#but just the fact that his brother made a video in four different languages

[whatthefuckbyunbaekhyun]

I'm sorry but this whole Pogba thing is so funny

[dreamescapeswriting]

Compliment Battle ~ Lee Felix [Request]

↬↬↬Word Count: 1.8k

↬↬↬Genre: Fluffy!!!

↬↬↬Pairing: Lee Felix X Latina!Reader

↬↬↬A/n: Hope this is okay for you love! Had a lot of fun writing for the guys as I feel like I haven’t written fluff for them in a while! I promise to write more once my requests are down!

The press was good at over exaggerating things whenever they could, it was what they did all of the time you knew and everyone else knew it too but knowing it was different when you were reading something about yourself. Another day another dumb article from one of the online magazines that everyone seemed to adore so much, always sharing it with one another despite the contents either being completely made up or turned on their head so they were no longer facts. You laid awake while Felix was asleep beside you, he'd gotten in late with Chan last night so you weren't about to wake him up and show him yet another article about your relationship. The only reason you were up so early was because of the sun peeking through the blinds in the window which Jeongin had neglected to shut - again - the night before. Through every muscle in your body, you slowly and quietly got out of the bottom bunk of the bed and walked towards the door - being careful not to trip on any of Jisung's clothes as you went, he told you the reason they were on the floor was that it kept things organised for him, you would have accepted the excuse as well if the boy didn't wear the same four shirts over and over again. You'd been staying over at the dorms while you came to visit Felix for a couple of weeks, trying not to get in the way while they trained and got things ready for STAY.

"You okay?" A voice called out as you silently shut the door behind you, your hand landed on your chest to calm your heart that was now pounding against your chest thanks to Chan who was sitting in the kitchen. He'd heard someone waking up and he knew it wasn't going to be any of the boys - not yet anyway, he placed is earbuds down onto the table and stared at you waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, I was going to take a shower. You slept yet?" Stupid question. He'd probably been sitting in the kitchen working from his laptop all night - you knew all of the boys like the back of your hand since you met them when Felix did. Chan eyed you up, he could already tell there was something on your mind by the way you were avoiding his eyes and holding yourself up. Your arms were folded across your chest to block out any body language to give yourself away but in doing so it gave it away that something was wrong.

"I'll make a drink, sit down and tell me about it." You sighed you hated how well he knew people, how quickly he could decipher when something was wrong with someone but at the same time you did love him for it. It was like having a caring older brother there to watch out for you, even if you were older than him Chan would still feel like the older brother type. He flicked the kettle on while he watched you from the corner of his eye, you were sitting at the table while nervously playing with the sleeves of Felix's hoodie you'd worn to bed.

"What is it?" He questioned, he'd made you a drink then set it down in front of you while he waited for you to speak about whatever it was that was bothering you. You knew that Chan and the boys had had their fair share of press coverage both negative and positive but you didn't know how to bring it up with Chan without him running to Felix. It wasn't something you wanted to bother anyone with but it was starting to bother you to the point where you dreaded going online. The constant sprew of articles being written about you was insane, you would have thought they'd have better things to do than write about you and your relationship but apparently not.

"Have you seen the articles?" You could already tell by the dejected look on his face that he'd seen them already and you groaned laying your head down onto the cold wooden table. It was cold enough to relieve some of the tension headache you had but it wasn't enough to completely pass it away.

"It's every time I come to visit, they seem to pick up more and somehow get worse." You whispered looking up at him through your arms to see him giving you a sad smile. You had been visiting the boys a lot more than you used to since dating Felix and since your relationship was outed to everyone. Once it was out you and Felix saw no reason to hide that you were together anymore and continued life as normal together.

"They have to talk about something and unfortunately it's not always good." Your mind flashed back to all of the articles talking about you, how you didn't fit the 'Korean Beauty Standards' and that you were different to who they wanted Felix to date - as if it was down to them anyway. Felix could date whoever he wanted and you were lucky enough that he chose you  - though he'd convinced you that he was the lucky one to be able to date you.

"I'm going to go and shower, thanks for the coffee," You whispered taking the mug with you as you headed for the main bathroom of the dorms, it had the largest shower which would make you feel better after the morning you'd been having.

"Hi," Felix's voice was warm as he came up behind you in the kitchen wrapping his arms around your waist as you stood at the sink washing up the breakfast plates and pans you'd used to cook for everyone.

"Hi," You whispered back to him as you felt him leave a small kiss on the back of your neck, he turned you around and you groaned as your hands were still wet from the soapy dishwater.

"Changbin already moped this morning don't make him do it again," You squealed through your sentence as he picked you up and placed you onto the countertop ignoring the protest he got from Hyunjin and Jisung who were still trying to eat their breakfast but finding it hard at the sudden display of affection.

"I'm showing my girl how much I love her-"

"Yeah, well, you have a bedroom for that." Jisung groaned shoving a bit of toast into his mouth watching as Felix took you towards the dorm room he shared with Jisung and Jeongin.

"I missed you this morning." He whispered as he laid you down the bed beneath him his arms either side of your head as he looked down at you, you sent him the warmest smile you could manage with the articles playing in the back of your head. Whenever you looked at him you could somehow feel the words all creeping into your head and clouding your vision of you and him together,

"Sorry, I wanted to do something nice since it's my last week." You knew you were lying. He knew you were lying. He could read you like a book. He collapsed down onto the bed beside you and patted his chest wanting you to cuddle into him while you spoke about what was troubling you. There was no getting out of it, once Felix knew something was bothering you he wouldn't stop until he knew what it was and could fix it for you. He was the little ball of sunshine that tried to make your day better all of the time.

You sat crossed legged in front of him though wondering how you were supposed to bring something like this up to him, he was used to articles being written about him and the boys but you weren't. You weren't used to waking up to the internet exploding about your body - the week before they'd done nothing but analyse the way your body was shaped, the way your hips would move when you walked and the way you wore your clothes. It was different to what they were used to, sure, but you assumed they'd get over it sooner or later. This week however it was about your personality, it was no secret that you were extroverted but with friends like Felix and the guys you had to be. You were all loud and rambunctious together as you all fed off of one another's energy, competing to see who was the loudest out of all of you.

"It's the articles isn't it?" He sat up and came face to face with you, you looked at him eyes dancing over his face to see his freckles you loved so much and his dark brown eyes. His blonde hair was getting long again and fell into his face, you pushed it out of the way and he sighed knowing the answer to his question already without you even saying a word to him.

"I just-"

"Come here," He pulled you to lay down next to him and you sighed, laying here in his arms seemed to melt everything away around you. Suddenly you weren't in the Stray Kids dorm you were just alone with Felix in your own little world being able to just be yourselves without having to worry about anyone else.

Felix knew that there was nothing that he could do to prevent the articles from writing about you or to stop what they were writing about but he was going to do his best to make you feel better about them whenever he could. That was the price for dating an idol when they were in the limelight so were you and if you were going to be seen together it was going to happen a lot more.

"I love it when you're loud by the way," He mumbled into your ear an hour later. You'd both fallen asleep curled up in each other's arms only to wake up with Jeongin come in from losing a video game against Chan.

"Someone can give us all a run for our money, I thought we were loud but with you, we could cheer on a whole basketball team and maybe a football team." You gently poked his side as he playfully teased you trying to cheer you up and he chuckled kissing your cheek as he drew you closer to him, your head was resting against his chest just listening to his heartbeat as you cuddled together.

"Don't even get me started on the way you move your hips - ugh so gorgeous." You groaned at him for being so gross this early in the morning, you took a pillow out from behind you and began smushing it against his face as you got up to get away from his constant compliments, he continued yelling them as you ran towards the door.

"Come back in here and let me compliment you!" He yelled as you shot out of the room into the living room where the boys all let you hide behind them so Felix couldn't get to you.

Tagline: 

@snowy-meowl​ @taestannie​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @jooniesdarlingdimples​

[hockey-fics]

Broken Promises and Forbidden Relationships ~ Jamie Oleksiak

Summary: Having Roope as your best friend was one of the best things in your life. The biggest downside had always been how protective he got. So you made a promise to never get involved with one Dallas Star defensemen in particular...but sometimes feelings are stronger than past promises. 

Word Count: ~10.5k

Warnings: Language, very cliche, a lot of drama.

Video source of gif

Huge shoutout to @klingeroopesalove​ for the idea and then being the most patient person on planet earth for waiting so stupidly long for me to finish it. 

A/N: There’s a few sentences in Finnish throughout this. I tried my absolute best with the translations. I don’t speak Finnish so I had to rely on contextual dictionaries for this so I’m really, really sorry if I butchered it! Also, it’s not my best writing in general and I don’t love it, but I hope you enjoy it!

Roope had been the older brother you never biologically had since you were 7. When your parents, the free-spirits they were, had decided to sell the house you had lived in for the first seven years of your life on a whim. But rather than move across town or to a new city or even a different state they decided to start fresh in Tampere, Finland. You moved into a house across the street from another family that your parents quickly befriended and the next thing you knew Roope was showing up at your front door every morning to walk you to school. And after the end of the school day he would show up at your classroom door to walk home with you. He was only one year older than you but he very quickly became protective over you, you were the epitome of a new kid and he wanted to make things as easy for you as possible. And just as quickly you grew attached to Roope, the first day he was sick and couldn’t walk with you to school left you crying so hard your mom agreed to take you herself, leaving her forty minutes late to work. 

You had always talked about moving back to the United States growing up. It wasn’t that you disliked Finland, in fact, in many of your daydreams about the USA it felt more like a temporary stop. To reconnect with some of your earliest memories before moving back to Finland eventually. 

Saying goodbye to Roope when he moved to Texas after being signed by the Dallas Stars was one of the hardest days of your life. But in retrospect the sadness you felt was overkill. Because within four months you were also living in Texas. And you had adapted incredibly easy to the move. But you knew you had Roope to thank for that, for being the catalyst to finally doing what you said you were going to do. 

“Mind if we pick up Y/N on the way?” Roope asks, turning his head to look across the interior of his car at Jamie. Jamie’s car was in the shop and when he mentioned getting a rental car for the day Roope told him he could just carpool to and from practice that day with him instead of going through that hassle. What he didn’t think about was the fact that he had agreed to pick you up on his way home for a movie night at his apartment. 

Jamie glances over at Roope with a mischievous grin. He had heard all about you. As had the rest of the team and most likely anybody who Roope had talked to. Everybody knew you were Roope’s best friend and even though he had never said it out loud everyone was well aware of the reason he never brought you around to meet the team. He was protecting you. Protecting you from the possibility of you falling for and getting hurt by one of his teammates. He would try to protect you from getting your heart broken by any guy in the world if it was possible, but the best he could logistically do was keeping you from his teammates.

“No problem,” Jamie replies easily, turning back to look out through the front window of the car. 

Roope stops at a red light, glancing back over at Jamie. “Don’t make it weird.” 

“Why do you think I would?”

“Because she’s…,” Roope’s voice fades out as he presses on the gas, accelerating through the intersection. “I don’t….she’s really pretty, I guess,” Roope mutters in the way a brother would talk about his sister, uncomfortable even acknowledging the fact that someone might look at you in a way that was more than just friendly. 

Jamie chuckles, shaking his head. “Fine, I won’t make it weird,” Jamie assures him with finality, sounding more reassuring than Roope felt. 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, drawing your attention away from the book you were reading. ’I’m here’ the text message from Roope reads. Swiping your keys from the counter and your bag from beside the door you head out, hurrying down the stairs and outside. 

Approaching Roope’s familiar vehicle you reach out for the door handle on the passenger’s side, pausing when you notice a person in the passenger’s seat already. Before you have the chance to get to the backseat the door opens. 

“You can have the front seat,” the man tells you and after a couple moments you recognize him as Jamie Oleksiak. Oleksiak. You were more familiar with him by his last name after watching almost ever single one of Roope’s games. 

“No, no,” you tell him quickly, watching as he steps out of the car. But your hand is already on the back door. “Get back in,” you laugh, gesturing towards the car. 

Jamie shakes his head, an amused smile on his lips. “I’m the one messing up your movie date.”

“It’s not…it’s not a date…and you’re definitely not messing anything up.” You weren’t sure where that need to clarify came from. You had joked about dating Roope more times than you could count. About how often he would pay for your meals out, picking you up and taking you home, texting and FaceTiming constantly when you weren’t together. But you wanted Jamie to know it wasn’t like that. And even though you wanted to deny it, it was pretty hard to convince yourself that it wasn’t simply because of Jamie. Because of his tall figure towering over you. Because of the grin on his lips as he looked down at you. Because of the tattoos covering his muscular arms, partially obscured by the sleeve of his t-shirt. Because of his piercing eyes locked on yours. And maybe, just maybe, you finally understood the jokes Roope had made to you about keeping you away from his friends. Because you really had underestimated just how attractive Jamie really was, the brief shots of him on the television screen during games doing him no justice. 

Jamie chuckles, his hand resting casually on top of the car door in a way you knew would look ridiculous if you ever tried. “I’m not the one making it weird,” Jamie says, turning to look back into the car at Roope. 

You narrow your eyes as you lean down to look through the interior of the car, watching Roope turn his head to look back at you. “Mene vain autoon, Y/N,” Roope says, telling you to get in the car. 

You blink a few times as Roope begins to speak Finnish, something he only ever did when he was frustrated with you or wanting to tell you something privately when other people were around. “Mikä sinua vaivaa?” You reply, voice hushed as you ask him what his problem was while climbing into the backseat of the car. 

You watch as Jamie apprehensively gets back into the passenger’s seat, eyes shifting back and forth between you and Roope.  

“Älä flirttaile hänen kanssaan,” Roope warns, telling you not to flirt with Jamie as he turns back around in his seat to look out through the front window. 

“En flirttaillut hänen kanssaan,” you state harshly, letting Roope know you weren’t flirting with Jamie. But perhaps it was a slight lie. With the way you made it very clear that he wasn’t messing up your day, the way your eyes lingered on his just a little too long. You turn your head to the other side of the car, noticing Jamie glancing back at you. “Sorry,” you tell him with a soft smile. “Someone doesn’t know it’s rude to speak in a language their guest can’t understand,” you state, a jab at Roope, playful, but still a jab. 

Jamie chuckles, not looking back out the front window for a few minutes. “I’m Jamie, by the way,” he tells you, now settled in the car and realizing nobody had even done introductions. Not that they needed to be done. You had watched Jamie play more times than you could possibly count and he had heard more stories about you than he could possibly count. 

“Nice to meet you,” you tell him, stopping yourself before saying ‘I know’. “I’m Y/N.”

“I know,” he says and you can’t help but smile at that, at how quickly he said exactly what you hadn’t. “Heard a lot about you.”

“Oh god, that can’t be good,” you joke, laughing as you slide into the seat behind Roope so you would have a better view of Jamie as you continued the conversation. 

Jamie chuckles and turns his head to glance at you, the glance lingering longer than it should have and you can’t ignore the butterflies in your stomach coming alive with the way he was looking at you. “All good stuff,” he assures you.

“Good,” is all you can manage to whisper. It wasn’t like you to be at a loss for words, but your mind was a blank slate, empty under his gaze. But the second his eyes flick away from yours you know you’re in trouble, because all you want is for them to be back on you. “What are you doing this afternoon?” You blurt out and Jamie turns to look back at you while Roope glances in the rearview mirror, trying to figure out if you were really about to do what he thought you were. 

Jamie shrugs, shaking his head. “I don’t know, I’ve got no plans.”

“Come watch a movie with us,” you suggest, trying to sound casual about it, not too eager.

“Y/N, ei,” Roope mutters, telling you no. 

“I-,” Jamie begins, looking over at Roope and then back at you, seeming torn. “If you don’t mind.” You weren’t sure who the latter part was directed at, but you were pretty sure it was Roope given his uncomfortable tension through the entirety of the car ride. 

“That’s fine,” Roope mutters. You know it’s not fine. You know he doesn’t want you to get close to his teammates. He never did. 

Growing up in high school when everyday you were in the same building as the junior hockey team it was harder for Roope to keep you from getting hurt. And hurt is exactly what you got. Hurt by one of Roope’s teammates when he cheated on you after your five months together, a reasonable feat at 15 years old. And of course Roope hated him after that, but you made him promise that he wouldn’t let it impact how he played. That whatever happened during the 60 minutes of his hockey games had to be completely unrelated to what happened with you. And as far as you could tell, he upheld that promise back then. 

But you weren’t going to let that one experience when you were 15 years old interfere with your life all these years later. 

You’re in Roope’s apartment soon after, Jamie standing a few feet away, watching as you put a bag of popcorn in the microwave while Roope had disappeared somewhere in his apartment. 

“What movie are we watching?” Jamie asks, watching you push the button for the popcorn on the microwave. 

Turning to him you press your hip to the counter as the microwave whirs in the background. “I think the guest should pick.”

“You’re the guest here too,” Jamie points out. 

Rolling your eyes playfully you cross your arms over your chest. “Hardly. I’m here almost as much as my own apartment.”

“Okay, well you have to at least help me out.”

Lifting your eyebrows you look up at him. “Oh, do I?”

Jamie nods, a smirk on his lips. “Yeah, you do.”

“Okay,” you tell him slowly, waiting for him to go on. 

“What category of movie should I pick from?”

“Romantic…comedy, a comedy,” you tell him, quickly changing your answer when you considered the possibility of your suggestion coming across too strong. You weren’t going to deny that you were attracted to Jamie, but you couldn’t be that outright about it. You had to feel things out for now. 

“Romantic comedy,” Jamie states, combining the two suggestions you made into one. It felt so easy, the way he said it, his voice gentle and sweet. 

You feel your cheeks getting a little warm and you immediately divert your attention back to the microwave, eyes watching the numbers decreasing. You’re sure for a moment that time has slowed down to make you sit in this situation for longer than normal. “Can you grab a couple bowls?” you ask Jamie, nodding towards the cupboard behind him.

Jamie turns around and opens the cupboard door, reaching up to grab a couple of the bowls from the top shelf. As he does so you can’t help but look back in his direction, eyes taking in the sight before you. Sure, you knew you shouldn’t be staring. Maybe it was disrespectful or inconsiderate. He was just doing what you asked, helping you out, you shouldn’t be checking him out. But it felt like a magnetic pull that you didn’t know how to break from. 

You don’t look away quick enough when Jamie turns back towards you, the two bowls in hand. You know that he had caught you staring. You knew it from the smirk on his lips as he extends his arm with the bowls, silent as he hands them to you. 

“Thanks,” you whisper, taking them and setting them on the counter. Keeping your back to him you take the popcorn out of the microwave, dumping some into each of the bowls, trying to ignore the urge you had to look back and see if he was watching you. You were fairly sure he was, if not simply because you were the only other person in the room. 

“No problem,” he replies, leaning against the counter. 

When you look back over he’s already looking at you, but he’s unwavering in it. “He wasn’t lying.”

“Hm?” You hum, one hand resting against the counter as you look up at Jamie.

“Roope said you were really pretty…he wasn’t lying.”

You feel your heart hammering, loud and distracting in your own ears. “He must have forgotten to give me the same message about you.” Your eyes were focused on the counter, on the clock on the stove, briefly on Jamie’s lips, anywhere but his eyes. You were scared if you looked into his eyes you simply wouldn’t be able to look away, to hide the fact that you were falling for him harder and faster than you knew you should be. 

“That I’m really pretty?”

And suddenly the tension in the room has changed. It’s lighter now as his comment makes you giggle. When you look over from where you were staring at the flashing light on the dishwasher you notice him already looking at you with an amused grin. “Yeah, you’re for sure one of the prettiest people I’ve ever seen,” you joke. 

“I’m flattered,” Jamie chuckles, reaching over and picking up at piece of popcorn. 

A moment later you reach over as well, grabbing a few pieces as you step away from him and into the middle of the kitchen. “Catch,” you tell him, tossing a kernel of corn through the air. 

Jamie instinctively reaches out, catching the popcorn in his hand with ease. 

You can’t help but laugh, shaking your head. “Not with your hand, dumbass,” you tease. Occasionally it came back to you. Flirting in the same way you flirted as a teen, with a slight meanness to your comments. “Your mouth.”

Jamie laughs and you feel your cheeks warm up again. “Not…,” you begin, trailing off as you realize you didn’t need to clarify that you didn’t mean anything sexualize by it. You try again, tossing it towards him. 

“You’re going to have to throw higher than that.”

“You’re too tall,” you giggle, trying to get some more height on the popcorn. “It’s too light,” you whine about the popcorn. 

Jamie grabs a handful of popcorn, nodding for you to step back before he grabs one piece and throws it in your direction. You manage to catch the first kernel, laughing as you spin in a celebratory circle. Jamie tries again and this time you step overzealously to the side, your hip smacking against the corner of the kitchen island. 

“Ow,” you whine, laughing as you grasp your hip. 

“Are you okay?” Jamie asks, stepping over towards you, his hands hovering towards you, as if wanting to do something to help the situation but falling short of knowing what to do. 

You can’t help but fall just a little more for him, for the way his eyes were filled with concern over such a little thing. “Yeah, completely,” you assure him, looking down at his hands. You watch him hesitantly bring one to the counter, resting it there in an attempt to look like he wasn’t unsure of everything he was doing. “Thanks for asking though.”

“Of course.” 

You place both your hands onto the counter, hopping up onto it. For the first time you’re the same height as Jamie and you’re finally looking into his eyes for more than a couple fleeting seconds. “You have really nice eyes.” Your voice comes out as a whisper, eyes locked on his. 

“Thank you,” Jamie replies, his own voice in a low whisper as he gravitates a little closer. He leans a little closer and you realize he’s looking into your eyes, really and truly looking into them. “Yours too.” 

Jamie is standing directly in front of you now. You couldn’t stop your mind from flooding with all sorts of less than PG thoughts about Jamie standing so close to you, so close to standing between your legs. You can’t even manage to say anything over the volume of the thoughts in your head. 

“What movie are we watching?” Roope asks, breaking you away from the moment you were having with Jamie. 

“Jamie is picking,” you tell him, turning your head around to look over your shoulder at Roope. As Jamie steps back you slide off the counter, grabbing the two bowls of popcorn from the counter. 

“A romantic comedy,” Jamie chimes in as you and him follow Roope into the living room. 

Roope laughs as he plops down onto the recliner he always sat in. He always sat in the recliner so you could lay on the couch. “Oh, you’re not joking,” Roope comments, noticing he was the only one laughing. 

“You’re going to make Jamie share the couch and popcorn with me?” You ask Roope, your tone lighthearted but your insides twisting into anxious knots. How did Jamie have such control over your feelings? He was just a guy. Just one of the most attractive guys you had seen in awhile. But just a guy. 

“I don’t mind,” Jamie says, already sitting down on the end of the couch. 

Nodding you walk over, sitting down a couple feet away from him as you set the bowl of popcorn between you two. You reach over for the remote, handing it to Jamie as you pull your legs up onto the couch, shuffling a little closer to him so you could reach the popcorn.

“Olen kolmas pyörä,” Roope mutters, complaining about feeling like a third wheel. 

“Hiljaa,” you reply, telling him to shut up as you shake your head. He wasn’t a third wheel as he was insinuating with his comment. Though perhaps if you really did have it your way he would be. But just as that thought pops into your mind you’re quick to get rid of it by focusing on the Netflix options Jamie was scrolling through. 

Fifteen minutes later a movie is playing and you’re all sitting quietly watching it. You were far more tense than normal. You weren’t lounging on the couch shovelling popcorn into your mouth without a care in the world. 

But halfway through the movie you felt some of your nerves dissipating, the familiar feeling of getting over the initial anxiety during a first date. But you felt ridiculous that you were feeling like that. This was so far from a first date. 

Eventually the popcorn bowl is moved onto the coffee table, leaving the space between you and Jamie empty. And you find yourself gravitating towards him a little every time you adjust on the couch. And then his arm is around the back of the couch behind you and you can’t help but turn to look at him with a playful smile on your lips. Because it was such a classic move, the arm on the couch, it wasn’t as forward as putting your arm around someone. It was subtle, it was open to interpretation. It was a way to make a move where you couldn’t be directly denied. But when he looked back down at you, you knew that you hadn’t misread the situation. So you slide a little closer, tentative as you lean against him. 

“Do you like the movie?” Jamie whispers once you’re leaning against him, his arm still resting on the couch. 

Nodding you tip your head back, looking up at him. You notice the stubble on his jawline, obviously having shaved recently but not too recently. And it looks so effortlessly attractive. His eyes are soft as he gazes down at you. “Yeah, I do. It was a good choice.” 

“You’re picking next time.”

The corners of your lips pull into a smile when he says this, feeling his arm slide down from the back of the couch to rest on your shoulders. “Next time?”

Jamie lets out a breath of laughter. “Hopefully,” he whispers.

“I feel left out of this conversation,” Roope announces, looking over at you and Jamie. He waits till you look into his eyes, immediately giving you a look. A look of disapproval, a look of ‘what are you doing?’ Rather than addressing it you quickly break eye contact with him. 

“Sucks, hey?” Jamie jokes, referring to when Roope kept speaking to you in Finnish. 

You can’t help but giggle at that, feeling Jamies fingers brush over your shoulder, as if to silently tell you he appreciated you laughing at his joke, at being in on a joke with you. 

Roope shakes his head, turning back to the movie without saying another word. 

By the time the movie comes to an end you’re completely cuddled up with Jamie. He’s sitting at an angle, allowing you lean against his chest, your legs pulled onto the couch. You can feel every time he chuckles at a joke in the movie, the steady rise and fall of his chest with his breath. 

“Ready to go?” Roope asks harshly when the movie ends, sitting up straighter in the recliner. 

You’re taken aback by this. He almost never asks you to leave after just one movie. He almost never asks you to leave in general. He typically waits will you ask him to drive you home. “Yeah,” you mumble, pulling yourself away from Jamie and stretching your arms in front of you. 

You feel a sense of urgency as you pick up the bowl of popcorn to take it to the kitchen, bustling around as you gather your belongings while Roope waits to drive you and Jamie back to your apartments. 

This time it’s you who has to be the one to break out the Finnish. And you felt bad with Jamie a few feet away, but the way Roope was acting was equally concerning and irritating. “Miksi käyttäydyt näin?” You ask him why he’s acting like that. 

“I thought it was rude to speak another language,” Roope deadpans, grabbing his keys from the counter. 

“Whatever,” you grumble, following him out the door. Your relationship with Roope was so much closer to a sibling relationship than a typical relationship. You two would bicker and argue all the time, but you knew it never really meant anything. Well, it normally didn’t mean anything. 

After dropping Jamie off at his apartment Roope turns to look at you. “You can’t go out with him.”

“Okay,” you say, the word drawn out as you say it.

“I know you’re into him.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say that,” you tell him defensively, despite the fact that it was very true. 

“I know you well enough, I can tell you are,” Roope says, his eyes focused intently out the front window. “Not that I have to know you well to tell, with you two all over each other on the couch.”

“We weren’t,” you begin, sighing loudly as you roll your eyes. “We weren’t all over each other. He had his arm around me…that’s it.”

“I don’t ask much from you but can you just listen to me for once?”

“What the hell?” You whine, rolling your eyes. “I listen to you all the time.” And it was true, you were always going to Roope for advice. The only difference is that was advice you were asking for, this was advice he was giving you. 

“Can you please just agree to this?”

“Fine,” you huff. You knew it would be easier to just let this go. It wasn’t like Jamie even asked for your number or made any real plans to see you again. So it wasn’t worth arguing for something that wasn’t even going to happen. 

“Good,” Roope comments, stopping at an intersection. “So do you want to come back to my apartment and watch another movie?”

Laughing you roll your eyes. So getting you to leave was just to get Jamie away from you. “Of course,” you reply. 

Later that night, after two more movies and pizza for dinner with Roope you’re back at your apartment, getting ready for bed. After you crawl under the covers and pick up your phone you notice an Instagram notification. 

Jamie Oleksiak (jamieoleksiak) started following you. 

Clicking the notification your phone unlocks, opening his profile. After a few minutes of scrolling through his profile you go back to the top, pressing the follow back button with a smile on your face. You shouldn’t have been so happy. For a few different reasons but primarily because it simply didn’t mean anything. 

Months later and you never received so much as a DM from Jamie. You had gotten your hopes up for nothing. Nothing but a friendly gesture for him to follow you. He had liked all your new posts since then, but nothing more than that. 

“Yeah, I’ll be there in fifteen,” you tell Roope, your phone sitting on the bathroom counter as you were finishing the last bits of your hair. It was a blatant lie. The drive to his apartment took ten minutes itself and you had lost hope of being out of your apartment in the next five.

It was the Dallas Stars’ annual casino night and Roope had asked you to come with him. He had never invited you to anything like this before and you had a slight inkling you knew why that was changing. Because you had met Jamie. You had met Jamie and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing happened and Roope was ecstatic about it. He was coming around to the idea that perhaps he had been just a little too protective with you.

So here you were, standing in front of the mirror in a black dress, looking more done up than you had been in awhile. You simply had no reason to get this dressed up, makeup and hair done to match. 

“I know you’re lying,” Roope comments and you can hear the humour in his voice, can picture him shaking his head. 

“Okay, fine,” you huff, yanking the curling iron cord from the outlet, swiping your phone from the counter as you make your way to your bedroom. “Twenty,” you tell him, digging through your closet for the pair of heels you knew you had but hadn’t worn in long enough for them to end up stashed in the back of the closet. “I’m just putting my shoes on now,” you call to your phone on the other side of the room, pulling the heels on and securing the tiny, delicate buckles around your ankles. 

“I knew you would be late, we don’t actually have to leave my place for like forty-five minutes.”

You pause, looking over at your phone with narrowed eyes, as if you were really looking at Roope. Huffing you walk over, picking your phone up along with the purse you had already prepared with the essentials for the night. “You’re so…infuriating. I’ve been panicking for like an hour about being late.”

“But if I didn’t do this you would still be panicking and we really would be late,” Roope chuckles. 

Rolling your eyes you remain silent, knowing it was the truth. Walking to the door you grab your car keys. “I’m leaving now,” you mutter, pretending to be annoyed with him when you were truly relieved. 

“See you in a bit.”

When you get to the venue you become aware of the fact that the night was going to be more overwhelming than you had anticipated. You wanted to make a good impression with Roope’s teammates. But to meet them all at once was a bit more than you bargained for. 

“So you must be Y/N.”

Turning your head in the direction of the voice you smile at the man approaching you. Tyler Seguin. You knew who most of the players were, but you knew him especially. Because one of your friends in particular had shared her much more than innocent feelings for him with you. 

“I am,” you say with a soft laugh, looking over at Roope teasingly, coming to realize he really did talk about you more than you thought. You talked about him all the time too, with your friends and family. About current things, games and achievements but also when you talked about your past. Because from the moment you met Roope he had been such an important part of your life than almost all of your memories included him in some form. “Tyler, right?”

Tyler smirks and you know it’s just friendly but Roope steps forward, almost between you two. 

“Calm down,” you laugh, jokingly pushing at Roope’s arm. “It’s not me you would need to worry about around him.”

Roope’s brows furrow as he stares at you and you can see in his eyes he’s running through the rolodex of options. “Who?” He finally asks, voice hushed as if you were spilling some serious secrets. 

“Allie,” you giggle, shaking your head at how intrigued Roope had become. 

“Allie, hey?” Tyler chimes in, laughing as he says it, making it evident that he was just joking. 

“Don’t get too excited, she’s in Finland,” you explain to Tyler. 

As you, Tyler, and Roope continue your conversation your attention it caught by a tall figure across the room. Jamie. And he was looking right back at you. 

“Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me for a minute,” you say to Roope and Tyler, stepping back and around them. 

Walking up to Jamie you smile up at him. “Long time, no see.”

“Too long,” he replies, lifting the glass he was holding to his lips. “You look beautiful tonight…I mean, you look beautiful always, but tonight especially,” he stammers, chuckling at himself as he shakes his head, both of you aware that he was flustered because of you. “You don’t want a drink?” He asks, clearly feeling like he needed a couple more himself. 

“Thank you,” you say politely, replying to his compliment, uncertain of exactly how to take it. Perhaps if he had shown more interest, between the time you met and now you would have a better grasp of how to respond. You wanted to think he was truly into you, but you couldn’t get rid of the nagging in the back of your head telling you that he could have done more. “Yeah, actually, I would,” you tell him finally, glancing around for the bar. 

“Let’s go find you a drink then.” Jamie’s hand pressing into your lower back makes you jump, the contact unexpected. “Sorry,” he says instantly, pulling back. You knew he was just doing it to guide you through the crowded room but it caused your stomach to erupt with butterflies in a way that made you realize that the excitement you felt initially was still very much alive.  

Laughing you shake your head. “It’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting that.” You glance down at his hand, hesitantly reaching over and taking it in yours, nodding in the direction of the bar. “Let’s go find that drink.”

Jamie nods, eyes not leaving yours, a smile on his lips. Completely wrapped up in you, like nothing else going on in the room mattered for the time being. 

And you don’t let go of his hand till you’re at the bar, standing next to him while you wait for the crowd of people already there to be helped. You were in no rush because a part of you worried this might be the only time you got to be with Jamie that night. You needed more time with him, to figure out what was happening with him…if anything was happening with him. 

“I was surprised when Roope said he was bringing you,” Jamie says as you were glancing around the room, taking in the large and crowded room, the sound of music faded below the hum of conversations blending into one steady drone. 

“I think he’s feeling a little more comfortable after we met,” you explain even though you’re certain he already knows this. “Because nothing happened even though we were…” you trail off, hoping Jamie would fill in the blank. 

Attracted to each other? Flirting? You were hoping for something, but you receive nothing but a nod of acknowledgement instead. 

After getting your drink you glance up at Jamie, wishing for a moment that you didn’t have to do what you were about to do. “I should go find Roope, I haven’t been a great date so far.”

Jamie chuckles and nods. “So it’s a date this time, hey? I remember you got a little defensive about that word last time.”

“I’m more sure that you know Roope and I aren’t a thing now,” you explain, taking a sip of your drink. “I’m surprised you still don’t have someone to bring with you tonight though.”

Jamie chuckles, shrugging. “The person I’m interested right now is here with someone else tonight.”

Laughing you roll your eyes playfully. “Good one, Casanova.” Out of the corner of your eye you notice a couple people standing a few feet away, glancing over in Jamie’s direction. “I think you’ve got some people who want to talk to you,” you tell him, stepping back. “And I should get back to my date,” you add with a teasing smile. 

He nod, intoxicated by you, watching you till you had turned around and walked away, back in Roope’s direction. 

You can feel the temperature in the place increasing with time, the amount of bodies crammed into the space too much for the air conditioning to keep up. It’s fairly late in the evening when you excuse yourself again. Roope was wrapped up in a conversation with a fan, an elderly gentleman, that you felt rude enough interrupting to tell him you were going outside for a moment. 

“I’ll come with you, just give me a couple minutes,” Roope says quietly. “I don’t want you to be outside alone.”

Sighing you shake your head, annoyed both that he felt like you couldn’t go alone and also because a part of you knew he was right. “I’ll be fine.”

“Y/N,” Roope says seriously. 

“Fine, I won’t go alone,” you tell him, your eyes having landed on Jamie. He also seemed to be in a conversation, but he was just talking with Jason and Miro. It would be less rude for him to leave them than for Roope. Not to mention you liked the idea of spending a few more minutes with Jamie. 

Roope follows your gaze, jaw clenching. But you knew he couldn’t say anything about. Not here, not in front of another person. “Okay,” he mutters to you before continuing on with his conversation with the older man. 

You weave your way through the crowd to Jamie who smiles as soon as he sees you, not helping to clear up whether he was into you or not. “Hey,” he greets before you’ve even come to a stop. “Need another drink?” He jokes, referring to your empty hands. 

“No, I actually need a chaperone to go outside with me,” you laugh. “Roope won’t let me go get some air by myself.”

Jamie nods, gesturing towards the doors. “Lead the way.”

“You guys coming?” You ask Jason and Miro with a friendly smile. 

Jason chuckles, shaking his head as he glances down at the ground. There’s a knowing smile that he’s trying to hide by avoiding looking you directly in the eyes. “Nah, we’re good.”

Nodding you step back towards Jamie. “I’ll have him back soon.”

“Take your time,” Miro comments, making Jason laugh again after just containing himself.

Outside you lean against a waist height cement retaining wall, taking a deep breath of the cool air. More than cool, the air was straight up cold, sending a shiver down your spine. You wrap your arms around your body but by the time your hands are on either arm Jamie has slid his suit jacket off. He opts out of offering it to you first, stepping in front of you he wraps it around your shoulders. 

“Thank you,” you whisper as he keeps his hands on the lapels of the jacket. “You didn’t have to.”

“You’re cold,” he reasons, as if it were a given that your comfort should be above his own. 

“Because I didn’t bring my jacket out here. Now you’re going to be cold.” You feel your heart racing as Jamie steps closer to you, his hands slowly dropping from where he was clutching at his jacket you had around you. 

“I’m tough,” he jokes.

“I don’t doubt it,” you giggle, watching as Jamie pulls back from you, turning around to lean against the concrete wall beside you. “Jamie?” you whisper, eyes focused on the ground a few feet in front of you. 

You can feel his eyes on you without having to actually see him. “Yeah?”

Swallowing heavily you cross your arms over your body. For so long you had prided yourself on not being the girl who would chase. You didn’t chase guys, didn’t ask for their attention. But here you were, doing just that. “Why didn’t you ever message me on Instagram? You followed me, I thought you were going to, but then…” you trail off, shrugging, knowing that he knew exactly what you were saying and you didn’t need to keep explaining. 

Jamie is quiet for a second. “I didn’t want to get between you and Roope. I know how much you mean to him and I’m sure it’s the same thing for you.”

You can’t help but laugh, turning your head now to look at him. “Nothing could ever come between Roope and I. We’re like siblings. It doesn’t matter what happens, nothing could ever come between us.”

Jamie nods, reaching over and taking your hand, gently pulling you away from where you were standing. You follow his lead, letting him guide you to stand in front of him. His free hand slides beneath his jacket, along your waist. You swallow heavily as he pulls you a little closer. “I was surprised when I actually met you.”

“Why?” You whisper, looking up at him intently. 

“Because I never thought you would actually be as incredible as Roope made you out to seem. But you are.”

You feel your breath hitch in your throat as you stare at him, speechless. How could you respond to that? You could count on one hand the number of guys who had said things that nice to you completely unprompted, without seeming to want anything in return. 

You were already wearing heels but you lean up as much as you can, Jamie quickly taking the hint as he pulls you a little tighter, leaning down. But he’s moving slowly, agonizingly slowly. Just as you’re about to let out a sigh of disapproval loud chatter and laughter piling from the front door makes you pull back. You’re moving so hastily that you almost end up falling, thankful for Jamie’s quick reflexes grabbing your arms and steadying you. But he understands the message behind what you just did and lets go of you, shoving his hands into his pockets to try to seem like they weren’t just all over you a couple seconds later. 

“There you are.” 

It’s Roope and for the first time in your life you wished he wasn’t there. You loved him with your whole heart. You would do anything for him. But you really wished he was back inside being asked a million questions about hockey. He’s with Miro who is still chuckling about something that had been said before they came outside.

“Hey,” you say to him, smiling softly. 

“Some of us are going back to Tyler’s place for a few drinks after, do you want to come?” Roope asks you. You know if you said no it would be no problem, that Roope would happily go home with you and watch movies on your couch. But before you can think about what you’re doing you turn around to look up at Jamie, to see if he was going. You knew how it looked but you were already preparing yourself to brush it off, to say it was just a friendly thing, seeing if Jamie was going. Nothing more. 

“I’ll probably go for a bit,” Jamie says to the group but you know the words are directed at you.

You look back to Roope, waiting a couple seconds. You didn’t want to seem too eager to follow up Jamie’s answer with a yes. “Yeah, could be fun,” you tell him casually. 

And so a couple hours later you’re standing in Tyler’s kitchen with a can of cider in your hand, the second since you got there. Between that and the three glasses of wine at the event you were feeling a little bit of a buzz. And a little buzz always came with a lot of confidence. 

So you excuse yourself from the conversation you were having, walking over to where Jamie was leaning against the doorframe. “Want to go outside…again?” You ask him simply. 

Jamie smiles and nods in the direction of the front door, waiting for you to begin walking towards it before following after you. Before you’re even outside Jamie has his jacket off, sliding it over your shoulders as you step outside. 

“Kiss me,” you whisper once the door is closed. 

“Right here?” Jamie asks, wanting to make sure you were absolutely certain about the risk you were about to take. Knowing that at any moment Roope could, and would, be coming to find you. But he seems to have no qualms about it as he places his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to him. 

“I don’t want to wait any longer, Jamie. I wanted you to kiss me that first day we met.”

So he does as you ask, leaning down and pressing his lips to yours. He’s gentle, just like his personality but you have a sneaking suspicion that he might be a little less gentle if you made it clear that’s what you wanted. So you bring your hand around the back of his neck, pushing your body into his. He brings one arm around your lower back, supporting you as you teeter around in an effort to be taller. 

Breathless and flushed you pull back from him, eyes fluttering open to look at him. “I think it’s time for me to go home now,” you whisper. 

“Why’s that?” Jamie asks, his hands still on your waist. 

“That’s all I really came here for,” you tell him, leaning up to press your lips to his again, a quick, gentle kiss this time. You pull away and take a step back, his hands falling from your body. 

Just as you turn around to go back inside, to find Roope, to tell him you were going to get an Uber to go home, Jamie’s hand wraps around your wrist. He pulls you back gently, hand sliding on the side of your face, tipping your head back to kiss you again. The feelings it evokes are even stronger than the first kiss and it feels like every nerve in your body is firing, body hot and tingly as he kisses you passionately. “Let me take you out, on a date,” he whispers as he pulls back. 

All you can manage to do is nod. Pulling your phone from your pocket you get Jamie to give you his number, sending him a text right there so he has yours. Then you walk back inside, leaving Jamie outside. 

By the time you find Roope and you’re back outside to get in your Uber Jamie is gone. You don’t know if he’s back in Tyler’s place or if he’s gone home too. You don’t worry too much about it thought. Because this time you were pretty sure there would actually be another time. Unlike the first meeting, the empty promise of another movie night, this felt much more concrete. 

And concrete it was. Jamie had sent you a text the next morning, asking when you were free. You didn’t want to seem too eager so you told him that you were free three nights from that day even though you were free that very night and the night after as well. You two went for dinner, then you went back to your apartment and watched a movie. 

After that first date you two both realized that you were truly good with each other. Your conversations flowed easily and you spent so much of the night laughing. You simply enjoyed being together. 

So you continued going on dates, for many weeks, months, without telling anyone about it. Neither of you brought up the fact that you were hiding the relationship. It was an unspoken truth. Because you both had a lot to risk. You both had made a promise to Roope. That you weren’t going to give the other a chance and neither of you wanted to own up to breaking that promise. 

It was a Friday night and the Stars had just won a home game, a game that you were in the arena to watch. Because Roope asked if you wanted to go, as he often did. But you couldn’t deny that you spent a lot of that game watching Jamie, drawn to him even from such a distance. 

Usually you went back to Roope’s place after games, having been given a key to his apartment long ago. He always said it was easier for you to just go straight there but you always figured it was part of his ploy to keep you away from the guys. A hunch that was confirmed when he gave you instructions for where to meet him after the game if you wanted to hang around and wait for him before heading out. 

So you followed his instructions, a little uncertain as you made your way from your seat and past the doors you always left after a game. You made your way to where Roope had told you, pulling out your phone and trying to look busy, like you belonged where you were. 

A couple minutes later you sense someone is looking at you and you look up, seeing Jamie approaching you with a smile. “Hey,” he says, glancing around before placing his hands on your waist, leaning down. 

“Jamie,” you whisper, panic in your eyes and in your voice. “Jamie we’re going to get caught.”

“Roope takes forever,” Jamie informs you, trying to sound reassuring. “He said you were here tonight, I was hoping you would still be here.”

Leaning up you press your lips to his softly. “Oh, so you came out here looking for me then?” you tease. 

“Of course,” he tells you. “Are you going to go hang out with Roope tonight?”

Pulling back a little you shrug your shoulders. “It’s usually what we do, but we didn’t talk about it.” You glance behind you before looking back up at Jamie. “Should we go back to my place instead?”

“You and Roope?” Jamie asks with a teasing smile. 

Shaking your head you lean back towards him, onto your tip toes. “You know I meant with you,” you whisper, pressing your lips against his. He kisses you back quickly, both of you so caught up in each other that you were quickly losing your motivation to stay away from each other any chance a person might catch you. 

But of course the second you let your guard down the slightest bit it all comes tumbling apart. 

“Mitä vittua?” 

You almost push Jamie away with how quickly you try to get away from him, wide eyes finding Roope. You knew it was him. From the language, both Finnish and the exclamation of ‘what the fuck?’. You’re standing speechless, simply staring at him. 

“You promised,” Roope says, shaking his head. “You both did.” And with that he turns away from you, heading in what you assume was the direction of the way out. 

“Roope,” you call, pushing past Jamie as you follow after him. “Please, wait, can you please just slow down. We need to talk about this.”

“No, Y/N,” Roope says, getting to the door. You were pretty sure he may have just clocked the record for fastest exit. He finally turns around when his hand is on the door. “You promised me.”

“I didn’t know,” you plead, shaking your head. “I didn’t know he even liked me, I didn’t think anything would happen.”

“I just need to go home.”

The way he says it makes your heart ache. You know it means he doesn’t want you to go with him. You can feel your eyes filling with tears and you try to blink quicker, to hide the tears. 

But Roope sees it. Sees your tears. And he can’t handle that, can’t leave you upset. So he steps forward, wrapping his arms around you. “Please don’t be mad. I really like him,” you whisper, tears rolling down your cheeks. 

Roope takes a deep breath, you can feel it in the way his chest heaves against you. “I just wished you hadn’t lied to me. Wished you both hadn’t lied to me. How long has this…what is it?”

“Hm?” You hum in confusion, pulling back to look into Roope’s eyes. 

“You and Jamie, what are you two?”

You stare over up at Roope in silence. “I…,” you begin, trailing off. “I don’t know.”

“How long?”

“Not long,” you tell him honestly. “Casino Night.”

Roope nods slowly, processing what you had told him. “You’ve been seeing him for months?”

You take a deep breath, nodding. “Yeah.”

“Are you going to go home with him?”

You stare at Roope, eyes filling with tears again. “I don’t know,” you croak. You didn’t know how to answer that. It’s what you had been planning but you didn’t want to say that, didn’t want to make the situation worse. “Roope, I can’t…I can’t lose you.” You knew what you said to Jamie, that nothing could ever come between you and Roope. But now, being faced with reality, you couldn’t push those fears out of your mind. Because on the list of your biggest fears losing Roope was right up there at the top. 

Roope quickly pulls you back into a hug. “Never.”

You sniffle quietly, nodding. “You’re just going to go home?”

Roope pulls back and you notice his eyes are no longer on you, looking over you down the hallway. Slowly you turn around, looking over your shoulder and seeing Jamie. He looked hesitant, uncertain. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

You look back at Roope, eyes pleading for him to reassure you that he wasn’t upset. But he doesn’t. He simply pulls away from you, turning around and heading out through the door, leaving you alone. 

You bring your arms around you, hands clutching at your arms. A few minutes later Jamie is in front of you, quickly pulling you into a hug. “It’ll be okay. You said yourself you’re never going to lose him.”

You nod, letting yourself relax into him. 

“Don’t know if he’ll be my biggest fan from now on though,” Jamie jokes. 

You let out a relieved breath of laughter, glad that he was breaking the intensity. “As long as you don’t hurt me you have nothing to worry about,” you tease, pulling back to look up at him. 

“I could never.”

His answer doesn’t feel like a joke and your breath catches in your throat at the sincerity of it. You had been trying to lighten the conversation but you didn’t know if you could make another joke after that. “Should we…”

“Get out of here?” 

“Yes,” you answer, eagerly. 

You kick off your shoes when you’re in Jamie’s apartment, pressing your back to the wall as you watch Jamie take off his own. “You think he’s going to be okay…with this?”

Jamie looks up from where he had focused his attention on his shoes. “I don’t know,” he replies honestly. Stepping in front of you Jamie places his hands on your hips. “If he doesn’t…”

You swallow heavily, your hands sliding up Jamie’s arms. “Jamie,” you whisper. 

He nods and you know the smile on his lips is forced. “I know.”

“It’s not that I don’t care about you. I really, really like you. But he’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember and I can’t…I don’t think I could handle losing him.”

Jamie pulls you closer, pressing his lips to your forehead. “I understand.” 

“I’m sorry,” you croak. You wished it didn’t have to be like this and you really wished you didn’t have to say it out loud, didn’t have to tell Jamie that he would always come second to your friendship with Roope. 

“Don’t be.” Jamie’s voice is gentle and genuine. You know he’s not lying, that he truly doesn’t want you to be sorry. He’s not upset, it was no no surprise. Anyone who knew you, knew you and Roope’s relationship would know that nobody would, or could, ever come between you two. But it doesn’t make you feel any better. When you look back up at Jamie your eyes are watery, vision blurry. “Come here,” Jamie whisper, pulling you into his chest, large arms wrapped firmly around your body. “Let’s go watch a movie,” Jamie suggests, hands sliding down from your back to the backs of your thighs, leaning down and scooping you off the ground. 

“Jamie,” you giggle, legs wrapping around his torso as you clutch onto him. “Put me down.”

“No,” Jamie chuckles, turning around with you in his arms. 

While you felt that it was entirely unnecessary for him to be carrying you around you were pretty grateful that he had done something, anything, to break the tension, to make you laugh. “What are we going to watch?” You ask as Jamie carries you the short distance to his living room, leaning down and setting you down on the couch. 

“Your choice,” Jamie tells you, handing you the remote. “What do you want for snacks?”

Smiling softly you feel your eyes fill with tears again. You knew you hadn’t been with Jamie long enough to let it get between you and Roope. But things were going so well between you two. He was so considerate, so kind. But he was also fun and he was constantly making you laugh. 

“What are you thinking?” Jamie enquires, giving up on the movie and snacks for the time being as he sits beside you. Jamie reaches over, taking your hand and gently running his thumb over the back of your hand. 

“It doesn’t matter. I just really like you. There’s nothing we can do about it right now,” you say quietly, blinking rapidly. 

Jamie slides his arm around you, tugging you onto his lap. “We’ll figure it out.” You knew it was a lie. It was Roope who was going to figure it out. But you liked the reassurance regardless. 

Sliding one of your legs over Jamie’s lap you pull back slightly, leaning in and pressing your lips to his. Jamie kisses you back but you can feel that he’s hesitant. Everything feels slower than normal that night.

Jamie slides his warm hands underneath your shirt, his skin rough in contrast to your soft skin. He pulls gently on your lower back, bringing your body closer to his. You don’t think it’s possible to get any closer as your hands grasp at him, his biceps, shoulders, sliding up to the back of his neck, fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Please, Jamie, I need you,” you whisper against his lips, hips grinding down into his. 

And that’s all it takes. He has his hands behind your knees, gently sliding you off his lap. Before you know it Jamie is guiding you to his bedroom. 

“You’re sure?” Jamie whispers when you’re in the bedroom, his hands on your waist as he guides you over to the bed. “Tonight?” He clarifies, wanting you to consider the ramifications of this. Given everything that happened that night, given the fact that you had already admitted that you would end things with him if Roope couldn’t accept it. 

“Yes.”

The next morning you wake up tucked beneath Jamie’s arm, your head on his chest, leg over top of his. For a split second you forget. You forget about the night before. You forget that your relationship could potentially be coming to an end very soon. But it all comes back to you and you roll over onto your back, staring up at the ceiling. 

Your movement causes Jamie to stir and he follows your direction, rolling onto his side and wrapping his free arm around you. “Good morning,” Jamie whispers, his voice filled with a sombreness that makes it evident that he hadn’t for a moment forgotten. 

“‘Morning,” you whisper, turning your head to look at Jamie. “What do we do now?”

Jamie takes a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling. He seems to be thinking for awhile. “Go out for breakfast, probably.”

You stare at him blankly for a couple minutes. It was such a simple answer. So simple and yet so surprising. “Okay,” you eventually say. 

Shortly after you’re sitting across from Jamie at a small cafe, a cup of coffee in front of you and your breakfast orders already taken by the waitress. “Roope texted me,” you say, hesitantly. You didn’t want to ruin the morning, but it was something that needed to be addressed. 

“What did he say?” Jamie is fidgeting with the edge of the napkin wrapped around his cutlery. 

“Just that he wants to talk.” Before you even think through what you’re doing you reach across the table, grabbing Jamie’s hand. “I’ll go over to his apartment after breakfast.”

Jamie nods, squeezing your hand gently. “Whatever you decide, I’ll understand,” Jamie tells you.

And after that you leave any talk about Roope about the potential end of the relationship behind. You move on, to other topics. You talk about work and hockey and you tell him about the drama in your workplace and he listens intently. He cracks jokes and makes you laugh. And it’s three hours before you actually leave the cafe. 

Jamie drives you to the arena where your car was from the night before and you head to Roope’s apartment. The drive seems to go on forever, your nerves building with each passing minute. 

Half an hour later you’re sitting on Roope’s couch, legs pulled up to your chest as you stare at him. “I’m sorry, Roope. I’m sorry I lied to you but I’m not sorry that I’ve been seeing Jamie,” you begin. 

Roope is quiet, elbows on his knees as he leans forward, eyes on the ground. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Once he looks up you shrug. There was no easy answer. You were confused, conflicted. You were scared. Scared that Roope wouldn’t approve. Scared that you would end up in this exact situation. “I knew you would tell me it couldn’t happen.”

“You don’t know that-.”

“Yes, I do,” you exclaim. You weren’t about to let him sit there and tell you he would have just let it happen. “You’ve never approved of a single guy I was seeing. You made me promise and now I wished I had never agreed. I wish I could go back to that day and tell you the truth, Roope. Tell you that you have no right, you have no right to tell me who I can and can’t see. You’re one of the most important people in my life. I love you. I trust you. But none of that means you get to tell me who I’m not allowed to date.” Even you’re shocked by the outburst but the way Roope physically recoils in his chair tells you that it was the last thing he was expecting. 

“I-,” Roope begins, falling speechless. “You’re right,” he eventually mutters. “I just, I don’t want you to get hurt. What if something happens? How am I supposed to deal with that?”

“You don’t need to deal with it,” you tell him. “If something happens then that’s between Jamie and I, you won’t be involved. We’re adults, we’ll figure it out ourselves.”

Roope groans, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. “Why him? Of all people…why him?” Roope whines, making you giggle. 

“Because he’s sweet and funny and so hot.”

“Gross,” Roope mutters, turning his head to look at you. “Will you promise me something?”

“What is it?” The last promise he had you make regarding Jamie didn’t go so well. 

“You won’t talk about how hot he is again.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” you laugh. 

Roope chuckles and you can feel the tension in the room dissipating. You weren’t naive enough to think that he was completely okay with it. But you were okay with that. You were okay with him needing time as long as it meant that he wasn’t giving you an ultimatum to end things with Jamie. You knew it was all you could ask for right now and you were happy enough just with that. 

[lady-divine-writes]

ACITW AU one-shot - “Draining Pipes” (Rated M)

Summary: After Sebastian is accidentally exposed to Covid, Kurt convinces him to quarantine. While the rest of the city is slowly opening up, Kurt is returning to a life that resembles normal. But for Sebastian, home alone without his boyfriend, isolation is changing him. And Kurt has some concerns... (2063 words)

Notes: Yes, this is a pandemic fic, but I promise, it's funny XD

Read on AO3.

"Hi, honey! I'm home!"

"Nope. Try again."

Kurt's head snaps up so quickly he stutters a step, nearly tripping over his feet even though he'd already stopped walking. He glares at Sebastian from across the room as if the man had gotten up from his seat, strolled over, and, without a word, vomited rancid sushi all over his Manolo Blahniks. "What?"

In a tone reminiscent of one his NYADA dance teacher, Cassie July, used that made Kurt prickle from head to toe, Sebastian says, "Try. again."

"Try what again?"

"Walking through the door."

Kurt spins around to examine the doorway, searching for clues about what he could have possibly done incorrectly. "And what, pray tell, is wrong with the way I walk through the door!?"

"Every time you come home, you say, 'Hi, honey! I'm home!'"

"Yeah, and... ?"

"It's boring. Unoriginal. It harkens back to an era of television situation comedy that had no hand in influencing our generation and, frankly, regurgitating it is beneath you and your dramatic talents."

Kurt plants his hands on his hips and gawks. What the hell happened to his boyfriend while he was away? He was only gone four hours! "Have you been rifling through my old schoolbooks again? I told you, there was no Illuminati conspiracy going on at NYADA!"

"Why don't you try something different?" Sebastian counters, neither confirming nor denying Kurt's accusation. "Something a bit more, dare I say, exotic?"

"Exotic?" Kurt scrunches his nose with distaste when he says it. Of all the words in the English language, that's one of his least favorite. "What constitutes exotic in your twisted opinion?"

"I don't know. Think of something. You're the creative, not me."

"What? I... " A dozen arguments about how he's just gotten home, how exhausted he is, how travel between here and the theater was a pain in the ass because some people still don't seem to understand what 'over the mouth AND nose' means so navigating his way through the subway was like playing a game of human Tetris with potentially infected pieces and that he's never been all that good at Tetris anyway! die on his lips. 

It would be a waste of breath.

Still, Kurt doesn't know why he indulges him, but he turns on his heel and walks back out the door. After a few seconds of deep breathing in the hall to keep from screaming bloody murder, he storms back in and brightly declares, "Buenos dias, motherfucker! Como what's up?"

Seeing as the two of them speak fluent French, Spanglish is the most exotic thing he could come up with.

Sebastian nods in stoic approval. "Better. How goes life on the apocalyptic landscape?"

"I'm not selling my body for Cocoa Krispies if that's what you're asking," Kurt quips, wondering if this is how Sebastian acts at work and how no one has put the man through a window yet, partner or not.

"So what I'm hearing is you didn't bring home Cocoa Krispies."

"Nope. Sorry."

"Bitch."

"Yeah, well... " Kurt removes his shoes and socks, then sheds his coat, his messenger bag, his slacks, and his dress shirt, carefully piling them on a chair by the front door - their staging area for decontamination. While he undresses, he eyes Sebastian, not paying him an inch of mind, sitting on what has been dubbed the convalescence corner of the sofa, dressed in a soft white tee and flannel lounge pants, his laptop open on legs covered by a quilt his mother made for him when he was ten. Sebastian knows for a fact that Kurt is undressing and yet he's not leering at him, wolf-whistling under his breath or licking his lips like he's watching an Outback Steakhouse commercial. He's simply sitting in his spot, eyes glued to his laptop screen.

And Kurt loathes it.

Sebastian's attentions have been waning more and more lately, and even though it's savagely bruising Kurt's ego, he can't blame him.

Depending on how they choose to look at things, this situation could kind of, slightly, sort of be deemed Kurt's fault.

"Thank you again for doing this," Kurt says, extending an olive branch. He's been doing this so often over the past few months, he's started buying in bulk. "I can't tell you how much you keeping your distance and staying home has put my mind at ease."

Sebastian doesn't look at him when he replies: "No sweat, babe."

"I know it was just one small cough... and the kid was wearing two masks... and a face shield... "

"Hey, like you said, no need taking any chances. Right?"

"Right," Kurt agrees. And he believes it. He believed it then and he believes it now. Had the roles been reversed, Kurt would make the sacrifice, more than willing to lock himself away for the sake of curbing this disease and keeping Sebastian healthy.

But it isn't him. 

And he feels like dirt going to work three days a week, returning to something that resembles normal knowing what Sebastian is missing out on.

"It's his mother's fault for not mentioning that her little plague rat has covid before I got stuck on the elevator with them," Sebastian says, possibly trying to make Kurt feel better even though his gaze hasn't shifted.

"But quarantining for six days longer than necessary? That's above and beyond! I mean it. You deserve a medal." 

Sebastian tosses him a wink over his shoulder but he doesn't linger, giving half-naked Kurt only a brief once over. "I got you, fam. Besides, time's up tomorrow. Then... " He thousand-yard stares in the direction of the flat screen "... it's rat-hunting season."

"It hasn't been all bad, has it?" Kurt asks guiltily as Sebastian's eyes return to his laptop. He'll admit that maybe he did go a tad overboard when he'd found out Sebastian had been exposed, banishing him to one end of the penthouse and the guest bedroom, keeping him at broom handle length for the past nineteen days. 

But they were almost in the clear! And that's the part that pisses Kurt off most. 

The disease hasn't been eradicated, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The theater started allowing small groups to return for socially distanced practices. That's a huge win for Kurt. Being away from Broadway and rehearsals and opening nights and curtain calls... it was becoming difficult for him to breathe.

Sebastian was on the brink of going back to the office a few days a week, too. It wasn't so much not being at the office that bothered him, but the peripherals - eating lunch at his favorite deli or hitting the gym before dinner. 

Sebastian had taken three tests after that fateful elevator incident, all of which came back negative, so he was confident everything would be alright. He was in the midst of planning his first in-person meeting, but Kurt balked, pointing out that there has been so much controversy over the accuracy of those tests. Sebastian offered to take three more if necessary, but regardless of the outcome, Kurt didn't feel it safe. And even though they had access to the vaccine (because money), being exposed, even minorly, pushed Sebastian's timetable for receiving his first dose back two weeks.

Kurt's father and stepmother have both received theirs, and Kurt was so looking forward to taking a trip to Ohio for a first hug in over a year. He's going to be damned if a four-foot-tall Petri dish ruins that for him!

But because of his paranoia, Kurt and Sebastian haven't touched, haven't kissed in two weeks. They tried the whole Skype sex thing from different rooms of the penthouse, aiming to recapture old college day thrills to boot, but it didn't work out the way they'd hoped. And even though they see each other every day, talk to one another, aggravate each other, throw popcorn and other food items at each other, Kurt misses Sebastian like the dickens. He misses his hugs, his warmth, his smell.

And yes, he misses the sex.

"Since I've been back to work, you've had the peace and privacy to watch those wacky pornos that your brother sends you."

"Yup," Sebastian says, typing something into his search bar that Kurt can't quite make out. "The wackiest."

"Didn't he say something about them being illegal in the contiguous 49 states?"

"Forty-eight. Tennessee turned itself around."

"It would be Tennessee."

"Always is."

"You probably haven't given your fleshjack a rest in two weeks," Kurt prods, worried over these short responses. 

"Mmph... mmm-hmm... "

Kurt starts circling the sofa when all he gets is a chuckle in response, curious if Sebastian is even listening to him. He comes up behind him, standing on a piece of painter's tape they'd put down to mark six feet so Kurt can peek over his shoulder.

And what he sees on Sebastian's screen makes absolutely no sense.

"What are you watching?"

"Drain clearing videos."

Kurt's eyes go wide. "Drain clearing? Wh-what does that mean?"

"This guy drives all over, and when he finds a street that's flooded, he takes out a rake, drags it through the water, and tries to find the blocked drain."

"Does he work for the city?"

"Nah. He's just some guy."

"And he's made a whole channel about... clearing drains."

"Yes, sir."

"And you're watching it?"

"It came up in my recommendations so I clicked one." Sebastian shakes his head, chuckling when stagnant grey water, punctuated by speckles of rain, turns into a whirlpool, rushing through thick iron bars embedded in the concrete and disappearing from view. "It's so satisfying."

"What on Earth were you watching before this that YouTube recommended it?"

"Car cleaning videos."

Kurt's left eyebrow slowly climbs up his forehead. "A-ha."

"Yup. I never realized how relaxing it is to watch a handsome guy Bissell Kool-Aid stains out of carpet. But now... it's my jam."

Kurt huffs, offended on behalf of himself and his own vigorous cleaning regimen. "It wasn't your jam when I was steam cleaning our throw rugs! And the curtains!"

"Yeah, well, things hit different when you're forced into isolation."

Kurt storms forward a step. But then he remembers. And he stops, foot hovering an inch past the sacred boundary that keeps him from venturing too close to infection. He teeters, determination creasing his brow while anxiety wrestles his shoulders back. All the while, a war wages inside his tired brain:

"Get him! You've been vaccinated!"

"It's only one dose!"

"He's not even sick!"

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do!"

"It's not worth the risk!"

"Yes... it... IS!"

"Come on!" Kurt demands, throwing himself bodily at the sofa. He grabs Sebastian's hand, a small voice screaming inside his head as if his tiny naysayer is being burned at the stake. "Come with me... NOW!"

"Where are we going?" Sebastian asks, rushing to move his computer to the side before he gets dragged off the sofa by his surprisingly strong boyfriend.

"This is an intervention."

"But you shouldn't be touching me! Or breathing my air! I have one day left!"

"You're fine! If you haven't gotten sick by now, you probably aren't going to! This is an emergency!"

"What emergency?"

"Quarantine has turned you into someone I don't recognize! Car cleaning videos? Who are you right now?"

"They're educational. It's good to learn a new skill."

Kurt barks a laugh that could shatter crystal. "Right. Like you'd ever. You'd pay highway robbery to have your ten-speed detailed!"

"Nope, because you'd do it for free."

 Kurt rolls his eyes, unwilling to entertain his boyfriend's mocking of him to ask whether or not that's code. "If you're going to ogle a man wielding a Bissell, Goddammit, it's going to be me!"

"So... are we going to clean some carpets?"

"We're going to take a shower and then have sex. A lot of sex. You're getting fucked and sucked until you're back to normal."

Sebastian snorts, delighted by his incredibly good fortune. "If you insist. But are you absolutely sure about this?"

Kurt stops short and faces Sebastian. He looks him over, making certain he doesn't seem particularly sick, and shrugs.

"We'll wear masks. Or three. I don't need to kiss you to make you cum." Kurt continues to drag Sebastian towards the bathroom as his grin grows to epic proportions.

"Kinky."

[avocadogirl216]

Left Behind

Anon requested: Hey! Would you be willing to write something where the winchesters drop their sister who is in her younger teen years (13-14ish) off at bobby's when they go on a hunt and shes super upset about it so she wont talk to them when they call or even when they come to pick her up? And it ends up with her and Dean having some big argument and Sam having to calm the down?

AN: This story took a lot longer than I expected to write and I am so sorry that you had to wait, whoever you are,  I changed it up a little towards the end, sorry.  And sorry if this was crap.

Summary:  When Sam and Dean leave you behind for a hunt, you don’t take it very well.

Warnings:  Angst, Sibling Arguing, Language, Fluff at the end.

Pairings:  Dean x sister!reader, Sam x sister!reader, Bobby x reader

Word Count: 2252

Y/N’s POV

You were currently in the backseat of the impala listening to your older bothers conversation.  Sam was talking about some hunt in Minnesota.  Dean was nodding his head along with the conversation, both paying attention to Sam and the road in front of him.  You listened with curiosity as you tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together in your head.  There were bite marks on all of the victims, they were all missing blood but they were also missing their hearts.

“Sounds like we’re dealing with a vamp and werewolf combo.”  You said as you leaned over the front seat between your brothers to be a part of the conversation.

“Or...”  Dean said.

“Or what?”  Sam asked as he started to scroll through the news articles to get more information on the case, not even bothering to look up from his iPad.

“Come on.  I know you want to say it.”  Dean said with a smile while looking over to the both of you.  “A were-pire.”  He said with a proud voice.

You and Sam both groaned in sync.

“Dude, just drop it already.  There is no such thing as a were-pire.”  Sam stated in a matter of faculty tone.

“Says you.”  Dean said, returning his attention to the road.

“Anyways... how far away are we from the case?”  You asked as you looked over Sam’s broad shoulder.

“Well lets see.  We’re in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the case is in Stillwater, Minnesota.  So we’re about 13 hours out.”  Dean said.

You groaned yet again to the thought of being in the car with your brothers for that long.  

“What are you groaning about over there Rugrat?”  Dean asked.

“Maybe the fact that I have to spend 13 hours with you two dumb nuts.” 

Sam looked up from his iPad and have you a weird look along with Dean.  “Umm, you’re not going to.”  Sam said.

You were now confused.  “What do you mean?  I’m gonna work the case with you two and in order for me to do that I have to get over there which involves me staying in the car with my brothers for 13 hours.”  You explained in a duh tone.

“Who said that you were coming along?” Dean asked, still looking at you like you just grew two heads.

“Umm... well... no one but I thought that I was going to work the case with you guys.  Right?”  You asked with a hint of insecurity.

Sam and Dean shared a look, having a silent conversation with each other.

“That wasn’t really the plan squirt.”  Sam said now turning in the seat to face you.

“Then what is the plan?”

“We were going to drop you off at Bobby’s and then Dean and I are going to work the case.”  Sam explained.

“What?  I thought that I was going to help you with the case.”  

“Not quite.  You’re not ready for hunting yet.”

“What do you mean?  I’ve worked my ass off with training every single day for the past 3 years and now I can’t go hunting with you two.  How is that fair?”  You said in a pissed off tone.

“Y/N I know that you want to come but your just not quite ready yet.”  Sam said in a patient tone, sensing your anger.

“The hell I’m not!  I-”  You were quickly cut off by Dean.

“Okay first of all, watch your language and second of all, your going to Bobby’s while me and Sam work the case.  End of discussion.”  Dean said in a tone that he used with you when you were starting to take things too far.

“But-”  You started.

“No ands, ifs, or buts about it.  I’ve already made up my mind and that is that, whether you like it or not.”

You sigh as you decided to go with the smart choice and keep your mouth shut.  You leaned back into your seat and start to fidget with the bracelet that you always wore on your wrist, hoping that it would help you cool off a bit.

After another couple of hours in the car, you pull up in front of Bobby’s house.  You grab your duffel from beside you and sling it over your shoulder.  As you start to open the backdoor to the impala, Sam starts to speak.  

“Love you kiddo.”  He said with a small, loving smile on his face.

You get out of the car, slam the door and walk towards the front porch all without saying a word to either of your older brothers.

~~~~~~

Its been four days since your brothers left for the case without you.  You hated that you couldn’t be there with them, saving people and hunting things.  The family business that you were supposed to be a part of.  Sure you were only 14 but you knew all there was to hunting and you take care of yourself.

Whenever your brothers are away on a hunt, they call everyday to check in.  Usually you answer the phone happily, eager to talk to your brothers and see how the case was going, but this time it was different.  You’ve been ignoring their calls and texts.  They’ve even called Bobby to try to get a hold of you but you still declined.  You were a Winchester which meant that you were hot headed and stubborn.  

You were now scrolling through Youtube, trying to find an interesting video to pass the time.  You’ve already looked at all possible cases on the police radar but there was nothing other than the case that Sam and Dean were working.  You were about to lay down for a nap, hoping that it would kill a couple of hours but you were interrupted with a knock on the door.  

“Come in!”  You yelled as you turned off your phone and placed it onto the bed next to your thigh.

The door opened and Bobby walked in.  “Hey Y/N.  I was just letting you know that your brothers are back from the case.”  He said.

“Oh, okay.”  You said as you picked your phone back up, showing that you weren’t interested in going to see them.

Bobby sighed while he ran a hand on his face.  “Look I get that your mad at them but at least acknowledge them.”

“I am acknowledging them.  I am acknowledging the fact that I am mad at them and therefore I do not want to make conversation with them.”  You said as you kept your attention on the small screen.

Bobby sighed yet again and walked out of the room while closing the door behind him.  There was a minute of silence then the door opened again.  You raised your head to see who walked in.  You were disappointed and pissed as you watched Sam and Dean walk into the room.  Sam came in first and leaned onto the wall opposite of you as Dean walked in and closed the door.  Dean then turned to face you as he crossed his arms across this broad chest as he stared you down.  You returned the gesture.  After a minute of silence between the three of you Dean finally spoke.

“So Y/N, anything to say.” 

“Nope.”  You replied as you returned your gaze to your phone.

Dean made it across the room in four steps and took the phone out of your hand in order for you to be focused on him.

“Oh so this is the reason why you didn’t answer us, you were too busy being on the internet to give five minutes to your brothers.”  Dean said as he held up your phone just out of reach.

You sighed as you leaned back into the headboard and crossed your arms, not even making a move to get the phone back.  “If you want to assume that.  Like you always do.”  You said in an icy tone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Dean asked, anger flashing his eyes.

“Oh I don’t know, maybe the fact that I can’t hunt because I’m not good enough.”  

“Who ever said that?” 

“No one did.  I’m just saying what’s on everyone's mind.”  

“Now look at whose assuming things.”  Dean scoffed.

“I’m not assuming anything.  I’m just stating facts.”  You argued back.

“Well no one asked you to do that.”

“Yeah well, no one asked you to come talk to me.”  You said as you stood up and walked up to Dean.  “No one asked you to be here.”

“No one had to.  It’s my job to be here for you.”  Dean said as he looked down at you with a deadly glare.

“Yeah?  How can you be here for me when your on the other side of the fucking country?  How can you be here for me when you just dump me here and take off?  Huh?  Riddle me that!”  You said as tears start to form in your eyes.

“Y/N, its for your own good.  Its for your safety.”  Dean sighed as he drug his hand down his face.  “We’ve been over this.”

“Yeah I know Dean but its stupid.”  You huffed in frustration.  “I’ve trained over and over again for the past three years without complaint.  I’ve taken both of you down before and I know how to use just about every weapon known to man.  Not to mention that you two will be there with me for every step of the way, protecting me from getting hurt or worse.”

“That’s what I’m talking about Y/N!  I know that you can handle yourself, hell you’ve kicked my ass more times than I like to admit but there is always that possibility that something will go wrong.  There is always that possibility that you will get hurt or worse on a hunt.  We don’t take you with us because we’re scared of what will happen.”  Dean explained with some of his anger melting away.

“Don’t you think that I know that Dean?  Believe me, I know the risks of hunting.  Look at Dad, Ellen, Jo, Ash and Pamela, they were in this life and they suffered the consequences of it.  But one thing that I can trust is you two.”  You said as you looked between your brothers.  “I trust the fact that when you two are with me, that everything will be okay.  I trust the fact that you will keep me safe.”

“Then there is your first mistake.  Everyone that was in this life and knew us are now dead.  Dad, Ellen, Jo, Ash and Pamela are all dead because of us.  All we do is get the people that we are close to and love killed.  We can’t protect you anymore than we can protect them.”  Dean said as his voice broke.  “We can’t protect you.”

As you heard Dean say those words, anger started to boil in your veins.  The need to cry was replaced with the need to punch something, preferably your brother for thinking so low about himself and Sam.

You suddenly take a swing at your brother, catching him off guard.  “Don’t you say that!”  You cried as you punched him yet again in the face, making him take a step back.  “After everything that you have done for us, for them!  You cannot just throw that out there like it is true because its not!”  You yelled at him as tears spilled down your face.  You took a step so that you could punch him in the face again but a pair of strong arms wrapped around your waist from behind to stop you from going further.  You thrashed against Sam’s hold as much as you could.  You were practically bawling now.  “You don’t get to say that.”  You said as you finally stopped fighting Sam and you turned around and hugged his toned body.

Dean now had tears streaming down his face as he looked at you with both sadness and shock.  Sam was shushing you, trying to make you calm down a bit.  You had a death grip on his flannel as your tears started to make the material damp.  After a couple of seconds, you felt Dean start to take you into his arms.  You quickly turned and hugged Dean’s torso as tight as you could.  You felt tears start to fall onto your head as Dean silently cried.  After a minute of standing there you decided to speak.

“Don’t ever say that again.  It wasn’t your fault that they died.”  You said as you turned to look at Sam who also had tears in his eyes.  “Or yours.  Don’t ever think that.  You understand?” 

Dean sniffled and looked into your eyes.  “Yeah.”

“And don’t ever think that you can’t protect me.  I trust you two more than anyone.  I know for a fact that you two will be there when I need you the most.  And I’m sorry that I gave you such a hard time this past week.  You were just trying to keep me safe even though I was acting like a total super bitch.”  You explained.  “I trust that I will go on a hunt with you two when I’m ready.  And that doesn’t mean when I’m 30 either.”

Both Sam and Dean chuckled at that.

“Com´er.”  Dean said as he engulfed you in another bone crushing hug.  Sam joined in shortly after. 

You knew that you were going to be okay now that your brothers are there when you need them most.

[rosesgonerogue]

How to be a Dad 101

Chapter Three - A Single Red Rose

Jasonette July Day 4

Masterlist

He knew his brothers were wondering what on earth was up with him, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care in the least. Jason left them behind without a thought, telling Marinette to direct him to wherever she was staying. 

Jason felt restless. The image of Marinette dangling from the ladder, seconds from death, it had burrowed into his mind, sending him more and more panic. He knew she was okay - she was standing right beside him. But the what-ifs were enough to drive him mad. 

A large part of him was balking at the fact that he cared so much. What was so special about this tiny French girl?

They barely spoke on the way to the hotel, and after he’d watched her get in safely, he found himself perching on the rooftop of said hotel, safeguarding it from nonexistent threats. Up there, he had entirely too much time to think. 

The intensity of his emotions right now was concerning to say the least, but he hadn’t felt so close to losing himself to anger since the first few months after coming back to life. Seeing Marinette safe seemed to be the only solution to the condition, but it wasn’t sustainable. He wasn’t a big enough asshole to force himself and all of his emotional minefields on her but he couldn’t pull himself away just yet. 

Jason would never pretend to be any sort of saint, but he knew that Marinette deserved someone better than him. She had an entire life waiting for her in Paris, and doubtlessly a whole host of perfect, non-homicidal men just waiting for her. It wasn’t fair or kind to her to encourage anything more from their acquaintance. She was too delicate to be faced with the things that life threw at him daily, too precious.

If he were truly a good man, Jason would have made his excuses and bowed out of his agreement, or maybe simply not shown up at all. But Jason was not a good man, so he let himself have this one day, a single day to forget his life.

It ended up being a great day. He’d had misgivings at first, but Marinette’s friends were pretty fun. Alya finally got her footage, a frankly impressive video of Adrien and Marinette tag-teaming a mugger – that definitely didn’t help him break his growing attachment to the girl, although it did make him rethink the whole “too delicate” thing.

By the end of the day, Jason had been accepted into the group. He couldn’t remember laughing that much for a very, very long time. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of the motley crew, but they definitely kept him on his toes. It was pure chaos, with moments where Marinette tripped, only to somersault and land perfectly on her feet, holding her hands out like Dick did whenever he pulled one of his gymnastics stunts. At lunch, Adrien got so distracted that he ordered his food in at least four different languages before Nino finally took pity on him and ordered it in English. Meanwhile, despite Nino and Marinette constantly kidnapping her phone, Jason was pretty sure that Alya had already finished an article to accompany her footage of the mugger.

It seemed that Marinette hadn’t told any of them about the incident with Killer Croc this morning, so he forced himself to take every opportunity he could to remind them never to walk around alone.

He was also forced to make his excuses about being gone for the rest of the week for a sudden family emergency. Just the words were almost enough to make him gag.

Marinette looked a little sad, which made Jason feel so weak. But with the same smile as always, she said, “Well, I guess you’ll have to show us the best things today.”

“Is that a challenge?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

She raised her own, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that white patch of hair on your head fake?”

“It’s actually natural.”

Mirth glittered in her eyes. “I don’t believe you, but get a move on! We’re wasting daylight.”

The following day, no matter how much Jason tried to forget, or pretend that it didn’t happen, was ingrained on his very soul. It was the best day of his life, and it quickly turned into the best night of his life. Never before had he… well, Jason laid awake long after Marinette had fallen asleep, wondering if this was what love felt like.

Leaving her was worse than being shot, worse than being resurrected, and worse than dying in the first place. Jason felt like he was leaving that best part of himself with her, but it was the only way he could protect her.

Moving as quietly as possible, Jason collected his things. He couldn’t have known how much he would think of and obsess over this day, this woman. He couldn’t have known that this day would change his entire life, or that it would do the same to Marinette.

We cannot know the future, and the same held true for Marinette in Jason. Almost in mourning, Jason would go on a two-month road trip around the country, trying and failing to distance himself from the memory of her. Understanding that everything about that final day meant goodbye, Marinette would never try to find or contact Jason again – although it would have been nearly impossibly had she tried. She didn’t even know his last name. No, in some ways she was completely alone the mornings she woke up nauseous, and when she finally decided to buy a pregnancy test. She had her friends and family to hold her when it came back positive, and again in the delivery room.

Marinette’s joy would be more than she could have ever imagined, but it would always come with an edge. A part of her mind would always dwindle on Jason with every first word or step.

Years later they would reunite, and together lament their lost time and experiences. Jason would be surprised at how sweet it felt to be called “dad.” But the unknowable future is always held captive by the cruel present,  and although it grieved him, all Jason knew was that in the present, it was time for him to leave.

It pained him to think of abandoning her without leaving a trace of him behind, so Jason gave her the two parting gifts he could afford to give her: a kiss on the forehead, and a single red rose.

Taglist: 

@jasonette-july-2k20 @ira-sairain @myazael @pawsitivelymiraculous @nik-nak-3 @dast218 @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm

Note: 

Sorry if you ask to get tagged and I don’t get to it right away, things are super chaotic rn. On that same note, the next couple days might not come out strictly on time, my life is a complete disaster at the moment. I look forward to seeing what you guys think. 

[welcometomy20s]

January 10th, 2021

Action Button Review

Review

Tim Rogers reminds me of Hank Green. They are about the same age, they look about the same age which is a combination of young and old that feel eternal. They also have the same length of experience in writing in online spaces, interest in Japanese media, and apparently have Crohn’s disease? In summary, he might be the closest equivalent to Dave Green that exists in the real world. Well, I guess Dave Green is not apt, as Dave Green is not special in a way, while Tim Rogers is special, but his speciality comes from his failures rather than his counterparts' success.

Tim Rogers is a hypothetical Green brother who did not decide to publish that book. He’s a hypothetical Green brother who went to Japan instead of Alabama or Florida. Whose project crashed and burned rather than a surprise success. He’s forged in fire while the Green brothers are eroded by water. Both are wonderful people, but with a different ground of intensity and differing wealth of wisdom.

I encountered this series because I found a twitter post about a six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial, and a white middle-aged man talking about a dating sim for six hours with laudatory blurbs would always pique my interest, but since I didn’t know the guy, I went ahead and looked if he made other videos, and found he has four other review that were all about three hours or more. Now I knew that I had to watch all the reviews to prepare myself for this six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial.

Now, I wasn’t a stranger to three hour reviews of video games. I watched Joseph Anderson, Raycevick, Whitelight, matthewmatosis, and Noah Gervais-Caldwell. In fact, in the comments below Action Button Reviews, many people talked about a comparison to Noah Gervais-Caldwell (and Brian David Gilbert) and that was quite funny since I actually watched a recent Noah Gervais-Caldwell video.

His first two reviews were perfunctory, him opening himself up and trying out new things and polishing his review style, as he went through the Final Fantasy VII remake and The Last of Us. While I watched The Last of Us, I distinctly remembered and contrasted Noah’s The Last of Us Part 2 review with Tim Roger’s The Last of Us review. I liked Tim Roger’s defense of interactive movies (although he denies it!) contrasted with more cynical but ultimately positive connotation in Noah’s review. And Noah’s thesis pairs nicely with Tim’s observation that Ellie was the main protagonist all along. That fact makes Part 2 much more understandable, even the bad parts.

When I finished watch his first two reviews, I went ahead and also watched several of Tim’s videos on Kotaku, which were slightly shorter, the longest being just over an hour, which is a review of the best games in 1994, and does contain a short segment about Tokimeki Memorial, which his six hour review was my destination. To put in context, Tokimeki Memorial was #3. #1 was Earthbound, #2 was Final Fantasy VI, and #4 was Super Metroid. And I just watched a playthrough of Super Metroid basically on a whim, because it’s a monumental and a great game to play and watch.

And while the segment of the games that I knew to be great and monumental in my absorption of knowing video games was deeply personal and rightly claimed its stake that it deserved its spot, his segment of Tokimeki Memorial never got there. It was almost as if he was deliberately hiding behind something. In the end of 1994 review, Tim pitched an idea about a three hour Earthbound review, which probably was Tim’s idea of floating a departure from Kotaku, which would happen two months later, and I wonder if he was trying to deliberately throw a curveball by making a video of Tokimeki Memorial instead of the promised Earthbound review. This may be a far leap, I admit.

I went back and watched the video about Doom. It was much better in quality and in darkness. I was reminded of Film Crit Hulk’s writing of The World’s End and James Bond, another very long essay that was deeply personal and chapter for easier consumption. Few commenters noticed that Tim Rogers was just doing a dramatic reading of his written reviews on Kotaku and Action Button dot net, and how they liked that approach, and I found myself liking that approach as well. You might believe a video review needs more than just reading an essay out loud, but just the act of reading an essay out loud in the correct intonation and inflection adds ton to experience. And Tim Rogers sounds like he has decades worth of experience to present a dramatic reading of his essay very effectively, much like Hank Green.

I continued scaling the mountain to my goal. I went through his review of Pac-Man and was delighted by his reading of Namco games, and was impressed by the opening sequence, and just generally enjoyed it. I was getting excited to set a day aside and let the six hour review of Tokimeki Memorial watch over me and reduce me to dust.

And it sure did. That six hours was a harrowing experience. What Tim Rogers is best at is telling a story, and so to go through a let’s play was a wish I never made, fulfilled. In the end, I was left with nothing and everything. It was like finishing a really good book.

I wanted to watch it again, then again I never wanted to watch it again. It was almost a traumatic experience. Tim talked about there being endless variation of love, and the love Tim Rogers went through was not the fluffy yet melancholic one that I craved, but one akin to a devotion of an eldritch god. Love made in justification for one’s efforts in attending and maintaining a relationship. A love stronger than most kinds of love, but most draining and taxing as well. Tim Roger’s synopsis of Tennis Monster reminded me of Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, which is also about empathizing a quite hateable character because we kind of have to. Apparently one person knows the full plot because Tim Rogers rambled on about it as he was couch surfing in his house, and unbelieve as it usually is, I fully trust that the commenter is telling the truth.

I was like a heroin addict, who really wanted a different hit, like talking to friends or hiking, my mother wanted me to go hiking with her, and I didn’t because, after the pandemic started, all I wanted to be was inside. Outside felt diseased. The air outside felt contaminated to me, hard to breathe. I was stuck in this place.

Tim Rogers is an exceptional figure. He seems to be a movie protagonist, he reminds me of The Librarian, played by Noah Wyle. Tim has eidetic memory, as he has access every single autobiographical memory formed, but not other types of memory. We know that those types of memory are different because of people like Tim and people who are opposite of Tim, someone who has no memories of autobiographical memory but otherwise fine. These people tend to have very few emotions and have a hard time deciding things. Lack of emotions is correlated with difficulty in decision making.

So Tim is the opposite of that, Tim is full of emotions, complex emotions and he can make decisions and carry it out in a snap. He would be good at school, and he was, but he would be too focused on his grandeur to be under some authority, which is how he became who he was. His anti-authoritarian nature rings throughout his reviews, highlight the general Generation X vibe that Tim exudes but also the modern socialistic movement of Generation Z, which adds to this odd mix of old and new.

Not only does Tim have eidetic memory and intense work ethic that he never seems to move away from, therefore making a three hour video masterpiece at a clip that seems unbelievable for a seasoned viewer, he also has exceptional skills in fast math and language, he seems to be at least familiar with dozens of languages, and of course Tim’s experience is bounded by his decade of living in Japan.

I think this is why Tim naturally gravitates towards video games. When Tim says ‘welcome to video games’ there’s a natural supposition that Tim Rogers is the protagonist of video games, and I think he is. Tim wants to be in video games, because he needs to be in video games, instead of some almighty god cruelly deciding to plop him into a real life. He should be an video game adaptation of The Librarian and go on world-spanning adventure and romance impossibly beautiful girls instead of toiling the grime of what real life portends to. His life is dramatic, but impossibly mundane as well. It’s a simulacrum of a movie or a video game, which is pretty cool on its own.

But of course Tim Rogers isn’t the only part of Action Button Reviews. In the ensuing five videos, Tim Rogers tries to do something. Video games are a wide net. There is so much to video games, something like Gone Home and Geometry Dash are included alongside Wolfenstein The New Colossus and Farmville. What makes a video game? Actually, the more interesting question is, why do we have the term ‘video games’? Why do we put all of this mess into a single category, as if there is some throughline.

Tim Rogers starts to do that. Tim Rogers boldly states that things like Doom and Tokimeki Memorial are intimately connected to each other. And that all video games are in conversation with each other, through deep and complex meta-narratives. Tim Rogers is a cartographer, trying to map out how video games are made whole.

I’ve always strived to be that kind of a cartographer, to showcase the weave of reality, of connecting two seemingly unconnected parts, and showing to a profound implication both existing, instead of one or the other. If you don’t know, I have been trying to write something out of my current obsession with Virtual YouTubers, and mostly Hololive, and while I think I stumbled upon the six hour video review of Tokimeki Memorial outside of my interest in virtual YouTubers, this video, as I expected in the back of my head, gave me plenty of thoughts about Hololive. Its rumination of cyberpunk and idol culture is so directly connected with the peculiarities of Hololive that I was quite astounded.

From the very beginning, I wonder how Tim Rogers thinks about Hololive, especially after he has done that six hour review. I’m sure he will have a lot of interesting thoughts about the prospect. I want to get in contact with him, maybe work under him. But then I don’t want to hang out with him. I want to be near him as he talks to a crowd at a party, but I don’t feel safe to be near him when there’s less than ten people nearby. I think below ten, I would be swept in some danger that I won’t be prepared for.

Tim Rogers and Action Button Review is a fascinating review series and if you have the time, I suggest you should take the journey. It’s well worth it, just to get a different perspective on video games and the world around it.

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Drop the Evie essay you wrote

okay so first of all it wasn’t really an essay the way some of my ramblings are, more like just me writing down all of my thoughts in a vaguely coherent manner bc my brain was running too fast to really organize it 

and second of all, just to be on the safe side, these are the potential trigger warnings that I would give for the essay — I don’t know if they all actually come up or not, but better safe than sorry, so proceed with caution!

Potential TWs: being outed, parental neglect, character death (canon), suicide attempts (semi-canon), eating disorders, lots of mental health issues, and lots of general trauma and feelings of never being good enough, and canon typical references to drinking/drugs/partying/etc

so just like a fun fact, Evie’s vitamin water of choice is zero sugar strawberry lemonade and yes i spent too long reading reviews on different flavours all because gossip girl did an entire product placement episode

anyways now onto real thoughts let’s go lesbians let’s go

so okay evie has a... very negative experience with Lily’s various boyfriends and husbands.  When Evie was younger she was always hopeful that this time would be different, that they’d be a family, that her mom would actually stick around, and every single time she’s been let down and left heartbroken.  When her mom starts dating Bart, Evie is very against it but she just can’t be bothered to even try to talk to Lily — Lily will date him, maybe get married, play house, abandon her children, then get divorced, and the cycle will repeat, and Lily will never give a shit about how her children feel about it.  Bart is just the latest rich man for Lily to set her sights on.  Given the overall shittiness of most of Lily’s exes, Evie had figured she would be a lot more vocally against Lily dating again, but Bart... 

Bart himself may terrify Evie, but Evie’s unwavering faith that Chuck will always protect her outweighs that fear, and Evie has long since given up on her mom caring about her opinions so she just takes comfort in the fact that Chuck will be there and tries to just ignore the rest — and the fact that Bart is pretty much always away does help with that.  That being said, she was very distraught when Bart spends season 1 christmas with them, but then Bart’s “present” for her was flying Chuck home for a few days because Lily mentioned that Eric was teasing Evie about being excited about having Chuck as a brother, and he's trying to semi-win over the kids (aka bribe them into accepting him as Lily’s fiancé)

Evie speaks several languages!  She started learning French and Spanish at a very young age, and then picked more up from Lily’s various husbands.  She’s not fluent in all of them but she can hold conversations in eight languages — and four of them were from Lily’s boyfriends (and italian was half pieced together from French and Spanish), and she just keeps learning more because she tries to keep herself too busy to think at any given moment

Rufus is her favourite step-dad by far, but Chuck is her favourite step-sibling (and second favourite sibling, after Eric).  That being said, Bart was surprisingly decent to her because even he quickly figured out that Evie has the innate ability to get Chuck to do basically anything, and he wanted her on his side, only he underestimated how much Evie hates him for treating Chuck like shit — as she says in 2x07, “if you want us to be a family, you should learn how to be a dad”

Evie has a bit of a thing for stealing coats lmao — it’s not unusual to find her stealing Chuck, Eric, Theo, or even Nate’s jackets when she gets cold or starts feeling particularly self conscious.  At the housewarming party she actually gets to bothered by all the media watching her constantly that Chuck goes and gets her one of his blazers to replace the cropped one she was wearing, and she immediately feels a bit more at east

Evie is a jock like it’s understated but she’s on multiple sports teams at school and plays outside of school too — she’s also in dance classes several times a week, along with private vocal lessons, and being part of every theatre production at Constance Billard (musicals and plays), and is on the yearbook committee.  Basically, Evie needs a fucking nap, and with a lot of pushing from Chuck and Eric and Theo (to balance out Blair “do absolutely everything in the name of Yale” Waldorf) she does eventually ease up on her extra-curriculars

She holds far too much power in the Constance-St Jude hierarchy.  She’s a freshman, but it’s well known that Evie is completely untouchable.  Some people (cough Jenny) might try to cross Blair, but no one is stupid enough to go after Evie — she’s not just Blair’s protégée, she’s also under Chuck’s protection.  And when Jenny does try to cross her in season 3 (physical and emotional bullshit, public humiliation, telling the entire school she’d tried to kill herself and had been at Ostroff not “in florida”), well... she learns that even being family won’t stop her entire life from being destroyed

Speaking of Jenny... that’s a very messy relationship — I want to like Jenny, I really do, but I just... don’t so far.  They’re a very sweet relationship early on, neither of them had dated before and they were just really smitten with each other and things were good.  There were definitely some issues because of the Jenny-Blair war, but they’d been okay — or so Evie had thought, until Jenny dumped her by means of introducing everyone to her new boyfriend, Asher.  Then of course there’s the party and Jenny outing her, and then just not talking to her for months until she needs something from them (an in to the White Party).  Eric manages to convince Evie to play nice, but he does so under the impression that Jenny had apologized to Evie — he didn’t know she’d only apologized to him.  Eventually Jenny does apologize and Evie tries to forgive her, and she keeps giving Jenny more and more second chances (especially once they become step sisters), but Jenny really just keeps hurting Evie to get on top because with Blair gone, Evie immediately becomes the new queen, and Jenny cares more about being queen than being nice.  Little does she realize that part of why Evie became queen with no challenge is because she’s nice.

and regarding Evie’s other relationships... so serena was a really good big sister when Eric & Evie were kids — Blair was the responsible sister and Serena was the fun sister, but it was a good balance and it worked.  But when the twins were around eleven and Serena was around 13, she became besties with Georgina Sparks, and everything went to shit.  Serena started getting into partying and drinking and drugs and became just as flighty and unreliable as Lily, which takes a significant toll on the twins’ mental health — side note, one of their therapists at the Ostroff Centre believes that their significant codependency stems from the abandonment issues they have as a result of Lily and Serena just up and leaving them whenever anything “better” comes along.

And unfortunately for the twins, this was around the same time (grade 6) that Theo got sent to boarding school, so really they lost both their sister and their best friend at the same time, and Theo leaving also messed up the overall group dynamics and they half lost Nate too — he was still in their lives but he went from being the dad to Blair’s mom to being more of a big brother, and there was this sort of hole that didn’t get filled until a couple of years later.

And of course, a lot of it then fell to Blair to try to fill that hole and the holes left by Serena and Lily and went from being sort of “mom friend big sister” to “literally the closest thing we have to a mom”, which is also just a lot of pressure for a thirteen year old girl and part of why Blair and Chuck got a lot closer after he ended up becoming their dad was because she finally had someone that she could talk to too.

Also like full disclosure, Chuck never really intended to become their dad.  He started off as a reluctant big brother because he was Nate’s best friend and Nate was the dad friend when they were younger, and Evie just kind of decided that she loved him and like no one can argue with Evie so all of a sudden he was part of the family.  He doesn’t really become dad until the van der Woodsens move into the hotel because suddenly Eric and Evie are just always there, and he doesn’t even realize it until months later, after Serena is gone and he realizes that he’s been skipping parties to like play mario kart and shit with the twins and Blair is just like “lmao yeah buddy you’re the last one to get this memo”

and then there’s this list that I made of the NJBC’s roles in raising the twins and theo back when they were younger

Blair: holds their hands to cross the street, teaches them not to talk to people who wear sneakers or to strangers, teaches them how to dress themselves like respectable people, makes them finish their homework before watching tv, hates all of their nannies and only trusts dorota to take care of them Nate: teaches them to tie their laces and their ties, plays video games and sports with them, helps them with homework and doesn't get impatient when they struggle, lets them use his notebooks to draw in when they're bored Chuck: will destroy anyone who hurts them, teaches them street smarts and how to tell when someone is lying, is the one who lets them do dumb and reckless things because he'd rather they do them when he's there to get in trouble, still refuses to believe that they know what sex is Serena: reminded them that it's okay to have fun and draw outside the lines, stood up for them when lily was being a shit mom and always tried to protect them from the worst of her neglect, came up with games to play when they were sad to take their minds off whatever is upsetting them

And Theo!!!!!!  Theo has been their best friend for their entire lives!  They’ve known him since they were babies and the three of them have always been inseparable!  Like highkey they were just a more functional NJBC lmao, and we love them for it!  Theo getting sent to boarding school was really hard on all three of them but they stayed in constant contact and whenever Theo is back in the city, it’s almost impossible to see them not together.  Theo does know that they were in the Centre, so once he’s back full time, he’s spending as much time visiting them as he can!  Even when Eric and Theo are dating (and later when Evie and Theo are dating), the group dynamics really never change!  It’s still always the three of them, and sometimes Jenny in s1, they’re still each other’s family, and they’re still just a bit too interdependent to be entirely healthy (it’s the trauma and neglectful parents)

on a slightly related note, neither of the twins drink anything other than champagne and sometimes wine, and neither of them touch drugs at all, and it’s entirely because of Serena.  They’ve both seen how much she’s changed since she got into that scene, and especially since ‘liking partying’ turned into ‘alcohol addiction’, and they’re both too afraid of ending up like that to even take the risk.  It’s something that definitely sets them apart from pretty much any of their peers, but they’ve gotten very good at just laughing it off with a “hey, I just don’t want to end up on Gossip Girl tomorrow” which people generally accept

(that being said, Evie did smoke for a while pre-canon bc cigarettes curb hunger, but she hasn’t smoked at all since ending up in the Centre, and once she’s out too many people have an eye on her for her to even try, and she does want to stop)

(TW ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, fairly detailed discussion) so okay the breaking point for the twins... lily had just gone awol again and Blair was away visiting her dad and evie was at the archibalds’ house hanging out with theo, who was home for a weekend, and eric didn’t want to call anyone because lily’s disappearance had left him in a spiral of feeling annoying and like people didn’t really want him in their lives and there wasn’t a specific trigger but instead of the spiral slowing down or evie/chuck/blair being able to pull him out of it, it just kept getting worse until he was slitting his wrist in the bathroom — only Evie had just gotten home and when he didn’t reply to her calling his name, she got freaked out and started looking for him and when she saw him, she just... couldn’t deal.  She called 911 for eric but then she was just in the bathroom and covered in his blood and she didn’t know what to do and she needed to calm down so she grabbed a bottle of valium that she thinks was Lily’s but instead of just taking one pill she ended up taking all of them and downing them with a bottle of vodka serena had hidden — once she realized what she’d done she called Chuck and basically just said “I think I fucked up” and Chuck freaks out (understandably) and rushes to their suite and gets there basically just in time to see both of them being loaded into an ambulance; he claims he’s their brother and rides with them to the hospital where he calls blair, and arranges for his jet to pick her up asap, and then tries (unsuccessfully) to get in touch with lily

[jewish-gay-elves]

You Give Me Too Much Credit 2/2

AO3 Link

Leli thinks this shouldn't be too hard to understand. Alistair thinks that it is that hard to understand. Zevran thinks that it went about exactly as he expected. The Warden thinks his friends are hiding something from him.

Words: 3028, Chapters: 2/2, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of the Stephan Cousland: There's Never Much of a Choice for You 

Fandoms: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Alistair (Dragon Age), Male Cousland, Zevran Arainai, Leliana (Dragon Age), Morrigan (Dragon Age), Dog (Dragon Age), Sten (Dragon Age) Relationships: Alistair/Male Cousland, Alistair/Male Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Cousland Additional Tags: Drabble, Warden has shitty friends tbh, dog is actually called calenhad, and warden is stephan, and now Warden has less shitty friends, i did not know i could write more for this

“So theoretically, how long could a Fereldan spend talking to a dog?” Zevran asked as he and the Warden’s other companions sat eating their dinner.

“Considering what we told him earlier? Indefinitely.” Leliana replied nonchalantly.

“I believe that begs the question, what exactly did you tell him then?” Warden Cousland asked, standing with his food in hand behind the two rogues. During their silence he sat in the almost too small space between them, forcing them to shift apart in order for him to join them. After another tense moment, Zevran spoke.

“To be fair, Warden, it is more along the lines of what we did not tell him,” he said with a grin. Cousland just stared at him, waiting patiently for either of them to fill in their intentional blanks.

“Though you should know Warden, that he brought up the subject first, asking for my intentions towards you. He believed that we were sweet on each other.” Leliana explained hesitantly. At the Warden’s shocked face she nodded sympathetically. However since Cousland’s expression of shock could easily have been mistaken for his expression of confusion, they were very similar, Leliana hoped he knew that her intentions were good.

“Then he assumed I knew the source of your good favour and believed you and I to be amors, when in reality, I have eyes.” Zevran added with a wink. Cousland’s cheeks, dark as they were, began to redden under Zevran’s knowing smirk. Zevran tried not to laugh, he really did, but could not help the few chuckles at Cousland’s face.

“Then, once we corrected him in that you have no particularly special feelings towards Zevran, Morrigan, or I. Then, we simply just, suggested what type of person you might be inclined to have feelings toward.” Leliana added, trying to soften the blow. Cousland’s cheeks, if anything, got darker at her admission and his normally stoic expression began to pull downward into what would have been a fierce frown on anyone else. However on his face was just a slight tug down on the edges of his lips.

“Then there was a very amusing bit where he was confused on why I had not made you my own dear Warden, but we rectified his mistake quickly do not fear. Our kingly friend is not the sharpest sword on the stand it seems,” Zevran added quickly, interrupting whatever thought Cousland might have had.

“Oh good, that’s just what I was worried about thank you Zevran. Alistair is perfectly intelligent, just because he was mostly raised in a chantry does not mean his education was lacking. I just, I can’t believe that you two-” Cousland began.

“He started the conversation!” Both Leliana and Zevran claimed in their defense.

“Regardless, my feelings were my own! Don’t you two think I should have had the chance to tell him on my own? When I was ready to face the repercussions?” He said plainly, looking at them with disappointment.

“We did not say exactly-”

“Alluding to it is close enough Zevran!” Cousland interrupted as he stood, his food forgotten. “I need to speak with him, maybe I can fix this somehow.” He began to pace in front of the two rogues, both of whom shot nervous glances at each other. Normally it was as hard to get Cousland to open up as it was to get Sten to speak about anything. Seeing him this concerned and ruffled made them start to think twice about their actions.

“Perhaps Warden, you should let him continue talking to the dog.” Zevran quietly interjected as Cousland began rubbing at his chin as he stalked back and forth.

“I can’t let this go on too long, what if he thinks I’ve been entirely lecherous to him? What if he hates me for it? It’s entirely inappropriate, we’re brothers in arms I shouldn’t have even been so obvious for you two to figure it out.” The Warden said, mostly speaking to himself at that point.

“He never said he was opposed to the thought of two men together, I think Zevran is right and you should let him work through this on his own. Alistair will come talk to you when he is ready,” Leliana added, supporting her fellow rogue.

“What if he’s never ready? What if he-”

“Kadan,” Sten interrupted loudly from the open space next to camp, both away from the main fire and where Alistair and Calenhad were on watch. Cousland stopped immediately, his head popping up to stare at the Qunari. In response, Sten hefted his recently reclaimed sword on his shoulder and beckoned Cousland over. The human in question just nodded and abruptly headed toward his own tent to grab his own sword and practice leathers.

Leliana and Zevran were both adequately stunned by the new development and watched wordlessly as the two warriors then begin to spar. It wasn’t strange for the two of them to spar, but dropping everything he was doing to spar was newer. Though they both used large two handed swords, their fighting styles were so vastly different that it made every spar a battle of strategy rather than might. Cousland had flexibility and reach, while Sten had brute strength and steadfast swings.

The two didn’t need words but as they practiced, the rogues could see the conversation between their blades. Nervous, unbridled energy from Cousland, then steady relentlessness from Sten. Slowly Cousland fell into his more focused fighting, taking calculated risks, getting up close to the qunari to land better hits as he normally did in battle. Without pause, Sten rebuffed his advance and forced him back with sheer weight alone.

During any other spar, Cousland would have taken that as an opportunity to dive down and under Sten’s wide shoves to overwhelm him. Instead, he took the full force of the qunari’s might and buckled under the pressure. For a moment, Leliana and Zevran were worried that Sten wouldn’t know to stop, or couldn’t see the distracted state their leader was in, but Sten’s blade stopped next to Cousland’s throat, ending the spar. After a moment, he withdrew his sword and reached out his large hand to help him back to his feet.

On most nights, you couldn’t stop hearing the clash of metal until well into the night, for Sten to win so quickly proved how unsettled Cousland was about being found out. Instead of berating him for his absent mindedness, Sten instead simply told him to prepare himself and they went at it again.

Cousland went down four more times before he finally found his footing and let his frustration take over, getting all of his nervous energy out. He had never let his emotions rule him, but Cousland’s nerves could give him a hard time. It was good that Sten had told him to spar, and Cousland was grateful for the outlet it provided.

While the two rogue’s attention had shifted some during this, they both drifted back when they realized how intently Alistair had began watching the spar. Leliana and Zevran knew what that look meant. Whether Cousland or Sten had noticed was anyone’s guess. Or even if Alistair knew how he had been looking at his fellow Warden.

As they observed quietly, they saw both Wardens eyes begin to get hooded with weariness. The rogues finally agreed that it was late, and they were travelling to the Brecilian Forest come morning for seemingly no reason since they had already gained the trust of both elves and weres. Either way, it was a long walk, one best not unprepared for. However, if they both decided to keep an ear open towards the Warden’s tent, well that was their little secret.

And if neither Warden slept in a tent that night, that was their little secret as well.

The loud and raucous laughter that rang through camp come morning once the two Wardens found a quiet moment to talk wasn’t necessarily a secret, and later, neither was the fact that poor Alistair had thought that the two rogues had meant that Cousland had feelings towards their, albeit two-handed warrior, resident qunari.

If Sten found it amusing, he never revealed it, and instead gave them both a withering look for their lingering chuckles throughout the day.

[shannygoatgruff]

Stay Safe, Stay Home Writing Challenge - (Call me if you need anything) @waiting4inspiration​

Genre: Romance

Pairing: Modern Ivar x OC

Warning: Language, strong sexual content

Rating: M

A/N:  First my apologies for taking so long to post this chapter. I lost the original version of chapter 7, but I hope you enjoy this slightly longer re-write.  I think this story only has 1 or 2 more chapters and it’s done.  I’m almost through telling the story I wanted to tell.

Next, I got the idea for this from experience I had with an ex, with whom I am still very close friends. We were actually talking about this particular encounter recently, and I thought it would be fun to write it. I will say, if you have never had sex with someone that you are truly friends with, you have no idea what you’re missing out on!  I think the sexiest sex is the kind where you talk to your partner.  Maybe it’s just the stage I’m in my life.  What you’re doing doesn’t interest me as much as what’s going on in your head.

Finally, I used the lyrics to ‘Imported’ by Jessie Reyes without permission.  I love her and that song and when I hear it, I see Ivar and Cash.  I have included the video at the end of the chapter - the vibe of the song is how I see them as a couple.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6 

Chapter 7

When Ivar moved across the floor, there was grace in his movements. His motions were fluid, and because he didn’t use his legs to aid him, how he curved his spine to usher his mobility gave him the agility of a big cat stalking his prey. One-shoulder worked in tandem with the hip on the opposite side of his body creating this... glide, that was simply fucking sexy.  Cash found herself wondering how good the view of him crawling would look from underneath him.      

Crawling for Cash, however, was anything but graceful. She hadn’t gotten very far, just from the dresser to the full-length mirror, but fuck a duck if it wasn’t hard. At first, she tried to be all sexy, and crawl on her hands and knees, but when she realized Ivar couldn’t use his knees, she switched to an Army crawl.  

After the first pass across the floor, she knew this crawling idea was going to be short-lived.  Not only did she not possess the upper body strength to keep it up, but she was also getting hella ashy.  It was bad enough the rain had washed away most of her lotion, but now she was sliding around on the carpet. She was going to look like she had been rolling around in flour at any minute. Her mother would have a fucking fit if she saw the state she was in.

And how the hell was she supposed to get her toiletry tote across the room? It wasn’t like it was a backpack. It was hard enough trying to maneuver herself around, let alone bring something with her.  She had tried dragging it and even pushing it in front of her.  Both ways were taking forever.  At the rate she was going, she and the tote would get to the mirror by her 30th birthday.  

Ivar leaned against the bed watching with curiosity.  He had never seen an able-bodied person struggle so hard to crawl. Why didn’t she just get up on all fours? He appreciated that view of her.  It was much more seductive then whatever the hell she was doing now.  Currently, she looked like she was trying to do the worm in a breakdance competition for quadriplegics.  

“It may be easier if you use your arms.  You have all of your weight on your elbows.  Try using your wrists and hands. That way, you can move your bag with you.” Ivar laid on his stomach facing Cash and demonstrated, “See?  Like this…” 

“See, like this,” Cash mocked in a high pitched voice rolling her eyes as she continued to struggle across the floor.  Suddenly, she felt the sting of his hand as it landed flat on her ass. It sounded much worse than it felt.  It didn’t hurt in the least, but she still gave him the evil eye, “Did you just?” she feigned shock.  

Being the youngest child, Ivar got away with a lot of shit.  He was used to blaming one of his brothers for everything and he always got away with it. It became a little game he liked to play with them that he lovingly titled, ‘How much trouble can I get you in?’  It was during that time that he started doing this mocking, side to side head motion to symbolize his victory.  As an adult, during a triumph, he continued to rock his head in this obnoxious manner, only now, it also included a shit-eating grin, followed by a dab.  

Cash watched the most incredibly mischievous smile spread across Ivar’s face as he bobbed his head and then he dabbed the air.  He spoke some foreign words and seemed mighty pleased with himself. “Oh, chuckle it up, Chuckles.” She rolled her eyes and sat up.  “Ya, perv.”

God, he had been wanting to do that ever since she started crawling. He just wanted to see if her ass was really as soft as it looked.  It was, and it had the right amount of bounce.  “Sorry. I could not resist,” his smile was so big, it was hard to make out what he was saying, “You were making fun of me. It was all I could think to do,” he whined.

Cash turned toward the mirror and started to dump out the contents of her bag. She picked up her wide-tooth comb and folded her legs beneath her. Leaning into the mirror, she fixed her eyes squarely on his image, “If you wanted to cop a feel, all you had to do was ask.”  She watched as his mouth opened and closed, like a fish. 

“What are you going to do?”  He asked, folding his hands in his lap. 

Cash parted her hair down the middle and secured half of it with a ponytail holder. Carefully detangling the other half with a comb, she reached in the bag for a jar and struggled with the top, “I’m going to put my hair in two braids, so I won’t look totally crazy.”  She held the jar out to Ivar.  “Can you open this for me?”

Silently, he crawled to where she sat and took the jar out of her hands.  With one turn he had the lid opened.  “This smells wonderful. What is it?”  

“A moisturizing mask.”

“It smells like coconuts and berries, and…and,” he took another big sniff but couldn’t quite place the scent, “I don’t know but it is amazing.  It smells soft. Like you.”

“Jasmine,” she took the jar from his hand and tried not to blush.  He thought she smelled soft?  “I made this.”

“You make this?”

“It’s not hard,” she shrugged, “All you need are some essential oils for the smell and different kinds of butters.  It’s pretty easy.  It’s good to keep moisture in.  I could even use it on your hair and it wouldn’t be greasy.  See feel.” She titled her hair for Ivar to feel her hair without the moisturizer. “Now you know I must like you because I’m letting you touch my hair.”  Then, she scooped a small amount of product onto her palm before rubbing it into her hair. After she had worked it though she tilted her head toward him again.  “Now feel.”

His eyes grew with amazement.  “That feels awesome.”  Of course, he couldn’t help but bring his nose to her hair.  “And it smells good.” His nose brushed the side of her ear before making its way to her neck, then back into her hair.  “I like this smell.”

Cash giggled at the feeling, but she couldn’t ignore the tiny goosebumps that started to prickle every inch of her skin.  “Do you know how to braid?”  She asked feeling her neck slowly start to lean more into the warmth of this breath. 

“Hmm?” He looked at her eyes in the mirror and noticed that he had been rubbing her arm.  When did that happen?  What the hell was in that jar? “Braid?  A little. I used to help my mother when I was young. She has very long hair.” He watched as a smooth smile crossed Cash’s face.  “Oh, no.  I cannot. I am terrible at it.”  

“Oh, you know nothing, Jon Snow,” she handed him a brush, “you do mine, and  I’ll do yours.”

“And we can have a sleeping party, like girlfriends,” he mocked in a high pitched girl voice and twirled his hair around his finger, “...and paint each other’s nails and do make-overs!”

“That’s a slumber party, jerk. And as long as there are no pillow fights, I’d be okay with it.”  She nudged his shoulder with her own. “But, I hope you don’t want to be my girlfriend.”

Ivar took the comb from Cash and looked at the floor.  He didn’t want to chance to catch her eyes in the mirror, just in case, “I was really kind of hoping that you would want to be mine.”  

“Really?”  Cash asked said softly before capturing his lips for a soft kiss.  “Good. It’s about time.  I was getting gray hair over here, waiting on you to make a move...”  Smiling into his lips, she wondered, how did her tongue always end up in his mouth?  Was she capable of kissing him without needing to feel his velvety tongue on hers?  She pulled away slightly and pecked him a few more times. “Now, I can’t be all kissing and everything with my hair looking like this.  I’m too cute to be looking this tore up. So you helping or nah?”  

Braiding each other’s hair had been the most intimate thing Cash had ever done with a man, besides Glenn, with her clothes on.  Why was it so easy to trust him?  She let him touch her hair – generally speaking, black women don’t let people other their mothers or their hairdresser touch their hair. Hell, Cash’s parents had been married for over 30 years and she seriously doubted that her father had ever touched her mother’s hair. She had known this man for almost 48 hours and she had already let him see her with ashy legs.  What the fuck was really going on?  

It was something more than just being comfortable around him being bushy and ashy, that’s for sure.  Maybe it was the fact that the things that she normally would be embarrassed about she didn’t give a fuck about anymore. She was pretty sure that if she needed to fart in front of him, she would have,  That’s how secure she felt with him.  

Ivar was amazed that he stopped focusing on his the fact that his bare legs were showing and that he was crawling, hours ago. Whatever it was that he was nervous about before he had met Cash in person seemed like a distant memory.  He had just let this woman braid his hair like he was a girl playing beauty shop. 

Granted, the hairstyle looked badass, especially with the way his head was shaved on the sides – but he knew for sure none of his brothers would have let their girlfriends do that.  Hvitserk would talk shit to him about it for years to come because of it, too.  But, he didn’t care, it felt right.  Everything about her delicate fingers gripping his hair and gently massaging his scalp felt incredible. If she wanted to take every braid out and start all over, he would let her.  He would let her do whatever she wanted if it would make her smile.

Speaking of smiling, as he flipped through his phone for more music for them to listen to, his face lit up when he ran across their song. “You feel like singing?” As soon as the opening beat of Imported by Jessie Reyes ft. 6lack started playing, Cash let her head lean back and smiled.  

Ivar grabbed a brush, and handed her one, too.  If they were going to do this duet any justice, they both needed their microphones and to get into character. Mother nature was already setting the scene outside with the rain still beating down against the patio, creating the perfect backdrop for their music video. 

Bringing the hairbrush up to his mouth, he wanted Cash to see how he had choreographed his movements to the song.  He only wished that he had his braces on because he had an entire dance to go with it.  

Hi, my name is 6Lack And sometimes people me SIX-LACK I don’t mind because they stubborn And my bank account is looking mighty fine We can skip the wine and dine Go straight for the wind and grind She wanna cum, I can make it happen, fuck trying

Ivar rolled his hips from his sitting position on the floor with a devilish look on his face that made Cash lick her lips.  Damn, that boy could sing. Plus, he was sexy and gyrating…fuck! She was trying so hard to be good, but the song was talking about going straight for the wind and grind making people cum and sexy stuff and whatnot…she was only human.

Sometimes, I get messy, you can be my biggest secret I ain’t sliding if you wit him Baby, you gon’ have to have to leave him

Ivar wagged his finger at Cash to let her know that he wasn’t the cheating type. He winked at her when she smiled. 

I got morals on Sundays, sometimes on Wednesdays

He shrugged his shoulder and raised a brow.

Really, it depends but,

Ivar tried his best not to laugh at the face she was making at his stage-worthy performance. He was giving her his best big dick energy vibes. 

You, you’re in love with somebody else Maybe I could offer some help (Maybe I could offer some help) Get over them by getting under me

He watched as Cash closed her eyes and began to sing.  He could listen to her sing all day.  She had a beautiful voice and he loved the changes she made to songs. He especially loved what she did to Jessie Reyes’s part of this song.  

But you might O.D. if you get too much of me Might O.D. if you get too much of me

Cash, too, had a routine for this song, but she was not going to do it for him. Instead, she just did what felt natural at the moment.  She ran her hand down her throat to her collarbone then pulled her legs up to her chest. As she sang, she rubbed her cheek against her knee and gave him a vulnerable stare…

Hi, my name is not important I’m not from here, I’m imported I drink liquor like it’s water Hope my liver can afford it I’ve been lyin’ here with I’ve been lyin…, I’ll be lyin here I’m under the covers like

Her voice…that was the same voice he had listened to countless times over the phone, that was singing to him in person.  It was a little overwhelming.  He reached up and cupped her cheek, and when she opened her eyes he leaned in to kiss her. The kiss so slow and deep and it conveyed every thought and feeling that Ivar couldn’t put into words. 

He had so much he wanted to tell her, too.  Like how he was glad she replied to his comment that day on the Jessie Reyes blog for this song.  He had been listening to Imported on repeat because he was still in love with Freydis.  Even though they had been broken up for a couple of years and he didn’t want her back, he couldn’t get over her.  He was stuck mourning for what they could have been. He had so many hopes and dreams for them.  He thought he had found a beautiful woman that could love him despite his disabilities and he would have a chance at a normal life.  But, it didn’t work that way. Nothing in his life ever worked out that way.

Enter this song and this girl: the song was about finding someone to help you get over a broken heart and the girl...she was feeling a certain way because her first serious boyfriend, who she hadn’t been for over five years, was getting married.  Feelings had a funny way of fucking you up.  

But there they were; keyboard gangsters, in their feelings and being flirty.  They were two people on different continents who were never going to meet, so what harm was it to bare their souls?  Nobody ever died from having another friend; especially friends that liked to sing loved musicals and could go into a monologue from a movie with just the last word of a sentence. Really, friends like that were hard to come by.  

Now, if things kept going in the right direction, soon they would be lovers.  

Thank you, Jessie Reyes.

Cash bit Ivar’s neck, causing him to groan and squeeze her body tighter. Good thing the rain hadn’t washed off the scent of Aqua di Gio that seemed to be oozing from his pores.  Damn! How did he know exactly what scents got her going?  Did this man always smell like walking sex?  And was it natural for a man to have skin this damn soft?  

She watched her fingers as they trailed the lines of his tattoo along his left shoulder.  “What’s this?”  She asked as her fingertips came dangerously close to his nipple, before tracing the line back up the head of the figure to the center of his chest.

Ivar watched her nail slowly move across his skin and tucked his lip in between his teeth at the feeling.  “The mythical Norse dragon, Fáfnir.” Did his voice just crack?  She made him feel like a teenager all over again.  

Cash giggled.  She loved the way he suddenly started rolling his “r” and how his “th” started to sound like a z.  Had it always and she just not notice?  “Your accent is stronger,” she let her tongue follow along the line of his jaw, “it’s so sexy.”  

“It’s hard to concentrate on English,” he said matter-of-factly, making sure to slur his Norwegian tongue into his English words,  hands still gripping her waist, gently rocking with her on his lap, “when you do that.”  He pointed his chin toward the ceiling to grant her better access to his Adam’s apple, “You know, I don’t think I have ever been in this situation and had to speak English.”

Cash's eyes opened in bewilderment as she lifted her head. “You know what? I’ve never seen an uncircumcised penis.”  The thought just hit her.  If they were about to go there and she hoped to God they were, they needed to get all of this shit out of the way.  She sat back on his thighs and looped her arms around his neck.  

Ivar’s smile was so big, his eyes crinkled in the corners.  “Now?  You think of that now?  Really?” 

“I’m serious.”  She said settling back with a slight pout, “Circumcision is a big thing in the US, like everybody does it.  But here, not so much, right?  I mean, you’re not Jewish, are you?”  She raised her brow and nudged her head toward him.  “You know what I mean?”

He shook his head.  “You want to know if I am?”

“Kinda?”  Talk about killing the mood.  There were things that she might want to try with him, but she wanted to know what she might be in for first. Nobody liked those kinds of surprises during sex.  “ Is that weird?”  There were just certain things you need to be upfront about. Even though she suspected she wasn’t certain. 

Ivar shrugged with a glint of mischief in his eyes.  “Perhaps you will just have to find out.”  

“Oh, just tell me.”  She slapped his bare chest and rolled her eyes when he made a face like it hurt. “I’ll tell you something.”  

“I’m not telling you that.  But, I will tell you, that I have never seen brown nipples.”  He ran his fingers between Cash’s bra straps and her shoulders, slowly lowering the straps down her arm. When she didn’t protest, he continued to pull the straps lower.  He looked her in the eyes while she bent her arms through the loops to free herself of them. 

Sucking his lip, he let his eyes trail from hers down to her lips, then lower to her neck.  He admired how her pulse quickened when his hands touched just above her cleavage and when his thumbs gently pushed the lace down to expose her to him, he wanted to lick the hollow of her throat.  “You are beautiful.”  

Brown, white, black or pink, skin was skin, and Cash’s was beautiful and the skin on her breasts was just as soft and warm as the rest of her.  He patiently waited while she unhooked her bra and discarded it away from them, before he wrapped his muscular arms around her, burying his face in between her breasts. “I love boobs.” 

“Really?” She said smiling, as he looked up at her from the middle of her chest. “You didn’t strike me a breast man.” 

“I am an everything man.”  He smiled rubbing his face across her soft skin.  “What is that smell?  God…”  

“Ahh…that is Heliotrope Gingembre,  my favorite perfume.”

“Mine now, too,” he said absently.  Closing his eyes with his head laid on her chest.

She kissed him on the top of his head and started to rub the back of his neck, “You think I don’t know that you’re avoiding my question?  I shared.”

“I did not ask you a question and you did not tell me anything.”  He looked up at her and started to bob his head with that shit-eating grin again.  

“I will pop that little bobblehead of yours off your shoulders.  Now you’re just cheating.”  She rolled off his lap and laughed when he pouted at her and started to reach for her like a child.  “Not until you answer me.”  She sat next to him, but faced him and absently rubbed her hand along the hair on his legs.

He watched in amazement as she did.  She didn’t seem the least bit weirded out by his scars. “Okay, I’m sorry. You want to know if I was cut as a baby?” Ivar laid back on the floor and laced his hand with hers.  He looked at their joined hands and held them up to his line of vision before rolling his wrist. Why prolong the inevitable?  She was going to find out sooner or later.  He figured, if she could see his legs and be perfectly with fine them, odds were she'd okay with an unsnipped prick.  “No,  I was not.”  He laid her hand on his stomach with the laziest hint of a smirk on his face.

“Hmm. Interesting,” she responded wiggling her toes.  She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment then shrugged her shoulders.  “Okay,” she got up on her knees and knelt beside him.  Cash let her hands trail down his muscular stomach and found herself smile when she realized that he was ticklish in the spot between his navel and his waist. 

Carefully, her deft fingers slid under the grey waistband of his boxer briefs before she smoothed her hands around to his hips.  Slowly, she lowered the shorts down his legs, never once taking her eyes off of his.  Since Ivar couldn’t hoist his backside off the floor, he aided her by rocking from side to side as she continued to pull the garment down lower and lower. 

And there he was.  Ivar Ragnarsson in all of his birthday glory.  He was a sexy man.  It was the moment of truth and Cash didn’t quite know what to do or say. Was she supposed to comment or compliment?  Was she supposed to touch him or ask questions? There was so much she wanted to do, but she wasn’t sure if any of it was okay.  

“So?” Ivar placed one hand behind his head and the other on his chest.  “No witty observations?”

“Well, you already know you’re sexy, AF.”  She tilted her head and let her fingers trace the dark line of hair that traveled from his navel to the soft tufts at his groin. “But this…it’s different.”

“Different?  What the hell does that mean?” Ivar laughed.  “It looks the same to me.” 

Her eyes got big and she nodded, “Well, you’ve seen it before.  I haven’t…” She touched it.  It felt the same as others she’d held in her hands.  It was thick, had a nice length, and just the right amount of curve to it.  The bounce back, when she pulled it toward her and let it go, so that it slapped back against his pelvis, made a good sound.  By all accounts, it was a normal cock.  It was hard, and hot in her hands and she even noticed how Ivar’s stomach clenched when she made contact with it.  “So does it feel different?”

“Different than what?” He asked with a labored breath as she continued to hold and turn him over in her hand.  “It feels the same to me.”  Did she know what she was doing to him? She wasn’t jerking him or doing anything sexual, not really, merely touching and having a conversation with him.  It was such a turn on.  

“Let me show you.”  He removed his hand from behind his head and placed it on himself. Lifting his head, he attempted some sort of origami thing with the skin.  “This, I think, is what you are used to seeing.”  He rolled his eyes in his head and sucked his teeth, “Whatever.”  He released the skin and smiled.  “My way is much better.  Much more sensation.” 

“Oh, really?”  She was intrigued.  If she were being honest, it wasn’t the cutest one she’d ever seen.  But, that was because she just wasn’t used to it, yet. She was sure in a few days, she would think it was the hottest one she’d ever seen! “How so?”

“This part in there…feels everything, sometimes too much.”  He picked up her hand and placed it back on his swollen member, before closing his eyes at the feeling, “Sometimes, you have to touch it through the skin…”

“Like a clit?” 

Ivar shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know.  I do not have one of those.”  He let his hand travel up Cash’s thigh and settle right below her hip.  “If direct pressure is applied to you, does it make you,” he wound his hands to try to drive the words forward, “finish faster?”

Now it was Cash’s turn to shrug, “Honestly?  I’ve never had an orgasm with another person.”

“What?”  Ivar sat up, instantly regretting the warmth of her hand leaving his body.  “Are you serious?”  This was great!  Neither had he. But wait…if neither of them had, then this could be the worst awkward first sexual experience in the history of awkward first sexual experiences. They would either be eternally frustrated or their first sexual encounter could literally last indefinitely.  

“Yup. Not ever.”  Cash sat up on her knees so that he had full access to her hips. She placed her hands on his and watched as he slowly started to pull down her panties.  “I think the guys that I’ve been with think all women like the same things.  They don’t want to hear that you might want something different, or they just are in it for themselves. I just usually finish myself off.”

Ivar smoothed the lace down her thighs and held still as she used his shoulders to brace herself against him so she could lift each knee up to allow him to slide the material under her legs. 

He didn’t want to seem like a total pervert but he couldn’t help but look at her. She was right next to him with the most neatly trimmed Mohawk he’d ever seen.  “You’re into landscaping?”  He didn’t reply when she nodded.  Instead, he pressed his lips to her stomach.  “So, when you finish yourself off, do you do it alone or in front of others?”

“Like do I perform?”  She gently caressed his head, “It depends on how deserving the audience is.”  

God, he wanted her.  But, he needed to get one more thing out in the open before that could happen.  He wanted total transparency between them, once and for all.  “Me either.” 

He felt his head being lifted from her warm skin and but he immediately dropped his eyes in embarrassment, “I have never had an orgasm during sex.  The doctor thinks it was stress.”   

“That is so sad,” she wanted to hug him, but she didn’t want to make him feel bad.   She was used to it.  There were millions of women who never had and probably never will have an orgasm – so was the plight of being a woman. But for Ivar to never experience it?  He was too sweet a guy.  It nearly broke her heart. “Do you at least get anything out of it?”

“Yeah. I like giving pleasure to someone else.” He tried to sound upbeat, but it wasn’t exactly a happy subject for him.  What he was saying was true, he used to thoroughly enjoy making Freydis feel good. But, what about him? Didn’t he deserve to feel that way? Shouldn’t he get to experience an orgasmic high, at least once in his life?  At least one time that wasn’t self-inflicted? “ And it does feel good.”

“Do you finish yourself off?”

“Never in front of anyone.”  A devilish smile crept across Ivar’s face and when Cash saw that mischievous twinkle in those beautiful blue eyes, her face broke out in a smile, too.  

Ivar had had many sexual conversations with women before but never before had he had a sex conversation with his partner.  This whole thing, this talking and being together, looking at, touching, and getting to know about each other…all of this intimacy was amazing.  

It was scary as hell for both of them, but damn it all if it didn’t feel natural.  Even if their first time together wouldn’t be perfect, or they would have figure out who couldn’t do what because of physical limitations or just plain dislike, it would all pay off in the end.  Neither of them had a point to try to prove to the other or to themselves.  All they needed to do was enjoy each other.  Who cared if neither had an orgasm?  For the first time, they both were feeling something they hadn’t felt in a very long time.  They felt at home, and safe with each other.   

Cash closed the space between them and pressed her lips to his, “Bed or floor.” She laughed when he laid back and put both hands behind his head.  “Oh yea, carpet burns and group masturbation...I knew you were freaky.” 

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Deep End.

The filmmakers behind heart-shattering Netflix hit Pieces of a Woman give Ella Kemp a glimpse into the mechanics of their most talked-about scene, the physicality of grief and the magic smell of apples.

When Martin Scorsese first watched Pieces of a Woman, he described it as more of an experience than a movie. It’s hard to disagree: the film’s visceral 22-minute opening scene, a one-take shot of Vanessa Kirby’s character Martha giving birth, quietly knocks the wind out of you.

Made by husband and wife Kornél Mundruczó (on directing duties) and Kata Wéber (on script), Pieces of a Woman offers unrelenting emotion as Martha processes an unspeakable loss and tries to piece herself back together. Kirby is impossibly good: raw and aching, unpredictable and tender all at once.

Following the recent allegations of sexual and domestic violence against her co-star Shia LaBeouf from his former romantic partner FKA Twigs, fraught scenes between the pair—LaBeouf plays Martha’s partner, Sean—are supremely difficult to watch. Netflix has since removed all mentions of LaBeouf from their website and awards campaigns, and a legal case is ongoing. Cast members worthy of mention include Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn as Martha’s mother, Elizabeth, comedian Iliza Shlesinger as her sister, Anita, and Uncut Gems director Benny Safdie as her brother-in-law.

Kornél Mundruczó and Vanessa Kirby on the set of ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

I wonder what it must be like to see Pieces of a Woman on the big screen, or on the stage for that matter (it began life as a play, also written by Wéber and directed by Mundruczó, who are well-known in their native Hungary for their theatrical and film work). The film premiered, miraculously, at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival, where Kirby won the award for Best Actress. Subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival (where it was one of our top picks) took place virtually, and now with a Netflix release and yet more pandemic-enforced lockdowns around the world, few cinemas will be projecting this volcanic drama.

Still, Pieces of a Woman envelops you in Martha’s headspace wherever you’re watching. There is hope that by finding it on Netflix, the film will reach a broad, worldwide audience, who will see themselves in the love and loss that propels the film, and recognize the hope and heartbreak of their own lives.

Why did you start the film with a shot of Sean, not Martha? Kornél Mundruczó: It was important to start on the bridge with Sean, as we later finish on the bridge with Martha. It creates a sense of curiosity and suspense. Who is Martha? And I love the sentence there that Sean says when he goes, “Martha is always fine”.

Kata Wéber: I really wanted to start with that line in the script, because then you’ll see that Martha isn’t actually always fine. It’s asking what she has to live up to, the picture of perfect Martha. Later on, you understand why it’s so important what she has to go through.

Iliza Shlesinger, Ellen Burstyn and Sarah Snook in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

Martha has to go through so much in that incredible 22-minute take of her giving birth. How did that scene come to be, and which of you came up with the idea first? KM: It was my idea, but it was not a quick idea. When you read 35 pages about birth—an experience which is amazingly personal and shows a variety of emotions—you wonder how you can do that. The main thing was wondering about using a handheld camera because it gives a lot of opportunity, but at the same time I found it to be too personal, and it’s very much like dogma filmmaking. And then a distant camera felt too manipulative and cold, so we found a tool called a gimbal, which is not really a filmmaking tool. It’s used more for sports and music videos. But we felt it was very spiritual, which helped us represent the spirit which needed to be there. Like an unseen spirit, which is always inside births.

I have real problems with cutting, and telling the time of a fourteen-hour story. It didn’t feel like the right choice, because we’re not a documentary, but it didn’t feel like you had Martha’s physical presence if you were cutting it. So, how could we grow her physical presence? So we expanded the film time, and we compressed into that expanded film time a compressed real time. And then it works. It felt like a manifesto for me, like a monolith. It represents Martha’s inner journey but also every single person can feel connected to that. It was a long research process to find the perfect form, but then we shot it on the first day.

Was there anything you were worried about for the viewer, when deciding to begin the film with that scene? KM: I decided to start the film with that scene because I was worried about the whole movie! I felt that you can’t play it without this kind of experience. I never really felt that I wanted to do a movie, I was trying to say without words that I wanted to create more of an experience, an emotional journey. And later, when Martin Scorsese became a producer, he was the one who called me after watching it for the first time and said, “This is not a movie, it’s an experience”. I’d never named it before then, but had always wanted to do that. So it was important to just jump into the deepest point of the emotional journey.

Vanessa Kirby as Martha in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

Vanessa Kirby has said the film responds to the fact that we’re so used to seeing death in cinema, and yet we capture birth on film so little. Was that something you were conscious about when making the film, or was your story always more personal? KW: Because it was first a play, there was already the question about how you’d do a birth scene on stage, which is even trickier than on film. But if you don’t do it, the whole story doesn’t make sense because you don’t establish this loving relationship—not just within the couple, but towards the baby. So I really wanted to stand for this scene. I wrote it long, because when you give birth there is this huge beauty and grace and love, and a certain kind of horror too. It’s uncontrolled and so spiritual.

KM: When I read the script it was shockingly personal, but also I thought that this really isn’t an academic movie. The structure is very special, it’s really not a dogmatic arthouse approach, which I did quite a few of! It’s not commercial either, so we thought, what is this? I didn’t know, but knew that I wanted to tell this story. Am I able to create a birth scene, which is kind of a taboo? Am I able to create a very emotional movie in a realistic sense? Which also feels like a form of taboo. I like the experience of exploring new fields and giving an audience something that is not just a movie.

What were your different reference points for Martha’s different chapters in the film? Her journey is so unconventional and Vanessa’s performance feels like it taps into so many different emotions. KW: It’s about the inner journey of someone, so you want to make sure she knows all the aspects of this state of mind. We talked about bereavement processes where grief doesn’t go through the typical five stages, but it’s just stuck somewhere. What is grieving? If you talk to a psychiatrist they could often say that there is no recipe. It could be you waking up at four in the morning wanting to bake a cake. That’s grieving. We tried to establish it as authentic as possible.

KM: There’s a hundred layers to Martha. Even in the birth, there’s thirty stages that she has to go through.

KW: And she had to understand how physical it is. Giving birth is so physical, but also grieving is not intellectual. You cannot figure out how to do it.

KM: It’s also our personal experience, as we had a miscarriage. But when I read the script, I still didn’t know grief was so physical. It’s such a special perspective, because if you are not in it, you have the pain but you don’t have this kind of physical longing. That’s why we talked to Vanessa so much about her silence and her body as being way more important than any acting skills. The most important thing was to feel it. In her nail polish, her body language, her walking, how she smokes. That was so much more important for me as a director than the big speech. And of course the big speech matters, but all the other details are the character.

I want to talk about the significance of the apples. Martha says it’s the way baby Yvette smells when she was born, and there’s a lot of symbolism in the idea of a growing seed. But does that fruit in particular have any significance for you? KW: I was trying to find something expressing her longing and love to her baby. I didn’t know what it could be at first, but when my baby was born, she smelled like an apple and it was so surprising. It’s so weird and beautiful and nice, and I’ll never forget it. It’s so hard to express the inner journey and the longing and the love without words—I really wanted to try and convey that.

Benny Safdie as Chris in ‘Pieces of a Woman’.

What do you think Letterboxd members should watch after Pieces of a Woman? KM: I’m a fan of early Michelangelo Antonioni movies, like Red Desert or La Notte. I think those intellectual melodramas are very healing.

What is a film that always breaks your heart? KM: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

KW: A Woman Under the Influence for me. It’s close to something we’re trying to understand here.

And what about when you want to piece it back together? KM: For me it’s Late Spring by Yasujirō Ozu.

KW: I was just thinking the same! Someone peels an apple in that movie…

Finally, what films made you want to be filmmakers? KM: I grew up in the Soviet area watching a lot of movies in my childhood by Elem Klimov, Aleksey German, Andrei Tarkovsky. These movies are socially reflective but also very emotional and spiritual, very transcendental. And those transcendental acts feel almost forgotten now, and that’s a bit painful. Even contemporary Russian movies are not so deeply transcendental. The images from those movies really stayed with me—I mean, I’m from the East!

KW: For me it’s The Graduate. It’s just so much about life. It’s funny and witty, I just love it. I could watch it 100 times and I would never get bored.

Related content

Written by Women: Aobh’s extensive list of scripts penned by women

Andrew Sztehlo’s extensive list of Hungarian Cinema

Awards Season 2020-2021: Letterboxd’s annual list tracking the major feature and documentary winners

Follow Ella on Letterboxd

‘Pieces of a Woman’ is now on Netflix.

[deejadabbles]

Crime and Consequence (Atem x Reader) Chapter Three

Three: The Namesake

One //// Two //// Three //// Four //// [Five coming soon]

Summary: Years have passed since Atem's crimes came to light. Years have passed, but in some cases the wounds of that time were still fresh. Despite that, however, you've done your best to rebuild your life for you...and for your son. So, when Atem's crimes come back to hurt you and your boy, how will you survive and protect what little you have left?

Years have passed since Atem last saw you. Years have passed, and he had never been able to meet his son. Despite that, Atem carried on with his life, as limited and meaningless as it was, locked away for his crimes. So, when a threat is made against the only ones he still holds dear, how will he defend the love of his life and his boy?

(Modern, season 0 inspired AU. Contains some disturbing themes, depictions of violence, cursing/vulgar language, and sexual content.)

A.N. At first I intended for this chapter to cover something completely different, for it to just jump into the action, but then I got caught up in some of the emotions I imagined for this series and...yeah. So, it'll be another chapter until things start heating up, I'm sorry lol. I guess it also doesn't help that I keep thinking of more stuff I want to add to this series, even though I intended it to be kinda short at first *shrug emoji* Anyway, hopefully you guys still like this chapter!

A fit of coughing brought you out of your stupor, eyes snapping open and darting to the man walking beside you. Yes, walking, you had been half asleep but still managed to walk down the street with your son and surrogate grandfather.

Sugoroku’s face turned pink before his coughing died down, and he took a sharp intake of breath as you rubbed his back in comfort.

“Have you been taking your medicine?” you asked gently, and the old man offered you a small smile.

“Every morning and evening. Don’t worry about me, my dear.”

That was impossible. Even without your innate compassion, one of the things that made you a good nurse, this man had been invaluable to you in the past years, a life preserver that had kept you and your son afloat; how could you not worry about someone you cared so much for?

“I’m going to send you some instructions on breathing exercises that might help, since your doctor didn’t seem to bother giving them to you.”

Again with that reassuring smile, Sugoroku patted your hand with affection, “It pays to have a nurse in the family when you’re this old,” he laughed at his own joke and looked ahead again, though the sidewalk was hardly crowded.

The tiny fingers around your other hand tightened and you looked down at Yugi, who was giving his great-grandfather a concerned look with his soft lavender eyes. When you gave him a gentle nudge, he looked up at you and seemed to ease with the assuring smile you gave him.

“Don’t worry, grandpa!” Yugi said, that bright expression on his face, the one that could warm even the most dour of moods. “We’ll be there soon and then you can sit down and take a nap!”

You and Sugoroku chuckled at that, “Hey now, I may be old but I don’t need a nap after every walk!” After a moment his eyes darted up to you, likely taking in the dark circles that seemed to be a constant accessory of your face. “Besides, I’m thinking that you’re needing a nap more than me.”

You only answered with a shrug. Sure, visiting friends after a ten-hour shift might take its toll, but you’d be damned if you gave up this time with the people you considered family.

Barely a minute later the three of you finally reached your destination and rang the doorbell to Mai and Jonouchi’s apartment. A loud call to ‘come on in’ answered from inside and your trio were greeted by half a dozen people a moment later.

As you had expected, Honda elbowed Duke out of the and crouched low, extending his arms to Yugi, “Come give your favorite uncle a hug!” he said, though was immediately toppled over by Jonouchi, donning an apron.

“As if! If anyone’s getting a hug first, it’s me!”

This was a typical routine at these get-togethers, everyone doting on little Yugi and making a friendly game of claiming they were the little one’s favorite. You had to stifle an outright guffaw as both men’s hopes came crashing when Anzu, always one to take matters into her own hands, simply stepped up and scooped a happily squealing Yugi into her arms.

“I’m the one who’s been on tour for three months, so I get the first hug!” she declared before planting a kiss on Yugi’s cheek and earning tiny arms flung around her neck in an embrace.

As Yugi went on about how much he missed his Auntie Anzu, both Honda and Jonouchi muttered their annoyance. Anzu also took the time to give you and Sugoroku hugs, though never let the little guy go. Only when everyone wandered back to their seats and Jonouchi was dragged back into the kitchen by his sister did Anzu finally set Yugi down, promising him that if he was patient, she would give him a present she had bought him while on tour.

The look she cast your way after the words silently told you that she was wanting to talk to you about something too. So, after Yugi proudly stated that he would be good and patient as long as it took to get his present, you gently told him to go sit on the couch with Ryou and Mai so you could have a more private word with your old friend.

“How’ve you been?” she asked, eyes darkening just a bit with worry.

Much like you had with Sugoroku, you shrugged, “About the same as usual, I guess.”

Anzu nodded, “Jonouchi told me what happened with that yuppy school, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, we’ll figure something out, we always do.” When you smiled to reassure her, she smiled back before waving you over to the chair set you two usually sat in.

“I cleaned out an old storage unit before I left on tour, and I found something that I wanted to give out to everyone, just didn’t have a chance to before I left.” From her purse, she withdrew a framed picture. She gave it a look over, something warm and affectionate, but still somber crossing her eyes before she handed it to you. “I found it in an old school binder, it's better than most of the pictures from then.”

Your eyes went wide the moment they fell on the photo, and your chest gave a small ache that was bittersweet. You, Jonouchi, Honda, Anzu, and the first Yugi, the man you had considered a brother, all smiled back from the picture. All of you were young and awkward-looking, preteens about to enter high school, pulling silly faces at the camera and hanging on to each other with youthful giddiness. It wasn’t a surprise when your eyes focused mostly on the friend who had been taken from you just three short years after the photo was captured. Yugi was blushing slightly, squished between you and Anzu with Jonouchi leaning on his back, but his smile was so bright and happy- elated that he got to share this moment with good and dear friends.

“Thank you, Anzu,” you said, and looked up at her with genuine gratitude, “I have a few pictures like this, but, not enough.”

The woman nodded, a look of understanding answering you, “Yeah, none of us have enough.”

A moment later, Anzu was distracted by Mai, who was telling her to back her up with a light argument that had started between her and Honda. When she got up to assist, it left you to look down at the picture a few moments longer, letting yourself get lost in old memories. The background was Yugi’s old room, a setting all of you remembered well, trading cards and stacks of video games littering the floor behind you.

However, the longer you looked, the more you realized that the photo may have been taken just days- perhaps even the same day, that you had met Atem.

“No way!” Jonouchi scoffed, eyes narrowing at Anzu.

The brunette simply crossed her arms in defiance, “Yes way, pay up, jerk face!”

You laughed, loving the nearly scandalized look on said ‘jerk face’s’ face. “She beat you fair and square, you better pay up.”

“Come on, dude, be a man and just admit defeat,” Honda yawned, obviously eager to get his turn on the Nintendo console next.

Jou turned to face Yugi, who was trying and failing to hide his amusement at the situation. “Yug, back me up here, she cheated!”

“Excuse me!?” Anzu yelled, making the blonde jump and wince.

Yugi didn’t hide his laughter that time and, in the moment of Jou’s distraction, he threw you a knowing wink. “She didn’t cheat, Jonouchi, she just played the game,” he assured.

“And ripped your head off in the process,” you laughed, admiring the words ‘fatality’ flashing across the screen.

Finally, Jou conceded and handed over the crumpled dollar bills Anzu had won in her Mortal Kombat victory. You might have felt sympathy for your male friend, considering you and Anzu had both improved your skills by battling Yugi, the practical master of the game, over the weekend. But, considering Jounouchi had said something about girls never being able to beat his skills, you didn’t feel bad at all.

In fact, you challenged him next and said that if you beat him in the first round, he’d have to bow before you and Anzu and acknowledge you as video game queens. Always a prideful young man, he had of course accepted.

Halfway through the battle, Yugi excused himself, promising to come back with snacks, much to everyone’s delight. Not two minutes later the bet was settled. You won, of course, also decapitating Jonouchi’s character with the final move you had practiced over and over again with Yugi.

After you and an equally smirking Anzu took a moment to tease the bowing Jounouchi, you noticed that Yugi hadn’t come back yet and instantly hopped up to go help him.

After padding into the kitchen you saw that Yugi was rummaging through the fridge, back turned and unsuspecting to your presence. A smirk crossed your face as a childish idea came to mind. With careful steps, you crept closer to the unwitting Yugi and the moment you were close enough, you threw your arms around his back in a bear hug.

“You wouldn't believe the look on his face when I beat him, it was priceless!” you cheered as you tried to lift him up.

It was then that you took notice to Yugi being...quite a bit taller than you remembered. A confused noise left him, followed by a stuttered something that might have been ‘excuse me?’ and it caused you to pull back and look up (up!) at his face.

Heat flooded your cheeks when you were met by a pair of eyes that were similar to, but very different from your cute, shy friend. His whole face looked a bit more mature, again he was taller, and he was looking back at you with complete shock.

“Oh!” You instantly released him and jumped back as if burned. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were Yugi!”

The red-faced boy blinked at you as you tried to smooth over the scene with an awkward laugh, and thankfully, a moment later, he gave his own shy smile. “It’s okay, people confuse us a lot.”

“You must be Atem,” you hurried on, desperate to dissipate the lingering awkwardness, “Yugi talks about you all the time.”

Indeed he did. Yugi’s brother was two years his senior, and Yugi had been hoping to introduce you and the others to him for some time. Yugi always said that his brother was typically busy studying, usually at the library when any of you came over and the book bag slung on the counter supported that. With the way Yugi went on about his big brother, you honestly had started to envision him as some sort of dashing hero straight out of an anime.

Of course, when Atem’s shy smile turned to more of a knowing smirk, that vision didn’t exactly prove false. Oh dang, he was really cute!

“Yes, I’m Atem, and you must be one of the friends my brother raves about, he’s been hoping for us to meet. So, are you Anzu or-”

You interrupted him with your name, practically yelling it, and the moment the introduction left your lips you cringed, almost wanting to curl up in a ball of shame for the awkward terribleness of your action. The heck was wrong with you?!

Clearing your throat you repeated your name, much more calmly and evenly that time, and willfully ignored the burning sensation across your cheeks.

Thankfully, Atem seemed to be every bit the gentleman Yugi painted him to be, because he only gave a lighthearted chuckle at your awkwardness, then nodded his head, that smirk turning more warm as he said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

He stared at you a moment, then opened his mouth to say something more, only to be interrupted by a cheerful voice. “Atem, you’re home!” When you both turned, you saw Yugi coming down the hallway, practically beaming at you both. “And you’ve already met one of the gang!”

“I have. I’m glad I’ve finally come home early enough to meet your friends,” Atem said, eyes shifting back to you and lingering, “I hope we can become friends too.”

You smiled back at him, “Don’t worry, if you’re half as cool as Yugi, I’m sure me and the others are going to love you!” you made sure to flash Yugi a wink, wanting to giggle at how he instantly turned red at the compliment.

Electing to ignore your words, Yugi stepped into the kitchen and started pulling chips from the cupboard. “Come on, help me pick out some snacks and you can come play video games with us, Atem.”

The older brother, who was smirking again, obliged by nodding his head and turning back to the fridge. A few moments later he drew back with some dip and canned drinks, to which you instantly jumped in to help carry.

“So, you’re in Yugi’s class, right?” Atem asked as the three of you turned towards the hallway and started back to Yugi’s room. “That means you’ll be starting at Domino High in just a few months?”

You nodded, “Yup! First year of high school, pretty exciting! I’m glad all of us are going to the same school, it’d suck to find awesome friends just to go to separate schools later.”

Something in Atem’s gaze seemed to soften a bit, and a brief question passed your mind, wondering (maybe even hoping?) if he was already becoming fond of you.

“Well, if you- or if any of Yugi’s friends need help getting used to the school when you start, please, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Again some warmth crept onto your face. Maybe it was just the allure of a ‘mature high school boy’ being so nice to you (ridiculous, considering he was barely two years older than you) but this Atem boy was already seeming to have an..interesting affect on you.

“I- yeah, sure thing!”

A sudden voice made you jump in your seat and your head snapped around up, gaze tearing away from the photo to meet a pair of green eyes. Duke was leaning against the back of your chair, looking down at you with that trademark almost soft, almost flirty look on his face.

“Sorry- uh, what’d you say?” you asked, trying to recollect yourself.

“The picture, I said I was hoping to find out that Honda used to wear braces of something,” he flicked a finger to the photo still clutched tightly in your hand, but the joke fell flat on your now melancholy mood.

Still, you managed to smile at him and joke as well, “Nope, just the general awkwardness of the teenage years.”

He snerked at that, but his eyes narrowed, possibly sensing the cover-up. Though Duke (like Ryou and Mai) had joined your close-knit friend group later, in high school, he too knew what it had been like to lose Yugi; to go through that tragedy. But he also knew that it had hit you particularly hard.

“You okay?” he asked, voice lowering so only you could hear, “You look exhausted. Beautiful, as always, but exhausted.”

Another concerned friend. Another who wanted to help, but, though you were endlessly thankful for the support, truth be told there wasn’t really much they could do. So again, you shrugged.

“Just long hours at work, as usual. I’ll be okay when tomorrow comes round.”

“You still go to the park with the little guy on your days off?” Duke asked and you nodded in answer.

Only when the weather turned bad did you not go, and even on those days you made sure to make time to spend with Yugi. It was hard to keep up with him some days, even given your own young age, but he needed to know that you were there for him. That he would never be ignored or pushed aside, despite how tirelessly you had to work.

“Speaking of our favorite kiddo,” Duke began in your silence, taking the chair beside you with a graceful plop, “there was something I wanted to ask you.” He looked you in the eyes, as if asking permission, and when you nodded he went on. “So, there’s this gaming convention going on in New York in a couple months, I’m going so I can promote my new game and...I wanted to ask if you wanted to come.”

Despite your eyes going a bit wide at the suggestion, Duke hurried on, though always keeping that cool and calm air of his.

“I just thought it’d be good, for you and Yugi. You haven’t been able to take a proper vacation in years, and you deserve- need a break. I can book the hotel for a few extra days after the con, and we can do all sorts of stuff in the city. And don’t worry, I can cover all the expenses, all you and Yugi have to do is come.”

You were speechless, struck dumb by the bold proposal. You weren’t oblivious, you had always suspected that Duke’s high school crush on you never completely faded. He was always offering his help, always showing that he was good with Yugi, maybe even subtly hinting that he didn’t mind the role of stepfather. Still, he never crossed too many lines and had never done something quite this...forward. Though you guessed he wasn’t actually implying any romantic motives.

Instead of becoming nervous over your silence, Duke’s smile just softened a bit, perhaps slightly disappointed, but not outright annoyed or even discouraged. “No pressure, I just wanted to make the offer. You and Yugi deserve some fun and I saw a good opportunity for it. You can think about it as long as you need, just, promise me you will think about it?”

For a moment, you only answered him with more stunned silence, but after a second to recover, you closed your eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Duke, I promise I’ll think about it.”

Some hope returned to that smile, and he nodded in turn. He might have said more on the matter, but a call of “Mommy!” drew your attention. A second later Yugi was climbing into your lap with the grace of a newborn fawn, waving an odd-looking box around.

“Mom, lookie what Antie Anzu gave me! Isn’t it awesome?”

“Really, you had to give it to him right before dinner?” Jonouchi griped as he stepped out of the kitchen, casting a vexed look at a proud Anzu while drying his hands off on his apron.

The blonde acting like an annoyed grandma actually made you laugh. “Don’t worry, Jonouchi, he can play with it while I make his plate, then he can put it away until he’s done eating.”

At the compromise, one that Yugi didn’t seem to object too (he had always loved his Uncle Jou’s cooking, after all), the man sighed and waved everyone into the kitchen. “Alrighty then, come on, all, dinner’s served!”

Atem worked with swift and methodical hands. The very little that he had in his cell, all of it was being implemented in the plan that his mind had laid out in minutes, and refined over these past two days. The lighter he had stolen from Ushio was tucked in his sleeve, and all the numerous fan letters he had received in his imprisonment were laid out before him.

Fan letters, Atem didn’t particularly care for the term, but that’s what they were.

Letters from people who had their loved ones taken from them by the vermin Atem wiped from the world. From survivors who still struggled from what was done to them, but slept at least a fraction more soundly knowing Atem had rid the streets of their abusers. Then still others from people who simply thought he was a hero, a dark avenging angel, like Batman or the Punisher.

Over the years he had been thankful for the letters because they helped him keep his mind, stuck in this isolating hole, and now they would help him save his family. Anything could become a weapon in the hands of someone who was determined or desperate enough.

And Atem had both in spades.

For instance, fold enough pieces of paper in the right shape a certain number of times, and they became as sturdy and reliable as a metal ice pick. Well, sort of. He could get one, maybe two if he was quick, fatal injuries out of it before the blood soaked through and made it a limp, useless mess. But he didn’t intend to need it for anything more than that, so this would do just fine.

He mused as he worked, wondering if his admirers who thought he was some righteous knight would think it fitting or honorable to have their letters used against criminals. Used so he could have a chance at stopping drug peddling filth from laying hands on his loved ones.

The only things that were left untouched in his cell, were the four pictures he treasured, your letters, and the few letters his grandfather had sent him.

His grandfather, yet another person he had betrayed, another person burdened by Atem’s sins. Atem had been surprised when his grandpa contacted him, and even more surprised by what that letter said. In essence, he had said that as a man, he wished Atem had never started his bloody mission, but, as a brokenhearted grandfather who had to bury his too gentle and too young grandson, he understood and forgave Atem’s actions. “I won’t pretend I didn’t feel a sick sense of justice when that beast was found dead,” Sugoroku had written, “Not after what he did to my, to our Yugi.”

He had also promised to take care of you and the child you were carrying as much as he could, and Atem felt at least the sparks of happiness knowing he hadn’t left you completely alone. Not that the solace lasted long in this pit that swallowed hope and humanity like a ravenous dog, but still, it helped. “She had to move out of the apartment, too many people leaving death threats on her door and throwing rocks through the windows, but she’s okay. She’ll live with me for now, and hopefully this old man can still take care of a baby while she’s at work and such. Don’t worry, Atem, we’ll be okay.”

Unfortunately, in order to maintain a distance from Atem that was important to his, yours, and Yugi’s future, his grandfather’s correspondence were even more infrequent than yours. But, at least the man who had been more a father to him than his birth father kept him informed on your well being; something you had always omitted from your own letter, always only talking about Yugi. “She works too hard,” grandpa’s last letter from over two years ago had said, “I tried to get her to stay here, with me, but she has this idea that her and Yugi are a burden on me, and wants to be more independent now that Yugi’s a little older. At least she still lets me watch him several times a week, but I still worry. You can tell she wants to give that boy the whole world, always making him laugh and smile, spoiling him as much as she can. You picked a good one, Atem.”

The updates were always bittersweet, simultaneously leaving Atem with a sour taste in his mouth but an elated lightness in his chest. The words connected him to you, made him able to feel like he was still a part of your life, at least by proxy, much like your letters about Yugi did. But, at the same time, they made regret and anger and even some palpable self-loathing coarse through him like poison.

At least with this, this daring plan and mission to protect you, at least with this he might prevent any more harm from being done.

Atem examined his weapons; three simple picks, methodically made and more than enough for his plan. He tucked them up his sleeve with the lighter, folding the cuffs just right to hide them. He still had some time before the guards came to escort him outside, for his minimal privilege of sunlight.

With that time Atem pulled out the things he treasured even above yours and grandpa’s letters; his pictures. The first, the one of his newborn son wrapped in the softest purple blanket. The second, a picture of his boy on his second birthday, icing all over his face, smile wide, and bright with youthful glee as he presented his still wrapped present to the camera. The third, also of his son, excited eyes wide and held in the arms of his great-grandpa as the old man presented him with a deck of trading cards; it was the one you had sent with your last letter, almost a year ago.

The final one was the only picture Sugoroku had sent Atem. It wasn’t one of his son, but rather, of himself and the boy his son was named after. A younger, happier, perhaps more stable, version of Atem smiled a small smile at the camera, holding his diploma in one hand, while the other was wrapped around his little brother’s shoulder, said brother side hugging him back and beamed with pride. Sugoroku had said he made a copy, knowing Atem would treasure having a picture of the first Yugi, and the old man was all too right.

Atem stared at the picture now, eyes locked on the large round ones of his little brother, the boy he had wanted to protect and champion for- the boy he had failed. He had failed to do what big brothers should always do. When Yugi needed him most, Atem hadn’t been there to save him.

It hurt. Gods damn him, did it still hurt. But at least in this picture, in this captured moment before the beginning to his end, he could remember a happier time. A happier him.

“My boy’s growing up too fast!” Sugoroku cried after snapping the picture of his grandsons, wiping a fake tear away with a dramatic sigh.

The two boys exchanged a look that bordered eye-rolls as they parted from the hug, but Yugi’s beaming grin was back in an instant. “Come on, time to let everyone else embarrass you with congratulations!” he said, taking the diploma from Atem’s hands and setting it safely on the kitchen counter.

Yugi practically dragged Atem into the living room, where all those gathered cheered and clapped the moment they entered. Atem scanned the room, noting that everyone in ‘the gang’ was there, which made him smile. Unfortunately, the only other ones in the room were a couple of neighbors who had always liked the Mutou family. One key player was missing, not that Atem had expected any better.

“He said that he couldn't make it back from Tokyo in time,” Yugi whispered to him, noticing the way Atem’s eye’s searched. Yes, couldn’t, so wouldn't bother coming home at all, most likely. Honestly, their father could be the poster boy for ‘absent parent of the year’.

Still, Atem made himself push the tendrils of disappointment aside and patted Yugi on the back. At least everyone else important to him was there, and Atem would make sure that was enough.

Yugi was determined to do the same, apparently, because he quickly began ushering Atem into the room while the rest of the gang stood up to greet him more intimately. It was only after Jonouchi gave his arm a light punch, and Anzu gave him a hug, that Atem took notice of something else his little brother might be scheming. Especially when Yugi practically shoved him in your direction, saying that the seat beside you was reserved just for him.

Atem felt his mind go blank when he locked eyes with you, especially with that sweet, beaming, and very (very) cute smile on your face. “I’m so happy for you!” you said and put your arms around him in a loose hug.

Still faltering, something he had never really experienced until you, Atem could only answer with a short thank you and an awkward pat on your back. When you sat back down and urged him to take the seat next to you, Atem didn’t waste the chance to shoot a narrowed look at his little brother.

Yugi only grinned back at him knowingly and passed out drinks to the other guests as if he hadn’t done anything. Always one to be in-tune with the emotions of others (especially his big brother), Yugi had noticed when Atem’s feelings for you started to shift passed friendship, likely before even Atem himself had known. It was true that Atem was fond of you...more fond than he had been of anyone before; you made his chest warm, and his heart accelerate. You drew him in without even trying, with your voice or smile alone. You made him unsure of himself, made him flounder in a way he had never experienced before. He was certain that he was falling quite deeply in love with you.

But, there was little he could do, and nothing he would do about those feelings. You were still in high school, and now that he was of age, a legal man entering adulthood, it felt wrong to have those feelings for you, and he refused to do anything that even had the possibility of taking advantage of you. And of course, not only did it feel wrong, but it was also now technically illegal to do much of anything about his feelings. Besides wallow in them and silently suffer, of course.

Despite telling Yugi all of that, the boy was still determined to “test the boundaries” and “lay the groundworks” for the day that Atem was able and willing to do something about his feelings. To Atem, the acts were equal parts annoying, and endearing. Part of him hated that he was forced to confront his feelings for you when Yugi meddled, feelings that made his mind muddled and his chest ache. But still, another part of him appreciated Yugi’s attempts, appreciated that he had this...excuse to get closer to you, to revel in the way you made him feel, even if it was only for a moment before he made himself pull away.

Like now, for instance. You were sitting close to him, completely unaware that the warmth of your body spilling onto him and the subtle scent of your perfume was practically making him dizzy- yet still, he delighted in it. He delighted in the way you made him feel, barely resisting the urge to reach out and touch your hand or arm, to test the waters and see if you might reciprocate. But he did resist the urge. For now at least. Maybe in a couple of years, when it didn’t feel wrong, he would see if you had similar feelings for him. Until then he would wait patiently, focus on his next steps in life and let you enjoy your last teenage years unbridled by his strong affection for you.

He just hoped, selfishly, very selfishly, that you didn’t get a boyfriend in that time.

“I’m sorry your dad didn’t show up.”

The sudden words of comfort were accompanied by a friendly shoulder bump from you and Atem nearly jumped, having been so lost in his own mind. Still, he caught the words, and they made the speed of his heart pick up again.

When he didn’t answer at first, you furrowed your brow, “Sorry, I just noticed you seemed a bit distracted, I thought that was why.”

“Oh- y-yes,” he started suddenly and awkwardly. God he prayed that if he ever was able to do something about his feelings, he wasn’t so cringe-worthy. Hopefully if that day ever came, he would be able to sweep you off your feet and properly charm you. At least for now he was able to clear his throat and regain his composure. “Thank you. It’s disappointing, I guess, but,” he looked around him, at his friends, his family, and smiled, “at least everyone else important to me is here.”

His gaze had returned to you at the last second, lingered on you, hoping to silently convey that you meant so much to him. Perhaps not exactly, how much you meant to him, but hopefully enough to know that regardless of his romantic feelings, he was still thankful for your friendship.

You must have received at least some of what he was trying to convey, because the soft, precious, touched expression that crossed your face and reached your eyes was profound.

You reached out and gave his hand a brief, but too welcomed squeeze, “We’ll always be here for you, Atem.”

There he went again, drawn in and practically mesmerized by you. All he could do was stare back, lost in your eyes and likely looking like a dumbfounded fool. Thankfully he was snapped out of his reverie by a flash, though realizing said flash was just made him want to blush.

Both of you turned to see Yugi with their grandfather’s camera, and he was peering over the top of it with a very pleased smile on his face. “Just taking pictures for the family albums!”

Anzu, who was standing behind Yugi, giggled at the comment and when Atem looked away upon feeling a certain heat creeping onto his cheeks, Yugi snapped yet another picture.

“Yugi,” you tried to scold, though it was marred by your own chuckle.

“Okay okay, I’m done,” the boy replied and indeed turned away to spare his beloved big brother further embarrassment.

Of course, said embarrassment became rather worthwhile, since he got to hear you laugh, and when you turned back to Atem with that humored smile on your face, he knew he didn’t care at all about the pictures.

In that moment, with your eyes on him, surrounded by his loved ones, he dared say that he was one of the luckiest men in Domino.

Atem, sitting alone in his pathetic, isolating cell, felt something sour crawling up his throat at the memory. Yugi was always there, always encouraging and supporting him, making him stronger and kinder. And, in a way, his little brother had given him the love of his life, too. Yugi had been the reason he met you, why he befriended you, and even the reason why he hadn’t pushed his stronger affection for you aside completely. His brother had given him so much and yet…

“I’m sorry, Yugi,” he whispered to the smiling picture.

Drawing in a calming breath, Atem let himself wallow in the sorrow for a moment, just a moment, before pushing it back to the recesses of his mind.

Atem then tucked the pictures into his jumpsuit, securing them within the orange fabric so there was no risk of losing them in the chaos he was about to unleash. Not a moment too soon either, because he heard the guards approaching his cell a second later. Atem stood, lighter and picks ready to use at a second’s notice, pictures tucked away safely on his person as the door to his cell opened. He was ready.

He may not have been able to save his brother, but he would be damned if these bars prevented him from saving you and his son.

[theartofbeinganeldar]

The Art of Being an Eldar: Legolas x Reader Prologue

Summary: You're a fantasy-loving, LARPing human from this world, who's the black sheep of society because of your obsession for the unreal and alienation of what's real. When you're in the middle of a LARP battle with some pretty phony boars, you fall out of a tree and bust your head. You wake up, alone, and are suddenly attacked by some very pissed-off, very real wargs. Without any idea of how you got there, you got dropped into Middle-Earth, with only bits and pieces of memories of Tolkien's masterpiece, though your recollection of everything else is perfectly clear. And of all places in Middle-Earth, you got dropped into Mirkwood, with some suspicious, potentially hostile, Woodland Elves...

Chapter No.: Prologue

Key: [Y/N]=Your Name [F/N]= Friend's Name [B/N]= Bro's Name [S/N]= Sis's Name [M/N]= Mom's Name [e/c]= eye color [h/c]= hair color [s/c]= skin color

Notes: So, this is my first fanfiction on tumblr, and I'd thought I'd try it since I have very little time for DeviantArt's chaos. It's much different from my Legolas x Reader on there. I added a small loving family to make the emotions relatable-- even if you don't have siblings, or have more than what I added, it's just fanfiction! Also, I tried to make my pronouns for said reader gender-nuetral so that everybody can enjoy it! The reason your character is so wild is for the sake of not fitting in to this world, yet you're used to it, so that later points in the plot can become more... Well, you'll see. And yes, I made Elves pansexual because I don't think they'd care much about gender or age at that point. LARPing plays a big role in the prologue, because your character is really into it for personal reasons. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't drink it. I hope you like it! Feedback, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Warnings: Fluff, angst, graphic depictions of gore and violence (Cuz of orc battles y'know?), more angst, slow burn, some light depression in the first few chapters, some amnesia about Middle-Earth because the Valar say you're not supposed to have foresight, hard-core language, feels, lots and lots of feels, mentions of NSFW content, maybe some eventual NSFW content, LGTBQ+ characters, Thranduil being a jackass at first because he's fabulous, Legolas being a hot edgy prince that nobody can handle, Kili being an innocent bean, Hobbits being smol innocent beans, except for Bilbo 'cause he's been through some tough shit, Bard being dad of the year, Thorin being one dumbass boi, awesome dragons, awesome Nazgul, awesome scenery, awesome stuff in general, Elrond isn't listened to by anybody, confused Aragorn is confused,  Denethor's a bitch as always, brace yourself for creepy as fuck Cream of Wormtongue Grima Wormtongue, Boromir lives, Gandalf. (yes these are all legit warnings don't judge me.)

Pairings/Ships: Legolas x Reader, Legolas x you, Aragorn x Arwen, Faramir x Eowyn, Thranduil x Elvenqueen, Galadriel x Celery Celeborn, Boromir x OC, Thorin x OC, Fili x OC, etc. general LoTR standard shippings plus some of my own cuz I can't stand my boys being lonely

Word Count: I try to keep my chapters short, under 2000 words.

Rating: Teen (14+) for now

You'd never been considered normal by anyone. You enjoyed LARP instead of reality. Your "job" was just staying at home and captioning videos all day every day you weren't LARPing instead of interacting with society at a normal job. Your home? A tiny studio apartment that only cost $450 a month without bills, and you did without cell phone, car, and electric for the sake of being your weird self. You hadn't been to college yet, despite the fact that everyone told you to go once your gap year was over, and it almost was. What would you even study? Acting was all that got you close to who you were, so, ok, guess that's fine, but nobody else thought of that as a career. Maybe you could write fiction-- you were good at that much.

You weren't always like this. There was a time when you were just a normal kid, living a normal life. But somewhere around ten, you started to change, and by sixteen you'd become who you were today. If the Old You could see the New You, you weren't sure if they'd think you were weird too, or if they'd stare up at you in awe.

Hopefully it was the latter, which made you feel good.

I mean, come on, were you born in the wrong timeframe or what?! That's what you thought, anyway. There's no way that this world was for you. The fact that nearly all people were heartless jackasses that enjoyed destroying the planet, the fact that everybody had to be the same or were considered freaks, prejudice and injustice were key factors of life and the rich got handed everything on a silver platter while the poor had to scavenge... Just, everything of this reality made you hate it. If only you'd been born five hundred years earlier, or, y'know, in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings...

You'd really liked to have been born in Middle-Earth. You had so many books about it, you knew practically everything there was to know, even the confusing shit about Faramir being in the Fall of Gondolin. You'd practically memorized Elvish, and dwarvish, and you knew the whole six movies by heart, every line. And of course, like most Lord of the Rings fans, you had a massive crush on a certain Elvish princeling who was too pretty for his own good. In fact, Legolas was who inspired you to learn archery; maybe one day you'd be as good as he was.

Despite your wishes, you were stuck in reality, however much you hated it

. Even amongst your LARP groups, you were considered outlandish.

Everybody else had normal lives outside of their games, whereas you pretended this was your life. You didn't have any job aside from the small caption jobs you did when you weren't LARPing, no social life, nothing. The only people you had was your mother, brother, sister, and your only friend, [F/N]. They accepted you and your strange fantasies, even if they thought you'd one day regret acting in a way when you could've been beginning a normal life and being productive.

So excuse you if you decided to invite them to a LARP event and let them borrow some of your costumes. It wasn't the end of the world. But your LARP group apparently didn't get that memo.

"You invited your mom?!" A royal asshole sneered, yet you took satisfaction in the fact that his knight costume looked like it was made of cardboard painted silver, whereas your sci-fi Elf getup was actual leather and cloth. His name was Jacob Brent; you'd never really liked him. He'd always had it out for you because your costumes were so much more fabulous than his. Plus you may or may not have actually known swordplay and archery and dagger throwing and martial arts... Kinda. You were still in the process of learning kickboxing.

You cocked a sky blue-- yes, sky blue-- eyebrow to your equally bright blue hairline, spiked up in a short faux hawk. This was your first sci-fi Elf, and you'd wanted to go all out. A cocky grin split its way across your face. "Yeah, so? It doesn't effect you on any level, Tin Can."

He sniggered with his cronies. "I can't believe you don't have anyone else to come with you." He mimicked rubbing his eyes like he was four. "'Oh Mommy, I need somebody to come with me!'" His whole group burst into laughter.

You surprised them by joining in, actually appluading. "Oh, wow! Wonderful, just wonderful! Hey, should I tell Mindy that I seen you feeling up Roxie behind your fort last week?" He paled, and almost everybody in his group of crappy cosplay got 'o' faces. You put your hands on your hips. "Guess what, asshole, just 'cause I'm close with my family and you're not with yours doesn't make it a crime to hang out with them. It's my life, my decision, and I enjoy spending time with them." You hefted up a disappointingly fake spear, turning to walk away. "Oh, and by the way, your paint's chippin' off."

Reason for Hating Reality Number 6, 965: Immaturity levels are almost incomprehensibly high.

Your mom glared daggers at Jacob's Immaturity Harem. She'd always been a tough gal, always sticking up for you when you got bullied when you were younger, but now that you were an adult, she had to let you kick ass yourself; you were pretty good at it. "I don't like him." She stated casually, and you chuckled.

"'Course you don't. He looks like a cheesy robot costume you'd get from Wal-Mart with a too-big crotch protector that's not impressing anyone but himself, and he has the face of a roasting pig. Too tanned, too grubby, and always with something in his mouth."

She smiled slightly. "Has he always been giving you trouble?"

You swung your gear pack off of your shoulder, letting it yank itself down to earth. "Since the day he tried kissing my ass 'cause he didn't know me." [F/N] must've overheard that last sentence, because he burst into laughter when he approached with your brother, [B/N], and your sister, [S/N]. "You talking about Jacob?"

"Sure as hell."

You'd first met [F/N] a year ago, when you'd joined extra-curricular activites for your last year of high school. He thought your personality was incredibly brave, especially in this modern world, but even still... He was just a friend, not a best friend. You'd never had that luxury outside of your tiny family. You just didn't trust him after the life you'd had.

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't like the getups. "Do I have to wear this?" [B/N] asked dramatically, slumping over. He didn't look right in the pauldrons and leather breastplate.

"It's too heavy!" [S/N] complained.

You sighed theatrically. "My piteous children, deal with thy armor, for it must be worn despite thou complaints."

[B/N] pressed his palms together and bowed down. "Screweth thou, false companion."

You mimicked his bow. "Off to hell with thee."

"Hey! You guys! It's starting!" [F/N] cried, and ran off, his pack of weapons and magic bags trembling dangerously on his back. The rest of you followed more slowly, as you explained to your family how exactly LARPing worked. Battles weren't actually bloody, magic was just colored powder, you get points for a hit, and so on and so forth. [B/N] and [S/N] got it immediately, but your poor mom, who hadn't even ever played Skyrim, had no idea how the point system and leveling up worked. You had to explain it six times over before you'd reached the massive gathering of LARPing cosplayers. [F/N] returned to you as you reached it, carrying a map. "We were in Larsgyushter Prairie last, right?"

"Duh," You shrugged, at the same time [S/N] asked with a grimace, "Luckyestire Prairie?"

[F/N] inclined his head. "Well, I made some arrangements because your family joined us. We made for Glewnburg, where we picked up their characters, and then headed into the Elder Woods."

You took the map. "Sounds fair enough."

[S/N] frowned. "What exactly were you guys doing last time?"

[F/N] blushed; he must've liked her, which made you feel proud and like pummeling him all at once. "A quest to defeat a horde of wildebors in order to get a good amount of gold."

"How much?"

"Four hundred."

Your mom seemed confused. "Is that a lot?"

"For the land of Sisgremor," You retorted, "Not much. But it's enough for us. We hunt for food, and sleep in the woods. It's summertime, so we don't have much need for shelter unless it storms, and we know where to find caves. The coin is for some new bits of armor, and some weapon upgrades and a couple of magic books for [F/N]."

"Oh," Your mom said, and you took the lead, getting into your Elven character with a huge grin on your face.

"Come, my children! We must meet the bors by midday!" You ran off, but you didn't miss the looks over half of the LARP community gave you.

~le time skip~

The one thing you didn't like about LARPing was the enemies. They weren't believable and were crappily dressed, at least in your community. They were crappy actors and their dying acts were unrealistic. Unless they were orcs that had good makeup skills and good cosplay, they weren't worth fighting, but you had an imagination to kick them up a notch.

As always, the wildebors were just some guys in black outfits decorated with needles, and wearing pig masks with an underbite bearing tusks. Your imagination knocked them to eight-feet long beasts with bloodstained tusks, wild red eyes, and porcupine-like needles that shot out of their near-impenetrable hides if provoked.

You'd only fought these beasts once. They had three separate healthbars, each a different strength: eight hundred, four hundred, and one hundred. Your spear-- the only weapon you could afford after your bow snapped (Poor prop craftsmanship.), had a damage rate of ten health per hit, thirty if you could make a three-combo move (The highest combo move allowed.).  [F/N]'s magic bombs, bolts of energy, and other magic stuff only varied from ten to fifty health damage per hit, except for his Fyrering, which was a once-a-day power that was ninety health damage, plus a three minute window of burning which took ten damage every thirty seconds.

The boars were also viscious; one hit from them took around fifty health, and at level nine, you and [F/N]'s health bars were only at two hundred and fifty, plus your armor rating of fifty and his of twenty. Your family, however, were only at level one, with a one hundred strength health bar each and armor ratings varying between ten and fifteen.

In short: that meant a hell of a lot of hits, very little openings, and there were always numbers to consider. There were six of them, and five of you. If you had your bow, this would be easy. You'd climb a tree, avoid their needles, and fire your twenty-five damage arrows relentlessly (With the thirty plus bonus from your actual bow.) while [F/N] pelted them with magic. You could take down two, maybe three that way before retreating, waiting for your strength to regenerate and your undamaged arrows to "respawn" before coming back for more battling (The arrows don't actually exist, for safety reasons. You had to wait for ten minutes before an approximated number of arrows, determined previously by the quest-giver, "reappeared" in your "inventory.").

But you had to think of a new plan. A brand new plan. You had three level one novices, two level nine intermediates, and six angry-as-hell wildebors that were level twenty. This was an impossible quest. You should never have accepted it knowing your family was coming.

You were hiding behind a huge oak, and glanced around it; for a split moment, you saw the crappy actors, but your mind quickly fixed that. Above and to your immediate right, [F/N] hid behind a mound of boulders up on a hill, and you'd positioned your family similarly. You just couldn't see them. [F/N]'s hand waving caught your attention. Frantically, he pointed above you. You whipped your head up, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. You gave him a look like WTF dude, and he rolled his eyes. He picked up a rock as an example and pointed back up into the branches, but still, you didn't see anything. He gestured again, almost forcefully, and this time, you seen it: brightnuts, a specialized kind of walnut bred specifically to explode into a bright white light on impact, with dangerous shrapnel and poisonous fumes that had one hundred and fifty health damage.

Of course, in reality, they were just blue and white beanbags hanging in nets rigged all over the branches, but you pretended they weren't.

But still, perfect.

You'd start calling out orders as soon as you started throwing them. [F/N] knew how to improvise to a plan already, but your family didn't. You propped your spear up on the tree, and started climbing, wincing when the bark scraped your palms; you were wearing what'd used to be white bridal gloves, but you'd tinkered with them to match your costume, sewing sky blue patterns into the gloves.

You personally didn't make a sound, but a couple of leaf-covered branches fell; luckily, wildebors were mostly deaf and blind, so you should make it to the top of the tree without any consequences.

You flashed [F/N] a triumphant smile when you reached the topmost branches, snatching a bag of brightnuts and holding them high above your head. He shot you a double thumbs-up, then made a wheel-like gesture to get you to move on. You stuck your tongue out at him, then readjusted yourself on the branch to get a good aim.

A few seconds of struggling against the knot, and you'd gotten the net open. With barely a minute of hesitation, you drew your arm back, and fired. Your aim was almost perfect. You hit one of the wildebors in the side, and you seen the actor as he started the most over-acted reaction you'd seen yet: a violent jump, then what sounded like a deranged "Guuuugh!" You rolled your eyes. So dramatic.

Either way, [F/N] whooped behind you. "Hit! A hit!"

Before you could give any orders whatsoever, [B/N] charged down the hill with his realistic-looking wooden battleaxe bellowing a war cry. You slumped over. "Aw, shit."

In the blink of an eye, [B/N] was officially dead but still pummeling the poor actors, your mom didn't know what to do, [F/N] didn't realize what was happening from behind his rock, and [S/N] was dodging air like a boss. You waited on the branch until the coach of the actors stood, took off his mask, and blew his whistle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You with the axe! You died already! Come on everybody, regroup, come on..." Your mom and [S/N] were laughing it off with a couple of the actors, but [B/N] was having a heated argument with the rest of them, and they were starting to shove each other around; he'd always been a sore loser. The coach separated them, and [F/N] called to you from below. "Guess we failed this quest, huh?"

You shrugged. "It's all good. There are other, less dangerous quests."

He perked up. "Yeah, so hurry up and get down here! We've gotta get back to Glewnburg!"

You tossed the beanbag you'd had in your hand back into the net. "Comin'." Unfortunately for you, you were a bit of a show-off. You stood, stretching your arms out for balance, walking quickly and carefully across the bough. A loud snap that echoed through the forest silenced everyone: your sudden movements had weakened the branch down the middle, where a split was slowly cracking open.

"Oh shit." Did I have to choose the top branch?

Everything seemed to be in slow motion as you fell. Your ribs exploded with pain as you slammed into a slightly lower branch full-force. Your ankle snapped. Your arms were whipped and bruised. Your head cracked painfully across the thick, unmoveable base of one branch, and white and yellow dots burst in your vision. Your sight started to fade, as did the pain, until you met the ground with a dull thud.

I should've went to college.

~time skip~

When you woke up, the first thing you realized was, Hey, I woke up! I'm alive! which was immediately followed by, Holy fucking shit what the fucking hell did I break, then a much more painful thought of Why the fuck am I still in the goddamn forest? 

And you were. You were laying on your side, in a couple of very small but still immensely terrifying pools of drying blood, one of which came from the corner of your mouth. Your entire body throbbed painfully. Every breath you took caused sharp, white-hot pains to spiderweb across your entire torso. Your ankle was burning up, and you couldn't move it or your left arm. Your head felt like you'd been hit by a truck. A truck made of solid wood...

Why were you still in the forest? You knew your mother well enough to know that she've panicked. She'd've screamed your name and ran to you and called 911 immediately. [F/N] would've done the same. In fact, there was no reason why they wouldn't have called for a medic. You fell from the equivalent of a three-story building with poles sticking out of it.

By all accounts, you should be near death.

So why were you still in the forest, exactly where you'd fell?

With immense effort, you rolled onto your back, panting heavily and wincing against the pain. Your vision swam, and things were blurry. The trees were different; the tree where you'd fallen from was tall and branchless for most of the way up, and definitely not an oak. To boot, there weren't any nets full of beanbags, and your spear was gone. Behind you was  a cliff with an outcropping of rock that looked similar-- but not the same-- to the one [F/N] had been behind. There were roots and underbrush and bushes and walls of thorny branches surrounding you, and in between the ground was filled of orange and gold fallen leaves; up in the canopy, which hadn't been as thick before, the leaves were all dressed for Fall. You stared at it in confusion. "What the hell?" Shit. Even that hurt.

Where were you? Why weren't you in an ambulance with the sirens blaring? You were pretty positive you'd broken quite a few bones, and from that fall, you couldn't not have internal bleeding. So where were you?

You waited, but no one came. When the sky started to darken and the pain began to worsen, you were forced to move, slowly getting up, inch by inch, until you'd managed to be in a sitting position. It felt like all the blood rushed from your head and torso, making you cold in the evening chill. You hugged your right arm to your chest, really wishing you'd've worn arm cuffs or something; your short, high-collared, sleeveless, sky-blue leather jacket over a thin white crop top and a black corset-style belt really weren't meant for chilly weather.

"Hello?" You called out. Your voice carried on, but you got no return call. Blood trickled down your chin from where your lips had rebusted; you were lucky you hadn't bit your tongue off or shattered teeth. "Hey! Help!" Still, nothing. "Hey!"

After a twenty-minute bout of screaming for help, you gave up. You were confused-- so, so, confused. Where were you and why were you here? Where was your family? Where was [F/N]? Where was the coach, and those shitty actors? Hell, where was the rest of the LARP group? You'd even be relieved if Jacob appeared out of nowhere.

The moon had risen by the time you’d made it to your feet. Your ankle wasn't as bad as it was earlier; you could put some weight on it now, even if it wasn't a lot. You must've only sprained it. You tried calling for help a few more times, but only the crickets replied.

Then, they went silent.

You frowned. In books and movies, that was usually a bad sign. What'd caused them to shut up so abruptly? Not aliens, you hoped, like in Signs.

A low growl from behind you-- behind you, dammit-- made your skin crawl. A chill ran down your spine. You turned, slowly, hoping you wouldn't aggravate the wolf or coywolf or whatever it was; it wasn't either of those.

It stood on top of the small cliff, and it was at least the size of a horse. A boar-like coat, dull brown, covered its entire body, spotted in places. Its head was broad and massive, bearing an underbite of fangs and small beady eyes. Drool fell from its jaws as it snarled at you. You were half tempted to try the "Nice doggie" before you seen the rider.

Damn, it was ugly as hell. Small, malformed, with dark green skin and a crooked nose. Greasy, thin hair hung from its wrinkled scalp. Nasty claws protruded from its wart-covered fingers and dug into the horn of some kind of saddle. It sneered with an evil grin, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.

You didn't know what else to do; you took off running at full speed, ignoring the pains shooting up your leg from your sprained ankle. Branches and weeds whipped your skin, trailing blood. You glanced back once. The monster-- which you knew was an orc-- and the giant dog that you couldn't place the name of watched you for a couple of moments more before the orc gave a sharp order in a language you didn't understand, but it felt familiar. Two more of the giant dogs burst from the bushes on either side of the first, and they did give chase. Shit, were they what'd happened to your family? Some whackjob dressed as an orc riding a pitbull on steroids mauled everybody?!

You pushed yourself to run faster. Your heart pounded in your ears. Adrenaline rushed through your veins. Each step jarred your aching body, but you couldn't stop. The dogs were enjoying the chase, keeping their strides slow enough to still be on your heels, but not close enough to get you yet. A new sound-- a river, maybe-- gave you hope, and you tried to move even faster, your lungs burning from the strain.

It was a river you'd heard, but it was down a steep hill filled of arching roots and thorny bushes. You didn't have time to stop; you barreled forward, tripped, and rolled the rest of the way, hurting your body even further. By the time you reached the pebbly shore (With all of the sharp edges of the rocks jabbing into you unnecessarily.), the dogs were halfway down, the orcs riding them laughing like hyenas.

You couldn't swim, but you'd rather take your chances with the river than with the giant pitbulls. You waded in, and were immediately swept off your feet by the strong current. It dragged you under, and you were bashed into some boulders, getting cut up badly. One slammed into your hip, nearly causing you to suck in. Another rammed into your already-broken ribs, and this time, you did scream, getting a huge gulp of water. A crimson cloud engulfed you as something long and sharp burst through your calf. You were pushed up against another boulder, and you grabbed on, hauling yourself out of the water and hanging on for dear life, hacking and coughing out the water that'd filled your lungs.

The dogs had chased you up the shoreline, and the orcs carried shortbows with arrows of dark wood. A glance down and, sure as fuck, they'd hit you with one in the calf, dammit. You looked ahead of you: rapids, a slow and drawn-out death. Ahead of you, probably a very painful death, but hopefully it'd go faster than drowning while being battered to a lifeless corpse.

I should've gone to college.

You squeezed your eyes shut tight and braced yourself for the next arrow, but you were pretty much forced to open them again when you heard the sound of dogs yelping and orcs wailing. One of the dogs was dead, neck slashed open and pouring blood onto the rocks. It had landed on its rider, who struggled beneath its weight. The other dog had taken off, but its rider had an arrow jutting out of its face.

A troop of warriors, clad in forest-colored tunics of dark browns, greens, and grays had appeared in the second you'd closed your eyes. Every one of them had long, straight hair, braided away from their faces. Most had a quiver of arrows and a longbow, but some, like the one who'd killed the dog, had a curved longsword. Others still had long knives. Compared to the dark orcs, these people seemed to almost be made of light...

Oh shit.

Elves. These were Elves.You could see it clearly now, in the way they carried themselves: regal, majestic, every move perfectly balanced and smooth. Their ears were pointed, but not drastically like the ones from Zelda, and they were taller than most average men. You were in awe.

These were some damn good actors.

No, they couldn't be actors. That clicked, finally. Especially when you were able to see the one that'd killed the dog slice off the struggling orc's head cleanly and deftly before kicking it into the river. Thankfully, it didn't come near you.

Shit. These were real orcs, real giant bloodthirsty dogs, real Elves... This was all real. But how...?

You heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled taut, much closer to you. You couldn't exactly whip around in your current state, but you still moved as fast as you could. Another Elf, standing on the flat rocks halfway across the river, no less than thirty feet away. How the hell did he get there?!

After the initial shock passed, you realized there was an arrow nocked in the bow. You'd already felt one once in the last ten minutes, you didn't need to feel it again, so you stayed still. He watched you with eyes so blue you could see them from where you were. He was illuminated from the side by the moon, giving him an almost ethereal appearance. His hair was somewhere between platinum and very light blonde, and a quiver of orange-feathered arrows hung over two identical sheaths for ivory-handled long knives. His bow was almost as gorgeous as he was: dark wood engraved with golden leaf designs. His tunic was dark green, and you admired his fancy Elven belts and buckles and bracers for a second before your eyes were drawn back to his face, the profile of which was almost... Dished, in a way, like an Arabian horse's. Your eyes locked, and you felt as if you'd seen him somewhere before...

An Elf on the shoreline spoke, breaking the trance. You couldn't understand what exactly he said; you could've swore you knew some Elvish...

The Elf staring you down watched you for a minute longer, then jerked his bow toward you in gesture, shouting an order to one of his comrades. His voice sounded so familiar... It was on the tip of your brain... It was deep and soft and gentle and commanding all at once. You couldn't explain it. Two Elves followed his order, nimbly leaping from tiny rock to tiny rock to get to where he was, then past him, coming to you. Their weapons were sheathed, so you hoped they were going to help you instead of kicking you into the water or something.

Carefully, noticing how banged up you were, they grabbed you underneath of the arms and lifted you onto the flat rocks the blue-eyed Elf stood on, still ready to fire, and stepped back as you coughed up some water in a delayed reaction to nearly drowning.

When you finished, your eyes felt like they wanted to close on their own. You felt too tired, too weak, too pained... Despite that, you sat up, shivering in the chilly evening air. "Th-thank you..." With a start, you realized they might not even understand English.

"Who are you?" The blue-eyed Elf demanded. "Answer me quickly; do not think we cannot throw you back to the river."

Shit. Pressure. Suddenly you forgot your name for a split second. "I-I'm [Y/N]."

"What are you doing in these lands?"

"I was chased," You looked pointedly at the dog and orc.

The Elf watched you for a minute, judging you... He signaled. "Throw them back into the river." Suddenly, you were being dragged.

Aw, fuck. You struggled against the Elf's strong grips. "W-wait! I don't even know where I am! The last thing I knew I was playing a game with my family and I fell out of a tree! All of a sudden I'm being chased by giant dogs and being manhandled by a couple of Elvish pri--!" You were cut off by a bought of coughing that wracked your body so hard that you doubled in on yourself, pulling the Elves down with you. Your eyes widened when blood trickled out of your mouth, leaving crimson droplets on the rocks. Shit.

The blue-eyed Elf ordered something in their tongue, and the two dragging you halted on a dime. He finally decided to lower his bow a little, inspecting you. "Are there more of you?"

You shook your head; you were getting dizzy, and your vision was blacking out. "I-I don't know... I was alone when I woke up."

The Elves conversed in their own language for a few minutes, and the blue-eyed Elf finally came to the conclusion that you weren't much of a threat in your current state. He looked to the Elves on the shoreline, and gestured at one of the ones holding you, who then scooped you up bridal style, but like you were the ugliest bride he'd ever seen. "Und win'doheim!" Shouted the blue-eyed Elf, obviously the one in charge, and lead the progression back to the forest.

I should never have gotten out of bed today...

Despite the crazy situation, you managed to doze off a few times on the Elf that carried you, until a coughing fit or pain would wake you up. A fever spiked up as you crossed a bridge, and you were half out of it as you entered some kind of woody building surrounded by trees and rivers that you couldn't comprehend very well in your feverish state. You were panting and wheezing, and couldn't see straight. It all seemed so surreal, like you were viewing this from somebody else's perspective. This had to be a dream... A very vivid, very painful dream...

The last thing you remembered was Elvish chanting, golden and white lights surrounding you, and the silhouettes of the Elves. Your pain faded, and you fell into a forced sleep.

When you woke up, a breath of relief whooshed out of your lungs. It was a dream! It was all a dream! It was night, and your nighlight had gone out, but your hall light was still on. You turned over to see what time it was, but your nightstand was gone. So was your window, and shelves and desk and computer and all of your things. Your bed was different. Your relief dissipated to terror.

Fuck. It wasn't a dream.

You were in a small room. An orange-hued light came through the low doorway, and the dark walls were ridged, as if carved from the earth itself. You felt the remains of your injuries from earlier-- or days ago, you couldn't tell how much time had passed-- as throbbing remains. Your clothes were still ripped and bloodstained, and as you stood up, it felt like you were just coming off of the flu.

Wobbly, you staggered over to the doorway, hoping to find somebody that definitely wasn't an orc or Elf.

You slammed face-first into elaborately crafted iron bars.

Outside of them, fully-armored Elves patrolled on small ledges beside the spiraling rows upon rows of cells like yours. This was a dungeon.

...Well shit.

Tag List: @tesserphantom​ @thedragonghostofmordor​ @taurlel @hauntedsiriel

[da-tasuky]

I know you better than that

Guess what? I found a comfortable way for me to share this fic on tumblr too so now here we are! Everyone who was in the tags is here but I’ll refrain from tagging ya’ll on the next 2 chapters to not overkill. I’ll go back to tagging when chapter 4 is out! First 3 chapters posts in three, two, one, go!

Summary: Years ago, Marinette started exchanging emails with Damian as a favor for her uncle Alfred. Her first impression of the kid? Annoying and cold. Today, she wouldn’t change him for anything. His friendship helped to keep her afloat during hard times especially after becoming Ladybug. Now, Marinette and Alya prepare for a flight to Gotham to meet the frowny bird.

Pairing: Marinette Dupain-Cheng / Damian Wayne

Fandoms Crossover: Miraculous Ladybug / Batman

[Next]

Chapter 1: We'll meet soon

It’s been a good four years or so since Marinette started being pen pals with Damian. It was her uncle Alfred who suggested it, something about the kid having a rough uprighting and now he needed to connect with kids his age. Her maman and papa encouraged her to be patient with the boy, he didn’t know how to make friends, less how to keep a friendship.

Marinette was equal part excited to have her first pen pal and filled with righteous duty to help a kid in need at the other side of the world. Besides, it was for Uncle Alfred too. She loved him but never had the chance to do anything for him, this was a good chance to feel like she was helping him in anything.

Her first impression of Damian? Annoying and cold.

She shouldn’t have been surprised but still got mad when she read and re-read the kid correcting her spelling and criticizing her for almost everything she wrote. English was not her first language, ok? She still had a lot to learn! But she also thought the language difference played an important role in their less than ideal first email exchange. After talking with her parents, she concluded that he was just trying to help her in the best awkward way he knew. In return, she answered back with kindness.

They started exchanging emails once every week, soon it was twice a week. Marinette could feel the difference, how it was easier to roll her eyes and chuckle when he made any harsh remarks against her, his brothers, even against his father or his classmates, never against Uncle Alfred, he would never and Marinette would have never let him anyways. She soon realized how misunderstood he was, how different, and how much he was opening up to her, softening with time, slowly improving his communication skills with her.

Eventually, Marinette decided to take this one step further when it felt like emails weren’t enough for them anymore, they were sending emails back and forth almost daily and she suggested they should instant message from then on.

Their dynamic changed, he somehow became her best friend despite his harsh attitude. He was the one to keep her afloat when Chloe bullied her. His brilliant and colorful insults against the blonde made her giggle and she started to wish they could meet and spend time together as the rest of her classmates did.

So, she video called one day.

It was incredibly awkward.

Damian had become open and amiable with texting, but talking was another issue even after all this time. She suddenly remembered the reason why they started to be friends in the first place and wasn’t discouraged by his snarky tone and chopped sentences.

At the start, she thought his face, words and what she knew about him didn’t quite match. But soon she made sense of it all, he was too serious and wanted to feel above the rest, kind of wanting to hide his lack of social skills. He’ll be damned if he let any kind of weakness show! And so he acted like a petulant angry cat. His face was even contorted into a permanent resting frown. But she knew him better and just giggled at him, more than once she found herself comparing him to Chloe. Marinette wasn’t sure what to do with that at the beginning.

She changed his contact name to Eagle. Because they had resting frowns just like him.

Marinette had compared him to owls first but he quickly cut the idea down, having some kind of vendetta against the birds that he wouldn’t say. She accepted it and didn’t push when he looked truly upset about it. She ended up creating a whole library of bird pet names for him since she discovered he found these amusing for some reason. She had so many, in fact, that no one else around her seemed to remember his real name. But she mostly stuck to Demon, after hearing it from his brother Jason during a video call, she found it brilliant and fitting. And Eagle when his frown was just too much. When his brows softened she would use any other bird references, for some reason, he once choked on his tea when she called him Robin.

Sometime later, Marinette was glad she never nicknamed him Hawk.

Her life gave a huge turn when she became Ladybug. She now had a new best irl friend, Alya. She spent more time with friends and also developed a crush on Adrien. Her sporadical designer commissions became busier. Overall, she didn’t have as much free time as before.

But none of these changes, not even a mad terrorist would take her away from Damian. They still texted daily and video called. Alya even teased her about who was her real bff, Alya, or the Demon.

Marinette was nervous when she introduced both of them during a call. They didn’t quite get along at the start, not that they needed to. But they both knew about each other through Marinette and they held each other in high regard.

Until they talked for the first time.

But Marinette wanted both her best friends to get along, so after explaining their differences privately they compromised on accepting each other. After all, they both agreed that they did well for their common friend. Marinette couldn’t help but beam at them. Sometimes, the three of them really did get along and enjoyed the calls.

Damian was happy for his Angel, as he liked to call her. He insisted that she deserved everything that made her happy even if her reality seemed so detached from his own. She was grateful. She adored her Demon, her frowny Eagle with all her heart.

But happiness didn’t last long.

Someone once said that complicated things usually happened close by. Whoever said that, Marinette thought they were right. Because right now, after years of friendship with Damian, he was the only one that truly felt like a real friend to her, making her value herself and feel stronger even with just texting and scarce calls. Besides, he was a sound voice of reason.

Not only did Damian learn from Marinette, but Marinette learned some things from Damian too.

She started to stand for herself more. Ladybug got fed up with Chat Noir's attitude and she decided to call him to have a good talk about respect, that end up being incredibly awkward but hoped things cold feel normal again soon. She decided to stop pursuing Adrien. It was a hard desition but once she did, mourned him and had a good night's rest. She actually felt refreshed afterward. He clearly didn’t want her, even as far as inviting her to a double date where she wasn’t his date. And then talk about a girl he likes while Marinette doubted he was referring to said date. Either way, she wasn’t an option and suddenly felt glad her 143,6 attempts at confessing didn’t work. Yes, 143,6. Just don’t ask. Besides, most than not, they didn’t seem to be on the same page about quite a lot of things and she was so focused on the little “we are so alike” parts that she completely disregarded the number of times he made her feel worthless. Something at which Damian made sure to take as a personal offense in her instead. But they were still friends. She valued her friendship with Adrien.

Besides the hard desitions and heartbreak. She also faced another problem.

Lila.

Oh, Damian obnoxiously sharpened a katana only Tikki-knows-where he took from when she told him about the liar and her threats. Luckily, she dissuaded him from taking a flight straight to Paris that very instant.

But now she wishes he had, to gut Lila, just to have him by her side.

Because now she had to endure watching Lila making up more and more ridiculous claims while the class marveled at her like she held the moon on her hands, little did they know she held just air. Fart air if Marinette might add.

Marinette grew to take no shit from others, something she picked up from Damian, but the second she decided to stand against Lila proved to be a mistake. The girl was just too good at twisting everything Marinette could say or prove. It was infuriating.

Adrien just looked at her with pity, like she was digging her own grave. She couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him, he was right after all. She really ended just digging herself deeper and deeper. Her new position of “no longer crushing on Adrien” gave her the push to be mad at him for not supporting her openly and not even that lasted. He just didn’t have it in him to do a move in front of everyone, it was against his principles and he might also be scared to do it, she eventually became aware of that and she graciously accepted their differences.

If Damian was here, he wouldn’t have been that passive. But not everyone had the privilege to grow strong and bold like her or Damian.

This drama also caused Marinette to become a bit more reserved around Alya, as much as her friendship with her remained strong, they just couldn’t agree on much when it involved Lila. They decided to compromise in agree to disagree. And so be it.

Not everything was bad, Marinette tried to focus more on the silver lining. Lila hasn’t been able to fulfill her threat. Not for lack of trying, but because her friends weren’t as foolish as she thought they were. And the biggest surprise was the fact that Marinette actually began an awkward friendship with Chloe. Yep, friends with Chloe Bourgeois. Her sworn enemy and bully. Turns out that if Marinette was able to see good in Damian of all people, then she’s able to see it in Chloe. After all, Damian was a harder nut to crack than Chloe, Marinette felt like a real beastmaster by now.

Besides feeling slightly insulted at the remark when she told him, he didn’t get it. “Why?” he had asked. Marinette couldn’t help but giggle, they really were alike. With an annoying superiority complex that completely impedes them to act according to their feelings. Both never knew how to go around things. She wondered if they could become great friends or deadly enemies if they met.

As worn out as Marinette was with everything going on, she took strength on the fact she was now making her luggage, getting ready to go to Gotham along with her class. And hopefully, spend some quality time with her dear Demon.

As she walked up to the mirror to check on her looks with the Horse Miraculous, a rose gold-rimmed sunglasses over her hair, Chloe style! She would be proud. Her phone went off.

“Hey, Als! Got your things ready?” Marinette asked happily.

“Yeah, girl! Aren’t you excited? You are finally going to meet your Demon!” Alya’s voice came from the speakers.

“I know! I’m so nervous, Alya!”

“I gotta say, I’m not thrilled to meet with his legendary frown but you still gotta arrange a way for me to at least say hi to him, ok? Before you ditch the class and go elope with him.”

“Alya!” She shrieked scandalized.

“What!? You know you will!”

“It’s not like that with him!”

“Cut the crap. I hear you both, you sound like you are already dating!”

Marinette bit her lip. “You think he likes me like that? I’m not sure if I like him like that.”

“Just spend time with him and you’ll find out, girl.” She said gently. “But in all honesty? I think you both already like each other that way. If I remember correctly! He did make some murderous comments against Adrien when you were crushing on him.” Marinette could almost hear her wiggling eyebrows and groaned while blushing. “Besides the fact that he’s only ever soft with you, of course. And you do get all dreamy talking about him.”

“I do not!” Marinette squeaked.

“Do too! Face it! Even Lila says he is perfect for you! And you know she’s a great matchmaker!”

‘Yeah, just because she wants me out of her way.’ Marinette thought bitterly and couldn’t help but make a face “I told you not to talk about my Dove to her, Als. You promised.”

“What’s the deal, though? Everyone knows you have an online friend you always chat with. I just told her about all the ridiculous pet names you have for him. WHICH made me realize I don’t even remember his real name!”

Marinette was caught between a groan and a giggle when her phone went off with an incoming video call. “Speaking of the Devil! Eagle frown is calling. Als, call you later?”

“No can do, girl. I still got some stuff to get ready before the flight tomorrow morning. Go to bed early!”

“See you tomorrow!” Marinette accepted the incoming call and Damian face appeared on the screen, the corner of his lips turned upwards.

“Hey, Demon Spawn!” Marinette beamed at him.

He instantly frowned again. “Nope, you are NOT meeting my brothers.”

She gasped. “Come on, little D, you promised!”

“Reluctantly.” He deadpanned.

She smiled again. “I got everything, I think! Extra clothes, just in case-”

“Smart. Everything is possible with that bi-”

“A new recipe book maman and I did for Uncle Al and gifts and souvenirs for all your family!” She finished like Damian hasn’t said anything. He instantly melted, Marinette marveled at how his brow relaxed and the corner of his lip lifted just a few pixels. Yep, that’s melting in Damian’s book. She really wanted to see how it looked like outside a screen.

“The gifts are unnecessary.” See? His face says one thing, but his words are another thing entirely!

“You still like I’m bringing them.” His lack of an answer was a clear affirmative. He was possibly glaring at her. Yup, he’s glaring at her since she read him right. “Last chance, Hummingbird, do you want me to bring you something?”

“Just you it’s enough, Angel.” Marinette blushed.

It wasn’t much. Damian wasn’t like Adrien, Alya, her parents. But he acknowledged the fact that he wanted her there and that’s a sign of affection coming from him. It’s enough to get her flustered now, especially if she compared it with their first interactions. “We have really come a long way, uh?” She sighed, he just kept silent, waiting for her to elaborate. “You really were a little shit at the start, you know?”

“Tt.”

“We are still young but I feel like we have both matured so much.”

“For the record, you were too childish and naive.” She giggled. He looked at his hands for a long while, clearly thinking about how to phrase his next words. “Moving in with Bruce was… hard. Too different. I used to be on top of everything, then with Bruce I was suddenly below the standard.” He took a deep breath. “It was infuriating. But eventually, I understood what they meant when they said I wasn’t ready.” She saw his cat jump over his shoulder, Damian scratched the cat’s ear and then he smirked up at her. “Then Alfred suggested being your pen pal, I was against it. It was stupid. Why would I have to reduce myself to email a child on the other side of the world? Besides, your first email was nothing but lacking.”

“Ass. I did my best on that first email.” She smiled at him, he didn’t usually open up like this, he must be emotional since they were going to meet soon.

“I’m glad I didn’t drop it, even when I tried. My brothers and Jon pushed me to answer you every week, Tim would hack my email to confirm I emailed you. And if they failed, Alfred stepped up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t give up.“ She smiled at him. “Although there were times when you totally disappeared.” She tapped at her lips.

“We don’t talk about those times.” He shook his head while Alfred the cat moved to sniff the camera, covering the screen with his nose. “There was nothing I could do about that.”

“Hey, Al Kitty!” Marinette cooed at the cat while other noises came from the phone.

Suddenly, a series of blurs moved on the screen. “Hey, little lady! You arriving at Gotham tomorrow?”

“Jason!?” Jason's face filled the screen while he ran out of Damian’s oversized room.

“Give that back, Todd!” Came Damian’s offscreen voice. Clearly both where on a mad dash to somewhere in the house. Nothing new, in all honesty.

“Yeah! Tomorrow we’ll take it easy to settle!” Jason skidded to a stop where she could see the rest of the family. “Oh! Hey everyone!”

She heard various and different greetings. “Marinette! I’ll be your guide to WE!” Dick smiled getting into the frame.

“Wa- Really!? That’s amazing but- wait! You work there?”

“Yeah, we all do, with Tim, Jason, and Bruce, of course. You didn’t know?” Dick asked confused.

“I don’t think Damian ever mentioned that?” She arched an eyebrow. The phone was suddenly snatched from Jason's hand and Damian's annoyed face replaced his family.

“I have no reason to talk about you idiots to her.” Damian glared somewhere off-screen.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be mean.”

“They are my brothers, they deserve it.”

Marinette had no idea what having brothers entailed. But she grew knowing about Damian’s let’s say… interesting relationship with his brothers. Their fights were terrifying but even after pulling all kinds of things against each other, they still loved and supported each other. Marinette could see roughly the same with Alya and her sisters so that must be normal between siblings. Just… with fewer guns and knives. Marinette was never going to forget how horrified she was when she learned Jason had shoot Damian with an actual gun! Just because they had a quarrel about Bruce or something. Damian just brushed it off, saying they were cool afterward. Besides, Jason always seemed like a sweetie pie to her. Maybe it was a Gotham thing. Yeah, she was totally going to go with that. It’s a Gotham thing.

“Marinette, dear.” She heard Alfred's voice off-screen and Damian angled the camera to him. “Would you like to join us tomorrow for dinner? I already sent some papers with Sabine to your teacher. She’s aware of your family in Gotham and our desire to spend time together with you. There shouldn’t be any problems as long as you inform her you will be with us.”

A warm feeling filled her heart. ‘Family.’ Yes, they weren’t family by blood nor paper, but they were Uncle Alfred family, so they might as well be Marinette’s family too. It was the same wonderful feeling she gets when Uncle Jagged called her his honorary niece.

“Of course Uncle Al! I can’t believe I’ll see you all tomorrow!” She gasped. “TOMORROW! I can’t believe it!” She heard some of them chuckling and was partly aware of Damian walking away from his family saying something… possibly rude. While she freaks out now that realization dawned on her. “I can’t believe time passed by so fast! I haven’t seen Uncle Alfred since I was like nine! And it’s totally my first time officially meeting all of the Waynes! OH MY GOD IT’S GOING TO BE THE FIRST TIME! Like! IN THE FLESH! No calls! No video calls! What should I wear? I don’t think I have-”

“Angel, Angel. Stop! Look at the screen.” Marinette realized she had been pulling at her hair and looked at him. “Seriously, we had already seen you in your pajamas while we deploy a food fight and you are worried about first impressions? Newsflash, too late for that. If anyone should be worried, it’s me. This time my brothers could scare you away for good.”

She snorted. “After so long, I doubt that’s possible.” Her phone went off again with an incoming video call. “OH, YES THANK YOU! Got a call, I’ll update you tomorrow?”

“Yes, and be careful. This is Gotham.”

“Of course! Bisous! Bye!” She answered the call.

“Show me what you are packing, Dupain-Cheng. You better no embarrass me looking like garbage.” Chloe glared at the screen.

“Chloe, Queenie, my hero! Just in time! I was freaking out!!”

“Figured. Nice sunglassed by the way. Seems like you are learning from the best!”

Marinette laughed. “Thanks! But I have an important dinner at Gotham and… Actually, I have to look good every day! I’m not sure if what I have is good enough or if-”

“Yeah yeah whatever, just show me already.” Chloe rolled her eyes, not willing to let her drown in her dramatics.

Marinette complied and let herself feel reassured the longer she displayed her outfits to her friend. Both of them discussing the pros and cons of everything. If it were only for Chloe, she would have two suitcases for the trip. But Marinette wouldn’t let her be dragged in that direction.

Things were really looking up for her and her trip.

🐦

[Next]

Thanks for reading! ♥

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[tartutation]

Venus de Milo (TMNT AU Profile)

A/N: English is not my native language. Therefore, any advice on any grammatical errors is very welcome! Thank you and enjoy your reading <3

Warnings: None

The TMNT AU summary: This is an alternate universe of teenage mutant ninja turtles (mostly inspired by the 2003 series and Bayverse movies) that was inspired by the structure of a "coming-of-age" novel. After losing their beloved father and incomparable master and defeating Shreder, the enemy they have been chasing since the age of 15, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo must learn to accept the grief and move on with their lives. None of it will be easy, now that the transition from adolescence to adulthood will be strongly impacted by an unexpected reunion with two women from their past and the new friends who have joined them.

Introducing Venus de Milo

You can see Venus aparence HERE

In this universe the boys met Venus because she spent 9 months being trained by Mestre Splinter when they were only 10 years old. It is a consensus among them that they share the same mutation, but all the genetic tests that Donatello made were inconclusive (yes, that does strasses him out).

During this period when Venus spent 9 months in New York studying the old history and secrets of the biggest and most famous ninja clans with Mestre Splinter (Hamato Yoshi's only living heir) her relationship with the turtle brothers was somewhat troubled. At the time, they were all children and the tension of having a girl in the group made it very difficult for them to interact normally. Raphael and Michelangelo used to exclude her from the games and playdates with the excuse that it was "for boys only!" and Leonardo felt very jealous of his master (and father), who seemed to pay special attention to this lost konuichi. Of all of them, however, the one who made the most hell of Venus's life was (who knew!) Donatello. Even with his gentle and pacifist spirit, Donnie did not like this new guest who claimed to be (ABSURD!) high priestest of a lost lineage of magical Konuichi. They were doomed to disagreement: after all, a little prodigy of science and a child with magical powers are two existences that contradict each other. But as soon as she came, Venus left, after finishing her intensive course with "Master Hamato" (which is how she referred to Splinter) she returned to Japan and spent the next 11 years training extensively every day to be able to become the best guardian of the Secret of Kunoichi Magic that had ever existed. Without the distraction of other brothers or  any friends close by, Venus became the most dangerous and disciplined warrior who had ever set foot on this Earth.

Now a young woman, Venus reencounters her former hashi colleagues. What does the future await?

Name: Venus de Milo

Age: 21

Species: Mutant Tortoise

Favorite color: Blue

Moral alingment: Lawfull Good

Sign: Libra

Sexual orientation: Demisexual

Characteristics:

Because of her disciplined and restricted upbringing, Venus has a very difficult time socializing with other people (or mutants!) her age. She doesn't know what a "meme" is, how twitter works, what's the fun of a 6-second video with a cat sppining to the sound of "sweet dreams are made of this". Having grown up in a temple and spent her entire life studying, she has a different concept of what "fun" is.

Her favorite hobbies include reading, meditating, studying ancient history documents, doing push-ups, kneading healing herbs, studying new types of incense and their calming propreities, etc ... All things that she also does as part of her daily work as the Keeper of the Kunochi Secret, so... The boundaries between fun and work are very thin.

She is an excellent reader and can read fluently in three languages: English, Japanese and Cantonese. She loves to read, it's her favorite activity, especially out loud, as she considers herself an excellent announcer.

She can defeat any of the Hamato brothers in combat (including Leonardo). Although neither bigger nor stronger, Venus uses the weight of the enemy's and their strength against them. In addition, her physical speed and strategic ability together makes her literally unbeatable.

Despite her advanced combat skills, Venus is extremely shy and anything makes her blush. Especially conversations that involve sexual pleasure and explicit language. Unfortunately for her, Michelangelo will discover this very quickly and will be able to defeat her in a fight whispering "What's up, hot stuff?" during combat. None of the other brothers will understand how he did it and he will never tell.

Despite being aware that her appearance isn't considered neither normal nor attractive to humans, Venus has no problems with self-esteem. She is very proud of her origins and to be the heir to a lineage of magical warriors is enough to make her one of the most beautiful people in the world in her mind.

Despite having a limited social skill, she is a very valuable friend and after she becomes attached to you, she will do everything to guarantee your safety and comfort.

She is very elegant and graceful. She was taught during her upbringing that each movement must be calculated and rehearsed strictly, what makes some of her very commom and daily actions, such as putting on a shoe or pouring tea look like choreography of a soft dance.

Venus believes deeply in soul mates. So she never worried much about learning the art of seduction or how to flirt with other people, since she always knew that one day the right person would cross her path and she wouldn't have to change who she is to win their heart (spoiler: she was right!)

It might not look like it, but she is very easily irritated. The fact is that she can disguise her stress and impatience just as easily. Never loses her temper.

Even with all these characteristics, she is not the leader of the group. This role was given to Mona Lisa (you will be able to read about Mona Lisa from this alternative universe very soon) through an election between the four friends (description of the twins May and June coming soon!). Venus has no grudge against her friend, as she knows that despite her physical abilities, herself lacks the charisma that a leader needs.

She is not very good at comforting others, nor is she a big fan of physical contact.

She was educated to never feel hatred towards anything but despite this she cannot control her contempt for lies. Trust is the most important thing in the world.

Summary of relationship with each of the turtles:

Leonardo: Venus and Leo are kindred spirits. They have, all jokes aside, everything in common. Therefore, when they met each other for the second time, they developed a friendship that made them absolutely inseparable. She likes how he doesn't underestimate her and how he respects her discipline and life doctrine and he likes having a partner to meditate and train. Their union allowed Leonardo to finally have someone with the same dedication (and obsession, honestly) as he, someone with whom he could complain about the neglect of his brothers and someone to train his japanese with, which also guaranteed them a certain privacy and intimacy that Leonardo had not yet experienced with anyone.

Raphael: If asked, Raph will say that he thinks Venus "is ok". Deep down, meeting her for a second time left a bitter taste in his mouth. He is very jealous of his brother and wonders if Venus would not be the true sister that Leo always wanted - besides (of course) the fact that her discipline and posture are literally the combination of all the things he doesn't like in Leonardo multiplied by 10. Despite all this, the thing that he hates the most is her absence of anger: there are few things in the world that Raphael likes more than stressing his perfect big brother and watching him lose his temper, but it seems IMPOSSIBLE to get the same reaction with Venus . No matter how much he teases her, ridicules her or bullies her ... she never breaks! And THAT is unforgivable. (As they will get to know each other better, Raphael will be able to see Venus for what she is: not the incarnation of perfection on Earth, but a very shy young woman with very basics communication skills )

Donatello: Donnie, now a 21-year-old man, is ashamed to face the ghosts of his childhood that Venus brings with her. He remembers very well how he treated her when they were young and is very ashamed of how bad he was to her. Age made him realize that despite not sharing the same beliefs he didn't had the right to mistreat her. Because of this, upon their reunion, Donatello can't even look her in the eye... The situation gets so much worse when he realizes that she is kind, peaceful and strategic and that the obsession and discipline she exercises in her spiritual rituals are equivalent to those himself repets with his inventions, experiments and research. In silence, he starts to admire her more and more, and the more he admires her the more shame he feels for how he treated her. For a long time, he fantasies with the day when he will be forgiven and accepted, who knows, maybe she will admire him in the same way ... Poor Donnie, he doesn't even imagine that Venus does not hold a single drop of resentment and that she ends up interpreting him distancing himself of her as a form of showing contempt. (Agsnt is my fucking life)

Michelangelo: Mikey finds Venus so.fucking.intimidating. He remmembered her as a very small and shy crybaby, but now? Now she is the greatest warrior he have ever seen. If Leonardo tries to be the authority figure and ends up rejected by his younger brother, Venus does not have the same intention, but ends up winning the respect and trust of the youngest of the group. She ends up being the only figure that Michelangelo really respects and obeys blindly after Master Splinter. He adores her  just as a troubled student adores the patient and empathetic vice director. Their friendship ends up becoming so sincere and pure that he starts playing video games on mute just to hear the stories she reads aloud.

_________________________________________________________

Well.. That’s it for Venus BIO! Please tell me what do you think! Every comment and opinion is welcome. My ask box is also open for any questions about this AU! Thank you so much for reading till the end. 

[imagine-loki]

Return

TITLE: Return CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter Six AUTHOR: theterrifyingtermite ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that, at the end of Endgame, Loki comes back. Only one problem: this isn’t your Loki. RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS: Nothing too dramatic here. Four more to go!

Chapter Six:

I’m sorry, he had whispered once to her, suddenly, and with a misery she had not heard in weeks.

She had paused mid step, pulling him back when he tried to move away from her and led him off to the side of bridge, out of the way of other travelers.

What on Asgard did he mean?

There was hesitation in his posture as he leaned against the railing, reluctant in his tone.

Sorry because she was hidden away. Tucked out of the way, like a forbidden fruit incapable of being brought forth into the light. Like she meant nothing more to him than some private escape, or a fantasy-

He was always more dramatic the more melancholic he felt.

Lifting a hand, she worked her fingers through his hair, hoping her smile was comforting.

She knew she was more than a castaway toy. In time, they would know what to do about it and how to change it.

Until then…

She wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling the automatic rise of his own to return the embrace.

Until then, they could have this peace.

___

They were sitting at her table.

She and the God of Thunder.

“Hi, I’m Thor. Doctor Strange told me about you and explained everything,” he had said immediately after the door had opened. “Thank you,” was also blithely offered as he swept past her, setting down the large axe that had been dangling from his belt and hanging the hammer on a hook concurrently.

Her brow had furrowed. “I’m not sure he would be the best source,” she had muttered, following him as he meandered down the hallway. “What are you doing here?”

Thor had merely exclaimed, “Ah, here it is!” as he turned a corner and found her kitchen. “Light! And chairs! Precisely what we need.

“Oh, where are my manners?” He had pulled out a chair, waved a hand theatrically towards it as she trailed him into the room. “Do sit down. Do you need to put your feet up? Can I get you anything?”

Reeling, she had dropped into the offered seat, and then had watched as he went digging through her cabinets, chirping things such as “cups!” and “fizzy water!” until he was satisfied and had returned to the table.

He had set down three glasses – “Not sure which one is your favorite! Don’t people have favorites?” – and several of the afore-mentioned bottles – “Do you ever mix kinds for different flavors?” – before dropping into a chair across from her, folding his arms, and beaming at her.

And thus, they were sitting at her table.

She and the God of Wonder, blunder, hunger? her mind supplied rather unhelpfully, as she could do little else but blink at him in a mixture of bemusement and, if she were honest, annoyance, as he procured a package of cookies he had whisked out of nowhere.

“I have to say, I’m not sure I understand everything, and I was honestly overly excited and not listening entirely, but I am so happy to finally meet you.”

He was like a puppy.

A bouncing, energetic, full-blooded Golden Retriever.

Meanwhile, all she wanted to do was play the Snapping Turtle in the face of his unbridled enthusiasm.

Maybe it was the look on her face.

Maybe it was the fact that she had yet to really answer him.

Several more seconds of awkward silence, and the bubble of cheer that Thor had brought with him deflated rapidly.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” was the question, offered in a much lower tone as he drooped in his seat.

Did she?

Oh, there were so many things she had wanted to say. Things of the past; things that had haunted Loki every step he took. She had always wanted to take Thor and shake him into sense.

And yet, staring into the eyes of an elder, grieving brother, she could sense he had been doing what she had for the past five months.

Grieving.

Coping.

Though for him, it had been over five years.

Sighing, she reached out across the table, a hesitant smile quirking up her mouth as Thor’s face brightened immediately once more.

He quickly latched onto her hand, thumbing the back of it over and over and over again in a gentle, sweeping motion.

Watching his movements, feeling his grip tight and unyielding, she finally, really looked at him.

“Hi,” she breathed.

“Hi,” he grinned back.

___

But what if you just told him? She had asked him one day, as they sat in front of a fountain, eating ice cream.

Well, she had been eating hers, cup quickly emptying while her sober companion had been brooding instead of partaking, leaving his to puddle in the fading summer light.

A shrug. An incoherent mumble.

Loki, she had half-sung his name, nudging his shoulder with her own. If he was actually honest for once, why wouldn’t Thor forgive him? Why wouldn’t he understand?

But, no, it was far too complicated for that, apparently.

There was too much to get past.

He never would.

Never.

She had stared straight ahead at the dancing water, scraping her bowl clean of any chocolate-peanut butter remnants.

Silence. Then:

Would he not?

Setting aside her trash, and removing his from his hand, she had tucked herself under his arm as it wound absently around her shoulders. Well, he wouldn’t know unless he tried, would he?

There had been a sigh, and then his head had tilted to rest against her own. If he did, it would mean the end of the way things were. Things would have to change. They couldn’t stay the same.

Everything would have to come into the light or nothing at all.

There had been an opportunity for her to be hurt; to be angry that it seemed he wanted to hide her and keep her tucked away, out of sight.

But she knew it was because he was safe here. Things would change, but if it meant he was no longer hiding, then, well…

Still, she had persisted in return to his bemoaning, wouldn’t it be worth it? It meant no longer having to hide. To be whom he was.

Because, she had added after a quiet moment, reaching up to turn his face gently until he was looking her in the eye, he was worth loving just as he was.

___

They had talked the rest of the morning and all afternoon.

She had shared what she could; pouring everything Loki had told her out to Thor.

At first, she had a keen sense of betrayal, but she tamped down on that.

All she could do was tell him of her Loki.

Whether or not it applied to the one who had fallen into their universe was up to him.

They weren’t the same man.

Even if she wanted them to be.

In turn, Thor told her stories of Loki as a child, filling in the blanks of his perspective when one had been something her Loki had told her.

They laughed.

She cried.

Thor denied that he did, even if he sniffled once or twice and rubbed at his face.

In the end, she found herself eased into a pleasant state of forgiveness. Thor was willing to recognize where he had gone wrong, and she was already well aware of Loki’s own failings in communication.

It wasn’t difficult to see the depth of Thor’s hurt, and the pain his past judgments now caused him.

He had asked her of her pregnancy; quizzed her on things of which he was unsure, stared; eyes wide when she recounted the earlier months. Glowered, brows drawn as she hunched her shoulders and told him of the first few meetings with Loki.

But, as she made sure to point out, it had been drastically different after the brothers had spoken with each other.

Plus, she didn’t honestly think Loki would ever really hurt her. Panicking after a traumatic experience was only natural. She had come to realize the last time that he had been checking up on her – not the baby, but her.

As far as apologies went, it wasn’t all that great.

As far as all was concerned, she would take what she could get.

Cheered once more, Thor promised to come and visit her when he could, had made her promise to keep him updated through, surprisingly, e-mail.

When he admitted he had needed one to make accounts for video games, she laughed harder than she had since the Blip, the child wiggling in response.

When he asked rather sheepishly if he could rub her stomach before he left, she tried to roll her eyes.

Instead, she found herself nearly melting as he instantly dropped to a knee after her assent, placing a hand on the center of her stomach. He whispered for a moment in an otherworldly language, delight flashing across his face as he felt the infant kick.

His family.

As she was now, apparently.

Then there came an announcement that it was time for him to leave. She looped her arm through his proffered one as they made their way outside once more, Thor promising to look after her as best as he could.

“Make no mistake,” was what he finished with, turning back to face her – smile fading in brightness to something a touch more melancholic, “if you need anything at all, I will do whatever I can in his stead. I know it is not the same, but…” A shrug. “Please let me know. And if I see Loki again, I will try to get him to come check in on you more often. I believe in his heart he is a good man.”

A nod, and a smile. “I know.”

Waving, she watched as Thor spun his axe around, one more toothy grin flashing her way.

Definitelyagoldenretriever.

Gasping, she shielded her eyes at the explosion of light as the Bifrost opened up once more and swept him back to the place from where he had come.

Come to think about it, he never did say.

Not that it was any of her business.

Suddenly feeling oddly bereft and utterly alone, she crossed her arms tightly over the swell of her stomach, glowered briefly at the intricate design burned into her grass, and went back inside.

She was not going to start feeling sorry for herself now.

The rest of the evening passed by much more quietly.

Too quietly, almost.

Before the blustery entrance of her child’s Uncle! that had suddenly struck her, she had never noticed how quiet it was before.

Music, then, and she would carry on.

Five months and four days left.

She could make it.

She would.

___

What do you do when I’m not here? he had mused one night, flashing a teasing smile to her.

Twilight was approaching; the glow of the sun had long since faded.

A hand passed over her arm resting on the table between them.

Fingers entwined with her own.

Miss you, she had dimpled in response, earning a rare peal of laughter.