#fun fact: it's actually a foliage brush!

[letstalktea]

Mycorrhiza (Part 1)

Content: No ship (in part 1), copious amounts of alcohol consumption, accidental human sacrifice

Word Count: 1.8k

Note: I failed to finish this one before the posting date. Good thing it’s actually a combination of day 3 and day 17. So just hang tight for part 2 on the 17th (which is where all the sex will actually be). And while you’re here, check out @undead-merman @necros-writing-stuff @inkyquince @angrelysimpping. Not sure why you’d be here if you haven’t read their work already. 

The bonfire raged, cackling and crackling and snapping into the night air while you chugged another cheap beer that went down like water. The wind of the campsite brushed cool against your hot skin, tempering your nerves enough that you kept some sense of rationality. Not a lot, but enough to keep yourself from passing out next to an open fire and falling off the log where you currently sat.

You finished the last of your beer and tossed the bottle aside, wiping away any stray droplets that fell out of the corner of your mouth.

"Pass me another one," your words slurred as you spoke.

Your friend, who was just as drunk as you were at this point, reached into the cooler beside him and pulled out an unopened bottle to toss to you. Unfortunately, they were drunk enough to completely whiff it and toss the beer straight past you, into the bushes just past the clearing where you sat.

"Fuck, man. What was that?" 

"Iunno." They burped and tossed back the beer in their hand. "Ya want it or not?"

Beer was beer, so of course you wanted it. You paid good money for it. It was yours.

You groaned at your aching muscles as you leaned all of your weight against your knees and rose to your full height, stretching your back and feeling something along your spine you hadn't known was misaligned pop back into place. Sitting so low to the ground had a way of making you feel twenty years older than you were, especially when you got up. It didn't help that you couldn't feel your legs or ass properly after sitting on the log for so long.

After you waded through the pain of blood rushing back into your legs and the pins and needles that came with it, you finally bothered to walk toward the surrounding bushes. 

In your inebriated state, you didn’t consider the risk of wild animals or toxic plants. All you cared about was the beer that had gotten away from you and it was out of the firelight and past the ominous bushes so high they could easily hide a serial killer. Maybe you would tell your friend a story to freak them out about the foliage after you raised your blood alcohol content a little higher. 

You brushed aside the bushes, wincing when one of the branches scratched you, but not deterred from your mission.

Nature was beautiful. Even drunk out of your skull, you could appreciate it for what it was. Flowers and sparkling insects and the glittering sky and all the animals that wouldn’t fuck you up. It was all so beautiful, which is why it was the most fun to drink out away from the city. That’s why you were going to enjoy all your beer while you could; because you deserved to enjoy pretty sights while you were having a good time.

But what you found past the bushes made you pause. It was still nature – still part of the campsite – but it looked out of place. It was a clearing right next to your own, perfect for another tent or even one of those massive campers. Yet no one had claimed it. You knew for a fact that the campsite was full (because you had a rough time finding your own spot) so the fact that there was a massive plot of unclaimed land was weird.

When you looked out at it though, you could almost understand why. It was really pretty in an ethereal sort of way. Grass as far as the eye could see and not a working fire pit in sight. The grass looked lush and fresh, but it was the only thing growing throughout the entire clearing. Well, the only thing aside from some weird looking mushrooms that bloomed in freaky colors; reds, blues, greens, purples, oranges, browns; a rainbow of fungus.

But it wasn’t just the colors that were freaky. It was the way they grew in a perfect circle that captivated you.

"Holy shit,” you muttered to yourself. 

You had to show this to your friend.

“Dude!" you shouted over the wind blowing through the trees. "You gotta come see this!"

In the nearby distance, you could hear the same bushes you'd wandered through rustling as your friend pushed their way through. 

"What is it?" they asked as they swatted at the bushes and stepped through the branches and leaves with minor scratches on their exposed skin, the skin that they wouldn’t even notice unless they looked directly at them and even then would wonder where they had come from.

You pointed to the strange circle of mushrooms that seemed to grow separately from everything around it. “Take a look at that.”

They squinted their eyes to see what you were pointing at in the darkness. When they finally made it out, they started laughing. “That’s a- a- a- fairy thing. A- ring! That’s a fairy ring!”

"A what?"

"It's a fancy name for circles of mushrooms. People used to think they were cursed or something. If you messed with them or stepped into one, the fairies would get pissed and make your life hell."

"Seriously?" You chuffed.

"Seriously." Your friend laughed purely from drunkenness rather than actual amusement. "It's not like they had science back then. Everything was magical bullshit."

"Huh…" A devious thought entered your head. "Wanna see how right they were?"

"What?" They kept laughing, but this time in disbelief. "You planning to phone a fairy and ask what kind of nasty curses they got up their sleeve?"

"Sorta like that."

You grabbed them by the arm and pulled them forward, giggling like an idiot as they stumbled forward. They fell off center and went tumbling toward the ground just as you managed to toss them into the circle.

As soon as they crashed onto their hands and knees, you started to speak in a voice that was as deep and booming as you could manage, attempting to copy the shitty B-movies you'd seen over the years. "Oh, great fairies! I make this offering to you in exchange for hella ass and dicks so fat they'll throw out my back and break my jaw. And I would appreciate if you threw in cuddles after."

You both waited in silence.

When nothing happened, your friend rose to their feet and dusted themselves off. "You're such an ass."

"Awww," you condescended. "Were you afraid the big bad fairies would get you?"

"Nah," they squatted down in that perfect way that warned you they were planning to take off I to a sprint, "but you should be afraid of when I get ahold of you."

They launched upward toward you before you could react, but instead of getting closer and potentially grabbing you in a headlock they way you knew they usually would, they seemed to take a single step forward and then stop.

They looked down at their foot, then their expression twisted into confusion. You followed their gaze and saw why. The force of their step had somehow been enough to sink their shoe partway into the grassy circle. It was similar to how wet sand would grab onto your foot at the beach.

"Oh, shit. You okay?" you asked, sobering up very quickly after seeing their predicament.

"Yeah. I just… didn't expect that. Guess this spot must get a lot of water or something and make it all soft."

They tried to yank their leg upward to no avail. If anything, their shoe seemed to sink deeper into the grass.

"Dude, take it off," you told them.

"No way. These are the only pair I brought. I'm not staying out here barefoot."

"We can pack up early and go home. It's not good to be out here anyway if the ground's this loose."

They clicked their tongue. "Fine, but you're buying 'em since you pushed me in here." They slipped their foot out of the shoe, grumbling as they did so.

You rolled your eyes and turned your back on them to head back through the bushes to where you'd left your belongings. "Don't be a baby. Shit happens."

"Yeah, shit like you being an a- WHAT THE FUCK!"

You whipped your head around, jaw going agape the moment you saw what had caught them off guard.

Their shoe still sat where they had left it half in the grass, but the ground was now devouring their leg. Not their foot. Their leg. All the way up to their knee, their leg had sunken into the ground.

"What the fuck!?!?" You yelled the same way they just had.

"I don't know! It felt like something grabbed me." They were starting to hyperventilate. "Help me out before I sink deeper."

"Y- yeah," you stammer before stepping inside the ring of mushrooms to help them.

They reached their hand out to you and you grabbed onto their wrist for leverage to pull them out of the spot they were sinking into. You dug your heels into the ground and pulled as hard as you could. Even as you pulled, they kept sinking deeper. Before you knew it, their other leg had begun to fall into the earth as well.

“Something’s got me. It’s pulling me down.”

“Stop panicking,” you shouted hypocritically. “There’s nothing down there!”

But, it was strange. No matter how hard you pulled, they seemed to keep getting deeper. So deep that only their upper torso was still visible at this point. You though? You seemed to be standing above ground just fine. In fact, it was as if the sinkhole was only opening up below them.

They were gripping onto your wrist so tightly that their nails dug into your skin and started to draw blood. Even then, they were still going downward. Your back ached as it arched, bending as they dragged you down with them.

Their eyes were blown wide, in terror or realization that they weren’t going to see the sunrise you weren’t sure. “HELP!” They screamed one last time as the earth swallowed their head and left only their outstretched arm, the one you were holding onto, above ground.

You knew you couldn’t pull them out anymore. You knew that, but you couldn’t let them go. Letting go was like giving up on them and, even though it was clear you should, you didn’t want to.

So you kept letting them drag you down.

Down. Down. Down. One agonizing second at a time, you watched as the last of them vanished beneath the dirt and knew that you would soon be swallowed up too. Fight or Flight often forgot their sister Freeze and that bitch was the one catching your gaze right now. Your chest heaved as your fingers neared the ground, ready to finally meet the beginning of your own muddy grave.

The second your fingers touched the ground, however, all you felt was solid earth. 

There was no give to the dirt. No muddy texture or damp patches. There wasn’t even a hole in the ground or a break in the grass, even though you had just seen your friend get pulled down into it. 

There was simply nothing.

Next

[andsheloved]

(fall)ing for you

pairing ~ bucky barnes x gn!reader

summary ~ spending a halloween date with bucky barnes!

word count ~ 1.4k

warnings ~ fluff! stereotypical halloween/fall celebration things, pre-established relationship, bucky being a dork, vague descriptions of a haunted house (a clown jumps out at some point but nothing too spooky, i just wanted to make sure i tag it just in case!), mention of (fake!) skulls and bones

a/n ~ so, i moved to a new area a while ago and there is an absolute disturbing lack of halloween things, coming from an area that celebrates halloween and general fall-exciting-times like crazy, i am talking EVERYONE has pumpkins out, corn mazes and haunted houses wherever you step, specialty drinks and foods for halloween and fall at all the local places, i very much find the lack of the fall/halloween spirit disturbing, SO i decided, why not do some fun headcanons about a lil halloween date to fill the pumpkin shaped hole in my heart! i hope you all enjoy this lil dash of fall fluffy goodness! mwauh!

It definitely is not his idea to go all out with celebrating Halloween, in fact, he can’t even really remember the last time he put out any type of decoration. Maybe before… everything, he might have seen his mom put a pumpkin or two out on his front porch in October, but he never actually did anything for Halloween. So when you brought up going to a fall festival, he was a bit, confused, to say the least.

“C’mon! It’ll be fun!”

I mean, how could he ever say no to you when you smiled at him like that.

Though he can’t quite wrap his head around what ‘it’ is.

But you two set a date for it anyway, even though he kind of has absolutely no clue what he’s getting himself into, and that fact alone makes him a bit nervous, being honest with himself, he’s pretty sure he would follow you anywhere, regardless of whether he knew where he was going or not.

When he picks you up for your little fall soiree, he doesn’t bring flowers, oh no, he decides to go with the theme.

Bucky shows up at your front door with a tiny bouquet of the most vivid, colorful bunch of fall foliage you have ever seen. All wrapped together tightly with some twine that you can tell must have taken him ages to tie together.

“Happy Fall, Doll”

He looks up at you from the bouquet with the biggest, almost annoyingly proud grin on his face, holding out the (can he even call it a bouquet? It’s just leaves? Okay well he’s going to call it a bouquet) bouquet to you.

It’s the type of smile a child gives their teacher when they’re presenting a science project.

But gosh, what you wouldn’t give to just have him stay just right there while you grab your camera to take a photo of him.

When you finally get to the festival, the sun is just beginning to set, and the sky looks like something out of a postcard. It is absolutely perfect fall weather, if not a bit chilly, but you learn you don’t actually mind the cold all that much when Bucky throws his jacket around you.

And he really doesn’t mind the way you look in it. He figures that even if he were freezing to death, he would still let you wear it.

You couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit silly wearing it. You can tell it was modified a bit to fit, well, you know, a highly trained super-soldier and former assassin, but you can’t really bring yourself to care when you’re surrounded by the warmth of him, and the tangible reminder that he’s yours, just as much as you’re his.

Pumpkin picking! He couldn’t lie, he did think it was a little stupid at first, “Why would I go try to find a pumpkin, covered in dirt, when I can go into any craft store and find a perfect, plastic one of my own there?” But about three minutes into your search, you notice he is now fully inspecting each pumpkin you point at.

He is picking each one up, testing the weight of each one, holding them and handling them with the utmost care, brushing off any extra bit of mud or hay, fully scanning every inch of it for any moldy spots or bruises. He is very, very serious about it now.

“What about this one?!” You point at what you believe to be the most faultless Pumpkin you have ever seen, even when you pick it up, you think it looks absolutely perfect.

Bucky thinks otherwise.

“Look at it! It’s all lopsided! And it’s all green and black on the bottom!” You gasp a little when he takes it from you, tossing it lightly up into the air. “See! Baby, it’s not even weighted properly! You don’t want it rolling around your front porch every time some wind rolls by.” He hands the pumpkin back to you, only to grab another one from the ground, holding it barely an inch from your face for you to see. “Now this one, this one is perfect. I mean look at it!”

You can’t deny that his is absolutely the most perfect pumpkin you have ever seen, like something out of a Homes and Gardens magazine. Not a single brown spot or any speck of dirt, and as he throws it just as he did the last pumpkin, you notice the almost blinding glint in his eye as he sighs dreamily “It’s perfect.”

You didn’t know anyone could look at a pumpkin with so much love, and even though you did see a bit of bruising on the pumpkin yourself, maybe it was the fact that he loved it so much that made it so perfect.

Guess that makes you pretty perfect too.

“Well, I guess that’s the one!” You exclaim, and you can’t help but smile at the excited gasp that escapes his lips. You almost tumble into the dirt with the force at which he kisses you.

Maybe you should take him to pumpkin patches more often.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you” he repeats, making sure to place gentle kisses all along your cheeks and on the tip of your nose.

When it gets a bit darker, and a bit ~spookier~, you notice he tenses up just a little.

“Hey, are you doing alright? You know we don’t have to go through the haunted hou-”

“Are you crazy! We are doing the haunted house, I’m sure it’s not even really that scary anyway…:

You look at him for a bit longer after he responds, making sure that he’s not just saying that to say it.

But he smiles at you and squeezes your hand like he can read your mind.

So you two set off towards the haunted house.

The facade is a little cheesy; a massive cutout made from flimsy wood panels, secured to what looks to be a massive tent, shaped to look like an eerie castle, with a faint strobe light flashing up at it. For a moment you think to yourself how Bucky is probably right ‘I’m sure it’s not even really that scary anyway…’ But as soon as you step inside, you realize you couldn’t be more wrong.

You glare up at Bucky as he holds you securely in front of him, “Doll, how am I supposed to protect you if you’re behind me” He winks, and you grumble something to yourself about ‘stupidmanhandlingsupersoilders’

But as a man in a clown mask jumps out at the two of you, forcing you to press further against Bucky’s chest, you’re suddenly very thankful for your personal man handling super-soldier.

You couldn’t really say you paid any attention to the rest of the house, focusing on looking straight ahead and straight ahead only as you placed your hands over Bucky's around your waist. His low chuckle brought you just the slightest bit of comfort every time an actor popped out from a window or hidden door.

“You’re okay Doll, look! They’re not even real!”

You slowly gathered the courage to look around you, turning your head to see some very obviously plastic skulls and bones surrounding you in the fake graveyard.

You could almost roll your eyes at yourself, this is what you were afraid of? Some styrofoam bones? You found yourself giggling at the thought

“See? I told you it wasn’t that bad” He added, squeezing his arms around you a little tighter.

The two of you walked through the rest of the house like that, laughing at the almost hilariously unrealistic props, pointing out where you thought someone would be jumping out at you, it almost became a game.

“What did I say! I told you it wasn’t gonna be that scary!”

You wished you could wipe the wicked smirk from his face, “I was terrified!”

“You had fun!”

“Yeah, but I was terrified!”

“Weren’t you the one asking me if I even wanted to go through it?”

If you weren’t so exhausted from attempting to contain yourself from bolting through the house as fast as you could, you would’ve kissed that stupid knowing smile off his lips.

Well, maybe you weren’t that tired.

When you two finally got back to your apartment, Bucky suddenly stopped in front of your doorstep.

“Is everything oka-”

In an instant, he was running back to the car with a speed you don’t ever think you have seen him sprint at before.

You squinted to see what he was digging for

But then he ducked his head out of the back seat, holding triumphantly, the pumpkin.

“Almost forgot,” he said, returning to place it ever so gently beside your front door, “Perfect” he sighed.

“Yeah” You replied, leaning your head against his shoulder as you turned to look up at him, “Just perfect."

thank you so so much for reading! i really do appreciate it! want more bucky? check out my masterlist ! i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did writing it! bucky + autumn is just, mm, so good! my heart is warm! anyways, i hope you are all doing so very well! mwauh! and happy fall (and halloween if you celebrate) to you all! i hope it is filled with all the happiness and warmth you could ever ask for!

[tommybaholland]

bnha boys in love [valentine’s edition💗]

featuring: midoriya, bakugo, todoroki, kirishima, kaminari, shinso, amajiki, and dabi

for anyone who might be feeling lonely today, enjoy a lil something from ur fav bnha boy who loves u! 

midoriya is one that gets nervous but tries hard to turn it into excitement when thinking about what he’s going to do for or with you on valentine’s day. as an aspiring hero, he always wants to put a smile on others’ faces and you’re no different. actually, you could be an exception because he loves you and those feelings are different from acts of altruism. rather, he wants to give you something straight from his heart. he’s always wanted to cook dinner for someone else, even after he’s always had his mom make him anything he wanted. he receives some basic guidance for her over the phone but he still has zero clue what he’s doing until kacchan stumbles upon him in the dorm kitchen struggling to cut onions. after some threats, yelling, and lots of arguing, the two manage to make a decent meal, actually a whole spread of food for the night. you’ve never had someone put that much thought or make dinner for you so its absolutely surreal when he presents it to you. the meal itself is really good and the night ends with the you both falling into food comas on the couch, relaxing into one another. 

bakugo seems very distant leading up to the day. he didn’t seem like the type to make a big deal out of valentine’s day. then again, he had never gotten many chances to celebrate it, except reluctantly with classmates and his parents. you didn’t mind how he felt about it but it was strange that you hadn’t seen much of him the past few days. on the day, you want to not think about his absence so you decide to get some training in. not an hour passes before bakugo storms in, “there you are, IDIOT! i’ve been looking everything for you! you’re coming with me..” he doesn’t allow you time to change or shower and instructs you to close your eyes as he leads you by the hand somewhere. he voice goes soft as he stops and tells you to open your eyes. you open them to see your favorite dessert sitting in front of you and a lit candle to complete the ambience. you’re in complete awe. you knew he could cook but had no idea he could bake but he explains that sato helped him with the recipe and how he almost gave up the whole thing because he couldn’t get it right the first few times. he admits it might still not be perfect but he loves you so very much and-- he doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before you’re silencing him with a kiss. 

todoroki could give you anything you wanted on a regular basis, being the son of a pro hero and all. it’s this ceiling effect that gets him in a bind for what to do for you because naturally he’d just spoil you extra. but something tells him he shouldn’t focus on the material items but rather the gesture, the sentiment, maybe even the experience. the beginning of the day is slow and lazy, with him coming to your room early in the morning to lay with you in bed. being the sleepy boy he is, he ends up falling asleep on you and you follow close behind. luckily, he set an alarm so you wouldn’t miss what he has planned. he takes you to a hot spring in a secluded location, where you (appropriately) share one together. it’s really nice and relaxing and a different type of alone you get to spend with him. he tries to rub your feet but you won’t let him because you’re ticklish and that starts a little tickle war. you surrender by wrapping your arms tightly around his neck as your ribs ache from laughing so hard. you stare at each other while catching your breath, lips slowly drawing closer. it’s all around a beautiful moment with such a pretty and kind-hearted boy. 

kirishima would save as much as he could to be able to spoil you on this day. he figures; that’s what it’s for, right? this man would try to go above and beyond for you any day because you’re so worth it to him but valentine’s is truly his day to shine. he decides to put together a scavenger hunt which involves one long tour of your previous dates, like the buffet restaurant and the arcade. he even sneaks in little nostalgic things during your time as a couple, like at the park where he learned how you liked to lay on your stomach while he’d draw little shapes on your back. it’s crazy but so fun and cute and special. it ends in a random backside of a building at UA and it’s familiar but you’re confused as to why he brought you here. “this was the place where you first told me you were interested in me..and i was so nervous but so flattered that someone as wonderful as you could like me.” and he goes on and on but he can’t help that he feels so much love for you, which is something he didn’t really think he’d get to experience. he’s oh so grateful to have you and so are you to have the manliest, cutest, sweetest boyfriend ever. 

kaminari feels the pressure of making your first valentine’s with him the best day you’ve ever had and tries to put on a front but fails. he loves that you’re so easygoing and chill with anything but he wants to make the day special. he wants to go above and beyond for you because you deserve it so much. he really likes the idea of an private outdoor dinner because the ambience is already pretty romantic. he sets it all up and when the time comes, he’s just too excited and can’t keep it a secret. he leads you outside as he tells you that he strung up all these lights but when you get out there, it’s real dark. he goes, “this is the best part.” he uses his quirk to simultaneously light up the small bulbs dangling from the strings. unfortunately, several of them blow a fuse and shatter, diminishing the full effect. you both laugh it off like normal and he says he was prepared for that, pulling out a lighter to light the candles on the table. it’s sweet and thoughtful, but don’t think you’ve escaped the ‘are you trying to romance me’ tiktok references. it’s okay though because a denki date night wouldn’t be complete without them. 

shinso is similar to bakugo when it comes to valentine’s, except he’s more so indifferent, rather than not caring about it. he’d be the type to ask you what you want or would like to do but he realizes that was a lost cause because of course you tell him it doesn’t really matter to you and you’d be happy with whatever. you’re so lovely to him everyday, despite his insecurities and trust qualms, so he silently promises to give you a day that you deserve. he tells you he has a surprise. it’s easy to hide as he takes you to your favorite cat cafe, a place where you two are regulars. there’s one cat there, a black and white tuxedo cat, that you are particularly fond of. he enjoys watching you smile as the cat rubs up against you and lays in your lap. you’ve completely forgotten about why you were there until he tells you that the cat is yours if you want him. you’re in complete disbelief but he tells you that he had arranged it with the owner of the cafe, who had noticed that the cat was very skittish and avoidant of other people, except for you. “and i told him, ‘yeah, me too.’” 

amajiki is nervous, of course. probably more nervous than on a regular basis. he knows he shouldn’t be because you’re so wonderful and accept anything he’s done for you with your sweet smile and kisses. he doesn’t like going out to public places too often but he wants to take you to several that you’ll both enjoy and he’ll feel somewhat comfortable. every place has something to do with nature: a zoo, an aquarium, and finally, a butterfly garden which he remembered you mentioning how you had always wanted to go to one. although he knows butterflies are gentle creatures, he isn’t so big on bugs in general, especially when there’s hundreds of them flying around him. you hold his hand the entire time, relaxing him as time goes by. you giggle as they land on the tips of his ears, making him smile as their delicate legs tickle his skin. he grins at your reaction as he pulls you closer. “nothing compares to your butterfly kisses, bunny.” he leans in to blink against your skin, his lashes brushing lightly like wings. you return the gesture to him, hugging him close to you as he pets your hair. he can be shy but your own little love language made up for it.

dabi has never been into something as trivial as a day about love. to him, it’s like any other day. but he never expected that he’d be scrambling around the city to find the perfect flowers to give to you. it’s the least he could do but it could never make up for everything you’ve done for him. you’ve made him feel loved and wanted; having proven it by sticking by him this entire time, such as the fact that he’s now a wanted criminal. he has to be discrete. this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have standards and wouldn’t give you just any flower that was thrown out or forgotten. he starts to get frustrated as he stalks around in a forest and lets his quirk burn off a little steam, catching the trees and foliage into blue flames. then he sees it. you’re a little on edge when he gets home, worried that something had happened after you hadn’t seen him all day. he reminds you what day it is and then holds up what he found: a lonely flower, singed a bit on the ends of the petals but intact and tall. he explains that it reminded him of you, your relationship, what you mean to him. it’s rough around the edges and imperfect but resilient and strong.

happy valentine’s day from bnha night! any lovely requests may enter here..

[coccinelle-et-chaton]

@miraculous-bullshit ask and you shall receive! :D (sorry I tagged you again!) Note: reposted to not clog poor @toujoursmiraculous post :D 

Interruptions 

based on this thread

For what it’s worth, it took a lot to upset Luka Couffaine. He prided himself in that. He was never one to make a big deal out of things, unless absolutely necessary. Mild inconveniences like being flipped off for accidentally bumping someone in the metro, someone cutting him in a waiting line, entitled moms berating him at his job, being made fun of, not getting his way with something; these were all easily brushed off.

It’s not that he didn’t care, he just knew there were bigger things to worry about than an asshole being an asshole. He lived in Paris, after all. A city that big was bound to be ridden with them.

However, he had learned something about himself recently: His weak spot was Marinette. His skin positively crawled whenever anyone tried to harm, belittle, mock, or otherwise wrong her. There was a second element to this pet peeve of his; he had also discovered that he hated when someone interrupted them. It wasn’t jealousy or anything. It was more the fact that Marinette being the sheer tornado of creative power that she was, was always up to something. Finding a way to squeeze himself into her schedule was already a feat in itself, so he prized every minute he got to spend with her.

Needless to say, this was the precise reason why Luka was so excited for the weekend. He and Marinette were going to spend the entire Saturday afternoon together and the first order of business was going to the park and get ice cream.

The first offense happened at the hands of someone he otherwise respected.

Marinette and Luka had set up a blanket on a spot under a big, hefty tree. The ice cream was already gone, and Luka was playing a few new songs for Marinette. He had, rather evidently, sat a bit closer to her in the hopes that she might lean against him. Which she did, inadvertently causing for Luka’s heart to skip a beat or two. Now that’s an irony, a musician missing a beat.

Sensing Marinette resting her head against his arm, Luka put down the guitar and tentatively shifted to try and bring Marinette into his arms.

Then it happened.

Out of nowhere, a blur of a person crashed down through the foliage of the tree, falling right in the middle of the pair, and effectively dissolving the calm of the moment.

“Meowch! Heh, sorry!”

“Chat Noir?” Marinette exclaimed, uncharacteristically annoyed as Luka and her crawled from the pile of cat on top of them.

Chat Noir scrambled to his feet and gave them a sheepish smile. “Apologies er, fellow Parisians! Got stuck in the tree for a second there, hah.”

As Marinette grumbled, Luka simply shrugged, smiled coolly at him, and joked, “It happens. Maybe next time we’ll call the fire department to get the cat unstuck?”

Chat Noir blushed with a bit of embarrassment, largely due to the fact that Marinette actually laughed at the joke. Luka had no way of knowing this, of course, but Chat Noir had caught glimpse of him and Marinette as he vaulted through the city and had decided it would be a good idea to spy on them by perching on the tree they sat under, which only added to his shame.

“Yeah. So uh, yep. Sorry!” he babbled again, before scurrying out of the picture.

The second offense was at the hands of Paris’ resident terrorist. And Chat Noir. Again.

After getting their ice cream, Luka and Marinette walked around the city a bit and ended up at the steps of the Trocadero, where as luck would have it, an Akuma appeared.

As Luka and Marinette scrambled to get to safety, Chat Noir cut in to push them out of the way from one of the Akuma’s attacks.

It did not escape Luka that Chat Noir scooped Marinette up and vaulted away with her. He was glad Chat Noir was fulfilling his duties and that Marinette was now at least out of harm’s way, but really, was it so hard to escort them to the nearest shop to take shelter as he had done with literally every other person at the site of the attack?

A couple of minutes after he had disappeared with Marinette in tow, he came back for him.

“Your turn,” Chat Noir said with a wink, and took Luka away to an indistinct street away from the Akuma.

Luka gave Chat Noir a perplexed look. “Where is Marinette?”

Chat Noir scratched the back of his head. “I– she must have already hidden away,” he offered lamely.

Feeling a bit irked and suspicious that Chat Noir might have a crush on Marinette, he said, “I’ll look for her, then. Thanks for keeping my date safe, Chat Noir.”

As he calculated, he saw the discomfort in Chat’s face. “Yeah, no problem at all!”

Additionally, Luka quickly discovered he was right about something else: Chat Noir had very likely put Marinette somewhere else. Not only was he not able to find her anywhere, but she was not even picking up her phone anymore.

Luka worried that something might have happened to her, his contempt for the catboy growing by the second.

“That… that… that furry!” He grumbled to himself as he tried to figure out a way to contact Marinette, hoping to the heavens that she was okay.

After the Akuma was neutralized, Marinette called him. Yes, she ended up several districts away and apologized profusely about something she had absolutely no control of which both endeared and saddened Luka.

He had noticed Marinette tended to blame herself when things didn’t work out around her, even when she had no way of controlling them.

“Hey, hey, no stress,” Luka said chuckling, as he interrupted Marinette’s mortified rambling. “We can meet back in the movie theater.”

He let a sigh of relief as he spotted Marinette waiting for him by the ticket booth. He ran to her and threw his arms around her without thought, only realizing what he did when Marinette hugged him back.

He blushed and hugged her tighter.

“I’m got hit by the Akuma after Chat Noir took me away,” Marinette explained. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I’m just happy you’re okay,” he said, finally pulling away and smiling at her. “So, which movie should we watch?”

Luka pointedly noticed the fact that Marinette suggested to watch a scary movie. The first time he had gone to the movies with her, Alya, Nino, and Juleka had tagged along and he remembered her adamantly informing everyone that she wouldn’t join if they picked anything scary.

He wondered why.

“Really? You sure?” Luka said.

“Yeah, you like scary movies, right?”

“Yeah, but you don’t,” Luka said. “I’m happy to watch anything you wanna watch.”

A light blush crept onto Marinette’s face again. “I wanna watch a scary movie.”

Luka tried not to entertain the thought that the reason why Marinette wanted to watch a scary movie with him was probably a plot with the end goal of having an excuse for them to hug throughout the movie. He didn’t want to get his expectations too high; he was already writing songs about her as it was.

As they took their seats, Marinette seemed to pick up where they left off at the park before Chat Noir interrupted them. She sat decidedly close to him–as close as one could to justify any casual brush of the hand as an accident— while Luka, in a sudden bout of confidence, put his arm around her.

He tensed up, waiting for Marinette’s reaction, and was pleasantly rewarded when she relaxed into his grasp and leaned her head against his chest.

“Oh, I just remembered,” she said, while waiting for the movie to start, “I have something for you.”

She reached into her purse and produced a small box.

Luka beamed at her as he picked the little gift from her palm. “You didn’t have to give me anything, Marinette.”

“I just wanted to do something nice for you,” she said, shrugging and giving him a warm smile.

He opened the box and found a guitar pick that Marinette had hand painted with little blue-and-black motifs. His heart swelled for her and found himself wishing he could kiss her.

“I love it,” he said, smiling from ear to ear. “Thank you.”

“I… I have something else for you,” she said, turning herself so that she was squarely facing him.

His pulse hitched up, realizing he wasn’t the only one wishing for a kiss, as Marinette trained her eyes on his.

He couldn’t look away. He felt as if a sort of magnet pulled him towards her, a sort of force that he was unable to escape from even if he wanted to.

A short gasp escaped him as the distance between them shrunk slowly, almost painfully. He was so close he could feel Marinette’s warmth on his skin. So, close their lips almost brushed. So close that–

“Hey guys!” an all-too-familiar voice chirpily greeted them from behind Luka, effectively and immediately interrupting them and causing Marinette to flail and throw the bucket of popcorn she had on her lap.

Luka sighed, this time at the end of his wits. Third interruption, of course it had to be at the hands of whom Luka considered to be the densest human alive. He turned around to find none other than Adrien Agreste, accompanied by Nino. Luka could do little to help himself from giving him the meanest look he could possibly conjure.

“Hey, Adrien. Nino,” he said, clenching his teeth. “What. A nice. Surprise.”

Adrien, oblivious as always, seemed not to grasp what had just transpired. Luckily, as Adrien went on about what a coincidence it was to end up in the same movie theater, at the same showing, and how cool it would be to watch it with them, it was apparent Nino knew better.

“Um, dude, actually, I think I’ll have to sit at the front this time if you don’t mind,” Nino said, interrupting Adrien’s question of whether they could sit with them. “Yeah, my glasses have been giving me trouble…”

Adrien could do little to hide his disappointment but in the end went with Nino. Luka, on the other hand, would have kept grumbling to himself even after they had left if it weren’t for Marinette’s quick kiss on his cheek, which interrupted his train of thought.

“Thanks for being so patient,” Marinette said.

Luka, unable to stay irritated so long as Marinette looked at him like that–with those bright blue eyes and cute little smile, chuckled. “It’s no problem.”

There would be other opportunities, he thought to himself as Marinette snuggled back next to him. For now, he was happy with just watching the movie and enjoy having Marinette in his arms. At one point he was even brave enough to peck her on the head, in one particular scene where Marinette hid her face against his chest with the excuse that she was too scared to watch.

Encouraged by the quick kiss, Marinette looked up to him and again, he found himself drawn to her lips. So, close he could brush his nose against her, so close he smelled her perfume. So close that–

“AN AKUMA!” someone screamed out in the movie theater hall, unchaining a mass hysteria that propelled the audience to rush to the exit.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath as Marinette sprung up and he followed after her.

Dammit! What does a guy have to do to kiss his crush? Was moment with Marinette too much to ask?

Judging from the smug little smile Chat Noir couldn’t help but sport as he herded him and the rest of the civilians to safety, yes. Yes, it was. It took a lot to annoy Luka, but he now kept a list: Anyone wanting to hurt Marinette, being interrupted when he was with her, and the idea of cats in general. Especially black cats.

“I’m just saying, dude’s a bit weird,” Luka said, hanging out with Marinette and some of her friends a couple of days after Chat Noir’s repeated attempts at sabotaging his date, plus then some more. The story had been quite the laugh for everybody and the group now heatedly discussed whether they knew of other couples Chat Noir liked to sabotage, much to Marinette and Adrien’s mortification.

Adrien, Nino noticed, was quite uncomfortable with the topic. He squirmed in his seat and went to great lengths to not cross glances with Luka.

“Yo, you okay?” whispered Nino.

“Huh?”

“You seem a little… uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine!” Adrien hurried to assure him, but then resumed being consumed in his thoughts. Great. Marinette’s boyfriend now had it out for him for accidentally having interrupted them a time or two.

Okay, maybe it had been around ten times so far, but in his defense half of those were due to Akumas and the rest… Well, the rest were just... you know, “accidents.”

Nino did not comment so as to not add fuel to the fire, but he suspected that Adrien was not only lying, but had finally realized his feelings for Marinette. Nino chuckled to himself, feeling a little sorry for Adrien. Poor dude had the timing of drying cement.

--

ta-da!

I couldn’t include the part where LB kisses Luka because that sent me into outlining a multi-chapter angst fic and we are NOT doing that cause these babies deserve happiness :)) but alas, here you go

[mst3kproject]

Untamed Women

As far as I can tell nobody in this movie was ever on MST3K, although quite a few of them were in other crummy movies that I've featured as Episodes that Never Were, and at least one (Lyle Talbot) achieved the very pinnacle of anti-stardom by being in Plan 9 from Outer Space.  I picked it mostly because I felt like watching something with some really crappy dinosaurs in it, and on that front at least, Untamed Women delivers in spades.

A bomber plane is forced to ditch in the ocean after being hit by enemy fire, and the men on board take to the life rafts.  After over a week at sea (which is mercifully narrated at us rather than being shown in the excruciating detail one might fear from a movie of this type), four of the survivors wash up on a mysterious island, where they are captured by a tribe of snowy-white cavewomen with impeccable makeup and no body hair whatsoever, who speak Ye Olde Englyshe. These are apparently descendants of the last druids, who fled the British Isles when the Romans invaded and eventually found their way to this island where they've lived ever since.  It's about fifty-fifty whether the ladies will use our heroes as husbands or human sacrifices, but to escape, they'll have to cross a land teeming with prehistoric monsters.

I think Untamed Women may have actually had a budget, at least by Lousy 50's Dinosaur Movie standards.  If nothing else, they have a surprisingly impressive miniature volcano and an awful lot of lizards.  At least one of the latter actually dies onscreen, while others are tossed around willy-nilly and all have suffered the indignity of having various spikes and fins glued to them in the forlorn attempt to look more dinosaur-ish.  There's also one hilarious Tyrannosaur hand puppet that hobbles through the background of a shot.  Some elephants in fur coats stand in for mammoths and don't look totally terrible, but my very favourite dinosaur in the movie is the rubber-spike-bedecked armadillo (you can see the spikes bend when it brushes against foliage) representing a belligerent Ankylosaurus.  The scale compositing for some of these creatures is honestly quite acceptable, which renders their craptitude all the more entertaining.

Sadly, these inexpensive approximations of prehistoric life don't really do anything in the movie besides wander across the screen trying desperately to look cool.  The entire sequence in which the men attempt to cross the island to freedom is just filler and drags a bit, although it's a heck of a lot more fun than Rock Climbing. Supposedly the encounters convince the women that these men are brave warriors here to protect them rather than enemies here to do them harm, but in the final confrontation with some kind of iguana, it's the women who rescue the men by causing a rockslide (how this buried the lizard but not the men is not explained).  The monsters are only there to have dinosaurs in the movie, but that's exactly what I came here for so I can't complain too much.

The main characters are rather less fun to watch than the supposed dinosaurs. The four men are a bit more distinguishable than they are in many such movies, although they still look an awful lot alike and I'm not sure of all their names.  The dude in charge is called Steve.  I kept thinking he looked familiar and eventually realized he reminded me of the Dilbert's-Boss-Looking piano player from Reefer Madness, but it's not the same guy.  Two of the others are Eric and Andy, and I think Eric is the one with the Mommy Issues and Andy is the one who grew up on a farm (neither of these facts are ever important), but I couldn't pick either one out of a lineup.  The fourth guy is the Brooklyn-accented, unfunny comic relief who insists upon using the most opaque slang possible in trying to communicate with the women.  None of them are remotely likeable.

Except for the imperious High Priestess, Sondra, the women have no personalities at all.  Even Sondra's behaviour is deeply inconsistent.  She doesn't seem to approve of her underlings' plan to use the men as mates, but can't seem to decide what to do with them instead.  The others just hang around in short skirts and don't have much dialogue, not even the ones who eventually pair up with each of the men.  Shots of them doing things like making tools and gathering firewood are meant to demonstrate that they've been surviving quite capably on this island with no men, but this is undermined by the actresses themselves, who are willowy in build and look like they have no idea what they're doing.

The plot is basically Fire Maidens of Outer Space except not in space – the last members of an ancient civilization have been living in an isolated area, and now they're down to only women because of some ill-defined disaster.  The idea that these women are druids is used as an explanation of why they speak English, but that doesn't work – the druids would have spoken a Celtic language that we can only barely glimpse through Roman writers' attempts to transliterate fragments of it.  It certainly wouldn't have borne any resemblance to the pseudo-Shakespeare that appears in this script.  I guess it is at least a reason why they're so European, although we're given no explanation at all of either the presence or the whiteness of the tribe of apparently unrelated 'hairy men' who menace them from time to time.  Other than that, the movie is not interested in druids at all and I doubt the writers did so much as read an Asterix comic by way of research.

All these things are problems, but Untamed Women is light and fluffy and enough fun that you don't really care.  What's more annoying is that the plot seems to make several false starts, only to end suddenly before ever really having a chance to get going.

The first of these missed opportunities is when the men are initially taken captive by the tribe of women.  Sondra and her followers discuss either marrying or sacrificing them, but the council never comes to any conclusion.  Sortly thereafter, Sondra herself sets them free and directs them to cross the valley full of dinosaurs to safety.  It turns out that this was a trick – she figured they wouldn't survive the journey – but before we can get into the survivalist adventure either, the women come back to rescue them.  Then we find ourselves back in Fire Maidens of Outer Space as four of the women single themselves out as potential girlfriends, which angers Sondra because she's not yet sure she wants to allow these newcomers to marry into the tribe, even to save their culture from extinction.  The spectre of human sacrifice now rears its head again... but before that can go anywhere the 'hairy men' attack.

The men drive these aggressors off with their guns, which makes the women think they'll be safe forever with their new protectors.  They won't be, of course, because now the guys are out of ammunition, but they have a hard time explaining this to their hosts (in one of the few things the movie did right, they can’t even compare it to having a bow but no arrows because the women are not archers). Another attack will surely see them defeated and back in disgrace, or perhaps require a daring rescue!  But before that can happen, a volcano erupts and kills everybody except Steve, who gets a whack on the head and is later found in a life raft with amnesia!  This happens so we can have a framing story about him getting his memory back, which adds nothing except five minutes of run time.

I've ranted about this kind of ending before – The Alligator People ends with Joyce an amnesiac, and The Land that Time Forgot ends with the volcano.  I hated it in those movies because it undoes everything the characters accomplished, rendering all that we have seen pointless.  Joyce set out to find answers, and at the end she doesn't even remember the questions.  The submarine crew of The Land that Time Forgot were close to escaping Caprona when the volcano snatches everything out from under them.  Why, then, did we have to watch all of that, if it were all going to come to naught? If a character's hard work is undone by their enemies or by their own hubris, that's a tragedy.  If there's no reason for it besides the middle finger of God, that's just nihilism.

Nihilism has its place in art, of course... but a movie called Untamed Women doesn't really seem like that place.  The fact that the movie never really seems to start, just wandering from potential plot to potential plot without ever settling down to a story, just makes it even more frustrating.  There were so many ideas here that would have been perhaps not good, but still a lot of fun.  We could have watched the guys learn to survive in the prehistoric wilderness!  We could have seen them prepare for an epic battle with the 'hairy men'.  Heck, if the writers didn't have any other ideas, we could at least have gotten a bit of meat on the bones of the love stories.  Instead, all of these things are touched on and then thrown away, as if the writers ran out of time to decide what they wanted their movie to be about.

In spite of all that, I did kind of enjoy this movie while I was watching it.  We've got several kinds of stupid cheap dinosaurs and some very embarrassed dancers in silly cavewoman costumes, and that's a certain amount of fun.  Sadly, Untamed Women doesn't linger. It needed to pick a plot and stick with it, rather than offering us a variety of appetizers but no main course.

[peach-the-owl]

Into a World of Chaos

Artagan & Child!Reader

Request: Artagan. Love this archfey. Him finding a child who is actually very serious kid who doesn't have fun a lot because of having to rely on themselves and Artagan just being like "Oh I am going to turn their life upside down. It's gonna be chaos."

Fingers crossed this turned out as good as I envisioned

Another day of spreading marvellous mischief to unsuspecting folks, as entertaining as it was the archfey was looking for something new to spice things up. Sure he was technically a "god" with followers but what fun would it be to mess with the people who already cause chaos in your name, so to speak. No, Artagan wanted something different, a new sort of project to bring in entertainment for him. Then one day you step into the picture, a young child who'd rather learn the differences in what plants were edible over playing around in the fields. You were a lone wolf, a forager, you were the absolute opposite of Jester and the perfect target for chaos to ensue. Artagan wanted to keep it to small inconvenience for you, like placing your bag where you hadn’t originally put it, enjoying how you’d react until you finally find it. Another thing he liked to do was leave a pile of rocks outside your little shelter, both tripping you up and throwing you off in the early mornings. He also wanted to be sure you didn’t see him yet, he didn’t know if you were aware of who he was or his little cult, although that was unlikely and he was just being over dramatic.

You were getting fed up with this mysterious troublemaker, you knew they were there seeing glimpses of wild red hair or a flash of green eyes. Today you had a plan and were gonna try and catch this person in the act and get yourself some answers. You place down your backpack, it seemed to be the main target for whoever this was, take out a few items you didn’t want to lose and pretend to go about other things you wait patiently for a minute, then another until you hear the soft shifting of foliage.

"Aha!" You whip around and just catch the image of a tall, cloaked man before they disappear from plain sight. "I know you’re there! So stop being a coward and show yourself!" You call, you wait in silence for what feels like an eternity.

"Calling someone a coward is quite rude don’t you think?" A voice suddenly says right next to you making jump back in surprise.

"Who are you and why do you keep moving my things." You cross your arms and give a hard stare at the man now standing in front of you.

"I am known as the Traveler to many." He gives you a bow, you just raise an unamused eyebrow at him.

"Is that your name or something?" He just gives you an amused smirk, you frown. "Look mister Traveler or whoever you are, I don’t have time for your weird games so if you just leave me alone-"

"No time for games? There's always time for a game, and here I thought kids liked games."

"Well not this kid. I have other things to worry about." You huff going to retrieve your bag again only to trip on an overgrown root, stumbling forward a bit but able to catch yourself from completely falling. You hear a chuckle come from the cloaked man, seeing him wave his hand slightly which draws you to believe he had something to do with it.

"Oh, this is going to be fun." He says as you give him a pointed glare…

Fun was not the word you’d use to describe the next few weeks, sure you grew to tolerate the archfey and his antics but they still annoyed and sometimes hindered you. Also yes you discovered that he was in fact of the Feywild and that his real name wasn’t the Traveler but Artagan. He seemed to like telling you all this, much to your own dismay, as he didn't have to pretend to be a deity like he would for his followers seeing as you didn’t care.

"You know, you are a very strange child." You're startled by the sudden sound of his voice, hearing a familiar chuckle follow soon after.

"And you need to stop appearing out of nowhere when I’m trying to make camp." You reply, clutching your chest to try and steady your beating heart.

"See this is exactly what I mean, children don’t normally worry about such things as making shelter and instead run around chasing butterflies or whatever else their sticky little fingers can get a hold of. You act far too old for someone your age." He takes a seat on a nearby rock and watches you continue to make your little tent.

"Well I’m not like other kids, in case you haven’t noticed I don’t have anyone to help me with this. I have to do everything by myself so there’s no time to play." You say focusing on your task. There’s a slight pressure that appears on your shoulder and you’re slowly pulled away from your work making you look up sceptically at Artagan.

"Oh don’t think this as me wanting to help." He raises his arms up in defence, you just roll your eyes. "No no, rather I think it’s high time you have a break and learn how to have some fun again." He then picks you up and carries you away from your campsite.

"Hey!? Where are we going?" You ask shocked by the action.

"Like I said, you’re going to learn how to have fun." He gives you a playful smirk.

"What about my stuff? Don’t you have followers or whatever to worry about and bother instead?" You bring up, reminding him of his position.

"We'll return here when we're done and I can be in several places at once so it’s fine, now enough whining there’s chaos to spread." He brushes you off. A part of you didn’t trust this in the slightest, yet another part still held onto curiosity for whatever he had planned. Your brought over to a farmhouse not too far from the woods you were residing in and give a quizzical look up at the archfey.

"So what? Do you expect me to scare the cattle or something?"

"Something like that, yes." He gives an amused hum.

"I was being sarcastic." You say monotonously.

"Really? You can be sarcastic?" He counters playfully earning a quick glare from you. "Well I’m not. Now go on, show me what you can do." He places you down and nudges you forward. You swat at his hands and walk onto the pasture, letting out a few signs along the way wondering why you were actually going to do this. The cattle in the field towered over you, peacefully eating away at the grass.

"How the heck am I supposed to scare you." You wonder aloud. "Why do I have scare you?… Why am I talking to myself?" You sigh again, this archfey was making you go crazy. You try flailing your arms around and making loud random noises with no success, only making you feel like a weirdo. "Do something!" You yell, throwing your hands up in exasperation, you then feel a strange energy course through you and a beam of greenish light blast out of your hand into the sky. This startles both you and several nearby cattle, who fall onto their sides in shock while you stare dumbfounded at your hand.

"Hey, who’s messin' with ma cows!" You hear the farmer shout and make a beeline back to the forest. You don’t stop running until you reach your little campsite again where a waiting Artagan stood.

"That was a delightful display you put on there. Did you like my gift?" He asks once you’re close enough.

"Gift? What did you do to me?!" You ask still stunned.

"I’ve given you the ability to cast spells like that Eldrich Blast, congratulations little (y/n) you are now a Warlock." You stare at him wide eyed, this was a huge game changer, but you couldn’t decide if it was for better or worse.

"Oh come now, you have to admit that was pretty fun." He looks down at you expectantly. You try to hold a straight face as everything sinks in but end up coughing out a giggle a small smile on your face. "My word, is that a smile I see?" He raises an eyebrow at you.

"I- no… maybe." You admit, scratching at the back of your head with a slight blush on your cheeks.

"See you are enjoying yourself, I knew you had the makings of a troublemaker in you." Artagan says triumphantly, a smug look on his face. You lightly punch his arm being too short to reach his shoulder.

"Yeah whatever, there’s no need to rub it in."

"That’s exactly why I have to." He gives you a knowing look as you let out a groan.

Weeks slowly grew into months, Artagan seemed to grow more and more comfortable around you, even lightening up on the pranks and while you didn’t want to admit it you were starting to enjoy the archfey's company. Sure he was still annoying whenever he’d decide to make an appearance but he also made you realize how nice it was to have someone around. Not to mention whenever he’d pay you a visit you slowly grew more willing to take breaks and enjoy the simplicity of being a kid, it felt nice. But of course there’s always those grey clouds somewhere in the sky just waiting to make their presents known.

"What do you keep in that little bag of yours? I’ve never bothered to see for myself but you’re always so protective over it. Hiding something devious?" He asks you out of the blue one day, he did this often, asking random questions, so it was no surprise to you.

"My supplies and personal items, and that’s all you need to know." You reply plain and simply making your way down to a riverbank to clean off some dirt and hopefully catch yourself a meal.

"And if I wished to know more?" He questions.

"Not something I want to talk about, so don’t even bother." You narrow your eyes at him as you place down your things and start washing yourself off of all the dirt and grim on you. Despite this he takes it upon himself to rummage through your bag a little taking out items like your medical kit, a short sword you use for survival and a few other miscellaneous things. The most notable, and what really got your attention on him was when he pulled out a simple little necklace.

"What an odd little amulet." Artagan says, looking over the necklace making you instantly go into a mini panic mode.

"Hey! Be careful with that! You're gonna break it, give it back!" You try to grab it from him but he just extends his arm so it’s farther from your reach.

"Not until you tell me what it is." He gives a playful smirk, you were having none of it today.

"It was a gift, now give it back." You helplessly jump up and down trying to grab for it, he gives an amused laugh.

"It’s quite old," he says squinting at the jewelry, taking a closer look, "and honestly quite worthless too. It's rather plain, just cheap material and not even the slightest bit of engravings. Can’t imagine why you’re so worked up over it."

"Who cares, just give it back!" You were growing more and more desperate and frustrated. He shrugs and just drops the item in your general direction, you practically leaping to try and catch it. Unfortunately you react too slow and there’s a soft shattering sound as the necklace made contact against a rock, you crashing to the ground feeling the cool water from the river splash into your face. Slowly, stiffly you stand up again staring down at the broken medallion. The chain had broken off and was already getting washed away by the river, the medallion itself was broken into three large pieces with smaller pieces having broken off and also being carried away by the flowing water. "Whoops, well I did tell you it was cheap material." He says matter-of-factly.

"You broke it, you jerk! Why couldn’t you listen to me for once! Get out of here, leave me alone!" You turn and scream at the archfey, your blood felt like it was boiling out of anger.

"It's just a silly old thing, there’s no need to be so ra-" He’s cut off by an Eldrich Blast missing his head by inches. He gives you a glare and sees you giving one back much more intensely. "I was the one who gifted those abilities to you, I could take them away just as easily." He says evenly.

"Go ahead! I never wanted them in the first place! I was doing just fine on my own until you came along!" You snap back sharply, you then turn on your heel and march away.

"I’m not done with you child." He calls. You don’t say anything, you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer and continue stomping away. "Fine! I don’t need you, I’ve got followers who respect me." Artagan watches you disappear further into the woods, you weren’t going to be his problem anymore. He huffs stubbornly, so what if you didn’t care about his godly facade and he could just be himself. Who cares if you gave it to him straight rather then heed to his every word. What did he care that you were starting to warm up to him… treat him more as a friend… didn’t expect to get anything out of it. He lets out a long exaggerated sigh, guess Jester really was rubbing off on him. "Feelings, why did it have to be feelings." He mumbles to himself looking down at the broken pieces of the necklace, an idea then pops into his mind and he begins to gather up the different pieces.

You sit yourself on a log a few feet off the ground, your legs dangling below you and sniffle, that necklace had been the last gift your parents gave you before being killed from a raiding group of bugbears, you shudder at the memory. Stupid Artagan, always putting himself in places he shouldn’t be, then again you didn’t really explain yourself very well either. Still it was your personal stuff, he shouldn’t be toying with it unless you said it was okay. You hear the slight rustling of foliage catching movement coming towards you at the corner of your eye, you already knew who it was and turn away from him.

"Why don’t we have a proper talk about this instead of giving me the silent treatment, a bit childish don’t you think?" He starts.

"I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me to be more childish." You mock bitterly.

"I uhhh, I had that coming." He awkwardly clears his throat. "I’m going to be forward with you, I’m not… the best at this kinda stuff."

"If you’re trying to make me feel better you’re doing a really bad job then." You mumble, scooting further away from him.

"Well maybe if you…" He starts to retort but trails off on seeing your saddened expression. Pressing his hands together in thought Artagan had to really think through what he wanted to say next. He lets out a big sigh. "I… apologize for my rash behaviour, I suppose I overstepped myself in your personal boundaries." You slightly turn towards him with a side glance. "I meant no harm, truly. In fact, I have something that I think will make up for it." He then holds out his hand to you. Turning a little more you see your necklace resting in the palm of his hand making you fully turn to him and slowly take it from his hand, looking over the mended pieces you can’t help but feel a strange energy emitting from the reformed amulet.

"You actually fixed it, for me?" You finally look at him in curiosity.

"Yes, granted it may be infused with my boon so by accepting it you have officially agreed to be in a pact with me." You roll your eyes at this.

"Well pact or not this is actually very nice of you." You say, giving a small yet genuine smile as you place the necklace on around your neck.

"I've come to learn that things in life are usually temporary, with a beginning and an end to them at one point or another so I think it’s best to enjoy them while they’re here. That goes for the few I could call my friends." He looks off into the distance. You could tell he was being sincere with you both from the shift of his tone and attitude, a devious little thought then came to your head.

"You know, for someone who loves to pull pranks and cause trouble you really seem to know how to be serious when you want to… or maybe I’m finally rubbing off on you." You say cheekily.

"I can be serious when I want to…… wait." You can’t help but go into a fit of giggles when his face lights up in realization. "You sly little…" He lets himself trail off.

"Hey don’t look at me, you're the one who taught me what I know in that department." You say nonchalantly with a shrug.

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Out Tonight (Part 6)

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Nipple Play

<- Part 5

Summary: Backstory, Spanish lessons, and finally some sober sex! 🥳 (This chapter is very NSFW/18+)

For @thatesqcrush​​’s Kink Bingo challenge! And with this, I finally finish a row! 

5,420 words

The twenty-minute coffee date Rafael Barba had been dreading somehow turned into hours without him realizing it. The summer morning passed quickly until the sun was at its zenith above the turtle pond, and all of the work-related responsibilities he would have been grinding himself to death on had slipped his mind as he wandered through the park with your hand in his.

It turned out that you did have a few things in common. You both grew up in the Bronx. Though when you told him where, he snorted and joked, “What is an upstanding young lady from Spuyten Duyvil doing with a boy from the projects?”

Your jaw dropped when he told you what neighborhood he grew up in. It was an area you were familiar with mainly as a place to avoid, especially, god forbid, at night. The clean-cut lawyer in a sharp suit did not look anything like what you’d expect from the poverty he came from. You just assumed his family was wealthy.

“That’s incredible,” you said, a new surge of admiration for him stoking the fire of your attraction. You scooted closer on the shaded bench beneath a tall oak you’d stopped to sit on, your bare leg pressing against his slacks. You still hadn’t kissed, everything just barely skirting the romantic. The touch of his hand shot electricity through your skin, just from his fingers brushing yours. Neither of you wanted to push things too far, too fast, considering the guilt still lingering between you. “You must be a genius.”

Instead of boasting with the sly, cocky grin you had learned was among his favorite facial expressions, he grew serious, all but a trace of a smile leaving his lips. “I just worked hard,” he said.

“Really hard,” you said, knowingly, squeezing his hand. “Even people who work hard, who are smart… it’s almost impossible to escape that kind of poverty. The fact that you did it is…”

His inquisitive eyes, matching the foliage behind him, were strained as if deciding whether to share something or not. But he did, quietly. “I still work hard. Every day. It feels like if I make one false step, everything could fall apart. But, I have enough to support my mother.”

“And an impressive collection of ties,” you chimed.

He smirked, lifting your hand to casually press a kiss to the back of your knuckles. “And suspenders.”

Your pulse raced. Looking up and down this flawlessly stylish man, it all made sense. “Dressed to kill,” you muttered. “You wear it like a disguise.”

He frowned, the warmth leaving his eyes. You had touched a nerve. “Would it be a disguise if you wore it, or just because I’ll always be poor deep down?”

“I didn’t mean—OK, I get how that sounded. I just mean… you are exceptionally attractive. Like, really attractive. I mean, why am I telling you? You know that. Look at you.” You continued the obsequious flattery until a sarcastic smile appeared in the corner of his lips. “You know, actually,” you admitted, “I only grew up in a good neighborhood because my dad re-married rich. The weeks I was with my mom… she worked three jobs just to support me and a crummy apartment. I could never actually count on what the step-family would pay for, so sometimes I rode on boats with rich people, and sometimes I lived off canned pasta. It was weird.”

He looked at you appraisingly as he assimilated this new tidbit of information. “It isn’t easy, straddling two worlds.”

“Except you worked your ass off to break into one, and I ran away into the woods and got really into trees. Trees don’t judge you for not fitting in.”

“I’m sorry for judging you,” he whispered, his voice turning surprisingly tender. He lifted a hand and gently brought it to your cheek. You closed your eyes as it made contact, his palm warm against your skin, the pad of his thumb soft as it began stroking your cheek. You leaned forward, and he closed the remaining distance, his lips capturing yours, slow and sweet. It was chaste at first, and careful, but neither of you wanted to break it, and as it continued, his arms wrapped around the small of your back and your shoulder, drawing you in deeper as his heady scent enveloped you, the taste of coffee on his tongue as his lips parted.

“Barba?”

Rafael practically jumped out of your arms as an inquisitive voice called his name, leaving you kissing the air. The voice belonged to a tall brunette woman pushing a toddler along in a stroller.

“Liv!” he practically shrieked in alarm, straightening himself.

You looked between them and the kid, and felt like such an idiot. “Oh my god, you are cheating!”

Liv gave you a look, and burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry, nothing like that. I’m Sergeant Benson, SVU,” she extended you a firm handshake and explained, “I work with Barba on a lot of cases.” She turned back to Barba with an amused smirk. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your date, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Counselor, I didn’t realize you had a personal life.”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying. How’s Noah?”

“He’s perfect,” she smiled, cooing at the curly-haired child. “He loves the turtles, so we’re going down to the pond. Beautiful day for a nature walk.”

“She knows every tree,” Barba volunteered, puffing his chest out with the same cockiness he used to talk about himself, tipping his head at you. “Go ahead, test her.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Liv said, bemused. She gave a polite nod and a reminder that she still owed Barba a coffee for some legal thing he had come through on (which only gave you a slight pang of jealousy), and then waved goodbye, walking down the path toward the water.

You sat in silence, recovering. Barba was obviously scandalized to have been caught in a compromising position by a colleague, the tips of his ears turning red. You were glad she wasn’t his wife, but didn’t love having to suddenly confront the fact that he had an entire social life you knew absolutely nothing about. It sort of ruined the intimacy of the moment, tearing the cardboard moon out of your sky too soon.

Barba broke the silence first with a low, drawn-out groan. He turned to you, his eyes soft but flashing with passion, taking your hands in his again. “If we start seeing each other… there is a good chance you will get to know Liv in some capacity.” He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, and on the exhale beseeched, “You cannot tell her how we met.”

The earnestness with which he implored you, holding both your hands, made you burst out laughing. He did a poor job hiding his smile as he watched you double over. When you finally contained yourself, you pecked an innocent kiss to his lips. “We can say we met at a bar. We don’t have to mention all the, uh...” Karaoke. Drunken shenanigans. Dubious consent. Whatever you call we-didn’t-have-penis-in-vagina-sex-but-you-fingered-me-until-we-orgasmed. He grimaced with you as you both recalled all of the things you would not be telling anyone about your meet-cute. Then you started remembering his fingers gliding in and out of you, his hungry lips marking up your skin, and a warm shiver ran down your back. He swallowed, seeing the lustful heaviness creep into your eyes and responding with his own.

He nearly kissed you again, wrapping you in a passionate embrace that would have hastened you to a bedroom, but you pulled back. He said “seeing each other.” You thought this was a fun fling with no strings attached, and the idea that he was already thinking about more made your heart sink with guilt. “I should tell you...”

You never got to finish your thought. Liv had only gotten fifty feet when her phone rang. She was yelling into it frantically, demanding answers. Barba’s phone buzzed with an incoming message. Liv stormed back up the path, waving to him. “There’s been a… development,” she said, censoring the case details in your presence. “They need me at the precinct. You’re probably going to want to come, too.”

“I believe I am already being summoned,” he replied, checking his phone.

“Good. I need to call the sitter. Please let everyone know I’m on my way.” She hurried off, and any hint of flirtation was gone from Barba’s eyes as he stood, fully back in cold lawyer mode as he made a phone call, then another to order a Lyft.

He was already walking with quick, purposeful steps toward the nearest exit of the park when he hung up his last call and turned back to you apologetically. You had been trailing behind him, unsure if he wanted you to follow, and didn’t miss that you were an afterthought. But his regret was sincere. And the truth was, you didn’t mind this serious version of Barba at all—the sober Barba who poured his soul into getting justice and would forget a date he had been enjoying the instant duty called—because you’d seen the drunk version who fell apart, sobbing in your arms when he let down the victims. He had a hard side and a soft side, and so far, there was nothing about him that you didn’t like.

Oh god, you had a crush on him.

“I’m sorry, I have to go. It’s an emergency,” he explained, brow furrowed heavily over yearning green eyes.

Oh god, this was only supposed to be a one-night stand. Maybe a few nights, but a stand nonetheless. How dare he look at you like that?

“It’s alright. It sounds important,” you half smiled.

“Can I call you later?” he asked. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he had none of the confident swagger usually in his voice. It was a small, hopeful sort of question that told you there were real emotional stakes to your answer.

Oh god, did he have a crush on you, too? Did you have a crush on each other? This was terrible!

Drawn in as if by a magnetic pull, you closed the short distance, threaded your hands between his arms and body, and clasped them together behind his back. His lips quirked as his confidence returned. His hands cupped the sides of your face, then his mouth crashed against yours, fired with all of the passion of desire realized and reciprocated, relief, and longing. It was the type of kiss that would have been drawn out and sensual if it hadn’t been condensed by necessity into a hurried goodbye. You were out of breath and overheated when he broke it, seconds later.

“I’ll be waiting,” you breathed. He gave a hungry growl and a sharp, promising stare that sent a jolt of pleasure straight to your core before running to catch his ride.

***

Barba hated intelligent psychopaths. Even after they’d been put away, there was always some new appeal to fight, a new witness to come forward, some clever misdirection to cast their crimes into doubt. He’d been running around since noon working out deals with witnesses, obtaining warrants, and warning Liv’s detectives that they were being played. Now the sun was hanging low in the sky, and he realized he had never heard Carmen’s futile warning for him to go home already because his secretary didn’t work on weekends when he was pulling overtime. It was just him and his headache.

The time. What time was it?

He sat bolt upright in his leather office chair and groped for his phone. There was a notification from you from an hour ago that he vaguely recalled hearing buzz.

“How’s the emergency?”

He cursed and checked the time. It was getting late. Too late to make a reservation at any of the swankier restaurants he could take you. But he called you anyway, and was delighted when you answered.

“Hey. It’s Barba,” he said.

“I know,” said your amused voice on the other end of the line. “Your contact is in my phone, Sexy Karaoke Lawyer.”

He groaned in a way that was secretly a laugh. “Alright, Lorax. Are you free tonight? I’d like to take you to dinner. Actually, I thought I could make dinner. At my place?”

You gasped with mock scandalization. “Is this a booty call, Mr. Barba?”

He choked. “No. I just—” He stopped stammering when you started cackling like a grinning idiot, and his voice dropped low. “What if it is?”

The sudden shift in confidence caught you off guard, and he heard you swallow. “Then I’ll be there.”

***

It had been ages since he’d had time to make his abuelita’s costillas de puerco recipe. Or rather, it had been ages since he’d made time, considering he hardly had the time to do it now. He rushed through the corner deli at lightning pace to pick up what he needed, and rushed through prep, knowing you’d be over in less than an hour.

He had no idea why he felt such a drive to impress you. Why he needed to see you again so soon when you’d spent hours by his side that morning. The entire short time he had known you had been strange, anxiety-inducing, and guilt-ridden, but instead of hating you, he found himself wanting more.

The truth he didn’t want to admit was, every interaction with you, no matter how awkward, had been underscored by a potent sexual chemistry, and at the moment, he was nothing but a horny teenage boy who wanted to get laid.

That was all. This was some mid-forties hormonal resurgence. Madre de dios, it was a midlife crisis.

Or maybe this was what happened when he stopped getting in his own way. He’d spent years nursing a broken heart, years that turned into decades guarding himself against anyone getting too close. He never thought he’d feel this way again for somebody new. It was too late in life to meet someone who would know him as well as his childhood friends from el barrio, and they were all married by now. But he’d opened himself up just an inch, just for a night, by mistake, and let someone see past the hard, cynical facade, and now he wanted you to know him. He wanted to know you. He wanted to see how this ended. Maybe this was a revelation.

His heart jumped in his chest at the buzz of the door intercom.

***

“Hola, Rafael,” you greeted, and he grinned at the way you pronounced his name with the correct accent. “Oh my gosh, what smells amazing?”

He stood aside and nodded you in. The apartment was tiny, as most city apartments are, but tidy and well decorated. You were immediately drawn to the sturdy dining room table made of solid burl, and admired the natural chaotic pattern of the grain.

“It needs fifteen more minutes,” he said, observing with amusement how you completely ignored the good silver he’d broken out and started stroking the wood.

“What ever shall we do to pass the time?” you pouted innocently. Barba growled low in his throat, cupping a hand around your hip to draw you close, and you responded by pressing your hips flush against his, smiling lustily. Well, you had more or less agreed that dinner was a pretense for a booty call—no reason not to get right to it.

You hadn’t changed, but he was wearing a more casual wine-colored cashmere sweater, and you ran your hand up it, relishing the velvet softness under your palm as well as the shape of his chest. His lips met yours hot and searching, but didn’t stop there. They trailed over the side of your mouth, kissing down your jaw. He pressed wet, hungry kisses along your neck, and you moaned as his tongue lapped over the soft underside of your throat, his hands gliding over your hips. He pulled back by an inch. “Are you sure… you want this?” he murmured.

“God yes,” you moaned with your lips in his perfect salt-and-pepper hair, arousal raising your temperature as your body responded to his touch. “You haven’t been drinking this time?”

“Not a drop,” he replied huskily, somehow making it sound lewd as he resumed kissing the crook of your neck, and over your shoulder. You curled your fingers through his hair, and backed you up until your legs hit the edge of the table, and rested your weight against it, enjoying the feeling of being pinned as you angled your pelvis to grind against his growing erection.

“Oh, Rafa...” you moaned. “Can I call you Rafa?” you asked, not sure if the nickname was too personal. With the emotional baggage of your first night together, you hadn’t been sure if being on a first-name basis was respectful enough.

“You can call me anything you want,” he purred, his teeth gently pinching your shoulder.

You made a deep, chesty noise, sinfully considering that. “Don’t give me such broad permission, or you might regret it… papi.”

He groaned, and you felt his cock kicking against your cunt. Bunching up your skirt over your hips, you rocked your hips against him, panting just from feeling the strength of his arousal through his clothes. “Yes,” he hissed softly, holding you firmly against him as he worked his clothed erection against your panties, growing more excited with every mewl and shudder it drew from your lips. “That night was… moronic… but I remember the way I felt… how much I wanted you.” He turned his head and sucked a light bruise into your neck. “Do you still feel that way?”

You dipped your head to coax him back to your mouth, his pink lips wet with saliva as your tongue tasted them. “I wanted you to fuck me so bad,” you groaned, jerking your hips for emphasis on the word fuck. “But your fingers are very skilled… and your mouth...” You kissed him again, and felt his hand reach between your legs to slide your panties off.

His fingers paused halfway down the elastic. “Is this moving too fast?” he panted, suddenly trying to be reasonable. The kind of thing you would worry about if you were building a long-term relationship.

“Shh,” you hushed him gently. “I don’t want to think about too fast or too slow, or how different our lives are, or what’s going to happen after tonight. We’re just two strangers having fun. Can’t it just be that?”

He kissed you so softly, then. So tenderly that he could only have been subliminally trying to convince you of something more. His heart drummed with possessive affection; he already knew he wanted more than just tonight. At least the primitive, reckless part of him that didn’t overthink and over-plan every decision did. The rational part of him and the part that would say anything to please you came to an accord as he nodded, lips moving against your skin, “It can be.”

You grabbed his wrist and helped him slip your underwear the rest of the way off, stepping out of them and kicking them aside. His fingers didn’t immediately plunge themselves into your drenched folds, and his hips didn’t immediately return to grind against your wetness. His intelligent, cocky green eyes gave you a probing stare.

“Y qué quieres hacer esta noche?” he purred, low and seductive, giving you a choice.

“Oh, papi, me encanta cuándo hablas español. I want you to do anything you want to me. Anything,” you moaned, fairly certain that, with one or two exceptions, you really meant it. This man turned you on in ways you’d never experienced. There was nothing you wouldn’t try if he wanted it, and you knew he’d stop the second you asked, which made you feel bolder.

He chuckled. “Don’t give me such broad permission, dulce naturalista.”

The promise of mischief in his voice made you shiver, your cunt dripping. “Anything, papi. I just… want to know that you want me.”

He hummed. “This dress, this flimsy thing,” he hooked his index fingers through the narrow shoulder straps and tugged. “Did you know I’ve been staring at it all day, thinking about doing this?” He pulled the front down, just by a few inches, and freed your nipples. He dipped his head, and you gasped as he took one in his mouth.

“Oh god, it feels so good,” you whined as he began to suck, rolling the other between his thumb and forefinger. It was like he had a direct connection to your clit. He wasn’t even touching you there, but a hot pressure began to build between your legs as he devoured your sensitive nipples.

Then he suddenly released, your hard peak popping out of his mouth with a wet sound, and you whined for him not to stop. “Tu no dominas el español, verdad?” he asked.

“Qué?” you blurted, confused, but answering his question by not understanding it.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, a devilish look in his eyes. “You need practice, so I’ve decided I’ll only give you what you want if you say it in Spanish.”

“Pero… Qué pasa si… yo no sé… how to say it in Spanish?” You did want to learn more dirty talk, but this game didn’t seem fair. You wanted him to keep sucking your tits.

“You said I could do anything I wanted...” he reminded you, bringing his hand back to one of your breasts and kneading it tormentingly slowly. “Si no lo sabes, intenta. Practica, practica, practica.”

You wondered if this was some sort of dominance thing, or if he just liked watching you struggle with his native language. It was a bit exciting, though, you had to admit. Your pulse was racing with a mixture of arousal and embarrassment, because you genuinely had no idea how to say what you wanted. “Mis… pechos? Tu lengua. Por favor.” you pointed from his mouth to your breasts.

“Por favor, chupa mis pezones,” he corrected. “Repite.” You repeated it, and before you’d finished the last syllable, he replied, “Con gusto,” and began stimulating your nipples to the point of torture with his nimble lawyer’s tongue.

“Oh god,” you whimpered, your voice high and pleading, “It feels so good.” You bucked your hips into his and curled your fingers around the back of his head trying to force him to keep going, but he pulled back.

“En español,” he chided.

“En serio?!” you complained, but he simply watched you with his eyebrows quirked, waiting. “Me siento bien?” you tried. He smiled approvingly and lowered his sultry mouth to your skin again, flicking your hardened peak while pinching it between his lips. This time he pushed his hips back against yours so you could feel the heat of his erection on your pussy, and it sent new waves of electricity coursing through your body, which was already heaving just with the attention to your breasts. “Por favor, más... Oh god, yes,” you whimpered.

“Qué sabor muy rica, tu piel,” he murmured, muffled in your skin. “You taste delicious.” The vibrations from his speech tore a choked whimper from your lips, and you bucked your hips against his cock.

You bit down on your lower lip, fighting your rising climax even as you lifted one leg, wrapping it over his hip, to hasten it. “I’m gonna—oh god, you’re going to make me come just from this!”

“Voy a venir,” he coached you in a firm, teacher-like voice that nearly made you double over with arousal. “O puedes decir, ‘Me vas a poner a venir.’”

“M-me pon… ah!” he lightly nipped at your sensitive peak, turning the rest of what you were trying to say into helpless babble. “Please, please fuck me… oh god.” Before he could correct you, you remembered what he’d taught you in the bar right before begging you to leave with him so he could fuck your brains out. “Dámelo duro, papi.”

His whole body shuddered as he took in a shaking breath, but sober Barba never lost control until he decided to surrender it. As much as he wanted to fuck you, he was having too much fun teasing you. “You could also say, ‘Quiero que me coges,’” he explained academically, and you growled with frustration, writhing under him, your cunt seeking purchase against his cock. “If you’re going to speak a language, you’ve got to practice it,” he said, his voice far too calm and even for the circumstance, even with its wicked undertone.

“Dámelo! Por favor! Dáme tu pinga!” you begged frantically, rapid-firing off every way to ask for his cock that you could think of. You reached between your bodies and grasped his engorged sex through his tightened pants and stroked him hard from balls to tip. Your efforts were rewarded with an involuntary whine, Barba’s hips jerking forward.

“Me rindo,” he whimpered in surrender. His breath was ragged and he looked ready to fall apart. You purred with victory, but as you slowed the furious pace of your stroking, he recovered enough of his senses to smirk through his lust. “Pero primero, quiero saborearte.” His voice was thick, and his eyes dark as a tropical storm on a Caribbean island. He lifted the leg you’d wrapped around him up onto the table, and knelt beneath you. “Con tu permiso?”

You nodded, gasping sharply even before his tongue made contact with your soaked pussy just from the obscene expression on his face as he opened his mouth and extended the point of his tongue as he slowly leaned toward you. Your hands braced behind you on the table for support. Then you cried out loud when that tongue did hit you, slightly cold from the air, but quickly warming to match you as his mouth closed over your whole cunt. “Ah, que rica,” he sighed into your pussy, lapping at your slippery arousal with broad, languid strokes of his tongue, unhurried, as if he were aiming for no particular goal but to enjoy your flavor. “So wet for papi. Qué buena estudiante eres. Good students should be rewarded.”

He finally stood back up to his full height in front of you and removed his pants and underwear, letting them fall around his ankles, and his cock sprang free. You gaped down at it in awe. “Oh god, look at that cock,” you practically drooled. You automatically reached down and started stroking it, babbling on about what a thick, beautiful cock it was. He was too lost in the touch of your fingers wrapped around his shaft to even complain that it wasn’t Spanish.

“Ah, condoms!” he interjected before pushing himself inside you like every muscle in his body was screaming to do. “I’ve got some in the bedroom.”

You chewed your lip, not sure if this would come off the wrong way since he wanted to be responsible, but you slowly said, “We don’t need to use one if you don’t want. I’m on the pill, and I don’t have any STDs.”

His stormy eyes pierced into you, clearly tempted, but he couldn’t help remarking cynically, “If you give me a disease, I swear...”

“I’m afraid I don’t have my medical records on me, so I understand if you don’t want to take my word for it. I don’t know why I’m blindly trusting you.” That was a lie. Everything about Rafael Barba screamed precision, caution, and consent, and even after such a short time knowing him, you were absolutely certain he would never put you at risk. In fact, there was no way he’d ever have unprotected sex with a stranger.

Except his very next words were, “Fuck it,” and he hooked his arm under your elevated leg, and began rubbing his thick cock through your folds, coating it with your slick arousal. “You are absolutely sure you want this?” he looked at you with soft, understanding eyes, checking for any doubts.

You let out a needy whine, rolling your hips to rub your pussy against the tip of his fat cock. “Te quiero,” you whimpered, intending to say you wanted it, but his cheeks reddened and his heart flipped as you said something better translated as I love you.

You wouldn’t realize your mistake until much later, thinking back on it, or understand why his face was suddenly frozen between tenderness and panic, and then dawning realization, relief, and a small, barely noticeable wince of disappointment.

He entered you slowly, letting you feel every inch of stretch from his cock. Like the rest of his build, it was not the longest you had ever seen, but it was impressively girthy, and each blissful inch he worked you open brought the slightest fraying edge of pain. He knew his size could be a challenge, and was practiced at preparing, and patience. You were already so dripping wet, you didn’t need extra lube, though he had it on standby, and watched you carefully, pausing to let you rest every time he advanced. As he waited, feeling your walls relax to accept him, he ducked his head to your breasts, savoring the helpless squeals you made when he gave attention to what he learned was one of your most sensitive erogenous zones. Every time he flicked his tongue over your nipple or sucked its hardened peak into his mouth, your cunt twitched around him and your back arched to take more of him. It worked so well, he never stopped teasing your breasts, and your silent cries of, “Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god!” grew in intensity until you were screaming with pleasure, fist clenched in his hair as you held him to your chest, and his balls were pressed tight against your ass.

Panting hard and moaning into your breasts, he began to thrust, slowly at first, but you wrapped your legs around his back and used them as leverage to buck your hips into him, pushing back into each of his thrusts, deepening them and coaxing him to increase his pace. As you angled your hips, he began hitting a deep point inside that made your legs turn to jelly. “Dámelo bien duro,” you tried to say, but it mostly came out as unintelligible gasps and whimpers. His mouth never left your tits and you loved the angle it gave you, being able to watch his face, strained with concentration and clouded with lust, and his tongue working diligently to bring you to a climax that took you off guard with how suddenly it crashed over you. You couldn’t say there was no buildup to it, because you had been in throes since he first pulled down your dress, but he had barely begun to thrust when the heat coiling in your lower back suddenly tightened and snapped, shooting sparks behind your eyelids. “Ah—Rafa!” you wailed, squeezing your fingers in his hair.

He gasped, releasing the globe of your breast from his mouth at the wracking of your body in his arms. Your pussy convulsed, clenching tightly around his cock, coating it in your sweet release, almost too tight for him to thrust through. One more jerk of his hips through your rippling, fluttering muscles and he let out a string of swears, and you felt his abdominal muscles tense up against your belly. He pulled back and thrust into you once more, balls swinging against your ass, and his hot seed flooded you. He panted, trembling, still trying to hold onto you, though halfway sitting on a dining table without knocking off any of the plates was not the most ideal location for post-coital recovery cuddling. He grabbed a few paper napkins from behind you to catch the drippings as he pulled out.

It was over too fast, a testament to how long it had been for him. Both of you, really. But you weren’t disappointed. He made you come almost entirely with that silver tongue of his, and you were still shaking too much to take your weight off the table and put it on your legs.

The timer on the oven rang shrilly, announcing dinner was done.

“After dinner,” he promised, pulling his pants back on. “Quiero más de tu cuerpo.”

You were satisfied, but not yet sated, and looked forward to round two.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

@beccabarba​ / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush​ / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy​ / @mrsrafaelbarba​ / @da-po / @madamsnape921 / @charlottegrice / @onerestein

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Revenge.”

Getting into the meat of this arc now, I am having fun so I hope you all are :)

A thousand humans, perfectly straight in their orderly rows three feet to all sides. Looking down each row, it almost seemed as if no organic creatures should have been able to achieve it. In comparison, the rundi and Tesraki forces seemed scattered and confused, though the Drev and the Celzex had taken up the very human tradition.

The inside of the ship was dark.

The Rundi Imperial cruiser was large enough to hold an entire city inside its belly, but today it held soldiers. These soldiers were the first of their kind, or so the human said. Airborn shock troops from the UNSC 109th. Most of them were ex marines, who had been set on this new path after at least five years of prior service.

Overhead, the arching ceiling rose almost fifty feet into the air, and it seemed as if they couldn’t possibly be standing in a structure, especially one currently floating at the edge of IRus, waiting for the moment when they were to warp into existence over the burg planet, and drop their deadly cargo.

Not one of them moved an inch.

The human battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Tyson stood eyeing his troops: the first of their kind, the best of the best, and likely heading to their death.

Did he feel bad about that: no. They knew what they were in for.

And they had volunteered.

He would give them one more chance to back out, but he already knew they wouldn’t. That's not how these guys worked. Though, it’s not like he was just throwing these men away, they had the best training in the galaxy, and that was a statement of fact, not just boasting. And then there was their secret weapon, an idea given to them a grounded marine.

Delta units.

A Drev, each of them monsters at over nine feet tall strapped with mobile machine guns manned by one of the shock troopers. Intelligence on the Burg home planet described it as mountainous, hilly, and riddled with caves. Their troops from above would be no use, and their vehicles wouldn’t be much better than decorative rocks when it came to that sort of terrain. Even the hovercraft wouldn’t be much use with how dence the rock and foliage was.

That is where these men came in, with their full body gear including gas masks, thermal vision, and advanced weaponry: advanced weaponry worked on by the Celzex themselves.

He smiled a little bit. Maybe he wasn’t sending them to their deaths.

Maybe he was sending them to glory.

The other alien commanders finally filtered in.

He stepped forward, and a call to attention rose through his troops. Heels snapped together, and hands shot up brushing their temples with one clattering echo. The aliens stepped back.

“At ease!” A hundred hands dropped.

He paced across the deck, “I know a lot of you have heard why you are here. I know you have heard a lot of bullshit, and despite what my commanders want me to say, I am going to be honest with you, “This isn’t about economics, or even about rightful retaliation.” He paused hands behind his back and glanced down at his men, “This is about REVENGE!” A shout rose up from his men.

“Revenge, for the burg war!”

Another shout.

“Revenge for their attack on earth!”

The room echoed.

“REVENGE for the good men and women lost!”

It was a roaring now.

“REVENGE!” He threw his fist in the air and waited for the screaming to die down before he finished, “Revenge, for Commander Vir.” He paused, “I didn’t know the man personally. I will openly admit that. And I am not pretending to make the tragedy of his passing a personal one because I am not. His passing is a tragedy to, humanity, to the GA, and to the universe.” 

He paced down the line, “he wasn’t just a man, he was a symbol. The embodiment of what humanity should be and the lynch pin that held together our different species.”

He passed his eyes over the men and women standing before him, “I visited the memorial before coming here. I visited with my son. We lit a candle, and he left a stuffed bear to keep watch at the vigil for us. For those of you who haven't seen, it takes up an entire city block, thousands of candles, flowers pictures, toys notes, people singing…. This wasn’t just an attack on us, it was an attack on every ideology we have ever held. It is an attack on what we believe in. The Burg wish to divide us….” He turned to look in a wide circle and smiled, “I will say they failed.”

He didn’t try to speak after that as a cheer rose up into the air. Thousands of voices, both human and nonhuman crying their desire for revenge. 

When things quieted down again, he turned to look at the Drev and raised a fist, “For those of you who don’t understand revenge… for glory!” That got a rise out of the Drev, and he bared his teeth like a wolf, hungry for blood.

It was then he got a surprise when a voice rose up from the crowd to the line of a song he had never heard.

IT repeated a few lines and then faded.

The second verse came up and then faded again.

He turned to see who was making the sound but he just couldn't make it out.

This time when the voice rose up there were others to echo it, a call and response.

The more the lyrics repeated the more voices that joined, until the entire room was filled with the roaring echo of a thousand voices.

He looked down at the command major, “What is this.”

The man stepped up beside him smiling slightly, “I learned it from a marine who worked on the commander’s ship. It's unofficial name: We are the Harbinger.

Lieutenant Colonel Tyson nodded his head, “Not bad… not bad at all.”

Rest in Peace, Commander

***

So, fun fact, walking out isn’t an option.

I know, I know what you might be thinking. Commander Vir, why didn’t you try that as soon as you got there. Well my young padawan, that was because I was in horrific pain and bleeding out on the floor, and after that it was because I was too exhausted to try anything. Plus, another part of me sort of assumed they were here to help me. I mean they hadn’t done anything to prove otherwise, so there was no real reason for me to worry.

However, this morning, when I tried to walk out past the Omnidroid, my path was blocked, and I was encouraged back to the other side of the cell. It wasn’t being mean or anything really, not that I would have known, but it made it pretty clear, I was supposed to stay here, and there were no other options.

Ok, that didn’t necessarily mean that I was a prisoner, it could just mean that they didn’t want me wandering around and messing stuff up, so instead, I sat down and turned to look up at them. Here was to finding out if this thing could speak. Or at least trying to figure out if I could understand it.

My quickest conclusion was totally not.

These guys sound like above ground wales. Their voices were so incredibly deep that when they vocalized, it shook the very ground around me and rattled inside my chest until I thought my spine was about to crawl out of my mouth.

You’re welcome, for that visual.

And unfortunately for me, I am not as talented as a small, forgetful, blue fish, and do not, in fact, speak whale 

And I thought the Gromm were aliens, but this thing took it to an entirely new level.

There was always the chance that I could try and fight it, but I was hesitant to try that as they hadn’t actually hurt me. It seemed best to pursue all of my other options first, and determine if I was actually a prisoner, and if there was actually anything for me to worry about before I took such sudden and drastic measures.

So I sat in the white cotton fluff and wondered where this was going to go…. Also wondering where the next rest stop was, because I really had to pee, and I wasn’t a fan of having this guy around watching when I did.

The omnidroid didn’t move though, so I was forced to hold it.

If this went on any longer, you were going to be able to see the urine levels in my eyes as I slowly filled up to the very top.

No no that isn’t jaundice, that is just me really not wanting to pee in front of an alien, and… like where? There is nowhere in here to go.

Just as it seemed my eyeballs were about to shoot out of my head from the pressure, the door hissed open and another one of the omnidroids walked in.

They shook the cel with their voices for a second before turning to look at me…. At least I think.

Behind them, I can see others out in the hallway, a group of five or six. There is a bit of a commotion, and, for a moment, I thought I heard a distant voice, very high in pitch compared to the Omnidroids.

Reminded me of Krill a little, but wasn’t THAT wishful thinking.

Just then, the Omnidroids stepped from the room leaving the door open.

I watched them go.

And waited.

The door remained open.

Alright, i’ll bite.

I stood and took a step forward, slowly waking over to the door and poking my head out into the hallway. Two of them were blocking the hall to my left, but the hallway was open to my right. Also there was a random piece of fruit lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway. This made me frown as I had no idea what they were trying to accomplish with that.

 I was not going to eat floor fruit.

I turned back to look at the other two at the end of the hall and then shrugged, turning the walk up the hall, stepping over the floor fruit and down around the next corner. They were blocking my way out to the right this time, so I went left. I thought I could see a sliver of light towards the end of the hallway.

I quickened my pace, jogging forward, my bare feet clattering over some sort of cold material that was neither metal or plastic, but something in between. I had to hold up a hand to block my face from the light, and by then it was too late.

There was a sharp snap, and I nearly leaped out of my skin turning around to find that a wall had risen up from the floor behind me and snapped into place leaving me inside an eight by four crate.

I turned in a sharp circle in confusion pressing my face up against the little window of light.

Shapes moved around outside, though I could see nothing beyond that.

I sighed and sat down on the floor.

Leaning my head back against the wall.

Great, I was trapped, AND I had to pee.

This really was turning out to be a pretty lousy day.

If only some super secret mystical universe force had granted me unimaginable power and a laser sword, then this wouldn’t be a problem, but instead of being a jedi, or Han solo, I was stuck here like an idiot…. Guess that made me a little more of a Captain Reyalds after all, or…. Star lord maybe?

No, star lord had a higher charisma score than I did, and you know, could actually get a date. I was… well I was me, Commander Adam Vir, the absolute lamest story protagonist ever. Where Spaceship captains were supposed to be dashing, I was sort of just….. weird ? Where they were supposed to be charismatic and confident, I was awkward and racked by crippling self doubt that I never let anyone else see. And while they were supposed to be smart and full of ingenuity. I was an idiot stuck in a box with no way out and really needing to pee.

Yeah, captain vir… whoo-hoo.” The lamest man alive.

If my life were a book, I would put it down.

The roof above my head jolted, and I nearly tumbled against the far wall as we began to move.

I braced myself against the back wall and steadied myself against the moving floor.

It went on for only maybe five seconds before there was a sharp thud and click. Another moment of silence, and the door hissed open.

I threw my hands up to cover my face blinking past the sudden onslaught of light.

WHen I could only sort of see, I walked forward, keeping my hand raised high in the air as I passed out of the door, feet falling onto soft sand.

The air around me was clean and fresh.

Somewhere water trickled.

I slowly lowered my hand eyes rising to the view before me.

And frowned.

You have got to be kidding me.

[kumeko]

A/N: For the Pandora Hearts Reverse Big Bang! My partner Hadrian drew an adorable piece of the three of them sleeping together and I wanted to write a fluffy AU for that (look, I really need a world where Lacie and Oswald live).

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At twenty, Gilbert Nightray was used to plans going awry. It was par the course when it came to the mischievous Oz Vessalius. Despite being childhood friends for over 15 years, the only thing Gil could predict about Oz was that his suggestions never went as expected. Toss in the ever-hungry Alice, and well, there really was no point in planning, just preparing. Luckily, that was something Gil was good at. Every time they went off on an adventure, he packed a bag full of first aid kits, healing potions, and enough supplies to last a week.

 However, even he couldn’t have predicted the situation they were in. As they raced through the forest, Gil glanced over his shoulder to confirm that yes, a giant elephant-sized boar was chasing them. He pressed a hand against his hat to keep it from flying off.

 “Why are we running?” Oz asked breathlessly, just barely managing to keep apace. His physical strength wasn’t great on his best days, and after he’d been cursed…well, what little muscle he’d gained in the past ten years was gone.

 “Why do you think?” Gil snapped, his trench coat flapping behind him as he leapt over an overgrown root. Behind him the boar angrily snapped his head at an offending tree, skewering it with his horns. Wood splintered from the onslaught and Gil paled—that could have easily been them. That could still be them.

“We could just fight it!” Oz argued, his green eyes glowing slightly as he started to summon his magic.

 “Your magic isn’t what it used to be,” Gil argued, resisting the urge to tuck him under his arm like a ball and just sprint out. He probably could. Oz was ten now, not twenty, and as tiny as he was, he’d be easy to carry.

 “I want to eat him,” Alice announced, her eyes taking on a more rabbit-like appearance.  

 “Aren’t rabbits supposed to be herbivores?” Gil immediately whacked the back of her head. Maybe he should just tuck both of them under his arm—two ten-year-olds couldn’t be that heavy, right? “We’re only barely ahead of that thing because the forest’s slowing it down.”

 “But he could be tasty,” Alice protested, glancing over her shoulder. She licked her lips in anticipation.

 “Why is it always food for you?” Gil grumbled. Honestly, Alice’s first approach to everything was bite first, ask questions later.

 “Because meat is king,” she declared triumphantly. Why was that her answer to everything? Her physical strength was far greater than Oz’s, no matter what age. Gil wished it wasn’t; he’d rather hear her wheeze and pant than be forced to listen to whatever stupid inane thought crossed her mind.

 “And you’re too weak too fight,” Gil pointed out, feeling a headache forming. He had medicine for that. “You guys are younger, you can’t act like you normally do! You,” he turned to Oz, “Don’t have the magical reserves. And you,” he directed his glare at Alice, “Can’t fight like you used to.”

 Alice’s cheeks puffed, the sign of an impending sulk and Gil’s headache worsened. Oz frowned. “We could still fight it.”

 “Didn’t you promise Oscar you’d stay out of trouble?” Gil pleaded, ducking an overly tall branch. While the boar was slower, he hadn’t stopped. Every step caused a tremor and it was a miracle none of them had fallen over yet.

 “But—” Oz whined.

 “And Lacie—” Gil cut himself off immediately; it was always a mistake to bring up Alice’s mother. She was even wilder than her daughter. A better tack was her overprotective uncle. “Oswald? Did you agree to be careful for him?”

 “Booo,” Alice pouted as she hopped over a stone. “I can fight.”

 The earth shook behind them. Gil barked, “Not against that!”

 And then, before they could protest, he grabbed their hands. If he had to drag them to safety, he would.

 -x-

 “I think we’re getting close,” Alice muttered, sniffing the air as she lifted a branch with a hand. While she hadn’t fully transformed into her rabbit form, her red eyes and long, claw-like fingers gave her an inhuman look.

 Gil could never get used to her partial transformations. Full transformations were fine, he could handle giant, bow-tied rabbits and short, ill-tempered women. Actually, considering how much Alice ate, it was amazing that she’d never grown taller, that even at twenty she couldn’t reach higher than his chest. Pulling his gun out of its holster, he asked, “Are you sure?”

 “What do you mean, am I sure?” Irate, she glared at him. It was more annoying than intimidating. “My nose is better than yours.”

 “Only if you’re actually using it properly and not smelling meat like last time,” he whispered back, trying to keep his voice down. “You’re a rabbit, how does that work?”

 Alice snorted. “Meat is king.”

 Gil stared at her. She’d said that with utter confidence, as though those three words explained everything. In fact, she’d been so matter-of-factly about it that for a minute, he’d doubted himself. That maybe he was the one ignorant to the ways of the world.

 On his right, Oz snickered as he drew his sword. The metal looked dull in the dim light. “She got you there.”

 That was enough to snap him out of it. “That doesn’t explain anything!”

 “It explains everything,” she retorted, hands on her hips, her quarry all but forgotten. “What more do you need?”

 Gil knew he ought to be the bigger person. They had a guild mission, after all, and that came before any petty differences between them. If Alice wanted to act like a child, like she often did, he shouldn’t stoop to her level. No, he should finish securing the pixie they’d been hunting for days, saving a village from its mischief, ensuring that his standing in the ranks didn’t—

 “If your head wasn’t made of seaweed, you’d understand,” she added with a presumptuous sniff.

 Gil forced his lips into a tight smile, resisting the urge to react. There’s no point in arguing with her, he reminded himself. Be the adult.

 “Where is the pixie?” he asked through gritted teeth. The sooner they finished with this, the sooner they’d go back.

 “Over there,” Oz replied, whistling softly as he peeked through the brush. “I think he’s asleep.”

 “That’s good.” Gil brightened at this one speck of good news. “Is there anyone—”

 Before he looked, before he even finished his sentence, Oz pointed at the pixie. “Alice, go!”

 Without hesitation, Alice ran forward, transforming into a giant rabbit as she did. There was a large scythe in her hands now, pulled out from whatever pocket dimension she’d left it in. “Just stay there and watch,” she ordered before disappearing into the foliage.

 Gil’s jaw dropped. “Oz!”

 “Come on, Gil!” Oz grabbed his hand, smiling innocently. Almost all of their misadventures had started with that smile.  “We can’t let her have all the fun!”

 “Why do you always do this?” Gil hissed, not sure how he’d force them to understand this one, common sense idea. “We should have to plan first!”

 He followed anyways—he’d never been able to say no to Oz, and he doubted he’d ever will. They were almost the same height, with Oz slightly shorter despite all of the milk he drank. There was something comforting about the back of his head, of that golden hair, and maybe it was that for all of the trouble they’d gotten into over the years, they’d always ended up fine at the end of it. Oz was strangely reliable.

 “It’s just a pixie,” Oz scoffed, trotting quickly after Alice. “She’s going to catch it before we get there.”

 In hindsight, those were famous last words. As soon as they made it past a particularly thick tree, pushing through the branches to reach a small clearing, they found Alice in the center. She slammed down her scythe at a pixie that was almost half her size. The creature had iridescent wings that fluttered quickly as he dodged her attack.

 “That’s a big pixie,” Oz muttered. He held his sword loosely. “I don’t think the cage we got is big enough for him.”

 “Me neither…” Gil frowned, pulling out his gun and several enchanted bullets. “Maybe we can knock him out.”

 Alice struck again, her scythe almost cleaving the creature in two. Which would have solved the transportation issue but luckily the pixie parried her attack. It almost knocked her off balance and she flipped backwards to stabilize herself. Legs tense, she prepared to strike again when the pixie shot her with a green bolt of magic.

 Smoke filled the air and Gil’s eyes widened as she disappeared. “Alice!”

 “Alice!” Oz yelled as he charged through the smoke to get to her.

 “I’m fine.” Alice coughed, still hidden by the smoke.

 The pixie cackled and Gil cocked his gun, looking for their enemy. It was time they took this battle seriously. Trees lined their small clearing, leaving many places to hide if the pixie headed for the shadows. Craning his head left and right, he couldn’t find their target.

 The smoke drifted past him slowly, dissipating as the gentle wind blew, and Gil glanced at where he’d last seen Alice. As the air cleared, he couldn’t find a big, stocky humanoid rabbit.

 Instead, he saw a small, child-sized rabbit. While it was dressed in Alice’s clothes, they were far too big for the rabbit, and they hung off it loosely.

 Oz stood in front of the rabbit, his lips parted in surprise. “Alice?”

 The rabbit’s ears twitched, and she looked up at him. “Why are you so big?”

 “Did he shrink you?” Gil asked, wishing he had his brother’s skills in magic identification.

 “Shrink?” Alice stood stock still, looking from Oz to Gil to the trees. If she didn’t have black fur, he was certain she’d be pale as a ghost. She tried to pick up her now too-heavy scythe, the handle oversized in her hands, before dropping it in horror. “WHAT HAPPENED?”

 “Oh wow!” Oz crouched in front of her, recovering from his shock entirely. Reaching forward, he rubbed her ears. “You’re so cute now!”

 “I’m not cute, I’m terrifying,” Alice retorted, growling slightly. She didn’t pull away from his touch though and Gil stored that info away to taunt her with later.

 “Of course you are,” Oz cooed.

 From the corner of his eyes, Gil saw something move. He spun on his heel, gun raised, finger on the trigger. There was the pixie, hovering in the air, another green bolt in his fingers.

 “Watch out!” Gil shouted, already squeezing the trigger.

 BANG! A bullet pierced through the air. As it reached the pixie, it transformed into a net, entangling the prankster.

 Jerking back in surprise, the pixie released its bolt. The green energy arced through the air before hitting Oz square in the back. Another burst of smoke filled the area.

 “Oz!” Gil shouted, racing forward to knock out the pixie before he could do anymore damage.

 “Wow, that tickled,” Oz replied, coughing slightly. After a moment, he swore. “Shit.”

 Oz rarely swore openly, and Gil swallowed as he turned to where his best friend stood. The air had cleared now, leaving behind a blonde child. His cloak hung loosely on his frame, almost slipping off his shoulders. His sword, now too heavy for him, fell out of his hands with a clatter.

 “You’re a kid,” Gil stated, realization dawning.

 Alice transformed back into her human form, confirming his fears: she looked like a kid too. With a smug smirk, she wrapped an arm around Oz, ignoring how her clothes almost fell off her. “Ha, who’s the cute one now?”

 -x-

 Gil groaned as he leaned against the hard wall of the crevice they were hiding in. No matter how many times he thought about how they ended up in this situation, it felt ridiculous.

 “I think we’re safe now,” Oz whispered, poking his head out of their hole. Gil almost jerked him in reflexively. In the bright afternoon light, Oz was hard to miss.

 “I can’t smell him anymore,” Alice muttered, sulking as she crouched in the back of the small cave. With a stick, she drew pictures of pork chops and ham on the dirt ground.

 “Good.” Gil sighed, relaxing against the wall. He wanted nothing more than a hot bath but settled for sitting on the ground. These days, he felt more babysitter than adventurer. His nerves couldn’t take much more of this. “Next time I say run, run.”

 Oz pouted. “I still think we could have taken it,” he muttered.

 Gil gave him a tired look. “Oz.”

 “But that’s not why we’re here,” Oz admitted, which was as close to an apology as he’d get. Crouching in front of Gil, he reached up to ruffle his hair. “Good job!”

 “I’m not the stupid rabbit,” Gil muttered, looking away. Yet he didn’t pull away and maybe that was something he and Alice had in common.

 Unfortunately.

 Oz chuckled, letting go and stepping back. “Alright, let’s finish our mission! I want to be tall again! I want to bully Gil properly again!”

 “Don’t bully me,” Gil grumbled half-heartedly, trying not to smile.

 “I want meat!” Alice chimed in. Gil wasn’t sure if she hadn’t followed the conversation or if she just didn’t care about it.

 Oz looked at him expectedly and Gil sighed. Standing up now, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I want to stop worrying about you two.”

 “Oh, Gil.” Oz chuckled, though he looked touched. Standing up, he beamed at him, no malice in his voice. “You’ll always worry about us.”

 The truth in his words cut deep and Gil flushed. Coughing into his hand, he looked away. “I want to worry about you less.”

 Oz bumped into him lightly and nodded. “Alright, then we just have to find those berries, right?”

 “Yeah, Break said you just had to eat them and you should turn back to normal…” Gil trailed off. As reliable as his mentor was, he was also the kind of liar who’d take advantage of the situation to play a prank or run an experiment. There was a reason he and Oz got along; they were far too alike and Gil wished he could have stopped them from meeting. “It’ll work, right?”

 Alice growled at Break’s name and looked around quickly. Suspiciously, she lifted a rock, squinting at the dirt beneath it. “He’s not here?”

 “Of course not, or we’d have just fought that boar,” Gil scoffed, rolling his eyes. This whole mission would have gone better if they’d just brought one other person. How he ever let Oz talk him into coming here without backup, Gil couldn’t explain.

 “Nothing to it then.” Oz stretched his arms above his head, looking oddly refreshed. “We’ll just have to get those berries. They’re at the top of the mountain, right?”

 As usual, Alice thought with her stomach. “I hope they’re yummy.”

 “Maybe we should take a couple extra with us,” Oz suggested, rubbing his chin. He scowled. “I can’t believe the pixie couldn’t just turn us back.”

 Gil slouched over slightly. “I should have caught him sooner.”

 “And I probably should have listened to you earlier.” Oz reached up to pat him on the back. “Still, it’s kinda fun pretending to be my own love-child.”

 That was the first Gil heard about it. Aghast, he stared down at his friend. “Your what?”

 “Sec-ret love child,” Oz repeated slowly. Chuckling, he walked over to Alice and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “By the way, I told all the maids that she’s yours.”

 “Mine?” Gil screeched, forgetting all about the boar, the berries, or even the need to hide. He almost fell backwards and leaned against the wall for support.

 Alice grabbed Oz’s collar. “I’m what?”

 “The maids think it’s cute?” Oz weakly warbled, realizing a little too late that maybe he shouldn’t have admitted this in a cave in the middle of nowhere.

 They should start making their way up the mountain. They should be quiet. They should conserve their strength.

 Gil stepped out of the cave for a breath of fresh air, ignoring the ruckus behind him. Oz could wait a few minutes before getting saved.

 -x-

 Hilariously, by the time they reached top of the mountain, Oz’s worst injuries were still from the cave. The rest of the trip had been as eventful as their first few minutes in the forest—as weak as Oz and Alice were now, their only options were to run and hide from monsters.

 Unfortunately, on this mountain this meant a lot of running and hiding. Gil’s arms were sore from dragging Alice away; she honestly thought she could take on every beast they met and Gil didn’t have nearly enough healing magic to prove her wrong.

 As they reached a plateau on the top, a large field filled with wildflowers, Gil was too exhausted to do anything more than just collapse. He stared up at the night sky, surprised. The afternoon felt like it had only been minutes ago, and yet there the stars were, twinkling above. “Is this it?”

 “I hope so.” A worn Oz lay down on the long grasses next to him, sounding as ragged as Gil felt. For all of his adventuring, his stamina had always been terrible. “We just need to find the berries now, right?”

 “And then make it back down.” Gil covered his eyes with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. A sickly-sweet scent filled his lungs and he coughed. “That’s strong.”

 “It’s disgusting.” Next to him, Oz wrinkled his nose. Despite his affection for sweets, he didn’t like the cloying scent either. “What are these flowers?”

 “Not sure.” Gil looked to his right, at the flower brushing his cheek. It had a dark lilac colour, barely visible in the moonlight. Neon blue spots dotted the petals, giving the plant an eerie look. Something about it tickled his memory as he slowly sat up. “Where have I seen that before?”

 “A book?” Oz guessed flippantly. Lifting his head, he scanned their surroundings. “Where’s Alice?”

 “Hmm?” Still focused on the flower, he glanced around haphazardly. The field was penned with trees, though they were so far out he couldn’t make out their individual shapes. “Maybe in the forest? Or by the bushes?”

 “Alice?” Oz called out, scrambling to his feet despite his aching limbs. There wasn’t a response, just the wind through the trees, and he yelled again, “ALICE!”

 This time, a small voice called out. Gil couldn’t make out the words. To their left, a small figure dashed toward them, growing bigger until he could make out Alice’s bright grin. “Oz!”

 “There you are!” Oz relaxed. Clasping his hands behind him, he acted as though he hadn’t been worried seconds ago. “Where’d you go?”

 “To the berries of course.” Alice snorted, holding out her right hand to reveal a small pile of the very berries they were looking for. “Unlike you lazy bones, I can get the job done.”

 For once, Gil was too tired to argue. He merely plucked on, inspecting it. It was a bright yellow, like the sun, and the leaves had an oval-like shape outlined with prickly points. All in all, it looked just like the ones Break had shown him before. Begrudgingly, he praised her. “Good job.”

 Alice lit up. “It was a good job, right?”

 She beamed happily at him before leaning forward expectantly. Gil sighed and reached out, patting her head. “That’s what I said.”

 She bounced on her feet before she stood up straight once more. “Now we can get big again!”

 Oz gingerly took one berry from her hand, eyeing it thoughtfully. “These are the right ones, right?”

 “Gil just said they were,” Alice pouted, her cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk.

 “If I die, I’m haunting you,” Oz muttered before swallowing the berry. He scowled. “That’s even sweeter.”

 “It’s like honey,” Alice added, utterly enamoured. She ate another one before Gil could stop her.

 “Hey, wait!” Gil snatched the rest of the berries out of her hand. A few were crushed between his fingers, their delicious juices dripping down his fingers. His raised his hand out of her reach. “You don’t know what eating more could do to you.”

 “But it tastes so good,” Alice grumbled, jumping up to grab the sweet treat. When it was obvious that she couldn’t reach, she stomped on his foot.

 “Ouch!” Gil glared at her, stepping back. “You stupid rabbit—”

 “Seaweed head—” Alice growled back.

 “Nothing’s happening,” Oz interrupted smoothly, frowning. He looked at his hands. “I’m not getting taller.” He paused. “Or older.”

 “Why in that order—” Gil shook his head, focusing on the actual issue. He glanced at Alice, who still couldn’t reach his chest, let alone his shoulders. “Alice isn’t either.”

 “That’s strange…” Oz sat down once more, plucking a flower and twirling it between his fingers. “Maybe it takes time?”

 “Or maybe you have to sleep…” Gil trailed off, realization dawning. Crouching, he inspected the flowers once more before covering his mouth. “Cover your mouths!”

 It was too late. He heard a soft thud, followed by another, and he found both Alice and Oz passed out. His own vision was going dark and he silently swore before collapsing as well.

 -x-

 “They’re so cute,” Lacie cooed, tucking a lock behind her ear as she stared down at her daughter and her friends. The trio were curled up together, instinctively seeking each other even when unconscious. “I need a picture.”

 “Lacie,” Oswald murmured, giving her a baleful look as he crouched next to Alice. They were breathing at least. “We need to take them back.”

 “Do we?” Lacie sighed, pouting slightly as she knelt next to Oz. Her puffy dress spread around her like a mushroom. She gently pushed his hair out of his face. “They look so peaceful.”

 Break poked Gil’s cheeks, chuckling. It was obvious they were master and apprentice; their uniforms were far too similar to claim otherwise. “They do. We should draw on their faces.”

 That stopped Oswald and he looked at Break, his expression blank. “What?”

 “It’ll be fun!” Break chuckled, glancing at the field around them. In the day, the flowers were closed, the air crisp and clean. “It’ll be a punishment for not bringing us with them. And for entering this field at night. They should have known better.”

 “Yep.” Lacie nodded sagely, already pulling out a marker from her purse. “These flowers’ scents are like a sleeping spell. They should have remembered.”

 “None of them paid attention to my lessons.” Break raised a sleeve and wiped an imaginary tear.

 “Or my training.” Lacie hunched forward, sighing sadly.

 Already hoisting Alice in his arms, Oswald looked back and forth between the pair. They both looked at him with watery eyes and he flinched.  “I guess…”

 And just like that, they both grinned, pulling out markers from who-knows-where. “Great!” Lacie chirped, drawing a spiral on Oz’s cheek.

 “He’ll never forget,” Break chimed in, giving Gilbert glasses and a mustache.

 Oswald held Alice tighter. Maybe he should just save her and run.

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 8: Accursed

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Eight: Accursed

Note: Oh boy, this chapter was fun to write. It also comes in at my quickest chapter so far, and it’s five-hundred words longer! Two hours! Wow! I’m getting a little bit better at this! But I hope that wasn’t at the cost of grammar… I’ll have to double-check that one.

-~-

There was no need to look to the sky for the answers that they sought. It didn’t take very much intuition to tell that darkness would be upon them within the next two hours or so. The snowy conditions that they found themselves in didn’t help that in any. Cloudy weather always helped make things darker quicker than they normally would be, and that wasn’t something that they had planned ahead for. Still, neither of them was willing to take this little adventure of theirs to the road, light or no light. It simply wasn’t a very good idea.

“At least it’s snowing, right?” morgan asked casually as she wrapped her arms tiger around herself, trying her best to keep the cold wind out. The colder she became, the harder it was to walk, and they needed to get out of there as fast as possible. “What I mean is, the sky is always a little bit lighter when it snows. That might help us see a little better, right? Even if we’re in the woods?”

V considered her statement as he hurried forward, trying his best to ignore the wind that had gradually started to pick up as they carried on. His coat wasn’t thin by any means, but it was getting gradually colder the further the sun sank below the horizon. They were going to have to get out of the open air sooner rather than later if they didn’t want to develop hypothermia or frostbite. But either way, he was at least somewhat sure he understood what she was saying. Or he thought he was.

“You may be onto something there. It does tend to be a little bit lighter, and there isn’t really any meaningful foliage to speak of, especially on the trees.” V glanced up towards the sky, noting that the sun had started to fade, even behind the clouds. A slight glimmer of panic suddenly shot through him. Suddenly the idea of being in a cold, dark forest unnerved him. Perhaps he was just late to react and he’d felt this way all along, but he wasn’t sure that was important right now. “Things might be in our favor in that regard, but the real danger comes from the elements. It’s quite out, isn’t it? Much colder than it was a few minutes ago. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“I know, right? It is super cold out here all of a sudden, isn’t it? I mean, it was never that warm to start with, but this is another kind of cold altogether. Almost reminds me of the curse I was talking about before.” She shivered, forcing herself to hurry forward and closer to V in a hopeless bid to steal a little bit of his residual warmth by being in closer proximity to him. “Oh yea, I didn’t go into that yet, hu? You wanna hear about it now that we’re further from the road?”

He nodded, shivering along with her as he tucked his head down and drew his arms around himself closer. “I’d be willing to believe that there is something supernatural going on in regards to this weather. It feels at least a good ten or so degrees colder than it was before, and that is a lot for the temperature to drop all at once.”

Morgan shrugged and nodded, agreeing. “I’d check my phone and tell you, but I don’t have any reception out here. All I can really do is look at the time. This whole town is a dead zone for my carrier. Grandma used to blame the forest. She blamed everything she couldn’t explain on the forest. It was kinda annoying but funny all at once. I’m gonna miss her.” She looked mournful for a moment, her eye hazel eyes brimming with unshed tears. She wiped her face, the uncomfortable sting of cold air helping to pull her out of her momentary slump. She’d have to save her grief for when they escaped. “It’s probably rude of me to ask, and you don’t have to answer, but do you ever miss your family. I know you never met them, but do you?”

For a moment, V paused, taking several deep breaths. After a moment he wordlessly carried on, looking down towards the ground and then ahead again as though here were physically trying to put the past behind him. It was a touchy topic, and she’d been as tactful as she probably knew how to be when approaching something so sensitive, but it still hurt to contemplate. There were some things that he liked to keep private, and this was one of them. It was very much unlike him to indulge in such deep personal conversation with someone that he genuinely didn’t know very well, but there was something about her that almost compelled him to do so. Maybe it was just the part of him that didn’t like to see a sad child, and he hoped to distract her from the recent tragedy that she’d experienced first hand with his own somewhat painful experiences. He couldn’t imagine what kind of effect seeing your grandparents being murdered in front of you might have on someone. It was a wonder she’d escaped with her life.

Almost instantly, the superstitious corner of his mind considered that outcome a little harder than it needed to, putting him further on edge than he needed to be. Was it possible that she was…? No. There was no way. He’s seen enough horror movies to be able to say with certainty that he was simply falling into the depths of his own paranoia. She’s probably killed one of the men who she’d have to be working with the night before. That wasn’t at all conducive to the kind of tricks she’d have to be pulling on him in order to be in on this entire situation. If anything, they might have let her go in order to follow her, but it would be very illogical for him to believe that she was knowingly in on this plot to destroy the town. He needed to get out of that part of his mind. It didn’t help either of them.

In his momentary lapse of cognizance, he realized that he hadn’t given her any sort of answer. V mentally chastised himself for being impolite again, despite the fact that manners should have been at the bottom of his list of concerts at that given point. “... I tend to get lost in my thoughts, Morgan. Hopefully you’ll forgive my lack of conversation skills. It’s not often that I have long conversations with other people. Or conversations at all.” A sad smirk spread across his face for a moment as he considered the fact that this young teenager probably had a much more active social life than he did. But nothing about his upbringing had encouraged him to make small talk with other people. Quite the opposite. He was simply socially inept to some degree, and that was a fact that he was going to have to reconcile within himself. “I… I do think about them from time to time. And it never becomes less painful. If anything, it hurts more the older I get. It’s the not knowing, I think. Having no answers as to what happened to my parents weighs heavily upon me, but I don’t think I will ever be allowed such closure.”

Morgan gave him a hurt, sad look, taking a moment to brush her sandy brown hair out of her face. The wind refused to allow her to privilege of being able to see clearly, and her hair didn’t help that. She extended her hand with no hesitation, tapping him on his right side as if to gain his attention. V looked back at her, clearly unsure as to what her intentions were. When he noticed that she’d stopped for a moment, he halted and turned to face her, somewhat confused. “I’ve said too much, haven’t I. Forgive me.”

She shook her head, folding her arms. “You have to stop doing that to yourself. The blaming thing, I mean. It’s not your fault. People are just people sometimes. A lot of them are bad, but you deserve to be happy, too. Just don’t wait around for them to give it to you. Nothing good comes from that. Trust me, I know.” She started to walk again, hurrying past V as she tried to step through the deep snow that he normally helped flatten somewhat for her as a result of him walking ahead of her. There was a part of V that actually found it very funny how high she had to step in order to get her legs out of the snow, but he couldn’t imagine that she enjoyed having snow in her boots as a result.

After a moment to consider her words, he hurried after her, quickly supplanting her lead in order to make things easier for her. As much as he enjoyed watching her struggle pointlessly in the snow, he had to admit that it slowed them bot down significantly, and they had fought very hard to make sure that those hooded maniacs stayed as far behind them as possible. Any further delays only helped in their enemy’s favor. “Your right. Maybe a change is in order for both of us. We can start with a change of topic. I’ve love to hear that story now if you’re still willing to tell it to me.”

She shrugged, indifferent either way. “Sounds good to me. I’ve had enough sadness for one day. It’s not a super long story, but I think you’ll probably like it. It’s super spooky!”

V watched as she rested her chin on the backs of her nickels, raising one eyebrow. He wasn’t entirely sure if she was doing this just to mess with him, but he found it entertaining nonetheless. Morgan had a vibrant and interesting personality, and that was something that he appreciated in a situation like this. It helped distract him from the awful reality that he actually did have to walk through this forest and hope that the residents of the next town over were willing to help them. Or that there were any residents left at all. There was still a part of him deep down that had to wonder if there were simply working towards another worse deathtrap. He was pretty sure that neither of them could contend with that outcome in their current state. It was a terrifying reality that he was unable to face at the moment despite the obvious need to do so, and as such, he would redirect his attention to things that scared him considerably less. Once she was done with her story, he would revisit the bleak reality that they currently found themselves in, and try to come up with another contingency plan. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

Morgan nodded in agreement, clearing her throat as quietly as she could. The super-chilled air wasn’t helping her breathing in the slightest, especially with all of this physical exertion added onto it. “Ok, so if I remember correctly it goes something like this. Basically, the land that this town sits on used to belong to a coven of witches like four or five hundred years ago. I think it was more like five hundred years ago. They came here because of some sort of witch hunt or something and they were hiding out to avoid being hunted down and killed wherever they came from. They stayed here for like a decade or something with their families, and then one day a group of settlers tried to move into town and they didn’t want them to so they asked them to leave. Long story short, the locals told the church or something that they were up here, and they were forced to flee, but when they left, the sealed some kind of cursed vault or something in a cave up in the woods, and they cursed the locals. Now every winter when the black clouds roll in, things just kinda go wrong for the town.”

V had to admit that this story was more interesting than he originally assumed it would be. “What kinds of things happen? In what manager do things go “wrong” for the town? I noticed that no one lives closer to the forest than half a mile or so. That’s how I was able to move here so cheaply. The woods weren’t an issue to me, and my landlord was eager to offload the property to someone.”

She nodded, taking his words into account. “I noticed that you lived super close to the woods. Your house is really old. One of the oldest ones around her. People moved into the inner circle decades ago when people started hearing voices in the middle of the night and just started sleepwalking into the woods. They’ve never found anyone who went into the forest alive. And then the farm animals just break the fences at night and run into the forest like something is making them do it. Well, sometimes. Other times, they find like a whole barn door torn off in the night and all the animals are missing their blood and stuff. Supposedly, someone kid went into the woods looking for their missing dog, and when they came back, their family shipped them off to some insane asylum. From what I’ve heard, they didn’t talk anymore. They just sat there and stared at the wall and didn’t move and didn’t react to anything that their family did. It creeped them out really bad. Then one day the dog came back, but they couldn’t find it. They would just hear it barking constantly, but there was never any indication that it was actually there. No paw prints, fur, nothing. It’s super creepy. They moved out after a year or so, and no one has heard from them since. And as for going into the forest…”

He noticed that she’d stopped to look around, an uneasy look on her face. He wondered for a moment if he should ask, certain aspects of her story making him uneasy. “What does the legend say about that?”

Morgan shook her head. “You sure you want to know? It’s pretty creepy, and it affects you way more than it does me.”

V gave her a funny look but nodded in agreement, now more curious than he was before in a morbid sort of way. “You have my attention, so yes. I would like to know.”

The young girl shrugged, seemingly resigned to her fate. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Supposedly the leader of the witches left behind some sort of prophecy. Apparently one day her henchmen would, and I quote, “descent from hell and search for a vessel for their lord, and their lord would rain hellfire down upon the lands, corrupting and rotting everything they touched in recompense for the crimes that they’d committed.” I hear that the original “vessel” was supposed to be that witch’s son who she had with the devil or something, and that because he was killed in the raid that ran them out of town, she said what she said. Either way, it’s spooky because that kid was like your age or so, and guys from the town like to go missing into the woods around their 20th birthday. That’s why all the guys between sixteen and twenty one leave every winter. Your like the only one who’s in town right now, and they tend to just walk off into the woods at night. It’s never really happened with the girls. Just the guys. Some of them said they were called to the place where the vault is located, and then they just disappeared during the night. Some of them even fell to their deaths after being locked in their rooms during the night to avoid this situation. They broke their windows and that was that. Others mysteriously died after being left in their rooms, and none of the doctors were able to figure out why. Those people lived a lot closer to the woods from what I remember.”

Despite his general resolve to consider folklore as just that, he was suddenly very uncomfortable. “They just… disappear? And this has been going on for hundreds of years? Have you seen it happen?”

Morgan looked very creeped out, but nodded in agreement. “My grandparents lived next to the house that the dog people lived in. I used to watch them run around the house looking for it, and I talked to their son once after the accident. He just stared at me, grabbed my arm, and pointed to the woods. Took like ten minutes for his parents to get him to let me go. Left a really bad bruise on my arm. The next day I swear I saw that dog. I’m not kidding. It was just sitting in front of my living room window, looking in at me. It didn’t move or anything, and I swear it was bigger than it had been before. And his eyes were just… black, and ash or dust or something came out of his mouth every time he exhaled like his breath was hot or something. Scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. That was the only time I’ve ever been sent home early, and I didn’t get to come back the next year. Most people got rid of their dogs after that, and from what I’ve heard, cats hate it here. They never go near the windows, and they are always stressed out or scared. A law was passed like three years ago banning them from the city for “health and safety reasons”, but we all knew the real reason.”

V found himself staring at her, actually unnerved by her statement. While it could easily just be the osmosis effect of an active imagination and living next to a house full of people that were clearly going through something mysterious and having to hear about constantly from the adults in her life, there was a part of V that believed that what she said was true. “... I believe you.”

A look of utter shock came across her face as they both subconsciously hurried forward, jogging towards the tops of chimneys now clearly visible ahead of them. They were close now, closer than they’d even been. But to what, neither of them knew. But what they did know was that there was only one way that they could ever find out, and that was to go down the embankment into the area and see for themselves. Even if everything in them was too scared to know the truth, they still needed to know. “Why do you believe me, V. My own mother doesn’t believe me. You have to have a reason, right? Tell me. Please.”

He looked away from Morgan for a moment before turning back towards her as they reached the edge of the woods, stopping to catch their breath for a moment. A sudden feeling of dread gripped V like a chest, threatening to crush every bone in his chest. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve heard whispering coming from the woods at night recently? That I woke up leaned against the fence that surrounds my backyard and couldn’t remember for the life of me how I got there? Because I have. I’m certain that the only reason I wasn’t on the other side of it now is because it’s nearly twice my height.” He shuttered slightly, unwilling but unable to believe anything else. He was far from superstitious, but there was no denying what he’d experienced. I must confess that I’ve been seeing strange things like what you just described seeing with that dog for as long as I can remember. It stopped for a few years when I went to school, but ever since I’ve moved to this town, it’s started again. It’s infrequent, but it still happens. And the strangest part is that for a long time, I forgot that it ever happened. It comes back to me little by little, and I’m not sure what to make of it.”

Morgan stared at him, a concerned look on her face. It was as if he’d just informed her that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She looked down at the roofs below her and then back at him, something unreadable in her eyes. “I won’t pretend to know what’s going on in this town. I don’t know if I even believe in the curse. But I’ve seen enough spooky stuff in this place that I can’t explain to say that if you’re not lying, then we need to walk a little bit faster because that doesn’t sound good. And once we get out of here, I don’t think that either of us should ever come back.”

V nodded, assessing the quickest route forward that wasn’t straight down. They were on uneven ground, and neither of them needed to fall fifty feet to their deaths after coming this far. Mental and physical fatigue suddenly set in as he exhaled heavily, shivering both from their conversation and the elements. “I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with anyone more in my entire life. Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”

-~-

Hey everyone! I hope you liked this chapter! I loved reading your comments on the last chapter! It’s always nice to hear from the people who read my fics. Well, unless they are those lovely people that contact me at least once a month to tell me how much they hate my au, but still. Just needed to get that off of my chest because dear god, it gets so old. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! I’d love to talk to you about them. Maybe I’ll even throw a few inspirations and such for where I got the ideas for this in the notes for the next chapter. I hope you’ve all had a good week so far, and I hope to see you again on Friday. Take care!

[moonguilt]

and maybe i climbed it for you

(Written for the Rolling 20 zine, which I highly encourage you to check out!  Also, huge thank you to @kuranico for collabing with me on this!  Please follow them, they are an incredible artist!)

Pairing: Keith/Lance (and Pike/Thunderstorm Darkness)

Wordcount: 5023

Read on my AO3 here!

---------

“Hey there, big boy,” Pike purred, leaning in with his eyes lidded.  “I don't think I've seen many men in this area quite as ... muscular and rugged as yourself.”  His eyes twinkled as he flashed a wink and caught his lower lip between his teeth.  “In fact, I think some free time just opened up in my schedule.  What do you say … you … me … a little privacy?”  He slowly extended a hand, fingers gentle and searching—

———

“I cast Moonbeam.”

“Very well, Keith, please roll for—”

“Hey!” Lance sputtered indignantly, hands flying up in the air as Keith, looking all too leisurely where he sat at Lance's side, reached for the twenty-sided die.  “I was about to seduce him!  I rolled a seventeen!”  He snatched the die right before Keith could grab it, turning it to the side with the number “17” and shoving it in Keith's face for emphasis.  “You can't just barge in and attack him!  I was—I was—”  He let out a groan of sheer aggravation.  “I was really getting into character, too!”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Pidge piped up from across the table, leaning on her elbows and watching Lance's antics with a bored expression on her face.  “Ew, by the way.  Get a room next time.”

“I was trying!”

Keith just rose an unimpressed eyebrow at Lance, then wordlessly plucked the die from his fingers—Lance's skin tingled where their hands made contact—and tossed it onto the table, where it rattled around for a second before coming to a halt.

“Ah! Another seventeen!” Coran exclaimed, a cheery lilt to his voice, unfazed by Lance's huffing and puffing nearby.  “Very good, then, Keith.  So …”

———

Pike was generally not one for heroic quests.  He found them interesting, sure—but he wasn't one to be persuaded by the mere promise of noble accolades.  Money and fun, though—those were motivators he could get behind.  A little (or, well, a lot of) cash and a bit of adventure was all it took to catch his attention, and he prided himself on showing off his genius plans and his uncanny ability to outmaneuver the enemy.

He had agreed to join up with this traveling group on their mission to defeat something called a Xloraznor under the condition that he would: a) receive a sparkling heap of silver coins as his cut of the reward, and b) get to satisfy his thrill-seeking, wanderlust desires to his heart's content.

He considered his flirting skills to be not only top-notch, but also an essential part of his ideal adventure fantasy, and so it was getting on his nerves that a certain companion of his seemed incapable of letting him do his job.  Every time he attempted to charm his way past an enemy encounter, the party's obnoxious druid decided to attack the target instead, like some kind of boneheaded barbarian.  It was denying Pike any opportunity to show off his brilliant seduction skills, and it was making this journey much longer and more combat-heavy than it needed to be.

“Aren't druids supposed to, like, value life and all that?” Pike grumbled, kicking pebbles as the group trekked through the Forest of Clianuun on their way to Elmora-by-the-Falls.  “I thought that was your whole thing.”

Thunderstorm Darkness, in all his ridiculous, brooding glory, did not even spare Pike a glance as he stepped over a fallen branch and continued following the others toward a faint sound of running water.  “Do I look like that kind of druid?” he replied dryly, his tone flat.

Pike gave him a quick once-over.  Thunderstorm certainly had the animalistic qualities of a stereotypical druid, but admittedly not the nurturing, life-loving ones.  His attire was dark and rugged, revealing enough to expose rather dangerous-looking muscles along his arms, which started off pale and faded into dark black hands with vicious claws—a notable sign, along with his pointed ears and glowing silver eyes, of the galra blood in his veins.  His jet black hair fell in a braid down to his knees, and long bangs framed his angular face, which was decorated in red paint that Pike still suspected might have traces of enemy blood in it.  Thunder always seemed offended at the implication, but hey, he was the one giving off constant murder-vibes.

In all honesty, Pike probably would have protested Thunder’s place in their group by now, if it weren’t for the mildly annoying fact that he found the druid to be unfairly attractive.  It wasn’t his fault, okay?  Really, who walks around with their biceps just hanging out for the world to see?

“… Guess not,” Pike eventually muttered beneath his breath, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.  He opened his mouth, ready to formulate some off-the-cuff insult—

“Look!” Valayun's voice rang out ahead.  “There it is! Elmora-by-the-Falls!”  She pointed through the foliage and took off into the brush, and a moment later, her gasp sounded in the distance.  “Oh, it's beautiful …”

Eager to lay eyes on whatever Valayun was gushing about, the rest of the party picked up the pace and pushed their way through a swath of hanging fern-like vines.  What they saw when they emerged on the other side was … well, Pike thought “beautiful” was an astonishing understatement on Valayun's part.

Pristine marble towers stretched high into the sky, rivaling the treeline and glinting in the afternoon sunlight.  Vibrant pink ivy climbed up their shining surfaces, and expertly secured rope bridges connected the peaks of each tower so that citizens could easily commute from one to the next.  Flowers of all shapes and colors grew along the ropes and spilled down in great draping clusters to hang over the streets and houses below.  The buildings on the ground level looked like giant, upturned clay pottery—ruddy orange and round, with symmetrical designs carved all over the outsides.  No two houses looked the same.

The entire town of Elmora-by-the-Falls was bordered by a three-foot-tall hedge that was home to a species of flying bug that glowed violet, even in the daytime.  They buzzed, but not like bees—almost like birds, actually; their humming had a lovely sort of melody.  Pike found himself perking his ears just to catch the tune.

Beyond the grand display was the town's namesake: Clianuun Falls.  It was magnificent and awe-inspiring: bright blue water catching every ray of the sun as it tumbled over the crest of the cliff side against which Elmora-by-the-Falls was nestled.  The water drummed ceaselessly into a pool below, which then flowed out into a small river that burbled playfully as it trailed off into the forest.

Once the party managed to break themselves out of their trance, they started tentatively moving toward the town gate, staying quiet for fear of shattering the tranquility of the scene before them.  Even so, the purple bugs scattered to avoid the group, and as they passed by the riverbank, a pair of water sprites stopped dancing along the surface and chirped to each other before flying further downstream.

“This place is so pretty I could cry,” Block breathed, gripping his staff tightly with both hands—a nervous habit of his.  He sniffed once, and his lip quivered.  “Aw, man, I am crying!”

Meklavar patted him on the back, as high up as she could reach.  “Keep it together, Block,” she warned, her eyes alert.  “Just because it's pretty and flowery doesn't mean it's friendly.  Some species of flower are known for being beautiful, but will spit poison in your face if you aren't—”

“Relax, Mekky-Mek,” Pike said, then winced when Meklavar shot him a glare.  “Yeah, okay, the nickname could use some work.  Anyway!”  As they neared the gate, he turned around, opting to walk backwards while he fixed the dwarf with a cocky grin.  “I'm something of an expert in mood-reading.  And this place?”  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  “Good vibes, my small, cynical friend.”  His tail swished back and forth at a lazy pace.  “This is gonna be a piece of cake.  We drop in, get what we need, maybe meet a few lovely—aiee!”

Pike jumped a full two feet in the air when he felt his back press against something solid and distinctly person-shaped.  He scrambled for balance and spun around, finding himself face-to-face with a grim-looking guard in a full suit of armor.  Her hand was gripped tightly around a halberd, and her eyes spoke of danger.

“Outsiders are not welcome in Elmora-by-the-Falls,” she intoned in a deep, gravelly voice.  “You will leave now.”  She raised her halberd and slammed the butt of the weapon into the ground, making a sharp cracking noise that had Pike covering his sensitive ears.

“Gah!  Hey, no no no no,” he protested, ears now flat against his head.  “I—uh.”  He cleared his throat, put on his best, most charming smile, and batted his eyes up at the woman.  “I'm sure there's something I could do to convince you …”

She met his sultry gaze with a hard stare.

Pike winced a little, but recovered quickly.  “You know … some kind of … arrangement, between you and me?”  He slowly, slowly licked his lips.  “You'll find I have many talents … especially in the—”

———

“I cast Moonbeam.”

“Wha—Keith!”  Lance clambered over the table, his long limbs flailing as he grabbed the die before Keith could so much as twitch.  “Stop ruining my class fantasy!”  His eyes were blazing with genuine annoyance as he shimmied back into his seat, clutching the die to his chest protectively.  “I have very high charisma!  This is supposed to be my thing!”

Keith returned Lance's glare with one of his own.  “Has it occurred to you that maybe my class fantasy doesn't involve sitting here watching you flirt relentlessly with every single NPC we come across?” he retorted, then reached a hand out toward Lance's closed fist.

“Back!” Lance objected, smacking at Keith's intrusive fingers with his free hand while lifting the one with the die as far away from Keith as he could.  “Back, you monster!”  His arm protested the strain, but he held strong as Keith started grappling with him, trying to pull the die-hand back down while Lance smooshed a palm into his face.  It would have been easier if Lance’s traitorous heart wasn’t beating rapidly in its cage at the physical contact, but … he wasn’t complaining.  In fact—

And then Keith stood up, and Lance realized:

Oh.  That's not good.

Lance shrieked and pulled his hand back down to his chest, turning away and curling into a ball with his precious die tucked securely against his sternum.  He managed to remain impervious to Keith's prodding for a few moments, until Keith decided to switch to the tickling tactic, at which point Lance broke down into laughter and gasped for mercy.  Keith, like the absolute demon he was, just smiled.

“… As entertaining as I'm sure this is for both of you,” Shiro spoke up, causing Keith to choke on his own spit while Lance willed his cheeks to cool down, “I have a Zumba class with Adam in an hour and I still need to get changed, so I'd appreciate it if we could keep things moving.”  His mouth quirked with faint amusement, but his eyes betrayed his exhaustion.

Keith sat back down and turned to Lance, raising an eyebrow expectantly.  He outstretched his hand, palm up, and made the universal “give it here” motion.

Lance grumbled as he pulled himself upright, pursing his lips and eyeing Keith contemplatively for a moment.  “Actually,” he said, his lips twisting into a smirk just as Keith's started to twist into a scowl.  “Coran, I have an idea.”  His heartbeat was still recovering from earlier, but he managed to slip on a cocky facade.  “So, you wanna go around killing everyone I flirt with, huh?”

Keith's frown deepened with confusion.

Lance's grin spread.

Keith's eyes widened.

———

“Why, Thunder, has anyone ever told you your eyes are like the sparkling gemstones of the Ilygia Mountains?” Pike inquired, sidling up to the druid's side as the others watched with expressions that ranged from surprise to intrigue to disgust.

Thunderstorm's face darkened with a flush that crept from his throat to his ears—

———

“My character would not blush!”

“I'm sorry, Keith, but that was a very good roll,” Coran admitted, looking up from the game.  “Thunder isn't immune to Pike's advances.”  He shrugged helplessly, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

———

“I love this outfit of yours, Thunder … It shows off your delicious biceps … How did you get so strong?”

“After my older sister was killed by a band of Arovian brigands, I swore to train every day so I could avenge—”

———

“Coran!  You can't just reveal my character's origin story without my consent!”

“My dear boy, Pike is quite the charismatic fellow!  Now, where were we?  You begin to feel like you can truly trust Pike with your heart's deepest secrets …”

“Hold on.  Lance, gimme that stupid die.  Coran, I'm rolling to seduce.”

———

If anyone had told Pike at breakfast this morning that he would be flirting with Thunderstorm Darkness before sundown, he would have laughed it off entirely.  The druid was as prickly as they came, and he had acquired a nasty habit of relying on violence for, well, everything.  Not exactly the safest target for Pike's romantic endeavors.  Sure, he was admittedly a handsome man, but he seemed like the type to bite Pike's hand off if he got too close.

But, here Pike was.

With his hand.  On Thunder's cheek.  In broad daylight.

This was meant to be a joke—a brief reprieve to lighten the mood and perhaps get that stuffy guard to crack a smile.

And now Pike was falling in love.  Which, first of all, what?  It was only a few minutes ago that he had started flirting for fun, but things turned very serious very quickly, and now suddenly he was practically swooning as Thunder turned his head to press his lips to the palm of Pike's hand.  Again, what?  If someone told him right now that some omnipotent force had waved a magic wand and decreed the two to be head-over-heels for one another, Pike would probably believe it.

Whatever the case, Pike was never one to question the power of true love.  And as Thunder fixed him with a heavy-lidded stare, dark and intense and enamored, Pike felt the words tumble out of his mouth before he could stop them:

“Will you marry me?”

———

“Oh my God,” Hunk whispered, biting his fist and watching with wide eyes.  “Oh my God, he went for it.”

Lance puffed out his chest, ignoring the blush that he felt flooding his face.  “That's right,” he declared, placing his arms behind his head and leaning back on the couch.  “I went for it.”  He fixed Keith with his laziest smirk, letting his left knee knock into Keith's right leg teasingly.  “I win.”

Lance thought Keith was sure to burn a hole in both of their legs from how hard he was staring at the point of contact, but instead, he just turned an unreadable gaze toward Lance and said, “Oh really?”

Lance's smirk faltered.

Keith didn't look away.  “Coran, I say …”

———

“Yes.”

Pike's blood pounded in his veins as the words reached his ears.  He blinked owlishly at Thunder, feeling his heart overflow with immeasurable joy, and suddenly beamed.  “Yes?” he repeated in awe, his smile blinding as he leaned in close.  Thunder's expression was fond and doting as he mirrored the movement, tilting his head as his lips grew closer to Pike's—

“What a joyous occasion!”

Pike and Thunder pulled back a bit, exchanging a bewildered glance before looking over toward the gate.  There stood, of all people, the guard from earlier—surrounded now by a small crowd of Elmoran citizens.  Her face stretched into a broad, happy grin as she regarded the pair, and the crowd, which consisted mostly of humans and a handful of elves, erupted in cheers.

“Congratulations,” she announced, stepping toward Pike and Thunder, both of whom were mildly frazzled by the shouting.  “Elmora-by-the-Falls is most honored that you have chosen our town as the location of your engagement.  Truly, we are humbled and grateful beyond words for your kindness this day.”  She laid a hand on both of their shoulders, her expression warm and inviting.  “Please, allow us to welcome you into our home.  You and your companions are our most treasured guests.”

Pike was still stunned into silence, but after a quick jab from Thunder, he nodded swiftly.  “Uh, yeah! Yes. Totally.”  He hurried to catch up as the guard spun around and marched off toward the town.  Finally, he and Thunder managed to spare a look over their shoulders.  The rest of the party just gaped, wordlessly shuffling forward as excited citizens began beckoning them all through the gates.

Elmora-by-the-Falls was even more splendid from the inside, Pike decided as he followed the guard through the winding cobblestone streets.  He looped an arm around Thunder's elbow and peered about in amazement, blinking as small children ran past them with cries of “a wedding! A wedding!”  Citizens stopped in the street to gawk at the procession, and soon people started emerging from their round, engraved houses to offer well-wishes and words of gratitude.  The children returned a few minutes later with two long necklaces made of pink ivy from the towers, and Pike graciously accepted both of them when Thunder failed to do anything other than squint in confusion.

“Thunder,” Pike admonished, donning his own necklace and then reaching to put the other one on the druid.  “It's a necklace. You wear it on your neck, stupid.”  Pike winced and shook his head all of a sudden.  “I mean, sweetheart.”  Weird.

———

“Ugh,” Lance groaned, planting his head on the table after his little slip-up with Pike's dialogue.  “This is too hard.  Let's get a divorce.”

“We're not married yet, 'sweetheart.'”

“Don't you 'sweetheart' me, sweetheart,” Lance grouched, peeling his face from the table and jabbing an accusatory finger in Keith's direction.  “This would never have happened if you hadn't tried to turn this into a flirting competition.”

Keith hummed, leaning back in his seat and picking at his gloves with an air of fake casualness.  “Well, at least this answers the question of who wins.”  His eyes, aglow with the glint of challenge, darted in Lance's direction.  Lance's throat suddenly felt quite dry. “Since you're throwing in the towel.”

Lance opened his mouth once, shut it, opened it again, then began making blustery noises of inarticulate indignation.  There was no way he could let Keith win at romance.  He would never live it down.

“Uh, no no,” Hunk interrupted, frowning sternly at the two of them.  “Nobody's throwing in the towel.  In case you've forgotten, the sorceress told us we need Clia Root from this place, and the only reason we're allowed to set foot here right now is because you two—”  He pointed at them both emphatically.  “—are gonna make moon eyes at each other and smooch under a flower pot or wash your armpits in the Clianuun Falls or whatever these guys do to celebrate a wedding.”  His voice and expression left no room for argument.

Lance grimaced at the mental image, but nevertheless turned to meet Keith's gaze.  They both stared at each other for a moment, then simultaneously nodded in silent agreement.

———

So, it turned out that weddings were kind of a huge deal in Elmora-by-the-Falls.  Like, a monumental deal.  Pike had done some asking around while he was being whisked through the streets.

According to Elmoran tradition, marriage was not something to be taken lightly.  It was extremely rare for romantic partners to decide to join each other in union; the vast majority of Elmoran people spent their whole lives unmarried, to the extent that there was, on average, only one wedding per decade in Elmora-by-the-Falls.  A wedding was said to bring the town spiritual favor and good luck for an entire year afterwards, so when someone did get married, it was received with overwhelming joy by the general populace.

It just so happened that Elmora-by-the-Falls had not hosted a wedding for thirteen long years.  They were practically itching to get the ceremony started, and so it was not long before Pike and Thunder found themselves shoved out onto a marble balcony by a plethora of eager hands.

The balcony was already meticulously arranged: a sturdy burgundy cloth canopy swayed in the breeze overhead, acting as a sort of ceiling, and holes had been cut in the fabric to allow flowering vines to drape down in various places.  The edge of the balcony was lined with a shorter variant of the bushes that bordered the town; the strange little purple bugs glowed as they flitted around harmlessly.  The sun was beginning to set now, so their glow was more prominent against the backdrop of Elmora-by-the-Falls at evening time.  To the left, the waterfall roared; it was far enough not to be an inconvenience to the ceremony, but close enough to cast a fine, cooling mist that Pike reveled in.

The centerpiece, however, was the small white table set up at the edge of the balcony.  It was simple and square, about two feet high, and on its surface sat two small wooden bowls, a pitcher of water, and an array of sparkling powders whose rich and varied hues reminded Pike of a spice stall.

Pike and Thunder shared a look, then instinctively reached for each other's hands—because that was a thing now, them being stupidly in love—before approaching the table.  A cheery old Elmoran woman followed behind, hurrying them along, while the rest of the party spread out to the sides of the balcony and watched with a mixture of fascination and wariness.

“There you go, you two, right up to the front,” the old woman babbled, then grabbed them and turned them to face each other.  “Now, you see the soul dust?”  She gestured to the wooden display piece that held all of the powders in little carved-out holes.  Pike shot a look of alarm toward Thunder and mouthed “soul dust” at him, but the woman either did not notice or did not care.  “You will select the soul dust that you feel best embodies your partner.  It must be an instinctive decision.  Follow what you are most drawn to.”  One crooked finger pointed at the pitcher of water.  “You will use the pitcher to fill the bowls with the waters of Clianuun Falls.”  The finger shifted down toward the two small bowls.  “And then you will pinch your chosen powder into your bowl.  It will disperse in the water, and you will drink it.”

Pike waited for her to continue.

She did not.

“Is that it?” Thunder spoke up, voicing Pike's own confusion.

The woman huffed indignantly.  “Is that it?” she repeated, shaking her head and tutting as she turned around and hobbled off to the seats in the back.  “The boy is about to bind his soul in sacred matrimony, and he asks, 'Is that it?'”  Her muttering became unintelligible as she lowered herself into a plush chair.

Thunder blinked once at her, then turned back to Pike with a glimmer of determination in his eye.  “Ready?”  He squeezed Pike's hand briefly before finally dropping it.

Pike flashed him his most swoon-worthy grin.  “Born ready, baby!”  He whirled around to face the table and immediately grabbed the pitcher, pouring it into his bowl—and into Thunder's, because he was a gentleman, of course.  He wasted no time in inspecting the powders; he knew exactly what he wanted, and he spotted it instantly: a bright vermilion, twinkling like fairy dust.  With delicate precision, he transferred several pinches of the substance into his bowl and gasped as the water took on a glittering red color and began to emit a beautiful glow.

Thunder seemed similarly certain of his choice—an azure powder, Pike noted with no small amount of intrigue—but far less concerned with finesse.  He was just scooping the stuff into his bowl as if he was seasoning soup.  It was maddening, but it was also very Thunder, and for some reason that was no longer a negative assessment.

Thunder's water swirled into a shimmering blue, then started glowing just as Pike's had. The druid let out a soft “oh” and waited for a second, then gently—surprisingly gently, considering his manhandling of the soul dust—cupped the bowl in his hands and cradled it in front of his chest.  He turned to face Pike again, waiting for the man to mirror him, and when he did, they both stood there, suspended for a long moment.  Their gazes flickered quietly between the bowls and each other.

“Well,” Pike finally chirped, taking a deep breath.  “Bottoms up.”  He knocked the whole thing back in one go, coughing a bit when it went down the wrong way; Thunder merely watched with amusement and tipped his own bowl back, and their Elmoran audience erupted with praise.  “Eurgh,” Pike groaned, wincing at the flavor.  “Your soul tastes weird.”  He raised his hands in a placating fashion when he caught Thunder's flat look.  “But like, weird in a good way!  You know, in a romantic way!”

Thunder, impatient as ever, simply grabbed Pike's bowl, stacked it over his own, set them both down on the table, and placed his clawed hands on Pike's hips.  “I want to kiss you now,” he stated honestly and with no hesitation.  His lips glowed with a faint blue gloss—the remnants of his soul dust concoction.  It made Pike's heart stutter.

“Wh—uh—”  Pike paused for a second to regain himself.  “Um.”  He watched as Thunder tilted his head, his gaze penetrating and inquisitive as he waited for permission.  His eyes dipped to Pike's mouth.  Pike swallowed.  Waited.  And then: “Yes.”  And then again: “Yes yes yes yes.  Come here.  Yes.”

And Pike marveled at the rumbling laughter that escaped Thunder's lips as he leaned in, more than happy to oblige.

———

“Sorry, everyone, but I think that's all we have time for tonight,” Coran announced, his tone predictably peppy as he reached across the table to collect the various devices and dice that had gotten scattered about over the course of the previous couple of hours.  “An excellent session, if I do say so myself.  At this rate, you'll get that Clia Root in no time!”

“What?!” Lance interjected, rising to his feet.  He barely noticed as Keith stood with him.  “We only just got to kiss!  You can't just cut it off there!”  He spread his arms with outrage, smacking Keith in the chest by accident.  Oh, Lance thought absently.  That’s a nice chest.

Rather than bat the hand away, Keith said, “Lance is right.  We're in the middle of an action.  We should finish the scene.”  His mouth was set in a firm line, and his brows were drawn together in a display of resoluteness.  It was oddly attractive.

God, Lance was starting to find Keith's stupid eyebrows attractive.  How far he had fallen.

“Hm,” Allura began, a mischievous, faux-thoughtful lilt to her voice.  “I thought you two weren't enjoying this?”  Her expression was innocent enough, aside from the hint of a smile that she tried to hide by busying herself with gathering her belongings.  “Did something change?”

Lance squawked and turned to the others for help, but the traitors seemed preoccupied with grabbing their things and getting out.  “This is—it's not—”  He folded his arms across his chest and glared as Hunk, Pidge, and Allura, gave casual little waves and strolled through the door as if Lance was not currently having a crisis.  Hel-lo.

He was so caught up in his indignation that he failed to analyze Keith's silence as they all packed up and prepared to leave.  It wasn't until Lance was halfway out the door that he paused and turned around, only to find that Keith had followed him, that easily-identifiable Keith-brand of concentration plain on his face.  Still reeling from his embarrassment, Lance was seized by the conflicting impulses of wanting to crawl into a hole and die, and wanting to keep staring until his eyes fell out of their sockets, because—

Because Keith was blushing.  Wow.  What a sight.  It was darker around his neck, fainter around his jaw, and bright as a cherry on the smooth skin just below his cheekbones, where it mottled like sunlight on an ocean floor.

“Hey,” he said.

“… Hey,” Lance replied.

“Do you want to grab dinner with me?”  He looked like he was sucking on a particularly sour lemon.  It would have been funny if it wasn't mildly alarming.  “I was thinking we could talk some things over.”  His head was held high, but his hands were shoved in his pockets awkwardly, like he couldn't decide what to do with them.  “For—you know, for our characters.”

Lance felt his throat tie itself into a knot, twisting around at the base of his neck.  He regarded Keith for a moment, trying to read this odd behavior while simultaneously trying to convince himself this is not a date, McClain; you guys hang out all the time.  Get your head out of Elmora-by-the-Falls.  He thought he did a pretty credible job of ignoring the fluttering of his heart and keeping his expression neutral as he said, “Yeah, man.  Sure.”  He lifted his shoulders in a huge shrug.  Oo, no. Overkill.  His shoulders sank back down.  Casual.  Chill.

“Cool,” Keith breathed with a smile, like he could just do that, like it was simple.

And maybe it was.

“Yeah,” Lance replied, turning toward the exit and burying his own smile in the collar of his jacket. “Cool.”

———

“Hey, Coran?”

“Why, yes, Shiro?  How can I help?”

“Didn't you say you came up with all of these plots in your head?  Did you just … invent the whole sacred marriage tradition on the spot?”

“Shiro, my dear friend, sometimes one must guide the hand of fate.”

[goldleafacrossyourlips]

Uneasy Lies the Head - Dark Lord/OC - CAOS - Chapter 2

Chapters - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13

Chapter 2 - A Spoonful of Cyanide Helps the Medicine go Down

Nothing helped strengthen family bonds like good ol fashioned murder. So when her Auntie Hilda asked for help lacing her almond cookies with cyanide, Samara hopped to it. Most people would expect Zelda of being the family member to lean towards murder, and they weren’t wrong. Many people overlooked cheery Hilda, expecting her to sooner burst into tears rather than take a violent course of action. How wrong those poor souls were. Aunt Hilda’s advantage was that people underestimated her and didn’t expect much from her. 

So when Aunt Hilda brought her guest into the parlour, Samara made sure to stick to the shadows that always welcomed her, to watch. 

Will you walk into my parlour said the spider to the fly. The poem passed quickly through Samara’s thoughts and she held back a snicker. It felt like watching the poem come to life as she watched their guest and Hilda sit. The plate of cookies sat so unassumingly between the two and Samara was practically vibrating in anticipation. Hearing about how this jealous woman had tried to bully her Aunt Zelda made the oncoming revenge that much sweeter. Watching Sister Jackson bring the innocent looking cookie to her lips, Samara felt unholy glee mounting within her and then a royal sense of satisfaction as the cookie crumbled into her mouth.

She could sense the shadows around her becoming affected by her mood. They twisted and twirled around her, wishing to partake in what she was. Samara gathered power to calm the shadows and bring them back to peace. She used them to slip into the kitchen and whispered to them as she always did.

Ever since she could remember the shadows had always been an entity to her. Yes, as witches they often used shadows to do their bidding; however with Samara it was like the shadows were a creature all of their own. When she had still lived with her mother Samara had often used the shadows as a way of hiding from the quick-to-anger woman. They were actually the reason she had ended up with the Spellman’s. 

She remembered how the shadows had been quick to wrap her up when her mother had struck her one time too many. They’d made everything dark and quiet, but she could still sense the penny copper and the slick warmth of blood as they did what they wanted to the evil woman. She remembered the way they teleported her through themselves, it was like sliding through clouds with ice nipping her toes and sun warming her cheeks. When she’d been able to blink her eyes and see, she’d been in a cozy parlour with two women staring at her open-mouthed. 

From then on she’d been Samara Spellman. Zelda and Hilda took a child materializing in a cloud of shadows quite well. Once the little girl had given information on who her mother was and they’d found the woman dead, Zelda, Hilda and Edward had easily taken her into their fold. So at the tender age of 4, she’d become a Spellman and the family had accepted all of her little quirks.

Edward out of the 3 siblings, had been a bit more cautious with or of her than the others. Internally he was bothered that he found a mere 4 year old to be cautious of. But, he could sense something strange about her. Setting aside the fact that oftentimes the girls visage would seem smothered by shadows; which he and his sisters learned were not just effects of the light, but seemed to react to the toddler like a creature all of their own. Not only did the shadows seem to warp her with physical darkness, there seemed to be some type of darkness that clung to and surrounded her aura. The reason Edward Spellman had accepted the estranged toddler in so easily, was contributed to when her quicksilver eyes had met his. In that moment, he felt like he could see all. He could see the darkness that lingered in her soul, the pain she had endured, the hope of her future with them, the loneliness, the gentleness and the sheer intelligence she’d stand to gain. What little he could sense of her aura and power, Edward knew that Samara would grow into a fearsome Witch that would one day do great things with the darkness that clung to her. So she became a part of the Spellman family and the rest was history.

“Sweetheart? Help me take out the trash please!” Aunt Hilda’s voice broke her from her reminiscing. Samara laughed to herself at her Auntie’s choice of words.

Samara took herself into the parlour where their undearly departed guest wait. She looked at the woman dispassionately and praised her Aunt for a job well done.

“Did she have a hint of what was happening?” Samara’s voice still held some of the unholy glee that filled her before Sister Jackson ate the cookie. Hilda looked up in slight confusion from where she was beginning to dispose of the rest of the sweets.

“Weren’t you in the corner the whole time, darling? I could’ve sworn that’s where you were when I brought her in.” Hilda mumbled the end to herself. Samara felt herself tense slightly as she normally did whenever she had to explain something about her Shadows.

“I was in the beginning. But They started to get unsettled so We went into the kitchen so I could calm them down. I didn’t want Them ruining the fun.” Samara’s voice was soft as she busied herself with getting ready to grab the dead woman to drag her to the cemetery. 

“Ahh, I see. Well, I’m sorry you had to miss the fun. Now, let me get these in the bin and we’ll start digging, yes?” Aunt Hilda had always accepted any of Samara’s quirks in stride and Samara was always grateful for it. Sabrina was always uncomfortable when Samara mentioned her Shadows. Ambrose and Aunt Zelda were on the accepting but cautious side. They understood that the Shadows were a part of Samara but they’d rather not hear any tales of what they’d done or could do. Samara was easy to oblige.

She didn’t wait for her Aunt to return from cleaning up their afternoon activity. Samara grabbed the dead body by the arms and with gentle coaxing to her Shadows, they helped her lug the woman outside. She had just settled the woman next to where her resting spot would be when Aunt Hilda joined her outside. Her Aunt brought with her two shovels. With a quick smile towards one another, they began to dig. Samara felt irritation rise as her black hair kept falling over her shoulder and getting in her face. By the time she’d made the decision to pull it up, 6 feet of dirt had already been moved and they were rolling the body into the emptiness. 

Samara and her Aunt chatted idly while they replaced the removed dirt. Zelda’s wedding the next day was a frequent topic. They spoke of how Hilda was going to help her prepare tonight and what to expect of the next day. By the time they finished replacing the soil, they were both covered in smears of dirt and grim. They parted to their separate rooms to freshen up, or in Aunt Hilda’s case, to get ready to leave.

“Alright, there’s some pasta in the pantry and juice in the fridge, and sweets on the counter. Non-poisoned sweets I mean. And I’ll just be at the Academy if you need anything. Oh, I feel awful leaving, my love. You just got here and here I am, leaving you all on your own.” Aunt Hilda was fretting. Samara giggled at her Aunt’s antics.

“I’m not a child Auntie. I’m sure I’ll be able to manage. Besides, Sabrina will be here with me tonight. And I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. I want to see Auntie Z before she walks down the aisle.” Samara wrapped her Aunt Hilda up in a tight hug and wished her luck on helping Aunt Zelda prepare. Aunt Hilda departed with a kiss to the forehead. Silence descended the house. Samara sighed heavily and leaned against the kitchen counter. She gazed out the window as the sun began to set. Phlox sat at her side and took in his surroundings. Samara perked up as an idea crossed her mind.

“Let’s go look and see what Aunt Hilda has in her garden before it gets too dark, Phlox.” Samara leaned down to pat her familiar on his head before walking outside. The air was cool but she didn’t plan on staying out too long to need her coat. Phlox bounded ahead of her and disappeared into the foliage. Samara shook her head with a laugh and strided over to the garden. She felt her Shadows brush her legs as they darted from under the flower bushes in the dying light. Amusement tingled her as she pursued the lovely collection of flowers, herbs and nature her Aunt tended to. 

A beautiful purple Crocus caught her eye as she’d been fawning over the Belladonna. She was leaning down to inhale it’s delicate scent when some Edelweiss floated before her. Samara caught them and looked at the flock of them to her right. She was curious as to how they’d managed to float towards her but chucked it up to her Shadows being mischievous. She gathered the loose ones into her hand and headed back inside. She called to Phlox to let him know where she’d gone but the fox familiar remained outside, probably chasing some poor rodent or another. 

Samara decided to spend her time waiting for her cousin to come home, by using her newfound Edelweiss and brewing some anti-nausea potions. She gathered all her supplies and set to work. As she quickly got lost in the flow of her favourite pastime, time flew by. Before she knew it, just as she was bottling up her brew, Sabrina was gliding through the door. Samara smiled at her white-haird cousin. And wasn’t that something to get used to. 16 years of her cousin being blonde and all of a sudden over one evening, her hair is white as bone. Samara quite liked the new look. As well as the bold red lipstick she religiously applied now too. Samara liked to contribute the red lipstick to being something she wore off onto her cousin, seeing as she had been wearing dark red lipstick for as long as she’d started wearing makeup.

“‘Mara! I forgot you were coming in today! I’m so glad you’re home.” Sabrina rounded the counter to embrace Samara. With a ladle in one hand and a sealed bottle in the other, Samara wrapped her arms around her cousin and squeezed. Samara had been close to her little cousin as they grew up, no matter the 5 year age gap. They’d formed a friendship outside of the familial one they shared as cousins. They’d been thick as thieves growing up and had given their family plenty of headaches. They’d become less in tune with one another since Samara had left Greendale, but the love and safety they’d shared with one another still remained. 

“I’m glad to be here too ‘Brina. How’ve you been?” Samara pulled away from Sabrina and set her instruments down and began to clean up her mess. Sabrina sat down across the counter and filled her in on what had been happening.

“So I found out that my dad created a manifesto. He was trying to modernize the Church and have the Coven become more progessive! He went on about how it’s not only okay for Witches to be with Mortals, but it’s encouraged! How Mortals and Witches share a home and destiny. How women should be revered as matriarchs. And so much more! I presented it to the Anti-Pope before Father Blackwood could present his manifesto.” Sabrina’s eyes lit up as she talked about her father’s ideals. Samara felt herself warm as she learned of her uncle’s thoughts. However, any warm feelings she might have felt were purged as Sabrina spoke of Blackwood.

“Blackwood’s manifesto. What manifesto? What did it contain?” Samara’s voice could not conceal her loathing towards the man. Sabrina’s face fell into a frustrated frown.

“He’s created a society, called the Judas Society. It’s named after his son and made up of only Warlocks. He wants to throw the Coven into the Old Ages and traditionalize it. His manifesto is full of Witches subjugating themselves to the Warlocks. How Mortals are disgusting and we shouldn’t interact with them. How Warlocks should rule over the Mortals. Ridiculous, vile thoughts.” Sabrina spat out Blackwood’s terms. Samara’s face held disgust as she heard her cousin’s words. Satan help her before she ever bowed before a man like Faustus Blackwood. Samara could see her Shadows swirl on the walls around them as they reacted to her mood. She was quick to calm herself so they wouldn’t off put Sabrina. 

“Well, if the Anti-Pope has a lick of sense, he’ll pick your father’s manifesto. Heaven, he might even get rid of Blackwood.” Samara grinned at her last statement. Both girls knew it wouldn’t happen but who could blame them for hoping.

The two young women began catching up on what they’d missed in the other's life. Sabrina had had many life changing experiences within the time they’d last mirror-scryed. Samara was content to hear all the changes. Her cousin told her about her Mortal and Witch friends. Samara was happy that she had both and to hear that Sabrina had a new crush. Nicholas Scratch sounded like a good Warlock for Sabrina.

“What about you Samara? Anything interesting happen in your life lately?” Sabrina prodded at her cousin. Samara had a smile gracing her lips.

“Nothing interesting really happens in Vain, Sabrina. It’s pretty much the same day in and day out. I go out and collect ingredients for my brews and craft. I make my potions and such. Sell them to who needs it. And that’s it. I might get the occasional curious mortal trying to snoop about but Phlox takes care of them.” Samara kept her boring proceedings short and to the point. There really was nothing extraordinary that happened in her life since she’d moved to Vain. She was sure that there was enough extraordinary things were happening in the Spellman household and hoped it’d stick to the rest of them and spare her.

“Seriously? That sounds pretty boring ‘Mara. You don’t have anything else to pass the time? Nothing even like a guy to occupy your time?” Sabrina tried to sound sly with her questioning of Samara’s lovelife; or rather non existent one. Samara hadn’t dated while she’d lived with the Spellmans. And that hadn’t changed once she’d moved either. She’d tried, don’t get her wrong. She’d met plenty of handsome Warlocks, especially during her time at the Academy. But anytime she’d been approached she’d been overwhelmed at her brain screaming at her wrong, don’t touch, run away, not safe. The red alert sirens and lights going off in her head had been more than enough to deter her from interacting intimately with any potential lovers. While she did occasionally get struck with envy when seeing couples act so lovingly towards one another, Samara believed that when the time was right, she’d find her partner. 

“You know as well as I do Sabrina that there hasn’t been and isn’t anyone. Enough about me, tell me about your Nicholas Scratch!” Samara commandeered the conversation onto a topic she was more comfortable about; which was anything other than her lovelife. Sabrina happily ran along with this topic and hearts filled her eyes as she began telling Samara about Nick. As Samara listened to her cousin ramble on about her Warlock, her mind began to wander. She felt angry that she wasn’t here to constantly support her cousin through the many changes that had happened over the past months. She wanted to be here with her family more than anything, but her fear and hatred of what caused her to leave Greendale prevailed.

Samara remembered what it was like before she left. How happy and content the family was to all be together under one roof. While Ambrose might have been in exile and under house-arrest, he still treated his family like gold. Samara had been young and excited about the rest of her life; all the untapped possibilities. She’d been overjoyed to start her studies at the Academy of Unseen Arts. She’d already shown an affinity to brewing and herbology under her Aunt Hilda. 

Her first few months there had been a whirlwind. Meeting new Witches and Warlocks had been exciting. While Samara had excelled in herbalism and ritual magic, she had struggled in sacred geometry. Lucky for her the High Priest Father Blackwood, Dean of the school, had offered his own help to her studies and what she struggled in. Her Aunt Zelda had been ecstatic for Samara and considered what fortune it’d bring to the family that the High Priest was helping a member of the Spellmans. Samara had thought nothing of it and continued on with her studies and private tutoring with the High Priest. 

It was during her second year that her world tilted on its axis. Samara had continued to go to Father Blackwood’s office to study. It had simply become routine for her to. While she no longer required help with her sacred geometry, she’d often prod the High Priest for his thoughts on topics she was studying. She’d never thought it odd that out of every student in the school, she was the only one he’d offered tutoring to or let lounge in his office. She thought nothing of it until the night after her 17th birthday. 

She’d had her journals for herbalism laid on the table before her; her mind racing a mile a minute as she crafted ideas and theories for her next lecture. She didn’t take notice of the way the High Priest had sat in the chair at her side. She listened with half an ear as he praised her for her thought and dedication to her studies and Church. She hummed her answers as she continued with her work. He went on about how she’d become one of the strongest Witches the Academy had ever seen; he could sense it in the darkness and power that surrounded her he’d said. She half ignored his ramblings, that is until he’d placed his hand atop her thigh. She’d frozen and pinched the quill in her fingers.

He’d gone on about how wrong it was for a Witch her age and beauty to be without companionship. How he’d be more than willing to oblige her. As he said this his hand had started to creep higher. If Samara had thought the feelings of wrong, run away were strong before when she was merely approached by an interested party; they were nothing compared to what was flooded with at that moment. Fear and betrayal had solidified her spine, her stomach and heart had dropped through her shoes. It felt like she was starting to float outside of her body, like she was watching a movie of this happen to her. She started to fear for the worst. Just when she thought everything was going to escalate, her body’s emotions were choked out by a hellfire rage. She felt this all-encompassing fury snuff out her other feelings, like an entity of itself. She could see her Shadows write along every surface they could, ready to act. Then nothing. 

She couldn’t remember anything past that. The next thing she remembers is being at home, explaining to her Aunties that she was no longer physically attending the Academy. That had been the one and only blow out her and her Aunties had ever had. They’d been ready to force her to go back before she’d collapsed on the ground in hysterics. To the present neither woman knew what caused her to leave the Academy. They figured it had something to do with the High Priest, but any questions they asked were either brushed off or blatantly ignored. 

Samara had excelled in her studies at home and finished them much earlier than had been planned. She had hoped that leaving the Academy would be enough for her to heal and avoid the High Priest. But she didn’t take into account the many gatherings they’d have at the Desiccated Church and his need to be there. It was soon after she’d finished her studies that she’d announced to her family that she’d be completing an apprenticeship with a Potion Master towards the South. They’d been devastated to see her go, but were content in the knowledge that she’d be following something she’d love. Her family expected her to return to Greendale once her apprenticeship was complete, but were saddened at her decision to completely leave Greendale and it’s Witch Community and to move to Vain, Colorado. Luckily for them, magic had made the separation much easier, scrying, astral projection and much more helped with the distance. 

“‘Mara. ‘Mara. Samara!” Sabrina’s voice ripped Samara from her dark memories. Samara felt her Shadows gathering around her as she forcefully reminded herself to release her white-knuckled grip from the arms of her chair. Sabrina was leaned forward, concerned and wary glances being cast towards her and her Shadows. 

“I’m fine. Sorry! Got lost in my head. It seems to be a common thing since I’ve arrived.” Samara grumped, taking a deep breath and relaxing back into her seat. She noticed that Phlox had settled himself on her lap and was chittering softly. She smiled softly and stroked his head. She sent out pulses of calm to her Shadows and watched as they receded and stilled.

“It’s been a long day, especially since you’ve travelled so far. Why do we head up to bed?” Sabrina soothed, standing and extending her hand towards Samara. Samara blinked at the limb for a moment before grasping it. She gathered Phlox up with her other arm and allowed herself to be corralled towards her room. 

“Sorry we couldn’t talk longer. Hopefully we can more tomorrow. It really has been a long day.” Samara’s voice was a mixture of sorrow and hope. She grinned as Sabrina gave a squeeze to her hand as they reached her room.

“It’s okay ‘Mara. It’s good to have you home. Goodnight”

“Night, ‘Brina.” She gave her cousin a parting smile and hand squeeze before disappearing behind her bedroom door. Samara set Phlox down, who quickly scurried to the bed and began to nest. She sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed her temples and blew out a deep sigh. She was just starting to contemplate if it was worth the effort to rummage around in her bag to find a headache relief potion or not when she was distracted by a loud thump down the hall.

[intelligentdumbass]

Can't I Get a Break? (part 1)

(Again, beware of typos. I have no idea how this turned into what it is now, but it is what it is.)

Hermes pushed the door open and nearly tripped on one of goldie’s many stray brushes. The floor was also littered with paintings and marble statues of varying shapes and sizes scattered all over.

“Apollo?”

“You need something Herms?”

The blonde was in the corner, sitting down on a cushion, his eyes still focused on the canvas on his lap even when his brother was already standing over him.

“Dude, what’re you doing here? The wedding is about to start!”

“Eh? I thought it wasn’t until two months from now?”

Hermes stared, and wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Look, I don’t know what day you think it is, but I wasn’t lying when I said that the wedding is about to start.”

Apollo frowned, but then laughed when his instincts told him Hermes was telling the truth.

“Ah, shit. The girls are probably wondering where I am-” He immediately stood up and ran off into another room. “You can go on ahead Herm! I swear I’ll catch up.”

When the god took a glance at the painting he left on the cushion, he suddenly understood. It was a work in progress of Asclepius’ worktable covered in ashes.

---------------------------------

Olympus’ garden was breath-taking; bioluminescent flowers blooming under the moonlight. The gods were having the time of their lives, drunkenly singing under the serene night sky.

Hermes couldn’t help but subtly gaze back at Apollo every now and then. Despite all the fun the sun god was having dancing with the muses, their conversation in the studio made him felt like something was off.

Then someone caught him off guard by wrapping an arm around his shoulder, and he instantly knew who it was the second he smelled the wine in his breath.

“Jealous?~” Dionysus wiggled his eyebrows.

Hermes raised an eyebrow. “Jealous of what?”

Dionysus motions to the muses; it was at that moment that Calliope had her arms wrapped around Apollo’s neck as the god gave her a small kiss. Hermes rolled his eyes, but oh little did he know, he was faintly blushing.

The younger brother sighed.

“Look man, if you’re going to keep this up, then you‘re absolutely hopeless. I mean, at this point literally everyone except the distracted dumbass you haven’t confessed to knows that you want a piece of that-”

“Hahahaha, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, have you seen Eris? I heard she wasn’t invited-”

“Hey! Don’t change the subject.” Dionysus glanced back and frowned. “Huh, where’d he go?”

Hermes followed his gaze and sure enough, Apollo was nowhere to be seen; just the muses chatting amongst themselves, along with a few other immortals. The wine god scanned the rest of the guests at the party, and gave his friend a confused look, who just shrugged in response. Then before he knew it, Hermes was being dragged by the arm over to the group of gossiping sisters.

Urania saw them first and waved, while Thalia gave the messenger a knowing grin.

“You looking for Apollo?”

He internally cursed. His brother was right, everyone did know. Before he could say a word, his companion answered for him.

“Yeah. Wasn’t he with you guys just a minute ago?”

Melpomene and Polyhymnia gave each other a look, before turning to Calliope. She sighed.

“He said something about taking a break.”

“Apollo? A break?” Dionysus looked up, at the moon. “But it hasn’t even reached midnight yet.”

The goddess’ smile became just a tiny bit strained. “I know.”

Hermes frowned. “Did you manage to catch where he ran off to?”

---------------------------------

The garden was huge; its depths filled with paths most don’t even know of. Luckily Hermes knew his way around it like the back of his head. After all, he’s got good experience sneaking inside the garden from one of its many secret entrances.

The other deities’ slurred laughter were getting more and more muffled, until it was replaced by the crickets and the foliage crunching under his steps. Then out of nowhere came the familiar sounds of a certain lyre. His brisk walk slowed into a halt. He found the god of music sitting down on top of a small hill, back resting against the trunk of an old oak. He had a feeling he would’ve found him here. This spot was one of their favorites, because it also happened to be right in front of a giant crevice that overlooked a big chunk of the earth. The view was spectacular.

Apollo didn’t notice Hermes’ presence until he had already sat down next to him, which made him flinch.

“H-” “Hermes!” He glared.

“What?”

“You could’ve at least said something! Gods, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

The messenger resisted the urge to laugh and just innocently grinned, while his friend sighed. His gaze then went to the turtle lyre in the musician’s hands.

“I still can’t believe you kept that. I mean, it’s not just that you kept it. It’s the fact that I always see you actually use it.”

Apollo smiled, with a look in his eyes that basically said, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

“It’s a very good instrument, even if it was just made by some annoying toddler. Besides, the other one gives me bad memories.” He pauses for a moment. “What’re you doing here? You couldn’t find someone to flirt with?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Did someone need me?”

“Nah, if that were the case then I would’ve already told you. I was just… concerned?”

The blonde seemed confused; now Hermes was the one who sighed.

“Did you really spend two months just, holed up in that room?”

“Maybe, what of it?” The lyre went silent.

Hermes frowned, but after a few moments of thought decided to stand up.

“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, but considering what happened, you probably just wanted some alone time-”

“Nono, it’s fine.” His voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear it. “Please don’t leave.”

And so the god sat back down, this time inching a little closer so that their sides were touching. Apollo saw him glance at the lyre again.

“You want to play something? Go on ahead.” He hands it over. “I suddenly don’t.”

For a few minutes that’s all it was, Hermes strumming on his lyre while the crickets sung; Apollo staring into the distance.

“Wait.” For a brief moment, Apollo’s eyes lit up like a pair of miniature suns.

“Hm?” Hermes paused.

“Nonono, keep on playing. It was just… isn’t that the song you played to me? When you tried to convince me that it was totally worth trading half of my cows for?”

“Y-” “Yeah.” He was surprised. ‘How do you still remember that?’

Hermes continued to strum, but now his cheeks were starting to burn up. It doesn’t look like Apollo noticed though.

“Am I unreasonable, Hermes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m one of father’s older kids, hell, his literal oldest son. You’d think I’d get used to this now.” He picks up a handful of dirt and just lets the soil fall through his fingers.

“Well, it… wasn’t really a natural death now, was it? Dude, if that happened to my kid I’d be pissed at dad too even if he had a reason for it.”

“I don’t know I’m just… I’m so tired of this.” At first it was a hand on his shoulder, but he quickly ended up hugging him; pulling him even closer and wrapping his arms around the messenger’s waist. “I’m so fucking sick of this shit.”

Despite how much that had startled him and the fact that he was internally screaming right now, Hermes still managed a smile. At this point, the blonde had his face buried into his shoulder. The younger god stopped strumming on the lyre and gave his friend a gentle pat on the back.

“I know that I shouldn’t be making a big deal out of this but-” “but I can’t not!” His rants were loud murmurs; like yelling but in soft whispers with the occasional muffled sniffs and whimpers. “I can’t stop thinking about things like this. I don’t know why. Is there something wrong with me? I know everything dies and that what Asclepius did was a crime against the fates, why can’t my brain just shut up about it!”

“Hey, Hey look at me.”

After half a minute of silence, Apollo reluctantly looked up.

“Don’t beat yourself up like that.” Hermes putted the lyre aside and wiped away some of the tears trailing down his cheeks. “You’re not unreasonable. I mean, have you seen the shit the rest of this fucked up family tree of ours has been up to? I’d argue you’re actually one of the most reasonable.”

“Oh, of course you’d think that-”

“Shhhh” He cut him off by giving him a small kiss on the forehead.

Apollo faintly blushed and then started staring off into oblivion again; resting his head on Hermes’ shoulder.

“I guess at least…” He murmured. “At least you guys aren’t going to suddenly die on me.”

“I don’t know about that. I can’t exactly guarantee that I won’t do a very stupid prank that might get me kicked into Tartarus.”

“Tch. Well, there might be a chance that I would’ve been stupid enough to do it with you, so at least with that we’ll both get chucked down into the abyss. Hey who knows, Dio might join us too.”

Hermes laughed, and even the blonde himself couldn’t help but crack a smile.

---------------------------------

“Well” Apollo sighed. “Thanks for putting up with that.”

“Of course.” He takes a quick look at the moon. “Maybe we should go back now. Someone might get worried.”

“I guess.” For a moment there, the god looked like he really didn’t want to leave.

“I mean, I don’t mind spending a few more minutes here if you want to-”

“No, it’s fine. You’re right; we really should be going back now.”

Apollo stood up first, and picked up the lyre; the messenger standing up not long after. The two deities had started to walk back when the younger god suddenly stopped.

“Wait.”

“Hm?” Apollo turned around and frowned. “Something wrong?”

“I… I need to tell you something.” He suddenly felt a little nervous, and couldn’t help but stare a little; maybe even briefly glancing at his lips.

Hermes took a step closer.

“I-” “ACH!-”

But before he could do or say anything else, he felt something hard smack him right in the face. He probably would’ve fallen back onto the ground if Apollo hadn’t caught him.

“Are you alright?”

“What…” Hermes rubbed his nose. “What the FUCK was that?!”

Then there was a distant cackle, and it sounded oddly familiar; almost like it came from a certain goddess of chaos.

Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo saw a speck of yellow on the ground. It was an apple made out of solid gold, and there was an inscription scribbled onto it, but that wasn’t why he was staring.

Once his brother had fully recovered from the shock, he let go, for him to stand on his own. The fruit glimmered and sparkled under the ambient moonlight, enticing the immortal to come closer. He crouched down and picked it up. It glowed against his hand, and it flashed against his eyes.

First he felt the heat, like the sun’s solar flares were gently flicking and liking his skin. Then he smelled the stench of thick, red, mortal blood. His limbs were heavy and his stomach tied itself into a knot; his head filled with the slow rhythmic beat of drums, except it wasn’t drums. He wasn’t in the garden anymore; he was in a temple, his temple. He knew because of the statues, but they weren’t the only company he had in this large, hollow room.

There was a stranger in front of him; their steps the source of those loud, steady thumps as they gradually got closer, and closer…

He was a god, he knew he could easily kill them, but instead he found himself backed up against a wall. Then they grabbed him by the throat, and drew their sword. In the heat of the moment, he somehow managed to catch a glimpse his reflection in the glint of their blade.

What he saw wasn’t his face.

But the face had his eyes.

Apollo instinctively dropped the apple and cursed fruit quickly fell back onto the ground. His face was drenched in sweat; his fingers twitching; breath hitching and heaving.

“Apollo? Goldie?!” Hermes rushed towards the blonde and cupped both of his hands. “Hey buddy, what’s wrong?”

The god inhaled, and exhaled; closing his eyes. He squeezed both of the messenger’s hands and forced himself to calm down. When he started coming back to his senses, he glanced around, but the apple was already gone.

“Hermes, where did that cursed piece of golden shit go?!”

Hermes blinked, surprised. “I… don’t know?”

But what he did saw, was a few black feathers as dark as the sky above them. They were scattered along the path that led back to the main event.

“…Hermes I need that fucking apple.”

“Huh? What? Why-” “Hey, HEY! APOLLO WAIT!!”

Apollo had started to run back towards the wedding, and Hermes was right behind him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next

[rivolted]

GOODNIGHT TO GIRLS UNDER 5′2, SCORPIOS, AND THE VERY UNPLEASANT

[ ASLIHAN MALBORA, CIS FEMALE, SHE/HER. ] introducing calpurnia pamuk, VICTOR of the 71st hunger games, representing district two. my sources say that they are twenty three years old, & that they’re pretty handy with knife-throwing. wonder if that did them any good in the arena ? anyways, caesar says you can’t miss them, because they remind everyone of looking like the innocent flower but being the serpent undern’t, sparks of mischief glittering in your eyes, looking everywhere but at the reflection in the mirror & a finger tracing delicately over scarred skin.

CHARACTER INSPO    :    katara  (  atla  ),    darayavahoush e-afshin   (  city of brass  ),   fang runin  (  poppy war  ),   alina starkov  (  shadow & bone  ),   leia organa  (  star wars  )

𝑾𝑯𝒀     𝑪𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑶𝑻     𝑰     𝑫𝑶     𝑨𝑺     𝑻𝑯𝑬     𝑾𝑶𝑳𝑽𝑬𝑺     𝑫𝑶        ?      /      so     ,    a    HUMMING    VIOLENCE   settles    without    hesitation    .    don’t   call   this   destruction    ,    𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘    𝖜𝖆𝖘    𝖆    𝖉𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖇𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖙𝖊    𝖆𝖈𝖙    .    the    undoing    of    the    first    thing    to    be    done    .      

name   :   calpurnia pamuk  (  call her nia  )

age   :   twenty three (  with the timeline i’ve made she’s technically twenty two but. she’ll be turning twenty three soon enough. MZMZMZM  )

gender & pronouns   :   cis female & she / her

district   :   two

occupation   :   victor.

moral alignment   :   chaotic. just chaotic.

wcs at the end  !

one of calpurnia’s first memories is bringing flowers she’d picked to her father’s bed as he lay sick, her grandmother’s firm hand on her shoulder keeping her stuck to the ground, unable to leap forward and hug him desperately.

both of calpurnia’s parents died when she was very young, of disease, according to her grandmother. she knows nothing else except that. with their deaths, she was placed in the care of her only living relative, her loving grandmother. her incredibly rich grandmother. her grandmother who may or may not have gotten said wealth from shady business practices with the capitol while fronting as a jeweler. 

her grandmother, presumably due to losing her son and daughter-in-law so close to one another, was a very nervous woman. she let calpurnia train like any other career, but she made it explicitly clear she was under no circumstance to volunteer. ever. 

so, in the academy, nia put in minimal effort. she did well enough to pass, but she never tried to compete for a top spot; still, somehow, she was one of the best. this also did not matter to nia, a fact which was probably a sore spot to everyone who tried to encourage her to participate in the games. 

and then. well, calpurnia was always a flirt. but this girl ? her and nia had something real. nia loved her. & after a year-long whirlwind romance, when her name was called ? nia couldn’t handle it. she volunteered. to the world, the actions of a career looking for glory. privately, the desperate act of a girl in love.

the girl did not come to visit nia as she was waiting to be sent off into the games. she never heard from her again. but her grandmother came, even though she was utterly destroyed, and she begged nia to win. to come back to her. nia promised she would; and she’d never broken a promise. 

WHAT TO SAY ABOUT THE 71ST HUNGER GAMES. nia went in as a nineteen year old promising...ish career who thrived by displaying a fun, ditzy personality pre-arena, a persona she’d keep alive even when in the arena. because a soft fool of a girl was an easy target. because it would make others come to her. 

i haven’t.. . .. . figured this out entirely but i wanna say the arena was very tropical rainforest-esque, and one of the big gamemaker moves against the tributes was literally flushing them out with rainfall so heavy and long it flooded the arena until only whoever was lucky enough to pick the highest trees were left. lots of venemous/dangerous animals, an extreme amount of humidity, and so much foliage the tributes needed a miracle to be able to move anywhere undetected.

calpurnia officially wins on her twentieth birthday, though she wouldn’t find that out until much later. she’d managed to seduce her district partner, having a star-crossed love of the ages. a fantastic decision: he got rid of most of the other careers for her, save for a district 4 girl she had to finish off with her knives. in the end, there were three left: her, a district 6 girl, and him. the district 6 girl was an easy kill, her partner snapping the poor girl’s neck. he’d looked at calpurnia with wide eyes and asked, breathless, “what now?”

and calpurnia, sweet, silly calpurnia, put her hand on his chest. leaned in. brushed her lips against his. told him not to worry, because she would make the ultimate sacrifice. and proceeded stabbed him three times in the heart. and then she kept stabbing him, because suddenly she’d been filled with an indescribable anger - at him, for being tricked so easily. at herself, for doing this to him. but now that she’d killed him, the show was over. everything would go back to normal; better, even. 

or so she thought. calpurnia, despite her betrayal, had won the capitol’s hearts. she’s a capitol darling, still. when she won the hunger games, it wasn’t the final act of a hero’s journey: it was the first act of a tragedy.

she goes on. she’s less of a girl and more of a puppet. she’s giggles and smiles and softness, which is ridiculous because she murdered dozens of other people in cold blood, and sometimes her hands itch to do it again. what she wants is to rage, to demand, to be not a puppet or a girl but a monster feared by the capitol. but. but she won’t. who will take care of her grandmother if not her ? 

she’s not a good person by any means. when she hears whispers of a rebellion, she listens. follows the trail. but it’s not because she cares for what they have to say; it’s because the rebellion can give her the hot-blooded revenge she wants. 

wcs  !

so i might send in an actual wc for this, BUT ALSO IF YOU’RE READING THIS AND THINKING ABOUT MAKING A DISTRICT TWO MUSE, i’d love to see the girl who calpurnia fell in love with. i like the idea that maybe this muse wanted to be in the games, and calpurnia taking that from them was seen as a betrayal, but honestly this is.. . .. completely up to you !

I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING FOR PLATONIC SOULMATES. preferably someone from the capitol who she met during her games ? this is someone who, despite their differences, is probably the person closest to nia other than her grandmother. they’re also probably the only one who knows just how much inner turmoil she’s in, and maybe they have their own giant issues that only nia knows about or is willing to understand. eventually, they’ll either be pro-rebellion by themselves or with nia’s help; regardless, they won’t leave each other’s sides. it’s a bond that’s very rare and kind of unexplainable but they’re It for each other ( PLATONICALLY PLEASE ) 

i want. a fellow victor & her to have a Hate On Sight relationship. it might have a Certain Tension it might not but there’s something about these two that seems to naturally clash, maybe it’s even because they’re actually Similar in some ways ? i just.. . ..Love Enemies

f-family members or friends of the district 2 guy she killed who resent her ? i like to imagine he actually felt something for her, which was.. .. . .A MISTAKE, BUDDY. 

LITERALLY ANYTHING. hookups. rivals. bad influences. good influences. ppl who don’t see her as anything past her façade or who might even judge her for being “ditzy” and “pro-capitol”. someone who has like a fancrush on her would be cute, stars in their eyes, don’t meet your idols etc etc. 

[yungimmortals]

biking date, hiking date | jaime & gene

date: sometime in november summary: jaime gets a ride and so does gene

Gene leaned against his motorcycle casually. Hands stuffed into his pockets, looking away from Jaime’s building as though focused on something far away, but in a mysterious and suave way rather than a distracted one. Gods, the effort it took to look so effortless. Once Jaime approached, however, Gene straightened a bit, smiling as he automatically held his hand out for a shake. Fuck, fuck, this isn’t a business deal. Too late to change course, he pretended that this was a totally normal thing to do, and then turned to motion to his bike. “Figured we could ride the way there, little two-for-one. If you’re nice, I might even be willing to give you a lesson.”

Striding out of his building, Jaime tousled his hair and straightened out the collar of his shirt. “Hey!” His face lit up as he spotted Gene and he headed over, shaking his outstretched hand with a lopsided smile. “Are you serious?” Jaime’s eyes bounced between Gene and the bike, his heart starting to hammer in his chest. “With that opportunity, I suppose I must be nice now,” he laughed, bumping Gene’s shoulder lightly. “You look good.”

  Gene was glad when Jaime said nothing about the shake, and grinned at his reaction to the little surprise. “Totally. Not gonna flash you my bike and then fully hold out on you. That would just be cruel.” He picked up a helmet to pass over to Jaime, exhaling a laugh as he did. “Glad I could convince you.“ He preened at the praise, smoothing out his sweatshirt with one hand. “So do you, no surprise there.” He slid his other helmet then pushed the face shield up, looking from his bike to Jaime. “I’m assuming you know this, but get on on this side, those are where you put your feet, and don’t touch that.” He pointed from the footrests to the exhaust. “It’ll take the skin clean off your leg.” He climbed onto his bike and waited for Jaime to do the same. “And hold on tight.”

Jaime accepted the helmet, holding it almost reverently. Whatever guesses he had had about this date, Gene had already pleasantly surprised him and Jaime was beyond excited to ride the motorcycle. At the compliment, he ran a hand through his hair and smiled. “Thank you. Oh yes, I prefer my skin to stay adhered to my leg.” With a light laugh and a nod, he put on the helmet he’d been given and carefully got on the bike behind Gene, wrapping his arms around his waist. He gave Gene a light squeeze. “Is this tight enough?”

Gene took a moment to admire Jaime’s expression. His face he could admire at a later point, but Gene enjoyed the fact that he had already made Jaime so visibly eager. “We’re in agreement on that one.” He turned his head towards Jaime once his arms were around him and called back to him. “ Yeah! But I can handle a lot more.” He grinned to himself. God, he was so cool. He kicked up the kickstand, revved the engine, and peeled away from the curb.

Gene knew a pretty direct route to the forest, but that seemed much less fun than taking the long way, speeding up for short distances to keep things exciting. Once they reached the trail, Gene parked his bike, pulled off his helmet, and fluffed out his hair to fix it as he dismounted his motorcycle. “How was that?” he asked, his grin clearly stating that he’d enjoyed himself.

He held on tighter as Gene revved the engine, letting out a laugh loud enough to be heard over the noise. The ride passed by in a blur and when Gene parked the bike, Jaime was reluctant to drop his arms from around his waist. He removed his helmet, straightening out his glasses and beamed at Gene. "I would pretend to be coy but since I can't seem to rid my face of this undoubtedly goofy grin, I think it's clear I enjoyed that." He dismounted, turning in a circle to take in the forest before looking over at Gene, one hand trying to flatten down his unruly hair. "That was a lot of fun."

Gene couldn't stop himself from smiling at the way Jaime spoke. It was like someone who figured out how social interactions worked by watching Dead Poets Society. "I'm glad you enjoyed it." He positioned the helmet to rest on the mirror of his bike and held his hand out to take the one he had given Jaime as well. "Believe it or not, I was planning on giving you a ride back, too." He grinned, trying to ignore the fact that he had to look up slightly at him. "Did you want another zip around, or are you ready to walk?"

"How generous!" Jaime laughed, passing Gene the helmet in his hands and feeling his face warm as their hands brushed. "I'm ready to walk, lead the way?" He took a step, his shoe bumping a rock; Jaime bent down to pick it up and brush the dirt off of it. The stone was smooth, with a natural indent: the perfect worry stone. With a grin, he wordlessly offered it to Gene, trying his best not to feel ridiculous for the gesture.

Gene took the helmet and then hung it from the other mirror, eyes flicking up to meet Jaime’s as their hands touched. Was that too much contact? No, just enough. Not enough? Gene decided not to overthink it. It was enough for now, he decided, then left it so that he could take the stone that Jaime handed him, almost confused at first. He grinned at the gesture nevertheless, and before leading the way to the trail, he rapped his knuckles against Jaime’s chest, hand curled around the stone. “Yo, can I kiss you?”

The contact of Gene's knuckles on his chest sent a jolt of electricity through Jaime. He blinked, not sure if he had heard correctly, or just imagined the question that he had hoped to hear anyway. "Yes!" He answered eagerly, then cleared his throat. "Yes, absolutely," Jaime grinned brightly at Gene, closing the distance between them.

Gene smirked at Jaime’s enthusiasm and reached up to rest his hand on the side of Jaime’s neck as he kissed him, hand still curled around the stone he’d been given. He wasn’t used to kissing people taller than him, but as he kissed Jaime, he felt like he could get used to it. After a moment, he pulled away, flashing a smile before leading them to the path he’d planned on taking. “You said you hiked in Maine a lot, but do you know the trails around here?”

Angling his head slightly when he felt Gene's hand on his neck, Jaime leaned into the kiss. His stomach did a somersault and he could feel himself smiling against Gene's lips as he pulled away. "Yeah! I do," he nodded, excited as he joined him on the path. "Like the back of my hand, I'd like to think. Are you familiar with them or have you brought me here to be your forest guide?" Jaime teased, still smiling from the kiss and hoping it was only one of many.

Gene exhaled a small laugh as Jaime explained how well he knew the paths here. “You caught me.” He smiled, reaching out to run his fingertips along the foliage at the edge of the path. “I was about to say that I should have taken you somewhere I could impress you with my knowledge of rather than vice versa. Let’s go to the west coast real quick.”

Jaime shook his head, smiling as he watched Gene interact with the nearby flora. "I suppose that's more of a second date-type of trip," he joked, rubbing the back of his neck shyly as he said date. That's what this is, isn't it? He brushed off his thoughts, falling in step next to Gene. "You impressed me with your very very nice motorcycle. Now I can return the favor by taking you to one of my favorite trails. Would that be alright?"

Gene laughed, and the leaves nearby shook as if they were laughing too. “You’re right. West coast is too big a gesture for the first one. Maybe I’ll actually take you surfing. You seem like that isn’t your gig.” He smiled, preening at the praise of his bike, and dipped his head in a small nod. “Yeah, ‘m down.” He slowed his gait slightly so Jaime could take the lead. “Lead the way.”

"A nice gesture, all the same," Jaime dipped his head, ducking under a branch as the leaves shook along with Gene's laughter. It was such an endearing thing that Jaime felt a smile work its way across his face, marveling at Gene's powers. "Ah, I've never tried it. Ocean spray and glasses are not the best mix but I would certainly try, if given the chance." Taking the lead, he took them down a path that veered left, deeper into the trees until they were walking alongside a trickling stream.

“Oh, glasses, duh.” Gene shook his head at the fact that he hadn’t considered that they might be hard to surf with. “Need to get you goggles, or... can you see without those at all? How you fair swimming?” Gene followed Jaime easily, admiring the life around them. “I see you’re taking us swimming already,” he joked, noting the stream, the reached up to tug at Jaime’s sleeve. “Ey, look.” In a bold move, he moved his arms out, but too close to the water apparently, and along the top of it appeared an algae bloom. He grimaced. “Fuck, wait, no, ignore that.” He was embarrassed but not losing confidence, and he turned away from the water to gesture closer to their path, trying to get himself to feel more focused than excited. After a moment, a small line of asters popped up, and as Gene moved his arm, they followed. He smiled at Jaime, his earlier mishap all but forgotten. “Yeah?”

Jaime considered his answer for a moment, wondering how well he would be able to see to surf. "I would probably need those sports goggles but, gods, I would look ridiculous. They always make your eyes look so big." He laughed, shaking his head. "I'm a decent swimmer, probably not as good as you but I won't drown." Jaime smiled at the tug on his sleeve, finding the gesture endearing. His eyes followed the motion of Gene's arms, watching the algae appear, and then moments later, a crop of asters. His eyes lit up as he recognized the flowers and he moved closer to them, excited to get a better look. "I love it," Jaime murmured, his fingertips brushing a flower.

“What do you do when you swim if you don’t have those goggles?” Gene asked, genuinely curious. “Blind swimming sounds like the world’s most dangerous sport.” He laughed, and watched as Jaime reacted to him showing off his powers, happy that he didn’t comment on his mistake. He straightened, but at the comment, he let out a small chuckle as more little flowers popped up near the asters. “They’re, uh.” He traced his foot along the ground. “I’m getting a pretty good handle on my powers, now that I know they’re there.”

"Squint," Jaime answered with a laugh. "Or, it's silly, but I've worn my glasses to swim. I just end up not going under the water much. In case my answers don't give me away, it's been a while since I've swam." He shook his head, fingers still on the flower and looked at the other flowers as they began to grow. "I think they look beautiful. Your powers, they're really cool."

“I didn’t know they’d stay on your face. Suppose you never tried that in the ocean.” Gene smiled and crouched down beside Jaime. “They come in handy.” He reached down to touch one of the buds. “My friend wants us to become superheroes, but I think it’d be dope to restore habitats. I can literally do that.” He shook his head, aware that his powers weren’t quite that strong, but he wasn’t about to downplay himself after a compliment. “You got tricks up your sleeve too, nah?”

"You'd be right, never the ocean. But the lake? Or a pool? It works out...not super well," Jaime laughed, feeling silly. He chewed his lip when Gene crouched beside him. "Restoring habitats would be amazing. Helping things grow, definitely a super power. What would you call yourself? Would you have an alternate identity?" He gave the asters another smile before looking at Gene. "Some, yeah. But I don't have a very good handle on them...yet."

Gene laughed. “As much of a superpower as everyone else here. Flying and healing broken bones is pretty dope.” He shook his head, a smile still on his face. “Absolutely not. I’m not gonna hide who I am.” He motioned towards Jaime with his chin. “You’re the one who looks like Clark Kent with the glasses. If you take them off will I suddenly know you from TV?” He smiled and dipped his head. “Yet. I like that. Shows dedication.” He tugged at Jaime’s sleeve again and leaned in to kiss him.

Wistfully, Jaime agreed with Gene, thinking about what it would be like to be a healer. "It is. And good, I had a feeling that would be your answer," he smiled, feeling his face warm. "I'm no Superman but...maybe. Do you recognize me now?" Jaime took his glasses off with a flourish, letting out a chuckle as he angled his face towards Gene, just in time for another kiss. This was good. This was more than good. Reluctant to pull away, he did so, long enough to return his glasses to his face and give Gene a bashful smile before leaning in to kiss him again.

"Good, I'd hate to give off any other impression." Gene's lips seemed to be fixed in a smile, but he hoped that Jaime had poor vision, as his face grew hot at the way he pulled off his glasses. "Oh yeah, you're that hot actor who was in Rocky Horror." Dumbass, he wore his glasses for the show. Gene figured that Jaime wouldn't mention it, and he pushed the comment from his mind as he focused on kissing him. He moved from holding Jaime's sleeve to resting a hand on his shoulder, thinking about something else to say when Jaime leaned in once more. The flowers around them seemed denser once he pulled away, asters springing up on the forest floor around them. He laughed, their faces still close. "That your power?" He grinned, seemingly unable to help himself. "Being a good kisser?"

"That's me, local heartthrob, Brad Majors," he grinned. Jaime made a sound of contentment when Gene rested a hand on his shoulder. Pulling away, the appearance of more asters caught his eye. His ears turned red the second his brain processed Gene's comment and his stomach did a little flip. Jaime ducked his head, enjoying the moment but trying to hide the blush on his face. "Maybe it is," he mumbled shyly. "Guess we'll have to experiment some more to find out."

Gene grinned. “Should I be getting on some sort of waitlist?” At Jaime’s reaction, he laughed, then leaned in to kiss him for a few more seconds. “I am a scientist. So... experiments.” He laughed and ducked his head, rubbing his thumb into Jaime’s shoulder before he dropped his hand. "Not complaining, promise, but should we... get back to hiking?"

"No no, you're a V.I.P. No list needed." After the kiss, Jaime couldn't help but grin. "If it's for science, in the name of research, who am I to say no?" He joked. "Ah, we should, we're a little over halfway there. You don't happen to be afraid of heights, do you?"

“Does that mean I get in through the back?” Gene grinned back at Jaime and moved to stand, holding a hand out to help him up. He exhaled a laugh. “A little more than halfway to our destination is a great time to ask whether I’m afraid of heights. If I was, would we turn around?”

Jaime flushed, but the smile stayed on his face. "Maybe," he replied, his voice a little higher pitched than usual. "We would not. But if you were, I'd probably...I don't know. Hold your hand a little tighter?" He let out a little laugh and ducked his head. "Too cheesy?"

Gene grinned, taking in the blush without commenting on it. “Oh, nah, nah.” He shook his head and rested a hand on his chest. “In that case, I’m terrified.”