#i have every reason to believe her middle name is adrian

[leslie057]

miss joyce adrian maldonado byers invented “free my boy he did all that but i dont care”

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

Cupid is stupid (Or Weiss asks a lot of questions and finds love in all the softer places)

Falling in love, Weiss discovers, rather inconveniently in the middle of a fight, is a lot like wielding a weapon.  

There’s the push and the pull, the drawing blood and taking of it. Weiss is rather inclined to think of it as a violent, bloody dance — the way she’s almost constantly tripping over her own feet trying to follow her partner when she has no idea what her next move will be. Then, of course, there’s the fact that whoever she’s dancing with is equally as clumsy as she happens to be, which Ruby definitely is.

“Thank me later,” she quips, after she’s done saving the idiot’s ass for the millionth time in her life. And then it hits her right in the chest, not a Grimm’s blow, not a weapon, and worse that Cinder’s fiery spear that had impaled her a couple days ago — this is affection. Not the kind she feels for Yang or Blake or any of their other friends, it’s the kind that turns her inside out whenever she so much as sees a malevolent force heading towards Ruby. The kind that automatically reaches out to touch Ruby when she’s near, that draws her eyes, unbidden to search her out in a fight.

Ruby catches her a while later, holding onto her hand as she hangs off a moving train, and Weiss can do nothing other than blink back at her — at her bright eyes, and her hair whipping around in the wind. She then proceeds to whisk them both to between two train carriages, in a flurry of red. When Weiss tries to step away, to catch her breath, she finds she’s stuck to the ground, or more accurately, entangled with Ruby. They’ve got their arms wrapped tight around each other, and with every movement, strands of Ruby’s hair land onto her face. Weiss doesn’t know it then, but all of her molecules have indeed just been rearranged. She has a feeling that stupid thing in her chest has been put back together to form Ruby’s name instead.

*****

It’s almost offensive how easily she feels the cold when she’s supposed to be the Ice-Queen. Yang would say something stupid about her not having a thick skin because she grew up in the literal lap of luxury (and she would be right, but that’s beside the point) and Blake would probably punch her in her arm, but thankfully, nobody’s noticed yet. So she stands in the corner of the porch, looking out at the rapidly falling snow outside the creepy house.

“You’re cold,” Ruby murmurs when she sidles up to her.

Of course. Of course Ruby sees. “Everyone’s cold,” Weiss says back.

Ruby shrugs, gently reaches for her hands, her eyes on Weiss’ the entire time. Is this okay, she seems to be asking, and Weiss, helpless, can only nod.  

Ruby covers Weiss’ hands with her own, raises it to her face and like it’s a secret, breathes warm air into their cupped palms. She’s no longer looking right at Weiss, instead focusing her attention onto their hands, and Weiss, like any other time she’s lucky enough to get to stare at Ruby freely, takes this opportunity to do so. The cold in her bones has instead been replaced with warmth — Ruby warmth, the particular shade that she can only find around Ruby — and even the tremendous crash of Qrow and Jaune breaking down the door registers to her as though coming from far, far away.  

Ruby blows one last gust of warm air into their hands before they make their way inside. She doesn’t let go, though. Weiss realizes she didn’t want her to, anyways.

*****

There are around ten people in the house besides the three people who actually live there, and not enough beds. It’s a logistical nightmare.

“Or,” Nora says, smirking in a very wink-wink-nudge-nudge way while she side-eyes Ren, “it’s an opportunity.”

Ren colors, fiddles with his collar until he’s sunk half into it. They’re all polite enough to look away; the sight of Ren, embarrassed is physically painful to witness.

“We’ll — we’ll manage, won’t we?” Ruby pipes up, smiling brightly, and Weiss sees them all smile back in reflex. Sometimes she wonders if she’s the only one Ruby can twist around her little finger — other times she is reminded that she just has that effect on people. Why else would they follow her to the ends of the planet? When Ruby talks, people believe.  

(When Ruby talks, Weiss physically feels her heart careening out of control, skidding into a blind curve with no idea what lying ahead. On and on and on, like Ruby’s running up ahead and Weiss follows, with just her voice for company)  

They end up cramped in two rooms — Maria gets the bed in the guest room, in honor of her being practically a fossil, a fact that gets Yang’s ears boxed when she says it aloud. Oscar, Jaune, Nora and Ren plant mattresses on the free space on the floor and are snoring in fifteen minutes. Qrow claims he won’t sleep much, and finds a rocking chair that he pulls close to the window, and he sits there, swigging rum ominously every once in a while. The rest of them decide to concede the couch in the living room to Ruby, who looks the most exhausted. And when Weiss gets up because she can’t sleep, she sees Blake and Yang snoozing next to each other, their hands loosely held close to Blake’s chest.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” she hears from somewhere beside her when she goes out to the porch, and whirls around, only to see Terra sitting in the corner. Adrian is perched on her lap, watching the soft snow drizzling outside.

Weiss smiles at her, feeling a little awkward about the entire thing. Shrugs. “Shouldn’t he be.... asleep?” A quick glance at the clock confirms her suspicions. It’s almost one.

Terra chuckles. “He conked out at seven. He wakes up in the middle of the night at least once. This — this helps him go back to sleep. Plus,” she pauses to bend a little and deposit a tiny kiss on top of his tiny head, “it’s one of the few minutes I get to spend with him in the day.”

Weiss thinks of her own childhood, of nightmares and staying up all night terrified, because there was no way, absolutely no way she was allowed to wake her parents up for any reason besides imminent death. The Schnee estate was vast, confusing and filled with entirely too many showpieces no one would ever use, full of winding staircases that lead nowhere close to comfort.  

This house is tiny and full of love. Every dent on the couch talks of tickle fights and places someone was so happy that they bounced their way into almost breaking it; the lower parts of the walls are scribbled over with crayons and blue hearts and stick figures of smiling people. She thinks back to dinner when Oscar and Nora burned whatever pie abomination they were supposed to be baking and then they’d all crammed into that tiny space to try to salvage it, and Weiss could’ve sworn even the tiny gaps between them were overflowing with love.

(This is a house someone would want to walk into at the end of the day. A place of shelter. A home)

“Jaune did mention you, you know?” Terra says, after a while, and Weiss is startled out of her train of thought. “In his letters to Saphron when you kids were at Beacon. He was particularly effusive in his description of you.”

“Oh dear lord,” she says, burying her face in her hands because that phase of her life seems so far, far away now. “I’m so glad he got over it. Not before singing an awful made-up song on his guitar, though.”

Terra laughs, softly, and Weiss notices that Adrian’s fallen asleep against her chest, his head resting on the arm she’s moved awkwardly to brace him.  

“Saph worries about him,” Terra says. “He makes sure to text her updates, but she can tell when he’s left a lot out. He’ll text her something like roadtrip and she knows to translate it to we’re on the run and have no idea where our next meal is coming from. He’s her only brother and kinda the baby of the family. And she.... she frets.”

“And when she worries, you worry,” Weiss completes.

When Terra looks up at her next, it is with all of her emotions plain on her face to see. Weiss reads consternation, affection, helpless desperation and blinding, blinding love before she bites at her lip and wipes it clean. Nods.

Weiss goes back inside a couple of minutes after they do, Adrian’s head hanging off his mother’s shoulder as they make their way to his room. When she walks in, she catches a glimpse of Qrow, snoring with a blanket now thrown across his torso, and movement off the corner of her eye. Oscar gives her a boyish grin, holds up a finger to his lips, before he disappears back to the guest room. She climbs over Yang and Blake, and finds her way, inexplicably, to Ruby’s side.

At some point in the night, Ruby had apparently kicked off her sheets and they now lay half-thrown over her legs. Weiss kneels at her head, looks on. At her impossibly young features, and her mouth that has fallen open, and the few strands of hair that are strewn across her forehead. Weiss wants to kiss the spot where they meet, wants to kiss the tiny freckle just beside her nose, her snoring mouth. She flushes, and balls her hands up into tight, wanting fists.  

When the urge passes (passes in a way that thirst in the desert passes, always there beneath the surface, just pushed back down enough so one can concentrate on more important things), she pulls the sheets up over her body, and tucks the ends, carefully over her shoulders. Her fingers wander, unprompted, to Ruby’s face, where they trace the path of her hair, and brush it away. Once. Twice.

And Ruby stirs beneath her hand, and then is staring at her, wide-eyed. There is no fanfare to how she wakes up, no protracted sigh or stretching. Weiss guesses it’s a product of their on-the-run lives — when there is no time to breathe, one gets used to waking and sleeping easily. In the end there they are, with Weiss kneeling next to Ruby, their faces shrouded in moonlight, staring at each other.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she whispers, after a beat. Her hand is still resting on Ruby’s face. When she moves to bring it back, Ruby stirs. Her hand comes up to cover Weiss’, keeping it there.

“It’s okay,” Ruby whispers back, still holding her goddamned hand close to her face. Weiss can feel her breath tripping all over itself, like it’s not sure what to do in such close proximity. It’s almost intimate, she imagines, the both of them with their heads huddled together. If she leaned forward a smidge, their foreheads would touch. A head tilt — and here the thought makes her feel hot all over — and they would be kissing.

(The distance suddenly feels almost awfully unbearable to her)

Ruby’s still staring up at her, her eyes still wide and serious. When it all becomes too much, Weiss moves her hand to cover her eyes.

Ruby’s lips curve up in a sleepy smile. “What?”

“Stop,” she says, flustered, “stop looking at me.”

“But I like looking at you,” Ruby tells her, sounding amused and Weiss is one hundred percent sure she is going to die tonight.

(She doesn’t mean it she doesn’t mean it she doesn’t mean it she doesn’t — then — she means it in a different way than what you’re hoping for so shut up shut up shut up)

“Shut up,” she says, finally, then adds. “Dunce.”

Ruby giggles, then her mouth stretches open into the hugest yawn ever. Weiss laughs, boops her nose, because she simply must.

“Sleep, okay?” she says, one last time. Then, without thinking too much about it, she leans down and presses her lips to Ruby’s forehead.

She’s not sure, but Ruby looks a little like she’s blushing. She blinks a few times, then says: “Now I will.”

Weiss’ mattress is just below the couch. Five minutes after she lies down on it, she feels Ruby’s hand travel down and rest on her head. It is to the continuous motion of her hand through Weiss’ hair that sleep finally takes her when it does.

*****

Winter is all angles and bones. Not just physically, but also in the way she carries herself. She is sharp edges and words that cut easily. Weiss knows it’s not just her — the Schnee family tends to make knives out of people and then set them upon the rest of the world to hurt and maim. Weiss knows that better than anyone else, knows that some blades draw blood unwillingly.  

Also knows that Winter is trying her very best to change.

But her posture is still ramrod straight, refusal to relax written into every single one of her cells. They’ve all split up after their celebration for their newest promotion to Huntsmen and Huntresses: Yang and Blake having disappeared on a trip to explore the city, Ren, Nora and Jaune off to gorge on Atlesian delicacies, and they’d left Oscar practicing sparring with Ruby. Winter had dropped in to invite her out to a celebratory dinner at Atlas’ finest dining establishment, and so here they were, sitting awkwardly in front of each other, eating whatever was on their plates.

Weiss wonders if Winter would die of shock if she dared to reach over and steal one of the dumplings on her plate. The Weiss of two years ago wouldn’t even have entertained the thought.  

Today, she thinks about it maybe five seconds before picking one up and shoving it into her mouth.

Winter’s eyebrows are arched. “You know Father would disapprove of the declination of your table manners.”

“Good thing I don’t care, then,” she replies, flippantly. “Do you?”

Winter rolls her eyes, takes a sip of her wine. “You’re my sister, Weiss. You could take half my liver and I’d only call you a boob. Or something equivalent.”

That’s how Winter Schnee loves. In casual gestures, in standing behind Weiss, ready to sacrifice herself at a moment’s notice. It is not the unwavering, adoring devotion of Yang and Ruby — Yang wouldn’t even entertain the thought of a potential hurt coming her sister’s way, jumping into action to save her before she even asks. Winter, however, needs to make sure Weiss can take care of herself, only hanging back in case things get too dire.

She smacks her hand with the chopsticks when Weiss reaches for another one. “I offered up a liver, you go looking for my heart? Behave, Weiss.”

It makes her laugh.

And it’s this foreign.... ease, for lack of a better word, that has Weiss’ tongue loose enough for her to shoot Hey, Winter, you ever been in love before an hour later, when they’re walking back to the military complex.

Her sister seems to be choking on thin air — she coughs and squawks and makes all sorts of undignified noises, before smacking Weiss on her head to make her stop laughing.

“I’m sorry,” Weiss says, when that hysterical bout is over. “Just wanted to see the look on your face. You don’t, you don’t have to answer that if it’s too personal.”

“Imbecile,” Winter mutters, but she turns to face her anyway. They’re almost at the building that has their apartment, and they stop almost simultaneously, standing in front of each other and trying very hard to avoid looking into each other’s eyes.

Winter hesitates, then speaks again. “Really want to know?”

Oh. Wow. Okay. “Yes,” she nods, trying to look casual about the whole thing.

“Once,” Winter tells her, running her hands through her perfectly coiffed hair in a very uncharacteristic move. “Before I joined the military.”

“And what happened?” Weiss asks, after a prolonged pause.

Winter’s smile is both sad and amused. “Father found out about her. What do you think?”

And she doesn’t know if it’s the easily dropped pronoun, or the way she can still read the utter loneliness in her sister’s eyes, but Weiss finds herself taking a step forward and wrapping Winter up in a hug.  

(Winter is all angles and bones)

And stiff limbs. “What,” her sister says, hesitantly, “Weiss, what are you doing?”

“Hugging you.”

“We don’t do that,” comes the prim response.

“We also don’t steal food off of each other's plates, Winter,” she replies, easily, still acutely conscious of the way Winter is just pressed against her stiffly. “As far as major changes go, I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of this.”

Winter’s arms come up, finally and hang loosely off her shoulders. As far as hugs go, it’s not the most comfortable one.  

(As far as hugs go, it’s one of the best Weiss has ever had)

And that’s' the moment, she becomes aware of movement from somewhere up high. Winter’s back is facing the building, so she’s in the perfect position to tilt her head up and see—

(What in God’s name?)

Oscar, Jaune, Nora, Ruby, Blake and Yang and crammed into the same window, peeking out at them, and appear to be giggling furiously. Ren, thankfully, seems to have enough dignity to not stoop to the level of these utter pains in her ass.

“What the—”

“Weiss?” Winter asks, still awkwardly hugging her. “Something wrong?”

She laughs. “Depends on what you define as wrong,” she says, and disentangles, so Winter can turn around and see for herself.

“Oh dear.”

A chorus comes sailing from above. “Hi, Officer Winter!” they all say, and then disperse, laughing madly. Only Ruby remains in the end, waving at them shyly.  

Winter, to her utter surprise (and really, it shouldn’t have been. If the evening had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t give her sister enough credit), waves back. When she turns back to Weiss, she’s even smiling a little.

“I like that one,” she tells her, eyes glinting with what Weiss can only define as mirth.

“Everyone likes her,” Weiss replies, shrugging.

“Do you?” Winter’s eyebrows are raised, and Weiss cannot help dropping her gaze, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. Winter’s hand falls on her hair, ruffles it up a little.  

Her parting words are Be careful, you boob. Weiss pretends not to understand.

*****

Blake and Yang are easy to figure out. Even Weiss, who has a general tendency of being clueless in these matters, can see the way Blake kind of — withers, when Yang isn’t around. There’s a light in her eyes that’s only visible when Yang’s close to her, a subtle confidence in her shoulders that says Yeah, I’m good now. Blake and Yang carry their love in their bodies, always moulding themselves to the other’s relative position. Weiss is sure even they don’t realize it yet, the way they always seem to come together when they’re in the same room, this unconscious meeting of opposite poles that ends in relief. They’re tangled hands, arms resting around shoulders, feet nudging each other, eventually leading up to secret smiles in team meetings.  

Sometimes, Weiss is sick of the whole thing.

Oftentimes, Weiss wants them to be happy so, so much that she fights the urge to push them into a room together for two hours.

“They’ll be back soon, you know?” she tells Blake, who hasn’t moved from the window since they finally made contact with the rest of the team. Blake whirls around, relaxes, then accepts the coffee Weiss is holding out to her.

“Thanks,” Blake says. “I just—”

“I know, I know. You worry.”

“I just,” she says, tugs at her hair with her free hand, “I just, I don’t know how anyone does it. Stay away, I mean, I — it’s like I can’t breathe properly when I don’t see her.”

And Weiss has done it once, a long time ago, although the magnitude of her feelings wasn’t known to her back then. Back when her father had locked her up in an ivory tower and she had no idea what Blake or Yang or Ruby were doing, if they were even alright. But she still stayed up all night, wondering if Ruby was okay, if she had eaten, if she was thinking about Weiss.

She imagines having to leave Ruby for a moment now, and the melancholy that washes over her almost brings her to her knees.

“Some hypocrite you are,” she says, teasing Blake gently, “with all the find yourself schtick you gave Nora earlier.”

She laughs, and Weiss finds herself hoping it’s taken her mind off of Yang for at least a little while.

“I like your brother,” she says, then. “He’s adorable.”

“Can you say that to him, please?” Weiss begs her. “And can I please be in the room when you do so?”

There’s another moment of levity. “Hey,” she starts, frowning a little. “Do you know where he is right now? Haven’t seen either him or my mother after the whole Grimm debacle.”

“I last saw him with Ruby,” Blake says. “I think he’s.... quite taken to her, actually.”

Weiss sighs. “Of course.”

(Ruby is the pied piper, after all. Everyone would follow her to the ends of the planet)

(Weiss? Weiss would walk with her beyond it)

Blake grins at her.

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, mischievously. “Seems he’s not the only Schnee who’s quite taken with her.”

(Blake deserves the massive bump running headlong into the glyph Weiss conjures up in the next second. No doubts about that)

*****

The end of the world comes after the night before the end of the world.

Like a protracted moment of utter calm before the cacophony starts, they all comes together, and eventually split up to the places that give them the most peace. Weiss takes a tour of the house once. Her mother’s sleeping on a chair next to Whitley’s bed; Weiss covers her with a blanket before she moves on. Jaune and Oscar are sitting guard over Penny, next to Ren, who has squeezed himself in beside Nora. Yang smiles at her warmly when she comes upon her and Blake in another room. Blake’s fallen asleep with her head resting on Yang’s lap. She wanders around for a little while more, until she finally comes upon Ruby in her bedroom.

“Why is it,” Weiss says, “that most of the time I meet you, I have to tell you to go to sleep?”

Ruby turns, smiles at her, but the smile is fractured in places. Weiss takes a step forward, closer.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing, nothing, I,” Ruby takes a deep breath, looks around. “I can’t believe you lived here.”

Weiss lets her change the topic. “What’s so unbelievable about that?”

“Just doesn’t look like you, that’s all.”

“That’s because I don’t exactly belong here.”

“Where do you belong then?” Ruby asks, looking right at her.

With you. “With all of you,” she says. It’s true. “Blake and Yang. And Jaune and Nora and Ren and Oscar. And even — that stupid alcoholic uncle of yours. And—”

“—and?” she asks, a lopsided grin on her face.

“And you.”

Ruby sighs, steps forward so they’re in each other’s personal space.  

“Weiss,” she says once, quietly.

Weiss closes her eyes, takes a step forward of her own, blindly, feeling Ruby’s steadying hands on her shoulders, her back, her hair. She feels a hand carefully moving against the scrunchie holding her hair together.

“Can I?”

She nods, feels her hair pulls free. Ruby helps detangle it, the braid, and ends with tender hands, smiles.

“I like your hair,” she says, then makes a soft sound in her throat, urgent, wanting. “Weiss.”

“Yes, Ruby?”

“Weiss, Weiss, Weiss,” Ruby says, again, and now her forehead is tipped against Weiss’.

“What, darling?” Weiss murmurs, and feels Ruby’s shuddering breath in response. There’s a small, desperate kiss pressed to her hair, then her forehead, and amusingly enough, her nose.

“Weiss, I have to tell you—”

“—wait!” she says, not moving. It’s not like she could. A Grimm could be standing in the room right now and it couldn’t draw her away from Ruby. She touches Ruby’s cheek gently, feels Ruby sigh and sink into her palm. “Please — please don’t say what you’re about to.”

(A part of her, the stupid, hopeful part knows what it is and craves it, dreads it, mourns it already)

“And what am I about to say?” Ruby asks, her eyes burning with something Weiss can’t find the words to define.

“Something incriminating, I fear.”

“You fear?”

“Yes. But I also — I hope.”

“Then let me say it,” Ruby implores. She removes her arms from around Weiss, grabs her hands and raises them to her lips. Kisses her knuckles carefully. “Weiss, you know already. You must know.”

“I do, sweetheart, I do,” she says, resting her head against Ruby’s collarbone. The two of them have been circling each other in some dance that Weiss hasn’t been able to pin down yet, have been hurtling, at alarming speeds towards unknown cliffs, and the same way that Ruby has to know that Weiss would split herself end to end for her, that if cut into pieces, Weiss would bleed for her happily, Weiss knows.

(All love is violence. She knows that better than anyone)

“Tell me,” she starts, “tell me when there is peace.”

“But there will never be peace!” Ruby says, and her voice cracks. Weiss raises her hand blindly to press at her cheek and feels the warm moisture sticking there.

She rises on her toes so they’re level again. “There will be.” Weiss would make sure of it. For Yang and Blake, who need time to get their fledgling love off the ground. For Ren and Nora and Jaune who have lost too many friends already. For Oscar, who deserves a chance to grow up and for Qrow, who deserves a chance to feel young again. For Penny and Maria and Pietro and her mother and Whitley and Winter.  

For the girl she loves.

For Ruby.

When they kiss, Weiss thinks she’s shattering into a million pieces, like she would never be the same again, even if reformed into someone who resembles Weiss Schnee on the surface. How could she, with the memory of the movement of Ruby’s lips now imprinted on hers, her fingers tracking indelible marks through her hair — tomorrow, she will remember, a week later, she will remember, if somehow, she couldn’t see Ruby for another thirty years, her skin would remind her, every day.

*****

The end of the world comes before the day after the end of the world.

Weiss wakes up in the woods, empty handed. She wakes up, and thinks of Ren and Nora and Oscar, hopes they got to safety. Of her mom and Whitley and Winter. She thinks of Jaune who tried carrying her to the door. Of Yang who fell infinite miles into the void before Blake fell an equal distance to her knees, of finding Gambol Shroud and trying her very best to gather her courage to honor her teammates best.

Weiss wakes up in the woods, stumbles to her feet, looks around. There’s water to be searched for, and sustenance to be gathered. She’s got a long journey ahead of her, after all.  

Ruby’s waiting for her.

[honey-hippie-harper]

Infrangible

AFGHSAGHJS THIS IS SO LATE IS NOT EVEN FUNNY ANYMORE LMAO

In my defense, I stopped being a person long ago and now, in all the ways except physical, I happen to be a potato. BUT ANYWAY :’) This is for the Renegades Ship Week hosted by @greasicookies <3 (Thanks again!), for day 5, which is Maxpie. The prompt is “secrets”! <3

I had a tough time writing this because I’m going through a lot of stuff rn :’) still, I hope you can enjoy it x’ddd.

Tag list: @healing-winston-pratt @obsidianfr3sk @the-wee-woo-rita and afsghagshja @all-weather-is-bad (because this is a very...me fic lol and I think you’re already used to my sad attempt at humor haahahaah i’M SORRY AGSHJAKL) AND @lackadae because agshjs I made a reference to one of your drawings, hon :’) (I promise once again, to catch up with your content once I feel better afsghjak).

And that’s it. I hope you like it <3

When Max turned nine, he reached the conclusion that everybody forgot their early years at some point. Before, Adrian had already explained to him that wasn’t quite true, because he misunderstood Max’s statement and thought he was feeling bad about himself for not being able to recall certain things. He told him that, unlike what he thought –which was false because that’s not what Max meant- people usually couldn’t store those memories from when they were younger than three.

“Some people do.” He said. “But it’s normal if you don’t remember anything from when you were…I don’t know. Two.”

“Do you remember anything from when you were two?” Max asked him.

From the other side of the glass, Adrian scrunched up his nose. And then, obviously, he saw himself in the need to adjust his glasses.

“I’m not quite sure whether I was two or not. But I do know I was younger than five.” He started. “There was a small canal on the way to the apartment. When it rained, it would grow a lot. It didn’t have big torrents or anything, but it did grow a lot. The water usually went higher than my ankles. But the thing was…that every time  it grew, it became infested with turtles.”

He paused for a second.

“I really liked turtles.” He continued, shrugging. “My mother used to let me walk down to the water, as long as she was right behind me, obviously; one day, when we were coming back from the city, she stopped to attend a call. I got too impatient and went down alone when she wasn’t looking. The next thing I remember is that, just when I was getting up after catching a turtle, I felt her tugging me by the back of my shirt. The turtle fell on its shell.”

At that point, Max realized he had been staring at how he kept on fidgeting with his pen instead of looking him in the eye, but he continued doing so, because he didn’t like it when Adrian’s voice turned that serious.

“…She had never screamed at me like that.” He said, as if he were talking to himself and then, to erase the tension, he tried to scoff. “I don’t remember what she said, but I remember that she said it so loud I told her she was scaring the turtle. Then I started crying. Like, a lot. I think she was terrified too.”

In the end, everything turned too quiet for his liking, and Max did something his dad had advised him to do for times like these, when he just didn’t know what came next: Improvise.

“I didn’t know you liked turtles.”

“…Well, I did. I really liked turtles when I was younger.”

Max had seen a couple of turtles in his life, but not as many as Adrian had seen, he supposed, because Max had never stepped outside, except when he was a baby.

Which was exactly the point.

He didn’t have memories from when he was a baby, or a toddler. Most of the people who had come to talk to him had said they remembered events that were either too sad (like Adrian) or meaningful in their lives. Max didn’t have anything like that. In fact, his first –very blurry- memory was standing on the edge of the quarantine, with his hands pressed against the crystal, and then licking it.

According to his dads, he was between three and four (“He was three, Simon. What are you talking about?” “He was born in November.” “It wasn’t November yet.” “We had just celebrated his birthday. He was four.” “HE WASN’T FOUR, SIMON! HE WAS THREE! THREE! We were celebrating that his quarantine had just been built!” “IT WAS THE SAME EVENT, HUGH!”) and Aunt Tamaya, plus the both of them, were in the hallway. For some reason, the fact that his eyes were so huge (they were still big. But they were bigger when he was a baby) came off as odd to Tamaya. And the moment they made eye contact, he licked the glass.

Nobody knew why. Not even himself. The adults remembered it better than he did, of course, but none of them had ever been able to guess the reasoning behind it. They often expressed Max had been a very strange baby, mostly because of his lack of social skills. It’s not like he had chosen that, and it’s not like his fathers would’ve allowed it to happen if they had had any other option. But Max wasn’t willing to stand there and pretend that he knew what he was doing, either.

Most of the time, he didn’t.

He barely held any memories of the nurses that had ever been in charge of his care, but, for obvious reasons, he remembered Dad. It was always easier to remember the person who had taken care of you the most, he supposed. And Max knew, among a lot of things, that it wasn’t his other dad’s fault. Though, sometimes, he couldn’t help but blame him.

Again, he didn’t know why, but there were those days, when he needed he the most, where a voice inside of his head told him that, if Simon loved him enough, he would just sacrifice his powers to be with him. His powers weren’t that useful for combat anyway.

“Okay, but that’s kinda mean.” Adrian told him the first time he opened up about it, the night before he attended the Trials to choose the members of his patrolling team. “Pops might not have combat powers, but they’re as important as the rest of the members’. That’s why they work so well as a team, you know? Every power can be extremely helpful during a battle, as long as you know how to use it.”

Max wasn’t doing anything in particular that day. Nothing besides listening to Adrian and sitting on the floor , at least.

“But if every power is useful…” He said, tilting his head to the side. “…Why are you allowed to reject certain aspirants?”

Adrian frowned a little, not in the sense that he looked angry at Max. Rather, he was confused by the question and was trying to word the answer in a way that sounded rational.

“Because…” He gulped and clicked his tongue. “…Like I said…uhm…the Council is an extremely good team. They’ve been doing this for a while. Us, the patrolling leaders are…allowed to reject certain prodigies because we don’t have as much experience as them. And…we might not know how to use somebody’s powers, and that’s very dangerous. We don’t want people dying, do we?”

When he said that, something clicked inside Max’s brain, and he nodded in automatic. Obviously, a few years ago, a non-prodigy teacher had taught him how to read, and the moment Adrian notified him it was his year to be in the Trials, he managed to read the manual and the rules for the event, from a booklet and a pamphlet (respectively) he had asked his dad to bring for him. He didn’t get much new information, different from the one he heard on TV or the one presented in the posters. However, amongst the rules, there was a section that talked about banned powers, which contained only two categories:

-Complete telekinesis.

-Stardust modelling.

“Yeah.” Dad told him. He was bathing him in the quarantine’s bathroom (Of course. Where else?). “Stardust catchers…which….are able to model stardust, are extremely dangerous and there’s not much research about them. Nobody really knows how they work, and it would be pretty difficult for us to… handle a prodigy like that.”

“Like me.”

Dad had always had a pretty specific routine he had to follow when bathing him. If he missed or misplaced a step, he acted like would explode or something. Also, Max didn’t understand why, but ever since he started growing thicker hair, Dad became pretty strict on the fact they should take care of it so it would grow healthy. Hence why they had a full hair routine that they did in the bathtub. That day, the statement caught him so off-guard he grabbed the wrong bottle, and then, when he realized it, he was already pouring the dense liquid (that looked more like a paste to him) on Max’s head. Cursing under his breath, he placed his other hand in the middle so it would fall over his palm, washed Max’s head and started the routine all over again, before changing the subject:

“About complete telekinesis…there’s obviously a lot of research about that power. We know how to manage with that. But telekinetic prodigies are not …very accepted in our society. They’re pointed at…Frowned upon. In the worst of cases, other prodigies hunt them down and then kill them.”

In that moment, Max came to the conclusion that all that changing the subject thing had been in vain.

Because, from his part, the answer was exactly the same:

“Like me.”

And Dad didn’t like that, for he started scratching his scalp harder, accidentally.

“No. It’s nothing like you.” He said. “You’re not like that, Max. Society hates telekinesis because some evil dude decided to use his powers, his telekinesis, for awful reasons and stained prodigy’s names. You’re not like that. You’re not abusive, or selfish or evil. And I don’t want to hear you comparing yourself to him ever again. Understood?”

To this day, that was the most aggressive form of validation someone had ever given him, but Max took it anyway, because he trusted Dad, and if he had said something like that, then there had to be a clear reason behind it.

“Understood.” He whispered.

And he tried, he really tried, to believe it. But, like many other things, no matter how hard Max tried, he was still severely confused. Not that he didn’t know about the Age of Anarchy, or the parties involved in the Age of Anarchy.

The quarantine, needless to say, could get pretty boring most of the time. Max had to do a lot of things to kill time, and some of those activities involved reading books that children shouldn’t be reading. He did read some children’s books, but then he would find himself looking through history articles and books, and reading the chapters that interested him the most. For instance, he was confident he knew about the Age of Anarchy, but one thing was knowing about it, and another, different thing, was having an opinion about in regards to it.

Max didn’t know if he had something to say about the topic. If he did, it was a very incomplete idea, and it was very likely he wouldn’t be able to phrase it correctly.

The group of people Max talked the most to were adults, and those adults, especially the ones who had experienced the Age of Anarchy and somehow managed to make it out alive, refused to talk about it. As for the few children he had talked to…

Well, about them…

Long story short, they had lives.

They all had lives outside of a glass, unlike Max. Maybe they weren’t the most interesting of lives, but at least they for sure had to be more interesting than his’. They didn’t have a pre-established schedule, where a designated person would come in to feed him or extract blood samples from his body, to then take them to the laboratory. They didn’t have to hear a total of seven alarms to remind him what he had to do: Wake up and get dressed, have breakfast and brush his teeth, enter the virtual sessions with his teachers, take a shower, have his blood samples taken,  start doing his homework –if he had any- and do whatever he wanted once he was finished, have dinner, brush his teeth and go to bed, and then start all over again.

That moment, when he had spare time, would be the same one normal kids used to go out with their friends, like Adrian did. To go to the park and get themselves a scarily huge wound at the center of their knee. To live. To breathe air. To do…literally anything that wasn’t this.

Because Max was different from the many children he hadn’t yet gotten the opportunity to meet or talk to, because, obviously, they wouldn’t want to spend the whole day hanging out with a person…like him.

The only way Max could see two out of the three people in his family was through a crystal wall. And he couldn’t kiss them, he couldn’t touch them… sometimes he even wondered if he knew how their voices sounded, because, after all, Dad’s voice sounded the tiniest bit different once he crossed that infamous glass door.

He couldn’t walk through the streets of Gatlon, because, for starters, he didn’t know them. And if he dared to go out there, he would get killed on spot for having accidentally neutralized a prodigy who didn’t want to be neutralized.

Other kids had nannies whom they complained about when their parents couldn’t look after them (at least that’s the kind of things he saw on the TV shows he watched) but Max had patrol units that would move from one corner of the room to another, ready to attack anyone who came closer than necessary to him, because the only one who could take care of him in person, was Hugh.

Other kids could go out freely, without being scared of anything at all. They could get hurt while having fun with their friends and family. They could laugh until they cried with them. They could hug them, sleep in the same bed as them. They could walk their pets, go on road trips, go to amusement stores, water parks…

They could experience the current world; watch all the new events that were happening every day, in first hand.

They didn’t have to read about the past, or the people from the past to keep themselves entertained. They didn’t have the need to do that. At all.

They were living the lives Max couldn’t have, because he was too dangerous for that.

And obviously, that’s why he couldn’t just…go around asking other kids about what was their favorite bug, their favorite planet…or their opinions about Ace Anarchy, and if Pops (Simon) saying “Alec, with an A as in Abusive Swine” made them laugh.

Besides, he hadn’t even met that many kids his age. Or kids, for that matter.

He was aware Adrian wasn’t exactly a grown up, but he wasn’t a kid either, so, he usually didn’t make it into that list.

In fact, just like the banned powers in that manual, there were only two kids in Max’s list of acquaintances.

Aunt Tamaya’s first baby was born without powers, when Max was like four years old, and his dads were way too excited about it (Weird thing to brag about out loud, honestly, because all the recruits in the Headquarters were betting ridiculous amounts of money on which powers the Thunderbaby would have –Max could hear them- and one day they just heard The Dread Warden storming into the hallway, euphorically screaming “GUESS WHAT, MY LITTLE CHERUB BABY? YOUR COUSIN IS ABSOLUTELY FREAKING POWERLESS!”), for they thought Max would finally be able to have a friend who was more or less his age. Dad was the one who brought him in, two weeks after he was born. He was still tiny, red and chubby, and wrapped in his three different blankets that way, he looked like a bloated marshmallow.

Aunt Tamaya, her husband, Pops, Adrian, Aunt Kasumi and Uncle Evander were outside (as always) waiting to see what happened…and, it was extremely odd for Max to admit it, but he couldn’t remember much about that moment, even though he was already older than three. There was, however, a video taken by Uncle Evander where, if you narrowed your eyes hard enough, you could see the moment Max burst into tears right after kissing the baby’s cheek.

Neil was his friend.

At least, Max considered him to be his friend. Still, they had an age gap of four whole years, and a part of him was waiting until he was a little older so they could be on the same page. Because sometimes, when Neil couldn’t comprehend something semi-important that Max had just said, things could get pretty awkward, because there were occasions when, if Neil got too frustrated over anything, he would start crying, and his sobs often summoned his mother all the way from across the building. She never particularly tried to put the blame on Max. In fact, she hadn’t even glared at him not once, ever.

But she did choose to take him with her, into her office, or ask Adrian to babysit him while he calmed down.  Afterwards, he usually didn’t come back to the quarantine.

“It’s not your fault, Max.” Pops would tell him, always. “It’s just that…Neil...he’s younger than you. There are things that might be…easy to you, but that are super complicated to him. And you might be able to do things that he can’t, and he can’t understand why he can’t, so he gets super confused and angry and that’s why he cries and Tamaya has to come and comfort him.”

“That, and because she’s like a...very freaky bird mom who hears her children cry and comes around with her super sonic enhanced sense of hea—“

“Hugh, don’t be rude.”

Every time they had that discussion in front of him, Max could never understand why Pops said Dad was being rude. He was right, to a certain extent. Aunt Tamaya was just…being a mom.

And that’s what moms did.

At least, that’s what Max had read and seen on TV because families like his’ were…super rare to find in his cartoons or favorite books. In fact, the times when he had seen himself represented in any of the things were so few that, for the longest time, Max had this weird, messed up idea that biological men could give birth. He thought that Adrian, apart from the fact that he was the closest to him, looked more similar to Simon, and that had to mean he had given birth to him, while Hugh had been the one to give birth to Max.

One year, when Max was six, they finished Lady Indomitable’s gigantic golden statue, placed downtown. It was late June, and though the city had previously looked covered in colors, that day it just looked…white and golden. That’s the best way Max  could find to put it into words.

According to Max’s weather application, the heat was unbearable that day (good thing he couldn’t feel anything because the temperature in the quarantine was always regulated) yet, according to what he was seeing in one of his screens, a great percentage of the citizens of Gatlon were marching in the streets carrying floating lanterns, headed towards downtown where the event was being held.

The Council was standing in front of the covered statue. All of them except Blacklight, who had stayed to take care of the Headquarters, and Max could see him from where he was. They gave a speech about Lady Indomitable together, and as they started revealing the statue, Tsunami sang a song that was supposed to be one of Lady Indomitable’s favorite ones, and that Max was too young to recognize (he supposed). In his opinion, it was a cute event, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t utterly confused the moment he saw Adrian taking one step ahead to be the first one to let go of his floating lantern, which was different from the other ones, because his’ was bigger, and it had a big “I”. Besides, people waited a couple of seconds until it was stable above their heads to let go of their own floating lanterns.

It still looked cute to him, but now it looked weird as well. So he got up from his chair, and walked towards the edge, pressing his hands against the glass. He hoped that would be enough to magically catch Evander’s attention, who was, at the moment, using his chair as a swing, as he typed a number in his computer, copying it from his calculator and eating from his salad every now and then. Obviously, Max’s telepathic call wasn’t enough, and he had to knock on the glass a couple of times, loudly. Even then, Uncle Evander didn’t look up in his direction.

But he did hear him, because he did respond.

“It’s not gonna work, Maximus. I’m not getting you out.”

As a side note, Max considered telling him his full name was Maximilian and not Maximus, because that was way before he realized it was a nickname. Nevertheless, he just let it pass, for the simple reason he had better things to ask. That’s why he proceeded to knock again, instead of speaking.

“What is it?”

“I wanna ask you something.”

Evander tried to steady himself in the chair without falling on his back, and once he succeeded, he came closer to the quarantine, with his arms over his hips.

“Why is Adrian doing that?” He asked, just because he wasn’t able to find another way to phrase it, while pointing at the screen behind him; Evander narrowed his eyes following his finger, as if he hadn’t been watching the event himself from a livestream on his phone. A few seconds later, he seemed to realize what he was talking about, and bit his upper lip, before pouting barely a little.

Then, he clicked his tongue.

“Because that’s his mom. And today’s her birthday.”

And it’s not that Max was insensitive enough not to recognize that it was very sad, but at the same time those single words were enough to make the idea he had of his life fall apart. All the things he thought he had already managed to understand felt fake and incorrect, and it was so fast it almost made him feel dizzy.

“She’s not his mom.” He declared.

Evander opened his eyes very widely and, next thing he knew, was that, for some reason, he looked nervous. Which, to say the least, was very…unlike Evander. He was usually super…confident, and, in Dad’s words: “He walks with his back too straight for a person who says some dumb shit every time he opens his mouth”.

At that moment, his back wasn’t straight at all, and he kept on wiping the sweat off his palms in the suit.

“…I mean…she’s not…alive anymore. But… that doesn’t mean that…”

“Noooo. I didn’t mean that.” Max cut him off. “She’s not her mom, because Adrian already has a mom.”

He stopped suddenly. Max could almost see his brain working at full speed, trying to process the data he had just received. Then, he blinked, arching his eyebrow.

“Who’s…who’s his mom?” He asked, getting closer to the crystal, and crouching down to be at Max’s height (Evander was almost too tall for his own sake). “Do Simon or Hugh…?”

“No. I mean she’s not his mom because Simon’s his mom.” Max stated, confident enough to move a mountain with his raw determination and his bare hands, which, needless to say, did nothing but make Evander even more confused.

Not that Max couldn’t understand why.

He was a brand new, redeemed person now.

But back then he wasn’t.

“…Simon is what, you said?”

“Adrian’s mom.” Max reaffirmed.

Still bewildered, Evander gawked. Perhaps he understood where that confusion was coming from but, at the same time, maybe he was too disturbed to ask for additional information. Max didn’t know which one of the two would make him feel more embarrassed, especially taking into account the next thing Evander said:

“That is the weirdest shit somebody has ever said to me, and I’ve talked to the Puppeteer an unhealthy amount of times.”

He wasn’t the one who explained to him the way his own family worked. On the contrary, he immediately told his dads about it, and next time the both of them came to talk to him, they tried to make him understand the concept of homosexual couples.

And they failed.

Miserably.

And he was using that term, because after that talk, Max went through life for a while saying that his ethnicity was Gay, because both of his dads were gay. Over and over again, they tried to correct him, but nothing seemed to work, and Max kept on spreading the information that he was gay (something he didn’t know yet) until Aunt Kasumi decided to intervene and, for his birthday, she got him a children’s book called All in Rainbow, which, according to the information in the first page, was actually a translation from a Latin American book written by two lesbians (one of them non-binary) and illustrated by the same woman who had made the Anarchists’ and the Renegades’ graphic novels and was also a Latina.

That book was something similar to a gay encyclopedia. It was narrated by this girl named Phoenix, because it followed her throughout her school and her daily life, where she came across different people and families. After every short story, there was an informative section explaining everything in regards to the new person’s identity, including their flag, the meaning of said flag, and the explanation of certain terms. Max really enjoyed it, and, in fact, he ended up going through it more than once. When he tried to persuade Adrian into reading it too, he admitted he already had, when he was younger,  and proceeded to make a comment about how pretty the name “Phoenix” was.

It was only then that Max was able to understand how his own family worked, and how freaking inept he had sounded when he decided it was a great idea to use it as an ethnicity.

That book was, in fact, the cue for all the grown ups in his life to start buying books for him, which he was grateful for, except for the one that he, ironically enough, had gotten from Uncle Evander. Sure, he appreciated that he had spent money on that,  but Max didn’t appreciate the fact that the plot was about a dog that was sent away to a school for dogs but made everyone believe he was in jail so he could escape. The drawings were cute, but he just couldn’t find the moral of the story and he didn’t like that.

His dads, from their part, got him a book about two frogs that, at least to Max, acted as if they were a couple; Aunt Tamaya was the one of the short books without drawings.

As for Aunt Kasumi…she usually brought a lot of educational books; every time she overheard him expressing something that was making him confused, she brought him a book about it, including that time she heard him asking Ruby Tucker “So, are you always bleeding?” completely out of context.

Max supposed that it had a lot to do with the fact that Aunt Kasumi was in charge of Child Services, and she spent a lot of time with children, especially because she liked to volunteer in orphanages, having been in one herself when she was a little girl. She usually moved in prodigy orphanages, for she was one to know the poor conditions they sometimes presented.

And…to say the least, she wasn’t a woman of many words. She was very reserved with everything she did. And, besides, it was none of Max’s business. After all, he was just a kid.

But, in this case, it kind of involved him.

Kind of.

For the simple reason that there were two names in the list of people his age Max had talked to. The first one was Neil (who wasn’t even his age. He was just close to that) and the second one…

The second one involved Aunt Kasumi.

Just like people were able to overhear his conversations through the quarantine, Max was able to overhear the conversations they were having on the outside, especially when he was trying to do it on purpose.

Every time he was too bored, in other words.

Some of the things older people said were confusing, but, over time, Max had learned to store that information, so he could comprehend it better in the future. He didn’t know at what level that was healthy, yet he still did it because, literally, he didn’t have anything better to do.

During extremely busy days, the Council chose to spend the night in the Headquarters, just in case, and while they could sleep in the common room, if Pops was too insistent on wanting to be close to the quarantine, they slept in the hallway.

In Max’s hallway.

Of course, Dad would sleep with him inside the quarantine but, in order to make it feel more like a pajama party, they slept close to the edge of the “room” (if it could be called that way), so close to the Councils’ inflatable beds, they could’ve touched them if there hadn’t been a wall in between.

When they were sleeping in that hallway, there wasn’t a patrol looking over Max, because they were the patrol and, every two hours, they changed turns to stay awake. All of them except Dad, who stayed the entire night with Max. The others often got up and started walking around the quarantine according to their ages. That is, Aunt Tamaya went first, followed by Pops, then Aunt Kasumi, and Uncle Evander at the end. However, since it wasn’t like they were too used to having many hours of sleep, Kasumi and Evander usually got up at the same time and patrolled together.

That night, Max was having trouble sleeping. Dad was hugging him, which made him feel very comfortable, but, at the same time, before he wrapped his arms around him, he had been moving way too much, and that had made Max feel uneasy, because a part of him, though he knew it was highly possible it wasn’t true, was feeding the annoying worm at the back of his brain that told him he was the one making Dad uneasy. That Dad was moving and couldn’t sleep because he didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Perhaps he would’ve preferred to be with Pops. Perhaps he would’ve preferred to be with Adrian, even. Anyone but Max.

Which, again, he knew things…weren’t like that. But that little, nameless, uninvited worm was always telling him that, over and over again, determined to repeat those awful words until they made so much noise they made him cry.

And even then, when he was already crying, the worm ate deeper into his brain and told him to stop because, in the end, who was he crying for anyway?

Who was he crying for, if nobody was here to see or hear him?

That night, of course, he didn’t cry, for the simple reason that…well, he did have somebody who would hear him cry, and maybe comfort him like Aunt Tamaya comforted Neil when he was crying…

But he didn’t want Dad to do that.

Not today.

Not because he were mad at him, but because he feared that, if he did, then Dad would be the one who would get mad.

Besides, that night he got extremely busy trying to overhear the conversation between Kasumi and Evander who, the moment they got up, started talking as they walked, first at a volume so low their voices could’ve been considered murmurs, but then, with every second, the issue started escalating.

And it wasn’t that they were arguing, it was that they weren’t exactly happy with each other, nor did they seem to manage to get to a mutual agreement.

Max felt like that time he was watching a movie with his earphones on, and instead of paying attention to the plot, he kept trying to identify which sounds were dominant in his left ear, and which ones were dominant in his right ear, because Uncle Evander and Aunt Kasumi were walking around the quarantine, and the echoes of their voices were floating right behind them, making it almost impossible for Max to decipher their messages word by word.

At least, until they stopped in front of him. That is, very close to the inflatable mattresses, too. And with just one eye open, he was able to tell Aunt Kasumi wasn’t amused, with her arms so tight across her chest that way, and with Uncle Evander standing more straight than necessary (because, yes, Dad was right about that...sometimes... because Max had read somewhere that tall people had to be really careful with their posture to avoid spine deformities or have less complications when they were older) waving his –as Aunt Tamaya would’ve called them- Hot Cheeto fingers right in front of her face, in a way so aggressive she sometimes had to lean backwards not to get one of her eyes poked out.

“…and it won’t look good for the organization. It won’t look good, Kasumi. You know why?”

“Yes, Vandy. I know why. I already knew before, yet you took the time to explain it to me another seven times. I mean, thank you, I guess, but—“

“If I kept on explaining it to you, it’s because I didn’t…and I don’t know what’s not clicking.”

“What do you mean with what’s not clicking?” And she tilted her head to the side. “…Are you still talking to me?”

“Don’t play dumb, Kasumi. Especially not in front of me, because I know you.”

“Right. But I still don’t get what you’re referring to. What’s not clicking about what, exactly?”

Evander laughed in a way Max would’ve just…understood if she had decided to punch him in the face so he would stop.

“We’re a big organization, Kasumi. People talk.”

“Of course that people talk. I mean, our citizens support our cause and our government system. In fact, statistically, more than half of the population do, but sometimes there are things that… are for their own good but they will refuse to understand and accept them anyway. And that’s normal. We might be the law, but we can’t control how the masses think, you know?”

“For their own good, you say. Beneficial.”

“Exactly.”

“Beneficial for who, if you’d be so kind?” Evander laughed again. “As far as I understand, we’re talking about one single problem, from a single person. It won’t bring anything beneficial, as you call it, for our organization, or for our system…if anything, it will damage it and make us lose credibility.”

“…Why?”

As a response, he started flapping his arms around, as if he were trying to point at something invisible. Or at something that wasn’t really there.

And this time, Aunt Kasumi didn’t try to pretend she was seeing it, and remained silent until Evander realized he would have to make himself understood.

“Because…” He clenched his fists, sighing loudly, almost like he was certain he was right and Aunt Kasumi wasn’t. “Our policy. Remember that? You know, a thing that actually exists and you helped write?”

She didn’t respond.

“Our policy as Renegades, it’s that we shall keep our people safe, and that includes prodigy and non-prodigy citizens. We shall preserve their lives no matter the cost, and create a safe environment where all can coexist and protect each other. That means that no prodigy individual with questionable reasons is to be allowed to cross that gate and disturb the peace or, worse, put somebody’s life at risk.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Yes, you should be, because we wrote it, for fuck’s sake.”

“Evander, please. There’s no need to curse or—“

“…But you know what that means? It means that we can’t just…go against that policy and expect our citizens, our recruits, even, to still take us seriously.”

“Oh, but I’m following that policy because, as you might remember, we also pledged to assist anyone whose life was at risk, and people who, day by day, have to live under very vulnerable circumstances. It is our job to intervene and take them to a safer place, where their quality of life can improve, isn’t it?”

“It is, but that applies for people who aren’t dangerous to society.”

At that point, Max had both his eyes open, and he was seeing the scene more clearly.

In fact, everything was so clear, that he was able to read the confusion in Aunt Kasumi’s expression, even before she said:

“…This is a kid we’re talking about.”

“She is dangerous.”

“She’s not dangerous, Evander. She's a kid. Sure, her behavior has caused her to go bouncing from orphanage to orphanage like a rubber ball but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be helped, that doesn’t mean we should just turn our backs at her, and that doesn’t mean she’s dangerous.”

“You know damn well her behavior’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Well, I am, because that’s the only thing that should concern us at the moment.”

“No, it’s not?”

“It is. Because she’s a kid…and, honestly, Vandy…” Aunt Kasumi sighed. “… I know we were raised thinking life is war, but… the truth is, people are not born evil. Or dangerous, for that matter. Take your time and think about it, and  you can talk to me again once you’ve calmed down, because you must be pretty much aware I don't appreciate this tone. Besides, it’s not like this little argument is going to stop me anyway.” She shrugged.

“…after all, I already talked to Hugh.”

“…And what did he say?”

“It’s not my place to tell you that. Ask him.”

Max never knew whether he had taken that suggestion or not but, knowing Evander, he just assumed he hadn’t. And, to be honest, he never asked Dad about it either. He just stood and watched how everything proceeded to go down and chaos unleashed.

Though, he had to admit, unlike what had happened with other “big” events, this one specific chaos was rather discrete. A kind of well-kept secret.

In fact, the only explicit hint that something would happen in the next few days, was the little disturbance caused by Team Frostbite (it was always Team Frostbite. Max had no idea why everyone was so…willing to put up with their…issues so much, and without hesitation) when it was their turn to patrol around the quarantine and Evander came around, holding his notepad, and muttered something to them.

“Whom?!” Genissa Clark, Frostbite, snapped immediately.

Evander frowned and, judging by the way his moustache moved, he also pouted, before turning at Mack Baxter, Aftershock, to start talking to him instead.

“Do you have any idea of what she’s talking about?” He clicked his tongue. “Like…okay, nevermind…”

When Max looked up, he saw the exact moment when Evander realized he was listening to the conversation, so he lowered his tone once again.  Yet, Max was still able to see the million ways in which Genissa Clark's face contorted and, in the end, the first second Evander shut his mouth, she declared:

“We’re not available for that. Perhaps that task should be assigned to Team Sketch or Team Peregrine. They’re always lollygagging around, it’s about time they get some real responsibi—“

“That’s a no, then. Alright. Thanks for your cooperation, Team Frostbite. Or, lack of, more likely. Do better next time, okay?”

If Max wanted to be honest with himself, it hadn’t taken him much time to realize he wasn’t fond of any of the members in Team Frostbite. Or Frostbite herself. In fact, he considered her to be almost insufferable, and, again, he couldn’t quite understand why they were allowed to boss everybody around. To a certain extent, they reminded him of the popular kids (who were also bullies) in every movie he had ever watched. They weren’t nice. Not even likeable.

Maybe Max was just very specific on the type of people he liked.

Or maybe he liked everyone and their mom, except Team Frostbite, because he didn’t know any better than that, while  at the same time he knew better than liking Team Frostbite.

But he didn’t know better than liking Margaret White, because…well…

She hadn’t done anything particularly awful for him to have an opinion as strong as Uncle Evander’s about her.

She came on a Friday.

Not that she exclusively came to talk to him.

She, in fact, arrived alongside Aunt Kasumi, who was wearing her civilian clothes –High-waisted jeans and a baby blue shirt, damp with sweat because it was hot outside- and kept leaving her car key on every table that came across her, before coming back to it to grab them.

At first, Max wasn’t able to see Margaret very well, mostly because he was distracted with his online classes, and she was taken straight to Dad’s office, along with Adrian’s entire team. And though Max didn’t see much, he was able to catch a glimpse on how Adrian kept on trying to grab her hand, and she insisted on pulling away.

At some point, he had read about that too.

The Renegades accepted recruits from ages 14 and up, talking about patrolling. However, they had a child protection program, where, basically, they assisted orphan prodigy children with behavioral issues or, though only few people liked to admit it, potential to be a part of the organization when they were older. Adrian didn’t like it and, strangely enough, out of everyone, Evander didn’t like it either. Nevertheless, Evander was one to get more aggressive when it came to child recruitment, which, thankfully, wasn’t common at all.

In fact, those cases were so rare, that they referred to them as “exceptions”. After all, children were not allowed into the Trials. As far as Max knew, they weren’t placed in patrol units. On the contrary, they were given small positions in the organization, and their paychecks were directed to their respective savings account, something that Pops was in charge of. However, they could use that money for their personal needs or something they wanted to buy, as the few children recruits resided in orphanages around Gatlon and went back there after their shift was over. Max supposed that sometimes their caretakers refused to buy them something because it wasn’t good for their health and it must be very satisfying to tell them it was their money (That’s what Adrian always did when Dad refused to buy something for him).

(That, or he went and asked Pops for that same thing).

Usually, they could have cash withdrawals just by presenting their Renegade Recruit ID because, obviously, they didn’t have an official ID yet.

And not only that. The children recruits were assigned a patrol unit with older members to look after them, or help them with anything they needed. Taking into account the conversation he had overheard, he supposed that duty had fallen on Adrian’s team (A theory that was later confirmed to be true by Adrian himself).

They were never left unsupervised, just like Max.

The day Margaret arrived, for a couple of minutes, maybe hours, Max was submerged in his own little world, and in the assignment his last teacher had told him to do. It was just him, his colored pencils, his paper sheets, his notes, his head, his hands, and the miniature planet Earth that his quarantine supposed, against the real world that he had never stepped on.

But every now and then, a little piece of the unknown, mysterious real world came running to his encounter and talked to him, sometimes in the most sudden, unsolicited way.

Sometimes it was Dad opening the door without calling. Sometimes it was Adrian pressing a new drawing against the crystal. Sometimes it was Pops, making a little “Psst” sound to get his attention.

Sometimes it was three little knocks, and the girl that was producing them with her knuckles.

Back then, Margaret’s hair was longer, to the point where she could tie it in a high ponytail, decorated with a blue bow, which combined with his orphanage uniform: A white polo, with the institution’s symbol by the right side of her chest, beneath a cobalt blue skirt with suspenders, long white socks and black scholar shoes.

He saw her and recognized she was real the first time, but Max still gave himself a couple of seconds to grasp the fact that she was really there.

Well, not there-there.

That she was there, as in, through the glass.

And she was calling him, even if she wasn’t saying anything. In fact, she was just there, eating from a chocolate bar with puffed rice. Her free hand was still over the glass.

And she was waiting.

So, he figured he didn’t want to keep her waiting anymore, and leaving his task and his tools behind, Max walked in her direction. And like it always happened, he stopped right before bumping his forehead against the hard, translucent surface.

Margaret took another bite from her chocolate, with an arched eyebrow, but she said nothing. From afar, Max hadn’t been able to really appreciate her features, but now that he was closer, he realized she was taller than him; her small, brown eyes were making her lashes look bigger; her black hair looked thicker and he was able to conclude that her skin tone was more or less like Pops’, maybe a little darker. She had a mark over her cheek, and at first Max thought it was a mole or a birthmark…until, of course, he realized that moles weren’t (or, at least, shouldn’t be) purple, and realized it was a bruise.

He didn’t ask her about it. Adrian had once told him that there were people who might not want to talk about their bruises or open wounds, not because the stories behind them were painful to tell, but because they were too embarrassing and telling embarrassing stories was an inconvenience.

“…well… now that I think about it…” He said right after. “…That’s not it. No. Not really. Sometimes your wounds’ backstories are painful. Or sometimes…you just want to keep them a secret, you know? And secrets are…sort of important.”

He believed every word.

Hence why, instead of saying something too nosy about that bruise, a little slowly at first, Max started lifting his hand up, until he reached the spot where Margaret’s was, and pressed his palm there. When she stared at his palm in confusion, Max clarified:

“Hugh five. You know?" Max giggled a little." As in… the Captain? Hugh? ...No?"

She didn’t laugh. And that was odd because Adrian would’ve.

Margaret wasn’t Adrian, sadly. And, it seemed to be, she hadn’t had an older sibling to tell her that some things just…weren’t adequate as icebreakers to start a conversation. Because, like Adrian had said, there were certain things other people might not want to talk about.

“Are you sick?” She directly asked.

Max was still “pressing” his hand against hers.

Gulping hard, he felt his throat boiling hot, almost as if it were growing blisters.

“No.” He said in a hoarse voice. “Why?”

Not pulling away either, Margaret said:

“The other day, Sister Malinda brought a very tiny baby into the orphanage. They were so small they had to take them to the medical wing.” She took another bite from her chocolate, and kept on speaking with her mouth full. “I sneaked out of my room to see them, and they were inside this little glass box that helped  keeping them alive. Sister Tam told me so.”

Max kept quiet for a while. He would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t have a little curiosity about the name, but Margaret solved everything that had to be solved even if he didn’t ask her to.

“Sister Tam was named after Thunderbird. She’s younger than the other nuns.”

He guessed so.

Aunt Tamaya’s real name had been revealed to the general public on the 13th year into the Age of Anarchy, when she reappeared after being away for months thanks to an accident that involved Queen Bee and a cliff or something like that (Max couldn’t quite understand it, and Aunt Tamaya couldn’t remember much about it either. If she did, then she just didn’t desire to talk about it). It wasn’t a fun anecdote or anything like that but, according to his dads, the name Tamaya topped the lists for the most female-assigned names for at least a year, and the same thing happened in the 20th year into the Age of Anarchy...however, by the time she was buried, the world didn’t know Lady Indomitable’s real name, and for an entire month, people used Regina instead of Georgia. When Max asked why, Dad answered that, when attending public events, Lady Indomitable used to wear a pair of shiny golden R-shaped earrings that caused everybody in Gatlon to develop mass hysteria and made themselves believe that those Rs meant Regina, when in reality, according to Lady Indomitable herself, one of them meant “Rawles”, and the other “Renegade”. In fact, Oscar Silva (Smokescreen, one of the members of Adrian’s team) had once said that one of his cousins, who lived in Mexico, had been named Renata Regina (Though nobody knew what the heck that first name was, and Oscar had a really peculiar way to pronounce Regina) because she was born a few days after Lady Indomitable’s decease.

“I knew that.” Max lied.

“Sure, buddy. I bet you did.” Margaret chuckled. And there, Max realized she thought she was too clever.

Which, he didn’t doubt she was. He wasn’t in the position to state that. At least, not yet.

But what he was in the position to state, was that, if she thought herself to be clever, then it was his opportunity to think of himself as clever too. After all, he had been reading his whole life because he didn’t have anything else to do.

If Margaret was clever, then so was he.

“You’re talking about an incubator.” He said.

Margaret looked up out of a sudden (Max hoped she hadn’t gotten dizzy). He could still see the chocolate, that at this point should’ve been mush, stored in the inside of her right cheek.

“Uh?” She asked, struggling to keep her mouth closed.

Max gulped, and tapped the surface with his fingers.

“The thing where they put the little baby. It’s called an incubator. That’s where they put pre-term babies, because they’re not ready to survive outside of their mother’s womb. Sometimes their lungs don’t work on their own, sometimes their hearts are too fast or too slow…”

“You look too old to be a baby.” She observed. “Are your powers something related to that? Like, are you a baby who doesn’t look like a baby?”

For a second, Max thought about quoting Evander that time he had boldly stated that Simon was Adrian’s mom, but he didn’t because he wasn’t in the mood to curse.

“…No. First, this is not an incubator. And second,  I’m a kid.” He answered. “I’m not a baby.”

“Then why are you here?”

The short answer was that, honestly, that was none of her business. And the even shorter answer, was:

“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret. And secrets are sort of important.”

“A secret.” She repeated, as if tasting the word. “…You don’t look like you want to be here. Are you allowed to come out?”

The short answer was still that it was none of her business. But, if he wanted to be honest, for some reason, he didn’t want to give that answer. Because, to be fair, she would find out on her own sooner or later. Because, yes, people talked, and while his dads were kind of secretive about him, everyone in the headquarters knew him. Her being clueless was just a temporary event that would vanish into thin air in a blink.

And, for some reason, he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

Maybe tell her something that wasn’t real. Maybe… tell her something that wasn’t necessarily true but that he wanted it to be. Maybe something that was more interesting than what he was, in reality; maybe something that would make the worm in his brain go away for two weeks.

"I can't get out." He finally decided. "Because this glass is infrangible."

Then, he knocked on it three times.

"See?"

Margaret tilted her hair to the side, looking like a cat.

"What does that word mean?"

And dumb as it sounded, Max felt a twinge in his stomach along with a violent wave of pride. Because, even if it was hard for him to admit it, he was hoping she would ask that.

He wanted her to ask that.

"It means you can't break it."

Margaret's eyes seemed bigger. But just as she was separating her lips to speak, somebody behind her cleared their throat.

That's when Max spotted Aunt Kasumi leaned against a wall with her arms crossed. When Margaret looked over her shoulder, she found her there too. But while Max waved at her, Margaret remained inexpressive.

"You're very far from the restroom, Maggie." Kasumi said, in a serious tone. Afterwards, she massaged her temples.

"Please, darling. Just… help me here, okay? We have to go back to the office."

And she didn't seem mad, but rather disappointed.

When it came to Aunt Kasumi, that was enough. Max knew that, and Margaret knew that too. That's why they both removed their hands from the glass, and Margaret started going away.

However, before she was too far, Max asked:

"Why are you here?"

And Margaret turned around, smiling.

"If you're not telling me, I'm not telling you." She sentenced. Then, she proceeded to imitate his voice as she said:

"It's a secret."

And for a while, obviously, it remained that way. A secret. But it wasn't long before they both knew everything they needed to know.

Margaret was integrated into the janitorial team, but, for a while, people talked about her and her powers, and Max couldn’t help but remember what Dad had told him in the bathtub, and the conversation between Evander and Kasumi.

Yet, more than scared, Max felt… something he didn't know what it was. In fact, he wasn't scared of her. More likely, a part of him felt that he knew what it was like to be her, because maybe they weren't that different after all.

People were scared of them both.

But he wasn't scared of her. No, not really.

He hoped she wasn’t scared of him either.

Maybe they could've been very good friends, even through the infrangible glass that kept him from getting pointed at, frowned upon or killed.

[mistabullets]

i also want alucard to rail me ! could i perhaps suggest,,, alucard with a chubby s/o,,, as wholesome or nasty as you desire

A Taste of You

Characters: Alucard | Adrian Tepes x Reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: Alucard decides to show his love for you.

Content Warning: n/s/f/w, afab reader but neutral pronouns, chubby reader, virgin reader, reader is a witch, vaginal finger, slight blood drinking (he just accidentally nip your lips), slight virginity and corruption kink (???), and post season 3 but it’s quite fluffy so don’t worry

Note: There wasn’t any railing involved but you gave me a reason to write some indulgent smut with Alucard and for that, I appreciate you. 

Not SFW under cut ; 

You let out a quiet gasp when the dhampir’s careful lips meet the warm skin from the column of your neck, tensing slightly as it sends tingles down your spine. He laughs at your small reaction, finding it adorable; a lithe hand running down your side to ease the fluttering anxiety and reel you into his ghost kisses. “Relax, my dear… I just want to make you feel good.”

Considerate as always, you think, despite the growing erection brushing up against one of your thick thighs. He must feel uncomfortable to a degree since he is still in his trousers.

How odd it is, that fate led you to him.

You were a mere witch, hopping from town to town but never staying too long in fear that some close-minded individual would suspect your magical ability and report you to the church officials. However, the last particular town found out too soon of your sorcery. Before anyone could act and drag you to a stake to be tied up and burned, you packed your belongings and ran into the forests. You heard from the townsfolk how dangerous it was to roam those woods, especially at nighttime, that a particular vampire lived within the heart of it. However, you reasoned it must be some myth to scare the children or just something to make this dreadful town more interesting and have something to talk about.

Yet deeper into the greenwoods, the lingering smell of decaying death met your nostril. Again, you rationalized - this was the territory of wildlife. Perhaps it was a deer carcass nearby. Who knows? Now wasn’t the time to fret, as you heard voices bounce and echo from the trees, too far away but you could certainly pick up some words: witch, find, and a few curses. Without properly analyzing your surroundings, you picked up the pace, not considering directions and ignoring the fact the putrid scent grew stronger the further you went.

You were stopped in your tracks by a blur of red and a thunk to your head. Before the waves of unconsciousness dazed you, you caught a brief glimpse of golden locks and a pale figure. Perhaps the villagers had gotten you; perhaps this was your angel to guide you toward heaven. But can a witch such as yourself go to heaven, especially if you dabbled in the dark arts?

Well, considering where you are, beneath a beautiful man who carried a merciful soul that you did not deserve… this is the closest to any celestial afterlife you’ll ever be. It took months, perhaps even a year, to mend the wounds of his heart. You recall the first couple months here, living behind the closed doors of Castlevania. Alucard, who happened to be dhampir son of the late Dracula, wasn’t too enthusiastic about allowing another soul to inhabit, especially after being alone for nearly half a year. While you were polite to never ask questions, you eventually put two and two together upon catching a glimpse of the scar, from recent times, forever ingrained into his porcelain skin. No wonder he longed for some privacy. For they were a reminder of loss and betrayal, the day when he saw humanity’s corruption.

And while he’ll never fully forget the sin they committed, he came to realize his lapse of judgment. It stemmed from the unmerited tribulation - he was quick to close off his heart, not properly allowing himself grief, to process the trauma he’s been through.

But seeing how you still forgive the humans and long to aid them, despite them killing your coven, gradually made him realize how foolish he has been. He was reminded of his mother’s wisdom; how she was willing to be scrutinized by the church if it meant she could help others and spread her nurturing knowledge. You were willing to help those in need, despite the hardships humanity has gifted you. While it certainly took time, he was beginning to open his heart to you… and in return, you were showing him your vulnerability, culminating into this moment: you and Alucard, glowing under the moonlight, exploring each other’s bodies like new lands.

He kisses your plush lips again, mindful of his incisors. His hands find your plump breasts, giving them an experimental squeeze, relishing in the breathless gasp your voice elicits. Adrian withdraws himself from your mouth, savoring the taste of your lips; he wants to smother them, hear the symphony he can pull from you, but he wants to drink in your blushing form and the plush curves of your flesh against his muscled figure. The dhampir sees you as a goddess undeserving of him yet here you are, sprawled out and waiting for his next move. You find yourself more flustered than before, small and fragile beneath his resplendent eyes. His visage softens, noticing the doubt casting your lovely face. Adrian leans back down, resting his head against the middle of your breasts, the blood rushing through your veins sounding delicious. But oh, while your blood may be sweet, he wants to try the appetizers first.

“God, you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he declares, lips peppering kisses on one of your breasts before finding a nipple to feast on. A shaky moan leaves your lips, your hands find themselves in his hair. Alucard makes sure to give each of your pert buds attention; suckling them in between his lips and gently pinching the sensitive skin with his lithe fingers. Your mind is swirling - how painful the virginal heat is between your legs, how merciful yet ruthless his touch is, how patient this angelic man is despite his own carnal desire, and how you love it and you love him. He allows your breasts to rest from the overstimulation; kisses explore your collarbone and neck while a curious hand searches for the heat radiating at the apex of your thighs. You whimper please at the feel of his hand against your now damp undergarment and your lover can’t help but chuckle at your eagerness. “Patience, my love.”

He rewards you a kiss, brushing strands of your hair away from your forehead. Your face is burning from how intently the dhampir observes each time your visage twists in newfound pleasure. A finger rubs up against your clothed slit, wishing to draw out more of your juices and lewd noises. “A-Adrian, please… t-touch me, please.”

“I am, my treasure,” he teases with amusement.

You whine, exasperated, and Alucard gives a playful grin. He understands what you mean but it’s fun to tease. Looking into your blown-out pupils, he asks for silent permission and you already know what he wants. You awkwardly lift up your hips so he can pull down your undergarments with ease. Once off, his fingers make contact with your naked mound, collecting the slick pooling from your heart and down your thighs. You’re eager to spread your legs further apart, allowing him access to more. He sighs, pride swelling how he is able to make you fall apart so quickly. After some painful slow strokes of your exposed slit, Alucard’s finger experimentally rubs your bundle of nerves, relishing in the moan of his name and how desperate yet demure it rings. Finding the entrance to your maidenhood with ease, he easily slips his index finger and god, that wail sounds ethereal. The dhampir sees how your entire form is quivering, from the tension and nerves, and he’s quick to litter your body with kisses and lovebites to distract your melting brain. You giggle a bit when a strand of his golden locks brushes against a ticklish spot and he’s glad to know you’re easing into his touch.

Adrian tentatively curls his finger in a come here motion - and after a few strokes, he finds that spot that makes your toes curl and makes you moan even louder. Your mind is foggy but you’re feeling confident, enjoying the way your lover is making you come undone - you plead for more. And so he adds another digit to your tight heat and repeats the same motion and experimenting more; scissoring your insides, burying his digits to the knuckle, and alternating these motions. You’re almost at the peak, he sees - with how your moans grow in volume, you’re bucking into his touch, and your e/c eyes swim in lust and adoration. His fingers pick up the pace, drinking in your divine image: soft and thick thighs spreading out more, lightning shape stretch marks adorning your cute belly and hips, and your chubby face contorting in the madness of pleasure as you imagine what his cock would feel like inside of you.

Wishing to relinquish you of this torture, he presses his thumb up against your clit and you’re seeing stars speckle your vision as strange pressure builds higher and higher to the cliff of your undoing. “A-Adrian, i-it’s too much! I-I’m going to, a-ahh--!”

Alucard rubs faster and harsher and thrust his fingers deeper - like he wants to feel every inch of the textured insides of your pussy. His forehead comes to rest on yours to admire your hungry eyes. Before you tumble from your peak, his lips crash against yours to consume the lovely noises, desperate and needy, and he accidentally bites your lips; but god, is your blood even sweeter in the glow of your climax. You didn’t even realize he’s grinding his groin against the mattress, too caught up the new sensation of Adrian’s fingers fucking your womanhood. If you could read minds, could you handle the extent of his ardor for you, a bashful witch? After seeing you wonderfully fall from your summit, Adrian truly believes he would die if he didn’t have more of you, if he couldn’t hear more of those needy keens, if he couldn’t pound you into oblivion, if he couldn’t--

His focus shifts from his lewd imagination to your glowing visage. From the dazed glisten of your eyes and the soft smile plastering your blood-smeared lips, Adrian could wait. Carefully, he pulls his fingers out of your sopping core, curiously bringing them up to his lips and lapping up the juices (much to your embarrassment), Alucard can’t help but laugh at your burning red face, planting his lips against yours and drinking up the remaining blood (the metallic taste of it combined with your juices made for a good combo).

“Do you need a break before we get to the main course, my beloved?”

He smiles at your cute face, steam particularly coming out of your ears.

But he smiles wider when you say no.

[obsidianfr3sk]

now

Summary: “Now— do you like it?” Simon asked (still making jazz hands).

Oh, no, he liked it. But Simon had made a tiny mistake. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. It was just that… if he had a coin for every time Simon had made that exact mistake, he would have two coins. Which wasn’t a lot of coins; but it was funny it happened twice.

And there it was. Again. The infamous latticework pie.

AO3

Hello, friends! Obsi here. I want to start this author note by saying this fic is a birthday gift for Rita (@the-wee-woo-rita), a fandom friend of mine that I hold dear to my heart since the day they started to constantly appear in my notes and hasn't stopped since <3 Forgive me if I spent the rest of my time covering the birthday kid with invisible virtual kisses:)

Aaaah, Rita:') Feliz cumpleaños, amigue✨ I hope you have an amazing day and that you're reading this while your family and friends are giving you tons of presents and kind words <3 I gotta confessed that I noticed you almost since you entered the fandom bc you were always on my notes, so every time I saw your icon, I was like "Oh, Wee Woo is here <3". oH AND WHEN YOU STARTED YOUR FIC DKJFHKJFKJDF I wanted to read it since you started posting it, and when I finally could, it left me 💖💖💖. Not only because it's a super fun story, (go read it if you haven't, people) but also because I can tell you're writing from the heart and you're as invested in Hugh and Simon's relationship as I am skjdhksd one time I even cried because I felt so proud of you for writing it lol

I guess that you already know what this fic is going to be about. When you told me this is your favorite scene of these pair of idiots and knew I had to write something for you about it sdkjfhjksdf it came out really fluffy and funny, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did <3

Never stop writing. You got this✨ Enjoy your gift!!

When Hugh first started dating Simon, he didn’t know if he wanted to marry him. If someone had asked him, he wouldn’t have known how to answer, and everyone would have thought he was a dick, when in reality, he just hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t sorted out his life yet.

Not like other people.

She had her life sorted out. At least most of it. Hugh certainly wouldn’t have been able to take care of a child when he was that age, but from the moment Adrian was born, his mom was there for him. She told him she was able to know if he was asking for food, if he needed another diaper, or if he just wanted to see her.

“But how do you know that if he cannot even talk?” he asked her.

“One just knows,” she answered. “If you ever become a dad, you’ll understand.”

And it sounded like a threat. Because at that age, Hugh also didn’t know if he wanted to have kids or not.

Simon, on the other hand, did. He was a mess in almost every single area of his life (like him), but he did know he wanted to have kids and to get married to someone. And it wasn’t like he was trying to scare Hugh the first months they started dating. Simon didn’t talk to him about his plans for the future until they had been together for more than a year. The only reason he knew about them was that he overheard a conversation Simon was having with… with Georgie, on one of the few occasions she was able to take a break from her baby.

At first, Hugh didn’t feel something particularly strong about what he heard. He actually kind of forgot about it for a couple of hours, until he went to sleep.

In his dream— or nightmare, which was a more accurate term, he was in the kitchen trying to bathe baby Kasumi in the sink, but she kept playing with the water and wetting his clothes, even when he tried to tell her to stop. Then, he heard Tamaya screeching his name and when he turned around to see what was happening, Evander (who was the only one whose age didn’t change, so he was a teenager bullying a four-year-old girl) was trying to pluck off the feathers of her wings, with all the intention of hurting her. Kasumi threw more water at him, so he grabbed her, all wet and everything, to try to follow Tamaya and Evander to the living room and stop them from fighting, but then, Georgie, who was at least 9 years old in the dream, pulled his hoodie, and told him:

“This is for you—” and pointed at a newborn baby she had just left on the floor.

Adrian.

Her newborn baby.

“No, that’s not mine, that’s yours,” he said. “That’s yours, Georgie, pick him up.”

She crossed her arms. “You pick him up.”

Then, Tamaya started screaming again, and Evander was freaking laughing, but he couldn’t leave Adrian on the floor, so he handed a crying Kasumi to Georgie, asking himself why the fuck Simon wasn’t around the house to help him with the kids.

When he bent over to pick the baby up, Simon decided it was a good time to appear, spank him and ask him: “Where are my cigarettes, goldilocks?”

And that was enough to wake him up.

It took him a couple of seconds to process what he was seeing. Georgie was sitting on the basement stairs, feeding Adrian and singing a song to him. Evander and Kasumi were sleeping under the same colorful blanket, while Tamaya was sitting on the side of the bed, gazing at her friend and moving her head side to side, as if she were singing too.

“Hey,” Georgie called him. “Are you ok, darling?”

He opened his mouth slightly and when he was about to tell her he had a nightmare, Simon turned around and grabbed him by the arm, still asleep.

It was cute enough for him to stop being mad at him for something he did in a dream. “Yes, I’m okay. Everything’s okay.”

Maybe it had something to do with age, but the thing was that Hugh didn’t dream that often anymore. One time he told Simon that, despite that, he still had nightmares in which he couldn’t move his body but he was aware of his surroundings, just as if he were awake. Simon frowned and said that didn’t sound like a nightmare, but more like sleep paralysis. Hugh thought it sounded a little bit psychedelic and told him he didn’t believe in those things, to which Simon reacted as if he just confessed he was an Earth-flatter.

He couldn't quite understand why Simon acted as if he were some sort of dream expert. Simon told him it was because he was a dream expert, or at least he was more of an expert than Hugh was, since he got a lot more sleep than he did, and it was true. Hugh couldn’t remember the last night he slept without spending two hours staring at the dark and empty room, while he heard Simon’s body rubbing the blankets from time to time.

“You know, I don’t think that’s normal,” Simon told him when they were driving back home from the Headquarters. “I think you should see a therapist.”

Simon said that a lot, too. It wasn’t bad advice per se, but for some reason, it drove him crazy every time he said it, even if he didn’t show it (or at least he liked to believe he didn’t). He remembered that occasion, specifically, because he had had a particularly bad day at work when they had that conversation about sleep paralysis. Kasumi and Evander decided that was a wonderful day to act as if they were the main characters of their new show “Dumb and Dumber”, trying to convince him to get couches for their offices with a slide presentation and everything, and Tamaya was acting like a particularly angry pregnant woman that hated everything that moved, especially if that thing was Hugh. He hadn’t gone completely feral with Kasumi and Evander (even if they kind of deserved it) and just told them to stop trying to kill the last brain cell they shared, but even so, they reacted as if Hugh had done something super offensive and if he were the one who was wasting everyone’s time. He had been even kinder with Tamaya because, yeah, she was being irrational, but at the same time, she was pregnant, and being a dick to a pregnant woman wouldn’t have been very heroic of him. Still, Tamaya didn’t even try to get her hormones under control and was actually devastated when he brought her the wrong kind of gyro from the store. She even cried and took the rest of the day for herself, which was something she had the right to do, obviously.

But anger is a bitch and one of those emotions that takes the best of you, so a little voice inside his head that took control of his consciousness every time he got mad at someone, was telling him that he should ask Simon if his therapist had told him that it wasn’t normal to wake up in the middle of the night to see if your kid was still breathing.

Because it didn’t sound normal to him.

He didn’t do it though. Maybe he was too tired.

Being angry took a lof a lot of energy.

He was still curious about whether Simon had ever told his therapist about that or if he had normalized it so much, that he didn’t think it was important to mention it. He had been doing that since the first night he met him when they were still a pair of kids. The first night they slept together, in Simon's basement, he woke him up in the middle of the night and sighed with relief.

“Good, you’re alive,” he mumbled. And then went back to sleep, as nothing happened.

Hugh thought it was quirky and funny. Now he believed it may be a real psychological problem.

His suspicion was confirmed that same night after having that conversation when he woke up at 3AM to go get a glass of water and realized that Simon had left the bed. He assumed he was at Adrian’s room, so he didn’t think too much about it and went downstairs, without bothering to turn the lights on. After all, he couldn’t die if he tripped with his own feet because his powers would protect him (and if he did, it would be the stupidest of deaths and he deserved it.)

He took a glass cup (because plastic cups were only for kids), filled it with water, and when he turned around to go back to his room, Simon flickered, and he could see him right in front of him, with his dagger in hand, as if he were about to stab him.

“SIMON, WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Simon flickered again and let go of his dagger at the same time he started crying and hugged him while mumbling he thought he was a robber that wanted to “kill everyone in the house and then himself.”

Hugh could only hug him back.

Simon didn’t try to stab him again, but he still had a weird sleep schedule. Hugh, on the other hand, was sleeping a lot better now that his psychiatrist had shown him this amazing invention called citalopram.

A week before their tenth anniversary, he was about to fall asleep when Simon entered the room, got under the covers, and hugged him from behind, pressing his body against his.

“Si, it’s 2AM.”

“How do you want to celebrate our anniversary?”

He asked that question with the same tone he used when he asked Max and Adrian what they wanted to do during their birthdays. Or when he asked Nova if she wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with them, or when he tried to convince Kasumi and Tamaya to do something fun for Christmas that year.

And Hugh answered him the same thing the others did:

“I don’t know.”

He knew being ten years married to the same person was something that should be celebrated. And he also knew Simon didn’t mean any harm by asking those things, even if they may have seemed a little bit oblivious to the fact that life as they knew it had almost ended during the supernova. Actually, he believed he asked them that because he was completely aware of what had happened and, for instance, he was trying to fix all the things the burning stardust had destroyed, covering the ears of the people he loved, hugging them, and telling them that things couldn’t be that bad if they still could have a little piece of cake to celebrate even the smallest of events.

That gave him an idea.

“I think I just want to eat cake with you,” he mumbled.

“Cake?”

“I like cake. Except when it’s wet.”

Simon snorted. “Do you remember when Oscar invited Adrian to his birthday party and he gave him a pound of cake for him to share it with us?” he asked.

Hugh remembered that. “I do.”

“And do you remember you hated it?”

“It was more milk than cake.”

“Pastel de tres leches,” Simon said, with almost no American accent.

In other circumstances, he would’ve found that voice really attractive, but now the memory of that stupid cake was too much for him. “You know, I think there is where the fucking problem begins,” he told him. “What’s the need of adding three leches? One leche is more than enough.”

Simon tried to contain his laugh and failed. “Why do you pronounce leche like that?”

“It’s not natural, Simon,” Hugh insisted. “Cake is cake. And cake is supposed to be dry.”

“Well, I loved it.”

“You love everything. Even those who are unlovable.”

“Oh, sweetie. You’re not unlovable.”

“I know. I’m talking about the fucking cake.”

Simon stayed silent and Hugh laughed to let him know it was okay.

“So you want to keep it simple this year?” Simon asked him.

“I think that would be the most… appropriate thing to do.”

“All right then—” he pretended to use his finger to write on his back “—No tres leches cake… And keep it simple. Something else, your Majesty?”

“No, I think that’s all.”

“What about gifts?”

“I’m a simple man. I like blue, I like silver things that look like chrome, and I like myself. Go crazy.”

Simon gasped. “Or I could bake something for you,” he said. “I could make a little dinner for us… with your favorite cake.”

He couldn’t tell if Simon was being serious, but he hoped he did because— that actually sounded really nice. “What about the kids though?”

“Pssh, let’s just put them to bed early,” Simon answered. “Max’s bedtime is 9:30 anyways.”

“Are you—”

“Let me do something nice for you,” he interrupted him. “Please.”

Hugh sighed

“I’m being serious. I’m going to make your favorite cake,” Simon assured him, holding him closer to him.

And then it hit him. “Do you know—”

“Of course I know your favorite cake, love,” he giggled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Hugh wanted to keep talking to him, but he started to notice his eyes were getting tired and that he wasn’t going to be able to keep them open a lot longer.

Simon kissed his shoulder. “Are you going to sleep now?”

“Yeah. But turn around,” he added. “I want to be the big spoon.”

The next morning, while Simon was looking for his mask before heading to work, Hugh realized he never told him what he wanted for their anniversary, so he took that moment to ask him. Simon just said that he would love anything Hugh got for him, which was honestly the worst answer ever because Hugh was the worst person when it came to guessing that sort of stuff, and needed to know specifically what they wanted so he wouldn’t end up giving them a shitty gift.

But then, he realized that it was a gift for their tenth anniversary. And when he gazed at Simon again, he noticed he was already looking at him through the small mirror they had hanging on their closet door, with a small smile on his face, letting him know that he had noticed the moment Hugh remembered what they did each year during their anniversary.

There was a tradition Simon heard about when they were planning their wedding, that it was all about giving a gift made of certain material according to the marital year. He didn’t tell him about it until a year later when they were talking about what they were going to do to celebrate that year, and for some reason, they ended up talking about when they met.

Unfortunately, Hugh could no longer remember when was the first time he saw Simon. It was like one day, he just walked into his life, laid down on a twin-size mattress, and just started to exist there without asking for permission because he didn’t know where he was yet. And Hugh was staring at the kid with brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes, while hiding behind a big closet he kept there, thinking about how to tell him “Hello. What’s your name? I’d really like to know about you.”

Too bad he always stopped at “Hello”. Too bad it all happened inside his head.

When he was a kid, not a lot of people talked about prodigies in a positive light, so he grew up thinking that his powers were something he needed to keep a secret for everyone and that he had to blend in with the other kids in order to survive, and there was no adult in his life that told him otherwise. But during the Age of Anarchy, the whole Council began to know more prodigies from all over the world, who had different beliefs about what it meant to be a prodigy. During patrol, Simon told him about this old European lady he talked to, who was also a prodigy, and assured him she would be able to recognize every single one of them even without their superhero costumes. When Hugh said that sounded a little bit dangerous, Simon laughed it off and added that what she meant to say was that all prodigies were made of the same stardust and that it was always trying to find a way back to the space where it belonged, that was the reason why many prodigies were drawn to each other even if they just crossed paths by mere chance.

If it was true, then it explained why Hugh could tell Simon was a prodigy from the first moment he looked him in the eye. And it explained why he wanted to be his friend so much, even before knowing that piece of information.

Simon did remember when was the first time he saw Hugh. Or at least one of the first times.

“You were sitting on the ground and staring at a bug. like a beetle or something...” he said. They were walking through the neighborhood, holding hands, and Adrian was in front of them, trying to get the hang of his new skate shoes with wheels. He had asked his dads to give him his space because he had seen another kid at Headquarters using them too and he was sure he could teach himself how to use them. “ And you were really concentrated, completely quiet when an adult came and killed it.”

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Like— on purpose?”

“I don’t know, they were just walking,” Simon shrugged. “But you didn’t even say anything, just… stayed there. And a raccoon walked in front of you, and you decided to follow it to the trash can he lived in, and when you tried to touch it, he and his whole extended family threw themselves at you.”

Hugh probably looked worried or something, because Simon tilted his head and asked him: “You remember that, do you?”

And he didn’t. “It sounds like me,” he said, “I liked beetles when I was a kid. Not sure about the raccoon attack though because I’ve always hated raccoons and getting too close to trash cans.”

“And have you ever stopped to think about why you hate that so much?”

“Because trash cans are a focus of infection. Same as raccoons. I would never follow one of those rats with masks.”

“Hugh, when you were a kid, I saw you eating cereal out of a bucket, I don’t know why you’re acting like you’re better than the rest of us for not following raccoons— which you did.”

“I did not.”

“And you know what I thought?” Simon asked as if he hadn’t heard Hugh. “I thought—”

“You thought I was a poor kid who needed your help.”

“No, I thought you were the weirdest fucking kid I had ever met. And I walked away.”

Then he winked at him, letting him know he was joking. But Hugh felt really offended on behalf of his younger self anyways. “And why do you remember that but I don’t?”

“I was invisible. And I wanted to see what you were up to.”

Then, Adrian fell to the ground and screamed “DADDY!”. Neither of them was really sure of who he was talking to, so they just helped him get on his feet again and told him he should be more careful, ending their conversation there.

That year, he gave Simon a card he bought at the supermarket that he decorated with raccoon stickers he found on Adrian’s backpack, and he even used all his artistic abilities to draw a speech bubble that said “I love you”. Simon also gave him a card, but instead, it was decorated with hearts and flowers and looked a lot more like what a card for an occasion like that was supposed to look like. They gave each other cards because the first-anniversary gift, according to tradition, was something made of paper. He could tell what Simon gave him every single year, but some of the honorable mentions were the leather jacket he never used because Kasumi told him that buying things made of leather was unethical and “not green”, a wooden figurine of the two of them he found at a local flea market, and a pottery coffee mug he did himself when he and Tamaya took pottery classes, which Evander broke one day he went to the house.

So, yes, Simon always gave him nice things. And he kept every single one of them. The card was between the album photos and newspaper cutouts. The leather jacket remained in the closet not to be seen ever again. The wood figurine was in the living room (and will stay there even after he was dead because if Adrian ever dared to take it somewhere else, like he had tried to do before, he was going to haunt him until he put it back where it belonged), and eventually, Evander glued together the pottery coffee mug and gave it back to him, probably trying to make clear he was really sorry about breaking it, without really saying it out loud.

It was a nice tradition. Especially because it was almost impossible to fuck up and Hugh could come up with nice gifts for Simon too.

And now it wasn’t going to be the exception.

That year’s traditional theme was aluminum. At first, he was a little bit confused because the only aluminum he knew about was the aluminum foil they had in the kitchen until he spoke with Tamaya over the phone, and she told him there were a lot more things that were made of aluminum other than foil. She had stayed at her house ever since what had happened in the Arena. Simon told him and Kasumi it would be nice if they took turns to call her one time a day to check on her, and that day, it was Hugh’s turn.

She wasn’t mad at him, which meant she was having a less shitty day than other times it had been his turn to call her. She even gave him the phone number of a place where he could buy something for Simon, that was not so far away from Headquarters. Before hanging up, she reminded him to make sure Kasumi was eating during lunch breaks and made him promise he was going to double-check, just because that's what she would do if she were there. After doing what Tamaya asked him to do (Kasumi started to eat her salad as soon as he walked into the room, and he stayed there until she finished the whole plate), he called the store and knew exactly what he wanted to ask for.

It had been a little difficult to pick it up from the store because Simon was always with him, but the anniversary was on Sunday, so he said that someone had called him to go to Headquarters and headed out before anyone could ask for more explanations. He arrived at the store a few minutes before they closed and the owner told him he wasn’t sure if he was going to arrive on time. Then, he proceeded to show him the final product, and Hugh thought it looked exactly as what he had in mind. The daughter of the owner put the gift inside a box and decorated it with purple wrapping paper and a silver bow, and it was ready to go.

When he arrived at the house, Simon was already preparing dinner and the kids were eating ramen in the living room while watching a movie. He put the gift on the coffee table and told them it was time to get ready for bed.

Simon and Hugh had always been good at assigning each of them chores to do around the house. When Max was living in his quarantine area, Hugh stayed with him after Simon and Adrian went home. He bathed him, helped him brush his teeth, and then put him to bed. Meanwhile, Simon cooked something for Adrian, helped him with his homework, played with him for a while, and when Hugh went home, he helped him with his night routine the same way he had helped Max, while Simon prepared tomorrow’s lunches.

Adrian was a pretty calm kid during bath time (at least most of the time). He would dare to say he liked it, probably a little too much because he didn’t bathe himself until he was almost ten years old. Max, on the other hand, was a completely different story. It was a lot easier to control him when he was a baby, but the older he got, the more difficult it became to get him inside the tub. He tried to distract him with other things, made a lot of excuses, and even hid under the bed so his dad couldn’t see him. Simon thought it wasn’t a normal reaction and that they needed to make sure Max was alright, but Hugh didn’t believe Max’s behavior was weird because when he was a kid he threw even bigger tantrums each time he was told it was bath time. He screamed while he had shampoo on his hair, bawled while he was putting on his pajamas, and sobbed for at least ten minutes after he was tucked into bed. At the ripe age of four years old, he went as far as running down the street completely naked because he was already in the tub, waiting for his aunt to find a clean towel between all the mess they had around the house when he decided that wasn’t going to work out and just walked outside the house, without wearing any clothes. A minute later, he heard his aunt screaming “HUGH, YOU LITTLE BITCH—” and knew he was in danger, so he began to run as fast as he could until he tripped and he was taken back to the bathroom (while he screamed and kicked, like the demon child he was.)

“Well, I guess it makes sense why you acted like that,” Simon answered, “but I want to make sure everything is fine with Max. For my own comfort.”

Simon talked with Max the next day, and apparently, he came to the conclusion he was just someone who thought that bathing was a waste of time, like Hugh did when he was his age. His kid just showed it in a less… explosive manner. Because yeah, Max had never thrown a tantrum because of that. Not at least until the other night, when Simon told him to go take a shower after he spent the whole day outside with Nova and got his clothes all dirty. For some reason, Max got super pissed at the idea of his own father giving him a reasonable order, and after going to the bathroom and taking off his clothes, he started to yell that he was already clean and that he didn’t need to take a shower. Hugh and Adrian were in the living room talking about some mundane topic when they saw a naked and almost maniac Max running around the house, and a screaming and desperate Simon with a white towel in his hands, trying to catch him before he headed out of the house and the neighbors saw him.

Simon almost had a panic attack after that, when Adrian finally was the one to catch Max and convince him to go take a shower, because in his own words, “you smell like a dead dog, my friend” (Adrian knew what he was dealing with because he had done the same thing when he was a kid). And Hugh didn’t want Simon to go through the same experience again, especially that night.

“I was a well-behaved kid,” Simon told him, while they cuddled under the covers. “I almost never cried. And I most certainly never complained about bath time.”

“Everyone has a childhood story that involves running around completely naked because you didn’t want to get on the tub.”

“I don’t… think so.” Hugh scoffed in response. “Actually, I was so well-behaved, one time my mom closed the car door and smashed my fingers, but I didn’t even complain about it—”

“You should have complained about it,” Hugh said.

Simon didn’t hear him. “I think maybe Max is just going through a phase.”

“Or maybe our son is a normal kid and you are the Antichrist for not crying when your mother smashed your fingers.”

And he whispered: “Well— maybe, I guess.”

Luckily, Max was feeling nice and he followed the night routine without causing any more problems, and just asked Adrian to read him a bedtime story. Forty minutes later, Adrian went back downstairs and told them he was going to sleep too (but Hugh knew he was going to stay up late talking with his team.)

Simon took a few minutes after that to finish the dinner because the dessert was still in the oven. Hugh waited for him, sitting on the couch, eating the leftovers of Adrian’s ramen and watching whatever thing was on TV, when suddenly had the feeling someone was staring at him. He turned around and even though he didn’t saw anyone, he still said:

“Simon, I know you’re there.”

And he got no answer.

Then, when he decided to let it go and continue watching TV, Simon was sitting on the coffee table, with the gift box on his lap.

“Can you stop doing that?” Hugh asked him.

“No, it’s part of my charm—” Simon shook the box a little, like a kid would do on Christmas morning “—Is this my gift?”

“No. I bought it for my other husband. But you can open it, I guess.”

Simon shrugged and opened it. He gasped and covered his mouth with his hand, but he still could tell he was smiling. “Love—”

“You like them?”

Hugh had bought a couple of aluminum wine cups, decorated with a blue and purple stripe on the top. He extended his hand to turn on the lamp next to him and then patted the space next to him. “You wanna see something really cool?” he asked him.

Simon sat down next to him, holding one of the cups. Then Hugh grabbed him gently by the wrists and put the cup under the light, allowing both of them to see the hidden message written on the aluminum.

He couldn’t exactly read it because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, but Simon could.

“I’ll forever choose you,” he read. “It’s what—”

“It’s what I said during my vows,” Hugh answered, “and I still mean it.”

Simon leaned against him and Hugh took it as a chance to kiss him on the corner of his lips. “I’m going to kill your other husband,” Simon whispered.

“I don’t think you got it— but actually you’re the other husband.”

“I’m allowing you to make those jokes because I’m too happy to pretend I’m mad at you for saying them, okay? Just wanted to make that clear, so you don’t go around trying to push your luck.” He continued looking at the cup and putting it under the light to read its message again and again. “Can we use these cups? You know— are they made for drinking or are they just decorative?”

“I guess we can,” Hugh answered. “I don’t see why not. Cups are made for drinking.”

“Then it’s a good thing I brought us wine—” he got up with difficulty and grabbed the other cup from inside the box “—Are you hungry?”

He really wasn’t. Adrian’s leftovers were enough for him. But he still had a little space for more, so he nodded and took Simon’s hand before he got on his tiptoes and put his hands over his eyes. “Follow my lead.”

Even after arriving at the kitchen, Simon asked him to keep his eyes closed. He obeyed, and a couple of seconds later, he finally gave him the sign to open them, appearing behind the kitchen bar and waving his empty hands with a silly smile on his face.

Hugh covered his whole face with his hand to hide the fact that he was laughing.

“Now— do you like it?” Simon asked (still making jazz hands).

Oh, no, he liked it.

But even if he did, he could hear his own voice saying inside his head to make sure to sugarcoat whatever he had to say about one small detail that, unfortunately, was the first thing he noticed because he was that mean.

It was an amazing dinner. The main dish was chicken alfredo, and there was a small basket with bread from the supermarket they went every week to buy groceries (the same one Hugh didn’t go to anymore because last time he had almost hate-crimed a cashier because… reasons, maybe). He had lighted up some candles they kept around the house in case the power went out during the night and there was a white tablecloth covering part of the kitchen bar. Simon also took the time to look through the garage for the chinaware they only used for very special occasions and that Hugh insisted on hiding it in the garage since he didn’t trust his kids and believed they would break it at the first chance they got. And he didn't lie when he said he had bought a bottle of wine. Actually, he knew it was an expensive wine because it was the same brand as the one they drank during their wedding. It must have been an absolute hell trying to find it, considering that ten years had gone by since then.

But Simon had made a tiny mistake.

And it wasn’t like he wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. It was just that… if he had a coin for every time Simon had made that exact mistake, he would have two coins.

Which wasn’t a lot of coins; but it was funny it happened twice.

During the Gala, there had been a silent auction to replace some of the stolen drugs. Hugh was going crazy, trying to make sure everything was going according to plan, but Simon insisted that, as members of the Council, they needed to support the fundraising.

At first, Hugh didn’t notice what Simon had done. He had a lot of things going through his mind, like what if someone put a bomb on the ceiling and blew the whole building, if Adrian had drawn a callalily for every single centerpiece, or if Max had asked him to buy him more markers and construction paper since last week or last month. He also was trying to ignore how uncomfortable the suit he was wearing felt, which felt kind of tight when he raised his arms a little bit. Plus, the lights were too bright, the music was too freaking loud for a formal Gala, and for some reason, he was sure he could hear every single conversation that was going on there, at the same time he didn’t understand a single word coming out of those people’s mouths.

But suddenly…

Suddenly Simon grabbed him by the arm and said:

“I got this for you.”

“Huh?”

“I got this for you—” and he pointed at something on the table.

For the split of a second, he thought that Simon was referring to the chocolate cake that was right in the middle of everything, that was decorated with small pearls of white chocolate and a cherry on top. Which would have been a really kind and romantic gesture because chocolate cake would always have a special place in his heart.

But then, he noticed that actually, he was talking about the latticework pie that was right next to it, inside a little transparent box with a golden ribbon around it.

It looked nice; but the chocolate cake looked a lot better from his point of view.

“Simon—”

“Yes, I know technically I haven’t gotten it yet,” Simon said while jotting down his bidding number on a sheet of paper, “but I’m gonna win this and we’re gonna eat pie, like the winners we are.”

“Simon—”

“Do you wanna be a winner or not?”

“Simon—”

Simon finally looked at him, still holding the pen he had used to write down the bidding number.

Hugh had reacted a little bit too late.

So he just sighed, rested his chin on Simon’s head for a couple of seconds, and then asked him if also thought the lights were too bright (“No, but you can talk to someone and see if there’s something they can do about it. Just don’t go all Captain Chromium on them.” “That’s not a phrase other people use.” “Kasumi does.”)

Now, the Gala wasn’t a memory he liked to replay inside his head constantly because while they were there, their kids were risking their lives fighting against people they shouldn’t even be worried about. He felt guilty when he remembered that he was dancing with Simon in a small corner of the room, where they were sure no one could see them (not because they were embarrassed or scared but because Simon didn’t like to be surrounded by a lot of people, and honestly, Hugh wasn’t in the mood for dealing with that either). He was starting to think “Hey, maybe I’m having fun” and Simon was this close to kissing him, but one second after that, they were notified about what had happened to Max and had to rush to the hospital.

It had been one of the worst nights of his life. The last time he thought about it, was while reading Max a book they had just bought for him (“Tough Guys (Have Feelings Too)”). Max mentioned something about Adrian taking him to eat pie that afternoon and “going all Captain Chromium” on him for something he didn’t understand but sounded like normal sibling stuff, and suddenly Hugh vividly remembered the latticework pie Simon had put a bid on.

They never got to eat it.

Which was good because he knew that if he had gotten to eat some, knowing there had been a chocolate cake right next to it that they could have gotten instead of that freaking pie, his night would have been even worse.

Not like your kid almost dying was bad enough though.

“Keep reading the book, Hugh,” Max told him, pretending to be disappointed after he told him that story about the Gala. “Let’s keep the trauma talk for Therapy Thursday.”

(That was how Simon called Thursdays now. It was the day the four of them went to family therapy. Everyone thought it was a stupid way to call it, even Hugh, but he always told his kids it was an incredible way to motivate them, that Simon was trying his best, and that next time he heard them make fun about “Therapy Thursdays”, calling it “$200 Nap Thursdays”, he was going to tell the fucking shrink and they were going to go to family therapy two times a week.)

And there it was.

Again.

The infamous latticework pie.

But when he saw it, he didn’t feel anything else but the impulse to laugh out loud.

“I like it a lot,” he answered.

“You’re putting on the sugar jacket!” Simon exclaimed.

“No, I’m not!” Hugh told him, still laughing.

“No, I can see it!” Simon insisted. “You’re doing it, you always laugh when you do it!”

“What are you talking about?” He cleared his throat. “I’m way too good at sugarcoating, no one notices when—”

“I’m going to keep calling it sugar jacket,” Simon interrupted him, crossing his arms and staring at him with narrowing eyes. “Don’t use that tone with me.”

“And I’m going to keep making fun of you for it. Imagine me putting on a sugar jacket, Simon. It would have to be a huge jacket. The house would be infested with ants.”

But Simon wasn’t interested in the logistics of keeping a sugar jacket inside the house. “It’s like what you did last week. Oh, yeah, Simon, that’s so good—” He scoffed “—I know you hated that souffle because I hated it too.”

“But I liked that souffle! It was pretty good, I don’t know why you hated it.”

“The more you insist on that, the less I’m going to believe you.”

Hugh sat down on one of the kitchen bar stools and hid his face with his hands until he stopped laughing. When he finally did, he saw Simon smiling, even if he was trying to hide it.

“Si—” Simon raised his eyebrows as if he were saying “Hey” with them “—Can I get some wine?”

He thought about it for a second.

“Just because I love you—” and he began to pour it into one of their wine cups. Then, he walked towards Hugh, and with one hand, he took his wine cup, and with the other, he pulled Simon closer to him.

“And I love this,” he whispered. “I loved what you did for me, it’s just what I asked for.”

Simon’s smile got even wider. “I know I said we were gonna have cake but— I know you like pie a little bit more.”

Hugh took a sip of wine.

“Because… you do, don’t you?”

So he left the wine cup on the kitchen bar, grabbed Simon by the waist— and he told him the truth.

“I do now.”

Before Simon could ask him what he meant with that extra “now”, he leaned over and kissed him.

Now it was not the time to talk about that.

[crazy-loca-blog]

Meet My OC: Oliver Valentine

A/N: Of course I was going to use my OC card in the @openheartfanfics "Meet My MC" event to introduce him! If you thought Ethan was a protective husband, then you don't know Oliver Valentine, Casey's "evil" twin. Once again, I used the base template by @jamespotterthefirst. and I added some extra items to it.

~~*~~*~~

Oliver’s Bio

Full Name: Oliver Sean Valentine

Face Claim: Adrian Grenier

Nicknames: None

Birthday: December 3

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Love Interest(s):  None at the moment, even though Casey insists that he should rekindle his relationship with his high school sweetheart, Emma.

Kids: None (yet)

Hair: Black

Eyes: Green

Height: 5'9"

Hometown: Abingdon, Virginia

Education: Lawyer / Duke University

Occupation: Freelance lawyer

Family: Maggie and Tom Valentine (parents, dead), Marie Smith (grandmother, dead), Casey Valentine (twin sister, alive)

Personal motto: “Every person deserves to be respected”

Background: Oliver and Casey grew up surrounded by love in a middle class family. His parents, Tom and Maggie, had been high school sweethearts and had been happily married for two years when the twins were born. After his parents died in a car accident, his grandma Marie took care of them for 20 years, until she passed away. He ows his popularity at high school not only to his good looks, but also to his sense of justice when it came to defend his peers, something he learned from his parents at a very young age.

Personality traits: Being raised together means that Oliver and Casey have a lot in common when it comes to their personalities. He is a noble guy who can't stand injustice. Since he was a kid he defended the weak and fiercely protected his sister. But whenever Casey avoids a conflict, he faces it. He is a very straight forward person, and he won't shut up if he has something to say. He has no filter when he is mad. This attitude causes that some people may not like him, but he couldn't care less about it. With Oliver, what you see is what you get.

On the relationship with his sister: The fact that they are twins made them have an unique bond. The fact that they lost their parents as such a young age only made that bond stronger. Casey is his best friend, and the only person in the world he knows he can openly talk about literally everything. She is also his biggest cheerleader, and the only one who had faith in him when he applied to law school. At first, he hated the idea of Casey leaving to Boston by herself. Now, he loves to see her being as happy as she deserves, even if that means sharing his sister with Ethan (lol). He truly aspires to have something like what she has in the future.

On his love life: Oliver is openly bisexual, and he has experienced with both men and women. However, when it comes to a serious relationship, he may be inclined to prefer girls, as his personal experiences have made him believe that girls tend to take commitment more seriously than guys. He won't admit it, but Casey knows his soulmate is Emma, his high school sweetheart. The only reason they broke up was because they were going to different universities and didn’t feel like having a long distance relationship after they graduated. But they've always remained friends, and they've kind of rekindled their romance in the past. Now they're both single and back in town. Time will tell.

On his parents accident: Their parents' accident hit Oliver and Casey differently. While Casey focused on healing (one of the reasons that led her to become a doctor), Oliver just wanted to have answers. That's why he went to law school. Despite living in a small town, he has always had this idea that "the Valentines' case" is kind of a taboo among older residents. People remember it, but no one talks about it. The fact that the case was closed because of lack of evidence (it was always said the responsible escaped and that they were never found, something that doesn't make sense at all, given the fact that the car crash was severe enough to kill his parents) doesn't help either. He feels the only way for him and Casey to find real peace is by finding out who did it. And he is determined to unveil the truth.

~~*~~*~~

10 Random Facts on Oliver

Oliver and Casey are one of those rare cases where one of the babies is born before midnight and the other one is born after midnight. So even though he legally was born one day before Casey, he's technically 10 minutes older than her (yes, their parents celebrated two birthdays on two different dates to keep them both happy).

He wasn't the most dedicated student, but he is incredibly smart. He was definitely one of those kids who didn't need to study a lot to get good grades.

Even though he knows Casey can defend herself, he may have helped her several times in high school without her noticing it. Even though Casey wasn’t at the bottom of the popularity list, the fact that Oliver was a popular kid may have helped her to be more respected by her peers.

He considers himself Casey's biggest fan, no matter what Ethan says. He has known her since she was literally an egg, and that's enough for him to win that discussion.

One of the reasons he became a lawyer is because he wanted to help all those people whose cases were closed with no answers. He knows how it feels because him and Casey have been trying to live with it, but he knows it’s hard sometimes. So he’d like for everyone to find the peace they deserve.

He likes writing and he is very talented. In fact, he may publish a novel someday. His grandma always thought that the biggest difference between him and Casey was how creative he was, so she always encouraged him to develop his artistic side.

After his parents' death, there was a time where he couldn’t express his emotions. Now, he has no problems telling how he feels (he'll always thank Emma for helping him overcome this), but he would never say ILY to another person without meaning it, he’s seen his sister going through hell because of some jerks, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he becomes one.

He loves kids and someday he'd like to have a bunch of them. But for now... damn! He can't wait for Casey and Ethan to come to their senses and to become parents so that he can become an uncle!

He has had a serious conversation with each and every one of Casey's boyfriends or potential boyfriends. The only conversation that ended up well was the one he had with Ethan. And nope, Casey doesn't know this conversation took place.

At first, Oliver didn't have the best opinion on Ethan. He thought he was an asshole and a coward for escaping to the Amazon and leaving his sister alone after all they had gone through (and yes, Oliver did tell Ethan this to his face during the chat mentioned above). His opinion only changed after he saw how much he cared about Casey during and after the incident (yes, he also told him this). Now he is sure that Ethan is the best thing that could have happened to his sister (and he made sure that Ethan knows it as well).

Tags: @adiehardfan @izzyourresidentlawyer

[megatraven]

Hi, I read your tags about Sydrian and!!! I didn't know you read the VA series and Bloodlines!!! Your tags gave me life and reminded me how much I loved them 😭 Thank you for talking about it qwq Can I ask what you liked best about their relationship?

Wait waiomg yes i read them all SO MANY TIMES and bloodlines is my favorite hgnhhgh 

U CAN ALWAYS TALK TO ME/ASK ME ABOUT SYDRIAN!!!! altho i cant pick just one thing to like best about their relationship there’s SO MUCH,,,,,

I loved. How much they genuinely care about each other. Even from, like, the beginning, when Sydney still had her hangups about vampires.

She made enough of an impression on Adrian when they briefly met in Vampire Academy that he remembered her name!

But no, like. Sydney has no reason to help him out as much as she does. She doesn’t owe it to him at all to help him get into college classes, or to put a good word in to Lissa so she can tell his father, or to go out and meet with him when her responsibility is only Jill. But she does it all, again and again and again.

I love how she abandons her date at the dance to drive Adrian home and stays with him after that, because he’s having one of spirit’s episodes and he seems so vulnerable and afraid, and she can’t leave him

I love how Adrian notices when Jill’s magic starts to freak Sydney out at the mini golf course, and he gets her to stop. Or how he doesn’t use his healing on Sydney at the end because she’s too afraid of it, even if it’s frustrating.

I love how Adrian buys the Ivashkinator just so he has a reason to be around her, because he knows just how much she loves cars and how she wouldn’t be able to resist

Or how Sydney never thinks of him in that way everyone does. Where he screws up or gets drunk and she goes “Well, that’s Adrian for you.” She genuinely thinks he’s in control of his own life and it’s up to him to be better- not for some girl he likes, but for himself.

And in return, Adrian recognizes how capable and smart she is and loves it. He pokes a lot of fun, but he cares about her too- he wants to apologize to her after they argue because he realizes that she’s the only person who’s ever just.... believed in him. Supported him, truly.

I love how Sydney gets one of those awful sugary slushies for him and her, just because she thinks it’ll help him feel a little better.

I love how Adrian can’t continue their self defence classes, because in parallel to Eddie and Jill.... it hurts too much to touch her when he knew she didn’t feel the same as he did, not then.

I love that Adrian makes her an incredibly ridiculous shirt for their fake greek house, and how Sydney wears it when they know they’re about to go into a battle with a dangerous witch.

I love that he makes her a new cross necklace.

I love that he goes to her immediately when she calls him, even when they’re in the middle of an argument that hurts them both, because he would NEVER leave her in danger or leave her to do something dangerous alone.

I love that moment when Adrien rambles about Sydney’s eyes, about how he could paint them.

I love how fucking funny their dynamic is, how they complement each other so well.

I love that Adrian started medicating himself to fight off spirit, for himself but also for Sydney, so she didn’t have to worry.

I love how they talk about spirit in general- how Sydney admits that losing her mind is the most terrifying thing she can think of, because she thinks it’s all that she is

I love how Adrian would sleep with the lights on every night for the rest of their lives if only Sydney asked him to, if only it meant she never had to wake up and fear being back in reeducation.

I love how proudly Sydney takes his name

I love how they become co-parents to a little dragon-demon and feed him pie.

I just. I love all their whacky shenanigans and how much they care and how they just keep getting brought together. How they fully believe in one another. 

I adore how Sydney was supposed to leave with Marcus and gang to Mexico for her new ink, but she couldn’t do it, and Adrian tells her how to find him and when she decides not to leave, it’s the very first place she goes. I love that he was sitting there waiting for her, hoping she would come.

i have to go to work but im----- I JUST HAVE SO MUCH LOVE FOR BOTH OF THEM I CANT PICK ONE THING I LIKE MOST,,,,, 

[lastwagontrainhopper]

The tapestry of their skin

Written (late) for Royai Week 2020, prompt : Old wounds.

Summary: One day, when all this mess is behind them, Roy and Riza will have to explain to a curious kid how they managed to get so many scars.

Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24674746 (French version - the original one - also available on AO3)

--------

The Mustang’s house, with its two floors and its front garden, was surprisingly small considering the position Roy had held, but neither he nor Riza wanted to display their new fortune ostentatiously. They both knew the way Amestris had acquired its wealth, and using that blood money to buy something as superfluous as a mansion wouldn’t have sat well with them. Besides, what was the point of having a huge villa if it was for only two people?

They had moved in together as soon as they had been married, and had married as soon as they could; Roy had made sure of that. On the last day they had descended HQ’s main staircase, both ordinary citizens for the first time since their teenage years, he had got down on one knee and proposed, amidst the flow of working officers and traffic noise of the street close by.

Riza had raised an eyebrow, amused by the situation.

“Isn’t it a bit rushed?”

He had shrugged his shoulders with a grin.

“Maybe”, he had admitted sheepishly. “But I figured we’ve waited long enough.”

Riza had let out a chuckle. “Yes, that’s for sure.” Her eyes were shining. “And yes.”

They had kissed and embraced, enjoying the pleasure of doing it in public, and especially of doing so before the symbol of what had kept them apart for so long. And, just like that, they were gone, one arm wrapped around the other’s waist, before any officer passing by could realize that something incredible had just happened.

Their marriage had been equally modest, celebrated a few weeks later in a small country church. The event had not been kept secret, of course – they had had their fill of secrecy – but Riza loathed the idea of an official ceremony with great pomp and circumstance, and Roy had had enough of playing the public figure.

The newspapers had made mention of the event, but only the people on the short guest list had been able to attend the ceremony. For them, the wedding was no surprise – everyone who mattered to Roy and Riza already knew about their relationship – but it was rather a way to make it official, and mostly to celebrate their long years of work and patience. Weddings are usually the beginning of a journey ; this one felt more like the end of a story.

A perfectly happy ending, if it wasn’t for one detail.

They wouldn’t have dared to dream of it at the beginning of their relationship, following the Promised Day – even getting married seemed impossible back then – but as their lives progressed toward something almost normal, the idea of having children came up more and more in their minds. Of course, it would have to wait: a pregnancy would force Riza to withdraw from the military at least for a time, and it could lead to some troublesome questions if the baby turned out to look like a certain colonel. But above all, their careers were demanding and dangerous, and both had suffered too much from absent parents to risk inflicting this on their child. Therefore, they had agreed that if it were to happen, it would be at the reasonable moment, after Roy’s Führer reign.

Unfortunately, not all things in life can patiently wait for the right time.

By the time Riza reached her thirty-fifth anniversary as Roy was still only general, they realized that the reasonable moment might come too late.

Nonetheless, they kept hanging on to the small hope that it could happen. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time they would see something impossible happen before their eyes. Besides, they told themselves, some of the problems could be overcome – the Elric had offered to take care of one more kid, if necessary – and others would be worth it. If Riza ever got pregnant, they finally decided, they would make the decision at that time.

But that moment never came.

Maybe it was because of Riza, maybe it was because of Roy, or maybe they were just incompatible; neither of them bothered to find out. They saw a sort of poetic justice in the idea that their couple, which together had taken so many human lives, was not able to create one. Of course, they didn’t share that thought with anyone, not even with each other – but if there was one thing they shared, it was their love of mystical punishments.

So by the time they moved in their little house not far from Central, they had long given up on their dream of amber-eyed and black-haired children.

But after a few years spent tending to their wounds as best as they could, what they had thought impossible finally happened, though in a vastly different way than they expected. It took the form of a six-year-old boy whose mother, an Investigation officer, had died from a bomb in her apartment, and whose father had never been in the picture. No one from his maternal family had come forward to take him in, and his chances of adoption were slim : he was already too old for the taste of most couples, and the explosion that killed his mother had left a nasty scar on his face and arm.

A scarred child, orphaned by military service, with an absent father : the symbolism was so strong it seemed made on purpose, and Roy and Riza didn’t fail to notice it when they read the notice sent by HQ. They did not trust themselves enough to be good parents to have voluntarily tried adoption; but no one, no one, would want this child, they were told. Surely, they would be better than nothing?

And so Adrian – the boy’s name – came to live in their house not far from Central, which suddenly seemed even smaller.

When he first arrived, the child was silent and withdrawn, undoubtedly still in shock at the brutal way he had lost his mother. But Roy and Riza were better with kids than they gave themselves credit for : after all, they came to see Edward Elric’s children so often that they were seen as aunt and uncle – which had always had a bittersweet feeling to it. But above all, they understood the boy’s wounds better than anyone else. And so, over the course of the next months, thanks to the patient and attentive care of Roy and Riza, the kid started to open up.

His parents taught him many things. He learned that not all wounds were worn on the skin ; he also learned that none of them, visible or not, defined who he was. And he was surprised to discover that his parents had even more scars than he did.

One day where Riza was carrying him to bed, when he was eight years old, Adrian put a finger on the long white line that ran across her neck.

“Mom, how did you got that?” he asked curiously.

Riza simply smiled.

“Oh, that’s just an injury I got when I was in the military. It happened when I was fighting along with your dad.”

Adrian frowned, no satisfied. “Yes, but hooow?”

She sat him on the bed and crouched to be at his level.

“Adrian”, she started softly, “it’s not very polite to insist like that. Some people don’t want to say how they got their scars; that’s personal. “She tapped the lumpy mark that stretched across his left cheek with affection. “I’m sure you can understand that.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “But I don’t mind talking about it. You and Dad always say I should be proud of it and proud of what Mama was doing. And I prefer the people who ask.” He frowned, looking grouchy. “The people who don’t ask just stare at it, and I can tell that they want to know, but they don’t ask. That’s even more annoying.”

Riza tilted her head to the side, her expression softening.

“Ah, but you know that not everyone is as wise of you are, sweetheart.”

She kissed his forehead, put him to bed, and wished him good night. He never asked about it again.

But as Adrian was growing up, he began to realize that his parents had way more scars than the norm, even for people who had been in the military. Riza had her white mark across the neck, but there was also her right hand, with its stiff fingers who couldn’t properly bend and its painful joints. Roy’s hands weren’t much better, with their identical wound in the middle of the palm; and when he went bare-chested, the large burn on his left flank was impossible to miss.

But the worst one was the thin vertical gash he had on the right side of his torso: it was the worse, because it was the most painful one – preventing him from running and jumping comfortably – but also because every time it caused Roy to flinch in pain, Riza couldn’t hide her guilty expression. The remorse on her face was so powerful that Adrian almost started to believe that she was the one who stabbed him (could she be the one who stabbed him? His parents fought from time to time, but never to that extent…or so he thought).

And then, there was Riza’s back. Adrian had never seen it, and that was the strange part. Even when they went to the beach, she always kept a shawl or a sweater to cover it. Knowing his parent’s history, he couldn’t think of any other reason to hide it than the presence of yet another scar, surely a particularly repulsive one.

Despite his curiosity, he never asked about any of their wounds, and they never brought up the subject. He had a vague idea of what his parents had lived through, like everyone in the country – Ishval��s civil war, the Promised Day, the Aerugo Invasion. And his parents liked to reminisce about their time in the military, but it was always about the mundane moments : the discussion with their squad, the Elric brothers’ visits, the mountain of paperwork Riza had to threaten Roy into signing.

But Adrian knew his parents hadn’t received all their injuries by filling out paperwork.

And yes, he knew that Roy and Riza were more than just their scars, but those injuries were still part of them, part of their lives ; not knowing where they came from, or not being trusted to even see them sometimes made him feel like he didn’t know his own parents.

And he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if Roy and Riza would have been more open about their past had he been their real son.

When he was 14, Adrian touched on the topic with Edward, during one of their visits to the Elric. Even though his children were about his age, Edward was much younger than his parents, and often acted like an old cousin rather than an uncle. More importantly, he loved telling the stories he and his brother had lived, even though Adrian suspected him of omitting certain details.

Edward didn’t have much to say at the time ; but a few weeks later, his parents called him in the living room with a serious look on their face, and Adrian suspected that Ed must have had something to do with it.

They had a heart-to-heart discussion like they rarely had in their family – Adrian had certainly inherited their tendency to keep his real emotions far below the surface – and when they were finished, the three of them with tight throats and slightly watery eyes, Roy coughed a few times and finally put his joints hand on the table.

“So…which story do you want to hear today?”

“We would probably point out,” Riza added while attempting a smile, “that we’re certainly not as good at storytelling than Edward.”

Adrian thought about it for a moment. He knew his father would be more willing to share than his mother, and wanted to start out with something light. His hands’ wounds had always unsettled him – a scar could be accidental, but two of them, exactly at the same place, had something more sinister, more…deliberate. He wouldn’t dare to ask about the gash on his torso: he could guess it was related to a particularly painful memory for the both of them.

“Your burn, on the ribs,” he finally chose.

To his relief, Roy grinned.

“Well, I must say that you, my son, have a taste for the spectacular.” (Riza looked up at the sky : “I wonder where he got that from”.) Roy glanced at her mischievously. “This story is also the first time your mother shed tears for me.”

“And certainly, the last one”, she completed in a neutral tone. “Come on now, start, or we’ll be here all day.”

[clan-sayeed-fic]

Let me earn your trust (Kamilah Sayeed & MC) finale

Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Book: Bloodbound (property of Pixelberry Studios) Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed & MC: Amy (I do not own those characters, they're the property of Pixelberry Studios as well) ❗ Warnings: this chapter describes difficult situations / angst / might cause distress ❗ Rating: Mature Author's note:  I'm not a native English speaker, I'm sorry for any mistakes (feel free to correct me).

So here we are, at the end of the story. I'm honestly shocked that this story even has the end, or that I wrote it because... you know... every story has it 😄

From this place, I would like to say thank you to everyone who read this fic and stayed here with me in anticipation of what will happen next. Believe me, for the majority of the time, I was totally clueless about what the next chapters would bring to the story haha 😅

The finale turned out to be probably the longest chapter of all from this fic. I hope you'll enjoy reading it! 💖💖💖

~ 3300 words

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Chapter 25 finale

"Why don't you free yourself?" the calming voice woke Amy up, once again.

She opened her eyes to see almost the exact same ones, a little smile was playing in the corner of the woman's mouth in front of her.

"I'm tied up to this stupid chair if you haven't noticed," her company started annoying Amy earlier, but the woman never left.

No matter what.

"Soon enough, all those ferals will spread all over the city, and you're down here, waiting," the woman's voice judgemental.

Amy looked at her own hands and tried to struggle, pulling on the rope. But her attempt ended up with the string driving deeper into her skin, causing more pain.

"I'm too weak," she gave up, tilting her head back, exhausted even after such a little effort.

The woman was staying in front of Amy without doing anything. All she had to do to help her was untying the ropes, cutting them with something sharp.

Instead, she just said out loud.

"Don't give up."

***

"Have you heard the rumors?" Adrian's words were trying to fight their way through Kamilah's thoughts.

It had been almost two weeks since Amy disappeared. They didn't have much progress so far in finding her. Adam left without saying anything, which only confirmed their theory about him being guilty.

But even though their hands were tied up.

If they accused a senator of New York of doing such thing as kidnapping a person without actual proof, no one would ever believe them. They needed to talk to him first, push him into giving himself away, and telling them where he was holding Amy captive.

The next matter they had to take into consideration was that Adam wasn't only a senator of the city. What most important was him, being a well-respected member of the Council and a clan leader. Baseless accusations would cause chaos and make vampires grow suspicious.

Because, why would any vampire be concerned about a human?

Explaining it would require giving up Amy's identity about her being a Bloodkeeper. And that wasn't an option.  

"I did, I'm already on the way to his office," Kamilah's voice sharp.

"Please, Kamilah, don't do anything stupid," Adrian's voice showed his deep concern.

But the woman only hung up, driving as fast as she could, heading to Vega's office. Kamilah's source had already told her about his arrival. It was like this man didn't exist for the last few days, unable to find. And now, when he finally decided to step out of shadows, they would have a talk.

Not the most polite one.

Kamilah didn't even bother to wait or ask anyone to let her in. Thanks to her vampire speed, she was standing in front of him within a second.

"Where is she?" her eyes flashing with red from anger.

Adam was in the middle of work, crowded with a stack of papers around him. He stopped writing something down right after the woman walked to his office.

"Can I help you with something, Ms. Sayeed?" he took off his glasses, leaning back on his seat, his expression untouched.

"Yes, you can start by telling me where the hell did you hide her, you..." Kamilah was filled with rage, barely controlling herself.

Vega looked at her with surprise. That was an unusual view to see the great Kamilah Sayeed being attached to someone such weak like a simple mortal.

"That's interesting," his voice calm, as the opposite to hers. "Because, a while ago, I remember having Amy here in my office," he made a pause, taking out some documents from the drawer. "Or, should I say... Amelia."

"If you even touched her, I swear..." Kamilah made a fist out of her hands, using all of her strength to stay in place.

She knew that anger would have no use for Amy at that moment, but the awareness of it didn't stop the rage burning inside her veins. Hearing the girl's name leaving this poisoned mouth made it even harder for her to handle.

"I did way much more than that," Vega smiled, but before the woman jumped to his throat, he put the files before her. "But nothing that she hadn't already agreed on."

Kamilah grabbed the documents, reading them with impossible tempo, taking all the letters, words, sentences, paragraphs of the contract in.

Recognizing Amy's signature at the end of it.

"She didn't..." Kamilah's mouth slightly opened in disbelief.

"She did what she had to do," Adam's mouth curling in a sly smile. "Uphold her end of the deal," he reached for the speaker, a smile never leaving his face. "Be so kind and send here someone who'll show Ms. Sayeed the way to the doors."

Kamilah's eyes had never been before this red, an intense shade of crimson burning inside her iris. She ripped the contract apart with her nails, assuming that Adam showed her only a copy of it.

"You don't know who you're dealing with Vega," icy stare of her eyes. "I will..."

"You will do nothing," he put on his glasses. "And if I may suggest something, I recommend you to leave the city before it gets too hot in here," he looked at her one last time. "I'm saying it as a friend, Kamilah."

"Don't you dare call yourself my friend," she almost yelled.

At that moment, the security entered the room, and not wanting to cause any more scene Kamilah turned around speechless.

She made a promise to herself.

She will not rest until she finds Amy and brings her home.

***

"It's happening."

"How do you know?" Amy's forehead sweating.

It had been hours since Vega left her there. The wounds after needles were finally healed, but she lost a lot of blood until it happened.

"I don't, but you do," the woman looked at her with concern.

Her skin was getting paler with every minute of waiting, acting like she was the reflection of Amy. Like what was happening to both of them was somehow connected.

But what she said was true, Amy was able to feel it inside her chest that something was happening. New York might have been burning or being destroyed by the enormous amount of free ferals running between the buildings. The mindless creatures killing innocents.

And she was still closed there, alone.

Almost alone.

To think that her blood was the key for Vega to build his own empire. The blood that was running inside veins of such useless girl as she was at that moment.

No, it won't end like this, Amy scolded herself in thoughts. She started to struggle again on the chair, pulling on the ropes. With a similar result to her previous attempt.

"Good, keep fighting," the voice echoed next to her, or inside her head, she wasn't sure of that anymore.

That's when Amy started moving her body back and forth, trying to swing the chair. It was actually working, legs of the chair slightly lifting and falling again. But still not enough.

Come on...just... fucking... move, her mind shouted.

Suddenly, the chair lost its balanced, and she fell with it on the ground. The chair broke after meeting with the floor, leaving the girl writhing in pain.

"Amy, get up, you don't have much time," the woman beside her, encouraging her.

Amy sighed loudly and slowly lifted her weak body. Everything before her eyes went blurry, but somehow, she managed to focus on the surroundings, and reach the stairs.

She climbed slowly to the doors, and without much hope, she gripped the door handle.

To her surprise, the doors were left open, and she needed only to give them a little push to see what was hidden behind them.

Freedom.

***

"We need to go now!" Adrian shouted at both women.

The whole city was under evacuation. Everything started in the morning.

At first, there were only speculations from someone seeing a few ferals in unrelated to each other places, which made it look like a coincidence. But then, reports started coming from many clan members and sources that Council had spread all over the city.

It was sure then, they had to call it a crisis.

It made Kamilah, Lily, and Adrian hurry to Vega's office, trying to finally get information about where he kept Amy. Since there was already chaos and panic everywhere, they didn't care anymore about the meaning of his reputation.

But, to their great astonishment, when they got there, the place was filled with ferals. They were sure that Adam did it as a distraction, so anyone would think about him being responsible for the attack.

So that's where they found themselves, fighting those ferals together. Every time it seemed that they were getting closer to win, there was more of them appearing out of nowhere.

"We are outnumbered, we stand no chance with them!" Adrian tried to reason with women once again. "We won't help her by dying here today!"

"Either way, this whole city is gonna burn with everyone in it!" Lily shouted from a different place, getting herself lost in a fight.

"That's why we need to save ourselves," Adrian answered, between ripping heads of several ferals. "Vega must have taken Amy with himself. He wouldn't have left her here to die, he needs her."

Their talk was interrupted by more attackers. Ferals were hissing from every side of the hall, getting closer one by one.

It was the worst type of enemy. They weren't scared of anything, and the only thing responsible for their bloodlust was their instinct. Even seeing one of their own kind getting killed meant nothing for them.

"I know that she..." Kamilah's voice interrupted when she cut through the chest of another feral with her daggers, "...is here. End of discussion!"

One of the ferals came out of nowhere, attacking Kamilah before she even sensed its presence behind. That's when Adrian came with help, killing the creature just in time before it tried to bite her.

"I won't let you die, only because you have an intuition," he sent her a grave look, showing how serious he was about that.

Kamilah was ready to argue with him, but at the same time, something hit her. It was this impossibly intense and tempting smell. It made all of the vampires look at each other meaningfully.

They didn't have to say anything, everyone knew what this scent meant.

"Go get her," Lily said to Kamilah and smiled slyly. "My bro and I will keep those greedy ferals in place a little bit more."

***

Amy went out of the basement, and from that moment, the noise hit her.

Earlier, she wasn't able to hear anything since walls and doors were soundproof. And then, when she escaped from that place, every sound was hitting her brain, making it almost explode from ache.

"Keep going, Amy," the voice behind her pierced through all the noises. "Focus your hearing on what's important."

The girl followed her advice, being able to recognize the sounds, separate them from each other. What the most stood up from all of them was hissing. This characteristic, irritating noise was coming from higher floors of the building she found herself in.

Amy never heard something like that, so she only assumed that it was ferals who made those sounds.

But, there was something else in the noise.

Somehow, maybe subconsciously, Amy heard a deep, feminine voice. The one that she would recognize anywhere.

"Kamilah!" she screamed without thinking, feeling a sudden relief in her chest.

But even though she yelled as loud as she could, nothing happened.

She tried shouting again, but clearly, it wasn't working.

"She can't hear me," Amy leaned her back against the wall, feeling hopeless.

Kamilah didn't hear her, she was lost in the fight. She would probably never know that Amy even was down there. The thought of it made her legs tremble as she slowly sat down on the floor, putting both hands on her sides, trying to steady herself.

That's when her fingertips touched the cold surface, making her move away in surprise. She looked at the floor, noticing shattered glass all over the place. And she knew what to do.

"Please, notice this," Amy whispered to herself.

She cut deep through her wrist, right at the place of her old scar.

Breaking it apart, making blood flow out of her body once again.

***

"Tell me, what has all of this brought you?" a soft voice, the same one never leaving her side.

Amy looked into her eyes, smiling. There was no chance left for her, and the thought of that made her chuckle ironically.

The woman was right. Was it all even worth the effort?

Frustration, pain, constant feeling of fear.

Good memories, friendship, love.

Her head became heavier, breaths were slowing down. She was giving up little by little, drifting away into darkness.

Her body couldn't take much more.

She didn't want to fight more.

"Amy," the young woman tried to wake her up, but the girl's eyes were closed.

"Amy," another attempt.

"Amy!" the voice sounded different, waking her up immediately.

She didn't see the blonde girl in front of her anymore. No, the view was way much more gorgeous. She quickly recognized the features she knew so well, eyes that she kept looking into so many times, completely mesmerized.

The definition of pure perfection.

"Kamilah," Amy smiled weakly, barely believing in what was happening. She looked around, searching for the woman that accompanied her earlier. "Where is she?"

"Where is who?" Kamilah already healed Amy's wound, stopping the bleeding.

"This woman... she was here," Amy's voice was shaky. "She helped me."

"Amy..." those chestnut eyes were showing so much concern. "You must be mistaken. There was no one except you when I got here."

How...Amy's brain started working, reminding itself all the moments during which she was talking to this woman. The woman with blonde, wavy hair, light skin, green eyes.

How she spoke to her, with the exact same voice that was leaving Amy's mouth every time she said something. How she was looking at her with the same eyes, feeling the same emotions.

"Oh my god," Amy looked at Kamilah when the solution hit her. "It was me."

It was me all this time, she said to herself, shocked when she finally understood the message behind the vision.

"Amy, you lost too much blood," Kamilah tried to lift her, but the girl disobeyed. It made the woman frown with misunderstanding, "I need to take you from here as soon as it's possible, it's not safe."

But the girl looked like she didn't want to be saved, the view making Kamilah's heart to break in half. She was looking at this person, and she couldn't recognize her anymore. There was no light in her green eyes.

Not in the way like it was before.

"How bad is it?" Amy asked her, smile fading away from her face. "Tell me, Kamilah, how bad is it, is there any chance to fight it?"

The vision of herself hit her again, the memory when her own eyes turned red.

"No," Kamilah kneeled down, close to the girl. "Adrian and Lily are upstairs, they are trying to keep the ferals away, but there are no more vampires left in the city," her voice broke, "only humans."

Amy closed her eyes for a moment, she was aware of what needed to happen next. She knew that Kamilah would not be able to get her out of there, not when Amy was in this state.

And at least one of them should have a chance to make it out alive.

"You need to fight them all," Amy looked at her, holding her by the cheek because Kamilah was avoiding her eyes. She knew what was coming before she even heard the words. "You need to fight them all, save the city."

"Even if we tried, that's impossible," the woman placed her hand over Amy's, feeling her cold skin that caused shudders down her spine.

"Of course it's impossible on your own, silly," Amy chuckled, a single tear escaping her eye. "That's why you have me."

"Amy...don't," Kamilah couldn't take it.

There was no need to go back to the night of their argument. No need to say the words of apology, when they understood each other without them. This night was just a meaningless episode, nothing compared to what they felt toward each other.

And Amy already made her decision about their future fate.

She freed her hand from Kamilah's grip and neared her wrist to the vampire's mouth.

"With my blood, you can do this," she spoke aloud, keeping herself calm.

"It will kill you," Kamilah's eyes filling with tears, the view breaking Amy's heart into million pieces. "You lost too much blood for this..."

"Take what's left," Amy interrupted. "Take all of it," she smiled reassuringly, "all of me with you."

Tears escaped Kamilah's eyes and flew down her cheeks without control. She knew that what Amy had in mind would work. That this was the only way to save those innocent people. Maybe even the only one to save Adrian and Lily.

Drinking Bloodkeeper's blood would make her impossibly powerful, it would stand for enough time for her to kill all the ferals.

But it was Amy's blood.

It was her Amy who they were talking about, and Kamilah didn't know if she was ready for such a sacrifice.

"Hey," Amy sensed her pain. "It's ok, it's my choice, I'm ok with it."

"I'm not," Kamilah's voice shaky.

"Kamilah..." Amy didn't hold back tears anymore. "I trust you...I...I love you more than anyone in my life."

The woman froze in place, she wasn't expecting to hear such words. She didn't expect to hear them at all, and for sure not under such circumstances.

She opened her mouth slightly, wanting to say something, but Amy didn't let her.

"Don't say anything," the girl smiled a little. "You'll tell me when all of it will be over," her hope was killing them both from the inside. "You can be sure that I won't let you forget about it," Amy smiled weakly.

"Of course, you won't," Kamilah returned the smile, looking at her with love in her eyes, trying to be brave.

She leaned down to Amy's lips, placing a soft kiss on them.

This one last time.

When she stepped back, they shared a meaningful look, ready for what's to come.

Kamilah took Amy's wrist up to her own mouth. Her fangs grew out from her teeth, but this time it wasn't accompanied by any intoxicating feeling.

After a moment of hesitation, she finally did what she hated the most at that moment.

She bit through the soft surface of her skin.

Blood started floating down her throat, but its taste brought no pleasure. Kamilah's body was growing more powerful, her skin was glowing. Every cell, nerve, muscle in her body was waking up alive.

But all she felt was the pain.

Like she was dying all over again.

For this whole time, they were looking into each other's eyes.

As life from one was flowing to another.

Amy kept a reassuring smile on her face as long as she could, trying to give the woman courage. To help her get through this. Even if she was the one from whom the life was escaping with every minute.

After a while, her eyes closed up, and all she was hearing was her heartbeat, dangerously slowing down.

At first, she felt pain, then the ache changed into pure exhaustion that was mixed with relief.

Sounds around her mixed with each other, leaving silence behind.

Until the very last drop of blood left Amy's body.

And there was nothing more for her to feel in this life.

***

One thing was clear,

Amy was dead.

And who would have guessed...

That when you die,

Your heart can beat stronger than ever before.

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

Explanation 

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

tag list: @onyxgaytrash @lightning-fury @scarlet-letter-a0114 @caliseds @myonlybae-joohyun @spacecarrousel

[maylovexhs]

everytime - GOODNIGHT AND GO(Chp. 18)

Author’s Note: I sent out a message a few days ago if I should continue this story. No one responded so I’m giving y’all a few more day, or at least before I post all of the remaining chapters I wrote so far. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one! - May

everytime masterlist

July 22, 2019.

“I need water” I said. “That high note killed me”

I looked to the side of the stage, catching Ashton looking at me. He looked down and smiled to himself.

Tomorrow was my last day in New York before going on tour. Today was my last day I would probably have with Ashton. I liked Ashton. I did. I just felt at home with him, unlike all my other exes. I knew I couldn’t date Ashton. Billie would kill me immediately. But I was willing to spend time with him. As a friend, at least.

I got off the stage and walked over to him.

“Hey” I said to him.

“Hi” Ashton said to me, having a crinkle on his cheeks.

“Umm, do you want to get dinner or do something tomorrow?” I asked him. “You know, since it’s the last day before going to London and you’re not coming along, I just thought maybe-“

“I would love to” Ashton answered, cutting me off. “Just the two of us or . . .”

Ashton looked to my band.

My band. Oh, right.

“It’s up to you” I said to Ashton. “I’m stuck with them for the next three months. A day couldn’t make a difference”

“I’m all for having them” Ashton said. “Depends on what we are doing though. I’m good for dinner tonight”

“Dinner” I said. “I’ll go invite the others out”

I smiled to myself as I walked over to my band. I approached Billie first, hoping to get the worst part over with first.

“So, what do you you think about dinner?” I asked her.

“Dinner?” She asked me, surprised. “Where? With who?”

“Anywhere” I told her. “I’m up for anything. And it’s with the band . . . and Ashton”

Billie looked to Ashton, squinting her eyes at him. She looked back to me.

“What are you up to?” Billie asked.

“Nothing” I said. “It’s our last night in New York before tour and Ashton helped a lot with practice so why not invite him?”

“You’re only inviting him for that?” Billie asked. “Nothing else? There better be-“

“There’s nothing else” I said, cutting her off.

Billie remained skeptical of me.

“Trust me, Billie” I said. “The last thing I want is another relationship right now, especially after Adam”

“Fine” Billie gave in. “But I’m watching you”

I nodded.

“So,” Billie said. “What time is this thing?”

Later. . .

“I swear I almost lost my shit when I saw Beyoncé” Adrian said with his half empty glass in his hand.

Everyone at the table laughed.

“I kept telling Rosè to pinch me throughout the night” Adrain said. “And this bitch over here”

Adrian gestured towards me.

“She kept telling me to calm down” Adrain said. “This bitch has no idea what I was going through"

I smiled to myself. I looked to Ashton across the table.

He was staring at me.

I smirked at him. He returned the gesture, smirking back at me. I looked to Adrian.

“Excuse me” I said, defending myself. “It’s Beyoncé. I’m always nervous when I see her”

“No, I was having a full on panic attack when I met her” Adrian said. “I didn’t see you even flinch”

I crossed my arms at him.

I didn’t intend on inviting Adrian. Neither did I intend to invite Rosé, Camila or half of the tour crew but one thing led to another and now we occupied the whole restaurant. I didn’t mind everyone. I actually thought it was better to have more people so Billie would think less about Ashton and me. I was thinking of him.

“This reminds me, I wanted to make a toast” Adrian said. “To Y/N and I, and our stage outfits”

I raised my drink to him.

“And to you” I told him. “You’re a genius”

Adrain drank to that. I looked at my band.

“Also, I would like to make a toast for my band and crew” I said. “We’re a team. A family. And I couldn’t ask for a better one to spend the next year with touring”

“L’Chaim” Chris cheered.

I sipped the wine in my glass.

I looked to Ashton once more. He smiled at me.

“So. . .” I heard Camila say. “I take it you’re over Adam?”

I looked beside me to talk to Camila.

“I take it you’re gonna give me love advice now?” I asked her.

Camila nodded, smiling to herself.

“You should go out with him” She said, leaning into me. “He has been looking at you all night. Maybe he wants to go out with you too”

I shook my head.

“It’s too late” I told her. “We leave tomorrow, remember?”

“Exactly” Camila said. “Time is ticking. You need to make a move before someone else steals him”

“Camila, I don’t need another relationship” I told her. “Especially a new one when I’ll be on the other side of the country”

Camila shook her head.

“Usually I would believe anything you say but . . .” Camila spoke while looking to Billie. “The way Billie acts every time she sees you with him says something else”

I rolled my eyes at Camila.

“You’re insane” I said to her. “And Billie always acts that way”

“More protective and harsh than usual?” Camila asked.

I didn’t answer.

“All I’m saying is if you want to be with him,” Camila said. “It’s better to say it sooner than later. Who knows what can happen when you’re on tour?”

I sat back in my seat. I crossed my arms.

It was too late. I did like Ashton, more than I should but I couldn’t do nothing about it. I was about to leave tomorrow and never see Ashton again for months. Even if I did go for it, I doubt I could have a steady relationship with him being across the world. How the hell would I pull that off?

I looked to Billie at the end of the table.

And Billie - my friend and my guitarist. If I did choose to be with Ashton, worst case scenario would be Billie dropping out of the band in the middle of tour. I couldn’t let that happen. It would take time I don’t have to get a new guitarist. Not only that but Billie was my friend. I couldn’t betray a friend like that.

I looked back to Ashton. I found him laughing at Adrain.

Most of all, maybe Ashton didn’t want to be with me. Maybe he didn’t want to be that apart of my world. A world where everything you do is looked about under a microscope. A world where the truth can easily be twisted into something else. As much as it was my world, sometimes I didn’t want to be apart of it. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t either. Adam didn’t.

Ashton looked to me. I looked down.

It was too late. And if it wasn’t too late, it would be wrong for too many reasons. We weren’t meant to be together now. Maybe in another life, we would be together. Or even in a few years. But not now. I couldn’t afford now.

Later . . .

“I’m gonna miss you” Sophia said, hugging me.

“Me too” I told her. “But I’ll see you soon. I’ll fly you out once I get the chance”

Sophia let go of me.

“Sounds like a plan” Sophia said.

She looked behind me. I turned to see Ashton talking with Rosé a few feet away from me. I looked back to Sophia.

“Do you like him?” I asked her.

“A little” She answered. “Don’t have a feeling he likes me though”

A part of me felt happy at that. I shouldn’t.

“Well, I have no idea if he’s with anyone” I told her. “So, I’m not much help.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it” She said. “I’m not going to spend my energy on people who don’t  show interest”

Neither should I.

“I should get going” Sophia said. “I’ll call you tomorrow”

I nodded. I watched her leave. I turned around to see Rosé and Ashton hugging goodbye. I waited for Rosé to leave him.

“I’ll see you on the plane” I said to Rosé.

“Please don’t dye your hair last second on an impulse” She warned me.

I smiled at her.

“I’m not 26 anymore” I said.

“Don’t do it” Rosé said. “I’ll call you when I leave my apartment”

Rosé walked away from me. I felt Ashton’s presence beside me.

“What color did you dye your hair at 26?” Ashton asked me.

I looked to him.

“Purple” I answered him. “And it was mid hair. Not that big of a deal”

He smiled, looking down. There was a small moment of silence.

“I liked-“

“Do you-“ I stopped talking, noticing Ashton talked at the same time.

“You first” We both said.

We both let out a nervous laugh.

“Umm. . .” I said.

I was acting like a teenager. I was thirty. I shouldn’t be acting like this.

“It was fun playing with you” Ashton said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone kind and funny as you”

I blushed a little from his words.

“The pleasure is all mine” I said. “I’m really happy I met you. I doubt I could find another person to cry with and play together”

Ashton smiled. There was another moment of silence.

“I guess you have to go?” I asked him. “Don’t need to keep your roommate waiting for you”

Ashton looked at me. A faint smirk grew on his lips. There was familiar look in his eyes. I wondered if he wanted to remember this last moment of ours.

“Yeah” Ashton nodded. “I do”

“Hopefully I’ll see you soon” I said to him.

“I hope so too” He said with a slight pain in his voice. “Goodnight, Y/N”

“Goodnight, Ashton” I said to him.

Ashton slowly walked away from me. I felt my heart throb with each step he took.

He never met anyone as kind and funny as me. Never until me.

I watched him walk down the block.

What was I doing? I was going to let him slip from my hands just like that? I was going to leave him just like that? I was going to give up on something that could be more? Fuck it. I couldn’t.

I ran after him.

“Ashton!” I called out his name.

Ashton turned around to me.

“Huh?”

I ran up to him, standing up on my tippy toes and kissing him on the cheek. I took a step back.

Ashton looked at me. He blushed, lips proudly smirking.

“Do you want to do something tomorrow?” I asked him. “You and me alone? I have until four tomorrow. I know it’s not much time but . . . I feel like it’s right to spend my last day with you”

Ashton nodded.

“I couldn’t think of another way to spend a day” He said.

I let out a breath, relieved.

“Goodnight, Y/N” He said. “Until tomorrow”

“Until tomorrow”

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 13: The Party

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

It's been one whole year since Lily was Turned and she refuses to let it be a bummer. Time to party!

[READ IT ON AO3]

Nadya’s glad she never has to explain to anyone what the Shadow Den looked like before Jax joined the Council and made the Clanless, well, not-so-Clanless. It’s just such a different place. Sometimes that dark and dim tiny-flame-in-the-endless-night hopeful sanctuary for anyone seeking it seems like a distant dream rather than a memory.

Even if she tried, too, Nadya’s not quite so sure they would believe her.

That being said — Maricruz has really outdone herself.

Every bodega and small store in the city must be sold out of string lights. Not that Nadya’s complaining; all the bulbs put together like this form a weird kind of heated-lamp effect and being underground in the middle of January had been one of her biggest concerns about tonight.

The unofficial Fountain Square is a dazzling sight with multicolored fairy lights — and whatever stall can have streamers does have streamers stretching the whole length of the party. It’s kind of jarring when she spots the cutoff point. How everything just drops off into a dark abyss. But right now there’s probably no place safer on the entire island.

Adrian tucks his present higher under his arm and takes in the decorations with equal bewilderment. “I wonder where they’re siphoning the electricity from.”

There’s a little frown creasing between his eyebrows as he says it. Nadya knows that look and quickly diverts his attention. She doesn’t know either but she has a feeling the answer isn’t exactly on the right side of the law.

“I can’t believe you guys don’t do this for everyone.” This; a celebration for a successful year as a newbie-vampire. “Imagine what kind of party I could throw for you.”

Why is he looking at her like that? What does a 200 year old vampire have to be afraid of? Her party-planning skills are excellent, thank you very much. Or had he already forgotten the Fourth of July?

“Well, remember Nadya that for many people — especially around here — their Turning wasn’t something to look back on fondly.”

“Lily’s wasn’t.”

He’ll give her that. “Touché.” But his point still stands. “I can’t speak for some of the younger ones, but I definitely don’t remember the date on which I was Turned.”

“Because colonial America used different calendars?”

“Because we were in the middle of a war.” Which is a fair point, so Nadya concedes.

Only they’ve brought up his Turning — so of course Adrian goes uncomfortably quiet beside her. Thoughts lost a long time ago and with company way less cool than those at present. So instead she hooks her arm in his and points forward to where the alley of casual attendees empties out into the heart of the Square.

Hard to believe nearly a year ago they had sat in this very spot, Adrian on the run and Nadya just trying to keep up with everyone. They had sat together on the rim of the old memorial fountain and she just knew the weight of the injustice was something he demanded to carry. “So do something about it,” she had said — an offhanded thing when they were safe and sound.

But he had.

He had wanted to have a brand-new fountain made especially for the Shadow Den. Jax had refused, which was an argument Nadya’s too happy to recall at the moment, but his reasons were sound. Instead they worked together to renovate the one already down here. It wasn’t just a place to remember the lost and mourned; it was as much a part of the community as Jax, or Lily, or even little Lula.

Now, with cracks filled-in and worn edges sanded back to definition, the memorial stone in the heart of the Shadow Den was no longer something to avoid looking at. Now the pictures and names and memories of gone loved ones could be celebrated. As they were meant to.

Adrian takes it in; his passion project, his apology letter to the Clanless community. This can never make up for what we’ve done — but it’s a place to start. He starts blinking rapidly and Nadya squeezes his arm to draw him out of his somber appreciation.

Lily would kill her if she found out someone was crying at her party.

They leave their presents on a small pile by the fountain rim. What did you get someone for surviving death for the first time around — well Lily hadn’t wanted presents so much as the party itself, but if anyone wanted to bring something for the community they were more than welcome to.

As if Nadya could ever attend a party and not bring a gift.

“Nadi’Nadi’Nadi’Nadi’!”

Incoming. She braces herself for literal impact and somehow still manages to stumble as the whirlwind of child vampire comes at her like a tiny freight train. Pulls little Lula back to hold her at arms’ length and grin down at those tiny fangs and sparkling eyes.

“Hey kiddo,” she takes care not to ruffle the young girl’s hair, done up all special for the party with curls that look suspiciously like Maricruz’s, “wow, look at your dress!”

Lula spins in her frilly little frock, on one foot and with arms spread out, while her stuffed elephant is dangerously close to being hurled into oblivion. “D’you like it, do you do you doyou?”

“I feel like I’m looking at a movie star.”

Nadya elbows Adrian for good measure. He startles only a bit this time. “Absolutely,” he agrees, “you look like a little Shirley Temple.”

“Who?” Lula asks with her head cocked, and Nadya quickly slaps her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“I’m gonna let you handle that one.”

And if he’s going to try and get out of it the way Lula suddenly latches onto him insisting she knows stops that in its tracks. Nadya just winks and skirts off while she still can.

Because there’s only one place to find Lily Spencer at any party — and that’s exactly where Nadya finds her. Digging around in the wires underneath what looks like a pretty expensive DJ rig with wire strippers between her teeth and tangled electrical tape in her determined grasp.

She crouches down and taps Lily on the forehead. “Anything I can do?”

“I’ll call you if I want it to break.”

Not that they don’t grin at one another — Nadya’s fully aware of her technological ineptitude. Still she makes herself comfortable to watch a master work her art.

“You remember this is your party, right?”

“Uh-huh, your point?”

“Shouldn’t someone else be doing that?”

Stupid questions get stupid answers; in this case a look that’s so withering Nadya will see it every time she so much as trips on a shoelace. So she tries something else; “Where’re Mari and Jax?”

Lily spits out the roll of tape and Nadya grabs it before it can disappear in the crowd of feet. “Jax and Arnold are bringing in the kegs. Someone needed a boss so Mari went off. Hand me that, no, that thing right — no to your left.”

“You just said right!”

“Your other right!”

Lily all but yanks the god-knows-what from her hand and Nadya flicks her roommate’s nose for the trouble. “Don’t hang out under here for too long, okay?”

“Nadya — I can’t just sit by and not have a banger playlist going at a party with my name on it.”

“Really, will the party gods cast you out?” She feigns surprise, and quickly scrambles off of the small temporary stage before divine retribution comes upon her.

“You’d better run, Al Jamil!”

Only… Lily can’t see around the booth, so she doesn’t know just how right she is.

After all, why would anything ever go right for her? Why would she think she could enjoy a nice party and not turn to physically collide into the one person she had hoped she could just… yearn at from a safe and wistful distance?

Kamilah catches her faster than it takes her to realize she’s falling. Hands steady on her upper arms, making sure she’s not about to keel over and end up a pool of blood on the concrete underfoot.

Talk about falling head-over-heels.

“Uh — thanks for that…” says Nadya sheepishly, but Kamilah doesn’t respond. She just stares, eyes practically squinting, before leaning back with a nod.

“What,” Nadya pales, “something on my face?”

The woman shakes her head. “No. I was merely checking to make sure you had your contacts in.”

Oh. “Y-Yeah. Lily likes to — well this dance she invented is just spinning around and with her new speed I really didn’t want them to pistol-whip someone in the face.” Is she rambling?

Wow, she’s rambling. And Kamilah notices it too; likely in the same moment. The smile it gets is small but there. Like a secret between them even in the small crowd.

It makes Nadya feel not-so-bad for having one of her own.

“Thanks for coming,” she switches the subject quickly, “dunno if you know but… it—it means a lot to Lil’.” And to me.

Kamilah’s words are careful and measured. “Well then, you may tell Lily that I am grateful for the invitation. And wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to see her… enjoying herself.”

So this is a thing they’re going to be doing, huh.

Before Nadya can answer there’s a shrill whistle that makes the entire crowd—save herself—flinch. Sensitive vampires and whistles do not go well together.

A gaggle of angry glares all whip over to where Jax is smirking at the entrance to another alley of stalls. He lowers his fingers from his lips and motions at them with a wave. Before Kamilah even gets the chance to consider declining, Nadya nudges her with insistence. “Come on, we’re not gonna be those people.”

“And which people would that be?”

“The ones who get social restraining orders on each other.”

She doesn’t mention it, but Nadya doesn’t miss the little bit of relief that crosses Kamilah’s face under a string of purple lights.

Jax has alcohol (some thankfully not from a keg, though she knows Lily can and will live her fantasy of a keg-stand at some point tonight) which, thank god honestly. It helps that he’s with her too — because someone has to be here to back her up when Nadya will try to convince the world Kamilah takes a bottle of cheap beer from Arnold with a thanks and a long drink.

Adrian joins them shortly after; the huff he gives at Nadya with no real heat behind it. “Nu-uh,” she drinks her cider to avoid laughing too hard, “you dated yourself back there, old man.” Which makes Jax and Kamilah give equally confused looks — so of course the laughter can’t be contained.

Halfway through her bottle there’s blowback on unseen speakers — followed by chill-yet-classy electronica. When Lily’s sliding in with a manic delight that could only mean she’s ready to do something crazy…

Though she wants to wait for her grand ‘stand until Maricruz can admire her for it.

The music acts like a beacon. Summons vampires and humans alike from their scattered conversations and to the Square for dancing. Lily doesn’t give Nadya a choice in joining her — but her two left feet are a compliment to her best friend’s two right ones and they make it work.

Jax, too, gets dragged in with them — who in their right minds could possibly turn down Lula for anything, ever — and its with absolute amusement that Nadya watches the older seamstress Evelyn accost Adrian for something that’s a little too much like a swing for the current beats-per-minute.

And then there was one.

Under the guise of “needing a change in pace ohmygod,” Lily shoves Nadya away and heads back to the stereo stage. Only someone horrendously oblivious would think she wasn’t trying to do the obvious.

It’s Kamilah. Kamilah is horrendously oblivious.

She looks down at Nadya’s offered hand with lips pursed. “This isn’t the sort of music I’m… familiar with dancing to.”

“You think anyone actually does?”

Together they look out to the dance floor. Nadya’s point is proven in every direction, and then some.

“Nadya…”

But it isn’t dancing that has Kamilah hesitating. It makes perfect sense — Nadya was stupid for thinking they even could. “Nope, you’re right, my bad. I’ll —”

The familiarity of her hand is astounding. A drink of cool water on a blistering summer day. Nadya remembers a distant thought — that she had been happy to give up those sunny afternoons without a look back if it meant being with Kamilah.

And now; laughing until she’s pink in the face while showing a two thousand year old vampire how to improvise a groove?

She still would.

An hour and a second bottle later and Nadya’s sure she might die. No really, this is what dying feels like. Tightness in her chest, she can’t breathe, tongue dry and heavy in her mouth and her pulse racing through her body and pounding in her temples.

And just what will she say with her dying breath?

“Groovy moves, Jax!”

Thus Nadya can depart this world peacefully — or at the very least fall back into Adrian in absolute hilarity with the knowledge he won’t let her fall.

Jax glares but doesn’t let it stop him. He keeps on hustling, keeps on murdering Nadya with every jerky thrust of his hips.

Cause of death: aggressive hustle.

Though if she doesn’t get some air she’ll get dizzy at the very least. Adrian helps her back by the impromptu bar where Kamilah leans against a support column.

“I was under the impression we as a society had agreed to leave disco behind.”

Adrian snorts a laugh. “You did, but I’m pretty sure you were the only one.”

“If you ever visited a disco you must have done so behind my back.”

“No, but I can’t begrudge people going out and having a good time.”

“Ah yes, I forgot who I was talking to,” Kamilah rolls her eyes so hard it makes Nadya’s head hurt, “you’ve always been Mister Fun Entertainment.”

“Hey —”

She would be happy to watch the pair of them go at it all night, really. But when Adrian stops mid-sentence its enough to make both Nadya and Kamilah turn to see where Lily is running towards them… and with an all-too-familiar widened panic in her eyes.

Just one thing, can’t they have just one thing?

“What is the matter?” Kamilah sets on her immediately, but Lily ignores her for Nadya.

“You need to come quick.”

“Where’ve you been?” She distantly remembers maybe hearing Lily call out for her girlfriend, who had been mysteriously absent for how excited she was to throw this thing. “Lil’, what’s wrong?”

“Too much talking, not enough walking.”

Lily starts to shove Nadya down the way she’d come. The older vampires follow hot on their heels.

“Lil’ — stop shoving me I’m gonna fall. I’m com—I’m coming, okay? Jeez…” She has to practically force Lily to let her walk on her own two feet. And still with no questions answered.

“They’re just up ahead.”

They. Why does Nadya’s stomach fall out of her butt at that? Probably because the only ‘they’ in her life lately have been crazy killer lovers, maybe, possibly?

“Come on, stop for a second.”

“No, I don’t wanna leave her alone with him for long.”

Well now Nadya’s thoroughly lost. Thankfully when she looks behind to the others she doesn’t seem to be the only one.

Lily takes them all passed the unofficial border of the party; where the lights don’t reach but a few stragglers chat and feed with donor’s permission by candlelight. The farther they go the worse her anxiety; but there’s no stopping now.

They finally round the roasted cashew cart and her brain doesn’t really register the fact that there’s nothing to immediately panic about.

Maricruz looks up at them with her arms crossed over her chest, expression set grim. Behind her Nadya vaguely recognizes the entry to one of the Den’s closed-off feeding areas — because apparently performance anxiety was a thing vampires could have.

“Are you okay baby?” Lily asks, and immediately slots herself against the other woman’s side. Maricruz nods and kisses her temple — but it’s an absent act; a physical reaction. Her mind is definitely elsewhere.

“‘M fine, cariña.”

“But —”

“He’s almost done.”

He pushes aside the curtain before Nadya, Adrian, or Kamilah can even begin to process what’s going on. He has to duck because obviously the Den wasn’t built with people his height in mind.

Cadence thumbs away a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth almost sheepishly. Despite having—apparently—just fed he looks haggard; hair tied back in a messy ponytail but falling around his face almost gaunt in the hollows of his cheeks.

He hauls up the strap of his shoulder bag a bit higher and only then realizes they have company. Even his smile is exhausted.

Nadya knows that if she opens her mouth right now the only thing that will come out is some variation of “what the literal crap” so she does the smart thing… and keeps it shut.

But… is anybody gonna say anything? Anything at all?

“You know this man?” asks Kamilah, clipped and curt behind her. It takes Nadya a second to realize she’s asking Maricruz.

The smuggler kicks at the dirt under her heel. “Kinda.”

Adrian almost sounds relieved. “Cadence — what are you doing in New York?”

When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell Kathy? How the heck is this my life right now? Nadya still doesn’t say a word though which is probably for the best.

Though, thankfully, her stomach totally bottomed out on the run over here. So when the blond vampire looks right at her there’s nowhere lower it could possibly go.

“I’m here because I need the Bloodkeeper’s help.”

Silence.

When someone speaks; Nadya’s as surprised as any of them when she recognizes the voice as her own.

“We should talk about this somewhere else.”

“I agree.”

“C’mon,” Maricruz jerks her head back to the heart of the Shadow Den; the party still swings without them, “we’ll go back to Matsuo’s.”

Not that they have many other options — and even if they did Maricruz is already marching on, Lily’s hand in hers, very much not looking back. They all start to follow — or nearly all.

They’re already around a corner when Nadya notices Kamilah isn’t with them.

She looks back and the look on the vampiress’ face is… scary. Part of that fear is because she recognizes it too-well; because it’s the reason the two of them are the way they are right now.

The rest of it is because it’s so sudden; it takes Nadya by surprise.

“Kamilah?” she calls, and distantly hears the footsteps ahead of her stop, “Are you coming?”

It almost looks like she isn’t.

Then one step forward, and another, like she’s remembering how to walk. Nadya follows slow and purposefully at her side the whole way there.

The first thing Nadya realizes once the door closes behind them — she’s stuck in a tiny apartment full of vampires. And it’s not like control has ever been on her side when it comes to these kinds of things.

Hopefully it won’t take long.

“I take it you haven’t made much progress with the Amulet?” Cadence asks, though judging by the already apologetic way he looks at Nadya he already knows the answer. “I see, I’m sorry to know that.”

“Why are you here?” It’s Kamilah who cuts to the chase; abrupt and almost rude; and she’s not the only one who realizes it.

Adrian throws Kamilah a look but it isn’t returned. She hasn’t looked away from Cadence from the moment he’d left the feeding den.

To his credit, the blond vampire remains calm even under her aggressive scrutiny. Not many can. “I came to try and help if I could. I spent a decade trying to find it; and though it might not have been any use to me personally I thought some of my research —” he pats the bag now resting in his lap, “— might prove useful.”

Which is great if it’s true. But Kamilah’s suspicion might just be rubbing off on her. Something about his attitude isn’t holding up.

“Why doesn’t Kathy know where you are?”

He doesn’t look away fast enough. Nadya doesn’t miss the flash of pain over his features. “This was an impulsive decision. I was going to tell her once I’d settled in… and once you had decided whether or not to accept my help.”

Adrian’s arms cross over his chest. “When did you arrive?”

“Just this afternoon. I spent the daylight hours at the train station and sought you out the moment I could. I have no desire to repeat what happened with Izzy.”

“Good move on your part.”

But Kamilah isn’t having it.

“I thought I was clear when I told you never to return to New York. Should I have followed it with a threat?”

“The threat was well-implied, Miss Sayeed.”

“And yet here you are.”

“I would think the threat the Amulet’s secrets pose were worth the risk.” He raises an eyebrow; meets her toe-to-toe and doesn’t back down. Nadya would be impressed if she didn’t know how badly things like this usually ended. And not against Kamilah’s favor.

“Do not speak to me of risks. I know better than anyone —”

Then Adrian is between them; Nadya didn’t register the distance slowly closing between the confronting vampires until he’s got a hand on each one’s shoulder and, from the looks of it, struggling to hold his fellow Council member back.

“Kamilah,” he tries to chide; actually has to swerve his head to get her to look away from Cadence and at him, “why are you acting like this?”

She doesn’t answer, but Nadya can guess pretty well on her own. Can’t say she hasn’t been feeling a little of that apprehension rolling off of the woman in waves herself, but she’s hoping it’s just Bloodkeeper projecting and not something she really feels.

But Cadence takes her silence as an opportunity to back down; literally. Instead he looks to Nadya.

“Not only that, but I wanted to apologize to you; to all of you.”

“For what?” Which might just be her stupidest question to date.

“For my actions at Persephone, and for not being there to try and give this kind of help before. But when night fell and I was able to get to the others, you’d already left Louisiana.”

She shrugs. “It was important we got back.” She had things to do after all. Vampires to break up with. Relationships to ruin. Depression to cry over.

“Of course, and I understand that. And I won’t do you the disservice of sitting here and saying my actions and intentions are entirely altruistic ones. I want to help you because it’s the right thing to do. But I hope you might return my offer with help of your own. Help only you, Nadya, can provide.”

And there it is. I’m here because I need the Bloodkeeper’s help.

Nadya holds up a hand to her friends before they can say anything in her stead. Whether they were planning to or not — she deserves the chance to speak first. They can’t begrudge her that, can they?

It’s her power. She can do what she wants with it. And frankly, after all the grief it’s caused her, the thought of doing some good with it is nice.

“You want me to try and find your memories.”

“Yes,” and it helps that he seems almost apologetic for asking, “because I hate to admit it — and I think I’ve been avoiding admitting it for some time now — you might be the only avenue I have left. Every single lead has come up dry. It’s been a century now… and I’m tired of getting my hopes up if I’m honest.”

Nadya wrings her hands together in her lap. “I don’t… I mean I want to help, Cadence, please understand that. And if I know that I can then yeah, let’s do it. But this isn’t something I have control of. I don’t even know if it’ll work.”

“It will.”

“I thought you weren’t getting your hopes up?”

“You misunderstand, see I know it will — because it already has.”

The only one who doesn’t look surprised is Maricruz, but she also doesn’t seem to have been paying attention since this began. She looks at Lily and judges the context from there.

Though even among those in the know the reactions are mixed. Adrian looks the good kind of surprised and that’s sensible; he was the first one to try and help after all. But Kamilah couldn’t be more opposite; she melts the emotion away easily but not before Nadya has a chance to see it for what it is — fear.

And Cadence, well, he’s getting kind of excited. “I’ve always known I served on account of the uniform, but I’ve never had a lick of a memory about the war itself. But now I do, Nadya, I do. It was so small, a roaring engine and fellow soldiers and what I think were bombs falling in the trenches. All fragments, really. Beautiful, wonderfully complex and confusing fragments. And it’s all thanks to you.” He leans forward and takes her hands in his. Nadya can’t tell if she’s the one shaking, or he is, or maybe they both are.

“Flechette, remember? You and Izzy.”

And she definitely remembers now. Awakening from unconsciousness, Isadora de la Rosa having been digging around in her head like she was an abandoned bin of winter clothes in the back of a garage. Cadence had been unconscious, and when he’d come to…

He sees the recognition across her face. “I should apologize for that, too. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, and it was so fleeting… but you know how strange it is, don’t you. To have your entire life, all the things you can point to and know and name, and then suddenly there’s something new. Something you can feel in your bones is the truth.”

When Nadya swallows it feels like there’s glass in her throat. “And… you’re looking around, and you know what’s going to happen next because you—you lived it. But then you didn’t, and you’re still surprised.”

“But like a dream it never lasts long.”

“And you’re left wondering what was real and what was your imagination. Yes.”

If Nadya had known how good it would feel to have someone understand — actually understand; not because the memories were theirs but because they didn’t know what was going on just like she didn’t know what was going on — she would have laid out a red carpet for the guy.

Calling it nice doesn’t even scrape against what it really is, but there’s a relief there too. She holds on to that.

“You’re my last shot, Nadya,” Cadence insists; Nadya believes him utterly, “not only that you’re the only shot that’s yielded results. I think I’d given up a long time ago and not even realized it. Because to have hope for the first time… well, ever?”

She nods. She gets it — and not just because the longer her body heat has the chance to seep into his skin the more that starts to bleed through the cracks. Nadya yanks her hands away but luckily he doesn’t seem too insulted.

Adrian clears his throat and draws their attention. Pulls them out of their little world of someone who gets what it’s like to be someone and yourself and not knowing who either really is.

“Actually, this is a unique opportunity to study an actual measure to your abilities, Nadya.” He makes a point of ignoring the appalled silence radiating off of Kamilah beside him. “That is; if the both of you agree to a documented study.”

“Not a fan of how you’re making me sound like a lab rat.”

“You know what I mean.”

She does. And throwing a look Cadence’s way — he does, too.

“But we can hammer out the finer details tomorrow,” because he hasn’t missed Lily’s bouncing leg or the change of muffled music beyond the door, “because I think the hostess of the party has been away from it for long enough, wouldn’t you say Lily?”

“Lily would say,” Lily says, “Lily would definitely say.”

Cadence initially tries to back out but Lily won’t have it — though she does forget to tell him to duck before pulling him out of the apartment and he ends up stumbling with a red mark on his forehead. Maricruz follows at their heels and Adrian looks ready to join close behind — but he stops when he realizes no one else is coming along.

“Nadya? Kamilah? Are you coming?”

She knows what it looks like when someone is looking through you rather than at you. That’s why it hurts so much seeing it from eyes she’s always thought so beautiful; so boundless.

Nadya doesn’t regret ever falling for Kamilah. But at times like this — when she’s more content to twist herself up in her own concerns and shut everyone; shut Nadya out — she finds herself wondering how exactly she ended up doing so in the first place.

“Yeah, Adrian, I’m coming.”

She follows him out; and this time she doesn’t look back.

[krisseycrystal]

rated: g+

fandom: Ace Attorney

prompt: “Restraining Bolt” + Wrightworth

requested by: @moominquartz (& myself)

sooo “Case 2-4: Farewell My Turnabout” absolutely slaps?? when was somebody gonna tell me? luckily, my husband, who has been playing through the original AA trilogy with me, has a giant-ass brain and so we figured out what to do with the only BTH Bingo prompt that had yet to be requested

enjoy a dramatic reading of Case 2-4...from Edgeworth’s POV 

- o - o - o -

So Heavy [Read on AO3]

- o - o - o -

There is, admittedly, several years’ worth of a gap in Edgeworth’s knowledge of Phoenix Wright but even so, there is nothing that can explain the brazen man’s even more brazen behavior on the other side of the courtroom.

Wright acts and speaks in a way true to his name: like a man on fire. His moments of cool composure are few and far in-between. He has always been something of a force of nature, but now, he is a wildfire. There is burning desperation in him in every biting word as he reaches for any scrap of kindle he can get his hands on.

The Edgeworth of a year ago, admittedly, would have written his behavior off with a shrug and condescending tsk.

But the Edgeworth now—somehow, the same Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth who self-purportedly chose death—has in the same day, dragged a shot Franziska von Karma to the hospital, taken her place in the prosecutor’s stand, and come to the very alarming conclusion that while the verdict of Matt Engarde’s guilt in the murder of Juan Corrida should be cut-and-dry, somehow, thanks to Wright’s wild back-and-forth, it is everything but.

He cannot believe the morning has dragged out as long as it has.

He knows full well that Wright has, as of this late March day, a perfect record. For every client he has taken in the past two years, he has successfully won their innocence. 

(Somehow. For all of his mad lucky bluffing, hearsay, and guesswork.)

And Edgeworth is familiar with the needy drive of marless perfection, but Wright isn’t. He knows he isn’t. Wright is already too imperfect in all of his broad-shouldered blunder to be hungry for such a thing as a spotless record. Surely, he is humble enough to see his client’s guilt as easy as anything else.

So why does he insist on fighting tooth-and-nail for a not guilty verdict?

(Are his actions born of anger at Edgeworth? He wouldn’t put it past Wright. Wright had drawn a clear line in the sand when he vehemently expressed what he thought of seeing his face again.)

“Why don’t you just say what it is you want, Wright?” Edgeworth demands and means so much more than just, say you’re accusing Adrian Andrews so we can get on with this. There’s also: What aren’t you telling me? 

(Why do you brace your shoulders as if you are carrying a burden so heavy?)

As soon as the Judge has his gavel in hand and the words fall off his tongue, “Now then, we shall set Ms. Andrews’ testimony for tomorrow…”, Edgeworth sees it.

The terror in Wright’s face.

“You must pass a verdict today!” Wright shouts and it’s stupid. It’s so stupid; why is he running around in circles as if his life depended on this case? Why is he fooling himself chasing a lie? Is this his characteristic stubborn-hearted, resolute faith in his client rearing its spiky head, or is this something else? Something deeper?

He could have sworn that earlier, Wright’s mouth had soundlessly spoken, “Then Maya…!”

And maybe he still is a fool, but he is not the same fool he was a year ago, and that is all the difference.

“Your Honor,” Edgeworth says and does not move, does not flinch, or laugh or smile to break the important threadline of his eye contact with Wright’s, “I request that you please continue with today’s trial.”

He knows he is not imagining the relief that floods Wright’s face across the courtroom.

- o - o - o -

The calling card with that damn shell on it, spinning idly and harmlessly in Adrian’s fidgeting hand, makes everything clear. 

(Almost everything.)

Admittedly, some part of Edgeworth’s case relies on the information Wright tells him the next morning when they cross paths at the hospital. The man is a fool to have brought tulips, however thoughtful he may have thought he was being for Franziska; anyone knows daisies or peonies would have been a much clearer message of well-wishing.

Yet Edgeworth cannot think to find it in himself to hold that against him when Wright loosens his tongue and admits, “Maya…she’s been kidnapped.”

The ground reminds him that it exists when his legs feel weak.

“K-kidnapped? What does the kidnapper want?!”

“An acquittal.”

And suddenly the weight on Phoenix’s shoulders has a name.

“I see,” Edgeworth murmurs, “I had no idea.” And it feels so little, so underwhelming compared to everything else he wants to say but does not have the composure for. Anger: you fool, Wright! You should have told me this from the beginning! Fear: another life is in danger and we must all dread carefully here because it was mercy that took the blood off my hands last time; it will not be so if this goes wrong. Clarity: this explains why Wright was so desperate yesterday. Dread: this confirms the defendant is indeed the assassin’s client and, in fact, guilty.

To…something else, entirely. Something touched.

(Is this what trust feels like?)

“I will prepare a rescue team as soon as possible, and resolve this by tomorrow,” Edgeworth promises.

He doesn’t expect Wright’s cooperation. The spitting anger that Wright throws in his face immediately afterward is more than just a year-long in building. Wasn’t the very reason he became a defense attorney to see Edgeworth again? And here Edgeworth turned his back on that and abandoned him for months on end.

Well.

The Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth truly will choose death before abandoning him now.

(No one ever said you must bear the weight of your burden alone, Wright.)

- o - o - o -

The instant Wright has his arms around Maya again, the world is as it should be. Maya is weak and she is starved and she is pale and dirty, but she is alive and smiling and in one piece and it is all they have hoped for.

The three of them sink to the floor in the middle of the courtroom lobby: Wright, Maya, and Pearl. They clutch each other like the patchwork-quilt family Edgeworth knows they are.

There are two more soundless words Wright mouths to him over Maya’s tangled hair: “Thank you.”

They are needless. Edgeworth was only returning the favor Wright did him a year ago; he was not working to be thanked. But with grace, he crosses his arms over his chest and reluctantly accepts it anyway. 

[princessselene126]

Game Night

I was inspired to write this after finishing Supernova yesterday. I had this random thought that Nova does a weekly game night with Simon, Hugh, and Max where they talk about Adrian and he has no idea that they do this. It does contain spoilers for Supernova, so don’t read it if you haven’t read Supernova. I REPEAT: THIS FIC CONTAINS SUPERNOVA SPOILERS. Anyway. 2124 words of fluff and family bonding. Maximum fluff nodrian at the end.

This is part of a larger series that can be read as individual fics or one big one. If you’d like to read them in order, please go to the second masterlist linked below.

masterlist We Rise with the Sun masterlist

Nova didn’t bother knocking on the door of the old mayor’s mansion anymore.  SHe had no reason to now that she lived there. 

It’d been almost six months since the battle at the cathedral. Six months since Ace died. Six months since she’d told Hugh Everhart--Captain Chromium, one her boyfriend’s dads--that she, a villain, was in love with his son. Six months since he told her he didn’t believe there were villians anymore.

It’d also been about six months since game night began.

Game night started off simple enough. One night a few weeks after the supernova, Nova got a message from Max asking her to come over. This was nothing out of the ordinary now that he was actually able to interact with people without stealing their powers, so she went to the mansion without a second thought.

When she got there, however, she’d been surprised that Simon Westwood--her boyfriend’s and Max’s other dad--opened the door. “Nova, good to see you. Come on in. Max and Hugh are in the living room,” he said with a smile.

She found her lips mimicking his out of habit. “No Adrian?” She asked as she stepped into the threshold. The few times she’d been to the mansion Adrian was always with her, it was strange that he wasn’t there now. And as nice as Simon and Hugh had been to her since the battle, she knew she had a lot to do to earn their trust. 

Simon shook his head. “No he’s with Oscar planning some one month anniversary thing for Ruby, I think.”

“Right. He mentioned that a couple days ago.” She pulled her hat and heavy winter coat off, hanging them on the wooden pegs by the door. “I bet he’s going to jump out of a cake or something in the middle of HQ.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Together they walked down the hallway to the refurbished living room. 

Max smiled at her from where he sat on the floor. “Hi Nova! You ready for game night?”

Nova blinked a few times. “Game night?”

And that had been that. Every Wednesday night Nova, Max, Simon, and Hugh had game night without Adrian. It was a good way for them to get to know her better, for them to trust her. It didn’t hurt that she also got to hear a lot of ridiculous stories about Adrian as a child. A lot of very cute stories.

Tonight they were playing Uno, which was admittedly the most dangerous game they played so they didn’t do it often. Even though they were heroes, whenever a draw 4 card was set down threats were thrown around--very violent threats. Nova said she’d put someone to sleep and make them wake with the worst headache anyone could experience. Hugh would make a chromium knife and twirl it in is hand while biting his lip. Simon’s left eye would twitch and his fists would clench the table so hard his knuckles turned white. And Max? Max would curse the person out so much it would make any sailor blush. Uno was the only time that Simon and Hugh wouldn’t scold him for it.

Hugh shuffled the cards with his large hands, then started dealing them out. “Everyone remember the rules?”

“No putting anyone to sleep,” Nova said.

“No lying that I have to go to the bathroom then turning invisible to come look at your cards,” Simon added with a sigh. 

Hugh looked at his husband with his eyebrows raised. “Or?”

“Or anywhere else.”

The first couple times they played Uno that was a problem. There was no such thing as honor when it came to Uno, Simon had said after Nova felt his body near her and elbowed him in the ribs.

Hugh nodded. “Good. Max?”

Max was grinning at his cards. Nova couldn’t help thinking the kid had a terrible poker face. Well, he didn’t even have a poker face.

“What?” Max asked.

“What’s another rule?”

“Hey, I don’t have any rules that apply to me except the normal ones. You’re the ones that cheat, not me.”

Nova couldn’t help rolling her eyes at that. Just because the kid didn’t have powers anymore didn’t mean he was incapable of cheating, in fact he’d done it many times. True to his former hero name, the Bandit was excellent at stealing things, but also hiding them.

“Alright, fine,” Max said with a scowl. “No hiding cards.”

“Right. And what happens when someone breaks one of the rules?” Hugh asked. He set the remaining stack of cards in the middle of the coffee table and flipped the top one over as their starter card.

“They have to drink a glass of pickle juice,” Nova said. “Now let’s get on with it. I need to redeem myself after Clue last week. I still can’t believe I lost to you of all people.”

Hugh grinned as he took his turn. The winner of the week before always went first. “It was a very embarrassing defeat for you.”

They started off in a clockwise direction, and Max was next. The first few times around were uneventful, each wanting to hold onto the special cards until they got some numbers out of the way.

“So,” Simon said. “Who wants to share their most interesting Adrian story first?” He put a reverse card down, making Nova grumble.

She started to draw cards until she had one she could use, then set it on the pile. “He was pretty much his usual self around me. Didn’t do anything embarrassing.” Well, there was one thing that happened, but that was while they were making out and it was important for context that they were making out, so she wasn’t going to tell his dads and little brother about it.

“Liar,” Max said.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Hugh interrupted the back and forth bickering he knew was about to happen. “Max has a point. You always have an Adrian story for us.”

She could make something up that sounded Adrian like, but she’d promised herself and Adrian and his family that she wouldn’t lie to them anymore. “It’s hilarious, but if I tell you, you’re going to be grossed out,” she warned.

“Oh?” Simon seemed intrigued now. “Is it PG?”

Max set another card down. “I’m eleven, I think I can handle PG-13 after all the crazy things I’ve done.”

“That depends, on how PG-13 it is,” Hugh said as he eyed Nova. It was one of those looks that made her feel like she was undercover as a renegade again. It made her feel like she’d be sent to prison if they found out her secrets. Not that they would.

“It’s on the low end of PG-13,” Nova said.

Simon glared at his husband when Hugh set down a draw four. He drew the cards and seemed even more frustrated my what they were. “I want a divorce.”

Hugh grinned. “No you don’t. And go ahead and tell us Nova.”

She very pointedly didn’t make eye contact as she laid her card down. “Adrian wasn’t paying attention when he went to kiss me and accidentally stuck his tongue up my nose a little bit. It was weird. His cheeks were so bright it looked like he was wearing face paint.”

Simon snorted, Hugh covered his mouth with his hand to hold in his laughter, and Max made a disgusted face. 

“I told you it was gross.”

“I can’t believe he…” Simon started laughing so hard he had to set is cards down. 

Now that he was laughing, Nova looked them in the eyes with a small smile on her face. “Honestly, neither can I.”

“How would that even happen?” Hugh wheezed. “Please… please don’t tell me he kisses you with his tongue out all the time, because if he does we’re going to have to talk about that.”

“No, he definitely doesn’t,” Nova assured him. “I have no idea what he was trying to do that day and he knows better than to do… whatever that was again.”

Max gave her a look “Up your nose?”

“Only a little, but it was enough to be weird. I think he was going to lick the tip of my nose because I was annoying him.”

“And he misjudged the distance,” Simon mused now that he was calmed down a little bit. He picked his cards back up and took his turn, but he was still smiling at his ridiculous son. “We know his vision is terrible without his glasses, but he’s always been a bad shot with a gun too. Maybe his depth perception is off.”

Hugh set another card down. “But it hasn’t been much of a problem before. Drawing takes depth perception and he’s great at that.”

“It actually doesn’t take that much,” Nova said.

Simon and Hugh looked at her curiously.

She flushed slightly, still not exactly used to the two of them looking at her like she had more answers than them. “Well, think about it. Drawing happens on a two dimensional surface, he only needs to look at the piece of paper, or glass, or wall, or whatever he’s drawing on. But shooting, or aiming at anything really, requires you to be more spatially aware.”

There were a few beats of silence, as if Simon and Hugh were thinking over what Nova said, wondering if maybe their son needed to go to the optometrist again sooner than his yearly appointment.

Max set a skip card down. “It’s still gross that he stuck his tongue up your nose.”

“It really is,” Nova agreed. “What’s your Adrian story for the week?”

“He charmed an ice cream lady into giving me free ice cream,” Max said with a grin. “He forgot his wallet when we went yesterday and offered to take a picture with her in exchange.”

“Why wouldn’t you guys just come back and get it?” Hugh asked.

Just as Max opened his mouth, they could hear the front door open. Footsteps resounded down the hall toward them. “I’m home!” Adrian called to no one in particular.

“We’re in the living room!” Hugh called back as he tossed another card down.

Adrian stepped into the room and his brow furrowed the second he saw his dads, brother, and girlfriend sitting on the floor around the coffee table. “Uh… what’s going on in here?”

“Game night,” they chorused without looking away from their hands. 

“Oooookay that was creepy.” He walked across the room and sat on the couch behind Nova. Leaning over he pressed a kiss to her cheek.

She gently swatted him away. “Don’t look at my cards, you’d just go tell Max what I have.”

“What?” He laughed. “No I wouldn’t.”

“Yes you would,” Nova, Simon, and Hugh said together.

Adrian made a face. “You guys gotta stop doing that.”

“And you need to stop sticking your tongue up Nova’s nose,” Max said.

His cheeks heated, eyes darting back down to Nova. “You told them?”

She at least looked sympathetic when she turned toward him and rested her cheek on the side of his thigh. “Sorry. They pried it out of me. But in my defense, you didn’t give me any other good stories to tell them for this week.”

“What does that even mean?” he asked, more more confused than he’d been when he walked in. “Stories? You do--” Adrian paused mid sentence, eyes widening with realization. “You guys have been talking about me. That’s how you knew about the incident at the parade when I was thirteen.” He looked at his fathers. “You promised you’d never tell anyone about that.”

Simon grinned widely. “Actually we promised we’d never tell any of your friends about that, and we haven’t. Nova’s your girlfriend, therefore we haven’t broken any promises.”

“Friend is in the word!”

Nova reached her hand up to cup Adrian’s cheek, giving him a soft smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

He sighed and leaned into her, trusting her. “No more swapping stories about me.”

“Now that I can’t do. This is our destressing time.”

“You can destress with me.” 

She shook her head. “No can do. Your dads and Max need this too. You’re more than welcome to join us if you want to listen to stories about yourself though.”

“I’ll pass.”

“In that case…” Nova let her power surge through her, putting him into a peaceful nap. Adrian slumped back against the couch.  He’d wake up in an hour or two feeling refreshed. By then they’d be done with game night and she could spend some quality time with him.

She turned back to the table where it was still her turn. 

“Go drink the pickle juice,” Max said. “You cheated.”

“He wasn’t even playing!”

part 2 (kinda?)

[spiderwho]

The Gala

Warnings: swear words, a gun, and a bullet hitting a perfectly good wall.

Summary: Y/n enjoys the gala for a whole 5 minutes and Tom has a crush.

Word count: 3.7k AWYEAH

The car ride to the gala was long and relaxing, the evening sunset shone brilliant hues of orange, pink and blue past the tinted window and between the city’s skyscrapers.

You felt confident, with your hair and make up done to the nines and black statement gown sitting perfectly over your figure. Plus, Rick wasn’t watching you, you always felt better when you knew he wasn’t around and telling you your every move like a pawn in his game of chess.

“Alright, don’t have too much fun without me,” Adrian told you, once you arrived.

You gave him a smirk as a man dressed in a black two piece tux opened the door for you and welcomed you to the Gala. High class couples, men and women were all making their way in, slowly climbing up the lit concrete stair case.

You stood a little taller, with your shoulders back and chin up. Regret slightly dawned on you as Adrian drove away. What are you supposed to do all night at a fancy gathering with no date or friends to meet with? Determined to have a good time nonetheless, you proceeded indoors.

“What makes you think she’ll be here? She’s probably just a common thief that grabbed the nearest thing that caught her eye,” Harrison argued to Tom as they stood together on the side lines, eyeing every guest cautiously,

“She knew what she was doing, and she knew damn well what she took. It was no accident,” Tom said, taking a sip of his fizzy beverage.

He wasn’t hosting the party, but he knew it’d be a good chance to capture whomever broke in to his office the other morning. He’s been furious and on edge ever since. No one has ever stolen or even attempted to steal from him before, until you sauntered in with your innocent eyes and shy attitude,

“I’ll be outside mate,” Toms friend told him as he headed off into the crowd.

Tom set his glass down, looked up from the table and saw you walk in. Heat rushed up to his face and he failed to tell if it was from anger or the way you looked in that fancy black number. You looked more relaxed and self-assured than you did that morning in his office building, this made him feel more drawn to you. Fixing his posture, he suddenly felt conscious of how he looked now that you’re in the room.

It was like stepping into a ball room out of a princess movie. The walls were white, marble, tapestry here and there and almost everyone was dancing along to the soft acoustic tunes of the live band. A waiter stepped in front of you, tray of champagne filled flutes resting on top of his hand, held out in an offering. You smiled and gladly took one, walking along the edge of the dance floor, absorbing the scene.

Tom couldn’t take his eyes off you; it was like he had tunnel vision and you were the light at the end of it. It wasn’t until you sat down that he was able to move from his spot.

Slowly he walked to you, not thinking of what he’d say or do, just focused on the destination.

You saw Tom coming and froze in fear. How did you not stop and think that he’d be here? This is his crowd. Now, there wasn’t any place for you to run where he couldn’t find you, so you sat and anxiously watched.

He stood before you, with a soft smile toying at his lips that you were not at all expecting,

“Care to dance?” he offered softy, holding his hand out to you, his palm facing down.

Glimpsing in to his eyes, you searched for any glimmer that may give you a reason to turn him down and go home. You tilted your head and returned a smile, gliding your hand over his.

He led you to the middle of the floor, not paying attention to where he was stepping, only keeping his eyes on you, before placing his other hand just above your waist. For a brief moment, you believed that he’d forgotten what you looked like and right now you were a complete stranger to him. You quickly set that wishful thinking off to the side because there’s no way he’d forget who took his prized possession.

Together you stepped smoothly to the moderate beat of the music,

“It’s nice to finally dance with a man that doesn’t step on my toes,” you admitted, breaking the unsettling comfortable silence between the two of you,

“Practice makes the perfect gentleman,” he retorted, and spun you before him, dress skimming his shins.

His hand that was previously on your waist then moved to catch the small of your back, pulling you a bit closer to him. A whiff of his musky cologne hit your nose making you want to rest your head on his shoulder just to breath it in each time,

“I haven’t caught your name yet dear,” Tom said,

You hesitated, wondering if you should give him your real name or not,

“Y/n,” You simply told him, leaving out your last name. This way you weren’t exactly lying, just with holding small information,

“Y/n,” he tasted, “It suits you quite nicely. I’ll wager, that you already know who I am,”

Keeping silent, you held your breath, panicking a little, unable to make eye contact. He knew it was you who broke in and now he’s got you right where he wanted you. Toms eyes shone with mischief and determination, your reaction was what he was looking for, he wanted to make you twitch,

“You took something of mine darling, I’d like it back,” He whispered delicately against your ear,

“Or what?” you challenged bravely.

His chuckle sent a wave down your spine that almost made you smirk, you wanted to feel it again. Grasping his hand a little tighter, the tension kept building as you waited for his next remark,

“You seem like a smart woman, I’ll let you take a guess,”

You looked past his broad shoulder, zoning out over the swaying bodies. This was a power full man standing in font of you, leading your feet, but you’ve dealt with intimidating, domineering men before, he was just another standing in your way.

Loosening your grip, he halted his movements and eyed you carefully as you slipped further from him. Looking into his chestnut eyes, you spoke a soft lie for only him to hear,

“I don’t have it,” 

With that you traipsed away from him, heels clicking on the polished marble floor.

Tom froze, unable to think of the next action to take as his eyes followed you weave between the elegantly dressed crowd. He let out a huff of disbelief before quickly stalking after you, like a predator with it’s prey.

You made your way through the darkened halls to one of the side exits where a vehicle was waiting for you. All you wanted was one night where you could pretend your life was perfectly normal. But no, Tom Holland had to show up with different plans. Part of this was your fault, you weren’t quick enough and got caught red handed in his tower.

A fired bullet suddenly pierced the wall to the left of you, sending your ears ringing. You whipped around in shock, your dress flowing with you,

“Are you insane?” you shouted to Tom who was standing at the end of the hall, a ready stance and gun held at eye-level, pointed right to you,

“Next time, I wont miss,” he promised,

“What do you want from me?” 

“The book, tell me where it is,”

Glancing between Tom and the door, you weighed out your options. If you ran now, you may never have to see Tom again but may also get shot. If you stuck around you might not get shot, but it wouldn’t be good if Rick had to come look for you.

The sound of the door creaking behind you made you turn around, a vaguely familiar man dressed in a suit as well, walked in with purpose,

“Grab her!” Tom barked to Harrison.

The man, not wasting a second, sauntered over to you. Not able to reach you, he bent over clutching his face from a hard fist you threw at his jaw. Satisfied with the dull throb you felt in your knuckles, you took off out the exit.

The cool night air nipped at your bare shoulders, catching you off guard for a moment. Gripping your dress to keep from tripping on it down the steps, you cursed yourself and Adrian, for thinking tonight was a good idea.

Tom burst outside, eyes searching frantically for your fleeing figure at the bottom of the staircase, heading towards a black SUV.

He skipped every other step to make it to the vehicle in time so he slipped in behind you, before you could shut the door on him,

“Holland Manor,” he panted to the chauffeur,

“No, I need to go to Bristol,” you protested,

“Whats in Bristol? My book?”

“I don’t have your book anymore, Holland,” 

“Well you’ll have time to tell me where it is on the way to my Manor,”

You cross your arms over your chest and scooted to the other side of the vehicle, as far away from Tom as you could get, blowing a piece of fallen hair out of your face.

He watched you carefully, scowl falling from his face. He desperately needed his book back, couldn’t imagine being the one to cause you any harm to get answers. He’d never hurt a woman intentionally, especially one that looked as innocent and lovely as you.

Resting his head back and sighing, he accepted that he wouldn’t be getting his book back for a while yet.

Toms Manor resided in a private, gated neighborhood. Those who lived there were rich members of his Mob, and access in was not handed out freely.

He waited for you to make your way out of the car and lead you up to his towering front door,

“This is stupid,” you murmured behind him,

“You brought this on yourself,” Tom quipped, holding the door open for you,

“You didn’t have to kidnap me,”

“You walked in freely!”

“Or else I would’ve been shot down!”

“Getting along nicely I see,” voiced a man with striking blue eyes, walking in from from one of the first rooms in the lavish mansion.

It was all open spaced, your echoes dancing down the halls. Everything was well polished, not a spec of dirt or dust settled on any part of the furniture. A hefty chandelier dangled over the main marble stair case leading upstairs, illuminating the threshold.

“Harrison,” Tom nodded to the man, “Since the two of you have already met, I don’t think there’s any real need for further pleasantries,”

You glanced back over to the man and noticed a dark bruise forming along his left jaw line,

“That was a dirty right hook by the way,” Harrison told you, causing a smirk to creep over your lips,

“The journal, I need it back,” Tom interrupted,

“I thought you said it was a book?”

“Just, tell me where it is so that I can go to bed and have it back by morning,”

“You know, a good nights sleep does sound good. I’d probably remember where I put it in the morning,”

Tom clenched his jaw and ran his rough hands over his face and through his well groomed hair, causing a piece to fall on his forehead.

Harrison on the other hand was amused by your guys’ back and forth, and began ascending the staircase, quiet chuckles mixing in with the clicks of his shoes.

Tom turned away from you and marched past the stairwell, deeper into his home, leaving you alone and puzzled.

He was fuming, outraged at you, and himself. Partially you for thinking this was all a game and that you could call the shots in his house. But mostly mad that he was letting you get away with it. He couldn’t trust you to willingly tell him the where-a-bouts of his journal, but the thought of having to inflict harm on you didn’t settle easily in his gut. Although you weren’t exactly innocent and had a smart mouth, he wanted to give you a chance.

Walking back with a change of clothes in his hand, you were still there, heels dangling in your grasp. You looked from the painting on the wall you were admiring to Tom’s returning figure. Your soft eyes caught his, and he felt some of his anger dissipate,

“Follow me,” he ordered.

Silently you both trudged up the large staircase and twisted through a couple halls, stopping before a closed door,

“You’ll be staying here,”

Tom opened it to show a neglected, empty room with a twin bed in the corner under a small window, with a small nightstand holding an unlit lamp,

“Really? This is the best you have for me?” you raised an eyebrow at him,

“The best I have for a thief,” he quipped. 

The accusation stung. You knew that’s what you’ve been doing, but no ones ever actually called you that before. Yanking the clothes from his hands, you didn’t bother looking up at him,

“Tom!” Harrison shouted shortly at the end of the hall, out of breath and phone in his hand, “Emergency,” he simply added.

Tom began jogging towards his friend, but stopped and quickly turned to you,

“You try and leave, you won’t make it to the front gate alive, and i’ll sick my dog on you,” he pointed to you, not waiting for a response, he continued to the end of the hall.

“Like you have a dog,” you muttered to yourself. 

The sorry excuse for a bedroom felt cold and unwelcoming, but you’d take it for tonight, knowing it could be worse. You didn’t think too long about what Tom’s emergency could be, it wasn’t your problem to fret over.

Resting your head on the stiff pillow, your body grew heavy as you waited for morning to come.

 The bright morning sun woke you up, shining down on your closed eyelids. The stiffness in your neck from the different pillow, sucked any last remnants of sleep you may have had. You were hoping that you could close your eyes one more time and when you woke you’d be back in your apartment, leaving last night to be just a dream. To keep yourself on dwelling what you wish could be, you lifted yourself from the bed and dragged your feet through the manor.

Remembering the way back through the halls wasn’t difficult, but you didn’t run in to Tom along the way. This made you think you could sneak out without him noticing, and you were going to follow through until you got to the front door.

There, lying at the foot of the entry way, was what looked like a blue Pitbull. The dog didn’t scare you, as it didn’t look to be intimidating, but it seemed very unsure of your presence,

“Hi,” you cooed to the cutie.

The sound of your voice excited her, as she strode over to you, tail wagging and ears forward. She happily greeted you with kisses and leaned her weight on to your legs. You scoffed thinking that this may be the dog that Tom threatened you with last night if you tried to leave. This was no big bad hell hound,

“Hey, do you know where Tommy is?” you asked her with the same sweet tone you used to greet her.

The dog looked up at you at the familiar ring of his name, 

“Can you take me to Tommy? Go find Tom,”

The Pitbull trotted away to the back of the house, down the wide hallway, out of sight.

You stayed planted in place and glanced over your shoulder longingly at the door. Hope for freedom seemed so close, but your life beyond those doors would only be worse from here on out. 

Footsteps echoed slowly behind you, and came to a stop, not getting too close,

“Kitchens the other way if you want a bite,” Harrison called to you.

He had on a pair of formal grey checkered pants, matched with a simple white tee. You furrowed your eyebrows at the mysterious man,

“What, do you emerge out of thin air every time somethings about to go down?” you jeered. 

He kept a straight face while arching an eyebrow at the notion,

“Yes,” Harrison deadpanned, before making his way back down the corridor where he came.

Glaring intensely at the back of his head, you started forward, letting him lead you on silently.

The kitchen was at the back of manor, so you passed by many rooms with closed wooden doors, French doors and a few with none at all. The walls were all a suffocating off white, that made every art piece, photo frame and furniture stand out significantly.

 Once you made it to the end, the size and design of the kitchen nearly took your breath away. Windows from the ceiling to the floor lined the back wall, perfectly illuminating the luxurious black cabinets with white accents, paired with marble counter tops. To the left was the dinning room that merged with the kitchen. A long table sat in front of the windows, offering a peaceful view of the immaculate backyard, framed with a garden that could’ve come straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Tom sat relaxed in the corner of his dinning table, with the morning paper in hand. His appearance was less formal than the last time you saw him, unruly hair falling in different directions, and the top several buttons of his white shirt left un-bothered, showing off his sternum.

Out from behind his chair strolled the sweet Pitbull you had just met moments earlier,

“Hello again,” you said down to her, as you scratched gently behind her ear,

“That’s Tessa,” Tom spoke up, setting down his cup of tea that he just took a sip from, “some might argue that she calls the shots around the house,” he gave a pointed look to Harrison, who simply shrugged his shoulders.

His eyes shifted to you, watching the tender interaction between you and his loving companion.

You caught him staring, and grew defensive, “What?” you groaned at him.

Tom cocked his head, “You don’t strike me as a professional criminal,” he observed,

“That’s what makes me so good at it,”

Your empty stomach became very apparent as you glanced from Tom, to his full plate of food. Slowly, you walked over and took a seat in a cold chair furthest from him at the table. Wanting nothing more than peace between you and Tom, along with a meal in your belly, the only way you thought that could happen, was through a negotiation,

“Can we make a deal?” Your heart rate picked up from nervousness of what could come next. You knew you had little to no power under his roof, but if you played the journal card, persuasion may be easier.

But his humorless chuckle brought an uneasy, almost sick feeling to your gut, 

“A deal? No no, you’re in no position to be making deals, love. I’m dropping you off at the police station when my journal is back in my hands in one piece,”

Your chest dropped to the bottom of your stomach at his words. Rick always ensured that for as long as you’re working for him that he’d keep you from the hands of police. You were an asset to him, plus you know far too much of his illegal businesses to be turned in,

“You, you can’t do that,” you squeaked quietly in a sad attempt to argue his pledge. 

This was the first time Tom felt sorry for you. The way your sleepy features fell, crossed arms hugging your crouched torso, it all made you look so small in that moment. He no longer saw a woman to make a foe of, he saw someone who carried a lot of weight on their shoulders, and wasn’t as confident and unmovable as they wanted people to believe.

Tom sighed, and played with the food left on his plate, before looking back up at you, “You hungry?”

  You dug into the assorted platter as soon as it was placed in front of you. It had a croissant, eggs, bacon, toast, and more. It made you feel like royalty.

Tom waited patiently on his side of the table for you to finish. He felt your eyes on him every time he wasn’t looking, but you’d always shy away when he’d catch you.

Once you were satisfied with the amount of food now sitting in your belly, you sat back, placing both hands on your lap. There was hardly any tension between the both of you, but you could tell Tom was waiting for you to say something,

“Your book is hidden, in my flat,” you caved.

Toms face subtly lit up, and did well to keep himself composed, even though he wanted to ask so many questions and run out the door to find it,

“I’ll return it to you, under one condition,” you paused to see if he’d object to the idea doing you a favour. He sat quietly for a moment, letting you continue.

You weren’t sure how he’d keep you from ever running in to Rick again. But you knew damn well that if one of Ricks men comes knocking at your apartment today for the journal and you’re there without it, you’re as good as dead,

“After the book is in your hands, you keep me safe from Rick Bennett, and the law,”

As if Tom wasn’t already lost on what to do about you, now you were tearing him apart even more with the pleading look behind your eyes. He had to look away, and unable to give you a straight answer, he compromised,

“We’ll talk after we get-”

“That’s not good enough,” you quickly interjected him. Not wanting to settle for anything less than what you asked.

Tom sighed, bringing his attention back to you, “I can promise now to keep you away from the officials. But we’ll need to talk further about this Rick Bennett,” he put out there.

“Let’s fetch your book then,”

[things2mustdo]

Understanding shit tests is important.  Real important.  Not just for navigating your relationships with women, but also for understanding, defining and defending yourself.

Don’t believe me?  Then why did God chronicle the world’s first shit-test in chapter 3 of Genesis, immediately after the trifling matter of the Creation of Heaven and Earth? Before any discussion about, say, the purpose of life, the nature of God or the path to freedom, God sits us down and says, “Okay men, this is how it is. Listen up.”

And yet here we are, eleventy bazillion years later having to relearn the lessons of this primordial story of man vs. woman.  Be of good cheer though. The story is short and the lessons are vivid.

The first shit test

Let’s set the stage:

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made.  One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied.  “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat.  God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman.  “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

The woman was convinced.  She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her.  So she took some of the fruit and ate it.  Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.  At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.  Genesis 3, NLT

So what is the shit test?  Simply this: Should Adam take the fruit to please Eve and maintain his relationship with her?  Or should he tell her, ‘Shut up.  Walk away from the talking snake and go back to the tent. I want to be fruitful with you.’

Lesson #1

– this crap isn’t new

God’s response to Eve’s disobedient shit-test is rather enlightening:

“And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.”

In other words, this tension, this conflict between men and women that we deal with constantly goes back to the very beginning.  First-wave feminists didn’t create it.  Second or third-wave feminists didn’t create it either.  All they’re doing is coming together collectively to do what they can’t do individually – control men.

Feminists will tell you that feminism is all about equality.  ‘Equality’ is a lie.  As it ever was, their desire as women is to rule over you.  Period.

Now fast-forward a couple thousand – or million – years.  Because women haven’t changed, the same admonition is given:

“…you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.”  1 Peter 3

Now, women wouldn’t be told to submit to men if they weren’t capable of it.  That would just be mean.  But even well-meaning women quite naturally fear what their man would do with his authority if she actually did submit to him.  Letting go, trusting another human being, is hard.  Humans mostly suck.  I get it.  And feminism is always there to stir this fear and distrust.

Managing this age-old conflict requires us to acknowledge their fears and to manifest a solid, trustworthy – if playfully unpredictable – masculinity.

Lesson #2 – Be active not passive

Adam’s punishment is:

“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you.  All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.”

Did you catch that?  The cause of Adam’s transgression was that he ‘listened to his wife’ and followed her into disobedience.  Happy wife, happy life my ass!

He should have grabbed the nearest shovel and chopped the serpent’s head off before admonishing his wife for her covetousness – this despite their lavish habitation!  Instead Adam passively sat there as the scene unfolded.

The lesson is simple.  Be active.  Be engaged.  And actually care about your woman.  Sure, many women will call you a bully and say you’re too controlling.  That’s fine.  If you’re in it for an actual relationship, next her.  This one can deal with the ‘serpents of life’ on her own.

Lesson #3

–Women are gullible and covetous

Women have exquisite feminine virtues based on openness and receptivity that men rightly treasure when we can find it.  Frankly, when we see it, it’s impossibly attractive and intoxicating.  But there’s a flip side to feminine virtue.

When you’re open and receptive, you’re also more easily fooled.

And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result.

And when your nature is to attract and receive, you are also more prone to materialism and covetousness as you search for validation in all the wrong places.

She saw that the tree was beautiful….and she wanted…

This is one reason – there are others – that men should lead women in relationships. It’s not to lord over them abusively or for self-gain.  It’s to provide women a safe space to express and share their feminine nature with us without being taken advantage of.

Conversely, when women call the shots in a relationships, it’s inherently exhausting and ultimately unsatisfying for both of you.  Her covetousness and gullibility will combine to dominate the purpose of the union.  She will see and want and be sold…. a bigger house… a bigger diamond…. a newer car… another expensive vacation… a fairy-tale wedding.  You know the drill.

In the end, her covetousness and gullibility will become your own.  And the things that control her will become your masters.

Lesson #4 – Lead your woman, or else..

Let’s game this out. There’s a period of time when Eve has taken the fruit but Adam hasn’t.  At this point, Adam has two choices . He can follow Eve – submitting to her – or follow God.  In the end of course, he submits to Eve.

But why did he chose Eve over God knowing it was wrong?  Because he was afraid of losing his relationship with her which he treasured, a relationship marked by unquestioned trust and pure physical and emotional intimacy. Sounds good right?

In the end though – and this is the lesson for us – by selling out his own integrity and his call to leadership, he ended up losing the very relationship he sought to protect.  In its place, he received a new relationship with Eve marked by distrust, conflict and competition.

Likewise, when we abdicate leadership, when we sell out our own integrity, we lose self-respect first, and then in turn, her respect.  And then the relationship either ends, or worse, it lingers in blue-pill hell. There is simply no acceptable alternative to men leading relationships.

Conclusion

So there it is. Nothing new is under the sun.  Women are the same as they’ve ever been.  And the tension between us is as old as humanity – baked into the heart of every man and woman.

So what do we do?  Well, what did Adam do?  He picked himself up after that colossal shit-test failure to end all shit-test failures and took the red pill.

Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live.

In other words, he takes his authority back and moves forward the best he can, perhaps having learned a little along the way.  Oh, and he take Eve back to the tent.  And she follows.

Read More:  The 4 Important Shit Tests Rocky Balboa Passed To Win Adrian

Television and movie wives have been a staple in the fabric of American entertainment for as long as any of us can remember.  From Carol Brady to Joanna Eberhart to Skyler White, these women have influenced western culture for decades.  But as the years passed, masculine traits began to seep into their personas like a slow poison and before we knew it the on-screen traditional American Housewife was extinct.  It wasn’t long before women in the U.S. predictably followed suit.  A quick look at the steep decline over the last 60 years sheds light on this runaway train.

Leave It To Beaver

The 50s and 60s gave us June Cleaver, the gold standard of what a wife should be.  Doting, nurturing, and supportive, Mrs. Cleaver was the picture of femininity and grace. Her loyalty and deference to her protective, capable husband was the blueprint for women to emulate if they wanted a chance at a happy and fulfilling life as a domesticated homemaker.

The Cosby Show

Clair Huxtable was the TV wife of the 80s but this is where we start to see a noticeable change.  While it’s presumed that Cliff is the de facto head of household, it becomes rather clear that Mrs. Huxtable is the man of the house. When there was discourse in the family Cliff stepped in a precious few times while Claire was the judge, jury, and executioner much more often than not.  The icing on the cake was that she, of all things, was a lawyer (and we all know how happy and fulfilled female attorneys are).

King Of Queens

The late 90s and early 2000s all but put the nail in the coffin of the traditional on screen housewife by force feeding Carrie Heffernan down our collective throats.  The witty Mrs. Heffernan was a slick talking, fist pumping paralegal with a brash attitude and a short temper.  She undoubtedly wore the pants in this relationship which was evident from the very beginning.  Carrie’s only redeeming qualities were her perky tits and ample ass but weight gain quickly diminished her aesthetically pleasing figure. Surprise, surprise.

Last of a dying breed

One of the last great television/movie wives makes her first appearance in the 1976 motion picture, Rocky.  This timid but cute pet shop employee that stole Rocky’s heart is none other than Adrian Pennino, who later became who we all know as Adrian Balboa. Most of us know the Rocky story but few acknowledge the true reasons she played such an important role in his life.  One of those reasons was that she was a quality woman.

When Adrian met Rocky she was a shy, young, pretty girl with a submissive demeanor.  Best of all, she hadn’t so much as gotten in line to ride the carousel.  Yes, gentlemen, Adrian was a virgin.  Now Rocky wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but even he recognized that women like her were becoming increasingly rare so he did what any man would do and took her off the market immediately.

Adrian enthusiastically took to her role as Rocky’s girl as would any woman in love.  Aside from cooking the meat he famously tenderized with his fists, she studiously tended to his aches and pains from training, enthusiastically offered him post-training sex, and supported him when he doubted his ability to go the distance in his upcoming fight against the heavyweight champion of the world, Apollo Creed. All of this was before she became his wife. Adrian added real value to Rocky’s life because she followed his lead and seemed to be the genuine article as far as quality women go.

The other reason Adrian brought the best out of Rocky is one that is oft missed by the blue pill masses.  As innocent and rare as the future Mrs. Balboa seemed to be, let’s not forget one important factor: she was a woman.  And while every woman is unique in her own way, their operating systems are identical. That is, all women shit test! From the most chaste Madonnas to the sluttiest whores, all women are programmed to test your mettle as a man.  The reason for this is simple: if a woman is going to invest 9 months of her life carrying a man’s seed, she’s going to make damn sure that he has strong, masculine genes that will be passed on to her offspring.  As a result, her operating system kicks in and employs a series of tests to ensure that he is a worthy donor.

Now keep in mind that most of the time this is all done on a subconscious level. When a dominant alpha male gives her ‘gina tingles, she’s seldom thinking thoughts like “This man is displaying masculine traits that I want passed on to my young.  I must mate with him.”  All she knows is that she wants to be fucked stupid and her hamster is in overdrive searching for reason to justify it.  She is utterly incapable explaining her insatiable desire for all of her holes to be plundered by alpha cock but her OS is on auto pilot making sure she isn’t about to be impregnated by some spineless beta.  Concepts like “shit test” and “cock carousel” hadn’t been given actual names until recently but you can bet your salty man juice makers that they were all too prominent back in the 70s.

That said here are the 4 most important shit tests of one Adrian Balboa.

Shit Test #1: His way of life

Adrian:  “Why do you wanna fight?”

Rocky:  “Because I can’t sing or dance!”

Right off the bat she tests his manhood by challenging his lifestyle early on during their first date.  The answer Rocky gives her is brilliant because it sets the tone for the relationship.  His response tells her in no uncertain terms “Well that’s a silly question, so I’ll give a silly answer.”  He does what he wants and doesn’t feel the need to justify this to her or anyone else.  Alpha move, Stallion.  He passes her shit test with flying colors and is handsomely rewarded with her virginity.  (see: Shit Test #2)

Shit Test #2: My brother is my keeper

So now Adrian has the tingles and finds herself in Rocky’s apartment.  The slut shields are definitely up as she goes full throttle with some of the most impressive, rapid fire LMR (last-minute resistance) I’ve ever seen.  We all know that LMR is just another shit test and so did the Italian Stallion. So he summons his inner Don Juan and systematically disarms every layer of her defenses.

Adrian: “ I wanna let my brother know where I am.  I think he might be worried.”

Rocky:  “I’ll call your brother.”

<Rocky flings open the window>

Rocky:  “Yo Paulie!!!!  Your sister’s with me!!!  I’ll call ya later!!!”

Well played.  Adrian knows damn well that Paulie was probably too drunk to care about much of anything.  She’s standing by the door so she’s definitely hesitant about the situation she’s in but she’s still there.  Her hamster is out of control waiting to be satiated.  Rocky, who is completely relaxed on his couch, stays in the set.

Adrian:  “I don’t belong here.”

Rocky:  “It’s alright—you’re my guest.”

Adrian:  “I’ve never been in a man’s apartment before.”

Rocky:  “They’re all the same.” <gesturing>

This was handled beautifully with gentle, well placed sarcasm.  Her snowflaking (yes, virgins snowflake too) doesn’t phase him in the least. She’s sitting with him at this point so her defenses are weakening.  Being keenly aware of this, Rocky moves in for the kill:

Adrian:  “I don’t think I’m comfortable.  I should leave.”

<Adrian stands up>

Rocky:  “But I’m willin’ to make the best of this uncomfortable situation”

<Adrian moves to the door.  Rocky intercepts her>

Rocky:  <softly>  “Would you take off your glasses?”

Adrian:  <dumbfounded>  “What?”

Rocky:  “The glasses….please.”

<Rocky removes her glasses>

Adrian:  <timidly>  “T-Thank you.”

Rocky:  “Do me another favor?”

Adrian:  “What?”

Rocky:  “Could ya take off that hat?”

<Adrian takes off her hat and becomes rather attractive>

Rocky:  “I always knew you was pretty”

Adrian:  “Don’t tease me…”

…and she was his for the taking.  Masterful escalation by the champ. He had a clear understanding that Adrian’s introverted disposition combined with her lack of sexual experience meant he would have to gently and carefully escalate lest he scare his prey away.

The look in a woman’s eyes when LMR is destroyed

Throughout the exchange her body language quickly went from “no” to “yes”.  Even when she made an “attempt” to leave she offered little resistance when Rocky intercepted her at the door.  She wanted to be taken as all women do. As soon as she lost her hat and those horrific glasses, her deflowering was a foregone conclusion.  Adrian never stood a chance.

Shit Test #3: Apollo is bad for your health

Fast forward 6 months.  Rocky is basking in the afterglow of his new found celebrity after nearly pulling off the greatest upset in the history of boxing since Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston in 1964. Things could not be better.  He’s got a little extra coin from his share of the purse from the Creed fight, Adrian is now his wife and pregnant with his child, and he is Philadelphia’s new favorite son.  Life is pretty damn good.

But it’s not long before the money runs dry and the Balboas fall on hard times.  Rocky’s provider instinct kicks in and tells him to get back in the ring to support his growing family.   And wouldn’t you know it, the perfect opportunity to drops into his lap when Apollo Creed challenges him to a rematch that would be worth millions.  Slam dunk, right?

Wrong.  The newly minted Mrs. Balboa forbids her husband to trade punches with the champion because she’s “worried about his long term health”.  While this is very noble of her, this is simply another shit test.  No woman in her right mind would prohibit her husband from accepting an opportunity to set the family for life financially.  Sure, Adrian pouts and protests but her hamster secretly wants Rocky to defy her and maintain his alpha status to reassure her that the decision she made to willingly accept his seed was the correct one.

Her hamster gets its wish and true to form she throws a fit (another shit test). But like the true alpha he is, Rocky stays the course. Adrian eventually comes around (as women who belong to alphas always do) and watches her husband become the new heavyweight champion of the world, forever changing their lives.

Shit Test #4: You can’t win!

The last and final shit test administered by Mrs. Balboa was the most significant because Rocky is literally risking his life having agreed to fight his most deadly opponent, Ivan Drago.  At 6’6” and 260 lbs, Drago was a lightening quick fighter with super human strength.  That strength was on full display when he killed Apollo Creed in an exhibition bout.

Drago kills Creed

Balboa and Creed became best friends when they joined forces to help Rocky regain the heavyweight title he lost to another fierce opponent, Clubber Lang.  When Apollo died in the ring at the hands of Drago, Rocky’s objective was clear:  avenge his fallen comrade.

When Adrian learns of his decision, she hits him with everything she’s got to try to talk him out of it.  She broke out the heavy artillery telling him this fight was suicide among other things.  She even tells him “You can’t win!”  Brutal. But Rocky Balboa is a true alpha and regardless of what the love of his life thought, said, or did, he knew he had to stick to his guns.  Fresh out of options, she pulls a last second power move and tells Rocky she would not be going with him to Moscow to support him ringside.  This, gentlemen, is a major league shit test.  Even the most battle-hardened Super Alpha would be hard pressed to admit that he didn’t, at the very least, reconsider his decision.  Remember, he’s been married this woman for years and truly loves her so it could not have been easy to get on that plane by himself.  But like before, Rocky stays true to his task and starts his journey alone.  And like before, Adrian rushes to his side and cheers him to victory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaagSfBj2To

Conclusion

While it’s common knowledge amongst ROK readers that women aren’t as necessary as they once were for a man’s long term success and fulfillment, there’s no denying that a good woman has the potential to increase a man’s value as well as his quality of life.  Don’t get me wrong, banging sluts is great fun—there are plenty to go around and the abundant supply isn’t dwindling any time soon.  But when a man gets his hands on a decent woman who understands and abides by traditional sex roles, has no discernible signs of having ridden the carousel, and finds legitimate joy in pleasing him, it would be to his advantage to let her stick around for a while.  Rocky understood this and acted accordingly.

Now Adrian could certainly be a handful as we’ve seen above.  But make no mistake about the fact that she tipped the balance in her husband’s favor in the two most difficult fights of his life.  Never forget that before Adrian showed Rocky her support for his rematch against Creed, Rocky wasn’t giving it all he had during his training.  The fact that his new wife didn’t have his back visibly affected him.  Ready or not he was getting in that ring because it was what he had to do as a man. But if he continued his half-assed training, Apollo would have most assuredly ended Balboa’s career, or worse. It wasn’t until Adrian told him she wanted him to win did he train with the conviction necessary to dethrone the champion.  The same thing happened in Russia.  Rocky started his journey alone but Adrian’s physical presence gave him the extra resolve to beat Drago.

Few titles in this world are more alpha than Heavy Weight Champion of the World.  The money, fame, and status that comes along with this title is more than enough to satisfy the hypergamy of the vast majority of woman.  But regardless of title, wealth, or social standing, women will always be women and the shit tests are coming.  Count on it.  Rocky loved his Adrian but his mission came before her and it showed.  As a result, she grew more attracted to him with every shit test he passed.  Even when he risked his life by fighting Ivan Drago, Adrian couldn’t help but be more drawn to him, win or lose (Roissy Maxim #200:  Chicks dig guys willing to risk an early, gruesome death.  Expendability is a DHV).

But what if Rocky tried to justify himself when Adrian questioned his way of life or gave up trying to close the deal when she threw up that epic LMR?  And what if he backed out of the rematch against Creed or caved into her demands to throw in the towel against Drago?  Chances are he would never have had the spectacular life he was afforded as a result of failing her shit tests.  Sure, he may have been able to accomplish a few minor goals here and there but Adrian’s attraction and devotion to him would have been gravely compromised.  On the other hand he may have had a great life had he never met her.  Being a single, rich, champion prize fighter would have offered him unlimited access to the paradise of poon.  As awesome as that life would be let’s not kid ourselves here fellas—nothing feels better than having a quality woman in your corner. But if you want a quality woman you have got to be alpha because all. women. are. like. that.  Even the rarest of snowflakes like Adrian Balboa.

[fayewonglibrary]

Interview with Alex San (2007)

Faye Wong liked to record in Beijing and was very casual when she worked. In addition to being willing to do heavy work such as moving musical instruments, Faye Wong was highly collaborative when recording in the studio. She also played pranks on the sound engineer from time to time, requesting to tell his fortunes, otherwise she would not let him off work.

In the past ten years, Alex San has developed in the Hong Kong music industry. He has produced/arranged music with many big names such as Leslie Cheung, Faye Wong, Aaron Kwok, etc., and is currently one of the most valuable musicians in Malaysia.

Who leads the trends in the Chinese music industry? Whose talents are the constant topic of conversation? I believe that there is only one answer: Faye Wong. No matter how many indulgences you have other than music, as soon as Faye Wong's voice appears, you will only listen to her and no longer think about anything else.

Nowadays, many singers like to sing cover songs. In terms of brilliance, there is almost no one that can surpass Faye Wong's covers of Teresa Teng songs in THE DECADENT SOUND OF FAYE, released in 1995. That album allowed the market to reevaluate "bubblegum pop", raised Faye Wong's music status to another level, and made a name for producer/arranger Alex San who shined during that album.

*****

INTERVIEW BY: Zhang Guoxiang, director of the entertainment section of Guangming Daily (Malaysia)

Q: Honestly speaking, the first time I heard the name Alex San was in THE DECADENT SOUND OF FAYE. One day, a senior colleague said that Alex San is a Malaysian. I was surprised that Malaysia had produced a musician who could work with superstars. Basically, among locals, your name carried a halo on your head.

ALEX SAN: Many people only began to know me on that Faye Wong album. However, in her previous albums such as PLEASE MYSELF, RANDOM THOUGHTS and others, my name had already appeared. I also wrote a song for her before called "Honeymoon". Most people are also aware of "I Don't Want To Be Like This Either". But the one that I truly worked with her on was THE DECADENT SOUND OF FAYE.

Q: How did you meet Faye Wong?

ALEX SAN: I first met her producer Alvin Leong. We often worked in the same studio. He probably overheard me working! One day, he knocked on the door and in the first sentence asked: "I don't know if you are interested in making arrangements for my female singer... She is Faye Wong..."  He was very humble! In fact, Faye Wong was already popular in Hong Kong at that time.

Q:  It is undeniable that Faye Wong, with her unique temperament and extraordinary fashion, has been a trend setter for more than a decade. The styles were shocking. Classic styles such as pineapple head, sunburn makeup, and smoky eye makeup attracted a large number of followers, and even now people still imitate them. After THE DECADENT SOUND OF FAYE, many people's impression of her changed a lot. She sang Teresa Teng's songs as "Faye Wong" without losing the original flavor. I often joked with my friends that if I can bring only one CD to a deserted island, I will choose THE DECADENT SOUND OF FAYE.

ALEX SAN: There are a lot of inside stories about this album. The decision-making on this album rested with Faye Wong. She chose all the songs herself and she said that she did not want to produce it in Hong Kong, so all the recording work was moved to Beijing.

Q: Why does she not like Hong Kong? Is it because of the paparazzi? I remember that Faye Wong at that time had become the main target of the paparazzi.

ALEX SAN: This is one reason! I think maybe her relationship with her boyfriend (Dou Wei) was also in Beijing. The producing/arranging for that album was originally supposed to be done half by me and half by Dou Wei. But in the end, I was forced to complete it.

Q: Why do you say that you were "forced"? Isn't it a beautiful thing to collaborate with the Heavenly Queen?

ALEX SAN: I really “shed tears” for that album. I took a recording engineer and we lived in Beijing for two months. There was only one thing to do in two months - make 5 songs for the album (the other 5 by Dou Wei) and try to "wow" people. But then the problems started. Within a few days of going up to Beijing, Faye Wong disappeared and no one could find her...

Q: Looking back at the reports at that time, many Hong Kong paparazzi went up north, hoping to catch her and Dou Wei.

ALEX SAN: Beijing is too big. If Faye Wong hides, the paparazzi will not be able to keep up. In fact, the real reason why she hid was to avoid people from the record company. In terms of [the album] concept, Ah Fei and the record company were at odds.

Q: Then what about you? What happens when the singer does not show up to  the recording studio?

ALEX SAN: When time was nearing the end, Ah Fei showed up, so there was no particular worry...The only worry was just how to elevate Ah Fei.

Q: A moment ago, you said you had to complete all the songs?

ALEX SAN: One day when I was working in the studio, an unexpected guest suddenly appeared - it was Ah Fei. She didn't say anything, as if nothing had happened. She was holding a package of various CDs in her hand and threw it on the table: "Alex, Dou Wei quit, you can handle the other 5 songs......." I was shocked and quickly begged for mercy: "Big sister, let me off the hook......" But Ah Fei didn't say anything, just told me to fix the other songs. In the end, I had to take the field. I arranged 7 songs for that album and I really didn’t have time to do the remaining 6 songs, so I found someone else. [NOTE: This should be where Adrian Chan comes into the story.]

Q: Speaking of the topic that Faye Wong likes to work in Beijing, it reminds me of one thing. I once met Faye Wong herself in a restaurant in Beijing. I observed her for a long time and she was not dressed up. But the interesting thing is that from the beginning to end, no one ran forward to ask for her autograph, take photos or anything. I think this is why she prefers to be in Beijing!

ALEX SAN: There are also many big stars in Beijing and the people there treat Ah Fei as an ordinary person. Ah Fei didn't have anything fancy while recording. Many recording studios in China are built “inside”.

Q: What is “inside”?

ALEX SAN: It is the kind where you must walk through a long corridor or alley, and the path may be blocked by many musical instruments. One time, I was walking with Ah Fei and saw that the corridor was blocked by a lot of equipment. The men began moving the equipment away. Ah Fei came forward naturally to help us and she moved the drums!

Q: She was a diva...

ALEX SAN: It was strange. We didn't think about this problem at the time. After Ah Fei moved it, she was covered in dirt.

Q: Does Faye Wong have any habits when recording?

ALEX SAN: Ah Fei is like a child. In the recording studio, she laughs heartily like an aunt. We were really happy when we worked together. Ah Fei knows where she is going to sing, sometimes she would automatically stop and say ‘try again’ in the middle of singing. Basically she can already be her own producer.  

Ah Fei is also very superstitious. My sound engineer was in a miserable situation because he had very little knowledge about fate [horoscopes / fortune telling]. Faye Wong kept staring at him. Every time from the beginning to end of work, she would catch him and said she wants to read his horoscope. Once when I was very tired from work, Faye Wong ran up and spread out her hands and said, "Come on! Let me read your palms!".  Ah Fei is a cute girl but the public takes her too seriously. 

Q: Leslie Cheung's later works were a bit similar to Faye Wong, the content was very ethereal. Even Lin Xi, who wrote lyrics, said that when writing songs for Faye Wong and Leslie Cheung, he often couldn't get away from that style.

ALEX SAN: Gor Gor [Leslie] liked Ah Fei very much. Every time he went to KTV [karaoke], he must order Ah Fei's songs to sing. I know Gor Gor and Ah Fei because of Alvin Leong. Alvin was always the producer for Gor Gor. Once Alvin brought a song to the studio and asked me if I could re-arrange it. He said that Gor Gor didn't like the previous arrangement, so can I re-arrange it?

Q: What was the first thought that came to your mind?

ALEX SAN: Gor Gor Leslie Cheung! Later, fortunately, he used my arrangement.

Q: What was that song?

ALEX SAN:  The theme song of the sequel to "He's a Woman, She's a Man" called "Caring Person".

Q: Later, when Gor Gor asked you to collaborate, were you given any special instructions?

ALEX SAN: Gor Gor was very direct, he was straightforward. He just said that he hoped to have the feeling of "Faye Wong", and was confident in me.

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SOURCE: GUANGMING DAILY // TRANSLATED BY: FAYE WONG FUZAO