail off, mesmerized by the way his violet eyes look at you; though puffy and stained red from crying, you take them in as he cocks a brow, imploring you to finish your thought. “I haven’t been with anyone else since you.”

“Good,” he sighs, and you think he is trying to hide a smile. “Me neither.”

Braced by his arms, you are flipped onto your stomach. The tweed upholstery bites into the soft flesh of your breasts with each jostle elicited by the curling of a finger within you. You push backwards until you swear you can feel his fingers against your cervix.

“Oh my god,” he groans, flexing out as if to move deeper. “Ti senti così bene.”

“If it feels good, then do something,” you whine, hands dug between the cushions for support.

But, to your chagrin, he takes his time to admire the way your folds pulsate around just two fingers. You glisten like a gem – his gem. Indignant with petty annoyance, you pull away and straddle the lithe, albeit toned, legs that dangle off the edge of the couch. Arms thrown around his neck, you sink down until you have reached your fill of his manhood.

“I did tell you to do something,” you sigh at Fugo’s displeasure, biting your lip as you adjust to the size of his shaft. “Didn’t I?”

He kisses you once and moves grasp your backend. You savor the feeling of him ingulfing you. “I was distracted.”

You would laugh if not for the anticipated bulging inside you as Fugo buckles into your heat. The sight of your jostling breasts with each bounce of you on his cock is a page of some heavenly doctrine – one that he should study and commit to forever. He moves with strength that he reserves for moments of rage, and even his fingers dig into your skin hard enough to leave bruises for the days to come. You do not mind; they will help you to remember the best night you have had in years.

With a cry that blossoms into a moan that tells him that he has treated you well, you ride out your orgasm and slump against his chest in your own exhaustion. When he reaches his peak, he slides out; you reach for him – dampened with your slick – and finish him until white pearls bead at the tip and trickle over your working fingers.

Foreheads pressed together, you flash tired grins before settling against the cushions, your head pressed to his chest and his arm braced around the small of your back while his fingers trace shapes against your perspired skin.

Panting, his heart skips every few beats – like a song, sung only for you. Content with that which has returned itself to you, you fall asleep to the sound of this lovely little love affair.

| 4966 Words |

#pannacotta fugo x reader #fugo x reader #pannacotta fugo #jjba reader insert #jjba x reader

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kozzax · 3 years

Text

i don't have enough energy or willpower to actually make an animatic, but i do have the ability to write out.. scripts, i guess? for the animatics i would made if i had the energy for it?

so. here's a script for a third life animatic i'd made, if i had the energy for it! these tend to get rather long when i write them out, so the script itself is under the keep reading.

"Little Pistol" by Mother Mother - Cleo

cw: descriptions of fire, violence, and death

(spoilers for third life session seven!)

We open on the crastle, a sunrise behind it. As the music sets in, we see motion behind one of the windows and begin to zoom in. When the strings shift, we finally see Cleo, inside the crastle, pulling on her armor for the day. She stands up from the bed when the words begin. Unless otherwise noted, the entire animatic is uncolored, the only color being the backgrounds indicating time of day [ex: dark grey-blue for night, warm oranges for sunset, etc] and the eyes. The sunset in the beginning was colored..

Up on my side, where it is felt I pack a little pistol on my pistol belt I think it might be fear

We watch as she reaches towards the selection of crossbows on the wall, picking one up carefully on ‘where it is felt’. We see her set it in place on her belt in time with the lyric, and we see her open the door of her room on ‘i think it might be fear’. As she walks through the door, we transition to a flashback.

Of the world and the way it makes you feel afraid

We see Cleo on the ground, and we see bdubs above her, with a smile on his face at first. Both of their eyes are a bright green. In time with the beats, we see a phantom on ‘and the way’, and we see bdubs falling on ‘it makes you feel’. We snap back to current time on ‘afraid’, as we (and cleo) see bdubs across from her. His eyes are yellow. They are the only color in the scene.

Under the skin, against the skull They put a little chip so that they know it all I think I might be scared

We see cleo walking down the stairs, discomfort in her expression and her hand on her crossbow the entire time. On ‘they put a little chip’ we see her walk up to the villager in the crastle, handing off emeralds on ‘little chip’ and receiving arrows of harming on ‘so that they know it all’. We see her load her crossbow with them on ‘i think i might’, and we see her look up and outside the window on ‘be scared’. This, and the entire beginning, is a slower segment of the animatic.

Of the world and the way it makes you feel afraid And how

We see her eyes widen on ‘of the world’. The camera refocuses so that we can see the missile etho shot coming towards the crastle on ‘and the way’, and we see it get closer on the third beat, close enough to hit the crastle. It is stopped just in time by bdubs, and we see cleo’s eyes narrow from fear to anger as she breathes a sigh of relief and steps up to the window to see who fired the missile.

it gets in the way In the way

We see cleo leaning out of one of the crastle windowsills, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun as she squints in the direction of the missile. On the second ‘in the way’, we pan across to where etho and joel stand in front of joel’s house; etho’s eyes a bright green and joel’s yellow. Etho smirks. Joel stands behind him with a blank face.

In the way In the way

We see cleo face-on, again, as she lowers her hand from her eyes and her face grows angrier. Her other hand tightens around her crossbow. On the final ‘in the way’, we see her take a deep breath and turn back into the crastle. We zoom out so that the entire crastle is in frame.

And now I want brimstone in my garden

The lighting changes, and cleo and bdubs appear at the base of the crastle, digging the moat and placing magma blocks along the base of it. We zoom in on them and bubbles drag the camera down in a transition to the next scene after cleo places one of the magma blocks. Throughout the scene cleo has a stony face on, with minute anger flitting throughout it.

I want roses set on fire

We see a single shot of cleo underneath joel’s house, the roof ablaze as joel reaches out to cleo for help. Cleo is just a silhouette. The fire is colored with reds and yellows. Joel’s eyes are not colored.

And I, well I want what's best for me And I, I think I know just what that means Just what that means

The first line, cleo says as she walks away from the wreckage of joel’s house, her crossbow in hand. On the second, we see her still and we see her face grow angry once again, as she sees the crastle with an explosion in it’s front face. She walks in anyways, and we see her hang her crossbow up on her wall before turning to the damage right after ‘just what that means’.

There is an interlude here. We see bdubs walk up behind cleo, looking at the damage himself, his eyes notably red and an angry snarl on his face. Cleo turns to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, anger in her expression but calmness in her movements. Bdubs nods as he fades out, logging out for his off-world trip. Cleo is left alone. She looks back to the damage before grabbing her crossbow and walking down the stairs. We quickly pan down to the crastle entrance.

Today I coo, today I caw

We see cleo talking with scar and tango, a forced smile on her face as she shakes hands with scar on ‘today i coo’ and tango on ‘today i caw’. Scar’s eyes are red and tango’s eyes are yellow. Her own eyes are green. They both walk away and cleo is once again left in front of the crastle alone. We pan around so that she is on our left, and we see etho on our right, his eyes now yellow and his face angry.

I have a pistol party and I kill 'em all

Etho says ‘i have a pistol party’ as he gestures at the tnt launcher next to him, to which cleo responds by raising her crossbow and pointing it at him on ‘and i kill ‘em all’. He raises his hands peacefully.

I think I might be scared

We see cleo face on, her crossbow pointed at the camera, and we see her say these words. Her face is bored, neutral and threatening. It is clear that what she’s saying doesn’t line up with her feelings; that she’s saying this to mock etho’s aggression. She shoots the camera right afterwards, and the arrow gives us a transition to the next scene. Her eyes are not colored in this shot.

Of the man and the men with their hands inside

Each beat here has part of the red army appearing in frame. First ren, with red eyes, followed by martyn and skizz on either side of him and finally with etho and bigb flanking them. The final beat of this section is an impact frame; the entire screen black and only five sets of eyes and five weapons visible before we cut to the next scene.

And the women, oh, the women all they do is cry

We see the formation of the widow’s pact. ‘And the women’ has us seeing a shot of just cleo, her eyes now yellow, ‘oh, the women’ has us seeing a shot of just scott, his eyes green, ‘all they do’ gives us a shot of the two of them across from each other with their eyes once again monochromatic, about to shake hands. ‘Is cry’ gives us the connection of them actually shaking hands. Throughout the entire scene, both of them have grim expressions.

And I, well I lose my mind I lose my mind

We pan up on ‘and i’, and we land on cleo, bdubs, and tango at the edge of the desert. On ‘i lose my mind’ we see scar join them, rushing to stand behind cleo. The second iteration of ‘i lose my mind’ has the four of them backing away cautiously, cleo with her crossbow drawn and with anger in her eyes. The four of them leave the frame as the red army enters.

I lose my mind

We watch ren shoot an arrow, and we follow that arrow across as it hits cleo. She falls to the ground and dissipates, as she loses her yellow life. The scene fills with light as we are brought back to where she’s resurrected, back at the crastle.

I lose my mind

We watch as cleo’s eyes open, now clearly red, and she grabs the crossbow on her bedside table. There is a clear snarl on her face, no hint of the mask that she once put on present any longer.

And now I found brimstone in my garden I found roses set on fire And I found Jesus, what a liar

We see cleo in impulse’s trading center, loading her crossbow before she leaves on ‘brimstone in my garden’. Her eyes are red and her hair has faint traces of fire in it. She is the brimstone in the garden. We see her look up and we see her grow angry once more on ‘i found roses set on fire’, as she first fires a crossbow shot and then races forward with her now-drawn sword. We see who she’s attacking on ‘i found jesus’, as ren comes into view, and we see her knock him to the ground on ‘what a liar’. Her sword is to his throat. Both of their eyes are blazing red and both of their faces are angry.

So I trade licks with Muddy Waters

We see a flash on ‘so i’, and when we return to the moment cleo’s face has shifted to one of shock, a sword stuck through her stomach. She falls to the ground, and we are left with the image of skizz, his eyes red, a grim grin on his face, and his hand extended down to ren as if to pull him up.

And I, well I found what's best for me And now I see no tragedy

We pan across to bdubs, eyes red, entering the crastle panicked, barring the entrance behind him. He turns to the rest of the people in the crastle with a smile and his mouth open as though he’s asking a question. On ‘i see no tragedy’, tango shakes his head and bdubs’ expression is crushed as he realizes what they’ve lost. The scene fades out.

And I, I found a burning rose And now I won't be packing little pistols No, no, no more

We see solo shots, first of bdubs and the crastle standing by a small oak tree with a hole in front of it, then of just bdubs standing in front of the now-filled hole. He walks out of frame and we follow him into the crastle. On ‘packing little pistols’, we see one final crossbow mounted on the wall. Bdubs takes it down and we see him load it with an arrow. We watch as he walks to one of the windows and stares out into the sunset, and we slowly zoom out so that we can see the outside, and then the full crastle, and then we pan up to the night sky as a meteor shower crosses across it, fiery and angry and using the same colors that were on cleo’s hair.

#3rd life smp #3rdlifesmp #zombiecleo #my writing #i have another one of these written too #and i really like the imagery of that one too #i just have a lot of fun doing these okay #and they're good practice for my writing skills #i don't think i've got a tag for these yet hm #animatic script #that'll... have to do for now #ask to tag #i don't think i missed anything but. yknow.

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t-o-m-hollands · 4 years

Text

Warnings: smoking, drinking and sex. Please don’t read if you are underage.

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Paris, 1953 – artists loft.

“Anything I should know about?” he asks, almost absentmindedly as he sets up the canvas and chooses his tubes of paint from wooden boxes filled with tube after tube of vibrant colours. Now, this would be the point where the model tells the painter that they don’t do nudes, or that they’ll need a 15-minute break between long poses, or that they’ll smoke.

“Don’t paint me in yellow”

“You don’t want me to use yellow?”

“That’s right, or gold.”

He looks at you then, straight at you. Not a glance or a quick scan to see if you’ll do as the model for the day, but instead the kind of stare you imagine doctors gives a patient who shows vague symptoms when they suspect something malignant underneath. He sits down on his stool and picks up a cigarette case. With effortless grace he picks one for himself and offers another to you. Then, in true gentlemanly manners he lights you up before lighting his own.

“Sit down” he orders, hand gesturing vaguely in the direction of the worn leather sofa. You do as you’re told and to avoid his eyes you take in the room. There’s parquet floor in oak and floor to ceiling windows standing ajar to let the fresh air in. Still, a faint smell of turpentine, oil paint and, of course, cigarette smoke lingers. Rays of the midday sun are making its way through the Parisienne rooftops outside and lights up the room. In the rays of sunlight, you can see little pieces of dust falling swiftly through the air.

“You’d look good in yellow.”

“I’d look good in any colour.” You puff out smoke.

A smile tugs the corner of his lips, “Yeah, I dare say you would." Then, "I thought I had met all the models of the agency, are you new in town?”.

You nod, take another deep drag and keep avoiding his eyes, there’s an intensity in them that you can't cope with. Countless paintings are leaning against the walls, perhaps waiting to be redone, or put up, or sold. On one of them is a naked woman lounged on a divan, eyes looking directly at you. There’s an intensity to her stare, and although she is the one naked you feel strangely bare just looking at her. He’s a got talent, this painter. That much is for sure.

“And why did you come to Paris?”

“I didn’t know modelling involved this many questions.” You stump out your cigarette on the ashtray on the floor. “Now, how do you want me?” When he doesn’t answer, but keeps looking at you like you’re a puzzle he’d like to solve you nearly grow angry.

“Naked? Clothed? On the sofa or standing? How do you want me Mr. Chalamet?”

He gives you another long look before getting up and walking across the room. He pulls out a rug from a cupboard and drags it across the floor until it’s in front of you. “Get up” he orders, offering a hand to help you do so. Leading you to the middle of the carpet he then tells you to kneel. Spending some time adjusting your pose, making sure everything is just right before setting up the canvas behind you.

“Now look at me” he directs. You obey, looking at him over your shoulder. “Yes, just like that” he confirms. “I’ll just get the shape of you, and I'll start on the face today. Next time you’ll get a robe to wear.” You nod, not knowing what to say.

“Oh, and don’t worry” he says as he moves across the floor to the record player, “it’ll be a blue one” he adds as the first notes of ‘Stormy blues’ by Billie Holiday starts playing.

***

On your second session he makes you laugh. He hands you a whiskey and soda and you get undressed to change into a Cobalt blue robe. This time Sam Cooke is playing on the record player and a golden afternoon light fills the room. He paints you until the sun sets then he takes you out for dinner at the brasserie across the street. You discuss Hemingway at length, argue a little over your preference of Monet over Picasso, thought you both agree that Picasso is better than Matisse.

It’s too early in the season to sit outdoors this late, so you’ve squeezed yourself into a corner table at the back of the brasserie. The room is buzzing, every table occupied and hurried servers are balancing trays of food and wine through the cigarette smoke filled room. Most guests are talking and laughing. Some are singing, loudly, cheerfully and out of tune.

“You should listen more to classical music” you tell him in a mock stern voice as you sip your wine.

“Oh, should I now?” he leans back in his chair, looking as effortlessly careless and happy as you spent most your life pretending to be.

“Yes, all this old jazz and then the modern music you’ve got going on, it’s like you’ve never even heard of Chopin”.

He scrunches his nose in mock-disgust “Chopin?”

You hold up a warning finger. “Not a bad word about Chopin, or you’ll finish this painting with another model. Chopin is off limits, Chopin is holy” You’re just playing with him and he knows it, he laughs and holds up his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright, I mean I guess he’s better than Liszt, but he’s no Mendelssohn.”

“Oh, you cannot be serious, god damn Mendelssohn?”

“What do you have against Mendelssohn?”

“His music”

He laughs. You laugh too. Somewhere in the city church bells are ringing.

***

So, let’s take a second to examine the circumstances.

Your great aunt Marguerite is, and according to your mother has always been, a true grande dame. The kind of women who has a string of lovers and admirers still at the respectable age of 85. Admirers who sends her flowers, gifts and love letters on a regular basis. Admirers who has dedicated books, paintings and even statues in her honour. She has a regular seat at the opera, only wears exquisite handmade clothing, drinks Champagne for lunch and has a bichon frisé called Coton. Her closest confidante is a perfumer who years ago created her a signature scent that only she has, which along with her bright red lipstick, she always wears. She can sing opera, speaks seven languages, danced ballet in her youth and referrers to everyone as ‘dahling”. She has been married four times. After her last husband died, (‘dahling Humphrey’) she settled down in a magnificent apartment at rue de châteaudun, Paris.

When your parents sent you to Paris, they sent you straight to aunt Marguerite, in hope that she could teach you a thing or two. Aunt Marguerite took you in with open arms and gave you a promise that Paris would teach you all there’s to know about love.

“So, dahling” your aunt begins, throwing down her morning paper on the breakfast table. Coton is in her lap and she’s absentmindedly stroking him with one hand while the other picks up a coffee cup in the finest china from its saucer. On the table there’s steaming coffee, fresh fruit, brie cheese and just baked break from the boulangerie across the street. Everything presented on the finest of porcelain.

“Yes, aunt?” Once when you were nine years old you had called her great-aunt and you had promptly been informed that if you ever were to call her that again you’d be stricken out of her will before you could say 'but’.

“So, tell me about him.”

You stiffen. “What, about William?”

“No, no, no” she swats her hand in front of herself as if to get rid of a persistent fly. “Not that boy”. The amount of venom she manages to fit into a single word is truly impressive and you’re guessing it’s an ability that’s taken decades to master. Your shoulders relax, “but who then?”

She leans over the table, a serious look in her old, sparkling eyes. “Dahling, don’t play coy, not with me”. But you still don’t understand so you just blink back at her. She sighs and leans back into her chair again. “You’ve had a flush in your cheek these last few days. You look – ” she goes quiet. “Dahling, when William left I -” but you stiffen again, decisively not wanting to talk about this. She leans closer again but this time she grasps your hand and looks at you with gentle eyes. “Dahling, I'm just saying, I had never seen you so hurt before. But I know, I know what it’s like to be burned by love and have everything you believed in ripped out of you, I know. I’ve been there too and it is a painful place to be.” She squeezes your hand gently in hers “All I'm saying is, if there’s someone out there who can put that blush back into your cheeks then I’m happy for you, cherie”.

***

On the third session he finishes his first portrait of you. So far, you’ve not been allowed to take a single look at it. You have no idea of what to expect. He covers your eyes with his hand as he leads you to the painting.

"Ready?"

"No, please, I like to stand here in darkness for hours in suspension and wait." He pinches your cheek, "cheeky girl".

Then he removes his hand from your eyes and lets it settle on your shoulder instead.

At first all you see is blue, your body covered by the Cobalt blue dressing gown against a marine background. Your skin vibrant against the abundance of the colour, eyes looking wild and fearful and full of mistrust. It looks as if you're drowning in all the blue around you, yet somehow holding yourself afloat. It's frightening, but mostly in the way he's managed to capture something inside you, something you thought you'd kept locked in, and put it on canvas for anyone to see. The only visible skin is your face and some of your shoulder, yet you've never felt more exposed.

He doesn't ask you if you like it, you don't tell him that you do, but as you both stand there and look at his creation his hand doesn't leave your shoulder.

***

A few days later he calls the agency and asks for you. He needs to paint another portrait and you’re just the model he has in mind. So, on a Wednesday afternoon with rain pouring down you rush to his apartment. In the elevator ride up to his floor you catch a glimpse of yourself in the dirty mirror on the wall. You look like a drowned cat, hair hanging in wet stripes against your face and you wonder if rushing over in such a hurry only make you look desperate.

"Oh, is it raining outside?" he asks as he opens the door to let you in, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes, it is" you confirm, unaffected "and unless you'd like me to die of pneumonia, I suggest you lend me something to wear, or warm myself with." He looks as if he's about to say something cheeky, but instead he hurries inside to look for a towel.

Later, you're lay on the leather worn coach, wearing only his white button-down shirt. You've dried up now, and the studio is warm and the whiskey he offered you is burning nicely in your throat. You can still hear the storm outside, but he’s put on Chopin. That warms you too.

“Oh, so the great artist does listen to Chopin after all.” You try to keep the smugness out of your voice. You fail.

“Yeah, well, found a record for cheap.” He’s sitting on the floor, right by the sofa, sketchpad and pencil in hand. He’s sketching your face, in great detail. He says it’s for a portrait study. “It’s been growing on me”. He admits.

“I told you” you say, looking down at him. Outside it’s dark but the entire loft is lit up by candles, casting a golden glow over you both. “Chopin is holy.”

He smiles, but keep his gaze on the sketchpad, brows knitted in concentration. You sit there, listening to the rain crashing against the window and the tones of Chopin. He starts sketching your eyes and looks up at you with an intensity in his gaze that warms you more than the whiskey.

“Why haven’t you’ve tried to fuck me? Isn’t that what great artists do with their muses?” Maybe it’s the whiskey giving you the courage to speak, or maybe the whiskey’s just an excuse.

“Oh, so you’re my muse now, are you?” It sounds like he’s buying himself time.

“Yes, I’m your muse now.” You laugh, “I’m your Picassos blue period”.

He stays silent but lay down his sketchpad and pencil and drags a hand through his hair.

"I know you want to touch me. I just don't know why you're holding back".

So, he doesn't.

***

“Why not yellow?” it’s a tender question, asked at last. He understands the weight of this.

You’re in his bed and you can feel his heart beat under your hand.

“Before I came to Paris I was engaged. Announced in the papers, letters of invitation sent out to family and friends' and all.” You stop, humiliation rising like bile in your stomach. “You know, I was always a blue girl. Some people, they shine like the sun. They are golden, sun-soaked, care-free creatures. Happy and grateful just to be alive. The life of the party. They lift up everyone around them simply by being near, their happiness is so contagious. They are yellow and golden like sunshine. Others, like me, well...” You trail of and his hand start stroking your cheek. He’s looking at you with a serious gleam, but he doesn’t push you to continue. He’s letting you take the time to tell your story.

“I’ve never been carefree. Things feel heavy for me, everything feels heavy for me” You paus again, because here comes the heaviest part.

“He met someone else. Two weeks before the wedding he came over my place, told me that he’d married her. I had been a spur of the moment sort of thing. They’d known each other as children, you see. First loves and all that. He felt happy with her, not weighted down. Who was I to stand in the way of that?”

“He said you weighted him down?”

“Like fucking anchor, apparently.” You sigh, and you swear you can feel the sea water in your lungs. "That's why I don't want you to paint me yellow. I'm not one of those happy, carefree girls and I’ll never will be."

You remember it vividly. How William had come over, looking handsome as ever and you had excitedly thought he’d come to discuss details about the honeymoon. He had sat you down and in ever such a gentle tone of voice calmly explained that last week he had run into a girl from his past, and in an explosion of old feelings they had decided to wed, leaving you in the ruins of the aftermath while they sailed off to America to start a new life in New York. It's a strange thing to feel hope die in your chest. To have that flicker of light somewhere between your lungs distinguished. But that’s what it had felt like. Like breathing in water. Now here you were with ocean lungs and not a flicker of hope. The humiliation had been excruciating. Everyone knew what had happened, had to know when the wedding was cancelled and a picture of William and his blushing new bride appeared in the morning paper. Your mother had been devastated, wailing all over the house that your reputation was in ruins, because who would want you now that you’d been rejected in such a public way?

Timothée doesn’t say anything, but kisses you and kisses you and kisses you until the first rays of sun light up the small, cluttered bedroom. Kisses you so softly and so sweetly it feels like artificial breathing, like maybe he’s what's keeping you alive.

***

“The rain, the whiskey, the long nights. Chopin, aunt Marguerite. The opera, Monet, Casablanca lilies.”

Timothée looks up from his canvas. “What?”

“Nothing” you respond, careful not to move from your intricate pose on the floor. Last time you’d move a little Timothée had thrown a small fit and told you that this was the most essential part, that he had to get your composition just right, that you were perfect right now and he couldn’t miss it, and the last rays of sunrays that were painting your body were rapidly passing outside.

“No, not nothing, what was that?”

“Aunt Marguerite says that when I'm feeling uncomfortable, or sad, or bored or angry I should count to ten things I'm grateful for. She says this is a thing to practice at red traffic lights or queues. She says this will stop me from becoming ungrateful.”

Timothée’s quiet for a beat, then, “And what are you right now? Uncomfortable, sad, bored or angry?”

“Uncomfortable”.

“Because of the pose?”

“Yes, but I know it’s important, and it’s only a few more minutes left. It's what you sign up for as a life model after all. Last week, there was this artist who positioned me with my arms up in the air, that was not fun after 15 minutes”.

“Oh” is all he says at first, but then, as in a rush to get all the words out “I didn’t know you were seeing other artists”.

“Well” you begin “it is my profession while I'm here”. Home in London you hadn’t work. It wasn’t necessary for you to do so, and you had never felt the need for it. Here in Paris however, it was just an opportune way of meeting new people.

“Yeah, yeah I know.” He keeps painting, and maybe it’s all our imagination, but there seems to be a new velocity to his technique.

“Timothée?”

He hums a reply, brows furrowed and eyes on the canvas.

“I’m not, you know” you trail of, “well, I'm not their muse, or anything, you know? I just sit for them. They don’t even play me Chopin” you finish in a lame attempt at a joke.

He breathes out, seems to relax his posture a little. “Yeah, well that’s good to know”.

“Do you have?" You look at him questiongly.

“Have what”

“You know, do you have other muses?”

“No” he says, firmly. “Well, there’s other people I paint, that’s my profession after all. But no. No one like you”. He lays down his brush and walks over to you, offering you a hand. “Finished for today, you can relax now.” You take his hand and he help you up. He leads you to his bedroom and lay you down on the soft mattress. “Better?” He asks. “Much” you all but moan and he smile, laying down next to you.

“Tell me a story” you request, voice barely louder than a whisper.

“A story?”

“Yes, a bedtime story”.

“Alright, once upon a time - ” You interrupt him with your laughter and he tries not to smile when he sternly says “do you want a story or not?”

He begins again, “once upon a time there was a princess and a penniless painter”.

***

Your soft feet are moving across the ground. Penché and développé and bourrée and arabesque and pirouette. Backward and forward you move, smiling and laughing along, your pink silk dress soft against your skin. You move in and out of the sunlight chasing something no one else can see.

And then there's him. Eyes moving between your dancing body and the canvas in front of him, a brush in one hand and a palette in the other, brows knitted close in concentration. Painting you is a serious affair. He wants to capture your beauty on the canvas, the loveliness of your movements and the softness of your pink dress but he's not even sure he can take it all in, the breathtaking loveliness of you, never mind getting it down in the brutal finality of an unmoving picture. He wishes he could paint your laughter and the way your eyes gleam with happiness. In the end a painting is just colour on a canvas, that only make sense to us, only resemble familiar things, because of how you use those colours. Light and shadow. Lovely shades of blush and orchid pink, of lavender, and ballet slipper pink are all the tools he has to capture your likeness with. But you are much more than just colours. More than your dancing movements and gleaming eyes and he doesn’t know how to mimic any of it. Still, he tries.

Specks of colour doesn’t just adorn his palette and canvas though, but dots of paint have made its way across his fingernails. It adorns his hands and his white shirt, and a fleck of vibrant crimson even embellish the tip of his nose where he must have absentmindedly scratched himself while deep in concentration.

“Mind playing something else than Chopin, eh?” he requests, eyes not diverting from the canvas.

“No” you laugh. “Chopin is holy”. And even with a frown on his face he can’t help his mouth from twitching, revealing his amusement.

“Come here, little dancer” he calls for you some moments later.

You laugh, “tiny dancer?”

“Sure” he laughs too “come and watch what I made of you”.

So, you stand before his canvas and the air gets caught in your lungs and it takes you a few heartbeats to calm yourself. Pictured on the canvas is a woman. You think she’s prettier than you, loose and unbound. Yet you see yourself in the way she holds her neck and in the pretty silk dress and particularly in the eyes. For even though the overall impression of the dancing girl is a much prettier than you are, or at least much prettier than you see yourself, you recognize your eyes in the portrait. The colours are lovely and bright. It is you as he sees you.

“So?” and you swear you can hear the tension in the short syllable. This is the first time he has asked your opinion on his craft.

“I love it”

***

“Tell me that story again”.

“What story?”

“You know which one, the one with the painter and the princess”.

It’s sometime later but the record player still plays Chopin. You are straddled over his lap as he lounges back in his chair. You’re sharing a glass of whiskey and ginger ale. Well, he poured one for himself and you take in from his hands to take a sip, so you’re basically sharing.

“Again?” He asks, but he’s smiling. “Alright then, once upon a time there was a penniless painter.”

“A very handsome penniless painter” you interrupt, taking a sip from your – his – drink. He continues, “one day he was summoned by the mighty king.” Again, you interrupt him, “and what did the king want?”

“Quiet, my little dancer, or I won’t tell you my story” he mock-scolds, hand cupping your face, thumb stroking your cheek, staring at you in adoration. You smile even wider though you keep quiet this time.

“The king and queen were organizing a tournament in the princess, their only child's, honour. Knights and noblemen from all of Europe were to travel long and far for even a glimpse of the princess, for they had heard of her beauty. The grand price of the tournament was the princess hand in marriage. But no one asked what the princess wanted. What she wanted was to laugh and dance and drink and to love someone and hold them close to her chest like a secret love letter. The penniless painter was supposed to capture the princess beauty, but he himself had never seen her. You see, she had been kept far from the common folk and locked in her ivory tower. She had no one, not really”.

He stops then, perhaps distracted by your hands playing with the buttons off his shirt. Perhaps distracted by your eyes and how every time you blink it reminds him of the fluttering wings of a butterfly.

“And then what happened?”

“And then the princess met the painter.”

***

Next morning as you come in to the breakfast table aunt Marguerite hands you a letter and a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be on the balcony if you need me, dahling”.

It’s addressed from home. Your parents' home. With shaky fingers and a sense of dread in your stomach you rip it open.

Dearest,

I was glad to hear from aunt Marguerite about your progress in Paris. She says your French has become quite perfect and that you are making great improvements overall. Time has flown by so quickly and February is, as I'm sure you know, just around the corner. It is, as you surely must understand, vital that you are back in London in time for the Cheltenham festival, and preferably some time before that so we can have some new frocks fitted for you. It is of utmost importance that you make a good match this year, as I'm sure you’re aware.

Your loving mother

P.S. Your father ran into Earl of Abingdon last week when he was with his son Freddie. Young Freddie asked about you. Let this be an encouragement, all hope is not yet lost.

Let’s now examine the season.

The social season, or season, refers to the traditional annual period when it is customary for members of a social elite of society to hold balls, dinner parties and charity events. The most active part of the season is the period between Easter and when parliament adjourned for the summer, in July or August

It is a long string of gatherings which are deemed the opportune occasions to meet one's future husband or wife. It is common knowledge that if one has not made a romantic match during the season, ones hope of finding a spouse are at best none existing, and one will just have to wait until the following year. During that wait, one should work on improving oneself so that next year one will seem a good catch.

The season is upon you.

***

You lay in bed, wearing only the sunlight on your skin as its beaming through the open window. Outside you hear the birds. Outside you hear the traffic. Outside you hear Paris in all its roaring glory. Beneath your fingertips you can feel the stable hum of his heartbeat, and when you put your head against his chest you can hear its steady beat. A reassuring sound. A holy sound, holier than Chopin even.

“What are you listening for?” he asks, voice amused but somnolent.

“I was wondering, if I put your heart against my ear, could I hear the ocean?”

“You want the ocean?” he asks, hand playing with strands of your hair, slowly combing his fingers through the tangled mess he’d created earlier.

‘Yes’ you think to yourself. ‘Yes, I want the ocean. I want to live by the ocean with you and play Chopin every day and I want your paint-covered hands all over me repeatedly, and endlessly. I want to live like this forever, you and I, in a small loft with no musts, no trains to catch or letters burning holes in your pocket. I never want to hear a ticking clock reminding me of time wasted ever again. I just want to hear the waves crashing against the shoreline and Chopin on the record player and your voice and the things you whisper to me in the dark. I want the smell of the sea, of rum and of you. I want to live on nothing but wine and bread and fresh fruit. But most of all I want you to paint me as I am, not as you see me, I don’t care if it’s impossible’.

“I want the ocean” you confirm.

“Then I’ll give you the ocean”. He looks at you, eyes heavy with sleep and perhaps a fair share of adoration.

You want to ask him ‘Do you see me as I really am, or have you made me up?’ You don’t. Instead you say, “Actually, I was listening to your heartbeat and thought what a blessing it is that you’re real”.

He looks at you and you can see that he doesn’t understand.

Then he says, “I know your scared that you’ll weight me down, but if you do, it’ll be in the way a siren makes her claim on a sailor lost at sea. I don’t care, don’t you understand that? Drown me with your love, I'm lost at sea”.

When he’s asleep you untangle yourself from him, carefully so not to wake him, and make your way across the room. You take another look at him. The bed is too small really for the both of you and when he’s alone in it he can spread out, and so he does. Torso twisted so he’s laying partly on his side and partly on his stomach, arm spread out, as if he’s holding onto someone who isn’t there anymore. You close the door behind yourself when you leave.

‘He should have painted me blue instead’ you think, exanimating the canvas. The vivid colours forming your shape are lovely, but they belong on someone else. A lively, carefree creature who don’t have ocean lungs heaving for air and a heavy heart. ‘Or better yet, he should love someone that isn’t blue’. And with all your heart you wish that person was you.

You pick up your dress from where it lays discarded on the floor and you put it on. His cream-coloured knitted sweater lay on the floor too and you remember desperately removing it from him in order to get to the naked skin underneath. You put it on as well. It feels strangely like wearing armor. Then you put on your boots and you leave.

In the taxi the scent of Timothée surrounds you, oil paint, tobacco, rum and cashmere. The taxi stops at a traffic light and you begin counting things of which you are grateful.

Taxi drivers, Billie Holiday, warm cashmere sweaters. Cigarettes and rum. Timothée, Timothée, Timothée, Timothée, Timothée.

***

“This is the part where you tell me, isn’t it?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re leaving.”

You don’t say anything. Taken aback. “You are, aren’t you?” He doesn’t sound angry, doesn’t sound sad, though it’s like you can feel the weariness coming off of him in waves.

“I have to be home for the season” you explain, but it seems ridiculously inadequate and he’s just standing there, painting and not looking at you. “My parents insist, I have to make a good match, find a good husband”.

“A rich husband, you mean”. He says it without judgment, but with a fair share of bitterness in his voice and you don’t know how to reply him because yes, that is what you mean.

“My parents, I'm their only child. It’s on me to, to - ” but you falter.

He sighs then, so deeply your lungs begin to ache for air as well, as if you both been under water for far too long. “I know” he says, then in another sigh “I know”.

“So, do they have anyone in mind?”

You swallow, feeling a sudden need to shuffle your feet, but you hold your pose. “Well, the earl of Abington's son, Freddie, has been mentioned as a suitable fit. We’ve known each other for years, and I know he’s always had a thing but there was always William.”

He drags a hand through his hair and sights again. Then all is quiet for a long while.

Then, as your body has begun to ache from standing in the same position for too long, he suddenly says.

“It’s just-” and he waves his hands in front of himself, as if he thinks he can catch the words that will explain how he feels from the air around him. “I just wish I didn’t know what it feels like to love you., you know? Right now, it feels like I'll carry the weight of loving you around with me for a long time to come. For a very long time to come.”

Silence. The record comes to an end and everything goes quiet, even the birds outside has stopped singing, the traffic has gone quiet. The whole of Paris has come to a stop. Only your shallow, panic-stricken breaths and the scrape of his paint-covered brush against the canvas can be heard.

One last sigh and then,

“and what a heavy love it is”.

(‘He said you weighted him down?’

‘Like a fucking anchor, apparently’)

That night he fucks you with a kind a fever. He fucks you fast and hard and after you’ve cum with a half-strangled scream, one fist in his hair, he fucks you deep and slow. Both your hands are gentler with each other this time, but his eyes just as intense. Later, he kisses every part of you. Like he’s trying to memorize each inch of your body. Like he thinks you’ll disappear in front of his eyes, like sand slipping through fingers.

As you’re about to drift off to sleep, safely in his arms, you hear him whisper words into your hair, so softly you’re almost certain you’re not supposed to hear them,

“Oil paint, cigarettes and rum. Paris, Picasso, jazz. Chopin. Blue. The ocean”

Then, in a voice so soft it might as well have been a sight,

“you”.

***

“I have a suggestion” he begins a couple of days later. “If you don’t like it, just tell me”.

“What?”

“I’d like to paint a portrait of you nude.”

You smile and start to unwrap your dress, “alright, where do you want me?”

He clears his throat and looks away, shy all of a sudden “on the divan, just, you know, lie how you’d normally would lie. Normally”.

You do, trying not to smile at his uncharacteristically unsmooth self. “Like this?” you ask after you’ve positioned yourself. He looks up, bites his bottom lip and walks over to you. He rearranges you slightly, placing your hand in front of your cunt, as to cover you up. “How modest” you tease and look up at him. His cheeks are blushed but he says nothing, just sets up his canvas and paints and goes to work. Before he starts painting, he puts on the old, familiar Chopin record.

He paints in silence for a while, in deep concentration and you study him as he does. You want to remember him like this, paint splattered and in concentration, and with a hunger in his eyes every time he looks at you.

"Do you have any buyers for them?"

"For what?"

"The portraits? Well, the ones of me"

He doesn't answer, just keep on mixing paint to get that precise shade of red he's had on his mind all day to paint your lips. You wonder if he doesn't want to answer, or if his mind is just occupied on the task at hand. Or perhaps it's rude to ask an artist about money, like asking the pope about evolution. But in the end, he does answer. Hours later while you lay on the carpet together, your head resting on his chest and his hand in your hair, his heartbeat under your hand.

"They're gonna go up for an exhibition later this month. I'm selling all of them" his thumb strokes your cheek "Well, except this one, I'll be keeping that".

You want to ask him if he keeps portraits of all his models, if he's keeping it because he’s proud of the painting or as a reminder of the sitter. But your courage fails you and his thumb keeps stroking your cheek as you lay there in silence. There’re specks of red paint all over his hands and you find yourself wishing they’d stain you too.

***

“I’m leaving tomorrow” you whisper out into the dark. He’s above you and you can still feel him inside you. The words have been on the tip of your tongue all evening and now they’re finally free. He doesn’t say anything but you can feel his hand gripping your hand tighter. And maybe there isn’t anything left to say. He rolls off of you and lay beside you instead, still holding your hand tightly in his, as if you were a balloon that would otherwise drift away. As if you were a lifeline out at sea.

***

In the early hours of the morning he walks you home. It’s Sunday, and the whole of Paris seem to be asleep apart from you. You are wearing his cream coloured knitted sweater and he has a painting tied up in brown paper and string under his arm. His hand is holding yours. When you’re just around the corner to aunt Marguerite’s home you panic, not wanting this to end so in a rush you request,

“tell me that story again”

He smiles, but its strained and his eyes are sad. “Again?”

You nod. “Yes, give it a happy ending”.

“Painters aren’t good with words. That’s why we paint, to express what we can’t find the words to say”. He hands you your portrait, leans in to gently kiss your cheek and whispers in your ear “keep it somewhere special, won’t you?”. Then he’s gone.

Later you unwrap the painting and place it on your bed. It’s a portrait you haven’t seen before. Shades of lemon yellow, amber, cream, topaz, bronze, sunflower yellow and gold make up your face. Around your head is something that looks alarmingly alike a halo made of yellow tulips.

When aunt Marguerite sees it, she sighs. “Yellow tulips, I see.”

“Yes” you say, suddenly feeling defensive “a cheerful colour, is it not?”

She gives you a long look. Almost apprehensively she says “perhaps so, dahling. But in the olden days it used to represent jealousy, and unrequited love.”

You don’t know what to say, perhaps she doesn’t either, for she pats you gently on the shoulder and leaves.

It’s only later, much later, when you’re on the train back to London that you examine the back of the painting. In the corner he has written something in his signature scrappy handwriting. It takes a moment before you can make out what it says. When you do you swear the whole train can hear your heart break.

“I’ll think of you at every red light and I'll be grateful – T. C.”.

***

#timothee chalamet x reader #timothee x y/n #timothee x you #timothee x reader #timothee chalamet #timothèe chalamet #timothee imagine #timothée fanfic #timothée chalamet #timothée x reader #timothée imagine #timothée x you #timothée x y/n #timothée chalamet x you #timothée chalamet x reader #timothée chalamet x y/n

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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years

Text

To Dance With Danger | Jurdan Whump Fic

Anon asked: “Can you write something about how Jude gets hurt somewhere and the Court of Shadows and Cardan go looking for her”

Summary: “The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.” Please forgive me.

Rating: T

CW: Mild cursing. Minor mentions of abuse (~) and vomit (*); Paragraphs containing these sensitivities have been marked with the allocated warnings. Major descriptions of pain and delusions.

Part I | Part III | AO3 | Masterlist

Part II- Follow You Down To the Red Oak Tree

She’d never considered herself stupid.

Foolish, maybe once or twice. But Jude Duarte-Greenbriar was never an idiot outright. So it came as a great shock to her when she found herself bleeding out in a cave in the middle of the Milkwood.

Wouldn’t this be a hilarious way to go? All her life, Jude had been worried about time peeling her right out of her own mortal skin. Yet here she was, dying from a paltry cut.

That last thought, she knew was stupid. This was more than a paltry cut. It throbbed like a second heartbeat and burned like her knee was a plate of scrambled eggs someone was pushing around with a fork.

A small pool of spilled blood darkened the ground near her ankles. Sometimes, her vision narrowed, blurred.

Perhaps this was one last way for the stars to taunt her. Give her everything she ever wanted and more than she could possibly hope for; a grand feast befitting of a Queen, spread out just for her; then rip her away from herself like the tablecloth in one of those mortal magic tricks.

Jude was not afraid.

When you’d lived your whole life knowing the promise of death was the single certainty of your existence, you tended to come to terms with it. So Jude did not fear dying. Only the horrible, yawning oblivion that came after.

☽☽☽☽☽

It was a quarter past one, and Cardan’s feet were flying. Out his chamber doors, down the spiral stairs, right to the little wooden door opposite the library, which he promptly began pounding on.

There was a groan within, some shuffling. Then, “It’s the middle of the day, for Mab’s sake,” a groggy voice came muffled from behind the door. “What could possibly be so—oh.”

The Bomb, all messy-haired, eyes squinting at the brightness of the hall, let the door creak open a fraction before realising who exactly had summoned her from sleep. She opened the door in full.

“Cardan—erm, I mean… Your Majesty,” she said, brows furrowing. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Pleasure?” Another even-more-groggy voice came from inside the room. “I’ve got a mallet hammering at my brain thanks to him. Bloody pusher. You can tell His Majesty to kindly sod off.” The Roach held a pillow over his gnarled green head and a rude finger up in the direction of the door.

“Van,” the Bomb tutted over her shoulder. She pulled her dressing gown tight around her and faced the High King again. Only then did she seem to register the look on his face.

“Liliver,” Cardan said, frantic. His mind was all static, hollow—so very full of nothing. Words felt like they came through a tangle of tree sap and brambles in his throat. “It’s Jude.”

That’s all it took.

The Court of Shadows was moving, the guard summoned. Even the Roach managed to scrape himself together. The Ghost slipped into their ranks just as they were passing through the throne room, and informed the High King he’d done a sweep of the palace, just to be sure.

“And?” Cardan demanded, pivoting on his heel to face the sharpshooter.

“She’s not here,” the Ghost said.

Cardan’s mouth set into a grim line. He gave a curt nod, but his stare lingered on the dais. Where the pair of thrones sat, a latticework of woven roots and blossoms. They seemed to be holding their breath, too.

From the back of the leftmost royal seat, a deep blue flower petal shivered. Then it was falling in listless swoops and dives, whispering across the seat of the chair.

Hurry.

“Get a carriage,” Cardan said, just loud enough to be heard. The room was silent as a snowbank. “Go.”

There was a beat. Then, the din of metal and rushing of boots and they were all moving again.

The High King and his men took to the forests, guarded with crossbows and swords that might as well be spoons for how much they would protect against the glimpses.

Cardan didn’t know why his wife had decided to catch a glimpse. He had even less of a clue as to why she thought she had to do it alone.

The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.

☽☽☽☽☽

Night was encroaching. This, Jude only knew because the game she’d invented—finding pictures in the cracks and shadows of the cave wall to beat back the tide of sleep—was becoming more and more difficult.

She shivered. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, but the fever had set in.

Jude couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a fever. It must’ve been when she was six or seven. When she was still living in the mortal world, and her mother was still alive to take care of her and getting fevers was the most of her worries.

Eva had climbed into her bed with two washcloths and snuggled up real close.

She’d sat there for hours, pressing the warm compress to Jude’s forehead when she was too cold and the cold compress to her forehead when she was too warm. Telling her stories of magical places. Feeding her saltines and seltzer.

Jude had wholly forgotten how it felt to have a fever. It was as if she was being filled to the brim with hot wax and dunked in a bucket of ice water at the same time.

She’d only recently rediscovered how it felt to be comforted. She wondered if she’d ever feel that again.

Maybe, Jude thought, she could imagine herself some comfort. She was so very good at lying, after all. Maybe she could lie to herself. Just for a little while.

She stared up at the ceiling, listening to the woeful sighs of the glimpses ebb and flow from outside the cave.

She imagined lying next to Cardan in their bed in the Royal Chambers. With nowhere to be and nothing to do, Cardan would cocoon them both in satin sheets, trace lazy shapes around her bare shoulders with the tips of his fingers. Pepper her back with nips and kisses.

He would agree to be the big spoon for once since she was the one in need of comforting.

“Jude,” he would say softly, caressing her cheek, brushing the hair away from her eyes, “You are perhaps the single most important thing in my life.”

She’d turn her head to nuzzle the crook of his neck. “And you, mine, my love,” she’d say. He smelled like fallen leaves. And burnt toast.

Jude crinkled her nose. Odd. He didn’t usually smell like burnt toast. Had they just had breakfast? She couldn’t remember….

“I don’t understand.” Cardan’s voice was dipped in worry, and he paused the soothing circles of his fingers.

“Cardan,” Jude said, rolling her eyes, “We’ve been over this. I want to be here. I want to be with you. I love you.”

Sometimes her husband just needed a little reminding. Sometimes she preferred to give him that reminder in other, much more wicked ways. Perhaps today she would give him both.

A sinful smile curled the corners of Jude’s lips. She turned around in Cardan’s arms to face him fully and was about to seal the morning off with a kiss, followed by further disreputable behaviour, when she noticed the look on his face.

It was the same one he wore when he’d looked at her from the riverbank after pushing her in a lifetime ago. The same one that had graced his face when she’d first placed that crown atop his head.

Now, in the bed they shared, Cardan looked at her with nothing but cold ire. “How could you do it?” he whispered, and Jude’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know why, but something slick like tar settled in the pit of her stomach. She wanted him to smooth the crease between her brows. To kiss her forehead and call her his darling god.

But Cardan’s face remained a glacial effigy of the man she’d come to love. With nothing but disdain, he looked down his nose at her and asked, “How could you kill him? How could you murder my brother?”

*Jude sat up straight and vomited all over the cave floor. Then, she was pulled out to sea by a riptide of sleep.

☽☽☽☽☽

The High Queen of Elfhame was spinning. Round and round, a circle of fever dreams.

It was like sitting on a merry-go-round and looking in towards the centre where all those mirrors usually hang. Watching whirling versions of things and lights and yourself pass you by in the reflective panels moving in the opposite direction.

One terrible vision after the next.

Locke’s water-logged body, blue-green and covered in seaweed, standing at the mouth of the cave. Valerian, dirt pouring from between his teeth as he smiled, walling up the entrance with stones, then filling the cave with blood. Balekin ensorceling her to kiss him, then turning into a giant moth right as her lips touched his. Cardan’s head on a pike with upturned eyes, jaw dropped as if mid-warning. A voice in her head.

Heeding requests, even my own, is the singular skill which evades her grand arsenal.

No key fits every lock.

I do not want Balekin dead.

How could you do it? How could you murder my brother?

Perhaps this is what she deserved. Perhaps she was a monster who couldn’t control herself long enough to keep from hurting those she loved, no better than Madoc. Perhaps Valerian’s curse was coming to fruition, after all.

If Jude could have laughed, she would have. But she could not. Dark waves lapped at the shores of her consciousness; and who was she to ignore the sea?

☽☽☽☽☽

Eventually, there was another voice in her head.

Shit, it said. Yes, she really was in very deep shit.

I FOUND HER, it bellowed, splintering her thoughts. She wondered if she should tell the voice to shut up. Though, it probably already knew that’s what she wanted, since it was in her head, and had probably heard her think it.

It was getting crowded in here. Her head was a swollen, throbbing balloon.

Fucking shit, the voice repeated.

Well, she thought, that was quite rude. No way to address a lady, such as herself. Whoever she was.

Something prodded her leg.

A sudden, violent wave of pain swept over her. It rose and rose and rose, but never fell. Darkness pulled her to its depths again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Can you hear me?

Stay awake. Stay. Awake.

*The voice was urgent. And constant. And very annoying. It felt like a cheese grater running down her mind. Her throat burned. Maybe the voice had run a cheese grater over that, too. Her hand slid into something wet. It smelled like sick.

Then, there was a cold compress on her forehead.

“Mom?” she croaked, her voice like cracked plaster. She lifted the heavy weight of her eyelids.

A figure was looming over her. It was too dark to see who, but her heart thrashed against her chest, all the same. This was another terrible dream. She was not sure she could take another one of those. Then again, she was in no position to fend it off if it decided to come. She was in no position to do anything, really.

“Not mom, Your Majesty,” the figure sighed, removing the compress. “You’re burning up.”

Not a compress. Hands.

“Whose Majesty?” she asked through the haze in her mind. Everything was so confusing. Everything was also spinning.

She heard rummaging. Next thing she knew, a match had been struck, and the room filled with warm light. The figure looking down at her was indeed a woman, though it was indeed not her mother.

She had familiar plumes of white hair circling her head like smoke. Full, wine-red lips pressed into a weak smile. “Hello, Jude,” the woman said.

Yes, that must be who she was. She opened her mouth to thank the beautiful woman for the reminder, but all Jude could seem to do was squint. She knew this woman from somewhere.

“I’m going to pick you up now, okay?”

Jude could not muster the wherewithal to reply. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, slid gingerly under her knees. Then, the world tilted, shifted, until she was right up against something warm and solid.

Jude looked up at the woman. “You’re ethereal,” she murmured, staring up at the soft planes of her face. Blush blossomed a stain of pink across the woman’s cheeks. “Are you god?”

The woman snorted, then. Jude didn’t understand what was so funny. It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Since she was dying, and all.

“That’s quite enough of that, Your Majesty,” the woman said. “Let’s get you home.”

Home, Jude mused. She’d thought she was home, but maybe… she was wrong? Wherever home was, it sounded nice. She should like to go there someday.

☽☽☽☽☽

She was deep inside a cave. She could see nothing, but echoes of conversation pinged off the walls.

Delirious. Didn’t know who I was.

Reckon it’s the fever?

The infection perhaps?

Could be, but you need to keep her awake.

Can I hold her? Please?

The moon was a Cheshire cat smile above her. It grinned, then shattered into one hundred panes of opaline glass—a dragonfly’s wing, splitting her knee wide open.

☽☽☽☽☽

When Jude woke again, she knew she was home.

She was being jostled around a bit, and her leg felt like someone had set it on fire, but she didn’t mind. She was wrapped in something soft. The sound of hooves on packed earth thundered in her ears.

Her name was being called.

“Jude,” someone said, over and over, a litany. A curse. “Jude, my love, you mustn’t fall asleep. You must stay awake. Can you do that for me, Jude? Please, stay with me.”

She opened her eyes. Blinked slow. The disembodied voice belonged to someone. That someone cradled her in his lap, holding her face between his hands. Everything was blurry, but she’d know those hands anywhere.

“Jude?” he whispered.

She summoned the tattered bits of her strength, lifting her hand to cover one of his. It was shaking.

“I know you,” Jude said, willing her eyes to focus. A keening sound tore from him.

Him. She knew his name. What was it? Her mind was so muddled by exhaustion and the riot of pain in her left leg, she could not remember. She was so angry at herself for not remembering.

Jude frowned. Huffed. Tried to refocus her eyes. It was the most important name, more important even than her own. She was a terrible person for forgetting it. She was pretty sure she was a terrible person anyway, but forgetting his name made her even worse.

She lifted a hand to his cheek. Her frown deepened. “Why is your face wet?”

“Because I’m very worried for my wife,” he said, in a strained sort of voice.

“You have a wife?” Envy billowed, a parachute in her chest. Which was ridiculous. She couldn’t even see this man. How could she possibly know if she was jealous?

He breathed a laugh. “Yes,” he told her, stroking her hair gently. “She is a headstrong, ornery fool who holds a vendetta against my poor nerves.”

Everything was quite difficult at the moment. All Jude could think was how beautiful this man’s voice sounded and how very badly she wanted to go back to sleep.

“Hmm.” She closed her eyes again. “She sounds awful.”

“No,” he said. “She is not.”

☽☽☽☽☽

*Watching his wife being carried off like a rag doll into the Royal Chambers, blood-spattered and covered in her own sick, Cardan Greenbriar had never felt so small.

~He felt smaller now than when Dain had tricked him, and he’d been kicked out of the palace for a murder he did not commit. Smaller now than all the times Balekin had removed his belt. Smaller now than when he was a kid crawling beneath the dining table, scrounging for scraps of food and attention.

The Bomb had explicitly forbidden Cardan from accompanying them further than the ante-chamber.

“If I’m going to heal her,” she’d said to him firmly, pausing outside the bedroom doors, “I’m going to need the utmost focus. Which will certainly not be achieved by you being in there, all blubbering and sentimental. So unless you know anything about mortal biology…”

Cardan had never in his life wished to be mortal; but suddenly, the desire to be one was visceral. He’d never wanted to lie more than he did in that moment. He tried to will the words past his lips, but they snagged in his throat.

He was unable as ever.

So he’d been kicked out of his own bedroom. Away from his own wife. Who may or may not be dying.

The matter was still inconclusive. Cardan read it on the faces of the cycle of people poking their heads out in intervals to check on him or bring him tea. Sometimes, it was the Roach. Sometimes, the Ghost. Only once was it the Bomb, who had been hard at work for endless hours, and needed a break.

Her face was just as dour as the rest.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she muttered, sliding down the wall to sit next to him on the floor just outside the bedroom doors. “If you need to talk—”

“What I need, Liliver, is for you to heal her,” Cardan snapped.

He regretted the words as soon as he’d said them. She was only trying to comfort him. She, too, had once been forced to watch as her beloved toed the line between life and death. Right now, though, the High King did not have the strength to feel sorry for anyone but himself.

The Bomb only nodded. Once, short and curt. She left him to his misery after that. Cardan supposed he’d probably have a lot of apologising to do to a lot of people by the end of this.

A while later, and rather belatedly, he realised he could very well just barge in there and demand to stay. Magical oath or not, he was still High King. They would still listen to him.

But maybe the Bomb had a point. Maybe it would only make him more anxious, to be in there; he did not want to impede on Jude’s progress. Maybe nothing was the most he could do.

All his life, he’d spent doing most every childish thing. He’d tugged on the tails of cats, threw tantrums when he didn’t get his way, threatened people when they offended him.

Now, Cardan sat there on the floor with his head in his hands, doing absolutely nothing, and felt more like a child than ever.

☽☽☽☽☽

Jude was a dragonfly hovering over water, dipping in and out of sleep. She was flying and then sinking and then flying again.

It went like this for a while.

She’d fall asleep in one place and drift to the surface of consciousness in another. Sometimes she felt no pain. Sometimes she felt a great deal of pain all at once. The latter would usually send her careening back into nothingness.

On occasion, she’d awaken just long enough to recognise the faces floating in and out of her vision. The Roach, with his scythe of a nose. The Ghost, with his sandy hair and silent demeanour. The Bomb, who Jude had a strange, vague feeling was blushing every time she looked at her. She even recognised a nurse or two.

Always, there were people. There was one face, however, that she did not see.

“Bomb,” Jude rasped, and the faerie’s eyes met hers. “If I die, would you tell him I hated him? Tell him, that’s why I did it.”

“What do you mean?” The Bomb asked. But Jude was already drifting again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Next Part

Last Part

Masterlist

AN: I am…so sorry. I’ll be the first to say, I am the absolute worst for telling you guys this was going to be a two-shot and then leaving this on such a cliffhanger and making you wait for a third part. Don’t hate me? The good news is, I have a lot of the last part written. The bad news is, the last part is what has been keeping me from updating-- writing it feels more and more like giving birth with each passing day.

So if you enjoyed this part, and would like to give me some writerly encouragement in the form of a comment/reblog/keyboard smash/message/ask, any and all of the above would basically be like giving me a dose of that sweet, sweet epidural and I would be forever grateful :’)

If you’d like to be updated on the next part of this Three-Shot (to come very soon), let me know and I’ll add you to the tag list! Back to the woods now. -em 🖤💫

Title Inspo: Follow You Down to the Red Oak Tree by James Vincent McMorrow

Tag List: @velarhysismine @the-mithridatism-of-jude-duarte @knifewifejude @clockworkgraystairs @jurdanhell @judexcardanxgreenbriar @hizqueen4life @nite0wl29 @mysweetvilllain @thesirenwashere

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

Note

Probably crack and a result of staying up way too late, but how do you think an AU where Peter dated and married Naomi instead of Nora would go?

This officially goes on the list of “ships I never considered before, but now that you say it I can kinda see it.” Peter’s clearly got a competency kink, between Eva and Nora. Naomi deserves better than Dan. They’re both overworked single parents who try to do what’s best for their kids, and don’t always succeed. Peter’s good at the nurturing and hug-giving and supportive side of things, not so much at the day-to-day practicalities. Naomi’s excellent at making sure everyone is fed and sheltered and keeping up in school, not so much at the touchy-feely stuff. Yeah, I can see it.

Anyway:

They meet through the PTA, naturally. Naomi’s there to stage a formal protest about the high school’s suspension of late-bus service, and Peter’s there because this is the once-a-month night out of the house that Marco keeps scheduling for him. Naomi makes a sarcastic comment about the U.S. government’s idea of “sufficient funding”, Peter jumps in with a one-liner about science grants, and four hours later they’re still companionably trashing the NSF over their third round of bake sale brownies. Peter makes the first move, of course. Naomi sets the time, the venue, the curfew, the transportation, and the expectations for the night, of course.

Jake thinks this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to him in his entire life. The more both Marco and Rachel call him to complain about their respective parents, the funnier he finds it to be.

Both Naomi and Peter are pleasantly surprised at how well their kids get along. They were both vaguely aware that Marco and Rachel knew each other through school, but neither one is prepared for the instantaneous companionable banter the teenagers fall into the moment Peter first brings Marco over to meet Naomi.

The first four or five times Marco comes around Rachel’s house for dinner, Jordan hides under her hair and watches him in enraptured silence. After about two months’ worth of this, Rachel drags Marco aside after an Animorphs meeting and has a stern conversation with him.

Neither of them will tell the others what they talk about, even though Ax expresses concern at the brilliant red shade both their faces have taken on and Cassie gives them a knowing smile. Technically Tobias overhears the whole thing — the others tend to get so caught up in hawk eyes that they forget all about hawk ears — but he’s nice enough to keep his silence.

The next time Marco’s over at Rachel’s house, he lets out a seven-second belch after downing an entire can of Mountain Dew in one go. Over the next ten minutes, he insults Jordan’s favorite boy band, picks his nose in front of everyone, claims he’s going to die alone because girls are gross, and (to Rachel’s quiet shock) too-casually acknowledges his raging crush on Brad Pitt.

Anyway, it works like a charm. Jordan gets over her crush pretty quick after that.

“You didn’t have to go quite that hard in the paint, you know,” Rachel says to Marco much later. “Pretending to like Brad Pitt, I mean.”

Marco is lying on her bed, looking through one of her back issues of CosmoGirl with the air of a forensic anthropologist picking apart the dismembered remains of a human sacrifice. “What?” he says, back in that too-casual tone. “I can appreciate a good pair of lips, no matter what type of human being they grow upon.”

Rachel spins around, looking away from the mirror where she was fixing her hair. Marco is now staring at the magazine as if trying to detect a coded message between two lines of the spread comparing different brands of eyeliner.

“No matter what type?” she asks.

Marco lifts his chin. He doesn’t back down, and he doesn’t laugh. There’s a defiant set to his smirk, and the careful confidence in his expression is betrayed by the slight trembling of his fingers clenched around the Cosmo.

Their parents are engaged, that’s all. And it’s not something he’s ever told anyone... but he also thinks it’s maybe the sort of thing that one tells one’s siblings.

“So you do agree with me and Cassie about Jeremy Jason McCole!” Rachel says triumphantly.

Marco gags so hard he risks straining his own throat muscles. “I have taste! You, clearly, have none.”

If Jordan still has any romantic interest in Marco at all even after the you’re going to be step-siblings news broke, it disappears the instant that Naomi announces Jordan and Sara are going to be sharing a room from now on, because Marco and Peter are moving in with them. A week later, Jake’s mother has a stern conversation with him about the extent to which he’s been running up their phone bill. He grumbles that he didn’t ask to be everyone’s agony aunt, but that doesn’t get him out of being grounded.

Marco teases Rachel endlessly when he figures out why she leaves her window open every night, even — especially — when it’s cold or rainy outside. But he also helps cover for her and Tobias without being asked, and one night in gorilla morph he deforms the oak tree out in the back yard so that a sheltered branch rests directly underneath her windowsill.

Rachel stops in the door of Marco’s room the day after the confrontation with Visser One outside the fake hork-bajir valley. She doesn’t bother to knock. He didn’t bother to shut the door.

Marco’s sitting in the narrow space between his bed and the wall, staring at the blank blue paint in front of his face. His knees are drawn up to his chest, his hands limp at his sides.

“They didn’t find a body,” Rachel says, blunt as ever, standing over him. “I know that’s not good news or anything. But I also figured you had a right to know. There’s no sign of Vis— Of her body.”

Marco squeezes his eyes shut, hard, but still can’t stop the tears. “Shit.” He lets his head fall back against the bedspread. “Shit.”

Hesitating only a second, Rachel scoots in next to him. She doesn’t try for a hug or anything stupid like that, but she sits shoulder-to-shoulder with him. She’s the kind of person given to stillness, but she stays put as he struggles to breathe and swipes his sleeve across his face time and time again.

“It’s never going to end, is it,” Marco says at last, when he’s got enough air for words.

Rachel shrugs. “I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“Shit,” he whispers again. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“You wanna play Sega?” she asks. “Not think for a while?”

Marco shakes his head violently. “I just need some space, okay?”

“Sure.” She stands. “I’ll tell my mom not to expect you for dinner.”

Their parents are downstairs cooking. Laughing. Arguing companionably over one of Naomi’s cases. Every clink of dishes, every fond word, feels like a spike driven under Rachel’s fingernails right now. And if that’s how she feels...

“Anyway, I know you think I’m a crazy psycho killer, but for what it’s worth I think you made the right call.” She says it sharply, standing to go. Marco doesn’t respond, not that she expected him to, and she yanks his door shut when she goes.

Peter doesn’t try to be Rachel’s dad. But he helps her with homework and shows up to her gymnastics meets and acts more excited than she is when she aces a history test. He asks her what she wants to study in college, not whether she’s going or how they’re expected to pay for it. He doesn’t try, and he does pretty well anyway.

The Animorphs meet in Rachel’s room almost as often as they do in Cassie’s barn. It’s more centrally located, even if it doesn’t have nearly the selection of morphs right at hand. Jake and Cassie both have preexisting excuses for showing up several times a week, and Tobias and Ax never bother using the front door anyway. Marco’s also taken the time to confirm that no one in the house is a controller, so it saves everyone a little peace of mind.

Rachel wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. No, that’s not it; she’s screaming in her sleep, and then Marco snaps the light on and wakes her. He sets a glass of water on her nightstand. Tilts the alarm clock so she can see the time. Pokes her in the arm to remind her that she’s human, at least for now. When it becomes obvious that she’s not going to talk about it, he turns and leaves without ever saying a word.

“I need you,” Marco says into the phone, middle of the night, apparently apropos of nothing. “They took my dad.” He gives the address, and then he hangs up.

He and Rachel have come to a decision, without discussion, without niceties like consulting Jake, by the time they’re done fighting off the half-dozen controllers who were dragging Peter toward the portable yeerk pool. Rachel demorphs as Peter watches. Marco goes through the explanation the first time, then the second.

Midway through the third round of attempts to convince Peter he’s not crazy, Rachel gives up. She herds both Peter and Marco into the backseat, and drives back to the house. “Pack for a long trip,” she tells them both, and goes upstairs to tell her mom.

Maybe, Jake concludes, exhausted just at the thought, they could’ve kept going if it was just his parents, or just Cassie’s. But Rachel and Marco can’t both disappear without rousing too much suspicion, and getting rid of just one of them will put the yeerks on the tail of the other. “I guess it’s time,” he says. “Better get ready to tell our own parents, then.”

By the end of that day, Rachel’s and Marco’s blended family is in the hork-bajir valley. By the time two days have passed, Jake’s and Cassie’s families are there too, even if Tom is currently secured with about a half-mile of duct tape and will need to be babysat by several hork-bajir for the next three days. A week after that, Tobias shows up with Loren in tow. One hellish mission later, and Visser One is dead, but her host is rapidly recovering.

Naomi and Eva circle each other like a pair of housecats thrust into the same room, at first. They’re prim and aloof and wary, unable to know what to make of each other. Peter helps exactly nothing by retreating from the conflict entirely, busying himself with an elaborate irrigation project the hork-bajir don’t actually need his help with. But he can’t escape them forever.

One night, all three of them get roaring drunk on some kind of regrettable fermented-bark thing, and finally have it out. Peter makes a passionate speech or two about his love for them both before retreating into morose silence. Naomi’s sixth drink ends in her making an elaborate attempt to draw up a timeshare contract over who will keep Peter on which night.

Eva slams a hand down on the table, and they both fall silent. She won’t share, she announces quietly, and she won’t be with a man who cannot choose. She’ll find her own way.

Her own way, as it turns out, is even worse than Marco could have possibly imagined.

“Why?” Marco cries, flopping on the ground in the middle of the next Animorphs’ meeting. “Why, why, why does this keep happening to me?”

“Pretty sure we’ve been over this before, back when it was your dad, and concluded it’s not about you,” Jake says. “Anyway, the yeerks —”

“No!” Marco sits up. “We have more important things to talk about than yeerks. Tobias, back me up on this!”

«Uh, yeah.» Tobias looks over at Rachel. «By the way, all those times you talked about how weird it was when your mom started dating again... Sorry for not being more sympathetic. Now that I’m in your shoes... It’s really weird.»

Rachel sniffs. “You only met your mom like a month ago. It’s still worse for me.”

“And it’s worst of all for me!” Marco has flopped back over. He emits a noise something like a wookiee being murdered. “Please someone acknowledge that it’s worst of all for me!”

Cassie pats him on the back of the head. “It’s worst of all for you,” she says.

“Thanks,” he says into the grass.

“Okay!” Jake throws up his hands. “Marco’s mom and Tobias’s mom have a thing going. Now do we have it out of our systems?”

«Personally, I think Loren and Eva are most compatible,» Ax says.

«Nobody asked you,» Tobias snarks. «And Jake, just imagine for a second if it was your mom who was macking on—»

“Nope!” Rachel says loudly. “Nobody is thinking about anyone’s mom and anyone else’s mom. Or dad. We are ignoring it, we are pretending it’s not happening, we are carrying on as Marco and I have been for over a year now, we are killing yeerks.”

“Yeah, like I was saying.” Jake rolls his eyes. “There are aliens invading the planet, remember?”

“The horror,” Marco mumbles, still facedown in the grass. “The horror!”

Cassie gives him another sympathetic pat on the back of the head.

#animorphs #animorphs au #long post #aus #naomi berenson #peter animorphs #rachel berenson #marco animorphs #sorry this is mostly not crack #anonymous #asks

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wheresmynaya · 4 years

Text

Lost in the Lights Ch.1 | Brittana

Looks like I’m back at it again! Honestly it’s only because it’s currently (American) football season and I’ve been wanting to write QB!Britt for SO LONG and Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince gave me lots of feelings about it.

Also the Steelers are still undefeated so I’ve been in a good mood.

Summary: Brittany S. Pierce is new to WMHS and quickly finds that the students there aren't as open-minded as the ones she's used to, especially when she takes over as the Titans' starting quarterback. Many heads are turned including Cheerios Co-Captain Santana Lopez who has some obstacles of her own to tackle.

Available on ff.net (x) ao3 (x)

Once Brittany taped up the last box and set it aside for the movers to take, she took the rare moment she had alone and reminisced. She knew this day was bound to come. Since her father’s passing earlier in the year, Brittany’s mother – Whitney – had begun making the arrangements to move closer to Brittany’s grandparents in Ohio. Aside from a handful of friends, they didn’t really have anyone else close by and with Brittany’s little brother – Pete – still too young to stay home alone and Brittany busy with school, Whitney needed the extra help.

The move made sense, but Brittany dreaded it in silence. She was going into her Senior year and being the new kid at school wasn’t how she planned on spending it. She kept her feelings in check though as she boxed up her whole life and said goodbye.

Brittany didn’t want to make things harder by digging in her heels, so she put on a brave face for the sake of her family and finished her Junior year without making any complaints. Instead, Brittany did everything she could to help make the transition a little easier.

With a light knock on Brittany’s door, Whitney made her presence known.

“You ready to go, Britt?” Whitney asked gently.

Brittany could feel her throat tightening. Was she ready? The answer was obvious and deep down, Whitney knew that. She closed the distance and gave her daughter a hug.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Whitney whispered.

Brittany just nodded and held on tighter.

It had been a long drive and it seemed like everything started to look a little greener the further they got from the coast. Even the trees changed from the bushy palms Brittany grew up with to tall oaks, but after what felt like a million hours the Pierce Family finally made it to their destination.

“It’s a good looking house, right kids?” Whitney asked cheerfully as the family stretched their achy limbs in front of their new home.

It wasn’t anything special, just a typical three bedroom, two bath. The siding was white, the shutters were blue and the wooden fence looked relatively knew. At a quick glance, the house looked like any other on the block. Brittany didn’t have any complaints though and when she glanced down at Pete, neither did he.

“It’s cute,” Brittany agreed with a smile then nudged her brother, “What do you think, Petey?”

“I like the windows,” Pete pointed up at the shutters, “Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Mine too,” Brittany winked.

“Well, go pick your rooms,” Whitney instructed.

She didn’t get a chance to tell them that they were the exact same size, one just faces the backyard and the other faces the front. The two took off towards the house giggling the whole way while Whitney just shook her head and trailed after them.

It took them a couple weeks to settle into their new place with the help of Brittany’s grandparents, but it was finally starting to feel like home even if she felt like something was missing.

Or rather, someone.

Some nights she could hear the soft whimpers coming from her mother’s room and some nights Petey makes his way into Brittany’s bed because the dreams keep him up at night. Everyone misses him and that makes the transition a little harder. The nights are usually hard for everyone, but they manage to get by together.

It’s better during the day when it’s light out and there’s less time to overthink things. An Ohio summer has nothing on a Florida one, but Brittany doesn’t complain about that either. She can catch a tan wherever the sun shines, so she does just that.

She and Pete find a park within walking distance of their house and visit often while Whitney is out job hunting. Most days, Pete has more energy than Brittany can keep up with so the park really comes in handy. On the rare occasion, Pete sometimes would rather sit with Brittany on a blanket under one of the big trees there and color.

Sometimes, Brittany joins him because as Pete would say, “You’re never too old for coloring.”

One day while they’re at the park, Brittany spots a couple of guys that look to be around her age. They’re a little ways away, tossing a football back and forth. She can just barely hear their voices, but they’re muffled and mix with the sound of her music playing from her phone.

“How’s this look, Britt?” Pete asks as he holds up his coloring book.

Brittany nods, “Excellent color choice for the hair.”

“I thought so too,” Pete grins and goes back to his scribbling while Brittany lazily flips through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

She switches from reading articles to watching the guys play. She notes their form and posture and she can’t help but critique them. Their throws are pretty average, but they aren’t too bad and she goes back to reading.

“Watch out!” Brittany hears one of the guys yell. She braces herself and holds out a protective arm over Pete’s head. Soon a football bounces down just a couple feet away from her blanket and rolls to a wobbly stop beside her.

“Way to go, Sam! You almost hit them,” The lean guy yells back to the shaggy-haired blonde.

“I thought you had that!”

“It was overthrown! Do you think I’m seven feet tall?”

“You could’ve jumped.”

“This is why you’re third string when we don’t even have a second.”

“Whatever Mike, I’m just having an off day,” The blonde grumbles as he trails his friend.

“You always say that,” Mike shakes his head and starts to jog over to Brittany and Pete, “Sorry about that!”

“That’s alright,” Brittany smiles as she reaches for the ball and pushes to stand. The leather feels familiar in her hands and it’s just now that she realizes she hasn’t picked up a ball in so long. Her fingers automatically slide into position between the laces though like they’re magnets being drawn together.

Brittany sets her eyes on Mike and draws her arm back to throw a perfect spiral.

The pass connects with the intended target – obviously – but the looks on both of the guys’ faces is priceless. Brittany smiles proudly as they whoop and holler. She didn’t realize she kind of misses that.

“Show off,” Pete teases though he matches her proud smile.

“That was an awesome throw!” Mike applauds as he rushes over, “Like Woah! Sorry, I’m Mike. That’s my friend, Sam.”

Sam’s still a little ways away but he waves as he jogs over, his blonde shaggy hair bouncing with every step. He kind of reminds Brittany of a golden retriever, eager and a little dorky.

“I’m Brittany,” Brittany greets and pats Pete’s head, “This is my brother, Pete. We just moved here.”

“Oh, I think we’re neighbors!” Mike grins, “The house with the blue shutters?”

“Yeah, that’s us.”

Sam finally joins the group, “Great throw! Can you do that again?”

Brittany shrugs casually, “Yeah. Probably.”

Mike and Sam drop their jaws in disbelief.

“My sister’s a quarterback,” Pete informs them, “She’s the best at school.”

“I was the best at our old school,” Brittany corrects and ruffles up his blonde hair.

“You were a,” Sam blinks, “I’ve never met a girl quarterback.”

Brittany tries to keep from gritting her teeth at the way he says girl. She knows he didn’t mean any disrespect, but it still makes her skin crawl. She forgets that some places aren’t as progressive as her old school, so she keeps the polite smile on her face.

“You have to try out,” Sam insists, “You’re better than half of those guys and no girl has ever tried out before. It would be so cool!”

“You saw me throw one time,” Brittany chuckles.

“Exactly, that’s how much we suck!”

“Hey!” Mike shakes his head and gives Brittany an encouraging smile, “You’d be great on the team.”

Mike seems genuine enough, they both do, but Brittany’s unsure of how she’ll be received here. She’s already going to be the new kid in school, she didn’t really want to add on to that by being the first girl to try out for the team.

“I don’t know,” Brittany looks unsure and glances down at Pete, “I wasn’t planning on playing this year.”

“You’ve got to,” Mike adds, “You have a killer arm.”

“Would totally bench Hudson,” Sam jokes with Mike.

Mike nods, “Without a doubt.”

“Is Hudson your current QB?” Brittany wonders.

“Yeah, for three years and we haven’t made a single playoffs appearance,” Sam answers with the shake of his head.

“Sam was going to try and play him for the starting position,” Mike explains, “Clearly he needs some work though.”

Sam scoffs and punches at Mike’s shoulder.

“Clearly,” Brittany chuckled. She liked these guys. They were kind of dorks but harmless and they seemed friendly.

“Well, we don’t want to pressure you if you don’t want to play,” Mike says a little more seriously, “But if you change your mind, try-outs are next Tuesday at William McKinley High at noon. See Coach Beiste.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Brittany replies, “Thanks.”

“Cool. Well, how about one more for the road?” Mike suggests and holds out the ball to Brittany.

Brittany was happy to oblige and slaps her palm against the leather, “Go long.”

The guys took off running, playfully shoving at each other as Brittany took her stance and got into position. She let them get a few more yards further before drawing back and letting the ball fly.

Again, it was a perfect throw.

When Sam caught it this time, Mike cheered while Sam did a celebratory dance. It wasn’t the smoothest thing Brittany had ever seen, but it was the funniest and it had her and Pete laughing harder than they had in awhile.

That night at the dinner table with Whitney, Pete talked animatedly about his and Brittany’s day. Brittany always loved how excited he got about the smallest things and he always told stories with so much detail. They were worried that it would fade with their dad’s passing but Pete was still so full of love and light.

“We made friends at the park today too!” Pete said which piqued Whitney’s interest.

“Oh really?” Whitney smiled and looked to Brittany, “Making friends already?”

“I wouldn’t call them that,” Brittany chuckled as she picked mindlessly at her plate, “A couple guys from the high school here were playing catch. Apparently one of them is our neighbor too.”

“Mike!” Pete clarified.

“Yeah, Mike and Sam. They tried talking me into trying out for the football team,” Brittany explained, “I don’t think I’m going to play this year though.”

“What? Why not?” Whitney asked worriedly, “You’ve played every year since middle school.”

“I know, but I want to be able to help out here if you need me to,” Brittany reasons and glances over at Pete, “I don’t want to get stuck with football like I always do.”

“You love it, Britt, and you’re good at it,” Whitney tells her, “You should try out.”

“What about Pete?” Brittany questions, “No one will be home when he finishes school.”

“Gran will pick him up,” Whitney suggests easily.

“But – “

“No buts,” Whitney gives her a stern look, “It’s your Senior year and you love the game. If you want to play, you should. Isn’t that what your dad always said?”

Brittany feels something clench in the pit of her stomach and she isn’t sure if it’s a good feeling or a bad one. She can still hear her dad’s voice gently guiding her and maybe that’s what helps her decide this time too.

“Okay yeah, I’ll try out,” Brittany announces and it’s the first time she finally feels like herself again since moving to Ohio.

It’s a muggy Summer’s day when Brittany arrives at her new school for try-outs. She can already feel all eyes on her as she walks through the gate and joins the others on the field. She spots Mike and Sam with a few others and they wave at her while the others give her curious looks. Brittany gives them a nod but stays focused. It feels like it’s a hundred degrees there, but she’s use to the heat after growing up in Florida. She stands tall with her chin held high as she makes her way over to the Coach.

She’s pleasantly surprised when she finds that the Coach is also a woman.

“Coach Beiste?”

“Cheerios try-outs are held in the gym,” The woman tells her without a second glance.

Brittany bites her lip and tries to shake the nerves, “I’m not here for a cereal ad, Coach. I want to try-out for the team.”

The woman pauses and eyes Brittany curiously as she says, “This is football try-outs.”

“I know,” Brittany nods resolutely, “I’ve played before.”

“Position?”

“Quarterback.”

Coach looks impressed, “What string?”

Brittany smirks, “I was the starter.”

The woman blinks and it’s similar to the look Sam gave her.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Brittany. Brittany S. Pierce.”

“You just move here or something?” Beiste asks as she jots down Brittany’s name on the clipboard, “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Yes,” Brittany nods, “I just moved here from Florida.”

“Alright. Well, you won’t get any special treatment on my field,” Beiste tells her sternly, “You’ll run the drills, same as everyone else and I’ll see how you go. You throw up, it’s an automatic out.”

“Of course,” Brittany grins, “I don’t want it any other way.”

It’s no surprise to Brittany when she aces try-outs. She’s always been pretty athletic and she starts every morning with a run so she’s in tip-top shape and breezes through the drills. Even the team’s resident quarterback – Finn Hudson – struggles to keep up with the others. Brittany notes how uncoordinated his movements are and starts to understand why the team hasn’t made a playoff appearance.

Finn’s saving grace though is that he has a pretty good arm, but Brittany is confident that hers is better. Actually, she knows it is. If they’re going to compare stats, Brittany has him beat in every category but she lets her talent speak for itself. No one likes a cocky new kid on the block.

“You’re promising, Pierce,” Coach Beiste tells her after the third day of try-outs, “Between you and me, you can run circles around Hudson and I have no doubt you can outshine him.”

“I appreciate that, Coach.”

“But, he’s been our starter for nearly three years now. He’s got the team’s respect and trust,” Coach Beiste reasons.

Brittany nods. She hates how she has to start from scratch here. At her old school, she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, they just knew she was talented because they grew up with her. Here, they don’t know anything about her and that puts her at a real disadvantage.

“You can’t just come in like a bat outta hell and snatch it from him,” Coach continues, “You’re going to have to play for it; prove yourself to me and the team that you can do a better job. You’ve got to really earn this.”

Brittany saw that coming too so she nods, “I understand.”

“I took a look at your record. I hope you don’t mind,” Coach Beiste says, “It’s very impressive, Pierce. I haven’t seen talent like yours in awhile around here. I almost forgot what it was like to see stats like yours.”

“Thank you. I’ve been playing for a long time.”

“I can tell, so this is what I’m going to do. There’s a pre-season game coming up,” Beiste tells her, “I want to put you in, see what you can do. If I like what I see, you might just be able to nudge Hudson out. There are a lot of Seniors on this team, I know they’d love to see the Championships and I think you can get them there.”

“I know I can,” Brittany says without a second thought.

Coach pats her hard on the shoulder pad, “That’s what I like to hear. Go get cleaned up.”

While Brittany gets packed up a little while later, she feels someone standing close by. She waits for some off-handed comment – she’s heard a few of the guys mumble them under their breath – but it never comes. She figures it’s either Mike or Sam but when she turns, it’s neither of them.

“Hi,” The guy greets. His voice is meek, almost angelic and it takes Brittany by surprise.

“Hi,” Brittany smiles back though as she stands.

“I’m Kurt,” He says and does a showy kick, “I’m the kicker.”

Brittany notes his small stature compared to the other guys. There’s not an ounce of muscle on him it looks like, typical for someone on special teams.

“I’m Brittany,” She replies, “Not sure what I am just yet.”

“I hope you’re going to be our knew QB,” Kurt grins and takes a seat next to Brittany’s duffle as she continues packing up, “I’m rooting for you. I know there are a few others that are too, they just don’t want you to know about it. I don’t really understand the point, we all want to win.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” Kurt nods and starts to admire Brittany’s keychain, “Oh! We play for the same team.”

“Obviously or this would be pretty embarrassing,” Brittany says with a straight face.

“No, I meant – “

Brittany grins slyly as she watches his face turn red. She glances down at her rainbow unicorn keychain in his hand and meets his gaze, “I know what you meant.”

Kurt laughs it off awkwardly and tries to recover, “It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to on the team.”

Brittany can hear just a hint of sadness in his tone and looks up, “They don’t talk to you?”

“They do, but it’s not the same. We don’t have much in common. All they want to talk about are video games and hot chicks,” Kurt scrunches his nose like there’s a bad taste in his mouth but then he looks at Brittany and relaxes, “Then again, you might be able to relate with that last one.”

Brittany chuckles as she reties up her hair, “You think so?”

Kurt eyes her and nods to the keychain again, “I don’t know many female quarterbacks that are straight. Actually, I don’t know any female quarterbacks.” Kurt ponders for a moment then looks to Brittany apologetically, “I’m sorry, that was intrusive. I apologize.”

Brittany gives him a pat on the knee as she stands. She pulls up her heavy duffle and adjusts the strap on her shoulder, “You’re not wrong, but I’m here to play football. Not drool over girls, no matter how pretty they are.”

Kurt smiles, “Good to hear. It would be nice to win for a change.”

“I’ll do my best,” Brittany tells him, “I’ll see you at practice.”

Whitney and Pete are in the stands along with Brittany’s grandparents on the day of the game against Crawford County Day. Brittany’s been sitting on the bench for a whole quarter and her knees are bouncing at the opportunity to get on the field.

She watches her team in action and it’s almost embarrassing how ununified they are. It’s like no one’s taking charge – no one’s leading – and it hurts to watch.

“Blitz! Blitz!” Coach yells, “Watch the blitz!”

Brittany can see it coming, but Finn doesn’t change plays.

The ball is hiked and Finn hands it off to their Running Back – Noah Puckerman – but the defense slips through from all sides. Puckerman is swallowed up in an instant.

It’s a loss of three yards, third down.

Brittany glances over at Coach and her face is beet red.

The next play is even worse. It’s meant to be a simple slant pass, but the lack of communication between Finn and the receivers – Mike and Sam – has everyone on different pages. When Finn drops back, no one is open and the pocket collapses in on him for a sack.

Brittany cringes at the hard hit and shakes her head.

“Damn it, Hudson!” Coach snaps and throws her hat on the ground.

The Titans finish the half down by 13 points.

It’s the longest twenty-minute halftime Brittany has ever endured. Coach just tears into the team for being so sloppy. Apparently Crawford County Day is meant to be one of the easiest teams on their roster so the fact that the Titans are behind already isn’t really a good sign.

“Good thing this is just a scrimmage!” Beiste yells, “I’ve never seen so many poorly executed plays in my entire career. What the hell was that out there?”

“They’ve gotten better, Coach.”

Brittany presses her lips tight together to keep from laughing at Finn’s excuse.

“I am captain of the U.S.S. Kick Ass, not the U.S.S. Back Talk,” Beiste said pointedly and looked at Brittany, “Pierce, your starting.”

“Wait, Coach!” Finn argued, “You can’t start her, she’s…she’s –“

Brittany arched her brow at him, waiting for a lame insult to come tumbling out.

“She’s gunning for your job, Hudson,” Beiste cut in.

“You can’t be serious!” Finn crossed his arms, “We don’t even know if she can play.”

“You just keep your eyes on me then,” Brittany smirked as she pulled on her helmet, “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Woah!” Sam cheered and high fived Mike.

“Shut up,” Puck shoved at them both, “Have some respect.”

“You’re one to talk,” Kurt replied meekly.

Puck rounded on him, “What was that, Hummel?”

Kurt just lifted a dainty hand and admired his nails quietly.

Brittany just smirked. Maybe she didn’t have the entire team on her side yet, but she liked her odds so far.

At first, things were a little rocky. It seemed that the offense wasn’t use to someone taking charge – they weren’t use to her taking charge – but Brittany kept at it and it started to pay off.

Once she got into her groove, she could read the defense so easily and adjust accordingly. She’d hear the grunts of disbelief whenever she’d call an audible, but by the last quarter she felt like she had finally made ground and gained some of the team’s trust.

Because by the last quarter, the Titans were up by 3 points.

She could play it safe with just seconds to go, but this was just a scrimmage and she wanted to make a lasting impression. She didn’t just want to win with a field goal attempt, she was confident that she could put more points on the board before the final.

Brittany straightened up and motioned for a timeout. The ref blew the whistle and Brittany gathered the team for a huddle. She took out her mouthguard and looked around at her teammates.

“I want to try Blue 80,” Brittany tells them.

“You’re ballsy, Pierce!” Matt Rutherford – the Tight End – said but it came out as a compliment.

Mike and Sam looked between each other before Mike spoke up, “We’ve never made a completion with this play.”

“Guess we should change that,” Brittany shrugged.

“You really want to blow the lead?” Dave Karofsky – the Right Guard – mocked.

“It’s the last play of the game,” Sam defended, “The worse that could happen is it gets intercepted and they run it all the way –“

“Shut up, Evans!” Azimio – the Left Guard – snapped, “Don’t jinx us.”

“It’s all or nothing,” Brittany reasoned, “Scared QBs don’t make plays and I think we can put more points on the board. You with me?”

She held out her gloved fist and waited for the other’s to join her.

Puck was the first to hold out his fist, “You pull this off, Pierce, and I’ll tell Finn myself that you’re the better QB.”

“You’re on,” Brittany smirked and watched as the rest of the team joined her, “Titans on three. One…two…three!”

“Titans!” They yelled out in unison. Brittany was impressed, she was already making them a more cohesive team.

Everyone got into their positions, what looked to be a simple running play. The defense fell right for it and adjusted accordingly. When the ball was snapped, Brittany faked the hand off to Puck and swiftly dropped back, watching as the other team went after him instead of realizing she still had the ball in her possession.

Meanwhile, Mike and Sam broke away from their defenders and jetted up the field. Both were wide open, but Mike crossed into the endzone just before Sam did. While the pocket still held, Brittany made her decision and let the ball fly before it could collapse in on her.

She hoped and wished and prayed to anyone who was listening that Mike would catch this thing. So much was riding on this; the team’s trust, their respect, solidifying her position as the new quarterback. Mike needed to catch this.

The relief she felt when he did was unmatched!

The crowd roared and Brittany’s chest swelled with pride. She glanced up at the sky and smiled, her dad would’ve loved that play.

Soon she was swarmed by her new team and they hoisted her up on their shoulders as they chanted her name, “Pierce! Pierce! Pierce!”

“Hate to say it, bro,” Puck said as they carried Brittany off to the sideline where Finn was close to throwing a tantrum, “But the girl’s got mad skill. She’s got my vote.”

“Who cares about a vote. That’s not how we do things,” Finn scoffs, “It’s up to Coach.”

“Easy, Hudson, you could learn a lot from her. Kid’s on fire,” Coach Beiste smiled proudly and patted Brittany on her helmet, “You got the job, Pierce. Titans, your new quarterback.”

“Thanks, Coach!” Brittany grinned while most of the team cheered.

After the game once everyone had changed out of their uniforms, Brittany was surprised to see Puck approach her with an interesting offer.

“Yo Pierce! Wait up,” He called after her.

“Hey,” Brittany nodded.

“I’m throwing a party this weekend before school starts up again,” He says, “I wasn’t going to invite you because didn’t know if you were cool yet.”

Brittany gives him an unbelieving look but it goes over his head.

“The whole team’s going and considering you’re our QB now I figured it was only right that I let you in on it,” Puck then gave her a sly grin, “Lots of hot babes will be there if that’s your thing. Is it your thing?”

Brittany chose to ignore the question, “Thanks for the invite. I’ll try to swing by if I can.”

“Not to brag, but my parties are usually pretty awesome,” Puck flaunted, “If you want to start off on the right foot at this school – being the new kid and all – you’re gonna want to show up.”

She couldn’t decide if that was meant to be a threat or that he just sucks at persuading, but Brittany shrugged it off. She was beginning to get the impression that Lima might live up to the stereotype of being a small town.

Brittany didn’t waver though, “I’ll keep that in mind, Puck. I’ll see you around.”

\\\\\

As a Cheerios Co-Captain, Santana Lopez knew that there were certain social obligations that she had to keep up with. One of those obligations being the End of Summer party Puck always threw. Only the top dogs of McKinley were allowed to attend and if you didn’t it was basically social suicide.

With everything that happened last year, Santana couldn’t afford to miss it no matter how much she hated going. It was like her reputation had been in freefall and she was barely holding on. She couldn’t have that – not for her Senior year – so she sucked it up and told her parents she was sleeping over her best friend’s house.

Quinn Fabray – the other Co-Captain of the Cheerios – was the only person it seemed like that kept Santana sane. They considered themselves the hottest bitches McKinley had to offer and most of the student body couldn’t help but agree. They had the looks, the smarts, the snark; they were the perfect duo and were set on ruling the school.

Santana hoped that last year was just a minor blip in their legacy. She had high hopes coming into Senior year, she already felt like she had hit rock bottom and she was over feeling sorry for herself.

The best way to feel on top again? Attend Puck’s party.

Of course, it was easier said than done.

The music is loud and there are people everywhere. Honestly, Santana has no idea how these things have never been shut down. She thinks maybe the dopes down at the Lima Police Department are just too swamped with real crime-fighting to deal with Puck and his shenanigans for the millionth time.

That’s obviously a joke. Nothing interesting ever happens in Lima, the LPD are just a bunch of lazy fucks who apparently don’t care about a couple dozen kids drinking underage.

Santana sits with Quinn at the edge of Puck’s pool and they just people-watch as they dangle their feet in the cool water. It’s a hot night and there are already a couple drunken idiots wading in the shallow end, singing along to the music at the top of their lungs.

She looks down at her red solo cup and swirls the amber liquid. She barely has a buzz so she takes another gulp in hopes that she’ll catch up and finally start enjoying the party.

Quinn watches her wearily but does the same. Neither of them want to be there but appearances are important, especially to them.

Speaking of appearances, Santana spots a leggy blonde across the way through the glass double-doors. She’s dressed casually in cut-off jean shorts and a white t-shirt. Santana raises her brow; she wishes she could show up to a party looking like that. It took her an hour alone to do her make up, let alone pick out the right outfit.

Santana continues to watch her – though she feels a little weird for it. She’s never seen the girl around here before and decides that’s the reason why she can’t take her eyes off of her – she’s just curious. A little piece of her deep down inside calls her out for lying.

Still, Santana just assumes the blonde came with one of the football players since that’s who she seems to gravitate to. She notices the familiar faces from the football team – Sam Evans in particular – and watches as he hands the blonde a red cup.

The girl smiles in return and wow, Santana’s a little star-struck by its brilliance. Sam must’ve said something dorky because now the girl’s laughing and shaking her head at him. Santana’s never seen someone so effortlessly beautiful and she has to bite her cheek to keep from smiling too. This girl, she has one of those infection kind of smiles and it’s trouble.

Mike Chang walks up next and clinks his cup against the girl’s and together they begin to chat.

Santana quickly glances to Quinn to catch her reaction. Mike and Quinn aren’t exactly official, but it’s obvious they have a thing for each other.

Quinn’s not looking though and Santana feels a little relief. She can’t deal with a jealous Quinn tonight, and a little part of her doesn’t want this new girl to have to deal with that either.

When Santana glances back, she recognizes Sugar Motta – McKinley’s resident Richie Bitch – pulling the blonde girl in to dance and suddenly Santana’s watching a little too closely.

This girl can clearly dance and the way she moves with Sugar is so graceful. Sugar on the other hand isn’t as fluid, but their hands smooth over each other teasingly. When the blonde’s hands land on Sugar’s hips, they start to sway together and Santana can just tell that the blonde’s the one leading now.

Santana can feel this coil within her tightening the longer she watches, her mouth getting drier at the way she takes control.

Then the song changes and the two laugh and carry on so carefreely as if nothing happened. Their moves mimic the steady rhythm and they start to bounce with their fists pumping at the air in time to the pounding bass.

Santana frowns at the slight pang of jealousy; she used to be like that, so uncaring and full of life. She danced with whoever she wanted – boy or girl – and it didn’t matter, but now…now it does.

“Who’s she?” Quinn asks, her gazing lining up with the blonde talking to Sugar.

“No idea.”

“Should I ask around?”

“No!” Santana blurts and Quinn eyes her suspiciously. Santana adjusts, “No. I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later. She’s hanging around Sugar and you know she can’t keep her mouth shut for more than two seconds.”

Quinn smirks, “True.”

When Puck finally rears his ugly mug, Santana’s surprised they were able to dodge him for so long.

“Hey ladies,” He greets with his signature smirk, “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

There are beer stains on his open button-down and Santana can smell the tanning oil on him from where she sits. He’s got a nice body or whatever, but that doesn’t mean he needs to strut around basted in Hawaiian Tropic. She can’t really talk though, she and Quinn have both made out with him at some point in time.

“Scram, Puckerman,” Santana replies with a roll of her eyes, “I’m not drunk enough to deal with your lame ass.”

“Is that any way to talk to the host?” Puck mocks and squeezes in to sit between the Co-Captains.

Santana groans and shuffles away from him, but he throws a heavy arm around her and Quinn’s shoulders. She can smell something stronger than beer on his breath and scoffs as she gets out from underneath his arm, “You’re gross.”

“Whatever. I’m not here for you anyway,” Puck brushes off and leans heavily against Quinn instead, “I know you’re not on the menu anymore or has that changed?”

Santana’s taken aback but her heart begins to pound wildly at the accusation.

“Choose your next words carefully,” Santana warns.

“What?” Puck laughs, “You still trying to hold out on me?”

“Puck,” Quinn snaps and shrugs out from under him too.

He’s too drunk and wrapped up in his own bullshit to notice that he’s crossed a line, but his voice grabs the attention of those surrounding them.

Santana suddenly feels small, trapped even. It feels like everyone’s staring now and listening to Puck’s drunken words.

“All I wanna know is if that phase is over with now?” He says and it’s like the final blow for Santana.

She shrinks back and her vicious words that use to come so easily for her die on her tongue. There’s a crowd gathering now and she notices the blonde girl from before eyeing them too.

“It’s not a phase, asshole,” Quinn snaps and surprises everyone watching by pushing him into the pool.

Santana’s eyes go wide as she sees the big splash. She’s never been so thankful to have Quinn as her best friend.

“What the hell, Quinn!” Puck grumbles as he resurfaces, “I had my phone on me still!”

“Shouldn’t have been a dick then,” Quinn shrugs and hooks her arm with Santana’s, “Let’s go, the beer’s flat here anyway.”

Santana finally kicks into gear and nods, “Yeah. I’m not trying to be hungover for practice tomorrow.”

Santana doesn’t know why, but as they turn to leave she looks around for the mysterious blonde. To her disappointment, she’s nowhere to be found.

They make their way to the street and begin the short walk home in silence. Santana’s heart is still racing even though they’re so far away now that she can’t even hear the low thrum of the music emanating from Puck’s place. She hopes that no one saw her choke on her words, maybe they’ll be too distracted by Quinn’s actions to remember.

It’s not until another ten minutes later when they’ve arrived at Quinn’s house that Santana finally finds her voice again.

“Thanks Q,” She says quietly. She knows she doesn’t need to elaborate and she’s thankful for that too.

Quinn only lifts her shoulder in a lazy shrug, “You would’ve done the same for me.”

\\\\\

The first day of school rolls around quickly for Brittany, but despite being the new kid she makes friends relatively easy. Kurt’s in her first class and she’s honestly so relieved to see a familiar face.

He takes it upon himself to show her around and introduce Brittany to his friends. So far, Brittany’s met a Tonya or Taylor – she’s not very good with names – but she’s nice. There’s also Mercedes – she remembers that name – who Brittany met in her Astronomy class and alongside Kurt guide, they guide Brittany through McKinley High.

It’s a total Mean Girls moment and Brittany finds herself laughing at how eager they are to show her around.

When they get to lunch, she notices that everyone is pretty cliquey which is something she isn’t use to. At her old school, everyone mingled with everyone. It didn’t matter if you played sports or if you were considered cool, people just hung out with whoever they wanted.

At McKinley High, that’s clearly not the case.

All the football players sit together but instead of joining them, Kurt leads Brittany and Mercedes to a different table close by. They get a couple of curious looks, but all Brittany can focus on is what they’re wearing.

“Why have they got on their letterman jackets?” Brittany questions with a laugh, “It’s so hot outside, they have to be melting.”

“How else do expect them to establish dominance?” Kurt says sarcastically, “I only wear mine on game days. You don’t have one yet, right?”

“No,” Brittany answers, “But I do have my own number now.”

“Oh good,” Kurt grins, “It’s official now.”

Kurt and Mercedes are still trying to give her the rundown, but Brittany’s starting to reach her peak when it comes to taking in all the new info. Whatever they’re saying now is kind of going in one ear and out the other, the only thing that brings her back is spotting the familiar brunette she saw at Puck’s party.

Even if Brittany drank a little more than she anticipated, she was still sober enough to remember the saddest looking girl at the party.

“And those are the Cheerios,” Mercedes tells Brittany as if she could read her mind, “McKinley’s cheerleading squad and top of the social food chain.”

“I haven’t seen them at any of the games,” Brittany looks to Kurt for an explanation.

“They don’t bother with pre-season,” Kurt answers, “They’re basically the only ones here winning any titles. Coach Sylvester practically lets them get away with murder.”

Brittany notes all the high ponies and uniforms, everyone’s make up is on point and there’s not a single hair out of place. They all look immaculate, but Brittany focuses on the two that she’s most familiar with.

“Who are they?” She asks.

“The blonde one is Quinn Fabray,” Kurt informs her in a hushed tone, “She’s Co-Captain along with the brunette – Santana Lopez – and both of their families are loaded. They’ve been best friends since ever, you rarely see one without the other. Quinn’s kind of a prude and Santana’s – “

“A complete bitch for no reason most of the time,” Mercedes finishes for him.

Kurt shakes his head, “She has a reason.”

His cryptic words interest Brittany. Hell, she’s been interested ever since she saw Quinn push Puckerman into the pool.

“Doesn’t give her an excuse to terrorize us,” Mercedes reasons, “The girl is trouble.”

Kurt bobbles his head from side to side and looks back at Brittany, “It’s best if you stay out of her way, Brittany. It’ll make your life a whole lot easier.”

“You think?” Mercedes asks, “She’s on the football team, the quarterback even. You think Santana will mess with her?”

Kurt shrugs, “She still messes with me doesn’t, she?”

“That’s true,” Mercedes frowns.

Brittany just nods, but that doesn’t extinguish the curiosity that has blossomed within her.

And maybe someone above is testing her, because when Brittany arrives to her final class of the day she finds the exact person Kurt and Mercedes have been warning her against interacting with: Santana Lopez.

And to make matters even worse, the only available seat left in the room just so happens to be the one right next to her. Brittany shakes her head and glances at the board to double check she’s in the right place.

Creative Writing – Miss Holliday Room 215

Brittany’s definitely in the right place and lets out a sigh.

Might as well bite the bullet, Brittany thinks as musters all the confidence she has left and she approaches the table. She’s been rushed at by guys ten times the brunette’s size moving at full speed on the football field and yet, she can’t help but feel a little nervous when she comes to stand before the Co-Captain.

“Hi,” Brittany greets with a polite smile, “Can I sit here?”

Santana glances up at her like she can’t believe the audacity Brittany has. She eyes her up and down then goes back to filing her nails, “No.”

Brittany nods, so Kurt and Mercedes might’ve been right.

“There aren’t any other seats left,” Brittany adds.

Santana doesn’t even look up this time, “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Brittany has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. This girl is something else but Brittany’s never been one to back down.

Unfortunately her teacher – Miss Holliday – approaches, “Are you seriously starting off the year by being a pain in my ass, Lopez? Don’t give the new kid a hard time. Move over.”

“Fine,” Santana rolls her eyes and slides her books closer to her side of the table.

Brittany looks back at the teacher and smiles, “Thanks.”

“All good,” The woman says casually. She’s young and reminds Brittany of one of her favorite teachers at her old school, “Have a seat, Sweet Cheeks.”

Brittany does as she’s told and gets settled next to Santana. She can feel the tension radiating off the Cheerio, but tries to ease it by introducing herself.

“I’m Brittany,” She tells the brunette and adds a friendly smile for emphasis. If she’s going to be stuck sitting next to her for the rest of the year, they can at least be civil. Right?

Wrong.

“I didn’t ask,” Santana retorts and spends the rest of class giving Brittany the cold shoulder.

For some reason though, that only makes Brittany want to get to know Santana even more.

Afterall, she loves a challenge.

\\\\\

It’s the last Cheerios practice indoors and Santana and Quinn soak up the privilege of conditioning in a space with A.C. There are many reasons why Santana dreads having to join football team outdoors for practice, one being that it’s hot as hell still during this time of year and also she can’t stand the cat-calling.

With Coach Beiste as the acting head coach now, the guys are a lot more tame but Santana still hates how she feels like she’s being watched all the time. Some of the other girls on the squad don’t mind it too much though, they’re all about teasing and the pleasing apparently.

“How’s your schedule this year?” Quinn asks between stretches.

“It’s alright,” Santana shrugs, “Super easy. I got Holliday and Schuester again.”

“Lucky!” Quinn says, “I got Hagberg. I wish she would just retire already.”

Santana agrees then she remembers her last class of the day and how the mysterious blonde from Puck’s party now has a name, “Hey. Remember that girl we saw at Puck’s?”

“The blonde one?”

“Yeah, her. Brittany,” Santana murmurs the name, “I have a class with her.”

“Oh! Is she cool or something?” Quinn’s intrigued, “She’s pretty and she’s got some moves. We could get her on the squad?”

Pretty, Santana thinks it’s an understatement now that she’s seen her up close. She’s never seen eyes so damn blue and that smile – again, wow.

Quinn catches her swept up in her thoughts and quickly plays it off, “Hell no.”

“Really? Why not?”

“She’s just…,” Santana racks her brain for an excuse but she’s blanking, “She’s just not Cheerios material.”

Quinn calls her bluff, “How would you know?”

“I just do,” Santana scoffs and continues to struggle for a reason, “There’s something different about her, okay?”

“Different is good though, right? We could use that.”

“God Quinn, just drop it alright?” Santana snaps and walks off.

Quinn just laughs in disbelief, “You’re the one that brought her up!”

The rest of the week is a little of the same. Santana goes through the motions of her day although a hidden piece of her longs for her last class with Brittany. She still ignores the blonde’s attempts to make conversation, but it doesn’t seem like the girl is giving up anytime soon.

Quinn still presses for Brittany to join the squad, but Santana’s not having any of that either.

Quinn can’t understand why Santana’s being so adamant about the decision. Santana doesn’t know why either. In fact, there are a lot of things Santana doesn’t understand when it comes to Brittany, but she’s not exactly ready to unpack any of that.

If anything, she’s afraid of what it all could mean.

It isn’t until Friday night that things begin to get a little clearer for them all.

It’s the first regular season game which means it’s the first game the Cheerios make an appearance in. The Titans are pumped but Santana isn’t sure what’s gotten into them, they never win so cheering for them always feels like a waste of time. There’s a different air about the team this year though, but Santana doesn’t think much of it as the game kicks off.

Santana and Quinn and the rest of the Cheerios do what they do best and breathe life into the crowd like always, but they find that they don’t need to work as hard to keep morale up because the Titans are actually winning for a change.

In fact, Santana has to check the score twice to make sure she’s reading it correctly.

Home: 9 Away: 0

“What the hell?” Santana bumps Quinn with her pompom, “We’re winning?”

“Weird, right?” Quinn replies and nods over to the Titans’ bench, “Wonder if it has anything to do with that?”

Santana blinks, “Is that Finnocence?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Santana snaps back to the field, “Then who’s out there?”

“Sam?” Quinn questions but they know he’s #6 and #6 is on the other side of the field catching a perfectly thrown pass.

They both look to the quarterback and Santana asks, “Who’s #12?”

“No idea,” Quinn shrugs, “But he’s killing it!”

Santana doesn’t know much about football but she does know a lot about winning and whatever this guy is doing seems to be working.

Santana and Quinn spend the rest of the game trying to figure out who’s beneath #12’s helmet, but decide that someone already on the team must’ve been given a new number with the promotion to quarterback.

There’s really no other explanation.

All that though is quickly forgotten as the game ends and the Titans come away with their first win of the regular season. It’s practically unheard of considering their losing streak. The stands erupt in applause and Santana watches as the Titans go wild too. Sam and Mike hoist #12 onto their shoulders as the quarterback pulls of his helmet.

When Santana sees long blonde hair cascade out from underneath it, she just about faints because the Titans’ new quarterback isn’t some random guy: it’s Brittany.

“Well,” Quinn’s equally surprised and bumps Santana with her shoulder, “Looks like you were right about her being different.”

#cant stop wont stop lol #no really its bc im still unemployed and writing is the only thing that makes me feel like i'm doing something productive while i job hunt #Lost in the Lights #Brittana #Brittana fanfiction

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boyy-wonder-grayson · 4 years

Text

Seven

Pairings: JJ x Reader

Warnings: angst kinda, mentions of abuse.

A/n: this is my first time writing for jj so hopefully i did some justice. This is based on the song Seven from Taylor Swift, ever since i’ve heard that song i coudln’t stop thinking how much it fit jj, so i tried to write something for it. Feedback is always nice, sorry for any mistakes and thanks for reading! (italics means it’s in the past jic)

*pics mine*

The warm breeze blew among the tall trees, signalling that summer was already settling in North Carolina. The two little kids were running around the woods, trying to find the tallest tree in order to climb it, much to their parents chagrin and warnings to be careful. They didn't care, they were young and full of life. Their laughs echoed through the empty lands, not a soul could be found in the deep end of the woods. They both have heard stories about this part of the town, about how the ghost of an old witch haunted those places, and how she enjoyed tricking kids into following her for them to never be seen again, but they didn't care. Not while they were together.

Seven year old Y/n and JJ ran across the dusty trails that led to their favourite spot under the biggest tree in the island. It was an old oak tree. According to her father that tree has been there for as long as he could remember, he told them that the three was there when he was a kid too,so it was probably a really old one.

A few years ago Y/n's father had set up a swing in one of those trees so the kids could play. Competitions were held against each other. Who would be the one to reach the sky when swinging? It was JJ. Of course he was the one who would always win. Y/n was scared of swinging too high and not being able to come back down. It was a stupid fear,but nevertheless she never tried to beat him. She liked the way he smiled when he came down from the sky smiling triumphant when he realized that he had won yet again.

"You need to go higher Y/n! You can even see the creek from up there!" JJ would beamed at her, but the girl would always shook her head no, too scared to fall, too scared to be able to come back down, but JJ always reassured her that it wasn't like that and that if she were not to come back down, he would simply go up with her.

"Cross my heart and hope to die" he'd said placing a hand over his heart. The girl would smiled and do the same. She loved her best friend.

She snapped out of her trance when her mother called her name. She was supposed to be cleaning her room when she found an old picture of her and JJ under that oak tree. They were probably eight. Both with big smiles, she was missing a few teeths and JJ's hair was blonder than ever that summer. She smiled fondly at the picture letting it take her down to memory lane, only for her mother to interrupt her. She sighed putting the picture down and throwing the box aside, going downstairs to see what her mother wanted. She didn't speak too much during dinner that night, too engrossed in the memories of her best friend. She went back upstairs eager to see what else was inside that old box she'd found at the back of her drawer. Before going upstairs she poured a glass of sweet tea her mother had made earlier that day, she took a sip and sat down on her bed and started rummaging through the box and found an old drawing from JJ:

'Love you to the Moon and to Saturn' she read at the bottom of the drawing. She smiled remembering how did they came out with that phrase.

JJ grabbed a red pencil and finished drawing what was supposed to be a dragon. The girl laughed at her best friend idea of a dragon and picked a blue pencil to finish the sky she was painting. Her mother looked at the kids fondly from the kitchen, she was preparing something for them to eat. Sandwiches and sweet tea. JJ's favourite.

"What's that?" She asked pointing at a weird circle in the boy's paper.

"A planet duh" he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What planet?" She asked genuinely curious awaiting for the answer.

"Saturn" he said nonchalantly. For some reason JJ was obsessed with astronomy at the age of eight. His favourite planet was Saturn. He'd said that it was the coolest planet because it was one of the biggest and also his rings were super cool.

"And what about the other planets?" She'd asked forgetting about her own drawing.

"There not there because they're not as cool as Saturn" he answered with confident. "Like me" he added.

The girl laughed a little making the boy laugh too.

"You're so dumb" she said laughing harder now.

"You're dumb!" He retorted for lack of a better come back. "I'm the coolest, just like Saturn" He'd said smiling proudly.

"Nu-uh you're dumb, but I you're my best friend and I love you" she'd said a little shy this time. It wasn't rare for them to be affectionate with each other but she was always shy while sharing his feelings unlike JJ who was loud and boisterous.

"You're my best friend too and I love you more" he'd fight her. Making the girl frown. It also wasn't rare for them to compete with each other about every single thing.

"No! I love you more! I-i love you to the moon and back!" She screamed proudly knowing that she had won this time, but JJ was quick to shut her response down.

"Well, I love you to the Moon and to Saturn, which is way further, so I win!"

The little girl shut her mouth, not being able to say anything this time. He had won, again.

Y/n put the drawing down and picked her phone up, snapping a picture at the phrase and upload it on her Instagram. She then looked for JJ's profile. They were following each other, even though their friendship was taking a break of sorts, they still kept in contact with each other once in a while. A 'hope you're doing okay' text that would lead to mindless conversation every few weeks was all that they had now. She didn't mind though, relationships were strange.

She smiled when he saw that he had liked the picture. She put her phone down and kept looking inside the box. She found an old pirate eye patch, it was from Halloween when they not dressed as pirates.

Y/n's mother had finished applying the last touches on her costume while JJ wait patiently on the couch, admiring his plastic sword.

"Done!" Her mother said letting the nine year old take a look in the mirror. The little girl laughed when she saw how cool she looked with her eye patch and her pirate hat. Her white shirt was underneath a red jacket while JJ wore a blue jacket over a white shirt too. Both looked adorable as pirates; her mother did not understood the sudden obsession the kids had about pirates, so when her daughter told her she and JJ wanted to go trick or treating as pirates she didn't think twice before making two costume one for each kid.

JJ's mother had been gone for a year and the kid had been not himself lately. It was hard to live a life without a parent, but it was harder when the only one left wasn't a good one.

Y/n did not understand much about what was going on inside the Maybank residence so she didn't ask. Her mother explained to her how things between JJ and his father were a little rough now that his mother was not in the picture anymore. She explained that Mr. Maybank needed JJ to stay home a little more now than before and that even though the girl didn't like not being able to play all day with her best friend she nodded at her mother's explanation and didn't ask any questions.

It was one of those rare days were Mr. Maybank was in a good mood, so he allowed JJ to play with Y/n in his backyard. His good mood didn't last too long. After a call, in which his father let a string of curses come out of his mouth, the little boy sighed knowing that when his father was in a bad mood nothing good could happen.

"I think your house is haunted" Y/n said one day after JJ dragged her into the woods. They were walking towards the oak tree when she spoke.

"What do you mean?" He asked looking at her confused.

"I think your house is haunted" She repeated "my dad and I were watching this show about ghosts, and the man in the show said that his son was always angry and that it was because they had a ghost inside their house. So you must have a ghost too!" She said making the boy look scared.

"I don't have a ghost in my house, that's stupid" he said annoyed.

"But the man in the TV show said that, and it was just like your dad. You always tell me that he's angry, and that you always hide from him because he'd yell at you. Maybe he's possessed or something?" The girl asked with genuine curiosity.

"I...I don't know, maybe you're right!" He said thinking it through. "I don't want to have ghosts in my house,I don't like them" he said trying not to show how scared he actually was. Luckily for him she didn't notice.

"Well you can come live with me! And we would have sleepovers every day! And my mom would help is built a fort and everything!" She said jumping up and down with enthusiasm. "And then you wouldn't have to hide anymore, because we don't have ghosts in my house" she smiled proudly at the fact that a supernatural creature was not living in her home.

Y/n smiled sadly at the memory and how innocent they both were. She wished that she would still had that innocence that would protect her from the horrible truth about JJ's father. She found out a few years later when they were both fourteen. He didn't mean to tell her it just happened.

Black and purple bruises covered the boys chest, leaving little to none skin left uncovered. Y/n wanted to cry and the sight of her best friend. She wanted to scream,to punch something, someone. But she knew that whatever she'd said she would need to be careful. JJ was a ticking bomb that was about to explode at any given moment. And he eventually did, but not in the way she thought he would. No. He cried in her arms that night, revelling how truly awful JJ's father was. How much of a piece of shit that man was. A coward actually,to beat his son up because he could. She couldn't understand how someone as sweet and genuine like JJ, could go through something like that. She held him until he cried his eyes out. Until he didn't have any more tears. And he told her everything.

"Maybe we could run away" she said in a whisper looking at the boy laying on her bed. He was looking at the ceiling, not showing any emotions,but turn his head around when she spoke.

"What?" He asked.

"I said, maybe we could run away. Leave Outer Banks" she repeated with conviction, which made JJ chuckle.

"Yeah? And where would be go?" He asked amused at his best friend proposal. He would be lying if he said that the idea sound promising but they were fourteen, no real job,no money. How the hell would they achieve something like that?

"I don't know. India" she said smiling a little, that made JJ chuckle.

"Why India?"

"I don't know, we were talking about it today at school and it sounded cool" she said laughing.

"Okay, well go to India then" he said pulling her closer to his body and cuddling her. Her head rested on his chest and she could hear his heartbeat. It was calmer than before.

"I love you JJ. To the moon-"

"And to Saturn" he finishes for her kissing her forehead before they both fell asleep embracing the other.

Y/n wipe a tear that fell from the corner of her eye. She didn't realize how much she missed JJ until now looking at the old photographs inside the box. Of course she missed him but right now it fell as if she figured it out that she missed him more than she wanted to admit.

She sighed and looked at the hour. It was half past two, she picked everything and put it back into the box that once again went to sit at the back of her drawer. She opened the window letting the faint summer breeze enter the room. She climbed into bed after changing into her pajamas. She was too focused on her on thoughts that she didn't hear the knocking on her window. The second time she did. She got up frowning when she saw a figure outside of her window.

"JJ" she breath out not believing that her former best friend was now standing in front of her.

"Hey" he said a little awkward. It's been two years since they actually saw each other face to face alone. He didn't know what came to him to leave his house and walk all the way to hers. But he didn't regret it after seeing the look on her face.

"What are you doing here?" She asked in a small voice, trying to fight the smile that was slowly making its way into her face.

"I... honestly don't know" he chuckled scratching his head. "I just-i saw that picture you put on Instagram and I just, I don't know I wanted to see you, I guess" he didn't know why he was being so honest with her. Maybe it was because he missed the way he was around her, or how she made him feel safe enough to speak what truly was on his mind.

"I'm glad you came" she said shyly "but my mom is probably gonna kill you if she see you here."

"Your mother loves me, I don't know what are you talking about" he said nonchalantly.it was true,her mother loved him like a son.

"You wanna come in, or are you gonna stay on the other side of the window all night?" She asked the boy. He entered her room, and looked around. Nothing changed that much over the last years. Her bed was still in the same place,the colour of her walls was still that pale blue he always liked, and the only different thing inside that room was her. She looked different, more mature. More beautiful that JJ remembered.

He stood awkwardly in the middle of her room while she positioned herself in the bed.

"Are you coming or what?"she asked as if it was obvious that he was supposed to join her in the bed. JJ was surprised at how chill she was with the situation. I guess nothing has really changed.

They spent a few minutes without speaking. Both looking at the stars on her ceiling. They were glowing.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to come back, I just- I wasn't having the best of times" he admitted ashamed.

"It's okay I understand" she said softly turning her body so she was now facing him. JJ did the same.

"I guess i was scared" he didn't seem to mind how the words kept coming out of his mouth.

"Of what?"

"Of you not feeling the same way that I did for you. That I do" he confessed.

"You're always been a dumbass JJ" she said smiling brightly at the boy. "You know my mom always told me that you were in love with me since we were kids, but I refuse to believe her."

"You should have, your mother's wise" he said moving closer to her. "I'm sorry it took me so long to figure it out, but when I saw that picture o couldn't just not do anything. I needed to at least be honest with you. You've been my best friend since forever and I owe you that" he said caressing the girls face. The look on his face was painful. Y/n could see the vulnerability underneath the strong facade that he would always put up. She could see the sincerity of his statement and the love that was hidden inside of him, trying to come to the surface but not being able because of his fears. She knew he was scared to drown himself in the love he was feeling. JJ was so full of love for everyone, even for the one who had wronged at some point. He didn't have malice in his bones.

She grabbed his face and pulled him for a kiss. An innocent little kiss.

She smiled before she said: "I love you to the moon"

"And to Saturn."

#jj maybank x reader #jj x y/n #jj outer banks #jj maybank #obx fanfiction #outer banks #obx #fanfic

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the-three-idiots · 3 years

Text

EXCALIBUR #5

1328AE Excalibur one infirmary, Divinity’s Reach 3:44PM (48 hours later)

Jacob wakes up in a bed, his head ringing. He examines the room around him, it has a curved concrete ceiling which leads down to dirty white tile walls and seven other beds in the room. Three beds next to him and four across, which ran parallel.

He checks himself over, he is still in his trousers but his blue shirt has been changed to a grey t-shirt. He sits up, swivels around, and stands up. The floor under his feet feels like a soft fabric.

“Good afternoon.” says a rather enthusiastic voice.

Jacob looks up to see a female norn, about 7 foot, slightly tanned skin and heavily built. The norn’s physique was mostly covered by a single piece jumpsuit with a white coat, which has a red version of the sword logo on the right arm.

“I’m Aesa Bloodcrag, do you know who you are?” asks Aesa.

Jacobs looks at her in confusion.

“Jacob Reed, Private detective. Twenty seven...ish and I have a rather annoying headache.” he replies.

Aesa chuckles and puts her right hand in her pocket.

“Well, you did lose a bit of blood but this should help.” she says.

She takes a leather wrist strap out of her coat pocket.

“This is a scanner, it goes on your wrist and tells us how you're doing.” she puts the strap around Jacobs' left wrist as she explains, raising her eyebrow at him.

“I’m surprised you haven't escaped.” she states.

“You haven't lied to me, yet.” he replies.

Aesa steps back and gestures towards the door of the room, Jacob raises an eyebrow.

“Your coat, shirt and boots are through there, we just cleaned them up a bit.” she smiles at him. “She’s waiting for you.” says Aesa.

He hops off the bed and scratches his chest,standing still for a second before looking at her.

“Did you take my shirt?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

“No, my boss, she took care of you. Said she had a hunch or something.” replies Aesa.

He sighs with relief and walks towards the doors. They are thick oak with burns and scratch marks, with weathered golden door knobs.

He walks through the doors and into a massive underground lair of brick and concrete, a giant column runs through the middle with wires and metal bars connected to it.

Jacob notices it is split into three levels;

The lower level is, partially submerged in water. There are wires connected from the wall to the main column, the bottom of which has crystals jutting out, as if they were growing out of it. Several ladders connect to the main level.

The floor of main level is made up of metal grates, with desks scattered everywhere. There's a makeshift wall made of plywood near one of the desks, with pictures of creatures and red string decorating it.

The top level only has two staircases leading up to it, there are two steel catwalks connecting two rooms which have large glass windows. Jacob could not see what is in the rooms as large curtains cover the windows.

“Afternoon sleepyhead!” Mira says as she exits one of the rooms on the top level.

She walks down the staircase, holding a file in one hand and a shirt in the other. Mira walks to one of the desks, sits down and places the file on the desk. She stretches out her arm with the shirt in hand.

Jacob walks towards the desk, takes the shirt and puts it on. Mira opens the file,looking up at him.

“Like the secret underground base?” she asks.

He nods and smiles.

“Bloody amazing!” he replies.

He walks over to the column and touches it. Though it looks like concrete and metal, it feels like velvet. He raises an eyebrow, fascinated by it. He turns to Mira.

“How much coin did you have to build this place?” he asks.

He walks back over to Mira’s desk.

“We are directly funded by the crown, you won't believe how much we get paid.” she smiles and turns a page in the file “How's the neck?”

He places his hand on his neck, he feels it, he runs his fingers up and down his neck. He doesn't feel anything, not even a scar. She gives a small chuckle and points to her arm, it has healed from the incubus bite.

“Freaky right? Kinda like your file...” she remarks.

His eyes widen as she turns a page in the file and looks up at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Jacob Reed, age twenty seven, profession is a private detective regularly hired by the Seraph.You lived in an apartment in the Salma District for the last eight years.” explains Mira

Jacob sits on the desk, crossing his arms.

“So you know who I am…” he says

She shrugs her arms and puts the file on the table.

“Only from the last eights years.” she states.

He nods.

“You’re Mira then…” he says.

“Yes, I performed the surgery on your neck. Cleaned you up as well.” she replies.

He nods again.

“So you know then?” he asks.

She closes the file and opens one of the draws, taking two glasses and a bottle of blue liquid out of the draw.

“I had my suspicions but it wasn't until we brought you back and I had to remove your shirt… apologies, couldn't risk infection from the blood on your shirt.” she says.

He smiles and takes one of the glasses.

“You know if you want, we can get rid of those surgery scars on your chest.…” she offers, opening the bottle and pouring the blue liquid into the glasses.

“They are a reminder of what I left behind.” Jacob remarks

She takes the file and puts it in the draw.

“If you don't mind me asking, how long have you really been around?” she asks.

He looks somber.

“Eleven years ago, I ran away from home. Father didn't mind another son, My mother though, wasn’t too happy that I cut my hair short. Fight broke out, I ran…” he explains.

She nods and takes a sip from her glass, Jacob smiles as he turns to her.

“Best decision of my Life.” he states.

Mira smiles.

“Everyone deserves a chance to be themselves.” She says with a chipper tone.

Jacob looks at Mira and gulps his entire glass, she looks at him with confusion.

“Why did you tell me?” she asks.

“You saved my life, just wanted to repay the favour. Though I assume you're going to wipe my memory, so I want you to know who I am because I will never know who you are.” he says.

She shakes her head.

“Wiping your memory clearly doesn’t work, so I’m not going to do that.” Mira says coldly

He looks at the glass, concerned.. He puts it down and steps away from the desk. Mira leans back in her chair, opens another draw, and takes out a small box.

“Because i’m gonna need someone of your skills.” she says.

Mira opens the box to reveal a silver pin in the shape of a sword through a hollow circle. Jacob raises an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?” he exclaims.

“Well from what the Seraph have on you, you're pretty good at noticing the smaller details, and frankly if you can overcome our memory charms then who knows what else you can do.” explains Mira

Jacob looks around - he studies the crystal growths, the desks, the floor, everything. Jacob looks at Mira and shakes his head.

“I'm a private investigator who tracks down cheating husbands and wives for a living, I recognize a lie when I see one.” he retorts.

She nods as she walks over to the plywood wall near her desk and points to a drawing., Jacob recognises the woman. She was the corpse, the orignal corpse from the night of the murder.

“Brayla steelbreaker, a mother of two. she was under our protection. She died because we thought we were on top of things. In our hubris, she got infected by a succubus and its ‘child’ burst out of Brayla. We need someone who holds us to a standard, we’ve been doing things our own way for too long....” Mira's look at Jacob with sorrowful eyes. “People are dying, the way we do things isn't working anymore.”

Jacob puts his hands in his pockets and looks at the sword pin.

“So you want a private investigator?” he asks.

“I need a fresh pair of eyes, I need someone different.” She walks back over to the desk and picks up the sword pin, offering it to him. “I need you to keep us to a standard.”

Jacob takes the box, looks at the pin and he puts his finger on it. He feels the smooth metal, smiles and pins it to his to his shirt.

“I’d appreciate it if you kept what I told you to yourself, I want to be known for who I am rather than who I was.” he requests.

“Of course, though I do have one more thing for you.” she replies.

She grabs a large paper parcel and places it on her desk. She unwraps it to reveal Jacob’s coat, picking it up and passes it to him. He smiles as he grabs the coat and excitedly puts it on.

“Excalibur’s entrance cover is a tailors, so it has its perks when it comes to cleaning and repairing very nice coats.” She looks at his bare feet “also need to get you some boots as well.”

Jacob smiles as spins around in the coat. He stops spinning and looks at her.

“The old geezer at the tavern said you were sixty years old and you're a Sylvari, so that can’t be. Can it?” he asks.

She smirks.

“Of course not. I’m a hundred and twenty three.” she states,bluntly.

He tilts his head in confusion and she laughs. She looks at the hub and smiles, before turning back to look at him again.

“There are weird and wonderful things out there, some stuff will try to kill you and some will make your jaw drop in wonder. Just one last thing-”

Mira offers her hand to Jacob

“Welcome to Excalibur.”

#gw2 #GW2 OC #Guild Wars #Guild Wars 2 #tales of thedas #stories #gw2 human

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acreepqueen · 4 years

Text

Fairy Boyfriend

Sorry this took so long, lovelies!! I really hope you cute little humans enjoy! Special thanks to the anon that requested this!

Requests are always open for anyone! (But I often don’t have the time to write as much as I’d like to, so I just go through the requests in order, first come first serve :>)

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

You had always lived in a quaint and kind home growing up. Your parents loved you more than you thought was physically possible and they had always supported whatever endeavor you chose to pursue. The home you grew up in held so many fond memories. Even so, your favorite memories were always at the house of your grandmother. You dearly missed her stories of magic and mystical lands as you curled into her side under a blanket. Memories flooded back as though a dam within your mind had broken when you stepped foot into the small cottage. The smell of a crackling fire still hung in the space, although you knew it had been months since the last log was burned. Your grandmother would have scoffed at the thin layer of dust covering everything; the couch, coffee table, mantle, lamps, and every single antique that hadn’t been left to someone else.

It took nearly a month for you to begin to even stomach the thought of returning here after her death. She had been sickly for a while, at least a year before she finally seemed to give in and make her peace with the world. You still weren’t over it yet, but you wanted to feel as though some aspect of her was with you. Your eyes glanced over the large wooden bookcase that found its home in the far corner of the living room, away from all the other pieces of furniture. With a renewed determination you made your way over to the bookcase you remembered so fondly. Grandmother used to read these story books to you, she always had, even after you grew old enough to read them yourself you still insisted she read them to you.

A sleek black cover stood out dramatically against the rest of the worn leather books. Frowning, you took it from the shelf and walked over to the couch. To your surprise and delight, when you opened the book you noticed a familiar face staring back at you. It was a younger and stronger looking version of your grandmother, in her arms a giggling child you immediately recognized. It was you. In the picture you were probably five or six and were covered head to toe in mud. You chuckled a bit and turned the page. You stared at the page in slight confusion and astonishment. In the photo was you with a flower crown on your head, smiling from ear to ear. You didn’t even recognize the flowers, which was odd considering you had opened a botanist shop right after school. You didn’t even think you knew how to make a flower crown.

The picture next to the one of you wearing a flower crown was even stranger. You were holding what looked like a miniature satchel. Flipping through the scrapbook you found normal pictures, you and your grandmother baking cookies, tending to the garden, hiking, etc. As you flipped to the very last page of the book a piece of paper slipped out. It was a crudely drawn stick figure with brown hair and what looked to be blue wings. You smiled a bit at the drawing. Your grandmother always told you that you had a wild imagination as a child. Your smile fell a bit when you noticed the poorly written letters sprawled across the page, ‘S I O F A R’ You could barely recognize it, but the name seemed strangely familiar.

Shaking off your confusion for the time being you set the book back on the old wooden shelf were you found it. You decided that it was far past time to clean up this house if you were to live in it. Plus, your grandmother would be appalled at the current state of it and you, although reluctantly, begun to dust, vacuum, mop, and scrub.

>>-------------> <-------------<<

It was a pleasant surprise that you were able to get the majority of the cleaning done inside within a couple of hours. Now your work was in the garden. You didn’t exactly want to, but after some self-encouragement you managed to convince yourself to at least start working with the mess that was your back garden. You paused, very confused at the sight of your back garden. The garden should have been an absolute disaster, but their didn’t even seem to be any dead leaves.

The white rose bushes that lined your grandmother’s house were absolutely pristine. Hell, they looked better than they had when she was taking care of them. Looking at the ivory flowers that had begun to slowly crawl up the trellis, something your grandmother had always wanted but was never able to manage. You smiled, although wistfully, as you continued to walk through the garden. The oak you remembered laughing and playing under as a child still stood strong at the very center of the yard. The tree seemed to have grown along with you as you still couldn’t wrap your arms around it. The only way you managed to ever give the tree a true “hug” was when you locked arms with...

You paused briefly. Originally you had thought you used to play with your grandmother in the garden, but she had always watched you play through the kitchen window. The thought didn’t confuse as much as it unsettled you. Your grandmother practically didn’t have neighbors, the closest being a couple of miles north. You shook it off as having a friend over a couple times and retreated back inside as it seemed your work in the garden had already been done for you.

Walking into the house you helped yourself to a glass of lemonade from the fridge. You stopped mid sip and spit the lemonade back into the cup coughing. The lemonade was absolutely putrid. You poured the glass out of reflex and didn’t stop to think that the lemonade had been sitting in the fridge without power for nearly half a year. You gargled some water praying you wouldn’t suddenly become sick and die. When you looked up from the kitchen sink and out into the garden your blood ran cold.

There walking through the rows of roses stood a man who had to be at least seven feet tall, running his hands over the rose bushes. The scene was both mesmerizing and horrific. You expected there to be small cuts on his hands from the thorns but there didn’t seem to be any as he moved lackadaisically, seemingly lost in thought. He looked up and froze, seeing you watching from the window. Your eyes met and you became even more puzzled. You recognized their orange hue. Maybe he was a neighbors kid? Or the child of one of your grandmother’s friends?

You jumped as the familiar tone of your phone sounded throughout the silent house. You know you only glanced away for a second to look at your phone sitting on the kitchen table, but when you looked back the man had disappeared. Picking up your phone you looked the message that had interrupted your staring contest. It was your mother checking in on you. You sent a quick reply confirming that you were doing just fine and continued to stare out the window into the garden. Maybe you needed to start getting more sleep.

♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦ ♢ ♦

Looking for more of my writing?

#fairy boyfriend #pixie boyfriend #fairy #pixie #fairy lover #pixie lover #monster lover #acreepqueen #i-write-slow-im-sorry

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bunkershotgolf · 3 years

Photo

AUBERGE RESORTS COLLECTION WELCOMES PRIMLAND, HOME OF THE ACCLAIMED HIGHLAND COURSE, TO ITS PORTFOLIO

The scenic Blue Ridge Mountains resort welcomes golfers, families, friends and couples looking for a one-of-a-kind retreat in the great outdoors

Auberge Resorts Collection is delighted to announce that it will welcome Primland, a majestic all-season mountain retreat in Virginia, to Auberge’s portfolio of award-winning hotels, resorts and residences as of June 1. Located at the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains on 12,000 expansive acres, Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection offers luxurious accommodations, a championship golf course, exquisite farm-to-table cuisine helmed by new Executive Chef Elliot Cunniff from Soho House in New York City, a serene spa and a level of outdoor adventure that is unrivaled on the east coast. In one of the most breathtaking mountain settings, the resort boasts impressive year-round activities for the entire family, including golf, horseback riding, fly fishing, alfresco yoga and meditation, kayaking, hiking, sporting clays, archery, stargazing in one of the largest observatories in the Eastern U.S., RTV trail riding and tennis. With Auberge Resorts Collection’s highly personalized service, Primland will be the quintessential escape this Summer.

“We are incredibly honored that the Primat family has chosen Auberge to be the stewards of Primland, one of the most spectacular resorts in the country,” said Dan Friedkin, owner and chairman, Auberge Resorts Collection. “It is an absolute privilege to bring our brand to this unparalleled experience in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection was initially purchased by late French industrialist, Mr. Didier Primat, in 1977 as an outdoor activity retreat for his family. In the early 2000s, Mr. Primat decided to expand the land’s capabilities and construct the resort and golf course in an eco-conscious and thoughtful manner. Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is rooted in a love of the land, which is expressed in the resort’s extensive efforts to minimize the impact on nature while enjoying its beauty.

“Auberge Resorts Collection has mastered a crafted approach to unique and personal service,” said Harold Primat, president of Primland. “We are excited to partner with the award-winning brand to realize our family’s vision to create one of the top-end mountain resorts in the U.S. and share the Primland experience with guests from around the world.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection features 62 rooms, including standalone cottages, cabins and treehouses. At the center of the property—which was recently voted "Best Resort in the U.S. South,” in Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2020—sits the Lodge, featuring a soaring great hall with twin fireplaces, a full-service spa, fitness center, indoor swimming pool, private theatre, game room and one of the largest telescopes and observatories in the Eastern U.S. The resort’s exceptional culinary program boasts three regional cuisine restaurants, a two-story wine cellar and private dining experiences for intimate gatherings and celebrations.

One-of-a-Kind Accommodations

Accommodations boast beautiful mountain settings with amenities such as in-room fireplaces, private balconies with undisturbed views and deep soaking tubs. The main Lodge features nine Mountain Rooms and sixteen Blue Ridge Suites. The Lodge’s most exclusive suite is the Pinnacle Suite, a two-story 1,800-square-foot glass-walled aerie located in the observatory tower, providing stunning views of the stars and vistas.

Across the property are several styles of standalone accommodations. The chalet-like Pinnacle Cottages and golf course Fairway Cottages each contain separate wings with rooms and suites that can be booked individually or groups can lodge together by opening up the common living room. The resort also features 11 spacious Mountain Homes containing between one and seven bedrooms.

Just a short drive from the Lodge, three Tree Houses are perched on the edge of the mountains, offering an experience that nods to Primat’s love of nature and the region. These intimate cabins are set in the strong limbs of the property’s oldest and most beautiful oak trees, giving way to treetop views of the majestic Kibler Valley and North Carolina piedmont from a vast private deck. While conjuring childhood memories, each of the Tree Houses is unique, taking on its own personality through bespoke decor.

Farm-to-Table Blue Ridge Mountain Cuisine

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection’s exceptional culinary destinations and programming are overseen by Executive Chef Elliot Cunniff, who joined the resort in Spring 2021. Chef Cunniff comes to the resort from New York City, where he got his start working under Daniel Boulud before moving up the ranks to, most recently, executive chef at Soho House New York. Chef Cunniff brings a wealth of creativity to all of the resort’s exceptional restaurants, including the signature restaurant, Elements, a harmony of the Virginia Highlands’ natural abundance and Southern comfort flavors, beautifully presented in a fine dining atmosphere. The property’s more relaxed eatery, 19th Pub, serves casual, hearty pub fare alongside a bar well-stocked with draught beers, single malts and spirits, as well as moonshine cocktails, which harken back to the region’s rich bootlegging history. The Woodland Grill is located at the Outdoor Activities Center for easy grab-and-go sandwiches between adventures. Schlumberger Wine Cellar, located in The Lodge and perfect for private events, features varietals from the world’s finest vineyards, including the resort’s sister property, Domaines Schlumberger, in France’s Alsace region. Set on its own ridge top is Stables Saloon - located in Primland’s former horse stables - where traditional Southern food and live bluegrass music come together for a rustic and convivial dining experience.

Adventure and Wellness

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection centers around its vast acreage and outdoor activities, just as Mr. Primat intended when he purchased the property as an outdoor retreat. One of the most beloved experiences of The Lodge is deep space star gazing through the professional-grade telescopes at the Observatory. The Outdoor Activities Center offers fly fishing, horseback riding, hiking, biking, archery, RTV trail riding, sporting clays and water sports on the 3-mile long Talbott Lake. For golf enthusiasts of all skill levels, the Highland Course at Primland is an 18-hole, Audubon-certified, all bentgrass greens course carved from the mountains’ natural landscape by renowned golf course architect Donald Steel.

After a day of adventure, The Spa at Primland offers rejuvenating and energizing treatments that combine Native American healing rituals and European spa techniques.

A Destination Worth Exploring

While guests may find everything they need and more on the property, Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is surrounded by enchanting mountain attractions and numerous local towns that are well worth exploring. From the quaint shops of Meadows of Dan to the historic Mabry Mill, Fairy Stone State Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, local wineries and an abundance of bluegrass and country music festivals, there is so much to see and do on a day trip outside the gates of the resort.

“Each of our properties is unique and captures the soul of the destination, and Primland encompasses the best that the Blue Ridge Mountain region has to offer. It is a natural fit for Auberge Resorts Collection,” said Craig Reid, president and chief executive officer, Auberge Resorts Collection, “We look forward to welcoming our guests to this extraordinary destination.”

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is conveniently located two hours from Charlotte, five hours from Washington D.C, and just 90 minutes from two regional airports, Piedmont Triad (PTI) in Greensboro and Roanoke Regional. The resort’s partnership with NetJets provides guests with special benefits when flying privately through two nearby airports, Blue Ridge and Mt. Airy-Surry County, only 45 minutes away. The property also features a helipad located at the North Gate.

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection is now accepting reservations. For more information, please visit aubergeresorts.com/primland.

About Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection

Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection resonates with people who immerse themselves in luxurious elegance whenever possible. Value Mother Nature’s masterworks. Celebrate the scintillating moments when fish take the bait. Cherish the soothing serenity of golden mountain sunsets. Rush with adrenalin while traversing RTV trails. Feel child-like wonder while stargazing through a professional-grade telescope. Embrace treehouse lodging perches with panoramic views. Relish playing an award-winning trophy golf course. Rejuvenate through caressing spa treatments. And covet organic ingredients served tastefully in farm-to-table culinary dishes.

For more information, please visit aubergeresorts.com/primland/

Connect with Primland, Auberge Resorts Collection on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About Auberge Resorts Collection

Auberge Resorts Collection is a portfolio of extraordinary hotels, resorts, residences and private clubs. While each property is unique, all share a crafted approach to luxury and bring the soul of the locale to life through captivating design, exceptional cuisine, innovative spas and gracious yet unobtrusive service. With 19 hotels and resorts across three continents and eight new hotels under development, Auberge invites guests to create unforgettable stories in some of the world’s most desirable destinations.

For more information: aubergeresorts.com

Connect with Auberge Resorts Collection on Facebook Twitter and Instagram @AubergeResorts and #AlwaysAuberge

About The Friedkin Group

The Friedkin Group is a privately-held consortium of automotive, hospitality, entertainment, sports and adventure companies. These organizations include: Gulf States Toyota, GSFSGroup, US AutoLogistics, Ascent Automotive Group, Auberge Resorts Collection, AS Roma, Imperative Entertainment, 30WEST, NEON, Diamond Creek Golf Club, Congaree and Legendary Expeditions. The Friedkin Group is led by Chairman and CEO Dan Friedkin. For more information, visit www.friedkin.com.

#golf #new #Golf Courses #submission

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willow-bolton · 3 years

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brave enough to burn || an evelyn bolton, niamh cassidy & willow bolton mix (for the women in the cassidy line with pagan hearts) (in no particular order, 21 tracks)

@eviebolton @niamhcassidy

01. wytches chant- inkubus sukkubus Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inanna

02. rhiannon- faun Instrumental

03. queen of thorns- adrian von ziegler Instrumental

04. ritual- hexperos Instrumental

05. bard dance- enya Instrumental

06. hour of the wytch- spiral dance As you walk across the moor feel the wind stir about you/a crescent moon in the sky and she's there to guide you/and the pounding in your head is there to remind you/the spells been cast aha ha the spells been cast/there's a feeling in the air as ancient as the standing stones/you hear voices everywhere and you know you're not alone/and you'll go to her in the night as the magick has been spoken/and the claims been made aha ha the claims been made

07. satyros- faun (translated) This dance excites Satyrs/And Dryads/It incites the return to the living/This was written above the fires/This was fired by Cupid/This is to renew by the love/This was agitating me/This was stealing me from myself/If any lover could/Be loved by loving/Could love be the will/Healing me by giving the blessing

08. witchy woman- the eagles Raven hair and ruby lips/Sparks fly from her fingertips/Echoed voices in the night/She's a restless spirit on an endless flight/Woohoo, witchy woman/See how high she flies/Woohoo, witchy woman/She got the moon in her eye/She held me spellbound in the night/Dancing shadows and firelight/Crazy laughter in another room

09. the mummer’s dance- loreena mckennitt When in the springtime of the year/When the trees are crowned with leaves/When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew/Are dressed in ribbons fair/When owls call the breathless moon/In the blue veil of the night/The shadows of the trees appear/Amidst the lantern light/We've been rambling all the night/And some time of this day/Now returning back again/We bring a garland gay/Who will go down to the shady groves/And summon the shadows there/And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms/In the springtime of the year

10. seven wonders- fleetwood mac So long ago/Certain place/Certain time/You touched my hand/On the way/On the way down to Emmeline/But if our paths never cross/Well, you know I'm sorry, but/If I live to see the seven wonders/I'll make a path to the rainbow's end/I'll never live to match the beauty again/The rainbow's edge/So it's hard to find/Someone with that kind of intensity/You touched my hand, I played it cool/And you reached out your hand to me/But if our paths never cross/Well, no, I'm not sorry, but/If I live to see the seven wonders/I'll make a path to the rainbow's end/I'll never live to match the beauty again/The rainbow's edge

11. sisters of the moon- fleetwood mac Intense silence/As she walked in the room/Her black robes trailing/Sister of the moon/And a black widow spider makes/More sound than she/And black moons in those eyes of hers/Made more sense to me/Heavy persuasion/It was hard to breathe/She was dark at the top of the stairs/And she called to me/And so I followed/As friends often do/I cared not for love, nor money/I think she knew/The people, they love her/And still they are the most cruel/She asked me/Be my sister, sister of the moon/Some call her sister of the moon/Some say illusions are her game/Wrap her in velvet

12. crystal- stevie nicks Do you always trust your first initial feeling/Special knowledge holds truth bears believing/I turned around/And the water was closing all around/Like a glove/Like the love that had finally, finally found me/Then I knew/In the crystalline/knowledge of you/Drove me through the mountains/Through the crystal-like clear water fountain/Drove me like a magnet/To the sea

13. witch rune- s.j. tucker Darksome Night and Shining Moon/Balance of the dark and light/Hearken ye our Witch's Rune/As we perform our sacred rite!/With earth and water, air and fire/By blade and bowl and circle round/We come to you with our desire:/Let all that is hidden now be found!/With censor, candle, book and sword/And ringing of the altar bell/We tie a knot within our cord/To bind our magic in a spell./Mother of the summer fields/Goddess of the silver moon/Join with us as power builds!/Dance with us our witch's rune!/Father of the Summer dew/Hunter of the winter snows/With open arms we welcome you!/Dance with us as power grows!/By all the light of moon and sun/By all the might of land and sea/Chant the rune and it is done/As we will, so mote it be!

14. all souls night- loreena mckennitt Bonfires dot the rolling hills/Figures dance around and around/To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness/Moving to the pagan sound/Somewhere in a hidden memory/Images float before my eyes/Of fragrant nights of straw and of bonfires/And dancing till the next sunrise/I can see lights in the distance/Trembling in the dark cloak of night/Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing/A waltz on All Souls Night/Figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows/Held up tall as the flames leap high/The green knight holds the holly bush/To mark where the old year passes by

15. we all come from the goddess- lila We all come from the Goddess/And to Her we shall return/Like a drop of rain/Flowing to the ocean

16. blessed we are- kellianna Blessed are we in the awakening dawn/Blessed are we in the morning/Blessed are we in the light of the day/As we enjoy the earth turning/Blessed are we as the twilight descends/And the magic of dusk is upon us/And Blessed are we in the dark of the night/As we slip into dreams that are calling

17. for the love of all who gather- s.j. tucker With but a single breath to clear the way/I honor all who listen as I play/I honor Freya, Brigid, Cerridwen/I honor every goddess, in my way/I honor Sairyss, Fafnir, Naelyon, Grael/I honor all my friends of wing and tail/I honor earth and flame, rain and wind/For love of all who gather/Let the song begin

18. beltane (lord & lady song)- lisa thiel On the full Moon in May/As One the Lord and the Lady/Tonight's the Eve of Holy Beltane/As One the Lord and the Lady/Beltane Night Full Moon Bright/Sacred visions bless our sight/Lord and Lady merge as One/As One the Lord and the Lady/As One the Lord and the Lady/As One the Lord and the Lady/Beltane Night /Full Moon Bright/Sacred visions bless our sight/Lord and Lady merge as One/As One the Lord and the Lady

19. dance of the druids- bear mccreary ft. raya yarbrough A Righ na gile/A Righ na greine/A Righ na rinne/A Righ na reulaA Righ na gile/A Righ na greine/A Righ na gile/A Righ na reulaA Righ na cruinne/A Righ na speura/Is aluinn do ghnuis/A lub eibhinn

20. mabon- omnia Instrumental

21. samhain- lisa thiel Samhain, Samhain, let the ritual begin/We call upon our sacred ancestors to come in/Samhain, Samhain, we call upon our kin/We call upon our dear departed loved ones to come in/The Veil between the worlds is thin/Our hearts reach cross the sea of time/To bring our loved ones in/Samhain, Samhain we honor all our kin/We honor those who've gone before/As the Great Wheel turns again/Samhain, Samhain we call upon our kin/We call upon our Sacred Ancestors to come in/Samhain, Samhain we call them to come in/We call upon our dear departed loved ones to come in

#sonomatask002 #c: niamh #c: evelyn

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sailorshadzter · 5 years

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Can you write a story about how Sansa has Jons baby without him knowing? Dany keeps him in kings landing and he comes backs to winterfell and sees Sansa’s son and knows its his

okay so i loved this & im sorry you sent this AGES AGO. but i finally got to it and i honestly want to do a part 2. so thanks! i hope it was worth the wait.

send me prompts

The day her son was born, she was woke from a dream of spring.

Laughter had floated along the warm breeze, the sun shining overhead as children played in the godswood. They wrestled in the melting snow, wolves and boys, while the little girls stood on the side lines, cheering the boys on. Somehow, in the back of her mind, she knows those children belong to her. There's a boy with dark curls and Stark colored eyes, he's the oldest of the bunch. Then there's the boy with Tully touched auburn locks, the second born that comes close behind the oldest. The oldest of the girls is small and dark, she's like the grandmother she's named for and the aunt she idolizes. Then there's the other two, a boy and girl with eyes the color of spring violets and silvery hair that catches the sun.

The first wave of labor pain is what startles her awake and she's unable to stop the cry of surprise, of pain, from leaving her lips. Brienne is in the room at once, the door thrown open without any sense of formality- it's been left behind at the sound of her lady's pained cries. At the sight of Sansa sitting up, doubled over in pain, Brienne knows what is happening and she's out the door, shouting for the maid that was making her way down the hall at that very moment. "The queen's time has come!"

Fear grips her but she swallows it down, focusing instead on the prospect of holding her child. She knows he will be her Prince of Winterfell- they will call him the Young White Wolf, a boy named for the uncle he'll never know. A child born of the wolves, the stories will say, born in the first year of his mother's rule. For one single moment, she can only wonder about the other children she has dreamed of... But then another wave of pain takes her over and the door to her room bangs open as maids filter in and suddenly, there is little else for her to think about besides the pain of labor.

Except for him.

She thinks of Jon even as she's bearing down, birthing the child he helped create. Sansa wishes he were here now, she wishes he even knew there was a child at all. She thinks of Jon as she feels the child slip from her body into the hands of the maester, she thinks of him as the babe gives his first angry howl at being thrown so rudely into a bright, new world he doesn't know. She thinks of Jon as they hand her the baby for the first time, where even now at two minutes old, the whole room knows the truth of his birth. He is a Stark born child, even in infancy he is his father's copy. "Robb," Sansa cries softly as she cradles her son to her chest, naming him as she had always intended, though she wonders if Ned would be more appropriate, given his looks. But the room melts at the name and beside her bed, Brienne drops to her knees, swearing to protect the child as she's always protected Sansa.

She thinks of Jon as she peers into her son's perfect little face, wishing with all of her heart that he was there.

If only, if only...

[ x x x ]

"I have news from the North."

It is Tyrion that speaks and Jon looks up from where he sits in his solar, at first annoyed by the interruption but it fades as his words settle on his brain. He's been here, trapped in King's Landing as he once was trapped at Dragonstone, all these months since Daenerys had conquered it with brute strength. On the back of Drogon, she had soared through the skies, belching flames and smoke until there was little left of the capital but rubble. Those who had survived the massacre now lived in fear of the tyrant queen. "News?" Jon questions, absently rubbing the back of his head.

He misses home, he misses Winterfell. He misses her.

Jon thinks back to the last time he saw her, the morning of his departure from Winterfell. She had been so beautiful that day, bathed in the morning sunlight, wrapped in furs. He had longed to kiss her that morning, to remind her of where his heart so truly belonged... But they had been stumbled upon and instead, he had embraced her as any good brother might have embraced his dearly loved sister. When she had slipped from his arms, he felt empty.

"There is a rumor that your sister has given birth to a son."

The goblet of ale Jon had been reaching for suddenly clangs to the floor and Jon curses, dropping to the floor so he might mop up the amber liquid, though it's done more to hide his face than clean the mess. "That is quite the rumor," Jon finally says when he's recovered from his shock enough to control his features. He rises back up, settling himself back into his chair and setting the now empty goblet onto his desk. "My sister remains unmarried."

Tyrion smirks, eyebrow arching as he climbs into the chair that sits before Jon's oak desk. "They say the child is sired by wolves." The imp explains, watching Jon's face for any sign of what he knows must surely be the truth. That the child born to Sansa Stark is Jon's own child, a child born out of wedlock between two presumed half siblings. There were very few who knew the truth of Jon's parentage, after all. "The queen wishes to know if it is only a rumor or not," the peace between the North and the remaining kingdoms is thin and it is only because of Jon's sacrifice of remaining beside Daenerys that the North was given it's independence. Dorne is hot with jealousy and there had been whispers of their itch for their own. The Iron Islands would not be far behind. Daenerys had lost her loyal allies and now only ruled through fear. But, there was only one single dragon to fear, how long would it be before there were none?

"She's also agreed that it should be you who goes to confirm the rumor," Tyrion's voice draws Jon's attention back and his sharp, Stark colored eyes settle upon the Lannister. The man steeples his fingers together and sighs. "I suppose, what the queen knows or doesn't know... Won't concern her." All he wants is this peace to last; he's riddled with guilt over the last few months, the ringing of the bells still yet haunts his every dream. Tyrion knows the rumor of the Northern queen's pregnancy must be only that- a rumor. True or not, the mother of dragons would not take kindly to hearing the true heir of the Seven Kingdoms had a child with the true heir of the North, who she herself has given a crown to. What a powerful child, what a power for the already disgruntled people to stand behind instead. If one wished to topple a tyrant queen, this would probably be the way. If one wished, that was. Tyrion reaches for the jug of ale and pours himself a goblet, draining it in two quick swallows before pouring himself another.

Jon understands the deeper meaning behind the imp's words. Who better than he understands what Daenerys Targaryen is capable of? He watched her sack an entire city that had surrendered, all because she could. Fine, let it be fear, she had told him that night after the feast. Fear. He had listened to her threats against his people, his family... He knew what she would do if she felt threatened by Sansa and the North. It would take no time at all for the North to look as King's Landing had once looked. Ash would fall from the skies like snow, blanketing Winterfell. "When am I to leave?" He extends his hand out, goblet tight in his grip, a silent request for ale of his own.

Tyrion raises his gaze to meet his eyes and leans in so they may clink glasses. "Tomorrow."

[ x x x ]

Sansa hears the cry from the guard tower from where she sits in her solar, Robb tucked against her chest as she looks over a letter from Dorne. She knows it's dangerous water she treds, even just opening such letters as the Prince of Dorne wishes to fight for his nation's freedom. There are whispers everywhere of overthrowing the dragon queen and though once Sansa would have involved herself readily but now... She glances down at the baby in her arms and knows she's got a whole lot more to protect these days. Sometimes she fears doing nothing at all leaves her son in more danger.

"Your grace."

It is Lord Royce in her doorway, dipping her a bow. As always, he smiles over the baby she holds, warming her heart at the sight of it. Sansa knows now how truly loved she is by her people, for there was not one who voiced displeasure over her baby born from wedlock. If there were any susipicions on the father, they were not mentioned publicly, and she laughs when she hears how they say her son was born of the wolves. "Yes?" She asks, lowering the letter from Dorne, focusing her blue eyed gaze on the older man.

"There's a rider at the gate, a rider from King's Landing."

Sansa's heart skips a beat but she dares not feel excitement. Jon would not be here, she would never allow that. "See that they are fed and warmed, then bring them here." Lord Royce gives her a nod and then bows before he backs from the room to do as he's been bid. What Lord Royce did not say was that he had caught a glimpse of the man who rode through, a man with unmistakable raven colored curls. But he goes on his way, sending a steward down to take the man to the kitchens, so he might warm himself before the great fires and eat a bit of porridage from that morning's breakfast.

In the minutes before the knock sounds on the door, Sansa cannot help but to fawn over the baby she holds. Robb is a sweet babe, though his angry cries can easily wake the entire castle. Peering into his dark eyes, she sees his father, she sees his grandfather. Little Robb is Jon's child, there is no doubt, his Stark genes undeniable. His gummy smile is frequently seen but his displeasure is just as easily heard, though Sansa loves every moment of it.

Knock, knock.

Hearing the knock, she jumps, chills racing the length of her spine. Somehow, she already knows who stands at her door. She turns and gently sets Robb into his cradle, hard oak wood carved with wolves and the weirwood tree. "Come in," she calls, adjusting her position in her chair as the door swing opens and the man comes through. The breath catches in her throat, stolen from her lungs as Jon sinks to his knees before her desk. She didn't dare believe it could ever be him, but now that he's here... Tears spring to her eyes as she opens her mouth, his name soft upon her lips. "Jon..."

He cannot believe how beautiful she is.

It's been a long eight months since he's last seen her, last held her. Her autumn touched hair is longer than ever, pulled back in a mound of intricate braids, leaving only a few soft curls to frame her features. Those blue eyes... Eyes he would willingly drown in, eyes the color of the open sea, of the summer sky. Her gown is of gray velvet, form fitting to a figure that is softer than he remembers and he only wants to take her into his arms. "My queen," he breathes as he hits his knees, holding Longclaw in the Northern gesture of fealty. For once, those words do not feel empty, they don't feel hollow.

She rises up from the chair she's been sitting in, coming around the desk, gray skirts sweeping across the rushes. "You're here..." She murmurs as she sinks down to his level, one hand cupping his cheek to her palm, his beard prickly against her soft skin. "I don't believe this," she shakes her head, blinking fast, the tears clinging to her lashes as she sucks in a breath. "Why.."

Before she can say another word, Jon is taking her into his arms. There on the floor, he pulls her to him and holds fast. She hears his sharp intake of breath as he buries his face into the crook of her shoulder, as his arms wind around her waist. Sansa breathes him in- he smells of horses and a campfire. "I'm an envoy now," he grins when he finally pulls back and the laugh she lets out sounds like a sob. "I've missed you," he sobers, his fingertips tracing the curve of her cheek as he stares into her eyes.

"I've missed you," she whispers, tears falling down her face faster than Jon could wipe them away. "I thought I would truly never see you again." She'll never forget that day, when they had hugged goodbye on the docks of King's Landing, she set to return to the North and her crown, he to remain behind with the dragon queen. "Jon, there's something I must tell you..."

Behind them, as if on cue, Robb lets out a cry.

Jon's eyes widen at the sound and Sansa rises back to her full height, drawing him up with her. "There was a rumor that reached Tyrion," Jon breathes and Sansa shoots him an apologetic smile. "It's... True..?" Sansa doesn't respond but rather takes him by the hand and guides him behind her desk, where the cradle sits just out of sight if one isn't looking for it. Jon knows before she says it, for looking at the baby is like looking into a mirror. The child is certainly his. "Sansa!" He tears his wild gaze from the now smiling baby to look at Sansa, who is staring dreamily down at the infant, her rosy lips curved with a smile.

"I wanted to tell you... That day on the docks..." She says softly, tears once again filling her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispers, looking back up to meet his gaze. Jon shakes his head and leans in, pulling her close to kiss. He wraps her in his arms and kisses her deep, a long slow kiss that he hopes makes up for all the ones they've missed. "Would you like to hold him?" She asks when she's pulled back and Jon gives a nod. Sansa reaches into the cradle and the baby begins to smile and coo as his mother lifts him into her arms. A moment later, she extends out her arms and slips the baby into Jon's. "I named him for Robb," she says, reaching out to brush her fingers through Robb's downy black hair, already curling at the ends like Jon's does.

"Robb," Jon breathes, leaning down to gently kiss the baby's forehead, his heart overflowing when Robb takes hold of his index finger and holds on tight. "My son." He tests out the phrase and knows without a doubt he can never part from them again. He can never stay away. Suddenly, a dark thought takes root, a dark but necessary thought that must come true if he ever wants to keep this child safe. If he ever wants to keep Sansa safe.

He will do anything to keep his family safe.

#anon asks #jonsa #jonsa au #jon x sansa #my writing #i wrote this #send me prompts #writing prompts

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