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punkpoemprose · 3 years

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A Convenient Arrangement Part 10

Universe: Canonverse Arranged Marriage AU Rating:T Length: 8805 Words A/N: Long chapter-- distance makes the heart grow fonder, fluffy date time, questions answered, and Kristoff definitely finds his wife attractive.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9]

The week was a long one. They both would agree when or if asked, but if it wasn’t related to festival plans, no one was asking either one of them anything. When they rose in the morning, they scarcely had time to greet each other in the hall or over breakfast before knocks at the door would pull them each their own way.

Kristoff spent most of his days with Kai, learning all that he could about royal manners, the history of the kingdom, peerage, and the other pertinent information and skills required of a prince consort. He’d be the first to admit it, most of it went over his head. Sometimes when Kai spoke to him he thought that he understood the words well enough individually, but when they were strung together as they were, they may as well have been in French.

He really had no real interest in knowing whether it was more appropriate to bow or be bowed to when he met other members of the aristocracy which he was now technically a part of. He was doing his best to absorb what he could for Anna’s sake. He hated the idea that his lack of knowledge would reflect poorly on her because at the end of the day, even barely seeing her for a week, he cared deeply for her. He knew that part of making their marriage work was putting the effort in to understand her world.

When the lessons ended for the day, he would sometimes, but not always, have dinner with her. It felt like a small blessing to just be in her space since the announcement of the festival celebrating their engagement. He thought that it might be prudent to spend more time with her given that they were meant to at least appear a happy and doting couple to the public, but that detail seemed to be moot to whoever had decided to plan their days apart.

He supposed that he would seem in love with her regardless because he did have a fondness for her. He was beginning to understand the meaning of “distance makes the heart grow fonder” with each passing day. Every time they managed to dine together, he could often barely calm the racing of his heart while watching her enter the dining room, watching her sit across from him, close enough to look, but not to touch.

She’d ask him about what he had done each day and would share, in return, the plans she’d been making with her sister and the staff for the festival. He’d watch her carefully as they dined, noting the exhaustion in her posture that kept them from discussing much of anything past that. It was usually his only interaction with her each day, and it was always entirely too short.

Every night since the start of their overscheduled days, he’d slept in his room alone. Anna was usually needed elsewhere after dinner, attending to decisions and meetings that had been pushed late into the night. Sometimes she was being stolen for a fitting for her festival gown, other times decoration choices, and at least once she’d been taken for a chocolate tasting. That at least seemed to be the least objectionable way for her to spend her evenings of the lot. Each night he’d waited for her to return in vain, and each night he’d eventually headed to bed alone.

It had become strangely lonely to climb into his bed at the end of each day, knowing that she would do the same on the opposite side of their shared door. He’d slept alone for his entire life, but after only a few nights with Anna in his arms, he hated the way it felt to lay in the large empty bed without her. Some nights he would stay awake a short while, expecting to hear her knock or laying there wondering if she wanted him to knock. He’d never heard her knock though, he’d just hear the opening of her door, the soft thuds of drawers and doors as she prepared for bed, and then silence.

From across the room, the small chest he stored his things in would taunt him with the memory of something she’d said just a few days before. A crystal sat amongst his belongings, untouched, waiting for him to work up the courage to remove it from its wrappings.

It would make things so much simpler.

Or infinitely more complicated.

He’d fall asleep like that, wondering whether he should knock, whether he should bring her the gem, whether he should just let things be, or whether he should just go spend the night in the stables with Sven and his worries.

At least then I’d have someone to talk to. I don’t even care that he doesn’t speak back.

He slept in his bed each night, and when he woke each morning, he’d feel like he’d barely slept. By the end of the week, he could see the bags under his eyes when he shaved. Only two weeks living in the lap of luxury and it was already exacting a price from him.

At this rate I’ll be grey in a month.

When the knock came again, he sighed, cleaned the remaining soap from his face and shouted for the knocker to enter. He assumed that Kai was arriving with another of his famously packed schedules. While Kristoff rather liked the man, he’d begun to dread his morning arrival. He’d lived his entire life unscheduled, never bothering to pay much attention to the calendar or clock, and he wasn’t particularly thrilled by the concept of time being his master instead of he being the master of it.

The door swung open behind him with only a light sound of protest from the hinges that were still getting used to the room having an occupant. It had been unoccupied for many years, and the door seemed to have enjoyed its time off as even oiling it hadn’t stopped its protest. The soft click of its closure came immediately after, and Kristoff awaited the address from Kai that didn’t come.

There was, instead, a soft clicking of heeled shoes on the wood floor behind him as he wiped the water from his face. He didn’t think much of it or course, not until he heard another familiar voice that made his heart race.

“Kristoff?”

Anna’s voice startled him. Of course, they usually had a quick morning conversation over breakfast, but she hadn’t been in his room, nor he in hers, in a week. He turned to see her, red faced and staring at his chest.

She looked tired as well and there was a sort of tearfulness to her eye that made him nervous. She clearly hadn’t been sleeping well, and he wondered if she had been upset by something. He could admit to being a little more emotional than usual when he was tired, so he could relate, but he couldn’t quite read what was going on with Anna as she stared at him.

He tossed the towel aside. His hair, which he had been about to comb, was still wet and he could feel rivulets of water dripping down his back and over his chest. Despite the warmth of the sun through his window, he felt cool, hairs standing up on his arms as he closed the space between them in long strides.

As he approached, she was still staring at him, her face flushed, and her lips parted slightly as if she were about to say something. She said nothing though, and he started to understand her expression a bit better. There was exhaustion there of course, but it was only serving to exacerbate the absolute frazzled countenance and posture she was currently performing.

It made him relax a bit. She didn’t look upset per say and he did know that his wife was not a morning person. He also had the sneaking suspicion that there was a small tinge of embarrassment in her eye and that it could explain the flush on her cheeks.

She blinked after a moment and looked up from his chest to meet his eye. He started to get the sense from as quickly as she looked away and to the floor that he understood.

Embarrassment.

It was a feeling that he had become remarkably familiar with in the last couple weeks. He’d spent years of his life half or completely naked in the woods, not knowing what it was like to worry about how he looked or sounded, but the castle was quickly making him aware of just how embarrassed he should be about, well, everything.

It was a feeling that he wasn’t particularly fond of in any way shape or form, but it was something he was getting used to. There was something at least a little bit reassuring in being comfortable with discomfort, knowing it was part of the process. Kai had been kind enough to show him that in their lessons, telling him that he was in the perfect position to always act as if he’d done nothing wrong even when he slipped up, and that if he didn’t react it didn’t give anyone else the room to do so either.

“I’m…” she started to stretch her hand out, reaching for him like she was going to press her palm into his chest.

He didn’t back away or shift from her reach, but her hand fell anyway.

“Sorry. I’m… I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting you to be… well that is… I didn’t know you were still getting ready. I’ll, oh gosh. I’ll leave.”

It all clicked into place then, and Kristoff couldn’t help but feel oddly amused. He felt a smile creeping to his face, completely unbidden, for the first time in a long while. He shook his head.

“No, you’re fine. I just finished up. I just need to put a shirt on and comb my hair. Did you need something?”

She seemed to collect herself somewhat as he responded. He watched as she nodded in return, still flushing, but focusing a bit more on making eye contact with him despite it.

“I thought that we could, um, skip the meetings today? I had Kai clear your schedule. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it would be nice to just get out for the day.”

Her voice went soft when she added, quietly, “I’ve missed you.”

He felt like she’d just handed him the most perfect gift he’d ever received. There was nothing he could imagine ever wanting more than spending time away from the castle with her. There was no greater gift than a break from the frustrating monotony of lessons with the built-in bonus of having her at his side.

“I’ve missed you too.”

He turned from her for a moment, crossing the room back to his dressing table. It was a motion with a twofold intention, allowing her to flush again without the scrutiny of his eye, and allowing him to dress and get ready as soon as possible. He could all but feel her relax behind him once his shirt was on, and it almost made him chuckle.

He remembered her sleeping against his bare chest, her face smushed against him as she slept in the most ridiculous and endearing way possible. It was a happy and sad memory, still fresh in his thoughts from how recent it had been. He’d enjoyed feeling her against him, but still remembered what it had felt like to have her shaking, crying into his shirt just before they slept. He pondered why seeing him without a shirt in the light of day was somehow more blush-worthy but decided that he’d rather not dig too deep into it. He’d be happy if they saw a day where she wasn’t embarrassed around him at all. She had no reason to be.

“You look nice,” she said after a short time.

He’d felt her eyes on him as he’d finished readying himself for the day. He walked over to her, tying his sash around his waist as he went.

He hadn’t been convinced by Kai to change his style of dress, and he had been grateful that the man hadn’t really tried to convince him to do so at all. As a result of this, he was told that he had more clothes coming to him than he’d ever owned before, and that they would be in finer fabrics than he’d ever ben about to afford. He was grateful though that they would mostly mimic the styles he’d always worn, and that they would fit. He couldn’t ask for a better outcome to his tailoring situation than that.

He would have locked himself in the palace’s dungeon before he would have worn all the frills and layers of other men of station. He understood the need for a good suit but would never quite be on board with lace. He evidently had a set of formalwear arriving soon, and while he wasn’t particularly excited about it, he had been promised that his daily wear would not be nearly so embellished and that what he had coming was downright innocuous compared to the season’s fashions. Kai had called it “timeless” and he hoped that what he meant by that was “simple”.

Anna seemed cautious when she walked to his side after offering the compliment. Kristoff held his breath when she reached out a hand and gently smoothed a wrinkle in the front of his shirt with her palm.

Having her hands on him always felt good. There was no denying the fact that he enjoyed her attentions, and he couldn’t help but grin when her touch lingered a little longer than strictly necessary. He’d been longing to see her for days, to hold her hand, to even stand near her side.

“Thank you,” he said quietly after he allowed himself to breathe again.

He turned his attention to what she wore. It was perhaps the simplest dress he’d ever seen her wear, save of course for her nightgowns. It was dark green with some small embroidered details around the neck. It looked a bit like little flowers and birds, though he didn’t dare dip his head down towards her neck to investigate further. He didn’t think he could keep himself from pressing a kiss to her neck if he did. Even without further inspection, the fabric seemed light, like if he touched her waist while she wore it, she might be able to feel the roughness of his fingers through it.

“You look beautiful.”

She grinned at the compliment and he couldn’t help but feel grateful that she was happy to hear such a thing from him of all people.

“Thank you.”

He watched as she laced her fingers together behind her back and fidgeted a bit. Her nervousness came through when she spoke again.

“Since we’re going out I didn’t want to wear anything that would draw too much attention. I’m glad you still like it.”

He almost laughed, but held the reaction in. He wondered how she could ever be nervous about her appearance, as if she weren’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. As if he wouldn’t have thought that she was gorgeous even if they weren’t married. As if every man with eyes in a mile wouldn’t notice her even if she wore rags.

“I’ve told you before Anna, you’ll still turn heads. It has nothing to do with what you wear.”

He meant it, and he was rewarded by a shy smile and the unlacing of her fingers from each other, only to slip between his. The way his heart raced from her simply holding his hand made his face red.

Does she know how easily I’d fall apart for her?

He had to chase the thought away. He had to focus on the moment they were in before he said something he shouldn’t, something they weren’t ready for yet.

“So,” he asked, “What are we doing today?”

She shrugged a bit, then started to pull him toward the door to the hallway with her. He didn’t resist, letting himself be tugged along at her mercy.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

Every time she smiled, with every moment he spent holding her hand, he fell in love a bit deeper.

***

Anna’s morning had, thus far, not gone according to plan. Of course, there had barely been a plan to begin with, but blushing like a schoolgirl over seeing her husband shirtless and having her sister find out about her intentions to leave the castle weren’t exactly indicative of what it was that she’d had in mind.

As a consequence of the latter unplanned component of her day, she now found herself and her fortunately-and-unfortunately-fully-dressed husband being followed by a royal guard in full uniform. She felt like she was thirteen, being chaperoned on a date instead of being an adult woman out on a walk with her husband.

It’s not like I’m planning to snog him in the middle of the market.

Then a more judicious thought.

Of course, I didn’t plan a lot of things that have been happening lately.

She shook it off and instead focused on her recollection of her conversation with her sister.

“There’s still some unrest amongst the people Anna, what would you do if someone decided to take their anxiety out on you?”

She’d wanted to respond in several ways, most of which were incredibly sarcastic, but the forerunners had been each unique in their ability to elicit a response from her sister.

I would survive. You’ve taken your anxieties out on me twice.

From Elsa: Sadness.

I would fight them.

From Elsa: Long suffering exhaustion.

I would let my incredibly big and strong husband take care of it for me while I ogle him from the sidelines because while I love to fight my own battles, I also think it would be nice to watch him fight someone for me so I could watch those biceps flex.

Embarrassment on both of their parts.

Anna had, in the last week of barely seeing him but at meals and in passing, taken a particular interest in her husband’s physique. The morning’s events were not even close to the first time she’d looked at him and thought about what it would be like to be in his arms again, to have his large hands spanning her waist, lifting her off her feet and up closer to him.

So close that we could kiss.

She’d been longing for his touch since the first night she’d slept along. All week, once she managed to slip into a fitful sleep, she’d dreamt of him kissing her. She could still remember how real it had felt in her sleep, not that she knew what it would really feel like. They’d kissed at their wedding, her first and only “real” kiss, but the sort of deep, attentive kiss she’d received from him in her dream was something she’d never experienced.

I want to. I desperately want to.

They were in the residential district of the city. The cobbles of the path were fairly worn, but even below her feet. There were places here and there that she was already mentally noting needed improvement. A few lamps had cracked glass that likely made them unreliable on breezy evenings, some places in the road were low and held water that didn’t drain off easily. She would tell Elsa and ensure that a more formal investigation of the city and national infrastructure was eventually made. Personally, she thought that such a thing might be the better way to improve public opinion of the monarchy than a grand display of power and wealth, but she couldn’t pretend that her wedding hadn’t improved things.

Every now and then as they walked, she’d catch someone looking at her twice. Most people were away from home, working or learning at school, but a few people were home or in the area. Older people and young mothers mostly looked at her with recognition, and she did her best to give them a shy smile without giving the indication that she was available to stop and chat. It was a delicate dance. She liked to speak with her people, of course, but she truly just wanted to spend some time with her husband. One tagalong is already bad enough.

She’d wanted to go to the market. She’d thought it might be enjoyable to see the wares she’d only watched traded from above, but her unwanted guard had insisted that “her royal highness and her consort refrain from entering any highly trafficked and indefensible zones” which had, essentially made a trip to the market impossible unless she wanted a full guard detail.

That would certainly inspire confidence in the monarchy. Hello peasants, we don’t trust you to not murder our Princess, don’t mind the platoon of men you may or may not know who are, at any moment, prepared to stab you!

She’d all but felt Kristoff rolling his eyes in response to the guard’s words. It was like she sensed the expression he was making at her side before she’d even caught him actually making it.

“It’s just a little further… I think,” she said a bit nervously, squeezing Kristoff’s arm as they walked down the street together.

There were a few specialty shops that weren’t housed in the market district, and while she hadn’t visited any of them in many years, she thought that she’d recalled the location of the shop she was after. Thought, of course was the appropriate term given that nothing looked exactly as it had the last time she’d been in the area. The years had a funny way of changing things, and she hadn’t been to the shop without her mother which was indicative of the time that had passed since she’d seen it last.

Kristoff didn’t seem to mind the somewhat aimless walking they were doing. Anna suspected that if she told him the locations she desired to reach, he’d have an answer for her, but she liked keeping it a secret. It gave some small crumb of fun back to the adventure which had been intended to be more daring before their escort had been assigned.

“I bet you know these streets better than I do,” she said after a few more moments of walking, giving voice to her thoughts.

Mostly she was just endeavoring to break the silence between them. He’d seemed rather thrilled to leave the castle, but he’d been quiet since they left. She had a feeling that their unwelcome follower was making him as uncomfortable as it was making her annoyed.

“Not so much in these side streets,” he replied.

He pulled her ever so slightly right as they walked, helping her to avoid a puddle she hadn’t noticed until he was steering her around it. It was sweet, she thought, that he was saving her shoes from getting damp. She also didn’t mind how easily he’d pulled her even closer to his side with the gesture, putting her even more in his space.

“I do know the market fairly well though. When I sell ice I tend to stay over that way.”

Anna nodded and gave him an appreciative squeeze for the assistance with the puddle. He was absolutely the helpful sort, but somehow she doubted that he advertised himself that way. She got the distinct sense in his interactions with the guards, the staff, and anyone else she’d seen him forced to interact with, that he’d rather be seen as gruff and unapproachable. He wasn’t overly so with her, but she sometimes felt that he acted like a grump when in reality he just felt awkward or uncomfortable.

She tended to talk a lot when she felt the same way. It was something she knew about herself, that she dealt with anxiety with exuberance and self-deprecation. She was trying to get a better handle on it, and now with Kristoff at her side she found that it was easier to lean on him for support when she was feeling out of control. She hoped that he’d find he could do the same with her.

When she noticed the shop she was looking for nestled between two houses to their left she excitedly tugged Kristoff in return. She hadn’t been there in a great many years, but the old building still looked the way she remembered it as a child.

Oaken’s Thrifted Goods, Antiques and Consignments.

She’d traveled there every now and again with her mother who, despite being the Queen of their nation, was practical and more interested in the old than the new. They’d always looked for things there that reminded her mother of her youth, little things that were made by hand that reminded Anna that while few knew it, her mother had been common as well.

She sometimes wished that she had asked more questions of her mother, that she had learned the story of how she’d met her father and how they’d come to be wed. All Anna did know was that Iduna wasn’t born in Arendelle and that she was not royal by blood. There were some records somewhere in the archives about her being given a duchy somewhere in the direction of the hinterlands, and with the suddenness that she’d shown up in her father’s public life, she supposed that everyone must have assumed that she was born noble and had simply spent her whole life in the hills.

Maybe, she thought, Kristoff wouldn’t feel so out of place if he knew that he was not the first consort to Arendelle royalty to have been born common. She wondered if he would take comfort in the fact that the nation’s Queen hadn’t had an ounce of royal blood and that it had been purposeful. Marrying for love was not common for aristocracy, but her parents had done it.

“Oaken’s?”

Kristoff seemed confused, staring at the sign for a moment as if in disbelief.

“Yes?”

Anna stopped short of the door, feeling as confused as he was, her confusion having everything to do with his confusion and nothing to do with the shop before them. She didn’t think that the shop had ever moved. It might have changed hands in the years since she’d been there last, the owner had been an older man so she supposed it was possible that the shop was now run by someone who was not an Oaken. She wondered if that was the point of confusion for him, maybe he thought that the business had been renamed or something.

“There’s an Oaken who owns a trading post up in the mountains. It couldn’t be the same guy, right?”

Anna shrugged; she really couldn’t say for sure. She was glad to understand why he was confused, and she couldn’t help but try to recall whether or not the last name was terribly common.

“Because uh…” he looked back toward the guard, and then back at Anna seeming a little sheepish.

He ducked down and whispered in her ear, “The Oaken I know, he and I occasionally get into arguments over pricing. We’ve mostly worked it out, but I thought you should know in case we walk in and I get the stink eye.”

Anna tried to hold back her laugh, but to no avail.

He gave her an exasperated look when she walked them through the door, turning back to tell the guard he wasn’t needed indoors.

“Yet.”

***

Kristoff was grateful to know that the Oaken inside the shop was not the Oaken he’d recently had some “pricing debates” with. They rarely really argued, but he’d felt on one or two occasions that his arguments with Oaken brought the usually even-tempered man to the point of anger. They’d always sorted it out of course, but he was still waiting for the day that the man would throw him out on his rear over a debate.

No, this Oaken was much older, possibly the father of the man he knew, or some other elderly relative given the similarity of their faces and builds. He seemed similarly even tempered thus far, but perhaps a bit less enthusiastic. He’d been pleasant with Anna of course, recognizing her as the crown Princess and evidently a former customer, but he’d also told them in no unspecific terms that he was too old to help them and that if they had any questions, they should come to him because he was not going to them.

“Isn’t it so neat in here?”

Kristoff couldn’t help but smile as he saw Anna taking in the many items packed into the small building. They were arranged neatly, everything from old steamer trunks and hand-crafted furniture to piles of old keys and shelves of dusty books.

Anna grinned at all of it, openly gazing about the space like it was full of gold instead of second and third hand items. He thought that it was charming in a way, that the practical used items of the people who lived in her kingdom were of interest to her.

“My mother and I used to spend hours here when I was a little girl. She taught me how to sew using old tablecloths we bought here… not that I’m particularly good at it, but I can put a button back on if I need to.”

He couldn’t help but find her excitement at least a little bit contagious as he gazed upon the shelves and tables of items with her. There was something about the well-worn tools and broken in chairs in the space that spoke to him in a way that the fancy spotless trappings of the castle just couldn’t. He’d always been practical, and the items here were nothing if not sensible.

“It’s strange for me to try to imagine a Queen here,” he said, hoping that she took no offense to his saying so.

He was happy when he noticed Anna smiling fondly.

“My mom wasn’t really the royal type… not that she didn’t act like a Queen, because she did. She just never saw the point in waste, and she liked simple things. I have a shawl of hers that she had since she was a girl, a pretty handmade thing that she mended herself. That’s how I usually remember her; warm and pragmatic.”

“I’d probably describe my mom the same way,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet yours.”

Anna looked sad for a moment, but Kristoff could tell that it wasn’t his fault. The space brought it out of her as much as it brought her joy. He knew it was her first time here without her, and he was glad that they were talking about it. He was glad that she’d brought him somewhere so important to her.

“I’m sorry too,” she said before taking a deep breath and adding, “she would have liked you.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just gave her what he hoped came off as an appreciative smile and squeezed her hand.

When she squeezed back and leaned into this side, for the first time in a week, he felt like he could truly relax.

“I thought we’d look for some things for your room?”

There was a bit of trepidation in her voice that he registered as nerves coming through. He wondered how long they would be nervous when they spoke to each other, how often they’d be walking on glass with one another. He already trusted her, and he desperately wanted to show himself to be worthy of her trust in return. Testing the already tenuous bonds of their fledgling relationship was understandably nerve wracking.

“I don’t really need much… I brought most of my things with me.”

He didn’t want to shut her down. He didn’t want to say no when she clearly wanted to do something with him. He just was unused to the idea of buying things for himself. He usually only bought what he couldn’t make or find himself

She’s trying.

“I… I know, it’s just… I know the room isn’t probably the way you want it to be. I remember your cabin being a lot cozier and I thought that maybe we could find some things here to make it a little more like that. Elsa suggested we get a decorator for you to consult with, but I kind of thought you’d hate that so…”

She let out a sort of nervous laugh and he felt his heart racing in his chest.

She’s been thinking about this. She’s been thinking about you.

“I… I’m not used to buying things… or having things bought for me. It just feels strange I suppose.”

Anna’s fingers slipped from his then, and the loss of contact was immediately distressing until she felt them tentatively shifting up his arm and wrapping around his bicep. She stepped in front of him and gave him a soft smile before pulling him in the direction of the nearby bookshelves that separated the front and back of the shop, forming an archway between them.

Once they had slipped past the shelves, she pulled him into a smaller alcove in the shop filled from floor to ceiling in small, labeled drawers. According to their labels they held everything from furniture hardware to saltshakers and children’s toys. She leaned into him once they were in the space, hiding them away in the already empty shop save for its owner.

“Please,” she said softly.

She wrapped her arms around him and looked up at him. He thought that she looked a bit determined despite the hesitancy she’d shown a few minutes before.

“I know this is all new and strange to you, but I really just… I want to do something for you. Please? I wasn’t even able to get you a wedding gift, and frankly if you’re worried about money… I guess no one told you about my dowry?”

He blinked for a moment, trying to focus on what she was saying when all he could think about was that she was hugging him. A week away from her touch, and only being somewhat familiar with the feeling of having her wrapped around him was taking its toll on his mind. He was already frazzled, just by the way it felt to have her against him again.

He wrapped his arms around her in return and noticed the way she melted into him a little more as he did so. He did his best to catalogue all the ways in which she was making him feel, and he flushed a bit when he realized that the embrace, combined with the doe eyed gaze she was giving him, was causing a very specific sort of reaction in him that he’d thus far been managing in her presence.

His wife was beautiful, he was getting a very good view of her freckled decolletage, and he was very much a man. He could feel his face going red again.

“I’m sorry,” he said a bit nervously realizing he hadn’t really heard what she’d said, “What?”

“I want to get you some things as a wedding gift, but if you’d prefer… I guess no one told you about the dowry, but there’s…” she cleared her throat, seeming embarrassed to be discussing money with him, “there’s a lot there. I think you have an account with the treasury, maybe Kai was going to tell you later, but anyway… you can afford to purchase things on your own if you want… I just, I really wanted to do something for you today. I wanted to do something with you.”

He almost asked about the dowry, the heart attack that revelation gave him being enough to distract him from the line his thoughts had been running in, but he could tell the discussion was making Anna uncomfortable. He didn’t exactly feel like telling her in this fraught moment that he wanted no bride price from her, and that certainly didn’t need the sort of exorbitant amount of money she was implying.

“If you would enjoy it,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat when the words came out a bit muddled, “I’m sure we could find something. You’re right, the room isn’t exactly cozy.”

I can’t tell her that I prefer her room over mine.

She smiled then and leaned her head into his chest. He felt the tension leaving both of their bodies when he pulled her closer.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He pressed a kiss into her hair and reveled in the soft sound she made in return. He longed for the day he’d kiss her properly.

***

Anna had almost felt bad relegating their guard to purchase handling duty.

Almost.

Of course, it hadn’t been his fault that he’d been sent to mettle in her day plans, but she was still a little miffed that he’d prevented her from taking Kristoff into the market to pick out some new things for his room. She knew that it was because Elsa had been the one to insist upon his guarding, but Anna wished that sometimes people were more amenable to bending her sister’s rules. She certainly was herself.

It didn’t matter now though, not when she felt Kristoff’s hand at her back, supporting her on the ladder they’d requested be brought up to his room so that Anna could hang the sage green curtains they’d managed to find at the shop.

He’d laughed at her glee over finding them, and she’d felt genuinely happy to be laughed at. She liked that her enthusiasm brought him joy, and truly she hadn’t felt like she was being laughed at by him. The better term would be that he was laughing with her, and she thought that if it was something that they could do together every day, their marriage would be exactly what she’d always wanted.

All I’ve ever wanted was for someone to love me.

She saw it in his eye when he helped her off the ladder. The joy of sharing the domesticity of the day with her, the spark of something that she might dare call like if not love. She held the joy it brought her in her heart, locked it up tight so that nothing that might occur in the next week leading up to the festival might steal it from her.

“You’re right,” he said warmly, “They do make it feel less…”

“Formal,” she finished.

The curtains were simple, a plain sage green with some small vines at the very top and bottom embroidered in white thread. Had she been any good at it, or had she had the patience for it, she liked to think that it would have been the sort of thing she would have made for him.

He nodded, and she felt his hands linger at her waist even when she was standing back on solid ground.

They’d shared lunch when they’d returned, eating it at the table in his room that was now decorated with a small candle holder she’d found that reminded them both of Sven’s antlers.

“When they bring the high back chairs up from storage, I think that’ll help too. We can have them put by the fireplace.”

She’d insisted that since he hadn’t allowed her to purchase any furniture for him, even used, that he select some furniture from the castle storage to improve the comfort of the space. He had selected a few items from a list she’d sent for while they were dining and she was rather pleased by his choices.

Making his room more comfortable for him was something that she was taking great enjoyment from.

That I’m also making it more comfortable for me is just a bonus.

She couldn’t really lie to herself. It was, in part, by design that she had insisted on two chairs instead of one, and that she’d encouraged him to pick a lovely quilt from the shop that made her think of the one they’d been wrapped in at his cabin. She couldn’t deny that she was thinking ahead to a time where perhaps she’d spend more time in his space, though she could hardly dare to think about a time beyond that, a time where his things would blend together with hers and where they would spend every night together. A time where the door between their rooms wouldn’t be needed.

Her heart raced every time the thought crossed her mind.

He lifted up the last remaining item they had to find a home for, a small wooden trinket box that he’d taken an interest in early on in their search. It had been amongst a pile of tools but had not been large enough to hold any of them. It was simple, smaller than her jewelry boxes, but roomy enough to fit a few small objects. The top had a line of trees burned into it but was the only decoration on the piece.

“I think I know what belongs in here,” he said after a few moments of looking it over.

I think I do too.

Her heart raced when he crossed the room to his chest and kneeled to the floor to open it. She’d been hoping, quietly, almost secretively to even herself, that he would want to show her the crystals again.

What did it mean? Why did he nearly kiss me after I told him about the glow?

***

The crystals were wrapped loosely in scraps of fabric, protecting their rough natural edges from chipping and breaking. He could feel the soft hum of magic inside each of them, even through the cloth. His parents had taught him how to feel it, encouraging him to focus on it and to guide the magic into his hands. He would never be able to control it as they did. Magic didn’t run in his blood like it did theirs, but as Anna approached behind him, he made the choice to show her, at least as much as he could, the importance of the gems.

He patted the floor beside him and was grateful when she didn’t hesitate to sit at his side in front of the box. He watched as she quickly settled herself to his side, her knees bumping into his gently as she sat.

“I think they deserve a special home,” he said, gesturing to the box he’d already set on his other side.

One deserves a very special home. It belongs with you.

The thought didn’t exactly catch him off guard as much as it slipped through the cracks of the wall he’d been holding it behind. He couldn’t admit to himself that he had a great deal of hope about what Anna had said before about the crystal, because to admit that would be to invite disappointment when the outcome was decidedly not what he was hoping for.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I love her. If it’s not by fate it’s at least by choice.

He took some small comfort in it as he unwrapped the gems and lifted out the yellow one first.

“This one,” he said, focusing on the way it felt warm in his palm, encouraging it to give off a light glow, “is a fire crystal. They come in a few shades of red and orange and yellow. The trolls can actually start fires with them, but I can get it to warm up a little if I really focus on it.”

After a moment of quiet between them he heard her gasp as the crystal began to glow a pale yellow. He couldn’t help but grin when he handed it to her and let her watch the glow fade. He noticed the way she hovered a hand above the stone feeling the slight warmth radiate off of it from above as she felt it in her palm. She seemed thoroughly impressed and he couldn’t help but feel a bit proud to have been able to show it to her.

He handed her the small box and watched as she carefully set the stone inside. Once she was finished, he pulled out the next crystal, the blue one. He’d never had quite as much luck getting an effect with it, but he could make it glow.

“This one is a water crystal. The trolls can get them to make rain, but I’ve only ever been able to get a little condensation on the outside and I’m not convinced it wasn’t just sweat from my hand.”

When she laughed he felt light.

It’s easy to feel hopeful when everything she does makes my heart race.

The gem let off a light glow, but little more. She seemed impressed nevertheless and when he handed it to her, she focused on it in her palm for a short while before setting it too into the box with great care.

He had to remind himself to breathe watching her look from the box to him. When her eye met his, a strange knowingness there, he felt fear leave him. They were so close that he could easily kiss her, just by leaning in. He let the cloth fall away from the last crystal and forced himself to inhale deeply, breaking their eye contact to turn his attention to the pale pink gem.

She’s my wife. I love her.

“This one,” he began, lifting it from the fabric with his other hand to show her better, “This one is special. Every man in my family receives one when they reach adulthood, and they guard it closely. Its magic is special because it’s tied to the heart. I never really listened to everything my father told me about it because I never thought I’d have a reason to show it to anyone, but…”

She was looking at him intently, her eyes meeting his and then glancing to his lips. He felt his heart racing.

“Why doesn’t it glow when you hold it?” she asked, breaking the long silence where he’d let his speech drop off.

He gave her a soft, almost rueful smile. She felt like there was a joke there that she didn’t understand.

“Because it’s mine,” he started, then after a moment’s thought, continued, “It’s confusing and hard to explain if you weren’t raised knowing about it, but essentially the trolls think that everyone has a fated partner, a second half. You know they believe in fate, we discussed it when you met them, but this is the ultimate show of that belief. The only person that is supposed to make your gem glow is your soulmate.”

She flushed and he longed to give her a better reason to do so than a crystal. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and tell her that it didn’t matter whether or not it glowed when she touched it. He wanted to kiss her and show her how little it mattered to him, but it would be a lie.

It does matter. I love her. I want her to see that I will only ever love her.

He knew she’d be crushed if it didn’t.

He watched as she extended her hand to him slowly. There was a shine to her eye that he understood as nerves. She’d told him before that the gem had glowed when she’d touched it, but he had thought about all the things it could have been, and was sure that she was worried about it as well.

A trick of the light, a fluke, a misremembrance from a day where she’d been given shock after shock.

“You don’t have to.”

She gave him a soft smile in return.

“I think we both know that I do.”

There was a finality in the way she cautiously uncurled her fingers, insisting that he deposit the gem in her hand. He wondered if she truly believed what she had seen before, or if the nerves he had seen in her were from the concern that it wouldn’t react to her touch.

He dropped it into her palm and felt the racing of his heart reach a crescendo.

Pink.

***

Anna felt her heart racing as he handed her the gem. She could see in his eyes that this meant even more than he was saying.

Soulmates. The glowing means we’re soulmates.

She’d spent her whole life wanting to be wanted, wanting to be someone’s everything. She tried to shake off her concerns that she’d been seeing things before when she’d made the gem glow in his cabin, but it was hard to believe that she had always been meant for someone, that she and Kristoff had been fated to be together.

She saw the shakiness of his normally steady hand as he held the gem over her palm, and she had to remind herself to breathe in the moments before he released it into her hand.

She gasped when the cold gem hit her skin and immediately sent a bright pink glow across her palm.

Fate.

Soulmates.

She’d already known. Something inside her had known since their wedding night, even before the trolls, that with Kristoff was where she was meant to be. The confirmation had her joyous.

He wrapped his hand over hers when he recognized the light, squeezing the gem between their palms and doing nothing to dampen the glow. If anything, Anna thought that it might be glowing even more under the combined touch of their skin. She didn’t have long to notice whether it was true or not though, because her view was quickly blocked by Kristoff entering her space.

Her eyes fluttered shut as he wrapped his free arm around her, pulling her to him enthusiastically. She let an appreciative, borderline needy, sound slip from her mouth and was rewarded by the press of his lips to hers.

It was a remarkably different kiss to the one they’d shared at their wedding. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t chaste, and it wasn’t required.

She took the hand that was not entwined with his and let it slip up to his hair naturally. She’d wanted to slide her fingers through his hair for well over a week, and now it felt instinctive to do so. Her hand squeezed a bit tighter against his as she deepened the kiss, feeling the way he drew her in even closer as she did so.

She didn’t try to tame the soft sounds of pleasure that slipped from her mouth and into his, she didn’t fight it when he kissed her breathless. She simply forged ahead, feeling safe and loved in her husband’s arms, kissing him with love and appreciation.

My husband. My soulmate. How could I ever have doubted it for even a moment?

***

He hated to be the one to break the kiss, especially after being the one to initiate it. Unfortunately, what he could remember of his family’s tradition dictated that he stop kissing her at some point. He had work to do now, and there was only one place he could do it.

He let his free hand slide up from where he’d been holding her, to her cheek, cradling it. Her eyes were still half lidded and showed pleasure in their darkness as she looked from his lips to his eyes. She was glowing as much as the gem was, and he couldn’t help but to take a moment to just stare at how beautiful his wife was.

She leaned her head into his palm lovingly, almost nuzzling him. He thought that someday if she allowed him to, they’d sit just like this again and he’d count each and every freckle on her nose and cheeks. It was a scene that played out nicely in his thoughts, giving him the strength through promises of the future, to pull away.

“I’m sorry Anna, but I have to leave for tonight. I have to go do something… I have to tell…”

“You have to tell your family,” she said matter of factly, understanding in the face of his uncertain apologetics.

“It’s okay,” she added after a moment, “I’ll still be here when you come home.”

What she didn’t say, but what he heard in her tone was the “I love you”.

He leaned in again and when she kissed him, he felt the words in the act. He tried his best to give it to her in return.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Anna, my wife, my soulmate, I love you.

Someday soon he’d say it out loud.

#kristanna #frozen fanfiction #A Convenient Arrangement #Arranged Marriage AU

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marvelstarwarsetc · 3 years

Text

I’ll Be Seeing You - B. Barnes

Summary: In which the reader was in WW2 with Steve and Bucky, and she and Steve realize that Bucky is still alive during the fight on the bridge.

Warnings: Fight scenes, Angst.

A/N: I am absolutely terrible at summaries but this has been floating around in my head for so long and I finally finished writing it. I set it up so that there could be a Part 2 if people like it enough and want me to write one. I could definitely turn this into a series if I was motivated enough to do so lol.

A ghost. That’s how Natasha had described him at the hospital, with a look of fear in her eyes that was rarely ever present on the former assassin.

Ghost was certainly a perfect way to describe him. He came out of nowhere, striking hard and fast, aiming to kill.

His face was completely concealed under a mask and a pair of black goggles, dark hair hanging loosely around his face. He wore a black tactical suit, the left sleeve missing in order to showcase a metal arm with a red star painted amongst the silver plates.

It was clear he had some form of the super soldier serum running through his veins, his strength and agility close to if not beating that of mine and Steve’s. He was a skilled fighter, each of his fluid movements calculated and thoroughly thought through. Each blow Steve and I dealt was dodged expertly, the assassin known as The Winter Soldier never missing a beat. Had it not been for the fact he was trying to kill us I would almost be in awe of the way he moved.

As my back collided with yet another parked car I sighed, taking the brief moment Steve had allowed me when he started another assault on the soldier to refill my lungs with the air that was just knocked out of me. Then I was back in it, striking the soldier from behind, in time with Steve’s blows at the front.

But the soldier was good, he was fast, and not nearly enough of my hits were actually landing. If they were ever landing at all.

It was when he turned to face me that I finally got the upper hand, using the momentum from his turn against him, I slammed my fist into the side of his head. The force was enough to send him stumbling back a few steps, and it caused his goggles to drop to the ground. His eyes met mine with a murderous glare and I felt my body still completely, my own eyes widening in both horror and recognition.

I knew those eyes. A stormy mixture of blues and greys, colder than I had last seen them. But I knew them. I knew those eyes a lifetime ago, stared into them more times than I could count. Watched various emotions pass through them the longer I knew the person those eyes belonged to. They held little to no emotion now, just pure anger. A pain resting so deeply in his stare that you’d miss it if you didn’t know the person those eyes belonged to. But I did. I knew those eyes, and they held no recognition as they regarded my own covered face.

I wore the mask to help keep my private life private. To separate the Avenger from the person. It was bad enough when someone recognized me from the exhibit at the Smithsonian and had more questions than I had answers. The tech Tony had installed in the mask was also an added bonus, the assistance of Jarvis more than welcome in a fight. But right now, the mask felt like a mistake.

It felt like a barrier between me and the man who fell from that train all those years ago.

He had been dead for about 70 years. Him standing here in front of me was nearly impossible. But then again, Steve and I were both meant to be dead ourselves, and we both were standing here fighting with him now. He regarded me curiously, no doubt wondering why I had stopped fighting back, those familiar eyes taking in my relaxed stance and my arms hanging limply by my sides. He threw another punch and I could hear Jarvis’ voice in my ear reminding me that the fight wasn’t over yet and offering assistance if I needed it. I could hear Steve yelling in the background, voicing his concerns on why I was no longer fighting back. Steve was begging me to continue fighting back. But Steve hadn’t seen his eyes yet. He didn’t know.

The hits kept coming and as hard as Steve tried to fight him off of me, as loud as Steve’s shouts got for me to fight back. I couldn’t. The memories of eyes filled with hope and longing paralyzing me as my body hit the ground.

I was running late, as usual. The briefing with Captain Rogers and the rest of the Howling Commandos once again running later than expected. We were meant to be going over the schematics of our mission for the next day, but everyone kept getting distracted by the news of the band the army was bringing in for tonight. An effort to raise the troops’ spirits. It was what everyone on the base was discussing, each of the soldiers trying to find a date for the night’s festivities. Peggy and I had already turned down several invitations from various desperate soldiers.

Every time Steve tried to bring the attention back to the mission, Dum Dum would bring up whether or not Steve planned on asking Peggy to be his date for tonight, and all of the guys would tease the captain as he blushed helplessly.

It was inevitable that he would ask her, that much was clear. But the guys just loved to ruffle our captain’s feathers, which would have been fine if I wasn’t meant to meet with Peggy and Howard an hour ago about about some new weapons for the mission tomorrow.

Seemingly noticing the annoyance on my face Steve’s turned to a look of recognition and he apologized for keeping me from my meeting with Peg and Stark, and dismissed me from the briefing.

I was about halfway to my destination when a familiar voice called out after me, stopping me in my tracks and causing me to roll my eyes in mock annoyance at the pet name he refused to stop using.

“Hey, Doll! Wait up!” Turning, I watched as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes jogged towards me with a leather bound book gripped tightly in his left hand. My journal, I recognized.

“Don’t call me that,” I said softly, for what felt like the millionth time since we had met at that gym in our home town of Brooklyn all those years ago. He smiled at me, a mischievous glint in his eye since we were both more than aware he would only continue to call me that.

“You left this on the table, you were in such a hurry that you must’ve forgotten it.”

I take it from him with a small smile and a quiet thank you, and then continue to walk towards where I knew Peggy was waiting for me. No doubt thinking of all the ways she was about to murder me for being so late. I expected Bucky to go back to hangout with the other guys, but was surprised when he fell into step beside me, his hands resting in his pants pockets as we walked.

When the building came into view his left hand reached out and gently gripped onto my right arm, causing me to halt and turn to him.

He looked at me softly, a longing resting in his blue-grey eyes that I had seen numerous times before. A look that was shared between the two of us more times than I could count.

“Doll-”

“Don’t call me that.”

A laugh left his nose in a huff as the sides of his mouth raised in a smile, his eyes looking towards the winter sky before looking back to me.

“Y/N, I actually came looking for you because I wanted to ask ya something.” He started, his voice soft as he continued to look at me with those same eyes that I couldn’t help but feel myself get lost in.

“I thought you came to give me my journal?” Another laugh, and then his eyes once again focused on me.

“I was wondering if you’d be interested in going to see the band tonight?” His voice was nervous, his eyes full of hope and something I couldn’t quite place. I knew what he was asking. I was hoping he wouldn’t.

It’s not that I didn’t want to go with him. In any other scenario I would have said yes in a single heartbeat. However, this wasn’t any other scenario. I was the only woman in the Howling Commandos, the only woman on the front lines in the entire U.S army. Getting them to accept me even after Dr. Erskine gave me the serum was almost impossible. Every day that I am here I have to prove myself. I have to be better, stronger, faster. I didn’t need to show my true feelings for another soldier and have everyone use it as a means to try and get rid of me.

And if that wasn’t enough of a reason there was the obvious one. We were in a war. A war where people died constantly and there was nothing to do but keep fighting. I had already lost my father and three brothers to this war, my twin included. I refused to let myself get close to someone and then lose them too. Losing my twin brother almost killed me. And looking into Bucky’s eyes I knew that losing him would be more than I could handle.

Still, not being able to find the strength in my heart to turn him down directly I did what I always did. Deflected.

“I fully intend on going to the band tonight,” I stated in a matter of fact tone, my eyes betraying me when I had to look away from his stare.

“You know how I meant it, Doll.” His voice was soft, yet steady, and his gaze never once faltered as his blue orbs bore into mine.

“Don’t call me that,” I said meekly. My eyes cast completely at our boots in the snow now, not being able to find the strength to look at him any longer. All it did was make me falter in my reserve.

I heard him sigh, and then he said my name so softly I almost didn’t hear him. The softness in his voice cause my eyes to meet his, and his smile was kind, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“At least save me a dance, Doll?”

I simply nodded my head slowly, words not coming to me in that moment. The way he was looking at me was causing my brain to malfunction, I was sure of it. I couldn’t go as his date, but what was the harm in one dance?

“I’ll see you tonight then, Doll.”

And then he was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts before I turned around to see a smirking Peggy standing behind me, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at me knowingly.

“Alright then, since you’ve managed to skip our meeting almost entirely I don’t see the point in trying to start it now. Stark will just have to explain things to you before your mission tomorrow. Now, we have a dance to go get ready for.”

I smiled at my friend thankfully, before the two of us made our way to our shared tent to try and find something in her closet to wear tonight.

By the time we finally walked into the large tent the band was playing in, the party was in full swing. Men and women were dancing and laughing gleefully, something that had become a rare sight in recent years. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to something like this, or even had worn a dress.

Peggy had leant me a sea green number, with long sleeves and had what Peg called a “floaty A-line skirt” that came to just below my knees. It was possibly the most comfortable dress I had ever worn, which is what made me agree to keep it on even though I much rather would have put my trousers and boots back on. Peg had even done a little makeup on me, and it made me realize that I don’t think I’d ever worn makeup in my life.

“Y/L/N, You might finally give Barnes a heart attack tonight looking like that.” Dum Dum called from behind me, making me shake my head with a light laugh as I turned to my fellow Howling Commandos. They were all regarding me with curious looks, no doubt wondering how Peg got me to agree to wear this.

“Forget Barnes, I think I’m having one right now!” Morita clutched at his heart with a dreamy look on his face, causing Dum Dum to hit him on the back of his head with a laugh. I only chuckled at my friends’ antics.

Peggy went off to find Steve, and I found myself getting lost in the crowd searching for a familiar pair of blue eyes.

Dum Dum must have recognized what I was doing, because he only made a sound of disapproval before taking my hand and leading me over to the dance floor, guiding me in the steps to the dance that everyone here seemed to know but me.

"I thought you turned him down when he asked you to be his date?” Dum Dum asked me in between steps, and I rolled my eyes softly.

“I suppose I should have guessed he’d go back and tell you all of our conversation.”

“When are you gonna stop pushing him away and realize what everyone else already knows?” My friend asked me softly, knowing it was a touchy subject for me. Dum Dum knew full well why I was so reserved about admitting my feelings for a certain blue-eyed soldier. One night with a bottle of bourbon and the man had me confessing all of my greatest fears to him.

“Timothy, you know why I don’t.” The use of his first name caused the man to let out an additional sound of disapproval as he led me through the next part of the dance.

“Aren’t dames supposed to know how to dance? You step on my foot again and I might lose it!” He joked, my hand coming out to swat at his arm.

“Call me a dame again and you’ll lose more than just your foot!”

Over the course of the next few songs I found myself dancing with each one of the Howling Commandos, excluding Steve, who was dancing with Peg happily. Both wore big smiles, and the sight warmed my heart and made me question myself for a moment.

Peggy and Steve were clearly in love with one another, and it was clear that they would end up spending the rest of their lives together when this was all over. Their love for one another was so clear that everyone who took one look at them knew it, and no one thought of Peg as any less strong because of it. So why would it be any different for me?

My thought was cut off when the song ended and the male singer took a break, a woman taking the stage in a beautiful dress, the sparkles making her seemingly shine. The band started a new song, something much slower than the last few. I let go of Jim and thanked him for the dance, before excusing myself and heading for the exit.

We had an early mission in the morning. An important mission at that. We finally got a good lead on where Zola would be heading next, and were going to board the train and stop him before he could get to his next destination. If this mission was successful and we captured the scientist, it would give us a leg up on The Red Skull. A leg up that could possibly mean an end to this war.

I had just exited the tent when my body collided with another, nearly knocking me off my feet before a large pair of hands grabbed my forearms and stopped my body from colliding with the snow covered ground.

I went to apologize, but stopped when I looked up to see Bucky standing in front of me in his uniform, his hands still lightly grasping my arms. His smile overcame his entire face when he looked at me, and the sheer happiness in his eyes was enough to make my heart swell.

“All these years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen ya in a dress, Doll.” His tone was playful, yet warm, and in that moment I couldn’t find it within myself to argue with him about that name.

“You’re late.” I informed him softly, his hands now leaving me and causing a cold feeling to fill my body from the loss of contact. Though he didn’t pull away from me, and was still so close I could feel his breath on my face.

“Had some stuff to do before tomorrow, but I made sure to come down to dance with my best girl.”

Ignoring the fluttering in my chest I took a step away from him, reminding myself of why I couldn’t get close to him.

“I was just leaving-”

“Just one dance, Doll. You promised.” And before I could say anything Bucky took my hand in his, his right hand moving to my waist to hold me delicately, starting to sway us slightly to the new song that was just beginning to play.

I recognized the song. It was a soft one, with a pretty melody. I think the original singer’s name was Billie Holiday, but the woman on stage sang it just as beautifully. The words reaching something deep inside of me.

I'll be seeing you In all the old familiar places That this heart of mine embraces All day through

I wound my free hand around the back of his neck affectionately, bringing the two of us closer than we ever had been before. From this angle I could see every shade that nestled inside of his blue eyes, the colors swirling as he looked at me with that look in his eyes that I still couldn’t place. The look that set my skin on fire every time he looked at me like that.

In that small cafe The park across the way The children's carousel The chestnut trees The wishin' well

“Doll, there’s something that I’ve been wantin’ to tell ya for a while now,” He began. A nervousness setting in his eyes and mixing with that unknown feeling.

“What is it, Buck?” I asked, my voice in a near whisper. The nighttime air was cold, yet comforting as the soldier held me in his embrace, the band’s song wrapping around us as it floated through the air.

I'll be seeing you In every lovely summer's day In everything that's light and gay I'll always think of you that way

“You look absolutely stunning tonight, Doll.” He let out in a breath, his nervous eyes still focusing on mine.

“You’ve been wanting to tell me that I look stunning tonight for a while?” I joked lightly, causing him to laugh.

“No. Well not no, you do look stunning tonight. So stunning. Absolutely beautiful, not that you’re not beautiful all the time! I think you’re always beautiful, which kind of has to do with what I’ve been trying to tell you-”

I cut him off with a soft whisper of his name, not wanting him to finish his sentence because I didn’t have the strength to hear it and then have to walk away and pretend that I didn’t.

I'll find you In the morning sun And when the night is new I'll be looking at the moon But I'll be seeing you

“Buck, Please don’t.”

“I know that you’re scared, Doll. I know and I understand it, I do. I understand it because every time I look at you, I am so terrified of losing you. I know that things are tricky right now-”

“Things aren’t tricky, Buck! We are in the middle of a war. Either one of us could die at any time. We could die tomorrow, and I can’t lose you. That’s why you can’t finish your sentence, because there’s just too much we could lose if you do.”

“Doll, Y/N. Me not saying it won’t stop either of us from losing the other. Whether I say it now or don’t one of us could still die. And don’t you think it would be so much worse to lose each other without having told each other what we both already know?”

I'll be seeing you In every lovely summer's day In everything that's light and gay I'll always think of you that way

The song continued to play but we had stopped dancing by now, just desperately holding onto each other as Bucky’s words hung in the air.

“You are everything to me, Y/N. My light, my laughter. The reason I get out of bed every morning to face another day of this war is knowing that I get to do it beside you. I look at you and I forget every bad thing that’s happening. I look at you and I’m not in the middle of Siberia fighting a war that we might not win. I look at you and I’m back in Brooklyn, watching the cluelessly beautiful girl sweep around the gym just waiting until everyone leaves so she can start throwing punches at the bag. I look at you, Doll, and I’m home.”

By the end of his confession tears were lining my face, freezing against my skin as the cold Siberian night air brushed against them. His hands let go of me and instead came up to hold my face delicately, his thumbs reaching up to brush the tears away.

“I love you, Y/N. More than I’ve ever loved anybody else. More than someone can love another person. It fills me completely. Every ounce of my being is you. And I know that you’re scared. And I know that you probably won’t say it back to me because you’re the most stubborn person I have ever met in my life, and that’s okay. It’s okay if you can’t say it back right now. It’s okay because I know that you love me too, even if you can’t say it.”

He finally ends his confession with a lingering kiss to my forehead, pouring so much love into that one simple gesture, and then he lets me go. He gives me one last smile before telling me he’ll see me tomorrow, and turns back towards his tent.

I'll find you In the morning sun And when the night is new I'll be looking at the moon But I'll be seeing you

I’m shocked back to reality when this version of Bucky’s fist lands a hit so hard to my face that the metal of my mask cracks, finally making me have to take it off to avoid it slicing into my skin further.

The second the mask leaves my face his assaults stops coming. When I open my eyes he isn’t the winter soldier anymore. The look in his eyes is a mixture of hurt, anger, confusion, recognition, and that look I haven’t seen in nearly seventy years.

It’s clear that whatever Hydra’s done to him had jumbled his mind. If they hadn’t, he would have recognized Steve right away.

I lay motionless beneath him, not daring to make a move as his mind tries to process what’s going on. I can see the confrontation going on in his head as every emotion presents itself in his eyes.

Finally, he focuses back on me and removes the mask from where it covered his nose and mouth. Physically, he has barely aged in the last seventy years. But all the innocence that remained on his face then was completely absent now. His features hardened by heartache and death.

In the background I can hear Steve’s gasp as he finally realizes who we had been fighting and why I had stopped the moment I saw his eyes.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, drawing Bucky’s attention from me as he gets up and turns toward his once best friend.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #the winter soldier #the winter solider fanfiction #the winter solider x reader #the winter solider imagine #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes one shot #captain america

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kanene-yaaay · 3 years

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Tickle me, princey

Kanene’s note: This fic is basically: Virgil is a bratty Lee, Roman is a competitive Ler and none of them are going down without a fight xDD.

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* Lee!Virgil and Ler!Roman (Kind of. Because there is almost no tickles here, just teasing). Human AU.

* Hmmm… This is a Tickle-Fanfic! If you don’t like this kind of stuff, please look for another blog, there are plenty of amazing art in this site!! ‘u’).

* This have about 2.500 words of Roman and Virgil just being teasy beans. ‘w’)b.

* PLEASE CHECK THIS AMAZING ART! IT’S INCREDIBLEE! <33

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! I didn’t proofread that one very well, so I will probably be correcting a few things later. Any advice is always very, very welcome!

* A versão em português brasileiro irá ser escrita, ainda. Eu espero! Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Do something crazy today, take a good rest, be kind (especially with yourself) and drink water! Byeioo!~

[~*~]

Roman cleaned his hands on his jeans before stretching his back and sighing in relief when a small ‘pop’ came from it. The pal from the nearby library was a cool person – not that he would ever allow the other to hear this, because, damn, people who called Roman cocky definitely haven’t met them yet – but equally precise in get on his nerves with as few words as possible, even though the florist didn’t care that much as his dramatics discourses tried to convince everyone he did.

Besides that, they was Patton’s friend and even more important, they made an accord with the Flower Shop’s owner and Roman was the one in charge to deliver their biweekly floral arrangement to the library’s decór. However, today Roman managed to win their discussion and therefore a couple of podcast episodes read by them (What? Their voice was quite nice!!).

Roman ignored the small ring of the door’s bell as he entered the Flower Shop, looking around to be sure there was no clients before taking his position behind the balcony, internally thanking how chill Patton was with his employees using phone during the shift as long there wasn’t no one near, especially as he unlocked his screen and a new notification popped in front of him.

Butterflies went immediately crazy on his stomach.

[Message from Panic! At Everywhere]

[P: Hey. So, are you still ok?]

Virgil kicked his blanket out of his bed, already feeling a tad of giddiness spread across his body, a small smirk finding its way to his face without him even realizing. Today was the day. Since when he and Roman talked on the last week about boundaries to be sure nothing had changed and decided Saturday as a good day for their session the one with purple hair couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander, picturing and re-picturing what would happen, even though Roman always insisted to never tell him his plans, wanting to keep everything as a surprise, which definitely didn’t help at all the excitement running on his veins.

Their session.

Their tickle session. It was only eleven in the morning and Virgil could already feel his skin tingle just by imagine Roman’s fingers grazing, dancing on it, carefully looking for all his weak spots both knew so well before coming with an entire new technique that would make the other (almost, barely, hardly) want to jump out of his skin so he could escape from the maddening tickly sensation.

He was going to love it.

Also, it didn’t help that he spent the previous night and its following morning consuming all his favorite tickle content, dying on the spot (and on the reblogs) and skyrocketing his lee mood to the mountains.

Nevertheless, he tried to play nonchalant as answered the other’s new message.

[Message from Dumb(o)]

[D: Yes.]

[P: Cool.]

[D: You?]

[P: Yep.]

[D: Glad to know, Blushy Bug. Try to not alarm all of our neighborhood with your squeals and giggles before I get there, okay? ~

D: And yeah, plu-e-ase, continue with your so delightful tags on your reblogs, okay, Tickle me Emo? I’m learning so much new information with that. If only I would have an opportunity to use all of them today…]

Virgil snorted, one hand trying to hide his face as he attempted with all his might to ignore the flames taking over his cheeks as the teases sank and the memories from the day he conquered this nickname emerged from the deeps of his mind. So, Princey was already so over his head with being the ler this time? Thinking Virgil would be hiding his face on the pillow, squeaking and tittering helpless? Well, he would have a big storm coming, then.

Virgil got up, his footsteps leading him to the clean desk in the room, moving some of the objects so carefully chosen in order to get the perfect picture. Every single makeup brush lined, gleaming under the lens of his camera, away enough so the viewer would be able to realize all their individualities but close enough to create an impact.

Two can play this game.

[Panic! At Everywhere sent an image]

Roman clicked on it, eyes going immediately wide as he quickly slammed the cellphone’s screen on his red apron, his gaze running from a place to another to be sure no one was near or had seen the conversation or noticed the way his smile went from an ear to another.

[P: Nah. I’m too occupied choosing the perfect tools for today… I mean, there are just so many options, ya know? I especially prefer the smallest ones, their bristles softly running on my ribs, tracing their way across my tummy to get to the other side… yeah. That is the good stuff. Or maybe we could be experimenting the biggest ones today, letting them tease that spot right under my chin, the softness engulfing all the nerves… ]

Roman took a deep breath, realizing the other still typing.

[P: Anyway, don’t make a big deal of this, ‘kay? I know your imagination can be very fertile but try to not alert Patton with all your blush and twitching. You know he is a curious guy and will want to know why you’re so smiley. ;)]

“Pai amado, (Dear God) he is going to kill me.” Roman crossed his arms, using all his will to no start wiggling them to nothing, a sudden urge to sing some nursery rhymes making him begin to humming quietly as attempted to gather enough concentration to type a proper, cool reply.

[D: Is that so? So, the big, badass Virgil Storm is excited to get all his tickly-tickle-tickles today? Is he excited to become a so helpless, so adorable mess of giggles and squeaks? To be teased and tickled until he can do nothing but give me those lovely snorts and wiggly-wiggles? ~

Awww. So cute. ~]

[P: Yeah, I am. So what? Wanna do something about that, Sir Sing a Lot?

Ops, I forgot you’re at work rn. Tsc. Such a pity. Well, guess I will have to kill some time by looking at your precious collection of feathers, see if I find something interesting there.]

[D: You just wait for when I get home.]

[P: :)]

Virgil laid his phone at his side, hiding his face on the mattress, kicking just like he was some teenager in love from those generic movies. The squeals bubbled out from his lips, smiles blooming. He knew he probably was just digging his own grave, but, ha, as if he would fall without a fight. Plus, imagining Roman trying at every cost to keep a straight expression while reading his texts and then struggling to continue his work just as if nothing had happened, with that cute, excited smile planted on his face made a proud wave of power – and joy - hit him and that was a bonus which was worth it.

Then his phone vibrated, indicating a new notification and a new flood of shivers as he unlocked his screen, freezing for a couple of heartbeats with the length of the message.

[D: A poem for my dear Knightmare. ~

Once upon a time

There was a wiggley-wiggly lee

That just a few pokes

Made him giggle with glee

Some scribbles here

Some scratches there

You can tickle-tickle

He is ticklish everywhere!

What, you don’t believe me?

‘That much cute he can’t be!’

Well, then allow me to demonstrate

All the beautiful sounds he can create!

Give a few prodding on his ribs

And a quick digging on his hips

Some brushes on his toesies and feet

And don’t forget about these helpless pits!

(And hey, psst, if you squeeze his sides

The cutie, squeaky, wiggly lee,

Will be squealing in a happy delight)

This neck is also asking for tickly-kisses

He always denies, always desire

Add to that some teasy whispers

And watch his cheeks be set on fire!

Once upon a time

There was a bratty, smug lee

That just a few tickle teases

Can make him a blushy mess

Just like now, you see!]

[…]

“Have a nice day. Thank you for coming!”

Roman waved to the client who got out from the Flower Shop, taming the smugness which threatened to take over his features as he realized that even though an hour had passed, no answer to his last text had arrived yet. He was perfectly aware of how weak Virgil was for any sort of rhymed tease and a whole poem – not his best, he had to admit – dedicated to him? He could almost see the other shrieking, hiding his red face on the pillow, lost in a mess of quiet peals of laughter and curses. His smile got even bigger, swelled in pride. And, well, if he couldn’t help it but push his luck a few inches further, his fingers already halfway to typing a small, itsy bitsy, new tease to his favorite emo lee, how could someone really blame him?

[D: Oh, sorry. Did I make the scary Virgil too much flustered to talk? Awww, I will miss your sassy remarks deeply and sing a ballad in your honor at the funeral. ~]

He snorted at the amount of time the symbol of ‘typing’ appeared and disappeared on the conversation, using the ten minutes he took to be answered to organize a few sales signs on the glass in front of the store, gaining a dance on his step as the one-worded sentence shone on his phone.

[P: Bitch.]

[D: I have no idea of what you’re talking about. Is that something I said? I feel wounded.]

But a new thing popped up.

[Panic! At Everywhere sent a video]

[P: :)]

It seemed like hours passed, even if he knew the downloading probably didn’t really take more than a few pieces of minute for him to hit the play.

The focus of the camera took a few seconds to adjust, the image trembling and shaking before going still, the crystal clear form of a small light brown, slightly spiked feather twirling between Virgil’s index and thumb locking his eyes on the screen. A quick, quiet sigh could be heard before the tickle tool descended to the palm extended on a desk, stopping by Virgil’s pulse.

The bristles grazed the skin there as the feather began to move on slow strokes, going from the left to the right, left and right, left and right… calmly making its way up, changing to small swirls as it contorted the form of the hand, giving to each finger a light tracing before concentrating on the palm, drawing a spiral which approximated inch by inch to the center. If Roman wasn’t so quiet, - even holding his breath, - maybe he wouldn’t be able to listen the incredibly low, contained huffs of laughter on the background, a soft snort escaping and making both hands tremble as the bristles hit the center of his hand, dancing around the spot for a bit.

When it stopped, the tool was placed on the desk and then the camera started to move, stopping on Roman’s so very well-known golden with silver details box. Its lid laid next to it, letting its entire content to be proudly shown. The explosion of colors from the most diverse large, small, pointy, fluffy feathers took over the frame, however, a tiny piece of paper placed on the exact center of them was what captured his attention. The lens zoomed and focused, making him able to read the quick message written there.

“:)”

And then the screen went black. The video was over.

Roman could feel his face being almost split in half by his grin, his fingers hitting the table top in complete frenzy since they hadn’t to hold the device anymore, curling and uncurling as the one who couldn’t just stay still started to bounce his right leg, ignoring the redness he felt crippling down his neck.

“Roman?”

He fully shrieked. Both him and Patton startled and jumped a few centimeters in the air with the sudden sound. The florist slapping his own hand on his mouth, trying with all his inner strength to stop the bubbly giggles which flooded non stop from his lips

“Sorry for the scare, kiddo,” the shine on his eyes free of any guilt as Patton bit his own knuckles proved the contrary, especially when the rest of an awed squeal escaped from his lips, only making the other to giggle harder, eyes closed, blush deepening and nose scrunched. “Aww, your giggles are so cute!”

“Shuhuhush!!” The Flower Shop owner just smiled fondly, withholding his comments and patiently waiting for the other to recompose himself. When Roman looked at least a tad calmer he decided to make his decision to talk to him clear.

“I’m glad you’re in a good mood, Ro! I just wanted to remember today’s shift is already over. I need a bit of time to organize everything before the painter comes so we can discuss the new design of the Flower Shop. Thank you so much for the ideas, by the way! I can’t wait for you all to see the result! It will be so pretty!!” Roman’s wide eyes were enough of an explanation of why he wasn’t ready to go yet, probably having forgotten about their last month conversation. Although, the surprised look was away in an instant, a shine taking over his glare before he softened, locking his eyes with Patton.

“Of course, it will be, Patty-cake! With my magnificent ideas and your good taste, I really don’t think any other result besides wonderful and perfection will be possible!” He squeezed Patton’s cheeks and his friend stuck out his tongue at him, winning a quick poke on his ribs that made him squirms and yelp, quickly tittering and waving the other with his hands.

“Now shoo-shoo, go enjoy your afternoon!”

A devious smirk gleamed on Roman’s expression for a second. “You can count on it, Padre.” But then it was gone as quickly as it appeared. “Thank you, my mighty hero in a shiny armor! May the universe let our destiny align again in the future.”

“See ya, kiddo!” He replied, his tune also full of joy, watching the one with red hair going away, a happy bounce on his steps.

[…]

Virgil picked the phone in the first ring. “Roman, something happened?”

“Nope,” the purple lover sighed in relief, all the tension getting out of his body and being replaced by confusion, “nothing happened except that a handsome, incredible someone got out from his work earlier than expected and might be heading his home by now.”

That made Virgil shot up, biting his lower lip, butterflies freaking out. “No.” It was his whisper.

“Oh, yes. ~” Roman practically purred on the speaker. “any last words, my dear, defenseless Giggly Storm?”

Virgil just giggled and Roman had almost forgotten how that sound only was enough to spread an explosion of a warm, good feeling on his chest. “Aw, and here I was thinking I would have at least some challenge today. ~” He continued to tease.

Silence.

“Go check your messages, Princeypie.”

And then he hung up. Roman fondly rolled his eyes, running to check the new notification on their conversation.

[Panic! At Everywhere sent a photo]

It was Virgil, sitting on his bed criss crossed, one elbow resting on his thigh as he took the picture on the body mirror on the other side of the room, a strong blush very visible on his face half hidden by the device, wearing a short and Roman’s red crop top. A new message popped right under the photo.

[P: Get your butt here and tickle me, Sir Sing a Lot.’]

This emo was going to be the death of him.

[D: Aww, I don’t even get a smile?]

[P: You gotta work for those, Princey.]

Virgil definitely did not jump nor yelp as he heard the low, dangerous tune of an “evil” laughter echoes in the house coming from the living room, the sound of the front door being closed making his flight instincts kick in.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Virgil was already halfway to the most far away room where he could escape, trying to keep his reputation as he heard another set of footsteps quickly getting ground and following right behind him. Laughter and squeaks mixed in the air.

“Because I will.” Roman answered.

#Very teasy #Teases #Lee!Virgil #Ler!Roman #Virgil is a brat and Roman is one as well #Ticklish!Virgil #Sanders Sides tickles #Sanders Sides tickling #Kanene's Fanfic #Kanene's Art #Kanene's fic #Brief self tickles #Feathers #blushy bois #Writing this kind of fic is very fun and sdfghertcvgbhn kind of silly as well #Virgil: Tickle me// Roman: Okay// Virgil: *NYOOOM*#I still don't know how to tag this dfghjsdfghdcf #I feel like my writing is a bit weird nowdays but yeah I'm still proud of this!

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nicknellie · 3 years

Text

This one kind of snuck up on me, not gonna lie, and I didn’t have anything prepared, but I I still wanted to thank everyone for getting me to 400 followers! I know I say every time how much this fandom means to me, but I really can’t thank you enough. I wanted to write my usual missing scene celebration, so I had a little think and remembered a little detail that has always bugged me so I wrote about it. It’s a little shorter than normal but I’m still pretty happy with it, I really hope you like it, thanks again!

I Think It Said Everything

Julie hurried down to the studio, her mind and heart racing, overly aware that she was suddenly working against a time limit she hadn’t had before and if all this went wrong then there was a high chance that she could lose her best friend forever.

Telling Flynn the truth about the boys had been a desperate last-ditch attempt to salvage their friendship. Flynn had decidedly not taken it well. Julie knew that she really needed to provide solid proof that she wasn’t lying - because yes, Flynn probably would believe her once she met the guys, but there was always the chance that she wouldn’t.

She flung the studio doors open and saw her phantoms dotted around the room, Alex sat atop the piano, Reggie lounged carelessly on the couch, and Luke perched on the edge of his amp, a pen dangling from his mouth as he stared at a notebook. They each looked up at Julie as she came in.

“Julie,” Luke said happily, “are you here to join the band?”

“On one condition,” Julie replied. Luke positively beamed and nodded so hard that he almost fell off the amp. “I need you guys to help me get Flynn to be my friend again. I told her you guys are real and she didn’t believe me, so I told her I could prove it. Will you help me?”

Before Julie had even finished talking, the guys were moving around the studio, getting ready. Julie watched as Alex sat himself primly behind his drumkit, twirling his drumsticks, Reggie hoisted his bass over his shoulder and plugged it into the amp, and Luke hurried towards her, songbook held out.

“We can play the poem you wrote that Reggie and I turned into a song,” Luke gushed excitedly. “Look, check it out, I wrote all the lyrics down as well as the chords. You can play them on piano and then we’ll poof in at the chorus.”

“And we found some cool high-techy stuff,” Reggie added, pointing towards a stack of synths and drum pads in the corner. “If you know how to use them it would sound awesome!”

Julie smiled, picking up a drum pad and blowing off the dust. “I think I remember,” she said, examining it. “My mom taught me how to use them when I was little but I only did it once or twice. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

“Will it take long?” Alex asked. “How long do we have until Flynn gets here?”

“Um... about twenty-five minutes,” Julie said.

“That’ll be enough time for you to learn the song, right?” Luke said, sounding a little apprehensive. Julie waved a dismissive hand.

“It’ll be fine. As long as you’ve not changed any of the words from the original poem I wrote then I know it all anyway.”

The boys smiled in relief as Julie set up the machines by her keyboard. She gave the lyrics and the chords a quick once-over, then began playing. It sounded good - well, as good as a gross invasion of privacy could sound. But as annoyed as Julie was at Luke for going through her dreambox, she couldn’t deny that he had turned the poem into something spectacular. When the boys joined in at the chorus, improvising harmonies but still managing to blend them perfectly, she knew at once that there was no way this plan could fail.

They played the song a few times over, Alex helped Julie work out a basic rhythm she could loop on the drum pad, and soon enough they had sped through twenty of their twenty-five minutes. Julie ended her last note and beamed at the boys. They all grinned back.

“We sound awesome,” Luke exclaimed, high-fiving Reggie. He turned to Julie, face bright and excited. “When you officially join the band we’re going to blow up.”

Julie couldn’t help but smile proudly.

“You’re sure this will be enough to convince Flynn to be your friend again?” asked Reggie, setting his bass down. “Because I was thinking that we could add a few finishing touches. Maybe an entire verse that’s just ‘I love you, Flynn’ over and over again?”

Nobody replied for a moment or two.

“Or,” Alex said eventually, “we could not do that exactly. Julie, do you have anything besides this song that really reminds you of Flynn that we could get into the performance somehow?”

Julie thought about it. The trouble was there were so many things that reminded her of Flynn, countless things even in the studio alone. The piano reminded her of Flynn, when they had sat there and sang along to their favourite songs as kids; the dartboard reminded her of Flynn because they’d once had to go to A&E after Carlos accidentally threw one that hit her forehead and Ray had panicked; even unimportant things like the stereo reminded her of Flynn because they had played music through it and danced when they were first trying to start their band, Double Trouble.

That was it.

“Double Trouble,” Julie said, looking to the guys excitedly, though they looked utterly baffled. “It was the band Flynn and I tried to start when we were little. I have a t-shirt she gave me!”

“Great,” Luke said, “go put it on!”

Julie felt her face fall. “I can’t. Flynn’s got it. And apparently it’s covered in betrayal.”

Reggie gave a low whistle. “She’s really mad at you, huh.”

“Well, that means I can’t go and get it,” Julie sighed. “She’ll ask why I need it and I want it to be a surprise.”

“One of us could go and get it for you,” Luke suggested. “I’ll go if you want. I’ll just poof to wherever she is, snatch it from her bag, and bring it back here.”

Alex looked sceptical. “Luke, you’re one of the least subtle people I know. There’s no point in you being invisible if you’re going to make it painfully obvious you’re there by - I don’t know - tipping the contents of her bag all over the floor while you look for it.”

“I could go,” Reggie offered, raising his hand. “I’m more subtle than Luke.”

Julie, Luke, and Alex just sent him flat, disbelieving looks. He looked between them, sighed, and put his hand down.

“I’ll go,” Alex said.

“You’re not exactly subtle either,” Luke protested. “Remember when you were trying to sneak out of my house one time and you somehow managed to set off the break-in alarm even though you were leaving?”

“That was one time,” Alex said, scowling. “You did the exact same thing about twenty times. I don’t know why your parents didn’t just buy a new alarm.”

“Arguments about who is more or less subtle can wait until later,” Julie interjected before Luke could say anything in response. “For now, can we please focus on making sure the most important person in my life doesn’t ditch me forever?”

“Right, okay, yeah,” Alex said, shaking his head to get back on track. “I’ll do it. Okay?”

Luke and Reggie grudgingly gave murmurs of assent.

“Where is she?” Alex asked Julie.

“I don’t know, probably in the house somewhere. I’d check by the door for her bag if I were you, she usually puts it there with mine. The shirt should be near the top of her bag, near the eggs.”

Alex nodded, stood up, and poofed out. Luke raised an eyebrow.

“Eggs?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Julie sighed. She didn’t feel like explaining the whole thing. “Can we run through a few bits before she gets here?”

They played the chorus once more while they waited for Alex to get back. The song wasn’t perfect, but it was still pretty impressive in Julie’s very biased opinion.

Not long later, Alex poofed back in, the Double Trouble shirt in hand. He passed it to Julie, smiling triumphantly.

“Thanks, Alex,” Julie said, “you’re a life-saver.”

“Not really,” Reggie said. “Considering he’s dead, and so are we so he didn’t really save any of our lives.”

“Thank you, Reginald,” Alex deadpanned.

“What are you waiting for?” Luke prompted. “Go get changed, she’ll be here in, like, two minutes.”

Shooting the boys one last excited smile, Julie hurried up into the loft to change her shirt where they wouldn’t be able to see her. While she was doing this whole thing entirely for Flynn, she couldn’t deny that joining the band afterwards would definitely be an amazing added bonus.

#ew this is written so messily. sorry lmao #no but its always annoyed me how she gives the shirt back but then shes wearing it so i decided to fix it #also tumblr keeps upping my follower count but not notifying me of new followers? so theres a chance im not actually at 400.#but it says i am so im going with it #jatp #jatp fic #julie molina #julie and the phantoms #julie and the himbos #flynn jatp #luke patterson #alex mercer #reggie peters #flying solo jatp #flying solo #1x03 #writing #missing scene

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starbabytae · 4 years

Text

Amorous — 01

jeon jeongguk x reader

yandere!student au

words: 4.4k

summary: as a new student, you don't have it easy from the beginning. and as your classmate falls for you, his love turns into a rather ugly obsession where he’ll do anything to have you.

warnings: swearing, jk dreams about the read a lot, handjobs, mentions of stalking, fingering, oral (f. receiving), sex without protection (stay safe!), slight bondage, use of toys, slight nipple play, slight dirty talk, blindfolds, overstimulation?, slight dubcon, jk is disgusting in some scenes ok

A breathless moan left the male’s lips, his eyes closed whereas his right hand was occupied with a rather sloppy handjob as he couldn’t quiet concentrate on the movements, his mind set on the beautiful view from earlier this day, which had involuntarily brought him to his ministrations.

As a rather new student, the female had been sat at the front, just one table in front of Jeongguk. He couldn’t see your beautiful face, but what had occurred that day made up for it most definitely. You had been busy scribbling something down in your notebook, something the male sadly couldn’t spot, your arm moving over the table ever so slightly and you could hear the sound of the pencil hitting the ground, a surprised gasp following from your lips — you hadn’t even noticed it was rolling towards the edge of your desk and over.

Without much thought, Jeongguk had shifted his chair back, wanting so much for this to be a chance to speak to you, but you were quicker, bending down and grabbing the pencil off the ground before returning to your previous occupation. No one would’ve paid much attention, except for Jeongguk, of course.

And boy was he glad he did, even though he was fully aware of the blush that was coating his cheeks and he hoped nobody would point out the obvious. When you had moved to bend over, he had been able to catch more sight of your beautiful legs – thanks to the overly short school skirt. He could see until the swell of your ass, black lace hugging around the skin and he could feel himself twitching in his trousers.

He wasn’t new to the feeling, ever since you came to his school, which had only been two weeks ago, he had been attracted to you in more ways than one. Needless to say the thought of you helped him get off at night, and this sight was nothing compared to what he could imagine, he wished he could’ve taken a photo, but alas, it only lasted for a few seconds.

His movements sped up once again when he remembered the sight, his head thrown back into the pillows. Thumb swiping over the tip of his cock, gathering the few drops of pre-cum before running back down his entire length, the image locked on the back of his eyelids as a another whimper fell from his lips. He could feel his insides churning with arousal, squeezing his hand around the base of his cock, imagining it would be your tight walls clamping around him instead, another groan coming from his throat but it wasn't enough. With his free hand he moved to rummage through the dresser next to his bed, smirk creeping on his lips when he felt the soft fabric between his fingertips.

Now with both hands, rubbing the fabric of your red lace panties against his cock, he could feel you even closer, as if you were actually there with him and the thought alone tipped him over the edge, thick spurts of cum covering his hand and thighs, reaching up to his chest that was heaving with each breath.

He took a few minutes to come down from his high, cradling his softening dick in his cum covered hand, his breathing slowing down to normal before he swung his legs over the edge of his bed, running his clean hand through his messy hair, a thin layer of sweat coating his body, and the setting sunlight that seeped through the cracks of his curtains coloring his skin golden.

By now, he wasn’t even ashamed anymore to be cumming to the thought of you. Isn’t it normal to think of your love in such a situation? At least, that’s what Jeongguk always told himself. He pushed his body off of the mattress, trudging to the bathroom for a hot shower to discard of the traces of his recent activity, after all, he had friends coming over.

You felt it everyday, those prying eyes at the back of your head, and they’d never leave. At school, at home, even once when you went out to buy groceries since you were getting low on stuff. Living alone had it’s ups and downs, especially in such a situation where you’d end up locking each door and checking them at least ten times before going to sleep. You were growing paranoid, but for what exactly?

It started on the first day of school, you knew someone was staring at you, but you shrugged it off. Being a new student, it wasn’t unusual that people would be curious so you didn’t think much about it. But it grew worse the more you tried to ignore it, as if the Person wanted you to notice them.

Things went missing; a hairband you had used in your sports class, your favourite perfume that you’d use everyday, a few pencils and even a hairbrush. They decided to break in and steal useless things rather than money or jewellery. There was no way you could feel safe in your own apartment anymore, but you couldn’t find enough money to move and your current location wasn’t far from school and the small café you worked at for some extra money, it was the ideal place.

You perked up at the sound of the small bell over the door, indicating that a new customer arrived. It was a small group of boys, two of which you could recognize from school, they went to a few of your classes. The other girl that worked the shift with you – Eva, she was busy in the kitchen so you would have to take them. You just hoped they wouldn’t cause you any trouble. Straightening the skirt of your uniform, you took the small notebook from your apron before walking over to the table they had decided to seat themselves. Before you could even open your mouth, one of them already spoke up, surprise found in his voice. “y/n? I didn’t knew you were working here!” Park Jimin, in School he had a reputation of being a notorious player but knowing him from a few of your classes, he was actually a really sweet boy. You shrugged your shoulders at his statement, not wanting to seem impolite. “I have a rent to pay.” Before he could respond in any way, you turned your attention to the rest of the table, a small smile forming. “So, what would you like?”

Once again, you felt uneasy, you could feel a pair of eyes following your every movement, only gone when you went into the kitchen, away from the front of the café and the prying eyes from whoever kept staring. There were only six customers around, and you highly doubted it was the old couple. Logically, it would have to be one of the boys, but you only knew Jimin and Jeongguk, and not even that closely. You felt relieved once behind closed doors, but you couldn’t hide in the kitchen forever. With a heavy sigh and two full trays of food and drinks, you made your way back to the boys, putting their orders down with a polite smile. “How come you never smile at me like that when we're in school, y/n?”

You knew Jimin had meant it playfully, the grin on his lips was giving it away though his friends didn't seem to notice, Jeongguk pushing the elder with his elbow. “She’s getting paid after all, hyung.” If you hadn't been looking so closely, you would've brushed it off but it almost looked like he was glaring at Jimin for such question. You shook your head slightly, turning back and settling back down behind the bar.

The small sound of the clock made you jump out of your thoughts and you turned around, eyes scanning through the café. Everyone was gone, your shift was over, had it really been two hours already? Pulling the small apron off, you placed it on a chair before stepping out of the kitchen and back in to the front. The café was empty by now, Eva must’ve done everything else. Passing over to the door, you used the key to lock up after before dread settled in your stomach. Usually this was the time you feared the most by now, because you would have to walk home alone, with the sun already setting, and it made you uncomfortable, paranoid when no one else was around anymore.

Little did you know about the footsteps following you, moving to match yours and stay hidden as they watched you walk on. Pulling your jacket closer to your body and looking around every now and then. It almost made the male chuckle at how anxious you looked, as if someone were to pounce on you right then and there — what seemed highly possible if he didn't have that much of self control as he did. And as you rounded the corner to your building, he decided he’d let you have one night in peace, or maybe a few hours at least. As long as he could still watch you, he was satisfied for the moment.

“Don't turn around, but Jeongguk’s staring at you again.”

You turned your head slightly, your eyes following the direction as your friend pointed his fork at the male. He was indeed staring at you, probably lost in thought because it took him a few seconds to notice your look, blush immediately coating his cheeks at being caught before his head hung low, eyes now diverted to the cafeteria food on his tray.

It wasn’t unusual that you would catch the boy staring, so much that it didn't even surprise you anymore. You shook your head at that, turning back to look at him. Taehyung was a sweet male, sharing a few of his classes with you and being one of the nicest people you had met so far. His cute box—smile was just a bonus.

“He’s just curious, that’s all.” You’d shrug it off, telling yourself that it was the curiosity that came from being new. “It’s been two weeks already. If he’s that curious about you then he would've come up to you already or something.”

That wasn’t even a lie. You would catch him staring often, not everytime did he notice though. You would always just brush him off as being curious, but he was right, it’s not like you were still ‘the new kid‘. “If he’s so whipped about you, he should just man up and ask you out already.”

“Taehyung!”

Jeongguk had listened to your conversation closely, even though he was seated two tables away from you, he tried his best to listen to what was said about him. You had caught him staring and for a second he felt ashamed, though it disappeared as soon as it came. There was nothing wrong watching his girlfriend, right? Well, technically you weren’t his girlfriend yet, only in his imagination, and he was fine with that, for now.

He knew he would grow needy for you as time would go on, and if he wouldn’t do something about it soon, he’d never get to be with you, at least, not with your consent. Often times his thoughts would get deeper, he’d imagine how you’d struggle against his hold, how you’d scream at him, how pretty you’d look crying. He didn’t necessarily wanted to hurt you but the thought of you denying him left him with a sweet taste. He’d be able to break and bend you to his will, have you completely submissive, and it turned him on like nothing else did.

Your next class was English — he knew your schedule like the back of his hand, and luckily he had this class with you. Ever since you stepped in the picture, he didn’t really care about any of his classes. It was a good one if he shared it with you, a bad one if he had to endure it all alone, without being able to have you there and listen to your angelic voice. He often skipped those classes when he could, finding himself pressed to the door of your classroom, listening closely. His ears would perk up everytime he’d hear you answer something, or utter a question to the Teacher. He didn’t care if he looked like a freak, all he cared about at that moment was to hear your voice.

He didn’t even hear his name being called, his eyes fixated on a random point in the classroom, mind set on a fictional scenario. You were his wife, no kids though, they would take your attention away from him. You were the best thing he could ever think of. “Jeongguk?”

Had it been real? He would’ve doubted it, if it wasn’t for the fact that you were indeed standing in front of his table, staring down at him curiously. That angelic voice he heard, it was directed to him? How did he even get that lucky? He didn’t know, but he wouldn’t dare question it, not when your face was mere centimeter away from his.

As if you could read his confused mind, you spoke to him again. “We're assigned for a project together. Didn’t you listen to the Teacher?”

“I— well no, I wasn't paying attention..” Nervous, that’s what he was, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. This was his first chance to speak to you and all he could do was sit there like an Idiot and try his best not to stare at you. Although the second you sat down, your eyes fixated on the school book, he couldn’t help but look at you. It started off as innocent, he’d imagine how soft your hair would feel if he’d be able to touch it, how cute you looked at the moment — eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed while you read, probably deep in thought. But the more he thought about you, the more his mind wandered off. He’d imagine how it would be to pull your hair when he fucked you from behind, how cute you’d look with your rosy lips wrapped around his cock, staring up at him with those innocent doe eyes while you’d suck him off. The image alone almost made him cum in his pants.

“—guk? Jeongguk, are you listening?” He didn’t even notice you were talking to him again, blinking sluggishly before his eyes fell back to your form, arms crossed over your chest whilst you were staring at him, waiting for him to answer your question. “Uh, sorry. What did you say?” You’d shake you head at his words, although with a small smile. “Class will be over soon. I wanted to ask if we could finish the Project at your place?”

His place? You wanted to come over to his place? All alone? Just the two of you in his apartment? This must be his lucky day, though, he wasn’t sure if he would able to behave if he’d have you all for himself. Would he be able to keep himself together? Would he be able to let you go once you’ve finished? He’ll decide then, turning back to you with a quick nod. “Yes!” Maybe a little too much excitement in his voice. “I mean, yeah sure, we can..”

Silence.

Jeongguk had been waiting for this, the day his eyes would capture the full extend of your naked body, and he wasn’t disappointed with the view before him. Your trembling indicated that you were scared most likely, and he understood. He had used your trust for him, lured you in and now you were sprawled out on his bed for the very first time, completely bare, tied up and blindfolded, just like he enjoyed it.

A sound of protest came once you could feel the mattress dip down under his weight, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it, helpless and vulnerable to the predator. His fingertips slid over the soft skin of your inner thigh, oh so close, but not touching you quite yet. He wanted to rile you up, have you dripping from just his words before he’d start his ministrations on your body. “You're so pretty like this..” His voice was barely above a whisper, though he made sure to be heard. He’d lie down beside you, caressing your cheek with the back of his hand softly. He wanted to cherish this moment as much as he wanted to fuck into you and make you scream.

“We’re going to have so much fun together, princess..” His hand moved down over your neck, faintly gracing your collarbone before it rested right under your breasts, thumb stretching to reach up and flick against the small bud atop, eliciting a small whimper at the unexpected action and he would catch you squirm, trying to shift away from his touch but he was having none of it.

A sudden buzzing got your attention, the senses of touch and hearing heightened as your vision was blocked, his voice sounding above it. “I’ve bought this just for you.. I imagined how I could make you writhe beneath it’s touch and how you’d beg me to stop when it gets too much to handle..” Your confusion was soon answered when he placed the head of the object over your bare thigh, vibrations hitting against the skin softly and there was a sudden need to feel it somewhere else. Jeongguk seemed to notice, the way you chewed on your lips, the way your whole body seemed to tense under the vibrations, tracing the toy higher and higher before completely neglecting your core, dragging it over the skin of your stomach and up to the supple flesh of your breasts, gently pressing it against the already hardening nipple. He frowned at the lack of response from you, even though he noticed the way your hands would clench around nothing, the way you tried to press your body into the mattress and away from him. His lips would attach at the flesh right below your jaw, sucking the skin between his teeth and creating a beautiful red splotch that would tell everyone who you’d belong to, even if he wanted nobody to look at you, only he could do that. The hand that had been keeping the toy against your breast dragged back down agonizingly slow, and you’d count the seconds going by.

one, two, three...

The moment the vibrating head caught up with your throbbing clit your insides churned, your head hitting the pillows below, a faint moan on your parted lips and he couldn’t have imagined it any better. A small smile grazed his features, eyes soft when he looked over your form. You might’ve said no earlier, but your body language betrayed you now.

He’d hold the toy in it’s place, feeling his own pants tighten painfully at your whimpers and the way your hips trying to buck up against the contact, only there wasn’t much room for such movements with your ankles tied to the bedpost. “Please don’t try to hide from me, y/n.. I want to hear all of you, and I really don't want to hurt you..” His voice was soft, his free hand coming down to brush through your hair soothingly before turning to grab at your chin, lifting your head in his direction. His thumb graced over your lower lip though soon replaced by his own and you could feel his grip tighten.

He pressed the vibrator firmly against your clit, moving it in circles ever so slightly, eliciting a soft moan in which he greedily slipped his tongue past your lips, swallowing the noise with his own. His lips moved sloppily against yours, as if he’s never kissed someone before, or maybe he’s just been waiting to do this for too long. His tongue pushed against yours, licking and exploring every corner of your mouth, getting a taste of each other, whereas his hand dragged down to your breast, lazily kneading the soft flesh, tugging on the small bud once in a while.

He pulled away with a gasp, leaning his forehead against yours, a soft pant gracing his lips. He couldn’t see your expression but he could judge by the way your cheeks were tinted a soft pink, your own breath coming out in small pants, mimicking his. His eyes trailed down towards his other hand, removing and dropping the toy on the ground. He couldn’t wait any longer. Vision trained on your now dripping core, he lowered himself to shuffle between your spread legs, resting his hands on your thighs.

“I never thought you could look like such a slut,” he’d whisper, moving his right hand higher, “You’re fucking soaked..” He’d lean in slightly, bracing himself on your thighs, eyes blown wide with lust at the sight of your glistening folds. “Shit, I want to taste you so bad.. you won’t mind, right?” Of course, he wouldn’t care even if you did, hands spreading your thighs a little further before he buried his face in-between. His lips came in contact with your clit immediately, tongue licking a flat stripe over your dripping folds. A deep groan sounded from his throat, hands gripping at your flesh, practically pulling you into his face desperately.

Due to the earlier abuse from the toy there was no way to hide how much you were actually throbbing to feel him buried inside of you. A flick of his tongue had you squirming under his grip, gasping for air. There was a desperate need to bury your fingers in his hair and pull him closer, but you were bound to the bed with no possible choice to touch him anytime soon. The sudden addition of two fingers at the same time ripped a particularly loud moan from your lips, the stretch barely palpable thanks to the arousal dripping down your legs. Jeongguk himself felt like he was in heaven, dragging his fingers against your velvety walls, curling the digits and burying them to the hilt all whilst his lips had now wrapped around the small bundle of nerves, gently sucking it in and rolling his tongue around it. He’d pull away only to look up at you, eyes glazed over with lust. Your chest was heaving up and down with each breath and he could feel your walls clamping down on his fingers tightly, a small knot forming in your abdomen. Adding a third finger to the mix, he pumped them in a steady, fast rhythm, curling them every now and then, getting rewarded with a loud moan everytime he did it, and he knew it wouldn’t take long before you’d cum all over his fingers.

He could the feel the added warmth of your arousal, your body going slack in his grip after the strength of your orgasm. He worked you through it, pulling his fingers out shortly after and lifting his hand up to examine the mess you had made. Your cum was dripping down his fingers though he was quick to lick it up, savour the taste. He’d run his clean hand through his hair, wiping the sweat from his forehead before sitting back slightly. He’d have to have you, now.

He was quick to remove his shirt and pants, his boxers following straight after and he sighed in content once his cock was freed from the useless clothing, slapping up against his stomach, the tip red and angry, already leaking pre-cum from being neglected all this time. “I really want to fuck you raw.. there’s no need for condoms, right? I can’t wait to feel you around me..” It was more as if he was talking to himself, knowing you’d be exhausted from your orgasm just minutes before, but he didn’t care. He crawled back over your body, hands stopping to rest on your hips and you could feel his hard cock pressed against your thigh. Before you could even think about protesting, he dragged his tip over your slit, his head falling to rest in the crease of your neck at the feeling, doing his best not fuck you right into the mattress when he finally pushed his hips forward, entering you with one long, slow thrust until he was fully buried. The stretch was way worse than just his fingers, even with the added lubricant of your previous orgasm, you could still feel the way he stretched you out completely. He would’ve considered himself as generous for being so patient, after all, he was sure you were still sensitive, but he couldn’t hold back for much longer. He’d rest his arms beside your head, pushing himself up on his elbows before he started to move his hips against the tight grip of your walls.

Almost immediately he couldn’t stop his moans, burying his face in your neck, pressing open mouthed kisses against your skin. He was almost ashamed that he’d already feel so close to cumming but he’d blame it on the feeling of your walls raw against his skin. “Fuck— shit you’re so fucking tight..” He’d mumble against your neck, a thin layer of sweat building on his body, “I don’t think .. I can’t hold back for m—much longer, shit..” He could feel your walls clenching around his cock, indicating that you were close to your second orgasm, and it took only a few more thrusts before he could feel you cumming all over him, successfully pushing him over the edge. He bit down on your neck to muffle the moan, his hips stuttering uncontrollably as he released his hot seed inside you, filling you up with his release.

Jeongguk’s eyes fluttered open slowly, flinching at the sudden burst of light in his room. He sat up slightly, holding a hand against his forehead with a groan. A dream, he thought, it had been a dream. His eyes traveled down as he felt his boxers stick to his thighs, the pillow he’d been humping in his sleep covered in his cum. “What a bummer..”

He sighed, removing the pillow case and his boxers for the washer. At least he hadn’t woken up with a morning wood, that would’ve been worse. Another sigh followed as he looked over at the clock, 11am. How could he forgot that you’d wanted to come over to finish the project you were assigned? He ruffled his hair slightly at the thought, maybe he could still make his dream come true, after all, you were stepping into his home with the thought of him being a friendly classmate.

He’d have to correct that thought of yours soon.

#bts fic #bts fiction #yandere bts #yandere jungkook #jungkook fic #jungkook smut #x reader #f;amorous

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readerinsertfanfiction · 4 years

Note

Can I have a Rock Lee x Reader fic? I loved your previous one. Can I have a villager who's crushing hard on him? They're shy and only know Lee from seeing him around. So they try to ask around to see what kind of person/things they like. Bonus points if someone gets judgy over their choice of men and reader goes off on them. And can it be a happy/cute ending? Ty

You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that people still find and read my first Rock Lee fic. It isn’t my proudest work, but to see others still enjoying it (and it being one of the (surprisingly) more popular works I have) really touches me. 😊

Fandom: Naruto

Character: Rock Lee

A/N: Gif below is an accurate depiction of yours truly right now.

It all started with a curiosity, like with so many things in life. An unusual encounter, a pique of your interest, a flame of wanting to know more.

“Excuse me, but I believe this is yours?” a polite voice piped up from behind you. The market had been especially busy that day, making it hard to keep track of your many bags along with the smaller items on your person. A tall male approached you, his hair cut into an unusual bowlcut that made him appear more youthful than he probably was, in his hand laid your wallet.

“Oh, thank you so much!” you gasped, a colour dusting your cheeks in embarrassment. How fortunate you had been that the man was so honest to return it. Taking it from him you wanted to say more, thinking of a reward for his chivalry.

“Lee! Hurry up!” a voice took away the male called Lee, his unusual appearance disappearing into the crowd once more. However, before doing so he flashed you one more smile, his hand going up in the air.

“Don’t worry about it. Hidden Leaf’s number one youth, Rock Lee is at your service!”

You could have sworn that there was a shine coming off his teeth as he striked a pose.

You thought of him for the rest of the day, curious as to who he was as a person and what he did.

And once you had been made aware of the male you suddenly found him everywhere. The following day, on your way to work you found Lee hanging upside down, hands balancing dangerously on two poles as he made his way down the streets.

“Ah, that Rock Lee,” the lady next door sighed delighted, her hands on her hips as she watched the spectacle. Unable to help yourself you turned towards her, curiosity clear in your voice as you inquired about the male.

“The ninja of Konoha are a cheerful bunch, but Rock Lee definitely stands out the most as unusual,” she had responded. A statement to which you could agree, but for different reasons entirely.

“A real youth, one who never gives up despite all,” the man from the ramenstand laughed when you asked him why Lee walked all these laps in punishment. You learned there that it was far from a punishment for the ninja. An even stranger notion, for whatever strain he put through his body was definitely torture for anyone else.

However, as you observed the male more often and saw him come and go, passing by in even weirder training regimes, you noted that he was more than a training junk. Despite his strange appearance you noted that Lee was exceptionally polite, treating everyone ---even those who wronged him--- like a friend, his openness allowing for all to find a place with him. His encouragement was surprisingly infectious as well, along with his enthusiasm, though there were only few who could actually keep up.

“There Lee goes again, I wonder what he lost this time,” you grinned, clearly enjoying yourself watching the hardworking man. This time he had resolved himself to walk on all fours, bended backwards and with the weights placed on top of his stomach. Training your eyes on him you fiddled with the straw of your smoothie, green in colour and packed with nutrients. The type that you had seen Lee order on the regular.

“He is so weird,” your friend piped up, eyes staring at the male in bewilderment. “Doesn’t he ever feel mortified? I feel embarrassed for him,” your friend continued with a deep sigh, eyes averting from his figure, unable to stand it for any longer.

“With that suit on?” another friend clicked their tongue, a scoff escaping their lips. “No, I don’t think he knows any shame.”

You clenched your fist, an irritation bubbling up as you found yourself disagreeing.

“[Name] seems to like him especially,” the last one of your friends pointed out, a finger poking at your forehead. “Always watching him and asking these weird personal questions.”

It wasn’t maliciously meant, but you throw your head up all the same, startling your friends.

“I do like him. A lot,” you stated loudly. “I think Rock Lee is a great person and very honourable,” you continued on, your voice growing more confident as you spoke, a pride swelling in your chest that was bursting at its seams as you were unable to stop. “He is hardworking, determined, even when all odds are against him. His enthusiasm is infectious and energises me, even when I feel dull and unconfident, because I know he would never back off either even on his bad days,” you purse your lips, your mind trying to look for more ways to describe what he meant to you.

“He makes me want to be a better person. Even if we aren’t friends and he doesn’t know me,” you concluded, suddenly feeling shy as you realised that the shop had grown quiet.

“That was kinda embarrassing to listen to,” a clear voice spoke from behind you. Whisking around your cheeks flared bright red, contrasting the green figure that stood in front of you, face equally as red.

“It doesn’t upset me, however,” Lee spoke up, eyes avoiding yours as he rubbed the back of his head. It was a first time for you to see him so taken aback and shy, but you figured that anyone would feel so after hearing a whole oration dedicated to them.

Chuckling to himself Rock Lee quickly regained himself, his shoulders straightening up as a gentle smile crossed his features. “I think it was really cool, though!” he beamed at you, his vigour returning once more before another blush creeped up. “E-even if it was about m--- I mean, it was really cool how you stood up for me! Yeah, that is what I meant to say!”

Determined eyes met shy ones, another inspiration instilled as you felt your breath slowly return.

“I would love to get to know you better as well. Someone who can speak so passionately surely is a person worth being around!” Lee exclaimed, taking your breath away once more as you weren’t sure how to respond.

Luckily your friends knew how.

#naruto x reader #naruto #Rock Lee #rock lee x reader

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tradeway2 · 3 years

Text

Session 1 10 Jul 2021

We start a little later than usual today as our illustrious DM has been working hard to provide a game from scratch for us this week!

We were asked to provide him with a name, race, sub-race, and a class if we wanted to. We were not asked to draw up character sheets or determine stats and so on, and it’s been driving us (all now at least somewhat seasoned D&D players) up the wall. Matthew hops on to the chat after Joe drops the link to the game, to ask us not to open our character sheets if we sign in early. Duncan tells us he has emphasised this casual torture by having not even read the rules for his class; he likes to live on the edge.

When we sign in, we are greeted with this calming landing page (we know it's calming, because Matthew tells us it is):

Ah. Well that’s alright then.

We are told this campaign could last ten minutes or the rest of our lives; Matthew is hoping for somewhere in the middle. We have some technical issues - as is to be expected. Roll20 is a steep learning curve. One might even call it a wall.

We’re told that this entire fiasco is based off a spoof tv show that Matthew saw late at night once and thought it would be fun to base a one-shot on. Then it got out of hand, and now has the potential to become a full campaign. Here's hoping! Without further ado, we dive in…

Cora (Ishara) stands beside a crossroads. There is a sundial at its centre; she sees the shadow pass over its face. An elven merchant passes, cart laden with water jugs. She waves, but her face is a picture of fury. The sundial's shadow disappears - it is midday. Another elven merchant passes, this one with a cart of food. She also waves, but she is in floods of tears. The sundial shows that dusk is approaching. A third elven merchant passes, with a cart full of empty glass jars. She laughs hysterically as she passes by, waving as she goes.

Night falls and the moon rises. A fourth merchant approaches, but this one does not wave. Her face is blank as she walks toward Cora - she drops a bunch of snapdragons at Cora's feet and continues walking. Cora picks the flowers up and admires them; half the bunch withers and dies, and the other half grows to twice its size. She drops them to the ground; as the new roots touch it, the earth collapses beneath her -

She awakens, to see Leslie:

He tells her he doesn’t know who she is, but she shouldn’t be sleeping here.

We all awake now, in what appears to be the ruins of a battlefield.

We are all zombies.

Huh.

We see each other as friends; in fact the word 'zombie' in Friend means 'friend'. We know this, because as it turns out, we all speak Friend.

But not Common. Hmm.

Leslie tells us his name and asks why we’re sleeping here?

We roll History checks to see if we remember anything; that will be hard for Marcus who has -3 INT.

Pilfer remembers his name, and something about a boat, and nothing else. No idea where he is or why, or who his new friends are. Ren knows that this is definitely his lute. He takes it. Will he remember how to play it?

Hilda remembers nothing about how she got here, but she remembers fighting in a war. A big one. It was important; significant to her. Marcus remembers little more than Ren. That’s definitely his rucksack, though. Milo knows something is missing but he can’t figure out what. Cora remembers her dream. There was a risk that she wouldn’t. She’s told it didn’t feel like her dream, even though she was dreaming it.

We heard voice from behind a wall saying, “Friends? Friends!” Leslie rolls his eyes.

Cora goes to the wall to see if she can lend aid to the owner of the voice. It is coming from very close to Hilda. Should she do something about it? Where are we?

Hilda rolls a nat 20 for her Perception check. (Fun new house rule: if we are using a skill or tool and roll a nat20, we gain Proficiency - ooo!)

It is carnage around us. A huge fight has happened here. Imagine the biggest battle from the LotR movies - what we see laid out before us makes that look like a boundary dispute between neighbours.

Does Ren feel peckish when he looks at the bodies? It looks like food, but food has this habit of moving around; once it stops doing that, it’s bad food. We are all aware of this; what we're looking at is No Longer Food.

There are old fires and signs of burns on the ground. Amongst all this we hear the bewildered, friendly voice again asking for help. It’s coming from the remains of a building that has been destroyed by fire or magic or something of that ilk.

Hilda goes to investigate, and Pilfer goes to look as well. It turns out Matthew meant to put us on a different map, but we have been looking at the crossroads this whole time. Whoops! We switch to the map. Technical issues, please stand by…

(Matthew, direct quote: “JOE! Make it better, help!”

Joe helps, and makes it better. We continue… )

Ren has a go at tuning his lute. He makes a Performance check. an 8! We are all suitably distracted.

The voice calls again. “Friends?”

Where is this voice, and whose is it?

Leslie introduces himself again, rather pointedly probably, and we all introduce ourselves this time. Leslie seems particularly enamoured by Milo. The voice asks us what are we going to call him?

Pilfer suggests Bingo; Bingo likes that so that’s his name now. Pilfer asks how long he’s been here? He heard us get up and before that it was dark, but before that it was quite bright. Before that it was dark, and before that it was bright. Before that there was a lot of angry people, and there was a lot of food, and now the food’s all gone. He tried to leave, but he couldn’t.

Pilfer - formerly a drow elf - is dismayed to discover that it is daytime. He panics until he finds his parasol.

Ren gets a nat20 - he now has proficiency in Investigation! (There is a limit to the number of these bonuses we can receive, we are warned.) He and Marcus and Hilda all see Bingo's problem. Pilfer, however, has got lost in Bingo’s eyes again. He’s a good looking fella.

“Would that we had met before the rot set in!”

Milo gets distracted when some food shouts at him from over the bridge - it then pegs it away. Milo wants to follow, but we are all Slow (-10feet). The food disappears into the trees. He is disappointed, and hungry. He sits on a bit of broken bridge and sulks; Leslie joins him. He offers to help him look for some more food.

Bingo is pinned in place with a spear through his sternum - he’s upright, and the spear is piercing him from above. Can we pull it out? Or him out? Marcus has a go at pulling him by the hands - and manages to get Bingo off the spear with a 19 STR check. Bingo is very pleased. Ren asks if he wants the spear back; Bingo says it’s not his. Ren takes it instead, and adds it to his inventory. He has two now.

Bingo says he’s going to find the horde.

Us, politely confused: "The what?"

The horde! It’s the best! We should totally join him.

Leslie pats Milo on the back and tells him not to be disheartened. We’ll find some food. We suspend our disbelief while Matthew puts some food on the map that we didn’t notice sneaking up on us…

Ren rolls another nat20, getting proficiency with Perception. Thanks to Milo’s alertness, the food doesn’t get the drop on him either. Pilfer’s stomach rumbles, and we roll initiative. (Marcus gets five XP for helping Bingo off the spear!)

Noticing that we appear to have noticed them, the food closest to us appears to be carrying a stick. Uh oh… Food uses tools, this is the thing we learn first. The first food seems reluctant to move towards us, so it holds an action.

Cora is up first. She shambles 20 feet, and uses her action to dash twenty more feet and gets right up to some food and zombie-groans in its ear.

Milo remembers different food, food that you have to sneak up on, so he has a go at that. He rolls a Bad stealth check, and uses all fifteen of his feet, loudly announcing what he is doing to Leslie as he goes.

A food bonks Cora on the head with a stick for 15 to hit, which does, for 2 bludgeoning damage. Another food advances towards us - he’s wobbling his arm and pointing to the food that bonked Cora on the head.

Marcus shamble-dashes toward Cora, upsetting the food that she’s in melee with. Another food tries to hit him, but misses. Marcus consoles it.

Pilfer moves forward. Can he throw a dagger? Yes he can. He hucks his knife at a food. 21 to hit! Right in the shanks. 3 piercing damage! He did not get the food in the shanks; he got it in the neck.

He feels a weird urge to snack. All the other foods look very unnerved at this development. The food isn’t quite dead, but clutching its neck with blood pouring through its fingers and making an agonized squealing noise.

Pilfer: “... Is he okay?”

Hilda waddles up to another food, the one that lurched forward at us. She gives it a smash with her greatclub for 13 to hit.

Matthew kicks himself out of the game. We won!

Moving on…

Hilda’s attack hits, for 9 bludgeoning damage. She destroys the food. Can she still eat it? As a bonus action she eats some of the food, before it spoils. (Matthew moves the token to get it out of the way. Hilda, aggrieved: “I was eating that!”)

Ren’s turn. He swings the lute around, remembering that a lute is a useful thing to have; he can’t remember what to do with it so he swings it back out of the way and gets his spear instead. He stabs at the food in front of him. He spears it successfully and goes to town before it spoils. “Yum yum.” He says grace, which sounds like a beautiful prayer to us, and like hideous gurgling to the food.

Another food rushes at Hilda, seeing the thing she just done. It natty 20s her, but the damage is only 4.

Cora swings her mace at the food in front of her, to get to the juicy filling. 11 to hit, which does, and 3 bludgeoning damage. She’s tenderised it good; that’ll melt in the mouth, that will. Fall right off the bone.

Milo has heard all this going on; he goes back up and throws a javelin at the food attacking Hilda. He crit-fails. Whoops! He gears up and swings, and throws the javelin in completely the wrong direction. He looks at Leslie, who shrugs.

"I'd have thrown that over there, if I were you."

Leslie moves up, and old Bingo’s gonna get in the game as well. (Matthew forgot to roll initiative for them on the first round. He puts them in the turn order; better odds for us, yeah!)

Cora’s food tries to hit her again, but misses. There must be delicious sauce in its eyes.

Marcus batters the food in front of him with a slam attack, not realising there’s a quarterstaff on his back that he could use. He hits and kills the food, and goes to town. It turns out that that was Pilfer’s food; he retrieves his dagger and stops for a little nibble. A fistful of the insidey-bits is a great snack-on-the-go. He has enough movement to flank another food, so he does that, and makes a slam attack against it. He has prepared another meal!

Hilda’s turn, and the meals around her are in full swing; she uses both her action and her bonus action to snack on two different foods.

(Ed, OOC: “Is it bad that this game is making me hungry?”)

Ren too decides to feast on the 'horrible visceral tapas' that surrounds him. (We are adjusting swiftly to our new circumstance.)

Cora has another go at the pudding with a slam attack, hits the wrong button, finds the right one, and hits that for 13 damage which makes contact. 8 bludgeoning! She has prepared the heck out of that meal by swinging at the head and taking it clean off.

We are out of initiative! Pilfer waves a bit of meat at Bingo and invites him to join us. Milo seasons his own meal with the spices in his bag and even washes his hands, remembering that that’s important to do before eating. Pilfer empties his waterskin and fills it with blood. If he shakes it every now and again it’ll be fine.

It turns out that our meal doesn’t seem appetising for very long, and we quickly realise that our food has spoiled.

We roll Perception checks, at Disadvantage because we’re eating. Leslie doesn’t seem interested in the food.

Pilfer asks him what’s up, why isn’t he chowing down with the rest of us? He’s eating his own meal, he hints. Ren would love to Investigate Leslie. There seem to be bits of plant coming out of wounds or open sores on his body; he catches Ren looking and explains that although he’s a Friend, he eats it a bit differently. Over a period of time. We aren’t really talking to the person-suit, we’re talking to the plant inside the body. He uses the food to get around a bit more easily. And he can eat it even though it’s gone grey. The word he uses is 'compost'.

But, he assures us, we are all Friends here.

Fair dos. So, to the horde then?

Bingo looks really excited at this. Do we know where the horde is, he asks us?

"... We don’t even know what the horde is."

If we want to know who and what we are, Leslie might know someone who knows someone…?

There is a gnawing in the back of our heads (not worms); maybe we might want to know more about ourselves than just our names. (Which - it's odd that we even know our names. That's certainly more than Bingo knew.) Hilda thinks we might not want to know; we might upset ourselves.

We can follow Bingo to the horde. Or we could go with Leslie and take Bingo with us, and do horde stuff later? We’re full now, and all the food has gone bad, so we may as well follow Leslie. We get 15 XP for eating all that food.

We walk through the battlefield and the heaps of spoiled food. Occasionally we hear shouting in the distance:

Random friend: “Friend? Friend!”

Bingo, shouting back: “I’m called Bingo!”

New Bingo: “Oh, wow! Can I be called Bingo?”

Bingo Prime: “Sure!”

(Ed returns from the kitchen with snacks, very confused to arrive back in the middle of this.)

We shuffle along with Leslie. There are a lot of Bingos about, after a while. It starts to get dark. Ren remembers he has a tail. Leslie turns to us and says he once inhabited a food with a tail. It wasn’t a grippy one, but it was quite furry. He doesn’t know what you’d call it, but it was quite entertaining to see the looks on the other foods' faces.

Leslie doesn’t like to travel overnight, so we sit down in a little sitting around circle. His eyes aren’t good in the dark. Do we feel tired…? We don’t need to sleep, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t. Every so often we hear the little Bingo exchange in the distance. (We’re going to regret this.)

We roll INT checks at Disadvantage - Marcus rolls a 16. Maybe it’s a faded memory, but he is pretty certain he remembers going to sleep in a similar situation, and one person stayed awake. He suggests to the others that one of us should stay awake; most of them don't seem to follow his train of thought. He remains awake and so does Milo; Ren paces in circles until he gets bored.

Those of the group that try to sleep, give it a go. They don’t dream exactly. Those that stay awake still get the benefits of a long rest. Yay!

(We break for tea and cigarettes and whatnot.)

Bingo lies down, seeing some of us do that, and asks what we’re doing. Those of us that stay awake roll Perception checks.

While Matthew’s computer reboots, he tells Cora about her dream.

She stands in a familiar room; the bookshelves around her are laden with ancient texts. She notices that there is no door. She starts to feel anxious. Music sounds, from a hearth that wasn't there a moment ago. There is a music box open on the stone floor. She kneels down and closes the lid, and finds herself standing in a field. Her anxiety fades to contentment as she stands in the short, but lush, green grass. About a hundred feet away, a large black stag with eyes of fire begins to charge her. She begins to float, and the stag passes harmlessly beneath her. She flies over the treetops. Behind her she sees a triangle of ravens flying in her wake. She lands, surrounded by friends and safe, and the ravens continue on.

Marcus and Milo stayed awake; Marcus was distracted, wondering what the twinkly in the sky lights do and if anyone will ever walk on the surface of one, that kind of thing. Milo sees figures that appear to be advancing towards us. Uh oh!

Is it friends or food? Milo thinks it’s almost definitely food. It did not introduce itself as Bingo. Milo alerts us all that our delivery has arrived, and we roll initiative.

Cora goes first. She nobbles one with her mace and a nat 20 for 7 bludgeoning damage. She sees some sauce come out.

Marcus Slams another one; he makes a dent in it. (He still hasn’t realised he has a quarterstaff.)

A guard attacks Hilda with a spear. Hilda, sounding mildly inconvenienced: “Nooo!” 13 hits. Things are getting a little more real. She takes 6 piercing damage and is quite poorly.

Milo wants to know if this food is human sized; it is. He shambles into one and does a slam at it, and has a go at chomping off a couple of crunchy fingers. 18 hits. Milo, extremely pleased: “Delicious!” 8 chomping damage, and he comes away with some delicious bits of food. If this guy was planning on using his spear two handed, he may have to re-think his strategy.

Leslie’s turn. He makes it quite a way out to his chosen food, but his attack misses. The food next to Cora has a go at clobbering her with a 9 - which misses.

Pilfer’s turn, and he zips down toward another food to whale on it. He rolls a dirty 20 and slams him good, also doing max damage.

Hilda's turn! 15 with her club just misses, and she’s very annoyed about it. As a bonus action she wants to still try and have a chomp, but nothing happens.

The food fighting with Marcus fails to hit him, as does the one with Leslie. Milo’s food natty 20s him for 13 damage, and he’s down. Oh no! He rolls a good CON save and pops back with 1 HP.

Another food attacks Bingo and another attacks Pilfer but misses. Ren shambles across to help our good friend Bingo by poking the food with his spear, hitting for 4.

Bingo does a slam on the food as well, but misses. Marcus misses his attack; he is marinading it in its sauce, he says. Squeezing it like a mango to check for ripeness.

Cora rolls an 18 with her mace, and 3 bludgeoning. The food looks nearly ready. She falls upon it and has a chew. (Matthew: “Gross. I like it.”)

15 hits Marcus for 7 spikin’ in the tummy. No worries; he's got four more spikin' in the tummy left. Milo’s next slam hits, doing 6 points of munching damage, eating it to the point of perfection. It runs around screaming with a little halfling zombi- friend, attached to it first; Milo sets about feasting when it lies down and stops moving.

Leslie does an attack, and prepares another meal as Matthew plays D&D by himself. Pilfer has another attack - a 15 just misses. “Curse you!”

Hilda has another go with her great club for a 17, and 10 bludgeoning damage. Her food went from raw to almost perfect in one hit. It’s still moving about a bit, but in a much more ‘ready to be food’ fashion.

Ren’s food swings at him and misses. Ren, put out: “The food's just playing with me. It's supposed to be the other way around, right?”

Pilfer’s food fumbles at him and hits, and he’s none too pleased about it. He takes two HP damage when his food pokes him. “How dare it! I’m getting pre-eating indigestion, somehow.”

Ren does another poke with his spear. “Stop moving around! It makes it harder to bite you!” Six misses, unfortunately.

Hilda’s food attacks her for 14, which hits for 5 damage and she’s down. She rolls a CON save, but fails. She is at 0HP. She will be rolling undeath saves, oh no!

Bingo slams his food and misses. Marcus prepares his food with a crunch, and begins chomping.

Cora would like to kneecap her food so it can’t escape. The kneecaps are one of the best bits. 7 damage to the food (not Marcus!) and begins to chomp as well.

Milo’s meal is going down a treat, but he notices that Hilda appears to be lying down even though her food is standing up. Is her food trying to eat her? He’s not having this; Friends are not Food! He slings his javelin at Hilda’s food. The javelin hits, and he gives it a good dressing down. “Rude!”

We don’t understand it, but the remaining food is very distressed. If we could understand the food, we'd hear it saying, “Oh my God, they’re using tools!”

Leslie dashes at full pelt, but doesn’t get far. He looks puffed out; or he would if there was breath in his body.

Pilfer slams his food for a nat20. “YES! YES! What’s that mean, do I roll damage twice? Yes! YES! Look at all that damage. Yes! I bludgeon him to the floor, I eat him.”

Hilda rolls an undeath save: a 17, yay!

The last guard takes his turn. Looking around him he realises he’s in trouble, so he legs it. Wait - Ren is still struggling with a live one, and the guard isn’t going to abandon his mate. He runs up to Ren and gives him a bit of a poke - 12 just hits him. He takes 4 points of being stabbed. However -

It is now his turn. The food that he’s stabbed looks closer to edible than the newly arrived food. He stirs his spear around in it for 23, and 6 piercing damage. His food is well prepped and looking delicious.

Bingo hasn’t had much luck prying open the last one, so he has a go at Ren’s new arrival but misses. It’s been a long day.

While Marcus is shovelling stuff into his mouth, he notices that Hilda is down. Upon seeing her, his rotting brain supplies “…food?” But he remembers that’s not right. He shuffles over and pokes her with a Medicine check of 9; he can’t figure out why she’s lying down. Yelling “Get up!” doesn’t seem to do anything.

Cora shambles over to the two of them with a handful of brain pudding, and attempts to feed it to Hilda. She rolls a Medicine check - another 9. On the plus side, it’s not like she can choke her to death.

Milo has just eaten a whole hand, so he comes over for a poke at Hilda as well. He snaps off a finger from his food and tries to poke it into her mouth. It works! He’s very pleased. This feels familiar to him.

Leslie pats still-unconscious Hilda on the head. In broad Gloucestershire accent: “There there.”

Pilfer proceeds to his second course. A dirty 20 for 6 bludgeoning, hitting it so hard on the top of the head that its neck disappears into its chest. The guard returns in kind - 9 to hit, which misses.

the guard looks worried as he looks around. “… Fuck.” We, of course, do not understand him.

Ren gets confused and tries to stab his food with his lute, but misses. Bingo misses again. It’s a wonder he’s survived this long.

Marcus natty 20s the last food, for 11 HP. "That's as many hit points as I have on a good day!"

DM: "That's as many hit points as he started with."

While we wait for Hilda to wake up, we can search for loot! Or lute! Who knows!

We leave it there, and Matthew will tell us what treasures we find on our respective food. Pilfer makes a prawn cocktail with gizzards.

#dnd #campaign diary #tradeway2

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emmerrr · 5 years

Note

Em, I got two for you but I’ll send them in separate asks! First, #6 for Andreil.

6: “Explain it to me again - why do we need to pretend to be married?”

sorry this one took a little longer i couldn’t decide how to tackle it, so welcome to an exy free au land where andrew and neil are roommates ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [this is also on ao3 if you prefer]

Really, Neil should have known that telling a lie that specific was going to come back and bite him in the ass one day.

But it had been so convenient.

Andrew sat on the other end of the sofa, turned towards Neil, an impassive look on his face.

“Explain it to me again,” he said.

Neil sighed. “I have this thing for work on Friday. An awards thing. I’m nominated for best sport’s column or some shit, I dunno. Point is, you have to come.”

“And why do I have to come?”

Neil sighed again, and looked at his hands so he didn’t have look at Andrew. “Because they think we’re married.”

“I see,” Andrew said measuredly. “Why would they think that, exactly?”

Neil mumbled, “Because I might have…uhh, told them that we were.”

Andrew sat there in silence as he took that in, before shrugging and saying, “Yep, that’ll do it.”

Andrew had the flu when it had first happened, and Neil had begged off work early to go and look after him. He hadn’t been working at the paper for long at that point, and Seth, one of his least favourite colleagues, had snidely said, “Who’s Andrew then? Your boyfriend?”

Without missing a beat, Neil had replied, “He’s my husband, actually,” even though Andrew was his roommate (and friend) and not even remotely his husband. He’d just wanted to make Seth squirm, and it had the added bonus of getting Neil’s boss to let him leave straight away, clearly wanting to avoid Neil making a complaint against Seth.

After that, being ‘married’ to Andrew just had its perks. It got Neil out of so much overtime that he didn’t want to do, or socialising out of hours with his co-workers.

People seemed to let him off the hook for bailing a lot more if he was going home to spend time with his husband than if he was to say he was just going to hang with his roommate. It was accepted, no questions asked.

Except now it seemed to be a talking point around the office that no one had met Andrew, that Neil never brought him to any of the gatherings he did show up to, that Neil never really talked about him that much.

Then Neil got nominated for that award, and everyone just assumed Andrew would be there too.

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll be able to make it,” Neil said. The only reason he was going was because he had to; awards shows were notoriously boring.

Everyone in earshot had shot Neil sympathetic, concerned looks. “He’s not coming to an important event in his husband’s career?” Matt said, frowning.

“Sounds like a keeper,” Allison said, sarcasm dripping in her tone.

Defensiveness rose to Neil’s surface on behalf of his husband, which was ridiculous because he didn’t have a husband. Theoretically, if Andrew was his husband, Neil was sure he would go. If Neil asked him to.

“No, I mean, I’m not sure if he can get out of work,” Neil said hastily and stupidly. What was it to him if everyone thought his fake marriage was in jeopardy? “He’d love to go.”

“I’m sure he can get off work if he explains the situation,” Dan said, then smiled brightly. “So I guess we’ll see him there?”

Neil had been backed into a corner. He’d nodded weakly, and then at the end of the day had traipsed home and waited for Andrew to get home from his job at the library so he could explain the whole thing.

Andrew listened as Neil filled him in on how exactly he’d gotten them into this mess. He didn’t look annoyed, although he did look vaguely amused at certain points, which Neil was taking as a good sign.

“Sorry,” Neil finally finished. “I should…I can just tell them the truth. This isn’t your problem.”

“Makes no difference to me,” Andrew said. “I don’t mind going to your awards show.”

Neil brightened. “Really? Even though…I mean, they all think we’re married.”

“Yeah, I got that part, Neil.”

“...That doesn’t bother you?”

Andrew looked at him, unflinching. “Why would that bother me?”

Neil wasn’t going to argue if Andrew was up for it, so he shook his head. “No reason.”

Andrew showing up should be enough to get everyone at work off his back for a while, so Neil was in good spirits in the days leading up to the awards show. But he was also, to his surprise, carrying a fair amount of nervous-excited energy. Considering he really didn’t care about the award, he had to attribute it to the fact that Andrew was coming with him. It was absurd; he spent lots of time with Andrew. Why wouldn’t he? They were friends.

Best friends.

Andrew accompanying him meant that Neil didn’t have to pick his own outfit either. Andrew sorted him out in a fitted suit, navy with gold leaf detail. He wore a black shirt underneath, top two buttons undone. He never would have picked it out for himself in a million years, but he liked how he looked in it.

Andrew, for his part, was decked out in a maroon suit with a pale pink shirt. His tie was a midnight blue and adorned with constellations.

“You look good,” Neil told him honestly.

Andrew fixed Neil’s collar. His hands lingered, and he glanced into Neil’s eyes and then away. “So do you.” He stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let’s go.”

They were the last of Neil’s office to arrive at the venue and were quickly shown to their table by an usher. They were on a table with Dan, Matt, and Allison, their seats side-by-side, name-tags in place. Andrew held his up to show Neil, bemused. It said Andrew Josten in a fancy font.

“Don’t remember agreeing to take your name,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dan said, then looked quizzically to Neil. “Then is Josten not your surname?”

“It is,” Neil said. “We’re the, uh, Josten-Minyard’s.”

Andrew’s snort was audible to no one but Neil as they took their seats. Neil made quick work of introducing Andrew to everyone, and when he finished they all sat there and beamed at Andrew expectantly.

“So, Andrew,” Matt said. “Neil never tells us anything. Where did you guys meet?”

“College,” Andrew replied. This was true.

“Bless, college sweethearts,” Dan said. “Did you know he was the one right away?”

Neil groaned and shrank lower in his chair.

“Let’s just say he grew on me,” Andrew said, which made everyone at the table laugh, but there was something in his tone that made Neil sneak a look at him. His expression hadn’t changed, but he didn’t return Neil’s look.

A server arrived and passed out champagne, and Neil hoped the interruption would nip the line of questioning in the bud.

Unfortunately not.

“What did you notice first about him?” Allison asked. “Kid’s got killer eyes, am I right?”

“His ass,” Andrew said bluntly, and Neil choked on his champagne.

Allison cackled, and Matt thumped Neil jovially on the back. “Well there had to be something about him that piqued your interest since Neil’s such an asshole,” Allison continued, but she said it fondly, because she was an asshole too.

“Sure he is,” Andrew said, but this time he caught Neil’s gaze and held it. “That’s my favourite thing about him.”

For a few seconds, Neil let everything fade to the background and stared back at Andrew. For those seconds, they were the only people in the room, and Neil finally thought he was starting to understand something that had been right under his nose the entire time.

No, Andrew wasn’t his husband, but Andrew was his everything. Theirs was the most important relationship in Neil’s life, the one he held above all the others. It was that simple, and he couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to see it.

“Oh,” he said, and the room came rushing back in.

Thankfully, the conversation shifted, and then the awards ceremony actually started so no one asked any more intrusive questions.

Neil was barely aware of what was going on on the stage, who was winning what. He clapped when other people clapped, but his mind was buzzing. He was very aware of Andrew sitting beside him and was struck by the urge to reach out and take a hold of Andrew’s hand, just to see what he’d do. He refrained.

When it came time for Neil’s award, Dan excitedly said, “This is it!” which Neil was grateful for because he hadn’t been paying enough attention to figure that out on his own.

The nominees were announced, and Neil thought he just about managed to smile when his name was mentioned. He hadn’t been expecting to win, so it did startle him a little when he was, in fact, announced as the winner. He sat there, silently stunned, until Andrew put his hand on the back of Neil’s neck, leaned close to his ear and said, “That’s you, Neil. You won.”

He got to his feet and made his way to the stage to rapturous applause, and accepted his award. It felt heavy in his hands, and Neil let a flicker of professional pride run through his veins.

He stepped up to the podium to make his speech; impromptu, as he hadn’t prepared one. He really hadn’t anticipated winning.

“Uhh, thanks to my friends and colleagues, Dan, Matt, and Allison, you’re all giant pains in my ass but I couldn’t imagine working with anyone else. My editor, David Wymack, your constant threats to sign me up for a marathon if I miss a deadline work wonders, so a part of this belongs to you.” Good-natured laughter trickled through the crowd, and Neil sought out his table. Andrew was easy enough to pick out, but maybe that was because Neil was just always looking for him.

“Most of all,” he continued, “thank you to Andrew, for putting up with me, and for coming with me tonight. I hope you know how much I appreciate it.”

Speech over, Neil nodded once again to the crowd who began clapping again, and then he quickly departed from the stage. He didn’t sit down when he reached his table, but he put his hand on the back of Andrew’s chair and leaned down.

“You wanna get out of here?”

“Yes,” Andrew said at once, then stood up and took Neil’s hand, leading him out of the venue.

He still hadn’t let go when they were in the parking lot heading for the car. “I should have asked,” Andrew said, looking down at their joined hands. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Neil said. “I want you to.”

There was a pause. “Do you want me to because it helps you keep up your fake husband story, or do you just want to?”

Neil squeezed Andrew’s hand. “We’re outside, away from prying eyes, and I haven’t let go. I want to.”

They reached the car, still holding hands, and Andrew pushed Neil up against the driver’s door. His eyes flickered to Neil’s lips, intention clear, but he didn’t kiss him.

“Why now?” he asked, just a hint of frustration in his tone. “After all this time?”

“I don’t know. I just...it’s you, Andrew. You’re who I want to see at the end of the day. You’re who I want to eat breakfast with. You’re who I want to thank when I win meaningless awards.”

Andrew sighed, and pressed his forehead into Neil’s shoulder. “Took you long enough.”

“I know,” Neil said apologetically. “But I got there in the end.”

They stood there like that, fingers intertwined, Andrew so close but not close enough, and then Neil couldn’t take it anymore.

“Andrew? Can you kiss me now?”

Andrew raised his head. “Well,” he said, “I guess I am your husband after all.”

He leaned in, and the kiss was gentler than Neil expected it to be. He liked it; it was like a promise of what was to come now that they had time.

They got into the car and Andrew got them moving, heading home.

“Oh god,” Neil said when they were almost home. “How the fuck am I going to explain this? You have to marry me for real, I can’t do it, it’s too awkward.”

Andrew smiled, a small thing, but a true one.

“Buy me dinner first,” he said.

Neil smiled back; his heart felt full.

“I can do that.”

#the foxhole court #andreil #tumblr prompts #tfc fic #tfc

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ladylynse · 4 years

Text

I had a follower giveaway a couple months ago, and @raveniris57 won the bonus prize (which was intended to be a shorter fic, and I still overshot my goal of ‘short fic’, but it’s still on the shorter side). They wanted a BNHA fic, a One For All reveal to the classmates/Midoriya’s mother, and decided they’d rather I focus on the aftermath rather than the lead up to the reveal.

Discovered: [FF | AO3] They all know, and Midoriya can’t change that, but.... Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if one more person found out, too.

-|-

Midoriya wasn’t sure when it began or, even in hindsight, how it began. He didn’t know who it had started with, and he hadn’t been aware enough to track its spread. By the time he realized something had changed, it was too late.

He just knew that people slowly started to look at him differently.

It was…subtle. Iida was just a bit more formal than usual. Mina and Hagakure still whispered together, but they stopped whenever he walked into the room. Mineta and Kaminari whispered, too, but that didn’t always stop when he walked in on it; it was just accompanied with jealous glares (especially on Mineta’s part) that seemed unwarranted, especially since none of the others who had the opportunity to work with pro-heroes were getting the same treatment. He thought Kirishima was trying to get them to stop, had seen him talking to them, and it did lessen, but…. He couldn’t deny that that made Koda’s strange offerings of baked goods or the way Jiro would let him pick what they listened to when they all hung out together in the common area even more welcome.

They weren’t the only ones making a point of being nice to him, though. Sato, Shoji, Ojiro, Sero— They all did little things, like holding the door or trying to make sure his favourite spot on the couch was open. It wasn’t much out of the ordinary for what they usually did, at least he didn’t think it was, but once he became conscious of it, he saw all of it.

Tokoyami, on the other hand, had told him to his face that he was going to give him space and to seek him out if he wished to talk, and Midoriya had barely seen him outside of class in two weeks.

Tsu-chan and Uraraka were clearly making an effort to treat him the same, but in light of everyone else, it was easy to see the overcompensation for what it was. The way Uraraka would sometimes glance away too quickly or jump on something else as a distraction or change in topic, or the way Tsu-chan’s smiles would be too wide, her silences too calculating.

Aoyama had slipped him in a note. Midoriya hadn’t seen him do it, but it had turned up in the middle of his private things in his room, and he was pretty sure Aoyama was the writer. Even if it weren’t for where he’d found the note, its vague but familiar content told him all he needed to know. I’d always thought you’d understood, but I didn’t realize I was wrong in thinking why.

The fact that he thought he was wrong in thinking why, though, when Midoriya had never corrected him, had never really thought he had cause to correct him, since it was true in its own way—

And then there was Yaoyorozu. Though Midoriya was still unsure of the occasion—occasions—she had taken it upon herself to bring in more treats, the sort she typically reserved for special occasions or when she thought someone needed cheering up. And he’d caught her talking to Kacchan more frequently than he ever had before. Not that there was something weird about that, exactly, except that it usually took much longer than Midoriya would expect for Kacchan to storm off in a huff, and Yaoyorozu always looked a little sad and unsurprised when he did, instead of angry or frustrated or any of the reactions most other people had when talking to Kacchan for extended periods of time.

Kacchan himself hadn’t really changed. If he had a slightly shorter temper than usual around Midoriya, well, it was difficult to tell. He knew Kacchan. He’d have a shorter temper just because he got a little less sleep—which, frankly, they all were these days. So that wasn’t really cause for concern, not on its own. It was actually comforting, the fact that Kacchan hadn’t changed. The fact that he didn’t look at Midoriya differently, even when it seemed like everyone else in class was.

Midoriya didn’t figure out what was going on until Todoroki—who had also been avoiding him more than usual, however much circumstances were made to seem like he just happened to have something on when Midoriya was free—cornered him outside of their dorms after a late practice session. “Just tell me, Midoriya,” he said, “is this the real reason why you tried to get me to accept the whole of my own power at the sports festival?”

Midoriya frowned. “What are you talking about? You know why I said what I did.”

“I know what you said, but….” He trailed off. Took a deep breath. Met Midoriya’s eyes again. “You know who my father is. You know the legacy I’m expected to meet. To exceed. I…. If you feel the same pressure, I’m forced to wonder why you’d help me. Whatever my potential, I’m not your strongest opponent right now. You know I failed the provisional licensing exam—”

“What?” Midoriya glanced behind Todoroki, half-expecting this to be some kind of trick, but though the lights were on in the dorm, he couldn’t see anyone else outside. “I helped you because you’re my friend. Because we all need to help each other. Because—”

“Because you think it’ll be an easier transition between generations if the top two heroes of our generation mirrors that of our fathers’ generation?”

Midoriya blinked. “What?”

“I don’t mean to imply that All Might is your father, but you have to know that would be a better story to tell than the truth. The potential for chaos and the sheer amount of danger involved isn’t worth the risk.”

Something cold spread across Midoriya’s chest and trickled down his spine to settle as a pit in his stomach. “The…the truth?”

“Your quirk.” Todoroki’s voice was quiet, but it sounded entirely too loud to Midoriya’s ears. How could he know? When had he found out? Who else knew?

Was this why everyone—?

This was bad.

No one was supposed to know about One For All. It was just too dangerous a secret to spread. He hadn’t even told his mom about it. He knew she must have wondered. This wasn’t a quirk similar to anyone’s in the family, and he’d been declared quirkless. The joy of discovering that he wasn’t, that he did have a quirk after all, on top of the rush of getting accepted in UA and going to school— She might not have questioned it then, but once he was gone and she’d had time to think? She would have wondered.

Kacchan had certainly wondered.

And he’d figured out more of the truth than the rest of their classmates. Or he had. Until now, apparently. Or…earlier. At least two weeks earlier. For Tokoyami, if no one else.

“Who….” Midoriya licked his lips and tried to focus. “Who else…?”

Todoroki stepped back and, for the first time, looked uncomfortable. “I thought you knew. Didn’t Aizawa-sensei tell you?”

“Aizawa-sensei knows?” Midoriya squeaked. It wasn’t the entire school, was it? If this got out into the public, if any of All Might’s enemies—

“He pulled each of us aside to speak with us once he realized we knew. I assumed he’d done the same to you.”

He had not.

Aizawa-sensei had not given any indication that he knew anything about Midoriya’s quirk, much less how it was connected to All Might and what all of that meant.

But maybe that was a good thing. Nothing changing in class made it more likely that it hadn’t spread beyond Class 1A. He certainly hadn’t noticed anything beyond the usual rivalries with other classes, 1B especially, and Aizawa-sensei would have an easier time keeping this secret than some.

But still.

If Aizawa-sensei knew, if his entire class knew, it would only be a matter of time before All Might caught wind of this and…. Midoriya wasn’t entirely sure what would happen then. A frank conversation, maybe in smaller groups. To get everyone to understand the gravity of this secret. That it wasn’t something to be used or mentioned even in passing. There were so many villains that could overhear and use that information, and All For One—

That wasn’t over.

Midoriya knew it wasn’t over.

Whatever had happened, there was more yet to come.

Somehow.

And with so many people knowing….

“I need to talk to All Might,” Midoriya said, stumbling back. “I’m sorry. I…. I just need to talk to him first.”

He was off running before Todoroki could reply, using just enough power that he wouldn’t be caught unless Todoroki decided it was time for a rematch.

Which he wouldn’t, because they weren’t supposed to be fighting each other outside of planned training sessions, and Todoroki couldn’t afford to pick a fight while he still hoped to get his provisional license.

For the first time, Midoriya was thankful that some of his friends had failed the first time around.

XXXXXX

All Might spit out his coffee, some of the spray narrowly missing Midoriya. He wiped off everything that hadn’t missed him—plus the spots that had hit his wooden chair; what if it stained?—as All Might spluttered, “Everyone what?”

“Everyone in class knows,” he repeated, “and so does Aizawa-sensei. I don’t know how. I just…. They know. And I think I should tell my mom. If you’ll let me. She can keep a secret, I swear, and if one of the others can’t….”

“If one of the others can’t, you think she’ll be in danger.” All Might rubbed his temples. “You do realize we’ll all be in danger? You most especially?”

“I know. And if I can’t protect her, and someone tries to get at me through her…. Doesn’t she deserve the warning? Just in case?”

All Might blew out his breath and sat back on his couch. “You’re sure everyone knows?”

“Todoroki told me himself.”

“He told you about One For All?”

“Well, he—” Midoriya broke off and chewed his lip. “He mentioned my quirk. The truth about it. And…and what would happen if it got out.”

“So you don’t know that his truth and our truth is the same truth?”

“Not exactly,” Midoriya admitted at length.

“Then we don’t say anything about it until we know they have the right of it.”

“But what if they do?”

“We’ll address it then.”

“But….” He was sure they knew. Avoiding it until they explicitly told him wouldn’t stop the rumours from spreading, and what if the rumours got beyond the class?

Maybe All Might was right, though. Maybe this wasn’t what he thought it was. All Might had lived with this secret for far longer than he had, after all, and he must have faced similar situations.

“You running to me won’t have helped matters, you know. You could have sneaked back here after finishing that conversation.”

“I was just…worried. Mom…. I feel bad about keeping this from her. Especially when my friends know. Probably know,” he amended, seeing All Might’s look. “Please, just…. Can we tell her? Just her?” A select few knew the truth about All Might, after all, and they wouldn’t have all known from the beginning. He must have decided to say something to some of them.

All Might was silent for a moment. Then, “You know enough to decide that for yourself. This is your burden to bear. You worry about the risk of your mother’s ignorance, but knowledge has consequences as well, and the risks are just as great.” He fell silent again. Midoriya was trying to figure out what he could say to that when All Might added quietly, “You know your mother better than I do, my boy, and you know me well enough to know what I think, but this is something you should decide for yourself.”

“All Might….”

“Try to get some rest, Midoriya, and let me know when you’ve made your decision.”

XXXXX

He could imagine his mother twisting the phone cord in her hands. He’d told her to sit down—to sit on the floor, specifically, though he’d heard the creak of the wooden kitchen chairs earlier and knew she hadn’t taken it that far—but he still half-expected to hear a thump and then silence. Instead, he finally heard her whisper, “Izuku….”

“I wanted this, Mom, and—”

“I know. I know. You found a way to achieve your dreams. You’ll…you’ll make a wonderful Symbol of Peace one day. I’m so proud of you.”

He could hear her sniffling. She was crying. She was being so supportive, sure he’d be just like his hero one day, but…

But she wasn’t questioning any of this, not like he’d thought she might. Like he thought anyone might. Maybe she didn’t fully understand. The implications…. Maybe they weren’t as clear to her as he’d thought.

He started telling her again, in a different way, just to be sure, but she stopped him.

“I knew you weren’t just a late bloomer, Izuku,” she said. He wished he could have done this in person, but the circumstances hadn’t allowed for it, and he hadn’t wanted to wait. But if he could just see her expression right now, see her beyond the image he held of her in his head as he sat on his bed with the phone in one hand and a picture of the two of them in the other…. “I knew you were quirkless. I didn’t know there was a quirk like this out there, but I’m not surprised you found it—or that it found you. You aren’t afraid to work hard to achieve your dreams, and you’ll exceed whatever expectations All Might has for you. I know you will. You’ve always exceeded mine, and you’ve always had a greater faith than I ever did. I’m trying to be more like you. You’re already my hero. You know that, right? And if you need anything, either of you, know that I will do anything I can for you.”

“Mom….”

“I love you, Izuku, and I always will, whether you have a quirk or not. But I will always worry for you, too, because I’m your mother. Please, be as safe as you can be while you are doing everything you must to save others.”

He blinked back tears of his own. “I’ll try,” he said. It wasn’t quite I promise, and she’d know that, but she’d also accept it for what it was. He didn’t intend to go out and break almost every bone in his body, but if it was a choice between that and not saving someone, well, his safety didn’t matter at that point. He’d certainly do as much training as he could to prevent that, though, and that had to count for something. That was trying. Trying wasn’t always succeeding, but it didn’t have to be.

Learning was just as good.

“Thanks for everything.” That wasn’t enough on its own, but he didn’t know what to add to it. Actions would matter more than words now. He’d have to make her proud, to give her good reason to be his strongest supporter, even though he knew she would be regardless. “I love you.”

He’d just have to do his best, whatever the future held.

Whatever his friends knew.

Whatever his enemies might discover.

“I love you, too,” she repeated. “Good luck.”

Good luck. He’d need that now, navigating this new path forward. Even if he didn’t talk to his friends about this—to Aizawa-sensei about this—until they specifically brought it up to him, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be talked about. Especially after what had happened with Todoroki. He’d been in his room by the time Midoriya had returned, but….

But that wasn’t the end of it.

It was only the beginning.

And he could only guess at what lay ahead.

“Thanks, Mom.” Whatever happened next, he’d do his best. It was all he could do. If he made mistakes, if this had been a mistake, he’d work to correct it. If any of this somehow got out, if word spread, if All For One found out—

He might not be able to contain every spreading ripple, but he could enlist help doing so, even from those who didn’t know the whole truth.

If he did become the Symbol of Peace one day, he’d do it with the help of his friends. With his mother’s support, with All Might’s guidance, with his teachers’ lessons. And, despite what Todoroki had implied, he wouldn’t be alone. They would all stand together. It was harder to break apart a braid of teamwork than to topple a single figure from the top of a pyramid.

They would all do their best, and their best would be brilliant.

(see more fics)

#bnha #mha #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #fanfiction #midoriya izuku #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #bnha snippet #I hope you like it!#I did my best #I was trying to keep it short #so it won't be as focused as you were probably hoping

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packsbeforesnacks · 4 years

Text

Harmony Hall || Mercy & Winn

TIMING: Thursday, July 9th, 2020, Evening LOCATION: The Western Archives (Mercy’s Loft) PARTIES: @cryxmercy & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: Mercy offers an explanation. Winn faces the truth about his lost years. WARNINGS: None

The lighthouse was intimidating, Winn thought, but no more intimidating than meeting someone for the first time… again, apparently. ‘Cause apparently this ‘Mercy’ woman knew him, said he’d lived in White Crest before he remembered livin’ in White Crest. The possibility had never crossed his mind, that there would be — could be — someone with the answers to the riddle of the years that had been taken from him. Winn would need to buy Rio something nice, if this panned out. Boy deserved, like, a fruit basket, bare minimum. Winn made his way up the staircase, twisted up in the lighthouse like a coiled spring, ready to pop out at any time and remind him why he was actually here.

An explanation. Mercy had promised one and Winn wasn’t about to let his only real chance at fixing all of this slip through his fingers. No one — Rio, Darwin, his dad — had been able to turn up any real leads, and there wasn’t a magic Facebook, where Winn could just post until someone said they’d fix his memories. He’d gotten lucky. He knew it. The chance of him findin’ another person with access to mental magic was too big of an ask. Luckily for him, White Crest kept an eye on wishes.

One of the many problems that came with living as long as Mercy had was that inevitably the past would circle back around at some point, either to bite you in the ass, or simply make life more complicated. She wasn’t quite sure which category the current bit of her past fell into. Winn was a good guy — it was why she’d helped him in the first place all those years back -— so perhaps it fell into neither. Perhaps it was simply the right thing to do. Because Mercy had seen first hand what missing memories could do to a person. How confused and lost they could become. Wondering what had happened to them in a span of time they couldn’t remember. It could drive a person mad.

So Mercy didn’t blame Rio for sending Winn her way. Even if she wasn’t sure what she could tell him, other than what the young wolf had asked of her all those years back, and the events that had followed. Perhaps that would be enough. Even if it didn’t bring the memories back. Because Mercy didn’t know how to do that. So she’d made sure the tower would let Winn pass through, that the roses that grew in the field outside wouldn’t harass him. And when she heard footsteps on the spiral stairs, Mercy looked towards the open door of the small flat at the top of the tower. Her tone was warm and easy as she spoke. “You can come in. I don’t bite.”

Winn passed through the open door with more confidence than he felt. He racked his memory, trying to figure out if he’d known her, some time ago, but there wasn’t even the faintest pulse of recollection. He took a seat, movements a bit stiff, as he considered the woman. There wasn’t much he could tell from just her posture and voice; if he had to pick an age— Well, ‘sides bein’ rude, he couldn’t really do that anymore. Living in a lighthouse wasn’t the most unusual thing about this situation, but it was as good a place as any to break the ice. “Sooooo,” he drawled, “you lived in White Crest long?” He wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of her knowin’ him. “This lighthouse looks old. Beautiful, though, the roses are lovely.”

A compliment, a well-placed smile. She knew Winn. But that didn’t mean she had liked him, in whatever history they shared together. He scanned the room, looking for another point of conversational topic, but his eyes drifted back to the woman’s. It occurred to him that, well, she might know him by his old name. He should clear up any confusion, introduce himself again. “Um, sorry, right. I’m Winn. Winn Woods. Winner Lycus Woods. Said that on the phone.” He gave a small wave, feeling incredibly awkward. What was it about this woman that put him on-edge? Or was it just that she knew more about him, perhaps, than he did? There were no easy answers, and so, he admitted what she’d probably already guessed: “Do I… know you?”

“About six years,” Mercy said, watching Winn as he took a seat. “Going on seven.” He was wondering about her, she knew. Who she was. Probably even what she was. Mercy hadn’t told him much over the phone. But that was deliberate. This was a conversation that needed to happen face to face. “Thank you. I… acquired it some years back.” She smiled at him, small and knowing. “The roses are just a bonus.” And a damn fine security measure. In case anyone who was unwelcome thought they could just waltz up to her tower.

Mercy’s eyes didn’t leave his face as he looked around. The room was small, but cozy. Full of shelves and books and benign things of interest that she’d brought up from down in the archives. There was evidence of Arthur here and there as well. A chess set she’d dug out of one of the rooms for him. New journals and fountain pens stacked neatly on a nearby table, along with a stack of scrolls and manuscripts still covered in dust. There was also a small bed in one corner, a tiny kitchenette, a small bathroom behind a closed door, and a woodburning stove. It was very liveable, even if Mercy usually stayed elsewhere. Winn’s gaze came back to her eventually, and Mercy waited a moment as he introduced himself.

“You did. Once. My name’s Mercy.” She watched him for a short but weighted moment. “I’m the one that took your memories.”

Well, huh.

Winn wouldn’t pretend there wasn’t a part of him that had been… hoping for this. When Darwin had told him that they weren’t buried, but missing, he had been ready to abandon this entire ‘quest.’ Rio’s message, askin’ to give Winn’s information to one of his allies, had been a Hail Mary, as far as Winn had been concerned. But then, Rio had messaged him back, gave him a number to call. Winn had leapt at the chance.

Once. Maybe… Maybe, even if Winn couldn’t get back his memories, she could tell him about himself. It was another confirmation. When something went missing, there had to be a force behind it. Darwin had given him the information, Mercy had revealed herself as the thief herself. He took a deep breath, in, out, almost like he was preparin’ for Darwin to take another look around his mind. But, really, Winn knew that, if he let himself make assumptions, Winn would be transformed in the middle of this flat. That wouldn’t help anyone, least of all him. So, before he’d climbed the tower, he’d ran through scenarios in his head.

And… Well, this hadn’t been the worst. Could be bleedin’ out. Winn locked eyes with Mercy, and said, strong and far more confident than he felt: “Why?”

Mercy often wondered if her long life — or perhaps her nature — had made her some sort of… beacon… for lost and wayward souls. She seemed to cross paths with them more often than not. If that was the case, it was ironic really, since she had no power whatsoever over the souls of mankind. Unlike the Valkyries of her homelands legends.

What she did have was knowledge. Centuries upon centuries of it. But with great knowledge came great power, as they say. And what good was knowledge if it wasn’t shared? At least when it was for the better. So while Mercy had also prepared for the worst, she didn’t pull any punches in answering Winn’s questions. She wasn’t afraid of the young wolf. Never had been. That said, she was very aware of the damage one could do. To her, and to their surroundings. And Mercy was in no mood to deal with an angry shifter tonight. Or at any point in the near future.

Mercy waited on Winn to process what she’d said. She watched for any signs he was going to lash out or react badly. Any tells that his emotions were going to get the better of him, and the wolf would take over to protect him. Or to get revenge for a perceived wrong. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. And Mercy let out her own internal sigh of relief.

Her tone was soft and even as she didn’t hesitate to answer his follow up question. “Because you asked me to.” There was more, obviously, but Mercy wanted to give him time to process the main parts before overloading him with the rest of the details. Of which there were many.

Winn felt like he’d been smacked with a sledgehammer, like the ‘brain freeze’ he’d felt at Darwin’s probing had been only an appetizer for this main course. The memories weren’t stolen. The memories were given. And his mind scrolled and scrolled through scenarios, trying to figure out what could have happened — what he could have done — that would make him do this.

He put his head in his hands, trying to stave off yet another anxiety attack. Winn had been preparing for an answer, even this one, for nearly a month — two, if he counted that first inkling that there was something inside of him. Finally, scrubbing the fresh tears away from his eyes, he met Mercy’s gaze with tired determination. He had to know.

“Tell me more. Please. I can… I can handle it.” Winn tried to give a weak smile, ended up somewhere in grimace, and settled back down into a flat line.

Mercy watched as Winn started to absorb what she was saying. It wasn’t easy to be told things about your past that you couldn’t remember. This wasn’t the first time Mercy had been in such a situation. She had learned, however, that giving too much all at once could send some people over the edge. Others did better receiving things in one big lump. Mercy wasn’t sure which category Winn fell into just yet. He’d survived the giving away of the memories. But that didn’t mean the opposite would be true. When he got himself together and looked up, tears staining his face, Mercy felt her heart ache for him. He was a good kid. It’s why she’d helped him in the first place.

“We met a few years back when you signed up for my self-defense classes. Didn’t take me long to realize you weren’t human. Took you a bit longer to realize the same was true for me.” Mercy explained how they’d come to be friends, and later, how Mercy had come to be a confidant of sorts for Winn. And how eventually Winn came to confide his personal traumas to Mercy. Who had already encouraged him to stand up to what frightened him. To take back control of his life, by not letting the past control his present, or his future. That effort — thanks to Mercy’s Fury nature — doubled when she found out what the hunters had done to him.

“One day you came to me and asked if I knew how to get rid of unwanted memories.” Mercy sat a book — bound in worn leather wrappings — and an ornately carved wooden box on the table between them. She opened the lid of the box, revealing a pair of ravens — carved from obsidian — nestled inside. Each was small enough to hold in one’s hand, and covered in delicately crafted patterns and runes. “This is the how.” She indicated the book and the stone ravens before looking at him evenly. “Are you absolutely certain you wish to know what memories you wanted gone? And why?”

There was a part of Winn that wanted to laugh at Mercy, to tell her that there was no way that she was right. It was a stubborn, temperamental part of himself that he hardly recognized. But, as she spoke, he realized that… well, that what she was sayin’ made sense. Winn had been in a bad way, after he left the pack. That… That was where the memories got fuzzy, where the train stopped because the track had been cut off. He’d always thought the wolf had finally gotten fed up with him, ran on a Full Moon and stayed transformed that way until Winn could get his shit together.

But none of that was true.

“I… kind of hate that you know more about me than I do,” Winn admitted, honestly. “So, I came to you to erase two whole years? That seems,” Winn grabbed one of the stone ravens to inspect it, “excessive.” His head pulsed, his vision blurred. Shit got weird. And painful.

“I’m used to it,” Mercy said of being hated, her voice holding a hint of something that might’ve been weariness. Or perhaps regret. Maybe both. But her expression turned to a true frown as he told her that— “Wait—” Mercy held up a hand, her tone one of shock. “You’re missing two years? Two entire years?” But Winn never got the chance to answer.

He reached for the raven… and collapsed to the floor.

Mercy was instantly on her feet, both out of concern for Winn, and to be ready in case she ended up with a fully shifted, angry werewolf in her flat.

“Please…” Winn heard himself begging Mercy and a robed figure behind her. The room was barely lit, but Winn could make out himself, younger, and speaking in broken sobs. It looked like the loft, but… different, in the pieces he could see. “Mercy, I did something I can’t take back. Ever. I want… I want a second chance. I’m not… I don’t want to be this person. I— I wanted my life back, but not like this. I didn’t— He didn’t—” There was a crackle in the air as he looked up, meeting the eyes of the fury. “I want this. No going back.”

The scene cut out, Winn heard three words in a language he didn’t recognize. Then, there was darkness.

In Winn’s memory, Mercy looked on in sympathy at the young wolf’s pain. The air hummed with static. “If this is your wish, if you believe with all your heart, that this is what’s right for you… that your life can only be better for forgetting, then so be it.”

When the spell had been cast, Mercy had merely been an observer, until the caster had come to the final seals. How fortuitous it was that she was there, and capable of speaking the three runes that activated the spell and set it in motion.

When Winn came back to himself, in the present, he was on the floor of the loft, holding his head in pain, tears streaming down his face, claws and fangs extended and digging tiny cuts into his skull and lip. Fuck. Fuck. His ears rang, his heart was racing.

“... What did I do?” Winn asked, finally, when he had just enough energy to pull himself off the floor. He couldn’t look at Mercy, not now. Not until he knew.

In the present, Mercy had moved to place herself between Winn and the door to the stairs, just in case. She knew he was in pain. She could see the partial shift his body had gone through in response to such huge amounts of stress. Mercy waited, relaxing slightly as moving towards him as he came back to himself. And asked the million dollar question.

Mercy sighed, wondering where the hell to start. Perhaps the cut and dry version would be best.

“You started this… one-man ‘protect the wolves’ mission… tracking down and killing the hunters, and others, that were hurting them… You were ruthless. Vicious even. You grew numb to it. Or so you said. Until one day… you killed a hunter in front of his children.” Mercy squatted down so she could be level with the wolf. “That was when you realized all those people, those hunters, were people too. With families. Children. People who loved them.” Mercy knew all hunters weren’t created the same. But that didn’t mean she thought Winn had been in the wrong for what he’d done. How many lives had he saved by taking the ones he had? Though it wasn’t what Mercy thought that mattered, was it? This was about Winn. “It set something off inside you… and you couldn’t live with what you’d done. You wanted it gone.”

She watched him for a long moment. “You’re not a bad person, Winn. I know bad people. You’re a good person that bad things have happened to.”

“Okay,” Winn said finally, curling in on himself on the floor, taking it all in. Numb, Mercy had said. Well, Winn didn’t feel very numb right now. He felt… he felt awful. And part of it was recovering from the stress of touching the raven, but… It was true. There was no denying it. Mercy had no reason to lie to him, and, fuck, was that what Winn had seen at the carnival? Killing a hunter, apparently the last in a string of killings. Winn had found his answer. Or, part of it. And that answer was awful, ripping into him and carving at his heart. He could hear his heart hammering in his chest. Winn sat there, just… thinking.

Until: “Wait, then… Why? Why two years?” Winn said, finally looking up and into Mercy’s eyes. “It doesn’t— Tell me I wasn’t… killing people for two years.” Not that it mattered, he supposed, in the grand scheme of things. Just more bodies to the count. Fuck. Fuck.

Mercy waited patiently while Winn processed everything. She was used to this too, after all. It was the story of her life. Waiting and watching… sometimes for months, even years at a time. But when he asked his next question, the only answer Mercy had was, “I don’t know why the spell took two years away. But no. You weren’t. It was… a few months. Maybe.”

“I’m a coward.” Winn sighed, looking up at the ceiling and away from Mercy’s gaze. He’d run away again. He couldn’t stop running away. “And I’m… I don’t know if I’m a bad person, Mercy, but I… I don’t think I can be a good person, if I did that, if I hurt all of those people — and you said, you said others? So, not all of them were hunters? I mean, that… that makes it worse, right?” Would it be better, if it had only been hunters? No. No, Winn didn’t think so. Even without his memories, without his apparent realization, he knew so many hunters now and he knew they were just… people. Fallible and too, too human.

Mercy’s jaw clenched as he called himself a coward. She remembered a moment very like this one, where she’d told him he should take control of his fears, his doubts, his demons… face them and conquer them. She couldn’t help it as the air in the flat started to hum with static. “A coward wouldn’t be sitting here in my tower, asking to remember things he once thought so terrible that he begged to have them removed from his mind forever.”

“The fact that you feel remorse for any of it…” Mercy shook her head, her expression softening slightly. “Bad people don’t feel remorse, Winn.” What did that say about Mercy, and all the people she’d killed over the centuries that she hadn’t thought twice about? The thought was fleeting, and thankfully didn’t settle in Mercy’s head. So she pressed on. “We can’t judge ourselves for the way we deal with trauma. That’s why it’s called trauma. Because it’s a deeply disturbing experience. Something we can rarely control. The only thing we can do… is learn from it. And try to be better in the end.”

Mercy’s words were as much for herself as for Winn, even if she didn’t realize it. But even then, there was nothing more she could say that hadn’t already been said. So again, she waited. Where they went from here was up to Winn.

And try to be better in the end.

Winn pulled himself off of the floor of the flat, scrubbed at his eyes, and looked at Mercy. She was right, even if he couldn’t believe it right now. Had Winn learned from it? When Winn got the memories back, would time have helped? Or would he just be back to that broken man, cryin’ at his friend to take it all away?

No. No, he refused.

Winn had barely finished saying, “I want them back,” though, when he collapsed, again, to the floor, unconscious and still.

#wickedswriting #para #Mercy #Harmony Hall #Chain of Memories #//#reposted because the timing changed #and there's a slightly different ending #:------)

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autumnslance · 5 years

Note

Prompting #33: The feel of fingertips trailing over a bare shoulder blade, for any character you'd like whenever you'd like. But as an entirely optional dare, there are bonus points from me if you involve a character who mildly surprises you with the experience. Just for fun. ;P

((I dunno if I managed a surprise reaction, though this wasn’t my original intent for this prompt either, so that was a bit of “huh?” for me. Now on Ao3))

“This much heat without the sun should be impossible,” Yda complained as she and Aeryn dodged through the crowds in Revenant’s Toll’s new square, despite the strange aetheric gloom of Mor Dhona.

Aeryn shrugged. “More the humidity; like half the lake is hanging over the town.” The sticky heat had Aeryn dressed lighter than usual in a backless summer dress with a knee-length skirt and simple sandals as they joined the celebration of the Splendor’s construction, hosted by Rowena herself. Yda had forgone her usual sabatons and wore a sleeveless cropped top, but kept her mask. Aeryn had already pointed out she’d be cooler without it, to no avail.

“It never felt like this in Vesper Bay,” Yda said, stopping in her tracks as the crowd opened up.

A small group of musicians were playing—a fiddle, a flute, a lyre, a small drum hanging from a shoulder strap. Aeryn realized they were adventurers that had been around town recently, doing various odd jobs for the growing settlement. Apparently they were also an impromptu band.

“Aeryn, Yda!” Thancred called, grinning as he joined them. “Just the ladies I wished to see.”

“Oh, what now?” Yda asked, eyeing the rogue.

He gave her a pout. “There’s music to go along with the celebrations, what do you think, dearest Yda?” His voice dropped. “Seriously, I need one of you to rescue me from my admirers, if you’d be so kind.”

“Bit off more than you can chew?” Aeryn asked, crossing her arms and trying not to laugh.

He shrugged. “Two of them have gotten into an argument and the third—well, I know if I tried to dance with her my feet would hate me in the morning.” He gave Aeryn one of his most charming smiles. “But none would begrudge me a dance with our Warrior of Light—nor try to cut in, either.”

Aeryn looked at the hand he held out while affecting a gallant bow. She sighed and took it despite herself–and a warning look from Yda–letting him pull her into the open space where three other couples were already moving at various levels of competence and enthusiasm.

She didn’t want to admit how much she had wanted to join the dancing anyway, though he already knew she enjoyed it. “Maybe you ought to try not flirting with multiple marks at once.”

“Yes, but where’s the fun in that?” He replied, leading her into a spin before joining what looked something like a disjointed quadrille, passing to other partners briefly before coming back together as the tempo changed.

“Honesty is its own reward,” she said as their hands met once more. “Your lack of shall get you into trouble someday.”

“I’m entirely honest, I’ll have you know,” he replied as he pulled her close for a pivot as the dance changed to something more of a cross waltz.

“Just not forthcoming,” she answered, resting her other hand on his shoulder as they skipped around the space in time with the other dancers.

Aeryn had not expected this close of a dance, but continued to follow his lead, through a series of pivot turns and windmill spins, and hesitation steps she was certain he was pulling from some other style she was unfamiliar with.

She chanced a glance at the open space. “Where are the oth–”

“Eyes on me,” he said, quick and low. Thancred grinned as she locked her grey eyes onto his brown. “Naught to worry about, just the dance,” he assured her in a soft tone.

She kept focus on his eyes, to distract herself from suddenly being very aware that the other couples had stopped dancing and many, many others were watching the two Scions as they sidestepped across the square and back again with a series of underarm turns. She spun away, their fingers barely touching, before reeling back in for a slight dip as the music ended and the gathered crowd clapped and cheered. The calloused pads of his fingertips trailed across her bared back, catching on her left shoulderblade and following the line of it up briefly as the dance ended. It sent a shiver through Aeryn, centered on her spine, aware of the trail his fingers had made in the thin sheen of sweat on her skin.

“There we are. Take a bow,” Thancred said, his usual wicked smile softened somehow as they turned, hands raised together as he bowed and she followed half a second later with a curtsy. “We shall have to do that again sometime,” he continued. “For now, I need a drink. You and Yda care to join me?”

Aeryn nodded, aware her face was burning and feeling more tongue-tied than usual. “I’ll find her and we’ll meet you,” she managed to blurt out, turning on a heel to find her friend.

Yda wasn’t far, a small frown on her face. “What was that?”

Aeryn blinked. Then shrugged. “Dancing? We’ve done it before.”

“Sure, for the Scions,” Yda said. “And watching Hoary cut in is always funny, but that was…”

“Thancred showing off,” Aeryn said, clearing her throat and waving a hand dismissively. “And now we’re thirsty and I bet you are too. He’s getting drinks for all of us.”

“Uh-huh,” Yda said. She did not press, however, for which Aeryn was grateful. She really wasn’t sure why she was suddenly so off-balance.

Nor why she could now feel the absence of his hand on her back.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #A Realm Reborn #Thancred Waters #Yda Hext #Thancred x WoL #Aeryn Prompts #shippy nonsense #Aeryn Striker

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elisaphoenix13 · 4 years

Text

Surprise Surprise

Scott was biting the tip of his thumb. While pacing...and constantly looking over at Quill. The celestial had no idea what it could be about since Scott wasn't currently working on a project, so he let him pace. Quill was too preoccupied with one of his space tools to try and talk Scott out of whatever mindset he got himself into anyway. If Scott really needed help, the thief could come to him.

Which he did after about ten more minutes of pacing and then suddenly stopped to look at Quill, looking like he was going to pass out.

"What is Cassie to you?" He asks and Quill drops the screwdriver in his hands in shock.

"What the hell kind of question is that?!" The celestial nearly yells. "Are you implying that I touch her--?!"

Scott winces and holds out his hands. "NO! Of course not! Shit...after half an hour of thinking about that, I could have worded it better."

"You think?!" Quill huffs and looks back down at his tools before shoving them across the coffee table and rubbing his eyes. "Scott--"

"She considers you as a dad right? And lately you've been looking at her like a daughter." The thief rambles and Quill narrows his eyes in suspicion. "What of it? If you want me to stop, it's a little late for that, and I'm not the only one you should be talking to."

Scott goes back to his pacing, biting his thumbnail again, and when he doesn't answer Quill, the god returns to his previous task. His husband was definitely acting weird, and now it was starting to stress him out. Maybe they just needed a drink. An idea he decided to go with, and gets up to walk past Scott and into the kitchen to grab a bottle of beer from the fridge. He holds it out toward Scott, who shakes his head in rejection at the offer, and Quill looks back into the fridge.

"Juice? I'm pretty sure we have one more of those pouches--"

"How do you feel about kids?" Scott finally questions.

Quill slowly closes the door to the fridge and turns to regard Scott carefully when he finds the younger man looking at him with the expression of a deer caught in the headlights. That was not a look he expected to see Scott direct at him, and it had him even more suspicious. Why was he suddenly asking Quill about kids? Had someone shown up claiming to be his kid?

"Is someone saying something? Because it's a bunch of bullshit. Believe it or not, protection is a thing in space and you can bet your ass that I used it and made sure it worked!"

Scott gives him an incredulous look. "What? No!"

"Then why are you asking?" Quill demands.

"Because…" Scott hesitates before seemingly gathering his courage and looking the celestial in the eyes. "Because I want one with you! I've been watching you with not only Cassie, but with Dia and Val and you're so good with them."

"No." Quill says firmly and he sighs when pain flickers across the thief's expression. "Baby, that's a bad idea for a lot of reasons." He sets his unopened beer on the counter and walks over to Scott to gently grab his shoulders. "Yes, I see Cassie as my kid, but she's at an age where she can take care of herself. Diana and Valerie? I can give them back. I can't cook...and the biggest reason? I'm up there too often." He points toward the ceiling but they both knew he was referring to space. "I'm gone for weeks...sometimes months at a time, and I can't leave you to take care of a baby while I'm out there risking my life."

Quill was just being logical. He could miss out on his child's life with how often he was out in space, and it really wasn't fair to Scott to leave him to raise it. The thief had his own job and what if he had to go out of town to meet a client while Quill was in space? Give the responsibility to Cassie? To Stephen? The former was not happening and the latter wasn't fair to the sorcerer. Although Stephen loved all of the kids, and babies, he already had four of his own to raise. Not to mention the man did far too much already.

"Quill." Said man looks down at his husband and Scott reaches up to wrap his arms around the Celestial's neck. "You never said you would be a bad father."

"I'm pretty sure that was implied with the whole space thing and me being able to give our nieces back."

Scott didn't seem to be happy with his answer though, and to Quill's exasperation...he pulled out all the stops. Specifically the part where he pulls away just enough to look at Quill with those golden, hazel, pleading eyes…

"Scott..." The celestial warns.

"Quill, you have all of eternity to help save space...and I'm not saying you need to completely stop going out there. Just have the Guardians only ask for your help in absolute emergencies." The thief compromises and Quill snorts.

"Have you met them? Everything is an emergency."

"That I'm pretty sure Rocket causes eighty percent of the time. If he can get them in the situations, he can get them out." Scott says with a smirk as he tightens his hold on Quill. "Besides, going by how you take care of the girls, you will be a really great dad."

That was it. Scott made a good point and Quill couldn't argue with it, but he did think of one more thing.

"Say I agree to this...are we adopting it something?"

"No. Stephen figured out his baby spell so that he can use it on other--"

"Wait wait wait." Quill unhooks Scott's arms from around his neck and pushes him away just enough to look at him properly. "You already talked to Stephen?"

Scott blushes hotly. "I...had to be sure he could do it before talking to you about it.

"You really want this." Quill says softly.

"Only if you do too."

"Well...Rocket does cause a majority of our problems. I'd rather parent my actual kid than those morons."

The euphoria that lit up Scott's eyes was the nail in the coffin of Quill's decision. After that, they went to talk to Stephen about their decision, and the sorcerer gave them the time to prepare for the new baby. As in, buy all of the supplies and talk to Cassie. The latter was simple enough. Cassie was elated to find out that she would get her own sibling and she had to assure Diana that it wouldn't take away their time together when the little girl found out. Cassie was her big sister in every way but blood, and also her escape from Harley and Peter who sometimes were annoying big brothers.

The shopping, on the other hand, gave Quill entirely new possibilities to have a meltdown over and Scott remained patient through each moment of panic. Sure, he held Valerie as a newborn and changed a couple of her diapers (unwillingly), but it didn't prepare him for the multitudes of things that tiny humans needed.

And seeing baby clothes by themselves and how tiny they were? They made him very aware of how big he was and left him wheezing in the corner of the store. It was a good thing Scott had experience, because Quill wasn't much help in regards to shopping. The younger thief was throwing things into the cart that the celestial didn't even know they needed.

"What are those?" Quill wonders as Scott throws in a small package of what looked like tiny blankets.

"Burping cloths."

"That's a thing? What? Why?!"

"So the baby doesn't ruin all of our shirts with regurgitated formula or vomit."

Quill was in serious need of some quick parenting lessons. So while Scott grabbed everything they would need, the god grabbed a parenting book and read through it as they walked through the store. Some things he was aware of from watching Stephen and Tony with Valerie, but when he got to the part about burping the baby...he nearly had another meltdown. A terrified meltdown. Pat the baby's back? Yeah right.

Quill clears his throat. "Hey...uh...Scotty?"

"Hmm?"

"Remember that part about me where I'm...you know…a god?"

"What of it?" Scott asks casually and Quill wheezes again.

"Super strength! I'm gonna kill the baby."

The thief looks over at him and smiles gently. "No you won't. You've handled Valerie just fine." That wasn't very reassuring to Quill and Scott seemed to notice because he walked over to the celestial and takes the book out of his hands. "If I didn't think you could do any of this, I wouldn't have asked. You're worrying about things you've already done, and things you haven't are not as big a deal as you're making them out to be."

That helped Quill's anxiety a little, and Scott had told him that was enough reading for now as he tossed the book into the cart. It gave Quill a small sense of security to know that he could still have something to refer to.

When they got home, they were pleasantly surprised to find a crib already set up in their bedroom. When they questioned FRIDAY about it, she had told them it was Tony and Stephen's gift to them, and it was the same one they currently used for Valerie. Which meant it was safe and durable...and one less thing to worry about. Bonus, Quill and Scott weren't stuck assembling it.

Stephen met them in their room the next day once everything was put in their proper places, and Quill took to prowling the room as the sorcerer got the spell ready. His hair was painfully yanked when he didn't respond to Stephen's request for it, and he shot a glare to the doctor before continuing his prowling. Stephen and Scott said a few things that Quill didn't quite catch in the midst of his pacing, but he was eventually stopped by Scott when the doctor was ready to cast the spell.

"You're absolutely positive you want this? This is a spell that can't be reversed." Stephen warns.

"Yes. We are...and we know it's permanent." Scott says with a teasing smile and Stephen rolls his eyes.

After a nod from Quill when Stephen looks at him for an answer to his question, he opens his book to the needed spell. The spell itself was not as dramatic as Quill expected, just a flash of light that momentarily blinded them, and then coos followed immediately after. When his eyes recovered from the sudden light and he looked down on the bed where the baby lay squirming, Quill froze. In fact, he stopped breathing all together because there wasn't just one baby. There were two.

He and Scott had twins.

That was the thought that sent him over the edge.

Quill passed out.

"...ill...Quill!" The Celestial's eyes snap open when a hand gently smacks his cheek and Scott barely manages to move away when Quill suddenly sits up.

"Holy shit, we need a lot more formula!"

Scott laughs. "We need a lot more of everything."

Quill gets back to his feet with Scott's help and Stephen looks over at them after finishing looking over the babies. When he informed the couple that they had a boy and a girl, the celestial stared at the newborns that were now warmly dressed in onesies. He had children now. Three of them...and it was terrifying. Cassie could take care of herself, but now he had two babies that were completely reliant on him to survive and that was very different from being protective. Now that urge to protect was stronger than ever and it must have shown since Scott was grabbing his face and trying to get his attention.

"Hey big guy. It's okay. Calm down."

"What?" Quill blinks away the haze. The first sign that his galaxy eyes had been setting in.

"I know. It's a little overwhelming, but no passing out for what's coming next."

Quill looks at him in horror. "Please tell me there isn't a third!"

Stephen was the one to laugh this time, and he carefully scoops up the little boy to transfer over to him while Scott picks up the little girl. "No. Still twins. You do have to hold them eventually though."

The celestial thought he fell in love just looking at the twins, but as soon as his son was in his arms? There was nothing like it, and he could only imagine what it would be like with his daughter.

He almost wanted to pass out again.

"I'm assuming you thought of names before this?" Stephen wonders and Scott smiles.

"You said you had no control over whether it would be a boy or a girl, so we thought of both...and since we have both…" The thief looks down at the little girl. "This is Hailey Meredith."

Stephen looks over at the boy in the gods arms and Quill answers softly. "Hunter Harris."

"I'll let Christine know. She's the one filling out the birth certificates." The sorcerer says with a smile before he leaves the parents to their new babies.

Quill and Scott did eventually switch, and with some relative ease since the celestial was a big guy and could hold the infants safely in each arm, so all Scott had to do was put Hailey in his other arm and take Hunter. A few more minutes of fawning over their children passed until the babies started to yawn, and they were gently laid in the crib and they thankfully fell asleep immediately. Quill knew it wasn't always going to be this easy, and that many sleepless nights were in his very near future, but he was oddly okay with that.

"Holy shit, I'm a dad." Quill exhales sharply and Scott helps him to the bed to sit before he passes out again.

"It's not entirely different from being an uncle. You just can't give them back...you have to feed them and change them all the time...you have to discipline--" Scott says and Quill rolls his eyes.

"I get it. You're not helping you brat." He pulls Scott between his legs and brings his head down to kiss him. "Cassie is going to be surprised."

"I'm pretty sure she won't pass out though."

Quill groans. "You'll be holding that over my head forever won't you?"

"Especially since you give me the gift of forever with you...so absolutely." Scott confirms.

Quill could live with that.

#scott lang #peter quill #antlord #celestialfamily #celestial quill

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