#celebrated and got some dessert from this one place i've been meaning to go to for er

[anxieteaspooks]

good luck w/ test season

posting this now that its OVER i am DONE i am TAKING A NAP

[inlovewithgreta]

Sweet Thing — Alcina Dimitrescu x Fem!Reader

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Warnings: Praise, biting, marking, spit kink, drink play (red wine), thigh riding, blood kink, etc…

Word Count: 6.2k

© Do not copy, repost, or modify any of my works.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You were too focused on finishing the final touches of your dessert to notice the tall raven-haired woman glancing at you from across the room as you held your breath to ensure the icing along your cake was precise. Your bottom lip was tucked between your teeth as you examined your hard work with the intricate lines that formed the most beautiful pattern atop the cake.

It was one of the other maids birthday's and you took it upon yourself to help her celebrate as you and your fellow workers were the closest to the young maid as she had no family left. When you thought of the idea to make something special for her, you were surprised to hear from Alcina that she was allowing you to do such a task in her castle, as it was your place to care for her, and not anybody else, but the tall woman had her eye on you as you were the newest hire in the castle.

Although you had only been there for nearly a month, she noticed the way you were quick and efficient at your job. Rooms got cleaned without a speck of dust in sight, and she took note of the way your gentle hands moved her expensive decorations around, only to put them back in their exact position after they were thoroughly cleaned. You were never one to pry into Alcina's business unlike the other maids when one would suddenly go missing or there was a new bloody mess to clean after Alcina's daughters were done snacking. You kept to yourself, and that was something that intrigued her.

You knew of the Dimitrescu family's inhuman abilities but didn't dare ask questions out of respect, and with that, Alcina never laid a finger on you. . . That was, until a large pale hand found its way to your shoulder just as you had finished your task.

"Is it finally finished?" Alcina's sultry voice rang in your ears as she blew smoke past her lips from her lit cigarette that sat delicately in its elegant holder between her fingers.

"I think so—" You eyed the finished product, refusing to bring your eyes to the woman towering behind you as she slipped one of her black gloves off.

"Then I think it's time we taste it." Without hesitation, Alcina leans forward, her clothed breasts just barely touching the top of your head as she dips a slender finger into the frosting covering the cake, making you stand completely still in shock at both of her actions.

As Alcina brought her icing covered finger to her face, your head tilted up and eyes lingered on the way her darkened red lips wrapped around her pale finger before swallowing and contemplating for a moment.

"It's lacking a bit of. . . sweetness." She admitted with a frown.

"Oh– perhaps you need to wash it down with some wine! I've heard the other maid's talk about the wine cellar, I could go fetch–"

"No!" Alcina immediately cut you off, catching herself by surprise with her quick response.. "I mean. . ." She quickly looked around before catching sight of an unopened bottle of red wine to her left and picking it up to show you. "This will do just fine. Be a dear and grab two glasses for me." She pointed towards the glass cabinet that contained her favorite wine glasses, hoping to distract you from her fast response as she herself just realized why she was quick to begin with. You mentioned the wine cellar. There were things that happened down there that she didn't want your innocent eyes to see. There was a reason why the Dimitescu family was always in need of a new maid, but for some reason, the second you walked through her grand doors, there was something that stopped her from wanting to harm you, and it was at this moment that she realized she had a special liking to you, and she couldn't control her wandering thoughts any longer.

"Two glasses?" You eyed her curiously.

"For the two of us, of course. I thought you could use a break, unless you'd rather go back to cleaning–"

"Two glasses coming up!"

Alcina held back a smirk as she took a step back, allowing space for you to move freely around her and nab two glasses from the wooden cupboard.

"Where would you like me to serve you, Lady Alcina?"

"What have I said about the formalities, darling?" She tilted her head slightly.

"To call you by your given name. My apologies, Alcina." You bowed your head in respect.

"You're too sweet for your own good. . ." Her gaze immediately softened as she tilted your head back up with the point of her finger under your chin. "That's why you're my favorite." She smiled for the first time at you, and you felt your cheeks heat up at her words. "Now come, it's been a long day and I can't stand another moment in these infuriating heels." Alcina dropped her finger from your chin and clutched onto the wine bottle as she aimed for the door. Due to her height, Alcina had to bend forward to step under the doorframe, completely filling your view with the curvature of her lower body as her rear end was at eye level as she bent her way into the next room with you just behind her, a slight blush creeping onto your face when you noticed your lingering gaze on the woman's body and had to force your eyes away.

"Where are we going?" You question, when you two walk past the parlor where she normally drinks her beloved wine.

"To my chambers. I have a proposition for you."

"Why not ask me here?"

"It's more of a. . . private matter."

"Right. . ." You nodded your head in response as if she could see you with her back turned as the two of you made your way up the grand staircase and down the dimly lit hallway leading to her bedroom. She entered the same way she had to leave the kitchen, with the slight bend of her body, clouding your view once more with her backside.

Your eyes immediately scanned the elegant room surrounding you, as it had been your first time ever allowed into Alcina's private quarters. Her furniture was larger than a regular humans, to be more accommodating of her larger physique. She sat at her vanity with a small huff as she freed her feet from her black stilettos, tossing them to the ground as you just stood quietly at the entrance, fixated on the way her fingers were gentle with every move she made. Even as she was sitting down, her posture remained perfect.

"You can come in. Close the door behind you and pour us some wine." She chuckled when she caught sight of your nervous stance.

"Okay. . ." You immediately came to her side after closing the door behind you and setting the two glasses on her vanity before popping open the wine bottle and gently pouring the dark liquid into each glass, careful not to make a mess with the way your hands were slightly shaking.

"Thank you, dear." Alcina swirled her wine before taking a large sip, quietly humming at the plethora of flavors reaching her taste buds.

With hesitation, you picked up your own glass, and did just as she did, swirling the beverage around before taking a small sip. You hummed to yourself once you got a taste of the wine, as you immediately took a liking to it.

"Good, isn't it?" Alcina asked, before tossing her gloves on her vanity, followed by her large black hat that always shaded her face, freeing her pin tight curls.

"Very." Your eyes were trained on her as she looked at herself in the mirror, taking the pins out of her raven colored hair, and running her slender fingers through her curls.

"Good. I knew you would like it. After all, I do make the wine myself." She states matter of factly as her golden eyes meet yours through the reflection.

"You're very good at it."

"That's very kind of you, thank you." She smiled softly, and you gave her one in return. "Will you be a dear and unbutton my dress for me?" She asks politely.

"Oh- of course." You set your glass down next to hers before standing behind her, bringing your shaky hands to the back of her white dress and carefully unbuttoning the fabric little by little, slowly revealing her pale back until each button was undone. "There you go."

Alcina took another sip from her glass before she stood up, towering over you. "Would you like to hear my proposition?" She asked calmly, slowly sliding her arm out of her sleeve.

"Yes. . ." You eyed her curiously, slightly knitting your eyebrows, and forcing yourself to not tear your gaze from her glowing eyes. "You said it was a private matter?"

"I did, yes." She slid her other sleeve off, and slowly dropped her lush white dress down past her curves, revealing her slightly see-through black laced lingerie set that barely covered her luscious curves.

Your heart immediately started beating faster, and Alcina immediately caught on as you cleared your throat and tore your eyes away from her, instead taking another sip of your wine to cover the rising heat in your cheeks.

"If I'm being completely honest, you're one of the best maids I've ever hired. And I know you've only been here a month but I've noticed how hard you work. It's quite impressive." Alicia admitted as she bent to take another swig of her wine, thinking about her next words carefully.

"Thank you—"

Alcina lifted a finger to your lips, silencing you, before sliding that same finger down to your chest, walking you slowly backwards towards her bed. "And so I had this thought, that since you do so much around here, perhaps I could do a little something for you in return."

The back of your knees bump into her bed frame, sticking you in between both the bed and Alcina.

"Is that okay, doll?"

You nod your head, throat going dry at her sudden closeness.

"Use your words."

"Yes— do what you want. Please." You instantly caved, words coming out as more of a beg than you had originally planned, but with a bit of liquid courage, and a half naked Alcina towering over you was all it took for you to completely give into her control without a second thought.

"Good girl." Alcina smirked, and revealed her long and sharp claws in nearly an instant, making you freeze in place with wide eyes. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to tear this little dress off your body, is that alright?"

"Yes. . ." You were soft spoken and didn't dare move as she gently used her claws to rip your dress open from the front, it fell straight to the floor in the blink of an eye, leaving you shocked that she left you completely unscathed.

"I've been very curious what you've been hiding under that little maid outfit of yours, and I will say that I am pleased with what I see." Alcina admits, yellow eyes scanning your body from head to toe, as the only garments covering your body were your bra and panties. She returned her nails back to their normal red polished fingers and used a gentle hand to push you down at the edge of the bed. An idea ran through her mind as you sat below her, Alcina turning around without saying a word to grab the now half empty wine bottle from her vanity. As her body faced away from you, your eyes couldn't help but land upon her rounded ass and admire her luscious curves as her thong sculpted her ass perfectly, and not noticing how long you were staring until she spoke out.

"You know how I knew you were different from the others?" She questioned, bringing your focus back up to her face. "You look at me with those bright beautiful eyes with pure admiration. Whether it was close or from afar, I could tell you weren't gazing out of disgust or hatred. It was different. . ." She smiled faintly at the thought as she made her way back to standing in front of you. "It was the kind of look you gave me just now. Like I wasn't just some kind of tall hideous monster."

"I mean, look at you. You're not hideous, nor are you a monster. You're beautiful, Alcina. Truly. How could I not look at you with anything other than 'perfect' on my mind?"

Her gaze fixated on you, only sensing the truth in your words, and you swore you saw her cheeks turn just the slightest shade darker than her usual bright porcelain skin.

"And this, my dear, is why you deserve a special treat." She tucks loose hair behind your ear.

"Which is?" You slightly raise a brow out of curiosity.

"Why me of course." She grazed a slender finger along your jawline. "That is, if you'll have me. I won't force you into anything you're not comfortable with." Her face softened, full of sincerity, almost begging you to agree. "Let me show you how grateful I am."

You looked up at her through your long lashes, taking a moment to think about what she was offering, and what you were about to agree to. You knew she meant every word she said. She had respected you from the start, and it was a surprise to both of you that you each had an eye out for each other, and unspoken feelings were mutual.

"Show me then." Her eyes lit up at your words, and Alcina wasted no time in gently pushing you all the way back against the plush mattress, your body falling softly onto the sheets, and holding yourself up by your elbows.

Alcina carefully crawled her way above you, straddling your hips with her meaty thighs, and ensuring she didn't add her full weight to the pressure against your hips, as she didn't want to squish your small human body.

"What do you say we finish this bottle up, hmm?" Alcina flashed the bottle in front of you, and you nodded your head in return. A smirk toyed at her lips just before she took a swig at her new thoughts. When you thought she was going to bring the bottle to your own mouth, she brought it back to her signature red lips, but this time you notice she didn't swallow, but instead set the bottle down on the floor, bringing her attention back to you.

You licked your bottom lip slowly as Alcina placed both hands on your cheeks, and leaned down, hovering her face just inches from yours, causing your back to arch as you attempted to reach up to kiss her lips. Alcina pulled away ever so slightly with an arched brow, wanting words of affirmation before she continued.

"Please. . ." You instantly begged her through your parted lips.

She slightly chuckled before pulling your face completely to her own. Her large hands gently squished your cheeks, causing your mouth to open, your tongue sliding out past your bottom lip just as Alcina spit her wine carefully into your mouth which you took without hesitation. She gave you a moment to swallow before smashing her lips against yours, both of you humming at the new contact.

Her tongue swiped against your bottom lip, asking for more access, and in return your lips spread. She immediately dove right in, her large tongue dominating yours. You completely fall back against the sheets, Alcina keeping her body pressed against yours as her hands roamed your body.

You snuck a hand down to her large breasts, grazing your thumb against her hardened nipple, eliciting another hum from the woman.

Alcina was the first to pull away for air, only to bring her lips to smother your jawline with wet kisses, using a light hand under your chin to tilt your head, giving the woman access to your open neck. She immediately attaches herself to you, sucking and kissing along your neck, holding back the urge to sink her teeth into you once she reaches your pulse point.

"Mmm, you smell divine." She admitted between kisses, slowly working her way down your skin, and leaving soon to be marks along your flesh.

"Thank—" Your words got cut off with a gasp when Alcina nibbled your collarbone before soothing it with her wet tongue.

When she reached your chest, Alcina lifted her head with a slight lick of her lips, bringing her golden eyes to yours.

"I see we still have more fabric to get rid of. May I?" She asks politely, pointing to your bra.

"Yes." You were quick to give her permission, which she took with a small smile, reaching behind your back to unclasp your bra before sliding the thin fabric off of you, and throwing it to the side.

Her eyes landed upon your bare breasts almost instantaneously, gazing at their fullness with hunger in her eyes, watching as your chest rose and fell with your quickened anticipated breaths, loving the way you slightly squirmed under her gaze.

"My, my, even better than I imagined, little one. . ." She placed a gentle hand on your chest, cupping her breast softly, and grazing her thumb over your nipple, repeating the same action you did to her before.

She raised a small brow when you sucked in a breath, taking her sweet time in lowering her face towards your chest. Your back impulsively arched, pushing your breasts quicker towards her face, eliciting a deep chuckle from the woman.

"So impatient. . ." She looked up at you through her mascara filled lashes just as she flattened her tongue over your hardened nipple before attaching her lips to your breast. Alcina was gentle with her mouth movements, not wanting to graze her teeth against your sensitive skin, or accidentally harm you in any way.

A hand slid through her soft black curls, just barely keeping her head in place as her mouth worked wonders along your bud before kissing across your chest to pay attention to your other breast.

She slid a hand up to cup your other breast, fingers toying with your nipple and giving it a slight pinch, earning a small whimper to escape past your lips.

She then leaves wet kisses down your sternum, golden eyes watching every little movement of yours, whether it was your quick breathing or the slight arching of your back when she kissed a spot that felt ticklish.

As she kissed lower and lower, her kisses became faster and more needy as she went past your navel. Alcina, while lowering herself down, had her back arched, pushing her rounded ass in the air.

That view.

It was the kind of view that would be etched into your brain and never be forgotten.

She truly had the most beautiful curves you had ever seen.

Her teeth grabbed the thin lace, slowly sliding your panties down your legs, leaving you completely bare in front of her. Alcina's lustful gaze never leaves your lower half as she tosses your panties behind her. Her slender fingers glide past your glistening entrance, spreading your wetness around before bringing those same fingers to her mouth, and sliding them past her lips.

"Mmm. . ." Alcina uses her tongue to lick her fingers clean of your juices. "You have the sweetest little pussy." She hummed, leaning her face towards your wet center and licking a strip up your folds with her flattened tongue. Her hands held your hips down, not wanting you to move from her touch.

Alcina had never truly enjoyed herself as much as she was in the moment with you. She never thought she would've taken a liking to anyone, let alone one of her maids.

A quiet moan escaped past your lips when she flicked her tongue against your sensitive clit. Her fingers kneaded at your hips as she used her full mouth to pleasure you. Chills ran down your spine when she sucked your sensitive bud. She thought to herself how she couldn't possibly get enough of you and your taste along her tongue.

Alcina slid a hand between your thighs, slowly inserting a finger into your cunt. Her pace started off gentle and slow, before slowly increasing her pace little by little. Her pace matched the suction along your clit, and your moans couldn't help but grow louder.

"Be as loud as you wish, dear. I love hearing those pretty little moans."

Your hips begged to buck, wanting to push yourself impossibly closer towards her, but her strong hand kept you pinned down against the mattress.

"M-more, please. . ." You begged, gazing down at the woman between your legs.

Alcina slid a second finger past your entrance, eliciting a small whimper from you at the fullness of her fingers against your walls.

"You're so tight— just relax for me, Angel."

Your eyebrows knitted as you adjusted to her curled fingers, mouth agape as Alcina was giving you all of her attention. With every movement, your sweet spot got pleasured by her slender fingers, expertly curved just for you.

You did your best not to pull on her tight curls when your eyes rolled to the back of your head as her pace quickened.

"Yess, just like that—" You whined, head lulled back against the soft mattress.

Alcina felt your legs quiver around her, as you felt yourself quickly reaching your climax.

"You're close, aren't you?"

"Mhm. . ." You softly moaned out, hands clutching onto the comforter beneath you.

"Cum for me."

Your breath hitches in your throat, legs threatening to close around Alcina as not a moment later, you find yourself reaching your sweet release, coating her fingers with your juices.

"That's my good girl." Alcina cooed, keeping her relenting pace, wanting to see if she can get another one out of you.

Eyes nearly rolled to the back of your head as Alcina never faltered, her slender fingers putting in their work and stretching your walls.

As she went to adjust her positioning, her round ass jiggled ever so slightly, the sight immediately being etched into your brain. It made you wonder how one could be built so perfectly, and it made your cheeks red when Alcina's gaze fell onto you, catching sight of you checking out her ass.

Her small chuckle sent vibrations through your core, your breathing picking up as you felt yourself getting close once more.

You tried, but failed to hide a whimper as Alcina quickly switched her fingers out with her tongue, wanting to get an extra taste of you as you came for a second time. Your orgasm hit you harder than before, toes roughly curling as she used her tongue to lap up your mess. She hummed when your climax reached her tongue, savoring every little taste she could get of you.

Her movements slowed as you came down from your high, gently licking a strip up your folds to taste you one last time before sitting herself up, allowing you both to catch your breath.

You watched as Alcina sat on her knees, fingers gliding past her lips to suck off the cum from her now messy fingers, yellow eyes closing for just a moment as she licked them completely clean.

Your eyes fell upon her large breasts as she leaned herself forward to hover above you, hands relaxing on either side of your head.

"You're just the most delicious little thing I've ever had. . ." Alcina spoke softly, her gaze fixated completely on you. "Where have you been all my life?" She asked, fully not expecting you to answer, but was shocked when you did.

"Waiting for you." You admitted with a slight blush to your cheeks, eliciting the most beautiful smile you had ever seen form on Alcina's face.

"Fuck, you're perfect."

Her lips smashed against your own, engulfing you in a quick but fiery kiss.

She rested her forward against yours, both of you relaxing into the other's touch. You never thought she would ever be this close to you, but her touch comforted you, it made you feel safe.

However, your clean thoughts didn't last long when she pushed her full breasts against your own as she peppered your face with small kisses.

"I wanna go again." You blurted out, when her kisses reached your jawline.

"What?" She lifted her head to look at your face.

"I said. . ." You lifted your thumb up to swipe over her bottom lip. "I want to go again," You gazed at her with lustful eyes. "Please, Alcina."

"I see I severely underestimated you." Alcina smirked.

As she attempted to lower herself back down, you quickly grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"I want to be on top this time."

"Really?" She lifted a high brow, her smirk not leaving her face.

"Yes." You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth as you looked at her with your best begging eyes.

"Okay. . ." She was hesitant at first, as she had never dealt with anything like this before, and never, ever, had anybody even want to spend this much time with her. It was all new, and part of it scared her, but the other part was relieved that she no longer had to worry about crushing your smaller body.

Alcina repositioned herself to sit next to you, eyes never leaving your body movements as you gently moved yourself to her lap, but only straddling one of her thighs, which she instantly caught onto.

"Ahh, I see now. The little maid just needed something a little bit more physical, hmm? Such a needy little thing."

Due to her height, her breasts sat directly in front of your face, and you had to tilt you head up just to look at the woman in the face.

You run a hand down her chest, fingers stopping at the small clip at the front of her bra that held it closed.

"I also need to take this off. You got to see mine, I think it's only fair I get to see yours too."

Alcina smiled and playfully rolled her eyes at your response, loving the bit of confidence that you had to admit what you wanted.

"If that's what you want. . ." Alcina brings her hands to her chest, carefully unclipping the small clasp and sliding the thin lace off her body before throwing it to the side, freeing her large breasts from their holder.

Your eyes couldn't help but wander across her chest, your bottom lip tightly being pulled between your teeth as your gaze fixated on her breasts.

Alcina watched as your eyes lit up at her bare chest and reached a hand down to your own, bringing it up to her chest, and allowing you to feel her.

Her pale skin was soft and smooth like butter, and your hand slowly slid over every bare inch of her. As you lowered your hand, your thumb grazed over her hardened bud before pinching it between your fingers, eliciting a small gasp from Alcina at the unexpected pleasure.

Her hands slid down to your hips, kneading at the soft flesh as she slowly began to glide your cunt along the length of her thigh with ease as your wetness was still very prominent.

You cup her breast gently and toy with her nipple as she keeps a firm grip along your waist. Your hips start a gentle rhythm, slowly working your way across her thigh, softly moaning as you attempt to push yourself farther down.

Alcina watched with fascination at your neediness for her, and how quick it was for you to be completely at her mercy.

Before you knew it, your free hand had slid down her sternum, past her navel, and landed upon her thin lace panties that had been soaked since she made you cum for the first time. Your gaze fell upon hers, Alcina immediately knowing what you were asking for, and nodding her head reassuringly.

Your hand slid underneath the fabric, fingers gliding over her wet cunt as your hips rocked back and forth against her thigh. A soft moan escapes when your fingers circle Alcina's clit, gently giving pressure to her sensitive bud.

You bring your mouth to Alcina's chest, sending wet kissing all along her voluptuous pale breasts, following the slight pattern of her veins.

"Just like that my sweet girl." Alcina cooed, followed by a deep moan eliciting from the woman.

You do your best to fit her tit into your mouth, flicking your tongue against her nipple. Alcina's grip only grows tighter along your hips now that you weren't the only one getting pleasured, her trying to hold back her long line of deep moans at the contact she's been craving oh so much. Your fingers were doing wonders for her, pleasure coursing throughout her entire body in a way that had her going feral on the inside.

Alcina's hunger for you only grew stronger when you curled your fingers inside her needy cunt, her head lulling back at the sensation. Your movements, now turning slightly erratic as you felt a knot in your core.

"Alcina. . ." You softly moaned out her name, feeling yourself quickly spiraling towards your third orgasm.

Your soft moans harmonized perfectly in sync with her deep ones, both of you getting lost in the mountain of pleasure you were giving each other. You only gave her a moment to adjust to your fingers before you matched them with the pace of your hips, her wetness quickly dripping down your fingers and into the palm of your hand.

"Fuck— just like that." Alcina moaned out, eyes reopening and gazing back down at you, watching your frantic movements along her thigh and your lips wrapped around her nipple.

Her eyebrows knitted just as your breath caught in your throat, both of you completely on the brink of an orgasm.

"Cum with me, Y/N." Alcina tried to order but it came out as more of a beg, but she didn't care. All she wanted was for the two of you to finish at the same time.

You nodded your head frantically, vision going blurry as you came along her thick thigh. Not a moment later, Alcina deeply inhaled as your palm hit against her clit, causing her to cum just a moment later with a drawn out moan.

"Fuck—" You whimpered, legs shaking around her thigh as you calmed your erratic movements, trying to catch your breath.

Alcina was breathing heavily by the time she got through her orgasm, and deeply sighing as your fingers slipped out of her. You brought your hand to your mouth, flattening your tongue against the palm of your hand, lapping up her juices before shoving the same two fingers in your mouth to clean them from her release.

You hummed when your eyes met with hers, loving the taste of her along your tongue. But, before you got to enjoy it for too long, Alcina gently grappled your wrist, pulling your hand away from your mouth to make room for her lips, engulfing you in a passionate kiss. Her tongue slid past your parted lips, begging for a taste of what you had.

After a long minute of making out, you both broke the kiss simultaneously to catch your breath as neither of you had the chance to catch some air.

"You didn't have to do that, you know." Alcina finally spoke after a minute.

"I know, but I wanted to. You pleasure me, so I pleasure you, it's only fair." You said playfully.

"Then I guess next time I won't be so fair." Alcina toyed, forcing you to smile followed by a small chuckle.

She tucked a stray hair behind your ear before her face had suddenly changed its emotions, as if she was thinking about something. Her eyes had glued to your exposed neck, gazing at your veins and listening to the fast beat of your heart.

You watched her swallow with a distant gleam in her eye. Following her gaze, you realized what she was staring at.

Your neck.

"Alcina—" You gently cupped her cheek, pulling her out of her trance.

"What is it, dear?"

"You're thirsty, aren't you? And not for wine."

"Well— Yes, but that doesn't matter." She waves her hand, standoffish. "I have some old blood bags in the fridge—"

"You can drink mine." You immediately offered her.

"No, no. I'll find something or someone else." She averted her gaze, wanting to avoid the conversation of you being a potential victim.

"You won't hurt me." You repositioned yourself and tilted your head to the side, completely opening your neck to her. "I know you won't."

Alcina deeply exhaled, knowing she was dying to have a taste of you, but having a fear of taking it too far to the point where it was lethal. After all, she had a special liking towards you, and wouldn't forgive herself if something bad happened to you because of her being reckless.

"I can't—"

"It's okay." You took her larger hand in yours, interlacing your fingers with her long ones, and giving her hand a gentle squeeze, hoping to reassure her. "I trust you, Alcina. Let me help."

"Fine. . . But just this once." Alcina sighed, hesitating to move. She licked her stained red lips before slowly leaning her head towards you.

You felt her hot breath along your neck, and her hovering just over your skin.

"I trust you." You repeat yourself for her to encourage her to continue.

Her hand reaches for your jaw, holding your head still as she quickly takes in your scent with a deep inhale.

"You smell divine. . ." She admitted, her nose immediately sensing the fading of your perfume with the lovely smell of sex.

Once she found the right spot, Alcina was careful when sinking her fangs into your flesh. You grew silent as you did your best to remain still, sucking in a breath at the sharp sting along your skin. Her thumb stroked your cheek to help keep you calm and at ease.

The pain was mild, and was quick for you to get used to. Alcina hummed when she finally got a deeper taste of you, knowing that you were the sweetest thing she had ever had. Her eyes closed as she got her fix of what she needed most.

After a few minutes, your vision started to grow a tad blurry, and you instantly felt relieved when Alcina slowly took her fangs out of you as carefully as she could. She used her tongue to soothe the faintly reddened area, completely cleaning your neck of any blood.

"Thank you. . ." She licked her lips with a grateful smile and her cheeks slightly flushed.

"You're welcome." You smiled back.

"Let's get you cleaned up, darling." Alcina offered, gently lifting you from her lap and setting you back down on the bed beside her.

She left you alone for a minute as she grabbed a wet rag along with some supplies to take care of your wound. The two of you sat in silence as you used the rag to clean yourself off while Alcina tended to your neck, cleaning the area completely and placing a bandage on top. She gave your neck a small kiss before returning everything to the bathroom.

Once she came back out, Alcina noticed the tired look on your face, and smiled weakly.

"You must be exhausted, why don't you sleep in here tonight?" She offered, making her way back towards the bed.

"Where would I sleep?"

"With me of course." Alcina chuckles as she makes her way to her side of the bed, and takes her thong off before sliding under the lush sheets behind you. "Come on, lay with me." She lifted the sheets next to her, making room for you to slide in at her side.

The two of you faced each other, gazing into each other's eyes silently before Alcina broke the silence.

"Don't be shy dear, come closer." Alcina opened her arms for you.

You didn't hesitate to scoot closer towards her with a small smile, tucking your face into her neck and intertwining your legs with hers. You yawned just as Alcina wrapped an arm around you, pulling you flush against her warm body.

Sleep instantly took over you, exhaustion hitting you like a stack of bricks and you soon found yourself falling asleep in Alcina's arms as she gently traced patterns along your bare back.

She let herself enjoy the peaceful moment, waiting for you to be completely asleep before she allowed herself to fall into a deep slumber with you tucked safely in her arms.

[vidavalor]

So I'm on a bit of a roll from just having finished some writing (probably post in the next day or two), so have some random thoughts!

Legit can't remember whether or not your linguistic analysis of Bildad the Shuhite touched on 'cobbler' as Cockney rhyming slang for either testicles (as in 'kick in the...') or nonsense (as in 'load of old cobblers') -- the latter meaning especially feels kind of appropriate!

What kind of 'madeleine memories' might an amnesiac Aziraphale get from a roast beef sandwich???

Do you think actual madeleines are likely to appear on screen in some capacity in S3?

Tiramisu has coffee, chocolate and alcohol, and thus feels like a VERY Ineffable-Husbands-speak dessert :D

Was poking around the Royal Albert Hall website for research purposes and found this: https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/tours-and-exhibitions/afternoon-tea/ Not quite as hyper-fancy as the Ritz, perhaps, but lots of little bits of Ineffable-speak meaningfulness in the food as well as being potentially a lovely little engagement celebration date???

Ehehehe

Hi, luv. Looking forward to reading your new writing! So many goodies to ponder here! 😍I actually have some madeleines today. And good coffee. It's raining here and ah, this is all a heavenly combination. 😊 Throwing this under a cut because your mention of tiramisu led me to write about two, related words in Ineffable Husbands Speak that I've noticed repeated: might and found...

We'll do the sea ties to insinuate while we're at it... 🐟

1- Cobbler: I need to do a whole thing on cobbler actually and will add & credit the findings you shared to you. I mainly just wanted to quickly make a post about how cobbler connects to sherry but there's actually a whole web of overlapping words they're using. It also ties to the root kob-- which quite literally means "good omens." 😊 I'll put a longer post on cobbler on the list.

2- Roast beef sandwich madeleine memories?:

*Bildad voice* You tell me... 😉

3- Madeleines on screen in S3?: I'm not expecting it but it would be fun. Would actually also go with the theme of the literal-and-the-figurative, especially with the food, so I guess it might actually be more likely than some other things. I mainly just want Aziraphale to eat something because he had a sherry and a couple of sips of tea in the present in S2 and that's why everything went sideways, really. That angel needs a sandwich in the worst way and in both ways that you can read that sentence.

4- Tiramisu: Yes. It actually also has one of my favorite meanings for any food, as it means a "pick-me-up" in Italian, which is very cute, no? It is very Ineffable Husbands-y for the reasons you mentioned and now you've got me going on about a word that we haven't heard them say lol but I can connect it to two words that they have said, so...

Tiramisu (originally from "tireme su") is thought to have been invented by the owner of a brothel in Treviso sometime around 1800. This innovative Mrs. Sandwich would offer it to clients as an aphrodisiac or as an after-treat and it was basically considered the Viagra of the 1800s in Italy. Coffee, alcohol, chocolate, as you pointed out... food + seamstressing = no way this isn't an Ineffable Husbands Speak thing.

It is perishable, as we know, and it was invented in a time before mainstream refrigeration so it originally wasn't as available outside of bigger cities, which is why it was often offered at the end of a client session as well, before the clients were sent home-- yeah, medicinal tiramisu was a thing. 😲 The actual origins of the dessert apparently weren't really discussed publicly until sometime around the 1980s as, once it became easier to keep things chilled, generations of Italian ladies were making tiramisu constantly and it got a bit awkward to acknowledge that all these adorable old nonnas for generations were passing down how to make this sexy dessert that was created in the first place by a lady bordello owner for, um, reasons...

But tiramisu would, by The Ineffable Husbands' wordplay rules, mix the origins and meanings of the word with its phonetic soundings in English and, as we've seen, French... so, it would also be spoken as: "tier a me sous."

A tier is an arrangement of things in an order and, also, in keeping with our amusing seamstressing origins of the dessert, rows of overlapping trim on a dress. Sous (the last s is silent) means under and/or below in French. In that way, expressing a desire for some tiramisu is expressing a desire for a tier in which you are sous your partner.

[Sidebar but this is reminding me that the sous vide style of cooking translates literally from French as "under/below the vacuum" and... I feel like Crowley does not have the willpower to have never not connected this to Mr. Brown of Brown's World of Carpets in some way 😂... *doesn't look up from his book* "Oh, the Whickber Street Monthly Whatzit's getting takeaway? Gonna get the sous vide chicken this time, angel?"]

Tiramisu means a "pick me up"-- a mood-booster-- but "pick me up" is also obviously both tongue-in-cheek expression of wanting to be seduced and a request to be quite literally picked up, as in lifted off the floor... which is how you know that tiramisu is likely a dessert that Crowley thinks is the tops.

Since we're taking apart a word not in the series, I'll give you two others that tie to it that on their little vocab list: might and found.

There are at least two scenes that I've noticed so far where one of them is using the word might as innuendo in reference to Aziraphale. Might falls into the category of words like wily, thwart, smitten, etc..-- words that are amusing in how they have wildly different, often contradicting, definitions, and where at least one definition is a bit suggestive, allowing them to use it around angels or demons or in public with one definition on the surface and the flirtier one underneath.

On the one hand, might is the past tense of may and involves gentle suggestions or polite requests asking permission. On the other hand, the word might also has a real oomph when used in its other definition, which is to express the strength and power of a nation, a natural force, or a person.

It's basically Aziraphale in a word-- unfailingly polite and gentle on one level and full of raw strength on another.

The other word is found, which can be, uh, found lol, in the Crowley-penned Aziraphale entry in 'Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings...'. The sentence is actually constructed around the inclusion of 'found' and what makes that extra-amusing is that it suggests Crowley was eager to get the word in there, likely because of its nautical definition.

In seafaring terms, for a ship to be described as found is a very positive thing and, to be defined as such, it must meet both of two requirements:

The ship must be both well-equipped (*cough*) and, equally important, fully stocked.

A person who is stocked or stocky is, as we know, one who is broader, more shoulders and chest than height, and of a fuller and thicker build in thighs and arms. Someone like Aziraphale, who is physically strong and brawny and who would not have much difficulty picking up what would be being thrown down if Crowley were to order a tiramisu for dessert, if ya get mah drift...

Insinuate: To subtly introduce slowly into hearts and minds; to maneuver someone or something into a desired position; to thrust in, push in, or wind one's way into; to introduce with torturous slowness; and, of course, the best one: to hint at obliquely (ha!)

The sinu part of the word comes from sinus, a word that I've *achoo* been cursing all damn week because the gorgeous trees and plants are trying to kill me but which is Latin for all sorts of things a lot more pleasant than 'the part of the head that is often pounding during Spring.'

English-language writers of the dreamy sort-- the poets who call rainstorms "tempests", like a certain red-headed demon we know-- would also use sinus back in the day to describe a gulf, a bay, or "the arm of the sea", as well as any hole or cavity in the Earth.

Insinuate = In sinu ate. In the sea, eating. 😂

Why ever [eve/"temptation"/"sin"] would [wood] Aziraphale insinuate that Crowley might [mmm strong] possibly [which shares roots with potent] want [to want; also contains ant, the humans in the insect analogy] something [so/sew, me, thin; opposite of might]? = the actual dessert isn't invented yet in this scene in 1601 but seems like Crowley wants to get tiramisu'd something fierce...

5- Royal Albert Hall: Love this idea. It reminds me of how The British Museum also has an afternoon tea but how they've met in the cafe and how they've probably both wanted to get tea there. While I was on the Royal Albert Hall website, I was laughing over the copy on the menu for the box service, especially the *very* rare modern use of rhubarb in this way:

Choose from a wide range of canapés, sandwiches and sharing plates, finishing your meal with sweet treats. All food is prepared with the finest seasonal ingredients and is always presented with signature rhubarb style.

Aziraphale, back away from the copywriters... 😂

Cheers as always for the amusing stuff to think about @jotun-philosopher 💕

Original posts regarding fish, madeleines and memory, for anyone who might read this and is confuzzled and wondering wtf we're on about:

[trivialbob]

During our vacation Sheila hired a guide to take us to really local places to try some food and drink. Ours was a walking tour. Golf cart and bike tours are available too. Next year I want to try the bike version.

We started the evening taking a taxi from our place at the north end of Isla Mujeres to the La Gloria neighborhood. We met up with our guide, Jose.

(much more after the cut)

First stop: Dessert! Jose explained that people were getting too full by the end of the tours and skipping dessert. So now he likes to start with that. I don't like sweets and desserts a lot, so this was definitely the way for me to eat some -- on an empty stomach.

We entered a small courtyard in front of a home. There was a stove and griddle and one four-top table under a tin roof. Our hosts served us flan. It was excellent. This is probably the first time I've finished any dessert in years.

Second stop: This was at a food cart parked in the street. A handwritten sign said "Hay Tamales," which I think means "Here are tamales."

We were served elote, a Mexican street corn salad. The portion was decent-sized and the elote was like comfort food. Had Sheila or I made this at home, it would be the sort of thing I would have left on the stove so I could snack on it all night long.

Had there not been five local people waiting in line, I probably would have broken open the foam cup to lick the bottom after I'd spooned out everything else.

Third stop: Panaderia Emmanuel Bakery. Jose explained that Mexican bakeries are open in the evening, unlike the American ones that open early in the morning. We had our choice of various fresh buns, donuts, and pastries. Sheila and I each selected an item. They were tasty and large. Thank goodness we were able to take home what we couldn't eat. Had we finished the bakery items, we would have been too full to go to the next four stops. (Here is the bakery in a Google Maps picture.)

Fourth stop: This was at a small, outdoor kitchen under a canvas roof. Two women were cooking food. We were served pork carnitas on a fresh bakery roll. I really liked this place. The sandwich was huge, and for real I started to wonder if I could keep eating at the remaining sites. I brought home half of the carnitas that night.

Fifth stop: We entered a small, private bar. It was beautiful inside; my phone just didn't capture a decent shot of it. The pandemic killed business here. The place now is open only for small, special events.

We were here for a mezcal tasting. First we sipped Fandango, accompanied by lime and salt. I loved it. Next we sampled some house mezcal, infused with honey, vanilla, and cinnamon. Here's where things get more interesting. We drank this one with some pinches of a mixture of black pepper, salt, and crickets.

Some might think eating crickets would require a healthy dose of mezcal first. But our drink portions weren't of a size that could make me abandon all caution and agree to something like bungee jumping or swimming with great white sharks. Sheila and I didn't hesitate to try the black, powdery mix.

I would have been fine ending the tour right here, assuming I could keep drinking mezcal with the sides, including the non-vegan one.

Sixth stop: This was at a small, yet traditional bar and restaurant named Chile & maíz. The night we did our tour was the start of Carnival. Many people had gone to the north end of the island for the celebration, leaving this restaurant empty for the evening.

The cook prepared for us chicken tinga sopes. Could the food keep getting better that night? So far, yes. The chicken stew on a fried tortilla was delicious. And filling. Sheila and I got a to-go box for some of it.

Apparently Chile & maíz is fairly new. I checked Google Maps to get a daylight picture (below). The logs that will eventually support a sloped roof are visible, but nothing else indicating a restaurant is being constructed. What we saw last night was very well done.

Seventh stop: Jose brought us to Daria's Delivery. The chef is staring up a new business. So far it is a kitchen on the second floor of a building. There is a commercial cook top, a table with four chairs, and one green bird in a birdcage. As we entered, the chef's adorable young daughter (maybe 4-years-old) came out from the living quarters right behind the table and greeted us with a big smile.

Our final dish of the night was chile relleno which is one of my favorite Mexican foods. Daria's didn't let me down. Very tasty.

During the tour we got to know more about Jose, his restaurant experiences, and his family. At the end he walked with us for a bit. He explained how the food tour supports the local cooks.

The tour was really fun because there's no way at all Sheila and I would have found all these small places on our own. It's not like they all had neon signs.

We ended up quite full. Walking around the La Gloria neighborhood helped burn off a few of those calories. I'm sure I'll return to Isla at some time, and this will be on my to-do list.

[vdlest]

For A Lifetime

Characters:

Husband!Bucky Barnes x Wife!Reader

Groom!Bucky Barnes x Bride!Reader

Summary:

You just got married to the man you love, and on the reception, you are asked to give a message to your husband.

Warning:

Fluff

You still can't believe that it's your wedding day, that you are finally married to the love of your life, that you are finally Mrs. Barnes. You find it so surreal and hard to believe that the man you are holding hands with right now is your husband and the man you'll grow old with.

Bucky has been your boyfriend for five years, you two owe your love story to Steve because it was him who introduced you to Bucky. Since then, you two were inseparable, until Bucky finally asked you to be his girl, and you gladly said yes. You two shared a beautiful relationship, traveled to a lot of places already, fought some issues and odds together, and five years later, he popped another question for you, the kind of question that changed your life forever. He asked you to marry him, and you did say yes, and after a few months of planning, here you are, finally Mrs. Barnes.

Realizing the years you and Bucky have been through, you tilt your head and glance at your husband who is sitting beside you. You and the rest of your guests are in the reception and the dinner is being served at the moment, but you are already full of love.

"So my Mrs. Barnes," Bucky glances at you and squeezes your hand that he's holding since the ceremony, "Do you want me to dismiss our guests so we could finally have time for ourselves?" he asked naughtily.

You chuckled and pinched his nose, "Let's not be rude, love. We have every time in the world to do whatever we want," you replied, giving his hand a squeeze, "For now, let's enjoy this night with our family and friends," you added.

Planning a wedding is one of the most stressful things you've done, but it was a good thing that many people helped you and Bucky all throughout the planning. Nat and Wanda helped you in finding the right wedding gown for this once in a lifetime milestone in your life, on the other hand, it was Steve and Sam who helped Bucky to find the best suit he could wear for this special day, and they did a great job, seeing your husband so dapper in his suit tonight.

Gathering all your family and close friends is kind of tough, but with the help of Nat and the rest of the team, everything you dreamed of about your wedding was made possible.

You and Bucky were still munching over the dessert when the microphone echoes right through the whole hall, which made you looked over the stage and you saw Steve standing in the middle holding a wine glass.

"Hey, everyone! Can I have everyone's attention please?" he asked.

You and Bucky exchanged glances, both puzzled with Steve's presence in the middle of the stage.

"What's this punk doing there?" Bucky whispered.

You shrugged, "I don't know. We'll see," you answered.

When Steve finally got everyone's attention, he cleared his throat and speaks again in the microphone, "I know it's not my place to start the message giving kind of thing, and I know Bucky is asking himself and his beautiful wife what am I doing here," he glances at you, which made you smile because of the thought that he called you Bucky's wife, "Well, to answer your question Buck, Nat asked me to start the message giving since I am the best man."

"It's not like I have any other choice, man," Bucky yelled, which made everyone laugh.

"Shut up, Buck. It's not your time to talk. Y/n, can you zip your husband's mouth, please?" Steve joked. He cleared his throat once again, "Anyway, Buck, I have no idea what to tell you right now. You're a great man and I don't need to tell you to be a faithful and a good husband to y/n because I know you will. I don't need to tell you to make her happy all the time because I know you will and you're already making her happy. I don't need to tell you the things that a husband does for his wife, because first, I have no idea how to be a husband, and second, I know you'll figure it out. And for you, y/n," Steve moved his eyes towards you, "I wish you had the best nights of sleep of your life because you won't be getting any now that you're married to this punk."

Everyone laughed again because of Steve's joke. You took a glance at Bucky who is still holding your hand to see his reaction to his best friend's joke, and he hurriedly wiped his mouth using his hand, trying to hide the embarrassment he felt because of Steve's joke.

Steve playfully shook his head, "I think I might have an idea on what gift I should give Y/N on Christmas," he clicked his tongue, "I think I'm gonna get her bunch of Tylenol for her headaches," he joked, making everyone laugh again.

"'Gonna kill this man later," your husband murmured as he pulls you closer to him.

Bucky let go of your hand and wrapped his arms around you, you leaned towards him, feeling his warmth as you both listen to Steve's speech.

"Kidding aside, Y/N, you are married to a good man. Ever since he met you, there's not a day that he doesn't think of what will make you happy, of what will make you feel his admiration and love for you. When you two met, I saw something different in him. He learned how to trust people, even more, he learned to open up, not just to you but to everyone else. So Buck, y/n," he raised his wine glass, "I wish the two of you years of endless love and fruitful marriage. I may not be a husband to anyone, but I promise the two of you that I will be a good uncle to your little ones soon, not just that, I promise you two that I'll be here whenever you two needed a friend. I love you both! Let's cheers to Mr. & Mrs. Barnes, everyone!"

"Cheers!" everyone shouted.

"Cheers!" you and Bucky joined and after you two took a sip from your glasses, the two of you shared a quick kiss.

When Steve walked down the stage, he walked towards you and Bucky. It was you who he approached first and hugged you.

"Thank you, Steve," you thanked him as you hug him back, "Your presence means a lot to us. We love you too," you whispered.

Steve taps your back gently before he pulled away and hugs his pal next.

Seeing Bucky and Steve hug each other made you smile. You did not witness how their friendship started, but you have a lifetime to witness how their friendship will grow even more.

"Love you, Buck," Steve said as he hugs his best friend.

Bucky taps Steve's back, "Love you, brother," he answered.

Before Steve went back to his seat, he handed you the microphone, signaling that it's now your turn to give a message to your husband.

You happily accepted it and find your way to the stage.

"That's one of a good speech, Cap," you said looking at Steve who is now seated in the middle of Sam and Nat. You next took a glance one by one of your guests as you start your speech, "First things first, thanks to everyone for coming here tonight and for taking your time to celebrate this milestone with me and my husband," your eyes landed on Bucky, "God, I still can't believe you're my husband now."

Tears are starting to form in your eyes, and it's making your sight a bit blurry but it won't stop you from seeing the priceless smile on Bucky's face.

"Just like what my favorite song says, my soul found you and fell in love," you recited a part of your favorite song, For A Lifetime sung by Ryann Darling, "When Steve introduced you to me, I wasn't looking for anything, I was so tired of dating and ended up failing because I can't find the guy who would understand me. I promised myself I won't date anymore, but you happened," your eyes remained looking at Bucky as you continue your message for him, "It's like when we met, a voice came over to me and told me that I just found what I am looking and waiting for. I found it the moment we found each other. And I told myself, you are the most amazing man I've ever met in my entire life, apart from my Dad of course," you said glancing at your dad who is sitting behind Bucky.

When your eyes went back to Bucky, you saw him smile and looked down a bit.

He must've remembered the time when he met your Dad. He was nervous as hell. He didn't know what to tell him, so he just told him that he loves you with all of his heart and soul. He told him he can barely give you anything, but he would be 100% willing to give you his whole heart and love.

"Buck," you called him and his eyes met yours again, "Thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for bringing so much happiness to my life. Thank you. Just thank you," your tears finally run down your cheeks, "I love you."

As soon as those three words came out of your mouth, Bucky rapidly stood up from where he was sitting and went up to the stage with you. Once he was in front of you, he didn't waste any time, he kissed you.

"I love you more than life itself," he said after kissing you and gave you a quick kiss again. "Everyone," Bucky yelled and raised his wine glass, "Let's cheers for my beautiful wife. To Mrs. Barnes!" he cheered.

"To Mrs. Barnes!" everyone cheered.

You cupped Bucky's face and made him face you, "Love you," you said and rested your forehead against his nose.

Ryann Darling said on his song, my soul found you and fell in love, while for you, your soul found Bucky, fell in love, and stay in love forever.

-v.dl

[mrs-ben-kenobi]

Gifts

Day 10: Winter Market

Hera Syndulla x reader

Word Count: 1.1k

Note: This is a cute lil fluffy piece that takes place after ROTJ.

Strolling through the festive streets of Lothal, bustling with with activity in all the holiday excitement, you walked hand-in-hand with Hera at your side. Lined on either side of the street were rows and rows of colorful stalls full of all the food and apparel and home goods and everything else a person could ever want. The two of you waded through the murmuring crowds of shoppers, many of whom recognized you and Hera as part of the group of rebels that helped free their home--as well as the rest of the galaxy. Almost a decade of fighting back against the oppression of the Empire, and you had finally beat them. Lothal was just one among many worlds now allowed to rebuild, start anew, and flourish in the absence of Imperials. It actually felt weird not having any Stormtroopers to fight or hide from; not having any vital missions or something you had to blow up. You almost didn't know what to do with yourselves anymore. But that certainly wasn't a bad thing. And there were still stragglers here and there and a new republic to protect, so there was plenty to keep you busy. But there was also time for things like holidays and celebrations in your life now, too. Room for leisure and enjoyment every once in a while, and it felt good. And it felt even better to have someone you loved still by your side to experience it all with you. Even with all that was lost--so many friends and good people--you and Hera managed to find your own happiness within each other and the new life the two of you had made for yourselves.

"I've got to say, it's nice to see the people of Lothal thriving like this," Hera said to you. "Living free, without anymore fear..."

"Yeah, it is. I almost thought I'd never see the day when something like this would be possible again."

"That's what we fought for, and now we're finally seeing it come to pass."

"It feels good."

You continued to make your way through the jubilant market, delicious smells of savory foods and sweet, freshly-baked desserts wafting through the air. The citizens of Lothal had their lives and their jobs back, and everyone there was getting excited for Life Day. It was a Wookie tradition that had just recently been declared an intergalactic holiday in honor of the prevalence of goodness and the newfound freedom of the galaxy. And what better way to celebrate that than holding a huge, prolific trade market. So far, you had seen so many amazing things and spent way too many credits on it all. But you didn't mind giving back to the people of Lothal; they deserved it after what they had been through.

Just then, as you passed by a vendor selling jewelry, a beautiful silver necklace caught your eye. It would've looked amazing on Hera, you thought; the perfect gift to give her for Life Day. Neither of you were expecting anything from the other--that's not what Life Day was about. No, it was about celebrating life and love and family and appreciating what you had. And all you needed for that was each other. But that didn't mean you couldn't splurge and do something nice for her; give her something that she could keep close to her heart so that you would always be with her no matter what. You would, ironically, need to find a way to get away from her first though; an opportunity to sneak off and buy it for her without her seeing. What you needed was a distraction. She had stopped and was currently occupied looking at a collection of custom headdresses at a nearby stand. Perfect.

"I'm going to go get us some of that denta bean spicebrew we saw earlier," you told her. "Do you want to find us somewhere to sit after you're done here?"

"Yeah, sure," she said without a second thought before turning back to the objects of her focus.

You made your way back through the crowd and over to the stand with the displays of jewelry. The necklace still there waiting for you. You quickly made the purchase the hurried off to go get the spicebrews, hoping she wouldn't start wondering what was taking you so long.

~

After spending nearly half the day exploring the market, the two of you finally decided you'd about had your fill. You were looking at one of the last stalls, which was loaded with an assortment of scarves and hats and gloves for the winter when Hera got your attention.

"I think I'm going to go back and get some of that Corellian-imported oil for Chopper after all."

"Okay, I'll come with you."

"No." Then she added in response to your questioning look, "I was just going to be real quick. Why don't you keep looking around here. I'll be back in a few minutes."

You weren't sure if she was acting odd or not, but you just shrugged it off and went about your business.

~

You decided you couldn't wait for Life Day like you had originally planned to; you were eager to give Hera her necklace, so you would just go ahead and do it. That night, after you finished your dinner, you readied the little box in your hand, keeping it out of sight behind your back.

"I know it's not Life Day yet, but I have something for you," you announced when there was a break in conversation.

"I actually have something for you, too," Hera replied.

"Me first." You pulled out the box from behind you and set it in front of her. "It's just a little something that made me think of you," you said as she picked it up.

You watched in anticipation as she opened its cover. The genuine surprise was evident on her face as she pulled out the necklace. And then smiled and chuckled to herself.

"What's funny?"

Instead of answering, she just handed over the gift she had for you. Understanding fell over you immediately once you saw what it was: that same little box. And inside it, a necklace that was very similar to the one you'd picked out for her. You smiled, a laugh escaping you as well. That was why it took longer than you expected for her to return with the oil back at the market. Because she had been up to the same exact thing you were with the spicebrew.

"I saw you looking at them and thought I'd surprise you. Looks like we had the same idea," Hera said.

"I was looking at them thinking that that would look good on you," you explained, finding it funny.

"Well, I love it. Thank you."

She learned over the table to kiss you sweetly, making you beam.

"I love mine too."

You meant it. It was more to you than just a piece of jewelry; they were symbols of your love for one another, a way of telling each other that you would always be together. And that was all you really needed.

December Challenge Masterlist

[muffindaddystyles]

Hearth.

A/N: I dunno if I've got any desi/brown/poc readers but if you're reading this I love you so much and you (us) deserve the same validation and representation others get.

Here's a blurb as to what it feels like celebrating Eid with Harry! Enjoy!

Warning: none — just loads of fluff.

More Inspos, Masterlist, Let's Talk

The night's pretty with murky clouds and thick layer of moon's brightness as Y/N cleans her flat, from scrubbing her Persian rugs to deep cleansing her vases back from her homeland. The flame evaporating from her candles scented like springs of Kashmir, flickers from her blowing sheer curtains due to the zephyr flurring outside.

She feels content, at peace waiting for Harry who promised that he'll be at her place by 11. He always comes an hour early helping her in setting the table before the iftari, they've been doing it together since the start of ramdan until today when he texted her he's busy along with a sad smiley.

It was fun. He fasted with her once or twice and would make sure she's hydrated enough once they break it, his love for rooh-afzah (it's a drink red in color made from essence of roses and some sweet herbs) will never fail to make her giggle as he'd demand for more after gulping two glasses already.

Then showing her his tummy along with his food pregnant jokes.

Her classes are online so it gave her time to experiment some cooking. They'd make samosas together and she always had an urge to hold back her cooes as his tongue used to poke out in concentration everytime his diligent fingers folded the samosa sheets skillfully.

"Did a pretty go'job here, innit?" He'd grin raising it like a summat trophy.

The moment he used to leave her flat (ofcourse after giving a tight hug before doing so) they both missed eachother terribly, y/n doesn't like the way her home falls into an abyss without his presence.

He's like a sunshine that warms her insides up.

The whistle of kettle and several raps of knocks on her door drags her from her fond memories of them together, she slings her feet down from the coffee table rushing to open it.

"Angel."

Harry says breathlessly prolly because he climbed three flight of stairs to get to her or that he's utterly flustered.

Her eyes remain struck at the thingies piled in his arms, a box of chocolates, many brown bags and stems of freshly blood ripped roses tucked between his knuckles.

He bought all of these gifts for her.

To make her feel like home.

To be her home.

What the fuck, nobody has ever done that for her —-- she just mighty cry.

Her mouths gupples like a fish too overwhelmed to react her emotions out and he gives her a sweet smile kicking the door shut with his feet -- gestures her to wait when she almost jumps like a cub to hug him and puts everything on the sofa knowing the things inside them's too delicate.

"C'mere, baby." He grins and she doesn't waste a moment falling in his embrace. Her cheeks smashes against his taught chest and she fists the hem of his shirt smiling too hard for her own sake as he sways them with his own rosy cheek squished against her temple.

"I love you so much, thank you." She murmurs gazing up at him with glinting eyes -- arms still lopped around his waist and his chin doubles adorably as he gives her his signature bunny grin kissing the tip of her nose, "Love you too bubba ... don't want ya homesick, at alllll."

The aggressive whistle of kettle parts them away, "Cuppa cha? Then we'll unwrap these pleasanteris." She points at the paper bags.

He nods flopping onto the floor cushions beside the large oak window of the balcony where they could bathe in moonlight.

"Thank you." He quips, kissing her fingertips while slipping his fingers under the handle of mug and takes it from her as she sits infront of him. He admires her for a second —- fawning over how she's looking so soft and cuddle-able wearing a baggy mauve kurta and some mismatched shalwar.

The tearing open of the stuffing tissue brings him back to focus --- this, he wanted to see this happiness dance over her features as she clutches the ethnic traditional dress he bought for her infront of her and when lifts it down he's met by overly excited eyes.

It's ethereal with golden details, handmade wire work and sheer fabric.

"It's gorgeous, pups." She squeezes his hand and he takes the sip of his cha smiling against the rim of the mug shyly, "Wasn't s' sure -- Sarah helped me in collecting stuff." Sarah's Y/N's bestfriend who was the only desi/brown in her filming class.

"No wonder she was being a lil sneak." Y/N chuckles already rummaging for what comes next.

He wanted to make sure he gets her everything they do traditionally in her culture and ate Sara's ears off to help him buy the most special thing and it's right there creating sweet noise when they touch eachother, dangling from her fingers.

"Churiyan .... " She whispers bitting down a smile. She loves glass bangles. Their colourfulness cheers her mood up and she'd always go with her Nani a night prior eid to select the most flamboyant pair of them from a bazar (market).

"This -— " She gestures to the gifts scattered around them, " —-- all of this and you, means alot to me." She sighs giving him a wet smile and he smoothes his thumb against her cheek like she's the most fragile thing to exist.

He watches her in a tad confusion when she stands up with a giggly squeal putting everything away and comes back with a tube of henna in her hand.

"It's chand raat t'night 'cos tommorrow is eid -- usually I spend it with Sarah and we apply henna to eachother, we're horrible at it honestly but now she isn't here 'm gonna bite yours ears —-" He cuts her off. Ushering her to sit back on her spot. He couldn't be more glad to spend all of his time with her whether it's just watching her make designs on her hand with henna.

"Your cha's waftin'." He shakes his head bringing it to her lips, "It's hot." She tells him drawing a circle on her palm and filling it with beautiful darkness of henna.

"Okie then ... " He blows at the hot beverage to cool it down and again brings it to her lips, "Now." He croons softly to her. She holds his wrist taking a sip from it -- he tucks the strand of her hair back and she smiles up at him making him chuckle when she takes a huge sigh as if her soul just woke up.

"What do we d'tommorrow?" He asks. Knowing most of the time they went to Zayn's house on Eids his mother used to fill the whole table with delicious dishes and the whole day was spent having fun.

"We do nothing but have loads of nice time -- I already made a dessert 'cos I know I'll be too lazy in the mornin', and invited your friends if that's okay?" She glances up at him done with her left palm.

"Perfect then," He nods, "D'ya need help with the other one?" He asks grabbing her right hand and the tube of henna from her.

"Yes, please." She shows him her hand covered with with henna and since it's wet she could do one thing wait or let him do it. The second options sounds more good.

"Not on me if it gets messed up." He warns her nonchalantly following the same pattern of her left hand. Stealing glances of her attractive face every now and then, dotting her moles with his intense gaze, he just thinks her brown eyes look more intricate – it's specks as if the forests soil on the first rains when they dilate with her racing heartbeat.

They're like an open book to him and at the same time mysteriously dark that he feels like burning a match to melt in them.

"You did it way better than me," She snorts examining it closely and turns the other way round to lay down on the carpeted floor and rest her head in his lap. He wipes his own hands watching the dark henna leaving a swipe of color on his fingertips.

He pets her hair, dimples milking into his cheeks when she raises her both hands infront of him -- blocking the moonlight that's falling on her, "When I was small I always used to end up getting it on my face and lemme tell ya. Having a yellow blotch isn't even a tiny bit fascinating on the only day you could dress up fancy."

His chest rumbles with giggles and he brings her hands closer to her lips blowing raspberries at them to get them dry early.

Comfortable silence envelopes them in to the point where they could hear crickets singing outside and moonlight sparkling on their skin —- she breaks it cuddling up into his chest.

"I really appreciate this, Harry." Her voice hushed whisper and her cherry stained lips couldn't resist but to patch kisses where his heart lays and she could sense it kicking a pace, "The fact that you did so much just for me -- is beyond my thought. I really feel like home." He let her speak. Squeezing her shoulders to convey the fierceness of his emotions he holds for her. His silken lips pressed to her temple and his eyelids flutters with each spurt of breath she inhales.

"I'll keep making you feel like home, till the day you'll allow me." Today. He for actually felt that his home was never a building or the luxurious furniture adorned inside it, but her. It's always gonna be her.

Because the moment he gets lost in those eyes all he come across is their shared laughter, their moments spent on this balcony right outside sipping onto their chas and watching the city wake up infront of their eyes, going to places he has never been to before, doing things he never thought he'd do in hundered years —- he isn't a big fan of spices but he still pretends like a big boi infront of her while eating pani puri she's oh so obsessed with.

The times she was never embarrassed to introduce him to her community or her friends, and getting soaked into rains even though they could've just used his car, having days planned to make him try new desi dishes, going to buy candles of many scent and shapes with him but then never feeling like leaving the store until he warns her that he'll throw her on his shoulder infront of everyone.

Going to Turkish markets together. He's a bread lover and so all this time he doesn't feel like leaving the shops filled with different kiln and tandoori breads. Eating Simit and drinking black tea in the amardu cups sitting outside the cafe –- he likes it with cheese while she might sound bland she just likes a bit of butter.

Them deciding for hours and hours which Persian rug to buy -- but never buying it apologising to the shop keeper.

Giving eachother head massages from the organic rosemary Morrocon oil that one of her friend gifted her, (Y/N) thinks she's one hell of a masseuse but Harry thinks otherwise —- though he would never ever break her heart so it's better keeping it a secret.

His nose creates a purring sound while he sleeps leaning against the wall, he doesn't even remember when he fell into the deep slumber with his large hand still wrapped around her wrist in a protective manner to keep her from moving.

It's cute.

Though when she stirs to regain consciousness with the birds chirping outside she feels remorseful finding him sleeping in such an uncomfy position just because of her and he wakes up with a loud wheeze —- blinking rapidly to see what just happened only to visibly relax back when she shushes him gently.

"Baby .... shit." He grogs out, knuckling at his eyes pointing at her jaw which's covered into a orangish streak, "Don't tell me." She groans bumping her head against his bicep.

A moment later they burst into fits of hoarse giggles and chuckles. She'd try to suck in air to not to snort and would do it nonetheless driving them more into belly aching laughter.

"Eid Mubarak, I guess?" He cackles loudly. Dimple coveting in to his velvet of skin. Rubs the tip of his nose against her's affectionately and swoons her in his arms to hug her warmly.

"Now -— go 'n dress up, c'mon." He cups the nape of her neck playing with the baby hair there and she whines smushing her face against his chest, "No. Lemme sleep some more."

"Heyyy none of that, c'mon sleepy girl you'll regret it later." He boops her nose smiling down at her fondly and she grumbles mumbling something in between you're so annoying or you're being so much like my mum.

He waits for her laying on the sofa with his arms folded and eyes closed. Prolly took a mini version of nap only to perk his head up grabbing the back of sofa when she returns with wet hair, soft clean face and lips tinted cherry wearing the dress and bangles he bought for her.

An enchantress from head to toe, he wouldn't even complain if she bewitches him.

He needs someone to pinch his bum because he thinks his eyelids might have struck. He takes a dramatic breather mischievously, pupils dilated cutesly and heart shaped lips parted with the sweet loving words in praise of her beauty burning at the tip of his tongue.

His fawning gives her butterflies. Expanding her chest with warmth and she does a three-sixty when he spindles his nimble in the air demanding her to show herself from every angle.

Her head falls back. An echo of happy giggles resonating in the room when he smacks his hand against his chest and flops into heaps of sofa cushions.

"You're fuckin' beautiful, a total knockout." He walks towards her with his hands spread open and takes her's to kiss the inside of her palms, "So are you." Her voice small with shyness. He sits on her on sofa and stays beside her with his chin perched upon his knuckles staring at her like she hung the moon -- as if she's a prayer come true.

"Did you get me ready to d'nothing?" She turns towards him. The curled up fringes kissing the apples of her cheeks same as his fingertips are dying to do so.

"I might sound selfish but it was a trap to get you ready early so I could admire you till everyone squeeze between us ... " He smirks and she huffs sinking deeper into the sofa throwing her limbs in air and his breath hitches when her bangles clanks together producing a beautiful noise.

"Harry!!" She whines.

"Okie, time to fill some grumpy kitten's tummy." He announces standing up to head to kitchen and she shakes her head with a silly smile trailing behind him.

All she knows is that. This Eid she'll have the best time of her life, as she could already feel his energy and love radiating in every corner of her home.

.

@harryforvogue idk why but everytime I'd sit to write this blurb you'd pop in my mind, hope so you're not hiccuping wildly.

[monsoonblooms12]

Kjæreste (King Liam x f!MC)

Summary: They have a day all to themselves full of love and cute moments of togetherness🧡

Kjæreste: (Norwegian) Dearest, Beloved One; Term of endearment for one's romantic partner😍

A/N: This is the giveaway prize for my lovely @parkdoesthings who won a place in my followers and birthday celebration giveaway. Wren, I hope you like it and the way I used the prompts you gave me. Writing them for the first time made me nervous as well as happy. Really hoping that you like this🧡

Prompts used: @parkdoesthings gave me the prompts "I missed you, so much" kisses + dessert. In addition to these, I have used Prompt 3, 14 and 16 from this prompt list by @creativepromptsforwriting. Feel free to send in more requests, I am always accepting!🧡

If you enjoyed the story, please like it, leave a comment or reblog. Your feedback keeps me going🤎

Pairing: King Liam Rys X f!MC (Odette Dawson)

Word Count: around 2K

Rating: General

Category: Fluff

Triggers: A few curse words (Just 1 or 2)

OTHER WORKS

The golden hues filtered through the strains of the satin drapes, filling the place like the aroma of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. The birds taunted each other playfully, all lost in their plays. A few of them beckoned her to join them.

She certainly would have, if she had those mystic spells, radiating sparkles on clicking her fingers, turning into an appealing blue jay, adorning herself in the summery blues and whites, just like the sky right now.

She had been lying awake for quite some time now, sleep being a long-lost pal. The silk of her covers ran like water under her fingers, and if it were someone who had not been accustomed to it, the sensation would have been enough to cradle them into a deep siesta.

Finally, she pushed herself to get up. The gentle sloshing of water around her as she gently placed down herself into the dreamy tints of the bathroom soothed her senses. Closing her eyes, she felt as if she was in a pond amidst a forest, all alone enjoying the tranquillity, as the woody scents dazzled her senses and the solitary rose petals caressed her skin.

It was unwinding and comforting, not to live by a schedule, blabbering all day around with stupid dignitaries or argue about some variety of apples.

Ugh, Apples! 

The only downside of marrying the king of Cordonia that she could think of. She could go on about her list of grievances she had with apples, but right now, if she thought about them for a second more, she would throw up.

And when in Loire Valley, never think of those gross little piece of mischief, she made it her motto.

Especially when they make you vomit.

The soft pink fabric fluttered in the merry breeze, the net covering her hands, making her look as elegant as the chandelier that now adorned her majestic room, every thread glowing like diamonds on a bracelet.

She gives a twirl, she wants to feel the fluffiness of the holiday, but yet she couldn't.

Not when there is someone she has been waiting for, eagerly, unabatingly.

Now and then, she would pick her cream-coloured cellular, glide to the balcony, leaning down to make out the appearance of a car, her chestnut brown locks dancing joyfully.

A shrill cajoled her out of her reverie, and her heart leapt to a beat of joy.

The soft music playing in the room seemed even more melodious to her as her feet lead her to the doorway with a swift dance-like motion.

She opened the door, the dazzling smile brightening up her face like a 100-watt bulb.

Only to find the waiter standing there with her breakfast.

Her face fell as if it was not a royal buffet, but trays full of apples in front of her.

And when the waiter blushed thinking that he was the reason for her joy, her anger built up like the pressure in a pressure cooker.

She knew a stream of rudeness would escape if she opened her mouth, hence she sealed her lips, put on the exercised smile and stepped aside for him to enter.

Breakfast was other-worldly. She had quite forgotten the sheer deliciousness a classic French breakfast carried in itself.

Her mouth was an adobe of butter, chocolate and coffee, and all her objections vanished with a bite of that melt-in-mouth croissant.

The weather showed a solemn change as the white were replaces by greys and the golden slowly muted down.

She didn't really love rains, any season for that matter, but she could deal with everything. She decided to go down for a stroll, deciding that she had little to do in this room all by herself.

The softness of the Earth under her shoes, the multitude of colours in front of her soft brown eyes, the splendid fragrances filling her nostrils, the melody of nature playing in a loop in her ears and the sweetness of the solitude making her heart flutter.

All her senses were enamoured as she twirled around the gigantic flower garden.

A golden yellow butterfly greeted her by landing on one of her fingers, wanting to hold her finger and take her on a tour around her adobe.

Both of them silently exchanged a few words, and Odette happily agreed to get enamoured by the fluttery beauties and silky petals.

But she hadn't taken a step when two palms softly covered her eyes. She was startled but knew better than to scream. Her heart told her that it was someone she knew and not someone who would try to harm her.

As if someone would even be able to get past the heavy security

Her ringed hand gently reached for the hands which were still placed on her eyes. She felt them, a metallic feel of a ring, gave her a serotonin boost. Her heart danced and the smile that was waiting for its chance finally spread on her face, making her look like a goddess.

With a gentleness equal to the one when they were placed, Odette removed the hands, didn't even bother to open her eyes and kissed the person behind her with so much love that one would have melted into golden honey by its power.

But he didn't.

Their love wasn't cancelling out each other, it was multiplying to become so powerful that it would engulf them forever.

Placing the foreheads together, Odette finally opens her orbs, which shone like brilliant diamonds, to look up at the person whose arrival she awaited. The blush that spreads on both of their faces is automatic.

He twirls the stray lock that adorned her beauty around his finger, his hand, the ringed one, tightly wrapped around her silk regalia.

"I missed you so much! You know how impatient I am, and yet, you made me wait." Odette whines lovingly, the smile never leaving even through her complaint.

"I am sorry, Ette! There was an emergency apple-themed event-"

Odette's eyes narrowed, and an unamused pout took the place of the preceding grin.

"Can we please skip the apple talks, please? I did not come here to escape about those vomit-inducing pieces of shit."

All the while, Liam chuckled, always amused by the thought that out of everyone, he fell in love with that gorgeous lady who hated apples.

"Soo... Now that you are finally here, what are we supposed to do? Just stand here staring at each other?"

"I mean, that wouldn't be bad either."

"C'mon, Li! I didn't travel all the way to here to stand and stare at you. I already do that, every time, at Cordonia." Even though she had spoken it matter-of-factly, it made him blush and grin.

Even more because he had been doing the same, every moment she had been with him, right from the day he met her.

But he had always been a hopeless romantic, she had not.

Whenever Odette told him that he was the one who had made her realize that love and soulmates actually exist, his heart would start running a marathon in his chest. He still couldn't comprehend how someone like him had ended up getting someone like her as his queen.

Every poem, every romantic song, pales in front of the hues of their love, and since words were not enough to express it, he made sure to show it to her, every day, every time, every moment of his life.

"We will do whatever you want to do! This vacation is all about you, after all." He said as she linked her arms into his, but not before she made a wordless promise to the butterfly that she would come back and go on the tour.

As Liam led them towards the car, Odette pulled him back.

"Not the car, Mr Rys. Loire valley has enigmatic forests, and if we are not doing a forest trail, we will seriously miss out on the greatest beauty, the beauty of nature."

And he was in awe, again.

This is the side of Odette that makes her the queen he wanted by his side. How much respect and appreciation she has for everything, especially nature. He happily gave in to her demand.

The soft crunch of some dried leaves and the earthy scents enveloped the area. It wasn't secluded, now and then, the excited chirps and melodious tweets of the feathered beings spread through the air.

Odette's eyes joyfully travelled all around her, the multitude of chrome spreading a happy surprise through her heart.

"My Queen"

She looked up at him, their browns dissolving into each other.

"You know what these hues remind me of?"

"What?" She asked in a silent whisper.

"You."

"Your colours. The multi-chrome of your attributes, and the elegance they add to your persona. They make you charismatic"

"Liam, Yours is the only colour I want to get painted in."

Their lips meet like muscle memory, without any initiation. It was a reflex registered in the record book of their cerebrum.

Their thoughts entangled, arm around each other, the trail ended before they realized. They were now standing in front of the eight o'clock café.

"It isn't eight o'clock yet, but there is something special I've got arranged in here for you." Odette winked, pulling him in.

A few silent whispers later, Odette took Liam to the secluded first floor of the café, only for him to get the surprise.

The arrangement was a large table with his favourite board games, Carcassonne and Scrabble, neatly arranged on it. If he had been a kid, he would have screamed up and down, and circle danced with her.

No one had ever done something like this for him, and he doubted someone ever would.

Well, except her.

The next hours were filled with mindless laughs, funny fights, fake waves of anger and joyful screams.

The voids between those were filled with delicious coffee and melt-in-mouth gelato that had been specially arranged, again by Ette.

She had ordered flavours he had not heard of, and with the constant consumption, he had become a fan of the chocolate fondente flavoured one.

Utterly tired of the endless rounds of gameplay, they finally took their leave while thanking the people their generously for bearing their shenanigans.

Who would have guessed that board games would be so much fun even after years of not playing?

Not them, definitely.

"Just one more spot, and then we will go back, I promise." Odette winked, again.

He doubted if he would ever be able to refuse to her enigma even if he wanted to. One look and he would do anything to make her smile the way he likes.

The surprise that emerged in front of him posed such a stark contrast to the one before that for a moment he felt like he had got a tour of the polar opposites.

His eyes travelled up to the dazzling Ferris Wheel, standing majestically up before them.

"Just executing my idea of experiencing opposites in a day, that's it."

He wanted to kiss her as his life depended on it. But before he could get hold of her, she was already rushing towards the ticket counter, and he followed.

It was the last ticket, and gladly, they had managed to get it. They rushed to enter their cabin, hand in hand, adsorbing the cheerful air around.

The view that met their eyes was heavenly, like a piece of God's adobe fixed neatly amidst the man's land. Their eyes shifted once outside, and the next minute they found themselves staring at each other, eyes sparkling like stars of the endless sky.

She was his flower moon, the happiness and love she brings to his life matching with the fertility and flowers May brings with itself, which is what the Flower Moon symbolizes.

She shines differently from everyone, a unique sight for anyone who lays their eyes upon her, dazzling brilliantly.

The brilliance that pales every obstacle, every pain with the power of her love, she was destined to stay with him forever.

The wordless promise he made holding her hand, that he would fight with the worst if it was to keep her in his heart's labyrinth.

She was the one who made his heart beat, after all.

PS: Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a great day ahead! Love, Manamee🧡.

Tags (Please let me know if you want to be added or removed or if I forgot you):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @jessiembruno

Liam x Odette: @anotherbeingsworld @ao719 @hopelessromanticmonie @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002

[mementofloreo-archived]

@sorrowmarked || the PINING...|| some early hs yearning for u(cut for length)

When Kaori asks him out, word gets around fast.

Daisuke thinks a big part of the ruckus that follows is because he shot her down. She's super popular after all, and apparently there were rumors about her being hung up on some underclassman from her middle school even last year(though he was shocked to find out it was him...)

...Still. She's pretty, and she's nice, and she's got a knack for baking that he can't help but be jealous of. But at the end of the day, she's nothing but a friend to him. He's never been remotely attracted to her romantically.

She took his answer gracefully, of course. She's a nice girl when all's said and done, and she just wanted to clear the air, she said, get some closure so she could start moving on. Daisuke can respect that.

Still, a "nobody" first year being confessed to by a "mega-hot" second year and rejecting her without a second thought? He would have ended up drawing more eyes after this regardless, but circumstances considered he's been feeling like he's attained some kind of celebrity status.

Guys ask him if he's out of his mind and he just groans, rolls his eyes. Then some people ask if he's gay and he waves it off. I'm bi, he tells them, but my sexuality wasn't the issue. I'm just not into her like that.

And he feels like he's starting to hear whispers about him. Gaggles of girls(or boys) here and there, talking about him. He doesn't catch a lot of it- he tries not to, actually- but, well, it kind of leaves him feeling fidgety and flustered, some of the things he does hear.

You know, when you actually look at him he's pretty hot.

And wasn't he in the cooking club with her? Kinda gives him a sexy flair doesn't it...?

I've seen him on the soccer field before and he's actually got a great-

The teacher snaps her book shut as the lunch bell rings and things get noisy as people start to move around. Daisuke's busying himself pulling out his box lunch, thinking about if he wants to get some dessert from the cafeteria along with his drink- and finds himself waylaid by several students(mostly girls) from the class next door.

They ask where he got the lunch, and he looks down at it awkwardly, blinking for a moment.

"Uh...I mean, I made it." He says dumbly, "I do all the cooking at my place."

He takes a half step back as they chatter about how cool that is, and how popular he must be with his family, and- and god, wow, these kids really don't have a clue about his home situation so he wishes they wouldn't be getting so hyped.

"It's just me and mami," he cuts in, "Er, my mom, I mean. My sister's already a working adult-" he leaves out that she's a pro soccer player, "-and uh, my dad..."

Still has several years left on his prison sentence, but fuck that guy anyway.

"...Uh, he and my mom split when I was 13."

Another couple of minutes pass while he finds himself all but interrogated, but he quickly notices something aside of the strangers.

Hikari.

She's sitting on her desk, the front corner one by the door. Takeru's nowhere to be found and neither are Mina or Wataru, so they've probably gone to eat already and she's just waiting on him.

But she's been looking at him a lot lately, it feels like. Not that she was ignoring him before, but...

Well, he doesn't know what it is, but it's a different look. Like she's wrestling with something, or focused, or concerned, or...well, regardless, something's on her mind. But he doesn't want to pry.

Takeru made a joke a couple of days ago though, about her "really not being too wild" about Daisuke's newly acquired "heartthrob" status. Daisuke deadpanned simply that The hell do you mean heartthrob? My looks aren't even that memorable, dude.

There's still that little bit of him that wants to dream maybe she's jealous, maybe she's starting to feel something, maybe, maybe, maybe-

He's gotten used to stomping that little flicker out as soon as it starts, though. He can't stop himself from being crazy about her(he's tried, he's tried so hard) but he can stop himself from alienating her by being a moron about it.

...Still, even though there's no way any of it is because of a crush or something like that...he does think that it might be hard for Hikari, adjusting to having to share her oldest friend with so many more people so suddenly. He remembers exactly how that felt in elementary school for him, after all. So yeah, maybe she's feeling a bit lonely. That much is realistic.

"Hey," He cuts through whatever the conversation has turned to, "I gotta go eat. Bye."

It's brusque, but he knows if he's too polite he won't get away from them. He makes a beeline for Hikari, meeting her eyes and stopping at the doorway.

"You didn't have to wait up for me, we always get the same table," He says casually, but there's a smile on his face.

"Ah, I wasn't-" Hikari hurries to gather her things, "I wasn't exactly...waiting on you..."

She shuffles out the door, saying something about not keeping their other friends waiting, but even as he follows her Daisuke feels a little lightheaded. It's like something out of a dream, what he just saw. Hikari doesn't react to him that way, she's never made that face in response to anything he's said or done or- really he's never seen it happen at all.

But even a couple of steps behind her he can see that her eartips are red. She's blushing. He didn't imagine it.

That little hopeful voice is back. Shut the hell up, he tells it, grinds it under his heel, but it keeps whispering anyway.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe, someday, perhaps.

[fuckinuchihas]

hi! this is an emergency request, sorry to bother.. it's my birthday now, but I feel like I haven't gotten as far as I should by now and I can't help feeling like I've failed. do you think you could do hc's for kuroo, bokuto, oikawa, iwaizumi, mattsun, and/or the miya twins (separate or together) cheering their s/o up for her birthday? also p l e a s e don't do all of these if you don't want to. thank you so much. (also i'm 18+, so whatever you think suits the characters works)

I plan to get to Iwa and Mattsun soon but on the off chance your birthday isn’t over yet I wanted you to have these two to start!

I don’t know the twins well but if I can get something I’m okay with out, you’ll have one or both of them too!

Kuroo:

As hard as it would be to take, Kuroo would understand when you say you don’t want a party. He wants to show you off and let everyone in his life, in both your lives, celebrate the person that means the most to him. You don’t want the attention though, so he nods and promises not to make a big deal out of it.

But he draws the line at leaving you alone for it.

He refuses to give in and eventually you relent and promise to let him spend the day, just the two of you together.

He shows up at your doorstep at 11:58 two minutes before the day officially starts and you’re half asleep ( he woke you mid nap) staring up at him in a shirt that’s just a little too big and he goes soft at the sight of you being so absolutely adorable.

You rub your eyes a little while asking what he’s doing there and he rolls his eyes at you before pushing his way into the small, comfortable apartment you’ve rented for yourself.

“Like I would miss a minute of it,” he says, arms laden with bags that he sits on the counter.

“What is all this?” you ask, wide eyed and slightly more awake now that you’ve noticed the bags.

“Well some of it is your favorite snacks, and some actual groceries so I can cook you breakfast and a romantic dinner later tonight…”

“Tets...this is all, it’s too much.”

He stops, turns to you and puts a hand on your shoulder to make sure you’re facing him directly before lifting your chin up until you can look in those big, bright eyes of his. “I’m grateful, y’know…”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I want to celebrate your birthday because I’m grateful you were born. I’m so happy that you exist in the world and that I can love you. Please...please let me do this,” he says, eyes a little glassy as he searches over your features.

“Oh…” you whisper softly, heart racing as your gaze flicks down to his lips. “Okay I guess.”

He smiles softly at you, using his thumb to brush against your chin before he leans in and presses a warm, quick kiss to your lips. “Thank you, for being born and for being mine.”

Bokuto:

So everyone knows that Bokuto is so full of life and fun and energy and you’d think this big fluffy himbo owl boy would want nothing more than to throw a party for his amazing partner. But while Bo is a bit, okay maybe a lot clueless about some things, he’s noticed how you’ve slowly been crawling into yourself as your birthday approaches.

He’s not sure how to fix it but he does realize that a big party isn’t the way to go. For him, maybe but not you. As much as he would love to show you a good time and have everyone together, he figures for the first time in his life a more subtle approach is necessary.

Okay you got him, he asked Akaashi for advice and Kaashi told him not to be an idiot and draw attention to the fact that you’re not feeling your best.

Still...it was his idea not to throw a party so he should get bonus points too he thinks.

He finds you in an oversized hoodie and pajama pants despite it being mid afternoon when he comes over with your favorite dessert in hand.

He melts.

“You’re so cute, babe.”

“Bo, I’m a mess. What are you even talking about?” you ask, a small chuckle leaving your lips though. He has a way of making you smile even when it’s hardest.

“Here, eat one of these, or five I don’t care,” he says, handing over the pastry box. “Then you’re gonna get ready and we’re going out.

“Ko, I don’t really feel-”

“Just us… I promise,” he says, and you hesitate.

“Fine…”

“That’s my baby,” he says, patting the top of your head.

You scrunch up your nose but ignore the feeling of being patronized because Bo would never and also the promise of sugar is far too appealing.

When you’ve stuffed yourself full on dessert, you change into your favorite seasonal outfit. It’s warm and soft and it fits you like a glove. Bo gives an appreciative whistle despite the fact that he’s seen you in it several times before.

“You’re ridiculous,” you say, shaking your head but you chuckle anyway.

“What? You’re hot...I’m not gonna let you forget it, not for a second.”

You feel your face warm up a little but you duck your head to hide it away.

He pulls you by the hand toward the door and then out to where his truck is waiting.

When you get to the passenger side he opens the door for you like a proper gentleman and then you start to climb up but instead he lifts you up like it’s nothing and eases you down onto the seat despite your slight flailing.

“BO!” you squawk.

“What?,” he says, adding a huff of your name with a wide grin. “I was just trying to be romantic!”

You see a bit of mischief spark in his eyes and you huff out a disgruntled noise.

“No you were just being mean,” you say, shaking your head but you can’t stay mad at him.

He’s too cute, honestly it’s kind of unfair.

Ignoring your fake pout he jogs around to the driver’s seat and hops into the cab beside you, pulling until your pressed up against his side where you belong.

You start to look at him a bit strangely when the road goes from blacktop to gravel and then again when it changes to just sand and a little mud from the rain yesterday.

He pulls into a grassy field and you look around skeptically. “Are you...hiding a murder cabin out here somewhere or something?”

“What? No!” Bo says, shaking his head. “We’re having a picnic.”

You start to open the door but he flies across the cab and pulls the door shut.

“Uhh.. just give me a minute first okay?” he says, and you quirk an eyebrow at him but agree easily enough.

He moves back to his side of the cab just as quickly but you feel the warmth of him leave and you have to pull back a whine. There’s a chill outside and now that the engine has been cut it’s not nearly as comfortable. Thankfully though, you don’t have to wait long before Bo comes back with a wide grin, offering you his hand to help yourself down.

You chuckle but follow along with his guidance.

When you get around to the side of the cab you realize both why he lifted you into the cab because there’s no way you would have missed this.

The bed of the truck is covered in soft fluffy blankets and pillows and there’s a gorgeous wicker basket in the middle and you go a little weak in the knees but Bo just puffs his chest out and grins. “So you like it, eh?”

“No, shut up-” you lie, but he knows the truth so you don’t bother to correct yourself.

The food is amazing, he picked up your regular meal at the place you guys went to on your first date and he takes pleasure in watching you eat as he digs into his own plate.

When the food is gone he stretches out, props himself up on the stack of pillows against the back of the cab and motions for you to join him.

When you cuddle into his side he starts.

“I really like your smile, especially that sleepy soft one you get in the mornings before you’ve forced yourself out of bed…” he grins, and you blink up at him.

“And the way you laugh when something is really funny, not just a little funny but like hilarious. Like that one time with the peanut m&m’s, I still can’t look at a bag without laughing…”

You chuckle too because it’s a fond memory just between the two of you. Still..this feels strange so you poke him in the side gently and ask, “Kou, what’s this about?”

“Oh it’s nothing-”

“Bo…”

“Ugh fine, I was trying to give you one thing I love about you for every year you’ve been alive. I found the idea on the internet but it seemed really nice and stuff.”

You melt a little further into the blanket pile with Bo. “It’s very nice, thank you. But this is all I need.”

“Well I could still say em’ though.. Right? I made a list and everything,” he says, pulling the paper out of his pocket to show you. “Those were the only ones I remembered without looking though.”

You chuckle. “It’s okay...thank you by the way, for all of this. It was exactly what I needed,” you add and he looks so fucking proud of himself that it’s almost hard to look at.

You lay there together for a while as he continues to read each and every item off the list and you smile up at him with a look of true awe in your expression before you pull his neck a bit until his lips press against yours and it feels like you’ve come home again.

[thehoneybuzz]

Chasing Baker

My Nana was my greatest adversary.

In an otherwise charmed life, Nana was an immovable force and the only legitimate challenger to my willpower. Not without the warmth one would expect from a grandmother, Nana could be sharp - like a sun-warmed pane of glass. Lesser hearts might have bent to me when I requested accommodation - but not Nana. Nana set a firm bedtime, insisted on efficient tooth brushing, and rather than negotiate with hair tangles, made short work of them in single, swift wrenches when brushing your hair. No nonsense. When you stayed with her - in one of two twin beds in a room made precisely for grandchildren - you often found yourself in bed with the lights out, with no real memory of having gotten there, swept away in the tide of your sheets. Nana was uncompromising, and no arena was more suited to our mutual stubbornness as the dinner table.

I grew up a notoriously picky eater. After a weekend at my Uncle Jerry's, my mom received a hardcover copy of "The Strong-Willed Child" from him as a gift. He had spanked me for not eating chicken nuggets. As evident by its title, the book was meant to coach my mother on parenting strategies for mitigating my innate obstinance. This would not be the only copy of the book my mother received. Though, I think she could have written one by the time I turned 4. I simply refused to eat the things I didn't like, and that was a long list.

A relative once applauded - clapped his hands together in joy- upon learning that I had graduated from having the crusts cut off my bread to full-blown sandwich eating. The peanut butter and honey sandwich was my signature dish and an absolute staple. I'd like to say I've grown out of it - and I've certainly grown having tried llama steak in Peru, lamb heart at the table of a Lebanese family, and Greenland shark in an Icelandic cafe - but it took me a long time to let go of my habits and permit myself to try, and it took some coaxing. My preferences ran deep.

My diet from ages six through eleven included Eggo waffles, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, an assortment of cereals, a handful of specific fruits and vegetables, and the occasional steak when mom thought my iron was low. My mom - on the advice of a pediatrician who told her that if she force-fed me, I'd develop an eating disorder - catered to this preference. Nana did not. They must have been seeing different pediatricians.

Nana took the clear your plate approach - The approach driven by reward and consequence. Finish your plate, cookies delivered. Fail to try, become hungry and hungrier still as dessert passes you by. I took to swallowing food whole, and my mom took to sending me with granola bars on visitations. She'd line the interior of my suitcase like we were smuggling drugs. I'll admit it was an unusual form of contraband, but the measure seemed necessary in a divorced child's duplicitous world. What my mom saw as nourishment, my Dad might see as undermined parenting strategy even under the best of circumstances - which they often weren't. I was hungry, so decided it best to keep things a secret and wrappers out of the trash.

Despite Nana's apparent best efforts, I avoided the eating disorder. Thanks to my mom, I avoided most foods until my early 20s. I don't know who was right. What I know for certain is that I was loved.

When I sat down with Nana after my trip to Mt. Baker, she clutched her heart as she said. "Ally - to think about you as this little girl - and that you would only eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches - to think of you climbing mountains…" she shakes her head, "… well I just can't believe it."

I started to laugh and asked her, "Want to know the best part?"

She nodded, smile in her eyes, full of that sunny warmth - playful and kaleidoscopic.

"I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches up and down the side of that mountain, Nana," I told her, laughing, and then we laughed together. Growing up is fun, I thought, especially in moments like this.

Laughing with your grandmother is a gift you receive in exchange for time, and it is a beautiful gift indeed. Here is a woman who bathed you, clothed you, fed you - and by the time you're old enough to understand the magnitude of the life she held before all that, she is often gone. I'm lucky to have this time. Nana is 90 years old now, and my mother's mother passed at 74. I never got to have the conversations I wanted to have with my grandmother, who died. To ask her questions like, 'Who were you?' 'What lifetimes made up the love you gave so effortlessly away?'

There is something about mountain climbing that makes you consider those kinds of questions in real-time. There is something about mountain climbing that makes you feel as if you are in the process of 'becoming.' So when, at the parking lot of Grandy Creek Grocery, I met my fellow climbers and our guides - there was a feeling of anticipation and nervousness about who I'd be sharing that story with. Dropping me off, my mom described it like the first day of kindergarten. The first person I met was Sharon.

I had been worried about Sharon. Weeks before, on the pre-trip Zoom call, she stood out from the digital crowd as the most visibly senior person there. Sharon did not look old - she looked undoubtedly the oldest. I think this is an important distinction - particularly to Sharon. I remember thinking - "I hope she is not on my trip because I'm worried she will show me down." A very judgmental thought and the universe saw to its reckoning. Sharon surprised the hell out of me.

She paced the parking lot, and I jumped out of my rig to greet her. We quickly began commiserating. Baker would be her first mountain. I had Mount St. Helens under my belt, but it's not much in the way of experience. We talked about our training plan, recounting long drives to taller places. Sharon was from Wisconsin, and she had to drive 45 minutes to get to peaks at 3,000 - the same as me in Eastern Washington. We had a lot in common. Where I ran, she had been hiking with weight and jogging. Sharon wasn't afraid of hard work. On our drive to the trailhead, I learned that she had just lost 75 pounds last year. I learned later that when Sharon signed up for this climb, she hadn't told anyone in her family she was doing it. She was 62 years old and had never once traveled alone. What on earth possessed her to climb a mountain? I'd be afraid of that question, too.

Sharon eventually fessed up to her family and made the trip official. That's how we found ourselves on the side of a mountain together. I'm embarrassed to have been so fundamentally wrong - but my confession is not without meaning, and I learned an important lesson. Never underestimate a Sharon.

When Melissa, our guide, described Mt. Baker for the first time, she called it by its indigenous name, Komo Kulshan. She then gave us its epithet - "The Great White Watcher." Having now met Kulshan face to face, I can tell you that's precisely how he feels. The summit looms as you navigate through the trees. Stoic in the face of the wilderness that surrounds him. Ice cold, he waits. In the Lummi language, he's called 'white sentinel.' He is persistent, vigilant, and watching.

I focused my nervous energy on preparing to meet this mountain by learning what I could about him. I learned that Mt. Baker is 10,781 feet tall, an active volcano, and the second most glaciated mountain in the continental united states (Rainier's got it beat, and you don't count Alaska). It's a formidable mountain, known - as nearly all alpine environments are - for its quickly changing conditions and the perils of its geology. This all, somehow, frightened me less than the thought of meeting Melissa Arnot-Reid. Her legend loomed not in the Cascades - where only a single peak resides above the threshold of 14,000 feet by which the Rockies measure their formidable "fourteeners." Melissa's legend loomed as large as Everest, on who's summit she has been six times - the only American woman to summit without the use of supplemental oxygen and survive. 29,032 feet. Melissa was someone I wanted to learn from, and I was scared shitless of her by reputation.

Suffering a bit of social awkwardness around celebrities, I prepared to meet Melissa by seeking to learn nothing about her at all. The antithesis of my mountain strategy - I told myself our experience would be what it was when we met on the mountain. My job was to learn - to ask my questions courageously - and be vulnerable and bold in seeking truth. I spent a fair bit of time wondering if she might be an ass hole, too. The age-old adage, "don't meet your heroes," drifted in and out of my mind.

In the last 15 minutes of our drive to Grandy's, my mom started reading Melissa's Wikipedia page aloud to me as I navigated the road, undoing months of my concerted preparation. I let her continue, greedy for information. "It says she trains by depriving herself of things - that she'll go without food and water."

"Probably a good idea if you're ever going to be stuck on the side of a mountain without it," I told her. I braced myself for a response. In the past few months, my mother had a growing sensitivity around topics that might suggest I could die on the side of a mountain. Admitting, so blatantly, that mountain climbing was a dangerous sport left me vulnerable to excessive mothering accompanied by exclamations of "Don't you dare!" Instead, my mom sort of nodded and continued, "I'm surprised her baby came out healthy."

My brow furrowed. I hated my mother for saying it. I had avoided a lecture from the mother of the mountaineer but failed to account for the mother of the daughter aged-almost-thirty. My uterus is a topic of conversation around my mother's table. Apparently, so was Melissas. Not wanting to discuss either, I let my mother's comment go unchecked as she continued to list accomplishments. "This article says she's focused on business, not emotions. That she is an incredible problem-solver." Now her reports felt more like cheating - it felt like an unfair advantage to meet someone armed with publicly available information about them. When you Google "Allyson Tanzer," you won't find much about my disposition under pressure. I told my mom it was time to focus and turned up the music.

When we parked, and I went to introduce myself to Melissa, three things happened. As I introduced myself, she first quickly let me know that she would not be giving out hugs due to the pandemic. Then, taking my hand in a firm grip, Melissa detailed that she and our other guide, Adrienne, had critical guide business to discuss and would be with us in a moment. She reported being thrilled to be meeting us as she quickly dropped my hand. Within thirty seconds, I was apologizing profusely and backing my way into the grocery. What can I say - first time formally climbing mountains, and I wasn't sure of the protocol. I fiddled with a bag of Cheetohs and continued to hope that she wasn't just an ass hole.

I went to the bathroom for something to do and remembered what my mother said. Task-oriented. I figured Melissa probably didn't hate me, after all. Despite my earlier misgivings, I was grateful to know a bit about her character, regardless of how 'honestly' that information was obtained. Thanks, Mom.

Our climb began. We left Grandy's in a caravan and parked near 3000' at the winter routes trailhead. On the first day, you ascend to 6000' and establish camp. You carry about 40 pounds, walking 1 mile and about 1000 vertical feet per hour, stopping for 15-minute breaks in those intervals. Conditions are warm, which means you're doing something the mountaineers call "post-holing" - ramming deep holes (as if for a fence post) into the ground as you step through snow that's washed out underneath. It's slow-going and rigorous. An hour and a half in, Melissa reports that we're standing in the location where she usually takes the first break. Unseasonably warm weather with a heavy snow accumulation has made for an exciting start.

You walk along a canyon ridge formed by a retreating glacier. You realize that time here is not measured in the same cadence that it's known to you. Mountains measure time in millennium, not decades. The formations of rock are carved by years, not minutes. The ground holds a history you can't conceive of - an ancient history of rock and ice. You are constantly struck by feeling small both physically and in your very chronology. I spent the first day happily in awe.

At camp, you maintain - guides (and playfully designated junior guides), boil snow, establish a base, dig a toilet. You assess whether or not you need to poop in a bag and carry it down the mountain with you as you try - for the first time - a rehydrated meal claiming to be chili Mac and cheese. Melissa teaches us how to walk on rope over a glacier. I try to mimic her knots. She redefines your concept of efficiency - breathlessly describing a packing order that accounts for calorie intake, warmth requirements and weight distribution - Every contingency considered. When I win the Ice Ax Rodeo by landing my thrown ax in a particular configuration - all is right in the world. Melissa is a drill sergeant giving instruction. She outlines the next minute - next five minutes - next hour - next day.

Her matter-of-fact nature reminds me of something. When I gave my parents a ride in an airplane for the first time with me as the pilot in command, I provided them near the same briefing as we were parked on the ramp. It ended dramatically with, "And if anything should happen, you have to exit the aircraft first in the following fashion." At which point I launched myself from the plane. I wanted them to be prepared to fight their instincts to protect me. I’m the only pilot on board - and my job is to protect my passengers, no exceptions. They both described a sense of foreboding and peace at the demonstration. It’s precisely how I felt when Melissa explained how she would be rescuing herself from a crevasse. “If you fall, I get you out. If I fall, I get myself out, but I need your help as an anchor to do so.” She took the approach of coaching us in only what we needed for the next challenge. We would learn crevasse rescue on a need to know basis. At Grandy’s, she told us to expect 48 hours of endurance. At camp, we’re at hour 9. She painted a picture of the following day.

"We'll begin between 11, and 2 am. Expect switchbacks up the glacier, a series of flats, and gains over the next hour. In 3.5 miles, we'll gain an additional 2000 feet - meandering a path through the glacier's crevasses, and it will gradually become steeper over time. About 1.5 miles to the summit, we'll hit the Easton glacier culminating in the Roman Wall. Then, because God has a sense of humor, you have a long flat walk to the summit after the steepest portion. All said it will take us between 5-7 hours to the top."

Frankly, it was just about as simple as that.

My eyes opened at 11:50 pm to the sound of movement outside the tent. Melissa had coached us here, too. "You may not be sleeping," she told us as we readied for 'lights out.' Days from the summer solstice, the sun burned brightly above us at 7 pm. "Remember that you don't need sleep; you need rest. That's what you're getting here at camp. You're horizontal; your feet are out of your boots. Close your eyes, and know you're getting what you need." Felt like a lie, but sure enough, with two hours of sleep, I couldn't describe myself as tired.

I did, however, feel cold. Chilly night temperatures had crept into our tent, and dressing for the day was arduous. I knew to keep my clothes in my sleeping bag. It was a trick I learned from a friend made trekking in the Andes for dressing in the cold. I knew to shorten my trekking poles while climbing, thanks to my guide on that same trek. I'd be leaving my trekking poles behind today, though. Ice axes only. We divide into rope teams. The race begins, but there's no starting pistol - only wind.

Fifteen minutes into our climb and we're struggling to find the rhythm. I'm still shaking the bleariness of the cold. The rope between climbers takes on an interesting dynamic. While it connects you to your fellow climber, it also isolates you from them. You have to maintain a certain distance away from one another while maintaining the same pace. It's a dance with crampons on in glacial ice - a delicate dance indeed - and it's where climbing feels like a team sport. You're all in it together.

Voices rang out in sequence like a game of telephone - one of our team would need to climb down. We said short goodbyes and waited as Adrienne (guide) descended with climber to camp. We were lucky - we hadn’t been climbing long which meant Adrienne could climb down and back to rejoin her rope. Guide redundancy is a safety net when groups of climbers work together.

Darkness continued. We continued. As you persist, darkness seems to persist along with you. In the first hour, it grows heavy. Your world begins and ends at the light of your headlamp, and that's where you find it—your rhythm. Crampons crunching, breath steady, and the gentle swish of your layers create a sort of timpani, a medley of percussion sounds. Clink, brush, crunch, and clink, brush, crunch, as ax bites ice, the movement of your clothes, and the toe of your boot kicks crampon into snow propelling you forward. There isn't much to think about in this grinding meditation. You're grounded in tugs from ahead or behind you as you march, slowly up. You can count steps, miles, feet of elevation - whatever keeps you moving. Whatever keeps you going up.

Moments before sunrise, we would lose another on our team. I listened to Melissa coach her. "What we're headed to is going to be harder than what we've just done. If how you are feeling is taking away from your ability to focus on your next step - I can only tell you that it's not going to get easier from here." That's when I saw the decision on her face. Another round of goodbyes - this one a bit more somber. She had worked so hard.

The decision to descend is a difficult one, but it’s one of the most important you can make. There are steep consequences to being in over your head in a place so remote. The summit is a siren, beware. Melissa - aware of the remaining teams intention to summit - advised us to plug our ears as she told the descending climber the Sherpa belief that a mountain won't let you summit for the first time if it likes you. Mountains bring you back. Further, she coached, the decision to go down can lift an entire team's chance of success if you feel you're a liability. Recognizing yourself and your limitations truthfully is a mountain in itself. That's the summit this person made in her decision to descend.

Like a good Agatha Christie novel, our list of characters dwindled. We added layers and continued - five of the original eight. Melissa was right, again. After we lost the second climber, our ascent became a proper climb. From that point forward, if anyone decided to turn around - we would all have to. There was only one remaining guide, and she had to protect all her climbers, no exceptions - me in the cockpit all over again.

She didn't show it, but 62-year-old Sharon was genuinely frightened. She had realized the same thing I did. If she didn't make it - no one would. Sharon kept climbing. Remember when I was worried she would slow me down?

When the sun starts to rise, everything begins to feel possible again. I don't mean to say that things were hopeless, just that with the sun comes energy and a sense of renewal. Color returns to the landscape, and you can begin to be able to measure your progress concretely. The mountain casts a shadow across the earth, stretching miles. You can't believe that you are contained within that shadow, on the face of such a giant who stands so impossibly tall. Melissa stood there, and I took her picture.

She had turned out to be not an ass hole at all. Where I sought to be her student, she aspired to teach - at once brilliant and kind. Her stride - her sport - a work of art. The precise art of what she calls slow, uphill walking. Her shadow and the shadow of the mountain impressed upon me the power of legends.

As the Roman Wall came into view - I knew we had it. We short rope in and make one last push. If Mt. Baker is a joke from God, the ending of the Roman Wall is its punchline.

Atop the incline awaits a long, easy walk to a haystack peak some few hundred yards in the distance. I was bubbling with emotion as my heart rate settled and the view became clear. There wasn't much difference between where we stood and where we were going. We dropped our packs, unroped, and ran up the summit. I was in tears.

Melissa broke her no-hugs-in-the-pandemic rule and celebrated us each in turn. I snapped countless photos and spent each frozen moment smiling. I pulled Melissa and Sharon in close. I had felt something on my heart and only needed a moment's bravery to share it.

I started awkwardly.

"I'd like to say something to you and Sharon," I muttered, barely audible over the wind, as I tugged on Melissa's sleeve. I grabbed Sharon's arm and pulled her in too. I don't remember the exact thing I said or the exact way in which I said it. I remember pausing to make sure I got it right and wondering for a long time if I managed to do so.

I told them that I had come to the mountain expecting to be impressed by one person. Melissa promised an impressive education - on which she delivered. She is of that rare quality - the kind who’s presence improves you. I came to Baker with that expectation, I confessed, I expected Melissa. I paused before telling Sharon, her gloved hand in mine, “You?” I laughed nervously. “I wasn’t expecting. A 62-year-old woman….” I nodded back to Melissa, “And you, the mother of a 3-year-old…” I didn’t want to get this wrong. “You are two people who our society labels and confines. Yet, here you are - on top of a mountain. I have to tell you….” I was choked up in earnest here and struggled to continue.

"It matters.” I said. “What you do matters. It matters to have an example of what is possible. Both of you have provided that example to me and women like me. Thank you." I sobbed. "I am so grateful for it and grateful for you." Melissa smothered me in her jacket as she embraced me, once again, in a hug. Pandemic be damned. My tears froze. While I expected a "There's no crying in mountaineering" a la Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own (it was a climb of mostly women, after all) the admonishment never came.

Sharon grabbed hold of me next and we shared the alpine view. Before I knew it, we were the last two on the summit. The wind howled a steady cheer. Celebrations concluded, it was time to leave. I stayed for just a moment longer, watching Sharon as she left. They don't make anything more beautiful than a mountain, and it's a view worth savoring. I descended, joyfully, to my team.

I didn't bury Jake up there. In Ashes to Ashes, I told the story of taking my old farm dog's remains to the top of my first volcano. He's not so much a good luck charm as he is an omen of protection. I don't need luck as much as I need safety, and he serves his duty well. Jake stayed with me through our descent to camp. I needed a little protection coming down off the Roman Wall, I thought. I wanted him close until we were off the glacier. He lays now at the foot of my tent—a very good place for a very good dog.

There's a natural mindfulness to climbing. I often find myself living in the present step - not thinking about the route that lies below. You forget in moments that the trip up is accompanied by an equally long and perilous journey down. From the summit, your journey is far from over. Yet, time flies by even as you stop to admire the steam vents. The rainbow that surrounds the sun refracts joy and color the same.

You reach camp, celebrate, pack up. Miles and thousands of feet remain even from there. That's when you realize it's ending and when I realized I didn't want it to end.

We spent the next few miles getting to know each other in earnest, savoring time and mountain views, chatting in the way of long-form hikers - about the nature of things and through storytelling. Melissa regaled us with vulnerable truths and comedic parables. We laughed. I kept sipping at the wells of knowledge around me, drinking in the moments. Laughter distracted from hunger, from wet feet, and from the dull and dim realization that all good things must come to an end. We made our way to the bottom of the mountain. Just like that - we say goodbye.

Sharon drove me back to Grandy's. We chitter like school girls - adrenaline and nostalgia collide in our post-climb delirium. We talk about the future. I realize that we are good friends. I am humbled by just how wrong a person can be to believe something about someone for no good reason.

Mom picks me up, and with her embrace my adventure is over. I’ve come full circle - safe and sound, parked in the lot of Grandy Creek Grocery.

Melissa found us there and knocked on our window.

"Your daughter is really special. The MOST special,” my hero and friend told my mom. Mom beamed with a special pride reserved exclusively for mothers of strong-willed daughters. I had been misreading things - the adventure had only just begun.

There are eight years between Melissa and I. I’m not sure I’ll be chasing Everest in that time, but I know I won’t be finished. I’ve got thirty-three years to catch Sharon at 62. In the mountain blink of sixty-one years, I’ll be as old as my Nana and I hope at least half as wise. Good thing there are so many years - for there is so much left to climb.

[thyra279]

High Hopes

For Day 4 of the Good Omens Celebration 2020.

Prompts: “Force” and “fruit” (this one got away with me but I’m gonna post it here for consistency as well as on Ao3.

On a warm autumn's day in 2005, Aziraphale's mobile phone rang out the same jarring electronic jingle 72 times before he managed to locate it behind an old bookcase full of A Breefe History of Northern Shropshire, vol. 1-281. Pushing the bookcase aside, he dusted off the little black-and-white screen and fixed it with a hard stare. The mobile, which had been firing off its jingles increasingly furiously, grew soft and mellow on the 73th ring, and Aziraphale turned his attention to the Nokia's caller.

"Hullo, Crowley. You know, I never should have let you talk to into getting me this portable telephone, it keeps moving about and hiding itself in the-"

"Aziraphale." Oh. Crowley's voice sounded harsh, which wasn't unusual, but also very noticeably strained, which was.

"Are you alright, dear?"

"Uhhrm…"

"Crowley? Whatever's the matter?"

"I've… I've been arrested."

"Have you, now?" Aziraphale let out a relieved little chuckle and sat down in his favourite chair. It was nothing the demon hadn't tried before. Keep at shadowy, nefarious business long enough, and it was bound to happen. He'd lost count of how often Crowley had found himself jumbled up with the police.[1]

Aziraphale himself had found himself come into too close contact with London's various police forces a few times since their invention. He usually encountered the Mets, though he had a soft spot for The City of London Police and carried out his substitute demonic temptations within their Square Mile if he could help it. Politicians and bankers were soft targets. Besides, the City Police always served up bourbon biscuits during their questioning. The angel idly wondered if Crowley had been served up any biscuity treats during his questioning and before being hit with an embarrassing pinch of jealousy.

"When'll you be done, do you reckon? You could come over for wine and commiserations later, perhaps? I think a Chateau Cheval should do quite nicely." He lifted a hand to play with the phone cable, then remembered it wasn't there. "…Bring some biscuits."

"It'saaah. It's a little more complicated than that, I'm afraid."

"What's the problem?"

"Nfffhhh well, I've been in here for coming up two weeks for starters." Aziraphale sat up.

"Crowley, are you- are you in jail?"

"I, uh. Yeah."

"Well, get out of there!"

"Told you it was complicated."

"Do you need me to, ah, to come and get you?"

There was an interesting kind of silence at the other end. "Angel, are you offering to come and break me out of jail?"

"I'm an angel, I do not break anyone out of jails," Aziraphale deadpanned with the practice of several centuries. "It would be a rescue."

"Well, it won't work. I mean, it would work. I could easily get out of here, that's not the issue. Wouldn't solve the actual problem."

"What is the problem then?"

"It's erhhh…"

Aziraphale shifted in his seat, growing a little impatient. "Where are you? What happened?"

The demon sighed. "I'm at Dartmoor Prison. Got arrested near Torquay."

"What were you doing in Cornwall of all places?"

"I… well. I've got a piece of land near Torquay, in a nice deserted place. Thought it'd be out of the way enough. It's quite a big piece of land, really. Massive, actually."

The angel couldn't suppress another tut. "What would you need a massive piece of land for, Crowley?"

"I, ah, I built a farm." Aziraphale could sense the demon's embarrassment pulsing down the line. He himself was caught entirely off guard at the aggressively urbanite yuppie's confession, but tried to sound accepting.

"Oh. Right. What do you do with it, as it were?"

"I grow… things."

"Yes, well-"

"Mainly weed."

"…What?"

"Marijuana, Angel."

"Yes, I know what weed is, thank you." For the second time, Aziraphale felt a rush of relief. "That's alright, then, isn't it? I'm sure growing illegal cannabis is a perfectly acceptable demonic activity. I assume that's why you were arrested?"

"Yup." For a moment, a hint of pride entered the demon's voice. "I've grown lots of it. Don't know if you saw the newspapers last Monday? Apparently, there was quite a big buzz about it being the second largest marijuana plant ever discovered in the UK?"

"Oh, yes," Aziraphale crooned. He hadn't so much as looked at an earthly newspaper for several months, but he didn't like to dampen the demon's (evil) spirits when he was already down. "It all sounded terribly impressive."

"Hnghyeah, well. The coppers said so themselves, actually. They only got a preliminary sweep of the place done, though, before I set my lawyers on them. We've been fighting their warrant. It's been good fun, actually, lots of frustrations all around. Easy job for my side, you know. And we always get bonus points on our job performance for getting lawyers involved. You know I can really use the, erh, goodwill this'll generate downstairs, it'll sort me out for the next few years."

Aziraphale nodded absentmindedly, which Crowley seemed to understand.

"Unfortunately, even my bastard lawyers and enough money to bribe a small state haven't been able to get the judge to drop the warrant. So according to the lawyers, Cornwall's righteous police force, narcotics division, will be able to do a full sweep of the farm some time the day after tomorrow."

"And why exactly is that a problem?" The angel offered when Crowley fell quiet. He was met with a great, heaving sigh loud enough to hear through the telephone line.

"The thing is." The demon drew a breath, then let it out again through hissing teeth. "The thing is. The weed farm's a front."

"…What?"

Crowley sounded flustered now, voice straining again with every word. "It's a front. The cannabis. 'S a cover."

"Why would you… what were you… what in Heaven's name are you doing that's so terrible that you thought a cannabis plantation would serve as an appropriate cover-up, Crowley?"

"Well, well hnghfff. Look, I can't tell you over the phone, I've got a reputation to maintain, alright? Anthony J. Crowley's been going strong since the war, and, and- don’t really want to let him go. Just. Just go out there tomorrow – I know you've got nothing on, don't even start – and get rid of the evidence for me. No, nah, leave the weed crops. But there's a barn. A green barn in the middle of it all. Burn it, please. Maybe don't look inside it, but – eurgh – s'fine if you have to. I don't care how you do it, but get rid of everything in there."

Aziraphale hesitated, more shaken by Crowley than he'd been for a good fifty years.

"I'm, erh, I don't really know, Crowley, I think you should tell me-"

"Aziraphale, please. Please, Angel." Crowley never begged.

"Oh. Oh, alright then." There was a rush of demonic relief down the phone.

"Tha-"

"Don't."

"Look, I'll make it up to you, alright. Whatever you want. Tell you what, I'll buy you sushi at that stuck-up little Japanese place you like so much, every bloody month for the next decade. If you want."

"Alright," Aziraphale huffed.

The demon started to sound slightly more like himself. "I'll throw in a good sake and dessert too if you promise never to bring this up ever again."

"I'll have to see for myself how bad this is, Crowley, before I make good on that promise."

"Fair, that's fair. Just please, Angel, 's no big deal, okay? It was just a little lapse of judgement. Here's how to get to the barn…"

And so, the very next day, the Principality found himself wandering down a dirt track in Cornwall, sore and irritable after hours on overnight public transport and more nervous than he'd care to admit at what he might have agreed to. The stench of the marijuana greeted him long before the greenhouses even became visible. A single police car was parked further down the track at the main entrance to the farm, so on reaching the edge of it, he looked casually left and right before dipping below the police tape. No one noticed him, and he quickly disappeared between row after endless row of huts and greenhouses.

The place was like a labyrinth – literally – and he had to rely on Crowley's instructions to find its centre. The air hummed with the insistent song of thousands of heat lamps. Aziraphale was beginning to suspect that he wasn't entirely immune to the charming waft of cannabis in the hot air around him when suddenly, there it was, a singular old green barn. It was singing at him. Aziraphale wasn't entirely certain he wasn't hallucinating it, but it felt sturdy enough beneath his grasp when he tore the heavy padlock away from the door. The door rattled irately at him, but at least the barn stopped singing.

He hesitated, one hand on the door. Crowley had always taken care, he suspected, to hide the darker sides of his demonic activities from him. He wasn't at all sure he wanted to be privy to them. Unbidden scenes of blood and chains and fires and screams sidled into his mind, finally breaking through the defences he'd constructed as soon as he'd put down the phone last night. He didn't want to know. And yet, he'd promised. He was an angel, and Crowley needed his help, and he'd promised.

Here goes, he thought, allowing himself a deep, steadying gulp of air (and wasn't that lovely, the sweet heady rush that came with it) before pushing the door aside.

Aziraphale blinked. Then blinked again. He blinked a total of 15 times before he entered.

Aziraphale had tried very hard not to imagine all the sinister things he might find in the middle of Crowley's marijuana plot. Even if he'd given himself over to pondering every possibility, he wouldn't have expected this.

The barn was lit up by the same warm, red glow as the rest of the farm. A few dusty skylights gave the room a sense of space that it didn't quite deserve. The air smelt sweet in here too, but it wasn't the pungent suffocation of the cannabis. No, in here, the air hummed with unexpected freshness, with the heady, delicious scent of fruit. There they were, lined up along the walls, a few peach trees, lemons, pears and berries – roses and apple trees too. All ripe, ready for the picking.

The fruit trees couldn't keep his attention, however. In the middle of the room was a little meadow full of wildflowers, bursting with colour. Bees whipped around from stem to stem, and towering over them all, stretching towards the skylights, were the tallest sunflowers Aziraphale had ever seen.

It was beautiful. An age went by while Aziraphale explored the flowers, overcome with surprise at their maker as he smelt, touched and tasted his way through the barn. He senses Crowley in every petal, in every lush green leaf, and couldn't stop himself from lying down in the middle of the meadow, giant sunflowers watching over him. He imagined Crowley here, sneaking in to do the same. It seemed absurd, the smooth, black hardness of Crowley in the middle of this colourful, buzzing force of life. Aziraphale ached to see him here, almost imagined that he could.

The skylights had gone dark above him by the time he got up. Only once on the other end of the barn, he faced what he'd come here to do. It seemed a terrible tragedy, and yet he'd made a commitment to Crowley.

With a great sigh, he lowered his trusty satchel from his shoulder, taking out a stack of little brown bags that hadn't been in there a moment before. He went around the meadow again, caressed every flower, letting it know how beautiful it was. He persuaded even the looming sunflowers to bend down and let go of a few of their seeds. Then he rounded on the fruit trees, trusty tartan tin in hand, and picked a single piece of fruit from each and every one and a little prickly cutting from every rose.

Satchel in hand, the angel took one final look at Crowley's dirty secret, this micro-paradise he'd hidden away. Then he snapped his fingers and sent it all to somewhere he hoped was good, somewhere with fresh air and a warming sun, and just enough rainfall. He didn't notice the extra weight of his bag, and he kept it close, held it in his lap on the sleepy train back to London. Only once he made it safely back to the bookshop did he let go, taking care to count each and every brown bag, folding out their creases and speaking to them gently, as if the plants could still hear him.

He spent the next two weeks drying out the fruit until they let go of their precious cores, and when it all was ready, he put it all in the best firesafe and airtight container he could find.

The container found a new home behind a bookcase full of A Breefe History of Northern Shropshire, and it survived a fire, the apocalypse and the layers of dust that settled over it in the years after that.

Aziraphale never mentioned a word to Crowley, enjoying plenty of sushi, sake and dessert for his efforts.

He carefully guarded the little seedlings until a day, very far into the future indeed, after yet another war, when the angel casually floated the idea of the two of them acquiring a little cottage together somewhere outside of London and the demon scoffed in his face at such a ridiculous suggestion. Somewhere, perhaps, with a nice little garden that Crowley might take care of. He had just the thing to get it started.

[1] Some time during a dull few years in the 1970s, Aziraphale had gifted him a scratch map of the UK counties, instructing the demon to scratch off every county he'd been arrested in. Last time the angel had seen it, sometime during 2003, two thirds of the map had been revealed.

Link for the other (shorter) stories on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037873/chapters/57837565 

[tmntstyle]

BIRTHDAY GONE WRONG

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

A green hand reached over and hit the 'off' button on a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Stretching and yawning loudly, Michelangelo slowly sat up in his bed. The young terrapin rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glanced across his dimly lit bedroom.

"GASP! Today's the day!!" Mikey exclaimed as he hopped out of bed and bounded to his calendar in excitement. Mikey grinned and bounced in place as he viewed the highly decorated date on the kitten calendar Raph had gotten him for Christmas.

"Ooh I can't wait to see what my amazing older brothers have planned for me today."

Mikey set about to get ready for the day. Once the bathroom had been visited with teeth brushed and an orange mask had been tied securely on his face, Mikey skipped out to the main living area.

Sitting on a beanbag was Leonardo scrolling through some app on his phone, his shell facing Mikey. On the ground beside Leo sat Donatello tinkering with S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. again. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Hmm. Mikey shrugged and strode toward his immediate older brothers. "Good morning, dudes! It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

Leo glanced up from his phone and turned his head to smile at Mikey. "It sure is, hermano. Too bad we can't go outside to enjoy it."

Confused by Leo's lack of acknowledgment of the day's importance, Mikey went and sat in front of his brothers.

"Well yeah, but I mean... It's a beautiful day down here. In sewer sweet sewer. Don't you think?"

Mikey directed the question at Donnie, who merely shrugged and said in a flat tone, "Don't know how this place can be anymore beautiful today than any other day."

'What is with these guys?' Mikey thought to himself. A bit disappointed by his brothers' lack of enthusiasm, Mikey stood and headed toward the kitchen.

'Maybe it's too early for any celebrating. Neither of them like mornings.' Then it was if a lightbulb turned on above his head. 'Aha! Of course! They have a big surprise planned and don't want to spoil it. Oh, those guys...'

Mikey hummed a light tune as he entered the kitchen. There, he found Raphael pouring milk into his bowl of cereal. Seeing his youngest brother, Raph smiled wide. "Mornin', little man!"

"Raaaph. How many times do I have to tell you? I'm NOT a 'little man'! I'm grown up like you!" Mikey rolled his eyes and huffed, placing his hands on his hips as he stared at his oldest brother.

"Right, right, sorry. Ya hungry, big guy?"

Mikey grinned and nodded. "You bet! What do we have?"

Raph looked at his brother in confusion. "Uh... Same stuff we always do. Cereal, toast, leftover pizza. Whatever you want."

Posture deflating, Mikey uttered an "Oh," and rifled through the fridge for the pizza box from the night before.

Heating up two slices of supreme pizza in the microwave, Mikey poured himself a glass of milk and took his 'breakfast of champions' (Leo's name for it) toward his room. Noticing Mikey's dejected behavior, Raph followed him.

"Somethin' wrong, bro?"

Mikey shook his head and opened his bedroom door. "Just still tired, I guess. Kind of a slow morning."

Nodding at his brother's words, Raph gave him a small smile. "I think we're all a bit tired. Take it easy for a bit."

Mikey didn't respond and shut the door behind him. Rather than sit and possibly drop grease on his bed, Mikey opted to sit in his egg-shaped floating chair. He sat his glass of milk down on his desk and started eating his pizza.

"What the heck is going on today? Does no one respect the joy of a birthday anymore? No happy morning greetings with confetti, no pre-made breakfast...no pops. Where is he?"

Setting his empty plate on the desk, Mikey sipped his milk and used his left foot to push on the floor. His chair lightly swung as he mulled over his family's behavior that morning.

After some time had passed, Mikey was woken out of his light doze by a knock on his door. Rubbing his eyes, Mikey called out, "It's always open!"

Splinter entered the room, ears twitching as he beheld his youngest and smallest child alone in his room. That alone was not concerning. What bothered Splinter was that Mikey seemed to have been asleep instead of painting or drawing or writing something. Keeping one hand behind his back, the older rat shut the door and walked toward his son.

"May I ask why you are alone in here and not with your family out there?"

Shrugging, Mikey kept his toes on the floor to maintain a steady swing of his chair. His right leg was bent underneath his left, hands resting on it. "Not much going on out there, dad. Seemed more fun to do my own thing than be around those party poopers."

Frowning at his son's words, Splinter sat on the edge of the bed and held out a brightly-colored box. "Well, I hope this can lift your spirits, Orange. It's not much, but I hope you like it."

Eyes widening at the expertly-wrapped gift, Mikey took the box from Splinter's hands. It wasn't overly big, nor was it small. Mikey smiled and tore off the orange wrapping paper, removing the lid covering the box.

Inside was a small book. Mikey gently lifted the brown leather tome, noting the professional binding. In gold lettering were the Japanese characters for Hamato on the spine. Turning the book over, Mikey found that there was no description for any story. Looking up, he saw Splinter smiling at him.

"It is a journal. Tradition in my family is to pass one down to your son to write of his life and adventures. Seeing as I have four sons, I had to decide which of you to give it to." Splinter reached out and flipped the book over to the front cover, pointing to an engraving on the bottom right corner.

"I knew a long time ago that it would be given to you once you had reached the right age. Of all my sons, you are the most creative and open-minded. I had your name engraved with April's help a few years ago. I hope you may find some use for it."

Mikey didn't know what to say at first. So he sniffed and threw his arms around Splinter in a tight hug. "Thanks, dad! This is the best birthday present I've ever gotten!"

Splinter chuckled and patted Mikey's shell. "I am glad you think so, my son."

Pulling out of the hug, Splinter stood and headed toward the door. "Feel free to join us whenever you wish. Though I am sure you would rather use this time to use your present."

Mikey grinned and nodded, grabbing a pen from his desk drawer. "You bet, pops. I'll be out there for dinner and topside shenanigans."

Smiling softly, Splinter left the room and shut the door behind him.

Hours of writing/doodling later, Mikey shut his journal and got out of his chair. Stretching his stiff limbs, Mikey checked his phone and was shocked to see that he had indeed missed lunch and nearly dinner.

"Oopsie! Guess I should finally make an appearance." The young turtle, mood drastically improved, exited his room and headed to the kitchen.

"Hiya guys! Wassup?" Mikey's entrance was met with wide eyes.

"Mikey! Where have you been? Haven't seen you all day!" Leo pulled out a seat at the table beside him. "I was bored without you."

Grinning, Mikey sat beside Leo and piled the pasta onto his plate. Other than Mikey himself, Leo was the best cook when he needed to be.

"Sorry. Got distracted. Excited to head topside, though!"

"Oh... Yeah, about that. No one is going up top tonight."

Groans and protests were the responses to Raph's statement. The leader merely crossed his arms and shook his head. "According to the news, a large storm is coming in. We're not going out there. End of story."

Sighing in defeat, Mikey rested his chin on his fist. He twirled noodles around the tines of his fork. 'Well this sucks,' he thought.

Standing up and grinning, Leo addressed the room. "Fear not, brethren! I have a fantabulous plan!"

Donnie rolled his eyes. "This oughta be good."

Ignoring his twin, Leo went on. "We can have a skateboarding competition! Winner decides on dessert and movie."

Mikey's eyes lit up at the idea. If he won, he could demand cake and an awesome movie. Then they would have to celebrate his birthday and reveal whatever surprise they've been hiding.

"I'm in!"

The four turtle brothers later stood at the top of their indoor skate ramp, skateboards in hand. "Alright, bro-hames. Rules are simple. Do a trick. Stick the landing. Winner will be decided by majority votes." Leo looked at his brothers for understanding. After an affirmative nod or thumbs up from each, Leo designated himself as first up.

The turtle in blue skated down the ramp and flew up the other side, completing a flip before skating down to the bottom. He finished with a twirl and bowed with one foot on the board. The other three clapped at the performance before moving on. Leo stood beside the ramp, watching as Donnie did a similar trick, but instead landed on his hands rather than his feet. Impressive.

"Why don't you go next, Mikey?" Ralph suggested.

Mikey grinned. "Don't mind if I do." With a determined look on his face, Mikey kicked off the edge of the ramp. 'Gotta win. Gotta win. Gotta win.' This chant overtook Mikey's thoughts as he picked up speed. When he made it up the other side of the ramp, he was too distracted to realize his placement and instead of doing any kind of trick, he plummeted toward the bottom of the ramp.

CRASH!

"MIKEY!!" Three turtles surrounded their fallen brother. "Mikey, you ok?" Donnie immediately assessed his younger brother for injuries. When he saw the unnatural angle of Mikey's left ankle, he cringed.

"Ooh, that looks bad. I gotta get you checked out then bandaged."

Shaking and silent, Mikey held his leg. No words came to him. Nothing except, "Ruined! It's ruined!"

Raph lifted Mikey delicately. "Don't say that, bro. Don'll fix your foot good as new." With that, the brothers headed to the genius' lab.

Mikey refused to speak after that. He didn't make a sound the entire time Don poked and prodded his obviously broken ankle. Even after being treated with utmost care and gentleness, Mikey remained mute.

"You're all fixed, Mikey. Can't you say anything? Not even 'ow'?" Leo tried his best to coax any words out of the youngest, but failed. Sighing, he patted Mikey's head. "Some birthday, huh?"

Mikey looked at his brother in shock. "Y-You remembered?" Taken aback by his brother's voice, Leo blinked several times before responding.

"Of course I remembered! That's why I came up with the skateboarding competition. I know how much you were looking forward to being topside today. Sorry my plan sucked."

"No! No no, your plan was great! I just... I thought you guys all... forgot. Or were just messing with me to surprise me later."

Leo swallowed and sat beside Mikey. "I'm sorry, Mikey. I didn't forget, but the others might have... They haven't talked about it at all."

Heaving a sigh, Mikey looked at his bandaged foot. This birthday sucks. Seems like everything went wrong today. No special breakfast, no party, not even a cake!

"Hey, I just remembered. I have something for you. Be right back." With that, Leo got up and left the lab.

A few minutes later, Leo returned carrying a cake, followed by Raph and Donnie. Both had apologetic looks on their faces.

"I'm so sorry, Mikey. I wasn't thinking. I can't believe I forgot what today is." Raph looked devastated. He took pride in caring for his family. This whole situation hurt him.

Donnie looked just as upset. He sat next to Mikey and took his hand. "Bro... Why didn't you say anything? We could've had a party!" Then the genius in purple smacked his own forehead. "April's text makes more sense now! That's what she meant by 'when's the party '!"

The three older turtles gave Mikey pleading faces. "Can you forgive us, bro? We didn't mean to give you a terrible birthday." Leo held the cake out to Mikey, candles lit.

Glancing at each brother, seeing the love and regret in their eyes, Mikey slowly smiled. "Of course you're forgiven. I can't stay mad at you guys. Besides, you brought cake! How can I say no to that?"

Three huge smiles were given in response. "Alright then," Raph said. "Blow out your candles and make a wish, big guy."

Mikey blew out the candles. "I have everything I need already. My family. My friends. Personal butlers who will cater to my every whim to make up for my sucky birthday and broken ankle." At this, his smile turned into a smirk.

"Isn't that right?"

Raph decided to answer for the group. "Sure, bro. Just until your foot heals."

Nodding, Mikey opened his arms. "You may hug me now."

His brothers chuckled and hugged him tight. They'd never forget important days like this again.

[dorkzilla-exe]

Zim, Dib, and Seven Smeets

A ZaDr series: Ep 1, Hatching Day

Dib: Zim, will you come down.

Zim: *sitting on top of the fridge* DO NOT DISTURB ME WHILE I'M IN MY PANIC SPOT!

Dib: Im just-

Zim: *crying* DIBBERSON, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, I'LL BE DOWN IN A MINUTE!

Dib: you said that an hour ago, I've got everything set up for the celebration, so at least be down before 3, ok?

Zim: wait, you did the decorating? You did EVERYTHING?! ON YOUR OWN?!

Dib: *smiles sinisterly* yes, yes I did, all on my own, probably made some mistakes in color arrangement-

Zim: LET ME SEE! YOU BETTER NOT HAVE MESSED ANYTHING UP!! *jumps down from the fridge and scurries into the living room*

Dib: works every time...

Zim: Dib, you didn't actually mess any of the decorations!?

Dib: I studied hard when you were decorating for Gaz's birthday, so I applied your decoration tactics to this room and... well... ta-daa!

Zim: you really are amazing, Dib. You know that, right?

Dib: I got the hint the day you gave me a ring-pop and asked for my hand in marriage.

Zim: I swear I didn't know it was candy, the person who sold it to me said it was worth 5,000$ and would sell it to me for 4,900...

Dib: I really didn't care about being proposed to with a candy ring, a ring is a ring to me, wether it's candy or not. Although, it is very concerning how someone managed to sell you a ring-pop for that much.

Zim: don't remind me...

Dib: would you believe me when I say I still have it?

Zim: no, I actually wouldn't.

Dib: well I do, I had it dipped in resin so it wouldn't deteriorate.

Zim: wow, how have I not noticed it?

Dib: remember that box I where keep stuff like pendants and pins? That's where the ring is.

Zim: that's sweet.

Dib: wait a minute, I just remembered we've got one more thing to do...

Zim: The Smeet's play-pen! We've gotta decorate that! Get the streamers! I've got some decorating to do!

[About an hour later]

Dib: alright, living room decorated, snacks and cake ready, little gift bags customized for every guest, flowers and other table decorations, and Zim's in the play-pen with the eggs. We are ready for the guests to arrive and it isn't even-

[Knocking from the front door]

Dib: right on cue, must be dad cause he's been early to ever other party. *answers the door* hey- uh...

Tallest Red: hello there, you must be Dib

Tallest Purple: How has Zim been? We haven't heard too much from him since he layed the eggs.

Dib: uhhhh... Hi I'm Dib Membrane, Zim's husband. Zim's been doing wonderfully, aside from the random anxiety attacks and his weekends of depression. Please come in! We have plenty of Irken friendly food and drinks ready, but remember to save some for the other guests. You two apparently aren't the only alien guests on our list.

Tallest Red: Thank you Mr. Membrane, we appreciate your hospitality. *enters with Tallest Purple*

Zim: My Tallest! I didn't expect you to be here until 10 minutes later.

Tallest Purple: see, I told you we were too early!

Tallest Red: EUGH, we could've brought the little ones Paks...

Dib: actually, we already thought of that. My Dad works at Membrane labs and designed him "Membrane Paks". They are designed to make it easier for them to identify us in a crowd, immediately begin healing if injured, ward off any diseases and illnesses, higher pain tolerance, and give them a longer life.

Zim: the only major differences are the Designs and application process. Instead of implanting electonics in abruptly, we will apply them more delicately, carefully and less painfully.

Tallest Red: hmm, I see, it would also be much easier to identify them if they ever decided to work for the Irken Empire.

Zim: i mean, you're not wrong. But I also invited here to ask for permission to retire.

Tallest Purple: retire?

Tallest Red: eumm... sure? Why not?

[1 hour later]

Dib: Dad, Gaz, the tallest, Skoodge, Tak, Tenn, Keef, Z, Zita, Clembrane, Prisinor 777 and his kids.

Dib: that seems to be about everyone, all we're missing are-

Anne: *annoyingly beating on Dib's Door* DIBDIBDIBDIBDIBDIBDIBDIBDIB!

Dib: Anne and Flish...

Dib: *opens the door, making Anne fall into the house*

Anne: Crikey, you've grown! You're 'bout as tall as Flishey now!

Flish: howdy, Dib. Sorry we couldn't make it to yer wedding last year.

Dib: it's ok, come on in you two.

Tallest Purple: oh yeah... we banished HER here too...

Tallest Red: I feel like Zim isn't our biggest concern anymore.

Anne: My Tallest! It's been YEARS! how've ya been!

Tallest Purple: good~

Anne: *gasp* OH MY GOSH! The eggs! Aw, they're absolutely precious! Zim, you oughta call yourself lucky! 'Lotta Irkens can't lay eggs y'know.

Zim: eheh, I know. Which is why I didn't fully expect it.

Dib: you should've seen him, he cried his eyes out the whole time and more.

Flish: Heha! sounds like Zim a'right. But don'cha get all concerned and stuff. It's completely normal to cry during egg laying. Er, from what I've heard at least.

Dib: it's official, everyone's here.

Tallest Purple: great!... Now what?

Dib: Um, we talk.

Tallest Purple: sounds boring.

Gaz: I have Videogames.

Tallest Purple: Ooo, sounds intriguing! What do you do?

Professor Membrane: son, may I speak with you for a moment?

Dib: sure.

Professor Membrane: let's go into the other room, ok.

Dib: *nods and walks into the bedroom*

Professor Membrane: something is wrong and I can tell.

Dib: *walks over to the bad, grabs a pillow, and screams in it*

Professor Membrane: I know your stressed, but everything will be just fine. I'm sure you and Zim will be great-

Dib: But what if we arent?! I work weekends at a coffee shop and Zim works at a clothing store in a mall. We can't provide for SEVEN babies! It took a lot of saving to get this party set up! I rarely get any tips and the one tip I got last weekend was from Gaz and it was a penny.

Professor Membrane: Ok, now that's just sad.

Dib: I don't know what to do! It's hard for me to get a different job, a barista was the closest I could do because I apparently make really good lattes. *sob*

Professor Membrane: have you ever considered working with me in the labs? You already know everyone there and know the place well. Plus, I could adjust your schedule so you don't have to come every day and you get paid just for being there.

Dib: you'd do that for me?

Professor Membrane: of course! You really do need the money, I could have you work as a lab assistant, but that's a little dangerous. I could put you in the mailing room? Or-

Dib: what about food service? I can cook, I can make coffee, tea, and plenty of different desserts.

Professor Membrane: that's a wonderful idea! I could make you work down at the cafeteria so your talent isn't wasted on Lattes!

Dib: Consider me hired! Ill be there tomorrow evening-

Professor Membrane: no no, you should stay home for a few days.

Dib: but dad, I-

Professor Membrane: Dibberson, I know you want to help out as soon as you can, but right now, Zim and your children need you here. Besides, it's hard to bond with a child while you're away, right?

Dib: I guess it is.

Anne: *Bursts through the door* Dib! It's about to happen! One of the eggs moved!

Dib: bwha?! Already?! I didn't think it would be this early! *runs to the living room*

Zim: Dib! There you are! Hurry over here, you don't want to miss this!

Dib: *looks over the pen* which one moved?

Zim: This one right here. *puts egg in lap*

Dib: When will they-

Zim: any moment now...

Dib: *puts hand on egg, feeling for any movement*

Zim: Dib, can I admit something before they hatch?

Dib: go ahead.

Zim: I knew about the eggs since the first day they began developing.

Dib: wanna know something? The 4 months before I helped you with the eggs, I was suspicious that you might've been pregnant. I was kinda right.

Zim: yes, yes you were. AH! DIB, IT'S HATCHING!

Dib: *removes hand, watching both the eggs hatch and his family grow before his eyes*

Zim: thank you, Dib

Dib: hm?

Zim: thank you for everything. I'll love you forever and on.

Dib: *pure panic* wait, you dont die after the eggs hatch, do you?

Zim: No, no I don't, but I'll love you longer than you'll ever know. And that's a promise.

From then and on, Zib and Dib lived a happy and eventful life with 7 beautiful Human-Irken Smeets.

The End

Zim: Or is it?

Dib: Not really, but for now, yes.

[thiswasinevitableid]

"I've become a regular client of yours and I want to know what it would cost to be your only client" Indruck or Sternclay (your amazing at writing both)

Thank you!

I decided to keep Indrid as a Sylph and imagine a slightly different life trajectory for him.

In case it isn’t obvious, two warnings: This is Not Suitable For your Workplace, and sex work is a topic within it

Indrid studies himself in the mirror for about the fiftieth time. He wants to look his best, because Duck will be here soon. It’s not their first time together, far from it. But tonight is different.

Tonight is special.

——————–

He’d hired companions before. He’d been on earth a long time and never quite gotten the hang of dating. But he had wanted companionship and sex from time to time, and money (the money that comes with being able to know the outcome of a sports game, a roll of dice, or the stock market before anyone else does) was the simplest way to secure that for a strange looking man who smiled a bit too wide and was always a bit ahead of the person he was talking to. He didn’t do it often, but every now and then it was worth it to have someone charming and nice to look at in his bed for an hour or so. Technology made it all the easier to arrange.

Duck had been one such arrangement, arrived at Indrids door with a crooked smile and the most wonderful drawl he’d ever heard. Soft and solid all at once and it made Indrids mouth water to look at him.

“How d’you want me?” He surveyed Indrids living room as he asked this, smile easy on his face but set with determination and a matter-of-factness that Indrid enjoyed.

“No way, quite just yet. We have things to discuss first.” He’d gestured to the table and Duck hesitated before taking a seat.

“Discuss?”

“Boundaries, likes and dislikes. I want this to be pleasant for both of us, and painful for neither.”

“I’m up for what-”

“-ever I want.” Indrid finished the phrase on top of him, bit his inner lip at the habit he couldn’t shake, “Look at the list in front of you. There’s nothing on it that’s off limits?”

Duck studied the paper Indrid had set out ahead of time, mis-matched eyes going wide when he hit certain lines.

“I uh, nope, all still good to go, uh, fuck, I mean uh. Fuck.”

“That was a terrible attempt at a lie.”

“Yeah, I know.” He sighed, looked at Indrid and for the first time he saw nerves cross his face. Indrid reached across the table, took his hand gently and squeezed it. Caught himself before his smile got too wide to be reassuring.

“Just pick a few from the list you enjoy and we can go from there.”

He’d chosen something straightforward, and soon he was flushed and panting, flat on his back on the bed as Indrid fucked him. He was warm and sturdy and Indrid reveled in it, took his time drawing out new sounds of delight from the younger man. After he’d departed, Indrid made a note to hire him again.

And again.

And again.

And then it was habit for Indrid to contact Duck each weekend, then during the week as well and he found himself looking forward to the few hours (if that) they spent together.

He’s never been quite sure what moment it began to change. When Duck had begun to linger afterwards, when he started asking him to dinner before bringing him home. This was the first shift, when Indrid went from an hourly client to something more akin to a sugar daddy.

Perhaps it was when, as Indrid lay happy and exhausted against Ducks chest, he’d said something funny and the shorter man had laughed so hard, so undignified that it made Indrid laugh too and then Ducks face was pressed against his shoulder as he tried unsuccessfully to stifle the giggles.

Perhaps it was the day when Duck arrived for an appointment visibly sore from whatever he’d been doing with other clients and Indrid had coaxed him into laying on the bed so he could rub the ache from his limbs. The man had fallen asleep with his head in Indrids lap as he worked at the knots in his shoulders. Aside from a brief respite to take care of the hard-on he’d developed just from touching him, Indrid had stayed on the bed, drawing as Duck slept curled up against him.

Perhaps it was the day he’d asked Duck if there was somewhere in the city he best liked to go and the man had asked to visit the nearest state park. They’d walked a lovely flat trail for hours, Duck eagerly identifying and talking about the different plants and creatures they saw. This was how Indrid learned Duck had gone to school for wildlife biology, had taken up escorting to cover a mounting debt that he was still digging himself out of. They’d eaten dinner at a picnic table, Indrid warmed by the late afternoon sun and the happiness radiating from his companion.

Perhaps it was the time he’d set aside a whole day for him and Duck to try something new, something they were both interested in. He’d kept the man tied to the bed, edged him for an hour, whispered filthy praise to him the whole time, taken him twice before finally letting him come. And then he’d spent the rest of the evening on aftercare, cooing and fussing over Duck. He’d never tried anything of that kind with partners on earth before.

The second shift, the shift Indrid is currently angling for the conclusion of, was that his feelings for Duck were growing stronger. There were two incidents that Indrid saw, in retrospect, were the catalysts.

First had been a night, several months ago, where he’d woken up in a fit of terror from what he knew was a bad future making itself known. He didn’t know where he was, when he was, what had happened and what still could.  It was a miracle his glasses didn’t come off in the flurry.

“Darlin, it’s alright, I got you.” Warm hands clasped one of his own and as he came down from the terror, reoriented himself in time he found his head resting on Ducks chest, heartbeat steady and reassuring. Woke up to find Duck had made breakfast (which in this case meant toast and coffee for him and poptarts for Indrid), and the man spent the better part of the day with him, simply keeping him company.

Then there had been another night, where Duck had called him, panicked and afraid for reasons that came out garbled but it didn’t matter because he was in distress and that was reason enough for Indrid to drive across town. He’d found Duck in his room on the top floor of a house he shared with a few friends. He’d been curled up and shaking on the floor and Indrid had carefully guided him to bed, soothed and petted and listened until Duck was exhausted enough to sleep. Indrid was tempted to slip his glasses off and cuddle Duck to him in his Sylph form, shield him from the world with his wings. But it didn’t take foresight to know that wouldn’t have gone well.

The next morning Duck had rolled over in the small bed, nuzzling Indrids cheek as he asked if he wanted to go to breakfast. Duck took him to a diner around the corner, insisted on paying, before quietly asking if Indrid had anywhere he needed to be that day. Indrid shook his head. Which is how they ended up cuddled on the floor of Ducks room watching movies on his computer, and at some point kisses on the cheek became kisses on the lips and then Indrid was in Ducks lap, grinding and purring as Duck fucked him.

It was Ducks willingness to spend whole days, sometimes multiple days in a row, with him that had made Indrid first consider the offer he was going to make. It worried him that if Duck spent too much time with him he’d have little left for other clients and not be able to make ends meet, and Indrid would hate to be the cause of that. But when he thought about going back to only seeing Duck for an hour or two each week his heart clenched so tightly in his chest he had to sit down.

And so, he decided to force the moment to its crisis.

——————————–

He sees from the futures that Duck lets himself in to the house, so he’s not surprised when there’s a low whistle from behind him as he adjusts his tie in the mirror.

“Damn, you clean up pretty nice, sugar. Didn’t think you even owned a tie.”

“I own exactly one. And believe me, if they ever invent pajama pants that can be worn as formal wear, I shall burn my remaining slacks.” He turns with a smile, finds Duck leaning against the door of the bedroom, openly admiring him. His shirt is dark green and well fitting, his pants accentuating his assets, and Indrid has to remind himself that they have a reservation to keep and that he can’t bend him over the nearest flat surface without making them late.

“Stay with me, darlin, you’re gettin that far off look.” Duck grins, crossing to him and wrapping his arms around his waist.

“Sorry, merely thinking about how good you look.”

Duck blushes, a sight Indrid will never tire of.

“So we’re goin out to the fanciest place in town just because, huh?”

“I don’t need an occasion to take you somewhere nice, do I?”

“Nah,” Duck rests his head on Indrids shoulder, “but do you want one?”

Indrid sees what’s coming , but nods anyway because he wants to see Ducks face light up as he says-

“I got the job, Indrid. I’m gonna be a park ranger.”

“Oh my sweet, that’s wonderful!” He kisses Duck, bumps their noses together as he says, “I hope they know how lucky they are to have hired you.”

“Just hope they like me enough to bump me from part-time to full eventually.”

“I haven’t a doubt they will. I’m so happy for you, sweetheart.”

Duck hugs him tighter, smiling into his shoulder before he breaks away.

“C’mon, darlin, let’s go celebrate.”

———————————-

One of the reasons Indrid chose this restaurant is that it has private dining booths, with a light to signal to the staff when the occupants do (or do not) need to be disturbed. He’d wanted somewhere safe from prying ears to ask Duck what he plans to.

Duck seems to have some ideas for how to exploit that privacy as well, if the look he gives Indrid as he scoots next to him is anything to go by.

“Dessert?”

“Of course, I can smell caramelized sugar from the kitchen and it’s driving me wild.”

“Would,’t want to deprive you of sugar, sugar.” Duck trails a finger along Indrids thigh, “but I had somethin else in mind before that.”

Indrid bites back a moan as a new future makes itself known.

“What did you ha-OH, ohhhhmph.” Indrid shoves his napkin against his mouth as Duck drops to his knees under the table, unzips his pants, and palms at him.

“Want me to suck your dick?”

“What ahHahh kind of question is that?” Indrid wiggles his hips and Duck snickers, reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a condom.

“Just checkin.” He frees Indrids cock and rolls the condom down before licking a stripe up it. He takes the head in his mouth and sucks. Indrid shoves the napkin against his mouth, but he’s not fast enough to stifle a chirp.

“You make such fuckin cute sounds sometimes.” Duck says with a smirk before returning to his previous activity and Indrid manages to keep it together until Duck moans, the sensation of that on his cock making him bang his knee against the table.

“You doin okay up there?” Duck licks his lips.

“Yes, very okay, please, please sweetheart.” He whispers, one hand in Ducks hair as he hungrily runs his tongue across the tip as his hand works the shaft, “I’m so, oh goodness, Duck, yes yes.” He cums with a muffled moan that dies out into a soft chirp. Duck tidies him up, joins him back in the circular booth and cuddles up next to him.

“Always wanted to try that.”

“Glad to be of assistance.” Indrid kisses his cheek, flips the light so the waiter knows they’re ready to order.

It’s only after they’ve finished dessert that Indrid takes Ducks hand (and a deep breath).

“Duck there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Yeah?” Ducks eyes shine expectantly. Indrid draws his mind away from any futures, focuses only on the present.

“I sense that I am your favorite, well, client. I want to know how much it would cost to become your only client.”

Duck blinks at him for a moment. And then his face falls, and he drops his gaze into his lap, unlacing their fingers as he does.

“I uh, I’ll. I’ll need to uh, to think. About that.”

His comments stay that stilted while they pay and leave, and as they drive back he focuses his eyes out the window. This tells Indrid two things: whatever Duck is feeling, he’s terrified of saying and so he’s avoiding saying anything at all. And, more importantly, Indrid has royally screwed up.

Once they’re inside Duck heads into the kitchen, grabs a glass for water but can’t hold it steady enough given how his hands are shaking.

“Duck please tell me what’s wrong.”

“N-nope. I ain’t gonna say anythin becuase what I want to say is awful foolish in hindsight.”

“I don’t care. Please say it anyway?”

Duck rests his hands on the counter.

“I, I thought, when you said you wanted to ask me somethin that you were gonna ask…” He looks up and Indrid can see the tears, “I thought you were gonna ask me to be your boyfriend, tell me you didn’t want to bother with the client stuff anymore.”

Oh. Oh dear.

“I didn’t realize that was an option.”

“What?”

“I assumed your affection towards me was still, on some level, part of a professional exchange. I didn’t dare assume you actually-”

“Liked you? Jesus, Indrid, do you think I’m that good at fakin shit? I’ve been fallin for you for the better part of three months and that’s like rookie fuck-up number one in this line of work but I couldn’t stand the idea of not seein you again and I thought maybe you felt the same way and, and, fuck, Indrid, half the stuff we’ve done when we fucked is stuff I don’t do with other clients because I trust you in a way I don’t trust them and I, I, fuck.” He sinks down behind the counter and Indrid hurries to the other side of it to find him sitting, defeated, on the floor with his head in his hands.

Indrid carefully sits down in front of him.

“Duck, look at me. Please.”

Duck meets his eyes.

“We want the same thing, my sweet. I was simply too afraid to consider that option, and I didn’t mean for that to hurt you and for that I am sorry.”

That glimmer of hope returns to Ducks eyes.

“I would like to be your boyfriend, Duck Newton, if you would like to be mine.”

“I would, darlin, so fuckin much.”

Indrid surges forward and kisses him, Duck laughing against his lips. By the time they make it off the floor and into the bedroom they’re each half-dressed.  Duck’s still laughing intermittently, glee radiating from his body as Indrid pushes him backwards and crawls on top of him.

“Mine” Indrid growls, pinning his shoulders down. Something flashes across the younger mans face and he worries that was too far.

“Yeah, darlin, all yours.” Duck drags a kiss up Indrids neck, voice thick with desire.

“Do you like that, my sweet? The idea that you are mine and mine alone?”

“Uh huh, god, sugar, so much.”

Indrid begins methodically kissing his way down Ducks chest and stomach, yanks down his boxers so he can kiss and lick at his thighs.

“And what shall I do with you, since you’re all mine?”

“Bite me.” Duck pleads and Indrid raises his head to look at him in surprise.  They usually have to avoid that activity even though they both enjoy it, as some of Ducks clients won’t tolerate any sign that he’s been with someone else.

“Pleeease” Duck whimpers and Indrid growls again, sinks his teeth into Ducks thigh. Does it again and again until his left thigh is coated in hickeys and bite marks. Switches to the right thigh, occasionally gliding up to nip at his soft belly. By the time he’s finished Duck is tugging at his hair, moaning and pleading with hips thrusting in the air

“Kisses, want, Indrid.”

Indrid clambers back up him and kisses him ferociously, pulls back to run his tongue along Ducks swollen, perfect lips.

“Shall I tie you up, my sweet, so you can be utterly at my mercy?”

Duck nods frantically and Indrid rolls off the bed, grabbing his preferred pair of handcuffs. Ducks hands are already above his head, next to the headboard, by the time Indrid returns.

“So good for me, my sweet Duck.” He cuffs him to the headboard, tilts his chin up with his finger so their eyes meet.

“Indrid…” There’s no direction of the sigh, it’s simply a sound of pleasure.

“I’m going to coat your skin in marks now, and when you’re a screaming, begging mess, I’m going to ride you until I come on that lovely skin because you are mine.” He drops his head down to Ducks neck and sucks a bruise there, threading his fingers into that dark hair so he can pull his head back for better access.

“Darlin, yesOHFUCK, fuckAHnnnn.”

“I do so love the sound of your voice.”

Duck makes a noise that may have been a word at some point. Indrid sets about placing hickeys across his collar bone, his chest, his neck and after about ten minutes the man beneath him is a mess. When Indrid finally rolls down the condom he groans in thanks, cants his hips up and nudges at Indrids entrance with the head of his cock.

“Patience.”

“I’m bein patient” Another nudge, accompanied by a teasing smile. Indrid toys with making him wait longer for that, but he’s so wound up himself that he decides against it, begins carefully working the cock into him (he’s still somewhat prepared from the solo session he had before Duck arrived). When its fully seat he takes a moment to breath, runs his hands across the expanse of Ducks chest.

“So handsome. And all mine.”

“Damn right. You gonna do anythin about it or OHShiiit, oh fucknevermind.” Duck gasps as Indrid shifts up and down, moans spilling from his throat at the feeling of Duck inside him. Duck can only move his hips so much and so Indrid controls the pace, slow at first and then gaining speed and roughness.

“That’s it my sweet, that’s it, let me use this perfect cock until I can’t. Fucking.see.” He moves sharply on those last three words and Duck cries out. Indrid drops forward, swallowing the noises and letting his cock rut between their stomachs and then he comes, teeth biting at Ducks lip.

“‘M so close, darlin, pleaseplease.”

“Shhh, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” He grinds down, works his hips with no small amount of effort even as he body goes oversensitive but Duck’s been so good and he wants to see him come, wants to tear every delicious sound from that throat as he rides him.

“Fuckohfuck, Indrid, Indrid yes.” He cums with a choked sound and Indrid waits until the last tremors pass through him to climb off.  He undoes the cuffs, settles in the crook of Ducks arm.

“Jesus, that was, uh, y’know.” Duck pants, arm wrapping around Indrids shoulder.

“Not quite, but I can guess.”

“Smartass.” Duck kisses him, fondly, before looking at the state of his legs, “damn, did a number on me.”

“You did ask.”

“That I did. I’m probably gonna stop doin the escortin thing once I start at the park. Mostly scared word’d get out and I’d get fired. Might pick up some shifts at the co-op that buddy of yours owns, since he said I oughta apply if I needed to.”

“Barclay’s excellent to work for, I’m told.”

“Yeah. Hopefully it’ll be enough to manage the debt and shit.”

Indrid hums, thoughtfully. He’d offer to pay it off for Duck, but he’s done that once before and Duck had seemed deeply uncomfortable with the idea. But there are other ways. Such as the two men who had been hired to steal and destroy a few filing cabinets worth of debt records along with their digital copies, enough on either side of Ducks name for him not to become the target of suspicion.

But Indrid doesn’t dwell on that thought now, instead nestles close to his boyfriend as he animatedly talks about his new job and eventually falls asleep, dreaming of all the tomorrows stretched out before them.

[fluffymochicakes]

BTS Reaction To Having A Really Happy S/O

Requested: Yes

Request: Fluff and more fluff 💖 May I request a BTS Reaction with them having an S/O that gets really happy over the smallest things?? Like some may see it as nothing but to them it means the world to them? Maybe because they had a very bad experience in the past and never had much good happen to them so even the smallest things brings them complete and utter joy?? Just pure fluff. Thank you 💖💖💖

Thank you for requesting, I hope this is what you meant!~

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

SeokJin: He was in the kitchen trying to make something for you two to eat when he heard a loud squeal come from behind him. He looked around confused before he felt arms wrap around his waist as you back hugged him.

,,What's going on, babe?" He asks while turning around to hug you back properly, a huge smile on his face as he saw you grinding widely back at him.

,,You remembered I liked f/d(favorite dessert)." You muse and Jin chuckles.

,,Of course, I remembered it. I wanted to make you happy." He pressed a kiss to your head and went on to cook as you smiled once again to him.

,,Gosh, you're adorable, Y/n."

Yoongi: He had been in his studio for hours before he heard the door of it click open and he turned around to see who it was but was only met with your grinning face.

,,Hi?"He said uncertainly as he watched you give him a soft kiss before sitting onto the sofa, all while having an adorable grin on your lips.

,,Hey. I saw a cute dog on the way here and the owner allowed me to pet it."You explained and Yoongi smiled while nodding. ,,He had this soft short fur and the biggest most adorable eyes. He was so cute!" You gushed and your boyfriend watched you for some time, feeling suddenly energized and happy that you were so happy over a puppy.

,,It's good to see you smiling so much again, baby." He misses you again and even holds your hand while he works a bit more before taking a break to go out for lunch with you, you just made him so happy.

,,If you like a random dog so much, just wait until you meet Min Holly, baby."

Namjoon: He was writing at his desk in your shared office when you walked in and his mood immediately lightened as did yours when he opened his mouth:

,,You look amazing, babygirl. You're absolutely glowing."

As you neared him, he stood up from his chair and embraced you tightly while setting a soft kiss to your lips. The compliment was such a small thing in your whole day or even life but it made both a ton lighter.

He opened his eyes from the kiss to see you grinning back at him and his lips curved up to match yours. ,,What's so funny?"

,,Nothing. I'm just happy you think I look amazing or glowing. Thank you."

To that Namjoon furrowed his brows but kept quiet and decided to just kiss you some more, he could get into the angsty questions on another day. Right now, he just wanted to spend this moment with you in happiness.

,,You always look the best to me, babygirl."

Hoseok: He was taking a break with his members in the practice room and they were all on the ground panting and drinking water, when you burst in with bags of food in your hands.

,,Y/n!! You are a goddess!" Jin was the first one up, giving you a quick hug before he took the bag and set everything out onto the table nearby, the other members standing up and thanking you as well but your eyes were only on your boyfriend who was smiling widely at you.

,,Hey, Hobi. Did you all get the choreo right?" You try your best not to show your over-happiness so quick but Hoseok already knows you well enough to see it from your eyes.

,,Yeah, we did, babe. So what made you so happy, hm?" He stood up and planted a kiss to your lips with his hands on your cheeks, the members thankfully ignoring your intimate moment.

,,Nothing. I was just listening to your songs again and your voice made me happy, so I decided to come and see you a little earlier today. I hope it's okay?"

Hoseok's smile widened and he kissed you again, this time a little slower and with more passion despite still being tired from practice.

,,I'm more than okay with that. You know I love to see you, especially when you're so happy, baby."

Jimin: You were on the sofa in your living room when you heard the front door open and you immediately got up and dashed to greet your boyfriend of two full years.

,,Oh my- Hi, princess."Jimin chuckled and wrapped his arms around your body to pick you up and spin you a bit before setting you down and sharing a loving kiss. When you pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours and looked into your eyes with what you could only read as love and happiness.

,,Happy two years."You mumble and he presses another soft kiss to your lips as a response. You finally let him take off his shoes and coat and make it into the living room where Jimin unpacks a small bag.

Your favorite movies, snacks and drinks.

Of course he'd buy them for you.

A smile stretches over your lips and he looks at you with a matching one, putting in the first movie before sitting next to you and wrapping his arms around you.

,,How are you so happy all the time?"He asks quietly and you shrug, a smile still on your face.

,,You make me happy. Thank you for being with me for all these years. I love you, Park Jimin."

,,I love you too, princess. Don't ever forget it."

(Tbh I meant this as like he's the small thing that makes you happy bc he's short and smoll and cute yk.. Haha)

Taehyung: He was in the living room watching something on the TV when you came from the kitchen with a wide grin on your face and just sat next to him quietly.

He immediately turned to you and grinned his boxy smile back at you. ,,So, what happened?"

,,Nothing.."You mumble and turn towards the TV but Taehyung knows better and rests his head onto your lap while looking up at you. ,,You're missing your show, babe." You mumble when you notice him staring you down.

,,I don't care. I want to know what or who made you happy."He smiles gently when he feels your hands in his hair but tells himself to stay on point.

,,Okay, well.. It's small but my best friend just told me she could fly here to see me and we haven't seen each other in years, so I'm really happy."

Taehyung sits upright again and wraps his arms around you. ,,I'm happy for you! When is she coming? Maybe we can sort it out so that she could stay here instead of a pricey hotel?"

Your smile widens and you hug Taehyung back even tighter and kiss him. ,,That would be great! Thank you! She's coming the first week of next month, so we have some time still."

Taehyung smiles and shakes his head a bit as you start planning the visit, he loved you so much he could endure a little visit from a friend.

,,God, you're cute when you're happy. Stay like this forever."

Jungkook: He was in his Golden Closet Studio when you walked in with a little bag of take-out food. He paused his work and turn to look at you with a small smile.

,,Hey, babygirl. How's your day?"He kisses you and places the bag onto the table while pulling you to sit in his lap so he could be close to you.

,,It was good. I played the game you wanted me to and I kept on winning, so I might be playing it with you next time, how about it?"

Jungkook's bunny teeth come to show as he smiles at you, he loved Overwatch and he loved you so what's better than having those two things connect. ,,That's great, Y/n. We definitely need to battle a bit. Show you who's the real winner."He kisses your shoulder and you giggle making his heart flutter.

,,Alright, but that game really made me happy somehow. I've been smiling all day because I won like ten times in a row."

Jungkook chuckles and nods. ,,I know what you mean. Now you know why I'm walking around the apartment with a huge grin sometimes."

You both eat and talk a bit before actually going off to battle each other in Overwatch and yeah, you won. (But only because he let you win)

,,Yeah yeah, celebrate your victory which I gave you." You only smile and dance a little victory dance while showing your tongue to him playfully. He chuckles and shakes his head.

,,I love this damn crackhead.."

(I don't know anything about Overwatch.. lmao sorry if I got it wrong. Also I like this God bc of his hair haha imagine you're Jimin in this)