#dream world they ended up in was the real one. where things happened a lot differently.

[sylviareviar]

hey guys i've been playing through pokemon black and white (i borrowed a copy of white from my local library) and every time i play these games i always do it with a "Pip" and "Fluffy". Since the game would be unplayable if I kept Fluffy as a Swablu, I allow myself to evolve him into an Altaria when the time comes, but the whole point of Pip's character is that he doesn't evolve, because he just can't. Therefore, anytime I play a game that has Piplup in it, I use it without evolving it and treat it as my main Water-type Pokemon, sometimes even replacing my starter.

My question is this: I'm getting to a point in Pokemon White that it's getting a little too difficult for me to keep playing with Pip as he is (if I could only give him custom stats, I'd give him higher bulk and special attack with a small boost to speed so he'd be able to take more hits without being so helpless). Should I evolve him and forget about my little "anime challenge"?

I feel kinda bad, but since White isn't my game anyway, I don't feel as bad as if it were my own game, Pokemon Black or Black 2. I don't intend to evolve him in either of those games. Plus, if I evolve him in White, it would be as though, in another universe, Pip was born with the capability to evolve. I'll be able to teach him moves I couldn't teach him as a Piplup and pass those on to future eggs if I want to do any further breeding. It's just that I keep hesitating anytime he levels up and keep cancelling the evolution.

I've kinda found myself at a crossroads here...

[robotsafari]

isnt it sad that the best world in dream drop distance is the fucking grid. (only in sora’s side though..)

[bettyfrommars]

A little something inspired by this edit by @somnambulic-thing of what I imagine as a version of a mechanic!Eddie, but he's also biker!Eddie to me, or anything you want.

mechanic!Eddie x Reader

18+Only, secret work crush, gender neutral reader, just some yearning fluff with mention of weed and alcohol, bit of slut shaming, some sage advice from Wayne.

word count: 1.7k

Eddie had been staring at the door to the office and zoning out for a while when you opened it to step into the bay, and his unblinking gaze accidentally lingered at your midsection.

“What’s wrong?” You glanced down at your outfit, thinking maybe your zipper was open or something worse. There were three other mechanics besides Eddie there that day, each of them knee deep in the hustle and bustle of the busy season.  A boombox on one of the tall, red cubbies blasted hard rock while an electric drill buzzed.  

His attention snapped back to the bolt he was crouched down to tighten on the rim of a Ford Bronco.  

“Nothing,” he grunted, cranking the ratchet so that the muscles on his tattooed bicep bulged. He had on his signature summer uniform of black coveralls with the sleeves ripped off.  His hair was tied back in a pony with a navy-blue bandana on his head, making it easier to slip his welding helmet on and off.  “I didn’t know you were working today.”

Now, that was a big fat lie.  Spotting your car in the parking lot when he came in every morning was one of those things that set his day right.  You’d taken Thursday off the week before, and he’d moped around in a bad mood for the entire shift.  

Almost four months you’d been working in the office, and he still hadn’t summoned the nerve to ask you out.  Instead, he drank too much after a show at the Hideout one night and ended up letting some random chick crawl all over him.  The next day, the guys he worked with would make it sound more serious than it actually was.

“Soooo Munson, I heard you got lucky with Deep Throat Dana last night. They say she can suck an orange out of a tailpipe!” 

And then the entire shop broke out into wheezing laughter like a bunch of hyenas, as if something funny was said.

It made him cringe, and he cast a side glance to see if you were within earshot.  “Nothing happened with that girl,” he wanted to say to you.  “We kissed, but I just couldn’t…ya know?”

But also, why did he feel the need to explain himself to you? It was as if he was being faithful to a dream.  You’d never give him the time of day out in the real world.  Sure, you knew just how he liked his coffee, and you asked him questions about DnD and his band as if you were interested.  But, you were just being nice—he could tell.  At first he thought he was special, but quickly realized that you treated everyone the same.  You were, in fact, a thoughtful, likable person.  Surely your only interest in him was as co-workers, nothing more.  

Also, he could hear Wayne’s voice in his head: “Don’t shit where you eat, son.” 

It was his uncle's long-standing advice to never get involved with a coworker, and Eddie just happened to agree.  If he was ever lucky enough to take you on a few dates and then you dumped him or broke his heart, he wasn’t sure he could work at the garage anymore.  On the bright side, he also had a CDL to operate heavy equipment, so maybe that would be his cue to become a long-haul trucker.  

Deep breath Munson, you’re getting way ahead of yourself.

You hesitated in the doorway for a beat with Mrs. Chadwick’s paperwork for the Oldsmobile sedan in your hand, wanting to ask Eddie how his day was going.  But then he sank down onto the creeper and rolled under the vehicle as if to avoid you in a hurry.  

You really didn’t know what to make of him. 

One second, you’d be certain he was flirting, but then later that day, he’d huff out the door without even so much as a wave. He’d tease you about things, like your collection of random motel pens or the music you liked, and then you’d give the energy right back and wait for that gremlin smile to spread across his face. 

The other day, he’d left your favorite candy bar on the desk for you to find.  You knew it was him because he was the only one in Hawkins you’d told.  How the topic of sweets came up, you weren’t sure, but you’d never forget the curious narrowing of his eyes when he asked which one you liked best.

You had this strange feeling that he was secretly studying you.

The other night you were sitting across from your friend Tina, having burgers and beers at The Hideaway, when Eddie just happened to breeze in.

Your heart stuttered, whatever you’d been saying dying on your lips, completely losing your train of thought. The vinyl in the booth squeaked as you craned your neck to watch him. That was the first time you’d ever seen him in street clothes without coveralls on, and it was raining, so his long hair was soaked.  He greeted the woman at the cash register, and you were too far away to hear, but apparently he was there to pay and pick up his takeout order in a big brown sack with greasy handprints on it.  You thought about waving him down to ask if he wanted to join the two of you, but he did his business in a hurry and didn’t seem to want to be noticed.

“What’s going on?” Tina asked, gaze darting from you to the Dio patch on Eddie’s back as he exited the building.  She munched a french fry before wiping ketchup off her lip.  “Did something happen between you and Eddie?”

You snapped a look at her.  “You know him?”

“Well, not intimately,” she ate another fry.  “But I went to school with him, and bought weed from him a few times.”

“He sells weed?” You cocked an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised.

“It’s been like, a while, but maybe he still does.  How do you know him?”

“We work together,” you brought the half-eaten burger up for a bite and paused there.  “I think he hates me.”

“I highly doubt that.” And then she stared pointedly at you when she said, “he’s cute,” with a knowing smirk. 

“Ha,” you adjusted the napkin on your lap. “Well, as you know, I plan to stay single for the rest of my life.”

“Sure, sure.”

When it got closer to 6 that day, you scrambled to get off the phone with a customer, worried Eddie might slip out again and you wouldn’t see him for the entire weekend. After hiding in the supply closet for a full minute to avoid Phil—one of the other mechanics who liked to talk your ear off—you finally made it to the break room, panting as if you’d just run a marathon.

Eddie was there, bent over to snatch a Pepsi out of the vending machine.  Freezing in place, you suddenly forgot how to form words.

Eddie felt like an idiot, like for sure you’d caught on to the fact that he’d been finding shit to do for the past half hour just so he could be there to have some private time with you.  He didn’t like the idea of you closing up the shop by yourself, especially now that it was getting darker sooner. 

And then fucking Phil wouldn’t leave. His wife had relatives visiting, and he was shuffling around like a sad puppy trying to avoid going home.  Eddie had to pretend he needed to take a shit just to get rid of him, and was halfway surprised the dude didn’t follow him into the bathroom.

He usually brought his own lunch, but the snack and soda machines were always tempting.  He knew how to open the damn things up and thought about doing some last minute grocery shopping to make up for his crappy wage.  

You cleared your throat.  “So, what are you up to this weekend?  Any fun plans?”

Eddie pulled his shoulders back and spun around at the sound of your voice, fisting the can in one hand and running the other through his hair.  He’d been growing his bangs out, and they were just long enough to tuck behind his ears.  The length was so fucking annoying at times that he’d often considered chopping them to nubs.    

You were smiling at him, eyes bright and sincere, and it made him feel all fuzzy inside like his brain was made of cotton candy.

“My day was good. You?” That was what came out of his mouth, and then he let out a silent, internal scream that made his ears ring. 

But he recovered quickly. “I mean, I don’t have any plans.  I don’t usually have…I mean, my buddy Jeff and I might go see a movie, but not like major plans.”  He didn’t want to tell you he was taking a trip out to Rick’s on Sunday to beef up his supply for weekly customers.  He sure as hell couldn’t restore the van on the chump change he made at the garage. 

You stared at him intently, softening when you realized he was nervous.  

How could that be?  Did you make him nervous?

You pulled a folded piece of paper out of your back pocket and held it up.  “I found this at the laundromat.  It says your band is playing at The Hideout on Tuesday.  Is that still happening?”

Pinched between your thumb and forefinger was one of the handmade fliers Gareth had helped him make.  

“Well we…yes-–” he cracked open the lid of the soda and it fizzed everywhere, dripping down his arm and onto the linoleum floor. “Shit, I’ll clean that up, don’t worry.”

He didn’t want you to get stuck having to get the mop out to clean again, so he put the leaking can down on the lunch table and went over to grab something to wipe it up.  

He busied himself with sopping up the mess, albeit poorly, while you inched closer.

“I think I might stop by and check you guys out,” you saw that his face was red when he stood, chocolate orbs lit up in anticipation.  “Maybe we could have a beer or something after?”

His cotton candy brain tried to filter his next thought, but it was too late.  “What are you doing tonight?”

“Tonight?” You blinked a few times.  “Is your band playing somewhere tonight too?”

“No, but I—” the tip of his tongue slipped side to side between his lips.  “If you’re not busy tonight maybe we could go somewhere to eat or drink or hang out or something.”

“Or something,” a grin quivered in the corner of your mouth. 

And then the two of you were just standing there, close enough for your breathing to fall into sync. Gathering up a nice helping of nerve, you reached an arm out and ran the back of your knuckles down the front of his shirt.

Eddie was vibrating.

Don’t shit where you eat, son.

No disrespect Uncle, but fuck the job.

“Anything," he said softly, hope blossoming in his chest like those wildly palpitating hearts in cartoons.  “Anything you want.”

[astonmartingf]

NEW PERSPECTIVE ; FA14

fernando alonso x photo journalist!reader

. . . twenty years into his career, alonso faced a lot of changes. but it was all because of you, that he looked forward to at the end of everything.

amgf 2.8k words. implied mentions of spygate, rumors, other controversies, accidents and more. slightly realistic? i cried writing this— made me in awe of fernando as a driver even more. enjoy 👍

death of a bachelor ; masterlist

[2005]

Is Fernando selfish?

He could say that to himself, it doesn’t matter to him what other people thought of him. At the end of the day, they’re just here to race.

He’s aware of it, if it weren’t for his skills and passion he wouldn’t have come this far— a young boy from Spain, dreaming to make it to the top. It didn’t seem like reality four years ago, yet here he is.

Standing on top of his car in parc ferme, the crowd cheering him on as his engineers flood through from the garage to greet him. The sun shining down on him— celebrating his win, it felt as if he was back at home in Spain, under the protection of his helmet he could see the entourage of people crowding him.

People as far as his eye can see, but it’s all a blur— to Fernando this was everything he dreamed of and more. It peeved him that he didn’t win the Brazilian Grand Prix, but winning the World Championship was even better.

His shoulders held high hugging every Renault engineer he could find, it was history. He will be a part of history- no. Fernando Alonso made history. And this was just the beginning.

[2007]

Where did things go wrong?

Exactly two years ago, Fernando was on cloud nine. The only thing he’s getting to the nines is stress. As much as he hates to admit he was intimidated to be one-upped by a rookie at that.

It’s his ego that’s eating him alive, nonetheless Fernando is still proud. If he has his head high, nothing could ever stop him.

It scares him, the monster growing inside him, but what else can he do? In this sport, one can either hunt or be hunted. If he had to use tricks up his sleeve, why wouldn’t he?

It’s nothing personal, Hamilton just happened to be there, his only mistake was thinking that the rookie won’t retaliate. In hindsight, he’d gladly accept P2 over his teammate.

Fernando may have an egotistical and dubious character but he wasn’t blind to the young man’s skills. But it was also a mirror and testament to his own, if Hamilton could do it, what’s his reason not to deliver?

Thinking back on his phone call with the team principal, he should’ve immediately told the FIA instead of ratting himself out. Now he has to face the consequences of his actions, deciding to do better, Alonso ultimately leaves the team.

[2008]

He must be a penchant for bad luck, this time Fernando knows it wasn’t his fault.

It annoyed him that controversy seemed to follow him wherever he went. “Are you Fernando Alonso? Is it real you tried to kill your teammate? What can you say in response to the rumors circulating about you?”

Joder!

“Fernando Alonso? Do you have time for an interview?”

Alonso wasn’t one to be caught off-guard, but for the first time he stood frozen, in shock. Glancing around the area, Alonso stepped forward nodding towards the interviewer. He’d been dealing with stupid questions all day long, what’s another one gonna change with his mood right?

“I’m YN LN interviewer for Formula One Herald. As someone who has witnessed you win the championship back in 2005 and 2006, what are your plans in securing the most points possible?”

Wrong.

Now Fernando is truly caught off guard. Wary off your question, overthinking and analyzing hidden meanings behind it. Alonso didn’t think of himself as calculative, he’s simply observant and protective of his space. Knowing how easily one’s words could be twisted into a narrative.

Fernando stares at you, Surely you’re not the type to work for meager clicks on the webs?

It was silent for the next few minutes.

“Sir Alonso? I’m sorry for taking your time, you can go ahead if you don’t want to answer.”

Somehow you managed to catch Fernando’s attention even more, “I thought journalists were supposed to be persuasive? You’re just letting me go without getting a scoop of the news?”

Fernando’s eyes widened, hearing you laugh at his words, he didn’t think of himself as funny, maybe it’s one of their tactics. To know one’s information you must soften them a bit, his expression only hardens ultimately catching you off guard.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to laugh- I guess I’m just nervous since it’s my first time actually being dispatched on field. I used to take pictures on the sidelines- I even took one of yours when you won back in 2005, it was such a nice memory. I remember fighting a lot of reporters to catch a glimpse of you, I managed to take one and it was chosen as the front and center photo of one famous magazine! Hopefully you win more races and podiums, you make it fun and exciting. Speaking as a fan and not some journalist, I’m rooting for you- I must’ve been rambling for a while, thank you for sparing me your time, don’t worry this will all go off the record just for you. Have a nice race week.”

The air must’ve felt it too, because since then things have changed.

Fernando was left alone watching your back disappear from the crowd.

The moment things were finally looking better for him.

[2012]

“Sir Alonso!”

The voice from afar alone caused Fernando to look around for the familiar voice in the paddock. Somehow he’s been always keen on answering your questions or setting up time for interviews, often extending them for an absurd amount of time as what his manager said.

It’s not biased if your questions are the only thing interesting. That or it could be your magnetic presence, he could feel your passion beaming through as you asked him intricate questions none that he experienced before. 

Another telltale sign is you’re the only one who calls him “Sir Alonso”, thinking back on his first meeting with you, it definitely came as a shock. Despite all the formality, he’s taken a liking to the name only you call him.

It makes him feel respected and more importantly it makes him feel like he has a special relationship with you. Walking through the crowd, he spots you at one of the tables waving your cards in the air, like a bait to lure him into your trap.

Not that he minds, if he had to spend the next hour talking about how the season wrapped, he’d rather talk to you about it. Smiling unknowingly, Fernando rubs the palms of his hands on his red tracksuit. 

Was he nervous to talk to you? No. It’s all about racing, a topic Alonso is fond of, but is your presence rubbing him off? I guess he could say that. All the thoughts in his head buzzing, what should he say? What should he do? How should he act in front of you.

Fernando never thought of himself to be as calculative, but the need to impress you has astounded him even more.

“Fernando Alonso, congratulations on finishing P2 for the season. It’s exciting to see you on and off the track now that the season is over.” 

He could feel himself beaming at the sound of your voice, it’s like you infected him with your insurmountable enthusiasm. Alonso liked that about you, no need for snarky remarks, or hidden agendas behind your question, you were always talking about the sport, yet somehow your spark never seemed to fade away.

And as much as you like to praise him, he’s slowly in the making for one of your biggest fans. Not that he will admit that to you himself.

“YN, it’s always a delight talking to you.” Grabbing your hand for a handshake, Fernando pulls you in for a hug without thinking. Immediately pulling away, Alonso’s thoughts began firing, overthinking the previous interaction.

His doubt was erased once he saw the smile on your face, happiness reaching the corners of your eyes. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, this is becoming a thing isn’t it?”

A thing. What thing? Fernando raises his brows asking for more context, maybe he’s overthinking it again or confused, maybe he didn’t hear you properly, totally not distracted just by being in your personal space.

“Post-season interviews? It’s always nice to catch up and look back on the season, especially this one P2. Congratulations Alonso…” Your voice drowns out into the background.

It was another turning point in Fernando Alonso’s life, and somehow this was all because of you. Only realizing then that he’d rather sit down for what seems like the longest time in his life, talking to you, not just about his racing but about your own life. He realized that he’d never catch himself doing this with other interviewers, and this was your thing.

Fernando liked that.

It’s nice to catch up and look back on the season with you.

[2016]

Lucky to be alive. Lucky. To be. Alive.

It only dawned on him what happened then. Fernando sat in silence next to you, from the corner of his eyes, he could see you tidying up the small things you prepared for the interview. Alonso felt vulnerable, it’s been a while since he’s experienced such a crash.

“I should leave you to rest, hmm?” Raising his head, Fernando meets your eyes full of concern or at least that’s how he sees it. In a spur of the moment, Alonso shakes his head ‘no’.

“Can you stay for a while?” Fernando avoids your eyes, halfway in regret from being unable to control himself. To his surprise, you drop your papers sitting down next to him.

“Do you want to talk as a friend?”

A friend.

Fernando stays quiet before nodding his head.

And just like how you do all the time, just being by your side Fernando could feel himself slowly getting better. Letting himself let go of all the thoughts and worries in his head. If not now, when?

When will he have another chance to spend time with you? Not just as a friend.

It was the second time he felt it change.

[2019]

“Congratulations Alonso!”

The corner of Fernando’s lips curl up to a smile watching you approach him closer, opening his arms, catching you in his arms. If he wasn’t already feeling better with his win, having you here by his side is even more enjoyable.

“Didn’t think you’d actually come here. Sick of the F1 Paddock?” Fernando inquisitively asked, he expected you to reply politely for support, but what he didn’t expect is for you to suddenly grow balls.

“Honestly it’s boring without you there. Why would I go when you’re here?”

Or were you always so straightforward that he didn’t notice it? Stunned. 

It was always a surprise with you, not that he minded it didn’t matter what you would’ve said, Alonso would gladly listen to you. “When did you arrive?” Clearing his throat, trying to not get your words to affect him as much as he wants to.

“Oh, I’ve been watching since yesterday, I stayed in one of the tents.” 

And there goes Alonso, surely if you had looked further into his eyes, you could see his heart doing somersaults and cartwheels. Is this your effect on him? He wasn’t that aware, but now it’s slightly concerning for him to be acting this way in front of you.

You simply stunned him. And Alonso wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s surprising how I managed to hide from you, to be honest my self-control isn’t that good-”

I’m sure yours is better… if only you knew mine, Alonso thought, lips curling into a smile.

“But somehow I thought, wouldn't it be better to surprise you in the end? If you win then it’ll be a surprise and a celebration. Just like now! I took so many photos of you, you want to see?”

Fernando didn’t notice you moving closer to him, showing him the photos you took of him. 

“And if I lost? What would happen then?” A smirk grows in his face, feeling proud to put you into the corner, but Fernando should know by now that you will always have the upper hand. Especially when it comes to you.

“Oh, I planned on giving you a big kiss, comfort you and take you out for dinner. But isn’t it good that you won?”

The way Fernando’s face fell at the thought of getting a kiss from you sounded a lot better than winning.

Joder! I’d rather kiss YN than win… Is this where I’m at now? 

“What a shame that I won then, are kisses only for losers?” Fernando ought to shut up, but he just can’t let you win, taking blow after blow he’s been hit hard where it hurts. His ego and what could’ve been a kiss from you.

As if you couldn’t surprise him more, Fernando stood frozen watching you move closer to him, hands wrapped on both of his cheeks. He could feel the coldness of your hands against the warmth of his cheeks, pressing a small kiss on the side of his face totally catching him off guard.

“Winners get one kiss. Losers get two.” 

Fernando can’t help but burst out laughing, eliciting the same to you laughing along with the sound of his laughter. “What?”

Alonso shakes his head, face red from the blushing, laughing, or just being in the same proximity as you. You’re full of surprises, he’ll give you that, but he completely surprises himself in the end.

Fighting the urge to kiss you then and there, Fernando settles on grabbing your hands, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go on that dinner you were talking about.”

[2021]

Getting out of his seat, Fernando immediately looks around for you. The energy, adrenaline, and excitement fueling him. Walking towards his team waiting for him by the barricades cheering, yet his eyes linger towards you.

Behind a camera with a wide smile on your face, Alonso waves as you mirror his movements. It’s as if time had stopped, as you capture his moments, Fernando has already ingrained you in his mind.

Coming back to Formula One wasn’t easy. He had sacrifices to make, but seeing the warmth and familiarity of your face around the track. He kept his shoulders up.

Now more stable than ever, his sacrifices, priorities, and privilege will all be tested as the season comes to an end. Nevertheless, Fernando is grateful to have you by his side.

It’ll only be the beginning for more changes to come, and with you by his side, there’s nothing stopping him now.

[2023]

“You're back with the interviews?” Fernando sits at the other side of the table overlooking the view of the yacht dock.

“My favorite driver is on the grid, so why not. I thought this was our thing?” Fernando watches as you prepare the papers in front of you, head tilting, focused doing your own things. Sitting back and letting you do your magic, Fernando grabs one of your cameras.

You were always behind the lens of your beloved camera, Alonso remembered you saying to him that this was one of your oldest cameras. You also gave Fernando free reign in using your camera, he wasn’t aware of the magnitude of you letting him use your camera, but knowing how special it is to you, Alonso knew to handle it with care.

Fernando turned on the camera immediately looking for the photos you took in them. He has an inkling of the contents inside them, but what he didn’t expect was the overwhelming amount of photos you have of him.

Going as far back as 2003, photos of him in his first win in Hungary, photos of him in podiums, smiling, some showcasing his losses, photos of him with past teammates and in various uniforms.

The feeling dawned on him, you’ve been there from the start, watching him through the lens. Seeing himself from your eyes, Alonso was taken aback at the photos. As if you couldn’t sweep him off his feet even more, learning this about you even made him fall in love with you more than he already is.

“Why are you crying?” 

Your voice breaks his train of thought, blinking away the moisture poling into his eyes. Alonso isn’t one to be emotional, but seeing your love flow through the pictures from the screen, fills his heart heavy with emotion.

Wiping his tears, Alonso places the camera back on the table. “I never thought I would feel this way about these…” Fernando watches you shuffle around, dropping everything as you move beside him.

“I remember telling you about these photos. They’re all about you.”

Alonso nods his head, still deep in thought, beyond belief at his love for you, ever growing every single day.

“I never saw myself like this… how you capture my every moment, through the good and bad. I feel loved, and I love you.” Fernando, professing his love for you. Truly, one of the best seasons.

You allowed him to see himself in a different light, different from what the media says, the roles he played in the sport, a conniving villain. You allowed him to see himself in a new perspective.

amgf death of a bachelor comes to a close. thank you for supporting the series this far, i laughed, cried and felt a rollercoaster of emotions writing this. i hope you enjoy this, until the next series <3

[pedroscurls]

training partners (pt. 3)

summary: you continue to spend more time with hugh, realizing just how different your lives are and while it scares you, hugh does a great job at reassuring you. pairing: hugh jackman x fem!reader warnings: implied age gap (hugh is 55, reader is in late 20s-early 30s), reader has some description (hair, outfit), angst - mentions of a past toxic relationship (gaslighting) reader thinks too much and has insecurities, suggestive smut (brief oral - f receiving), no use of y/n. word count: 3.9k a/n: ok, so this relationship is moving fast but let's be honest, i feel like hugh would definitely know a good thing when he sees it lol. this is purely fictional! i mean no disrespect to hugh jackman (it's the only way i can live out my fantasies of this man lol). prev part.

You wake up the sounds of Hugh’s quiet snores. You still can’t believe you spent the night. One of his arms is draped over your waist and you’re very aware of the lack of clothing between the both of you. True to his word, Hugh devoured you last night. His tongue, his lips, his fingers– the man knew exactly what he was doing. You were hesitant at first, seeing him between your legs, mouth inches away from where you needed him the most. He could sense your nervousness and had gently placed a soft kiss on the inside of your thigh. 

It was such a simple act, but it provided all the reassurance you needed. Hugh was the first ever person to go down on you and you fear that he’s ruined it for you. If this didn’t work out, you’re sure that there won’t ever be another man to do it like him.

You’re lying on your back, arm resting over his. He looks so peaceful, so unbothered by the responsibilities and realities of the world. His snores even provide a level of comfort that you know can lull you back to sleep. It had only been a week since meeting him and while you certainly didn’t plan for any of this to happen, you can’t imagine it being any different. 

You liked Hugh. A lot, and it scared you. Not because you didn’t think you weren’t ready to get into another relationship, but because your worlds were just vastly different. 

But you remember what he said yesterday and it brings a smile to your lips.

“I don’t want this to be casual.”

You turn slightly to face him, watching as he moves with you, lying on his back instead as his arm drops from your waist. You lie on your side, bringing your fingertips to gently run across his chest. He’s still snoring, but you can’t help but notice the marks you left on his body. The scratch marks on his arms and you’re sure there are more on his back. 

This doesn’t feel real. It’s like you’re in some kind of dream and you’re afraid to wake up, not wanting this to end. Yesterday had been one of the best days you’ve had in a very long time and you had Hugh to thank. Not only was the sex amazing, but the conversations and laughter you both shared was just as great. 

You know you shouldn’t be comparing Hugh to your ex-boyfriend, but you can’t help but reflect on just how different they both were. Whenever you were talking, Hugh always made sure to keep his attention fully on you, eyes staring into yours, hand holding yours or resting on your back. With Hugh, you felt seen. You felt heard. You felt like your voice mattered. 

With your ex-boyfriend, you always felt like you were bothersome. He had always been very short with you, always on his phone, and very disinterested in what you had to say. Towards the end of your relationship with him, you had learned to keep quiet, learned to keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself. It wasn’t until the relationship ended that you realized just how much your ex-boyfriend gaslit you and your emotions. 

But with Hugh… You felt validated. You had to wonder if it had to do with the age difference. Your ex-boyfriend was just a year older than you; with Hugh being much older, you couldn’t help but think about all of the life experiences he must have gone through to get to where he is now. 

With Hugh, you feel so much more grounded. 

Wanting to surprise him with breakfast, you slowly climb out of bed and pull on your panties. You carefully tiptoe into his closet, making sure not to make too much noise. You pull on one of Hugh’s white button down shirts and slip it on, buttoning just a few buttons to at least cover yourself up. 

Then, you leave his bedroom and make your way to his kitchen. You don’t know if this is overstepping any boundaries, but you wanted to do something nice for him, especially after yesterday. 

You’re taken aback by the view of the city again. Hugh was right, watching the sunset last night was worth staying. His kitchen is so much larger than yours and you’re not sure where he keeps his pots and pans, so you open the cupboards to try and find them. When you do, you grab one large pan and place it on top of his stove and then open his fridge. You see a carton of eggs and a bag of spinach that you take and place on the counter. You remember that Hugh’s on a strict diet, so what’s healthier than an egg and spinach omelet? 

You also see his coffee machine in the corner and your eyes light up in excitement. Having been a barista all throughout your college years, you knew your way around a good coffee machine. 

It takes you about twenty minutes to finish cooking and making coffee. You’re about to set the table when you hear footsteps round the corner. You look up at him to see that he’s completely shirtless, but that he has put on a pair of sweatpants that hangs low at his hips. His hair is slightly disheveled and he’s yawning, but when his eyes meet yours, there’s a large grin that forms on his lips.

“Did you make me breakfast?” he calls out, walking over to you. 

“And coffee,” you point out. “I hope you don’t mind,” you say nervously. “I wanted to do something for you since yesterday was just such an amazing day and–”

Hugh interrupts you and cups your cheeks in his large hands, bending down to press his lips against yours softly. “I don’t mind at all, love.” Then, he pulls back enough to look down at what you’re wearing and he bites his lower lip. “And I certainly don’t mind this at all.” 

You feel the heat rise in your cheeks as you move to rest your hands on his broad chest. “I couldn’t find my shirt, so…”

“You could’ve also just walked around naked,” Hugh winks. “That would have been just as an amazing sight as this.”

You roll your eyes playfully and pull away from him, but he takes your wrist and pulls you back into his arms. 

“Wait,” he says quietly. 

“Hm?” 

“Good morning,” Hugh smiles, kissing your forehead. “Yesterday and last night was… It was wonderful.” 

“It was the best day,” you say softly, leaning into him. “One of the best I’ve had in a while.” 

“I can get used to having you here,” Hugh admits. “Is that– Am I moving too fast here?” 

You shake your head and run your hands to his chest and arms, gently squeezing his biceps as you bite your lower lip. “No, I just–” you sigh. “What if you get tired of me?” 

“I won’t,” Hugh reassures you. 

“But what if–” you shake your head, trying to force the negative thoughts out. You realize it’s lingering in the back of your mind. “You’re you and I’m me.” 

Hugh’s hands move to your hips, gently squeezing them. “He really hurt you, didn’t he?” Hugh asks quietly. 

“Hugh…” 

“I’m not him, baby.” 

“I know you aren’t.”

“Good because I know a good thing when I see it,” Hugh affirms. 

You bite your lower lip and look deeply into his eyes, feeling your heart swell at his words and at the sight of him. You can tell how serious he is, how his gaze doesn’t falter. “I like being here. With you,” you admit. “And I’m not just saying that because the sex is amazing.”

“But that’s one of the reasons, isn’t it?” Hugh winks, letting out a quiet chuckle. “You know, I haven’t slept that good in a very long time. Something about having you next to me brought me a lot of comfort.”

“You have a way of words, don’t you?” You smile, leaning up to gently peck his lips. 

Hugh laughs quietly and pulls away from you to walk over to the plate of food. “I just tell the truth, baby.” 

You roll your eyes and sit on the stool, looking up at him as he takes a bite of the egg and spinach omelet you created for him. He lets out a quiet groan of approval and looks in your direction, grinning. 

“So, you can cook too?” 

“And make coffee,” you wink. 

Hugh arches a brow and takes a sip of his americano, brows raising upwards. “Wow. Yeah, I need you around here like… All the time. Can we arrange that, you think?” 

“Hmm,” you look up in thought, resting an elbow on the island. “I will need some closet space, a corner on your bathroom counter–”

Hugh lets out a laugh and sets his fork down to walk towards you, turning your body on the stool until your back is resting against the counter and his hands rest at either side of you, caging you in. He bends down so that you’re at eye level with him, a smirk lining his lips. 

“Whatever you want, baby, you’re gonna get.” He leans in, brushing his lips against yours. 

You move to wrap around arms lazily around his shoulders and stare into his eyes, running your fingers through his hair. “You should finish your breakfast. You’re bulking up for Wolverine, so you need your calories.” 

“I also need some cardio too,” Hugh grins. “Wanna join in on the session?” 

You bite your lower lip in anticipation and nod slowly. “Meet you upstairs?” 

Hugh shakes his head and moves his hand to your hips, lifting you off the stool with ease and placing you on the edge of the counter. “No, baby, gonna need you to wait right here for me.” 

“Like a good girl?” you ask, bringing your hands to play with the buttons 

Hugh grins and nods, continuing to eat as he stares at you,eyes dropping to see your legs cross over one another. Then, he reaches out and taps your knee. “Leave ‘em open for me.” 

You nod and then spread your legs for him, looking up at him in excitement.

Hugh’s eyes narrow and he takes the last bite of his omelet. He sets the plate in the sink and then walks to stand between your legs, reaching up to undo the button on the shirt you’re wearing. Once it opens, he clears his throat and moves his hands to push the shirt off your shoulders, exposing your chest to him. 

“Gonna have an early morning dessert, if ya don’t mind, baby.” Hugh smirks, hooking his fingers into your panties and sliding it down your legs. “Been thinking about this since last night. Tastes so good,” he growls. 

Then, Hugh dips down between your legs and you feel eyes roll in the back of your head once his tongue darts out to taste you. 

—

It’s been a full week since you spent the night and Hugh craves more and more of having you in his home with him. It’s been a very long time since he’s felt like this and he’s known to fall hard and fall fast, but he’s being careful this time around. He doesn’t want to push you if you aren’t ready, but he can’t help the way you make him laugh and smile, how he feels more at calm with you by his side, and how excited he gets whenever he falls asleep with you in his arms because he knows he’ll wake up with you by his side. 

Hugh knows that he’s going to get busier as the months pass, knowing that for the next year, he’s going to be focused on preparing to come back as Logan. While it should deter him from continuing to see you and committing himself to a relationship, it surprises him that it doesn’t. He isn’t the type of person to take things for granted and he always went after what he wanted, and you– Well, you have been such a nice surprise and he can’t even think about the possibility of letting you go. 

He thinks back to the last time you were here, teasing him about how you would need closet space and an area in his bathroom for your things. You might have been joking, but Hugh takes it seriously. He’s already given you more than enough space in his closet, walking inside to see the vacant space along the wall. He stands there, arms crossed over his chest, as he imagines your things here with his. 

Hugh’s mind drifts when he hears his phone ring. He looks down at it and sees your contact name; he always smiles at it: Swole-mate 💪

“Hi, baby,” Hugh answers immediately. He can’t ignore the way his heart rate speeds up, his stomach doing flips in excitement just to get a chance to hear your voice. “You almost here?” 

“Yeah, just a few minutes out,” he hears you say. “Are you sure spending the weekend is okay?” 

Hugh leaves his closet and begins descending the stairs to greet you. “If I had it my way, you’d be here for more than just the weekend.”

With the silence that comes from you, Hugh just knows that your mind has drifted and so when you pull into his driveway, he hangs up the phone and waits until you park to approach you. Once you climb out of your car, your eyes meet his and Hugh smiles, walking towards you. 

“Your mind just doesn’t shut off, does it?” Hugh says, taking your hand and gently pulling you to him. “What’s goin’ on in that beautiful head of yours, baby?” 

“Nothing,” you sigh, resting your cheek against his chest as your arms come up to wrap around him. You feel safe with him, but you know that you both need to have a serious conversation about where this will go. He had mentioned to you that his schedule was going to get busier and you wanted to know where you fit in with all of that before you allow yourself to fall in deeper. 

Hugh brings a hand to rub your back, placing a gentle kiss at the crown of your head. “I don’t believe ya,” he says. “Let me grab your things and we can head inside and talk?” 

You nod and release your hold on him, watching him walk towards your trunk to grab your duffle bag filled with clothes and toiletries to last for the rest of the weekend. Once he shuts your trunk, Hugh reaches out and takes your hand in his, leading you inside his home and up the stairs to his bedroom. 

You’ve been thinking so much since the last time you were here, trying your best to stay in the moment and not expect too much, but when Hugh mentioned his schedule for the next few months, you started to pull away. You didn’t want to put your all into this if it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Hugh sits at the edge of his bed and looks up at you, head tilting to the side. 

You’re pacing back and forth in front of him and he reaches out for your hand to pull you to stand between his legs. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

You don’t look at him, letting out a quiet sigh.

“Baby,” Hugh says again. “Look at me.”

You clear your throat and turn your attention to him. There are tears stinging your eyes and you aren’t even sure why you’re getting so emotional, but there is a bit of fear knowing that this may be the last weekend you would spend with him. 

“Talk to me. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s goin’ on in your mind.” 

“You’re going to be busier,” you point out, biting the inside of your cheek. “And I don’t want to hold you back. I know we literally just met two weeks ago, but I’m okay with ending things the way they are now. It’s been more than amazing to spend all this time with you and–”

“Ending this?” Hugh interrupts, confusion written all over his face as his brows furrow together. “Do you not want this?” 

“No, I do!” you sigh, looking down at your hands that are currently holding onto his. “I just– I don’t want you to have to worry about me while you’re away shooting and you’re going to just be so busy. I know what you do for a living and it’s to be expected, but I just feel like you’d worry while you’re away and I don’t–” you let out a shaky breath and shake your head. “Am I even making sense?” 

Hugh sighs. “You are making sense,” he reassures, bringing your hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss on the back of it. “But I guess I just don’t understand. You won’t be holding me back.”

“Hugh,” you close your eyes for a moment and release his hands to wrap your arms around his shoulders. “I like you a lot and it scares me,” you admit. “It scares me because I don’t know how I fit into all of this. Into your life.”

“Really?” Hugh asks. “Because I can see it so clearly.” 

“What?”

“I can see how you fit into my life so clearly,” Hugh repeats. “And you’re not tied to a job here. You travel for work too and I may or may have not talked about you to Ryan and Shawn…” he admits quietly. “Anyway, I know it’s scary because this scares me too, but I can’t…” he shakes his head, looking up at you as his hands move to rest on your hips. “I can’t even fathom letting you go and I don’t want to either.”

“I’ve given my all before in a relationship and in the end, it only hurt me…” you reply with a shaky voice. 

“I know,” he sighs, eyes softening as he slowly stands up. Your hands drop from his shoulders to his waist as Hugh’s hands cup the base of your neck, keeping his eyes solely focused on yours. “And I can’t promise that everything will always be okay, but I can promise you that I’d always put you first. No matter what. Whatever this is between us,” Hugh continues, his thumbs brushing against the corners of your eyes as he feels a couple of tears trickle. “I want to believe that it’ll work out.” 

“We’ve only known each other for two weeks,” you whisper. “I’m way in over my head. You must think I’m crazy.” 

“Like I said… You have a lot of love to give,” Hugh whispers, gently pecking your lips. “And I’d be a lucky man to be on the receiving end of your love one day.” 

You bite your lower lip and wrap your arms around him tighter, moving to rest your forehead against the crook of his neck as his hands drop from the base of your neck to rest on your lower back. Hugh can feel the weight lift itself off your shoulders as you relax into him. He peppers kisses along your cheek and tightens his hold on you. 

“Feeling better?” Hugh whispers into your ear.

You nod against him. “Yeah, thank you, Hugh.”

“All I ask is that you talk to me, baby, okay?” He asks, pulling back to look down at you. “Whatever is bothering you, I don’t want you to hold it in. I’m here to listen.” 

“God, you really are perfect, aren’t you?” you laugh quietly, pecking his lips. 

Hugh smiles to himself. He realizes that he hates seeing you upset and when he hears your laugh and sees the smile on your face, he feels proud, accomplished. “I’m not perfect.” 

“I’d say otherwise,” you smile, looking deeply into his eyes. “I’m not used to talking about what’s bothering me or my feelings, but I’m learning.”

“This will always be a safe space, okay?” Hugh tells you. “You’re safe with me.”

You hug him tightly, burying your face into him as you let out a sigh of relief. You feel his arms tighten around you and it brings you so much comfort. Being here with him, in his arms, brings you comfort. You feel him fall back onto his mattress, taking you with him as you curl against his side, arm draped over his abdomen as his arm hooks around your shoulders. 

“So, you told Ryan and Shawn about me?” you ask, looking up at him. “As in the Ryan Reynolds and the Shawn Levy?” 

Hugh laughs. “Do you describe all people like that?”

“Only celebrities,” you correct. 

Hugh looks down at you and shakes his head, a smile lining his lips. “I did, is that okay? I know we never talked about who can know and who can’t…”

“It’s okay, Hugh,” you reassure him, kissing his chest. 

“I’d tell the whole world, if I could,” he says honestly. “But whenever you’re ready, baby.” 

You nod, shutting your eyes as you rest against him. “Thank you,” you whisper. “For not pressuring me. For going at my pace. I know it must not be easy, but you have no idea how much it means to me.” 

Hugh hooks a finger under your chin, eyes scanning your features as he bites his lower lip. Your eyes remain closed as he brushes his thumb lightly along your jawline. “I’d wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

“Yeah,” you smile, turning your head to kiss the pad of his thumb. “You’re perfect.”

Hugh laughs to himself and then holds you tighter into his side. “So, I also told Ryan and Shawn you were a photographer and they may want to meet you to discuss a few things.”

“About my work or about us?” you open your eyes at that, looking up at him.

“About your work.”

“But I’m an engagement photographer, and last I checked, they’re both already married.” 

Hugh smiles. “Well, I also showed them your other work…”

“Oh, but those weren’t really serious… They were just for fun. Landscapes, street photography.” 

“They were just as good, baby.” He tells you. “And it’s possible,” he grins. “Or rather, they will be asking if you’d be interested in being our on-set photographer, taking pictures behind the scenes.”

Your eyes widen slightly, looking into his eyes. “That would mean I’d be there with you.”

Hugh nods slowly, the grin remaining on his lips. “Exactly, you’d be there with me on set of Deadpool & Wolverine. You sure you won’t get tired of me?” Hugh asks.

You shake your head and move to straddle his waist, resting your forearms down on either side of his head on the bed as you feel his hands move to your hips. 

“Isn’t that a question that I ask?” you tease, nose brushing against his. 

“It’s a valid question.” 

“No, I won’t get tired of you, Hugh. How can I?” you whisper, brushing your lips across his own lightly. “I mean, I think you’ve ruined other men for me.” 

Hugh growls and wraps an arm around your waist, rolling you over onto your back as he settles himself between your legs. “Good,” he says huskily, rolling his hips against yours. “Because you’re mine now.”

---

taglist (if links don't work, i'm sorry!): @corvusmorte - @dragonqueen89 - @whimsiwitchy - @kellyxo1 - @wolviehugh - @moonxknightx - @sullyselena - @angelofthorr - @spectorrrhgf - @needz1nk - @fandomxo00 - @godlypresley - @kythefangirl25 - @callsignyourmom

[rhaenyra-storms]

for fluffy saturdays: Robb Stark and his wife reader cuddling by the fire, talking about the future

yeaaaah, i'm reviving this blog again after so long and i'm working through some asks! :) enjoy!

content warnings: just fluff, talk of having children together

Robb and you had been married for a few months now. The war was still raging on, but as long as you two were together, it all seemed a lot easier.

There were a few moments where you could just forget about all the horrible things around you.

Just like now, when you were cuddling by the fire in Riverrun. Robb had now experienced triumphs and defeats in the war against the Lannisters, but none of that mattered in this moment.

You were wearing your nightdress, sitting on some blankets in front of the crackling fireplace. Robb's hand was resting on your thigh, his eyes never leaving yours.

"Sometimes I can't believe you're real," he whispered, a few loose curls hanging into his face. He would shave his growing beard again tomorrow, but there was no need to look strong or perfect in front of you. There was no need to hide anything in the privacy of your room where nothing but your love for each other mattered.

"I guess I am," you answered with a low chuckle, moving closer to your husband and resting your head on his shoulder. Robb's strong arm wrapped around you, his face turning over to face the fire.

Your hand grabbed Robb's free one, intertwining your fingers and resting your connected hands on his thigh. There was a smile on his lips, a calm one.

"Do you think we will have a child soon?" You asked after a while, the thought itself making you smile. It was hard to set a child into this world, but Robb and you had been talking about it for so long and there was nothing better that could happen to you both.

"One day. And when this war is over, we're going to live at Winterfell and I'm going to teach him or her to ride a horse myself," Robb smiled, his arm moving down as his hand rubbed up and down on your back. "Maybe we will even be blessed with more than just one child."

While you couldn't deny that the prospect of having more than one child definitely sounded exhausting, the thought also made you feel warm around your heart. Having a family with Robb, getting to wake up next to your beautiful husband every morning and then seeing your children at the breakfast table... it seemed like a dream. The war had made you quite unsure about your future, but if you had any say in it, you would make sure that Robb would be there in all the different futures that might await you.

"At least the child will have someone to play with then. Maybe we should aim for more than one kid," you smiled, hand squeezing Robb's gently. A low laugh slipped past your husband's lips and his eyes seemed to light up with excitement.

“Whatever the future will bring, I am happy to spend it with you.” His words were gentle and accompanied by a smile, his hand squeezing yours again tightly. You knew that Robb would always be at your side, no matter the circumstances.

The war had left you both unsure about the future, but it felt good to talk about it in the quiet of your shared bedchamber. Where no one could disturb you and you could share even the most naive thoughts with each other.

Maybe it would all be well in the end.

[not-goldy]

Do you think Jikook's bond (whatever it is) is a goldmine to HYBE and they are trying to profit off it?

Thanks for such an intelligent question, having had one such mentally stimulating ask in a while.

Is Hybe overtly exploiting the chemistry that BTS has and that each pair has within the band, absolutely. I mean that bit should be so easy to wrap your head around.

Romance, bromance is one of the top selling genres of all time. The idea of BTS having a super strong fated bond between them is so commercially viable literal movies and songs have been written about them. 7 dates, bullet proof, and their recent Kdrama series etc to be exact.

And ships sell. I've said this since day one. The commercial viability of ships is just an offshoot of the commercial viability of bands as discussed above.

So yes, within that context, Hybe definitely would gravitate towards the two members with the most chemistry, who also happen to be two of the most liked members of the group, two of the most popular members and the most influential members of the group.

You don't go to war with your weakest soldiers.

Jikook is a very strong ship. We all know that.

They've had the most running in the group with some of the ships rising and falling over the years in terms of chemistry and popularity.

There's a lot to do with a pair like that. Reality shows, travel shows, documentaries, memoirs, tell all, cooking shows.

I watch a lot of reality TV and it's not hard to see how Jikook would fit right into that realm.

If BTS was love Island 🏝 Jikook would get their own spinoff after the season ended.

Fans love them, they get the most votes, the camera adores them and producers have so much they wanna do with them.

Am I making sense???

Going off with the Love Island analogy, just because Jikook are fan favorite, and the crew likes to follow them every where with a camera, and they are getting a spin off show of just the two of them don't necessarily mean their bond is fake that they are only existing for fan service or that the company is exploiting them.

There's just so much to do with them. They are fun entertaining adorable and a pleasure to work with.

So to answer your question I'll say yes and no.

Yes, they definitely a Goldmine for hybe in as far as content production goes.

No because they get to kill two birds with one stone. They can make money off of them, but also they create a safe space for Jikook to have that longevity to explore and nurture their relationship. They love being together. They love doing what they do. Hybe simply allows them to live their dreams and relationship much longer.

I've always said, if any queer pair in kpop were real you'd find them in a ship because ships would be their perfect cover for it. And we've seen jikook use this card very often to get out of trouble. Everything they do would be chalked down to fan service no matter how egregious they were. It can be invalidating and frustrating but In a way, it's also safe for them that way.

If I got paid to cozy up to my girlfriend, travel the world with her, eat as much as we can, hike, experience all and any culture- yall could call us anything you want I'm taking that offer🤣🤣🤣🤣

But we gotta give credit where credit is due because to me it's Jungkook that lay the foundation for all of this to be possible when he put of his first GCF with Jimin and later Jimin lay on top of him on a couch talking bout how they ought to do it again and how he would even model for him if filming is what he wanted to do.

I think they gave Hybe the idea of what it can do with them.

You can tell these things are things they both naturally want to do and have already done. During Run, they come up with a team name, they work well together, during rehearsals they stay behind and work on their routines tweaking it a bit, they come up with cooking shows to do, stay up all night doing nothing.

They are by themselves very creative and adventurous.

So like I said, I don't think this is hybe mining them but more so amplifying and giving them the production value to do what they already have been doing which they love, fans love and the company loves.

I'm sure if any other pair had this same organic pull towards eachother and wanted to be around eachother all the time too hybe would be just as curious and invested in them but as it turns out there isn't.

We are not stupid, we see them. And we see how some members act like they can't wait to get out of set when others keep it going even after they yell cut.

We see them all.

[froggiewrites]

Unknown / Nth

Pairing: Shanks x Reader

NSFW

Summary: You don't know if Shanks will still be here tomorrow morning. You don't know if you should be doing this at all. But you can't help but indulge yourself tonight, if only to create another memory you'll yearn for later. Warnings: Smut, Angst (With A Happy Ending), Exes to Lovers/Second Chances, A LOT of Yearning Word Count: 4.4k

You thought you were dreaming, the first moment you saw him in the bar, head thrown back with laughter, a little sake running down his chin and catching the light. You were still convinced as you approached, vision blurred with unshed tears. It was only once he turned around, smile wide and ready, obviously aware of you from the moment you stepped in the room, and said your name that you knew that this was truly and definitively real.

You don’t know whether or not it’s a good thing, but your heart sings anyway.

“Long time no see!” His grin doesn’t waver a moment, but you can still see the slight tension in his shoulders, the unease lurking in his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say to you, not after all this time. You used to know him like the back of your hand, but the man in front of you is practically a stranger. You imagine he feels much the same about you.

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” You can’t smile as brightly as he does, no matter how excited part of you is to see him again. You’re weighed down by years of grief, of longing, and you’ve never been a good liar. “A lot’s changed.” You glance down at where his arm used to be, the hand that had once held you so tenderly.

He laughs. “Yeah, I guess it has. But not too much.” You don’t know what he’s implying with that, but there’s a weight to the words, a sort of finality to them. “You should sit down. We have a lot to catch up on.”

“I shouldn’t,” she says, already in the chair he gestured to.

He laughs. It’s such a beautiful, familiar sound, something unchanged by the years between the man she used to know and the man who is. “I’ve always been great at convincing you to do the things you shouldn’t, haven’t I?”

You don’t know whether he realizes the gravity of what he’s said. Sometimes everything about him seems so free, so spontaneous, and others it seems like he knows everything that has, can, and will happen, and his hands are the ones making the cogs of the world turn.

But he really had always been so wonderful at convincing you. You had been reluctant to take the next step to lovers. You had told him such, several times, but he had always soothed away your worries with a bubbling laugh that always put you at ease.

I'm afraid of losing you, you had told him.

And he, to his credit, didn't tell you you never could. A calculated risk, he had called it. And I have a good feeling about this one.

You had never been an excellent gambler.

How horrible, to go from friends to lovers to nothing. You didn’t know how to be someone without him. Waking up to an empty bed was one thing, but ordering one drink instead of two, hearing a joke you know he’d love and being unable to share it with him, collecting trinkets just for them to collect dust when you realize you have no one to give them to, it weighs on you. In weaker moments, you can still feel his hands on you, hear his laughter in the wind, see the sparkle of his eyes behind you in the mirror. Haunted by the ghost of all you had and lost.

You never know which to call it: the day you lost him or the day he lost you. It doesn't matter, really, since his warmth left your side all the same, but you can't help but stick on the point anyway. Who took the bigger blow? You had loved him so deeply he had etched himself into your bones down to the marrow, but you would never accuse him of loving you with anything less than his all. Maybe you both lost in the end, a mutually assured destruction that had ended with nothing left of you but scraps.

But you’ve grieved for years, years that are long behind you. In front of you is the man you loved, grinning wildly, leaning in very purposefully to give you a look at his chest and abs under his shirt. He always knew his happy trail drove you wild, and now he does everything he can to ensure you see it. You can’t help but laugh at him. “You aren’t subtle, Shanks.”

“No one’s ever accused me of subtlety. That’s not usually what I’m going for.” His eyes crinkle when he smiles, and you notice lines that weren’t there when you saw him last. You wonder if the joy you brought him helped forge them, or if maybe it was all that came after that made its mark. Is there anything left of you with him?

You move to order a drink for yourself, but before you can speak to the bartender it’s already sat in front of you. Shanks ordered for you before you even approached. “Wow, you sure were confident.”

“Of course I was! How could you ever walk in here and not come and see me?” A slight twitch of his lip, a weakness in his smile, betrays insecurity. He absolutely thought you might have left without a word.

“Maybe I would have gotten nervous and ran. I’ve done that enough in my life.”

“Not to me. You always came to me.” His eyes are soft, filled with an affection that makes you ache.

“Maybe I changed. Maybe I got worse.”

“Not possible. Not you. No matter what the world threw at you, you would never let it break you down.”

“I think you think too much of me.”

“I think maybe I just know you better than you know yourself.” His smile isn’t smug, which is almost worse. He’s being devastatingly genuine, far more than you expected when you sat down. “You never had enough faith in yourself. Has that changed at all?”

You want to lie. God, you want to lie. But staring into his eyes you know you can’t. “No, it hasn’t. It might have gotten worse.”

He sighs softly, and he’s close enough that you can feel the rush of air on your face. “I had a feeling.” He pauses for a moment, before leaning back and taking a swig from his drink. “But tonight isn’t the time to unpack that. We’re two old friends having a drink. We should celebrate!”

It stings more than you expected. “Old friends, huh? That’s what this is?”

“It certainly sounds nicer than calling you the one who got away.”

“I got away?”

“And I never should have let you.” Another sip of his drink. “But really, we should talk about something happier, don’t you think? How’s life been?”

You want to press the issue, but his eyes are slightly pleading, and you think maybe you have more sway over him than you ever expected, an ability to press onto his weak spots hard enough to hurt. You used to think he was unshakable, invincible, but now you wonder if perhaps long ago he had gifted you a knife that could perfectly slip between his ribs if you so chose, if you ever developed the penchant for cruelty.

So you don’t press. You tell him about your life, how things have been since he left. He listens with rapt attention, holding onto your every word. He doesn’t share much about his own life, but you’re too caught up in the intoxication of his attention to care. It feels so wonderful to have those eyes on you again, if only for a while. It loosens your lips, makes you say things you never thought you’d be willing to admit.

"You know, there were times in my life I was convinced you were an angel. A gift from heaven, just for me."

"What convinced you otherwise?"

"I got to know you."

"Ouch!"

"No, no. It's not...you're just so...human. It's a compliment, I promise." It doesn't come out right, as you stumble over your words like you're sixteen again, every part of you slightly too big, too clumsy, too you. You don't know how to tell him that being him is the best thing a person could be. You could never love an angel the way you loved that man.

“I didn’t think you’d have many compliments left for me.”

You don’t know how to disagree with that. You certainly shouldn’t. But there’s a place in your heart carved out in his shape, and you’ve never been able to fill it with anything else. “I have almost nothing but, really.”

He smiles, wearier this time, tired down to the bone. “You’ve always been too good to me.”

You’ve always been too good for me, so what a pair we make. You don’t let the thought leave your lips, not today. But you suspect he might be able to see it in your face. He’s always been able to look you in the eyes and know exactly what you’re thinking. It’s one of his greatest strengths, and one of the things that tore you apart. You were never on equal footing, the wonderful liar and his woefully honest love. 

“So…anybody else you’ve got nothing but compliments for?”

“That was an awful segue.”

“I’m doing my best.”

You can’t help but laugh. “If you’re asking if I’m with someone, no, I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“I thought we were supposed to keep this to happy topics?”

“So it’s a sad reason.”

“It’s a normal reason!” It’s not, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Whatever you say,” he chuckles, moving closer once again. He’s been slowly pulling your stools closer together throughout the night, inching his way into your space. With this final push, he allows himself a moment with his arm around your shoulder, so close to familiar, but not quite. He used to hold you with his dominant arm, the one he lost. You wonder if it feels strange to him, too, to be so close to the past, inches away from what was, but unable to fully bridge that gap. His drink sits on the counter, unattended, abandoned in favor of your warmth. “No matter the reason, I’m glad to hear it.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“I think you know.”

“I think I want to hear you say it.”

“Oh, well how could I ever deny a request from you?” He leans closer, brushing his lips against your ear. “I want you.”

You flush, and suddenly you aren’t a tired pirate, filled with regrets and lost in nostalgia. Instead you’re twenty, and the beautiful boy you’ve been in love with has finally looked at you with all of the longing you thought you were alone in. You’re giddy and terrified and yearning all at once, but you can handle it, because he’s right there to catch you, just like he’s always been. You remember very well what it’s like to love him. You don’t know if you ever stopped. You would tell him, had he not flustered you so thoroughly you can hardly bring yourself to speak.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d still have that effect on you.” He’s grinning, the smugness offset by his obvious boyish glee.

“How could I ever resist?” It comes out barely a whisper, eeks out of your lips before you can stop it.

“Can I do what I do best?”

“What’s that?”

His eyes glance longingly down at your lips as he mutters, “Convince you to do something you shouldn’t.”

Tomorrow, you expect to wake up to cold sheets and an empty bed. Tomorrow you will be left with nothing but a longing for what you could have had, had things been different. Tomorrow you will scream and cry and curse yourself for daring to give yourself a taste of it, knowing this time would be the last. But it is not tomorrow yet, and he looks beautiful in the light, a decade younger and kinder, just like you remember him.

You let him kiss you.

And god, how cruel he was, for kissing you like it mattered. Like he always used to, dragging it out, lips following you even as you pulled away. He always kissed you like it would be your last.

His hand grips your hip tightly, as though he’s terrified you’ll turn to smoke beneath his fingertips, as though the moment he lets you you will slip through his fingers. Your chests press together, your hearts beating loudly, calling to each other through the small amount of space that separates them. A greeting to an old friend.

Your walk to your inn room is frenzied, his hand never leaving you, your lips hardly parting for a moment. You would thank the cover of darkness for maintaining your dignity if you were capable of worrying about anything other than the feeling of his skin beneath your fingers when you slide them beneath his shirt. You hear nothing except for his frantic breath in the small moments you part, the soft sighs that leave him when his hands find another part of your body to refamiliarize himself with.

You barely feel your back hit the bed. It is only when he finally pulls back a moment that you catch your breath and realize where you are. You could still back out. Still allow yourself to go back to the numbness, the grief surrounding you like a blanket, keeping you not comfortable but certainly safe.

Your fingers find the bottom of your shirt, throwing it to the side carelessly. Your fingers struggle with the clasp of your bra for a moment, frantic to get it off, to feel his fingers and mouth on your chest again after years of dreaming of them. You look up to see him shirtless, having fought a panicked battle with fabric of his own. He’s staring at you, mouth agape, his look something resembling wonder. He’s not simply admiring you, or doing something as disconnecting, glorifying, as worship. He’s simply adoring you, taking in the sight of you and tucking it away in his heart, treating you as something to be remembered. Something he will carry with him for the rest of his life if he has the choice.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember you.” His voice is hardly a whisper, the words feeling almost like a confession of something more.

“So are you,” you murmur, moving slowly to run your fingers across his abdomen. He’s still built sturdily, and you can feel his muscles tense slightly underneath your fingers.

“I’ve dreamed of this. So, so many times.” He comes closer, his next words nearly directly against your lips. “I might have seen you more in my dreams than I ever did in reality. You’ve haunted me.” With that he kisses you again, tenderly, like an apology. There isn’t a heat or urgency like there was before, only affection and longing. You can feel in every movement of his mouth and tongue how he has wanted you, waited for you.

He slides onto the bed, pulling you onto his lap, pressing your bare chests together with his arm wrapped around your waist. His mouth moves to your neck, nipping gently, trying to find a spot he could once find in an instant. It takes him only a moment before he finds your sweet spot, making you moan softly. When you do, he lets out a soft groan. “God, I’ve missed that sound.”

You grind down slightly on his lap, making him let out a soft surprised noise of his own. You can’t help the giggle that comes out of you, girlish and joyous. “And I’ve missed that sound.” You grind down again, electricity shooting up your spine. “And that feeling.”

“Oh yeah? Haven’t felt that a lot since…” He trails off.

“They haven’t been you.” The weight of the words don’t hit you until they’re already out, but they don’t shatter the fragile bubble you two have found yourself in. All they do is make him give you a lovesick grin that threatens to rip your heart from your chest.

“Oh, sweetheart…” Another nip at your neck, and a callused hand sliding up your torso to your chest. “I’d give anything for it to have been me.”

“It’s you now.” It’s always been you.

“So it is. I’ll make sure you never forget tonight.” His mouth moves lower, his tongue and teeth lightly grazing over your nipples, making you grab his shoulders to ground yourself as a shiver works its way up your spine. His mouth is on one breast, his hand on the other, and he takes his sweet time working you up. He’s determined to appreciate you with all of the time he’s been granted, ensure that you know how much he’s savoring this moment. It’s only once you’re panting, hips jerking lightly without permission, that he eases up his attacks and starts working his way to the main event.

He lifts you slightly, just enough to slide your pants and panties off in one go. “Show off,” you mutter, no fire behind it.

“Only for you.” What should be a cheeky grin is too softened by the mood, turning to something sickly sweet. He taps your thigh lightly, an indication to stay elevated, and starts to unbuckle his pants before your hands reach out to stop him.

“Let me.” You wish your voice weren’t so desperate, but you’ve been dreaming of this moment for years, and you want so badly to live it how you’ve always wanted to.

He chuckles. “Of course, dear.”

Your hands make quick work of his belt as it’s flung to the side, but you take your time slowly working off his pants. The tent in his boxers is huge, almost bigger than you remember, but you don’t take long to stare at it. You save that for when you finally slide off his underwear, exposing his cock to your hungry eyes. It’s exactly as you remember, long and veiny and twitching with want. You slowly reach a hand to it, wrapping your fist around it, then the other, pumping slowly and appreciating the weight in your hand. He lets out a soft groan, head falling forward, eyes falling closed, allowing for you to admire his body without fear of embarrassment.

You seize the moment you can, eyes scraping over every inch of him, updating him in your memory, adding every new wrinkle, scar, every part of him that’s new to you. You never thought he could grow more beautiful, more perfect, more him, but somehow he managed. There’s more hair on his chest now, more scars on his legs, more evidence of the hard life you knew he led as an emperor. You’re determined to memorize every inch, so now at least when you dream of him it will be him as he is instead of as he was.

He makes a strangled noise when you lean down to take him in your mouth, to see if his taste has changed as well. You’re pleased to know it hasn’t, as you slowly move up and down his shaft as your hands continue to work him. The weight of him in your mouth is almost comforting in its familiarity, something between you two that has remained wholly and truly unchanged. His moans grow deeper when one of your hands moves to his balls and his hips lurch forward slightly. You remove your mouth just to take one final long lick up his cock, one that once again causes him to shiver and groan.

He makes a quiet noise somewhere between disappointment and relief when you fully remove your hands and mouth from him and begin to straddle him again. “I really didn’t want to finish before the main event. I don’t have the stamina I used to.”

You laugh at him. “You liar. One, you’re not even forty, you shouldn’t act like an old man. Second, you’ve only gotten stronger since then. No way in hell have you lost any endurance.”

“Me, lie to you?” He places a hand on his chest in mock offense. “Never!”

“So you admit you’re weaker than you used to be? An unpracticed lover?”

“Well…maybe I was lying this one time.” He leans forward to kiss you again, a quick peck at the corner of your mouth. He reaches down to align himself with your entrance before he begins to thrust in slowly and carefully. His hand moves to your hip, resting there as you both quietly moan at the feeling of you stretching him out.

He leans your foreheads together when he finally bottoms out, both of you panting quietly and getting used to the feeling. It’s blissful, to finally be filled so perfectly after thinking about it for so very long. You fit together perfectly, two puzzle pieces made for each other.

“You ready, sweetheart?”

“Please,” you mewl.

“Of course.” With that he easily grips your hip to help you ride him, rutting up into you as you come down. The sound of skin slapping makes you feel light headed, leaning your head forward to rest in Shanks’ neck. The room feels burning hot, but despite the heat radiating off of his skin, you need to feel every inch of him. You feel as though you’ll float away if you don’t ground yourself here, with him, perfectly intertwined in a way you could never be with anybody else.

“I’ve missed this,” he gasps out as he hits particularly deep, making you cry out. “You feel so wonderful, sweetheart. So perfect.”

You try to respond, but he hits your sweet spot again, so you can only let out a choked cry against his neck. He presses his nose into your hair, and you can feel him smile against you. “That’s right, just like that. Let me hear it.”

And so you do. You don’t hold back a single sound, crying out for him louder and louder until you’re sure the entire inn can hear. You can’t bring yourself to care. You can feel the heat rising, the pulsing spreading through you, and you don’t give a damn about anything other than the man beneath and inside of you.

“So close, almost there.” Another thrust, another cry, and you are teetering on the edge, ready to let yourself fall.

“Let it out, sweetheart. Cum with me.” You tighten around him as you feel your release fly through you and Shanks’ pulse inside of you. He continues to thrust through your orgasm, ensuring you take every last drop of him as deep inside as you can. When you come back to yourself, he’s running his fingers lightly through your hair, pressing loving kisses to the top of your head. “That was perfect.”

You can’t help your smile. You nuzzle against his neck, and his hand drops from your head to your back, pulling you closer. You both lay for what feels like hours, Shanks soft inside of you, as both of you refuse to move and shatter the moment.

Eventually, Shanks pulls out, cum slowly starting to leak out of you, as he gently shifts you both so he’s laying on his back with you on his chest. You can hear his heartbeat, steady like a drum, pounding in his chest. You’d missed that sound.

You don’t remember falling asleep. You only remember waking up still feeling warm and safe, and the quiet confusion that comes with it. You were sure he would be back on his ship by now, halfway to a new island, a new adventure, and someone else to share his bed with. Someone with less baggage, or at least some that can be left by the door. Instead he’s here, in this bed, staring down at you with a tenderness that could bring you to tears if you let it.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He brushes your hair lightly from his face.

“Does that make you Prince Charming?”

He laughs. “God no. I’m the handsome and roguish pirate that’s here to steal his princess away.”

Your heart stutters in your chest. “Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Hm?”

“Steal me away? Is that your plan?” You try to keep the hope out of your voice.

"We're leaving tomorrow. You could..." He trails off, an uncharacteristic hesitation. You never used to do this to him, make him lose his sure footing. You don't know how to feel about changing from home to unsteady ground, somewhere he has to tread carefully lest he fall right through. He doesn't finish his question, doesn't get brave enough to risk it. Instead he looks at you with wide, pleading eyes that beg for a return to something you can't even fully remember the feeling of.

I can't, you want to say.

"I don't know," your mouth betrays, vulnerability seeping through. He's always been good at that, striping someone down to their center, exposing the softness they desperately try to hide.

"I don't know either," he mutters. "But I'd... I'd like it if you did. I've missed you."

"I've missed you too."

“You don’t have to miss me anymore. Not if you don’t want to.” His hand is gentle as it caresses your cheek. You close your eyes and lean in, soaking up the feeling. You want to. You want to so badly you could scream. But there’s a terror inside of you, a part of you where the wound he left never closed. You don’t know if you can risk tearing the rest of it open again. You don’t know if you’ll survive it.

His voice goes soft again, saying the one word that brings down your defenses instantly. “Please. Please come with me. I can’t lose you again.”

You know he could still hurt you. Could still rip you open in an instant if you let him, expose your soft insides and destroy every part of you you managed to keep safe the first time. You know this intimately. But somehow it doesn’t sway you as much as his quiet desperation, his admittance that perhaps you could do the very same to him, and he would let you.

“You don’t have to.”

“You mean…”

“I’ll go with you.”

His smile rivals the sun. “You won’t regret it.”

You might. But you can’t quite bring yourself to care.

Tag List: @pandora-writes-one-piece

[amnayel]

something really interesting about book 7 is that there seems to be a lesson about true happiness being passed here

i love when i consume media because it seemed cool only to be hit with a message at the middle of it

theres something we all can agree with after reading book7: malleus concept of happiness is messed up. malleus idea of happiness is a life where everything happens the way you wanted to and there’s no hardships or pain

but let me tell you a little story to explain my point: i’m a person who suffered a lot during my life. one of the things i dreaded the most was that my teenage years where stolen from me. everything i ever wanted was to be a normal girl, study in the afternoons, play games until late at night and go out with my friends once in a while

pretty much everyone i knew lived this life, and they HATED IT. they thought it was boring and wanted more emotion to their lives. but why did i wanted it? because i didn’t have it. i only appreciated the simple life most people had because i was suffering so much from a young age, if i had never been denied this simplicity i wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate it, because i too would’ve taken it for granted

why lilia dream had so much suffering in it? because if he hadn’t suffered to hatch malleus, he would’ve taken that moment for granted. ofc he would still be happy, but not as much. the peace that comes AFTER the hardships is way more blissful than the one BEFORE all the problems began.

you’ll never appreciate what you have if this happiness is never threatened.

thats something the overblotted are realizing one by one. we see that vil and jamil both ended up denying their dream world and even felt shame for them because they don’t want their victory to be handed on a plate. they want to fight for it AND WIN

malleus couldn’t understand why lilia, in a place where he could have ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, still chose to relive the worst moments of his life, loose his loved ones again, see briar kingdom lose the war again, be outcasted by humans again… if he could have everything in this dream world, why he wanted to suffer it all again?

because the pure happiness of seeing malleus being born wouldn’t be same without all of this.

lilia knows this as a older person, the other characters are still young. for me the ob boys dreams being more detailed is not because they have more magic, but because they dreamed of these perfect worlds before, escaping from reality for a moment and going to a place where everything they ever wanted was real

but in the end, the true happiness they wish for will only come after so much suffering, and probably will not be exactly what they wanted, because what you want is not always what will make you happy, what you want is not always something you can have, but no ones suffers forever.

malleus will eventually have to realize this, that lilia has to go, that people will continue to fear him, that he will say way too many goodbyes in his long life…

but that this doesnt means he won’t find happiness at the end of it.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

TOM GLYNN-CARNEY INTERVIEWED BY VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE.

KING AEGON COULD BE A VERY ONE-NOTE VILLAIN CHARACTER, BUT IN YOUR HANDS IS NOT. HOW DID YOU APPROACH CALIBRATING AEGON?

"I think anybody who has the darker side to them as the more prominent side — the side that people see first —there’s always a reason for that."

"I dug into that and found a lot of his boyish vulnerability, insecurities, and self-hatred — stuff that he’d been drip-fed his entire life."

"He wasn’t even a spare, you know? He was just completely ignored."

"He was invisible to most people, which is why he behaved in such a way — to numb himself."

But also to say: "Hey, I’m here as well."

"Any attention was good attention for Aegon."

"I find him less of a villain and more of a tragic case."

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY AEGON DECIDED TO FLY TO ROOK'S REST AT ALL?

"It was that moment — well, it’s an accumulation of moments — but that one in particular where Alicent says, 'Do exactly what is required of you: nothing'."

"That was the final dagger in the heart."

"A real cold reminder that he really is seen as being useless."

"A pawn for Alicent and Otto [Rhys Ifans] to use as a puppet."

"But at the end of the day, the law of the land states that he’s the monarch."

"He’s the king."

"He’s the person to call the shots."

"And no one’s gonna fucking stop him from getting on that dragon if he wants to."

"So he got absolutely obliterated drunk and thought, I’m gonna show them."

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE SHOOTING THE BIG DRAGON FIGHT SCENE?

"Cool, man."

"It’s kind of a little boy’s dream."

"It’s just something that you think of when you’re a child as being the coolest thing in the world."

"And it really was."

"They basically build a screen around you so you know where to look: what’s expected, what’s coming at you, what’s leaving you."

"Your entire perspective is quite clear."

"And then amongst that, you’re clad in all this armor that has been expertly crafted by some amazing workmanship."

"But then again, you’re crouched over this big saddle, strapped in, feeling like you can’t move."

"That crane has really got a lot of work to do to make it look like you’re moving."

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON, AEGON SAYS THAT AEMOND IS HIS CLOSEST CONFIDANT, AND BY EPISODE FOUR, AEMOND HAS BASICALLY TRIED TO KILL HIM. WHERE DO THEY STAND NOW? AND WHAT'S YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH EWAN MITCHELL, WHO PLAYS AEMOND?

"Oh, Aegon and Aemond’s relationship is very different to Tom and Ewan’s relationship."

"Let’s put that out there." [laughs]

"Look, that is sibling rivalry on a very intense scale, isn’t it? It’s the flip of the switch that can happen when somebody feels pushed out or somebody feels like there’s been injustice."

"I always felt like Aemond saw himself being in that position of power and dealing with it better than Aegon would deal with it."

"But then again, his birth certificate states otherwise."

"It was bound to happen at some point, wasn’t it?"

WAS THERE A PARTICULAR SCENE THAT YOU FELT EXTRA CHALLENGED BY OR INVIGORATED BY?

"He’s never in the same frame of mind twice in one day."

"He’s all over the place."

"Keeping up with his erratic mood swings was the hard part, and was this thing that I was having to stay really focused on."

"There wasn’t particularly one scene that I thought, Oh God, not this one, because all of them are challenging in different ways."

"Even the ones where he’s still and more focused are difficult, because you’ve got that sort of inner Aegon rhythm that is rapid."

"It’s very different to mine."

"It’s maintaining that, but still keeping the tension of the scene."

"I relished the opportunity to play someone with such range and creative potential from an acting point of view."

OLIVIA COOKE, WHO PLAYS ALICENT, HAS NOTED THAT YOU TWO ARE NOT VERY FAR APART IN AGE AT ALL, AND YET ARE PLAYING MOTHER AND SON. HOW DID YOU GUYS WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE THAT FILIAL DYNAMIC?

"Every scene that I’ve had with Olivia, there is never a moment that isn’t filled."

"Everything is just so complex and deeply entrenched in her."

"She means everything she says."

"It’s a rare skill to have."

"As an actor, she has that in truckloads."

"It’s a gift to be able to work with her, to play her son."

"Yeah, [it’s] hilarious."

"She’s only a year older than me."

"I think we manage it because we get on so well."

"We’re pals as well, you know."

"I love Olivia to bits."

"Trust her wholeheartedly."

"We have a laugh. We don’t take it too seriously."

"We have common ground on that."

"But then in the moments where the work is happening, it’s all we care about."

"We care immensely."

"It’s one of those things where in the downtime, after we wrap, we can go for a drink."

"We can have a laugh."

"We connect on a personal level as well as a professional level."

"I think that’s what sort of breeds a healthy and believable performance thing relationship-wise."

THERE'S AN AMUSING SCENE WHERE AEGON IS SITTING AROUND WITH THE LADS AND TALKING ABOUT WHAT HIS SOBRIQUET SHOULD BE. SHOULD HE BE 'AEGON THE BRAVE,' 'AEGON THE WHATEVER,' ETC. WHAT DO YOU THINK HE SHOULD BE CALLED?

"Aegon Toast, probably."

[genderkoolaid]

Like many of us, discovering our escape is often how we uncover our true selves, as untouched and genuine as we could possibly be. For Silveira, it was no different. “In those worlds, I would always be a boy,” he says. “And I remember that being part of my story right from the get-go. I didn’t have friends when I was a kid, and if I did, I always played by myself. And my presentation was male. I was being a boy.” For some reason, this reminds me of one of the lyrics to ‘Not Your Boy’ as Silveira, with vocals as sultry and heartbreaking as ever, sings: “Everything’s profound / When you are on a cloud / Riddled by this crowd / That just can’t feel me / When the darkness disappears / The only thing inside that can see / Is in the lie that tells me / I’ve been dreaming / Am I dreaming?” [...] Finding your way through the maze of identity is challenging enough, but doing it in the public eye adds another level of complexity. This was particularly true for Silveira, who already had a well-established audience with fixed ideas about who he was at the time. “When I started transitioning physically, I lost a very diehard and loyal audience of mainly cis-gendered females, and it was this double impact that it had on me, which was, ‘Oh, I knew that nobody was seeing me as being a real man. Because even though I was identifying as Lucas, and as he/him, my presentation to them was still seen as being a cis-gendered female.'” Continuing, Silveira adds: “I even had lesbians call me ‘she’, and I’d be like, ‘it’s actually ‘he”. So, it was really not ever taken seriously. So, what ended up happening was not only the fallout of me, but it was the understanding that I’d never been very validated in that aspect. It was the loss of my family. And it was pretty heartbreaking.” However, despite finding facets of supporters in certain places, even the most seemingly accepting parts of the music industry didn’t feel very safe. “I went from being out very privately to all of a sudden being a signed band and being on tours with Cyndi Lauper, The B-52’s, and Joan Jett, and people were talking about my trans-ness and asking me all these questions, and I was just getting to know myself.” “That didn’t go so well with a lot of trans folks,” he continues. “At the time, there was no non-binary movement, so what ended up happening was I also got flack from the trans community for not being a real man. And I wasn’t a real trans person because if I was, I would have chosen hormones and my presentation and my transition physically over my music career.”

Also, here's an article where he interviews Laura Jane Grace

[yoonia]

Ever A Never After: Act 2 (1)

⟶ Chapter Summary | Some say fate can be a cruel thing. Yet you never knew how true it was until fate played a hand in your bad luck. Merely moments before your happily ever after, you are suddenly sent out to a weird place. A different world. You wonder if this is a test from fate to see if you are truly deserving of your happy ending, or if perhaps fate wants to show you something else. Something that fate wishes you to learn before you can finally move on to take the next step towards your happiness.

⟶ Title | Ever a Never After (adaptation from Enchanted movie) ⟶ Pairings | Jungkook x female reader; Seokjin x female reader ⟶ Genre | Strangers to lovers!au, Fairy tale retelling!au, Rom-com ⟶ Word count | 15,410 words ⟶ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; slow burn, mentions of curses, black magic, theft, law terms. ⟶ Author’s note | Gosh, this took so long to update, and I’m so sorry for that. Act 2 has expanded way beyond planned, so I had to split this into two (shorter) chapters to make it easier to read and for me to edit. Still, this was roughly edited because I’m currently dealing with a lot of stuff (sick cat, health issues, mental block, etc), but I hope you’ll still enjoy reading this. 

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𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 1. 𝔚𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔄𝔩𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔩𝔡

Is this a dream? 

Am I dreaming?

You have to be dreaming. You are sure of it. Because there could be no other way to explain what is happening now. 

But what exactly happened? 

Just moments ago, you were standing in front of the most exquisite fountain you have ever seen, marvelling at its beauty—the artistic carvings around the pool, the crystal-like water flowing in slow ripples, and the waterfall that seemed to have manifested from the palace’s walls. You had gotten completely enchanted by the sight of the fountain that you were already drowning in it even before you fell straight into it. 

That’s right. I fell into the fountain. But how did I fall? 

Your memory is a bit fuzzy, most likely due to shock. All you can remember is that at one moment, you were standing there, watching the cascading water that appeared like a crystal veil falling into a pool of clear, silvery water, and then the next, you felt like gravity became stilted and you started falling. 

You remember the sound of the water splashing and crashing all around you. And then came the cold. The water felt like ice as it engulfed you, adding weight to your dress as it soaked all over the fabric which was dragging you deeper, bringing you down, and down, with not a sign of you reaching the end of this fall anytime soon. 

Is there really no end to this pool? Where is the bottom? 

It seems odd to think that the pool you have fallen into could be this deep. You are quite sure you could see the bright white marble stone at the bottom of the pool when you were marvelling at the fountain earlier, and it didn’t seem to be this deep. 

But even weirder is the fact that your dress. Despite having been soaked with water earlier, the dress is no longer drenched. Neither is your hair. Your body is dry, even when you still feel cold. Real cold. As if you are being embraced entirely with ice.

All while you are continuously falling. Still falling. With nothing embracing your fall no matter how much time seems to have passed since. 

Turning to look down below, you can only see nothingness. The sight of endless darkness surrounds you from all sides and corners. All except one. Darkness is not the only thing that you see as you fall, as the part of the waterfall you saw at the fountain is here with you; a veil made up of crystal-like water cascading right beside you, an extension of the falling water you saw right before your fall. 

How odd, you wonder, as you try to reach out to it as you continue falling. The waterfall seems to magically continue into the darkness beyond. As if there is no end to it.

Just like how there seems to be no end to your descent. 

This is it, isn’t it? This is the end. You cannot help but wonder, finding no other way except to give in to fate. Instead of panicking and feeling terrified, for some reason, you find calmness. Calm enough to choose to touch the endless waterfall, feeling its icy stream with the tips of your fingers, instead of looking into the dark to embrace your final moment. 

“So beautiful,” you whisper as rainbow colours magically appear in the water at the touch of your fingers. Sparks seem to spread into your skin as the water sprinkles out of the waterfall, splashing gently around your hand. “How lovely, it—oh!” 

All of a sudden, everything comes to a sudden halt. Pain spreads through the side of your body—from your shoulders and down to your hip—as you fall onto a hard surface. Groaning in pain, you make no effort to move. Not until the throbbing ache begins to ebb.

Pressing your palm down, you nearly flinch instead of finding steadiness. The ground beneath you feels as cold as ice. It feels beyond uncomfortable, yet you try to hold the displeasure and push yourself up to sit. 

The first thing you notice as you look around is the way your skirt is splayed widely on the ground. A stark white that glows like moonlight against the dark void that forms the solid ground beneath you which seemed to have manifested out of the darkness. 

The wall of incandescent water is now gone. Only the darkness remains, blending into the midnight-coloured ground going as far as your eyes can see. 

Confusion plagues you. Instead of feeling any hint of fear, you feel somewhat serene. As if the shadow around you has not only swallowed down all the lights, but also your frazzled thoughts. 

And yet your senses are clear. Enough to allow you to see it when the light suddenly appears amongst the endless layer of shadow around you. 

Just like the wall of water which accompanies your fall, this light is filled with tiny sparks, floating in the air like little stars you see in the night sky. Slowly, you begin crawling towards it, worrying that your legs would fail you should you dare to try and rise on your feet.

From up close, you can see clearly that the sparkle of lights is, in fact, not actual stars. They are simply fractures of light filtering through small apertures formed between and around an iron plate that seems to have manifested on the center of the midnight-coloured ground. 

Leaning down, you try to take a peek into where the lights are coming from. Except that the opening is too small for you to see anything clearly. Still, you can hear sounds—steady murmurs with sometimes a few indiscernible shouts echoing through the unseen space beneath you, rapid footsteps and rustles of hard materials crossing the opposite side of the ground, an irregular current of rumbling and wheels that sound larger and heavier than the wheels of horse carriages that you are most accustomed to hearing, and loud horns blaring from every corner. 

Feeling hope clawing in your chest that you may find your exit beyond this iron plate, you sit back up and begin tracing the edges, looking for something to hold. A touch of a small gap on the outer rim of the plate tells you where to place a grip. With the tips of your fingers, you gently press and slip them into the gap, hoping that you can pry it open. 

It takes some effort, but you finally manage to slide the heavy iron plate aside. A strong breeze immediately filters through the opening. A breeze that feels nothing like what you remember back home. 

It feels warm, but with barely a hint of the fresh air filled with the scent of pine and clear water that you are accustomed to. Instead, the air feels dry, mixed in with smoke and dust and a tad smell of must which makes your throat grow tight and you find it hard to breathe. Coughing up, you suddenly feel as if the ground beneath you is tilting over, your body being pulled into the opening by invisible threads. The force is so strong that you cannot fight it, unable to stop your body from submerging into the hole. 

Or, in this case, emerge. 

Because the moment you open your eyes again, you are pulling yourself out of the opening. The world on the other side of the hole seems to be inverted, everything held upside down with gravity pulling you down in the wrong direction. What you had thought to be the bottom turns out to be a bright sky, the sunlight shining so brightly that it hurts your eyes. 

Your legs are trembling when you step out of the hole, your heels almost slipping on the hard ground that is lighter than the ground where you had landed on from your fall, the surface uneven and rugged.

Your body feels stilted as it defies gravity, and it takes some time before you can finally regain your bearings. A struggle made by being instantly overwhelmed with a myriad of sensations coming over you—the air that feels too warm and the sunlight that seems too bright after being stuck in the dark for a long while, the loud noises reverberating in the space around you, and the rush that seems to be happening everywhere you look. 

Where—where am I? What is this place? 

Shaking your head, you wonder if you are simply imagining things or perhaps you are dreaming. Because this place looks nothing like Andalasia. 

The road where you are standing isn’t made of cobblestones and gravel. Instead of trees, you see buildings in various shapes, sizes, and colours. Buildings that seem taller than Castle Andalasia and its towers or even the enigmatic witch tower you had once seen during your trip across the woodlands. 

Some of these buildings are even sparkling under the sunlight, as if they are enchanted with spells and light magic in various colours. With crystals that are covering half of their bodies and lights illuminating even under the bright sun. Lights that appear like stars and rainbows glitter onto the streets below, flashing luminous colours onto the people passing by as if they are blessed with magic. 

And there are so many people around you—walking up and down the road, across the street. Some are rushing in quick footsteps, while others are walking leisurely as they admire the buildings and the bright, colourful lights glimmering from around them. Many are dressed funnily, with only a few wearing dresses and suits like the townspeople of Andalasia who you often met when you were with your grandmother tending her shop downtown. 

But most baffling is the sight of numerous carriages appearing in odd shapes and various flashy colours, all seeming to have been crafted with metal, driving up and down the main road without a single sight of horses pulling them. You watch as some of those metal carriages are stuck before turning to a different road, and the sound of the horns you heard earlier starts blaring all around you. 

What are those things? What kind of magic exists here? 

“Excuse me, Ma’am? You’re not allowed to be here.” 

A deep voice startles you, drawing a squeal out of your lips. Turning around, you see four men coming towards you. Four large men, all of them wearing similar clothing. Chest coverings in the shade of tangerine and sunflowers which look like those vests that knights would wear under their armours, only thinner and frail, barely a protection against threats. And just like some knights you once saw patrolling across the rise around Castle Andalasia, the men are wearing helmets that reflect the sunlight. Except they don’t protect the men’s faces the way they should have, making you wonder if they might be a different type of knights which you had never met before. 

“Ma’am?” One of the men calls out when you fail to answer. But it isn’t his voice that snaps you out of your stunned silence. It is how the man is leaning close to you, looking at you with an odd look on his face—as if you are some kind of a wild creature coming from the forest. 

“I beg your pardon?” Your voice comes out thin. Nearly indiscernible among the loud noises coming from all around you. 

This seems to surprise the strange man as his gaze softens. So does his voice when he points at what appears to be a line of makeshift fence bordering all around you from the busy road. “This spot is closed. See? We’re doing some work in here and you’re in our way.” 

You frantically gaze around, scrutinizing the small things you have failed to take notice of before. Everything is still so confusing and you only end up feeling more lost than ever. Seems like you had emerged in the middle of the road. The metal carriages are driving around you, avoiding the area bordered by the fences circling the spot where you and these men are standing. And it seems that you have garnered some attention, as you watch some people passing by turning to look. 

Another man steps closer while looking wary. “Is there a problem, Miss? Why are you in the middle of the road?” 

“Oh, um—” Taking a deep breath, you muster calmness before looking back at the men again. “Forgive me, Sir. It appears that I have gotten myself lost. Can you please show me the way to return to Andalasia? I must go back before it’s too late. The ceremony should’ve already started by now but here I am, still—”

“Are you lost, Miss? Are you talking about the ceremony that’s happening today?” A different man takes over this time. Unlike the others, he seems to be more even-tempered, calmer as he speaks, and he isn’t treating you as if you a wild thing to be wary of. 

A sigh of relief escapes you as you turn to the third man, finding solace in his presence. “Yes, there’s a ceremony that I must attend, and it’s—” 

You suddenly find it hard to continue, unable to openly share your concerns. 

How ridiculous does it sound? The bride, losing her way to her own wedding?

You clear your throat and force a smile. “You see, I wasn’t sure where to go with no one to guide me and I suppose I took too many turns to get to the venue that I lost my way.” The words come out of you rapidly in a rush before you can stop them, while the men start looking at each other. 

“What ceremony are you talking about?” The first man whispers to the friendly one that you are talking to. 

“There’s a party thing going on the block over. Saw guests coming in dressed up in designer dresses and suits earlier like one of those award things. Much fancier than what she’s wearing,” the third man answers as he points at your wedding dress. 

Joy bursts through your chest at his words. Elegant dresses and suits fancier than your handmade dress can only mean one thing. Surely, he is talking about the nobbles who were invited by the Queen to attend your wedding with the Prince. 

The nicer man of the three looks at you again with a rueful smile. “It isn’t far from here. Do you see those black vans over there? The ones heading down that street?” He points out across the street, where the congested road of metal carriages appears. “Just follow them and you’ll find the venue around the corner. You won’t miss it with all the crowd and paparazzi lining up at the front.” 

You have no idea what some of the words he is telling you mean, yet you barely waste any time considering it when your gaze lands on a group of dark-coloured metal carriages driving past the blockage, drawing attention from the crowd surrounding them. 

Clasping your hands together, you turn to the man and thank him with a bow. “Then I must not waste more time and make haste. Thank you for your help. It’s so kind of you.” 

“Uh, yeah—anytime,” the kind man murmurs absently as he watches you gather your flowy skirt and gracefully turn away to start trudging across the street, following his guide. Barely acknowledging his response when you have your mind busy wondering about those dark carriages and the crowd of people who are watching them go. 

Are those some sort of magic carriages coming for the guests? 

You find this peculiar, yet pleasantly surprising, as the last time you spoke to the Prince, he spoke about not feeling sure about having many guests attending the wedding ceremony.

“Queen Mother might get anxious about the wedding being so rushed. You wouldn’t mind keeping it small, do you? Mother would be able to use magic to announce the wedding to our neighbouring kingdoms and send out invitations, yet who knows how many would be able to travel to Andalasia on such short notice.” 

You still remember that moment—the gentle sway of the horse that the Prince led to walk slower towards your home, the strands of his hair that kept flickering with the breeze, and the flutter rising inside your chest. 

You sighed into his embrace, still finding it hard to believe that it wasn’t a dream. That you were talking with the Prince about your wedding. “I don’t mind. As long as we’re together.” 

Prince Jungkook laughed softly then. “You make me want to rush the wedding further, Princess.” 

The warmth that you felt that day returns just as you remember his smile. So does the flutter in your chest as you think about returning to the Prince so you can marry him. Just as planned. You are lost in the depth of your thoughts as you turn away from the burly men, reminiscing the past that had just ended a day ago—more or less. 

A day that feels like forever as you tread carefully down the road, avoiding the carriages that are speeding across and around you, horns and shouts blowing in the air as they drive past by. 

Everything seems like a white noise, regardless of how foreign the sounds are to you. They all drown even the loud voices of the burly men that you are leaving behind as they are calling out to you from behind. 

“Wait, is she walking? In that dress?” One of the construction workers who had first approached you at the site shouts behind you, baffled as he realises that you are going on foot towards the venue for the movie premier mentioned by his colleague. “Hey, you might want to get an Uber, Miss!” 

“Let her be. She’ll probably get there faster than riding a car with all this traffic,” the only oldest one from the group who didn’t make an effort to speak to you comments from the side, already busy continuing the work that he left behind to grab a bit for lunch earlier. 

The worker who felt sorry enough to help you ponders over his friend’s comment for a moment as he watches you disappearing among the crowd. “Yeah, you're probably right.” he finally says after pushing down the unease boiling inside him. “Did anyone see where she came from?” 

“She was already standing there when I got here,” says the first worker who came back to the renovation site to find you first. He is just about to say something when he suddenly stumbles, barely catching himself from falling when one of his feet slips down into an opening that he failed to notice when he first came in. 

“What the fuck—” he curses under his breath once he realises what had almost made him fall over. “Hey, who opened the goddamn sewer? I could’ve broken my neck!” 

How long has it been? 

How far have I been walking? 

Speech has long left you. Your thoughts are barely coherent as time continues to pass by without fail, and you are still out here, stranded in the middle of a city that you cannot recognise as a part of your home. 

Home feels so far away. 

Especially now that you are starting to believe that you are no longer in Andalasia. Nowhere near enough, that is quite for sure, as there is nothing about this place that comes close to anything that you would normally find back home. 

Hours must have passed since you’ve fallen through the fountain and then emerged in this strange place. Wherever this place is. Hours of walking and getting lost in a giant maze that was way more complex and bewildering than the maze of hedges back in the castle. 

Hours have definitely passed since you looked up to the sky to see the bright sunlight. Warm as it was after having drowned in the cold shadow that brought you here. 

Was it really hours ago when you spoke to those burly men on the road? You wonder to yourself as you look up at the sky, the colours are slowly changing, the white and stark blue in the sky turning warmer as the sun continues to glide lower into the horizon, under the tall buildings that look larger than guard towers. 

The place that the kind man had informed you about hadn’t been a part of the castle. Not at all a part of a royal wedding. But your wishful thinking made you believe that you may have gotten through a different entrance gate leading back to the castle when you saw the glorious sight of noblewomen and noblemen walking down a red carpet into what seemed to be some sort of a ball. 

The dresses you saw were captivating, more stunning than the dresses you saw worn by the ladies of Andalasia. The men wore breathtaking suits, with colours brighter than what you had ever seen before. Some were even adorned with rare jewels that glowed under the lights as the men walked down the same path covered in red carpet. 

You were so enthralled by the sight of them that you didn’t realise being lured to follow them. Stepping closer only led you to be pulled in, drawn into the line of nobbles walking into the venue. 

There were also the forces around you which kept pushing you to them—the crowd of people outside of the venue that seemed to be admiring the stunning nobles entering the venue, the flashing lights coming from every corner, blinding your eyes that you couldn’t see where you were being pulled into, and the guards in suits who kept yelling at you to “Keep moving!” 

It wasn’t until you were at the door that it was finally made clear to you that you were at the wrong place. 

“An—invitation?” You stood by one of the guards who eventually stopped you from going further, baffled when you were suddenly asked for an invitation. 

An invitation, to your own wedding?

“Yes, you’re here for the premiere, aren’t you? We need to see your invitation.” 

“I’m not—” you looked around, panicked. Your voice weakened when you murmured defeatedly, “I’m supposed to be at the wedding.” 

There was something in the guard’s eyes that made your chest clench. A look of pity that you had only once seen from your grandmother when you came home late at night after playing out in the forest too long. 

“This is an invitation-only event, so I’m afraid you’re at the wrong place, Miss.” The man turned to another guard then and said something about helping you find an exit without having to go back through the crowd. Yet you barely paid attention to any of it, too distraught about getting stuck at the wrong place when you were running out of time. 

“Excuse me, Sir. Can you please show me the direction to Castle Andalasia?”

You tried to ask the guard as he was pushing you out of the exit, who no longer had his attention on you as commotion suddenly started rising from where you first came in. “Keep moving, Miss. You shouldn’t be the way,” he only said before rushing away, leaving you lost and clueless at the exit. 

Shaking your head, you try to shut down your thoughts, pushing away the uneasiness that is haunting you and start paying more attention to your surroundings. 

You cannot remember half of the journey that took you here after leaving that place. Nothing but a blur of faces and movements, being pushed around amongst the crowd of people and getting too close to danger when you had to dodge the metal carriages rushing through the streets. 

The only thing reminding you of how far you have travelled through the city to find your way home is the soreness growing on your legs, the blisters you feel forming on your skin from wearing your heels for too long, and there is no doubt your updo is falling apart, held up merely by the pins from the tiara on your head. 

Thinking about your tiara makes you think about your forest friends. You lift your hand to brush against the jewels, reminiscing the sweet moment when your friends helped pin the tiara on top of your head before sending you off for the wedding. 

“Oh, my precious angels. I hope you’re all safe,” you whisper, choking with a sob. You wonder where they are, and wonder if they ever got to the wedding spot safely and met the Prince. They must be worried, once they realised you weren’t at the venue when they got there. 

Picturing their voices saddens you. You miss their cheerful chitters and squeaks, the little teases they often throw at you just to make you smile. You wrap your arms around yourself as you think about them, wishing that they were here with you instead. How different this would have been if you had them around. Their presence would have been wonderful. Even if they would be just as lot as you are now, at least they could have cheered you up so you wouldn’t lose hope. 

Any sliver of hope you had to find your way home was fairly lost some time ago. Even so, you refuse to give up. You cannot give up. It would have been silly for you to simply give up and stop looking for your way home. You are merely lost. The only thing you need is to find the right road to take, and perhaps the right person who would be willing to help you. 

Sighing, you feel your hope dwindling even more as you think about finding help. 

The people here—they aren’t kind. 

Apart from the burly men dressed in bright-coloured vests and oddly shaped knight helmets you met when you first arrived in this strange place, you have yet to find anyone else willing to help, much less to look your way. 

Well, some did. Though not all were interested enough to help, quite a few seemed to make a mockery of your wedding dress or were curious about why you were wearing such a dress in the middle of the city. At least, there were a rare few that tried to help you. At least, you want to believe that they meant well, even when they seemed confused. 

“Excuse me, could you please show me the direction to Castle Andalasia, please?” 

“Excuse me—”

You remember asking, questioning the people you passed by until your voice nearly grew hoarse. And you remember how often you were met with suspicious glances, and wary gazes, before some of the worn doubts faded and they all tried to point you in various directions to go.

“A wedding? I heard wedding bells from the chapel across that garden. That must be where you’re heading?” said one lady with streaks of grey in her hair and a hint of caution in her eyes. 

You nearly ran across the garden that she pointed towards, not even sparing a glance to admire its beauty until you reached a chapel. A place where an actual wedding was happening, only that it wasn’t yours, and you had only stayed for a minute to watch the bride and groom walking down the staircase after sharing their true love’s kiss. 

And then there were those other people who seemed awfully confused with your question when you asked for directions that they spoke with words that had no meaning for you. 

“Castle? What castle you said? This isn’t England, lady.” 

“Is that a new ride in Universal Studio?” 

“No, I’ve never heard of it before.” 

“Is she talking about a movie set? Just point her to the studio. Seems to be wearing the wrong period dress, though.” 

You have lost count of how many places you’ve been to in the day, none of which turned out to be anything close to the castle. How many times you were turned away from buildings and gated properties after following the directions that you were given? How it had only led you to become even more lost, not knowing which way to go? 

And then when you were not being turned away from one direction to the next through those vain instructions, you kept finding yourself being thrust and propelled to a myriad of courses without having any control or sense way to go. It kept going on for a while, until you finally managed to escape, leaving the crowded streets and the busy part of the city behind. 

The road you took to leave the bustling place you’ve been to still bears no sign of it leading towards Andalasia. But at least it is quieter here than the roads you travelled across before. 

The bright and flashy buildings you saw earlier have grown less and less the more you go. Some still look as menacing as the towers of the evil witches of Andalasia, others are standing strong like fortresses with giant luminous paintings attached to their walls. But they grow more scarce as you continue walking, finding more gates and long, unending walls, and trees which stand like massive pillars pointing up to the sky. 

The roads that you have seen so far are wider, longer, all filled with those carriages—most of them in similar sizes, some bigger than most, and there was one which appeared like a giant animal strolling down the road—without horses pulling them forward. The surface is smoother than the gravel-coloured roads winding down between the towns and villages of Andalasia, all painted in a darker shade of colour than the cobblestone roads you saw around the castle. 

As you continue walking, you keep hoping that the roads will suddenly change. To grow smaller in size and change shapes so you can follow them to find your way back to Andalasia. 

And yet, just like how fate hasn’t been on your side today, there is no such luck. 

Your head is pounding. You cannot remember when was the last time you ate or drank anything. You had been so nervous about your wedding that you could barely swallow anything at breakfast. 

Now it seems that the day is growing darker. Time seems to flow faster here than how you remember it back home. The temperature has also dropped. It happened so suddenly that it almost felt like you were once again transported to another place in time. Without having to fall into a fountain this time. 

Hugging yourself isn’t doing much to eliminate the cold, and you begin to regret not listening to your grandmother about covering your dress with a coat when you left home this morning. And your dress is getting heavier the more exhausted you feel. The skirt is dragging by your feet and the hems have gotten soiled after walking so long. 

Rounding the corner, you see a line of benches on the side of the road. Before you realise it, you quicken your pace, desperate to rest even for a moment. 

“Oh, this is great,” you whisper with a sigh of relief once you are rested on the bench. Leaning back, you rest your sore back and shoulders, before stretching out your sore legs. You can feel your muscles growing lax. Even if you are still feeling down in the dumps, drowsiness easily sets in. 

But right before you can allow sleep to take over, you blink your eyes open to the creaking sound of wheels and look up across the street. And then you see her. Covered from head to toe in a dark-coloured cloak, the familiar figure that you saw just hours ago is walking on the other side of the road. Hunched down, the hood of her cloak covers the top of her head but not enough to hide her from sight, and she is focusing more on pushing the metal cart that she has with her to notice you watching. 

The old hag. 

“You—! Wait a moment!” You push yourself up. Getting your legs to start working again is a struggle that you nearly slip on the pavement before you manage to run across the street, catching up to the cloaked figure right before she disappears around the corner. “Please, I have no idea what happened, but you need to bring me back to the castle before—” 

Desperate, you reach out to grab her, to get her to listen, and the cloaked old had abruptly turns to snap at you. “Hey, don’t touch me! What’s your fucking problem?” 

You step back, flinching at the hostility and the stench. “I—” Your words die down when her hood falls back, revealing her true features. Immediately, you can see that you have made a mistake. 

The person before you has a tangled mass of darker hair in the colour of chestnut, with only a few strands of grey and silver appearing from the top of her head, unlike the elder woman you met at the royal garden with silver-moon hair framing her face. From up close, it clears that her cloak is tattered and stained in various places, unlike the old hag’s velvety cloak which appeared slightly fancier despite looking worn out and old. And while this person’s face seems to have been roughened with time, with lines and scars appearing around her eyes and lips, she still looks much younger than the person you have been seeking since you met her last.

Disappointed, you can feel the strains of hope you felt leaving your body. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” 

The person scowls, giving you a look that reminds you too much of the troll who attacked you the previous day that you wince back. “I should sue you,” she says, her voice lowering to a snarl. 

“What—?”

The hooded woman sneers, showing you her stained, crooked teeth when she chuckles. “Yeah, I’m suing for harassment. I was just walking and minding my own business when you’re trying to mug me.” 

You watch in horror as she points at the pile of things filling up her metal cart, accusing you of thievery. “No, I wasn’t! I told you that I’m sorry—” 

The peculiar woman scoffs, yet her eyes still narrow with suspicions. “All right, fine. Then pay up and I ain’t calling the cops.” 

“I’m—sorry?” 

Once again, the woman snarls at you. She pushes her hand at you, palms facing up. “Pay up, hon. Give me some cash. I know you have some with you.” 

The woman, looking awfully wicked as she smiles at you, scares you so much that you cannot stop yourself from stepping back to avoid her calloused and cracked hand. “But I don’t have any money. No coins. Anything,” you nearly beg her as you grab a hold of your flowy skirt, clenching it tightly to stop your hands from trembling. 

The wicked smile on the woman’s face immediately turns to a frown. “What? You’re telling me you’re dressed all fancy and you got no cash with you?” 

The sharpness in her voice terrifies you. So much so that your hands are no longer the only ones trembling in fear. Your whole body freezes, and your legs start to grow weak as you take another step away from her. Another move and the woman’s gaze moves upward, stopping at your tiara. 

Her sneer returns. “Guess this will do.” 

Her eyes, which appeared pale and dim blue when you first saw her, now begin to glint with a new light. Piercing blue eyes glow under the streetlights as if she is using some kind of magic, distracting you for a brief moment as she suddenly raises her hands to grab your tiara. 

“Wait! No!” You flinch backwards, trying to escape. You let go of your grip on your dress to stop her, but it’s too late. Her grip strengthens on your tiara and she begins to pull. “Don’t do that! Stop!” 

For someone who seems so weathered, the woman is strong. Much stronger compared to your weary self who can barely fight back. With a strong tug, she manages to pull your tiara off of your head, pulling a few strands of your hair with it, while the force she uses pushes you backwards until you fall into a heap of mess—your bottom hitting hard onto the pavement that you can feel your skin bruising underneath, your skirt spreading all around you, catching dirt and soil, while your frail legs are bent beneath your weight. 

“Now this looks nice. I bet I can trade this for some cash,” the woman muses with a wicked chuckle as she turns the tiara back and forth in her hand, giving it a closer look. The glint in her eyes seems to glow brighter, drawing an eerie shudder through your body. She looks at you with the same sneer that she’s been wearing when she says, “Thanks, doll.”

You feel powerless. Too shocked and afraid to move, yet you make another effort to beg her as she turns to leave. 

“No, please don’t take it away! That’s from my—” 

Yet your plea falls on unhearing ears. Before you can muster any strength to push yourself up, she quickly disappears around the corner where it seems to be darker than the streets around you, moving too quickly for your muddled brain to process. 

Your final resolve crumples, sending you back to the ground as you fall on your knees once again. Speechless, you can only look on towards the shadows where the wicked woman had disappeared to with your thoughts running wild. 

A witch. 

There is no doubt about it. That woman was an evil witch. Cold shivers run down your body as fear engulfs you. Wherever this place is, you need to get away as soon as possible. Get away from danger. A place where witches reside cannot be safe. Not for you. 

With trembling hands, you reach up to touch your hair, now left as nothing more but a tangled mess after the witch pulled your tiara off of your head. Your eyes feel hot, and you wonder if it has something to do with a spell that the witch has left you with in her escape. 

But you cannot even dwell on it or think too deeply about it. The heartbreak that you feel in your chest has become too much. Your heart breaks thinking about your forest friends, how disappointed they would be once they find out that you have lost the wedding gift that they had prepared for you. 

But what breaks your heart the most is realising that you can no longer go to your dream wedding looking as pristine as you had initially intended. To be the perfect bride deserving to be standing on the Prince’s side as you finally share your true love’s kiss. 

As your dream shatters to dust, everything you have inside you begins to wane into nothing. Not even your dwindling hope can spark your heart and spirit back alight without any sign of things going back to the way it was supposed to.

“Oh, dear me. What am I going to do now?” 

The pitter-patter sound of raindrops falling on the moving car has never felt so soothing. 

But perhaps this is something that Seokjin needs at the moment, even if it is only to help calm his mind. 

Normally, he wouldn’t have any problem finding calmness once the day has ended. But the day hasn’t been going well for Seokjin. 

The mediation meet-up which had kept him in a bind all afternoon is still stuck in his mind, still weighing him down even as hours have passed. He feels like he can still hear his clients’ voices echoing in his head whenever there is silence or when he closes his eyes, always arguing about the same old thing—over and over again. 

Always going in circles without fail, with no solution made, and with no party involved ever willing to back down. And every time the memory comes, he can hear his boss’ voice—one of the partners leading the law firm where he works at—advising him to quickly solve the issue and move on to the next case. 

He feels drained and spent just thinking about it again, and he is already dreading the thought of having to deal with them again tomorrow, their last meeting was left with some unfinished business that still needs to be resolved. But it wasn’t like he had any other choice about how he left things behind. He did have to cut the meeting short, lest he wanted to stay all night at the office, being confined in the same room with those same clients. 

And he did have something more urgent to get to. 

His daughter’s dance recital. 

Looking up from his phone, Seokjin turns to his baby girl. A smile voluntarily makes its way to his face as he watches her humming to herself, replacing the scowl that he has been wearing almost all evening. 

“You look scary, Daddy,” Ah-ri had said to him the first time he came to pick her up this late afternoon to help her get ready for her recital, wearing that same scowl on his face. Those simple words had worked like a charm, reminding him to leave all the stress and troubles behind whenever he was spending his time with his little girl. 

“Sorry, Princess. Just a little tired from work, but I’m excited to see you dance,” Seokjin had said in return, showing a smile instead of a frown, drawing Ah-ri’s own smile and her excitement back on. 

Seokjin is quite relieved that he made it to the event on time, and had even made it to stick with her before so he could calm her nerves before she got on stage. Being there for Ah-ri for her performance had become the perfect reprieve that Seokjin had needed the most. It was the perfect escape from the troubles that had been haunting him, and watching her shine on the stage had helped him forget about the noises and the dreadful thoughts over the case that he was dealing with all day.

And his daughter was magnificent. He might be biased, but Seokjin believes his little girl was the best dancer to perform tonight. He was so proud of her that he was beaming with pride by the time he walked out of the venue with Ah-ri by his side. 

The only thing stopping him from carrying his little princess and parading him among the other parents there had come to the show was her fancy tutu dress. The girl had been so proud of her dancing costume that he knew she wouldn’t have allowed him to do anything to ruin the delicate ruffles that she spent hours making sure would flare prettily when she was dancing. 

If only the night’s event hadn’t highlighted another problem that was lying in wait for Seokjin to take notice of. 

Once again, his eyes return to the phone in his hand. 

At the screen that has gone unchanging over the past few hours. The texts that were left unanswered, ignored, and most undeniably, unread. 

‘Where are you?’

‘Why are you not picking up the phone?’

‘I thought you said you wanted to come to Ari’s recital? The show’s about to start in 10 minutes.’

‘I’m not going to wait for you. I’m going in. It’s starting and I have the ticket with me.’ 

Reading through the messages makes him cringe. He never thought that he would turn out to be that kind of person. The kind of partner that would bombard their other half with texts when there had been no news from them.

But this was Ah-ri’s big day. And when it comes to his daughter’s happiness and joy, Seokjin will always be willing to put aside his ego. Even at the risk of fracturing the fragile relationship that he has built with Kira for the past few years. 

Seokjin exhales a deep, resigned sigh as he recalls seeing Ah-ri’s hollow gaze the moment she first realised that he had come alone. A part of him was convinced that she was just as disappointed as he was for his girlfriend’s absence, but there was a small voice in his head telling him that the little girl had never harboured any hope that Kira was ever going to come. 

And that only makes him feel even worse. 

“Are you still busy with work, Daddy?” Ah-ri asks him with a small voice. When Seokjin turns to look a this little girl and sees the pout forming on her lips, he knows he’s messing up the mood. 

Forcing his frown away, he smiles at his baby girl and ruffles her hair teasingly. “No, honey. Daddy’s just reading some texts that came in while you were dancing. I was so happy to see you up on the stage and was so busy taking videos of you that there were some messages I missed.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, nodding, and Seokjin has to bite back a smile. Sometimes, she can look like she’s trying to act like a big girl when she does this. At least she’s no longer pouting. “But you’re not working again tonight, are you?” 

He shakes his head. “No, of course, not. No more work tonight. Didn’t we promise to read some storybook tonight?” 

Reminded of his promise, and perhaps already thinking about her Daddy sticking around to read her favourite stories before bedtime, her smile grows so wide that Seokjin’s chest expands with warmth. “That’s right. We did,” she says, a bit more cheerfully this time.

“Let Daddy read some of the missed texts while there’s a chance to, okay? You should rest until we’re home,” he says, to which the little girl nods her head again. 

“Okay,” she muses, and her attention is quickly drawn towards the car window. “The rain is stopping.” 

Seokjin looks up and nods. “Oh, you’re right. Good thing that we’re almost home so we don’t have to be wet,” he murmurs with a grim smile. 

Funny weather today, he wonders, as he thinks about the rain. 

The sudden drizzle that came right when they were leaving the venue only added today’s peculiarity. It was a relief that Seokjin—who was too exhausted after work to drive his own car—had the mind of ordering an Uber for them before they got all wet. And now there is nothing that he wants more than to get home, get warm and comfy, and rest for the night. 

As Ah-ri begins singing the song that she was dancing to in her performance, Seokjin finds himself drawn back to his damn phone. For a brief moment, he starts debating whether he should send another message, before realising that he might sound desperate, or perhaps seen like an obsessed stalker. 

I’m too tired to deal with this, he wonders with a sigh as he locks his phone and then puts the thing away as he leans back in the seat. He takes this moment to close his eyes and stop himself from overthinking so he can relax. 

A moment passes, when the Uber turns into the usual route heading towards his home—one that he has gone through so many times he can recognise it even without looking—and Ah-ri’s soft humming suddenly fades. The car pulls to a halt at a stop sign, allowing another vehicle through, as Ah-ri starts nudging at her Dad. 

“Daddy, there’s a princess on the billboard.” 

Seokjin hums. “A what?” 

“A princess!” Ah-ri excitedly cheers. 

“There’s no princess, sweetheart. They make realistic advertisements nowadays that make pictures look more real. You know, like those 3D billboards I showed you once with the characters jumping out into the crowd, remember?” 

“No, Daddy. It’s a real princess!” Ah-ri stubbornly starts shouting as the car shifts to move again, “No, mister! Stop! Don’t go!” 

Seokjin opens his eyes when the car jerks, the driver hitting the brakes out of shock. He still has his eyes on the front of the car that he isn’t ready when Ah-ri suddenly unlocks her side of the door and jumps out. 

“What the—” 

“Sir, your daughter—” 

“Yes, I know. I’m so sorry about this. Can you please wait for a minute?” 

Seokjin already has one foot out the door when the driver swiftly responds, “Sure, I’ll park the car and get out of the road first.”

“Thank you!” Shutting the door behind him, Seokjin looks across the road, his heart nearly dropping when he sees Ah-ri already halfway there. Breathless and mind-filled with fear, he chases his daughter, calling her out and quickly grabbing her shoulders once he catches up with her. “Ari, what are you doing? Get back in the car!” 

“No, Daddy. Look, there’s a princess up there!” she stubbornly fights against him while pointing up above. 

“That’s not real, honey. Look, see? It’s nothing but—holy shit!” 

Seokjin didn’t know what to expect when he looked up, following where Ah-ri was pointing at. Maybe a part of him did expect to see those modern types of billboards with the 3D effects where the characters were made to reach out of the screen—which was what he had in mind when he mentioned it to his daughter earlier—even though he has no clue why anyone would put such a modernised advertisement on a quiet road like this one, where there are only old, low-level apartments in the neighbourhood. 

But the moment he looks up, all he sees is a billboard in the form of a 3D castle promoting a new live-action movie based on a children's fairytale story releasing on an online streaming channel this month. He has seen it a few times whenever he was driving down this road on his way to work, and he knows for sure that it never had any additional feature put up with it. 

And somehow, he sees a woman wearing a white dress standing in front of the replica of the castle from the movie. Doing God knows what. With heels that cannot possibly steady enough to help her balance on the small ledge she is standing on. 

Is she actually knocking at the castle’s door right now? 

“See, Daddy? It’s a real princess!” Ah-ri starts shouting excitedly, pointing at the woman on the billboard before she realises, “Daddy, you said a bad word.” 

Clearing his throat, Seokjin gently presses his hand on his daughter’s back to guide her back to the car. “Sweetheart, go back in the car. Let me deal with this and get back to you, okay?” 

He can feel that Ah-ri is holding back, refusing to leave. The girl has always loved her princess stories and this situation isn’t helping. Seokjin takes one look over his shoulder, noticing that the Uber driver has moved the car to this side of the road, so his daughter wouldn’t have to run across. 

The driver steps out of the car, gently calling out, “You want me to call the cops, sir?” 

Ah-ri’s eyes immediately grow wide in panic, so Seokjin quickly waves his hand. “I don’t think that’s necessary for now. Please help my kid back to the car, will you?” 

Seeing the driver stepping up to help watch his daughter, keeping her at a safe distance, Seokjin cautiously approaches the billboard to try and talk the odd woman—whom his daughter keeps calling ‘a princess’—down from that slippery ledge. 

“Excuse me!” he calls out, though he is doing his best to keep calm, not wanting to startle or frighten her with his voice, when all he wants is to make sure that he can help before things get awry. “Hello? Miss? What are you doing? Is everything okay?” 

Despite his effort, the woman—you—is still startled at the sound of his voice. Seokjin only realises that the white dress is a wedding dress when you turn—too sharply, which causes Seokjin to flinch—and start glancing around before finding him below. Your eyes widen with relief when you see him. 

“Oh, oh! Thank goodness. I was wondering if you could—oh!”

Seokjin’s heart drops when he sees you inching forward on the ledge, your eyes looking straight at him instead of paying attention to where you are stepping on, not realising that you have reached the edge. 

“Hey, watch it—” 

Seokjin tries to warn you, only that he is too late. He doesn’t even think or realise what he is doing. As if on instinct, his body simply moves on its own, drawn towards you just as one of your feet slips over the edge and your body tilts forward before you fall from the staggering height. 

Straight into the Seokjin’s waiting arms. 

A deep, resounding grunt vibrates from around you. Yet your mind is spinning, still reeling over the series of events that have happened in the course of—a minute? Hour? No, not an hour. Oh, why does it matter?  

You close your eyes when your head starts spinning even faster. Thinking hard does not seem to be advisable to do at the moment. Oddly enough, closing your eyes makes you feel slightly better. And it helps that you are surrounded by warmth. The kind of warmth that feels comforting, like a warm hug, accompanied by a delicate yet fresh scent of wood and musk and a hint of something sweet. 

Wait. A hug? 

Your eyes snap open when you realise that you are, in fact, engulfed by a strong pair of strong arms wrapping themselves around you to keep you from falling to the ground. Confused, you are lost to what is happening. And when you try to look up, your saviour’s face is shrouded by shadows. The light coming from above is too bright, and all you can see is the lines of his face. The short strands of hair falling from his face look like a curtain as he looks down, keeping his eyes on your face, yet it frames his face perfectly. 

For a hazy moment, your mind makes you believe that you were once again saved by Prince Jungkook. That he had somehow found you and caught up to get you. 

But then you blink, clearing your mind with it, just as your eyes start to adjust to the play of lights. The lines on his face becomes clearer, and then his eyes—the pair of beautiful eyes that are looking at you with fear, concern, and wonder—become visible to yours. And then you quickly realise that the person, your saviour, no matter how good-looking he is, is not the Prince. 

The moment everything truly registers through your muddled mind, your eyes grow wide and your body grows rigid, before you start apologising. 

“Oh, heavens! I am so sorry,” you gasp aloud, your cheeks burning with shame as you try to push away from the man and stand on your own two legs. 

Yet the man’s hold around you is sturdy, and instead of releasing you and letting you fall, he gently lowers you back on your feet. His hands remain on your upper arms for a brief moment to keep you steady before he finally lets go and takes a step back. 

“Are you all right? Is everything good?” the stranger begins questioning you, his eyes going down the skirt of your dress as he speaks and then lingers. A crease forms between his eyebrows when he notices the tattered hem of your skirt, and how badly soiled the fabric has gotten. His gaze rises back to your face again as he asks, “Are you hurt somewhere?” 

Clutching at your skirt, feeling like you want to hide inside it, you try to recall what had happened. You had gotten quite lost in your confusion and exhaustion and were trying to find any sign that might show you the way home when suddenly, this small castle appeared before your eyes, perched atop some kind of a tower. Thinking that it might have been some piece of a totem, a magical item that might be able to take you home, you climbed on top of the tower to open the gate, only to find that it was locked. Desperate, you began banging on the door, hoping that someone on the other side would hear your call for help and open the door for you so you could come home. 

Then you heard a voice. Your prayers were heard. Until you quickly realised that the voice had been coming from under the tower instead of from within the castle. 

You were so surprised and so excited to finally see someone again after a long, quiet walk through this darker part of the city that you tried to get closer to him without realising it. When the man began to speak with you, you didn’t realise that you were beginning to inch forward as you responded to him, not noticing that you were stepping towards the end of the ledge until you began tilting and falling over. 

You really need to stop falling. 

“Are you lost, Miss?” the kind stranger asks you, full of concern, while helping to keep you steady on your feet with his gentle hold on your elbow before you start to fall back. Again. 

And the help is completely welcome, as your legs keep failing you. Your exhaustion is giving you a hard time to hold the weight of your wedding dress that has grown soiled and torn in some places. But you cannot find it in you to focus on your tattered dress right now, as the stranger in front of you seems like the light shining bright in the darkness. 

A beacon of hope, whose presence alone is enough to eliminate every angst and distress that you have been feeling all day long. And it is enough to bring back your faith in all goodness. 

The kind of goodness which reminds you of home. 

“Yes! Yes, I am,” you answer him kindly with a smile on your face. You breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, there is someone willing to listen and care enough to help you. “I need to find my way back to the castle.” 

He stills. Glancing back and forth between you and the small-sized castle standing behind you, he carefully asks, “What castle? And what were you doing up there, endangering yourself? You could’ve hurt someone. You could’ve gotten hurt!” 

“What do you mean ‘what castle’? Why, of course, I’m talking about Andalasia.” A bubbling laughter leaves your lips. “I tried to knock on the front gate, but nobody answered. Maybe because it’s late? But I also have no clue if the totem only answers to a certain spell.” You stop with a deep exhale of breath when you realise that you wouldn’t know of any spell cast on the castle since you are not a royal born. 

Shaking your head, you turn to the man again. “Would you please kindly show me the way to get back to the castle, I’ll be more than grateful—”

“Huh, right,” he gently cuts you off with an odd expression on his face. "Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” His eyes flicker briefly to the top of your head, where your tiara used to be. “Do you have your phone? Is there someone you can call, maybe?" 

"A phone? What is that?" you ask, and his eyes grow wide, as if you had just said something so staggering it leaves him nearly speechless. "And I don't think anyone will hear me from all the way here if I call them, don't you think?" 

"Ookay—" The stranger reaches into his suit jacket as if trying to pull something out of it. “Where is the address? Why don’t I just call you an Uber?”

“Uber?” You tilt your head, confused. You have never heard of the name before. “Is that the name of your horse?” you ask with a soft gasp, recalling that the gentlemen that you have met back in Andalasia tend to name their horses with peculiar names and titles to differentiate them from one another. 

Just like how Prince Jungkook named his white steed Onyx—which reminds you of the gemstone similar to the one your grandmother kept in her drawers back home. 

A slight pinch of sadness arises inside your chest at the thought of home—of your grandmother, the Prince, and the quaint wooden cabin taking lone residence at the heart of Amaranth Forest. Oh, how wonderful it would have been to be on your comfortable bed, tucked beneath the fuzzy blanket that your grandmother had made for you, and wearing a simpler slip of a dress that would not be pulling down your weight each time you move around. 

“But, Daddy—we have an Uber!” A small voice suddenly speaks. You turn to look over behind the stranger to see a little girl popping out of the shadow. Wearing a tutu dress in pink that matches her tiny shoes and feather headpiece, she looks like a little pixie with her cheeks blushing in the cold, almost to the same colours as her fluffy skirt. 

“Ari, I told you not to leave the car,” the man gently scolds the little girl while pushing her back. 

“Oh, hello sweetheart. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” you greet her with a smile, which seems to make her happy. Because both her eyes and her smile light up almost as bright as the lights flashing from the castle behind you. 

“Hello,” the girl shyly greets you back. Her voice is soft when she suddenly asks you, “Are—are you a princess?” 

Laughing softly, you bend down a little to get to her height. “Oh, no. I’m not a princess. My name is _______,” you offer your hand as you introduce yourself. “What’s yours?” 

The girl glances at the man briefly before taking your hand and gingerly shaking it. “I’m Ah-ri, but I also go by Ari so that my friends won’t have trouble saying my name.” 

Smiling, your friends come to mind. You miss listening to them singing your name as they play around with you back home. “My friends also have a special name for me. It’s Blossom.” Your throat feels tight just thinking about them, but you try to push it down. “Which name do you feel comfortable the most with?” 

The little girl’s smile widens. “I love it when my close friends, Daddy, and Grandma call me Ari,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear with a shy smile. “You look like a princess.” 

Eyes growing wide, it takes you a moment to understand what she means. “Oh, it must be the dress. I mean, it would’ve been even better if I still had my tiara.” 

Ah-ri gasps. “You have a tiara?” 

Immediately, your heart is filled with sadness as you recall the unfortunate incident with the wicked witch. “Not anymore, I’m afraid. Someone took it from me while I was looking for my way home,” you answer with a sad sigh, your eyes tearing up for the loss of your precious tiara. 

Hearing this, your kind saviour’s eyes grow wide. He seems startled and wary, and begins glancing around, pulling the little girl back so he can hold her safely by his side. “You were robbed? Here?” he asks, sounding alarmed. 

“Well—” Frowning, you look around as you begin to explain that it had happened a while ago. And not exactly here, wherever here is. 

“Fucking hell—” you hear him say with a low tone of voice before you can say anything. You have no idea what he means, but it sounds really bad, as Ah-ri immediately turns to chide him. 

“Daddy, you said a bad word.” 

At the sound of her voice, the man closes his eyes and murmurs a quick apology. “I’m so sorry. Listen, Honey, you need to get back to the car. I’m going to try and call an Uber for, uh—the nice lady,” he says, pointing at you, while the girl furrows her brows, looking confused. 

“With your phone? But we ordered our Uber with that earlier,” she says to her father. 

“Damn it, you’re right,” he says in return, quickly stopping to mutter, “Oh, fuck.” The little girl crosses her arms as she glares at her father, who later bends down to kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry, baby. Fine, let me just find a way to call for help.” 

You watch as the man reaches into the inside of his suit—an odd looking suit which seems so simple but quite elegant, without any jewels or golden embroideries or intricately made lining, yet still nice to look at—and pulls out a small black box in his hand which lights up at the touch of his fingers. 

“What is that?” You gasp, “Oh, is that a magic talisman?” 

The man looks at you with a million questions in his eyes. “A magic—what?” 

Seeing that the man carries with him a magic item, no matter how small and simple it seems, you begin to feel hopeful. Finally, you will be able to go home. His magic talisman will be able to lead you back to Andalasia, as long as he says the right spell. 

But why does it seem like he doesn’t understand what you are saying, even when he is holding the magic talisman in his hand? 

Do they call their magic items with a different names? 

“A talisman,” you try to explain the best you can, “It’s a type of magic items that sorcerers and mages would use to conjure their spells. I must admit, I’ve rarely seen them my whole life. Almost never. But I’ve heard stories of witches who use mirrors to communicate with others or see visions from other places to help them predict the future.” You look up at him with hope blooming inside you. “Are you perhaps a mage, or a warlock?”

The man, who has been looking confused the entire time he was listening to you ramble, only seems even more confused. But then he looks down, following your gaze, before asking, “Are you talking about”—the man lifts his hand to show you the square item that he is holding—”this?”

You clap your hands together. “Yes, it’s just like that one. So is it a magic mirror? Did you create a small one to carry with you everywhere you go?”  

Ah-ri suddenly gasps. “Oh, I know! Magic mirrors! Just like the evil Queen in Snow White!” 

Pressing your palm over your heart, you are overcome with joy as you finally hear a familiar name being mentioned here in the strange land. “You know Snow White too?” 

“Yes, I do!” Ah-ri says with a voice filled with joy. She turns to her father, looking as if she wants to share that joy when she says, “Daddy, she knows Snow White!” 

The man grimly nods. “Everyone knows Snow White, honey. There are a ton of movies made for the story.” 

You tilt your head. “What’s a movie?” 

The man seems surprised when he hears you. As if he wasn’t prepared to hear such an odd question. “I’m sorry. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight? Are you staying anywhere nearby?” 

Being reminded that you are still lost, the pain inside your chest grows back to its full size. “I, uh—” 

Before you can even think of what to say, Ah-ri slips between the two of you and begins tugging and her father’s hand. 

“Daddy, the princess needs our help, and the Uber is waiting,” she says, to which her father looks between you, his daughter, and a figure that you only now notice standing on the side of the road, where lights cannot fully reach him, with a black metal carriage parked right beside him. 

“Please, Daddy?” Ah-ri asks again, while her father looks conflicted and stunned into a complete silence. 

Seokjin closes his eyes and groans, wondering to himself how on earth he managed to get into this situation. 

But there really is no escape from it now. The look that his daughter is giving him says so. 

“Daddy?” Ah-ri calls out again, pouting, and Seokjin feels powerless against it.

“Okay, baby,” he sighs. “We’ll get the Princess some help. Let me see if we can find a way to get her home. Maybe if we—” 

Seokjin looks down on his phone to find a way to get help, maybe call someone from his office, and curses under his breath when the blasted thing beeps, twice, before the screen shuts down. Having to rush from the office gave him no chance to charge his phone before going to Ah-ri’s event, and all the texting he did and checking where the hell his girlfriend was had probably drained its battery. 

“Fuck—” he snaps, quickly reeling back when he realises and glancing at Ah-ri. “Sorry, baby.” 

Pouting, the little girl crosses her arms over her chest and scolds him gently. “No more bad words, Daddy. It’s not polite to do it in front of the Princess.” 

“I know, honey—” 

While he is trying his best to keep himself together against the inner battle he is having, everything starts to fall apart at once. Right the moment his cell phone blips its last life, the rain suddenly starts again. No longer the simple drizzle wetting the road around him but a light shower that will no doubt start to pick up within seconds. Drenching them all if they stay here even a minute longer. 

“Daddy…it’s raining again!” 

Ah-ri’s panicked voice snaps his mind back into gear. Regaining his focus back allows Seokjin to see his daughter trying to cover her head from the rain, but the stubborn girl refuses to run back to the car. He has no doubt that it’s because she is worrying about this odd woman standing in front of them. 

Glancing over his shoulder, he sees the Uber driver rushing into his car. Within seconds, the driver begins reversing the car to get closer, as if making sure that they won’t have to run through the rain—again—to get back in the car. 

Seokjin looks at you again, still wary about your presence. In his eyes, you are a stranger lost in the big city, with a dress that has been completely ruined and tattered that he cannot imagine you going around on the streets like this when the sun is out. Especially not here in this part of the city. 

He had first thought that you might have been drunk, which would explain why you seemed confused and were doing something so dumb. Like knocking at a miniature of a castle that is a part of a billboard ad promoting a movie. But then you kept looking confused and lost to everything that he said. 

With no sign of being drunk or delusional, and a reaction that looked almost genuine each time you questioned him about the things you didn’t seem to understand, his heart feels heavy about leaving you be. 

The rain picks up, and you seem to be wrapping your arms around yourself tighter. Your body shivers under your soaking dress, and yet your smile doesn’t seem to waver—something that Seokjin isn’t used to seeing from the people that he has ever met before. And he can clearly see how pale you have gotten. The way you are slightly swaying on your feet also worries him. As if you are about to collapse on the street any second now if he doesn’t do something to help.  

“Why don’t you come with us,” he says under the rain, surprising both himself and Ah-ri with the offer. 

He isn’t the kind of person who would easily offer this kind of help to a random stranger he meets on the street. And yet the moment the words slip out of his lips, he has a feeling that he is doing the right thing. 

“It’ll take around ten to fifteen minutes to get to our house, but it will be a lot better than staying out in the rain like this,” he says, mustering a smile even when he still feels hesitant. The thought of taking you—a complete stranger with a situation that is lost on him—back to his home seems unnerving. 

But what other choice does he have at the moment? 

“Once we’re there, I can lend you some fresh clothes and get you warmed up, and then I’ll try to order another Uber for you. Maybe I can pay the Uber driver taking us home some extra cash to take you to where you want to go. What do you say?” 

As it turns out, the driver refuses to accept any money from Seokjin to send you away once he is done with his previous order.

However, that doesn’t mean that the driver simply chooses to immediately leave and not get involved. 

“This place isn’t safe for that poor girl when it’s nighttime. If you have enough sense and goodness in you, you best open up your door for the night, at least. I know bad people, and she doesn’t have the looks for it,” the driver says, right after he blatantly said no to Seokjin’s request even when he was offered double the payment he was charged with for his trip home. 

“Though I can be wrong, so you keep your baby girl away from her until you’re sure she’s safe to be around,” the driver adds, as he glances over Seokjin’s shoulder. Seokjin turns to do the same, watching as your back disappears into the side patio, following his little girl who is still chattering about princesses and pretty dresses while guiding you towards the entrance door of your home. 

When Seokjin turns back to the driver, he sees the man—who he only realises now to be somewhat older, with greying hair and a wise look in his eyes that helps calm Seokjin—rummaging through the dashboard compartment before handing him a card. “A friend of mine runs a shelter that houses people like her. You can call them up in the morning and get her to stay there if you still can’t find where she lives. They might be able to contact her family.” 

Circumstances being as they are, Seokjin decides not to argue with the man and let him drive away, though not before he expresses his gratitude for the advice he was given and the business card in his hand. Seokjin stands at the driveway of his home for a moment longer instead of rushing in, watching the Uber drive away until the taillights fade at the end of the road. He embraces the silence, finding solitude in the lack of sound against the voices inside his head. 

Nothing but the sound of the rushing waves hitting the beachside coming from a distance away. 

He breathes in the cool night air, wishing that he is somewhere far from this place instead. A different place where the air isn’t so polluted and where he wouldn’t have to worry about stressful client meetings, missing girlfriends, and saving damsels. 

Thinking about this makes him want to laugh. It was the same thought that he had years ago which made him decide to buy a property here in the first place; in a neighbourhood closer to the Venice beach instead of at the heart of downtown Los Angeles like many others working in his field would to get closer to work. 

He wanted something different, away from the bustling city lifestyle and the traffic, and other things that would have made him feel miserable while still experiencing the best of things from the city. He expected that it would allow him to have some peaceful moments like this whenever he needed it. It was everything that he wished to have when he was cramped up in the studio loft back when he was still living in downtown LA while finishing law school.

And now, he is suddenly looking for something different. Something more. Something that might help silence the chaos happening inside his head. 

“Daddy…! You need to open the door!” Ah-ri’s voice echoes from the side patio, and Seokjin quickly brushes his thoughts away. 

With a deep inhale of breath, he regains calmness and turns. The business card for the shelter—said to be safe and open for the homeless and women in need of assistance—is now safely secured in his pocket as he walks into his home, joining his chatty girl and the unexpected guest he is welcoming home. 

After connecting his phone to its charger in his home office and leaving his daughter in his bedroom, Seokjin makes his way back downstairs to the living room to find you. 

He sees you sitting on the settee by the window, looking far out into the night. With your dress spread across the side of the seat and your hair falling loose from the twisted bun, you do look like someone who had just come out of one of his daughter’s storybooks. 

Instead of letting you know that he is there, Seokjin stops on the final steps of the staircase, watching you. Mesmerised, he is lost for words. 

Because right here, sitting with your eyes looking out the night sky and the lights sparkling across the canal, you seem—peaceful. Unlike before, when you were in complete distress and exhaustion was written all over your face. And for some reason, Seokjin wants to savour this moment. Not knowing the reason why. 

But then a soft sound of a sigh, followed by the rise and fall of your chest, breaks the moment, snapping him out of his daze. 

Clearing his throat, he makes the rest of his way down and slowly walks up to you. “Hey, there,” he gently says, trying his best not to startle you. A smile comes to his face when you look over with a small, tired smile. “I’m sorry for making you wait. Ari kept trying to talk to me before I could leave her.” 

You nod. “It’s fine.” Once again, you glance out the window. From up close, your face seems to light up. The bright lights coming from outside are reflecting on your face. “The view here is lovely.” 

“It is,” Seokjin muses, following your gaze, realising only now how rare it has been lately for him to enjoy a serene moment such as this one—the way you are able to find solitude in your darkest hours. “So, um,” he says, shaking his head. “______, was it? Or should I call you Blossom?” 

You turn to smile at him again. “Just ______ will be just fine.” 

“I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself earlier with all the frenzies,” he says while mustering a smile. To his relief, he can see your shoulders slumping, growing slightly more relaxed in his presence now compared to earlier, and it’s surprisingly making him feel calmer at the same time. 

”My name is Seokjin, but feel free to call me Jin. And as my daughter has cleverly introduced herself earlier, her name is Ah-ri,” he adds, with a deeper smile on his face as he talks about his baby girl. “Or Ari. That’s the nickname that she uses since her mother always calls her that way. Perhaps you can ask her again next time which name she’ll be comfortable for you to call her with.” 

“I’ll be sure to ask,” you answer with a warm smile, and it thaws his frozen heart a little bit more when your voice softens at the thought of his daughter.  

“Listen. My phone is charging right now,” Seokjin begins to explain as he sits on the ottoman right across from you. Keeping both of his arms resting on his knees, he bends forward, putting on the same mask that he usually wears when he has to sit at the center of a mediation during the toughest cases that he ever had to deal with. “I tried to search on the internet about this place you mentioned earlier, Andalasia, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Are you sure you can’t remember where you came from, or how you got here?” 

Your brows are furrowed deeply as you slowly shake your head. “Everything seems so fuzzy.” 

Seokjin nods his head. “And you have no one to call.” 

A wry smile appears on your face as you shrug a little at him. “I told you, it’ll be too far for anyone to hear me.” 

Once again, he grimaces, knowing that this is going nowhere. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Seokjin counts to three before speaking again, hoping that he can swallow down his frustration so he can find a way to solve your problem. 

Hopefully, before it becomes his.  

“Look, my daughter is worried and you looked lost, so I’m not sure if I can let you go out like”—Seokjin releases a sigh—”this.” 

He tries hard to hold back his grimace and fails. Yet the smile on your face remains, which only makes him feel more guilty as he watches you, looking like a lost little dove, engulfed in a fancy wedding dress that looks like the ones painted in his daughter’s storybooks. 

“We need to work to find a way back to your home. Isn’t that what you want?” he asks, and you eagerly nod your head. “About tonight, do you really have nowhere to stay?” 

“No, I—” you begin to answer, “I don’t even know where I am.” Swallowing hard, you look out the window again to look far in the distance. Across the walkway that lines up starting from Seokjin’s house towards the spread of white that is barely visible from this part of the neighbourhood. “That is a beach, right? And beyond is the ocean?” 

Seokjin furrows his brows. “Yes, that’s right.” 

Nodding, you give him a somber smile. “Our small house is far from the coastline. It would have taken days, maybe weeks to get to the ocean. Perhaps it would have been different if we owned a carriage,” you stop with a soft chuckle before adding, “Or a horse.” 

Seokjin raises his brows, realising that you are sharing a little bit of details about your home and where you came from, answering his questions. Only hearing it doesn’t seem to solve anything. Even knowing that you are not from anywhere near the beach shows what a slim chance it would be for you to come from somewhere close to the neighbourhood. 

He doubts that you are even from the same city. 

“There’s a hotel nearby. It’s good and clean, and not too expensive,” he starts, hoping that he can avoid letting you stay here, regardless of how badly Ah-ri had wanted to let you stay just to make sure you would be safe for the night. But it only takes a moment for him to get a closer look at you and quickly notice that you have no other belongings with you aside from the clothes on your skin. “I don’t suppose you have any money with you?” 

“Money?” You ask as your hands reach down, nervously clutching at the skirt of your dress, “Well, uh—” A grim smile comes to your face as you continue, “You see, I was supposed to get married today, and this dress doesn’t really have pockets in it. I also didn’t think about taking a purse with me since I was, you know—my hand would’ve had to hold a bouquet of flowers when I walked down the aisle.” 

You suck a deep breath at the implication that your situation had involved a wedding, and Seokjin has no idea why the sound you make pierces straight deeply into his chest. Then you make it worse when you speak with an innocent, helpless voice of yours, “Anyway, you are right, Sir. I don’t have anything with me. I left all my gold coins back home, since I thought I wouldn’t be needing it today with the wedding ceremony and all.” 

Again, dread fills his chest. “Gold coins,” he groans under his breath with a grimace. He closes his eyes, trying to find that sense of calmness deep inside him once again before it slips away. “All right. Breathe.” 

Seokjin takes a deep breath as he begins thinking, trying to decide what would be the right thing for him to do. Right at that moment, the words given to him by the Uber driver return to him, removing any doubt that he still has about letting you stay. Looking at you, he realises that the man had been right about one thing. 

Seokjin may not know or understand what kind of situation you are in, and all the things that you have been saying sound too ludicrous to be true. But each time, you seem genuine. Nothing that you said and done feels like an act to make a fool out of him or filled with nefarious intent. 

And he genuinely doesn’t think he has it in his heart to let you go anywhere when you seem so helpless. 

“I guess since it’s late anyway and, well—” He grins. “My daughter might get upset if I let you be on your own when you’re, um—confused.” Rising to his feet, he offers you a hand to help you up and says, “We don’t have a lot of guests, so we only have one guest bedroom. It’s small, but I hope it’ll be adequate for you to have some good rest for the night. What do you say?” 

Smiling with relief, you nod and take his hand. “That would be lovely.” 

Seokjin feels awkward holding your hand as he guides you upstairs to the guest bedroom. Yet he is glad that he even thought about offering because you keep swaying on your feet as you walk by his side, as if your body is ready to give up anytime soon. By the time he reaches the bedroom, he almost finds it hard to let go of your hand just to be able to open the door for you. 

“Here it is. Ah-ri, my daughter, loves to hang out here when I’m not home since it has a good view, so we change the sheets regularly. It’s also clean, and you have easy access to the guest bathroom. It’s also small, but—” He gently explains as he is showing you the room, yet you are too distracted to listen. 

Your eyes are no longer on him, but you are looking out the window across the room instead, distracted by the view of the ocean that is more visible from up here. In the night, there is nothing much to see. But the lights coming from the beachside and from the resorts and venues overlooking the ocean are helping you see the rushing waves, even if it is still too far away. 

With your attention on the sight before you, you gingerly takes a seat on the small daybed placed by the window, once again getting lost in the view and forgetting Seokjin’s presence. 

Shaking his head, Seokjin can only sigh. “Well then, I should, um—” He clears his throat, feeling even more awkward now when you barely pay attention to him, yet pleased that you are able to somehow find some peace here. “I’ll let you rest. Let me check if Ari has found something for you to change into.” 

You still have your eyes looking out the window when Seokjin makes a move to leave the room, ready to close the door gently behind him. But before he can escape, you suddenly turn to look at him with a smile. “Thank you, kind Sir. For you and the little princess. This day has been—” 

A resigned sigh escapes you. The sound once again pulls at Seokjin’s heartstring that he finds himself completely speechless. But whatever anguish that you have wanes as you lift your gaze at him and smile. “You were the first people to be kind to me. Everyone I met had been—rude, dismissive, and that was before I got my tiara taken away.” 

Swallowing his guilt, Seokjin can only nod, feeling solemn. “Welcome to LA,” he says with a bitter chuckle, while you merely tilt your head, looking even more confused that Seokjin can only exhale a deep breath. “I’ll go check on your change of clothes. We can talk more in the morning, once you get some sleep.” 

Seokjin’s heart and legs are heavy when he closes the door and walks away. He walks past Ah-ri’s bedroom and walks up another flight of stairs to get to his bedroom, where his daughter is waiting for him to return. Entering the main bedroom, he finds Ah-ri setting up his clean white T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the bed. 

“Will this be okay for the Princess, Daddy?” she asks once she notices him entering the room. 

Nodding, Seokjin reaches out to ruffle the girl’s hair. “Those will be fine. Thank you for getting them for me while I set our guest to her room.” 

Beaming at the praise that she has earned from her dad, Ah-ri begins picking up the clothes. “Then let me take them to her—” 

Seokjin quickly stops her. “No, sweetheart. You can see her in the morning. I’m sure the lady—I mean, the Princess is tired, and you’ll only ask her too many questions.” 

“But, Dad—” 

“Let me take it to her while you get ready for bed.”  

Ah-ri pouts. “Fine. But be nice to the Princess. Okay, Daddy?” 

“Okay, I promise. You sit tight. You’re sleeping here tonight. You said you wanted me to read you before bed, didn’t you?” Seokjin asks, and he feels guilty when Ah-ri beams at him, looking pleased with his promise without knowing that he only wants to keep her away from you. At least for the night.

You may not be suspicious in his eyes after having that last conversation, but that doesn’t mean he is willing to risk his daughter’s safety around a complete stranger that he is hosting in his own home. 

It takes a while for Seokjin to help his daughter to get ready for bed. The girl will not stop talking, jumping from one topic to another so quickly that he can barely keep up—from complimenting your dress, regardless of how tattered it looked, and comparing it with her tutu dress, to how adorable her new pyjamas look. 

She is in the middle of choosing which storybook she wants him to read by the time Seokjin finally gets the chance to slip away, carrying with him the change of clothes that he had promised you and a fresh towel for you to clean up. He makes a quick stop to the snack bar downstairs to grab a bottle of mineral water and some snacks for you.

But once he finally returns to the guest bedroom, you have already fallen asleep. Taken over by your exhaustion, no doubt, as he finds you lying asleep on the daybed where you were sitting on when he left you, watching the night view of the ocean and the beachside from afar. 

Smiling to himself, he takes a moment to admire the way your dress glitter under the dim lighting before deciding that he would just let you be. With careful footsteps, he enters the room, leaving the clothes on the bed that you had taken no notice of and setting the drink and snacks on the bedside table for you to find when you wake up. 

Picking up the blanket from the bed, he covers you with it and gently draws the curtains close, fearing that the sunlight will burn you in the morning. He steps away once he is done, closing the door behind him gently as he walks away, letting you drift off to wherever your dream may take you. 

⟶ Author’s Note | Originally commissioned by @pinkbtsarmy | Thank you for reading!

— © Yoonia, all rights reserved. reposting/modifying of any kind is not allowed. unsolicited translations are not allowed.

[huiyi07]

GENSHIN MANGA SPOILERS! but honestly if you haven’t read it by now it’s your fault alone

So why did Kaeya initially try to hurt Collei?

The obvious answer- he was trying to defend Mondstadt, Collei was a very suspicious figure at the time, and he knew that being aggressive towards her would probably draw out her hidden powers and reveal herself as the culprit of the Black Fire incident.

But there’s more to it than that.

Kaeya canonically loves, LOVES kids. He adores them- there’s lots of times in the game where he talks about how precious childhood is and how he wants to protect the purity of childhood dreams for as long as possible before kids have to grow up and face the real world (kinda similar to Childe). In 3.8, it shows how he is literally willing to do anything to protect a child- Klee, when he literally throws aside his own sibling issues in order to shield Klee from being exposed to the same thing and scolds a couple of bickering brothers for upsetting her.

Additionally, there’s his whole thing with Mika and how he’s basically a big brother figure to the entirety of Mondstadt’s population under 17. The highly implied bond between Bennett, Razor, Fischl and him, even.

Anyway this whole aspect of his character obviously stems from his own childhood and how tainted it was by his hidden identity, so like he probably doesn’t want any other kids to have to go through such hardship especially while they’re still young.

So if he loves kids so much, and wants to protect them so badly, why did he not hesitate to become a full blown villain against Collei, literally wounding an innocent 12-year old girl?

Because he sees himself in her.

Collei hates herself (or at least she used to LOL). She hates the burden (her powers) that was forced upon her from a young age, and those powers inevitably label her as a bad person, one who can harness evil powers to kill And hurt and whatever. It makes her feel like she has no real control over herself, and that she has no self-identity- she doesn’t think of herself as a regular person, instead a monster. And she hates, hates, hates herself for it, but she shoves all of it down under a mask.

Sound familiar to a certain cavalry captain?

That’s why Kaeya didnt hesitate to Go after her. He knows her too well, knows that she’s hiding her true identity under a well-crafted face, that there’s something evil and dark in her- because that’s exactly who he was as a kid.

But then this panel happens.

Collei, evidently so tired of living such a torn life, gives up and offers her life to Kaeya just so that the torment can end, which stops Kaeya in his tracks, because that’s when she reminds him off himself just a little too much.

Kaeya, so caught up in her uncontrollable evil, forgets that she’s just a child, one who never should’ve been forced to deal with such a thing, and certainly not want to die because of it.

That’s exactly what happens internally to him, as well. Over the years, Kaeya internalized being a traitor so much, that often he convinces himself that he’s truly not a good person. Yes, he acknowledges that it’s really not his fault, but that still gets lost and it shows through when Kaeya shows us how willing he is to get himself harmed- because of his self hatred, he places so little value in his own wellbeing and his own life, because he thinks that all harm that comes to him is deserved and that it’s better off if he’s dead anyway so that he doesn’t have to deal with being torn apart every day.

No I’m not making this up, it’s in how he literally covers for Diluc all the time and risks himself in the process, and how Adelinde told us about that one time Kaeya literally took Diluc’s punishment for himself when they snuck into the wine cellars. There’s lots of times, even throughout in the game where Kaeya tries to convince us he’s not a good person- he quite literally says that, at some point.

Only when Collei shows that she’s in the exact same position does Kaeya realize what he’s doing and stops himself. Only then does he remember how painful and hard it really is, and he ends up helping to save Collei and removing her powers, because that’s one burden he can help take off, unlike his own.

Idk man for me the Kaeya vs Collei fight (I like to call it the chapter where collei gave us the hottest panel of Kaeya choking ever) told a story about Kaeya’s internalizations, too, and his own-self hatred and how deep it really goes. BRB CRYING

[celaenaeiln]

Hello, hello! It's been a while!!! Hope you're well. I had this hc about how Batfam is susceptible to manipulation, but only if it's Dick doing it. Like the blind faith he commands, there will literally get everyone ready to get him what he wants without him actually having to do anything. Like of anyone asks for a reason: "Dick said so". That's enough.

Just wanted your opinion on this

Omg hello!!! It’s been so long!! I’m so happy to hear to hear from you again 😆💕❤️!!

Hc that Bruce being completely susceptible to all of Dick’s manipulations due to the sheer faith he has in him? ABSOLUTELY!!

It’s so friggin true I’m pretty sure this is borderline canon if not canon already!!

Because here’s the thing: from the dawn of Batman comics to now, through all the changes that have occurred, there has only been one thing that remains constant and that is the fact that Bruce trusts Dick unconditionally.

There are MULTIPLE scenarios where Bruce confides solely in Dick and he actually worries heavily when his only companion leaves:

The Brave and Bold (1955) Issue #197

"My only real friends know me as Batman...Dick, Alfred, Kathy Kane...except..what do I do when Dick graduates college...and Alfred retires...and Kathy gives up being Batwoman? What do I do...when I'm finally alone?"

Bruce...that's a whole lot of pressure and expectation to put on a kid a decade younger than you..

But the point still stands because Bruce needs Dick. In the beginning of the Batman comics, there wasn't even Alfred around. It was just Dick and Bruce and they lived in an entire mansion together by themselves and had dual responsibilities of Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne as well as Batman and Robin. It was quite literally only the two of them in their own world. They went on adventures you wouldn't believe and had things happen beyond people's wildest imaginations. The Golden Age was a fever dream that encompassed only the two of them. They didn't have anyone else and they didn't want anyone else.

Dick pulled Bruce out of one of the worst times of his life when he was just Robin and Bruce pulled Dick out of depression during his. This resulted in a unbreakable bond. It's a deep kind of unshakable, irreplaceable love and profound trust that they have in each other that the other will only and always be there for them in the worst of times of their lives and the happiest of ones as well.

It's that kind of devotion and attachment to each other that established their relationship for decades. Every single timeline has consistently kept this - "You're my only one." - kind of relationship between the two of them.

Batman (2011) Issue #2

Bruce knows that of everyone he's ever met, Dick will always be the one to know him and hear him.

There's another comic panel that stuck out to me too-

Titans (2008) Issue #1

"No one knows about them except Bruce, Alfred, Tim. Barbara knows about a few. And ofcourse me."

Bruce only trusts three people - Alfred, his current robin, and Dick.

So consistently and unconditionally, it only comes down to two people at ALL times. For another example, during Death Metal, when the entire Justice League is hunting down Batman and the Batfamily, Bruce would only entrust the deadliest weapon in the world to one person and the entire league knows it.

Dark Nights: Metal Issue #2

Bruce just has pure faith in Dick for everything. He is the one person that Bruce believes will never do any wrong and he's the one person he always believes and believes in. Period.

Titans: Beast World Issue #1

Whatever Dick decides, it's the final word.

So that is why Dick is the only person Bruce is susceptible to. He never questions Dick in the comics ever. He's questioned every single person he's ever worked with about their intentions but never Dick. So Dick tells him the world is ending then the world is ending for Bruce.

If Dick tells him that red is an awful tie color, then it's an awful tie color that Bruce will never wear.

If Dick tells him to slick his hair back, take a break, be more compassionate, have faith - Bruce will do anything and everything. And this has been proven time and time again for the most menial situations to the most serious ones.

While everyone looks up at Bruce for answers and orders, Bruce will look to Dick and what he says, that's what they'll all do.

And here's the thing - the entire superhero community doesn't rely just on Bruce for commands, Dick is shown to have an equal weight. A single person has the equivalent weight of the Justice League. They will do what Dick says regardless of what Bruce says.

But the point is Bruce's utter faith in Dick gives him privileges. Anything and everything Dick decides, that's the answer, logic, and light of very reasoning to Bruce because Dick is the very source of existence for Bruce. In Forever Evil he almost let the world die intentionally because he felt that there was nothing to the world if he couldn't save Dick. At times he's fought Dick over his personal choices but every single time, without fail, he comes back literally two issues later to tell him sorry and you're right and we're going to do it your way.

Dick could let the world burn to fucking ashes and Bruce would stand by and clap and praise him. That time in the Blockbuster arc? Where Dick passively killed a man and started self-harming? Bruce roughly grabbed his face, got real close, and told him in his darkest voice that he doesn't give a flying fuck who dies or who Dick kills. As long as Dick doesn't dare hurt himself.

Dick can tell Bruce anything he ever wants, lie or truth, big or small, and Bruce will believe it with no doubts and no questions asked. That is the weight of his faith in him. Of course if someone does ask why he chose to do something a certain way? He can just say, "Because Dick said so." And as you called it, that answer alone will be enough. For everyone.

Don't be fooled by Dick's submissiveness to Bruce's commands. Bruce is holding him by the neck, but he's holding Bruce's leash just as tightly.

[sugarlywhispers]

s.sanemi x reader (fem) | time-travel!reader x hashira!sanemi

a.n; it's placed somewhere before the confrontation with Muzan lol honestly, probably a lot of things are OC cuz i’m still catching up with the anime and i haven’t read the manga, sowy 👉👈🥺 — but i had this idea in my head that’s bugging me and i had to write it lol a.n2; this MONSTER was split into two 🙃 — next part will be posted next week. 😉 i decided to cut it there cuz next part is gonna be DARK and sad, probably not for everyone. so if you just like fluff, you can enjoy this part no worries~ next part is for the babies like me who loooove some tearing, ugly-cry angst with characters' deaths😜 (not Sanemi tho, that man will not die in ANY of my writings💚)

It’s been several months. Months since you appeared out of nowhere in this world. 

Nobody knows why, but you haven’t been the only one. Alongside you, two others appeared. A little boy of six years old, named Riko and another boy of seventeen years old called Minato. None of you have ever met before you three appeared in the middle of the woods, right in the middle of a drawn pentagram on the ground.

You didn’t understand what was happening or why, yet your instincts screamed for you to protect them. And that’s what you did. The moment the monster appeared –of course, at the moment you didn’t know it was a demon– your body moved to stand in front of them to protect them, even though you didn’t know what to fucking do.

To sum it all up, the altercation ended with you pretty harmed, dangerously wounded, and in high levels of pain. For a moment, you thought you were in a dream –actually, a fucking nightmare. But the pain was too real for your mind to fake it. You lost consciousness holding the two boys in your arms.

When you finally woke up three days later, you were in what looked like a hospital gurney. Your wounds had been taken care of and the pain was low considering what you have been through; but still there, making you grimace here and there when you tried to move. The two boys flew their arms around you in a hug when your eyes opened and you smiled, glad and relieved that they were okay.

A man with black shoulder length hair and a scar running down from his forehead til under his eyes was standing a few meters with another one next to him. This other one looked bigger, taller and muscular, with spiky black hair and a prominent scar running horizontally across his forehead. Both of them looked… strange. They weren't looking anywhere specifically, but you knew their attention was on you three.

That first man introduced himself as Ubuyashiki Kagaya and he explained what had happened. Including why, or better explained how you came to be there. I mean, their way of dressing and talking said much. He also explained what the term Hashira meant, introducing the guy next to him as one named Himejima Gyomei.

The demon that encountered you and the two boys was considered an Upper Rank demon, still not part of the Twelve Demon Moons, but just as powerful; able to manage time and dimension. That way it could bring humans who didn’t exist in this era and eat them, smartly going completely unnoticed by the Hashira.

“There hasn’t been a demon able to do this for centuries… I’m glad we were able to put an end to his harm, before Muzan got more interested in its power. And that’s mostly thanks to you,” Ubuyashiki had said to you with a small bow in your direction; the other guy, the Hashira, also followed suit with a bow, lower to show his respect.

The girls standing close to the door in silence gasped at the action of the men, following and bowing even deeper.

You weren’t that stupid to not comprehend that what was happening was something important.

What he explained next was that thanks to something you did, another of the Hashira was able to find where you were and helped you three just in time. What exactly you did to make this happen was not quite clear to you. Or more specifically, Ubuyashiki didn’t detail it willingly. For now.

He explained everything else quite thoroughly, patiently even when Riko would ask something more than twice. He looked like a smart kid, but you could perceive how difficult it was for him to assimilate the fact that this was another world, another time period. Truth is always hurtful. In addition to that, there was no way of going back to where you three belonged. You couldn’t avoid caressing his head each time he asked again something, trying your best to comfort him. He hadn’t cried yet in front of you, and you were preparing yourself for when it happened. You wanted him to feel that he wasn’t alone; by the way Minato also patted the kid’s back and held your hand, you knew he felt the same way.

That same night, when the three of you were alone, you did have a talk with them. You had to make it clear for them to understand the main theme here: You three were in another universe, another world. And there was most likely no way back home.

Minato, being the eldest, understood. He looked of course a bit down, but he accepted the circumstances. Riko, on the other hand…

“So… I’m not goin’ to see my mommy again?” His question broke your heart.

Both your hands cupped his cute chubby cheeks, thumbs caressing in comfort, “I’m sorry, buddy.”

The tears were there in your eyes, yet you refused to let them free. Minato though had to look elsewhere to not let the kid see his tears.

“So… If the three of us are here together, does… Does that make us friends?”

“Oh, sweetheart…” You picked him up, sitting him over your crossed legs and hugged him, “Of course we are! We can even be family if you’d like.”

“I would like that…” His little voice broke and you hugged him tighter, rocking him side to side. Minato sat closer to you and joined the hug. 

“We are going to be okay.”

It was a promise. You didn’t know if it was possible to promise something like that, but you did. You didn’t say it out loud, but you promised you would take care of them with all your being.

This is how your life in this new world began.

So, after a month, you have already settled in the Butterfly Mansion, helping Aoi, Kanao and the other girls with the injured demon slayers that came from time to time. You decided you have had enough with just one encounter with demons –thank you very much. Instead, you preferred helping the ones who needed after those encounters. It hadn’t been your choice completely, but after one boy called Kamado Tanjirou came pretty wounded, with burns around his body that no one knew how to treat due to the infection they had –not even Shinobu– you decided to step in. Your grandma had taught you a lot about herbal medicine, her also being a certified doctor specializing in dermatology contributed to the knowledge. It took you two days of constantly cleaning and applying the ointment you have prepared for his burns and staying by his side to control his fever and symptoms. He woke up on the third day and everyone hugged you in thankfulness. After that, Shinobu asked you to help her to run the manor alongside the rest of the girls. Of course, you said yes.

By the time Tanjirou woke up, you had already been told all about who the boy and Nezuko were. Their history was kind of harsh and admirable too. And after meeting the other boys that joined too, Agatsuma Zenitsu and Hashibira Inosuke, it didn't take much for Minato to follow their steps of becoming a demon slayer.

You were a bit worried if you’re honest. Riko and Minato had become the closest thing to a family, little brothers, in this time for you. Even though Minato was agile and hectic, you couldn’t avoid feeling worried and afraid something bad would happen. The topic even brought a discussion between you two that ended in him yelling at you, “You are not my fucking mother or my sister!”

It hurt. His words had hurt you, however, you could see the regret in his eyes after he said them. He was still a teenager, you could understand his swing moods.

“Apologize, now!” Tanjirou yelled back at Minato just as he entered the kitchen, where you and Minato were discussing. “She might not be related by blood to you, but she almost died for you when you appeared here. She has cared for you and Riko more than anyone since you have been here... Y/N might as well be like your sister by now.”

The moment had been tense, yet Minato accepted Tanjirou’s words and apologized with his head hanging low before leaving the room. You nodded in Tanjirou’s direction thanking him and then sighed. 

That same night you spoke with Minato, both more calm, while sitting outside watching the night sky.

“It wasn’t my intention to–”

“I know, Y/N. It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that… or said what I said,” he admitted, playing with a little ball in between his hands. He wasn’t looking at you, but you could sense his regret. “Tanjirou’s right, you know… After everything we went through, you are like my sister. You are the only family I have now.” 

You felt your eyes fill with emotional tears at his slightly broken voice and one of your hands flew immediately to his shoulder and squeezed it in comfort.

After a moment of silence, and with all the worry swimming at the mouth of your stomach, you said, “If… If being a demon slayer is what you really want to be… then you have my support.” Minato looked at you, face all lightened up with shining eyes that showed how excited he was. “Only one condition…”

“Yes, anything!” He interrupted lively, kneeling next to you and holding your hand.

You looked at him directly in his eyes, before saying, “There’s nothing braver than admitting when is time to fight and when is time fly. Promise me you will choose what’s braver.”

He looked down for a moment, assimilating what your words truly meant, and when he looked back at you he nodded, firm and sure, accepting your condition. You patted his cheek lovingly before he stood and ran inside, probably excited to tell Tanjirou, Zenitsu and Inosuke the news.

You stayed there for a few more minutes. You couldn’t shake the bad taste off your mouth at the idea, still, you took a deep breath to calm your nerves. When you finally got up to walk inside and turned, you saw Shinobu standing at the doors with a smile on her face that made you smile back.

“It will never go away…”

“What?”

She put a hand over your shoulder, reassuringly, once you stood in front of her, “The feeling that he’s on the verge of death.”

Her crude words made you recoil a bit, not expecting them at all. But she kept talking.

“With this mission we have, of fighting against demons, we can’t promise anything. We never know what might happen and would be just cruel to do so, for us and for our loved ones. Yet, you didn’t make him promise that he would be back alive. You made him promise to choose braver,” she smiled again, closing her eyes, showing content. “I think that’s a loving way to ask someone to choose life quite wisely… and unique. He will remember that now every time he is on that verge. He will remember you, and I think that’s the only comfort for you to hold onto to subside that feeling and breathe. He will choose braver.”

The tears ran down your cheeks freely and the squeeze on your shoulder suddenly turned into a hug.

Shinobu has become one of your closest friends since then. Sadly, she wasn’t around often, she is a Hashira after all. But when she was around, you enjoyed it the most. Shinobu taught you many things about what she did and her techniques, but always left you wanting to know more.

You also watched Tanjirou, Zenitsu and Inosuke train some days, now joining them too was Minato. Each of the experienced three boys had their own styles and their own techniques. But none other caught your attention quite intently as much as Tanjirou’s. With some sways of his katana, they would change colors. It was almost imperceptible, but you could see it. Sometimes, they were blue and white, which reminded you of water waves. Other times, they were a mix of deep red, yellow and pink; almost as if there was lava dancing around him and his katana. You became pretty curious about those particular moves. But you didn’t dare to ask him, so you kept to your work.

Now it’s been six months, and by this time, you’re considered a great healer. Especially after a huge attack that left you taking care of and healing almost half the Hashira men.

It had been chaotic that morning. Aoi came running to your bedroom, profusely apologizing for waking you up so early and begging for you to hurry towards the infirmary section. You dressed as quickly as you could and sprinted.

Three of the Hashira men, alongside other demon slayers and corps, were being treated by the girls, Shinobu included. She barked orders here to there to everyone as she tried to hold down a convulsing big man. You recognized him immediately. Himejima Gyomei.

“What happened?” You quickly acted, helping her to keep him still, or at least to try not to let him fall from the gurney.

“A fuckin’ demon is what fuckin’ happened! What sort of stupid question is that?!” A guy yelled from the gurney next to Himejima.

That’s the first time you met Shinazugawa Sanemi.

You were surprised by how tall and muscular he was, the gurney looked too small for him –just like for Himejima. Yet who of the guys wasn’t? Almost all of them were big and bulky. Yet Shinazugawa somehow looked different to you. He had spiky short white hair that made you think not everyone could pull that look and still be considered handsome. Everyone but him. And he had large almond-shaped eyes with purple irises that, for a split of a second, left you out of breath. Well, that could have been more thanks to the force you were using in trying to maintain Himejima as still as possible for Shinobu, right? However, it's the amount of scars on his face that got your attention. He looked like he had done this job for years. And when one of the girls helped him out of his bloodied haori and shirt, his body said so too. Plus the new ones. That was kind of… sad.

“Let go of me, idiot! I’m fuckin’ fine! Go help the others!”

Yep, no, he was a douchebag.

You choose to not answer him back and focus on immobilizing one of Himejima’s arms so Shinobu could finally inject him with some antidote and he stopped thrashing around. Of course, all of this under the yells, protests and insults of the guy on the adjacent gurney.

Once the big Hashira was calmed, Shinobu sighed tiredly looking at the guy behind you, who was protesting quite loudly. She looked at you, shrugged, and turned to help the other hashira, Obanai Iguro.

“Fuckin’ let go!”

You turned around to face him. Shinazugawa Sanemi was half standing from the gurney, pulling back and forth his own haori with the little –and completely terrified– girl who was only trying to do her job and heal him. And at that, you completely lost it.

“Enough!” You exclaimed firmly at him, catching his immediate attention. And everyone’s. “Fucking listen to me, we are trying to work here and your yells are distracting and annoying. You are bleeding profusely from your shoulder, which means you’re going to pass out at any moment now if you don’t fucking stop moving around and get stitched up. So, I suggest you shut the fuck up and leave so we can do our job in peace. Or shut the fuck up and let the poor girl heal you so your stupidly annoying ass doesn’t die and can get the hell out of here. Either way, stay fucking quiet before I put you to sleep!”

Silence. No one said a thing or moved for a whole minute, expectantly. Of what exactly? You’re pretty sure of Shinazugawa’s answer and reaction.

Your eyes were directly connected to his, both sets firing daggers at each other, trying to win a battle just the two of you were part of. It’s heavy, the energy around felt charged and ready to explode at any second. And you were ready for it. This was your place, your job, and he was being a problem to everyone with his annoying remarks. He had to understand that you were the boss here.

And he did.

Everyone was witness to how Shinazugawa Sanemi sat back down on his gurney, grumbling under his breath, but didn’t say any more as he let the girl finally attend to his wounds. Two seconds later, he lost consciousness. You rolled your eyes, approaching and helping Kiyo with the hot-blooded Hashira.

After that day, everyone showed deep respect towards you. You have tamed the Shinazugawa Sanemi, the stubborn and wild Wind Hashira, and that by no means was something small. The word had even spread towards the Master, Ubuyashiki Kagaya, who Shinobu told you had laughed so hard over what happened that he cried.

Therefore, from that moment on, every time the hashira gets hurt after confronting some powerful demons, you are the one sent to heal him.

Because you’re the only one he doesn’t protest against or yell at when you’re treating him. He doesn’t even speak to you more than necessary. He went from insulting your guts one day to not even looking at you on the other. It is weird, but quite honestly you preferred it that way.

Even after several years have passed, he still hasn't said more than necessary whenever you treat him. Only informing you of his condition for you to do your job. But the moments only the two of you share during his healing are spent in silence. However, there is one time he actually says something different.

You are applying an ointment on his forearm due to a burn pretty similar to the one you once treated on Tanjirou, very concentrated on your actions. Gently, you hold the inner side of his forearm as your fingers from the other hand apply the cool and fresh ointment over the burn in slow, tender circles. Shinazugawa never moves or makes any sound when you are healing him, which you find weird considering the deep wounds he sometimes appears with for you to heal. But even though he mostly never reacts, you still treat him with gentleness. You know his wounds must hurt.

You have been like that for a couple of minutes, doing your job while he stays silent. Until he speaks.

“H-happy birthday,” Shinazugawa suddenly mutters, making you look up at him surprised. You then look towards the old clock hanging high on the opposite wall, which marks the end of the day and the beginning of the new one. It is indeed your birthday.

Your eyes travel back at him, but he is looking the opposite way, his typical grumpy expression on his face. You smile slightly.

“Thank you.”

He simply answers with a “mmh”, acknowledging your thankfulness, and proceeds to not say anything else. You try not to smile more than the small curve of your mouth, knowing fully any other sound will cause another argument with this temperamental man. He was leaving with your permission in the morning due to an important mission. Of course, under strict conditions, he would have to travel with the ointment and apply it at least four times a day. He agreed, so you were actually showing him how to use it. The few small pots with the ointment were ready wrapped in a cloth over his bed.

After telling him to send Sorai in case he needed some more, you bow slightly goodbye before leaving the room.

The next morning when you wake up, you find a red benibara flower on your bedside table. Somehow, you know it’s Shinazugawa’s birthday present for you and you can’t help but smile throughout the whole day.

The worry though is still latent.

It’s been years already and the worry you feel is still ineluctable every single time you have to treat any of the hashira or the demon slayers. But especially with Shinazugawa. He is a freaking Hashira –and one of the strongest in your opinion– which means he goes on the most difficult and dangerous missions. He wins mostly every time, but he also breaks his own body with each of them.

You always worry for Shinazugawa, you can’t avoid it. It’s almost like a string always pulling you towards him. Whenever something big happens and everything is chaos around, your body moves on its own and doesn't stop until you find him. Sometimes he’s alright; when your eyes find each other he nods, a sign that he is okay and that you can go and attend to others. Other times he’s a mess; gravely injured, bleeding profusely til he almost loses consciousness. Those times your whole being only focuses on him and you don’t leave his side until he’s completely out of danger.

You don’t know how to explain it. You feel… like you need to protect him every time you look at him.

Is this… some kind of… love?

You snort, sipping carefully from the little cup of red tea you decided to enjoy in the manor’s garden. It’s barely morning and everything is quiet and peaceful. Mornings like this help you analyze things in your head you mostly don’t speak to anyone. Shinazugawa Sanemi is one of those.

How could this be love when you barely speak to each other? Clearly, it’s just infatuation, right? The man is hot –you have eyes, for god’s sake. He is a man who walks with a purpose, filled with a confidence you have never seen before. That’s very attractive.

Now, he opens his mouth and he turns into an ugly ogre. It makes you want to slap your forehead in disbelief. He’s always yelling and bad-mouthing at someone, right in their face. Always threatening to kill, destroy, and many other harsh threats. It completely infuriates you when he treats the training corps –who are too young in your opinion, just kids– like that too.

Even so, he never treats you the same way. Shinazugawa hasn’t even raised his voice at you again since that first encounter where you yelled back. Why? Why does he never treat you like the others?

“MISS Y/N! MISS Y/N! Master Sanemi is in need of your attention! Hurry!” Sorai crows loudly at you, appearing out of nowhere after the first shine of the rising sun appears on the horizon, catching you by surprise just when you are about to walk inside the manor.

“What?! Where? There isn’t any–”

And just as you’re about to finish what you’re saying, Shinazugawa falls from the air. His stane is as cool as always. One leg stretched behind him while the other flexed, his forearm supporting himself after the fall in that one as the green residue from his technique disappeared with the wind he brought. You frown, he doesn’t look injured, his clothes aren’t even thorn or bloody. You could have even bet he just appeared like that and in that position just to brag about his skills.

But he doesn’t move from his position nor look up, which makes you feel something’s weird. “Shinazugawa?” You look more intently, eyes really focusing on his persona, and then you see it. The controlled and almost imperceptibly trembling in his whole body. Oh, his breathing technique is actually what is keeping him so still. Meaning, something’s definitely wrong.

You drop your cup of tea and run towards him when he lets his katana fall to the ground and his body sways a bit to the side, almost losing his balance. 

“Go find someone inside!” You yell at Sorai, who obeys you immediately and flies inside the manor.

Your arms surround the hashira’s torso when you approach him, helping him stand by putting his arms over your shoulders. You realize then how actually big this man is and as he stands, he towers completely over you.

“Hey, I got you,” you whisper, looking up at his face with both of your bodies impossibly close.

His eyes look down and find yours, but they look quite disoriented, and you know he’s minutes away from losing consciousness.

Shinazugawa lets a smart snort out of his nose and a crooked grin flutters on his face for a split second, which, if the action hasn't made you realize the blood inside his mouth and worry, you would have thought that expression was sort of cute, attractive even. But fucking blood is coming out of his mouth!

“You got me?” He whispers softly, tenderly even. He’s clearly in some sort of delirious state and that worries you even more.

“Yeah, I do,” he nods at your answer, his forehead then resting over yours and closing his eyes for a moment; but you decide that’s a bad idea when his trembling legs and your weak strength make you both sway back and forth, unstable. “Hey, no, don’t. Don’t close your eyes. Look at me.”

He obeys instantly, taking a long deep breath as he stands straight and more firmly on his feet. It’s clear his technique is the only thread that keeps him conscious enough. His eyes now look more direct at yours, after several consecutive blinks that help him focus.

“Good, good,” you repeat, putting all the strength you can around his torso as you press him against you. A smile then spreads on your face after looking down at your bodies stuck together. “You look like trash,” you joke looking up at him.

He lets out a breathed laugh followed by a grunt of pain and another sway in both your stances that almost makes you both fall, “Don’t– Fuck! Don’t make me… laugh…”

“Sorry, sorry… I’m sorry!” You cry worried, cursing yourself for your stupidity. He’s barely holding up and you go and joke about it.

He moves one of his hands then to hold the back of your head and makes you hide your face in his neck. It feels… odd. The tenderness in which he moved you. You could swear it’s his way of telling you to not worry. However, you think he’s doing it more for him, to ground himself. You then feel his chin rest over your head.

“Breathe, Sanemi. Breathe…”

You feel him take another deep inhale of air and hold it for a moment, before slowly releasing it in very tiny puffs of air.

“That’s it. You’re doing great,” you praise, and the slightly more firm grip from his hand on the back of your head is answer enough that he’s listening to you. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay…”

You promise. Even though you didn’t say it out loud explicitly, you did promise.

And, after eight days of constant attention during the day, sleepless nights sitting next to his bed and caring for his wounds very thoughtfully when he finally wakes up, you can’t help but really cry.

You have fallen asleep, sitting in that rough wood chair next to his bed, body bending forward with your arm used as a pillow over a small space on the side of the bed, right next to his hand. It is what actually woke you, his big hand patting weakly and softly on your head. You sat back uptight, eyes opened wide as he blinked several times, adjusting to the daylight entering the infirmary.

Shinazugawa then looks at you, a tiny curve on his mouth resembling a smile on his face, “You do got me, huh?” His voice sounds hoarse, painfully thick.

And that’s all it takes for you to start sobbing and weeping like god damn kid. You hide your face in your hands, letting everything out as you bend over again towards the bed. His hand goes back to patting your head softly, comfortingly. He never asks you to stop crying; in fact, his touch feels more like he’s encouraging you to let it out. And you do.

Relief finally settles in your body… just as that other feeling that warms your chest and makes your body shudder with goosebumps at his gentle touch.

Is this really… love?

[runninriot]

no reason to hide

written for @steddie-week day 1 | prompt: secret relationship

rated: t | wc: 4.5k | tags: Max POV, Max & Eddie friendship, Max & Steve Friendship, Steve and Eddie are keeping secrets, coming out, post Vecna, everybody lives | complete fic on ao3

The first time she notices something strange is going on between Eddie and Steve, is when Max wakes up in the middle of the night from one of those ghastly dreams that have been haunting her since the whole Vecna fiasco went down.

She does what she always does when she can’t fall back asleep - goes to sit on the steps outside of her home to listen to the familiar sounds of the trailer park, looking at the sky, the stars and the moon, reminding herself that she’s back in the real world. That the Upside Down and all its monsters are a memory of the past.

It’s been almost a year and things have finally gone back to how they were. Well, mostly.

Sure, those nights where the monsters come crawling back into her subconscious are draining sometimes, but after everything that happened to her, nightmares, a walking stick, and glasses are a small price to pay. She could’ve paid a much higher one, could’ve lost it all. She’s fine. And at least the nightmares are a burden they all share.

Her friends have them too, those restless nights. And even if that doesn’t make it better, the fact that they are in this together makes it easier, at least.

Max knows she can always count on them – her now-again-boyfriend Lucas and the stupid but lovable dorks Dustin and Mike. Even El and Will, who went back to California, are always just one phone call away.

She has Steve, who – while Nancy and Robin went off to college – didn’t leave.

He’s still here, still taking care of them in his annoyingly loving way, even though they don’t need him to be their protector anymore, technically.

She’d never say it out loud, would rather eat her own tongue than to admit it, but to know that he’s part of her life is kind of... comforting. Because he’s graduated from babysitter to friend long ago, has proven time and again that he’s a good guy with a big heart. Max likes him a lot, can understand why Dustin was always so drawn to him.

And then, there’s Eddie.

Before being caught in a war against evil and nearly walking into the light at the end of the tunnel together, she never really cared much for him at all. (And no, she did not have a very stupid, very tiny crush on him when she learned about him playing guitar in this awesome band. Anyone who suggests otherwise can talk it out with her fist, okay?!)

She had often wondered how much truth was behind all the rumours, the Satanic Freak allegations. Because while he obviously liked to cause trouble every now and then, he always seemed... nice. A little boisterous, maybe, but never violent or evil.

And then she got to know him when they were trying to prove his innocence while being caught in their final battle against evil, and realised how much they had in common.

How Eddie, like her, wears a mask to protect his vulnerable pieces inside. Carrying the burden of a broken home and too much pent-up anger on his shoulders.

Max sees a version of herself in Eddie, and seeing how far he’s come – even if he himself doesn’t think he has – is encouraging, in a way.

She never told anyone, but out of everyone, Eddie might have played the biggest part in her recovery.

When she opened her eyes for the first time after being in a coma, the first blurry face she saw wasn’t Lucas or Steve or even her own mother.

No. It was Eddie.

Half his body in bandages, leaning heavy on his crutches holding him upright where he was standing beside her hospital bed, smiling down at her, which looked painful because of the stitches on his left cheek, but it was warm and friendly and honest.

And in that moment, when the memories came back and the world came crushing down, Max was glad it was him that watched her fall apart. Because with Eddie, she didn’t feel the need to pretend that she was fine. He let her cry and wince in pain without commenting on it, just took her hand – no words of pity, no promises of false hopes, just a tight squeeze of her hand in silent support.

Their friendship evolved from there, got even stronger when they were both fighting their way through physical therapy, from frustrating setbacks to miraculous accomplishments.

He’s annoying sometimes, like a brother, but he’s the kind of friend that you love to fight with because you know they’ll never hold a grudge; Eddie's friendship is unconditional and Max cherishes that more than she'd ever tell him.

Eddie, like her, finds it hard to sleep sometimes. So, more times than not, when she goes to sit on the steps in the middle of the night, she finds him outside his own trailer – smoking in silence or listening to music with his headphones on.

They don’t usually talk, just share a few moments together in peace until their minds have calmed enough for them to get ready to conquer another day.

This is why Max doesn’t startle when she hears the familiar squeak of the Munson’s trailer door. Only when a car door gets slammed close, does she look up.

Weirdly enough, it isn’t Eddie who’s going for a ride. It isn’t his van that slowly turns and rolls out of the driveway.

It’s Steve’s car; there’s no doubt about it. She knows that car better than Steve likes to be reminded of.

    What the hell is he doing at Eddie’s place at 2 in the morning?, Max wonders, worries that maybe something is wrong.

But moments later, the trailer door opens again and Eddie steps out, dressed in his pajama pants, lighting a cigarette like he always does. He seems calm, happy. Not at all like something bad has happened.

Until he notices her and his eyes widen in shock, mouth hanging open with the cigarette stuck to his bottom lip.

   “Max! How- how long have you been out here?”

She doesn’t exactly know why she doesn’t tell the truth but something about the way Eddie looks at her tells Max, he might not want her to know about his nightly visitor.

   “Just came out like, maybe a second before you did,” she lies, watching his shoulders drop as the tension in his body eases.

   “Oh, uh, okay. Nightmare?”

   “Yeah.”

   “You wanna talk?”

   “Nah, just needed some fresh air. You?”

   “I- I’m good. Just, uh, just couldn’t sleep.”

They sit there for a while, both awkwardly looking anywhere but at each other, before Max can’t take it anymore, says her goodnight and goes back inside.

There is probably a good explanation for it all. Maybe Steve couldn’t sleep, too. Maybe he went to Eddie for some weed? (Don’t act so surprised. She might just be a teen but she’s not stupid, okay?)

Whatever it is, Max will never know because going by the way Eddie reacted when he saw her, she’s sure he doesn’t want to be questioned about it.

It’s fine. It’s none of her business anyway.

And Max forgets about it entirely until something strange happens again a few weeks later...

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